It's still the sun stupid

[Ishmael]

The results of a recent study.

Web address:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2003/03/
030321075236.htm
NASA Study Finds Increasing Solar Trend That Can Change Climate

ScienceDaily (Mar. 21, 2003) — Since the late 1970s, the amount of solar radiation the sun emits, during times of quiet sunspot activity, has increased by nearly .05 percent per decade, according to a NASA funded study.

"This trend is important because, if sustained over many decades, it could cause significant climate change," said Richard Willson, a researcher affiliated with NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies and Columbia University's Earth Institute, New York. He is the lead author of the study recently published in Geophysical Research Letters.

"Historical records of solar activity indicate that solar radiation has been increasing since the late 19th century. If a trend, comparable to the one found in this study, persisted throughout the 20th century, it would have provided a significant component of the global warming the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports to have occurred over the past 100 years," he said.

NASA's Earth Science Enterprise funded this research as part of its mission to understand and protect our home planet by studying the primary causes of climate variability, including trends in solar radiation that may be a factor in global climate change.

The solar cycle occurs approximately every 11 years when the sun undergoes a period of increased magnetic and sunspot activity called the "solar maximum," followed by a quiet period called the "solar minimum."

Although the inferred increase of solar irradiance in 24 years, about 0.1 percent, is not enough to cause notable climate change, the trend would be important if maintained for a century or more. Satellite observations of total solar irradiance have obtained a long enough record (over 24 years) to begin looking for this effect.

Total Solar Irradiance (TSI) is the radiant energy received by the Earth from the sun, over all wavelengths, outside the atmosphere. TSI interaction with the Earth's atmosphere, oceans and landmasses is the biggest factor determining our climate. To put it into perspective, decreases in TSI of 0.2 percent occur during the weeklong passage of large sunspot groups across our side of the sun. These changes are relatively insignificant compared to the sun's total output of energy, yet equivalent to all the energy that mankind uses in a year. According to Willson, small variations, like the one found in this study, if sustained over many decades, could have significant climate effects.

In order to investigate the possibility of a solar trend, Willson needed to put together a long-term dataset of the sun's total output. Six overlapping satellite experiments have monitored TSI since late 1978. The first record came from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) Nimbus7 Earth Radiation Budget (ERB) experiment (1978 - 1993). Other records came from NASA's Active Cavity Radiometer Irradiance Monitors: ACRIM1 on the Solar Maximum Mission (1980 - 1989), ACRIM2 on the Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (1991 - 2001) and ACRIM3 on the ACRIMSAT satellite (2000 to present). Also, NASA launched its own Earth Radiation Budget Experiment on its Earth Radiation Budget Satellite (ERBS) in 1984. The European Space Agency's (ESA) SOHO/VIRGO experiment also provided an independent data set (1996 to 1998).

In this study, Willson, who is also Principal Investigator of NASA's ACRIM experiments, compiled a TSI record of over 24 years by carefully piecing together the overlapping records. In order to construct a long-term dataset, he needed to bridge a two-year gap (1989 to 1991) between ACRIM1 and ACRIM2. Both the Nimbus7/ERB and ERBS measurements overlapped the ACRIM 'gap.' Using Nimbus7/ERB results produced a 0.05 percent per decade upward trend between solar minima, while ERBS results produced no trend. Until this study, the cause of this difference, and hence the validity of the TSI trend, was uncertain. Willson has identified specific errors in the ERBS data responsible for the difference. The accurate long-term dataset, therefore, shows a significant positive trend (.05 percent per decade) in TSI between the solar minima of solar cycles 21 to 23 (1978 to present). This major finding may help climatologists to distinguish between solar and man-made influences on climate.

NASA's ACRIMSAT/ACRIM3 experiment began in 2000 and will extend the long-term solar observations into the future for at least a five-year minimum mission.

Adapted from materials provided by NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center.

We'll just put up a really big sun shade in space.

Ishmael

 

[Cap’n AMatrixca]

I already proposed that...



Where 'o where is that pesky ClosetDesire...?

 

[Ishmael]

I already proposed that...



Where 'o where is that pesky ClosetDesire...?

Somebody must have taken you seriously. *chuckle*

Solar shield could be quick fix for global warming

* 15:35 05 June 2007
* NewScientist.com news service
* Catherine Brahic

With a solar shield, temperatures would be roughly the same as in 1900 (c), but precipitation would drop (d). Without the shield, temperatures would rise dramatically (a), and precipitation would increase in some regions and drop in others (b) (Image: PNAS/Caldeira/Matthews)
With a solar shield, temperatures would be roughly the same as in 1900 (c), but precipitation would drop (d). Without the shield, temperatures would rise dramatically (a), and precipitation would increase in some regions and drop in others (b) (Image: PNAS/Caldeira/Matthews)
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A solar shield that reflects some of the Sun's radiation back into space would cool the climate within a decade and could be a quick-fix solution to climate change, researchers say.

Because of their rapid effect, however, they should be deployed only as a last resort when "dangerous" climate change is imminent, they warn.

Solar shields are not a new idea - such "geoengineering" schemes to artificially cool the Earth's climate are receiving growing interest, and include proposals to inject reflective aerosols into the stratosphere, deploying space-based solar reflectors and large-scale cloud seeding.

The shields are inspired by the cooling effects of large volcanic eruptions that blast sulphate particles into the stratosphere. There, the particles reflect part of the Sun's radiation back into space, reducing the amount of heat that reaches the atmosphere, and so dampening the greenhouse effect.

The 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines cooled Earth by a few tenths of a degree for several years.
Quick-acting

Ken Caldeira at the Carnegie Institution of Washington, in California, US, and Damon Matthews at Concordia University, Canada, used computer models to simulate the effects that a solar shield would have on the Earth's climate if greenhouse gas emissions continued to rise along a "business as usual" scenario.

"We have been trying to pinpoint the one really bad thing that argues against geoengineering the climate," says Caldeira. "But it is really hard to find."

His computer models simulated a gradually deployed shield that would compensate for the greenhouse effect of rising carbon dioxide concentrations. By the time CO2 levels are double those of pre-industrial times - predicted to be at the end of the 21st century - the shield would need to block 8% of the Sun's radiation.

The researchers found that a sulphur shield could act very quickly, lowering temperatures to around early 20th-century levels within a decade of being deployed.

"The trouble is, the decadal timescale works both ways," says Caldeira. A sulphate shield would need to be continuously replenished, and the models show that failing to do so would mean the Earth's climate would suddenly be hit with the full warming effect of the CO2 that has accumulated in the meantime.

"So if you have the shield up there and it fails - or, for example, the Republicans put up a shield and then the Democrats come in to power and turn it down - then you effectively compress into a decade or two the warming that would have happened while the shield was up," Caldeira explains.
Poorly understood

A solar shield would not necessarily stunt plant growth. In fact, there is some evidence that plants grew more vigorously after Mt Pinatubo erupted because the sulphate particles increased the amount of diffuse light and boosted growth in shaded areas. But if a shield was suddenly removed, a portion of the CO2 stored in plants would be suddenly released as the plants respire faster in warmer temperatures.

"Personally, as a citizen not a scientist, I don't like geo-engineering because of the high environmental risk," Caldeira told New Scientist. "It's toying with poorly understood complex systems."

And the ease with which they could work is also risky, he says: "These schemes are almost too cheap and easy. Just one fire hose spraying sulphur dioxide into the atmosphere would do the job for a century. That would cost about $100 million - nothing in comparison to the hundreds of billions it would take to transform our energy supply."

But he also believes it is time to consider solar shields seriously. On 1 June, James Hansen, head of NASA's Institute for Space Studies in the US, published a paper stating that Earths' climate system has reached a tipping point (Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, vol 7, p 2287).
Lesser of two evils?

Hansen's study suggests that only moderate additional warming is likely to trigger the disintegration of the west Antarctic and Arctic ice sheets - events which would be near-impossible to reverse.

"If this is the case, then I am not clear on what the 'greenest' path is," says Caldeira. "Is it better to let the Greenland ice sheet collapse and let the polar bears drown their way to extinction, or to spray some sulphur particles in the stratosphere?"

He says that if forced to consider deploying a solar shield, "we would need to be confident that we would not be creating bigger problems than we are solving. Therefore, it is important both to understand the mess we are in today - how close are we to making irreversible changes, how fast can we alter our energy system - and to understand what might happen should we try to avoid some of the worst outcomes by engineering our climate".

Caldeira and Matthews also found that a solar shield would not correct abnormalities in rainfall. Most notably, the tropics would receive less rain than in the absence of the greenhouse effect, as predicted by climate change models.

Journal references: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0700419104)

Ishmael

 

[Cap’n AMatrixca]

Hell, if you get close enough, it ain't even got to be that big...







Yo' momma's so fat...

 

[Cap’n AMatrixca]

If they're "for" the environment, why the hell are they advocating drying up the rain forests...

I thought we were fighting like hell to save them?

 

[Byron In Exile]

I already proposed that...

I figured.

Didn't even need to read it.

 

[Ishmael]

Hell, if you get close enough, it ain't even got to be that big...







Yo' momma's so fat...

Is big Al picking on Barak again?

Ishmael

 

[Ishmael]

And then there's this little ditty;

Sun Blamed for Warming of Earth and Other Worlds

By Ker Than, LiveScience Staff Writer

Earth is heating up lately, but so are Mars, Pluto and other worlds in our solar system, leading some scientists to speculate that a change in the sun’s activity is the common thread linking all these baking events.

Others argue that such claims are misleading and create the false impression that rapid global warming, as Earth is experiencing, is a natural phenomenon.

While evidence suggests fluctuations in solar activity can affect climate on Earth, and that it has done so in the past, the majority of climate scientists and astrophysicists agree that the sun is not to blame for the current and historically sudden uptick in global temperatures on Earth, which seems to be mostly a mess created by our own species.........................

Nothing like a reporter with an agenda. But I digress.

I'd like the reporter, or anyone else willing to take up the challenge, to justify the statement in the above article that I embolded with the known temperature history of this planet. We have experienced a temperature increase of 0.2 deg. C. since the late 1970's. Call it thirty years.

What was the teperature shift, both down and up, during the Younger Dryas event and how rapid was that temperature shift? Then explain how man was intrumental in the beginning and ending of said event.

Ishmael

 

[Cap’n AMatrixca]

Quit shoutin' at the choir, we's singin', we's singin', clappin' our hands...

 

[Cap’n AMatrixca]

Is big Al picking on Barak again?

Ishmael

Ahm clean too! I bathe, and I can talk, whoa nobody can shut me up, and if I have to I can make my voice HEARD with the use of my trusty MEGA-phone...



Barak the magic Negro...

 

[Cap’n AMatrixca]

And mom told you to stop calling me stupid in public.

Save it for the Holidays...

 

[Ishmael]

Ahm clean too! I bathe, and I can talk, whoa nobody can shut me up, and if I have to I can make my voice HEARD with the use of my trusty MEGA-phone...



Barak the magic Negro...

Took you long enough to snap to it. *chuckle*

Ishmael

 

[Cap’n AMatrixca]

I'm not a Fifo stack!

Chaos Search Function...

Rush less indexing.

 

[Byron In Exile]

Quit shoutin' at the choir, we's singin', we's singin', clappin' our hands...

Maybe check out why you act like an idiot?

Just a thought.

Maybe the science is correct, but doesn't go the extra step to see that nothing can be done to stop it.

 

[Cap’n AMatrixca]

False Premise.

That we don't do something about it without the scare tactics.

We've been all over China trying to get them to clean up their act diplomatically.

We've been doing things for the environment long before Global Warming became the new-age Religion...

 

[Ishmael]

Maybe check out why you act like an idiot?

Just a thought.

Maybe the science is correct, but doesn't go the extra step to see that nothing can be done to stop it.

We already figured that out. Shades, really cool shades. What's 'in' this year?

Ishmael

 

[Cap’n AMatrixca]

Make mine rhinestone...

Oh YEAH!

 

[TurdFergeson]

umm..according to this the total solar irradiance is DOWN in recent years:

http://www.pmodwrc.ch/pmod.php?topic=tsi/composite/SolarConstant

This only goes back to 1978.

 

[Ishmael]

umm..according to this the total solar irradiance is DOWN in recent years:

http://www.pmodwrc.ch/pmod.php?topic=tsi/composite/SolarConstant

This only goes back to 1978.

No shit????? Did you read the originally posted article?

Ishmael

 

[Byron In Exile]

No shit????? Did you read the originally posted article?

He doesn't read, he just types stuff and posts links.

He's bored, and disinterested.

Bad combo for a convo, great for a troll.

 

[TurdFergeson]

No shit????? Did you read the originally posted article?

Ishmael

I read this part:

The accurate long-term dataset, therefore, shows a significant positive trend (.05 percent per decade) in TSI between the solar minima of solar cycles 21 to 23 (1978 to present). This major finding may help climatologists to distinguish between solar and man-made influences on climate.


I don't see what that has to do with short term anthropogenic climate change.

 

[Ishmael]

He doesn't read, he just types stuff and posts links.

He's bored, and disinterested.

Bad combo for a convo, great for a troll.

They're cloning the bastids?

Ishmael

 

[Ishmael]

I read this part:

The accurate long-term dataset, therefore, shows a significant positive trend (.05 percent per decade) in TSI between the solar minima of solar cycles 21 to 23 (1978 to present). This major finding may help climatologists to distinguish between solar and man-made influences on climate.


I don't see what that has to do with short term anthropogenic climate change.

Of course you don't.

Ishmael

 

[TurdFergeson]

He doesn't read, he just types stuff and posts links.

He's bored, and disinterested.

Bad combo for a convo, great for a troll.

And what do you do, except criticise?

That's my only observation of you thus far.

 

[Byron In Exile]

False Premise.

That we don't do something about it without the scare tactics.

We've been all over China trying to get them to clean up their act diplomatically.

We've been doing things for the environment long before Global Warming became the new-age Religion...

Well, Algore should stop dancin', cause it's only feathering his nest. China say FU. Now what?

Grandpa done cooked a potato, now he's dead.

His emissions need to be addressed.