Global Warming Balance
October 11th, 2009 at 9:13 am by Jeremy Wheeler under Weather
I’ve mentioned that I try to stay objective in the Global Warming camp. Well, here is some interesting information about some recent cool weather. Snow has fallen in parts of Colorado and Wyoming. It was enough snow to postpone the Phillies-Rockies game. Temperatures fell to record lows. It’s not completely unheard of for snow this time of year in the Rockies, but it is early.
To add to the Global Warming confusion here is a recent article from the BBC about Global warming and the recent lack of it: BBC
Here’s another article from the New York Times about how Arctic sea ice grew thicker this Summer. Arctic
Amazing that we can have such a polarized view coming from the same data overall. There is still a lot of questions about how the sun contributes to Earth’s natural warming. Here is wikipedia’s section on sunspots: Sunspots Notice that some of the warmest years in recent history (early 1930’s) had a relatively lower number of sunspots compared to the last 2 decades. I wonder if there has been any study about the total area of sunspot size compared to Earth’s temperatures. I.E. if you have 5 big sunspots versus 10 small ones. There are lots of different views on this. I just thought I’d highlight some recent news. Especially with unnatural climate change becoming a major political topic lately.
Locally we had temperatures in the 80s over the last 2 days. Average highs are in the lower 70s this time of year. A cold front dropped temperatures yesterday afternoon. We’ll stay cool/mild today with highs near 70.
Meteorologist: Jeremy Wheeler
WAVY/Fox 43 Meteorologist
…the rest of the story. The important correlation between warming and cooling is the sunspot peak frequency, not the actual number of spots.smic radiation is at its highest ever measured. This is happening because the earth’s magnetic shield is down, as a consequence, climate is changing (and always will). The climate celebrities, however, are linking climate and the economy. We can likely kick much of the carbon economy sometime late the twenty-first century, but we must not rush to judgement for the wrong reason. Yes, there has been warming to end the Ice Age. Climate is a chaotic system; the facts, however, do not support CO2 as a serious ‘pollutant’. In fact, it is plant fertilizer and seriously important to all life on the planet. It is the red herring used to unwind our economy. That issue makes the science relevant.
Sulphate from volcanoes can have a catastrophic effect, but water vapour is far more important. Water vapour (0.4% overall by volume in air, but 1 – 4 % near the surface) is the most effective green house blanket followed by methane (0.0001745%). The third ranking gas is CO2 (0.0383%), and it does not correlate well with global warming or cooling either; in fact, CO2 in the atmosphere trails warming which is clear natural evidence for its well-studied inverse solubility in water: CO2 dissolves rapidly in cold water and bubbles rapidly out of warm water. The equilibrium in seawater is very high; making seawater a great ’sink’; CO2 is 34 times more soluble in water than air is soluble in water.
CO2 has been rising and Earth and her oceans have been warming. However, the correlation trails. Correlation, moreover, is not causation. The causation is under scientific review, however, and while the radiation from the sun varies only in the fourth decimal place, the magnetism is awesome.
“Using a box of air in a Copenhagen lab, physicists traced the growth of clusters of molecules of the kind that build cloud condensation nuclei. These are specks of sulphuric acid on which cloud droplets form. High-energy particles driven through the laboratory ceiling by exploded stars far away in the Galaxy – the cosmic rays – liberate electrons in the air, which help the molecular clusters to form much faster than climate scientists have modeled in the atmosphere. That may explain the link between cosmic rays, cloudiness and climate change.”
As I understand it, the hypothesis of the Danish National Space Center goes as follows: quiet sun allows the geomagnetic shield to drop. Incoming galactic cosmic ray flux creates more low-level clouds, more snow, and more albedo effect as more is heat reflected resulting in a colder climate. Active sun has an enhanced magnetic field which induces Earth’s geomagnetic shield response. Earth has fewer low-level clouds, less rain, snow and ice, and less albedo (less heat reflected) producing a warmer climate.
That is how the bulk of climate change works, coupled with (modulated by) sunspot peak frequency there are cycles of global warming and cooling like waves in the ocean. When the waves are closely spaced, all the planets warm; when the waves are spaced farther apart, as they have been for this century, all the planets cool.
The change in cloud cover is only a small percentage, and the ultimate cause of the solar magnetic cycle may be cyclicity in the Sun-Jupiter centre of gravity. We await more on that.
Although the post 60s warming period appears to be over, it has allowed the principal green house gas, water vapour, to kick in with more humidity, clouds, rain and snow depending on where you live to provide the negative feedback that scientists use to explain the existence of complex life on Earth for 550 million years. Ancient sedimentary rocks and paleontological evidence indicate the planet has had abundant liquid water over the entire span. The planet heats and cools naturally and our gasses are the thermostat. Nothing unusual is going on except for the Orwellian politics.
Check the web site of the Danish National Space Center.
correction spots. ‘cosmic’ radiation
Thanks for the detailed reply. (no sarcasm). I love reading on the subject and your reply sent me off digging for some information. I think you detailed a lot of what is going on rather well. The solar/cosmic ray theory should get more attention than it has. Especially in the IPCC reports. There have been some studies that suggest we may have warmed in the late 90s due to less clouds in the atmosphere. Again the more cosmic (not solar) rays you have, then in theory the more clouds (certain types) form. Less cosmic rays = less clouds according to the theory. The eruption of Mount Pinatubo was the exception here as it actually cooled the planet.
One thing that I don’t get is that a lot of the debaters use the carbon follows warming information as a way to disprove Global Warming. I say well, wouldn’t this be the first time in the planets history that carbon would lead temperature rise. I’m sure humans must have outpaced anything that nature has put out in the past.
Also, I tried to find the article, but I couldn’t. I remember reading some current research about how plants do emit trace amounts of carbon dioxide. The amount pales in comparison to the ocean sink of CO2. However, if you add up all the biomass that is capable of emitting CO2, then it is significant. It could also be one component of why CO2 buildup has followed the temperature rise in the past. Outside of biology, a lot of the temperature rises/falls in the past can be attributed to the Milankovitch theory. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milankovitch_cycles
Sorry, I can’t hyperlink in the replies.
Here’s another couple of thoughts… If Earth has been actually cooling since the early 2000s as some scientists suggest, then shouldn’t Mars be cooling too. With some of the recent cooling that has taken effect on Earth due to the recent “Solar Minimum”, then shouldn’t there be a sharp drop of temperatures on other planets? I looked and found that a lot of the climate of Mars is linked to A. It’s orbital eccentricity, and B. the dust storms on Mars. http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/10/global-warming-on-mars/
Finally, I understand that carbon dioxide diffuses through the atmosphere. Namely in the homosphere, and even this isn’t 100% uniform. However, isn’t it odd though to anyone that the readings at Mauna Loa are increasing almost linearly? Shouldn’t there be a spike or at least some unnatural shift in the data? With the explosion of society in the last 30-40 years you would think that there would be at least one period that is much higher. These are not rebuffs. Rather they are some ideas that I’ve been pondering lately.
Meteorologist: Jeremy Wheeler
I think you are making an excuse to jump on the global warming non believer bandwagon. The experts say THE ACTUAL PROBLEM IS CLIMATE INSTABILITY with a long term trend of global warming. Huge portions of Antarctica have melted or broken apart as never before seen in recorded history. These have not frozen back in the last year and “global warming” has hardly been reversed. If anything, this last year supports predictions of instability.
If instability increases as predicted, crop failures will continue to increase because farmers can’t predict temperatures and rainfall in their region and choose the crops they plant accordingly.
Also, 10% of the workforce was unemployed this last year and their cars stayed mostly parked, greatly reducing carbon emissions. I have heard no expert analysis of the impact we should expect from this reduction.
Hi Rob. Sorry I didn’t get a chance to respond sooner. I’m still a believer in Global Warming. I’ve stayed the course in that I’ve felt that the human contribution is a piggy-back on top of the natural cycles. It is possible that the natural cycle is trying to cool off a bit (short term). The thing is, is that the human element is a persistent 24/7 force that I think gets under-represented sometimes. Also, I’ve often said that the actual heat that gets emitted from all human activity (non CO2) is probably unacounted for as well. The recent buildup in ice in the Arctic is still thinner than the ice from before the 90s when we had the rapid melt. But we have to keep an open mind about the sunspot cycle. There has been a very good correlation with sunspot minimums and cool/cold periods. Of course back during the Little Ice Age there was no big factories spitting out CO2 24/7.
As far as the instability. I read a good book called “The Long Summer” by Brian Fagan. It actually does show that there have been periods of dramatic climate change in the last 10,000 years. Droughts, floods, etc. are nothing new. The recent frequency of these events may seem like a smoking gun. However, the media can show storms anywhere in the world and up to-the-minute now. So there may be an information bias. It’s a known fact that storms are reported more now more than ever before due to increases in population and technology (ie camera phones).
My current problem is this… I see a lot of chat on the internet about Global Warming. There is still a lot of debate. Recently 2 scientists even went Washington to propose their alternate theories to the president. Yet I’ve heard little about the outcome or presentations themselves. Right now I really believe that we can define what we know and what we don’t know better than we have. The IPCC report has a section on this, but I think it should go a lot further. Especially when it comes to solar influence. Seems like the Carbon-temperature and sunspot-temperature charts both line up pretty well when the debate gets going. Why is that?
By the way great point about the workforce and reduction in cars. I’ll try to look for any articles. There is usually a lag behind events when it comes to studies. We are still in the economic event really, so some studies may be forthcoming.
Meteorologist: Jeremy Wheeler
Thank you for your response, Jeremy. Perhaps you saw this article on the front page of Yahoo. The headline reads: STATISTICIANS REJECT GLOBAL COOLING.
Read more here:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091026/ap_on_bi_ge/us_sci_global_cooling