Global Cooling Is Here!

Scientists have produced further compelling evidence showing that modern-day climate change is not caused by changes in the Sun's activity.

The research contradicts a favoured theory of climate "sceptics", that changes in cosmic rays coming to Earth determine cloudiness and temperature.

The idea is that variations in solar activity affect cosmic ray intensity.

But Lancaster University scientists found there has been no significant link between them in the last 20 years.

Presenting their findings in the Institute of Physics journal, Environmental Research Letters, the UK team explain that they used three different ways to search for a correlation, and found virtually none.

This is the latest piece of evidence which at the very least puts the cosmic ray theory, developed by Danish scientist Henrik Svensmark at the Danish National Space Center (DNSC), under very heavy pressure.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/science/nature/7327393.stm

Published: 2008/04/03 09:06:08 GMT

© BBC MMVIII

 

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Now I understand the article and have read the proposal of lower sun activity allowing more cosmic rays to hit the earth and changes caused as a result. I think that idea needs more study, however; from above article:
"Mike Lockwood from the UK's Rutherford-Appleton Laboratory.

He showed that over the last 20 years, solar activity has been slowly declining, which should have led to a drop in global temperatures if the theory was correct."

Quote from earlier article about 1,000 year high in sun activity from the same man:

"There was already tantalising evidence that beryllium-10 is scarcer now than for a very long time, says Mike Lockwood, from the UK's Rutherford Appleton Laboratory near Oxford.

But he told New Scientist that when he saw the data converted to sunspot numbers he thought, "why the hell didn't I do this?" It makes the conclusion very stark, he says. "We are living with a very unusual sun at the moment.""

Sun more active than for a millennium:
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn4321

Sunspots reaching 1,000-year high:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3869753.stm

...We call it Riding the Gravy Train...

 

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You know the Sun's output varies over an 11-year cycle, already?

Any trends in that cycle are quite hard to make out, mainly because the data isn't there - the historical record isn't good or reliable enough, so there's a few decades of reliable data, at best.

Then there are proxy records, like Be isotope deposition. But the science of solar activity monitoring is still pretty raw, and I've seen scientists prepared to make predictions about the next sunspot cycle, based on a fairly tenuous conclusion which appears to be based on even more tenuous data - we just don't have the information or the models yet.

The only prediction about solar activity that we can take for granted is the 11-year cycle, but not how many sunspots we can predict.
Recent research indicates that the cycle may influence stratospheric warming (by up to 2 deg) after all, instead of the long-held belief that solar cycles contribute a negligible forcing.

Since it's now the beginning of a new cycle (the sun's output, and number of spots should ramp up over the next 5-6 years), this extra forcing should be seen, and the predictions confirmed, or not.

My pick is we could see some of the warmest years on record, over the next decade. Won't it be fun waiting to see if they got this bit right?

 

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Anything could very well indicate a trend. One of the first things that they try to hammer into the thick skulls of science students is this: You can't predict long-term trends using short-term data.

Too many of us have accepted the fallacious global warming hypothesis as an incontestable reality, in contradiction to actual evidence and because of argument by consequence, one of the most classic fallacies of all time.

 

But you can use short term past data to contradict proposed explanations for already observed short term past effects.

And you can use medium term data plus established mechanisms plus calibrated models to propose short term future likelihoods.

Which is what Exxon is doing when it takes a break from financing propaganda from "conservative think tanks" to confuse the public discourse, and makes its serious investments to prepare for what it actually thinks is likely to happen: http://www.kansascity.com/business/story/549686.html