SOLAR INFLUENCE OF CLIMATE CHANGE MORE SIGNIFICANT THAN THOUGHT

(From Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics: "Regional sun-climate interaction" by A. Kilcik. In press, 2005.)

Abstract:

It is a clear fact that the Earth's climate has been changing since the pre-industrial era, especially during the last three decades. This change is generally attributed to three main factors: greenhouse gases (GHGs), aerosols, and solar activity changes. However, these factors are not all-independent. Furthermore, contributions of the above-mentioned factors are still disputed. We sought whether a parallelism between the solar activity variations and the changes in the Earth's climate can be established. For this, we compared the solar irradiance model data reconstructed by J. Lean to surface air temperature variations of two countries: USA and Japan. Comparison was carried out in two categories: correlations and periodicities. We utilized data from a total of 60 stations, 18 in USA and 42 in Japan. USA data range from 1900 to 1995, while Japan data range from 1900 to 1990. Our analyses yielded a 42 per cent correlation for USA and a 79 per cent for Japan between the temperature and solar irradiance. Moreover, both data sets showed similar periodicities. Hence, our results indicate marked influence of solar activity variations on the Earth's climate.

1. Introduction:

It is known that the solar radiation output changes periodically and also that it affects the Earth and near-space environment in various ways, such as the formation of aurora, adverse effects on satellites and communications, etc. Considering the historical evolution of climate changes on Earth, the cold period lasting from the second half of the 17th century to the beginning of the 18th century (1645-1715) is called Little Ice Age, and the corresponding period of practically no activity on the solar surface, Maunder Minimum. Contrary to this, the positive "Medieval Warm Period" (12th-14th centuries) appears to be less distinct; evidence, mostly from Western Europe, did not suggest that this was a global phenomenon (Mann et al., 1999). During this period, temperatures had been about 0.2 øC warmer than compared to 15th-19th centuries, but rather below those of mid-20th century (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), 2001). This might have arisen from higher solar activity, as claimed by Eddy (1976).

The Earth climate system has shown irregular changes during the second half of the 20th century, especially for the last three decades. Interest to this subject is therefore continuously increasing. Since the climate system depends on many parameters, such as evaporation, wind, pressure, rainfall, temperature, etc., climate change phenomenon is a very complex problem and the contribution of each parameter to this change is not clear. This change is generally attributed by many scientists including Hegerl et al. (1997) and Lean and Rind (1996) to the increasing concentration of greenhouse gases (GSGs) and aerosols in the atmosphere due to human activity. Among others, Santer et al. (1996), and Wigley et al. (1997) claim that solar forcing and anthropogenic forcing together are enough to explain overall warming trend. Another point due to Crowley (2000) is that the Earth climate system would have been controlled by the Sun before the pre-industrial era, but later anthropogenic effects began to dominate.

To show the Sun-climate connection, many indicators have been used in the literature. For the Sun, these are sunspot numbers (Chambers, 1878), sunspot areas (Nordo, 1955; Dixey, 1924), sunspot decay rates (Hoyt, 1979), solar rotation rates (Sakurai, 1977), solar cycle lengths (Friis-Christensen and Lassen, 1991), geomagnetic aa indices (Cliver and Boriakoff, 1998), solar irradiance changes (Pap, 2002; Floyd et al., 2002; Douglass et al., 2004), solar radius through solar irradiance (Rozelot, 2001), long-term solar activity data obtained from 14C, and 10Be isotope concentrations (Beer et al., 1988). These data sets are compared with climatic parameters such as surface temperature, rainfall, lake level, and air pressure. Amongst these, "temperature is the most commonly, and presumably the most accurately, measured parameter" (Hoyt and Schatten, 1997). Some of these solar activity data sets have shown good agreement with climate parameters, such as the length of the solar cycle and geomagnetic aa index.

2. Data and reduction:

We considered the solar irradiance as a reliable indicator of solar activity. However, observational solar irradiance data exist only since 1978. Hence, solar irradiance data acquired from the World Data Center (WDC) were compared to the data of Ca plage areas and sunspot areas (acquired from National Geophysical Data Center (NGDC)) which are indications of solar chromosphere and photosphere, respectively. Besides, we used surface temperature data acquired from the National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) for analyses. We selected the temperature data according to the following criteria: presence of a minimum of 10 stations on selected regions and availability of uninterrupted monthly temperature data from these stations. Since USA and Japan have better long-term instrumental temperature data than most of the other countries, we used only these two countries' temperature data sets, the temperature being a climate indicator. In this study, temperature data sets covering the period 1900-1990 for Japan and 1900-1995 for USA were selected. These time interval selections are based on the coverage of both pre-industrial and fast-industrial growth era witnessed in these periods (Wiscombe, 1995; Tett et al., 1999). Monthly temperature data were used to obtain the annual mean values for each station. Station averages were then used to obtain the country-wide temperature data for each country. To satisfy equality of station heights and surface areas for both countries, data from only 18 stations of USA and 42 stations of Japan have been used in this study (see Fig. 1). Station heights vary between 3 and 497 m for USA and between 2 and 611 m for Japan.

[...]

5. Conclusion:

We know that a great deal of effort has been put to determine the effects of solar variability on the Earth's climate, and that, to explain the effects of all relevant factors in climate change, one needs to consider a model on a scale of decades to centuries. For the time being, proposed models are not yet of sufficient accuracy to permit any verification (Rozelot, 2001). This study is more a "heuristic" guide to the determination of the principal factors controlling our climate system. We obtained different correlation coefficients between temperatures and solar irradiance depending on the region considered, although we obtained almost identical periodicities for all data sets. Despite the fact that we only used the three-step running average smoothing technique, we obtained a fairly high correlation. On the other hand, our results suggest that atmospheric aerosols have more dominant effect on the Earth's climate than GHGs. Moreover, the existence of similar periodicities for all data sets point out that periodicities in the solar activity manifest themselves in periodic variations on the Earth's surface temperature with almost identical periods. However, prominence of this influence is suppressed by increasing concentration of GHGs in the atmosphere.

(The Doi (permanent) address for the full article above is here)




A Greenie Flop in Queensland, Australia

A "Green" project killed by Greenie fussing over almost everything to do with it. Excerpt from here:

"A power plant touted by the State Government as pioneering renewable energy generation is a multimillion-dollar flop. The troubled Rocky Point co-generation plant in the Woongoolba-Jacobs Well area south of Brisbane is expected to be sold at a fraction of its cost. The power plant - which uses sugarcane and timber waste to produce electricity - has cost its government-owned operator Stanwell Corp tens of millions of dollars since it was commissioned three years ago. It was worth $60 million when it opened in 2002 but is now valued at $7.5 million.

The plant had been forced to write down nearly $48 million, or about 80 per cent of its original value, as Stanwell Corp struggles against operating issues not planned for in the original design. The Rocky Point project cut Stanwell Corp's overall after-tax profit by more than $7.4 million to $29.4 million last financial year, a 28 per cent drop on its 2003-04 result.

Rocky Point also faced legal action by environmental authorities over its alleged role in allowing contaminated water to flow into the Logan River, leading to the death of a substantial amount of fish. The company has since upgraded its wastewater treatment facilities....

The Rocky Point plant also attracted a $3 million Commonwealth "renewable energy showcase" grant to help pay for its construction, which involved importing a steam turbine and generator from Germany. At the time it was commissioned, it was the largest co-generation facility of its type in Australia, powering the equivalent of 18,000 homes a year.

Promotional material produced by Stanwell boasts that the biomass industry had "extended the life of sugar farms in the Woongoolba area and ensured the viability of the Rocky Point sugar mill for another 20 years". The plant uses bagasse, or waste cane fibre, from the privately owned Rocky Point sugar mill, as well as council green waste, sawdust and woodchips. It also produces steam and electricity to power the sugar mill....

Stanwell chief executive Gary Humphrys yesterday issued a statement saying the plant's operational problems had to do with the processing of fuel and the disposal of waste water and ash. He said the requirement to store waste water and ash were "not planned in the original project design"."





A FACE-SAVER FOR THE DOOMED KYOTO TREATY?

An international panel including corporate and government officials who have been involved in climate-treaty negotiations has called for a broader version of the Kyoto Protocol, one that might include the Bush administration's voluntary approach to combating global warming. Its report, released here yesterday by the nonprofit Pew Center on Global Climate Change, calls for negotiators to revise the 1997 treaty to allow some countries to choose alternatives to international regulations that assign each country a quota and a timetable to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and five other gases thought to be contributing to climate change. Officials from the U.S., Japan, the United Kingdom and China were among the panel's members.

The next round of talks on the future of the treaty are slated to begin in two weeks at the United Nations' convention on climate change in Montreal.

The Pew Center's report endorses the Bush administration's gradual and voluntary reduction of carbon-dioxide emissions, in proportion to economic output, as one of a number of new approaches that might be used in 2012 when the treaty's current regulatory regime expires.

The Bush administration, however, said it isn't interested in an early renegotiation of the protocol. "We don't think initiating these discussions at this time is going to be productive," said one U.S. official, who underlined the administration's preference for voluntary efforts outside the treaty.

Charles Holliday Jr., chairman and chief executive of DuPont Co., one of five corporations involved in the Pew-sponsored study, said his company is "very much aligned" with the report's recommendations. He said the approach to climate change emphasizes the need for new technology and flexibility that will allow executives "to grow a business while addressing a societal need."

In signing the Kyoto Protocol, 38 industrial nations agreed to reduce their emissions from 1990 levels by an average 5.2% during the period from 2008 to 2012. One of the treaty's problems is that the globe's two largest emitters of man-made carbon dioxide, the U.S. and China, aren't subject to its controls. Another issue is that some of the protocol's most enthusiastic backers, including Canada, the U.K. and Italy, have recently been increasing their emissions, making it more difficult for them to meet the 2012 targets.

One of the leaders of the effort to broaden the treaty's reach and to experiment with more "flexible" controls is British Prime Minister Tony Blair. Echoing a complaint made previously by President Bush, Mr. Blair recently said that some governments "fear" that external controls would harm their economies. "We need to find a better, more sensitive set of mechanisms to deal with this problem," Mr. Blair said earlier this month. Afterward, his aides insisted the U.K. wasn't abandoning the treaty's targets and timetables.

The U.S. and Australia are among 40 nations that haven't joined the Kyoto treaty, and Canadian leaders will make an effort in Montreal to draw them into a broader agreement to curb emissions, outside the treaty's framework. China has ratified the treaty, but, as a developing nation, isn't subject to its emission controls. If some countries shift away from specific reductions and timetables after 2012, it could become more difficult to trade emissions credits, which allow countries and companies to reduce their obligations by financing cheaper emissions controls elsewhere, often overseas.

Source




IS THIS THE ULTIMATE IN GREENIE NUTTINESS?

Or his he just setting them all a good example?

"A leading Brazilian environmentalist has died after setting fire to himself during a demonstration. Francisco Anselmo de Barros was protesting on Saturday against the construction of alcohol factories in the Pantanal marsh region. He died in intensive care a day later. He had suffered burns of more than 90% after wrapping himself in a burning duvet, the authorities said.

Mr Barros had dedicated his life to fighting for the environment. As president of the Foundation for the Conservation of Nature in the state of Mato Grosso do Sul, he had fought against the establishment of factories in the Pantanal basin since the early 1980s, when two were constructed there. Mr Barros argued that the burning of sugar cane would have a catastrophic effect on the area...."

(Sugarcane was burnt before harvesting for over a century every year in tropical Australia -- to protect the cane-cutters from disease and vermin -- and no-one found any problems with it. It was discontinued only when mechanical harvesters came in)

***************************************

Many people would like to be kind to others so Leftists exploit that with their nonsense about equality. Most people want a clean, green environment so Greenies exploit that by inventing all sorts of far-fetched threats to the environment. But for both, the real motive is to promote themselves as wiser and better than everyone else, truth regardless.

Global warming has taken the place of Communism as an absurdity that "liberals" will defend to the death regardless of the evidence showing its folly. Evidence never has mattered to real Leftists

Comments? Email me here. My Home Page is here or here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there are mirrors of this site here and here.

*****************************************