solar warming

[Old Rocks]

According to this article, solar seems to play a very minor part in the present warming.

Pubs.GISS: Abstract of Benestad and Schmidt 2009

Benestad and Schmidt 2009
Benestad, R.E., and G.A. Schmidt, 2009: Solar trends and global warming. J. Geophys. Res., doi:10.1029/2008JD011639.

We use a suite of global climate model simulations for the 20th Century to assess the contribution of solar forcing to the past trends in the global mean temperature. In particular we examine how robust different published methodologies are at detecting and attributing solar-related climate change in the presence of intrinsic climate variability and multiple forcings. We demonstrate that naive application of linear analytical methods such as regression gives non-robust results. We also demonstrate that the methodologies used in Scafetta & West [2005, 2006a, b, 2007, 2008] are not robust to these same factors and that their error bars are significantly larger than reported. Our analysis shows that the most likely contribution from solar forcing a global warming is 7±1% for the 20th Century, and is negligible for the warming since 1980.

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[code1211]

According to this article, solar seems to play a very minor part in the present warming.

Pubs.GISS: Abstract of Benestad and Schmidt 2009

Benestad and Schmidt 2009
Benestad, R.E., and G.A. Schmidt, 2009: Solar trends and global warming. J. Geophys. Res., doi:10.1029/2008JD011639.

We use a suite of global climate model simulations for the 20th Century to assess the contribution of solar forcing to the past trends in the global mean temperature. In particular we examine how robust different published methodologies are at detecting and attributing solar-related climate change in the presence of intrinsic climate variability and multiple forcings. We demonstrate that naive application of linear analytical methods such as regression gives non-robust results. We also demonstrate that the methodologies used in Scafetta & West [2005, 2006a, b, 2007, 2008] are not robust to these same factors and that their error bars are significantly larger than reported. Our analysis shows that the most likely contribution from solar forcing a global warming is 7±1% for the 20th Century, and is negligible for the warming since 1980.

Download PDF (Document is 4.9 MB)
PDF documents require a special viewer such as the free Adobe Reader.

This is astonishing. The GISS is now saying that the Sun has almost no effect on warming. What's next? The lungs have almost no effect on breathing? The air has almost no effect on flight? The ocean has almost no effect on fish?

Someone cue the circus music. How many GISS scientists can fit into a Volkswagon?

 

[Old Rocks]

What is astonishing is that someone who has obvious intellectual capabilities can be so dishonest.

You know full well what is being said is that the sun has been steady enough that there has been little contribution to the increase on it's part.

The fact that you approach it by denigrating the efforts of the scientists, and useing false humor, simply shows the intellectual poverty of your viewpoint.

 

[del]

What is astonishing is that someone who has obvious intellectual capabilities can be so dishonest.

You know full well what is being said is that the sun has been steady enough that there has been little contribution to the increase on it's part.

The fact that you approach it by denigrating the efforts of the scientists, and useing false humor, simply shows the intellectual poverty of your viewpoint.

true, but we've gotten used to your inability to distinguish reality from wishful thinking. it's kind of cute, imo.

warmest regards and a very merry christmas to you and yours.

 

[Si modo]

There is a lot wrong with that paper according to Scafetta (one of the authors of several papers this one claims to refute).

....

Let us see some of these misleading statements and errors starting with the less serious one and ending with the most serious one:

1. Since the abstract Benestad and Schmidt claim that they are rebutting several our papers [Scafetta and West, 2005, 2006a, 2006b, 2007, 2008]. Already the abstract is misleading. Indeed, their criticism focuses only on Scafetta and West [2005, 2006a]. The other papers used different data and mathematical methodologies.

2. Benestad and Schmidt claim that we have not disclosed nor detailed the mathematical methodology and some parameters that we use. For example:

a) In paragraph 39 Benestad and Schmidt criticize and dismiss my paper with Willson [2009] by claiming that we “did not provide any detailed description of the method used to derive their results, and while they derived a positive minima trend for their composite, it is not clear how a positive minima trend could arise from a combination of the reconstruction of Krivova et al. [2007] and PMOD, when none of these by themselves contained such a trend).” However, the arguments are quite clear in that paper and in the additional figures that we published as supporting material. Moreover, it is not clear to me how Benestad and Schmidt could conclude that our work is wrong if Benestad and Schmidt acknowledge that they have not understood it. Perhaps, they just needed to study it better.

b) In paragraph 41 Benestad and Schmidt claim that: “It is not clear how the lagged values were estimated by Scafetta and West [2006a]“. However, in paragraph 9 of SW06a it is written “we adopt the same time-lags as predicted by Wigley’s [1988, Table 1] model.” So, again, Benestad and Schmidt just needed to study better the paper that they wanted to criticize.

c) In paragraph 48 Benestad and Schmidt claim that: “over the much shorter 1980-2002 period and used a global surface temperature from the Climate Research Unit, 2005 (they did not provide any reference to the data nor did they specify whether they used the combined land-sea data (HadCRUT) or land-only temperatures (CRUTEM).” However, it is evident from our work SW05 that we were referring to the combined land-sea data which is properly referred to as “global surface temperature” without any additional specification (Land or Ocean, North or South). We also indicate the webpage where the data could be downloaded.

d) In paragraph 57 Benestad and Schmidt claim that: “The analysis using Lean [2000] rather than Scafetta and West’s own solar proxy as input is shown as thick black lines.” However, in our paper SW06a it is crystal clear that we too use Lean’s TSI proxy reconstruction. In particular we were using Lean 1995 which is not very different from Lean 2000. Benestad and Schmidt apparently do not know that since 1978 Lean 1995 as well as Lean 2000 do not differ significantly from PMOD because PMOD was build (by altering the published TSI satellite data) by using Lean 1995 and Lean 2000 as guides. Moreover, we also merge the Lean data with ACRIM since 1978 to obtain an alternative scenario, as it is evident in all our papers. The discontinuity problem addressed by Benestad and Schmidt in merging two independent sequences (Lean’s proxy model and the ACRIM) is not an issue because it is not possible to avoid it given the fact that there are no TSI satellite data before 1978.

3. In Paragraphs 48-50 Benestad and Schmidt try to explain one of our presumed major mathematical mistakes. Benestad and Schmidt’s states: “A change of 2*0.92 W/m2 between solar minimum and maximum implies a change in S of 1.84 W/m2 which amounts to 0.13% of S, and is greater than the 0.08% difference between the peak and minimum of solar cycle 21 reported by Willson [1997] and the differences between TSI levels of the solar maxima and minima seen in this study (~1.2 W/m2; Figure 6).” Benestad and Schmidt’s are referring to our estimate of the amplitude of the solar cycle referring to the 11-year modulation that we called A7,sun = 0.92 W/m2 in SW05. Benestad and Schmidt are claiming that our estimate is nor reasonable because in their opinion according to our calculations the change of TSI between solar maximum and solar minimum had to be twice our value A7,sun , so they write 2*0.92=1.84 W/m2, and this would be far too large. However, as it is evident from our paper and in figure 4a in SW05 the value A7,sun refers to the peak-to-trough amplitude of the cycle, so it should not be multiplied by 2, as Benestad and Schmidt misunderstood. This is crystal clear in the factor ½ before the equation f(t)= ½ A sin(2pt) that we are referring to and that Benestad and Schmidt also report in their paragraph 48. It is hard to believe that two prominent scientists such as Benestad and Schmidt do not understand the meaning of a factor ½! So, again, Benestad and Schmidt just needed to think more before writing a study that criticizes ours.

4) Finally, Benestad and Schmidt’s paper is full of misleading claims that they are reproducing our analysis. Indeed, Benestad and Schmidt’s paper is self-contradictory on this crucial issue. In paragraph 85 Benestad and Schmidt claim that they “have repeated the analyses of Scafetta and West, together with a series of sensitivity tests to some of their arbitrary choices.” However, in their paragraph 76 Benestad and Schmidt acknowledge: “In our emulation, we were not able to get exactly the same ratio of amplitudes, due to lack of robustness of the SW06a method and insufficient methods description.” It is quite singular that Benestad and Schmidt claim to have repeated our calculation, at the same time they acknowledge that, indeed, they did not succeed in repeating our calculation and, ironically, they blame us for their failure. It is not easy to find in the scientific literature such kind of tortuous reasoning!

In fact, the reason why Benestad and Schmidt did not succeed in repeating our calculation is because they have misapplied the wavelet decomposition algorithm known as the maximum overlap discrete wavelet transforms (MODWT). This is crystal clear in their figures 4 where it is evident that they applied the MODWT decomposition in a cyclical periodic mode. In other words they are implicitly imposing that the temperature in 2001 is equal to the temperature in 1900, the temperature in 2002 is equal to the temperature in 1901 and so on. This is evident in their figure 4 where the decomposed blue and pink component curves in 2000 just continue in 1900 in an uninterrupted cyclical periodic mode as shown in the figure below which is obtained by plotting their figure 4 side by side with itself:

Any person expert in time series processing can teach Benestad and Schmidt that it is not appropriate to impose a cyclical periodic mode to a non stationary time series such as the temperature or TSI records that present clear upward trends from 1900 to 2000. By applying a cyclical periodic mode Benestad and Schmidt are artificially introducing two large and opposite discontinuities in the records in 1900 and 2000, as the above figure shows in 2000. These large and artificial discontinuities at the two extremes of the time sequence disrupt completely the decomposition and force the algorithm to produce very large cycles in proximity of the two borders, as it is clear in their figure 4. This severe error is responsible for the fact that Benestad and Schmidt find unrealistic values for Z22y and Z11y that significantly differ from ours by a factor of three. In their paragraph 50 they found Z22y = 0.58 K/Wm-2, which is not realistic as they also realize later, while we found Z22y = 0.17 K/Wm-2, which is more realistic.

This same error in data processing also causes the reconstructed solar signature in their figures 5 and 7 to present a descending trend minimum in 2000 while the Sun was approaching one of its largest maxima. Compare their figures 4a (reported above), 5 and 7 with their figure 6 and compare them also with our figure 3 in SW06a and in SW08! See figure below where I compare Benestad and Schmidt’s figures 6 and 7 and show that the results depicted in their Figure 7 are non-physical.

Because of the severe and naïve error in applying the wavelet decomposition, Benestad and Schmidt’s calculations are “robustly” flawed. I cannot but encourage Benestad and Schmidt to carefully study some book about wavelet decomposition such as the excellent work by Percival and Walden [2000] before attempting to use a complex and powerful algorithm such as the Maximum Overlap Discrete Wavelet Transform (MODWT) by just loading a pre-compiled computer R package.

There are several other gratuitous claims and errors in Benestad and Schmidt’s paper. However, the above is sufficient for this fast reply. I just wonder why the referees of that paper did not check Benestad and Schmidt’s numerous misleading statements and errors. It would be sad if the reason is because somebody is mistaking a scientific theory such as the “anthropogenic global warming theory” for an ideology that should be defended at all costs.

Nicola Scafetta, Physics Department, Duke University

Merry Christmas si modo.

PLEASE shorten this post, and give the LINK, as per copyright rules of this board.

care

ETA: The post is shortened. It is not an entire quote. Link added.

 

[Care4all]

Question:

WHAT brought us out of the ''snowball earth''? What made the glaciers melt?





Hint:

NOT the sun's rays/heat....

 

[del]

Question:

WHAT brought us out of the ''snowball earth''? What made the glaciers melt?





Hint:

NOT the sun's rays/heat....

SUVs?

republicans?

 

[Care4all]

Question:

WHAT brought us out of the ''snowball earth''? What made the glaciers melt?





Hint:

NOT the sun's rays/heat....

SUVs?

republicans?

merry Christmas Del!

CO2 caused the melt....from natural events....massive earthquakes and volcanoes releasing the gas....

Without the CO2, we...the Earth, was destined to stay frozen.

We need to give THANKS and praise, to CO2!!!

2 points....

CO2 is released naturally, not just from manmade uses.

CO2 can cause the warming of the earth enough to melt the glaciers of an entirely frozen earth, so it CAN be the scientific culpret of global warming today.

AS TO whether this is all from man made causes or a mixture of natural and man made causes, is up for debate and scientific scrutiny....I would NOT rule out one theory or the other....

 

[Si modo]

You're making some claims that are not supported by the science, Care.

Climate Change and it's Causes (Slides to EPA presentation)

(Video of presentation)

Scafetta, EPA: National Center for Environmental Economics presentation, 2009

 

[Care4all]

You're making some claims that are not supported by the science, Care.

Climate Change and it's Causes (Slides to EPA presentation)

(Video of presentation)

Scafetta, EPA: National Center for Environmental Economics presentation, 2009

the document is way too long...can you give your synopsis of why you say i am wrong? is it the volcano/ earthquake part? IT CERTAINLY is NOT the carbon released in to the atmosphere that began our warming.....?

 

[Old Rocks]

You're making some claims that are not supported by the science, Care.

Climate Change and it's Causes (Slides to EPA presentation)

(Video of presentation)

Scafetta, EPA: National Center for Environmental Economics presentation, 2009

No, what Care says is correct. In fact, every episode of snowball earth was followed by a period of rapid deposition of carbonates due to the amount of CO2.

Download the A23 lecture, and the information concerning this is in that lecture.

2009 AGU Fall Meeting: Featured Lectures

 

[Si modo]

You're making some claims that are not supported by the science, Care.

Climate Change and it's Causes (Slides to EPA presentation)

(Video of presentation)

Scafetta, EPA: National Center for Environmental Economics presentation, 2009

the document is way too long...can you give your synopsis of why you say i am wrong? is it the volcano/ earthquake part? IT CERTAINLY is NOT the carbon released in to the atmosphere that began our warming.....?

I should have said your strong implication. CO2, of course is necessary for us to keep our temperature livable for most of us. That mechanism is well established. Any additional CO2 from man (your implication) causing any warming is not in the least settled, least of all by the OP.

There is an abstract of the presentation at the link. Fundamentally, it says that total solar irradiance is not insignificant in warming (and cooling trends).

 

[code1211]

Question:

WHAT brought us out of the ''snowball earth''? What made the glaciers melt?





Hint:

NOT the sun's rays/heat....

SUVs?

republicans?

merry Christmas Del!

CO2 caused the melt....from natural events....massive earthquakes and volcanoes releasing the gas....

Without the CO2, we...the Earth, was destined to stay frozen.

We need to give THANKS and praise, to CO2!!!

2 points....

CO2 is released naturally, not just from manmade uses.

CO2 can cause the warming of the earth enough to melt the glaciers of an entirely frozen earth, so it CAN be the scientific culpret of global warming today.

AS TO whether this is all from man made causes or a mixture of natural and man made causes, is up for debate and scientific scrutiny....I would NOT rule out one theory or the other....

Volcanoes routinely cause cooling through eruptions today. Was the "snowball" -ing of Earth complete? Was the change in CO2 the only the change in anything that might possibly have produced a rise in temperature?

Sulfur, which reflects Sun light back into space is always more plentiful in eruptions than is CO2. Ash is some eruptions and dust is much more plentiful than is CO2. What kind of eruptions were these?

When the ash settled, could this have changed the albedo? Did the shape of the orbit change at that time? Could ocean currents have changed and started to cause a melting around the globe? Plate tectonics?

When was "Snowball Earth" supposed to have frozen over?

 

[rdean]

Question:

WHAT brought us out of the ''snowball earth''? What made the glaciers melt?





Hint:

NOT the sun's rays/heat....

So you believe the snowball theory? There is nothing from Noah's Ark that would indicate a "snowball" earth. Why would you believe some science and "pick and choose" other science?

 

[code1211]

What is astonishing is that someone who has obvious intellectual capabilities can be so dishonest.

You know full well what is being said is that the sun has been steady enough that there has been little contribution to the increase on it's part.

The fact that you approach it by denigrating the efforts of the scientists, and useing false humor, simply shows the intellectual poverty of your viewpoint.

Many thanks to Si modo for his research from Scafetta.

It's nice to know that when something is just obviously wrong, there is science to back it up. Implying, saying, stating, demanding, asking or anything else that the Sun has very little effect on warming is just so inane that it hardly even need be questioned.

Of course the Sun has effect on warming. The Sun is the source of any and all warming that our little planet enjoys. It doesn't take a wizard, a scientist or even an educated person to know this. Before we had a way to measure CO2, we had people worshipping the Sun because it provides warmth.

As soon as someone says that the Sun has had very little effect on warming, anything that comes after is just ridiculous.

 

[rdean]

What is astonishing is that someone who has obvious intellectual capabilities can be so dishonest.

You know full well what is being said is that the sun has been steady enough that there has been little contribution to the increase on it's part.

The fact that you approach it by denigrating the efforts of the scientists, and useing false humor, simply shows the intellectual poverty of your viewpoint.

Many thanks to Si modo for his research from Scafetta.

It's nice to know that when something is just obviously wrong, there is science to back it up. Implying, saying, stating, demanding, asking or anything else that the Sun has very little effect on warming is just so inane that it hardly even need be questioned.

Of course the Sun has effect on warming. The Sun is the source of any and all warming that our little planet enjoys. It doesn't take a wizard, a scientist or even an educated person to know this. Before we had a way to measure CO2, we had people worshipping the Sun because it provides warmth.

As soon as someone says that the Sun has had very little effect on warming, anything that comes after is just ridiculous.

Depends, if the heat from the sun is at a constant temperature, but the temperature of the earth continues to rise, then there is probably another agent at work.

Once it was explained to me that the ice reflects the heat from the sun but when the ice melts, the dark ocean absorbs the heat. Now the atmosphere actually seems colder because when the heat was reflected, it was absorbed by the atmosphere, but with the ocean absorbing the heat, there is less heat in the atmosphere. So, for a time, it actually seems colder.

 

[Care4all]

Question:

WHAT brought us out of the ''snowball earth''? What made the glaciers melt?





Hint:

NOT the sun's rays/heat....

So you believe the snowball theory? There is nothing from Noah's Ark that would indicate a "snowball" earth. Why would you believe some science and "pick and choose" other science?

Yes, I believe in "Snowball Earth", I believe we have enough scientific proof that earth was frozen over, several times.

I don't pick and choose what Science to believe??? I don't believe Science differs with Genesis 1 if one can see beyond the book in front of them instead of nitpicking, they would see this also.

And as far as Noah's ark....or the Great Deluge story.... I believe what the people have written about it....throughout the entire world....there are around 100 stories throughout different regions of the earth from different religions and tribal beliefs from ancient times, that ALL SPEAK of "the Great Flood or the Great Deluge" and due to all of these various myths out there, all saying nearly the same thing from all different regions, I believe we will find scientific proof that there WAS a great flood.

I love science and all that encompasses it.

 

[code1211]

What is astonishing is that someone who has obvious intellectual capabilities can be so dishonest.

You know full well what is being said is that the sun has been steady enough that there has been little contribution to the increase on it's part.

The fact that you approach it by denigrating the efforts of the scientists, and useing false humor, simply shows the intellectual poverty of your viewpoint.

Many thanks to Si modo for his research from Scafetta.

It's nice to know that when something is just obviously wrong, there is science to back it up. Implying, saying, stating, demanding, asking or anything else that the Sun has very little effect on warming is just so inane that it hardly even need be questioned.

Of course the Sun has effect on warming. The Sun is the source of any and all warming that our little planet enjoys. It doesn't take a wizard, a scientist or even an educated person to know this. Before we had a way to measure CO2, we had people worshipping the Sun because it provides warmth.

As soon as someone says that the Sun has had very little effect on warming, anything that comes after is just ridiculous.

Depends, if the heat from the sun is at a constant temperature, but the temperature of the earth continues to rise, then there is probably another agent at work.

Once it was explained to me that the ice reflects the heat from the sun but when the ice melts, the dark ocean absorbs the heat. Now the atmosphere actually seems colder because when the heat was reflected, it was absorbed by the atmosphere, but with the ocean absorbing the heat, there is less heat in the atmosphere. So, for a time, it actually seems colder.

Many charts presented previously on this board show TSI and Temperature in almost exact accord until the late 70's when there is a sudden departure. The TSI chart contained in the article presented by Si modo shows an accord that exists throught the year 2000.

This chart was quite interesting to me. Also interesting are the charts that flat line suddenly at the time that satelites were first used to measure TSI. This flat lining was again something that cried out for an explaination that was never forthcoming.

As soon as NASA got involved, the accord changed. An interesting coincidence.

 

[rdean]

Question:

WHAT brought us out of the ''snowball earth''? What made the glaciers melt?





Hint:

NOT the sun's rays/heat....

So you believe the snowball theory? There is nothing from Noah's Ark that would indicate a "snowball" earth. Why would you believe some science and "pick and choose" other science?

Yes, I believe in "Snowball Earth", I believe we have enough scientific proof that earth was frozen over, several times.

I don't pick and choose what Science to believe??? I don't believe Science differs with Genesis 1 if one can see beyond the book in front of them instead of nitpicking, they would see this also.

And as far as Noah's ark....or the Great Deluge story.... I believe what the people have written about it....throughout the entire world....there are around 100 stories throughout different regions of the earth from different religions and tribal beliefs from ancient times, that ALL SPEAK of "the Great Flood or the Great Deluge" and due to all of these various myths out there, all saying nearly the same thing from all different regions, I believe we will find scientific proof that there WAS a great flood.

I love science and all that encompasses it.

So did the Ark hold millions of pairs of animals or just millions of pears?

FOFLOL!

 

[CrusaderFrank]

Anyone else wonder why NASA is still refusing to comply with the FOIA request to release their Global Warming data?