Sun Activity not linked to Climate Change

Comments: 15

juley g. Apr 3, 2008, 8:40am EDT

Interesting.

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Kathryn W. Apr 3, 2008, 8:57am EDT

very good

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Gerry Wass Apr 3, 2008, 10:55am EDT

This information needs to get out there--thank you!

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John S. (arizona) Apr 3, 2008, 10:59am EDT

I read this article this morning on the BBC. I think it was for a period of twenty years though wasn't it? It is all so hard to tell anymore, there are so many conflicting opinions still. I still tend to believe there is some impact, just don't know how much, or if relevant to current climate... Past observations seem to have a correlation, but I also think we humans haven't been around long enough with technology to get a good set of data yet.
Interesting though, thanks.

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James B. Apr 3, 2008, 11:47am EDT

Thanks to all for the comments. John, you are correct about the time-span: "... Lancaster University scientists found there has been no significant link between them in the last 20 years."

As another measure of how much data we have, the data on changing the length of the freeze/thaw cycle for ponds and lakes in winter, in the Upper Midwestern US, goes back 100 years, using everything from Church records to newspapers to personal diaries.

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John S. (arizona) Apr 3, 2008, 12:25pm EDT

James, you might find this somewhat interesting, The Maunder Minimum and all.

http://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/SunspotCycle.shtml

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James B. Apr 3, 2008, 2:27pm EDT

Thanks! I'll read through it and appreciate the link. The BBC article mentioned a second 20 year study, done by a different group that agreed with the latest report. It also mentioned, as you will have noticed, that it said about the Danish scientist who is the driving force behind the cosmic ray/sun activity theory,

"Dr Svensmark himself was unimpressed by the findings.

'Terry Sloan has simply failed to understand how cosmic rays work on clouds,' he told BBC News. "

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Sam Carana Apr 3, 2008, 6:02pm EDT

Good to point at this news, James, I just linked to your article under my article Antarctic ice shelf collapse.

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James B. Apr 3, 2008, 6:57pm EDT

Thanks, Sam! I saw from the site statistics that a number of readers of my external blog went to articles by you, Steve B. and others at gather since last night.

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Austin Cushing Apr 3, 2008, 7:15pm EDT

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Steve B. Apr 4, 2008, 8:43pm EDT

John: "It is all so hard to tell anymore, there are so many conflicting opinions still. I still tend to believe there is some impact, just don't know how much, or if relevant to current climate... "

IPCC is pretty clear about it:

"The observed widespread warming of the atmosphere and ocean,
together with ice mass loss, support the conclusion that it is extremely
unlikely that global climate change of the past 50 years can
be explained without external forcing and very likely that it is not
due to known natural causes alone. During this period, the sum of
solar and volcanic forcings would likely have produced cooling,
not warming." (Emphasis in original)

Climate Change 2007: Synthesis Report, p.39.

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