Category:Solar variability and climate cycles

From ClimateWiki

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) claims “most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations [italics in the original]” (IPCC, 2007-I, p. 10). The IPCC’s authors even tell us they have decided there is a better-than-90-percent probability that their shared opinion is true. But as we demonstrated in Chapter 1, the general circulation models upon which the IPCC rests its case are notoriously unreliable. In Chapter 2 we documented feedback factors and forcings that the IPCC clearly overlooked. In Chapters 3 and 4 we showed that observations do not confirm the temperatures and weather trends the IPCC said should exist if its theory were true.

In this chapter we set out evidence in favor of an alternative theory of climate change that holds that variations in the sun’s output and magnetic field, mediated by cosmic ray fluxes and changes in global cloud cover, play a larger role in regulating the earth’s temperature, precipitation, droughts, floods, monsoons, and other climate features than any past or expected human activities, including projected increases in GHG emissions. Unlike the IPCC, we do not invent a measure of our confidence in this theory, nor do we confuse it with a forecast of future weather patterns. Rather, we make the case for this alternative theory to demonstrate how much we don’t know about earth’s climate, and therefore how wrong it is to assume that human activity is responsible for any variability in the climate that we cannot explain by pointing to already known forcings or feedbacks.

According to the IPCC, “changes in solar irradiance since 1750 are estimated to cause a radiative forcing of +0.12 [+0.06 to +0.30] W m–2,” which is an order of magnitude smaller than their estimated net anthropogenic forcing of +1.66 W m–2 from CO2 over the same time period (pp. 3,4). However, the studies summarized in this chapter suggest the IPCC has got it backwards, that it is the sun’s influence that is responsible for most climate change during the past century and beyond.

In the spirit of genuine scientific inquiry, in contrast to the IPCC’s agenda-driven focus on making its case against GHG, we examine some research that is truly on the frontiers of climate research today. We begin with a discussion of cosmic rays, followed by research on irradiance, and then survey the evidence linking solar variability to climate phenomena both ancient and recent.

The following pages are taken from Climate Change Reconsidered and can be used as a guide to get you through the basics of this category:

Cosmic rays

Droughts

Floods

Irradiance

Monsoons

Precipitation

Temperature

References

Climate Change Reconsidered: Website of the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change. http://www.nipccreport.org/archive/archive.html

IPCC. 2007-I. Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Solomon, S., Qin, D., Manning, M., Chen, Z., Marquis, M., Averyt, K.B., Tignor, M. and Miller, H.L. (Eds.) Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK.