Russ Steele
I have written many times that it is the sun which controls our climate and have argued that human caused CO2 plays a smaller insignificant role. Now scientist have discovered stronger evidence for the sun's inslfuence on our climate. According to Doug Hoffman writing at The Resilient Earth, the General Circlation Models that are being used to justify climate change public policy ignores this influence:
The influence of the Sun on Earth’s climate over time scales of centuries and millennia is all but ignored by current climate change dogma, with many climate scientists dismissing solar variation as too feeble to have much of an impact. Though it was recently discovered that variation at ultraviolet wavelengths is considerably greater than at lower frequencies, the change in total solar irradiance over recent 11-year sunspot cycles amounts to <0.1%. New research on longer time scales finds the change in total irradiance sufficient to affect the dynamics of the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO). Detailed model studies of the Little Ice Age (~1400 to 1850 AD) conclude that the Sun controls an “ocean dynamical thermostat” that affects climate variability over large regions of the globe. It was also found that fully coupled general circulation models (GCMs), the kind used by the IPCC to make predictions of future global warming, lack a robust thermostat response. This means that the sensitivity of the climate system to solar forcing is underestimated by current GCMs—the climate models are proven wrong again.
A report in the December 3, 2010, issue of Science has reinforced what many scientists have suspected all along: variation in the Sun's output causes significant change in Earth's climate. Writing in “Dynamical Response of the Tropical Pacific Ocean to Solar Forcing During the Early Holocenep,” Thomas M. Marchitto, Raimund Muscheler, Joseph D. Ortiz, Jose D. Carriquiry and Alexander van Geen present a high-resolution magnesium/calcium proxy record of Holocene sea surface temperature (SST) from off the west coast of Baja California Sur, Mexico. Their work is in agreement with the theoretical “ocean dynamical thermostat” response of ENSO to radiative forcing. Here is their description of the work:
The influence of solar variability on Earth’s climate over centennial to millennial time scales is the subject of considerable debate. The change in total solar irradiance over recent 11-year sunspot cycles amounts to <0.1%, but greater changes at ultraviolet wavelengths may have substantial impacts on stratospheric ozone concentrations, thereby altering both stratospheric and tropospheric circulation patterns. Estimates of the secular increase in total irradiance since the late 17th century Maunder sunspot minimum range from ~0.05 to 0.5%. Values in the middle of this range are sufficient to force the intermediate-complexity Zebiak-Cane model of El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) dynamics into a more El Niño–like state during the Little Ice Age (A.D. ~1400 to 1850), a response dubbed the “ocean dynamical thermostat” because negative (or positive) radiative forcing results in dynamical ocean warming (or cooling, respectively) of the eastern tropical Pacific (ETP). This model prediction is supported by paleoclimatic proxy reconstructions over the past millennium. In contrast, fully coupled general circulation models (GCMs) lack a robust thermostat response because of an opposing tendency for the atmospheric circulation itself to strengthen under reduced radiative forcing.
Exit Question: Will CARB take notice that they are using flawed GCMs to justify AB32 climate change regulations?
