The stinkin' sun, again

Who has time to keep up with all this!

Irene Wolfson sent me a Drudge flash about two books regarding the influence of solar activity on the earth's climate - a 1,500 year cycle. This roughly corresponds to one of the early entries in this blog where it was shown 1,000 years ago the average temperature in North America was almost identical to that of today. If I didn't have a life, I would research this further. The point is merely to express views not part of the consensus reality, not pretend to know the mind of God.

From prior entry:



So, you ask, does this have any implications regarding Mars' global warming? Damned if I know.

Sidebar: I see the US Congress is finally catching on to "climate change" as the best term as "global warming" is not exactly accurate as some places are freakin frezzing. Took them a few years to catch on, not bad for our Congress people. There are changes, of course, and that is nothing knew. It may be that the "average" is warming up, some places are. Then, let us see what happens as we enter the period of decreasing solar activity (which is now).

I don't think the link will work as it is a flash, so here is the piece. Don't panic, I agree the headline is probably too sweeping. Human's fart as well as cows.

Two New Books Confirm Global Warming is Natural; Not Caused By Human Activity
Tue Jan 30 2007 10:02:32 ET

Two powerful new books say today’s global warming is due not to human activity but primarily to a long, moderate solar-linked cycle. Unstoppable Global Warming Every 1500 Years, by physicist Fred Singer and economist Dennis Avery was released just before Christmas. The Chilling Stars: A New Theory of Climate Change, by Danish physicist Henrik Svensmark and former BBC science writer Nigel Calder (Icon Books), is due out in March.

Singer and Avery note that most of the earth’s recent warming occurred before 1940, and thus before much human-emitted CO2. Moreover, physical evidence shows 600 moderate warmings in the earth’s last million years. The evidence ranges from ancient Nile flood records, Chinese court documents and Roman wine grapes to modern spectral analysis of polar ice cores, deep seabed sediments, and layered cave stalagmites.

Unstoppable Global Warming shows the earth’s temperatures following variations in solar intensity through centuries of sunspot records, and finds cycles of sun-linked isotopes in ice and tree rings. The book cites the work of Svensmark, who says cosmic rays vary the earth’s temperatures by creating more or fewer of the low, wet clouds that cool the earth. It notes that global climate models can’t accurately register cloud effects.

The Chilling Stars relates how Svensmark’s team mimicked the chemistry of earth’s atmosphere, by putting realistic mixtures of atmospheric gases into a large reaction chamber, with ultraviolet light as a stand-in for the sun. When they turned on the UV, microscopic droplets—cloud seeds—started floating through the chamber.

“We were amazed by the speed and efficiency with which the electrons [generated by cosmic rays] do their work of creating the building blocks for the cloud condensation nuclei,” says Svensmark.

The Chilling Stars documents how cosmic rays amplify small changes in the sun’s irradiance fourfold, creating 1-2 degree C cycles in earth’s temperatures: Cosmic rays continually slam into the earth’s atmosphere from outer space, creating ion clusters that become seeds for small droplets of water and sulfuric acid. The droplets then form the low, wet clouds that reflect solar energy back into space. When the sun is more active, it shields the earth from some of the rays, clouds wane, and the planet warms.

Unstoppable Global Warming documents the reality of a moderate, natural, 1500-year climate cycle on the earth. The Chilling Stars explains the why and how.

Global Warming Attacks Mars

Cow flatulence has apparently reached Mars. For several years, now, NASA has been tracking the warming of Mars and the appearance of water, as the poles shrink. If it is not green house cow farts, it may be the increased solar activity, see prior post. The change is apparently not merely the annual (Mars' years) change of seasons.

Orbiter's Long Life Helps Scientists Track Changes on Mars

This pair of images shows a dune as it appeared on July 17, 2002, (left) and as it appeared on April 27, 2005, (right). During this period, a couple of gullies formed on the dune slip face. It is critical to recognize that the 2002 image was obtained at a time of year when the incident sunlight was coming in from a lower angle, relative to the horizon, than in the 2005 image. If the gullies had been present in 2002, their appearance would be sharper and more pronounced than they are in the 2005 image. The gullies simply did not exist on July 17, 2002. Image credit: NASA/JPL/MSSS/ASU

(Additional images)

New gullies that did not exist in mid-2002 have appeared on a Martian sand dune.

That's just one of the surprising discoveries that have resulted from the extended life of NASA's Mars Global Surveyor, which this month began its ninth year in orbit around Mars. Boulders tumbling down a Martian slope left tracks that weren't there two years ago. New impact craters formed since the 1970s suggest changes to age-estimating models. And for three Mars summers in a row, deposits of frozen carbon dioxide near Mars' south pole have shrunk from the previous year's size, suggesting a climate change in progress.

"Our prime mission ended in early 2001, but many of the most important findings have come since then, and even bigger ones might lie ahead," said Tom Thorpe, project manager for Mars Global Surveyor at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. The orbiter is healthy and may be able to continue studying Mars for five to 10 more years, he said.

Mars years are nearly twice as long as Earth years. The orbiter's longevity has enabled monitoring of year-to-year patterns on Mars, such as seasonal dust storms and changes in the polar caps. "Mars is an active planet, and over a range of timescales changes occur, even in the surface," said Dr. Michael Malin of Malin Space Science Systems, San Diego, principal investigator for the Mars Orbiter Camera on Mars Global Surveyor.

"To see new gullies and other changes in Mars surface features on a time span of a few years presents us with a more active, dynamic planet than many suspected before Mars Global Surveyor got there," said Michael Meyer, Mars Exploration Program chief scientist, NASA Headquarters, Washington.

Two gullies appear in an April 2005 image of a sand-dune slope where they did not exist in July 2002. The Mars Orbiter Camera team has found many sites on Mars with fresh-looking gullies, and checked back at more than 100 gullied sites for possible changes between imaging dates, but this is the first such find. Some gullies, on slopes of large sand dunes, might have formed when frozen carbon dioxide, trapped by windblown sand during winter, vaporized rapidly in spring, releasing gas that made the sand flow as a gully-carving fluid.

At another site, more than a dozen boulders left tracks when they rolled down a hill sometime between the taking of images in November 2003 and December 2004. It is possible that they were set in motion by strong wind or by a "marsquake," Malin said.

Some changes are slower than expected. Studies suggest new impact craters might appear at only about one-fifth the pace assumed previously, Malin said. That pace is important because crater counts are used to estimate the ages of Mars surfaces.

The camera has recorded seasonal patterns of clouds and dust within the atmosphere over the entire planet. In addition, other instruments on Mars Global Surveyor have provided information about atmospheric changes and year-to-year patterns on Mars as the mission has persisted. Daily mapping of dust abundance in Mars' atmosphere by the Thermal Emission Spectrometer has shown dust over large areas during three Mars southern hemisphere summers in a row. However, the extent and duration of dust storms varied from year to year.
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Interesting fact: The seasonal polar caps are made of martian air that freezes during winter. Depending on the time of year, more than a quarter of the martian atmosphere can be found lying on the ground around the poles. (The atmosphere is 95% CO₂; that's why the seasonal polar caps are made of dry ice.) (From another NASA story: Mars is Melting from 2003)

Oops, Sun does heat the earth! - Duke U

It seems the current "Global Warming" model, which I assume is not the same as a "Climate Change" model, didn't include inconvenient accurate data that the sun's increased output would affect the earth. (A subtle concept) Duke, building on a Columbia analysis improves prior "flawed" analysis.
On the right - sunspots are predictive regarding solar storms. I hear this means we are in for a global cooling for a few years. See graph.

Sun's Direct Role in Global Warming May Be Underestimated, Duke Physicists Report

Study does not discount the suspected contributions of 'greenhouse gases' in elevating surface temperatures

Durham, N.C. -- At least 10 to 30 percent of global warming measured during the past two decades may be due to increased solar output rather than factors such as increased heat-absorbing carbon dioxide gas released by various human activities, two Duke University physicists report...[edited out para on this doesn't kill off the man is evil theory.]

Scafetta's and West's study follows a Columbia University researcher's report of previous errors in the interpretation of data on solar brightnesscollected by sun-observing satellites.

The Duke physicists also introduce new statistical methods that they assert more accurately describe the atmosphere's delayed response to solar heating. In addition, these new methods filter out temperature-changing effects not tied to global warming, they write in their paper.

According to Scafetta, records of sunspot activity suggest that solar output has been rising slightly for about 100 years. However, only measurements of what is known as total solar irradiance gathered by satellites orbiting since 1978 are considered scientifically reliable, he said.

But observations over those years were flawed by the space shuttle Challenger disaster, which prevented the launching of a new solar output detecting satellite called ACRIM 2 to replace a previous one called ACRIM 1.

That resulted in a two-year data gap that scientists had to rely on other satellites to try to bridge. "But those data were not as precise as those from ACRIM 1 and ACRIM 2,” Scafetta said in an interview.

Nevertheless, several research groups used the combined satellite data to conclude that that there was no increased heating from the Sun to contribute to the global surface warming observed between 1980 and 2002, the authors wrote in their paper.

Lacking a standardized, uninterrupted data stream measuring any rising solar influence, those groups thus surmised that all global temperature increases measured during those years had to be caused by solar heat-trapping "greenhouse" gases such as carbon dioxide, introduced into Earth's atmosphere by human activities, their paper added.

But a 2003 study by a group headed by Columbia's Richard Willson, principal investigator of the ACRIM experiments, challenged the previous satellite interpretations of solar output. Willson and his colleagues concluded, rather that their analysis revealed a significant upward trend in average solar luminosity during the period.

Using the Columbia findings as the starting point for their study, Scafetta and West then statistically analyzed how Earth's atmosphere would respond to slightly stronger solar heating. Importantly, they used an analytical method that could detect the subtle, complex relationships between solar output and terrestrial temperature patterns.

The Duke analyses examined solar changes over a period twice as long -- 22 versus 11years -- as was previously covered by another group employinga different statistical approach.

"The problem is that Earth's atmosphere is not in thermodynamic equilibrium with the sun," Scafetta said. "The longer the time period the stronger the effect will be on the atmosphere, because it takes time to adapt."

Using a longer 22 year interval also allowed the Duke physicists to filter out shorter range effects that can influence surface temperatures but are not related to global warming, their paper said. Examples include volcanic eruptions, which can temporarily cool the climate, and ocean current changes such as el Nino that affect global weather patterns.

Applying their analytical method to the solar output estimates by the Columbia group, Scafetta's and West's paper concludes that "the sun may have minimally contributed about 10 to 30 percent of the 1980-2002 global surface warming."

This study does not discount that human-linked greenhouse gases contribute to global warming, they stressed. "Those gases would still give a contribution, but not so strong as was thought," Scafetta said.

"We don't know what the Sun will do in the future," Scafetta added. "For now, if our analysis is correct, I think it is important to correct the climate models so that they include reliable sensitivity to solar activity.

"Once that is done, then it will be possible to better understand what has happened during the past hundred years."

For more information, contact: Monte Basgall | (919) 681-8057 | monte.basgall@duke.edu

I like Ike

Each day I have a posting of someone famous and things that they have said. Today, it was President Eisenhower. I never thought much of Ike, as his tenancy in the W.H. was marked with civility and quiet, something Lao Tze taught me is the sign of a great leader. Still, who knew about Ike?
I became intrigued by his wit. Here are some 25 thoughts, many pertinent today:

1. A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both.

2. An intellectual is a man who takes more words than necessary to tell more than he knows.

3. Do not needlessly endanger your lives until I give you the signal.

4. Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.

5. Here in America we are descended in blood and in spirit from revolutionists and rebels - men and women who dare to dissent from accepted doctrine. As their heirs, may we never confuse honest dissent with disloyal subversion.

6. History does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or the timid.

7. How far you can go without destroying from within what you are trying to defend from without?

8. I despise people who go to the gutter on either the right or the left and hurl rocks at those in the center.

9. I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity.

10. I like to believe that people in the long run are going to do more to promote peace than our governments. Indeed, I think that people want peace so much that one of these days governments had better get out of the way and let them have it.

11. If a problem cannot be solved, enlarge it.

12. If you want total security, go to prison. There you're fed, clothed, given medical care and so on. The only thing lacking... is freedom.

13. In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.

14. In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

15. In the final choice a soldier's pack is not so heavy as a prisoner's chains.

16. Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it.

17. Only Americans can hurt America.

18. Only strength can cooperate. Weakness can only beg.

19. Our real problem, then, is not our strength today; it is rather the vital necessity of action today to ensure our strength tomorrow.

20. Pessimism never won any battle.

21. Pull the string, and it will follow wherever you wish. Push it, and it will go nowhere at all.

22. Some people wanted champagne and caviar when they should have had beer and hot dogs.

23. Some years ago I became president of Columbia University and learned within 24 hours to be ready to speak at the drop of a hat, and I learned something more, the trustees were expected to be ready to speak at the passing of the hat.

24. The history of free men is never really written by chance but by choice; their choice!

25, The supreme quality for leadership is unquestionably integrity. Without it, no real success is possible, no matter whether it is on a section gang, a football field, in an army, or in an office.

Deja vu again

The following blurb triggered a recollection of an earlier time when Europeans thought making a profit from a monster was just fine. One man disagreed - Churchill. We will see if this is deja vu all over again (thanks Yogi.)

Despite US Pressures Shell, Repsol to Invest 4.3 Billion Dollars Iran
(http://www.irib.ir/worldservice/englishRADIO/default.htm)

In spite of US pressures, the European oil companies, Shell and Repsol, are to invest 4.3 billion dollars in Iran.... Other European oil companies voicing opposition to the US pressures and cooperating with Iran include France’s Total, Italy’s Eni and Russia’s Gasprom.

They stated they would continue their commercial transactions with Iran and that US pressures will have no impact on them.


The Essential Man: Winston S. Churchill, by Michael E. Berumen
Taken from an address to the LA Breakfast Panel in 2003.

...In my view, one man made all of the difference in preventing these horrible scenarios: Winston Churchill. Throughout the thirties, in fact, from as early as 1933, he warned his countrymen about Hitler. In this period, he was scorned and mocked by his own party; he was called a warmonger, an anachronism from another age; indeed, it was not uncommon for detractors to question his sanity. He was systematically excluded from holding office under Stanley Baldwin and Neville Chamberlain, relegated to the backbenches of Parliament. He relied on a network of civil servants and military contacts for his information about the Nazi's military build up and Britain's shabby military preparedness. With this information he constantly warned Parliament and the British people of the need for action or of the impending doom.

Today, we see these speeches as possessing unequaled eloquence and courage; at the time, however, they were considered by most to be the grandiloquent rantings of a washed-up man.

Chamberlain was the head of the Conservative party, which had nearly two-thirds of the seats in Parliament. He represented the prevailing view of his party and, by virtue of its commanding majority, it might be said, even the nation. This view is one of moderation, men seeking reasonable, practical solutions to international problems, and finding common ground through discussion, assuaging the aggrieved through compromise.

There was nothing controversial about this doctrine, nor, at the time, about the word that encapsulated it: appeasement. The pejorative meaning came later. It was the sensible doctrine of sensible people, both in Britain and in the U.S., especially by those who thought the financial reparations imposed on Germany after WWI too onerous.

Indeed, appeasement was the apotheosis of rational behavior, and the antithesis of belligerence and intransigence, the views with which Churchill was associated.

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True Believers in America

Hatred is an ugly thing. The damned in Bosch's hell eat their own bodies.

Eric Hoffer explains how the illness of self-loathing turns to hate in his classic True Believer, a must read. He explains how the misfits and disgruntled of Europe were early supporters of Hitler and Mussolini, who, once they had power, methodically destroyed the dangerous misfits.

Below find the results of a recent poll, by Opinion Dynamics, question 19. Look at the percentage of respondents who personally want the "surge" to fail.

1/3 of the Democrats want the troops to fail. 19% of Independents. So much for the pretense of caring about "our boys." They want them to die and the Iraqi civilians to fall prey to jackals. Hey, maybe a few will be beheaded.

The question was not, "Do you think the surge will work?" or "Do you support the surge?" which were covered in other questions. The mere mention of "Bush" and "Succeeding" was enough to turn self-loathing, as Hoffer has it, into self-destructing rage. The true believer will kill or die to demonstrate their full submission to their belief.

"Submission," that is a familiar word these days.

Say, let's just get along

This photo of happy Moslems in London reminds me of a scene from the new film "Obsession," where a pleasant lad was burning the American flag in a Brooklyn street shouting, using a megaphone I think, that free speech was the "loophole" by which America can be destroyed. [Don't look for it at your local Moore Gore theater.]

He's got that right.

The theory is, as a great NY judge once put it, that the "marketplace of ideas" in our system works because when we, the people, hear all sides of arguments we learn critical thinking and take responsibility for our own decisions. Its a good theory, but it relies on honest brokering of information and a school system that encourages critical thinking.

Boy, are we in trouble.

I think it was the same judge who said, as I look back on the photo above: "Consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds." So is inconsistency.

One more photo to cheer you up:

Return of the Geni - Iraq

Sure I have been busy, but the truth is I lost track of my blog, the password, my old computer, my lunch, so even a simple blog became part of the great roar of the noise failed projects in the back of my mind. Today I took a few minutes, found myself, tossed a molded lunch, and saw that Google has Gobbled Blogger, which makes life much easier, as I use gmail and docs.

I seem to recall my mission was to offer information contrary to the consensus opinion and its supporting propoganda. Don't assume, by the way, that I am a proponent of what I report. Look at the arguments, not the messenger. This loss of the ability to do this in the US is a ominous omen. We better get back to logic or will shimmer away into the fanciful places we have read about, like France.

One of my favorite sources of news in lieu of the filters and blinders at the NY Times, CBS, CBC, etc is Xinhua news service. Your first reaction may be - But that is the official news service of China, which is sort of communist! [The headline is a link to Xinhua.]

True, but, you see, Xinhua is honest about what it is, unlike many in Western media, and, oddly enough the articles appear to actually report events. It is tough to spin the reportage of actual events, except by not reporting them if they don't present all the news that fits. So, amidst reports of the big ASEAN Conference in Sourth Korea (bet you haven't seen this in the NYT) was reportage on President Bush's new plan to subdue violence in Iraq, which our media likes to wail about to an almost unprecedented level. [I think the left once again seriously misjudges the electorate and assumes the last election was about "Get out of Viet Nam".}

It seems like the EU, England, Turkey, Australia et al are delighted by the additional 21,000 new troops. Huh? Isnt' the entire world against the anti-Christ Bush? Doesn't Europe dismiss America? Isn't he a dumb ass who 100% of the time picks the wrong option? Isn't the sky falling?

In the interest of professional journalism, an elective at Columbia, there are those, according to Xinhua, who oppose the plan: Pelosi, Kennedy, Russia, Iran. You can tell a person by the company he or she keeps.

Oh, Sweden has said something or other, which Xinghua reports, obviously having trouble with translating Swedish: "In Stockholm, Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt said on Thursday that the United States lacks the political dimensions needed to solve the conflict in Iraq."

There you go, the word from Sweden: "He said that the increase may well help with security problems around Baghdad, but it is also important to tackle challenges like the inclusion of different groups in the political process, distribution of oil wealth and getting Iraq's neighbors to play a part in stabilizing the country." Now, lets turn to page 28 and sing Kum Bia.

Xinghua: "Also on Thursday, Romanian Prime Minister Calin Popescu-Tariceanu said that maintaining the troops of the international coalition in Iraq cannot be a solution for the war-torn country...I will prefer a political to a military solution," said Tariceanu in Alexandria.

There's an idea.

I have to go now and find Romania on the map. I think its near Transylvania.