Solar Minimum and Copenhagen

Honest people change their position when the data that stare them in the face are contrary to what they previously thought. Dishonest people don’t. They only make totally different interpretations of existing data.

Image source: http://www.friendsofscience.org/assets/documents/FOS%20Essay/GlobalTroposphereTemperaturesAverage.jpg

Above is a chart comparing global temperature and carbon dioxide (CO2) levels in the atmosphere over the past 30 years, latest figure is August 2009. Temperature is from satellite data, UAH and RSS, measured at the troposphere, 8 kms. from the surface of the Earth. Data is from Mauna Loa, Hawaii.

The above chart shows one glaring fact: Global cooling continues despite increases in CO2 concentration in the atmosphere. From January 2002 to August 2009, the best-fit line shows cooling of 0.24 C, whereas CO2 concentration is now close to 390 parts per million (ppm), from only 285 ppm at the start of the Industrial Revolution two centuries ago, and around 385 ppm just about two years ago. But even at 390 or even 400 ppm, this ratio is still very small, only 0.04 percent of total gases in the atmosphere.

This year, it has been mostly cloudy and often raining. Like the first 12 days of this month. There were two typhoons (local names “Labuyo” and “Maring”) that entered the Philippine area of responsibility this month. Although they did not make any landfall, both typhoons dumped lots of rain in Luzon, Metro Manila and almost the entire country, causing heavy flooding and landslides in many areas, and causing several casualties.

Meanwhile, the Sun continues its deep solar minimum. In 2007, 44 percent of all (365) days have zero sunspots. Last year, it rose to 73 percent and this year, from January 01 to September 10, 80 percent of all days have zero sunspots. Some solar physicists and other scientists are even asking if sunspots will disappear in the next few years.

Sunspot activities are indicator of the strength, or weakness, of the Sun’s magnetic field. Weak solar magnetic field results in few or zero sunspots and weak solar wind, etc. Now there are plenty of galactic cosmic rays coming from exploding stars that travel in the universe, some of which reach our planet’s atmosphere. Such cosmic rays help catalyze the formation of low-lying clouds. When there are more of them in the atmosphere, more low-lying clouds are formed. And there are more of them when solar magnetic field and solar wind is weak to push the cosmic rays away. When there are plenty of low-lying clouds in the sky, (a) direct sunlight is blocked from reaching the Earth’s surface and is reflected back to the outer space, and (b) more rains are falling, resulting in global cooling.

At solar maximum, solar wind would be traveling at around 600,000+ kms per second. With the current prolonged solar minimum, solar wind speed is only around 300,000 to 400,000 kms per second. According to one Australian scientist, Dr. David Archibald (www.davidarchibald.info), there is a lag of 1 year from sunspot activities to the formation of low lying clouds. A deep solar minimum became more pronounced from August to December last year. Many scientists including those from NASA thought that solar cycle 23 (one cycle would average 11 years to finish then move to another cycle) was already over, so that by January this year, solar cycle 24 was suppose to have started. They expected an uptick of solar activity. The reverse happened, the deep solar minimum continues up to these days.

So the current frequent cloudy skies – despite the fact that an El Nino is occurring this year – could be explained by the weak solar magnetic field late last year. And since the deep solar minimum continues up to this year, then we can expect that cloudy skies, frequent rains and colder climate will extend up to next year, and the coming decades. It has been the behavior of the Sun that in a solar cycle with deep and prolonged minimum sunspot activities, the next two cycles (ie, solar cycle 24 and 25, corresponding to 2.5 decades) will also be weak. And so, global cooling is expected to last for the next 2 to 3 decades.

Meanwhile, many governments around the world and the UN are busy with almost bi-monthly expensive global meetings in preparation for the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UN FCCC) meeting in Copenhagen, Denmark, this coming December. The goal of such big meetings is for various governments to plan and sign a new global climate deal that will succeed the Kyoto Protocol which will expire in 2011 or 2012. They just held a meeting in Bonn, Germany last month. Their next meetings will be in Bangkok, Thailand, this coming September 28 to October 9, and another meeting in Barcelona, Spain, on November 2 to 6, before they move to Copenhagen in December for the penultimate meeting.

The main goal of those frequent and expensive global meetings, is for “climate negotiators” of those governments and the UN to curtail as much carbon dioxide emission into the atmosphere as this gas is believed to be the main cause of what they call as “man-made (or anthropogenic) global warming.”
These government and UN negotiators believe that there is already a "consensus", that “scientific debate is over”, as signified by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports, so that politics and politicians will now take over to curb as much carbon emission as possible to “save” the planet. For the UN IPCC and global politicians, our Sun is a static and non-changing star whose job is only to give sunlight during daytime.

It is the non-recognition of natural factors – the Sun’s magnetic field and sunspot activities, volcanic eruptions and geologic changes, the ocean – as the main drivers of the Earth’s climate that betrays the evil design of those governments, the UN and the various environmentalist groups. Their grand design is to create and tighten more environmental regulations, to enact new carbon taxes, and to impose ecological protectionism. In short, to arrogate more political power into their hands, to collect more money for them and their favored corporations and banks which are engaged in carbon offsets and carbon trading.

Since there is no scientific consensus yet as more scientific data and studies that discredit the man-made warming theory of the UN IPCC and various governments come up, then those expensive global meetings and the forthcoming Copenhagen meeting, should be scrapped. They are unnecessary and only prolong the big scam that they themselves have invented.

The pre-defined political agenda of governments and the UN – to regulate and ration energy sources, to collect more climate-related taxes, to play God to "save" the planet – becomes more indefensible with each passing days and months. They cannot regulate the Sun's magnetic field, they cannot regulate the cosmic rays that come from outside the solar system, so they have to trivialize and de-emphasize the role of those natural factors. There's no money and additional political power for them if they accept that the Sun is main driver of the planet's climate, whether warming or cooling.

Let's have clean air, clean water, clean environment, fine. Regulate lead, mercury, soot, carbon monoxide, methane, CFC, etc., only for their own sake, and not say to "save the planet" because the planet is never in danger.
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Last week, I wrote this:

3 months before Copenhagen, panic continues

A friend referred me to this climate alarmism news report,
http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSN02547411

It says how the Arctic ice is slowly melting because of global warming.

With the Copenhagen meeting just 3 months away, all the panic is setting in.
Bureaucrats need hundreds of billions of $ of carbon tax, like Obama's cap and trade energy bill worth around $7.5 trillion from 2012-2030, or around $317B/year on federal carbon taxes alone, on top of existing environmental taxes, on top of carbon taxes by various states like California; hundreds of billions of $ in carbon cap and trade (was $128 B in 2008, from private corporations alone in EU and Japan), of several billion $ of subsidies to wind farms, solar farms, etc.

Lie if they must, demonize a useful gas CO2 (the gas that we humans exhale, the gas that plants and crops need) if they must, scare the world as much as possible, so they will get the carbon regulation that they need. Goldman Sachs and many other big banks are too happy to join the bandwagon because they are among the biggest bank-traders of carbon trading.

Several years ago, the world had tech bubble burst. Recently, we had housing bubble burst. And soon, a carbon bubble burst. Another financial disaster in waiting. A non-commodity like the gas that we exhale is now a commodity that is traded in billions of $, that will be taxed by governments by the trillions of $.

Here's one simple but clear paper written by a chemist,'
http://tech-know.eu/uploads/Open_letter_to_Gordon_Brown.pdf

His paper has a short discussion about the Sun-climate link, and why CO2 hardly affects global climate. And if it does, it's for a useful purpose -- helping more plant growth, more agricultural productivity, more trees, more flowers.

Warming Hysteria: Sunspots and Politics

"Astronomers: 'Sun's output may decline significantly inducing another little ice age on the Earth'
'Maunder Minimum will arrive in time to save planet from utterly foolish global carbon tax'"

That's the headline by Marc Morano,
http://climatedepot.com/a/2452/Astronomers-Suns-output-may-decline-significantly-inducing-another-little-ice-age-on-the-Earth

Marc quoted a number of solar physicists (Dr. William Livingston, Dr. Matthew Penn, Dr. Cornelius de Jager, etc.) who declared that

"regardless of the relation to the sunspot cycles, magnetic intensity in sunspots is decreasing and if this continues in the same way as it has for the last 15 years, the Sun will be devoid of sunspots in five years time: overall the Sun's energetic output will decline significantly inducing another little ice age on the Earth."

This is another significant scientific finding. There is too much science about the Sun, and even the cosmic rays coming from outside our solar system, that the public and policy makers especially, should consider and understand. Over-reliance in blaming carbon emission is too simplistic. There is heavy politics and rent-seeking in carbon regulations like carbon tax, carbon cap and trade, carbon offset, etc.

But as sure as the Sun rising tomorrow and everyday after, the truth about the Sun-climate link will come out.

When that time comes, I really wish that the United Nations, the mother of all climate alarmism bureaucracies in the planet, will be significantly defanged. I also wish that many of its agencies and programs be abolished. All they do is paint all the scariest projections about the planet and its inhabitants, in exchange for more tax money, more political and regulatory powers, and more expensive global meetings.
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As of August 13, NASA’s http://spaceweather.com/ has this tally in number of sunspot-less (i.e., zero sunspot) days:

Current Stretch: 34 days
2009 total: 176 days (78 percent)
Since 2004: 687 days
Typical Solar Min: 485 days

Since 01 January 2009 up to August 13, 176 out of 225 days or 78 percent of all days have zero sunspot. This is very significant. In terms of percentage of days with not a single sunspot, this year is already in the top three since 1849. If current slumber of the sun will continue for the rest of the year, we should be hitting 80 to 85 percent of zero sunspot days.

Over the past 160 years, the top five years with highest sunspot-less days were:

1. 1913, 311 days, 85 percent
2. 1901, 284 days, 78 percent
3. 1878, 278 days, 76 percent
4. 2008, 266 days, 73 percent
5. 1912, 253 days, 69 percent

Why is a prolonged stretch of zero sunspot important?

Long number of few or zero sunspot days means (a) weak solar magnetic field, weak solar wind, (b) more galactic cosmic rays enter the solar system including the Earth, weak solar wind to push them away, (c) more low-lying clouds are enhanced and formed, lots of sunlight are blocked, and (d) global cooling results. Such cooling has nothing or very little to do with CO2 concentration in the atmosphere.

There are a number of proofs for the current global cooling. For instance, July 2009 was the coldest July or 2nd coldest July on record for at least 10 states in the US, see “July’s climate: chilly USA, torrid globe.”

Here in the Philippines, cloudy skies have been the norm since last year up to the present, which is consistent with the above-mentioned causation between few sunspots and low-lying clouds. The summer months of March-April-May this year were sidestepped by the prolonged “cold front” that started in late 2008 to April this year. The rainy season came 1 ½ month earlier, in mid-April, instead of the usual July. A number of farms planted to “summer crops” like tomato, onions and water melon were destroyed because of such early onset of the rains.

For the first half of August this year, two typhoons (local names “Jolina” and “Kiko”, international name of the latter was “Morakot”) pummeled the northern part of the country. Morakot killed at least 22 people in the Philippines despite not hitting a landfall, while it killed several hundred people in Taiwan. Too much rainfall eroded mountainsides that were previously thought to be stable, causing widespread landslides.

Meanwhile, the UN IPCC is preparing to produce its 5th Assessment Report (AR5) and the UN FCCC is busy conducting various global meetings prior to the big meeting in Copenhagen this coming December for a “post-Kyoto Protocol” agreements to drastically cut global emission of the “evil” gas, carbon dioxide (CO2).

Until the IPCC and many governments later demonized CO2 as an evil gas that causes global warming, this gas is known in the biological sciences as a very useful gas. It is the gas that we humans exhale, that our pets and farm animals exhale, and it is the gas that our vegetables, fruits, flowers and trees need when they produce their own food via photosynthesis. It is actually plant food.

Now the useful gas is pictured as evil that must be drastically reduced globally. Can environmental bureaucrats and politicians do it? Yes, they think they can. That is why they invented the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UN FCCC), Kyoto Protocol, the various expensive global meetings to succeed Kyoto, and the various “anti-climate change” bureaucracies in so many governments, both national and local.

Their grand design is plain environmental regulation. They forget or they deliberately overlook the Sun, inter-planetary orbit around the sun, galactic cosmic rays, volcanoes, the ocean, and other natural causes. For them, only the evil CO2 matters.

Why is this so? Political science, not climate science, provides the answer. Environmental bureaucrats, politicians and their militant environmentalist group backers cannot regulate the Sun and its solar wind. They cannot regulate cosmic rays that come from outside the solar system. They cannot regulate volcanoes and ocean that contribute to emission and/or depository of certain greenhouse gases. But they can regulate carbon emission. So they play the global hero by demonizing this gas and reducing their emission, by regulating and curtailing human economic activities that emit this “evil”.

I believe that we should deal with soot, methane, CFC, lead, carbon monoxide, particulates, mercury, etc. These harmful chemicals and gases have both short-term and long-term negative effects on human health. We should have clean air, clean water, clean environment, mainly for their own sake. But not to "save" the planet because the planet is never in danger.

Because of the successful demonization of CO2 by the UN, many governments and the big environmentalist groups, a non-commodity like the gas that we exhale suddenly becomes a multi-billion dollar commodity.

The carbon cap and trade system was worth US$63 billion in 2007 and US$128 billion in 2008. That was cap and trade among private corporations alone in the EU and Japan. Not included there are corporations in the US, Canada, Australia, China, Brazil, India, Korea, etc. because some or all of them were either not signatory to the Kyoto Protocol yet, or were not covered by the deep carbon emission cut. Also not included are carbon taxes imposed by various governments. In the US for instance, the Waxman-Markey cap and trade bill is estimated to bring home about US$5.7 trillion in the US federal coffer from 2012 to 2030, or US$317 billion/year in federal carbon taxes alone. These are plain carbon rent-seeking.

The trend in the current prolonged solar cycle 23 points to an even weaker solar cycles 24 and 25 (others say that we are in solar cycle 24 already), according to some known astrophysicists, geologists and meteorologists. This points to the Earth entering a little ice age period similar to what happened during the Dalton Minimum (two centuries ago) or the even cooler and longer Maundeer Minimum (three centuries ago). When this happens, people in the rich world will soon be praying for more gases that can help warm the planet. When those temperate countries in the north will have snow from November to June and only four to five months of no-snow, I am sure they will be praying for more carbon emission, if CO2 indeed causes global warming.

Among the useful websites to see the Sun-climate link and other hard sciences are:

http://wattsupwiththat.com/ by David Watts
http://www.icecap.us/ by Joe D’Aleo
http://climatedepot.com/ by Marc Morano
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/ by Bob Ferguson, Willie Soon and Lord Moncton
http://www.weatheraction.com/ by Piers Corbyn
http://www.davidarchibald.info/ by David Archibald

There are many other sites actually that discuss the hard science of various external factors that influence the global climate. The above list is just among my favorite sites. Some sites, they just watch the current solar cycle, monitoring sunspots, magnetic field and the ap index. If one will compare the scientific rigor and research of those sites, and compare them with UN IPCC and climate alarmists’ sites, one will easily see the difference of how limited the scope of research of the latter.
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Defeat of carbon cap and trade bill in Australian Senate

Yesterday, the Australian Senate voted 42-30 junking the carbon cap and trade bill. It is still reverberating in many countries around the world, especially those that have similar legislative proposals to regulate and reduce the "evil" gas, CO2.

Partly a product of unlikely alliance between the Greens (wanted deeper carbon cuts) and the realists (no cuts). It's like James Hansen of NASA, among the top global warming alarmists today, rejecting the Waxman-Markey cap and trade bill (despite having won in the lower House) because it's not making deep cuts enough.

Sometimes the rabid Greens and alarmists become too irrational that they defy even minor compromise, and worse, they defy hard science. The Sun, cosmic rays, geological changes (like volcanic eruption), the ocean, other natural factors are insignificant for them. Only the "evil" CO2 is significant for them, and the need to regulate it. And that's where Statist greed comes in.

Meanwhile, I hope that the US Senate will reject the W-M cap and trade bill. Obama and the Dems are having a hard time selling their health reform agenda, they got very little time to further scare the public and have it passed in the Senate.

Trivia: one thing i notice, the US legislators think they are encuclopedia readers.
The Waxman-Market bill is almost 1,400 pages long.
The current health care reform bill is 1,000+ pages long.

there should be some logic behind this, something like:
if you can't persuade them with terse and straight logic, confuse them.

Below is one of several news reports.
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http://www.reuters.com/article/newsMaps/idUSTRE57C0FL20090813

CANBERRA (Reuters) - Australia's carbon trading laws were defeated in parliament's upper house Senate on Thursday, leaving the government's plan to curb greenhouse-gas emissions in disarray and raising speculation of an early snap election.

Climate Change Minister Penny Wong said the government would submit the package of 11 bills to the Senate a second time before year-end. Thursday's vote was defeated by 42 to 30, meaning the government needs seven more votes to get the plan through.

Warming Hysteria: Sunspotless Days, Cooling and Bureaucracy

Since January 1, 2009 up to August 11, 174 out of 223 days or 78 percent of all days have zero sunspot. That’s very significant. Since 1849 or over the past 160 years, the top 5 years with highest sunspotless days were:

1. 1913, 311 days, 85%
2. 1901, 284 days, 78%
3. 1878, 278 days, 76%
4. 2008, 266 days, 73%
5. 1912, 253 days, 69%

Long number of zero sunspot days means (a) less solar magnetic field, less solar wind, (b) more cosmic rays enter the solar system including the Earth, weak solar wind to push them away, (c) more low-lying clouds are formed, lots of sunlight are blocked, and (d) global cooling results. Such cooling has nothing or very little to do with CO2 concentration in the atmosphere.

There are a number of proof for the current global cooling. For instance, July 2009 was the coldest July or 2nd coldest July on record for at least 10 states in the US, see here, “July’s climate: chilly USA, torrid globe”, http://www.usatoday.com/weather/climate/2009-08-10-july-climate-report_N.htm.

Here in the Philippines, cloudy skies have been the norm since almost the start of the year. The summer months of March-April-May were sidestepped by the prolonged “cold front” that started in late 2008 to April this year. The rainy season came 1 ½ month earlier, in mid-April, instead of the usual July. A number of farms planted to “summer crops” like tomato, onions and water melon were destroyed because of such early onset of the rains.

Meanwhile, the UN IPCC is preparing to produce its 5th Assessment Report (AR5) and the UN FCCC is busy conducting various global meetings prior to the big meeting in Copenhagen this coming December for a “post-Kyoto Protocol” agreements to drastically cut global emission of the “evil” gas, carbon dioxide (CO2).

Until the IPCC and many governments later demonized CO2 as an evil gas, this gas is known in the biological sciences as a very useful gas. It’s the gas that we humans exhale, that our pets and farm animals exhale, and it’s the gas that our vegetables, fruits, flowers and trees need when they produce their own food via photosynthesis. It’s actually plant food.

Now the useful gas is pictured as evil that must be drastically reduced globally. Can environmental bureaucrats and politicians do it? Yes, they think they can. That’s why they invented the Kyoto Protocol, the UN FCCC, the various “anti-climate change” bureaucracies in so many governments, both national and local. And because their grand design is plain environmental regulations, they forget or they overlook the Sun, long-term planetary (changing) orbit around the sun, the cosmic rays, the ocean, and other natural causes. For them, only the evil CO2 matters. And they play the global hero by reducing and demonizing this gas and human economic activities that emit this “evil”.

Since more objective scientists (physicists, geologists, meteorologists, etc.) say that the IPCC was lying, and more scientific data – like more sunspotless days – come out to confirm their statement, who’s the real evil now?

Meanwhile, Is Bjorn Lomborg Switching Tack?

There was a news report that was posted by my friend here in Manila, saying that Bjorn Lomborg has "switched" tack on climate change. Mr. Lomborg was quoted as saying, "tackling sources of climate change other than carbon dioxide, such as methane and soot; investing in new tech nologies; adapting to the effects of climate change..."

Personally I have no problem with Bjorn's proposal. Deal with soot, methane, CFC, lead, carbon monoxide, particulates, mercury, etc. Good, we should do that.

Water vapor comprises about 95% of all greenhouse gases (GHGs) in the atmosphere.
Methane, CFC, etc. comprise another 3-4 percent, and CO2 comprises just 1%.

We should have clean air, clean water, clean environment, mainly for their own sake.
Not to "save" the planet because the planet is never in danger.

My beef is when the UN through the IPCC and FCCC, many governments and the big environmentalist groups just focus on CO2, this is wrong. There is a carbon cap and trade system, it was worth $63 billion in 2007, $128 billion in 2008, and that was cap and trade among private corporations alone in the EU and Japan. Not included there are corporations in the US, canada, Australia, China, Brazil, India, Korea, etc. because some or all of them were either not signatory to the Kyoto Protocol yet, or were not covered by the deep carbon emission cut. Also not included are carbon taxes imposed by various governments. This is plain carbon rent-seeking. A non-commodity like the gas that we human exhale suddenly becomes a multi-billion dollar commodity?

As the Earth enters a little ice age period like what happened during the Dalton Minimum (2 centuries ago) or the even cooler and longer Maundeer Minimum (3 centuries ago), the rich world will soon be praying for more gases that can help warm the planet. When those rich countries will have snow from November to June and only 4 to 5 months of no-snow, I am sure they will be praying for more carbon emission, if CO2 indeed causes global warming.

Below is the news report.
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Sceptic switches tack
By Fiona Harvey in London
Financial Times
Published: August 7 2009 00:00


Bjorn Lomborg, an influential figure among climate change sceptics, has thrown his weight behind a drive to forge a global deal to halt rising world temperatures at a summit in Copenhagen this year.


“It’s incredibly important. We need a global deal on the climate,” Mr Lomborg told the Financial Times.


The comments – from the author of the 2001 book The Sceptical Environmentalist and a 2007 follow-up saying climate change was less important than other world problems – are likely to be greeted with dismay by climate change sceptics who have seen him as an ally on the public stage...


Mr Lomborg argues, there are cheaper ways of halting temperature rises.


These include tackling sources of climate change other than carbon dioxide, such as methane and soot; investing in new tech nologies; adapting to the effects of climate change; planting more forests; and weighing up whether emissions cuts are cheaper to do now or later....