Posts Tagged ‘solar effects on climate’

An inconvenient solar minimum..

June 15, 2011

Solar science and the possibility that a Maunder-like Minimum may be approaching seems to have caught the fancy of the MSM — Al Gore notwithstanding.

  1. The Telegraph New Little Ice Age in store? 
  2. Sydney Morning Herald Quiet sun: drop in solar activity may signal second ‘Little Ice Age’ on Earth
  3. Fox News Global Warming Be Damned, We Might Be Headed for a Mini Ice Age
  4. International Business Times The Sun’s inactivity leading to second Little Ice Age, to Offset Global Warming?
  5. MSNBC Solar forecast hints at a big chill
  6. The Christian Science Monitor A sun with no sun spots? What that could mean for Earth and its climate
  7. Discovery News IS THE SUN ABOUT TO FIZZ OUT?
  8. ABC News Goodnight Sun: Sunspots May Disappear for Years
  9. New Scientist Sluggish sun may ‘sit out’ next solar cycle
  10. Arizona Daily Star Fewer sunspots could help offset global warming
Most of these publications are generally fairly uncritical adherents of whatever seems to be in vogue and have usually been very vocal in supporting the AGW creed. But it is nevertheless interesting to see how they have all picked up this news — as if they are bored with and tired of repeating the same old AGW story-line and are just waiting for a new star to follow.
Perhaps the political tide is turning, ……

Solar effects 6 times greater than assumed by IPCC

May 10, 2011

A new paper by A. I. Shapiro, W. Schmutz, E. Rozanov, M. Schoell, M. Haberreiter, A. V. Shapiro, and S. Nyeki in Astronomy & Astrophysics  – Total Solar Irradiance (TSI) Astronomy & Astrophysics 529, A67 (2011)  shows that

a total and spectral solar irradiance was substantially lower during the Maunder minimum than observed today. The difference is remarkably larger than other estimations published in the recent literature. The magnitude of the solar UV variability, which indirectly affects climate is also found to exceed previous estimates. 

We present a new technique to reconstruct total and spectral solar irradiance over the Holocene. We obtained a large historical solar forcing between the Maunder minimum and the present, as well as a significant increase in solar irradiance in the first half of the twentieth-century. Our value of the historical solar forcing is remarkably larger than other estimations published in the recent literature.

Climate Realists reports:

A recent peer-reviewed paper published in Astronomy & Astrophysics finds that solar activity has increased since the Little Ice Age by far more than previously assumed by the IPCC. The paper finds that the Total Solar Irradiance (TSI) has increased since the end of the Little Ice Age (around 1850) by up to 6 times more than assumed by the IPCC. Thus, much of the global warming observed since 1850 may instead be attributable to the Sun (called “solar forcing”), rather than man-made CO2 as assumed by the IPCC. 

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