It does seem as if the AGW establishment are preparing the ground for admitting that the sun is perhaps critical for climate.
The New Scientist runs an editorial today grudgingly admitting that “The sun’s activity has a place in climate science”.
FOR many years, any mention of the sun’s influence on climate has been greeted with suspicion.
People who believe human activity has no effect on the climate staked a claim on the sun’s role, declaring it responsible for the long-term warming trend in global temperatures. Climate scientists were often uneasy about discussing it, fearful that any concession would be misunderstood by the public and seen as an admission that climate sceptics are right.
No one has ever denied that the sun has an effect on climate. But the consensus view has always been that variations in the sun’s activity, such as the 11-year sunspot cycle, have insignificant effects. While this remains true, the latest findings show that the sun might be significant on a more regional scale. It seems changes in solar activity can have consequences ranging from higher rainfall in the tropics to extreme weather events in the north.
Mighty sun
But then they go out of their way in this article (see “The sun joins the climate club”) to denigrate the sun.
THE idea that changes in the sun’s activity can influence the climate is making a comeback, after years of scientific vilification, thanks to major advances in our understanding of the atmosphere.
The findings do not suggest – as climate sceptics frequently do – that we can blame the rise of global temperatures since the early 20th century on the sun. “There are extravagant claims for the effects of the sun on global climate,” says Giles Harrison, an atmospheric physicist at the University of Reading, UK. “They are not supported.”
Where solar effects may play a role is in influencing regional weather patterns over the coming decades. Predictions on these scales of time and space are crucial for nations seeking to prepare for the future.
Over the famous 11-year solar cycle, the sun’s brightness varies by just 0.1 per cent. This was seen as too small a change to impinge on the global climate system, so solar effects have generally been left out of climate models. However, the latest research has changed this view, and the next report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), due in 2013, will include solar effects in its models.
But the sun does not much care (Beware the Icarus Syndrome) I think for the scientific establishment and will continue to do its own thing.
The k2p blog 