More slurs from realclimate.org

12 Mar 2008

More slurs from realclimate.org

By shaviv 38 Comments

Blog topic:

cosmic rays, global warming, personal research, weather & climate

Realclimate.org continues with its same line of attack. Wishfulclimate.org writers try again and again to concoct what appears to be deep critiques against skeptic arguments, but end up doing a very shallow job. All in the name of saving the world. How gallant of them.

A recap. According to realclimate.org, everything my "skeptic" friends and I say about the effect of cosmic rays and climate is wrong. In particular, all the evidence summarized in the box below is, well, a figment in the wild imagination of my colleagues and I. The truth is that the many arguments trying to discredit this evidence simply don't hold water. The main motivation of these attacks is simply to oppose the theory which would remove the gist out of the arguments of the greenhouse gas global warming protagonists. Since there is no evidence which proves that 20^th century warming is human in origin, the only logically possible way to convict humanity is to prove that there is no alternative explanation to the warming (e.g., see here). My motivation (as is the motivation of my serious colleagues) is simply to do the science as good as I can.

A brief summary of the evidence for a cosmic ray climate link.

Svensmark (1998) finds that there is a clear correlation between cosmic rays and cloud cover. Since the time he first discovered it, the correlation continued as it should (Svensmark, 2007). Here is all the other evidence which demonstrates that the observed solar/cloud cover correlation is based upon a real physical link.

1) Empirical Solar / CRF / Cloud Cover correlation: In principle, correlations between CRF variations and climate does not necessarily prove causality. However, the correlations include telltale signatures of the CRF-climate link, thus pointing to a causal link. In particular, the cloud cover variations exhibit the same 22-year asymmetry that the CRF has, but no other solar activity proxy (Fichtner et al., 2006 and refs. therein). Second, the cloud cover variations have the same latitudinal dependence as the CRF variations (Usoskin et al. 2004). Third, daily variations in the CRF, and which are mostly independent of the large scale activity in the sun appear to correlated with cloud variations as well (Harrison and Stephenson, 2006).

2) CRF variations unrelated to solar activity: In addition to solar induced modulations, the CRF also has solar-independent sources of variability. In particular, Shaviv (2002, 2003a) has shown that long term CRF variations arising from passages through the galactic spiral arms correlate with the almost periodic appearance of ice-age epochs on Earth. On longer time scales, the star formation rate in the Milky Way appears to correlate with glacial activity on Earth (Shaviv, 2003a), while on shorter time scale, there is some correlation between Earth magnetic field variations (which too modulate the CRF) and climate variability (Christl et al. 2004).

3) Experimental Results: Different experimental results (Harrison and Aplin, 2001, Eichkorn et al., 2003, Svensmark et al. 2007) demonstrate that the increase of atmospheric charge increases the formation of small condensation nuclei, thus indicating that atmospheric charge can play an important role (and bottleneck) in the formation of new cloud condensation nuclei.

4) Additional Evidence: Two additional results reveal consistency with the link. Yu (2002), carried out a theoretical analysis and demonstrated that the largest effect is expected on the low altitude clouds (as is observed). Shaviv (2005) empirically derived Earth's climate sensitivity through comparison between the radiative forcing and the actual temperature variations. It was found that if the CRF/cloud cover forcing is included, the half dozen different time scales which otherwise give inconsistent climate sensitivities, suddenly all align with the same relatively low climate sensitivity, of 0.35±0.09°K/(W/m²).

A Summary of why the attacks on the CRF/climate link are toothless

1. The CRF / cloud cover link breaks down after 1994 (e.g., Farrar 2000). This supposed discrepancy arises because of a cross-satellite calibration problem in 1994. The problem is evident when considering for example the high altitude cloud data, which exhibits a jump larger than the variability before or after 1994. When the calibration problem is rectified, the significant CRF / cloud correlation continues unhindered (Marsh & Svensmark, 2003).

2. Large variations Earth’s magnetic field (for example, the Laschamp event and alike) should manifest themselves as climate variations. Their absence contradicts the CRF/cloud-cover link (e.g., Wagner et al. 2001). In principle, terrestrial magnetic field variations should indeed give rise to a temperature change, however, when the effect is quantified, the expected global temperature variations are found to be only of order 1°C (Shaviv 2005). This should be compared with the typically 5°C observed over the relevant time scales, of 10⁴-10⁵ yr. In other words, it is not trivial to find the CRF/climate signatures as is often presumed, but signatures do exist (e.g., Christl et al. 2004).

3. The Cloud cover data over the US (Udelhofen & Cess, 2001) or the cloud data following the Chernobyl accident (Sloan & Wolfendale 2007) does not exhibit variations expected from the CRF/cloud-cover link. These expectations rest on the assumption that the CRF climate link should operate relatively uniformly over the globe. However, the lower troposphere over land is filled with naturally occurring CCNs, such as dust particles. Thus, one would expect the link to operate primarily in the clean marine environments.

4. The secular solar activity is now decreasing, but the temperature is increasing. Hence, solar activity cannot be responsible for the recent temperature increase (Lockwood 2007). Indeed, the last solar cycle was weaker, and the associated CRF decrease was smaller. However, this argument assumes that there must be an instantaneous relation between solar activity and climate. In reality, the large heat capacity of the oceans acts as a “low pass filter” which releases previously absorbed heat. Moreover, heat absorbed over longer durations penetrates deeper into the oceans and thus requires longer durations to leave the system. This implies that some of the temperature increase is due to a previous “commitment”. In any case, some of the warming over the 20th century is certainly human. So having some human contribution does not invalidate a large solar forcing.

5. The work of Shaviv & Veizer (2003) was proven wrong. The work of Shaviv & Veizer attracted two published criticisms (Royer et al. 2004 and Rahmstorf et al. 2004). The first was a real scientific critic, where it was argued that the 18O/16O based temperature reconstructions (of Veizer et al. 2000) has an unaccounted systematic error, due to ocean pH, and hence the atmospheric pCO2 level. Shaviv (2005) considered this effect and showed that instead of an upper limit to the effect of CO2 doubling, of 1°C, Earth's sensitivity increases to 1-1.5°C, but the basic conclusion that CRF appears to be the dominant climate driver remains valid (as later independently confirmed by Wallman 2004). Rahmstorf et al. 2004 published a comment stating that almost all Veizer and I did was wrong. We showed in our response why every comment is irrelevant or invalid. In their response to the rebuttal, Rahmstorf et al. did not address any of our rebuttal comments (I presume because they could not). Instead, they used faulty statistics to demonstrate that our results are statistically insignificant. (Basically, they used Bartlett's formula for the effective number of degrees of freedom in a limit where the original derivation breaks down).

Anyway, the last slur says that my astronomical analysis is wrong. Well, I've got news. The argument raised by Jahnke and Benestad is irrelevant. It has two grave flaws to it.

First, the Milky way is not a typical two spiraled armed galaxy. It has four spiral arms. You can see them in a CO doppler map here. (Well, at least 3 arms separated by 90°. And unless the Milky Way is an amputee, a 4^th should be behind the center of the galaxy). J & B also failed to tell their readers that all the 5 galaxies in the work they cited have a very dominant 2 armed structure. I wonder why they kept this detail to themselves. Thus, the conclusions of Kranz et al. 2003, as interesting as they are, are simply not applicable for the Milky Way.

Fig. 1: The Co-Rotation radii for the 5 galaxies analyzed by Kranz et al. 2003.

Second point. Spirial arms can exist between the inner and outer Lindblad resonances (e.g., the galactic dynamics bible of Binney and Tremaine). If you force the 4 armed pattern to have a co-rotation radius near us (as J & S do), it will imply that the outer extent of the 4-armed pattern should be at roughly r_out ~ 11 kpc. However, the patten is seen to extend out to about twice the solar-galactic radius (Shaviv, 2003 and references therein). Clearly, this would counter our theoretical understanding of spiral density waves.

Thus, B & J were wrong in their claims. Nevertheless, it turns out that surprisingly, they were not totally incorrect. Sounds strange? Well, it appear that the Milky Way has at least two independent sets of spiral arms, with two different pattern speeds. One is the above four spiral arms, which we traverse every 145 Myr on average. The second set is probably a two armed set which has a co-rotation radius near us (and hence we pass through it very rarely). This can be seen by carrying out a birth-place analysis of open clusters, as Naoz and Shaviv (2006) did. This result explains why over the years, different researchers tended to find two different pattern speeds, or evidence that we're located near the co-rotation radius. We are, but not for the 4-armed spiral structure which we pass every 145 Myrs on average!

Incidentally, this is not the first time Jahnke tried to discredit my results. The previous time was when he unsuccessfully tried to debunk my meteoritic analysis. I wonder if this time was too prompted by a request from Stefan Rahmstorf.

To summarize, using the final paragraph of Jahnke and Benestad, we can say that

Remarkably, the poor scientific basis of the attacks against the galactic cosmic ray hypothesis seems to be inversely related to the amount of media backing it is getting tenacity of the devout global warming protagonists At least 3 documentaries ('The Climate Conflict', the 'Global Warming Swindle', and now 'The Cloud Mystery') have been shown on television – all with a strong thrust of wanting to cast doubt on the human causes of global warming possibility that natural climate drivers may have been important to 20^th century temperature change.

References

- Christl M. et al., J. Atmos. Sol.-Terr. Phys., 66, 313, 2004
- Eichkorn, S., et al., Geophys. Res. Lett., 29, 44, 2003
- Farrar, P. D., Clim. Change, 47, 7, 2000
- Fichtner, H., K. Scherer, & B. Heber, Atmos. Chem. Phys. Discuss., 6, 10811, 2006
- Lockwood, M., & C. Fröhlich, Proc. R. Soc. A doi:10.1098/ rspa.2007.1880; 2007
- Harrison, R. G., and K. L. Aplin, Atmospheric condensation nuclei formation and high energy radiation, J. Atmos. Terr. Phys., 63, 1811–1819, 2001.
- Harrison, R. G. and Stepehnson, D. B., Proc. Roy. Soc. A., doi:10.1098/rspa.2005.1628, 2005
- Marsh, N., and H. Svensmark, J. Geophys. Res., 108, 4195, 2003
- Naoz, S. and N. J. Shaviv, New Astronomy 12, 410, 2007
- Rahmstorf, S. et al., Eos, Trans. AGU, 85(4), 38, 41, 2004. And the rebuttals
- Royer, D. L. et al., GSA Today, 14(3), 4, 2004. And the rebuttals
- Shaviv, N. J., New Astron., 8, 39–77, 2003a.
- Shaviv, N. J., J. Geophys. Res.-Space, 108 (A12), 1437, 2003b
- Shaviv, N. J., J. Geophys. Res., 110, A08105, 2005
- Shaviv, N. J., and J. Veizer, GSA Today, 13(7), 4, 2003
- Sloan, T., and A. W. Wolfendale, in Proceedings of the ICRC 2007 (also arXiv:0706.4294 [astro-ph])
- Udelhofen, P. M., and R. D. Cess, Geophys. Res. Lett., 28, 2617, 2001
- Usoskin, I. G., N. Marsh, G. A. Kovaltsov, K. Mursula and O. G. Gladysheva, Geophys. Res. Lett., 31, L16109, 2004
- Shaviv, N. J., and J. Veizer, GSA Today, 13(7), 4, 2003
- Svensmark, H., Phys. Rev. Lett, 81, 5027, 1998
- Svensmark, H., Astron. Geophys., 58, 1.19-1.24., 2007
- Veizer, J., Y. Godderis, and L. M. Francois, Nature, 408, 698, 2000
- Wagner et al., J. Geophys. Res., 106, 3381, 2001
- Wallman, K., Geochem. Geophys. Geosys, 5, Q06004, 2004
- Yu, F., J. Geophy. Res., 107(A7), 10.1029/2001JA000248, 2002.

shaviv's blog

Comments (38)

Anonymous (not verified)
I genuinely think you've got a decent hypothesis here, and I think that you may have rebuffed Benestad's and Janhke's arguments regarding the 145 My cycle, but non of this shows that CRF could have had any influence on the climate beyond the 11 year solar cycle in recent times. I am still to see any convincing evidence available from measurement groups or in the literature which shows that CRF has changed to the required extent that would explain any of the climatic changes seen in the last 35 years. Given the lack of this basic correlation it seems very difficult to make bold claims regarding CRF's influence on the current climate warming episode. I know that you've cited the ocean lagging effect as an explanation for this, but there are several problems with this argument: it is at odds with the current understanding of ocean lags and the oceans are still warming. Surely if the effect of added heat from decreased CRF fluxes had been removed we would see a halt in the temperature rise in the oceans and land temperatures would remain constant or continue to rise for a short while. With the warming CRF gone the oceans have nothing to heat them; the atmosphere doesn't have the heat capacity to retain heat long enough to cause the oceans to warm after the added heat source has been removed; and neither are the oceans like a kettle with a heating element that remains warm after the power is turned off. So, why would the oceans continue to warm in the absence of the warming CRF effect? The ocean temperatures have been rising consistently throughout the last 35 years.

I'm all in favour of trying to explain paleoclimate with this hypothesis. I really think it is a nice idea, but there seems a constant refusal to acknowledge the point I have raised regarding the trends in CRF fluxes since the 70s.

Mar 12, 2008

Mark (not verified)
I've also been troubled by the lack of correlation between rising temperatures and changes in CRF. However one has to realize there are many factors in play here. For one thing the ocean on average is cold! I believe if I'm not mistaken that its average temperature is under 4 degrees so it will tend to continue to warm up on an ongoing basis regardless of what the CRs are doing at any given time. We then have the impact of changes in ocean currents such as the PDO which could account for much of the jump in temperatures over the last 30 years. The reality is that after volcanic factors are taken into account, there has been little or no warming of the surface temperature since the late 70's when the PDO had a major shift. There are indications that the PDO may now be experiencing a shift the other way. The next couple of years will be telling! Likelihood is that ocean currents, solar factors, aerosols/volcanoes and maybe even CO2 are all factors in what has happened to the climate over the past century. Won't be easy untangling the mess but a swing in the PDO could go a long way in trying to figure the puzzle out.

Mar 13, 2008

shaviv
Dear anonymous,

Unlike the devout climatologists of realclimate.org, who deny the any natural effect, I will be the last to claim that solar-activity explains everything. In fact, my best estimate for climate sensitivity implies that anthropogenic radiative forcing explain about 1/3 of the 20th century warming, in particular over the past few decades. So, when you consider that only the last solar cycle was weaker, the fact that some of the warming is anthropogenic, that the oceans have a finite heat capacity, etc, there is no real discrepancy. A student of mine is in the midst of showing this rigorously.

As for your particular question. It is not unreasonable that you can have a decreasing radiative forcing with an increasing ocean temperature, in fact, you see it every year. Between the end of June and August, the solar radiative forcing is decreasing (over the northern hemisphere), however, the ocean temperature is increasing. (Here in Israel, the Mediterranean can reach 30°C, at the end of August). The reason is that even after the solar irradiance started to decrease (i.e., during July), the ocean is still cooler than the equilibrium temperature it should have with the lowered yet still high forcing. So the ocean continues to heat. The heating stops only after the ocean heated enough and the forcing decreased enough such that the heated ocean reached an equilibrium with the decreased irradiance. Beyond August, the irradiance decreases enough for the ocean to be warmer than the equilibrium and it starts cooling.

Similarly, even if solar forcing was the only one affecting 20th century temperature change (and it isn't), then the fact that the last solar cycle was weaker than the previous two, doesn't imply that the ocean should have started cooling immediately. The oceans cannot cool until solar activity (+ the other forcings) would decrease to below the average forcing over the latter half of the 20th century. If it ever happens (it might not because of the anthropogenic contributions).

Mar 13, 2008

aaron
Currents may also move the heat to places where it is not measured. I believe this is part of what leads to low surface temperatures such as we are experiencing now with la nina. The warm waters are pushed into localized areas and below the surface. The warmth returns to the surface during el nino.

To try to simplify what Nir said: Just because solar irradience is lower than the last cycle wouldn't mean cooling, it would mean slower warming since the activity is still higher than normal. The slower warming could also be washed out by heat already in the system, but not yet measured.

aaron

Mar 13, 2008

Steve (not verified)
Dr. Shaviv:
I've read through most of your comments at RealClimate and begun the process of trying to understand the linkage. I must admit, I had to go over your work several times before I began to understand the linkage. As I understand it, it is only the very high energy "galatic" radiation which is believed to be the climate driver, and that increased solar activity sweeps this radiation away from the earth.
I have read that in the relatively past there have been extended periods where it is believed that the earth had no sunspots (I'm not sure I understand the evidence for this, but It is supposedly solid). During such periods would you expect the earth to have been subject to much higher levels of the high energy radiation? Are these time periods without sunspots defined well enough for you to determine if there was an affect on the earths climate?
It is my understanding that the sun is presently directly between solar cycles and solar activity has diminished considerably. Is there evidence that the earth is experiencing higher levels of high energy radiation right now? Is there a means to compare the present degree of ocean cloud coverage with that of just a few years ago when solar activity was greater?
Thanks,
Steve

Mar 14, 2008

AJ (not verified)
You state "and the oceans are still warming"

No they are not. In fact that are slightly cooling over the last four years. Look here:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=88520025

In fact, it seems that the AGW guys are scrambling to find some new bogus man made explanation for their data...it the data doesn't support our claims we'll tweak the data!

Mar 19, 2008

aaron
Very nice. You are too kind to them.

It's unfortunate that the posters on realclimate are uninterested in finding out what is really happening. If they were, they could have written a much better piece in less time by contacting you first.

Being that you were such a presence in their writing, I'd expect that to have been the first thing they did.

aaron

I was just thinking about a way you may further evaluate CRF-cooling affects. By looking at periods of high and low flux during different seasons, you might be able to get a better picture of what's happening. My thinking is that during winter the earth is closer to the sun and the SH has more ocean recieving direct sunlight and less land mass in general, so high energy CRF anomalies should have a greater impact on global temps. Sea surface temps should respond very quickly to clear skies during low CRF periods.

Mar 12, 2008

Anonymous (not verified)
I really don't even read their stuff anymore. It's one guy making up one strawman and red herring after another followed by 350 posts of back-slapping and high-fives. Sad, really.

Nir, you are among a handful of scientists really thinking outside the box on this. Keep it up.

Mar 13, 2008

shaviv
I am not sure that you're suggestion is possible. Even if the ellipticity of Earth's orbit was large, the otherwise large asymmetries between the winter and summer, northern hemisphere and southern, etc. would make it virtually impossible to single out a CRF effect this way.

Mar 13, 2008

aaron
I understand your points that there probably isn't enough data to draw any real conclusions and the that differences in solar flux through the disc of the earth over a year probably aren't very large, but I thought a quick look might provide some insights.

I'm not sure if I made myself clear or that I fully understand your reply though.

My idea was to take advantage of the differences in the northern and southern hemisphere. I was thinking that the more immediate cloud CRF effects would likely be amplified during the SH summer. I thought if you look at cloud cover, CRF, and temps during just those months, you might see a more clear relationship.

aaron

Mar 14, 2008

lgl (not verified)
Interesting point. The temp anomaly usually peaks early in the year, about the same time the low level could cover reaches minimum. http://isccp.giss.nasa.gov/climanal7.html
Less GCR because the earth is closer to the sun could explain that. What is the "established" explanation of the timing of cloud cover minimum?

Mar 15, 2008

shaviv
I don't know how affecting the low altitude clouds will affect the stratosphere. If there is any effect, it is going to be an indirect one.

Mar 13, 2008

Tom Moriarty (not verified)
If Jahnke was indeed prompted by Stefan Rahmstof to discredit your results, then maybe Jahnke should try taking a close look at some of Rahmstorf's own work.

Please see the the critique of Rahmstorf's "A Semi-Empirical Approach to Projecting Future Sea-Level Rise” from Science, January 9th, 2007 at

http://climatesanity.wordpress.com/critique-of-a-semi-empirical-approach-to-projecting-future-sea-level-rise-by-rahmstorf/

Links at the bottom of this page go to subsequent posts that show:

1) Rahmstorf presents sea level rise rate vs. temperature in a way that deceptively implies that it is well fit to a line.

2) Rahmstorf's assumption that the time required to arrive at the new equilibrium is “on the order or millennia” is not borne out by his own data.

3)Rahmstorf hypothesizes gigantic sea level rise in the 21st century by preposterously extrapolating out more than five times the measured temperature domain of his data.

Please be advised that the page referred to above is recently imported from another location (tom-moriarty@blogspot.com) and is under construction, so it may be a little bumpy.

Lubos, thank you for the always interesting blog.

Tom Moriarty
ClimateSanity.wordpress.com

Mar 14, 2008

shaviv
I think the best example for why extrapolations can be dangerous is the London manure problem. In 1894, the Times of London estimated that by 1950 every street in the city would be buried nine feet deep in horse manure.

Anyway, if a paper appeared in Science, it must be correct, mustn't it?

-- Nir

p.s. Lubos always has interesting blog entries, but why are you thanking him here?

Mar 14, 2008

Tom Moriarty (not verified)
Nir,

Sorry. That was a consequence of cutting and pasting.
Let me formally thank you also, Nir, I do enjoy your work.

Tom
http://climatesanity.wordpress.com/critique-of-a-semi-empirical-approach-to-projecting-future-sea-level-rise-by-rahmstorf/

Mar 14, 2008

Rasmus (not verified)
You are wrong about the motivation about our critisism, Shaviv; we are primarily interested in doing good sicence. We want to unravel the facts behind climate variability. In science, one challenge other views if one finds them strange or not credible. This is what we habve done. You make claims based on your own subjective belief og based on far-fetched speculations. The fact is that the claim that the recent global warming is due to GCR is not supported be any real evidence; there is no credible trend in the solar activity or GCR in the last ~50 years.

Mar 14, 2008

Sylvain (not verified)
Rasmus you state that the motivation behind your criticism is in the interest of good science.

Could you answer some of the following question:

Why does Realclimate.org edit comments from other known scientist: Roger Pielke jr, Steve McIntire, Nir Shaviv, etc all have had some trouble with that. It is understandable that layman comments that are either false or do nothing to advance the debate may be deleted. But to edit other fellow scientist comment is simply dishonest and lead people to believe that you are not interested by good science but only by your personnal agenda, whatever it is (from the outside it looks to be the same as Al Gore).

Why are you affraid to link to other blog like climateaudit.org for example (I must admit that I was very surprised that you posted the link to this blog, must have been an over sight) while promoting laymen's blog that have nothing scientific like Coby Beck's, how to talk to a skeptics.

Why do you keep defending Micheal Mann's work even though it is flawed to the point that it should be considered fraud.

Mar 14, 2008

shaviv
Perhaps you're right. But if so, then it means you should have the integrity to add at the end of your post (and not buried in the discussion below), an addendum saying that this particular critique turned out to be wrong, as Kranz et al. is not applicable to the Milky Way. I for my part would add a similar addendum to my response, specifying that my comments about motives was wrong.

Second, over all, there was a large increase in the solar activity over the 20th century, even if you discard the Yakutsk data (used in the Ahluwalia plot), and this increase explains a large fraction of the 20th century temperature increase if the CRF/climate link is real. As for the temperature increase over the 1990's, see my response above. Some of the warming is due to the fact that although there was a decrease in the indirect solar forcing over the last cycle, it is still notably above the current forcing/temperature equilibrium (and therefore causes warming), and of course, some of the warming is anthropogenic.

-- Nir

p.s. Sylvain. I personally never had my comments on realclimate edited per se, though I did notice from the time stamps of other posts that mine took longer than they should to get approved and then when the guys I debated with couldn't address my comments, simply cut the debate.

Mar 14, 2008

Barth (not verified)
Nir,

You are misquoting (or deliberately ridiculing?) realclimate’s position when stating that they deny any natural effect (third comment/response). I’ve read multiple times on realclimate that climate change is a response to a mixture of forcings, both natural and anthropogenic. Your characterization of their motives does not add anything to proper debate; rather it seems to serve the needs of the “skeptic’s” followers to question and ridicule climate scientists’ motives.

In one reply you say that you (amongst others) had your comments edited; in your next reply you say that your comments were never edited. Rather you noticed some juggling with the timing of some of your comments. Hey, that’s funny, I noticed the same here: you appear to post some (critical) comments with a substantial delay (a day or more), and then it appears simultaneously with your response. That’s an effective way of enticing other readers to immediately digest your response, lowering the chance of them thinking for themselves about what the outside poster had written. But you know what? That’s your perogative. This is your blog, and it is not a formal scientific venue such as a conference or a journal. You set the rules in your own house, and others play by your rules when in your house. But accusing others of what you do yourself as well (be it a very minor issue anyway) is a bit petty.

So too can realclimate’s contributors chose which websites they provide links to. I am not surprised that they prefer to link to a non climate scientist’s blog that they feel represents the science properly (eg Coby Beck) than to a non climate scientist’s blog that they feel does not represent the science properly and fairly (eg Steve McIntyre). They do provide links to blogs that put forward different viewpoints than their own (eg Roger Pielke Sr and Jr), provided they feel the scientific quality and integrity is up to par. Of course I’m just guessing as to their motives here (but it’s probably a better guess than yours, or at least a more respectful one).

Regarding Michael Mann: Many newer temperature reconstructions arrived at pretty much the same result as Mann et al did. Moreover, McIntyre and McKitrick’s critique contained a very basic flaw in their application of principal component analysis (PCA): they retained too few components, thereby causing the result to deviate from the underlying data (which resemble the shape of a hockey-stick). Tamino.wordpress.com has an informative series on PCA.

There are accusations that some of the cosmic ray - sun - climate studies are flawed to the point of being fraud that have in my opinion stronger arguments behind them than your claim regarding Mann et al. By this I personally don’t mean to accuse you or anybody else of fraud; I am quite willing to give you the benefit of the doubt that you are sincerely in search of the truth. But for your claims regarding recent climate change to be correct (e.g. it being caused predominantly by cosmic rays, and low climate sensitivity), you would have to push a whole lot of observations, evidence and basic physics aside. Perhaps not impossible, but not very likely to be true either.

Advancement in science these days occurs mainly by small increments, from the efforts of many over a long time. Sudden paradigm shifts, that completely overturn current thinking, were probably more common in the times when a religiously influenced worldview was slowly being replaced by a scientific worldview than now. Any new theory will still have to be consistent with the existing evidence, observations and basic physics. Of course it does not have to be consistent with the existing philosophy or worldview. Good luck.

Mar 14, 2008

Barth (not verified)
I mistakenly took both replies to (and entitled) Rasmus as coming from Nir Shaviv. As such my comment is a reply to both Shaviv and Sylvain, and I was mistaken in stating that Shaviv said two different things regarding his comments being edited at RC. My apologies.

Mar 14, 2008

shaviv
After I submitted the reply just below, I saw your new one waiting for approval and then I realized that you were mistaking Sylvain for myself. I on my part, thought I was starting to get senile, because I really didn't remember myself accusing realclimate of editing MY comments!

Mar 14, 2008

Örgü Dantel (not verified)
Back to some science. So what you are saying is that 1950s-present solar and CRF forcing has been consistently higher than 1850 levels and therefore much of the warming since the 1950s is due to the lag effect. Without any numbers your suggestion is certainly plausible. I am going to see detailed numbers relating to the heat flow into and out of the oceans in order to verify that explanation. This is going to be very difficult in the absence of a CRF forcing. Do you have a proposed figure for the CRF forcing since 1850? Without these numbers it is very difficult to place any great certainty on your hypothesis; do you agree? This is what you need to do if you are going to start convincing the wider community.

Jun 12, 2010

aaron
Barth, if you register an account, your comments will appear much faster.

Rasmus, while I realize I shouldn't purport to know what realclimate's motivations are, I feel justified is speculating that they are not entirely honest. As I stated before, especially with the tenor and focus on Nir, realclimate should have contacted him before posting it. It may have made for a much better post. Nir seems to me very amenable and interested in exploring the weaknesses of his hypothesis. It seems likely to me that if you did so, you could have ended up with a much more concrete criticism and avoided some of your more specious suppositions (the suposed inadequacy of iron metorite samples and the application of priciples of 2 arm spirals to a more complicated 4). A more balanced consideration would have at least lended credibility to your criticism.

I also realize that it's not practical to always think of or pursue such approaches [always trying to be so considerate would result in an inability to focus and get much done], but it may be something to consider in the future. It doesn't hurt to ask.

aaron

Mar 14, 2008

shaviv
Please validate your allegations before writing them.

First, I never said that my posts where edited by realclimate. Check to see who did so. Moreover, if I didn't care about being accurate, I wouldn't have made the point to correct Sylvain, but I did.

Second, I cannot allow for unregistered users to post unmoderated posts. This way I'll get too many Viagra links. This means that either you register as I user, and then I approve you, or, you will have to wait until I can approve the comments. Like most homo sapiens, I have to sleep at night. Mind you, I live in GMT+2hrs, so, some people might post posts which I cannot approve until the morning, or until I have time again to visit my site, during the evening. I NEVER wait with approving a legitimate posts, even those I don't like. The only occasions a post has to wait longer than a day is when I am traveling.

Anyway, this last accusation of procrastinating with approving the posts and then approving them with a reply is EXACTLY what realclimate.org does. In fact, realclimate.org writers did not even try to hide it. They approved my posts with the response in separate color as part of the same comment. See comments #37, #49, #54, #57, #125 here

As for other allegations, I never complained about realclimate not linking other sites. Why should I complain about something I really don't expect them, given their agenda?

As for your comments about Michael Mann, I never made any comment about his work. Enough other people did. We even had once a very pleasant conversation while happening to sit by each other on a flight. It is not in my habit to attack people who did not attack me or my work personally. Jahnke and Benestad did, so they got this post.

Anyway, to the best of my knowledge no idea I support contradicts known observations.

Have a nice weekend.

-- Nir

Mar 14, 2008

Sylvain (not verified)
I want to present my apologies to Prof. Shaviv.

Sorry, if my comments somehow splat on you. It wasn't my intent.

Mar 14, 2008

Andrew (not verified)
"misrepresents" the science, it might not be worth bothering, by McIntyre has responded to Tamino's criticisms on several posts on his blog recently. For instance:
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=2841
You can find the rest, if you desire. But some of your statements have the air of an almost religious belief in what Realclimate says. Just becuase they see someone as misrepresenting the science certainly doesn't make it so. But if you start out believing they are right and can't be wrong, well, there is no convincing you.

Regard observations and basic physics which must be "pushed aside" I'd be curious which "observations" you mean. Clarify? Again, I suspect this is merely religious belief

Mar 18, 2008

Polentario
Just as a side remark: Its completely wrong to believe that paradigm shifts in science are a thing of a premodern past. It has not only been Newton and Einstein overturning old concepts. Life sciences and geology have seen much more overturns in past decades and in the last century, from plate tectonics till genetics. What I like about Nirs and Veizers thesis, that is able to explain the whole historical evidence, starting from some billion years ago till today. For a geologist, its very convincing when a concept prevails over geological times. The CR hypothesis is able to explain basic premodern shifts, CO2 fails already in the ice ages. To come back to the "religios claim" i think the monk Occam and his razor is much more in favour of Nirs comparable simple and generic thesis - while the whole bunch of Modelers need highly complicated assumptions. The modelers involve more mystery and need more "true belief" than CR. Best regards

Jul 18, 2009

Avfuktare Krypg... (not verified)
In the light of very strong evidence that GCR affects cloudiness, how can you still stand by climate models that assume cloudiness change only as a response to warming and cooling? Even if you think that Shaviv and others are wrong about the magnitude of the effect then at least you should admit that your own models are wrong as they don't allow any room at all for non-feedback effects on cloudiness (I am refering to the AOGCMs supported by IPCC and realclimate).

http://www.cosis.net/abstracts/EGU06/07661/EGU06-J-07661.pdf

Mar 25, 2008

Paolo M. (not verified)
In the first comment by Anonymous it is said that "the oceans are still warming".
To my knowledge, upper oceans are failing to warm at least since 2004, go to Pielke Sr's weblog for reference.
I think that the lack of extra heat in the climate system in the last few years must be taken into account.

Mar 14, 2008

Andrew (not verified)
They aren't really warming at the moment. In fact, at depth, they appear to have cooled since the 90's. I can't give a direct reference, but this reply to the L&F paper by Svenmark and Friis Christiansen features some graphs which illustrate this:
http://www.spacecenter.dk/publications/scientific-report-series/Scient_No._3.pdf/view

Mar 17, 2008

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