Global Warming...New Report...and it ain't happy news

But the pro-AGW crowd doesn't seem to mind at all that the huge majority of that 'consensus of scientists' signing off on AGW are not climatologists either.

But the pro-AGW crowd doesn't seem to mind at all that the huge majority of that 'consensus of scientists' signing off on AGW are not climatologists either.

Foxfyre wrote:

But the pro-AGW crowd doesn't seem to mind at all that the huge majority of that 'consensus of scientists' signing off on AGW are not climatologists either.

That might be or not.

Habibullo Abdussamatov isn't the current head of the St. Petersburg's Pulkovo Astronomical Observatory in Russia nor has he been it nor is he in their (current) staff. At least not according to the official websites (which - I admit to have only looked at in English, but BIL, who's fluent in Russian, did me the favour to look at a couple of Russian sites as well).

He didn't write the article either. Somebody from the National Geographic did. But nobody is jumping on her for shoddy reporting or the slant she put on the story. You're criticizing the credentials of the guy she credits with having an politically incorrect point of view on AGW. Maybe he's the new guy and just isn't on the web yet. I don't know.

I posted it as an example of another source supporting solar influence as a factor in global warming, something the AGW crowd doesn't wish to acknowledge or address at all it seems.

Any human-induced effect on climate will be superimposed on the
background "noise" of natural climate variability, which results
both from internal fluctuations and from external causes such as
solar variability or volcanic eruptions. Detection and attribution
studies attempt to distinguish between anthropogenic and natural
influences.

I see, so we go from "they don't admit it at all" to "they admit it only when forced to."

Meanwhile the solar forcings have been included since the first IPCC report.

This is from the 2nd IPCC report which is online ...

Quote:

Any human-induced effect on climate will be superimposed on the
background "noise" of natural climate variability, which results
both from internal fluctuations and from external causes such as
solar variability or volcanic eruptions. Detection and attribution
studies attempt to distinguish between anthropogenic and natural
influences.

Perhaps someone needs to admit the the solar variability has always been part of the equation.

It's a given that the IPCC is on the record as advocates though even they are modifying and changing their various positions as they must feel they have to as their various theories are discredited or the impetus behind them is weakened. I will not be surprised if they have not shelved this whole discussion in another decade or two when they find some other world crisis they can use to generate funding.

"His views are completely at odds with the mainstream scientific opinion," said Colin Wilson, a planetary physicist at England's Oxford University.

"And they contradict the extensive evidence presented in the most recent IPCC [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] report."

Amato Evan, a climate scientist at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, added that "the idea just isn't supported by the theory or by the observations."

Planets' Wobbles

The conventional theory is that climate changes on Mars can be explained primarily by small alterations in the planet's orbit and tilt, not by changes in the sun.

"Wobbles in the orbit of Mars are the main cause of its climate change in the current era," Oxford's Wilson explained.

All planets experience a few wobbles as they make their journey around the sun. Earth's wobbles are known as Milankovitch cycles and occur on time scales of between 20,000 and 100,000 years.

These fluctuations change the tilt of Earth's axis and its distance from the sun and are thought to be responsible for the waxing and waning of ice ages on Earth.

Mars and Earth wobble in different ways, and most scientists think it is pure coincidence that both planets are between ice ages right now.

"Mars has no [large] moon, which makes its wobbles much larger, and hence the swings in climate are greater too," Wilson said.

No Greenhouse

Perhaps the biggest stumbling block in Abdussamatov's theory is his dismissal of the greenhouse effect, in which atmospheric gases such as carbon dioxide help keep heat trapped near the planet's surface.

He claims that carbon dioxide has only a small influence on Earth's climate and virtually no influence on Mars.

But "without the greenhouse effect there would be very little, if any, life on Earth, since our planet would pretty much be a big ball of ice," said Evan, of the University of Wisconsin.

Most scientists now fear that the massive amount of carbon dioxide humans are pumping into the air will lead to a catastrophic rise in Earth's temperatures, dramatically raising sea levels as glaciers melt and leading to extreme weather worldwide.

Abdussamatov remains contrarian, however, suggesting that the sun holds something quite different in store.

"The solar irradiance began to drop in the 1990s, and a minimum will be reached by approximately 2040," Abdussamatov said. "It will cause a steep cooling of the climate on Earth in 15 to 20 years."

An Open Letter to the Prime Minister of Canada
on Climate Change Science
April 18 2006
The Right Honourable Stephen Harper, P.C., M.P.
Prime Minister of Canada
Ottawa, ON K1A 0A3
Dear Prime Minister:
As climate science leaders from the academic, public and private sectors across
Canada, we wish to convey our views on the current state of knowledge of climate
change and to call upon you to provide national leadership in addressing the issue. The
scientific views we express are shared by the vast majority of the national and
international climate science community.
We concur with the climate science assessment of the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change (IPCC) in 2001, which has also been supported by the Royal Society of
Canada and the national academies of science of all G-8 countries, as well as those of
China, India and Brazil. We endorse the conclusions of the IPCC assessment that
"There is new and stronger evidence that most of the warming observed over the last 50
years is attributable to human activities" and of the 2005 Arctic Climate Impact
Assessment that "Arctic temperatures have risen at almost twice the rate of those in the
rest of the world over the past few decades".
Climate variability and change is a global issue and the international IPCC process for
assessment of climate science, with its rigorous scientific peer review processes, is the
appropriate mechanism for assessing what is known and not known about climate
science. Many Canadian climate scientists are participating in the preparation of the
IPCC Fourth Assessment Report which will be completed in 2007.
The following points emerge from the assessments and ongoing research by respected
Canadian and international researchers:
• There is increasingly unambiguous evidence of changing climate in
Canada and around the world.
• There will be increasing impacts of climate change on Canada's natural
ecosystems and on our socio-economic activities.
• Advances in climate science since the 2001 IPCC Assessment have
provided more evidence supporting the need for action and development of
a strategy for adaptation to projected changes.
• Canada needs a national climate change strategy with continued
investments in research to track the rate and nature of changes,
understand what is happening, to refine projections of changes induced by
anthropogenic release of greenhouse gases and to analyse opportunities
and threats presented by these changes.
We have supplied justification and more detail for each of these points in the
accompanying documentation.
We urge you and your government to develop an effective national strategy to deal with
the many important aspects of climate that will affect both Canada and the rest of the
world in the near future. We believe that sound policy requires good scientific input.
We would be pleased to provide a scientific briefing and further support, clarification and
information at any time.
Yours sincerely:
Signed by 90 Canadian climate science leaders from the academic, public and private
sectors across the country.

A thought here, just what qualifies a person to be a "scientist?" A BS good enough? Or is a Masters or PhD (piled higher and deeper) required? Do you have to actually practice the science degree for a number of years, or does a degreed person still wet behind the ears qualify?