The Sun Controls the Earth's Climate

The source of more or less energy for the Earth is the Sun. The output of UV radiation is particularly variable for the Sun with variations of 0.5 to 0.8%. This UV radiation affects the ozone concentrations in the atmosphere, the energy deposited in the upper atmosphere, and the winds in the upper atmosphere. It affects the amount of sulfur moved from the oceans into the atmosphere, which then affects lower atmosphere cloud cover, which then reflects light back into space. Overall, the energy from the Sun measured by satellites since 1979 has varied by 0.22%. The high to the low energy output were separated by only 7 years. This difference causes a surface temperature difference of at least 0.45 degree C, according to Ian Plimer. He also says the urban warming effect was 0.1 degree C for a total warming of 0.55 degree C. This is about equal to the late 20th Century temperature increase. This was an irradiance variation of about 0.53 Watts/meter squared.

Since most of this period has been one of relatively high solar activity and output, there is reason to believe that longer term measurements will show much larger variations in solar output. If the Sun's irradiance were to be only about 1 to 1.5 Watts/meter squared less than now, we would experience conditions equivalent to the very cold Maunder Minimum of the Little Ice Age. The 23rd Sun cycle was very short, being 10.0 years long rather than the average of 11.1 years, and resulted in a large decrease in solar irradiance. The quiet sunspot Cycle 24 has started and by September 2008 there were 200 consecutive days without sunspots. The very cold Dalton Minimum of the early 1800s was the last time something like this happened. Some astronomers believe that temperatures will start falling due to solar inactivity between 2012 to 2015 and reach a minimum in solar energy in 2040. This will result in the Earth being very cold around the period of 2055 - 2060.

If the temperature of the Earth is primarily due to the Sun's activities, then the other planets should be similarly affected. They are. In 1998, the Hubble telescope discovered that Triton, the moon of Neptune, had warmed since 1989 when a space probe visited it. Measurements on Pluto showed its temperature to have risen 2 degrees C. The Hubble telescope also measured a 1 degree C increase in the temperature of Jupiter in 2006. Mars has been found to have had a temperature increase of 0.65 degrees C between the 1970s and the 1990s, which is very close the 0.7 degree C increase in temperature on Earth in the last century.

Ian Plimer makes a very good case that the Earth's temperature responds primarily to changes in the activity of our Sun. The IPCC computer models greatly underestimate the effects of the Sun and greatly overestimate the effects of CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere. I again strongly recommend Ian Plimer's book Heaven and Earth.

Clouds, Aerosols, and Cosmic Rays

I am reading the fascinating book Heaven and Earth global warming the missing science by Ian Plimer. Here are a few fascinating statements, minus the many footnotes:

Clouds reflect 60% of the Sun's radiation. A change of just 1% in cloudiness of planet Earth could account for all of the 20th Century warming. However, IPCC computers don't do clouds. Fine particles in the atmosphere are the nuclei for condensation of water vapour into the water droplets that form low-level clouds.

It is the low-level clouds that have the greatest cooling effect.

Sulphuric acid aerosols formed from dimethyl sulphide released from micro-organisms in the oceans affect low-level cloud formation over a very large area because the oceans cover 70% of the Earth's surface. Dimethyl sulphide reacts with water and sunlight to produce sulphuric acid droplets. This reaction is accelerated by lightning in a process called ion seeding. Sea spray provides very small grains of sodium chloride from storm waves, especially in winter at latitudes 40 - 60 [degrees]. Sporadic volcanic eruptions, hot gas vents and hot springs release large amounts of sulphurous gases into the atmosphere. Various sulphur gases in the atmosphere combine with water and form sulphuric acid droplets. These droplets are also the nuclei for low-level cloud formation.

Apparently, man is not the primary source of sulfuric acid in the atmosphere! Who would have thought, given all the environmentalist noise on this subject over the years? There are good reasons for man to clean up the sulfur emissions from smokestacks and we have done a good job of that in the developed countries, by and large. But it is good to know that much of the sulfuric acid in the atmosphere has natural origins.

Not long ago, James Hanson complained on several occasions that the "one thing" that they did not really know about global warming was the effect of aerosols. This one thing is a huge thing. It seems likely to me that as the oceans warm, the micro-organisms that create dimethyl sulfide [being American, I conserve my letters and favor brevity in spelling] will fluorish and produce more of it. So, if we were to suppose that man's CO2 emissions caused warming then the warmed oceans would produce more micro-organisms and these would produce more dimethyl sulfide, resulting in more sulfuric acid droplets, and then more cloud cover. In other words, the earth's response to increased CO2 would be a negative feedback in which CO2 warming would be offset by more cloud cover. Recent studies have at least shown a negative feedback, though I do not know that it is due to the effect I am hypothesizing. The UN IPCC computer models not only do not do clouds, but they almost always assume a positive feedback to warming caused by CO2 emissions, which exaggerate the degree of warming.

The other elephant in the room that the IPCC computer models ignore is the effects of solar radiation variations and activity, which also change the flux of cosmic rays reaching the Earth's atmosphere. These cosmic rays cause ions to form which nucleate clouds. Ian Plimer notes:

The correlation between the Earth's magnetic field and rainfall in the tropics can only be explained if cosmic rays have an influence on the formation of clouds.

The observed variation of 3 - 4% of global cloud cover during Solar Cycle 22 was strongly correlated with the cosmic ray flux. This, in turn, is related to solar activity and the Earth's magnetic field. The weaker the solar activity, the more cosmic rays strike the Earth and the more abundant is cloud cover in the lower atmosphere. The effect is greater at high latitudes because of the shielding effect on the Earth's magnetic field on high-energy charged particles. We must also be mindful of the fact that the Earth's magnetic field constantly changes.

Again, I am commenting. The Earth's magnetic field lines deflect cosmic rays better where they more nearly parallel the Earth's surface. Where they descend to intersect the Earth's surface, cosmic rays can more readily follow magnetic flux lines to enter the atmosphere. This is why higher latitudes both North and South, are more irradiated by the cosmic rays. The changes in the Earth's magnetic field will also change the boundary of those latitudes most affected by the cosmic rays.

I strongly suspect that little is known about the effect of the Earth's changing magnetic field interacting with the Sun's changing magnetic field to create major flows of energy in the Earth's core. There must be great variations in the temperatures of molten materials and the heat flow from them to the Earth's crust. Those same heat vents in the ocean floors that yield sulfur also provide some heating of the oceans. When a strong Earth magnetic field interacts with a strong Sun magnetic field, one would expect that a greater stirring of the Earth's molten core will result. This in turn should mean hotter materials coming into contact with the Earth's crust and added heat being dumped into it. Because the crust is thinnest in the oceans, the heating effect will more immediate and greatest there. Such effects may also have impact on plate tectonics and contribute to the frictional energy generated as plates grind against one another. Frankly, I would not be surprised if such unknown effects are as important as the effect of likely further additions of CO2 to the atmosphere.

In light of the known temperature history of the world, the hypothesis that man-made emissions of CO2 were causing a catastrophic rise of temperatures should have had a very high burden of proof imposed on it. When it came to be understood that the past increases in CO2 atmospheric concentrations followed the temperature rise of the oceans, that hypothesis should have been seen to be in great trouble. When it was further observed that the temperature profile with altitude in the atmosphere was terribly wrong in the IPCC computer models, the hypothesis should have been kaput. But worst of all, the critical nature of cloud cover is apparent to any Earthling. How on Earth could the UN IPCC make such a big deal of their CO2 concentration computer models and future climate scenarios, when they could not begin to understand cloud cover?

The answer is that they had an agenda more important than science. Their agenda was always to do whatever it took to gain world power as the primary world government.