If the Sun is causing global warming, explain this to me?

As you can see, the deniers here are adamant about sticking to their debunked conclusions. This, guys, is why you wear that label.

Hotrod:

>>>People should know that the professoritis and pseudospeak you are babbling is coming from sites where the common thread of the scientific input revolves around modeling, simulations, trends, predictions and estimates.

I quote from Jeff:

"how to you come to grips with this real world data?"

>>>what has caused the warming on Mars?

The evidence is not conclusive on whether or not Mars is experiencing any long-term warming spell - there is not good evidence to show that it is warming globally either, for that matter. Mars' climate is largely determined by albedo changes, and there is no discernible secular trend regarding albedo:

http://www.gps.caltech.edu/uploads/File/%E2%80%A6

That being said, the only other two major factors affecting any planet's climate are its own Milankovitch cycles and solar output. The former being local and only applicable to that planet, the latter would be the only one that could be extrapolated as an explanation for trends in other planets. Since however, as Jeff said, we have measured no increase in solar output in the last 30 or so years, solar output has not caused any warming (sic) on Mars. Nor has it been responsible for any of the warming on Earth within the past few decades.

>>> your insistence that your argument can be 'proven' by inane and useless temperature variations which conveniently leave out explanations such as atmospheric circulation variations and the compression which takes place in the hadley cells forcing heated air directly into the upper atmosphere where at this height some of the heat is radiated freely to space (usually in the 20 micron band of the Infra-Red wavelengths) [so on regarding Hadley cells]

Except that Hadley cells do NOT cause a decrease in outgoing longwave radiation in the same section of the spectrum that CO2 absorbs best at. You just wasted whole paragraphs explaining something that is COMPLETELY irrelevant to the question at hand. If there has also been any long-term change in Hadley cell functionality, can you perhaps counter the conclusions reached by these papers that it's the result of abnormal temperature increases and not solar variation (which I repeat has not increased)?

http://www.springerlink.com/content/m02p1241641660...

http://www.atmos.washington.edu/~qfu/Publications/...

>>>But what Jeff M should be studying is the past and the calculations of the Milankovich mechanism.The last 200,000 years which we know from ice core samples, and the very predictable next 60,000 years.

Milankovitch cycles vary on very large time scales and cannot explain the warming trend we are seeing now, which has occurred only within a few decades.

>>>It is ridiculous in the extreme to base the future of the climate on just the past 1,000 years as Jeff seems to want.

Are you daft? Almost every single conclusion rests upon knowledge of past variability and what deviates from natural trends. This is NOT in accordance with natural variability.

>>>We are at the end of our present interglacial and our temperature pattern can only head one way - down.

And yet they're heading up. Why is that Hotrod?

Edit:

Ottawa Mike brings up a good point in that the article you link to is outdated by about a decade. Here:

http://acd.ucar.edu/~randel/SPARC_revised.pdf

"An update of observed stratospheric temperature trends"

JOURNAL OF GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH, VOL. 114, D02107, 21 PP., 2009

doi:10.1029/2008JD010421

(Randel et al)

They too conclude that the stratosphere has been cooling because of human emissions of CO2 (in part, at least - the co-explanation is ozone depletion). However, temperatures have remained more or less level in the past decade. They do also discuss the temperature trends in the layers of the atmosphere above the stratosphere and conclude they are cooling too, but I have not looked through the paper enough yet to tell you which data set, if they have taken measurements for that, represents that conclusion.

Yes Dana, a very good point. Of course, exactly the same argument can be made against CO2, which started to rise quickly in the 1940s, just as temperatures started falling and is currently rising as fast as ever, while temperatures have currently stopped rising. And where do you get this 0.55⁰C rise over the last 30 years from? I’ve just checked and I get values from as low as +0.37⁰C (UAH) to as high as +0.48⁰C (GISS, predictably). So you appear to be inflating the figure somewhere from 15% - 50%. Finally, your last comment (at time of posting) regarding the temps being flat since the late 1990s is another example of your disingenuous nature. Clearly Didier is selecting hot 1998 to make his claim, so you can argue Didier has cherry-picked all you like. But you don’t, you go and do exactly the same thing by cherry-picking the dodgy GISS dataset to disprove him. As you are well aware, all other dataset *do* show cooling since 1998. So, this is a classic example of the pot calling the kettle black. As ever with Global Warming - don’t believe the hype.

The 'sun' heats the Earth....the atmosphere holds in some heat and allows some to escape. So far so good. The amount that escapes is determined by the amount of CO2 and other gases in the atmosphere. Subtract CO2 and more heat will escape from the part of the planet in darkness. Add CO2 and the dark side will hold more heat. If the sun gets 'really hot', but the CO2 level is under 300ppm we'll mildly heat up....if, as we are now looking at 390ppm of CO2 we'll heat up a lot more. If the sun is putting out energy at a 'normal' level and we have 450ppm of CO2 we're going to heat up rapidly. If the sun is putting out a minimum of energy at 450ppm of CO2 it's still going to get way too warm. Given that burning fossil fuels raises the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere by 12 to 15 parts per million per decade, and given that we're close to 400ppm today we're looking at a rather narrow time frame for heating whether the sun is 'cool', hot or in the middle. The proven physics of the above and the data concerning the rise of CO2 via burning fossil fuel makes me wonder why there's even of a question here. X amount of incoming energy that can't escape will raise the temperature sooner or later. That's the deal...take it or leave it. No Al Gore required!

Your stratosphere reference is way out of date. The stratosphere has been warming recently.

Edit: They do actually mention a possible recovery of ozone but they cannot quantify it. Here is the paper: http://88.167.97.19/albums/files/TMTisFree/Documen...

By the way, this is just one of many. Since there are several datasets from different instruments, there are quite a few different analysis. The main gist I am getting is that the stratosphere has been warming for the last 15 years.

Jeff have you read this recent study that indicates that large changes in the sun's energy output may drive unexpectedly dramatic fluctuations in Earth's outer atmosphere. Results from the study published at the end of Aug 2010 shows that a recent, temporary shrinking of a high atmospheric layer with a sharp drop in the sun's ultraviolet radiation levels.

The research, led by scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colo., and the University of Colorado at Boulder (CU), indicates that the sun's magnetic cycle, which produces differing numbers of sunspots over an approximately 11-year cycle, may vary more than previously thought.

The results, published this week in the American Geophysical Union journal Geophysical Research Letters, are funded by NASA and by the National Science Foundation (NSF), NCAR's sponsor.

"This research makes a compelling case for the need to study the coupled sun-Earth system," says Farzad Kamalabadi, program director in NSF's Division of Atmospheric and Geospace Sciences, "and to illustrate the importance of solar influences on our terrestrial environment with both fundamental scientific implications and societal consequences."

The findings may have implications for orbiting satellites, as well as for the International Space Station.

"Our work demonstrates that the solar cycle not only varies on the typical 11-year time scale, but also can vary from one solar minimum to another," says lead author Stanley Solomon, a scientist at NCAR's High Altitude Observatory. "All solar minima are not equal."

Also this might explain why the we had the mini ice age at the time of the maunder minimum. I know that you desperately want to believe that its all to do with CO2 but please open your mind and act like a scientist!

http://esciencenews.com/articles/2010/08/26/shrink...

If you look at the full history of the Sun it is slowly warming the figure usually given for that is ~10% per billion years (and no deniers, it is a rate far to slow to explain what is happening) although it does neatly show the falsehood of Mockintones comments on CO2 levels half a billion years ago and why the planet was not far warmer. (but then mockingtone is a congenital liar).

The Sun is the Earth primary heat source (nobody has ever said otherwise) but our climate is a result of what our atmosphere does with that energy.

We have planets either side of us that show the extremes, Venus has an atmosphere 100x thicker and it is an oven, Mars has an atmosphere 100x thinners and it is far colder. Without it's natural greenhouse effect earth would be ~30c colder than it is in a bit over a century we have raised one of the gases that cause the greenhouse effect nearly ~40%.

It is laughable to say we are not the reason that CO2 has risen

just as it is laughable to say that the corresponding rise in temp is not linked to that rise. The period of the last three solar cycles is when we have seen the most pronounced and sustained rise in both CO2 and temperature, it is also the period when we have the most detailed data on solar activity, which simply shows the Sun is not causing the warming we are seeing and try to blame volcanoes is also rather silly given our current CO2 emissions are 100x higher (and growing)

The recent solar activity also shows up the phony denier theory that the other planets are warming (they aren't) but then I'm not sure you can explain this sort of thing to someone, like the guy the other day who suggested the poles of Jupiter were melting, he never did answer my comment on how you could even have a pole on a planet with no solid surface.

As I have said before there are unknowns and error bars in the science of climate change and the data, but recent solar data is not one of them we know the Sun is not the cause of the warming seen in the last 30 years. Given this I think deniers are really on the verge of just being straight out liars.

You might be able to say "I don't understand physic's" or " climate science" but the energy figures for the Sun are pretty straight forward they show it can't be the Sun, yet near the top of denial excuses is "it's the Sun" you could not have better evidence that these are deniers, not worthy of the name skeptic.

And as if to prove my point we have hotrod (yet another account created in the last few days (hi jim)) spouting nonsense, If he had bothered to look beyond denier blogs he would have found Mars has dust storms that can cover the entire planet and that this is thought to have changed the albedo (sorry surface brightness) again (and slowly) If it were the Sun all the bodies in the solar system would be warming (they aren't) this is not based on modeling, simulations, trends, predictions or estimates but data taken from instruments that directly monitor the Sun.

The long blather about Hadley cycles sounds like someone who read the wiki page but doesn't really understand what he is talking about. (a common issue for jim)

i.e the Vostok ice core record covers the last 450,000 years not 200,000

(at least you didn't say the poles of Jupiter were melting)

Um, hate to say this, but it is the SUN that provides ALL of the energy for the Earth. Also, the outer atmosphere is what gives off the heat to space. Finally, how come people like you think that 2 wavelengths of absorption is more critical then the 11 wavelengths of water vapor? If you break down the global warming, .4°C of the .6°C increase is due to water vapor. So that pokes a huge argument that it is man made since even the IPCC says that water vapor is mainly natural.

Let me ask you some simpleton's questions.

On a typical August diurnal anomaly, when is it hottest? At noontime when the Sun is directly overhead, or at 4:00 when the heat has had time to build? And why is it exactly opposite in February?

You place a pot of water on the stove, throw in a pinch of salt, and turn the stove up to, say, 700 BTU's, while you chop potatoes. Does the water absorb 700 BTU's and just stay there? Or does it continue to absorb heat till it boils? You only applied 700 BTU's to the water, where did the other 450 BTU's come from?

Why did early man invent gods? To explain that which they could not understand, or to subjugate the masses?

Take your answer to these questions and apply it to your own.

EDIT:

I answered your question with one of my own. Why do thermodynamics seem to behave differently depending on the scale?

Hey Jeff, have looked at some of your so called 'scientific data' and man you are a fake. People should know that the professoritis and pseudospeak you are babbling is coming from sites where the common thread of the scientific input revolves around modeling, simulations, trends, predictions and estimates.

If the sun did not cause recent warming on Earth (caused from within according to you, oh man) what has caused the warming on Mars? Forget your fascination with differing atmospheric layering (which you base on modeling anyway) and get to real science which is known. The problem with this whole debate is, no climate change problem - then little climate change funding! Maybe that affects guys like you, who knows? your insistence that your argument can be 'proven' by inane and useless temperature variations which conveniently leave out explanations such as atmospheric circulation variations and the compression which takes place in the hadley cells forcing heated air directly into the upper atmosphere where at this height some of the heat is radiated freely to space (usually in the 20 micron band of the Infra-Red wavelengths) The sinking air of the Hadley cell at about latitude 30' is dry air losing most of its moisture when clouds condense back at the equator.

The Hadley cell mingles with the neighboring Mid latitude cell then to the polar cell etc till finally the whole global circulation is completed when super dry air from this process is dumped at the poles.

These mixing zones are not fixed in position, are very turbulent and vary greatly according to season. Any wonder temperature variations are constant. But what Jeff M should be studying is the past and the calculations of the Milankovich mechanism.The last 200,000 years which we know from ice core samples, and the very predictable next 60,000 years. It is ridiculous in the extreme to base the future of the climate on just the past 1,000 years as Jeff seems to want. We are at the end of our present interglacial and our temperature pattern can only head one way - down. We are entering a new series of mini ice ages, not a warming phase, this is guaranteed by history. But don't panic yet, our first temperature minimum will be reached in 5,000 years, a bit too late to tell Jeff, 'I told you so' Forget the models mate, I stopped playing with mine in kindergarten.

The planet is warning from within because man is thickening the greenhouse blanket.Antarcti gave a good answer.But your question sure brought out the silly people.