Who saw low solar activity coming and what does it mean to the Earth's Climate?

Does it look like the warming is slowing down or reversing?

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.A.gif

I know you want to believe it is, and are "unconvinced" it isn't, but I don't see how anyone can look at that plot and say "Oh clearly the planet is entering a cooling phase." Well, unless perhaps they have some cognitive bias against the idea that humans are affecting climate. Then I guess you could look at that graph and see anything.

Anyway, the problem with all this is that the change in ground-level solar forcing is only a few tenths of watt per square meter, whereas the forcing from CO2 and other radiative species is at least an order of magnitude larger. So if you're concerned about the small forcing from the sun driving climate, why are you not concerned about the huge forcing from CO2 driving climate? To think a solar forcing is somehow magical and would have more of an effect than the forcing from CO2 despite the latter being ten times larger, is, well, delusional, or a form of "unconvincedness" brought on by not really understanding what is meant by the terms "forcing" and "order of magnitude."

As I've said in the past, argue policy, not science. Aside from disputation from a few wingnut libertarians, the science at this level is well known and you're just looking as silly as the wingnut libertarians by citing them as knowing what they are talking about. In contrast, the policy implications of the science are open for debate, and that is where you should focus your efforts. It may be that nothing should be done because there are no workable policy solutions, but we can't know that until people like you either get out of the way and let us have the discussion concerning policy, or better yet engage in the discussion yourselves. Wingnut obstructionism or participatory democracy. Tough call.

The first I heard of this was some unknown (to me) Russian scientists (don't remember the name) claiming that we were entering a "Maunder Minimum" like condition quite a few years ago. I was skeptical then but perhaps slightly less skeptical now since we have had a period recently with very few sun spots.

I know that the earth doesn't really rotate around the sun. It rotates around a point that is center of mass between the earth and sun but because the sun is so much more massive, that center is probably still within the sun but offset slightly toward the earth. The same can be said of the orbits of other planets. If I understood the point correctly, I don't see how that could change the mechanism of fusion and its convection currents and magnetic storms etc but it would be interesting to me if it did. I wouldn't have thought that as a mechanism for variability. Certainly as the sun wobbles around it changes its distance and therefore we would recieve different amounds of energy.

I don't know much about the sun. I assume it is convection currents "metallic" hydrogen that accounts for its magnetic field that switches every 11 years or so but it is hard to fathom how a giant nuclear fusion plasma ball changes its behavior over time with regularity but apparently it does. I guess I should research it some more but I am pretty sure our knowledge is somewhat limited anyway. But I digress

I just can't see comments like Gavin Schmidt being anything except knee-jerk rejection of anything that might threaten his personal theories and bias. I am skeptical that they know the forcings of variious things as well as they think they do. They seem to go out of their way to discount the total solar irradience, and it is something that we hear alarmists frequently mentioning, yet seldom mentioning other factors of the sun or its possible effects on other forcings.

I too thought the lag was established but it seems when you are knee-jerk in your response, it is easy to overlook inconvenient factors.

Note. Thanks for the links, I will read them.

Second Note: Yes that was the bell I heard.

As I've said before, there is no legitimate climate scientist that believes the role of the sun's output is unimportant. Since we've been in a period of low solar activity but have been seeing temperatures rising for decades it seems pretty reasonable of us to doubt that the sun has been the controlling factor in the recent warming. If we do have an extended period of low solar output then perhaps it will buy us some time to deal with the ongoing problem of anthropogenic greenhouse gases. Whether a decreased solar output would be enough to overcome the increased radiative forcing is just a guess--it's kind of amusing that you put so much stock in these forecasts of solar activity while dismissing the much older and more highly developed field of weather and climate forecasting.

EDIT: You didn't realize that climate models and weather models are connected?

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.A.gif

http://climate.nasa.gov/keyIndicators/index.cfm#gl...

What happened between, the period of 1935 and 1955 ?

( indicating that 1935 was, in fact warmer, than 1955.)

- answer - World War II, 1946/8 to 1945. A period of time, spanning 10 years of hyper man made/caused CO2 production.

An odd synchrony of astronomic proportions or the simple fact that Man Made CO2, can not have the lasting effect, that is so often repeated?

I don't think anyone is dismissing solar forcing. You even pointed out in your question that the rise in temperatures as a result of greenhouse gases has to have less of an effect than the decrease in temperatures due to decreased solar input. As a result of this projected solar minimum what is expected to occur, as was posted in the link in the other question and in your own question, is that the warming will slow. I have not looked into how eruptional activity affects the solar wind though. You've given me something more to look at.

That is incorrect. Cro Magnon humans learned how to make fire and the smoke from their camps melted the glaciers

If you are actually reading all this science literature Mike, you better get off YA right away or you will get no sleep. I am certainly not "convinced" by a long cut and paste with no links to any mainstream news media or science source. I would be interested though, if you (since apparently links are now possible in questions) could supply a link for the AMS statement about "convinced" versus "unconvinced." Otherwise I will be unconvinced that you have not taken any such statement out of context.

EDIT:

The statement of AMS Executive Director,Keith Seitter is obviously a tangent to the main issue here, Mike, but since your questions are less likely to be removed by cheaters than mine, I will take the opportunity (rather than start a new question) to reply further.

1. I am now convinced that you did not take Seitter's recommendation out of context. Thanks for supplying the source.

2. There is more to that statement than the "convinced" and the "unconvinced" terminological recommendation. Anyone wanting to claim Seittner as their semantics guide should also heed these other remarks from that statement:

"I work very hard to avoid saying someone does or does not “believe” in global warming, or similar phrases.)...The sense I have gotten is that those who do not feel that human influence is causing the global temperatures to rise would prefer to be called “skeptics.” However, I have tried to avoid using this term as a label for those individuals. Skepticism is a cornerstone upon which science is built. All of us who have been trained as scientists should be skeptics with respect to all scientific issues."

3. I'm unconvinced Seittner is well-versed in the history of the science. To talk about "opposing views on climate change" as he does is misleading unless one makes clear that, scientifically, the opposing views NOW are on the DETAILS of the science, not the basic two-decades scientific consensus that climate change in our century is real, long term, very potentially quite negative, and mostly human-caused. The only opposing views to this basic scientific reality are lies, deceptions, ignorance, and Lindzen's blind faith in some as yet undiscovered feedback. There are, of course, legitimate differences on what to DO in response to the scientific findings, but that policy debate is clearly NOT what Seittner in this statement (and certainly not what you here and in 99% of your YA posts) are talking about.

4. "Anything else I can help you with?" Yes, actually. It would be a public service if you would disclose:

(a) the source from which you first learned of this AMS Seittner statement. It is in a lightly-quoted blog entry from Feb. 11, so obviously you did not read it there directly four months ago, or you would not be suddenly singing the praises of one of its recommendations only now.

(b) your sources in general. Your posts often feature very arcane technical or rare items from cyberspace. Clearly your're not googling them all directly, some you get through other sources. What are those other sources?

As an example, here are eight of the sources I rely on regularly for reliable information concerning climate change:

NY Times

Economist

Nature

Henson, Rough Guide to Climate Change

Weart, Discovery of Global Warming

Realclimate.org

Skepticalscience.com

Wikipedia