Thanks, Bob.
Someone may have posted this to EnviroNet previously--it's from 2004. If
so, I apologize. It was sent to me from a skeptical friend and deserves
exposure.
The important bottom line from all the fuss and hubub is that there be
constructive results--REGARDLESS OF WHAT REALLY CAUSES GLOBAL WARMING.
And that depends on the operation of the democratic process, together with
a free, competitive market. It also depends on our vigilence to prevent
special interests and demagogy-fostered false paths from distorting the
search for solutions.
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: OT: A Convenient Lie
Date: Sun, 08 Apr 2007 09:29:37 +0100
From: Eeyore <[log in to unmask]>
Organization: Eeyore's gloomy place
Newsgroups: sci.electronics.design
The truth about global warming - it's the Sun that's to blame
By Michael Leidig and Roya Nikkhah
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/07/18/wsun18.xml&sSheet=/news/2004/07/18/ixnewstop.html
Global warming has finally been explained: the Earth is getting hotter
because
the Sun is burning more brightly than at any time during the past 1,000
years,
according to new research.
A study by Swiss and German scientists suggests that increasing
radiation from
the sun is responsible for recent global climate changes.
Dr Sami Solanki, the director of the renowned Max Planck Institute for
Solar
System Research in Gottingen, Germany, who led the research, said: "The
Sun has
been at its strongest over the past 60 years and may now be affecting
global
temperatures.
"The Sun is in a changed state. It is brighter than it was a few hundred
years
ago and this brightening started relatively recently - in the last 100
to 150
years."
Dr Solanki said that the brighter Sun and higher levels of "greenhouse
gases",
such as carbon dioxide, both contributed to the change in the Earth's
temperature but it was impossible to say which had the greater impact.
Average global temperatures have increased by about 0.2 deg Celsius over
the
past 20 years and are widely believed to be responsible for new extremes
in
weather patterns. After pressure from environmentalists, politicians
agreed the
Kyoto Protocol in 1997, promising to limit greenhouse gas emissions
between 2008
and 2012. Britain ratified the protocol in 2002 and said it would cut
emissions
by 12.5 per cent from 1990 levels.
Globally, 1997, 1998 and 2002 were the hottest years since worldwide
weather
records were first collated in 1860.
Most scientists agree that greenhouse gases from fossil fuels have
contributed
to the warming of the planet in the past few decades but have questioned
whether
a brighter Sun is also responsible for rising temperatures.
To determine the Sun's role in global warming, Dr Solanki's research team
measured magnetic zones on the Sun's surface known as sunspots, which are
believed to intensify the Sun's energy output.
The team studied sunspot data going back several hundred years. They
found that
a dearth of sunspots signalled a cold period - which could last up to 50
years -
but that over the past century their numbers had increased as the Earth's
climate grew steadily warmer. The scientists also compared data from ice
samples
collected during an expedition to Greenland in 1991. The most recent
samples
contained the lowest recorded levels of beryllium 10 for more than 1,000
years.
Beryllium 10 is a particle created by cosmic rays that decreases in the
Earth's
atmosphere as the magnetic energy from the Sun increases. Scientists can
currently trace beryllium 10 levels back 1,150 years.
Dr Solanki does not know what is causing the Sun to burn brighter now or
how
long this cycle would last.
He says that the increased solar brightness over the past 20 years has
not been
enough to cause the observed climate changes but believes that the impact
of
more intense sunshine on the ozone layer and on cloud cover could be
affecting
the climate more than the sunlight itself.
Dr Bill Burrows, a climatologist and a member of the Royal Meteorological
Society, welcomed Dr Solanki's research. "While the established view
remains
that the sun cannot be responsible for all the climate changes we have
seen in
the past 50 years or so, this study is certainly significant," he said.
"It shows that there is enough happening on the solar front to merit
further
research. Perhaps we are devoting too many resources to correcting human
effects
on the climate without being sure that we are the major contributor."
Dr David Viner, the senior research scientist at the University of East
Anglia's
climatic research unit, said the research showed that the sun did have
an effect
on global warming.
He added, however, that the study also showed that over the past 20
years the
number of sunspots had remained roughly constant, while the Earth's
temperature
had continued to increase.
This suggested that over the past 20 years, human activities such as the
burning
of fossil fuels and deforestation had begun to dominate "the natural
factors
involved in climate change", he said.
Dr Gareth Jones, a climate researcher at the Met Office, said that Dr
Solanki's
findings were inconclusive because the study had not incorporated other
potential climate change factors.
"The Sun's radiance may well have an impact on climate change but it
needs to be
looked at in conjunction with other factors such as greenhouse gases,
sulphate
aerosols and volcano activity," he said. The research adds weight to the
views
of David Bellamy, the conservationist. "Global warming - at least the
modern
nightmare version - is a myth," he said. "I am sure of it and so are a
growing
number of scientists. But what is really worrying is that the world's
politicians and policy-makers are not.
"Instead, they have an unshakeable faith in what has, unfortunately,
become one
of the central credos of the environmental movement: humans burn fossil
fuels,
which release increased levels of carbon dioxide - the principal so-called
greenhouse gas - into the atmosphere, causing the atmosphere to heat up.
They
say this is global warming: I say this is poppycock."
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