[meteorite-list] Meteorites Used To Study Solar Activity

From: Sterling K. Webb <sterling_k_webb_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Sep 28 03:50:14 2006
Message-ID: <00b601c6e2d2$b6390ec0$fc714b44_at_ATARIENGINE>

Hi,

    Sadly, the entire debate on "global warming" moved
from being a scientific one into being a political one, then
a partisan one. Now, it has gone beyond party politics,
and is becoming a kind of vague, popular, semi-religious
dogma that cannot be questioned.

    There is a deluge of an unprecedented amount of bad
science, more ill-will between scientists, and more wrong-
headedness demonstrated by scientists (and others) than
in any scientific controversy in a century or more.

    If you want a thorough history of "global warming" as
two centuries of scientific history, idea by idea, study by
study, data by datum, I suggest this website, hosted by
the American Institute of Physics:
http://www.aip.org/history/climate/
    250,000 words, very balanced, goes up to 1997-98. The
site has the very nice feature; you can download the entire
site, extensively hyperlinked, as a ZIP file and read it at
your leisure. It's a good starting point.

    This same meteorite study was reported at Space.com:
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/060926_solar_activity.html

    To see to what extent the dogma of CO2 primacy
has progressed toward unquestionability, you have only
to look at this quote from that article:
    "The Sun's impact on climate has only recently
been investigated. Recent studies show that an increase
in solar output can cause short-term changes in Earth's
climate, but there is no firm evidence linking solar
activity with long-term climate effects."

    Excuse me, "no firm evidence linking solar activity
with... climate effects"? OK, fellow, I'm going to float
this 15,000 km mirror at the Earth-Sun L1 point, cutting
off all solar radiation from reaching the Earth, and you
tell me if you notice any change in YOUR climate, alright?

    Apart from the Earth's original heat of formation and
the heat generated by the decay of radioactive elements,
the Earth has no other source of heat than the Sun. As for
the statement that "the Sun's impact on climate has only
recently been investigated," such studies were being
conducted for almost a century before the first monitoring
of CO2 even began! (Granted those early studies were crap,
but then the early studies of CO2 were crap, too. Most
early studies are.)

    All energy supplied to the Earth comes from the Sun;
how it is distributed on the planet is another matter. The
thermal inertia of the oceans is the major factor. Ocean
currents are the major distributive mechanism, followed by
greenhouse gases, the major one of which is water vapor,
followed weakly by CO2 and methane. As a "system," the
mechanisms involved are horrendously complex and our
"models" are pitifully inadequate.

    Interestingly, from the very first readings in the 1950's,
the CO2 record shows a rigidly consistent "sawtooth"
pattern with a two-year cycle imposed on the curve. Yet,
after fifty years of recording it, we have absolutely no idea
what mechanism produces it. In fact, I've never heard an
explanation even proposed. This very strong two-year
signal has no effect on climate records (alternating hot
and cold years?) whatsoever. So, when they compare
CO2 levels with temperature, they just substitute a nice
"smoothed" average and ignore the sawtooth, otherwise
you'd get no match at all! Certainly legitimate, but it would
bug me to use data I basically don't understand to "prove"
something.

    Continuous monitoring of CO2 began in the late 1950's,
so the record length has just reached 50 years. Its correlation
with mean surface temperatures is moderately good but not great:
    Solar flux in visible light with Earth's temperature is better.
    Solar flux in UV light with Earth's temperature is much better.
    At one time, the correlation of the length of the sunspot
cycle with Earth's temperature was better still, yet in the late
1990's that correlation suddenly "departed" from its previous
pattern. Humans are so good at "seeing" patterns...
    Solar Wind rates with Earth's temperature is better (so far).
    Cosmic Ray flux with Earth's temperature is even better than that.
    The best correlation: Neutron Flux with Earth's Temperature: 99.57%.

    Now, you may be shaking your head and saying "Neutron
flux? WTF is that about?" It appears that neutron flux (from all
outside sources) is the controlling and dominant factor in the
poorly understood formation of low level clouds. The effect on
climate of a modest change in the number of low level clouds
is an order of magnitude stronger than, say, doubling CO2.
The major influence on the temperature of the Earth may be:
The Universe.

    Solar theorists, however, have been unable to come up with
a consistent, testable mechanism, while the gas boys have. True,
it largely fails the test, but at least they've got one. Part of the
problem is the good old-fashioned belief in the constancy and
unchanging nature of the Sun. One is hard pressed to get a solar
astronomer to admit to the notion that "Our Sun" may vary its
output by as much as 1%.

    Meanwhile, if you examine every nearby G0 star (same mass)
of the same age and similar composition, you find short term
variations of 4% to 5% in ALL of them. What are we, just
lucky? Special? When this paper is actually released instead of
just press-released, it will interesting to see what percentage
figure the language "increased strongly" actually means. 1%?
2%? 5%? 10%? The press release seems to suggest greater
changes than what is currently believed, as if to soften us up.
It's interesting, but it's meaningless without the numbers.

    CO2 levels are one mechanism, not necessarily the dominant
mechanism at every time. From ice cores, it appears that changes
in climate PRECEDE changes in CO2 by a century or two, which
hardly suggests that CO2 drives the process. The full complexity
of the carbon cycle has not been pinned down with any great precision,
despite decades of modeling. At a time 135-140 million years ago,
the Earth's climate was very similar to today's, but the CO2 levels
were 3900 ppm (as opposed to 380 ppm today). Model that.

    The USA (granted, one continent, not the world) has long
temperature records (125 years) taken at many stationary points
with standardized thermometers. They show two cooling cycles
and two warming cycles (of similar length). The US climate in
1995 was just about the same as it was in 1895.

    The measurement of atmospheric temperatures from space
is unaffected by changes in measuring environments (heat islands
around cities and so forth) and is far more accurate than ground
measurement. Thirty years of such measurements show no net
warming. The changes they do show are on the order of 0.01
degree or less. Actually, the records show net cooling. This was
so unacceptable that a complete revision of the data was
performed and a net warming of 0.0017 degree (over 30
years) was extracted. Wow!

    Because of the fact that only our modern temperature
records are accurate, we have to somehow correlate older,
very much less accurate measurements of temperature with
them. The technique is a purely mathematical one, finding the
dominant trend in a welter of data points. The widely publicized
result is called the "Hockey Stick" because it shows a very flat
and shallow curve that bends up to near verticality in this century
and validates the worst (best?) view of global warmists. It is the
"star" of the Global Warming Show (Al Gore's movie), the
mainstay of the dogma, the proof positive that cannot be
controverted.

    The only problem with this is that the Hockey Stick
curve is Hooey, pure crap, totally flawed and compromised,
utterly worthless. Even if you feed the modeling program with
randomly generated data, it produces the Hockey Stick. No
matter what data you feed it, it produces the Hockey Stick.
Worthless. And is being clung to by the True Believers like
the Old Rugged Cross.

    The really sad part about this is that any mathematician
who ventures to demonstrate this worthlessness of the Hockey
Stick is playing Russian Roulette with his career, becomes
inexplicably unpublishable, has his character smeared, and
ends up with no friends except FoxNews, coal-burners, and
a clutch of rightwing whacky websites, and as for the blogo-
sphere, you'd get better treatment if you just confessed to
being a member of Al Quidah.

    Paradoxically, there are also many political figures who
do not worry about whether the science is shaky or not,
because the goals warmism would push us toward are good
ones, in their estimation, at least. Truth is not the business
of politics, in case we ever needed reminding of that...

    If I go on, I'll start talking about the ice core gas data,
and hey! nobody wants that... Scientifically, it's fundamentally
a mess, which is now complicated by doubt with respect to
the reliability of ANY study. What can you believe? To me,
this is a unfamiliar question to apply to science: who's lying?

    There are lots of scientists who understand just how
shaky global warmism is. They understand equally well how
risky it is to stick a meddling hand into the five billion dollar
per year machinery of global warmism while it's running.
There are lots of scientists being counted as global warmists
who really don't pay much more than lip service to the idea
because by playing ball they get more money to fund their
own useful but non-glamorous research in a year than they
would have gotten in a lifetime without the global warmism
"industry."

    Global warmism seems destined to become a universal
doctrine. Perhaps a small amount of real research will continue
until we understand things better. On the other hand, perhaps
we will have completely implemented our adjustment to the
Greenhouse Future just in time to greet the next Great
Solar Minimum?


Sterling K. Webb
-------------------------------------------------------------
----- Original Message -----
From: "Matson, Robert" <ROBERT.D.MATSON_at_saic.com>
To: "Meteorite Mailing List" <meteorite-list_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Sent: Tuesday, September 26, 2006 4:25 PM
Subject: RE: [meteorite-list] Meteorites Used To Study Solar Activity


Hi All,

Who'da thunk that global warming could become an on-topic
subject for the meteorite list?! --Rob

-----Original Message-----
From: meteorite-list-bounces_at_meteoritecentral.com
[mailto:meteorite-list-bounces_at_meteoritecentral.com] On Behalf Of Ron
Baalke
Sent: Tuesday, September 26, 2006 2:15 PM
To: Meteorite Mailing List
Subject: [meteorite-list] Meteorites Used To Study Solar Activity

http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/view.php?StoryID=20060926-015940-3936r

Meteorites used to study solar activity
UPI
September 26, 2006

OULU, Finland (UPI) -- A Finnish-led international team has used
meteorites to investigate the sun's solar activity of past centuries.

Ilya Usoskin at Finland's Sodankyla Geophysical Observatory and
colleagues compared the amount of Titanium 44 in 19 meteorites that have
fallen to the Earth the past 240 years. They said their findings confirm
that solar activity increased strongly during the 20th century. They
also find the sun has been particularly active during the past few
decades.

The scientists say studying the sun's activity is one of the oldest
astrophysical projects, as astronomers began recording the number of
sunspots to trace the sun's magnetic activity 400 years ago.

The team examined a set of 19 meteorites whose dates of fall are
precisely known, measuring the amount of radioactive isotope Titanium 44
in each meteorite. Titanium 44 is produced by the cosmic rays in the
meteorites while they are outside the Earth's atmosphere. After the
meteorite has fallen, it stops producing the isotope.

By measuring the Titanium 44 in the meteorites, the scientists
determined the level of solar activity at the time the meteorite fell.

The study appears in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics Letters.
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Received on Thu 28 Sep 2006 03:50:05 AM PDT