After a long lull in activity, I decided it's about time I write an update about my thoughts on global warming. Here it is.

Cosmic Rays and Climate

Solar Activity and Climate

It is already more than 200 years since Sir William Herschel claimed that variations in solar activity affect climate on Earth. Since he did not have any reliable temperature measurements, Herschel looked for indirect proxies. He compared the price of wheat in the London wheat exchange to the solar activity as mirrored in the sunspot number, and found a correlation between them.

With the exception of those who have been living in a dark cave, it is well known that Earth has warmed over the 20^th century. Anyone who reads papers or watches TV knows that it is humans who are those responsible for this warming. According to most media sources, and unfortunately according to many academics, there is no room anymore for any discussion of questions concerning the nature of the warming and its causes.

I recently stumbled upon one of the most meaningless papers I have ever seen. The paper "proves" that the scientists advocating an anthropogenic greenhouse warming (AGW) are statistically more credible than the "unconvinced". Their main goal is to convince people that they should join the AGW bandwagon simply because it is allegedly more credible.

(On the hebrew translation of the "Chilling Stars")

ספר חדש על הנושא של השפעת הקרינה הקוסמית

A week ago was Earth day, and just like the trend elsewhere, Israel joined with an hour long blackout. In principle, I am very much in favor of environmental awareness, and if it brings some, so be it. But if you ask me, overall, this event is a rather pointless gimmick. Why?

I few months ago, I had a paper accepted in the Journal of Geophysical Research. Since its repercussions are particularly interesting for the general public, I decided to write about it. It's called, using the "Oceans as a Calorimeter to quantify the solar radiative forcing".

I recently attended the 3rd Space Climate Symposium which took place in Saariselkä, about 250 km north of the arctic circle in Finnish Lapland. Because of the prolonged solar minimum, my hopes were for a high auroral activity, but my expectations were not. Luckily, it was my hopes which were fulfilled!

Here is a summary of the northern lights I have seen.

Just recently, Sloan and Wolfendale published a paper in Environmental Research Letters, called "Testing the proposed causal link between cosmic rays and cloud cover". In the Institute of Physics Press Release, it said, "New research has deal a blow to the skeptics who argue that climate change is all due to cosmic rays rather than man made greenhouse gases". Did it really?

Realclimate.org continues with its same line of attack. Wishfulclimate.org writers try again and again to concoct what appears to be deep critiques against skeptic arguments, but end up doing a very shallow job. All in the name of saving the world. How gallant of them. This time it is an ill-founded attack by Jahnke and Benestad.

Jerusalem was under siege, again. Last time it was Bush. This time, it was snow because of which we had two snow days. So, I didn't have to teach and instead could build a snowman with my kids. I could also look at the rain radar, which appeared to exhibit a few interesting phenomena.

One of the phenomena appears to be that of open-cell convection, i.e., air rising (and precipitating) on the cell boundaries.

On Sunday last week, a global warming debate was held at the Hebrew University, in front of a large public audience. The speakers included myself, and Prof. Nathan Paldor from the HU, on the so called sceptic side, and Prof. Dan Yakir (Weizmann) and Prof. Colin Price (Tel-Aviv Univ.) on the anthropogenic greenhouse gas (AGHG) side.

You can watch the debate, in Hebrew at the Authority for Community and Youth of the Hebrew University. Since most of the readers are not from Israel (98% of the visitors to sciencebits.com), here is a short synopsis. It is followed by a detailed response to the claims raised against the cosmic ray climate link.

On of the interesting manmade climate phenomenon is that of Ship Tracks, whereby a ship, with all the exhaust particles it releases, can change the characteristics of clouds in its wake. Last week, I saw first hand how a boat can pollute so much.

One of the "scientific" highlights in Al Gore's movie is the discussion about the clear correlation between CO₂ and temperature, as is obtained in ice cores. He leads his audience to beleive that this correlation implies a clear CO₂→ΔT link, but does it really?