Wobbly Universe

Oil Giants' Money Fuels Climate of Suspicion

Last night, 16th August 2007, I was reading the 13th January 2007 issue of New Scientist, and I came across an article on page 14 that explained at least some of the things that have caused me problems in investigating the facts of climate change. The article states that between 1998 and 2005 ExxonMobil spent US$16,000,000 on funding research at 43 bodies that were critical of claims of climate change, such as Frontiers of Freedom in the apparent expectation that these groups will propagate disinformation about global warming even when what they are publicising has been shown to be wrong.

In 1998 ExxonMobil-sponsored promoted a report that said that carbon dioxide emissions posed no warming threat. The report was authored by, amoung others, Slly Baliunas, and astrophysicist affiliated with at least nine ExxonMobil funded groups. In 2003 Baliunas published a review paper in Climate Research (vol 23, p 89) claiming that the climate had not changed significantly in the past millenium. Her conclusions were challenged by 13 scientists whose work she cited, but ExxonMobil-funded groups have continued to promote it.

The above was added on 17th August 2007. Based on this some remarks in the following should be treated with suspicion.

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It is important to understand how much of global warming is due to humans and how much due to factors outside our control, especially the sun. It isn't a question where you can tick one box, but a question of apportioning the cause. I would guess that it is 50:50 but it certainly isn't all one or the other. A summary of some of the facts and some links to past articles follows.

a. There can be no reasonable doubt that the temperature lately is outside the normal range.

b. There is no doubt that the amount of CO2 is way above the normal range.

c. There is no doubt that humans have caused the amount of CO2 to rise rapidly.

d. There is no doubt that in the past, CO2 and temperature have moved together.

e. There might be some doubt about which causes which.

f. There is no doubt that the Sun is more active now than it has been for many centuries.

On 31-Jan-2007 I wrote "Humans, Cycles, Sun or Ice-ages - What affects our climate most?" and referred to an article from Cycles Research Institute" which looked at different time scales and what climate was doing and might be expected to do.

On 4-Feb-2007 I quoted James Lovelock on Climate Change said of the IPCC report "Quite simply, it’s very stark: it says that by around 2040 to 2050, the European summer of 2003 (where over 20,000 people died of overheating) will be the norm."

And today I have quoted Sally Baliunas as saying "After looking at this, I began to ask, How well do the climate simulations handle this relatively new knowledge about the sun? And the answer is, not very well. We don't know the mechanism for change in the sun very well. We don't know the response of the earth to such changes. So I thought, How do you make predictions 100 years in the future if you don't even know what all the sources of change are?"

And also today I quoted New Scientist as reporting in 2003 that "The Sun is more active now than it has been for a millennium."

It is hard to reconcile all of this. Let us consider all the possibilities.

1. Human activity and Solar activity are coincidentally both increasing lately.
2. The Sun affects human activity.
3. Human activity affects the Sun.
4. Something else affects both the Sun and Human activity.

My personal view is that 1 can be dismissed and that 3 should be considered very unlikely. There is quite a lot of reason to believe that 2 has some validity, since Chizhevsky has shown that number of battles in wars rise to a peak at fairly regular 11 year intervals just as the Sun does. Furthermore, there is evidence that links solar activity to terrestrial electromagnetic disturbances and those to human behavioural changes, especially accidents.

There are not many people who would have suggested 4 above, and most of the other ones that I know of are dead. It is difficult to distinguish between 2 and 4, so it is perhaps a moot point. Perhaps I will expand on this another time. The key point is that 1 is not true. Human activity and Solar activity are far from unrelated. Such an idea is unlikely to be popular with scientists, belonging more with new age ideas perhaps. But things are changing.

Then we have to consider whether the one, the other or both are affecting the climate. Or then again whether the hidden cause of both is doing it. To those that think that I am just rambling, I would highly recommend reading The Case for Cycles by Edward R. Dewey. In this, the most definitive report on knowledge in cycles, he states that we cannot understand any branches of science without the study of cycles. This is because there are relationships where humans just do not expect them. Dewey was not at all New Agey, and took very solid scientific advice before reaching his conclusions. A must read for anyone who would understand the world we live in.

See Also:
Causes of Climate Change Over the Past 1000 Years
Humans vs Sun as cause for climate change
Astronomer Sallie Baliunas on sunspots, global warming, ...
Global Warming - Humans and/or the Sun? ... and more!
Sun more active than for a millennium
Sally Baliunas inteviewed on Solar Fluctuations and Global Warming
Interview: James Lovelock on Climate Change
Humans, Cycles, Sun or Ice-ages - What affects our climate most?
Sun's fickle heart may leave us cold