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 the following should be treated with great suspicion.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sally Baliunas is a professional astronomer who I met once at the Foundation for the Study of Cycles about 15 years ago. I think that she specialises in cycles in stars. This interview is copied from the above link which in turn appears to come from somewhere else. It is very important because the issue of global warming and human effects must be resolved for the future benefit of all.

Mostly professional climatologists agree that humans are the cause of global warming, especially more recently. Also most of the articles that I see that say humans are not the cause are written either by fools of people being paid to tell lies by wealthy businesses. This is an exception! It shows that the Sun really has changed dramatically in the last century.

[interview from http://newmarksdoor.typepad.com/mainblog/2003/11/the_sun_is_appa.html]

Reason: How do you know magnetic records of the sun from the 17th century?

Baliunas: The records of sunspots go back to 1609, to Galileo's day, and that's almost long enough to see this episode. But we have some unbiased records: The sun has a wind that carries the magnetic field toward the earth and acts as a shield. There's a rain of cosmic rays coming from deep space. When the sun's magnetic field is strong, these cosmic rays tend to be deflected. When the magnetic field is weak, these cosmic rays penetrate the upper atmosphere of the earth. When the cosmic rays come in, they make radiocarbon in the upper atmosphere, and that carbon-14 ends up in carbon dioxide molecules. It's breathed in by a tree and put in its tree ring, so the amount of carbon-14 over time in tree rings tells you what the sun has been doing in the past. Those records trace the sun back about 10,000 years. So we know the ups and downs of the sun's magnetism for the last 10,000 years or so.

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?

Reason: If the magnetic activity on the sun is changing, what mechanisms are there that might affect the earth's climate?

Baliunas: It depends what time scale one is talking about. The sun brightens and fades over the sunspot cycle, the 11-year cycle. But also the intensity of the 11-year cycles has been building over the centuries.

Reason: What do you mean by "intensity"?

Baliunas: Looking back several hundred years, the sun's magnetism is at an all-time high. The last four peaks have been quite high.

Reason: Do these fluctuations produce a big effect?

Baliunas: It's relatively small from cycle to cycle, but we estimate that from the 17th century to now it could have been four or five tenths of a percent of the sun's energy output. Run that through a climate model, and that's enough to explain the temperature change.

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