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Other forms of solar variation

I've heard that sunspots correlate with changes in other forms of solar "radiation" (see Solar wind), which in turn affect the amount of cosmic rays which hit the earth. Is that true?

If it is true, where does information about it belong in this encyclopedia? --Uncle Ed (talk) 18:56, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

Modern Minimum?

Based on articles like this from Nat Geo, and the research coming from NASA, I would love to see an article get underway on what is projected to possibly be a solar minimum counterpart to the Modern Maximum. I have no bias in the warming/cooling debate, I just think it's terribly important to understand what may be happening to our star, and would welcome an article. thanks, Shawn in Montreal (talk) 20:59, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

A prediction is not a fact. Give it another cycle and see what happens to consensus in scientific community. CarolMooreDC 13:22, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

It does not have to be a fact to be in Misplaced Pages but it should at least be a sound scientific theory vs just conjecture. Shawn, I think what you need is to find out is if "Modern Minimum" is a sound scientific theory like Global Warming? Some of the thinking is already in Solar Variation but it's not explicitly called out in a separate page. If you can find some robust peer reviewed literature (one to two solid sources that describe the theory), then an article can be created. Describing a theory (the facts) is acceptable even if the theory is still being tested. Misplaced Pages is full of theories that have been debunked and many others that are in the process of being debunked. I will caution you that proposing a global cooling theory will really get the proAGW environmentalists at Wiki flocking to your site - they hate anything that would detract from their pet AGW theory.As As a side note global cooling is what I think would come from decreasing solar activity but that theory is already in Misplaced Pages but the forces that be have made sure that it's listed as a discredited theory (and mere conjecture) - maybe it needs to be brought to life but only if the science supports it.174.49.84.214 (talk) 02:33, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

Variation, and connection to global warming (out of place here)

The article is about solar variation not about Global Warming or Global Warming controvery. This section is largely out of place here - it was just dumped from Solar Constant where it didn't belong either by William M. Connolley. The section is poorly written and is replete with poor citations and poor quotes and is a global warming war (editors have added pro and con statements with any citation they can to support their views) Example, the first sentence misquotes Joanna Haigh (a respected scientist) and makes a reference to an entire website for the citation - readers can't check a reference in this manner. This is not up to the standards of Misplaced Pages. The citation merely reads Joanna Haigh with no date, retreived date, etc.

It might be prudent to put a short summary here aknowledging the link between solar variation and global warming theory: that is what we are talking about here . . . if the sun has a huge impact on the climate, AGW theory falls down (is less impactful on policy). If the sun is relatively constant, AGW theory has more substance with respect to policy. It's beyond us to solve this here though or to even have the fight in this article. We should acknowledge the link and put a short summary and point the reader to Global Warming Controversy or to Global Warming or Both and let those guys figure it out in the proper pages.

We should further not fold solar cycle into this page.174.49.84.214 (talk) 16:12, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

William M. Connolley. I think we're making some progress. At least we cleaned up Solar Constant. I really think the only two things needed here are the note above and if you want to have a factual deviation between solar cycles and temperature (which we've seen in the last 30 years) then I think that's ok but we really should not get into the nastiness of the AGW fight or have long book quotations on what is supposed to be a meaty solar variation page.174.49.84.214 (talk) 16:29, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

William M. Connolley -- Perhaps we should create a Solar Variation Theory page where we can put this. I think it's important stuff, if written well. I just don't think that we should have a global warming solar variation theory on what is largely a page on the stellar physics and variation of our sun.174.49.84.214 (talk) 16:29, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

From Solar cycle

Solar cycle had a long section on climate-stuff, but not as long as the stuff we have here. So I've arbitrarily declared this the main article, for now, and here is what was there, to be merged in as required. Note that the 0.1K stuff is new William M. Connolley (talk) 18:42, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

Disagree completely. The junk you have currently on solar variation is horribly written and horribly cited by contrast what is on solar cycle which you removed is well written and well cited. Your proagw content should be removed from solar variation to some climate change page. The content on Solar Cycle is correctly where it is at. The short term solar cycle affects the climate. It's not a climate change war - it's a fact. It doesn't fit with your pet theory but too bad. The citations are there and are correct. Please don't deface solar variation nor solar cycle arbitrarily William M. Connolley 174.49.84.214 (talk) 17:27, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

Data collected from older U.S. and European spacecraft previously showed that the solar luminosity is about 0.07 percent brighter in years of solar maximum, at peak sunspot activity, than during solar minimum, when spots were rare. This radiative forcing correlates with a variation of ±0.1°K in measured global temperature. Variations of this magnitude are too small to have contributed appreciably to the accelerated global warming observed since the mid-1970s.

On the other hand, an analysis of data from NASA's Solar Radiation and Climate Experiment challenged the idea that decreasing solar activity cools the Earth, and vice versa. Solar activity seems to work the opposite way around: less visible light reaches the Earth's surface during the Solar maxima than during the minima. This is caused by redistribution of the Solar energy during the maxima from the visible light, which actually heats the surface and the troposphere, to the ultraviolet light, which is absorbed high above the ground in the stratosphere. The research also found that the Sun may have caused as much warming as carbon dioxide over the period of the declining solar cycle from 2004 to 2007.

Recent research suggests that there may also be regional climate impacts due to the solar cycle. Measurements from the Spectral Irradiance Monitor on NASA's Solar Radiation and Climate Experiment show that solar UV output is more variable over the course of the solar cycle than scientists had previously thought. Climate models taking this information into account suggest these changes may result in, for example, colder winters in the US and southern Europe and warmer winters in Canada and northern Europe during solar minima.

Recent research at CERN's CLOUD facility examines links between cosmic rays and cloud condensation nuclei. Dr. Jasper Kirby, an experimental particle physicist currently with CERN and a team leader at CLOUD said, "At the moment, it actually says nothing about a possible cosmic-ray effect on clouds and climate, but it's a very important first step." During periods of high solar activity (during a solar maxima), the Sun's magnetic field shields the planet from cosmic rays. During periods of low solar activity (during solar minima), more cosmic rays reach Earth, potentially creating ultra-small aerosol particles which are precursors to cloud condensation nuclei.

More broadly, links have been found between solar cycles, global climate and events like El Nino, and a study indicates that heat caused by El Nino has a temporal correlation with civil wars. In other research, Daniel J. Hancock and Douglas N. Yarger found "statistically significant relationships between the double sunspot cycle and the 'January thaw' phenomenon along the East Coast and between the double sunspot cycle and 'drought' (June temperature and precipitation) in the Midwest."

One well-documented correlation between solar activity and climate change is the Maunder minimum, which occurred at the same time as the Little Ice Age period during which cold weather prevailed in Europe. Research had suggested that a new 90-year Maunder minimum would result in a reduction of global average temperatures of about 0.3°C, which would not be enough to offset the ongoing and forecasted average global temperature increase due to global warming.

Per the suggestion, I've made an attempt to clean up the article a bit and move all of the material to the appropriate article (that is, if it's related to the 11 year cycle, the solar cycle article, if it's related to long-term solar variability, this article). Hope this is satisfactory to everybody! Geoffrey.landis (talk) 20:18, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

I just read through the lastest versions of both, and it looks to be a pretty fine splitting of the pages for the most part. Another possibility (but one which doesn't seem necessary at the moment) would be to create an entirely separate article on Solar influences on terrestrial climate, as there's certainly enough material to do so....

I do have one not-insigificant concern, and that is the material presented in the paragraph beginning "In 1991, Knud Lassen of the Danish Meteorological Institute...." In particular, the graph linked therein terminates with the solar cycle peaking in 1991. In addition to the problems laid out in its own paragraph, the length of the solar cycle has dramatically increased (gone down in the graph) in the past two cycles (last minima separated by almost 13 years!) while temeperature has risen another 0.2-0.3K, so the postulated correlation is now complete rubbish. I'd lean towards deleting that entire paragraph as no longer relevant.... Sailsbystars (talk) 20:43, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

OK, I went back and dug up the original paper http://www.sciencemag.org/content/254/5032/698.abstract (which, mysteriously, was not cited or linked in the article) and the criticisms of it. I agree with you that it looks like the work in question has not held up, but (as the article says) the work is well cited, and the criticisms are detailed in the wikipedia article, so I'd think it's material worth keeping. Another problem is that the paragraph discussing the work is somewhat out of place-- it's sandwiched between two other papers not related to it-- but offhand I don't see a better place to move it to without a bit of rewriting. Geoffrey.landis (talk) 22:01, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

there were thirteen very solid citations in the material that William M. Connolley removed and there are now only 5 much less substantial citations in the new rewrite on Solar Cycle. The quality of Misplaced Pages has suffered due to the actions of William M. Connolley and his cabal here today. This is why serious people don't contribute on here and why authorship is down.174.49.84.214 (talk)

The section in the Solar Cycle article is short because most of the material from that was moved to this article, but there is a prominent link at that article to this one, so it should be easy to find.

The concern is that there was no movement, just a deletion from solar cycle, and no discussion about moving. William M. Connolley merely "stated" that he was going to move and refused to collaborate on what we should do on talk or what it should look like. His cabal enforced the move and that was that. Now you and I are rewritting, a supposedly smaller version of terrestrial impacts on Solar Cycle but the decision to delete was entirely William M. Connolley's.174.49.84.214 (talk) 16:54, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

I do notice that there was one paragraph I missed, the one discussing the Maunder minimum. I'm about to put that back in. Geoffrey.landis (talk) 04:04, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

Thx much174.49.84.214 (talk) 16:54, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

shortened introductory sentence

I shortened the introductory sentence under the "Climate Variation" heading. Since solar intensity variation is already a topic of its own before this section, the fact that intensity varies doesn't need to be repeated. Also, papers on climate variation discuss not only the effect of variations in total solar intensity, but propose other factors as well (e.g., UV, cosmic ray-induced clouds), so it restricts the subject a bit too much if we start out by saying it's a discussion of solar intensity. Geoffrey.landis (talk) 15:55, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

I was thinking about the audience (we could have 10 year old and experts) and consistency across Wiki. I was trying to use some of the same language from our other pages. If that's not standard, I apologize for that. I'll take your lead you seem to have more experience here 174.49.84.214 (talk) 16:16, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

Historical perspective

This purely ProAGW long paragraph was lifted directly from a published book. Aside from making the article read as a ProAGW rant, it could be a Copyvio (too long to be fair use probably). Please discuss here if you want to reinstate and why.174.49.84.214 (talk) 19:20, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

The quotation is not extensive, it is set out from regular text as a quotation, it is verbatim, and it is attributed - thus it cannot be a WP:COPYVIO, and it follows WP:Quotations to the letter. As for being a "ProAGW rant" - that is not an argument - sorry. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 20:12, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I didn't see this as being a noticeably "ProAGW" quote-- it seems to read more like a cautionary note warning about how hard it can be to extrapolate trends out of correlations. To the extent that it's saying that people in the past thought that they had a good theory of how climate worked, and they turned out to be wrong, I would read this as giving a similar caution to present-day scientists against excessive certainty: we may think we know what we're doing, but we may also be wrong. Geoffrey.landis (talk) 21:39, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

Historical perspective

Physicist and historian Spencer R. Weart in The Discovery of Global Warming (2003) writes:

The study of cycles was generally popular through the first half of the century. Governments had collected a lot of weather data to play with and inevitably people found correlations between sun spot cycles and select weather patterns. If rainfall in England didn't fit the cycle, maybe storminess in New England would. Respected scientists and enthusiastic amateurs insisted they had found patterns reliable enough to make predictions. Sooner or later though every prediction failed. An example was a highly credible forecast of a dry spell in Africa during the sunspot minimum of the early 1930s. When the period turned out to be wet, a meteorologist later recalled "the subject of sunspots and weather relationships fell into dispute, especially among British meteorologists who witnessed the discomfiture of some of their most respected superiors." Even in the 1960s he said, "For a young researcher to entertain any statement of sun-weather relationships was to brand oneself a crank."

Lassen & Friis Christensen

Why exactly do we have such a long section on this? Earlier it might have been needed since this was an important conflict. But at this point in time, the conflict has been resolved, and while the correlation might have seemed interesting then, it turned out to be a case of correlation != causation. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 22:36, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

There is a lot of brokeness. We also have (start with!) "Variations in total solar irradiance (TSI) were found to be the most likely cause of significant climate change prior to the industrial era by a U.S. National Academy of Sciences study, and in 1997, astronomer Sallie Baliunas suggested that changes in the sun "can account for major climate changes on Earth for the past 300 years, including part of the recent surge of global warming."" (and the NAS study is from 1994). SB shouldn't be there, and we should find a more recent ref than NAS. The whole lot needs going over William M. Connolley (talk) 11:21, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

The Baliunas citation references a quote in a Harvard newspaper. It does relate to how people were thinking as of 1997, but it's right on the edge of what is citeable, and probably the wrong edge. If he said the same thing (with actual numbers) in some more referenceable place, we should cite that, otherwise, makes sense to dump it.

I haven't dug up and read the 1994 NAS study. Reports by the National Academy of Sciences are the gold standard of a reliable source, though, so I can't see cutting it.

I agree that the Friis-Christensen & Lassen paper seems to be now considered at best a coincidental correlation. At the moment the article has three sentences explaining what the paper says, and six sentences explaining why it's wrong. If you think this is too much, I don't see that we can shorten the discussion of the paper itself by very much. The paper appeared in Science, a reputable source, and (as mentioned in the article), is a paper that is referenced a lot; so shortening this section would mean that you want to cut back on the text explaining why the paper is wrong.

The text does seem to be out of place in the location it's in, though; it does not relate to the earlier or later section. It would be better organized if we added a new sub-heading for "correlations with length of solar cycle" for this particular material. Geoffrey.landis (talk) 14:52, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

--OK, I deleted the marginally-notable Baliunas quote, and put the discussion of the Friis-Christensen & Lassen paper discussion in its own subsection. I think it reads better now. Geoffrey.landis (talk) 15:17, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Clouds and galactic cosmic rays

Just to explain my edit: The previous version of the article had the discussion of clouds and cosmic rays split in three places, without (as far as I can see) an organizational reason for which material was in which place. This revision put the material relating to how cosmic rays and solar activity affect cloud in the "effects on clouds" subsection of "Solar interactions with Earth"; and put the material discussing the effect, and how much cloudiness is produced, in the "Weather" subsection of "Solar Variation and Climate." (I also left the CERN material there-- it seemed to fit the logical flow-- but added a citation in the earlier section.) I did some minor clean-up while moving, but don't think I made any changes to the material, nor added or deleted any references, just repositioned them. Geoffrey.landis (talk) 21:46, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Clouds and cosmic rays sounds like a good article title. Is there any scientific research hypothesizing a causal link between them? --Uncle Ed (talk) 02:13, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Yes, there's a number of papers hypothesizing ways that there could be a causal link. Check the citations in the "Effects on Clouds" subsection (references 47-50 and 82, 87, and 88 in the current version of the article). At the moment, whether the effect is large enough to be noticeable in the real world is still unclear. Geoffrey.landis (talk) 14:44, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Most of the content regarding Clouds and cosmic rays is spread out over Misplaced Pages. The theory was originally proposed I think in 1959 and has been well documented. Some knowledge concentrated in cosmic rays and CLOUD. 174.49.84.214 (talk) 19:44, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Geoffrey, note that your link to Galactic Cosmic Rays leads to a different page from just Cosmic Rays.174.49.84.214 (talk) 20:08, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Activity and variation

Are there any actual astronomers here? Solar activity is not the same as solar variation. What is the appropriate term for significant things that the sun does? The most significant things I know about are:

1. sunspots and sunspot number - these vary a lot, on an 11-year (or 22-year) cycle
2. solar wind - this changes in lockstep with the sunspots, right?
3. solar radiation (i.e., "sunlight" ) - this varies vary little (hence the concept of a "solar constant")

What's the term for changes in solar activity, especially cyclic changes? Right now solar activity => solar variation but that makes no sense. I tried making "Solar variability" as a disambig page, but is that really the solution? --Uncle Ed (talk) 23:28, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Hi Ed. Strictly speaking, "solar activity" is "what's going on", and "solar variation" is "how much is what's going on changing"? However, the two are so closely coupled that the terms are effectively used to describe the same thing. The solar constant isn't a constant. It does indeed change with solar activity, but only fairly little (which is why it only has a minor effect on global warming, which is why deniers often make solar variation seem to be BIGGER so they can pretend "it's not CO2"). If you check the very first image in the article, you can see that the red line (yearly variations in "the solar constant") very closely matches the direct indicators of solar activity. You can also see that the change over time is small - about 1 W/m, or somewhat less than 0.1%. This is not measurable with pre-modern instruments, and it is much less than the ~3.5% yearly variation that we see due to the eccentricity of the earth's orbit. That's why the solar constant is called "constant", although it really is not. See etymological fallacy.  ;-) --Stephan Schulz (talk) 10:32, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for your courteous and detailed response. I wonder, though, if both of us are using words the same way.

I have been thinking that "changes in solar activity" includes both (1) the fairly little changes in the solar constant and (2) changes in sunspots. Note that I have turned Solar activity into a disambig page.

The part I think is clear is that Solar radiation reaching the Earth (as irradiance) varies only fairly little. The part that's not clear is that changes in sunspots affect the solar wind, which in turn affects the amount of cosmic rays which enter the earth's atmosphere.

Some "deniers" are concerned with irradiance, but others are concerned with cosmic rays. Is there a term for changes in solar activity which comprises both solar radiation changes and solar wind changes? Or does "solar variation" refer only to the former? --Uncle Ed (talk) 16:06, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

I don't think it's just "deniers" who are concerned with irradiance and cosmic rays. Very serious scientists are engaged in very material scientific endeavors related to the solar irradiance variation and cosmic ray variation. I would say that solar variation deals with variation in the solar output and also with other variations with the sun like variations in the sun's magnetic field which in turn has an effect on cosmic rays hitting the earth. So in the climate section of this page, heaven help me for saying this, we should note that variations in the solar magnetic field may cause an impact to cosmic rays hitting the earth. However, I stand by my assertion that this page should be mostly about solar variation (the actual physical changes to the sun) and that the terrestrial climate topic and climate change and other impacts of the sun on the earth should be handled in their respective pages with only summaries here.174.49.84.214 (talk) 20:34, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

1. C. D. Camp and K. K. Tung (2007). "Surface warming by the solar cycle as revealed by the composite mean difference projection" (PDF). Geophysical Research Letters. 34: L14703. doi:10.1029/2007GL030207. Retrieved 20 January 2012.
2. "Changes In Solar Brightness Too Weak To Explain Global Warming" (Press release). UCAR. September 13, 2006. Retrieved 18 April 2007.
3. "An influence of solar spectral variations on radiative forcing of climate". Nature. 467 (7316). October 6, 2010.
4. "Declining solar activity linked to recent warming" (Press release). Nature News . October 6, 2011. Retrieved 20 October 2011.
5. Ineson S., Scaife A.A., Knight J.R., Manners J.C., Dunstone N.J., Gray L.J., Haigh J.D. (October 9, 2011). "Solar forcing of winter climate variability in the Northern Hemisphere". Nature Geoscience. 4 (11): 753–7. doi:10.1038/ngeo1282.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
6. "Cloud formation may be linked to cosmic rays" (Press release). Nature News. August 24, 2011. Retrieved 19 October 2011.
7. Kirkby J; Curtius J; Almeida J; Dunne E; Duplissy J; et al. (August 25, 2011). "Role of sulphuric acid, ammonia and galactic cosmic rays in atmospheric aerosol nucleation". Nature. 476 (7361): 429–433. doi:10.1038/nature10343. PMID 21866156. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |author-separator= ignored (help)
8. "CERN's CLOUD experiment provides unprecedented insight into cloud formation" (Press release). CERN. August 25, 2011. Retrieved 03 November 2011. {{cite press release}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help)
9. Solar Cycle Linked to Global Climate
10. Study Links Heat from El Niño to Civil Wars
11. Hancock DJ, Yarger DN (1979). "Cross-Spectral Analysis of Sunspots and Monthly Mean Temperature and Precipitation for the Contiguous United States". Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences. 36 (4): 746–753. doi:10.1175/1520-0469(1979)036<0746:CSAOSA>2.0.CO;2. ISSN 1520-0469.
12. http://www.solarstorms.org/SClimate.html Space Weather
13. "A quiet sun won't save us from global warming". New Scientist. 26 February 2010. Retrieved 7 June 2011.
14. Cite error: The named reference Weart was invoked but never defined (see the help page).

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