My goodness, the Sun determines the earth’s temperature?

climate-chg-spkIn early March the Heartland Institute sponsored a climate change conference with more than 70 featured presenters. You probably did not hear much about it since no politicians or actors were in attendance, and scientific presentations don’t make for good quality 30 second sound bites.

Other than the president of the Czech Republic, the keynote speakers held PhDs in scientific fields; as a matter of fact, most of the 70-plus presenters also had PhDs.

You can check out the Web site for the Second Annual International Conference on Climate Change, which includes audio, video and presentations from the conference.

earth-sun-compareHinderaker at Power Line tips us off that the presentations were posted, something I missed last week. He’s posted a few slides that he found interesting. Although I have not had time to review the presentations, there are a couple of slides that I found interesting.

First, the Sun. Yes the Sun. I’ve always figured that since the Sun is about 93 million miles from earth and is about 100 times the size of earth, there was a pretty good chance that the Sun’s activity – or inactivity – would effect the temperature here on earth. It’s by no means a scientific theory, it’s just what I figured.

The slide shows a pretty consistent correlation between the Sun’s activity and the earth’s temperature. Another slide shows while atmosphere levels of CO2 increase, their is no clear correlation with the earth’s temperatures. Click on the slides below to see the full size.

Why are these professionals considered deniers?

Update: AJ at Strata-Sphere joins in.

Hinderaker sums up…

Due to the efforts of Heartland and others, the public is beginning to catch on to the cosmic scam that Al Gore, James Hansen and others–mostly not scientists–have been perpetrating. Meanwhile, the Obama administration, seemingly determined to inflict the maximum possible damage on the economy in the shortest time, is trying to ram a cap-and-trade carbon tax through Congress before opposition can be mobilized. It’s easier to do that, of course, when you know that Congressmen won’t read the statute before they vote on it. So our only hope is an informed citizenry.

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Steve McGough

Steve's a part-time conservative blogger. Steve grew up in Connecticut and has lived in Washington, D.C. and the Bahamas. He resides in Connecticut, where he’s comfortable six months of the year.

16 Comments

  1. CaptainObvious on March 23, 2009 at 2:48 am

    That's been my trouble with this so-called AGW theory (personally, I don't think it rises to the level of "theory" … more like "hypothesis") all along: correlation — no matter how weak — is not causation. But that's a good enough excuse for the dunderheads in Washington to commit economic suicide. History can't judge these morons quickly enough.



  2. comanchepilot on March 23, 2009 at 3:07 am

    No no no.  LEAVES and ICE CREAM determine the earths temperature.  When trees get leaves the temperatures warm up and when ice cream consumption goes up, it gets warmer too.  There is clear linkage between leaves and temperatures.  The problem with Antarctica and Siberia is that they do not send ice cream there and very little ice cream is consumed and there are NO leaves. 

    Anyone can clearly see this is the case.  When the trees have leaves people wear shorts – why – there is ANOTHER indicator of warm temperatures – SHORTS.   When people wear shorts the temperatures go up.  Remember all those old tyme photos from the early 20th century – everyone was wearing long pants and long sleeve shirts.   It was definitely colder then.  No shorts.



  3. jmac0013 on March 23, 2009 at 3:07 am

    The New York Conference on Climate is an excellent source of  information.  One of the presenters was a very knowledegable local Professor of  Physics at the University of Hartford, Lawrence Gould.  He, along with myself and a few others have been doing  everything we can to counter the bogus global warming theory and its  wild claims. Most meteorologists don't buy the theory and the computer models they use.  We have been using weather prediction models for years and know their limitations. To use a one-dimentional carbon dioxide model that doesn't include water vapor, the sun, ocean currents and other feedback mechanisms to predict years in the future is ludicrous.



  4. Dimsdale on March 23, 2009 at 5:06 am

    What?!?!?  Say it ain't so!  Al "who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes" Gore is fibbing to us?  The guy that got Cs and Ds in the few science courses he took in college?  The guy that steadfastly refuses to debate any of the "deniers" and defend his theories?  The guy that hides behind the skirts of fabricated "consensus?"  The guy actually making a buck off of this horse squeeze?

    Al Gore is a miserable excuse for a politician, and an even more miserable excuse for a scientist.  Hansen is simply insane.

    Isn't the swing to socialism precipitated by Obambi and the Democrats going to do enough damage?



  5. davis on March 23, 2009 at 8:45 am

    We should be adult enough to recognize and admit  that there are scientists on both sides of this issue. It may be debatable whether or not CO2 is causing a climate change, but I don't think there are many scientists who disagree that global temperatures are rising. Unless the laws of physics have been repealed, warmer temperatures melt more ice. Is this a good thing?



    • Dimsdale on March 23, 2009 at 2:43 pm

      It would appear that the pro AGW acolytes, who call anyone who dares question their theories to be "deniers" and dismiss all discussion to the contrary as contrary to "consensus" and refuse to debate and defend their theories, are the ones that refuse to recognize that their are scientists on "both sides of the issue."

      Regarding the fact that you "don’t think there are many scientists who disagree that global temperatures are rising," I direct your attention to the following: http://www.nationalpost.com/most_popular/story.ht… Be sure to click on the link to the signatories and look at their qualifications.  That's one hundred scientists.   Here is a link to another 31,000: http://www.oism.org/pproject/

      You can count me as number 31,001.

      Now exactly who are the deniers, the ones with the politically motivated blinders?  All these scientists, or C/D science student Gore?



  6. theignorantfisherman on March 23, 2009 at 10:18 am

    sHA-ZAMM……you learn something new every day. I thought that evil…corporations, Christians and evil..Bush caused it. Man did I miss that one…. I'll sleep tonight!

    lol!



  7. weatherwise on March 23, 2009 at 2:19 pm

    Perhaps as Adults we should be able to recognize some scientists research is agenda driven to meet the requirements of a media fed hoax about World Climate Change. Facts and real climate information is thankfully available at http://icecap.us/.

    The climate has been undergoing change forever. (for Davis in Avon?) Our carbon footprint cannot alter weather. It can only be another way for people like Al Gore to get into your pocket. The basis for the New World Climate of redistribution of wealth.



  8. davis on March 24, 2009 at 12:10 am

    Dimsdale, read what I wrote again. I did not say that CO2 (and other greenhouse gases) are responsible for the temperature rise. You and the other 30,000 scientists are pinning the temperature rise to the greenhouse gases.



  9. davis on March 24, 2009 at 12:15 am

    Take a look at the figures in Steve's post, and tell me that the temp in the artic has been constant/declining in the last 50 yrs.



  10. Dimsdale on March 24, 2009 at 2:20 am

    Davis: you said "It may be debatable whether or not CO2 is causing a climate change, but I don’t think there are many scientists who disagree that global temperatures are rising."    I gave you a rather comprehensive list of scientists who do in fact disagree, and conclude that man and his greenhouse gasses are not the cause.  But it is the AGW proponents that stifle debate, or as you say, lack the maturity to debate, not the so called "deniers."

    The point of Steve's post is that recent warming trends are attributable to solar cyles,  and if you will reference the last graph, you will see that in fact the temperatures have been decreasing, not rising.  Pretty much since 1998.   And a closer look at graphs of temp vs. CO2 will demonstrate that the rise in CO2 actually followed the rise in temperature, which you would expect from increased photosynthesis in

    Please refer to the other post on AGW from a few weeks back and review the links I posted.  We are in an interglacial warming period, that is overdue to end.  Review the geologic history of the planet.  On average, the average temperature of the planet has been significantly higher, but cooling more and more in recent (geologically speaking) times.  And these warming/cooling cycles are directly attributable to the sun.  That is why there is a warming trend on Mars and the other planets as well. 

    If we are lucky, greenhouse gases will slow, delay and/or mollify the next ice age, which is what recent journal publications are indicating.

    If the "sky is falling," it will be in the form of snow and ice, not fire.



  11. davis on March 24, 2009 at 7:36 am

    Obviously this issue is not going to be resolved by us. I have no idea how many other scientists disagree with the 31,000 you identify (maybe not all of the 31,000 are climate experts). There are some to be sure (maybe all outside the US), otherwise there would be no debate on the issue.

    As to the graphs posted by Steve (see the second figure), one could draw the conclusion that a best fit through the data from 1960 to 2000 follows pretty closely the shape of the CO2 plot. Data can be selectively picked to serve  differing purposes.



  12. PatRiot on March 24, 2009 at 8:21 am

    Gore is still on the Clinton era "crisis" kick: Real or not, play it up and distract us while manipulative laws are passed.  Remember,  This is the same nut who claimed to invent the internet.    The real focus needs to be on common sense, being responsible with our envirnment, demanding verification that experts are truely such, keeping the Gov't on its toes by not trusting them.  I used to trust the Gov't – I apologize.  "Fool me once…"



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