“Why are the public generally unaware of the important research that connects variations in the output of the Sun with climate change?

Because the climate crooks, rent-seekers and liars keep up a barrage of political propaganda, just as the Left-wing mobs drown out the truth by shouting, perhaps?

Well done!
It's time that this additional information was passed to everyone with any sort of interest in climate change.
The key point in the article is that the change is CLIMATIC and that the continual effect of sun spots is to affect the resultant temperature on Earth.

Yes - we ought to take whatever action we can to not increase the climate variables, such as trying to limit man-made effects on the resultant greenhouse gas, but we need to be astute enough to understand the difference between what we can and cannot influence.
But also, we must appreciate the vast implications of climate change upon our civilisation - this change has been happening ever since man came into existence, and it will continue.
All that we can do is to cope with its effects.

None of the above explains the acidification of the oceans which of course is the result of an increase in the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. So for no other reason we should be attempting to reduce our CO2 emissions.
David

There's a new answer for everything. The sea level keeps rising regardless of sunspot activity. The answer to that one is because of volcanoes beneath the Antarctic. That works its way up to Greenland.

There are two factors to considder in relation to the incorrect claim about 'ocean acidification'.

1. The ocean has an almost infinate buffering capacity which will counter any short-term increase in acidification resulting from additional absorbtion of CO2 by the oceans.

2.However as the oceans warm, in accordance with Henry's Law, the oceans as a whole will actually add to atmospheric CO2 as their capacity to absorb and hold it declines.

That is what is happening now.

According to the IPCC,s own figures the oceans are currently responsible for the net addition of some 37.9% of the natural outgassing occuring, which with other natural sources brings total natural additions to atmospheric levels of CO2 to 95.7%.

Man's contributions from burning fossil fuels etc is 4.3%. (IPCC AR5)

It is inconcievable that such a minor component could now be the principle cause of the current warming.

Dear Ian McClintock,

Come on mate, rolling out that tired old chestnut again.

Global atmospheric CO2 levels have gone from under 320 ppm in the sixties to well over 400 ppm today, the highest in 3 to 5 million years. The CO2 budget from fossil fuel burning over that time easily accounts for the increase.

Is it really your contention that sunspot warming or such has heated the oceans to such an extent that it is this that has caused the CO2 increases?

What a load of tripe. So this 'activity' must be more pronounced than any time over the last few million years?

Just listen to yourself.

The sun does indeed control normal climate variations! Thus when it waxes the joint warms up! And has done so in the past to the point that Antarctica was warm enough for part of the years to grow trees and support ruminants.

We know this unquestionably, due to the fossil record.

However when the sun enters a waning phase as now and since the mid-seventies! (NASA) The joint cools the ice advances and we can enter the next ice age.

That that's not happening now during this current waning phase! Should inform those still able to rationalise the irrefutable facts that the climate is well and truly out of wack and destined to get worse if the psychotics in charge keep heading toward the cliff pedal to the metal to use an appropriate analogy?

CO2 levels are at record heights and in uncharted territory. And given history, the only logical reason for the changes.

We need to change course, even if that involves sovereign risk for some folk who have all to clearly made money and its acquisition their God! And naught else!

And care not any legacy their, greed is good individualism leaves as their heritage. As we also witnessed during the curtailing of the tobacco industry!

If the (special vested interest compliant) hands on the wheel will not change course, regardless of the mountains of evidence! Then there's no other choice than remove them! VERY NEXT ELECTION!

It's not as if there were no other and dramatically better (carbon-free) energy choices that would massively boost our economy, e.g., MSR thorium.

But effectively prohibited! Solely to preserve the interests of the coal miners, the fossil fuel industry, big nuclear and big pharma? All of who are myopically focused on the ever-upward profit curve, And nothing else!

It's too late to exit the burning building when your mattress and the ass in it, is on fire.
Alan B.

Wasting our time Steel.
David

This s the clearest explanation yet of how sunspot activity affects the climate on Earth, so the authors deserve some kudos for that.

However they have no evidence for their headline claim that the sun dominates climate change. Indeed this claim, repeated in the body of the article, is downright unscientific because the evidence shows the opposite!

Sunspot activity is important, and should certainly be included in the models. But over the past few decades there's been a breakdown of the longstanding relationship between climate and cosmic rays. If it had held, temperatures would have fallen; instead they rose.

More cosmic ray induced cooling would be welcome now - it would give us more time to deal with all this greenhouse effect induced heat. But warnings of global cooling are baseless.

Congratulations on a well written article. Your comments re the IPCC are particularly important, but unfortunately any critical review of the IPCC is akin to the "emperors new cloths" except the little boys who point out the bleeding obvious are gagged! Solar activity drives global and solar system weather, and if it were not for our protective magnetic fields, we would feel its true might and be burnt to a frazzle. While climate study is vital, the dominance of the politically driven IPCC has destroyed science's reputation and gobbled up an excessive amount of earth science funding, to the detriment of other issues such as deforestation, land degradation and contamination of water bodies to name but a few. This is were the real danger of the climate change cult which has been indoctrinating children for over two decades now.. Hence comments such as the previous commentator made on your article. Religions/cults etc are consistent in one thing... there is only one truth and its hours... climate change cultists believe because it suits them, not because they have every studied, questioned or challenged climate change dogma, as that would be ... hmm now hats the word... too SCIENTIFIC!

"The sea level keeps rising regardless of sunspot activity".

Where is the sea level rising? Certainly not in our area, where it has been clearly shown that the islands inhabited by the scammers wanting our money are actually GROWING. Stop lying!

Water and CO2 have a natural affinity. Imagine if this was not so and the entire CO2 load was confined to the atmosphere!? We'd all but join Venus as the hottest planet in the solar system.

One notes that Venus inhabits the Goldilocks zone of habitable planets. And probably would be at the poles but for a sulphur laden atmosphere heavy with the entire moisture content of the planet, which then further compounds the problem by also trapping heat!

And further exacerbated by CO2 levels, none of which has been synthesized back to oxygen by sunlight and photosynthesis.

This natural affinity has been our saving grace, by limiting the amount of total CO2 in the atmosphere! And able to be removed, liquified and combined with hydrogen to create new, manmade hydrocarbons.

Only doable with nuclear power!

Interestingly, as the CO2 content is vacuumed out in vacuum towers, that natural affinity claws an equivalent CO2 number from the atmosphere.

Meaning we could if we were so minded and led by intelligent leaders not the motor mouth, moribund, moronic imbeciles, we're currently saddled with on both sides of the aisle!?

Create all the (endlessly sustainable) hydrocarbons/plastics/fertilizers we need, from ever-present, abundant seawater!

We might even put the survival interests of the human race, ahead of fossil fuel/corporate profits.

Albeit, they (most of them) could grow exponentially if we use (carbon-free) MSR thorium to reverse climate change and couple that to affordable deionization dialysis desalination to revegetate the arid wastelands and the deserts of the entire world.

Then allow mother nature, new abundant plant life and sunlight to further draw down excessive CO2. And allow the planet to progressively return to a self-regulating normal.

Even if that then allows the climate regulating sun to usher in a new (waning phase) ice age!

AND THEREFORE, GIVEN WE ARE NOW DEEP IN A WANING PHASE! ONE WE SHOULD BE HAVING NOW! IMBECILES!
Alan B.

There is no evidence that solar forcing is significant for climate change.

"All of the modelling conducted over the last 20 years has shown that solar changes do have a discernible affect on the climate of the last 100 years, but that those changes are typically very small compared to those associated with increasing greenhouse gases."

http://theconversation.com/theres-always-the-sun-solar-forcing-and-climate-change-1878

This is just another article manufactured to increase doubt about climate change. I wonder who is paying for it?

The key to controlling atmospheric CO2 lies in understanding its relation to the biosphere. This article suggests that rising sea levels could allow salt marshes to store vast amounts of carbon.

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-47472602

Efforts to fertilise nutrient poor ocean waters might also help. I don't see much sense in all the money being pissed up against a wall on dodgy climate modelling and the frequent calamity bashes attended by our pollies.

There was Japanese research about 3 years ago that found that any increase in atmospheric CO2 was matched by a reduction in atmospheric water vapour. As water vapour is about 5 times as effective a greenhouse gas as CO2, the research classed increasing CO2 as a cooling agent.

The usual suspects, gravy train riders all, jumped on the researchers, & their institution, & disappeared these findings incredibly quickly. They are now so wedded to the cash flow generated by the scam, their world collapses once this type of factual research, rather than bulldust model "research" starts to get through to real people.

The question at the head of the article asks ... "Why are the public generally unaware of the important research that connects variations in the output of the Sun with climate change?"

We were meant to go into an ice age currently, except warming from greenhouse gases has caused Earth's temperatures to increase .. Geologist Dan Britt.
Ice cores provide data about warming and cooling of Earth, cosmic rays, volcanism and sun are not factors.

http://phys.org/news/2019-01-debunking-solar-cyclenorth-atlantic-winter-weather.html

Quote:

"We had a hunch that some of the theories out in the literature were not really robust, so we revisited using four more sophisticated reconstructions of different data farther back in time than what people have done so far, and used reconstructions that go back to the 19th Century, and we see that these correlations go away. These apparent comings and goings of correlation are really due to atmospheric variability, and not the sun" said Chiodo."

Oceans are very warm, it takes a considerable time for them to cool.

http://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-018-0651-8.epdf?referrer_access_token=CaC3iFrPBg-kkAuZwE4xxtRgN0jAjWel9jnR3ZoTv0PPM6F5Tw--xUcDaVyo5KYP7_G9gTDd9jkXQCGLmYVcdiHz9wkwN0E6N2nDZlq4WDQgItGi5ylVScf0yzGnaEVfvjiMb4AD29fhh3xQR3z_DrC_cMrTVL7ZhdR6IhWWEdbaBw61pmJWfJX3nlJ6qnYm0eEGF290YDw0L29Qu1D0Zo3ti9EtUV0eTqh8Y9w5-oUx2QwN2d9ZfvrbV8VI76Jac_wGy8vU0HDJC8kZsxCODUxL-v0-LWQnBluUpq-qsDVGV_FnsfWBY3t9eDW5Z4-YAmGWsK7U9CqUBkBPZgcWuym47_1VtxT74CJE_Bl65D2JD9IkLxfX80W9RBKrmEExeZfoxsqBGM592131t1to5g%3D%3D&tracking_referrer=www.washingtonpost.com

Quote:

"Our result—which relies on high-precision O2 measurements dating back to 19916—suggests that ocean warming is at the high end of previous estimates, with implications for policy-relevant measurements of the Earth response to climate change, such as climate sensitivity to greenhouse gases7 and the thermal component of sea-level rise8."

Ocean act as a sink for CO2, their capacity to hold CO2 diminishes with warming.

In another article, Harris wrote about jet streams causing the extreme cold conditions in the US.
So, what's going on when two views are posited?

For gods sake Ant, if the sun went out there would be no climate on the planet. Please explain at just what magnitude of output the sun ceases to be in control of our weather.

Hasbeen,
>There was Japanese research about 3 years ago that found that any increase in
>atmospheric CO2 was matched by a reduction in atmospheric water vapour.

So you keep saying, but I notice nobody else is. The fact that the Murdoch Press and the denials bloggers ignored it should be ringing alarm bells for you.

If the findings were as you say they were, and weren't just the result of a calculation error, the denialists would be shouting them from the rooftops. Indeed they'd probably have been shouting them from the rooftops for a while even if it were a calculation error!

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Something contradicting simple logic (and all the other scientists as well) is certainly an extraordinary claim. Yet you have no evidence at all; you can't even provide the names of the researchers, let alone a link to the study.

The most likely explanation is that you've misunderstood its conclusion. Maybe you misread a study saying that increased CO2 reduced the amount of water vapour entering the air through transpiration (which is very good news for arid zone farmers as it mitigates the effect of increased drought, but it doesn't prevent CO2 from increasing the amount of water vapour the atmosphere holds).

Hasbeen

What a facile comment, no sun and no greenhouse gases equals no life on Earth.

Climate has basically been in equilibrium while man has been in existence; the use of fossil fuels have changed that equilibrium. Pre-Industrial levels CO2 were around 270 ppm, now they are spiking over 410 ppm.

The article purports to present science, where are the references to support the views expressed in the article.

Previously you stated .."There was Japanese research about 3 years ago that found that any increase in atmospheric CO2 was matched by a reduction in atmospheric water vapour."

Can you provide a reference, my guess it has come from a denier blog spot which has misrepresented the science. I'll maintain my skepticism until your able to provide the reference.

http://youtu.be/8nrvrkVBt24

LEGO

Your comprehension is poor regarding climate change science, so your attempt is worthless.

Patrick Moore works as a lobbyist, he is not a climate scientist. He is also a member of a very conservative think tank. He is critical of climate science from the sidelines; but, as with denier groups, he has no data to back his case.
Above I wrote about how he tried to delve into coral reefs, his opinion was shot down by scientists working in the field. A reference with quotes from various scientists was provided. His opinion here would not pass the Criteria set by Seth Miller, above.

Various proxies, and ice cores taken provide a background of evidence taken from the field, supporting anthropogenic climate change.

For some matters denier points of view rely on conspiracy theories. The proxies that Pages 2 K consortium have collected support the view that the Medieval Era was not as warm as current global temperature. The Pages 2 K consortium provides access to the proxies they have used to create their conclusions … evidence based. The data supports Dr Mann's hockey stick concept, other studies have also done so. Dr Mann's hockey stick has been investigated a number of times, and found to be up held. Conspiratorial theories are promoted; yet, some information used by deniers has been tampered with.

In relation to the so called "climate gate", emails were stolen. Through the noise created, investigations were held, including by the British Parliament. Fraud was not found by any of the investigations .. conspiracy theory suggests otherwise.
Try putting conspiracy theories through the Criteria, LEGO.

The Criteria that Seth Miller provides, which was formulated to provide strong science shows that deniers do not have much to support their views.

https://thenewdaily.com.au/life/science/2019/03/11/coal-fired-power-plants/
Do deniers have evidence to show otherwise?

Sorry wrong article.

Latest IPCC prediction.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ICE6l-5qTYE

IPPC notable makes future weather predictions and blasts HIGW denier.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LF_Krra2J3k

'Global atmospheric CO2 levels have gone from under 320 ppm in the sixties to well over 400 ppm today, the highest in 3 to 5 million years.'

yeah Steelie and the martians ruled then. Absolute nonsense and I am sure you don't blush parroting such fantasy.

coal is actually helping to reduce carbon omissions,,because without it, countries with
huge populations such as China and India would simply cut down the trees and
use wood for cooking and warmth.

Burning wood produces double the amount of carbon that burning coal does.
So coal is a saviour in halving carbon rates. It is the big world population causing much of the environmental stresses on the earth.

Steelie, get on Google and find some graphs showing CO2 and world temperatures for the last 600 million years. 570 million years ago, global temperatures were much higher than today and CO2 was around 6000 ppm. Over time, both temperatures and CO2 levels have significantly decreased, but in no way in correlation with each other. There have been times when there was very significant increases in CO2 coinciding with very significant decreases in temperature.

It is only when temperatures are comparatively low, as they are at the moment, and atmospheric CO2 levels are almost non existent, that any correlation between temperatures and CO2 levels exist. And then that correlation is very close. Because sea water holds 50 times more CO2 than the atmosphere, and warm water holds less CO2, and cold water holds more CO2.

When temperatures rise through differences in the way solar radiation is distributed, the oceans warm, more CO2 is released, and Al Gore can get a Nobel Prize for telling everybody that CO2 drives temperatures. But it doesn't. Temperatures drive CO2 levels. At 320ppm, CO2 levels were the lowest they have been for 300 million years and plant life was beginning to choke. Fortunately, humans accidently became the cause of putting some much needed (by plants) CO2 back into the atmosphere. Satellites confirm that the Earth is greening as plants respond. Some commercial greenhouse operators growing fruits and vegetables actually pump CO2 into their greenhouses to make their plants grow bigger and faster.

If you think that CO2 drives temperatures, then I hope you are right. Because we get an Ice Age every 10,000 years with 10 "interglacial" warming and cooling periods between them. Guess what? The last Ice Age was 10,000 years ago and our present warming period is right on schedule. And it is the tenth of the series. The planet has not warmed since 1998. You had better hope that this is just another period of temperature no growth like in 1945 to 1977.

Because if it isn't, and you're right, then we had better start setting fire to every coal field now.

Hmmmm.. what about a global Royal Commission into the workings of the IPCC? Now that would be democracy!

Tell ya what, Steelie, I am going to help you.

Google "CO2 and temperature graph hundreds of million years." No correlation between CO2 and temps, other than both are decreasing, with temps sometimes rising significantly while CO2 is significantly decreasing, and vice versa

Now google "CO2 and temperature graphs 10s of million years". Exactly the same deal.

Now google "CO2 and temperature graphs hundreds of thousands of year" Very serious ice ages occur every 100,000 years, with each one's warming period getting progressively colder. And it is only when you get to this scale that the correlation between CO2 and temps appears. That is because after almost 600 million years, most of the atmospheric CO2 is now locked up in carbonaceous rocks like limestone, or fossil fuels. And what little is left is affected by the only major storehouse of free CO2 gas, the oceans of the world. Ocean CO2 solvability is affected by temperature. You will probably also find Al Gore's graph with which he "proved" to a auditorium full of cheering naive students that CO2 causes temperature rises. By now you should have figured out that he is wrong.

Next "tens of thousands of years" and things start to get really interesting. Less severe ice ages appear every 10,000 years, with 10 interglacial warming and cooling periods in each.

Lastly, "Major Holocene warming periods. We find the expected 10 warming periods since our last ice age Drawing a line along the peaks of the last four interglacial warming periods, we find that our present Holocene warming period has probably already reached it's extrapolated peak. Even Foxy and Ant could do this (with a bit of coaching).

So all of this newspaper nonsense about "this is the hottest year ever" is complete BS. We are at the top of just another routine warming period and we may still be warming, with a degree or so to go. Let's hope so. Because when we begin that plunge, THAT is when human civilisation is going to have real problems.

Eat, drink, and be merry, Steelie, because tomorrow we may freeze.

It has been known for decades that temperature rise causes CO2 rise. That doesn't alter the fact that rising CO2 levels cause the temperature to rise. Together those phenomena constitute a positive feedback mechanism.

Hey Aiden. First you make a correct statement and admit that temperature causes CO2 levels to rise. Then you make a statement which may be technically true, but which skips over the thorny question as to if this is significant.

As for your "positive feedback loop". The globe has not warmed since 1998 when humankind was belching out CO2 all over the place. Nor did it rise from 1954 to 1977, when once again industries and power stations were going full tilt. What does that say about your feed back loop?

The global pause in rising temperatures was what the Climategate thing was all about. You remember that, don't you Aiden? That was where a bunch of scientists at the east Anglia Climate Research Unit were bemoaning the fact that the globe was not heating up, and they discussed various ways of covering that up.

The whole HIGW thing is coming apart at the seams, AIden. Time to jump ship. The stupid predictions of the Alarmists made thirty years ago about immanent climate catastrophe have been proven to be completely false. Too many eminent geologists, astrophysicts, and physicists, like serious people, are coming forward and giving evidence to government panels that the whole thing is a sham.

41 remaining ex NASA scientists from the Apollo (you know, the guys who put astronauts on the moon)program have petitioned NASA to completely shut down NASA's climatic research unit because of the serious harm that self aggrandising climatologists have done to the authority and prestige of science.