Changes in solar output are still not responsible for observed Global Warming, despite the most keenly heartfelt wishes of Solar Change fantasists – dare I name any ? Nope. They know who they are, and I don’t want them to huff and puff and rail and rant at me for suggesting how absurd their theories are, and linking those theories to their names.
Issues of “libel terror” aside, it really is important to spell out how poor Internet discussion on this matter is : a little knowledge pudding with some juicy mythical sauce topping makes for a tasty treat for a number of web geniuses (or is that “genii” ?), but I’d suggest they need the bitter corrective antacid to their stomach-challenging dessert.
The main question is : who is reviewing Internet coverage of Climate Change Science and the accuracy of the debates that swirl around it ? We all know that the mainstream Media source most of their science from the Internet these days, and that most people only absorb what science they have the limited time to read/watch in the mainstream Media, so the answer to this question is important.
Anti-Science is still feeding on anti-science, and is still partly funded by corporations and companies that have a vested interest in the truth continuing to be muddied.
What do scientists think about the Climate Change Science denial that has blossomed and exploded with the development of the Internet ?
Here’s one answer, in a science article about the recent solar minimum :-
https://rspa.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/466/2114/303.full
“Solar change and climate: an update in the light of the current exceptional solar minimum : Mike Lockwood : Department of Meteorology, University of Reading, Reading, Berkshire, UK; Space Science and Technology Department, Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, Chilton, Didcot, Oxfordshire, UK : Published online before print December 2, 2009, doi: 10.1098/rspa.2009.0519
Proc. R. Soc. A 8 February 2010 vol. 466 no. 2114 303-329”
“Abstract : Solar outputs during the current solar minimum are setting record low values for the space age. Evidence is here reviewed that this is part of a decline in solar activity from a grand solar maximum and that the Sun has returned to a state that last prevailed in 1924. Recent research into what this means, and does not mean, for climate change is reviewed”
“…Just how poor and ill-informed some of the debate appearing on the Internet can become is illustrated by recurrent reports that global temperature rise is associated with changes in the corpuscular emissions of the Sun. The total energy input from the thermal solar wind plus suprathermal solar particles into the atmosphere and inner magnetosphere (some of the latter may be deposited in the upper atmosphere at a later time) is of the order of 1013 W [Watts] or, per unit surface area of the Earth, 0.02 W m−2 [Watts per square metre]. Even if we take the extreme case that this input was entirely absent during the MM [Maunder Minimum] (known not to be the case), we would require an amplification by a factor exceeding 250. Furthermore, this very little energy is deposited in the upper atmosphere (the thermosphere) and there is no known viable mechanism in the published literature that will allow it to influence the global troposphere, let alone with this huge amplification factor. It is true that the history of solar–terrestrial physics shows that one cannot use the absence of a known mechanism as more than an indication: Lord Kelvin famously dismissed the growing evidence for solar influence on the geomagnetic field as ‘mere coincidence’, using an argument based on magnitudes (Kelvin 1893). The argument turned out to be wrong because it did not allow for the existence of the solar wind (which was not suggested until 1901 by George Fitzgerald). However, that situation is not at all analogous to the present situation concerning climate change. Lord Kelvin was not proposing an alternative explanation and he was quite right to point out that chance agreements do occur in datasets of limited duration (but wrong to dismiss the possibility that it was real). In the case of climate change, there is no doubt that global mean temperatures have risen, so that the effect is known to be real. Furthermore, there is a viable explanation of that effect, given that the amplification of radiative forcing by trace GHG [Greenhouse Gas] increases by a factor of about 2 is reproduced by global coupled ocean–atmosphere models. What is alarming is that in the face of this strong scientific evidence, some Internet sources with otherwise good reputations for accurate reporting can still give credence to ideas that are of no scientific merit. These are then readily relayed by other irresponsible parts of the media, and the public gain a fully incorrect impression of the status of the scientific debate.“