Tag: sun

It isn’t the sun

The recent CERN paper  in Nature on cosmic rays and cloud formation has caused considerable excitement in the denialist world.  Canadian columnist Lawrence Solomon in the Financial Post declared “The new findings point to cosmic rays and the sun – not human activities – as the controller of climate on Earth”.  For what the paper really said readers can turn to the welcome and discussion it received on RealClimate. There’s also a useful response to Solomon’s claim on SkepticalScience.

It’s a complex picture, but today I came across this short video which sets it out straightforwardly and with a light touch. (Thanks to The Carbon Brief website.) Put together by Australian science journalist Potholer, it is both an explanation of the science and a picture of how misinterpretations travel in the denialist community.

[Youtube]vvztL9r47MI[/Youtube]

The Climate Show #10: David Suzuki survives tech meltdown

Meltdown in the treacle factory (Glenn’s PC) means that episode 10 of everybody’s favourite Climate Show is only available in full by podcast. We’ve resurrected the video of our interview with David Suzuki, the great Canadian environmentalist and campaigner (above), but for the full goodness — a great climate change graphic, Russian heatwave analysis, thoughts on climate communication, John “Skeptical Science” Cook introducing the new politicians’ myths section on SkS and explaining the #1 skeptic delusion (no, it isn’t the sun wot dun it), plus a whole stack of solutions — tidal power, electric motorbikes, biochar for pasture and artificial photosynthesis — you’ll have to listen to the audio version (link below). That means you’ll have to do without the graphics we so lovingly describe, but… they’re all in the show notes below the fold… (Back, with luck with pictures, in two weeks).

Watch The Climate Show on our Youtube channel, subscribe to the podcast via iTunes, or listen direct/download here:

The Climate Show

Follow The Climate Show at The Climate Show web site, on Facebook and Twitter.

Continue reading “The Climate Show #10: David Suzuki survives tech meltdown”

The sun didn’t do it

SunThe last refuge of the climate sceptics is the claim that global warming is nothing to do with us: it’s the sun wot did it (to paraphrase a British tabloid). The claim has never held much water, but the final hole in the sceptics favourite bucket is a new paper examining claims of a solar driver for recent climate change. The BBC reports:

A new scientific study concludes that changes in the Sun’s output cannot be causing modern-day climate change. It shows that for the last 20 years, the Sun’s output has declined, yet temperatures on Earth have risen. It also shows that modern temperatures are not determined by the Sun’s effect on cosmic rays, as has been claimed.

The paper by Mike Lockwood from the UK’s Rutherford-Appleton Laboratory and Claus Froehlich from the World Radiation Center in Switzerland in the Royal Society’s journal Proceedings A, should put the “solar debate