The Australian Astronomical Society has just announced the release of a rather obtuse-sounding paper "Does a Spin–Orbit Coupling Between the Sun and the Jovian Planets Govern the Solar Cycle?". This would normally pass into the scholarly ether but for the efforts of numerous global warming deniers to promote it as evidence of 'global cooling'.
The paper contains various observations regarding the orbit of the Sun, Jupiter and Saturn which have been helpfully translated to mean the Earth will experience diminished sunlight in the next decade and a consequent lowering of mean global temperature by 1-2 degrees. This trend is predicted to last around twenty to thirty years.
Precisely why certain blogs have immediately accepted this one paper rather than the weight of scientific opinion that anthropogenic climate change is unclear. However, even if we do accept these findings that a new global dimming is upon us, this only delays the impact of temperature rises from increased carbon in the atmosphere.
The IPCC Fourth Assessment Report offers a range of scenarios for temperature change, giving a projected increase of between 0.8 and 1.2 degrees C by 2040. It is quite possible that the two phenomena, if scientifically sound, could offset one another. However, the dimming period is predicted to last only 20-30 years which means by 2050 there would be a reasonable chance that the full force of high atmospheric carbon levels would be felt.
In other words, far from evidence that global warming is bunk, the global dimming phase at best offers a temporary reprieve and an unexpected opportunity to make better, more strategically sound long-term decisions.
Rather than use this as evidence for opposing any climate action, it should give us hope that we can adapt out society for sustainable development over the long term. We need to gain a better appreciation of both the dynamics of carbon in the atmosphere and the trends towards higher or lower solar radiation. At the same time, we need to continue picking low-hanging efficiency fruit and researching long-term fossil fuel replacements.
These decisions will be best made with open minds rather than ideological obsession.
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2 comments:
Damn. If I'd read this a few weeks ago, it would have got quote of the week. Would have been topical as well given what the trolls were up to at my blog.
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