The clouds on Neptune definitely increase/decrease with solar radiation despite receiving 1/900th as much as Earth receives. Surely this finding has no implications for Earth climate.

submitted by iamonlyoneman from phys.org

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[–]weavilsatemyface 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

I remember how solar radiation was extremely low for a period of time,

No you don't, not unless you are about two billion years old.

Variation in the solar radiation on earth is by around 0.1% from solar minimum to solar maximum. That is why it is called the solar constant.

According to Greenhouse Denialists, it is "impossible" for variations in CO2 levels by 50% or 100% to affect the climate, but variations in solar input by just 0.1% is enough to make huge changes to the climate. Why do Denialists speak such utter bullshit?

You can't have it both ways. If tiny, microscopic changes in solar radiation can affect the clouds as far away as Neptune, let alone lead to warming and cooling on Earth, then enormous changes in the level of CO2 and other greenhouse gasses must be even more significant.

then climate alarmist were afraid were were beginning to see a new ice age

No they didn't.

In the 1970s, at the very birth of climate science, scientists had not yet worked out which of two competing factors was winning out:

  • long-lasting greenhouse gases, which cause warming over a long period of time;
  • short-lasting smoke and pollution, which causes rapid cooling but only lasts a short time.

For a very short period, a few media outlets like Newsweek, and a handful of science fiction authors (mostly Joseph W Campbell and Jerry Pournelle), pushed a sensationalised idea of an imminent Ice Age. But it was never even close to the consensus among climate scientists, it was always a minority view, greatly exaggerated by the media.

Between 1965 and 1979 there were just 7 scientific papers suggesting global cooling (one per two years!) compared to 19 which were neutral, and 42 which suggested warming.

And by the 1980s it was clear that the global cooling idea (let alone the exaggerated "imminent Ice Age" story) was wrong, and that there is no question that the long-lasting greenhouse gasses are more important.

It would take gargantuan levels of smoke (say, from a massive volcanic eruption, an asteroid collision with the earth, or a nuclear war) to reverse greenhouse warming. This has certainly happened in the past (not the nuclear war obviously), but mere industrial pollution is not enough to counteract the addition of billions of tonnes of CO2 and methane into the atmosphere.

[–]SoCo 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Let's be clear, we are talking specifically about the incorrect ice age scare, you mentioned, of about 1965 to 1980. So any talk of climate denialists, or "greenhouse denialists," is not at all relevant, and sounds more like a personal grudge than science.

During the ice age scare, there was about a decade of minimal solar activity. Coupled with pretty mild weather patterns over the same period of time, this lead to some lower temperatures that sparked the fear.

Variation in the solar radiation on earth is by around 0.1% from solar minimum to solar maximum.

Well, that isn't exactly true....

The solar constant is measured from space and is dictating that the variance of solar radiation to the Earth, before penetrating the atmosphere, doesn't seem to vary much. This is mostly a recent historical measurement, with satellites, of the variation due to Milankovitch cycles, the many different movements of Earth and how that impacts climate.

Yet, there are many wavelengths of solar radiation which impact our Earth, some wavelengths are affected by greenhouse gasses more so than others, some not at all, some are reflected by certain atmospheric particles, some are not.

We like to measure this solar irradiation in very many different ways., which the Solar Constant is just a measurement of Flux, before the atmosphere.

While the scale is very large and we don't can't easily find recent scaled charts of variations in various solar activity and irradiance energy, we can even see them in the large scale chart. Despite scaled by 200 years, the tick mark at 100 years you can use for a reference and you'll see how all charted aspects dipped about the same time, including the global temperature, which you could guess by that 100 year before tick, to be generally around 1970.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7e/Milankovitch_Variations.png

There is whole papers and books on this topic you can read. Actually, a SaidIt user pointed me to one which enlightened me, although I can't find the link or name at the moment. I don't think it was uncommon, something like 'the non-scientific consensus of' the ice age scare or something. It was a good read.

It seems the newspapers mostly drove the scare, but winding the end of the scare, came the emerging scientific concepts of green house gasses. These followed shortly after the flawed CO2 study of the 1970's, that measured the warm up from CO2 as this ice age scare ended.

Of course, it is pretty easy to assume from the historical records, that we are becoming due for an ice age after this warming period completes. It will, of coursed, be anytime between now and 10's of thousands of years, so I would hold my breath.

I expect a nice big polar vortex between this winter and next, probably a little worse than 2000, mostly due to the extreme El Nino we've had. That should be fun.

[–]weavilsatemyface 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I'm not sure if you're agreeing with me or disagreeing ... I think agreeing but this is social media so fuck knows 😉