Does anyone dispute the validity of this paper?

Question

http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/~wsoon/miscAug06-d/Soon05-SolarArcticTempGRLfinal.pdf

Patrick.... it that you?
...ever heard of Solanki

Figure 4) Recongize the curve?

http://www.agu.org/pubs/toc/gl/gl/gl9916/1999GL900370/1999GL900370.pdf#search='Total%20Solar%20Irradiance%20reconstructed'

Yes Trevor, I am sure you have implemented the wavelet transform on many projects. Was Solanki funded by big oil in 1999? ..Oh..My Gosh.. you....are....such...a..Prissy Scott...!!!!

Dana, I believe in the AGW effect, but I place at only 30%.

d/dx d/dy d/dz:
I think you probably dispute the validity of everything. The Wavelet transform is not bound by the same sampling theorom that fourier series are.

Answer 1

I dispute the solar irradiance data. Especially the fact that most of it is proxy data, meaning that it isn't a measure of solar irradiance but a record of something else, like sunspot numbers, that is used to infer solar irradiance. Accurate solar irradiance data from satellites are obviously not available before the first satellites were launched and ground based measurements are not accurate enough for this kind of work. And as others have pointed out, the data ends some years ago while the solar irradiance has been somewhat low recently. In 100 more years we should have enough data to get a definitive answer, assuming we don’t stop launching satellites because the environmentalists complain about the rocket exhaust.

Answer 2

The wavelet decomposition method is sensitive to noise. It is quite possible to see patterns where none exist. Strangely, the five source composite solar irradiance proxy used in this study does not match data from direct satellite measurements. http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/stp/SOLAR/IRRADIANCE/irrad.html The uncertainties in the temperature series, which is from a selective list of weather stations, are not given. The claim that 40-80 year cycles can be resolved with 125 years of data violates the Nyquist Theorem. The author states "Any formal attempt to assert physical significance in such correlations is unwarranted since the true degree of freedom is neither known nor verifiable without additional physical insights." In plain English, there is no physical explanation for the correlation between a doctored sun activity plot and a temperature series from selected stations. Notwithstanding this, Exxon-Mobil (see acknowledgements) got value for their money because at least a few people are confused.

Answer 3

Just 99+% of all scientists, who say that global warming is mostly caused by man.

Note that the graphs end in 2001 in a paper from 2005. That's because the correlations disappear if you include the later data.

Solar irradiance has been decreasing lately while temperatures are increasing. And you've been given (and have provided yourself) references that say that. For example:

"Recent oppositely directed trends in solar
climate forcings and the global mean surface
air temperature", Lockwood, Frohlich (2007), Proc. R. Soc. A, doi:10.1098/rspa.2007.1880

Willie Soon has been caught doing bad science before. A previous paper was so bad half the editorial board of the journal involved resigned because the publisher admitted the article was wrong, but wouldn't publish an apology for printing it.

"How can the publication of one poor paper in a scientific journal have caused the resignation of half the members of its editorial board (including the newly-appointed editor-in-chief)"

http://www.sgr.org.uk/climate/StormyTimes_NL28.htm

"Hans von Storch did not have time to start his job before sitting down to write his resignation letter. Just four days before becoming editor in chief of the journal Climate Research, he ended up quitting over a paper that has many scientists hot under the collar. "

http://chronicle.com/subscribe/login?url=/weekly/v50/i02/02a01601.htm

So, many scientists dispute the validity of Soon's work.

So much for that "theory".

Answer 4

I don't have much to add to Trevor's analysis. I do appreciate that at least you're trying to use scientific papers as evidence. Maybe you should try looking at some papers besides the tiny fraction which express doubt in anthropogenic global warming?

Answer 5

The topic has very little to do with the causes of global wrming, if that's what you are driving at. It's known--and has been known by people who ACTUALLY KNOW science--that the normal variations in solar radiation afect global temperatures.

But they also know that scientists--real ones--checked this as a possiblecause of global warming--and found it was not responsible for more than a tiny part, if at all. That's old news.

And that's essentially what the paper says--if any of the so-called "deniers" had the intelligence to understand it.

Answer 6

Slight problem with the paper - a lot of it is nonsense, it can be picked apart sentence by sentence.

I would have though the fact that the research was funded by Charles G Koch (oil billionaire), the American Petroleum Institute and ExxonMobil would have given the game away (see acknowledgements section in the paper).

There are some valid points but they're lost amongst the rest of the paper where the facts have been grossly distorted, are very selective, omit many key points altogether, focus on small aspects whilst ignoring the larger picture, use discredited sources, manipulate the figures etc.

Answer 7

it's good to see skeptics pulling info from legitimate sources, well done. Keep posting more like this, maybe find some with more than one author.

edit

i guess trevor picked this one apart, i typically handle reading scientific papers as follows:

-read abstract
-scan for familiar equations, if none look familiar then
-look at graphs
-read conclusion

LOL

but, at least you used a non-biased internet site

Answer 8

No, but as the title suggests it simply presents a "plausible" finding. Not exactly evidence of anything is it?