Re: Wikipedia Promoting Global Warming Hysteria?

Robert S <roberts218e@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>On 17 Jul, 03:01, Bob LeChevalier <loj...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>> Robert S <roberts2...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>> > >http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/28/
>> >Sunspot_Numbers.png
>>
>> >> >...correlation of sunspot activity and irradiance:
>>
>> >> why do you believe numbers so far back...and why do you care
>>
>> >There have been very accurate scientific astronomers going back to
>> >Tycho Brahe and before. Kepler couldn't have done what he did if this
>> >wasn't the case.
>>
>> Tycho Brahe and Kepler weren't focused on sunspot activity (and I'm
>> not sure they even observed sunspots - Brahe died 10 years before
>> Galileo was systematically observing sunspots), and had no way to
>> measure irradiance.
>
>I didn't say they were. I offered Brahe as a counter-example to the
>idea that astronomic data from hundreds of years ago can't be trusted.

Astronomic data that far back was high quality by 16th century
standards, but I doubt if they would qualify by modern standards.
Hobbiest amateur astronomers these days can run circles around even
19th century astronomers.

>I offered that as an example, because it was highly accurate, and it
>was used to generate a mathematical model of the movement of the
>planets, i.e. it had predictive power.

The data, and the predictions, weren't that advanced, except by the
standards of a very ignorant era.

>> The sunspot cycle was not discovered until the
1840s:http://www-spof.gsfc.nasa.gov/Education/whschwab.html
>> and it was another decade before older observations were observed to
>> match the cycle, but even then systematic data was lacking before
>> 1700, which was 70 years after Kepler died.
>
>Yes, but we also have a high degree of tem****al correlation of
>results. 11 year cycles blend into the background on a time scale of
>hundreds of years, no?

The data is too spotty to tell.  I've seen attempts to superimpose
cycles on the earlier data, but they aren't very convincing.

>And longer time-scale trends emerge.
>
>And we have modern correlation of sunspot numbers and solar output.
>And we have a mini-ice back then. What does all that say to you?

Nothing.  Because the variations in solar output associated with
sunspot cycles are too small to make any difference.  If they did,
then we would see some sign of a sunspot cycle in charts like this:

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/img/climate/research/2007/ann/global-jan-dec-error-bar-pg.gif

We don't.

lojbab
Bob LeChevalier - artificial linguist; genealogist
lojbab@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
   Lojban language www.lojban.org