I’m going to guess that it’s the information presented in the ironically-named program “The Great Global Warming Swindle”. My guess is based on the following quote, from the OP:
If this is an incorrect assumption, Quartz, then please clarify.
LilShieste
My guess is that he is referring to this. See here for a more critical review of what this experiment did or did not show. As that discussion alludes to, that experiment puts the cosmic ray hypothesis in about the same place that the hypothesis that CO2 could cause warming was around 1860. This doesn’t mean that it is not worthy of further investigation to understand if cosmic rays could really have any significant impact on cloud formation and thus, possibly, climate. However, it is kind of ludicrous to put this hypothesis on the same level as the AGW one, for which we know to a quite high accuracy the radiative forcing that is produced by the various greenhouse gases whose concentrations in the atmosphere we can also track with good precision.
Here’s a story from that notoriously right-wing organization, National Geographic - but they do try to be even-handed.
Meanwhile (and this is an older one), space.com - which is probably some kind of Nazi group - reports that the sun’s output has been increasing about .5 % since the 1970s. Before that, apparently, they suspect a warming trend, but measurements before that are lacking. This flatly contradicts the BBC story (or vice-versa), so excuse me if I don’t jump on the bandwagon.
No, not really. The report you linked to describes a 2003 article by Willson & Mordvinov. That article is cited in the new Lockwood & Frohlich article that the OP’s cite is talking about, and which I gave a link to in an earlier post.
Lockwood & Frohlich point out on page 4 that they are basing their analysis on a data composite “that does differ from others (Willson & Mordvinov 2003) but has the most rigorous set of time-dependent intercalibrations between the radiometers that account for both instrument degradations and pointing ‘glitches’”.
In other words, according to this new research, one of the reasons their conclusions differ from those of the 2003 article you mention is simply that they’re using better data.
It’s admittedly very confusing sometimes to try to understand science findings based just on reports about them in popular media. According to the average news story, one scientist just says X while another one says not-X, and it’s very hard to understand why they’re disagreeing or exactly what they’re disagreeing about. As you note, it can easily look as though one story is “flatly contradicting” the other. But if we look at the actual research papers themselves, even if we can’t understand all the technical content, it’s usually pretty apparent that the authors are aware of each other’s positions and are taking them into account.
More importantly, though, IMHO, Lockwood & Frohlich’s main conclusion isn’t really about whether the solar radiance has been slightly decreasing since the 70’s or slightly increasing since the 90’s. They’re primarily pointing out that based on the available data, whatever slight changes we’re seeing in solar radiation patterns are nowhere near enough to account for the recent warming trends.
Here is a good summary of the problems with the idea that the warming is due to a change in solar irradiance.
Also note that if it was simply a change in solar irradiance that was causing warming (and not the more complex cosmic ray hypothesis), then one would expect both the troposphere and stratosphere to have warmed. Instead, the stratosphere has been cooling as the troposphere has been warming, just as is predicted if the warming is due to a buildup of greenhouse gases. (Some, but not all, of the cooling of the stratosphere can be accounted for by the decrease in stratospheric ozone.)
So, the point is that, yes, among the thousands of papers published on climate change, a few can be found that claim support for solar influences possibly accounting for some of the recent warming. However, the overwhelming majority of the evidence argues against that (or that it at best accounts only for a very small amount).
I have a suspicion that it’s related to the degree of fundamentalism in their religious beliefs. If they accept that science is actually right about GW, then that undermines their faith that science is *wrong * about evolution. Propping up that view requires believing that science is just another belief system, no truer or better than their own, and therefore dismissable.
The mindset also ties into a tradition of profligate use of resources (doesn’t matter 'cause the Rapture is imminent), the powerful American car/truck culture, and even partisanship (GW is a lib’ral Algore thang, ya know? Cain’t nohow be right). I’m probably missing a few things, but that’s the gist.
Just a notion there, folks.
There’s some of that, but I think your second point is closer to the truth. I think the degree of disbelief has a lot more to do with the notion that environmental issues are liberal-hippie issues than with religious pursuasion. There’s also a huge amount of resistance to agreeing with a position that’s going to hurt your pocketbook, but I’ve talked with more than a few people who think that global warming and acid rain are simply far-left strategies designed to promote what they see as liberals’ anti-US and anti-capitalist views of the world. I haven’t heard this much any more, but for quite a while during the Clinton administration there was a lot of talk from the conservatives that Kyoto was designed primarily to weaken the US economy because Europe and its liberal followers in the US wanted to see the demise of America.
(edit - hate bad spelling)
Perhaps it’s the lack of actual data? For the AGW side, that is; I don’t think that anyone would deny that the Earth has warmed since the Little Ice Age - or since the last Ice Age for that matter. Sure there are a lot of models, but I’ve said my piece about those elsewhere.
Lack of data? Sure there’s a lack of data, if you ignore all the data that’s been collected. If you’re really interested in looking at the “actual data”, just take a look at all of jshore’s posts - he’s posted cites countless times.
The current theory with AGW isn’t solely based on models, so I don’t know where these types of statements keep coming from. There is plenty of data to back everything up. (Theories are created to explain collected evidence - not the other way around.)
LilShieste
Are you sure it’s not our fault? Maybe the Earth’s orbit is just getting closer to the sun. Or storms of galactic photons are eating the ozone. Are volcanoes spitting out more carbon dioxide now than in the past? Occam’s Razor is tossed aside for hypothetical bulldozers.
We’re skipping past denial now and just charging full steam into delusion.
Yes. Lack of data. Not absence of data. Lack of data. Truly accurate data is limited to only very recent times. I don’t know if that’s sufficient, but it makes me extremely suspicious.
Somehow I’ve got this idea that atmospheric CO[sub]2[/sub] level data from ice cores extends back a long time into the past. And I’ve also got the idea that the acceleration of the temperature rise begain after the industrial revolution which increased the CO[sub]2[/sub] output tremedously. It’s also my impression that temperature rise correlates with CO[sub]2[/sub] level and not with solar output. Correlation doesn’t necessarily mean causation but it’s foolish to ignore it since there doesn’t seem to be any other factor that would cause a rise in temperature and that correlates with that rise.
It is worth nothing that current levels of CO[sub]2[/sub] concentration is still extremely lower than at other points in the Earth’s history, periods of time in which there was life all over the Earth that got along just fine (for example there were alligators on islands in northern Canada, up near Greenland during one such warm period.) Right now we are approaching a CO[sub]2[/sub] concentration of 400 ppm, it has been over 4,000 in the past (and there were significant life forms present when it was concentrated thus.) This isn’t to say we shouldn’t be concerned, as we should. However your post seemed to be implying the industrial revolution was creating CO[sub]2[/sub] concentrations far higher than anything seen before, it isn’t, not even close.
As for the study and the OP, most climate scientists believe Solar output has a significant impact on global climate, so the thread title is not really a good one. Solar output definitely impacts climate change. While it probably isn’t impacting current climate change, scientists believe it is one of many factors that impacts long-term climate change on earth (that happen over hundreds of millions of years.)
As for why people aren’t that alarmed about global warming, to a degree I think it is because just in my own life I’ve seen way too many “apocalypse” theories presented. I think part of the problem is people who are screaming, “GLOBAL WARMING IS GOING TO BE A GLOBAL APOCALYPSE” create more noise than the reputable scientists and organizations like the IPCC that simply state global warming is a big problem, but don’t use big scare-words and try to sell us on a massive apocalypse. I think it’s basically a bit of chicken littleism at play, that has nothing to do with how valid concerns are about GW but just about how our society has over-emphasized threats in the past, thus dulling the reception many will feel to threats in the future. I mean, Y2K was supposed to destroy all financial institutions and make nuclear missile silos fire their missiles without control. All throughout the Cold War we were told a nuclear holocaust was all but certain in the future. We were told Communism was going to spread over the entire world. We were told Japan’s economy was going to become so strong they ran America out of business. I’ve always considered myself an environmentalist, and I am concerned about global warming. But to a degree I feel like I don’t have “enough time” to get worked up about it. I think it’s going to happen, I don’t think enough is going to change to markedly reduce its effects, I think we’ll have to adapt.
My major interest areas in regard to environmental causes tend to be issues like habitat destruction of fauna, overuse of natural resources by commercial fishing, and improper management of forests and other ecologies that need to be more adequately protected. If tuna are fished to extinction, they’re never coming back. If elephants or tigers go extinct, they’re never coming back, either.
What do you mean by “truly accurate” data? Are you concerned that the amount of CO2 that we are releasing into the atmosphere is not being adequately measured? Or the increase in the average global temperature? Are you concerned about the accuracy of all the data collected from boreholes?
LilShieste
You’re talking about points in time further back than 650,000+ years, right?
I think you read something in David Simmons’ post that wasn’t actually there. He said:
IOW - we’re making CO2 levels climb much faster than they had in the past.
I agree with you to an extent. Another part of the problem, though, is that people aren’t just tossing out predictions of AGW consequences; they’re trying to discredit the actual science of it. I have no problem with people debating the former, but I have a huge problem with people blithely disregarding - and misrepresenting - the latter.
LilShieste
I’m talking about periods around 400 million years ago.
Yes.
Then I suppose there’s nothing for me to debate with you. 
LilShieste
I really don’t see what this has to do with today. I doubt that anyone is saying that warming will exterminate all life. However, back 50, or 100 or 400 million years ago there were not huge cities that could be flooded by a rise in sea level. There were not over 6 billion people whose existence depended upon a huge agricultural output that will be greatly disrupted by warming.
Just because far bigger predators existed during the age of dinosaurs I shouldn’t worry about the grizzly bear in my campground?