UN IPCC Scientist Rejects Romm’s Claims as ‘nonsense on all counts…NASA’s predictions of next solar cycle have all been wrong’
UN IPCC Scientist Richard Courtney told Climate Depot that Joe Romm’s article was ‘nonsense.’ Courtney, a UK based atmospheric science consultant, is featured on page 224 of the U.S. Senate Report of More Than 700 Dissenting Scientists Over Man-Made Global Warming. (See Climate Progress article: Joe Romm Counters: ‘No ‘Maunder Minimum’ — sorry, deniers — Solar Cycle 24 poised to rev up’ – June 18, 2009)
Courtney’s Guest Post: The Joe Romm of Climate Progress article is nonsense on all counts.
Firstly, it is plain wrong when it asserts:
“The deniers have been rooting for a Maunder Minimum to stifle global warming.”
I know of nobody who has been “rooting” for cooling, but I know of several so-called “deniers” who assert that slight warming (as could be expected if the AGW-hypothesis is right) would provide net benefits.
Secondly, article shows a degree of confidence that cannot be justified when it says;
“The sunspot cycle is about to come out of its depression, if a newly discovered mechanism for predicting solar cycles — a migrating jet stream deep inside the sun — proves accurate.”
NASA’s predictions of the next solar cycle have all been wrong: e.g. see their predictions of only three years ago at:
http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/144055main_Cycle24PredictionHathaway%5B3.jpg
Any prediction of the future has to be based on a model of some kind, and no model’s predictions should be trusted unless the model has demonstrated forecasting skill.
Any forecast can turn out to be correct as a chance result, and forecasting skill is demonstrated by provision of a series of forecasts that concur with subsequent events by more than could be expected by chance. (The UK Met. Office has done much work to develop methods for assessing the forecasting skill of its weather forecasts).
The predictions in the above URL were only three years ago and the NASA team has not made any demonstrably better forecasts since.
Simply, their recent track record demonstrates that their forecasting methods have the same reliability as the casting of chicken bones to predict the future. Indeed, if they are now using “a newly discovered mechanism for predicting solar cycles” then that method is totally untried, untested and has no demonstrated worth of any kind.
of course, any guess could be right, so NASA may be right this time (but I would not bet on it) and if this prediction were right …
Joe Romm Counters: ‘NASA says no ‘Maunder Minimum’ — sorry, deniers — Solar Cycle 24 poised to rev up’
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Pravda: Global Warming Will Improve Global Agriculture
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Claim: ‘Coldest Weather in 100 Years to Strike by 2012’
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Solar Cycle 24 lack of sunspots caused by ‘sluggish solar jet stream’
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Sun Analysis: ‘Number of spotless days has not been equaled since 1914’
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Report: ‘Solar activity is still falling’
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UK Astrophysicist: Solar Cycle 25 to end ‘Man Made Climate Change myth’
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Researchers ‘Stunned’ to Discover Earth Losing Atmosphere Faster than Venus, Mars — vulnerable to ‘assault from Sun’
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Update: Talking Points Memo issues retraction for call to execute skeptics! — ‘A formal retraction and apology’
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