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	<title>Climate Skeptic &#187; climate sensitivity</title>
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		<title>Thinking About the Sun</title>
		<link>http://www.climate-skeptic.com/2009/04/thinking-about-the-sun.html</link>
		<comments>http://www.climate-skeptic.com/2009/04/thinking-about-the-sun.html#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 03 Apr 2009 15:33:55 +0000</pubDate>
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				<category><![CDATA[Other Causes of Warming]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[climate sensitivity]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[sum sunspots]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.climate-skeptic.com/?p=958</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[A reader wrote me a while back and asked if I could explain how I thought the sun could be a major driver of climate when temperature and solar metrics appear to have &#8220;diverged&#8221; as in the following two charts: In both charts, red is the solar metric (TSI in the first chart, sunspot number [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>A reader wrote me a while back and asked if I could explain how I thought the sun could be a major driver of climate when temperature and solar metrics appear to have &#8220;diverged&#8221; as in the following two charts:</p>
<p><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-959" title="unsync" src="http://www.climate-skeptic.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/unsync.gif" alt="unsync" width="500" height="336" /></p>
<p><img class="alignnone" src="http://www.climate-skeptic.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/temp_spots_with_pdo-500x375.gif" alt="" width="500" height="375" /></p>
<p>In both charts, red is the solar metric (TSI in the first chart, sunspot number in the second).  The other line, either blue or green, is a global temperature metric.  In both cases, we see a sort of step change in solar output, with the first half of the century at one plateau and the second half on a higher plateau.  This chart of sunspot numbers may better illustrate this:</p>
<p><img class="alignnone" src="http://www.climate-skeptic.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/sunspot2-500x310.gif" alt="" width="500" height="310" /></p>
<p>I had three answers for the reader:</p>
<ol>
<li>In any sufficiently chaotic and complicated system, no one variable is going to consistently regress perfectly with another variable.  CO2 does not line up with temperature any better.</li>
<li>There are non-solar factors at work.  As I have said on any number of occasions, I agree that the greenhouse effect of CO2 exists and will add about 1C for each doubling of CO2.  What I disagree with is the proposition that the Earth&#8217;s climate is dominated by positive feedback that multiplies this temperature increase 3-5 or more times.  The PDO cycle is another example of a process that affects global temperatures.</li>
<li>One should not necessarily expect a linear temperature increase to be driven by a linear increase in the sun&#8217;s output.   I will illustrate this with a simplistic example, and then invite further comment.   I believe the following is a correct illustration of one heat source -&gt; temperature phenomenon.  If so, wouldn&#8217;t we expect something similar with step-change increases in the sun&#8217;s output, and doesn&#8217;t this chart look a lot like the charts with which I began the post?</li>
</ol>
<p><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-960" title="water-stove-climate" src="http://www.climate-skeptic.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/water-stove-climate.gif" alt="water-stove-climate" width="500" height="500" /></p>
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