The only case that the IPPC makes for AGW is that they can’t think of anything else that could have caused the recent warming and that models can reproduce the warming. This reproduction is achieved by introducing arbitrary amounts of aerosols. These same models did not predict the recent 12 years of constant temperatures.

The IPCC bases its conclusion on the mainstream scientific adoption of the standard solar model in which the only source of solar energy is radiation. Climate science totally ignores the millions of amperes of electrical currents entering and exiting the earth system via the polar Birkeland currents that, incidentally, also produce the colourful polar aurora when surges in the solar electric currents tip the currents from dark plasma mode into plasma glow mode.

Most of us realise that an electric current passing through matter generates heat, the principle on which electric heating radiators, electric kettles and electric blankets work.

But if your understanding of the solar system remains in the Newtonian, billiard ball model, where the only allowable force is gravity, that space is an empty vacuum, then truly you can’t think of anything else that could have caused the recent warming.

The point I make is that there is another source of energy, far greater in magnitude than solar radiation, that could, and quite easily I suspect, explain the recent warming without using the unphysical mechanism of a thermally capacitative gas.

The alternative explanation is that the nuclear fusion model is wrong and what known mechanism could replace it? Notice that nuclear fusion has not yet been demonstrated to be a sustainable replicable reaction – the US has been working for at least 50 years on the TOKOMAK project with not success in sight.

If the sun is an electrical phenomenon as advocated by the plasma physicists, then mundane solutions become possible. Solar fluctuations then are the result of changes in electrical flux of the galaxy-sized Birkeland currents powering the sun.

The Ubehebe structure can be viewed via Google Earth and one view is reproduced below.

My interpretation of this structure is that it is a proto-kimberlite diatreme, caused by an electrical discharge between the earth and some other, hitherto unidentified, extra-terrestrial body. This interpretation is based on the similarity between this crater’s bounding cliffs and that of the famous Kimberley Hole kimberlite in Kimberley, RSA. that can only be explained as the result of a downward machining Birkeland current.

More on this will be presented at the 34th IGC to be held in Brisbane, Australia during 2012.

Aside from this, I will safely also point out that the Ubehebe crater will not erupt, nor will any close by, similar craters, also erupt at the present moment, or during the near future, or even the distant future. These craters were not produced by internal earth processes but are surficial remnants, or scars, of earlier, cosmically scaled, electric discharges between the earth and an external plasma source.

It is quite likely that the thermal anomalies climate science is trying to grapple can be explained by including solar electric currents (Birkeland currents) into the energy balance of the earth system.

And mainstream science has another shackle in the form of its Lyellian legacy to deal with as well, before much scientific progress can proceed.

Science blinded by political ideology

Rather than an ad hominem attack (Weekend Australian 31.12.2011-1.1.2012, Inquirer, p. 14), Mike Sandiford should have addressed some basic science to support his case. Why didn’t he declare that there are some 1500 terrestrial volcanoes that emit small amounts of carbon dioxide yet there are more than 3 million submarine volcanoes that emit huge amounts of carbon dioxide? To refer to a lone US Geological Survey author who just happens to conveniently ignore these 3 million annoying carbon dioxide-emitting volcanoes is a window into how the climate industry is blinded by ideology. Or worse.

Why didn’t Sandiford declare that the geological record shows no relationship between atmospheric carbon dioxide and temperature? Why did he not acknowledge that there is a close relationship between the Earth’s climate, the Sun and the Earth’s orbit? Why didn’t he state that there have been six major ice ages and all were initiated when atmospheric carbon dioxide was higher than now? Ice core measurements show that after natural warming events, atmospheric carbon dioxide increases 800 years later. Why didn’t Sandiford mention this? Why did he not declare that to form the very common rock dolomite, the atmospheric carbon dioxide content had to be orders of magnitude higher than at present? Why did he not declare that the atmospheric carbon dioxide content has been decreasing for hundreds of millions of years because of natural sequestration in sediments?

Why didn’t Sandiford state that in historical times there have been warmings (Roman, Medieval) and coolings (Dark Ages, Little Ice Age) when there was no relationship between temperature and atmospheric carbon dioxide? Or do we just ignore the past. Why didn’t he declare that for the last 150 years there have been three warmings and three coolings and that there is no relationship between these events and human emissions of carbon dioxide? Why didn’t he show that the effect of a minor greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide, is minuscule compared to the massive effect of water vapour?

For years, such basic scientific omissions of established facts have crippled the credibility of the climate industry. This is why the punter does not accept pronouncements from upon high that so clearly defy common sense. And not a word from Sandiford about the IPCC fraud, the fraudulent ‘hockey stick’, Climategate 1, Climategate 2 and the litancy of failed IPCC predictions. Why not? Is Sandiford not up to date, is he blinded by political ideology or does he just ignore the embarrassingly messy bits? Does he really believe that an incredibly complex system such as climate is driven by human additions of traces of a trace gas? After all, the IPCC states that 3% of the total annual emissions of carbon dioxide are of human origin. Sandiford and catastrophist colleagues have yet to prove that this 3% drives global warming and the 97% does not. Why didn’t Sandiford declare that his university department is lavishly funded by the climate industry, as I showed in my book How to get expelled from school? If he lived outside the closeted academic world, the lack of such a declaration would have been illegal.

Why is there no mention of the role of the Sun and climate? Since the end of Little Ice Age, there has been a significant increase in solar irradiance until the end of the 20th Century. Has Sandiford ever considered that the great ball of heat in the sky we call the sun might actually have something to do with global temperature? How does Sandiford explain global warming on other planets where, last time I looked, there were no carbon dioxide emitting industries. Why didn’t Sandiford mention that there are solar-related cycles of air and ocean temperatures and that the sun drives the water cycle which in turn drives the carbon cycle? Climate is about energy, not a trace gas, and this energy comes from the sun. Does he not consider that the post-Maunder Mininum (1645-1715 AD) temperature rise might be due to the sun? There have been a number of periods in the last 150 years when human emissions of carbon dioxide increased strongly yet temperature decreased. Why hasn’t Sandiford shown a simple correlation between human emissions of carbon dioxide and temperature? The answer is simple. He can’t. There is no such correlation. He would know that without correlation there is no causation.

Oceans contain far more heat that the atmosphere and have a profound effect on climate. Why did Sandiford choose to ignore that sea surface temperatures have been declining? He didn’t even call upon his area of expertise, tectonics, to show that heat is also added to the oceans from below and that climates change enormously with shifting continents. Sandiford was quite happy to quote NASA. He also just happens to omit that in the 20 years since the global warming scare was launched, human emissions of carbon dioxide have risen by 50% yet global temperatures measured by NASA satellites are only 0.1°C warmer than the average throughout the 32 years since satellite measurements began. I only have to move a few metres to experience such catastrophic warming!

As for quoting Mrs Gina Rinehart stating that “she has never met a geologist who believes that adding more CO2 to the atmosphere will have any significant effect on climate”, maybe the climate industry should get away from their computer models that use other people’s data and get outside. Mrs Rinehart’s geologists find new resources, add wealth and create employment by using exactly the same empirical interdisciplinary science that confirms that human-induced warming is not in accord with observed data. These geologists just also happen to provide the taxation base from which the climate industry operates.

My book How to get expelled from school has 101 simple scientific questions for pupils, parents and punters to ask those who make catastrophic ideological predictions. I ask Sandiford an easy one: Which part of the last 330-year trend of warming is natural and which part is human-induced? If Sandiford has an answer, it will need to be supported by empirical evidence. Don’t wait up.

The threat of human-induced global warming comes from computer models that spit out pre-programmed predictions. Does Sandiford tell the reader that these models use ‘adjusted’ temperature data and just happen to ignore geology, history and clouds. No. Why not? There is far from general acceptance about the feedback effects of clouds and water vapour. The IPCC models assume that increased water vapour from more atmospheric carbon dioxide would greatly increase temperatures yet many scientists show that this feedback is unlikely to increase temperature and may even lower temperature. Why didn’t Sandiford state that there are huge uncertainties in trying to model very complex natural systems or does he just uncritically accept anything displayed on a computer screen?

I don’t accept these climate computer models because they are not in accord with measurements across the breadth of the natural sciences. If the climate industry can produce validated repeatable measurements to show that global temperature is caused by human additions of carbon dioxide, then I am quite happy to change my opinion. However, I think I will die waiting.

Science is married to evidence, skepticism, doubt and uncertainty and, by contrast, I am happy to be part of this process. What Sandiford did show is that the science of climate is not settled, there is no scientific consensus and that the issue has nothing to with science and is about politics. Some of us have been saying this for decades.

Ian Plimer is Emeritus Professor of Earth Sciences at The University of Melbourne.

The soon-to-be released mean global surface temperature results for calendar year 2011 will be more important than most years for those who believe that the sun dominates our climate to such an extent that human-induced carbon dioxide is only a minor influence on our global climate.

The sun’s activities are complex, but the historical temperature data since 1850 are probably sufficient to demonstrate how strongly the sun’s behaviour affects our global climate. There is a natural underlying warming trend since 1850 when the 1550-1850 mini ice age ended but there are also cyclical patterns in the global temperature readings which many scientists feel are related to the sun’s seasonal thermal cycle, thus confirming that the sun is by far the most important reason for global temperatures and that recent patterns in temperatures are consistent with normal patterns.

The sun is a seething mass of nuclear fusion explosions. This irregular ball of nuclear wildfire rotates on its axis approximately every 22 years. The earth is a water-covered rock in an elliptical orbit around the sun and is constantly absorbing energy and a soup of debris from the sun’s nuclear explosions. So, the sun turns through 180 degrees every 11 years and our earth orbit comes close to the same parts of the sun that it came close to 11 years earlier.

The graph below shows the solar-cycles in global temperatures reasonably clearly. The vertical grid lines are 11-year solar cycle intervals and the solid thin line is the annual mean global surface temperatures, as published by the Australian Bureau of Meteorology.

The mean temperature for each 11-year solar cycle interval is shown by the dashed horizontal lines and that value is written in each interval. For example, the last solar cycle from 1999 to 2010 averaged 14.39 degrees C – the hottest 11-year solar cycle since the end of the mini ice age in 1850.

Source: http://www.bom.gov.au/web01/ncc/www/cli_chg/timeseries/global_t/0112/global/latest.txt Base 1961-1990 average = 13.97°C

Peak Temperatures Every 66 Years?

In 1878, the earth was exceptionally warm but the next 33 years (being 3 solar cycles) were cooler years followed by another 33 years of steadily increasing temperatures up until 1944 – 66 years after 1878.

This pattern was repeated in 1944-2010: another 66-year temperature maximum was recorded in 1944, immediately followed by 33 years of cooler temperatures followed by another 33 years of steadily increasing temperatures up until 2010 – 66-years after the 1944 peak warm year.

So, the question is – will 2010 be followed by 33 years of relative cooler or “non-warming” years as the sun moves through its 66-year seasonal thermal cycle? The official annual results for 2011 will only give us a hint about the trend in temperatures – but it will be tantalising news either way.

What Does It Mean?

We are told that “most scientists” agree that human-induced carbon dioxide is the “big polluter” that threatens mankind. But there appears to be some flaws in the human-induced carbon-dioxide hypothesis, including the following:

• There appears to be a strong, solar-related cyclical pattern in global temperatures? Why can’t the overall warming trend also be predominantly solar-induced and not human-induced?
• Human-induced CO2 increased strongly from 1878 to 1911 but global temperatures fell quite strongly for 33 years – this 33 years of non-correlation between human-induced CO2 build-up and falling global temperatures for 33 years cannot be ignored as a minor aberration.
• Human-induced CO2 increased strongly from 1944 to 1977 but global temperatures did not rise – they actually fell. Again, this 33-year period of non-correlation with CO2 cannot be ignored.
• If CO2 is the dominant control on global temperatures, why don’t temperatures increase steadily in proportion to CO2 levels rather than in a cyclical manner that seems to be more related to the sun’s seasonal thermal cycles?

Human-induced CO2 will increase strongly for at least the next 33 years as China and India industrialise. If global temperatures do not rise significantly during this next 33-year period, will we conclude that this was a result of political action against “climate change” or will we conclude that it is probably part of a long-term solar cycle? Can scientific objectivity stare-down the political pressure?

Most insidiously, will climate computer modellers say “this global cooling is exactly what is predicted” in one or more of their many climate-change disaster scenario models?

Some politicians and urban commentators see humanity as a plague, some scientists exaggerate the importance of their hypotheses by exaggerating the consequences, and some economists readily accept unproven hypotheses to justify economic meddling. Eventually, the truth, whatever it is, will become clearer.

The 2011 annual global temperature data will be a start. It should be front-page news but let’s watch how it is reported. If the non-warming trend continues through 2013, then there is little doubt that the sun is controlling global temperatures and that human-induced carbon dioxide is a secondary influence of much lower significance.

* Ian Levy, BSc(Hons), MSc(Dist) is a geologist with majors in Economics, Science & Statistics at ANU in 1975 & London University in 1980. He conducted geostatistical analyses on temperature data and concluded that whilst the reasons for the long-term warming trend are still unresolved, the solar cycles are probably a significant causal factor that could dwarf all other influences on global temperatures.

Well 10 -12,000 years ago was an interesting time – it marked the catastrophic end to the Pleistocene ice age, and spurred the neolithic peoples to embark on a massive world wide petroglyph carving exercise documenting long term atmospheric plasma phenomena as studied and published here.

There is a belief that a mantle plume exists under the Laacher See caldera and this is probably right, but then no one understands how these mantle plumes are formed, especially the mechanism of a focussed local increase in energy to cause localised melting and eruption. In any case the usual culprit is a tectonic subduction zone and these are not in close proximity to the Laacher See caldera either.

Will the Laacher See volcano erupt in the near future? That depends on how well we understand the mechanics and physics of these things, and just where the energy is coming from to cause partial melting and eruption if we are well away from a suduction zone?

So no, the likelihood of this volcano re-erupting is rather low. Rather it is more possible that the earthquakes and CO2 emissions are related to the upwelling hydrocarbons under the North Sea, a known hydrocarbon source at depth.