wrote in news:5328feb2-ad9a-432c-b740-
:

On Jan 6, 7:22*am, Jim Willemin wrote:

Just look at the data. *The world isn't going to end tomorrow, nor yet
next week. *Alarmism is stupid. *But I think it is equally silly to
ignore what appears to be a significant trend because alarmists
overstate the case, or because of a few outlier data points.

Looking at, and presenting, the data in the absence of scientific
understanding of surrounding factors is what got us into this mess in
the first place. There has been a warming trend with increased
sunspot activity, which is the primary driver of the increase of temps
and loss of ice. Sunspot activity is now at it's 11 year low cycle,
and we see an increase in ice formation. Many scientist have tried to
point this out, only to get shouted down by the alarmists.

But I can certainly see how looking at just one data point could lead
some to jump to a conclusion, especially when that conclusion is
driven by monetary or political factors.



As you say, considering raw data without an understanding of what else is
happening leads to misunderstanding, and the 11 year sunspot cycle does
affect the amount of solar energy reaching Earth. On the other hand, the
problem is not simple; for example, the sea ice data do not show much of an
11-year cycle. There were solar output minima in 1985, 1996, and 2007
(from the graph of solar irradiance at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_variation) and each of those years had a
slightly below-average sea ice cover (to well below-average, in the case of
2007) (from the graph on the UI cryosphere site), which is exactly opposite
to what one might expect. Indeed, looking at the graph on Wikipedia, the
solar output appears to vary by about a tenth of a percent from sunspot low
to sunspot high (that is, by a little over one watt/square meter) which
doesn't seem like a whole lot. It is indeed something of a conundrum,
which I suppose is why there is controversy.