[LINK] NASA Solar Storm Warning

[Stephen Wilson]

stephen at melbpc.org.au wrote:
>> [Stephen Wilson:] Why shouldn't Greg and Phil be comfortable in being 
>> able to dismiss nonsense like the idea that the movement in the 
>> Milky Way might contribute to short (very very very short) scale 
>> climate change? 
> Why be so quick to dismiss? 

For all sorts of reasons:

(1) because good science involves filters
(2) because if you don't dismiss the extreme and crackpot theories you 
will waste so much time you won't make progress
(3) because climate change action is imperiled by the nay-sayers who 
latch onto all the fringe theories as "evidence" that the scientific 
consense is flimsy.

> [A solar maximum] has been building since 1958. Does science assert 
> climate systems are completely un-affected by solar storms, and by 
> associated sun spots and a build up of them?  
As far as I know, no climate scientist says climate is unaffected by 
such factors. But the strong scientific consensus -- as revealed by the 
IPCC reports, and by for example editorials in New Scientist and 
Scientific American I have read on the topic since the 1980s -- is that 
there is indeed one major causative factor, namely the liberation of 
carbon dioxide into the atmosphere by human activity.
> I guess NASA uses the term 'Storm' with reason?
Err yes, solar magnetic storms represent extreme fluctuations in the 
solar "wind" of charged particles that constantly bombard the earth.  
The word "storm" here is a metaphor and not a meteorological technicality.

See also George Bush's "Dessert Storm", or the Melbourne "Storm".

> Anyway, i say again, let's await additional scientific information, but
> also act on what we do presently know anyway. Or is this just 'bullshit'?
>
> Cheers,
> Stephen
Nobody objects to ongoing climate research, and nobody says the climate 
changes for just one reason.  What many scientists object to is the 
(usually political) perversion of scientific process by those who insist 
on equal time being given to crackpot theories. 

And what I was specifically objecting to was Stephen's suggestion that 
Greg and Phil were being somehow complacent in their casual dismissal of 
the Milky Way idea. 

Cheers,

Stephen Wilson.