{"id":278256,"date":"2023-09-11T14:12:38","date_gmt":"2023-09-11T12:12:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=278256"},"modified":"2023-09-11T14:12:52","modified_gmt":"2023-09-11T12:12:52","slug":"controversy-surrounding-the-suns-role-in-climate-change","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=278256","title":{"rendered":"Controversy surrounding the Sun\u2019s role in climate change"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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From Climate Etc.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

by Dr. Willie Soon, Dr. Ronan Connolly & Dr. Michael Connolly<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gavin Schmidt at realclimate.org attempts to dismiss our recent papers, including pseudo-scientific takedowns.  This post takes a deep dive into the controversies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the last month, we have co-authored three papers in scientific peer-reviewed journals collectively dealing with the twin problems of (1) urbanization bias and (2) the ongoing debates over Total Solar Irradiance (TSI) datasets:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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  1. Soon et al. (2023<\/strong>). Climate<\/em>. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/cli11090179<\/a>. (Open access)<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  2. Connolly et al. (2023<\/strong>). Research in Astronomy and Astrophysics<\/em>. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1088\/1674-4527\/acf18e<\/a>. (Still in press, but pre-print available here<\/a>)<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  3. Katata, Connolly and O\u2019Neill (2023<\/strong>). Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology<\/em>. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1175\/JAMC-D-22-0122.1<\/a>. (Open access)<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    All three papers have implications for the scientifically challenging problem of the detection and attribution (D&A) of climate change. Many of our insights were overlooked by the UN\u2019s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in their last three Assessment Reports (AR), i.e., IPCC AR4 (2007), IPCC AR5 (2013) and IPCC AR6 (2021). This means that the IPCC\u2019s highly influential claims in those reports that the long-term global warming since the 19th century was \u201cmostly human-caused\u201d and predominantly due to greenhouse gas emissions were scientifically premature and the scientific community will need to revisit them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    So far, the feedback on these papers has been very encouraging. In particular, Soon et al. (2023) seems to be generating considerable interest, with the article being viewed more than 20,000 times on the journal website<\/a> in the first 10 days since it was published.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    However, some scientists who have been actively promoting the IPCC\u2019s attribution statements over the years appear to be quite upset by the interest in our new scientific papers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    This week (September 6th, 2023), a website called RealClimate.org<\/a> published a blog post<\/a> by one of their contributors, Dr. Gavin Schmidt, the director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (NASA GISS). In this post, Dr. Schmidt is trying to discredit our analysis in Soon et al. (2023), one of our three new papers, using \u201cstraw-man<\/a>\u201d arguments and demonstrably false claims.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    As we summarize in Connolly et al. (2023),<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \u201cA \u201cstraw man\u201d argument is a logical fallacy where someone sets up and then disputes a position that was not actually made by the group being criticised. Instead, the group\u2019s arguments or points are either exaggerated, misrepresented, or completely fabricated by the critics.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    In our opinion, while this rhetorical technique might be good for marketing, political campaigning, \u201chit pieces\u201d, etc., it is not helpful for either science or developing informed opinions. Instead, we strive in our communications to take a \u201csteel-manning<\/a>\u201d approach. As we point out in Connolly et al. (2023),<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \u201cEssentially, this involves addressing the best and most constructive form of someone\u2019s argument \u2013 even if it is not the form they originally presented.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    With that in mind, we will first steel-man Dr. Schmidt\u2019s apparent criticisms of Soon et al. (2023).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Steel-manning Dr. Schmidt\u2019s criticisms of Soon et al. (2023)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    In his latest RealClimate post, Dr. Schmidt claims the following:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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    1. He asserts that one of the two Total Solar Irradiance (TSI) time series that we considered in Soon et al. (2023) is flawed, out-dated and unreliable. (As an aside, this was also one of the 27 TSI series we considered in Connolly et al. (2023) but he does not discuss this paper here)<\/li>\n\n\n\n
    2. He claims that a 2005 paper by Dr. Willie Soon looking at the relationship between TSI and Arctic temperatures has been disproven by the passage of time.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
    3. He argues that the \u201crural-only\u201d Northern Hemisphere land surface temperature record that was one of the two temperature records we analysed in Soon et al. (2023) is not representative of rural global temperature trends or even rural Northern Hemisphere temperature trends.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n

      Later in this post, we will respond to each of Dr. Schmidt\u2019s claims and show how they are incorrect. But, first it may be useful to provide some background information on RealClimate.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      How reliable is RealClimate.org?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

      RealClimate.org was created in 2004 as a blog to promote the scientific opinions of the website owners. It is currently run by five scientists<\/a>: Dr. Gavin Schmidt, Prof. Michael Mann, Dr. Rasmus Benestad, Prof. Stefan Rahmstorf and Prof. Eric Steig.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      Anybody with scientific training (or even just a careful reader) who actually reads our paper will be able to see that each of the claims in Dr. Schmidt\u2019s recent blog-post are either false, misleading or already clearly addressed by our paper. Therefore, scientifically speaking, his post doesn\u2019t contribute in any productive or meaningful way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      Instead, unfortunately, the goal of his post seems to be to try and stop inquiring minds from reading our paper.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      If people were only to read his blog-post then they might be discouraged from even looking at our paper \u2013 and therefore wouldn\u2019t find out that Dr. Schmidt\u2019s alleged \u201ccriticisms\u201d are without merit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      This type of pseudoscientific \u201ctake-down\u201d of any studies that disagree with the RealClimate team\u2019s scientific opinions<\/em> seems to be a common pattern. For example, in November, they posted a similar \u201ctake-down\u201d of our 2021 study that they disdainfully titled \u201cSerious mistakes found in recent paper by Connolly et al.<\/a>\u201d That post summarized their attempted \u201crebuttal\u201d of our Connolly et al. (2021) paper by Richardson & Benestad (2022).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      Anybody who reads both<\/strong> Connolly et al. (2021) and Richardson & Benestad (2022) will quickly realize that their attempted \u201crebuttal\u201d was also easily disproven. Indeed, two of our three recent papers explicitly demonstrate that Richardson & Benestad (2022)\u2019s claims were flawed and erroneous.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      Again, it seems that the goal of Richardson & Benestad (2022) and RealClimate\u2019s accompanying post in November was NOT<\/strong> to further the science, but rather to discourage people from actually reading Connolly et al. (2021)!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      Connolly et al. (2023) is our formal reply to Richardson & Benestad (2022)\u2019s attempted rebuttal of our earlier Connolly et al. (2021) paper.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      For anybody who is wondering what our response to Richardson & Benestad\u2019s November 2022 RealClimate post is, we recommend reading the full papers themselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      All three articles were published in the peer-reviewed journal, Research in Astronomy and Astrophysics<\/em> (RAA for short).<\/p>\n\n\n\n