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Those Neptunians obviously need to cut back their greenhouse gas emissions emissions pronto.
In a study recently published in Geophysical Research Letters, H.B. Hammel of the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo., and G.W. Lockwood of Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Ariz., found that Neptune's brightness appears to correlate with temperature changes on Earth. They also noted that Neptune's temperature warmed from 1980 to 2004.
Since there are no humans on Neptune to cause anthropogenic warming — the crime that Gore and the Greenshirts have accused mankind of committing — another explanation is needed. Hammell and Lockwood believe the changes might well be solar-driven.
"If changing brightnesses and temperatures of two different planets are correlated, then some planetary climate changes may be due to variations in the solar system environment," they write in their abstract.
The research by Hammel and Lockwood corroborates other studies supporting the view that climate change is primarily driven by solar activity. Also, several investigations have found that other planets in our solar system show signs of global warming, including Mars and Jupiter.
The abstract of Hammel and Lockwood's article is posted here. Nonsubscribers to Geophysical Research Letters can purchase the full text for $9.00.
h/t: Andrew Bolt
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The problem with the Neptune study is it uses solar output from an outdated reconstruction of solar irradiance (Foukal et al). Foukal’s reconstruction contradicts direct satellite measurements that have found solar output has shown no rising trend since 1978, sunspot numbers which have leveled out since 1950, the Max Planck Institute reconstruction that shows irradience has been steady since 1940 and solar radio flux or flare activity which shows no rising trend over the past 30 years.
Foukal has since updated his work and concluded that solar variations are too small to have contributed appreciably to accelerated global warming over the past 30 years. So why this study would use Foukal’s outdated older study instead of more recent work or direct observations baffles me.
So if the sun isn’t getting hotter, what’s causing Neptune’s warming? Neptune’s orbit is 164 years so observations (1950 to present day) span less than a third of a Neptunian year. Climate modelling of Neptune suggests its brightening is a seasonal response. Eg – Neptune’s southern hemisphere is heading into summer.
“Climate modelling” also gave us the infamous and now discredited hockey stick graph of Earth’s temperature, so that is by no means an indisputable source of climate science information. What true of computer programming in general is particularly applicable to climate modelling: garbage in, garbage out.
Also, Foukal et al do not appear to have reached the conclusion you suggest, namely, that the sun cannot account for Neptune’s apparent warming:
Also, as I said in the post, this study is corroborated by others.
StatGuy, thanks for the reply. It’s interesting you mention the hockey stick. That was a single study done in 1998 and statisticians (no offense) have been haggling over its data handling ever since. However since 1998, there have been around a dozen proxy studies, analysing a variety of different sources including corals, stalagmites, tree rings, boreholes, ice cores, etc.
The results all confirm the same general conclusion: although each of the temperature reconstructions are different (due to differing calibration methods and data used), they all show some similar patterns of temperature change over the last several centuries. Most striking is the fact that each record reveals that the 20th century is the warmest of the entire record, and that warming was most dramatic after 1920.
Personally, I’m not that impressed either way by the hockey stick whether it’s debunked or not – there’s a lot more compelling evidence for AGW that just the temperature record.
Foukal is right to not rule out UV light or magnetized plasmas as his study didn’t cover those areas. However, I know of no study that indicates any trends in those areas. I’m open to being educated if you know of any research in this area.
Similarly, what studies corroborate the theory that solar variations are driving global warming? Are you refering to Svenmark’s cosmic ray theory?
JC,
Actually, I was thinking of the studies, linked in the post, that found evidence of global warming on Mars and Jupiter.