Acclaimed Israeli Astrophysicist Suggests The Sun Drives Earth’s Climate, Not CO2
Nir Shaviv is an Israeli astrophysicist and chairman of Jerusalem’s Hebrew University’s physics department. He says that his research, and that of colleagues, suggests that rising CO2 levels play only a minor role in earth’s climate compared to the influence of the sun and cosmic radiation.
“Global warming clearly is a problem, though not in the catastrophic terms of Al Gore’s movies or environmental alarmists,” said Shaviv. “Climate change has existed forever and is unlikely to go away. But CO2 emissions don’t play the major role. Periodic solar activity does.”
But I thought that 97% of climate scientists agreed that human activity is the main driver of climate change?
“Only people who don’t understand science take the 97% statistic seriously,” said Shaviv. “Survey results depend on who you ask, who answers and how the questions are worded. In any case, science is not a democracy. Even if 100% of scientists believe something, one person with good evidence can still be right.”
And for anyone attempting to dismiss Shaviv’s credentials?
Well, he enrolled at Israel’s Technion University – the country’s equivalent of MIT – at the age of 13 and earned an MA while serving in the Israel Defense Force’s celebrated 8200 Intelligence unit. He returned to Technion, where he earned his doctorate, afterward completing post-doctoral work at California Institute of Technology and the Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics. He also has been an Einstein Fellow at The Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton — we’re told to listen to the scientists, right?
But what about Shaviv’s supposed political agenda, he’s been corrupted from that angle, right?
“In American terms, I would describe myself as liberal on most domestic issues, somewhat hawkish on security,” Shaviv explained. “Nonetheless, the Trump administration’s position on global climate change is correct insofar as it rejects the orthodoxy of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
“Since [2003], literally billions have been spent on climate research,” Shaviv added. Yet, “the conventional wisdom hasn’t changed. The proponents of man-made climate change still ignore the effect of the sun on the earth’s climate, which overturns our understanding of twentieth-century climate change.”
He explained: “Solar activity varies over time. A major variation is roughly eleven years or more, which clearly affects climate. This principle has been generally known – but in 2008 I was able to quantify it by using sea level data. When the sun is more active, there is a rise in sea level here on earth. Higher temperature makes water expand. When the sun is less active, temperature goes down and the sea level falls – the correlation is as clear as day.
“Based on the increase of solar activity during the twentieth century, it should account for between half to two-thirds of all climate change,” he said. “That, in turn, implies that climate sensitivity to CO2 should be about 1.0 degree when the amount of CO2 doubles.”
The link between solar activity and the heating and cooling of the earth is indirect, he explained.
Galactic Cosmic Rays are a mixture of high-energy photons and sub-atomic particles accelerated toward Earth by supernova explosions and other violent events in the cosmos. Solar Cosmic Rays are the same, though their source is the sun.
Both Galactic and Solar Cosmic rays hitting Earth’s atmosphere create aerosols which, in turn, seed clouds (Svensmark et al) — making them a crucial player in earth’s weather and climate.
During solar minimum, like the one we’re entering now, the sun’s magnetic field weakens and the outward pressure of the solar wind decreases. This allows more cosmic rays from deep space to penetrate our planet’s atmosphere and nucleate more clouds.
“Clouds are the Earth’s sunshade, and if cloud cover changes for any reason, you have global warming — or global cooling.” — Roy W. Spencer Ph.D.
“Today we can demonstrate and prove the sun’s effect on climate based on a wide range of evidence, from fossils that are hundreds of millions of years old to buoy readings to satellite altimetry data from the past few decades,” Shaviv explained. “We also can reproduce and mimic atmospheric conditions in the laboratory to confirm the evidence.
“All of it shows the same thing, the bulk of climate change is caused by the sun via its impact on atmospheric charge, which means that most of the warming comes from nature — a freshman physics student can see this.
“Our findings are very inconvenient for conventional wisdom. We know that there have been very large variations of climate in the past that have little to do with the burning of fossil fuels. A thousand years ago the earth was as warm as it is today. During the Little Ice Age three hundred years ago the River Thames froze more often. In the first and second IPCC reports these events were mentioned. In 2001 they disappeared. Suddenly no mention of natural warming, no Little Ice Age. The climate of the last millennium was presented as basically fixed until the twentieth century. This is a kind of Orwellian cherry-picking to fit a pre-determined narrative.”
Shaviv says that he has accepted no financial support for his research from the fossil fuel industry.
“The real problem is funding from funding agencies like the National Science Foundation because these proposals have to undergo review by people in a community that ostracizes us,” he said, because of his non-conventional viewpoint.
“Global warming is not a purely scientific issue any more,” he said. “It has repercussions for society. It has also taken on a moralistic, almost religious quality. If you believe what everyone believes, you are a good person. If you don’t, you are a bad person. Who wants to be a sinner?”
In Shaviv’s view, the worldwide crusade to limit and eventually ban fossil fuels “comes with real world social and economic consequences.” Switching to more costly energy sources will drive industry from more industrialized countries to poorer countries that can less afford wind turbines and solar panels.
“It may be a financial sacrifice the rich are willing to make,” Shaviv added. “Even in developed countries the pressure to forego fossil fuel puts poor people in danger of freezing during the winter for lack of affordable home heating. The economic growth of third world countries will be inhibited if they cannot borrow from the World Bank to develop cheap fossil-based power plants. These are serious human problems in the here and now, not in a theoretical future.”
And unfortunately the cold times are returning, in line with historically low solar activity.
Even NASA agrees, in part at least, with their SC25 forecast revealing it will be “the weakest of the past 200 years”:
The time to prepare is now.
Grand Solar Minimum + Pole Shift
Nir Shaviv’s alternative viewpoints were originally posted in a Forbes article on Aug 9th entitled “Global Warming? An Israeli Astrophysicist Provides Alternative View That Is Not Easy To Reject” written by Doron Levin (linked here) — that was, until the publication censored the article just a few hours after going live“for failing to meet our editorial standards” — 1984 is upon us — the truth shouldn’t be this hard to spread.
Pure conjecture and contrarianism tied together by confirmation bias in an attempt to justify greed and laziness. That is why Forbes took it down.
and your expertise is in what?
Springer had a new book by Rex Fleming for sale last week; as of today, the links to the book page are dead.
This sounds like what a physicist might contend. After all, physics is the best science, the queen science and physicists are, as everyone knows the smartest of all scientists. Other explanations, of anything and everything must take a back set to physics and physicists. So of course it must something that physicists study that explains every event. Here it is climate change. The source of Shaviv’s explanation of climate change has little to do with science and much to do with Shaviv’s physics’ ego. Let’s keep physicists out of this debate before they screw us into destroying ourselves.
I’m really old. In the 70s teachers were talking about the 11 year sunspot cycle. There was even a belief that every 11th wave was bigger. This article is the first I’ve read online about the sunspot cycle. It was cool to see the article about SP activity on NASA’s site.
Another “fact” that is harder to come by is how much volcanic activity affects our atmosphere. What used to seem easy to find online regarding how much Mt St Helens was spewing into the air back when it was in the news and before Al Gore became a scientist, is not so easy to find today. Is it being ignored or were scientists wrong about that, too, back then?
It’s interesting that Forbes left the headline with the notation that it doesn’t meet standards. Why leave the link/page at all?
Finally, I find it laughable that the herald of the day changed the cry from “Global Warming!!” to “Climate Change!!” Of course the climate is changing…every moment.
Thank you for posting this article.
The next 6 years will be interesting. Will those $30,000 solar power systems work as well?
This is an article that makes perfect sense. I’m a person that has not shut off my memory. And I remember the history of weather. This fits my memory and understanding of real science! Thank you again for allowing truth to be told.
If low solar activity is associated with global cooling, and activity is now decreasing, why is GW a problem?
Exactly.
I would love to read some of his research regarding this. No doubt the sun has an effect on the earth’s climate. The question is to what degree.
Well, I certainly can’t argue his points….he’s much smarter then I am. But I don’t have to agree on all of it. I have been wondering about a pole shift though….might account for some of the weather issues we are having and of course the gov. would keep it quiet.
also in addition i still think its crazy the actually distance the earth orbits the sun , fluctuates , hence more or less energy reaching us.I ve often thought the way our universe flies along the milkyway mimics a radio wave and the rise north the suns equator vs south explains the pole change..ITs just electrical not geological
Okay, Shaviv says he has the “truth” about climate change. That’s the first signal he’s a fake. No scientist has the truth about anything. All scientists have is data. If you don’t believe me, ask Shaviv this simple question: What is gravity? If he tells the “truth” he’ll say he doesn’t know. Neither does any other physicist or scientist. Gravity’s a theoretical construct. And a fairly sketchy one. Second reason Shaviv’s a fake. Science is precisely a “consensus seeking” debate. How else could this theoretical construct of gravity have held up among scientists, who’ve spread that consensus to the general public. They all know what gravity is, except they don’t.
Forbes promptly posted this article.
It makes sense, but it doesn’t explain the little ice age.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/marshallshepherd/2019/08/10/why-solar-activity-and-cosmic-rays-cant-explain-global-warming/
I guess we’ll find out eventually. In the meanwhile, it’s good to see a break from groupthinking. Opposing opinions should not be so sumarilly dismissed whether on the subject of climate or anything else.
On n’a pas besoin d’être un spécialiste pour voir les changement partout dans le monde . J’ai étudié plusieurs rapport, de plusieurs sources et de plusieurs pays afin de les recouper et il en sort ceci : tout dans l’univers tout est relié et tout est cyclique il y a 10 000 ans il fessait 10 degrés de plus et pourtant il n’y avait d’usine.Nous sommes dans un très grand minimum solaire ou tout le climat ainsi que les tremblements et les éruptions volcaniques qui vont s’intensifié dans les mois avenir.
Les élites de tout les pays diffuse des fausses informations dans les médias qui sont a leurs bottes pour racketté les peuples.Préparez-vous la terre va faire sont recyclage.
I’m no physicist, but I’ve been arguing this for years. It is just common sense!! But we seem to have none of that anymore, willing to listen to every chicken little who throws nonsense our way. Shame on you UN bureaucrats…
I absolutely agree with Shaviv. It is criminal that Forbes removed his article.
THIS is the best, most logical explanation I have heard. The problem is that there is no money to be made from this and it leaves the ‘environmentalists’ and fear mongers without jobs & soap boxes
It is interesting that the naysayers use name-calling instead of facts in their comments, like children.
One must remember that when the Earth started as a plant of the Sun, it was a red hot ball of lava. There were no life and no coal or oil in the lava. All the carbon was in the atmosphere. Some 500 million years ago life started under that condition. Trees were giants. Dinosaurs ruled the land. Swamps covered areas where oil is found today. Life buried the oil and coal in the ground and removed it from the atmosphere. If all the carbon will return to the atmosphere, we will just return to the past when life started.
Is there some way to contact Doron Levin to obtain an original of the Forbes article?