Science & nature – studies & reports

Here are links to articles mentioned on the FM site about science and nature.  I believe this will be one of the major factors affecting geopolitics in the 21st century.  The primary message I hope people take from this list of articles — and the posts based upon them — is that there is debate among scientists about these things — and that the science is rapidly progressing to provide answers.

Most of these (not all) are from professional journals or technically-oriented websites.  For more information see these related Reference Pages on the FM sites:

• Science and Nature – my articles.
• Science & Nature – general media articles
• Articles from the 1970’s about global cooling/warming

This page lists the articles mentioned in posts on this site, and are only a tiny fraction of the climate change literature. 

This is a reference page, not a discussion page.  Please post comments only about corrections or suggested additions.

Contents

1. Basic reference sources
2. Global warming (specific)
3. Climate change (general)
4. The solar cycle
5. About the relationship of earth’s climate and extra-terrestrial factors
6. About drivers of Earth’s climate other than greenhouse gases
7. About the sociology and politics of climate science
8. About the battle for release of climate science data and methods
9. About the adequacy of climate data
10. Articles about the ocean temperature and sea level records
11. Sites providing current data and analysis about the Solar Cycle

(1)   Basic reference sources

(a)  The #1 site IMO:  The Discovery of Global Warming, on the site of the American Institute of Physics — “A hypertext history of how scientists came to (partly) understand what people are doing to cause climate change.”

This Website created by Spencer Weart supplements his much shorter book, which tells the history of climate change research as a single story. On this Website you will find a more complete history in dozens of essays on separate topics, updated annually.

(b)  Lists of articles with full citations:

• A timeline of the science and politics of climate science (from the AIP site)
• A Bibliography by year of climate science research (also from AIP)

(c)  A classic, also relevant to climate science today:  “A meeting with Enrico Fermi“, Nature (22 January 2004) – “How one intuitive physicist rescued a team from fruitless research.”

(2)   Articles specifically about global warming

1. “Meteorological trends (1991-2004) at Arctic Station, Central West Greenland (69º15′N) in a 130 years perspective“, Birger U. Hansen, Bo Elberling, Ole Humlum & Niels Nielsen, Danish Journal of Geography, volume 106(1), 2006
2. “Global Warming: Forecasts By Scientists versus Scientific Forecasts“, Kesten C. Green and J. Scott Armstrong, Energy and Environment, vol 18 No. 7+8, 2007
3. “Present-day climate forcing and response from black carbon in snow”, Mark G. Flanner, Charles S. Zender, James T. Randerson, and Philip J. Rasch, Journal of Geophysical Research, June 2007 — Abstract.
4. “Falsification Of The Atmospheric CO2 Greenhouse Effects Within The Frame Of Physics”, Gerhard Gerlich and Ralf D. Tscheuschner, published at ARXIV (run by Cornell, co-funded by the NSF), July 2007, updated September 2007 (114 pages) — Abstract; full PDF.
5. “Was 1998 the Warmest Year of the Millennium: What do We Really Know?“, presentation by Steve McIntyre at Ohio State University, 16 May 2008
6. “Consistency of modelled and observed temperature trends in the tropical troposphere”, Ben Santer et al, International Journal of Climatology, Volume 28, Issue 13, 15 November 2008 — Abstract
7. “More Than 650 International Scientists Dissent Over Man-Made Global Warming Claims“, Minority Staff Report, U. S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, 11 December 2008, 231 pages.
8. “Warming of the Antarctic ice-sheet surface since the 1957 International Geophysical Year”, Eric J. Steig et al, Nature, 22 January 2009 — Abstract; full text.

(3)  Articles about climate change

1. “The Present Climatic Fluctuation” by Hans W. Ahlmann (namesake of the Ahlmann Glacier), of the Swedish Geographical Institute, published in The Geographical Journal, Volume 112, No. 4/6 (1948), pages 165-193 — I find no online copy.  See a summary here.
2. “Sea Level Changes in the Past, at Present and in the Near-Global Aspects Observations versus Models“, Final Conference for International Geoscience Programme (IGCP) Project 437, September 2003
3. “Estimating future sea level changes from past records”, Global and Planetary Change, January 2004 — Abstract
4. “Surface Temperature Reconstructions for the Last 2,000 Years“, Board on Atmospheric Sciences and Climate, The National Academies (2006) — aka The North Report.
5. Report of the “Ad Hoc Committee on the Hockey Stick Global Climate Reconstruction”, commissioned by the House Committee on Energy and Commerce (July 2006) — aka The Wegman Report.  Also note this excerpt from the Q&A session of the Dr. Edward J. Wegman’s testimony.
6.  “180 Years of Atmospheric CO2 Gas Analysis by Chemical Methods“,  Ernst-Georg Beck, Energy & Environment, Volume 18 No. 2, 2007
7. “The role of statisticians in public policy debates over climate change“, Richard L. Smith, American Statistical Association – Section on Statistics & the Environment Newsletter (Spring 2007) — One of the too-few reports by statisticians on the climate change literature.
8. “Heat Capacity, Time Constant, and Sensitivity of Earth’s Climate System“, Stephen E. Schwartz, Brookhaven National Laboratory, June 2007
9. “On the credibility of climate predictions”, D. Koutsoyiannis, A. Efstratiadis, N. Mannassis & A. Christofides, Hydrological Sciences-Journal-des Sciences Hydrologiques, 53 (2008) – Also see this discussion of the article, and  this comment by the lead author about the difficulty of getting non-consensus papers published in climate science.
10.  ”Abrupt Climate Change”, Final Report, Synthesis and Assessment Product 3.4″, U.S. Climate Change Science Program and the Subcommittee on Global Change Research.  Participating Agencies:  USGS, NOAA and the NSF.  December 2008.  Home page is here.
11. ” Warming of the Antarctic ice-sheet surface since the 1957 International Geophysical Year”, Steig, E.J., D.P. Schneider, S.D. Rutherford, M.E. Mann, J.C. Comiso, and D.T. Shindell. Nature, January 2009, pp 459-462. (Abstract for Steig 2009 here; full text here).
12. Sea Level Graphs from UC and some perspectives, Watts Up with That, 6 April 2009 — Excellent graphs, mostly from official sources.

(4)   Articles about the solar cycle

1. “Predicting the Solar Activity Cycle” posted at The Sun Blog, run by the staff of the Solar-Stellar Spectrograph (SSS) program of the Lowell Observatory.
2. “Solar Cycle Number 22 (1986 – 1996) in Review“, Richard Thompson, posted at the site of the Ionospheric Prediction Service of Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology, no date.
3. “The Maunder Minimum“, John Eddy, Science, 18 June 1976 (free abstract; subscription only)
4. “The Maunder Minimum: A reappraisal“, John Eddy, Solar Physics, November 1983 (free abstract; subscription only)
5. “Solar Influences on Global Change“, National Research Council, 1994
6. “Solar history and human affairs“, John Eddy, Human Ecology, March 1994 (free abstract; subscription only)
7. “The sun-climate question: Is there a real connection?“, George C. Reid (NOAA), Report to the International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics, 1995
8. “Solar Activity Over the Last 1150 Years: Does it Correlate with Climate?“, Usoskin I.G., Schussler M., Solanki S.K., Mursula K., In Proceedings of The 13th Cambridge Workshop on Cool Stars, Stellar Systems and the Sun”, (2005).
9. “Sunspots may vanish by 2015“, William Livingston and Matthew Penn, National Solar Observatory, 2006 — Unpublished, 10 pages. 
10. “‘Maverick’ sunspot heralds new solar cycle“, New Scientist, 7 January 2008.
11. “Sun Stays Sluggish as Weathermen Fight for Anti-Ice Age Funding“, Popular Mechanics, 6 February 2008
12. Where have all the sunspots gone?“, Anthony Watts, posted at Watts Up With That, 13 February 2008
13. “Solar Cycle 24: Implications for the United States“,  David Archibald, International Conference on Climate Change, March 2008.
14. “The Deniers: Our spotless sun“, Lawrence Solomon, Financial Post Comment, 31 May 2008 — With the debate focused on a warming Earth, the icy consequences of a cooler future have not been considered”
15. “What’s Wrong with the Sun? (Nothing)“, NASA, 11 July 2008
16. “Still No Sunspot Action on the Sun“, Linda Moulton Howe, Earthfiles, 29 August 2008 — An interview with David Hathaway, solar physics team leader at the NASA Marcshall Space Flight Center.
17. “The Sun remains in a magnetic funk“, Anthony Watts, posted at his blog Watts Up with That, 30 August 2008:
18. “Solar Wind Loses Power, Hits 50-year Low“, NASA, 23 September 2008
19. “Spotless Sun: Blankest Year of the Space Age“, NASA, 30 September 2008
20. “Predictions of Solar Cycle 24“, William Dean Pesnel, Solar Physics, October 2008
21. “For how long will the current grand maximum of solar activity persist?“, J. A. Abreu, J. Beer, F. Steinhilber, S. M. Tobias, N. O. Weiss, Geophysical Research Letters, 30 October 2008 — A non-technical summary is “Danger ahead as the Sun goes quiet“, New Scientist, 7 January 2009.
22. “History of Cycle 24 Predictions“, posted at Anthropogenic Solar Chaos, 8 November 2008
23. Presentations at the conference “Solar Activity during the onset of solar cycle 24“, Napa California, 8-12 December 2008 — presentations are posted here.
24. “Boundary Between Earth’s Upper Atmosphere And Space Has Moved To Extraordinarily Low Altitudes, NASA Instruments Document“, Science Daily, 16 December 2008
25. “A Giant Breach in Earth’s Magnetic Field“, NASA, 16 December 2008
26. Dr. Hathaway of NASA revisies his solar cycle 24 forecasts, summary by Michael Ronayne, posted at the SolarCycle24 message board. 5 January 2009
27. “When is Minimum?“, Leif Svalgaard, updated February 2009
28. “Deep Solar Minimum“, NASA, 1 April 2009
29. “Are Sunspots Different During This Solar Minimum?“, William Livingston and Matthew Penn, EOS (of the American Geophystical Union), 28 July 2009

(5)  Articles about the relationship of Earth’s climate and extra-terrestrial factors

1. “The Sun – Living With a Stormy Star“, National Geographic, July 2004 — Excellent introduction to our star.
2. “Variation of Cosmic Ray Flux and Global Cloud Coverage – a Missing Link in Solar-Climate Relationships”, Henrik Svensmark and Eigil Friis-Christensen, Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics, 59 (11) (1997) 1225-1232.  See here
3. “Influence of Cosmic Rays on Earth’s Climate”,  Henrik Svensmark, Physical Review Letters, 30 November 1998 – Volume 81, Issue 22, 1997, pp. 5027-5030 — See here.
4. “Variation of Cosmic Ray Flux and Global Cloud Coverage – a Missing Link in Solar-Climate Relationships“, Henrik Svensmark and Eigil Friis-Christensen, Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics, Vol. 59, pp. 1225-32, 1997
5. “Reply to comments on ‘Variation of cosmic ray flux and global cloud coverage — a missing link in solar–climate relationships’”, Henrik Svensmark and Eigil-Friis-Christensen, Journal Of Atmospheric And Solar-terrestrial Physics Vol. 62 (1), pp. 79-80 — See here.
6. “Influence of Cosmic Rays on Earth’s Climate“, Henrik Svensmark, Physical Review Letters, Vol. 81, pp. 5027-30, 1998
7. “Cosmic rays and Earth’s Climate”, Henrik Svensmark, Space Science Review 93: 155-166, 2000 – See here.
8. “Cosmic Rays, Clouds, and Climate“, Nigel Marsh and Henrik Svensmark, Space Science Review, Vol. 94, pp. 215-30, 2000
9. “Low Cloud Properties influenced by Cosmic Rays“, Nigel Marsh and Henrik Svensmark, Physical Review Letter, 4 December 2000, Volume 85, Issue 23, pp. 5004-5007.   See here.
10. “The Sun’s Chilly Impact on Earth“, Goddard Institute for Space Studies (NASA), 6 December 2001 — Press release for Shindell et al 2001 (see following entry)
11. “Solar forcing of regional climate change during the Maunder Minimum“, Shindell, D.T., G.A. Schmidt, M.E. Mann, D. Rind, and A. Waple, Science, 7 December 2001  (NASA summary here)
12. “Cave air temperature response to climate and solar and geomagnetic activity“, P. Stoeva and A. Stoev, Memorie della Societa Astronomica Italiana, 2005
13. “Empirical evidence for a nonlinear effect of galactic cosmic rays on clouds”, R. Giles Harrison and David B. Stephenson, Proceedings of the Royal Society, 8 April 2006 — Abstract.  PDF of article.
14. “The Antarctic Climate Anomaly Explained by Galactic Cosmic Rays“, Henrik Svensmark, arXiv, 14 December 2006
15. “Experimental Evidence for the Role of Ions in Particle Nucleation under Atmospheric Conditions“, Henrik Svensmark et al, Proceedings of the Royal Society A, Vol. 463, pp. 385-96, 2007
16. “Cosmoclimatology: a new theory emerges“, Henrik Svensmark, Astronomy and Geophysics (journal of the Royal Astronomical Society, London), February 2007
17. “Ray of hope: Can the sun save us from global warming?“, The Independent, 5 December 2007 — “Could the Sun’s inactivity save us from global warming? David Whitehouse explains why solar disempower may be the key to combating climate change.”
18. The International Workshop “Solar Variability, Earth’s Climate and the Space Environment“, sponsored by NASA, held 1 – 6 June 2008 – See the abstracts of the papers presented.
19. “Global Climate Change: Is the Sun to blame?“, Sami K. Solanki, 3 June 2008 — From the June 2008 NASA conference.
20. “Does a Spin-Orbit Coupling Between the Sun and the Jovian Planets Govern the Solar Cycle?”, I. R. G. Wilson A , C , B. D. Carter B and I. A. Waite B, Publications of the Astronomical Society of Australia, 26 June 2008 — Abstract.
21. “Solar activity and its influence on climate” C. de Jager (Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research),  Neatherlands Journal of Geosciences, October 2008
22. “Exploratory Analysis of Similarities in Solar Cycle Magnetic Phases with Southern Oscillation Index Fluctuations in Eastern Australia“, Robert G.V. Baker, Geographical Research, December 2008, Pages 380 – 398.
23. “Solar Influence on Recurring Global, Decadal, Climate Cycles Recorded by Glacial Fluctuations, Ice Cores, Sea Surface Temperatures, and Historic Measurements Over the Past Millennium”, Don J. Easterbrook (Professor Emeritus in the Deptment of Geology at Western Washington U), the Fall meeting of  the American Geophysical Union, December 2008 — Abstract; discussion here.
24. “Is there a link between Earth’s magnetic field and low-latitude precipitation?“, Mads Faurschou Knudsen and Peter Riisager, Geology, January 2009
25. “Sudden stratospheric warmings seen in MINOS deep underground muon data”, S. M. Osprey et al., Geophysical Research Letterrs, in press — See the press release from the National Centre for Atmospheric Sciece for details.
26. “ACRIM-gap and TSI trend issue resolved using a surface magnetic flux TSI proxy model“, Scafetta N., R. C. Willson, Geophysial Research Letters, 3 March 2009
27. “A Lagged Warm Event–Like Response to Peaks in Solar Forcing in the Pacific Region“, Gerald A. Meehl et al, Journal of Climate, July 2009
28. “2,000-year-long temperature and hydrology reconstructions from the Indo-Pacific warm pool“, Delia W. Oppo, Nature, 28 August 2009
29. Amplifying the Pacific Climate System Response to a Small 11-Year Solar Cycle Forcing“,  Gerald A. Meehl et al, Science, 28 August 2009
30. “GCR and ENSO trends in ISCCP-D2 low cloud properties”, Nigel Marsh and Henrik Svensmark, Journal of Geophysical Research , (In press) – See a preprint here.
31. “Cosmic Rays, Clouds, and Climate “, Nigel Marsh and Henrik Svensmark, Space Science Review, (In press) — See a preprint here.

(6)  About drivers of Earth’s climate other than greenhouse gases

1. “Volcanoes and Climate Change“, NASA (no date)
2. Multidecadal variability (MDV) in the Arctic and North Atlantic climate system, website of the International Arctic Research Center, University of Alaska Fairbanks — Drivers of arctic climate.
3. “Atmospheric Aerosols: Increased Concentrations during the Last Decade”, James T. Peterson and Reid A. Bryson, Science, 4 October 1968
4. “Global Cooling?”, P E Damon and S M Kunen, Science, 6 August 1976 — (abstract)
5. “Strong radiative heating due to the mixing state of black carbon in atmospheric aerosols“, Mark Z. Jacobson, Nature, 8 February 2001
6. “Soot More Culpable in Climate Warming Than Expected“, Scientific American, 23 December 2003
7. “Present-day climate forcing and response from black carbon in snow”, Mark G. Flanner, Charles S. Zender, James T. Randerson, and Philip J. Rasch, Journal of Geophysical Research, June 2007 — Abstract.
8. “Impure as the Driven Snow“, Scientific American, 8 June 2007 — “Soot is a bigger problem than greenhouse gases in polar meltdown.”  This discusses Flanner et al (Journal of Geophysical Research, June 2007)
9. “Climate response to regional radiative forcing during the twentieth century”, Drew Shindell and Greg Faluvegi, Nature Geoscience, March 2009 — Abstract, NASA’s summary.
10. “Two Natural Components of the Recent Climate Change“, Syun-Ichi Akasofu (International Arctic Research Center, U Alaska Fairbanks), 23 March 2009

(7)  About the sociology and politics of climate science

1. “Nuclear winter: science and politics“, Brian Martin, Science and Public Policy, October 1988, pp. 321-334 — Excellent background bibliography.  Vital background to understand the global warning debate.
2. “Environmentalism as Religion“, Michael Crichton, speech at the Commonwealth Club of San Francisco,15 September 2003
3. “Faith in Nature: Environmentalism as Religious Quest“, Mark R. Stoll (Profesor of History at Texas Tech University), H-Net Reviews, September 2004.
4. “Environmentalism as a religion“, Fernando Diaz Villanueva (author of Che Guevara), 22 March 2006
5. “Environmentalism as Religion“, John M. Ostrowski, posted at Lew Rockwell, 21 March 2007
6. “The Question of Global Warming“, Freeman Dyson (Wikipedia bio), The New York Review of Books, 12 June 2008
7. “Climate Science: Is it currently designed to answer questions?“, Richard S. Lindzen (Program in Atmospheres, Oceans and Climate, MIT), 29 November 2008 — Conference paper, posted at arXiv.
8. An Egregious Example Of Biased News Reporting, Roger Pielke Sr, 15 February 2009
9. “Scientists must rein in misleading climate change claims“, Vicky Pope (head of Climate Change Advice at the UK’s Met Office Hadley Centre), op-ed in the Guardian, 11 February 2009

(8)  About the battle for release of climate science data and methods

1. Ensuring the Utility and Integrity of Research Data in a Digital Age, Committee on Science, Engineering & Public Policy, National Academies of Science
2. “Data Archiving, Disclosure and Due Diligence”, Climate Audit
3. “Assuring the Integrity of Research Data“, Climate Audit, 23 April 2007
4. “Fortress CRU #2: Confidential Agent Ammann“, Steve McIntyre, Climate Audit, 20 June 2008.
5. “Fortress CRU“, Steve McIntyre, Climate Audit, 20 June 2008.
6. “Fortress Met Office“, Steve McIntyre, Climate Audit, 20 June 2008.
7. “Fortress Met Office continued“, Steve McIntyre, Climate Audit, 23 June 2008.
8. “E-Mail, “Personal” Records and Privacy“, Steve McIntyre, Climate Audit, 2 July 2008.
9. “Climate Audit and NOAA FOI Policy“, Steve McIntyre, Climate Audit, 3 July 2008.
10. “NOAA Response to March 2007 FOI Request“, Steve McIntyre, Climate Audit, 8 July 2008.
11. “CSIRO adopts Phil Jones’ Stonewall Tactic“, Steve McIntyre, Climate Audit, 15 July 2008.
12. “Openness & Government“, Shane Deichman, at MountainRunner, 26 July 2008
13. “Is Briffa Finally Cornered?“, Steve McIntyre, Climate Audit, 30 July 2008
14. “Emulating Mannian CPS“, Steve McIntyre, Climate Audit, 2 December 2008 – The struggle continues to get “hockey stick” Mann’s computer to code to work.  Only then can Mann’s work be replicated.  Odd that it appears in peer-reviewed journals; one wonders what “reviewed” means when the code does not run.
15.  “Mann et al 2008 – Another Error Notice“, Steve McIntyre, Climate Audit, 5 December 2008 — Another correction by Mann, who seems unable to credit his critics.
16. Peer review of scientific work – an inadequate basis for big public action – Documentation of McIntyre’s stuggles to get key data released about 2 climate science articles.

(9)  Articles about the adequacy of climate data

1. United States and Global Data Integrity Issues“, Joseph D’Ale (CCM, AMS Fellow), Science and Public Policy Institute, 27 January 2009 (25 pages)
2. Article in Japanese by Junsei Kondo, Professor emeritus of Tohoku University with results of his survey of Japane’s stations (supposedly only 3 of the 100+ stations meet standard criteria for adequacy) (source).
3. Preliminary results of the SurfaceStation.org survy of USHCN; 67% completed — only 11% are in the top 2 categories.
4. Land surface temperature records — Discussed here, here, and at Surfacestations.org.
5. Ocean temperature records:  Discussed here and here.
6. Atmospheric temperature sensors (e.g., radiosonde data, inhomogeneous, ambiguous, and heavily adjusted.  Discussed here, and here.
7. Satellite data — An archive here.  Esp note here, here, here, here, and here.
8. Proxies (e.g., ice core samples) — Note these are only indirect measures of temperature.  Here is a large archive of discussions.
9. “OK, What Caused the Problem?“, Steve McIntyre, Climate Audit, 16 November 2008 — About the latest major error discovered in the latest GHCN (NASA0 – GISS (NOAA) glitch. Their response to notification of the error is as significant as the error itself.
10. “United States and Global Data Integrity Issues“, Joseph D’Aleo, Science and Public Policy Institute, 29 January 2009

(10)  Articles about the ocean temperature and sea level records

These reference and describe articles in the professional literature.

1. Changing Adjustments to 19th Century Sea Surface Temperature, 19 June 2005
2. Sea Surface Temperature Adjustment #2, 24 June 2005
3. Buckets and Engines, 17 March 2007
4. Rasmus, the Chevalier and Bucket Adjustments, 23 December 2007
5. Nature “Discovers” Another Climate Audit Finding, 28 May 2008
6. Lost at Sea: the Search Party, 31 May 2008
7. Did Canada switch from Engine Inlets in 1926 Back to Buckets?, 1 June 2008

About changes in sea level:

1. “Sea Level Changes in the Past, at Present and in the Near-Global Aspects Observations versus Models“, Final Conference for International Geoscience Programme (IGCP) Project 437, September 2003
2. “Estimating future sea level changes from past records”, Global and Planetary Change, January 2004 — Abstract
3. “Despite popular opinion and calls to action, the Maldives are not being overrun by sea level rise“, 19 March 2009
4. “Sea Level Graphs from UC and some perspectives“, 6 April 2009

(11)  Sites providing current data and analysis about the Solar Cycle

1. Daily sun watch at Spaceweather.com
2. NOAA’s  Space Weather Prediction Center(SWPC), including their Solar Cycle Progression page
3. NASA’s background information about Solar Cycle Predictions
4. Detailed information at SolarCycle24.com
5. Solaemon’s Spotless Days Page — Excellent graphs of historical sunspot activity.