[Indy Coug]

Originally Posted by SoCalCoug

Tell you what, Indy. You're obviously the most gifted statistician and expert on predictive climate models around. Since none of the rest of us can really hope to respond to you, since your intelligence level is so much higher than ours, why don't you enlighten us by giving a detailed criticism of the methods and conclusions of one of the more comprehensive scientific reports on global climate change:

http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/index.htm

With your education and experience, I'm sure you can enlighten the rest of us.

Here's a start

http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/448.htm

Solar forcing
The variation of solar irradiance with the 11-year sunspot cycle has been assessed with some accuracy over more than 20 years, although measurements of the magnitude of modulations of solar irradiance between solar cycles are less certain (see Chapter 6). The estimation of earlier solar irradiance fluctuations, although based on physical mechanisms, is indirect. Hence our confidence in the range of solar radiation on century time-scales is low, and confidence in the details of the time-history is even lower (Harrison and Shine, 1999; Chapter 6). Several recent reconstructions estimate that variations in solar irradiance give rise to a forcing at the Earth’s surface of about 0.6 to 0.7 Wm-2 since the Maunder Minimum and about half this over the 20th century (see Chapter 6, Figure 6.5; Hoyt and Schatten, 1993; Lean et al., 1995; Lean, 1997; Froehlich and Lean, 1998; Lockwood and Stamper, 1999). This is larger than the 0.2 Wm-2 modulation of the 11-year solar cycle measured from satellites. (Note that we discuss here the forcing at the Earth’s surface, which is smaller than that at the top of the atmosphere, due to the Earth’s geometry and albedo.) The reconstructions of Lean et al. (1995) and Hoyt and Schatten (1993), which have been used in GCM detection studies, vary in amplitude and phase. Chapter 6, Figure 6.8 shows time-series of reconstructed solar and volcanic forcing since the late 18th century. All reconstructions indicate that the direct effect of variations in solar forcing over the 20th century was about 20 to 25% of the change in forcing due to increases in the well-mixed greenhouse gases (see Chapter 6).

Only 20 years of data to measure and model solar irradiation. How many solar cycles have been observed to determine the effect on global climate as it waxes and wanes; especially since it isn't a given that variability in solar output is known or understood, let alone measured?

Don't you think solar irradiation might be an important thing to measure and to understand? There's only so much heat that can come from cow flatulence.