Physics of global warming

The most dominant thinking nowadays about global warming and climate change is that their main cause is man-made pollution and green house gases (GHGs) emission. But I read some articles saying this is wrong. It's more of the earth's natural cycle of global cooling-then- warming-. .., in relation to the sun's magnetic field and cosmic activities, largely created by natural nuclear activities in our solar system and from the outer space.

One such article that I've read is written by a Physicist, Dr. Michael J. Fox. He's saying that recent discoveries in climate physics show that the sun's current magnetic field is strong, more than 2x its normal force, and it's deflecting cosmic rays that are supposed to help form clouds that help cool the planet. With strong magnetic field by the sun, there are less cosmic rays, less clouds, and we have global warming.

Thus, while I fully believe that there is global warming and climate change, I don't fully believe that it's mainly because of man-made pollution. I would say it's a mixture of humanity's pollution and the sun's internal dynamics, though more of the latter.

Below is a portion of Dr. Fox’s article, posted in Hawaii Reporter. For brevity purposes, I removed certain paragraphs. If you want to see the full article, see
http://www.hawaiireporter.com/story.aspx?e9e9ac7e-64b1-4fc5-a8ae-fe52f699adac

When Physics Trumps Hysteria in Global Warming
By Michael R. Fox Ph.D., 7/1/2007

Studiously hidden from public view are some extraordinary findings in physics which are providing new understanding of our planetary history, as well as providing a much more plausible scientific understanding of Global Warming. Regrettably, the current hysteria about global warming is based much more on fear, political agendas, and computer models that don’t agree with each other or the climate, rather than hard-nosed evidence and science.

The climate forces which have led to the estimated 0.6C degree temperature increase over the past 100 years or more (according to the International Panel on Climate Change) have been assumed to be man-made CO2 emissions from advanced nations including the US. We know this can’t be true for several reasons.

The first is that water vapor provides 95% of the total of the greenhouse gases, not CO2. The total of the CO2 represents less than 3% of the total. The second is that of the total atmospheric CO2 inventory, the manmade fraction is less than 3% of the CO2 total and therefore far less than 1% of the total greenhouse gas inventories. Third, studies of the recent climate variations are finding, for example, (See article by J. Oestermans, Science, p. 375, April 29, 2005) that glaciers have been receding since 1750 or so, well before any significant man-made CO2 emissions occurred….

Basically, the more cosmic rays, the more clouds are formed and the cooler the temperature. Since many of the cosmic rays can be deflected by the Sun’s magnet field, the cosmic ray intensity varies inversely with the strength of that field. The stronger the solar magnetic field, the fewer cosmic rays hit the atmosphere, fewer clouds are formed, and the climate becomes warmer.

Today the Sun’s magnetic field is more than twice as strong as it was at the turn of the last century. During the mid 1700s during the Little Ice Age there was a 70 year period when there were no sunspots (called the Maunder Minimum), and the solar magnetic field was very weak.

The cosmic rays were not deflected as much by a weakened solar magnetic field, more clouds were formed, thus a cooler climate at that time. These findings provide a simple plausible explanation, defensible with sound physics, and don’t involve a major role for CO2 at all….

It appears that the Sun’s magnetic field has had a stronger effect on our climate than just the variations in solar irradiance could explain.

Political leaders, environmental advocates, and even Oscar-winning documentarians who claim that “the debate of climate science is over”, have been shown once again to be very wrong.

Michael R. Fox, Ph.D., a science and energy reporter for Hawaii Reporter and a science analyist for the Grassroot Institute of Hawaii, is retired and now lives in Eastern Washington. He has nearly 40 years experience in the energy field. He has also taught chemistry and energy at the University level.
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This, in relation to the Inter-government Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, I cannot comment much because those technical reports and their corresponding scientific methodologies are beyond my intellectual comprehension. But I cannot dismiss that physics theory of the sun's strong magnetic field that deflect cosmic rays that reduce rain clouds. After all, the sun is very much an important equation in all of these discourses. Even islands and places where there are no factories and people living, meaning no pollution, there's sunlight. So any changes in the sun's nuclear energy emission or deflection will naturally impact positively or negatively, on earth and other planets especially in our solar system.

I think this will be a running debate for a long time. My concern is that if contrary opinions like those of Dr. Fox is correct, that those GHGs may affect global warming but only on a very minor role, then the proposed drastic actions by many governments and the UN can be dangerous. If many governments will double the petroleum taxes because they want to discourage the use of petroleum, us, the public, will bear the burden. And if many governments will strongly advocate the use of bio-fuels, then most of those corn and grains for human and animal consumption will be diverted to producing bio-diesel, then the price of those corn and grains will increase, and that will contribute to global hunger.

That is why I cannot fully accept at this time those alarmist analysis like Al Gore's "Inconvenient Truth" movie. We should be wary of alarmist analysis because the burden ultimately will be on us, not on politicians and international bureaucrats.