Share this...



More bad news for the catastrophe-insisting climate alarmists who claim 95% of climate change is due to 0.04% trace gas CO2. Yet another prominent scientist, this one a big-league heavy hitter, has expressed serious doubt on CO2’s sole dominance during a recent interview. The once much ballyhooed consensus keeps falling apart.

Professor Wolfgang Baumjohann, Director of the Institute for Space Research of the Austrian Academy of Sciences. Graz, Austria. (Photo credit: Sissi Furgler)

Professor Wolfgang Baumjohann, Director of the Institute for Space Research of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, one of the world’s heavyweights in physics, gave an interview with the online Austrian flagship daily Der Standard here. Hat-tip: http://kaltesonne.de/.

The interview was in part to get his opinion on Fritz Vahrenholt’s and Sebastian Lüning’s bestselling skeptic book Die kalte Sonne, which has been creating a row within the scientific community throughout Germany and Europe since it was released earlier this month.

When asked about the role of solar activity on the Earth’s climate and whether Vahrenholt’s claims were nonsense, Baumjohann said:

There’s not a serious scientist claiming that CO2 emissions can be neglected. However, one cannot say that it’s the sole reason for global warming when it is obvious that increased solar activity correlates. One has to take that into account. When the solar dynamo runs more strongly, then a warming is logical.”

and

One seriously has to separate all the various cycles and make comparisons to see just how strongly solar activity impacts the climate.”

Actually, Vahrenholt and Lüning did precisely just that in their book. And the data that is available now show a clear, indisputable correlation. Here Baumjohann would likely have used much bolder words had he read that section of the book. Or maybe he’s just being diplomatic.

On the subject of cosmic rays and weakening magnetic fields (h/t: DirkH) Baumjohann is completely open to Svensmark’s theory and does not disguise that the theory is entirely plausible and just comes out and says that they directly impact the Earth’s climate (emphasis added):

Indeed, more cosmic rays and more solar particles would hit the top of the atmosphere – and this would have direct implications for our weather. We can’t tell yet whether these will be positive or negative consequences. Long term, climatic changes depend on cosmic rays and their influences on cloudiness.”

This is as major an endorsement as you’ll ever get!

We’ll remind readers that Vahrenholt in no way neglects CO2 as a factor. He is being chastised for cutting it down to size as a climate driver, saying that it is likely responsible for up to half of last century’s warming. But he dismisses that we are headed for an imminent catastrophe.

Note how Baumjohann contradicts Max Plank Institute Director Jochem Marotzke, who never even bothered to read Vahrenholt’s book, and who remains stuck on pre-AR4 science, i.e. focusing only on total solar irradiance and thus insisting the sun has not played any important role over the last century.

Baumjohann adds:

Us humans certainly know what life-giving energy the sun holds. Everyone feels it in the springtime. That’s a really personal experience.”

The latter part of the interview looks at the Earth’s magnetic field and the financing of scientific institutes.

Baumjohann’s Career Summary here