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posted by Fnord666 on Saturday March 07 2020, @01:43PM   Printer-friendly
from the sunny-disposition dept.

Paper that claimed the Sun caused global warming gets retracted:

A paper published last June was catnip for those who are desperate to explain climate change with anything but human-caused greenhouse gas emissions. It was also apparently wrong enough to be retracted this week by the journal that published it, even though its authors objected.

The paper's headline conclusion was that it described a newly discovered cycle in the motion of the Sun, one that put us 300 years into what would be a thousand-year warming period for the Earth. Nevermind that we've been directly measuring the incoming radiation from the Sun and there has been no increase to explain the observed global warming—or that there is no evidence of a 2,000 year temperature cycle in the paleoclimate record.

Those obvious issues didn't stop some people from taking this study as proof that past warming was natural, and only mild and unavoidable warming lies in our future.


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  • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 07 2020, @04:30PM (7 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 07 2020, @04:30PM (#967901)

    It was published in Nature's Scientific Reports [nature.com] journal. So yes it probably was political pressure more than scientific pressure.

    I wonder how often people who suggested the Earth was *not* the center of the universe were forced to recant. Not to suggest this is the same thing beyond the fact that social pressures have 0 place in science.

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  • (Score: 4, Informative) by PiMuNu on Saturday March 07 2020, @10:46PM

    by PiMuNu (3823) on Saturday March 07 2020, @10:46PM (#968008)

    > So yes it probably was political pressure

    It's not quite so clear - the author was also a journal editorial board member.

    https://www.nature.com/srep/about/editors [nature.com]

    Search for Valentina Zharkova, paper lead author.

  • (Score: 2) by Bot on Sunday March 08 2020, @12:04AM (5 children)

    by Bot (3902) on Sunday March 08 2020, @12:04AM (#968018) Journal

    I wonder how often people who suggested the Earth was *not* the center of the universe were forced to recant

    Until somebody explains the CMB anisotropies aligned with the ecliptic as something more than a coincidence (the current explanation), "the earth is at the center of the universe and/or the big bang didn't happen" are plausible positions.

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    • (Score: 2) by dry on Sunday March 08 2020, @12:12AM (4 children)

      by dry (223) on Sunday March 08 2020, @12:12AM (#968023) Journal

      I thought it was pretty well established that the Earth is at the centre of the Universe, just like everywhere else. It's much like I'm at the centre of the Earths surface and so are you as it is the same distance to the edge of the Earth for everyone.

      • (Score: 2) by Bot on Sunday March 08 2020, @06:48PM (3 children)

        by Bot (3902) on Sunday March 08 2020, @06:48PM (#968248) Journal

        The CMB is either not the echo of the big bang, or subject to an unknown process, or the universe radiates in a way aligned with the earth, by mere coincidence or because it is in a special place. Some equations describe things in a location independent way, but this is quite irrelevant as things do not follow laws, laws describe things, usually until they don't.

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        • (Score: 2) by dry on Sunday March 08 2020, @10:09PM (2 children)

          by dry (223) on Sunday March 08 2020, @10:09PM (#968306) Journal

          Do you have a citation for the CMB being aligned to the Earth?

          • (Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Monday March 09 2020, @12:40AM

            by PartTimeZombie (4827) on Monday March 09 2020, @12:40AM (#968352)

            No, he doesn't because it isn't. It sounds like he's trying to claim that some god made the Earth, making it special.

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 09 2020, @02:33AM

            by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 09 2020, @02:33AM (#968387)

            Some people are trying to get it called the axis of evil [wikipedia.org]. Hopefully some editor won't put it on a book cover and we'll be stuck with it like the "God particle".

            As far as the axis of evil goes, it is unexplained, which means that the models don't explain it, but it also means that it includes more mundane explanations such as that it isn't clear whether it isn't an issue with the way the data are processed.