Neither cold nor hot

Thirteen years ago, Russian scientist Vladimir Bashkirtsev and his English colleague James Annan argued what was happening with the Earth: global warming or still cooling? The rate is 10 thousand dollars. Formally, Annan won, but Bashkirs refuses to pay - he says, for the purity of the experiment, you need to wait another eight years

"Is global warming awaits us in the coming years?" - This was the name of the report, which in 2000 prepared for the intelligence conference Irkutsk scientists Galina Mashnich and Vladimir Bashkirtsev. There were two main theses in the report. The first is the denial of the influence on the climate of the greenhouse effect. The second is the statement that there is a direct dependence between the level of solar activity and the global temperature of the Earth: the lower the activity, the colder - and vice versa. Irkutsk scientists came to the conclusion that the next centenary cycle of solar activity in 2000 is at the peak, in the near future it will only decrease and reach historical minimums in 2026. Soon the report was published.

James Annan now hardly recalls the origins of the dispute with Irkutsk scientists. He read, of course, not the initial publication: in 2003, an article published in the Russian almanac “Geomagnetism and astronomy” was discussed in the English -language scientific journal CO2. “Two scientists from the Institute of Sunny and Earthly Physics of the SB RAS chanted a challenge to a political correct dogma about global warming, which annoys the whole world,” the material was reported under the heading “Is global warming the bubble that will burst?”

Annan did not consider global warming the bubble

On June 3, 2005, at 13:57, a short letter from the National Agency of Marine Research and the Development of Advanced Technologies (Jamstec), Yokohamas (Japan) came to the e -mail of the Researcher at the Institute of Sunny and Earth Physics of the SB RAS (Irkutsk). The topic is “Whether we are faced with global warming in the near future.” Signature - an employee of the Center for Advanced Studies of Global Changes (Climate) James Annan.

Vladimir Bashkirtsev (left) photo: Alena Kork

And the next text: “In the article you published, you say that global cooling will soon begin, if it has not yet begun, and the minimum values ​​will be achieved in the 20s (this century). I offer a dispute of $ 10,000. I put on the fact that the global temperature in fact continues to grow and in the same twenty years will be higher than now. I propose to compare the global surface temperature in 2021-2026 (a minimum predictable) with the average temperature of 2000-2005. I expect your answer. James".

An avid debate James

“By this time, I was already looking for whom to make a bet on climate change. It seemed to me that a huge number of so -called “climatic skeptics” made statements that were not only incorrect - they themselves did not believe in their truth, ”James Annan himself told me.

Before writing to Siberia, Annan tried to conclude a bet with a scientist, an atmosphere specialist, Richard Linzen: he proposed to argue what happened more often - global cooling or warming. However, Linzen turned out to be a weak rival: he appreciated his chances 50: 1 and agreed to put two hundred bucks - and in the event of a loss, Annan was to pay ten thousand. Paris, of course, did not take place. In another dispute about the short -term forecast of climate warming, James lost a hundred pounds, and in 2015 in half with Professor Chris Hope won a “fairly significant amount”.

James Annan and his wife Julia (also a clipatologist scientist) now live in North Yorkshire (England), "in the beautiful part of the country where we enjoy runs and ride bicycles." Until 2013, Annan worked in research laboratories of Great Britain and Japan, and now he is conducting scientific activities directly from the house, cooperating with scientists around the world. “My wife and I were working on a large number of topics, but our main interest is paleoclimatological research, we are trying to understand the new one about the climatic system,” James Annan describes his scientific activity.

One of the two authors of the article - Vladimir Bashkirtsev agreed on a bet with James Annan. Opponents determined two control deadlines separated by several years for a more visual establishment of the trend of increasing or lowering temperature. The permissible value of the change chose one tenth degree - since the climate changes reluctantly and for a long time. If the average global heat temperature of the second control period is higher than the set value of the first control period, James Annan won. If below - Vladimir Bashkirtsev. The data agreed to check according to the NCDC (National Climatic Data Center in Ashville, North Carolina, the USA - the world's largest active weather archive in the world).

And then what happened in the most resolutely affected the fate of this bet

Vladimir Bashkirtsev wrote to Annan: “Dear James, we are already middle -aged people, I would like to survive until the end of the bet. Therefore, I propose to reduce our dispute. ” Under new conditions, the first control period covered 1998-2004. The second is 2012-2018.

Time has gone.

Soviet scientist Vladimir

The Akademgorodok, where the Irkutsk Scientific Center is located, of course, is not like the hills of North Yorkshire, but now this area of ​​the city is one of the most green and comfortable. In 1965, when Bashkirtsev graduated from Irkutsk University (ISU), there was a taiga in this place, and the Akademgorodok was only built.

The Institute of Sunny and Earthly Physics (ISF) was then called Sibizmir (Siberian Institute of Earthly Magnetism, ionosphere and the spread of radio waves, organized in 1960 on the basis of the oldest Russian magnetic observatory). Its corps were scattered throughout Irkutsk: the administration occupied the second floor of the Art Museum, and the laboratory where Bashkirs worked was located on the central street of Karl Marx - above the meat store.

Vladimir Bashkirtsev photo: Alena Kork

The laboratory of the magnetic hydrodynamics of the Sun, where Bashkirtsev studied the sunny prooferens, was headed by George Kuklin. Georgy Vyacheslavovich was one of the largest domestic specialists in the study of the cycles of solar activity and the formation of stains in the sun, as well as the influence of the star on our planet. “When Kuklin died in 1999, I continued his research in this direction,” Bashkirtsev simply says.

The same report, “whether global warming awaits us in the coming years,” the scientist announced at the conference of George Kuklin in 2000. Soon it was published in the journal "Geomagnetism and Astronomy" under the section "Discussions".

The idea that the climate of the Earth is dependent on solar activity is not new and not even original

But the attention of the press to the scientist, caused by a dispute with the English colleague, was not approved at the institute. “We have a free country, and everyone can communicate with the press, but you must take into account that Bashkirians expresses exclusively their personal opinion, which is not a point of vision of our institute,” they emphasize in the UZF when journalists ask for comments.

And when in 2012, the Irkutsk State Health and Committee sent an official request to the institute’s administration, in which she asked Vladimir Potekhin to allow Vladimir Bashkirtsev to allow Vladimir Bashkirtsev, the then director of the institute, corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences: “Senior Research, candidate of physical and mathematical sciences V.S. He is engaged in the Institute for research in the field of sun physics and is not a specialist in the field of physics of the climatic system of the Earth, and his participation in the program on the influence of the Sun on the change in the climate of the Earth is inappropriate. ”

The building of the Institute of Sunny and Earthly Physics SB RAS, in which Bashkirtsev works photo: Alena Kork

So Bashkirtsev, simultaneously with the honorary title of “climatic skeptic” acquired the status of a dissident at his own institute. Perhaps the matter of professional jealousy (the “successor” of the doll in the field of sunny earthly relations was the famous Russian physicist Geliy Zherebtsov-he is also the director of the ISF until 2010-and it was not clear to him why some kind of upstart was interfering with this topic). Bashkirtsev complains that Zallobtsov began to “give up positions”: unlike doll, he admits that the influence on the climate has not only solar activity, but also an anthropogenic factor.

Sun vs man

The history of instrumental observations of the Sun has more than four centuries, starting with the primitive magnifying glass of Galileo. Thanks to this, the scientific community has accumulated a significant array of information about the appearance, movement and number of solar spots - markers of the growth of solar activity.

The connection of solar activity with climate changes, on which Bashkirs insists, is explored a little less - about two centuries. In the 1900s, the American astrophysicist Charles Abbot studied the connection of the changes in the level of precipitation in cities with solar activity cycles, and the English astronomer William Gershel in 1801 monitored fluctuations in wheat prices, depending on the number of solar spots.

Solar Activity, 2012 Photo: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center/Flickr/Commons.wikimedia.org

Now, the schoolboy scientists are distinguishing two types of cycles: eleven-year-old and centuries-old (centennial). In each cycle, solar activity increases from minimal values ​​to maximum and falls back to a minimum. The so-called modern maximum began in the 1950s, reached a peak by the end of the century, and, according to the observations and calculations of Bashkirtsev, by 2026 all the cycles of solar activity will synchronously come to an absolute historical minimum comparable to the great minimum of the maunter. This is the name of the period of long-term decrease in the number of solar spots in 1645-1715. At this time, only about 50 sun spots were observed instead of the usual 40-50 thousand. This phenomenon was named in honor of the English astronomer Edward Mounter, who noticed him, studying the archive of observations of the sun. During this period, a significant cooling was observed on Earth: for example, winter in England was so harsh that the Thames froze. In the opinion of the Irkutsk scientist, we are inevitably approaching such a minimum now.

James Annan is a supporter of the influence of a greenhouse effect on the climate. “This knowledge of the old as a bicycle, and thoroughly precedes the discovery of antibiotics. To deny this is the same as saying that the moon is made of cheese. ”

Indeed, the greenhouse effect was described by Joseph Fourier in the 19th century. He suggested that, depending on the percentage of some gases, the properties of the atmosphere may change: to retain heat from solar radiation and prevent the return of heat to the upper layers. This effect resembles an ordinary village greenhouse, a greenhouse. The “greenhouse gases” were called water vapor, carbon dioxide and methane. In 1903, the Swedish chemist, Svante Arrenius, was given the Nobel Prize for the study of the influence of the amount of carbon dioxide on the temperature (he calculated that doubling the amount of CO2 will lead to warming by five to six degrees). But in the middle of the 20th century, scientists counted and found out that the temperature will increase by a maximum of two degrees. They forgot about the greenhouse effect for a while.

The beginning of the Crusade against global warming was the performance in the US Congress in 1988 by James Hansen, a professor at the Faculty of Ecology and the Study of the University of Columbia. He said: it is necessary to take quick and decisive measures against CO2 emissions into the atmosphere.

Industrial emissions-one of the reasons for the greenhouse effect photo: Jerry Evans (CC-By-SA/2.0)

“In the early 80s, a terrible drought occurred in America. The scientists demanded an explanation of what happened and why, - comments on the coming of the “ideological enemy” of the Bashkirs. - Hansen explained: the man himself is to blame, this is a consequence of industrial emissions of carbon dioxide and his domestic influence. They ask him: "What to do?" He says: “Let's go to research ...” ”

Consensus does not exist. Over the past century, the global temperature grew - this is a fact. Supporters of the anthropogenic factor explain this by the fact that more and more CO2 is thrown into the atmosphere - the greenhouse effect increases, the temperature is growing. Simple formal logic.

No, the adherents of solar spots argue, this is a coincidence

The temperature grew because there was a period of increasing solar activity, the influence of the centenary cycle. As soon as he reaches the peak, the temperature crawls down. And the concentration of carbon dioxide is only 0.02-0.04% in the atmosphere-this is negligible, and the overwhelming part of it-natural rather than anthropogenic origin.

Where is the money, Vladimir?

During the New Year holidays, Vladimir Bashkirtsev travels to visit his son - to Australia. Vladimir Bashkirtsev-Jr. is a lawyer, he emigrated back in the nineties. The son, of course, knew about his father’s bet, and in January 2010 he once again asked how things were moving. It should be noted that by that time a turning point had already happened: at the beginning of the zero, the global temperature of the Earth continued to increase, but in 2008 there was a steady tendency to lower it. As Bashkirts predicted - the “modern maximum” of solar activity ended. The Russian scientist was confident in his innocence, what he told his son.

It would be nice to make a bet official, Vladimir Jr. noted. By this time, she had been a gentlemanly agreement for five years, confirmed only by an email message. On February 23, 2010, Bashkirtsev wrote a letter to Annan and proposed concluding an official certified contract secured by property - in accordance with English law.

He himself was ready to put his son in Australia.

But this was not all: Bashkirtsev proposed raising rates by an order of magnitude - up to one hundred thousand dollars, arguing this by the fact that the legal costs of concluding an official agreement would “eat” the previous amount of the rate. James categorically refused and joked that, as a Scot, he did not recognize English laws. Bashkirtsev tried to insist, but his opponent was adamant.

Vladimir Bashkirtsev and the same schedule on millimeter paper on the wall in the office, which he led all the time of the dispute photo: Alena Kork

After incomplete eight years, on January 5, 2018, James Annan wrote to the same corporate mail of the ISF: “Another year I was able to. Happy New Year to you! I just talked with a journalist who asked about the results of our bet. Can you give some comment? " “Happy old New Year. Best wishes!" - Such an answer from Irkutsk came on January 13. Five days later, Annan asked when he received his money.

On the wall of the office of Vladimir Bashkirtsev in the ISF there is a long tape with a millimeter marking. Every month, the scientist noted on it global temperature data. The graph shows: after 2008, the temperature crawled down. But time worked against Bashkirtsev: she did not have time to “slide” enough to at least balance at least the rise at the peak of solar activity. +14 degrees Celsius - this is the average global temperature of the Earth with annual fluctuations in tenths of degrees. At the second control period (2012-2018), it turned out to be 0.3 degrees higher than on the first (1998-2004).

Formally won James Annan. Bashkirtsev does not agree

From the outside it may seem that he simply evades the fulfillment of the bets, but the scientist claims that the bet is not finished yet. “I will insist that we return to the dates indicated in the article, which Annan proposed initially in his first letter. Let's wait 2026, ”says Bashkirtsev today. - The climate is not the weather, it does not change instantly. To establish scientific truth, the timing of the bet is established incorrectly, especially - without taking into account temporary delay. ”

The “delay”, which Bashkirts speaks of, is described in the book of American researcher George Raid. Its meaning boils down to the fact that the shift between solar activity and a change in temperature on Earth is four to five years. The book was published in 2000, but at the conclusion of Paris, scientists did not take into account these conclusions.

- And if Annan rests and insists on the formal conditions of the original prisoner?

- If we fit formally, then we, of course, lost, there are no words. But if he considers himself a scientist, he must understand: we argued not for the sake of money, but for the sake of establishing truth. So I do not agree with him.

James Annan Photo: From Personal Archive

“But he will talk about your reputation losses as a scientist ...

- A blow to reputation will be if by 2026 the temperature continues to rise. But if it continues to decline, how can I say that I lost? After all, we argued about this!

I wrote to James Annan a letter with the question of whether he will accept the new “old” conditions of Vladimir Bashkirtsev. “I'd Be Delighted to Discuss a Further Bet Once He Has Settled The First One. REGARDS, James, ”was the answer. (“I would be glad to discuss a new bet as soon as he pays what he had already lost. Sincerely, James”).

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The material uses links to publications of social networks Instagram and Facebook, as well as their names are mentioned. These web resources belong to Meta Platforms Inc. - It is recognized in Russia as an extremist organization and is prohibited.

Global warming global cooling Irkutsk Science Paints Effect Russia Solar Activity Ecology