NASA moves the goalposts on Solar Cycle 24 again

Lucy Skywalker (02:45:16) :
Has anyone done stats on the correlations between solar-system-barycentre and solar patterns and past climate records?
Image you have a rod with two identical, heavy balls that can slide along the rod [say they have a hole in them through which the rod runs]. Now, slide the balls such that they are at opposite ends of the rod. The barycenter of this system is now halfway between the balls. Now slide one of balls a bit towards the middle. That will move the barycenter. That the barycenter moves will not ‘jerk’ the other ball [the Sun] around.
See also my answer to Carsten at http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/10/05/new-solar-cycle-not-packing-much-punch/

Leif,
I know that you said Lean’s TSI data is (I’m paraphrasing) out of date. Some question for you.
How were the TSI levels determined before we started measuring it? And what new proxy or method is being used that shows that the TSI only varies by about 1w/m2?
Mark

AnonyMoose (11:28:28) :
Looks like GISS model solar forcing isn’t trying to forecast solar behavior. Their diagram shows cycle data ending around 2000, so they might not have run models using the data from recent months.
They just use a simple extrapolation forward. Not too bad. Worse is that they use the obsolete Lean TSI backwards in time [with the pronounced rise during the first half of the 20th century]. This makes their solar forcing skewed in the sense that they implicitly can push some of the pre-1970 temp increase over on the Sun making the claim for AGW later on stronger…

Katherine (08:11:17) :
Wouldn’t the changing barycenter of the solar system induce something akin to tides in the sun?
——————————
From the other forum I gathered that Dr. Svalgaard has moved here so I have to be very careful how to say this; but here it is:
Dr. Svalgaard is correct in his assessment about tidal effect. However there is another aspect of the Sun’s movement about barycentre that should be looked into:
There is possibility of significant and variable (over two loops) orbital solar axis precession. In case of a planet the ratio of the planet’s radius and its orbit radius is extremely small, the resulting gyroscopic effect of the planet’s rotation enables it to keep the rotation axis inclination to its orbit relatively constant. Since the Sun’s radius and its orbit’s radius have values of the same order, the possible result may be certain amount of its axis precession along its orbital path. Also, the planets gravitational forces act on the Sun at variable resultant angle in respect to the solar equatorial plane, adding to its axis precession. ( ? )
As far as the sunspots periodicity is concerned I do not believe that movement around barycentre or tidal effect has any significance, but I would suggest an alternative view as shown at:
http://solarcycle24com.proboards106.com/index.cgi?board=general&action=display&thread=64
and then make your own mind.

jonk (11:25:38) :
How have the planet induced tides been calculated?
Recycling one of my answerss at ClimateAudit:
“instead of me going through a long explanation, I’ll just refer to a good one at http://mb-soft.com/public/tides.html
Working through the math one gets that the tides by the Moon on the Earth is 367 mm high [mm = millimeter = 1/25.4th of an inch]. Inserting values for the Sun and Jupiter one gets a tide 0.47 mm high. Put all the other planets where you want, their individual times will be less that this. Venus’ is almost as high as Jupiter’s. All together, the tidal effects are of the order of 1 mm. Compare this to the convective overturning of the photosphere in Texas-sized granules moving at 1-2 km/sec [that is 1000,000-2000,000 mm/sec] and you might be able to see that planetary tidal effects can be ignored. Of course, there are always people that have problems with numbers, so, think of a large truck running over an ant at 100 miles/hour. The effect of the ant on the trajectory of the truck is relatively much larger than the tidal influence of the planets on the matter of the Sun. This much was known to Isaac Newton in the 17th Century. BTW, the tides by Jupiter on the Earth is 1/500 of a millimeter [at closest approach]

CO2Skeptic (12:13:45) :
If it was not predominantly TSI then what warmed the Earth CO2?
The Sun warms the Earth. Most of that heat [300 times as much as in the atmosphere] goes into the oceans which are the heat store of the climate system. Small changes in the circulations of the oceans might have a large climate effect. There are ocean-related weather/climate effects called El Ninos, for example. Just an example of how it is not an either TSI or CO2 question. There are many factors involved, even volcanoes from time to time. [they tend to cool the Earth].

Pet Rock (14:19:53) :
Is it true that 4 billion years ago the solar constant was 80% of the present value and that it has been increasing linearly since then? (except for small fluctuations)
Basically yes. The standard statement is that the Sun 4.5 billion years ago was at 70% of present. There is very little doubt about that. Our models of the solar interior have been validated by helioseismology and neutrino measurements, so they are very ‘robust’ now. As always, you can find people with weird ideas, like a neutron star residing at the center of the Sun and such, but they are taken seriously.

The 1W/m2 I don’t accept, but don’t have the abillity to deny, either. This is a variability in Solar Irradiance; wot abowt the magnetik fields and particals, guv?
Also, irradiance is not the same as insolation, which is controlled by albedo, especially cloud cover.
However, I do not expect to sea “global temperatures” to vary within 11 or 22 years; I reckon at minimum 60 years.

Leif,
“The Sun warms the Earth. Most of that heat [300 times as much as in the atmosphere] goes into the oceans which are the heat store of the climate system. Small changes in the circulations of the oceans might have a large climate effect. There are ocean-related weather/climate effects called El Ninos, for example. Just an example of how it is not an either TSI or CO2 question. There are many factors involved, even volcanoes from time to time. [they tend to cool the Earth].”
I consider this progress.
Would you care to speculate as to whether El Nino’s are related to cloud cover which is in turn related to temperature in that part of the troposphere where ice clouds form?
How is it that the outgoing long wave radiation as measured by satellites has increased over the period of record and could declining cloud cover be responsible?

Stephen Wilde (00:47:37) :
I’d like to hear from others as to whether or not they see a basic similarity in the overall shape of all the lines displayed.
There are two features of the graphs that may be conflated. One is the obvious 11-year variation which is present in all of them. The other [and that is the important one] is the long-term trends. Imagine you filter out [remove] the 11-year variation. Then you are left with a horizontal straight line [no variation at all] for Leif2007 and with a curve that shows a significant climb from the LIA until today for Lean2000. This is the salient and all-important difference, and where the curves show their dissimilarity.
You accept that TSI pre satellite is unreliable and speculative but you feel confident enough to limit past variation to a very small figure.
I have many times in the past presented evidence for very limited variation of TSI and shall repeat some of that here:
Line 1:
The Total solar Irradiance (TSI) has several sources. The first and most important is simply the temperature in the photosphere. The hotter the sun, the higher the TSI. Some spectral lines are VERY sensitive to even minute changes in temperature. Livingston et al. has very carefully measured the line depth of such temperature-sensitive lines over more than 30 years spanning three solar cycles [Sun-as-a-Star Spectrum Variations 1974-2006, W. Livingston, L. Wallace, O. R. White, M. S. Giampapa, The Astrophysical Journal, Volume 657, Issue 2, pp. 1137-1149, 2007, DOI; 10.1086/511127]. They report [and I apologize for the somewhat technical turn my argument is taking, but if you really want to know, there is no avoiding this], “that both Ca II K and C I 5380A intensities are constant, indicating that the basal quiet atmosphere is unaffected by cycle magnetism within our observational error. A lower limit to the Ca II K central intensity atmosphere is 0.040. This possibly represents conditions as they were during the Maunder Minimum [their words, remember]. Within our capability to measure it using the C I 5380A line the global (Full Disk) and basal (Center Disk) photospheric temperature is constant over the activity cycles 21, 22, and 23″. I have known Bill Livingston [and White] for over 35 years and he is a very careful and competent observer.
Line 2:
Since the 1960 we have known that the sun’s surface oscillates up and down [with typical periods of ~5 minutes]. These oscillations are waves very much like seismic waves in the Earth [caused by earthquakes] and just as earthquake seismic waves can be used to probe the interior of the Earth, they can be used to probe the solar interior. There are millions of such solar waves at any given time and there are different kinds (called ‘modes’) of waves. The solar p-modes are acoustic [sound waves] normal modes. You one can imagine a frequency increase with an increasing magnetic field, due to the increase in magnetic pressure raising the local speed of sound near the surface where it is cooler and where the p-modes spend most of their time. Of course one can also imagine higher frequencies may result from an induced shrinking of the sound cavity and/or an isobaric warming of the cavity. Another kind is the solar f-modes that are the eigenmodes of the sun having no radial null points [i.e. asymptotically surface waves; again I apologize for the technical mumbo-jumbo]. From the solar cycle variations of p- and f-modes [and we have now enough data from the SOHO spacecraft to make such a study] we now have an internally consistent picture of the origin of these frequency changes that implies a sun that is coolest at activity maximum when it is most irradiant. Now, how can that be? How can a cooler [overall, including the cooler sunspots, for instance, as the temperature of the non-magnetic areas of the sun didn’t change {see line 1 above}] sun radiate more? It can do that, if it is bigger! The change in the radius of the Sun from minimum to maximum is about 1 km. Goode and Dziembowski (Sunshine, Earthshine and Climate Change I. Origin of, and Limits on Solar Variability, by Goode, Philip R. & Dziembowski, W. A., Journal of the Korean Astronomical Society, vol. 36, S1, pp. S75-S81, 2003) used the helioseismic data to determine the shape changes in the Sun with rising activity. They calculated the so-called shape asymmetries from the seismic data and found each coefficient was essentially zero at activity minimum and rose in precise spatial correlation with rising surface activity, as measured using Ca II K data from Big Bear Solar Observatory. From this one can conclude that there is a rising corrugation of the solar surface due to rising activity, implying a sun, whose increased irradiance is totally due to activity induced corrugation. This interpretation has been recently observationally verified by Berger et al. (Berger, T.E., van der Voort, L., Rouppe, Loefdahl, M., Contrast analysis of Solar faculae and magnetic bright points. Astrophysical Journal, vol. 661, p.1272, 2007) using the new Swedish Solar Telescope. They have directly observed these corrugations. Goode & Dziembowski conclude that the Sun cannot have been any dimmer, on the time steps of solar evolution, than it is now at activity minimum.
Line 3:
Foukal et al. (Foukal, P., North, G., Wigley, T., A stellar view on solar variations and climate. Science, vol. 306, p. 68, 2004) point out the Sun’s web-like chromospheric magnetic network (an easily visible solar structure seen through a Ca II K filter) would have looked very different a century ago, if there had been a significant change in the magnetic field of the sun supposedly increasing TSI. However, there is a century of Mt. Wilson Solar Observatory Ca II K data which reveal that the early 20th century network is indistinguishable from that of today.
So, to summarize these:
1. The base TSI is constant in the absence of magnetic fields
2. Increased TSI is totally due to activity induced corrugations
3. Early 20th century network is indistinguishable from that of today
The net result is that if you take away solar activity, there is no background rise of TSI over time. This is the central point. On Lean2000’s plot the rise in the background is much bigger than the individual cycle variations and it is this rise that people see as correlated with temperature [the ‘obvious’ correlation]. Take away the rise and the correlation disappears. And that is where the graphs are different: no rise vs. a rise that is associated with a rise in temps.
There is much in your position that I find illogical.
[Sigh] I do not operate from a ‘position’ that must be defended, but rather present the solar evidence so that you and others can form your own opinion on what is going on. I do not object to your opinions only to the use of incorrect data whenever I see that.
If true, it wouldn’t help and if it were demonstrably true with no real world phenomena to cast doubt on it than I’d accept it until new evidence contradicted it.
In trying to parse and decipher your statement it sounds like you would use the LIA [the real world phenomenon?] as an argument against the possibility that Livingston and Penn might be correct. This is this kind of circular reasoning that I object to. It is akin to the argument that TSI must have been low during MM because of the LIA and therefore we build that in to our TSI-reconstruction to support the ‘obvious’ correlation with temps.

Erl Happ (21:08:43) :
Would you care to speculate as to whether El Nino’s are related to cloud cover which is in turn related to temperature in that part of the troposphere where ice clouds form?
I don’t know what you mean by ‘related’. El Nino is the result of wind-driven Kelvin waves.
How is it that the outgoing long wave radiation as measured by satellites has increased over the period of record and could declining cloud cover be responsible?
It’s called ‘Global Warming’. An warmer world emits more long wave radiation.
George Ismael (05:51:26) :
Then we could measure the temperature variations in our large earthlike mass during changes in the sun. The moon comes close to being such a test mass, but when I went looking on the web for lunar surface temperature records
http://lasp.colorado.edu/sorce/news/2008ScienceMeeting/posters/SROCE_Wen.pdf

George
Good idea. athttp://coolcosmos.ipac.caltech.edu/cosmic_kids/AskKids/moontemp.shtml
The temperature on the moon varies from -387 Fahrenheit (-233 Celsius), at night, to 253 Fahrenheit (123 Celsius) during the day.
No flywheel (the ocean). No atmosphere to dampen the swings. Average temperature minus -110°C

Leif Svalgaard (06:49:25) :
“An warmer world emits more long wave radiation.”
A little problem in logic here. If the world warms by increasing the residence time of the energy in its oceans/atmosphere OLR should fall as it warms then recover to its original level when the warming has stopped. Incoming energy as watts per square metre times surface area is a constant and sets an upper limit on the energy that can be irradiated by the Earth (ignoring energy emanating from below the crust).
Looking at the phenomena in another way, if the Earth is part absorber (which emits long wave) and part reflector (of some waves that are sent off to space without change in wave length, e.g. visible spectrum) then if that part which is reflector is diminished Outgoing Long Wave will increase because the total of radiation that is converted to the long wave form increases.
Re ENSO Kelvin waves represent oceanic/ atmospheric process. They tell us nothing about the cause of the process. The Kettle boils. Bubbles rise to the surface but the bubbles are not the cause of the boiling.

Erl Happ (07:29:22) :
ENSO Kelvin waves represent oceanic/ atmospheric process. They tell us nothing about the cause of the process.
I said ‘wind-driven’ waves. There is the cause. Why do you ignore the cause of the process? Now, you may say that the wind is not the ‘ultimate’ cause, that something, call it ‘A’ must cause the wind, and then that something, call it ‘B’ must cause A, and in turn B must have its cause C, and then on to D, E, F, G, H, I, K, L, M, N, O, P, R, S, T, U, X, Y, Z, alpha, beta, gamma, …
So, tell us, what causes the wind that causes the Kelvin waves that cause the upwelling that causes El Nino.

Jim Arndt (08:31:05) :
If the CME is SC23 related does this mean we might see a longer SC23 than thought?
Even if SC24 should start with a bang tomorrow, SC23 will linger on for another year, so still seeing SC23-related activity now is not unusual and should not cause any ‘re-thinking’ of SC23.

vukcevic (12:20:46) :
The total current flowing can be estimated at 5 million amps, which, across a potential difference of 100 kilovolts, dissipates 5 x 10^11 watts.”
My question to Dr. Svalgaard:
– Are you aware of any more up to date numbers?
These numbers are trivial to compute from simple considerations. I did that way back in 1973. They don’t change magnitude since, although, of course, the total power varies from minute to minute. The power input to the ionosphere is ‘measured’ today in real time:
http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/pmap/index.html
and is several Gigawatt [with large variations]
Although this amount of energy might be minute in comparison to the energy provided by TSI, my intuition tells me that a large part of it may be pulled down to the narrow polar regions of upper atmosphere. Thinking of analogy of “butterfly and a hurricane” is it possible that with its presence (not actual power) would interfere with air currents, in these for the Earth’s climate very sensitive regions, and thus provide climatic link to solar activity.
The amount is small and doesn’t really get much below the ionosphere, so I don’t see this as a viable mechanism. The power input is just proportional to geomagnetic activity. See pages 18-19 of http://www.leif.org/research/IAGA2008LS.pdf so we know what the power has been for the past ~150 years. If you correlate geomagnetic activity with temps [and the kitchen sink], you are simply correlating the power input with these quantities.

Erl Happ (16:49:25) :
I said “It seems to me that what goes out must be a function of what comes in.”
This figure (from the link i gave) illustrates what goes on quite nicely:
http://wind.mit.edu/~emanuel/geosys/fig3.3.gif

Erl Happ (01:05:14) :
Because solar radiation falling on the Earth is constant. Outgoing LONG WAVE delivered from Earth to space is less than the energy flow from the sun. The difference is short wave reflected to space by clouds.
If you look again [assuming that you had the courtesy to even do it earlier] at
http://wind.mit.edu/~emanuel/geosys/fig3.3.gif
You can see that what goes out (70) is just what comes in (70), the remaining 30 never coming in [reflected out, so is not part of the radiative process]. Stefan-Boltzmann accounting wonderfully for the whole thing [see chapter 2 of that link], even predicting that the atmosphere should be the fourth root of the number 2 times warmer due to greenhouse effects [as indeed it is]. If you increase what comes in (say to 72) you get a GW of the atmosphere and the surface and the OLR also increases (to 72) to match what comes in (72). All your complicated [and frankly incomprehensible – to me at least] explanations of resistors and insulators and containers, etc, just obscures that very simple physics. So, it comes down to the question: ‘what drives the albedo’. The obvious answer is, as you have been able to see, that more clouds drives the albedo [possibly with minor contributions from aerosols and dust – e.g. volcanoes and Human activity], then why more clouds? Different people have different answers to that: GCRs, UV [you], more evaporation because of AGW [feedback] or because of heat from the oceans, more pollution, etc. To a certain degree this is a chicken and egg business, and I don’t think we know [at least I don’t know – but there are lots of know-it-alls out there that would say things like QED].
The way forward for the know-it-alls is to discuss [not just ramble] their various mechanisms openly [e.g. here in this forum]. For example, I would like the UV crowd to explain to the GCR crowd [not to me] why they [the GCRers] are wrong, and the GCR crowd to explain to the UV crowd why they are wrong, and so on.
El Nino: what should be explained is the weakening of the wind, then the rest follows. You have not addressed that at all, just keep chanting the mantra that “it is the Sun”, which is no explanation, just a cry.

Robert Bateman (01:24:19) :
If the input has changed (from a slightly lower TSI (.5%) and a larger does of NUV(1.5%) what then does that do to change the stored energies in the various boxes on your diagram?
TSI has not changed 0.5% and NUV is such a small fraction of the whole that a small change of NUV is insignificant.
How long ago and under what conditions relative to todays output from the Sun was that diagram constructed? Has MIT plugged in the latest data and re-ran it?
This diagram has been known for decades and there is little, if any, discussion about its validity. To a certain extent the details below the top horizontal lines are not important, only that outgoing is equal to incoming in the long run.

Leif
“You can see that what goes out (70) is just what comes in (70), the remaining 30 never coming in [reflected out, so is not part of the radiative process].”
The diagram does not address my point at all. It deals with energy flows which are due to the sum of all wave lengths.
OLR from the Northern hemisphere has increased by 3.4% since 1948 and the southern hemisphere 2.3% since 1948.
Temperatures have risen by much less than either figure over the same period.
If less short wave is reflected long wave must increase.

Erl Happ (09:00:05) :
My point is that the ratios change. The quantities shown in the diagram are not written on tablets of stone.
Part of your problem is the imprecise wordings. What ratios? The 70/30? I did just discuss a case with 72/28, so your statement is vacuous. What have stones to do with the radiation budget?
“El Nino: what should be explained is the weakening of the wind, then the rest follows. ”
I can oblige. The wind is a consequence of air density differences due to temperature variations.
Another problem is the use of non-standard [or confused] terminology. The quantity that determines the wind is the air pressure, not the air density.
During El Niño the trade winds relax in the central and western Pacific leading to a depression of the thermocline in the eastern Pacific, and an elevation of the thermocline in the west. This has nothing to do with the rain shadows to the east of California and the Andes. Here is more information about El Nino http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/tao/elnino/el-nino-story.html
Erl Happ (09:11:02) :
The diagram does not address my point at all. It deals with energy flows which are due to the sum of all wave lengths.
This may be another example of terminology confusion. Because the earth’s effective emitting temperature is about 300 K whereas that of the sun is close to 6000 K, their two spectra have almost no overlap. So we may talk about shortwave and longwave radiation, without ambiguity. Perhaps this http://wind.mit.edu/~emanuel/geosys/fig2.2.gif is useful to make the distinction clear.
That is because the atmosphere is extraordinarily compact and cool and that in turn is […] A very compact atmosphere reduces the penetration of UV light. UV creates ozone and ozone absorbs UVB.
Compact? “A very compact atmosphere reduces the penetration of UV light”. This is just nonsense. The ‘penetration’ depends on the number of molecules in the atmosphere and that number does not change.
related to the lack of strength of the solar wind. Many scholars have pointed out the excellent correlation that exists between the aa index of geomagnetic activity, a measure of the strength of the solar wind, and terrestrial temperatures.
There is no such correlation. Reconstruction of the aa-index back to 1845 [see e.g. page 14 of http://www.leif.org/research/Seminar-SPRG-2008.pdf ] shows that aa-index during 1845-1870 was just as high [or actually a tad higher, if you do the numbers – but eyeballing works fine, too] as during 1980-2005. Many scholars have pointed out that the temperatures during those two periods are significantly different.
Whatever merit your ideas may have, you diminish them by dragging in geomagnetic activity and the solar wind.

Erl Happ (09:11:02) :
OLR from the Northern hemisphere has increased by 3.4% since 1948 and the southern hemisphere 2.3% since 1948.
Temperatures have risen by much less than either figure over the same period.
First, when calculating temperature changes from OLR changes you must divide by 4 because of Stefan-Boltzmann’s law [that governs all of this], so the ~3% OLR change would result from a 3/4% temperature change which is 2 degrees. This is, if we assume that the albedo was the same, and to the extent that the temperature change is perhaps only half of the 2 degrees, we can conclude that the albedo has also changed [decreased]. I think the prevailing idea is that aerosols have something to do with this. Or clouds, or whatever. As you have stated, the Sun has stayed the same, so we can take that out of the equation, if you want.

Adolfo Giurfa (09:55:38) :
What happened years before the extraordinary 1997-98 “el nino”?, […] if there was some peculiar solar phenomena in those years.
There was a solar minimum a years before, but there is one every 11 years. Solar activity was picking up on its way to the maximum, but so it is every 11 years, so nothing special.

Leif Svalgaard (13:04:14) :
We need a decent time span to look at temperature.
See a comparison of air temperature in the decade 1948 to1958 to the most recent decade here:
http://i249.photobucket.com/albums/gg220/erlandlong/Surfacetemperaturesglobe.jpg
Data from http://www.cdc.noaa.gov/cgi-bin/Timeseries/timeseries1.pl
You will observe that it is high latitude winter temperatures that have increased.
On a daily basis the minimums are higher, and the minimum occurs at night and that is related to sea surface temperatures. High minimums in winter relate to less frosts and less ice.
The climate shift in 1978 involved a dramatic increase in the temperature at 100hPa, 70hPa and 50hPa (the lower stratosphere) due to a jump in outgoing long wave radiation associated with loss of cloud cover. OLR reacts with ozone. Temperature at 100hPa in the tropics peaks strongly in mid year associated with the fall in cloud cover associated with the increase in global temperatures due to Northern Hemisphere warming in turn associated with the size of the land masses in relation to the sea. It can be safely concluded that the main driver of lower stratospheric temperature is outgoing long wave radiation. Those temperature peaks have decayed continuously since 1978.
Thanks for the following comment:
“we can conclude that the albedo has also changed [decreased]. I think the prevailing idea is that aerosols have something to do with this. Or clouds, or whatever. As you have stated, the Sun has stayed the same, so we can take that out of the equation, if you want.”
So, there has been a change in cloud cover. (Less waffle would help). The usual relatively cloud free zones simply expand. These are the re-charge zones for tropical warming events.
And the change in albedo is also clearly reflected in the jump in 200hPa temperatures in 1978. The relationship between 200hPa temperatures and cloud cover is well documented.
And 200hPa temperature is clearly driven by the reaction of ozone to UV light.
The amount of UV light that emanates from the sun as sunspots come and go is less important than the effect of the solar wind on the mass of the atmosphere over the tropics. I infer this change from observation of change in temperature in the tropics. If you don’t want to infer it and want to stick to your notion that the mass of the atmosphere over the tropics is invariable go right ahead. But, have the graciousness to admit that neither of us really knows.

Erl Happ (16:11:36) :
effect of the solar wind on the mass of the atmosphere over the tropics. if [you think] the mass of the atmosphere over the tropics is invariable go right ahead. But, have the graciousness to admit that neither of us really knows.
The mass [really the weight, but with gravity not varying…] of a column of air is given by the pressure it exerts, independent of its temperature. The pressure over the tropics is well-known, so we do know [or can know]. So central to your theory is that the pressure in the tropics should vary with the solar wind. This is a critical experiment. If it does not, your theory is wrong. If it does, it does not prove your theory right as the theory is not unique [there could be other mechanisms at play]. So, one cannot prove a theory, but one can disprove it. Back in the 19th century people looked at correlations between geomagnetic and solar activity and just about everything they could think of. If memory serves, no correlation with pressure was found. I’m not aware of anybody later having looked at this, but it should be an easy thing to check. Why don’t you?

Erl Happ (16:11:36) :
So, there has been a change in cloud cover. (Less waffle would help). The usual relatively cloud free zones simply expand. These are the re-charge zones for tropical warming events.
And the change in albedo is also clearly reflected in the jump in 200hPa temperatures in 1978. The relationship between 200hPa temperatures and cloud cover is well documented.
That the albedo is changing and clouds too is not in doubt, but those facts do nothing to prove your specific theory as many other mechanisms could be claimed [even AGW for that matter].
The heaping up of details just obscures the central point of your theory: the ‘compacting’ of the atmosphere by the solar wind. This point is amenable to an observational check. There are long records [Dutch, British] of meteorological data including air pressure. Find many stations, compile a composite data set and compare it with [correct] aa-index subject to rigorous statistical checks, and the point can be made.

Leif, It is apparent that a massive jump in both temperature and pressure occurred in 1978 at the start of solar cycle 21. Regardless of the actual dynamic of UV at the time the atmosphere became more penetrable.
This was the origin of the Great Pacific Climate shift.
We have a multivariate relationship in a column of air attached to a sphere by gravity. Its P,V and T.
The strong relationship between aa and 200hpa temperature is indicative of the forces involved. That this is the case can be regarded as surprising given that V and P are also involved.

Leif Svalgaard (20:22:23) :
The mass of the overlying atmosphere is determined solely by the number of molecules in the column. The total integrated weight of that column is the pressure.
In measuring the cosmic ray flux at the ground one finds that the flux varies with the hour-to-hour variation of pressure. This is because there are more molecules [more mass] for the CR to ‘penetrate’ before being measured when the pressure is higher. The CR flux does not vary with temperature, only with pressure [or equivalently: number of molecules].

Leif
Yes, the mass of the overlying atmosphere is determined solely by the number of molecules in the column.
And the number of molecules will be a function of the kinetic energy of each molecule that determines the distance between them.
As the temperature rises, so does the pressure. The molecules exert a force in all directions which results in an increase in the volume occupied. Part of the extra volume occupied will be vertical and part horizontal. So the number of molecules in each cubic meter diminishes in proportion to the horizontal component.
The transition from the weak solar cycle 20 to the strong solar cycle 21 was unusually momentous. It takes a couple of years after solar minimum for the aa index to pick up. An El Nino event is a multi year occurrence. The full shift was not accomplished till the end of the El Nino of 1983, as the aa index peaked, well after sunspot maximum about 1980. In consequence sea surface temperatures in the tropics jumped to a new plateau 0.5 degrees higher.
“In measuring the cosmic ray flux at the ground one finds that the flux varies with the hour-to-hour variation of pressure.”
Pressure and temperature vary together, and the cosmic ray flux varies with the number of molecules in the way. So, you make my point for me.

Kim,
You are being very voluble. Nice to know you take a continuing interest.

Erl Happ (21:50:08) :
And the number of molecules will be a function of the kinetic energy of each molecule that determines the distance between them. As the temperature rises, so does the pressure
Nonsense, the number of molecules in the air columns is constant no matter what the temperature is. Why do we have to discuss this? Read up on it, please. E.g. here: http://ww2010.atmos.uiuc.edu/(Gh)/guides/mtr/fw/prs/def.rxml
The only thing that matters is the pressure. Low temperature is often associated with high pressure, if you want to find some association [e.g. Siberia in the winter], but the temperature is irrelevant, only the pressure matters for the number of molecules to absorb UV or whatever.
The transition from the weak solar cycle 20 to the strong solar cycle 21 was unusually momentous. It takes a couple of years after solar minimum for the aa index to pick up. An El Nino event is a multi year occurrence. The full shift was not accomplished till the end of the El Nino of 1983, as the aa index peaked, well after sunspot maximum about 1980.
I don’t know how to handle this. What you say is simply not true. The transition was not momentous. In terms of aa, the transition was lame. Aa came down from a strong high during 1974 in cycle 20 to a rather deep minimum in the solar maximum year 1980 [see page 14 of http://www.leif.org/research/IAGA2008LS.pdf ]
The run of aa during cycle 20 from 1965 to 1970 mimics very much the run of aa during cycle 23 from 1996 to 2002, yet there was a super El Nino in 1998 and aa-maximum in 1974 was followed by the La Ninas 1974-1976.
There was nothing solar or aa-wise to trigger the ‘great climate shift’ of 1978. The run of aa 1955-1965 was as pronounced as that of 1980-1987, yet 1955-1965 were years of cold. It simply does not hang together.
But all of this is incidental. You did not see fit to respond to:
“The mass of the overlying atmosphere is determined solely by the number of molecules in the column. The total integrated weight of that column is the pressure. But what is important is actually just the number of molecules [as long as the gas is tenuous enough [which it is]]. So the pressure should be a strong function of [corrected] aa-index. This is the crucial test. As a sign of scientific integrity, you should declare up front that you drop your theory if there is no correlation [you can specify what level of significance you will consider: 95%, 99%, 99.9%, …]. This is how it is done. During one of the meetings of the NASA/NOAA Sunspot Prediction Panel, I asked Dikpati if her theory could be saved if the sunspot number came out less than the current cycle. As a good scientist she said: “in that case, my model is wrong, and must be abandoned”.”
So I give you now a second chance [if still no response, there will be a third, 4th, 5th, … chance]. So, the test is simple [and Kim, yes there are LOTS of recent data], do it and convince me. Fail to do it and leave your ideas tottering in a lurch.

Leif
“As the temperature rises, so does the pressure”
And on the annual scale that is exactly what happens as I show here:http://i249.photobucket.com/albums/gg220/erlandlong/Pressureand200hPatemperature.jpg
And that is incontrovertible.
“”Low temperature is often associated with high pressure”. That is also true but in an entirely different different scenario to what we are dealing with when we talk of the atmospheric column.
“I don’t know how to handle this. What you say is simply not true. The transition was not momentous. In terms of aa, the transition was lame.”
Beg to disagree and here is the data: http://i249.photobucket.com/albums/gg220/erlandlong/aaand200hPatemp.jpg
“So the pressure should be a strong function of [corrected] aa-index. This is the crucial test.”
Disagree. The pressure and the temperature are together a strong function of the flux of ultraviolet which depends in part upon the aa index and in part upon other solar phenomena.
Let me remind you that other factors are also involved. Volcanoes and the aerosols that they put into the stratosphere, precipitation events have their own dynamics. Change in specific and relative humidity affects cloud formation potential.
I will not throw out the hypothesis on the basis of a false test. No amount of bullying or repetition will change that.

Gary Gulrud (08:26:36) :
This ENSO discussion is a great illustration of the ‘Tar Baby’ strategy.
Yeah, I have tar all over my hands [and feet], having met that non-responsive Tar Baby so many times.

Erl Happ (08:44:42) :
You suggest a long list of possibilities. The way to make progress is to test the various possibilities, to the extent that they allow test [if they do not, they can be excluded without further ado]. I am suggesting one such test.

kim (09:11:08) :
I took ‘false test’ to mean one which was not correctly designed to falsify the hypothesis, which might apply to your test. Please, all, let me be the intemperate one around here.
Looks simple enough to design a correct test:
1. It is claimed that aa determines the absorption [actually the looser word ‘penetration’ was used, but unless that leads to absorption nothing matters] of UV [in the troposphere]
2. The absorption by a medium depends on the number of molecules
3. The number of molecules is given by the pressure,
so the test would be to check if aa is strongly correlated with pressure. If it is not, then aa is not the dominant determinant of absorption of UV. So, we can lop that one off the list.
If we back off and say, so what, aa is just a small part of the whole complicated picture, then one cannot make [as it was done] the statement that ‘the cooling is caused by a weaker solar wind’ or that the ‘great climate shift was due to an usual momentous solar cycle, wind or aa’. I’m perfectly willing to give everything in the kitchen sink a 5% role to play, it is the sweeping generalizations [and the QEDs] I caution against.

Erl Happ (09:44:08) :
density is largely a function of T.
An incoming UV photon does not know or care anything about density; all that matters to it is 1) the chance of hitting a molecule that can absorb it and 2) that chance depends only on the total number of molecules along the path of the photon. 3) The pressure is the weight of those molecules [no matter what the temperature is]. Analyze the above and tell me which one(s) of the three you have problems with.
The temperature maximum at 1hPa in March and September is strong evidence of a solar wind effect on the penetration of short wave energy into the upper stratosphere. The greatest variability that occurs in the stratosphere may be observed in September. […] If one checks the degree of variation that occurs, month by month as one descends into the troposphere that same strong variability is evident in September.
As you do that direct measurements show that the maximum slowly change phase with height, in fact through the whole 360 degrees. It is not the ‘same’ maximum that persists at the ‘same’ phase all the way down.
Bullying is never productive. If anything it tends to promote withdrawal which may be your real objective. In my case it has the reverse effect.
‘Bullying’ was your word. Insistence on accuracy and adherence to correct physics and constructively suggesting crucial tests are productive IMHO. I don’t want you to withdraw, I want you to back up your QED, if you can. And I take offense at having my ‘objective’ questioned or even being an issue.

Leif Svalgaard (10:04:15) :
Let’s put aside this argument about surface pressure in favour of considering pressure/density/photon penetration in the zone of interest. We are asking whether temperature peaks at 1hPa in March and September, that may be due to a geomagnetic influence, can be traced down into the troposphere thereby influencing cloud cover. We might as well look for a result on the moon as on the surface of the Earth with the bulk of the atmosphere lying well below the zone of influence of geomagnetic activity.
We have about 1% of the atmosphere above 1hPa and some of it in carrying an electric charge making it susceptible to movement and perhaps carrying neutrals with it.
We have perhaps 20% of the atmosphere above 200hpa including ozone which is a product of the energizing of oxygen and itself susceptible to being energized by particular wave lengths and also being influenced by humidity and temperature change.
According to Wikipedia “when the sun is active with 50 or more sunspots, hard X-rays (wavelength < 1 nm) ionize the air (N2, O2).” So we have a separate dynamic altering the level of energizing radiation in various wave lengths that is in and out of phase with the solar wind.
Geopotential height is a measure of pressure relating to altitude. It is used to infer wind strength. Wind strength relates to density considerations driven by temperature change. Geopotential height at some level of the atmosphere or other has been related to solar output in many papers. A quick search reveals plenty and you can do it for yourself so no sense quoting addresses.
So, urging you to recognize that relationships between variables will correlate well at some times and not others due to the influence of uncontrolled ‘other factors’ I tender the graph at: http://i249.photobucket.com/albums/gg220/erlandlong/GHMthlyTempandextremevarn.jpg
The data relates to 1948-2008, 10°S to 20°S where albedo is least and irradiance greatest. It occurs to me that it would be worth checking relationships in other tropical latitudes and perhaps across the Pacific between Indonesia and South America.
To derive “200hPa temp. extreme varn. 1948-2008” I take the figure for the coolest January from figure for the warmest January and so on for each month.
To derive “200hPa varn. in Mthly GH” I show the monthly average for the entire period 1948-2008 with a base of zero for the month of minimum.
To derive “200hPa extreme varn in GH 1948-2008” the difference between the highest and lowest monthly figure for GH in each month is recorded.
Things I would point out.
1. Extremes in temperature variation at 200hPa between the warmest month and the coldest month in the period 1948 to 2008 vary little across the year. There might be a slight fillip in September (circled). But, more importantly, the way monthly variation holds up as irradiance falls away in mid year strongly suggests a geomagnetic influence kicking in from June.
2. The seasonal variation of geopotential height has a maximum in March rather than January and shows little effect from the generalized surface warming in mid year due to Northern hemisphere land masses. (the OLR effect is overwhelming at 100hPa and into the lower stratosphere).
3. The extreme variations in geopotential height do not follow the pattern of irradiance variation but are plainly influenced by the increase in geomagnetic activity from June to September.
I take this as excellent evidence of a geomagnetic derived solar influence on the upper troposphere that will feed into change in cloud cover.
Lastly I would point out that upper atmosphere specific humidity responds poorly to changes in sea surface temperature. See:
http://i249.photobucket.com/albums/gg220/erlandlong/Specifichumidity300-700hPa.jpg
the 200hPa level has warmed strongly with a big jump in 1978. We ahev no measure of specific humidity at 200hPa but trends below that level suggest that specific humidity has not kept pace with the rise in temperature. A lot of the temperature increase since 1978 can be attributed to loss of cloud albedo.
That this has occurred has already been inferred from the strong increase in outgoing long wave radiation (comments above).

Gary Gulrud (15:54:10) :
Glenn (18:07:52) :
Since you bring nothing of value to the table, may I suggest you conserve bandwidth and spare the readership…

Jeez,
I think that we have gone about as far as is permissible at this time. For me its back to the entrails to see what I can make of them. The evidence is in the data. It’s just a question of teasing it out.
What I see in the data is consistent with albedo change in the tropics driving winter temperatures at high latitudes that rise and fall over 30 or 40 years (no magic in the number). It is not consistent with the AGW thesis.
I can not agree with Leif’s thesis that the upper troposphere is heated solely from below. Paradoxically, the lower stratosphere is heated mainly from below exhibiting a very strong seasonal peak in July but the upper troposphere, below 150hPa, while it exhibits a small regular seasonal variation that is somewhat out of phase with surface variations, has a much larger variation than the surface on an inter-annual basis. At the critical latitude 10°S to 20°S the widest swings occur in March and September.
Readers may like to compare 2008, with 2000, the last great La Nina year in the graph at:
http://i249.photobucket.com/albums/gg220/erlandlong/200hPatemprecent.jpg
They should also remember that specific humidity in the upper troposphere has been in decline for 60 years. The current solar minimum has brought a deep minimum in 200hpa temperature and lots of cloud over the southern oceans. This will feed into cooler temperatures polewards of 50° Lat. in winter in due course.
The message is that if you live in BC Canada and want to know what the coming winter is likely to bring, check last years sea surface temperature south of the equator.

Robert Bateman (22:45:26) :
Once again, a small spot is seen at the low ebb of Solar Wind Velocity and Planetary A index.
If you want to see why that is, check this:
http://www.leif.org/research/The%20Hale%20Solar%20Sector%20Boundary.pdf
At solar sector boundaries the solar wind speed and therefore geomagnetic activity are at their minima.

Leif Svalgaard (00:27:05)
Thanks Leif, that’s understood. March and September peaks in geomagnetic indices are due to strong coupling of the solar wind with the magnetosphere at the equinox.
Interesting asymmetry noted in historical data: http://i249.photobucket.com/albums/gg220/erlandlong/aaseasonal.jpg
Its hard to imagine that this asymmetry would be due to an orbital factor unless there is an interaction with the degree of ionization of the atmosphere. Any thoughts?

Erl Happ (05:04:11) :
Is this pattern of activity typical of solar minimum. What is happening? Where are the poles located?
Let me answer in reverse order:
The North Pole is at the top, The South Pole is at the bottom.
The different magnetic polarities on the Sun [and in the corona and the solar wind] are separated by sheets of plasma supporting an electric current [the magnetic fields on either side of a current point in opposite directions]. This is known as the Heliospheric Current Sheet. Here is an artist’s rendition [from the first drawing of that sheet by me back in the 1970s when we discovered it] of the shape of that current sheet: http://wso.stanford.edu/gifs/helio.gif
The [spiral] curving of the HCS is due to solar rotation. To support the current, the corona and the solar wind has a higher density in the sheet; that is what makes the streamers you see in the LASCO images bright. As the Sun rotates, you see the HCS in projection onto the sky move up and down.
The ‘warping’ [or deviation from flat] of the current sheet is determined by a balance between the magnetic fields in the polar regions [that press the sheet down towards the equator] and the magnetic fields in the equatorial coronal holes [that press the sheet towards the poles]. At solar maximum, the polar fields disappears for a few years while they reverse, so there is nothing to press the sheet towards the equator and the HCS [and the streamers you see] extends all the way to the poles making the corona bright at all latitudes. At solar minimum when the equatorial magnetic fields fade, the strong polar fields press the HCS [and the streamers] all the way to the equator. You can see a nice example of this in Figure 2 of http://www.leif.org/research/A%20View%20of%20Solar%20Magnetic%20Fields,%20the%20Solar%20Corona,%20and%20the%20Solar%20Wind%20in%20Three%20Dimensions.pdf that also explains the process in more detail. All this was figured out 30 years ago and has been confirmed by numerous direct spacecraft, e.g. Ulysses.
At the current minimum, there has still been some SC23 activity up to the present day even, that keep the equatorial magnetic fields alive and well, while the polar fields have weakened to only about half of they have been in the last several previous cycles with the result that the HCS is not so ‘flat’ that it used to be at recent minima [or in the extreme case of 1954 – see Figure 2]. So, the current pattern is well-understood and has undoubtedly occurred many times in the past when similar conditions were found, so is not unusual [expect, perhaps, on a time scale of a single lifetime].

Leif Svalgaard (11:44:55) :
I marvel at your accomplishments in this field. A fantastic body of work. Thanks for taking the trouble to answer so comprehensively.
Leif Svalgaard (12:40:54) :
The article you cite is not relevant.
The argument as to whether the climate models predictions of a warmer mid to upper troposphere over time and whether the data sets will support a conclusion one way or the other is immaterial. The CO2 hypothesis flawed. The notion that heat is dissipated from the surface via radiation is incorrect.
What I see in the data sets is declining specific humidity since 1948 upwards of 700hPa (2.5km). Most of the weather action is below this level and water is the prime agent of heat transfer. At 10° to 20°South and at 1000hPa we have 16gr/kg and at 700hPa we have 4.1gr/kg of specific humidity. Average relative humidity drops from 80% at 1000hPa to 45% at 700hPa.
So above 700hPa we have a pattern of uneven relative humidity across the tropics depending upon rain shadow effects, water temperature and evaporation rates. There are areas that support ice cloud formation and others that do not. The relatively cloud free areas simply expand and contract as the temperature rises and falls. This graph tells a story.
http://i249.photobucket.com/albums/gg220/erlandlong/RH700hPaagainst200hPatemp.jpg
But this is not a one way street as we see here:
http://i249.photobucket.com/albums/gg220/erlandlong/RH700hPaandSH700hPa.jpg
Above 700hPa cloud albedo is largely a function of air temperature.
For the latitude 40°N to 40°S the relationship between surface temperature and that at 200hPa and 100hPa is shown at:
http://i249.photobucket.com/albums/gg220/erlandlong/100200hPaandsurfaceNHSH0-40Lat.jpg
I don’t think anyone looking at the data would support your assertion that the atmosphere is heated solely from the surface.

Erl Happ (05:18:20) :
The notion that heat is dissipated from the surface via radiation is incorrect.
But nobody, to my knowledge, says that. Instead, the actual process is that the surface is heated by radiation and the troposphere above it is heated first by conduction and then by convection.

Erl Happ (17:00:51) :
The troposphere acts as a dampener on surface temperature gyrations
I give up. This is hopeless.