I do know that research in many areas of scholarship (ie not only science and mathematics) is noticeably tunnel vision and hostile to outsiders.

A dynamic builds up largely through conditions of employment, promotion and funding for professionals to become better and better at less and less. Employees don’t have the luxury of spreading their wings. Publish as much as possible, get cited as much as possible, get on funding gravy trains and stay there as long as possible are the dynamics throughout most areas of scholarship, probably most professions. Professionals doing well in their area of specialization tend to close ranks against outsiders; multidiciplinarians are seen as jacks of all trades and masters of none, despised jackals coming to take away goodies from the hard working specialists. Worse still, specialist professionals will join ranks to gang up on their common enemy – the generalist who dares to challenge the specialists’ cherished paradigms and certainties. Once the outsider has been repelled the specialists resume their research programs within their narrow specialisms with the understanding that they won’t encroach on each other.

I note that Leif’s criticism that “the whole field is too ‘disconnected’, having all kinds of different findings piled on top of on another. The usual method in a valid endeavour is the build on other’s results, but I see very little of that here [other than saying that others also find some relations]” has been made before, most noticeably by one of the great minds of modern solar physics, John Wilcox, (see http://wso.stanford.edu/images/people/wilcox.html ) with whom Leif worked closely in his earlier years.

In 1973 John Wilcox wrote:
“An appreciable influence of solar activity on the weather is not widely accepted, and it is not in everyday use for forecasting purposes. The literature on the subject tends to be contradictory, and the work of the authors tends to be done in isolation. It is often difficult to compare the claims of one author against those of another. Many times an author starts from scratch, rather than building on the work of his predecessors in the classical pattern of science. A widely accepted physical mechanism has not yet emerged.”

I thought it would be helpful to our understanding of this situation and of interest to the millions who frequent WUWT to reflect just a little on some history of the field so as to better understand this enduring problem of disconnectedness.

The first major scientific effort to relate solar variability to climate was William Herschel’s two papers in 1801. At the time he was 63 and was acknowledged by all as Europe’s most distinguished Astronomer. He had held the appointment of the King’s Astronomer since 1782, was a Fellow of the Royal Society, which had awarded him the prestigious Copely Medal in 1781.

I have studied his papers and am writing a short paper about his work.
His two Sun/climate papers were careful, meticulous, full of qualifications and bubbling with excitement – as his papers to the Royal Society often were. They were first rate pieces of work. He had available Adam Smith’s huge tabulation of wheat prices. Adam Smith’s 1776 book, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, included details of English wheat prices over 562 years from 1202 to 1764 compiled in the most careful manner. In contrast to this data, Herschel had rather flimsy solar activity data and he knew this.

William Herschel’s language is wonderful!

He wrote:
“Since light and heat are so essential to our well-being, it must certainly be right for us to look into the source from whence they are derived, in order to see whether some material advantage may not be drawn from a thorough acquaintance with the causes from which they originate.”

His observations showed that sometimes the Sun had more spots than others, sometime it had no spots. He concluded that the Sun’s output of ‘light and heat’ increased with the number of sunspots. He went over observational records since 1610 and identified five periods longer than two years in which no spots had been recorded. He reasoned that with no spots the Earth would receive less ‘light and heat’ and therefore be cooler.

Herschel reasoned that if the climate cooled in response to diminished ‘light and heat’ from the spotless Sun, the wheat harvest would be reduced and accordingly, the price of wheat would rise. He further reasoned that the effect of variable solar output on vegetation would be similar to the tidal effect of the Sun and the Moon. That is, that in some parts of the world the tides are very high and very low and that the tidal phenomena vary around the world over time and in relation to latitude and longitude. He pointed out that even though there were these great variations, the tidal phenomena are universally the result of a single principle, the variable gravitation of the Sun and the Moon, as Newton had shown.

Herschel applied his test to the five lean periods by tabulating the price of wheat for these periods.

Herschel found, and reported to the Royal Society that, roughly speaking, the price of wheat in England was highest when sunspots were absent. He summed up his argument in this way:
“The result of this review of the foregoing five periods is, that, from the price of wheat, it seems probable that some temporary scarcity or defect of vegetation has generally taken place, when the Sun has been without those appearances which we surmise to be the symptoms of a copious emission of light and heat.”

Members of the Royal Society mocked him mercilessly. One member, Henry Brougham, then aged 25, who in October 1802 launched the Edinburgh Review, which was to become one of the most influential British magazines of the 19th century, made William Herschel the target of his mockery.
In January 1803 in the second issue of the Edinburgh Review Brougham made his most vindictive of all comment about Herschel’s theory of a relationship between variable solar activity and the price of wheat. Henry Brougham wrote:
“To the speculations of the Doctor on the nature of the Sun, contained in the last volume [of the Transactions of the Royal Society], we have many similar objections but they are eclipsed by the grand absurdity which he has committed in his hasty and erroneous theory concerning the influence of the solar spots on the price of grain.”

Sir Joseph Banks, the President of the Royal Society, implored William Herschel to ignore the ‘darts’ of Henry Brougham, assuring William that “….nothing can affect and overturn truths and discoveries founded on experience and observation.”

Henry Brougham would rise far in politics becoming Lord Chancellor and Baron Brougham in 1830, receiving a second peerage 30 years later.

Interestingly, Pustilnik and Yom Din 2004 reported their analysis of records of the price of wheat in England from 1259 to 1702 in relation to the established sunspot record. They found that Herschel was right: the price of wheat was high in medieval England during periods when there were hardly any sunspots, and low during solar maxima.

The following year Solar Physics published a second paper by the two authors extending their analysis to wheat prices in the US during the 20th century (Pustilnik and Yom Din 2005). The authors recorded their surprise, finding a relationship between numbers of sunspots and the price of wheat, just as Sir William hypothesised. The authors did not expect to see a sunspot connection due to modern technologies that make crops more robust in unfavourable weather, globalised markets, and the massive economic disruption that occurred during the two world wars. They reasoned that these factors should have cancelled out any variation in the data attributable to a sunspot effect. They surmise that the effect persists because 70% of US durum wheat grows in one part of North Dakota, where localised weather conditions could be expected to have a dramatic impact on total production.

Jumping to the 19th Century, the topic of the Sun causing climate change was fashionable and main stream. William Jevons, who became a famous Economist, Logician and Statistician, claimed that variable solar activity was responsible for almost everything that changed on the face of the Earth. He introduced the idea of business cycles into our economic language: he attributed them to the Sun’s activity cycles.

Towards the end of the 19th Century governments around the world were setting up national meteorological agencies. At that time, meteorologists were keen to understand weather and climate and devoted scarce resources to the search for explanations of the phenomena they were employed to predict. They embraced solar explanations.

In 1898, one of the world’s leading meteorologists of the day, Professor Bigelow, wrote:
“That there is a causal connection between the observed variations in the forces of the Sun, the terrestrial magnetic field, and the meteorological elements has been the conclusion of every research into this subject for the past 50 years.”
See here, for example: http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?_r=1&res=9E0DE4DB1631E733A2575BC2A9669D946797D6CF (aka http://tinyurl.com/odr8um )

In the 1920s and 30s when it was still respectable for Government agencies to examine Sun/climate relationships, Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology published two papers reporting that the Sun regulated our climate. One published in 1925 concluded that “The year 1914 was the culmination of what was in all probability the worst drought in Australian history” and attributed the drought to the weakness of Sunspot Cycle No. 14. In the other, published in 1938, the Bureau concluded:
“A rough generalisation from the winter rainfall over northern Victoria would suggest that when the new solar cycle begins with a rapid rise to a definite peak then the heaviest rains are in the early years, but when the solar activity begins more gradually and takes four or more years to reach a low or moderate maximum, then comparatively poor seasons may be expected in the early part.” (Details can be found in my paper, Mackey 2007, available here:
http://www.griffith.edu.au/conference/ics2007/pdf/ICS176.pdf )

The low amplitude forecast for Solar Cycle 24 is that it will be the same as Solar Cycle 14. On the basis of the BoM’s early research this suggests another Federation drought for Australia beginning in the next year or two and poor seasons in northern Victoria. I wonder if the BoM of today would take this hypothesis seriously enough to allocate scarce resources to it.

In 1972, the distinguished scientist, Edward Bowen (see http://www.science.org.au/academy/memoirs/bowen.htm ) reported that in relation to these two BoM reports (see Bowen, 1975): “Other workers (Deacon and Das, private communication) have since extended these data to the 1950s, that is, for another 30 yr, and the relationship stands up”.

Dr Bowen also reported that the march of the high and low pressure systems around the poles as a result of solar activity first identified by the BoM in the 1920s could be used to improve the accuracy of long term weather forecasting.

A couple of generations after the pioneering research of the 1920s, the government meteorological agencies seem to have been lobotomised: explanatory-type research was generally prohibited and those that dabbled ostracised. Weather bureaux concentrated on getting good measurements of meteorological variables and forecasting by statistical analyses of them. Even research into the major oceanic/atmospheric oscillations, which are usually the proximal cause of weather, was heavily discouraged by the mandarins who controlled the weather bureaux.

Neville Nicholls, an Australian scientist employed for most of his professional life in Australia’s BoM who pioneered the BoM’s study of ENSO, pointed out that the BoM’s management took many decades of convincing before acknowledging in the 1990s that ENSO was a worthwhile subject of study for meteorological purposes (see Nicholls 2005).

Interestingly, Nicholls also reports the following:
“Throughout the atmospheric sciences in the middle decades of the twentieth century, climatology was “neither respected nor valued” (quoting from P. J. Lamb, “The Climate Revolution: A Perspective”, Climate Change, Vol 54, 2002, pps 11 – 28). According to Kenneth Hare, “only the old, the halt, and the infirm could be appointed to the climatological branch; the able-bodied men were expected to be forecasters” (quoting from F. K. Hare, “Dynamic and Synoptic Climatology”, Annals of the Association of American Geographers, Vol 35, 1955, pps 152 – 162). Climatology was regarded as “mere book-keeping….. to be posted to the climatological branch of a national weather service was like being made an intelligence officer, or a lighthouse keeper; it was a terminal appointment” (quoting from F. K. Hare, “The Concept of Climate” Geography, Vol 51, 1966, pps 99 – 110)”.

As I read the history of national weather services, after WWII management had a very narrow focus of operational meteorology. Unlike the earlier period, there was no interest in trying to understand the phenomena, there was little interest in long term predictions and any attempt to think outside the square of management’s paradigm was to risk dismissal. Management was not strategic, but obsessed with operational agendas. The persistence of this ingrained thinking may help explain the refusal of national weather services in Australia, the UK, the USA, Canada and NZ to resume research about Sun/climate relationships. In contrast, the national weather services of Russia and Japan maintain active and highly effective research programs in this field.

In 1972 one of the world’s leading meteorologists, Andrei Monin, wrote:
“The greatest attention should be devoted to the question of whether there is a connection between the Earth’s weather and fluctuations in solar activity. [emphasis in original]. The presence of such a connection would be almost a tragedy for meteorology, since it would evidently mean that it would first be necessary to predict the solar activity in order to predict the weather; this would greatly postpone the development of scientific methods of weather prediction. Therefore, arguments concerning the presence of such a connection should be viewed most critically.”

By the time Jack Eddy published his papers in the mid 1970s about the role of the Sun, the field was no longer fashionable and Eddy’s thesis suffered a fate not unlike William Herschel’s.

Nevertheless science marches on! An increasing quantity and quality of papers continued to be published supporting the hypothesis that the Sun regulates our climate.

A NASA organised conference in 1973 (at which Leif Svalgaard presented a significant paper) surveyed the entire area of Sun/climate research. The conference proceedings (Bandeen and Maran, 1975) outlined a framework which could guide future research. It included solar radiation, solar plasma and the Sun’s electromagnetic field and the complex structures created by solar activity in the Heliosphere (itself one of those structures) which could have climate consequences.

In 1978 NASA published a comprehensive review of Sun, climate and weather relationships (Herman and Goldberg 1978). John Wilcox wrote the following in his foreword to the book:
“’A growing mass of evidence suggests that transient events on the Sun affect our weather and long-term variations of the Sun’s energy output affect out climate Solar terrestrial exploration can help establish the physical cause and effect relationships between solar stimuli and terrestrial responses. When these relationships are understood, science will have an essential tool for weather and climate prediction.’ This paragraph, written by Robert D. Chapman as part of a proposal for a fiver-year plan fro Solar Terrestrial Programs in NASA, is an indication of the present status of Sun-weather/climate investigations.”

It is to be noted that neither NASA publication addressed the role of the Sun’s gravitational field in the regulation of the Earth’s climate.

The developments in solar physics during the 1970s and 80s must have greatly aggravated the meteorologists’ nightmares so eloquently described by Andrei Monin.

Within a few years two prominent meteorologists, John Houghton (UK) and Bert Bolin (Sweden) joined the evil Maurice Strong to create the hideous, post-modern Golem of AGW/GHGs that is now on the cusp of destroying the world’s advanced democratic societies and sophisticated economies, as Maurice Strong originally and publicly intended.

For the meteorologists, the deal with Maurice Strong was that solar physics hypothesis would be buried so that meteorology would not become subservient to solar physics, but rather would be positioned to be indispensible to the governments of the world thus assuring meteorology a permanent place on the funding table of benevolent governments. In return, the meteorologists would give Strong’s environmental global domination agenda a veneer of scientific respectability with some plausibly sounding science and the elaborate climate computer-based models that meteorologists developed for their craft.

Returning to solar physics for the moment, the two NASA publications mentioned above provided a framework, which if followed, would end the disconnectedness in Sun/climate research reported by Lief and by John Wilcox more than 35 years before.

Inexplicably, the framework is ignored by some prominent solar physicists.
Thus the two distinguished solar physicists, Mike Lockwood and Claus Frohlich, ignore it totally in their mischievous papers published by the Royal Society in 2007/08.

These papers ignore the substantial findings about the role of the Sun’s plasma output and numerous heliospheric topology variables in generating the Earth’s climate dynamics (heliospheric variables include heliospheric structures (Heliospheric Current Sheet structure (inclination; homogeneity; thickness; current density); the Interplanetary Magnetic Field structure; open and closed fluxes; solar wind, Coronal Mass Ejections, Solar Proton Events; interplanetary counterparts of CMEs; Alfvenic waves; magnetic field directional turnings; pressure balanced structures; magnetic ropes and clouds (chilarity); and corotating interaction regions); solar polarity (dipole to multipole); solar hemispheric asymmetries; solar-terrestrial magnetic field orientation (parallel, antiparallel); solar-terrestrial orientation; Helioid; and Helioid-Geoid orientation. For an entrée into this world of science see the university website of Brian Tinsley, Professor of Physics at the University of Texas, Dallas:
http://www.utdallas.edu/nsm/physics/faculty/tinsley.html )

Lockwood and Frohlich ignore completely the established findings about the role of the gravitational fields of the Sun and the Moon in the regulation of the Earth’s climate. Because of this and other glaring errors in their papers, the Royal Society should not have published them. But not only did the Royal Society publish them, the Royal Society triumphantly editorialised that the papers prove that “the Earth’s surface air temperature does not respond to the solar cycle” and, as if Henry Brougham was still writing for the Royal Society, the blurb on the website of the Proceedings of the Royal Society states in relation to the Lockwood and Frohlich papers, the truth about global warming! The sun is not a factor in recent climate change!

Why would two of the world’s leading solar physicists author papers so blatantly incomplete? Why would a once esteemed scientific society make such a blatantly false announcement? As is usually the case, when lies are told it is inevitably the teller of the lies who is the most deceived. It is most unfortunate in the extreme that there is no one in the Royal Society (or in any leadership position in science in the UK, Australia or the USA) of the calibre and integrity of Sir Joseph Banks who was able to minimise the rabid nonsense of Henry Brougham.

More recently on May 7, 2008 as WUWT recently listed, NASA issued a press release quoting NASA’s Robert Cahalan, Head, Climate & Radiation Branch with news that “about 1,361 watts per square meter of solar energy reaches Earth’s outermost atmosphere during the sun’s quietest period. But when the sun is active, 1.3 watts per square meter (0.1 percent) more energy reaches Earth.” “This TSI measurement is very important to climate models that are trying to assess Earth-based forces on climate change,” Robert Cahalan said. There is no mention at all of established relationships between other solar variables and climate. It is as if NASA has dementia and all the work in the above mentioned NASA publications of 1978 and 1975, which has in the intervening 30 years advanced enormously, is lost to NASA’s corporate memory. Why is this?

It is customary in scientific research when trying to understand some phenomena to consider all relevant variables that might have a role and which a scientist can investigate. It is customary when doing so to use the notions of independent and dependent variables,
(see http://www.viswiki.com/en/Dependent_and_independent_variables )

Yet this way of thinking is totally absent in the science of climate dynamics; it is scarcely used in the study of solar-terrestrial relationships. Why is this?
If it was fully utilised in these two fields of inquiry the disconnectedness noted by Lief (and before him by John Wilcox) might finally vanish.

References:
BANDEEN, W. R. and MARAN, S. P., 1975. Symposium on Possible Relationships between Solar Activity and Meteorological Phenomena Proceedings of a Symposium held November 7 8, 1973 at the Goddard Space Flight Center Greenbelt Md.: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, NASA SP 36.
Bigelow, F. H., 1898. “Solar and Terrestrial Magnetism in their relations to Meteorology”, U. S. Department of Agriculture, Weather Bureau, Bulletin No. 21. [quoted by Wilcox 1975].
Bowen, Edward G., 1975. “Kidson’s relation between sunspot number and the movement of high pressure systems in Australia” paper in Bandeen and Maran 1975 pps 43 – 45.
Brougham, Henry, 1803. “Art. XV. Observations on the two lately discovered Celestial Bodies By William Herschel, L.L.D. F.R.S. From Phil. Trans. RS 1802”. Edinburgh Review Vol 1 pps 426 – 431, January 1803.
Herman, John R., and Goldberg, Richard A., Sun, Weather, and Climate National Aeronautics and Space Administration 1978.
Herschel, W., 1801. “Observations tending to investigate the Nature of the Sun, in order to find the Causes or Symptoms of its variable Emission of Light and Heat; with Remarks on the Use that may possibly be drawn from Solar Observations”. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, pps 265 to 301; Read April 16, 1801.
Herschel, W., 1801. “Additional Observations tending to investigate the Symptoms of the variable Emission of the Light and Heat of the Sun; with Trials to set aside darkening Glasses, by transmitting the Solar Rays through Liquids; and a few Remarks to remove Objections that might be made against some of the Arguments contained in the former Paper”. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, pps 354 to 363; Read May 14, 1801.
KIDSON, E., 1925. Some Periods in Australian Weather. Research Bulletin No. 17 Bureau of Meteorology, Melbourne.
Lockwood, M. and Frohlich, C. 2007 “Recent oppositely directed trends in solar climate forcings and the global mean surface air temperature” Proceedings of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences June 2007.
See http://www.journals.royalsoc.ac.uk/content/h844264320314105/fulltext.pdf
Lockwood, M. and Fröhlich, C. 2008. Recent oppositely directed trends in solar climate forcings and the global mean surface air temperature. II. Different reconstructions of the total solar irradiance variation and dependence on response time scale Proc. Roy. Soc. A, 464 (2094) , 1367-1385 , 2008.
Lockwood, M. 2008. Recent changes in solar outputs and the global mean surface temperature. III. Analysis of contributions to global mean air surface temperature rise Proc. Roy. Soc. A, 464 (2094), 1387-1404, 2008.
Mackey, R., 2007 Rhodes Fairbridge and the idea that the solar system regulates the Earth’s climate. Journal of Coastal Research, Special Issue 50 (Proceedings of the 9th International Coastal Symposium), 955 – 968. Gold Coast, Australia.
Monin, Andrei, 1972. Weather Forecasting as a Problem in Physics. MIT Press. [quoted by Wilcox 1975].
Nicholls, N. 2005. “Climatic Outlooks: from revolutionary science to orthodoxy” a chapter in Sherratt, T., Griffiths, T., and Robin, L. A Change in the Weather – Climate and Culture in Australia. National Museum of Australia Press 2005.
Pustilnik, L. and Yom Din, G., 2004. “Influence of solar activity on state of wheat market in medieval England”, Solar Physics, v. 223, Numbers 1-2, pps 335-356.
Pustilnik, L. and Yom Din, G., 2005. “Space Climate Manifestation in Earth Prices – from Medieval England up to Modern U.S.A.” Solar Physics v 224 Numbers 1-2, pps 473-481.
QUAYLE, E. T., 1925. Sunspots and Australian Rainfall. Proceedings of the Royal Society of Victoria New Series, 37 Part 2, 131 143.
QUAYLE, E. T., 1938. Australian Rainfall in Sunspot Cycles. Research Bulletin No. 22 Bureau of Meteorology Melbourne.
Wilcox, J. 1975. “Solar Activity and the Weather” paper in Bandeen and Maran 1975 pps 25 – 38.

I have company. “absorptance” from their discription is Beer’s Law nomenclature, not Thermal Physics. The Law was developed at the end of the 18th century to aid astronomers in finding the absolute magnitude of stars from the apparent magnitude knowing the path through the atmosphere.

The law is naive, ‘absorptance’ includes reflectance and scattering, all causes for the diminution of the signal. What and how measurement takes place is not specified in your “cut and paste”. Most of the discussion is taken up by efforts to maintain a reference and working detector.

Your credulity regarding the understanding of other scientists is charming.

Benjamin F. Chao (2004). Earth rotational variations excited by geophysical fluids. International Very Long Base Line Interferometry (VLBI) Service (IVS) 2004 General Meeting Proceedings, p.38-46.

html:
http://ivs.nict.go.jp/mirror/publications/gm2004/chao/
http://ivscc.gsfc.nasa.gov/publications/gm2004/chao

pdf:
ftp://ivscc.gsfc.nasa.gov/pub/general-meeting/2004/pdf/chao.pdf

Note: The graphics are lousy on the html pages.

- -
Overview with a treasure chest of references:

R.S. Gross (2007). Earth Rotation Variations – Long Period. In: T. Herring & G. Schubert (eds.) Treatise on Geophysics, Volume 3, Geodesy, pp. 239-294.
ftp://euler.jpl.nasa.gov/outgoing/EarthRotation_TOGP2007.pdf

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Towards simplicity:

1.
Harald Schmitz-Hubsch & Harald Schuh (1999). Seasonal and short-period fluctuations of Earth rotation investigated by wavelet analysis. Technical Report 1999.6-2 Department of Geodesy & Geoinformatics, Stuttgart University, p.421-432.
http://www.uni-stuttgart.de/gi/research/schriftenreihe/quo_vadis/pdf/schmitzhuebsch.pdf

Brilliant wavelet images – very high quality.
Very nice writing – crystal-clear explanations.
Worthy of thorough, comprehensive consumption, top-to-bottom.

2.
Y.H. Zhou, D.W. Zheng, & X.H. Liao (2001). Wavelet analysis of interannual LOD, AAM, and ENSO: 1997-98 El Nino and 1998-99 La Nina signals. Journal of Geodesy 75, 164-168.
http://202.127.29.4/yhzhou/ZhouYH_2001JG_LOD_ENSO_wavelet.pdf
http://adsabs.harvard.edu//abs/2001JGeod..75..164Z

3.
D. Zheng, X. Ding, Y. Zhou, & Y. Chen (2003). Earth rotation and ENSO events: combined excitation of interannual LOD variations by multiscale atmospheric oscillations. Global and Planetary Change 36, 89-97.
(sorry – no free link found so far)

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Also noteworthy:

Zhou YH, Yan XH, Ding XL, Liao XH, Zheng DW, Liu WT, Pan JY, Fang MQ, & He MX (2004). Excitation of non-atmospheric polar motion by the migration of the Pacific Warm Pool. Journal of Geodesy 78, 109-113.
http://www.shao.ac.cn/yhzhou/ZhouYH_2004JG_PM_Warmpool.pdf
http://202.127.29.4/yhzhou/ZhouYH_2004JG_PM_Warmpool.pdf

- – -
Important – Note to barycentre (& solar) enthusiasts:
Beware the hazards of confounding.

Reviewers made these major criticisms:
The draft tends to ‘gild the lily’ regarding the thesis that the Sun affects our climate. More specifically, my draft did not include:
• Any critical evaluation of the papers cited but seems to accept any reported finding as valid, often without reflecting the qualifications or hesitations of the original author(s). My draft appears to treat all the published papers cited as having equivalent and high validity.
• Any papers reporting disconfirming findings or arguments about Sun/climate relationships;

Additionally, my draft covered too broad a canvass and is therefore too thin at many critical points.

However, there was general acknowledgement that the thesis of the paper – that one has to consider the totality of the ways in which the Sun might potentially affect our climate and any interactions between them, – was a useful contribution and worth publishing, given the above shortcomings. The general view seemed to be that the paper makes a good case for this thesis on the basis of the science cited, the analysis outlined and the framework introduced.

Inclusion of the statement:
“The maturity and degree of corroboration of science reviewed in this paper is variable. This is indicated to some extent by reference to publications which corroborate and/or develop the specific area under consideration. However, this paper does not evaluate the overall quality and/or durability of findings drawn upon to present overall conclusions.”

went some way towards meeting the criticism that I treat all papers cited as if they are of equally high veracity.

There was also criticism of my labouring of the ideas of “ergodicity” and “nonergodicity”.

I had the privilege of discussing “ergodicity”, “nonergodicity”, and “randomness” with Demetris Koutsoyiannis at the EGU 2009 in Vienna in April.

I think the gist of his argument is that randomness, entropy and the principles of thermodynamics are enough to explain phenomena; we don’t need the ideas of “ergodicity” or “nonergodicity”, whatever these might be considered to mean in the real world in which we live. I feel he is probably right and that I went a bit overboard on the use of the idea of “non-ergodicity by Douglass North who most likely was using it figuratively or metaphorically, not in any technical way.

There was also criticism that I didn’t adequately deal with the very different nature of the all variables I talked about (whether independent or dependent).
This criticism was dealt with by inclusion of this paragraph:
“The variables are not of the same logical category. Some are one dimensional such as temperature, pressure, atmospheric angular momentum and measures of solar output whereas others are systems of equations or in more complex instances, best represented as mathematical models.”

[In case some one says systems of equations are mathematical models, I should say that I meant by 'mathematical models' something more than just systems of equations (which are, of course, mathematical models); something more elaborate, perhaps ensembles of systems of equations, including numerical simulations].

I suppose the general view was that on balance it was worth publishing as it does a reasonable job of bringing attention to the need to consider the totality of solar phenomena in relation to our climate, if one is to answer in a valid way, the question “Does the Sun affect climate?”

The totality of solar phenomena is:
• the variations in the quantity, intensity and distribution over the Earth of the solar output, including electromagnetic radiation, matter and the Sun’s electromagnetic field;
• the variable gravitational force the Sun exerts on the Earth, the Moon and the Moon and the Earth as a system; and
• interactions between these processes.

From my point of view, I am aware of the paper’s shortcomings, but I do think it has merit. In addition, putting all that together as a hobby on top of the demands of a fulltime job, family and everything else in my own time at my own cost, is a big challenge and there is a limit to what one can do in a reasonable time.

I hope others find my paper a useful stimulus to their forward thinking on this subject.

I hope the debate about climate and the Sun will shift from the preoccupation with one or another variable, e.g. UV, Infrared, galactic cosmic rays, solar wind, electromagnetism, gravitation, to the consideration of the totality of all solar variables in relation to the totality of all climate variables and to all the interaction effects and in relation to time lags. Then we can have sensible discussions about the reasons for our planet’s climate dynamics.

Richard

PS: Earlier drafts had mistakes I had to correct, exaggerated statements I had to deleted, missed some papers worth citing that I had to read and cite, muddled confusions I hope I’ve cleared away and instances of serious misunderstandings I had to overcome, amongst (many) other things.

What did the reviewers have to say about the paper? Did you have to clarify points or strengthen/soften the tone here and there?

NOTE: THE JPG IMAGES FOR FIGS 1 & 2 WON”T COPY
Figure 1 follows:

Figure 1. The Lunar Nodal Cycle
The diagram is adapted from Goldreich (1972), page 49
The Sun’s gravitational field makes the Moon’s Earthly orbit swivel around in a clockwise manner, over a cycle of 18.6 years, with respect to the plane of the Earth’s orbit, the ecliptic. The Moon moves with respect to the ecliptic up and down a northerly latitude throughout the LNC. This arises because the Earth is titled on it axis and inclined away from the Sun and because the Moon’s orbit is tilted a little relative to the ecliptic, It is as if the Sun strives to pull the plane of the Moon’s orbit into its own plane, the ecliptic. But there is an alternate motion at right angles to the applied force, resulting in a revolution of the pole of the Moon’s orbit around the pole of the ecliptic.

Figure 2. Alignment of the tidal bulge (greatly exaggerated) with the Moon during the LNC
The diagram is adapted from McCully (2006), Illustration 3-3, page 33 As the Moon moves in a northerly direction during the LNC, approaching a maximum of 28.5O, so does the tidal bulge.

Here is the Abstract of a relevant paper only just published. The paper is:
Yasuda, Ichiro (2009) “The 18.6-year period moon-tidal cycle in Pacific Decadal Oscillation reconstructed from tree-rings in western North America”, GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS, VOL. 36, L05605, doi:10.1029/2008GL036880, 2009.
The Abstract reads:

Time-series of Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) reconstructed from tree-rings in Western North America is found to have a statistically significant periodicity of 18.6- year period lunar nodal tidal cycle; negative (positive) PDO tends to occur in the period of strong (weak) diurnal tide. In the 3rd and 5th (10th, 11th and 13rd) year after the maximum diurnal tide, mean-PDO takes significant negative (positive) value, suggesting that the Aleutian Low is weak (strong), western-central North Pacific in 30 50_N is warm (cool) and equator-eastern rim of the Pacific is cool (warm). This contributes to climate predictability with a time-table from the astronomical tidal cycle.

I can believe they accurately measure radiation pressure not energy.
They measure the heating [temperature] of the detector by the solar radiation, that is the energy absorbed. Then convert to power using known aperture size and sampling cadence.

The description of function is not rigorous.
I don’t think you know what you are talking about. The LASP description is very rigorous. I have just repeated [copy-paste at times] what they state.

The SORCE site.

“To refresh your memory of who used ‘energy’”

nearly all photon energy incident on the detector is converted into heat

Obviously, if their TIM detector were responsible for their accuracy to six(or thereabouts) decimal places and TSI units were joules per area there would be no need but backward compatibility to offer Watts/m^2.

I can believe they accurately measure radiation pressure not energy. I’ve seen estimates for UV energy down 12%, and solar faculae are responsible for upper visible region as well. The description of function is not rigorous.

Beyond my knowledge. I do know however that GCM’s can not predict ENSO events so if they do include waves its not helping them get the right answer.

Paul Vaughan (21:19:21) :
Does anyone construct global dayside-nightside temperature-contrast time series?

Paul, most of the data I see is aggregated to monthly values. I then calculate a running 12 month average so as to smooth out seasonal effects.

Daily data is hard to get and hourly data even harder, and the period only very recent. But airports have it. I imagine that you would have to compile it station by station. The NOAA is compiling data from round the world and doing an excellent job of making it available quite cheaply.

“I’ll be interested to hear your insights in the days ahead.”
What an invitation?

Sea surface temperature variation coincides with 200hPa temperature variation.

The main driver of 200hPa temperature change is ozone content.

When the pole warms the sea warms at 20-40° latitude in the summer hemisphere. It may also coincidentally warm near the equator but frequently the warming begins in the Pacific off Chile at 20-40°S and this leads Nino 1+2 and the entire equatorial region.

I imagine that 20hPa temperature reflects ozone content. Peaks in 20hPa temperature between 10°N and 10°S can be seen to order peaks in 200hPa temperature between 10° and 40° of the equator in both the north and the south with a slight lag in the northern hemisphere on about half the occasions. After 1990 and prior to 1960 there is a lag of up to a year in the peak of 200hPa temperature between the equator and 20° latitude due to the time it takes for water that is warmed between 20° and 40° to feed into the equatorial region but between 1960 and 1990 there is coincidence.

The rise in sea surface temperature after 1978 was much greater between 20-40°S than closer to the equator. Monitoring SST in the ENSO 3.4 region is a complete waste of time. The action is elsewhere.

20hPa temperature over the equator is currently approaching minimum. Over the last 20 years SST at 20°N to 20°S has peaked when 20hPa temperature over the equator reaches its minimum. So, on that basis, the current warming should be brief. However, a swift increase in solar irradiance and geomagnetic activity might reduce that lag. There is strong warming happening off California, the atmosphere is pretty well wrung out by the La Nina and the rise in temperature in mid year should be strong.

Here is a longer perspective. As the tropical ocean continues to cool 20hPa temperature over the equator will climb due to reduced transport of water vapour into the stratosphere and the gyrations in 20hPa temperature will increase in amplitude. That will give rise to greater variation in 200hPa and sea surface temperature. However, the ocean will cool like it did in the 1970′s with ever stronger cooling events. The tendency to extreme El Nino warming events will continue to diminish. Sea surface atmospheric pressure off Chile began to rise in 1978 as it did over Antarctica and after 1990 atmospheric pressure began to rise in the Arctic. There is no sign of those trends reversing.

If the solar influence that drives the the strength of the winter vortex and ultimately the ozone content of the stratosphere continues to weaken then the vortex will strengthen, the stratosphere will cool at mid to high latitudes and warm at low latitudes. Surface temperatures will fall at high latitudes as the supply of warm water from the tropics becomes less warm.

Putting the principles into less technical English so that anyone can understand is a boon not an imprecision. Look up ‘irradiance’. Your “scientists’” use of ‘energy’ is an imprecise use of the term.

To refresh your memory of who used ‘energy’:
gary gulrud (10:41:24) :
TSI is measured via a photon count. TSI may be converted to ‘total energy’ assuming a spectral contribution of discrete wavelengths.
There is usually no confusion [unless deliberate] between power and energy [the latter simply power integrated in time over area]

Sorry, Leif, I have not had time to return until now. The four sensors, the radiometers, are those assigned to the categories I noted as their site describes in the data sheets, e.g., sigma for the UV sensor is 12-24%.

Putting the principles into less technical English so that anyone can understand is a boon not an imprecision. Look up ‘irradiance’. Your “scientists’” use of ‘energy’ is an imprecise use of the term.

Some of these models reputedly take note of tropical stratospheric temperature. Some take note of the state of the polar vortexes. None, so far as I know attempt to incorporate planetary wave activity.

Why wouldn’t a GCM, which includes both fluid flow and vorticity, automatically incorporate Rossby waves?

Agreed.

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erlhapp (20:39:42) “For me, its back to the historical data, to trace the change in the parameters that influence atmospheric circulation, cloud cover and albedo.”

I’ll be interested to hear your insights in the days ahead.

Question:
Does anyone construct global dayside-nightside temperature-contrast time series?

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erlhapp (20:39:42) “The present state of our understanding of ‘natural’ climate change is indicated by the lack of agreement in the models that predict ENSO events.”

Well-said.

The present state of our understanding of ‘natural’ climate change is indicated by the lack of agreement in the models that predict ENSO events.

Some of these models reputedly take note of tropical stratospheric temperature. Some take note of the state of the polar vortexes. None, so far as I know attempt to incorporate planetary wave activity.

Most are currently predicting an El Nino event. The fact that none predicted the now receding La Nina we can forget for the moment. Are they right now? This is the puzzle.