NASA now saying that a Dalton Minimum repeat is possible

Guest Post by David Archibald

NASA’s David Hathaway has adjusted his expectations of Solar Cycle 24 downwards. He is quoted in the New York Times here Specifically, he said:

” Still, something like the Dalton Minimum — two solar cycles in the early 1800s that peaked at about an average of 50 sunspots — lies in the realm of the possible.”

NASA has caught up with my prediction in early 2006 of a Dalton Minimum repeat, so for a brief, shining moment of three years, I have had a better track record in predicting solar activity than NASA.

Hathaway-NYT

The graphic above is modified from a paper I published in March, 2006.  Even based on our understanding of solar – climate relationship at the time, it was evident the range of Solar Cycle 24 amplitude predictions would result in a 2°C range in temperature.  The climate science community was oblivious to this, despite billions being spent.  To borrow a term from the leftist lexicon, the predictions above Badalyan are now discredited elements.

Let’s now examine another successful prediction of mine. In March, 2008 at the first Heartland climate conference in New York, I predicted that Solar Cycle 24 would mean that it would not be a good time to be a Canadian wheat farmer. Lo and behold, the Canadian wheat crop is down 20% this year due to a cold spring and dry fields. Story here.

The oceans are losing heat, so the Canadian wheat belt will just get colder and drier as Solar Cycle 24 progresses. As Mark Steyn recently said, anyone under the age of 29 has not experienced global warming. A Dalton Minimum repeat will mean that they will have to wait to the age of 54 odd to experience a warming trend.

Where to now? The F 10.7 flux continues to flatline. All the volatility has gone out of it. In terms of picking the month of minimum for the Solar Cycle 23/24 transition, I think the solar community will put it in the middle of the F 10.7 quiet period due to the lack of sunspots. We won’t know how long that quiet period is until solar activity ramps up again. So picking the month of minimum at the moment may just be guessing.

Dr Hathaway says that we are not in for a Maunder Minimum, and I agree with him. I have been contacted by a gentleman from the lower 48 who has a very good solar activity model. It hindcasts the 20th century almost perfectly, so I have a lot of faith in what it is predicting for the 21st century, which is a couple of very weak cycles and then back to normal as we have known it. I consider his model to be a major advance in solar science.

What I am now examining is the possibility that there will not be a solar magnetic reversal at the Solar Cycle 24 maximum.


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markinaustin
July 28, 2009 10:15 pm

i don’t follow the bit about a 2 degree Celsius variation in temperatures. is that based on past stuff that i am not familiar with?

markinaustin
July 28, 2009 10:17 pm

ah…i guess this is what you meant?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dalton_Minimum

Adam from Kansas
July 28, 2009 10:20 pm

The Sun is as blank as a piece of white paper at the time of writing this.
As for the climate indications, apparently the prospect of more than 3000 cold records in the U.S. (record low highs+record lows), shows that good chunks of this country and Canada are not being obedient to the dramatic uptick in temps. on the UAH site.
Mr. Archibald, what do you make of the current dramatic uptick in temps. according to UAH and the big spike in SST’s?

marks powers
July 28, 2009 10:20 pm

Hope you plan on posting additional comments on this gentleman’s name and model…
“I have been contacted by a gentleman from the lower 48 who has a very good solar activity model. It hindcasts the 20th century almost perfectly, so I have a lot of faith in what it is predicting for the 21st century.”

Geo
July 28, 2009 10:21 pm

I’ve come to the conclusion that solar cycle predicting does not deserve the label of “science” at this point.
This saddens me. More, it saddens me that the solar scientists don’t seem willing to own up to that fact. Perhaps this isn’t surprising. Mostly, I suspect they are insanely jealous these days that the Climate “scientists” get to make “science” predictions that can’t be checked until after they’ve left scene entirely, or at least safely on pension.

July 28, 2009 10:33 pm

Weather is not climate: Portland Oregon, high temperature: New record for date, July 28, 106 Fahrenheit (old record 102), all time record 107.

July 28, 2009 10:39 pm

Oops (old record 101)

Alan the Brit
July 28, 2009 10:41 pm

This sounds good sense to me! BUT not good news for weather patterns. Another cool wet start in the South-West, I wish we had this bbq Summer the Met Off claimed we’d get. Typical, we were told that we could have Australian style weather with AGW, (& they would get ours!) & every time a storm occurred & the Sea Wall @ Dawlish failed, yet another “expert” from Plymouth or Exeter Uni would come on tv & claim that “this is what we can expect from climate change, wetter warmer winters & hotter drier summers”! Where are they? Idiots!

Jim B in Canada
July 28, 2009 10:48 pm

We’re over half way through 2009 and the current sunspot numbers are pretty impressive at 160 ish sunspot less days. I say WUWT should set up a sun spotless day pool and let people guess at both the total sun spotless days in 2009 and the highest one day count in 2009.
Everyone can sign and make a guess and that includes staff at NASA then all those who chose correctly are put into a draw to win a prize!
Maybe WUWT fans will guess (ahem calculate-model-predict) better than NASA?

Alex Baker
July 28, 2009 10:49 pm

James F. Evans (22:33:46) :
Weather is not climate: Portland Oregon, high temperature: New record for date, July 28, 106 Fahrenheit (old record 102), all time record 107.
James, I think this is relatively OT from the post, but…
AP reports only 103 – duly noted…though one might comment that this is a regional effect that results anytime, though rarely and only during the height of summer, anytime the weather systems set up in Eastern Oregon in such a way as to send hot air back into the Willamette Valley via the Gorge. The same effect can cause record cold during the height of winter. Tomorrow could be hotter…
http://www.oregonlive.com/newsflash/index.ssf?/base/national-40/1248769196206800.xml&storylist=orlocal
However, the Midwest is experiencing extremely unusual July weather with near record low highs and wet weather:
http://blogs.wlfi.com/2009/07/22/record-cool-july-continues/
I think the broader effect occurring in the Midwest is the much more unusual and is in line with PDO + solar effects…

Richard Heg
July 28, 2009 10:57 pm

“The oceans are losing heat,”
and yet…
“Global Ocean Surface Temperature Warmest On Record For June”
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/07/090725120303.htm
Please explain are the ocean’s loosing heat because the surface temperatures are high? or are the figures questionable?

David Archibald
July 28, 2009 11:00 pm

Adam from Kansas (22:20:15) :
I don’t see what you are seeing. NOAA sst anomalies are fairly neutral.
There is another way of measuring climate change – pool chlorine sales. I met a bloke recently who has been selling pool chemicals for the last 17 years. Chlorine consumption is directly proportional to heat. His chlorine sales have been falling for the last 12 years.

David Corcoran
July 28, 2009 11:08 pm

I’ve heard that a lot… weather is not climate. But what’s weather? Hansen’s predictions (pardon me, “projections”) 30 years ago were wrong, 20 years ago they were wrong also, and practically no-one predicted the last 10 years of cooling/flat temps. When is it fair to judge a theory? 30 years, 50? 100? 100,000?

Richard deSousa
July 28, 2009 11:12 pm

Hathaway said previous that solar cycle 24 was going to be a hot one. Then the sun made Hathaway’s subsequent predictions less and less correct. Now Hathaway says a Dalton Minimum is a possibility but a Maunder Minimum is not going to happen. Let’s see whether the sun has the last word.

July 28, 2009 11:17 pm

@ Alex Baker (22:49:36) :
103 was the day before.

timetochooseagain
July 28, 2009 11:22 pm

Two degrees C? Seriously? Nobody seriously thinks the solar cycle impact is of that magnitude.
“As Mark Steyn recently said, anyone under the age of 29 has not experienced global warming.”
This is NOT what Steyn said. He specifically stated “If you’re 29, there has been no global warming for your entire adult life. If you’re graduating high school, there has been no global warming since you entered first grade.”-and I would go farther, since by my calculations Steyn is going by 10/11 years-in fact, there has been no warming for twelve years at least:
http://digitaldiatribes.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/uahcooling200906.jpg
(BTW using RSS makes little difference, since RSS actually cooled relative to UAH during the last few years (during the AQUA “annual cycle issue” period)

Philip_B
July 28, 2009 11:24 pm

Mr. Archibald, what do you make of the current dramatic uptick in temps. according to UAH and the big spike in SST’s?
SSTs measure heat release from the oceans to the atmosphere and therefore heat lost to space from the Earth’s climate system.
Increasing SSTs without increasing ocean temperatures (and the Argo data says the oceans aren’t warming) means the Earth’s climate is cooling. Albeit, with a short term increase in atmospheric temperatures due to the ocean heat release.
If I were in the prediction business, I’d say this NH winter will be harsh and next summer even cooler than this year’s.

crosspatch
July 28, 2009 11:25 pm

Which way is the wind blowing in Portland? If it is coming from the East they could be getting downslope warming of air coming in from the desert region as it comes down the Cascades.
I am a few hundred miles South of Oregon and our temperatures are still quite cool for this time of year. It isn’t forecast to get above 80 degrees this week in San Jose, California.

Antonio San
July 28, 2009 11:26 pm

“Climate is the sum of weathers” Marcel Leroux (1928-2008)

crosspatch
July 28, 2009 11:31 pm

“His chlorine sales have been falling for the last 12 years.”
Not a good indicator in the aggregate. There can be MANY reasons for pool chemical sales to drop. Increasing insurance premiums making pools to much of a burden, aging of the population, they just don’t want to fool with the pool anymore, has he picked up competition? Too many variables. Many people I know have filled their pools in due to insurance requirements. It is just too expensive to meet the requirements and pay the homeowner’s premium.

Graeme Rodaughan
July 28, 2009 11:35 pm

If a Dalton Minimum Occurs, and is associated with visible global cooling, this will blow every current CO2 based Climate Model out of the water.
REF: “Kudos to NOAA for being among the first to explicitly state what sort of observation would be inconsistent with model predictions — 15 years of no warming” from http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com/2009/07/noaa-explains-global-temperature.html

timetochooseagain
July 28, 2009 11:35 pm

Antonio San (23:26:39) : Actually, no, its the sum of “weathers” divided by the number of “weathers” but it is a good point. Most people really don’t seem to understand they relationship between weather and climate-which is strange since so much of it is intuitive and very basic math for the rest…

Mikko
July 28, 2009 11:35 pm

Mr Archibald, you’re very sure of yourself when you state “A Dalton Minimum repeat will mean that they will have to wait to the age of 54 odd to experience a warming trend.”
By looking at the NYT article, it features a panel of 12 scientists from NOAA which
“… predicts that the May 2013 peak will average 90 sunspots during that month. That would make it the weakest solar maximum since 1928, which peaked at 78 sunspots. During an average solar maximum, the Sun is covered with an average of 120 sunspots.
But the panel’s consensus “was not a unanimous decision,” said Douglas A. Biesecker, chairman of the panel. One member still believed the cycle would roar to life while others thought the maximum would peter out at only 70.””
To me, this guest post of yours smacks a bit of wanting to boost your status by quoting just one NASA scientist who, as per my reading of the article, did not state in very strong words the possibility of a Dalton Minimum, but “lies in the realm of possible”. Also, Mr Hathaway is but one scientist from NASA, and it is not certain from the article that this prediction of a Dalton Minimum is an official position of NASA. Yet you claim such in your own post.
The NYT article states that scientists confess to uncertainties in predicting future sunspot activity which is what a good scientist would do in the situation where solar processes are not fully understood. And you, who are but one individual, now claim that “A Dalton Minimum repeat will mean…” with apparent certainty.
I wouldn’t be surprised if your prediction of a Dalton Minimum would turn out to be wrong, but hey, I wouldn’t be surprised seeing the commentary I’ve read on your 2006 paper on solar cycles…
BTW, your chlorine consumption anecdote is pretty much irrelevant.

noaaprogrammer
July 28, 2009 11:37 pm

Richard deSousa wrote: “Hathaway said previous that solar cycle 24 was going to be a hot one. Then the sun made Hathaway’s subsequent predictions less and less correct. Now Hathaway says a Dalton Minimum is a possibility but a Maunder Minimum is not going to happen.”
Ha! He should have said it would have been a Maunder Minimum except for global warming!

July 28, 2009 11:37 pm

I’m just reporting the weather with a chuckle…it’s hard to figure out Mother Nature!
In terms of the instant post, I agree with it, and have been very clear expressing my opinion that the Sun’s solar maximum and minimum is a decisive influence on climate. (AGW is wrong in so many ways…)
I also happen to agree with Alex Baker’s comment that the consistent downward sweep (southern flow of cooler air) out of Canada is more reflective of the overall weather pattern. Typically, when a “southern flow” predominates in the Mid-West and East, warmer air (hot) back-flows up behind it, such as now.
Still, I have to chuckle when I think (as I’m sweating it out): “Warmer really means colder.”
Oh…Mother Nature, you’re a fickle beast…
Oh…the plans of mice and men…

Graeme Rodaughan
July 28, 2009 11:37 pm

timetochooseagain (23:22:25) :
The colder it gets, the more “old warming” is wiped out and the longer the period of “no warming” grows.

Kum Dollison
July 28, 2009 11:47 pm

I keep reading: “But, the Argo Buoys say the Oceans are Cooling.”
When was the “Last” Data from the Argo Buoys? How often do they release it. Where?

Richard deSousa
July 28, 2009 11:54 pm

Mikko, Michael Crichton once said: “I want to pause here and talk about this notion of consensus, and the rise of what has been called consensus science. I regard consensus science as an extremely pernicious development that ought to be stopped cold in its tracks. Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled. Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you’re being had.”
http://www.crichton-official.com/speech-alienscauseglobalwarming.html

John Silver
July 29, 2009 12:12 am

David Archibald (23:00:06) :
………..
“There is another way of measuring climate change – pool chlorine sales. I met a bloke recently who has been selling pool chemicals for the last 17 years. Chlorine consumption is directly proportional to heat. His chlorine sales have been falling for the last 12 years.”
That’s cool! Literally.
Where was this?

John Silver
July 29, 2009 12:21 am

Antonio San (23:26:39) :
“Climate is the sum of weathers” Marcel Leroux (1928-2008)
Doesn’t make sense. Typical frogspeak.
Exactly how many years of weather is climate?

July 29, 2009 12:29 am

I’m in Lebanon OR, 90 miles S of Portland and my thermometer never got over 98 today. Could be triple digits tomorrow, but I recall a 105 degree day two summers ago. Not to say that it wasn’t a record day for July 28 — I don’t know about that. And I’m not sure where the “official” thermometer is in Portland. I’m guessing the airport, near the tarmac.

Tenuc
July 29, 2009 12:34 am

After reading NASA’s David Hathaway comments, I don’t think he has a clue about the fundamental processes drivng the sun, or how these processes effect conditions on earth. Both bodies have chaotic dynamic climate systems which makes predicting future behavour very difficult.
I agree with David Archibold, regarding the importance of F 10.7 flux, and my own guess is that part of the answer lies in the sun-earth magnetic and particle interaction, which changes the shape of our atmospheric envelope and it’s electric charge. Perhaps no cooincdence that the earths polar magnetic fields are weakening as the sun’s field flat-lines.
Regardng c24 SSN, my own guess is 42 – the answer to life, the universe and everything…

Allan
July 29, 2009 12:41 am

Argo home page at
http://www.argo.ucsd.edu
or just google

rbateman
July 29, 2009 1:03 am

James F. Evans (22:33:46) :
Weather is not climate: Portland Oregon, high temperature: New record for date, July 28, 106 Fahrenheit (old record 102), all time record 107.
I see a record of 101 for July 28, 1988 for Portland WSFO 1941-present.
Of course, you have 2 other dates with 107: July 30, 1965 and Aug 8, 1981
Portland WSO City shows 97 for July 28, 1958 for 1928 -1973
Portland WB City shows 100 for July 28, 1998.
The funny thing about it is, for all those cities, 1977 shows as a year where a lot of record highs & lows were set. Dry. Lack of H20 vapor.

Alan the Brit
July 29, 2009 1:21 am

A few words on the word “consensus”. When I was a “yoof of today”, so called experts used to say things like, “the current thinking is……….” or “the current thought process is that……….”, which automatically implied that things could change, as & when & if something new was discovered. I’ll give it a few years before it turns around again. Consensus is a new “group speak” word in my book, & it suggests somehow that things are settled, with little room for doubt. Then again that’s just me! Pocket Oxford Dictionary, 1925:- consensus, “Agreement of opinion on the part of ALL concerned”. Emphasis is mine, sums it ALL up nicely! If you don’t agree, you are not concerned, perhaps like the Union of Concerned Scientists!

rbateman
July 29, 2009 1:23 am

It’s been low enough for long enough to approach the Dalton question.
Within striking distance, as long as thing continue down the path of sluggishness, which as of today has not changed all that much.
True, there is a step up in the flux, a promising group in the Southern Hem. this month, but it got back to business as usual save the slightly elevated corrected flux.
What’s left of SC1024 produced a White-Light facula of 600x10E6 yesterday and slightly under 300x10E6 hemi. today, roughly. Pardon my green counting of the ‘other’ type of active region.

Editor
July 29, 2009 1:25 am

Mikko (23:35:45) :
“BTW, your chlorine consumption anecdote is pretty much irrelevant”
What’s the matter Mikko, are you saying that only alarmists are allowed to reference proxies?

Spector
July 29, 2009 1:52 am

As a result of a recent extended solar slumber, the longest such period of solar inactivity since 1856, we may soon expect to have a clear answer to the Climate Change question. If the next three years show a continued progressive warming trend in response to increasing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere then anthropogenic or man-made Global Warming will be proven beyond a doubt. On the other hand, if a cooling trend develops, it would then appear that climate change was being driven primarily by physiogenic (natural) factors.
As the drum of increasing solar activity over the last century has just skipped a beat, we should not wait long to resolve this issue. This is not a case of going smash if we do nothing and anthropogenic pollution is the real cause of ‘Climate Change’. I think we should be able to wait a little and give nature a chance before investing in a massive federal abatement program.
I formerly accepted industrial pollution caused Global Warming as an established fact and assumed we would soon see ever more melting of the Arctic and Antarctic regions. But after viewing David Archibald’s presentations, I began to seriously question the ‘accepted’ theory.
I find the Archibald boomerang temperature curve showing the Middle Age Warm Period, the Renaissance Little Ice Age and our Modern Warm Period, to be more credible than the Mann IPCC flat-line ‘hockey stick’ curve that only shows modern warming.

July 29, 2009 1:57 am

Alan the Brit
Are you from the South West too? My house overlooks the sea wall betwen Teignmouth and Dawlish (which carries the main line railway link). The first record of it being closed was the winter following it being built in the 1840’s!
There is an engineers report (and lithographs showing damage) from around 1857 confirming the railway alignment was incorrect and that it would always have trouble coping in an extreme easterly gale. The sea wall also shows how little- if any-sea level rise since it was constructed by Brunel.
Tonyb

bill
July 29, 2009 2:09 am

Philip_B (23:24:40) :
SSTs measure heat release from the oceans to the atmosphere and therefore heat lost to space from the Earth’s climate system.
Increasing SSTs without increasing ocean temperatures (and the Argo data says the oceans aren’t warming) means the Earth’s climate is cooling.

So how did the heat get in the oceans?
Is this why the temperature has not risen for a number of years – because the heat has been stored in the ocean.
Energy budget is everything – outgoing must eventually incoming else the temperature changes until black body radiation changes to equalise.
Since incoming is prettymuch static any energy stored in the sea must come from the atmosphere – giving static temps if GHGs affecting temp or falling if no GHG effect.

Pierre Gosselin
July 29, 2009 2:17 am

Should your “prediction” turn out to be correct, it will be interesting to see if the sun will indeed cause the earth to cool down some, thus throwing cold water on the AGW theory.
That’s the question.

David Archibald
July 29, 2009 2:35 am

John Silver (00:12:59) : Perth, Australia

Mary Hinge
July 29, 2009 3:07 am

Philip_B (23:24:40) :
……(and the Argo data says the oceans aren’t warming)…..

Where do you pick this nonsense up from, Argo says no such thing. have you a reference to your claims?
http://www.argo.ucsd.edu/global_change_analysis.html#temp

Rhys Jaggar
July 29, 2009 3:23 am

If you look at the annual sunspot numbers for the last 3 years of cycle 23, you sum them up at 25.6.
There are only two other cycles since 1700 where that figure is less, namely cycle -4 starting in 1700 and +5 starting in 1798.
Cycle +6 is similar to 23, cycles +14 and +11 are slightly higher.
The data from those 5 cycles for the next maximum is:
Maxima of: 63, 46, 71, 104 and 64.
From that, there’s an 80% chance that cycle 24 has annual maximum amplitude of 75 sunspots or less, other things being equal.
Whether other things are equal is a particularly moot point.
But if 2009 continues on a downward path or stays flat, the chances of Dalton Minimum seem reasonable to me.

July 29, 2009 3:24 am

Mikko (23:35:45) :
“BTW, your chlorine consumption anecdote is pretty much irrelevant”
So what’s the headline? “Global warming causes reduced chlorine consumption”?

Nick Yates
July 29, 2009 3:32 am

John Silver (00:21:17) :
Doesn’t make sense. Typical frogspeak.
Exactly how many years of weather is climate?

I’m starting to think that the climate is so variable that it’s hard to say.

Vincent
July 29, 2009 3:34 am

Spector: you wrote ” If the next three years show a continued progressive warming trend in response to increasing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere then anthropogenic or man-made Global Warming will be proven beyond a doubt.”
Care to explain why this would prove AGW beyond a doubt?

Alan the Brit
July 29, 2009 3:58 am

TonyB;-)
Yes I am but not an aboriginal, I’ve only been here 20 years! The sea wall was always a standing joke from my viewpoint, I knew some railway engineers who told me there were underlying issues with its original construction, plus being fully exposed to the full might of Mother Nature’s fury! It had been failing for years long before CC & AGW, & Brunel couldn’t get everything right, but it’s quite alarming to be stuck on a stationary train in mid-winter in a storm in pitch black, with waves crashing over head, but fun!
As to the Sun, well according to 3/4 of the gobal temp metrics we have been cooling for 8 years give or take, & I say again, someone like Prof Mike Lockwood from Southampton Uni says about the Sun’s quietness, “if there was going to be any cooling effects we’d see them by now!” (not a direct quote). The Keeling study said in mid 08 we’re going to cool unitl 2014-15, then hang on to your hats, well maybe, Piers Corbyn says otherwise, as does David C. Archiblad, & I dare say others too. The Met Office has today made what can only be described as a humiliating climb down on the Summer weather prediction – how wet do you want your rain? It says nothing about the uncertainties of its GCM’s, but is insistant on bringing these “uncertainties” to the fore about weather forecasts to get out of its embarrassment! Where is Madame Guillotine? If it rains any more the sea-level is bound to rise! Now check, saw, hammer, drill + bits, nails, screws, corking, timber, iron for the keel, tea pot, cup……!
On a more serious note, anyone with an ounce, sorry 0.28N, of common sense knows that we have more to fear from an impending Ice-Age, than from any AGW, as the graphs of the last 700,000 years attest. The likes of the IPCC & the EU & President Obama would be far better paying heed to these stark warnings in tandem, but then again, that’s not what they are here to do, is it?

GeoS
July 29, 2009 3:59 am

Alan the Brit (01:21:17) : A few words on the word “consensus”. When I was a “yoof of today”, so called experts used to say things like, “the current thinking is……….” or “the current thought process is that……….”,
When I was a yoof of today, so called experts used to say, “the state of the art…….”
G

July 29, 2009 4:22 am

Article submitted for publishing in 2003 (page 3, Fig.3. forward extrapolated) suggested value for SC24 of 80.
http://xxx.lanl.gov/ftp/astro-ph/papers/0401/0401107.pdf

bill
July 29, 2009 4:42 am

Comparison between argo sea temp to 700m and hadcrut3gl gives this
http://img140.imageshack.us/img140/6243/argovshadcrut3vgl.jpg
In general it looks as if air temp precedes water temp. i.e. water is not pushing air temp.
It looks as if there is a steady rise in sea temp over the same period as air temp.
How would TSI do this when there is little change in TSI over the 1955 to present measuring period?

July 29, 2009 4:58 am

rephelan (01:25:22) :
Mikko (23:35:45) :
“BTW, your chlorine consumption anecdote is pretty much irrelevant”
What’s the matter Mikko, are you saying that only alarmists are allowed to reference proxies?

I read what D. Archibald writes with some interest. But this post does not help to convince me, as there is very little actual substance presented. The chlorine comment appears very odd, as it appeared to be just one random person being quoted. Maybe his marketing has declined. If you want to compare global temperatures with chlorine sales, you may want to compare with global chlorine sales. And swimming pools are of course not just following the solar cycles….if at all. Our swimming pools are mostly indoors anyway.
In my opinion, an upcoming Dalton-like minimum does indeed seem likely at this stage, based on our observations of solar activity. Chlorine sales somewhere in Australia (?) isn’t a very useful proxy in my opinion.

Les Francis
July 29, 2009 5:01 am

David Archibald (23:00:06) :
………..
“There is another way of measuring climate change – pool chlorine sales. I met a bloke recently who has been selling pool chemicals for the last 17 years. Chlorine consumption is directly proportional to heat. His chlorine sales have been falling for the last 12 years.”

I would suggest that the downturn of swimming pool chlorine sales in Australia is due to more people converting their pools to salt water. Chlorine contributing to the modern trend of childhood allergies.
I would suggest as Dr. Svalgaard has often mentioned. Solar physics is a field of science where little is known. In short inexact. Dr. Hathaway made predictions – he was wrong. He has revised these predictions – wrong again. It maybe possible that the only predictions that will eventuate correct will be hindsight.
David Archibald has the advantage that his prediction seems to be in line with actual occurrence – but who know what will happen next week, next year or the next decade.
Mikko. That article has been discussed here before. Dr Svalgaard was at that conference. He disagreed with the figure you mentioned. Less of a consensus than the article portrays it to be.

Squidly
July 29, 2009 5:04 am

crosspatch (23:31:06) :
“His chlorine sales have been falling for the last 12 years.”
Not a good indicator in the aggregate. There can be MANY reasons for pool chemical sales to drop. Increasing insurance premiums making pools to much of a burden, aging of the population, they just don’t want to fool with the pool anymore, has he picked up competition? Too many variables. Many people I know have filled their pools in due to insurance requirements. It is just too expensive to meet the requirements and pay the homeowner’s premium.

I don’t know about the “Insurance” issue, as our insurance has not changed. But, I can tell you 2 things, I don’t need to use nearly as much chlorine this year while we are well below average temperature, but, I do have to watch the PH level. As the pool temperature rises the PH lowers and I have to add sodium bicarb, as the pool cools, it goes the other way around. Presently, pool temp has been staying right around 80F (chilly) and PH has stayed fairly neutral. Its cheaper to operate a pool when its cool (as far as chemicals), but it is no fun for swimming!

Geoff Sharp
July 29, 2009 5:14 am

One by one they will all fall, nearly all will be wrong with their predictions, and if you look at their methods most show no understanding of what drives the Sun. I dont need to make any adjustments and I am willing to predict the next 200 years of solar activity.
http://www.landscheidt.info/images/200predsm.jpg
This grand minimum will be less severe than the Dalton.

"Gentleman" from the lower 48
July 29, 2009 5:16 am

marks powers (22:20:53) :
Workin’ on it.

Ben Gallagher
July 29, 2009 5:16 am

bill (02:09:11) :
So how did the heat get in the oceans?
Is this why the temperature has not risen for a number of years – because the heat has been stored in the ocean.
Energy budget is everything – outgoing must eventually incoming else the temperature changes until black body radiation changes to equalise.
Since incoming is prettymuch static any energy stored in the sea must come from the atmosphere – giving static temps if GHGs affecting temp or falling if no GHG effect.
I would say that the sea is generally heated directly by incoming radiation from the sun – rather than the atmosphere. I also don’t think you can assume that the incoming energy is always ‘pretty much static’ due to cloud cover variations, volcanic activity and the longer term changes in the solar output.
The current El Nino conditions are most likely a result of the warm water generated in the far Eastern Pacific (Asian side) when the trade winds increased in the last la nina. This water has now worked its way back to the S American side (through sub-surface currents) and re-surfaced creating the El Nino conditions.
Frequently we might then expect positive feedback to ensue allowing for more solar radiation to be absorbed by the sea surface and a strengthening into a full El Nino event. If this fails to happen, then these El Nino conditions will have a net cooling effect on the ocean heat content.

Squidly
July 29, 2009 5:18 am

bill (02:09:11) :

Since incoming is prettymuch static any energy stored in the sea must come from the atmosphere – giving static temps if GHGs affecting temp or falling if no GHG effect.

[emphasis mine] ..
Bill, that is impossible! Heat energy cannot enter the sea from the atmosphere (2nd law of thermodynamics+other binding factors).

Steven Hill
July 29, 2009 5:28 am

Dave,
I think it’s going to get cooler as well….however, people are stopping the use of chlorine in pools and switching to salt water, my brother is doing in FL and he states they are all switching over quickly. Thoughts?
So, if we in a Dalton Minimum, will we be able to grow enough food? Will we have enough energy to heat with?
Interesting times…..we had record cool in July here in Ky, zero days above 90 for July, record! 81 average vs 87, record!
However, when you look at Roy’s amsutemps, July is way up there.

Editor
July 29, 2009 5:43 am

David Archibald:
“There is another way of measuring climate change – pool chlorine sales. I met a bloke recently who has been selling pool chemicals for the last 17 years. Chlorine consumption is directly proportional to heat. His chlorine sales have been falling for the last 12 years.”
This is only true if the number of pools remains constant, which it is not. Pool numbers and usage have been dropping for years because they dont add anywhere near to the value of the house the amount it costs to build and maintain them.

Stephen Wilde
July 29, 2009 5:43 am

I said this on another thread but it is relevant here:
“There is always a balance between solar shortwave input to the oceans and the release of that energy by the oceans to the air.
I say that both components are variable but as regards the oceans that is news to many and there are those who hold that solar variation is negligible as well. However slight the variability might be the Earth is self evidently sensitive to it according to well documented historical data.
The point of balance is always changing and the only way to establish the current position is to observe whether the air around the globe is warming or cooling.
I have said elsewhere that the first indication we get that a change in temperature trend is in progress is a latitudinal shift in the air circulation systems
Changes in the composition of the air such as extra greenhouse gases cannot change the temperature of the oceans on any meaningful time scale because the air temperature always moves towards the sea surface temperature, never the other way around.
The only source of energy retained in the oceans is solar shortwave. Infra red radiation cannot get past the evaporative process.
This is a common question:
“Surely mixing of ocean surface waters with water below will transport energy downwards?”
Reply:
If the surface waters are disturbed so that some mixing can occur then that is more than offset by the surface area of the water increasing due to the development of waves. That is one reason why increased windiness will also increase the rate of evaporation. The extra energy that may be available at the surface is not made available to the ocean bulk.
However, changes in the internal circulations of the oceans (not mere ocean currents) will alter the rate of energy emission from water to air and thus over time change the equilibrium temperature of the Earth but that is part of the sun/oceanic interaction and nothing to do with changes in the composition of the air alone. Changes in the air alone cannot get energy into the oceans past the evaporative process.
The mere fact that downwelling infra red warms up the topmost molecules of the ocean surface does not imply that the normal rate of energy flow from ocean to air is reduced. All that happens is that the rate of evaporation increases and the ‘normal’ rate of flow is maintained – or someone is going to have to produce convincing evidence to the contrary which I have not so far found.

Paul R
July 29, 2009 5:45 am

I was thinking of buying a solar cult hoodie, I recently downgraded to thinking about just a T-shirt. Decisions decisions.

J Gary Fox
July 29, 2009 5:46 am

Interesting posting and comments!
On Chlorine Sales which is directly related to pool usage, there may be something there that should be explored. Yes, like crop yields, which many use as an indicator of cooling or warming, there are a load of other factors, but pool usage (unheated outdoors) should be looked at further. Let’s not be too dismissive of those thinking outside the box otherwise we’ll be like the “warm-mongers”.
As to the beginning of Cycle 24 …there were lots of prior predictions that didn’t make it. One I came across is from “the official sunspot counter” – SIDC in Belgium.
in December 2007 in its monthly report (page 5).
http://www.sidc.be/html/SWAPP/monthlybulletin/monthlybull1207.PDF
“This month, solar magnetograms of Dec 13 (2007) indicated one of the first signs of solar cycle 24. The magnetic configuration of bipolar sunspots with leading positive/negative polarity in the northern/southern hemisphere is associated with solar cycle 23.
The big spot in the MDI/magnetogram in Figure 1 of section III is such a typical example of a sunspot of cycle 23 in the southern solar hemisphere: inward magnetic field lines on the right and outward pointing field lines on the left. This spot is also located near the equator as it should according to the butterfly diagrams, which picture the drift of the sunspots to the equator (0°) during a solar cycle. The magnetic flux in the red circle however belongs to cycle 24.”
And let’s not be too hard on those NOAA Solar Scientists who try to make the best predictions based on current knowledge.
Solar Weather is a very important factor in communications and satellite performance and those industries are trying to understand future solar behavior. Like weather predictions, solar predictions will always be made … accurate or not.
Those predicting have admitted that prior predictions were not accurate and future ones should be written “in pencil”. Contrast this attitude to the “warm-mongers” consensus science of “we were right”, “we are right”, “we will always be right” and:
“Oceania was at war with Eastasia: Oceania had always been at war with Eastasia.” (Orwell 1984)
To again quote Einstein on “consensus science”:
The Nazis, who didn’t like “Jewish science”, published the propaganda pamphlet “One Hundred Scientists Against Einstein”.
Einstein replied, “If the theory were really wrong, just one would suffice.”

July 29, 2009 5:49 am

As mentioned there are many possible reasons for a decline in clorine sales for pools including modern pools use less clorine. However it may be as good of a proxy as tree rings. (-:
Two or three years of warming would certainly not be proof of AGW. The benefits of increased CO2 are far easier to demonstrate then any projected disasterous consequences. The disatourous consequences of cap and trade is easy to demonstrate. The benefit of cap and trade is impossible to demonstrate as India and China (correctly) will not cooperate, and AGW is only a theroy that is loosing ground to observations.

John Finn
July 29, 2009 6:00 am

markinaustin (22:15:55) :
i don’t follow the bit about a 2 degree Celsius variation in temperatures. is that based on past stuff that i am not familiar with?

Good question. I’m guessing this comes from one of David’s ‘papers’. David uses the rather loose correlation that appears to exist between Solar Cycle Length and temperature. Not global temperature, as you might think, but temperatures at one or two selected locations that suit David’s hypothesis. One of them is Armagh where DA uses a previous study by Butler & Johnson (though not in the way B&J intended), to conclude that we are about to see a temperaure decline of ~2 deg “over the next few years”. There are so many things wrong with David’s conclusions that it’s not possibe to cover them all in this post. However, the 2 deg decline in temperature relates to 11-year periods which are centred on the solar maximum and solar minimum of the relevant solar cycles. This means we already have at least 5 years data for the current solar min (assuming minimum in 2008/09).
If David’s predictions are correct then we would expect to see the mean temperatures for the period 2003-2013 to be significantly lower than for the period 1991-2001 (SC22 min in 1996). We know what the Armagh mean 1991-2001 temperatures are, and presumably we also know what the mean temperatures for 2003-2008 (if 2008 is min) and for 2004-2008 (if 2009 is min) are, so we should have some idea how the predictions are progressing.
David
I know I’ve asked you this before but didn’t get a reply. So I’ll ask it again. Can you provide us with an update as to how the Armagh predictions are progressing.

July 29, 2009 6:16 am

On Spaceweather.com, there is an item on sunspot activity, on the left side of the main page. If you click on the “explanation” link at the bottom of that item, you will get a chart showing the bottom ten years during the last century for sunspot activity. The tenth year is 1944, with 159 spotless days. If that information is correct, 2009 has just displaced 1944. Yesterday was the 160th spotless day for the year. Now 2007, 2008 and 2009 are all in the bottom ten years for sunspot activity. Or if you prefer, the “top ten” years for sunspotlessness.
1911, 1912 and 1913 are also in the list, with even less sunspot activity, but we are catching up.
Really enjoy the reading here.
Ciao
Ben

LOL in Oregon
July 29, 2009 6:18 am

FYI.
this is very typical weather for Portland Oregon the last 2 weeks of July/first week of August.
Warm air in the high deserts (3000′ to 4000′) of eastern Oregon (95 to 105 degrees F) comes west with adiabatic compression as it descends to sea level (or 200′ in Portland). Except for about 2 weeks in January (when compressing -20 degree F air really helps by getting the temp up to 0), the marine influence keeps it really nice. (As a former governor said “be sure to visit, but don’t stay…;_)
According to the NOAA forecast of July 27th”
….NIGHTS WILL REMAIN QUITE UNCOMFORTABLE AWAY FROM THE COAST.
THIS WILL ESPECIALLY BE THE CASE IN DOWNTOWN PORTLAND…WHERE THE
URBAN HEAT ISLAND EFFECT IS WORST. TEMPERATURES IN DOWNTOWN
PORTLAND WILL STRUGGLE TO FALL TO 70 DEGREES TONIGHT..
So, this is very usual weather and, while notable, it is not memorable and those who raise it as an issue are likely newbies (and should go back to California 😉
LOL in Oregon

Neven
July 29, 2009 6:24 am

Any temperature anomaly predictions for the coming months, Mr Archibald?

Mrs Whatsit
July 29, 2009 6:31 am

Regarding the falling chlorine sales over the past 12 years, there’s another possible element in that equation: the availability of information on the Internet. I have owned a modest above-ground pool for five years and I only bought my maintenance chemicals from the expensive pool store during the first summer I owned it. After that, I found several Internet sites (google Trouble-Free Pools to see one) that explain an economical and effective way to keep your pool sanitary without bankrupting yourself, using supermarket products: Clorox, baking soda, and borax, with a little bit of help from pool-store staples such as cyanuric acid. The volume of posts on those sites shows that there are many pool owners who are still swimming but, like me, haven’t been back to the pool store in years.
As to the relationship of swimming pools to climate change, I will say this: my pool’s sparkling clean, but it has stood empty almost every day this summer because, here in the Northeast , it is just too doggoned COLD to swim.

L Bowser
July 29, 2009 6:35 am

Can the rhetoric on a proxy. I’m not a warmist, but I can easily think of multiple reasons that ONE MAN’S chlorine sales might be a bad proxy…
* Fewer people as a % of poplulation owning pools
* New chlorine-free pools systems (my parents have a more expensive chlorine free system)
* He’s not a good salesman
* The man referenced is in an area with a declining population
* Shifting demographics around the store he works
* Trends toward people using public as opposed to private pools
Then if you want to say, lets take a look at global chlorine sales… I would still say its a bad proxy. The primary use of chlorine is not as a pool chemical but in the productions of industrial chemicals (plastics, solvents, refrigerants, etc…) You wouldn’t be able to seperate out the “pool effect” from the noise of regular chlorine sales.
Even if you could segment out the swimming pool portions you would have to contend with a good number of the reasons mentioned above, still making raw chlorine sales a poor proxy. So if you want to use the swimming pool as a proxy, you then have to look at drivers of what may cause people to use their pools less like…
* rise in popularity of other activities (biking, hiking, skateboarding, surfing, basketball, baseball, soccer, and every other sport imaginable…)
* Local ordinances and neighborhood covenants that make it more expensive to install and own a pool including fence requirements, in-ground requirements (some neighborhoods don’t allow above-ground pools, the much more affordable option)
* Re-sale value of the home. In general, an in-ground pool negatively affects the value of your home. Why? Most people don’t want the hassle or liability.
So before you jump on a comment, calling someone a warmista, AGWer or other term because they disregard one of your own’s proxy, think about whether that proxy would stand up to the same scrutiny you have subjected the AGW proxies to. If it doesn’t, leave it alone.

DR
July 29, 2009 6:41 am
DR
July 29, 2009 6:43 am

Looks like the spambot nabbed me; another try:
Relevant ARGO links for those interested. Knowing what to do with the data is another matter 🙂
http://
sio-argo.ucsd.edu/
http://www.coriolis.eu.org//cdc/argo_rfc.htm
http://www.argo.net/
http://www.coriolis.eu.org//cdc/argo/Argo_data_guide.pdf
http://www.usgodae.org/ftp/outgoing/argo/

Carl Wolk
July 29, 2009 6:44 am

David Archibald: The oceans are not losing heat; the recent low temperatures have been driven entirely by ENSO. It’s easy to account for the immediate effects of ENSO, and I’ve done that in the second image, here:
http://climatechange1.wordpress.com/2009/07/13/swansons-not-so-novel-post-at-realclimate/
There’s no visible reduction of SST outside of ENSO.

Jim
July 29, 2009 6:54 am

Mikko (23:35:45) : So, Mikko, you appear to be one of those people who believe Mother Nature runs per a consensus of humans. Big surprise – She doesn’t care!!

Ryan P
July 29, 2009 6:55 am

We are looking at July 2009 all time highest temperature ever on UAH. This year will likely be the all time low of Arctic sea ice and June was the all time high SST record, all when solar activity has been at an extended minimum. Maybe we should take the advice we give AGW proponents…. our theories need to be disprovable as well.

July 29, 2009 7:13 am

Alan the Brit
Its a standing joke amongst those of us using the line served via Dawlish that you check the weather forecast and tide tables before you check the train times!
If you live close by perhaps you would like to join our deputation to the Met office to deliver a piece of seaweed to help their predictions? We need to think of a suitable message from us all here though. Hmmmm… come to think of it we could present a toy mole holding the piece of sea weed…
Tonyb

J. Bob
July 29, 2009 7:17 am

WRT chlorine sales.
A great many people have made a great deal of money by paying attention to what people buy, and looking for the underlying reasons. Probably a greater number of people have lost a great deal of money listening to “experts”. So while sales of a mundane item may be under the radar, many times it’s these items that can indicate trends. Sometimes “experts” with their heads in the clouds, may not see the ground they stand on, much less where they are walking.

MattN
July 29, 2009 7:26 am

Again, Theodore Landeschidt absolutely NAILED this, decades ago. Those *experts” are getting schooled by a dead guy…..

Renaud
July 29, 2009 7:28 am

I have just heard the BBC today saying that the forecast from the Met for a hot summer for the UK was now completely wrong and that it was the third time consecutively that the Met get it wrong about their seasonal forecast.

July 29, 2009 7:34 am

“There’s no visible reduction of SST outside of ENSO.”
hmmm
http://blog.sme.sk/blog/560/190772/hadsst2.JPG
I would say SST are quite good representing also global temperatures – if you combine HadCRUT with UAH since 1979, you will get almost exact copy of HadSST anomaly chart.

July 29, 2009 7:49 am

I just noticed Richard Heg’s comment above about the report of
“Global Ocean Surface Temperature Warmest On Record For June”
This brings me to the significant trend divergence between this NCDC data and the Uni Alabama data, especially into June.
Compare here: http://www.climate4you.com/SeaTemperatures.htm#Recent%20sea%20surface%20temperature
Have the reasons for this been discussed? It is particularly relevant to us down here in Australia because it just so happens that in June the Ministery for Climate Change shifted the emphasis of air temperature and onto ocean heat.

Douglas DC
July 29, 2009 7:51 am

What I noted with the current records in the Willamette valley, was some of the all time record were from long ago. 1920’s and 30s’. Also, even in the 1980’s the UHE wasn’t nearly as effective as it is now. the Portland Airport is an asphalt sea. Troutdale, Hillsboro and McMinnville are surrounded by Homes, Highways and industrial parks.
The Valley is a heat and cold sink. Here in NE Oregon we are experiencing warm
90F. weather, but it is summer. 1933 was a very dry,warm year,that was the year of the Tillamook burn that devastated the coast timber and towns of the North Oregon
coast.It could happen again. Especailly with the “let burn” and road closure policy of the USFS…

jorgekafkazar
July 29, 2009 7:53 am

“His chlorine sales have been falling for the last 12 years.”
As David noted above, pool chlorine sales are probably no worse a proxy than tree rings, and possibly better. Climatologists’ lust for proxies borders on sheer desperation. They’d use bat poop as a speleothem if it had annual strata.

Gary
July 29, 2009 7:53 am

In reference to the comment on Portland weather and the setting of record high temperatures, I live in Arkansas. It’s day after day of mid 80’s here. Every night is mid 60’s. The forecasts regularly miss the actual temps by a few degrees to the warm. It is a balm and a relief to have such mild Summers after so many harsh ones. Last Summer was equally as mild. It is a joy to be able to sit out on the deck in the afternoon and not sweat. There is a “coolness” in the air that I cannot explain. This is ABNORMAL for Summers here. I was born in this same county 40 years ago. Indeed, we’ve had some brutal Summers in the no so distant past, but the trend has definitely changed.
My experience? My neck of the woods ain’t heating up. It’s cooling off.

July 29, 2009 8:07 am

@ J Gary Fox (05:46:53) :
Einstein replied, “If the theory were really wrong, just one would suffice.”
Do you mean one falsification?
In astronomy, many so-called “theories” have been falsified, not just once, but multiple times…still, astronomers cling to their “theories” because astronomy is a consensus science.
One example: So-called “gravitational waves” is a principle prediction of Einstein’s General Relativity theory, however, none has ever been detected despite multiple increasingly sensitive detection instruments developed and deployed for the express purpose of the detection of “gravitational waves”.
Still the “consensus” refuses to consider the possibility that a mathematical ‘thought experiment’ (Einstein never conducted any experiments and in fact disdained empirical laboratory experiments) could be wrong.
How many scientists in the AGW camp look at their models and blithely assume a theoretical model (a series of mathematical equations) has to be right because the “math” says so?

Basil
Editor
July 29, 2009 8:10 am

While everybody’s counting sunspots (or spotless days), or watching channel five
http://discover.itsc.uah.edu/amsutemps/execute.csh?amsutemps+002
or sst’s
http://www.osdpd.noaa.gov/PSB/EPS/SST/data/anomnight.current.gif
http://weather.unisys.com/surface/sst_anom.html
I’ve been watching surface temps here:
http://ds.data.jma.go.jp/tcc/tcc/products/climate/synop/td20090729_e.png
Just eyeballing — and I think my eyeballing is at least as trustworthy as Hansen or Jones mangled data — I see the earth land masses covered roughly half and half with above and below average temperatures (the baseline is the standard WMO normal of 1971-2000, I believe).
Most of the southern hemisphere land masses south of the tropics are cooler than normal (and it is winter), and it looks bitterly cold in Chile and Argentina. It has been cooler than normal across most of the eastern US all month. Stations in north central Asia are spotty, but have been below normal. You can see the evidence for Great Britain’s summer without a BBQ, and the coast of China and Japan are cooler than normal.
Caused by the quite sun? Well, not directly. But surely indirectly. If we’re headed for a Dalton Minimum, expect maps like this to gradually turn bluer. Not ice age blue. Just cooler than 1971-2000.
That will not take much. 1971-2000 was probably a secular peak in global temperature variation, at least for a while. I would expect temperatures to come down from the peak (they already have) and then meander up and down at a lower step level like the mid-20th century, for the next couple of decades. A quiet sun will contribute to that.

Retired Engineer John
July 29, 2009 8:15 am

“Dr Hathway says that we are not in for a Maunder Minimum and I agree with him.”
“So picking the month of minimum at the moment may just be guessing.”
A description of Dr Hathway’s approach is found at http://www.solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/predict.shtml. The basis of the predictions is based on observations of the Sun and are closely related to determining solar minimum. Without a better understanding of the physics of the Sun’s processes, how can one rule out a Maunder Minimum?

Basil
Editor
July 29, 2009 8:22 am

I might add to what I just posted, but when the WMO baseline is adjusted to 1980-2010, it should make maps like this go bluer just for that: the 1970’s were cooler than the first decade of 2000, so the baseline will shift up, making the recent cooling appear more dramatic, or remarkable. But in fact, that just emphasizes how dramatic, or remarkable, the last two decades of the 20th century were, temperature wise, ending as it did with the blast of the 1998 El Nino.
There’s an AGW effect of course, and we shouldn’t expect a Dalton Minimum in the 21st Century to cool the earth to the same degree the original Dalton Minimum did. You cannot pave over large portions of the earth, or slash and burn, or just add several billion people to the planet, without some effect. So the coming minimum may just work to offset (dare I say “mask”?) the effect of population growth during the second half of the 20th Century, to return us to temperatures varying in a range similar to what was experienced in the middle of the 20th Century. But we do not have to lose any sleep, or scare our children, about a runaway greenhouse effect from cow gas or burning fossil fuels. We have other reasons for why it is sane to look for alternatives to fossil fuels. Fear of GHG induced AGW is not one of them.

hareynolds
July 29, 2009 8:24 am

What is needed here is commentary from that reknowned Climatologist, Grace Adler, late of Will & Grace, specifically the “I Told You So” dance:
I Told You So, I Told You So,
Told Ya Told Ya Told Ya So!
It’s better when Debra Messing and her stage mom, Debbie Reynolds, do it.

Philip_B
July 29, 2009 8:27 am

So how did the heat get in the oceans?
Sunlight
Position a lightbulb over a glass of water at room temperature. After a couple of hours, you’ll find the water is noticeably warmer.
This is because light penetrates water for a distance before it is absorbed and becomes heat, warming the water.

hotrod
July 29, 2009 8:34 am

David Archibald (23:00:06) :
………..
“There is another way of measuring climate change – pool chlorine sales. I met a bloke recently who has been selling pool chemicals for the last 17 years. Chlorine consumption is directly proportional to heat. His chlorine sales have been falling for the last 12 years.”

As mentioned multiple times above, there are some problems with a single source reference, but it would be interesting to look at a controlled sample of pool chlorine usage.
For example a sample of municipal pools that have been in continuous use for several decades. Control the chlorine usage rates for things like changes in procedure (do they still attempt to achieve the same chlorine usage levels today as they did 20 years ago)? Chart the number of swim visitor days (might be an interesting proxy for the general discomfort level). During heat waves they always run news stories how municipal pool visits skyrocket.
Once you cast out or account for variables like above, chlorine usage like other chemical uses that are heat dependent might be useful “reasonableness checks” on the urban heat island effect for one thing. If the weather reporting system is reporting rising temperatures in cities, but pool usage is dropping or stagnant, then you have an interesting dilemma, are temperatures really going up in the cities? Are peoples swimming preferences changing? Are people not visiting pools because they are staying home in the AC and playing video games.
The comment does raise the issue, are there robust indicators of temperatures that are independent of the formal temperature reporting system. Chemical processes that have no political agenda would seem to be something good to look for in this case. If some chemical usage varies directly due to temperature, and the process is not dependent on human behavior (like swimming visits) it might serve as a useful proxy. In the building trades one reference point might be usage of calcium chloride in concrete to help it set in cold weather. Antifreeze sales in winter would be another possible reference point. Each alone would be a relatively weak proxy but a group of chemical process indicators might provide an interesting second source check against the reporting stations data.
I personally would like to see someone gather heating degree day and cooling degree day information from major cities and plot changes over time since perhaps the 1940’s. Many utilities quote heating and cooling degree day information on their heating bills as fuel usage tracks quite well with those numbers.
Larry

Mr. Alex
July 29, 2009 8:43 am

Finally … although by possible he could mean a 0.01% possibility.
Still, everyone is trying to complicate everything with fancy theories and the like; keep it simple!
Something is changing on the sun, Dalton or not, We are definitely not in territory considered “normal” for the last 100 years and many theories will be put to the test in the next few years.
I have been watching the sun closely since March 2008 and it amuses me that when the “experts” proudly announce the end of 23 and the beginning of 24 (putting all those “amateur Dalton Minimum-returns” type theories to rest) the sun goes promptly back to sleep!
False alarms in November 2008 and June/July 2009 spring to mind…
I am certainly no expert but I don’t think that matters because even the experts don’t know what the hell is going on.
Watch the sun, we have much to learn from it!
B.T.W. 19 days blank and counting so far, a 24 corpse is floating across the sun and a tiny tim (possibly 23 region) is being revealed near the equator…

Mike Pickett
July 29, 2009 8:44 am

I’ve been in agreement with Archibald ever since he began. He has connected (hindcasted is a great word) all the data I had at hand back in the early 60’s to more recent curves for solar activity. Meanwhile, though, people keep locking in on local anomalies as if they belie Archibald’s studies and graphs.
Let’s not forget that our planet is a giant dynamical system. Let’s not forget that someone (China) just inserted a HUGE strange attractor (or repeller, depending on whether hundreds of square miles of evaporation attract or repel air-streams, which in turn modify the oscillations of the jet streams).
What I am asserting is that all these incredibly destructive and uncomfortable “local” (like the ongoing Pacific Coast furnace or snow in Argentina) are the results of oscillations of the jet stream caused by the 3 Gorges anomaly. Meanwhile, if you just peer daily at http://www.intelliweather.net/imagery/intelliweather/templine_nat_640x480_img.htm you will see the HUGE southward swing of cooling temperatures.
It is those temperature swings (which have been there daily for months now) that encouraged me to not only get in my firewood (I’m done), but to get as much tamarak (highest BTU’s in our region) as possible. I also have amassed about 25% more than last year since I ran out, as did my neighbors, this spring after burning my stove (I heat with firewood) from about 10-1 last year until late APRIL this year…and my grape bushes have no grapes, and my plum tree has no plums.
I’m proposing that “Put another log on the fire” will be a rather frequently hummed tune early this fall.

Philip_B
July 29, 2009 8:45 am

Where do you pick this nonsense up from, Argo says no such thing. have you a reference to your claims?
Mary Hinge, your link isn’t a link to Argo data. It’s to a graph of vague provenance. Although I’ll note that the rising trend it shows in ocean heat content suddenly stops when the Argo data becomes available. Quite the coincidence don’t you think?
Here is a detailed discussion of ocean heat content including references to the Argo data from WUWT.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/05/06/the-global-warming-hypothesis-and-ocean-heat/

Nogw
July 29, 2009 8:47 am

And…neutron cosmic rays Oulu count it is above 10%, the highest since 1964:
http://cosmicrays.oulu.fi/webform/query.cgi?startdate=1964/06/29&starttime=00:00&enddate=2009/07/29&endtime=18:59&resolution=Automatic choice&picture=on

Mr. Alex
July 29, 2009 8:54 am

Les Francis (05:01:37)
“I would suggest as Dr. Svalgaard has often mentioned. Solar physics is a field of science where little is known.”
Little is known, and yet Dr. Svalgaard has on a numerous occasions confidently rejected certain Solar theories outright… Hmm…
Perhaps D. A’s prediction of 2 degrees is a little bit extreme; slight cooling may be possible due to increased Volcanism (although perhaps this link has been disproved?). Maybe we should wait about 3-12 years…
Dalton-style Cooling (if it even happens) won’t be overnight; note that the current situation is similar to 1798, major cooling was only felt around 1810.

crosspatch
July 29, 2009 9:04 am

I believe Mikko’s points are valid.
And if you have a look at Leif’s charts you see that flux isn’t “flat” at all, it is pretty much right along the curve that Leif plotted months ago. Looks like as far as F10.7, things are pretty much on target.
Personally, I am taking Archibald’s forecasts with a grain of salt, as I am pretty much all such forecasts of solar activity. While a Dalton repeat is possible, so is getting hit in the noggin with a meteorite when I walk out my front door. So far the forecast that makes the most sense to me is Svalgaard’s. Hathaway has been all over the place but that isn’t so bad, really, I would tend to have more respect for someone able to modify their view as more is learned than someone who sticks to a position in the face of conflicting observations (as is common in another area of science frequently discussed on this blog).

Editor
July 29, 2009 9:13 am

Don’t any of you guys have a sense of humor? I’m sure Dr. Archibald knows the difference between anecdotal evidence and scientific evidence. At some point anecdotal evidence can become scientific evidence, if one has some imagination and cares to put in the effort to make it rigorous, but for the moment his anecdote about chliorine is just that, an illustrative anecdote with a dash of humor and malice. After all, tree rings are so much more scientific, right?

ked5
July 29, 2009 9:13 am

The Seattle area, generally very marine climate influenced is also experiencing very high to record highs ( regularly as much as 20+ degree’s above average), and record high-lows. They are forcasting triple digits at Sea-Tac today – which tends to be cooler than the city. Quite the contrast to last summer, when we were cool and moist well into June, and never did have many really hot days.
It has also been very dry (so dry, I’m shocked I’m not hearing cries of “drought” from the local ptb. They seem to love to cry drought in the summer.) with less than 0.09 inch of rain. Half an inch is normal for July.
Last winter was cooler than normal – though not record setting. We did have lots of snow over several different “events”.
Has anyone done a study of different climactic zone variation during the Dalton Minimum as opposed to an “average” cycle?

Nogw
July 29, 2009 9:15 am

bill (04:42:32) :…so you were the guy who warms his feet using a bottle filled with hot air instead of hot water, in spite of the fact that water holds 3227 times more heat than air!. Believe me, “they”, have cheated you.

Lee
July 29, 2009 9:15 am

Looking at that chart, and seeing how high cycle 23 was, it looks like what we might see is maybe a 1 degree drop by the end of cycle 24 in some 11 years. This is a very slow process – a tiny lessing of solar radiation, but steady and for a decade or 2 if Archibald is right.

Jeff Alberts
July 29, 2009 9:21 am

James F. Evans (22:33:46) :
Weather is not climate: Portland Oregon, high temperature: New record for date, July 28, 106 Fahrenheit (old record 102), all time record 107.

I keep hearing things like this in Seattle as well. But no one wants to say when those highs were set.

Nogw
July 29, 2009 9:33 am

Geoff Sharp (05:14:50) :You are right!. I have always wondered why so a deep rejection against any greater laws whatsoever, it seems that whoever is behind such a ideology is in need of a randomness behind all nature´s phenomena.
Such a pretension of a “mini-reason” it is always behind those who want to change everything, as in the french revolution or as in the china´s cultural revolution. Fortunately life goes on following greater laws and not theirs.

Paddy
July 29, 2009 9:38 am

All regular readers of WUWT should never accept a weather reports of temperature without knowing the location of the instrument source and the level of compliance with weather station installation and location criteria. Airport and downtown office building locations are warm biased. Home weather stations with amateur quality instruments are always suspect as are the persons reporting the information.
All such information should be suspect if it cannot be validated and verified. Filtering reported information would certainly reduce and focus many comments about posts on this blog.

July 29, 2009 9:44 am

Mary Hinge (03:07:09) :
Philip_B (23:24:40) :…(and the Argo data says the oceans aren’t warming)…
Where do you pick this nonsense up from, Argo says no such thing. have you a reference to your claims? http://www.argo.ucsd.edu/global_change_analysis.html#temp

From the Argo site –
http://www-argo.ucsd.edu/rey_line_atlas.gif

Nogw
July 29, 2009 9:46 am

Ben Gallagher (05:16:53) :This water has now worked its way back to the S American side (through sub-surface currents) and re-surfaced creating the El Nino conditions.
Are you sure?…I am wrinting this blocks away from the supposed “el nino” (nino 1+2 area), low clouds cover it is the same 15 days ago, it is drizzling all the time by humidity oversaturation (sea losing heat) and having reached dew point because of relative low temperatures. It feels like being in a tub filled with water at 15-16°C, it takes you body heat away. Come and take a sea bath!

Nogw
July 29, 2009 9:53 am

A concidence, correspondence, or whatever, but you have noticed that the prophet has not appeared yet again with The inconvenient Truth 1.2 version?

rbateman
July 29, 2009 9:58 am

LOL in Oregon (06:18:12) :
Please don’t lump the State of Jefferson in with the rest of California. Their outlook is the same as the great valley they live in : flat. We have oft tried to get rid of them, but it’s like a bad penny.

July 29, 2009 10:02 am

Hey, AGW is wrong in my opinion, but I find it funny that when ‘weather is not climate’ is reported of cooler temperatures, many (including myself) jump on the band wagon and sing the praises of cooler temperatures, but when reports of hotter (record setting) temperatures are reported, a 101 reasons are offered for why they don’t matter.
It just goes to show human nature tends to lead to ‘confirmational bias’ and folks on all sides of the question should be conscious of that pitfall.
Science does not understand the Sun — Earth relationship, and a frank confession of that state of knowledge should always be the starting point for all sides of the question.
Why?
Because Science is about the unknown, engineering is about what we do know.

KW
July 29, 2009 10:03 am

As much as I’d like to be like the harbinger of cold, I’m not going to say anything.

Alan the Brit
July 29, 2009 10:10 am

TonyB et al:-))
I have just downloaded Peirs Corbyn’s team effort for the July predictive forecast made in late June – uncannily accurate almost to the day! Well worth a wander over to Climaterealists.com for a look see!
Someone further up the chain (possibly on another post) mentioned that PC offered his services to the Wet Office years ago, they turned him down flat, as did the government of the day, presumably on the advice of “experts”. reminds me of the late great Sir Barnes Wallace & his fanciful swing-wing high-altitude super jet ideas, where we literally could breakfast in London, lunch in Sidney, & dine in New York, & sleep back in the UK! Britain is great at that kind of thing – losing brains I mean.

Mr Lynn
July 29, 2009 10:24 am

Spector (01:52:30) :
As a result of a recent extended solar slumber, the longest such period of solar inactivity since 1856, we may soon expect to have a clear answer to the Climate Change question. If the next three years show a continued progressive warming trend in response to increasing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere then anthropogenic or man-made Global Warming will be proven beyond a doubt. On the other hand, if a cooling trend develops, it would then appear that climate change was being driven primarily by physiogenic (natural) factors. . .

Just how would you demonstrate that a continued warming trend was “in response to increasing carbon dioxide”? Correlation is not causation, remember? Variations in Earth’s climate may be caused by multiple factors besides, or in addition to, observed ‘solar activity’ and measured CO2 concentration in the atmosphere. The evidence presented by many on this site and elsewhere suggests that CO2 concentration is at most a very minor factor.
/Mr Lynn

bill
July 29, 2009 10:29 am

Leif’s plot of 10.7 and TSI show cycle 24 to be progressing nomally but slowly:
http://www.leif.org/research/TSI-SORCE-2008-now.png
Philip_B (08:27:01) :
Your bulb will heat the water by long wave radiation and most will be absorbed by the 1st few mm.
LW will also heat the air (and a lot quicker than water)
UV penetrates the ocean to greater depth and is mainly absorbed by ozone in the air.
From my post above:
Comparison between argo sea heat content to 700m and hadcrut3gl gives this
http://img140.imageshack.us/img140/6243/argovshadcrut3vgl.jpg
Comparison of tsi and SST
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1935/normalise/mean:50/plot/pmod/from:1935/normalise/mean:50/plot/hadsst2gl/from:1935/normalise/mean:50/plot/esrl-co2/from:1935/normalise/mean:50
So I ask again
The sea has gained 12*10^22 joules from some where and from the second plot it does not look like TS1
reference for argo data:
https://abstracts.congrex.com/scripts/jmevent/abstracts/FCXNL-09A02a-1661562-1-Obs_for_OHC_WhitePaper_v3.doc

Richard Heg
July 29, 2009 11:09 am

“His chlorine sales have been falling for the last 12 years.”
A perfect proxy, sales of chlorine were perfectly constant at zero for thousands of years before dramatically increasing in the 20th century, this proves the hockey stick!!!!!!!!!!

July 29, 2009 11:13 am

Alan the Brit (10:10:35) :
“Britain is great at that kind of thing – losing brains I mean.”
It is all to do with this highly publicised ‘barbeque summer’ we are currently enjoying, curtsey of the Met office.

Nogw
July 29, 2009 11:19 am

James F. Evans (10:02:09) :
Science does not understand the Sun — Earth relationship This is an improper generalization. Only “new age” “hollywood science” does.

Nogw
July 29, 2009 11:21 am

Oulu monitor still up then solar cycle 24 still down. Big chief right again.

John Finn
July 29, 2009 11:24 am

Mr. Alex (08:54:41) :
Dalton-style Cooling (if it even happens) won’t be overnight; note that the current situation is similar to 1798, major cooling was only felt around 1810.

Felt by whom – and where?

RW
July 29, 2009 11:29 am

“NASA has caught up with my prediction in early 2006 of a Dalton Minimum repeat, so for a brief, shining moment of three years, I have had a better track record in predicting solar activity than NASA.”
Mr Archibald, you appear to have a hazy notion of what ‘predicting solar activity’ means. If you make a prediction three years before someone else makes a prediction, this does not make you ‘better’ at predicting than they are. You do actually have to wait until the thing you are predicting either occurs or does not occur.
“Even based on our understanding of solar – climate relationship at the time, it was evident the range of Solar Cycle 24 amplitude predictions would result in a 2°C range in temperature.”
This figure of 2°C appears to be arbitrary. No calculations are presented. The observed climate response to the 11 year solar cycle has an amplitude of about 0.1°C.
“The climate science community was oblivious to this, despite billions being spent.”
Why should they have been anything other than oblivious to this number?
“Let’s now examine another successful prediction of mine. In March, 2008 at the first Heartland climate conference in New York, I predicted that Solar Cycle 24 would mean that it would not be a good time to be a Canadian wheat farmer. Lo and behold, the Canadian wheat crop is down 20% this year due to a cold spring and dry fields. Story here.”
The Canadian wheat crop has not yet been harvested. The prediction is for a 20% drop compared to last year, but again, you should realise that to assess the accuracy of a prediction, you need to wait until the observational data is actually available.
“As Mark Steyn recently said, anyone under the age of 29 has not experienced global warming.”
Mark Steyn in fact said something different, but no less wrong. All temperature measurements show a warming of more than 0.3°C over the last 29 years.
“I have been contacted by a gentleman from the lower 48 who has a very good solar activity model. It hindcasts the 20th century almost perfectly, so I have a lot of faith in what it is predicting for the 21st century, which is a couple of very weak cycles and then back to normal as we have known it. I consider his model to be a major advance in solar science.”
Who is this person? What is their model based on? Has it been published?
One prediction made for a date that has now passed, which I would be most interested in comments on, is described here.

John Finn
July 29, 2009 11:32 am

Lee (09:15:29) :
Looking at that chart, and seeing how high cycle 23 was, it looks like what we might see is maybe a 1 degree drop by the end of cycle 24 in some 11 years. This is a very slow process – a tiny lessing of solar radiation, but steady and for a decade or 2 if Archibald is right.

I know of a way you can make a bit of money. Get in touch with James Annan and offer him a bet on cooling over the next decade. I’m fairly confident he will be only too willing to oblige. I’ll give Annan his due he does put his money where his mouth is.

Curiousgeorge
July 29, 2009 11:53 am

Well, it’s been a pretty mild summer here in NW AL/MS so far. Plenty rain, temps in upper ’80’s mostly. No bad storms. Great weather actually. I vote we keep this weather permanently as the ideal and baseline for future generations. 🙂

July 29, 2009 12:24 pm

San Antonio Triple Digit Days (1942 – 2009)*
2009 4x and counting (and it’s still only July)
1998 36
1948 33
1951 32
1980 31
2006 29
1994 29
1989 28
.
.
.
on the other hand:
1970 1
1971 3
1972 0
1973 0
1974 0
1975 0
1976 0
1977 0
1978 2
1979 0
*significant station move in 1942

Mr. Alex
July 29, 2009 12:34 pm

John Finn (11:24:06) : “Felt by whom – and where?”
*Felt by whom : Europeans who kept temperature/weather records indicate so. Others unknown
*Where : Written records indicate Europe, other areas sparse information/unknown.

July 29, 2009 12:55 pm

Retired Engineer John (08:15:31) :
“Dr Hathway says that we are not in for a Maunder Minimum and I agree with him.”
I also would like to know the reason(s) for the above speculation. Why drop the comment without any explanation?

Gary Pearse
July 29, 2009 1:15 pm

Maybe Alert, Nunavut would be a good station to evaluate the “minimum”.
Arctic basin ice area increasing again:
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/recent365.anom.region.1.html
Alert, Nunavut, Canada at 82degN at the freezing point, chance of snow Saturday:
http://www.wunderground.com/global/stations/71082.html

David Thomson
July 29, 2009 1:26 pm

“Dr Hathway says that we are not in for a Maunder Minimum and I agree with him.”
I disagree with both Dr. Hathaway and you on this prediction. We are in for a cold spell colder than the Maunder Minimum. I base this prediction on the solar barycenter behavior. The solar barycenter is presently following the surface of the Sun for the longest period it has done so in the past 6000 years. I accept Oliver Manuel’s solar model where the Sun’s core is dense, solid and magnetic (a neutron star). The barycenter, mainly driven by Jupiter, causes the core to flip its polar axis every 11-13 years, which gives us the solar sunspot cycle. With the barycenter transiting the Sun’s surface for a full twelve years, the core will have lost its flipping momentum, which is causing a severe drop in solar sunspot activity and a severe drop in solar irradiance. The cooling we are about to experience is unprecedented in the human record. I will be posting a paper about this online in the next year.

Highlander
July 29, 2009 1:39 pm

The remarks were:
—————-
timetochooseagain (23:35:12) :
Antonio San (23:26:39) : Actually, no, its the sum of “weathers” divided by the number of “weathers” but it is a good point. Most people really don’t seem to understand they relationship between weather and climate-which is strange since so much of it is intuitive and very basic math for the rest…
—————-
Define your terms and your reasoning:
.
[1] ‘weathers’
.
[2] ‘number’
.
[3] ‘sum’
.
[4] Why would one ‘divide’ one by the other?
.

July 29, 2009 1:47 pm

“..Maunder minimum… Felt by whom – and where?”
Try to read Trygve Gulbranssen “Og bakom synger skogene”.
Or look at some temperature record like http://blog.sme.sk/blog/560/195013/armaghcetssn.jpg or http://www.kolumbus.fi/tilmari/gwuppsala.htm

Lee
July 29, 2009 1:48 pm

John Finn (11:32:18) :
Lee (09:15:29) :
Looking at that chart, and seeing how high cycle 23 was, it looks like what we might see is maybe a 1 degree drop by the end of cycle 24 in some 11 years. This is a very slow process – a tiny lessing of solar radiation, but steady and for a decade or 2 if Archibald is right.
I know of a way you can make a bit of money. Get in touch with James Annan and offer him a bet on cooling over the next decade. I’m fairly confident he will be only too willing to oblige. I’ll give Annan his due he does put his money where his mouth is.
John, what would I be betting on? That Archibald is right about the lower cycle, that he’s right about the 2 degree difference? that my interpretation is right? so far it looks to me like I ought to get pretty big odds.
I think it is going to get colder because as opposed to run-away effects, I believe in reversion to mean – particularly in the relative short run. We have had a few years of relatively warm weather (as evidenced by say melting polar caps), so I expect cooler years to come. Not necessarily colder than average, just cooler than they have been (but of course possibly a lot cooler).

Richard Sharpe
July 29, 2009 2:03 pm

David Thomson says:

I accept Oliver Manuel’s solar model where the Sun’s core is dense, solid and magnetic (a neutron star).

I never cease to be amazed. A neutron star! By what model?

July 29, 2009 2:31 pm

David Thomson (13:26:59) :
“………….The barycenter, mainly driven by Jupiter, causes the core to flip its polar axis every 11-13 years, which gives us the solar sunspot cycle. With the barycenter transiting the Sun’s surface for a full twelve years, the core will have lost its flipping momentum………..”
I do not know much about barycentre movements, but I find it intriguing that you suggest that ‘the core will have lost its flipping momentum’.
Here is my equation for polar field’s strength, which describes a scenario where Sun fails to flip its polarity during SC25:
http://www.geocities.com/vukcevicu/PolarField1Cr.gif

Jim
July 29, 2009 2:57 pm

Geo (22:21:52) : “I’ve come to the conclusion that solar cycle predicting does not deserve the label of “science” at this point.”
I, too, get the impression no one knows in detail how to model the Sun. I wonder if we have reliable proxies to determine solar output over 100,000s of years.
On that note, here is a reconstruction of solar activity. It clearly shows the Dalton and Maunder minimums. It also shows that current acitivity is higher than any time in the last 1,000 years.
http://journals.cambridge.org/download.php?file=%2FIAU%2FIAU2004_IAUS223%2FS1743921304007409a.pdf&code=a860b776fa5d1795be3d4e84592ebdd3

John Finn
July 29, 2009 3:48 pm

Mr. Alex (12:34:40) :
John Finn (11:24:06) : “Felt by whom – and where?”
*Felt by whom : Europeans who kept temperature/weather records indicate so. Others unknown
Ok – now all I need is the “temperature/weather records”. Rest assured I know about the CET record (England) and that doesn’t show significant cooling during the Dalton Minimum and I know about the De Bilt record and that also shows no significant cooling. There’s also the Uppsala record and that shows the 1850s to be much colder than the Dalton Minimum.
Do you have anything else?

Philip_B
July 29, 2009 3:48 pm

bill (10:29:53) :
That’s the same graph as Mary Hinge posted. Its not Argo data and without knowing how was derived I can’t comment on it. Except to note that it shows a strong warming trend that stops when the comprehensive Argo data starts.
And your supposed link to Argo data is a link to a grant submission.
I realize the Argo data is a serious problem for you Warmers, because it shows conclusively the oceans haven’t warmed since 2003. And if the oceans haven’t warmed the Earth’s climate hasn’t warmed. End of story.

rbateman
July 29, 2009 3:58 pm

If there is only the elevated temps of the 2nd half of the 20th century and the return to means, then there will never be anything colder than the means.
The current baseline is there because of the timeframe upon which it was measured.
The other side of the means is fully capable of manifesting itself, and eventually, it will do just that. It could just as easily do it quickly or slowly.
To say that 2 C cooling is impossible or improbable is to be narrowminded and focus only on what the last 100 years has wrought.
To say that nature has to take it’s sweet time is to make the mistake of reading that geologists did before Mt. St. Helens proved them wrong.
The only question is: How far and how fast do we now cool?
The Sun is and has been out to lunch for quite some time, and given the elevated global temps of the 20th Century Warm Period, it has much to act upon.
Now, who said “The bigger they are the harder they fall”?
A quick look at the pre-alarmist spread of data & measurements reveals how hard things currently sit at the high swing of the pendulum.
David has given us his honest appraisal of that scene.
Given our current state of knowledge on the interaction of the Sun/Atmosphere/Oceans/Land Masses/Galactic Environment, what he has done is no different than the predictors on this page:
http://users.telenet.be/j.janssens/SC24.html
They all end up as handing out a prediction.
They all got there via differering routes.
Most were wrong.
The signpost up ahead says we are entering the Twilight Zone of our late Warming Period.
David says further & faster.
Fine. Let the competition begin.

Philip_B
July 29, 2009 4:13 pm

So I ask again
The sea has gained 12*10^22 joules from some where and from the second plot it does not look like TS1

It came from the sun via sunlight into the oceans.
As others have explained above that is the only physical mechanism by which heat can get into the oceans.
12*10^22 joules sounds a big number but its not compared to the energy received by Earth from sunlight. I can’t be bothered to calculate how long it would take for the Earth to recieve that much energy but its a matter of minutes to a few hours over presumably decades.
Otherwise, ocean temperature data has large measurement and sampling errors pre-Argo. Throwing buckets over the side of ships hauling them up and sticking a thermometer in, isn’t conducive to precise measurements.

rbateman
July 29, 2009 4:31 pm

John Finn (15:48:31) :
The Upsalla Record compares itself to the Wolf number, which is not a measurement as much as it is a count.
For real measurements, see:
http://www.robertb.darkhorizons.org/SC24/GrPulDebSFOSN_U_UP_F.PNG
The last 3 cycles for Faculae measurements are pending/not certain as to how they relate to Greenwich measurements. They will have to be measured from white-light images directly.
Safe to say that the Wolf record does not reflect the actual extent of solar activity, though it is certainly convenient and much used.
Not the best tool to use.

Richard
July 29, 2009 4:39 pm

John Finn (15:48:31) : “Rest assured I know about the CET record (England) and that doesn’t show significant cooling during the Dalton Minimum”
I have the CET records. It shows significant cooling from 1659 to 1698 (Maunder Minimum) and then again from 1736 to 1816. Just plot the trendlines.
Also the Average CET temperature during the Dalton Minimum (1790 to 1830) is 9.093C and the average for 1979 to 2008 is 9.949. It was on the average 0.86C cooler

July 29, 2009 4:58 pm

rbateman (15:58:36) :
Thanks Robert, well said. I tend to agree with your many comments and analyses.

July 29, 2009 5:24 pm

Geoff Sharp (05:14:50) :
This grand minimum will be less severe than the Dalton.
Which, of course, means that this minimum is no Grand Minimum, by that speculation.
Nogw (08:47:16) :
And…neutron cosmic rays Oulu count it is above 10%
The 10 % is above the average, and is not the good metric. The intensity is up only up 4% over last such minimum, but is in ant case not a useful number in itself as different stations have slightly different long-term trends. The uncertainty of the trend since 1952 [when the first good data started] is about 5%, so no significance should be attached to Oulu by itself. Here is the record of measurements from Hermanus in South Africa: http://www.puk.ac.za/opencms/export/PUK/html/fakulteite/natuur/nm_data/data/hermanus_e.html
For almost all stations the intensity has been decreasing since end of April, 2009.

Jim
July 29, 2009 5:29 pm

The other link to the millennial solar proxy record was bad. Here is a good one.
http://journals.cambridge.org/production/action/cjoGetFulltext?fulltextid=288735
and here is the CET record at the Met:
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climatechange/science/monitoring/hadcet.html

SteveSadlov
July 29, 2009 5:30 pm

A bit of junk science in the mix on this thread. That having been written, I remain concerned about the potential for a serious Cold Period. As I have stated before, with over 6B people on the Earth, we are highly reliant on continuation of the relative warmth experienced since the 1800s. Were we to fall back into Dalton, Maunder or worse conditions, we would likely experience phenomena and global crises unlike any previously seen before. In all likelihood, such a scenario would certainly result in geopolitical chaos and ultimately wars of mass destruction, which, would serve as a positive feedback loop vis a vis further cooling. We stand at the precipice.

Jim
July 29, 2009 5:38 pm

Richard (16:39:58) :”John Finn (15:48:31) : “Rest assured I know about the CET record (England) and that doesn’t show significant cooling during the Dalton Minimum”
I have the CET records. It shows significant cooling from 1659 to 1698 (Maunder Minimum) and then again from 1736 to 1816. Just plot the trendlines.
Also the Average CET temperature during the Dalton Minimum (1790 to 1830) is 9.093C and the average for 1979 to 2008 is 9.949. It was on the average 0.86C cooler”
Does your data look like the chart in http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climatechange/science/monitoring/hadcet.html
?
I am wondering how they “adjusted” this data? Did they use the Mann method? It was shown that the Mann method would decrease the amplitude of events before the calibration period. That could account for the compressed data before the present time.

Adam from Kansas
July 29, 2009 5:39 pm

According to Accuweather right now Canada’s temperature map almost looks like black next to white.
Western Canada is seeing a heatwave slated to extend north to the Arctic Ocean making some people think we’re seeing the fiery end of this planet. Go East and you see below average temps. especially in the region south of Hudson Bay. The apparent loopiness in the Jet Stream right now has it creating both major unseasable ridges and troughs at pretty much the same time.

July 29, 2009 5:56 pm

Just don’t know about this. There are so many factors involved in climate change. We humans just love cycles. They make it easier for our little brains to explain our mundane problems in this big, complicated universe of ours. But can we honestly say with any degree of predictive certainty which way the wind will blow in Canada or the US? I dare say we cannot. All of the statistical models from both sides of the scientific debate (indeed: are there two sides and is this really a constructive debate?) are so “spotty” and lacking in convincing methodology.
I should also say that temperature measurements are not geographically uniform around the planet — not on land and not in the oceans. There is nobody that can argue the contrary. We do not have a coherent system for accomplishing this. And I imagine measuring uniform temp in the oceans with any statistical significance is nearly impossible. About like measuring temperature at higher elevations in the atmosphere around the planet. Currents would make both extremely difficult.
Until we do get an evenly distributed temp measurement system in place, none of the data from either side of the main climate change debate will mean anything wrt which way it is going — the temperature, that is. And even then, we’ll need years of data points before a useful picture emerges. Probably decades. When you quote, “nobody under the age of 29 has experienced global warming,” remember that this is a biased statement. You are most definitely *not* talking about people in rural Zimbabwe. Nor are you talking about people in northwestern Mongolia. This may seem like an insignificant point to you, but it isn’t to me.
As for your predictions — even a broken clock is right twice a day. I suspect the future will humble you soon enough. It tends to humble us all. Scientists are so concerned with what is true. This is a great thing — it has saved us from a world where priests, kings and feudal lords here in the West decided the fates of their “subjects”. (It was worse in other parts of the world and it largely still is.) Scientific truth, however, is often if not always difficult to apprehend. Here we are, postulating, counterpostulating, arguing, boasting, even insulting. We take defensible positions. But none of it is scientifically true. We have certain facts, but there is no irrefutable answer.
I should hope that more scientists continue to passionately pursue discovery and the truth, but also to remain committed to what serves. I ask: Why not err on the side of caution?

Reply to  The Lonely Trader
July 29, 2009 6:07 pm

The Lonely Trader:

Why not err on the side of caution?

Because there is no side of caution to err upon.
If you believe in the dangers of AGW you need to commit trillions to combat it, dooming millions to poverty and likely premature death.
If you don’t believe in the dangers of AGW you risk environmental catastrophe if you are wrong and no action is taken.
Which of those is erring on the side of caution?

Richard
July 29, 2009 5:57 pm

Jim (17:38:18) : I’m sure the graph you have referred me to is roughly correct. They have plotted the anomalies (differences) from the 1961-1990 mean, whereas I have plotted the actual annual mean temperatures.
The 5 year moving average trendline of my graph doesn’t look quite like that.
I dont know what they mean by “based on Parker et al 1992” though. Why they have to base the raw data on anything else I’m not sure. Maybe someone could enlighten me on this.

Ron de Haan
July 29, 2009 5:58 pm

The posting by (Professor) David Thomson (13:26:59) provides us with another interesting scenario.
I am looking forward to his publication which, if possible could be made here at WUWT.
In the mean time I would like to thank David Archibald for his contribution.
All indicators point at sinking temperatures, from Dalton to Maunder to worst than Maunder conditions. Time will tell and the interesting part is that many of us will be able to observe it all happening within our lifetime.
I never would have expected the summer cold spell hitting Canada and North America.
These are extremely interesting times.
Let’s stop the AGW/Climate Change legislative process currently underway and spend our money on serious problems.
For example: How to secure agricultural output in a cooling environment.
People have to eat, don’t they?
It’s time our politicians stop playing Green and take some responsibility for real world developments.
Switches in climate from warm to cold come with huge political power shifts and the downfall of entire civilizations.
Watch the Russians, because they are highly adapted to cold environments and because they persuit their own agenda, now handsomely served by our own (stupid) political establishment.
I ask myself day after day if I have not completely wasted my time when I served the Air Force during the Cold War, protecting the Eastern European Border against the Reds now we see how our political establishment is destroying the Free World from within.
We have to stop this mad and irresponsible act act of treason right now.

Nogw
July 29, 2009 6:16 pm

vukcevic (14:31:57) : & David Thomson (13:26:59) Devasting scenario..

Evan Jones
Editor
July 29, 2009 6:22 pm

Please explain are the ocean’s loosing heat because the surface temperatures are high? or are the figures questionable?
Surface temperatures are high because of el Nino. That means cooler waters are trapped below rather than upwelling off Ecuador/Peru. So surface temps are up, but ocean, overall, may not be.

Jim
July 29, 2009 6:29 pm

The Lonely Trader (17:56:01) : Well, I’m not being cute, but people in rural Zimbabwe can’t experience global warming since they experience the local climate. I mean, Death Valley has been really hot for a long time, but that fact does not global warming make.

Richard Patton
July 29, 2009 6:55 pm


“which way was the wind blowing?”
Yesterday there was no wind (it hit 106) Today there was a 15mph east wind which was why it ‘only’ reached 106 (new record for the day but not all time). However dozens of stations in western Oregon & Washington including Seattle did break all time record temperatures today and none of them are influenced by winds from the Columbia river gorge.
The cause is the same reason that the Eastern US has been so cool-extremely high meridional flow. The jet stream is clear over northern Yukon, and then plunges as far south as Arkansas which is a bit south for this time of the year (its average position for July is near the Canadian border.)

Retired Engineer John
July 29, 2009 7:00 pm

edcom(12:55:20)
“Dr Hathway says that we are not in for a Maunder Minimum and I agree with him” – Why drop the comment without explanation? The comment is directly from Dave Archibold’s post. Dave also states that picking the month of minimun at the moment may just be guessing. If you go to the website http://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/predict.shtml that explains the methodology behind Hathway’s predictions, you will find that they are dependent on determining the solar minimum. There needs to be something based on the physics of the Sun before it can be stated that we are not sliding into something like a Maunder Minimum.

July 29, 2009 7:02 pm

SteveSadlov (17:30:13) :
A bit of junk science in the mix on this thread.
Starting with the very article heading the thread. Archibald [and others] are a bit too self-congratulating for my taste, especially when one takes into account that this is not based on sound analysis, but it is in line with the progressive science-illiteracy that characterizes our time.

David Archibald
July 29, 2009 7:09 pm

I had been thrashing around a couple of month ago trying to get updated forecasts of Solar Cycle 24 amplitude, given that we have been running on forecasts that are now three years old and that the subsequent data should have allowed models to be fine tuned. I was having no success when I got contacted by the gentleman from the lower 48. Now I can look forwards and backwards with great clarity. The fog has lifted. It’s a great feeling.
By the way, the heliospheric current sheet has flattened. That allows us to have the month of minimum. It doesn’t necessarily mean that the month of minimum is here or has passed.

July 29, 2009 7:10 pm

Nogw (08:47:16) :
And…neutron cosmic rays Oulu count it is above 10%
There are scores of measuring stations. NOAA keeps track of the cosmic ray intensity, and reports here: http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/alerts/solar_indices.html that the ‘Neutron Monitor % of background’ currently is 99.9%.

July 29, 2009 7:15 pm

@Jeez:
Thank you for making my point so beautifully. Both of your assumptions are based on a false choice — and neither one of them is true.
:
You miss my point. But I agree with yours completely.

Kevin Kilty
July 29, 2009 7:19 pm

Philip B:
Regarding time it takes solar irradiance to input 12×10^22 Joules, assume cross sectional area of earth, times effective solar constant of 1kW/square meter, times 0.70 for ocean fractional area, times one-half for effective daylight fraction, and the order of magnitude to accomplish the task is about 2.7 million seconds, which is about 3 weeks or so. There is an additional fractional amount for solar zenith, but this is about the order of magnitude.

Geoff Sharp
July 29, 2009 7:21 pm

Leif Svalgaard (17:24:41) :
Geoff Sharp (05:14:50) :
This grand minimum will be less severe than the Dalton.
———————————————————–
Which, of course, means that this minimum is no Grand Minimum, by that speculation.

Of course the Babcock bunch would prefer the Dalton Minimum to disappear because it and all the other Dalton like events back through time go against the random nature of the theory. Dalton events are the most common type of Grand Minima and cannot be ignored.
I consider a Grand Minimum to be 2 cycles of less then 50 SSN (old counting method) in succession. The Dalton had a 3rd weak cycle of around 70 which would have contributed to the cooling if that link exists ala SC20.
The Landscheidt Minimum will recover quickly after 2 weak cycles, the timing is completely different.

July 29, 2009 7:46 pm

Geoff Sharp (19:21:56) :
I consider a Grand Minimum to be 2 cycles of less then 50 SSN (old counting method) in succession.
It is not important what you think. The concept of Grand Minimum is a ‘community issue’ and the general feeling [e.g. Usokin] is that Grand Minima are considerable ‘deeper’ and that we should not call any little deviation from the mean a ‘Grand Minimum’.

1stim
July 29, 2009 8:20 pm

waow…:d

Lee
July 29, 2009 8:25 pm

There is just no telling what might happen if the core loses its flippin’ momentum. LOL
That’s on beyond zebra, and definitely passed astrology on the way out.

Geoff Sharp
July 29, 2009 8:28 pm

Leif Svalgaard (19:46:56) :
Geoff Sharp (19:21:56) :
I consider a Grand Minimum to be 2 cycles of less then 50 SSN (old counting method) in succession.
————————————————
It is not important what you think. The concept of Grand Minimum is a ‘community issue’ and the general feeling [e.g. Usokin] is that Grand Minima are considerable ‘deeper’ and that we should not call any little deviation from the mean a ‘Grand Minimum’.

Just as, I dont consider that you think Usoskin has the “general feeling” as important, after all he is in the same camp as you. There are many other scientists who consider Dalton type events as Grand Minima, as they should, as they make up the majority of grand minima over the last 11000 yrs. The fact they occur every 172 years is something your crowd would rather forget.

Lee
July 29, 2009 8:34 pm

Geoff –
Is this a terminology argument? Do you consider the Maunder and Dalton minimums to be very same phenomena? Are they different in any meaningful way?

crosspatch
July 29, 2009 8:35 pm

“Were we to fall back into Dalton, Maunder or worse conditions, we would likely experience phenomena and global crises unlike any previously seen before.”
We are probably one major volcanic eruption away from global calamity. One failed harvest due to a single widespread killing frost in the US Midwest would throw the world into chaos.
(changing subject to Oregon Temps)
“The cause is the same reason that the Eastern US has been so cool-extremely high meridional flow. The jet stream is clear over northern Yukon”
I don’t believe that is the case, actually, because using that line of thinking it would be unseasonably hot all the way down the West Coast. It isn’t. The flow from the East is important because as air moves from a higher altitude to a lower altitude, it warms. So when you have air from the desert of Eastern Oregon which might be at 4000 feet or so move over the mountains and down toward the coast, it will warm considerably. We experience the same thing down here but generally in the fall (remember the Oakland Hills fire in the 1990’s?). San Francisco can get well over 90 degrees on those days with a strong offshore flow.
And that appears to be what is going on in the Pacific Northwest. As one blogger in the region writes:

I don’t know if I have ever seen temperatures rise this fast around here before. We had very warm air aloft and a very shallow inversion above the surface. This inversion was rapidly mixed out by surface heating and the easterlies aloft…thus, the rapid temp rise. Some of the warmest temps are in the foothills (e.g., North Bend) due to the downslope flow off the Cascades. In fact, with offshore flow the foothills can be the warmest locations in the whole region. The north Sound is much warmer today (now 93 in Everett)
Sea-Tac actually went down last hour (93 to 90), as weak northwesterlies reached the airport. If the temps continued to rise at the rate they were going we would have been 120F today. So the pause is expected…don’t worry, it will start up again next hour.

It is the “easterlies aloft” and the offshore flow that is causing your warming. Air is generally going to increase 4 degrees for every thousand feet of altitude drop. So if you have 100 degree air at 4000 feet in the desert, it can easily end up at well over 100 degrees at sea level if blown West. And there might not have been much of a breeze where you stood but the “easterlies aloft” meaning a few hundred feet above you is what is causing the temperatures to rise.
Here in California, it is still cool and pleasant. So there is a high pressure system North of you and you are getting the offshore breeze from the clockwise circulation. Such a thing normally sets up farther South later in the season … at around Eureka, California bringing an onshore flow to Oregon and and an offshore flow around the SF Bay area in September/October.
Looks like that high pressure might be weakening now, though, so you should be in for more seasonable temperatures soon.

July 29, 2009 8:50 pm

Geoff Sharp (20:28:39) :
Just as, I dont consider that you think Usoskin has the “general feeling” as important, after all he is in the same camp as you.
It is called ‘Camp Science’.
The fact they occur every 172 years is something your crowd would rather forget.
Many people has analyzed this correctly and find no such period.

timetochooseagain
July 29, 2009 9:10 pm

RW (11:29:36) : Unless your reason for saying Steyn is wrong is that people to not “experience” the global temperature, you better have a good explanation for accusing him of being wrong-given that there has been no atmospheric warming in twelve years…
Highlander (13:39:19) : I suggest some basic reading:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arithmetic_mean
John Finn (15:48:31) : DeBilt has some interesting monthly variations (Hans Erren says something about a solar effect in January but I haven’t checked this):
http://members.casema.nl/errenwijlens/co2/fingerprintdb.html
But something that gets forgotten is that on a scale this small climate is wildly variable and often out of sync with global variations because it is intrinsically variant. Not many people seem to get this…

July 29, 2009 9:12 pm

David Archibald (19:09:22) :
By the way, the heliospheric current sheet has flattened. That allows us to have the month of minimum. It doesn’t necessarily mean that the month of minimum is here or has passed.
Then what does it mean? aside from the fact that there is no such thing as THE minimum. There is an interval of some length [year or so] with low activity. The very month has little significance, and is not given by the ‘flatness’ anyway.

Admin
July 29, 2009 10:16 pm

The Lonely Trader,
You use words but don’t say much.
How do you define erring on the side of caution?

Geoff Sharp
July 29, 2009 10:20 pm

Lee (20:34:03) :
Geoff –
Is this a terminology argument? Do you consider the Maunder and Dalton minimums to be very same phenomena? Are they different in any meaningful way?

Only difference is the strength involved…otherwise the same. My point is that they are both Grand Minima.

rbateman
July 29, 2009 10:58 pm

I am of the mind that Grand Minimums are all created differently. There being no 2 alike.
At what point do we say that the odds have changed from against to for in terms of attaining a “Dalton” type?
How much more time do we need? One year? Two Years?
How many spotless days are required?
We know firsthand how L&P can take out the spots, leaving the flux to do what the flux does. Does that mean that there are still active regions devoid of spots but still visible (facula), or do those go down as well?
Is it the lack of sunspots alone that causes cooling, or does this require the visible facula as well.
There must be plenty of old material gathering dust that can answer part of these questions. It needs to be dug up, especially where the Dalton is concerned.
I don’t expect to be able to find all the answers, but I will try.

camjones
July 29, 2009 11:11 pm

I reckon the chlorine sales correlation is as good as any that the IPCC give us!!!
Anyway according to the IPCC and warming hysterics – correlation equals causation! After all, CO2 rise from 1979 to 1998 + temperature rise from 1979 to 1998 means that CO2 rise = higher temperatures. If an isolated 20 year correlation period is good enough for the ‘Church of Carbonology’, then the 12 year correlation period between chlorine and temperature is good enough for me!
It wouldn’t be fair if you started coming up with other reasons as to other reasons for the drop in chlorine consumption – because the warming hysterics don’t have to listen to contrary evidence, so why should I?!? 🙂

Geoff Sharp
July 29, 2009 11:34 pm

Leif Svalgaard (20:50:11) :
Geoff Sharp (20:28:39) :
Just as, I dont consider that you think Usoskin has the “general feeling” as important, after all he is in the same camp as you.
It is called ‘Camp Science’.
The fact they occur every 172 years is something your crowd would rather forget.
Many people has analyzed this correctly and find no such period.

But more have found something….many have found a 200 year period which is the 172 year period but missing one option (3 come along every 172 years) This is common because Dalton type events typically dont use all 3 options, only events like the Maunder, Sporer etc.
This is why the more common Dalton type minima are important.

Philip_B
July 30, 2009 12:25 am

Archibald [and others] are a bit too self-congratulating for my taste, especially when one takes into account that this is not based on sound analysis, but it is in line with the progressive science-illiteracy that characterizes our time.
Hear, Hear!
But that doesn’t make him wrong. It merely makes his predictions unscientific.

crosspatch
July 30, 2009 1:05 am

Put me down for “not in a grand minimum” for $20.
We have had relatively active cycles recently. This one looks more like some we have had in the past. I am not buying the “grand minimum” hype from the peanut gallery BUT … I am still interested in forecasts for cycle 25. Last I heard that one was still forecast to be extremely low count.

Mary Hinge
July 30, 2009 1:36 am

Mike McMillan (09:44:30) :
Mary Hinge (03:07:09) :
Philip_B (23:24:40) :…(and the Argo data says the oceans aren’t warming)…
Where do you pick this nonsense up from, Argo says no such thing. have you a reference to your claims? http://www.argo.ucsd.edu/global_change_analysis.html#temp
From the Argo site –
http://www-argo.ucsd.edu/rey_line_atlas.gif

The graph you are shows nicely the small dip in 2007 and 2008 from the strong la Nina. Your graph doesn’t show it but this dip also continued into 2009 but notice the rise in levels from 2008 (I have included the ‘seasonal signal’ to help you compare it to the graph).
The recent drop in sea level was entirely due to the La Nina and subsequent conditions and had nothing to do with low sunspots! If it is connected with sunspot numbers explain how the sea levels are rising again, global temperatures are rising again and lower atmposperic temnperatures are rising higher than previously recorded!!

Philip_B
July 30, 2009 1:48 am

The recent drop in sea level was entirely due to the La Nina
La Nina would cause sea levels to rise (relative to El Nino conditions), as lower SSTs result in more heat retained in the oceans and hence thermal expansion.
It’s that pesky cause and effect thingy.

July 30, 2009 2:01 am

rbateman (22:58:13) :
I am of the mind that Grand Minimums are all created differently. There being no 2 alike.
At what point do we say that the odds have changed from against to for in terms of attaining a “Dalton” type?
How much more time do we need? One year? Two Years?
How many spotless days are required?

As, accrding to yourself, all grand minima are created differently, maybe the “Dalton type” does not exist? Is it an important concept? Maybe it is more useful to compare with the average of cycles 10-15 http://users.telenet.be/j.janssens/Spotless/Spotless.html#Evolution
If we get significantly (say ~50) more than 800 spotless days, it looks like a rather deep minimum to me. We could be there by the end of this year if things proceed as now.
Is it the lack of sunspots alone that causes cooling, or does this require the visible facula as well.
I think we must keep these questions separate. One is “what drives solar activity?” and the other is “what drives the climate?”. Granted, I strongtly suspect there is a connection, but we need to find the physical mechanisms.

bill
July 30, 2009 2:20 am

Kevin Kilty (19:19:58) :
Philip B:
Regarding time it takes solar irradiance to input 12×10^22 Joules, assume cross sectional area of earth, times effective solar constant of 1kW/square meter, times 0.70 for ocean fractional area, times one-half for effective daylight fraction, and the order of magnitude to accomplish the task is about 2.7 million seconds, which is about 3 weeks or so. There is an additional fractional amount for solar zenith, but this is about the order of magnitude

I assume your calcs are good! Taking your figure of 2.7e6 it is a mite over 4 weeks.
But this is not the point. Your 1kW/sqm is required to maintain it at its current energy level. It is evapourating/radiating/conducting heat away which has to be replaced.
What you are looking for is 12e22 joules additional over 25 years 790e6 seconds i.e. 3.5w/sqm(?) (more if you take into account the greater evap and radiation) continuous for 25 years.
I do not believe TSI has been 3.5 W above normal for 25years

bill
July 30, 2009 2:25 am

Ps 12*10e22J is over the period 1982 to 2007 approx. so TSI is not in doubt for this period. (compared to reconstuctions)

Spector
July 30, 2009 2:31 am

Vincent (03:34:28)
I said the anthropogenic theory would be proved beyond a ‘doubt’ because the primary proposed physiogenic driving factor, solar activity, now appears to be at an all time low. We should see a response to this condition if it were the predominant climate forcing factor.
Only a major rebound in solar activity or a major volcanic eruption might ‘cloud’ the issue.
If we see progressive indications of increased arctic melting and continued world-wide warming in the face of this reduced solar activity, I think it will be hard to deny ‘Anthropogenic Atmosphere Change’ as the cause. We would not necessarily know which man-made pollutant was really driving these increases.
I hope we see a clear indicator of this situation before going over the cliff, one way or the other.

rbateman
July 30, 2009 2:58 am

Carsten Arnholm, Norway (02:01:06) :
The Dalton most certainly did happen. And we don’t have much quality data on it, currently available.
That’s a problem.
The Dalton cycles are not represented in the Spotless Days Page. Problem #2.
I think we must keep these questions separate. One is “what drives solar activity?” and the other is “what drives the climate?”
If you don’t know which type(s) of visible solar phenonenon is/are responsible for attributed solar activity, then the process of elimination is hindered. Problem #3.
Focusing on a counting system (Wolf#) and trying to relate it to Climate changes runs afoul of the arbitrary nature of that count.
Increasing technology can help you measure better, but it will only foul up counting schemes as the forest is lost for the trees.
I’m not a scientist, Carsten, but I can certainly appreciate the value of measurements over counts.
I agree with you, we are heading straight for a deep minimum. All that is necessary is for things to continue apace.
I don’t know about you, but as I look at the record of measurements, it’s not near long enough. Therefore, I say dig. Bring it on. I would rather have old drawings to measure, crude and patchwork as that is, than an arbitrary count of how many sunspots groups were seen on a given day.

July 30, 2009 3:04 am

@Mary Hinge, the only thing which is rising is your blood pressure and hysteria of alarmists. Ocean heat content measured by ARGO: http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/images/graph4_evans.jpg

RW
July 30, 2009 3:35 am

timetochooseagain:
“you better have a good explanation for accusing him of being wrong-given that there has been no atmospheric warming in twelve years…”
Statistically, your statement makes no sense, because you cannot measure trends in global temperatures over periods as short as 12 years. However, we can observe that the last 12 years have been warmer than any other 12 year period in the instrumental record, and have probably been warmer than any 12 year period for several centuries.

John Finn
July 30, 2009 3:49 am

i> Richard (16:39:58) :
Richard, let me remind you what I’ve been saying. I’m saying that the Dalton Minimum was no colder than many other periods. I’m not saying it was warmer than other periods – just that there were periods that were hjust as cold depite higher solar activity. I made this comment which you have included in your post.

John Finn (15:48:31) : “Rest assured I know about the CET record (England) and that doesn’t show significant cooling during the Dalton Minimum”

I have the CET records. It shows significant cooling from 1659 to 1698 (Maunder Minimum) and then again from 1736 to 1816. Just plot the trendlines.
Ok, Richard what do you think you’ve shown here. What, for example, has 1736 got to do with anything apart from the fact that it’s a relatively warm year. The Dalton Minimum supposedly starts in ~1790 (though the ‘weak’ cycles didn’t begin until 1798). What we really need to look at is the decline in temperature from just before the Dalton Minimum, say in ~1780, until the end of the DM. You are right that the 1730s were the warmest decade of the 18th century but things began to cool off after that. This, though, had nothing to do with the Dalton Minimum.
I’ve checked the trends between 1780 and all years from 1790 onwards. It’s only when we get to 1780-1814 that we actually see a slight negative trend. By 1820 the trend is a NON-significant -0.04 deg per decade, i.e. it’s flat.
Now the interesting thing is that between 1770 and 1790 some of the strongest cycles recorded occurred. So the decline in temperature from 1780 in a period of very high solar activity to 1820 and a period of very low solar activity was an insignificant -0.17 deg.
Also the Average CET temperature during the Dalton Minimum (1790 to 1830) is 9.093C and the average for 1979 to 2008 is 9.949. It was on the average 0.86C cooler
Yes, Richard we know it’s warm now. That’s why we are having all these debates. The question is how does the average 1790-1820 temperature of 9.093 compare to other similar length periods.
The 1740-1770 average was 8.97 which as well as being lower than the DM average also provides an explanation for the post-1730s temperature decline to which you alluded. Here’s another interesting one. The 1760-1790 average was 9.06. So the average for the 30 years immediately before the Dalton Minimum was actually lower than the average during the Dalton Minimum. Here’s a few others
1830-1860: 9.1
1860-1890: 9.075
1870-1900: 9.062
1880-1910: 9.056
After that we get the early 20th century warming period. But, thanks for your post, Richard, you’ve managed to help me confirm exactly what I’ve been saying. The Dalton Minimum was not particularly cold.

kim
July 30, 2009 3:52 am

Mary Hinge was last featured prominently here last fall trying to argue that the La Nina of the last few months was not arriving. She is an intelligent warmista with a blind spot the size of a sunspot. She’ll cherry pick any data that suggests future warming. Hey, she must be a climatologist.
==============================================

kim
July 30, 2009 3:55 am

If wishes were horses, Mary, carriages would crush the cooling thermometers.
===============================================

July 30, 2009 5:22 am

I’ve discovered a way to accurately reconstruct the historical SST’s using the sunspot number and variation in length of day.
http://s630.photobucket.com/albums/uu21/stroller-2009/?action=view&current=temp-hist-80.gif
The mismatch around the war years is due to maladjustment for cooling water inlet sensors in military vessels.
I think this moves things along a bit.

July 30, 2009 5:29 am

jorgekafkazar (07:53:27) :
“His chlorine sales have been falling for the last 12 years.”
As David noted above, pool chlorine sales are probably no worse a proxy than tree rings, and possibly better. Climatologists’ lust for proxies borders on sheer desperation. They’d use bat poop as a speleothem if it had annual strata.

I wonder if there is a “ring around the collar” correlation? If so we could get the dirt on the weather. And if we watched it long enough on the climate as well.

July 30, 2009 5:32 am

rbateman (02:58:40) :
The Dalton most certainly did happen. And we don’t have much quality data on it, currently available. That’s a problem.

Yes, and therefore it is of limited use to try to compare the current minimum with the Dalton. We can only do it to the level of precision that you find in the Dalton cycles (5-6-7) data.

The Dalton cycles are not represented in the Spotless Days Page. Problem #2.

True. The intent was to compare the current situation with whatever quality data we may have. The average of cycles 10-15 is at least a useful reference, if not the answer to everything.

Focusing on a counting system (Wolf#) and trying to relate it to Climate changes runs afoul of the arbitrary nature of that count.

That is why the two (solar activity vs. climate drivers) should initially be kept separate. And studying the Sun should certainly not be limited to counting Wolf numbers. For example, your efforts with faculae are indeed very interesting and useful. But one measurement does not exclude another. For consistency reasons, continuing also the Wolf# count is useful with all its limitations.

Increasing technology can help you measure better, but it will only foul up counting schemes as the forest is lost for the trees.

I don’t see the inconsistency in counting as a technological problem. Changes in technology does not in itself drive the changes in counting schemes. There is no real technological barrier preventing us from counting the way it was done before. I suspect non-technological reasons why the counting schemes are “fouled up”.

I’m not a scientist, Carsten, but I can certainly appreciate the value of measurements over counts.

I think your facula-work is science. That makes you a scientist. Btw. measuring areas or counting spots are really two sides of the same thing. Spot counts just don’t use fractions and therefore become increasingly meaningless near minimum.

I agree with you, we are heading straight for a deep minimum. All that is necessary is for things to continue apace.

Indeed. So we just have to define when to declare a deep minimum. Arbitrarily I chose ~850 spotless days. It does not say anything physically, it just implies when to write articles about it in blogs and newspapers 🙂

I don’t know about you, but as I look at the record of measurements, it’s not near long enough. Therefore, I say dig. Bring it on. I would rather have old drawings to measure, crude and patchwork as that is, than an arbitrary count of how many sunspots groups were seen on a given day.

Agreed. Pull out as much information as possible from old data. If you can find new knowledge in it, it is science at least as good as anything else.

July 30, 2009 5:33 am

IS SOLAR MERIDIONAL FLOW CONTROLLED BY JUPITER – SATURN AZIMUTHAL OSCILLATIONS IN RELATION TO THE SOLAR EQUATORIAL PLANE ?
Jupiter’s inclination to Sun’s equator is 6.09, while for Saturn the angle is 5.51 degrees. Consequently during a single orbit Jupiter could be found at an angle in relation to solar equatorial plane varying between approximately +6.1 an -6.1 degrees. The angle variation in its simplified form can be described by a sinusoidal function. This is also case for any other planet taking into account the appropriate angle. Jupiter – Saturn azimuthal oscillations in relation to the solar equatorial plane satisfy equation:
Y = A [ Cos(pi /3 + 2 pi(t – 1941.5 – ö)/(2 * 11.862)) + Cos 2 pi (t – 1941.5 – 3)/19.859 ]
Y.-M. Wang , J. Lean , and N. R. Sheeley, Jr. from
Hulburt Center for Space Research, Naval Research Laboratory, Washington, DC
as published in The Astrophysical Journal, 577:L53-L57, 2002 September 20
http://www.iop.org/EJ/article/1538-4357/577/1/L53/16614.text.html
by investigating role of a variable meridional flow in the secular evolution of the sun’s polar fields concluded that ‘stable polarity oscillations can be maintained if the meridional flow rate is allowed to vary from cycle to cycle, with higher poleward speeds occurring during the more active cycles’. Their result published in graphic form is closely correlated to the above equation.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/PF-NRWmv2.jpg
Inference can be drawn that the asumed solar meridional flow is controlled by Jupiter – Saturn azimuthal oscillations in relation to the solar equatorial plane.
Is the assumed relationship result of gravitational (tidal), magnetic or electro-magnetic feedback is for time being an open question.

July 30, 2009 5:39 am

TARGET TO MISSION BY ISLAMIC RULES

INGSOC
July 30, 2009 5:40 am

On a side note, and in response to a number of comments regarding pending calamities resulting from crop failures… If I dabbled in the commodities exchange, I would be going heavily into durum wheat and other grains produced mainly on the Canadian and Northern Plains. This year got off to an extremely late start, and they are already experiencing soft (and even hard) frosts over large areas in the Canadian “wheat basket”. The calamity is already here. I would confidently predict Canadian wheat production to be down by 30% or possibly more starting within the next 2 months at the latest. If you are into pasta, you will be paying much more for it soon, as Canada produces the majority of durum wheat globally. Look for massive farm bailouts this winter for wheat farmers. Check out the weather in Saskatchewan and Manitoba. Brrr.

July 30, 2009 5:43 am

ELECTRONICS MEMORISED TO SOFTMISSION

Mary Hinge
July 30, 2009 5:55 am

kim (03:52:25) :
Mary Hinge was last featured prominently here last fall trying to argue that the La Nina of the last few months was not arriving. She is an intelligent warmista with a blind spot the size of a sunspot. She’ll cherry pick any data that suggests future warming. Hey, she must be a climatologist.

To correct you (again) last NH autumn I said there would be no La Nina during the NH winter, there wasn’t, just short lived la Nina conditions. I had hoped you might have been able to differentiate between the two however that seems to be a false hope. To put it plainly to you, there was not a La Nina last winter, just La Nina conditions for a few months. I did state last autumn that I would predict a strong possibility of an El Nino developing later this year. That also seems to be happening.
You haven’t changed I’m afraid. You always have, and presumably always will, continue to issue litle soundbites with no substance or references to back up your innacurate views (at least you’ve dropped the “The Earth is cooling, even Kim doesn’t know for how long” postscript). You seem to prefer the Ad Hominem approach than discuss the science, its a shame but when the global temperatures are rising, fast, I suppose its easier for you. Maybe you can share with us why temperatures are rising despite the solar minimum, and maybe let us know if you actually believe the Svensmark nonsense?

Juraj V. (03:04:26) :
@Mary Hinge, the only thing which is rising is your blood pressure and hysteria of alarmists. Ocean heat content measured by ARGO: http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/images/graph4_evans.jpg

As discussed previously the graph shows the effects of La Nina very well. It is strange you have picked a graph that finishes in January 2008, when the La Nina’s effects were at their peak, is there a reason for this other than the obvious?

Philip_B (01:48:29) :
La Nina would cause sea levels to rise (relative to El Nino conditions), as lower SSTs result in more heat retained in the oceans and hence thermal expansion.
It’s that pesky cause and effect thingy.

Err, all the evidence shows that sea levels fall during and for a short period after La Nina’s and La Nina events, they also rise during El Nino’s. Just compare sea levels with ENSO records and you will see the very clear correlation. I think you have completely forgotten/ignored the impact of changes in evaporation during ENSO events. Evaporation is greater during La Nina’s, this has a major impact on sea temperatures. The reverse is also true, during El Nino events the rate of evaporation is reduced.

Jim
July 30, 2009 5:59 am

John Finn (03:49:27) : I wouldn’t use the CET data from the Had Met Office until we know for sure how they processes the data. If they used a method similar to the one used for Mann’s hockey stick chart, then it cannot be used for anything but virtual toilet paper.

July 30, 2009 6:11 am

People in rural Zimbabwe are experiencing an extreme political climate.
http://www.talk-polywell.org/bb/viewtopic.php?p=23095#23095

Richard S Courtney
July 30, 2009 6:29 am

Friends:
Several discussants here have suggested that the Earth is in radiative balance: i.e. radiation received by the Earth equals radiation emitted by the Earth. But the Earth is never in radiative balance on a global scale and it cannot be.
The Earth warms almost 4 deg.C from January to July each year and has equivalent cooling from July to January each year. This is because the Earth obtains radiant energy from the Sun and radiates that energy back to space. The energy input to the system (from the Sun) may be constant (although some doubt that as the above article demonstrates), but the rotation of the Earth and its orbit around the Sun ensure that the energy input is never in perfect equilbrium with the energy output.
The absence of such an equilibrium is because the climate system is an intermediary in the process of returning (most of) the energy to space (some energy is radiated from the Earth’s surface back to space). And the Northern and Southern hemispheres have different coverage by oceans. Therefore, as the year progresses the modulation of the energy input/output of the system varies. Hence, the system is always seeking equilibrium but never achieves it (due to the Earth’s continental configuration and axial tilt).
So, at no time is there a radiative balance on a global scale except in the meaningless way that a stopped clock is right twice each day.
Furthermore, there is no reason to suppose that the Earth achieves quasi-equilibrium over a 12-month period. A varying system such as the global climate system (see above) could be expected to exhibit oscillatory behaviour. And, importantly, the length of the oscillations could be harmonic effects which, therefore, have periodicity of several years. An oscillating system is not in equilibrium at any time during an oscillation. Very importantly, the global climate system is observed to exhibit such oscillations; i.e. AO, NAO, PDO, etc., etc., etc.
So, it is an empirical fact that the global climate system is never in in radiative balance and it cannot be.
Furthermore, the climate system is observed to be bistable (i.e. it is stable in the glacial and the interglacial states). The Vostok ice core data suggests that a transition between these two states occurs as a series of rapid ‘flips’ between them until the system stabilises in one or other of the states. These ‘flips’ could be argued to be a demonstration of the system having two extreme boundary conditions such that the system moves to an extreme until it is ‘stopped’ against the boundary.
Importantly, the system has maintained this bistability throughout the 2.5 billion years that the Earth has had an oxygen-rich atmosphere with little change to the temperature of each of the states. This bistability has been maintained throughout that time despite changes to the Earth’s geography, geology, obliquity and eccentricity.
Very, importantly, the Sun is a g-type star and, therefore, the Sun must have increased its thermal output by about 30% during that 2.5 billion years. This is an increase to radiative forcing (from the Sun) of ~30% and if radiative forcing had a direct effect on global temperature the oceans would have boiled to steam long ago.
So, the Earth’s climate system is observed to have a mechanism (or mechanisms) that regulates its temperature to counteract effects of very large changes in solar output.
(Incidentaly, for nearly 30 years I have been asking:
“Why is 0.4% increase to radiative forcing from a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide thought to threaten catastrophe when about 30% increase to radiative forcing from the Sun has had no discernible effect?”
To date I have not obtained a cogent answer.)
But the global temperature does change slightly in each of its apparently stable states (I have my own views of why it changes – i.e. cloud effects – but they are not pertinent here). And anybody who looks at the records of recent global temperature (i.e. the most recent millennia) can see a series of cycles of global temperature change that are overlaid on each other. For example:
1.
There seems to be an apparent ~900 year oscillation that caused the Roman Warm Period (RWP), then the Dark Age Cool Period (DACP), then the Medieval Warm Period (MWP), then the Little Ice Age (LIA), and the present warm period (PWP)
and
2.
There seems to be an apparent ~60 year oscillation that caused cooling to ~1910, then warming to ~1940, then cooling to ~1970, then warming to ~2000, then cooling since.
The above article attempts to predict what will next happen to global temperature on the basis of solar activity. In the light of the the two apparent cycles I cite above, the attempted prediction is an attempt to answer the question;
“Has the warming from the LIA stopped or not?”
And I argue that the answer to that question cannot be known because the pattern of past global temperature fluctuations suggests that the existing cooling phase of the ~60 year cycle is opposing any such warming. And that cooling phase can be anticipated to end around 2030 when it can be anticipated that then either
(a) warming from the LIA will continue until we reach temperatures similar to those of the MWP
or
(b) cooling will set in until we reach temperatures similar to those of the LIA.
Richard

Niels A Nielsen
July 30, 2009 6:30 am

Mary H: “It is strange you have picked a graph that finishes in January 2008, when the La Nina’s effects were at their peak, is there a reason for this other than the obvious?”
Please direct us to an updated graph of ocean heat content.

July 30, 2009 6:36 am

I spoke with an 86 year old man yesterday who told me that in late June 1947, the snow was so deep that the village of Stanbury, near Haworth in West Yorkshire UK couldn’t be accessed for nearly three weeks.
Stanbury is 800ft above sea level on the lee side of the Pennine hills.

July 30, 2009 6:44 am

Mary Hinge (05:55:35) :
Err, all the evidence shows that sea levels … rise during El Nino’s.
during El Nino events the rate of evaporation is reduced.

Incorrect on both counts. If you look carefully at the sea level graphs, you’ll see the level falls during the el nino as heat is lost from the ocean to the atmosphere.
If evaporation is reduced during el nino, what cause the up to 50W/m^2 reduction in outgoing longwave radiation? Please don’t try to tell me it’s co2.

Ron de Haan
July 30, 2009 6:48 am

INGSOC (05:40:54) :
“On a side note, and in response to a number of comments regarding pending calamities resulting from crop failures… If I dabbled in the commodities exchange, I would be going heavily into durum wheat and other grains produced mainly on the Canadian and Northern Plains. This year got off to an extremely late start, and they are already experiencing soft (and even hard) frosts over large areas in the Canadian “wheat basket”. The calamity is already here. I would confidently predict Canadian wheat production to be down by 30% or possibly more starting within the next 2 months at the latest. If you are into pasta, you will be paying much more for it soon, as Canada produces the majority of durum wheat globally. Look for massive farm bailouts this winter for wheat farmers. Check out the weather in Saskatchewan and Manitoba. Brrr”.
INGSOC, not a side note at all.
According to an article published at Icecap.us, we are experiencing a so called volcanic summer.
A series of high latitude blocking low pressure area’s (causing unusual low temperatures in the corn basket, and lows over Siberia transport massive amounts of ice from the Arctic into the Atlantic, thus further cooling the Atlantic Ocean.
Have a look at the weather map from July at http://www.icecap.us (last article in the first column titled “Aircraft Photos of Arctic Ice”, Jul 28, 2009.

July 30, 2009 7:02 am

vukcevic (05:33:13) :
IS SOLAR MERIDIONAL FLOW CONTROLLED BY JUPITER – SATURN AZIMUTHAL OSCILLATIONS IN RELATION TO THE SOLAR EQUATORIAL PLANE ?
Their result published in graphic form is closely correlated to the above equation.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/PF-NRWmv2.jpg
Inference can be drawn that the asumed solar meridional flow is controlled by Jupiter – Saturn azimuthal oscillations in relation to the solar equatorial plane.
Is the assumed relationship result of gravitational (tidal), magnetic or electro-magnetic feedback is for time being an open question.

Nice work Vukevic.
I have also discovered that variation in Earth’s length of day correlates to the up and down motion of the sun WRT the solar system centre of mass. This means we can now reconstruct historical temperature from purely solar parameters. I’m still working on the method, to improve the solar activity projection, but here’s the interim.
http://s630.photobucket.com/albums/uu21/stroller-2009/?action=view&current=ssb-ssn-sst.gif
The end is nigh for AGW.

Rik Gheysens
July 30, 2009 7:07 am

Leif,
A new paper examines the role of the solar forcing on earth’s climate system.
“Lean, J. L., and D. H. Rind (2009): How Will Earth’s Surface Temperature Change in Future Decades?”
Unfortunately, I have no access to the entire paper and have only read the abstract.
It likes to me that the authors have an opinion that is opposite to that of 2008. Then they argued: “According to this analysis, solar forcing contributed negligible long-term warming in the past 25 years and 10% of the warming in the past 100 years.”
Now, they state:”But as a result of declining solar activity in the subsequent five years [from 2014 to 2019], average temperature in 2019 is only 0.03±0.01 C warmer than in 2014. This lack of overall warming is analogous to the period from 2002 to 2008 when decreasing solar irradiance also countered much of the anthropogenic warming.”
I never heard that a decreasing solar irradiance countered much of the anthropogenic warming from 2002 to 2008. Do you agree with this?

Jim
July 30, 2009 7:47 am

M. Simon (06:11:22) : “People in rural Zimbabwe are experiencing an extreme political climate. http://www.talk-polywell.org/bb/viewtopic.php?p=23095#23095
There are plenty of problems to go around, but I am tired of people trying to achieve political objective by hi-jacking science. It must stop. People who want to “save the Earth” latch on to global warming because it gives them a chance to regualate away fossil fuels and other things they consider bad, like cows and sheep for example.

July 30, 2009 8:07 am

vukcevic (05:33:13) :
Y = A [ Cos(pi /3 + 2 pi(t – 1941.5 – ö)/(2 * 11.862)) + Cos 2 pi (t – 1941.5 – 3)/19.859 ]
As usual, the formula doe not agree with the formula on the graph [not to mention the ‘ö’]. The paper referred to describes the result of a simulation, not real data. The simulation shows how the simulated polar fields follow the solar cycle rather than predicting it. In Vuk’s graph, the last few years have been omitted [as they didn’t fit too well] as well as the first 30 years of the simulated data [presumably for the same reason]. This whole thing is so typical of the pseudo-science some people have descended into.
Rik Gheysens (07:07:17) :
I never heard that a decreasing solar irradiance countered much of the anthropogenic warming from 2002 to 2008. Do you agree with this?
I don’t know what is due to what. The decline of TSI from solar max to solar min would decrease the temperature by 0.05 degrees.

John Finn
July 30, 2009 8:37 am

Jim (05:59:34) :
John Finn (03:49:27) : I wouldn’t use the CET data from the Had Met Office until we know for sure how they processes the data. If they used a method similar to the one used for Mann’s hockey stick chart, then it cannot be used for anything but virtual toilet paper.

What?? The CET is a record of thermometer measurements. Mann’s hockey-stick was a reconstruction based on proxy data. I don’t understand what you mean. The H-S is garbage. The CET record is what it is – plain and simple. There are plenty of independent observers who track the CET and I’m not aware of any discrepancies to date.

kim
July 30, 2009 8:48 am

Mary Hinge 5:55:35
The world is cooling, folks; for how long even kim doesn’t know.
========================================

kim
July 30, 2009 8:53 am

Mary Hinge 5:55:35
Very interesting that you find a conflict with rising temperatures, very short term and perhaps only in some temperature series, and a quiescent sun. Do you know the mechanism by which the activity of the sun controls the temperature of the earth? Please share.
========================================

kim
July 30, 2009 8:54 am

You little ol’ cherry picker, you.
====================

Mr. Alex
July 30, 2009 8:54 am

John Finn (15:48:31) :
Do you have anything else?
Written anecdotal record.. glacial records… I’m too lazy today to dig up much else.
Hmm.. Ok you win, the Dalton Minimum never existed, the sun is not influencing climate in any noticeable way and CO2 will kill everyone…
I give up for today, there is too much contradictory evidence from all sides.
“Leif Svalgaard (19:02:19) :
SteveSadlov (17:30:13) :
A bit of junk science in the mix on this thread.
Starting with the very article heading the thread. Archibald [and others] are a bit too self-congratulating for my taste, especially when one takes into account that this is not based on sound analysis, but it is in line with the progressive science-illiteracy that characterizes our time.”
Assuming you are pointing fingers, Please grace us with your take on what Literate Science would make of the current Solar Situation?
Place a few predictions on the table which you deem realistic and based on ‘sound-analysis’ and let us note them down so we may check up on them now and then.
Please do so, I would really want to see how your predictions will fare compared with the amateurs.

Retired Engineer John
July 30, 2009 9:01 am

Richard S. Courtney (06:29:12)
“The Earth warms almost 4 deg.C from January to July each year and has equivalent cooling from July to January each year”
Do the published temperatures (UAH,etc.) have a bias that corrects for orbital mechanics or should I be able to see this temperature variation directly?

Mary Hinge
July 30, 2009 9:17 am

tallbloke (06:44:41) :
If evaporation is reduced during el nino, what cause the up to 50W/m^2 reduction in outgoing longwave radiation? Please don’t try to tell me it’s co2.

Don’t forget the other factors in an ENSO event, increased wind and less cloud cover (based on the tropical Pacific) during La Nina (hence increased evaporation) and decreasing winds and higher cloud level during El Nino (hence less evaporation). This is covered within this paper http://www.icess.ucsb.edu/esrg/Publications/World_Water_Resources_96/World_Water_Resources.html
Note the following from this paper: Evaporation exceeds precipitation by about 200 cm year-1 during the La Niña conditions of 1988-89, whereas precipitation exceeds evaporation by about 200 cm year-1 during the El Niño of 1991-92.

Jim
July 30, 2009 9:23 am

John Finn (08:37:52) :
**********************
Jim (05:59:34) :
John Finn (03:49:27) : I wouldn’t use the CET data from the Had Met Office until we know for sure how they processes the data. If they used a method similar to the one used for Mann’s hockey stick chart, then it cannot be used for anything but virtual toilet paper.
What?? The CET is a record of thermometer measurements. Mann’s hockey-stick was a reconstruction based on proxy data. I don’t understand what you mean. The H-S is garbage. The CET record is what it is – plain and simple. There are plenty of independent observers who track the CET and I’m not aware of any discrepancies to date.
***********************
John – This is from the Hadley Met web site. Notice the sentence beginning with “The data are then adjusted …” Why is there any need for adjustment if all the numbers are just readings from thermometers????
“The HadCET data series consist of daily, monthly and seasonal temperatures. Anomalies are also calculated with respect to 1961-1990 climatology. The stations used to compile CET are chosen from the UK surface station network to be consistent as possible with those used historically. The data are then adjusted to ensure consistency with the historical series.”

Stephen Wilde
July 30, 2009 9:25 am

Richard S Courtney (06:29:12)
Nice description Richard.
The only slight difference between us is that you think the cloud effects have a contrinbution to driving the observed changes whereas I think the oceans change the rate of energy emission and that drives the cloud effects together with everything else in the air.
In due course that will be resolved but not until the climate establishment unhooks itself from the imagined so called ‘forcing’ effect of human CO2.

Mr. Alex
July 30, 2009 9:28 am

The latest GONG Mauna Loa Magnetogram (reported: 07/30 15:35 UTC) shows a small new region (no spots visible though) in the top right hand quarter of the Solar disc;
Black leading white in this hemisphere = Solar cycle 23!!
It is so high in latitude though!?

Mr. Alex
July 30, 2009 9:28 am

sorry, meant white is ahead of black… therefore SC 23

July 30, 2009 9:28 am

Leif Svalgaard (08:07:57) :
This whole thing is so typical of the pseudo-science some people have descended into.

In the current situation, given the failure of current paradigms, looking for a new and better solar theory seems a reasonable enterprise to ‘some people’.
The decline of TSI from solar max to solar min would decrease the temperature by 0.05 degrees.
This is simply incorrect.

July 30, 2009 9:55 am

vukcevic (05:33:13) :
IS SOLAR MERIDIONAL FLOW CONTROLLED BY JUPITER – SATURN AZIMUTHAL OSCILLATIONS IN RELATION TO THE SOLAR EQUATORIAL PLANE ?
Leif Svalgaard (08:07:57) :
“Y = A [ Cos(pi /3 + 2 pi(t – 1941.5 – ö)/(2 * 11.862)) + Cos 2 pi (t – 1941.5 – ö)/19.859 ]
As usual, the formula doe not agree with the formula on the graph [not to mention the ‘ö’]. The paper referred to describes the result of a simulation, not real data. The simulation shows how the simulated polar fields follow the solar cycle rather than predicting it. In Vuk’s graph, the last few years have been omitted [as they didn’t fit too well] as well as the first 30 years of the simulated data.”
Ö is suppose to be Greek letter φ (fi) for phase.
Dr. Svalgaard as a scientist, I am sure you are more than aware, that in any time related function there is a phase variable which is there to account for possible response’s time delay.
I have no gripe about it not being measurements but an academic exercise in solar activity simulation. My formula is not a measurement either but also an exercise in solar activity simulation. You as an academic yourself, I am certain appreciate that two simulations investigations approaching a problem from two opposite directions and from apparently mutually exclusive premises (on one side Babcock- Leighton theory and on the other planetary modulation hypothesis) obtain precisely same result, than it is unlikely that whole thing is a coincidence.
The authors also stated:” The latter authors showed that the polarity oscillations could be maintained if the high-latitude fields were allowed to decay on a timescale of 10 yr. However, the physical nature of this additional decay process, which is not contained in the standard flux transport model, remains unclear.”
My formula predicts this to happen around 2025(as the J-S inter-oscillating period drops well below 10 years). Instead of going back 30 years (everyone is familiar with) I submit, far more interesting chart, and now I believe with a significant predicting power, going forward 30 years as shown here:
http://www.geocities.com/vukcevicu/PolarField1Cr.gif
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/PF-NRWmv2.jpg
What about : IS SOLAR MERIDIONAL FLOW CONTROLLED BY JUPITER – SATURN AZIMUTHAL OSCILLATIONS IN RELATION TO THE SOLAR EQUATORIAL PLANE ?

Bill Hunter
July 30, 2009 9:57 am

David Corcoran (23:08:34) :
” When is it fair to judge a theory? 30 years, 50? 100? 100,000?”
My guess is it would be somewhere between 100 and 100,000; unless of course you miss on a year along the way. 😉

Nogw
July 30, 2009 10:03 am

Don’t forget the other factors in an ENSO event, increased wind and less cloud cover (based on the tropical Pacific) during La Nina (hence increased evaporation) and decreasing winds and higher cloud level during El Nino
This is right ONLY for one side of the pacific, it is the contrary on the other shore. El Nino provokes rains in west SA coast (east pacific) whereas it causes drought in west pacific. So it is not the same everywhere.

July 30, 2009 10:06 am

Mr. Alex (08:54:39) :
Place a few predictions on the table which you deem realistic and based on ’sound-analysis’ and let us note them down so we may check up on them now and then.
Please do so, I would really want to see how your predictions will fare compared with the amateurs.

http://www.leif.org/research/Cycle%2024%20Smallest%20100%20years.pdf
tallbloke (09:28:50) :
“The decline of TSI from solar max to solar min would decrease the temperature by 0.05 degrees.”
This is simply incorrect.

1 W/m2 decrease = 0.07%. A quarter of that is 0.018%, of 288K is 0.05K.

July 30, 2009 10:06 am

Vukevic, would you mind if I applied your formula to my model solar cycle oscillation function?
Thanks

July 30, 2009 10:12 am

vukcevic (09:55:16) :
two simulations investigations approaching a problem from two opposite directions and from apparently mutually exclusive premises (on one side Babcock- Leighton theory and on the other planetary modulation hypothesis) obtain precisely same result, than it is unlikely that whole thing is a coincidence.
Only one of them is a coincidence.
Instead of indulging in self-congratulation, put on your graph the years from 1890-1920 and the recent data you omitted and the blue actual measurements.

July 30, 2009 10:12 am

Mary Hinge (09:17:31) :
Evaporation exceeds precipitation by about 200 cm year-1 during the La Niña conditions of 1988-89, whereas precipitation exceeds evaporation by about 200 cm year-1 during the El Niño of 1991-92.

I can see that if it’s global figures you are quoting. The point is that the localisation of effects is important to distinguish. The excess evaporation during el nino is right where it neds to be to trap the heat coming out of the ocean. We wouldn’t want all that lovely warmth escaping to space before it gets the chance to warm us northerners up now would we? 😉

July 30, 2009 10:13 am

Leif Svalgaard (08:07:57) :
“In Vuk’s graph, the last few years have been omitted [as they didn’t fit too well] as well as the first 30 years of the simulated data.”
I will go much further, say 260 years
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/PF-strength.gif
How about going 30 years forward as in here.
http://www.geocities.com/vukcevicu/PolarField1Cr.gif
What about :
IS SOLAR MERIDIONAL FLOW CONTROLLED BY JUPITER – SATURN AZIMUTHAL OSCILLATIONS IN RELATION TO THE SOLAR EQUATORIAL PLANE ?

Richard S Courtney
July 30, 2009 10:15 am

Retired Engineer John:
You ask me:
“Richard S. Courtney (06:29:12)
“The Earth warms almost 4 deg.C from January to July each year and has equivalent cooling from July to January each year”
Do the published temperatures (UAH,etc.) have a bias that corrects for orbital mechanics or should I be able to see this temperature variation directly?”
No. The published monthly and annual data (HadCRUT, GISS, UAH, RSS) are not temperature values. They are temperature anomalies from a 30-year mean. The different data sets use different periods for their 30 years.
An anomally is the difference from the 30-year mean in each case. A January datum is the anomally from the average of the 30 Januarys in the standard period, and similarly for each other month.
So, an anomally for a month or for a year removes the +/- 4 deg.C variation within each year.
I hope this is a sufficiently clear explanation but I suspect you will have to read it more than once to understand it. Sorry.
Richard

Sarah from Saskatchewan
July 30, 2009 10:19 am

Ben mentioned the 1911-1913 minimum, above, which the current solar minimum is beginning to resemble. I just found these really amazing photographs from 1911
http://www.seanbuckley.ca/blog/2006/08/28/niagara-falls-was-frozen-in-1911/
Please note there is some opinion that the photos are not genuine, but also a number of anecdotes in various blogs that this did indeed happen.

bill
July 30, 2009 10:38 am

Richard S Courtney (06:29:12) :
Several discussants here have suggested that the Earth is in radiative balance: i.e. radiation received by the Earth equals radiation emitted by the Earth. But the Earth is never in radiative balance on a global scale and it cannot be

Your4 comment is good!
The balance is over a 365.25(+) cycle (with longer cycles imposed as you suggest)
The incoming radiation is fixed (within reason) Temperatures can only be modulated by what radiation leaves the planet.
The energy sloshing around the earth will cause high and low temperatures but there should be no real long term rise unless the radiation exiting changes.
High temps will radiate more and so tend to cool and vice versa. So perhaps one could expect the sloshing causing high will be followed by a low when the sloshing reverts. But what causes a 50 year increase? (albeit with sloshing induced ups and downs)
One point is that I do not think AGW predicts Catastophy. My view is that an extinction event is ver unlikely. But agriculture/humans will have to migrate north or south. Will this be an easy event? Even if spread over a century?
The flooding of florida london NY netherlands do not matter in the scheme of things – its only money and a few million people!

July 30, 2009 10:42 am

Leif Svalgaard (10:12:00) :
“Instead of indulging in self-congratulation, put on your graph the years from 1890-1920 and the recent data you omitted and the blue actual measurements.”
No problem, I will go much further, say 260 years
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/PF-strength.gif
What about :
IS SOLAR MERIDIONAL FLOW CONTROLLED BY JUPITER – SATURN AZIMUTHAL OSCILLATIONS IN RELATION TO THE SOLAR EQUATORIAL PLANE ?
tallbloke (10:06:42) :
“Vukevic, would you mind if I applied your formula to my model solar cycle oscillation function?”
You are more than welcome, it is in the public domain, so it is public property. An acknowledgment would be nice.

July 30, 2009 10:54 am

Vukevic:
What about :
IS SOLAR MERIDIONAL FLOW CONTROLLED BY JUPITER – SATURN AZIMUTHAL OSCILLATIONS IN RELATION TO THE SOLAR EQUATORIAL PLANE ?

Sounds feasible to me. How do you fancy having a go at an equation to describe this curve?
http://s630.photobucket.com/albums/uu21/stroller-2009/?action=view&current=lod-ssb.gif
Tricky huh? 🙂

July 30, 2009 11:06 am

Leif Svalgaard (10:06:31) :
1 W/m2 decrease = 0.07%. A quarter of that is 0.018%, of 288K is 0.05K.

Two points.
1) As you stated the other day, calibrating TSI is a tricky business, and two scientific teams are in dispute about the data. The team you have an affinity with says 1W/m^2, the other says 2W/m^2.
2) You also stated the other day that incoming insolation varies 30W/m^2 over the year. When the earth is near perihelion, a lot more heat is going into the part of the Pacific which store, retain, and release heat later. The transport of this heat and the terrestrial natural systems which conduct it make for a larger net difference than you get by treating the earth as a homogenous lump of black body.

eric
July 30, 2009 11:10 am

I think David Archibald’s claim is misleading.
NASA has caught up with my prediction in early 2006 of a Dalton Minimum repeat, so for a brief, shining moment of three years, I have had a better track record in predicting solar activity than NASA.
Hathaway does not rule out a phenomenon like the Maunder Minimum, but that is not his prediction.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/21/science/space/21sunspot.html?_r=2
A panel of 12 scientists assembled by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration now predicts that the May 2013 peak will average 90 sunspots during that month. That would make it the weakest solar maximum since 1928, which peaked at 78 sunspots. During an average solar maximum, the Sun is covered with an average of 120 sunspots.
But the panel’s consensus “was not a unanimous decision,” said Douglas A. Biesecker, chairman of the panel. One member still believed the cycle would roar to life while others thought the maximum would peter out at only 70.
Among some global warming skeptics, there is speculation that the Sun may be on the verge of falling into an extended slumber similar to the so-called Maunder Minimum, several sunspot-scarce decades during the 17th and 18th centuries that coincided with an extended chilly period.
Most solar physicists do not think anything that odd is going on with the Sun. With the recent burst of sunspots, “I don’t see we’re going into that,” Dr. Hathaway said last week.
Still, something like the Dalton Minimum — two solar cycles in the early 1800s that peaked at about an average of 50 sunspots — lies in the realm of the possible, Dr. Hathaway said. (The minimums are named after scientists who helped identify them: Edward W. Maunder and John Dalton.)

eric
July 30, 2009 11:11 am

Oops,
I read Archibald’s claim as Maunder instead of Dalton minimum.
My apologies.

July 30, 2009 12:12 pm

eric (11:10:28)
“But the panel’s consensus ”
Don’t you just love consensus science?

Dan
July 30, 2009 12:12 pm

I think the report of the ocean temps being the warmest on record is laughable. It is so far from the truth. Has anyone noticed that the only ones making the claim has ties to NOAA? That would be Hansen’s team featuring NOAA and GISS (Goddard Institute for Space Studies). Have you looked at Unisys’ sea surface temperature anomaly maps? They don’t support the claims. See the RSS data? Doesn’t support the claim either. In fact you’d see that sea surface temps are pretty close to normal globally.
NOAA and organizations surrounding that group continue to post results so far out there that they lack credibility. If you want to find the problem with the organization look no further than Hansen. The guy has a reputation to try and protect and unfortunately is doing some pretty bad work as a result. This is what happens when as a scientist you start trying to play politics and put scientific method aside to promote agendas.

July 30, 2009 12:15 pm

David Archibald
My formula suggests (bound to infuriate Dr. Svalgaard)
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/PF-strength.gif
suggests that forthcoming minimum may be just a shade above Dalton.
tallbloke (10:54:28) :
“How do you fancy having a go at an equation to describe this curve?”
That would be a numerology, as Dr. S. tends to call anything else he may not take liking to. Once you know what the data describes, you go to the physical source you assume is responsible for the effect (planet rotation, revolution, precession or whatever) use its natural period of oscilation, if there are more than one than you look at phase relationship etc.
You really have to understand oscillations and the response of resonant systems to cross modulation by sub harmonics of a multiple order.
Once I was ladled by Dr. Svalgaard as a cyclomanic supreme. Some 65 years ago Dr. S might given the same attribute to my compatriot Milutin Milankovic, but I suppose it would be withdrawn by now.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/53/MilankovitchCyclesOrbitandCores.png

Mary Hinge
July 30, 2009 12:25 pm

tallbloke (10:12:01) :
I can see that if it’s global figures you are quoting. The point is that the localisation of effects is important to distinguish. The excess evaporation during el nino is right where it neds to be to trap the heat coming out of the ocean. We wouldn’t want all that lovely warmth escaping to space before it gets the chance to warm us northerners up now would we? 😉

Interesting point, the effects of ENSO events are certainly global and do cause changes in wind/cloud cover beyond their immediate influence. Off course after the evaporation there will be condensation and the resulting transfer of heat energy.

July 30, 2009 1:02 pm

vukcevic (12:15:43) :
That would be a numerology, as Dr. S. tends to call anything else he may not take liking to. Once you know what the data describes, you go to the physical source you assume is responsible for the effect (planet rotation, revolution, precession or whatever)

I can describe the issue, but my maths isn’t good enough to solve it. There is clearly a passing resemblance between the LOD and SSBz curves, and I have a couple of good candidates for physical mechanism too, but the z axis motion of the solar equator relative to the solar system centre of mass is describing the sum total of planetary effects at the centre of the system. The earth will be differentially affected by the closer and larger planets it is orbiting nearer to at the time. I’m not sure if I can get the JPL ephemeris to spit out useful numbers for that.
Anyway, refinement like that can wait. I have bigger fish to fry. I have built a model which uses another correlation I have found between the sunspot cycle amplitudes and the solar equator/ solar system centre of mass, as well as the LOD/SSBz correlation. Which means I can approximate earth temperature as far back or forward as I want. Still a work in progress, but here’s the interim result. The green curve is the model using solar/SSB parameters only, plus an ocean equilibrium constant I have estimated. The yellow curve uses real sunspot number and the LOD proxy from the SSB z axis, and the dark curve is real sunspot plus real LOD data.
http://s630.photobucket.com/albums/uu21/stroller-2009/?action=view&current=planetary_temperature-12.gif
I’m going to try your equations to see if I can get them to help my oscillation modulator to mimic solar grand minima. If you have anything else which damps down on the 179 year cycle, let me know.

July 30, 2009 1:20 pm

Mary Hinge (12:25:05) :
Off course after the evaporation there will be condensation and the resulting transfer of heat energy.

Which is mostly a cooling effect isn’t it? The latent heat heads spacewards from the cloudtops and the rain cools the water it falls into.

John Finn
July 30, 2009 1:23 pm

Jim (09:23:35) :
John Finn (08:37:52) :
**********************
Jim (05:59:34) :
John Finn (03:49:27) : I wouldn’t use the CET data from the Had Met Office until we know for sure how they processes the data. If they used a method similar to the one used for Mann’s hockey stick chart, then it cannot be used for anything but virtual toilet paper.
What?? The CET is a record of thermometer measurements. Mann’s hockey-stick was a reconstruction based on proxy data. I don’t understand what you mean. The H-S is garbage. The CET record is what it is – plain and simple. There are plenty of independent observers who track the CET and I’m not aware of any discrepancies to date.
***********************
John – This is from the Hadley Met web site. Notice the sentence beginning with “The data are then adjusted …” Why is there any need for adjustment if all the numbers are just readings from thermometers????
“The HadCET data series consist of daily, monthly and seasonal temperatures. Anomalies are also calculated with respect to 1961-1990 climatology. The stations used to compile CET are chosen from the UK surface station network to be consistent as possible with those used historically. The data are then adjusted to ensure consistency with the historical series.”

Ok – adjustments are made to account for urbanisation and station replacement, but these are relatively minor. Read the Parker paper here:
http://hadobs.metoffice.com/hadcet/Parker_etalIJOC1992_dailyCET.pdf
I’m not sure if this is all that relevant anyway as I was the using the CET as evidence to show non-cooling during the late 18th and early 19th century which will come from Manley 1953 (The mean temperature of Central England, 1698 to 1952) which was updated by Manley 1974 (The mean temperature of Central England, 1659 to 1973).
But the CET is nothing like the hockey-stick or any other proxy reconstruction.

July 30, 2009 1:52 pm

A SOLAR CYCLE LOST IN 1793-1800: EARLY SUNSPOT OBSERVATIONS RESOLVE THE OLD MYSTERY
Analysis suggests a new, weak solar cycle began around 1793 – the sunspots in Staudecher’s drawings started appearing about 20 ° from the equator that year, and one of Hamilton’s 1795 drawings shows a sunspot at 15 °. This suggests that in place of one unusually long solar cycle, there were actually two, lasting about nine and seven years, respectively.
(Astrophysical Journal Letters, DOI: 10.1088/0004-637x/700/2/l154).
http://www.iop.org/EJ/abstract/1538-4357/700/2/L154/
Has my formula been proved correct or Astrophysical Journal got it wrong again ?
More here:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20327194.400-centuriesold-sketches-solve-sunspot-mystery.html
In his, up to date unsuccessful effort, to discredit my polar field formula Dr. Svalgaard produced following chart
http://www.leif.org/research/SolarCycleLengths.png
Cycle 4 is the jump in pink line, while my formula accurately identifies extra cycle 4a (dip in blue line).
Comments reproduced from elswhere:
Dr. Svalgaard “… your polar field curve is pure numerology. …etc. etc.”
My response: “Dr. Svalgaard I like your chart. It revels major ambiguity, the SC4’s extraordinary length of 17 years which has puzzled solar scientists for years, and my equation resolves so neatly. Most solar scientists are coming to believe that there was a major anomaly in SC4….The latest research concludes that indeed there were two cycles buried within SC4, which my formula identifies so accurately.”
Dr. Svalgaard: “No, only a very small band thinks so. And the evidence is simply not there. A recent analysis of Staudacher’s drawings 1749-1796 http://www.leif.org/research/Staudacher-1.pdf concludes “the sunspot areas measured do not support the proposition of a weak “lost” cycle between cycles 4 and 5″. Similarly, analysis of geomagnetic variations do not show any such cycle.
Tomorrow’s publication of
Astrophysical Journal Letters, DOI: 10.1088/0004-637x/700/2/l154). Print publication: Issue 2 (2009 August 1)
http://www.iop.org/EJ/abstract/1538-4357/700/2/L154/
gives me confidence that my formula is on the right track!

eric
July 30, 2009 2:04 pm

I should have written:
Hathaway does not rule out a phenomenon like the Dalton Minimum, but that is not his prediction.
and wrote Maunder instead of Dalton.

July 30, 2009 2:36 pm

tallbloke (13:02:37) :
I have looked at temperatures, but I am not convinced.
This is my result:
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net\Temp1300-2000.gif
It fails dismally before 1300, but then gets in sync again around 900AD.
For long term, since there is 107 year cycle; sub harmonic cross modulation, (for more than 50 or so years) use amplitude envelope formula as shown here:
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/PF-strength.gif

July 30, 2009 2:39 pm

tallbloke
the link got mangled, I shall try again:
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/Temp1300-2000.gif
else copy it by hand

timetochooseagain
July 30, 2009 3:14 pm

RW (03:35:03) : So you don’t dispute the actual facts, you just dismiss their significance? Okay. So then, what magical length of time is okay for looking at climate trends?

July 30, 2009 3:20 pm

Vukevic,
Thanks for the pointers, and I had a wry smile as I read the ‘lost cycle’ article earlier today. My model also produced an ‘extra cycle’ at the start of the 1800’s.
Cheers
tallbloke

RW
July 30, 2009 3:37 pm

timetochooseagain: do you know what “statistical significance” means?

Richard
July 30, 2009 4:03 pm

John Finn (13:23:18) : “Ok – adjustments are made to account for urbanisation and station replacement, but these are relatively minor.”
This is what they say for the data I downloaded: “Allowances have been made for topographic, coastal and urban effects where relationships are found to exist.”
The Dalton Minimum does not seem to be particularly cold in the times that it was in, at least in the CET records.
The Hadley data would be viewed as suspect if they do not reveal exactly what they have done and refuse to do so when requested.
On the other hand even in the Hadley records there is a marked cooling after 2002. Whether this will continue and for how long remains to be seen.
The Hadley trend is mirrored in the UAH and RSS data. The only one that flies against this trend is Hansen’s GISS and hence I totally distrust that.

Richard
July 30, 2009 5:40 pm

PS I have plotted the slopes of the temperature curves of UAH, RSS, Hadley CRU and GISS from 1979 (start of the Satellite records) to 2007
Between the satellite data’s UAH and RSS there is a pretty good match all the way through.
GISS starts diverging from 1992 (is there anything significant about this date re: Hansen?) and Hadley starts diverging from 2002.
IF hadley records were fiddled, they could have been even before 2002 and the trend not noticed, if they had raised the temperatures uniformly. The same with GISS.
However after those dates not only are the temperatures elevated but the trends upwards increase in the case of GISS from 1992 and trends downwards decrease in the case of Hadley from 2002.
In the case of GISS the downward trend of the slope levels off from 2002 to 2005. Then if appears to precipitously play “catch-up”. It looks extremely “fiddly” and artificial after that. Quite jerky and unnatural.

Jim
July 30, 2009 9:17 pm

John Finn (13:23:18) : John … that paper was written in 1991. Statistics have really “advanced” since then. The data may be OK for you point, but ever since Mann, Steig, etc. got busted for bad stat methods, it is always a valid question to ask how the data is “adjusted.” That’s my only point. I wouldn’t use HADCET data for anything until I knew for sure how it is being adjusted.

timetochooseagain
July 30, 2009 9:56 pm

RW (15:37:29) : Do you know how ridiculous it is to wave vague responses like that which question whether I am familiar with the particular definition of the vague concept you believe I do not understand?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statistical_significance
In order to say that there is no significance of a 12 year trend of no warming (in the lower atmosphere) one has to define what one is saying it is not significantly different from. You have not done that-you have just thrown the term around like a third grader.
None of which changes my point-Steyn’s statement is literally true. As for whether it is technically “statistically true”, well, in the words of the great Tory Prime Minister of the United Kingdom or whatever it was called at that time Benjamin Disraeli once said, “There are three kinds of lies-lies, damn lies, and statistics”.

Richard Heg
July 30, 2009 11:48 pm
E.M.Smith
Editor
July 31, 2009 12:38 am

Richard (17:40:05) : GISS starts diverging from 1992 (is there anything significant about this date re: Hansen?) and Hadley starts diverging from 2002.
GIStemp calculates an “offset” between two thermometers based on the last “up to 10 years data” out of the last at most 20 years data. It then uses this “offset” to rewrite the (older) past. So 2009-1992 = 17 years. Right in the middle. So some missing data caused the code doing the “offset” to run back more than 10 years. BTW, I’m still working on characterizing how each of the steps of GIStemp changes the temperature history.

Mary Hinge
July 31, 2009 1:34 am

tallbloke (13:20:22) :
Mary Hinge (12:25:05) :
Off course after the evaporation there will be condensation and the resulting transfer of heat energy.
Which is mostly a cooling effect isn’t it? The latent heat heads spacewards from the cloudtops and the rain cools the water it falls into.

Mostly it is, which is why global temperatures decrease following La Nina events and conditions.

John Finn
July 31, 2009 2:50 am

Richard (16:03:15) :
The Dalton Minimum does not seem to be particularly cold in the times that it was in, at least in the CET records.

The CET tracks other long term records fairly consistently, e.g. Armagh, De Bilt, Uppsala.
Richard (17:40:05) :
GISS starts diverging from 1992 (is there anything significant about this date re: Hansen?) and Hadley starts diverging from 2002.

Since 1992, the trends for all 4 datasets are within a few hundredths of a degree of each other. GISS has diverged a bit recently but that may be because it extrapolates over the arctic. The arctic has been particularly warm in recent years (see UAH NoPol and ice extent trends).
Jim (21:17:10) :
John Finn (13:23:18) : John … that paper was written in 1991. Statistics have really “advanced” since then. The data may be OK for you point, but ever since Mann, Steig, etc. got busted for bad stat methods, it is always a valid question to ask how the data is “adjusted.” That’s my only point. I wouldn’t use HADCET data for anything until I knew for sure how it is being adjusted.

I ssume, then, you know how UAH temperatures have been adjusted over the years. If so could you explain the huge difference in trends (~0.12 deg per decade) between May and February in the UAH record. This discrepancy, which has increased in recent years, was acknowledged by John Christy in a recent WUWT post.
Perhaps it’s not GISS or Hadley or RSS that ‘s ‘wrong’ – perhaps it’s UAH.

July 31, 2009 4:39 am

Mary Hinge (01:34:16) :
tallbloke (13:20:22) :
Mary Hinge (12:25:05) :
Off course after the evaporation there will be condensation and the resulting transfer of heat energy.
Which is mostly a cooling effect isn’t it? The latent heat heads spacewards from the cloudtops and the rain cools the water it falls into.
Mostly it is, which is why global temperatures decrease following La Nina events and conditions.

I thought we were discussing el nino rather than la nina?

Jim
July 31, 2009 6:51 am

John Finn (02:50:40) :
*********************
I assume, then, you know how UAH temperatures have been adjusted over the years. If so could you explain the huge difference in trends (~0.12 deg per decade) between May and February in the UAH record. This discrepancy, which has increased in recent years, was acknowledged by John Christy in a recent WUWT post.
Perhaps it’s not GISS or Hadley or RSS that ’s ‘wrong’ – perhaps it’s UAH.
*******************************************
I am aware of the seasonal variations in UAH. I know that the procedure used to generate GISS temps is dodgy. The fact that it tracks RSS and Hadley makes me suspicious of them, too. As far as the UAH data is concerned, there may be a problem that is indicated by the seasonal variations or the variations might be real. Climate isn’t well understood, so climatologists can’t really answer questions like that without further research.

July 31, 2009 6:56 am

LOST CYCLE GRAPHICS
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/LostCycle.gif
Public (blog) and private (email) comments are welcome.

Geoff Sharp
July 31, 2009 7:58 am

Usoskin’s latest paper on lost cycle here:
http://cc.oulu.fi/~usoskin/personal/apjl_700_2_154.pdf
Interesting how Usoskin fully recognizes the Dalton Minimum as a grand minimum in this paper but rules it out in previous papers re the 11000 yr 14C record. Perhaps he should now revisit that paper?
If proven this means the Dalton had 4 low cycles…..thats not chicken feed and firmly establishes the importance of lower strength grand minima.

Mary Hinge
July 31, 2009 8:33 am

tallbloke (04:39:18) :
I thought we were discussing el nino rather than la nina?

No, as shown above evaporation increases during La Nina, hence the cooling etc.

July 31, 2009 11:31 am

Mary Hinge (08:33:50) :
tallbloke (04:39:18) :
I thought we were discussing el nino rather than la nina?
No, as shown above evaporation increases during La Nina, hence the cooling etc.

Back to my original question then. What causes the 50w/m^2 drop in OLR during big el ninos if not water vapour?

July 31, 2009 12:59 pm

Geoff Sharp (07:58:42) :
If proven this means the Dalton had 4 low cycles…..thats not chicken feed and firmly establishes the importance of lower strength grand minima.

The sun was getting rorked about by the planets a lot around then.
http://s630.photobucket.com/albums/uu21/stroller-2009/?action=view&current=Dalton_SSB.gif

Richard
July 31, 2009 3:00 pm

John Finn (02:50:40) :
Richard (17:40:05) :
GISS starts diverging from 1992 (is there anything significant about this date re: Hansen?) and Hadley starts diverging from 2002.
“..Since 1992, the trends for all 4 datasets are within a few hundredths of a degree of each other”. Per year yes. That would be a few tenths of a degree per decade or a few degrees per century.
But I am talking about the slope of the trends themselves. The slope of this curve starts sloping downwards for all 4 data sets from 1992. (Which perhaps seems to indicate that the rate of increase of temperature rise starts falling from 1992)?
Before 1992, (ie from 1978 to 1992) all 4 curves are practically identical, sloping very gently upwards. After 1992, the GISS curve parts company from the other 3 and its downwards slope is distinctly less than the other 3.
The other 3 curves then follow an identical path till 2002, when Hadley parts company with the other 2 having a distinctly lower downward trend to the satellite data curves.
If one had a suspicious mind one could say that GISS inadvertently or otherwise started to overestimate temperatures and trends after 1992 and Hadley after 2002.
Also the flat bit of the GISS and Hadley slopes between 2005 and 2006 look pretty identical for the two. A suspicious mind might say collusion.
“GISS has diverged a bit recently but that may be because it extrapolates over the arctic. The arctic has been particularly warm in recent years (see UAH NoPol and ice extent trends).”
Extrapolation is always risky and prone to errors. The Satellite datasets also use arctic records, as the circumpolar satellites give data upto 2 degrees of the poles I believe. RSS has stopped adding data from the antarctic I believe, but from when I do not know, stopping at 72.5 Degrees South.

timetochooseagain
July 31, 2009 4:48 pm

John Finn (02:50:40) : Yeah, and perhaps the tooth fairy is real to.
UAH lines up with radiosondes, RSS spontaneously jumps relative to all other datasets in 1992…many publications have shown that UAH is better than RSS, but “perhaps” the dataset is wrong 🙄
Not that it matters-neither RSS nor UAH show, globally, 1.2 times the warming seen at the surface…and neither shows warming for twelve years now.

John Finn
July 31, 2009 4:50 pm

Richard (15:00:15) :
John Finn (02:50:40) :
Richard (17:40:05) :
GISS starts diverging from 1992 (is there anything significant about this date re: Hansen?) and Hadley starts diverging from 2002.
“..Since 1992, the trends for all 4 datasets are within a few hundredths of a degree of each other”.

Per year yes. That would be a few tenths of a degree per decade or a few degrees per century.
No – per decade not per year. Check out the trends. Someone (the woodfortrees guy, I think) did it recently on WUWT and his calculations agreed pretty much with my own.
“GISS has diverged a bit recently but that may be because it extrapolates over the arctic. The arctic has been particularly warm in recent years (see UAH NoPol and ice extent trends).”
Extrapolation is always risky and prone to errors.
Possibly – but the errors will go in both directions. The problem for GISS is that the arctic has been warm over the past few years so any recent ‘errors’ will have been on the warm side. A few months back GISS anomalies were, relatively speaking, the lowest of all 4 datasets. That is, when the 1979-1998 base period was used, GISS was cooler than RSS and Hadley and was much cooler than UAH.

Geoff Sharp
July 31, 2009 4:59 pm

tallbloke (12:59:50) :
Geoff Sharp (07:58:42) :
If proven this means the Dalton had 4 low cycles…..thats not chicken feed and firmly establishes the importance of lower strength grand minima.
———————-
The sun was getting rorked about by the planets a lot around then.
http://s630.photobucket.com/albums/uu21/stroller-2009/?action=view&current=Dalton_SSB.gif

Exactly, and 2 interesting points tallbloke, the planets are almost in an identical position and the timing of the solar cycle is also very close. The difference this time around is there will be no second hit like we had in 1830.

July 31, 2009 11:05 pm

Geoff Sharp (16:59:17) :
the planets are almost in an identical position and the timing of the solar cycle is also very close. The difference this time around is there will be no second hit like we had in 1830.

I’m not sure what difference the second hit made. It looks to me like it might actually have help jolt the sun back into a higher rate of activity at the end of the Dalton minimum.
The oppositional loops seem to be the major feature of all three periods, Maunder, Dalton and now. I wonder how much the orientation affects the situation. I’d like to know if the tilt in the sun’s axis precesses, but no-one seems to know.
http://s630.photobucket.com/albums/uu21/stroller-2009/?action=view&current=minima.gif

Richard
July 31, 2009 11:20 pm

John Finn (16:50:07) :
Richard (15:00:15) :
John Finn (02:50:40) :
Richard (17:40:05) :
Ok My figures Trend 1979 to 2008 CRU, GISS, RSS, UAH – 0.159, 0.162, 0.157, 0.128 C/Decade. GISS the greatest warming UAH the least
So you are right – “the trends for all 4 datasets are within a few hundredths of a degree of each other” but only over the 29 years and upto 2002.
From 2002 to 2008 CRU, GISS, RSS, UAH – -0.107, -0.020, -0.151, -0.130 (from the raw data) RSS shows the greatest cooling and GISS the least.
This difference of about 1.5C/century is significant.
My data doesnt quite agree with the wood for trees one, (though not by very much) but then GISS has changed so many times that its not surprising.

Geoff Sharp
August 1, 2009 12:18 am

tallbloke (23:05:41) :
The 2nd hit of the Dalton was a fizzer (not following Wilson’s law) but it still managed to reduce SC7 to way below SC20. We will get a bigger kick start this time because there are no more hits coming. The Dalton started on the first hit of 3, the 1st one doing the damage and the 3rd slowing down SC12 only. This time around the first hit was SC20, 2nd hit is now (fairly strong) and no 3rd hit. Once you understand how the disturbances are quantified it becomes clear.

August 1, 2009 12:20 am

vukcevic (10:42:04) :
“Instead of indulging in self-congratulation, put on your graph the years from 1890-1920 and the recent data you omitted and the blue actual measurements.”
No problem, I will go much further, say 260 years

Except, you didn’t. You produced yet another graph. Go back to the NRL graph, do not omit the last few years and place the ‘blue’ actual measurements on the graph.
Geoff Sharp (07:58:42) :
Usoskin’s latest paper on lost cycle
There are two independent pieces of evidence that point to no lost cycle: the 10Be cosmic ray proxy and the variation of the diurnal range of the magnetic declination. This Figure shows the Wolf number, Group number and Staudacher’s data normalized to be halfway between the Wolf number and the Group number:
http://www.leif.org/research/Solar-Activity-1785-1810.png
There is no hint of a lost cycle.

August 1, 2009 12:39 am

tallbloke (11:06:42) :
“1 W/m2 decrease = 0.07%. A quarter of that is 0.018%, of 288K is 0.05K.”
The team you have an affinity with says 1W/m^2, the other says 2W/m^2.

The discussion was about the variation during the very weak cycles to come, so it is reasonable to adopt the lower number.
2) You also stated the other day that incoming insolation varies 30W/m^2 over the year.
Unless you can present a detailed calculating that shows this, you have no basis for saying that the 0.05K ‘is simply wrong’. During a ‘normal’ cycle various researchers have found a solar cycle variation of about 0.1K, so it is quite reasonable to expect a smaller [e.g. half] variation for cycles that are only half as strong.

August 1, 2009 2:37 am

A very interesting and relevant post, David; thank you.
But you said a few things that triggered my skepticism:
“I have been contacted by a gentleman from the lower 48 who has a very good solar activity model.”
I`m curious, David: did he also have a bridge for sale?
“[His solar activity model” hindcasts the 20th century almost perfectly, so I have a lot of faith in what it is predicting for the 21st century, which is a couple of very weak cycles and then back to normal as we have known it.”
Your use of “faith” is very interesting. I`m sure others here share my skepticism in models of all kinds, recognize that hindcasting isn`t a valid form of verification, and my concern that maybe you`ve been sucked into a cult religion of some sort.
“I consider his model to be a major advance in solar science.”
Well, perhaps, but surely you`re not suggesting we accept this on “faith”, are you? Has he published in any journals, or started selling forecasts commercially?
TT

John Finn
August 1, 2009 3:53 am

Richard (23:20:25) :
Ok My figures Trend 1979 to 2008 CRU, GISS, RSS, UAH – 0.159, 0.162, 0.157, 0.128 C/Decade. GISS the greatest warming UAH the least
So you are right – “the trends for all 4 datasets are within a few hundredths of a degree of each other” but only over the 29 years and upto 2002.

I was actually referring to the trends since 1992 which are in much closer agreement – but not to worry.
From 2002 to 2008 CRU, GISS, RSS, UAH – -0.107, -0.020, -0.151, -0.130 (from the raw data) RSS shows the greatest cooling and GISS the least.
This is too short a period to draw any conclusions. There was a significant El Nino at the start of this period (2002/03) and a significant La Nina at the end (2007/08). The trend(s) will be heavily influenced by these events – some more than others possibly. In fact, if the ENSO effects are removed, I doubt that the underlying trend is negative (even ignoring statisitical significance) . A recent paper (discussed on WUWT) suggests much of the recent warming trend is due to ENSO but this must work both ways, i.e. La Nina will induce a cooling trend.

kim
August 1, 2009 3:53 am

Tokyo Tom, still bathing in the fountain of faith from the hindcast warmista models. It’s the water vapor, Stupid. It’s the economy they want to sacrifice to the shibboleths of CO2 silliness.

August 1, 2009 5:21 am

Leif Svalgaard (00:20:37) :
vukcevic (10:42:04) :
“No problem, I will go much further, say 260 years”
Leif Svalgaard (00:20:37) :
“Except, you didn’t. You produced yet another graph.”
Since it is obvious that your knowledge or oscillations within resonant systems appear to be somewhat deficient let me help out.
Physics of harmonic oscillations is clear: Cross-modulation of two sine waves of the same amplitude but different frequency, varies between zero and double amplitude. A resonant system will respond to higher and lower harmonics. The lower harmonics are sometimes known as sub-harmonics, they have fraction of the base frequency or multiple of the base period. They usually carry lot of power and can in certain mechanic systems be very distractive. In electronic systems, they are nuisance, since they are much more difficult to eliminate than higher order harmonics. Sub-harmonics of higher order also produce cross-modulation, which adds a ‘long-term waveform envelope’ to the original signal. If you are considering period of the high values of the initial sine waves cross-modulation, than contribution of the sub-harmonics cross-modulation can be neglected. However, when the initial sine waves cross-modulation drops to low levels, i.e. near zero than the sub-harmonics cross-modulation becomes the more significant factor. In these circumstances, correct approach is to consider the overall envelope rather than an isolated section, which might exist in an idealised system, devoid of resonant properties. The reality of a SSN cycles has a signature of a multi-resonant system as described here:
http://xxx.lanl.gov/ftp/astro-ph/papers/0401/0401107.pdf
The above described effect is also is clearly shown in my charts:
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/PF-strength.gif
http://www.vukcevic.co.uk/combined.gif
Otherwise is not a proper consideration of oscillations within a resonant system.
Now, how about using your knowledge (or anyone else on this forum) may answer:
Can solar meridional flow be controlled (or not) by Jupiter – Saturn azimuthal oscillations in relation to the solar equatorial plane ?

WestHighlander
August 1, 2009 5:22 am

Hindcasting is always a questionable activity:
There is a quote to the effect of — Give me 4 fee parameters and I’ll draw you an elephant — Give me 5 and I’ll make his trunk wiggle
There used to be 2 germain grafitti about plotting — these hadbeen hand engraved into the wooden backs of the wooden chairs in the MIT 10-250 Lecture Hall (chairs have since been replaced with much more confortable plastic backed ones) — anyway on the same chair back (in two diferent hands) — Plotting is a a Communist Science — and — Sceince is a Communist Plot —- not sure which precveded which
So beware of Plotting and Modeling — look very carefully at both the data and the methadology used to process it before you draw any conclusions which in the future you will fnd embarassing

August 1, 2009 6:34 am

WestHighlander (05:22:47) :
Plotting is a a Communist Science — and — Sceince is a Communist Plot
Human greed and envy made both the capitalism and communism into what they are.

August 1, 2009 7:00 am

Leif Svalgaard (00:39:02) :
The discussion was about the variation during the very weak cycles to come, so it is reasonable to adopt the lower number.

Not while TSI is decoupled from SSn and is falling off the bottom of the scale.
Unless you can present a detailed calculating that shows this, you have no basis for saying that the 0.05K ‘is simply wrong’. During a ‘normal’ cycle various researchers have found a solar cycle variation of about 0.1K, so it is quite reasonable to expect a smaller [e.g. half] variation for cycles that are only half as strong.
In case you hadn’t noticed, nobody has detailed calculations for how the climate system operates. This doesn’t mean qualified assertions as to reasons why the solar variance is underestimated can’t be made. The reduced TSI difference between the max and min of small cycles might be one factor, but the loss of heat from the oceans and the unsusual timing of el ninos produced may more than offset it.
Not that this is particularly important in terms of my interest in longer term changes in the sun’s output.
If I may ask a question of a more general nature, do you believe the 25% increase in the sun’s output over the last 3Bn years happened in a perfectly smooth linear way, or in an increasing series of pulsating waves? If the former, why so? Everything else in the universe oscillates while it exists, why not the sun?
Also.
How do you know the sun has completely finished it’s increase in output?

August 1, 2009 8:08 am

Hi tallbloke
The other day you asked me to do some ‘numerology’ exercise for you. Since I get accused by Dr. S and AnaV for doing just that, I thought I’ll have some fun, be a bit provocative and have produced this for you. It goes under name PMT: Planets, Magnetic index, Temperature.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/PMT.gif
For time being the equation is a ‘trade secret’ but all the numbers are astronomical values.

August 1, 2009 8:16 am

vukcevic (05:21:45) :
Leif Svalgaard (00:20:37) :
vukcevic (10:42:04) :
“No problem, I will go much further, say 260 years”
Leif Svalgaard (00:20:37) :
“Except, you didn’t.”

You did not produce the requested graph and thus have conceded the field [as is proper].
Since it is obvious that your knowledge or oscillations within resonant systems appear to be somewhat deficient let me help out.
Your knowledge of physics is grossly deficient, solar activity is not an oscillation.
tallbloke (07:00:08) :
Not while TSI is decoupled from SSn and is falling off the bottom of the scale.
TSI is not decoupled from the SSN and is not falling off the bottom. That PMOD apparently is too low is a calibration problem as I have discussed here repeatedly.
If I may ask a question of a more general nature, do you believe the 25% increase in the sun’s output over the last 3Bn years happened in a perfectly smooth linear way
Yes, the 35% increase is a simple consequence of the steady ‘burning’ of Hydrogen to Helium. The increase was smooth, but not strictly linear and is slowly accelerating.
How do you know the sun has completely finished its increase in output?
It has not; our detailed calculations show that the Sun will continue to increase in luminosity and cause great climate change when the Earth’s oceans boil away a few billion years from now.
BTW, we are getting closer to the precision [~1 ppm] needed to actually detect the increase directly in measured TSI. We are not there yet, but only an order of magnitude away.

August 1, 2009 8:32 am

vukcevic (08:08:09) :
be a bit provocative and have produced this for you. It goes under name PMT: Planets, Magnetic index, Temperature.
You can only be provocative if there is substance. Since there is not, you are just being silly [or worse]. Anyway, your planets seem to predict severe increases in temperatures and IMF.

August 1, 2009 8:35 am

Some speculation that solar cycle 25 has already begun:
http://xrt.cfa.harvard.edu/resources/pubs/savc0707.pdf

August 1, 2009 8:55 am

Leif Svalgaard (08:16:39) :
“Your knowledge of physics is grossly deficient, solar activity is not an oscillation.”
Definition:
Oscillation is the repetitive variation, typically in time, of some measure between two or more different states.
Also you have failed, what is more important, to show that:
The solar meridional flow can / cannot be a result of planets’ azimuthal oscillations in relation to the solar equatorial plane ?

August 1, 2009 8:56 am

Leif Svalgaard (08:16:39) :
TSI is not decoupled from the SSN and is not falling off the bottom. That PMOD apparently is too low is a calibration problem as I have discussed here repeatedly.

I agree there are problems with TSI calibration. Which is why you can’t state with any certainty what the difference between solar max and solar min is. And when I last asked you about this recent decoupling of TSI from SSn you told me to wait for Claus Froelich to adjust the data.
Not much of a discussion as I see it, though I may well have missed something you’ve said to someone else.
Thanks for the facts and figures on the sun’s long term changes in output.
Just to butt in on your misunderstanding with Vukevic, the sun’s activity does oscillate, at many frequencies, from 5 minutes to 5,000 years at least. You yourself told me the sun had a 5 minute oscillation, and you also told me the sun increased and decreased in size due to 5 earth diameter lumps growing and subsiding on it’s surface every solar cycle.
Classic resonant behaviour.

Tenuc
August 1, 2009 9:22 am

(07:00:08) :
The discussion was about the variation during the very weak cycles to come, so it is reasonable to adopt the lower number.
Don’t think the TSI bone is the correct one to worry. Changes to the quality of the insolation during solar cycles could be more important, such as the greater proportion of extreme UV and X-rays, could be a better one to pursue. I thnk changes to albido are are also worth a look.
Some UV data here:- http://wwwsolar.nrl.navy.mil/susim_uars.html

August 1, 2009 9:23 am

Kim. nice to see you again. Nope, no “fountains of faith” for me, of any kind, though I enjoy the hot springs here whenever I can.
Just checking to see how consistently skeptical the card-carrying “skeptics” are.

rbateman
August 1, 2009 9:34 am

What do you attribute as the cause of the increased fusion of hydrogen that results after many steps to helium? There are a few floating about, but I’d like to hear yours.

August 1, 2009 10:09 am

Does anyone know why we are having these abnormally low temperatures this summer in the north central and northeastern states other than just a product of the jet stream? How much of this change can be related to the PDO, the extended solar minimum, if any or other phenomenon?

Mary Hinge
August 1, 2009 10:20 am

tallbloke (11:31:31) :
Mary Hinge (08:33:50) :

tallbloke (04:39:18) :
Back to my original question then. What causes the 50w/m^2 drop in OLR during big el ninos if not water vapour?

No problem, evaporation is reduced during El Nino’s but, conversely, precipitation increases. The reduced wind reduces cooling by evaporation from ‘normal’ or neutral ENSO conditions. There are of course many other factors including increased humidity and atmospheric temperatures but this change in evaporation would be a major cause.

Tenuc
August 1, 2009 10:31 am


Forgot to mention reduced charge density of solar wind at minimum, which has an effect on the topograph of earth’s atmosphere and electric field. Don’t know if their is a planetary connection as well?
Interesting info here on solar cycle length and planetary effects here:-
http://personal.inet.fi/tiede/tilmari/sunspots.html#intro

August 1, 2009 10:44 am

tallbloke (09:28:50) :
I agree there are problems with TSI calibration. Which is why you can’t state with any certainty what the difference between solar max and solar min is.
Yet you state with certainty:
“The decline of TSI from solar max to solar min would decrease the temperature by 0.05 degrees.”
This is simply incorrect.

And the deltaT is of the order of magnitude [or a bit smaller than] that various people claim for the solar cycle effect [of large cycles], so cannot be far off.
vukcevic (08:55:54) :
Oscillation is the repetitive variation, typically in time, of some measure between two or more different states.
What you leave out is the crucial element that makes something a physical oscillation, namely that the variation is about an equilibrium and that there be a restoring force.
I was just in Yellowstone. There, every two hundred years or so most of the trees in the park go up in flames. This is actually beneficial to the forest as it allows new growth. The result is a variation of the height of the trees from 0 meter [just after the burn] to ~10 meter [just before the next burn]. It would be physically wrong to describe this as an oscillation about an equilibrium height of 5 meter, as there is no restoring force that push the trees down from 5 down to 0 meter.
Also you have failed, what is more important, to show that:
The solar meridional flow can / cannot be a result of planets’ azimuthal oscillations in relation to the solar equatorial plane ?

It would seem that the one who claims this has the onus of showing it. I also do not bother to rebut or dispute the claims of people that say they have been abducted by aliens in their spacecraft and [with some enjoyment, apparently] repeatedly raped and otherwise poked.
tallbloke (08:56:33) :
the sun’s activity does oscillate, at many frequencies, from 5 minutes to 5,000 years at least. You yourself told me the sun had a 5 minute oscillation
The 5 minute oscillations are true oscillations with an equilibrium and a restoring force [gas pressure].
rbateman (09:34:16) :
What do you attribute as the cause of the increased fusion of hydrogen that results after many steps to helium? There are a few floating about, but I’d like to hear yours.
I’m not quite sure what your question is. If you had left out ‘increased’ it would have been clear [although potentially misunderstood]. There are many steps in the conversion of H to He and all of these are well understood and have been spectacularly confirmed by helioseismology and neutrino measurements, and there are no mysteries or disagreements about this [discounting the iron-sun/’neutron star core’-sun nonsense]. Some good material can be found here: http://www.astronomynotes.com/starsun/s3.htm
If you by ‘increased’ meant by what process the Sun has become hotter over its life, the answer is quite different. As the H in the core becomes depleted energy production there decreases and the Sun contracts. That increases the temperature and energy production just outside of the core goes up [depends on a very high power of the temperature, something like T^18] and the total luminosity goes up. This is a steady process [for a long time to come].

August 1, 2009 10:46 am

Leif Svalgaard (08:16:39) :
“You did not produce the requested graph and thus have conceded the field [as is proper]”.
Relevant chart you are referring to, it has deficiency in its concept, which
S.K. Solanki at al, have put right and produced more up to date graph at:
Max-Planck-Institut für Sonnensystemforschung, 37191 Katlenburg-Lindau, Germany Received 5 April 2004 / Accepted 14 July 2004
S.K. Solanki – I. Baumann – D. Schmitt – M. Schüssler
in
Evolution of the large-scale magnetic field on the solar surface: A parameter study
http://www.aanda.org/index.php?option=article&access=standard&Itemid=129&url=/articles/aa/full/2004/42/aa1024/aa1024.right.html
S.K. Solanki at al understand oscillations of resonant system, and use only period of the high values of the initial sine waves cross-modulation, where contribution of the sub-harmonics cross-modulation can be neglected, as described in my post of:
vukcevic (05:21:45) :
Here is comparison graph:
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/MPI.gif
Leif Svalgaard (08:32:31) :
“You can only be provocative if there is substance. Since there is not, you are just being silly [or worse]. Anyway, your planets seem to predict severe increases in temperatures and IMF.”
But you are still intrigued by correlation!
That is only an initial ‘numerology’ attempt, proportionality of the scale has yet to be set.
Perhaps you can now answer [as is proper]”: if the solar meridional flow can / cannot be a result of planets’ azimuthal oscillations in relation to the solar equatorial plane ?
Leif Svalgaard (08:35:44) :
Some speculation that solar cycle 25 has already begun:
http://xrt.cfa.harvard.edu/resources/pubs/savc0707.pdf
That would mean the polarity reversal is failing one cycle to early. My formula predicts Hale cycle polarity reversal failure at SC25, but we shall see.

Nogw
August 1, 2009 11:04 am

Leif Svalgaard (08:16:39) :Professor Leif Svagaard said this:
solar activity is not an oscillation
So you tell to the laymen here: There are not solar clycles anymore?
Thank you professor!

August 1, 2009 11:06 am

vukcevic (10:46:26) :
“You did not produce the requested graph and thus have conceded the field [as is proper]”.
Relevant chart you are referring to, it has deficiency in its concept.

Yet you touted it as the ‘most authoritative source’. Showing the danger of not knowing what you talking about. Solanki’s has other problems.
Leif Svalgaard (08:32:31) :
“You can only be provocative if there is substance. Since there is not, you are just being silly [or worse]. Anyway, your planets seem to predict severe increases in temperatures and IMF.”
But you are still intrigued by correlation!

No, correlations do not intrigue me. My comment was only to expose your lack of substance.
Perhaps you can now answer [as is proper]”: if the solar meridional flow can / cannot be a result of planets’ azimuthal oscillations in relation to the solar equatorial plane ?
This is a simple engineering calculation: calculate the kinetic energy needed to move large fraction of the solar convection zone from the equator to the pole and compare with the energy in planetary motion [or better with the tidal movements]. Do this for yourself [for maximum effect].
Leif Svalgaard (08:35:44) :
“Some speculation that solar cycle 25 has already begun:
http://xrt.cfa.harvard.edu/resources/pubs/savc0707.pdf
That would mean the polarity reversal is failing one cycle to early. My formula predicts Hale cycle polarity reversal failure at SC25, but we shall see.

What they claim to observe is the Hale-cycle polarity reversal… thus no failure.

Nogw
August 1, 2009 11:09 am

Leif Svalgaard (10:44:26) :
Another one:
this as an oscillation about an equilibrium height of 5 meter, as there is no restoring force that push the trees down from 5 down to 0 meter
That oscillation is called DEATH and it is happening all the time. We´re near that and our grand children remind us that.

August 1, 2009 11:31 am

Nogw (11:09:06) :
That oscillation is called DEATH and it is happening all the time. We´re near that and our grand children remind us that.
Well, I’m still on the right side of the grass [rather than 6 feet under]. The point was that the average height is not a equilibrium height that the trees oscillate about. The solar cycle is a sequence of excitations, each dying and being replaced by another one. Not a true oscillation, thus there is no resonances involved, just like there are no resonances in the ‘cycle’ of tree height in Yellowstone. The original issue Wang/Sheeley had was that the meridional circulation has to be fast enough to get rid off the old cycle. Although the solar cycle is not a true oscillation you will often find that the term ‘oscillation’ is used in a loose sense as just meaning a variation to and fro.

August 1, 2009 11:35 am

If polar fields have not reversed as yet (leftover from SC23 down-slope) and SC25 is starting, its up-slope PF polarity is the same as in the SC23 down-slope, that means change over at top of SC24 has been skipped, i.e. Hale cycle failed.

Nogw
August 1, 2009 1:01 pm

vukcevic (11:35:15) : Would that it mean that the peak of solar cycle 24 was back in october 2008?…If that is so, we are facing a “lost cycle” again!…let´s wait and see.

August 1, 2009 1:21 pm

vukcevic (11:35:15) :
If polar fields have not reversed as yet (leftover from SC23 down-slope) and SC25 is starting, its up-slope PF polarity is the same as in the SC23 down-slope, that means change over at top of SC24 has been skipped, i.e. Hale cycle failed.
The Hale-cycle is that the poles of the two spots reverse. So for SC23 we may have N-S [for a given hemisphere], for SC24 we then have S-N, for SC25 we then have N-S, etc, for non-failure. This is what is claimed in the paper I referred to.

Phil.
August 1, 2009 1:44 pm

David Archibald
NASA’s David Hathaway has adjusted his expectations of Solar Cycle 24 downwards. He is quoted in the New York Times here Specifically, he said:
” Still, something like the Dalton Minimum — two solar cycles in the early 1800s that peaked at about an average of 50 sunspots — lies in the realm of the possible.”
NASA has caught up with my prediction in early 2006 of a Dalton Minimum repeat, so for a brief, shining moment of three years, I have had a better track record in predicting solar activity than NASA.

No you don’t, all you did is predict something that may occur in about 15 years time, you can’t take credit for it until it actually happens (if it does)! There is a huge difference, too, between your prediction of an event and Hathaway’s statement that “it lies in the realm of the possible” (so does my winning the lottery).

August 1, 2009 1:51 pm

Tidal height due to the planets oscillations needs to be at least 200m instead of 2-3 cm to produce meridional flow variation of 20m/s (if surface was uniform).
Alternatively, since planets move Sun around the barycentre, could they also introduce axial precession, which may have enough power to speed up and slow down the meridional flow of the thermal conveyor belt?
You misunderstand again. Resonance is not within the Sun’s interior, it is within the solar system.
5 x11.862 years – Jupiter orbital period = 59.11
2 x 29.657 years – Saturn orbital period= 59.314
Her Kepler lived in more sedate times of Maunder minimum (as some other great minds of mechanical age), and was less concerned with how fast than how much, (prefered constant area to constant speed) so kindly arranged elliptical orbits where planets continuously change their speed along the orbital path, thus synchronization is not exact. If orbits were perfect circles than there would be a perfect synchronization.

August 1, 2009 2:05 pm

Nogw (11:04:32) :
“solar activity is not an oscillation”
So you tell to the laymen here: There are not solar cycles anymore?

Scientists often use words that have a sharper meaning than what laymen attach to them. A good example is ‘theory’. A scientific theory is a set of equations or statements that explain a great many observed facts, while when a layman says “theory is one thing, reality is something else” he means that ‘theory’ expresses uncertainty or probably not even true.
Same with ‘oscillation’. There is an [irregular] solar cycle, but no solar activity oscillation and no resonances, in the same sense as there is an [irregular] cycle of forest fires in Yellowstone, but to tree-height oscillation and no resonances.
Of course, if you are bitten by cyclomania, everything is cyclic and oscillates. This may be your affliction too [but you would know].

August 1, 2009 2:38 pm

Leif Svalgaard (13:21:41) :
The Hale-cycle is that the poles of the two spots reverse. …
Since you were so kind to introduce me to secrets of polar fields (at your everlasting regret), I go by PF Hale cycle, as I believe it was originally intended. SS are just incidental nuisance.

August 1, 2009 3:12 pm

vukcevic (14:38:10) :
Since you were so kind to introduce me to secrets of polar fields (at your everlasting regret), I go by PF Hale cycle, as I believe it was originally intended. SS are just incidental nuisance./i>
SS make the PFs which make the SSs. Hale discovered SS polarity laws. Couldn’t measure polar fields. First crude measurements by Babcock in 1952, and first accurate measurement by me in 1976. Don’t go around and rename things. Hale-cycle is about SSs.
vukcevic (13:51:41) :
Alternatively, since planets move Sun around the barycentre, could they also introduce axial precession, which may have enough power to speed up and slow down the meridional flow of the thermal conveyor belt?
No as the Sun is in free fall and thus does not feel the gravitational force [except for tides]
You misunderstand again. Resonance is not within the Sun’s interior, it is within the solar system.
So what? The solar system does not have any influence on solar activity. There are also resonances in the asteroid belts, Saturn’s rings, etc. None of which have any effect either.

August 1, 2009 3:27 pm

Leif Svalgaard (10:44:26) :
tallbloke (09:28:50) :
I agree there are problems with TSI calibration. Which is why you can’t state with any certainty what the difference between solar max and solar min is.
Yet you state with certainty:
(Leif)
“The decline of TSI from solar max to solar min would decrease the temperature by 0.05 degrees.”
(tallbloke)
This is simply incorrect.

One has to answer certainty in the face of uncertainty with a certain certainty about uncertainty.

August 1, 2009 3:37 pm

@Tenuc
Good info and thanks for the links.
I’m worrying the TSI bone because all the indictions are that it isn’t quite as fixed and measurbe as Claus Froelich and Leif would have us believe.
Leif is declaring 2 sig fig certainty on temperature effects of TSI change but telling me that the current publicly available figures may be wrong due to a calibration issue.
This is called trying to have your cake and eat it.

August 1, 2009 3:40 pm

vukcevic (14:38:10) :
Since you were so kind to introduce me to secrets of polar fields (at your everlasting regret), I go by PF Hale cycle, as I believe it was originally intended. SS are just incidental nuisance.
SS make the PFs which make the SSs. Hale discovered SS polarity laws. Couldn’t measure polar fields and didn’t know about reversals [in fact everybody at the time were convinced that there could not be reversals of the general field – conductivity too high]. First crude measurements by Babcock in 1952, and first accurate measurement by me in 1976. Don’t go around and rename things. Hale-cycle is about SSs.

August 1, 2009 3:46 pm

tallbloke (15:27:11) :
One has to answer certainty in the face of uncertainty with a certain certainty about uncertainty.
Nonsense, one has to make reasoned statements, not blanket declarations. And there is very little uncertainty as we have seen it all before and can go by past performance. If the decrease is 1 or 2 W/m2, the temperature changes will be 0.05K to 0.1K, which is known territory. What is simply wrong is Archibald’s 2K temperature drop. Go complain about that one.

Richard
August 1, 2009 3:48 pm

Leif Svalgaard and vukcevic,
I do not understand much of the technical discussion between you two, but am convinced of the role of the Sun as the primary driver of our climate.
For the past 700,000 years, at least, like clockwork, every 100,000 years the Earth has been plunged into an “ice-age” or glaciation period if you wish and rising CO2 and other greenhouse gas levels have been powerless to stop this.
Similarly at the end of each glaciation period despite falling GHG levels the Earth has pulled out of the ice-ages. CO2 has been an impotent follower of temperatures and there is no reason to suppose it has suddenly become a driver of the climate now.
The AGW followers say that they have figured out the sun absolutely and repeat “the Milankovitch cycles” as their mantra. Though the 100,000 year cycle is far too weak to explain the big temperature rises that take place at the end of each glaciation.
They say that the Sun’s influence is fully realised and explainable and it has nothing to do with the current warming and this warming will continue for thousands of years unabated with catastrophic consequences to the Earth.
From what evidence I can see, there is no cause for this alarmism.
On the other hand I would be happy to see some indisputable evidence of the Sun’s influence on our global temperatures, albeit masked to an extent by natural variations like El Nino, Nina etc.
Solar cycles, sunspots etc are but a proxy for the direct influence of the Sun on our atmosphere, oceans and land. The solar wind, and irradiance of course, over the entire spectrum, would have a much more direct influence on this. The influence of these on secondary factors like Cosmic Rays and cloudiness is crucial also.
I just wonder if we do not have enough data to see the influence clearly enough, or if we have enough data to see the influence to a sufficient degree to be convincing enough for everyone.

August 1, 2009 3:51 pm

tallbloke (15:37:08) :
that the current publicly available figures may be wrong due to a calibration issue.
There is no calibration issue for SORCE and we have good TSI since 2003 and can compare with good TSI from other satellites at that time. The degradation issues get worse with time, and the notion that TSI is off the chart is just that PMOD has degraded. Claus Froehlich knows this and everybody else too, there is not any great uncertainty in the difference between max and min, and even a factor of two error would still only mean 0.05K difference in temps. So, your ‘uncertainty’ ain’t there.

August 1, 2009 3:56 pm

Richard (15:48:06) :
For the past 700,000 years, at least, like clockwork, every 100,000 years the Earth has been plunged into an “ice-age”
This has nothing to do with the Sun, but with the shape of the Earth’s orbit.
I just wonder if we do not have enough data to see the influence clearly enough, or if we have enough data to see the influence to a sufficient degree to be convincing enough for everyone.
I think we do have the solar data we need. The problem is not one of science, but of politics. There are alarmists on both sides of the fence, fry or freeze.

Jim
August 1, 2009 4:14 pm

**********************
Richard (15:48:06) :
Leif Svalgaard and vukcevic,
I do not understand much of the technical discussion between you two, but am convinced of the role of the Sun as the primary driver of our climate.
****************************
The exact same thoughts have been on my mind WRT paleo climatge. From what I’ve read on the web, none of the paleo-length solar proxies are know to be reliable. No one I know of has disputed this allegation. This does not prove the Sun “did it,” but it leaves open the possibility the Sun is responsible for the larger swings in temperature alleged to occur over millions of years of history.

maksimovich
August 1, 2009 4:21 pm

tallbloke (15:27:11)
“I agree there are problems with TSI calibration. Which is why you can’t state with any certainty what the difference between solar max and solar min is.”
Lockwood and Frohlich (2007) tell us that the PMOD composite is the most reliable, and so solar activity has not increased at the end of the 20th century.Conversely PMOD shows a greater decrease in TSI at present.
Questions then arise is it measurement error,divergence,or understating the variance(initial position) ?
eg http://i255.photobucket.com/albums/hh133/mataraka/tsi.jpg

Richard
August 1, 2009 4:53 pm

Leif Svalgaard (15:56:00) :
For the past 700,000 years, at least, like clockwork, every 100,000 years the Earth has been plunged into an “ice-age”
“This has nothing to do with the Sun, but with the shape of the Earth’s orbit.”
Surely this has ultimately to do with the Sun and the change in solar insolation, if nothing else?
The questions then are:
1. Is this change in orbit/ insolation enough to explain the big temperature rises at the end of the glaciations?
2. Why would this influence of the Earth’s orbit change last for only 10,000 years approximately?
2. When is the next similar change in orbit due?
3. What about other more direct influences of the Sun like irradiance, solar wind, storms, magnetic activity?
4. What about cosmic dust and cosmic rays?

August 1, 2009 4:58 pm

maksimovich (16:21:07) :
Questions then arise is it measurement error,divergence,or understating the variance(initial position) ?
Calibration error of PMOD.
A year ago, I pointed out to Claus Froehlich that the difference between PMOD and SORCE was decreasing by 0.2 W/m2/decade.
His answer:
Yes, you may have noticed that the VIRGO data are now Version 6.002 and I changed an internal correction – I did this already in SF [at the AGU meeting in San Francisco, where I discussed this with him]. A few years ago I found a linear trend between the corrected PMO6V and DIARAD time series and allocated it to DIARAD. At SF I realized that this was probably wrong and remembered also that the re-analysis I started 2 years ago and never completed showed that the corrections of PMO6V-B [the less exposed backup] was with the early increase as determined for PMO6V-A changing too much – so I attributed the trend to PMO6V and obviously got a smaller change relative to TIM[SORCE], which was a kind of initiator of this whole action. But still it is completely internal to VIRGO and makes with all I know about VIRGO radiometry good sense.
My response in April 2009:
Claus, a detailed comparison of SORCE and PMOD composite, shows good agreement until 2008.6 [after his adjustments], but then PMOD becomes much more erratic, not in keeping with the dead quiet the Sun has been the past nine months:
http://www.leif.org/research/Comparison%20SORCE%20PMOD%20since%202008.png
His response:
From that time on we have a problem with DIARAD I have not yet solved, but need to look into in much more detail – for the moment I used a simple correction, which may not be correct.
———–
and there it stands. The PMOD series has not been updated since. They used to update it every month.

August 1, 2009 5:03 pm

Richard (16:53:53) :
“This has nothing to do with the Sun, but with the shape of the Earth’s orbit.”
Surely this has ultimately to do with the Sun

The answer to most of your questions may be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milankovitch_cycles
The various ‘problems’ mentioned are likely due to a combination of data errors and errors in assessments of the strength of the various factors going into this, but there is little dispute that something like is going on. So, we would have these cycles even with a perfectly constant Sun.

David Archibald
August 1, 2009 6:00 pm

Phil. (13:44:43) : [snip] One contribution of mine was that the first sign of a weak Solar Cycle 24 would be a long Solar Cycle 23. Everyone else was oblivious to one of the basic facts of solar activity. Now we have made our bed in terms of solar predictions are we are going to lie in it. Mine feels very comfortable thank you.
TokyoTom (02:37:14) : Properly respectful and you expressed your thanks for my contribution. To paraphrase a line from Star Wars, your sad religion is becoming ancient history. You will need a replacement belief system. Time is short, so all I cay say is try some Sun worship instead. The Sun is oscillatory. Schatten’s solar dynamo theory relies upon flux being converted from poloidal to toroidal and back again. This does happen. So, some of the Sun’s current flux was generated several cycles back. The Sun’s flux is bleeding off.

Richard
August 1, 2009 7:39 pm

Leif Svalgaard (17:03:47) :
“The answer to most of your questions may be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milankovitch_cycles
The various ‘problems’ mentioned are likely due to a combination of data errors and errors in assessments of the strength of the various factors going into this, but there is little dispute that something like is going on. So, we would have these cycles even with a perfectly constant Sun.”
According to wikipedia, one explanation of the 100,000 year cycle is that the Earth passes through a disk of cosmic dust that exists in the invariable plane, every 100,000 years. This sounds very plausible to me, specially since the radiative forcing is so small at this cycle due to the orbital change.
I also read that the Earth has been cooling for the last several million years.
So far as I could make out there is no explanation of why there is a large increase in temperatures that pulls the Earth out of the ice-ages and why these inter-glacial periods last for only about 10,000 years.
According to NOAA ( and I dont know who contributed to that article but several have been written, by Mann, Jones and Hansen), the conditions that will lead to the next ice-age will not be present for at least 50,000 years and possible not till another 620,000 years.
They quote Berger and Hollan but fail to mention Imbrie, who said cooling will continue (subject to caveats). Imbrie prediction was older but newer doesnt necessarily mean more accurate. From the Earth’s history I would favour Imbrie’s prediction. What is your opinion?

August 1, 2009 9:04 pm

David Archibald (18:00:56) :
One contribution of mine was that the first sign of a weak Solar Cycle 24 would be a long Solar Cycle 23. Everyone else was oblivious to one of the basic facts of solar activity. Now we have made our bed in terms of solar predictions are we are going to lie in it. Mine feels very comfortable thank you.
Self-congratulatory and wrong as a ‘contribution’. This is the text-book version, and the argument was used even by Hathaway as a caveat for the Dikpati prediction [“where are the spots? they should have been here by now”].
so all I cay say is try some Sun worship instead. […] So, some of the Sun’s current flux was generated several cycles back. The Sun’s flux is bleeding off.
Meaningless blather. Solar magnetic fields because of their large size and the relatively high conductivity of the Sun, essentially live forever [i.e. much longer than a solar cycle]. ‘Bleeding off’, nonsense.
Richard (19:39:39) :
What is your opinion?
I’ll go with the orbital change theory operating on time scales of tens of thousands of years, so no glaciation would be imminent in the next few thousand years. I wouldn’t worry about it that this time.

Patrick
August 1, 2009 10:28 pm

Retired Engineer John (08:15:31) :
A description of Dr Hathway’s approach is found at http://www.solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/predict.shtml. The basis of the predictions is based on observations of the Sun and are closely related to determining solar minimum. Without a better understanding of the physics of the Sun’s processes, how can one rule out a Maunder Minimum?
My guess, is an educated guess, based on the number of sun cycles observed in relation to Maunder Minimums. It’s like Russian Roulette, except you lose fifteen minutes of prestige, instead of fifty years of life if you’re wrong.

August 2, 2009 12:15 am

Richard (15:48:06) :
I would be happy to see some indisputable evidence of the Sun’s influence on our global temperatures, albeit masked to an extent by natural variations like El Nino, Nina etc.

Here you go:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadsst2gl/from:1979/mean:43/detrend:0.38/plot/pmod/from:1979/offset:-1366.4/scale:0.1
Leif Svalgaard (16:58:49) :
A year ago, I pointed out to Claus Froehlich that the difference between PMOD and SORCE was decreasing by 0.2 W/m2/decade.
His response:
From that time on we have a problem with DIARAD I have not yet solved, but need to look into in much more detail – for the moment I used a simple correction, which may not be correct.
———–
and there it stands. The PMOD series has not been updated since. They used to update it every month.

The data labeled as PMOD on the graph above is up to date. Is it coming from a different satellite? The graph seems to show a ~ 0.15C variation in SST over the last few cycles. This will be more like a 0.3C variation in air temperature. This is without taking into account the fact that el nino has taken place near solar minimum in the last four cycles and this will mask some of the range of temperature due to the solar cycle, as Richard noted.
Since sunspots are a reasonable proxy for TSI, the change in the average number of sunspots between the start of the c20th and 2005 can account for most of the C20th warming, when the cumulative nature of the sun’s heating of the ocean, as evidenced by sea level satellite altimetry, is taken into account.

August 2, 2009 2:27 am

{ vukcevic (13:51:41) :… could they (planets) also introduce axial precession, which may have enough power to speed up and slow down the meridional flow..}
Leif Svalgaard (15:12:15) : No as the Sun is in free fall and thus does not feel the gravitational force [except for tides]
Thanks for that, just wanted to eliminate another possible cause.
Leif Svalgaard (15:40:50) :
SS make the PFs which make the SSs. Hale discovered SS polarity laws…..and first accurate measurement by me in 1976. Don’t go around and rename things. Hale-cycle is about SSs.
Not for a moment, I would even wish to question your achievements, expertise, authority etc. as one of the top solar scientists, and I consider it a great privilege to be able to discus relevant matters with you. However, if I did agree with everything that is said or written, there is no either benefit, or as you may ascertain, detriment to the discussion.
Most of the solar science refers to a solar dynamo within the solar interior (unless of course there is an outside magnetic drive), its orientation is meridional (pole to pole) for about 90+ percent of the time. This N-S polarity is the one I have in mind when it is referred to solar magnetic field, rather than E-W sunspot polarity, on occasions much stronger, but only if a sunspot is present, only in a small area of the sunspot and its nearby vicinity.
When solar magnetic field reversals are referred to, I assume it is reversals of polarity of the solar dynamo (N-S) rather than the E-W reversal within an individual sunspot at beginning of a new cycle.
In my view, it makes sense that Hale cycle reversal reference is for the solar dynamo reversal. As a general guide PFs appear to be an excellent proxy. Further more PFs, in my view, fully comply with a definition of a periodic oscillation ( pendulum like) between two extremes around the mid point. Additionally, up to date measurements show it might be a ‘damped oscillation’ as well.
http://www.geocities.com/vukcevicu/PolarField1Cr.gif
Although it is a view I find logical. if above said is inconsistent with current understanding, I stand to be corrected.

August 2, 2009 5:10 am

vukcevic (02:27:16) :
Further more PFs, in my view, fully comply with a definition of a periodic oscillation ( pendulum like) between two extremes around the mid point.
It does not, as there is no restoring force, so the similarity with a pendulum [where gravity is the restoring force] is only superficial. Now, often we use words in a loose sense, which is OK as long as we know it and don’t press the similarity too far.

August 2, 2009 9:31 am

David, many thanks for your comments.
My intention, of course, was merely to make the point that there is nothing wrong with trying to model complex phenomena; indeed, such models and the historical record may be all we have to go on in making personal, business and political decisions.
“To paraphrase a line from Star Wars, your sad religion is becoming ancient history. You will need a replacement belief system.”
I`m not sure what I said that makes you think i have any religion, much less a sad one. And though I make a deliberate effort to constantly test my belief system, since I`m human I naturally find that the effort is difficult.
“Time is short,”
For what?
Sincerely,
TT

August 2, 2009 9:39 am

Tenuc (10:31:38) :
Forgot to mention reduced charge density of solar wind at minimum,
The charge density of the solar wind is zero and does not change. The normal [mass] density varies and is smallest at solar maximum.

Stephen Wilde
August 2, 2009 11:34 am

Leif Svalgaard (05:10:29)
Can we be sure that there isn’t a restoring force of some currently unspecified type ?
There is a good deal about space, matter and the ‘material’ of the cosmos that we currently do not know.
If observations point to the possible existence of such a restoring force then we should not ignore the observations.

Stephen Wilde
August 2, 2009 11:47 am

Can we have a little less rancour between David Archibald and Leif Svalgaaard please.
I find David’s work very persuasive in the light of real world events and I appreciate Leif’s intellectual rigour even if I find myself disagreeing with the weight he attaches or does not attach to various phenomena.
In regarding the influence of CO2 as not being a significant climate driver we are all on the same side here and I see a drift towards a real climate (as opposed to a Realclimate) solution as within reach.

Stephen Wilde
August 2, 2009 12:45 pm

Leif Svalgaard (15:46:46)
“If the decrease is 1 or 2 W/m2, the temperature changes will be 0.05K to 0.1K, which is known territory.”
Suppose oceanic variations are normally capable of an amplification of solar changes by multiplying solar changes by 5 times either up or down (it might be more or less than 5 times in the real world but 5 times will do for illustrative purposes).
A stable solar input to the Earth system could result in real world observations varying between 0.5K and – 0.5K depending on the current oceanic behaviour.
Now, if the oceans are in phase or out of phase with solar changes whether up or down and for long periods of time then the amplification factor both up and down gets steadily greater and in such situations could well exceed 5 times up or down.
The oceans can be regarded as a battery with variable rates of charge and discharge that can build up a bigger charge if their own behaviour causes a net build up of energy for longer than ‘normal’. Who knows what the maximium oceanic capacity is for amplification or suppression of the initial solar signal. It could be a lot more or a lot less than 5 times the background solar change depending on internal oceanic behaviour.
It seems to me that it is perfectly feasible that all observed global air temperature changes can be adequately accounted for by solar variation (albeit small) over time being supplemented or countered by oceanic variations periodically amplifying or suppressing those solar variations.
A global air temperature change of about 0.7K over 100 years (which is all we have recorded) would be well within what could be achieved by oceanic changes superimposed on smaller solar changes without any need to speculate about an alternative external forcing.
The late 20th Century was unusual in that solar activity was greater than previously observed going back to 1600.
I take Leif’s point that in absolute terms the solar variation was but a tiny proportion of total solar output.
However, taking Leif’s own parameter of 2W/m2 resulting in a temperature change of 0.1K then taking the oceanic amplification effect into account and also considering that the solar output and warming El Nino events were consistently high for several decades then I fail to see how a global air temperature rise of about 0.7K during the 20th Century can be regarded as in any way unusual or unexpected.

August 2, 2009 12:46 pm

Stephen Wilde (11:34:30) :
If observations point to the possible existence of such a restoring force then we should not ignore the observations.
What observations?
We actually know a very large amount of stuff about the physics that drives all of this. The argument that ‘we don’t know anything’ does hold. I would call this the ‘Al Gore’ argument: “if we don’t know anything, everything is possible”.
A good example of the depth of our knowledge is the Standard Solar Model that was spectacularly confirmed by helioseismology and neutrino measurements. As far as the solar cycle is concerned we think we know the physics, but we are hampered by two things 1: computer power for the simulation [same problem the climate people have] and 2: knowledge about the ‘boundary conditions [what are the actual flows and their properties, etc]. These problems are being slowly chipped away at with better computers and better observations [e.g. SDO due for launch soon].
A real problem is the tendency to adopt simple [and therefore mostly wrong] approaches [a la AGW] with unsound foundations [cyclomania, astrology, extrapolation on sparse data, wiggle matching, statistics on too few degrees of freedom, etc, as y’all have seen amble examples of on the blog, with more to come, I’m sure].
As far as Archibald is concerned there is no rancor. I express my opinion as I see it and call things ‘blather’ if they are. I do have some expertise in this field and I apply it, and do not need to rely on unnamed ‘gentlemen from the lower 48’. This is not an argument of authority as I’m always willing [as far as I can] to explain why I think so.

Highlander
August 2, 2009 1:08 pm

The remarks were:
—————-
X> Leif Svalgaard (12:46:06) :
—————-
Y> Stephen Wilde (11:34:30) :
If observations point to the possible existence of such a restoring force then we should not ignore the observations.
—————-
X> What observations?
—————-
The obvious: The force of the Sun’s own gravitational field. Why ignore it?
You would also declare a steady state solar entity when in fact that has been shown repeatedly as not being the case.
How many solar cycles must you experience before the obvious becomes so?

Stephen Wilde
August 2, 2009 1:40 pm

Leif Svalgaard (12:46:06)
“What observations ?”
We are seeing day by day that the solar cycle varies in ways not understood by yourself, Mr. Hathaway or anyone else.
I appreciate how much we have discovered about the sun but it isn’t working for predictive purposes. Just as the climate models are not working.
Something keeps the behaviour of the sun within certain bounds but as we are seeing those bounds are not yet clear to us.
Personally, I am not inclined to dismiss a possible ‘restoring force’ so readily.

August 2, 2009 2:04 pm

Stephen Wilde (12:45:29) :
Suppose oceanic variations are normally capable of an amplification of solar changes by multiplying solar changes by 5 times either up or down
Then that would be supposition. Where are the data supporting this?
What you are saying in effect is that we could explain all the temperature variation by supposing such and such a factor. That is a circular argument in my book. Maybe, maybe not. Unless we can show that there is such a factor, we can’t know what is going on.
Highlander (13:08:16) :
The obvious: The force of the Sun’s own gravitational field. Why ignore it?
Because it is constant over time.
Stephen Wilde (13:40:55) :
Something keeps the behaviour of the sun within certain bounds but as we are seeing those bounds are not yet clear to us.
The great mass of the Sun ensures that it cannot change much rapidly, so we don’t see much change. As far as solar activity is concerned, we have seen the bottom [no spots] and we have seen a lot [1780s, 1950s], so there doesn’t seem much room for unknown territory there. But, if you spot some, I’m all ears.

Stephen Wilde
August 2, 2009 2:38 pm

“Leif Svalgaard (14:04:07) :
Stephen Wilde (12:45:29) :
Suppose oceanic variations are normally capable of an amplification of solar changes by multiplying solar changes by 5 times either up or down
Leif Svalgaard.
Then that would be supposition. Where are the data supporting this?
What you are saying in effect is that we could explain all the temperature variation by supposing such and such a factor. That is a circular argument in my book. Maybe, maybe not. Unless we can show that there is such a factor, we can’t know what is going on.”
We see that the energy released by the oceans, in particular the Pacific, changes at approximately 30 year intervals. Faster energy release by the oceans clearly supplements or offsets solar variations depending on what the sun is doing at the time. Likewise slower energy release.
The changes in the rate of energy release by the oceans have never been measured so I cannot attribute a value to it but it clearly happens and should not be ignored given the profound and obvious effect on global air temperatures.
There clearly is such a factor. It needs measuring.
“Stephen Wilde (13:40:55) :
Something keeps the behaviour of the sun within certain bounds but as we are seeing those bounds are not yet clear to us.
Leif Svalgaard
The great mass of the Sun ensures that it cannot change much rapidly, so we don’t see much change. As far as solar activity is concerned, we have seen the bottom [no spots] and we have seen a lot [1780s, 1950s], so there doesn’t seem much room for unknown territory there. But, if you spot some, I’m all ears.”
The lengths of time for periods of no spots and periods of many spots and everything in between are unknown territory. It is the length of time at a specific level of solar activity that dictates the quantity of solar shortwave entering the oceans during any particular period. That then supplies the total quantity of energy that the oceans can then play around with.
We have no idea as regards either the changing rate of energy acquisition by the oceans from solar shortwave or the changing rate of energy release to the air. Both vary constantly in a continual interplay which dictates the rate of energy flow from oceans to air. All climate scenarios including the models assume constancy which I submit is clearly wrong.
The air circulation systems then respond with what we see as climate and weather.

Highlander
August 2, 2009 2:40 pm

The comment was:
—————-
Highlander (13:08:16) :
The obvious: The force of the Sun’s own gravitational field. Why ignore it?
—————-
Leif Svalgaard (14:04:07) :
Because it is constant over time.
—————-
Most incorrect!
.
If a tree falls in the wood, and no one witnessed the event, did the tree actually fall?
.
Now, you ~might~ be given to think constancy, but I would caution against that thought inasmuch that ether affects everything we might observe from a distance. All energy of whatever sort requires the ether for transmission.
.
How much do we ~actually know~ about the character of the ether other than to say it exists?
.
If its character changes unbeknownst to us, then how do we affirm what we measured was actually ~what~ we measured?
.
If something is all around you all the time, you tend to ignore it. If it changes character uniformly then everything ~else~ is seen to have changed and NOT the ether simply because IT is not being measured.
.
And before you wax dismissive, allow me just this: Just because you can’t measure something, that doesn’t in the least mean it doesn’t exist.
.
The Sun is physical known. Its character is seen to change over time. No aspect of it is in ~any way~ constant other than the fact that it changes, right along with everything else.

August 2, 2009 2:46 pm

Stephen Wilde (13:40:55) :
Personally, I am not inclined to dismiss a possible ‘restoring force’ so readily.
A typical sunspot cycle has a max of 110. So ‘oscillates’ between 0 and 110. The mean [or equilibrium, because an oscillation is about an equilibrium] would be 55. So, we have an ‘oscillation’ of +/-55 about the ‘equilibrium’ 55. What is the ‘restoring force’ that brings us back to the equilibrium? This is simply not the way solar activity works. What we have is a number of ‘excitations’ that go up from zero, then die away. Not oscillations about the equilibrium value of 55, which would mean that there was a ‘force’ or process that would force the count away from equilibrium, e.g. towards zero, and the a ‘restoring force’ that would take us back to the equilibrium, followed by another force moving us away from equilibrium, to 110, before the ‘restoring force’ kicks in and takes us back to equilibrium. Is this what you have in mind?

Highlander
August 2, 2009 2:48 pm

The comment was:
—————-
Leif Svalgaard (14:04:07) :
[…]
The great mass of the Sun ensures that it cannot change much rapidly, so we don’t see much change.
—————-
Then you’ll please be explaining supernovae?

Highlander
August 2, 2009 3:06 pm

The comment was:
—————-
Stephen Wilde (12:45:29) :
[…]
The oceans can be regarded as a battery with variable rates of charge and discharge that can build up a bigger charge if their own behaviour causes a net build up of energy for longer than ‘normal’. Who knows what the maximium oceanic capacity is for amplification or suppression of the initial solar signal. It could be a lot more or a lot less than 5 times the background solar change depending on internal oceanic behaviour.
—————-
That’s an interesting thought, but it is without any kind of validity.
.
First, water does NOT store energy, neither does any other substance.
.
Second, the effect can NEVER overcome the cause: Water heated by the sun can ~never~ produce a heat value greater than that which caused it to become heated.
.
For the oceans to ‘amplify’ energy, they would have to be possessing of some kind of heretofore unknown ability to ‘generate’ a feedback loop such as to INCREASE the already expended energy from the Sun and absorbed by the water.
.
They do not: They have ~only~ that which they started out with.
.
Ergo, water merely releases energy at the same rate it was able to absorb that energy. That cannot in any way be said to ‘store’ energy.
.
If it ~did~ such, then hot beverages would remain toasty and my ale would remain nice and frosty cold!

August 2, 2009 5:28 pm

Stephen Wilde (14:38:17) :
The changes in the rate of energy release by the oceans have never been measured so I cannot attribute a value to it
If it has never been measured, how do you know how large it is?
The lengths of time for periods of no spots and periods of many spots and everything in between are unknown territory.
We have 400+ years of direct observations and 12,000 years of proxy data that show just variations similar to what we see, so no evidence of anything spectacular.
We have no idea …
If we have no ideas, then we can’t say anything besides what we have observed.
Highlander (14:40:05) :
Just because you can’t measure something, that doesn’t in the least mean it doesn’t exist.
If it has ANY effect it can measured, and if cannot be measured, then it has no effect and can be safely ignored.
The Sun is seen to change over time.
Absolutely, its luminosity changes by 1% in a hundred million years, just wait long enough and you’ll get your changes…
Highlander (14:48:37) :
Then you’ll please be explaining supernovae?
Supernovae cannot happen to stars with a mass less that 1.25 times that of the Sun, so will not happen to us. We know rather precisely why and how supernovae happen, and the Sun does not fall in a category that can give rise to a supernova.

Highlander
August 2, 2009 6:08 pm

The comment was:
—————-
X> Leif Svalgaard (17:28:15) :
—————-
Highlander (14:40:05) :
Just because you can’t measure something, that doesn’t in the least mean it doesn’t exist.
—————-
X> If it has ANY effect it can measured, and if cannot be measured, then it has no effect and can be safely ignored.
—————-
Nonsense!
.
You are aware of catalysts, are you not?
.
Aside from that, if you don’t know how to detect the existence of a thing, then you cannot declare that it doesn’t exist or have some kind of affect.
.
Your thinking proceeds along the lines of the arrogant, as did the many others who preceded you in virtually all fields of science.
—————-
The comment was:
—————-
X> Leif Svalgaard (17:28:15) :
—————-
Highlander (14:48:37) :
Then you’ll please be explaining supernovae?
—————-
X> Supernovae cannot happen to stars with a mass less that 1.25 times that of the Sun, so will not happen to us. We know rather precisely why and how supernovae happen, and the Sun does not fall in a category that can give rise to a supernova.
—————-
And you’ve gone into deep space to fully test that hypothesis, have you?
.
Theory is great on paper …
.

August 2, 2009 7:15 pm

Highlander (18:08:14) :
And you’ve gone into deep space to fully test that hypothesis, have you?
No, not me, but a green-skinned alien with pointed ears landed on my lawn the other day. Over a beer or two he loosened up and told me a few things…

August 2, 2009 8:42 pm

Leif Svalgaard (19:15:11) :
Whilst on the generic topic of green aliens who have observed supernovas, did they comment or explain the “atom addition” theory of atomic buildup towards iron (Fe56) by fusion of smaller nuclei.
The theorectic sequence is clear: He + He fuses, or He + Si fuses , or He + C fuses, or even C + C fuses, and the result is a new atom with a new isotope number. The lighter the atomic weight, the less the ion repulsion between nuclei and so the easier it is to collide with enough force to fuse. The heavier the nuclei, the less likely they are to have been created in the first place and the more the ionic repulsion, and so the less likely they are to react. (Our own sun can go no further than a cool “red” expansion about the size of the orbit of Venus, much too small to throw material out of our solar system. So we will not ever get recycled into higher weight atoms and must content ourselves with a single star’s lifetime of energy.)
Thus it appears more likely that 2 He nuclei will react than two Silicon or a Silicon and a Carbon. A Carbon and an He are more likely to fuse than two Oxygen or two Silicon, because the He is more likely to find a carbon nuclei to hit than two Silicon find each other.
OK, fine. I can follow the green alien’s first part of their explanation just fine.
The basic “numbers” of the lower number atoms are proportional, and many (not all) are in near multiples of 2 protons and an atomic weight of 4. Hydrogen is most numerous, He less so as he Big Bang predicts. The remainder are supposedly built up from these “blocks” by simple fusion in the first generation suns, thrown into space, absorbed by even larger suns which later supernova, which throw third and fourth generation fusion products out which are absorbed by fifth and sixth generation suns that then supernova and repeat the pattern. Cool. Makes sense.
But, my question to the green alien sources is about that supernova explosion process: can a single supernova pressure wave create several generations of fusion products in the same wave, or are we limited to one generation in each supernova?
I would think we could only have one generation per star since the “reaction zone” is expanding radially outward through each star’s photosphere of unburned earlier generation material? If the “pressure wave” had multiple peaks, or the early parts of the pressure wave were strong enough to induce fusion on their own, then the fusion reactions at this early point would “push back” into the star and against the later part of the wave. If so, then would this cause a rebound back through the star, which would diturb the symerty of the supernova, and would disturb the final clooud of dust and plasma away from the supernova.
But the photo’s I’ve seen of recent supernovas (not the first second and third generation though!) are usually, but not always, symmetric. Can we calculate how many generations of fusion were required to create the number of higher weight atoms we know exist now by making extimates of how the supernova pressure wave assembled nuclei?

Richard
August 2, 2009 9:38 pm

tallbloke (00:15:46) :
Richard (15:48:06) :
I would be happy to see some indisputable evidence of the Sun’s influence on our global temperatures, albeit masked to an extent by natural variations like El Nino, Nina etc.
“Here you go:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadsst2gl/from:1979/mean:43/detrend:0.38/plot/pmod/from:1979/offset:-1366.4/scale:0.1
Now that Correlation between Sea Surface temperatures and “composite TSI monthly averages” is truly remarkable! I read somewhere else about this, but never realised that “composite TSI monthly averages” would correlate so well with sea surface temperatures.
From the graph it appears obvious the “composite TSI” goes up and down and the sea surface temperatures follow suit after a lag of a few years. The sun appears to be the overwhelmingly greatest driver of these temperatures.
Now if that happens with Sea Surface temperatures, you can bet your bottom dollar that LAND TEMPERATURES will do exactly the same but with a lesser lag.
When we measure so called “Global temperatures”, we measure the air temperatures over land and the sea water temperatures over the water, then average it out as a “Global temperature”, which is crazy!
What adds to this crazy situation is so-called climate scientists fiddling the data, removing data, and indulging in outright lies and deceit.
The sea’s slosh around, the surface waters move north and south, east and west and mix slowly with deeper waters. The air in the meantime moves much more rapidly, heating and cooling with the waters and the land and we try and measure those temperatures and call it a “Global Temperature”!
It seems to me that the term “Global Temperature” need rationalising and defining in a more scientific fashion.

August 2, 2009 10:10 pm

RACookPE1978 (20:42:10) :
Whilst on the generic topic of green aliens who have observed supernovas, did they comment or explain the “atom addition” theory of atomic buildup towards iron (Fe56) by fusion of smaller nuclei.
The alien told me that H burns to He, then the He burns to C, then adding He to C gives you O, then up in steps of 4 atomic units to Ne, Mg, Si, S, and finally Fe. All these reactions take place in shells around each other, going faster and faster. Once Fe is reached no more energy can be produced by fusion and the star implodes in a matter of a fraction of second. The infalling matter rebounds and the star explodes as a supernova. There is only one implosion and ‘pressure wave’. We have a reasonably good handle how all of this proceeds. There are other ways of producing a supernova, so there are different ‘types’ of them. The whole process of generation of elements was understood and described by Hoyle, Fowler, and the Burbridges [husband/wife team] in the 1950s. I’m not quite sure what your underlying question was.

Richard
August 2, 2009 10:33 pm

Developing further on that thought, the satellite temperatures which at least measure some approximation of the global air temperatures are a far more meaningful indication of “Global Temperature” rather than a mix of air and sea water temperatures, which are fairly meaningless and indeed misleading.
And further analysing the above graph the PMOD composite TSI monthly averages doesnt tell the whole story. For example the SST’s around 1987 ~ 1992 should have been much higher than they were and those between 1997 ~ 2005 should have been less than if the “PMOD composite TSI monthly averages” were the accurate description of the solar influence.
I have always thought that solar wind, directed directly at the Earth would have a major influence on our atmospheric temperatures. For example sunspots are a good proxy for solar flares. But only those solar flares that directly hit the Earth would influence our weather. I wonder if there is good data for the solar wind hitting the Earth and how the variation of this correlates with our temperatures.
Also I observe that, for what its worth, the “PMOD composite TSI monthly averages” minima are getting progressively lower for the last 3 cycles. Based on this I would guess that we are in for a cooler period over the next few years.

August 2, 2009 10:57 pm

Richard (22:33:36) :
Also I observe that, for what its worth, the “PMOD composite TSI monthly averages” minima are getting progressively lower for the last 3 cycles.
As we have discussed repeatedly here, the PMOD composite has calibration problems and TSI is most likely not lower now than at previous minima.

Richard
August 2, 2009 11:36 pm

Leif Svalgaard (22:57:12) :
“As we have discussed repeatedly here, the PMOD composite has calibration problems and TSI is most likely not lower now than at previous minima.”
Ok PMOD has calibration problems but is the statement that ” TSI is most likely not lower now than at previous minima” based on any other data or evidence?
What we do know is the Sunspot cycle is at its lowest minima for a long time. Based purely on this the PMOD data at least for this latest cycle seems reasonable.
Do we know the type, extent or magnitude of PMOD calibration errors? Are they systematic? Can they be corrected?

August 2, 2009 11:50 pm

Richard (23:36:38) :
Ok PMOD has calibration problems but is the statement that ” TSI is most likely not lower now than at previous minima” based on any other data or evidence?
The best TSI data we have right now is SORCE http://lasp.colorado.edu/sorce/data/tsi_data.htm
PMOD has been drifting lower with respect to SORCE which is the basis for making the statement I made.
Do we know the type, extent or magnitude of PMOD calibration errors? Are they systematic? Can they be corrected?
Yes, yes, and yes. But experimenters are not happy to do this and it make take a long time to fix [if ever].

August 2, 2009 11:52 pm

I wonder if Leif could tell me something about the link between geomagnetism, the global electrical circuit, and the solar magnetic flux.
Leif mentioned that the geomagnetic flux can be measured with a compass needle and it correlates so well to changes in the solar magnetic flux that the records going back into the 1800’s can be used to re-estimate sunspot activity. Therefore, there is a close link between the solar magnetic flux, sunspot numbers, the geomagnetic flux, changes in the earth’s length of day.
Leif said that the magnetic effect causes strong electrical currents 60 miles overhead or is it the other way round? Or is it a cybernetic control feedback loop in operation where cause and effect are not really the issue?
Is it the case that the sun’s changing magnetic flux interacts with the earth’s magnetic flux which induces strong electric currents above the earth, which then feed back to produce a torque acting against or accelerating the earth’s rotation, thus producing the small observed changes in earth’s length of day?
The earth’s magnetic field is produced by the flow of currents containing magnetically active elements under the earth’s crust. Dr Richard Gross of NASA, who has worked on the changes in length of day, says they are mainly produced by the changing of these flows of molten material.
Is it possible that the changing solar magnetic flux lies behind these changes under the earths crust through the chain of linked phenomena outlined above?
Thanks

August 3, 2009 12:33 am

Richard (22:33:36) :
And further analysing the above graph the PMOD composite TSI monthly averages doesnt tell the whole story. For example the SST’s around 1987 ~ 1992 should have been much higher than they were and those between 1997 ~ 2005 should have been less than if the “PMOD composite TSI monthly averages” were the accurate description of the solar influence.

There was a whacking great el nino in ’98. This is the ocean losing heat accumulated during the run of high amplitude-short minimum cycles in the latter half of the C20th. This is part of the ocean amplification process alluded to by Stephen Wilde above.
The oceans must have stored a lot of extra heat to have expanded and produced the sea level rise measured by satellite altimetry. My calculations, verified by Leif Svalgaard some weeks ago, imply a ‘forcing’ of some 4W/m^2 during the period 1993-2003. This implies the sun was significantly more active than late last century when sea surface temperatures fell from 1870-1900, though other terrestrial amplifying effects suc as the reduced cloud cover 1980-1998 must have played a large part too.
This is why I believe that the changes in TSI, though small, can have a large enough effect, when coupled with the changing heat storage/release modes of the oceans and changing cloud cover driven by and feeding back to sea surface temperatures, can explain most of the changes in earth’s temperature over the last century.
I think there is an additional component, linked to heat coming from the earth’s interior through the thin crust of the sea bed, which changes in accordance with the overturning of radioactive elements in the earth’s core. Hence my question to Leif above. Although changes in the amount of heat coming through the crust on land are very small, the sea bed is thinner, and very active in places, as the catastrophic Tsunami around indonesia a few years ago shows. Coincidentally(?!), this is also the area where the Pacific warm pool spreads it’s heat from, which produces major el nino’s like ’98.
My investigations, if they turn out to have any merit, imply that heat from this source may account for up to 30% of temperature change on the earth after the sun has been magnetically more active. Due to the large inertia’s involved, I think there is a lag of around 30 years on big swings in the sun’s magnetic activity, and changes in the overturning of radioactive elements and the subsequent crustal heat transfer.
If I’m right about changes in the earth’s length of day correlating to changes in the currents of the molten mixture of magnetically active and radioactive elements in the earth’s interior, this might explain why I’m able to reproduce the earth’s temperature history using a combination of a curve produced by a count of sunspots above and below what I estimate to be the the ocean equilibrium level, and the curve produced by changes in length of day.
http://s630.photobucket.com/albums/uu21/stroller-2009/?action=view&current=temp-hist-80.gif
The mismatch around the war years is due to the incorrect calibration of cooling water intake temperature sensors used in military vessels. This is a well known problem which my graph and it’s underlying principles, if it is seen to have any merit, may help to resolve.

August 3, 2009 1:50 am

Perhaps this paper provides some validation for my ideas. I’d be grateful if Leif or anyone else would take a look and let me have some thoughts.
http://www.gsaaj.org/articles/TempPaperv1n22007.pdf
The best-fit equation based on the
highest coefficient of determination (R2) occurred when temperature anomalies were
advanced (lagged) seven years ahead of magnetic anomalies (Cross-Correlation, Fig1).
Results show that 1958-2000 magnetic anomalies explained 79.2-percent (R2 = 0.792
with p < 0.01) of the 1965-2006 Global Historical Climatology Network (GHCN) (5)
temperature-anomaly variability (Series1, Fig 1).
As model verification, 1958-1993 magnetic anomalies were regressed against
1965-2000 temperature anomalies; while explaining only 68.5-percent (R2 = 0.685 with p
< 0.01) of temperature-anomaly variability. The resulting regression-equation coefficients
were used to model 1958-2000 and predict 2001-2006 temperature anomalies (Series2,
Fig 1). All computed temperature anomalies fell within the 95-percent confidence
interval of Series1 values, thus further validating the model.

August 3, 2009 5:20 am

Leif Svalgaard (23:50:02) :
The best TSI data we have right now is SORCE http://lasp.colorado.edu/sorce/data/tsi_data.htm
PMOD has been drifting lower with respect to SORCE which is the basis for making the statement I made.

They both seem to have dropped about 0.8W/m^2 since mid 2003. Unless it’s SORCE data being used on woodfortrees PMOD graph?
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/pmod/from:1998/mean:1
http://lasp.colorado.edu/sorce/total_solar_irradiance_plots/images/tim_level3_tsi_24hour_640x480.png

August 3, 2009 7:19 am

tallbloke (23:52:33) :
Therefore, there is a close link between the solar magnetic flux, sunspot numbers, the geomagnetic flux, changes in the earth’s length of day.
There is really no such chain. Both the solar magnetic field and the Earth’s magnetic field are generated by a dynamo process due to conducting material moving around in the interior. These movements are not related to each other and don’t influence each other.
If you watch a compass needle closely, you’ll find that its direction is completely constant, it varies slightly over time. There are basically three variations:
1) a slow change over decades. This is due to the internal field of the Earth itself changing slowly, and will not be discussed further for now.
2) a regular change every day. The needle moves a fraction of a degree [typically 1/6] towards the East [in the Northern Hemisphere] in the morning, then back and continuing the same amount to the West in the afternoon. This was discovered by Graham in 1722.
3) at irregular intervals, larger seemingly random variations occur, often accompanied by aurorae, as discovered by Celsius around 1740.
The causes of 2) and 3) are quite different. The Sun’s magnetic field gets compacted into sunspots and is there [and around and just above] twisted and contorted by the roiling solar atmosphere] giving rise to heating and emission of ultraviolet light, which after a journey of 8 minutes to the Earth splits apart the molecules of th air and generates the conducting ionosphere. Heating of the conducting air by the daylight Sun causes winds that move the conducting air across the field lines of the Earth’s magnetic field.
This movement drives a dynamo that generates an electrical current on the day side flowing about 100 km overhead. Since the current is driven by a) the conductivity produced by sunlight and b) the thermal winds produced by solar heating, the current is confined to the day side and stays fixed with respect to the Sun.
Since the Earth upon which our compass needle is placed is rotating under this electric current, from the view point of the observer, the current will rise [with the Sun] in the morning and set in the evening. An electric current has an associated magnetic field [strength of about 1/1000 of the Earth’s field, so not very large] which deflects the compass needle as observed. So, many sunspots => more UV => more ions => stronger current => larger deflection.
This chain is what allows us to deduce the sunspot count from the compass needle movements, but the current and its magnetic field is small compared to the Earth’s field that there are no further measurable effects. A small complication is that this diurnal change of the magnetic field in turn induces an electric current in the upper crust and the oceans, both of which are slightly conducting]. The magnetic field from this current modifies the force on the a compass needle a bit, and generates a very, very small [unmeasurable] amount of heating on its own.
Keeping a sunspot neatly compacted against the random buffeting from the roiling solar atmosphere is hard and the spot eventually [after some days or – rarely – weeks] frays apart and its magnetic field disperses back into the surrounding from whence it came, forming large areas of [weaker] magnetic field. The field lines reach great heights [as high as they are broad] in the solar atmosphere [the corona] and are still being twisted and knocked about so help generate the local heating of the atmosphere eventually making it so hot that solar gravity is unable to retain the gas. The corona simply gets so hot that it evaporates into space, dragging the magnetic field with it, creating the magnetized solar wind.
In this way the magnetic field of the Sun eventually is transported to and past the Earth [and through the entire solar system]. The conducting solar wind plasma hits the Earth’s magnetic field and as always when a conductor is moved in a magnetic field an electric current is generated. This current [and its magnetic field] confines the Earth’s magnetic field to a small region [otherwise it would extend to infinity] near the Earth called the Magnetosphere. At the boundary between the two fields [Sun’s and Earth’s], they can connect where [and when] their directions are suitable for that [point in opposite directions]. Since the solar end of the connected field lines are being dragged further out by the outflowing solar wind and the Earth-end is fixed in the Earth, the magnetic field is dragged out into a long ‘tail’ downwind behind the Earth.
Stretching a magnetic field like that requires energy [taken from the kinetic energy of the solar wind] which goes into [‘stored’ if you like] the magnetic field. In the tail, field lines from the terrestrial Northern polar cap [directed towards the Earth] occupy the Northern half of the tail, while field lines from the Southern polar cap [directed away from the Earth] occupy the Southern half of the tail. As always, when you have oppositely directed fields and a plasma around a current sheet develops separating the two tail ‘lobes’.
This whole stretched and stressed configuration is unstable and from time to time relaxes [releasing explosively the stored energy] and tries to return to it original configuration. As always, when a magnetic configuration changes, electric fields and currents are generated, which in turn accelerate any charged particles, some towards the Earth where they crash into the ionosphere and/or get trapped in the Van Allen Belts. Those currents, in turn, generate irregular and impulsive magnetic fields which make the compass needle wiggle with some vigor [the third kind of changes we observe in the direction of the needle]. So, here the chain is sunspots => magnetic areas [coronal holes] => magnetized solar wind => compressed terrestrial magnetosphere => stressed magnetic tail => reconnection and release => currents into ionosphere => aurorae => magnetic disturbance of the needle. And as before, we can invert the chain by calculation and derive the solar wind conditions and the solar magnetic field from the movements of the needle.
The energy input to the Earth’s atmosphere [and the solid Earth] from all that is, however, minuscule [one in 100,000] compared to the enormous energy input from ordinary sunlight. This, of course, does not prevent [some, often very determined, but misguided] people from claiming that the tiny tail wags this very large dog.

August 3, 2009 7:30 am

tallbloke (05:20:41) :
They both seem to have dropped about 0.8W/m^2 since mid 2003. Unless it’s SORCE data being used on woodfortrees PMOD graph?
You’ll make it a lot easier on yourself to just take my word for it 🙂
Here (click) is the difference between PMOD and SORCE for 2003-2008 (before Froehlich prompted by me began to tinker with the calibration). As you can see there is a drift of an additional 0.1 W/m2. Here http://www.leif.org/research/Diff-PMOD-SORCE.png is what the difference looked like in March [after some PMOD adjustments] and here is the latest http://www.leif.org/research/PMOD-SORCE-2008-2009.png
As you can see, PMOD is in flux [no pun intended] and Froehlich does not have the calibration well in hand, so drawing any sweeping conclusions is silly at this point. [Not that people still won’t do this, so go ahead].

August 3, 2009 7:32 am

Leif Svalgaard (07:19:41) :
Correction:
If you watch a compass needle closely, you’ll find that its direction is NOT completely constant, …

August 3, 2009 7:36 am

tallbloke (05:20:41) :
1/08/2009 Leif Svalgaard (16:58:49) :
A year ago, I pointed out to Claus Froehlich that the difference between PMOD and SORCE was decreasing by 0.2 W/m2/decade.
Go back and check that comment for details.

August 3, 2009 7:48 am

Thanks for the extensive reply Leif. I think the miniscule input might have a large gain associated with it through the changing motion of the sub-crust currents of molten material, but we can leave that for now. I need to look at Brian Tinsley’s paper on the global electrical circuit again. I wonder how the thousands of miles wandering of the magnetic poles of the earth fit in, as they surely must. And of course the semi periodic reversals of the earth’s magnetic polarity. And the curious wiggle match I found between variations in length of day and the motion of the sun with respect tot he centre of mass of the solar system which seems to fit with the changes in the magnetic field as well.
Hmmm. It’s a good puzzle. I love enigmas.

August 3, 2009 7:58 am

tallbloke (07:48:25) :
I need to look at Brian Tinsley’s paper on the global electrical circuit again.
The global electrical circuit has little if anything to do with the Sun, it is generated and maintained by thunderstorms in the troposphere.

August 3, 2009 8:00 am

tallbloke (07:48:25) :
I wonder how the thousands of miles wandering of the magnetic poles of the earth fit in, as they surely must.
why must they?

August 3, 2009 11:14 am

tallbloke (07:48:25) :
I wonder how the thousands of miles wandering of the magnetic poles of the earth fit in, as they surely must.
Leif Svalgaard (08:00:35) :
why must they?
I did some investigations into possible connection between the North Atlantic temperature anomaly and the movements of Magnetic North Pole, and found some interesting results. Recently I updated some of information, preliminary results of my efforts now can be seen here:
http://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/docs/00/40/88/74/PDF/NATA.pdf

August 3, 2009 12:04 pm
Richard
August 3, 2009 12:35 pm

Leif Svalgaard (23:50:02) :
“The best TSI data we have right now is SORCE http://lasp.colorado.edu/sorce/data/tsi_data.htm
PMOD has been drifting lower with respect to SORCE which is the basis for making the statement I made.”
PMOD may have been drifting lower with respect to SORCE, but SORCE data you have pointed me to has itself has been going lower since 2002. Couple this with Satellite temperatures trending down since 2002 and you have an interesting coincidence.
Tall Bloke and Leif I will read your posts again in detail later.

August 3, 2009 1:10 pm

Vukevic,
fascinating. A very worthwhile study, and a good demonstration of why it is unwise to regard the earth as a homogenous black body. It will take me a while to digest the info and think about the movement of sub-crust magnetically active material in relation to the movement of the magnetic poles.
Is there a good proxy for the strength of the earth’s magnetic field covering the period?

August 3, 2009 1:26 pm

Leif Svalgaard (07:30:23) :
tallbloke (05:20:41) :
They both seem to have dropped about 0.8W/m^2 since mid 2003. Unless it’s SORCE data being used on woodfortrees PMOD graph?
You’ll make it a lot easier on yourself to just take my word for it 🙂

Forgive me Leif. With all the data shenanigens going on I try to double check everything. 🙂
It’s hard for outsiders to know what’s happening, but your endless patience with us and your willingness to provide pointers helps tremendously.
I know you don’t have any truck with it, but I think the answers are in the data, if understood in relation to harmonics and resonance being the agents of amplification through loop feedback. The problem is, small data errors and error ranges get amplified too. Thus it becomes possible to hypothesise almost anything, and sorting the wheat from the chaff becomes problematic. That doesn’t mean that’s not where the truth is hiding though. It just makes the task of teasing it out of the haystack harder.

August 3, 2009 1:34 pm

Vuk, your first links seems to work better than the second.

August 3, 2009 9:52 pm

tallbloke (13:10:08) :
Is there a good proxy for the strength of the earth’s magnetic field covering the period?
There are good measurements the past several hundred years. Once complication is that every single point on the surface of the Earth has its own field strength, so which one do you want? The usual way of dealing with this problem was devised by C. F. Gauss in the 1830s and consists of calculating the [many] coefficients of what is called a Spherical Harmonic Expansion. This is a big subject, but try to google GUFM1

Richard
August 3, 2009 10:10 pm

tallbloke (00:33:58) :
“.. I believe that the changes in TSI, though small, can have a large enough effect, when coupled with the changing heat storage/release modes of the oceans and changing cloud cover driven by and feeding back to sea surface temperatures, can explain most of the changes in earth’s temperature over the last century.”
I also believe that changes in TSI, even though small, must have a large effect on our climate simply because there is no other explanation for the large temperature increases that end glaciations. This must be coupled with its effect on cloudiness and also the presence or absense of interstellar and solar system dust that Earth periodically passes through.
I think the earth’s interior heat is a factor but I would be surprised if it accounted for any sustained heating over several decades. This is because its effect, on the average, would already have been accounted for in the Earth’s radiative balance.
However any major underground explosions, like Mt Pinatubo overland, would definitely have an effect on ocean temperatures and thus a delayed effect on atmospheric temperatures.
The earth’s length of day combined with the sunspot number maybe correlating with temperatures in ways unconnected with any relationship it may or may not have with the warmth released from the interior.
Leif Svalgaard (07:19:41) :
“The energy input to the Earth’s atmosphere [and the solid Earth] from all that” (more UV, magnetized solar wind) “is, however, minuscule [one in 100,000] compared to the enormous energy input from ordinary sunlight. This, of course, does not prevent [some, often very determined, but misguided] people from claiming that the tiny tail wags this very large dog.”
If the very large dog is the Sun then certainly this tiny tail is not its defining warmth. But we are not talking about a very large dog but really a very small flea – The Earth’s atmosphere and surface land and water – compared to the very large dog – the Sun. We are already blessed with the the warmth of this very large dog, which is a warm blooded creature with fairly constant temperature. This temperature fluctuates to very small degrees but affects the very small flea in a much larger way.
It also occasionally flicks its very small tail, or not, and its occasional flicks sometimes hit us and sometimes dont. When it flicks this tail often we catch more of its whiplashes then when it flicks only occasionally. These several whiplashes combined with its “eternal” warmth could possibly sometimes give us a slight temperature or chill. Minuscule again compared to the constancy of the very large dog.
I would like to see the a combination of TSI and solar wind data and see how well that relates to SST’s and Satellite air temperatures.

August 3, 2009 10:15 pm

tallbloke (13:10:08) :
Is there a good proxy for the strength of the earth’s magnetic field covering the period?
Here is a nice movie showing 400 years of data:
http://www.epm.geophys.ethz.ch/~cfinlay/gufm1/BfS.gif

August 3, 2009 11:00 pm

Richard (22:10:25) :
I also believe that changes in TSI, even though small, must have a large effect on our climate simply because there is no other explanation for the large temperature increases that end glaciations.
The TSI is not involved in ending glaciations. You are conflating solar irradiance and solar insolation. Consider Earth and Mars at a given point in time. Solar irradiance [the energy the Sun gives out] is the same because at any given time there is precisely one number that gives the total energy. But solar insolation [the energy the planet receives] depends on the orbit of the planet: Mars is further away from the Sun than the Earth is, so receives only about half the energy per square meter. It is therefore colder on Mars than on Earth, even though they both see the same Sun putting out the same energy.
If the very large dog is the Sun then certainly this tiny tail is not its defining warmth.
The very large dog is the Energy pouring into the Earth system as ordinary sunlight. The very small tail is whatever else the Earth receives.
I would like to see the a combination of TSI and solar wind data and see how well that relates to SST’s and Satellite air temperatures.
People have done that numerous times, and there is not much to see. The solar wind has no significant effect and the variation of TSI is so small that the effect is less than a tenth of a degree and therefore hard to see in the naturally noisy temperature record.

August 3, 2009 11:37 pm

Fascinating ani-gif Leif. What are the units? I hope Vukevic checks it out and tells us how it plugs together with his ocean current hypothesis. Very interesting to see the shifting of the field sweeping up across Britain in the late 1600’s/ early 1700’s. That coincides with hitherto unexplained rapid rise in temp. Also the shift of the field from Africa to South America coinciding wih Andean melt, Patagonian ozone loss and a greening Sahara. Also, a warming Antarctic peninsula and a possible confirmation of Vukevic’ idea about the southern ocean circulation moving closer to the continent and allowing warmer indian ocean water further south.
Nice article here on some experimental physics which confirms a theory about potassium in the earth’s core supplying lots of heat and keeping the geomagnetic field going.
http://www.innovations-report.com/html/reports/earth_sciences/report-24205.html

August 3, 2009 11:57 pm

Richard (22:10:25) :
I think the earth’s interior heat is a factor but I would be surprised if it accounted for any sustained heating over several decades. This is because its effect, on the average, would already have been accounted for in the Earth’s radiative balance.

Not sure I understand what you mean. In a centrifuge, heavier material get’s flung further outwards as it speeds up.
http://www.pac.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/sci/sa-mfpd/downloads/indices/LOD.jpg
The earth spun faster from 1910-1930 and 1970-now. Perhaps this action forces mobile radioactive elements closer together nearer the surface, producing more heat and it’s more rapid transfer through the crust. Due to the conservation of angular momentum, more mass further out will slow rotation down again, hence the oscillation. If this is in a nice balance, quite small input from the changes in solar wind speed acting on geomagnetism might produce quite large effects. Hence my comment to Leif about small input being a controlling influence in a high gain feedback system.
All very speculative until the calcs are done, but may be worth investigating.

Atomic Hairdryer
August 4, 2009 12:49 am

Thanks Dr Svalgaard, tallbloke et al for a fascinating and informative debate. The implications of a declining magnetosphere interest me professionally working in transmission design, and also in light of Dr Svensmark’s research. The science around climate appears anything but settled, which is good because I can keep learning stuff.

August 4, 2009 2:47 am

Leif Svalgaard (23:00:22) :
the variation of TSI is so small that the effect is less than a tenth of a degree and therefore hard to see in the naturally noisy temperature record.

Disputable, but a least you are using an expression with a wider set of error bars on it now. 😉
The graph I showed Richard has a ~0.15C variation in SST between solar max and min.
This equates to about 0.3C in air temperature and doesn’t account for the tendency for solar heat stored in the oceans coming out at solar min, and the slow solar wind and cold winters at solar max which further masks the true energy difference.
The overall difference is therefore larger still, and this shows that the relatively small overall increase in TSI over the C20th can account for much more of the temp rise than is supposed and wrongly promulgated by you, among others, e.g. Gavin Schmidt and Tamino.
In short, if you won’t take proper account of terrestrial climatic factors, you shouldn’t convert your TSI to Celcius because it is misleading and incorrect.

Richard
August 4, 2009 2:49 am

Leif Svalgaard (23:00:22) :
Richard (22:10:25) :
I also believe that changes in TSI, even though small, must have a large effect on our climate simply because there is no other explanation for the large temperature increases that end glaciations.
“The TSI is not involved in ending glaciations. You are conflating solar irradiance and solar insolation.”
Is it not true that solar insolation changes, due to changes the Earth’s orbit, are also very small? And that the energy changes that the Earth receives due to this are comparable to the cyclical or other observed changes in Solar irradiance?
If this be so then my statement holds true. Small changes in the Suns “received energy”, (whether due to changes in orbit or irradiance), account for comparatively large changes in the Earth’s temperatures.

Richard
August 4, 2009 3:44 am

Leif before you contradict me let me explain what I mean:
“It has been observed that ice ages deepen by progressive steps, but the recovery to interglacial conditions occurs in one big step.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orbital_forcing
Explain to me what huge change of insolation takes place in that short period, due to any change in the Earth’s orbit, to pull the Earth out of a glaciation and cause those huge increases of temperatures?

Geoff Sharp
August 4, 2009 4:06 am

Richard (02:49:58) :
Is it not true that solar insolation changes, due to changes the Earth’s orbit, are also very small? And that the energy changes that the Earth receives due to this are comparable to the cyclical or other observed changes in Solar irradiance?
The Earth’s orbit is always changing due to perturbations mainly from the big 4. Our orbit is close to round at present but will slowly elongate to a more elliptical orbit in about 90000 years. When this happens the aphelion point (furthest distance from Sun) the Earth will receive about 30% less TSI than we currently experience.
This is the insolation factor Leif is talking about.

August 4, 2009 4:26 am

Geoff,
interesting, but because the earth’s mass won’t change, I assume we’ll get more tsi at the mid points between aphelion and perihelion than with a rounder orbit. So what would the difference in TSI be overall?

August 4, 2009 4:41 am

Richard (03:44:16) :
Explain to me what huge change of insolation takes place in that short period, due to any change in the Earth’s orbit, to pull the Earth out of a glaciation and cause those huge increases of temperatures?

Not my area of study, but following from what Geoff said and thinking on my feet, how about the gradually increasing insolation after the greatest orbital elongation doesn’t make much difference until the icecaps actually melt enough to expose the ground and open sea. At that point, albedo rapidly diminishes, heat rapidly enters the high latitude summer oceans, and the air temp shoots up.

August 4, 2009 4:44 am

Don’t forget the ice core studies are done near the poles. It might be a different story about the speed we come out of ice age at in the tropics. What do the tropical ice cores say?

August 4, 2009 7:34 am

tallbloke (23:37:26) :
Fascinating ani-gif Leif. What are the units?
They are ‘goobs’ 🙂 Why does that matter to you? Actually nanoTesla, where one tesla is the magnetic induction that generates a potential of one volt in a conductor of length one meter when moving at a rate of one meter per second, but I fail to see how that can be of any importance…
Nice article here on some experimental physics which confirms a theory about potassium in the earth’s core
The geomagnetic field would decay if there was not a continuous energy supply of 10^13 Watt [or 1/100,000 of what hits the surface from the Sun] available to maintain it. This energy comes from the core slowly cooling, whereby the heavier iron freezes
out and sinks to become the inner solid core. Sinking in a gravitational field releases energy [drop a brick on your foot if you doubt this] and that is what keeps the field going.
tallbloke (23:57:05) :
The earth spun faster from 1910-1930 and 1970-now. Perhaps this action forces mobile radioactive elements closer together nearer the surface…
The LOD is mostly controlled by the climate [not the other way around] that changes the moment of inertia of the atmosphere and the oceans at they heat and cool. A sealevel rise will thus slow down the Earth [like a spinning ice skater stretching her arms out]
tallbloke (02:47:50) :
the variation of TSI is so small that the effect is less than a tenth of a degree and therefore hard to see in the naturally noisy temperature record.”
Disputable, but a least you are using an expression with a wider set of error bars on it now. 😉

not that I know of. S-B’s law that not changed. It also holds for gray bodies and the Earth and for the Sun. It is wrong to think that the body has to be black.
The graph I showed Richard has a ~0.15C variation in SST between solar max and min.
For a limited time and you don’t know how much of that is due to the Sun.
This equates to about 0.3C in air temperature
Except that such a change is not seen in air temps.
the relatively small overall increase in TSI over the C20th
Except that there has not been any small overall increase in TSI over the 20th century. TSI now is where it was 108 years ago.
Richard (02:49:58) :
Is it not true that solar insolation changes, due to changes the Earth’s orbit, are also very small? And that the energy changes that the Earth receives due to this are comparable to the cyclical or other observed changes in Solar irradiance?
No, the changes in insolation are huge. As an example, the change from January to July is a hundred times larger than that from solar max to solar min.

August 4, 2009 7:50 am

tallbloke (02:47:50) :
Disputable, but a least you are using an expression with a wider set of error bars on it now. 😉
Me: “It also holds for gray bodies and the Earth and for the Sun. It is wrong to think that the body has to be black.”

The increase of temperature of a black lump of coal and a white snowball to a change of radiation falling on them is the same for both [if you put them out in space like the Earth is].

Richard
August 4, 2009 12:33 pm

Leif Svalgaard (07:34:32) :
Richard (02:49:58) :
Is it not true that solar insolation changes, due to changes the Earth’s orbit, are also very small? And that the energy changes that the Earth receives due to this are comparable to the cyclical or other observed changes in Solar irradiance?
“No, the changes in insolation are huge. As an example, the change from January to July is a hundred times larger than that from solar max to solar min.”
Yes and the percentage change in insolation from day to night is infinite. But the change insolation from Jan 2008 to Jan 2009, due to any change in the Earth’s orbit is not very great? That is the change we are talking about. Like with like.
What is the percentage change in insolation every 100,000 years, due to the change in the Earth’s orbit? From what I have read not very much. But every 100,000 years for the past 700,000 years the Earth has been pulled into and yanked out of ice-ages.
You also said that the ice-ages were “nothing to do with the sun”. A change in the radiative input from the sun due to a change in its orbit does have something to do with the sun.
Geoff Sharp (04:06:18) :
Our orbit is close to round at present but will slowly elongate to a more elliptical orbit in about 90000 years. When this happens the aphelion point (furthest distance from Sun) the Earth will receive about 30% less TSI than we currently experience.
That is not what I have read. The change in insolation due to variation of the ellipse is ~0.2% around the mean and in the 100,000 year cycle it is negligible.
Change in seasonal insolation due to tilt and precession varies by ~10% about a mean value. But that is at 41,000 year cycles at high and mid latitudes.
Leif Svalgaard (07:50:00) :
The increase of temperature of a black lump of coal and a white snowball to a change of radiation falling on them is the same for both [if you put them out in space like the Earth is].
That doesnt sound right, But I will give it a think after work.

August 4, 2009 12:53 pm

Richard (12:33:06) :
But the change insolation from Jan 2008 to Jan 2009, due to any change in the Earth’s orbit is not very great? That is the change we are talking about. Like with like.
No, that is not important [as it is indeed small]. What is important is the change from January to July which is 90 W/m2 or about hundred times larger than the solar cycle change. Now, why is that important? It is because the date when we are closest to the Sun varies, which means that in Northern winter we get more heat from the Sun now than if we were closest to the Sun in July, in which case the Northern winters would be much more severe. That is what makes the glaciations [and also that the tilt of the axis changes making seasonal changes larger].

August 4, 2009 1:11 pm

Leif Svalgaard (07:50:00) :
The increase of temperature of a black lump of coal and a white snowball to a change of radiation falling on them is the same for both [if you put them out in space like the Earth is].

It doesn’t matter if it’s a lump of coal, a snowball or a red herring. None of them resemble the earth and it’s myriad ways of storing and shifting heat around within it’s system.
As for the LOD question, some say it’s primarily the momentum exchange between atmosphere and crust, others (including Dr Richard Gross of NASA say it’s currents under the earths crust. There are many uncertainties, and this is another it would seem.
I wish you would stop being categorical about uncertain issues, you’re too positivistic to make a good sceptic. 😉

August 4, 2009 2:07 pm

tallbloke (13:11:28) :
It doesn’t matter if it’s a lump of coal, a snowball or a red herring. None of them resemble the earth and it’s myriad ways of storing and shifting heat around within it’s system.
And all of that is internal to the system and has no bearing on the radiation budget: what goes in. must come out over time.
As for the LOD question, some say it’s primarily the momentum exchange between atmosphere and crust, others (including Dr Richard Gross of NASA say it’s currents under the earths crust. There are many uncertainties, and this is another it would seem.
If you would only read the literature you would find that the LOD has many components. Currents [not electrical, but material flows] have effect no matter where they occur. And the internal crustal ones move VERY slowly and erratically.
I wish you would stop being categorical about uncertain issues, you’re too positivistic to make a good sceptic. 😉
You seem to subscribe to the AL Gore maxim that if one does know anything, everything is possible. I go with what we know, and anything we propose has to be consistent with what we know.

August 4, 2009 2:20 pm

tallbloke (13:11:28) :
You seem to subscribe to the AL Gore maxim that if one does not know anything, everything is possible. I go with what we know, and anything we propose has to be consistent with what we know.

Stephen Wilde
August 4, 2009 2:20 pm

tallbloke (13:11:28)
Much as I respect Leif and admire his style and encyclopaedic knowledge about solar matters I do think you have pinned down what it is about his contributions that I find somewhat frustrating.
However, I would say he is too negativistic rather than positivistic about alternative possibilities where there is clearly a current lack of adequate scientific knowledge.
In situations where the known science really is not sufficient the only way forward is by way of leaps of imagination which can then be tested against new observations.
Mind you I do often find Leif very helpful in sorting wheat from chaff by identifying clear flaws in imaginative leaps, especially in matters of relative scales of various phenomena.
Sorry Leif, not intended as a personal barb, merely a point of view.

Stephen Wilde
August 4, 2009 2:23 pm

Leif Svalgaard (14:20:12)
“I go with what we know, and anything we propose has to be consistent with what we know.”
On the face of it that must be right but with respect I think you are unrealistically confident about that which we think we know.

August 4, 2009 2:48 pm

Stephen Wilde (14:23:54) :
“I go with what we know, and anything we propose has to be consistent with what we know.”
On the face of it that must be right but with respect I think you are unrealistically confident about that which we think we know.

Then, I’ll clarify, I think I know rather well what we [that is ‘me’ in this context] don’t know and therefore cannot use as basis for sweeping statements.

August 4, 2009 3:19 pm

Leif Svalgaard (14:07:42) :
And all of that is internal to the system and has no bearing on the radiation budget: what goes in. must come out over time.

‘over time’ being the important qualifier in this statement. And when, as it often is, the time period is half a solar cycle it can mask the true energy difference between solar max and min.
If you would only read the literature you would find that the LOD has many components. Currents [not electrical, but material flows] have effect no matter where they occur. And the internal crustal ones move VERY slowly and erratically.
I already know it has many components, which is why I made use of the word ‘primarily’ in what I said. I’d love to see a comprehensive set of calcs for the energy quantities involved in
(i) The change in the speed of the rotation of the earth by 1 mS-1
(ii) The effective radius change component of atmosphere/ocean energy exchanges involving a change of LOD equal to (i)
(iii)The effective radius change component of a shift in subcrustal currents involving a change of LOD equal to (i)
The longer term larger magnitude shifts are not due to atmosphere/ocean exchanges, or we’d have no wind/constant hurricanes after a few years.
Here’s what Dr Richard Gross of NASA says:
“The annual changes in the length of the day,” says Gross, “are caused mostly by the atmosphere — changes in the strength and direction of the winds, especially the jet stream. The Sun warms the equator more than the poles. That temperature difference is largely responsible for the jet stream. Seasonal changes in that temperature difference cause changes in the winds and, hence, the length of the day.”
The longer patterns in changes of the length of the day can last for decades. “These are caused by processes within Earth’s core,” says Gross. “The core is a fluid. Its motion generates Earth’s magnetic field. Changes in its motion can change the rotation of solid Earth. Observing the magnetic field at the surface gives us an idea of how fluid is moving within the core. These changes in the fluid motion inferred from the magnetic field match the longer period changes we see in the length of the day.”

What other multidecadal changes can we think of? Oceanic cycles, runs of high and low solar cycles, changes in the direction of the wandering magnetic poles, rises and falls in global temperature.
So, as I said, length of day, geomagnetic field, solar open flux, and somewhat more controversially, motion of suns equatorial plane relative to solar syatem barycentre, all tied up in a chain of causation and terrestrial feedback loops with atmospheric angular momentum, ocean movements and cycles, global temperature, magnetic pole shifts and weather.
Stephen Wilde:
I would say he is too negativistic rather than positivistic about alternative possibilities.

Positivism was (is?) a school of scientific thinking which this statement pretty much exemplifies:
anything we propose has to be consistent with what we know.
Which is fine, but Leif doesn’t seem to understand how harmonic feedback can amplify signals and give high gains to small inputs. It’s perfectly standard physics, but seems to be a step too far. He will quite rightly insist I go and do the calcs and come back with something he can denigrate and have fun at my expense with.
Fine, in my own time. It would be nice if would at least accept their possibility though. It might spur me on to get the calculator hot again.

August 4, 2009 3:43 pm

tallbloke (15:19:05) :
Which is fine, but Leif doesn’t seem to understand how harmonic feedback can amplify signals and give high gains to small inputs.
My main issue with this is that the result is not observed [i.e. all the correlations are so poor that they carry no significance]. And you cannot get more energy out of a system than you put in. I know of no solar, atmospheric, planetary, stellar, or galactic phenomenon that has a harmonic feedback that amplify the a small input. Show me one.

August 4, 2009 4:53 pm

Leif Svalgaard (15:43:29) :
And you cannot get more energy out of a system than you put in. I know of no solar, atmospheric, planetary, stellar, or galactic phenomenon that has a harmonic feedback that amplify the a small input. Show me one.

Energy is conserved, but redistributed. So for example, a small decrease in cloud cover leads to much more insolation and heat retention by the oceans which get’s recirculated. It’s an entropy reduction happening within a larger energy environment. Instead of the heat being lost to space, it gets into the earth climate system and does the rounds of increasing atmospheric angular momentum, which may then transfer to the crust as an angular momentum exchange, perhaps further accelerating a change already trending that way due to high solar activity via another mechanism like the changing of sub crustal currents. It may also lead to el nino later on, further reducing cloud cover in a vital part of the earth environment.
Think of the sun as the mains electricity supply, the earth as an oven, and the clouds as the thermostat which control the mains supply. What sets the thermostat? Maybe it’s proportional to the input, but maybe it operates through multiple bouncebacks between ocean and atmosphere which amplify the signal in ways which limit the feedback beyond a certain level, depending on humidity, seasonal TSI flux etc etc.
It ain’t simple, that’s for sure.

August 4, 2009 5:07 pm

Aha!
http://www.geos.ed.ac.uk/research/geospace/presentations/pub_store/finlay_060830.pdf
Thanks for the GUFM1 tip Leif. 🙂
Gunnite, God bless and the Goddess.

August 4, 2009 5:50 pm

tallbloke (16:53:18) :
I know of no solar, atmospheric, planetary, stellar, or galactic phenomenon that has a harmonic feedback that amplify the a small input. Show me one.
Energy is conserved, but redistributed. So for example, a small decrease in cloud cover leads to much more insolation and heat retention by the oceans which get’s recirculated….
Your examples are not of harmonic feedbacks. As I said I don’t know of any and you haven’t shown me any. All you have done is talking about knocking about existing energy. The signal does not get larger and larger and there is no ‘gain’ in signal-theoretical sense. As an example of unsound argument, you said “Instead of the heat being lost to space, it gets into the earth climate system and does the rounds of increasing atmospheric angular momentum,” It does not increase angular momentum, it increases temperature, stuff expands and changes the moment of inertia [not angular momentum which is conserved], and so on. Sloppy, vague, and oversimple use of fragments of knowledge do not cut it.

Richard
August 4, 2009 9:21 pm

Leif Svalgaard (12:53:33) :
Richard (12:33:06) :
But the change insolation from Jan 2008 to Jan 2009, due to any change in the Earth’s orbit is not very great? That is the change we are talking about. Like with like.
No, that is not important [as it is indeed small]. What is important is the change from January to July which is 90 W/m2 or about hundred times larger than the solar cycle change. Now, why is that important? It is because the date when we are closest to the Sun varies, which means that in Northern winter we get more heat from the Sun now than if we were closest to the Sun in July, in which case the Northern winters would be much more severe. That is what makes the glaciations [and also that the tilt of the axis changes making seasonal changes larger].
why is that important? It is because the date when we are closest to the Sun varies
Yes but by how much?
And what has the change from January to July which is 90 W/m2 or about hundred times larger than the solar cycle change got to do with it?
Some excerpts from here: http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/view.php?id=38353
..we do not know the exact relationship between the changes in the Earth’s orbit and the changes in climate..
The ice ages have come and gone the last 20 million years and for the last few million years we know with reasonable accuracy how often they come.
In the period before about 1 million years ago the ice ages occurred around every 40.000 years, then it happened suddenly that the period changed so that it became circa 100.000 years between ice ages. It is a mystery because nothing changed in the behavior of the Earth’s orbit 1 million years ago.

What follows are his conclusions from this, which I regard as rubbish
Leif Svalgaard (22:57:12) :
TSI is most likely not lower now than at previous minima.
Leif Svalgaard (23:50:02) :
“PMOD has been drifting lower with respect to SORCE which is the basis for making the statement I made.”
PMOD may have been drifting lower with respect to SORCE, but SORCE data you have pointed me to has itself has been going lower since 2002.
You had nothing to say about this.
Also couple this with Satellite temperatures trending down since 2002.. coincidence?
Richard (03:44:16) :
“.. the recovery to interglacial conditions occurs in one big step.” Explain to me what huge change of insolation takes place in that short period, due to any change in the Earth’s orbit, to pull the Earth out of a glaciation and cause those huge increases of temperatures?
You havent.
I will stick with my hunch that we are in for a cooler period the next few years. And also that small changes in the received radiant energy from the sun for whatever reason, changes in irradiance, or the Earth’s orbit, or solar wind has large impacts on our global climate.
PS The increase of temperature of a black lump of coal and a white snowball to a change of radiation falling on them is the same for both [if you put them out in space like the Earth is]. doesnt sound right to me. A black body will absorb radiation and white ice reflects it, as is well known. The black body will get hotter. If you had built a solar water heater you would know this.

Geoff Sharp
August 4, 2009 10:14 pm

tallbloke (04:26:33) :
Geoff,
interesting, but because the earth’s mass won’t change, I assume we’ll get more tsi at the mid points between aphelion and perihelion than with a rounder orbit. So what would the difference in TSI be overall?

Eccentricity is one factor and along with it come other changes like different orbit velocities due to Kepler’s Laws. The Earth spends longer at the aphelion and less time at perihelion etc. I did read a good paper on it but cant put my hands on it, but I will keep looking.
In the meanwhile here is a good presentation with lots of graphs etc on the Milankovitch Cycles which ends stating the Earth’s insolation is 30% higher now than the last ice age.
http://www.landscheidt.info/pdf/milankovitch.pdf

August 4, 2009 10:30 pm

Richard (21:21:23) :
“why is that important? It is because the date when we are closest to the Sun varies”
Yes but by how much?

All the way through the year, all dates are eventually visited as the line between the closest and farthest point rotates about the Sun.
Some excerpts from here: http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/view.php?id=38353
..we do not know the exact relationship between the changes in the Earth’s orbit and the changes in climate..

The key word is ‘exact’. We know in large measures how it works.
PMOD may have been drifting lower with respect to SORCE, but SORCE data you have pointed me to has itself has been going lower since 2002.
Because both of them vary with the solar cycle
Also couple this with Satellite temperatures trending down since 2002.. coincidence?
They were trended up the last time TSI was trending down.
“.. the recovery to interglacial conditions occurs in one big step.” Explain to me what huge change of insolation takes place in that short period, due to any change in the Earth’s orbit, to pull the Earth out of a glaciation and cause those huge increases of temperatures?
You havent.

Try the effect of CO2 being driven out of the oceans by the increasing temperatures and together with increasing water vapor adding to the warming.
PS The increase of temperature of a black lump of coal and a white snowball to a change of radiation falling on them is the same for both [if you put them out in space like the Earth is]. doesnt sound right to me. A black body will absorb radiation and white ice reflects it, as is well known. The black body will get hotter. If you had built a solar water heater you would know this.
The black body is already warmer. If the radiation increases 10%, the temperature will increase 2.5%, no matter if the body was black or white.

Richard
August 4, 2009 11:22 pm

Leif Svalgaard (22:30:26) :
Richard (21:21:23) :
“why is that important? It is because the date when we are closest to the Sun varies”
Yes but by how much?
“All the way through the year, all dates are eventually visited as the line between the closest and farthest point rotates about the Sun.”
Let me get this straight. The variation you are saying is important is the variation of the “Northern winter” distance from the sun? “..that in Northern winter we get more heat from the Sun now than if we were closest to the Sun in July, in which case the Northern winters would be much more severe.” Are you saying that if the distance of the Sun is greater than it is now, we will receive less radiative energy from the sun due to this greater distance, which will cause the ice ages?
How the variation of insolation (which is due to the tilt of the Earth’s axis) from summer to winter which varies every year, and from day to night, figures in this I dont see.

Richard
August 4, 2009 11:23 pm

Are you saying that if the distance of the Sun is greater than it is now in the Northern Winter, we will receive less radiative energy from the sun due to this greater distance, which will cause the ice ages?

Stephen Wilde
August 4, 2009 11:35 pm

“The increase of temperature of a black lump of coal and a white snowball to a change of radiation falling on them is the same for both [if you put them out in space like the Earth is.”
“The black body is already warmer. If the radiation increases 10%, the temperature will increase 2.5%, no matter if the body was black or white.”
Both the above comments are from Leif with the second clarifying the former.
The first comment is misleading. The increase in temperature is not the same for both. In fact the proportionate increase in temperature is the same for both (2.5%) but because of the different starting points the actual temperature increase is not the same. 2.5% for one is not the same as 2.5% for the other.
Anyway back to the main point. The question as to how or why low solar activity seems, throughout history, to have affected global air temperatures is clearly not settled.
Without that question being settled the effect of more GHGs cannot be settled so we are all agreed on that.
I don’t see the observed 20th Century changes as being anything out of the ordinary and they can all be accounted for by the oceans and air both altering the rate of flow of solar energy as it passes through the Earth system.
The fact that overall global humidity changes hardly at all suggests that the stabilising factor is highly effective and more likely than not is the variable speed of the hydrological cycle. If that can prevent wide swings in water vapour from destabilising the Earth’s energy budget then it is well strong enough to prevent swings in other GHGs from destabilising the Earth’s energy budget.
That takes us back to the behaviour of the oceans as the only factor capable of altering the energy flow enough to alter the overall global temperature over multidecadal time periods with solar variation in the background taking centuries to have significant effects.

August 4, 2009 11:43 pm

Stephen Wilde (23:35:40) :
In fact the proportionate increase in temperature is the same for both (2.5%) but because of the different starting points the actual temperature increase is not the same.
I was, in fact, talking about the relative increase, because if you go back to the original question it was framed in % not in W/m2.
That takes us back to the behaviour of the oceans as the only factor capable of altering the energy flow enough to alter the overall global temperature over multidecadal time periods with solar variation in the background taking centuries to have significant effects.
Now we can finally begin to agree. One problem is that we do not see much change in the Sun even over millennea. In the Scafetta thread I posted:
From 10Be cosmic ray fluxes Steinhilber et al. reports:
http://www.leif.org/EOS/Holocene-TSI.pdf
that
“The entire record of TSI covering the past 9300 years is shown in Figure 3. Throughout this period TSI has varied by approximately 2Wm−2″
This extreme variation was reached only rarely and most of the time TSI stays within +/-0.5 w/m2 of average. A variation much lower than normally assumed in climate studies.

August 4, 2009 11:48 pm

Richard (23:23:37) :
Are you saying that if the distance of the Sun is greater than it is now in the Northern Winter, we will receive less radiative energy from the sun due to this greater distance, which will cause the ice ages?
Essentially, yes. The Northern Hemisphere will receive less energy. That is the key. Because the Northern Hemisphere is where the great ice masses form. But there are good explanations of all this all over the internet. Geoff gave you a good link.

August 5, 2009 12:02 am

Leif Svalgaard (17:50:05) :
As an example of unsound argument, you said “Instead of the heat being lost to space, it gets into the earth climate system and does the rounds of increasing atmospheric angular momentum,” It does not increase angular momentum, it increases temperature, stuff expands and changes the moment of inertia [not angular momentum which is conserved], and so on. Sloppy, vague, and oversimple use of fragments of knowledge do not cut it.

It was late for me, I had done a lot of typing, and I was being elliptical. I assumed you could make the step with me from; “heat… get’s into the earth’s climate system” to the fact temperatures rise without me having to spell it out. Little did I realise you would pounce on it as a debating point-win you could then use to denigrate and insult me with.
OVERALL angular momentum of the system is conserved (more or less), but not that of the earth’s atmosphere, which changes according to it’s interactions with the crust through the core motion component of length of day change , and changing temperature via input from the sun.
To turn your insult back on you, saying that the atmospheric angular momentum is conserved is an example of your sloppy, vague, and oversimple application of fragments of knowledge to a complex non-homogeneous system and does not cut it.
If global atmospheric angular momentum is conserved, why does the curve on this graph go up and down?
http://www.cdc.noaa.gov/map/images/aam/glaam.76.present.gif

Richard
August 5, 2009 12:05 am

Leif Svalgaard (23:48:17) :
Richard (23:23:37) :
Are you saying that if the distance of the Sun is greater than it is now in the Northern Winter, we will receive less radiative energy from the sun due to this greater distance, which will cause the ice ages?
“Essentially, yes. The Northern Hemisphere will receive less energy..”
Well then that is what I asked – how much less energy due to the greater distance. And I think the answer is not much.
From Geoff’s link:
“Among the most intriguing enigmas of the climate system is that on the one hand, the Earth’s climate appears to be exquisitely sensitive to relatively minor variations in the distribution of insolation owing to orbital variations, but on the other hand, it is in a grosser sense stable, in that it has varied only moderately in response to a roughly 30% increase in solar insolation over the life of the planet. ” Kerry Emanuel (JGR 107, D9, ACL4)
This is what I have been saying too – The Earth’s climate is very sensitive to small changes that we receive of the Sun’s energy.
And on a greater scale – the Earth’s climate is highly homeostatic. It tends to come back to its former state of equilibrium. Temperatures fall but then they rise again. They go down but then they come up.
Geoff “..here is a good presentation ..which ends stating the Earth’s insolation is 30% higher now than the last ice age.”
Where on earth does it state that? If the insolation varied in total only 30% over the whole life of the Earth, I would be very surprised if it varied by this amount only since the last ice-age.

Richard
August 5, 2009 12:20 am

Leif – ..we do not know the exact relationship between the changes in the Earth’s orbit and the changes in climate..
“The key word is ‘exact’. We know in large measures how it works.”
No we do not have a clue of why the 100,000 cycle works. Just a few guesses

Richard
August 5, 2009 12:24 am

But thank you Geoff for your link – it is very informative.
I did say earlier that I had read that the change in insolation due to variation of the ellipse is ~0.2% around the mean and in the 100,000 year cycle it is negligible.
And the change in seasonal insolation due to tilt and precession varies by ~10% about a mean value, at 41,000 year cycles at high and mid latitudes.

August 5, 2009 12:24 am

Leif Svalgaard (23:43:39) :
From 10Be cosmic ray fluxes Steinhilber et al. reports:
http://www.leif.org/EOS/Holocene-TSI.pdf
that
“The entire record of TSI covering the past 9300 years is shown in Figure 3. Throughout this period TSI has varied by approximately 2Wm−2″
This extreme variation was reached only rarely and most of the time TSI stays within +/-0.5 w/m2 of average. A variation much lower than normally assumed in climate studies.

Kudos to Steinhilber, Frohlich, et al for including:
Table 1. Increase of TSI inWm−2 between theMMand the solar
cycle average (1365.9Wm−2) of solar cycle 22 (19861996)
of the PMOD composite [Fr¨ohlich, 2009] in comparison with
earlier reconstructions.
Which reveals that a small change in the slope of TSI curve (depending on whose bridging of the ACRIM gap you believe), will produce large changes (several fold) in the estimated TSI variation over the centuries between the medieval maximum, little ice age, and now.
This is key to understanding how the solar influence on planetary temperature can be smoothed away by tiny ‘adjustments’ to the TSI data.

Geoff Sharp
August 5, 2009 1:42 am

Richard (00:05:47) :
Richard, I am not suggesting the total insolation will vary by 30% when the ellipse is at its greatest, but that at the furthest point this is what can be expected. There are swings and roundabouts involved. Unfortunately I haven’t been able to find the paper that quantifies the overall difference. Do you have a paper that suggests no or very minor difference across the different orbit shapes.

Richard
August 5, 2009 2:30 am

Leif Svalgaard (22:30:26) :
“The black body is already warmer. If the radiation increases 10%, the temperature will increase 2.5%, no matter if the body was black or white.”
How did the black body get warmer? It could only have if it absorbed more radiation incident on it than the white body.
If they both started at the same temperature they would always remain the same according to you. Nope sorry Leif, I don’t buy it. You are pretty scathing in your criticism of others and I’m not letting you off the hook either.
Also – But the change insolation from Jan 2008 to Jan 2009, due to any change in the Earth’s orbit is not very great? That is the change we are talking about. Like with like.
“No, that is not important [as it is indeed small]. What is important is the change from January to July which is 90 W/m2 or about hundred times larger than the solar cycle change. Now, why is that important? It is because the date when we are closest to the Sun varies, which means that in Northern winter we get more heat from the Sun now than if we were closest to the Sun in July, in which case the Northern winters would be much more severe.”
Then you admit that all we are talking about are the changes in insolation due to the change in the distance from the sun of the Northern winters. This is small.
Why do you throw in the change in insolation due to the seasons, which are large as everyone knows? This has no relevance to either your claim of the cause of the ice ages or my argument that small changes in solar energy received by the Earth can cause large changes in the climate.

August 5, 2009 3:03 am

Leif Svalgaard (15:43:29) :
My main issue with this is that the result is not observed [i.e. all the correlations are so poor that they carry no significance].

Uh huh.
http://www.fao.org/docrep/005/Y2787E/y2787e03a.htm
Look at the match between LOD and ‘Zonal ACI’
Your solar magnetic graph
http://www.leif.org/research/Heliospheric-Magnetic-Field-Since-1900.png
matches pretty well with the geomagnetic aa index too.
http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/info/image2.gif
It looks like getting a measure of changing heat from below the crust might still be in it’s infancy:
http://www.scienceagogo.com/news/20050628223731data_trunc_sys.shtml

August 5, 2009 7:14 am

tallbloke (00:02:43) :
If global atmospheric angular momentum is conserved, why does the curve on this graph go up and down?
Because that is the AAM at a certain altitude. The changes are compensated for by opposite changes at other altitudes.
Richard (02:30:10) :
If they both started at the same temperature they would always remain the same according to you.
Not at all. They have vastly different temperatures. Increasing the radiation by 10% will increase the temperatures by 2.5% for both bodies.
Then you admit that all we are talking about are the changes in insolation due to the change in the distance from the sun of the Northern winters. This is small.
No, this is large, a hundred times larger than the solar cycle change.
tallbloke (03:03:35) :
Look at the match between LOD and ‘Zonal ACI’
As I have been saying: if you heat the system, its moment of inertia and/or the wind speeds change, which cause the LOD to change, not the other way around.
Your solar magnetic graph
matches pretty well with the geomagnetic aa index too.
http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/info/image2.gif

Of course, it should. I specifically said that I interpreted your ‘Geomagnetic’ as meaning the main field [because we started out with a discussion of wander of the magnetic pole] and not geomagnetic ‘activity’ which is what aa measures.
It looks like getting a measure of changing heat from below the crust
The heat we get from underfoot is too minute [milliWatt/m2] and too constant to have any influence on the climate.

August 5, 2009 8:36 am

Leif Svalgaard (07:14:30) :
Because that is the AAM at a certain altitude. The changes are compensated for by opposite changes at other altitudes.

That sounds a lot like an assumption.
As I have been saying: if you heat the system, its moment of inertia and/or the wind speeds change, which cause the LOD to change, not the other way around.
Changes in windspeed can only account for around 10% of variation in LOD.
“It was shown (Lamb 1972; Lambeck and Cazenave 1976), however, that the observable changes in speed and direction of the air mass transfer may explain seasonal and annual, but not multi-decadal, LOD variations. Only 10% of the long-term LOD variation can be explained by the observable changes in atmospheric circulation. The calculations suggest that the average speed of zonal winds would have to be an order of magnitude larger than they are to explain the remaining 90% of the LOD changes.”
Dr Richard Gross of NASA told us the same thing in the quote I gave earlier. Give it up, you are outnumbered by experts. 😉
The heat we get from underfoot is too minute [milliWatt/m2] and too constant to have any influence on the climate.
The ocean floor is much thinner, and water is an efficient coolant/transporter of heat. I’ll try to find out more on this, because I’ve read various snippets which make me think there may be a lot more heat coming out of the inside of the earth at certain locations than you’ve been led to believe by general handwaving.
OK stuff to do, signing off from this thread for now. Thanks for a good debate and the pointers and links.

August 5, 2009 9:17 am

tallbloke (08:36:40) :
Only 10% of the long-term LOD variation can be explained by the observable changes in atmospheric circulation.
Of course, the major changes come from within. Yet you showed changes in the ACI. My point is that the 10% atmospheric part is climate dependent [and, according to you, therefore solar activity dependent], but the remaining 90% are due to slow internal changes that have nothing to do with solar activity.

August 5, 2009 10:40 am

Ocean currents circulation within Pacific, Indian and Atlantic will not affect LOD in a major degree, since each ocean has two currents flowing in the opposite direction but at different depths. This is not the case with polar currents Beaufort Gyre and Antarctic circumpolar current. Their flow is always in the same direction, caused by the Earth’s rotation. If these currents alter their velocity due to some external reasons than load on the Earth’s rotation will respond accordingly. The ocean waters, due to the salinity have attributes of electrical conductor. Circulation is affected due do build up of counter-EMF As the magnetic poles moves closer or further away from the centre of circulation, velocity will respond accordingly. It appears to be a relationship between temperature and magnetic polar drift. Geomagnetic field intensity will also vary in response to these movements.
For more details see:
http://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/docs/00/40/88/86/PDF/NATA.pdf

August 5, 2009 11:33 am

vukcevic (10:40:32) :
If these currents alter their velocity due to some external reasons
What external reasons?
Circulation is affected due do build up of counter-EMF As the magnetic poles moves closer or further away from the centre of circulation.
No, the current and the forces are much too small for this.

August 5, 2009 12:29 pm

Leif Svalgaard (11:33:19) :
“What external reasons?”
The external reason (to the ocean currents) was described in the following sentence or two.
Leif Svalgaard (11:33:19) :
“No, the current and the forces are much too small for this.”
Dr. No strikes again! How do you know that?
No current or force is too small not to have an effect, it is just that magnitude of effect is proportional to the force and force is proportional to the current.
Have you numbers the Antarctic’s circumpolar current transport index, and appropriate electric current density, what change might have occurred in the relation to drift of magnetic pole? I do not, so I cannot claim to what extent they might affect the Earth’s rotation, but if there was a change, it must have been an effect too.
This is only a side issue; effect of thermal pressure on the warm currents from Indian Ocean into Southern Atlantic is of primary interest.

August 5, 2009 12:50 pm

vukcevic (12:29:06) :
How do you know that?
It is the one who claims there is an effect to do the calculation. You are an engineer. And this calculation is a simple engineering type of calculation: so much water, such a conductivity, so much speed, so must bottom friction, forces acting for so long, etc.
I have done this type of calculation a long time ago in connection with the so-called ‘ocean effect’ of geomagnetic measurements. The result was minute.
You can find some background material here:
http://www.geomag.us/info/Smaus/Doc/ocean_encycl.pdf
Google ‘ocean effect geomagnetic’

August 5, 2009 1:41 pm

Thanks for the link. Have seen it and many others relating to electric currents in the oceans (whatever google and google scholar comes up with). My interest is in the electric currents affecting the oceans flow and thus affecting climatic changes, as outlined here:
http://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/docs/00/40/88/86/PDF/NATA.pdf

August 5, 2009 1:48 pm

vukcevic (13:41:15) :
My interest is in the electric currents affecting the oceans flow
The currents are generated by a conductor moving through a magnetic field or the field moving through a conductor. This is the standard problem you are having. The electric currents are consequences of the movements, in the oceans, in the solar wind, in the Sun, in the cosmos. This should be clear by now [I know it isn’t, but one can always hope].

Stephen Wilde
August 5, 2009 1:53 pm

Well I’ve based a good deal on the simple observation that the oceans do change their rate of emission of energy to the air on multidecadal time scales.
Another simple observation is that on Century time scales colder periods seem to correlate with periods of a less active sun.
Yet another simple observation is that the average latitudinal position of the air circulation systems does shift in response to changes in global oceanic sea surface temperatures.
I have described a climate scenario that accommodates all those observations and yet still complies with the need to approximately over time balance the energy value of incoming solar shortwave radiation with outgoing radiated longwave radiation and furthermore accounts for the failure of all the changes that do occur to significantly alter global humidity values.
Likewise it accounts for all observed global air temperature variations so far observed and all regional climate shifts observed as the global air temperatures alternately warm and cool.
I think that is quite an achievement.
The next step is to explain why and how the oceans do manage to alter their rate of energy transfer to the air on multidecadal time scales.
Tallbloke and others are making a respectable stab at that and Leif is raising perfectly sensible objections.
However what we see is what we see however unlikely and I still have difficulty accepting Leif’s negativism about every proposition.
Any theory must match observations and if it does so then it should be properly investigated and tested.
Simply announcing that it cannot be so for this reason or that reason is not a scientific approach.
At basis I think it is going to boil down to the fact that the Earth’s oceans are extremely sensitive to solar shortwave variations but that the air circulation systems are extremely efficient at neutralising them.
I accept that getting that proposition accepted by the climate establishment is going to be very difficult and it may only be recognised after I have been long deceased. By that time real world evidence may well render my proposition incontrovertible.
It’s a good job I just deal with this stuff for ‘fun’.

August 5, 2009 2:30 pm

Stephen Wilde (13:53:02) :
However what we see is what we see however unlikely and I still have difficulty accepting Leif’s negativism about every proposition.
Any theory must match observations and if it does so then it should be properly investigated and tested.

sometimes [often, actually] people see things that aren’t there. Any proposer of a theory is convinced that it match observations, that alone is not enough, others must be able to see and accept the match. I’m not negative about every proposition, just the ones that are not convincing. Science is extremely conservation [for a good reason] and often it is frustrating to penetrate that [I feel that too in my quest for revising the sunspot number, for example]. On the other hand, if the case is good and the theory sound, conversion of the community can be very swift. So, bring it on.

Stephen Wilde
August 5, 2009 2:38 pm

“Leif Svalgaard (13:48:45) :
vukcevic (13:41:15) :
My interest is in the electric currents affecting the oceans flow
The currents are generated by a conductor moving through a magnetic field or the field moving through a conductor. This is the standard problem you are having. The electric currents are consequences of the movements, in the oceans, in the solar wind, in the Sun, in the cosmos. This should be clear by now [I know it isn’t, but one can always hope.”
Now this is geting interesting.
The radiation coming from the sun (the magnetic field) moves through a conductor known as the Earth.
The Earth is not a single conductor. There are two conductors namely oceans and air.
In both conductors water is the main player, as a liquid in the oceans and as a gas in the air.
Both behave differently and independently.
The oceans being hugely greater in density and volume create virtually all the ever changing variations in conductivity. Ever changing because the oceans are fluids in constant movement and with sizeable internal variations in density due primarily to uneven salinity.
Having created changes in conductivity the oceans than leave it to the air to deal with the instabilities caused by the oceans.
In order to keep our liquid oceans the air has to neutralise the variations in conductivity created by the oceanic instability.
It does so by changing the speed of the hydrological cycle and the means by which that is achieved is the latitudinal movement of all the air circulation systems.
Have I squared the circle ?

acementhead
August 5, 2009 3:59 pm

Stephen Wilde (13:53:02) :
” Simply announcing that it cannot be so for this reason or that reason is not a scientific approach. ”

I disagree with that statement; in fact reason(not assertion) is what makes it scientific.
A simple mathematical(yes I know that mathematics is nor science, but the analogy is precise) example: I can write down a mathematical “proof” that 1 = 2. Leif can disprove it by stating it is not true for the reason that I have divided by zero. He is correct (as he is always in the philosophy of science).

Stephen Wilde
August 5, 2009 4:27 pm

acementhead (15:59:14)
Actually I agree in principle but only if the reason is supported by incontrovertible evidence.
The trouble we have with climate science is that the reasons given for not accepting the possible validity of new ideas are far from incontrovertible.
Even Leif’s valuable input is based largely on assumptions about the sensitivity of the Earth system to tiny variations.
I happen to think that the oceanic heat content may be far more susceptible to tiny variations in solar output than is generally accepted.
I also think ocean heat content will turn out to be highly sensitive to other tiny variations as well such as the effect of internal ocean changes on the rate at which energy is released to the air.
My suppositions are based on observations which lead me to believe that there is no other solution to the current climate confusion.
In fact it is probably our ability to use technology to measure tiny changes and the extreme sensitivity of our lifestyles to such tiny changes that makes those changes seem significant when in terms of the cosmos those changes are truly insignificant.

August 5, 2009 8:21 pm

Stephen Wilde (14:38:42) :
Have I squared the circle ?
No, you are about as wrong as one can be.
The solar wind plasma is a conductor. A conductor [with the high conductivity and large size typical of the solar wind] cannot move into a strong magnetic field [the Earth’s] and instead an electrical current is generated at a point where the energy of the solar wind is equal to the energy of the Earth’s magnetic field. This current keeps the two things [solar wind and the Earth] apart. The current depends on the precise balance between the pressure of the solar wind and the pressure of the Earth’s magnetic field. Because the solar wind is ‘gusty’ this balance is unstable, and the magnetic field in the solar wind can also connect with that of the Earth making the whole thing even more unstable, so the balance breaks down rather often with further currents and particles crashing into the ionosphere, creating aurora and magnetic disturbances. All of this happen above 100 km altitude.
Meanwhile, UV from the Sun breaks apart the molecules and atoms of the air above 100 km altitude, creating the ionosphere. The ionosphere needs sunlight to maintain its conductivity which is then much higher on the dayside. The upper atmosphere is heated by the sun and thermal winds are created that moves the ions across the magnetic field of the Earth thus creating a current [remember: moving a conductor and a magnetic relative to each other generates a current]. This current is always present on the dayside, but since the Earth is rotating it looks [for an observer on the ground] like the current is rising and setting [like the Sun] each day. This current has a magnetic effect that also seems to come and go during each day. A changing magnetic field through a conductor [sea water] generates another current in the water. This current makes a small perturbation of the magnetic field from all the other currents generated. Each link in this chain is weaker than the previous, so the effects get smaller and smaller. But, you can see that there are very complicated stuff going on. We know a lot about how all of this works. You can find more details in these 30-40 year old papers of mine [since then the details have become even better known, but the basic picture remains unchanged]: http://www.leif.org/research/Geomagnetic-Response-to-Solar-Wind.pdf and http://www.leif.org/research/suipr699.pdf
The air between the ionosphere and the ocean is basically an insulator and no currents flow. Now, this is not quite correct because there is a very weak ionization created by radioactiivty in the ground, cosmic rays, and thunderstorms, so there is a very weak current current [the ‘global electric circuit’], but its effect is orders of magnitude smaller than the other currents. In a sense there is a sort of ‘cascade’ of currents and magnetic changes to smaller and smaller strength [there are also currents, generated from all of the above, deep inside the Earth with still smaller effects, etc].
The main point is that our quantitative knowledge of this is solid and vast. We can calculate rather precisely the forces and effects.

August 5, 2009 8:30 pm

Stephen Wilde (16:27:27) :
Even Leif’s valuable input is based largely on assumptions about the sensitivity of the Earth system to tiny variations.
The null-hypothesis is that there is no sensitivity. Every claim of a given sensitivity has to be calculated or at least made plausible by a mechanism or energy or scaling argument [and certainly must be physically possible]. The total sensitivity may be the result of interactions of several things. If so, each of these must be calculated or estimated as above. If not, then a high sensitivity becomes the assumption.

August 6, 2009 12:07 am

Leif Svalgaard (09:17:43) :
tallbloke (08:36:40) :
Only 10% of the long-term LOD variation can be explained by the observable changes in atmospheric circulation.
Of course, the major changes come from within. Yet you showed changes in the ACI. My point is that the 10% atmospheric part is climate dependent [and, according to you, therefore solar activity dependent], but the remaining 90% are due to slow internal changes that have nothing to do with solar activity.

I showed the correlation between long term changes in ACI and the long term changes in LOD which are not caused by the atmosphere acting on the earth as you claimed, but by the earth acting on the atmosphere. This truth is further evidenced by the fact that a best fit is obtained when there is a six year lag between long term LOD changes from downtrend to uptrends in rotation speed, and the concomitant changes from downtrends to uptrends in global temperature.
The slow internal changes seem to correlate with long term changes in solar activity, but I am not claiming that the changes in solar activity cause the long term changes in LOD. Rather that they are both caused by the changing disposition of the planets, through a number of mechanisms. Some are uncontroversial, others are yet to be established. For me and quite a few others, there is compelling correlative evidence of these, but I won’t bother going into examples because I know your a priori rejection of the possibility will make doing that a waste of both our time.

August 6, 2009 1:17 am

Leif Svalgaard (13:48:45) :
“The currents are generated by a conductor moving through a magnetic field or the field moving through a conductor. This is the standard problem you are having. The electric currents are consequences of the movements, in the oceans, in the solar wind, in the Sun, in the cosmos. This should be clear by now [I know it isn’t, but one can always hope].”
And what do you think I was implying?
Currents plucked out of thin air?
Read page 13: http://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/docs/00/40/88/86/PDF/NATA.pdf
Copper plate will spin freely until you bring a permanent magnet close to it, in which case it will slow down and stop, due to induction of a counter emf.
See also Faraday paradox, where electric currents may close circuit trough ocean floor and the coastline (Antarctic circumpolar current). Either way, the energy will be taken out if circular motion and transferred into heath (minor contributor) and more importantly slowing down oceans circular currents. The amount of energy taken will depend on the strength of magnetic field and is reflected in circulation velocity, which will vary as magnetic pole’s distance changes in relation to the centre of circulation, thus having direct effect on the global temperatures as described here:
http://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/docs/00/40/88/86/PDF/NATA.pdf
Correlation between these events is sufficiently strong to be summarily dismissed, especially if the dismissal is baseless.

August 6, 2009 2:09 am

Vukevic, did you catch this link Leif provided? It seems to support your thesis concerning the southward drift of the Indian ocean current towards antarctica in the C20th, and is an excellent visualization.
http://www.epm.geophys.ethz.ch/~cfinlay/gufm1/BfS.gif
Takes a while to load the animated gif frames, be patient.

August 6, 2009 2:25 am

Stephen Wilde (16:27:27) :
“The radiation coming from the sun (the magnetic field) moves through a conductor known as the Earth.”
Solar wind induction would produce a negligible effect. Solar storm is a pulse lasting only few hours and its intensity is significantly less then 1% of the existing field in the area, so its effect is also negligible. Further more, rise and fall cancels out, there is only thermal effect left which is again of a minor consequence.
What I am talking about is slow change in circulation velocity, on century time scale, that may take place due to shift in magnetic pole position on the same time scale.

August 6, 2009 4:21 am

vukcevic (01:17:22) :
And what do you think I was implying?
Currents plucked out of thin air?

Yes, something like that.

August 6, 2009 4:27 am

tallbloke (02:09:51) :
Vukevic, did you catch this link Leif provided? It seems to support your thesis concerning the southward drift of the Indian ocean current towards Antarctica in the C20th, and is an excellent visualization.
http://www.epm.geophys.ethz.ch/~cfinlay/gufm1/BfS.gif
Takes a while to load the animated gif frames, be patient.
Yes thanks. No problem with loading (broadband).
Centre of the circumpolar current will tend to follow magnetic field, less resistance (minimum if they are concentric). Movement of pole in direction of Australia will move flow of the cold circumpolar current further away from Horn of Africa towards Antarctic. Result of this is speeding inflow of the warm currents from Indian Ocean into South Atlantic and outflow of cold currents in the opposite direction, thus contributing to rise of temperatures in the Atlantic basin area.

August 6, 2009 4:50 am

vukcevic (01:17:22) :
Correlation between these events is sufficiently strong to be summarily dismissed, especially if the dismissal is baseless.
The dismissal is based on there not being enough energy in the current to have any measurable effect.

August 6, 2009 7:32 am

I have discovered the method for very successfully hindcasting monthly deviations from normals through 350 years of CET, and can show the cause of any older documented extreme in temperature to the month (from any location). From my findings, I can also show what has affected the varying amplitude of previous sunspot cycles. SSN is not directly proportional to temperature, and is not a good forecast measure for temperature. My projections show that global temperatures are on the rise for a few years, but from 2014 to 2020 is a period colder than any time in the last century.
http://climaterealists.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=208
http://climaterealists.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=85&start=10#p1879
http://climaterealists.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=133
http://theweatheroutlook.com/twocommunity/forums/p/22784/746890.aspx#746890

August 6, 2009 8:51 am

Leif Svalgaard (04:50:06) :
The dismissal is based on there not being enough energy in the current to have any measurable effect.
Another baseless statement.
Between 1955 and 1970 Oceanic Transport index as measured in the North Atlantic gyre dropped from 65 to 50 m/sec. 15m/sec and you call that ‘no measurable effect’ !
See: http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/OTI.gif
vukcevic (01:17:22) :
And what do you think I was implying?
Currents plucked out of thin air?
Leif Svalgaard (04:21:24) :
Yes, something like that.
Sir, that is a nonsense!
Saline sea water is a conductor circulating in presence of geomagnetic field; result induced electric current. There are hundreds of studies and thousands of measurements related to the subject!

August 6, 2009 10:04 am

vukcevic (08:51:19) :
The dismissal is based on there not being enough energy in the current to have any measurable effect.
Another baseless statement.
Between 1955 and 1970 Oceanic Transport index as measured in the North Atlantic gyre dropped from 65 to 50 m/sec. 15m/sec and you call that ‘no measurable effect’ !

But it is not the effect of the electrical current
vukcevic (01:17:22) :
“And what do you think I was implying?
Currents plucked out of thin air?
Leif Svalgaard (04:21:24) :
Yes, something like that.

Fits right in with some of other currents you promote.
Saline sea water is a conductor circulating in presence of geomagnetic field; result induced electric current. There are hundreds of studies and thousands of measurements related to the subject!
Let’s do the numbers. I asked the engineer in you to do it and you refused [for good reason as we shall see]. Here goes:
The emf from a conductor moving at velocity v in a magnetic field B is E = vB [as v and B are nearly perpendicular] per unit length. Let the speed of the circualtion be v = 1 m/s, B = 50,000 nT = 5E-5 T, and the length L of the gyre path be 6000 km = 6E6 m, then the total emf becomes V = E*L = 300 Volt [check my math as we go along as I’m just typing this in as I go]. The resistivity R of sea water is 0.2 ohm, hence the current I = V/R = 1500 amps. The power is then P = V*I = 300*1500 = 450,000 W. The solar input is perhaps 45 W/m2 over the polar cap [low angle, high albedo, etc], so the total power P is the same as the solar input to an area of P/45 = 10,000 square meter, which is 100,000,000 times less than the solar power to the polar region. Since the secular movement of B is not the whole of B, but much smaller, say a generous 10%, the effect of magnetic polar wander is 1000,000,000 times smaller than the ordinary solar input, hence totally insignificant. I had assumed that this took place in the upper 1 meter. If we let the ocean current go down 1000 meter [much too much as the speed of the gyre at depth is small] the one billion becomes 1 million, still negligible.

Stephen Wilde
August 6, 2009 10:11 am

Leif Svalgaard (20:21:15)
I see that a terminology issue has crept in there but there’s no point trying to untangle it here.
Suffice it to say that I used the term ‘magnetic field’ inappropriately.

August 6, 2009 10:16 am

Leif Svalgaard (04:21:24) :
vukcevic (01:17:22) :
And what do you think I was implying?
Currents plucked out of thin air?
Yes, something like that.

Vuk, you shouldn’t give Leif these feedlines. He knows no shame.
Lol.

August 6, 2009 10:23 am

Ulric Lyons (07:32:54) :
SSN is not directly proportional to temperature, and is not a good forecast measure for temperature.

Agreed. I have found you need to consider how much above or below the ocean equilibrium value SSN is in order to be able to calculate change in ocean heat content, which as Stephen Wilde has been saying for a long time, is the main driver of temperature. Understanding the modes of ocean heat release therefore is of importance. I will be looking at the historical occurrence of el nino and la nina in comparison with the metrics you and I have discussed previously.

August 6, 2009 10:53 am

tallbloke (10:16:46) :
vukcevic (01:17:22) :
And what do you think I was implying?
Currents plucked out of thin air?
Leif Svalgaard (04:21:24) :
Yes, something like that.
Vuk, you shouldn’t give Leif these feedlines. He knows no shame.
His good science arguments are pleasure to follow. Once he runs of arguments ‘good old doc’ flips the coin, but I do enjoy his colourful metaphors.
I have been known as: cyclomaniac in extreme, man of superior ignorance, a danger to society, astrologer, peddler of pseudo-science; I treasure them all. Now I am looking forward to something new and original.

August 6, 2009 11:45 am

vukcevic (10:53:09) :
I have been known as: cyclomaniac in extreme, man of superior ignorance, a danger to society, astrologer, peddler of pseudo-science; I treasure them all. Now I am looking forward to something new and original.
With the exception of ‘superior’ all of the above still hold. Any ‘new’ appellation would depend on you to earn it.
But, it would refreshing for a change if you would try to stick to the Science [if that is possible] and respond to my ‘back of the envelope’ calculation of the energy in the oceanic electric currents.

August 6, 2009 12:39 pm

Leif Svalgaard (10:04:31) :
Fits right in with some of other currents you promote.
……Let’s do the numbers.
Dear Sir,
You got it all wrong, and you did not read what I wrote or understood a thing. You are stuck in a solar groove.
May I just for starter point out that gyre is much faster than 1m/s. The North Atlantic gyre transport index averages around 60m/sec and Beaufort Gyre is probably faster. So thermal power is at least 60 times greater than what you calculated, but that is not point! Electrical heating is not the point !!!
From my link http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/OTI.gif you can see that The North Atlantic gyre transport index varies anything up to 15m/sec over decades and variations in magnetic field appear to be one of the major contributors, but not one in the area itself, but further north and much further south.
Here it is again, this time I will just explain role of Beaufort Gyre while the Circumpolar current effect I have elaborated on in my post to tallbloke:
vukcevic (04:27:37) :
Here it is:
Copper plate will spin freely until you bring a permanent magnet close to it, in which case it will slow down and stop, due to induction of a counter emf ! (basic physics).
One major feature of the Arctic’s Ocean currents is a clockwise circular flow, located under polar ice cap, known a Beaufort Gyre.
http://nsidc.org/seaice/images/beaufort_gyre.jpg
http://web.mit.edu/12.000/www/m2011/finalwebsite/graphics/climate/atlanticmap.gif
North Pacific waters enter Arctic Ocean and exit into Atlantic as cold currents. Beaufort Gyre acts as a giant pump controlling the flow-feeding Transpolar current. Reduction in the angular velocity in the gyre reduces the volume of cold water moving into the North Atlantic, allowing the Gulf Stream to reach further north, and vice versa. Eenergy for the Beaufort Gyre is supplied by the Earth’s rotation! In the absence of other factors, current gyration should be more or less constant. There is a good reason why the circulation speed within Beaufort Gyre may vary over long periods.
Ocean waters, due to salinity, have attributes of an electrical conductor. Since the Beaufort gyre is in proximity of the Magnetic North Pole, Beaufort becomes a giant but weak electrical current generator. One property of an electric current generator is rise of a counter-electromotive force, resisting movement of the conductor. If there is no additional input of energy, velocity is in a reverse proportion to the strength of magnetic field. Part of the energy contained in the gyre, which normally moves huge masses of water, is transformed into heat, raising its temperature by a small (negligible) fraction.
AS the MNP moves closer to gyre’s centre, rising counter-emf will provide greater resistance, thus reducing velocity of the circulating ocean current (and vice versa).
In this scenario Beaufort’s cold water pump will slow down allowing warm waters of the Gulf Stream to reach further north, rise in temperature as a consequence. Opposite will happen when the MNP moves further away from the gyre, intensity of counter-emf is reduced, allowing increase of the gyre’s angular velocity, the stronger cold-water currents moving further south into the North Atlantic, intercepting the Gulf Stream at lower latitudes; result cooling of the North Atlantic.
If you do not read the post or the article than your comments and calculations become irrelevant.

August 6, 2009 1:02 pm

vukcevic (12:39:16) :
May I just for starter point out that gyre is much faster than 1m/s. The North Atlantic gyre transport index averages around 60m/sec
The transport index is not the velocity. 60 m/s is twice hurricane force wind speed and the water does not move at that speed. I calculate the emf, from there you can [as I did] calculate the energy dissipated. If the energy is too low, none of the details matter.
The ocean currents are [as you say] not driven by that emf, but you invoke the emf to change the speed, and it is much too small to have any effect as I showed. If you don’t like to compare with the solar power, convert the 450,000 W in kinetic energy to velocity and see how little you get. Get with the numbers, not the hand waving.

August 6, 2009 2:17 pm

Where’s that popcorn and beer smiley when you need it?
I’m wondering if there might be a different explanation for the changes in the speed of the circulation of the Gyre related to my metric of the moment, Length of Day.
It seems to fit pretty well with a 6 year lag of the Gyre to the LOD data. And Ive found a reasonably convincing link between a curve composed of TSI-LOD and Atmospheric Angular Momentum
http://s630.photobucket.com/albums/uu21/stroller-2009/?action=view&current=glaam-lod-tsi.gif
The sticky out bits are the el ninos

August 6, 2009 2:31 pm

Leif Svalgaard (13:02:02) :
……….
You cannot help putting wrong interpretation in order to supposedly ‘win’ the argument. ELECTRIC CURRENTS DO NOT DRIVE OCEAN’S CURRENTS ! Induced counter emf slows fractionally polar current down. Emf is not energy source, it acts as an electric break. Energy comes from the Earth’s rotation. Solar energy is nothing to do with Beaufort gyre, it is most of the time entirely under ice cap, and its waters are not exposed to solar heating.
It is balance between of two ocean currents Transpolar current flowing into North Atlantic and Gulf stream entering Arctic Ocean which is disturbed. Both currents contain huge amounts of energy (one from rotation the other from heath) and they are held in fine balance, disturb the balance and energy of one will be absorbed by the other, amplifying effect of the initial disturbance. Think of low friction balanced scales, introduction of a tiny input to one side is sufficient to throw whole system out of balance (proverbial butterfly in south Atlantic causing hurricane in Florida).
In Antarctica circulation slowly moves in direction of pole movement (lower resistance) altering balance between Circumpolar current and the currents flowing in and out of South Atlantic.
If solar input heats the atmosphere to 290K, ocean currents cause +-0.2K divergence or 0.07%. The solar heating of tropical waters provides the energy for this divergence.
You should look at the correlation as calculated here:
http://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/docs/00/40/88/86/PDF/NATA.pdf

August 6, 2009 3:00 pm

vukcevic (12:39:16) :
May I just for starter point out that gyre is much faster than 1m/s. The North Atlantic gyre transport index averages around 60m/sec
May I for starters point out how little you know about these things. The transport index is not measured in meters per second, but MT/s or MegaTon/second.

August 6, 2009 3:10 pm

vukcevic (12:39:16) :
And to continue on that road, the Beaufort gyre is a result of the Coriolis force, driven by the prevailing winds, and the Ekman transport [friction between layers of water participating in the Ekman Spiral]. The atmosphere is the driver of the gyre.

August 6, 2009 3:33 pm

vukcevic (12:39:16) :
And looking more closely at your claims, perhaps you should consider that the Beaufort gyre is a freshwater gyre and thus not very conducting, and so on and on. One of the things that scientists implicitly do when they read each other’s paper is to assume that the paper is ‘true’ in the sense that one does not have to check and verify every little detail. This is the default attitude: trust that the details are right. You seem, repeatedly, to violate that trust, so we can now add other one to the list of appellations: “trust violator”.

August 6, 2009 4:00 pm

vukcevic (14:31:13) :
ELECTRIC CURRENTS DO NOT DRIVE OCEAN’S CURRENTS ! Induced counter emf slows fractionally polar current down.
You contradict yourself.
Energy comes from the Earth’s rotation.
No, it doesn’t.
Solar energy is nothing to do with Beaufort gyre, it is most of the time entirely under ice cap, and its waters are not exposed to solar heating.
Not the point, which is that the gyre interacts with other circulations that are and therefore the solar input [what you call the ‘heath’] is a good measure to compare with.
But since the gyre is freshwater, the whole emf thing is irrelevant to begin with…

August 6, 2009 4:13 pm

tallbloke (14:17:28) :
I’m wondering if there might be a different explanation for the changes in the speed of the circulation of the Gyre related to my metric of the moment, Length of Day.
http://www.whoi.edu/beaufortgyre/results.html

Pamela Gray
August 6, 2009 4:15 pm

Leif, you may have better information than I have gathered, but my understanding is that the Gyre contains freshwater from the Canadian basin (at variable amounts) but it is not strictly a fresh water gyre.

August 6, 2009 4:35 pm

Pamela Gray (16:15:49) :
Leif, you may have better information than I have gathered, but my understanding is that the Gyre contains freshwater from the Canadian basin (at variable amounts) but it is not strictly a fresh water gyre.
That is correct, but its conductivity is reduced and whatever small emf-induced braking there might be would be greater outside of the gyre. In any event, the electric force is so minute it doesn’t matter. Salinity changes and resulting density gradients seem to be the controlling forces. One might wonder why these people do not consider the electric aspect at all: http://www.whoi.edu/beaufortgyre/index.html
I did the calculation some years ago when somebody was trying to convince me that GW was caused by the solar wind driving electric currents in the ocean, thereby heating them [like current through a wire]. He was equally adamant, and eventually gave up on me and is now [I presume] happy on his island of certainty, knowing what is going on [always better than uncertainty, fear, and doubt].

the_buther
August 6, 2009 5:04 pm

Vuc be nice to our Leif please.
He’s losing his patience cause he’s afraid might kaput before the peak of sc2.

Stephen Wilde
August 6, 2009 11:01 pm

I’m glad I’ve been generally avoiding the issues as to WHY and HOW the oceans seem to change their rates of energy emission to the air on multidecadal time scales.
It’s enough for my current climate description that they do so.
I can see the problem of scale as regards electric currents and I see the chicken and egg problem as to whether ocean or air is the driver of those changes.
However the idea of the oceans as a variable resistor which receives energy from the sun and then releases it irregularly to the air has great appeal to me because it has the potential to explain so much of what we see happening in the air in climate terms.
In explaining any such irregular release of energy to the air one has to take account of the approximate 30 year phase changes between predominant El Nino and predominant La Nina events with a 60 year overall cycle.
There is nothing that happens in the air or involving the sun that matches a cycle on that time scale so I am forced to accept that the oceans have some internal characteristic that causes it.
Tallbloke has been having a go at explaining a possible mechanism inside the oceans and I am keeping an open mind on the issue.
vukcevic seems to have the germ of an idea linked to electrical and magnetic influences and on grounds of scale I share Leif’s doubts on that. However it does seem clear to me that it is the oceanic behaviour in acting rather similarly to a variable electrical resistor that seems to be at the heart of it so it may just be that a refinement of some of the terminology is required to overcome that problem.
I imagine that the cause is a combination of all factors such as Earth’s rotation, length of day, solar variability, density and salinity variations and so on and so forth but the outcome of the combination seems to be a 60 year cycle of varying rates of energy release from oceans to air and that is at the heart of all the climate shifts we ever see.
In itself that does not resolve the CO2 issue but it does reduce it to far less of a problem than alarmists would have us believe because natural forces are then very much back in control for many decades at a time.
Then one has to consider the slow general background trend and however it is caused it is there and pre exists significant human CO2 emissions so even there natural forces seem to be in control.
Finally the issue arises as to whether human CO2 emissions could EVER upset those natural forces and my current view is that if it could happen at all it could not happen on time scales that need concern us bearing in mind the speed of human technological progress and the likelihood that we will have to deal with overpopulation, resource depletion and pollution long before any human caused climate effects could ever become significant.
In fact I think the whole effect of extra GHGs in the air is just dealt with routinely by the speed of the hydrological cycle changing imperceptibly as I have explained elsewhere.

August 6, 2009 11:40 pm

Leif Svalgaard (16:13:27) :
http://www.whoi.edu/beaufortgyre/results.html

From the link:
Dickson et al. (2000), Maslowski et al. (2000), Karcher et al. (2003), Häkkinen and Proshutinsky (2004), and many others. Proshutinsky et al., 2002, Proshutinsky, 2003 and Dukhovskoy et al., 2004 have speculated that these processes originate in the ,auto-oscillatory behavior of the system.
There’s a lot to read about there, but it seems the premise is that the energy which drives the oscillation of the system is ‘plucked out of thin air’.
I think it will be found in the real motion of heavy objects nearby. Eventually.

August 7, 2009 12:00 am

Stephen Wilde (23:01:27) :
There is nothing that happens in the air or involving the sun that matches a cycle on that time scale so I am forced to accept that the oceans have some internal characteristic that causes it.
Tallbloke has been having a go at explaining a possible mechanism inside the oceans and I am keeping an open mind on the issue.

I’m not alone. See Nicola Scafetta’s presentation to the EPA. He offers the same idea as an explanation . The motion of the sun WRT the centre of mass of the solar system which fits all the data, particularly the 60 year cycles and the peak around 2000AD. Also, I have found a correlation between the motion of the sun up and down in the z axis WRT the COM and the length of day variation.
The only thing missing is the physical mechanism for the energy transfer between the planetary motion and the sun and the other planets effects directly on each other. This is Leif’s sticking point and the reason why he won’t entertain ideas involving the solar-barycentric relative motion.
There are several lines of investigation into the physical basis, involving research into the effects of angular momentum changes on the sun’s differential rotation, the effect of Jupiter’s enormous magnetosphere (Jupiter emits net energy), the motion of the sun through it’s own magnetic field, and various other possible mechanisms.
Unfortunately, rather than lending his prodigious knowledge and intellect to assisting in the investigation, Leif, for whatever reason, actively suppresses it and denigrates those who discuss it.
It’s almost Wittgensteinian. “Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent”
In a space-time where Einstein’s calculation for the perihelion of mercury doesn’t actually stand up to careful scrutiny, anything is possible.

August 7, 2009 12:35 am

Leif Svalgaard
“the Beaufort gyre is a result of the Coriolis force, driven by the prevailing winds, …The atmosphere is the driver of the gyre.”
Beaufort gyre most of the time is under solid ice. Only peripheral areas are occasionally exposed to winds. So circulation stops in the 8 months of the year when it is completely frozen over, or that is some wind!
“But since the gyre is freshwater, the whole emf thing is irrelevant to begin with…”
That is a “straw man”.
Fresh cold water is circulating at the top of the gyre, it is considerably slowed down by presence of floating ice and it is not particularly relevant in the respect of current induction. Saline water enters from North Atlantic as heavier, circulating at lower levels, where the strongest currents are induced.
Two major currents Transpolar and Gulf current flow at different depths. Transpolar current takes surface fresh cold Artic waters, entering North Atlantic on the surface and this process is probably less affected. What causes temperature deviation is the regulation of warm saline water inflow from Gulf current into Arctic Ocean., which eventually ends up in the lower saline levels of the gyre. http://web.mit.edu/12.000/www/m2011/finalwebsite/graphics/climate/atlanticmap.gif
The other major contributor to temperature deviation is taking place at Antarctic (where there is little fresh water inflow), regulating flow of cold currents out of Atlantic and inflow of warm waters from Indian Ocean into Atlantic.
Finally: http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/OTI.gif measured in the North Atlantic.

August 7, 2009 8:06 pm

tallbloke (00:00:51) :
There are several lines of investigation into the physical basis, involving research into the effects of angular momentum changes on the sun’s differential rotation, the effect of Jupiter’s enormous magnetosphere (Jupiter emits net energy), the motion of the sun through it’s own magnetic field, and various other possible mechanisms.
Unfortunately, rather than lending his prodigious knowledge and intellect to assisting in the investigation, Leif, for whatever reason, actively suppresses it and denigrates those who discuss it.

I have looked into the various proposed ideas and found them all wanting. That is why. I have given more thought to this than most other physicists I know, who would never give any of this a second look. Show me something good and I’ll go with it. Show me junk and I’ll tell you. What is ‘junk’? For me, junk is what I consider junk. You may disagree and be happy with what you believe, but most peddlers of junk are not happy just to stay with their junk. They try to push it onto everybody else and tend to get upset if their brilliance is not recognized immediately. Why complain when I say your idea is junk? just write me off as a nut and go your merry way.

Richard
August 7, 2009 10:14 pm

Leif Svalgaard (07:14:30) :
Richard (02:30:10) :
If they both started at the same temperature they would always remain the same according to you.
“Not at all. They have vastly different temperatures.”(????) “Increasing the radiation by 10% will increase the temperatures by 2.5% for both bodies.”
However I will let this go.
Then you admit that all we are talking about are the changes in insolation due to the change in the distance from the sun of the Northern winters. This is small.
“No, this is large, a hundred times larger than the solar cycle change.”
Leif you are wrong – The change in insolation for the 100,000 year cycle is very small. “1-2% of the the change caused by the 21,000-year precession and 41,000-year obliquity cycles”. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/100,000-year_problem
Also “For over a century it has been argued that changes in the Earth’s orbital eccentricity were responsible for the primary cycle of the ice ages (ref 1-4). Although the eccentricity changes were small (between 0.01 and 0.05), they can be calculated with good accuracy back at least several million years (ref 5, 6) and they show quasi-periodic behavior with a period of about 100 kyr. Milankovitch (ref 2) proposed that the eccentricity affected the climate through its effect on insolation, the average solar energy reaching the earth. The discovery (ref 3) of a strong quasi-periodic 100 kyr cycle in the climate data, in approximate phase coherence with the eccentricity, gave strong support to the theory. BUT THE CALCULATED INSOLATION CHANGES FROM ECCENTRICITY WERE TOO SMALL TO ACCOUNT FOR THE STRONG 100 KYR CYCLE…”
“We can draw the remarkably strong conclusion that VARIATIONS IN THE EARTH’S ECCENTRICITY CANNOT BE RESPONSIBLE FOR THE 100 KYR GLACIAL CYCLE.”
from here http://muller.lbl.gov/papers/nature.html#anchor29818
Another reason to say you are wrong – computing the change of insolation from the min winter to max winter due to changes in eccentricity is erroneous. It takes about 5,000 years for the ice-age to happen to at the very maximum we should take the change in insolation due to this for a few thousand years, which I am sure will be comparable to the change due to solar cycles, specially deep minimums like the maunder minimum.

August 7, 2009 11:40 pm

Leif Svalgaard (20:06:17) :
I have looked into the various proposed ideas and found them all wanting. That is why. I have given more thought to this than most other physicists I know, who would never give any of this a second look. Show me something good and I’ll go with it.

Fair enough Leif, I anticipate it won’t be too long before a good new proposition is on the table. I’ll keep going with my merry way.
Firstly, I have found a correlation between variations in Earth’s Length of Day and the z axis motion of the suns equatorial plane with respect to the solar sytem centre of mass (COM).
http://s630.photobucket.com/albums/uu21/stroller-2009/?action=view&current=lod-ssb.gif
There is a lag of around thirty years, but given that Dr Richard Gross of NASA states that most of earth’s LOD variation is due to the shifting of flows within earth’s mantle, I think it is not surprising that there is so much inertia in the system. The correlataion is not perfect as my graph shows. But since the curve is calculated from historical LOD data, which is also less than perfect prior to around 1962, and the earth is affected by other planets gravitation directly rather than simply being directly affected by the entire solar system centre of mass and the sun’s relationship to it, this may explain a lot of the discrepancy if the necessary calculations are performed. I believe those calcs will also show the different parts of the sun is affected and not in the perfect freefall you think it is. We will see.
Using a composite of TSI data and LOD data, I have also generated this curve,
http://s630.photobucket.com/albums/uu21/stroller-2009/?action=view&current=glaam-lod-tsi.gif
which matches changes in Atmospheric Angular Momentum apart from the departures caused by el nino, which I see as a function of oceanic heat release roughly timed with solar minima. The solar data is lagged around 34 months from the LOD data and the composite lagged around a year from AAM data to get the match.