Steve Goddard writes:
Below are animations for the entire year (150 days) so far, based on NOAA SST maps. The videos are presented with minimal commentary. As they say, “150 pictures are worth 150,000 words.”
El Niño has faded and may be switching genders.
The Northern Pacific has been generally below average.
The tropical Atlantic has warmed significantly over the year, heading in to the hurricane season.
The ocean just south of Greenland has been persistently above average temperatures.
Antarctic waters have been getting colder, which is reflected in the growth of ice.
Arctic waters have been warm on the Atlantic side, and cold on the Pacific side. This is reflected in excess ice near Alaska and deficiencies near Greenland and Svalbard.
Q: If the El Nino is fading, or changing sex, how long will it take for the residual heat on the Atlantic side to dissipate—or is it affected by a separate mechanism?
Thanks for the excellent animations of SST. It will be interesting to see what the effect of the changes will do regarding the amount of sea ice at the end of the current melt season. Crystal ball time again!
The most significant to me is the ‘switching genders’ El Nino to (possible) La Nina. Canada will feel it!
Also the warm waters west of Africa which could bring severe hurricanes to the USA.
Thank you for these animations. They really do tell a story.
And BTW, a note to global warmers: none of these temperature seen in the videos are controlled by co2. There is a far bigger picture involved!
The southern atlantic warm waters can be explained as they come out from the The La Plata river, while those hot areas in northern atlantic look like a different phenomenom. Perhaps due to changes in GMF:
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/AT-GMF.gif
and/or perhaps tectonic activity of the atlantic ridge (Iceland volcano).
Interesting times are just beginning. (“progressively” ☺)
Recent earthquake activity:
M 6.3 , northern Mid-Atlantic Ridge
Date: Tuesday, May 25, 2010 10:09:06 UTC
Tuesday, May 25, 2010 08:09:06 AM at epicenter
Depth: 10.00 km (6.21 mi)
OT: These two, one pixel each, SSN=40?
http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/data/realtime/mdi_igr/1024/latest.jpg
http://legaltimes.typepad.com/blt/2010/05/foia-suit-seeks-nasas-global-warming-data-.html
May 27, 2010
FOIA Suit Seeks NASA’s Global Warming Data
NASA has been slapped with a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit alleging that the agency has tried to cover up mistakes in data that have been widely used to support claims of global warming.
In an 18-page complaint filed this morning in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, the Competitive Enterprise Institute says that, in 2007 and 2008, it submitted, but not yet received adequate responses to, FOIA requests seeking NASA documents and information related to changes made to NASA’s temperature data in response to questions raised…
Some great visuals Steve!
Since ocean currents are generally laminar in nature, most upward thermal movement is via conduction and it is rather weak, but if there is a non-thermocline temperature differential, it will flow. Being about 0.58 W/K/m in sea water when you differentiate across hundred of meters is slow and persistent movement of heat upward in the oceans as cooling occurs, initially keeping the surface warmer than without this flow. I feel that is what has been occurring since about 2005 or so, it’s just finally petering out (equalizing for the academia).
What do you think Steve? See that scenario happening, or more properly, have recently happened?
Amino Acids in Meteorites says: “…And BTW, a note to global warmers: none of these temperature seen in the videos are controlled by co2. There is a far bigger picture involved!”
The thermal mass of the oceans is about 1200 times that of the atmosphere. Big dog, small tail. No wonder Jones got his trivial surface temperature homework eaten!
Enneagram says: “…These two, one pixel each, SSN=40?
http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/data/realtime/mdi_igr/1024/latest.jpg”
They’ve been homogenized, corrected for TOB, adjusted, and had “appropriate” fudge factors applied.
Enneagram says:
May 31, 2010 at 2:36 pm
Those are ‘Lost in Space’ sunmotes, or blinkers. Mere outposts in the vast sea of solar magnetic phenomena.
Those specks might as well be on Betelguese, lost in the crushing void of time & space.
Let them strain at the gnats… we know what they represent.
wayne,
I don’t know much about ocean circulation, though I would guess that the warm tropical waters in the Atlantic are an indication of low cloud cover.
So Amino Acids, when you say “Canada will feel it!”, what do you mean? We had a very warm winter in 2009/10, is the winter of 2010/11 going to be an especially cold one?
Regards, MalcolmR
Maybe skirt-length changes could help with the revelations:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/topics/weather/7788326/Mini-skirt-meteorology-used-to-predict-weather.html
Perhaps the MetOffice should incorporate such data in its weather/climate models
The London Times was once know as The Thunderer. Nowadays they manage to produce the following type of article, makes you proud to be British?
“Night-time temperatures could rise above 25C because of climate change”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article7141432.ece
However there is one very interesting statement: –
” Cities can be up to 10C warmer at night than surrounding rural areas, partly because they absorb more heat from the sun but also because they generate more heat from vehicles, lighting, machines and air conditioning units. Even the metabolism of millions of city dwellers adds to the temperature.
Mark McCarthy, a climate scientist for the Met Office who led the research, said: “The impact of this waste heat on a global scale is very small, but it is hugely significant at the city scale, where it can have a big influence on urban climates.” ”
Mark McCarthy and Ms Vicky Pope of The Met Office resurrect the Urban Heat Island?
There used to be a TV program for kids called “The Big Blue Marble” about topics related to our planet. There is a very good reason why that title was entirely apt. An abundance of water is and always has been the defining characteristic of our planet. Although the Nobel committee has seen fit to bestow a prize on Algore and the goofs at the IPCC for their propaganda efforts in the area of climate science, a really deserved prize awaits some scientist or group, who at some point in what appears to be an increasingly distant future, can step forward and convincingly state that they have arrived at a new theory that completely explains and accounts for the role of H2O in our climate.
That moment looks more distant than ever because our current climate establishment has invested decades of time and billions of dollars in studying CO2. It is as if A. Einstein, back in his patent clerk days, had decided the most productive way to expand on Newton’s work on gravity would be to spend thirty years studying apples.
Sean Peake asked: If the El Nino is fading, or changing sex, how long will it take for the residual heat on the Atlantic side to dissipate—or is it affected by a separate mechanism?”
The North Atlantic is impacted strongly by multiple natural variables. ENSO events cause changes in global atmospheric circulation patterns which raise and lower temperatures remote to the tropical Pacific. The lag in the North Atlantic (as a whole, not the lower latitudes that warmed during this El Nino) is three to six months.
ENSO events play on top of a longer-term natural variation called the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation or AMO, which has a frequency of 50 to 80 years. And then there are the sea level pressure variations, the North Atlantic Oscillation, etc.
But that patch of warm water in the lower latitides of the North Atlantic has dropped in temperature over the past month or so, so it’s already peaked.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=solar-minimum-forecasting
Haven’t you guys been talking about this for a LONG time now?
Keep up the good work. Always a daily read for me.
stevengoddard says:
May 31, 2010 at 3:29 pm
I don’t know much about ocean circulation, though I would guess that the warm tropical waters in the Atlantic are an indication of low cloud cover.
—
I see what you are saying, but that’s more on a year to year variance scale. I was more referring to a decadal scale, at the 10 to 20 or even 30 year rolls in the surface temperatures. Whether it’s albedo variances or (horror!) TSI variances over long periods, that’s another subject on the cause.
Does heat flex in and out of the oceans over decades, not one or two years? The long term view seems to indicate yes. I was just saying that heat flow would be slow and limited by it’s ability to move, the difference in K from one meter layer to the next would be very tiny so the flow would be slow but persistant, over many years as long as the overall temperature gradiance remains pointing up or down. I’m saying we have been on a down now for about five-six years. You just don’t see any massive movement in temperature overall because the oceans are buffering it and slowing it.
I read somewhere that within the past week the N. Atlantic temperature has headed down.
For your information:
Off-topic but very interesting;
[snip – Yes, waaaayyyyyy off topic, and so far OT that not even minimally relevant here. -A]
Nice animations, but, they could use a running date or timeline.
I’ve been looking at the dire predictions for hurricanes this season, and, it certainly is starting out like 2005 if you look at sea surface temperatures and the dying of el nino. But if the mid-troposphere is really warming as the AGW crowd has been screeching all winter, doesn’t this diminish the driving force for hurricane formation? Or, perhaps it’s cooling over the tropics where the water is warm? I wanted to take a look at the vertical temperature gradients in 2005 & the beginning of 2010, but, I couldn’t find an appropriate map.
Van Grungy @ 3:56 PM
Thanks for that link to the Sci Am article about the sun. That brings a lot of stuff together.
=========
Wayne at 3:29pm – The deep ocean is only a few degrees C, so there should always be a slow transfer of heat downwards rather than up, except at the Poles. But then, an unstirred cup of coffee cools at the surface first, so in that case the transfer is upwards. The large scale SST changes come from changes in the pattern of winds over many months, which alter the flow of various warm & cold surface currents in the ocean basins. That’s my understanding of the process, anyway.
Van Grungy says:
May 31, 2010 at 3:56 pm
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=solar-minimum-forecasting
Haven’t you guys been talking about this for a LONG time now?
Keep up the good work. Always a daily read for me.
Many here have.
It is curious in Scientific America article that an entire group of solar physicists agree that they are completely in the mist, don’t have the foggiest what the sun is up to. Now Hallelujah that is very fresh wind of truthfulness!! If only AGW climatologist could learn a bit of that humility. If Scientific America keeps that up I might just renew my subscription!
Does anyone have an explanation for why The North Atlantic hurricane activity has increased while the global ACE was decreasing?
Nice animations Steven.
Nino 3.4 stayed at -0.2C last week.
The subsurface waters, however, are as much as -7.0C below normal in some places and it will just take some time to cool-off the slightly warmer water above and for this cooler water to reach the surface and spread across the region.
http://www7320.nrlssc.navy.mil/global_nlom32/navo/z2n140w.gif
The AMO area of the north Atlantic has cooled by about 0.2C from the peak 5 weeks ago and the 0 to 30N area (which is the most above normal) has cooled by about 0.3C in the last 3 weeks.
jorgekafkazar says:
May 31, 2010 at 3:25 pm
Enneagram says: “…These two, one pixel each, SSN=40?
http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/data/realtime/mdi_igr/1024/latest.jpg”
They’ve been homogenized, corrected for TOB, adjusted, and had “appropriate” fudge factors applied.
—
From http://www.spaceweather.com/glossary/sunspotnumber.html
“As a rule of thumb, if you divide either of the official sunspot numbers by 15, you’ll get the approximate number of individual sunspots visible on the solar disk if you look at the Sun by projecting its image on a paper plate with a small telescope.”
Thus no manipulative shenanigans are going on here. An SSN of 40 would be indicative of 2-3 spots, which is what we appear to have.
Ray Boorman says:
May 31, 2010 at 5:26 pm
Wayne at 3:29pm – The deep ocean is only a few degrees C, so there should always be a slow transfer of heat downwards rather than up, except at the Poles. But then, an unstirred cup of coffee cools at the surface first, so in that case the transfer is upwards. The large scale SST changes come from changes in the pattern of winds over many months, which alter the flow of various warm & cold surface currents in the ocean basins. That’s my understanding of the process, anyway.
Hi Ray,
That’s interesting. I have thought that before until I realized that basically means the if there were no “arctic water” there would be no thermocline. Not so. You need at least 1000+ meter water column to observe what I am speaking of. It’s because of density separation, the thermocline that is.
Here from Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermocline :
“Thermoclines can also be observed in lakes. […] Because the warm water is exposed to the sun during the day, a stable system exists, and very little mixing of warm water and cold water occurs, particularly in calm weather.”
If that was so colder packets of water would never fall due to density differentials and eventually you would end up with an ocean at one temperature, top and bottom. That doesn’t happen. that is why I said specifically “non-thermocline temperature differential”. I still think my point is correct. If a stable thermal system as air/ocean and the air or top few meters of the ocean get less heat input from any source the heat in the top thermocline will start moving upward. To myself I call it “collapsing the top part of the thermocline”. If more thermal input from above then the top of the thermocline would expand.
Those effects of currents, wind, and top-layer convection of coarse occur, your right, but I was speaking of a separate effect. Isolate just that aspect and you might see what I mean.
I’ll go one more step, it’s the gravity! One cubic meter deep is under more pressure but less temperature. One cubic meter up here is less pressure but more temperature. Are they not under thermal equilibrium if the exact figures are applied, therefore no heat flows even though the temperatures are different? That is why I pressed “non-thermocline differential”.
Anthony Scalzi says:
May 31, 2010 at 6:25 pm
Problem is, I have projected those extremely low-contrast sunspots on a piece of paper with a small telescope.
Just about a year ago, Dr. Leif Svalgaard was with me when I projected just such a spot, and we could not see it.
I had it at 8:30 am, but by the time I got to Leif at the hotel it was vanished.
I have tried enough of these SOHO MDI Continuum ghosts to know that, at best, 1 spot group was visible.
I will say this: If you don’t believe me, get out there and do the observations yourself. Besides, it won’t be too much longer and you will only be able to see Sunspots on SOHO or SDO images, if L&P continues.
Shenninigans.
Anthony Scalzi says:
May 31, 2010 at 6:25 pm
Thus no manipulative shenanigans are going on here. An SSN of 40 would be indicative of 2-3 spots, which is what we appear to have….
Say what?
http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/data/realtime/mdi_igr/512/
http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/data/realtime/mdi_igr/1024/latest.jpg
Clean your screen!
MalcolmR says:
May 31, 2010 at 3:37 pm
So Amino Acids, when you say “Canada will feel it!”, what do you mean? We had a very warm winter in 2009/10, is the winter of 2010/11 going to be an especially cold one?
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
It depends on the line of blue water that goes to the west of South America on the equator that you see at the end of this animation by Steven Goddard:
If that line stays blue that is La Nina. Red on the equator in that location is El Nino.
This is the typical El Nino pattern:
http://www.erh.noaa.gov/ilm/ElNino/typicalelninopattern.jpg
So you can see why it was warm in Vancouver for the Olympics. It was not caused by man. It was a normal El Nino occurrence.
This is the typical La Nina pattern:
http://www.crh.noaa.gov/Image/gid/LaNina%282%29.png
You can see it could be a cold winter in Canada.
It’s simple actually to find it for yourself. Do a search on things like “typical El Nino pattern”, or, “typical La Nina pattern”, or, “typical el nino winter weather pattern in Canada”, or, “typical el nino summer weather pattern in Canada”, or, “typical la nina summer pattern in Canada”. etc., etc.
Bill Illis says:
May 31, 2010 at 6:12 pm
The subsurface waters, however, are as much as -7.0C below normal in some places…
Huh, I thought Kevin Trenberth said global warming sank into the ocean. How can it be colder there? 😉
“Jim Steele says:
May 31, 2010 at 5:52 pm
Does anyone have an explanation for why The North Atlantic hurricane activity has increased while the global ACE was decreasing?”
Hurricanes only form when the water temperature reaches a certain level. Higher water temperatures don’t really make any difference. Hurricane activity seems to follow a 40 year cycle — we’re about half way through an active cycle.
Anthony Scalzi says:
May 31, 2010 at 6:25 pm
jorgekafkazar says:
May 31, 2010 at 3:25 pm
Enneagram says: “…These two, one pixel each, SSN=40?
http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/data/realtime/mdi_igr/1024/latest.jpg”
They’ve been homogenized, corrected for TOB, adjusted, and had “appropriate” fudge factors applied.
—
From http://www.spaceweather.com/glossary/sunspotnumber.html
“As a rule of thumb, if you divide either of the official sunspot numbers by 15, you’ll get the approximate number of individual sunspots visible on the solar disk if you look at the Sun by projecting its image on a paper plate with a small telescope.”
Thus no manipulative shenanigans are going on here. An SSN of 40 would be indicative of 2-3 spots, which is what we appear to have.
_______________________________________________________________________
I just look at the Layman’s Sunspot Count to compare apples to historic apples or as Dr. Leif Svalgaard suggested to me I use F10.7 found here on his graph:
TSI-F10.7-MF-SSN-Solar Activity Recent solar activity (daily graph)
Either way the sun has gone back into a funk again.
Amino Acids in Meteorites says:
May 31, 2010 at 8:06 pm
Huh, I thought Kevin Trenberth said global warming sank into the ocean. How can it be colder there? 😉
With Gore at the helm of the Minnow, that’s one cold ride to the bottom.
rbateman says:
May 31, 2010 at 7:20 pm
The most fascinating thing I’ve learned in the last couple of years here is the L & P fading sunspots. I’m surprised it hasn’t gotten more attention from any level from the solar science community (or at less the press coverage of it) to “The End is Near” types talking to themselves (oops – that’s a cell phone in their sleeve).
It’s been nearly a year since the L&P’s last paper on it, WUWT has picked up a lot of readers since then who don’t appreciate this possible event. so, if you have no idea who L & P are, or why you hear rbateman blaming the Sun instead of his eyes for his difficulty in drawing sunspots these days, read http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/06/13/sunspots-today-a-cheshire-cat-new-essay-from-livingston-and-penn/
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/06/02/livingston-and-penn-paper-sunspots-may-vanish-by-2015/
The short summary of all this is “The magnetic field of sunspots is decreasing, this allows more convection, and therefore sunspots are warming. That reduces the contrast of the umbra, penumbra, and the surrounding Sun. If current trends continue, sunspots will exist with a magnetic signature but will fade from view. Presumably this has happened before (there is nothing new under the Sun – my joke), but we didn’t have tools to measure it. It might have happened during the Maunder Minimum. If that’s related to climate, (cue Leif for dissent), then kiss your butt to keep it warm. If not, then it’s “just” exciting times in solar research.
When do sunspots fade from view? Around 2015 if the trend since 1990 continues. All in all, it’s the most fascinating thing I’ve learned at WUWT.
This is the Sun in 1998 with the hammer down on the Solar Cycle 23 Autobahn:
http://www.robertb.darkhorizons.org/sc23COMP_latest.JPG
This is the Sun today in 2010 in a VW Bus on a steep hill:
http://www.robertb.darkhorizons.org/COMP_latest.JPG
There is always hope for a trade-in on a faster model, but it ain’t happened yet.
Well if one accepts that the primary effect on global albedo is the cyclical shift of all the main cloud bands (the two mid latitude jets and the ITCZ) latitudinally then it would follow that one would get differential warming and cooling in the various oceans depending on the position of each ocean relative to the position of the cloud bands.
I feel sure that that is where one would find a resolution of the undoubted interplay between sea surface temperatures as described by Bob Tisdale and the cloudiness effects mentioned by Steve Goddard.
The warm parts of the North Atlantic would be where the northern jets have moved to over recent years having previously been in a more poleward position. Thus the warmth is being restrained in it’s normal progression from mid latitudes towards the pole.
The warmer Tropical Atlantic would also be a consequence of the jets having moved equatorward as the tropical warmth is restrained from moving into the mid latitudes.
Obviously other factors are relevant such as the background flows of water between oceans and from equator to poles but short term I’d say that it’s variable insolation and variable poleward air flows as a result of those latitudinal cloud and air circulation shifts that has the greater effect. There could also be long term effects too as the energy input to the thermohaline circulation varies over time, perhaps over centuries.
Those latitudinal shifts would also be involved in affecting the Trade Wind patterns which have a direct relationship to ENSO phenomena as Bob often points out.
Then one must ask why the cloud bands move latitudinally beyond normal seasonal variability over multidecadal time periods and as regular readers will know my favoured mechanism for that is currently solar effects influencing the strength of the inversion at the tropopause and thus the size and intensity of the polar high pressure cells.
New and improved version :
rbateman says:
May 31, 2010 at 9:06 pm
With Gore at the helm of the Minnow, that’s one cold ride to the bottom.
Is that the ‘Gore Effect’?
rbateman says:
May 31, 2010 at 9:37 pm
This is the Sun in 1998 with the hammer down on the Solar Cycle 23 Autobahn:
http://www.robertb.darkhorizons.org/sc23COMP_latest.JPG
This is the Sun today in 2010 in a VW Bus on a steep hill:
http://www.robertb.darkhorizons.org/COMP_latest.JPG
There is always hope for a trade-in on a faster model, but it ain’t happened yet.
— —
Yea, there you go! I’ve got some soho images packed away on CDs somewhere when it looked like that 1998 with a eight barrel turbocharge engaged. But remember, the powers to be keep telling us the science is settled and no more energy leaves that blazing sun’s surface when comparing to today glassy surface other than a 1.5 parts in 1360 or so. You buy that? Or, that maybe the instruments just need an upgrade. Perhhaps the new solar satellite will give us that answer (would throw up the acronym but never can seem to remember the new ones, oh yea, SDO :).
rbateman says:
May 31, 2010 at 9:37 pm
“This is the Sun in 1998 with the hammer down on the Solar Cycle 23 Autobahn:
http://www.robertb.darkhorizons.org/sc23COMP_latest.JPG
This is the Sun today in 2010 in a VW Bus on a steep hill:
http://www.robertb.darkhorizons.org/COMP_latest.JPG
There is always hope for a trade-in on a faster model, but it ain’t happened yet.”
Thanks for the excellent compilation pictures, Robert, which show just how weak cycle 24 activity is. I’m not looking forward to next winter if this pattern of low activity continues, on top of the other changes indicated by this post.
A good source for information to track solar cycle 24 progress, along with links to the new SDO solar images, is available here:-
http://prop.hfradio.org/
Enjoy…
Is it just me or is the redness on the north atlantic side of the Arctic weakening in the last couple of months?
Amino acids in Meteorites asks “is it the Gore Effect”
[Latin] ALGOR:- Cold-Coldness, Chilliness, Fit of shivering. Cold weather [PL]
Real latin rather spooky.
Some mention the Jets in this article, would be curious to see if anyone has (or can) come up with an article on the change in Jets over the past ten to fifteen years and what if anything is noted as an anomoly in location(s) and strength(s). Please?
(not talking football;-)
A new concept to help explain the present Arctic and Antarctic ice observations. This is unverified and here for discussion.
1) The magnetic field hole over the poles allows the Sun’s TSO (Total Solar Output) to warm the poles faster than the equator during high solar output. In addition, when the Sun’s TSO goes to a minimum (we are at a minimum now, check the 10.7 cm Flux values), by the same effect, the poles cool faster than the equator.
2) Heat movement from the equator to the poles is accelerated by the differential, and occurs more energetically until the stored heat at the equator is dissipated. When the differential approaches “normal values” (to be defined), heat movement becomes less energetic.
3) The Pacific is in the process of releasing its stored heat. The Sun has “turned off”. When the stored heat reaches its new low value, expect the Arctic and Antarctic ice to greatly increase in volume, but not necessarily in extent. The extent, as previously stated by WUWT, is highly affected by the increased winds (energetic heat movement).
4) TSO (Total Solar Output) is different than TSI (Total Solar Irradiance). TSI was measured on the Earth’s surface after going through the magnetic field. TSO includes hard, soft x-rays, high, low ultraviolet, solar wind energy, etc. I feel that the 10.7 cm Flux is a good proxy for TSO, since energy must pass through 10.7 cm on its way to cosmic noise. Note: All of the interactions and mechanisms have not been identified.
Thanks
Pascvaks :
June 1, 2010 at 4:21 am
I’ve been unabe to find anyone tracking latitudinal position of the air circulation systems beyond seasonal variability.
However there are lots of bits and pieces in the wider literature confirming that it does happen. In particular they were well equatorward during the Little Ice Age and presumably well poleward during the Mediaeval Warm Period hence the warmer Greenland then. Likewise well poleward during the recent Warm Period but currently have moved back equatorward again.
A recent paper by Mann and others (of all people) has linked the latitudinal positions in the southern hemisphere to solar activity and as I expected the more active the sun the more poleward the jets.
Dr. Lurtz :
June 1, 2010 at 6:18 am
“1) The magnetic field hole over the poles allows the Sun’s TSO (Total Solar Output) to warm the poles faster than the equator during high solar output. In addition, when the Sun’s TSO goes to a minimum (we are at a minimum now, check the 10.7 cm Flux values), by the same effect, the poles cool faster than the equator.”
That’s one possibility but I’m not sure yet that it’s solely a magnetic effect. In particular the poles are slightly warmer than normal at present due to enhanced air flows in and out whilst the jets are more equatorward and so able to show more ‘loopy’ pole to equator behaviour in their tracks. Whatever it is causes the stratosphere to cool when the sun is more active as during the late 20th century and warm when the sun is less active as now. It’s necessary to have a temperature effect on the stratosphere in order to get an effect on the strength of the inversion at the tropopause which would be the feature that then changes the size and location of the polar high pressure cells in troposphere. An interesting point is that that would be opposite from what is normally expected. The conventional wisdom is that the stratosphere warms from a more active sun but it didn’t during the late 20th century and that apparent anomaly was put down to the CFC effect on ozone quantities which was assumed to be reversing the ‘normal’ effect. I think that needs to be revisited.
I’m persuaded by the fact that a cooler stratosphere must always weaken the inversion at the tropopause and allow the jets to move poleward as was indeed observed. I think it too much of a stretch to suggest that CFC or CO2 quantities control the latitudinal position of all the air circulation systems. The currently warming stratosphere with a strengthening inversion, stronger polar high pressure cells and the movement of the jets back equatorward is far more likely to be linked to the less active sun than CFCs or CO2 especially since all the recent changes in trend coincided with the reducing solar activity levels.
Logically what must be happening to fit observations is a change in the energy flux from stratosphere upward when the solar activity level changes.
So for example a less active sun will reduce the upward energy flux which on the face of it reduces loss of energy to space globally and so could have a warming effect but because that then pushes the air circulation systems equatorward there is reduced insolation into the oceans due to a global increase in albedo. Thus a net cooling effect but filtered through the oceans which takes some time.
The cooling effect of a quiet sun is therefore not related to a reduction in total solar output but instead is caused by the equatorward shift in the cloud banks reducing the total amount of energy getting into the oceans with a reduced energy flow from oceans to air at a later date.
The warming effect of an active sun would not be related to the tiny increase in total solar output but instead is caused by the poleward shift in the cloud banks increasing the total amount of energy getting into the oceans with an increased energy flow from oceans to air at a later date.
That latitudinal shift in the cloud banks and the consequent effect on global albedo gives a nice method for amplification of the tiny changes in total solar power output.
Van Grungy says:
May 31, 2010 at 3:56 pm
From the link you gave:
After hearing his colleagues’ various approaches to investigating the sun’s behavior, Hill took stock of a field with many open questions. “My main impression of all this is I’m gratified to see that we all agree that this is an interesting minimum,” Hill said. “What’s not so gratifying is we have no clue why any of these effects are happening.”
Who dares?
Here is one who really dares:
http://www.holoscience.com/news.php?article=ah63dzac
Here there is another:
http://www.landscheidt.info/?q=node/4
Equatorial Upper Ocean Heat anomaly in the Nino regions has fallen to -1.1C last week.
http://img580.imageshack.us/img580/9408/euohcmay28.png
For the month of May, the EUOHA in the Nino regions was -0.96C
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/ocean/index/heat_content_index.txt
These numbers lead the ENSO by about 1 month. Chart of the monthly numbers back to 1979.
http://img691.imageshack.us/img691/7948/ensovseuohamay10.png
I find that the past 12 months have been supposedly some of the warmest periods this decade despite minimum sun activity. Between 1911-1913 there was also a lull in sun activity which was followed by a spike in temperatures in 1914 and 1915. Is there some sort of pattern here caused by a release of heat from the ocean after such an event?
Just a thought.
The idea of transgender processes in SST evolution is a sign of the times we live in.
wayne says:
May 31, 2010 at 10:48 pm
I’ll buy that the TSI does not vary enough to cause direct heating differences worth the time of day.
However, as others have pointed out, the spectral breakdown of what does get here changes minimum to maximum.
So, you could have the Sun sending out different operating frequencies that change the behavior of Earth’s heat retention/release, and toss in the Solar Wind changes to let in/reject more GCR/ACR’s.