In my opinion, this essay is a must read because it clearly illustrates correlation between ocean cycles to; Arctic ice loss and gain, glacier advance and retreat, and land surface temperature rise and fall. As I said graphically in a previous post…
From OceanCycles.com – click
Guest post by Juraj Vanovcan
The following article shows, that decadal oscillation in North Atlantic sea surface temperature is the driving force behind observed variations in European climate during 20th century. Long-term North Atlantic SST trend is well correlated to European temperature station record, Alpine glacier retreat/advance and changes in Arctic ice extent as well.
Considering the problems with ground station record being contaminated by urbanization, land use changes and selective use, SST record offers an alternative metrics of changes in climate record, since it is free of at least some issues mentioned above. North Atlantic SST record is unique in this view, since it is quite reliable also in the early part of 20th century, when the ship measurement coverage of Atlantic between American continent and Europe had been much denser than in other parts of the globe [1].
Here is presented North Atlantic sea surface temperature record since 1850. While the pre-1880 data are rather noisy, probably because of sparse coverage, the 20th century record shows regular cyclical pattern of warming and cooling. The cycle length is 65 years, with cold minimums reached in 1910 and 1975 and warm maximums in 1940 and 2005.
Figure 1: North Atlantic SST record, expressed as monthly anomalies against 1971-2000 period (HadSST2 dataset)
Letās now compare the North Atlantic SST record with the European ground stations within 40-70N and 10W-30E.
Figure 2: North Atlantic SST record compared to European ground stations
European station record is well correlated with the Atlantic SST changes, and lags the SST record by some 5 years. It is thus obvious, that it is the Atlantic decadal variability, which dictates the European climate. Some excessive surface warming to the end above the SST record (observed also in global surface and SST datasets) is either explained as a sign of quicker response of the surface to increasing radiative forcing, but critics consider it as a sign of urbanization and land use changes, plaguing the station record. This might be especially true for Europe, where population density and its growth have been considerable during the last 100 years. This dispute can be resolved by comparing the North Atlantic SST trend with long-term rural station record.
Armagh Observatory (Ireland) is one of the few rural stations with long historical record, located near small town of Armagh and its surrounding has been claimed to be basically intact since its start in 1796. Lomnicky peak Observatory (Slovakia) is located on the top of the Lomnicky Peak (2655), the highest mountain of Carpathian ridge and measurements are available since 1941.
Figure 3: North Atlantic SST record compared to rural ground stations
From the graph above, it is obvious that the North Atlantic SST record is extremely well correlated to selected UHI-free surface station records from both Western and Central Europe. Amplitude of warming and cooling cycles is slightly more pronounced in the station records.
There are several points worth of interest.
- The rate of warming in 1910-1940 period has been equal with the warming period 1975-2005.Even if one suggests that the anthropogenic forcing is superimposed on natural variations in the background, it is difficult to identify the alleged āincreased anthropogenic forcingā in the record to the end of 20th century.
- There has been pronounced cooling period since 1940 until 1980, which completely erased the early century warming against the 19th century average. The 1982-centered decade in Armagh and CET records has been actually colder than end of 19th century and the decade centered around 1870, which again questions the concept of anthropogenic forcing, which should already manifest with the CO2 increase. Surprisingly enough, looking back at the whole length of the both records, 80ties in Europe were equally coldish as average of the Little Ice Age period.
- The overall warming trend since 1900 (0.6 deg C/century for SST and 0.9 deg C/century for the station record) is partially created by the fact, that beginning of the century starts with the cycle minimum and ends with the cycle maximum. By more proper procedure – comparing the differences between 1910/1975 minimums and 1940/2005 maximums – one gets constant warming trend of 0.3 deg C/century for SST record.
- Despite a string of cold years in early 1940s (much more pronounced in the Central/Eastern European record), individual years in 1940-1950 decade were comparably warm as during the last decade. But the fact is that the last decade as a whole has been warmest in record in both Armagh and Atlantic SST data.
Figure 4: 0-700m ocean heat content in North Atlantic, 1955-2010
In the monthly Atlantic SST record, we can observe that the recent warm phase peaked in 2005 and subsequent cooling of North Atlantic started, despite the recent AMO peak as a response to 2009/2010 El Nino. This climate shift is even better visualized in the 0-700m ocean heat content record for the Northern Atlantic. Based on previous records, we can expect the European climate to follow the SST record and to mimic the 1940-1975 cooling trend.
* * *
Multidecadal oscillation in European climate is also tied to European glacier growth/decline. We often hear about the recent Alpine glaciers retreat, but the fact is, that similar retreat occurred in early 20th century as well, and most of the observed glaciers advanced just three decades ago. Data from Swiss Glaciology Institute, covering more than 100 Swiss glaciers, show ratio of advancing, stationery and retreating glaciers during the 20th century, presented here against the AMO index.
Figure 5: Swiss glacier advance/retreat related to Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (older years are to the right)
Compared to North Atlantic SST record, the period with most glacier growth/retreat lags the ocean by 5 years, matching the lag in surface record. Extremely warm European summer in 2003 is clearly recognizable, when all observed glaciers retreated. But similar period occurred in 1945-1950, followed by years with prevailing growth in late 70ties/early 80ties. This glacier behavior is also discussed in recent study ā100 year mass changes in the Swiss Alps linked to the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillationsā . Based on the AMO peak in 2005 and observed 5-year lag, rebound of Alpine glaciers in the near future is expected.
* * *
North Atlantic seems to have decisive effect on Arctic temperature and ice extent as well. This is understandable, since the Gulf Stream brings masses of warm Atlantic water into the Northern Ocean. Plotting the post-1979 satellite era ice extent against both North Atlantic SST anomalies and Ocean heat content shows reasonable correlation.
Figure 6: Arctic ice extent as a function of North Atlantic SST record, 1979-2009
Figure 7: Arctic ice extent as a function of North Atlantic 0-700m ocean heat content, 1979-2009
By extrapolation this correlation backwards, it is understandable, that the North West Passage has been open for shipping in both 1942-1944 and again in 2007-2009 period. Beyond this SST range, also other positive/negative amplifying effects may change the linear correlation suggested above. Starting rebound of Arctic ice extent since its 2007 minimum is well explainable in light of recent climate shift in the North Atlantic to the cooling mode.
In light of these facts, the alleged Arctic ice history often presented as a āproofā of āunprecedentedā ice retreat in the 20th century is unsupported.
Juraj Vanovcan 26th September 2010
===================================================
My thanks to Juraj for this excellent essay. The conclusion from this essay is that the oceans drive the temperature of the atmosphere, not the other way around. The polar ice responds to the AMO, and glaciers in Europe respond to the AMO. When the AMO and PDO coincide to both be negative, forecast to be sometime around 2015, there’s gonna be some ‘splaining to do.
As the New Scientist finally came to realize and publish on this week,Ā the sun and the oceans play a bigger role than many give credit for. – Anthony
Here’s some additional information via appinsys:
PDO Plus AMO / US Temperatures
Joseph DāAleo has conducted a correlation analysis between the PDO, AMO and temperatures [http://icecap.us/images/uploads/US_Temperatures_and_Climate_Factors_since_1895.pdf] and [http://intellicast.com/Community/Content.aspx?a=127]. The following figures are from DāAleoās analysis.
The following figure shows the 5-year means of PDO, AMO and PDO + AMO.
The next figure shows the US temperature anomalies as calculated by NASAās James Hansen (2001). The periods when the temperature anomalies are positive correspond almost exactly to when the PDO+AMO changes between warm and cool phases.
The following figure compares the PDO+AMO with the US average annual temperatures. DāAleo calculated an r-squared of 0.85 between the two ā an extremely good correlation.
The next figure compares the same temperature data with atmospheric CO2. DāAleo calculated an r-squared of 0.44 between the two ā a fair correlation, but poor in comparison to the PDO+AMO correlation. Although correlation does not prove causation, lower correlation is evidence of lower probability of causation.
The following figure shows the combined effect of PDO and AMO on drought in the United States [http://oceanworld.tamu.edu/resources/oceanography-book/oceananddrought.html]. Further information on these drought relationships can be found at [http://www.pnas.org/content/101/12/4136.full]
PDO Plus AMO / US Temperatures
Joseph DāAleo has conducted a correlation analysis between the PDO, AMO and temperatures [http://icecap.us/images/uploads/US_Temperatures_and_Climate_Factors_since_1895.pdf] and [http://intellicast.com/Community/Content.aspx?a=127]. The following figures are from DāAleoās analysis.
The following figure shows the 5-year means of PDO, AMO and PDO + AMO.
The next figure shows the US temperature anomalies as calculated by NASAās James Hansen (2001). The periods when the temperature anomalies are positive correspond almost exactly to when the PDO+AMO changes between warm and cool phases.
The following figure compares the PDO+AMO with the US average annual temperatures. DāAleo calculated an r-squared of 0.85 between the two ā an extremely good correlation.
The next figure compares the same temperature data with atmospheric CO2. DāAleo calculated an r-squared of 0.44 between the two ā a fair correlation, but poor in comparison to the PDO+AMO correlation. Although correlation does not prove causation, lower correlation is evidence of lower probability of causation.
The following figure shows the combined effect of PDO and AMO on drought in the United States [http://oceanworld.tamu.edu/resources/oceanography-book/oceananddrought.html]. Further information on these drought relationships can be found at [http://www.pnas.org/content/101/12/4136.full]
This is an amazing essay! The figures are stunning. You could drive a truck through the error bars in the hockey stick; whereas these graphs are tight! Even though correlation does not necessarily indicate causation, its pretty darned hard to ignore the closeness of fit in these graphs.
Thanks for this Anthony! And kudos to Juraj Vanovcan for some fine work!
When does the MSM pick this up?
You have created a wonderful essay, Juraj. You have created a wonderful post, Anthony. Maybe we are on the way to some substantial hypotheses about the AMO and its role in northern hemisphere temperatures and climate.
Very nicely done, thanks Anthony and thanks Juraj Vanovcan for the excellent essay. Not a numerical model in sight, I like that. While correlation is not causation, I think the scientific method allows for correlation demonstrating influence.
Nice work, Anthony. Very nice work. Well done.
Anthony writes: “The conclusion from this essay is that the oceans drive the temperature of the atmosphere, not the other way around.”
Without taking anything from the essay, the ERBE graph about meridian transport heat doesn’t agree with this affirmation.
Wow! Good stuff. Can I copy it and send with a letter to my MP ? (on the basis every little helps) (MP = Member of Parliament)
preparing for colder isn’t going to be fun tho’.
REPLY: Sure, send it!
I would like to see this one with PDO+AMO split…
http://www.appinsys.com/GlobalWarming/PDO_AMO_files/image008.gif
… because as it stands USHCN V2 seems to lead during cold phase PDO+AMO and lag during the warm combined phase(s).
I am more and more coming to believe that the MSM and the political science establishment’s behavior can be explained best by my own experience whenever behavior seems to be irrational. Follow the money. Grant money, tax money, carbon credit trading money, subsidy money for alternative sources that would otherwise make no sense.
The skeptics and the scientists examining solar and ocean cycles have no money to spend and their result will cost many companies and scientists a very nice ticket on the gravy train.
Really good paper, Juraj.
Just adding that the ocean heat content numbers for the North Atlantic are indeed on the way down and this should start impacting the sea “surface” temperatures in the near future.
CPC’s ocean heat content down to 300M from the GODAS system by major ocean area (last year, last 4 years and then last 30 years).
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/GODAS/ocean_briefing/hc300_ts_13mo.gif
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/GODAS/ocean_briefing/hc300_ts_4yr.gif
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/GODAS/ocean_briefing/hc300_ts_1979.gif
This one is so well done, watch the mainstream media ignore it like clockwork.
Challenge to Andy Revkin: Buck the silent treatment trend from all your media colleagues around the world on studies/essays that do not line up with the CAGW orthodoxy, and report on it. I dare you.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
Add to all this the effects of soot:
Not to mention the lunar nodal cycle.
Not to mention the urban heat islands’ effect on badly place thermometers.
Not to mention climate modellers who admit to having an “inbuilt bias towards forced climate change” [pdf]
Thanks to Juraj Vanovcan for these regional correlations.
In looking at the annual event scale, there are land temperature changes that seems to happen without preparation by the ocean. For example, the global hot year of 1998 shows in some plots, but not in others (it is a special year of fascination for me). It is the prominent annual feature in the red AMO index of figure 5, together with year 1914-5, which also shows as globally anomalous in many land temperature records. Even given thermal inertia differences and lags, how can the slow-moving trends of the ocean drive these faster trends over land?
Regarding cooling, figure 2 shows a large dip in land temperature about 1942, at a time when ocean SST indices are rising. Same question arises.
My feeling is that a more complete essay has to be able to explain these sudden hot and cold bursts, if the oceans are indeed driving the atmosphere and land temperatures. Is there an obvious additional effect that comes to mind?
I’d like to see this amazing story as a peer-reviewed article.
Juraj, do you plan to submit this to some journal? Definitely you should.
It’s really long :(. Where’s the executive summary?
The post reads, “Joseph DāAleo has conducted a correlation analysis between the PDO, AMO and temperatures…”
Unfortunately, the PDO and AMO are not similar datasets and cannot be added or averaged. The AMO is created by detrending North Atlantic SST anomalies, while the PDO is the product of a principal component analysis North Pacific SST anomalies, north of 20N. Basically, the PDO represents the pattern of the North Pacific SST anomalies that are similar to those created by El NiƱo and La NiƱa events. If one were to detrend the SST anomalies of the North Pacific, north of 20N, and compare it to the PDO, the two curves (smoothed with a 121-month filter) appear to be inversely related:
http://i52.tinypic.com/fvi92b.jpg
Iāll have to update the discussion of this in the Introduction to the PDO post:
http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2010/09/introduction-to-enso-amo-and-pdo-part-3.html
Is this similar to co2 rise follows temperature rise by around 800 years?
What about the LOD (Length of the day)?
See graphs at page 50:
ftp://ftp.fao.org/docrep/fao/005/y2787e/y2787e08.pdf
Hockey sticks anyone?, End of season SALE: Take four hockey sticks and pay only one!, Free delivery, from our UN “convenient & robust” store in NY!
Our advice: Save all original Hockey Sticks, if signed by its authors, better; they will be considered antique iconic symbols of the last Kali Yuga era.
As I understand the graphs, we are at +PDO +AMO now, moving to -PDO +AMO, to be followed by -PDO -AMO. Looking at the red area, Colorado is doomed! If less heat means fewer hurricanes, central Florida looks stable.
Now thats a real torpedo!!
Ive just read about the hundred of million EUROS that EU has put in climatescreaming. Maby Juraj and DiLeo could save all that money and just charge 10% as solution bonus. Because this time the EU will get something worth the money.
It so kindly matches sunspot activity.
Don’t forget your booties for the next 30 years. The other kind that go over your shoes, guys.
Only when another crisis can be blamed on humans and thus used to scare up ratings. But the only problem is there will be a new round of scientists corrupted by money with the rest of the scientists being either deceived or coerced. My money says the next pseudo-crisis will be about potable water. Already I’ve seen a story on CBS news talk about a coming water crisis. There will be some environmental manufactured scare. The environs aren’t going to give up their money and power; politicians aren’t going to give up their money and power; the UN isn’t going to give up its money and power. There will be some new scare. Only then will most of the media report on such issues. But by then, it will be too late.
One thing I’ve learned in life is that when it comes to easy money, when you take out one, ten more appear it that one’s place. The internet will preserve the words of the AGW zealots forever. The lead propaganda proponents will be disgraced; but there will 10 more to take their place with another scare story.
The dog (ocean heat) wags the tail (atmospheric heat). AGW – the tail wags the dog.
Internal forcings anybody.
Don’t look now, but AMSU SST is about to break the 2007 threshold.
http://discover.itsc.uah.edu/amsutemps/
Juraj Vanovcan, an excellent essay – well organized and easy to understand. Any chance you might repackage it for publication?
Agreed, correlation isn’t causation. But there is a clear mechanistic connection here, with the Atlantic temperatures reflecting delivery of heat to Northern Europe from the tropics. Armargh is pretty obvious but this seems to show that the influence extends to Central Europe.
What’s needed is some more statistical analysis to show the extent of the contribution. A least r^2 for all cases, but I think it might need something more sophisticated.
Well done.
Congratulations on an excellent analysis. This and others like it should be written up and submitted to Nature etc. The warmists have all the financial resources, but those of us interested in facts could make a concerted effort to have material such as this hit the journal Editor’s desks at as high a frequence as possible.
Again no one in MSM will look at this until its published. The sun heats the oceans and of course the SST will control climate mainly re sun controls basically over time but hard to show/correlate. However here we can see the correlation clearly
Although not submitted for publication (yet?) this paper speaks volumes. If this holds up to an audit ala McIntyre et al, it should cause quite a stir.
I too am hoping this paper will be further developed and submitted for publication.
I am curious though… Why hasn’t something like this been done before?
Jeff (of Colorado) says:
September 26, 2010 at 6:17 pm
Keep in mind that the graphs are meant to reprensent drought frequency, not that any particular area is always drought-stricken. Weather rides on the back of these indexes, but exhibits great freedom of variance. If dry years are interrupted by wet years, you won’t get the same effect as you would if they all ran in one continuous dust bowl.
This deserves to be translated into a readable Media Release for submission to the MSM in order for the average citizen to easily digest the conclusion. The Gore camp have proved that marketing wins over science when it comes to public perception of an issue. There must be some PR writers and journo’s out here that would help, given a synopsis.
Interesting, it has been nearly 40 years since both the AMO and PDO were negative and the last time they were both negative was when the MSM and scientists were discussing the possibility of the next ice age.
Now comes the kicker. whilst solar cycle 21 in the 70’s was a relatively quite one (compared to 20, 22 and 23), it still had a SSN in the vicinity of 110. Were now looking at potentially a solar cycle 24 with a SSN in the 40-75 range and theres no telling where solar cycle 25 may go in the midst of the the combined AMO/PDO negative phase.
By all accounts we must be looking at some significant cooling in the pipeline and just possibly we stand a better chance of seeing surface stations pick up the trend since most urban areas already have UHI effects included in their measurements
Lets see Hansen and Jones try and fudge their way out of this.
The same type of analysis can be performed for the Western US by using the Pacific Decadal Oscillation as the reference. The other point is to use the minimum surface temperatures in the weather station analysis. Doing this I can back out urban heat island effects in California and find suspect weather stations. I have also done the same thing for UK data with the AMO.
The California data is on line at SSPI ‘California climate change is caused by the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, not carbon dioxide’
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/originals/pacific_decadal.html
This is a general technique since many places in the world show a local ocean influence. New Zealand should be interesting, and the coastal regions of Australia.
Wade, September 26, 2010 at 6:50 pm
“My money says the next pseudo-crisis will be about potable water. Already Iāve seen a story on CBS news talk about a coming water crisis. There will be some environmental manufactured scare.”
Water, both quantity and quality, has been an issue in the US for several hundred years. Particularly so in the Western US and Central US as aquifers are not being recharged as fast as they are depleted for irrigation and population growth during the periodic droughts. Water is not a new scare. Access and quality have been a problem for all of human time.
This work by Juraj Vanovcan is very interesting. It seems intuitive that variations in ocean surface temperatures (water covers 70% of the planet) should play a major role in atmospheric temperature variation. The oceans very likely contain memory of past solar (and possibly other) cyclical events which are brought out to the surface in time lags related to long term oceanic cycles (which are about 2,000 years according to Philander). As Anthony Watts suggests, it is likely oceanic cycles affect atmospheric temperature variation.
However, none of this rules out the possibility that CO2 emissions are increasing ocean surface temperatures and therefore that the temperature curve is being lifted up as one moves towards the present. If anything, an understanding of the underlying temperature variation as a result of natural oceanic cycles would go a long way to understanding whether or not climate feedbacks are positive.
Look at the cycles and see what it tells you. It tells me that positive climate feedback is, at best, small.
New Scientist finally came to realize and publish on this week, the sun and the oceans play a bigger role than many give credit for – Anthony
One should give credit where credit is due. Unfortunately, solar activity is now where it was 108 years ago, while temperatures are are about 1 degree warmer, so it seems that undue credit is given to the Sun.
This is an excellent keeper, thanx Juraj and Anthony.
Yes it is the oceans that warm/cool the atmosphere. Now, if only we had some good data on cloud cover, AGW would be history.
The best thing about this is it’s falsifiable. It leads to clear predictions which will either come or true or not in the not-too-distant future.
I don’t understand what all the fuss is about here. It would be surprising if sea surface and land boundary layer air temperatures were not aligned in some way.
Looking at the graphs the author presents I can find no basis for his conclusion: “European station record is well correlated with the Atlantic SST changes, and lags the SST record by some 5 years”.
“Well correlated”? Wishful thinking, more like. A resolution of five years on those graphs?
Glaciers retreat at higher temperatures and extend in lower temperatures. Wow. Dog bites man.
He tells us: “It is thus obvious, that it is the Atlantic decadal variability, which dictates the European climate”. No it isn’t, it is not in any way ‘obvious’. I cannot see what causation can be extracted from this correlation.
Why should we abandon the healthy skepticism we bring to bear on warmist nonsense just because we like the story?
Anthony’s excellent work over the years has taught us to be suspicious of boundary layer temperature measurements anyway. There is justifiably a lot of criticism on WUWT and other skeptical sites about false correlations, corrupt or manipulated data and unjustified inferences of causality. This post fails the same skeptical criteria, too.
What’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.
It’s clear that every time we have a strong Pacific El Nino, temps rise. My mother taught me that in the ’70’s. It’s plainly obvious that oceans have a strong causal effect. Every time there was one in effect, weathermen on the news would tell us to prepare for warmer weather. How anyone can selectively forget this well known fact and start blathering on about CO2 is beyond me. Follow the money? Just wait ’til Hansen fiddles with this data too!
Good post Juraj and Anthony. Another nail in the AGW coffin.
The story is beginning to come together.
But the latest schtick of the seeohtwo brigade is to suggest oil companies must pay for the burial of all seeohtwo they create – it’s in today’s Independent newspaper in London.
If I were the oil companies, I’d take ’em to court.
Sue the ass off the organisations, political parties and states who wish to follow this line.
Only question is: what would they sue them FOR????
The following figure compares the PDO+AMO with the US average annual temperatures. DāAleo calculated an r-squared of 0.85 between the two ā an extremely good correlation.
I looked into the AMO and PDO. On time line their oscillations have different periods, they are out of phase, and as far as my insight shows they are not related.
Consequently the Atlantic and Pacific coastline temperatures may not be related; apples and pears.
I wonder if adding two in either case makes much sense.
Leif Svalgaard says:
September 26, 2010 at 10:19 pm
“One should give credit where credit is due. Unfortunately, solar activity is now where it was 108 years ago, while temperatures are are about 1 degree warmer, so it seems that undue credit is given to the Sun.”
With a maximum inbetween and a huge ocean that acts as a buffer, practically working as an integrator, introducing a time lag.
LWIR only penetrates a few micrometers and leads to more evaporation, not warming, of the oceans. But solar UV penetrates deep into the ocean.
Solar UV is highly dependent on the sun’s activity, so it is a radiative imbalance that can heat up the oceans directly over time. When the sun reaches its maximum (not the maximum of a solar cycle but the long-term maximum of its activity), after a while, a new equilibrium is established, where the oceans are a degree warmer (the North atlantic for instance in the last few years), so they heat the atmosphere more, leading to the recent atmospheric warming – but that must plateau like it did between 1998 to 2010 if the sun stops getting even more active.
Now, with a sun that heads toward a grand minimum, we will see ourselves on the falling shoulder of the temperature maximum.
I think the variable UV could be the cause of this because it can go directly into the oceans.
Wonderful post. Thank you.
CAGW-Skeptic99 says:
September 26, 2010 at 5:18 pm
Sad but true.
Rhys Jaggar says:
September 27, 2010 at 12:12 am
If this variation of the carbon tax becomes reality, the costs will simply be passed on to the consumer.
Remember: companies do not pay taxes; their customers do.
As I recall, there were several occasions where the World War II documentary, “The World at War,” stated that German operations in Russia and the Allied landings at Normandy were hampered by the coldest and most unusual weather observed in over thirty years.
Good article and conclusions sound. Sea temperature has more significance than surface temperature because of area imbalance and the fact that water holds more heat than air. These figures have to tie in with cloud cover as well as I think cloud is the atmospheric thermostat of climate.
Re Leif Svalgaard, September 26, 2010 at 10:19 pm
Dear Leif and Anthony,
a while ago I tried to ask “the typical lukewarmer question” over at RC, if it is possivle that CO2 has a much smaller role and UHI, oceans and the sun play a big role.
(Surprisingly enough there was almost no deletion of complete posts . . they are learning over there, I stopped after a moderator asked me to stopped trolling for a in my eyes very important and justified question)
However Tamoni pointed towards a paper about vulcanism in the 19th century:
http://coast.gkss.de/staff/zorita/ABSTRACTS/wagner_zorita.pdf
So according to that there is an additional factor: at least a part of the measured warming since then is a recovery from vulcanic cooling.
So even if it is now 1K warmer then back then, this not nessearily excludes the sun as a factor. Herschel clearly found a sunspot-wheatprice-correlation, which indicates a significant effect for the climate from sun variations!
Anthony, please publish your surface station results soon!!! š
Why I admire your patience and your desire to do a perfect job, this data is desperately needed, in science but even more in press and politics!
Cheers,
LoN
Nice work but I thought Roy Spencer did essentially the same thing earlier this year.
Laws of Nature says:
September 27, 2010 at 2:49 am
So according to that there is an additional factor: at least a part of the measured warming since then is a recovery from vulcanic cooling.
Thus further diminishing the role of the Sun…
Western Europe is especially sensitive to upstream ocean temperatures because the jet streams can track anywhere between Gibraltar and Iceland and sometimes both at once.
It would be nice to see this work related to a history of jet stream tracks and blocking patterns in the Western European region.
Meanwhile a couple of extracts from an article dated 7th May 2008 which can be found here:
http://climaterealists.com/index.php?id=1041
The ENSO (El Nino Southern Oscillation) Cycle has been heavily investigated for many years but seems to be looked at as a freestanding phenomenon that just redistributes heat around the globe, sometimes warming and sometimes cooling.
I think that is wrong. I believe that ENSO (I would now refer to the longer term Pacific multidecadal cycles rather than ENSO) switches from warming to cooling mode depending on whether the sun is having a net warming or net cooling effect on the Earth. Thus the sun directly drives the ENSO cycle and the ENSO cycle directly drives global temperature changes. Indeed, the effect appears to be much more rapid than anyone has previously believed with a measurable response occurring within a few years of a change in solar energy input. Indeed I see some evidence for the proposition that for various reasons cooling occurs faster than warming but I will save that for another time
Although there are similar periodic oscillations in other oceans such as the Atlantic and the Arctic I believe that they follow the lead of ENSO and PDO. In effect they simply continue the distribution of the initial warming or cooling state around the globe and of course there are varying degrees of lag so that from time to time the other lesser oceanic oscillations can operate contrary to the primary Pacific oscillations until the lag is worked through.
I believe that this is a clear and simple theory of solar driven global climate change which should now be tested empirically.
Nice to see the concept gaining ground.
Hi Guys,
Cracking piece of work here – congratulations. It appears evident (and is more in tune with the laws of physics) that liquid heats gas rather than vice versa.
I’d love to see if it can be taken further though. Given the lack of interest in funding / carrying out research that doesn’t point all fingers at CO2, I was wondering if some of the foremost brains here would be able to carry out an holistic analysis of European and North American temperatures over the past 150 years that compares against ALL of the following:
AMO
PDO
Solar Activity (sunspots, cycle length, 10.7 flux)
Population and land usage
Volcanic activity and output (hardest to get detailed measurements, I accept)
Measured CO2
Man-made CO2
Man-made black carbon and other particulates/aerosols
All of these should have at least some theoretical influence on measured land temperatures. If we’re able to produce, for the period mentioned, a pretty solid explanation or formula linking the various factors listed to measured temperatures, we may finally be able to quantify the influence that each of these effect has. My suspicion is that the man-made aspects would be way down the list (though they may well have other environmental impacts that are much greater), but it is, I believe, the key to the entire climate debate.
If the recent past is anything to go by, there could be a Nobel Peace Prize in it š
Leif Svalgaard says:
One should give credit where credit is due. Unfortunately, solar activity is now where it was 108 years ago, while temperatures are are about 1 degree warmer, so it seems that undue credit is given to the Sun.
Using TSI as a measurement, May 2006 would be approximately the last time solar activity was at these levels.
Ignoring this year, one could arguably say the first half of 2007 had the active equivalence of the last six months using 2800 MHz Solar Flux.
Using UAH data the first six months of 2006 and 2007 temps were respectively 0.23 0.32 above the anomaly and the first six months of this year are 0.56 above the anomaly.
If we average out 2006 and 2007 we get ~0.27 so we are about 0.29 degrees warmer than the last time solar activity was at these levels.
I don’t agree with your parameters but your conclusion is non the less robust.
“The overall warming trend since 1900 (0.6 deg C/century for SST and 0.9 deg C/century for the station record) is partially created by the fact, that beginning of the century starts with the cycle minimum and ends with the cycle maximum. By more proper procedure ā comparing the differences between 1910/1975 minimums and 1940/2005 maximums ā one gets constant warming trend of 0.3 deg C/century for SST record.”
Could be that this 0.3 deg C/Century ties in with Dr Roy Spencer’s view that additional CO2 emitted by man accounts for around 20/25% of measured increase since start of 20th Century.
The Herald newspaper in Scotland this morning “Weather stations report big freeze”
Winter has come early to the Highlands. Coldest September temperatures for nearly 30 years last night with -4.4 deg. C. recorded at one weather centre.” “The weekend of snowfall signalled ski resorts could be in for another record year”. Application forms are pouring in for skiing season passes at Cairngorm Mountain. Not much man made global warming up there just now. I guess it is just weather and has nothing to do with North Atlantic SST.
Juraj Vanovcan
Excellent article. Thanks a million.
The results agrees with my cyclic model shown below:
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/orssengo3.png
My cyclic model is described in the following article:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/04/25/predictions-of-global-mean-temperatures-ipcc-projections/
Here in Australia they are going to put tax on carbon āin order to limit rise in global mean temperature to 2 degrees!ā
Can not wait for the cooling cycle to start so that it stops these people from doing any damage by artificially raising the price of everything.
Meanwhile at the other end of the earth, it is well into spring and “Snow will fall to
300 to 400 metres, posing a hazard on elevated roads.”
http://www.abc.net.au/tasmania/weather/
Great article. I’m in the precess of updating my long term temperature charts, especially in central & western Europe.
Here is my anomaly plot starting with 14 of the oldest European records starting before 1800. These included the Cen. England, DeBilt, and others from Upsalla, Berlin. Paris. Also the plot is compared to the Hadcet data. Just “eyeballing” it, it does seem to have a fair degree of correlation.
I used Rimfrost http://www.rimfrost.no/
is a good source for most of these early temps.
http://www.imagenerd.com/uploads/lt-temp-1800-2008-14-9ZSv8.gif
I used a Fourier convolution lo-pass filter of 40 years, one can get a picture of some of the secular changes going on.
So please explain for those of us too dense to see it for ourselves.
The graph of CO2 versus USHCN. The CO2 completely ignores the 1915 to 1937 Temperature rise; but then suddenly decides to pay attention to the 1980 to 2000 Temperature rise; so why did they stop at 2000; it is now 2010.
So does Joe’s 0.44 R^2 apply to the 1915-1937 Temperature rise, or just to the later one ?
Seems to me the same statistics can’t apply to both events.
Trough-to-trough and peak-to-peak are much more sensible ways to look at things rather than artificial metrics like “a century” that have no basis in the natural world as a useful metric. So good job on that, and the results are indeed interesting (and likely more meaningful).
To a Martian this planet is “Waterworld” or “Aquafina”, etc., yet to those who live here it’s “Earth”. Hummmm… we really do need to get our heads out of our back pockets and start looking at and listening to all the pretty blue liquid that (in conjunction with that hot yellow dot in the sky) drives nearly everything we call weather and climate.
Thanks, Juraj. I think you’re on to something.
Juraj, this has to be published quickly, along with predictions for coming weather, arctic ice extent and alpine glacier changes. Can anyone provide help here? The morphing, rehabilitating consensus will otherwise be picking this ripe plum.
Anthony, in the SST and sealevel resources page, I think the sealevel chart should be replaced with one of a much longer record. Going back to the early 90s is not very informative.
For more correlations of AMO with climate phenomena see: http://www.appinsys.com/GlobalWarming/AMO.htm
For more correlations of PDO with climate phenomena see: http://www.appinsys.com/GlobalWarming/PDO.htm
Alabama temperature has a strong correlation with AMO: http://www.appinsys.com/globalwarming/RS_Alabama.htm
California temperature has a strong correlation with the PDO: http://www.appinsys.com/globalwarming/RS_Alabama.htm
The link for California should have been: http://www.appinsys.com/GlobalWarming/RS_California.htm
Washington also shows a strong correlation with the PDO: http://www.appinsys.com/GlobalWarming/RS_Washington_usa.htm#pdo
J Bob 7.46am
You will find lots of old records at my site here;
http://climatereason.com/LittleIceAgeThermometers/
You could usefully put a trend line in, because as I have metioned here before the record shows we have been on a gently warming trend since 1698. This was the year that the first petrol car was built and the first jet plane started taking tourists to the New worlds, thereby proving conclusively the warming is ‘our’ fault.
tonyb
About correlation and causation: some correlated things are probably/plausibly independent (driving) variables, others are more likely to be dependent (driven). So the core question is which is more likely to be independent? The oceans win that comparison, hands down.
It remains possible that both the oceans and air temps are dependent, of course. Then the question is “on what”? CO2 is not a plausible answer.
But maybe it’s volcanoes! ;0 š
The AGW folks have dismissed the ENSO theory because they claim there is no trend over the last century. If we have had increasing temps since the little ice age (300 years ago) then it makes sense to look at a cause that results in at least a 600 year wavelength. Whether this is solar or internal forces I do not know. Volcanic forcings (atmospheric) that result in global dimming are the epitome of short term (1 Year ) wavelengths. I would not be surprised if a six hundred year harmonic could still be resulting from the orbital forcing that brought us out of the last ice age.
Re Leif Svalgaard,September 27, 2010 at 3:31 am
“Laws of Nature says:
September 27, 2010 at 2:49 am
So according to that there is an additional factor: at least a part of the measured warming since then is a recovery from vulcanic cooling.
Thus further diminishing the role of the Sunā¦”
Dear Leif,
The paper shows, that it is possible to have the same sun activity right now as back then and a warmer temperature nowadays, since due to vulcanism the comparison might be flawed.
(Of course it is also true, that if some of the warming since then is due to recovery from vulcanic dimming, the sun effect is smaller, but your comparison is still not correct)
Kind of off-topic:
Juraj’s Figure 5 brings to mind a perception thing I’ve noticed in my own head.
Sometimes when I picture history as a time line, I view it going left to right (L>R) and sometimes I picture it as R>L.
I will even do this back and forth while thinking of a particular historical event, switching back and forth. I won’t say it is a random thing, but it is pretty close to that. Almost every historical event I picture in my head I see both ways, at different moments/times.
I want to ask others here how you perceive the timeline.
I figure Anthony would want me to take it elsewhere, so my personal blog is at http://feet2thefire.wordpress.com/2010/09/29/a-quick-question-how-do-you-picture-the-historical-timeline/
Any feedback would be appreciated.
Thanks for this persuasive and highly informative article on the AMO.
A post last year referenced a paper by Levine (I think) showing sea temperatures in the Barents Sea down to 1-200 m oscillated by up to 4 deg C and were closely correlated to the AMO going back 100 years. The Barents is close to the Arctic so this supports an AMO forcing of Arctic ice extent.
Sorry no link – writing from my mobile phone. Enter Barents in the WUWT search and you will find it.
Check this out:-
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/8046586/A-stronger-Sun-actually-cools-the-Earth.html