Guest post by David Archibald
When I started out in climate science in 2005, the climate people ignored the solar physics community. A casual perusal of the literature though indicated that the difference in climate outcome from Dikpati’s (NASA) estimate for Solar Cycle 24 amplitude of 190 and Clilverd’s (British Antarctic Survey) estimate of 42 amounted to 2.0°C for the mid-latitudes.
Since then, the prognostications of astute scientists with respect to Solar Cycle 24 amplitude have come to pass. Some commentators though are over-reaching and predicting a recurrence of the Maunder Minimum. We now have the tools to predict climate out to the mid-21st Century with a fair degree of confidence, and a repeat of the Maunder Minimum is unlikely. A de Vries Cycle repeat of the Dalton Minimum is what is in prospect up to the early 2030s and then a return to normal conditions of solar activity, and normal climate.
The three tools we have to predict climate on a multi-decadal basis are the solar cycle length – temperature relationship, the logarithmic heating effect of carbon dioxide and Ed Fix’s solar cycle prediction. Let’s start with the solar cycle length – temperature relationship, first proposed by Friis-Christensen and Lassen in 1991. This is the relationship for Hanover, New Hampshire:
The relationship established for Hanover is a 0.7°C change in temperature for each year of solar cycle length. Solar Cycle 23 was three years longer than Solar Cycle 22, and thus the average annual temperature for Hanover, New Hampshire will be 2.1°C lower over Solar Cycle 24 than it had been over Solar Cycle 23. Why did I pick Hanover? Governor Lynch recently vetoed New Hampshire leaving the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative.
Professor Jan-Erik Solheim of Oslo University replicated this methodology for ten Norwegian temperature records, and thus this methodology is confirmed as valid:
These ten Norwegian temperature records all confirm a solar cycle length – temperature relationship, and predict that temperatures of these stations will be about 1.5°C colder over the next ten years than they have been over the last ten years.
The second tool to use is the logarithmic heating effect of carbon dioxide. The pre-industrial level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was approximately 290 ppm. It is currently 390 ppm. The first 20 ppm of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere provides half the heating effect to date. By the time we get to the current concentration, each additional 100 ppm provides a further 0.1°C of heating. We are currently adding 2 ppm to the atmosphere each year so carbon dioxide will provide further heating of 0.1°C every 50 years. That said, the temperature fall over the next 22 years should result in a higher rate of carbon dioxide uptake by the oceans. The logarithmic heating effect of carbon dioxide is shown by this graph, using data derived from the Modtran site at the University of Chicago:
Lastly, to put a multi-decadal climate forecast together, we need a prediction of solar cycle length that comes with a very good hindcast match. This is provided by Ed Fix’s long ephemeris simulation. This simulation is described in Ed Fix’s paper which is included in an Elsevier volume edited by Don Easterbrook, “Evidence-Based Climate Science”, due out in September. You can put advance orders in for it now:
This is a window of Ed Fix’s simulation:
The green line is the solar cycle record from 1914 to 2010, with alternate cycles reversed. Solar Cycles 19 to 23 are annotated. The red lines is the model output, from which the lengths of individual solar cycles in the mid-21st Century can be calculated.
Combining all the above tools, this is the climate forecast for Hanover, New Hampshire, which is a good proxy for what is going to happen along the US-Canadian border:
Solar Cycles 24 to 27 are annotated. For the next thirty years odd, temperatures will be at mid-19th Century levels. With the two year decrease in the length of Solar Cycle 26 from 25, temperatures will rise by 1.4°C by mid-century to late 20th Century levels.
By then, anthropogenic carbon dioxide will be providing a very welcome 0.2°C to the temperature.
The graph shows that quantified solar effects dwarf the quantified anthropogenic carbon dioxide effect.
David Archibald
12th July 2011
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Does black carbon / “soot” emission factor into any changes in albedo at the poles or on mountaintops and can it cause genuinely largescale changes in temperature or local flooding etc.?
Interesting view on projected climate over the next 25 years.
David, send this to Julia Gillard and all her Cronies. Maybe the Liberal party as well.
To quote the article:
“For the next thirty years odd, temperatures will be at mid-19th Century levels. With the two year decrease in the length of Solar Cycle 26 from 25, temperatures will rise by 1.4°C by mid-century to late 20th Century levels.”
…and then substracting 2 degrees Celsius again to correct the heat-island-effect of misplaced thermometers will STILL make for a Maunder Minimum.
Brrrrrrr…
Incredible, fascinating and just far too logical.
the warmers will never get it !
Hmmm.
(I go into deep thought)
Fascinating. And borne out by real data.
And we know Ed’s model accurately predicts solar cycles how?
JimB
David Archibald:
Thankyou. You provide an interesting hypothesis derived from empirical data that provides a possible method to predict future local annual temperatures. This is useful
(a) because people live in localities and not globally,
and
(b) because it provides a large number of possible predictions (i.e. each locality has a unique prediction of future annual temperatures) that can each be assessed within a decade.
So, your method is real science.
However, you don’t state a mechanism by which solar cycle length affects climate so every warmist will say you must be wrong whether or not your method provides correct predictions (sigh).
Richard
Fascinating! While this shows the 1950 to 1970 New Hampshire temperatures reduced by only 1°C (when all the concerns arose over the world entering a new ice age) it forecasts a reduction of a whopping 3°C over the next 4 years, at most. Brrr – the CO2 warming will be welcome indeed!
And hopefully by mid-century humankind will be well on the way to having CO2 sequestration technology robustly sorted out, so we can target CO2 levels to whatever the politicians can then agree on.
This prediction will fail because it doesn’t take account of the release of stored heat from the ocean. The more than averagely active Sun pumped excess energy into the oceans from around 1934 to 2003 (aided by a terrestrial amplification of solar variation caused by change in cloud cover).
This excess accumulation of ocean heat content has been coming back out of the ocean since the cloud increased again in 1999 (Palle et al project Earthshine) and the sun started going quiet in 2004. It will help support surface temperatures globally for quite some time during any protracted solar minimum which may occur. However, the outlook for the northern latitudes will include cold snaps in the winters as loops in the jet stream caused by blocking highs over Greenland will pull frigid arctic air down into northern Europe, Russia and Canada. These blocking high’s are a feature of the phase of the Arctic oscillation we are heading into over the next few decades.
All this means that David Archibalds prediction for the Canadian US border may turn out correct, but for different reasons than those he proposes. If the lowered temperature does come to pass, it is likely to be because of exceptionally cold winters rather than a general lowering of temperature throughout the year. This means the effects on agriculture may not be as bad as he fears. Though the growing season will likely be shortened by cold spring weather, the generally high sunshine hour summers will offset this to some extent.
Time will tell.
It would be useful to see Ed Fix’es exact formula, so his prediction curve can be reproduced (and possibly back extrapolated) before 1914.
My formula has somewhat different forecast but it backtracks 400 years to the start of Maunder min.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/LFC11.htm
I think Mr Rossi has just done for the 0.2 degree rise due to CO2.
Much more important, what will lower temperatures do for crop yields?
Just from eyeball correlation, it looks like the Norwegian results are much better from the coastal sites and noisier inland, which I guess adds further weight to the “it’s the sea, stupid” argument.
I am waiting to see if Ed Fix’s paper stands up to peer review?
Temperature scale of the top graph mis-spells Celsius. Sorry to be picky.
“The three tools we have to predict climate on a multi-decadal basis are the solar cycle length – temperature relationship, the logarithmic heating effect of carbon dioxide and Ed Fix’s solar cycle prediction.”
Where are the clouds?
Send in the clouds.
David
Your prediction for the next 10 years or so seems to be based on the fact that SC23 was longer than SC22 so temperatures over SC24 will be cooler. In fact this is more or less exactly ehat you assert here:
The relationship established for Hanover is a 0.7°C change in temperature for each year of solar cycle length. Solar Cycle 23 was three years longer than Solar Cycle 22, and thus the average annual temperature for Hanover, New Hampshire will be 2.1°C lower over Solar Cycle 24 than it had been over Solar Cycle 23.
Using the same methodology we would, then, expect temperatures over Solar Cycle 21 to be lower than over Solar Cycle 20 because Solar Cycle 20 was longer than Solar Cycle 19. SC19 was 10 years and 5 months long while SC20 was 11 years 7 months long, i.e. ~1.2 years longer. This corrresponds to a drop in temperature of 0.84 deg C.
However, no such drop in temperature was observed at Hanover or at any of the Norwegian stations. It is, of course, possible that an anomalous warming effect offset the solar cooling effect in Hanover and Norway but this seems unlikely since it is well recognised that most of the Northern Hemisphere began warming just as SC20 was ending and SC21 beginning, i.e. in ~1976. In fact, the stations you have selected were the ones possibly least affected by the warming which began in the mid-1970s. So, in answer to this question in your post.
Why did I pick Hanover?
Because it best fits your dodgy predictions, perhaps?
When that happens the sea level will drop. Awkward for the CaCa Crew.
With the L&P hypothesis on disappearing sunspots, svensmarks theory of increased cloudiness, drops in ocean temps, increased snowcover, sea level drop along with cold pdo, more prevalent and stronger la ninas, possibly more volcanic eruptions i reckon the drop will be along the curve and not stepped but to a deeper level – with the rise taking a lot longer to come up. As tallbloke says the oceans will need time after the sun has gets higher sunspot cycles to recover their warmth.
As Tallbloke says “Time will tell”. I am concerned that the major academies and orgs like CSIRO have totally ignored any possibility of cooling whatever the cause. Thus their predictions are predicated on a false premise and are guaranteed to fail with very real adverse consequences.
tallbloke says:
July 13, 2011 at 1:26 am
…. it doesn’t take account of the release of stored heat from the ocean.
I agree about stored heat content from the ocean. It is by far the largest source of the latent energy accumulated during past decades. In specific case of the Nordic countries and the wider North Atlantic climate , the stored energy is carried by the Atlantic currents and it is released in the North Atlantic and the Nordic seas. These events result in climatic process known as the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), currently in its negative phase, with more details and some graphic illustrations, as described here:
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/NAOn.htm
(comment from Dr. Judith Curry on her blog ‘looks good’)
An interesting hypothesis. The author deserves credit for predicticting a significant temperature change over the next few years (in the same way that Einstein predicted the bending of starlight and the orbit of Mercury). If the prediction proves to be accurate then the hypothesis will be elevated to the status of a theory worthy of serious consideration. A good example of the scientific method IMHO.
’tis somewhat unrealistic to expect a cliff edge drop of 3 degrees in temperatures. Perhaps the solar climatologists should have used solar cycle length to predict temperature trends, not absolute temperatures.
As to the solar cycle forecast to mid-century, I have no faith in it. As always it’s easy to fit a nice curve to existing data – but the next question is, how good is it at predicting the future? Generally the answer is not very good.
David…could you provide further references for the graph of CO2 ppmv per unit temperature? The only solid relationship I know is that of ppmv and the extra Watts/square metre calculated at some height in the atmosphere (wherever -19 degrees C occurs). The consensus figure for a doubling to 560 ppmv is 3.7 Watts. Varying factors, known as Lambda are used to derive a surface temperature – ranging from 0.8 to 0.4 in IPCC working groups (with IPCC preferring 0.8). That gives a range of 1.5 to 3 degrees C, with the lower figure still five times your Chicago-graph’s 0.2 for the next 200 ppmv. Clearly, it is not an easy matter to translate from the ‘radiative forcing’ at such altitude to a heating effect at the surface – as water vapour, aerosols and clouds all intervene.
I actually agree and think that Lambda is much lower than 0.4….if as low as 0.1 the expected rise by 560ppmv would be 0.37 C. Where does your estimate come from?