- High resolution SST and SSS reconstruction off Cape Hatteras
- Low salinity anomaly (3.5-5.2 ka): absence of Labrador current influence
- Millenial NAO pattern and solar variability
Emphatic Blow To CO2 Warmists – New Study Shows A Clear Millennial Solar Impact Throughout Holocene
By Pierre Gosselin (reposted from No Tricks Zone with permission)
A new paper titled High-resolution sea surface reconstructions off Cape Hatteras over the last 10 ka appearing just recently in the AGU Paleoceanography Journal authored by Caroline Cléroux et al provides further, clear evidence of a major solar impact on climate during the Holocene. Hat/tip: http://kaltesonne.de/.
According to the paper’s abstract, the study presents high-resolution foraminiferal-based sea surface temperature, sea surface salinity and upper water column stratification reconstructions off Cape Hatteras, a region sensitive to atmospheric and thermohaline circulation changes associated with the Gulf Stream.
Now if I recall correctly, this was the region that Stefan Rahmstorf deemed not long ago as good enough to be used to represent sea level trend for the whole world.
The above authors focused on the last 10,000 years to study the surface hydrology changes under our current climate conditions and looked at centennial to millennial time scale variability. To do this, a seabed core was extracted off the coast of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina at a water depth of 620 m.
They observed opposite evolutions between the conditions off Cape Hatteras and those south of Iceland, known today for the North Atlantic Oscillation pattern. Around 8.3 ka and 5.2–3.5 ka, they reconstructed positive salinity anomalies off Cape Hatteras. For the 5.2–3.5 ka period they demonstrated that the salinity increase was caused by the cessation of the low salinity surface flow coming from the north.
What’s behind the anomalies? They found that variations were in sync with total solar irradiance. The abstract states (emphasis added):
Wavelet transform analysis revealed a 1000-year period pacing the d18O signal over the early Holocene. This 1000-year frequency band is significantly coherent with the 1000-year frequency band of Total Solar Irradiance (TSI) between 9.5 ka and 7 ka and both signals are in phase over the rest of the studied period.”
The paper’s introduction has a few sentences that the IPCC really needs to take note of (emphasis added):
The last decade of paleoclimate research has shown that the Holocene is not the stable, climatic event-free period as previously thought: both external and internal (oceanic) forcings have caused major climatic changes. […] On a shorter time scale, observations over about the last 50 years show interannual and decadal climate change. These fluctuations probably persisted throughout the Holocene, together with centennial to millennial variability.”
Dr. Sebastian Lüning writes at the Die kalte Sonne site:
The new findings once again clearly underscore that the last several thousands of years are characterized by natural temperature cycles that are controlled by fluctuations in solar activity (see p. 68-75 in ‘Die kalte Sonne’). The logical continuation of these natural cycles through today shows that an important part of the warming of the last 150 years has to be attributed to the increase in solar activity. It is not a mere coincidence that the last decades have been the most solar active of the last 10,000 years.
The climate models used by the IPCC are not able to reproduce these millennial cycles because they assign only a very small climate impact to the sun. Also the recently introduced new climate model from the Max Planck Institute in Hamburg suffers from the same deficiency, and thus the results of that model are essentially unrealistic.”
In layman’s terms: crap in, crap out.
Once again yet another study that emphatically shows that climate changed in the recent past (while CO2 was stable), and that these changes were in sync with solar activity.
UPDATE: In comments, a graph from the paper is pointed out by Willis Eschenbach, and I have to agree the correlation is poor. He writes:
Can’t say I’m all that impressed by the match between the solar and the ∂18O …
Regarding this, they say:
This 1000-year frequency band is significantly coherent with the 1000-year frequency band of Total Solar Irradiance (TSI) between 9.5 ka and 7 ka and both signals are in phase over the rest of the studied period.”
Both signals are “in phase over the rest of the studied period”? Not for the last 3,000 years on my planet. W.
==============================================================
I agree with Willis and Mosher in comments. The claim seems overstated compared to the data. – Anthony
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Two points:
First, regardless of the last link, to a letter to Nature in 2004 suggesting that the sun has been particularly active the last “several decades,” one article doesn’t demonstrate that the Sun has been more active in the last “several decades” than in any other similar period in the entire ~10,000 year Holocene. If there are more articles out there with similar findings, it seems important to bring them to our attention. Not long ago, there were articles suggesting, from Be10 and C14 proxies, that the Medieval Warm Period was warm because the sun was particularly active. That looked like pretty good science to me.
Secondly, whatever one’s viewpoint on the importance of CO2, the last sentence of the Abstract of the Nature article in the last link above (“solar active of last 10,000 years”) says this:
“Although the rarity of the current episode of high average sunspot numbers may indicate that the Sun has contributed to the unusual climate change during the twentieth century, we point out that solar variability is unlikely to have been the dominant cause of the strong warming during the past three decades.”
Yes, maybe the authors felt that they had to say this to get published, and they don’t really believe it. But let’s see if there is confirmation of these findings before getting on a bandwagon. Getting on bandwagons too early is part of why we are in such a dismal place in science right now. Let’s take the high road and wait for more conclusive evidence.
John says – “Getting on bandwagons too early is part of why we are in such a dismal place in science right now. Let’s take the high road and wait for more conclusive evidence.”
Precisely so!
Why does the Sun issue keep coming back time and again? It it trying to ‘tell’ us something?
Leif, we need your expert input.
Yeah…It’s the sun, stupid.
John says:
March 4, 2012 at 1:13 am
Secondly, whatever one’s viewpoint on the importance of CO2, the last sentence of the Abstract of the Nature article in the last link above (“solar active of last 10,000 years”) says this:
“Although the rarity of the current episode of high average sunspot numbers may indicate that the Sun has contributed to the unusual climate change during the twentieth century, we point out that solar variability is unlikely to have been the dominant cause of the strong warming during the past three decades.”
Yes, maybe the authors felt that they had to say this to get published, and they don’t really believe it. But let’s see if there is confirmation of these findings before getting on a bandwagon. Getting on bandwagons too early is part of why we are in such a dismal place in science right now. Let’s take the high road and wait for more conclusive evidence.
I think that’s pretty much standard practice from those still trying to do real science exploration, I see it all the time. What I find gratifying is that such research is still being done, compare with the many deliberately biased studies which produce the logic fail results; the examples too numerous but like http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/01/29/hansens-sea-shell-game/ and http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/10/18/the-500-year-fud-about-sea-levels/
This relevant guest post by Alec Rawls a must read:
“Omitted variable fraud: vast evidence for solar climate driver rates one oblique sentence in AR5
“Expert review” of the First Order Draft of AR5 closed on the 10th. Here is the first paragraph of my submitted critique:
“My training is in economics where we are very familiar with what statisticians call “the omitted variable problem” (or when it is intentional, “omitted variable fraud”). Whenever an explanatory variable is omitted from a statistical analysis, its explanatory power gets misattributed to any correlated variables that are included. This problem is manifest at the very highest level of AR5, and is built into each step of its analysis.”
“Given what I found—systematic fraud—”
“The empirical evidence in favor of the solar explanation is overwhelming. Dozens of peer-reviewed studies have found a very high degree of correlation (.5 to .8) between solar-magnetic activity and global temperature going back many thousands of years (Bond 2001, Neff 2001, Shaviv 2003, Usoskin 2005, and many others listed below). In other words, solar activity “explains,” in the statistical sense, 50 to 80% of past temperature change.”
“A person reading AR5 from cover to cover would come away with not even a hint that for more than ten years a veritable flood of studies have been finding solar activity to explain something on the order of half of all past temperature variation. The omission is virtually complete.
“As a result, AR5 misattributes virtually all of the explanatory power of solar-magnetic activity to the correlated CO2 variable. This misattribution can be found both in AR5′s analytical discussions and in its statistical estimations and projections, and the error could not be more consequential.”
“Nothing could be more perverse in such a circumstance than to unplug the modern world in a misbegotten jihad against CO2. The IPCC’s omitted variable fraud must stop. AR5′s misattribution of 20th century warming to CO2 must stop. The evidence overwhelmingly supports the solar-magnetic warming theory. ”
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/02/22/omitted-variable-fraud-vast-evidence-for-solar-climate-driver-rates-one-oblique-sentence-in-ar5/
I was hard pressed to keep the extract this short.. 🙂
Perhaps this subject deserves its own link on WUWT?
As they say
there is more than one way to skin a cat.
This new report may, or may not, be true but it does demonstrate yet again: the urgent need for a more open debate on the science.
Not that the debate will alter anything because all policy decisions based on the so called consensus are already in place.
Just because salinity change tracked with irradiance does not prove a causative relation.
It`s the sun you fool, where`s Leif.
http://i446.photobucket.com/albums/qq187/bobclive/maunda2.jpg
Interesting that the Max Planck model underweights the sun, because Sami Solanki was one of the scientists who determined that “the last decades have been the most solar active of the last 10,000 years.”
I copied this from Aviation Week a number of years ago
http://i39.tinypic.com/iqf0a9.jpg
Correlation between the NAO and the heliosphere’s magnetic field at the Earth’s orbit was very strong until mid-1990s
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/GNAP.htm
as published here some time ago:
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/NAOn.htm
(my ISP is slow and intermittent at the moment due to maintenance )
John says:
March 4, 2012 at 1:13 am
““Although the rarity of the current episode of high average sunspot numbers may indicate that the Sun has contributed to the unusual climate change during the twentieth century, we point out that solar variability is unlikely to have been the dominant cause of the strong warming during the past three decades.”
Yes, maybe the authors felt that they had to say this to get published, and they don’t really believe it. But let’s see if there is confirmation of these findings before getting on a bandwagon. Getting on bandwagons too early is part of why we are in such a dismal place in science right now. Let’s take the high road and wait for more conclusive evidence.”
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. See, the authors talk about the “strong warming during the past three decades”. It hasn’t warmed in the last decade so make that “strong warming from 1980 to 200.” So they are talking about TWO DECADES. Fine. Now are these two decades unusual in any way?
Ignoring the last few years of GISS’ rewriting of the temperature history, we had a global average temperature record for the 20th century where there was a warming period from 1910 to 1940ies with the exact same slope as the later warming period from 1975 to 2000.
I think you can still find that – now forgotten – temperature graph in IPCC AR4 (albeit decorated with progressively shorter and steeper trend lines, illegitimately creating the impression of accelerating warming).
GISS needed to distort the record to save the CO2 narrative; as before 1950 there were simply not enough CO2 emissions to explain the first warming period.
The two decades the authors talk about are not interesting or special in any way. (Except for people who believe the latest adjustments by Hansen et. al. are justifiable. If you are one of them, I’d be eager to hear the justification.) It’s a safe bet to assume that the authors have inserted that sentence as the necessary cowtow to the high priests of the CO2AGW church – or maybe they have been confused themselves by the past decade of relentless post-normal-science propaganda to think the two decades from 1980 to 2000 have been in some way special.
ABOUT the adjustments…
Biggest component of 20th century warming is the infamous Time Of Observation (TOB)
adjustment – McIntyre calls the adjustment largely BS
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/10/24/unadjusted-data-of-long-period-stations-in-giss-show-a-virtually-flat-century-scale-trend/#comment-776239
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/10/24/unadjusted-data-of-long-period-stations-in-giss-show-a-virtually-flat-century-scale-trend/#comment-776275
I DON’T think we have to wait for more evidence pointing towards the sun as the driver of the climate as there is only BOGUS evidence pointing to CO2 as the culprit…
John says: March 4, 2012 at 1:13 am
“Although the rarity of the current episode of high average sunspot numbers may indicate that the Sun has contributed to the unusual climate change during the twentieth century, we point out that solar variability is unlikely to have been the dominant cause of the strong warming during the past three decades.”
Yes, maybe the authors felt that they had to say this to get published, and they don’t really believe it.
————————————————————————————————–
the sun’s influence would rather be over longer – centennial periods, where we have additional local decadal variations partially controlled by other mechanisms like ocean circulations or other.
I think you are right we should wait for more but it is encouraging to see science advancing.
Sorry! John and Kohl, but the people hitting me with taxes I cannot afford have been on the bandwagon for decades. We need positive answers quickly.
Open top bandwagon to let the sun shine in.
===============================
“Let’s take the high road and wait for more conclusive evidence.”
Good idea. We are still waiting for “conclusive evidence” that man’s CO2 is causing dangerous warming.
Do you have any such evidence?
Thanks
JK
Sigh. Yet another group of authors to be kept off of the IPCC citation lists.
@John
The information that the Sun has been more active in the last hundred years than the previous 1,000 or more is not based solely on ‘one letter to the editor in Nature in 2004). If the subject interests you or you are skeptical of the claim, maybe you should research it instead of passively asking Anthony to do it for you.
There appears to be more ‘conclusive evidence’ of solar influence than CO2 influence in the literature. Another interesting ‘research’ opportunity.
Richard111 says:
March 4, 2012 at 5:23 am
“Sorry! John and Kohl, but the people hitting me with taxes I cannot afford have been on the bandwagon for decades. We need positive answers quickly.”
As much as I disagree with John and Kohl, I must also disagree with you: Come the next cooling scare and you will find that you will now pay higher taxes to alleviate the threat of another Ice Age (or more appropriately, glaciation; but that word won’t occur in the propaganda); and you will find Hansen as the first proponent… for him it would just be another U-turn; up to 1985 he was warning of another Ice Age caused by…
…increasing CO2 emissions.
(The Rube-Goldberg-mechanism posited was: More CO2 – global warming – more clouds – higher albedo – triggering a rapid onset of glaciation. In a way similar to the latest announcements that melting Arctic sea ice leads to cold winters. For Hansen one thing is important: staying ahead of the game.
‘The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’
‘The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master — that’s all.’
One GCM to rule them all.)
So tell me. How do you model this? The same way Hansen did? With a biased fudge factor? Mechanism people.
I believe it should be “millennial.”
It’s a sneak attack. Someday we’ll all wake up and find it was the sun “that done it” after all.
Right you are Richard111: The phrase “end of the debate” also fits very well with the phrase “never let a good crisis go to waste” and these are not just phrases we are talking about when enacted into policy momentum and the tax resource plays that go with them.
Yeah, DH, and I’ll add Cheshire Cat Sunspots. I’ve been anticipating the U-Turn. Part of the learning curve Hansen’s on is guilt-tripping the Chinese about aerosols and magically finding Kevin’s ‘missing heat’, two mice @ur momisugly one blow. The record clearly shows, too, that every time temperature rise drives CO2 rise 800 years later, temperature inevitably drops sometime after that.
Plus ca change, look what we chose.
==============================
This would imply reaching some tipping point regarding CO2–that the level of atmospheric CO2 reached just 30 years ago (that would be ~1982) is the magical point at which it achieves significant global warming attribution.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/graph/uah/plot/uah/to:1995/trend/plot/uah/from:1994/to:1999/trend/plot/uah/from:1998/trend
No. I don’t think so. Not only that–I don’t see any empirical evidence that the level of CO2 in 1982 (~345 ppm) is “catastrophic”.
http://i44.tinypic.com/1zn4uud.png
There continues to be more and more of evidence that increases in CO2 benefit the Earth, however.