Guest post by Alec Rawls
Technically Dr. Muscheler is asking me to retract the title of my post, “Raimund Muscheler says that a steady high level of forcing can’t cause warming“:
I am sure that you are aware of the fact that the title is wrong. I never said that steady high levels of forcing can’t cause warming.
He most certainly did. Here is the sentence of Muscheler’s that I was paraphrasing (with emphasis added):
Solar activity & cosmic rays were relatively constant (high solar activity, strong shielding and low cosmic rays) in the second part of the 20th century and, therefore, it is unlikely that solar activity (whatever process) was involved in causing the warming since 1970.
This is an unconditional statement: the high solar activity of the second half of the century can’t have caused warming because it was “relatively constant.” If Dr. Muscheler wants a retraction he’s going to have to issue it himself, and that actually seems to be what is going on here.
Raimund now rejects the claim that a steady high level of forcing can’t cause warming. Good. But then on what grounds can he dismiss a solar explanation for late 20th century warming?
His email offers a new rationale. Muscheler thinks the lack of warming from the 40s to the 70s vitiates the solar-warming hypothesis:
My point is rather nicely illustrated in the attached figure [at the top of the post]. It shows the sunspot data and temperature anomalies over the last 160 years (annual data and 11-yr average). It shows the high solar activity I was mentioning.
According to your reasoning one would expect a steady warming since 1950. However, the temperatures were rather constant from 1940 to 1970. Furthermore, the temperature and solar trends are opposite during the last 30 years. So I think one would have to invoke a very strange climate delay effect in order to explain the recent warming with solar forcing.
I would be happy if you could correct the title and add this clarification to your post.
Best wishes,
Raimund
There are a couple of points one can quibble with here:
1) Muscheler again invokes “opposite trends,” as if it is the trend in solar activity, not the level, that would be driving temperature.
2) Those trends have not been “opposite for 30 years.” Solar cycle 22, which ran from 1986-1996, had the same sunspot numbers as cycle 21 but was more intense by pretty much every other measure.
3) Muscheler seems to be asserting that temperature has been rising for the last 30 years when it has been roughly flat for the past 15 years (a fact that presents problems for Muscheler’s preferred CO2-warming theory, but is perfectly compatible with the solar-warming theory, after cycle 23 slowed down and dropped off a cliff).
But set those quibbles aside. What is interesting here is Muscheler’s new argument that if the sun had caused late 20th century warming then the planet should have warmed steadily since 1950.
My reply:
Actually, I would say that warming should have been steady since the 1920’s, but that is only if we are looking at the heat content of the oceans (where almost the entire heat content of the climatosphere resides). Unfortunately, we don’t have good ocean heat content data for this period, while the data we do have–global mean atmospheric surface temperature–is dominated by ocean oscillations.
You suggest that it would take some very strange lags for warming from the 40s to the 70s to not show up until later, but would this actually be strange? Doesn’t it fit with what we KNOW: that the cool 40s-70’s period coincided with a cool-phase of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation?
Ocean oscillations are widely acknowledged to be the dominant short term driver of global temperature
Just look at what the CO2 alarmists say as soon as their predicted warming fails to show up (April 2008):
Parts of North America and Europe may cool naturally over the next decade, as shifting ocean currents temporarily blunt the global-warming effect caused by mankind, Germany’s Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences said. …
“Those natural climate variations could be stronger than the global-warming trend over the next 10-year period,” Wood said in an interview. “Without knowing that, you might erroneously think there’s no global warming going on.”
The Leibniz study, co-written by Noel Keenlyside, a research scientist at the institute, will be published in the May 1 issue of the journal Nature.
“If we don’t experience warming over the next 10 years, it doesn’t mean that greenhouse-gas warming is not with us,” Keenlyside said in an interview. “There can be natural fluctuations that may mask climate change in the short term.”
Wood and Keenlyside aren’t even talking about the PDO, just the measly AMO. For an historical example where natural fluctuations probably really did “mask climate change in the short term,” the PDO is the place to look.
Here is a comparison of JISAO’s PDO index (red) with the HadCRUT3 temperature record (black):
If ocean oscillations are as powerful a climate driver as the anti-CO2 alarmists claim then this graph suggests a simple story: that cold Pacific surface waters swallowed up a big gulp of warmth from 1940-1970, which the PDO then belched back up during its warm-phase in the 80s and 90s. Without the PDO there might well not have been a 40s-70s temperature dip, making warming over the 20th century much more even.
Is the PDO really this influential, or is it largely coincidence that the PDO was in a cool phase when GMAST dipped a couple of tenths between 1940 and 1970? Without good heat content data it is very hard to gauge but logically there is no upper bound on how powerful an effect ocean oscillations can have. As Jo Nova describes meteorologist William Kininmonth’s “deep cold abyss,” the ocean depths form a great pool of “stored coldness” which is “periodically unleashed on the surface temperatures,” a slumbering dragon that with a flick of its tail can grab away large amounts of surface warmth. Thus we certainly can’t rule out that on time scales of up to decades GMAST really is dominated by ocean oscillations.
The CO2-warming theory needs to invoke ocean oscillations more than the solar theory does
Both have the same difficulty with the 40s-70s dip in temperature. For either theory to work the mid-20th century cooling pretty much has to be explained by ocean oscillations, but the CO2 theory now has to rely on the short-term dominance of ocean oscillations to explain the lack of recent warming as well.
That’s the point of Trenberth’s “missing heat,” right? By his calculations there must be lots of CO2-driven heat accumulating in the oceans. Set aside whether the real problem is with Trenberth’s measurements and calculations, the solar theory has no difficulty explaining why temperatures would be leveling off. With the sun having gone quiet this is the maximum likelihood solar projection (with cooling predicted to follow). It is the special case where GMAST actually tracks ocean heat content. Differences between GMAST and ocean heat are to be expected, but it is the CO2 theory that now needs to invoke that likely divergence from maximum liklihood.
Obviously it is not tenable to reject the ocean oscillation argument when applied to the solar theory but accept in when applied to CO2, but this is what the consensus scientists are effectively doing.
Gavin Schmidt on the asymptotic approach to equilibrium
Dr. Muscheler and I almost got to the ocean oscillations question way back in 2005, but Gavin Schmidt grabbed the hand-off. Raimund had claimed in a RealClimate post that a steady high level of forcing can’t cause warming:
Regardless of any discussion about solar irradiance in past centuries, the sunspot record and neutron monitor data (which can be compared with radionuclide records) show that solar activity has not increased since the 1950s and is therefore unlikely to be able to explain the recent warming.
I objected in the comments that:
What matters is not the trend in solar activity but the level. It does not have to KEEP going up to be a possible cause of warming. It just has to be high, and it has been since the forties.
Presumably you are looking at the modest drop in temperature in the fifties and sixties as inconsistent with a simple solar warming explanation, but it doesn’t have to be simple. Earth has heat sinks that could lead to measured effects being delayed.
Gavin Schmidt’s response was similar to Muscheler’s today, but Schmidt was explicit about what the process of equilibration should look like:
Response: You are correct in that you would expect a lag, however, the response to an increase to a steady level of forcing is a lagged increase in temperature and then a asymptotic relaxation to the eventual equilibrium. This is not what is seen. In fact, the rate of temperature increase is rising, and that is only compatible with a continuing increase in the forcing, i.e. from greenhouse gases. – gavin
Like Muscheler, Schmidt ignores the PDO. It is ocean heat content that should undergo an “asymptotic relaxation to the eventual equilibrium,” but all Schneider has to go by is GMAST, so he is implicity assuming that ocean heat content is faithfully tracked by GMAST, regardless of the fact that this relationship can be profoundly obscured by ocean oscillations.
We know that GMAST underwent a substantial mid-century gyration where 20th century warming actually reversed for a couple of decades before accelerated upwards again but we do NOT know that ocean heat content underwent any such gyration. Schmidt assumes it did but the PDO record suggests that it likely did not, in which case Schmidt’s argument that late-century warming must have been caused by CO2 collapses.
The problem is the hidden nature of these ocean-equilibration assumptions
If Schmidt and Muscheler want to dismiss a solar explanation for late 20th century warming by invoking the highly speculative assumption that GMAST is a good proxy for ocean heat content over with the 20th century, that fine. As long as this assumption is made explicit then others can evaluate it and toss any following conclusions in the trash. The problem is that the consensus scientists are not telling the public their real grounds for dismissing a solar explanation.
The consensus position, re-iterated over and over again, is a simple unqualified statement that because solar activity was not going up over the second half of the 20th century it cannot have caused warming over this period (or is unlikely to have caused warming over this period). I have collected a dozen such statements from scientific papers, news articles, and most recently from the First Order Draft of AR5.
Only when I have pressed these scientists on the irrationality of their claim that a steady high level of forcing can’t cause warming do they start hinting towards the highly speculative arguments about ocean equilibration that are the actual basis for their dismissal of the solar hypothesis. Reliance on such hidden assumptions is not science, so job one is to get these unstated assumptions out in the open where they can properly evaluated. Not surprisingly, unscrutinized assumptions do not stand up well to scrutiny, so job two is knocking ’em down.
The rapid equilibrium assumptions of Lockwood and Solanki, knocked down. The implicit assumption by Muscheler and Schmidt that GMAST should track ocean heat content with no major divergence now knocked down as well. It is a weak argument at best, requiring strong claims about matters of vast uncertainty, wrecking any pretension to have ruled out a solar driver for late 20th century warming.
Until these hidden assumptions are stated I suggest that we all take at face value the positions that these scientists actually assert. When they say that because a high level of forcing was relatively constant it is unlikely to have caused warming, we should say that they think you can’t heat a pot of water by turning the flame to maximum and leaving it there, because that is exactly what they are saying.
Then when they come back with their “what I really meant was,” we can expose their real thinking for the unexamined nonsense it is.
Solar cycles cause warming and cooling, depending on what the Earth’s magnetic field undulations are doing at the time. Good example SC19 strongest ever accompanied with a considerable cooling in the N. Hemisphere.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/EarthNV.htm
You did not paraphrase – you substituted what he said with a wrong understanding of what he said. The title is in error.
Another wagon falls off the wheel.
(And no, I didn’t get that backwards.)
Alec Rawls, very nice.
Would you be interested in evaluating John Nielsen-Gammon’s blog post Carbon Dioxide and Temperature, in which he concludes:
“If you plot other data sets, you’ll get slightly different results, but the same take-home message: there’s nothing in recent global temperatures that disproves the importance of CO2 as an agent for climate change.”
http://blog.chron.com/climateabyss/2012/10/carbon-dioxide-and-temperature/
I am reading this thing about geoengineering and realize that the response to this cult ideology of human control over the planet’s temperature is far too weak and ineffective,merely empirical politics played out against a background of civil concern.
I can’t find a single person who will affirm that all the effects within a 24 hour day,including massive temperature fluctuations between day and night,is due to one rotation of the planet and that these days never,ever fall out of step with rotations.The ideology which contemporaries have inherited from the late 17th century is that the Earth’s rotation falls out of step with 24 hour days to the tune of 4 extra rotations in 4 years by virtue of an utterly stupid idea that the planet’s daily and orbital motions can be modeled directly from a rotating celestial sphere of Ra/Dec observing.
I do not see opposing sides in all this,I see the logical conclusion of a vicious strain of empiricism and as long as it continues,we will see more of these unilateral ‘geoengineering’ actions and now it becomes dangerous.I am not the first to recognize the vicious strain of empiricism but what I can do is trace that viciousness back to its source in the late 17th century –
“This empiricism, the melancholy heritage transmitted to us from former times, invariably contends for the truth of its axioms with the arrogance of a narrowminded spirit. Physical philosophy, on the other hand, when based upon science, doubts because it seeks to investigate, distinguishes between that which is certain and that which is merely
probable, and strives incessantly to perfect theory by extending the circle of observation.
“This assemblage of imperfect dogmas bequeathed by one age to another— this physical philosophy, which is composed of popular prejudices,—is not only injurious because it perpetuates error with the obstinacy engendered by the evidence of ill observed facts, but also because it hinders the mind from attaining to higher views of nature. Instead of seeking to discover the mean or medium point, around which oscillate, in apparent independence of forces, all the phenomena of the external world, this system delights in multiplying exceptions to the law, and seeks, amid phenomena and in organic forms, for something beyond the
marvel of a regular succession, and an internal and progressive development. Ever inclined to believe that the order of nature is disturbed, it refuses to recognise in the present any analogy with the past, and guided by its own varying hypotheses, seeks at hazard, either in the interior of the globe or in the regions of space, for the cause of these pretended perturbations. It is the special object of the present work to combat those errors which derive their source
from a vicious empiricism and from imperfect inductions.”
Homboldt ,Cosmos
Leif in 5…. 4… 3… 2…. 1…..
Alec Rawls:
Your article is about the bluster of Muscheler at being ‘called’ on his error. But it also says solar effects are modulated by ocean variations, notably PDO.
In reality, and as I keep pointing out, internal climate variability dominated by movements of ocean water is alone sufficient to explain ALL recent global climate variation.
Richard Lindzen states the matter more clearly than I could so I quote his words from
http://www.glebedigital.co.uk/blog/?p=1450
Parsimony suggests that ocean movements alone are the cause of all the observed climate change and there is no need to invoke solar effects.
As warmists like to say about AGW (e.g. Don B at October 19, 2012 at 12:32 pm);
there’s nothing in recent global temperatures that disproves this as the sole cause of observed climate change.
Richard
PS In case there are any who don’t know, I am convinced that multiple causes exist for observed climate change since the 19th century but CO2 is not one of them.
The consensus position, re-iterated over and over again, is a simple unqualified statement that because solar activity was not going up over the second half of the 20th century it cannot have caused warming over this period
It is always the same: people fight over faulty data. The Figure at the top of the page should really look like this: http://www.leif.org/research/Muscheler-Temps-SSN.png [blue curve], but that does not really make the big difference. However, if we extend the corrected SSNs back to 1750 it looks like this http://www.leif.org/research/Corrected-Wolf-Sunspot-Numbers.png where you can see that solar activity was also high in the 18th and 19th centuries, while temperatures were not [so people claim, at least]. In case you [for the zillionth time] want to know why, here is a link to a keynote talk I’m giving on Monday in Oslo: http://www.leif.org/research/Solar-Activity-Past-Present-and-Future.ppt in case you can’t open ppt presentations there is also a PDF with narrative notes http://www.leif.org/research/Solar-Activity-Past-Present-and-Future-Notes.pdf
On the ppt you can see the notes if you click on the little yellow square in the upper left corner provided you do NOT open the file in full-screen mode.
Otter says:
October 19, 2012 at 12:44 pm
Leif in 5…. 4… 3… 2…. 1…..
If the count is minutes, you are close 🙂
The whole lag in ocean temperature assumes that oceans are in thermodynamic equilibrium; they manifestly are not.
The basic ocean cycle goes like this; in the summer brine is concentrated by evaporation and in the winter the dense brine cools and becomes still denser and sinks. Cold, dense brine sinks and drops the temperature of the bottom of the seas and oceans. In the large Oceans migration of dense brine’s to the poles gives rise to currents.
The Mediterranean shows this process quite beautifully, with bottom of the Med having striations of different layer brine’s from different years, being siphoned off into the Atlantic.
vukcevic says:
October 19, 2012 at 12:18 pm
depending on what the Earth’s magnetic field undulations are doing at the time….
Jean Dickey of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena:
“an external (e.g. solar) process affects the core and climate simultaneously.”
Jean Dickey does not know what she is talking about here. Did you ask her what process she would suggest?
With all due respect, the guy said it was “unlikely.” That is not an “unconditional” statement by any definition of which I’m aware.
Courtney @ 12:50
So it is clear to those reading your comment: I was quoting someone, requesting a critique; that was not my quote.
Can someone please tell me what the solid and bold red and black lines represent on the first graph? Thanks in advance.
The Warmists seem to be in disarray. The core premise of their belief system was that increasing amounts of CO2 was causing runaway atmospheric warming. That’s not happening so now they
must prop up their shaky edifice with exceptions, sub-clauses and provisos.
They are not singing from the same hymn sheet any more, in fact they sound like hell right now.
I suspect Phil Jones speaks for all of them when he says that he ‘hopes the lack of warming doesn’t continue till 2020’.
Oh, here we go with more runny means.
The headline graph here shows 11y runny means on data that has a predominant 11y signal.
This is a beautiful example of why runny mean is such a crap filter. Look at the red line , the peaks in the 11year average are almost perfectly out of phase with the original signal.
The highest peak in the data , just pre-1960, ends up as a dip instead of a peak. The 1985 low, this is nearly at the bottom of the plot ends up as the second biggest peak on the runny mean average.
When your filter starts to invert the major features of you data , you need to get a new filter.
Running mean must die !
Alex Rawls writes: “Wood and Keenlyside aren’t even talking about the PDO, just the measly AMO. For an historical example where natural fluctuations probably really did ‘mask climate change in the short term,” the PDO is the place to look.”
It appears that you fail to realize that the PDO is standardized, while the AMO is not. The standardization exaggerates the PDO signal, amplifying it by a factor of about 5.8. People who have no idea what the PDO represents and how it is determined often make that error, which leads them to the misunderstanding that the PDO has more strength than the AMO.
Wood and Keenlyside are right to talk about the effect of the AMO on surface temperature. The AMO is detrended North Atlantic sea surface temperature data. And the impacts of the North Atlantic on land surface air temperatures of the northern hemisphere are well studied. The PDO, on the other hand, does not represent the sea surface temperature of the North Pacific. It is not simply detrended sea surface temperature anomaly data like the AMO.The PDO data is the standardized leading principal component of the sea surface temperatures of the North Pacific, north of 20N, after global sea surface temperatures are subtracted from the sea surface temperatures of each 5×5 deg grid. The PDO represents the spatial pattern of the sea surface temperatures of the North Pacific. There is no mechanism through which the PDO can vary global temperatures.
http://bobtisdale.wordpress.com/2011/06/30/yet-even-more-discussions-about-the-pacific-decadal-oscillation-pdo/
And based on the remainder of your presentation and discussion of the PDO, you haven’t the slightest idea what the PDO represents.
Adios
Thanks Leif, that was interesting.
With both the Pacific and Atlantic feeding the Arctic, it would seem reasonable that the Arctic would gradually warm or cool in concert with the weighted influence of those two ocean bodies. Looking at the Arctic ice, it appears that winter max has leveled off. We might expect with the Pacific and Atlantic both colder that the Arctic ice will begin to respond. Now add the change in solar influence as some “icing” on the cake as we move into the next 30 years. The approximate hundred year increase in solar activity has a long term effect on the ocean heat, just as turning up the level of heat on a pot of water does not heat the water instantly, but over time the heat is accumulated and radiated. The cyclic nature of the oceans does not change, but the temperature range within the cycles does. ???
richardscourtney: Thanks for the link to Lindzen’s dramatic comment. I hadn’t seen that one. As for your your view that:
Parsimony is not a grounds for ignoring the now mountain of evidence that solar activity does somehow drive climate much more powerfully than can be explained by the tiny variation in solar irradiance, and the implications of a solar explanation for 20th century warming are much different than for an internal-variation explanation. With the sun having gone quiet it points to cooling going forward, which is something a wise world would be taking into account.
In any case, proper accounting of the dominance of oscillations over at least the short-term course of surface temperatures means that the solar explanation cannot be easily dismissed. That is the point of the post.
Alec Rawls says:
October 19, 2012 at 2:12 pm
the now mountain of evidence that solar activity does somehow drive climate much more powerfully than can be explained by the tiny variation in solar irradiance, and the implications of a solar explanation for 20th century warming are much different than for an internal-variation explanation.
As the sun has not had very different level of activity in the 20th century than in the previous two centuries [and especially since activity of all kinds at the moment is on par what it was 100 years ago and 200 years ago], it is hard to ascribe variations in climate [if you accept there have been any] to solar variations, TSI or not. Your ‘mountain of evidence’ is a mixture of wishful thinking and faulty data combine with a need to have ammunition to fight the CAGW crowd.
Leif writes:
A very curious statement from someone who is already on record admitting that when he wants to heat a pot of water he turns the flame to maximum and leaves it there. Tell me Leif: when you first turn the flame to maximum, is the water you just put on the stove as warm as it is three minutes later? No? So why would you think that just because high solar activity corresponded with different planetary temperatures at different times, that was somehow an argument against solar activity as a driver fo climate?
The first figure: temp curve would fit better if the early years hadn’t been “homogenized” downward and the recent years “homogenized upward” to accenuate the appearance of warming and try to get rid of the flat period of the last 17 years and the 1934 record high year. Perhaps when we finally have sufficient data and understanding of the causes of the temperature ups and downs, we can then see where we have to “heterogenize” the temp record back to what it should be.
Alec Rawls:
Sincere thanks for your reply to me which you provide at October 19, 2012 at 2:12 pm.
I write to make it completely clear that I agree with your reply. Indeed, I had thought the PS to my post explained that.
Sorry for any confusion I may have created.
Richard
Alec Rawls says:
October 19, 2012 at 2:19 pm
A very curious statement from someone who is already on record admitting that when he wants to heat a pot of water he turns the flame to maximum and leaves it there.
Of course, that is the best way, I don’t know why you can’t see or admit that.
So why would you think that just because high solar activity corresponded with different planetary temperatures at different times, that was somehow an argument against solar activity as a driver of climate?
simply because like effects come from like causes. Now, you use the standard weasel words. Of course solar activity is a driver of climate. The question is how much, if it is only a little there is nothing to discuss, so when you say ‘driver of climate’ you must mean a major driver of climate and that there is very little solid evidence for, on the contrary, see e.g. http://www.leif.org/EOS/2011GL046658.pdf and http://www.leif.org/EOS/Foukal-2012.pdf
Don B:
Thankyou for your post addressed to me at October 19, 2012 at 1:21 pm.
To ensure that nobody misses it I copy it here.
Yes, I did misunderstand and, therefore, I did misrepresent you.
I completely and abjectly apologise for my error and hope you will recognise it was a mistake on my part and not a deliberate slight of you. I am truly sorry.
Richard
Leif Svalgaard says: October 19, 2012 at 1:03 pm
…………….
Jean Dickey does not know what she is talking about here. Did you ask her what process she would suggest?
I suppose you do extend the compliment to her coautor:
Dr. Olivier de Viron of the Universite Paris Diderot and Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris.
When I read one of your papers I take it for granted that what you wrote at the time is what you knew at the time, so no need for additional enquiry.
Your own 300 year long sunspot data (as well as those of Wang, Lean, and Sheeley)
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/TMC.htm
also suggest that there is an (for some inconvenient) direct strong link between solar activity and the Earth’s magnetic field change.
I looked at the link to John Nelson-Gammon or whatever his name is. Seems fairly reasonable.
But if only half of the warming is expected rapidly and the rest will take 100,000 years of equilibration with the ocean, why is this never used as the main argument? Why do people always talk about the 3C warming, not 1.5 C or 2 C and not 1C warming? Is this not alarmism?
Leif Svalgaard says:
October 19, 2012 at 12:51 pm
However, if we extend the corrected SSNs back to 1750 it looks like this http://www.leif.org/research/Corrected-Wolf-Sunspot-Numbers.png
Those aren’t sunspot numbers. Those are extrapolations of Leif’s IDV magnetic hypothesis.
Some experts don’t go along with it:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S136468260800117X
Does sunspot number calibration by the “magnetic needle” make sense?
K. Mursulaa, , , I. Usoskinb, O. Yakovchouka, 1
Abstract
It has been suggested recently that early sunspot numbers should be re-calibrated and significantly corrected using the observed daily range of the geomagnetic declination (so-called rY values). The suggested “correction” method makes an a priori detrending of the rY series and then extends the linear regression between rY and sunspot numbers established for the last 25 years to earlier times. The suggested “correction” of sunspot numbers by roughly 30% goes far beyond the traditional estimates of observational uncertainties of sunspots. Concentrating here on Zürich sunspot numbers (Rz), we demonstrate that the rY values do not actually imply that the observed Rz values in the 19th century are systematically underestimated. Rather, we find that the Rz numbers are fairly uniform after mid-19th century. The suggested “correction” is largely induced by the detrending of the rY series, which enhances the rY-based sunspot activity in the 19th century relative to later times. We also show that while the annually averaged declinations have a rough relation between sunspots and other related solar parameters, this relation is strongly seasonally dependent and, therefore, not sufficiently accurate or uniform to allow annually averaged rY values to be used as a very reliable proxy of solar activity in early times.
A couple of years ago I wrote this post:
http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2010/07/21/nailing-the-solar-activity-global-temperature-divergence-lie/
Recently I extended it by combining in AMO and ENSO and a co2 model and successfully reproduced the SST since 1876
http://tallbloke.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/sst-model1.png
As Leif said recently, any solar effect on global temperature would be spread centenially. My integration technique successfully models OHC changes on the centennial scale. Alec Rawls is quite right. Historically high levels of solar forcing sustained over decades are perfectly adequate to explain increasing OHC (and thus surface temperatures all the way to 2003.
“the temperatures were rather constant from 1940 to 1970”
Man made SO2 jumped from 1.5 Pinatubo’s to 6.5 Pinatubo’s from 1940 to 1970.
http://sunshinehours.wordpress.com/2012/09/14/are-we-cooling-the-planet-with-so2/
That would have counteracted much or all of any solar changes.
I have to agree with Doctor Muscheler. He said first of all that it was “unlikely” that this was the case, and secondly he was speaking of whether it had happened, not whether it could happen. He’s objecting to your characterization that he said it couldn’t happen.
No he didn’t say it, he implied it, which is a distinction worth observing.
That’s OK, because they were talking only about a cooling that would affect parts of Europe and North America.
Hi Anthony,
In response to Alec Rawls’ article.
Perhaps it is time to consider a possible relationship between Henrik Svenmark’s cloud-seeding hypothesis and the PDO.
It would appear that periods of relative global warming (e.g., the late-1930s through to the late-1950s and the mid-1970s to mid-1990s) coincided with periods of increased sunspot activity. According to Svensmark, the amount of cloud-seeding is a direct consequence of cosmic ray activity in the lower troposphere, which varies according to the intensity of sunspot activity.
This being the case, a period of higher sunspot activity would likely lead to reduced lower tropospheric cloud cover (due to reduced albedo effect) and temperatures.
Conversely, during periods of lesser sunspot activity (e.g., during much of the 19th Century, the late-1950s to mid-1970s and the last 15 years) albedo would increase – a consequence of more cloud cover over the oceans and continents. This would impact the PDO and, to a lesser extent, the AMO.
Accordingly, the PDO would (generally) be impacted by variances in albedo. This would be manifested in drift to more El Nino events during warmer periods of reduced cloud cover and La Nina events during cooler periods of increased lower tropospheric cloud cover.
Needless, to say, land-based surface temperatures are impacted by other factors, such as upward trends in UHI, ash clouds from volcanic and war activity, persistent contrails and, perhaps, recent geo-engineering efforts.
Leif
excellent detective work on the raw data and all the adjustments.
of course some people would prefer to do science by analogy and boil water rather than crunch numbers. I guess they are more at home in the
kitchen than the observatory
Tisdale once again gets bogged down with the definition of the PDO. Instead of bogging down it is better to accept the PDO is a reliable indicator of the ENSO state which has obvious effects on climate.
The PDO and solar drivers are more than capable of explaining temperature trends of any epoch.
Leif: You are such a hack. I chastise the consensoids for saying that a pot of water can’t be heated by turning the flame to maximum and leaving it there and you pretend that I am asserting this as my position. You have done this, what, three times now?
If you ever fail to be incorrigible I am going to send someone over to your house to see who stole your identity.
Yeah agree with all of this.
I had a long running discussion on John Cook’s skeptical science website on the same thing.
When confronted with temperature lags and the PDO to account for T trends in the late 20th century, they squirm and backtrack. I must say, responses to the simple idea of a time lag from solar forcing were sometimes not reasonable, considered, or rational, although the worst responses were from bloggers with little understanding of the arguments, rather than moderators who were at least partly informed of the details.
A conclusion from one moderator was that even with a time lag from solar activity, equilibrium should have levelled off 20 years ago. (Well, there hasnt been any warming for 15 years), However he used a modelled equilibrium model from Hansen and others to declare that equilibrium since this time was increasing, not increasing, which I think is models all the way down.
Daytime temperatures peak hours after noon, seasonal temperatures peak weeks after the solstice, it is a simple idea to translate this to longer term solar forcing, too simple for many alarmists to even comprehend.
Sorry one sentence of mine above should read:
However he used a modelled equilibrium model from Hansen and others to conclude that equilibrium of the atmosphere (that is heat in, matches heat out) since 20 years ago has been decreasing, due to more CO2 trapping more heat, not stabilising as it should be if solar activity was dominant in the late 20th century but which has since declined; however after checking the papers of Hansen et al, I think their equilibrium calculations are just models all the way down.
nuclear writes:
Muscheler’s statement was not absolute, but it was unconditional. That is, it was not stated as relying on any assumptions about ocean equilibration or anything else. When pressed Muscheler did hint at underlying assumptions. The reference to lack of warming from 1940-1970 suggests that he sees this lack of warming as an indication that the oceans had already equilibrated to the high level of solar forcing, but this conditional was not included in his original statement.
But my paraphrase DID change his less than absolute statement into an absolute statement. Is that what Muscheler is complaining about? Is he complaining because my paraphrase fails to leave room for the possibility that late 20th century warming really was caused by the sun? Clearly not. His clarifications are all to bolster argument for ruling out a solar explanation. That’s why I passed over that point. I was just following Muscheler on that one.
If he had said that I was understating the extent to which he intended to leave room for a solar explanation then obviously I would have been glad to issue a correction on that point. But he did not want to walk back his dismissal of the solar explanation. He wanted to re-argue it and re-affirm it.
Oops. Paragraph 3 of my email should read:
This being the case, a period of higher sunspot activity would likely lead to reduced lower tropospheric cloud cover (due to reduced albedo effect) and generally higher temperatures.
Bob: I’ll look into the PDO and how it is calculated, but the general point remains. Ocean equilibrium cannot beinferred just by looking at GMAST.
What we seem to have here, as in so many other instances, is a host of assumptions piled on an inadequate understanding of processes and relationships, compounded by ideology. It is interesting speculation and food for much discussion but not science in the least. In every instance when one examines the oceans the total inadequacy of the data set is more then profound. I am not saying the data that exists is not good. I am saying it is totally inadequate to do much else the speculate and overly generalize.
Steven Mosher says:
October 19, 2012 at 4:00 pm
Leif
excellent detective work on the raw data and all the adjustments.
of course some people would prefer to do science by analogy and boil water rather than crunch numbers. I guess they are more at home in the
kitchen than the observatory
As a skeptic you should not take this document as fact. There are many areas in this presentation that have contradicting evidence from experts in the field.
Agree with dp and nuclearcannoli. The implication may be there, but misinterpreting “unlikely” as “can’t” is not paraphrasing, and the statement is certainly not “unconditional.”
Otter says:
Leif in 5…. 4… 3… 2…. 1…..
And Tallbloke in T(Leif) + 2SinΘ
Who says you can’t solve this problem with an appropriate lag calc?
Thanks Richard. I was aware that you were backing my position. I just wanted to address the point that your comment raised.
Don B asks the analogous question about CO2: is it correct to say that “there’s nothing in recent global temperatures that disproves the importance of CO2 as an agent for climate change”?
Yes. It is not impossible that ocean heat content is rising in accordance with what the CO2 theory predicts. On the other hand, it is fun to point out that according to the predictions made by the climate models that assume late 20th century warming WAS driven by CO2, their model HAS been falsified. Current temperatures are substantially below the bottom of the range that they predicted as at all likely.
http://clivebest.com/blog/?p=3303
Steven Mosher says:
October 19, 2012 at 4:00 pm
Leif
“excellent detective work on the raw data and all the adjustments.
of course some people would prefer to do science by analogy and boil water rather than crunch numbers. I guess they are more at home in the kitchen than the observatory.”
Well, some of us have to rely on the kitchen. 🙂
Gregory Beasley (Prospect, NSW) says: “Accordingly, the PDO would (generally) be impacted by variances in albedo. This would be manifested in drift to more El Nino events during warmer periods of reduced cloud cover and La Nina events during cooler periods of increased lower tropospheric cloud cover.”
Since the PDO is an aftereffect of ENSO, you’ll need to revise this.
Geoff Sharp says: “Tisdale once again gets bogged down with the definition of the PDO. Instead of bogging down it is better to accept the PDO is a reliable indicator of the ENSO state which has obvious effects on climate.”
And once again, Geoff Sharp expresses his misunderstandings of the subject matter. In addition to ENSO, the PDO is also strongly influenced by the sea level pressure of the North Pacific. And that means it is a poor indicator of the state of ENSO, which is a tropical Pacific (not North Pacific) coupled ocean-atmosphere process. When discussing ENSO–and to quote you, “which has obvious effects on climate”—then it would be best to use an ENSO index.
Have a good day.
thingadonta says: “When confronted with temperature lags and the PDO to account for T trends in the late 20th century, they squirm and backtrack.”
There is no mechanism through which the PDO can influence global temperature trends.
http://bobtisdale.wordpress.com/2011/06/30/yet-even-more-discussions-about-the-pacific-decadal-oscillation-pdo/
Regards
vukcevic says:
October 19, 2012 at 2:54 pm
“Jean Dickey does not know what she is talking about here. Did you ask her what process she would suggest?”
I suppose you do extend the compliment to her coautor: Dr. Olivier de Viron
If he would make the same silly suggested, indeed I would, but I doubt that he did.
also suggest that there is an (for some inconvenient) direct strong link between solar activity and the Earth’s magnetic field change.
As I have shown you many times, the correlation is completely spurious.
tallbloke says:
October 19, 2012 at 3:03 pm
Some experts don’t go along with it:
You are way behind the curve by citing old obsolete papers.
At the 2nd SSN workshop in Brussels, Mursula had seen the error of his ways and changed the title of his talk to “From Saulus to Paulus”. If you are in doubt what this means you can find your own way to Damascus by studying the Bible a bit (Acts 9:3–9).
tallbloke says:
October 19, 2012 at 3:10 pm
Alec Rawls is quite right. Historically high levels of solar forcing sustained over decades are perfectly adequate to explain increasing OHC
As well as the high temperatures in the 18th and 19th centuries.
Alec Rawls says:
October 19, 2012 at 4:13 pm
You have done this, what, three times now?
You have referred yourself to that, what, four times now. Perhaps it is time to stop that caroussel.
Global low levels clouds obviously disagree that the sun indirectly can’t be responsible for the post 1970’s warming.
http://img823.imageshack.us/img823/6873/had3vlowcloudvsolar2.png
Taking the period shown on the graph no warming is detected overall when the influence of cloud albedo is removed. This is also based on the most modest affect observed on global temperatures cloud albedo has. The decline in sun spots with the cloud albedo influence removed is quite telling too with about a 10 year lag. ( almost one short sun cycle)
Since recent years global cloud albedo has stopped declining it is no coincidence that global temperatures are failing to warm and in fact cooling. With these global low cloud levels not declining any more future El Nino’s will not be-able to become any stronger than over the recent period. Without future stronger El Nino’s global temperatures won’t rise and the further confirmation what we already know that CO2 is not driving climate.
HAVE TO LAUGH! THINK ABOUT THIS!
Back in the past when all those dire predictions about the coming doom of CAGW were made — if those scientists (I use the term loosely in their case) had then the data we have now — WOULD THOSE PREDICTIONS HAVE EVER BEEN MADE?
It was all based on the inevitable parallel rise of CO2 levels and global temperature. And all the data we have now quite obviously says that temperature does not rise in lockstep with rising CO2!
The muddy data we have today would have blinded their all knowing inner eye! They never would have come up with such a ludicrous conclusion!
So to put it another way — if CAGW had not been invented back in those data poor years — IT NEVER WOULD HAVE GOTTEN INVENTED!
So to sum up CAGW — its cause can best be described as a case of — THE WRONG PEOPLE, IN THE WRONG PLACE, AT THE WRONG TIME!
Eugene WR Gallun
Bob Tisdale says:
October 19, 2012 at 5:21 pm
Since the PDO is an aftereffect of ENSO, you’ll need to revise this.
This is purely your own opinion. Recent data suggests otherwise. But which is the egg or chicken is irrelevant, the PDO index is a reliable indicator of the equatorial ocean heat exchange with the atmosphere….end of story.
Bob Tisdale says:
October 19, 2012 at 5:23 pm
—then it would be best to use an ENSO index.
We could that, but then we would ask why do we have 30 year periods of more La Niña and vice versa. It has been shown that the PDO SST spatial patterns and pressure pattern changes influence ENSO especially over the last 3 years, the influence of the Aleutian Low on the PDO metrics is also interesting.
Have a good day.
Alec Rawls, your overall point is valid, but the graph linked as the top figure in this post is outright misleading on the period from the 1960s onwards. It is so crafted to be misleading there that it likely may have come from a CAGW-movement source like skepticalscience. It uses fudged temperature data from the dishonest CRU of Climategate infamy. That is combined with a misleading form of rolling average on the sunspot numbers which is out of sync in timing, which creates the false illusion of solar activity decline since 1985 in opposition to temperature trends since then. But such is in contrast to how actually solar cycle 22 (1986 to 1996) was of particularly high activity and just as high as cycle 21 of 1976-1986 before it.
The following graph uses part of that same plot but corrects it, removing what is misleading and adding other data, to show how solar activity much better relates to temperatures (depicting global sea surface temperatures) in the past several decades without those falsehoods:
http://s10.postimage.org/z7wcdc56x/suntemp.jpg
As suggested in the above graph (which the reader is very encouraged to click on and click to enlarge if it does not display full size at first):
The global cooling scare occurred when solar activity had a downturn with cycle 20 (of 1964 to 1976). There was actually substantial global cooling then, just mostly gone in fudged revisionist temperature data like that of CRU. The two solar cycles from 1976 to 1996 had a stronger solar magnetic field with more GCR deflection leading to 3% less average cosmic ray flux, fewer shading clouds, and the global warming scare. Then, in the late 1990s, Earth’s albedo trend and the trend in cloud cover changed when solar activity declined (less GCR deflection), and, after the 1998 El Nino, relative temperatures from then on have been flat to cooling.
Although of course the CAGW movement has revised both subsequently, non-fudged solar and temperature data gave results like this before revisionism:
http://www.appinsys.com/globalwarming/GW_Part6_SolarEvidence_files/image023.gif
—————————————————————-
Specific data and references for my first graph:
Solar cycle 20: October 1964 to June 1976 = 6180.84 average measured neutron count
Solar cycle 21: June 1976 to September 1986 = 5991.43 average measured neutron count
(where cycle 21 had increased solar activity deflecting more cosmic rays, with 3% less reaching Earth in terms of neutron count, reducing the amount of shading clouds formed, causing more warming)
Solar cycle 22: September 1986 to May 1996 = 5991.56 average measured neutron count
Solar cycle 23: May 1996 to December 2008 = 6213.57 average measured neutron count
Cosmic ray neutron count figures for those four cycles:
http://cosmicrays.oulu.fi/webform/query.cgi?startday=01&startmonth=10&startyear=1964&starttime=00%3A00&endday=01&endmonth=06&endyear=1976&endtime=00%3A00&resolution=Automatic+choice&picture=on
http://cosmicrays.oulu.fi/webform/query.cgi?startday=01&startmonth=06&startyear=1976&starttime=00%3A00&endday=01&endmonth=09&endyear=1986&endtime=00%3A00&resolution=Automatic+choice&picture=on
http://cosmicrays.oulu.fi/webform/query.cgi?startday=01&startmonth=09&startyear=1986&starttime=00%3A00&endday=01&endmonth=05&endyear=1996&endtime=00%3A00&resolution=Automatic+choice&picture=on
http://cosmicrays.oulu.fi/webform/query.cgi?startday=01&startmonth=05&startyear=1996&starttime=00%3A00&endday=01&endmonth=12&endyear=2008&endtime=00%3A00&resolution=Automatic+choice&picture=on
Temperature trends:
The decline in relative temperatures over the 1998-2008 period (and beyond):
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadsst2gl/from:1998/to:2008.99/plot/hadsst2gl/from:1998/to:2008.99/trend
Warming before then:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadsst2gl/from:1964/to:1998/plot/hadsst2gl/from:1964/to:1998/trend
In combination, the preceding data makes the graph linked early in this post.
Such ended up using untrustworthy temperature data too, just out of convenience for what is uploaded at the plotting tools at woodfortrees.org , but CRU fudged their HADSST2 ocean surface temperatures relatively less than what they could get away with on land data with the aid of UHI skewing.
Bob Tisdale says:
October 19, 2012 at 5:27 pm
There is no mechanism through which the PDO can influence global temperature trends.
Incorrect. The warm water in the NW pacific characteristic of a neg PDO is able to migrate south and influence the Walker Circulation pump and hence ENSO.
Geoff Sharp says:
October 19, 2012 at 4:48 pm
There are many areas in this presentation that have contradicting evidence from experts in the field.
Well, I am an expert in the field, and in any endeavor there are leaders, followers, and people that should just get out of the way. Those stragglers, whom you like to refer to, are getting fewer and fewer as evidence is piling up as we move further into the cycle. One of the mistakes these people make is to look at the strongest fields and largest spots, while the evidence is that it are the smallest spots that are disappearing. This is like looking for lost keys under the lamppost because the light is better there. Anyway, the issue will be decided bu the Sun in a couple of years, so the whining will automatically stop.
The words “Climate Change”, are simply a Dialectic Mind Freek Magic Trick Word Game they’re Playing on us.
You do realize that don’t you? You’re not that stupid.
It’s a form of psychological manipulation, hidden meanings and hidden agendas contained within simple words and phrases. Many UN program agendas are labeled with comforting sounding names to get us to do what they want, especially when it’s not really good for us.
dialectic (Merriam-Webster)
1: logic 1a(1)
2: a: discussion and reasoning by dialogue as a method of intellectual investigation; specifically : the Socratic techniques of exposing false beliefs and eliciting truth
b: the Platonic investigation of the eternal ideas
3: the logic of fallacy
4: a: the Hegelian process of change in which a concept or its realization passes over into and is preserved and fulfilled by its opposite; also : the critical investigation of this process
b: (1) usually plural but singular or plural in construction : development through the stages of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis in accordance with the laws of dialectical materialism (2) : the investigation of this process (3) : the theoretical application of this process especially in the social sciences
5: usually plural but singular or plural in construction
a: any systematic reasoning, exposition, or argument that juxtaposes opposed or contradictory ideas and usually seeks to resolve their conflict
b: an intellectual exchange of ideas
6: the dialectical tension or opposition between two interacting forces or elements
Without the Sun, this conversation does not exist, no?
That connections thing……
A Bar Brawl! Excellent!
The best Learning-Teaching invention.
XD
For Pete’s sake! GMAST has no physical meaning!
Alec Rawls says:
October 19, 2012 at 4:35 pm
But he did not want to walk back his dismissal of the solar explanation. He wanted to re-argue it and re-affirm it.
and he did with verve and strength.
I mentioned years ago on this site that lag time effects of heating and cooling of the planet, both forward and aft from peak to trough of the solar cycle, exist as a result of solar variability.
I noticed some people even picked up on my “Lag time” phrase.
People here, including Muscheler, might have missed the point that according to instrumental total solar irradiance (TSI) measurements, solar luminosity increased from 1980 to 2000 and decreased afterword, and it was likely even lower during the 1970s.
This is evident in the ACRIM satellite composite TSI that uses the TSI data as published.
See here for a detailed analysis between ACRIM and PMOD TSI composite.
http://acrim.com/TSI%20Monitoring.htm
The PMOD TSI reconstruction, that does shows a flat TSI actually alters the TSI observations in a way that has been rejected by the experimental teams that took the measurements.
See here at the statements of Willson and Hoyt
http://climatechange.thinkaboutit.eu/think4/post/judithgate_ipcc_consensus_was_only_one_solar_physicist
The effects of these reconstructions on the climate, which include the trending warming, is discussed in details in my papers. For example
Scafetta N., 2009. Empirical analysis of the solar contribution to global mean air surface temperature change. Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics 71, 1916-1923.
Scafetta N., 2011. Total Solar Irradiance Satellite Composites and their Phenomenological Effect on Climate. In Evidence-Based Climate Science edited by Don Easterbrook (Elsevier), chap. 12, 289-316.
I’m enjoying the discourse. Keep it civil.
We should just dump the words” Climate Change”, and Re-Brand it ourselves with the more scientifically accurate words “Climate Changes”.
Who says we have to always use the words they pick for us to use, all of the time?
What gives the UN the authority to do that to us?
Others have harped on this…
Every poster that has been caught up in this word game is unlikely to understand Alec Rawls post.
There! Does that make you happy?
Unlikely, is a weasel word when making a statement. Another word for it is a ‘caveat’ or conditional phrase, just in case they’re wrong. When taken, as by many posters here seem to believe; it is a get off the hook free card as Muscheler’s response indicates.
What Doctor Muscheler’s first phrasing and his followup phrasing means in cold hard facts is that he doesn’t know and therefore cannot explain the periods of cooling/warming. Otherwise he could explicitly state what is occurring without conditionals protection. Instead he leaves an impression that Alec Rawls is mistaken and never takes responsibility for the fact that if Alec misunderstands or is wrong, then so is CO2 AGW theory. Both suffer seriously from the same argument. Only Alec or Doctor Tisdale are trying to broaden the ‘simplistic’ theories by including Sea Surface Temps as a primary influence to land temperatures.
Albert Einstein stated
This is what makes Doctor Musheler’s statement ‘unconditional’. Temperature observations are also proving the CO2 forcing theory wrong. This is the fact that Doctor Muscheler should be focused on. All the unlikely’s in the world don’t make it correct.
What, or perhaps, which point are you making? That all of the simple leaps in logic without proof in climate CO2 AGW are not science?
Doctor Tisdale has a series of posts here (and a new book “Who turned on the heat?”, easily purchased and downloaded) that does more with SST science than all of those magical and mystical CO2 climate models.
Henry Clark notes that the image at the top of the post is:
That is Muscheler’s graphic (the one he mentions in the email as an attachment), and yeah, it’s pretty misleading, making it look like solar activity was way down during cycle 22 which, as I note, was actually more active than cycle 21.
Leif! I think this is the biggest error I’ve seen in any of your posts. Not the typo, but the implication that in two more years the whining wil stop. You’re letting your optimism show.
😉 /sarc
Take a look at this from WUWT for further clarification;
NASA June 2012 Solar Cycle 24 Prediction
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/06/08/nasa-june-2012-solar-cycle-24-prediction/
It is more than a little confusing that the calculations and presentation of the PDO come with ‘ + ’ and ‘ – ’ as part of the naming convention. Many readers seem to think the ‘ + ’ means positive as in ‘warm surface water’ and that, conversely, the ‘ – ’ means negative as in ‘cold surface water’. Further, there seems to be a mental glitch in the brains of many climate writers, which does not permit them to accept the words “pattern” and “spatial” as meaningful and useful. It is really too sad that the original nomenclature was not “pattern K” and “pattern R”, or some such.
See Tisdale @ 1:40 pm, read and follow the link, and continue to do so until “spatial” and “pattern” begin to make sense.
He said `unlikely’. (qualified)
You said `can’t’. (unqualified)
There is all the world of difference. It is either sloppy or disingenuous to claim there is no difference. The title of the post is misleading.
News Flash:
Ted Turner donates $1 billion to the UN. I wonder why he’s really doing it?
TBear
Isn’t using unlikely the same as using may or may not?Climate scientists always use may or likely or unlikely,then the media presents it as “climate scientist finds world will warm by 2 degrees over 50 years”or some such equivalent.
Leif Svalgaard says:
October 19, 2012 at 5:33 pm
tallbloke says:
October 19, 2012 at 3:03 pm
Some experts don’t go along with it:
You are way behind the curve by citing old obsolete papers.
At the 2nd SSN workshop in Brussels, Mursula had seen the error of his ways and changed the title of his talk to “From Saulus to Paulus”. If you are in doubt what this means you can find your own way to Damascus by studying the Bible a bit (Acts 9:3–9).
The paper is three years old, and a two to one majority of the authors still disagree with your extrapolation method. You have been unusually quiet about the outcome of the more recent meetings where you’ve been putting your hypothesis forward.
tallbloke says:
October 19, 2012 at 3:10 pm
Alec Rawls is quite right. Historically high levels of solar forcing sustained over decades are perfectly adequate to explain increasing OHC
As well as the high temperatures in the 18th and 19th centuries.
Which temperature dataset are you referring to?
By The way Leif:
Google: No results found for Mursula “From Saulus to Paulus”.
Google about 287 results found for Mursula “Does sunspot number calibration by the “magnetic needle” make sense?”
Alec Rawls said:
Wood and Keenlyside aren’t even talking about the PDO, just the measly AMO. For an historical example where natural fluctuations probably really did “mask climate change in the short term,” the PDO is the place to look….cold Pacific surface waters swallowed up a big gulp of warmth from 1940-1970, which the PDO then belched back up during its warm-phase in the 80s and 90s.
Hi Alec.
The “belching up” certainly raises the amospheric temperature during el nino events, but as you know, it’s the ocean heat content which is the underlying driver of longer term surface temperature changes. As Bob Tisdale has found, the OHC and SST of a large area of the Pacific has been stable over the last thirty years. It is the north Atlantic which has gained lots of OHC and has had the most elevated SST which best matches the global trend since 1970. As well as the PDO, the AMO also dropped from the 1940s to 1970s and rose from there to the early 2000s. It may well be that energy from the Pacific has been making its way round to the north Atlantic on its way to the Arctic. For this reason, the AMO’s contribution to ‘global warming’ is not “measly”.
If you take a look at the components of my model in the upper pane of:
http://tallbloke.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/sst-model1.png
You’ll see I actually found the best correlation in the lower pane (R^2=0.874 for monthly data from 1876) between the model and SSTs when the AMO component is a good deal bigger than the SOI (ENSO proxy) component. Some of that may be due to Atlantic-centric historical SSTs, but you shouldn’t discount the AMO.
The ‘ssnc’ component is the cumulative count (integration) of sunspot numbers either side of the ocean equilibrium value of 40ssn I empirically determined from sst. It is also the average monthly sunspot number from the start of the SIDC record in 1750. If this is accepted as a reasonable looking proxy for ocean heat content which matches the instrumental OHC record pretty well, then no ‘lag’ is needed to explain the solar effect on OHC and thus global surface temperature.
Cheers
TB.
Tbear writes “He said `unlikely’. (qualified) …You said `can’t’. (unqualified)… There is all the world of difference.”
So if I said turning the gas onto a particular constant setting thought to be high, warmed up the pot and you said it was “unlikely” that the gas setting was warming the pot because it was constant then that is an acceptable use of “unlikely”?
Maybe you cant see it, but its pretty clear to me that the implication is a very strong one that equilibrium must be reached quickly for that statement to be valid.
Michael says:
October 19, 2012 at 10:03 pm
“News Flash:
Ted Turner donates $1 billion to the UN.”
First, this if off-topic. Second, it was announced in 1997.
News Flash, indeed. Did’ya just wake up, Rip!
Google about 287 results found for Mursula “Does sunspot number calibration by the “magnetic needle” make sense?”
There is lots of work trying to trim the post 1945 SSN records which is probably correct, but no effort is made to check the pre 1840 numbers where Wolf made wholesale adjustments to the record based on the magnetic needle. SC5 was eventually over written when more data became available but considering the gap between the early GSN values it would be prudent to revisit the pre 1840 Wolf numbers. The is more inconsistencies in the geomagnetic data than the sunspot record in my opinion.
Do you think Leif would be pushing for this?….not likely.
Leif says: Anyway, the issue will be decided by the Sun in a couple of years, so the whining will automatically stop.
Should read: Anyway, the issue will be decided by the Sun in a couple of years, so my whining and self righteous criticising of everybody and everything on WUWT will automatically stop.
Well, if you had added emphasis to “unlikely” as well, you would have saved yourself from writing this article; and therefore this is most certainly not ‘unconditional’, as you suggest.
vukcevic says: October 19, 2012 at 2:54 pm
Your own 300 year long sunspot data (as well as those of Wang, Lean, and Sheeley)
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/TMC.htm
Leif Svalgaard says: October 19, 2012 at 5:33 pm
As I have shown you many times, the correlation is completely spurious.
…………………………..
No you have not, not many, not twice, not even once.
Just repeating the mantra :
As I have shown you many times, the correlation is completely spurious. may convince some,
but to assert that scientists from JPL and the Universite Paris Diderot and Institut de Physique du Globe :
do not know what they are talking about here
will not make any difference to the fact that
Sun is the major factor in number of the Earth’s events
geological changes http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/SSN-NAP.htm
magnetic field variability http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/TMC.htm
and ultimately temperature variability http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/EarthNV.htm
In none of the above (mutualy related and for the climate fundamental relationships) you even attempted to prove, let alone proved that correlation is spurious. One might say ‘too many spurious correlations for the comfort’ of those who maintain no it is not the sun.
Exploring nature is lot of fun, negating of nature is a nightmare
but you know that anyway.
tallbloke says:
October 19, 2012 at 11:04 pm
You have been unusually quiet about the outcome of the more recent meetings where you’ve been putting your hypothesis forward.
Hardly, perhaps you should consult our Wiki: http://ssnworkshop.wikia.com/wiki/Home
I have been touring the world giving seminars on the results of the recent meetings, e.g. at the High Altitude Observatory in Boulder, at the http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/ Space Weather Prediction Center in Boulder, Colorado, at the IAU Symposium 286 in Mendoza, Argentina, and on Monday at the TIEMS Conference in Osla, Norway, e.g.
http://www.leif.org/research/HAO-Seminar,%20How%20Well%20Do%20We%20Know%20the%20SSN.pdf
tallbloke says:
October 19, 2012 at 11:14 pm
Google: No results found for Mursula “From Saulus to Paulus”.
I think what broke Mursula on this was the demonstration by Cnossens et al.
http://www.leif.org/EOS/2012JA017555.pdf “The dependence of the coupled magnetosphere-ionosphere-thermosphere system on the Earth’s magnetic dipole moment”
“[38] We also estimate changes in the Sq amplitude from 1910 to 2010 based on the scaling relations we found. This gives increases of 2.0–2.4, 3.0–4.7, and 1.3–2.0 nT, or 7.2–9.2, 6.2–6.8, and 6.3–6.8% in the northward, eastward, and downward Sq amplitude components, respectively. These values are slightly larger than the average upward trend of 1.3 nT/century reported by Macmillan and Droujinina [2007] or the 2.45 nT/century increase in the eastward component reported by Svalgaard [2009], but smaller than
the trends of 4.8–8 nT/century reported by Elias et al. [2010]. Bearing in mind that actual trends are likely to vary from place to place, it appears that changes in dipole moment could make a significant contribution to long-term changes in Sq amplitude.
[39] Svalgaard [2009] noted that in particular the eastward component of the daily Sq variation is a useful indicator of solar activity, and may be used as a tool to calibrate the long-term sunspot number record. Clearly, if geomagnetic data are to be used in this way, the effects of the decreasing dipole moment on Sq variation must be considered and corrected for.”
That the increase in rY is expected and must be corrected for as I suggested. In the end, this doesn’t really matter, as the final analysis does not rely on the increase in rY.
Geoff Sharp says:
October 19, 2012 at 11:53 pm
it would be prudent to revisit the pre 1840 Wolf numbers. […]
Do you think Leif would be pushing for this?….not likely.
http://ssnworkshop.wikia.com/wiki/3rd_SSN_Workshop
I am pushing for this to be the topic for the 3rd SSN workshop in Tucson in January, 2013:
“The primary goal of this workshop is to extend the reconciled SSN time series back from Schwabe (1826) through Staudach (1750).”
By accident, I was watching a docco that showed a couple of Soviet H-bomb explosions. In one of them (perhaps their first H not A), the sky was overcast before the blast. As something spread radially, whether it was a shock wave, the air temperature or ionised particles or ???, the sky very rapidly became clear, layer by layer starting from the lowest.
So, tomorrow will be a fun day at the monitor, looking at as many nuclear explosions as I can find on videos. They might not tell me if the cloud disappearing was related to ionising radiation, but heck, this is one way that new theories can start to be confirmed. No need for the CIA to be alerted to my downloads.
(For those who argue that the radiation produces clouds, I’ll simply play the footage in reverse.)
Geoff Sharp says: October 19, 2012 at 11:53 pm
The is more inconsistencies in the geomagnetic data than the sunspot record in my opinion.
You are absolutely right there. There is a ‘ripple’ on the Earth’s magnetic field which is assumed to be associated with the ‘differential rotation’ of the liquid Earth’s core in respect of the crust (you can google it), which is nothing to do with sunspot activity. See the very first sentence in: http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/EarthNV.htm
Only place where magnetic needle would accurately follow (long term solar activity) is the Antarctic, the Arctic has bifurcated magnetic structure http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/geomag/data/mag_maps/browse/D_map_mf_2010_large.jpeg
due to the presence of two large continental masses, so any records from general area of the N. Hemisphere would not be representative, as it can be clearly seen from the geomagnetic distribution
Dr. Svalgaard is well aware of the all above.
vukcevic says:
October 20, 2012 at 2:08 am
“As I have shown you many times, the correlation is completely spurious.”
No you have not, not many, not twice, not even once.
You have poor memory. The spurious character comes from the special picking of the South Pole as something important in this connection and from the wrong assertion that the interplanetary magnetic field [coming from the sun] is changing the Earth’s magnetic field generated in the core 3000 km beneath the surface. Apart from the absurdness stemming from the fact that the solar field is 100,000 times smaller than the core field, the conductivity of the upper mantle is high enough to screen the core from any electromagnetic external influence. The use of obsolete datasets amplify your problem. You have to demonstrate that scientists you mention from Universite Paris Diderot and Institut de Physique du Globe have suggested that there is a solar influence on the core. This you have not done, so do that first.
vukcevic says:
October 20, 2012 at 2:47 am
Only place where magnetic needle would accurately follow (long term solar activity)
You are confusing the issues [shows how dangerous a little knowledge can be]. The ‘magnetic needle’ issue has to do with something that happens all over the dayside Earth, every day, as we speak. You can see the variation of the ‘needle’ here http://hirweb.nict.go.jp/dimages/magneka/20121019.html
The variations you see in that plot are the result of currents in the ionosphere 110 km up. Those currents are caused by the ionization created by solar far UV which is a good measure of solar activity. So in that way we can directly see the effect of solar activity on the magnetic needle. This was discovered way back in 1722 by George Graham in London. And we know the detailed physics that makes all this work.
Leif Svalgaard says:
October 20, 2012 at 3:16 am
vukcevic says:
October 20, 2012 at 2:08 am
You have to demonstrate that scientists you mention from Universite Paris Diderot and Institut de Physique du Globe have suggested that there is a solar influence on the core. This you have not done, so do that first.
Why would Vuk need to find confirmation from the scientists rather than their data?
This tells us everything we need to know about your attitude to independent researchers.
Leif Svalgaard says:
October 20, 2012 at 3:16 am
vukcevic says:
October 20, 2012 at 2:08 am
Apart from the absurdness stemming from the fact that the solar field is 100,000 times smaller than the core field, the conductivity of the upper mantle is high enough to screen the core from any electromagnetic external influence.
The answer to this conundrum is that the same forces are acting on the Sun as the Earth. Both their magnetic fields are being influenced by the rest of the solar system.
As usual you are trying to deny connections by saying that there is no possible mechanism. But the strength of the correlations is such that the chance of accidental coincidence is so vanishingly small the only explanation in the absence of a direct causal link between the two is that both phenomena are linked to a third which is affecting them both.
This is why we also find a strong correlation between changes in the Earth’s length of day and the motion of the Sun wrt the centre of mass of the solar system.
http://tallbloke.files.wordpress.com/2009/11/ssb-z-lod-temp.jpg
Leif Svalgaard says: October 20, 2012 at 3:16 am
Apart from the absurdness stemming from the fact that the solar field is 100,000 times smaller than the core field, the conductivity of the upper mantle is high enough to screen the core from any electromagnetic external influence.
Nop ! You are misleading the uninformed.
Geomagnetic storms regularly shift vertical magnetic component up to 1% and horizontal as as much as 5% or the total field (z^2+ h^2)^0.5, in the northern latitudes
(Tromso).
Graph four in
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/TMC.htm
shows that change in the Antarctic magnetic field on century scale are of order of 1-2% which is commensurate with changes in Z component frequently induced by geomagnetic storms.
If you are suggesting that GM storms induction doesn’t propagates from outer layers down to the inner one, then you are promoting the alternative ‘the common planetary factor in driving synchronously changes in both the solar and the earth’s magnetic changes’ (?!), and that would be LOL.
Either way, till now you have disproved nothing.
tallbloke says:
October 20, 2012 at 3:54 am
Why would Vuk need to find confirmation from the scientists rather than their data?
Vuk claimed that the scientists made some statements [so it is not about their data]. I ask him to confirm that they indeed made the statements he claimed they made.
This tells us everything we need to know about your attitude to independent researchers
Vuk, like you, is not a ‘researcher’ in any true sense of that word.
Geoff Sharp says: “Incorrect. The warm water in the NW pacific characteristic of a neg PDO is able to migrate south and influence the Walker Circulation pump and hence ENSO.”
That’s about the most vague statement I’ve ever seen on this topic.
You described southward migrations of warm water (I’m assuming in the western North Pacific based on your very limited description). Are you aware that the general current flow is from south to north in the western North Pacific? The western boundary current there is called the Kuroshio Current, and it is quite strong. Therefore, are you sure you weren’t seeing weather-caused variations in sea surface temperatures and mistook that for southward migration against the flow?
It would also be helpful if you’d call the areas by their proper names. With “warm water in the NW pacific characteristic of a neg PDO”, are you referring to the Kuroshio-Oyashio Extension, aka the KOE? The reason I ask: The sea surface temperatures of the Kuroshio-Oyashio Extension are a major component of the PDO, this has been known for years. Refer to Schneider and Cornuelle (2005) for confirmation:
http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/JCLI3527.1
They write in their abstract:
“The Pacific decadal oscillation (PDO), defined as the leading empirical orthogonal function of North Pacific sea surface temperature anomalies, is a widely used index for decadal variability. It is shown that the PDO can be recovered from a reconstruction of North Pacific sea surface temperature anomalies based on a first-order autoregressive model and forcing by variability of the Aleutian low, El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO), and oceanic zonal advection anomalies in the Kuroshio–Oyashio Extension. The latter results from oceanic Rossby waves that are forced by North Pacific Ekman pumping.”
And they conclude with:
“These results support the hypothesis that the PDO is not a dynamical mode, but arises from the superposition of sea surface temperature fluctuations with different dynamical origins.”
Therefore, it would appear you have cause and effect backwards. A negative PDO is a characteristic of a warm Kuroshio-Oyashio Extension—along with ENSO and North Pacific sea level pressure—not vice versa as you stated.
Leif Svalgaard says:
October 20, 2012 at 2:22 am
I think what broke Mursula on this was the demonstration by Cnossens et al.
http://www.leif.org/EOS/2012JA017555.pdf “The dependence of the coupled magnetosphere-ionosphere-thermosphere system on the Earth’s magnetic dipole moment”
“[38] We also estimate changes in the Sq amplitude from 1910 to 2010 based on the scaling relations we found. This gives increases of 2.0–2.4, 3.0–4.7, and 1.3–2.0 nT, or 7.2–9.2, 6.2–6.8, and 6.3–6.8% in the northward, eastward, and downward Sq amplitude components, respectively. These values are slightly larger than the average upward trend of 1.3 nT/century reported by Macmillan and Droujinina [2007] or the 2.45 nT/century increase in the eastward component reported by Svalgaard [2009], but smaller than
the trends of 4.8–8 nT/century reported by Elias et al. [2010]. Bearing in mind that actual trends are likely to vary from place to place, it appears that changes in dipole moment could make a significant contribution to long-term changes in Sq amplitude.
[39] Svalgaard [2009] noted that in particular the eastward component of the daily Sq variation is a useful indicator of solar activity, and may be used as a tool to calibrate the long-term sunspot number record. Clearly, if geomagnetic data are to be used in this way, the effects of the decreasing dipole moment on Sq variation must be considered and corrected for.”
Yes Leif. But, if the Earth’s magnetic dipole moment is itself varying proportionally in anticorrelation to heliomagnetic changes, then this is going to affect both the trend and magnitude you are trying to correct from a linear baseline which doesn’t exist, isn’t it?
vukcevic says:
October 20, 2012 at 4:06 am
Geomagnetic storms regularly shift vertical magnetic component up to 1% and horizontal as as much as 5% or the total field (z^2+ h^2)^0.5, in the northern latitudes
Informing the uninformed: those changes are observed at the surface and are temporary [lasts about a day] changes in the magnetosphere tens of thousands of km away. They have nothing to do with the core field.
If you are suggesting that GM storms induction doesn’t propagates from outer layers down to the inner one
They don’t make it further down than a few hundred km and are gone in a few days after the storm, which is why your correlations are spurious.
Either way, till now you have disproved nothing.
no need to disprove something that is not even wrong.
tallbloke says:
October 20, 2012 at 4:02 am
But the strength of the correlations is such that the chance of accidental coincidence is so vanishingly small
this is precisely the point. The correlations are too poor to be considered seriously. They are totally in the eyes of the true believers, nothing more. If they were compelling and persuasive, I would one of the first to embrace them, but they, unfortunately are not. The mechanism is not needed for this if the correlation is compelling. A mechanism can be a help if the correlation is weak.
vukcevic says:
October 20, 2012 at 4:06 am
Leif Svalgaard says: October 20, 2012 at 3:16 am
Apart from the absurdness stemming from the fact that the solar field is 100,000 times smaller than the core field, the conductivity of the upper mantle is high enough to screen the core from any electromagnetic external influence.
If you are suggesting that GM storms induction doesn’t propagates from outer layers down to the inner one, then you are promoting the alternative ‘the common planetary factor in driving synchronously changes in both the solar and the earth’s magnetic changes’ (?!), and that would be LOL.
It’s certainly a LOL that Leif is painting himself into a corner where he is forcing himself to the position which agrees with our Planetary-Solar theory, which has plenty of other evidence to support it anyway, (see my example of the LOD-SSB relation above).
Geoff Sharp says: “It has been shown that the PDO SST spatial patterns and pressure pattern changes influence ENSO especially over the last 3 years, the influence of the Aleutian Low on the PDO metrics is also interesting.”
Refer to my above reply to you, especially the quotes from Schneider and Cornuelle (2005).
Geoff Sharp says: “We could that, but then we would ask why do we have 30 year periods of more La Niña and vice versa.”
Obviously you are not aware that the decadal variability of ENSO is not in synch with the PDO:
http://i56.tinypic.com/rw01ox.jpg
The graph is from this post:
http://bobtisdale.wordpress.com/2011/06/30/yet-even-more-discussions-about-the-pacific-decadal-oscillation-pdo/
The reasons for the differences are of course due to the influence of sea level pressure on the PDO.
Charles Nelson, the scientific term for the BS you list is “epicycles”
tallbloke says:
October 20, 2012 at 4:41 am
Yes Leif. But, if the Earth’s magnetic dipole moment is itself varying proportionally in anticorrelation to heliomagnetic changes
The variation of the Earth’s magnetic dipole has nothing to do with the magnetic field in the heliosphere, but is generated in the core deep down. The dipole is now decreasing, at other times it was increasing, at times it flips, all of that is interior to the Earth.
then this is going to affect both the trend and magnitude you are trying to correct from a linear baseline which doesn’t exist, isn’t it?
This is somewhat muddled, one answer would be that if there are trends in the instrument, not related to the thing you are trying to measure, the trends must be removed. For instance, we use the ionosphere as our instrument to measure solar FUV [or sunspots, if you will], but if the sensitivity of the ionosphere changes [as it does if the Earth’s dipole changes] then that change has to be identified and corrected for, as Cnossen et al. point out.
Leif Svalgaard says:
October 20, 2012 at 4:45 am
The correlations are too poor to be considered seriously.
LOL. You correlate strongly with the middleman here Leif.
http://bit.ly/RMOcuD
tallbloke says:
October 20, 2012 at 4:47 am
It’s certainly a LOL that Leif is painting himself into a corner where he is forcing himself to the position which agrees with our Planetary-Solar theory,
is a silly statement in the context it is in. All I’m saying is that the correlations are lousy. If they were very good, that would be a different story, but they are not.
This is not a contentious question, rather simply one to educate myself. It is for Leif or Nicola or anyone else who can give it a shot. Following up on the heating water on the burner analogy, where there is more heat (energy) when the burner is turned on, does the Sun give off more heat ( energy) during these variable periods that are being discussed. If so, what is the percentage differences of heat (energy) that might be sent toward earth. Simply put, is the water over a burner an apt analogy.
tallbloke says:
October 20, 2012 at 4:47 am
…
____________
there once was a fine layman laddie
watched Sol and ate good finnan haddie
he’d post here on WUWT
ne’er lookin’ for loot
but, the Prof served him lutefisk pattie
Geoff Sharp says: “This is purely your own opinion. Recent data suggests otherwise.”
My understandings that the PDO is an aftereffect of ENSO are not “purely my own opinion.” If memory serves, I’ve provided the first three links for you on previous threads.
My understandings are confirmed by Zhang et al (1997), which was the study that introduced the PDO. They call it the NP in that paper:
http://www.atmos.washington.edu/~david/zwb1997.pdf
It is confirmed by Newman et al (2004):
http://courses.washington.edu/pcc587/readings/newman2003.pdf
It is confirmed by Shakun and Shaman (2009):
http://ir.library.oregonstate.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/1957/18654/Shakun_and_Shaman_Geophys_Res_Lett_2009.pdf?sequence=1
The applicable quotes are included in my post here:
http://bobtisdale.wordpress.com/2011/06/30/yet-even-more-discussions-about-the-pacific-decadal-oscillation-pdo/
And it is confirmed by the Schneider and Cornuelle (2005) paper I linked for you above:
http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/JCLI3527.1
Geoff Sharp says: “Recent data suggests otherwise.”
You’ll need to document that statement with data. Otherwise we’ll simply add it to the list of your false and unsupported claims.
Geoff Sharp says: “…the PDO index is a reliable indicator of the equatorial ocean heat exchange with the atmosphere….end of story.”
That is the silliest, most ridiculous statement you’ve made to date. I laughed out loud. Thanks. If you thought you had credibility here at WUWT, that one destroyed it forever. Maybe you should have taken Anthony’s advice and limited your comments to solar discussions.
Everyone here understands the PDO is derived through a statistical analysis of the sea surface temperature anomalies of the North Pacific, north of 20N. You’ve got the right ocean basin, Geoff, but you’re not the right ballpark.
Good-bye, Geoff.
tallbloke says:
October 20, 2012 at 5:17 am
LOL. You correlate strongly with the middleman here Leif.
Your silliness continues: http://s3.amazonaws.com/uplaya_artists/photos/20656/grinningchimp_large.jpg
Birdieshooter says:
October 20, 2012 at 5:20 am
If so, what is the percentage differences of heat (energy) that might be sent toward earth.
Tiny: 7% through a year, 0.1% from year to year.
Leif Svalgaard says:
October 20, 2012 at 4:33 am
Vuk claimed that the scientists made some statements.
No he didn’t. This is what Vuk said:
Vuk Said:
but to assert that scientists from JPL and the Universite Paris Diderot and Institut de Physique du Globe :
“do not know what they are talking about here”
will not make any difference to the fact that
Sun is the major factor in number of the Earth’s events…..
geological changes http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/SSN-NAP.htm
magnetic field variability http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/TMC.htm
and ultimately temperature variability http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/EarthNV.htm
In none of the above (mutualy related and for the climate fundamental relationships) you even attempted to prove, let alone proved that correlation is spurious.
And he’s right. You keep saying you’ve disproved us, but you haven’t. You keep saying the correlations are weak, but they’re not. If you had any arguments with real force, you wouldn’t need to resort to this sort of behaviour.
Leif says:
Vuk, like you, is not a ‘researcher’ in any true sense of that word.
You’re displaying all the signs of being a world class propagandist again. Excelled by none, except another Stanford colleague perhaps.
“Each of us must decide on the right balance between honesty and effectiveness”
-Stephen H Schneider-
Leif Svalgaard says:
October 20, 2012 at 5:15 am
For instance, we use the ionosphere as our instrument to measure solar FUV [or sunspots, if you will],
You can’t substitute one for the other. They are two different indices. One is measured with magnetometers and the other is counted using a telescope. You are welcome to propound your IDV reconstruction, but not to corrupt the observational record by conflating it with the sunspot count. And yes, I know Wolff rejigged his sunspot series with reference to magnetic readings.
Both indices are valuable, and should not be mushed together, because their differences contain information. Think about that.
Maybe this modelling study could add to the understanding of solar influence? It propose a solution for the amplifying of the 11 years cycle, not sure if any study has been done on several decades variations?
http://theresilientearth.com/?q=content/atmospheric-solar-heat-amplifier-discovered
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/325/5944/1114.full
Gerald A. Meehl et al.
Bob Tisdale says:
October 20, 2012 at 5:28 am
Geoff Sharp says: “…the PDO index is a reliable indicator of the equatorial ocean heat exchange with the atmosphere….end of story.”
That is the silliest, most ridiculous statement you’ve made to date. I laughed out loud. Thanks. If you thought you had credibility here at WUWT, that one destroyed it forever. Maybe you should have taken Anthony’s advice and limited your comments to solar discussions.
There Geoff does not have much credibility either…Now, there must be some discussion where he could make a difference. Trying to think of one….
The correlation not causation of declining solar cycles and declining PDO and south Atlantic sea surface temp is getting interesting to watch. I note other correlations not causation patterns also like diverging climate models from reality. This correlation not causation is getting interesting.
Dr. Svalgaard
the reality is that there is strong correlation between solar activity on many factors affecting the Earth’s behavior.
Sun affects Earth’s geological changes
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/SSN-NAP.htm
Sun affects Earth’s magnetic field variability
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/TMC.htm
Sun affects Earth’s temperature variability
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/EarthNV.htm
You may proclaim it lousy correlation, you could even deny it, but
you can not undo what Vukcevic has found.
I for one am a little confused. It seems to me that Leif’s comments actually support Alec’s views and Tallbloke has it measured. Looks to me like everyone is in agreement.
Since the depths of the LIA we have seen a more active Sun. That has raised the global temperature over that time. The active sun in the 18th century warmed the planet from the lower temperature of the 17th. Same for the 19th century except the level was a little higher going in. Once again the same holds true for the 20th century with the baseline even higher than the previous century. In other words, the Sun has provided the means for us to warm out of the coldest period of this interglacial.
Now, where am I misunderstanding what’s being claimed?
“In fact, the rate of temperature increase is rising, and that is only compatible with a continuing increase in the forcing, i.e. from greenhouse gases. – gavin”
So, whatever is in the “pipeline” cannot be worst than what we have seen so far…
****
Geoff Sherrington says:
October 20, 2012 at 2:46 am
So, tomorrow will be a fun day at the monitor, looking at as many nuclear explosions as I can find on videos.
****
I bought a bunch of VHS video-tapes from the US gov yrs ago of many of the nuclear test shots. The level of sophistication & preparation of the tests were impressive. A few clips show the initial fireballs photoed by extremely high-speed cameras to record the size/shape/speed & estimate bomb efficiency.
I’d assume they’ve been put on up-to-date media, but don’t know if you could purchase them in Australia….
Lars P. says:
October 20, 2012 at 5:59 am
Maybe this modelling study could add to the understanding of solar influence? It propose a solution for the amplifying of the 11 years cycle, not sure if any study has been done on several decades variations?
http://theresilientearth.com/?q=content/atmospheric-solar-heat-amplifier-discovered
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/325/5944/1114.full
Gerald A. Meehl et al.
Thanks for that. Here’s another:
http://sciencebits.com/calorimeter
tallbloke says:
October 20, 2012 at 5:43 am
“Vuk claimed that the scientists made some statements.”
No he didn’t. This is what Vuk said:
Jean Dickey of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena:
“an external (e.g. solar) process affects the core and climate simultaneously.”
“I suppose you do extend the compliment to her coautor:
Dr. Olivier de Viron of the Universite Paris Diderot and Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris.”
I suggest that those gentlemen do not share her silly remark, and challenged Vuk to show us that they did.
If you had any arguments with real force
It odes not take arguments of any force to establish that the correlations are poor. If they were any good, we would not this discussion and hundred of scientists all over the world would be busy exploring the consequences and causes.
tallbloke says:
October 20, 2012 at 5:53 am
“For instance, we use the ionosphere as our instrument to measure solar FUV [or sunspots, if you will]”
You can’t substitute one for the other. They are two different indices.
The point is that they measure the same thing just in different ways. This is not even a point to discuss as this is accepted science used in daily operations.
vukcevic says:
October 20, 2012 at 6:23 am
You may proclaim it lousy correlation, you could even deny it, but
you can not undo what [the great] Vukcevic has found.
Don’t need to, lots of people find strange things that are not true, why should one try to ‘undo’ what they found. Let them have it. It only becomes a problem, when they try to push it onto others.
tallbloke says:
October 20, 2012 at 5:43 am
“Each of us must decide on the right balance between honesty and effectiveness”
-Stephen H Schneider-
Clearly, I have tilted the balance too far away from effectiveness. I shall now leave you to your own devices and continuing stream of smears, as I’m off to Oslo.
L.S. It only becomes a problem, when they try to push it onto others.
Hey doc
Science never stood still, it is only a problem for those who whish to deny the cause of nature.
lots of people find strange things that are not true
Let’s see:
1. Solar activity correlates to planetary magnetic feedback
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/LFC2.htm
2. Earth’s geological changes correlates with solar activity
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/SSN-NAP.htm
3. Earth’s magnetic field variability correlates with solar activity
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/TMC.htm
4. Earth’s temperature variability correlates with solar activity
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/EarthNV.htm
And you suggest that none of the above is true, despite all contained in good instrumental data, most of which you daily refer to. Strange things do not appear in nature, strange are people who wish to deny nature.
Vuk’s findings are true nightmare for any nature ‘negatron’
Years of fun to come.
Leif Svalgaard says:
October 20, 2012 at 6:49 am
tallbloke says:
October 20, 2012 at 5:53 am
“For instance, we use the ionosphere as our instrument to measure solar FUV [or sunspots, if you will]”
You can’t substitute one for the other. They are two different indices.
The point is that they measure the same thing just in different ways. This is not even a point to discuss as this is accepted science used in daily operations.
Yes Leif. Climate models which conflate natural variation with co2 forcing are “accepted science used in daily operations” too. This doesn’t mean they are correct though.
tallbloke says:
October 20, 2012 at 6:44 am
Thanks tallbloke, very interesting!
Dr. L.S.
I suggest that those gentlemen do not share her silly remark, and challenged Vuk to show us that they did.
Here what is said:
“So how might all three of these variables – Earth’s rotation, movements in Earth’s core (formally known as the core angular momentum) and global surface air temperature – be related? That’s what researchers Jean Dickey and Steven Marcus of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., and colleague Olivier de Viron of the Universite Paris Diderot and Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris in France
, set out to discover in a first-of-its-kind study.
………
Since scientists know air temperature can’t affect movements of Earth’s core or Earth’s length of day to the extent observed, one possibility is the movements of Earth’s core might disturb Earth’s magnetic shielding of charged-particle (i.e., cosmic ray) fluxes that have been hypothesized to affect the formation of clouds. This could affect how much of the sun’s energy is reflected back to space and how much is absorbed by our planet. Other possibilities are that some other core process could be having a more indirect effect on climate, or that an external (e.g. solar) process affects the core and climate simultaneously.”
NASA: March 09, 2011
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2011-074
They are incorrect to say: “set out to discover in a first-of-its-kind study”. Since I’ve been plotting data for some years now.
Vukcevic: September 17, 2009
http://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/docs/00/41/83/04/PDF/NATA.pdf
Leif Svalgaard says:
October 20, 2012 at 7:10 am
I shall now leave you to your own devices and [cease my] continuing stream of smears, as I’m off to Oslo.
Excellent, an opportunity for decent respectful climate conversation. Have a lovely flight.
I have read over and over again that the Sun can’t be affecting the overall temperature of the Earth, since the TSI is “relatively constant”. After the orbiting satellites were able to measure TSI directly [above the atmosphere], we found out that the Ultraviolet energy reaching the upper atmosphere varied greatly.
Temperature is related to pressure in a gas. The faster the atoms/molecules move, and bump into each other, the higher the pressure/temperature. I would propose that the low frequency energy transfer [infrared energy] is much less efficient at altering temperature verses high frequency energy transfer [ultraviolet]. The experiment would have the same amount of energy in each case; but how efficient each frequency energy would alter the temperature of, say, ozone.
Before everyone jumps on me, note the laser. The input energy [frequency is related to energy] must exceed the threshold level of the quantum energy states of the electrons position before the electron will accept energy and change state. I would propose that the same action is having the same type of affect on the ozone molecules; therefore, the energy absorption would occur more efficiently at certain frequencies.
If the above is true, then the Sun’s ultraviolet energy would have a much greater effect on the Ozone layer than previously assumed.
Can anyone answer this question? Has a definitive experiment been completed with oxygen/ozone at rarefied pressures? Note that the typical difference between a Sunspot minimum and a Sunspot maximum is about 0.1C on overall Earth’s temperature.
I would rather have new experiments and concepts to promote scientific understanding than bickering!!
Dr. Lurtz says:
October 20, 2012 at 8:00 am
Can anyone answer this question? Has a definitive experiment been completed with oxygen/ozone at rarefied pressures? Note that the typical difference between a Sunspot minimum and a Sunspot maximum is about 0.1C on overall Earth’s temperature.
The action of UV on ozone is know to vary at different altitudes/pressures, though it’s all poorly understood as ye,t so far as I know.
Although the effect of the solar cycle appears to be around 0.1C when you smooth the temperature record at an appropriate period (37 months) to reveal it, this is misleading. That’s because big El Nino’s tend to start at solar minimum, and are often followed by a La Nina rebound near solar maximum. This anti-phase relation with the solar cycle flattens the apparent climate response in smoothed plots. Also consider that a lot of the energy pushed into the ocean when the Sun is active gets stored in the Pacific Warm Pool where it is hidden from the surface record, before it re=appears in the El Nino which depletes the OHC for a while.
In defense of Muscheler, you first quote him correctly:
“therefore, it is unlikely that solar activity (whatever process) was involved in causing the warming since 1970.”
then insist that “Raimund Muscheler says that a steady high level of forcing can’t cause warming“.
He correctly denies saying this…as he did not say so. At least not in sentence you quote. He said what he said-> “it is unlikely that solar activity was involved in causing the warming since 1970”.
I’m sure he would be satisfied if you changed your title to say:
Raimund Muscheler says that it is unlikely that solar activity was involved in causing the warming since 1970.
When you use the word “says” you are implying that you are quoting someone. But in this case, you are not, you are drawing an inference. You might get away with “Raimund Muscheler implies that a steady high level of forcing can’t cause warming“, or “suggests” , or “in effect says”….
Proper use of language is important –> improper use, particularly when there arises an appearance of misquoting another colleague, leads to bickering.
Leif Svalgaard, thanks for the document.
Most of the above bickering is way over my head.But the mark of a true expert is the ability to explain to a 12 year old the essence of their expertise, what I got from the bickering was 1 Time to read Bob Tisdales book again,2 Alex Rawls is onto something,a provocative argument at least.Which has inflamed some egos.The key is unstated assumptions, climate science is being greeted with derision by the public, maybe its time for a few, we do not knows and its possible we are wrong, because the arrogance and authority memes are not working.I look forward to more rational debate on the state of our knowledge, our assumptions and natures cycles.
“I am saying it is totally inadequate to do much else the speculate and overly generalize.”
Precisely seems we humans are only able to understand an issue with 2,3,4 max inputs and need to have a main culpable. Worse we try to reduce everything to it.
Maybe it has to do with religion, sacrifices to gods …
Leif Svalgaard:
begin quote
Alec Rawls says:
October 19, 2012 at 4:35 pm
But he did not want to walk back his dismissal of the solar explanation. He wanted to re-argue it and re-affirm it.
and he did with verve and strength.
end quote
Let me add my opinion to those who agree that Rawls interpreted Muscheler correctly. Aside from the fact that words aren’t perfect, Muscheler strongly asserts that a steady solar insolation can’t produce a rising temperature.
Leif Svalgaard’s argument, as I understand it, is that with the most recent and reliable reconstructions of the history of solar activity, temperature change and solar activity are almost perfectly uncorrelated over a time span of 300 years, and the association apparent in Alec Rawls’ graph only appears in the 20th century. That is, a claim of a causal relationship is disconfirmed by the complete data.
tallbloke: “Each of us must decide on the right balance between honesty and effectiveness”
-Stephen H Schneider-
He was wrong. You should never sacrifice honesty. Pragmatically, if it becomes known that you have sacrificed honesty, or even are willing to, then you lose effectiveness.
Richard M on how the mostly high levels of solar activity since the Maunder minimum could have successively warmed each succeeding century:
Unfortunately, Leif does not actually seem to believe that continued high levels of forcing can cause continued warming, since he rejects a solar explanation for late 20th century warming on the grounds that:
I find this very strange, since at my strenuous urging I finally got him to agree that one can indeed heat a pot of water by turning the flame to maximum and leaving it there. Leif, showing his scientific mettle, even calls this the “best” way to heat water, and I agree with you Leif, I AGREE.
But when the “pot of water” is the earth Leif backtracks. I put his inconsistency to him directly. If he acknowledges that the water in the pot on his stove is hotter after it has been sitting over the high flame for a couple of minutes than when he first put it on, then:
His answer: “simply because like effects come from like causes.” If the high sun caused it to be warm in the late 20th century, he is saying, then the planet would have been warm when the sun was high earlier. Or equivalently, if it was the high flame that caused his pot of water to be hot after a couple of minutes, then it would have caused his water to be hot when he first put it on.
The element he fails to take into account in the case of the planet is of course HISTORY, as recorded in the state of the ocean heat sink. I have been urging Leif for a couple of years now that he needs to account for the hysteresis of the oceans but Leif has a strict policy of never learning anything from anybody so here we are. Leif is the jolly bad Santa, with a lump of coal for everybody. Like Richard, I too don’t think that Leif and I actually have much to disagree about, but his fantastic obstreperousness will never let him admit it. Kind of grows on you after a while.
Have a good trip to Oslo Leif!
Alec Rawls: The element he fails to take into account in the case of the planet is of course HISTORY, as recorded in the state of the ocean heat sink.
This sounds like special pleading. Do you have (does anyone have), time series of the state of the ocean heat sink, global mean temperature, and solar activity, over a span of 3 centuries?
Matthew R Marler says: October 20, 2012 at 10:34 am
That is, a claim of a causal relationship is disconfirmed by the complete data.
Not entirely.
The North hemisphere temperature record since 1880 is accepted as a relatively reliable. It can be split into two simple components made of an inclining linear trend and the residual which could be associated with natural variability from one or more sources.
Simple calculation shows that this residual oscillating component (it very closely matches the AMO with amplitude excursion of ~0.6C) is directly related to the sunspot cycles for the period:
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/GSC1.htm
On the other hand there is close correlation between the N.A. SST (AMO) and global temperatures for period 1880-2010, with a single exception at 1969-70 when there is an inexplicable drop in the AMO of 0.325C, and than trends continue on a parallel up-slope.
Se top graph in :
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/NAP-SST.htm
Why this difference it is not clear, it could be due to global data ‘homogenization’, on the other hand geological data from the N. Atlantic show close correlation to average movement of the N.A. SST (see second graph in the above link).
Now it can be also shown that there is also reasonable correlation between the sunspot records and the N.A. geological data going back to 1650
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/SSN-NAP.htm
Therefore one could be led to conclude that the N.A. SST (and the global temperatures before 1969) are correlated to the solar activity.
There is no absolute certainty in the climate science, but having above in mind balance of probability is that the global temperature variability to the great extent is caused by the solar activity.
You may not accept any of the above, if you think you know better, I bring it to the inquisitive readers’ attention to consider at least as a thought provoking, which is only first step in a aspiration to find out more.
Among some (not all) AGW devotees it has been notable absence of any aspiration to find out more.
Matthew R Marler
How about 8 centuries?
http://virakkraft.com/Steinhilber-TSI-%20Mann08-temp.png
Because of the heat capacity you have to use integrals, as Alec has explained a dozen times.
On a decadal scale the Pacific oscillation is stronger, and again of course you have to think integrals. http://virakkraft.com/PDO-integral-Hadcrut4.png
Don’t bother Alec. Certain people have decided not to understand this because they can’t find it in their centuries old text books.
lgl says:
October 20, 2012 at 12:42 pm
How about 8 centuries?
http://virakkraft.com/Steinhilber-TSI-%20Mann08-temp.png
Love it. Stitch that Michael.
Very interesting integration of Steinhilber’s TSI reconstuction linked by lgl. Any info on where this comes from and how it was calculated? In addition to the scaling it seems that the fit would have to have been optimized by the choice of a zero point, above which solar activity is modeled as adding heat to the oceans and below which the oceans are seen as cooling. I’d be interested to see the details.
Marler asks:
Just because we don’t have any direct measurements of ocean heat content over this period doesn’t mean we can ignore the hysteresis of the oceans, as Leif does. Is Marler with Leif on that? Does he think that if the sun was responsible for late 20th century warming then the planet would have been the same temperature when the sun was previously at similar levels, regardless of the state of the ocean heat sink? Pretty wacky.
Alec Rawls says:
October 20, 2012 at 1:46 pm
In addition to the scaling it seems that the fit would have to have been optimized by the choice of a zero point, above which solar activity is modeled as adding heat to the oceans and below which the oceans are seen as cooling. I’d be interested to see the details.
Hi Alec. Did you see the comment i addressed to you at
tallbloke says:
October 19, 2012 at 11:39 pm
I’d appreciate you input.
Thanks
TB
From vukcevic on October 20, 2012 at 6:23 am:
Which leads to a graph of sunspot number and something called “North Atlantic Precursor”.
Tracking that down lead to your page:
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/NAO-.htm
So your “strong correlation” is between SSN and some dataset of your own creation of unknown derivation that is somehow related to the North Atlantic Oscillation but preceding it by about 9 years.
Okay. I grabbed the International SSN (monthly plot data) and the NAO Index (Historical Index, monthly), crammed them in a spreadsheet. The NAO data only goes from 1950 so the Leif et al pre-1946 SSN correction didn’t apply.
As recommended for solar research, I used the 12-month moving average smoothing of the SSN.
Time passed, numbers were played with as years were shifted. Finally to make sense of the graph with the noisy NAO data, I applied a matching 12-month smoothing to the monthly NAO data.
And saw how the NAO varies many times during a solar cycle, with no discernible pattern.
I have no idea how you cook up your “secret recipe” NAP. But I can tell the SSN and the NAO are not related. You are claiming your NAP and SSN are strongly correlated, while hinting your NAP and the NAO are somehow related.
Therefore I must conclude it is most likely your “strong correlation” comes from incorporating something else you find “strongly correlated” to SSN into your NAP, that does not show up in the NAO. It’s the only logical conclusion I can draw at this point.
kadaka (KD Knoebel) says:
October 20, 2012 at 1:54 pm
……..
Hi,
I do appreciate you taking some interest, it is far more than many do, and it is usual grief from Dr. LS. that discourages all but the bravest.
NAP; data was offered to Dr. Svalgaard to forward to the Stamford’s geological department with a view of some cooperation for a finalization. He declined. Data is related to geological records of the part of Greenland –Scotland ridge, which is controlling the Atlantic inflow and Arctic outflow. Data is available, but dispersed in numerous sources, took some time to assembly and see no reason why should be given away to just anyone.
NAO as the air pressure index is highly volatile, so you need to take longer average, in the article http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/NAOn.htm (one but last illustration) it is clearly marked as 11 year average.
Why 9 year advance? not entirely clear, but since it is the north leg of the NAO (Icelandic pressure) that is determinant, it presumably takes some years for the warm atlantic currents to reach the Arctic and return as cold currents via Denmark Strait (Icelandic pressure) and few more years to loop into the subpolar gyre to initiate AMO oscillation
http://www.divediscover.whoi.edu/arctic/images/ArcticCurrents-labels.jpg
Hence in order of occurrence NAP>NAO>AMO (refer to http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/NAOn.htm one but last illustration)
Just as a reminder compare NAP waveform with the CET spectrum components (1660-2021) http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/CET-NV.htm
I hope some of the above helps, but if not than your ‘how you cook up your “secret recipe” NAP misgiving is by far safer than accepting ‘blanco’ assurance.
correction :CET spectrum components (1660-2011)
Alec
There’s a Steinhilber.xls at http://www.leif.org/research/files.htm
“optimized ” – well, I like “using pre-industrial time as the verification period” better, and then you have to set the long term HMF average to around 5.
There’s a serious misunderstanding &/or misinterpretation of Jean Dickey (NASA JPL) above.
Clarification:
A 3-century-old modeling assumption which is supported by not so much as a single observation has been overthrown:
http://i46.tinypic.com/303ipeo.png
+
http://i49.tinypic.com/wwdwy8.png
=
http://i48.tinypic.com/2v14sc5.gif
(slow animation of preceding pair)
–
lgl: Thanks for stopping by.
Alec Rawls: Just because we don’t have any direct measurements of ocean heat content over this period doesn’t mean we can ignore the hysteresis of the oceans, as Leif does.
It means that we can not say anything in particular about the ocean heat content. Using the late 20th century solar activity/earth temp time series, we can estimate a relationship between solar activity and temperature change; using that and past records, we can infer/impute a time series of ohc values. Such a procedure might yield testable hypotheses of what sorts of past ocean temperature series would result if we figured out ways to estimate them — and those might agree with the computed estimates. That it could be done does not prove that Leif is wrong, only that it’s non-parsimonious to conclude that he’s wrong. That it could be done does not establish that Alex is correct, though he could be — but the unknown history of ohc has to be just right.
Alec quotes
I am sure that you are aware of the fact that the title is wrong. I never said that steady high levels of forcing can’t cause warming.
———–
Alec is ignoring what someone says, makes up a non equivalent statement he calls a paraphrase, and claims this is what the other person means, even after the other person makes it very, very clear they didn’t say or mean that. Great one Alec.
Alec just makes up to much stuff. He does a lot of hand waving about the dynamics of heat transfer in the ocean. Has he actually done any calculations himself? Personally I don’t understand something properly until i have done the sums or written a computer program to do the sums for me.
Hi Tallbloke: Thanks for pointing out your earlier comment. Interesting AMO findings, and I like the ssn integration as a way of including solar effects. Allows you to keep track of impact on ocean heat content.
When I saw the STI integration graph I was wondering if it might have come from you. I thought I remembered you having done something like that before. It’s a useful exercise. Ideally the zero point would be modulated by ocean heat content and/or ssts, since it is the comparison between energy into the oceans vs. energy radiated back out that determines warming or cooling, but we don’t have much historical ohc or sst data so a fixed zero point would seem to be the best that can be done.
About setting the zero point of the TSI integration lgl says: “then you have to set the long term HMF average to around 5.”
So lgl made the graphic himself? Nice. Using the average as the zero point seems reasonable, since Steinhilber’s is a long reconstruction and temps were fairly flat over the span.
Leif Svalgaard says:
October 20, 2012 at 2:22 am
Geoff Sharp says:
October 19, 2012 at 11:53 pm
it would be prudent to revisit the pre 1840 Wolf numbers. […]
Do you think Leif would be pushing for this?….not likely.
—————————-
http://ssnworkshop.wikia.com/wiki/3rd_SSN_Workshop
I am pushing for this to be the topic for the 3rd SSN workshop in Tucson in January, 2013:
“The primary goal of this workshop is to extend the reconciled SSN time series back from Schwabe (1826) through Staudach (1750).”
So we can look forward to seeing the pre 1840 Wolf numbers (SIDC) being reviewed. Perhaps when you all understand how the K factors were applied to the GSN values the GSN counts can be used to rectify the SIDC numbers….fat chance I am thinking.
Bob Tisdale says:
October 20, 2012 at 5:28 am
Good-bye, Geoff.
The same old rhetoric from you Bob. Perhaps instead of producing 1 million graphs and forever promoting your book you could look at some of the real world events in relation to the effect of the NW pacific warm pool and ENSO. We are heading for a possible 3 in a row La Nina as predicted which certainly has not been driven by the 2010 El Nino.
http://tinyurl.com/2dg9u22/?q=node/270
@alex
How appropriate for this very morning!
Alec Rawls says:
>Leif writes:
>>you can see that solar activity was also high in the 18th and 19th centuries, while temperatures were not [so people claim, at least].
>ATell me Leif: when you first turn the flame to maximum, is the water you just put on the stove as warm as it is three minutes later? No?
++++++++++++
I just happen to have been plotting the delay and change in temperature of just such an experiment and want to remind everyone that when the knob is turned to ‘high’ it usually makes no immediate difference, and that the efficiency of heat transfer often (but not always) decreases with more applied power. There are sound reasons for this.
There is every reason to suspect that the response to the multiple external drivers of climate and globsl temperature, as part of it, are operating in non-linear ways. I won’t burden you with an extended analogy but it is clear to me on many levels. And the temperature of water in a whole pot is surprisingly difficult to measure.
Alec Rawls says:
October 20, 2012 at 5:27 pm
When I saw the STI integration graph I was wondering if it might have come from you. I thought I remembered you having done something like that before. It’s a useful exercise.
Hi Alec and thanks. Yes, I first did the SSN integration back in 2009
http://tallbloke.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/ssa-sst-ssn.jpg
and then after I started my blog I included it in this article in 2010
http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2010/07/21/nailing-the-solar-activity-global-temperature-divergence-lie/
At that time I was using a ‘zero point’ or ‘ocean equilibrium value’ of 42 SSN. The more recent investigation finds it to be nearer 39.5SSN, but as you say, the value will shift around depending on length and provenance of sst dataset, cloud cover variation feedback to temperature and solar activity levels etc.
Ideally the zero point would be modulated by ocean heat content and/or ssts, since it is the comparison between energy into the oceans vs. energy radiated back out that determines warming or cooling, but we don’t have much historical ohc or sst data so a fixed zero point would seem to be the best that can be done.
Agreed. Given the uncertainty in the sst datasets, I can’t see any way to pin down non-linearity in the zero-point estimate. But I think any modulation will be a second order effect we can safely ignore for now.
About setting the zero point of the TSI integration lgl says: “then you have to set the long term HMF average to around 5.”
So lgl made the graphic himself? Nice. Using the average as the zero point seems reasonable, since Steinhilber’s is a long reconstruction and temps were fairly flat over the span.
I’d be very interested to know what TSI variation we can derive from lgl’s graph. Tim Channon got a reasonably good calibration of our solar-planetary theory to the Steinhilber TSI reconstruction, which would indicate that the feedback of cloud variability to solar variation is reasonably linear.
http:///daedalearth.files.wordpress.com/2011/02/lean-sbf-compare.png
Given a suitable terrestrial amplification factor somewhere within the limits set by Nir Shaviv in his ‘using the oceans as a calorimeter’ JGR paper, we should be able to calibrate TSI on both lgl’s plot and my model.
http://sciencebits.com/calorimeter
Calibrating the TSI is the next step in refining my newer model.
http://tallbloke.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/sst-model1.png
Matthew R Marler says:
October 20, 2012 at 12:01 pm
“Do you have (does anyone have), time series of the state of the ocean heat sink, global mean temperature, and solar activity, over a span of 3 centuries?”
Although heat buildup in the ocean would be harder to show, here are some striking illustrations of solar-climate correlation on the decade to century scale:
After clicking on the following link, click again to enlarge it and scroll up & down:
http://s8.postimage.org/nz4ionvit/suntemp0.jpg
I just created the above now, but original sources of the compilation are noted inside it.
The preceding focuses on covering centuries at a time.
(I see the plots in the post by lgl at October 20, 2012 at 12:42 pm are good too; although I don’t trust any temperature data by Mann directly, in that case it was not so skewed to mess up the overall picture).
Still lengthier time periods are illustrated in the following Russian paper (with, as usual, Russian sources tending to be good because they tend to avoid the recent CAGW-convenient revisionism occurring on every major related topic in much of the Anglosphere due to the increased dominance of the Western enviropolitical movement and its associated dishonesty):
http://rjes.wdcb.ru/v06/tje04163/tje04163.htm
(They comment on the geomagnetic field’s influence on cosmic ray flux in addition to the influence of the solar-driven interplanetary magnetic field; although I skipped over bothering to depict that in the prior graph compilation, which is very illustrative even without it, Vukcevic seems quite on to something there).
Additional notes:
The falsehood of the post-1970s superficial divergence in the solar activity versus temperature plot at the top of this article is discussed and illustrated with references in my prior October 19, 2012 at 7:07 pm comment in this thread, including the following graph correcting it:
http://s10.postimage.org/z7wcdc56x/suntemp.jpg
I also like this simple demonstration of GCR flux versus high-altitude specific humidity over the past few decades: http://s18.postimage.org/n9nm5glc7/solar_GCRvswatervapor.jpg
Crispin in Yogayakarta says: October 20, 2012 at 10:49 pm
………
(not in Waterloo ? )
Dr.S. is trying to divert attention from the real sun-Earth ‘kitchenalia’.
Here how it works:
Think of the ocean as an open pot of warm water with constant heat input (TSI ) at a level where water is held at constant temperature by evaporation and internal convection.
Leave alone – no natural variability
Add some GHG above – I’ll leave that to AGWs (it will not make any difference, but let’s be tolerant of the CO2 nonsense)
Now to the important part:
Stir for 5 min (interaction of the solar and Earth’s magnetic field), the pot’s Surface Temperature changes (SST-AMO)
Leave alone for 5 min – the pot’s ST slowly reverts back
Result – Sun-Earth natural variability drives the AMO
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/GSC1.htm
With all the toing and froing on this subject, some rather heated, let us all rejoice in the fact that our sun, old Sol has been very kind to us. Virtually ever thing we have we owe to Sol, he oft gets angry and some times has a holiday. These moods can be inconvenient to our comfort and food supplies. Sol is the Earths only power station, our energy supply, without which we perish. Denial of his omnipotence is a new phenomenon based on the faith in a new god CO2. Statements from the new messiahs attribute everything to this new god, even to an increase in ingrown toe nails.
Deny the power of old Sol at your peril, he will come back and bite your bum.
Henry Clark says:
October 21, 2012 at 2:15 am
I also like this simple demonstration of GCR flux versus high-altitude specific humidity over the past few decades: http://s18.postimage.org/n9nm5glc7/solar_GCRvswatervapor.jpg
I think I linked this for you before, but here it is again:
http://tallbloke.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/shumidity-ssn96.png
Interesting stuff.
Seems to me the main issue boils down to understanding the character of the ocean’s time-response to changes of forcing. Not an easy thing to do. Leif has a point that up-to-date solar TSI reconstructions seem to show little secular change since at least 1750. He’s linked to longer recons showing little change in 2k yrs.
The link that lgl posts above:
http://virakkraft.com/Steinhilber-TSI-%20Mann08-temp.png
is interesting, but looks like it might be using outdated data according to Leif’s latest recons.
Geoff Sharpe comically replies: “The same old rhetoric from you Bob.”
I support what I present. You, on the other hand, Geoff, never support what you present, and for those most part, you fabricate. For example:
You continued, “Perhaps instead of producing 1 million graphs and forever promoting your book…”
Wrong again, Geoff, I did not promote my book on this thread. Two other bloggers referred to it. But for those who haven’t read it, a free preview is here:
http://bobtisdale.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/preview-of-who-turned-on-the-heat-v2.pdf
The post that introduces it is here:
http://bobtisdale.wordpress.com/2012/09/03/everything-you-every-wanted-to-know-about-el-nino-and-la-nina-2/
You continued, “…you could look at some of the real world events in relation to the effect of the NW pacific warm pool and ENSO.”
I look at real world data all the time. I haven’t the foggiest idea what you’re talking about since you refuse to document your claims with data. And again, you’d sound more credible if you used the correct names of things or identify them with coordinates. With “NW pacific warm pool”, are you discussing the northwest portion of the Pacific Warm Pool, which is in the tropics, or are you still discussing the Kuroshio-Oyashio Extension like you mentioned in an earlier comment, which is east of Japan and therefore extratropical? Last, it’s not my hypothesis to document, Geoff. It’s yours. Have at it!!
And, Geoff, you concluded your reply, “We are heading for a possible 3 in a row La Nina as predicted which certainly has not been driven by the 2010 El Nino.”
This is a typical nonsensical Geoff Sharpe statement. Who predicted a “3 in a row La Niña” and when was it predicted, Geoff? If it was you, please provide links. And who said it was driven by the 2010 El Niño? Certainly, it wasn’t me. So whatever you’re trying to imply is not going to work, unless you can provide links to specific statements I made.
BTW, your reply to Leif will likely go unanswered for a while, since he noted up thread that he was on his way to Norway.
beng says:
October 21, 2012 at 8:43 am
Leif has a point that up-to-date solar TSI reconstructions seem to show little secular change since at least 1750
Lol. “Up to date”. Heh.
If we examined the last 400 years of sunspot activity, during the period of 1600 to 1700, there was a general lack of sunspot activity. During the 1700s, sunspot activity began to build after a two sunspot minimum cycles.
During the 1800s, again, the century began with a two cycle minimum. The century rose to a peak and began to drop off towards the end.
During the early 1900s, the first two cycles were stronger than the 1700s and 1800s minimums. It was during this period that Sir Richard Gregory matched water levels of Lake Victoria to sunspot activity as pointed out by Sir James Jeans in “Through Space and Time”.
I took his work further and matched it accummulated cyclone energy. There has also been an inch increase in rain and snow for the 1900s from 1900 to 2000.
There was an increase in tropical storms and hurricanes. If there were more hurricanes during the non satillite years, I await that report, but data does show fewer USA costal hits during smaller sunspot cycles for there were fewer observations.
This was noted in Popular Science magazine around January 1870.
In 1911, Niagara Falls froze over. Not one storm was observered in 1914. ( Research of ship records presents evidence of 6 possible tropical storms for that year).
It was noted by most scientists at a recent hurricane conference that overall hurricane activity is in General Decline.
There is only one significant variable that the recent drought, colder winters, fewer hurricanes hitting our shores and the difference of speed in the melting of Glacier Bay’s glacier between early 1900s and the mid-1900s and that was:
Sunspot activity.
From 1930s to 1963 sunspot cycles were stronger than any in the previous 200 years of cycles. The 1963 to 1976 cycle was flat. From 1977 to 2007 they were strong again. Now we are in a minimum.
If you would take the first chart showed above, and pull it further apart, the cycles would not look like mountain peaks but buttes easier to study. The 1964 to 1976 cycle would be flat like Devil’s Tower. That flatness gave us a cold period that global warming Hoaxters use to validate their claims of global warming due to man over the last 40 years.
Rememeber, they only started measuring Arctic Melt in 1979. The Norsemen were saling around Greenland a 1000 years ago.
In a testimony bertween Lord Monckton and three other hand picked global warming alarmists in front of a congressional panel. Though he was hammered, the woman scientist to his left testified there was a higher tree line in the Nevada Mountains before the last mini-ice age. It went over everyone’s head.
One can start anywhere in the USA and follow the tree line right down to water line in Alaska. What the woman’s testimony should have brought to light is the water line for the tree line in the North was farther north and higher in the Rockies.
Now, we have been in a balance for the last 15 years. Climate lag is still mistaken for global warming. That is about to change for the next 30 years.
The cycle of the 1964 to 1976 has already taught us what to look for. The effects of that cycle pushed out in to the 1990s.
Most Sincerely,
Paul Pierett.
Bob Tisdale says:
October 21, 2012 at 9:13 am
Geoff Sharpe comically replies: “The same old rhetoric from you Bob.”
At least you could attempt to spell my name correctly.
This is a typical nonsensical Geoff Sharpe statement. Who predicted a “3 in a row La Niña” and when was it predicted, Geoff? If it was you, please provide links. And who said it was driven by the 2010 El Niño? Certainly, it wasn’t me. So whatever you’re trying to imply is not going to work, unless you can provide links to specific statements I made.
I did provide a link, but you obviously didn’t bother to check it out.
http://tinyurl.com/2dg9u22/?q=node/270
An excerpt from July 2012 reads:
“All the models that are produced by the meteorology groups are pointing towards a El Nino forming this winter in the NH. I am not so sure the models have the all required data to predict accurately as we are in a different para-dime with low solar output and a neg PDO. Most that ascribe to AGW ignore the effects of solar and ocean influences on climate and prefer to claim everything is man made, the models suffer the same fate in my opinion.
The ocean temp anomaly diagram at the opening of this article shows a neg PDO position which has the customary hot spot in the central northern pacific. Last year the prevailing winds that come with a neg PDO moved some of this warm water towards New Guinea which in turn fueled the Walker circulation pump that drives the trade winds which in turn builds up water against Asia and influences the level of the Thermocline. This pushes cold water from below that surfaces off the South American coast and flows towards Asia with assistance of the trade winds. It is still too early to call but July has seen a change with the SOI going positive and the trade winds are maintaining. There is still a high chance of a La Nina forming which would make three in a row.”
The PDO values have mostly been leading the NINO3.4 values for the last 3 years which is at odds with your PDO being an after effect of ENSO statements.
http://stateoftheocean.osmc.noaa.gov/atm/images/pdo_short.gif
http://stateoftheocean.osmc.noaa.gov/sur/images/nino34_short.gif
An animation from July this year shows the warmer water from the NW Pacific (most of us know our compass points) moving towards Papua New Guinea, this is credible evidence of one driver that assists the La Nina process and clear evidence of how a neg PDO can influence ENSO. The 2003 Newman paper heralded by AGW supporters that you frequently lean on is obviously now outdated.
http://tinyurl.com/2dg9u22/images/2012_SST.gif
BTW, your reply to Leif will likely go unanswered for a while, since he noted up thread that he was on his way to Norway.
Congrats on your promotion to Leif’s secretary.
tallbloke says:
October 21, 2012 at 4:17 am
“I think I linked this for you before, but here it is again:
http://tallbloke.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/shumidity-ssn96.png“
Indeed, I recall such from an earlier thread, and it is a good illustration.
However, often I prefer not to use sunspots because:
1) That is where the current focus is on CAGW-convenient revisionism, and, like I could give examples with arctic ice history (Cryosphere Today propaganda ludicrously flattening the pre-1950s) or any other major climate topic, such recent revisionism can be side-stepped on any topic by using a metric not re-adjusted yet.
2) Although quite related to sunspot counts, cosmic ray flux is more the direct source of most variability in external forcing than sunspot counts which are only an indirect proxy.
#2 mostly may seen like a token insignificant detail. However, if we enter another Grand Minimum a few years from now, how one state of the sun having 0 sunspots can be drastically different from another state of the sun having 0 sunspots will become extra apparent.
For an example which has already occurred to a degree:
If one plots sunspots, both 1996 and 2009 reached 0 sunspots, misleadingly making the minimums appear as if potentially having a flat floor.
However, if one plots cosmic ray count, then the 2009 minimum is seen to be much different (several percent more cosmic ray flux in neutron count) than the 1996 minimum. That in turn is almost nothing compared to what we could get a moderate number of years from now if there is another grand minimum (like a second maunder minimum), which, from prior history, could give not just several percent but an order of magnitude more difference in cosmic ray flux.
Using data other than sunspots better makes blatant how minimums do not have a static flat floor.
In other words, in general, I relatively like to implicitly encourage people to look at metrics other than sunspots, even though in the specific humidity correlation example it doesn’t particularly matter.
—————-
Anyway, thus, for instance, the first plot in my prior post, http://s8.postimage.org/nz4ionvit/suntemp0.jpg for most of the past 6 centuries (click to enlarge) uses multiple cosmogenic isotopes, and I wanted http://s18.postimage.org/n9nm5glc7/solar_GCRvswatervapor.jpg to illustrate how major solar/GCR versus climate correlation occurs even with a metric as indisputable as neutron counts.
Although having the tradeoff of only the past several decades, neutron counts are one of the most indisputable metrics when available. Someone can claim the cosmogenic isotope trends are just spuriously created from terrestrial climate itself (although the plausibility of that being dominant crashes when multiple cosmogenic isotopes show the same pattern). And someone can argue over what sunspot numbers were. But I have not so far seen anybody try to say the neutron counts are spurious.
—————-
I certainly agree, though, that your illustration is quite good too, workable for its purpose.
Long cycles (IE 22 yr plus or minus complete solar cycles) used to make connections with shorter cycles (IE ENSO La Nina and El Nino events) may lead to spurious correlations and connections that then lead to questionable and in some cases, near magical mechanics. Why? Because there is every good chance that a short cycles will occur during a long cycle, yet be wholly unconnected in any physical sense. Like AGW propronents, you must first show two things to be taken seriously. First, that intrinsic factors cannot be the drivers. If you do not take that on, you make the same mistake AGW proponents make by not disproving the mechanics of the null hypothesis, which AGW researchers and modelers are currently getting their noses rubbed by and in. Second, you must also consider whether or not your solar driver can drive long term up and down trends that rise above intrinsic natural variable noise. This you have not shown and neither have AGW proponents, much to their dismay and in spite of data slight of hand. Therefore your proposed driver must still be just a disregarded discussion devoid of real world meaning or iron clad proof.
A word to the wise, jumping the gun puts you in front of it.
Pamela: This post merely argues that the “consensus” grounds for dismissing a solar driver of climate are bogus. It is not trying to make the case FOR a solar driver. That’s a whole different discussion.
Unfortunately graphs only appearing to the minority who click makes it far too easy to skip over them; there is no 22 year averaging in my plots, and looking at not one but all combined is illustrative if someone is unbiased, although only some people are so.
Geoff Sharp, sorry for the delay, but I’ve been doing something productive.
Geoff Sharp says: “At least you could attempt to spell my name correctly.”
My apologies.
Geoff Sharp says: “I did provide a link, but you obviously didn’t bother to check it out.
http://tinyurl.com/2dg9u22/?q=node/270”
I started to read it but your descriptions of Walker Circulation, trade winds and upwelling are so confused that I had to stop before I reached what I assume is your “prediction”. You wrote in your post, “There is still a high chance of a La Nina forming which would make three in a row.” We only have a few months until the peak of the ENSO season to see if your prediction holds, Geoff. I’ll be sure to remind to remind you.
Geoff Sharp says: “The PDO values have mostly been leading the NINO3.4 values for the last 3 years which is at odds with your PDO being an after effect of ENSO statements.
http://stateoftheocean.osmc.noaa.gov/atm/images/pdo_short.gif
http://stateoftheocean.osmc.noaa.gov/sur/images/nino34_short.gif”
Thanks for illustrating to all that that’s how you compare data and on what you base your erroneous opinions. Let me try to rephrase the ENSO-PDO relationship so that you can understand it: ENSO creates the PDO spatial pattern in sea surface temperature anomalies, which is why the PDO is called an ENSO-like pattern. However, the PDO pattern is also strongly influenced by the sea level pressure of the North Pacific, which is why it has a different fingerprint in time.
Geoff Sharp says: “An animation from July this year shows the warmer water from the NW Pacific (most of us know our compass points) moving towards Papua New Guinea, this is credible evidence of one driver that assists the La Nina process and clear evidence of how a neg PDO can influence ENSO. The 2003 Newman paper heralded by AGW supporters that you frequently lean on is obviously now outdated.
http://tinyurl.com/2dg9u22/images/2012_SST.gif”
I don’t see “warmer water from the NW Pacific…moving towards Papua New Guinea”, Geoff. And to confirm that fact, I did something that you appear to do little of. I looked at the data–the sea surface temperature anomalies for that region. Tropical sea surface temperature anomalies north of Papua New Guinea peaked in May this year and have dropped ever since. In fact, Geoff, the sea surface temperature anomalies north of Papua New Guinea have cooled since July:
http://i45.tinypic.com/244b7zq.jpg
You amaze me in two ways, Geoff. First is your limited grasp of reality. Second is your willingness to flaunt it.
Have a nice day.
Bob Tisdale says:
October 24, 2012 at 3:10 pm
Geoff Sharp, sorry for the delay, but I’ve been doing something productive.
Interesting that you and Leif disappear at the same time. Also interesting that between you both the IPCC mantra of no solar or PDO influence on climate prevails.
I don’t see “warmer water from the NW Pacific…moving towards Papua New Guinea”, Geoff. And to confirm that fact, I did something that you appear to do little of. I looked at the data–the sea surface temperature anomalies for that region. Tropical sea surface temperature anomalies north of Papua New Guinea peaked in May this year and have dropped ever since. In fact, Geoff, the sea surface temperature anomalies north of Papua New Guinea have cooled since July:
http://i45.tinypic.com/244b7zq.jpg
You like the failed BOM and NOAA ENSO models do not see the obvious. The area shown in your graph reinforces my point, the area in contention is continually above normal in reference to SST anomalies which promotes lower pressures in that region compared to the eastern equatorial pacific. The SOI has shown this in detail and clearly demonstrates what some of us understand, the typical neg PDO spatial patterns encourage La Nina conditions.
That you do not see the movement of warm water does not surprise me, study carefully the last three frames of the loop which should continue to load the area over the next weeks. I will update the animation as data comes to hand.
Forecasters surprised by El Nino turnaround.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-10-24/forecasters-surprised-by-el-nino-turnaround/4332260
“Dr Watkins says they are not sure why there has been a cooling down.
“It actually is quite a unique situation if we end up not going into an El Nino event,” he said.
“It’ll sort of be the biggest turnaround that we’ve actually seen in our records going back to about 1950, so quite unprecedented.”
I watched a BOM interview yesterday that stated the last time this occurred was during the 1950’s…this is right in the middle of a neg PDO.
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