This is interesting, especially since Solar Cycle 23 was quite long.
The Hockey Schtick writes:
A paper published by the Danish Meteorological Institute finds a remarkable correlation of Arctic sea ice observations over the past 500 years to “the solar cycle length, which is a measure of solar activity. A close correlation (R=0.67) of high significance (0.5 % probability of a chance occurrence) is found between the two patterns, suggesting a link from solar activity to the Arctic Ocean climate.” The paper adds to several others demonstrating that Arctic sea ice extent and climate is controlled by natural variations in solar activity, ocean & atmospheric oscillations, winds & storm activity, not man-made CO2.
Multi-decadal variation of the East Greenland Sea-Ice Extent: AD 1500-2000
Knud Lassen and Peter Thejll
Abstract:
The extent of ice in the North Atlantic varies in time with time scales stretching to centennial, and the cause of these variations is discussed. We consider the Koch ice index which describes the amount of ice sighted from Iceland, in the period 1150 to 1983 AD. This measure of ice extent is a non-linear and curtailed measure of the amount of ice in the Greenland Sea, but gives an overall view of the amounts of ice there through more than 800 years. The length of the series allows insight into the natural variability of ice extent and this understanding can be used to evaluate modern-day variations. Thus we find that the recently reported retreat of the ice in the Greenland Sea may be related to the termination of the so-called Little Ice Age in the early twentieth century. We also look at the approximately 80 year variability of the Koch [sea ice] index and compare it to the similar periodicity found in the solar cycle length, which is a measure of solar activity. A close correlation (R=0.67) of high significance (0.5 % probability of a chance occurrence) is found between the two patterns, suggesting a link from solar activity to the Arctic Ocean climate.
…
Conclusion:
In view of the large significance observed we suggest that the correlation of 0.67, between
multi-decadal modes in the Koch ice index and the solar cycle length, is indicative of a relationship not due to chance. The multi-decadal modes still represent only a small fraction of the total variance in the ice series, which illustrates that while the kind of solar activity characterised by the variable length of the solar cycle may cause some of the variability seen in the ice series, the majority is caused by other factors.
Whereas the multi-decal mode may be a result of varying solar activity, the cause of the slowly varying mode is not directly seen from the data presented here. Obviously, it must be due to a natural variation of the climate. A variation of similar shape may be recognised in the solar cycle length (Figure 1.5), but it has not been possible from the present data to deduce a correlation that is significant. Nevertheless, the similarity of the variation of the ice export through the Fram Strait and the smoothed variation of the solar cycle length shown in Figure 1.7 speaks in favour of the assumption that the solar cycle variation may include both natural modes. This conclusion is in accordance with the finding by Bond et al., 2001 (their Figure 2) that a persistent series of solar influenced millennial-scale variations, which include the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age, reflect a baseline of the centennial-scale cycles.
values of solar cycle length (SCL121) (heavy curve).
The ’low frequency oscillation’ that dominated the ice export through the Fram Strait as well as the extension of the sea-ice in the Greenland Sea and Davis Strait in the twentieth century may therefore be regarded as part of a pattern that has existed through at least four centuries. The pattern is a natural feature, related to varying solar activity. The considerations of the impact of natural sources of variability on arctic ice extent are of relevance for concerns that the current withdrawal of ice may entirely be due to human activity. Apparently, a considerable fraction of the current withdrawal could be a natural occurrence.
Full paper is here (PDF)
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Since I am no scientist but can read data, it is about time someone came out and said what I have been SCREAMING for years.
Take a look at the S hem sea ice chart , Ice is growing like crazy rate at the peak of cycle 24 but it is a very low cycle.
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/antarctic.sea.ice.interactive.html
I’d have expected more of a lag. Remarkable.
I did not see anything about tree rings, Did you. hmmmm Maybe the trees just grow because of the sun and then they make tree rings… Ok
Seems like more of this stuff appearing.
As the powers that be slowly back away from the con, I plan to rub it in the face of the believers!
I’m betting Leif knocks this on back out of the ballpark in three, two, one…
And the Koch Ice Index? Squak! It’s a denier tool! Squak! Heh.
For further reading here is information on the Arctic past.
Interesting but…..
Correlation does not imply causation.
EXCELLENT! Time to break out the Haagen Daz!
LOL, and this phrase will REALLY throw the Cult of Climatology for a loop:
“the KOCH ice index” [sound of theme from movie “Psycho”]
Bwah, ha, ha, ha, haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!
[Did you note that Dr. Spencer was doing his bit for “Coke” at the hearing, today? Heh, heh]
Abstract:
“The extent of ice in the North Atlantic varies in time with time scales stretching to centennial, and the cause of these variations is discussed. We consider the Koch ice index which describes the amount of ice sighted from Iceland,..”
=============
I would like a map view that shows sight distance, also some kind of ice conditions.
Of the ice exiting the Arctic.
Such as it was.
The horizon is 3 miles away.
I’m sure I’m missing something ?
I’m not a scientist either but, yes, there should be a lag.
The deniers of natural forces may eat this theory up.
I made the mistake of watching a David Attenborough documentary on a flight across the Tasman yesterday. The doco was showing dramatic images of Arctic ice loss over time plus footage of polar bears swimming under and around small patches of floating ice. Seemingly swimming into oblivion. Meanwhile our kindly and knowledgable expert naturalist Sir David Attenborough was telling us in his unique voice about human pollution and the damage we are doing to our wonderful planet. Made me realise just how long it is going to take to allay peoples NEGATIVE feelings about human caused damage to the Planet. To counteract this negativity I then wondered how the “dry” scientific data typically being presented on this wonderful website could be presented to provide a POSITIVE emotional impact among the general public. People just don’t seem to engage with graphs showing flat or downward trends! Then the plane landed…..
Heat from the sun can affect Arctic ice? Ridiculous!
Other_Andy says:
July 18, 2013 at 5:59 pm
Interesting but…..
Correlation does not imply causation.
==================
But OTOH lack of correlation most definitely does not imply causation, as in the lack of correlation between temperatures and CO2 concentration (R=>.3).
I’m sure we’ll have the same suspects saying that this is flawed, because there is no trend in solar activity, or something of the sort.
The fact is that there are dozens of papers documenting a solar effect on the MJO, precipitation changes, stream flow changes, the LOD, ENSO, the AO/NAO, Cloud Cover, the NAM, Ozone changes etc., and ultimately temperature changes. It’s amazing to me that some continue to neglect the role of the sun.
This fits correlations on other matters like global sea level rise rates, illustrated in http://s9.postimg.org/3whiqcrov/climate.gif (click to enlarge).
(Common portrayals of recent arctic sea ice decline use a tactic of cherry- picking the lowest month post-storm alone, rather than looking at the annual average as in the red line in http://www.webcitation.org/6AKKakUIo ).
Another extraordinary revelation suggesting that the sun has just possibly something to do with it all. I can barely contain myself. One has to ask WHY this research wasn’t undertaken before the eco-socio-political love affair with GCM’s?
Snowlover123, could you link me to some of the papers you are talking about when you say:
“The fact is that there are dozens of papers documenting a solar effect on the MJO, precipitation changes, stream flow changes, the LOD, ENSO, the AO/NAO, Cloud Cover, the NAM, Ozone changes etc., and ultimately temperature changes. It’s amazing to me that some continue to neglect the role of the sun.”
In particular, I am most interested in the solar-MJO papers. Thanks…
I ain’t buying it.
Where’s Leif?
Try this on for size. Heavy snow falls assist sea ice nucleation. Heavy snow falls are a proxy for cloud nucleation. Cloud nucleation is a proxy for GCR flux and steering of that flux by B and H field lines.
Ain’t nobody putting a price on it.
….never mind.
Jimbo says:
July 18, 2013 at 5:58 pm
Excellent compilation, showing that “climate science” (so-called) has sadly regressed since Lamb has been supplanted by the buffoonish likes of Mann. Amazing that even with documentary records as well as physical proxies, the Lysenko-like scoundrels try to rewrite climate history in order to toe the Warmunista Party line.
The solar magnetic cycle variation appears to cause planetary climate change by modulating the amount of planetary cloud cover. The observed warming in the last 70 years and in the paleo climatic record is the strongest in high latitude Northern regions although there is warming observed in both hemispheres in the last 70 years and in the past. The paleo climate record shows the warming cycle has always been followed by cooling when the sun enters a Maunder minimum.
The warmists have ignored the fact that the regional pattern of warming in the last 70 years cannot be explained by the CO2 forcing mechanism theory. The warmists have assumed any and all warming observed is due to the increase in atmospheric CO2.
There is in the paleo climate record cycles of warming and cooling of high latitude regions in the Northern hemisphere that correlate with solar magnetic cycle changes.
Greenland ice temperature, last 11,000 years determined from ice core analysis, Richard Alley’s paper.
http://www.climate4you.com/images/GISP2%20TemperatureSince10700%20BP%20with%20CO2%20from%20EPICA%20DomeC.gif
The following is another paper that notes that high latitude warming and cooling correlates with solar magnetic cycle length with a lag time of roughly one solar cycle.
http://arxiv.org/abs/1112.3256
Solar activity and Svalbard temperatures
The long temperature series at Svalbard (Longyearbyen) show large variations, and a positive trend since its start in 1912. During this period solar activity has increased, as indicated by shorter solar cycles.
The temperature at Svalbard is negatively correlated with the length of the solar cycle. The strongest negative correlation is found with lags 10 to 12 years.
These models show that 60 per cent of the annual and winter temperature variations are explained by solar activity. For the spring, summer and fall temperatures autocorrelations in the residuals exists, and additional variables may contribute to the variations. These models can be applied as forecasting models.
We predict an annual mean temperature decrease for Svalbard of 3.5 ±2C from solar cycle 23 to solar cycle 24 (2009 to 2020) and a decrease in the winter temperature of ≈6 C.
William: Latitude and longitude of Svalbard (Longyearbyen)
78.2167° N, 15.6333° E Svalbard Longyearbyen, Coordinates
William: Based on observations the sun appears now to be rapidly moving towards a Maunder minimum.
http://www.solen.info/solar/images/comparison_recent_cycles.png
The following are three papers that predicted that the sun would be moving towards a Maunder minimum.
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2003SPD….34.0603S
Solar Activity Heading for a Maunder Minimum?
…The surprising result of these long-range predictions is a rapid decline in solar activity, starting with cycle #24. If this trend continues, we may see the Sun heading towards a “Maunder” type of solar activity minimum – an extensive period of reduced levels of solar activity.
http://www.springerlink.com/content/w57236105034h657/
Prolonged minima and the 179-yr cycle of the solar inertial motion, Rhodes W. Fairbridge and James H. Shirley, January 1987
….. The progression of the inertial orientation parameter is controlled by the 900-yr great inequality of the motion of Jupiter and Saturn, while the precessional rotation parameter is linked with the 179-yr cycle of the solar inertial motion previously identified by Jose (1965). A new prolonged minimum of solar activity may be imminent.
http://www.ann-geophys.net/20/115/2002/angeo-20-115-2002.pdf
..The 2400-year cycle in atmospheric radiocarbon concentration: bispectrum of 14C data over the last 8000 years…
At first glance, it looks interesting. However my immediate fret is that the measuring of ice discharging through the Fram Strait would be a guess. Unfortunately the graph seems to start right after the Tambora Volcano event. There were reports of a huge amount of ice breaking lose and crowding the waters off north Ireland with bergs even in August, around 1816-1817.
Anthony says,
“Snowlover123, could you link me to some of the papers you are talking about when you say:”
Of course.
MJO:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364682609002673
From the paper:
“We analyze the long-term evolution of seasonal temperature disturbances in a 2.5×2.5° area of the US North Pacific. Late Fall and early Winter display significant correlation of temperature disturbances and are investigated in detail. The long-term evolution of the Fall temperature disturbances from 1945 to 2008 closely follows that of solar activity. The robustness of these results is successfully controlled in a 2.5×2.5° area immediately north of the studied region. The modulation of temperature disturbances is very large (∼30%) compared to the corresponding changes in solar irradiance, and has significant variability, even at small geographical scale. The physical mechanism of solar forcing of temperature disturbances remains to be understood, but a relation with cloudiness and influence of the Madden–Julian oscillation in the North Pacific is suggested.”
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364682612000302
From the paper:
“This paper focuses on the decadal to multi-decadal evolution of the spectral properties of the Madden–Julian Oscillation (MJO). Guided by former studies, we test whether the ∼11-yr (Schwabe) cycle of solar activity could be reflected in the spectral features of MJO indices: namely, we study the evolution of MJO mean period within different period ranges and compare these with the evolution of solar activity. We focus on solar proxies best linked to UV emission and cosmic rays: sunspot number WN, F10.7 flux, core-to-wing ratio MgII, and galactic cosmic rays (GCR). A clear solar signature in MJO spectral properties is indeed found and shown to be both statistically significant and robust. UV proxies are found to be better correlated with MJO mean period than GCR, thus supporting rather the ozone mechanism of solar impact on MJO. The overall correlation with solar activity is found to be stronger in the Indian Ocean. Long periods (e.g. 50–80 day) are better correlated with solar activity than shorter periods (e.g. 30–60 day). A marked change in the relationship between MJO mean period and solar activity takes place in the declining phase of solar cycle 23, adding to its unusual character.”
ENSO:
http://journal.fmipa.itb.ac.id/jms/article/view/56
From the paper:
“Variations in the Solar Cycle has been known for a long time. The Solar Cycle is observed to vary from 14 to 8 years in length. The reconstructions of the annual solar total irradiance since the beginning of Maunder Minimum (from year 1600) to year 2000 show that there are envelopes of groups sunspot numbers. The intensities delineated by the envelopes are consistent with the range of CaII brightness. The timelength of the envelopes corresponds to long term variabilities such as the Gleissberg Cycle of 88 and 124 years period. A close correlation between total irradiance and sunspot number from 1610 to 2000 is found to be 0.88. Although the work of Labitzke and van Loon has clearly shown the existence of an oscillation in many atmospheric parameters with a period in the vicinity of 11 years and a phase that is related to that of solar activity, there is reluctance to accept a relationship to the 11-year solar cycle. Therefore this study aimed to pursue the investigations further by determining the correlation coefficients to lower trophospheric layers. Our studies reveal to results, which we summarized as follows: A weak correlation at 27 month delay is found between solar activities and the El Niño/La Niña phenomena. The next El Niño/La Niña event is expected to occur from year 2002 until mid 2003. A major change in the pattern of the solar cycle since 1700 appears. The sun is seen to be more frequent in its active states over the last 100 years. The length of the cycle is becoming shorter. The solar cycles modulate from 5, 8, 12 and 25-year period obtained from its total irradiance plot. The 5-year period coincides very well within the El Niño/La Niña period of 2 to 7-year. The El Niño/La Niña phenomenon has a 10-12 month duration. Every El Niño/La Niña event is separated from 24 to 84 months duration in an irregular pattern. Every El Niño/La Niña event is unique. These conclusions are drawn after decomposing the SST Anomaly Index through applied Fourier Transform. The effect of the solar cycle variations is to generate long period harmonics in the coming El Niño/La Niña events. We expect that more variability in climate will occur in the coming decade.”
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2011GL047964/abstract
From the paper:
“A persistent mean sea level pressure response to solar forcing is found for the eastern North Pacific extending over North America. Moreover, there is evidence for a La Niña-like response assigned to solar maximum conditions with below normal SSTs in the equatorial eastern Pacific, reduced equatorial precipitation, enhanced off-equatorial precipitation and an El Niño-like response a couple of years later, thus confirming the response to solar forcing at the surface seen in earlier studies. The amplitude of the solar signal in the Pacific region depends to a great extent on the choice of the centennial period averaged.”
AO/NAO:
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2011JD015822/abstract
“The relationship between the geomagnetic aa index and the winter North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) has previously been found to be nonstationary, being weakly negative during the early 20th century and significantly positive since the 1970s. The study reported here applies a statistical method called the generalized additive modeling (GAM) to elucidate the underlying physical reasons. We find that the relationship between aa index and the NAO during the Northern Hemispheric winter is generally nonlinear and can be described by a concave shape with a negative relation for small to medium aa and a positive relation for medium to large aa. The nonstationary character of the aa-NAO relationship may be ascribed to two factors. First, it is modulated by the multidecadal variation of solar activity. This solar modulation is indicated by significant change points of the trends of solar indices around the beginning of solar cycle 14, 20, and 22 (i.e., ∼1902/1903, ∼1962/1963, and ∼1995/1996). Coherent changes of the trend in the winter time NAO followed the solar trend changes a few years later. Second, the aa-NAO relationship is dominated by the aa data from the declining phase of even-numbered solar cycles, implying that the 27 day recurrent solar wind streams may be responsible for the observed aa-NAO relationship. It is possible that an increase of long-duration recurrent solar wind streams from high-latitude coronal holes during solar cycles 20 and 22 may partially account for the significant positive aa-NAO relationship during the last 30 years of the 20th century.”
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2002GL014903/abstract
From the paper:
“A study on a possible solar wind interaction with the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) is performed. Results are presented suggesting a relationship between the NAO index and the electric field strength E of the solar wind. A possible scenario for the suggested interaction is that an electromagnetic disturbance is generated by the solar wind in the global electric circuit of the ionosphere. This disturbance is then dynamically propagating downward through the atmosphere and subsequently influencing the large-scale pressure system in the North Atlantic region. A relationship is also evident on longer time-scales when using the group sunspot number as a proxy for the solar wind.”
This is just a small sample of the many, many, many, papers that document a significant solar effect.