Sun said to be “bi-modal”
While many, including the IPCC, suggest the modern Grand Maximum of solar activity from 1950-2009 has nothing to do with the 0.4C global warming measured over that time frame, it does seem to be unique in the last three millennia.
from CO2 Science: A 3,000-Year Record of Solar Activity
What was done
According to Usoskin et al. (2014), the Sun “shows strong variability in its magnetic activity, from Grand minima to Grand maxima, but the nature of the variability is not fully understood, mostly because of the insufficient length of the directly observed solar activity records and of uncertainties related to long-term reconstructions.” Now, however, in an attempt to overcome such uncertainties, in a Letter to the Editor published in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics, Usoskin et al. “present the first fully adjustment-free physical reconstruction of solar activity” covering the past 3,000 years, which record allowed them “to study different modes of solar activity at an unprecedented level of detail.”
What was learned
As illustrated in the figure below, the authors report there is “remarkable agreement” among the overlapping years of their reconstruction (solid black line) and the number of sunspots recorded from direct observations since 1610 (red line). Their reconstruction of solar activity also displays several “distinct features,” including several “well-defined Grand minima of solar activity, ca. 770 BC, 350 BC, 680 AD, 1050 AD, 1310 AD, 1470 AD, and 1680 AD,” as well as “the modern Grand maximum (which occurred during solar cycles 19-23, i.e., 1950-2009),” which they describe as “a rare or even unique event, in both magnitude and duration, in the past three millennia.”
Further statistical analysis of their reconstruction revealed the Sun operates in three distinct modes of activity – (1) a regular mode that “corresponds to moderate activity that varies in a relatively narrow band between sunspot numbers 20 and 67,” (2) a Grand minimum mode of reduced solar activity that “cannot be explained by random fluctuations of the regular mode” and which “is confirmed at a high confidence level,” and (3), a possible Grand maximum mode, but they say that “the low statistic does not allow us to firmly conclude on this, yet.”
What it means
Usoskin et al. (2014) write their results “provide important constraints for both dynamo models of Sun-like stars and investigations of possible solar influence on Earth’s climate.” They also illustrate the importance of improving the quality of such reconstructions, in light of the fact that previous reconstructions of this nature “did not reveal any clear signature of distinct modes” in solar activity.
Unfortunately, it was beyond the scope of this paper to address the potential impact of solar activity on climate. Yet the reconstruction leaves a very big question unanswered — What effect did the Grand maximum of solar activity that occurred between 1950 and 2009 have on Earth’s climate? As a “unique” and “rare” event in terms of both magnitude and duration, one would think a lot more time and effort would be spent by the IPCC and others in answering that question. Instead, IPCC scientists have conducted relatively few studies of the Sun’s influence on modern warming, assuming that the temperature influence of this rare and unique Grand maximum of solar activity, which has occurred only once in the past 3,000 years, is far inferior to the radiative power provided by the rising CO2 concentration of the Earth’s atmosphere.
Reference
Usoskin, I.G., Hulot, G., Gallet, Y., Roth, R., Licht, A., Joos, F., Kovaltsov, G.A., Thebault, E. and Khokhlov, A. 2014. Evidence for distinct modes of solar activity. Astronomy and Astrophysics 562: L10, doi: 10.1051/0004-6361/201423391.
Abstract
Aims. The Sun shows strong variability in its magnetic activity, from Grand minima to Grand maxima, but the nature of the variability is not fully understood, mostly because of the insufficient length of the directly observed solar activity records and of uncertainties related to long-term reconstructions. Here we present a new adjustment-free reconstruction of solar activity over three millennia and study its different modes.
Methods. We present a new adjustment-free, physical reconstruction of solar activity over the past three millennia, using the latest verified carbon cycle, 14C production, and archeomagnetic field models. This great improvement allowed us to study different modes of solar activity at an unprecedented level of details.
Results. The distribution of solar activity is clearly bi-modal, implying the existence of distinct modes of activity. The main regular activity mode corresponds to moderate activity that varies in a relatively narrow band between sunspot numbers 20 and 67. The existence of a separate Grand minimum mode with reduced solar activity, which cannot be explained by random fluctuations of the regular mode, is confirmed at a high confidence level. The possible existence of a separate Grand maximum mode is also suggested, but the statistics is too low to reach a confident conclusion.
Conclusions. The Sun is shown to operate in distinct modes – a main general mode, a Grand minimum mode corresponding to an inactive Sun, and a possible Grand maximum mode corresponding to an unusually active Sun. These results provide important constraints for both dynamo models of Sun-like stars and investigations of possible solar influence on Earth’s climate.
anxiously awaiting Dr. Svalgaard’s comments.
Actually not trolling here. I really wish to see the debates with regard to solar activity and how it affects our planet.
How does this graph correlate with proxies for global temperature over this time span?
“anxiously awaiting Dr. Svalgaard’s comments.”
there is no modern maximum.
Steven Mosher says (August 6, 2014 at 9:00 pm): “there is no modern maximum.”
Thank you, Dr. Svalgaard. 🙂
(Actually, that response by Dr. Svalgaard would be my first guess, too.)
Steven Mosher says:
“there is no modern maximum.”
Sounds like denial to me. So just what should we call it? A hockey stick?
Sorry I forgot the science was settled. Just that this, and other papers conclude otherwise.
Looks like a hockeystick. Reg flag. Problems with methodology likely.
The MWP doesn’t show up either, but the LIA does.
I don’t suppose highest activity in 3000 years could have anything to do with warming since 1950 though, if you are an IPCC scientist.
More information needed regarding Methodology. Which method was used to find correct input-values for period before 1980? How has the analyse program been constructed and so on…..
noaaprogrammer says:
“How does this graph correlate with proxies for global temperature over this time span?”
Quite well, it seems, from a quick look.
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/2000-years-of-global-temperatures1.jpg
The Solar Sunspot Number Workshop group came out with their paper:
http://www.leif.org/research/Revisiting-the-Sunspot-Number.pdf
“Grand Maximum” gets reduced, if not eliminated.
The possible existence of a separate Grand maximum mode is also suggested, but the statistics is too low to reach a confident conclusion.
says it all. there is no modern grand maximum.
Leif maybe right for the wrong reasons, put all this aside. I’ve been studying the speed and movement of the suns polar-field. I know when it travels faster from either geographical pole, it produces more sunspots (according to its rate of rotation), it also produces exactly what Leif says. which is “dynamo” this “dynamo” that. which is in fact produced by the suns polar field.
I’m sick of Leif’s refusal to acknowledge that I’m correct.
Perfect example of how assuming the “science is settled” on the impact of C02 on climate stifles much needed scientific research. I still think that the theories and work done by Svenmark and others (see http://www.thecloudmystery.com/The_Cloud_Mystery/The_Documentary.html )and others on sunspot correlation to climate change seem to hold much more weight and predictive value then the C02 being the dominant driver.. I am impressed (and surprised!) that “C02 science” was so straightforward in bringing to our attention that there is much more research needed in this area. (And that IPCC clearly lacks studies in this area).
This was covered in Feb: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/02/22/usoskin-et-al-discover-a-new-class-of-sunspots/ where a lively discussion by Willis, Leif, Greg, and many others panned the paper based on technicalities, although Willis said “They may be correct, anything’s possible … but their analysis doesn’t even come near to establishing that claim of distinct solar “modes”.”
I don’t know who is correct but it’s still interesting. The solar mode today is that SSN=93.
“Adjustment free” needs to be defined. All proxies are by nature “adjustments”. And which SSN data set did the author use to draw that red line? Call me unimpressed by the use of the loaded phrase: “adjustment free”.
Simultaneously with the increase in solar activity until 2000 in the last 500 years can be seen weakening Earth’s magnetic field and an increase in cosmic rays. This means a strong increase in the GCR in the case of low solar activity. It will be a lot of clouds over the oceans …
http://oi62.tinypic.com/2hy52s.jpg
Right, no grand maximum. And cycle 24 doesn’t have two peaks either. Stop looking at the data, there are not two peaks. And Picard didn’t see 5 lights, only four, right?
What ever I have said or disagreed with or contested wrt Dr. Svalgaard shall be set aside for a one minute recognition of his and the other peoples involved MONUMENTAL task of reconstructing the sunspot number series. It will be seen through the ages as an historic scientific acheivement. Congratulations Dr. Svalgaard et al.
I noticed five references to Usoskin, I.G in http://www.leif.org/research/Revisiting-the-Sunspot-Number.pdf , so I.G.U. can’t be all bad!
Of course, a number of years ago, a Very Serious Climate Scientist informed me, with absolutely zero doubt, that “insolation is a constant.”
Clearly the paper is untrustworthy as it is using made-up numbers. Figure 1 X-axis purports to show BC/AD yet has Year 0.
Or did they solve the graphing problem by interpolating across the 1BC to 1AD gap?
The distribution of solar activity is clearly bi-modal, implying the existence of distinct modes of activity.
and
The Sun is shown to operate in distinct modes – a main general mode, a Grand minimum mode corresponding to an inactive Sun, and a possible Grand maximum mode corresponding to an unusually active Sun.
The Sun is clearly bi-modal, as it is shown to possibly have three modes.
This appears to be as how a cat is bi-modal, as it can be sleeping, awake, and possibly very awake.
Leif Svalgaard says:
August 6, 2014 at 9:26 pm
“The possible existence of a separate Grand maximum mode is also suggested, but the statistics is too low to reach a confident conclusion.”
“says it all. there is no modern grand maximum.”
That quote is taken from the abstract referring to a part of the paper [section 3] discussing whether or not solar activity is bimodal, a separate issue from the confidence in the reconstruction of relative levels of solar activity shown in Fig. 2 above. The full paper is here and states with 95% confidence levels that the modern Grand minimum was a rare or even unique event.
http://www.aanda.org/articles/aa/pdf/2014/02/aa23391-14.pdf
“Figure 2 shows the resulting mean series together with the
corresponding 95% confidence intervals (CI). This reconstructed
solar activity displays a number of distinct features, in particular
well-defined Grand minima of solar activity, ca. 770 BC,
350 BC, 680 AD, 1050 AD, 1310 AD, 1470 AD, and 1680 AD
(cf. Table 1 in Usoskin et al. 2007). Despite uncertainties in
the directly observed sunspot numbers before 1848 (Svalgaard
2012; Leussu et al. 2013), remarkable agreement is found with
the decadal group sunspot numbers (Hoyt & Schatten 1998) that
were directly observed since 1610 AD (also shown), and indicates
that the modern Grand maximum (which occurred during
solar cycles 19–23, i.e., 1950–2009) was a rare or even unique
event, in both magnitude and duration, in the past three millennia.
Except for these extreme cases, our reconstruction otherwise
reveals that solar activity is well confined within a relatively narrow
range.”
Thus, whether or not the Sun is “bimodal” is beside the point. The paper states based upon the reconstruction shown in Fig 2 with 95% confidence levels that there was indeed a “rare or even unique” modern Grand Maximum.
“The possible existence of a separate Grand maximum mode is also suggested, but the statistics is too low to reach a confident conclusion“.
Meaning: The data don’t support it, but since this is our hypothesis, we must include it in the paper’s results anyway.
Kind of like in AR5: medium confidence that the ECS is likely [read “possibly”] between 1.5°C and 4.5°C [or almost any value].
Error in comment I just posted: Obviously meant to write “The full paper is here and states with 95% confidence levels that the modern Grand Maximum was a rare or even unique event.”
What bothers me is that the very end of the black line diverges significantly from the red line. While I believe there is evidence of two modes — a normal and a quiet mode — I don’t believe we have evidence for a “grand maximum” mode of the scale they describe. It is likely they used the older sunspot counts. That said, we DO seem to be in a rather quiet cycle.
The error Usoskin et al. commit is two-fold:
1) splicing the ‘instrumental’ record on to the end of the cosmic ray record, a la Mann’s hockey stick
2) assuming that the group sunspot number is correct, when it is not. There is a serious discontinuity of about 50% around 1885.
Here is what the curves should look like http://www.leif.org/research/Decadal-Directly-Observed-Sunspot-Numbers.png
The green curve shows the revised values. Also note the problem shown by the blue double-arrow.
Hockey Schtick says:
August 6, 2014 at 10:15 pm
“remarkable agreement is found with the decadal group sunspot numbers (Hoyt & Schatten 1998)”
It is the Hoyt & Schatten series [1998] that is incorrect.
When I look at where the Ap geomagnetic index is today and where the historical proxies have reconstructed it as being in the last 300 years, all I can say is…
Buy coal mining stocks!! Once people start freezing in 5 years, and the McKibben’s of the world chased off as fools, COAL is going to be so needed to save our butts.
What about the “blue Sun” of the late 500s? I recall that it was widely debated some years ago. It was commented on by various ancient historians from Europe to China: Flavius Cassiodorus wrote”The Sun…seems to have lost its wonted light, and appears of a bluish colour. We marvel to see no shadows of our bodies at noon, to feel the mighty vigour of the Sun’s heat wasted into feebleness, and the phenomena which accompany an eclipse prolonged through almost a whole year. We have had a summer without heat. The crops have been chilled by north winds, [and] the rain is denied.”
errata to last: 3,000 years, not 300 years.
Hockey Schtick says: August 6, 2014 at 10:17 pm
“Obviously meant to write “The full paper is here and states with 95% confidence levels that the modern Grand Maximum was a rare or even unique event.””
Well, that version is certainly wrong. They didn’t attach 95% confidence to that statement.
Sadly, it looks like a hockey stick 🙁
Waiting to hear what Steve McIntyre says…
“Very High Energy Cosmic Rays: When high energy cosmic rays undergo collisions with atoms of the upper atmosphere, they produce a cascade of “secondary” particles that shower down through the atmosphere to the Earth’s surface. Secondary cosmic rays include pions (which quickly decay to produce muons, neutrinos and gamma rays), as well as electrons and positrons produced by muon decay and gamma ray interactions with atmospheric atoms. The number of particles reaching the Earth’s surface is related to the energy of the cosmic ray that struck the upper atmosphere. Cosmic rays with energies beyond 10^14 eV are studied with large “air shower” arrays of detectors distributed over many square kilometers that sample the particles produced. The frequency of air showers ranges from about 100 per m2 per year for energies >10^15 eV to only about 1 per km2 per century for energies beyond 10^20 eV. Cosmic ray interaction products such as neutrinos are also studied by large detectors placed deep in underground mines or under water.
Most secondary cosmic rays reaching the Earth’s surface are muons, with an average intensity of about 100 per m2 per second. Although thousands of cosmic rays pass through our bodies every minute, the resulting radiation levels are relatively low, corresponding, at sea level, to only a few percent of the natural background radiation. However, the greater intensity of cosmic rays in outer space is a potential radiation hazard for astronauts, especially when the Sun is active, and interplanetary space may suddenly be filled with solar energetic particles. Cosmic rays are also a hazard to electronic instrumentation in space; impacts of heavily-ionizing cosmic ray nuclei can cause computer memory bits to “flip” or small microcircuits to fail.”
The increase of neutrons (part of secondary radiation) since 1992.
http://cosmicrays.oulu.fi/webform/query.cgi?startday=01&startmonth=01&startyear=1990&starttime=00%3A00&endday=05&endmonth=08&endyear=2014&endtime=00%3A00&resolution=Automatic+choice&picture=on
http://www.srl.caltech.edu/personnel/dick/cos_encyc.html
Us see with their own eyes the state of cloud cover over the oceans.
http://www.sat24.com/image2.ashx?region=world&time=false&index=1
The current solar activity.
http://gong2.nso.edu/dailyimages/img/hot-farside/gong_calib_farside.jpg
Looks like a hockey stick
OT, but :
http://www.thenewamerican.com/tech/environment/item/18864-lawless-billionaire-club-behind-green-scam-senate-study-finds?utm_source=Newsletter&
Population control freak Bill Gates front & centre.
$360 billion + pa taxpayers money involved in “Green” scare.
Nick Stokes says:
August 6, 2014 at 10:32 pm
“Well, that version is certainly wrong. They didn’t attach 95% confidence to that statement.”
I am clarifying that Leif’s quote about inadequate confidence on whether the Sun is “bimodal” or not was not relating to the reconstruction in Fig. 2, which is shown with 95% confidence levels and supports the statements made by the authors in the same paragraph relating to Fig 2 that there was a “rare or even unique” modern Grand Maximum. Do you seriously believe the authors would make that claim without caveats of statistical confidence based upon a reconstruction with 95% confidence levels, while also pointing out that their claim that a Grand Maximum “mode” of “bimodal” behavior is not statistically significant? To do so IMHO would border upon academic fraud.
Leif Svalgaard says:
August 6, 2014 at 10:21 pm
“The error Usoskin et al. commit is two-fold:…
2) assuming that the group sunspot number is correct, when it is not. There is a serious discontinuity of about 50% around 1885.”
Well, although he’s not here to defend his paper, apparently Dr. Usoskin disagrees that Hoyt & Schatten has been falsified, otherwise why would he compare his reconstruction to a paper you say was previously falsified? Fig 2 does show a remarkable correspondence between Hoyt & Schatten’s group sunspot numbers and the reconstructed values where they overlap, thus the two disparate data sources appear to corroborate each other. Upon what scientific basis do you claim that sunspot observations, with all the uncertainties inherent in human observations over the past 400 years are necessarily a better proxy for solar activity than a radiocarbon proxy?
From David Thomas Bronzich on August 6, 2014 at 10:28 pm:
Here is linked a 1999 San Jose Mercury News piece from 1999 for which the text is copied there. Even NASA gives the newspaper link here which is going 404. Checking the Wayback Machine, the earliest saves are going 302 (redirect) to an unwanted site. So you will have to accept the first link is the true original text, or not.
In Earth Battered Through History by Comets published Tuesday, August 17, 1999, in the San Jose Mercury News, it talks of how an upcoming book “…describes a two-year-long winter that began in AD
535.” That’s when Flavius Cassiodorus wrote that, given elsewhere as specifically 536 AD.
But as noted elsewhere, Mount Vesuvius had an eruption in 536 AD. As these things go, there may have been venting beforehand or the exact year may be slightly off, etc.
Or there really could have been a double, comet impact and middling volcano eruption.
Either case, the description fits an aerosol event of some kind. The key is the mention of a lack of shadows at noon (midday high point), indicating diffuse light. Even if the Sun had gone briefly wonky, it’s still basically a point source of light, there still would have been shadows.
This is O/T but I would like someone from California to comment on this video or transcript from ABC 4 corners program. (Australia)
This is all about renewable energy but mostly about new solar technology and according to them everything is just wonderful in Brown’s California. I hope Anthony may have a chance to watch it and could someone tell us how sound your economy is at the moment and what is your comparative cost of electricity?
http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/stories/2014/07/07/4038488.htm
Sun modes of operation are bi-modal all right.
To illustrated this take a closer look at this illustration
first image – sun changes its frequency of oscillations in blocs of about 100 years, periods change from about 10,5 to 11 years in each block alternatively.
middle image – sunspot number SSN usually presented as a dimensionless value, and that is fine as long as one doesn’t care what it is suppose to represent. It represents solar magnetic activity with a distinct and opposite magnetic polarity in each hemisphere, two do not cancel each other. Two distinct open flux magnetic entities are separated by the heliospheric current sheet (HCS), all the way from corona to the far reaches of the solar system.
An arbitrary polarity can be assigned, but it can not be ignored, this is particularly important if one considers solar activity on the earth’s weather and climate events.
Based on the observational evidence, NASA has come to recognise some distinct properties of even and odd cycles (see second part of this video link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=nVqWH5Qlg8Y#t=0
This is vehemently disputed by the ‘old school’ with intentions of freezing solar science to decade(s) old ‘theories’, now proved, as the NASA spokesman admitted, to be incorrect.
Richard Feynman had something to say about relationship of assumed ‘theory’ and observational evidence.
Without clear understanding of the sunspot cycles polarity in relation to the polarity of the Earth’s magnetic field, I doubt that science will be able at any time soon to disentangle the solar impact on our climate, but many may not accept this.
last image – This is a new concept, and may or may not be relevant. It is sunspot cycle polarity, i.e. even and odd cycle external phase relationship with/in the intrinsic ‘stable heliospheric magnetic field’, as distinct from the variable heliospheric magnetic field emanating from the sun.
This might be highly controversial, but I found direct evidence of it in the phase relationship between high latitudes (where two magnetic fields are the strongest) atmospheric pressure and surface temperatures.
Finally: I am of the view that it is pointless to try to explain solar behaviour or influence on the climate, unless science can understand basics (at least) of what has been observed and recorded during last 300 or so years.
Thank you for your attention, the comment is far longer than my usual contributions.
Who has has the right to define what is Grand Maximum ?? Has it ever been done ?? Where is the definition of what Grand maximum is ?? Just make it first , and discus this matter after that !! It will bee very interesting to see who will take right to define the fenomen 🙂
Have we ever seen Grand Minimum ?? Should we wait for another 10000 years to recognice : May bee this was the Grand maximum anyway 🙂 Pity that nobody of us , will ever know if this was it or not ! Seems that all are talking about Grand maximum or Minimum without knowing the real definition. Should that bee agreed first ?
You can read it here , but thats just one definition .
http://cc.oulu.fi/~usoskin/personal/aa7704-07.pdf
Martin
Leif Svalgaard says: (August 6, 2014 at 10:21 pm) “The error Usoskin et al. commit is two-fold:
1) splicing the ‘instrumental’ record on to the end of the cosmic ray record, a la Mann’s hockey stick“.
Thanks, Leif, but I think there’s a bit more to be said:
(a) In Mann’s hockey stick it wasn’t made clear that the instrumental record had been spliced in, and it wasn’t made clear that two segments of proxy data that didn’t agree with the instrumental record had been removed. In this graph, the instrumental record is clearly identified, and while no proxy record has been removed (presumably), there is a clear divergence towards the end of the proxy record [crosspatch August 6, 2014 at 10:18 pm].
(b) But more importantly, the granularity of the proxy record is necessarily larger than that of the instrumental record. By ‘granularity’ I mean the individual time periods that can be satisfactorily distinguished within the record. So it is still not legitimate to show the two records together without a proper explanation that like is not being compared with like.
“What effect did the Grand maximum of solar activity that occurred between 1950 and 2009 have on Earth’s climate? ”
It’s difficult to see from thier overlayed graph exactly how far their reconstruction runs in date.
However, this idea of a “grand max” running as far a 2009 seems very odd. Peaks in SSN have been dropping since 1960 Claiming it ran to the belated solar minimum on 2009 does not seem justified. If 2009 was part of the “max” so was 1915 !!
http://climategrog.wordpress.com/?attachment_id=1001
1950-1990 might pass.
Svalgaard’s attempts to redefine the record have not been accepted offically and he will surely pop by to say “there is no grand maximum” at some stage.
However, even with his corrections there is a striking resemblance between SST and SSN:
http://climategrog.wordpress.com/?attachment_id=981
I agree with Bob Weber that Svalgaard and many colleagues deserve a lot of credit for all the work they did in the past few years on reconstructing the sunspot record.
Now in their most recent paper http://www.leif.org/research/Revisiting-the-Sunspot-Number.pdf
we read on page 66/67 (my bold):
Now, except for the highest recorded cycle (19), the maxima of highest cycles of the past
centuries are essentially the same as the recent maxima of the late 20th century. We note that recent independent reconstructions of the Sun’s open magnetic field, based on the geomagnetic record, also show a very limited difference of the highest peak 11-year amplitudes occurring in the 19th and 20th centuries over the available 1840-2010 interval (see Figure 30 in Lockwood 2013). Therefore, the upward trend in solar activity levels between the 18th and 20th that was adopted in many past interpretations and models is now questioned, as well as the associated concept of an abnormally high “Grand Maximum” occurring in the second half of the 20th century.
However, although recent cycles do not reach unprecedented amplitudes anymore, the
repetition of five strong cycles over the last 60 years (cycles 17 to 22, with the exception of cycle 20) still marks a unique episode in the whole 400-year record. This unique character is also
illustrated when considering another sunspot byproduct, i.e. the number of spotless days over each
sunspot cycle minimum. As can be seen in Figure 64, this number is strongly anti-correlated with
the amplitude of the adjoining cycles (given by the reversed green curve).
Usoskin in his new paper wrote (from CO2 Science):
“the modern Grand maximum (which occurred during solar cycles 19-23, i.e., 1950-2009),” which they describe as “a rare or even unique event, in both magnitude and duration, in the past three millennia.”
So although Usoskin’s graph may be wrong according to Svalgaard, I think their views are closer than you might conclude from Svalgaard’s comments here.
Svalgaard in his paper talks about “a unique episode in the whole 400-year record” while Usoskin calls it “a rare or even unique event, in both magnitude and duration, in the past three millennia.”
Thanks Leif for showing Usoskin’s “corrected figure” (http://www.leif.org/research/Decadal-Directly-Observed-Sunspot-Numbers.png)
Dear good old Hockey Schtick”!
I know its a little silly, but thank you for doing a brilliant job in these comments! Keep it up!!
K.R. Frank
So one expert says we had a grand maxima, and one says we did not. But I would like to see Dr. Svalgaard discuss the above observation more. Whatever they want to call it, is the contention that the recent cycles not “normal” true or not. Let’s first establish what happened and at least try to agree on that. Then we can worry about nomenclature and effects.
No, no, the sun is too weak to affect climate. The GCMs tell us so, and they’ve never been wrong.
Bob Weber says “This was covered in Feb: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/02/22/usoskin-et-al-discover-a-new-class-of-sunspots/ .”
Willis’s post pretty much showed that the paper is junk science. It’s junk science whether or not we like the conclusions.
“the repetition of five strong cycles over the last 60 years (cycles 17 to 22, with the exception of cycle 20) still marks a unique episode in the whole 400-year record. This unique character is also illustrated when considering another sunspot byproduct, i.e. the number of spotless days over each sunspot cycle minimum.”
Indeed, and there’s another ‘sunspot byproduct’ with the unique character in this period – cycle frequency (cycles/century) or cycle length (years). Starting with the SC 15 (started in 1915):
——–SCL—f
SC15 10.0 10.0
SC16 10.1 9.9
SC17 10.4 9.6
SC18 10.2 9.8
SC19 10.5 9.5
SC20 11.7 8.5
SC21 10.3 9.7
SC22 9.7 10.3
Now, even without the exception of the longer (weaker) cycle 20, the average cycle frequency for cycles 15 to 22 is exceptionally high (9.7 cycles/century) and the average cycle length exceptionally low (10.4 years). With the exception of cycle 20 it’s even more exceptional – in average 9.8 cycles/century and 10.2 years. The average for cycles 1 to 23 is 9.2 cycles/century and 11.1 years.
@Kada,
[Mods: this is way off topic. If you feel the need to snip I’ll understand]
The links you had were fascinating reading; especially the regular collapses of
urban societies around the globe.
Unfortunately, Isaac Asimov beat them to that theory by almost 60 years in his short story Nightfall (full text: http://www.astro.sunysb.edu/fwalter/AST389/TEXTS/Nightfall.htm).
Edited from the Wikipedia summary:
On Lagash, a planet with six suns which keep the whole planet continuously illuminated, total darkness is unknown. A group of scientists from a University begin to make a series of related discoveries: a psychologist researches the effects of prolonged exposure to darkness; an archaeologist finds evidence of multiple cyclical collapses of civilization which have occurred regularly about every 2000 years, and an astronomer has discovered irregularities in the orbit of Lagash around its primary sun.
vukcevic says:
August 7, 2014 at 2:13 am
Based on the observational evidence, NASA has come to recognise some distinct properties of even and odd cycles (see second part of this video link
There is no such difference between even and odd cycles. There is a difference in geomagnetic activity between cycles from maximum to maximum. This is a purely geometrical effect and is an effect felt by the Earth, not a property of the Sun, see the discussion in section 9 of http://www.leif.org/research/suipr699.pdf
In addition, it is wrong to say that ‘NASA’ has recognized something.
philjourdan says:
August 7, 2014 at 4:11 am
“the repetition of five strong cycles over the last 60 years (cycles 17 to 22, with the exception of cycle 20) still marks a unique episode in the whole 400-year record.”
So one expert says we had a grand maxima, and one says we did not. But I would like to see Dr. Svalgaard discuss the above observation more.
Every sequence of cycles is unique. The low cycle 20 divides the cycles from 17 to 23 into two pieces [17-19 and 21-23] none of which is particularly special: http://www.leif.org/reseach/New-Group-Numbers.png and the phrase ‘the repetition of five strong cycles’ is simply wrong as there are six cycles in that period [I have co-authors who have a hard time giving up some ingrained ideas].
@Leif Svalgaard – I appreciate the response.
http://www.leif.org/research/New-Group-Numbers.png
Isn’t the importance of this paper in the “bimodal” nature of the sun? Whether there is a grand maximum or not cannot be ruled out by this paper, but it cannot be supported either.
However, a “bimodal” sun is significant because all sorts of statistical analysis gives spurious results when applied to a bimodal distribution. The bimodal sun tells us that we should reject statistical conclusions about the sun that do not account for a bimodal distribution. Which likely means that many past papers about the sun are now in question.
vukcevic says:
August 7, 2014 at 2:13 am
Based on the observational evidence, NASA has come to recognise some distinct properties of even and odd cycles (see second part of this video link
More on their misunderstanding:
section 5 of http://www.leif.org/research/Semiannual-Comment.pdf and section 6.2 of http://www.leif.org/research/2007JA012437.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bimodal_distribution
Summary statistics
Bimodal distributions are a commonly used example of how summary statistics such as the mean, median, and standard deviation can be deceptive when used on an arbitrary distribution.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bimodal_distribution
Occurrences in nature
Examples of variables with bimodal distributions include the time between eruptions of certain geysers, the color of galaxies, the size of worker weaver ants, the age of incidence of Hodgkin’s lymphoma, the speed of inactivation of the drug isoniazid in US adults, the absolute magnitude of novae, and the circadian activity patterns of those crepuscular animals that are active both in morning and evening twilight. In fishery science multimodal length distributions reflect the different year classes and can thus be used for age distribution- and growth estimates of the fish population.[4] Sediments are usually distributed in a bimodal fashion.
ferdberple says:
August 7, 2014 at 6:40 am
However, a “bimodal” sun is significant because all sorts of statistical analysis gives spurious results when applied to a bimodal distribution.
In addition, it seems to me that the notion of a bimodal sun is not supported by the data. There is a continuum of cycle sizes from small to large. What Usoskin et al. probably mean is simply that Grand Minima are special, somehow. And we slide smoothly into and crawl smoothly out of a Grand Minimum, not abruptly [Vaquero et al.].
How is ozone sensitive to ionizing radiation? Sufficient seen a huge increase in 14CO2 in the 60’s. Nuclear Explosion in the stratosphere can destroy a tremendous amount of ozone by producing 14C with nitrogen. This isotope is very active and immediately react with oxygen.
http://oi60.tinypic.com/33vf57p.jpg
http://epic.awi.de/20620/1/Lev2009b.pdf
Again, Greg Goodman’s comments seem apropos. To amplify:
* There seems to be little disagreement that the sun is at least bimodal, with a phase/state where surface sunspots are heavily suppressed, solar magnetic activity in general is greatly reduced, and the length of the solar cycle extended, exemplified by e.g the Maunder minimum. It seem harmless, if a bit grandiose, to label these low activity periods “grand minima”. There is also at the very least a “normal” phase of solar activity, with moderate numbers of sunspots, a shorter solar cycle, and substantial solar magnetic activity.
* What is at double issue is whether or not there is sufficient organization to consider the peak regions of solar activity, which might be characterized in several ways, as a third “mode”, and to recognize the distinct organization of that activity and its “unusually high” level of large numbers of sunspots, the shortest observed cycles, and very substantial solar magnetic activity as “grand maxima”. After all, if we assume that solar activity is distributed in almost any way you like between “grand” minima and some maximum level and varies completely randomly/chaotically without the slightest hint of actual internal reorganization beyond that associated with chaotic dynamics at some level, we can always draw lines at corresponding to the top 10% and bottom 10%, call anything that falls into this 10% “unusual” (which by definition it is!) and label them “grand” maxima and minima. By the same token rolling double sixes or a six and a five on a pair of dice could be labelled a “grand maximum” and snake eyes or an acey-deucey could be labelled a “grand minimum”.
* As I understand it, there is some reason to think that unusually low solar maxima are in some way internally structurally distinct from its normal operation, although I could of course be wrong, not really my field. Hence the assertion of bimodality, although I’ve never heard an explicit detailing of the differences in structure associated with internal dynamics sufficiently compelling to be called a separate “mode”. The greatest evidence lacking this is autocorrelation — unusually low solar maxima appear to come in packs. I think Lief would even agree, here, since he has been predicting lowered solar activity over an extended series of cycles, presumably on the basis of an understanding of internal organization with greater temporal persistence than a single cycle.
* Ushokin’s work (as well as some evidence, e.g. length of solar cycle) strongly suggests that “unusually high” solar maxima (note the lack of the term “grand”) also come in “packs”. If I understand Lief’s objections to applying the term “grand” to these collections of maxima, they are twofold: first, and most important, there is nothing that differentiates the solar state structurally during these periods from the “normal” operation of the sun where there are always a mix of slightly stronger and slightly weaker cycles, with a limited (say 1-2 cycle) autocorrelation and more or less random trends. (Again, I wonder to what extent the same is true of “grand” minima, but…); second, the relative magnitude of the 20 century peaks is exaggerated compared to the overall record and, while “high”, is high only in the sense of rolling a few sets of double sixes in a row, not high in the sense of rolling double sevens on normally six-sided dice (where Maunder-type minima could be characterized as rolling double zeros on six-sided dice, perhaps — having the dice land perfectly on a corner and refuse to fall).
Put this way, there might be some possibility of coming to agreement. The late 20th century was a period of high solar activity compared to our best guess of a “mean level” of normal solar activity. The peaks were not necessarily the highest in the record, but there was a stretch of several cycles in a temporally correlated group of higher than mean activity. Such stretches are to be expected even if the sun literally rolls dice to determine the strength and length of the next cycle, so this is insufficient evidence that this stretch was a “mode”, and reasonable scientists can agree to disagree about whether or not the evidence suggests that their magnitude per se was extraordinary, or merely statistically unlikely but not unexpected in a “random” (chaotic) system. Over time, perhaps they’ll come to a consensus. Or not. Given that they are trying to reconstruct and repair past data — a process fraught with error and opportunities for bias to subtly enter the result — at the very least, the reconstruction should have greatly amplified error bars that probably (should!) leave substantial room for doubt and disagreement. There is less room for formal disagreement on the interpretation of proxy results, provided that they are uniformly and correctly presented across the entire record without high frequency/low frequency mixing, and provided (as always) that they are openly and frankly obtained and subjected to proper scientific doubt and error analysis.
If we do this, we can stop worrying about whether or not a “grand” maxima caused 20th century warming, whether a series of comparatively high (but not that unusual individually) maxima caused 20th century warming, whether or not the Maunder minimum caused the LIA, etc, and simply sit here, with popcorn, and wait and see what happens if the Sun decides to — as several people I have no reason to doubt (or particularly strongly believe) have asserted it will — pop out a series of extremely low/long solar cycles. We don’t even need to wonder whether or not this series should be called a “grand” minimum — it is what it is. We don’t need to assert that this will definitely affect climate because we have no modern, trustworthy, observational evidence to prove the argument one way or the other. We lack working models for the climate even when we use enormous computers to try to build them. Do people really think that you can outguess these computers when the computers are failing? Your guesses are all built on the linearization fallacy — that in a complex, chaotic, nonlinear system you can examine an apparent linear correlation (even one with a physical argument to support it!) and extrapolate it.
If the climate had any simple linear correlate that worked to explain things like the MWP, the LIA, the modern warm period, the “pause”, etc, we would long ago have found it, to the extent that we can even trust the high-error-bar proxy-based assessments of probable past climate outside of the modern (post satellite) instrumental record. It doesn’t. Anybody who asserts that they “know” what the climate is going to do because (fill in the blank with your favorite linearized fantasy) is full of ca-ca. Cool? Maybe. Warm? Quite possibly. Stay the same (for at least a while)? Sure, why not.
We can’t even predict the local time evolution of a single supposed El Nino six months in advance after it has apparently started (as the ENSO meter sits pegged on zero once again). ENSO empirically affects the climate — or at least, the autocorrelated weather for an extended period. How can we predict the climate when we lack a theory that can predict ENSO, do not properly understand the factors that govern it, and even if we did do not have the data needed, at the spatiotemporal granularity required, to predict it given a perfect model?
rgb
Could it be that Gleissberg’s work on the supposed 100 year cycle is underpinning this tenacious refusal to address the issues with solar data, even in the face of well documented reasons for the issues and reasonable corrections? Belief trumps data. And sometimes especially so in scientific circles. It is hard to say no to the “fathers” of any particular scientific field of study.
Pamela Gray says:
August 7, 2014 at 7:37 am
even in the face of well documented reasons for the issues and reasonable corrections? Belief trumps data.
I think that clinging to the Modern Grand Maximum is motivated by an attempt to explain ‘global warming’ as a solar effect. It is inconvenient if the Grand Modern Maximum turns out not to be all that Grand.
rgb, you said, “If we do this, we can stop worrying about whether or not a “grand” maxima caused 20th century warming, whether a series of comparatively high (but not that unusual individually) maxima caused 20th century warming, whether or not the Maunder minimum caused the LIA, etc, and simply sit here, with popcorn, and wait and see what happens if the Sun decides to…”
I disagree. We can use equatorial band SST data to test this. We can put the change in TSI to a calculation (already done) for solar insolation (already done), and can calculate any change in SST heating from this energy difference under clear sky conditions (already done) into the only place on Earth it can be stored (oceans), and then determine whether or not this change in SST shows up (or indeed can show up) in the noisy data.
Here is the null hypothesis: The SST of the critical volume (top few hundred meters, see link) of equatorial band ocean, impacted by the change in insolation under clear sky conditions due to a lack of sunspots causing a change in TSI, will not change.
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=4&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CDMQFjAD&url=http%3A%2F%2Foptics.marine.usf.edu%2Freferences%2FLee_UV_penetration_JGR2013.pdf&ei=vZLjU4PiFMz5yQT7yoKIAg&usg=AFQjCNGwHlKUxsinyOQu3aQUf7JvBUndQg&bvm=bv.72676100,d.aWw
This commentary below makes so much sense . Nevertheless all of the data clearly shows solar activity and especially magnetic activity was very strong and increasing through out the last century.
The data post 2005 shows clearly the sun has changed from a very active state to a very quiet state. AP index a very good measure of this.
Now we have to see how deep this prolonged solar minimum gets and what impacts it has on the climate.
I expect a deep prolonged solar minimum will continue and it will have significant climatic effects.
Past history supports my thoughts. Look at the Dalton and Maunder Minimum and global temperature response.
If we do this, we can stop worrying about whether or not a “grand” maxima caused 20th century warming, whether a series of comparatively high (but not that unusual individually) maxima caused 20th century warming, whether or not the Maunder minimum caused the LIA, etc, and simply sit here, with popcorn, and wait and see what happens if the Sun decides to — as several people I have no reason to doubt (or particularly strongly believe) have asserted it will — pop out a series of extremely low/long solar cycles. We don’t even need to wonder whether or not this series should be called a “grand” minimum — it is what it is.
rgbatduke says:
August 7, 2014 at 7:23 am
because we have no modern, trustworthy, observational evidence to prove the argument one way or the other
When it comes to the Sun we actually do have trustworthy evidence, namely that provided by that great measuring device: the Earth itself: http://www.leif.org/research/What-Geomagnetism-can-Tell-Us-about-the-Solar-Cycle.pdf
Leif, do you then also think the present author is so inclined to believe in a grand maximum causing global warming?
For clarification, we can calculate the change in SST, but under present measuring systems, we would not see the change in the data set as it is currently obtained.
As one can see by looking objectively at the historical climate data all increasing global temperature trends have been associated with prolonged maximum solar activity . While all decreasing global temperature trends have been associated with prolonged quiet solar activity.
This is due not only to primary solar effects but secondary solar effects.
I go by the data and nothing else and the data clearly supports what I have been posting.
Pamela Gray says:
August 7, 2014 at 7:59 am
Leif, do you then also think the present author is so inclined to believe in a grand maximum causing global warming?
It is good for funding if you can tie your research to the climate debate…
When it comes to the Sun we actually do have trustworthy evidence, namely that provided by that great measuring device: the Earth itself.
My commentary
And the data from the earth shows that it is clearly linked to solar activity. Again look at the historical global temperature data versus solar data.
This current prolonged solar minimum will prove this fact once and for all. We will know before this decade is out.
THE CRITERIA
Solar Flux avg. sub 90
Solar Wind avg. sub 350 km/sec
AP index avg. sub 5.0
Cosmic ray counts north of 6500 counts per minute
Total Solar Irradiance off .15% or more
EUV light average 0-105 nm sub 100 units (or off 100% or more) and longer UV light emissions around 300 nm off by several percent.
IMF around 4.0 nt or lower.
The above solar parameter averages following several years of sub solar activity in general which commenced in year 2005..
IF , these average solar parameters are the rule going forward for the remainder of this decade expect global average temperatures to fall by -.5C, with the largest global temperature declines occurring over the high latitudes of N.H. land areas.
The decline in temperatures should begin to take place within six months after the ending of the maximum of solar cycle 24.
NOTE 1- What mainstream science is missing in my opinion is two fold, in that solar variability is greater than thought, and that the climate system of the earth is more sensitive to that solar variability.
NOTE 2
This criteria was reached during the brief but sever lull form 2008-2010 for the most part.
The duration wiLl be longer the next time around.
That the 20th century was the time of a long term solar maximum is further demonstrated by Lockwood et al 2014. Fig 6 at
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2014JA019973/pdf )
Lockwood et al 2014 in press say in their abstract: http://www.eiscat.rl.ac.uk/Members/mike/publications/pdfs/2009/Lockwood_ApJ_openflux_F1.pdf
“Cosmogenic isotope data reveal that this constitutes a grand maximum of solar
activity which began in 1920, using the definition that such grand maxima are when
25-year averages of the heliospheric modulation potential exceeds 600 MV.
Extrapolating the linear declines seen in all three parameters since 1985, yields
predictions that the grand maximum will end in the years 2013, 2014, or 2027 using VSW, FS, or B respectively”.
My own view ,based on the Ap index Fig 13 (see link below0 and the Oulu neutron count – Fig 14( Link below) is that the solar activity long term maximum peaked in about 1991.with the sharp decline beginning about 2005 – 6.
For further references and discussion on all this, with particular regard to the 970 year quasi- periodicity in the temperature record as a result of changes in solar activity see the latest post
at
http://climatesense-norpag.blogspot.com.
Forecasts of the coming cooling based on this millennial quasi-periodicity are also presented there.
To forestall useless discussion I’m quite happy to agree to differ with Leif in this matter and defer to Lockwood and Usoskin.
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v399/n6735/abs/399437a0.html
When solar activity is still low, the amount of ozone will be significantly reduced due to a decrease of UV radiation and increase of galactic radiation.
Simultaneously will increase significantly Cloudiness and increase pressure over the polar circles. Climate change will be drastic.
The above paper just like this article provides more conclusive evidence of the strength of solar activity last century which correlates to a global temperature increase.
Solar activity remaining strong until year 2005.
Ren and this is what is happening as we speak. Look at the atmospheric circulation changes post 2005.
According to Usoskin et al. (2014), the Sun “shows strong variability in its magnetic activity, from Grand minima to Grand maxima, but the nature of the variability is not fully understood, mostly because of the insufficient length of the directly observed solar activity records and of uncertainties
related to long-term reconstructions.” Now, however, in an attempt to overcome such uncertainties, in a Letter to the Editor published in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics, Usoskin et al. “present the first fully adjustment-free physical reconstruction of solar activity” covering the past 3,000 years, which record allowed them “to study different modes of solar activity at an unprecedented level of detail.”
MY COMMNETARY
Exactly and this is from the article just posted today.
What effect did the Grand maximum of solar activity that occurred between 1950 and 2009 have on Earth’s climate? As a “unique” and “rare” event in terms of both magnitude and duration, one would think a lot more time and effort would be spent by the IPCC and others in answering that question. Instead, IPCC scientists have conducted relatively few studies of the Sun’s influence on modern warming, assuming that the temperature influence of this rare and unique Grand maximum of solar activity, which has occurred only once in the past 3,000 years, is far inferior to the radiative power provided by the rising CO2 concentration of the Earth’s atmosphere.
So maximum solar activity and maximum CO2 concentration approximately coincide, and neither one of them seems to be associated with past epochs of warming: does anyone see the Minoan warm period, Roman warm period or Medieval warm period in that graph? How about the post RWP, “Wasteland” epoch?
Dr. Brown
Thanks for the comments and a new perspective.
Prompted by your comment referring inconsistency of obvious internal organisation I had another look at the sunspots polarity diagram (my earlier comment related to sunspot polarity considerations), it looks as some internal organisation does exist but only in the odd numbered cycles, as shown in the
modified illustration
while no such pattern is obvious among even cycles.
‘Organisation’ of groups of 4 rising cycles persisted since 1700 all the way to 1960, but appears to reverse after cycle19 into group of falling cycles.
If above is taken as valid then:
– SC19 was a pivotal cycle if ‘bi-modal’ activity existed
– The odd cycles are (possibly, very speculative this) result of an external, say astronomic synchronisation, while the even cycles are under influence of the internal ‘more chaotic’ solar cycling process.
The above ‘internal organisation’ would also imply:
– SC25 (odd cycle, with presumed max around yr 2025), would be indeed low
– SC26 (even cycle, max ~ yr 2035), uncertain
– SC27 (odd cycle, max mid 2040s) with high Rmax ~150.
How drastic Ren? I’m sitting here waiting out the rain again. It just rains and rains and rains and rains. And the mobi-ticks just get bigger and bigger and bigger…
Ever once in a while you hear a crack, creak and thump as a 2012 drought killed tree falls onto the ground.
rgb says “We don’t need to assert that this will definitely affect climate because we have no modern, trustworthy, observational evidence to prove the argument one way or the other. We lack working models for the climate even when we use enormous computers to try to build them.”
Just this once I have to differ with rgb: we do have the evidence for solar influence over climate.
Here’s a clue: http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2013/08/17/1957-extreme-heat-drought-melt-thunderstorms-at-the-north-pole/ when, during the highest solar cycle ever recorded, the sun’s energy roasted the northern polar region.
The secret to understanding the sun’s influence on climate and it’s cause of global warming is hidden in this graph: http://climate4you.com/images/SunspotsMonthlySIDC%20and%20HadSST3%20GlobalMonthlyTempSince1960%20WithSunspotPeriodNumber.gif
The answer to this mystery is being written up and will be posted as soon as I can finish writing it, and the sunspot reconstruction isn’t involved, and whether there was or wasn’t a “grand” solar maximum isn’t involved either, as the word “grand” adds nothing to ‘just the facts’.
I do agree with rgb in that there really is nothing to worry about. He’s right, it is what it is. It has just not been properly understood in the context of solar energy accumulation in the world ocean.
What was done
Without the whole paper, this is impossible to evaluate.
Matthew R Marler says:
August 7, 2014 at 8:47 am
I do. Nothing in the SSN chart is against those warm & cold phases. SSN isn’t the only parameter. The UV component of TSI also counts, as do a variety of modulating factors.
The cold periods show up more starkly as Minima & Grand Minima in the SSN graph than the warm periods, which aren’t necessarily associated with Grand Maxima, just Maxima & prolonged intervals of elevated numbers.
Dr Norman Page says:
August 7, 2014 at 8:12 am
Lockwood et al 2014 in press say in their abstract: http://www.eiscat.rl.ac.uk/Members/mike/publications/pdfs/2009/Lockwood_ApJ_openflux_F1.pdf
From 2009 and not 2014…
And your post is a good example of confirmation bias.
Leif Svalgaard: In addition, it seems to me that the notion of a bimodal sun is not supported by the data. There is a continuum of cycle sizes from small to large. What Usoskin et al. probably mean is simply that Grand Minima are special, somehow. And we slide smoothly into and crawl smoothly out of a Grand Minimum, not abruptly [Vaquero et al.].
Yes.
Sometimes the solar activity is way above average, sometimes its below average, and mostly it’s within a standard deviation of average. You can’t tell anything from the graph, but perhaps the random variation has heavier tails than a Gaussian distribution.
Another possibly fruitful field of climate studies derailed by the CO2 Express is the question of tides on the sun raised by the planets & the possible effect thereof on SSN:
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/full/1927PASP…39..228L
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.2153-3490.1968.tb00381.x/pdf
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11207-013-0288-6#page-1
Leif Svalgaard: http://www.leif.org/research/What-Geomagnetism-can-Tell-Us-about-the-Solar-Cycle.pdf
Thank you for the link.
vukcevic says:
August 7, 2014 at 8:48 am
Prompted by your comment referring inconsistency of obvious internal organisation I had another look at the sunspots polarity diagram (my earlier comment related to sunspot polarity considerations), it looks as some internal organisation does exist but only in the odd numbered cycles
There is no evidence or reason for this. As usual, you are peddling pseudo-science.
Ilya responds to Leif on Finnish neutron monitor on WUWT:
http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2012/11/21/ilya-usoskin-vs-leif-svalgaard-oulu-neutron-monitor-data-quality/
Milo, solar tides have been discussed on this blog in the past. Its magnitude is known as well as its affects on Earth.
Went looking for a graph showing the large annual TSI variance that was mentioned somewhat recently, searched for “leif annual TSI variability” and found:
http://climateaudit.org/2007/11/30/svalgaard-solar-theory/
Last two paragraphs (some odd non-displaying characters showed up and were replaced with hopefully-correct punctuation, I’m sure the author will correct me):
Nearly seven years later, still true and still on track. Thus doing much better than the climate models.
Pamela Gray says:
August 7, 2014 at 9:32 am
I know they have, but my point is that it offers an explanation for the observed minima & maxima. No doubt internal solar fluctuations are also important.
On whatever climatic time scale you chose, from tens to billions of years, solar system & galactic factors influence change here on earth & the other planets, which in turn affect the sun.
milodonharlani says:
August 7, 2014 at 9:30 am
Ilya responds to Leif on Finnish neutron monitor on WUWT:
Yes, he is very sensitive about that. The fact is that at some stations [e.g. his at Oulu] the cosmic ray flux has been increasing, at some [e.g. at Thule, Greenland] there has been no long-term trend, and at some [e.g. South Pole] the flux has been decreasing. This IMHO means that we cannot simply blame the sun for all of these contradictory results. Some instrumental, atmospheric, or otherwise not-understood effect is at play.
Leif Svalgaard says: August 7, 2014 at 9:27 am
vukcevic says:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/08/06/recent-paper-finds-recent-solar-grand-maximum-was-a-rare-or-even-unique-event-in-3000-years/#comment-1703735
(it looks as some internal organisation does exist but only in the odd numbered cycles)
There is no evidence or reason for this. As usual, you are peddling pseudo-science.
……….
Evidence of ‘internal organisation’ (using term introduced by Dr. Brown) plainly does exist within odd numbered cycle as shown in the link (my comment above)
A correct and more informative statement would have been:
There is no reason for this, that I (i.e. Dr. Svalgaard solar scientist) know of, therefore until such reason is found it can’t be accepted as a valid science.
Milo, you are walking way out into unsupported random speculation. So what is your point? How does Earth and other planets affect the sun? And does this speculation have anything at all to do with Earth’s temperature trends?
Dr Norman Page: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2014JA019973/pdf )
There does not seem to be any association with Earth climate: the state estimates for the Early 20th and early 21st centuries are similar.
“Steven Mosher says:
“there is no modern maximum.”
Sounds like denial to me. So just what should we call it? A hockey stick?
###################################
1. I have read everything that Leif has posted on his research
2. he went back to the ‘raw’ observer reports.
3. He reworked the sunspot series using a clear open methodology.
4. He TESTED his approach by doing a blind study.
5. He validated his reconstruction by comparing other measures.
6. He is working openly with others in the field.
So I am faced with this choice.
A) DO HIS WORK OVER and find his error
B) Accept his conclusions as the best explanation.
I choose B.
Now, I could attack him personally. I could accuse him of “changing the past”. I could refuse to look at his work because it destroys my cherished notions. I dont do those things.
I read his work. I asked the question? do I see any place where he might have made a mistake?
No. Am I willing to REDO the work in the hopes that I might find something? no.
I look at the work of those he challenges. His work is more open, more comprehensive.
I think I am justified in accepting his work as the best. Could it be wrong? sure.
But as it stands its the best work on the problem I have seen.
kadaka (KD Knoebel) :
http://climateaudit.org/2007/11/30/svalgaard-solar-theory/
good find.
Pamela Gray says:
August 7, 2014 at 9:48 am
It’s not speculation. It’s scientific investigation, dating back at least to the 1920s, as shown by my links from three decades in two centuries.
To answer your other question, yes, solar & cosmic influences are strongly correlated with climatic change & well supported explanatory mechanisms have been proposed & are being investigated further by real scientists, not CACA spewing charlatans.
vukcevic says:
August 7, 2014 at 9:46 am
A correct and more informative statement would have been:
There is no reason for this, that I (i.e. Dr. Svalgaard solar scientist) know of,
More importantly, there is no evidence for it.
milodonharlani says:
August 7, 2014 at 10:05 am
………..
Hi don harlani
Not knowing what word ‘CACA’ meant, I entered it in the ‘google translate’ and since it was already preset for French it came with:
Definitions of caca : noun Excrément
Translations of caca : noun pooh
Is it what you actually meant ?
Steven Mosher says:
August 7, 2014 at 9:53 am
______________
Well said and I agree.
The Warmists have told us it is only a coincidence that the warming in the last 50 years correlates with the most intensity series of solar magnetic cycles in the last 3000 years. We have been told by some that the solar magnetic cycle was not highly active in the last 50 years, we have been told that past warming and cooling planetary cycles did not happen and/or did not correlate with solar magnetic cycle changes, we have been told that the solar magnetic cycle is not heading into a weird Maunder minimum, and regardless of what is currently happening to the sun, we have been told that the weird Maunder minimum will not affect planetary cloud cover and will not affect planetary temperature.
It appears we will by observations have a chance to determine if planetary cloud cover is directly and indirectly modulate by solar magnetic cycle changes and by changes to the orientation and intensity of the geomagnetic field.
It will be interesting to see what the public and general scientific community reaction will be to significant and rapid planetary cooling. How quickly will the scientific community and the politicians abandon the Warmists and the Warmists’ ideology?
P.S. The geomagnetic field intensity for some unexplained reason suddenly starting in 1990s started to decline at 5% per decade and the geomagnetic north magnetic pole drift velocity suddenly increased by a factor of 10.
William: Swarm is the name of a set of three specialized satellites that were designed and launched by the European space agency, November, 2013 to try to understand why the geomagnetic field is abruptly changing. The following is a news release that discusses the first Swarm data. The Swarm data indicates as noted the geomagnetic field intensity is for unexplained reasons declining ten time faster at 5%/decade.
http://news.yahoo.com/earths-magnetic-field-weakening-10-times-faster-now-121247349.html
While changes in magnetic field strength are part of this normal flipping cycle, data from Swarm) have shown the field is starting to weaken faster than in the past. Previously, researchers estimated the field was weakening about 5 percent per century, but the new data revealed the field is actually weakening at 5 percent per decade, or 10 times faster than thought. As such, rather than the full flip occurring in about 2,000 years, as was predicted, the new data suggest it could happen sooner.
What Caused Recent Acceleration of the North Magnetic Pole Drift?
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2010EO510001/pdf
The north magnetic pole (NMP) is the point at the Earth’s surface where the geomagnetic field is directed vertically downward. It drifts in time as a result of core convection, which sustains the Earth’s main magnetic field through the geodynamo process. During the 1990s the NMP drift speed suddenly increased from 15 kilometers per year at the start of the decade to 55 kilometers per year by the decade’s end. This acceleration was all the more surprising given that the NMP drift speed had remained less than 15 kilometers per year over the previous 150 years of observation. Why did NMP drift accelerate in the 1990s? (William: Interesting question. )
The ‘no Grand Modern Maximum’ of course also invalidates Evans’ ‘theory’
http://www.leif.org/resarch/SSN-HMF-TSI-Evans.png
Steven Mosher says:
August 7, 2014 at 9:53 am
…….
Agree, if a correction is required ( I have no reason to believe one way or the other) Dr. Svalgaard has methodically approached and pursued it, and probably is the best what anyone will get.
The corrections are not particularly radical, but leaving that aside, as far as the climate factor is concerned, if there is a link, than (IMO or better IMHO?) the phase of cycles in relation to the decadal changes of the Earth magnetic field is the decisive factor.
William Astley says:
August 7, 2014 at 10:28 am
The north magnetic pole (NMP) is the point at the Earth’s surface where the geomagnetic field is directed vertically downward. It drifts in time as a result of …
Where the northern magnetic pole [it is actually a south magnetic pole] is is pretty much irrelevant as its precise location at the surface is determined by rapidly changing multipoles. What is relevant is where the pole is seen from the solar wind and that is quite a different matter as basically only the dipole remains at great distances, see e.g. http://www.leif.org/EOS/eost11139-magnetic-poles.pdf
vukcevic says:
August 7, 2014 at 10:38 am
if there is a link, than (IMO or better IMHO?) the phase of cycles in relation to the decadal changes of the Earth magnetic field is the decisive factor.
There is no evidence for that.
Leif Svalgaard says:
August 7, 2014 at 10:30 am
The ‘no Grand Modern Maximum’ of course also invalidates Evans’ ‘theory’
http://www.leif.org/research/SSN-HMF-TSI-Evans.png
@ vukcevic on August 7, 2014 at 10:19 am:
“CACA” at other threads came to mean “Catastrophic Alarming Climate Activity” or somesuch.
“To answer your other question, yes, solar & cosmic influences are strongly correlated with climatic change ”
nope.
vukcevic says:
August 7, 2014 at 10:19 am
It’s a play on the Spanish word for excrement, commonly used in US English.
It stands for Catastrophic Anthropogenic Climate Alarmism. Same first two words in CAGW or three in CACC.
re: the Glessberg Cycle
In another thread we were discussing the Gleissberg Cycle. I don’t consider it a cycle in the same since as the 11 and 22 year cycles. Leif, now that a corrected reconstruction has been proposed in the literature, what does that reconstruction have to say about the Gleissberg observation?
Pamela Gray says:
August 7, 2014 at 11:12 am
now that a corrected reconstruction has been proposed in the literature, what does that reconstruction have to say about the Gleissberg observation?
There has been a ~100 yr variation of the size of sunspot cycles for the past 300 years, but it is doubtful that that represents a real and true ‘cycle’. Probably not. The ‘standard’ Gleissberg cycle is 80 years, or 88, or 90, or…
Ed Martin sorry.
http://earth.nullschool.net/#2014/08/08/1500Z/wind/isobaric/850hPa/overlay=total_cloud_water/orthographic=-95.39,33.65,1925
Leif Svalgaard says:
August 7, 2014 at 11:17 am
Pamela Gray says:
August 7, 2014 at 11:12 am
Joan Feynman (sister of Mosher’s bête noire Richard) just published on the Gleissberg Cycle. She’s OK with 90-100 years:
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2013JA019478/abstract
The Centennial Gleissberg Cycle and its Association with Extended Minima†
J. Feynman* and A. Ruzmaikin
Abstract
The recent extended minimum of solar and geomagnetic variability (XSM) mirrors the XSMs in the 19th and 20th centuries: 1810–1830 and 1900–1910. Such extended minima also were evident in aurorae reported from 450 AD to 1450 AD. This paper argues that these minima are consistent with minima of the Centennial Gleissberg Cycles (CGC), a 90–100 year variation observed on the Sun, in the solar wind, at the Earth and throughout the Heliosphere. The occurrence of the recent XSM is consistent with the existence of the CGC as a quasi-periodic variation of the solar dynamo. Evidence of CGC’s is provided by the multi-century sunspot record, by the almost 150-year record of indexes of geomagnetic activity (1868-present), by 1,000 years of observations of aurorae (from 450 to 1450 AD) and millennial records of radionuclides in ice cores. The aa index of geomagnetic activity carries information about the two components of the solar magnetic field (toroidal and poloidal), one driven by flares and CMEs (related to the toroidal field) the other driven by co-rotating interaction regions in the solar wind (related to the poloidal field). These two components systematically vary in their intensity and relative phase giving us information about centennial changes of the sources of solar dynamo during the recent CGC over the last century. The dipole and quadrupole modes of the solar magnetic field changed in relative amplitude and phase; the quadrupole mode became more important as the XSM was approached. Some implications for the solar dynamo theory are discussed.
How dare Feynman rely on history books for data from AD 450 to 1450!
“Steven Mosher says:
August 6, 2014 at 9:00 pm
“anxiously awaiting Dr. Svalgaard’s comments.”
there is no modern maximum.
Leif Svalgaard says:
August 6, 2014 at 9:26 pm
The possible existence of a separate Grand maximum mode is also suggested, but the statistics is too low to reach a confident conclusion.
says it all. there is no modern grand maximum. ”
Tell me, which way do I kneel? Do I kneel to the east, west, south, north from sw US? Really, I need to know where you are since only God can say “there is no modern grand maximum” since only God has infinite knowledge. REAL scientists would say “I see no evidence that supports a modern grand maximum in this,” But you two flatly deny the possibility completely, thus raising yourselves to deity. The only thing I know for a certainty is that 1+1=2, well, most of the time but depending on circumstances, 1+1 can equal 3, 4, 5, or even 10 if they create octuplets, perhaps even more!
IMO, Gleissberg Cycles approximate 99 years = (22 x 4) + 11. But solar cycles only average about 11 & 22 years. The variation is enough to get up around 90 without adding another half cycle.
sturgishooper says:
August 7, 2014 at 11:31 am
Joan Feynman (sister of Mosher’s bête noire Richard) just published on the Gleissberg Cycle. She’s OK with 90-100 years:
“The recent extended minimum of solar and geomagnetic variability (XSM) mirrors the XSMs in the 19th and 20th centuries: 1810–1830 and 1900–1910. “
She is stretching it a bit. Earlier she had argued for a strict 88-yr cycle, so she tries to go low. The Dalton Minimum was not 1810-1830, but rather 1800-1820 and from 1810 to ~2025 is 2*108 years which she would not be so OK with.
Tom O says:
August 7, 2014 at 11:34 am
only God can say “there is no modern grand maximum” since only God has infinite knowledge.
For most things one does not need infinite knowledge. E.g. I know that there were no big earthquake in San Francisco yesterday.
The CO2 Science site’s article on Usoskin et al. (2014) published in the journal ‘Astronomy and Astrophysics’ said,
{all bold emphasis mine – JMW}
= = = = = = =
I do not think it is unfortunate at all. One piece of applied reasoning at a time is acceptable and actually makes the dialog intellectually digestible. The dialog on the climate impact of solar will surely follow with other papers after this solar focus only effort by Usoskin et al. (2014) published in the journal ‘Astronomy and Astrophysics’.
It looks tom me like Solar Science has a strong and viable dialog going here that I think it is the best way trust in science is achieved in our modern culture.
John
Leif Svalgaard says:
August 7, 2014 at 10:10 am and August 7, 2014 at 10:41 am
There is no evidence for that. and There is no evidence for that.
There is no evidence that you looked at the evidence.
Both of us could learn from what an erudite American on one occasion said:
“Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.”
“REAL scientists would say “I see no evidence that supports a modern grand maximum in this,” But you two flatly deny the possibility completely, thus raising yourselves to deity. The only thing I know for a certainty is that 1+1=2, well, most of the time but depending on circumstances, 1+1 can equal 3, 4, 5, or even 10 if they create octuplets, perhaps even more!”
Question: do you know for a certainty that “REAL scientists would say “I see no evidence that supports a modern grand maximum in this,”
To answer your question. there is no modern maximum. if you ask me what I mean by that i will explain that the best evidence we have suggests that there is no maximum.
rgbatduke: Your guesses are all built on the linearization fallacy — that in a complex, chaotic, nonlinear system you can examine an apparent linear correlation (even one with a physical argument to support it!) and extrapolate it.”
This obsession with fitting linear “trends” to everything that is not at all linear in its behaviour is one of the fundamental problems of climatology.
To a large extent it seems have it’s origin in an undeclared assumption that there is an underlying “global warming” trend in everything and the rest is just climatic “noise” that can be averaged out.
There is barely a graph ever published that does not have straight line driven through it.
TLS is a good example.
http://climategrog.wordpress.com/?attachment_id=902
Just look at the data end it is clear that there are two step changes and no slope. However, just a few days ago there was a new paper which fitted two trends, one for the above period, and concluded accellerated AGW.
It seems much of climate science is a one trick pony, based on clicking the “fit trend” button in Excel.
John Whitman says:
August 7, 2014 at 11:49 am
As a “unique” and “rare” event in terms of both magnitude and duration, one would think a lot more time and effort would be spent by the IPCC and others in answering that question.
As there very likely wasn’t any Grand Maximum, it would seem to me that no more time and effort need be expended.
Solar Science has a strong and viable dialog going here
More like a desperate rearguard action, by a dwindling [but vocal] minority trying to protect their funding.
Leif Svalgaard says:
August 7, 2014 at 11:42 am
Different workers come up with different dates for the Dalton. Recent estimates are1790-1830 and 1796-1820. The troughs come in around 1808-10, as per you.
But why use AD 2025? She and her co-author think it’s happening again right now, about 100 years after 1910 and 200 after 1810. The solar cycles might also be lengthening a bit during the Modern Warm Period, getting closer to 23 years than 22. No doubt these variations (eg nine to almost 14 years for the “11-year” cycle) are old hat to you:
http://www.ips.gov.au/Educational/2/3/7
Anyway, there’s no reason IMO to be wedded to a precisely 88-year Gleissberg. As you say, it used to be around 100 years and obviously can change and range a bit.
sturgishooper says:
August 7, 2014 at 12:00 pm
But why use AD 2025? She and her co-author think it’s happening again right now, about 100 years after 1910 and 200 after 1810.
I don’t think this cycle is the bottom of the Gleissberg ‘through’, possibly the next cycle, that is why. But since it is not a ‘real’ cycle, it doesn’t matter much.
@Leif – trough.
Matt Marler. The Lockwood paper:
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2014JA019973/pdf )
was not designed to discus the sun – climate connection but to show the OSF peak in the late 20th century – (solar maximum) However the climate implications of Fig 6 are very clear. Compare the low OSF during the Maunder LIA versus the late 20th Century. Also look at the sharp drop off in solar activity -especially the sharp decline in the cycle minima since the cycle 21/22 minimum.
The really sharp secular break ( which strengthens my belief in a coming cooling ) took place in about 2005-6.See the Ap index in Fig 13 and the historic high neutron count in 2009 in Fig 14 at
http://climatesense-norpag.blogspot.com/2014/07/climate-forecasting-methods-and-cooling.html
Leif Svalgaard says:
August 7, 2014 at 12:06 pm
Your colleagues disagree with your assessment of its reality, but that’s science. Absolute certainty except in certain well established cases (such as the earth going around the sun) however isn’t scientific, IMO.
Thanks for your answer, though.
Leif Svalgaard says:
August 7, 2014 at 11:46 am
Tom O says:
August 7, 2014 at 11:34 am
only God can say “there is no modern grand maximum” since only God has infinite knowledge.
For most things one does not need infinite knowledge. Eg I know that there were no big earthquake in San Francisco yesterday.
You know probably also what it was 100 years ago?
This pattern works best.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/PF-latest.gif
vukcevic says:
August 7, 2014 at 11:50 am
There is no evidence that you looked at the evidence.
The video is muddled, but why don’t you tell us in clear, easy to understand words what you think the evidence is. Or better: point us to a paper that lays out the evidence.
Dr Norman Page says:
August 7, 2014 at 12:11 pm
but to show the OSF peak in the late 20th century – (solar maximum)
Lockwood agrees that activity [OSF] in the 19th century was on par with that in the 20th.
The really sharp secular break ( which strengthens my belief in a coming cooling ) took place in about 2005-6.See the Ap index in Fig 13
This is Ap since 1844 http://www.leif.org/research/Ap-1844-now.png nothing secular about 2005.
and the historic high neutron count in 2009
Oulu shows an increasing count, Thule [Greenland] shows no trend, and South Pole shows a decrease:
ST12-05-D3-PM2-CD-004 (ST12-05-A011) AOGS 2014 Sapporo, Japan, July 30, 2014
Long Term Decline of South Pole Neutron Monitor Counting Rate – A Possible Magnetospheric Interpretation
Paul EVENSON#+, John CLEM
University of Delaware, United States
#Corresponding author: evenson@udel.edu +Presenter
“The neutron monitor at the Amundsen Scott Station, located at the geographic South Pole, has operated with some interruptions since 1964. The neutron counting rate follows an 11-year cycle with maxima at times of low solar activity, but over the entire interval exhibited a steady decline, totaling approximately 10% by 2013…”
If you think the ‘Grand Maximum’ supports your 1000-yr cycle, then you have a problem as Usoskin claims it was a unique event, thus not repeating every 1000 yrs. You can’t have it both ways.
sturgishooper says:
August 7, 2014 at 12:12 pm
Your colleagues disagree with your assessment of its reality, but that’s science. Absolute certainty except in certain well established cases (such as the earth going around the sun) however isn’t scientific, IMO.
You are too hung up on the ‘absolute certainty’ thing. When things are compelling enough [5 sigma, 6 sigma, or some other high threshold] they are accepted as facts. And it is not that ‘my colleagues’ disagree. A few people have still not caught up, is all. It usually takes a solar cycle for the slow ones to see the light.
From Bob Weber on August 7, 2014 at 8:56 am:
It is indeed well hidden, as SSN is showing half of an about 100yr possible cycle peaking around 1985 while HadSST3 is showing a trough-to-peak transition point of a different long possible cycle.
HadSST3 from 1960 with 15-yr trends starting every 5 years.
International SSN from 1960 with same trend pattern.
Well, that’s definitely a SSN peak circa 1985 matched to a SST transition between about 1985 and 1990, but SSN could be something other than 100yr.
So what was hidden, a very slow negative feedback where greater solar activity yielded a gradual deceleration of the warming rate?
ren says:
August 7, 2014 at 12:33 pm
This pattern works best. http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/PF-latest.gif
The lower graph has already failed and will fail even more for the polar fields in the next cycle.
Thanks Ren, the rain stopped for now, the company I work for calls wanting to know when/if I’m coming back. Just have to tell them that house preparation for an ice age takes a lot of work and it doesn’t help when it rains so much. Should have been done already. Ran around this morning in my skivies putting stuff up and a few odds and ends things I painted yesterday still hadn’t dried.
Leif Svalgaard says:
August 7, 2014 at 12:34 pm
That’s pretty funny, but who would have thought that there are so many slow physicists?
To quote Lord Rutherford, “If your experiment needs statistics, you ought to have done a better experiment”.
I’m not hung up on absolute certainty, but appreciate the limitations of computing confidence levels. (The earth going around the sun is no longer an hypothesis but an observation, so is absolutely certain.) Based upon the greater precision of Ptolemaic tables over Copernican c. 1600, had statistical analysis existed then, the geocentric model would have been favored at a high sigma threshold.
sturgishooper says:
August 7, 2014 at 12:48 pm
That’s pretty funny, but who would have thought that there are so many slow physicists?
Not funny, as there are actually few of them.
I’m not hung up on absolute certainty, but appreciate the limitations of computing confidence levels. (The earth going around the sun is no longer an hypothesis but an observation, so is absolutely certain.)
The Earth does not go ‘around the Sun’ in an absolute way as the orbit is not quite closed. To a high approximation it can be said to go around the Sun. And solar activity is also an observational fact. What is not an observational fact is the splicing of the two records that Usoskin did. That is based on an assumption [and some fiddling]. With any observation there is always an error bar.
Leif Svalgaard says:
August 7, 2014 at 1:23 pm
Variations in earth’s orbit don’t change the fact that the sun doesn’t go around the earth, as in the geocentric model. The actual observation now is that the sun is at one focus of the elliptical, slightly variable orbit around the sun of the barycenter of the earth-moon system.
sturgishooper says:
August 7, 2014 at 1:34 pm
Variations in earth’s orbit don’t change the fact that the sun doesn’t go around the earth, as in the geocentric model.
That was not the issue, which was whether the Earth ‘goes around the Sun’, which it only does to some [albeit high] approximation. Any observation has an error bar [perhaps with the exception of a straight count, as of the amount of loose change in my pocket or of the number of spots on the sun]
The reality is the tide is turning toward solar variability and that variability causing climate change.
http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2014/08/new-paper-argues-current-lull-in-solar.html
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/Solar_Changes_and_the_Climate.pdf
The papers and studies go on and on that support my claims. I could easily post many more studies but I think I am making my point.
Yeah, I would have liked to have been a fly on the wall when you gave that talk…;-)
This fits very well over basically the last 50 years of modern data. This too permits us to reconstuct solar activity — consistently with the first measure — again, back to roughly 1850.
, so when combined with the previous measure one can infer 
(here’s where the talk would have been useful, as I have no idea what “
” is in this context:-).
Without the talk part of the talk, I will have to try to interpret the transparencies as best as I can:
* We have been able to measure, and record, the transverse shift in Earth-surface-local magnetic field due to the Sun’s magnetic field, since roughly the middle of the 19th century.
* This accurately measured and recorded field can be shown to be consistent with many other measures of solar activity taken with modern instrumentation, in particular sunspot number and F10.7 flux.
* Another measure, basically the short term variability of the geomagnetic field, can be shown to be related to solar heliospheric magnetic field B strength. (A connection via fluctuation-dissipation?) The correlation is very high,
* Computing the interhourly variation of the geomagnetic field (again, a connection via fluctuation-dissipation?) one can once again obtain a measure of solar activity, this time with the solar wind, which is in turn a measure of power input from the sun into the ionosphere. However, it yields the product of B and a second measure,
* “Near polar” observatories, manned for at least 80 years, provide evidence for the sun’s polarity reversals (?) and can be fairly accurately connected back to the actual patterns of solar magnetic whorls (including sunspots) on the sun. This is proof that solar polar reversals have been going on well into the past.
* Presuming that they have been going well into the past and that they are correlated then as they are now with 10Be atoms produced by cosmic rays, we obtain a radiogenic measure of solar activity into the more remote past (but probably at a lower time resolution?) .
* The flow of solar wind through the ionosphere over the polar caps induces a Hall potential due to the magnetic field coming up/down there. Electric fields being comparatively easy to measure, they form yet another way to observe a variable from which solar activity can be inferred. This has apparently been measured back to the late 19th century? This gives us three different ways of determining only two variables (B and V), which is overdetermined but doesn’t matter much since they all three give very much the same answers.
* From all of this information, we can compute the radial magnetic flux, with very reasonable confidence, all the way back to the early 19th century — at least 1850, maybe 1830. The linear trend is basically perfectly flat, and the variation is strictly bounded from above and below.
* It is true that the 20th century had two periods — three cycles from 1935 to 1965 (ish) and 1975 to 2005 (ish) where the radial field was consistently above the long term mean, only barely dipping back to or just over the mean. In between these intervals, the activity was flat at the mean, which is unusual across the record. In all of the rest of the record, the radial field is fairly consistently oscillatory. Although there is no trend, there are definite highs and lows, and (for example) the recent solar minimum was as low as it has ever been in the entire record, although there was a very similar pattern observed back in 1890 to 1900.
* This pattern almost precisely matches the pattern observed in sunspots across the same interval, the inferred Ap Geomagnetic index, and the heliospheric magnetic field at the Earth. All of these show that the 20th century was more active across the board (on average) than the 19th century, but they also show that the early 19th century was nearly as active as parts of the 20th.
* I don’t understand the point of the space climate slide, sorry.
* The next few slides are also very confusing. It appears to be relating (cosmic ray?) neutron counts to year all the way back to 1350 or so, but of course I don’t think that they had neutron detectors back then so I’m guessing that this is inferred by means of a radiogenic proxy. It does, however, clearly show the Sporer, Maunder and Dalton minima reflected in the neutron count, and also appears to be rather inconsistent with the pattern in the indices discussed above in overlapping regions. For example, it seems that neutron counts were, indeed, very low in the latter half of the 20th century (compared to the 600 year mean) and very high in the 15th century, but there is a lot of structure with rather variable autocorrelation. I don’t know what to make of it.
* The final transparency offers evidence that there was significant solar magnetic activity even when there were observationally very few sunspots during e.g. the Maunder minimum. This seems to confound in both directions — one cannot consider sunspot counts to be a completely reliable proxy of solar magnetic activity, and one cannot consider inferred solar magnetic activity to be a completely reliable proxy of sunspot counts? I’m not sure what to make of this.
* The conclusions:
1) We know B, V and n (whatever they are:-) back to maybe the 1830s (presumably with larger errors the further back we go).
2) None of the measures reveal a historically unprecedented period of high solar activity in the late 20th century, i.e. a “Grand Solar Maximum”. And there are quite a few, independent measure. If nothing else, the preponderance of evidence, while allowing for the 20th century to be a period of relatively high solar activity (compared to the entire interval, or even back to the 14th century), does not suggest (as Ushokin has on several occasions) that it is as high as it has been since e.g. 9000 BCE, or that there is anything like a third “mode” for the Sun. (To be honest, speaking for myself, there isn’t much reason in the data to consider the sun to be honestly bimodal. Variable, yes, but I can see little evidence in the data to suggest any sort of “phase transition” in its internal dynamics — I think this is all simple variability, “multimodal” if you like but with so many modes that there are none.)
3) FUV varies with sunspot number. I’m not sure what to make of this.
4) Solar cycle variations can be tracked over at least the last few centuries with geomagnetic observations and proxies. Hey, I’m convinced. Some of what the figures show is no-brainer, nearly perfect tracking and of course makes sense — one is nearly directly measuring the fields, presuming only that the Earth’s field is sufficiently slowly varying over the entire interval and not just the recent end of things where we can measure things more accurately.
5) Which is the final point Lief makes — the results do assume that the geomagnetic field’s direct variation (as best we know it now) can be extracted from the data and that it doesn’t “bend” the answers over the extrapolated regions. A very honest disclaimer.
Seems pretty convincing to me. At the very least, for Ushokin’s recent paper to be taken seriously, this all needs to be discussed and directly confronted. In the end, inconsistency might increase doubt in all asserted results, but when there is one result not in alignment with many other, quite independent ones, one has to be very careful about overstepping the bounds of the assertions.
Call me unconvinced at this point that there is either a “grand” minimum or a “grand” maximum in solar activity in the known record. For either term to be apropos, one would (in my opinion) have to show/know something concrete about the internal dynamics of the sun during the proposed “phases” sufficient to support the proposition that they deserve, in fact, to be called phases, in particular some commonality of organization, at least a dynamical phase transition or persistent degree of self-organization. At this point we are at best inferring the possibility of such things from external macroscopic measurements of solar state from far away and long ago. Not much to go on, really.
rgb
(Feel free to correct/enlighten me if I’ve misread anything in the talk, Lief, allowing for the fact that you don’t explain the meaning of all of the variables and I never heard the actual talk and am trying to make sense of the graphs and slides themselves, so any errors are not malicious on my part but merely ignorant.)
The data shows that post 2005 that solar activity has gone from a very active state to a very inactive state.
Until or if this changes this supports those of us who believe solar variability is much greater then what mainstream keeps trying to convey.
I base my thoughts on the data and the data shows me a dramatic change in solar activity post 2005.
rgbatduke says:
August 7, 2014 at 2:16 pm
* We have been able to measure, and record, the transverse shift in Earth-surface-local magnetic field due to the Sun’s magnetic field, since roughly the middle of the 19th century.
Correct, since the 1720s actually [although not mentioned in the talk]
* This accurately measured and recorded field can be shown to be consistent with many other measures of solar activity taken with modern instrumentation, in particular sunspot number and F10.7 flux.
Correct
* Another measure, basically the short term variability of the geomagnetic field, can be shown to be related to solar heliospheric magnetic field B strength. (A connection via fluctuation-dissipation?)
via the Ring Current [Van Allen Belts]
The correlation is very high, R^2 \sim 0.9 This fits very well over basically the last 50 years of modern data. This too permits us to reconstruct solar activity — consistently with the first measure — again, back to roughly 1850.
Correct
* Computing the interhourly variation of the geomagnetic field (again, a connection via fluctuation-dissipation?)
Via the magnetic field of the currents that cause the aurorae
one can once again obtain a measure of solar activity, this time with the solar wind, which is in turn a measure of power input from the sun into the ionosphere. However, it yields the product of B and a second measure, V^2, so when combined with the previous measure one can infer V (here’s where the talk would have been useful, as I have no idea what “V” is in this context:-).
V is the solar wind speed.
* “Near polar” observatories, manned for at least 80 years, provide evidence for the sun’s polarity reversals (?) and can be fairly accurately connected back to the actual patterns of solar magnetic whorls (including sunspots) on the sun. This is proof that solar polar reversals have been going on well into the past.
This actually holds all the way back to the 1840s
* Presuming that they have been going well into the past and that they are correlated then as they are now with 10Be atoms produced by cosmic rays, we obtain a radiogenic measure of solar activity into the more remote past (but probably at a lower time resolution?) .
Yes, correct, if we calibrate correctly [and there are some problems with that]
* The flow of solar wind through the ionosphere over the polar caps induces a Hall potential due to the magnetic field coming up/down there. Electric fields being comparatively easy to measure, they form yet another way to observe a variable from which solar activity can be inferred. This has apparently been measured back to the late 19th century?
What is measured is the magnetic effect of those currents.
This gives us three different ways of determining only two variables (B and V), which is overdetermined but doesn’t matter much since they all three give very much the same answers.
It is important that the system is overdetermined as that allows us to check the results. [3 eqs with 2 unknowns]
* From all of this information, we can compute the radial magnetic flux, with very reasonable confidence, all the way back to the early 19th century — at least 1850, maybe 1830. The linear trend is basically perfectly flat, and the variation is strictly bounded from above and below.
Correct
* It is true that the 20th century had two periods — three cycles from 1935 to 1965 (ish) and 1975 to 2005 (ish) where the radial field was consistently above the long term mean, only barely dipping back to or just over the mean. In between these intervals, the activity was flat at the mean, which is unusual across the record. In all of the rest of the record, the radial field is fairly consistently oscillatory. Although there is no trend, there are definite highs and lows, and (for example) the recent solar minimum was as low as it has ever been in the entire record, although there was a very similar pattern observed back in 1890 to 1900.
We can find those patterns all over the place, no period is particularly special
* This pattern almost precisely matches the pattern observed in sunspots across the same interval, the inferred Ap Geomagnetic index, and the heliospheric magnetic field at the Earth. All of these show that the 20th century was more active across the board (on average) than the 19th century, but they also show that the early 19th century was nearly as active as parts of the 20th.
The difference is not significant and the 18th century may have been more active than the 20th.
* I don’t understand the point of the space climate slide, sorry.
The point is that we find the same sort of variation in every solar cycle, e.g. that the density is high at solar minimum.
* The next few slides are also very confusing. It appears to be relating (cosmic ray?) neutron counts to year all the way back to 1350 or so, but of course I don’t think that they had neutron detectors back then so I’m guessing that this is inferred by means of a radiogenic proxy. It does, however, clearly show the Sporer, Maunder and Dalton minima reflected in the neutron count, and also appears to be rather inconsistent with the pattern in the indices discussed above in overlapping regions. For example, it seems that neutron counts were, indeed, very low in the latter half of the 20th century (compared to the 600 year mean) and very high in the 15th century, but there is a lot of structure with rather variable autocorrelation. I don’t know what to make of it.
A lot of discussion is needed here. The bottom line is that we can find some of the solar variations in the cosmic ray data, but also that there are problems with the data, e.g. it turns out that the climate plays a role as the deposition of the isotopes also depends on atmospheric circulation and not only on solar activity.
* The final transparency offers evidence that there was significant solar magnetic activity even when there were observationally very few sunspots during e.g. the Maunder minimum. This seems to confound in both directions — one cannot consider sunspot counts to be a completely reliable proxy of solar magnetic activity, and one cannot consider inferred solar magnetic activity to be a completely reliable proxy of sunspot counts? I’m not sure what to make of this.
There is a mystery here. It is very likely that at times [during Grand Minima] the magnetic cycle [and cosmic ray modulation] continues, but for some unknown reason, the magnetic field does not assemble into visible spots.
* The conclusions:
1) We know B, V and n (whatever they are:-)
[B=magnetic field, V=solar wind speed, n=solar wind density]
back to maybe the 1830s (presumably with larger errors the further back we go).
2) None of the measures reveal a historically unprecedented period of high solar activity in the late 20th century, i.e. a “Grand Solar Maximum”. And there are quite a few, independent measure. If nothing else, the preponderance of evidence, while allowing for the 20th century to be a period of relatively high solar activity (compared to the entire interval, or even back to the 14th century), does not suggest (as Ushokin has on several occasions) that it is as high as it has been since e.g. 9000 BCE, or that there is anything like a third “mode” for the Sun.
That is my conclusion too.
(To be honest, speaking for myself, there isn’t much reason in the data to consider the sun to be honestly bimodal. Variable, yes, but I can see little evidence in the data to suggest any sort of “phase transition” in its internal dynamics — I think this is all simple variability, “multimodal” if you like but with so many modes that there are none.)
Agree
3) FUV varies with sunspot number. I’m not sure what to make of this.
The Far UltraViotet [FUV] varies as the sunspot number, so is known as far back as the SSN.
4) Solar cycle variations can be tracked over at least the last few centuries with geomagnetic observations and proxies. Hey, I’m convinced. Some of what the figures show is no-brainer, nearly perfect tracking and of course makes sense — one is nearly directly measuring the fields, presuming only that the Earth’s field is sufficiently slowly varying over the entire interval and not just the recent end of things where we can measure things more accurately.
That is the point of the talk
5) Which is the final point Lief makes — the results do assume that the geomagnetic field’s direct variation (as best we know it now) can be extracted from the data and that it doesn’t “bend” the answers over the extrapolated regions. A very honest disclaimer.
We have theoretical reasons to believe this to be true, but…
Seems pretty convincing to me. At the very least, for Ushokin’s recent paper to be taken seriously, this all needs to be discussed and directly confronted. In the end, inconsistency might increase doubt in all asserted results, but when there is one result not in alignment with many other, quite independent ones, one has to be very careful about overstepping the bounds of the assertions.
As in my view EVERYTHING must fit together, when something doesn’t fit we can learn something. The famous astronomer Le Verrier [co-discoverer of Neptune] once said: “Tout ecart decele une cause inconnue, et peut devenir la source d’une decouverte”
Call me unconvinced at this point that there is either a “grand” minimum or a “grand” maximum in solar activity in the known record. For either term to be apropos, one would (in my opinion) have to show/know something concrete about the internal dynamics of the sun during the proposed “phases” sufficient to support the proposition that they deserve, in fact, to be called phases, in particular some commonality of organization, at least a dynamical phase transition or persistent degree of self-organization. At this point we are at best inferring the possibility of such things from external macroscopic measurements of solar state from far away and long ago. Not much to go on, really.
Agree, but a lot of progress has taken place the last decade, and we’ll learn a lot the next.
so any errors are not malicious on my part but merely ignorant
My default assumption is that folks are not malicious [until they show they are]. Thanks for slugging through the talk.
rgbatduke says:
August 7, 2014 at 2:16 pm
…………….
There is a problem in trying to ascertain solar activity from the geomagnetic signal. Data used by JPL-NASA and the ‘Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris’ (another solar institution) show that the annual variability in the Earth’s outer liquid core generated magnetic field has a clear and strong 21.3 year spectral component equaling 2x average sunspot period.
Spectrum is shown here
Either way, coming from the Earth’s core or a solar induced these geomagnetic oscillations are far stronger then the the heliospheric magnetic field at the Earth’s orbit.
I have collected my points into a more coherent whole as follows:
Recent advances in reconstructions of solar activity can be described thus [I’ll number them for easy reference. Papers and analyses can be given for each point, but are better presented if and when a point is up for discussion]:
1) Variations of TSI are the result of variations of the Sun’s magnetic field.
2) The sunspot number is a very good measure of solar magnetic fields.
3) Variation of the UV flux is due to variations of the Sun’s magnetic field.
4) The F10.7 microwave flux is a very good proxy for the UV flux and it is at the same level at every solar minimum.
5) The variation of the diurnal variation of the geomagnetic field is caused by the UV and is a very good proxy for said UV since 1781 [and with some gaps back to 1722].
6) The solar magnetic field is dragged out into the heliosphere and can be measured directly by spacecraft or almost as accurately by its effect on the Earth’s ring current (Van Allen Belts) whose magnetic effect can be measured on the ground, since 1830s.
7) The magnetic effects caused by the solar wind can also be monitored at auroral latitudes, allowing determination of both the solar wind magnetic field and the solar wind speed. Different research groups agree on these determinations.
8) Cosmic Rays modulation depends [inversely] largely on the heliospheric magnetic field.
9) These various determinations [by several researchers] of the solar magnetic field agree, so we know with good accuracy the solar magnetic field back to at least the 1830s, and hence also TSI.
10) The sunspot number has recently been revised and the result is that solar activity in each of the centuries 18 to 20 is very similar: a minimum about every 100 years near the turn of the centuries and a local maximum in mid-century.
11) There is therefore no Modern Grand Maximum.
12) A result of all of the above is that solar activity reaches almost the same low level at every solar minimum.
13) Early reconstructions of TSI assumed that the solar cycle variation was riding on a varying background level which itself varied as a function of solar activity
14) This background was assumed to be caused by a solar-cycle dependent emergence of small magnetic [so-called] ephemeral regions. Modern measurements show that this assumption is false and that the emergence rate of ephemeral regions is almost constant in time and thus does not vary with solar activity.
15) Thus, reconstructions that show varying background level [e.g. Lean, Krivova, Wang, and others] are not correct, and conclusions based on them are similarly suspect.
16) All our determinations show that solar activity recently is very much the same as a century ago.
17) This means that the decrease of solar activity from the 1870s to the 1910s is very much similar to the decrease from 1980 to now. In particular, TSI now is very likely the same as it was 100 years ago
18) If our climate depends strongly on solar activity [be it TSI, magnetic field, UV, cosmic rays, what-have-you] then our climate the last 30-40 years would be very similar to that a century before [even allowing lags of several solar cycles], and it is not.
I’ll take issue only with this conclusion, which I do not think is strictly justified. If the climate were Markovian (or nearly so), one might expect a strong dependence on solar activity to lead to similar climates at times of similar solar state. But we know that this is not true. The climate depends on an integral over past states of both the earth (and, possibly the sun even if there is a strong dependence) that extends at least centuries into the past, perhaps longer. However, we also know that the climate is almost certainly highly multivariate, and thus far we do not have any convincing model that can explain even meso-scale data from the past — the last 2000 years of climate, for example. In a highly nonlinear, multivariate model, the effect of solar state on the climate might be different one century to the next just because the rest of the Earth’s climate system is very different because of the integrated changes in the meantime.
I would suggest softening it to the more reasonable:
If our climate depends on solar activity [be it TSI, magnetic field, UV, cosmic rays, what-have-you] in a linear response model with no other dynamical influences with longer (or just different) timescales, then our climate the last 30-40 years would be very similar to that a century before [even allowing lags of several solar cycles], and it is not.
This makes the point clear — one cannot just look at solar state locally in time (or integrated as you say over several cycles) and predict what the climate will do with any confidence. Solar state then can take its place in the long line of variables that similarly have turned out, or are turning out, to not be linearizable climate drivers. So far the internal nonlinear dynamics of the climate appear to overwhelm any simple variation in its drivers, making it nearly impossible to extract any sort of linearized response “signal” that can be cleanly associated with a single knob.
Personally, I think we could do much better if we really used the fluctuation-dissipation theorem to analyze the data, but the quality of the data probably still cannot support this, at least not convincingly. But as you say, we are learning more all the time and another decade or three of data taken with modern instrumentation at adequate sampling density might eventually give us a clue from this and other analytic methods.
rgb
Dr Norman Page: However the climate implications of Fig 6 are very clear. Compare the low OSF during the Maunder LIA versus the late 20th Century.
I don’t find them to be clear at all if you look at the complete data.
Steven Mosher: I think I am justified in accepting his work as the best. Could it be wrong? sure.
But as it stands its the best work on the problem I have seen.
I agree, and that was a good post.
After reading his comments, criticisms of his comments, links by Leif Svalgaard and his critics and supporters, I think he is the best informed and most reliable of the commenters on this topic.
vukcevic says:
August 7, 2014 at 3:34 pm
There is a problem in trying to ascertain solar activity from the geomagnetic signal.
Since we can extract solar activity with success, there is no such problem. And external variations cannot penetrate to the core anyway.
rgbatduke says:
August 7, 2014 at 4:24 pm
I would suggest softening it to the more reasonable:
If our climate depends on solar activity [be it TSI, magnetic field, UV, cosmic rays, what-have-you] in a linear response model with no other dynamical influences with longer (or just different) timescales, then our climate the last 30-40 years would be very similar to that a century before [even allowing lags of several solar cycles], and it is not.
People who claim solar influences rarely [if ever] make that qualification [with any precision] when they present correlations so I’ll go with them to the extent that such correlations simply cannot be made as we lack both the data and the theory for making them. A conclusion must be that no correlation presented so far is evidence for any causal connection.
rgbatduke: “Personally, I think we could do much better if we really used the fluctuation-dissipation theorem to analyze the data.”
Oh, man, yet another buzzword (or buzzphrase, if there be such a thing) about whose relevance to the task we’re left to speculate:-)
Seriously, I appreciate references to techniques with which not all of us are familiar; it’s always nice to learn something new. But maybe you could give us non-scientists a little more of a hint about how what Wikipedia says about it might be applied in this context?
Matthew R Marler says:
August 7, 2014 at 4:48 pm
“Compare the low OSF during the Maunder LIA versus the late 20th Century.”
and it is not at all a given that OSF was all that low during the Maunder Minimum: http://www.leif.org/research/Confronting-Models-with-Reconstructions-and-Data.ppt or a pdf-version with no movie http://www.leif.org/research/Confronting-Models-with-Reconstructions-and-Data.pdf
Leif Svalgaard says:
August 7, 2014 at 5:05 pm
rgbatduke says:
August 7, 2014 at 4:24 pm
The climate wouldn’t need to be identical to that of a century ago or 150 or 300 years ago, since climatic conditions existing for hundreds of years previously had been colder. However, you might expect to see similar rates of change from the initially lower temperatures and associated phenomena.
That is what indeed has been observed. The early 18th century warming up from the depths of the LIA was warmer and more sustained than during the late 20th century. Similarly, the warming spells in the mid-19th and early 20th centuries. Don’t know how well these temperature rises correspond to solar cycles as now reconstructed, but I hope you see my point.
It appears to me that an important, if not the most important, parameter in climate change on at least a lot of time scales is tropical insolation, which is a function not only of changes in TSI and solar magnetism, but in terrestrial and other extraterrestrial modulators of solar irradiance (and spectral variance therein) and magnetism. The modulators which seem most important in glacial and interglacial transitions are the orbital and rotational mechanics in the Milankovitch Cycle. For millennial and centennial scale fluctuations, an important factor could be geomagnetism, as discussed recently in comments on this blog.
Here’s a recent paper on the geodynamo bearing on that suggestion, with climatic implications since a ~1350 year cycle coincides will with some observations, such as Bond Cycles:
http://www.lunduniversity.lu.se/o.o.i.s?id=12683&postid=2345020
Where would earth science be without its Nordic contingent? But also hard to beat the aptly named Ian Snowball.
sturgishooper says:
August 7, 2014 at 5:35 pm
Here’s a recent paper on the geodynamo bearing on that suggestion, with climatic implications since a ~1350 year cycle coincides will with some observations, such as Bond Cycles
There is no evidence of the geodynamo having any influence on climate. The Bond cycles may have a quite natural explanation http://www.leif.org/EOS/palo20005-D-O-Explanation.pdf
Leif Svalgaard says:
August 7, 2014 at 5:49 pm
There are correlations between the position of the north magnetic and geomagnetic poles, and both Northern Hemisphere and global temperatures, some say strong, others not statistically significant. Usual disclaimer about correlation and causation.
The ice shelf mechanism suggestion has been around for quite a while and probably actually happens during glacial phases. This sort of amplification is just one reason why D/O Cycles are much more pronounced than Bond Cycles, which nevertheless are globally detectable in the Holocene and previous interglacials. In both glacial and interglacial cycles, the same part of the world may be critical, the North Atlantic.
The fluctuation-dissipation theorem basically says that a non-equilibrium/open system responds in the same way to a (small) applied force as it does to a spontaneous fluctuation. In context, it means that when the Earth, as an open climate system with an irregular but reasonably predictable external driver (the sun, plus a smattering of energy from e.g. tides and geothermal sources) experiences a “sudden” fluctuation in its forcing, we should be able to learn a lot about the internal dynamics of its energy dissipation mechanisms — minimally the most important timescales of dissipation, quite probably a lot more about the actual mechanisms. This works both ways — observing the relaxation mechanisms and timescales of spontaneous fluctuations in e.g. temperature, humidity, etc. can provide information on how the system should respond to related variations in forcing.
That’s why I was asking about some of what Lief had slides on and the connections between the phenomena, when I couldn’t see the mechanisms in questions from what was there. One of the slides, for example, displays a very regular pattern of variations around a mean value of the magnetic field — except when a solar event occurs, when the fluctuation gets bigger. I didn’t know if the fluctuation itself was a solar thing or how the larger fluctuation was coupled back to solar behavior, so I asked basically if the mechanism was known via fluctuation-dissipation from looking at the regular fluctuations and hence available to infer the associated behavior of the Sun in the larger bumps. I should probably have been clearer, sorry.
rgb
rgbatduke says:
August 7, 2014 at 7:07 pm
One of the slides, for example, displays a very regular pattern of variations around a mean value of the magnetic field — except when a solar event occurs, when the fluctuation gets bigger. I didn’t know if the fluctuation itself was a solar thing or how the larger fluctuation was coupled back to solar behavior
The answer is that the two fluctuations have very different causes, the regular one is due to rotation of the Earth into sunlight [which contains the UV giving rise to the electric currents causing the variation]. The larger, irregular ones are due to plasma blobs from the sun hitting the Earth’s magnetic field. Two utterly different beasts having nothing to due with ‘fluctuation-dissipation’. Nature is often much more ‘innovative’ than our feeble attempts of pigeon-holing effects into tidy classes under the pretext that we understand what is going on. [it took us a hundred years to figure this out]
Who the hell uses BC/AD in a scientific paper?
@Juice – Anyone older than 40.
rgb at duke, I found this for the fluctuation-dissipation theorem at wikipedia. It explicitly refers to a slight purturbaation from equilibriium, not a relevant concept for a non-equilibrium system like the Earth. Do you have more information.
Matthew R Marler says:
August 7, 2014 at 8:59 pm
rgb at duke, I found this for the fluctuation-dissipation theorem at wikipedia. It explicitly refers to a slight perturbation from equilibrium
And not applicable to the solar phenomena I discussed in my talk. These are directly driven, like hammer blows.
Leif
Do you believe the Maunder Minimum was just like any solar minima of 20th century? Cassini, Picard et al didn’t know how to count sunspots? Or lowest sunspot count ever had no effect on solar magnetic field and TSI?
“McCracken (2007) proposes that the concept of floors in B may indeed be valid, but notes that since 1428 there must have been at least 4 upward steps in such a floor to reach present day values, the floor value for 1428-1528 being less than a tenth of today’s value.”
You don’t believe this too?
Dr. Strangelove says:
August 7, 2014 at 11:16 pm
>i>Do you believe the Maunder Minimum was just like any solar minima of 20th century? Cassini, Picard et al didn’t know how to count sunspots? Or lowest sunspot count ever had no effect on solar magnetic field and TSI?
The solar magnetic field and TSI were more or less as today. The puzzle is why the magnetic field did not assemble into sunspots: http://www.leif.org/research/SSN/Svalgaard12.pdf
http://www.leif.org/research/Confronting-Models-with-Reconstructions-and-Data.pdf
“McCracken (2007) proposes that the concept of floors in B may indeed be valid, but notes that since 1428 there must have been at least 4 upward steps in such a floor to reach present day values, the floor value for 1428-1528 being less than a tenth of today’s value.”
Not even McCracken believes that today. http://www.leif.org/research/Svalgaard_ISSI_Proposal_Base.pdf
You don’t believe this too?
Why do you believe this? McCracken doesn’t anymore.
The paper does not cite McCraken agreeing with you. It seems to be still an open question. In Figure 2, McCraken (2007) put minimum B at 1 nT while you put it at 6 nT. Between curve fitting of proxy data and eyewitness accounts of astronomers, I trust the latter more. (Remember von Neumann and the elephant)
“The Maunder Minimum was not a serious deficit of magnetic flux, but a lessening of the efficiency of the process that compacts magnetic fields into visible spots. This may now be happening again soon. If so, there is new solar physics to be learned”
To quote Carl Sagan, “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.”
rgbatduke: “That’s why I was asking about some of what Lief had slides on and the connections between the phenomena”
Thanks for connecting that up.
Dr. Strangelove says:
August 8, 2014 at 12:32 am
The paper does not cite McCraken agreeing with you.
…………
Anyone who doesn’t agree with Dr.S and co is a crank.
Dr. McCracken has gone ‘crackers’ and for the good measure joined cyclomaniacs:
Evidence for Planetary Forcing of the Cosmic Ray Intensity and Solar Activity Throughout the Past 9400 Years K.G. McCracken et al
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11207-014-0510-1#page-2
And that’s why I asked, to learn precisely things like this (which were not clear, of course, from the slides themselves:-).
But I agree totally and absolutely with this:
I think that we (scientists in general) are still figuring this out in far too many cases. It’s partly because of our educational process, that starts by focussing on linearizable causes if only because they can be understood by rules. It leaves one with the implicit belief that we can always find rules. But in chaotic nonlinear multivariate systems of high dimensionality (like nature) even if basic physics is nice and linear, “more is different” as my friend Richard Palmer used to say, and complex systems have different rules if they have “rules” at all.
rgb
Leif Svalgaard says:
17) This means that the decrease of solar activity from the 1870s to the 1910s is very much similar to the decrease from 1980 to now. In particular, TSI now is very likely the same as it was 100 years ago.
1980 ?
http://www.solen.info/solar/images/comparison_similar_cycles.png
http://www.solen.info/solar/images/comparison_recent_cycles.png
http://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/images/Zurich_Color_Small.jpg
Dr. Strangelove says:
August 8, 2014 at 12:32 am
The paper does not cite McCraken agreeing with you. It seems to be still an open question. In Figure 2, McCraken (2007) put minimum B at 1 nT while you put it at 6 nT. Between curve fitting of proxy data and eyewitness accounts of astronomers, I trust the latter more. (Remember von Neumann and the elephant)
The whole issue is an active research area and things change rapidly. In McCracken 2007 most of the decrease in B [about 2 nT] takes place in modern times [~1950]. McCracken’s latest [preliminary] assessment is that that decrease did not happen. You can see the latest here: http://www.leif.org/research/HMF-B-since-1815.png
The pink curve labeled ’10Be Ice Cores’ is his latest values, while the purple dashed curve shows his 2007 values that he does not believe anymore. The blue curve is my [and Lockwood’s – as we agree on this] assessment from the geomagnetic record. BTW, my minimum is not 6 nT, but 4 nT.
To quote Carl Sagan, “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.”
To my mind, the extraordinary claim is that the solar magnetic field during the Maunder Minimum almost vanished…There is some evidence that it didn’t, e.g. http://www.leif.org/EOS/Eddy/2007SP_prairie.pdf
“The historical eclipse observations described here seem to require the presence of even the bright network structures, and thus of substantial solar photospheric magnetism during at least the last decade of the Maunder Minimum.”
More of the same and solar is not any where near my criteria for cooling effect, although overall solar activity has been quite low post 2005 despite this recent maximum of solar cycle 24 which is now in the process of ending. Once it ends solar conditions should approach my criteria over a long duration of time which should start global temperatures on the decline.
What has taken place in year 2005 is a complete change from active to inactive solar activity.
This change in my opinion will be more then enough to have another climatic impact just as is the case when one reviews historical climatic data.
My challenge remains- Which is to show me the data which shows a prolonged solar minimum period being associated with a rising temperature trend or a prolonged maximum solar period being associated with a falling temperature trend.
I find no such data and the same result is going to happen as this decade proceeds.
Already solar activity is falling off and we are no where near the bottom of the solar cycle 24-solar cycle 25 minimum.
I think the data (especially post 2005/prior to 2005 ) supports the view that the sun can be quite variable and this variability can happen over a short period of time as is the case in the first decade of this current century.
Expect climate implications if this prolonged solar minimum keeps advancing going forward.
The problem with so many postings is there is a lack of understanding of noise in the climate system, thresholds in the climate system ,lag times in the climate system and that the climate system is non linear and never in the same state.
Therefore my point (which I have made many time previously) is DO NOT EXPECT an x change in the climate from given x changes in items that control the climate. This I have preached but with little fanfare.
Why- look read below.
The initial state of the global climate.
a. how close or far away is the global climate to glacial conditions if in inter- glacial, or how close is the earth to inter- glacial conditions if in a glacial condition.
b. climate was closer to the threshold level between glacial and inter- glacial 20,000 -10,000 years ago. This is why the climate was more unstable then. Example solar variability and all items would be able to pull the climate EASIER from one regime to another when the state of the climate was closer to the inter glacial/glacial dividing line, or threshold.
The upshot being GIVEN solar variability IS NOT going to have the same given climatic impact.
Solar variability and the associated primary and secondary effects. Lag times, degree of magnitude change and duration of those changes must be taken into account.
Upshot being a given grand solar minimum period is not always going to have the same climatic impact.
This is why solar/climate correlations are hard to come by UNLESS the state of solar activity goes from a very active state to a very prolonged quiet state which is what has happened during year 2005.
So the nonsense that post Dalton no definitive solar /climate correlations exist just supports my notions of what I just expressed.
Meanwhile, a quiet sun is correlated with a stronger more meridional jet stream pattern which should cause a greater persistence in Wx. patterns which I think is evident post 2005 for the most part.
This is what those who deny a solar /climate connection fail to understand. They do not know how the climate system of the earth responds to stimuli.
http://www.met.reading.ac.uk/~vy902033/Papers_PDFs/2014%20Lockwood%20and%20Owens,%20ApJL%202041-8205_781_1_L7.pdf
I along with countless others subscribe to this point of view.
Another great source for good solar information/climate connections is the recent climate summit that took place in Las Vegas during July of this year.
Salvatore Del Prete says:
August 8, 2014 at 7:57 am
http://www.met.reading.ac.uk/~vy902033/Papers_PDFs/2014%20Lockwood%20and%20Owens,%20ApJL%202041-8205_781_1_L7.pdf
I along with countless others subscribe to this point of view.
Unfortunately, that view is not quite correct
http://www.leif.org/research/Confronting-Models-with-Reconstructions-and-Data.pdf
but who cares about that when looking for confirmation of a belief subscribed to.
As they say to each his own. Many like myself subscribe to that point of view. Some don’t .
Neither side is going to convince the other.
The recent solar lull(2008-2010) gives much credence to what Professor Lockwood is saying. The
data supports his point of view.
Leif Svalgaard decrease in solar activity since 1980? At most, after the 2000. So who denies the facts? F 10.7 certainly has a fixed minimum?
http://www.climate4you.com/images/SIDC%20DailySunspotNumberSince1900.gif
http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/SolarCycle/Ap.gif
http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/SolarCycle/f10.gif
Salvatore Del Prete says:
August 8, 2014 at 8:32 am
The recent solar lull(2008-2010) gives much credence to what Professor Lockwood is saying. The data supports his point of view.
As I said: “After a Decade of Struggle, Lockwood et al. (2014) are Fast Approaching the Svalgaard et al. Reconstructions of 2003… This is a healthy development and LEA should be congratulated for their achievement, although their model, based on a flawed Sunspot Number series, is not doing too well”
ren says:
August 8, 2014 at 8:54 am
Leif Svalgaard decrease in solar activity since 1980? At most, after the 2000. So who denies the facts?
Ordinarily I wouldn’t bother with you, but let me make an exception for now:
http://www.leif.org/research/Ren-Denial.png
Salvatore Del Prete says:
August 8, 2014 at 8:27 am
As they say to each his own.
Then you could keep it as your own instead of trying to ram it down everybody else’s throat.
Whether you do not see cooling in the Atlantic? The surplus heat in the north quickly disappear.
http://weather.unisys.com/surface/sst_anom.gif
“Whether you do not see cooling in the Atlantic? The surplus heat in the north quickly disappear.
http://weather.unisys.com/surface/sst_anom.gif”
The colormap (key) palette is very suspicious to me. Why is it not a continuous gradient rather than a repeating pattern? The repeating pattern means the information may not be conveyed properly.
Compare a maximum of 1980 of a maximum in 11, 12, 13 cycle.
http://www.solen.info/solar/images/comparison_similar_cycles.png
philjourdan says:
August 8, 2014 at 9:31 am
@Leif – trough.
Good to have online spellcheckers 🙂
@Leif – beats having to get an add on. 😉
rgbatduke says: August 7, 2014 at 2:16 pm
* The final transparency offers evidence that there was significant solar magnetic activity even when there were observationally very few sunspots during e.g. the Maunder minimum.
Leif Svalgaard says: August 8, 2014 at 6:49 am
To my mind, the extraordinary claim is that the solar magnetic field during the Maunder Minimum almost vanished…
It was not solar, but it was the Earth’s magnetic field modulating GCRs . during the Maunder minimum
Hiroko Miyahara (University of Tokyo ) for cosmic rays during Maunder minimum stats that modulation was only present at negative polarity and at a 28 year long periods.
This is more likely to be modulation by the Earth’s magnetic field (see spectrum link in my earlier comment) with two strong components at 5 and 21.3 years, these give cross-modulation at 16 (as shown in the spectrum above) and 26.3 years which is close enough to the Miyahara’s estimate of 28 years.
Unidirectional modulation can come only from a strong DC-type magnetic source with a significant superimposed ripple, which is an accurate description of the Earth’s and not solar magnetic property.
looncraz
http://earth.nullschool.net/#current/ocean/surface/currents/overlay=sea_surface_temp_anomaly/orthographic=-28.63,-4.11,418
http://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/isobaric/700hPa/overlay=temp/orthographic=-26.62,27.47,418
vukcevic says:
August 8, 2014 at 9:46 am
It was not solar, but it was the Earth’s magnetic field modulating GCRs . during the Maunder minimum
You are out of your depths, again.
Ed Martin: View the jet stream forecast on August 12.
http://earth.nullschool.net/#2014/08/12/1500Z/wind/isobaric/250hPa/orthographic=-72.98,51.58,836
waa
“I along with countless others subscribe to this point of view.”
Dont trust someone who cant count his supporters, to count the spots.
Leif Svalgaard says:
August 8, 2014 at 10:31 am
vukcevic says:
> August 8, 2014 at 9:46 am </a
It was not solar, but it was the Earth’s magnetic field modulating GCRs . during the Maunder minimum
…………
You are out of your depths, again
That doesn’t sound like very convincing hypothesis rebuttal.
On the other hand, you might be a bit short of a convincing contra-argument, so what else one is to do?
Well, one can always result to rubbishing the messenger, as it is widely practiced by warmites.
vukcevic says:
August 8, 2014 at 11:14 am
That doesn’t sound like very convincing hypothesis rebuttal.
There are things worthy of rebuttal and there is rubbish.
You could LOOK at the evidence in his talk, for example, before making an assertion like this. The reason that he — and others — think that there was a substantial magnetic field during the Maunder minimum is (if I understand it correctly) because there were solar eclipses that occurred late in the sunspot-free period and phenomena were observed in the corona that are only associated with reasonably strong magnetic fields. This obviously has nothing to do with geomagnetic effects, and suggests (not proves, which is why he is careful not to assert proof) that at least late in the Maunder minimum, the sun had a substantial magnetic field.
IIRC there is secondary corroboratory evidence for this in radioisotope data, but I’m not certain of that as this isn’t my field and I’m operating on memory of other postings and discussions.
The point is that the Maunder minimum may or may not be “the cause” of the LIA. The timing isn’t exactly right. There is certainly nothing like a smoking gun of linear correlation. However, there is some correspondence. The big question is whether or not the lack (mostly) of apparent sunspots was, in fact, accompanied by a minimum in solar magnetic field and increase in atmospheric neutron level that might support e.g. Svenmark. But neutron/radioisotope data tends to be blurred out historically because of transport processes and confounding causes.
Personally, I’m inclined to think that the LIA had multiple “causes”. Perhaps solar variation was one of them, but there were probably at least some others to explain the imprecise alignment of the timing, and in a multivariate model, trying to project any evidence back into a broad region of potential covariance is an open invitation to confirmation bias. The best one can really say is perhaps it isn’t INconsistent, not that it is proven, and then only if there are multiple causes.
rgb
Personally, I’m inclined to think that the LIA had multiple “causes”. Perhaps solar variation was one of them.
Yes, and when one looks at the data one will see the global temperature trend in down with out exception when prolonged minimum solar conditions are present, and vice versa.
Professor Lockwood is right on in his assessment of how the solar magnetic field has changed from the Maunder Minimum to the Modern Maximum. It was a drastic change and now post 2005 the solar parameters are heading down once again.
The data speaks for itself and supports solar variability to a much grater degree then what some posters would like you to believe.
They are in denial of the data which is common place when it comes to the climate and why it changes.
I am growing more confident as studies such as Lockwood’s keep coming out and show through data that solar variability is much greater then what mainstream tries to convey and that it indeed impacts the climate through primary and secondary means.
This will be proven more as this decade proceeds and the current prolonged solar minimum continues and becomes deeper.
The AP index is a great indicator of how the state of the sun has gone from an active state to an inactive state post 2005.
http://www.solen.info/solar/images/comparison_recent_cycles.png
Look at how each solar cycle is declining from the modern maximum to the now solar minimum.
Solar Cycle 25 will likely be weaker yet.
The data shows that the sun is quite variable.
The LIA was a period of tremendous volcanic activity, some of which were catastrophic eruptions in the equatorial band. This is known because signatures are seen in both polar ice cores, indicative of ejecta into the stratosphere. My speculation is that while the stratospheric sulfur gas and ash do not last beyond a couple of years, the aerosol veil and triggered El Nino conditions are enough to substantially shut down solar recharge of equatorial oceanic waters such that when these waters ride the currents beyond the equatorial band, this much cooler water brings chilling weather on a global basis for many years, if not decades.
It is of interest to the science community regarding volcanic eruptions and the overturning circulation. Was that process stalled during the LIA? I think the overturning continued but the oceans didn’t have anything in their tanks that brings warmth to places beyond the equator. And it took a tremendous amount of time to bring that tank back to full. This is how I think catastrophic equatorial eruptions can affect global temperatures for years and decades, even after the veil has cleared. The eruption didn’t stall the overturning circulation, it stalled the equatorial discharge/recharge process by just triggering discharge. That disrupted process would have the ability to eventually negatively affect the entire globe.
Since the scientists have high confidence in Solar grand minimum data, why not look at the correlation to temperature and CO2 in ice columns relative to solar grand minimums?
It should show a decrease in temperature if magnetic effects and high energy particles significantly effect climate.
If any of these are pre-industrial ages then those that are within the industrial age to present will be different than the ones prior.
For CO2 the the cause in effect will be reversed for the % of the most recent being caused by human activity. CO2 would go down with a drop in temperature in pre-industrialized times vs during and after the industrial age. A differential between these when normalised over the data sets could show up supporting or to the detriment to Global Warming and Global Extremes.
Dr. Brown,
Thanks for the attention, I am always willing to listen to a good advise, in following it may not be as responsive.
a) Let’s get the LIA out of the way, it is coincidental with the back end of the Maunder minimum, but not necessarily caused by it.
I’ll rather put my money on the Arctic submarine volcanoes, not on the account of the heat contribution or lack there of (which may not be negligible), but on the account of interference with the North Icelandic Jet, deep cold water current. It has been noted that this current is very ‘temperamental’. The Arctic’s deep cold water overflow is a precondition for the warm Atlantic surface inflow (which sinks below surface further north). No cold overflow, no warm inflow, result icing up of the Arctic ocean and onset of the LIA.
Ok, you disagree, but just as well you could take a look at this:
b) on the Earth magnetic field spectrum see above my
comment 1
and comment 2 .
I agree with Dr. S that solar Hale cycle magnetic field does not penetrate to the Earth’s core, but according to data from distinguished scientist and used by the JPL-NASA, the Earth’s magnetic field contains 2 x sunspot period and the core 65 year periodicity with 4th harmonic (i.e. ~16 year component) in the core’s angular momentum.
65 year (the AMO like) periodicity emanating from the Earth core is just about OK, but Hale type magnetic periodicity (by n orders of magnitude stronger than the heliospheric magnetic field at the earth’s orbit) is a scientific ‘madness’.
The same scientists who produced the date, have calculated the change in the core angular momentum and converted it to the an equivalent contribution to the LOD change.
Using high-pass filter I eliminated low end of the spectrum from their data and what I have left is shown
here
Despite the fact that I read and consider your comments as possibly the best thought out (although many parts, relating to statistics more often than not, are well beyond my grasp), not for one moment I expect of you to give even a second thought to what I write.
The idea that both solar and the Earth magnetic field display the exactly same magnetic periodicity over period the data is available for both it is the stuff pursued by ‘cranks and astrologers’, it is not something that a sane (solar) scientist would contemplate.
And finally, if I may, for understanding general trends in natural variability pursue the Arctic atmospheric pressure and the N. Atlantic SST relationship.
To understand the ENSO (I am told that it may be long term neutral) forget about Darwin and Tahiti, go to Port Moresby.
If you got as this far, I’ll say, thanks again.
Sorry I missed a link:
……….you could take a look at this :
Pamela Gray says:
August 8, 2014 at 1:20 pm
The LIA was not clearly more volcanic than the Modern Warm Period so far, despite Mann, et al’s attempt to paint it as such. Number of VEI 6 or 7 eruptions:
Medieval Warm Period, AD c. 800-1400: six in 600 years (1/100 years on average, although one was a VEI 7, or two, rating the unrated 750 ybp event a 7, & some may be missing)
LIA, AD c. 1400-1850: nine in 450 years (1/50 years, although Tambora was a VEI 7)
Modern Warm Period, AD c. 1850-2014: four in 164 years (1/41 years, but no VEI 7 yet)
An earlier onset for the Medieval WP nets more VEI 6s.
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=9&ved=0CGMQFjAI&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.tetontectonics.org%2FClimate%2FWard2009TableS1.pdf&ei=cTzlU8iELsb5oATXsIHwDA&usg=AFQjCNHtXofou-_3osa_BYFDvL6k6uX2jw&sig2=HD5PFo7b2Qzl0RQT0L95wA&bvm=bv.72676100,d.cGU
But in any case, evidence suggests that the longer term effect of large volcanic eruptions is winter warming over most regions, not the bitter cooling of the LIA.
GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS,
VOL. 12, NUMBER 24, PAGES 2405-2408, DECEMBER 24, 1992
WINTER WARMING FROM LARGE VOLCANIC ERUPTIONS
Alan Robock and Jianping Mao
Department of Meteorology, University of Maryland, College Park
Abstract
“An examination of the Northern Hemisphere winter surface temperature patterns after the 12
largest volcanic eruptions from 1883-1992 shows warming over Eurasia and North America and cooling over the Middle East which are significant at the 95% level. This pattern is found in the first winter after tropical eruptions in, the first or second winter after midlatitude eruptions, and
in the second winter after high latitude eruptions. The effects are independent of the hemisphere of the volcanoes.
“An enhanced zonal wind driven by heating of the tropical stratosphere by the volcanic aerosols is responsible for the regions of warming, while the cooling is caused by blocking of incoming sunlight.”
There is no evidence supporting your contention that an increase in subaerial volcanism could produce the LIA. There is however overwhelming evidence that the LIA was a natural fluctuation in cyclic climate change during the Holocene, as also observed on comparable time scales in prior interglacials and for that matter during glacials. Single volcanic eruptions affect weather for a few years, not climate for hundreds of years. Long periods of nearly continuous submarine volcanism can however affect climate, as happened during parts of the Jurassic and Cretaceous Periods when seafloor spreading was more active as Pangaea broke up. It’s also possible that seismic activity could play a role in the weather events of the ENSO.
sturgishooper says: August 8, 2014 at 2:23 pm
But in any case, evidence suggests that the longer term effect of large volcanic eruptions is winter warming over most regions,
Exactly what I found in the relation to the CET , you are also correct on the ENSO , here correlation is negative.
Sturgis, you are right. Models demonstrate an initial warming pattern, likely caused by the triggered El Nino. However, following that warming there is ample evidence in the literature of a subsequent plunge into cold weather patterns. That cold pattern stays around for a long time and has puzzled scientists. They commonly point to a slow down/disruption in the overturning circulation.
As for the number of volcanic events, I prefer using the ice core data. Why? Because I know that the type of explosion resulted in stratospheric ejecta sufficient to migrate to the poles. The following link is just one of many the explores this data obtained from ice cores around the world. You can clearly see that the LIA had quite a number of events throughout the period. The biggest one has been identified just last year.
http://climate.envsci.rutgers.edu/IVI2/
The following is a very good description of the larger events and subsequent chill. It mentions the odd warming affects as well, which is again, a well-known phenomenon that has a likely cause. I speculate that they are missing the discharge/recharge process Bob Tisdale has been working on.
http://rsta.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/364/1845/2073.full
Typing too fast makes grammar suck ast.
Pamela Gray says:
August 8, 2014 at 3:18 pm
Please present such evidence if you imagine it exists, and how this can happen when it hasn’t been observed.
Teh El Chichon eruption was followed by a super El Nino and Pinatubo by a moderate one, but no such eruption immediately preceded the super El Nino of 1997. In any case, El Ninos and La Ninas are weather events, not climate. El Ninos are slightly more common during warm phases of the climate phenomenon PDO, and La Ninas somewhat more common during the cool phases. It can’t be shown that volcanic eruptions trigger the Ninas or Nadas, although there is a correlation with submarine seismic activity in the SE Pacific.
Krakatoa was followed by the Modern Warm Period, not prolonged cooling. Pinatubo was followed by the warming of the 1990s, not cooling.
Your link was assembled by Robock, author of the study I linked. Did you actually look at his data? It shows a spike in sulfate aerosols during the Medieval Warm Period, from the 12th to the 14th century, not the Little Ice Age, during which the biggest spike is early on, during the 15th century, then at the end, during the 19th, with lesser levels during depths of the LIA, ie the Maunder Minimum or the 17th and 18th centuries and practically nothing during the cold 16th century.
Robock’s aerosol data undercut your unsupported assertion. I wonder why you linked it. Maybe his Version 2 makes your case better, but if so please show the revisions graphically, too. Thanks.
Brand new temperature reconstruction of the Little Ice Age. Notice the ups and downs of temperature swings.
http://www.the-cryosphere.net/8/639/2014/tc-8-639-2014.html
Pamela Gray says:
August 8, 2014 at 3:29 pm
Why on earth would you link to a paper on super-eruptions, the last of which occurred 26,000 years ago, during the previous glaciation, not an interglacial, and which shows that the effects even of these rare events, caused by meteor impacts, still only last for years, thus are not climatic forces?
Do you have any evidence that actually supports your baseless assertion, or only “evidence” which totally guts it?
Just an abstract. I will try to find the paper re: Volcanic Explosion El Nino Trigger. There has been a plethora of papers on this in recent years.
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v426/n6964/full/nature02101.html
found it
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=6&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CFMQFjAF&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.meteo.psu.edu%2Fholocene%2Fpublic_html%2Fshared%2Farticles%2FAdamsetal-Nature03.pdf&ei=F1PlU6mdEYLjoATDxYK4BQ&usg=AFQjCNH8Tmk37dLdKDzsgx91JCEwGvGiWg&bvm=bv.72676100,d.cGU
Pamela Gray says:
August 8, 2014 at 3:39 pm
There is evidence that large volcanic eruptions temporarily make for cooler summers, especially during cold periods like the LIA, as happened after Tambora. But that doesn’t mean that glacial advance in general during cold periods is due to increased volcanism. An already growing glacier might grow more because of two cold summers in a row.
But that has nothing whatsoever to do with your presumed oceanic effect, leading to centuries long climate fluctuations like the Minoan Warm Period, Greek Dark Ages Cold Period, Roman Warm Period, Dark Ages Cold Period, Medieval Warm Period, Little Ice Age and Modern Warm Period, all of which had major volcanic eruptions.
You have yet to produce a single shred of evidence in support of your conjecture that increased volcanism caused the Little Ice Age. If that were the case, then it should have started in the 12th or 13th century rather than the 15th or 16th and should still be going on.
Sturgis, here ya go. 1257. It was a super big one. Not the biggest ever but this one had additionally a tremendous amount of ejecta, clearly seen in the ice core data. Scientists are beginning to recognize this eruption a possible opening door to the LIA.
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=5&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CEIQFjAE&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.lgp.cnrs-bellevue.fr%2Fdocuments%2Fevenements%2FAbstract_samalas_en.pdf&ei=01PlU_-OA8zuoASN4YKwBQ&usg=AFQjCNG7ot8PnOl9Q7NR0m2Vac3BD8tRwg
Sturgis, why would it still be going on? That makes no sense.
The Little Ice Age was not one long cold chill. There were many ups and downs. Some decades were very warm during the Little Ice Age. It is a common mistake to consider the entire period one of cold temperatures. It was not.
Brand new paper. Just the abstract. I will try to find a preprint
http://www.pnas.org/content/111/28/10077
Pamela Gray says:
August 8, 2014 at 3:47 pm
What has driven you over to the Dark Side? Can’t possibly be search for reality, since all the evidence in the world is against your conjecture. You are now in league with Michael Mann, desperately trying to find some other excuse for the “putative” Medieval Warm Period and LIA now that his HS scam has been so thoroughly discredited.
That big eruptions might encourage a nascent El Nino to form or strengthen is plausible, since they are weather events. But he offers no more explanation or supporting evidence than you do for how eruptions every 50 to 100 years can cause climate fluctuations like the Medieval Warm Period to the LIA, especially since these transitions occur at fairly regular intervals in all interglacials (and glacials) and are clearly associated with solar activity and modulations of irradiance and magnetism.
Again, there were no more big eruptions in the LIA than in the Modern WP so far, and there was more sulfate aerosol lofted during the Medieval WP than the LIA. But there’s no convincing a true believer with fact, evidence or reason.
Sturgis, that thread has grown to a rope. However, I still think that the “disruption of the overturning circulation” issue needs to be informed with the speculation that oceans spent a great deal of time undergoing evaporation, IE energy discharge processes and not enough recharging to keep from sliding into cold regimes.
Pamela Gray says:
August 8, 2014 at 3:52 pm
Sturgis, why would it still be going on? That makes no sense.
——————–
Obviously because the number of volcanic eruptions has increased, not decreased since the LIA.
Pamela Gray says:
August 8, 2014 at 3:54 pm
The Little Ice Age was not one long cold chill. There were many ups and downs. Some decades were very warm during the Little Ice Age. It is a common mistake to consider the entire period one of cold temperatures. It was not.
———————–
You’re telling me this, after I posted the fifty year averages and decade by decade temperature breakdowns for the LIA? Do you read the comments in the posts to which you respond?
The ups and downs in the LIA further give the lie to your baseless assertion. There were no big volcanic eruptions during the depths of the LIA nor during he rapid rebound from those depths. Try actually looking at the record before spewing pointless pap.
The closest big volcanic eruption to the depths of the Maunder Minimum during c. 1690 to 1710 occurred at 1660 +/- 20 years, so could have been as late as 1680, but probably wasn’t. In any case, it was nothing special. There wasn’t another one until about 1783.
Look at your own linked graph, for crying out loud!
Sturgis, the ice core data I referred to (which is the data set used by ice core scientists) demonstrates that stratospheric ejecta was far greater during the Little Ice Age than during the previous Medieval Warm Period, so I don’t get your comment about the amount of sulfate aerosol during the MWP. And most scientists now accept the 1257 eruption as having occurred when the MWP was over and may have even been its demise.
Pamela Gray says:
August 8, 2014 at 4:01 pm
If you think you can demonstrate physically how your speculation would work, please do the work and write it up. Until then, it’s nothing but idle conjecture.
Volcanic modulation of insolation leading to prompt summer cooling and longer term winter warming for a few years at most are weather events. Volcanoes aren’t a pimple on the posterior of the vast energy fluctuations produced by the sun’s internal variability and the more potent, longer-lasting, indeed continuous, other modulating sources.
I tell you what Sturgis, write a rebuttal to the journals that have published the now too many to link to papers about how you think they are wrong. These studies are well done and I think are on the right track. But be as upset as you wish that I do not think your comments here to be equivalent rebuttal to the literature review.
This is a keen area of interest for me and I keep current on the literature. It was very exciting to see that 1257 volcano identified. It has sparked a renewed interest in the Little Ice Age and I think will help us understand its causes, devastations, and recovery.
Pamela Gray says:
August 8, 2014 at 4:08 pm
I know the “ice core scientists” to whom you refer. Who says that the LIA started in the 13th century? Mann? Of course he’d like that, but it’s yet another outrageous lie. Disappointing that you’ve bought into such blatant mendacity.
Since you acknowledge that the Medieval Warm Period and LIA have ups and downs, here for the umpteenth, they are for the CET and Manley’s reconstruction of it farther back in time, from which data a real climate scientist, Lamb, identified the MWP & LIA (last number is the annual average):
800-1000 3.5 3.5 15.9 15.9 9.2
1000-1 I00 3.7 3.7 (16.2) 16.2 9.4
1100-1150 3.5 3.5 (16.2) 16.5 9.6
1150-1200 3.9 4.2 (16.3) 16.7 10.2
1200-1250 3.8 4.1 (16.3) 16.7 10.1
1250-1300 3.9 4.2 (16.3) 16.7 10.2
1300-1350 3.6 3.8 15.9 16.2 9.8
1350-1400 3.6 3.8 15.7 15.9 9.5
1400-1450 3.4 3.4 15.8 15.8 9.1
1450-1500 3.5 3.5 15.6 15.6 9.0
1500-1550~ 3.8 3.8 15.9 15.9 9.3
1550-1600 3.2 3.2 (15.3) 15.3 8.8
1600-1650 3.2 3.2 (15.4) 15.4 8.8
1650-1700 a 3.1 3.1 (15.3) 15.3 8.7
1700-17508 3.7 3.7 15.9 15.9 9.24
1750-1800 3.4 3.4 15.9 15.9 9.06
1800-1850 3.5 3.5 15.6 15.6 9.12
1850-1900 3.8 3.8 15.7 15.7 9.12
1900-1950 4.2 4.2 15.8 15.8 9.41
Please note that tied for the warmest 50 year interval is the time in which you & your new best buddy Mickey have decided to revise climate history into the LIA. And the following 100 years were also warmer than the early Medieval Warming Period and much more so than the whole of the LIA.
Only in Stalin’s USSR and modern “climate science” could such revisionism tolerate a rewrite of history of this magnitude.
Pamela Gray says:
August 8, 2014 at 4:14 pm
Again, as is your SOP, you “cite” anonymous studies. If you know of them, trot them out. If not, then don’t mention them. Vague hand waving doesn’t cut it in science. Where are all these “peer reviewed papers”? I showed you mine. When will you show me yours? Until then, as always, you’ve got nothing, noodnik, nada, zilch, zip, but idle (and I do mean idle) conjecture.
I’ll employ your method and mention the sure to be far more numerous papers showing the solar influence on climate change, some of which I’ve already presented and to which you had no response.
Sturgis, you are a rather unpleasant person if you take your rebuttal style as representative if your persona. But that aside, I can see you are someone who clearly will not consider the entire breadth of possible causes of events that form the body of this blog, preferring your solar link. Nonetheless, time will tell the difference between us.
Re: Mann. In case you are wondering, I have commented many times about Mann’s reconstruction and I do not recommend its use. That does not negate the excellent study done on alpine glaciers. I’ve learned to discern research results. It is not uncommon that published research has its strengths and weaknesses. It is rather the rule, not the exception. You learn to take what is good and critique what is not so good. Heck, I can’t read my own one claim to fame without pointing out its weaknesses. But it has been replicated using different methods yet the results were the same. So even with its weaknesses, my study has stood the test. And as a result of my experience, I can tell you plain and straight, one needs cojones to do research and publish, whether it turns out good or bad. I had beginners luck.
Pamela Gray says:
August 8, 2014 at 4:34 pm
Mann’s climatic conclusion is totally unsupported by his glacier analysis, yet that’s the part that you like.
I have considered and still do consider every possible plausible explanation for decadal, centennial and millennial climatic cycles. Having done so, I can reject the role of volcanism in causing these observed cycles. Volcanoes can and do affect weather within climatic cycles but there is no instance in this or any other interglacial of single volcanoes, even the very biggest, as shown in your own link, “causing” a centennial or millennial, ie D/O or Bond Cycle.
Not even the Toba supervolcano some 74,000 years ago, which nearly wiped out humanity, had any lasting climatic effect, although it occurred well into a glacial.
Increased volcanism lasting millennia have been implicated in past climatic changes, even catastrophes like mass extinctions, but the causes of the Permian/Triassic and Triassic/Jurassic events remain controversial. The Siberian Traps and Central Atlantic Magmatic Province (start of Pangaea breakup) have been implicated, however.
Climatic effect even of Toba limited at best, and might not even have stressed humans as much as suggested:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn23458-supervolcano-eruptions-may-not-be-so-deadly-after-all.html#.U-VrcKNupmc
Involves modeling, but no record of climatic effect in geologic or paleoproxy records. Robock thinks maybe the effect was too brief to show up.
For that matter, climate was basically the same before and after the end-Mesozoic impact that wiped out the non-avian dinosaurs and so many other lifeforms 65 mya, despite so many creatures having perished in the K/T boundary extinction.
Late Cretaceous and Paleocene climates compared (not much contrast):
http://www.scotese.com/lcretcli.htm
http://www.scotese.com/paleocen.htm
There were fluctuations during the Maastrichtian (72 to ~65 mya), the last age of the Cretaceous, but also during the Danian, first age of the Paleocene (~65 to 56 mya), after the planet settled down to normal from the big hit it took.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0377839897000273
But even close to the impact site, the change wasn’t great:
http://www.geologica-acta.com/MostrarAbstractAC.do?abstract=gav0701a02
In terms of clay mineralogy, the studied interval is characterized by a steady increase in smectite that parallels a decrease in kaolinite with the latter disappearing about two My after the K-P boundary during Biozone NP2. This change in the clay mineral assemblage, which is almost independent of lithology, may suggest a long-term shift from stable, tropical warm and humid climates during the latest Maastrichtian to warm climate with alternating humid and arid seasons in the middle Danian.
Having ruled out volcanoes as the primary cause of centennial to millennial scale climate change on the basis of the evidence, what you might ask do I see as the primary forcing, should such a thing even exist?
In the present state of the evidence, the likeliest candidate IMO is orbital mechanics, the same modulator of insolation that drives climate change on the scale of tens and hundreds of thousands of years. Other factors are important of course, not least the sun’s own cycles. But the other forcings are IMO laid over the patterns set by earth’s movements.
Orbital mechanics work continuously, not just every 100,000 and 10,000 years to create the glacial/interglacial cycle. Each of the orbital and rotational parameters changes continuously. It’s just that at about ten and hundred thousand year intervals they combine to make big changes, sending the world into and out of glacial and interglacial epochs. During glacials and interglacials, their shorter term changes produce stadials, Heinrich Events, D/O and Bond cycles, operating through their modulation of insolation, which in turn drives the cyclic changes observed in oceanic oscillations, producing the warmer and colder intervals so obvious in the paleoclimatic and instrumental records.
Any changes of less duration than 30 years, like even the biggest volcanic eruptions, can affect weather within these multidecadal, centennial and millennial fluctuations, arising from fundamentally the same causes as the well-established cycles of tens and hundreds of thousands of years.
Sturgis, I focus on the LIA. It is only a slight dip in temperature compared to the glacial periods. My focus is on the affects of equatorial explosive volcanic events that have the capacity to interact with ENSO processes under current conditions (land masses, oceanic circulation patterns, etc of the current era). Cold snaps and ice ages are two different kinds of events.
I have said before (this is a topic I often comment on) that if a super-volcanic event interfered with a discharged ocean (which ordinarily creates a very pleasant warm globe) that was in need of a good, deep, strong recharging La Nina, the affect would be a double whammy.
I think global temperatures have a natural oscilliatory behavior. ENSO/atmospheric teleconnected mechanisms create our noisy data set. Inject stratospheric aerosols enough to create a thick veil. We can calculate the additional affect a stratospheric veil would have at any point in La Nina/El Nino conditions. Add or subtract to ENSO swings and I think we can explain the catastrophic swing of the LIA. The research literature is busy working this out as we speak.
Pamela Gray says:
August 8, 2014 at 7:17 pm
No they’re not different. Only in magnitude.
The LIA was one of many comparable cool phases during the Holocene, although one of the colder ones, however far from the coldest. All the other interglacials show the same pattern. More importantly, so do the glacials, only more extremely, thanks in part to ice sheet dynamics and lower temperatures. Hence, there is nothing special about the LIA requiring special pleading to volcanoes, which simply cannot produce the effects you imagine by any known mechanism or any for which you have been able to make a physical case. Because you can’t.
Your focus is objectively misplaced, as there is not a single shred of evidence to support your baseless conjecture.
I start with valid observations, not wild speculation based upon an eruption c. AD 1257, at the start of one of the two warmest 50 year periods in the Medieval Warm Period. If Toba (2,500 to 3,000 cubic kilometers) didn’t affect climate, how then did Samalas (40 km3)?
My starting point is that every glacial and interglacial shows the same fluctuations. That fact cannot be explained by volcanoes, although they could be a modulating factor on very short, subclimatic time scales. On the decadal scale, so are inherent solar fluxes. It seems reasonable to me that the same forcings, orbital mechanics, which control glacial and interglacial onsets also control the fluctuations within these major cycles. Volcanoes can’t and don’t.
Pamela Gray says:
August 8, 2014 at 7:30 pm
For the umpteenth time, please cite this research you imagine is so busy.
The leading expert, whose own data you rely upon, Robock, admits that there is no climate signal from Toba, although he expected one. His excuse is that the effect might have been too short lived.
Explain please then how these allegedly busy “researchers” are finding a climate signal from eruptions two orders of magnitude less massive and energetic than the only supervolcanic eruption of the past 74,000 years and longer.
Ok, so go to the WUWT solar reference page, and look at the graph of actual atmospheric clarity indexes against time: three specific “timed” volcanoes are visible. They were not as large as many volcanoes in the past, but …. NONE has an effect longer than 2-1/2 years.
So, how long did a volcano in (pick a year, say 1250) have to keep blowing off its clouds to make a 50 year-long impact on global climate? If Pinatubo affected global temperatures because of atmospheric clarity and dust and aerosols and gasses, then temperatures should begin declining immediately (3-4 months, no longer) but only slightly slowly regain previous levels – maybe 6-9 months after the eruption stops.
But the LIA and MWP global temperature proxies show neither burps nor drops.
RACookPE1978 says:
August 8, 2014 at 7:55 pm
My point exactly.
Big eruptions, apparently even the biggest of the big, affect only weather for a few years at most, not climate. Maybe Toba affected a decade, but that’s not in evidence. Anyway less than the minimum unit of climate, ie 30 years.
After the effect wears off, it’s back to the predominant prevailing decadal to centennial scale trend. In the case of Pinatubo, that was still warming. But the solar/orbital modulated millennial scale trend is cooler, lasting over 3000 years now.
QED.
RACookPE1978 says:
August 8, 2014 at 7:55 pm
Re burps or drops: those in the record don’t correlate well or at all with volcanic eruptions or their sulfates. As noted, the c. 1257 event occurred near the start of one of the two warmest 50 year periods of the MWP, & indeed was slightly warmer than the previous 50 year period. The one before that was as warm.
Conversely, the coldest decades of the LIA during the Maunder Minimum did not closely follow a big eruption or sulfate spike. Tambora happened during an already cold downturn during the Dalton Minimum.
Krakatoa occurred early in the Modern Warm Period, but during its first downturn, however the coldest years of that cycle preceded it.
Sturgis, the recent literature indicates you are mistaken.
Supporting documents from “Volcano-induced regime shifts in millennial tree-ring chronologies from northeastern North America”. It includes graphs for temperature reconstructions and volcanic timing. There is an interesting chart on page 9.
Sturgis, if you have an issue with these research papers, address them. Your ad hominem replies directed at me are misplaced. I am referring to the literature. I think these researchers are on to something that makes sense. So critique the literature if you think it so wrong.
http://www.pnas.org/content/suppl/2014/06/25/1324220111.DCSupplemental
Only for Ed Martin.
Forecasts show in the stratosphere, the same pattern of pressure as in the previous year.
Ed search for me on another website. Hey.
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/stratosphere/strat_a_f/gif_files/gfs_z100_nh_f240.gif
Sturgis
you are right. Contemporary observations demonstrate that the decade prior to 1257 was often cool and unsettled i.e Before the major eruption
It warmed up the year after. There were a few ups and downs but then in the early 1300’s we had an exceptionally warm period lasting around half a century.
Mann bemoaned the fact that the temperature drop did not show up in his tree ring reconstruction and wrote to Nature to explain why.
Volcanic aerosol effects are often exaggerated as it supports the current notion that they are causing the current temperature hiatus. A major eruption-depending on its location-may impact on the weather for a season or so but observations appear to show they were short lived effects
tonyb
tonyb says:
August 8, 2014 at 11:52 pm
…
Agree, aerosols are quickly washed out by precipitation. On the other hand beside the volumes of the volcanic CO2 (remaining in the atmosphere for some years), volcanic ash is deposited on the Arctic ice and snow, reducing the Arctic’s high albedo (infrared frequencies penetrate snow and ice few inches below surface) accelerating the summer melt.
Thus most of volcanic eruptions effect on the CET, I found to be a short downward blip followed by a less pronounced but much longer lasting temperature rise.
“To my mind, the extraordinary claim is that the solar magnetic field during the Maunder Minimum almost vanished…There is some evidence that it didn’t”
Leif, not vanished but much lower than solar minima of modern times.
“Further evidence comes from naked-eye sunspots, generally observed only during high solar activity but recorded for centuries in Japan, Korea and China. The rate is low, only one naked-eye spot group every 8 to 10 years on average, but none was recorded at all between 1639 and 1720, essentially the period of the Maunder Minimum. A final confirmation comes from eye-witness descriptions of the solar eclipses of 1652, 1698, 1706 and 1715. At periods of high solar activity, the corona is circular with many long streamers and plumes, while at low activity the corona is small with few equatorial streamers. The corona at the first three eclipses listed was lacking streamers and standing only a few minutes of arc out from the sun – exactly what would be expected at a period of very low activity. In contrast, the eclipse of 1715 showed bright equatorial coronal streamers and polar plumes at the very time when the Maunder Minimum had just ended.”
(Eddy et al, 1977)
IMO an extraordinary claim is solar magnetic field and TSI during the Sporer and Maunder minima were the same as in modern times.
Dr. Strangelove says:
August 9, 2014 at 4:41 am
IMO an extraordinary claim is solar magnetic field and TSI during the Sporer and Maunder minima were the same as in modern times.
http://www.leif.org/EOS/2011GL046658.pdf
“We argue that there is a minimum state of solar magnetic activity associated with a population of relatively small magnetic bipoles which persists even when sunspots are absent, and that consequently estimates of TSI for the Little Ice Age that are based on scalings with sunspot numbers are generally too low. The minimal solar activity, which measurements show to be frequently observable between active‐region decay products regardless of the phase of the sunspot cycle, was approached globally after an unusually long lull in sunspot activity in 2008–2009. Therefore,the best estimate of magnetic activity, and presumably TSI, for the least‐active Maunder Minimum phases appears to be provided by direct measurement in 2008–2009.”
Leif I suggest that direct measurement in about 2020-2021 will settle the matter.
Dr Norman Page says:
August 9, 2014 at 6:22 am
Leif I suggest that direct measurement in about 2020-2021 will settle the matter.
We are now halfway to the next minimum and TSI and HMF are not behaving any different than what they do at similar sunspot numbers as we have now, so I see no reason to think that 2020-2021 will be any different than 2008-2009. and I suggest that people with entrenched opinions will not change there mind no matter what happens. If 2020-2021 turns out to be just like 2008-2009 will you consider all your claims falsified?
Leif. As you know, I am mainly interested in climate forecasting. My forecasts are not dependent on a single data point from one particular variable. Here is the conclusion of my latest post at
http://climatesense-norpag.blogspot.com
which does address the climate in that time frame. Note however this is happenstance because I wouldn’t expect to see the climate effects of the solar activity in 2020-21 until about 2032-33..
” 4. Conclusions and Suggestions for Forecasting
Global temperature trends, solar activity and the climate and weather patterns since the original 2010 forecast have simply strengthened confidence in the forecast of both imminent decadal and long-term centennial cooling as outlined above.
The chief uncertainties relate to the exact timing of the current millennial solar activity peak and to the regionally variable lag time between the solar activity peak and its appearance as a peak in land temperatures and global SSTs. A +/- 12 year lag between the neutron count and the SST data has been used here following Fig3 in Usoskin et al:
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/full/2005ESASP.560…19U
Other investigators have suggested lags between 12 and 20 years. We will see.
How confident should one be in the predictions in this post? The pattern and quasi-periodicity method doesn’t lend itself easily to statistical measures. However, statistical calculations only provide an apparent rigor for the uninitiated and, in relation to an ensemble of IPCC climate models, are entirely misleading because they make no allowance for the structural uncertainties in the model set up. This is where scientific judgment comes in, as some people are better at pattern recognition and meaningful correlation than others. A past record of successful forecasting such as indicated above is a useful but not infallible measure. In this case I am reasonably sure (say 65/35) for about 20 years ahead. Beyond that certainty drops rapidly. I am sure, however, that they will prove closer to reality than anything put out by the IPCC, Met Office or the NASA group. In any case, this is a Bayesian type forecast in that it can easily be amended on an ongoing basis as the Temperature and Solar data accumulate. If there is not a 0.15 – 0.20 drop in Global SSTs by 2018 -20, I would need to re-evaluate.
As to the future, the object of forecasting is to provide practical guidance for policy makers. The rate, amplitude and timing of climate change varies substantially from region to region so that, after accounting for the long term quasi-millennial periodicity, I would then estimate the modulation of this trend by providing multi-decadal climate forecasts for specific regions. This would be accomplished with particular reference to the phase relationships of the major oceanic and atmospheric systems PDO AMO, NAO, ENSO etc, a la Aleo and Easterbrook linked to in section 2.4 above. The earth has been subdivided into tectonic plates. It would be useful to have, as a guide to adaptation to climate change, multi-decadal regional forecasts for the following suggested climate plates, which are in reality closely linked to global geography.
1 North America and Western Europe.
2 Russia
3 China
4 India and SE Asia
5 Australasia and Indonesia
6 South America
7 N Africa
8 Sub Saharan Africa
9 The Arctic
10 The Antarctic
11 The intra tropical Pacific Ocean. Detailed analysis of the energy exchanges and processes at the ocean /atmosphere interface in this area is especially vital because its energy budget provides the key to the earth’s thermostat.”
To the dismay for those who do not believe in the solar/climate connection historical data shows that during and around prolonged solar minimum periods there is a marked increase in volcanic activity.
Of course those who are in denial will also be in denial of this evidence.
Dr. Norman Page you are correct and by 2020 we will be vindicated.
Dr Norman Page says:
August 9, 2014 at 7:16 am
Leif. As you know, I am mainly interested in climate forecasting. My forecasts are not dependent on a single data point from one particular variable.
So, what was that nonsense about 2020-2021 ‘settling the matter’?
As I said: “people with entrenched opinions will not change their mind no matter what happens”
http://www.spaceandscience.net/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderfiles/ssrcresearchreport1-2010geophysicalevents.pdf
As you can see i just provided more data that supports solar/climate connections. Of course those in denial will dismiss this as they do with all of the other evidence.
In the end it is good to have such 180 degree opinions because it will be that much easier to prove who has been wrong all along.
Leif you said
“. The minimal solar activity, which measurements show to be frequently observable between active‐region decay products regardless of the phase of the sunspot cycle, was approached globally after an unusually long lull in sunspot activity in 2008–2009. Therefore, the best estimate of magnetic activity, and presumably TSI, for the least‐active Maunder Minimum phases appears to be provided by direct measurement in 2008–2009.”
I thought you were implying that 2008-9 provided a floor for solar activity. That is the matter I was referring to that might be settled. I think that it is possible ,if not likely that e.g. the neutron count in 2020 – 21 will be higher than in 2008-9.
As one can see the solar lull of 2008-2010 produced a very meridional atmospheric circulation as was forecasted by those of us who monitor solar /climate connections.
This trend will continue only being slightly moderated during this recent solar maximum.
Watch EUV levels once around 100 units or lower impacts will become increasingly evident, as what happened during the recent solar lull.
All my solar criteria with the exception of the solar wind speed was meant during the most recent solar lull.
Found you, Ireneusz, interesting wow! @ren
Following from Leif and rgb @ 3:19 – Aug 7. Words from each —
“. . . when there is one result not in alignment with many other, quite independent ones, one has to be very careful about overstepping the bounds of the assertions.
As in my view EVERYTHING must fit together, when something doesn’t fit we can learn something.”
I have used the analogy of a tapestry.
Pamela Gray says:
August 8, 2014 at 8:36 pm
It’s not ad hominem to point out that you have not been able to present a single paper or any other sort of evidence in support of your plainly false on its face baseless assertion.
Now at last you have finally produced one, but it is hopelessly flawed. It is Mannian in its reliance on modeling and trying to infer temperature from tree rings. Its temperature reconstruction flies in the face of the CET reconstruction and other North Atlantic region proxy data.
If the effect of one large eruption clears in at most a few years, then your conjecture requires major eruptions every few years. That is not what the record shows. After 1257, there wasn’t another VEI 6 until c. 1280, then not again until during the real LIA, ie in 1452, 1477, 1580, 1600, 1650 and c. 1660. This lame excuse simply won’t wash.
It’s clearly part and parcel of the revisionism by the Team into which you have bought. You’ll have to better than this if you want to convince any skeptic that the LIA began in 1257 thanks to volcanos.
Dr Norman Page says:
August 9, 2014 at 7:37 am
I thought you were implying that 2008-9 provided a floor for solar activity. That is the matter I was referring to that might be settled.
I implied that. And that includes the Maunder Minimum. Thus no 1000-yr cycle.
I think that it is possible ,if not likely that e.g. the neutron count in 2020 – 21 will be higher than in 2008-9.
I think not. There is a 22-yr cycle in cosmic rays [and we know why], such that the minima in 1964, 1986, 2008 were high and 1954, 1976, 1996, [and 2020] were low.
What the co2 driven global warming advocates don’t discuss is that if the ocean has started eating global warming since the trade winds changed during the negative phase of the ocean’s ~60 year multi-decadal cycles, they also emitted excess energy during their positive phase from 1975-2005. The implication is that the oceans are capable of storing energy on long timescales, and releasing it on long timescales too. And they store a lot of energy. The top two metres alone contain as much energy as the entire atmosphere above.
We know that the oceans keep the air temperature up over night as the release some of the energy the Sun poured into them during the day. We also know that there is a lag of a couple of months between the longest day of the year and the peak in surface air temperatures near coasts. This is thermal inertia and heat capacity at work. On longer timescales, we have recently confirmed that runs of El Nino events which release a lot of energy from the oceans are initiated on the falling side of the solar cycle, never on the upswing.
So we can go a stretch further and combine what we know. When solar activity falls, energy comes out of the ocean, not just over the period of the decline of a single 11 year solar cycle, but if the Sun stays low in activity terms, for many years. An integration of the sunspot number shows us that the ocean heat content rose all the way from 1934 to 2003. This is the real cause of ‘global warming’. A lot of excess energy is still retained in the upper ocean. We can expect the effect of a couple of low solar cycles to be softened by a proportion of that excess heat returning to space via the atmosphere warming it on the way.
In developing my understanding of the Earth’s systems, I developed a couple of very simple models to help me fathom the way the surface temperature stays fairly constant as the solar cycles wax and wane. Back in 2009, by analysing the data, I found that the global average sea surface temperature, the SST, stays fairly constant when the Sun is averaging around 40 sunspots per month. By calculating the running total departing from this figure in a simple integration I found that combined with the ~60 oceanic cycles (also solar influenced), I could reproduce the temperature history of the last 150 years quite accurately. By adding in a nominal forcing for co2 (or an allowance for the infamous ‘adjustments’ to the data), I was able to get a match to monthly data which has a Pearson R^2 value of 0.9.
The above is part of an article ROG TALKBLOKE wrote from his web-site talkblokes talkshop.
I think this article presents a strong case for solar climate connections.
I am merely presenting the evidence and there is a lot of it.
What if …..
It is easy to look at a small amount of data and reach invalid conclusions. We have very little data on our sun from before the 17th century.
What if the Maunder Minimum was a period of solar regeneration (increases fuel availability)? What if the average solar output since that time is stronger than the mean over million of years? What if the regeneration produces fuel that lasts 400-500 (or so) years? What if solar output after that fuel start to run low becomes weaker?
Something like this conjecture would explain the various warm periods we’ve seen over the last 3000 years. However, there is no data available that supports or contradicts this wild guess.
Just sayin ….
tonyb says:
August 8, 2014 at 11:52 pm
The shameless attempt by the Team to rewrite climate history continues. The HS failed, so now they’re looking for other lame excuses to hand wave away the MWP & LIA, which are clearly just the latest prior two examples of the naturally occurring, centennial-scale fluctuations (I’m willing to call them cycles) so evident throughout the millions of years at the very least since the MIocene.
I’m sorry that Pamela has bought into this further corruption of science by the Team.
vukcevic says:
August 9, 2014 at 1:39 am
That is also what Robock, the most distinguished student of the “climatic” effects of volcanoes found.
The neutron count once this solar maximum ends will exceed 6500 counts per minute as it did during the recent but very short solar lull. This next solar lull will be much greater in duration and just as severe as the previous solar lull 2008-2010.
Still however not approaching Maunder Minimum levels. For more good information on that I refer the posters on this site to Professor Lockwood’s most recent study just released. I will post it again a must read.
http://www.met.reading.ac.uk/~vy902033/Papers_PDFs/2014%20Lockwood%20and%20Owens,%20ApJL%202041-8205_781_1_L7.pdf
This is right on and is the trend in solar thinking.
http://www.nipccreport.org/reports/ccr2a/pdf/Chapter-3-Solar-Forcing.pdf
Another great study in support of solar/climate connections and this article.
The paper below is an earlier study which agrees with the most recent study done by Professor Lockwood.
Keywords:
Maunder Minimum;
coronal mass ejections;
heliospheric current sheet;
heliospheric magnetic field;
open solar flux;
solar cycle
[1] Open solar flux (OSF) variations can be described by the imbalance between source and loss terms. We use spacecraft and geomagnetic observations of OSF from 1868 to present and assume the OSF source, S, varies with the observed sunspot number, R. Computing the required fractional OSF loss, χ, reveals a clear solar cycle variation, in approximate phase with R. While peak R varies significantly from cycle to cycle, χ is surprisingly constant in both amplitude and waveform. Comparisons of χ with measures of heliospheric current sheet (HCS) orientation reveal a strong correlation. The cyclic nature of χ is exploited to reconstruct OSF back to the start of sunspot records in 1610. This agrees well with the available spacecraft, geomagnetic, and cosmogenic isotope observations. Assuming S is proportional to R yields near-zero OSF throughout the Maunder Minimum. However, χ becomes negative during periods of low R, particularly the most recent solar minimum, meaning OSF production is underestimated. This is related to continued coronal mass ejection (CME) activity, and therefore OSF production, throughout solar minimum, despite R falling to zero. Correcting S for this produces a better match to the recent solar minimum OSF observations. It also results in a cycling, nonzero OSF during the Maunder Minimum, in agreement with cosmogenic isotope observations. These results suggest that during the Maunder Minimum, HCS tilt cycled as over recent solar cycles, and the CME rate was roughly constant at the levels measured during the most recent two solar minima.
View Full Article with Supporting Information (HTML) Enhanced Article (HTML) Get PDF (347K)
More content like this
http://iceagenow.info/2011/11/russian-scientists-predict-100-years-cooling/
Yet another solar scientist in support of my claims. I think I presented enough for now but it goes on and on and on.
I wonder why? I know the answer we are all wrong it is in our imaginations. All the data is wrong ,all the studies are wrong.
http://cosmicrays.oulu.fi/
See the spike this will be exceeded going forward.
Richard M says:
August 9, 2014 at 7:59 am
It is easy to look at a small amount of data and reach invalid conclusions. We have very little data on our sun from before the 17th century.
We have ten thousand years of cosmic ray data from ice on the Earth and 3 billion years worth from rocks on the Moon…
sturgishooper says:
August 9, 2014 at 8:00 am
tonyb says:
August 8, 2014 at 11:52 pm
The shameless attempt by the Team to rewrite climate history continues. The HS failed, so now they’re looking for other lame excuses to hand wave away the MWP & LIA, which are clearly just the latest prior two examples of the naturally occurring, centennial-scale fluctuations (I’m willing to call them cycles) so evident throughout the millions of years at the very least since the MIocene.
Right on.
Salvatore Del Prete says:
August 9, 2014 at 8:05 am
This is right on and is the trend in solar thinking.
Lockwood et al. are just now catching up with what we published back in 2003 [ http://www.leif.org/research/Determination%20IMF,%20SW,%20EUV,%201890-2003.pdf ]. This is, of course, good for him, but then he throws away his accomplishment by screwing up his model for extending the result back to the Maunder Minimum. He will eventually also see the light about this.
Salvatore Del Prete says:
August 9, 2014 at 8:26 am
See the spike this will be exceeded going forward.
No, it will not. As I pointed out upthread there is a 22-yr cycle in cosmic ray intensity and at the next solar minimum, the cosmic rays will be less than at the 2008 minimum [and we know why]; check the top three curves on http://www.nwu.ac.za/sites/www.nwu.ac.za/files/files/p-nm/SRU%20Neutron%20Monitors%20Monthly%20Graphs.pdf
Perhaps you should pontificate a bit less about things you do not understand, rather than carpet-bombing the blog with unsupported self-congratulatory delusions.
Salvatore Del Prete says:
August 9, 2014 at 8:17 am
“Assuming S is proportional to R yields near-zero OSF throughout the Maunder Minimum. However, χ becomes negative during periods of low R, particularly the most recent solar minimum, meaning OSF production is underestimated. This is related to continued coronal mass ejection (CME) activity, and therefore OSF production, throughout solar minimum, despite R falling to zero. Correcting S for this produces a better match to the recent solar minimum OSF observations. It also results in a cycling, nonzero OSF during the Maunder Minimum, in agreement with cosmogenic isotope observations. These results suggest that during the Maunder Minimum, HCS tilt cycled as over recent solar cycles, and the CME rate was roughly constant at the levels measured during the most recent two solar minima.”
You are completely misunderstanding what the paper says. It does in fact argue that solar activity during the Maunder Minimum [CME rate] was at levels measured during the most recent two solar minima, implying that the solar magnetic field and TSI were also at that level..
Leif check Fig14 at
http://climatesense-norpag.blogspot.com/2014/07/climate-forecasting-methods-and-cooling.html
The 2009 count is significantly higher than 1964 or 1986. I suggest that the 2005-6 drop in e g the Ap index – Fig 13 at same link represents a real regime change in solar activity.Again look at the Ap index for cycle 24 v 23. . There is no reason to suppose that the 24/25 minimum will not be deeper than 23/24. I do agree that what happens at the 23/24/minimum will be very illuminating-
hence my ” settle the matter ” comment
Leif,- sorry obviously I meant what happens at the 24/25 minimum will be illuminating.
sturgishooper says:
August 9, 2014 at 8:00 am
@vukcevic
That is also what Robock, the most distinguished student of the “climatic” effects of volcanoes found.
…….
Thanks, that is of some comfort to know.
I had to Google Scholar: Robock volcanic eruptions and climate.
Found numerous papers with astonishing amount of information.
Leif Svalgaard says:
August 9, 2014 at 8:41 am
Richard M says:
August 9, 2014 at 7:59 am
It is easy to look at a small amount of data and reach invalid conclusions. We have very little data on our sun from before the 17th century.
We have ten thousand years of cosmic ray data from ice on the Earth and 3 billion years worth from rocks on the Moon…
OK, where is your 10,000 year reconstruction? Should be quite interesting.
Dr Norman Page says:
August 9, 2014 at 9:13 am
The 2009 count is significantly higher than 1964 or 1986.
Different stations show different trends. Thule [Greenland] has no trend [ http://www.leif.org/research/thule-cosmic-rays.png ], South-Pole has a decrease of 10% over the past 50 years. Hermanus has no trend [red curve on] http://www.nwu.ac.za/sites/www.nwu.ac.za/files/files/p-nm/SRU%20Neutron%20Monitors%20Monthly%20Graphs.pdf
That the stations have different trends can have many causes, some instrumental, some unknown. What they all have in common is that the count shows an alternation of high sharp peaks and broad shallower peaks. Since the 2008 peak was sharp, the next will be broad and lower.
Richard M says:
August 9, 2014 at 10:41 am
OK, where is your 10,000 year reconstruction? Should be quite interesting.
http://www.leif.org/EOS/PNAS-2012-Steinhilber,pdf
http://www.leif.org/EOS/PNAS-2012-Steinhilber.pdf
Dr Norman Page says:
August 9, 2014 at 9:13 am
The 2009 count is significantly higher than 1964 or 1986.
Since I have already shown you that different stations show different trends, explain why you blatantly ignore that.
Oulu shows an increasing count, Thule [Greenland] shows no trend, and South Pole shows a decrease:
ST12-05-D3-PM2-CD-004 (ST12-05-A011) AOGS 2014 Sapporo, Japan, July 30, 2014
Long Term Decline of South Pole Neutron Monitor Counting Rate – A Possible Magnetospheric Interpretation
Paul EVENSON#+, John CLEM
University of Delaware, United States
#Corresponding author: evenson@udel.edu +Presenter
“The neutron monitor at the Amundsen Scott Station, located at the geographic South Pole, has operated with some interruptions since 1964. The neutron counting rate follows an 11-year cycle with maxima at times of low solar activity, but over the entire interval exhibited a steady decline, totaling approximately 10% by 2013…”
If you think the ‘Grand Maximum’ supports your 1000-yr cycle, then you have a problem as Usoskin claims it was a unique event, thus not repeating every 1000 yrs. You can’t have it both ways.
vukcevic says:
August 9, 2014 at 9:19 am
You’re welcome. I know there is a lot. I’ve read it and Pamela hasn’t, yet she accuses me of ignoring volcanoes. I don’t. My study just shows me that they are not responsible for the centennial to millennial scale cycles so evident in all paleoclimatic data back at least as far as the Miocene.
She OTOH, after asking me for peer reviewed papers supporting solar influences on these cycles, refused to provide any supporting her view of volcanic control. When she finally did dredge one up, it was of Mannian ilk, based upon modeling and tree rings, which as all here should know, don’t well record temperature, but are of some utility for moisture. In any case, there is no physical mechanism by which a VEI 6 eruption every twenty to 100 years could possibly cause the Little Ice Age. At least she has not presented one. Just unquantified hand waving.
Leif. I agree that for various reasons different stations show different counts. Everyone cherry picks the data to fit their own overall interpretation i.e what to them makes more sense in the overall scheme of things.
Whether the 20th century maximum was “grand” or not is a matter of semantics. As far as I’m concerned the important thing is that was certainly a maximum since the Maunder minimum.
As to the existence of an approximately 1000 year cycle see Figs 5 thru 9 at the last post at
http://climatesense-norpag.com.
Also see Steinhilber et al Fig 9 B at
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2009JA014193/pdf
Dr Norman Page says:
August 9, 2014 at 12:09 pm
Figs 1 & 8 in Steinhilber et al are killer!
The IMF reconstruction by Floor, Svalgaard and Cliver appears to show a cycle nearer to 2000 than 1000 years, but IMO close enough for government work to Bond’s 1470 years.
However, I’m presently leaning more toward orbital mechanical modulation of insolation than intrinsic solar fluxes in creating centennial and millennial scale climate cycles on earth.
Leif Svalgaard says: August 9, 2014 at 11:38 am
http://www.leif.org/EOS/PNAS-2012-Steinhilber.pdf
Friedhelm Steinhilber and his 13 cheering chums are not exactly to be taken for granted as the ‘top’ word on the subject.
Steinhilber et al use the old ‘low resolution’ Kundsen geomagnetic dipole for estimating the geomagnetic field modulation of the cosmic ray particles.
Let’s the man speak in his own defense:
“Note that the variation on the millennial time-scale of F depends on the geomagnetic field. If another geomagnetic field reconstruction like for example Korte M & Constable CG (2005) The geomagnetic dipole moment over the last 7000 years – new results from a global model.) were used F would show another (long-term) trend on millennial time scales.”
i.e. If another geomagnetic field reconstruction were used F would show another (long-term) trend on millennial time scales.”
There is no useful, let alone a reliable reconstruction of the sunspot cycles before 1600 !!
Even the ‘observed’ sunspot counts since 1600 are currently subject of a significant corrections.
Leif http://climatesense-norpag.blogspot.com
As is so very clearly shown by the commentary the data which is quite convincing and has been derived not from a single study but many studies is still being ignored by some.
Dr Norman Page says:
August 9, 2014 at 12:09 pm
Everyone cherry picks the data to fit their own overall interpretation i.e what to them makes more sense in the overall scheme of things.
There is a word for this: Confirmation Bias. If one is scientifically honest one can show the cherry picked choice, but should then also warn the reader that this is a cherry pick and show the stations that do not agree. Anything else is agenda-driven deception, a la Evans.
Whether the 20th century maximum was “grand” or not is a matter of semantics. As far as I’m concerned the important thing is that was certainly a maximum since the Maunder minimum.
And a maximum in the 18th century [and I think larger than the one in the 20th] and a maximum in the 19th, and a maximum around 1600. The recent maximum does not stand out as particularly different.
Past historical data as well as the recent short but severe solar lull and the current overall prolonged solar minimum are making a very convincing argument that solar variability is much GREATER then many on mainstream want you to believe and that this variability has an impact on the climate thru primary and secondary solar effects.
It makes much sense for those that have a AGW agenda to down play solar as much as possible because it shatters the theory which already has been proven to be wrong IF one looks at the data objectively.
In the end which is very close to coming on, the data will show even more conclusively that the sun is quite variable and that this variability is responsible for the climate to change.
The data has already proven this to me but apparently some are still trying to keep the soon to be obsolete AGW theory alive and one great way to do it is to down play solar as much as possible.
That is what the deniers have been doing and will continue to do to the bitter end.
Good luck because you will need it.
For the record I have NOT misunderstood anything. I understand completely what I have been reading.
Dr Norman Page says:
August 9, 2014 at 12:09 pm
Also see Steinhilber et al Fig 9 B at…
Also see Figure 2 at http://www.leif.org/research/Svalgaard_ISSI_Proposal_Base.pdf
vukcevic says:
August 9, 2014 at 12:20 pm
Friedhelm Steinhilber and his 13 cheering chums are not exactly to be taken for granted as the ‘top’ word on the subject.
That does not stop people from quoting him when it fits their agenda.
See the spike this will be exceeded going forward. That is going to happen going forward. In addition expect the ap index to be sub 5 month in and month out.
The solar lull from 2008-2010 which pails in comparison to the Maunder Minimum both in degree of magnitude change but especially duration of time has greatly improved the position of those of us that stress solar variability.
Salvatore Del Prete says:
August 9, 2014 at 12:35 pm
Past historical data as well as the recent short but severe solar lull and the current overall prolonged solar minimum are making a very convincing argument that solar variability is much GREATER
No, solar variability the past several centuries has been within the limits we have always had. If anything we are finding that those limits are likely to wide and that the sun has varied less.
Sturgishooper. Yeah I like Fig 8 too.
As to your last point,
Here is a quote from my post at the link above.
“Earth’s climate is the result of resonances and beats between various quasi-cyclic processes of varying wavelengths combined with endogenous secular earth processes such as, for example, plate tectonics. It is not possible to forecast the future unless we have a good understanding of the relation of the climate of the present time to the current phases of these different interacting natural quasi-periodicities which fall into two main categories.
a) The orbital long wave Milankovitch eccentricity,obliquity and precessional cycles which are modulated by
b) Solar “activity” cycles with possibly multi-millennial, millennial, centennial and decadal time scales.
The convolution of the a and b drivers is mediated through the great oceanic current and atmospheric pressure systems to produce the earth’s climate and weather.
After establishing where we are relative to the long wave periodicities,….. we can then look at where earth is in time relative to the periodicities of the PDO, AMO and NAO and ENSO indices and based on past patterns make reasonable forecasts for future decadal periods.”
It all depends on what time scale you are looking at. At the Milankovitch scale the Obliquity cycle was predominant until about 1 million years age – then the eccentricity cycle seems to predominate.
These cycles are then modulated by the solar cycles of wavelengths between10,000 – 11 years.
As far as climate cycles go sometimes one wavelength predominates sometimes others. For the Holocene the 1000 year periodicity appears quite often with varying degrees of precision in timing.
The same post also says
“The effect on climate of the combination of these solar drivers will vary non-linearly depending on the particular phases of the eccentricity, obliquity and precession orbital cycles at any particular time.
Of particular interest is whether the perihelion of the precession falls in the northern or southern summer at times of higher or lower obliquity.”
I do think that the obliquity/perihelion of the precession timing can be seen in the climate – mainly through its probable control of the polar sea-saw.
Overall I think we are pretty much on the same page.
Wrong solar variability based on the lull from 2008-2010 shows us that solar variability is real and much more then what mainstream keeps trying to convey. Al one has to do is compare the solar data from those years versus the recent modern solar maximum of last century. A dramatic difference. Solar variability on display.
streamer belt;
near-Earth interplanetary magnetic field
Abstract
From the variation of near-Earth interplanetary conditions, reconstructed for the mid-19th century to the present day using historic geomagnetic activity observations, Lockwood and Owens (2014) have suggested that Earth remains within a broadened streamer belt during solar cycles when the Open Solar Flux (OSF) is low. From this they propose that the Earth was immersed in almost constant slow solar wind during the Maunder minimum (c. 1650–1710). In this paper, we extend continuity modeling of the OSF to predict the streamer belt width using both group sunspot numbers and corrected international sunspot numbers to quantify the emergence rate of new OSF. The results support the idea that the solar wind at Earth was persistently slow during the Maunder minimum because the streamer belt was broad.
View Full Article with Supporting Information (HTMLTO VARY MORE
Exactly what I am conveying.
Sturgishooper. Yeah I like Fig 8 too.
As to your last point,
Here is a quote from my post at the link above.
“Earth’s climate is the result of resonances and beats between various quasi-cyclic processes of varying wavelengths combined with endogenous secular earth processes such as, for example, plate tectonics. It is not possible to forecast the future unless we have a good understanding of the relation of the climate of the present time to the current phases of these different interacting natural quasi-periodicities which fall into two main categories.
a) The orbital long wave Milankovitch eccentricity,obliquity and precessional cycles which are modulated by
b) Solar “activity” cycles with possibly multi-millennial, millennial, centennial and decadal time scales.
The convolution of the a and b drivers is mediated through the great oceanic current and atmospheric pressure systems to produce the earth’s climate and weather.
After establishing where we are relative to the long wave periodicities,….. we can then look at where earth is in time relative to the periodicities of the PDO, AMO and NAO and ENSO indices and based on past patterns make reasonable forecasts for future decadal periods
My four basic climate factors are the initial state of the climate, solar variability(primary and secondary effects) , Milankovitch Cycles and the strength of the earth’s magnetic field.
All of which when phased properly can cause a dramatic change in the climate.
Dr Norman Page says:
August 9, 2014 at 12:51 pm
Extraterrestrial, atmospheric, oceanic and lithospheric influences all interact in ways that make prediction difficult, even for the 10,000 and 100,000 year cycles so clearly predominantly under Milankovitch, ie orbital mechanical control. No one can say whether the current interglacial will last 1000 more years or 10,000, for instance.
But we can agree that the supposed “main control knob on climate”, CO2, isn’t even a fine tuner in reality.
Time will be telling the truth in the very near future. I am very confident in all of my positions.
Salvatore Del Prete says:
August 9, 2014 at 12:53 pm
From the variation of near-Earth interplanetary conditions, reconstructed for the mid-19th century to the present day using historic geomagnetic activity observations, Lockwood and Owens (2014) …
what they are arguing is that during the Maunder Minimum there was persistent CME activity and that the solar wind magnetic field did not fall to very low values. This is progress as before, they postulated the near disappearance of the magnetic field. Thus solar variability is less [they claim] than they thought before. Thank for for bringing this to our attention.
Salvatore Del Prete says:
August 9, 2014 at 12:38 pm
For the record I have NOT misunderstood anything. I understand completely what I have been reading.
Your frantic, desperate comments betray you otherwise.
Leif My assumption is that the readers of this blog are well enough informed to know that countervailing data exists and that my views are based on what I consider to be the overall weight of the evidence. I usually express how certain I am of my forecasts – and in the climate business I can only express this in terms of my personal opinion. (This b t w is the same method used by the IPCC – where 20 guys sat around a table and decided that 95% certainty was about right)
My last post at
http://climatesense-norpag.blogspot.com
says
“How confident should one be in the predictions in this post? The pattern and quasi-periodicity method doesn’t lend itself easily to statistical measures. However, statistical calculations only provide an apparent rigor for the uninitiated and, in relation to an ensemble of IPCC climate models, are entirely misleading because they make no allowance for the structural uncertainties in the model set up. This is where scientific judgment comes in, as some people are better at pattern recognition and meaningful correlation than others. A past record of successful forecasting such as indicated above is a useful but not infallible measure. In this case I am reasonably sure (say 65/35) for about 20 years ahead. Beyond that certainty drops rapidly.”
Leif Svalgaard says:
August 9, 2014 at 12:43 pm
That does not stop people from quoting him when it fits their agenda.
I’m not especially interested in anyone’s agenda, only in the best available data, here assuming that you considered it a reliable source.
We have discussed Steinhilber some months back, and my view has not changed since.
Any C14 and 10Be based reconstructions is as good as the geomagnetic reconstruction used, but the paleo-magnetic reconstructions use radio nucleation for dating; sort of a ‘circular’ science in action.
Dr Norman Page says:
August 9, 2014 at 1:29 pm
Leif My assumption is that the readers of this blog are well enough informed to know that countervailing data exists
How about other readers? You probably do not have ONLY WUWT readers as your intended audience. And regardless of your assumptions, you must still mention that other data exists that contradict what you show. And you still point to your cherry picked set as if it was gospel truth.
Salvatore Del Prete says:
August 9, 2014 at 12:53 pm
Wrong solar variability based on the lull from 2008-2010 shows us that solar variability is real and much more then what mainstream keeps trying to convey.
The mainstream estimate of the solar wind magnetic field, B, during the Maunder Minimum has been of the order of 1 nT or less. Owens & Lockwood now claim that their model shows that average B back then was 2 nT [see slide 11 of http://www.leif.org/research/Confronting-Models-with-Reconstructions-and-Data.pdf ], thus they find that B has varied LESS than commonly thought.
vukcevic says:
August 9, 2014 at 1:34 pm
I’m not especially interested in anyone’s agenda, only in the best available data, here assuming that you considered it a reliable source.
I didn’t say it was reliable [on the contrary, I’m on record for saying it has problems], but it is the ONLY one [and the most recent one] we have with the backing of almost all scientists [‘chums’ you call them] in that field, so it is a starting point and a demonstration that we are not totally without clues [even if the series needs more work].
Leif. If I thought it was the gospel truth I would say I was 100% sure not 65/35 as I said above.
I do note however that you do practice what you preach see slide 44 in your last link headed
We do not understand the 10Be modulation.
Graph GMF-Dipoles
shows comparison between the Kundsen 2008 as used by Steinhilber and the Korte’s CALS7k.2 quoted by Steinhilber.
There are major differences not only in the millennial trends but degree of resolution. I would suggest that the CALS7k.2 would be a more realistic option.
Since I had no access to Korte CALS7k.2 dipole data, I calculated nearest approximation shown by the green line (see graph in the above link); result obtained agrees pretty well with the Korte’s dipole.
If I had uncorrected GCR data file, which I do not (perhaps you might be able to get one from your ‘chums’), I could follow the Steinhilber’s method as described in his ‘Supporting Information’, and so present an alternative view or a ‘second opinion of the alleged’ solar activities.
vukcevic says:
August 9, 2014 at 3:56 pm
I would suggest that the CALS7k.2 would be a more realistic option.
Based on what?
Dr Norman Page says:
August 9, 2014 at 2:16 pm
Mi>. If I thought it was the gospel truth I would say I was 100% sure not 65/35
Where do you get the 65/35 from?
Salvatore Del Prete says:
August 9, 2014 at 12:54 pm
The attempt by Mann and other Team members to paint the LIA as a volcanic phenomenon fails the Null Hypothesis, just like catastrophic Man(n)-made climate change in general. It’s an ad hoc excuse to solve a problem for their hypothesis, not a scientific problem. The LIA and MWP are simply recent examples of a long-standing observation, ie climatic fluctuations. They don’t need a special explanation. The Null Hypothesis, that nothing out of the ordinary happened 1200 or 600 years ago stands. Same as for warming between the late 1970s and 1990s.
sturgishooper says:
August 9, 2014 at 6:59 pm
The LIA and MWP are simply recent examples of a long-standing observation, ie climatic fluctuations. They don’t need a special explanation.
The same argument holds for the solar ‘explanation’
Leif Svalgaard says:
August 9, 2014 at 7:02 pm
Which solar explanation do you have in mind?
IMO, since the same pattern is observed in glacial and interglacial epochs over millions of years, the null hypothesis ought to be that continuously operating mechanisms explain the fluctuations.
I’m open to alternatives, of course, but to me the most reasonable explanation is the same modulation of solar activity that produces the 100K and 10K cycles of glaciation and interglacials, ie Milankovitch orbital mechanics, plus natural solar variations. No doubt other forces are at work to affect the precise wiggles, but the big moves are best accounted for by these known forces.
sturgishooper says:
August 9, 2014 at 7:09 pm
Which solar explanation do you have in mind?
Since I’m not pushing any, I have none in particular in mind, but there are many people here who are pushing their own pet solar explanations. Your argument [which I agree with] pertains to any and all of those.
Leif I thought I’d made that clear.
I said
“. I usually express how certain I am of my forecasts – and in the climate business I can only express this in terms of my personal opinion. (This b t w is the same method used by the IPCC – where 20 guys sat around a table and decided that 95% certainty was about right)
It is just a subjective impression of how certain I feel about my forecasts at this time.
As understand your position you are 100% sure that nobody including yourself has made, or indeed can make ,any forecast of future global temperatures over say the next 2 or 3 decades that you would be willing stake your reputation to lay any odds of success on.
This is a perfectly rational position to take -even if a bit unadventurous.
Dr Norman Page says:
August 9, 2014 at 8:54 pm
“. I usually express how certain I am of my forecasts – and in the climate business I can only express this in terms of my personal opinion.
In my book, personal opinion which is not based on a calculated probability is worthless.
Dr Norman Page says:
August 9, 2014 at 8:54 pm
As understand your position you are 100% sure that nobody including yourself has made, or indeed can make ,any forecast of future global temperatures over say the next 2 or 3 decades that you would be willing stake your reputation to lay any odds of success on.
You do not understand my position. I will stake my reputation and give any odds of success on the forecast that the global temperature 30 years from now is not more than 10C from what it is for 2014. It is all a question about error bars, you see. And it is a safe bet for me as I will be dead by then.
Leif I think we have reached the core of our differences – It is a question of epistemology. You have more faith in the power of numbers and mathematical equations than I do. I think that multivariate natural open systems are so complex that our ability to calculate outcomes is much more limited than is generally recognized – certainly by the climate modelers.
While there are some quasi repeating quasi periodic patterns in nature which exist for various times – the state of the system as a whole never actually repeats .Further you can’t specify the original conditions of any system’s starting point with sufficient precision and with a sufficiently fine grid mesh of data points to avoid the outcomes diverging – essentially by the butterfly effect.
Again, once you have more than a handful of variables and processes you can get the same answer from different models because of compensating differences between some of the variables and you don’t know which variables are parameterized correctly or incorrectly.
The subjective judgment of persons with wide knowledge and long experience in the field is at the end of the day what we have to rely on. In climate science we can look at some ones forecasts and after some time form an opinion of their judgment always supposing they are willing to make a forecast in the first place,
Leif Nice to see you finally willing to make a forecast.
Look at my forecast for 2035 see Fig 15. at
http://climatesense-norpag.blogspot.com/2014/07/climate-forecasting-methods-and-cooling.html
I’m forecasting the SST3 moving average temp anomaly for 2035 to be minus 0.15. If you like error bars I’ll specify from minus 0.05 – minus 0.25
Would you care say what your forecast for the SST would be on that same date with an error bar of similar magnitude.?
I’m 80 years old but I plan to be around to check the outcome – my mother lived to almost 102.
Leif – that is the global temperature anomaly
New post: http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2014/08/its-sun_9.html
“It’s the Sun”
Solar physicist Dr. Leif Svalgaard has revised his reconstruction of sunspot observations over the past 400 years from 1611-2013. Plotting the “time integral” of sunspot numbers from Dr. Svalgaard’s data shows a significant increase in accumulated solar energy beginning during the 1700’s and continuing through and after the end of the Little Ice Age in ~1850. After a ~30 year hiatus, accumulated solar energy resumes a “hockey stick” rise for the remainder of the 20th century, followed by a decline beginning in 2004, all of which show remarkable correspondence to the HADCRU3 global temperature record:
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-wLCEUB9Aw28/U-cGLCEaBPI/AAAAAAAAGMQ/NAl4KtFKmog/s1600/sunspot+integral+2.jpg
vukcevic says: August 9, 2014 at 3:56 pm
I would suggest that the CALS7k.2 would be a more realistic option.
Leif Svalgaard says: August 9, 2014 at 6:30 pm
Based on what?
……………
I suspect you didn’t look at comparison of dipoles GMF-Dipoles .
Knudsen – far to much smoothing, on the other hand CALS3k.4 looks the most realistic of all, based on what we know from the latest description of the World Magnetic Model (WMM) 2010.
I was hoping you might suggest a link to the uncorrected un-corrected GCR data file if one is available
..
Dr Norman Page says:
August 9, 2014 at 10:27 pm
I’m forecasting the SST3 moving average temp anomaly for 2035 to be minus 0.15. If you like error bars I’ll specify from minus 0.05 – minus 0.25
I don’t consider that a ‘valid’ forecast as it is just within the usual random fluctuations
Would you care say what your forecast for the SST would be on that same date with an error bar of similar magnitude.?
No, mine was 0C plus/minus 10C. Useless.
vukcevic says:
August 10, 2014 at 12:29 am
I was hoping you might suggest a link to the uncorrected un-corrected GCR data file if one is available
Slide 18 of http://www.leif.org/research/Does%20The%20Sun%20Vary%20Enough.pdf
Hockey Schtick says:
August 9, 2014 at 11:26 pm
shows a significant increase in accumulated solar energy beginning during the 1700’s
But fails completely to match the temperature record for the period 1600-1750 [as far as we know it – see the above link]. The temperature didn’t fall 1.5C during that time.
Hockey Schtick says:
August 9, 2014 at 11:26 pm
shows a significant increase in accumulated solar energy beginning during the 1700’s and continuing through and after the end of the Little Ice Age in ~1850
This kind of ‘analysis’ is very sensitive to the starting point [and of course, the starting value of the integral will be exactly equal to the ending value]. Staring in 1750 [from which data we have resonably good sunspot values], the integral looks like this http://www.leif.org/research/SSN-Integral.png
Hey, Leif: Where is your mathematics for this, written at 1:21 PM?
“Your frantic, desperate comments betray you otherwise”. This type of personal opinion is NOT in the spirit of the “Scientific Attitude”. I have a suggestion for you: “In my book, personal opinion which is not based on a calculated probability is worthless.” I happened to notice this in another reply – but don’t remember where.
Sam Glasser says:
August 10, 2014 at 7:08 am
Hey, Leif: Where is your mathematics for this, written at 1:21 PM?
“Your frantic, desperate comments betray you otherwise”.
It is based on this 40 personal opinion comments that bring nothing to the table except proclaiming that he is right and that he will be vindicated and that he and many subscribe to certain views, etc.
Sam Glasser says:
August 10, 2014 at 7:08 am
=====================================
You must have missed the many hundreds of similar comments from del Prete over the last year. Leif,s personal opinion in this matter is correct. Also, his comment regarding personal opinion is in connection with personal opinion as related to scientific thought. Leif most likely regards my comments in a somewhat similar fashion. At least I do not endlessly repeat the same ‘mantra’ over and over and over and over and over again. Plus I have decent descriptive ability with my comments. Add in a few more dozen ‘over and over again’, and you will have a better understanding of why Leif made that comment regarding del Prete.
Sturgis, Vuk, Page, and Prete, have another look. Considering the extent of research happening now that the 1257-8 explosion has been identified in terms of place and power, I counter that solar variation pales in comparison to the stratospheric veil during this time span. We can calculate the change in solar insolation at the surface and top of the atmosphere for both extrinsic and intrinsic sources of such insolation diminution. Volcanic sourced veils trump solar variation in terms of watts/m2. Such occurrences bury solar variation in the noise of these events, which were stratospherically ubiquitous thus beyond the reach of rain-out during the LIA. One should also note that when measuring ice cores to date volcanic ash and sulfur fallout, the peak year is identified, not the side bars. Meaning that the ice cores may have several years of continued deposition but the usual method of showing the data is to record only the peak year.
I recommend that you critique the paper, not me. I provide it for your consideration, not as yet another opportunity to suggest how stupid or deep in the “dark side” I am. Those types of arguments are silly. What are the merits and demerits of this paper as well as their references?
I find it a wholly reseasonable proposal that has more merit than solar variation, given that not all the oceanic/atmospheric teleconnections related to volcanic veils, or alternate explanations for the up and down temperature swings of the LIA have been determined. However, major significant mechanisms triggered by equatorial explosions have been mechanized and modeled (such as the El Nino response), and diminution of solar insolation on a short and long term scale due to both tropospheric local, and stratospheric global scales.
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=6&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CEYQFjAF&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.geos.ed.ac.uk%2Fhomes%2Ftcrowley%2Fcrowley_PAGESnote_volcanism.pdf&ei=dKHnU6XXEKLUiwLDuYDIDA&usg=AFQjCNFMeYdd9z2d-lptY0r18M85yaurSw&bvm=bv.72676100,d.cGE
reasonable for “reseasonable”
An excellent volcanic stratospheric ice core reconstruction dating the occurrence and by extrapolation, the extent of solar insolation diminution when modeling temperature response. Note the sudden increase in volcanic stratospheric veiling aerosols during the entire LIA time span, which several climate scientists now consider to be a wider timespan than commonly believed.
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=4&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CDoQFjAD&url=http%3A%2F%2Fecite.utas.edu.au%2F81617%2F1%2FPlummer-2012%2520-%25202000-yr%2520LD%2520volcanics.pdf&ei=6KrnU7G5K4r7igKpx4CADA&usg=AFQjCNFvfH1iv6zD4FxE_oq_ZJm_gVv8nA
Pamela Gray says:
August 10, 2014 at 10:01 am
For the reasons I’ve repeatedly shown, totally ignored by you, your conjecture is unreasonable on its face. I did critique the one Team paper you presented to support your hypothesis. Tree rings might or might not record drought. They do not record temperature.
All the evidence is against your conjecture and not a shred of evidence supports it. Despite a VEI 6 eruption in 1257 and another in 1280, the period 1250 to 1300 was warmer than 1200 to 1250 and as warm as 1150 to 1200 in the CET, at least. And the following century was warmer than anything during the real LIA.
Even the Toba supervolcano eruption, two orders of magnitude greater than the 1257 event, had no discernible climatic effect. Best evidence now is that it might have affected weather for about six years.
You’ve got nothing, zip, zero, nada, zilch.
You haven’t even shown the Null Hypothesis false, ie there is no reason to think the LIA was any different from prior climate fluctuations, hence needs no special explanation such as volcanism.
Pamela Gray says:
August 10, 2014 at 10:46 am
The only “climate scientists” who imagine that the LIA started in 1257 are Mann and other Team members who want to get rid of the MWP, their bogus HS having failed to do so.
No legitimate climate scientist considers the LIA to have started during the warmest part of the MWP.
Leif Svalgaard says:
August 9, 2014 at 7:15 pm
I’m glad we’re in agreement.
There might be more on this blog and in climate studies in general if advocates for positions would begin by stating why the are convinced the Null Hypothesis is or isn’t satisfied.
Thanks for your input here and for amassing such an excellent collection of relevant research at your site.
My pure speculation on the temperature response is that scientists have not considered the discharge/recharge mechanism proposed by Bob Tisdale as a significant factor in global response to significant volcanic stratospheric veiling events. The usual explanation is that the overturning circulation is severally slowed, thus explaining the northern Europe’s plunge into cold due to the Gulf Stream slowing or stopping.
The speculation has to do with a lack of equatorial recharge thus eventually cooling the Earth’s oceans even though the over-turning circulation continues. I consider that the over-turning circulation must continue under my speculative suggestion in order for these less-charged equatorial waters to travel to extra tropical land masses, where that cooled temperature creates a weather pattern variation regime shift and that is only slowly recovered from as the veil clears and evaporation ends, leading to La Nina clear sky conditions sufficient to recharge the equatorial ocean once again. I credit Bob Tisdale’s thoughts on the discharge/recharge El Nino/La Nina process he proposes, though the extrapolation to LIA triggers is my own.
Sturgis:
Pamela Gray says:
August 10, 2014 at 10:01 am
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=6&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CEYQFjAF&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.geos.ed.ac.uk%2Fhomes%2Ftcrowley%2Fcrowley_PAGESnote_volcanism.pdf&ei=dKHnU6XXEKLUiwLDuYDIDA&usg=AFQjCNFMeYdd9z2d-lptY0r18M85yaurSw&bvm=bv.72676100,d.cGE
Read the first sentence in the paper I linked to. The literature is replete with references to the beginnings of the LIA and the 1257 explosion. Have the argument with those papers and the growing list of climate researchers.
Pamela Gray says:
August 10, 2014 at 10:55 am
There is no temperature response. The period after both late 13th century eruptions was globally warmer, not cooler. Why is that so hard for you to grasp? Nor is there any evidence from ENSO records to support your physically impossible conjecture.
Pamela Gray says:
August 10, 2014 at 11:01 am
When are you going to start reading the material you link? The paper you linked asserts without basis that the LIA began in 1250, but there are zero actual temperature proxy data supporting that assertion, pushed by the Team. If you imagine that such data exist, by all means present them. You won’t because you can’t. No such data set exists. All show the 13th century warmer not only than the LIA (by a lot) but even the 20th century.
But the body of the work clearly shows only temporary, ie weather, effects from the eruptions it considers during the real LIA, ie in the 17th to 19th centuries. Note that chart (Fig 2) doesn’t include the 13th, 14th or 15th centuries, starting in 1630. And its Fig 1 runs from 1800 to 2000.
None of the five references does as you claim. Not a single one makes the case for a climatic effect from volcanic eruptions, just noting the temporary (a few years at most) effect on temperature.
You still have nothing. If you think you can demonstrate physically how your conjecture would work, please do so. All the evidence and physics in the world is against it, so you have your work cut out for you.
Just a note about Crowley’s view of CAGW. He sounds like a reasonable scientist who lets the facts lead him, not the other way around.
http://www.geos.ed.ac.uk/homes/tcrowley/response_to_lovelock.pdf
I have referred to this paper many times in my comments here. It is a review of written documentation of weather pattern shifts that occurred following the 1257-8 explosion.
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=5&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CEAQFjAE&url=http%3A%2F%2Fjrscience.wcp.muohio.edu%2Fclimatepdfs02%2Fclimimpts1258volcaclimchg00.pdf&ei=bbfnU6XFGqTCigLj7oCwDg&usg=AFQjCNHLGf3IVaNVvZvVXYt9GrJOwgSFjQ&bvm=bv.72676100,d.cGE
Pamela Gray says:
August 10, 2014 at 11:17 am
You are aware, are you not, that Lovelock has admitted he was wrong?
Science has decent actual thermometer data for the global effects of VEI 6 and 7 eruptions to some extent for Tambora, but especially for Krakatoa (1883), Tarawera (1886), Santa Maria (1902), Novarupta (1912) and Pinatubo (1991). It’s obvious those occurring during the Modern Warm Period didn’t produce a Little Ice Age, or cause the real one to continue. The decades since the 1880s have been an unusually volcanic interval, yet we’re in a warming period, not a cooling one. All before Pinatubo also occurred under lower CO2 levels.
So your conjecture was born falsified.
Pamela Gray says: August 10, 2014 at 10:01 am
Sturgis, Vuk, Page, and……
Miss Gray
Here is what Vuk has to say:
For your hypothesis to be credible you need some data to prove the point.
I’ve looked at your link, it shows strong volcanic activity from 1805 to 1820.
I suggest you go to the CET website
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcet/cetml1659on.dat
and plot the CET’s 10 year (cantered moving) average from 1750 to 1850
you may fond :
– From 1750 to 1805 the CET averaged 9.1C
– during eruptions from 1805 -1820, temperature dropped by an average of 0.2 C
– After eruptions stopped the temperature rose, averaging 9.3C between 1820 to 1835, then new eruptions started. Point here to consider is that immediately after one of the strongest serious of volcanic eruptions in the temperatures recorded history, temperature rose and not only returning to its 50 year per-eruption average but significantly exceeding it
You draw your own conclusion.
I base all my conclusion on the observation data available, and wherever possible provide graphic illustration based on such. Many scientists do not like and dismiss what is in the data, but again not everyone agrees with the well-known Feynman quote on the matter.
Pamela Gray says:
August 10, 2014 at 11:26 am
Why is the distinction between weather and climate so hard for you to grasp? No one denies that big volcanic eruptions can affect weather. Quite the opposite, as I’ve repeatedly tried to point out to you. But they don’t alter fundamental underlying climatic patterns, which are always promptly returned to after the weather disturbances peter out in a few years, or in the case of supervolcano Toba, possibly several years.
There is zero evidence that the MWP, c. 800 to 1400, and the LIA, c. 1400 to 1850, were caused by volcanic activity or lack thereof, and all the evidence in the world against that baseless assertion. Big volcanoes went off during both the warm and cold period, and their effects on weather were limited in time. Climatic effects must be evident on the scale of 30 years or more.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2010JA016220/abstract
This is the direction the data is leading us.
Volcanic activity acts in concert with solar activity in that it tends to increase during prolonged solar minimum periods. In addition when volcanic eruptions do occur they will spike the temp. down for a short duration of time even when the overall temperature trend may be down.
Temp. trend will always zig zag and volcanic activity accentuates this.
There has been enough interest in the 1257 event, as well as other volcanic events, and their potential to extend climatic effects beyond the immediate obvious ones, that models are being used to explore this very interesting (to me anyway) area of research.
http://nldr.library.ucar.edu/repository/assets/osgc/OSGC-000-000-002-060.pdf
Sturgis, you do realize that after providing you with peer reviewed research in link after link after link directly supporting several of my underlying premises that your argument against me having done so is growing thin.
Pamela Gray says:
August 10, 2014 at 11:56 am
If you like tree rings, you’ll love models.
The actual data say that you, Mann and all the other anti-scientific CAGW shills trying so desperately to get rid of the MWP are dead wrong.
You haven’t got an evidenciary leg upon which to stand. If you can’t offer a quantified explanation for the climatic change you imagine (which objectively did not happen), then at least adduce some evidence that it even occurred. You can’t. ENSO patterns didn’t change 1257-86, the minimal time needed to show a climatic rather than weather effect from the 1257 eruption which has so enthralled you.
My climate forecast is based on solar parameters that if met will cause the climate to go in an x direction. I give hard numbers and it is easily falsified or verified.
My web-site has the parameters and the climate reaction.
To summarize quickly the atmospheric response will continue to be meridional and the global temp. trend will be down but not in a straight line but in jig saw fashion.
The data any way it is sliced shows solar activity changed quite a bit during year 2005 into a much quitter state. The questions are how long does it last and does it get as deep or deeper then it did during the 2008-2010 period.
Pamela Gray says:
August 10, 2014 at 11:58 am
You have not presented a single link showing a climatic effect from the 1257 eruption or any other. There are no actual data showing the LIA began in 1250, only assertions by the Team trying to “get rid of the MWP”. There are no data showing a climatic effect from any volcanic eruption, even Toba, the biggest of the past 27,800,000 years. Specifically, there is no change in ENSO patterns which your conjecture requires, nor can you offer a quantitative physical explanation for how your belief would actually work.
You have nothing, nada, zero, zip, zilch. If you think you do, then post the link and cite the specific parts of it which you imagine supports your baseless assertion. The expert whose data you use admits there is no climatic effect. You’re free to believe whatever you want, but science requires evidence, of which you have none. All the actual evidence in the world is against you.
Sturgis once again, simple volcanic activity is not my point of interest. I am only concerned with stratospheric veiling that has the potential to cause weather regime shifts. And contrary to your view of the difference between weather and climate, my position is stronger than yours in term of what I call short and long term weather pattern variations and regime shifts, and the stable outer boundaries of geophysical climate under our current land mass distribution over the past several millennial years, and natural intrinsic weather pattern variations regime shifts.
And I have considered the Milankovitch theory which holds a more broad position in my mind in terms of its affect on our climate (I take the theory on its general basis, but with lots of wriggle room as does the paper I link to below). However, for the purpose of the present discussion, I discard it as an issue during the Little Ice Age regardless of when you or I consider its starting point of the slide into a colder (though noisily so) weather pattern regime shift.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=3&ved=0CCoQFjAC&url=https%3A%2F%2Ffaculty.unlv.edu%2Flachniet%2Fpublications_files%2F00%2520-%2520Devils%2520Hole%2520-%2520Literature%2520Compilation.pdf&ei=M8PnU-3mIKisjAKxrIC4DA&usg=AFQjCNEKu9KRugEniJkm6eClB29d5I4rHA&bvm=bv.72676100,d.cGE
The solar lull 2008-2010 goes a long way in confirming solar variability is greater then what is presently thought. It also gives credence that solar conditions during the Maunder were much weaker then what this recent solar lull of very short duration displayed in contrast to the Maunder Minimum ‘s duration of some 50 plus years.
We will see going forward. I think past solar data shows solar variability is there and much greater then this .1% phony TSI variation between typical solar sunspot cycles.
Pamela Gray says:
August 10, 2014 at 12:18 pm
Who besides you imagines that events lasting a few years constitute climatic phenomena? In real climatology, climate is the average of weather over 30 years or more.
What convinces you that the LIA needs a special explanation for what is a normal fluctuation in centennial to millennial scale climate? That is, what negates the Null Hypothesis that the LIA has the same underlying causes as prior cold periods following warm periods in the Holocene, the Wisconsin glaciation, the Eemian interglacial, the prior glaciation and all other such cycles going back at the very least to the Miocene?
On what basis do you rule out Milankovitch cycles as causes of centennial and millennial scale climatic fluctuations, when it’s well established that they control cycles of ten to hundreds of thousands of years?
How do you suppose a single eruption or even two 23 years apart can cause centennial to millennial scale changes in climate. Show the physics behind this unwarranted assumption. But first show that such a change actually occurred. It manifestly did not in the ENSO, for which good 13th century proxy data exist. Nor in any other valid climate data set.
In fact, you have less than nothing, since all the evidence in the world is against you.
For instance, this study of thousands of years of ENSO history based upon mid-Pacific corals specifically weighed potential volcanic and solar influences, finding a possible solar effect during the early to mid-MWP, AD 900-1200. The MWP and LIA (c. 1500 to 1800, but with data lacking on both sides of that central period) as well established by other data sets show up clearly:
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=5&ved=0CD0QFjAE&url=http%3A%2F%2Fshadow.eas.gatech.edu%2F~kcobb%2Fcobb_iowa.pdf&ei=S8jnU46OAuOjigLCm4D4BA&usg=AFQjCNHhP0xQB7gDo8YjNRwp_3JSWeFF6g&sig2=iPpWMphw3khxOm_nLanELA&bvm=bv.72676100,d.cGE
Sturgis, the Walker Cell low/high pressure system drives/maintains/interrupts El Nino/La Nina events. The physical mechanism of air movement between low and high pressure systems is well understood and especially in the Pacific equatorial band. Large tropical volcanic events can and do disrupt this Walker Cell circulation. I am sure you understand this. So it begs the question why you seem unable to declare that this is well-known in the literature.
Correct me if I am wrong, but I am under the impression that you believe the LIA is be externally solar forced. Thus you also subscribe to a “special explanation”. No?
Pamela Gray says:
August 10, 2014 at 12:53 pm
First, begging the question is the name of a logical fallacy. It does not mean the same as “raising the question”. That misuse is a pet peeve of mine.
You still don’t get that a volcanic effect has never been observed on climate. Whatever effect even the biggest eruptions have on Walker Cells or ENSO is short-lived, as I’ve repeatedly showed you and as your own expert Robock admits. It’s weather, not climate. No volcanic eruption has the ability to alter fundamental, underlying ENSO patterns. It has not been shown for any eruption or series of eruptions. Your hopeful hand waving can’t change that fact.
Look at the link I just pasted. Somehow ENSO anticipated the 1257 eruption, then did not react to it after it occurred. The pattern is exactly the opposite of your conjecture. The last blue phase ended around 1250, then the pattern returned to the red after red phase of the MWP until about 1350, which change again rapidly returned to the MWP norm until well into the LIA, c. 1500 (although late 15th century data are missing).
Before you can imagine a volcanic effect upon climatic scale temperature and oceanic circulation, you have to show that there was one, for which there is no evidence. Indeed, all the evidence is against your WAG.
Pamela Gray says:
August 10, 2014 at 12:55 pm
Absolutely not, as should have been obvious had you read what I’ve written.
No special explanation is needed since the LIA is no different from any of the tens of thousands of similar climatic fluctuations over at least the past 20 million years. During glacials, they’re called D/O Cycles and during the Holocene and other interglacials, Bond Cycles.
IMO they are driven by the same orbital and rotational mechanics as the glacial and interglacial cycles themselves, but that’s not a special explanation for one of them, but a general explanation, with abundant support, for all of them.
But it doesn’t matter what I think causes them. The fact is you have not shown the Null Hypothesis false, so there is no need to presume the special cause of volcanism for the LIA, unless you’re prepared to argue that all similar observed fluctuations have been caused by volcanoes, which proposition is easily shown false.
Surely this distinction can’t escape you.
Dr Norman I wish you 120 years with so a clear mind.
salvatore del prete says:
August 10, 2014 at 12:21 pm
The solar lull 2008-2010 goes a long way in confirming solar variability is greater then what is presently thought.
You are not paying attention. Lockwood and Co. show that solar variation is smaller than previously thought, in addition to grudgingly admitting that my reconstruction of ten years ago is correct. Their modelling of the Maunder Minimum is incorrect and a moving target. They disagree with themselves in more recent papers. By frantically parroting yourself over and over again you just sound like a broken record.
Milankovitch cycles have probably always operated, although some of their parameters probably have changed a lot since the moon was close.
This paper shows them operating during the Lower Cretaceous:
http://www.searchanddiscovery.com/pdfz/documents/2009/40388hinnov/ndx_hinnov.pdf.html
Again, the point is that there is no reason to suppose that the MWP and LIA were caused by any forces other than those which produced similar fluctuations for at least tens of millions of years, and probably billions.
So Sturgis, solar variability does not play into your thesis?
salvatore del prete says:
August 10, 2014 at 12:04 pm
The data any way it is sliced shows solar activity changed quite a bit during year 2005 into a much quitter state.
It does that every 100 years or so, nothing new there. http://www.leif.org/research/Ap-1844-now.png
And I am specifically referring to the past 1000 years.
Pamela Gray says:
August 10, 2014 at 1:25 pm
My thesis with respect to your baseless conjecture is that there is no reason to assume a volcanic cause for the LIA, and all the evidence in the world against it.
I’ve already repeatedly written what I think causes centennial to millennial scale climatic fluctuations. Solar variability obviously plays a role, but orbital mechanical modulation of whatever the sun sends out way is IMO more important on every time scale from decades to at least hundreds of thousands of years.
This hypothesis is not only well supported physically and by observation, but explains why there is no reason to suppose a volcano in 1257 caused the Little Ice Age, which all data sets show commencing sometime from c. 1350 to 1450. I’ve pasted here the CET data. Pick your own start date, but how you can get an AD 1250 start, when one of the two warmest 50 years of the MWP began, out of those or any other data is beyond me.
In any case, there is no reason to imagine the volcano caused the LIA, which is no different from tens of thousands of other such cycles in the Pleistocene and Holocene. Besides which, there is no evidence to support the climatic effect you imagine. Indeed all available evidence is against the conjecture.
Leif! You are not the only person who is right in any solar related cases. There is refrees whom are professionals too.
Here is one I have often referred to in my comments in several threads related to the Little Ice Age and weather pattern regime shifts. While the exact mechanism of prolonged affects following such volcanic explosions are up for debate, the fact some kind of sustaining intrinsic mechanism tied to disrupted oceanic/atmospheric processes is currently of high interest to such researchers.
“Our precisely dated records demonstrate that the expansion of ice caps after Medieval times was initiated by an abrupt and persistent snowline depression late in the 13th Century, and amplified in the mid 15th Century, coincident with episodes of repeated explosive volcanism centuries before the widely cited Maunder sunspot minimum (1645– 1715 AD [Eddy, 1976]).”
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2011GL050168/abstract;jsessionid=F6F74F9AAF52F983F07A6F7AAC52B6A7.f01t01
Pamela Gray says:
August 10, 2014 at 1:26 pm
The past 1000 years are no different from the past 2.8 million years, at the very least. The same cycles are visible throughout the Pleistocene and Holocene, again at the very least. The Medieval Warm Period was warmer than now, but cooler than the Roman and Minoan Warm Periods and the Holocene Optimum. The LIA was cooler in some data sets than the Dark Ages Cold Period (which fell between the Roman and Medieval WPs), but not in others. It may have been cooler than the Greek Dark Ages Cold Period (which fell between the Minoan and Roman WPs).
I’ve pasted links to the Miocene and Lower Cretaceous (100 to 146 Ma) showing the same Milankovitch pattern.
A 1250 start date? No. I have cited link after link the proposes a 1257-58 start date immediately following the 1257 explosion.
You say orbital and axial wobble changes have a decadal affect????? Good heavens. Now you are the one clearly out on a limb. Do you know the watts/m2 change on a decadal scale related to these wobbles? And do you have any peer reviewed links that demonstrate this minute watts/m2 change can affect weather pattern variations and regime shifts? I have never come across such research but would be clearly interested in the link if you have it. The main cycle I get. But decadal? That’s nonsense.
Pamela Gray says:
August 10, 2014 at 1:37 pm
Do you know who Gerald “Dead Moss Clumps” Miller is? Search this blog for commentary on his unmitigated garbage.
If you like dead moss clumps, you’ll love climate models, as apparently you do.
Real data sets, not models, show at most a transient weather effect from the 1257 eruption. Maybe if you read Miller’s whole paper, you’d get an inkling at how egregiously bad it is. But even he is forced to admit that the real LIA didn’t begin until the 15th century.
Nor has he or anyone else, including you, shown any possible mechanism by which the 1257 and 1280 eruptions could have caused the LIA. It’s all hand waving. Nor has anyone shown actual data in which such a climate shift occurred as a result of temporary weather changes.
It didn’t happen after the 19th and 20th century eruptions during which good thermometer data are available, and there is no signal for any of the historical or prehistorical eruptions in climate proxy data.
The whole corrupt enterprise aims to “get rid of the MWP”, and you have bought into it.
Sad.
Pamela Gray says:
August 10, 2014 at 1:44 pm
Multidecadal is clearly indicated, namely the PDO and AMO. As I’ve repeatedly said, climate needs at least three decades, so I supposed you understood what I meant by decadal. But the LIA and MWP are centennial to millennial phenomena. That’s what we’re talking about.
I’m on no limb, but yours broke as soon as you went out on it.
Sturgis, you would be hard pressed to get decadal affects out of the Milankovitch data.
http://www.climatedata.info/Forcing/Forcing/milankovitchcycles.html
Sturgis
I have posted numerous times here the contemporary observations from the 13th century. These have been gleaned from a variety of sources including the Met office library and archives This includes our translation of 13th century manorial records from Latin and French into English.
I have also examined church records as these record alms given to the poor during extreme weather conditions.
The weather had already turned down some 5 or 6 years before the 1257 eruption. It recovered to previous warm levels within a couple of seasons of the eruption. After several further ups and downs the climate turned very warm during the first half of the 14 th century. Giss miller and his moss reconstructions are even more flawed than mann’s tree ring efforts. He tried to explain away why he couldn’t pick up the 1257 eruption. The reason being it had little effect on climate other than a season or two.
I can find little evidence of any lasting effect of volcanic eruptions on climate during the LIA other than transitory ones
Tonyb
Tonyb says:
August 10, 2014 at 1:56 pm
Nor can I.
The ENSO pattern data from Pacific corals also show a brief cold interval before the eruption, but return to warming thereafter. Amazing how climate can anticipate eruptions. Maybe there is a physical explanation for this apparently accidental phenomenon.
Then I find you vague. Are you saying that the LIA and MWP are forced by a piece of the Milankovitch mechanism that changes the Earth-Sun geometry? That makes no sense.
Pamela Gray says:
August 10, 2014 at 1:55 pm
Did you really miss my many references to climate being the 30 year average, at least, of climate?
Had I known you were such an inattentive reader, I’d have typed multidecadal instead of decadal, although since orbital and rotational mechanics are continuous, there’s no theoretical reason why there might not be hard to detect decadal or even annual effects on insolation, probably swamped by other parameters.
Sturgis, no. Climate is a quasi-stable state due to geography and oceanic/atmospheric broad scale teleconnections. Weather pattern variations and regime shifts can be longer than 30 years. Easily so. But climate is a rather stable entity due to its geophysical confines.
My view of climate admittedly diverges from the current fad among researchers to refer to weather as “climate”. I believe that is driven by sensationalism. It is scarier to say the climate is changing. Not so scary to say that we are in a weather pattern regime shift.
Pamela Gray says:
August 10, 2014 at 1:59 pm
My opinion doesn’t matter. We’re discussing your baseless assertion that a volcanic eruption caused the LIA during the MWP.
But yes, I do find it sensible that the continuously operating Milankovitch cycles do have climatic effects on centennial and millennial scale fluctuations like the MWP and LIA and their thousands of predecessors in the Pleistocene and Holocene. It’s hard to imagine how that could not happen, when longer term, orbital mechanics are strongly associated with rate of change in ice volume on our planet. IMO it’s reasonable to assume shorter term orbital and rotational changes could cause less dramatic, shorter-lived climatic fluctuations than the big ones like glaciations and interglacials.
Not only sensible and reasonable, but a defensible hypothesis amply supported by observations, unlike your conjecture, which is entirely without valid support.
Please see Tony’s comment on Miller’s alleged proxy data.
Pamela Gray says:
August 10, 2014 at 2:06 pm
Climate is well defined in climatology.
You give yourself way too much credit. You in fact are participating in the corrupt “fad” of regarding weather as climate. A weather regime change (change in the weather) isn’t a climatic event unless it lasts at least three decades.
Sturgis, again, the ad hominem style of response. Unnecessary.
Climate is ill-defined in current climatology in my opinion. It represents a change in its definition that I find driven by sensationalism.
Pamela Gray says:
August 10, 2014 at 2:12 pm
Your opinion is wrong. In real climatology, there has been no change.
As for the alarmist Team, to whose garbage you adhere, and their lackey media, you’re right that weather can become climate when it serves their corrupt purposes.
@ Pamela Gray
In your post of August 10, 2014 at 10:01 am you invited me, among others to look again at your comment. I did and replied
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/08/06/recent-paper-finds-recent-solar-grand-maximum-was-a-rare-or-even-unique-event-in-3000-years/#comment-1706277
in what I consider to be polite manner, suggesting a course of action that might prove of otherwise your hypothesis.
Since you did not acknowledge my reply to your invitation to look at your comment, I shall assume that you have not noticed it, rather than ignored it because you found it contradictory. Either way, I am more than content to leave it at that.
The old way of talking about climate, one I still subscribe to. It’s old but it does not arbitrarily narrow the time span used to state the average temperature. And the average temperature is only one rather small factor involved in discussing climate. This is where the current fad and I disagree. To describe a change in just one (and not the major one) thing that determines climate and then refer to that one thing as “climate” change as if it was the only thing that matters is a terribly wrong use of the term climate. I will continue to describe fluctuations in average global, regional, or local temperature over the course of 100’s of years as weather pattern variation changes and regime shifts within a climate setting, not climate change. Bring on another ice sheet advancing glacial ice age and I will call that climate change.
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CCcQFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.esrl.noaa.gov%2Fgmd%2Finfodata%2Flesson_plans%2FTeacher%2520Background%2520Information-%2520Earth's%2520Climate.pdf&ei=VuHnU8-GN-TCigK5-4D4Dg&usg=AFQjCNE1M0TAjtBAnEt4V6DG93OZbAIN0Q&bvm=bv.72676100,d.cGE
Sturgis, you are aware, I assume, that I do not subscribe to AGW attributed to the minute increase in fossil fuel use. On the contrary I consider that premise to be unsupportable, as AGW scientists do as well unless they use an amplifying mechanism (water vapor). And that has always been my leanings on this blog. I do think that the industrial fossil fuel derived anthropogenic addition to CO2 has a mathematical warming affect. I also think that TSI (and any other solar variable) has a mathematical warming and cooling affect on temperature. Neither of these two affects can be detected in the temperature series as neither have steadfastly (in the case of CO2), or cyclically (in the case of solar variation), caused global temperatures to rise or sink outside the boundary of natural variation in the past 100 years.
Could you provide links. I only ask because there was widespread famine in the early 14th century supposedly as a result of the cool, wet conditions.
John Finn
I am not at my main computer so do not have access to my research data base.
Yes, there were Very severe famines caused by rain early in the 14 th century
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Famine_of_1315–17
There was then a substantial switch to much warmer weather and a succession of famines caused by a variety of causes including drought, the plague and wars which often prevented planting or harvesting. There were also some very good harvests when man made or natural disasters allowed. They can be seen in the manorial records which I will write up in a future article
Tonyb
Olavi says:
August 10, 2014 at 1:37 pm
Leif! You are not the only person who is right in any solar related cases. There is refrees[?] whom are professionals too.
For every one that is right there are many more that are wrong.
John Finn says:
August 10, 2014 at 4:04 pm
Here’s a recent reconstruction based upon the starting date of grain harvest in Norfolk, compared to later series correlating harvest dates with temperatures in the CET:
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=3&ved=0CDAQFjAC&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.hist.unibe.ch%2Funibe%2Fphilhist%2Fhist%2Fcontent%2Fe267%2Fe325%2Fe512129%2FL-Pribyl-al-Apr-July-T-EastAnglia-12_ger.pdf&ei=jP3nU5D4C5D2oASIioKYBg&usg=AFQjCNGQcqnt_C6WtgaD4HnyRaC3Ntc1kg&sig2=UDvniMVKLbNbGqFiTjesgA&bvm=bv.72676100,d.cGU
Reconstructing medieval April-July mean temperatures in East Anglia, 1256-1431
Kathleen Pribyl • Richard C. Cornes • Christian Pfister
Received: I 7 February 20 I I I Accepted: 9 October 20 I I / Published online: 28 October 20 I I
“The reconstruction period contains decades of warmer spring-early summer temperatures (for example the 1320s to the early 1330s and the 1360s) as well as colder conditions (for example the late 1330s, 1340s and the 1380s).”
The average temperature drop over the whole period was from 13 to 12.4°C, but after the 1380s cooling the LIA set in.
mildon
I have graphed these ones as well as the titow series from the Winchester See covering some 300 years. I will include them in my forthcoming article.
tonyb
[“titow series” ?? “See” or “Sea”? .mod]
Vuk, no I did not see your response and thank you for responding. I note that the volcanic eruptions you point to between 1805-1820 do not register as being very strong in terms of stratospheric veiling based on ice core data (which is not a proxy but is actual measurement of volcanic substances in the ice cores) relative to the 1257-58 eruption. However, it is still the case that the eruptions you point to did indeed contribute to a very cold decade at the time.
climatereason says:
August 10, 2014 at 5:03 pm
Thanks very much. As you know, I appreciate all your hard work on extending the CET back in time and refining the extensions of Manley, et al.
Climate science needs more workers like you and fewer like Mann.
Pamela Gray says:
August 10, 2014 at 5:14 pm
Ice core figures are not useful data until adjusted for deposition rate, which makes them less valid, with huge error bars.
Estimation of volume of ejecta is a more precise measurement.
milo, no. Not in terms of stratospheric veiling. Volcanos can and do eject a tremendous amount of material, but what matters for ENSO consideration are the ones that eject material into the stratosphere. For that you need ice core data. And the larger ones in terms of stratospheric material show up in ice cores from both poles. These eruptions are the only ones I focus on. The rest can and do result in local and regional affects but are not global in nature.
As for triggering and sustaining, the processes will be different depending on what comes next after a big one. During the maximum boundary time span, multiple stratospheric volcanic signatures are significant in terms of polar ice core data. In addition, ENSO disruption (which according to Sturgis is climatic and not weather) does have longer term affects as does disruption in the overturning circulation (the preferred sustaining mechanism in the literature), likely in a stepwise temperature function. Indeed the temperature proxies do demonstrate this jagged slide into a colder regime shift out of the MWP.
My conjecture is that the stream of volcanic events combined with ENSO (and a nod to the preferred overturning circulation slowdown) led to an ocean body significantly out of gas to the point that we ended up in the coldest plunge later on in the period. When volcanic episodes died down the disruptions died with them, thus our slow crawl out of the LIA. CO2 and solar mechanisms need not apply.
So far, that is the current prevailing opinion in peer reviewed literature concerning the triggers and jagged slide into the deeper cold decades in that entire 2/3rds of a century period.
Before the actual location of the volcano was identified, the 1257-58 event (which shows continuous deposition over a nearly 6 year period in ice cores) was impressive to volcanologists and was the holy grail center of attention for several as they sought to identify it, and explain its climatic affects. Note: The authors use the term “climatic affects” in the literature.
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=13&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CHgQFjAM&url=http%3A%2F%2Fonlinelibrary.wiley.com%2Fdoi%2F10.1002%2Fjoc.891%2Fpdf&ei=NhroU_f5A6qDjAKG6oGIDA&usg=AFQjCNEOg3_dn4mRMN76bW81HT8bt8ln3w&sig2=hGnnqQA6S5SuwOw8a2euqQ&bvm=bv.72676100,d.cGE
Pamela Gray says:
August 10, 2014 at 6:36 pm
Six years is not climate.
Pamela Gray says:
August 10, 2014 at 6:18 pm
Doesn’t matter whether it’s north or south pole. All sulfate ice core “data” are subject to depositional constraints. They always vary, even when within the same overall climatic period, as the 1257 & 1280 eruptions were, for instance.
Please study up on & try to understand subjects before commenting on them. Many factors go into the deposition of sulfates in ices besides just the amount of sulphate lofted. Ambient climatic factors such as precipitation make a big difference, plus temperature, wind patterns, height of delivery, location of the eruption, etc.
http://www.reportingclimatescience.com/news-stories/article/views-on-climate-impact-of-historic-volcanoes-revised-by-study.html
“With such an accurately synchronized and robust array, Sigl and his colleagues were able to revise reconstructions of past volcanic aerosol loading that are widely used today in climate model simulations. Most notably, the research found that the two largest volcanic eruptions in recent Earth history (Samalas in 1257 and Kuwae in 1458) deposited 30 to 35 percent less sulfate in Antarctica, suggesting that these events had a weaker cooling effect on global climate than previously thought.”
Milo, be sure and let us know when the paper gets out of paywalled status. I don’t consider reading abstracts as a way to “…Please study up on & try to understand subjects before commenting on them”. Try again.
Pamela Gray says:
August 10, 2014 at 7:23 pm
Which of the CACA-spewing papers you’ve cited did you read beyond the abstract?
The paper I cited is described in detail in the long press release.
There is no evidence whatsoever showing that any volcanic eruption has changed climate, as real experts instead of the rent-seeking CACA charlatans with whom you’re in bed acknowledge. The effect of even the biggest is over in a few years at most. I very much doubt that the effect on weather of Samalas lasted six years. What data show that? Toba’s effect on world weather might possibly have lasted that long, but it was on the order of 100 times more energetic & massive, as the most powerful known eruption in tens of millions of years.
Milo, six years of reduced solar insolation due to stratospheric veiling in the equatorial band has the potential of affecting climate. Do you think your minute amount of solar variation has a greater potential? Show me.
So let’s do a thought experiment. Sulfuric veiling resulting from Mt. Pinatubo resulted in as much as a 20% reduction in solar insolation (see link). That is a huge difference at Earth’s surface, with significant deleterious affects on oceanic warming cycles that keep the ocean tanks full of gas. Volcanic reduction in solar insolation has been observed, calculated, and modeled for all the major stratospheric volcanic events recorded in the ice core data. Let’s say we are talking about the Maunder Minimum. During six years of the deepest part of the Maunder minimum, how much decrease in solar insolation would there be due to those solar changes?
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=10&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CF0QFjAJ&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nrel.gov%2Fsolar_radiation%2Fpdfs%2Fhistory.pdf&ei=TizoU9qXGYXBiwK9_oDwBA&usg=AFQjCNH9rMyw8hxCNutl2JvcVDeZEUx1WA&sig2=wNNBUfzjer7R0IBwnsb6RA
mods
[“titow series” ?? “See” or “Sea”? .mod “)
Yes and Yes. The first being a name the second being a religious term not a misspelling of the ocean :).
tonyb
Leif Svalgaard says:
August 10, 2014 at 3:55 am
Slide 18 of http://www.leif.org/research/Does%20The%20Sun%20Vary%20Enough.pdf
…………
Thanks for the link.
Two sharp peaks between 2000 and 3000 years (before present) appear to be caused by the Earth’s magnetic field at the time, thus two maxima in the blue line may not be as high (red curve numbers could reveal more details)
I have looked at your presentation few times before. This time I did spectrum of McCracken data for Maunder minimum..
I found following 3 periods of almost equal amplitude
11.4 years at 9.3%
11.4 years is very close to a number of cycles with 11+ years periods.
16,7 years at 8.5%
16 years is one of the three most prominent component of the Earth’s magnetic field (Jackson & Bloxham based on Jault Gire & LeMouel)
27.5 years at 8.2%
28 years is GCR modulation period quoted by Hiroko Miyahara (University of Tokyo), most likely a cross-modulation product between 5 and 21.3 years, the two other most prominent components of the Earth’s magnetic spectrum.
I shall make no other comment except to say that I hope it might be of some interest to you. When I get all this organised I’ll email the McCracken’s and spectrum data files.
Milo
Thanks for your kind comment. Its highly profitable of course, what with the huge sums of money that the Koch Brothers and Big Oil keep giving me… 🙂
tonyb
milo, the Samara signal in the ice cores is nearly 6 years long, meaning that ash and sulfur continued to fall out at the poles. There are very few volcanos with ash fallout signals that last more than 3-4 years in ice cores. The volcanos that have multi-year (IE greater than 4) deposits also coincide with cold periods in the temperature records. And again, please understand that stratospheric volcanic signals in ice cores at both poles points to global veiling. There are volcanos that may have spewed more ejecta, but unless that ejecta gets into the stratosphere with enough material to stay aloft till it eventually falls out at the poles, the effects will be local or regional, not global.
re: the ad hominem
I read all the papers I link to before putting them here. Further, I rarely link to just an abstract of a paper behind a paywall. And I consider it bad form if I do.
A recent paper describes correlation between historic Ireland records (written annuls) of cold spells with volcanic ice core records. Ireland is in the direct path of regional volcanos as well as tropical and Southern Hemisphere stratospheric volcanic events due to its proximity to warm oceanic currents and of course local volcanically active regions. It certainly appears that during a rather long period of volcanic activity, the people of Ireland withstood a weather pattern regime shift that brought on noticeably colder weather. The conclusion asks that further information be collected on oceanic/atmospheric teleconnections and systems active prior to these events. I wonder why they would think that was important? Note: That was a rhetorical question just in case you wonder why I would ask whether or not it was important.
http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/8/2/024035/article
milo: I read the paper before I posted the link, in case you worry about that sort of thing. And I have read other papers about Ireland chronicles. Both sides of my family trace their ancestors back to Ireland and the written chronicles completed by religious orders go way back. It is a real treasure trove of information.
Pamela Gray says:
August 10, 2014 at 7:47 pm
Samalas did not happen during the Maunder Minimum but at the height of the Medieval Warm Period.
The effect on insolation of even the biggest volcanic eruptions is orders of magnitude less important than the fluctuations in UV component of the irradiance spectrum & magnetic flux, not to mention the effects of orbital & rotational mechanical modulation & clouds, not least because the volcanic effects are of such short duration. Noticeable effects on weather last a few years at most, not six, even if sulphates be detectable for six years. Best evidence is that even Toba, as has been repeatedly pointed out here, affected weather for only about six years.
Why do you keep speculating so wildly when all the evidence shows that there was no climatic effect from Samalas or any other eruption during the Medieval Warm Period, or for that matter the LIA, Modern WP or any other of the regular cycles preceding them? The guy upon whose now outdated sulphate data you rely himself admits as much, although he does say that Toba might have produced a climatic effect, but of too short a duration to show up in the proxy data. But that’s pure speculation, too.
Pamela Gray says:
August 11, 2014 at 7:51 am
Does it come as a surprise to you that temperature records are derived from historical sources such as chronicles? I guess you’re as new to data reconstruction as Mosher, who pooh-poohs historical records.
How do you think the CET set has been extended back 800 years from its thermometer data? This is what researchers like our own Tony Brown do every day.
The Irish chronicle indeed records the effect on weather of volcanic eruptions, as do other sources. No one ever denied that big eruptions can affect weather. What you haven’t shown, because you can’t, is that they also affect climate, whether through your already repeatedly falsified ENSO conjecture or some other means. After a few years at most, the effect ends as the aerosols get rained or snowed out, drift down on their own, attached to particles or by other means. This indisputable fact has been demonstrated over & over.
PS: I know of only one or two possible VEI 6 eruptions during the Maunder Minimum (using conventional dates of 1645-1715, which are debatable), & both were early in it, if within it at all. Santorini burped in 1650 & Long Island, NE of New Guinea, in 1640-80, most likely c. 1660. There were none at all after those not only during the rest of the Maunder, including its depths, but way into the 18th century. Laki went off in 1783 after over a century of volcanic drought.
Volcanos are a part of my theme for overall cooling going forward, but they are but one part of the big picture and are likely tied into solar activity if past historical data is reliable.
Anyone that tires to equate one item as the item that controls the climate is barking up the wrong tree.
The sun is an exception because it drives the climate and when something that drives something else changes it will have an effect. But the sun needs secondary effects in addition to primary changes in the sun itself to accomplish this.
I don’t think anyone disagrees with that premise. The disagreement comes as to what degree does solar variability change the climate and to what degree does the sun vary by.
Know one really knows the answer I will admit that. However from my point of view the recent solar lull suggest solar variability is more then what many expect. Two reasons for this is it came (2008-2010) no where near the peak of a Grand Minimum Solar period ,and solar activity although severe was quite short in duration in contrast to the MAUNDER MINIMUM.
This suggest that the Maunder Minimum was probably a much weaker solar period then the recent solar lull but even if it were similar most if not all of my solar criteria would have been met during the Maunder Minimum to promote climate change.
The solar parameters during the recent solar lull did meet my criteria on balance other then duration of time not being long enough, and solar wind being a little high.
Going forward questions will be answered as follows:
Will there be another severe solar lull?
If so how severe will it be?
If so how long will it last in duration of time?
If it materializes will it have a climate impact?
My best estimate by looking at past historical data is yes to al the question while others will say no.
Time will tell.
Salvatoree Del Prete says:
August 11, 2014 at 9:06 am
However from my point of view the recent solar lull suggest solar variability is more then what many expect.
The Lockwood et al. papers you have been peddling claim that solar variability is LESS that previously thought…so ‘your point of view’ may not amount to much. And a ‘lull’ is just ‘less’ than something, isn’t it?
Check out the image of El Chichon’s sulfur cloud on page 28. It is sitting right over the high pressure cell component of the Walker Circulation that maintains the neutral to La Nina condition allowing solar energy transfer into the ocean water column. When that Walker cell circulation is disrupted, Kevin waves and El Nino conditions are triggered which themselves can led to decreased insolation due to additional clouds. Obscuring the Sun with a sulfur cloud over that high pressure cell, in addition to El Nino cloudiness could easily disrupt the Walker Cell system and severely reduce solar insolation, leading to weather pattern regime shifts on a global basis.
The 1257 event was far larger and resulted in far greater sulfur signals in the ice core record, extending over multiple years. So keep that cloud over the high pressure cell for years and let’s see what happens in our thought experiment. There would be a significant reduction in solar insolation in the one area that is drastically important in terms of ENSO processes that teleconnect on a global basis, which includes larger decadal oscillations like the PDO and AMO.
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=3&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CDUQFjAC&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.agu.org%2Fbooks%2Fgm%2Fv116%2FGM116p0025%2FGM116p0025.pdf&ei=6uPoU73xBcHXiwKYt4G4DA&usg=AFQjCNGT9jTgG6bQRYZ8xRO5c0OgKZdcWA&sig2=VxGEJMebmv5r2KUuSsDprw
In fact, well known volcano-climatologists subscribe to such climatic effects resulting in decadal and even century long temperature drops (not just weather affects):
“The largest volcanic perturbation was estimated to be that from the 1259 Unknown. Together with four other moderate to large sulfate injections during the century, 1228, 1268, 1275 and 1285, this particularly large eruption caused a clear temperature decrease of several tenths of a degree Celsius for the entire thirteenth century. This suggests the role of these temporal closely spaced eruptions may have in century-scale climate variation of that period.”
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CCkQFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fclimate.envsci.rutgers.edu%2Fpdf%2FGao2008JD010239.pdf&ei=Uu3oU_GlEcKKjALPqIFw&usg=AFQjCNEsYW1lx-Dpn_rn3ncKWQhQ5xOglw&sig2=MEUMpzyJELpKaV2CXYRosg&bvm=bv.72676100,d.cGE
Milo, in case you wonder, not only have I read these papers but they also sit on my desk top so I can read them again. Thought you would want to know.
Again my point of view to the dismay of some is not an isolated point of view. There are many that share the same point of view.
Lockwood is supporting the view that solar variability is much greater then what many keep trying to convey. I am on board the Lockwood train.
If one looks at the data one will see that over 80% of al major volcanic eruptions have been associated with prolonged minimum solar periods or minimum solar activity. A fact like it or not.
I would say this supports solar variability . I am in agreement..
Abstract
From the variation of near-Earth interplanetary conditions, reconstructed for the mid-19th century to the present day using historic geomagnetic activity observations, Lockwood and Owens (2014) have suggested that Earth remains within a broadened streamer belt during solar cycles when the Open Solar Flux (OSF) is low. From this they propose that the Earth was immersed in almost constant slow solar wind during the Maunder minimum (c. 1650–1710). In this paper, we extend continuity modeling of the OSF to predict the streamer belt width using both group sunspot numbers and corrected international sunspot numbers to quantify the emergence rate of new OSF. The results support the idea that the solar wind at Earth was persistently slow during the Maunder minimum because the streamer belt was broad.
View Full Article with Supporting Information (HTMLTO VARY MORE
Salvatoree Del Prete says:
August 11, 2014 at 9:34 am
Lockwood is supporting the view that solar variability is much greater then what many keep trying to convey.
No, the traditional, mainstream notion is that the solar magnetic field [as measured by HMF B] was less than 1 nT during the Maunder Minimum versus some 5 nT right now. Lockwood’s model claims that HMF B was 2 nT. The variation from 5 nT down to 2 nT is LESS than the old value of from 5 nT down to 1 nT, so Lockwood [latest] claims just the opposite of what you believe… Are you ready to jump on that new ‘less variability train’?
I am fine with 2nT. That proves solar variability..
2 nT would be more then enough to have the kind of solar variability I think is needed to promote climate change.
Salvatoree Del Prete says:
August 11, 2014 at 9:34 am
Lockwood is supporting the view that solar variability is much greater then what many keep trying to convey.
Let me remind you of what you quoted from Lockwood:
“Assuming S is proportional to R yields near-zero OSF throughout the Maunder Minimum. :
[This is the mainstream position]
“However, χ becomes negative during periods of low R, particularly the most recent solar minimum, meaning OSF production is underestimated”
[So Lockwood claims that the mainstream OSF is too low]
“This is related to continued coronal mass ejection (CME) activity, and therefore OSF production, throughout solar minimum, despite R falling to zero. Correcting S for this produces a better match to the recent solar minimum OSF observations. It also results in a cycling, nonzero OSF during the Maunder Minimum, in agreement with cosmogenic isotope observations.”
[So OSF was not near-zero as previously thought]
“These results suggest that during the Maunder Minimum, HCS tilt cycled as over recent solar cycles, and the CME rate was roughly constant at the levels measured during the most recent two solar minima.”
So the CME rate during the Maunder Minimum was on par with the recent observations, so LESS variability than previously thought.
You have all of this backwards. But, presumably it doesn’t matter what the data shows or what Lockwood claims, you have ‘your point of view’ which nothing can rock.
The solar variability issue is in a constant change of flux. This is why it is going to be very interesting going forward, but 2nT is much less then 4nT associated with this recent severe solar lull.
Which proves my point.
“These results suggest that during the Maunder Minimum, HCS tilt cycled as over recent solar cycles, and the CME rate was roughly constant at the levels measured during the most recent two solar minima
All you are saying is suggest which is fine . That is your point of view not the point of view of many others that have a complete different take on it. Time will tell.
The question that can’t be answered is where did all the sunspots go during the Maunder? Until that question is answered the Maunder is a mystery as to why it happened and what was the actual solar variability.
MORE QUESTIONS THEN ANSWES ARE OUT THERE.
And if this were not the case opinions today would not be so deeply divided.
Salvatoree Del Prete says:
August 11, 2014 at 9:56 am
“These results suggest that during the Maunder Minimum, HCS tilt cycled as over recent solar cycles, and the CME rate was roughly constant at the levels measured during the most recent two solar minima”
All you are saying is suggest which is fine . That is your point of view not the point of view of many others that have a complete different take on it.
No, that is not my view or suggestion, but that of Lockwood quoted by you. But you are correct, that many others have a completely different take on this than Lockwood.
Salvatoree Del Prete says:
August 11, 2014 at 10:01 am
The question that can’t be answered is where did all the sunspots go during the Maunder? Until that question is answered the Maunder is a mystery as to why it happened and what was the actual solar variability.
Before we get to that, you first have to admit that apart from that, solar variability was a lot less than previously thought [as Lockwood now realizes].
Then to the mystery: We know that sunspots form by magnetic fields assembling themselves into stronger concentrations which show a dark spots. It is likely that that process was somewhat less efficient during the Maunder Minimum [as is evidently observed]. Why that was so, is still a research problem.
I may have found Sigl’s reconstruction paper. Looking at the sulfur table on page 1158, the Samara 1257 eruption still stands out in the ice core as the largest in terms of bipolar deposit, and its location certainly would have driven a very large sulfur plume over at least the El Nino 3.4 region for quite some time, dwarfing El Chichon’s plume, even after evidence of deposition disappears in the ice cores (volcanic activity may have continued with regional outgassing for possibly years after the signal disappears from ice cores).
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=15&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CIABEBYwDg&url=http%3A%2F%2Fnora.nerc.ac.uk%2F502097%2F1%2Fjgrd50082.pdf&ei=GfToU-fHA-nNigKZmoCIAw&usg=AFQjCNEc3bKuIbs7FJ7ui1OCJ_wxKH_QRQ&sig2=C1p5glQHlzXPfDTcGxDBsw&bvm=bv.72676100,d.cGE
In any event I hope all the questions that are currently out there will be resolved one way or the other in the very near future. Watch and see where all of the data takes us going forward.
By the way milo, the guys with the “outdated” data? The current guys use a different calculation for the 1257 eruption. Both end up with an extremely large event. However, I would imagine the various groups of researchers have their proponents and detractors regarding this event. Who wouldn’t? The ice core raw data demonstrates the significance of this event. I consider it to be the holy grail of explosions in terms of mystery and stratospheric solar insolation affects. Apparently many researchers do too. Lots of papers out there. I have only provided links to a few (and have read them ;>).
It is only a matter of time before volcanically disrupted ENSO processes extending throughout the globe due to oceanic/atmospheric teleconnections come under the microscope when speaking of these Indonesian cataclysmic level eruptions. And I am betting that Bob Tisdale’s proposal involving a discharge/recharge process will be near if not on, the plate.
One more thing milo, I have linked to Irish chronicles several times in this blog. They are certainly not new to me.
THE HOCKEY SCHTICK: It’s the Sun
http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2014/08/10/solar-hockey-stick-found-by-the-hockeyschtick/
So my view that the Little Ice Age is a combination of oceanic/atmospheric settings impinged upon by a reduction in solar insolation due to volcanic activity is adequately represented in peer reviewed literature. Cataclysmic solar insolation reducing volcanic events leading into and through the Little Ice Age appears to be a stronger case for temperature dips than solar mechanics. At the very least, direct and calculable significant decreases in solar insolation due to atmospheric sulfur and ash veils are possible for these volcanic events. We have yet to be graced with a calculable solar mechanism for the Little Ice Age.
Golly Salvatore, now there’s a mechanism. Not.
Pam you are entitled to your opinion. Go with it.
Pamela Gray says:
August 11, 2014 at 10:59 am
We have yet to be graced with a calculable solar mechanism for the Little Ice Age.
And for why the Sun itself should vary…
One added reminder is many disagree with your opinion of no solar mechanism. But why argue let’s let future data determine who is correct.
An interesting paper on a model used to determine sulfur gas solar insolation change resulting in temperature change on Mars. There are also many papers on using geostratospheric engineering as a way to mitigate global warming. Basically injection of sulfur into the stratosphere. Climate change on large doses of stupidity steroids and grant-drunk swigs from the money trough.
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=8&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CF8QFjAH&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffaculty.washington.edu%2Fdcatling%2FTian2010_Sulfur_Cools_Early_Mars.pdf&ei=ZAXpU-jwLq_xigLSt4DwDQ&usg=AFQjCNH_QQbEqN0F43P85TDRAoIKBpK9Qw&sig2=OH4btfVSsb2Nn0QkP8t2Jw&bvm=bv.72676100,d.cGE
Salvatore Del Prete says:
August 11, 2014 at 11:06 am
let’s let future data determine who is correct.
And you can follow your own advice and hold your horses until such time has arrived.
Pamela Gray says:
August 11, 2014 at 10:59 am
Explain please why the LIA needs its own special explanation but the thousands of prior such events in the Quaternary don’t.
Aerosols for a few years cannot change the underlying climatic trends, which demonstrably follow from changes in modulation of solar irradiance and magnetism. These changes not only can be calculated, but have been for hundreds of thousands of years into the past and far into the future. They do a splendid job of hindcasting observed glacial & interglacial cycles. You OTOH cannot even present any evidence that the supposed mechanisms you imagine have occurred, because you can’t. Nothing approaching what you propose has been observed for any part of the planet, let alone in the ENSO record. Volcanic sulphates simply don’t persist long enough, for starters.
So, in sum, you have failed to show the Null Hypothesis false, ie shown no need to assume that the LIA was any different from thousands of other such cycles, failed to show that centennial scale climatic changes follow eruptions. failed to show any climatic effect at all from volcanoes (ie only on weather for at most a few years), failed to show any sign of the mechanism which you propose & failed to show quantitatively how that mechanism could work, among other failings lethal to your hypothesis.
Busted.
A lovely paper on the atmospheric (and lagged) bridge to other larger scale weather and climate system under El Nino conditions. I want these scientists, Bob Tisdale, Leif (I need you in the group to combat the solar grand maximum bit still out there), and atmospheric volcanologists (they study what goes on in the air, not on the ground) to get together over a beer. I think they are missing the very important piece about equatorial solar energy transfer (IE recharge-ala Bob Tisdale) under clear sky and veiled conditions. This piece has the potential for longer term climatic effects.
http://gfdl.noaa.gov/bibliography/related_files/sak9901.pdf
So milo, you are saying that the calculated real reduction in solar insolation over a multi-year period would not affect the heat budget in the oceans which spews out its stored energy in clearly lagged ways, the Walker Cell circulation would continue as before, the atmospheric bridge would still work, and the global temperature beyond a temporary change in air temps would recover as soon as the sun shines again. IE heat storage into the oceans (which has lags as great as 600 years) would not be affected by stratospheric veils but air temps would. The affect of reduction in solar insolation during the LIA evidenced by the ice cores would somehow be completely ignored by the oceans but attended to by the air and would be here today, gone tomorrow with no accumulative affects at all.
That’s a lot of science to ignore.
Milo, keep in mind that under clear sky conditions 51% of solar irradiance reaches Earth’s surface. Under complete cloudy skies, a little over half of that reaches Earth’s surface. Are you sure that stratospheric veils cannot affect the ocean heat budget while clouds clearly can? How would you be able to accept one but not the other?
It is my understanding that solar enthusiasts consider the ultimate affect to be on clouds thus reducing solar insolation at the surface thus causing cooling and reduced oceanic energy storage. So it seems to me that the physical ability of clouds reflecting solar irradiance away from Earth must also be applied by this group with regard to stratospheric veils. The mechanisms of reflection/absorption are essentially the same, and the resulting change of Earth’s heat energy balance would be very similar, IE Immediate AND lagged affects. One would also have to consider oceanic circulation of this cloudy sky less heated store of water. I know several here speak at length of UV increases leading to ocean and thus global warming. Under an occluded sky, these same commenters would have to consider reduced UV thus reduced ocean and global temps. You cannot accept one and not the other when the mechanism results in the same outcome, IE reduced (increased) insolation of what ever part of the solar spectrum you focus on, whether from clouds or volcanic veiling, leading to increased (reduced) oceanic and atmospheric heating.
No such thing I will keep promoting my opinions until proven correct or wrong.
Oceans absorb roughly half (see the link below) of solar insolation that reaches the surface, about 120 w/m2 of the calculated 240w/m2 that make it to Earth’s surface. Cloud occluded skies can reduce solar insolation by 20% give or take. Diminution by stratospheric veils are harder to calculate. So let’s just use the cloudy sky figure and pretend that a cloud of ash and sulfur has darkened the sky in the Pacific equatorial band. Spend 2 years or more under that kind of reduction in watts being stored day in and day out in the equatorial band. These ash plumes are dense locally, regionally for the bigger ones, and their longer lasting stratospheric veils are implicated as a direct cause in epic global cooling events. Let the Earth continue to experience diminution of incoming solar insolation on a global scale thanks to that veil encircling the Earth as it spreads from pole to pole. Slowly over the course of 2 to 4 years the atmosphere clears and direct heating can be restored. But what about the oceans? Do they immediately catch up and refill the tank? Probably not as the ENSO cycle and all the other systems return to normal.
But that is just half of the picture. There must be an indirect volcanic result that has longer effects. Why? Because of what we know about ENSO connections to the atmosphere and global circulation of water from the Pacific equatorial band. Just about every tome I have read only closely considers direct reduction in irradiance and ignores the indirect sequelae of a reduced tank of gas in the form of less warmed equatorial water (which by the way is the bedrock of our heat engine), especially in the Pacific Equatorial band, sitting in the ocean waiting to circulate. The wind and current driven circulation on the surface is relatively quick (we have seen meandering surface pools do their thing thanks to Bob Tisdale) but the entire thing can take 600-1000 years riding the grand over-turning circulation route and mixing into various layers. The Pacific Equatorial band is a very large body of water absorbing heat energy to a depth of 300 or more meters. In our thought experiment, a 20% reduction in the watts it absorbs is no small thing.
That system is priority 1 for me when it comes to significant cold weather pattern regime shifts downward like we see in the temperature series from 1000 to 1700 that have been correlated with volcanic activity. The Earth hardly had time to breath before yet another stratospheric veil appeared reducing insolation once again. Eventually the system was running on air with no gas station in sight. And one more volcano blast sent us into the deeper depth of the Little Ice Age. The records show that stratospheric volcanic events died down and we have been climbing out of that empty tank of gas since then.
http://oceanworld.tamu.edu/educators/heat_budget/background/sys_struc/HB_sys_concepts.htm
Salvatore Del Prete says:
August 11, 2014 at 3:38 pm
No such thing I will keep promoting my opinions until proven correct or wrong.
Perhaps you might consider that other people may be less interested in your opinion. And that your promoting is a bit tedious and old hat.
Pamela Gray says:
August 11, 2014 at 1:35 pm
Yes, I can be confident of the difference. For starters, your own volcanic sulphate experts Robock, et al, have shown that after prompt cooling, the annual scale effect of big eruptions is to warm most of the world, not cool it.
Can you really not see the difference between water droplets (clouds) in the troposphere & aerosols in the stratosphere?
Until you can point to some actual climatic evidence showing a response on the multidecadal or centennial scale to eruptions, then all your (easily shown false) speculation is pointless. But all available evidence shows no cooling or warming effect from eruptions after at most a few years. The climate system soon returns to whatever trend was the rule before the events.
Hi milo
Thought you would be interested in this graphic in which I displayed CET as decadal and 50 year segments.
http://curryja.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/graph03.png
Undoubtedly a major volcano can have an effect on weather . This is from the annals of Exeter Cathedral which I researched a couple of years ago;
1783/4 ‘Extra poor relief in extreme cold’ (due to Iceland volcano?)
This was presumably due to Laki. which erupted in june 1783. However, 1782 had also been very cold as had 1780 and temperatures had made a recovery by 1785. As can be seen the decadal temperatures were up and down like a yo yo although the 50 year periods were steadily rising and the effects of Laki can not be seen.
We can also note from the Cathedral records:
1740 January ‘£23 to be given to poor in consideration of the severity of the season.’
Perhaps this was as a result of Tarumai in japan in aug 1739 but again temperatures quickly reverted to normal by 1741
As a result of looking at the hot 1730’s decade (the warmest in the record until the 1990’s) and the cold 1740 period Phil jones said that natural variability was much greater than he had hithetro supposed.
After looking at thousads of records I would say that big volcanoes can affect weather for a season or two (depending on location) but that they have no long term impact on climate and certainly aren’t responsible for decades or centuries of cold
tonyb
I don’t think so since so many are of the same opinion as I am.
tonyb says:
August 12, 2014 at 9:59 am
Thanks very much for that link & for all your work.
You’d think that Jones would already have discovered natural variability before presuming to declare the late 20th century unprecedented. But we’re in the post-modern age of science, I guess.
I completely agree with you that big eruptions, or even smaller ones locally, can & do affect weather for a season, a year or two, but not climate.