by Javier Vinós & Andy May
“These shifts are associated with significant changes in global temperature trend and in ENSO variability. The latest such event is known as the great climate shift of the 1970s.”
Anastasios A. Tsonis, Kyle Swanson & Sergey Kravtsov (2007)
For those that prefer it, Christian Freuer has translated this post into German here.
4.1 Introduction
While the study of weather variability has a long tradition, the science of climate change is a very young scientific topic, as attested to by the 1984 discovery of the first multidecadal oscillation, the primary global climate internal variability phenomenon, by Folland et al. The impact of this fundamental feature of the global climate system was discovered ten years later by Schlesinger and Ramankutty (1994), after modern global warming had already been blamed on CO2 changes, illustrating the risk of reaching a consensus with insufficient understanding of the topic at hand. The Pacific (inter) Decadal Oscillation (PDO) was discovered three years later (Mantua et al. 1997; Minobe 1997). The Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO) was not named until just two decades ago (Kerr 2000).
Prior to the 1980s, it was generally thought that climate changed so slowly as to be almost imperceptible during the span of a human lifetime. But then it became clear that abrupt climate changes took place during the past glacial period (Dansgaard et al. 1984), Dansgaard–Oeschger events demonstrated that regional, hemispheric, and even global climate could undergo drastic changes in a matter of decades. The problem was that modern climate-change theory was built around gradual changes in the greenhouse effect (GHE) and did not have much room for abrupt, drastic, global changes that could not be properly explained by changes in greenhouse gas (GHG) radiative forcing.
The first explanations for glacial Dansgaard–Oeschger events involved drastic changes in meridional transport (MT) by the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC). AMOC is part of the global conveyor theory that tries to explain the flow of heat through the Earth’s oceans. The AMOC explanation, better known as the salt-oscillator hypothesis (Broecker et al. 1990), falls short however, as there is no evidence that the AMOC has undergone the abrupt and drastic changes required to produce the events. The current theory on MT is based on what is known as the Bjerkness compensation hypothesis, where changes in one of MT components (the oceanic or the atmospheric) are compensated for by similar changes of the opposite sign in the other. Current interpretations of the Dansgaard–Oeschger phenomenon are based on rapid sea-ice changes taking place in the Nordic seas that abruptly released a great amount of ocean-stored heat under the sea-ice (Dokken et al. 2013).
Dansgaard–Oeschger events have turned out to be a glacial-world phenomenon with little applicability to current Holocene conditions, but it is clear that abrupt climate changes are a reality that requires an explanation. Studies of Holocene climate change have identified at least 23 abrupt climate events (Fig. 4.1e; Vinós 2022) during the past 11,700 years (about two per millennium on average). They are well reflected in several proxies of different nature and identified as such in the paleoclimatic literature. From their different climatic signatures, it is clear that these events are not a response to a single cause. Yet modern climate-change theory has left us with only two possibilities, changes in radiative forcing produced by changes in atmospheric GHGs, or volcanic activity. These simple processes cannot explain them all. Changes in CO2 can be ruled out as a cause, since from 11,000 years ago to 1914 it remained between 250 and 300 ppm, and decadal to centennial oscillations in CO2 have only varied a few ppm according to ice cores. Volcanic forcing presents a problem, because its Holocene evolution has been opposite to temperature evolution. It was stronger when the planet warmed and weaker when it cooled, reaching a minimum c. 3,000 years ago, so it cannot be a strong driver of centennial temperature change. In fact, the Little Ice Age (LIA), the most recent abrupt climate event prior to modern global warming, cannot be explained by CO2 or volcanic forcing. According to the GISP2 ice core volcanic sulfate record (Fig. 4.1c; Zielinski et al. 1996), volcanic activity was above average between 1166–1345 AD, but was below average during most of the LIA, only becoming elevated again towards the end of it, in the 1766–1833 AD period, as the world began to warm.
In Fig. 4.1, (a) is the black curve, a global temperature reconstruction from 73 proxies (after Marcott et al. 2013; with original proxy dates and differencing average), expressed as the distance to the average in standard deviations (Z-score). The purple curve, (b), is Earth’s axial tilt (obliquity) in degrees. The red curve (c) is the Holocene volcanic sulfate in the GISP2 ice core in parts per billion summed for each century in the BP scale (rightmost point is 0–99 or 1851–1950), with the quadratic trendline shown as the thin red line. Data are from Zielinski et al. 1996. Curve (d) is light blue and shows CO2 levels as measured in the Epica Dome C (Antarctica) ice core. Data are from Monnin et al. 2004. The light grey bars, (e), are abrupt climatic events during the Holocene determined from ice-rafted petrological tracers (Bond et al. 2001), methane changes (Blunier et al. 1995; Kobashi et al. 2007; Chappellaz et al. 2013), Dead Sea level changes (Migowski et al. 2006), δ18O isotope changes in Dongge Cave (Wang et al. 2005), North Levant precipitation changes (Kaniewski et al. 2015), and dolomite abundance changes in the Gulf of Oman eolian deposition record (Cullen et al. 2000). Dark grey boxes at bottom give their approximate dates in ka. The figure is from Vinós 2022
Modern climate theory has a problem explaining past abrupt climate changes and has developed a vague explanation that uses concepts from chaos theory about thresholds that are crossed and tipping points that are reached when a forcing gradually increases over a noisy chaotic background. The problem is that there is no evidence for the existence of such thresholds and tipping points other than the existence of the abrupt climate changes that they try to explain. Theoretical positive feedbacks are also invoked, but the general climate stability that has been life-compatible for the past 450 Myr indicates that it is a system dominated by negative feedbacks. As is usually the case with a troubled paradigm, it takes refuge on the least known aspects of climate, like the importance of the poorly measured themohaline circulation for climate change, finding some support in general circulation models, but not on the observational evidence, that suggests AMOC is a lot more stable than previously thought (Worthington et al. 2021), and does not appear to depend much on deepwater formation (Lozier 2012).
Besides abrupt climate events that took place centuries or millennia ago, current climate also undergoes rapid regime shifts every few decades. The regime shift concept was developed in ecology to explain rapid transitions between alternative stable states, mainly in grazing ecosystems. Lluch-Belda et al. (1989) used the concept to explain the alternation between sardine and anchovy regimes simultaneously in several of the world oceans, possibly in response to climate change. Their data showed that at least two shifts between sardine and anchovy regimes had taken place during the 20th century prior to the 1980s.
4.2 The climate shift of 1976-77
At the 1990 7th Annual Pacific Climate Workshop, Ebbesmeyer et al. (1991) presented a study demonstrating that in 1976 the Pacific climate had undergone a step change in 40 environmental variables, including air and water temperatures, the Southern Oscillation, chlorophyll, geese, salmon, crabs, glaciers, atmospheric dust, coral, carbon dioxide, winds, ice cover, and Bering Strait transport. The changes suggested that one of Earth’s largest ecosystems occasionally undergoes abrupt shifts. Nicholas Graham (1994) analyzed the abrupt changes that took place in the boreal winter circulation over the Northern Hemisphere (NH) and in the coupled ocean/atmosphere system of the tropical Pacific and concluded that these changes resemble a muted, quasi-permanent El Niño, that began when the coupled ocean-atmosphere system did not recover fully from the 1976-77 El Niño and were best described as a change in the background climate state. In addition, mid-latitude winter boreal circulation became more vigorous, with a southward excursion of the westerlies, significant changes in geopotential heights and sea level pressure, accompanied by a southward migration of the Aleutian low-pressure center in winter.
Examination of past climate and fishery data from the North Pacific by Mantua et al. (1997) and by Minobe (1997) led to the identification of a 50–70-year climate oscillation that was named the Pacific [inter] Decadal Oscillation (PDO; Mantua et al. 1997). Regime shifts in the PDO were identified in both articles c. 1925, 1947, and 1977. The pan-Pacific coordinated changes in climate and ecological variables were apparent in many sea-surface temperature (SST) and sea-level pressure (SLP) indices, like the Southern Oscillation Index, defined by Gilbert Walker in the 1920s, and known since the 1960s to track atmospheric El Niño-linked changes in the Walker circulation. Mantua and Hare defined the PDO as the leading principal component of an empirical orthogonal function of monthly SST anomalies over the North Pacific (poleward of 20°N; Mantua & Hare 2002). As changes in SLP lead changes in SST by about two months, Shoshiro Minobe (1999) focused on SLP, using the North Pacific Index (Trenberth & Hurrell 1994) that tracks seasonal SLP changes in an ample region of the North Pacific centered on the Aleutian Low. Using this index, Minobe showed that there were two oscillations causing climate shifts. The major oscillation, already identified, had a period of c. 55 years. It affected SLP variability during both winter and spring atmospheric circulation, and presented shifts at c. 1922/23, 1948/49 and 1975/76 (Minobe 1999). The minor oscillation had a period of c. 18 years, and only affected winter circulation. Three periods of the minor oscillation (i.e., shifts at c.1923/24, 1946/47 and 1976/77) nearly coincide in time and sign with pressure changes of the major oscillation (Fig. 4.2).
In Fig. 4.2, the central graph (a) is the wavelet-transform coefficient of the winter North Pacific index as the area-averaged sea-level pressure anomaly (hPa) in the region 160°E−140°W, 30−65°N. It is a three-dimensional representation of the time domain (1899–1997, X-axis), the frequency domain (periodicity, Y-axis), and the amplitude of the changes (color scale, hPa) of the pressure changes in a region centered in the Aleutian Low. Blue color indicates a deeper Aleutian Low associated with PDO positive phases. The thin black-solid, black-dashed and grey contours indicate the significance at the 95, 90 and 80 % confidence levels, respectively. The plot is from Minobe 1999. The thick black line, left scale, (b) is the phase and amplitude sine wave of the diurnal lunar nodal cycle K1 tidal constituent. It has been overlain to show that both the phase and period of the bidecadal component in the instrumental record is that of the 18.6-year lunar nodal cycle. The sine wave is after McKinnell and Crawford (2007). The dates of Pacific climate regime shifts (c) are shown as vertical lines, as identified by Mantua et al. (1997).
The North Atlantic also presents a multidecadal oscillation, the AMO, and a bidecadal one (Frankcombe et al. 2010). The relationship between the bidecadal and multidecadal oscillations remains unclear. A subharmonic relationship is unlikely despite their coupling. In the North Pacific they have a different seasonal dependency, and in the North Atlantic the bidecadal oscillation is best seen in subsurface temperatures, while the multidecadal one affects mainly surface temperature and Arctic deep-water salinity (Frankcombe et al. 2010). McKinnell and Crawford (2007) propose that the North Pacific bidecadal oscillation is a manifestation of the 18.6-year lunar nodal cycle in winter air and sea temperatures. This lunar cycle strongly affects the magnitude of the lunar diurnal tide constituent (K1) and is synchronized in phase and period to the bidecadal oscillation. In Fig. 4.2 increasing K1 (upward sinusoidal) is associated with decreasing SLP (blue colors) and decreasing K1 with increasing SLP. According to McKinnell and Crawford, the bidecadal component of variability association to the 18.6-yr lunar nodal cycle appears in proxy temperatures of up to 400 years in duration. A tidal cause for the bidecadal oscillation certainly provides an explanation for the subsurface temperature effect in the North Atlantic. Tides provide over half of the energy for the vertical mixing of water in the oceans.
The work of Schlesinger and Ramankutty (1994) made clear that multidecadal variability had effect on global temperature, which also displays a c. 55–70-year oscillation when detrended. Interdecadal oscillations have been described in most oceans, including the Arctic, affecting a variety of climatic phenomena including SST, SLP, sea subsurface temperature, salinity, sea-ice, wind speed, sea-level, and atmospheric circulation. It was necessary to take a global view integrating all this natural variability into a single hypothesis of global multidecadal internal climate change. This is what Marcia Wyatt accomplished when she developed the “stadium-wave” hypothesis in her thesis (Wyatt 2012). She identified a multidecadal climate signal that propagated across the Northern Hemisphere through the indices of a synchronized network (Fig. 4.3). While Wyatt could not identify the nature of the signal, or the cause of its period of c. 64 years, Wyatt and Curry (2014) identified the Eurasian Arctic sea-ice region as the place where the signal was first generated. As we saw in Part III, this is the main gateway for atmospheric winter meridional transport into the Arctic (e.g., see Figs. 3.6 & 3.8b), which is very sensitive to sea-ice.
Fig. 4.3 shows the 20th-century signal propagation through a 15-index-member network. Selected indices are a sub-set of a broader network. Four clusters of indices are highlighted (I through IV, each can be positive or negative). Each cluster is termed a “Temporal Group”. Peak values of Group indices represent stages of climate-regime evolution. The plot is from Wyatt and Curry 2014.
Clearly a hemispherically synchronized multidecadal variability in the ocean-atmosphere coupled system takes place in the NH during winter. Most modern global warming has also taken place since 1976 in the NH during the winter months (Fig. 4.4). It is obvious to anybody endowed with independent thinking that the climate shift that affected the NH winters since 1976 and the global warming that mainly affected the NH winters since 1976 must be causally related. At the very least, natural multidecadal variability must be responsible for an important part of the global warming experienced in the 1976–2000 period. Yet by the time multidecadal warming and climate regime shifts were known to climatologists (in the 1990s–2010s), modern climate theory had already played a trump card assigning the 1976 climate shift to aerosols. As Tsonis et al. write:
“The standard explanation for the post 1970s warming is that the radiative effect of greenhouse gases overcame shortwave reflection effects due to aerosols. However, … the observations with this event, suggests an alternative hypothesis, namely that the climate shifted after the 1970s event to a different state of a warmer climate, which may be superimposed on an anthropogenic warming trend.”
Tsonis et al. (2007)
Despite knowing this, modern climate theory has refused to incorporate the effect of climate shifts, which are poorly reproduced and never predicted by models. This sets the theory up for failure as the same trump card cannot be played again when the next shift comes. Can the proponents of modern climate theory ignore a new shift? Or will they recognize the theory’s shortcomings, after committing western economies to a profound decarbonization?
Fig 4.4 shows the Northern Hemisphere and Southern Hemisphere average temperature anomaly for December-February (continuous), March-May (long dash), June-August (short dash), and September-November (dotted) for the 1970–2000 period. The data are from Jones et al. 2016.
4.3 Despite all the people studying climate, the 1997–98 shift went unnoticed
The failure to incorporate climate shifts to the modern climate theory is one of the reasons the climate shift that took place in 1997–98 (97CS) was not noticed and properly described. Another reason is that many of its effects were erroneously assigned to the increasing radiative forcing from climbing GHGs levels and used to raise the level of climate alarm. As the 1976 shift changed the NH climate to a warmer state (Tsonis et al. 2007) by increasing the rate of warming (Fig. 4.4), the 97CS did the opposite and changed the climate state by reducing the rate of warming. Embarrassingly, it was not climate scientists who noticed this change, since it did not fit their biases with regard to increasing GHGs, but it was a geologist and paleontologist skeptical of modern climate theory who first reported it:
“There IS a problem with global warming… it stopped in 1998”
(Carter 2006)
After the pause in global warming was identified, hundreds of articles were published on it in scientific journals and a great controversy erupted over its reality, with some authors denying its existence (Lewandowsky et al. 2016) and even altering the official datasets to reduce its significance (Karl et al. 2015), and other authors asserting it was a real phenomenon that needed an explanation (Fyfe et al. 2016).
The pause controversy was a third factor obscuring recognition of the 97CS despite clear evidence of its existence. This factor, together with the absence of climate shifts in modern climate theory and models, and the incorrect attribution of its effects to increasing GHG forcing, kept the obvious conclusion out of the mainstream. Lluch-Belda et al. (1989) identified global sardine and anchovy regime shifts suggesting a climate change cause. These fishery shift points were later identified as Pacific climate shift points that had global teleconnections (Mantua & Hare 2002). Chavez et al. (2003) reported in the journal Science that a new multidecadal regime shift in Pacific fisheries had taken place in the mid-1990s. The warm “sardine regime” had changed to a cool “anchovy regime.” The authors advised (obviously to no avail) that these large-scale, naturally occurring variations should be taken into account when considering human-induced climate change. The 97CS continues to be unrecognized by climate scientists. The next shift will probably occur in the late 2020s to early 2030s. It would be shameful if climate scientists, at that time, are still unprepared for the change, and do not recognize multidecadal variability contribution to modern global warming.
4.4 How the climate shifted globally at the 97CS
Science is so specialized and compartmentalized these days that nobody has pulled together all the evidence that confirms the 1997-98 global climate shift. A shift that is obviously unexplained by changes in GHGs levels and modern climate theory. Solar activity changed from high at solar cycle (SC) 22 to low at SC24 (Fig. 4.5a, black line). This change can be better appreciated in the great decrease in the antipodal amplitude magnetic index (Fig. 4.5a, red line), that measures geomagnetic disturbances caused mainly by the solar wind, to centennial low values. We have already mentioned the famous pause in global warming (Fig. 4.5b), that can be better characterized as a reduction in the rate of global warming after the mid-1990s, and is still ongoing despite its interruption by the strong 2015–16 El Niño, after which no more warming has taken place, as of the middle of 2022.
At the 97CS, a predominantly Niño frequency pattern in ENSO turned into predominantly Niña, as determined by the cumulative multivariate El Niño index (MEI v.2). The summed index showed an increasing trend during the previous climate regime, peaked in 1998, and shows a declining trend after (Fig. 4.5c, black line). Warm water volume at the equator decreased in variability (Fig. 4.5c, red line), and strongly negative anomalies in the warm water volume, that used to happen once a decade, stopped after 2000. A westward shift in atmosphere-ocean variability in the tropical Pacific took place at the 97CS, characterized by a decrease of ENSO variability that coincides with the suppression of subsurface ocean temperature variability and a weakening of atmospheric-ocean coupling in the tropical Pacific. The shift manifested as more central Pacific versus eastern Pacific El Niño events, and a frequency increase in ENSO, linked to a westward shift of the location of the wind-SST interaction region (Li et al. 2019). The changes in the tropical Pacific atmospheric-ocean coupling had a reflection in the stratosphere. Global (60°N-S) stratospheric water vapor decreased abruptly in 2001 (Fig. 4.5d). Simultaneously, the tropical tropopause cooled (Randel & Park 2019), indicating that a step change in the tropical troposphere-stratosphere coupling also took place.
Fig. 4.5 shows series that illustrate the big climatic shift of 1997–98. Many nearly simultaneous changes in climate related phenomena took place globally between 1995 and 2005. Panel (a) shows Oct–Jan sunspots (thin black line) and the 11-yr average Oct–Jan sunspots (thick black line). Solar activity decreased from high (108 sunspots 1980–1995) to low (54 sunspots 2005–2015). The data are from WDC–SILSO. The antipodal amplitude (Aa) geomagnetic index 13-month average is the thin red line, and the 11-year average is the red thick line. The Aa geomagnetic index measures magnetic disturbances mainly caused by the solar wind. The data are from ISGI. In panel (b) the global surface average temperature anomaly in °C is plotted. It displays the 1998–2013 pause in warming. The data are from MetOffice HadCRUT 4.6 annual data. Panel (c) is the cumulative multivariate ENSO index v.2 as a black line. It changed from increasing to decreasing in 1998, indicating a shift in the ENSO pattern. The data are from NOAA. The change is also reflected in a strong reduction in the warm water volume anomaly (WWVa, shown in red) variability at the equator (5°N–5°S, 120°E–80°W above 20 °C), where after 2000 negative values of minus one are no longer reached. The data are plotted in 1014 m3 from TAO Project Office of NOAA/PMEL. The stratospheric water vapor monthly anomaly at 60°N–S, 17.5 km height, from solar occultation data (black line), and microwave sounder data (red line) in ppmv are plotted in panel (d). The large drop in stratospheric water vapor in 2001 occurs at about the same time as a drop in tropical tropospheric temperature (not shown).
Panel (e) plots the cloud cover anomaly, monthly as a thin line, and yearly as a thick line. The anomaly is for 90°S–90°N cloud cover in percent. Data are from EUMETSAT CM SAF dataset, after Dübal & Vahrenholt (2021). Panel (f) is the ensemble mean annual Hadley cell intensity anomaly (in percent from the mean) for the NH from eight reanalyses (black line), and ensemble mean annual-mean Hadley cell edge anomaly (in degrees latitude) for the NH from eight reanalyses (red line). The plot is from Nguyen et al. 2013. Panel (g) is the average annual change in length-of-day (ΔLOD) in millseconds, inverted (up is a shortening in LOD due to acceleration in Earth’s spin). The data are from IERS LOD C04 IAU2000A. Panel (h) is the yearly increase of the 10-year running mean of the ocean heat content (black line), and the annual mean Earth energy imbalance obtained as the difference between the incoming solar radiation and the total outgoing radiation (red line). Both are in W/m2. The plot is after Dewitte et al. 2019. The illustration is from Vinós 2022.
At the 97CS, low cloud cover decreased (Fig. 4.5e; Veretenenko & Ogurtsov 2016; Dübal & Vahrenholt 2021), and Earth’s albedo anomaly reached its lowest point in 1997 and started increasing (Goode & Pallé 2007). The increase was due to increasing high and middle altitude cloud cover. During the 1995–2005 period a tropicalization of the climate took place and the tropics expanded as the Hadley cells increased their extent and intensity (Fig. 4.5f; Nguyen et al. 2013). The atmospheric angular momentum decreased causing the speed of rotation of the Earth to increase, reducing the length of the day by 2 milliseconds (Fig. 4.5g). All these changes altered the energetics of the climate system. The Earth’s energy imbalance, the incoming solar radiation minus the total outgoing longwave radiation (OLR) as measured by the CERES system, started to decrease, (Fig. 4.5h, red line; Dewitte et al. 2019). The global energy change at the 97CS resulted in a change in trend in the ocean heat content (OHC) time derivative (Fig. 4.5h, black line; Dewitte et al. 2019). This change indicates OHC started to increase more slowly, which dismisses claims that the missing heat resulting from the pause in warming was going into the oceans (Chen & Tung 2014).
These are some of the global climate variables that display a rapid change at, or soon after, the climate regime shift identified by Chavez et al. (2003) as a transition from a “warm” sardine to a “cool” anchovy regime, the opposite of the 1976 shift that was identified in the 1990s. Twenty-five years after the recognition of climate shifts, the 97CS still is not acknowledged by modern climate science. That the 76CS has been recognized and the 97CS has not is a strong sign that modern climate theory is an obstacle to climate change understanding and is causing scientists to dismiss facts that are inconsistent with their theory.
4.5 The Arctic shift and polar amplification
When the global climate shifted in 1997–98, the Arctic climate was strongly affected. In Part III, when reviewing how heat is transported during the winter to the Arctic, we mentioned that little Arctic amplification had taken place by 1995 despite two decades of intense warming, echoing the words of Curry and colleagues:
“The relative lack of observed warming and relatively small ice retreat may indicate that GCMs are overemphasizing the sensitivity of climate to high-latitude processes.”
Curry et al. (1996)
At the 97CS, Arctic amplification increased greatly and suddenly, but displayed a striking seasonality. Arctic summer temperatures are not increasing (Fig. 4.6a, black line). Any increase in net heat transported in summer to the Arctic is in a great part stored, by warming the ocean and melting ice and snow, until the arrival of the cold season when it is returned to the atmosphere, by the reverse process. Winter surface temperature shows a very pronounced increase since c. 1998 (Fig. 4.6a, red line).
The effect of the 97CS on Arctic sea-ice extent was spectacular. Between 1996 and 2007 September Arctic sea-ice extent decreased by a whopping 45 % (Fig. 4.6b), leading to fears among experts that it had entered a death-spiral (Serreze 2010). But after 11 years of loses Arctic sea-ice adapted to the new regime and 14 years later September Arctic sea-ice extent was higher than in 2007. Since sea-ice loss was used as a poster child of enhanced greenhouse warming and Arctic amplification, and used to raise alarm and money, it cannot now be properly attributed to the 97CS without losing face. The reduction in Arctic sea-ice was accompanied at the 97CS by an increase in Greenland meltwater flux (Fig. 4.6c, black line), and a decrease in Greenland ice-sheet mass balance (Fig. 4.6c, red line), that display the same dynamics of rapid change in the years after the climatic shift followed by a stabilization to the new regime levels.
Fig. 4.6 shows the data characteristics of the big Arctic climatic shift of 1997–98. Panel (a) shows the 80–90°N summer (JJA, black line), and winter (DJF, red line) temperature anomalies in °C. The data are from the Danish Meteorological Institute. Panel (b) shows the September average Arctic sea-ice extent (106 km2). The data are from NSIDC. Panel (c) is the Greenland freshwater flux (black line, km3). The data are from Dukhovskoy et al. 2019. The red line is the Greenland ice-sheet mass balance in Gt, after Mouginot et al. 2019. Panel (d) is the Arctic Ocean Oscillation (AOO) index. It reflects the alternation between sea-ice and ocean anticyclonic circulation (blue bars) and cyclonic circulation (red bars). It is after Proshutinsky et al. 2015. Panel (e) shows the number of NH blocking events per year, after Lupo 2020. Panel (f) is the winter (DJF) latent energy transport across 70°N by planetary scale waves, in PW. The thin line is the annual change, and the thick line is the 5-year moving average. The plot is after Rydsaa et al. 2021. The illustration is from Vinós 2022.
Since the 97CS is unrecognized, scientists cannot explain many of the altered climatic parameters. This is true of the Arctic Ocean Oscillation index (AOO; Fig. 4.6d), defined by Andrey Proshutinsky (2015) as the oscillation between cyclonic (anti-clockwise) and anticyclonic (clockwise) ocean circulation in the Arctic Beaufort gyre, with a period of 10–15 years. The problem is that during the 97CS the oscillation stopped and the system got stuck in the anticyclonic regime, which leads to freshwater accumulation in the Arctic. 1996 was the last cyclonic AOO year, as of late 2022. Proshutinsky has no explanation and the index stopped being updated in 2019, however he became worried that the increasing Beaufort gyre freshwater accumulation is a “ticking time bomb” for climate. The accumulation may lead to a salinity anomaly in the North Atlantic with a magnitude comparable to the Great Salinity Anomaly of the 1970s, that traveled the sub-polar gyre currents from 1968 to 1982 and may have contributed to the early 1970s cooling.
Additional unexplained changes in the Arctic climate at the 97CS include the increase in winter blocking events, particularly in the NH (Fig. 4.6e). We also reviewed, in Part III, how blocking conditions stop the normal westerly zonal circulation at mid-latitudes during winter. They have two outstanding effects. They stabilize weather patterns for days over the same location, leading to extreme weather events in temperature and precipitation; and they also greatly increase MT towards the Arctic since they deflect cyclones poleward. It is clear, but not explained, that MT towards the Arctic increased at the 97CS, and this is the underlying cause of many of the changes observed afterward in the Arctic climate. Evidence for the increase in winter heat and moisture transport into the Arctic comes from the increase in planetary-scale latent heat transport (Fig. 4.6f), while synoptic scale latent heat transport decreased during winters, but increased during summers (Rydsaa et al. 2021). The increase in winter heat and moisture transport into the Arctic leads to higher cloud formation, which shifts the strongest radiative cooling from the surface to cloud tops, which are frequently warmer in winter due to temperature inversions. At the sea-ice border, winter heat intrusions cause a temporary retreat of the ice margin, leading to enhanced heat loss by the ocean until the ice forms again (Woods & Caballero 2016).
Arctic amplification has turned out to be mainly a cold season phenomenon that started between 1995–2000 for reasons unknown to most climate scientists and models. Arctic amplification is dependent on changes in MT, and the rate of Arctic amplification appears to be opposite to the rate of global warming.
4.6 Climate regimes as a meridional transport phenomenon affecting planetary energetics
From the effects of climate shifts it is evident that they affect the global MT system, and particularly the boreal winter MT. As we reviewed in Part III, ENSO is a way of extracting surplus heat from the deep tropics that exceeds the regular oceanic transport system. At the 97CS this need decreases as the Brewer-Dobson circulation (BDC, the stratospheric MT) becomes more active driving more heat out of the deep tropics, causing a cooling at the tropical tropopause that results in more stratospheric dehydration. Also, meridional wind circulation becomes stronger at the expense of zonal circulation resulting in Earth’s rotation acceleration and Hadley cells expansion. As meridional moisture transport to the poles is enhanced with the increase in meridional wind circulation, cloud cover decreases in the low and mid-latitudes, and increases in the Arctic.
In the Arctic the effects of climate shifts through changes in MT intensity are even more evident. At the 97CS, MT to the Arctic was enhanced all year round, but more strongly during the cold season. The rise in heat and moisture advection from lower latitudes results in a reduction in sea-ice cover that augments ocean heat loss, and increases cold season (but not summer) surface temperature. The main effect of winter warming is to increase the radiative loss to space. As we saw in Part III, the Arctic in winter is very special in terms of GHE. The atmosphere is extremely dry, so there is little water vapor GHE. Cloud cover is also quite low during the winter, and the increase in CO2 has the effect of increasing radiation to space from warmer, higher CO2 molecules (van Wijngaarden & Happer 2020).
When there is an intense intrusion event of moist warm air into the Arctic in winter the usual result is a temperature inversion, and despite increased downward longwave radiation, radiative cooling continues from the top of the inversion or the clouds until the advected moisture is either precipitated or exported back to lower latitudes. In essence, more heat transported to the Arctic in the winter must result in more heat lost to space. This conclusion contradicts one of the basic pillars of modern climate theory that states that MT is not a climate forcing since horizontal transport does not affect the amount of energy within the climate system, and therefore is not a cause for climate change. This is the most fundamental of the many mistakes of modern climate theory, as it assumes the top of the atmosphere behaves similarly in terms of GHE everywhere. It does not, as the GHE is very weak at the polar regions, particularly during the long cold season. Transporting more heat from a region of high GHE to a region of low GHE results in more heat being lost at the top of the atmosphere without a compensating gain elsewhere. A change in the intensity of MT towards the winter pole results in a change in the planet’s energy budget as we have shown (Fig. 4.5h).
In Fig. 4.7 the thin grey line is the 7-month average of the monthly mean OLR anomaly in W/m2 from the interpolated OLR NOAA dataset. The thick black line is the 5-year average of the cold season (Nov–Apr) mean. The thick black dashed line is the 5-year average of the summer (JJA) mean. The grey box highlights the Arctic shift in OLR between mid-1996 and late 2005. The time of the Pinatubo eruption is identified. Data from KNMI explorer. The illustration is from Vinós 2022.
OLR in the Arctic is higher during the summer than during the cold season as could be expected from the near permanent summer insolation and higher surface temperature. However, at the 97CS OLR increased a lot more during the cold season than during the summer (Fig. 4.7). Clearly MT became stronger, particularly during the boreal winter. Increased summer transport resulted in more energy storage through enhanced summer melting. Winter refreezing of the melted water returns the summer energy to the atmosphere, only to be lost to space through radiative cooling. Now we understand why Arctic amplification is a winter phenomenon that is not related to global warming, and in fact is where the energy for the “Pause” is going. Arctic amplification is not a GHG effect, but a MT effect that results in planetary cooling. The pause is continuing because Arctic amplification is ongoing. When the pause ends the Arctic should cool and sea ice should grow. As stated previously this could happen by late 2020s to early 2030s, when the next climate shift occurs.
4.7 Meridional transport modulation of global climate
To analyze the multidecadal changes in MT since 1900, the 1912–2008 period has been subjectively divided in three phases of 32 years. Although the different modes of variability do not shift simultaneously (hence the name stadium-wave), the phases so defined describe periods of alternating prevailing conditions in MT well. Starting in the Arctic, where the PV strength determines the polar stratosphere-troposphere winter coupling, the Arctic oscillation (AO; Fig. 4.8a, grey line) is the leading mode of extratropical circulation variability in the NH (Thompson & Wallace 2000). To act as a North-South seesaw of atmospheric mass exchange between the Arctic and mid-latitudes, the AO requires a correlation between its three centers of action —the Arctic, Atlantic and Pacific sectors. The Arctic-Atlantic correlation is known as the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), and is strong, the Arctic–Pacific linkage is weaker, casting doubts about the AO being a true annular mode. However, the Aleutian Low and the Icelandic Low have had a negative correlation from one winter to the next since the mid-1970s (Honda & Nakamura 2001). This Aleutian–Icelandic seesaw appears to depend on the propagation of stationary waves and varies in strength with changes in PV strength (Sun & Tan 2013). By calculating the Jan–Feb cumulative AO (Fig. 4.8a, grey line) we can see that until c. 1940 positive AO values (i.e., strong vortex conditions) prevailed, but in the 1940–1980s period negative AO values were more common, only to change back afterwards. The Aleutian–Icelandic seesaw confirms the changes in PV strength with its 25-year moving correlation (Li et al. 2018; Fig. 4.8a black line). When the PV is strong, the mass and heat exchange between the mid-latitudes and the Arctic is smaller, as the PV acts as a barrier to meridional circulation.
In Fig. 4.8, panel (a) shows the polar vortex strength. The black line is the Aleutian Low–Icelandic Low seesaw 25-year moving correlation as a proxy for polar vortex strength. The plot is after Li et al. 2018. The grey line is the cumulative winter (Dec–Feb average) Arctic Oscillation index. The data are the 1899–2002 AO index from DW Thompson. Dept. of Atmos. Sci. CSU (Thompson & Wallace 2000). In panel (b), the black line is the 4.5-year average of the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation index. The data are from NOAA and unsmoothed from the Kaplan SST V2. The grey line is the cumulative 1870–2020 detrended cold season (Nov–Apr average) North Atlantic Oscillation index. The data are from CRU, U. East Anglia, Jones et al. 1997. Panel (c) is the cumulative PDO. It is the 1870–2018 detrended annual average cumulative PDO index from HadISST 1.1, and the data are from NOAA. The black dots mark the years 1925, 1946, 1976 and 1997 when PDO regime shifts took place (Mantua & Hare 2002; see Sect. 11.4).
The black line in panel (d) shows the zonal atmospheric circulation index, cumulative anomaly. It is after Klyashtorin & Lyubushin 2007. The grey line in panel (d) is the 1900–2020 inverted and detrended annual ∆LOD. The data is in milliseconds from IERS. Panel (e) is the detrended 1895–2015 annual global surface average temperature, 10-year averaged. The data are from Met Office HadCRUT 4.6. The panel (f) dashed line is the 8.2–16.6-year band-pass of the monthly mean total sunspot number. The data are from WDC–SILSO. The grey line is the 6.6–11-year band-pass of the monthly AMO index. The black line is the inverted 20-year running correlation of the band-pass sunspot and AMO data. The black dots indicate climate shifts, as in c, showing their position with respect to solar minima. The illustration is from Vinós 2022.
The AMO measures SST anomalies that reflect the strength of MT over the North Atlantic. Positive AMO values indicate warm water accumulation due to reduced MT and strong PV conditions (Fig. 4.8b, black line). The NAO is the sea-level pressure dipole over the North Atlantic, and part of the AO. Not surprisingly, its detrended and cumulative value is very similar to that of the AO, but also shows some correlation to the AMO SSTs (Fig. 4.8b, grey line). The decades-long NAO trends cannot be explained by general circulation models as they do not incorporate multidecadal MT regimes. Models consider NAO indices white noise without serial correlation (Eade et al. 2021). Without properly representing MT, climate models cannot explain climate change. Over the Pacific sector, the PDO also measures SST anomalies. A positive PDO indicates warm water accumulation over the equatorial and eastern side of the Pacific, an indication of reduced MT, which moves heat out of the equator and towards the western Pacific boundary so the Kuroshio current can move it northward and transfer it to the atmosphere. The detrended cumulative PDO values (Fig. 4.8c) show that the phases of increased or decreased Pacific MT roughly coincide with those of the Atlantic. Climatic and ecological shifts in the Pacific identified in 1925, 1946, 1976 and 1997 (Mantua & Hare 2002) coincide with times when the PDO shifts from predominantly positive to negative or back (Fig. 4.8c black dots).
The meridional wind circulation is how most of the tropospheric MT is carried out and increases in MT imply increases in meridional circulation and corresponding decreases in zonal circulation. The atmospheric circulation index is a cumulative representation of the yearly anomaly in zonal (E–W) versus meridional (N–S) air-mass transfer in Eurasia (Klyashtorin & Lyubushin 2007). Periods when the NH PV has been stronger and MT over the North Atlantic and North Pacific sectors has been lower (grey areas in Fig. 4.8) coincide with periods characterized by predominant zonal-type anomalies, while periods of weaker PV and higher MT present predominant anomalies of meridional-type (Fig. 4.8d, black line). These persistent changes in predominant atmospheric circulation patterns produce changes in the transfer of momentum between the atmosphere and the solid Earth–ocean affecting the Earth’s rotation speed, measured as changes in the length of day. Periods of increasing zonal circulation correlate with an acceleration of the Earth and a decrease in ∆LOD (inverted in Fig. 4.8d, grey line) while periods of decreasing zonal circulation correlate with a deceleration of the Earth and an increase in ∆LOD (Lambeck & Cazenave 1976). Changes in the rate of rotation of the Earth integrate global changes in atmospheric circulation that support the global effect of MT changes. We must remember at this point that changes in Earth’s rotation rate respond to changes in solar activity (see Fig. 2.5).
Multidecadal changes in MT are the cause of the multidecadal oscillation known as the stadium-wave, and all its manifestations. SST changes in the AMO and PDO are a response to changes in global atmospheric circulation. A reduction in atmospheric meridional circulation and the corresponding increase in zonal circulation mean less poleward energy transport, and since annual incoming energy is near constant and ocean heat transport is only partially dependent on wind-driven circulation, more heat accumulates at each latitudinal band, but particularly in the NH mid-latitudes. This is because sea surface transfer of energy and moisture to the atmosphere is highest at NH mid-latitude ocean western boundaries (Yu & Weller 2007). Land and sea surface heat accumulation resulting from a reduction in MT produces the stadium-wave effects and an increase in the global temperature. When the global average surface temperature anomaly is detrended, periods of reduced (increased) MT correspond to warming (cooling) with respect to the trend (Fig. 4.8e). The modern climate theory explains the 1940–1975 hiatus as due to an increase in aerosols, and the 1976–2000 warming as due to the increase in anthropogenic emissions. These explanations, incorporated into climate models, are untenable in light of the evidence (Tsonis et al. 2007). Although an anthropogenic warming trend is unquestionable, it is evident that the shifts in MT regimes dominate the surface temperature response.
The causes behind the multidecadal stadium-wave changes in MT are unknown. The c. 65-year oscillation is non-stationary. Proxy reconstructions indicate that the AMO had a shorter periodicity and less power during the LIA and a longer periodicity and more power during the Medieval Warm Period (Chylek et al. 2012; Wang et al. 2017). Solar activity modulation of ENSO and Earth’s rotation changes were shown in Part II (Figs. 2.4 & 2.5). As both are a manifestation of MT strength, it is possible that internal variability and external solar forcing are responsible for the current periodicity and strength of the stadium-wave. Alternatively, internal variability in MT might be responding to the warming trend imposed by anthropogenic and natural causes, mainly the increase in solar activity associated with the modern solar maximum. The four climate shifts identified in the Pacific during the 20th century (Mantua & Hare 2002) took place 1–3 years after a solar minimum (Fig. 4.8c & f, dots; solar cycle, Fig. 4.8f dashed line), and the two grey areas and middle white area in figure 4.8, representing alternating MT regimes, span three solar cycles between solar minima. It has been shown that the Holton–Tan effect (see Part I), that relates the tropical QBO phase to the strength of the PV, through planetary wave propagation, is stronger at solar minima (Labitzke et al. 2006), and that the Holton–Tan effect weakened substantially during the 1977–1997 period of reduced MT (Lu et al. 2008). This implies that during winter at solar minima the stratospheric tropical-polar coupling, and the stratospheric-tropospheric coupling are stronger, and they might constitute an appropriate time for a coordinated shift in MT strength that takes effect during the ensuing solar cycle. We shall see if future climate shifts also take place immediately following solar minima. This is the basis of our projection that the next climate shift could take place around 2031–34.
If solar minima are the times when MT shifts occur, one interesting correlation may provide an explanation for the cause of the c. 65-year oscillation pacing. The AMO has a 9.1-year strong frequency peak that is also found in the PDO (Muller et al. 2013). This frequency is readily appreciated in a 4.5-year averaged AMO index as decadal bumps (Fig. 4.8b, black curve). The origin of this conspicuous AMO trait has not been adequately researched, but Scafetta (2010) convincingly proposes a lunisolar tidal origin. The difference in frequency between this reported 9.1-yr tidal cycle and the 11-yr solar cycle is such that they change from correlated to anti-correlated (i.e., constructive to destructive interference) with a periodicity that not only matches the AMO, but is exactly synchronized to it (compare black curves in Fig. 4.8b & f). One can speculate that a constructive or destructive interference between the effect of oceanic and atmospheric tides on the tropospheric component of MT and the effect of the solar cycle on the stratospheric component of MT might result in the periodical change in MT strength that produces the observed climatic shifts. In support of this hypothesis two intrinsic components of c. 4.5 and 11 years are found in the Fourier analysis of the daily NAO autocorrelation series (Álvarez–Ramírez et al. 2011). The 11-year component is phase synchronized to the solar cycle except during solar minima, indicating that NAO predictability increases with solar activity, and became strongly anti-correlated during the 1997 solar minimum, when the 97CS took place. A c. 65-yr climate oscillation that depends on solar activity would explain both the changes in intensity and periodicity over the last centuries as solar activity has been changing. Its 20th century intensity and periodicity are the result of the modern solar maximum, and the non-stationarity of the natural multidecadal oscillation would be linked to solar activity multidecadal variability.
It can be argued that multidecadal oscillations in the climate system should average to zero over multiple periods. Similarly, other factors known to affect MT, like the QBO and ENSO average to zero in similar or shorter timeframes. However, AMO reconstructions show that its values and amplitude have increased greatly over the last two cycles, since about 1850 (Moore et al. 2017). This change in the c. 65-year oscillation suggests that MT is important in modern global warming, since it coincides with the strong melting of glaciers and increase in sea-level rise that started around 1850 and precedes the strong increase in CO2 emissions after 1945 (Boden et al. 2009). Solar activity affects MT and does not average to zero even in very long timeframes because it presents centennial and millennial cycles (Vinós 2022). There has been a long-standing scientific debate about whether there is an important effect of solar activity on climate. Sunspot records show that the average number of sunspots increased by 24% from the 1700–1843 to the 1844–1996 period (see Fig. 1.6). Solar variability is clearly involved in MT variability (see Part II). The effect that solar variability has on MT, and the effect that MT has on the planet’s energy imbalance (Figs. 4.5h & 4.7) settles the controversy on the solar activity effect on climate.
In the next part of this series, the hypothesis of how solar variability affects MT will be presented. It has been named the Winter Gatekeeper hypothesis because solar activity modulates the amount of heat that is transported to the poles in winter, and through it the planet’s energy budget, constituting the main climate change modulator on centennial to millennial timescales, as suggested by paleoclimatological evidence.
This post originally appeared on Judy Curry’s website, Climate, Etc.
Here are some derivatives (slopes/trends, scaled to °C/century) of the low-pass filtered (with triple running means of various lengths) hadcrut4, to remove short term variabilities. The ~60 year cycle/oscillation is obvious and undeniable.
https://woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/mean:240/mean:168/mean:120/derivative/scale:1200/plot/hadcrut4gl/mean:360/mean:252/mean:180/derivative/scale:1200/plot/hadcrut4gl/mean:480/mean:336/mean:240/derivative/scale:1200/plot/hadcrut4gl/mean:600/mean:420/mean:300/derivative/scale:1200
The recent ~60y ‘cycles’ derives from the accumulated absorbed solar radiation by the ocean of high TSI over a 120y period (109y SN average + 11y lag) particularly during the solar modern maximum, when sunspot number averaged 108.5 v2 SN for 70 years.
Here is Edim’s plot
For over 10 years now I have been pointing out that I noticed a change to more jetstream meridionality around 2000.
More meridionality means longer lines of air mass mixing and thus more clouds.
More clouds means less solar energy getting into the oceans to fuel ENSO/PDO.
Less solar energy into the oceans skews the balance towards La Ninas for a cooling world.
Thus far I see a similarity with my hypotheses.
I await the next part to see whether the authors differ from me as to the cause of more meridional jet stream tracks.
I have proposed differential solar effects on stratospheric ozone above equator and poles so as to alter the gradient of tropopause height between equator and poles.
If they have an alternative proposition I would find that very interesting.
“The effect that solar variability has on MT, and the effect that MT has on the planet’s energy imbalance (Figs. 4.5h & 4.7) settles the controversy on the solar activity effect on climate.”
So, you say that the science is settled…
In the sense that the hypothesis that solar variability has no effect (or a very tiny effect) on climate is disproven, yes, we believe that we have done that conclusively.
Science is never settled, but it is clear that solar activity has a significant effect on climate, as other factors do. It even changes the speed of rotation of the Earth.
You have been defending for years that it was settled that solar activity did not affect climate. Apparently that settling was OK for you. Well, you were wrong. Better get over it.
If we can’t be shown even one single significant p-value by the time this article series is over, then we can be sure Javier isn’t going to settle the science in any way with just assertions.
Joe Bastardi has talked about warm-air intrusions affecting Arctic anomalies for years, so really, what is so unique and special about this if Javier can’t even be bothered to properly connect sunspot numbers to the Arctic statistically.
Dansgard Oesclers are a bit like Younger Dryases.
They are the spluttering of a cold car-engine as it repeatedly tries to get started during cold weather. (Heaven help the thing if its being force-fed E15 biofuel)
DO events are when/where large lakes of meltwater gradually accumulate on top of large sheets of ice.
At some point the dam holding them back will break.
As they happen relatively at random, at some point a few will go off’ in rapid succession and when they do, The Entire Ice Sheet will crumble and crack the world out of its Ice Age.
Like that kid’s game will the tower of sticks/bricks and you have yo keep taking one out without the whole tower falling down.
At some point, It Will Fall Down. So it is with Ice Ages
Simple.
The Older Dryases never get any love.
This may be irrelevant.
Coligny calendar, a second century Celtic calendar. Is a Lunar-Solar calendar synchronising the two. In rural France most gardeners synchronise their planting to the moon, they don’t grow flowers to any great extent.
As the inhabitants of rural France haven’t done a great deal of moving until the 20th century one has to assume the tradition of planting in synchronisation with the moon may go back millenia as a tried and trusted method of getting the best crops.
“The AMOC explanation, better known as the salt-oscillator hypothesis (Broecker et al. 1990), falls short however, as there is no evidence that the AMOC has undergone the abrupt and drastic changes required to produce the events.”
Although it is generally accepted that the cold event resulted from a slowing Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC), the forcing of this AMOC reduction remains intensely debated.
https://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/gsa/geology/article/38/4/383/130267/What-Caused-the-Younger-Dryas-Cold-Event
During the Younger Dryas marine life fossils were found in the sea bed of the North Atlantic ocean representing creatures found at times during major ice age levels. The Gulf Stream and AMOC were so weak that the warm current moved no further north than Spain. The polar ocean front moved south by hundreds of miles in the North Atlantic ocean causing icebergs to crash into the western edges of the UK and France.
The AMO says everything about the last 170 years relating to the 60+ year cycle/oscillation.
https://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/to:1920/plot/hadcrut4gl/to:1920/plot/hadsst2gl/to:1920/plot/hadsst3gl/to:1920/plot/esrl-amo/to:1920
https://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1920/to:1945/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1920/to:1945/plot/hadsst2gl/from:1920/to:1945/plot/hadsst3gl/from:1920/to:1945/plot/esrl-amo/from:1920/to:1945
https://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1945/to:1975/plot/hadsst2gl/from:1945/to:1975/plot/hadsst3gl/from:1945/to:1975/plot/esrl-amo/from:1945/to:1975
https://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1975/to:2015/plot/hadsst2gl/from:1975/to:2015/plot/hadsst3gl/from:1975/to:2015/plot/esrl-amo/from:1975/to:2015
https://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:2015/plot/hadsst2gl/from:2015/plot/hadsst3gl/from:2015/plot/esrl-amo/from:2015
Global temperatures follow the AMO trend whether ocean or atmospheric.
And the U.S. surface temperature profile is very similar to the AMO. High points in the 1880’s and 1930’s and 1998, and low points in the 1910’s and the 1970’s.
The temperature profile of the Earth is a sine wave. The temperatures warm for a few decades, and then they cool for a few decades, and then they warm again for a few decades, and the highs and the lows stay within certain bounds, at least since the end of the Little Ice Age.
The highs of the 1880’s, 1930’s and 1998 reached the same levels of warmth, and the lows of the 1910’s and 1970’s reached the same levels of coolness. The temperature profile of the U.S. regional chart and of the AMO, shows there is no unprecedented warming today, contrary to the alarmists claims. It was just as warm in the recent past as it is today. This means CO2 is a minor player in determining the Earth’s temperatures.
Hansen 1999:
There was one science paper that I saw a number of years ago that showed global temperatues similar to the USA and was discussing the reasons for it. This was obviously before all the adjustments after. All adjustments after have not been observation ones, but conformation bias ones usually especially with GISS towards the line of fit for CO2. This is nonsense because CO2 and temperature are not linear.
The Arctic showed similar today (2009) as the 1930’s.
The only reason why global temperatures in the 1930’s and 2000’s look different today is because of the removal of cooling between the 1940’s and 1970’s.
When this cooling is added back in it becomes similar again.
https://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1925/to:1970/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1970/offset:-0.4
“The only reason why global temperatures in the 1930’s and 2000’s look different today is because of the removal of cooling between the 1940’s and 1970’s. When this cooling is added back in it becomes similar again.”
Indeed! The artificial suppression of the pronounced global cooling during the third quarter of the last century via a host of flimsy data “adjustments” is the great unacknowledged scandal of data integrity. Along with the diversion of attention away from the physical fact that evaporation–not radiation–is the principal means of heat transport from the Earth’s surface, it renders “climate science” quite unscientific.
The complexity of the various processes affecting global temperature trends presented here is certainly in great contrast to the simplistic explanations offered by the self-proclaimed climate scientists. The greater the knowledge of any system or process, the more complex it necessarily must be described. Knowledge is like an onion, with many layers of information to be explored.
The very notion of CO2 as the planet’s thermostat sounds like something a fifth grader would come up with, not thousands of post-docs. But they spend all their time creating more and more models that are designed to produce the results they want. Competent scientists are always looking to be disproven, not proven, in their theories.
“Warm water volume at the equator decreased in variability (Fig. 4.5c, red line), and strongly negative anomalies in the warm water volume, that used to happen once a decade, stopped after 2000.”
Even during the 2015 el Niño, it was evident from Hovmöller Diagrams of water temperatures along the equatorial Pacific that warm water volume was insufficient to fuel a sustained el Niño. This was the reason for the precipitous drop from the peak to cool temperatures and the protracted neutral conditions eventually dropping into a sustained la Niña still continuing today.
A large new effect in the equatorial cooling went unnoted by climate scientists (another example of how climate scientists are blinded by their monotonic GHG “control knob” theory). Instead of the cooling development occurring simply from upwelling in the eastern Pacific, masses of cold water were slanting down into the ENSO region from large coldwater blobs in in the eastern Pacific temperate zones in both the northern and southern hemispheres.
NOAA was for awhile was forecasting another el Niño when warm water reappeared in the east, but this soon returned to a stronger la Niña. Perhaps this is how there is a changing of the guards from dominantly warm to dominantly cold Enso conditions.
It looks like the ENSO meter has made another move.
Currently both Carbon dioxide and Solar radiation stand accused of causing the damaging ‘climate change’.
Case against Carbon dioxide
It is known fact that CO2 is ‘green house gas’, i.e. that in an enclosed space and in high concentrations will contribute to perceptible rise in temperature. However, it has not been conclusively shown or proven that that is the case in the open atmosphere and in relatively tiny concentration of 400ppm or 0.04%.
Other known effect that CO2 might have on climate is greening of the planet, which might increase absorption of solar radiation energy which is stored in the planet’s biosphere (both plants and animal tissue) to be released at a later time.
No other effect of CO2 on the climate of any degree or significance is known.
Jury’s verdict: 11 : 1. Not guilty as charged by a majority verdict. Case dismissed. Right of appeal granted.
Case against Solar radiation
Let’s assume that solar radiation energy reaching our planet is a tiny proportion of its present value, e.g. above mentioned 0.04%.
No changes in orbital mechanics would be perceived and the Earth would be an ice bound planet occasionally punctured by volcanic activity.
Diurnal, seasonal and zonal temperature change would be imperceptible or minimal.
Now, let’s assume that solar radiation raises slowly from the above 0.04% towards present 100%.
Oceans surface would slowly melt, evaporation will start, surface ocean circulation would initiate and intensify, cloudiness and precipitation will appear and intensify, seasons and latitudinal climate zones from equatorial to polar would form. Orbital changes within solar system mechanics would give rise and fall to ‘ice ages’.
All the above effects are direct result of the solar radiation energy impact on the planets surface.
Jury’s verdict 11 : 1. Guilty as charged by majority verdict. Right of appeal granted.
Once the surface becomes ice-bound it will stay ice-bound. The whole planet will look like Antactica.
The location on Earth that gets the highest daily sunlight is the South Pole. That occurs on 22 Dec each year in the present era.
No ice melts when there is 2000m of ice below the surface.
Deep convection is the reason Earth is not a snowball. The ability of the atmosphere to partition into a free convecting zone and a dehumidifying zone is the reason Earth is not a snowball. It takes a surface temperature of 15C to create a level of free convection. That can never happen over an ice surface.
This is the fundamental reason climate models are wrong and the concept of “Greenhouse Effect” is so utterly flawed.
You’re first “known fact” is in fact wrong.
Seim and Olsen (University of Oslo, 2020) did actual experiments that found increasing CO2 to 100% had NO effect on temperature and it was indistinguishable from heating caused by non-GHG’s such as Nitrogen and Argon.
We have known for over a century since the work of Prof. John Wood that greenhouses do NOT work in accordance with the Greenhouse hypothesis. They work by preventing heat loss via convection.
I’ve been convinced the 1995-97 transition of the AMO was key to the pre-21st century warming. There was just so much going in the 1990s that picking it out was never obvious. The reduction in clouds now appears to be the real driver of the initial warming.
The question now is when will the AMO reverse course. There’s a possibility that the Pinatubo eruption delayed the last transition by cooling the oceans. Does that mean the next phase change will come earlier. If the sun is driving of the AMO, then it is doubtful. If the cause is related to more Earthly factors then anything is possible.
The AMO warm phase will clearly lead to more warm waters flowing into the Arctic. This creates a possible attractor state based on the phase change of water from solid to liquid. A small change in the water temperature can lead to a much bigger overall change in the climate.
The AMO was key and the link below showed it warmed about 0.5c from 1993 until just after the El Nino peak in 1997/98. When the ENSO settled down later after 2004, the AMO difference of around 0.5c still exits.
https://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1990/to:2015/plot/esrl-amo/from:1990/to:2015
Typo – exists not exits
Compare the long term data rather than cherry-picked fragments. There is no long term trend in AMO, but there is a clear warming trend in surface temperatures. AMO causes periods of natural warming and periods of natural cooling; otherwise it wouldn’t be an ‘oscillation’. It doesn’t explain the long term warming trend. Neither does ENSO (also an oscillation that causes both warming and cooling).
You don’t know much about AMO.
Moore, G.W.K., Halfar, J., Majeed, H., Adey, W. and Kronz, A., 2017. Amplification of the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation associated with the onset of the industrial-era warming. Scientific Reports, 7(1), pp.1-10.
Multidecadal variability is responsible for a great deal of Modern Global Warming. The Modern Solar Maximum is responsible for another important part. Anthropogenic emissions have only affected global warming on top of that since 1950.
Everything you think you know about climate, you don’t.
To understand climate you need to know how short term events happen.
Just to give you an idea what happens when a Strong El Nino occurs on top of the AMO that is already 0.5c higher than back in 1993?
It gives an even higher global temperature that makes up a lttle for the difference that the AMO doesn’t seem to give. There are additional problems mentioned below that make your claim FALSE.
The earlier data from the AMO and global temperatures are far from accurate in that data line. There was hardly any ocean data and hardly any SH data.
Using a much more accurate timeframe it shows the AMO warming.
https://www.woodfortrees.org/graph/hadcrut3gl/from:1910/plot/esrl-amo/from:1910/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1910/trend/plot/esrl-amo/from:1910/trend
https://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1910/plot/esrl-amo/from:1910/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1910/trend/plot/esrl-amo/from:1910/trend
The warming difference at the end has been caused by confirmation bias of self adjusted warming. The UAH doesn’t show this warming that the hadcrut4gl had been adjusted to show.
The UAH and AMO are almost a perfect match so your no AMO trend with a clear surface warming is in fact FALSE.
https://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/uah6/from:1979/plot/esrl-amo/from:1979/plot/uah6/from:1979/trend/plot/esrl-amo/from:1979/trend
The AMO shows warming since the 1980’s and cooling before that as shown below.
https://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1940/to:1979/plot/esrl-amo/from:1940/to:1979/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1940/to:1979/trend/plot/esrl-amo/from:1940/to:1979/trend
The reason why hadcrut3gl only shows very little warming is because of fraud. Removing the cooling over decades that was significant. Any science literate person can tell the global temperatures are now adjusted incorrectly as they don’t relate to the AMO any more for this period.
The bottom link in my above post only shows very little cooling.
This is the link that only shows very little warming when it should have cooled significantly.
https://www.woodfortrees.org/graph/hadcrut3gl/from:1945/to:1979/plot/esrl-amo/from:1945/to:1979/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1945/to:1979/trend/plot/esrl-amo/from:1945/to:1979/trend
Using the AMO to estimate global temperature trends because the UAH matches it very well. Would lead to a significant difference to the global temperatures between the 1940’s and 1970’s with a cooling of 0.5c. This type of temperature decrease was noticed back in science papers decades ago.
https://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1940/to:1979/plot/esrl-amo/from:1940/to:1979/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1940/to:1979/trend/plot/esrl-amo/from:1940/to:1979/trend
https://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/uah6/from:1979/plot/esrl-amo/from:1979/plot/uah6/from:1979/trend/plot/esrl-amo/from:1979/trend
Adjusting hadcrut3gl and hadcrut4gl would more accurately be represented below.
https://www.woodfortrees.org/graph/hadcrut3gl/from:1970/to:1979/offset:-0.4/plot/esrl-amo/from:1940/to:1979/plot/esrl-amo/from:1940/to:1979/trend/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1960/to:1970/offset:-0.3/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1950/to:1960/offset:-0.1/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1940/to:1950
Following on when hadcrut4gl is adjusted to something like it should show, changes how it compares with UAH and the AMO.
https://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/uah6/from:1979/plot/esrl-amo/from:1979/plot/uah6/from:1979/trend/plot/esrl-amo/from:1979/trend/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1975/to:1979/offset:-0.4/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1979/offset:-0.4
The hadcrut4gl now matches the UAH and AMO.
Much of the warming here in England could be explained by changes in the positioning of areas of high pressure over the longer term. Because any increase in the amount of times the Azores high moves or ridges towards Europe will increase the amount of warm air coming up from the Mid Atlantic or the south over England. Rather then having the cooler air coming from the northern Atlantic should the high pressure form to the west of England in the North Atlantic.
Just a percentage change in the positioning of these highs over the last 50 years or so would explain the cause the warming we have seen over that time. As we get more warm air coming up from the SW or South and less of the cooler air coming from the NW.
A great example of what l mean happened in the Spring of 2021.
At the end of March that year there was a area of high pressure to the SE of the UK bringing up very warm air from North Africa and bringing almost summer like weather to England.
But during April we had high pressure over to the west of the UK. Which while still brought fine sunny weather it also brought much cooler air from the north. Which caused widespread frosts during April.
Blocking is also happening in the Southern Hemisphere, the high pressure should not be centred in the Bight in the Austral winter.
Its a global cooling signal.
Much of the warming for England can especially be shown in the NAO where positive (red) generally leads to warming and negative (cold) leads to cooling.
Source: https://climatedataguide.ucar.edu/climate-data/hurrell-north-atlantic-oscillation-nao-index-station-based
You can see the cold periods that occurred in England around the 1960’s and more recently 2010 and 2013. There has been a lot more red since the 1990’s.
Certainly over the last 30 years there has been a trend of more Azores highs moving or ridging over towards europe during the Springtime.
“A c. 65-yr climate oscillation that depends on solar activity would explain both the changes in intensity and periodicity over the last centuries as solar activity has been changing. Its 20th century intensity and periodicity are the result of the modern solar maximum, and the non-stationarity of the natural multidecadal oscillation would be linked to solar activity multidecadal variability.”
According to several AMO proxy studies the long term mean AMO frequency is 55 years. Which is entirely predictable given that the AMO is normally warmer during each centennial minimum and warmer once again between each centennial solar minimum, and that centennial minima are about every 110 years on average. The last two AMO envelopes are at 60 and then 70 years, because there is a 130 year interval between the late 1800’s and the present centennial solar minima.
A c. 65-yr climate oscillation that depends on solar activity
It can’t depend on solar activity, since as both you and Javier point out, the AMO changes time periodicity constantly:
The c. 65-year oscillation is non-stationary. Proxy reconstructions indicate that the AMO had a shorter periodicity and less power during the LIA and a longer periodicity and more power during the Medieval Warm Period (Chylek et al. 2012; Wang et al. 2017).
Does the sun’s periodicity also change?
It does, that is why the solar cycle is not a perfect 11 years every time, it only averages 11 years.
We have very little data to show the periodicity of the sun’s effects. The long term data is for sunspots and TSI, but NASA’s relatively short SORCE mission showed that contrary to assumptions, changes in solar radiation at different wavelengths did not correspond to changes in TSI. Some wavelengths had ten times as much change as expected, while others increased while TSI decreased. Until we have longer data on changes along the spectrum compared to which wavelengths pass through the atmosphere without being reflected by greenhouses gasses the periodicity remains unknown.
https://www.nasa.gov/topics/solarsystem/features/solarcycle-sorce.html
The period and amplitude of the AMO, and actually of the entire stadium-wave in multidecadal oscillation, depends on the activity of the sun, not on its period.
It is known that the AMO had a shorter period and less power during the LIA and a longer period and more power during the MWP. It responds to the changes in solar activity that accompany the 1000-yr Eddy solar cycle.
The current long period and great power are a consequence of the Modern Solar Maximum. Unlike CO2 that increased after 1945, the AMO started increasing its power around 1850, when solar activity increased after the Dalton Minimum, the climate started warming in earnest, and glaciers started to melt globally.
…solar activity increased after the Dalton Minimum, the climate started warming in earnest,…
Just like I showed back in 2018 at the AGU meeting in Washington DC, from my poster about climate extremes and solar irradiance extremes:
Correlating sunspots and temperature has been done hundreds of times over the past 150 years by scientists. What makes you think you will succeed where so many other capable scientists failed?
There is that famous phrase (wrongly?) attributed to Einstein:
Insanity is reapeting the same experiment over and over, expecting a different result.
You are wasting your time.
Actually talking to you IS wasting my time – I do this for everyone else.
My experiment was done once, not repeatedly as you said. My result remains the same, so no Javier, I’m not expecting different results! My results stand, so your comment was 100% gaslighting.
The fact is neither you nor anyone else figured it out in 150 years.
I connected SN to TSI, then TSI to SST. Did you? No.
My SN-TSI model is in between Leif’s and Judith Lean’s models:
Not that it matters to you, you who turns his nose up at TSI, but for the record, the main issue between my model and Leif’s TSI model is that his is linear with SN, and mine is non-linear. I doubt you would have a clue as to why they differ.
It was I who properly defined the solar modern maximum first, it was I who discovered the warming extent and power of high TSI that occurred during the solar modern maximum, not Javier Vinos.
But imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and so I take your gushing over the solar modern maximum long after I figured it out to mean you actually tacitly agree with me – while you pass yourself off as in opposition.
You have an ego problem and very little climate science knowledge. They make for a bad combination.
You’re projecting again. I have nothing to feel bad about as I’ve actually made several successful predictions in this area working with disparate datasets to make simple models.
I am successful because I entered the arena with fresh eyes on various problems, not being beholden to others’ thinking.
Since you’ve taken upon yourself to denigrate my successful science work that advances the state of knowledge in the sun-climate arena with respect to TSI in favor of your poorly-defined secondary solar effect, I can only conclude your objectivity is clouded by your ego need to be front and center all the time.
You are guilty of behaving the same way towards me like you accused scientists in general of in your first article. Hypocrite.
You should do some self-reflection upon your big ego.
Every other warm AMO phase is during a centennial solar minimum. The changing intervals between centennial minima cause the AMO cycle length to change.
Every other warm AMO phase is during a centennial solar minimum. The changing intervals between centennial minima cause the AMO cycle length to change.
It may be interesting/revealing to run median filter on these data. Median filters preserve step-functions.
Many chapters on climate shifts, including mass movement initiated by southern polar vortex.
https://reality348.wordpress.com/
It ain’t CO2.
Where is the support for this gem?
In all type of climate data that you are oblivious to. From paleoclimatology to CERES satellite data. Modern Global Warming cannot be explained fully without an anthropogenic contribution. Without the anthropogenic contribution, this period since 1997 would not be a pause but a period of cooling, as many skeptics predicted and failed.
Akasofu, Abdussamatov, Archibald, they all had their 15 min of fame predicting impending cooling.
It is the same problem in reverse. Modern Global Warming cannot be explained without a strong natural contribution either. Without a strong natural contribution, this period since 1997 would not be a pause but a period of warming, as the IPCC predicted and failed.
The pause is evidence that both natural and anthropogenic components are acting in different directions.
Yes they can.
You are showing your lack of understanding of orbital mechanics again.
How does modern global warming fit with the static and cooling trends currently occurring.
There is no temperature increase in the Nino34 region. The Southern Ocean has a steady cooling trend throughout the satellite era.
Of course the northern hemisphere is warming because the solar intensity over the NH has been increasing for 500 years.
The chart you have is laughable. Anyone using temperature data going back to 1900 and before as a basis of a global trend lacks an understanding of measurement systems.
That’s your believed causal factor. Lots of people at skeptic blogs with a single believed causal factor (and everybody outside them, CO2). Not two of them can be correct at the same time, and probably none of them is correct.
Warming doesn’t have 500 years. Since 1850 only 170 years. Being generous, since 1750 only 270 years. What happenned the other 200+ years? Only one factor to explain why, but multiple factors to explain why not.
Insolation at the NH is going to increase for thousands of years. Do you actually believe warming is going to proceed that long?
Solar EMR and warming are quite different. Once the ice mountains form, no amount of solar EMR will melt them. You only need to look at Greenland and Antarctica tp observe that. A plausible reason for deglaciation is dust build up and the evidence supports that.
Once ice mountains form, the average land elevation increases quite dramatically and is cooler as a result of the lapse rate due to higher mountains and lower ocean. Plus there is increased reflection from the snow/ice so less sunlight is thermalised.
The solar intensity in the NH has been increasing for 500 years. The evidence indicates it has been having an impact on temperature for at least a couple of hundred years but the evidence is not particularly clear because there were no satellites recording temperatures across the planet 500 years ago. The warming will accelerate over the coming centuries until the ice begins to accumulate.
The cooling of Southern Ocean and no trend in the Nino34 region FALSIFIES any claim you make about “global” warming. The solar intensity over the Southern Ocean is reducing and the temperature is dropping accordingly. The Nino34 region is stuck close to the 30C limit.
The sun drives temperature within the limits of -1.8C to 30C and solar intensity is the main component not the frequency spectrum. However the spectrum certainly plays a role in weather.
And where did I ever suggest sunlight was the SINGLE causal factor. By far the most important factor is deep convection. It is the only reason Earth is not a snowball.
You confound the effect for the cause. Deglaciations follow Milankovitch forcing, as was demonstrated in 1976 by Hayes, Imbrie and Shackleton.
Hayes, J. D., J. Imbrie, and N. J. Shackleton. 1976. Variations in the earth’s orbit: Pacemaker of the ice ages. Science. 194 (4270): 1121-1132.
A lot of climate variables follow the cycle, including dust, albedo, CO2, sea level, and so on. That doesn’t mean they are cause.
Still no reply on how your “global” warming is consistent with Southern Ocean cooling and Nino34 zero trend both throughout the satellite era of global coverage for temperature measurement.
Different oceans have different trends at different depths.
Here you have all the trends for all the oceans at different depths.
https://climate4you.com/
Choosing a certain part of the globe for a certain period doesn’t cut it.
AMOC is part of the global conveyor theory
“Theory”!?? AMOC is a theory in the same sense as the existence of a moon orbiting the earth is a theory. Better to call it a 4-letter word beginning with f.
“No evidence for AMOC”? Well then there’s no evidence for the moon either.
The movement of ocean water, the fact that the oceans are NOT stagnant anoxic ponds, is not a theory. It is what you observe if you interact with the seas in any way. They are oxygenated down to the bottom. Therefore there are circulating systems of which AMOC is one.
The evidence that AMOC drove the changes at Holocene inception, from the Bolling-Allerod warm peak to the Younger Dryas cold interval then the rapid final Holocene inception – is incontrovertible. What does AMOC do? It sends warm water from the Caribbean northward toward the Arctic, and in so doing it drags warm water across the equator from south to north. This is the Caribbean current and accounts for the phenomenon of interhemispheric “Heat Piracy 🏴☠️ “. And yes – it’s a Caribbean thing.
This heat piracy accounts for the related phenomenon of the bipolar seesaw in which temperature trends in opposite hemispheres are reciprocal. The figure below from
https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/sites/default/files/2021-11/3%20The%20Younger%20Dryas%20-FINAL%20NOV%20%281%29.pdf
NOAA makes this clear.The colour band in the graph is the YD interval. Before it, Greenland (GISP) temperature peaks with the Bolling-Allerod while Antarctic temperature dips to a cooling trough. Then comes the YD – the northern hemisphere enters its cold millennium with Dryas flowers 💐 all over the place while guess what happens in Antarctica? Yes – opposite warming. The starting and stopping of the AMOC and the connected pulling or not pulling of warm water over the equator with the Caribbean current, explain these oceanographic changes.
The AMOC is a fact. In a meridionally bounded ocean like the Atlantic it’s impossible for there not to be an AMOC.
The AMOC is driven by the salinity-downwelling feedback – as are all ocean circulation systems. Associated with every feedback driven circulation system is an oceanic oscillation. With the AMOC it is the AMO. With the North Pacific gyre it is the PDO, etc…
https://ptolemy2.wordpress.com/2020/09/12/widespread-signals-of-southern-hemisphere-ocean-cooling-as-well-as-the-amoc/
https://ptolemy2.wordpress.com/2020/07/26/from-chaos-to-pattern-in-ocean-driven-climate/
I believe the Mediterranean has more influence on the North Atlantic circulation than the Caribbean. The salt plume from the Med runs half way across the Atlantic:
This will intensify as the Med goes into more intense monsoon. It is already reaching close to 30C surface temperature and is large enough area to support its own weather system. Monsoon will carry more water from the Med to adjacent land. That means more inflow from the Atlantic impacting the surface circulation in the Atlantic.
Phil, I guess you didn’t notice this figure in Part III:
That shows the ocean is a secondary player in energy transport. That’s a fact. The atmosphere transports the majority of the energy poleward.
In terms of climate, the only energy within the ocean that matters is the energy that comes out, i.e., the surface flux of latent heat and sensible heat, that constitute the biggest part of the surface energy flux from the ocean to the atmosphere. And this is what the data shows for the month of February:
Source: Yu, L. and Weller, R.A., 2007. Objectively analyzed air–sea heat fluxes for the global ice-free oceans (1981–2005). Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 88(4), pp.527-540.
No AMOC there, just the Western Boundary currents that are the important ones in terms of moving energy.
And it looks to me that your view of the ocean thermo-haline circulation is incorrect. It is not thermally driven, it is mechanically driven by winds and tides. As Carl Wunsch explains:
https://courses.seas.harvard.edu/climate/eli/Courses/EPS281r/Sources/Thermohaline-circulation/more/Wunsch-2002.pdf
…the ocean is a secondary player in energy transport. That’s a fact. The atmosphere transports the majority of the energy poleward.
The ocean controls the troposphere, that’s a fact:
The ocean circulation transports heat poleward, that’s a fact:
http://en.es-static.us/upl/2016/10/ocean-global-conveyor-belt-800×409.jpg
The ocean transports heat directly into the Arctic, that’s a fact:
It is a fact you neglected the ocean as a major player in heat transport to the poles.
No. That’s an opinion. You have trouble distinguishing opinions from facts.
I never said otherwise. The question is how much energy. And the answer is once below the sea-ice very little energy, because ocean water in contact with ice is very cold, and because very little energy makes it through ice. The atmosphere transports almost all energy into the Arctic. You also have problems reading the transport figure in Part III.
You have trouble distinguishing opinions from facts.
You’ve stepped in it this time Javier. I read the transport figure, it is why I did this analysis to show that both that figure and you are under-representing the ocean’s influence to at least some degree. I could replicate this work with monthly DMI data if I had it.
I hereby present the facts regarding significant NH SST forcing of both NH Sea Ice Extent and 80N temperature, which confirm my earlier comments, and falsify your adamant statements to the contrary.
The integrated 12-month-average change (i12m∆) in NH Sea Ice is significantly anti-correlated, r=-.74, to the i12m∆ in NH SST (HadiSST2 and HadSST3 NH).
The i12m∆ in 80N temperature is even more significantly anti-correlated to the i12m∆ in NH Sea Ice Extent with r=-.86 (jra55 80N and HadiSST2).
The 80N Temperature lags the NH SST by 5 months and is significantly correlated to the NH SST at r=.45 (jra55 80N and HadSST3 NH).
So yes, the ocean transports heat directly into the Arctic, that’s a fact.
This means your all-powerful atmospheric MT idea is half-baked.
Although of very great climate influence, this transport is a nearly passive consequence of the mechanical machinery.
As well as this sentence being self-contradictory, Wunsch could not be more wrong. 97% of climate heat in the ocean is not controlled by the 3% in the atmosphere. Wunsch knows this even though he says the opposite. Like Alley, Mann, Jones and so many others, he has prostituted his scientific expertise to the carbon death cult.
The numbers for latitudinal heat transport being more for air than water, even if they are true (and I suspect they are not) are irrelevant. Sea drives wind. Wind drives sea. Why does there need to be something dominating? Is the Pole Catholic? Why can’t it be chaotic-emergent complexity?
Winds are not deus ex machina “dominating” (as required by our Catholic western mindset) the ocean. They are in large part caused by temperature differences at the ocean surface. So it’s a coupled system, causation goes round in circles. Emergent chaotic dynamics are the result. We cannot deny the role of powerful internal variability which is intrinsic and cannot be ascribed to some simple external driver. There is external periodic forcing but it is weak, not strong.
Those asserting a passive ocean, passively controlled by either CO2 or SO2 or sun or wind, are off the rails and ploughing in the wrong direction. Climate is oceanography.
Bullshit. You don’t know what you are talking about.
Rui Xing Huang, at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, is one of the foremost experts in ocean circulation, that has developed and tested several concepts that are now incorporated to models.
He has this to say:
Huang, R.X., 2004. Ocean, energy flows in. Encyclopedia of Energy, 4, pp.497-509.
Read and learn, or remain an ignorant forever. Your choice.
But Javier, even though the ocean does get it’s ‘gas’ to drive it’s engine from an external source, this does not negate:
‘“There is a huge heat flux through the upper surface of the ocean’,
How huge?
Very, very huge. The atmosphere absorbes about 10% of solar energy. Land surface is about 31% of the planet’s surface, but it has a higher albedo than the ocean. I would have to check, but about 70% of the energy that enters the climate system goes to the ocean. When the ocean is warming it retains a part, but most of it is returned to the atmosphere. Mainly as latent heat, about 2/3). About 1/3 as IR radiation, and about 1/10 as sensible heat.
I spent 4 years at University studying oceanography. Your denial of the oceans is saddening because you are very erudite in climate literature but have backed the wrong horse in celestial driving of a passive ocean-climate. CO2 driving of a passive ocean-climate is just as wrong a horse. The ocean has principle agency in climate with its powerful internal dynamics and long timescales. Things affect climate only insofar as they affect the ocean. Richard Lindzen is of the same view.
Not to good avail if you didn’t learn what Wunsch, Huang and many others teach, that ocean circulation is mechanically driven. That you have such a dismissive opinion of Carl Wunsch shows that you should have flunked.
I don’t deny anything. I stick to the evidence. No faith required. Most of the energy comes from the oceans because that is where the sun puts it, but climate is essentially an atmospheric phenomenon, and climate change is driven mainly by the atmosphere.
Your four years have given you a strong bias towards an ocean explanation. I don’t have that handicap.
The ocean has an important role in climate, but it doesn’t drive climate change. It’s like the battery in a car. It does have an important role, but it does not drive the car.
I couldn’t care less what Lindzen or the Pope think. I only care about what the evidence says.
Neither do I care what Wunsh thinks – he is wrong. It’s interesting that he asserts that the ocean is passive – under “mechanical” control. This identifies the point at which he went off the rails – either an honest mistake or politically driven intellectual surrender.
This active-passive issue is of key importance. In classifying all the climate theories out there, this is a more important distinction that the CO2 issue, despite the intense politicisation of the latter. In the passive corner you have all the theories where the ocean-climate system is passively driven from outside, be it CO2 or aerosol cans or cows farting or astrophysical or volcanic factors etc. That’s a minor detail – the main thing is that a passive ocean-climate is driven strongly from outside. So your hypothesis is in the same camp as the CO2 warming alarmist professional mainstream. This view denies the ocean except as a passive puddle and denies chaotic-nonlinear phenomena.
In the other camp is the active climate paradigm where internal climate heat dynamics, of which the ocean is the largest component, serve up ever-changing climate on multiple timescales up to multi millenial. This view de-denies chaos dynamics and un-ignores the science of chaotic-nonlinear emergent phenomena. It also de-denies tectonic drift and ocean configuration as the main very long term driver of climate change (whereas professional palaeoclimate has denied tectonics and put everything under CO2 only: tectonic events only affect climate by CO2 weathering-drawdown, nothing to do with the ocean of course.) Put very simply the ” activist” paradigm posits that climate changes itself without help from outside.
However asserting powerful internal dynamics in climate (ocean) as a source of climate change does not exclude external forcing, and I have said on many occasions that solar and astrophysical forcing acts as a weak periodic forcing of the climate which is a set of nonlinear oscillators. This coincides with Wyatt and Curry’s stadium wave hypothesis. So it’s not either-or but both-and in terms of internal dynamics and external forcing. Periodic forcing of nonlinear oscillators such as the Belousov-Zhabotinsky oscillator and other well known experimental systems (metal surface catalysis etc.) can be weak or strong. When it’s strong then the forced waveform is very similar to the forcing waveform (e.g. heartbeat, pendulum…). But when it is weak then the relationship between the outside forcing frequency and the emergent wave form of the forced system can be very complex – look at tidal forcing in an estuary with a narrow neck for example. Astrophysical forcing of climate is largely weak, which explains why wiggle-matching of the astrophysics with the climate is so frustrating and requires such intricate complexity and special pleading similar to epicycle theory.
Your articles on the Milankovitch forcing of the glacial cycle are excellent. Milankovitch forcing is a nice example of an external forcing which provides the pacing input but is not strong enough to “mechanically” force the climate to change – instead it interacts resonantly with the much stronger internal dynamics to set up the forced oscillation. Why do some obliquity peaks set off an integlacial (6500 years later) but other equal peaks dont? Why some interglacials are double-headed, others single. The climate’s internal dynamic is poised between two attractors – glacial and interglacial. The repeated flipping between the two represents flicker – a well known phenomenon for chaotic systems under the pull of two attractors. That glacial-interglacial cycling is flicker between attractors is so blindingly obvious that it is in turn very revealing why such vast amounts of energy are consumed in the denial of this obvious fact and locking it in the wardrobe in favour of other politically advantageous and necessary but false theories.
I might be wrong – perhaps a billion cubic kilometers of the liquid with anomalously high heat capacity surrounding the earth are indeed overwhelmed by other forcing factors and are a passive puddle with no internal dynamics. But at least we have two well defined positions to make the debate interesting: activist and passivist.
Isaac Newton – a brilliant scientist like yourself – gave us the calculus method and gravitation, worked out pi properly and launched modern physics. However this was all done before he turned 30. The lion’s share of his life’s scientific effort were devoted to something else entirely. Alchemy – turning lead into gold. This of course was entirely wasted effort. What more could Newton have achieved if he had not so determinedly pursued such a wrong goal?
Then so are the models and everybody else but you.
https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/clim/18/14/jcli3436.1.xml
I guess your knowledge is not current.
So Wunsch’s model of the ocean is a clockwork device? See something moving? Something external must be forcing it. This is a very bad analogy and paradigm and no real understanding is going to flow from it.
If I Googled “Wunsch” and also “nonlinear dynamics” or “chaotic emergent” – how many hits would I get? I haven’t done it yet. I don’t get the sense in his writing of much appreciation of a coupled system with complex self-organisation.
The Thermohaline circulation (THC) – if you choose to believe in it, is characterised by deep ocean currents which are often completely independent in direction and speed from surface currents. Like in the North Atlantic. Deep water flow is impelled by downwelling, not wind. In the North Pacific there is deep water that is 1500 years “old” i.e. it hasn’t contacted air at the surface for a millennium and a half. In what sense is the movement of such parcels of water driven by wind? And it is moving. Otherwise it would be anoxic. Who keeps winding up the great clockwork machine?
It looks like there is quite some disagreement among the science community.
What makes something a heat engine?
“In thermodynamics and engineering, a heat engine is a system that converts heat to mechanical energy, which can then be used to do mechanical work. It does this by bringing a working substance from a higher state temperature to a lower state temperature.”
“Because the circulation of the ocean is differentially heated at the air-sea interface, the ocean has often been viewed as a heat engine (Colin de Verdière, 1993; Tailleux, 2009, 2010, 2015; Welander, 1991; Wunsch, 2002)”
Why are oceans part of the earth’s heat engine?
“Currents in the ocean are driven by persistent global winds blowing over the surface of the water and water density. They are part of the Earth’s heat engine in which solar energy is absorbed by the ocean water (remember the specific heat of water). The absorbed energy is distributed by ocean currents”
Huang 2004
“The atmosphere can be considered as a heat engine, which is driven by differential heating, with an efficiency of 0.8%. In this sense although the oceans are subject to differential heating similar to the atmosphere, they are not at all a heat engine. The driving force for the ocean circulation is the mechanical energy in form of wind stress and tides. In comparison, differential heating is only a precondition for the thermohaline circulation, and not the driving force of the oceanic general circulation. Thus, the ocean is not a heat engine; instead it is a machine driven by external mechanical energy that transports thermal energy, freshwater, CO2 and other traces.”
I read this and unfortunately this is not correct.
1) Both the atmosphere and ocean are subject to differential heating.
2) The driving force of the ocean mentioned here is mechanical energy, where a heat engine is a system that converts heat to mechanical energy.
3) Differential energy is not only a precondition for the thermohaline circulation it is a driving force for the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) and the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC) just two examples.4) The atmosphere is also driven by external mechanical energy that transports thermal energy, freshwater, CO2 and other traces. From the Tropics especially or 40N+/40S+ in especially Winter, this external energy comes form the ocean via absorbed solar energy previously. They take a long time to cool from previous Summer and warm the atmosphere accordingly.
Sorry Huang this not true and there are a number of scientists that disagree with you.
Tropical dry desert (no oceanic influence, closest to Tropics I found)
(month, mean, max, min)
IN-SALAH -ALGERIA
Lat.: 27.23 °N / Lon.: 2.50°E Height: 268(m)
2021-01 15.7 24.7 7.5
2021-02 19.1 27.4 11.0
2021-03 21.2 29.0 13.7
2021-04 28.6 37.0 19.7
2021-05 34.6 42.1 26.7
2021-06 38.8 46.6 30.3
2021-07 39.7 47.4 31.2
2021-08 38.6 46.3 30.7
2021-09 35.9 44.4 28.0
2021-10 27.6 35.2 20.3
2021-11 20.0 28.0 12.2
2021-12 16.8 23.9 8.9
Polar dry desert (very little oceanic influence)
TROLL -STATIONS OPERATED BY NORWAY
Lat.: 72.02 °S / Lon.: 2.53°E Height: 1277(m)
2021-01 -7.5 -4.6 -10.3
2021-02 -12.4 -9.5 -15.0
2021-03 -11.3 -8.6 -14.0
2021-04 -17.7 -14.7 -20.7
2021-05 -17.5 -14.1 -21.4
2021-06 -22.3 -19.6 -25.3
2021-07 -22.9 -20.2 -25.9
2021-08 -24.0 -20.8 -27.3
2021-09 -19.7 -16.3 -23.5
2021-10 -17.8 -14.3 -21.4
2021-11 -12.0 -9.1 -15.0
2021-12 -8.5 -5.7 -11.2
Tropical wet climate (hugely oceanic influenced)
SINGKEP/DABO -INDONESIA
Lat.: 0.48 °S / Lon.: 104.58°E Height: 31(m)
2021-01 26.6 30.5 23.8
2021-02 27.7 32.4 23.8
2021-03 27.6 32.3 23.8
2021-04 27.5 32.2 23.7
2021-05 27.9 31.8 24.3
2021-06 27.7 31.9 24.4
2021-07 27.7 31.3 24.2
2021-08 26.9 30.5 24.3
2021-09 27.1 30.9 24.0
2021-10 27.3 31.5 24.1
2021-11 26.9 30.9 24.0
2021-12 26.9 31.2 24.0
1) The huge difference between Tropical and Polar deserts are of course solar energy with no oceanic influence.
2) The huge difference between Tropical wet and dry maximum temperatures are because of humidity from the ocean.
3) The huge difference between Tropical wet and dry minimum temperatures are due to energy retained all year round in the nearby ocean.
How can the ocean not be a heat engine when it causes similar places in the Tropics to have minimum monthly temperatures upto 16c higher? The only difference is one is influcend by the ocean and the other isn’t. If the atmosphere was the only heat engine and responsible, then they would both have similar minimum temperatures.
The atmosphere can espically bring very warm air to much cooler locations via convection and wind currents like the mid-lattitudes and the Arctic. The ocean also has a huge influence on regions especially close to it and becomes natures central heating for the colder months away from the Tropics.
The driving force for the ocean circulation is the mechanical energy in form of wind stress and tides.
That’s not the whole story. Downwelling of cold and high salinity water – called “deep water formation” at both poles – powers deep ocean currents down at the bottom. This is not wind. It is a phenomenon of ocean circulation and temperature and salinity structure.
Yes winds cause ocean currents. But the opposite is also true – ocean causes wind. Ocean phenomena such as surface temperature gradients impel winds. So the causation is mutual. It’s a coupled system.
So this idea that “climate is about atmosphere only and the oceans are passive” is wrong. It is promoted because a passive ocean is needed for pet theories of climate causation by a single cause such as CO2 or sun. The ocean must be removed from the picture for such mono-theories to survive.
Take ENSO and the Bjerknes feedback. Trade winds at the equatorial Pacific blow east to west. They are impelled by a sea surface temperature gradient between cooler seas off Peru to the east and warmer seas in mid Pacific. Why is water off Peru cool? Because of upwelling of deep cold water. Cooled air has higher density than warm air further west causing the easterly trade winds.
Now these easterly trade winds “pull” at the sea surface causing further upwelling. This upwelling has already been happening because otherwise there would be no trades. So you can see there is mutual circular causation and a feedback. Upwelling powers trades, trades power upwelling. Which comes first?
The Bjerknes feedback is why the Pacific right now is in a persistent La Niña. Although atmospheric experts will no doubt – as they continually do – assure is all that El Niño will break out “any day now”. That’s what the models tell us.
I know it is not the whole story as I was quoting Huang 2004 and he was wrong about that statement.
Exactly, regarding the deep ocean currents with cold, higher salinity water being more dense and so sinks driving the ocean current.That is why the thermohaline circulation is a driving force for the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) and the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC) just two examples.
My view on the trade winds and some others too are these increase when the solar cycle increases and the extra energy speeds up/drives the Walker Circulation more. The opposite occurs when the solar cycle decreases and scientists can forecast the ENSO time intervals when these are likely to happen.
The upwelling reduces and increases depending on the Walker Circulation, driven by the solar cycle and with upwelling the ENSO regions cool and when the upwelling eases or even the trade winds reverse direction these form El Nino’s.
The Bjerknes positive feedback is the result of the main driver. It is very unlikely now to have an El Nino this side of the peak solar cycle.
The Nino34 region surface temperature has a very distinct oscillation that has the same period as sunspot activity. The highest correlation occurs with sunspots lagged 31 months.
The solar intensity due to orbital changes in the Nino34 region does not have an 11 year period.
The ENSO switch is not tied to the 11 year period. The are other peaks in the frequency analysis with periods at 5.3 years and 3.4 years that are associated with the ENSO switch.
The surface salinity changes are observed with the switch as to be expected with the change in surface level convergence. Yet to determine if the salinity is a driver but latent heat of evaporation reduces with salinity so could certainly be a trigger for the switch.
An aside here is the the surface temperature in the Nino34 region is negatively correlated to solar EMR and best correlation occurs with temperature LEADING the EMR by 1 month. Sort of like the temperature controls the EMR but in fact the temperature controls the amount of sunlight getting to the surface. It takes about a month for the atmosphere to respond to the surface temperature.
Hey Andy … Just curious if any of this lines up with the stuff of Landschiedt. I remember Curry printed an article showing how L’s method accurately predicted the El Nino La Nina cycles better than anything else. In fact, using his method, she predicted the current La Nina.
Dr. Deanster,
Many people predicted the current La Nina, including Javier:
ENSO predictions based on solar activity | Climate Etc. (judithcurry.com)
and Leamon and McIntosh. I’m not familiar with any of Landschiedt’s work and could find nothing on him on Judy’s site. I need more information to respond.
Theodore Landscheidt was a German scientist doing independent research on the solar and planetary effects on climate during the last two decades of the 20th century.
I talked about him in my ENSO article:
Landscheidt died in 2004. He was a fringe scientist that tried to bring scientific methods into astrology and astrological elements into science. He developed some weird concepts like the Golden Section, that affects everything, from planetary movements to the stock market or celebrities births, and obviously the solar cycle.
He analyzed structures in data, and clearly he found the solar cycle-ENSO association. However, he published in Astrology journals and spoke at Astrology conferences, and that, together with the nature of his work, made him an untouchable in science. His Wikipedia page was erased, but he is still remembered as he was one of the few, or only, scientist dealing with Astrology. In his latest years he lamented this association that (logically) brought him nothing but scorn from other scientists.
His most serious ENSO paper is the one cited in our bibliography. It is from a solar meeting that took place in the Canary Islands in 1999. It can be read here:
Landscheidt, T., 2000. Solar forcing of El Niño and La Niña. In The solar cycle and terrestrial climate, solar and space weather (Vol. 463, p. 135).
It shows why his method, despite some correct predictions, has not been followed by anybody in science.
Thanks Javier, I forgot you talked about him in the 2019 post and a search of his name on Judy’s site did not show anything. I downloaded his article, very interesting that he saw all that as early as he did.
Well .. that is a shame that some do-gooders erased his wiki page. I guess it is fortunate that all of his stuff is preserved on the John Daly website.
Thanks for the reply
His work was also covered by the late John Daly.
http://www.john-daly.com/sun-enso/revisit.htm
Thanks Andy … in the Article you linked, Judy talks about Landschiedt’s work. That was the article I was referencing.
“The Hale cycle-ENSO association is unclear to me due to insufficient data but it is undeniable that both of Landscheidt predictions were correct. Anderson’s and Landscheidt’s articles were completely ignored by the scientific community and they are rarely cited even by authors studying the same subject.”
I know his methods were unorthodox, kind of loony at times, but he was evidently on to something, even if he didn’t know just what it was he was on to! LOL. My curiosity on the subject was that Landscheidt was trying to determine the mechanism that leads to the different solar signals that in turn impact climate (ie., as laid out in your articles, there appears to be atmospheric responses to solar signals, whereas Landsheidt was trying to determine what caused the changes in solar signals .. the whole baricenter stuff.
Anyway, thank you, both you and Javier for the response.
BTW … Solar Activity: A Dominant Factor in Climate Dynamics (john-daly.com)
Don’t know, but there may be some pearls in there that you might find interesting.
You may find this interesting.
Majority of El Nino’s are from energy released during quieter parts of the sun cycle replenished during peak.
In hindsight it would had been better to include the 13-month smoothed monthly total sunspot number.
This is why they are desperate to force CO2 restrictions on us, because then they can claim the upcoming cooling from the AMO change as due to them. If we can kick this can down the road another 10 years, we will win. And the Ukraine war might just have done that.
Andy May:
The statement is made that “the LIA cannot be explained by volcanic forcing”
On the contrary, it was ENTIRELY due to volcanic forcing, and was a world-wide event.
See “The Definitive Cause of Little Ice Age Temperatures”
https://wjarr.com/content/archive-issues
(Volume 13, issue 2 (Feb), next to last paper listed)
That statement is by me. Greenland volcanic sulfate data (Zielinski et al. 1996) shows that the last 5,000 years had a level of volcanic activity much lower than the previous 7,000 years, when the planet was much warmer.
It also shows that the period 1346-1765 displayed a level of volcanic sulfate in Greenland ice cores VERY MUCH LOWER than the Holocene average, even lower than the last 5,000 years average.
The LIA, the coldest period of the Holocene, cannot be blamed on a very low level of volcanic activity by Holocene standards.
You have it wrong.
Javier:
Read the reference which I supplied. You will find that I am correct.
I most certainly will not.
Yours is just one of the many hypotheses or conjectures that spend years making the rounds at the comment sections of skeptic blogs. Slim chance that any of them will be correct, because their authors typically display a profound ignorance of climate science. They are like competing religions each claiming there is just one true god, theirs. Most appear not to have a single follower. I should do a list when I have the time.
Javier:
I have a far better knowledge of Climate Science than you will ever have, since you refuse to act like a scientist and explore other possibilities.
I know I don’t know much about climate science. I am just surprised how little many people making bold claims appear to know. That goes from climate scientists to skeptics developing weird conjectures.
I don’t know if my hypothesis will have some impact or not. My guess is that it will be ignored by official science. But I am certain your conjecture that is all due to sulfate aerosols will have zero impact. It doesn’t fit with the rest of what we know about climate science.
Javier:
Yes, it has had zero impact so far.
However, it does explain everything that has happened to our climate in the present era,as well as warm and cold episodes,in the past, including the ice ages.
It is also falsifiable (empirically testable), and has been tested and validated thousands of times,by every VEI4 and > volcanic eruption. by warming due to Clean Air reductions in SO2 aerosol levels, by warming due to fewer SO2 aerosols during business recessions because of reduced industrial activity, and by warming when the time between volcanic eruptions exceeds 3-4 years.It also
Science is not about explanations, it is about demonstrations. We are tired of alarmists explaining everything on CO2 and demonstrating nothing.
Maybe it is because volcanoes bring heat from inside the earth, which was missing during the LIA.
Andy May:
You state “the ocean-atmospheric system did not recover fully from the 1976-77 El Nino”
I believe that you meant La Nina, since there was a strong La Nina from 1974-76, and only a weak El Nino in 1976-77. .
Again you believe wrongly. “the ocean-atmospheric system did not recover fully from the 1976-77 El Niño” is a phrase used by Nicholas Graham in his 1994 article. Citing textually:
Graham, N.E., 1994. Decadal-scale climate variability in the tropical and North Pacific during the 1970s and 1980s: Observations and model results. Climate Dynamics, 10(3), pp.135-162.
Javier:
It is not my belief, I was just citing information from the Climate Prediction Center “cold and warm episodes by season’
You said it was your belief. Textually:
We didn’t mean La Niña, so your belief is wrong.
Whether the 1976-77 Niño was weak or strong, it is irrelevant to the subject at matter. It is when the climate shift took place.
Javier:
Just being kind .I thought that you had made a typo, since there was a strong La Nina, at that time.
The climate shift was only temporary, going from cooling due to increasing industrial SO2 aerosol emissions, to a warming trend, circa 1980, because of global “Clean Air” reductions in Industrial .SO2 aerosol emissions.
Andy May:
The 1996-97 climate shift which you mention was due to a 7.7 Megaton decrease in industrial SO2 aerosol emissions between 1996 and 1997, due to global “Clean Air” efforts
The strong 2015-16 El Nino was due to a massive 27 Megaton decrease in industrial SO2 aerosol emissions from China, due to an edict to reduce air pollution.
In each instance, temperatures rose because of the less polluted air.
The Control Knob for Earth’s temperatures is simply the amount of SO2 aerosols circulating in our atmosphere, of either volcanic or industrial origin!
I don’t buy that for a second.
It gets even more absurd.
Javier:
See my reply to Matt G, below.
I am not making things up. I am citing published data.
A lot of published science is rubbish or of a trivial nature. Being published doesn’t improve anything. Peer review has been disappointing. It has resulted in a lot of unpaid work without improving the science. And it has resulted in gatekeeping, where certein people, ideas or results are kept out of the main journals. On top of that predatory journals will publish anything for a fee, degrading published science even more.
That your conjecture has been published doesn’t make it any more worth it.
Javier:
I agree, but my theses is more than just a conjecture. Everything that I have stated is provable and repeatable.
However, the predatory journals do provide a way to put forth ideas that the corrupt mainstream journals refuse to print, because they don’t support the “consensus”.
There is no relation to SAOT and ENSO shown below. Human SO2 emissions never reach the stratosphere that can last months or years before being removed.
If you are relying on SO2 in the atmosphere where clouds and precipitaton forms, it has a very short life. (matter of hours/days or even less) Local air pollution from factories etc. only affect the local area.
Matt G.
The residence time in the stratosphere of SO2 aerosols from VEI4 volcanic eruptions averages 14 months, longer for VEI5 and upwards.
For Tambora (VEI7) in 1815, as I recall, it was about 10 years.
I like your top graph!.
The Community Development Data System (CEDS) of the University of Maryland uses gridded data to establish the quantities of industrial SO2 and other pollutants in the atmosphere, and extends from 1750 to 2019, at the present.
I am citing their data for 97/98 and 2015/16. The earlier strong El Nino peaks were also due to decreased atmospheric SO2 levels, but for different reasons.
And it is not true that local air pollution affects only local areas. See attached graph.
. .
Regarding the SO2 column mass, that still shows local levels of SO2 above 25 ppb, but below 100ppb.
1 DU = 2.687×1016 molecules/cm-2
1 DU = 50 ppb
The huge majority of the planet shows much less than 6 ppb of SO2 which is literally nothing. It wil be gone when it rains until another top-up source occurs.
So you are claiming that less than 6ppb of SO2 cause El Nino’s, while many problems exists with this and nobody will believe you.
How did El Nino’s form in the past when air polution was so bad in Europe?
The mechanism for ENSO is the Walker circulation affected by the solar cycle and solar energy warming the oceans or not, either causing trade winds or not, leading to upwelling of ocean water or not. This has always happened no matter what SO2 levels have been in the past.
Why was there two El Nino’s during the 2 biggest volcanic eruptions in recent history being 1991 and 1982?
It isn’t until SO2 levels reach 100ppb (0.1ppm) that advisory levels are considered moderate and no where on that world map shows these levels.
Understanding Sulfur Dioxide Health Advisory Levels
Matt G.
You do not understand how SO2 aerosols (fine droplets of Sulfuric Acid) affect our climate.With them ppb are not meaningful.They are reflective, and cool the Earth’s surface by reflecting away the incoming sunshine (per NASA’s fact sheet on Atmospheric Aerosols). The more there are (as when there is a volcanic eruption), the cooler it gets.
And when they eventually settle out, the warmer it gets.
Prior to the Industrial Revolution, any El Nino-like temperatures were due to periods where there were very few or no volcanic eruptions.
After the Industrial revolution, all El Ninos were either caused by the settling out of stratospheric volcanic aerosols, which also flushed out some of the industrial SO2 aerosols in the troposphere, on the way down, so that post-eruption temperatures normally exceed pre-eruption temperatures enough to , form an El Nino, or simply to periods of volcanic droughts.
And stratospheric SO2 aerosols are not “rained out”.(no rain up there) Those from VEI4 eruptions have an average residence time of about 14 months.
I agree that SO2 is a noxious substance, it is unfortunate that removing it from the atmosphere also causes temperatures to rise
I do understand, what you claim is not true regarding a direct link between SO2 and El Ninos that is not shown by the planet.
I know SO2 aerosols are reflective, and cool the Earth’s surface by reflecting away the incoming sunshine but only on a global scale in the stratosphere or at local level in the troposphere. (up to 100’s of km distance)
I have already stated that stratospheric volcanic aerosols can last for months or years, but not human SO2 in the troposphere. The SO2 aerosols in the troposhere are rained out.
You have failed to show why two of the biggest volcanic eruptions in recent history occurred while there was El Nino’s. If your theory was correct there would have not been an El Nino because the SO2 aerosols would have prevented it during the highest SAOT levels detected during the last 50 years.
The highest SAOT levels didn’t prevent an El Nino during The cataclysmic 1991 Eruption of Mount Pinatubo, Philippines or the 1982 eruption of El Chichón in Mexico.
The SAOT data show virtually zero readings for between 2000 and 2003 so there was none detected because all the volcanic SO2 at that time had all gone. This is depsite human SO2 emissions continuing as normal and yet none of it was detected.
When you choose higher heights in the atmosphere the SO2 levels significantly decrease.
At 850 hPa shows SO2 levels no higher than 3 ppb.
At 100 hPa shows SO2 levels no higher than 0.1 ppb.
At the heights that matter 0.1 ppb is considerably less than 3ppb or 5ppb near the surface. (your link)
Matt G:
The map that I had sent you was of industrial SO2 aerosol emissions. Obviously, they had not rained out
The two large eruptions occurred during on-going El Ninos, and were completely unrelated to them.
The El Ninos occurred due to idled factories during American Business recessions
There will always be times when SO2 aerosol emissions haven’t been rained out immediately, but always will be eventually.
The two large eruptions occurred both times before the El Ninos reached the threshold of 0.5c. (that is the minimum required for 5 months to be claimed an El Nino)
The last part is just nonsense.
By occurred both times I mean the eruptions started before.
Matt G.
Yes, SO2 emissions will eventually be rained out, but most industrial emissions are from relatively constant sources, such as factories, foundries, internal combustion engines, power plants, etc., so that those that are rained out are quickly replaced, ensuring that there will always be SO2 aerosols in the atmosphere.
Industrial SO2 aerosol emissions are tracked by the Community Emissions Data System, of the University of Maryland. They have been falling due to global Clean Air efforts, .but were still 72 million tons in 2019.
I hadn’t noticed that the eruptions occurred so close to the beginnings of the El Ninos, but, again, the El Ninos had nothing to do with the eruptions, except that their warmth limited the amount of cooling caused by the eruptions Many volcanic eruptions do produce El Ninos, but they occur 24-36 months after the date of the eruption.
The last part is definitely not nonsense. There have been 31 American Business recessions/depressions since 1850, and all have caused temperatures to increase because of fewer SO2 aerosols from idled factories, etc., and most have had temperatures rise enough to cause an El Nino.
I have a paper on Google Scholar “A Graphical Explanation of Climate Change’ which discusses this. Just type my name.
I agreed with everything until here and SO2 emissions by factories etc. are quickly replaced causing local not global affects.
“Many volcanic eruptions do produce El Ninos, but they occur 24-36 months after the date of the eruption.”
The two major ones we have mentioned in the record didn’t. So if the biggest signals for this don’t, doesnt give any hope for smaller eruptions.
El Nino’s are naturally a way of removing excess solar energy from the peak stage of the solar cycle. Some scientists know how to forecast ENSO using the solar cycle.
“The last part is definitely not nonsense. There have been 31 American Business recessions/depressions since 1850, and all have caused temperatures to increase because of fewer SO2 aerosols from idled factories, etc., and most have had temperatures rise enough to cause an El Nino.”
It still makes no sense, that is local event and will have no influence on SO2 in the stratosphere above the Tropics. Like I have showed you with the SO2 levels with height. The SO2 levels at 100 hPa are not from the sources at 850 hPa.
How does local warming in the USA warm the Tropics? The Tropics are much warmer than it and solar energy there much higher. The El Nino requires trade winds to ease so pooling of solar energy can form and ocean upwelling ease. This requires the Walker circulation to ease with less energy from the sun.
Matt G:
According to the NASA fact sheet on atmospheric aerosols, it does not matter whether the SO2 aerosols are in the
stratosphere or the troposphere, they have the same climatic effect, reflecting sunlight and cooling the Earth.
I never said that American Business recessions.cause just local warming. The WoodforTrees.org graphs in my paper are of average anomalous GLOBAL temperatures. I haven’t checked, but it is probable that American temperatures would have been even higher. .
There are at least 4 different reasons for an El Nino to form, and ALL occur when there is a reduction in the amount of SO2 aerosols in the atmosphere. As such, ENSO warming does not exist–the whole world is being warmed at the same time.
(It appears that America may be slipping into a recession, as well as other nations, so expect temperatures to continue to rise, for a while. However, the Tonga eruption of last December should cause temperatures to decrease,about mid winter, so things could go from bad to worse)..
“According to the NASA fact sheet on atmospheric aerosols, it does not matter whether the SO2 aerosols are in the
stratosphere or the troposphere, they have the same climatic effect, reflecting sunlight and cooling the Earth.”
They do and that is different to local or global effects. You are trying to claim that SO2 in local regions are affecting the globe thousands of miles away.
Now your saying ENSO doesn’t exist. (this discussion has ended)
Matt G.
You are always accusing me of saying something that I did not say, or leap to un-warrented conclusions from what is said.
Yes, stratospheric SO2 aerosols generated by a local eruption will eventually affect other regions, as they circulate around the globe, until they eventually settle out. This takes about 14 months for a VEI4 eruption. Industrial tropospheric emissions appear to take about half as long.
“You say that I said ENSO doesn’t exist”. Another example of your incompetence. I said that ENSO WARMING does not exist. Yes, ENSO does exist, but it is caused by decreased SO2 aerosol emissions, which also causes world-wide warming to occur the same time.. You can’t blame the warming on ENSO..
Matt G.
You say, correctly, that the El Chicon and Pitatubo eruptions did not produce El Ninos. This was because they were quenched by other closely-following eruptions.
Matt G:
I have a reply to your last post, but cannot up-load it. if this up-loads, i can submit it here.
Matt:
I disagree, the 96-97 climate shift was not a cooling shift. It was yet another warming shift. The 1997-98 El Nino and subsequent La Nina events mask what really happened. The shift was essentially additional warming driven by the +AMO all the way to 2006. The big El Nino made it look like the warming occurred earlier.
In 2006 the PDO went negative. This ended the Pacific warming that started in 1976 and that is where the pause really got going. In fact, the pause was a slight cooling. However, with the +AMO it was not possible to have any significant cooling.
In 2014 the PDO went positive again. This once again led to more warming. Both main ocean cycles were positive again. The warming continued until 2020.
We have currently experienced a slight cooling due to back-back-back La Nina events. How we go from here depends yet again on these major ocean cycles.
Keep in mind that ENSO events affect the PDO index and makes it difficult to determine the true state until after the ENSO events end.
If the PDO returns to positive after the latest La Nina ends then warming will continue.
If the PDO goes negative, we will continue in pause mode.
Finally, when the AMO goes negative (by 2027??) we will remove that warming effect. But, what happens depends on the PDO. To get any substantial cooling the PDO would need to be negative as well. This was the situation that led to the 1960s-1970s cooling.
With this view of the natural ocean cycles there’s no need to add in any AGW. It is completely unnecessary to describe the changes over the past 50 years.
Richard M.
There was no 96/97 climate shift, or for 2014/2016, either.
Both were periods of temporary warming caused by “Clean Air” efforts to reduce industrial SO2 aerosol pollution. Subsequent La Nina events were due to volcanic eruptions.
Your PDO oscillations do not exist, and therefore cannot be a guide for future speculation.
What you write is nonsense
SO2 man-made emissions (OECD – Total, Unit Tonnes, Thousands)
(EI) 38 173.30 – 1996
(EI) 37 483.00 – 1997
(EI) 36 466.60 – 1998
(EI) 33 744.70 – 1999
The biggest drop in emissions was after 1998 around this time when a La Nina formed after. This occurred close to the time of the lowest SAOT levels in the data over the last 50 years. (2000-2003)
(EI) 14 047.71 – 2013
(EI) 13 780.09 – 2014
(EI) 12 596.35 – 2015
(EI) 11 873.46 – 2016
(EI) 10 924.85 – 2017
There has been steady declines throughout all years for SO2 man-made emissions. No ENSO events are caused by any changes to SO2 levels.
https://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DataSetCode=AIR_EMISSIONS
Matt G.
I have attempted to reply to your last post to me, but my reply is blocked.
Matt G:
In checking your reference,I see that there is no data for man-made SO2 aerosols from the worst polluters of the world, China, India, and other Eastern nations!
Here are Global CEDS values, for comparison:(Megatons)
2013 113
2014 111
2015 88
2016 88
ALL ENSO warming events are caused by decreases in global SO2 aerosol levels, and all ENSO cooling events are caused by volcanic eruptions (with one or two man-made exceptions)..
.
That is correct with the link not having all countries included.
The rest in nonsense.
Shows the PDO and Nino 3.4 have a very signifcant influence on global temperatures. Ignore the last 5/6 years because with a 121 month filter the values move towards zero having no data after the present.
The PDO and Nino 3.4 also have a undoubted relationship.
That sort of interplay between differing system components is important.
To Javier Vinós & Andy May – thanks and regards, Allan MacRae
CO2, GLOBAL WARMING, CLIMATE AND ENERGY – Watts Up With That?
MacRae 15Jun2019
“7b. Statistical analyses support the existence of an average ~3.1 year period in the data for NIno34 SST, UAH LT temperature and atmospheric CO2, averaging ~3.6 years before year 2003.5 and ~2.5 years after 2003.5, as depicted in Figs. 7e to 7j (Excel spreadsheet) and Table 7b.”
from the same paper:
CO2, GLOBAL WARMING, CLIMATE AND ENERGY – Watts Up With That?
MacRae 15Jun2019
11. An important fact pertaining to Energy Policy:
More than 50,000 Excess Winter Deaths occurred in England and Wales during the winter of 2017-18 – an Excess Winter Death rate about THREE TIMES the per-capita average in the USA and Canada.
Proportionally, that is about 35,000 more deaths in the UK than the average rates of the USA and Canada. British government climate and energy policies are effectively killing off the elderly and the poor.
Excessively high energy costs in the UK due to false global warming hysteria are a major component of the cause of these Excess Winter Deaths – global warming alarmists and corrupted governments and institutions are complicit in these premature deaths.
Reference: “Cold Weather Kills 20 Times as Many People as Hot Weather”
by Joseph D’Aleo and Allan MacRae, September 4, 2015
https://friendsofsciencecalgary.files.wordpress.com/2015/09/cold-weather-kills-macrae-daleo-4sept2015-final.pdf
12. Fossil fuels comprise fully 85% of global primary energy, unchanged in decades, and unlikely to change in future decades.
The remaining 15% of global primary energy is almost all hydro and nuclear.
Eliminate fossil fuels tomorrow and almost everyone in the developed world would be dead in about a month from starvation and exposure.
Despite trillions of dollars in squandered subsidies, global green energy has increased from above 1% to below 2% is recent decades.
Intermittent energy from wind and/or solar generation cannot supply the electric grid with reliable, uninterrupted power.
“Green energy” schemes are not green and produce little useful (dispatchable) energy, because they require almost 100% conventional backup from fossil fuels, nuclear or hydro when the wind does not blow and the Sun does not shine.
“Eliminate fossil fuels tomorrow and almost everyone in the developed world would be dead in about a month from starvation and exposure.”
That’s by design.
“That’s by design.”
Probably. No rational person or group could be this wrong, this utterly obtuse, for this long.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2022/08/21/german-electricity-prices-spiraling-out-of-controltripling-since-2000-blackouts-unrest-loom/#comment-3582806
[excerpt]
British Government: Shiver in the Dark, to Save Britain’s Broken Green Electricity Grid
THE BIG CULL OF THE ELDERLY OF EUROPE WILL HAPPEN THIS WINTER
We predicted it in 2002 and 2013 – it was all terribly costly – in dollars and lives – and all entirely avoidable.
A willful squandering of the lives of innocents.
Crimes against humanity.
Dr. Curry thanks for this article. It provides an explanation that is both understandable and well-supported. But, may I ask:
‘Although an anthropogenic warming trend is unquestionable’
What is this trend? As strong as your presentation supports the stadium wave concept, where then is there any room for AGW? It would seem to be in the noise.
Sincerely
JBP
Dr. Judith Curry did not write the article, nor is she responsible for its contents. She is the owner of the blog where the article was first published.
I (Dr. Javier Vinós) am responsible for the article’s scientific content, and jointly with Andy May we wrote it.
By no means. When one becomes an expert in natural climate change, and reads many hundreds of scientific articles on climate change during the Holocene, and studies dozens of climate proxies of different nature, one learns what natural climate change can do and how it acts.
Present climate change is not normal by Holocene standards. You don’t have to take my word for it, but you will have to study a lot to see the evidence. However there are several climate reconstructions that show it. For example the one by Moberg et al. 2005.
Moberg, A., Sonechkin, D.M., Holmgren, K., Datsenko, N.M. and Karlén, W., 2005. Highly variable Northern Hemisphere temperatures reconstructed from low-and high-resolution proxy data. Nature, 433(7026), pp.613-617.
Or the one by Hegerl et al. 2007.
Hegerl, G.C., Crowley, T.J., Allen, M., Hyde, W.T., Pollack, H.N., Smerdon, J. and Zorita, E., 2007. Detection of human influence on a new, validated 1500-year temperature reconstruction. Journal of Climate, 20(4), pp.650-666.
They end in 1950, so from then we must add the warming in the 1950-2020 period. That’s the dotted line in the first figure.
The evidence for anthropogenic warming is everywhere. It has happened on top of natural warming, so they are difficult to separate, but none by itself would have produced the observed warming.
The world has warmed too much for what should be expected at this time of the Holocene. However it is not dangerous as the Holocene Climatic Optimum was much warmer in the NH. If only a part is anthropogenic, then there is no crisis, and it makes no sense to try to reduce emissions to zero.
Dr. Vinos,
first my apologies for attributing the article incorrectly.
Thanks for the response. I will admit that I’m not going to do enough reading to better understand this part of the scientific world.
I just am continually perplexed by the ever-changing reasons given (from my perspective admittedly, a mechanical engineer, with an MS also) for the governments of the world to take such drastic measures.
There has been no definitive identification of the mechanism(s) that control global temperatures.If there had been, then a more accurate climate model could implemented to accomodate that discovery. Of course that is assuming that all scientists involved are being true to their profession. I’m not pointing a finger at you or anyone else in your business. This is just an outsider’s observation.
But when billions of dollars/yen/euros and trillions of tons of political power are at stake, the cynic in me knows that not everyone is being honest. And a part of me viscerally hates those dishonest people because of the massive harm they are doing to millions of people. But I only want them exposed and this all to end.
R,
JBP