When Graphs Attack!

I watch this everyday. CO2 rises and the ice stays. Sort of ruins Gore’s arguement, don’t you think?

Another good link for daily-updated graph of sea ice extent, which also puts 2008 in context with every year since 2002 is:
Data of Sea Ice Extent

On that page, check out at the bottom of the page in the “Notes on the data” section:
The numbers of sea ice extent in this site are estimates calculated by certain algorism.
You can’t make this stuff up!

Anthony,
Thanks for the update. I may do a follow-up story for The Register in a few weeks, when the Arctic dust (soot) settles. The current trajectory has ice extent near normal in August – with below freezing temperatures forecast for most of the Arctic Basin the rest of the month.
http://wxmaps.org/pix/temp2.html

“The numbers of sea ice extent in this site are estimates calculated by certain algorism.”
Hilarious! Or is that Hillary-ous?!

bsneath
According to Hathaway and NASA, this spotless period is normal.
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2008/11jul_solarcycleupdate.htm
If I’m not mistaken, cycle 23 is now about 12 years long – which is long, but not abnormally long.

bsneath: Lots of good stuff at Jan Janssens
http://users.telenet.be/j.janssens/Spotless/Spotless.html

BrianMcL
Typical selective reporting by the BBC. They chose a region where it happens to be warm this summer. Look at the chart I’ve provided. The area they are referring seems to be coloured dark red.
http://www.osdpd.noaa.gov/PSB/EPS/SST/climo&hot.html
Anyone with camera can document a place that’s warmer than normal. This is typical science by anecdotes and misrepresentation. It’s crap.

I question the whole notion of “one year” and “multiyear” ice.
I will grant that the chemistry of ice may change the long it’s in a solid state. But I would also challenge anyone to produce an irrefutable date set demonstrating that all ice that resists melting is necessarily “multiyear.” Ice can become very thick rapidly. This can occur from higher than normal snowfall, as well as from compression events. Similarly, “older” ice can incur extension, wind erosion, and outright sublimation, and become quite thin.
I think way too much has been assumed about what makes ice thick or thin, and how rapidly such things can occur.
Think “plate tectonics.”

Leif,
Sorry for misspelling your name, unintentional.

long -> longer. date -> data.
Sorry for the typos, no spell checker is capable of detecting them, and my eyeballs are older and weaker everyday. May need to go for bifocals.

Pierre and BrianMcL,
Something’s not right with that story. As I look at the track of station 35, it appears that the location on July 11 was just north and east of the Svalbaard Islands. If I look at this graph of the current ice from NSIDC, it appears that that particular area is well within normal ice extents:
Sea Ice Extent 07/13/2008
If you look just to the right of and a little bit above the northernmost tip of Greenland, you can see Svalbaard Islands. Station 35 should be just north and east of those islands, which appears to be well within normal exents.

Pierre,
Regarding your link to the NOAA SST anomalies, and from looking at the BBC track, they are currently well above the 80-degree latitude line, meaning that they are in the “White” area of the anomaly chart, (where it is still pretty dense ice) somewhere around 20-30 degrees longitude.
Again, this story doesn’t smell right.

A comment regarding graphs. I notice that the Verticle scale does not start at zero but at 3 1/2, probably done to better illustrate the small divergences. I wish that all graphs whose origin is NOT zero had a caveat warning folks that the % scale as it appears to the eye is off. I’ve seen many graphs showing ppm of CO2 vs year that start off with ppm far above zero at the origin, making the casual viewer surmise that CO2 growth is much more pronounced than it really is.

Pierre and BrianMcL,
Click this link to see the station drift track for station 35. At the bottom of the page is a good track map.
Drifting Station North Pole 35

@jeh and other hypnotised subjects:
“Beware of the false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, and inwardly are ravening wolves.”
(Matthew; Bible)

Bill Marsh
Good question: But they never cease to amaze me with their creativity in the science of spin. Just when I think they’re trapped, they pull something off to gain a few more months time.

Steve Sadlov,
I agree with you that the notion of “multiyear ice” is a bit silly. Since a significant fraction of the ice melts every year, there will always be one-year old ice. But the total ice extent goes up and down every year, so some one-year old ice can become two-year old ice, and vice-versa, and so on… If one-year old ice would melt that easily, it would always leave room for older ice to melt, and soon all the ice would be gone! I guess you’ve got to live in a cold country to appreciate the fact that ice can come and go very fast. The ice here in Montreal (say on the St-Lawrence) is always less than one-year old, yet it comes back every winter!
On the other hand, one can also argue that multi-year ice could be more prone to melting. As there is apparently a continuous amount of dust or soot being deposited on the ice (or the snow that covers it), the older the ice, the more soot it’s got, which makes it more absorbing. Fresh ice, on the other hand, is more reflective. So the whole dynamics is probably quite complex.
All in all, I think the concept of multiyear ice is just another scare tactic.

Posted this previously on ice pack status
Wyatt A: needs to be updated to mid-July 08. Will look very different.
(1 million Km2 plus over 2007)
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/current.365.jpg
Again someone tries to mislead by showing EARLY data, I’ve notice quite a lot lately with temp or sun sunspotnumbers etc ending in 2005-2006 never up to date LOL

Pierre ,
Hathaway: “In the early 20th century there were periods of quiet lasting almost twice as long as the current spell.”
And 1910 (in the early 20th Century) was the coldest year IN the 20th Century!

Evan wrote:

But if you check the official data for that drifting station, (click on the link, then click on the upper-left graph under “operative meteorology”) you will see that the temperature they experienced has barely reached the 0 deg C.
Drifting Station North Pole 35

That didn’t come out right. I can’t seem to get the block quotes right. Let’s try it this way:
They, if you squint real hard, you’ll notice the article DOES say that the whole reason this is happening is the berg drifted into warm currents! (Squint! Then force yourself to ignore the deliberate misdirection. There you go! Are the boyz at the beeb the ReMasters of Deeesaster or, like, what?)
But if you check the official data for that drifting station, (click on the link, then click on the upper-left graph under “operative meteorology” ) you will see that the temperature they experienced has barely reached the 0 deg C.
Drifting station North Pole 35

Here we go again with a graph that uses 1979-2000 as the base period. What happened to 2001- 2007 ????? Could it be that those 7 years would lower the average so that there is no significant anomaly? I am sure it does. More cherry picking, more GIGO.

Anthony – sorry I am going to be OT again (I sincerely hope you and your family are well given what I have seen of the troubles in California).
I came across an article by Stephen Wilde today on CO2 Sceptics, he has been a Fellow of the Royal Meteriological Society for a while, I do not know if you know of him – and please forgive me if you have read everything he has written – but my search on your blog did not reveal anything from him.
The article to which I refer is headlined “The Death Blow to Anthropenic Global Warming” seemed to make sense.
I wonder – have the learned readers on your blog seen this and to those with scientific expertise does it stand up? I recall a rather interesting debate on the Livinston and Penn paper and this seems to add something to it?

philw1776 (12:21:13) :

A comment regarding graphs. I notice that the Verticle scale does not start at zero but at 3 1/2, probably done to better illustrate the small divergences. I wish that all graphs whose origin is NOT zero had a caveat warning folks that the % scale as it appears to the eye is off. I’ve seen many graphs showing ppm of CO2 vs year that start off with ppm far above zero at the origin, making the casual viewer surmise that CO2 growth is much more pronounced than it really is.

Phil, you are so right. Compare this chart with that usual scary Mauna Loa chart that shows CO2 levels rising at about a 45-degree upward slope: click

“If I’m not mistaken, cycle 23 is now about 12 years long – which is long, but not abnormally long.”
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2008/10jan_solarcycle24.htm
“On January 4, 2008, a reversed-polarity sunspot appeared—and this signals the start of Solar Cycle 24,” says David Hathaway of the Marshall Space Flight Center.”
REPLY: Thats not quite technically correct. It’s not the beginning of cycle 24 that ends cycle 23, there is overlap. Cycle 23 officially ends when there are no longer any cycle 23 sunspots seen, and for the past few months, near equatorial cycle 23 spots have outnumbered the lone cycle 24 spot aboiut 10 to 1. -Anthony

Some amusing reading from Glenn’s link above…
“Doug Biesecker of NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center in Boulder, Colorado, likens sunspot 981 “to the first robin of spring. There’s still snow on the ground, but the seasons are changing.” Last year, Biesecker chaired the Solar Cycle 24 Prediction Panel, an international group of experts from many universities and government agencies. “We predicted that Solar Cycle 24 would begin around March 2008 and it looks like we weren’t far off,” he says.”
So where are all the robins? Anyone?

In comparing sunspot activity and global temperature measurements, there appears to be a very strong correlation between the two with the exception of the years 1878 & 1879. These years had many 20+ day periods of no sunspot activity and yet global temperatures rose significantly. Sure it could be el-nino, pacific oscillation, etc. , but it is just enough to keep me in the “I’m from MIssouri” camp until global temperature anomalies show otherwise.

Thanx Philip_B for that interesting link. My specialty being temp/humidity, I know too little about the Sun. Now I know the difference between irradiance and insolation.

Philip B.: The author did not make a mistake… he clearly stated irradiance. He’s looking at irradiance over many decades. Global insolation measurements going back that far do not exist.
Further, if there’s no irradiance, there’s no insolation… so your statement “Insolation determines how much the Earth warms, not irradiance.”, is a false dichotomy. The total output of the sun most certainlydoes have something to do with how warm Earth is!

Well I’m confused. The NASA site in 2006:
“March 10, 2006: It’s official: Solar minimum has arrived.” and
“I expect to see the first sunspots of the next cycle appear in late 2006 or 2007…”
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2006/10mar_stormwarning.htm
“What’s going on? NASA solar physicist David Hathaway explains: “Solar minimum has arrived.”
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2006/06mar_solarminimum.htm
In May 2006 the NASA site, while not committing to any official start or stop date, shows a nifty graph with a little upturn at the end looking to be in the range of 2006-2007:
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2006/10may_longrange.htm
Who determines the “official” start and stop dates? We’re now more than two years ahead of March 2006, and if sc24 hasn’t arrived yet it seems it would have to get going fast and drop fast to be another 11 year cycle. The graph in the May article shows 2008 predicted to be somewhere in the plus range of sunspots, between 50 and 100 by my straightedge.

Since this thread has seemed to go off topic from Arctic warming, I thought this news today might be interesting to some readers…
“More Kidney Stone Disease Projected Due To Global Warming”
[…]
“Dr. Pearle and her colleagues plan to conduct future studies to understand the exact correlation of urine volume with environmental temperature.”
From the anecdotes of
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/07/080714172158.htm

Leif Svalgaard:
All of this solar worshipping is because everyone here hates AGW propaganda, and want to firmly believe that the sun is the seize-all driver of the universe. The point is, if AGW propaganda didn’t exist, there would be much more openness and politeness as we discuss human impacts and solar impacts, and which is dominant over the other, and to what extent. That is the world I envision when I begin to take geology classes at the Scripps Institute of Oceanography, but that is wishful thinking as they are the worst AGW propagating college in America, or at least in the same league as Penn State with Michael Mann.

My impression is that Svalgaard (is he in fact a solar scientist?) tends to exaggerate the details of the science and overlooks the “big picture” (ie the hot sun). As a highly qualified scientist myself I have come across this routinely. re Excellent at detailed analysis ect or lab work but never discover anything. Putting Anthony’s perspective in another way… why Leif, do you think temperatures rise during the day?

Leif says “As you know, personally I don’t think the Sun is an important driver of the climate,”
I find this to be an incredible statement coming from a serious solar scientist (if he is one?). My credibility = 0

Leif
The problem with CO2 is that it correlates so poorly with temperature. There are a number of scientists (Mann, etc.) and politicians (e.g. Gore) who have bent over backwards trying to make the data fit. They all failed miserably. If you are a scientist, how can you not acknoledge this?
So, CO2 doesn’t correlate. So what do you do? You look at the obvious source -the big driver – the sun. Believe it or not, it changes. And the earth’s temperature happens to correlate with these changes very well. We know this now.
CO2 is quite a curious thing for me to watch. Maybe it is just “since it can’t be the sun, it must be CO2”.
Leif: Beware of the false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, behaving like the saviours of the world, and inwardly are ravening wolves.

I was puzzled enough by the “official” start and stop dates of solar cycles to email one of the scientists involved with solar monitoring up in Boulder.
Here is a copy of our exchange:
Jack:
It turns out that the official start of the solar cycle is based the
minimum on the 13-month averaged smoothed sunspot number. However, there
is actually an overlap period when we see sunspots at high latitudes
associated with the new cycle and sunspots at lower latitudes associated
with the old cycle. This so-called butterfly diagram shows that we are
just beginning to see the tip of the wings of the butterfly for the new
cycle – but we can’t say the the new cycle has officially started until
we see what the sunspot number does.
Here are some links to sunspot data that should help clarify this:
This web page gives you a quick look at the sunspot graphics – in
particular you can see what a butterfly diagram looks like and how the
point in time where solar minimum is defined relative to the phasing out
of the old cycle and the phasing in of the new cycle:
http://sidc.oma.be/sunspot-index-graphics/sidc_graphics.php
This web page provides access to the actual sunspot numbers – the link
to ‘monthly smoothed sunspot number’ has the key parameter:
http://sidc.oma.be/sunspot-data/
The last year of data from this file:
yearmm ssn smoothed ssn
200701 2007.042 16.8 11.9
200702 2007.121 10.7 11.5
200703 2007.203 4.5 10.7
200704 2007.285 3.4 9.8 *
200705 2007.370 11.7 8.6 *
200706 2007.452 12.1 7.6 *
200707 2007.537 9.7 6.9 *
200708 2007.622 6.0 6.0 *
200709 2007.704 2.4
200710 2007.789 0.9 *
200711 2007.871 1.7 *
200712 2007.956 10.1 *
200801 2008.041 3.4 *
200802 2008.123 2.1 *
shows that the smoothed number keeps going down but has not indicated a
minimum at this time. We can say that it will be no earlier than August
2007.
Hope this helps – let me know if you have more questions –
jxxxxxxxx@comcast.net wrote:
> Xxxxx,
>
> Has the 24th solar cycle officially started yet?
>
> My reason for asking is the information found at
http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2008/20080104_sunspot.html
>
> The caption under the picture said “First official sunspot belonging to the
new Solar Cycle 24.”
>
> Based on the article, I assumed cycle 24 was underway. A friend suggested this
was not true; the new cycle has not started.
>
> I have a real interest in sunspot activity and check every chance I can at
Spaceweather.
>
> By the way, is there a website with the official sunspot counts?
>
> Thanks in advance.
>
> Jack Simmons
It would appear we have to wait for the smoothed 13 month minimum on Cycle 23 before the official start of Cycle 24.
The first robin of spring type of analogy holds up well. There have been many times we have seen the first robins of spring, only to be covered with fierce snowstorms later on. Robins are only one of the indications of spring.
Regards

I’m just a lurker but WOW! Vincent are you sure you want to go down that path? I realize it’s good sport to make fun of Hathaway but he’s just a man standing by his prediction (however weak at this point).
You’re calling Leif a deadbeat theorist, an underhanded way of saying he’s an idiot in his chosed field even though you don’t even know if he’s a solar scientist.
Once again, WOW! Anyone like a cup of hubris with their inanity.

errraaaa: chosed=chosen in the above post

“The numbers of sea ice extent in this site are estimates calculated by certain algorism.”
Thanks for a good laugh.

We’re at a solar minima and so the Sun is on people’s minds. If it were a big El Nino then ocean currents would be on people’s minds and we still wouldn’t talk about Arctic Ice. As an interested nobody I would like to know what are the full list of factors that people can conceive of that (realistically) affect the climate. And then when they would be most or least significant. This may not allow us to build up a model of the the planet but it might of the blogosphere. Lets see; solar maxima, ocean currents, ocean flora, the moon and planetary alignments, trace atmospheric gas concentrations… There really might be some use to this.

I also see the Hollywood Vehicle effect. We’re not buying what they’re selling (lives and careers are at stake, yanno).
So they keep spinning the same yarn; its our taste they’re serving, after all. We won’t see the movies/shows we ask for. We really want what they’re pushing, and this week’s remake is better than the original!
A bit desperate I’d say.

So, how many Know Nothings are volunteering for the just-abandoned Arctic research station? You know, the one that’s melted down earlier than predicted?
http://tinyurl.com/653pzp

eideard – are you wilfully ignoring the graph this thread is named after or did you not read it? As well as the many comments above yours? Including the ones specifically addressing your point?

re: Arctic Research Station. Awfully convenient they left out the fact that it’s drifted 1550 miles from where it started into warmer waters.

I check the sea ice extent every day at
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/
I have noticed frequent short “blips” in the data such as the following:
1. The sudden dropout in May of 2008 for the Arctic basin, seen here:
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/recent365.anom.region.1.html
2. The sudden dropout in May of 2008 for the Laptev sea, seen here:
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/recent365.anom.region.8.html
3. The sudden dropout in December of 2008, and again in May and June for the Hudson Bay, seen here:
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/recent365.anom.region.13.html
I find it hard to believe that some or all of these are real. Does anybody know if these are simply artifacts of fuzzy satellite data? This makes me wonder how well resolved the data is when it looks “normal.”
If they are not real, the fact that they are not corrected implies to me that the data we see here are “raw” (which is not a pejorative). Does anybody know how to get tabular versions of these data? I sent email to William Chapman several months ago asking if this was possible – but he never replied.
Best regards,
Tom
http://climatesanity.wordpress.com/about/

Just a thought, Could it be that the large melt in 2007 actually cooled us down for 2008? I mean that is a lot more cold water migrating down into the rest of the surrounding oceans. Just a thought, does anyone know of any research done on this?

visit us
http://try2listen.wordpress.com/

“Glenn (01:11:07) :
With due respect to all, the most authoritative source I have found ….”
I think this is the most “authoritative one”
NOAA: Solar Cycle 24 Prediction Issued April 2007
http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/SolarCycle/SC24/index.html
and
Panel Releases Solar Cycle 24 Forecast
http://www.spacearchive.info/news-2007-04-26-noaa.htm
I certainly think the current situation is looking increasingly interesting, also wrt. climate. I also think the NOAA SC24 predictions illustrate how this area of science is in its infancy.

Aaron Wells (10:31:32) : “The numbers of sea ice extent in this site are estimates calculated by certain algorism. You can’t make this stuff up!”
FWIW: Algorism is one of the original words used to describe arithmetic processing. The Neo-Latin/Medieval-Latin word is algorismus. Its use is a bit archaic but not incorrect.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algorism

The word devolved into the modified form algorithm, with a generalization of the meaning to any set of rules specifying a computational procedure. Occasionally algorism is also used in this generalized meaning, especially in older texts.

I just finished reading: http://www-pord.ucsd.edu/~ltalley/sio210/pickard_emery/
pdf of Chapter 12: Arctic Ocean (Version July 2006)
Enlightened and enlightening.
It took almost as long to download it (20+ Mb) as it did to speed read it (and it is probably copyright) so I Googled around for a précis and found this, courtesy of Rod Duke:
“….in Chapter 12: The Arctic and Northern Polar Oceans from the book Descriptive Physical Oceanography by William J. Emery, Lynne D. Talley and George L. Pickard, the complex interaction of forces that effect the ocean and sea ice are delineated.
It is difficult to efficiently summarize the sixty pages that comprise this chapter but the highlights are: … unlike tropical and subtropical waters where waters are layered by temperature and separated by thermoclines, the polar seas are stratified by the salt content of the water and separated by haloclines.
The salt concentration then governs the freezing point of the sea water once the temperature drops to 0 degrees Celsius; the higher the salt content, the lower the freezing point below 0 C.
The haloclines are formed by the summer melting of the ice, which is lower in salinity than the sea water, and layers over the top of the more dense sea water, but then it freezes more quickly when the temperature drops to 0 C.
The problem is that the surface haloclines have disappeared and more uniformly saline seawater is present. Unlike freshwater or even brackish water, the density of seawater is greatest at its freezing point. The result is that the seawater starts sinking before it freezes solid. When or if the seawater actually freezes it forms a much weaker sea ice because of the inclusions of salt and this ice requires about half the energy to melt when compared to regular halocline formed sea ice. As the sea ice forms it starts forcing the salt out of the crystalline structure. If the air temperature is abnormally cold it will form the weaker form of sea ice because it will not have the time necessary to expel the salt.”
Rod, whom I must thank for the concise encapsulation above, then goes on to say…
“Why have the surface haloclines disappeared?
It turns out that miscible liquids of different densities can exist in a layered state until there is a disturbance at the boundary layer. This will start an oscillation in the layers that is virtually impossible to dampen due to the entropy differences of the two layers.
The main culprits for this phenomenon are ICEBREAKERS. The vortices from the giant screws that propel these behemoths are incredibly large and propagate well beyond the 20-meter depth of the surface halocline. These ships force the mixing and provide a lane of broken ice that will be weaker and easier to melt when or if it refreezes.
NASA satellites show that the greatest loss of sea ice is on the Soviet side of the polar region. The Soviets have the largest ice breaking ships in the world and they use them to keep their northern shipping routes open. In fact they have converted several of their icebreakers into cruise ships and routinely ferry passengers to the North Pole.
If you want to save the Polar Ice Cap then stop the icebreakers!”

Leif Svalgaard (09:08:29) : “Some of those may turn out to be real [like the fit of coast lines] once we identify the mechanism.”
True, correlation isn’t cause but the more times an event happens it becomes a suspiciously genuine rule. The ancients noticed that the sun in certain positions forecast the beginning of planting season among other things. They were able to use this rule despite not knowing the mechanism. You have to start somewhere.
The fit between continents effectively was a one-time event — very good reason to consider it coincidental. Every 100 years with an imposed apparent 200 year cycle is quite a bit more events. Perhaps coincidence but with decreasing probability at every recurrence.

“we can all breath a sigh of relief ….. and go buy a Prius. ”
Ergh! I’d rather walk!

Leif doesn’t ‘believe in the sun..’ ! Jesus,man, what planet do you live on?!
[snip, let’s leave the ad homs out please. Leif has been most gracious here, and his opinion is based on what he has observed and studied, I’ll not have him insulted for stating his views. He puts his name to his words, something not everyone does, and for that I applaud him. -Anthony ]
Referring to another comment;
The sudden melting of polar ice may have been due to the volcanism of the Gakkel shelf.

Ok, Anthony, sorry. It wasn’t meant as a personal attack, it was meant as a riposte to what seemed like beyond the pale comments with no evidence to back them, since he didn’t enclose any. In the physics wars over Special Relativity, the comments from the scientists are often very heated, this site is mild by comparison.

“The Wilkins Ice Shelf is continuing its breakup through the winter – something is happening down there:”
The various ice shelves that form at the base of Antarctic glaciers grow only to a certain point before they break off and re-form. As the ice moves out over the ocean, it is subject to stresses from tidal action and even seismic action where the shelf meets land. Over time this stress causes cracks to form and they grow. Wind also plays a role. Winds blowing across the ice tends to “push”, “pull” and “twist” the interface with the glacier which also helps weaken it.
The ice is floating on water and so the winds and currents and any number of things eventually cause the shelf to break off. The larger the shelf gets, the more the shelf is subjected to these forces until they overcome the strength of the land boundary. The glacier on land doesn’t get pushed by the wind over the land, or get moved by “land currents”. So you have one part that wants to stay relatively stationary and another piece that wants to move around somewhat. Just the tides every day act to flex the shelf up and down day after day in addition to any wind, current, or seismic actions.
it doesn’t mean temperatures are any warmer.

Off topic, but does anyone know what phase the AMO is in currently? From what I can find, it is still in its warm phase. What effect would this have on the Arctic? Would it be significant?
This appears to be the latest I can find.
http://www.intellicast.com/Community/Content.aspx?ref=rss&a=127

Anthony,
Just wandering around AOL news and spotted this:
July 15) — Hurricane seasons have been getting longer over the past century and the big storms are coming earlier, LiveScience has learned. The trend has been particularly noticeable since 1995, some climate scientists say.
Further, the area of warm water able to support hurricanes is growing larger over time. The Atlantic Ocean is becoming more hurricane friendly, scientists say, and the shift is likely due to global warming.
Thot you’d be interested.

Mike,
I refer to my previous but one post. The previous 30 years were lower than average (in line with the AMO cool phase) and the years since 1995 are in line with the AMO warm phase by the looks of it. Wouldn’t bet my salary on AGW somehow.

Over on SolarCycle24.com, Leif has been somewhat more expansive on his “the sun isn’t the climate driver” comment. As a non-scientist, I understod his explanation like this:
1) Total Solar Irradience has not changed much in the last several hundred years, irrespective of the sunspot cycle.
2) Since TSI is essentially constant, the climate is driven by things other than the Sun.
3) Therefore, the Sun is NOT the climate driver.
4) Any warming / cooling noticed that correlates with the sunspot cycle is driven by something else. That “something else” has not been proven yet.

Paul, given that so little is known about underwater volcanoes, I think it’s really premature to say that they cannot contribute to melting. I read those posts and didn’t see anything definitive. My instinct says there is something there worth studying and I trust that more than anything else. Remember, the 1999 eruption was as large as that of Vesuvius circa 70 AD, and it is certain that it was not the only one.

Mcgrats & Paul,
Yes, I saw the article for what it is. I’m a skeptic on the warming issue. But I also value the diversity of opinion on this site (TNX Anthony). I hadn’t seen that discussed or heard of the site so decided to throw it into the discussion to see what came up. No lunch money is going out of my pocket on this article, (it’s all going for gas)
TNX all!

I apologize to Leif re previous a bit over the top, after all he could say the same thing about me, not nice… Anyway I posted this on Lucia’s blackboard.
1. “I think one of the main points missed in all these posts is that weather over time becomes climate and therefore anything that determines weather (sun, soot, volcanoes, wind, ocean water movements etc) in the end determines climate. Is this a fair statement?”
2. Her reply:”Of course that’s a fair statement.”
3. My reply:Ergo the sun must have an effect on climate even if you can’t show a correlation?
BTW she has falsified ALL adjusted unadjusted etc etc… IPCC projections as well as all invented data put by RC and shes a AGW’er! LOL

But I think he will be the first to admit that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
And correlation does not prove causation. However, the absence of correlation is proof of the absence of causation.
The problem with a TSI / earth climate link is not lack of evidence, it’s a lack of correlation (and basic physics).
Having said that, the link between length of solar cycle and climate is suggestive of a causal relationship, and Svensmark’s clouds / cosmic radiation link looks to be a plausible mechanism.

Sort of related, but not sure if you have covered this:
Noctilucent clouds (NLCs).
Of course this article speaks of global warming as a possible source, without elobarating on how that could be:
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2003/19feb_nlc.htm
So, if these clouds exist at 50 miles up, they must reflect sun light during the day or, do they add to the greenhouse effect?
I thought that one idea was that less solar activity meant more galactic radiation, which leads to more cloud formation. The article gives the reason for the ice crystal forming as unknown. However, galactic radiation would be a possible source. Any thoughts?

“omegaman66 (00:56:54) :
Where I live the temperature drops at night and rises during the day. I am pretty sure that the reason for this is the sun. ;-)”
Actually, i’m pretty convinced the reason for this is the Earth rotating. I’d be very surprised to learn otherwise.

Interesting article in The New Scientist of 2006 where Leif Svalgaard is purportedly quoted as follows
Quote: Svalgaad warns: “If the Earth does cool during the next sunspot crash and we do nothing, when the sun’s magnetic activity returns, global warming will return with a vengeance.”
From issue 2569 of New Scientist magazine, 18 September 2006, page 32-36
So where does he stand in the debate?

Mcrats
The hartzing analysis below is ALL my work mainly dealing with Physiology, Biology, Bioinformatics (MSc) and a thingy called pharmacokinetics (PhD, University of Queensland) which is for all practical purposes is best fit modeling of data. All this involved complex statistics The actual papers cited on the previous post were of course my father’s work. On this basis I think i should be able to comment on the validity of data shown on this site. I ain’t going to divulge any more on a public forum such as this.. or will you provide your degrees publications ect?
Anyway this will be my last word on this chao and have a nice day
Papers: 27 Cites/paper: 4.22 h-index: 7 AWCR: 6.34
Citations: 114 Cites/author: 64.12 g-index: 9 AW-index: 2.52
Years: 74 Papers/author: 15.52 hc-index: 3 AWCRpA: 3.82
Cites/year: 1.54 Authors/paper: 2.41 hI-index: 2.72
hI,norm: 4
Hirsch a=2.33, m=0.09
Contemporary ac=2.78
Cites/paper 4.22/3.0/0 (mean/median/mode)
Authors/paper 2.41/2.0/1 (mean/median/mode)
9 paper(s) with 1 author(s)
7 paper(s) with 2 author(s)
5 paper(s) with 3 author(s)
3 paper(s) with 4 author(s)
3 paper(s) with 5 author(s)

“Where I live the temperature drops at night and rises during the day. I am pretty sure that the reason for this is the sun. 😉
Actually, i’m pretty convinced the reason for this is the Earth rotating. I’d be very surprised to learn otherwise.”
And if there was no sun, would the Earth’s rotation cause temperature changes?

I’ve read the thread fromt the bottom up and was a little confused… are Rex and Vincent the same poster?
If so, I think at the very least we can conclude she/he is not a rocket scientist. ; – )

Mcates : Sorry I should have mentioned this. My PC remembered the old “Rex” is should have been Vincent. My name is Vincent Guerrini. I ain’t a rocket scientist or anything of the like I was just taken aback by the statement that the sun has nothing to do with climate. The last thing I would like is to be blowing my trumpet on a forum like this, but i though that mentioning the fact was important (since he would also I presume have various PG degrees) Of course he is entitled to his opinion but so am I. Anyway I am a global warming skeptic and proud of it LOL

Tack själv Leif. Ursäkt igen. Skulle vi inte all vara i arbete? LOL

Steve Moore (18:03:11) :
“Where I live the temperature drops at night and rises during the day. I am pretty sure that the reason for this is the sun. 😉
Actually, i’m pretty convinced the reason for this is the Earth rotating. I’d be very surprised to learn otherwise.”
And if there was no sun, would the Earth’s rotation cause temperature changes?
What came first? The Chicken or the Egg? 🙂

I am in agreement that more study is required, after all, Volcanologists didn’t believe the volcanos lining the ridge could blow until they saw the evidence. I’m not ruling out the heating either and that should be explored. What I am saying is that it is unlikely.

I would have to say that Vulcanology is even less mature than Climatology as the sciences go.

If anyone is intrigued, Vincent’s comment at 22:28:40 :
“Tack själv Leif. Ursäkt igen. Skulle vi inte all vara i arbete?”
translates, according to Google, to:
“Thanks Leif. Apologies again. Would we not all be in labour?”
Presumably the last sentence should read: “Shouldn’t we be all working?” Nah, nah, this is much more fun than working!

Leif, given the drift to the Sun and orbital movement, are you familiar with this paper by Professor Alexander?
http://nzclimatescience.net/images/PDFs/alexander2707.pdf
While personally left far behind by some of the detailed work, it seems to be a very interesting paper and it would be interesting to get an expert opinion.

My last post questioning the authenticity of Vincent was out of order… I hadn’t read any posts since early last night and should have before posting.
My bad.
As the liberals like to say (of which I’m not one) when they goof up, time to move on.
Jack Koenig, Editor
The Mysterious Climate Project
http://www.climateclinic.com

Philip_B (02:52:50) wrote (on oceanic volcanic eruptions) : “…One or even several volcanic eruptions put out a tiny amount of heat compared with the heat fluxes on the Earth’s surface.”
Quite often, laboratory calculations (such as provided earlier by another blogger) don’t quite “cut it.” There’s an interesting article on the NASA website suggesting it’s not the initial eruption one has to be overly concerned with, but the after effects. In the case of Icelandic, under water volcanic eruptions, researchers found the eruptions could be explosive because as the magma moves to the surface it expands quite rapidly and shoots debris far into the atmosphere as it surfaces.
My take on the above is that if this indeed is the case, who’s to say it doesn’t also impact the undersides of surrounding ice by causing cracks and disintegration?
Just a thought. The article can be found at http://www.earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/MediaAlerts/2008/2008071427114.html
Jack Koenig, Editor
The Mysterious Climate Project
http://www.climateclinic.com

Jack Simmons, vincen, bsneath, et al. on sun spot vagaries:
I take the following graphic to be all the butterflies we have,
http://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/images/bfly.gif
Unfortunately it doesn’t go back very far. The first sunspecks (Anthony’s internet-notable term) of 24, not-quite-spots exhibiting magnetic reversal, of cycle 24 date to 7/06 and first official spot to 1/08.
Against the graphic the new cycle begins to look unusual, and contra Leif’s assertion this minimum is no less active (by the measure of spotting), flaring is already unusual by its paucity (begun 2/07), which means the briefly elevated UV associated with them is missing.
While Leif and Janssens have recently on another thread cautioned against predicting a max on the preceding min, their arguments again appear to rely on spotting comparisons between cycles. Their hope is that March 08 still proves the 13 month minimum.
However, 10 cm radio flux continues to decline, last month establishing a new smoothed minimum following 9/07’s prior low. Spotting is insufficient to maintain the March 13 month minimum.
The Heliophysicists are plainly overplaying the sun spot counts as a proxy for solar activity. Looking at the ongoing graphs of data,
http://www.dxlc.com/solar/
one sees that radio flux, plantetary indicies, and sun spot count are not equivalent, mutually representative effects of the same underlying cause.
The hope of a cycle 24 minimum prior to 12/08 is long gone, and the 3/08 prediction was dead on arrival the day it was issued in 4/07. The length of the minimum is strongly correlated with the strength of the sun spot maximum and therefore 24 will be more like cycles 5 and 6 than any cycle since.
Mene, mene tekel upharsin.

Returning to topic, I’ve now finally found a way to get NSIDC monthly data (don’t ask; it involves merging 12 month-specific files and interpolating for missing values…).
Full monthly data (dominated by annual signal), plus annual rolling mean:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/nsidc-seaice-n/mean:12/plot/nsidc-seaice-n
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/nsidc-seaice-s/mean:12/plot/nsidc-seaice-s

Leif, the minimum of a cycle is taken to precede its maximum. I know you know that, can I demonstrate it? No, just eye-balling as usual. Can one take eye-balling to the bank? I should hope not!

Leif:
Your dear friend Dave Archibald is more conversant on that subject than I, so what follows is just reasoning by a rank amateur, meaning the duration of low solar activity appropriate to a minimum.
Remember 23’s minimum, the 13 month smoothed minimum came in May and the following Sept. the longest spotless period.
So we could call those 4 or 5 months the absolute trough and perhaps the minimum (9503 – 9709) 18 months in length. I don’t have numeric criteria to delimiting a minimum to recommend, but looking at the daily data for ’96 we can see the sun was at its local ebb in radio flux, sun spots, planetary indicies and flaring during the trough, with significant terminus in spotting at either end of the 18 month period.
Well this time around the decline seems to have been well begun by 3/07 and is yet to bottom. So the minimum, in this non-scientific, woolly thinking sort of way, should extend through all of 2009, i.e., end in being twice as long.
The current low-level is adequate for minimum as was the activity of a year ago. So lets just say the duration of solar activity of sufficient depression for official minimum.

Yet at Solar 24: By the sites owner: “Today the solar flux has dipped to a new low of 64.2. Just so you do not worry too much, on July 2, 1954 a value of 64.4 was observed. What followed was one of the strongest Cycles ever recorded (Solar Cycle 19)”. Was that event exceptional?

The National Snow and Ice Data Center has a mid-month update where they explain why the ice is not melting as fast as expected:
http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/
They’re also qualifying their statement with suggestions that the ice is so thin that significant melting could still occur. I doubt their objectivity in the way they suggest much melting could still happen since they think there is such a long melt period yet to go. With roughly six weeks to go to peak melt, I don’t see this as a very long time to go to reach peak melt, especially since we’re already 4½ months into the melt season and the melt rate seems to slow throughout August.