Quick primer:
Beryllium-10 is an isotope that is a proxy for the sun’s activity. Be10 is produced in the atmosphere by cosmic ray collisions with atoms of oxygen and nitrogen. Beryllium 10 concentrations are linked to cosmic ray intensity which can be a proxy for solar strength.
One way to capture earth’s record of that proxy data is to drill deep ice cores. Greenland, due to having a large and relatively stable deep ice sheet is often the target for drilling ice cores.
Isotopic analysis of the ice in the core can be linked to temperature and global sea level variations. Analysis of the air contained in bubbles in the ice can reveal the palaeocomposition of the atmosphere, in particular CO2 variations. Volcanic eruptions leave identifiable ash layers.
While it sounds simple to analyze, there are issues of ice compression, flow, and other factors that must be taken into consideration when doing reconstructions from such data. I attended a talk at ICCC 09 that showed one of the ice core operations had procedures that left significant contamination issues for CO2. But since Beryllium is rather rare, it doesn’t seem to have the same contamination issues attached. – Anthony
Be-10 and Climate
Guest post by David Archibald
A couple of years ago on Climate Audit, I undertook to do battle with Dr Svalgaard’s invariate Sun using Dye 3 Be10 data. And so it has come to pass. Plotted up and annotated, the Dye 3 data shows the strong relationship between solar activity and climate. Instead of wading through hundreds of papers for evidence of the Sun’s influence on terrestrial climate, all you have to do is look at this graph.
All the major climate minima are evident in the Be10 record, and the cold period at the end of the 19th century. This graph alone demonstrates that the warming of the 20th century was solar-driven.
The end of the Little Ice Age corresponded with a dramatic decrease in the rate of production of Be10, due to fewer galactic cosmic rays getting into the inner planets of the solar system. Fewer galactic cosmic rays got into the inner planets because the solar wind got stronger. The solar wind got stronger because the Sun’s magnetic field got stronger, as measured by the aa Index from 1868.
Thus the recent fall of aa Index and Ap Index to lows never seen before in living memory is of considerable interest. This reminds me of a line out of Aliens: “Stay frosty people!” Well, we won’t have any choice – it will get frosty.
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Lucy Skywalker (01:03:01) :
Thanks for the link, the article looks a little sparse on detail but I would like to see Sharma’s graphs. The article doesn’t seem to differentiate too much between solar output and solar distance.
“With that attitude you’ll have to accept Abbot’s measurements of the ’solar constant’ circa 1910-1950”
Or accept Arrhenius’ 1896 model and calculation attributing 33 degrees of warmening to GHGs.
I find it interesting that one having studied 10Be and DiffEq would believe the 10Be residence time greater than 6 mo. Doubtless wishful thinking as it militates against your third-hand reconstructions.
Keeling, Hansen and Mann would approve, why not advertise it as ‘normal science’.
gary gulrud (07:00:35) :
“With that attitude you’ll have to accept Abbot’s measurements of the ’solar constant’ circa 1910-1950″
Or accept Arrhenius’ 1896 model and calculation attributing 33 degrees of warmening to GHGs.
I don’y think you understand the issue. Robert was talking about observations not theories.
would believe the 10Be residence time greater than 6 mo.
As you can see for yourself [should you care to even look], the bottom panel of the Figure on page 2 of
http://www.leif.org/research/TSI%20From%20McCracken%20HMF.pdf
shows that 10Be lags the HMF [or the solar cycle] by 2-5 years before 1970 [after that, the graphs shows HMF derived from actual neutron monitor counts, not 10Be].
why not advertise it as ‘normal science’.
as opposed to your peddling of ‘abnormal science’?
“[should you care to even look]”
Just give me the the short course: How were the two series synchronized via absolute dating?
Again you avoid the question, why would you find, given its half-life that 70% of 7Be lies on the ground, for a residence time of 2+ years? Not mathematics, certainly.
How did your 10Be come into existence? Soot capture of SCRs? Episodes of volcanism succeeding the solar cycle by 2-5 years?
Robert Bateman (04:07:06) :
And comparing apples to apples to apples.
I was: comparing Abbot’s solar constant [TSI] to modern TSI, and 19th century temperature measurements to modern temperature measurements…
So apples to apples, and apples to apples.
gary gulrud (08:38:38) :
“[should you care to even look]”
Just give me the the short course: How were the two series synchronized via absolute dating?
Again you avoid the question, why would you find, given its half-life that 70% of 7Be lies on the ground, for a residence time of 2+ years? Not mathematics, certainly.
I NEVER, NEVER, NEVER avoid a question. We are taking about 10Be, not 7Be.
How did your 10Be come into existence?
By CR spallation mainly from Nitrogen.
Leif Svalgaard (10:00:29) :
gary gulrud (08:38:38) :
“[should you care to even look]”
Just give me the short course: How were the two series synchronized via absolute dating?
One [solar activity] by looking at the clock [now, it is March 20th, 2009, 11 am (my time)], the other by counting annual rings in the ice. The latter is can be verified by also looking at nitrate concentrations correlated with known solar super-flares.
Dr David Archibald………a quick question – do you still stand by your prediction of a rapid cooling (by comparison with global average) by the middle of 2009?
The more time that goes by, the more rapid it will have to be because currently, there’s not much sign. Indeed, the beginning of 2009 seems to bear an uncanny resemblance to 2006, albeit very slightly cooler. Much warmer than average to date however!
“We are taking about 10Be, not 7Be.”
I say 10Be must be shorter, the difference likely not significant statistically. Anna V. care to comment?
So then, spikes from ultraplinian eruptions over subducting faults should be easy to identify in the raw data.
pattio (06:54:31) :…
Here is his response. Can you guys decipher it?
Translated:
If the Earth were flat and the air clear, there’d be 2 watts variation per square meter due to solar variation. The globe shape and cloud etc. reduce this to about 1/3 of a watt, or 1/6 of the max total.
However, we’re seeing variation of 1-2 watts per square meter, about as much as a big volcano could cause, continued for 2-3 years. So something besides pure variation of incoming sunshine is causing it.
As to Be10, it is radioactive (like C14) but it has a lifetime (beta decay) of 2.7 million years. It emits an ordinary electron along with 0.56 MeV of energy./
C14 on the other hand, which is also a beta decay, only has a half life of 5770 yrs and an energy of 0.156 MeV.
In addition, Be10 has a reasonable capture rate for thermal neutrons; with a crossection of 0.5 barns.
C14 on the other hand has a thermal neotron crossection of <10^-6 barns.
So Be10 is a much longer lived radionucleotide than C14. In terms of ice cores it is essentially unchanged over the life of the ice.
According to CRC C&P 100% of natural Beryllium is Be9, so any Be10 at all is synthesized somwwhere. Same goes for C14.
C14 variation in atmospheric CO2, could be a signature of fossil fuels; well coal anyway; but it can also be just a proxy form Cosmic Ray variations.
George
Hasn’t the bunny noticed that things are no longer fitting together well? The CO2=AGW paradigm has widening cracks.
Thanks to all for a wonderful discussion, and special thanks to Leif for solid objectivity, unusual in this debate.
=================================================
Leif: I resign from ever considering TSI to be a factor, unless the Sun were to suddenly dim.
The spectral changes as far as NUV rising is interesting, but the sum of energy striking the Earth vis a vis TSI being a smoking gun looks doomed.
You will get more out of TSI in a day than I ever could in a lifetime.
You are a solar physicist.
I am an observer and astroimager who never thought sunspots were exciting until 2 years ago. They were always so easy to spot at one time.
Solar activity affects the earth’s atmosphere four ways.
1 When there is less solar activity there is less irradiation.
2 When there is less solar activity the sun has a weaker magnetic field. This allows more cosmic rays to reach earth causing more clouds to form increasing the earth’s albedo.
3 When there is less solar activity the sun’s magnetic poles flip less often. Each time the sun’s poles flip its magnetic field collapses and regenerates. The field may not be very strong but it is huge. This means a lot of magnetic lines of force go through the earth’s atmosphere causing eddy currents which heat the earth’s atmosphere like an electric blanket. Electromagnetic induction heating.
4 When there is less solar activity the sun has a weaker magnetic field which means less magnetic lines of force are passed through due to the earths motion. Therefore less electromagnetic heating.
Note: if you don’t believe the earth’s atmosphere is a conductor you haven’t seen lighting
When there is less solar activity all four of these effects cause the earth’s atmosphere to cool.
Solar activity can and does have a significant impact on the atmosphere’s temperature.
David J Ameling (18:55:23) :
3 When there is less solar activity the sun’s magnetic poles flip less often. Each time the sun’s poles flip its magnetic field collapses and regenerates. The field may not be very strong but it is huge. This means a lot of magnetic lines of force go through the earth’s atmosphere causing eddy currents which heat the earth’s atmosphere like an electric blanket. Electromagnetic induction heating.
4 When there is less solar activity the sun has a weaker magnetic field which means less magnetic lines of force are passed through due to the earths motion. Therefore less electromagnetic heating.
Number 1 and 2 may have legs. your number 3 and 4 are very, very wrong. This is not the way solar magnetism works and not the way it interacts with the Earth. Here you can find how it actually works:
http://www.phy6.org/Education/wimfproj.html
Leif Svalgaard (20:37:38) :
“Number 1 and 2 may have legs” .
Leif and Steven Goddard both seem to be stressing the point that the really unknown entity it is that of cloud formation and to what extent solar activity may impact on this process. It appears that this natural forcing may eventually prove to be the crux of the debate. I wonder if either of you (or any other esteemed contributor) could point me in the right direction as regards peer reviewed, published research on this topic? To date, the research I have found, appears to point to a lot of conflicting evidence ….. + feedback Vs – feedback
Ben
“In terms of ice cores it is essentially unchanged over the life of the ice.”
Thanks, topical analysis. Yet the lifetime is brief with respect to volcanic processes. Mt. Saint Helens’ source is a subducting fault but too remote in time from the surface, no 10Be. Chaiten is polar but its fault a rifting one, too deep. Tambora might suffice because of sheer size but its location would seem to imply a dilute source. Only the polar Redoubts or Karymskys are of real interest in recycling 10Be from the silcates it formed.
gary gulrud (11:57:00) :
“We are taking about 10Be, not 7Be.”
I say 10Be must be shorter, the difference likely not significant statistically. Anna V. care to comment?
I have to look up a particles table, on the internet for such numbers I would trust wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beryllium#Isotopes
7Be has a very small lifetime, 53.12 days, so will not be useful for any geo;ogical tracing
10Be has a long lifetime 1.5*10^6 years so is the one that is useful
Ben Kellett (01:56:05) :
“Number 1 and 2 may have legs” .
Leif and Steven Goddard both seem to be stressing the point that the really unknown entity it is that of cloud formation and to what extent solar activity may impact on this process.
Cloud formation is kind of a chicken-and-egg business. Change the clouds you change the climate, but change the climate you also change the clouds. This is so obvious and well-established that it hardly needs further references. Whether solar activity has any influence directly or indirectly [e.g. via cosmic rays] on the formation of clouds is a different matter. The cosmic ray connection has become dogma on par with AGW and may be beyond rational discourse by now, but here is one analysis: http://folk.uio.no/jegill/papers/kkk_asr_2004.pdf
Leif Svalgaard (20:37:23)
Thanks for the reference on the solar magnetic field. I am still digesting it. This refernce does not take the legs away for number 4. If a magnetic field is weaker less eddy currents will be created in a conductor that passes through it. Or is the solar magnetic field’s lines of force different from all others? The effect on number 3’s legs is still being considered.
Could you give me a reference as to how the greenhouse effect is supposed to work. Wikipedia doesn’t do it. All others I have found are to dummed down to make any since.
David J Ameling (08:16:49) :
If a magnetic field is weaker less eddy currents will be created in a conductor that passes through it. Or is the solar magnetic field’s lines of force different from all others? The effect on number 3’s legs is still being considered.
The space between the Sun and the Earth is not a vacuum [if it were 3 and 4 might work, except there would be almost no solar magnetic field to do the work as the magnetic field falls of with the cube of the distance. Space is filled with a conductor [of almost infinite conductivity], the solar wind, that drags the Sun’s magnetic field out with it [so it falls of only with the square of distance and hence is measurable]. When this conductor ‘hits’ the Earth [comes into the neighborhood of the Earth] there are a sort of eddy currents generated, but up in space about 40,000 miles out.
Could you give me a reference as to how the greenhouse effect is supposed to work. Wikipedia doesn’t do it. All others I have found are to dummed down to make any sense.
‘Supposed to work’ may not be the same as actually working that way, although you can find hotheads that will defend this and the opposite view with equal fervor and equally less regard for science.
The way it is supposed to work is this: The atmosphere is basically transparent to light [except a small amount of very short wave length light, UV and X-rays] so is not heated by exposure to sunlight [stand on a mountain in the snow with your face against the Sun all feel the heat that reaches you but is not warming the atmosphere – it is cold up there]. The light hitting the surface [or your face] which is not transparent and hence absorbs the heat and warms up. The air just about the heated surface will warm up because of conduction [put your hand on a hot stove to feel conduction in action]. Hot air rises so the heat will be transported up by convection, but in doing so expands and hence cools [which is why the temperature decreases with altitude]. Both the surface and the heated air radiates their heat away [put your hand a few inches from the asphalt of a hot street and feel the heat radiated from the surface – try it just after sunset for maximum effect]. This radiation you cannot see, it is infrared. The major constituents of the air [Nitrogen, Oxygen, and Argon] are almost transparent to infrared light, because their molecules have only two atoms, but tri-atomic molecules like H20, CO2, O3, and molecules with even more atoms, like CH4, have more degrees of freedom; they can bend, and vibrate more, so can absorb the photons of lower energy [corresponding to the lower temperature of the Earth than that of the Sun] coming up from below. Absorption of those photons do not heat those tri-atomic molecules as they very shortly thereafter re-emits the radiation they have just absorbed. Even if they happen to hit a Nitrogen molecule while being excited, there are so few of the tri-atomic molecules that the heating effect of that collision is minuscule. Since the molecules dance around wildly, the direction in which the radiation is re-emitted will be random, half up into space and the other half downwards towards the Earth, where it helps heat up the Earth a bit more. This is the greenhouse effect, which has nothing to do with a greenhouse, which is kept hot by the warm air not being permitted to escape.
David J Ameling (08:16:49) :
Could you give me a reference as to how the greenhouse effect is supposed to work.
The physics of the interaction of radiation with gases and surfaces is completely known and all facets can be and has been explored in the laboratory. There is no ‘new’ physics or unknown phenomena going on. But, the issues are VERY complicated so ANY attempt of explaining them in a single paragraph [and the ordinary folks cannot be expected to read much more than that before their eyes glazes over] is doomed to failure. So you will often see condensed or cherry-picked versions that emphasize details of the complicated, correct picture that happen to support someone’s pet ideas or political agenda while suppressing details that do not, all at the same time accusing the other party of ‘distorting’ the physics, being absurd, stupid, etc. At this point, the science battle is basically lost and turns to politics, how to allocate society’s resources and controlling and taxing the masses.
Leif,
Absorption of those photons do not heat those tri-atomic molecules as they very shortly thereafter re-emits the radiation they have just absorbed
Still wrong, like you have been told several times. The absorbed energy, which is not minuscule, is transfered by collision to other molecules.
lgl (11:08:10) :
Still wrong, like you have been told several times. The absorbed energy, which is not minuscule, is transfered by collision to other molecules.
This is an example of the selective arguments I was referring to. The greenhouse gases are trace gases and for each molecule of a greenhouse gas there are hundreds or thousands of ordinary two-atomic ‘air’ molecules. The argument that they heat up is like saying that if one man in town strikes it rich, that if he divides his winnings with everybody else in town that also will become rich.
In any case, the question was: “how is the greenhouse effect supposed to work? Perhaps lgl can explain then how it is ‘supposed to work’ in his opinion?
Leif Svalgaard (11:54:46) :
if he divides his winnings with everybody else in town they also will become rich.