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.
There is an interesting posting at Jennifer Marohasy’s site concerning energy loss from the earth. 3rd March ‘Radical new hypothesis on the effect of greenhous gases’ by Michael Hammer’. I would be keen to see some discussion here!
I may have the Figure numbers off, but the meaning should be clear anyway.
It would strengthen the case for this hypothesis if ice cores from Antarctica confirmed the ones in Greenland.
There is a relatively old and simple theory that the primary temperature control mechanism of planet earth is low-level cloud cover and it goes as follows:
1) More cloud cover; cooler temperatures.
2) More cosmic rays; more cloud cover.
3) More sunspot activity; fewer cosmic rays and less cloud cover.
4) More volcanic eruptions; more cloud cover
It is clear that both the Maunder and Dalton sunspot minimums coincided with plunging global temperatures. The correlation between sunspot activity and global temperature has at other times been less clear.
Somewhere out there is a study I read a couple years ago purporting to have reconstituted a record of volcanic activity and to have overlain that volcanic record with the record of sunspot activity. The paper claimed that when volcanic activity was “tuned out” the correlation between sunspot activity and global temperature was very tight.
Beryllium-10 is not a proxy for the sun’s activity. It’s a GCR proxy.
It’s interesting to compare the NAO series in the second graph with this 5 year smoothed graph of the AMO.
http://digitaldiatribes.files.wordpress.com/2008/12/amor5year200811.jpg?w=590&h=358
Apart from the solar cycles standing out very clearly in most of the graph, it looks to me like the AMO ‘lags’ behind the NAO, and also picks up influence from elsewhere.
Could it be that when solar activity is high, excess heat is transported away southwards at the same time the mid and south atlantic is gaining heat from increased input from warm surface water released by el nino’s driven by increased trade winds in the equatorial tropics?
When I asked Leif about the long term increase in the aa index a couple of years ago at climate audit, he said there were instrumental issues and the data needed adjusting. I put some of that down to his need to validate his invariate sun model, but nonetheless, we need to be sure we have reliable data before drawing conclusions.
Steve Keohane “It’s still the sun, but not directly” = 100% correct. Also turn off sun
earths temps falls to -273K? or maybe kept a bit warm for 100 years ect then down LOL
David, you have this nice way of getting to the point, many scientist could definetly learn from this no matter their dergrees and status. It was your nice wirtings a few years ago that really made me doubt AGW. What a relief.
My hero 🙂
You know, peobple that really understands a subject, the essentials often has an ability to communicate their findings.
Im working on a new piece “Holocene, historic and recent temperature proxies” and my god, its a jungle of data. But i think there will be a few nice conclusions that will come out of this anyway, hope to share it with you all in a few weeks from now.
deadwood (21:03:45) , 17/03/2009:
I saw a similar talk on ice cores last year. The contamination problem was an important part of the presentation and cast considerable doubt on CO2 data from Vostok and Law Dome.
I asked the presenter after the talk whether he thought the presence of hydrocarbons in the drill fluid could affect CO2 and other trace material in the core and his answer was an unequivocal yes.
The contamination problem is far less in Antarctic ice cores than in Greenland, where acidic volcanic ashes can set CO2 free from sea salts (carbonates). The coastal ice cores of Antarctica (Law Dome) and the inland ice cores (Vostok) show similar CO2 levels for the same gas age, despite higher salt/dust deposits near the coast.
Drill fluid can contaminate the ice core through cracks in the ice and where drilling fluid is found, higher CO2 levels are measured. These measurements are rightfully discarded as unreliable, and only ice parts without cracks or drilling fluid are used for measurements.
BTW, Law Dome has three ice cores investigated: one used drilling fluid, the other two used “dry” methods of drilling. The three cores show similar CO2 levels within 1.2 ppmv (1 sigma) for the same gas age, and an overlap of about 20 years (1960-1980) with the south pole atmospheric measurements…
David Archibald:
In the above graph of 10Be over time, has there been a correction applied for differences in snow deposit? In cooler periods, the air is dryer and less snow is falling, artifically increasing the 10Be content of the ice core in such a period. Although the snow deposit and climate are related, the 10Be content isn’t necessary the result of solar changes in this case…
Another analogy I came up with … imagine a globe in a cold vacuum with a heat lamp on it. Put two temperature sensors 180 degrees apart at the equator. Shine a heat lamp on it. Rotate the globe. Sample the temperature sensors when they are just about to transition between illumination and shadow, add them and divide by two to obtain an “average” (or use 4 if you wish, at 90 degree intervals). Rotate until the temperatures stabilize. Make the globe solid, maybe full of water to give it some thermal “inertia”.
Now turn down the heat lamp very slightly. What does your “average” temperature do?
Ferdinand Engelbeen (00:46:34) :
In the above graph of 10Be over time, has there been a correction applied for differences in snow deposit? In cooler periods, the air is dryer and less snow is falling, artifically increasing the 10Be content of the ice core in such a period. Although the snow deposit and climate are related, the 10Be content isn’t necessary the result of solar changes in this case…
As fair a question as asking Michael Mann how much his tree rings are affected by water availability as opposed to temperature it seems to me. Proxy data is fraught with uncertainties. If we look at the later part of the aa graph, the twin peaks in the second half of the C20th are roughly equal in amplitude, whereas the 10Be descent shows the later peak as lower than the 1950’s peak. Could the aa record be useful in ‘calibrating’ the 10be record?
Philip_B (21:46:19) wrote in part: “I puzzled over this for a while and then puzzled over why other people, particularly climate scientists weren’t puzzling over it.”
I am a compulsive appreciator of nice lines and nice paragraphs, Philip. This is one such and is hereby acknowledged!
“It is a common human frailty that when one believes strongly in a cause [AGW or more rabidly Anti-AGW] a certain blindness or perhaps expressed better – selective vision, sets in and drives people to less than candid use of Figures and Data.” Leif
Well, from where I sit everyone has beliefs and especially notices things that appeal to those beliefs, for sure…maybe even those who believe that the sun has little to do with the any changes in global temperature….But, that is how the human brain works, it is very hard to dis-associate one’s self from what the mind and heart believe is true.
Most people post what their heart and mind believe after looking at the facts. There are likely to be truth and untruth in all posts, it is a matter of sifting the diamonds from the dust. And David and Leif and many others all have some diamonds in their posts normally….But no one person has all the diamonds. Read and take out of each post and thread the diamonds and leave the rest of the dust in the storage basket, maybe there is some coal even there that will change to diamonds with time.
lgl (23:43:37) :
Beryllium-10 is not a proxy for the sun’s activity. It’s a GCR proxy.
Well we certainly can’t see them, but they sure do leave thier siganture. And if galactic cosmic rays are way up during Grand Minima, there is good reason to believe the recorders of the Grand Minimum as regards Sunspot Group counting. So exactly why would C14 not show the same as Be10 during Grand Minima? Pardon me for asking, but which part of solar activity does C14 actually represent?
tallbloke (01:14:46) :
I like the way you think. Looking for answers to vexing questions and delving into the possibilites is good stuff.
I tend to sympathise with the view that in opposing the AGW hysteria, we have to be careful with cherry picking data that suits our case. In this respect, Roy Spencer’s view that all paleo studies are to be treated cautiously deserves respect. That leaves us with the satellite record showing no significant warming since 1979, measured temp histories that can be relied upon such as Armagh where there is no “accelerating” warming, the ARGO buoys and the missing hot spot predicted by models and the illogic of the IPCC temp sensitivity.
Good work by DA though.
Paul
Re: lgl (23:43:37) :
“Beryllium-10 is not a proxy for the sun’s activity. It’s a GCR proxy.”
The theory goes that when the Sun is active – less cosmic rays can reach the Earths Atmosphere due to a strengthened solar magnetic field. Less clouds will form, allowing the Climate to Warm. When the Sun is inactive, the solar magnetic field weakens, allowing more cosmic rays to reach Earth, causing more clouds to form, cooling the Climate.
So, strictly, Be10 IS a direct proxy for Galactic Cosmic Rays, but will be negatively correlated with the strength of the solar magnetic field.
—-
Interesting article, though as always correlation does not prove causality.
However, to start with something which IS correlated (Be10 and the cosmic ray flux) rather than something which IS NOT correlated (CO2) is a good start…
Very interesting. I expect the warmies to ignore this like a dead skunk…
I am with Lief on this topic. The Tsonis post was a step in the right direction, but there are too many issues with paleo reconstructions to draw firm conclusions.
Stephen Garland (22:16:25) :
“There is an interesting posting at Jennifer Marohasy’s site concerning energy loss from the earth. 3rd March ‘Radical new hypothesis on the effect of greenhous gases’ by Michael Hammer’. I would be keen to see some discussion here!”
Stephen,
I found the article on the Gore Lied site and made at least two WUWT postings
in order to “throw it for the wolves” without any response.
It is a very interesting study because it completely destroys the AGW/CO2 doctrine:
See: http://algorelied.com/?p=899
New Peer Reviewed Study:
In summary, there is no atmospheric greenhouse effect, in particular CO2-greenhouse effect, in theoretical physics and engineering thermodynamics. Thus it is illegitimate to deduce predictions which provide a consulting solution for economics and intergovernmental policy.
That sucking sound you hear is all of the air and energy being sucked out of Al Gore’s global warming climate change climate crisis machine.
Source: Falsification of The Atmospheric CO2 Greenhouse Effects Within The Frame of Physics published in The International Journal of Modern Physics. Authors: Gerhard Gerlich, Ralf D. Tscheuschner
Jennifer Marohasy notes that Michael Hammer previously reached a similar conclusion.
In short: I too would like to see a firm discussion about this study on WUWT.
“This graph alone demonstrates that the warming of the 20th century was solar-driven.”
Correlation is not causation. Neither at RealClimate, nor here. Damn!
lgl (23:43:37) :
Beryllium-10 is not a proxy for the sun’s activity. It’s a GCR proxy.
—————
However GCR’s are a proxy for the sun’s activity.
You are right titopli “correlation is not causation”.
However, good scientists know that some very good correlations can used to guide investigators towards a better understanding of the underlying causations.
Spectulation and reasoned conjecture are important tools in the search for a “better truth” and a better understanding.
Ron de Haan (03:22:07) wrote regarding the Jennifer Marohasy site article: “It is a very interesting study because it completely destroys the AGW/CO2 doctrine…”
I fear the alarmists have long gone beyond rational doctrine, Ron, and destroying this particular one would be as pointless as all the destruction by true scientists of hockey sticks and hokey sticks and the like has been. Perhaps it never ever was about “science” right from the beginning? It sounds trite to call AGW alarm “religion”, but perhaps it is also correct to call it that… a debased religion, anyway; and the fire is in their eyes.
Seems to me the global financial collapse is riding with the angels insofar as throwing rocks under the wheels of the AGW juggernaut; but simply “proving them wrong” is not going to quench either their fire or their thirst. They have both a tiger by the tail and a mission, and logic is not going to even impinge on either those with the madness or those with the money.
However; I do believe it will burn itself out, and on the positive side also believe it has given us a lot of real science we may otherwise have taken years to harvest.