Guest post by Guillermo Gonzalez
I recently happened upon the SORCE/TIM website and decided to look up the plot of the full total solar irradiance (TSI) dataset (http://lasp.colorado.edu/sorce/data/tsi_data.htm#plots)
The SORCE mission began collecting TSI data in February 2003.
I was curious to see if the variations in the TSI had begun to rise yet, perhaps indicating a start to cycle 24. Visual inspection of the SORCE TSI plot showed just the opposite – variations continue to decline in amplitude. If cycle 24 has started, there are no signs of it in these data.
We can be a bit more quantitative if we examine, instead, a plot of TSI variance with time. I produced such a plot using the daily average TSI data provided on the SORCE web site.
The red data are variance values calculated at two-week intervals. The blue curve is the smoothed data calculated in the same way as smoothed sunspot numbers (basically a 12-month running average). Note, the vertical axis is plotted on a logarithmic scale.
To compare the recent TSI variance trend with the previous sunspot minimum, I looked up the ACRIM2 daily average TSI data at: http://www.acrim.com/Data%20Products.htm
These data are plotted on the same scale as the SORCE data. The smoothed data show a minimum TSI variance near the beginning of 1996, some months before sunspot minimum (October 1996). Notice that the minimum value for the variance during the 1996 minimum was about an order of magnitude larger than the present TSI variance.
The SORCE web site quotes long-term 1-sigma precision (relative accuracy) of their TSI measurements to be 0.001%/yr. This corresponds to a variance of 2 ´ 10-4 W2 m-4. However, the precision should be considerably better than this on the 2-week timescale that I selected for calculating the variance. Unfortunately, I have not been able to locate a quote for the estimated precision of the ACRIM2 measurements. It would be worthwhile to know if the minimum TSI variance of the previous sunspot minimum measured by ACRIM2needs to be corrected for the instrumental precision.
Guillermo Gonzalez writes on his background:
I’m an astronomer, though my present title is associate professor of physics at Grove City College, PA. I wrote a paper (in Solar Physics) with Ken Schatten back in 1987 on predicting the next solar maximum with geomagnetic indices. That was my only contribution on anything having to do with the Sun-Earth connection, but I also got a letter published in Physics Today in 1997 wherein I urged readers to takethe Sun-Earth climate connection more seriously.
These days most of my research is on extrasolar planets.
UPDATE: I received a suggestion for an overlay via email from Terry Dunleavy and I’ve worked one up below. This was done graphically. I took great care to get the two lined up correctly. Note however that the datasets span different lengths of time, as you can note on the two timescales I’ve included on the combined graph. The vertical scale matches exactly between graphs though. – Anthony
UPDATE2: Here is another graphical comparison of the two TSI variance graphs, scaled to have a matching X-axis and appropriately aligned side by side. – Anthony
Pat (18:56:12)
I have my eye peeled for your reports.
I watched the scene play out last year down under.
And noted the condition in Alaska as the equinox passed in Sept.
Now, it’s back to you down under.
Hopefully, you live in an area that has snowplows.
I can imagine the chaos when SF Bay area North starts accumulating snow next winter as this thing deepens.
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>>Isn’t this shooting yourself in the foot????
I think you misunderstand the whole argument.
The influence of the eleven year Sunspot cycle is smoothed out via ocean storage, so the individual peaks are not readily apparent. But you can see them, just.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1970/offset:-0.1/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1970/trend/plot/sidc-ssn/from:1970/scale:0.005/plot/pmod/from:1970/scale:0.5/offset:-682
It is the long-term Sunspot activity trends that force climate change, and here the correlations are quite apparent: (This graph uses the geomagnetic index as a proxy for sunspot activity.)
http://www.schulphysik.de/klima/landscheidt/Fig6e.jpg
It is these temperature changes that force CO2 changes.
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Robert,
No dramas. Fortunately I live nowhere near the snow when it falls here in New South Wales.
January is when the Earth is closest to the Sun. We’ve had a cool summer here, humid, but cooler than last year. Cool summer, cool autum, winter will be too.
One thing I have noticed about the summer just past. We have something called the “Aussie wave” here, and it relates to flying insects, you have to continuously swipe them away from your face, hence the “Aussie wave” as it looks like you are waving to someone all the time. The summer before last was normal, ie, it was hotter than the summer just past. Lots of flies. The summer just gone, there was almost none. Too cold for them? Damn straight!
Leif 19:22:53
You want the jigsaw puzzle nearly complete before you will see it. I’m just trying to do the edges first. Might not my suggested mechanism damp the otherwise too great sensitivity? I mention this at 05:40:56, too,
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Yes, the Sun continues it’s slide.
kim at 20:03:38 and
Leif at 19:22:53
I think George Gillan at 18:19:49 is sniffing around this idea, too.
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Pat (19:44:01)
No dramas, just the signposts up ahead for what is coming, and the signposts behind us for where we have been.
W/m2 is not doing it for me.
I am very interested in what is going on regards our Sun, and the changes we see all around us.
Leif Svalgaard (17:29:28) :
Because feedbacks can be both positive and negative and not necessarily linear. Think of a saucepan of water. If you put a lighted candle underneath it, it will almost certainly warm the water but will probably not cause it to boil. Your a scientist so I don’t need to explain why the rise in temperature of the water would be constant but not linear and would eventually reach equilibrium with both positive and negative feedbacks canceling each other out.
If you increase the heat source then the water temperature would rise again until at sea level it reaches 100C. Then after that it will begin boil but the actual temperature of the water will fall slightly at the onset of boiling. This is why we put lids on our cooking pots. That is simplified example of a positive input leading to a negative result in the short term.
It is the same for our climate. It doesn’t matter whether any heat source varies provided the variable is constant over many years. It’s only that mankind has the attention span of a goldfish that we would think any global decadal temperature trend of +/- 0.15 is in any way significant. Any slight change in solar output would have to be constant over many years before any feedbacks would react and they would be probably cumulative in both directions until a new equilibrium was reached in a time span of perhaps hundreds of years…depending on intensity of the deviation.
MartinGAtkins (20:32:14) :
Speculation is free. Suppose your pot is just bellow the boiling point, and a 0.1% change in heat brings it over. Large effect from small input.
In the earth scenario? The 6 month large heating is just at the edge to start a PDO change when the .01% yearly drop in sun heating pushes it over.
As I said, speculation. One needs to put down the equations, all equations entering the game, and calculate. As this cannot be done with the GCM models since they are full of linear approximations for all nonlinear quantities, an analogue like the one Tsonis et all use in their ocean model, but enriched by all the equations that influence the climate of earth, has to be created and used.
MartinGAtkins (20:32:14) :
Think of a saucepan of water. If you put a lighted candle underneath it, it will almost certainly warm the water but will probably not cause it to boil.
That is not a feedback situation but a directly driven process. I have a feeling that ‘feedback’ is not being used in this discussion in its correct meaning, but rather as a shorthand for whatever mysterious process we need to have operating to have things come out the way we want it to.
kim (20:03:38) :
Might not my suggested mechanism damp the otherwise too great sensitivity?
You know that I’m not into ‘might not’, ‘could not’, ‘isn’t it possible’ things. If you have a process, spell out how it works, quantify it, make it real. Otherwise you don’t have anything.
ralph ellis (19:34:41) :
But you can see them, just.
No, I cannot. Perhaps a Yogi Berra quote is needed here: “If I hadn’t believed it, I wouldn’t have seen it…”
It is the long-term Sunspot activity trends that force climate change, and here the correlations are quite apparent
In the above plot of real data there is no such apparent correlation.
I ask again
Why is there no correlatuin in the TSI and temperature but there is between CO2 and temperature as shown in the following plots.
CO2 x axis is just the sorted PPM figures without regard to dates
SSN/TSI x axis is again just sorted without regard to dates
data date range is mar 1958 to jul 2009
http://img141.imageshack.us/img141/2553/hadcrutvsco2andssn.jpg
And this lack of correlation between TSI and Temperature is shown in the FFT of the TSI and temperatures:
http://img22.imageshack.us/img22/5025/cetssnavgfft.jpg
Am I wrong assuming that TSI would show up SOME temperature effect in these two plots if it was an important climate forcing?
ralph ellis (19:34:41) :
It is the long-term Sunspot activity trends that force climate change, and here the correlations are quite apparent
Take a look at real data. First geomagnetic activity:
http://www.leif.org/research/IHV-1844-2008.png
then temperatures:
http://www.leif.org/research/Global%20Temperature%20Anomalies.png
Geomagnetic activity in the 1840-1860s was comparable to the 1940-1950s and even now. The temperature in the 1850s was significantly lower than now, so no long-term trend there.
So, both in the last 40 years and in the last 170 years there has been no correlation between temperatures and geomagnetic activity.
bill (21:13:23) :
Am I wrong assuming that TSI would show up SOME temperature effect in these two plots if it was an important climate forcing?
You plot against SSN, not TSI, but if we make the good assumption that all solar indices are so correlated with each other that it doesn’t matter which one we use, you are not wrong. I fact, you are correct. There must be a some small TSI response, but it is buried in the noise.
Okay. Can we declare TSI to be roadkill and get back to What’s Up With the Sun already?
We’re not happening here.
Things external to the Earth are.
How about them?
Joel Shore
The past records that I have seen in the form of a saw tooth with CO2 following Temperature don’t indicate positive feedbacknor any runaway temperature as temperature always led CO2 back down again. I’m no climatologist but surely that shows very little or no correlation at all between CO2 and temperature but the reverse?
Surely you must agree that the CO2 only driving temperature model iss fatally weak and that there are some very strong arguments now that support this. Do you not feel now that it may be the wrong group being called deniers?
The general public also doesn’t believe what it now sees as political propaganda.
In the 1990s I was convinced of the AGW argument because of a string of hot summers in the UK but I did also notice that in the tropical regions where I was working at the time it was temperatures as normal. Now I’m a sceptic, mainly because of the good science supporting the sceptical viewpoint but also because of the fraud and deceit from the politicians and political scientists.
“Robert Bateman (20:32:13) :
Pat (19:44:01)
No dramas, just the signposts up ahead for what is coming, and the signposts behind us for where we have been.
W/m2 is not doing it for me.
I am very interested in what is going on regards our Sun, and the changes we see all around us.”
15-30cm snow falls in the alpine regions of Victoria and New South Wales, Australia. Today, temperature lows were 14c below average for this time of year. Winter, still a couple of months away, is going to be an interesting one this year me thinks.
Maunder minimum Sunspot Number Count
Recent attempts to question accuracy of the Maunder minimum sunspot count, are utter nonsense. This period was characterised by works of four giants of astronomy Isaac Newton, John Flamsteed, Robert Hooke and Edmond Halley. It was not a cosy club of grandees, there was great deal of rivalry and mutual criticism at the Royal Society, so it is unlikely that a ‘sloppy records’ could get through.
Ergo: the Maunder minimum Sunspot Number Count has to be considered as ACCURATE.
http://www.geocities.com/vukcevicu/SSNM.gif
The Independet (London) has an interesting article about solar activity today
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/the-missing-sunspots-is-this-the-big-chill-1674630.html
The Independent is the leading advocate of climate change theory in teh British media so it’s nice to see it live up to its name.
This might not be the best place to philosophise, so pls snip if I stray.
Climate change is expected, rather than no change with time. The degree is in question. People are probably most interested in self-interest. What does it translate to for me and my family?
Climate change produces various levels of effect. These below are open to argument.
The primary effects are sunlight intensity, cloudiness, wind patterns and more.
The secondary effects are temperature, rainfall, albedo and so on.
The tertiary effects are plant growth, sea level change, storm frequency etc.
The quaternary effects are food shortage/surplus, insect spread, maybe disease spread, species relocations.
At stage 5 we are looking at effects of the above on personal and corporate incomes, commodity prices and so on. Emergence of new technologies, venture capital changes.
In stage six we have stock markets, the start of effects on national and global economies and a transition from physics to economics. Design of motor vehicles, economies of manufacture, etc.
In stage 7 we find stockbrokers jumping out of windows, suicide rates changing, surveys of the optimism of people for future prospects, changes to school curricula.
About stage 8 we have the flow on to crime rates, rates of imprisonment, executions. Alcohol consumption per capita changes. (Other drugs are a bit more complicated).
Stage 9 comes to bickering and warfare.
Stage 10 is nukem time.
The above is simplified and not all will agree with it. The exercise to follow is not to argue differences and nuances, but simply to accept that there is a consequential set of stages.
The further down this dependency scale one goes, the closer one comes to effects that people fear.
So far in the Great Global Warming debate, the methods and correlations have been temperature-centric. People are not afraid of slow global temperature change. They enjoy a sharp change often when they go on vacation and the change from winter to summer is far bigger than the AGW magnitude.
I propose that the correlations be done again without assuming any effect to be the reference effect. That is, toss as many variables as feasible into a big correlation matrix that goes back as far as the data allow for each variable, then see which factors correlate. Then look to causation. Then look to remediation if needed.
It should emerge that it is wrong to be temperature-centric. (What a relief that would be, such freedom from known errors!). If there is a more appropriate platform, then it might benefit all to adopt it.
It is not an easy exercise and the correct statistical treatment would need a great deal of care, so it has to have a hypothetical benefit to be worth the effort.
The hypothesis is that a better understanding of the change of the human condition could be achieved. In the best ultimate outcome, one or more contributions to warfare might be identified, leading to reduction possibilities.
A more modest outcome could be a demonstration that some of the remedial actions for tipping points can be thrown out of the equations.
An outcome related to this thread would be a strong correlation between one form of solar output and the well-being of people. That’s really the bottom line. People are concerned for themselves and (limited) future generations. If they know that it’s just the natural cycles of the sun, then all would relax except a few diehards whose grants had not expired.
Leif Svalgaard (18:20:55) :
…A 7% change in TSI produces a change of 7/4% of T = 5 degrees K, which might be of the right order [although it seems a bit high still] of the change due to the changing distance to the Sun.
Leif
I’m not sure my thinking is right here, but it seems to me that any heating/cooling due to the earth’s elliptical orbit would be most evident at the equator, i.e. with a circular orbit the equator would receive roughly the same solar energy in January as it would in July.
I’ve just checked a few ‘GISS’ stations at random which are located near the equator and it looks (at first glance) that temperatures throughout the year are surprsingly (to me ) constant. I haven’t done any stats so the ‘no change’ hypothesis might well be falsified. There are also problems with equatorial stations in that they are pretty sparse and there may be issues with reliability, but the AMSU raw temperatures also show the troposphere to be cooler in January than July.
I can see the different Land/Ocean ratios in the NH/SH would be a factor and thermal inertia will dampen the amplitude compared to the solar orbital cycle. But…
I guess what I’m asking is: Is there a global change in temp due to the elliptical orbit?
.
>>Take a look at this plot comparing temperature vs
>>SSN and Temperature vs CO2. Which do you think
>>has the most significant effect on temperature?:
And here is a comparison between milk production and Hispanic population growth in the US.
http://foodmapper.files.wordpress.com/2008/02/milk-production-chart.png
http://www.limitstogrowth.org/WEB-Graphics/HispanicPopulationGrowthGraph.jpg
Clearly, unless the US controls its milk production, it will never get immigration from Mexico under control. The correlation is clear and irrefutable.
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The failure of the next solar cycle to ramp up was , no doubt, Hansens tipping point remark from late 08. In other words. (hey fellow scammers, start back tracking, bring in some uhi from China for a start) Even Nasa’s funding orgy is not going to beat nature.
regards from a cold wet Southern Oz.
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N.B. With reference to graph correlations I posted above, the CO2 data cannot explain the Medieval Warming nor the Maunder and Dalton cooling eras – whereas the Sunspot (magnetic flux) data explains both perfectly.
In addition, the Sunspot data has predicted the recent cooling, whereas the CO2 graphs and supporters all predicted continued warming. We have now had ten years of climate cooling/stasis, which is significant in climate terms. The CO2 theory cannot explain this (and will not even admit to it!), whereas the Sun explains everything.
And as I said before, if scientists believe that the lack of Sunspot activity caused the Dalton and Maunder ‘Ice Age’ minimums, as most seem to do – then it is explicit that sunspot activity does effect climate here on Earth. It is obvious, therefore, that the recent fall in Sun activity WILL effect our climate likewise, and the only argument should be “to what degree”.
I think a logical answer to that question would be “to the same degree as the Maunder and Dalton minimums. If we get a similar fall in Sun activity, we will get a similar fall in temperature (minus a smidgen to keep the CO2 enthusiasts happy, of course).
But it is clear from this that the PRIMARY driver of climate on Earth is the Sun. It is, after all, the only thing that caused weather and climate on Earth – as I said before, without it global temperatures would be hovering around 3 Kelvin.
Ralph
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Quote from Independent:
Our Sun is the primary force of the Earth’s climate system, driving atmospheric and oceanic circulation patterns. It lies behind every aspect of the Earth’s climate and is, of course, a key component of the greenhouse effect.
End quote
I could have written this myself, or perhaps I did. Congress should recite this verse (from the Gospel of Solar Forcing), before evert sitting.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/the-missing-sunspots-is-this-the-big-chill-1674630.html
The article goes on:
But there is another factor to be considered. When the Sun has gone quiet like this before, it coincided with the earth cooling slightly and there is speculation that a similar thing could happen now. If so, it could alter all our predictions of climate change, and show that our understanding of climate change might not be anywhere near as good as we thought.
End quote
There is a clear trend here, not only of Global Cooling, but Global Cold Feet too.
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