NASA Study Acknowledges Solar Cycle, Not Man, Responsible for Past Warming
Report indicates solar cycle has been impacting Earth since the Industrial Revolution
From the Daily Tech, Michael Andrews. (h/t to Joe D’Aleo)
Some researchers believe that the solar cycle influences global climate changes. They attribute recent warming trends to cyclic variation. Skeptics, though, argue that there’s little hard evidence of a solar hand in recent climate changes.
[NOTE: there is evidence of solar impact on the surface temperature record, as Basil Copeland and I discovered in this report published here on WUWT titled Evidence of a Lunisolar Influence on Decadal and Bidecadal Oscillations In Globally Averaged Temperature Trends – Anthony]
Solar activity has shown a major spike in the twentieth century, corresponding to global warming. This cyclic variation was acknowledged by a recent NASA
study, which reviewed a great deal of past climate data. (Source: Wikimedia Commons)
Now, a new research report from a surprising source may help to lay this skepticism to rest. A study from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland looking at climate data over the past century has concluded that solar variation has made a significant impact on the Earth’s climate. The report concludes that evidence for climate changes based on solar radiation can be traced back as far as the Industrial Revolution.
Past research has shown that the sun goes through eleven year cycles. At the cycle’s peak, solar activity occurring near sunspots is particularly intense, basking the Earth in solar heat. According to Robert Cahalan, a climatologist at the Goddard Space Flight Center,
“Right now, we are in between major ice ages, in a period that has been called the Holocene.”
Thomas Woods, solar scientist at the University of Colorado in Boulder concludes,
“The fluctuations in the solar cycle impacts Earth’s global temperature by about 0.1 degree Celsius, slightly hotter during solar maximum and cooler during solar minimum. The sun is currently at its minimum, and the next solar maximum is expected in 2012.”
According to the study, during periods of solar quiet, 1,361 watts per square meter of solar energy reaches Earth’s outermost atmosphere. Periods of more intense activity brought 1.3 watts per square meter (0.1 percent) more energy.
While the NASA study acknowledged the sun’s influence on warming and cooling patterns, it then went badly off the tracks. Ignoring its own evidence, it returned to an argument that man had replaced the sun as the cause current warming patterns. Like many studies, this conclusion was based less on hard data and more on questionable correlations and inaccurate modeling techniques.
The inconvertible fact, here is that even NASA’s own study acknowledges that solar variation has caused climate change in the past. And even the study’s members, mostly ardent supports of AGW theory, acknowledge that the sun may play a significant role in future climate changes.
NOTE: for those that wish to see the original NASA Goddard article which sparked both the Daily Tech and Science Daily news stories referenced above, you can read it here:
http://erc.ivv.nasa.gov/topics/solarsystem/features/solar_variability.html
– Anthony
Mike Kelley (18:28:58) :
I am very frustrated with my government. They are planning to jack the cost of all our energy sources to slow “global warming”, and our forecast here in Montana calls for rain turning to snow on Saturday and Sunday. It may be time for a revolution.
Yes, but it will be a counter revolution:
http://www.iceagenow.com/Biggest_power_grab_in_the_history_of_human_kind.htm
Did James Hansen read this study?
Just Want Results… (19:13:35) :
Maybe certain people can ease up on Piers Corbyn and Henrik Svensmark now.
Pattern of Strange Errors Plagues Solar Activity and Terrestrial Climate Data
In 1991,Eigil Friis-Christensen and Knud Lassen published an article in Science claiming a “strikingly good agreement”between solar cycle lengths (that is, the fluctuating lengths of the cycles undergone by the number of sunspots) and northern hemisphere land temperaturesover the period 1860–1990
However,close analysis of the central graphs in all of these articles reveals questionable handling of the underlying physical data.
[… etc]
Other examples of unacceptable handling of observational data are presented by Svensmark and Friis-Christensen [1997] and Svensmark [1998].They, too, show a strikingly good agreement of solar and terrestrial data, in this case
of the intensity of galactic cosmic radiation (representing solar activity) and total global cloud cover.Again,a close examination reveals a strange data selection. […]
Read it yourself here:
http://www.realclimate.org/damon&laut_2004.pdf
“”dennis ward (22:56:43) :
The planet has been warming since man-made greenhouse gases have been added to the atmosphere.””
The earth has been warming since The States beat England in the Revolution. That’s really the cause.
Leif Svalgaard (15:13:59) :
My misunderstanding…Do you think there’s any validity to Shaviv and Veizer’s Phanerozoic CRF reconstruction?
Maybe a little bit closer to the topic…There was a paper in Nature a few years ago, Braun et al (2005), in which the 87-year and 210-year cycles were convolved to form a 1470-year cycle that more or less matched the Dansgaard–Oeschger, Heinrich and presumably Bond events. I’ve never read the actual paper, just the abstract (I’m too cheap to subscribe to Nature). I was curious if you were familiar with their work and what your opinion was on the possibility of a solar driven ~1,500-year cycle?
Alex (09:12:49) :
Interesting question JamesG; what else could have caused the LIA? Some people have said that the temperature record has shown no real LIA; but looking at anecdotal: What caused the Thames to freeze over? And the venetian canals? Glacial pack ice extending to Great Britain, New York harbour freezing over etc?… Debates over temperature data aside, these events did in fact happen so what caused them?
Ask David Archibald, Hendrick Svensmark, Jan Veizer and Nir Shaviv.
Dave Middleton (20:00:12) :
Do you think there’s any validity to Shaviv and Veizer’s Phanerozoic CRF reconstruction?
I don’t know.
Maybe a little bit closer to the topic…There was a paper in Nature a few years ago, Braun et al (2005), in which the 87-year and 210-year cycles were convolved to form a 1470-year cycle that more or less matched the Dansgaard–Oeschger, Heinrich and presumably Bond events.
People like to find cycles. I knew the late Gerard Bond well and have discussed this with him. Interestingly he never claimed that the 1500 year cycle was solar. All he said was that such a cycle might be solar, and [to me] that if he had to look for where that period came from, his first suspect would be the Sun. Not that he had shown it to be the Sun.
Ron de Haan (20:21:51) :
Try this for a bit of debunk!
http://www.realclimate.org/damon&laut_2004.pdf
No Mr. Lorrey, I believe NASA has this one correct.
One percent is one out of one hundred or 0.01
1361 x 0.01 = 13.61
One tenth of one percent is one thousandth or 0.001
1361 x 0.001 = 1.361
Thus, 1.361 is one tenth of one percent of 1361 as stated.
On the other hand, the rather tortured logic and seemingly self-contradictory statements regarding past vs. present solar influence on climate made in the article suggest to me that a certain amount of anthropogenic spin had to be applied to get this post approved by Goddard management. We know all too well the mission and agenda of GISS Director James Hansen on this issue. It seems that objective science may be attempting a comeback at Goddard but hasn’t quite made it yet.
Leif Svalgaard (14:05:02) :
For these reasons the CRF hypothesis is weak and does not IMHO form a firm basis on which to stand in the fight against AGE, if that is one’s goal, or as a viable explanation of climate change.
It wouldn’t seem to be necessary to provide an alternative to AGW to know that AGW isn’t it.
But a couple question from a dummy. Do we know how much the sun’s intensity has changed over geological timescales and has the earth’s orbit changed over the same period?
But… Why it must be anthropogenic? Carbon dioxide is not the supergas than AGWers think. 220 million years ago the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere was 2250 ppmV; some 100 million years BP it was 1330 ppmV; 10 million years ago it was 440 ppmV. There were not humans driving cars then. The concentration of CO2 has been fluctuating from almost zero to more than 7000 ppmV during the geological eras. In the Proterozoic the concentration of carbon dioxide was higher than 5000 ppmV, and the Earth was in an Icehouse period. The current concentration of CO2 prevailed during the middle and late Carboniferous; however, the change of temperature was ~ 10 °C from the end of the Mississipian throughout until the late Jurassic. Earth is not 6000 years old.
Gilbert (22:38:55) :
It wouldn’t seem to be necessary to provide an alternative to AGW to know that AGW isn’t it.
But a couple question from a dummy. Do we know how much the sun’s intensity has changed over geological timescales and has the earth’s orbit changed over the same period?
To know this we have to resort to the iron stained grains proxies, which Bond used to deduce the global temperatures during the Holocene. Sadly, Dr. Bond is dead.
Anyone quoting Damon and Laut needs to be made aware that Lassen replied to Damon and Laut’s gross slanders, though abnormally it wasn’t allowed to be published alongside the DL’s so-called rebuttal, which would have been the normal procedure for a journal that claims to be scientific. The reply is here:
http://www.space.dtu.dk/upload/institutter/space/research/sun-climate/full_text_publications/comment%20to%20eos_28_sept_04.pdf
“In summary, Laut’s methodology consists of first writing false accusations, then totally neglecting the refutations, and finally referencing his very own claims as corroboration when publishing new accusations. This is in our view an interesting, but also the very only, conclusion that can be drawn from the article.”
Of course whether a critique on the solar-cosmic link is actually correct is not of great importance to realclimate.org. Honest scientists would have mentioned Lassens reply.
Nasif Nahle (22:56:57) :
220 million years ago the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere was 2250 ppmV; some 100 million years BP it was 1330 ppmV
first – where have these figures(and the 7000ppm usually quoted) come from? I think it is from a computer model Geocarb 3. Are these figures accurate? Is there another source?
Second – As I have repeated many times. The world was very different at time greater than 50Mybp (it was about this time that india hit the rest of Asia. Water currents Land masses in different places, number of land masses etc. will have totally changed the climate.
investigate this site for more info
http://www.scotese.com/Default.htm
10 million years ago it was 440 ppmV. There were not humans driving cars then.
What was the CH4 doing ? Atmospheric CO2 breaks down to CO2 in the atmosphere.
The concentration of CO2 has been fluctuating from almost zero to more than 7000 ppmV …. however, the change of temperature was ~ 10 °C from the end of the Mississipian throughout until the late Jurassic
from 380 to 7000ppm is 4.5 doublings, allowing 1.5C per doubling gives 7C temperature rise so not unexpected.
Also remember the second point above!
I’ve read some of Dr. Bond’s papers…He definitely was very insightful. It’s kind of humbling to be able to discuss this topic with one of his peers. When I read papers like those of Bond’s, I realize that there’ more to geology than just trying to figure out where the oil is hidden…;-))
As far as people liking to find cycles…Guilty as charged. That might be an inculcated inclination of geologists and geophysicists…Or climate might just be very cyclical.
Maybe I did read the Braun paper once…Because for some reason I think that they said there was no evidence for Dansgaard–Oeschger events since the Pleistocene. The Braun paper (that made the case for the 1470-year solar cycle) was published about four years after Bond had identified Dansgaard–Oeschger- and Heinrich-like events well beyond the Holocene transgression. IIRC Bond found a Heinrich-like cooling event roughly at the start of the LIA.
In the meantime, the sun is spotless again.
Tenuc (13:38:00)
” I think we are missing something major regarding solar forcing and would like to have a list of hypotheses about how the clear link between solar activity and global temperature can happen with the apparent small increase in solar energy hitting our planet? ”
The sun’s behavior varies from cycle to cycle and no two are alike. And I believe these variations, even if seemingly small, have an influence on the state of certain atmospheric and oceanic teleconnections. (Most likely by way of forcing changes in AAM variables like MT & FT torques, corriolis etc )
Which then shows up in our global temperature trends when the dice get loaded over longer periods.
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Gilbert (22:38:55) :
Do we know how much the sun’s intensity has changed over geological timescales and has the earth’s orbit changed over the same period?
some 4 billion years ago the Sun’s luminosity was 30% lower than today and has been increasing in a regular way from then on until now and will continue to do so for several more billion years. The solar wind and the Sun’s magnetic field were MUCH stronger early on and have decreased slowly since. In the early solar system the planetary orbits were changing due to friction with the circumsolar disk from which the planets formed and also from magnetic braking. This process has long stopped and the mean orbits have been very stable, but with cyclical changes in shape and orientation due to planetary gravitational interactions, which are still happening today and likely are the main cause [through variation of seasonal solar insolation] of glaciations during ice ages.
The above is the party line on this subject. There are no good reasons not to go along with that. We’ll learn a lot more in the coming decades and centuries from studies of other planets and moons [and cometary material] in the solar system, so the picture could change a bit as we learn, but it is IMO largely correct as far as we know today.
JamesG (03:03:32) :
Anyone quoting Damon and Laut needs to be made aware that Lassen replied to Damon and Laut’s gross slanders
Apart from it not being Lassen that replied, the ‘reply’ is as much in the vendetta tone as it accuses the ‘slander’ to be.
The reply’s main point is that DL:
“attempt to throw suspicion on the authors using the wording: “Close analysis reveals questionable handling of the underlying physical data” thus implying that FCL failed to inform the readers about their procedure regarding their essential figure. The fact is that FCL made their procedure perfectly clear to the reader by specifically describing it in the text”
However, there is no such implication. The DL comment does not fault FCL for not describing the procedure. The ‘questionable’ bit comes from the [well-described] procedure itself being questionable, i.e. the heavy filtering [that grossly decreases the number of degrees of freedom] and the mixture of filtered and unfiltered data. The latter is not correct science. The situation could have been ‘saved’ a little by plotting the unfiltered data with different [or smaller] symbols to make it immediately and visibly obvious that the data is not homogeneous. The Figure has been shown in a myriad papers by other people pushing their own agenda and the original text describing the questionable procedure was never published alongside the Figure. And that is the main [and valid] criticism.
Tenuc,
“I think we are missing something major regarding solar forcing and would like to have a list of hypotheses about how the clear link between solar activity and global temperature can happen with the apparent small increase in solar energy hitting our planet?”
Since we are dealing with a nonlinear dynamic system, the geographical and verticle distribution of the forcing can have signficant influences on the strength of various responses. Solar coupling is biased towards the tropics, it penetrates 10s of meters into the oceans, and has strong chemical influences, UV in the production of stratospheric and tropospheric ozone, and in visible wavelengths on photosynthesis. Longer term there is even solar bleaching, and diurnal and seasonal weathering due to thermal variation. The nonlinearities are everywhere. We really need a better understand of the solar coupling to the climate and models to make sense of it. Hopefully we will have the much needed data and skillful models in a decade or so. If the next solar cycle expands the variety our experience of solar variation during the modern era, it should accelerate the process.
bill (03:30:37) :
Nasif Nahle (22:56:57):
220 million years ago the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere was 2250 ppmV; some 100 million years BP it was 1330 ppmV
first – where have these figures(and the 7000ppm usually quoted) come from? I think it is from a computer model Geocarb 3. Are these figures accurate? Is there another source?
No, not from Geocarb III model, but from proxies, Geocarb covers from 570 million BP to present:
Prothero, Donald, R. Bringing Fossils to Life: An Introduction to Paleobiology-Second Edition. 2004. McGraw-Hill Companies Inc.
Fleet, M. E. (1998) Detrital pyrite in Witwatersrand gold reefs: X-ray diffraction
evidence and implications for atmospheric evolution. Terra Nova: 302-
306.
Steve Kershaw and Andy Cundy. 2000. Oceanography. Routledge, Inc.
Dorothy Z. Oehler et al. Carbon Isotopic Studies of Organic Matter in Precambrian Rocks. Science. 17 March 1972. Vol. 175. No. 4027. Pp. 1246 – 1248.
You cannot ignore the disciplines of Paleontology, Geology, Paleobiology, Paleoclimatology.
Second – As I have repeated many times. The world was very different at time greater than 50Mybp (it was about this time that india hit the rest of Asia. Water currents Land masses in different places, number of land masses etc. will have totally changed the climate. investigate this site for more info
http://www.scotese.com/Default.htm
I know the work of Dr. Scotese and have refered it in some of my papers. What you’re dismissing in your second point that the high concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere always have followed the increases of temperature, not the opposite. We know that in some epoch the climate was warm because the carbon dioxide is degased from subsurface of ground and from oceans:
http://www.biocab.org/Carbon_Dioxide_Geological.jpg
Now Bill, the thermal characteristics of the CO2 are not enough as to produce a change of temperature of 0.5 °C.
10 million years ago it was 440 ppmV. There were not humans driving cars then.
What was the CH4 doing ? Atmospheric CO2 breaks down to CO2 in the atmosphere.
CH4 and CO2 were being captured by water. The decline of atmospheric CO2 was due to plants C4:
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/309/5734/600
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/5689731_Oligocene_CO2_decline_promoted_C4_photosynthesis_in_grasses
http://www.cell.com/current-biology/abstract/S0960-9822(07)02344-5
The concentration of CO2 has been fluctuating from almost zero to more than 7000 ppmV …. however, the change of temperature was ~ 10 °C from the end of the Mississipian throughout until the late Jurassic
from 380 to 7000ppm is 4.5 doublings, allowing 1.5C per doubling gives 7C temperature rise so not unexpected. Also remember the second point above!
Epur it happened. So the 0.5 °C of the last decade warming was perfectly expected within the range of expected fluctuations during the Holocene. 🙂
Leif, I will commit .07 C degree variation to memory. I remember seeing the .1 somewhere and that one stuck in my mind. If I use 007 as my memory device, it will stick because I am such a GIRLY fan of Sean Connery.
Thanks for the responses so far regarding my request for views about why a small change in insolation can potentially have a big effect on our climate.
I came across this interesting snippet from the NASA Earthsci site:
‘…the NASA Earth Radiation Budget Experiment (ERBE) determined for the first time that on average, clouds tend to cool the planet. The cloud reflection of sunlight back to space dominates over the clouds’ greenhouse effect. In fact, the planet would on average be some 20°F hotter if we removed clouds from the atmosphere. Recently, attempts have been made to combine the ERBE satellite measurements of the radiative energy balance at the top of the atmosphere with measurements of the radiation balance at the surface. The objective of this combination is to infer the amount of radiation absorbed by the intervening atmosphere. Unexpectedly, this combination implies that the atmosphere absorbs more radiation than is theoretically predicted. Are the observations wrong or is the theory? Do we understand clouds?’
Looks like we still have much to learn. Perhaps if the dogma of AGW could be de-bunked more of the vast budget being expended on this could be spent on trying to find out what’s really going on.
Nasif Nahle (17:24:10) :
And we will be running around the ring, again… I mean, all that stuff regarding iron stained quartz and intensity of solar irradiance, etc.
As before, you are still confusing solar irradiance with solar insolation. Irradiance is what the Sun puts out, insolation is what a particular location receives. E.g. the poles have less insolation for same irradiance.