You’ve probably all heard of Svensmark and the Galactic Cosmic Ray (GCR) to cloud cover modulation theory by now. Lot’s of warmists say it is “discredited”. However, CERN in Switzerland isn’t following that thinking, and after getting some encouraging results in the CLOUD06 experiment, they have funded a much larger and more comprehensive CLOUD09 experiment. I figure if it is “discredited”, a bunch of smart guys and gals like CERN wouldn’t be ramping up the investigation. There’s also word now of a new correlation:
I get so many tips now it is hard to choose, but this one is a gem. If you look at nothing else this month, please take the time to download the slide show from CERN’s Jasper Kirkby at the end of this article.
He does a superb job of tying it all together. I found Kirkby’s slide show quite interesting, and I’ve grabbed some slides for our WUWT readers. He proposes a GCR to cloud droplet mechanism, which to me, makes sense meteorologically. He also touches on the possibility that the Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) may have been shifted due to GCR modulation during the LIA/Maunder Minimum. This ties in with Willis Eschenbach’s theories of the ITCZ being a “thermostatic mechanism” for the planet with some amplification effects. – Anthony
Norm Potter writes in Tips and Notes for WUWT with this-
The end is near for the warmists, I suspect. This month, Jasper Kirkby of CERN explained the Centre’s CLOUD experiment, which is moving forward:
“The current understanding of climate change in the industrial age is that it is predominantly caused by anthropogenic greenhouse gases, with relatively small natural contributions due to solar irradiance and volcanoes. However, palaeoclimatic reconstructions show that the climate has frequently varied on 100-year time scales during the Holocene (last 10 kyr) by amounts comparable to the present warming – and yet the mechanism or mechanisms are not understood. Some of these reconstructions show clear associations with solar variability, which is recorded in the light radio-isotope archives that measure past variations of cosmic ray intensity. However, despite the increasing evidence of its importance, solar-climate variability is likely to remain controversial until a physical mechanism is established.
“Estimated changes of solar irradiance on these time scales appear to be too small to account for the climate observations. This raises the question of whether cosmic rays may directly affect the climate, providing an effective indirect solar forcing mechanism. Indeed recent satellite observations – although disputed – suggest that cosmic rays may affect clouds. This talk presents an overview of the palaeoclimatic evidence for solar/cosmic ray forcing of the climate, and reviews the possible physical mechanisms. These will be investigated in the CLOUD experiment which begins to take data at the CERN PS later this year.”
I found this side on page 29 to be plausible from a meteorological standpoint:
Here is a slide showing the ITCZ shift he’s proposing:
And here is the data and some conjectures, obviously more data is needed. However what is seen so far certainly seems far from “discredited” as some warmists say.
In the conclusions of his slide show, Kirkby outlines the state of knowledge and areas of investigation:
• Climate has continually varied in the past, and the causes are not well understood – especially on the 100 year timescalerelevant for today’s climate change
• Strong evidence for solar-climate variability, but no established mechanism. A cosmic ray influence on clouds is a leading candidate
• CLOUD at CERN aims to study and quantify the cosmic raycloud mechanism in a controlled laboratory experiment
• The question of whether – and to what extent – the climate is influenced by solar/cosmic ray variability remains central to our understanding of anthropogenic climate change
More info, see: http://cdsweb.cern.ch/record/1181073/ – the CERN Colloquium
Download Kirkby’s Slide show (Large 7.8 MB PDF, be patient)
http://indico.cern.ch/getFile.py/access?resId=0&materialId=slides&confId=52576
Backup Copy on WUWT server: Kirkby_CERN_slideshow09
How dare those denialist pseudo scientists at CERN challenge AGW? The science is, afterall, settled.
I’ve held the GCR theory to have merit.Now it’s is becoming obvious as a failed
corn crop..
Seminal series of posts on this subject. Digesting, but expect it will not take certain parties long to ascertain ‘da Truth’.
Svensmark’s hypothesis faces the challenge of several papers that could not produce correlations similar to the ones he seemed to find. For this reason (and others) it is not widely accepted as a prominent driver of 20th century climate change. However there is a chance that it does have some minor influence on the climate. As pointed out in the Nature opinion piece on this topic (2007?) quantifying whatever effect it may have is a worthy endeavor.
Fascinating stuff. I’ve long thought on intuition alone that Svensmark’s was a more plausible hypothesis than CO2 (of course, a combination of the two is always possible). Obviously it requires some real physics and experimentation to verify, which is presumably why the statistical ticklers over on realclimate would turn their noses up at it.
Anthony, you should REALLY read Marcel Leroux as his work ties meteorology and climatology in a soild, cartesian way. “Global Warming: Myth or Reality” Springer Praxis 2005.
The slides provided on this post would be very well explained by Leroux’s work.
Svensmark is a fascinating fellow, for sure.
I posted a five-part video series on his work several months ago, and it is here…
http://algorelied.com/?p=316
Here’s an interesting Svensmark quote from the video:
“Instead of thinking of clouds as a result of the climate, it’s actually showing that the climate is a result of the clouds, because the clouds take their orders from the stars.”
Whether or not Svensmark’s hypothesis is correct, his work is mind-expanding stuff 🙂
AGW is still believed to be “consistent” with observation.
I wonder how believable is the cosmic ray cloud connection, were it granted an equal degree of “consistent.”
I have what is probably a very simplistic question and this may not even be the appopriate place to ask, but I’ll do it anyway. I’ve read in various places that solar radiation varies only by .1% and that CO2 has increased from 280 ppm to 360ppm or so. That means that CO2 composition in the atmosphere has gone from .0028% to .0036%; a change in atmospheric composition of only .008%, yet this is responsible for warming and solar radiation variation of .1% is not responsible.
Granted, I am no scientist nor statitician, just an admin assistant in Western Washington who loves to read so the answer may be very obvious and I’ve just missed it.
Annette in W WA
Note that, as can be seen in the first figure, Eichler et al actually show that since 1850 the contribution of the solar forcing to the temperature change has been decreasing rapidly, i.e. the two curves separate.
http://www.agu.org/journals/gl/gl0901/2008GL035930/
Any explanation to this? I mean, if it’s natural forcing, then why hasn’t it happened before?
The caption to the Eichler et al graph says “… temperature in Siberia from glacial ice core …” but the recent 20th century temperatures and isotopic data can not be from ice cores. What is the most recent date the ice cores give values for?
Sadly, that’s wishful thinking. That crowd decides what is a ‘fact’ and what is not. Science, logic, reasoning have nothing to do with this debate.
The squeaky wheel gets the grease. There is an ‘iron curtain’ on science which contradicts the AGW orthodoxy. Most people will never hear about these results and if they do, it will be in the form of a ‘Grist’ (disinformation) debunking.
Hello Annette,
CO2 is supposed to act on climate because it is a greenhouse gas, which means it can absorb some radiation emitted by the earth (the infrared radiation). Most of the molecules in the atmosphere (such as oxygen and nitrogen) cannot do that, except for H2O (which is responsible for most of the greenhouse effect) and trace gases.
Si although it is only 0.0028% of the atmosphere, it is responsible for almost 10% of the greenhouse effect.
As a follow up to my brief comment, Leroux shows how the ITCZ which comprises the Meteorological Equator -both the Vertical and the Inclined ones- moves with the seasons and during the rapid and slow modes of circulation. In particular the Kirby slide showing the displacement of the ITCZ makes perfect sense.
Also Leroux’s seminal paper:
“Copyright © 1993 Published by Elsevier B.V.
II. Atmospheric, hydrologic and oceanic changes
The Mobile Polar High: a new concept explaining present mechanisms of meridional air-mass and energy exchanges and global propagation of palaeoclimatic changes
Marcel Leroux
aLaboratoire de Géographie Physique-CNRS URA 260, Professeur Université J. Moulin – BP 0638, 69239 Lyon 02, France
Received 12 December 1991; accepted 8 July 1992. Available online 22 April 2003.
Abstract
Air-mass and energy transportation is chiefly made by large lenses of cold air, the Mobile Polar Highs, the key factor of meridional air exchanges, which organize migratory units of circulation in troposphere low levels. Mobile Polar Highs (MPHs) originate in the downwards airmotion in high latitudes. The cold air injection organizes a dipolar vortex of very large size (2000/3000 km), the anticyclonic side of this vortex (precisely the MPH) is thin, about 1.5 km thick, by reason of cold air density. Mobile Polar Highs migrate roughly eastwards, with a meridional component towards the tropical zone, through the middle latitudes where they are responsible for weather variability and for rain-making conditions. Their own thermo-dynamic evolution and relief divide them into fragments, and they supply the low-layer of the trade circulation, and eventually the monsoon (previously trade) circulation of a cross-equatorial drift. Eastwards movement and disposition of relief govern the MPHs paths and determine distinct aerological domains; in one of these domains, China is precisely located at the eastern Asian exit of MPHs, stopped by the Himalaya/Tibet range, on their southern side during their eastwards migration. Power of the MPH, connected with its density, as observed in winter in the present conditions, is a function of the initial temperature, namely of the polar radiative conditions. It is precisely in the high latitudes that radiation balance and temperature changes are the most important, at all scales of time, from the seasonal to the palaeoclimatic scale, while in tropical latitudes the changes are comparatively always weak. Two modes of troposphere general circulatin are a result of this mechanism: (1) A rapid mode of circulation, connected with acold situation in polar latitudes, is characterized by strong and extended MPHs and strong wind at all latitudes and all levels. (2) A slow mode of circulation, connected with a warm situation in polar latitudes, is characterized by weak and less extended MPHs, and weak winds at all latitudes and all levels. Insolation and surface boundary conditions of high latitudes are the key control of MPHs dynamics, and therefore the key control of palaeoclimatic changes.”
Flanagan
I think you have a factor of 10 error. CO2 is not responsible for 10% of the green house effect. more like 1%. Water vapor is approx 3000 ppm, or 75 times O2’s concentration. Water vator is also recognized to be three times as potent as CO2 as a green house gas. Do the math and you will find CO2 very close to .6 % of the green house gas effect, not 10%. That’s why few if any of us beleive that CO2 has a measurable impact on Earth’s climate.
Remember, CO2 has been as high as 7000ppm, or 150 times today’s concentration, in past epochs. Earth’s temperature was about 12F greater than today, so 450ppm for CO2 is not a tipping point. People who forget or ignore the past are doomed to repeat it or make other drastic mistakes.
Hey Flanagan, throw another dart … you keep missing!
This experiment looks like a great place to dump a pile of stimulus money to speed it along. Thanks for the great work Anthony. Fun read.
Annette, You framed your question well; it is asked by unbelievers. The AGWers response is a mystical positive feedback mechanism and a lot of arm waving and arm twisting.
Annette,
On its own, CO2 can only increase global temps by about 1 C this century. The key to a 4-7 C increase in global temps this century has to do with indirect positive feedback loops that are triggered by CO2. None of these loops have ever been proven, only assumed by climate modelers. Since global temps have cooled since 1997 (11+ years) when the models say temps ought to have increased by 0.5-1.0 C suggest that these positive feedback loops do not exist. Yet, there has been a measurable temperature rise this past century (actually since the Little Ice Age). How so? Thus, the current controversy.
Every US congressman should be forced to watch this. A most compelling talk; is his actual slide show available?
Flanagan (08:45:51) :
Si although it is only 0.0028% of the atmosphere, it is responsible for almost 10% of the greenhouse effect.
Really? Silicon (Si) is responsible for almost 10% of the greenhouse effect? Now that’s something I had never heard before. Verrrrryy interesting!!
If I didn’t know any better, I would say that the red curve since 1900 is significantly above the GCR curves thus clearly indicating that fossil fuels [or man’s activities] are responsible for the extra warming…
The 14C curve shows that levels around 1800 were the same as in the 1980s, while temperatures now are ~1.5 degrees higher. This plot should really make the AGW crowd happy as it plays straight into their hand.
Annette,
Interesting question. There is a linear relationship between a change of intensity of solar radiation output and the change in radiation reaching the earth. Eg, 0.1% increase in solar ouptut would result in the same increase in radiation reaching the earth (this is ignoring indirect effects on the earths climate). However, the relationship between CO2 concentrations and temperature forcings is non linear. It is in fact logarithmic which means that in order to get the same linear increase in forcing you have to double CO2 concentration. So for concentrations going from say 1ppm to 2ppm you get y amount of forcing. But to get 2y of forcing you need to double to 4ppm, 3y needs 8ppm, 4y needs 16ppm, 5y needs 32ppm all the way up to 9y needing 512ppm. It should also be clear from a logical analysis, that the changes in forcing have no relationship to the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere (apart from where absorption bands overlap). What I mean is that, eg, going from 1ppm to 2ppm has the same forcing as going from 256ppm to 512ppm, but in the second case the percentage change in the whole atmosphere is a lot more. Hope that helps.
Very much appreciate this high-quality post with excellent graphics. I had been worried that once Svensmark had been courted off to CERN, we would hear very little for years until some day his cloud nucleation hypothesis was verified, but long after ‘son of Kyoto’ had been agreed. It is heart-warming to find senior scientists putting out such clear expositions.
Still, I would rather have seen those European Space Agency millions devoted to more exhaustive analysis of cloud patterns, ocean cycles, correlations to solar data etc., than to mechanisms that, at the end of the day, defenders of the faith will deny are relevant because a cloud chamber is not a natural atmosphere.
Annette (08:36:06) :
You’re aware of the political atmosphere at present which holds that it has been scientifically proven that carbon dioxide is causing global warming which will unavoidably cause harmful effects too numerous to mention. This idea took hold back in the ’90 s when both global temperatures and carbon dioxide concentrations were increasing, and some naturally placed themselves in a position to profit financially. But since about 2001 temperatures are no longer increasing, although carbon dioxide has continued to increase. This confounds the theory. Carbon dioxide cannot be the whole story.
The problem is that we simply do not know what the story is. And so there are many doing scientific research to find out more about what influences climate (and possibly avoid unnecessary economic impacts) and there are many who vigorously defend the Anthropogenic Global Warming paradigm for their own reasons.
Hope not so late, dear Anthony, because as far as global warming goals are reached any scientific results against global warming will be irrelevant even if “the day after tomorrow” would be really tomorrow…
Flanagan:
“Any explanation to this? I mean, if it’s natural forcing, then why hasn’t it happened before?”
How can you be so sure that it hasn’t?
Leif: Well, that’s the point, isn’t it? But even stipulating that it is man’s activities, one has to consider that fixing CO2 is a hundred times as expensive (or more?) as fixing any other cause. So one must make darn sure it is CO2 and not, say, Arctic soot, land use, deforestation, or other causes.
If it were cheap, simple to limit CO2, we would do so without a second thought, even if the theory was considered likely to be wrong. But it’s neither cheap nor simple, so the normal parameters of the precautionary principle are exceeded, and cost-benefit assessment clicks in.
Ignoring the question of correlations and which came first, an eternal argument, the clearest message I received from this is that our current climate and variations are nothing at all unusual.
Leif,
The steepest rise in the red curve occurred long before CO2 increases occured(pre-1900). In fact, almost all of the rise since 1850 occurred prior to 1950, while the biggest increases in CO2 occurred since 1950.
In the first graph, temperature sometimes leads the isotope values, and sometimes it lags the isotope values – about half and half. Sure there is a correlation, but causation?
Also, is it just me, or does anyone else think the temperature curve is odd, showing it significantly warmer the last 150 years than any time in the past…?
Oh Be10, lots of assumptions in using that as a proxy. When I was in grad school, a fellow student of mine did a lot of work with Be10 and glacial erratics.
Best hope their sample localities were not in the shade.
Ben
Leif Svalgaard (09:35:59) : “If I didn’t know any better, I would say that the red curve since 1900 is significantly above the GCR curves thus clearly indicating that fossil fuels [or man’s activities] are responsible for the extra warming…
The 14C curve shows that levels around 1800 were the same as in the 1980s, while temperatures now are ~1.5 degrees higher. This plot should really make the AGW crowd happy as it plays straight into their hand.”
That was my first impression also. So I better find a reason why it couldn’t be man’s activities. Perhaps it’s proof that the current temperature measuring system is recording too high temps as per Anthony’s project.
I was going to point that out Leif, but too scared of the lashing you will now receive!
There are many other anomalies in that plot
1. Siberia is warming(!!!), but where in siberia is this magical core taken that will give valid temperatures over the last few hundred years.
2. Sometimes temperature lead sometimes lags sometimes misses changes in Be
3. Pity it stops in 1990(?) (the paper was written in 2009)
4. What is the ratio of CCNs generated by GCRs compared to the “dust” CCNs normally floating about up there (low level clouds are the active ones I believe)?
5. Not much medieval warm period (800–1300) showing pre 1300
6. Seems abit warm in the middle of the LIA (1400–1850)
7. A 30 year lag would remove any of the 11 year cycles from the FFTs of temperatures. But of course it would average the variation in TSI as well. ie 1365.6 min. to 1366.0 max. (From Leif’s page http://www.leif.org/research/TSI%20(Reconstructions).xls ) And average the variation of GCR reducing their difference by possibly 2.
I actually understood some of that slide show although a sizeable slice did go over my head when it came to the maths and technical jargon. This place must be rubbing off on me a little bit. 😀
Flanagan (08:40:35) :
Look at the chart again.
It separates many times.
In warmer periods, the temp is above (less cloud cover)
In colder periods, the temp is below (more cloud cover).
That separation should be 1870’s for the modern period, long before the CO2 levels really took off.
Let me give you an excerpt of historical note (Literary record):
“Sat Jun 4, 1884
Never were there so many showers known in this portion of Calif. as there have been in the present spring. During the past week we have had a shower every evening. Old settlers inquire ‘is our climate changing?’ , apparently so”
“Sat Jun 18, 1884
Rained every day of the week”
This much was apparent in 1884 to original Calif. Settlers: The climate was changing, and it did.
Separation reached max in the 1930’s (surprise, surprise)
Separation is doing what now, opening or closing?
Where was the C02 forcing in 1884?
What were the GCR’s doing in 1884?
Enter the CERN experiment.
We need answers from experiments, not models.
AGW is not an experiment.
Svensmark did experiments.
CERN is going to do some more.
Leif Svalgaard (09:35:59) : Well surely you know that there are a myriad of factors to be accounted for (they probably would rather ignore that) which might, er, confound the attempt to explain any discrepancy between one factor and the temps with AGW!
“”” • The question of whether – and to what extent – the climate is influenced by solar/cosmic ray variability remains central to our understanding of anthropogenic climate change. “””
I would suggest that solar/cosmic ray variability adds precisely nothing to our understanding of anthropogenic climate change; humans do not emit cosmic rays.
“”” Annette (08:36:06) :
I have what is probably a very simplistic question and this may not even be the appopriate place to ask, but I’ll do it anyway. I’ve read in various places that solar radiation varies only by .1% and that CO2 has increased from 280 ppm to 360ppm or so. “””
Annette; that 0.1% (roughly) is correct, that is about the extent of the peak to peak change in the “Solar Constant” of about 1366 Watts per square meter; Total Solar Incidence. If that radiation fell on a quite passive “black body”, the change in temperature of that body would only be 1/4 of that 0.1% or 0.025%. That is because the energy and the temperature are related by the Stefan-Boltzmann 4th Power Law; energy (absorbed or emitted) is proportional to the fourth power of the temperature.
So for earth (which is NOT a passive black body), the mean temperature is allegedly about 15 deg C or about 288 Kelvins. 0.1% of that is 0.288 deg (C or K), and 1/4 of that is only 0.072 deg C.
That is one reason why people say that the sun is not the cause. The earth is also not passive and it reacts to that TSI change in a variety of ways; one of which could be a slight change in cloud cover; which would actually suppress, much of even that small 0.072 deg change.
So if the sun is having an effect, it is not simply due to changes in the sun’s energy output.
As for the CO2 which has gone from around 280 ppm to now about 385 ppm over the last 100 years or so; there simply isn’t any reliable observational data showing the earth’s temperature as responding to those CO2 changes. The temperature seems to wander up and down; and doesn’t track the CO2 at all; and currently it is in a down mode.
The same non passive response of the earth to that 0.1% solar radiation change, also reacts to those CO2 changes and any physical effects they might have, and compensates for that too.
So whether the source of the increased CO2 is human caused, or natural, or both; it doesn’t really matter, because the earth is constantly correcting for it; and that controlling mechanism is water evaporation, cloud formation, and precipitation; a natural feedback cycle that keeps the earth’s temperature in a comfortable range (well somewhere between a low of about -90 deg C in the coldest places to about +60 deg C in the warmest places)
I think we can all tolerate a change of 0.072 deg C out of a total extreme range of 150 deg C. People have learned how to survive over that entire extreme range; we’ll figure out the 0.072 deg problem somehow.
There aren’t any silly questions Annette; only the ones you don’t ever ask; so don’t stop asking.
George
Here’s how to get your climate bill passed. Buy a congressman:
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/jul/01/sweetener-helped-sway-vote-on-house-climate-bill/
“They finally secured the vote of one Ohioan, veteran Democratic Rep. Marcy Kaptur of Toledo, the old-fashioned way. They gave her what she wanted – a new federal power authority, similar to Washington state’s Bonneville Power Administration, stocked with up to $3.5 billion in taxpayer money available for lending to renewable energy and economic development projects in Ohio and other Midwestern states. ”
This is all about taxes, power and money. Climate seems to be only a cover story, and because of this, I doubt that any appeal to politicians about lack of global warming will make a difference. Ethics =/= politics
Klockarman,
Thanks for the excellent link. I was not aware of that one.
@John Galt and Jeff Id,
Partly because of that ‘iron curtain’ and partly because of the budget cutbacks demanded to pay for all those stimulus packages, I’m nervous that funding to carry out this study will be a prime target for some politician’s paring knife. I’ll be biting my nails until it is actually completed.
For those people every thing is debunking their idea on AGW has been “discredited”. Few weeks ago, I decided to participate in a debate at CR because a blogger, by aka “questioner”, said the next formula has been “discredited” because it was a corruption of Stephan-Boltzmann formula:
Δq/A = h (σ) (T1^4-T2^4)
Could you believe it? Well… It happened. 🙂
Annette (08:36:06) :
To follow on to Annette’s question, is there a difference between Solar Radiation and the strength of the suns magnetic field? I’ve seen that ‘.1% variation” thrown out a lot, but I have been under the impression that the GCR theory has more to do with the strength and activity of the sun’s magnetic field and how it interacts with the earths field. Am I off the mark?
Paul, indeed the figure is more like 100%, if you take into consideration the silicon based technologies running the GCMs ;).
In their GRL paper, near the end, Eichler etal say that about 50% of the warming in the last 100 years is due to solar influence.
“Lot’s of warmists say it is “discredited”. However, CERN in Switzerland isn’t following that thinking…I figure if it is “discredited”, a bunch of smart guys and gals like CERN wouldn’t be ramping up the investigation.”
True science is like a cockroach… you just can’t kill it!
“”” evanmjones (09:56:29) :
Leif: Well, that’s the point, isn’t it? But even stipulating that it is man’s activities, one has to consider that fixing CO2 is a hundred times as expensive (or more?) as fixing any other cause. So one must make darn sure it is CO2 and not, say, Arctic soot, land use, deforestation, or other causes.
If it were cheap, simple to limit CO2, we would do so without a second thought, even if the theory was considered likely to be wrong. But it’s neither cheap nor simple, so the normal parameters of the precautionary principle are exceeded, and cost-benefit assessment clicks in. “””
Evan; what is this obsessive preoccupation that some people have with “fixing things” ?
What does the “precautionary principle” say about leaving things well enough alone that you don’t understand; and have no control over either.
We know from our astronomer friends that sooner or later, the earth is going to get hit by one of those close encounter asteroids.
So why don’t we all spend some time and effort, and a great deal of money to move this planet to some safer place; away from those near miss objects that might some day hit us.
Does it occur to anybody that sequestering CO2 in perpetuity, as is being promoted by some very powerful people including some big energy companies is actually doing more harm than good, by depleting the atmosphere of both the food needed to grow the increasing amount of plant food that the increasing global population is going to need; and also depleting the Oxygen that they are going to need to breathe.
This planet is beginning to demonstrate, that Homo sapiens sapiens is probably just too stupid to survive; intelligence as we define it, is proving to be a failed experiment in survival by Mother Nature. Gaia has about had it with us. Maybe earth will be just fine when the non meddling termites take over from us.
Just wanted to say how much I enjoyed the video. This is actually how I am aware of scientific endeavors taste, look and feel. The Climate Change Science which sprouted up fully mature, with no room for questions or disputes in as little as 30 years is wholly unbelieveable. My guess is that this will yield fruit to a theory in another few years and then be subject to the rigors of skepticism and further empirical testing. Dr. Kirkby is my idea of a professional scientist! Thanks, Anthony!
By Jeremy P. Jacobs
Posted: 07/01/09 11:52 AM [ET]
Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), a major player in the climate-change legislation that passed the House last week, was hospitalized on Tuesday, The Associated Press reports.
Waxman was not feeling well and checked into the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, his spokesman told the AP. There, he received “routine testing” and is “feeling much better now.”
Has to be heat related. I am glad this is before Obamascare kicks in. He would have to be on a wait list.
Great slide show on this thread. Hope people can see it. Those that had no time to read Waxmans legislation and multi hundred page revisions.
Leif,
“while temperatures now are ~1.5 degrees higher”
… in Siberia, which (due to latitudinal variation) would correspond to a much smaller increase (perhaps one-tenth?) in global temperature (assuming this particular location is not anomalous).
Leaves the door open for some AGW influence, but hardly a trump card for warmers.
Gino (10:32:11) :
GCR theory has more to do with the strength and activity of the sun’s magnetic field and how it interacts with the earths field. Am I off the mark?
Not on the first point, yes on the second. The modulation of cosmic rays takes place far from Earth, way out in interplanetary space. But the modulation is very small, only a few percent, depending on energy. The most energetic cosmic rays [that may be presumed to have the largest effect] are modulated the least.
Both the 14C and the 10Be records are influenced by climate so there is a certain amount of circular reasoning possible. See: http://www.leif.org/EOS/2009GL038004.pdf [form their conclusion: “The good long-term agreement between 10Be variations in both cores reflects a regional response to production [i.e. GCRs] and climate changes”.
@Annette (08:36:06) : “CO2 has increased from 280 ppm to 360ppm or so. That means that CO2 composition in the atmosphere has gone from .0028% to .0036%; a change in atmospheric composition of only .008%”
A change from 0.0028% to 0.0036% is an absolute change of 0.008 perctange points, but a relative change of 28.6%. That is, the number density of CO2 molecules has increased by 28.6% over it’s former value. That is the number to which you should compare the .1% change in TSI.
I’m still looking for evidence that supports Svensmark’s suggestion of:
solar changes/GCR changes/cloudiness changes/ changes in global air temperature trend.
as opposed to my suggestion which is:
Solar changes over centuries/oceanic energy release rate changes over decades/air temperature changes/air circulation changes/changes in global air temperature trend.
My description accommodates the observed 30 year ‘lag’ AND a latitudinal shift in ALL the air circulation systems.
It will be interesting to see how this pans out but in view of the quantity of particulates already in the air I rather doubt that the provision of more by increased GCRs would be of significance.
Additionally ocean SST changes would be a much more powerful driver than any cloudiness changes induced by GCRs.
After all, the water for the clouds comes from the oceans in the first instance so if the SSTs cool down with a reduction in overall evaporation there would not be much that a few more GCRs could do to counter it.
We shall see.
Eichler paper:
http://www.eawag.ch/organisation/abteilungen/surf/publikationen/2009_eichler.pdf
If you cook the 20th century global temperature record, no physical mechanism will ever agree with it. But models will!
Leif Svalgaard (10:47:49) :
Gino (10:32:11) :
GCR theory has more to do with the strength and activity of the sun’s magnetic field and how it interacts with the earths field. Am I off the mark?
Not on the first point, yes on the second. The modulation of cosmic rays takes place far from Earth, way out in interplanetary space. But the modulation is very small, only a few percent, depending on energy.
Except in Jupiter’s vicinity where the energetic electron flux is intense.
Flanagan (08:45:51) :
Si(o) although it is only 0.0028% of the atmosphere, it is responsible for almost 10% of the greenhouse effect, although the magnitude of this effect has been estimated through computer modeling and has not been substantiated with empirical evidence.
Bruce Stewart (10:43:02) :
… in Siberia, which (due to latitudinal variation) would correspond to a much smaller increase (perhaps one-tenth?) in global temperature (assuming this particular location is not anomalous).
Shows how one should not base sweeping statements of global properties on regional variations.
I feel for the CERN physicists. If they confirm Svenmark’s theory in even a minor way, AGW advocates will savage their reputations. They’ll be called denialists… enemies of science. They’ll be called tools of Big Oil if they so much as drive a car that uses gas. Their homes will be defaced by Hansen’s minions. They’ll be forced out of their current positions. And of course, their papers will never be published by prominent science mags.
While a Nature opinion piece a couple of years ago advocated quantifying whatever effect GCRs may have, anyone with a brain should know that that means “discredit this theory definitively”. The physicists are taking risking ruin.
I wonder why the AGW crowd says it is mans activities then tries to pin the blame on an innocent little trace gas. What they discount and seemingly everybody else as well is the direct emmissions as a result of mans activities in the form of BTUs. Being that life itself is a combustion process and that all of mans activities involve combustion processes of some sort and none of these combustion processes is anywhere near 100% efficient, that leaves us with an enormous amout of loose BTUs available to heat up the earth and its atmosphere. I just wonder why no one has ever addressed this?
What bothers me is the uncritical acceptance of contrary papers simply because they support one’s pet theories. The GCR theory and the various correlations that have been produced posit the there is no delay whatsoever between GCRs and climate [or is it weather], yet the Eichler paper here referred to finds a 30-year lag. Now, one could stretch the imagination and say: “OK, so the solar cycle variation reported by Svensmark is really not for the cycles he looked at, but for the cycles three cycles before”. This will be a very hard sell, because the mechanism sorta falls by the wayside: do the GCRs hang around for 30 years before doing their thing?
REPLY: no but ocean heat does have a long period, and if GCR >> clouds are modulating uptake/release of ocean energy, then I think there is reason to consider it.
– Anthony
Leif,
The steepest rise in the red curve occurred long before CO2 increases occured(pre-1900). In fact, almost all of the rise since 1850 occurred prior to 1950, while the biggest increases in CO2 occurred since 1950.
And then there’s that pesky period circa 1730-1800 showing a ~1.8 degree rise. CO2 can’t explain that.
If you actually read the Eichler paper, their conclusion states:
“However, during the industrial period (1850–2000) solar forcing became less important and only the CO2 concentrations show a significant correlation with the temperature record” how this can be interpreted as ‘the end is near for the Warmists’ beats me.
Tim Clark (11:22:20) :
And then there’s that pesky period circa 1730-1800 showing a ~1.8 degree rise. CO2 can’t explain that.
Neither can the Sun…
arch stanton (08:10:03) :
“Svensmark’s hypothesis faces the challenge of several papers that could not produce correlations similar to the ones he seemed to find. For this reason (and others) it is not widely accepted as a prominent driver of 20th century climate change. However there is a chance that it does have some minor influence on the climate. As pointed out in the Nature opinion piece on this topic (2007?) quantifying whatever effect it may have is a worthy endeavor.”
I think you should look at this by Nir Shaviv:
http://www.sciencebits.com/SloanAndWolfendale
Speaking of the “end” see:
The Extinction Oscillator
The Big Idea / by Adrian Melott / June 29, 2009
Hopefully Cloud-9 results will be published in time to get the word out, and, to get governments mobilized. I’ve done a serious search. There are almost no jurisdictions that have developed cold period contingencies, all effort over the past 20 years has gone into “killer AGW” contingencies. We are massively exposed.
The hypothesis of there being a cosmic ray connection doesn’t have to be correct, but it does show that there are still some very broad issues in the climate that are still open questions.
The warmists tried to preempt all this by foretelling that any disagreement which might arise was just oil companies seeding misinformation. That’s like claiming that British Petrolium would be able to convince the public that the sun doesn’t shine. Even if they are trying to seed disinformation, the fact that the issue is open to misinformation, is itself broadly speaking, “evidence” that the issue is still open to question.
It looks like the Little Ice Age should be expected to be regional. GCR might be forcing more clouds around the equator, forcing cooling and reducing heat transport (heat being carried into tropical ocean by increased rainfall, and a reduced Hadley circulation due to fewer high thunderstorms causing less heat to flow to mid-latitudes?). But does GCR reduce heat (reflection?) or trap it in the tropics? Wetter land doesn’t imply higher temperatures — maybe something like coral studies detected higher LIA temps around the equator?
GCR cause water vapor to form clouds. Could the Sun also produce these “particles” or something like GCR’s that would be part of the cause and affect?
Sorry if someone has already brought this connection up but there were already a bunch of posts.
The divergence of the temperature in the first graph could be the photoshopped temperature data manipulation by the biased scientists that have “corrected” it for the scientific community.
Leif Svalgaard (11:15:51) :
REPLY: no but ocean heat does have a long period, and if GCR >> clouds are modulating uptake/release of ocean energy, then I think there is reason to consider it.
– Anthony
But, their correlations were not with something lagged 20-30 years, but a here and now thing. You can’t have it both ways. And you must be assuming that the clouds modulate the temperature of the oceans and not of the land surface. Or perhaps that the GCR-generated clouds prefer the oceans, that is after all where the water is… The more of those special pleading one piles up, the less likely is it that there is anything.
So,
Do GCRs cause clouds that reduce energy input to the oceans and thereby cool the air ?
or
Do oceanic sea surface temperature reductions cool the air which causes more low level cloud ?
and
Do SST variations (from multidecadal phase shifts) arise from the internal circulations of the oceans or are they induced by variations in GCRs affecting cloudiness ?
I’m driven to the oceanic driver rather than the GCR driver for various reasons including the lack of a 30 year cycle in GCRs that could explain oceanic phase shifts at such intervals.
Is there really a shortage of particulates for cloud formation that would be resolved by more GCRs ?
Would changes in the air from extra GCRs really be powerful enough to disrupt ocean behaviour given the huge density difference between air and water and the thermal capacity of water ?
Wouldn’t the changes in GCR levels in the air be on too short a timescale to produce a measurable response in the oceans ?
Any other ideas ?
“whether – and to what extent – the climate is influenced by solar/cosmic ray variability remains central to our understanding of anthropogenic climate change”
As in: whether AGW is less of a factor than was thought, or is a non-factor.
Lol. Go Henrik!
Anthony, it looks like you could subtract the Be10 curve from the temperature record and get a pretty good handle on the ‘Hanslification’ of the temperature data over the C20th.
I’ll let the big brains debate the details of what factors influence climate. To me, the message I take from this and other reports such as those that Alan Carlin compiled, is that the science is most assuredly NOT settled. That is the message that seems to grate on the nerves of those who are apparently now being referred to as “Warmists” . It is also the message that should be sent to the various governments around the world who currently see a great deal of political power and money to made from wearing the cloak of “settled science”.
The objective here should be to convince those who would benefit from “settled science” that it is far more beneficial to them to adopt the view that it is NOT settled. How that might be accomplished, I don’t know, but it seems to me that a marketing approach might be useful. We have this wonderful tool called the Internet that can and has been used to great effect to influence governments and businesses. I suggest that it can be used far more effectively than it has to date.
Anthony, it looks like you could subtract the Be10 curve from the temperature record and get a pretty good handle on the ‘Hanslification’ of the temperature data over the C20th.
You have to admit that the difference between Be10 and the temperature starting right around the beginning of NWS readings starts to resemble the same amount as NOAA adjustments, although it is an apples/organges measurement comparison.
Leif Svalgaard (12:06:47) : It’s not “special pleading” it’s just obvious that the ocean responds slowly to energy changes due to its heat capacity. The clouds would be modulated in the “here and now” and you wouldn’t see the response in the system until some time later.
The rest of that about only effecting land/ocean I don’t even know where you are going with it.
Eichler’s ice core data only go back to the beginning of the Little Ice Age (LIA)…You’d have a more valid question if the ice core data extended back through the Medieval Warm Period (MWP) and the Modern Warming appeared different than the MWP.
The LIA ended in about 1850. From 1850 to about 1880, the temperature curve tracks the 10-Be curve. From 1880 to about 1930 the 10-Be curve declines and the temperature curve continues to climb. After 1930 the temperature curve and the 10-Be curve essentially have the same shape and the 10-Be curve has been climbing more rapidly than the temperature curve. The separation in 2000 is about half what it was in 1930.
Here’s another image of the graph with CO2 included…Eichler.
If something anomalous happened, it happened between 1880 and 1930. That 50-year period is the only time period in which the 10-Be and temperature curves had significantly different shapes.
It would be nice if there was a data file available.
George E. Smith (10:39:12) :
We know from our astronomer friends that sooner or later, the earth is going to get hit by one of those close encounter asteroids.
intelligence as we define it, is proving to be a failed experiment in survival by Mother Nature. Gaia has about had it with us. Maybe earth will be just fine when the non meddling termites take over from us.
In Jim Lovelocks original book about the Gaia Hypothesis, he put forward the idea that humans are the evolved nervous sytem of the planet, with the capability to communicate instantly round the globe, and see the future through telescopes and equations. We could serve Gaia and our fellow species by knocking one of those collision course asteroids off collision course with a nuke, Bruce Willis stylee.
I found it quite inspirational at the time. Pity Jim lost the plot. I think the adoring greens got to him with the AGW crap.
Re ” David Corcoran (11:08:35) : I feel for the CERN physicists. If they confirm Svenmark’s theory in even a minor way, AGW advocates will savage their reputations. ”
Actually, it looks like he got in trouble with that before, though whether from AGW backlash or for proclaiming the results before the experiment even started (bad scientist!) is hard to tell. See below.
“Anthony, it looks like you could subtract the Be10 curve from the temperature record and get a pretty good handle on the ‘Hanslification’ of the temperature data over the C20th.” The graph says the temp record is from a Siberian glacial ice core, not NASA.
>Jasper Kirkby is a superb scientist, but he has been a lousy politician. In 1998, anticipating he’d be leading a path-breaking experiment into the sun’s role in global warming, he made the mistake of stating that the sun and cosmic rays “will probably be able to account for somewhere between a half and the whole of the increase in the Earth’s temperature that we have seen in the last century.”
Page 39 is all you need from that slideshow. They seem to have demonstrated that yes, GCR can and probably does have a strong influence on CCN formation. Since that is demonstrated, it’s just a matter of argument over numbers to determine how much it influences cloud formation, but even that should be experimentally verifiable (over a long-term experiment)… Simply measure GCR flux over a specific area of Earth (by satellite?), and measure the cloud cover over that same area for the same period of time (perhaps a larger area to account for atmospheric movement during the CCN formation process?).. then subtract any events/statics that may influence your results, done.
Leif,
thank you for the response. The report seemed to state that the 10Be was a good proxy for solar activity, but measurements could be effected by the regional dynamics of ice movement leading to errors linking the 10Be to actual climate effects. A lot of the data reduction and analysis went well beyond my background, but I think I got the gist of it. My last question though was how well does the “.1%” variation in solar radiation represent the magnetic field variations responsible for modulating cosmic radiation?
Now I wait for the claims CERN is funded by big oil!
timetochooseagain (12:30:12) :
Leif Svalgaard (12:06:47) : It’s not “special pleading” it’s just obvious that the ocean responds slowly to energy changes due to its heat capacity. The clouds would be modulated in the “here and now” and you wouldn’t see the response in the system until some time later.
Whenever a cloud passes I feel the effect [the ‘response’] right away. The oceans respond to the large seasonal changes with a delay of a few months, and you are trying to tell me that the effects of the clouds brought about by a 3% change of cosmic ray flux show up only 20-30 years down the road. I’m not buying.
Anyway, that is not my point. The point is that the various graphs that Svensmark and Co. have put forward show a correlation with no delay and Eichler et al. claim a 20-30yr delay. Can’t have it both ways.
The rest of that about only effecting land/ocean I don’t even know where you are going with it.
Leif Svalgaard (11:15:51) : The GCR theory and the various correlations that have been produced posit the there is no delay whatsoever between GCRs and climate [or is it weather],
If you modulate ‘weather’ long enough, then don’t end up modulating ‘climate’ as well?
I’ve annotated Eichler’s chart…HERE.
From about 1880-1930 the 10-Be and 14-C curves are declining and the temperature curve is essentially flat…Hence the two solar modulation curves deviate from the temperature curve. From 1930-2000 the solar modulation curves climb more rapidly than the temperature curves.
If there is a deviation from a solar-temp correlation, it’s from 1880-1930…Not from 1850-2000.
Please can somebody explain how GCRs were measured as far back as 1300? And how accurate those measurements can be? Especially if even temperature readings today can’t be trusted.
re. Leif’s comment about the red curve and the following comments. Has anyone noted that the A in AGW isnt only CO2.? Why Isnt RP Sr’s land use issue mentioned by either side in the discussion above? Didnt Freeman Dyson say that biology is a key issue? Vast increases in irrig agriculture world wide in the 20C surely would influence water vapour and cloud formation.
Sorry to lower the intellectual tone but I really need to know . Do I say Cloud 9 or Cloudo 9?
Thanks in advance.
Ed.
“”” Leif Svalgaard (13:02:07) :
timetochooseagain (12:30:12) :
Leif Svalgaard (12:06:47) : It’s not “special pleading” it’s just obvious that the ocean responds slowly to energy changes due to its heat capacity. The clouds would be modulated in the “here and now” and you wouldn’t see the response in the system until some time later.
Whenever a cloud passes I feel the effect [the ‘response’] right away. The oceans respond to the large seasonal changes with a delay of a few months, and you are trying to tell me that the effects of the clouds brought about by a 3% change of cosmic ray flux show up only 20-30 years down the road. I’m not buying.
Anyway, that is not my point. The point is that the various graphs that Svensmark and Co. have put forward show a correlation with no delay and Eichler et al. claim a 20-30yr delay. Can’t have it both ways.
The rest of that about only effecting land/ocean I don’t even know where you are going with it. “””
Well i’m with you Leif, on the instantaneous response to the passing cloud.
I submit that the “response” that is instantaneous, is the change in surface level insolation; which would be about as prompt as a sudden 1% jump in TSI (perish the thought that that could happen any time soon).
Any delays in the climatic respose would be expected to have the same thermal delays that would accompany any change in TSI.
Whatever delays of 30 year extent would not be any different, respoinding to a cloud change or to a TSI change.
IMHO of course.
dennis ward (13:10:17) :
through ice core measurements of isotopes left over from CR interaction with our atmosphere. The difference between the accuracies is that for the ice core work, much of the uncertainty is at least identified. In the current surface temp records, those uncertainties are hidden or pushed under the rug in favor of giving a solid number. The trust issue isn’t just that the numbers are wrong, it’s that known sources of error are ignored.
It is a narrow interpretation and conclusion to think that the recent increase of the temperature (red curve) relative to the BE10 (purple curve) or C14 (black curve) during the last century could only be due to AGW (or something else due to Man). Rather, it could be viewed as an integrated response to the sustained higher levels of ‘solar modulation’ associated with BE10 or C14. The oceans and polar regions would be expected to respond much more slowly than land regions to changes in solar energy actually reaching the surface. Their response would be expected to be more related to the integral of the instantaneous radiation.
During the last 200 years the ‘solar modulation’ from BE10 is consistently higher than the previous 500. As such, an integrating function would show a positive slope for temperature over the time period.
A mental model for temperature response to varying cloudiness could contain a very short term response function for heating over land along with a longer term integrating function for oceans and polar regions. If the data were available, this would make a nice differential equations excercise.
Rather than do the work, I guess that it is easier to blame SUV’s and cars that are painted black.
Leif
The paper you reference ( http://www.leif.org/EOS/2009GL038004.pdf ) does not agree with the Eichler 10BE curve. Does this mean that 10Be is not consistent between Siberia (a rather lager location) and Greenland specific points?
Wiki Has an interesting plot of 10Be cf sunspot number. The 10Be looks very much like the Eichler plot However the 10Be is inverted – I assume the solar modulation implies this inversion?
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6V3S-4C7DC5T-2&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_searchStrId=945465003&_rerunOrigin=google&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=55aefb9282d3cbaa47eaad798b39e93d
Abstract
We perform an analysis of two recent reconstructions of the terrestrial temperature and the cosmogenic isotope 10Be, considered as a proxy of the cosmic ray flux, for the period 1580–1985. We find that the 10Be is ambiguously related to temperature on secular time scales, as one record shows no relation, and the other one presents an anticorrelation. In particular for the period 1930–1985 the correlations between both temperature records and 10Be are low, furthermore the temperature series have the same decreasing trend as the 10Be series, when an opposite behavior between them should be expected. It is observed a large jump in temperature 1909 that could be attributed to the opposite large jump in cosmic rays due to an enhancement of the solar magnetic field. The temperature trend behavior from 1930 onwards could be attributed to the anthropogenic contribution to the climate warming.
Leif Svalgaard (11:25:32) :
If you actually read the Eichler paper, their conclusion states:
“However, during the industrial period (1850–2000) solar forcing became less important and only the CO2 concentrations show a significant correlation with the temperature record” how this can be interpreted as ‘the end is near for the Warmists’ beats me.
Leif – I respect you greatly, but you’re going out of your way to be obtuse here. If I had a dollar for every time you have said that correlation do not equal causation, I’d be rich. Yet, here you are pointing out a correlation must be causation argument from the paper and using that to belittle the “deniers”. You’re better than that. One statement from a long paper does not refute the “end is near” comment.
Tom
“”” dennis ward (13:10:17) :
Please can somebody explain how GCRs were measured as far back as 1300? And how accurate those measurements can be? Especially if even temperature readings today can’t be trusted. “””
Just a wild guess Dennis, but Cosmic ray flux is believed to be the primary source of the transmutation of Nitrogen into radioactive C14 in the atmosphere. That C14 abundance then becomes entombed in tree rings and other types of proxies.
To the extent that C14 abundance is a good proxy for GCRs, tree rings can give GRC data back to 1300 and beyond.
Teh c14 production rate was once presumed to be absolutely constant (for lack of any real knowledge), and that was a basic assumption of radio carbon dating methodology.
It was shown by dating each ring of 4000 year old Bristle cone pines from the White Mountains of CalNev, that the C14 production rate was anything but constant.
These tree ring data, were used to “lineartize” the radiaocarbon dating scale; and as a result of that correction, world history was changed. Certain pottery technology that was previously believed to have migrated from Mesopotamia to southern Europe (Spain), based on dating of kiln ashes; was proved to have gone the other way from Spain into the middle East, once the radio carbon calendar was fixed.
So yes to some extent, GCRs from the LIA is not unreasonable.
George
How was the temperature data spliced? Do we really have ice cores for the entire data set? Or was there a splice between core and temperature sensors for the last 100 or so years on the graph? Due to sampling differences (ice core versus temperature sensor), in addition to many other differences between the two kinds of data sets, the split in the end of the graph could have many reasons.
Leif, I am curious about your comment that climate affects these cosmic ray measures on a regional basis. How so?
Gino (12:56:59) :
My last question though was how well does the “.1%” variation in solar radiation represent the magnetic field variations responsible for modulating cosmic radiation?
Both the 0.1% variation and the factor of two change in the interplanetary magnetic field are due to the same magnetic field on the Sun. But it is not a simple relationship, and the modulation of cosmic rays have really little to do with the variation of the magnitude of the Sun’s magnetic field. The main reason for the modulation of cosmic rays is solar rotation [with some help from coronal mass ejections]. It works like this: There are two kinds of solar wind, fast wind from coronal holes and slow wind from the rest of the Sun [it is a bit more complicated, but those complications are details]. As the Sun rotates an observer at a distance will see solar wind with different speeds go by him coming from areas with alternating slow and fast wind. So in any given direction the fast wind will run into the slow wind and ‘pile up’ in what is called a corotating interaction region. In this region whatever magnetic fields there were will be tangled and compressed and it is this ‘tangle’ that scatters the cosmic rays. The polar areas are at solar minimum covered with large coronal holes and hence uniform fast wind, thus no interaction regions form there, meaning that the interaction regions will be confined to low latitudes only. So cosmic rays coming in from a random direction has only a small chance of being scattered by an interaction region. When the solar cycle gets going the polar coronal holes shrink [as they are ‘nibbled’ away by new polarity magnetic flux form the new cycle] and the interaction free volume shrinks correspondingly’ leading to a larger volume occupied by interaction regions and hence more scattering away of cosmic rays, so there will be an inverse relation between solar activity and cosmic rays. In addition coronal explosions also produce material running into slower wind and piling up. To it is only indirectly that the Sun’s magnetic field [by providing sunspots and CMEs] control the cosmic ray flux.
I agree with Leif. At the moment the GCR theory has no defined mechanism and process which suppossedly will come from the CLOUD experiment. If GCR modulates temperature in some fashion (creates more clouds) then for this to show up 30 years later would mean that the inherent oscillations would not be destoyed. The ocean acts like a filter, meaning it turns short term high frequency into longer term low frequency. It would take an intriguing process to maintain coherence of a 30 year old signal. To be honest I can’t see this as a viable option, even just applying Occam’s Razor.
GCR may perturb the thunderstorm process though, lowering the threshold for heat to bypass the troposphere via the creation of heat pipes (following Willis’ logic).
If dust is present in the atmosphere and water vapour concentration is sufficient then clouds will form using these cloud condensation nuclei. If there is insufficient water vapour then no cloud will form – whatever the level of galactic cosmic rays passing through or dust in the air.
As I asked above – are there insufficient particles floating around so the air becomes supersaturated just waiting for a cosmic ray ro trigger a cloud??
Experiments using silver iodide to seed clouds I thought had shown little promise.
If low level clouds form these will reflect short wavelength TSI back to space, however they are formed. The reduced insolation will cool in hours the atmosphere – this will show within minutes on a thermometer. There should be no lag to temperature recordings made away from coasts. A 11 year cycle should then show – it does not. Increased clouds will eventually (30 years???) appear as a sea surface temp reduction (perhaps) – but there should still be a air temperature instant effect.
Also why is the LIA and MWP missing from the temperature and 10Be plots?
Leif Svalgaard (13:02:07) : “Anyway, that is not my point. The point is that the various graphs that Svensmark and Co. have put forward show a correlation with no delay and Eichler et al. claim a 20-30yr delay. Can’t have it both ways.”
I have a memory from 30 years ago when we were measuring cosmic rays in a laboratory that said that there is no need to look out to find out the weather just look at the data. Less anecdotal evidence of the correlation can be found in the scientific literature as you said.
But why shouldn’t we have both no delay correlations and 20-30yr correlations? There are solar cycles.
The question of cosmic rays and clouds is not, of course, a simple one. Ongoing studies in CERN are just a start of understanding.
Note also that it is not either sun or CO2. In complex systems like global climate many factors are important. You can’t just select one even if that factor shows the best correlation.
Bill Yarber: very impressive demonstration. You hsould send it to some climatologist just for fun. Following
Kiehl, J. T.; Kevin E. Trenberth (February 1997). “Earth’s Annual Global Mean Energy Budget” (PDF). Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 78 (2): 197–208.
the contribution of CO2 is 9-26%
Peter: the fact that we don’t know if something happened doesn’t mean it happened more than probably. At least it didn’t happen in the last 200 years or so.
rbateman: you should send a rebuttal to the paper then, if you’re so sure I (and they) are completely wrong and didn’t take into account rain in California to explain Siberian temperature trends
Tim: the reference I gave is based on satellite measurements, not simulations. Things are quite clear now, aren’t they?
Those gamma rays, could their tracks through clouds provide discharge paths for lightning? And does lightning provide another mechanism for nucleation?
A couple of month’s ago I visited the information center of national park Hohe Tauern in Mittelsiel Austria. In this center there was a time wheel; turning this wheel you could nicely see on a monitor the progress and withdraw of the gletschers in this national park over at least 1000 years. The last time of gletscher maximum was around 1800-1830 and the period between the maxima was roughly 200 years. To remain political correct and to assure enough funding the expectation for the coming maximum (NOW) was that all gletschers would probably disappear.
bill (13:21:28) :
The paper you reference ( http://www.leif.org/EOS/2009GL038004.pdf ) does not agree with the Eichler 10BE curve. Does this mean that 10Be is not consistent between Siberia (a rather lager location) and Greenland specific points?
I take it that the glacier in Siberia is smaller than Greenland. The point is that 10Be curves from different regions are not the same and are influenced by the local climate, so to assume that 10Be is a ‘global’ measure of solar activity or GCRs is wrong.
Tucker (13:30:26) :
Leif Svalgaard (11:25:32) :
Leif – I respect you greatly, but you’re going out of your way to be obtuse here. If I had a dollar for every time you have said that correlation do not equal causation, I’d be rich. Yet, here you are pointing out a correlation must be causation argument from the paper and using that to belittle the “deniers”. You’re better than that. One statement from a long paper does not refute the “end is near” comment.
the one statement is not just any statement, it is their conclusion or summary [full disclosure dictates that it be said that they think it is half and half]. And the correlation/not causation works both ways. If it doesn’t hold for the CO2 and temps, then why does it hold for solar and temps? They are equally suspect, so ‘the end is near’ is not supported nor refuted by the paper, and must be seen for what it is: wishful thinking. Wishful thinking can turn out right, but we have to recognize it for what it is.
I sense that there is a desire (from some) and an opposing desire from others to somehow find Hendrik Svensmark et al’s hypothes isia sufficient explanation for the entirety of recent global warming and climate change; and presumably the recent negative global warming.
I don’t quite see the point of that. I think CERN’s CLOUD experiemnts are going to show that solar/GCRs can cause cloud modulation (seems irrefutable to me since the Wilson Cloud Chamber does work). Those experiments will likely obtain some rate data as well, so the extent of cloud formation from energetic charged ions, can be determined.
But I don’t expect that they will be able to prove that the entire climate variability in terms of recent short (30 year) warming episodes, is due solely to cosmic rays.
I still think the whole system is chaotic, and unpredictable; and I still think that the water cycle is in complete control of the earth temperature, and GCRs are just one of many perturbing phenomena that add to the natural variability; and the whole Arrhenius thesis of CO2 and the concept of “climate sensitivity”, is just silly nonsense.
The radiative “forcing” (evil word) due to CO2 absorption of 15 micron region long wave IR from the earth’s surface, is not a Universal constant; its value varies by more than an order of magnitude from place to place; and all at the same time, all over the world; so there is no set value for “climate sensitivity”
When was the last time you saw a global map of the “climate sensitivity” plotted from pole to pole similar to the temperature anomaly plots. Where are the ground measuring stations that measure the local value of climate sensitivity, just as temperature anolmaly data is gathered.
If there are any, the compliance of the sampling regimen to the usual laws of sampled data systems is laughable. So who is going to believe any globally averaged value for climate sensitivity; when there isn’t even any local monitoring going on.
Try telling any climate research scientist that the purchasing power of his taxpayer funded salary and research grant money varies by a factor of 12 from place to place all over the world, depending on where he wants to gather data; and that ; sorry; we aren;’t too sure just what it is at any one place.
I would recommend to any climate scientist to try and find a copy of the British Admiralty Handbook of Wireless Telegraphy published around 1938.
In there you will find a wonderful model of the copper atom with 63 Protons in the middle of a plum pudding, with about 34 electrons embedded in the surface of the pudding leaving an excess of 29 electrons to rotate around the pudding. That was the atomic model being taught to Royal Navy Candidates in those days. That plum pudding concept is somewhat contemporary with the climatologists favorite theory of CO2 caused global warming, and climate sensitivity.
Luckily we now know about neutrons; it’s time for climatologists to learn about clouds, and other forms of water.
George
Anthony and Leif: Regarding ocean lags due to thermal inertia, consider this. Those analyses attempt to determine the lag of global climate by first removing the ENSO and volcanic aerosol noise from the global temperature record. This might be possible for volcanic aerosols. But as we’ve illustrated in posts here, significant El Nino events result in heat transport toward the poles, primarily in the Northern Hemisphere. And the heat from those El Nino events can linger for multiple years. I would have to think that part of the lingering heat from El Nino events is being mistaken for the lagged responses to TSI.
Here’s one of the RSS MSU TLT Time-Latitude Plots that I’d marked up:
http://i44.tinypic.com/16leq39.jpg
It’s easier for me to find links to the versions at my website, so here’s a link to the post that contains that graph:
http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2009/06/rss-msu-tlt-time-latitude-plots.html
From Wiki
Because beryllium tends to exist in solutions below about pH 5.5 (and rainwater above many industrialized areas can have a pH less than 5), it will dissolve and be transported to the Earth’s surface via rainwater. As the precipitation quickly becomes more alkaline, beryllium drops out of solution. Cosmogenic 10Be thereby accumulates at the soil surface, where its relatively long half-life (1.51 million years) permits a long residence time before decaying to 10B. 10Be and its daughter product have been used to examine soil erosion, soil formation from regolith, the development of lateritic soils and the age of ice cores. It is also formed in nuclear explosions by a reaction of fast neutrons with 13C in the carbon dioxide in air, and is one of the historical indicators of past activity at nuclear test sites.
If the airbourne 10Be requires rain to reach earth will this not affect concentration more than the quantity produced by GCRs?
All this talk of 30 years to show up on the temperature record of course blows curent thoughts that the cycle 23-24 minima is causing the current low temperatures. So what is causing the cold WEATHER (well above average for the last 6 weeks in dear old Gloucestershire!!! Over 30C today and pos tomorrow)
Pamela Gray (13:34:42) :
Leif, I am curious about your comment that climate affects these cosmic ray measures on a regional basis. How so?
The 10Be [and similar comments apply to 14C] concentration at a given location is the result of balance between production [cosmic rays] and deposition [climate]. The 10Be is created high in the atmosphere all over the globe and eventually reaches the surface by being ‘rained’ [or snowed] out, so winds and rainfall patterns and general circulation come in here. The atoms also attach to aerosols and fall to the surface with them, so volcanoes [or even man] also have an effect on the deposition. Whatever the cause are, what is being recognized more and more is that there are large regional differences in the 10Be [and 14C] concentrations, so the notion that a single core is representative for the globe is rubbish. Differences may be due to different climates thus creating a circular argument. These notes of caution have been voiced by the researchers form the beginning, but are routinely ignored by agenda people, that cherry pick what they like.
Leif Svalgaard (13:37:25) :
so it sounds like the amount of modulation is a probability game based on the the level of turbulence induced in solar winds by the state of solar activity (high or low, and where a “corotating region” might happen to form)?
BTW, Thank you very much Dr. Svalgaard, there are not many accessible sources for this kind of explanation and we certainly don’t get it the general media.
Here is a recent paper which claims that galactic motion and climate change are not correlated. To quote from physicsworld.com: “the researchers found that the distance and therefore time between successive intersections of the solar system with (galactic) spiral arms was not constant, and that there was therefore no correlation with ice ages on Earth. ”
Described at:
http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/39593
PDF link:
http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/0906/0906.2777.pdf
“”” Micky C (13:38:36) :
I agree with Leif. At the moment the GCR theory has no defined mechanism and process which suppossedly will come from the CLOUD experiment. If GCR modulates temperature in some fashion (creates more clouds) then for this to show up 30 years later would mean that the inherent oscillations would not be destoyed. The ocean acts like a filter, meaning it turns short term high frequency into longer term low frequency. It would take an intriguing process to maintain coherence of a 30 year old signal. To be honest I can’t see this as a viable option, even just applying Occam’s Razor.
GCR may perturb the thunderstorm process though, lowering the threshold for heat to bypass the troposphere via the creation of heat pipes (following Willis’ logic). “””
I don’t know where you have been looking for a “Defined process and mechanism” Have you thought of googling “wilson cloud chamber” to see what defined process and mechanism they associate with that ?
Maybe you are just not old enough to know about that well understood tool for viewing charged particle, including Cosmic Ray events.
You have to stop thinking about that cloud coming and going right in front of your eyes as you watch, and start to think of continued and on going global variations in the earth’s total cloud cover (which is around 50% of total surface cover on average), that can result form changes in cosmic ray flux, and distribution over the earth. Then couple that with the knowledge that since the maxi solar maximum of 1957/58, the sunspot counts at solar maxima, have been historically high ever since at least up and through cycle 22 (don’t know what cycle 23 peak was), and it is reasonable to argue that the average CR flux on earth has been lower on average, over that time frame compared to earlier history, when the earth was also cooler.
Couple that with the fact that temperature anomalies as depicted in GISStemp do not reflect actual earth temperatures, of the kind that planet earth constantly monitors and integrates continuously, and why would you expect to see an eleven year signal, if the thermal heat sink of the oceans is low pass filtering those long term changes in clud cover.
At least we don’t have to deal with the absurdity of AlGore’s “correlation” between changes in atmospheric CO2, and the temperature changes that preceeded that by 800 years.
I would suggest less playing around with statistical mathematics, and a little more study of basic physics.
George E. Smith (14:07:53) :……………I still think the whole system is chaotic, and unpredictable; ”
George, I assume you mean chaotic in the mathematical (non-linear dynamical system ) sense? Not that I disagree with you, I don’t; but finding that it can be mathematically demonstrated would be rather interesting, I think.
I think I’ve never heard so LOUD
The cosmic messages from CLOUD.
======================
Leif is quite right here but what’s good for the goose is good for the gander (I’m thinking about Steig et al and a thousand other AGW papers uncritically accepted over the years). A lot of us visit this site because we find the AGW hypothesis (CO2 based at least), implausible. Some have political affiliations (more so if you’re from the US, where this issue seems to be a dividing line between Republicans and Democrats) and some are interested in the Science itself. If you have a choice between no hypothesis and an implausible hypothesis, do you support the latter, or admit you just don’t know? Admitting you just don’t know doesn’t pay the bills. Supporting the paradigm, scary prognosis and all, very defnitely does.
Now on the presentation above, you have to admit that the evidence that Svensmark’s hypothesis is correct is tentative. The great thing about it is that parts of it can be tested in the lab (the generation of CCN’s from high energy particles). If this is established (as it seemed to be in Svensmark’s prevous work) and various bounds and parameters are known (as they can be with controlled experiments like this), then the process of hypothesising about its possible affect on the atmosphere can be determined.
I assume I don’t need to point out that a recent paper shows that CR’s have a very big impact on the Ozone Layer (over the Antarctic). It doesn’t seem such a big intellectual jump to me to question whether they are significant in other areas too. Of course if you uncritically accept AGW (CO2 based), then you are much less likely to donate your thinking time to other, completely different ideas.
I can’t think of a reason that you can’t have it both ways. There could be a short term and a long term correlation. Particularly so if you have a mechanism with a long thermal delay, to split the effect, such as the oceanic oscillations.
============================================
“The ocean acts like a filter, meaning it turns short term high frequency into longer term low frequency.” – MickyC (13:38:36)
Your comment struck a note in my very limited understanding of the thermal dynamics of climate. I’m picturing the oceans as a large capacitor where the relationship between insolation and heat stored and emitted by the ocean might be expressed as h=V(Di/Dt) where h is the total heat stored, V is the reactive volume of the ocean, and Di is the rate of change of insolation over time (Dt).
I realize that the whole matter of heat storage and transfer is far more complicated but in a general sense this analogy helps me visualize the lag between instantaneous changes of insolation, the longer term cycles, plus accommodates the higher frequency components that affect instantaneous changes in insolation.
Anyone feel free to help me better visualize the concept.
Shaviv believes that clouds should lead CRF:
Over the solar cycle, the LCC will therefore include (at least) two component. The primary is variations in sync with the cosmic ray flux. Solar maximum implies less CRF and less clouds and a higher radiative forcing. The temperature lags the solar activity by a 1/8 cycle. This will introduce a positive cloud component lagging behind the CRF and radiative forcing. When adding them together we obtain that the clouds should lead the CRF.
http://www.sciencebits.com/SloanAndWolfendale
Robinson (14:44:50) :
If you have a choice between no hypothesis and an implausible hypothesis, do you support the latter
You shouldn’t support the latter.
Steve in SC (11:09:47) :
I wonder why the AGW crowd says it is mans activities then tries to pin the blame on an innocent little trace gas. What they discount and seemingly everybody else as well is the direct emmissions as a result of mans activities in the form of BTUs. Being that life itself is a combustion process and that all of mans activities involve combustion processes of some sort and none of these combustion processes is anywhere near 100% efficient, that leaves us with an enormous amout of loose BTUs available to heat up the earth and its atmosphere. I just wonder why no one has ever addressed this?
I have been mentioning this as the primary influence of Man on climate for some time as well. In between the 6 billion heaters that are walking arround the planet, they do produce heat in many other ways (including combusting petrolium products), but instead of worring about the raw heat, the concentration is on a trace gas. Why? The answer that I come up with is longevety. If it were simply a case of turn off your car and the warming would go away since it would not take long to shed the heat. Also in the case of heat, the only way to reduce what we generate is to increase the efficiency of what we use or stop using it (of course reducing population would do the trick too). However if we blame it on the CO2, now there is something that can be controled and held onto for years to come. See how evil your grandparents were for putting you in this mess (you know owing a lifetimes salary to the government before they are born). So the only reasoning for hitting up CO2 is control. The hard part is as also mentioned above, the efforts are all going in to reducing global temperature, there is no plan in place for dealing with things should we infact be entering a Maunder like time with temp’s dropping and growing seasons being reduced. Hmm, they may just get that reduction in population they wanted…
As for thermal delay’s and the 20th century, the very simple solution is that the solar cycle’s were coming fast and heavy in the latter half of the 20th century. Minimum’s were shorter and peaks faster and higher (in general), there was some of this in the 1800’s as well. Couple that with a large water body that will tend to retain the trends much like a capacitor would in electronics and you have a system that is full of feedback loops, a large capacitor for holding stored energy (note that it works both ways, it will store heat and cold depending on if it is being charged or discharged).
Strangely, on the basis of this throw away comment by Leif Svalgaard some here seem to now accept AGW has some merit:
Leif says: “If I didn’t know any better, I would say that the red curve since 1900 is significantly above the GCR curves thus clearly indicating that fossil fuels [or man’s activities] are responsible for the extra warming…”
Firstly, the divergence between the red curve (temp) and the GCR lines begins mid/late 1800s.
Secondly, C02 levels did not begin to rise materially until after the Second World War.
Finally, while the C02 output has accelerated over the last 10 years, temps have flat-lined and/or decreased (the above graph stops at 2000).
I think some people are falling into the same trap the warmers fall into. That is, drawing sweeping conclusions on causality based on transient correlations.
Flanagan (13:41:52) :
You missed the point entirely.
125 years ago people were alarmed at the climate change they were observing.
They didn’t go off the deep end scaring everyone 24/7 for the sole purpose of making Feudal Lords out of the energy market, or using the change as an excuse to turn the population into peasantry.
They were rightly concerned about their existence.
Nothing has changed but climate, and people are still as concerned with the weather as they have always been.
Climate is complex. So what. Doesn’t mean there is one and only cause, or that man is responsible for it, or that it is taboo to try and find the causes because looking displeases the status quo.
The complexity of climate is not a monster hiding in the closet, either.
The bottom line is this:
Climate has changed repeatedly, and it will change again.
Don’t get left behind.
Oh, and btw… this is the place. And in case you haven’t noticed, writing climate related rebuttals to the source is no longer tolerated or allowed.
This IS the place.
Flanagan (08:45:51) :
“Si although it is only 0.0028% of the atmosphere, it is responsible for almost 10% of the greenhouse effect.”
Is that figure correct? Here’s a scientist:
“Over the last hundred years the concentration has grown from 0.03% to about 0.04%.”
http://www.aroundtheamericas.org/story/Ocean+Acidification
I’m not an expert in the Philosophy of Science but I do know that words like “support” and “belief” are concerned with positions you may take when presented with the evidence or lack of. I’m not talking about support or belief concerning the facts, insofar as they cannot be debated (temperature has almomst certainly increased; this may be a fact, for example).
If there are two competing hypothesis an independant thinker will make a choice between them, or remain neutral until convinced by a weight of evidence which may include many factors (including the motives of those collecting the evidence). I think when political considerations come into play however, it’s difficult to stay neutral.
Here’s Prof Ian Plimer’s address to the Sydney Institute.
it’s a 31 meg Mp3
http://tinyurl.com/l74fo7
Flannagan – please listen to it – it will set you straight.
Jack Mosevich (14:30:00) :
Pohl points out that, strictly speaking, this research only rules out a correlation between climate and spiral-arm passages, and that there has been speculation that the motion of the Sun in and out of the galactic plane could have effects on Earth.
Sigh, another model of the Galaxy that doesn’t take into account the complexity of the observed high-latitude clouds of gas, dust , molecular clouds.
How many layers are there? Where are they?
The Galaxy is no more simple than Climate is.
Just have a look at some prominent edge-on spiral galaxies. Then look at the complex forms of the face-on spiral galaxies.
Last person to put forth a Galaxy Classification scheme was Hubble in 1936.
There isn’t even agreement on where the Milky Way sit in Hubble’s Tuning Fork.
Is it barred? Is it symmetric? Do the arms lie all in plane? Does is resemble Andromeda, or is it like the barred spiral M109 ?
I’m sure Spitzer did some mighty fine work, but don’t think that’s the end of the story.
There’s plenty more in the Galaxy to discover.
Shed a tear for Henry Waxman who passed out and was hospitalised today…may the saviour of the world be healed quickly.
Leif Svalgaard (14:22:28) :
Additionally Leif, Be10 can be created in situ in silica-rich rocks/sediments from not only extra-solar GCRs, but rays from our own sun.
So many variables….
Robinson (15:34:54) :
I think when political considerations come into play however, it’s difficult to stay neutral.
Difficult perhaps for a layman, but not for a scientist [except at such times where she/he chooses to be a layman, e.g. in the voting booth]. I don’t hear [perhaps I’m sheltered] scientists say: “for political reasons I think the moon is made of green cheese”, or “for political reasons I think the Sun’s effective temperature is 5780C”.
Jakers (12:51:03) :
The word “probably” does not equate with “proclaiming the results before the experiment even started”. But thanks for proving my point so promptly!
Aron 15:43:58,
Did he pass out due to global warming?
Mr. Kaos (15:20:22) :
Strangely, on the basis of this throw away comment by Leif Svalgaard some here seem to now accept AGW has some merit
Yes, it was a throw away comment, but the authors themselves in their conclusion say that the recent rise is attributable to CO2. In fact they have it both ways: half the Sun and half CO2. It is for that reason that I don’t see how the paper can spell ‘the end is near for Warmists’. It looks like there is something there for everybody, which in my book often simply means ‘not much for anybody’.
Regarding various comments beginning with:
“If I didn’t know any better, I would say that the red curve since 1900 is significantly above the GCR curves thus clearly indicating that fossil fuels [or man’s activities] are responsible for the extra warming…”
The red curve and the GCR curves are in entirely different units. Which ever is “above” or “below” the other is entirely a function of the y-axis scales and intercepts chosen by the graphic artist.
Nor can one “subtract” the red curve from the other curves or vice versa. They are entirely different units. That would be like subtracting apples from oranges.
Come on, people. You are all smarter than that.
Questions of timing and/or trends are a different matter. Those could be evaluated if the data were accurate (a big “if”). But let’s not fall into arithmetic traps. Let’s at least use some algebra.
George
A bit of background: I’m not that young (mid 30s) and have been a physicist for 12 years. My undergrad was physics with astrophysics; my PhD is in Material Science (thin film ferroelectrics) and for 8+ years I have for the most part been building and developing plasma thrusters for satellites. I have one flying at the moment.
The process proposed initially to seed clouds is more complex than a more controlled cloud chamber (which is prepared to have a medium at the point of condensation such that a small energetic perturbation creates the mist) The seeding process must have a net production rate of ions, able to withstand things like scattering loss and recombination after the cosmic ray event, and the atmosphere is not always supercooled and saturated. Much like plasmas there is an intrinsic loss rate and as such there will be threshold intensity for stable ionisation leading to cloud formation. Even before a cloud forms I suspect a much higher intensity of events appears to needed to create ions than in a conventional cloud chamber. The CLOUD experiment should deal with this or at least set up possible stable scenarios i.e. cosmic ray intensity needed for sulphate formation (as above) in a typical atmosphere. But it is not a single-event-producing-a-molecule-type-process. There are two many steps before ions coalesce to form molecules without there being substantial losses rather than how vapour condenses out in a controlled cloud chamber. So a good thing, as I have read, is that they are trying to represent the atmosphere and GCR as best possible. Still I will watch how they are going to extrapolate a credible and repeatable process of large-scale cloud formation from exotic particles and gamma rays passing through a typical terran atmosphere at realistic temperatures and pressures.
If it works, it works but I don’t have a lot of hope for it being a ‘silver bullet’ to properly kill the CO2 werewolf as it were. I think that lies in understanding the causes for things like El Niño
@Robert
Waxman passed out from the fatigue of compiling a certain massive document on behalf of lobbyists
That’s why I made an effort to distinguish between the facts and a hypothesis that sets out to explain the facts. But there’s also some institutional inertia when political considerations come into play, that may direct Scientific effort in certain directions or discourage research in certain other directions. It would be disingenuous for you to deny this (is there anyone in Theoretical Physics not currently working on String Theory?).
It may be that in your particular area (Solar Physics, I believe) that such considerations don’t come into play, apart from the obvious annual horse-trading over budgets, but that doesn’t mean they are absent from certain other areas of Science. We do have Activist Scientists these days, as you well know.
Simply beautiful….
Leif Svalgaard (16:02:33) : You may indeed be sheltered. From:
http://www-eaps.mit.edu/faculty/lindzen/230_TakingGr.pdf
““The size of the recently observed global warming, over a few decades, is
significantly greater than the natural variations in long simulations with
climate models (if carbon dioxide is kept at pre-industrial levels). Only if the
human input of greenhouse gases is included does the simulated climate agree
with what has been recently observed. Measurements prior to the modern
instrumented record are probably insuficiently frequent and detailed to say
whether such a global warming over a few decades has occurred before.
However in any case, the real issue is whether human activity is causing the
current warming because, if so, then we are able to do something about it.”
Yes, that’s correct, Anthropogenic causality of warming is defended, in part, by the need for “policy relevance”. 🙄
Mike D. (16:07:41) :
The red curve and the GCR curves are in entirely different units. Which ever is “above” or “below” the other is entirely a function of the y-axis scales and intercepts chosen by the graphic artist.
This is a common problem in such comparisons and has a common solution: one ‘scales’ one graph to match the variation in the other graph. The scale factor is the unit conversion. Since the curves [whatever their physical merit is] match for the majority of the time [from 1250 to 1850] that interval essentially fixes the scale factor and NOW it makes sense to talk about ‘above’ and ‘below’. Which simply means that the scale factor for the 1st part of the curve is not the same as for the last little bit. It is this discrepancy that caused the authors to conclude that the difference was anthropogenic [or at least, not due to the Sun, and, as you know, in such a case ‘it is man, what else can it be’]
Aron (16:36:18) :
I wish Waxman had passed out after burying himself with massive piles of scientific papers. I wish they all had done so. It would do them good.
timetochooseagain (17:06:19) :
http://www-eaps.mit.edu/faculty/lindzen/230_TakingGr.pdf
“[…] because, if so, then we are able to do something about it.”
Yes, that’s correct, Anthropogenic causality of warming is defended, in part, by the need for “policy relevance”.
Nowhere did I see anything about “policy relevance”… so why your link?
Leif Svalgaard (17:09:39) : It’s reassuring that you phrase the argument this way:
“or at least, not due to the Sun, and, as you know, in such a case ‘it is man, what else can it be'”
At least someone seems to get that this is the ludicrous tendency.
Leif Svalgaard (17:32:29) : See the section “Defense of Anthropogenic Causality”-the relevant point is that the defender in question insists that “if so, then we are able to do something about it.”
“do something about”=policy
“able”=can “do something” and thus relevant to policy.
OT: Don’t remember seeing this on here
http://climateresearchnews.com/2009/07/new-paper-evidence-for-solar-forcing-in-variability-of-temperatures-and-pressures-in-europe/
Daily temperature and pressure series from 55 European meteorological stations covering the 20th century are analyzed. The overall temperature mean displays a sharp minimum near 1940 and a step-like jump near 1987. We evaluate the evolution of disturbances of these series using mean squared inter-annual variations and “lifetimes”. The decadal to secular evolutions of solar activity and temperature disturbances display similar signatures over the 20th century. Because of heterogeneity of the climate system response to solar forcing, regional and seasonal approaches are key to successful identification of these signatures. Most of the solar response is governed by the winter months, as best seen near the Atlantic Ocean. Intensities of disturbances vary by factors in excess of 2, underlining a role for the Sun as a significant forcing factor of European atmospheric variations. We speculate about the possible origin of these solar signatures. The last figure of the paper exemplifies its main results.
I would agree with Leif, that this local study doesn’t really support the headline.
firstly, it’s local, secondly, before 1850, the almost perfect correlation of temperatures to the sun is rather suspect, later the sun appears to still drive half of the climate, the rest then should be by land use. local heat islands, greenhouse gases etc. – however, still much less than the warmists say.
The bigger experiment is underway. We have a very quiet sun. Using sunspotless days as a proxy for solar magnetic activity, we are similar to the sequence observed in 1911-1913. The temperature record of 1911-1913 is that the temperature decreased over that period. The MSU data shows a decrease for the past 2 years. If GCR has merit, the great scientist in the sky is running the experiment that will prove or disprove it. We have CO2 going up, we have cosmic ray counts going up. Despite the AMO peak, we should observe additional rapid cooling if GCR beats out CO2. The CERN data will be nice to understand the depth and nature of the process. In the meantime, we can look at the temperatures and cosmic ray flux in real time, right here, right now. My bet is on GCR by 20 lengths.
Manfred (18:13:55) : Unless “etc.” includes unknown or poorly understood non solar natural effects…that’s a fallacy.
Leif,
I think you have a valid point in saying both the 14C and the 10Be records are influenced by climate so there is a certain amount of circular reasoning possible. But I still believe Svensmark is doing the right thing by performing a physical experiment. There are probably a few other possible solar forcing mechanisms other than the GCR theory that could be investigated while waiting for the results from CLOUD. Too much of climate science seems to be trying to rule influences in or out on the basis of questionable reconstructions from incomplete proxy records.
I did get some insights from watching the scientists who opposed the idea of the experiment being conducted in the Cloud Mystery video. One scientist seemed to be objecting not because he was a AGW advocate, but because the experiment could upset the accepted knowledge in his own field relating to cloud nucleation.
One thing I can be sure of is that if a mechanism is established for solar forcing over and above 0.1% TSI variation, there will be a greatly increased interest in the mechanism behind solar cycles.
I just looked again at the chart, and realized that the point when petroleum started being used as fuel, after the 1940s, happens to be when the Siberian temperature’s climb leveled off suddenly. The temp didn’t suddenly start increasing there and then.
“Yes, it was a throw away comment, but the authors themselves in their conclusion say that the recent rise is attributable to CO2. In fact they have it both ways: half the Sun and half CO2. It is for that reason that I don’t see how the paper can spell ‘the end is near for Warmists’. It looks like there is something there for everybody, which in my book often simply means ‘not much for anybody’.”
Or perhaps saying, “half CO2” ensures the completion of further experiments.
timetochooseagain (17:33:32) :
“or at least, not due to the Sun, and, as you know, in such a case ‘it is man, what else can it be’”
At least someone seems to get that this is the ludicrous tendency.
It is equally ludicrous if you substitute ‘man’ with ‘sun’.
timetochooseagain (17:36:22) :
“do something about”=policy
“able”=can “do something” and thus relevant to policy.
Although English is not my mother tongue, I cannot share your interpretation. It doesn’t compute. All it says is that if we can cause something, we can ameliorate it too. Very sensible, and not political at all. The politics comes in if we make judgments about whether what we did is good or bad and if we ‘should’ be doing something about it. IMHO warm is better than cold and if we can do something to keep warm, let’s do it. This is a value judgment and a political statement. Whether we can do it within cost is another matter, so we are down to a cost-benefit analysis, and that may become political because there are also other pressing needs and the priorities are political.
Konrad (18:33:45) :
But I still believe Svensmark is doing the right thing by performing a physical experiment.
Of course he is doing the right thing and so are the people trying to model the climate. From their collective failures we shall learn something. This is the only way.
Meanwhile the drought worsens in Cali and some farmers must face the grim reality that $3 billion worth of crops aren’t going to market because the tap was turned off. Imagine they did have to consult a graph with a bunch of noise and fitted curves!
Dr Reese
http://DrReese.wordpress.com
Dr. Reese,
My pants came out of the dryer wrinkled and it’s totally gonna ruin my game tonight. Imagine the horror.
And…
I’M IN CALIFORNIA!
Leif Svalgaard (17:09:39):
This is a common problem in such comparisons and has a common solution: one ’scales’ one graph to match the variation in the other graph. The scale factor is the unit conversion. Since the curves [whatever their physical merit is] match for the majority of the time [from 1250 to 1850] that interval essentially fixes the scale factor and NOW it makes sense to talk about ‘above’ and ‘below’. Which simply means that the scale factor for the 1st part of the curve is not the same as for the last little bit.
Not really. “Above” and “below” assume an additive (arithmetic) relationship. One could plot the Y-axes so that the lines never crossed using the exact same data (no vertical switcheroo). Visual line crossing is an artifact of the graphical artistry, not the data. Again, you can’t add apples and oranges any more than you can subtract them.
Using the scales as drawn, one could infer (visually, without doing the math) some sort of ratio (multiplicative) relationship. That visual leap of inference could be deeply incorrect. What’s more, there is no reason to assume that the relationship (if any) is a simple ratio. It could be (hypothetically) a power ratio of some kind.
Using 2 y-axes on the same plot for intrinsically different physical phenomena is a good way to lie with graphs. The visual display of quantitative information is more than an art; it is science and should be done using scientific principles.
We learn nothing from the graph above. It would be better to suss out the relationship mathematically (statistically, with quantified variance) and then display that information on a plot with a single y-axis.
Leif Svalgaard (19:06:09) :
“Of course he is doing the right thing and so are the people trying to model the climate. From their collective failures we shall learn something. This is the only way.”
My prayer: “Lord, please make me as brilliant as Dr. Svalgaard, give me his confidence and passion…. but can I perhaps, please, have a bit more humility… just in case?”
Dr. Svalgaard, don’t change. Your observations always make me think, inform me and keep me humble.
Leif Svalgaard (19:06:09) :
It might be worth noting that Svensmark is not part of the CERN team. Maybe someone should investigate why?
Mike D. (19:26:54) :
Not really. “Above” and “below” assume an additive (arithmetic) relationship. One could plot the Y-axes so that the lines never crossed using the exact same data (no vertical switcheroo). Visual line crossing is an artifact of the graphical artistry, not the data. Again, you can’t add apples and oranges any more than you can subtract them.
Suppose you have two nearby weather stations near the Canadian-US border. They will measure nearly the same temperature, but they are expressed in different units [C and F] and the F-curve is generally above the C curve [except when below -40] and it would be quite meaningless to plot the two curves on the same plot. But if we scale one to the other, e.g convert the US from F to C, then everything makes sense and they can be plotted together and above and below each other make sense. Suppose that you did not know the conversion formula between F and C you could still accomplish the comparison. You would correlate the two series and find a slope [~1.8] and an offset [32] that would allow you to do the scaling. Now, this was a case where we had two temperature series, but that is not really important. It works with any quantities no matter what their units or physical definition is. Solar activity can be measured in ‘sunspot numbers’ SSN which is a count of spots and has no units or as sunspot area SA which has a unit of area (expressed as millionth of the solar disk). On average the two are related like this SSN = 0.35 * SA^0.775. I can scale SA, say, to an equivalent SSN using the formula and plot it on the same graph as SSN. The former apples [SSN] and oranges [SA] can now be compared and it has meaning to talk about above and below. If SSN is, say, above the scaled SSN calculated from the formula, then we can deduce that the person who did the counting has a different method or perhaps a better telescope than the one who produced the SSN on which the above formula was based. So, this is perfectly doable and similar graphs are done every day by multitudes of people.
hubris = excessive pride or arrogance.
I struggle to find any relevant discussion or articles supporting AGW. The only sources that I find with a credible scientific discussion dispute AGW as a primary cause of warming or as not a factor.
However, scientific issues have alternative points of view with well thought arguments supported with data. I would like to find the names of persons or reports who have factually based arguments for AGW. The best I can find is “see IPCC”. Most discussions are if you believe AGW or your are a “flat earther”. No discussion, just ad hominen attacks. But, science has alternative points of view supported with logical arguments based on data.
I would welcome suggestions on where to look to find relevant pro AGW arguments.
Leif Svalgaard (20:01:48) :
Dr. Svalgaard, thank you. This is exactly what I was talking about. I’m going to be nagging my students to death this fall about apples and oranges comparisons… (we do that a lot in the social sciences.. “… this is an apple, this is your brain on pineapple juice…”) now what do we gotta do to extract knowledge from the data….. I’ll work on this. The things a sociologist can learn from a solar physicist…
RE: Having it both ways. Instantaneous vs 30 year “cycles”. Lag.
I recently finished one of Colleen McCullough’s great books on the Roman empire – The October Horse. In or around 43 to 42 BC the nilometer for 2 growing seasons read only up to the cubits of despair. The entire “world” ran out of grain. The world was a much smaller place then, and the impact on the Empire was one for the history books. It got me interested in Egyptian history and learning more about their Nilometers, said to have recorded the water levels of the nile for over 5000 years. Further reading, particularly from the turn of the millenium, suggested a strong correlation between SST, ENSO, and the avearge flow of the nile. It was also extrapolated that the change from cooler to warmer SST, and subsequent change from La Nina to El Nino should be a warning bell about potential for drought. I cite Eltahir and Wang (1999) as an example.
http://web.mit.edu/eltahir/www/nile_floods.html
In this paper they show a correlation statistic they felt predicts the change in rainfall and river flow 6 months post change to a warm phase of the SST (and we just had such a change last month).
As far as the use of the Nilometer as a proxy for SST and ENSO patterns for the last 5000 years, I have a few comments. From http://www.waterhistory.org/histories/cairo/
the following graph of the nilometer records form 622AD to 1284AD can be studied
http://www.waterhistory.org/histories/cairo/cairo5.png
To the laymen, I can’t see a 30 year signal in this 600 year chronology. What I can see is an average, some periods of averageness, some long periods above and below averageness, and some wild year to year fluctuations.
If anyone finds a full 5,000 year record constructed, I would love to see it. Haven’t found it yet.
Leif Svalgaard (19:06:09) :
“Of course he is doing the right thing and so are the people trying to model the climate. From their collective failures we shall learn something. This is the only way.”
I think that almost all of us agree that substantial expenditures to study and model all aspects of our climate system are currently justified. However, based on all of the information you have reviewed to date, do you think that there is currently sufficient scientific basis to justify aggressive (1% of world GDP) ongoing expenditures in order to attempt to limit anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions?
gLENN-
Glenn-
You are right about CO2 concentration. It is 0.038%, not 0.0038% as was written a few times. I might have got this notice in earlier but a couple of hours of TV were more enticing.
IanM
Global Climate Chaos (20:34:22) :
I struggle to find any relevant discussion or articles supporting AGW.
That is because most of the arguments supporting are not at present directed toward a reasoned defense of the central tenets of AGW.
Right now their attention is entirely directed at influencing policy and fear is best salesman in that arena.
dennis ward (13:10:17) :
Please can somebody explain how GCRs were measured as far back as 1300?
The Vikings had only primitive means back then. They constructed cloud chambers from glass panels looted from Christian churches, used wine from Vinland instead of alcohol, and used glacial ice instead of dry ice to achieve the saturated atmosphere. Lodestones borrowed from longship navigators provided the magnetic field used to distinguish proton paths from electron paths. They of course recorded their findings on rune stones, which is why the data are so sparse, but the present retreat of the massive glaciers formed during the MWP is uncovering more and more of their data sets. With sufficient numbers are recovered, GISS will be able to homogenize them and definitively settle the science.
Just The Facts (20:44:50) :
However, based on all of the information you have reviewed to date, do you think that there is currently sufficient scientific basis to justify aggressive (1% of world GDP) ongoing expenditures in order to attempt to limit anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions?
Good heavens no. I like warm weather. Give me some more.
Mike McMillan (22:15:30) :
The Vikings had only primitive means back then.[…] When sufficient numbers are recovered, GISS will be able to homogenize them and definitively settle the science.
Not all the alcohol from Vinland was used for these experiments, some of it help create a fog within the heads of the experimenters that when zapped by a cosmic ray caused them to adjust the numbers upwards. This effect should be compensated for by a suitable automatic GISS-developed algorithm [that first must be tested, of course, by imbibing sufficient amounts of vine – I can volunteer to help, even being a namesake of one of the original experimenters].
>> George E. Smith (10:22:00) :
. . .
Annette; that 0.1% (roughly) is correct, that is about the extent of the peak to peak change in the “Solar Constant” of about 1366 Watts per square meter; Total Solar Incidence. If that radiation fell on a quite passive “black body”, the change in temperature of that body would only be 1/4 of that 0.1% or 0.025%. That is because the energy and the temperature are related by the Stefan-Boltzmann 4th Power Law; energy (absorbed or emitted) is proportional to the fourth power of the temperature.
So for earth (which is NOT a passive black body), the mean temperature is allegedly about 15 deg C or about 288 Kelvins. 0.1% of that is 0.288 deg (C or K), and 1/4 of that is only 0.072 deg C. <<
Some people get the right answer (or nearly the right answer) for the wrong reasons. The Stefan-Boltzmann Law is a power law, so you really can’t divide by 4 when you should be taking the fourth root. Roots also have a different effect on a number–numbers below 1 get larger and numbers above 1 get smaller. (Negative and complex numbers produce answers in the complex plane.)
Let’s solve for the second temperature:
Stefen-Boltzmann law: J = s*T1^4 and J + delta_J = s*T2^4.
We subtract the first equation from the second: delta_J = s*T2^4 – s*T1^4.
Gathering terms and solving for T2 we get: T2 = (delta_J/s +T1^4)^0.25 .
s is the Stefan-Boltzman constant: 5.670400E-8 J/(sec-m^2-K^4);
delta_j = 0.1% * 1366 W/m^2 = 1.366 W/m^2; and T1 is 288K.
When we solve for T2 we get: 288.252K .
Off by a factor of 3, so you’re in the ball park considering that not all of the 1.366 W/m^2 will reach the surface. (That’s assuming I didn’t screw up the math. I’m sure someone will point out my errors forthwith.) If we assume an albedo of 0.31, then the surface will see about (1 – 0.31) * 1.366 W/m^2 = 0.943 W/m^2. Using this number, we get: 288.174K . That’s not too bad really.
Then there’s the effect caused by the Earth’s elliptical orbit, but that’s for another time.
Jim
Hank Hancock (14:58:12)
Since you ask, I’ve used the resistor/battery/capacitor concept for the oceanic influence on climate here:
http://climaterealists.com/index.php?id=2581
and here:
http://climaterealists.com/attachments/database/Balancing%20the%20Earths%20Energy%20Budget.pdf
Did somebody mention an experiment involving drinking alchohol? I’m in. Wasn’t that Tim Robbins movie about you, Leif? 😉
Mark
OT:
Steve in SC (11:09:47) :
What they discount and seemingly everybody else as well is the direct emmissions as a result of mans activities in the form of BTUs.
I’m trying to assume that these BTU’s are not significant. However, it no longer seems safe to trust the things implied by Climate Science, such as that the “scientists” have indeed checked the surface station sitings and thermometers to see if they are in good enough shape to actually record reliable temperatures. I’d already read in the TAR’s section promising to talk about greenhouse gases that water vapor was ~”not considered/not going to be discussed”. Pretty odd omission here, eh, maybe even galling for the hopeful reader of alleged science?
I wondered about your BTU-heat point 30yrs. ago, got a little concerned, then decided to forget about the whole thing. At least it seems safe to conclude that even this effect is not significant enough to prevent the recent atmospheric cooling, which is what I’m more worried about now, at least in terms of the Earth’s actual climate. I’ll take the Tropics over the South Pole any day. And my particular locale’s Winters have been getting way too long already, not to mention that I’ve also been promised warming instead, which, I have to admit, additionally galls me about this thing known as “Climate Science”.
Now all I’m going to get out of it is taxed, and regressed to pre-Enlightenment times. “I hope he fails.”
Looks like there’s a nice correlation in the first figure between the isotope vs temperature trends. Oh, apart from the sudden mis-match in the last century of the graph, but that’s probably not important, right? Nothing new happened there to change things.
This confuses scale with depth. We are not an organ of Gaia just because Gaia is physically bigger. That is like claiming that the Nation State owns all its citizens and should dictate their life just because the state and society is bigger than the individual. An individual is capable of conscious awareness, which society is not. Humans can reason and think, which Gaia is not able to do. We may be smaller, we may for the time being rely on agriculture for food, but we are conscious intelligent beings, we have a depth of existence, which Gaia does not. We are not here to serve Gaia. That is a profound confusion, but it does explain the rather self-sacrifcial attitude of some greenies.
ginckgo (23:59:56)
If you read the funding proposal for the CLOUD experiment it should be clear why that temperature graph was used. The present rule of climate studies is “No b——t, no bucks.” To get funding for the experiment the proposal had to claim that only “some” of the recent warming may be due to solar forcing. If they use temperature graphs that reference only rural surface stations correctly sited with no station moves combined with recent satellite records, it may have appeared that they were indicating that most of the recent warming was due to solar forcing. “No b——t, no bucks.”
Leif Svalgaard (20:01:48):
Leif, let’s assume you have the data for SSN and SA, but do not know their relationship. Let’s also assume the data are in a time series (maybe month-by-month for three years). Further, let’s also assume that in Year 1 and Year 2 the SSN counts are small, say 1 to 4 per month. Then in Year 3 the SSN numbers jump to 15 to 20 per month.
Try graphing that with SSN on the first Y-axis, SA on the second Y-axis, and the time series of months on the X-axis.
What you will see is that SSN and SA track very closely for the first two years. Their values are almost identical. But in Year 3 the SSN numbers rise high above the SA numbers. The gap between the two lines becomes huge in the third year.
Remember, you don’t know that they are related by an exact equation. Just looking casually at the graph, you might assume that they are not related at all, or else were closely related in Years 1 and 2 and then all heck broke loose.
That could be the case with the solar/GCR graph. The relationship between cosmic rays and temperature could be a power ratio. There could be other feedback mechanisms (other variables) involved, which might be expressed only at certain ranges of cosmic rays. Or, as you noted, the indicators of cosmic rays (Be10 and C14) might be different at different latitudes (a conditional variable).
If some decent statistical modeling was done, it could be that a power ratio relationship with other correlated and conditional variables is tested and found to be a better model than might appear visually in a simple plot.
And, as I pointed out, some of the variables might be poorly measured, such as the Siberian ice core proxy for temperature. The temps appear to be annual averages, which may not be a reliable metric. Maybe the temp proxies from 1900 on are measured differently, such as with thermometers instead of ice proxies. You have noted a similar situation with sunspots, where they are more frequent today only because our ability to detect them has improved.
All those factor tend to reduce the inferential qualities of the simplistic graph above. More rigorous analysis than visual inspection is required. It could be that Svensmark has in fact done a more rigorous analysis than eyeballing raw data. I certainly hope so.
The CERN paper:
“Indeed recent satellite observations – although disputed – suggest that cosmic rays may affect clouds.”
I moved rather quickly through the 175 responses and finally Game to “George” before the Wilson Cloud Chamber was mentioned. I guess we don’t give a nod to the old masters these days.
arch stanton (08:10:03) : ‘However there is a chance that it does have some minor influence on the climate.”
Arch, I’m sure there is at least a chance that clouds have more than a minor influence on climate if CERN has taken an interest. Also I refer you to my first remark re Wilson’s quaint chamber.
As per Flannagan, Leif and some others re more rapid rise in temp than GCR forcing correlaton for 20thC. I’m sure some other posters must have suggested that the latest period temperatures have been in the care of AGWers, a bit like getting Colonel Sanders to take care of your chickens.
Stefan (01:27:53) :
We are not an organ of Gaia just because Gaia is physically bigger. That is like claiming that the Nation State owns all its citizens and should dictate their life just because the state and society is bigger than the individual. An individual is capable of conscious awareness, which society is not. Humans can reason and think, which Gaia is not able to do. We may be smaller, we may for the time being rely on agriculture for food, but we are conscious intelligent beings, we have a depth of existence, which Gaia does not. We are not here to serve Gaia. That is a profound confusion, but it does explain the rather self-sacrifcial attitude of some greenies.
My two sentence summary of Lovelock doesn’t do him justice. He was a subtle thinker when he wrote the Gaia Hypothesis. The angle he started from was trying to find a definition of life to inform the planning of Mars lander experiments to discover life. He ended up thinking that a lot of the attributes which mark out living things from non-living things could apply to the planet itself. The ability to regulate temperature for example. Humans have various mechanisms for this, from having hairs which stand up in the cold, to sweat glands for cooling, and so on. Similarly the planet has mechanisms to regulate temperature; cloud albedo for example, and the way vegetation becomes a lighter shade when hot dry weather prevails, thus reflecting more heat back to space.
I agree we are not here to serve Gaia. Gaia just happens to support our existence by providing a nice safe environment for us to live in which protects us from excessive UV and other dangerous rays, excessive heat and cold, Earth also provides us ground to stand on, water to drink, air to breathe and fuel for fire to keep us warm. Facts for which I’m grateful even if you don’t feel the need to be.
Humans can reason and think as you say, but they tend to end up doing what comes naturally and automatically anyway. Groups of humans even more so. Some groups of humans think it’s a good idea not to crap in the water supply and fill the air we breathe with cancer causing toxins. I agree. Other humans think they have the right to pollute the commonwealth for personal gain regardless of consequences because they don’t owe anyone anything, least of all respect to the 8000 miles diameter ball we live on whose surface is covered in a skin of interdependent biological complexity. I think they are shortsighted and greedy.
Some of the humans think our co2 emissions are capable of upsetting the planetary temperature balance. I disagree. that’s my prerogative as a rational thinking individual capable of weighing evidence.
“we may for the time being rely on agriculture for food”
Got any other plan? I have crops in the ground now, and offer a little prayer to Momma Earth and Papa Sol on a frequent basis for their continued well being. It’s self interest as much as anything.
Gary Pearse (04:14:17) :
Further to comment above. I note the temps over the last century rise about 0.7C above the Be10 curve. Isn’t this amount that the temps have been adjusted upwards by NOAA? Lets try plotting raw temps for the whole schmear – after all how accurate are the temps for previous centuries?
One of the crucial errors the AGW camp makes is to assume increasing minimum temperatures (Tmin) over the 20th century, especially the 70s,80s and 90s are due to warmer nights, which is the signature of GHG warming.
In fact, increasing Tmin is mostly due to increased early morning warming (Tmin generally occurs after dawn) and this is likely caused by decreased low level cloud (near the horizon and hence blocking sunlight in the early morning)) with some contribution from reduced particulate haze (reducing due to clean air acts).
See the Svensmak paper below for a graph showing declining GCR levels over the 20th century.
http://landshape.org/enm/henrik-svensmark-2009/
Dr. Svalgaard,
Actually the solar modulation curves (particularly the 10Be) match the shape of the temperature curve quite well from 1250-1880 and then they match quite well again from 1930-2000. The 10-Be curve even has a slightly steeper slope over the 1930-2000 interval. The separation of the curves is entirely due to deviation from 1880-1930; when the 10-Be took a dive and temperatures did not. The genuine anomaly is the period from 1880-1930…Not 1850-2000…Eichler Modified
The scalar relationship between 10Be and temperature may be different for the 1930-2000 period than it was from 1250-1880; but the functional relationship was not…
I realize that this is just one data point from one glacier and, as you stated earlier, should not be confused with a general paleoclimate reconstruction; but it does have one advantage over large-scale reconstructions: the temperature data are from one continuous proxy that can be calibrated (no splicing of instrument data with proxy data or multi-proxy data). It’s just too bad that the data do not go back to 700 AD…It would be very interesting to see how the Medieval Warm Period compared to the Modern Warming.
Leif Svalgaard (14:22:28) :
Pamela Gray (13:34:42) :
Leif, I am curious about your comment that climate affects these cosmic ray measures on a regional basis. How so?
The 10Be [and similar comments apply to 14C] concentration at a given location is the result of balance between production [cosmic rays] and deposition [climate]. The 10Be is created high in the atmosphere all over the globe and eventually reaches the surface by being ‘rained’ [or snowed] out, so winds and rainfall patterns and general circulation come in here. The atoms also attach to aerosols and fall to the surface with them, so volcanoes [or even man] also have an effect on the deposition. Whatever the cause are, what is being recognized more and more is that there are large regional differences in the 10Be [and 14C] concentrations, so the notion that a single core is representative for the globe is rubbish. Differences may be due to different climates thus creating a circular argument. These notes of caution have been voiced by the researchers form the beginning, but are routinely ignored by agenda people, that cherry pick what they like.
Sorry to come so late to the argument, but when do you folks sleep?
Although painful, I must agree with Leif on this one. I’ve shown with plant physiological citations previously on WUWT, that the correlation between C14 and temperature is fallacious. Increased plant growth (growth rings, etc.) is very highly associated with precipitation, not temperature. Any attempt at temperature reconstruction using C14 in organic deposits is bogus. As Leif states, it appears that 10Be deposition is also.
Leif Svalgaard (13:02:07) :
timetochooseagain (12:30:12) :
Leif Svalgaard (12:06:47) : It’s not “special pleading” it’s just obvious that the ocean responds slowly to energy changes due to its heat capacity. The clouds would be modulated in the “here and now” and you wouldn’t see the response in the system until some time later.
Whenever a cloud passes I feel the effect [the ‘response’] right away. The oceans respond to the large seasonal changes with a delay of a few months, and you are trying to tell me that the effects of the clouds brought about by a 3% change of cosmic ray flux show up only 20-30 years down the road. I’m not buying.
Heat moves from the top few centimetres of the ocean most of the energy from the sunlight is absorbed in, all the way down to the bottom of the thermocline, which can be from 50m in the tropics to over 2000m in some temperate higher latitude seas. There are several different ‘signals’ produced. The diurnal signal as the warm sea surface cools overnight. A seasonal signal as the depth of the thermocline changes between summer and winter, and a low frequency signal from longer term changes in upwelling currents which occur over 60 year oceanic cycles.
There is as much heat capacity in the top 2.5m of the ocean as there is in the entire atmosphere. Western Europe is kept warmer in winter not just due to the gulf stream, but the deflection of wind patterns southwards round the Rockies, then north eastwards to europe, picking up heat from the mid atlantic as it goes.
The ocean heats the atmosphere much more than the atmosphere heats the ocean, because longwave IR from the atmosphere doesn’t penetrate the ocean, just evaporates the surface. The ocean is heated by the sun, loses 170W/m^2 into the atmosphere, and stores the heat it can’t lose at the time due to atmospheric reflection and low temp diffs lower down towards the thermocline.
Using the satellite altimetry, I have run the calcs, and the sea level rise due to thermal expansion says heat is stored in the ocean to an average depth of 1000 meters across the globe. When the sun has an more active run of shorter stronger cycles, with shorter minima in between, more heat is stored in the ocean than when cycles are low for a few decades. It gets released later when the air is cooler and ocean/atmosphere temperature differentials are higher like now. This is why Archibalds -0.3C prediction failed. And there’s your long term signal tacked onto the end of a warm spell. The opposite will happen when the situation reverses.
Because the thermocline in the north atlantic is much deeper than the tropics that’s where the extra heat is stored as well as in the pacific warm pool, which is why the atlantic anomaly has run so high in the late C20th. Hat tip to Mr Tisdale. The southern ocean is different, and so doesn’t get heated the same way, more on that later.
I’ve sussed all this out over the last two days, a bit of a eureka moment. 🙂
If I may paraphrase, what you’re complaining about here is that, many humans are lacking in depth of awareness, many humans are lacking depth of moral or ethical character, many humans are lacking depth of intelligence, many humans are lacking depth of wisdom.
And what we’d like to do instead is to champion greater depth of moral and ethical and intellectual ability. But when people say humans are just another species, we actually divert attention away from the need for greater wisdom, and instead end up painting a picture that we’re just dumb animals who don’t know their place in the ecosystem, and probably deserve culling.
See the difference? If we deny that humans are special, then there is no basis for asking humans to behave better.
Just want to add to my reply to Leif:
This is also why Josh Willis couldn’t believe the ARGO data. There may have been some instrument problems, but I bet that strong cooling signal he was getting from some of the buoys was truer than he realised. This is why surface and air temps are holding up well compared to tropospheric and ocean temps. The ocean is like a big big battery powered UPS which kicks in when the sun lets us down and isn’t charging the battery or running the heating system as warm as usual.
Hmmm, the Undersea Petawatt Storage hypothesis. 🙂
Mike D. (02:08:49) :
reduce the inferential qualities of the simplistic graph above. More rigorous analysis than visual inspection is required.
One presumes that a rigorous analysis was indeed done to establish that there is a relationship and that the graph is the result of that analysis. Therefore the graph is not simplistic. Most scientists can be counted on to be honest and the scientific endeavor is built on that trust.
Tallbloke 6:51:04
Yah, yah, immediate correlations and correlations at 30 years seem possible. You CAN have it both ways. Who could ask for anything more?
=====================================
Regarding the steeper rising temperature vis a vis the Be10 and C14 curves, note also that the Be10 and C14 curves are also rising at different slopes-WUWT?
Maybe there is something altered about all three curves during the past century.
kim (08:13:44) :
Tallbloke 6:51:04
Yah, yah, immediate correlations and correlations at 30 years seem possible. You CAN have it both ways. Who could ask for anything more?
In the words of the late great Freddy Marcury
I want it all
I want it all
I want it all
I want it now
But if someone a bit less impetuous saves a bit for later that’s ok by me. 😉
I think multiple timescale signals are possible, because the processes which trigger the release of various strata of stored energy have boundary conditions.
Stefan (07:01:33) :
If I may paraphrase, what you’re complaining about here is that, many humans are lacking in depth of awareness, many humans are lacking depth of moral or ethical character, many humans are lacking depth of intelligence, many humans are lacking depth of wisdom.
And what we’d like to do instead is to champion greater depth of moral and ethical and intellectual ability. But when people say humans are just another species, we actually divert attention away from the need for greater wisdom, and instead end up painting a picture that we’re just dumb animals who don’t know their place in the ecosystem, and probably deserve culling.
See the difference? If we deny that humans are special, then there is no basis for asking humans to behave better.
I totally agree, which is why I picked up on the ‘termites’ reference by Mr Smith, who also agrees, I think.
I’m not an absolutist. When I said I agreed with ‘green’ ideas about not crapping in the water supply and polluting the air I know we can’t and shouldn’t try to achieve perfection and purity. Likewise I think that unfettered enterprise is productive and hastens our evolution culturally, materially and creatively.
It’s a balance and proportion thing. When Gaia and the gods of chaos and random chance decide it’s out of proportion and balance, whammo, black death, swine flu, or whatever. Spanish flu reduced the world population by around 15% in a matter of a year or so only a small number of decades ago.
So yes, humans are special, and vulnerable, and with awareness comes responsibility. Some are able to carry it lightly, others get themselves in a righteous spin over it. We need to apply the corrective, which is a dose of commonsense and skeptical reasoning, along with a recognition that just because they are wrong about co2, doesn’t mean the other issues are without merit.
form today’s CCNet – please delete/ignore if already posted here.
Regards, Allan
12) NEW SVENSMARK PAPER ON COSMIC RAYS & CLIMATE CHANGE
Paul Biggs
Dear Benny,
Henrik Svensmark et al have a new GRL paper in press entitled: ‘Cosmic ray decreases affect atmospheric aerosols and clouds’
The Abstract states:
Close passages of coronal mass ejections from the sun are signaled at the Earth’s surface by Forbush decreases in cosmic ray counts. We find that low clouds contain less liquid water following Forbush decreases (FDs), and for the most influential events the liquid water in the oceanic atmosphere can diminish by as much as 7%. Cloud water content as gauged by the Special Sensor Microwave/Imager (SSM/I) reaches a minimum around 7 days after the Forbush minimum in cosmic rays, and so does the fraction of low clouds seen by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) and in the International Satellite Cloud Climate Project (ISCCP). Parallel observations by the aerosol robotic network AERONET reveal falls in the relative abundance of fine aerosol particles which, in normal circumstances, could have evolved into cloud condensation nuclei (CCN). Thus a link between the sun, cosmic rays, aerosols, and liquid-water clouds appears to exist on a global scale.
The paper concludes:
Our results show global-scale evidence of conspicuous influences of solar variability on cloudiness and aerosols. Irrespective of the detailed mechanism, the loss of ions from the air during FDs reduces the cloud liquid water content over the oceans. So marked is the response to relatively small variations in the total ionization, we suspect that a large fraction of Earth’s clouds could be controlled by ionization. Future work should estimate how large a volume of the Earth’s atmosphere is involved in the ion process that leads to the changes seen in CCN and its importance for the Earth’s radiation budget. From solar activity to cosmic ray ionization to aerosols and liquid-water clouds, a causal chain appears to operate on a global scale.
Svensmark, H., T. Bondo, and J. Svensmark (2009), Cosmic ray decreases affect atmospheric aerosols and clouds, Geophys. Res. Lett., doi:10.1029/2009GL038429, in press. (accepted 17 June 2009)
Climate Research News:
New Paper: Cosmic Ray Decreases Affect Atmospheric Aerosols and Clouds
Gary Pearse (04:14:17) :
The skeptic in me is happy CERN is revisiting the cosmic ray/cloud relationship. The cynic in me suspects CERN is jumping on the global warming train to get more funding. Either way, as long as they remain honest in what they do and say, I’m good with it.
The graphed lag between solar cause and terrestrial effect is about 5 years(Europe excepted).
This implies we’ve yet to feel the effect of solar minimum and, in this case, 4 years of cool global climate will be queued in the pipeline by 2010 mid-term elections.
I think I’ll heed Sadlov and invest in a Blue State body-bag venture.
New Paper: Cosmic Ray Decreases Affect Atmospheric Aerosols and Clouds
Henrik Svensmark et al have a new GRL paper in press entitled: ‘Cosmic ray decreases affect atmospheric aerosols and clouds’
http://climateresearchnews.com/2009/07/new-paper-cosmic-ray-decreases-affect-atmospheric-aerosols-and-clouds/
The Abstract states:
Close passages of coronal mass ejections from the sun are signaled at the Earth’s surface by Forbush decreases in cosmic ray counts. We find that low clouds contain less liquid water following Forbush decreases (FDs), and for the most influential events the liquid water in the oceanic atmosphere can diminish by as much as 7%. Cloud water content as gauged by the Special Sensor Microwave/Imager (SSM/I) reaches a minimum around 7 days after the Forbush minimum in cosmic rays, and so does the fraction of low clouds seen by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) and in the International Satellite Cloud Climate Project (ISCCP). Parallel observations by the aerosol robotic network AERONET reveal falls in the relative abundance of fine aerosol particles which, in normal circumstances, could have evolved into cloud condensation nuclei (CCN). Thus a link between the sun, cosmic rays, aerosols, and liquid-water clouds appears to exist on a global scale.
The paper concludes:
Our results show global-scale evidence of conspicuous influences of solar variability on cloudiness and aerosols. Irrespective of the detailed mechanism, the loss of ions from the air during FDs reduces the cloud liquid water content over the oceans. So marked is the response to relatively small variations in the total ionization, we suspect that a large fraction of Earth’s clouds could be controlled by ionization. Future work should estimate how large a volume of the Earth’s atmosphere is involved in the ion process that leads to the changes seen in CCN and its importance for the Earth’s radiation budget. From solar activity to cosmic ray ionization to aerosols and liquid-water clouds, a causal chain appears to operate on a global scale.
Svensmark, H., T. Bondo, and J. Svensmark (2009),
Cosmic ray decreases affect atmospheric aerosols and clouds,
Geophys. Res. Lett., doi:10.1029/2009GL038429, in press.
(accepted 17 June 2009)
Gary Pearse (08:15:34) :
Regarding the steeper rising temperature vis a vis the Be10 and C14 curves, note also that the Be10 and C14 curves are also rising at different slopes-WUWT?
Maybe there is something altered about all three curves during the past century.
Interesting observation. You could plot it against global precipitation and get a good fit, except the data only goes back to 1900.
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/2008/ann/global.html#gprcp
Still agrees with my comments at Tim Clark (06:29:34) :
Hmm! Another thought – the GCR seem to need h2so4 to create CCNs. The source of this is partially global coal/oil use!
bill 10:27:29
Oops. Yet another mechanism besides the aerosol albedo effect by which the burning of fossil fuel causes global cooling. Do you have any idea how quickly the powers that be will be able to shift gears, automatically?
============================================
bill (10:27:29) :
Hmm! Another thought – the GCR seem to need h2so4 to create CCNs. The source of this is partially global coal/oil use!
Anthropogenic Co2 greenhouse effect canceled by Anthropogenic airborne acid from the same fuel?
Interesting.
What strikes me is that the solar / temperature correlation generally is too GOOD to deny likelihood of a causative factor close by; OTOH the CO2 / temperature correlation is too WEAK to explain the 1870-1900 anomaly in this. It is a puzzle but no doubt has an answer. Changes in composition through firnification not properly allowed for? The 20th century solar magnetic field more than doubling? The variable link between 10Be and cloud cover that Svensmark documents if I remember right?
Instant link as well as 30-year link. Both can show correlations, just as temperature correlates to time of day as well as to season of year. The no-delay fit is quite obvious visually. I think it’s neat to use stats to extract another “best fit” that can’t be seen directly.
Great new paper from two Svensmarks – this looks set, together with another paper on solar forcing – with more undeniably good scientists supporting the power of the Sun, this looks set to start to rout the CO2 warmists.
Lucy Skywalker (11:17:57) :
The 20th century solar magnetic field more than doubling?
Even Lockwood knows now that that didn’t happen, so you can scratch that one of the list.
oh, Watts beat me to it.
Lucy Skywalker (11:38:14) :
Great new paper from two Svensmarks – this looks set, together with another paper on solar forcing – with more undeniably good scientists supporting the power of the Sun, this looks set to start to rout the CO2 warmists.
A paper should not be judged on its capacity for routing warmists. Even if the cosmic ray hypothesis is shown to be correct, then it does nothing at all to rout the warmists, because cosmic rays at solar minimum, where they are strongest [even by only a few percent] have not changed in 60+ years. And at solar maximum, the GCR trend has not followed the temperature trends.
I have a general criticism of their paper which I would have voiced had I been a reviewer. Selecting the FDs with the largest ionization and only looking at those already introduces the possibility of selection effects. To make the paper convincing I would have suggested to the authors that they divide the FDs into three groups with equal numbers of FDs in each group. Then do the superposed epoch analysis for each group. That would have given an amplitude A for each group. Then show that the A is small for the low group, intermediate for the medium group, and large for the high group. That would have been good science, and might even have shut me up. As the paper now stands, it is just one of the many dueling analyses on this subject.
Jim Masterson (22:59:00) :
>> George E. Smith (10:22:00) :
Some people get the right answer (or nearly the right answer) for the wrong reasons. The Stefan-Boltzmann Law is a power law, so you really can’t divide by 4 when you should be taking the fourth root.
Actually you can in this case!
It’s a well known approximation that (1+a)^n≅1+na when a is significantly less than 1, which it is in this case. Those of us, like George and I who grew up in the era prior to calculators know this well.
So in this case (1+a)^4=1.001=1+4a ∴ a=0.001/4 the error is about 6 parts in a million!
“”” Jim Masterson (22:59:00) :
>> George E. Smith (10:22:00) :
. . .
Annette; that 0.1% (roughly) is correct, that is about the extent of the peak to peak change in the “Solar Constant” of about 1366 Watts per square meter; Total Solar Incidence. If that radiation fell on a quite passive “black body”, the change in temperature of that body would only be 1/4 of that 0.1% or 0.025%. That is because the energy and the temperature are related by the Stefan-Boltzmann 4th Power Law; energy (absorbed or emitted) is proportional to the fourth power of the temperature.
So for earth (which is NOT a passive black body), the mean temperature is allegedly about 15 deg C or about 288 Kelvins. 0.1% of that is 0.288 deg (C or K), and 1/4 of that is only 0.072 deg C. <<
Some people get the right answer (or nearly the right answer) for the wrong reasons. The Stefan-Boltzmann Law is a power law, so you really can’t divide by 4 when you should be taking the fourth root. """
Come now Jim; you know better than that.
(T + dT)^4 = T^4 + 4T^3dT +6T^2dT^2 + 4TdT^3 + dT^4
ergo (T+ dT ^4/T^4 = 1 + 4dT/T + 6(dT/T)^2 etc etc
And we are saying that (T + dT)^4 / T^4 =1.001
So I said that dT/T was 0.00025, making 4dT / T = 0.001 and 6 (dT/T)^2 is only 0.000000375, and the missing two terms are smaller still.
You still want to say I did it wrong ?
George
The increase in global rainfall and change in the geographical pattern could be a sign that the ocean is behaving like a capacitor. It stores energy when sun activity is high and puts energy back into the system when the sun is quiet.
Would be interesting to try and estimate the quantity of energy that changes.
“”” Micky C (16:30:37) :
George
A bit of background: I’m not that young (mid 30s) and have been a physicist for 12 years. My undergrad was physics with astrophysics; my PhD is in Material Science (thin film ferroelectrics) and for 8+ years I have for the most part been building and developing plasma thrusters for satellites. I have one flying at the moment. “””
Well I’m no spring chicken; and my mere Bachelor’s degree (1957) had Majors in Physics, Radiophysics, Mathematics (Pure and Applied), and Mathematical Physics; and I have only been a practising Physicist in Industry for 48 1/2 years, after two years in Academia (teaching Optics and Atomic Physics).
So yes I realize that The Wilson Cloud chamber is a highly controlled environment compared to the atmosphere; yet despite that, moist air still manages to rise to where the dew point is reached, and water droplets can form on just about any substrate they can find, including volcanic ash, microbes, charged ion tracks (remember water is a polar molecule (thanks Gaia).
And of course I realize there is a rate question. Part of the cosmic ray mechanism, is that with higher near earth magnetic fields, charged ions are trapped by the magnetic field of the earth and spiral around the field lines to strike the upper atmosphere in the vicinity of the magnetic poles which are regions of low moisture content.
Whent he magnetic fileds are weaker, the CR flux redistributes over the globe, so more reach the earth in the tropical regions where ther is plenty of water vapor to condense into clouds, so more clouds are formed in geographical regions that just happen to be high solar flux regions also, so the attenuation due to that cloud increase is greater.
And finally, no way do I expect the Svensmark CR process to explain all of global warming; or lack thereof.
I’m quite confident that the normal hydologic cycle is regulating the temperature through evaporation/cloud formation, and precipitation (negative feedback) which offsets the positive feedback warming from increased atmosperic water vapor.
ONLY water exists in the atmosphere in all three phases, out of the list of common greenhouse gases; and as a vapor it has both positive and negative feedback mechanisms (it’s a strong solar spectrum absorber too); but in the form of clouds it is always negative feedback.
And in case you missed it when I first said it, I don’t buy the high clouds at night warm the earth’s surface; and the higher the clouds, and the less water they contain, the more the surface warms. That dog don’t hunt; those high clouds at night are there BECAUSE of the warmer surface, and the warmer the surface and lowere the moisture, the higher the moist air has to rise before it can form those clouds.
Check the Physics of a gas column radiating thermal radiation essentially isotropically; having lower density cooler air (and GHG) above it, but denser, and warmer air below it; and figure out which is the easy path for that isotropic radiation to progrss through multiple absorptions and re-emissions, and which is the hard direction; and then try to convince me, that the higher and more rarified the clouds are the more they can warm the surface. Don’t forget the Wien’s displacement law, and the change in width of the CO2 resonance absorption line at 15 microns or thereabouts, with height in the atmosphere.
And yes I know gases don’t emit black body like thermal radiation; which is how we know for sure that the sun must be a solid object, and not a heated gas/plasma.
George
Way to go Phil.
I still believe in the stick, on a desert island sandy beach. You can’t Google from there, so you better be able to guesstimate.
George
George E. Smith (12:54:00) :
Way to go Phil.
I still believe in the stick, on a desert island sandy beach. You can’t Google from there, so you better be able to guesstimate.
No problem George, we old fogies from the slide rule and log table era need to stick together vs. these young whippersnappers. 😉
Estimation is a great skill, once in my lab. we had a head that screwed on about 15º out of line, so knowing the pitch of the thread I said we needed some 15 thou’ shim to straighten it. After a moment of silence the grad students told me that I was full of it, then one of them took a calculator out and several minutes later announced that I was out by 1%! Amazing how close you can get with pi≈22/7 and 1 radian≈60º.
>> George E. Smith (12:18:03) :
. . .
Come now Jim; you know better than that. <<
Apparently not.
>>
. . .
You still want to say I did it wrong ? <<
After dragging me by the nose through your calculations, no, I don’t.
Jim
>> Phil. (13:27:09) :
No problem George, we old fogies from the slide rule and log table era need to stick together vs. these young whippersnappers. 😉 <<
I take exception to that statement. Who are you calling a “young whippersnapper?” I remember slide rules and log tables and sine tables and Bessel function tables and . . . .
Jim
http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/Story?id=7906041&page=1
This is somewhat related, maybe. Too bad he is so secretive.
Well just yanking your chain Jim; I already figured you would catch on after you thought about it.
But as it turns out you did help reveal a gremlin in the works .
It is reasonable to presume, that the various surfaces of the planet, radiate thermal infrared radiation that if not strictly black body radiation; at least do follow a similar fourth power of temperature law; with some total emissivity, or spectral emissivity thrown in.
So if I have different places at different temperatures, they are all radiating differently, and if they are similar surface terrains; the radiative effect oughta follow some 4th power law.
So instead of averaging the suface temperatures all over the world, and then using that mean global temperature to infer some total surface radiation budget for the planet, it really would be more sensible to average the fourth power of the temperatures rather than the temperatures themselves.
The binomial expansion I gave shows that by not averaging the 4th powers, we under-estimate the total global radiation since that 4dT/T term is always positive.
So you can show that for any cyclic variation of temperature, the integral of the 4th power will always be greater than the integral of the temperature itself.
The practical difference is small but non zero for diurnal temperature cycles; but I regularly see daily min max temperature data on the news with more than 30 deg F high to low ranges.
But the annual cyclic discrepancy is far from negligible.
Which is another reason why I think the whole concept of a mean global temperature is total nonsense. Add to that, that different types of terrain see quite different thermal processes anyway; so that temperature alone is not a good metric for global radaitive cooling or heating budgeting.
So global mean temperature is just a mathematical number; like the average phone number in the Manhattan Phone directory; but it has no physical scientific purpose whatsoever (unless it happens to average out to your phone number)
Might as well count the average number of animals per hectare (bigger than a termite), and report that as a metric for the animal health of the planet. Equating elephant density in Kenya, with Locust density in Ethiopia; doesn’t make much sense either.
George
“”” Leif Svalgaard (12:12:30) :
Lucy Skywalker (11:38:14) :
Great new paper from two Svensmarks – this looks set, together with another paper on solar forcing – with more undeniably good scientists supporting the power of the Sun, this looks set to start to rout the CO2 warmists.
A paper should not be judged on its capacity for routing warmists. Even if the cosmic ray hypothesis is shown to be correct, then it does nothing at all to rout the warmists, because cosmic rays at solar minimum, where they are strongest [even by only a few percent] have not changed in 60+ years. And at solar maximum, the GCR trend has not followed the temperature trends. “””
I don’t disagree with your position Leif; since your nose is closer to the grindstone than mine is; I can afford to be a little more “romantic” than you can.
Your note that the GCRs at minima and maxima don’t change a lot is important. I think the geographical redistribution of GCRs with the vaying magnetic fields, is mor eimportant than the sheer Cr counts, since that steers ion teacks away from moist humid areas to cold dry areas where cloud formation is less likely.
And in any case, I see the effect as only being a perturbation of a basic cloud negative feedback process. But taken over the whole solar cycle behavior from the IGY to the present; I would be surprised if it turned out there was no warming effect from the historically higher sunspot counts; but I wouldn’t expect to see 11 year cycles either because the perturbation is probably small so needs decades of time to build up a temperature discrepancy.
So i’m in agreement; that Hendrik is not going to blow AGW out of the water with GCRs but I am convinced he is on to something that is significant.
I’m already satisfied that basically the water cycle is in feedback control of the system; and CO2 has very little to do with anything; it is just another small perturabtion; not unlike Svensmark et al’s GCRs.
George E. Smith (16:10:20) :
I think the geographical redistribution of GCRs with the vaying magnetic fields, is more eimportant than the sheer CR counts
Except that the geographical impact of GCRs does not vary with solar activity [or is at most a very small 2nd-order effect because it depends on the energy spectrum which is modulation dependent – but the effect is negligible]. The main driver of the CR intensity is the Earth’s magnetic field which as decreased 20% over the past three hundred years, leading to a corresponding increase of GCRs, provided the source is constant. But there are indications that the GCR flux has been slowly decreasing over time, so the two effects may almost cancel. If you take a look at http://www.leif.org/research/CosmicRays-GeoDipole.jpg you’ll see that solar effects are just minor inconsequential wiggles on the GCR intensity variation caused by the change of the Earth’s magnetic field over centuries and millennea.
Micky C (13:38:36) “[…] for this to show up 30 years later would mean that the inherent oscillations would not be destoyed. The ocean acts like a filter, meaning it turns short term high frequency into longer term low frequency. It would take an intriguing process to maintain coherence of a 30 year old signal. To be honest I can’t see this as a viable option, even just applying Occam’s Razor.”
Are you suggesting a stationary lag has been claimed?
I have not run a cross-correlation analysis on this particular pair of variables, but looking at the timeplot in Kirkby (2009), I would not expect to find a stationary lag.
Cross-correlation is a statistical measure – and as such one needs to bear in mind spread as well as centre.
When someone reports a lag, they are usually reporting the centre (and they don’t always comment on spread — furthermore, any measure of spread could be misleading, depending on what assumptions went into its estimation – & lets keep in mind that we are not dealing with stationary series).
One criticism I will offer: There is no cross-correlation plot in Kirkby (2009) to help the audience assess the statistical properties of the “30 yr lag”. [A time-integrated cross-correlation color-contour plot would also have been appreciated.]
The first graph you put up there in the post says a lot about what is going on.
There is a great correlation between the temperature and what appears to be (ie is not explained clearly) the 10Be and 14C proxies for solar influence on the GCR. This correlation looks to account for a whoppingly large amount of the temperature change… all the way up until 1850.
A very similar trend has been shown in solar cycle length. Great agreement until the last 150-100 years when the temperature increasingly is less correlated with these features. Like I said it is very clear in the plot.
What do we know about what has been happening in this last 150 years… well we have certainly increased the atmospheric CO2 levels.
As for the commenters who make the statement about water vapor being a much better greenhouse gas and present in larger quantities. This is true however with a basic understanding of physics you will quickly see that the maximum level of water vapor in the atmosphere is determined by the temperature, and many of you will have experienced what happens when the water vapor reaches this level for the local temperature – it rains. So water vapor cannot drive a greenhouse effect but it will contribute to any positive feedback – since a warmer atmosphere can contain more water vapor
mc2 (20:03:58):
“So water vapor cannot drive a greenhouse effect but it will contribute to any positive feedback – since a warmer atmosphere can contain more water vapor”
Without water vapor in the atmosphere this planet would be covered in ice. As to positive feedback from water vapor, well that sounds great except for the issues of convection, albedo and a total lack of empirical data.
“Now on the catwalk, the emperor is modeling the latest creation from the red hot GCM summer collection, woven from whole cloth with positive feedback trimming. Notice how the sleeves have a generous cut to allow frantic waving of the hands.”
Konrad, as long as there exists liquid water on the planet (and even in the worst of the Ice Ages there has always been liquid water still available) there will be water vapor in the atmosphere. Liquid water and water vapor exist in an equilibrium that is effected by temperature and pressure.
What this means is that you will always have some water vapor in your atmosphere, however without re-writing the laws of fluid mechanics and thermodynamics you cannot have water vapor as a driving force for a greenhouse effect. Your example of convection further illustrates my point that water vapor cannot be the causative force.
What empirical data would you like to see – how about the plot at the top of the post, it is pretty clear that the correlation between temperature and the proxies for GCR breaks down at about 150-100 years ago.
Sorry I would like to point out the absolute folly of my water vapor leading to feedback statement. Very clearly if water vapor was able to cause a feedback on the climate we would have already gotten well past the point of no return (probably millions of years ago).
The water in the atmosphere saturates very readily and becomes rain. Thus limiting the effect that it can have to cause a runaway green house situation. This is true at current temperatures and most likely will be still be true for a warmer temperature range, just as it is so for a cooler temperature range (ie we have not seen this runaway green house behaviour due to water coming out of any previous ice age).
The point was that despite the fact that water is a good greenhouse gas it is present in relatively stable quantities in the atmosphere and is unlikely to be responsible for any warming.
It is still clear from the graph at the top and other showing similar trends with solar cycle length that the temperature no longer correlates well with these factors. Something must be causing the warming that we see. What other hypotheses do you have?
Any that have a better correlation than the increase in CO2 and temperature in the last 150 years?
mc2 (21:48:53)
I have seen no empirical data for positive feedback from water vapor in response to increases in CO2. The only data I have seen suggests a weak negative feedback, however this data is too poor o be relied on. It is well acepted by most realists, including myself, that CO2 does cause some warming, but there is only so much longwave IR to be temporarily delayed in its journey away from the earth. Doubling CO2 does not double it’s effects. The AGW case for dangerous warming hangs on positive feedback from water vapor modeled in GCMs. I have seen no empirical data to support this claim. The IPCC have been looking for 20 years with nothing to show other than GIGO computer models.
As to why those looking at the GCR theory would use a temperature reconstruction that shows a lack of correlation in recent years, you should look at the funding proposal for the experiment. In the current political environment it would be unwise to suggest that any more than “some” of recent climate variations are due to GCR flux. As I indicated before on this thread concerning this issue “No b……t, no bucks.”
Two intriguing items for me
1. Seeing the “Possible Mechanism” chart with cosmic rays, it reminded me of the charts presented the mechanism with ozone/ultraviolet light/ chlorohydrocarbons. I don’t remember cosmic rays being in discussion with chlorohydrocarbons. That doesn’t mean it wasn’t investigated, but I don’t remember. I wonder if higher cosmic ray rate has any influence on ozone, etc.
2. On page 14 it states “possible influence of geomagnetic field on Asian monsoon”. It would be a strange new world if geomagnetic fields are monitored to predict the weather patterns!
I’ll note that GCRs don’t have to have a significant effect on climate to account for (most of) the supposed warming.
The reason is the chosen AGW metric, pre-satellite, is the mean of Tmin and Tmax. If GCRs, through clouds, influence Tmin by increasing early morning sunshine then most of the warming is explained, as well as the large discrepancy between the surface measurements (O.17C/decade) and the satellite measurements (0.06C/decade – UAH)
A factor of 3 difference.
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/img/climate/research/2007/ann/msu2007-pg.gif
Note, data to 2007. Recent data shows an even smaller satellite troposphere trend.
>> George E. Smith (15:53:31) :
. . .
So global mean temperature is just a mathematical number; like the average phone number in the Manhattan Phone directory; but it has no physical scientific purpose whatsoever (unless it happens to average out to your phone number) <<
I agree. The idea of an average temperature is nonsense. But this idea is not exactly new. See ”Does a Global Temperature Exist?” The authors are Christopher Essex, Ross McKitrick (yes, that McKitrick), and Bjarne Andresen. Dr. Essex often uses the “average numbers in a phonebook” example to criticize temperature averaging.
Jim
ohioholic (15:50:53) :
http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/Story?id=7906041&page=1
This is somewhat related, maybe. Too bad he is so secretive.
I note Piers Corbyn says more will be revealed on Oct 28th because the world needs to know.
He will time it for maximum effect on Copenhagen.
mc2 (22:10:14) :
It is still clear from the graph at the top and other showing similar trends with solar cycle length that the temperature no longer correlates well with these factors. Something must be causing the warming that we see. What other hypotheses do you have?
You need to acqauint yourself with the monkeying which has been going on with the surface temperature record.
I suggest someone, not Anthony for obvious reasons, produces a temperature graphs with the ‘corrections’ corrected, to overlay on the graph. Start with a good station and remove the published ‘correction’, then scale to an average of several worldwide representative stations.
Orland springs to mind…
Konrad (22:22:14) :
It is well acepted by most realists, including myself, that CO2 does cause some warming, but there is only so much longwave IR to be temporarily delayed in its journey away from the earth.
It should be noted the ocean air energy budget comes up 30W/m^2 short. I think Willis Eschenbach is right with his hypothesis, and much more heat is escaping from the sea via the ‘atmospheric window’. This means a lot of any co2 effect is simply being bypassed by heat updraughting through high cumulonimbus cloudtops.
Let’s try that link again: See “Does a Global Temperature Exist?”
Leif Svalgaard (17:36:19) :
But there are indications that the GCR flux has been slowly decreasing over time
What are the possible reasons for that Leif?
Sun getting stronger? I doubt you’ll buy that. 😉
Or our changing location relative to the galaxy taking us into a ‘quieter zone’?
Or measurement error/bias, as is the case with so many of the other metrics you’ve had to adjust?
tallbloke (00:03:10) :
“I note Piers Corbyn says more will be revealed on Oct 28th because the world needs to know. He will time it for maximum effect on Copenhagen.”
I do believe Piers has a few answers regarding solar influences beyond variations in TSI. I will be interested to see what he reveals on Oct 28th. I have read that he has an interest in sudden stratospheric heating events. Leif has previously indicated to me that there is some very minor hale cycle variation in flux tunneling events, but without reference as to their nature, passive or active. Piers may be working in this area. I must admit to being curious as to how he manages such long term predictions so close for very short lived events. He seems to get results , but how?
That said, with respect to solar influence I remain unconvinced with regard to reconstructions of past TSI variations. All I can trust is satellite records from the last few years. Extrapolations and reconstructions cut no ice with me. I also have questions about the influence of microwave frequency flux on water molecules that are not answered by black body absorption readings.
We are learning fast.
Peter Taylor (09:43:01) :
But a computer model is a natural atmosphere?
They ain’t going away anytime soon….. http://www.ipcc.ch/
The IPCC is currently starting to outline its Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) which will be finalized in 2014. As it has been the case in the past, the outline of the AR5 will be developed through a scoping process which involves climate change experts from all relevant disciplines and users of IPCC reports, in particular representatives from governments.
As a first step, experts, governments and organizations involved in the Fourth Assessment Report have been asked to submit comments and observations in writing. These submissions are currently being analysed by members of the Bureau.
The scoping meeting to define the outline of the AR5 is scheduled in Venice, Italy, for 13-17 July 2009 (attendance is by invitation only). The outline will be submitted to the 31st Session of the IPCC and Sessions of the three Working Groups, which will be held in Bali, Indonesia, 26-29 October 2009.
This is just a non-stop party…….
tallbloke (00:21:36) :
Leif Svalgaard (17:36:19) :
“But there are indications that the GCR flux has been slowly decreasing over time”
What are the possible reasons for that Leif?
Nobody knows, except it does not seem to be measurement errors. Here is an analysis by one of the foremost experts [whom I know and trust]:
http://neutronm.bartol.udel.edu/reprints/2007bieber.pdf
And his conclusion:
[40] In summary, we have not been able to identify any instrumental or environmental effect that could cause the long-term decrease in the South Pole neutron rate. Unless some such cause emerges in the future, it would appear the origin of the decrease must be a change in the Sun or solar wind, with an attendant change in the strength of solar modulation of cosmic rays [Ahluwalia and Lopate, 2001; Caballero-Lopez et al., 2004; McCracken et al., 2004a, 2004b], or possibly a change in the local interstellar density of Galactic cosmic rays [Stozhkov et al., 2000].
————-
Pick your poison.
Peter Taylor (09:43:01) :
Still, I would rather have seen those European Space Agency millions devoted to more exhaustive analysis of cloud patterns, ocean cycles, correlations to solar data etc., than to mechanisms that, at the end of the day, defenders of the faith will deny are relevant because a cloud chamber is not a natural atmosphere.
Well the first hurdle is to determine whether GCRs are capable of creating condensation nuclei in sufficient numbers. The second is where in the atmosphere is there a deficiency of such nuclei so that GCRs can have a significant effect?
Konrad (02:09:07) :
tallbloke (00:03:10) :
“I note Piers Corbyn says more will be revealed on Oct 28th because the world needs to know. He will time it for maximum effect on Copenhagen.”
He seems to get results , but how?
Heh, well I know, at least a good part of it, but I will hold my tongue and see what Piers reveals in October.
Leif Svalgaard (06:08:36) :
http://neutronm.bartol.udel.edu/reprints/2007bieber.pdf
it would appear the origin of the decrease must be a change in the Sun or solar wind, with an attendant change in the strength of solar modulation of cosmic rays [Ahluwalia and Lopate, 2001; Caballero-Lopez et al., 2004; McCracken et al., 2004a, 2004b], or possibly a change in the local interstellar density of Galactic cosmic rays [Stozhkov et al., 2000].
Well there is some increase left in the C20th solar wind after you recalibrated it for us isn’t there?
Occams razor would lean towards a solar cause rather than an unknown extra-solar system factor we haven’t measured wouldn’t it?
tallbloke (08:10:55) :
Well there is some increase left in the C20th solar wind after you recalibrated it for us isn’t there?
Occams razor would lean towards a solar cause rather than an unknown extra-solar system factor we haven’t measured wouldn’t it?
Not enough to make a difference. And at minima, when the modulation essentially disappear, the Sun and the solar wind and the cosmic ray flux should be the same, so that would argue for an interstellar cause, but it is WAY to uncertain to speculate to much. I only said that there were ‘some indications’ that the flux had decreased. At this point, making too much of it is premature. Perhaps when we have more ice cores or we understand the deposition processes [of 10Be] better, etc, we can say more. Or when we get cosmic ray proxies from other places in the solar system, e.g Martian or Lunar or European ices.
John S. (11:01:06) “If you cook the 20th century global temperature record, no physical mechanism will ever agree with it. But models will!”
Wise words.
Leif 8:39:55
European Ices. Who knew it could get so cold. Or how wet they don’t get. Thanks for stretching the imagination without speculating. Isn’t there an approx. 60 million year cycle of increasing and decreasing radiation, too, as we move in and out of some plane?
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“… BUT THE CORRELATIONS BREAK DOWN AFTER …”
Of course the correlations break down! That is *exactly* what you would expect if you are looking at LINEAR shadows of NON-linear relations! It suggests a problem with assumptions. Only once all of the terms, interactions, & dimensionality are *fully* worked out will equations be linearizable. Perhaps some fluid is being treated as Newtonian when it should be treated as visco-elastic. And perhaps also some terms in some differential equations are being set to zero when this is not *always valid. Perhaps some mass is being treated as a point when it should be treated as a series of concentric shells with differential response to gravitational accelerations. Perhap