Basil Copeland and I also found linkages between surface temperature and solar cycles in two articles we published in the last year. We were roundly criticized and ridiculed by warmists mainly due to a statistical error in the first essay, but the base premise remained and the second essay was improved due to that error. I’m pleased to see that NCAR has found other solar to earth linkages, such as this one in ENSO. This is exciting news, but by no means a complete solution to the climate puzzle. There is much more to be learned about this. This is but one connector of the hydra-like patch cable that Dr. Jack Eddy imagined – Anthony
Scientists find link between solar cycle and global climate similar to El Nino/La Nina. Credit: NCAR
Establishing a key link between the solar cycle and global climate, research led by scientists at the National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colo., shows that maximum solar activity and its aftermath have impacts on Earth that resemble La Niña and El Niño events in the tropical Pacific Ocean.
The research may pave the way toward predictions of temperature and precipitation patterns at certain times during the approximately 11-year solar cycle.
“These results are striking in that they point to a scientifically feasible series of events that link the 11-year solar cycle with ENSO, the tropical Pacific phenomenon that so strongly influences climate variability around the world,” says Jay Fein, program director in NSF’s Division of Atmospheric Sciences. “The next step is to confirm or dispute these intriguing model results with observational data analyses and targeted new observations.”
The total energy reaching Earth from the sun varies by only 0.1 percent across the solar cycle. Scientists have sought for decades to link these ups and downs to natural weather and climate variations and distinguish their subtle effects from the larger pattern of human-caused global warming.
Building on previous work, the NCAR researchers used computer models of global climate and more than a century of ocean temperature to answer longstanding questions about the connection between solar activity and global climate.
The research, published this month in a paper in the Journal of Climate, was funded by NSF, NCAR’s sponsor, and by the U.S. Department of Energy.
“We have fleshed out the effects of a new mechanism to understand what happens in the tropical Pacific when there is a maximum of solar activity,” says NCAR scientist Gerald Meehl, the paper’s lead author. “When the sun’s output peaks, it has far-ranging and often subtle impacts on tropical precipitation and on weather systems around much of the world.”
The new paper, along with an earlier one by Meehl and colleagues, shows that as the Sun reaches maximum activity, it heats cloud-free parts of the Pacific Ocean enough to increase evaporation, intensify tropical rainfall and the trade winds, and cool the eastern tropical Pacific.
The result of this chain of events is similar to a La Niña event, although the cooling of about 1-2 degrees Fahrenheit is focused further east and is only about half as strong as for a typical La Niña.
Over the following year or two, the La Niña-like pattern triggered by the solar maximum tends to evolve into an El Niño-like pattern, as slow-moving currents replace the cool water over the eastern tropical Pacific with warmer-than-usual water.
Again, the ocean response is only about half as strong as with El Niño.
True La Niña and El Niño events are associated with changes in the temperatures of surface waters of the eastern Pacific Ocean. They can affect weather patterns worldwide.
The paper does not analyze the weather impacts of the solar-driven events. But Meehl and his co-author, Julie Arblaster of both NCAR and the Australian Bureau of Meteorology, found that the solar-driven La Niña tends to cause relatively warm and dry conditions across parts of western North America.
More research will be needed to determine the additional impacts of these events on weather across the world.
“Building on our understanding of the solar cycle, we may be able to connect its influences with weather probabilities in a way that can feed into longer-term predictions, a decade at a time,” Meehl says.
Scientists have known for years that long-term solar variations affect certain weather patterns, including droughts and regional temperatures.
But establishing a physical connection between the decadal solar cycle and global climate patterns has proven elusive.
One reason is that only in recent years have computer models been able to realistically simulate the processes associated with tropical Pacific warming and cooling associated with El Niño and La Niña.
With those models now in hand, scientists can reproduce the last century’s solar behavior and see how it affects the Pacific.
To tease out these sometimes subtle connections between the sun and Earth, Meehl and his colleagues analyzed sea surface temperatures from 1890 to 2006. They then used two computer models based at NCAR to simulate the response of the oceans to changes in solar output.
They found that, as the sun’s output reaches a peak, the small amount of extra sunshine over several years causes a slight increase in local atmospheric heating, especially across parts of the tropical and subtropical Pacific where Sun-blocking clouds are normally scarce.
That small amount of extra heat leads to more evaporation, producing extra water vapor. In turn, the moisture is carried by trade winds to the normally rainy areas of the western tropical Pacific, fueling heavier rains.
As this climatic loop intensifies, the trade winds strengthen. That keeps the eastern Pacific even cooler and drier than usual, producing La Niña-like conditions.
Although this Pacific pattern is produced by the solar maximum, the authors found that its switch to an El Niño-like state is likely triggered by the same kind of processes that normally lead from La Niña to El Niño.
The transition starts when the changes of the strength of the trade winds produce slow-moving off-equatorial pulses known as Rossby waves in the upper ocean, which take about a year to travel back west across the Pacific.
The energy then reflects from the western boundary of the tropical Pacific and ricochets eastward along the equator, deepening the upper layer of water and warming the ocean surface.
As a result, the Pacific experiences an El Niño-like event about two years after solar maximum. The event settles down after about a year, and the system returns to a neutral state.
“El Niño and La Niña seem to have their own separate mechanisms,” says Meehl, “but the solar maximum can come along and tilt the probabilities toward a weak La Niña. If the system was heading toward a La Niña anyway,” he adds, “it would presumably be a larger one.”
Source: National Science Foundation (news : web)
h/t to Leif Svalgaard
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Re: savethesharks (20:37:05)
Don’t forget N-S asymmetry – what is “the equator” to weather/climate? And how does that thing vary?….
(Hint: Chandler wobble….)
When President Obama finds out about this finding, I imagine the NSF might get an offer it can’t refuse from Al Gore and Jim Hansen. Following the administrative manual by George Orwell given to them by Al and Jim, the NSF can publish an immediate revision entitled Carbon Cycle Linked to Global Climate. The revised article need only replace the words “solar” and “Sun” with the word “carbon” everywhere in the text, and all will once again be well in Consensusland.
Thank you Anthony, this couldn’t have come at a better time to confirm what I’ve been going on about for the last week.
The Earth’s outgoing longwave radiation varies more or less in antiphase to the solar cycle. Here’s OLR flipped against the solar cycles from 1974
http://s630.photobucket.com/albums/uu21/stroller-2009/?action=view¤t=ssn-olr-1974-2009.gif
So we have been getting up to 4W/m^2 swings in OLR upwards when the sun is quieter, downwards when it’s active.
This figure matches the calculations I did which Leif confirmed as correct a few days ago. Between 1993 and 2003 the fifference between what the oceans absorbed and emitted was around 14×10^22J of energy. This is equivalent to 4W/m^2 and is consistent with the sea level rise due to expansion measured by the satellite altimetry. It contradicts what we’ve been told by recent ocean heat studies, which I believe have had the figures fudged to be consistent with the claimed co2 radiative forcing.
The ocean strongly emits heat when the sun is quiet, that is why el nino often happens within a year of solar minimum. In the past few cycles, el nino following solar minimum has been helped along by strong new cycles adding heat to the land. However this time, the sun is still quiet. I think we will see the rise in SST’s continue for a while yet, because OLR is staying high, but all things oscillate, and once the ocean has warmed the atmosphere, the newly warmed air will suppress the oceans emission of heat and start to damp down the el nino a few months later.
The net result will be a loss of ocean heat content, and in the aftermath of the currently forming el nino, I predict temperatures will drop to below the levels of jan 2008 because of the loss of heat from the ocean.
The next question is how a 1.6W variation in TSI can cause 4W/m^2 swings in Earth’s energy budget. About a quarter of the 1366W/m^2 incident on Earth’s exosphere makes it into the climate system (Leif will correct me to the correct figure I hope), so that 1.7W variation in TSI is only around 0.4W/m^2 at the surface. This is because the sun only shines on one side of the earth at a time, and the angle of incidence polewards means less insolation there.
Nir Shaviv found in his paper on using the oceans as a calorimeter that over the solar cycle, the 0.1% variation in solar output was amplified 10 times by terrestrial feedback. He thinks the best candidates are the clouds. This study seems to be heading the same way. And it matches my findings too.
Interesting times indeed.
“a jones (17:19:48) : “…I am afraid the answer as to why the trade winds vary in both strength and slightly in position is a bit of a circular one…”
Yes, so it seems to me. Increased evaporation lowers the density of the air mass above equatorial waters, presenting less resistance to trade winds, resulting in increased velocity without much momentum change. Other mass flow factors can increase this effect by lowering pressures in this region. If the wind altitude is sufficiently low, reduced seawater viscosity may also play a part.”
The real energy transport is the evaporation off tropical seas by trade-winds as they feed TCZ Cu Nims. An index of the amount of equatorial cu-nim activity would give some idea of how much heat was being lifted into the Hadley Cells.
Maybe it would make the Nino, Nina cycle clearer?
Come on Willis, your Cu Nim heat governor effect feels very plausible and I’m sure has data to support it.
If it does hold then I’m sure control theory makes the system un-modellable?
I did an analysis once of the ENSO annual reading for the period 1876 – 2003, breaking it into 4 equal groups of 32 years.
It was striking that post 1972, the incidence of weak la Nina dropped markedly compared to the other three periods. Happy to email my Excel spreadsheet to a moderator if they are interested……..
Now that was using crude ENSO data, not the four regional coefficients used nowadays.
Has anyone else picked that kind of thing up and does anyone postulate any reasons for it??
I was just musing on the PDO.
PDO + to – , – to + 33 years.
Sunspot cycle 22 years. That seems to be an odd ratio. Although that sort of ratio (3 to 2) is seen in gravitational resonances.
I have no idea what it means or if it is even significant.
There is an interesting chart in the global temperature section of the climate4you web site (which I would recommend to anyone wanting a seemingly unbiased overview of the climate system).
I tried unsuccessfully to copy it to this post so you will have to look for yourself. It is in the subsection “outgoing radiation over the equator”
http://www.climate4you.com/
It is interesting because it shows the clear anticorrelation between outgoing longwave radiation and temperature, in the tropics. On the face of it this is what AGW predicts i.e. radiation into space reduces (they say due to greenhouse gases) and the temperature goes up. However the details of the chart tend to give a lie to this and support the more dynamic cloud models suggested in this post. Climate4you give their own view but I would make a few points.
The variation in outgoing radiation is +/- 20%. This is huge. Far greater than greenhouse gases can explain. The variation is also very dynamic (peaks every 5 years or so) whereas CO2 has been relatively stable albeit increasing gradually.
The trend in outgoing radiation since 1979 has been slightly upwards whereas increased greenhouse gases should have led to a slight decrease.
The anticorrelation was broken by the 1998 el nino suggesting that this was a cause rather than an effect and uncharacteristic of the normal pattern. The trend graphs continue to reflect the normal anticorrelation despite this shor term blip.
My assessment it that either there is a mechanism for blocking radiation which is far more powerful and more variable than greenhouse gases (clouds?)or there is big variation in the energy convected to the upper troposphere which bipasses the greenhouse blanket (Hadley cells?).
Either way we are looking for dynamic effects that could easily be triggered by variations in incoming radiation/ cloud seeding/ aerosols etc. I have no idea which of these theories proves to be the more important but given the clear fingerprint of the Milankovitch cycles my money would be our relationhip with the sun being the prime driver.
I know that we have probably had this discussion before, but I must have have skipped class that day.
I am still having a problem getting my arms around the idea that that the sun’s output variability is (as expressed in TSI) only one tenth of a percent. If we have solar maximum, or on the extreme end, stuff like an 1859 Carrington event, vs a grand minimum, isn’t the difference in energy introduced to the planet much higher than 0.1%?
Since different wavelengths have a differing effect on the atmosphere, ie higher frequencies excite atmospheric water molecules and ‘microwave’ and heat the water, shouldn’t we also be looking at spectral irradiance or maybe even intensity instead of only TSI? I am having a hard time with solar input to our planet as a near constant when there is so much variance in output. Sorry to be a simplecorn, but it doesn’t make sense to me.
O/T- Rhinelander, WI normal high for tomorrow, 79 , forecast high, 55F.
Every time we think we understand the climate system we come away a bit more humbled and a bit more wise.
The truth is our there in the data.
I too think it is probable that there is a climate-solar link, but have not been able to prove it to myself. Part of this is simply lack of time – others who I respect do think that they have found this holy grail of climate science.
James F. Evans (20:29:33) :
“But the fact remains those that claim Man or Science knows all there is to know about the energy transfer process between the Sun and the Earth are arrogant and liable to intellectual blindness.
And you know what they say: “Pride cometh before the fall…””
Excellent! My thoughts exactly. We know little about the sun so why dismiss it entirely? This is the field that needs more research, the heliogenic part of climate processes… it’s not well understood, full of different theories and the best thing is that you can observe the sun anywhere on the surface of Earth!! (except the Arctic/Antarctic in winter O_o).
I have just returned from a trip to Europe, and experienced some pretty nasty weather… in late June/early July summer was clearly not present all the way from Poland through Czech Rep, Austria and Slovenia down to Istria in Croatia. Rain and Frigid conditions persisted to the disgust of locals. Upon arrival to Croatia the clouds thinned and the rain stopped but still, according to tourist guides I spoke to, this is one of the worst summers in quite some time, Summer arrived at least two weeks late and the warm weather typical of the Mediterranean only came around the 11th of July. Anecdotal but interesting nevertheless to experience a dud summer among all this hype over global warming in the EU!
Now back in SA the weather is even colder, winter is in full force!!
(Someone asked earlier about what drives the PDO, AMO etc):
The ocean currents may very well be the drivers of climate but what drives the oceanic current cycles!? Much research will have to be done. The sun is an excellent place to start…
M. Simon (00:40:45) :
I was just musing on the PDO.
PDO + to – , – to + 33 years.
Sunspot cycle 22 years. That seems to be an odd ratio. Although that sort of ratio (3 to 2) is seen in gravitational resonances.
I have no idea what it means or if it is even significant.
Sunspot cycle 11 years
Hale cycle of solar magnetic polarity 22 year
PDO AMO 33 years ish.
Sunspot cycles compared to inverted global outgoing longwave radiation
http://s630.photobucket.com/albums/uu21/stroller-2009/?action=view¤t=ssn-olr-1974-2009.gif
cal (01:07:49) :
There is an interesting chart in the global temperature section of the climate4you web site (which I would recommend to anyone wanting a seemingly unbiased overview of the climate system).
I tried unsuccessfully to copy it to this post so you will have to look for yourself. It is in the subsection “outgoing radiation over the equator”
http://www.climate4you.com/
It is interesting because it shows the clear anticorrelation between outgoing longwave radiation and temperature, in the tropics.
The variation in outgoing radiation is +/- 20%. This is huge.
How do I get to that subsection?
Global OLR inverted compared to Solar cycles
http://s630.photobucket.com/albums/uu21/stroller-2009/?action=view¤t=ssn-olr-1974-2009.gif
nino 3.4 OLR
http://i25.tinypic.com/2035ed.png
It the water vapour innit?
A 2007 paper by Camp and Tung found a very strong temperature correlation with the 11 year cycle. Quote:
“[1] By projecting surface temperature data (1959–2004)
onto the spatial structure obtained objectively from the
composite mean difference between solar max and solar min
years, we obtain a global warming signal of almost 0.2K
attributable to the 11-year solar cycle. The statistical
significance of such a globally coherent solar response at
the surface is established for the first time. Citation: Camp,
C. D., and K. K. Tung (2007), Surface warming by the solar cycle
as revealed by the composite mean difference projection,
Geophys. Res. Lett., 34, L14703, doi:10.1029/2007GL030207.”
Unfortunately an excellent paper was marred by the last few paragraphs in which the authors, obviously realising the implications, re-affirm their touching belief in AGW. New Scientist, when reporting this paper, predictably made the bizarre claim that in some way this paper actually *proves* AGW.
The variation they found was nearly one third of the total modern global warming, which is surprisingly large.
Chris
@ur momisugly cal (01:07:49) :
Variaton in quantity/severity/position of tropical storms???
I have a problem with any hypothesis that relies on events in the air driving changes in climate. That applies to many sceptical hypotheses as well as AGW.
Any such hypothesis fails to fit the whole range of observations so we are left with ‘chicken and egg’ problems.
As I see it the only solution and the one upon which my various writings have relied is the simple observation that over decades the rate of energy emission from the oceans changes due to events within the ocean and not events within the air and that in itself is enough to generate changes in the speed of the hydrological cycle which leads seamlessly to everything else we see.
For anyone who doubts that proposition just ask yourself:
How likely is it that a constantly moving liquid driven by variable solar energy input and containing many independent internal movements driven by density variations and the Earth’s rotation will maintain a constant rate of energy emission to the air ?
It only takes small variations in energy supply from a liquid such as water to have profound effects on the air above it especially when one considers the power of the evaporative process in throwing energy around.
That proposition is the distinguishing feature of my climate description as against all others.
Robert A Cook PE (19:57:53)
“So, today’s homework assignment is: What drives the two short term temperature cycles?”
Simple.
The sun is driving the multiple century scale cycles i.e. Roman Warm Period, Dark Ages, Mediaeval Warm Period, Little Ice Age, Modern Maximum.
The oceans are driving the multidecadal cycles i.e. early 20th Century warming, mid century slight cooling, late century warming and now possible cooling.
BUT ALSO bear in mind that sun and oceans can operate in and out of phase with each other AND ADDITIONLLY cycles in each ocean can operate in or out of phase with each other.
No need for any CO2 effect at all.
However to fit with the observed sequence of events on the multidecadal time frame one has to put the changes in oceanic energy emission as the first event to occur. The air then responds as it must.
Any theory that puts changes in the air as the first step in a multidecadal change of trend in global temperatures does not fit observations.
We have all seen ernough evidence that it is the multidecadal phase shifts in the oceans that impose changes in global air temperature changes.
Stephen Wilde (06:28:35) :
How likely is it that a constantly moving liquid driven by variable solar energy input and containing many independent internal movements driven by density variations and the Earth’s rotation will maintain a constant rate of energy emission to the air ?
It only takes small variations in energy supply from a liquid such as water to have profound effects on the air above it
Stephen, while I agree with most of your analysis, I think an important aspect is the way the air temperature, with a lag, feeds back to the ocean and suppresses oceanic thermal emission. The extent to which this happens will depend primarily on humidity and water vapour column levels, particularly in climate sensitive zones. Ozone, methane and, yes, to a small extent co2 levels will play supporting roles too.
Then there are winds and dust to consider, and their role in varying effective insolation.
Together, the ocean, the air and the variation in solar input amplified by changing cloud cover (GCR levels!?), and decreased by aerosols set the value at which the earth will emit Outgoing longwave radiation, which is the key value determining whether our plant will warm or cool on the decadal and multidecadal scale.
Ray B (01:45:01) :
If we have solar maximum, or on the extreme end, stuff like an 1859 Carrington event, vs a grand minimum, isn’t the difference in energy introduced to the planet much higher than 0.1%?
The ‘stuff at the extreme end’ adds up to very little compared to TSI. Even the very largest flares observed in modern times emit so little energy that they almost drown in the flood from TSI. See e.g. here: http://sprg.ssl.berkeley.edu/~tohban/wiki/index.php/Chree_Analysis_for_Flares
The ‘extra’ energy was 1/4000 of the total TSI for about a quarter of an hour. And only a couple such events have ever been seen above the background. So, in the grand scheme of this, solar activity makes such a small difference to the solar output that it is not hard to understand why it is difficult to demonstrate that solar activity has any significant influence.
I’ve always liked the Hawkins statement about science:
“(Scientific) progress does not consist of replacing a wrong theory with one that is right, but in replacing a wrong theory with one that is more subtly wrong”
That imputes the proper amount of caution we should all expect in scientific analysis and is the careful way real science works. Leif Svalgaard is, I think, the living embodiment of that attitude in all of these comment threads as is Anthony in the construction and management of this site.
As far as I know, from Scafetta paper/conference to EPA, TSI followed solar cycle until somebody made corrections to some satellite data:
http://yosemite.epa.gov/ee/epa/wkshp.nsf/vwpsw/84E74F1E59E2D3FE852574F100669688/$file/scafetta-epa-2009.pdf
Slide 15 heading:
PMOD correction of Nimbus7 during the ACRIM GAP
PMOD shifts down Nimbus7 record by 0.86 W/m^2 during the ACRIM-gap
I saw the conference video and there were angry reactions…
I meant TSI/temperatures relation
tallbloke
you get to the subsection by first selecting the “global temperature” section (list on the left hand side) this provides a list of subsections with the relevant one right at the bottom of the list.
tallbloke,
Thanks for that. And yes I meant the Hale cycle re: 22 years. i.e. a “complete” solar cycle.
tallbloke (07:05:14)
I don’t have any problem with the assertion that once the ocean has set a trend then there will be variable multiple feedback responses from the air circulation systems and all variety of weather phenomena.
However those feedbacks never dominate the oceanic control of the trend although they may suppress or enhance it for a time.
Observations show that when the ocean phase changes occur the global air temperature trend changes, the air circulation systems move latitudinally and the distribution of regional climates changes.
The clouds and their inevitable feedback are an integral part of the response in the air to changes in the rate of energy released to the air by the oceans.
The clouds cannot significantly change the trend imposed by the ocean SST changes otherwise the timing of the cause and effect would not be as clear in the charts which I have seen you produce.
The air is a passenger,clouds and all, but movements in the air change the speed of the hydrological cycle which is what ultimately stabilises the system and allows the Earth to hold on to it’s oceans.
It’s now totally clear to me after a long period of reluctance to imagine that I see something that others appear not to see and I can only await verification or otherwise by real world events. In the meantime I’ll keep pushing the idea as long as it fits observations and the phenomena described in blog postings
here and elsewhere.
Stephen Wilde (09:12:07) :
Observations show that when the ocean phase changes occur the global air temperature trend changes, the air circulation systems move latitudinally and the distribution of regional climates changes.
So is there any overview of how far the air circulation systems move in relation to what sort of magnitude changes in SST?
Seems like the basis for a nice little model to me. 😉