Guest Post by David Archibald
NASA’s David Hathaway has adjusted his expectations of Solar Cycle 24 downwards. He is quoted in the New York Times here Specifically, he said:
” Still, something like the Dalton Minimum — two solar cycles in the early 1800s that peaked at about an average of 50 sunspots — lies in the realm of the possible.”
NASA has caught up with my prediction in early 2006 of a Dalton Minimum repeat, so for a brief, shining moment of three years, I have had a better track record in predicting solar activity than NASA.
The graphic above is modified from a paper I published in March, 2006. Even based on our understanding of solar – climate relationship at the time, it was evident the range of Solar Cycle 24 amplitude predictions would result in a 2°C range in temperature. The climate science community was oblivious to this, despite billions being spent. To borrow a term from the leftist lexicon, the predictions above Badalyan are now discredited elements.
Let’s now examine another successful prediction of mine. In March, 2008 at the first Heartland climate conference in New York, I predicted that Solar Cycle 24 would mean that it would not be a good time to be a Canadian wheat farmer. Lo and behold, the Canadian wheat crop is down 20% this year due to a cold spring and dry fields. Story here.
The oceans are losing heat, so the Canadian wheat belt will just get colder and drier as Solar Cycle 24 progresses. As Mark Steyn recently said, anyone under the age of 29 has not experienced global warming. A Dalton Minimum repeat will mean that they will have to wait to the age of 54 odd to experience a warming trend.
Where to now? The F 10.7 flux continues to flatline. All the volatility has gone out of it. In terms of picking the month of minimum for the Solar Cycle 23/24 transition, I think the solar community will put it in the middle of the F 10.7 quiet period due to the lack of sunspots. We won’t know how long that quiet period is until solar activity ramps up again. So picking the month of minimum at the moment may just be guessing.
Dr Hathaway says that we are not in for a Maunder Minimum, and I agree with him. I have been contacted by a gentleman from the lower 48 who has a very good solar activity model. It hindcasts the 20th century almost perfectly, so I have a lot of faith in what it is predicting for the 21st century, which is a couple of very weak cycles and then back to normal as we have known it. I consider his model to be a major advance in solar science.
What I am now examining is the possibility that there will not be a solar magnetic reversal at the Solar Cycle 24 maximum.
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RW (15:37:29) : Do you know how ridiculous it is to wave vague responses like that which question whether I am familiar with the particular definition of the vague concept you believe I do not understand?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statistical_significance
In order to say that there is no significance of a 12 year trend of no warming (in the lower atmosphere) one has to define what one is saying it is not significantly different from. You have not done that-you have just thrown the term around like a third grader.
None of which changes my point-Steyn’s statement is literally true. As for whether it is technically “statistically true”, well, in the words of the great Tory Prime Minister of the United Kingdom or whatever it was called at that time Benjamin Disraeli once said, “There are three kinds of lies-lies, damn lies, and statistics”.
“Centuries-old sketches solve sunspot mystery ”
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20327194.400-centuriesold-sketches-solve-sunspot-mystery.html
Richard (17:40:05) : GISS starts diverging from 1992 (is there anything significant about this date re: Hansen?) and Hadley starts diverging from 2002.
GIStemp calculates an “offset” between two thermometers based on the last “up to 10 years data” out of the last at most 20 years data. It then uses this “offset” to rewrite the (older) past. So 2009-1992 = 17 years. Right in the middle. So some missing data caused the code doing the “offset” to run back more than 10 years. BTW, I’m still working on characterizing how each of the steps of GIStemp changes the temperature history.
Mostly it is, which is why global temperatures decrease following La Nina events and conditions.
Richard (16:03:15) :
The Dalton Minimum does not seem to be particularly cold in the times that it was in, at least in the CET records.
The CET tracks other long term records fairly consistently, e.g. Armagh, De Bilt, Uppsala.
Richard (17:40:05) :
GISS starts diverging from 1992 (is there anything significant about this date re: Hansen?) and Hadley starts diverging from 2002.
Since 1992, the trends for all 4 datasets are within a few hundredths of a degree of each other. GISS has diverged a bit recently but that may be because it extrapolates over the arctic. The arctic has been particularly warm in recent years (see UAH NoPol and ice extent trends).
Jim (21:17:10) :
John Finn (13:23:18) : John … that paper was written in 1991. Statistics have really “advanced” since then. The data may be OK for you point, but ever since Mann, Steig, etc. got busted for bad stat methods, it is always a valid question to ask how the data is “adjusted.” That’s my only point. I wouldn’t use HADCET data for anything until I knew for sure how it is being adjusted.
I ssume, then, you know how UAH temperatures have been adjusted over the years. If so could you explain the huge difference in trends (~0.12 deg per decade) between May and February in the UAH record. This discrepancy, which has increased in recent years, was acknowledged by John Christy in a recent WUWT post.
Perhaps it’s not GISS or Hadley or RSS that ‘s ‘wrong’ – perhaps it’s UAH.
Mary Hinge (01:34:16) :
tallbloke (13:20:22) :
Mary Hinge (12:25:05) :
Off course after the evaporation there will be condensation and the resulting transfer of heat energy.
Which is mostly a cooling effect isn’t it? The latent heat heads spacewards from the cloudtops and the rain cools the water it falls into.
Mostly it is, which is why global temperatures decrease following La Nina events and conditions.
I thought we were discussing el nino rather than la nina?
John Finn (02:50:40) :
*********************
I assume, then, you know how UAH temperatures have been adjusted over the years. If so could you explain the huge difference in trends (~0.12 deg per decade) between May and February in the UAH record. This discrepancy, which has increased in recent years, was acknowledged by John Christy in a recent WUWT post.
Perhaps it’s not GISS or Hadley or RSS that ’s ‘wrong’ – perhaps it’s UAH.
*******************************************
I am aware of the seasonal variations in UAH. I know that the procedure used to generate GISS temps is dodgy. The fact that it tracks RSS and Hadley makes me suspicious of them, too. As far as the UAH data is concerned, there may be a problem that is indicated by the seasonal variations or the variations might be real. Climate isn’t well understood, so climatologists can’t really answer questions like that without further research.
LOST CYCLE GRAPHICS
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/LostCycle.gif
Public (blog) and private (email) comments are welcome.
Usoskin’s latest paper on lost cycle here:
http://cc.oulu.fi/~usoskin/personal/apjl_700_2_154.pdf
Interesting how Usoskin fully recognizes the Dalton Minimum as a grand minimum in this paper but rules it out in previous papers re the 11000 yr 14C record. Perhaps he should now revisit that paper?
If proven this means the Dalton had 4 low cycles…..thats not chicken feed and firmly establishes the importance of lower strength grand minima.
No, as shown above evaporation increases during La Nina, hence the cooling etc.
Mary Hinge (08:33:50) :
tallbloke (04:39:18) :
I thought we were discussing el nino rather than la nina?
No, as shown above evaporation increases during La Nina, hence the cooling etc.
Back to my original question then. What causes the 50w/m^2 drop in OLR during big el ninos if not water vapour?
Geoff Sharp (07:58:42) :
If proven this means the Dalton had 4 low cycles…..thats not chicken feed and firmly establishes the importance of lower strength grand minima.
The sun was getting rorked about by the planets a lot around then.
http://s630.photobucket.com/albums/uu21/stroller-2009/?action=view¤t=Dalton_SSB.gif
John Finn (02:50:40) :
Richard (17:40:05) :
GISS starts diverging from 1992 (is there anything significant about this date re: Hansen?) and Hadley starts diverging from 2002.
“..Since 1992, the trends for all 4 datasets are within a few hundredths of a degree of each other”. Per year yes. That would be a few tenths of a degree per decade or a few degrees per century.
But I am talking about the slope of the trends themselves. The slope of this curve starts sloping downwards for all 4 data sets from 1992. (Which perhaps seems to indicate that the rate of increase of temperature rise starts falling from 1992)?
Before 1992, (ie from 1978 to 1992) all 4 curves are practically identical, sloping very gently upwards. After 1992, the GISS curve parts company from the other 3 and its downwards slope is distinctly less than the other 3.
The other 3 curves then follow an identical path till 2002, when Hadley parts company with the other 2 having a distinctly lower downward trend to the satellite data curves.
If one had a suspicious mind one could say that GISS inadvertently or otherwise started to overestimate temperatures and trends after 1992 and Hadley after 2002.
Also the flat bit of the GISS and Hadley slopes between 2005 and 2006 look pretty identical for the two. A suspicious mind might say collusion.
“GISS has diverged a bit recently but that may be because it extrapolates over the arctic. The arctic has been particularly warm in recent years (see UAH NoPol and ice extent trends).”
Extrapolation is always risky and prone to errors. The Satellite datasets also use arctic records, as the circumpolar satellites give data upto 2 degrees of the poles I believe. RSS has stopped adding data from the antarctic I believe, but from when I do not know, stopping at 72.5 Degrees South.
John Finn (02:50:40) : Yeah, and perhaps the tooth fairy is real to.
UAH lines up with radiosondes, RSS spontaneously jumps relative to all other datasets in 1992…many publications have shown that UAH is better than RSS, but “perhaps” the dataset is wrong 🙄
Not that it matters-neither RSS nor UAH show, globally, 1.2 times the warming seen at the surface…and neither shows warming for twelve years now.
Richard (15:00:15) :
John Finn (02:50:40) :
Richard (17:40:05) :
GISS starts diverging from 1992 (is there anything significant about this date re: Hansen?) and Hadley starts diverging from 2002.
“..Since 1992, the trends for all 4 datasets are within a few hundredths of a degree of each other”.
Per year yes. That would be a few tenths of a degree per decade or a few degrees per century.
No – per decade not per year. Check out the trends. Someone (the woodfortrees guy, I think) did it recently on WUWT and his calculations agreed pretty much with my own.
“GISS has diverged a bit recently but that may be because it extrapolates over the arctic. The arctic has been particularly warm in recent years (see UAH NoPol and ice extent trends).”
Extrapolation is always risky and prone to errors.
Possibly – but the errors will go in both directions. The problem for GISS is that the arctic has been warm over the past few years so any recent ‘errors’ will have been on the warm side. A few months back GISS anomalies were, relatively speaking, the lowest of all 4 datasets. That is, when the 1979-1998 base period was used, GISS was cooler than RSS and Hadley and was much cooler than UAH.
tallbloke (12:59:50) :
Geoff Sharp (07:58:42) :
If proven this means the Dalton had 4 low cycles…..thats not chicken feed and firmly establishes the importance of lower strength grand minima.
———————-
The sun was getting rorked about by the planets a lot around then.
http://s630.photobucket.com/albums/uu21/stroller-2009/?action=view¤t=Dalton_SSB.gif
Exactly, and 2 interesting points tallbloke, the planets are almost in an identical position and the timing of the solar cycle is also very close. The difference this time around is there will be no second hit like we had in 1830.
Geoff Sharp (16:59:17) :
the planets are almost in an identical position and the timing of the solar cycle is also very close. The difference this time around is there will be no second hit like we had in 1830.
I’m not sure what difference the second hit made. It looks to me like it might actually have help jolt the sun back into a higher rate of activity at the end of the Dalton minimum.
The oppositional loops seem to be the major feature of all three periods, Maunder, Dalton and now. I wonder how much the orientation affects the situation. I’d like to know if the tilt in the sun’s axis precesses, but no-one seems to know.
http://s630.photobucket.com/albums/uu21/stroller-2009/?action=view¤t=minima.gif
John Finn (16:50:07) :
Richard (15:00:15) :
John Finn (02:50:40) :
Richard (17:40:05) :
Ok My figures Trend 1979 to 2008 CRU, GISS, RSS, UAH – 0.159, 0.162, 0.157, 0.128 C/Decade. GISS the greatest warming UAH the least
So you are right – “the trends for all 4 datasets are within a few hundredths of a degree of each other” but only over the 29 years and upto 2002.
From 2002 to 2008 CRU, GISS, RSS, UAH – -0.107, -0.020, -0.151, -0.130 (from the raw data) RSS shows the greatest cooling and GISS the least.
This difference of about 1.5C/century is significant.
My data doesnt quite agree with the wood for trees one, (though not by very much) but then GISS has changed so many times that its not surprising.
tallbloke (23:05:41) :
The 2nd hit of the Dalton was a fizzer (not following Wilson’s law) but it still managed to reduce SC7 to way below SC20. We will get a bigger kick start this time because there are no more hits coming. The Dalton started on the first hit of 3, the 1st one doing the damage and the 3rd slowing down SC12 only. This time around the first hit was SC20, 2nd hit is now (fairly strong) and no 3rd hit. Once you understand how the disturbances are quantified it becomes clear.
vukcevic (10:42:04) :
“Instead of indulging in self-congratulation, put on your graph the years from 1890-1920 and the recent data you omitted and the blue actual measurements.”
No problem, I will go much further, say 260 years
Except, you didn’t. You produced yet another graph. Go back to the NRL graph, do not omit the last few years and place the ‘blue’ actual measurements on the graph.
Geoff Sharp (07:58:42) :
Usoskin’s latest paper on lost cycle
There are two independent pieces of evidence that point to no lost cycle: the 10Be cosmic ray proxy and the variation of the diurnal range of the magnetic declination. This Figure shows the Wolf number, Group number and Staudacher’s data normalized to be halfway between the Wolf number and the Group number:
http://www.leif.org/research/Solar-Activity-1785-1810.png
There is no hint of a lost cycle.
tallbloke (11:06:42) :
“1 W/m2 decrease = 0.07%. A quarter of that is 0.018%, of 288K is 0.05K.”
The team you have an affinity with says 1W/m^2, the other says 2W/m^2.
The discussion was about the variation during the very weak cycles to come, so it is reasonable to adopt the lower number.
2) You also stated the other day that incoming insolation varies 30W/m^2 over the year.
Unless you can present a detailed calculating that shows this, you have no basis for saying that the 0.05K ‘is simply wrong’. During a ‘normal’ cycle various researchers have found a solar cycle variation of about 0.1K, so it is quite reasonable to expect a smaller [e.g. half] variation for cycles that are only half as strong.
A very interesting and relevant post, David; thank you.
But you said a few things that triggered my skepticism:
“I have been contacted by a gentleman from the lower 48 who has a very good solar activity model.”
I`m curious, David: did he also have a bridge for sale?
“[His solar activity model” hindcasts the 20th century almost perfectly, so I have a lot of faith in what it is predicting for the 21st century, which is a couple of very weak cycles and then back to normal as we have known it.”
Your use of “faith” is very interesting. I`m sure others here share my skepticism in models of all kinds, recognize that hindcasting isn`t a valid form of verification, and my concern that maybe you`ve been sucked into a cult religion of some sort.
“I consider his model to be a major advance in solar science.”
Well, perhaps, but surely you`re not suggesting we accept this on “faith”, are you? Has he published in any journals, or started selling forecasts commercially?
TT
Richard (23:20:25) :
Ok My figures Trend 1979 to 2008 CRU, GISS, RSS, UAH – 0.159, 0.162, 0.157, 0.128 C/Decade. GISS the greatest warming UAH the least
So you are right – “the trends for all 4 datasets are within a few hundredths of a degree of each other” but only over the 29 years and upto 2002.
I was actually referring to the trends since 1992 which are in much closer agreement – but not to worry.
From 2002 to 2008 CRU, GISS, RSS, UAH – -0.107, -0.020, -0.151, -0.130 (from the raw data) RSS shows the greatest cooling and GISS the least.
This is too short a period to draw any conclusions. There was a significant El Nino at the start of this period (2002/03) and a significant La Nina at the end (2007/08). The trend(s) will be heavily influenced by these events – some more than others possibly. In fact, if the ENSO effects are removed, I doubt that the underlying trend is negative (even ignoring statisitical significance) . A recent paper (discussed on WUWT) suggests much of the recent warming trend is due to ENSO but this must work both ways, i.e. La Nina will induce a cooling trend.
Tokyo Tom, still bathing in the fountain of faith from the hindcast warmista models. It’s the water vapor, Stupid. It’s the economy they want to sacrifice to the shibboleths of CO2 silliness.
Leif Svalgaard (00:20:37) :
vukcevic (10:42:04) :
“No problem, I will go much further, say 260 years”
Leif Svalgaard (00:20:37) :
“Except, you didn’t. You produced yet another graph.”
Since it is obvious that your knowledge or oscillations within resonant systems appear to be somewhat deficient let me help out.
Physics of harmonic oscillations is clear: Cross-modulation of two sine waves of the same amplitude but different frequency, varies between zero and double amplitude. A resonant system will respond to higher and lower harmonics. The lower harmonics are sometimes known as sub-harmonics, they have fraction of the base frequency or multiple of the base period. They usually carry lot of power and can in certain mechanic systems be very distractive. In electronic systems, they are nuisance, since they are much more difficult to eliminate than higher order harmonics. Sub-harmonics of higher order also produce cross-modulation, which adds a ‘long-term waveform envelope’ to the original signal. If you are considering period of the high values of the initial sine waves cross-modulation, than contribution of the sub-harmonics cross-modulation can be neglected. However, when the initial sine waves cross-modulation drops to low levels, i.e. near zero than the sub-harmonics cross-modulation becomes the more significant factor. In these circumstances, correct approach is to consider the overall envelope rather than an isolated section, which might exist in an idealised system, devoid of resonant properties. The reality of a SSN cycles has a signature of a multi-resonant system as described here:
http://xxx.lanl.gov/ftp/astro-ph/papers/0401/0401107.pdf
The above described effect is also is clearly shown in my charts:
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/PF-strength.gif
http://www.vukcevic.co.uk/combined.gif
Otherwise is not a proper consideration of oscillations within a resonant system.
Now, how about using your knowledge (or anyone else on this forum) may answer:
Can solar meridional flow be controlled (or not) by Jupiter – Saturn azimuthal oscillations in relation to the solar equatorial plane ?