Nicola Scaffetta sent several people a copy of his latest paper today, which address the various solar TSI reconstructions such as from Lean and Rind 2008 and shows contrasts from that paper. While he suggests that TSI has a role in the temperature record, he also alludes to significant uncertainty in the TSI record since 1980. He writes in email:
…note the last paragraph of the paper. There is a significant difference between this new model and my previous one in Scafetta and West [2007]. In 2007 I was calibrating the model on the paleoclimate temperature records. In this new study I “predict” the paleoclimate records by using the solar records. So, I predict centuries of temperature data, while modern GCMs do not predicts even a few years of data!
Empirical analysis of the solar contribution to global mean air surface temperature change. Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics (2009),
doi:10.1016/j.jastp.2009.07.007 By Nicola Scafetta
Abstract
The solar contribution to global mean air surface temperature change is analyzed by using an empirical bi-scale climate model characterized by both fast and slow characteristic time responses to solar forcing: and
or
. Since 1980 the solar contribution to climate change is uncertain because of the severe uncertainty of the total solar irradiance satellite composites. The sun may have caused from a slight cooling, if PMOD TSI composite is used, to a significant warming (up to 65% of the total observed warming) if ACRIM, or other TSI composites are used. The model is calibrated only on the empirical 11-year solar cycle signature on the instrumental global surface temperature since 1980. The model reconstructs the major temperature patterns covering 400 years of solar induced temperature changes, as shown in recent paleoclimate global temperature records.
Excerpts from the Conclusion (from a pre-print provided by the author)
Herein I have analyzed the solar contribution to global mean air surface temperature change. A comprehensive interpretation of multiple scientific findings indicates that the contribution of solar variability to climate change is significant and that the temperature trend since 1980 can be large and upward. However, to correctly quantify the solar contribution to the recent global warming it is necessary to determine the correct TSI behavior since 1980. Unfortunately, this cannot be done with certainty yet. The PMOD TSI composite, which has been used by the IPCC and most climate modelers, has been found to be based on arbitrary and questionable assumptions [Scafetta and Willson, 2009]. Thus, it cannot be excluded that TSI increased from 1980 to 2000 as claimed by the ACRIM scientific team. The IPCC [2007] claim that the solar contribution to climate change since 1950 is negligible may be based on wrong solar data in addition to the fact that the EBMs and GCMs there used are missing or poorly modeling several climate mechanisms that would significantly amplify the solar effect on climate. When taken into account the entire range of possible TSI satellite composite since 1980, the solar contribution to climate change ranges from a slight cooling to a significant warming, which can be as large as 65% of the total observed global warming.
…
This finding suggests that the climate system is hypersensitive to the climate function h(T) and even small errors in modeling h(T) (for example, in modeling how the albedo, the cloud cover, water vapor feedback, the emissivity, etc. respond to changes of the temperature on a decadal scale) would yield the climate models to fail, even by a large factor, to appropriately determine the solar effect on climate on decadal and secular scale. For similar reasons, the models also present a very large uncertainty in evaluating the climate sensitivity to changes in CO2 atmospheric concentration [Knutti and Hegerl, 2008]. This large sensitivity of the climate equations to physical uncertainty makes the adoption of traditional EBMs and GCMs quite problematic.
About the result depicted in Figure 6, the ESS curve has been evaluated by calibrating the proposed empirical bi-scale model only by using the information deduced: 1) by the instrumental temperature and the solar records since 1980 about the 11-year solar signature on climate; 2) by the findings by Scafetta [2008a] and Schwartz [2008] about the long and short characteristic time responses of the climate as deduced with autoregressive models. The paleoclimate temperature reconstructions were not used to calibrate the model, as done in Scafetta and West [2007]. Thus, the finding shown in Figure 6 referring to the preindustrial era has also a predictive meaning, and implies that climate had a significant preindustrial variability which is incompatible
with a hockey stick temperature graph.
The complete paper is available here:
Empirical analysis of the solar contribution to global mean air surface temperature change.
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Leif Svalgaard (12:08:27) :
bill (11:13:30) :
Geoff Sharp (09:03:50) :
So can we agree that as we go from today back in time to ~7000 years, the was a gradual warming? and that we ‘today’ are cooler than back then. If so, that disposes of the cosmic ray hypothesis, which predicts that as we go back in time to 7000 years ago, the cosmic ray flux increases dramatically [ten times as much as the solar modulation] and therefore predicts a strong and steady cooling back to then.
CERN’s Jasper Kirkby would disagree with you, I think.
These results confirm the pattern seen in Fig. 4 for the Little Ice Age, and extend it throughout the
Holocene, namely a high cosmic ray flux is associated with a southerly displacement of the ITCZ. Taken
together, the observations suggest that solar/GCR forcing has been responsible for significant centennial
and millennial scale climate variability during the entire Holocene, on a global scale.
see 2.2.1 in
http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/0804/0804.1938v1.pdf
Leif Svalgaard (12:48:22) :
maksimovich (12:27:43) :
UVA and UVB increases decrease phytoplankton (UVA: 320 – 400 most important)
UVA decreases photosynthesis by 40-50% (Cullen et al., 1992; Holm-Hansen et al)
——————————
But none of these have any significant influence on the climate.
Have you not heard of albedo changes and ocean heat absorption changes because of increased levels of phytoplankton. You are too quick to dismiss as there is so much to learn in this area.
Leif Svalgaard (12:08:27) :
bill (11:13:30) :
Geoff Sharp (09:03:50) :
So can we agree that as we go from today back in time to ~7000 years, the was a gradual warming? and that we ‘today’ are cooler than back then. If so, that disposes of the cosmic ray hypothesis, which predicts that as we go back in time to 7000 years ago, the cosmic ray flux increases dramatically [ten times as much as the solar modulation] and therefore predicts a strong and steady cooling back to then.
How can we agree when there are conflicting reports?
http://www.landscheidt.info/images/hong_graph.jpg
Mike Jonas (15:39:31) :
CERN’s Jasper Kirkby would disagree with you, I think.
Jasper makes a fatal error. You can see it in his Figure 8, where he shows 14C and 10Be as a function of time. But these proxies have been corrected for the change in the Earth’s magnetic field as is proper if one wants to study the Sun. But it is wrong if one wants to study the climate. What matters then is the uncorrected flux because that is the GCR flux that the atmosphere sees. http://www.leif.org/research/CosmicRays-GeoDipole.jpg
There are other errors in Kirkby’s paper [e.g. that the interplanetary magnetic field has doubled the past 100 years [it has not; it is now right were it was 108 years ago], but the above error is the worst. Compare his blue 14C curve with the blue curve in http://www.leif.org/research/14C-past-11000-years.png
They should agree and they both show a flat production rate over the past 10000 years, but the real rate [not corrected for the change of the dipole] is the red curve.
Geoff Sharp (15:54:36) :
Have you not heard of albedo changes and ocean heat absorption changes because of increased levels of phytoplankton.
Of course, but it has not been shown that there are such changes and that they are significant. Link please with a graph that shows that over say a century.
How can we agree when there are conflicting reports?
Becasue Hongs is but one of many and is a single local report. And by the way shows cooling the past 4000 years while cosmic rays flux predicts warming.
Nasif Nahle (13:13:28) :
Two protons in the solar corona medium collide and from the collision two kinds of particles are released, one with a positive charge known as positron, and another known as neutrino, which has no electrical charge. The positrons collide with the electrons in the solar corona and completely annihilate mutually and release… Uh! Oh! Yeah, Leif! PHOTONS!
The proton are too cold to collide and the 0.511 MeV gamma ray that would be emitted is not observed from the corona, although has been seen in very strong flares with temperatures in the 10s of millions K.
And your explanation on luminosity of the solar corona fits perfectly with thermodynamic systems… No way. 🙂
“Light from the corona comes from three primary sources, which are called by different names although all of them share the same volume of space. The K-corona (K for kontinuierlich, “continuous” in German) is created by sunlight scattering off free electrons; Doppler broadening of the reflected photospheric absorption lines completely obscures them, giving the spectral appearance of a continuum with no absorption lines. The F-corona (F for Fraunhofer) is created by sunlight bouncing off dust particles, and is observable because its light contains the Fraunhofer absorption lines that are seen in raw sunlight; the F-corona extends to very high elongation angles from the Sun, where it is called the Zodiacal light. The E-corona (E for emission) is due to spectral emission lines produced by ions that are present in the coronal plasma; it may be observed in broad or forbidden or hot spectral emission lines and is the main source of information about the corona’s composition.” as I said.
No one has observed a single, solitary nanoflare in the solar corona. Nanoflares are simply hypothetical.
Krucker et al. report one nanoflare every three seconds:
http://www.iop.org/EJ/abstract/0004-637X/488/1/499/
You have been “crossed”, at least, by 50 trillion neutrinos in the last second,
But they have not interacted with me. Right now it is night here and the neutrinos that hit me come up through the Earth because they have not interacted with the Earth either. Neutrinos do not emit radiation, they are indeed dark and almost impossible to observe. We can observe the cosmic 2.7K microwave flux from the Big Bang. There should also be a similar [but slightly cooler, 2K] neutrino flux, but it is unobservable [so far, but surely there] because they are dark.
I think you have gone on long enough. All of those statements by you here are way off the cliff and show such profound ignorance that it is hard to believe they were uttered by a ‘scientist’ [even if self-proclaimed] by any measure.
>Leif Svalgaard (12:08:27) :
bill (11:13:30) :
Geoff Sharp (09:03:50) :
So can we agree that as we go from today back in time to ~7000 years, the was a gradual warming? and that we ‘today’ are cooler than back then. If so, that disposes of the cosmic ray hypothesis, which predicts that as we go back in time to 7000 years ago, the cosmic ray flux increases dramatically [ten times as much as the solar modulation] and therefore predicts a strong and steady cooling back to then.<
No, because you are once more oversimplifying and misrepresenting the complexities of the events. Stepping back even further in time by tens of millions of years and hundreds of millions of years, we can observe how Milankovitch Cycles are a more frequent and much smaller amplitude cycle superimposed upon much longer and larger amplitude cycles of other yet to be identified cycles of temperature and changes in biogenic activities and atmospheric chemistry. It remains to be determined how many factors and what factors in addition to cosmic rays may be occuring in cycles and thereby reinforcing and dampening the overall result of global atmospheric temperatures and climates.
D. Patterson (17:12:40) :
No, because you are once more oversimplifying and misrepresenting the complexities of the events.
The GCR hypothesis was supposed to be straightforward and was put forward based on a couple of solar cycles worth of data. It is a classical rhetorical trick when things don’t pan out, to resort to ‘complexity’ and ‘yet to be identified’ stuff over hundreds of millions of years. The best data we have is for the holocene [rather than 100 million years ago] and does not show the effect.
And apart from this, the Kirkby is flawed as I pointed out.
Leif Svalgaard (17:11:59) :
Two protons in the solar corona medium collide and from the collision two kinds of particles are released, one with a positive charge known as positron, and another known as neutrino, which has no electrical charge. The positrons collide with the electrons in the solar corona and completely annihilate mutually and release… Uh! Oh! Yeah, Leif! PHOTONS!
The proton are too cold to collide and the 0.511 MeV gamma ray that would be emitted is not observed from the corona, although has been seen in very strong flares with temperatures in the 10s of millions K.
My description is what is happening just now in the Sun. You are saying that the protons at the solar corona are too cold to collide, etc. You are wrong:
http://www.springerlink.com/content/x65r11v456647672/
http://www.iop.org/EJ/abstract/0004-637X/485/1/430
http://www.plasmaphysics.org.uk/research/sun.htm
http://solarphysics.livingreviews.org/open?pubNo=lrsp-2006-1&page=articlesu34.html
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/full/1967ApJ…148..229M
http://www.iop.org/EJ/article/0004-637X/485/1/430/36021.text.html
And your explanation on luminosity of the solar corona fits perfectly with thermodynamic systems… No way. 🙂
“Light from the corona comes from three primary sources, which are called by different names although all of them share the same volume of space. The K-corona (K for kontinuierlich, “continuous” in German) is created by sunlight scattering off free electrons; Doppler broadening of the reflected photospheric absorption lines completely obscures them, giving the spectral appearance of a continuum with no absorption lines. The F-corona (F for Fraunhofer) is created by sunlight bouncing off dust particles, and is observable because its light contains the Fraunhofer absorption lines that are seen in raw sunlight; the F-corona extends to very high elongation angles from the Sun, where it is called the Zodiacal light. The E-corona (E for emission) is due to spectral emission lines produced by ions that are present in the coronal plasma; it may be observed in broad or forbidden or hot spectral emission lines and is the main source of information about the corona’s composition.” as I said.
http://www.helioslab.org/thermo/thermo.htm
No one has observed a single, solitary nanoflare in the solar corona. Nanoflares are simply hypothetical.
Krucker et al. report one nanoflare every three seconds:
http://www.iop.org/EJ/abstract/0004-637X/488/1/499/
You have been “crossed”, at least, by 50 trillion neutrinos in the last second,
But they have not interacted with me. Right now it is night here and the neutrinos that hit me come up through the Earth because they have not interacted with the Earth either. Neutrinos do not emit radiation, they are indeed dark and almost impossible to observe. We can observe the cosmic 2.7K microwave flux from the Big Bang. There should also be a similar [but slightly cooler, 2K] neutrino flux, but it is unobservable [so far, but surely there] because they are dark.
I think you have gone on long enough. All of those statements by you here are way off the cliff and show such profound ignorance that it is hard to believe they were uttered by a ’scientist’ [even if self-proclaimed] by any measure.
Nasif Nahle (17:52:19) :
My description is what is happening just now in the Sun. You are saying that the protons at the solar corona are too cold to collide, etc. You are wrong
Too cold to collide and produce positrons, of course. They collide all the time as all atoms of a hot gas does. In rare, big flares 10s or 100s of millions of degrees are reached, but that is not what heats the corona.
It has been known for decades what makes the corona visible and it has nothing to do with thermodynamics, jut scattered light, like headlight on a foggy night.
I think you have gone on long enough. All of those statements by you here are way off the cliff and show such profound ignorance that it is hard to believe they were uttered by a ’scientist’ [even if self-proclaimed] by any measure.
Leif Svalgaard (17:11:59) :
I think you have gone on long enough. All of those statements by you here are way off the cliff and show such profound ignorance that it is hard to believe they were uttered by a ’scientist’ [even if self-proclaimed] by any measure.
http://www.helioslab.org/thermo/thermo.htm
http://www.iop.org/EJ/article/0004-637X/476/1/385/33737.text.html
http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu//full/1981ARA%26A..19….7K/0000007.000.html
http://www.pnas.org/content/104/14/5749.full
Markus J. Aschwanden. Physics of the solar corona: an introduction with problems and solutions. Chapter 10.
http://www.jb.man.ac.uk/research/solar/plasma.html
http://oai.dtic.mil/oai/oai?verb=getRecord&metadataPrefix=html&identifier=ADA153737
http://www.ann-geophys.net/24/785/2006/angeo-24-785-2006.html
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/reprint/302/5648/1165.pdf
At least I am not so ignorant or stupid as to say the solar corona is not a thermodynamic system and has no boundaries.
Nasif Nahle (18:21:12) :
At least I am not so ignorant or stupid as to say the solar corona is not a thermodynamic system and has no boundaries.
It is worse than that. You are dishonest and will quote, e.g.
http://www.jb.man.ac.uk/research/solar/plasma.html as support for your view even if it explains their research on the physically impossible [according to you] nanoflares. It is easy to pick things up on the internet. It requires knowledge and insight to put them together in a meaningful way, rather than just [as you do] regurgitate undigested pieces out of context and out of measure.
Nasif Nahle (18:21:12) :
I wonder what the many classical authorities you continually refer to would say to this quote from a link you provide about thermodynamics:
http://www.helioslab.org/thermo/thermo.htm
“[…]solar corona heating and solar wind, with the aid of thermodynamics or possibly modify the classical thermodynamics theory to comply with what are happening on the Sun.”
Do you actually yourself read [and perhaps more importantly understand] the stuff you link to? The links, I presume, were all in support of your ideas and to prove that you know what you are talking about.
Leif Svalgaard (18:53:10) :
Nasif Nahle (18:21:12) :
At least I am not so ignorant or stupid as to say the solar corona is not a thermodynamic system and has no boundaries.
It is worse than that. You are dishonest and will quote, e.g.
http://www.jb.man.ac.uk/research/solar/plasma.html as support for your view even if it explains their research on the physically impossible [according to you] nanoflares. It is easy to pick things up on the internet. It requires knowledge and insight to put them together in a meaningful way, rather than just [as you do] regurgitate undigested pieces out of context and out of measure.
On the contrary, it is a proof of my honesty. Besides, the authors do not mention the observation of “nanoflares”, but of flares and magnetic loops, as the remainder of authors have done:
“Efforts to determine α from analysis of individual events have proved inconclusive…”
Besides, I didn’t quoted it in support of “my” view, but only for demonstrating to my colleagues here that the solar corona is a thermodynamic system, contains thermal energy and has boundaries.
It has occurred to me that if there are enough of these innumerable climate effectors then we’ll never figure out exactly the true contribution of anthropogenic CO2. We’ll run out before we know what we’ve put up can do.
========================================
I have special ed colleagues who make the same mistake by equating reading with writing. They have a vague understanding based on the oft repeated “teach reading and writing together” mantra repeated in do-all, be-all, no planning scripted curriculum. The two are far apart and require different skills and areas of the brain unique to each. Yes they share a bit. But thinking that by being a good reader you will be a good writer is a simplistic view regurgitated by the barely educated lot who have not taken the hard courses of neuro-anatomy and language pathology. In fact, most teachers are not prepared to teach writing, not even reading specialists.
So for those of us who are arm chair Sun worshippers, including me, who think we have any kind of deep understanding about the Sun and its characteristics compared to someone who has dedicated his/her life to its study, we be pissing in the wind.
Leif Svalgaard (19:01:16) :
Nasif Nahle (18:21:12) :
I wonder what the many classical authorities you continually refer to would say to this quote from a link you provide about thermodynamics:
http://www.helioslab.org/thermo/thermo.htm
“[…]solar corona heating and solar wind, with the aid of thermodynamics or possibly modify the classical thermodynamics theory to comply with what are happening on the Sun.”
Do you actually yourself read [and perhaps more importantly understand] the stuff you link to? The links, I presume, were all in support of your ideas and to prove that you know what you are talking about.
You’re “cherry picking” what better fits into your wrong ideas. From the same reference we can read:
“The aim of this studies, as a logic continuation of the previous studies of thermodynamics of the solar corona heating problems and solar wind mechanism, is to establish a comprehensive theory of the solar thermodynamics in order to explain the major phenomena of sun activities, particularly the energy balance and radiation mechanism.”
Ciao! 🙂
Nasif Nahle (19:07:19) :
Besides, the authors do not mention the observation of “nanoflares”, but of flares and magnetic loops
They say:
“The observational data were compared with a Monte-Carlo type numerical simulation code, which made it possible to estimate the energy and occurrence rate of nanoflares in an Active Region observed with Yohkoh/SXT”.
You do not understand how science works in such cases.
Nasif Nahle (19:17:40) :
From the same reference we can read
“I consider myself as a new type thermodynamic consultant, with the main business of the application of thermodynamic and thermophysical theories and technologies to carry out exergetic and exegoeconomic (thermoeconomic) analysis of the thermal systems, equipments, and other systems.”
My bulls**t and buzz-word filter kick in when I come across self-agrandissement like the above, but he seems to strike a cord with you… I guess that for some the bar is lower…
Leif Svalgaard (19:37:07) :
Nasif Nahle (19:07:19) :
Besides, the authors do not mention the observation of “nanoflares”, but of flares and magnetic loops
They say:
“The observational data were compared with a Monte-Carlo type numerical simulation code, which made it possible to estimate the energy and occurrence rate of nanoflares in an Active Region observed with Yohkoh/SXT”.
You do not understand how science works in such cases.
Indeed, I don’t understand how science works in case of deep fantasies like yours. Where the authors say they have observed nanoflares? You’re inventing them!
Nasif Nahle (19:17:40) :
From the same reference we can read
“I consider myself as a new type thermodynamic consultant, with the main business of the application of thermodynamic and thermophysical theories and technologies to carry out exergetic and exegoeconomic (thermoeconomic) analysis of the thermal systems, equipments, and other systems.”
My bulls**t and buzz-word filter kick in when I come across self-agrandissement like the above, but he seems to strike a cord with you… I guess that for some the bar is lower…
You make me laugh… I don’t need such sophisticated ad hominem attacks. It is enough for me to know that you don’t know what a thermodynamic system is, that you think the protons have not energy, that they don’t collide, that they don’t release energy, that the temperature of the solar corona is not due to thermal energy, etc., etc., etc. Those are real demonstrations of the level of your bar. 😉
Hey, free drinks at my bar. What about the idea that climate regulation is so complex we’ll never separate the anthropogenic from the natural causes?
=============================================
Leif Svalgaard (16:35:39) :
Geoff Sharp (15:54:36) :
Have you not heard of albedo changes and ocean heat absorption changes because of increased levels of phytoplankton.
Of course, but it has not been shown that there are such changes and that they are significant. Link please with a graph that shows that over say a century.
http://i255.photobucket.com/albums/hh133/mataraka/UYCLOUD.jpg
(Unpublished from Penner and Andronova)
It is impossible to ascertain centennial observations,Indeed in the satellite era accurate uv observations are only 7 years old.Previous has uncertainties of 50% in specific PS attenuation frequencies(you need to relate specific frequencies to specific taxa extrapolation is out and our understanding of this fact with uv is 100 years old eg Gurwitsch)
Another and not insignificant problem, is specific species like increases in uv and have evolved and indeed expect (the seasonal anticipators in the Antarctic) changes in uv flux which is the impervious barrier to biospheric modelling eg Monod.
Nasif Nahle (20:19:10) :
Those are real demonstrations of the level of your bar.
I have been checking into the wondrous world that opens up when one follows the links provided by your new type of thermodynamic consultant/expert. Here is an excerpt:
“The solar surface has recently been imaged in high resolution using the Swedish Solar Telescope. These images reveal a clear solar surface in 3D with valleys, canyons, and walls. Relative to these findings, the authors insist that a true surface is not being seen. Such statements are prompted by belief in the gaseous models of the Sun. The gaseous models cannot provide an adequate means for generating a real surface. Solar opacity arguments are advanced to caution the reader against
interpretation that a real surface is being imaged. Nonetheless, a real surface is required by the liquid model. It appears that a real surface is being seen. Only our theoretical arguments demand the neglect of the obvious.”
It is becoming clear where you are coming from and to what pseudo-scientific [PS] clan you belong. Of course, you are not the only such PS on this blog. One can only implore the depth of ignorance the public has sunk to.
Leif Svalgaard (23:17:35) :
It is becoming clear where you are coming from and to what pseudo-scientific [PS] clan you belong. Of course, you are not the only such PS on this blog. One can only implore the depth of ignorance the public has sunk to.
Its not clear to me….maybe you could inform us?
Leif’s law. Anything that does not fit the agenda and cannot be changed is Pseudo Science.
Dear Leif
Do you think you could stop lacing your responses with gratuitous ad hominem attacks as they make your arguments appear much weaker than they already are?
Geoff Sharp (00:15:02) :
Of course, you are not the only such PS on this blog.
Perhaps I should have added: “[and you know who you are]”, but obviously there was no need for that.
Its not clear to me….maybe you could inform us?
I have held forth on that repeatedly.
maksimovich (23:15:02) :
Indeed in the satellite era accurate uv observations are only 7 years old.
We have good data for the Near UV [Ca II K-line] back to 1915