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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Stephen Wilde (15:07:22) :
And I’ll keep repeating it in any relevant context until real world evidence disproves it
Leif Svalgaard:
In science it is not enough to maintain something just because there is no evidence against it. There must be some positive evidence for it.
The evidence in favour would be that over time it fits real world events.
You have exceptional knowledge as regards your speciality but as regards the climate consequences of your solar data you know no more than the rest of us and often less.
Leif, you unfairly edited my comment before you replied to it. I also said I would consider better propositions. Perhaps you would like to come up with one and be constructive for once ?
Sitting in an ivory tower, using your specialist knowledge as a defensive barrier is all very well but it doesn’t give you authority on non solar issues and such an approach is essentially very easy and very lazy.
Knowledge about the sun is all very well but it tells us nothing about how the climate system responds to solar input.
Agree Claude, reading various climate websites it strikes me that most of the climate scientists are suffering from heavy tunnel view…..
When people realize that main focus of Global Warming criticism should be focused to UHI? It is not so clever to make thousands of papers trying to explain GISS dataset (especially last decades) with various reasons regarding dataset as reliable to describing global temperature trends.
Is there any paper which compares global temperature trends taken from urban/rural stations? If not, I strongly recommend to do one to someone who has needed data available. After that we should discuss and explain that trend which is obtained using rural stations only.
Claude Harvey (01:02:39)
As a non scientist I heartily agree and you will see that I have been adopting the large scale top down approach which you recommend.
anna v (21:28:10) “correlation is not causation“
Screaming this does not advance the discussion Anna.
Leif Svalgaard (23:06:39) :
In this kind of science there is no certainty
Your speculations are not science
Well observed. Sir here is what I said:
“vukcevic (15:44:36) : Just an idle speculation…”, by definition no one’s speculations are science. Declaring that someone’s thoughts are idle speculation should be banned?
I thought this was more than self evident:
In this kind of science there is no certainty, just set of probabilities.
May be I missed it, but don’t you think , as an eminent scientist, it is time you declared your own ideas on the subject.
Is it TSI, CO2, is it something else ? What do you think is cause of the climate change?
You can’t for ever hide behind everlasting criticisam of others, I mean serious contributors, and I do not count myself in there.
Give us a chance to get even!
Or, if you don’t know it would be only fair to add that qulification whenever you sit in judgment of others.
So what is it: TSI, CO2, God, something else, don’t know ?
Fair play, Sir!
Claude Harvey (01:02:39) :
Well said! I couldn’t agree more.
I’m reading Ian Plimer’s book, heaven and earth, and it singularly compels you to look at much larger timescales when considering earth’s climate. Anything less than 1000 years all you can say about temperature is, as you so succinctly put it “trending upward or trending downward”.
There is clearly no evidence in paleoclimate histroy that says CO2 is a key driver of climate change. Moreover man’s impact on CO2 levels has been infinitesimal when considered in a historic context over the last 540 million years.
What we do know is that earth’s climate is driven by a number of factors which combine in an impossibly complex and chaotic fashion.
What we don’t even know is what all those factors are let alone how they combine. To start to build models that can therefore predict climate is no more than a start and we should not rely on them for policy. [BTW the good folks who contribute to this excellent blog with their some very well thought out theories may want to consider this point].
There is a good analogy I think with the art of stock trading: Stock market traders have been looking for the holy grail (a model that predicts market moves) since trading began and every year models come and go because markets are complex and chaotic (the model fails after a while).
In the meantime we will have to pay for this AGW/Climate change alarmist nonsense with jobs, wealth destruction and the inevitable brownouts that will come until folks can see the emporers (our political leaders) have no clothes on.
Perhaps the scientists studying climate change should all go away and work out how it all works and say nothing until they can agree on a model that clearly predicts climate for the next million years 🙂 just a thought.
If each phase of the PDO contains three solar cycles, and some phenomenon of the solar cycle alternates, then you will have two solar cycles of one type in each phase of the PDO and one solar cycle of the other type. If the alternation from one solar cycle to the other has differential earth heating from one to the other, then you can explain the alternate heating and cooling cycles of the PDO. And lo, the shape of cosmic ray peaks alternates from one solar cycle to the next, from broader to more peaked. If cosmic ray peak shape effects clouds, then you have a mechanism for the sun driving the main ocean oscillation.
Leif Svalgaard speaks of this alternation of cosmic ray peaks being a second order effect. But if TSI doesn’t vary much, and if enhancement of a solar phenomenon to modify climate does happen, then this is a possible mechanism. Shouldn’t someone be trying to figure out if the variation in the shape of cosmic ray peaks have a variable heating effect?
===================================
There are five ‘ifs’ in that comment, Leif. That’s as close to quantifying the mechanism that I can get. ::grin::
=========================================
er, six ‘ifs’. Hmm, back to basic maths.
==========================
And the alteration of cosmic ray peaks doesn’t have to work through clouds to have an effect on heating. If it doesn’t, though, then the proposed mechanism is even more occult.
=============================
Kim
Interesting proposition.
Cosmic rays would presumably work through clouds by altering solar shortwave quantities hitting the ocean. For that reason I am inclined to concede an effect but what about timing, scale and causation ?
There is no 30 year periodicity in cosmic ray variation as far as I know but you have suggested a way of fitting one in. What indications do you have that your suggestion is soundly based ? I don’t see how the shape of a peak would affect energy budget globally. It helps with tallbloke’s observation of a change in oceanic phases at the minimum of every third cycle though. Mind you we don’t have many oceanic phase change records to rely on.
There seem to be plenty of particulates in the air already so how does one quantify the cosmic ray component when cloudiness changes ?
The oceanic changes seem to come first with the shift in air circulation patterns following. For cosmic ray effects to be doing the driving you need the air circulation shifts first and then the oceanic changes (on ENSO timescales) but I don’t see that happening.
“Claude Harvey (01:02:39) :
Do any of you academic loons appreciate how goofy you appear to the typical engineer? I once worked for the Sperry Research Center (last of the old corporate “think tanks”) where I served as the “blood and guts” engineer responsible for actually building an experimental power plant their world-class PhD.’s had dreamed up. I spent more time stopping their 175 or so academics from chasing their own tails every time a problem arose than I did building the project. I once squandered two valuable weeks beating off a blaze of computer simulations to determine whether a small hole would weaken a geothermal well casing more than a big hole.
You simply cannot take such a noisy environment filled with statistically skewed data as the author of this paper has done and draw the kinds of conclusions he has drawn.
Back off and look at the 450,000 year envelope of derived global temperature data. It represents a classical chaotic system that over the short term has a life of its own, cycles between high and low temperatures on approximately 100,000 year cycles and is bounded, hell or high water, by upper and lower limits that span approximately 12 degrees C. Catastrophic meteor strikes and cataclysmic volcanic episodes have not changed that pattern one whit. Mankind’s comparatively puny impacts will not affect that pattern and the chaotic nature of the global climate system most likely precludes precise short term temperature predictions more precise than “trending upward or trending downward”.
Jeese!
Claude Harvey”
Maybe OT, but while I was working for a large computer mfg company in the ’80’s, no names OK, I had the “pleasure” of training University vocational students who’d studied electronics from (UK) “O”, to “A” and then on to “degree” level study. Many did not know how to use an AVO, nor did they know what it was (Or how it’s name was derived). Which always brings me to recall the joke; What do you say to someone with a “degree” qualification in “anything” (Specifically in the “climate science” space)? Big Mac and large fries!!
I agree with Claude. As an engineer looking at the total system including the galaxy, the sun, the atmosphere, the oceans, etc. Man’s contributions to climate are but a flyspeck of nothingness. Zoom out. DAGW is a farce.
What I can’t understand is how people can argue that the sun’s variance is too weak to cause recent warming but then admit that it was the trigger for the start and end of the ice ages (now official). Surely the assumption of the latter proves there exists an amplifying mechanism for the former. How could a weak solar effect be a trigger of anything? The two hypotheses are contradictory.
And no the GHG feedback half-theory doesn’t fill the gap because it only covers the heating part of the cycle, is responsible for a max. of 30% even of that heating part (ref. Severinghaus on realclimate) and is clearly neither the actual trigger nor has much retardation effect on the cooling (a problem the alarmists just calmly skip over).
“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].”
It has been known for some time that the VIRGO and ACRIM data used in GW models is suspect due to the cobbling together of various instruments and the use of arcane mathematical methods to make data fit. And if the instrument was degrading or out of sync with other ones, another wave of math using various “Levels” made the data “fit” again.
http://www.acrim.com/Reference%20Files/SORCETIM_SolarPhysics.pdf
There even was a joint meeting of experimenters in 2006 to try to resolve these differences.
The new direct total TSI instrument used in SORCE and its expanded use in the 2010 Glory Mission will finally provide clear unambiguous TSI data.
To avoid acrimony between VIRGO and ACRIM scientists and SORCE scientists, the SORCE website simple notes:
“The TIM measures TSI values 4.7 W/m2 lower than the VIRGO and 5.1 W/m2 lower than ACRIM III.”
http://lasp.colorado.edu/cgi-bin/ion-p?page=input_data_for_tsi.ion#note
That is scientific speak for “their data sucks”.
With some more years, decades perhaps, of direct measurements by SORCE and GLORY, the earlier best efforts based on instruments then available will probably be excluded from TSI models.
In my basic course of statistics, the Professor was very clear:
“If the statistics don’t make sense, don’t believe it.”
Too bad the AGW’ers weren’t in that class.
Footnote
Greg Kopp is a principal SORCE investigator at the University of Colorado and one who has lead the investigation in 2006 on instrument differences. When I emailed him some months ago, he responded with the following:
Greg Kopp -TIM Instrument Scientist Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics
“We have been working with the TSI community on resolving these differences, starting with a NASA-organized community workshop at NIST a couple of years ago. Since then, we have built a new facility to calibrate TSI radiometers against a NIST-calibrated cryogenic radiometer prior to flight, and have used this facility to validate the performance of the next TIM, which will launch in early 2010 on NASA’s Glory mission.
Prior to the Glory/TIM, no flight TSI instrument has been validated end-to-end for irradiance under flight-like operating conditions (my emphasis)”
Actually Svensmark posited another amplifier to add to Leif’s shortlist – that of positive water vapor feedback – which of course exists for all ocean heating mechanisms. I suspect he just felt like hoisting the alarmists with their own petard.
Leif Svalgaard (11:32:45) :
The big problem is the short lever arm. Use 20 years to calibrate and then extrapolate to 400 years, especially when the TSI is uncertain
I never thought I’d see the day.
🙂
I note however, that Scafetta also mentions the Loehle reconstruction, and this would offer another guide to long timescale calibration of the model. As you said the other day, you don’t rely on one series or type of quantity in coming to conclusions about the calibration and quantification of TSI.
@Leone (01:37:26) :
“When people realize that main focus of Global Warming criticism should be focused to UHI? It is not so clever to make thousands of papers trying to explain GISS dataset (especially last decades) with various reasons regarding dataset as reliable to describing global temperature trends.”
Perhaps it’s even more basic than that. If you haven’t yet visited E.M. Smith’s blog here
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2009/08/05/agw-is-a-thermometer-count-artifact/
you may find it helpful. Check out the related posts after you scan the the post in the link I gave.
vukcevic (03:02:39) :
it is time you declared your own ideas on the subject.
Is it TSI, CO2, is it something else ? What do you think is cause of the climate change?
As Stephen points out, I don’t know. The large changes [glaciations] are very likely due to orbital changes. The rest probably don’t have a single cause, but many interacting ones. So it becomes a question of degree: so many % of this and so many of that etc. As time goes on, we’ll get a handle on those percentages. Some comparative planetary climatology [e.g. ice cores from Mars] will help. In the meantime I just pull weeds.
Paul Vaughan (02:17:52) :
anna v (21:28:10) “correlation is not causation“
Screaming this does not advance the discussion Anna.
I am fairly sure that on the net,
bold is emphasis
capitals is shouting
bold capitals is screaming.
So I was just using emphasis, not screaming.
I’ve just been having a look at Scafetta’s paper. As someone who proofreads scientific papers published by Japanese researchers, I have to say that I am disappointed that Scafetta was too lazy to bother having his paper checked. The paper contains literally hundreds of minor grammatical errors and awkward-sounding phrases, and it is written in a style which frequently obscures the point that the author wishes to make. The cumulative effect is so off-putting as to deter all but the most persistent readers.
Spoken English does not have to be perfect. People repeat themselves a lot when they talk, and they often use body language and intonation to convey their meaning when words do not suffice. That is why in everyday conversation, native English speakers tend to be tolerant of grammatical mistakes by non-native speakers. Indeed, confusing “he” and “she” is just about the only mistake that is guaranteed to provoke an irate correction from a native English listener. Written English, by contrast, has to be perfect, or it will either confuse or bore the reader. When I am reading a book, magazine, newspaper or scientific journal, I expect the writing to be completely free of spelling, grammatical and stylistic errors. I also expect the author to communicate his/her meaning plainly and clearly, so that I don’t have to puzzle over what the author meant. This is a matter of basic courtesy. An author who fails to write clearly and correctly is simply being rude to his/her readers.
Global warming is an important issue, and I have no doubt that Scafetta did some first-class research in his field. It’s a real pity that he couldn’t be bothered asking a professional editor, or even a colleague of his, to check his paper. He had an opportunity to make an impact in the scientific world, and he missed it.
Leif Svalgaard (09:41:48) :
“What he does [his Figure 5] is trying to show that the rise in Temps since 1980 is much larger than can be accounted for by any of the assumed TSI-reconstructions. One could argue that this could be due to three things
1) his model is wrong
2) TSI is wrong
3) Temp increase is due to CO2 and not solar activity.”
I assume you are a big supporter of theory #3? I have heard so.
One couldn’t argue this because there are hundreds of variables which could be have caused this.
Three may be a pretty neat number and it is tempting to dismiss solar activity and conclude: “Well if it ain’t the sun, it must be CO2”, but considering we know close to nil about the sun and its connections to climate we can’t make such assumptions.
Maybe it is not the sun directly, but maybe it is not CO2 either.
To consider, from FAO abstract:
Spectral analysis of the time series of dT, ACI and Length Of Day (LOD) estimated from direct
observations (110-150 years) showed a clear 55-65 year periodicity. Spectral analysis of the reconstructed time series of the air surface temperatures for the last 1500 years suggested the similar (55-60 year) periodicity. Analysis of 1600 years long reconstructed time series of sardine and anchovy
biomass in Californian upwelling also revealed a regular 50-70 years fluctuation. Spectral analysis of the catch statistics of main commercial species for the last 50-100 years also showed cyclical fluctuations of about 55-years.
Klyashtorin, L.B.
Climate change and long-term fluctuations of commercial catches: the possibility of
forecasting.
FAO Fisheries Technical Paper. No. 410. Rome, FAO. 2001. 86p.