David Archibald writes in an email to WUWT:
The AGU Fall meeting has a session entitled “Aspects and consequences of an unusually deep and long solar minimum”. Two hours of video of this session can be accessed: http://eventcg.com/clients/agu/fm09/U34A.html
Two of the papers presented had interesting observations with implications for climate. First of all Solanki came to the conclusion that the Sun is leaving its fifty to sixty year long grand maximum of the second half of the 20th century. He had said previously that the Sun was more active in the second half of the 20th century than in the previous 8,000 years. This is his last slide:
McCracken gave a paper with its title as per this slide:
While he states that it is his opinion alone and not necessarily held by his co-authors, he comes to the conclusion that a repeat of the Dalton Minimum is most likely:
Solar Cycle 24 is now just over a year old and the next event on the solar calendar is the year of maximum, which the green corona brightness tells us will be in 2015.
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crosspatch (15:21:30) :
It seems most likely to me that it is some combination of these events happening when conditions tend to favor the outcome leaning more likely in one direction than the other.
several things can work together. most people seem to prefer a single pet idea, so you’ll always find peddlers of just about anything.
green sand: how odd it is that warmists claim it’s only rightwing newspapers in UK who are ‘deniers’ blah blah, when the UK Tele always finds space in its print edition for alarmist rubbish such as your link and Lean below, but keeps delingpole in a blog. same can be said up for murdoch’s press in australia, which runs pro-AGW stuff non-stop while keeping andrew bolt’s climategate stuff on a blog. this is the biggest challenge cos salivating over a “carbon economy” is a bipartisan thing.
12 feb; UK Tele: Geoffrey Lean: Do we want to ignore climate change and risk losing all this?
So if the sceptics’ main standard-bearers effectively agree with environmentalists over the basic science, what on earth is all the fuss about? What is the basis for all the over-excited claims that global warming is a “hoax”, a “scam”, or the greatest scientific scandal ever?..
Yet there is still plenty to debate, and here I must make a confession – I only quoted part of Dr Peiser’s sentence above. He went on: “What is uncertain is the magnitude and timescale of the effect.”…
There is a growing conviction that the cost of ignoring climate change will be far greater than of tackling it now, that many of the measures to be taken would be beneficial in other ways, and even that developing low-carbon economies may be the key to future growth. Indeed, that’s probably the most productive debate we could now be having.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthcomment/geoffrey-lean/7223753/Do-we-want-to-ignore-climate-change-and-risk-losing-all-this.html
Leo G (14:52:37) :
Could you please let me know which, if any version is correct?
The sun’s output varies very little. Solar activity seems to have an ~100 year ‘cycle’ [the past 300 years], so what little variation there has been has gone up and down a little bit:
My best guess of the output looks like this [red curve]:
http://www.leif.org/research/TSI-LEIF.png
The ups and downs are on the order of 1/1000 of the whole.
John Whitman (14:53:12) :
Were you at the AGU Fall meeting? Wondering if there are hints of any upcoming new theories in the pipeline that are focusing on the solar variability versus our climate variability?
I was there. We are blundering about in the dark.
Craig Moore (15:22:42) :
Is there any way we can test the hypothesis that if Mount Svalgaard erupts this blog will go cold? ;?)
The posting here often generate more heat than light…
agreed chili – no armistice, not now, not ever. That is the cry of a partisan who knows his side is losing badly and who is making a last ditch effort to forestall ultimate defeat. Not to mention that to him, armistice means “you guys keep quiet and we do whatever we want.”
It’s about time the Dalton Minimum Repeat gets some attention, this is very much old news for many…
Depending on what I read, a solar minimum coincides with lower than average temperatures or higher than average temperatures. Which is it?
It seems that some have equated, or possibly just confused, sunspot numbers with Earth surface temperatures.
As haywire as the world is (and always has been as far as I know) it is a relief that Copenhagen ended the way it did and that we “seem” to regaining some composure about the weather and climate. While the floodgates have not opened very far, more and more “reasonableness” appears to be entering the debate.
The one thing that humans have been fighting since even way before we climbed down out of the trees has been the weather. Lions, tigers, bears, and other predators, were always momentary dangers.
If the AGW mob is correct, humanity will face a warmer world and higher sea levels. Being creatures of the Ice Ages, we’ll no doubt encounter some difficulties, maybe a drop in population, maybe a drop in prosperity for the “First World” economies. And maybe Not.
If the Ice Age mob is correct, humanity will very likely encounter a severe drop in worldwide population, and “prosperity” for the “First Worlders” who just happen to be in the way of the ice.
If the No Change mob is right, they will live out their lives as they have lived all the days before. But then some day, their children or great-great-great grandchildren, will face Global Warming or the Ice. No doubt about it. (Maybe when they do they’ll be a lot calmer that we are:-)
PS: Is it true Al Gore is buying all the US Coal Mine stock he can get his hands on? (-:Joke:-)
Dr. Svalgaard, like many here, I appreciate you taking the time to put on the gloves and take a swing at the issues and some of the commenters…while maintaining a sense of humor. Thank you!
Leif Svalgaard (13:18:12) :
Dear professor, with due respect: What is it more vodooistic or esoteric than: Dark Matter, Strings, Black Holes, other dimensions, etc. This is witchcraft, as far as nothing of these have been proved at a lab, that is precisely the difference with the plasma universe, from Birkeland´s “Terrela” experiment to Hans Alfven.
Leif Svalgaard (12:23:52) : (And Others)
While I do not study this stuff in great detail as you seem to, I have found myself of late looking at volcanic activity. The Tambora eruption in 1813? had really nasty effects during the Dalton. Do you, at present, consider the occurrences to be completely coincidental? I personally can’t imagine where continental drift over hots spots could in any way correlate to sunspots or solar minimums, but I still entertain the idea, I think because of the dire consequences.
On Roger Harrabin
http://jennifermarohasy.com/blog/2008/04/more-on-the-great-bbc-website-swindle/
I would hardly call the man’s independence an attribute.
“Robert, during the Solar maximum we had enjoyed the oceans warmed up, so how long to do think it takes the oceans to release all the heat they built up during that maximum? And just because a few sunspots occured doesn’t mean this minimum is over. In fact it still just began. (By the way – the oceans are cooling off, so the net effect will be a cooling trend.)”
Except both the oceans and the land continued to warm during the solar minimum which is now ending. (You’ll find no support for the idea that the solar minimum has “just begun.” That’s pure wishful thinking on your part.)
“AGW is dead. Now we have a real problem.”
Leaving aside the fact that this assertion makes no sense scientifically, I’d like to draw attention to the irony of a “skeptic” embracing a single unpublished, un-peer-reviewed paper as the final word on what the climate will do for the next thirty years.
” Ecotretas (13:37:02) :
BTW,
Donald Trump also defends the idea of taking the Nobel away from IPCC & Al Gore: http://www.nypost.com/p/pagesix/global_cooling_7njz5ZtpFblMuF5Vf7LJmN
Ecotretas”
My God! Do you know what this means? Your credibility just shot up to unprecedented levels. Donald Trump is the most intellectually imposing figure in the history of anti-AGW agitprop. Take a hike, Sarah Palin. You’ve found your leader.
Leif Svalgaard (16:07:15) :
Wrote: “The posting here often generate more heat than light…”
So is that why you are here?
Add your heat to the sum of heat in an effort to warm the planet?
robr (16:53:04) :
The Tambora eruption in 1813? had really nasty effects during the Dalton. Do you, at present, consider the occurrences to be completely coincidental?
At this point, the Tambora 1815, Mayon 1814, and Unnamed 1809 together were likely responsible for perhaps the coldest decade of the past several centuries. I consider it to be a coincidence that solar activity was also low 1795-1820.
Andrew30 (16:55:57) :
Add your heat to the sum of heat in an effort to warm the planet?
Warm is better than cold, no?
“Depending on what I read, a solar minimum coincides with lower than average temperatures or higher than average temperatures. Which is it?”
It’s an extremely weak forcing, and it doesn’t last long (the typical cycle in 11 years or so.) So usually you won’t be able to find a strong correlation.
I guess the Sun is gonna do whatever He thinks will upset the most peoples’ predictions. Piers Corbyn seems to be able to forecast Arctic stratospheric warming by some solar method, or he’s a really good guesser.
OT, Greenpeace director John Sauven hoists a not quite green flag at the Guardian. He says “we” a lot:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/feb/16/climate-change-global-solution-greenpeace
Leo G (14:52:37) :
I have read that the suns’ energy output was higher pre-1950, since then has been lower. I have also read that the suns’ energy output has been higher post-1950 then pre 1950.
Could you please let me know which, if any version is correct?
Thanx.
Sunspot numbers are a reasonably good proxy. If you average the numbers over a long enough period, you can see what the change was like over the last 250 years
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/sidc-ssn/mean:132/plot/sidc-ssn/trend
Leif will tell you that the numbers were under-counted in earlier years and is working on magnetic data to try to improve the record.
How’s it going Leif?
It’s fortunate that Dr. Svalgaard frequently comments here at WUWT and explains the current status of our understanding of the sun. Note that the main explanation for global warming before AGW is the sun. But this is not supported by Svalgaard I think.
One could then ask – if the sun is not the origin of the initial temperature increase after the little ice age, what could it be?
And, whatever caused this temperature increase, can we be certain that this “something” is not contributing to global warming (in addition to AGW)?
Is this a valid question? What do you think?
Andrew30-
I was pulling Dr. Svalgaard’s leg and he responded with humor. I guess you failed to grasp the obvious.
It’s fortunate that Dr. Svalgaard frequently comments here at WUWT and explains the current status of our understanding of the sun. Note that the main explanation for global warming before AGW is the sun. But this is not supported by Svalgaard I think.
One could then ask – if the sun is not the origin of the initial temperature increase after the little ice age, what could it be?
And, whatever caused this temperature increase, can we be certain that this “something” is not still contributing to global warming (in addition to AGW)?
Is this a valid question? What do you think?
The “snide” remarks are so belittleing and unworthy.
Fortune Cookie say:
“The wise person learns early that scarcasm gains nothing of value.”
Ross M (15:04:05) : “ Maybe as the Earth cools it shrinks a little causing the earthquakes 🙂 ”
How about the land getting very deeply saturated and heavy with precipitation. The added weight pushing down on the plates causing pressures to go up leading to more quakes/volcanoes?
The climate widget says the sunspot number is 64. Does anyone here actually believe it is a like for like comparison with historical sunspot numbers from previous cycles?