Archibald on stellar to climate linkage

Leif Svalgaard (12:45:56)
Well you accept that the sun’s output varies but you don’t have a definitive physical reason and cannot predict it’s level of activity or the length of the solar cycles to any useful degree. You seem happy to do your work without a physical reason so you should not be demanding such of me.
Likewise we see that the ocean surface temperatures vary yet ENSO on it’s own nor the PDO explain the longer term cycling from MWP to LIA and the Modern Warm Period and the obvious earlier cycling during the current interglacial for the past 10,000 years.
So from simple observations of sun and ocean we see that there is cycling on multiple timescales.
Now all I do is observe what happens and assert the obvious namely that there is a climate response to the interaction between those separate and independent solar and oceanic cycles. That climate response differs according to which is dominant and the absolute level of each component.
I don’t need to sort out the physical reasons and indeed at present I cannot just as you cannot give a definitive explanation of solar variability.
However the fact is that the climate at any given moment is a consequence of the sun/ocean interaction whatever the cause of the cycling in each or the timing of the cycling in each and every climate change ever recorded is adequately explicable in terms of that interaction with no need for CO2 ‘forcing’.
Furthermore climate is nothing to do with actual temperature. Climate is simply the way the equilibrium process in the troposphere is distributed geographically by the positioning of the air circulation systems and the speed of the hydrological cycle.
The patterns of air circulation in the troposphere will always remain broadly the same whatever the actual temperature. One just sees a shift in the positioning of the different air circulation systems and the speed of the hydrological cycle whether the dominating effect is sun, oceans, cosmic rays, CO2 or little green men.
And at all times the equilibrium towards which the system will always move is set by the warming effect of the sun (however achieved – not just raw power output), the length of time it takes solar energy in the oceans to be released back to the air and the rate at which solar energy is released from the atmosphere to space.
Of those factors by far the most influential in terms of the creation of internal system variability must be the length of time it takes solar energy in the oceans to be released back to the air.
Nothing else comes close.

Carla (16:57:21) :
Alice’s Restaurant?
That was so sixties.
I know this is hackneyed, but if you remembered that aspect of the sixties then you weren’t really there.
John

Leif Svalgaard (17:36:20)
You keep missing the point.
1) I am not suggesting that the solar and oceanic cycles are necessarily connected in any way. Hence my point that they seem to cycle independently. They probably are connected at some level but it does not appear clearly in the observed climate.
2) I am not using the climate to make any determination. I am saying that observing the interaction of both solar and oceanic cycles gives us the climate. Other variables are involved but at a lower order of influence.
3) My comments are relevant here because solar behaviour is and must always be involved in climate changes albeit heavily modulated by other internal system variables such as what seems to be an overwhelming oceanic variability.
I appreciate your position and that of David and I see some merit in both. You have the edge because the observed variability in solar power is so small as a proportion of total solar output. David’s position has merit because solar variability does appear to affect the rate of energy flow to space as we see from the SABER observations.
As to how the solar effect works your point is that the topmost layers of the atmosphere are so thin that they ‘cannot’ in your view have any effect at all or any effect is so small as to be negligible.
However you seem to be evading the point about the possible effect of changing surface areas at the top of the atmosphere and at each layer interface within the atmosphere caused by variations in solar turbulence. It is intrinsically unlikely there should be such a strong effect in the thermosphere but a zero effect lower down.
You point out that the variations in the sun are miniscule in terms of power output. Then how does the thermosphere temperature vary so much ? Apparently it can go from 500C to 1500C and back again. A miniscule variation in solar power seems unlikely to be responsible for all that.
I’m inclined to think that the thermosphere temperature could just as well vary as a result of changes in the rate of energy flow from below as from solar changes above.
You say that the thermosphere cannot affect the lower layers because it is so thin. That would be fine if we were considering a downward energy flow.
However we are considering here an upward energy flow and so the lower layers would be in control of the thermosphere temperatures and being so much more dense they would have a powerful effect on the small number of molecules in the thermosphere above.

Stephen Wilde
Perhaps a naive question – which oceanic cycles are you referring to in terms of phase relationship with solar cycles – ENSO, PDO, AMO ? There are several ocean cycles and they have different time timelines. How do you define a single oceanic cycle? Indeed, Tsonis has shown that the moving in and out of phase of the various oceanic cycles (PDO, AMO) relative to eachother itself switches climate between warming and cooling phases in context of chaotic harmonic dynamics.
In general the ocean cycles are short – 8 years or so for ENSO, 20-30 years for PDO, AMO etc. The sunspot cycle is only 11 years. Its hard to believe a phase relation between such short cycles which both vary somewhat can be maintained for tens of thousands of years. Are you referring to longer term ocean and sun cycles, such as solar minima? (Maunder, Sporer etc.)
BTW in the wikipedia solar cycles link you provided, it is notable that the interglacials over the last million years all occur at eccentricity maxima (although the magnitude of eccentricity and interglacial maxima don’t correlate).

phlogiston (02:26:40)
I’ve always taken the view that one needs somehow to net out the effect of all the ocean cycles combined at any given moment.
On that basis Tsonis may well be correct.
The issue of eccentricity is one that I still need to look into in more detail. I see that as a component in whatever sets up the solar effects in the first place. I never said that it was only the level of solar surface activity that was involved.
There are at least 3 timescales involved and possibly more.
For the sun:
i) variations within each solar cycle. Individual bursts of flares and sunspots.
ii) variations over a series of cycles. Multiple cycles more active or less active than ‘normal’.
iii) variations on the scale of Sporer, Maunder, Modern Maximum etc.
Then one has to start bringing in orbital factors for longer term solar variability.
For the oceans:
i) Interannual ENSO events
ii) PDO phase shifts (assuming they are independent of ENSO)
iii) Probable 1000 year cycle from peak to peak since the sun doesn’t vary enough to do it and we see the ITCZ shift latitudinally which is an ocean cycle fingerprint in my view.
Possible longer term variability not yet adequately recognised due to lack of historical detail but not relevant for current climate concerns.
The critical issue though is that whatever happens and however those cycles interact over time the system response to retain equilibrium is always a shift in the positions and sizes of the air circulation systems and thus the speed of the hydrological cycle. The climate system will always react to changes in the rate of energy transfer from oceans to air and changes in the rate of energy transfer from stratosphere to space so as to retain equilibrium for the system as a whole.
Climate is simply the geographical distribution of the equilibrium process.
One can even deal with the ‘faint sun paradox’ by suggesting that when the sun is fainter the hydrological cycle is slower so that the surface temperature is little different.
Underlying it all is a relatively stable density and pressure differential at the ocean surface that sets the system equilibrium temperature by dictating a relatively stable background rate of energy transfer from oceans to atmosphere.

John Whitman (22:40:08) :
Carla (16:57:21) :
Alice’s Restaurant?
That was so sixties.
I know this is hackneyed, but if you remembered that aspect of the sixties then you weren’t really there.
John
~
Grew up in a household with 3 older brothers. (range9-5 yrs older) Was only 10 for the album release of Alices Restaurant, but was indeed looking and alwawys listening, so was there. Technically it was a song about the draft, but covered other aspects of society. ( like the segement on “blind Justice”)
When these discussions get too heavy for me, (have you read some of these technical docs?) music becomes a diversion or escape time, to free up my brain from thinking about some of the topics discussed here.
~
John Whitman (23:03:27) :
..One of the good answers [there are several] by a rational person is NUTS [thanks General Anthony McAuliffe]. It is appropriate for a rational person to say, I of my own volition choose what I focus my mind on. Only I choose that. My time is really valuable to me. Present your case to me that what you are saying has enough value to warrantee my focus, otherwise I will not focus on your stuff. If your sales job doesn’t meet the cut, you are cut out of my focus. : )
John
~
yeah ditto, we all do this, right? Geesh good thing my lively hood is not dependent upon my sales ability. Focus on what you will, John.

Solar-Lunar association with volcanic activity:
http://www.sfu.ca/~plv/SAOT-SLAMaaChandler.png