Dr. Nicola Scafetta has written an extensive summary of the state of climate science today. He’s done some very extensive analysis of the solar contribution that bears examination. Pay particular attention to this graph from page 49:
WUWT readers may remember him from some previous papers and comments he’s written that have been covered here:
Scafetta: New paper on TSI, surface temperature, and modeling
Scafetta: Benestad and Schmidt’s calculations are “robustly” flawed.
He writes to me with this introduction:
On February 26, 2009 I was invited by the Environmental Protection Agency Office of the Science Advisor (OSA) and National Center for Environmental Economics (NCEE) to present a talk about my research on climate change. I thought that the best way to address this issue was to present an overview of all topics involved about the issue and their interconnections.
So, I prepared a kind of holistic presentation with the title “Climate Change and Its Causes, A Discussion about Some Key Issues”. Then, a colleague from Italy who watched my EPA presentation suggested me to write a paper in Italian and submit it to an Italian science journal which was recently published.
========================
Download the report here (PDF -warning over 10 MB – long download time on slow connections)
This work covers most topics presented by Scafetta at a seminar at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, DC USA, February 26, 2009. A video of the seminar is here:
The Italian version of the original paper can be downloaded (with possible journal restrictions) from here
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Here is the table of contents, there’s something in this report for everyone:
Climate Change and Its Causes: A Discussion About Some Key Issues
Introduction … 4
The IPCC’s pro-anthropogenic warming bias … 6
The climate sensitivity uncertainty to CO2 increase … 8
The climatic meaning of Mann’s Hockey Stick temperature graph … 10
The climatic meaning of recent paleoclimatic temperature reconstructions … 12
The phenomenological solar signature since 1600 … 14
The ACRIM vs. PMOD satellite total solar irradiance controversy … 16
Problems with the global surface temperature record … 18
A large 60 year cycle in the temperature record … 19
Astronomical origin of the climate oscillations … 22
Conclusion … 26
Bibliography … 27
Appendix…29-54
A: The IPCC’s anthropogenic global warming theory … 29
B: Chemical vs. Ice-Core CO2 atmospheric concentration estimates … 30
C: Milky Way’s spiral arms, Cosmic Rays and the Phanerozoic temperature cycles … 31
D: The Holocene cooling trend and the millennial-scale temperature cycles … 32
E: The last 1000 years of global temperature, solar and ice cover data … 33
F: The solar dynamics fits 5000 years of human history … 34
G: The Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age – A global phenomenon … 35
H: Compatibility between the AGWT climate models and the Hockey Stick … 36
I: The 11-year solar cycle in the global surface temperature record … 37
J: The climate models underestimate the 11-year solar cycle signature … 38
K: The ACRIM-PMOD total solar irradiance satellite composite controversy … 39
L: Willson and Hoyt’s statements about the ACRIM and Nimbus7 TSI published data .. 40
M: Cosmic ray flux, solar activity and low cloud cover positive feedback … 41
N: Possible mechanisms linking cosmic ray flux and cloud cover formation … 42
O: A warming bias in the surface temperature records? … 43
P: A underestimated Urban Heat Island effect? … 44
Q: A 60 year cycle in multisecular climate records … 45
R: A 60 year cycle in solar, geological, climate and fishery records … 46
S: The 11-year solar cycle and the V-E-J planet alignment … 47
T: The 60 and 20 year cycles in the wobbling of the Sun around the CMSS … 48
U: The 60 and 20 year cycles in global surface temperature and in the CMSS … 49
V: A 60 year cycle in multisecular solar records … 50
W: The bi-secular solar cycle: Is a 2010-2050 little ice age imminent? … 51
X: Temperature records do not correlate to CO2 records … 52
Y: The CO2 fingerprint: Climate model predictions and observations disagree … 53
Z: The 2007 IPCC climate model projections. Can we trust them? … 54
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/papers/originals/acid_test.pdf
““OCEAN ACIDIFICATION” – THE EXTREMISTS’ FALLBACK SCARE
First, they called it “global warming”. Then they noticed there had been no warming for 15 years, and cooling for 9, so they hastily renamed it “climate change”. Then they noticed the climate was changing no more than it ever had, so they tried “energy security”, and even named a Congressional Bill after it. Then they noticed that most Western nations already had bountiful energy security, in the form of vast, untapped domestic supplies of oil, gas, coal, or all three, so they switched to “ocean acidification”.”
((This work covers most topics presented by Scafetta at a seminar at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, DC USA, February 26, 2009….))
..And yet our government is bent on listening to no such thing. Immediately after, the EPA listed Carbon Dioxide as a “harmful gas.”
Very interesting. Downloaded at once.
Wait a minute, how could we possibly influence the center of mass of the solar system?
Blimey – best get my reading specs on!
This post is why WUWT is the cutting edge of truth.
What is meant by “de-trended”?
OK the first page of the booklet makes clear the answer to my question :^)
This is a wonderfully clear and impressive presentation. Very welcome, very recommended. Thank you.
Wait, do I smell a barycentre?
Note the cycle of the PDO is about the same as that 60 year cycle.
Ooops, Leif incoming.
============
Well now. Maybe the Sun and the Oceans really do have something major to say? Whodathunkit?
Thank you Dr. Scaffeta for putting this work together. I’ve just downloaded it and look forward to a little light reading before bed.
Prof. Horst Malberg , retired director of Berlin Free University’s Institute of Meteorology has just published “La Niña – El Niño and Solar Influence: Climatic Trends 1950 – 2008” and “Solar influence on long-term climate change, globally since 1860, in Central Europe since 1672” — a pair of real game-changers for the climate debate that demolishes AGW and, IMHO, deserve widest-possible dissemination. Can’t fit them in here, so please e-mail me an address.
R.
Interesting. I do not think that anyone has an argument against the TSI effecting things to some extent. But it appears that the effect is rather small and somewhat secondary. D’Aleo found that adding it to his model along with the PDO and AMO did not add much.
Thanks for bringing this to my attention. I actually hadn’t heard of this work before. I shall download and read Dr. Scaffeta’s entire report “Climate Change and Its Causes” with much interest.
From a quick preview, it appears that he believes that we are in for a period of global cooling, bottoming out in 2030 or so, and it’s got nothing to do with GH gases, but is related to solar and astronomical cycles. Is this correct? And if this is what he predicts, then his hypothesis can be put directly up against the AGW hypothesis, which would state that we should see many new record global high temps between now and 2030, along with the disappearance of summer arctic sea ice, etc.
Both theories can’t be correct, and it even looks as though, according to Dr. Scaffeta’s own graphs, that we should already be seeing a downward plunge in temperatures heading to that 2030 low. If we see a new global record warm year in 2010, as the Met Office (and I believe) will likely happen, what problems would that represent for Dr. Scaffeta’s hypothesis?
Long period Lunar declinational influences on the global circulation that may not be much different from the above in essence, although not as well researched yet.
http://research.aerology.com/aerology-analog-weather-forecasting-method/
Downloading the PDF file now thanks for the input.
The author’s first name is Nicola, not Nicolas. Yes, he is a man; see
http://www.fel.duke.edu/~scafetta/
Reply: Fixed ~ ctm
Very interesting. Thanks for the download information.
The Figure 13 chart is quite telling.
Dr. Scafetta has recently honoured us participating in a meeting held in Italy on february 27th. In that meeting I asked him the permission to make an on line interview with questions directly from the readers. The discussion (in italian) is ongoing here http://www.climatemonitor.it/?p=8378.
gg
I give up. What’s TSI?
[Total Solar Irradiance. ~dbs]
Found it, buried deep in his PDF. TSI = total solar irradiance.
I’ve read it. And this has been presented to the EPA?
I noticed that you didnt elaborate much on CRU station removal, and not much on GISS versus UHI opposite compensation. But, since you were to present it to the EPA, I can understand it.
A very interesting read. Maybe this can help in trying to turn the IPCC into another direction? Like, changing
The IPCC mission:
“The IPCC reviews and assesses the most recent scientific, technical and socioeconomic information produced worldwide relevant to the understanding of human induced climate change.”
For example;
“The IPCC reviews and assesses the most recent scientific information produced worldwide relevant to the understanding of human induced pollution.”
Is Scafetta going to let RealClimate have the code that he used for his paper?
Or is he going to use the same excuses that Michael Mann, Tamino, & Co have been using?
I have just downloaded it and haven’t yet had a chance to study it but it seems we have needed a compendium of research summaries and how they relate to the AGW debate. Perhaps this can serve that purpose.
Dr. Scaffeta welcome to the club of ‘pseudoscience’, why not peruse, by now now infamous, set graphs and equations which have earned me a rare distinction of a ‘cycloramic in extreme’.
http://www.vukcevic.co.uk/GandF.htm
well; that’s going to keep me quite for a while…
Wow!
This is all a bit too scientific and factual for our friends at Real Climate, Ed Miliband, Patchi, Jones, Mann et alia.
I expect the silence of their response will be deafening. Perhaps the argument they will use will be that any comments on climate by people with Italian sounding names are irrelevant – makes as much sense as most of their arguments.
For clarification, was Dr. Scafatta “invitation” to present to the EPA mean he was paid by the EPA to produce a research product, paid expenses to present independent research, or prepared this with no contractual relationship with the EPA. (I haven’t been able to complete a download yet, so I apologize if those details are included.)
At long last! An Overview! I can see where all my spare time will be going, for a while.
However I’ll bet a nickel that this only scratches the surface of the countless interactions which make up the entire “system.”
My question to anyone who steps out their door, looks up at the sky, and thinks they have the “system” all figured out is, “Are you sure you aren’t being just a little bit arrogant?”
I clicked Submit, before saying that I found the paper very, very interesting. Thank you very much for posting here on WUWT!
Regards, kwik.
?? The figure shows the global surface temperature (black) detrended of its quadratic fit function as done in Figure 1. ??
?? The 60 year modulation of SCMSS has been time-shifted by +5 years ??
So the detrended temperatures fit the variation in the sun if we shift it by 8% .
So what causes the trend? Now there must be a study there?
OMG
Discover Magazine has a very interesting two part interview with Judy Curry and Michael ‘Piltdown’ Mann. Judy seems to have caught on to the importance of the oceanic oscillations to the cooling from the ’40s to the ’70s and the subsequent warming, whereas Mann seems to willfully disregard it. Found through tomnelson.blogspot.com
==============
Please don’t read any of this, because the science is already settled. I have spoken.
Signed, *Man Behind the Curtain*
Thank You Dr. Scaffeta for presenting your work to the general public. I look forward to reading it in depth.
Best Regards,
John from California
R Shearer (11:13:40) :
“Wait a minute, how could we possibly influence the center of mass of the solar system?”
Because the masses (planets) are constantly changing positions and their orbits are slightly elliptical.
For heavens sake, I download the pdf and the title page was the first surprise. Many apologies to Dr. Nicola Scafetta NOT “Scaffeta” as it appears in the headline of this article and my last comment.
[Fixed, thanks. ~dbs, mod.]
It has recently been proven that if a report or article has any errors at all, the entire content is rendered meaningless, or perhaps even a hoax.
What then, should we make of the erroneous spelling of Dr. Nicola Scafetta, above? Is this some attempt at covering up previous publications by Dr. Nicola Scafetta? Is there some recent reports of criminal activity circulating on the Internet that a misspelled name would fail to turn up? Has the editorial integrity of WUWT broken down, requiring a total redesign so that this never happens in the future?
The implications of this error are vast – I think we better clear this up before we talk about the contents of the article at all.
One of the major cycles in the Chinese astrological calendar, which was/is used a lot for determining ‘lucky’ days for planting etc., consists of 60 years. This is made up of the 12 animals, which change every year, and the 5 elements, which change every two years. Each animal/element therefore occurs every 60 years.
The point being that maybe the cycle observed by Dr. Nicola Scaffeta has been observed in the past over an extended period of time.
It’s interesting that one of Scafetta’s main arguments seems to be similar to, dare I say it, a “Landscheidt” approach to explaining climate cycles. If this is right, it would be ironic that the one “scientific” topic banned on this skeptic’s site, which has done so much to challenge AGW, is a discussion of exactly that climate mechanism. Or, am I off base here?
REPLY: Yes I noted that, but I decided that the best approach is to face it head on, if it is junk, it will shake out. – Anthony
Ron (13:19:58) :
R Shearer (11:13:40) :
“Wait a minute, how could we possibly influence the center of mass of the solar system?”
Ron, Shearer was being sarcastic. If we are going to force these uncanny natural cycles to match the IPPC models, how much world-wide taxation would we need?
hoho!
Landscheidt had talked about this for many years. (Why is it not ok to mention his name on this forum??)
I even wrote a paper on the (slightly less than) twenty year pattern in Iowa tree ring data. I speculated that it was linked to the Saturn/Jupiter lap. It was published back in 1995, I think. We should be susceptible to drought in the midwestern US over the next few years from this cycle. I suspect the AGW alarmists will seize this, if indeed it does occur, as proof of continued global warming.
Here is my take on a natural climate cycle
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/CETt.htm
How could we possibly influence the center of mass of the universe? Maybe jumping up and down all at once, everyone on earth? Hmmm, no, that won’t do it.
I got it! Everyone turn off your lights for an hour. Pick a day and just do it. Maybe sacrifice a few virgins, too.
===================
If Al Gore and his sycophant team of Hansen, Smith, Jones, Trenberth, et. al. were smart, they would go hide quietly now. Their game is over.
Quite amazing. Scafetta manages to pack in almost every “sceptical” talking point, paying no attention to their credibility or consistency.
So we have doubts about the instrumental temperature record, but no doubts about Beck’s CO2 compilation despite the internal contraditions of the latter. Scafetta argues that the recent increase in atmospheric CO2 has a considerable natural component due to solar induced warming. Were that the case, it would suggest that feedbacks are huge. Fortunately, the most recent analysis, even covered on WUWT, would suggest otherwise. We even have the lie that Jones said their had been no warming since 1995 (rather than there being no statistically signigicant warming).
And then we have the baryocentric argument, though without naming it as such. As always, it is presented without any consideration of its physical plausibility. Tides on earth have a minor contribution to the climate system, increasing mixing in the ocean. The tides on the sun are going to be orders of magnitude smaller, and have a period orders of magnitude longer. It is difficult to concieve of them having an important effect.
Dr. Scafetta, thank you for your work and for publishing this for free. It is a fascinating article. I sent the link to numerous colleagues.
This will create conversation for many years, I am sure.
Roger E. Sowell, Esq.
Marina del Rey, California
Dr. Scafetta (and his co-authror West) were earlier contributors to the IPCC reports in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s. Remember these were the days before the hockey stick and the outrageous claims of impending doom. In the early to mid 2000’s Scafetta and West started to downgrade the impact of anthropogenic caused warming to around half their earlier estimates based on their more recent studies. This occurred at a time that Mann and the “Team” introduced the hockey stick and began pushing for a more exaggerated portrayal of anthropogenic induced doom. While Scafetta was still recognized as a leading contributor his later work just didn’t fit the narrative. So he was relegated to the “has beens” of climatology with little of his later work being considered for inclusion.
Finally, the political environment in climatology has changed enough so that sound views of rational scientists can once again be heard. Thank you Dr. Scafetta for staying true to your convictions and speaking only where the science compels you to speak.
Why is it that when I read the posts on this web site I get angry?
You may not agree, but I am a true skeptic.
What I keep seeing here is not skepticism but political machinations.
I do not see a desire to find the truth, and to thus come to a logical conclusion.
rather I see blind parroting of “slogans” and outright toadyism.
This is not science. It is anti-science.
sad just sad
The really sad part is 50 years from now, what will your children and grand childrens opinion be of you?
“Anu (13:28:07) :
It has recently been proven that …”
Lots of words for a really lame joke.
read all….
15 March: UK Times: John Houghton: We climate scientists are not ecofanatics
If the IPCC has a fault, it is that its reports have been too cautious, not alarmist
A third myth is that the IPCC has refused to recognise that there has been no significant increase in global average temperature in the past decade or so. Sceptics cite this as evidence against human-induced global warming. But the level of natural year-to-year variability in the temperature record shows that a decade is too short a time to establish a change in the long-term trend…
Perhaps there is a criticism that can be made of IPCC scientists: they have been too slow publicly to defend their integrity. They have not been willing or able to hit the airwaves or make their case in newspapers. But scientists are now faced by powerful lobbies who are working to distort and discredit the science behind climate change. We scientists have facts on our sides — we must not be afraid to deploy them.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article7061646.ece
Richard Telford,
There is no doubt that incremental increases in CO2 cannot influence the earth’s average temperature, because to do so requires violation of the fundamentals of process control. Nobody, and no system, can violate that.
The IPCC and any governmental body that claims increases in CO2 or other greenhouse gases will cause global warming are quite wrong.
http://sowellslawblog.blogspot.com/2009/02/chemical-engineer-takes-on-global.html
Dr. Scafetta’s conclusion is consistent with the fundamentals of process control, and therefore deserves serious consideration.
Guido Guidi (12:05:23) “Dr. Scafetta […] on line interview with questions directly from the readers. The discussion (in italian) is ongoing here http://www.climatemonitor.it/?p=8378. “
For those who may not know, just:
1) drop that webpage-address into the box on this http://translate.google.com/ webpage,
2) set the form to Italian-to-English, and
3) hit the “Translate” button – (scroll over to the far right to find it on narrower screens).
The translation isn’t perfect, but errors are rarely problematic. Scafetta tells all in the interview.
I find this to be a good exposition of how unsettled is the science called climate science. When one tries to make sense of the Sun in response to planatary forcings . . .
(from page 48) These curves are just proxies of the modulation of the gravitational and magnetic planetary forcings on the Sun.
. . . things get a bit murky. See Friday’s “Solar Conveyor Belt” post and comments: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/03/12/hathaway-on-the-solar-conveyor-belt-and-deep-solar-minimum/
As the internal workings of the Sun are poorly known it may be awhile before an explanation exists for for the effect of the combined synodic periods of Jupiter and Saturn and of Uranus and Neptune.
Richard Telford (13:55:02) :
Quite amazing. Scafetta manages to pack in almost every “sceptical” talking point, paying no attention to their credibility or consistency.
Yes, Scafetta throws in everything plus the Kitchen sink. Most of this stuff is not credible and in the end it seems we are talking about an effect of one or two tenths of a degree [and filtered data to boot]. solar activity could well account for one tenth, leaving the rest [GW if any] unexplained. It is sad to see Scafetta sinking to the level of Vuk et al.
To Robert of Ot. above,
“Detrended” refers to a mathematical function of dendro-chronology that allows for wiggle matching between trees of different ages (compensates for thinner rings of older wood of greater biomass). This is discussed in a major paper by Jan Esper in Science, 2002. This function in many tree-ring sequences reduces the sensitivity of dendro-chronological records to long-term climate change (low-frequency signals). It is a factor not fully understood by Mann and Briffa as revealed in CRU email comments, FYI (de-trending makes the shaft nice and straight).
Bruce M. Albert, Ph.D., PDRA, Durham University, UK
Doc Svalgaard your verdict is eagerly expected. Here is a barycentric ‘grande formaggio’ to get your teeth in.
Marvellous resource, thank you! Especially the appendices. Read it immediately. Now I know that not only do sunspots influence temperature but the Earth, Jupiter and et al influence sunspots.
Slightly OT, but Bjorn Lomborg has another opinion piece in The Australian today, with some eminently sensible (but heretical!) comments about the economics of AGW.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/fixing-climate-change-shouldnt-cost-the-earth/story-e6frg6zo-1225840644967
aqz (13:30:36) : Chinese astrological calenda
Today is pi day and a good day to search on this phrase:
numerological 60
“Richard Telford (13:55:02) :
[…]
Scafetta argues that the recent increase in atmospheric CO2 has a considerable natural component due to solar induced warming. Were that the case, it would suggest that feedbacks are huge.
”
Only when you mix the arguments of the “CO2 is the major climate driver” theory with the “natural variabilty determines the climate” theory. Which you shouldn’t do; nonsensical statements like yours would be the result.
“Henry (14:09:14) :
[…]
The really sad part is 50 years from now, what will your children and grand childrens opinion be of you?”
The Hansen line, “Storms of my Grandchildren”. Do you have a factual argument to make, Henry? Bring us your best evidence.
Leif Svalgaard (14:22:12) :
“It is sad to see Scafetta sinking to the level of Vuk et al.”
You not quite correct. Vuk was never barycentric, you might say he’s more geomagnetic.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/LFC8.htm
Re: Hank Hancock (Mar 14 14:08),
Dr. Scafetta (and his co-authror West) were earlier contributors to the IPCC reports in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s.
Really? He only submitted his PhD in 2001, the year AR3 came out. His collaboration with West started 2003, but then they were writing about human gait. It wasn’t till 2005 that they turned their attention to climate matters.
Henry (14:09:14) :
(…)
The really sad part is 50 years from now, what will your children and grand childrens opinion be of you?
“Thank God he was too cheap to buy the good latex.”
John F. Hultquist (14:27:53) :
“Today is pi day ……”
Just under a year ago on 30/03/2009 at 2 x 3.14 (2 x pi) hours (or if you whish 6.28am) the Sun produced its version of pi number (look in the 10 o-clock direction)
http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov//data/REPROCESSING/Completed/2009/mdimag/20090330/20090330_0628_mdimag_1024.jpg
More solar mysteries : http://www.vukcevic.co.uk/GandF.htm
Richard Telford (13:55:02) :
(Snip)
“”Tides on earth have a minor contribution to the climate system, increasing mixing in the ocean. The tides on the sun are going to be orders of magnitude smaller, and have a period orders of magnitude longer. It is difficult to concieve of them having an important effect.””
my reply;
There are atmospheric tides as well as ocean tides, with several periods of oscillation in the atmosphere, due to the Lunar declinational tides that produce and control the propagation of the Rossby waves and jet stream movement, that are important to weather and climate modeling.
Every one sees these secondary actions, with out realizing they are being driven by the moon. The beat frequency of the declinational tides and the phase tides results in the modulation of the shape of the QBO activity, which is another secondary reaction nobody doubts, but few can explain fully.
The interactions of the solar wind with the lunar declinational tides in the atmosphere, drives the weather to the point that models that do not account for them only work for 7 to 10 days, however a forecast model that uses them is accurate for 15 to 18 years. How many more important effects do you to need to conceive of before it makes sense to you.
That the whole solar system is suspended in space with only gravity, tidal, and electromagnetic forces, holding them together while moving with inertia that must be interconnected some way Is not hard to grasp for a person that thinks a lot.
Vuk etc. (14:26:19) :
Doc Svalgaard your verdict is eagerly expected.
Asked and answered.
As that Great Serbian pseudo-scientist put so clearly:
“on face of it, if one was to be too pedantic, one would be obliged to ascertain that energy levels required to satisfactorily passed the test, as required by the most rigorous of scientific standards, are to a degree numerically challenged”
“Anu (13:28:07) :
The implications of this error are vast – I think we better clear this up before we talk about the contents of the article at all.”
Not to worry, Anu.
It has been peer reviewed and corrected.
🙂
The fit looks fairly good, but what is the mechanism?
Leif Svalgaard (14:22:12) :
What is your theory on the force behind the sun-spot cycles?
kim (11:28:18) : You wrote, “Note the cycle of the PDO is about the same as that 60 year cycle.”
The assumption is, the 60-year cycle of the PDO continues back in time. It does not. I’ve just finished the graphs on a post of PDO paleoclimatological reconstructions. Here’s the short-term comparison graph:
http://i39.tinypic.com/rvzrt5.png
Not one of them shows a 60-year cycle, and none seem to correlate with 30-year smoothing. I’ll try to write up the post tomorrow morning.
kwik (14:55:26) :
Leif Svalgaard (14:22:12) :
What is your theory on the force behind the sun-spot cycles?
Ken Schatten has a theory that I lean towards: http://www.leif.org/research/Percolation%20and%20the%20Solar%20Dynamo.pdf
This is not the only one that is viable. The trouble is that we have too many good theories, and we need to have the Sun choose the right one for us from observations. SDO will be important for this.
pat says:
March 14, 2010 at 2:10 pm
……”recognise that there has been no significant increase in global average temperature in the past decade or so. Sceptics cite this as evidence against human-induced global warming. But the level of natural year-to-year variability in the temperature record shows that a decade is too short a time to establish a change
in the long-term trend…”
wait a minute! The point of Mann’s hockey stick graph of 1998 is that the temperature was going up up up, significantly in a decade . Well , it’s 2010 and no increase, so now we are cautioned by the AGW crowd that the climate doesn’t work that way, that there are decadal fluctuations. Then why did Mann et al. claim in 1998 that a decadal rise was significant and unprecedented. Give me a break! Do these guys even listen to themselves?
JohnWho (14:50:11) :
“Not to worry, Anu.”
“It has been peer reviewed and corrected.”
But obviously not by the HockeyTeam.
How could this happen?
Its a travesty!
A silly Q , but could nuclear power generation affect mass of earth?
And I thought barycenters were off 🙂
I will have a go at the paper anyway, to see if there is a mechanism explained somewhere.
Bob Tisdale @ 14:58:21
Thanks for that graph. That answers several questions I’ve had that I am too lazy or too ignorant to discover the answer for myself. I’d wondered if there were six solar cycles in each cycle of the PDO, also.
===============
Re Fig 10 – that 1960 mini-peak may well be a residuum of the bucket sampling issue, what created flat SST trend from 1940-1960 instead of decreasing trend. This has contaminated the global record, since SST make 70% of it. The abrupt drop of 0.3 deg C after 1945 is not seen in any surface record and has been artificially introduced with intention to mask the inconvenient cooling, despite rising CO2.
PMOD vs ACRIM TSI reconstruction issue is very interesting.
Overall must-read.
O/T from the main thrust of this thread, but is there a calculation of how high Earth’s temperature could get, theoretically, with the atmosphere we have?
Thanks to WUWT for posting this. I’m looking forward to having a good read tomorrow. Clearly, the science is not settled!
Robert of Ottawa (11:19:58) : You asked, “What is meant by ‘de-trended’?”
The easiest way to explain it is to show you. The following is a graph of the Sea Surface Temperature (SST) anomalies of the North Atlantic. Also included on the graph is the linear trend line:
http://i44.tinypic.com/10funtv.jpg
To detrend the North Atlantic SST anomaly data, subtract the values of the linear trend from the values of the North Atlantic SST anomalies:
http://i39.tinypic.com/2crm2s5.jpg
And by detrending the North Atlantic SST anomalies, one creates the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation dataset. I discussed it in this post:
http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2009/04/atlantic-multidecadal-oscillation.html
Regards
Can someone, perhaps Leif Svalgaard himself, point me to a single argument, debate, website, presentation, speech, paper, etc. where Leif explains why exactly he considers himself a skeptic, or lukewarmer, or a…whatever?
I’m sure I haven’t seen a tenth of his comments, but I have yet to see a single comment that doesn’t emit disdain of a skeptical argument, other than one brief statement where he simply states that climate science is “voodoo science”. Perhaps he was being sarcastic, in that comment?
I’m not attacking, I don’t even necessarily disagree with his comment about this paper, I’m just curious.
I suppose this would be yet one more argument that we should be using a 60-year period for calculating “normal” temperatures and not a 30-year.
“annie (15:16:27) :
A silly Q , but could nuclear power generation affect mass of earth?”
No. The energy is derived from a very slight loss of mass of atomic nuclei, following the equation
e = mc^2
c is the speed of light, 300,000,000 m/s , c^2 is even bigger: 9*10^16.
So you get a lot of energy from destroying very little mass.
Rondack (11:33:07) : No need to copy and paste the paper or the abstract. Please provide a link.
Juraj V. (15:18:17) :
PMOD vs ACRIM TSI reconstruction issue is very interesting.
The decrease in PMOD over the last cycle is very likely due to degradation of the instrument [being subjected to the harsh space environment for decades. See Figure 10 of http://www.leif.org/research/Historical%20Solar%20Cycle%20Context.pdf that shows [the yellow curve] the ration between PMOD and SORCE-TIM. note the progressive decrease.
————
There is increasing evidence that perhaps the Maunder minimum was not such a quiet period, and that solar activity lately has not been unusually high. E.g.: A 600-year annual 10Be record from the NGRIP ice core, Greenland; A.-M. Berggren et al.,
GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS, VOL. 36, L11801, doi:10.1029/2009GL038004, 2009
http://www.leif.org/EOS/2009GL038004.pdf :
“Periodicity in 10Be during the Maunder minimum reconfirms that the solar dynamo retains cyclic behavior even during grand solar minima. We observe that although recent 10Be flux in NGRIP is low, there is no indication of unusually high recent solar activity in relation to other parts of the investigated period. [last 600 years]
Scafetta’s data is often dubious. An example is in Appendix M, page 41. Figure upper left. Solar magnetic flux is shown there to have a steady increase [red curve, inversed], the last 100 years. This is not the case as several recent papers document [as we have discussed many times on this blog].
Another example is the use of the obsolete Hoyt and Schatten TSI reconstruction. This obsolete [read: wrong] data is often used by enthusiasts that invoke solar activity.
The general problem with Scafetta’s paper is the attempt to explain all. This usually ends up explaining nothing.
annie (15:16:27) :
A silly Q , but could nuclear power generation affect mass of earth?>>
Of course. E=MC^2 is the formula for how much energy is produced when matter is converted to energy by nuclear power generation. Leaving equipment on the moon also reduces the mass of the earth. As does sending space probes out to Mars and Jupiter.
But the actual amount is insignificant in comparison to the mass of the earth. Its not even significant compared to the amount of dust earth’s gravity captures from space every year.
Quite a document. Refers to the all the recent greats in the field: the chemical CO2 measurements of Beck, the musings of Viscount Monckton, the ‘NIPCC’ report, D’Aleo and Watts …..
All the more puzzling then, that Scafetta still is ‘stonewalling’ (Copyright S. McIntyre) requests for his code…
Good science is based on the principles of transparency, openess, replication, falsification, blah blah……..
Henry (14:09:14) : You wrote, “Why is it that when I read the posts on this web site I get angry?”
There’s a very simple cure for your anger. Stop reading the posts on this website! ;^)
Phil Clarke (15:47:51),
What a perfect opportunity to avoid charges of hypocrisy, by demanding that Mann and the rest must make their data, code and methods transparent.
The reason they don’t can be seen in the Harry_Read_Me file, in which 13 years of temperature station data is invented, rather than admitting it doesn’t exist.
“Anu (13:28:07) “It has recently been proven that if a report or article has any errors at all, the entire content is rendered meaningless, or perhaps even a hoax.”
Equating a spelling mistake with deliberate manipulation and deception is a bit of a stretch, don’t you think? And surely the point regarding AR4 is not that there are “mistakes”, but that there aren’t any at all – only lies!
Juraj V. (15:18:17) : You wrote, “The abrupt drop of 0.3 deg C after 1945 is not seen in any surface record and has been artificially introduced with intention to mask the inconvenient cooling, despite rising CO2.”
The abrupt drop appears in marine air temperature and cloud cover data:
http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2009/03/large-1945-sst-discontinuity-also.html
And it also appears inverted in wind speed anomalies:
http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2009/03/part-2-of-large-sst-discontinuity-also.html
“Phil Clarke (15:47:51),
What a perfect opportunity to avoid charges of hypocrisy, by demanding that Mann and the rest must make their data, code and methods transparent.”
Mann had a funny way of padding his data. If you don’t know what that means: When you do a filtering operation on a time series like a running average you have the problem that the length of the filter makes it impossible to run it to the end of the data; the right half of the filter will dangle in the air. Rahmstorf and Hansen have also been caught doing funny things in this situation:
http://climateaudit.org/2009/07/03/the-secret-of-the-rahmstorf-non-linear-trend/
As this affects the output, the nice graphs they’re publishing, especially at the interesting end – where they meet the present – it is of rather big importance to find out how the researcher handled this situation, and it is not nasty or hypocriticical to ask this question at all. It is a matter of honesty and the duty of the researcher to answer such a legitimate question.
“Smokey (15:56:38) :
The reason they don’t can be seen in the Harry_Read_Me file, in which 13 years of temperature station data is invented, rather than admitting it doesn’t exist.”
Link:
http://di2.nu/foia/HARRY_READ_ME-0.html
John L (15:38:59) :
Can someone, perhaps Leif Svalgaard himself, point me to a single argument, debate, website, presentation, speech, paper, etc. where Leif explains why exactly he considers himself a skeptic, or lukewarmer, or a…whatever?
For the record:
1) Temperatures are higher now than 100 years ago. Exactly how much can be discussed [fakings, UHI, etc].
2) Solar activity has been ‘flat’ since 1700 with a ~100-yr ‘cycle’ on top. It is not clear if this ‘cycle’ is a real cycle or just a random fluctuation.
3) Solar activity and cosmic ray modulation do not go away during Grand Minima [although sunspots are less visible]
4) There is a 0.1% change of TSI between solar min and solar max, resulting ~0.1C temperature variation
5) No long-term variation of TSI has been demonstrated
6) No convincing evidence for a sizable solar modulation of climate has been demonstrated
7) No convincing evidence for CO2 being the cause of the warming [see point 1]
8) In the deep past [billions of years] CO2 was a significant greenhouse gas, because of its much higher partial pressure than today
9) Solar models are not good enough for detailed prediction, but our understanding of the solar interior and explanation of energy production are on firm footing
10) Solar polar fields seem to be a useful predictor [and it is semi-understood why]
11) Climate models have not been very successful, but should work in principle
12) Both the Sun and the Earth can exhibit ‘internal’ cycles. E.g. some stars pulsate and change luminosity on a large scale [50-100%]
13) Various ‘external’ influences [planets, galactic ‘positions’, interstellar clouds, electric currents from the galaxy, etc] are either not operating or their effects are negligible
14) The cosmic rays vary too little to have any effect and the mechanism proposed does not seem to work [you can always extend your belief a bit by claiming that more data is needed]
Considering the above, I don’t know what you would call me. And I don’t care.
I have been avoiding opening this video for fear it would be completely biased however, conservative talk radio host Amy Holmes added good balance to the discussion. She even mentioned sunspots and the Himalayan glaciers in the debate. Maher showed the Al Gore naked magazine cover and the front page of the USA Today article on waning support for MMGW. That in itself made it worth watching.
Bill Maher: The Environment Is The Ultimate Health Care Issue (VIDEO)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/13/bill-maher-the-environmen_n_497781.html
Smokey – I am puzzled
Perhaps you could confirm that Ian ( ‘Harry’) Harris’s comments refer to his work on the CRU TS 2.1 to 3.0 upgrade, and have nothing whatsoever to do with the flagship HADCRUT global temperature time series, as referenced by the IPCC?
I am unable, also, to locate the point at which he’ invents’ the station data…. academic interest only, but could you enlighten us?
Anu (13:28:07) “It has recently been proven that if a report or article has any errors at all, the entire content is rendered meaningless, or perhaps even a hoax.”>>
Methinks you have it backwards. should read:
If the entire content is a hoax, then any errors discovered are evidence.
Leif Svalgaard (16:12:55) :
For the record […]
Here is an interesting exercise: consider the 14 points and give yourself a score of +1 if you agree with a point, of -1 if you disagree and of 0 if you are neutral. Your ‘Leif Score’ would then be the sum of those 14 scores. Mine is obviously +14. Alternatively give a 1 if you agree or a 0 otherwise, your ‘Leif Number’ would be the decimal number that is formed by the sequence of 1s and 0s. Mine is obviously 11111111111111 = decimal 16383.
A handy binary-decimal converter is here: http://acc6.its.brooklyn.cuny.edu/~gurwitz/core5/nav2tool.html
Attach your Leif score and number to your posts at all times, and we know where everybody stands 🙂
I was working from memory of his academic and professional history and in retrospect, would have been more accurate to have left the “late 90’s out of my comment. His academic works did date to the late 90’s while his firs professional climate related publications arrived in the early 2000’s.
Scafetta received his Laurea Dottore in Physics in 1997 (Universita di Pisa) and his Ph.D in physics in 2001. His work in the climate climate sciences began as early as 2002, not 2005 as you state. True, Scafetta worked also on a few studies on human gait as well as some interests in economic models in that time frame. It is clear his interests refocused on climate sciences in 2002. His earliest published work in climatology was in 2002, not 2005:
“Temperature reconstruction analysis” N Scafetta, T Imholt, P Grigolini, J Roberts – 2002 arXiv:physics/0202012
“Solar flare intermittency and the Earth’s temperature anomalies” – 248701 N Scafetta, BJ West – Physical review letters, 2003
“A stochastic analysis of the solar and non-solar forcings on global climate during the solar cycles 21-23 (1978-2003).” N. Scafetta with B.J. West
To name a few of his earlier publications.
My point remains that his earlier work overestimated the anthropogenic contribution. When he downgraded the anthropogenic contributions in his later works, it placed him in bad light with the alarmist community, relegating him to be somewhat of an outsider. That was my central point.
f Svalgaard (16:35:08) :
Mine is obviously 11 1111 1111 1111 = decimal 16383.
You can also give your Leif Number in Hex: mine is 2FFF.
Leif Svalgaard (15:42:04) said:
A shocking thought. I shudder at its implications.
Just wondering, how does this graphic, showing the high temps we saw in January 2010 fit in with Dr. Scafetta’s model:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/2010vs2005+1998.pdf
According to his hypothesis, shouldn’t the earth be cooling off, rather than seeing such warm temps?
Leif
How can you continue posting here?
Having read all of your papers, I find you a good solid scientist.
Yet here I find that science is not what is being done.
It is politics.
So do are you thus Politically in the camp of these here.
Or are you really a scientist interested in finding the truth.
I think at some point you will have to decide if you can keep stomaching the posts here.
I think it is time for some retrospective……
And in Australia we still get the usual drivel in the MSM;
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/climate-snapshot-reveals-things-are-heating-up-20100314-q67h.html
Bob Tisdale,
Thanks for drawing attention to these upthread:
http://s5.tinypic.com/i3um47.jpg
http://s5.tinypic.com/15dnb4i.jpg
http://s5.tinypic.com/2w5um3a.jpg
Looking forward to your forthcoming 60 year &/or/vs. PDO write-up. I agree that imagining a 60 year cycle running indefinitely both forward & backward in time is silly. Analyses like yours help with speculation about more realistic envelopes (as opposed to overly-simple cycles).
Cheers.
“Dr. Nicola Scafetta summarizes “why the anthropogenic theory proposed by the IPCC should be questioned”” Oh, I don’t know. Because it is all a lie? Or, upon further thought, perhaps, because it is all a lie? Maybe because it is all a lie? Or it could have something to do with it all being a lie? Its a stumper, thats fer sure!
Wow. How embarrassing! Beck’s nonsense and Douglass et al. (who apparently don’t understand the fundamental difference between standard error and standard deviation) all rolled into one!
And, this from a physicist, no less. I thought Scafetta was better than this. I was wrong. Why publish work in physics journals when you can get it published by Science and Public Policy Institute, the organization of which Lord Monckton is the Chief Policy Advisor.? It is kind of sad to see serious scientists sink to this level.
QUOTE: DIRK
The Hansen line, “Storms of my Grandchildren”. Do you have a factual argument to make, Henry? Bring us your best evidence.
ENDQUOTE
Why should i provide any evidence when you do not?
All you do is criticize without providing any evidence.
Sounds to me like FUD.
P.S.
Paid by Exxon.
No worries folks, it will be out eventually, and all the skeletons in the closets of the posters here wiil eventually be out.
you may attack me all you want,
but I know how to dig out dirt.
I will find it.
love
Mia Nony (11:02:22) :
First, they called it “global warming”. Then they noticed there had been no warming for 15 years,
———-
What I like about WUWT is that people here go off and get the actual data and test statements by scientists, journalists, bloggers and other commenters.
Shall we ?
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/hadcrut3gl.txt
The most recent data is from Dec 2009.
15 years before that was Dec 1994
So, was there any warming in the last 15 years ?
Dec 1994 global temp. anomaly 0.217
Dec 2009 global temp. anomaly 0.407
Yup, the planet warmed 0.19 deg C.
These anomalies are with respect to the average for 1961-1990.
Leif
In response to your solar response.
I find it odd that all your arguments only fall into the area of your speciallity.
Have you at all considered that something else may cause a problem?
Mayhaps you are too focused on your own work to see the broader picture?
Sorry but my respect for your opinions have plummeted 🙁
take care
Leif Svalgaard (16:12:55) :
“Considering the above, I don’t know what you would call me. And I don’t care.”
Objective? Impartial?Pragmatic? And this kinda attitude has no place in climate science, either side o the divide!;-) Good on yer.
“Henry (17:00:37) :
Leif
How can you continue posting here?
Having read all of your papers, I find you a good solid scientist.
Yet here I find that science is not what is being done.
It is politics.”
S/N = 0 in your case.
Re: Hank Hancock (Mar 14 16:43),
My point was really directed to this:
Dr. Scafetta (and his co-authror West) were earlier contributors to the IPCC reports in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s.
He can hardly have contributed to AR1, AR2 or AR3. Are you saying that they were contributors to AR4?
“Henry (17:46:30) :
[…]
Why should i provide any evidence when you do not?
All you do is criticize without providing any evidence.”
You are a pretty disturbed person. You don’t even know my position (or maybe you have already “dug out some dirt”, what a deeply disturbed way of arguing). But it’s not a secret. Ferenc Miskolczi’s theory appeals to me.
This is what i wrote in an earlier thread:
I think i understood it now.
While Gerlich and Tscheuschner as well as William C. Gilbert dismiss the natural (and anthropogenically enhanced) greenhouse effect altogether, arguing with the laws of Thermodynamics, there should still be a measurable effect due to the fact that water vapour and CO2 actually absorb LWIR radiation, causing increased radiation towards the surface. How can these two seemingly contradictory statements be united?
The solution lies in the word “equilibrium”. An equilibrium in a vast system like the earth’s atmosphere needs time to be achieved. Here, the statistical analysis by Beenstock and Reingewertz fits in perfectly; saying that the temperature anomaly may not be caused by the absolute level of CO2 but by the first derivative.
So an increase in CO2 leads to a temporary upswing in temperature that levels off again as the system readjusts (cools through increased convection). A decrease in CO2 leads accordingly to a temporary downswing in temperature.
This can also be interpreted as the negative feedback posited by Miskolczi’s theory.
As our CO2 emissions rise pretty much linearly ATM (not exponentially as assumed by the IPCC) this leads to a roughly constant positive anomaly for the time being.
Leif,
You have to consider that:
1. Our current metrics may not be sufficiently sensitive to detect a solar effect on our climate.
2. We may be looking at the wrong metrics.
You sound way too over-confident about our current abilities to detect fluctuations in solar forcings. You sound like Louis XIV’s physician who said in the early 18th century that “medicine is now so advanced that we will not learn anything new for centuries”.
Anu (17:51:46):
“What I like about WUWT is that people here go off and get the actual data and test statements by scientists…”
You have the gall to quote CRU temperature data??
You do understand that rather than “actual data,” what we’re been given by CRU has been made up as they went along – in one case, for a 13 year stretch.
“Trust, but verify.” Since Climategate, we find that we can do neither.
Leif Svalgaard (16:12:55)
“Temperatures are higher now than 100 years ago.”
Ah, but are they any higher than 70 or 80 years ago?
I have a lot of confidence in science. I really do. But to put it terms relevant to the discussion, my confidence in science being “robust” is, shall we say, on the century level.
Re:
JP Miller (13:34:27) :
It’s interesting that one of Scafetta’s main arguments seems to be similar to, dare I say it, a “Landscheidt” approach to explaining climate cycles. If this is right, it would be ironic that the one “scientific” topic banned on this skeptic’s site, which has done so much to challenge AGW, is a discussion of exactly that climate mechanism. Or, am I off base here?
REPLY: Yes I noted that, but I decided that the best approach is to face it head on, if it is junk, it will shake out. – Anthony
Thanks, Anthony. So long as there at least some sensible effort to connect data to a physical explanation (even if tortured) for how shifting solar system gravity could drive climate, then the theory ought to be examined. And there’s no better place than here. Reminds me of the tectonic plate argument circa 1915.
Leif S. has the correct attitude for a scientist. Trust in no one, (and that goes double for oneself).
If trust played a part in science there would be no reason to reproduce experiments.
2 years ago I found multivariate patterns in local climate data suggesting the following harmonic spectrum (in years): 3.2, 6.4, 12.8, 25.6, 51.2, along with 6.4 year beats with the terrestrial year: 1.185 years = 433 days (Chandler wobble), 2.37 years = 28.4 months (QBO = Quasi-Biennial Oscillation).
Studying solar system dynamics alerted me to the existence of such spectra in: Jupiter-Neptune relations, Earth-Venus relations, & higher derivatives of solar system barycentric motion.
Cautionary Note for solar system barycentre enthusiasts:
The same spectrum arises in Earth-Sun-Moon relations.
Based on draconic month harmonics & the nearest Gregorian (used for purposes of illustration) year harmonics:
(13.60611)*(13.5275) / (13.60611 – 13.5275) = 2341.389811 days = 6.410507569 years
(28.09557692)*(27.21222) / (28.09557692 – 27.21222) = 865.4972869 days = 2.369651086 years = 28.43581303 months
2.369651086 / 2 = 1.184825543 years = 432.7486434 days
4) There is a 0.1% change of TSI between solar min and solar max, resulting ~0.1C temperature variation
This is a very simple explanation and does not allow for other climate influencing factors that vary greatly during the solar cycle. Extreme UV being one of those factors. The 0.1C temperature value does not take this into consideration.
3) Solar activity and cosmic ray modulation do not go away during Grand Minima [although sunspots are less visible]
They might not go away but are severely reduced, once again EUV being just one factor.
If every researcher were required to know the mechanism of every pharmaceutical drug’s effect on the human body, how many would see the light of day?
http://tinyurl.com/ylja32r
In the same light, if the various solar effects mechanism is not known on their influence of earth’s weather/climate system, does that still render them “pseudoscience”? Just because they are not understood?
On how ones like the CO2, Earth First, Climate Change deal with facts.
Take for example how many of these ones inside the U.S.A. delt with the
facts from John F. Kerry’s communication logs, his now proved up acts in a combat zone, and things like “Christmas in Cambodia”, “CIA” hats and
“2000 meters up and down river under hostile fire”, then the one comm.
out..”We need a tow boat.”
They still deny, they still claim “swiftboated”, and this know liar and fraud sits in the U.S. Senate defending “Climate Change”.
They live, and die by lies, and are willing to do so.
Only ice and snow will change them, and still they will blame humans, it is what they are.
Im my opinion, facts do not matter to them one bit.
My dear Henry, please take my advice. Your hysteria is showing and it seems to be about to overtake your soul. Have a piece of chocolate, or a nap. Have you a cat to pet? Or a dog to walk? I worry about you. Be good to yourself.
=============
Henry (17:48:05) :
P.S.
Paid by Exxon.
No worries folks, it will be out eventually, and all the skeletons in the closets of the posters here wiil eventually be out.
==========
God forbid, if all the skeletons of all the posters on this site wiil be out.
I commented very quickly about this post BEFORE I had read and digested it. I pat myself on the back that I recognized its importance. I slightly modify my previous comment: THIS POST IS WHY WATT’S UP WITH THAT IS ON THE CUTTING EDGE OF TRUTH…..AND BEAUTY.
R Shearer (11:13:40) :
Wait a minute, how could we possibly influence the center of mass of the solar system?
We do but the influence is very tiny. Follow this:
First, do you know exactly what the barycenter is? If there were only the Sun and Jupiter, they would both revolve around the common center of mass, the barycenter. If Jupiter’s orbit is slightly elliptical, they both would follow the same shaped ellipse around the barycenter, but the Sun’s orbit would be much smaller due to the mass ratio.
Once you add a significant third mass, as Saturn, the path of the Sun around the barycenter is no longer a conic shape but a bit like a Spiro-graph trace. Add the other planets and the Sun’s tiny orbit (the orbit is small enough to fit entirely within the Sun itself) is now very irregular over decades but still somewhat resembles a deformed, varying Spiro-graph tracing.
Now the Earth and the other planets do not affect this much but we, on Earth, are also revolving around the barycenter. That means we are sometimes closer or farther from the sun by the radius of the Sun’s orbit around the barycenter. That is determined by where the big planets are in their orbits.
It is the Sun’s deformed Spiro-graph path that makes this easy to be described by cycles of the large planets orbits.
That’s it in a nutshell and is what all of talk of barycenter and how it varies the total solar irradiance slightly, therefore climate slightly.
Hope that helped.
—-
Dr. Scaetta, I will enjoy your paper. It’s great to get an overview in one single place.
I have always found that Leif backs up his assertions with facts and invites proof that he is wrong. I have not seen the occasion where this proof has been given wrt TSI. So why is everyone piling on him? Seems that he has a very good grasp of the facts.
Henry (17:00:37) :
Yet here I find that science is not what is being done.
There is a lot of pseudo-science, but most people here are not scientists so one would not expect much science to be done here.
Henry (17:56:41) :
I find it odd that all your arguments only fall into the area of your specialty. Mayhaps you are too focused on your own work to see the broader picture?
I comment on what I know something about. Other posters supply a broad picture that covers all aspects of human folly.
Mike Ewing (17:58:05) :
And this kinda attitude has no place in climate science, either side o the divide!;-) Good on yer.
I don’t do climate science, just regular science 🙂
François GM (18:21:11) :
1. Our current metrics may not be sufficiently sensitive to detect a solar effect on our climate.
As I have said many a time, there is no doubt that the Sun has some effect, but if our current metrics can’t detect it, it cannot be the [or even ‘a’] major driver.
————–
BTW, I note that nobody has manned up to give their ‘Leif score/number’ 🙂
wayne (19:25:48) :
talk of barycenter and how it varies the total solar irradiance slightly, therefore climate slightly.
No, the distance between the Sun and the Earth is not affected by this [because the Earth orbits the ‘barycenter’ determined by the Sun and the Earth [+the Moon], no matter what the Sun does. Just like the Moon orbits the ‘barycenter’ determined by the Earth and the Moon, no matter what the Sun does. If the Sun had a companion star [Nemesis] very far away, the barycenter of the total system would be way outside our planetary solar system. But [as we have discussed so often], the barycenter of the solar system is irrelevant because the Sun and all the stuff in the solar system are just in free fall in their combined gravitational field and feel no forces from that.
wayne (19:25:48) :
There are many errors in your statement. May I suggest you research the amount of solar movement from the SSB and how this movement has NO effect on the solar/planet distance.
Leif,
I think your ‘Leif score’ is 3FFF not 2FFF.
Leif, I would like to know what you think of Miscolzi’s work.
===================
“Leif Svalgaard (19:30:49) :
[…]
BTW, I note that nobody has manned up to give their ‘Leif score/number’ :-)”
I didn’t see anything i disagree with in your list.
Sorry Leif, you said ‘Temperatures 100 years ago were higher…’ You didn’t say what temperatures. So this can be both true and false, since not every place on Earth is warming. Do I credit for either answer? 🙂
In contrast to older reconstructions,[36] most recent reconstructions of total solar irradiance point to an only small increase of only about 0.05 % to 0.1 % between Maunder Minimum and the present.[37][38][39]
Having found this tidbit on wikipedia, I would venture to say that ANYONE should be able to see that small TSI changes are only PART of the evidence of the large changes that the sun causes here on earth. I hear all the time on the blogosphere, ” the sun only changes a little bit over the years, how can it be the cause of global warming?”.
Yet, when climate scientists start talking about amplification of CO2 they all nod their heads. I used to be a warmer, then I researched the science. I strongly believe that ANYONE who took the time to research AGW would become a skeptic over time. All warmers I have ever met, including myself, believe(d) because they felt it was true.
stan stendera (11:16:47) :
This post is why WUWT is the cutting edge of truth.
Leif got the topic of this post banned at Climate Audit and has done his best to get it suppressed here too. He has been scathingly insulting to myself and others who have tried to discuss the barycentric issues raised in Scafetta’s work here before. This led to Geoff Sharp getting banned when he lost his temper with Anthony due to the suppression of the subject and the uneven treatment whereby Leif was allowed to openly insult and degrade contributors who discussed this topic while they were snipped when responding in kind.
Nicola Scafetta emailed me two days ago with a link to his new work. He asked me if I had tried to get any of my own discoveries published yet. I told him we are conducting an open source investigation of this interesting field of enquiry at the blog I started at http://tallbloke.wordpress.com
I started that blog out of respect for Anthony’s wishes after we were told discussion of solar motion relative to the solar system barycentre was not welcome here. There are some threads there which may be of interest to open minded WUWT readers.
Hats off to Anthony for reversing his moratorium on discussion of barycentric related discussion on this site and “facing it head on”.
Leif Svalgaard (16:45:32) :
f Svalgaard (16:35:08) :
You can also give your Leif Number in Hex: mine is 2FFF.
Mine is 3F0FF
I can’t be bothered rebutting the tripe in your 14 points yet again. If you want to mislead people about the sun here instead of presenting a balanced account and admitting uncertainty levels, and Anthony is prepared to let you, then so be it.
“DirkH (19:59:30) :
[…]
I didn’t see anything i disagree with in your list.”
well, okay, 2FFF. Gotta get used to that.
I’m sorry but am I the only one having a great time reading Henry’s posts?
Tell us more about our evil carbon ways Henry! Tell me the one about how big oil is sitting in my closet watching me sleep. Make it good… wave the hands, handle the snakes!
REPENT NOW OH DOUBTING ONES!
…LEST YOUR GRANDCHILDREN BURN IN THE SLIGHTLY HIGHER TEMPERATURES PROJECTED BY THE MODELS
IT IS THE LORD OF CONFUSION, EXXON, THAT HAS LED YOU CHILDREN ASTRAY
/sarcoff
My official Leif Score is a 9.
[But I’m not sure mine carries much weight LOL].
😉
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
Geoff Shorten (19:52:54) :
Leif, I think your ‘Leif score’ is 3FFF not 2FFF.
Yeah, I should move the keyboard over 1/3 inch to the left.
What is yours?
Leif Svalgaard (14:22:12) :
Agreed.
Leif Svalgaard (19:30:49) :
BTW, I note that nobody has manned up to give their ‘Leif score/number’ :-)>>
Ah, well… for starters there’s no mechanism for calculating Leif Score on points that I only partly agree with and further, you said you didn’t care what anyone thought…. 🙂
Your points rest on showing that climate isn’t forced by TSI or CO2. While I may agree with the bulk of the points, I think the logic would suggest that TSI and CO2 and other “forcings” (I detest that word) are minimized by interlocking feedback mechanism in the climate system as a whole, such mechanisms being triggered by the “forcing” itself.
Leif,
You have seemingly put your own views out as the standard by which all posters should measure themselves (e.g. ‘Leif score/number’). It does not surprise me that this has been pretty much ignored, given that this is not a particularly Leif-centric site.
Clive E Burkland (19:49:45) :
wayne (19:25:48) :
There are many errors in your statement. May I suggest you research the amount of solar movement from the SSB and how this movement has NO effect on the solar/planet distance.
No, I think no errors. The Earth’s distance from the surface of the sun does vary by the amount of the radius of the Sun’s orbit about the SSB. Go to NASA Horizons system, detail your objections, and post them back so I can clearly see why you think that your statement is correct. You give blatant objections to my attempt to help another commenter but you give no backup to your claims. A least I clearly stated mine.
I can only guess you are saying the Earth orbits the Sun proper and not the SSB. Back it up, and if your are correct, I will gracefully back down with an apology for offending you. Will you do the same?
I dunno, when someone resorts to quoting the infamous faked Oregon survey on the first page of the introduction, and the release of stolen emails on the second page, to support their thesis, it kind of makes a person a bit suspicious of the robustness of the paper.
And they’ve upped the ‘natural warming’ from 50% to 60% from the look of things. Are they going to release the code this time, I wonder? Or are they still afraid someone might find a few flaws in the calculations?
This little article reads more like a political manifesto than a scientific paper. But whatever turns you on.
It is perfectly reasonable to say to all this, we don’t have enough information yet as to why the temperatures on Earth fluctuate relatively chaotically but with tantalizing glimpses of inter-glacial oscillations and short term forcings such as with volcanic eruptions and ice jams in major water ways. Regarding CO2 and solar influences, I am not overly concerned about either one of these factors causing much warming or cooling that I would notice or that would cause our climate zones to receive higher or lower category labels.
tallbloke (20:14:50) :
I certainly respect your scientific mind, Tallbloke, and appreciate the diversity on here.
I have learned much from many of you on here. Hopefully we can all figure it out and get along in the process.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
tallblock, that was childish.
Steve Hempell (18:46:40) :
“Temperatures are higher now than 100 years ago.”
Ah, but are they any higher than 70 or 80 years ago?
The summer I was born was the warmest one on record in Denmark. My point was that the solar activity is now where it was 107 years ago, but temperatures now are higher than 107 years ago.
Clive E Burkland (19:00:54) :
Extreme UV being one of those factors
The energy in the EUV is minute compared to all of TSI, and the observed variation during the cycle is of the order of 0.1K or less. Just look at Scafetta’s graph at the top of the page and find an 11-year variation that is larger. Ain’t there.
kim (19:53:32) :
Leif, I would like to know what you think of Miscolzi’s work.
Haven’t read it, so don’t know. What is his bottom line?
DirkH (19:59:30) :
“BTW, I note that nobody has manned up to give their ‘Leif score/number’ :-)”
I didn’t see anything i disagree with in your list.
So your number is 3FFFF.
Dave F (20:02:33) :
You didn’t say what temperatures.
The ‘Global Temperature’, of course. 🙂
Now some fools say that there is no ‘Global Temperature’ or that it is meaningless. They wouldn’t say that if the ‘Global Temp’ reported the next ten years would drop by 2 degrees and disprove AGW, would they?
Of course, there is a meaningful global temperature. If you measured the total radiation the Earth gives off, then you can calculate an ‘effective’ temperature from that. We do this for stars and the Sun.
“Dave F (20:02:33) :
Sorry Leif, you said ‘Temperatures 100 years ago were higher…’ You …”
Leif:
“1) Temperatures are higher now than 100 years ago. Exactly how much can be discussed [fakings, UHI, etc].”
I think you misread it, Dave. Interesting here is that E.M. Smith didn’t find any warming in Germany during the last 260 years:
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2010/03/11/germany-not-warming/
Maybe we are so stable because of the gulf stream’s influence.
Sou (20:39:08):
Citations, please:
How was the Oregon survey “faked”?
and
Provide evidence that the emails were “stolen”.
Re: Anu (Mar 14 13:28),
Gee thanks for that contribution ANU.
You have also made a mistake in your post. You left out the ‘S’ at the end of your screen name.
p.s. if your post was satire, then pls treat this the same.
tallbloke (20:14:50) :
If you want to mislead people about the sun here instead of presenting a balanced account
People asked for my opinion… not for ‘balanced account’.
And if you remember, the discussion back then was if the ‘Angular Momentum’ explanation was viable, and we showed it was not [as even elementary physics shows you directly]. If you can substantiate the correlation [which you have not] and you have another explanation that overcomes the energy problem, then by all means present it. Write a paper, get it published, etc.
I note that Scafetta does not seem too hot on the Angular momentum idea either.
I realize that some people get insulted if you show that their pet theory doesn’t stack up, and I guess that is just human nature that we must live with.
kim (19:53:32) :
Leif, I would like to know what you think of Miscolzi’s work.
Ditto.
Links to Miscolczi’s work and an interesting letter from Dr Miklos Zagoni here.
http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2010/01/04/why-the-sun-is-so-important-to-climate/
Doesn’t put NASA in a very good light.
wayne (20:38:09) :
Go to NASA Horizons system
You try that… and report back
Leif Svalgaard (16:12:55) :
I’m still digging on #1, and I cannot find any evidence that today’s temps are not trumped 70 – 130 years ago. It’s a slow process when the old Weather Bureau records are not digitized.
As for #3, I’ll wait for Svensmark to have his day. The uncertainty of proxies being able to distinguish different forms of solar activity is not entirely useful to me.
If anyone knows where to find daily station data or more complete summaries of the Weather Bureau, I’m all ears.
AGW, what can’t it do?
“Leif Svalgaard (20:45:56) :
kim (19:53:32) :
Leif, I would like to know what you think of Miscolzi’s work.
Haven’t read it, so don’t know. What is his bottom line?”
http://miskolczi.webs.com/ZM_v10_eng.pdf
“If the system energetically could increase its
surface temperature, it need not wait for our
anthropogenic CO2 emissions, since another
GHG, water vapor, is available in a practically
infinite reservoir, in the surface of the
oceans.”
Leif Svalgaard (19:40:28) :
wayne (19:25:48) :
No, the distance between the Sun and the Earth is not affected by this [because the Earth orbits the ‘barycenter’ determined by the Sun and the Earth [+the Moon], no matter what the Sun does. Just like the Moon orbits the ‘barycenter’ determined by the Earth and the Moon, no matter what the Sun does. If the Sun had a companion star [Nemesis] very far away, the barycenter of the total system would be way outside our planetary solar system. But [as we have discussed so often], the barycenter of the solar system is irrelevant because the Sun and all the stuff in the solar system are just in free fall in their combined gravitational field and feel no forces from that.
Careful Leif, sometimes you jump too fast, I programmed ephemeris systems for four years and have a close (I wish it closer) version of the Horizon system running on my older machine to my left, written by me from the ground up. I have different versions using nine or ten different ODE integrators to boot. Have you ever written an ephemeris software system? Try it, they are challenging!
Your statement is almost like the other planets gravitation fields do not also affect the Earths orbit. Are you sure of your statement? If it was only the Sun and the Earth I would concur with you.
Now if you are saying this small amount does not amount to much, I agree, but the fact that scientifically the difference exists and since it exists it must affect the TSI however tiny. Get my drift.
I hate to hide proper science, even how tiny its effect is, because it can confuse people that logically know it must have SOME effect. The amount of effect is for others to determine (and may have already determined). But please don’t jump on my attempts to teach people here, just make a comment that its effect is so small it can be ignored. Let’s build on each other, not tear each other apart. OK?
Leif (16:12:55):
For the record:
1. Don’t know if it is significantly warmer.
2. If it is, the cause is probably not external.
3. If it is, the cause is probably not external.
4. If it is, the cause is probably not external.
5. If it is, the cause is probably not external.
6. If it is, the cause is probably not external.
7. If it is, maybe it is CO2, maybe not.
8. If it is, CO2 changes in the distant past aren’t relevant.
9. If it is, the cause is probably not external.
10. If it is, the cause is probably not external.
11. If it is, climate models haven’t answered No. 7.
12. If it is, maybe it is just Earth’s internal cycles. As for external cycles, see Nos. 2-6, 9-10, 13-14.
13. If it is, the cause is probably not external.
14. If it is, the cause is probably not external.
I appreciate the effort, but basically all you have said here is: “Idunno, but it ain’t anything external to the Earth”. I would think you’d have something more to offer on the radiative physics of greenhouse gases. And none of this explains why you compare climate science to “voodoo science”.
Leif Svalgaard (21:00:29) :
tallbloke (20:14:50) :
If you want to mislead people about the sun here instead of presenting a balanced account
People asked for my opinion… not for ‘balanced account’.
Fair enough, but I note you snipped the uncertainty levels bit though, and you present your opinion as definite fact sufficient to diss other people with when that isn’t warranted.
And if you remember, the discussion back then was if the ‘Angular Momentum’ explanation was viable, and we showed it was not [as even elementary physics shows you directly].
No it doesn’t. JPL Horizons presupposes that the solar system’s angular momentum sums to zero between the sun and planets, so you wouldn’t expect to find the energy of a spin-orbit coupling there.
If you can substantiate the correlation [which you have not] and you have another explanation that overcomes the energy problem, then by all means present it. Write a paper, get it published, etc.
At least you now admit there is a correlation to substantiate. This is progress! 😉
I realize that some people get insulted if you show that their pet theory doesn’t stack up
No Leif, you insult people with discourtesy and disrespect (Astologer, pseudoscientist), which should have no place on this (or any other) blog.
savethesharks (20:40:58) :
I have learned much from many of you on here. Hopefully we can all figure it out and get along in the process.
Amen to that.
Leif,
I think I very well might have been one of the ones you referenced, talking about the absurdity of a global average temperature. I can only speak for myself, but when I have made statements like that it has been in regards to the myopic overemphasis on the global average surface temperature record as the adjudicator of all things climate when it is, in fact, a proxy to the temperature you’re talking about.
I think to describe what you’re getting at we’d be talking about total heat content (ocean + surface + atmospheric) – which I agree would be useful. Why aren’t radiative analyses being taken, or are they and nobody is paying them any attention? Also, could an AGW signal be deduced from an analysis like this?
Leif Svalgaard (20:45:56) :
I would say that the process of adding up temperatures about 6 feet off of the surface and averaging them out would seem like an exercise in futility.
As to measuring the radiation coming off of the Earth, isn’t that what Lindzen was measuring with CERES (I am pretty sure that is the right acronym)?
Scafetta and Willson try to prove that the ACRIM data gap (caused by the Challenger disaster) show that the Sun is actually getting brighter, and assuming they are correct, they then show that this warming Sun can account for a good bit of the observed global warming (at least 10% to 30%).
Here’s the data gap.
At issue is the calibration of the satellites on both sides of the gap – the ACRIM device measures TSI variances very precisely, but it’s much harder to get an absolute measure like 1368 watts/m^2.
Here’s one calibration that NASA favors now.
It differs crucially from the interpretation NASA used to use earlier, in 2003 when Scafetta began trying to derive consequences of this “brightening Sun”.
http://www.physorg.com/news6892.html
, challenged the previous satellite interpretations of solar output. Willson and his colleagues concluded, rather that their analysis revealed a significant upward trend in average solar luminosity during the period.
Using the Columbia findings as the starting point for their study, Scafetta and West then statistically analyzed how Earth’s atmosphere would respond to slightly stronger solar heating. Importantly, they used an analytical method that could detect the subtle, complex relationships between solar output and terrestrial temperature patterns.
Applying their analytical method to the solar output estimates by the Columbia group, Scafetta’s and West’s paper concludes that “the sun may have minimally contributed about 10 to 30 percent of the 1980-2002 global surface warming.”
The March 2009 Scafetta/Willson paper (preprint here) attempting to show a brightening Sun, once again, using a solar model (developed by Solanki and Krivova) for estimating TSI for that troublesome ACRIM gap, is later slapped down by none other than Solanki and Krivova, for failing to understand the limitations of their solar model, and saying explicitly that it was misapplied for those timescales, and redoing the work using a more appropriate model of TSI.
This slapdown was published in record time in the same journal (Geophysical Research Letters) in October 2009.
Preprint here.
Nicola Scafetta’s recent paper, Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics
Volume 71, Issues 17-18, December 2009, Pages 1916-1923 is more hesitant now, after so much controversy over the TSI trends:
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.
Here is the PMOD (Swiss Observatory and World Radiation Center) TSI results. Even the ACRIM composite solar minimums that Scafetta prefers is no longer trending upwards, by 2008.
So yeah, if the Sun was brightening decade after decade after decade, that would certainly explain a big part of the planet warming decade after decade after decade.
But it isn’t, so it doesn’t.
And Leif, I read you speaking of this “angular momentum” bit, I also am very leery of it. My only guess is they are trying to put some important sounding words (angular momentum) on some basic gravitational effects like the tiny difference I described and build a theory on it. It’s a fancy way of saying the planets orbits are all affected by the other planets. I hate fancy words! But to drag that into some sizeable effect on Earth’s climate system, I for one don’t buy that. Please don’t think I was describing that in my previous comment! I was not.
Re: Leif Svalgaard (Mar 14 19:30),
Maybe they don’t want to revolve around your Barycentre 🙂
@ Smokey (20:58:39)
Google or bing ‘Oregon petition debunked’ for the story behind the fake Oregon Petition.
The Norfolk Police are investigating the theft of CRU emails. I don’t believe they have arrested anyone yet, but they should release their findings at some stage, whether they catch the thieves or not.
BTW – Thanks for responding to my post again, I think I’ve got a fan 🙂
I remember following a debate regarding the differences between Scafetta’s earlier estimates of TSI influence vs. his later estimates. One point made was his later revisions contradicted his earlier work cited by the IPCC and created quite a dispute with the IPCC. I couldn’t find the citation myself but I was able to find a seemingly related comment and response in the AR4 working group 1 notes:
The expert review comments on the First-Order Draft (16 November 2005), comment # 2-1786 requests that the Scafetta N. and B.J. West (2005) paper should be cited in the next draft. The reviewer’s response is: “Their paper is cited but with caveats that their claim depends crucially on the observational solar irradiance time series adopted for that period…”
I’m not sure where the line of demarcation is between being a reference source and contributor is nor can I determine if he submitted his paper for consideration but it seems certain his work was was at least reviewed, considered, discussed, and cited in the IPCC’s AR4 WG1 report for what it’s worth.
Henry (17:48:05) :
P.S.
Paid by Exxon.
No worries folks, it will be out eventually, and all the skeletons in the closets of the posters here wiil eventually be out
Did it ever occur to simplistic twits like you that at the widely touted Exxon figure of 20 million bucks divided by all the sceptics equals a flat rate of about $1.85 each? You can make better money by collecting empty beer cans which is about your intellectual level.
Oh, Leif, please read Miscolzi. He’s got the saturated gassy argument, that past a certain concentration, CO2 has no further greenhouse effect. His math is well beyond me, but it seems his thesis is highly controversial, embraced by skeptics and trashed by alarmists. Me? I know nossing.
================
Wayne, @ 20:38:09
Is there enough difference in the variable TSI by your mechanism to account for the wide variation in climate?
=================
Re: R Shearer (11:13:40) :
“Wait a minute, how could we possibly influence the center of mass of the solar system?”
Simple: Girth.
Al Girth’s movement has been shown to affect climate. If you move a mass that large it’s going to have a dramatic effect.
(To the Mod, If this post doesn’t make it, no harm no foul… it’s clearly OT)
Baa Humbag (21:00:27) :
Re: Anu (Mar 14 13:28),
Gee thanks for that contribution ANU.
You have also made a mistake in your post. You left out the ‘S’ at the end of your screen name.
—–
It started, before any comments had yet been posted, as a comical riff on the small errors which are used in the media to discredit entire thousand page reports by the IPCC.
I was then interrupted by my young daughter for two hours or so…
Later, uninspired, I finished up lamely and posted it.
It would have been dangerously, coffee-spitting funny if I had been able to finish it as originally envisioned.
No, really.
Leif Svalgaard (20:45:56) :
The energy in the EUV is minute compared to all of TSI, and the observed variation during the cycle is of the order of 0.1K or less. Just look at Scafetta’s graph at the top of the page and find an 11-year variation that is larger. Ain’t there.
Its not about the energy, its about the measured quantity of EUV and how it fluctuates over the solar cycle. When comparing the EUV levels of this minimum compared to 1996 during the last minimum there is a 6% difference. Compare the EUV figures of the last minimum and the height of SC19 and the variation is many times larger.
The question we’re all not paying attention to is: “Why are all the world leaders pushing for carbon trading?”
[snip – this user has been banned for changing handles several times]
Smokey (18:23:49) :
You have the gall to quote CRU temperature data??
You do understand that rather than “actual data,” what we’re been given by CRU has been made up as they went along – in one case, for a 13 year stretch.
———-
Sure, they “made up data for a 13 year stretch”.
I guess the Parliament investigation forgot to bring that one up. Which high schooler MySpace page did you find this out on ? I’d like to take a look at her evidence.
Meanwhile, back in the real world, let’s look at that same data from NASA Goddard Institute of Space Studies, since they estimate polar temperatures left out by HadCrut and the satellite datasets (UAH, RSS):
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/tabledata/GLB.Ts+dSST.txt
So, was there any warming in 15 years ?
Dec 1994 global temp. anomaly 0.25
Dec 2009 global temp. anomaly 0.58
Yup, the planet warmed 0.33 deg C.
These anomalies are with respect to the average for 1951-1980.
If your stock goes up by $3.30/share, it doesn’t matter how “statistically significant” this is. If you have 10,000 shares, you just made $33K.
Profited.
Warmed.
Get it ?
wayne (20:38:09) :
No, I think no errors.
The centre of the Sun moves to a max of about 2.18 of a solar radius. (about 1.5 million km)
Fred Bailey made the same error as yours regarding what he thought was a fluctuating Sun/Earth distance due to the solar motion about the barycenter in a paper he co wrote with Alexander and others. This is easily tested via JPL which shows a 15000 km variance per year due to planet perturbations.
Scafetta’s argument has nothing to do with a varying Sun/Earth distance.
u.k.(us) (19:18:59) :
Henry (17:48:05) :
No worries folks, it will be out eventually, and all the skeletons in the closets of the posters here wiil eventually be out.
==========
God forbid, if all the skeletons of all the posters on this site wiil be out.
I prefer to think of them as “an eclectic series of unfortunate Life Experiences”…
: 4) There is a 0.1% change of TSI between solar min and solar max, resulting ~0.1C temperature variation
The problem is the overall change is 0.1,however the spectral irriadiance is inverse to the solar cycle ie the absorption bands of interest in H2o an co2 are of opposite sign to the solar cycle,eo Krivova et al
The role of the solar UV radiation for the Earth’s climate is boosted
further by the fact that variations of solar irradiance are also strongly wavelength
dependent. Whereas the total (integrated over all wavelengths) solar
irradiance varies by only about 0.1% over the solar cycle, the UV irradiance
varies by 1 to 3 orders of magnitude more (e.g., Floyd et al., 2003).
Solar near-IR radiation absorbed by water vapour and carbon dioxide is
an important source of heating in the lower atmosphere (Haigh, 2007). Solar
variability in the IR is comparable to or lower than the TSI variations and
in the range between about 1500 and 2500 nm it is reversed with respect to
the solar cycle (Harder et al., 2009; Krivova et al., 2009b).
A non trivial problem,
Well, Pooh Bear has an interesting poem:
The more it snows
the more it snows
the more it goes on
snowing.
I checked, and there are no chaotic dynamics considered in the review, and to me this is an important enough lack to dissuade me from reading it carefully.
I agree with Leif that barycenter influences are on the same level as ghost manifestations and should not be discussed seriously in realistic physics blogs ( one can have fun with higher dimensions etc. but those are different kinds of blogs). In real life physics the barycenter is a noetic construct, has no mass, and cannot affect matter with its convoluted motions, in the same way that epicycles, though real and still there if one plots a geocentric system, have no relationship to physical forces governing orbits. Fancy what those epicycles would do to the sun if their motion had a meaning. Galilean relativity holds in the macrocosm, and so any coordinate system is equally valid as any other. The heliocentric dominates because of the physical forces, and the barycenter has a meaning because it is needed to describe the center of mass of the solar system within the galaxy, no more.
Only through the tiny, mm, tides is the sun affected by the planets, and no mechanism is proposed for the amplification of these.
Back to deterministic chaos. Similar coupled differential equations give solutions that have similar characteristics. It was/is the basic principle behind analogue computers designed to solve specific differential equations : the elements solve the differential equations of electricity and magnetism in circuits and one makes analogues of the equations one wants to solve, by controlling the constants and the couplings.
The equations one wants to solve may be the planetary ones, does this mean that the analogue circuits which generate the planetary orbits, which will be completely in step by construction, create the planetary orbits?
Leif should add
15) correlation is not causation
Chaotic systems emerging from similar coupled differential equations will have similar solutions and could be correlated though completely a-causal.
Already somebody pointed up that just the Moon Sun Earth calendar gives similar correlations. That is all what any planetary clock can provide, a time scale against which changes in whatever can be measured. Climate, being chaotic, can, with shifts harmonics and whatnots, be brought to dance to any tune with similar frequencies.
I have linked here before how dynamical chaos can produce beats and order.
It is worth contemplating the cornstarch experiment.
If one were observing the fingers, could one guess that the physics behind it is a constant shaking frequency, the viscosity/elasticity of cornstarch and a small perturbation by a stick, by studying the numerology of the order of the fingers?
Anthony,
Seems I may have innocently wandered into an area I should have heeded. I reviewed your policy and noticed the word “barycenterism”. The science I have studied of late is the solar system and gravity and the barycenter is part of that, it didn’t even cross my mind people would take me so wrong and tie the two together. Wow! Kind of like stirring up a bee hive! I’ll be more careful. No barycenter and no <!
REPLY: No worries, I poked it first by posting this article. – A
wayne: “Now if you are saying this small amount does not amount to much, I agree, but the fact that scientifically the difference exists and since it exists it must affect the TSI however tiny. Get my drift?”
Good post and good quote. I get your drift.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
Brilliant and many thanks for posting this
I have taken the liberty of referencing it in my blog today:
http://just-me-in-t.blogspot.com/2010/03/much-ado-about.html
“Anu (22:12:26) :
[…]
Meanwhile, back in the real world, let’s look at that same data from NASA Goddard Institute of Space Studies, since they estimate polar temperatures left out by HadCrut and the satellite datasets (UAH, RSS):
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/tabledata/GLB.Ts+dSST.txt
”
You have the “estimate” right there.
Unfortunately we can’t say “measure” because they have nothing up there that measures anything. So much for your pompous “Meanwhile, back in the real world,”; i suggest a “Meanwhile, back in the brain of James Hansen”.
wayne (22:40:30) :
Seems I may have innocently wandered into an area
Yes and unfortunately with incorrect information which may mislead. I appreciate your attempts to educate but when confronted it is better to produce evidence to support your case or at least double check your sources before venturing further.
JPL is the only source and the evidence is clear. Please post your JPL results to support your claim.
pat (14:10:02) :
read all….
But the level of natural year-to-year variability in the temperature record shows that a decade is too short a time to establish a change in the long-term trend…
I keep reading this, but then I happen to remember that the apprent warming thru the Period from the late 70’s to the late 80’s was sufficient to cause the creation of the IPCC.
Nuff said.
kim (21:42:11) :
Wayne, @ 20:38:09
Is there enough difference in the variable TSI by your mechanism to account for the wide variation in climate?
First, it’s not my mechanism. If you get knee deep in solar system mechanics you will find it is more Newton’s mechanism. 🙂
I just calculated an estimate, we are only talking of ~0.0005% and that is only when all major gas planets in conjunction or opposition to the earth at the same time and all on the same side to boot. So no, too small to discern in the solar noise to measure or affect the climate. (I learned something today, had never stopped to calculate that!)
ANU @ 21:51:25
You might find it informative to look at Richard Tol’s takedown of the reliability of all of the IPCC reports. There aren’t just a few small errors, rather the reports are rife with bad science. I also note that many of the most fearful messages in the Summary for Policymakers have been found to be exaggerated. The reports are rubbish.
================
I thought Bary Centre was banned here… Don’t mention the L word!
I haven’t read the booklet yet but climate is basically weather over time. If there is a link between barycentre changes and the PDO and AMO then climate is much more sensitive to the sun than is implied by the 0.1% changes in TSI. The cause is unknown yet. Possible candidates are cumulative TSI, magnetic effects on the ionosphere, or increased downwelling radiation from the stratosphere driven by changes of UV. UV changes much more than TSI and the stratosphere absorbs UV.
R. Gates (17:00:22) : writes:
“Just wondering, how does this graphic, showing the high temps we saw in January 2010 fit in with Dr. Scafetta’s model [should’t the planet be cooling?]”
As with everything that comes from Climategaters, they chose to make the data ambiguous and multiply so. They do not give a temperature reading for each day. Instead, they give an average of a daylight reading and a moonlight reading for each day. Of course, the causes of changes in the two temperatures might be altogether unrelated. UHI could have a powerful impact at night but little during the day. There is no reason to create this ambiguity in temperature readings. We have computers, for goodness sake, and we can record both. Good old Climategater procedure, corrupt the data from the very start and irretrievably so. Corrupt data never limits the imagination and imagination is the Climategater strong point.
Anu (22:12:26) :
Math games. You posit two numbers above 1. This is not consistent with your warming scenario. No cookies for you. In fact, you are extending the subconscious forward with this exaggeration. 10,000*3.3=33,000. Well, in reality, since warming is on a decimal level, you have to correct both sides of your equation to relate to reality. See, we are talking about the Earth, of which there is one. So our dividend is more like 1 share = $.00033. Hardly significant. Perhaps angels should watch over your calculations? Snark intended. 😐
In fact, given the fraction of a degree we can measure Earth’s temperature to on a surface basis, I find it odd that we can not simply study patterns of temperature flow to arrive at a meaningful weather prediction system. What do you think about this? And please answer the important question this time instead of running off into distractions.
kim (21:37:47) :
To the best of my research on him, he assumed in his calculations that the atmosphere orbited the Earth somehow? I could be wrong, since I am not the one to make wither claim, and am too busy to successfully research either.
Leif,
My Leif score is 3FFFF.
I always look forward to your comments especially when the topic has anything to do with that big yellow ball in the sky.
You seem to strike a reasonable balance of stating your opinions and sighting the evidence to back them up.
You sometimes throw in a little humor and sarcasm to spice it up, usually with enough good natured self-deprecation to take the sting off of your slightly blunt remarks.
Maybe I’ve been swayed by your evil “the sun didn’t do it” opinions, but I also note that Lindzen largely agrees with you on this topic and discounts the solar theories as explaining any recent warming.
I sometimes worry that people will piss you off and you will march off, but you seem pretty thick-skinned.
I’m glad because I think you add a much needed scientific perspective to this site. I like the other perspectives but we need more scientists to contribute to this blog.
I see ‘Anu’ is making free with the fog machine of cherry picked statistics?
Yes the earth has warmed very slightly though how a wholly artificial global average construct can be measured with any accuracy when the margin of error is larger than the supposed warming is beyond me.
We know that the very slight warming trend has been augmented by statisical machinations as measured by the ground stations and we also know the unreliable nature of space based measurement of global temperatures.
The nature of the uncertainty and the margins of error involved and the contamination of collected and collated data combined with the obvious vested political interests strongly suggests a full and thorough re examination of all the data.
The tiny variation in temperature over a very short period of time when combined with the known margins of error in measurements makes the supposed causes of that warming open to debate
It is almost a waste of time to calculate unknown and uncertain variables by applying adjustments based on theoretical models and then arrive at conclusions that actually mean anything.
We still do not know exactly how much warming has occured over what time frame.
We still do not know exactly how much warming is natural and how much is antropogenic.
We still do not know exactly what effects solar activity or lack of it has on the warming trend.
We still cannot account fully and exactly for the relative contribution of atmospheric gasses to the greenhouse effect.
We still cannot accurately model future climate states when the models are programmed with so many uncertainties and variables.
What our chronic lack of accurate knowledge does tell us very clearly is that untill we obtain a far more accurate picture of the planets state we are doing nothing more than dancing in the dark. The best course of action when faced with such uncertainty is obvious isnt it?
wayne (21:10:05) “I have different versions using nine or ten different ODE integrators to boot.”
Many will see clearly where you are going here.
Clive E Burkland (22:15:13) :
wayne (20:38:09) :
Clive, respectably, I think you and I are on different wavelengths. I’ve never heard of Fred Bailey, sorry. You mentioned the word “yearly”. No, no. I am speaking of decades if not centuries. How often do the major gas planets align, conjunction or opposition. That is the time period between maximums and minimums of the sun’s actual center to the SSB. Sounds like the men in the paper were also speaking of yearly.
I will have to check your “about 1.5 million km”. I remember reading that the SSB never gets even one radius from the sun’s center. One and a half million kilometers would place it clearly outside the sun’s surface proper. I could be wrong on that, never gave it much thought or testing, interesting though.
The Horizons system should show that between 199x or so when they aligned (remember to newspaper articles) and some many decades forward or backwards when they align on the opposite side should show a rough reading to the suns’ orbit’s maximum diameter when you subtract those points. Be sure to use barycenter coordinates without light-time corrections if you try that.
Or simpler is to use a calculator, gravity equations, mass, and mean radius of the bodies with all bodies aligned, you won’t even need vectors. Sorry, I’m not going to do the calculations for you though.
Or, believe me, the effect I mentioned is absolutely real, tiny, and occurs over decades.
anna v (22:30:05) :
I just laugh when on one hand some folks decry the state of temperature data and on the other hand applaud when cycles can be found.
Selective skepticism.
Leif,
With the following caveats,
1) As a human, I always resented being given a number, whether it was SS#, driver License, military draft number, etc
2) My college professor in Static and Dynamics gave me advice once, “In your engineering career you will always be asked for a number, I have found the number six to be highly useful. You are welcome to use it.”
3) My philosophical alter ego is whispering in my ear that some of the 14 Svalgaardian points should be reworded. I may do that eventually, but for now . . . .
4) I am willing to see where this leads me, that is, I am willing to see how deep the rabbit hole is. I am taking the red pill.
Here goes:
a) My Leif Score = 9
b) My Leif # = 16308 [Hex 0x3fb4 if I got the Deci to Hex conversion right]
John
60 YEAR CYCLE (approx) can be due to a number of phenomena. Most likely is linked to the period of circulation in one of the two mayor Atlantic gyres (subpolar or more likely subtropical, controlling AMO, and affecting PDO, Pacific is only twice volume of Atlantic).
I understand that Dr. Svalgaard thinks that there is also part related to TSI, the solar cycles have one of its spectrum peaks just above 50 years http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/FFT-Power-Spectrum-SSN.png.
Dr. Scafetta went complicated way about it to link it to barycentre, but if he is not astronomically or astrologically challenged, there is far simpler explanation. Every ~59.5 years Jupiter and Saturn meat at the nose end of heliosphere in mar 1881, jan 1941, june 2000, the years that coincide with a significant turn around in so called ‘global temperature’
http://www.fourmilab.ch/cgi-bin/Solar?date=0&utc=2069%2F07%2F20+20%3A17%3A43&jd=2476948.34564&img=-k1&sys=-Sf&eyes=0&imgsize=600&orb=-b2&lat=50&ns=North&lon=7%B0&ew=East&hlat=90%B0&hns=North&hlon=0%B0&elements=
wayne (00:28:19) :
Clive E Burkland (22:15:13) :
wayne (20:38:09) :
Clive, respectably, I think you and I are on different wavelengths.
Wavelengths are not important, we are dealing with distances that can be measured accurately. This is a science blog, please present your JPL evidence or retract.
OT
The Catlin Arctic Survery Team hit by severe weather, latest report
Ice Teams Feeling Under the Weather
It’s been a tough week for our teams in Resolute this week. Having worked like huskies to get everything ready for a planned midweek drop off onto the sea ice, the elements have intervened and kept them land-bound and cooped-up in Resolute Bay.
http://www.catlinarcticsurvey.com/
I’ve got it! The dark matter near the center of the sun also orbits the barycentre and induces tidal flows in the sun. Sometimes it is even outside the sun. Disprove that Leif!
Creating an unknown force of unknown strength with unknown effects can explain anything, right? Well it might be good for a research grant…
AlanG
“If there is a link between barycentre changes and the PDO and AMO then climate is much more sensitive to the sun than is implied by the 0.1% changes in TSI. The cause is unknown yet. Possible candidates are cumulative TSI, magnetic effects on the ionosphere, or increased downwelling radiation from the stratosphere driven by changes of UV. UV changes much more than TSI and the stratosphere absorbs UV.”
—…—…—…
OK, well then we’ve measured (maybe, if GISS/HADCRU/NOAA are measuring UHI correctly!) LESS THAN 1/2 of 1 degree change in surface temperatures since 1970. (A value that changes month-by-month by the way.)
Then 273 + 0.5 deg C + 20 deg C (average temp) = 293.5/293 = 0.1 % chance in earth’s temperature.
That we don’t know (yet!) the cause of the 0.1 percent increase is NOT cause for destroying the free world’s economies by “combating global warming” with tax increases and Enron’s carbon trading schemes.
I would like to know, what other people think about the subject matter, not what somebody called Leif Svalgaard thinks about other people.
This site is one of the best ever but I’ve had enough of Leif, thank you.
Leif Svalgaard (16:12:55) :
I would prefer a simplification:
1. There is no credible evidence to support the AGW vodoo.
2. It isn’t necessary to know what causes climate change to know that No 1 is correct.
3. See one and two.
I would also like to see your take on Miskolzi. It’s tempting to quote him, but It needs to be examined by folks who can understand both the math and the physics. I have no confidence in the opinions expressed by people like Gavin Schmidt.
Leif Svalgaard (14:44:14) :
As that Great Serbian pseudo-scientist put so clearly:
“on face of it, if one was to be too pedantic, one would be obliged to ascertain that energy levels required to satisfactorily pass the test, as required by the most rigorous of scientific standards, are to a degree numerically challenged”
Quote correct, attribution a bit of the mark. There is a subtle difference between Serb (nationality) and Serbian (origin of Serbia), in this case correct would be Serb, or more accurately Montenegrian (pronounced Crnogorski) Serb.
steven mosher (00:28:19) :
anna v (22:30:05) :
“I just laugh when on one hand some folks decry the state of temperature data and on the other hand applaud when cycles can be found.
Selective skepticism.”
—…—…—
Ah, but dear writer, there ARE cycles present in the earth’s temperature records : short ones of 66 – 75 years, added on top of longer ones of 800-900 years = which is why we are warmer now and feed more people now, and those 800 years cycles are added to even longer ones of 12,000 years, added to even longer ones of 25,000 years.
It is the global warming alarmist who seek to ignore temperature cycles, distort them, and use them politically – but ONLY when it suits their purposes.
It is the skeptics who APPLY cycles to the problem, and who seek to find out WHY there are cycles present, rather than ignore cycles and distort and denigrate who investigate cycles.
It is the global warming alarmists who chose to base their “religion” (er, faith and laws) in linear extrapolations of a single 20 year period of distorted and manipulated numbers into four centuries of continued increase.
Clive E Burkland (00:53:22) :
I have nothing to retract. My evidence is Newtonian gravitation equations and a system of a sun and planets. JPL horizons was merely mentioned of a place on the web you could check positions years from now, forward or backwards if you wanted. If I offended you I didn’t mean to. Beside, this OT was for another commenter’s question and I think I have thoroughly explained what I meant to you.
How was the Oregon survey “faked”?
The survey is merely fatally flawed, however the ‘review paper’ sent out with it was tricked out in the font and format of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and was clearly meant to resemble a peer-reviewed journal paper.
It was no such thing, of course. The lead author was Arthur Robinson, who has never worked as a climate scientist, and the paper was full of the usual cherry picks and factual errors. Interesting approach to opinion-gathering.
As to the poll, here is a truly ‘sceptical’ assessment:
In conclusion, through his Global Warming Petition Project, Arthur Robinson has solicited the opinions of the wrong group of people in the wrong way and drawn the wrong conclusions about any possible consensus among relevant and qualified scientists regarding the hypothesis of human-caused global warming. His petition is unqualified to deliver answers about a consensus in which the public is interested. He has a right to conduct any kind of petition drive he wishes, but he is not ethically entitled to misrepresent his petition as a fair reflection of relevant scientific opinion. He has confused his political with his scientific aims and misled the public in the process.
http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/08-11-12/#feature
steven mosher: “I just laugh when on one hand some folks decry the state of temperature data and on the other hand applaud when cycles can be found.
Selective skepticism.”
My thoughts entirely. Natural systems with 1/f noise, tend to appear to have cycles – that’s a fact. That doesn’t mean there aren’t cycles, but it sure does mean that one ought to be particularly careful before jumping to any assertion about apparent long term trends or cycles.
If you want to know where bad science like this gets us, read up on camp century cycles, the failure of those cycles to predict anything in the which was shown in the 1970s when the world started to warm instead of cool as predicted, and the way the same gullible idiots that believed camp century cycles, then fell for the bad science of manmade global warming.
I am surprised, I agree with all 14 points Dr. Svalgaard’s points (I am decimal 16383), i.e. perfect correlation (R^2=1), but then two of us disagree 99% of the time. It just shows that not every correlation gives a solution to a problem, or more likely his test is a ‘bit imperfect’ just as one or two hypothesis of mine (I think plural is hypotheses).
Phil Clarke (01:48:35) :
As to the poll, here is a truly ’sceptical’ assessment:
Both the Skeptics Society (publisher of this article) and CSI, publisher of Skeptical Inquirer magazine are selectively skeptical. I gave up my subscription to Skeptical Inquirer precisely for that reason.
Information from the end of the article says it all.
Al Gore? Give me a break.
The Author, Gary Whittenberger, is a free-lance writer and psychologist, living in Tallahassee, Florida. He received his doctoral degree from Florida State University after which he worked for 23 years as a psychologist in prisons. He has published many articles on science, philosophy, psychology, and religion, and their intersection.
Footnotes
1. Robinson, Arthur. 2008. “Purpose of Petition in Global Warming Petition Project.” http://www.petitionproject.org
2. Robinson, Arthur. 2008. “Frequently Asked Questions in Global Warming Petition Project.”
3. American Men and Women of Science. GALE CENGAGE Learning.
4. Robinson, A. B., Robinson, N. E., and Soon, W. “Environmental Effects of Increased Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide.” Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons, 2007, 12, 7990.
5. Robinson, Arthur. “Qualifications of Signers in Global Warming Petition Project.” Ibid.
6. Solomon, Lawrence. 32,000 deniers. Posted May 16, 2008, 7:20 PM, by Jeff White in Financial Post.
7. Robinson, Arthur. 2008. E-mail communication to Howard Kessler, June 17.
8. Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine. http://www.oism.org/oism/s32p21.htm
9. Gore, Al. 2006. An Inconvenient Truth: The Planetary Emergency of Global Warming and What We Can Do About It. Rondale Books.
West and Scarfetta have written a book to be released 30 March –
“DISRUPTED NETWORKS
From Physics to Climate Change
by Bruce J West (US Army Research Office, USA) & Nicola Scafetta (Duke University, USA)
…………This book provides a lens through which modern society is shown to depend on complex networks for its stability. One way to achieve this understanding is through the development of a new kind of science, one that is not explicitly dependent on the traditional disciplines of biology, economics, physics, sociology and so on; a science of networks. This text reviews, in non-mathematical language, what we know about the development of science in the twenty-first century and how that knowledge influences our world. In addition, it distinguishes the two-tiered science of the twentieth century, based on experiment and theory (data and knowledge) from the three-tiered science of experiment, computation and theory (data, information and knowledge) of the twenty-first century in everything from psychophysics to climate change.
This book is unique in that it addresses two parallel lines of argument. The first line is general and intended for a lay audience, but one that is scientifically sophisticated, explaining how the paradigm of science has been changed to accommodate the computer and large-scale computation. The second line of argument addresses what some consider the seminal scientific problem of climate change. The authors show how a misunderstanding of the change in the scientific paradigm has led to a misunderstanding of complex phenomena in general, and the causes of global warming in particular. ”
Some book sites only show West as the author but other sites show Scarfetta as well.
@ Henry (17:00:37) :
“…How can you continue posting here?… Yet here I find that science is not what is being done. It is politics …. are you really a scientist interested in finding the truth.”
If I were a psychotherapist I might suggest that denial and projection are items for Henry to give some thought to.
Leif Svalgaard (19:30:49) :
[…]
BTW, I note that nobody has manned up to give their ‘Leif score/number’ 🙂
I’ve been trying to decide if I don’t know enough to have an opinion does this count as an ‘agree’ (1) or an ‘otherwise’ (0). On the one hand, I suppose it must be an ‘otherwise’ since it can’t really be an ‘agree’. On the other hand the points (9 and 10) are well understood by Leif so I’m happy to accept they are correct.
If the former applies my Leif score is 3FCF. If the latter applies it’s 3FFF.
Is it possible I’m perhaps taking things a little too seriously?
Why is it that this sort of research, which is in very great detail, looks more scientifically sound than the works that come out of the IPCC? In fact, given the very scant information released by the IPCC, which more often than not sound like political statements than scientific ones, why would anyone with a brain larger than that of a pea would prefer to listen to crap coming out of the IPCC than to listen to such well founded real science such as that presented here? I can only come to one conclusion. The IPCC and everything it stands for is nothing more than a scam trying to push a political agenda down everyone’s throat.
wayne (01:45:50) :
Clive E Burkland (00:53:22) :
I have nothing to retract. My evidence is Newtonian gravitation equations and a system of a sun and planets.
No offense taken. You made a statement, I challenged you with figures which you have not disputed or proven wrong.
End of discussion
Re: RACookPE1978 (Mar 15 01:37),
It is evident that there are cycles. Who is disputing that? It is the random correlations of cycles with other cycles that have no physical meaning that is being disputed.
Lets put it this way: If one postulates a physical mechanism that generates cycles of climate from cycles of sunspots it is necessary that a correlation is established unequivocally. If it is not found the postulated theory falls on its face.
Finding correlations is not sufficient to establish a connection between disparate cycles, if the physics is not there.
Example: two same size lakes in different continents will have the same wave trains highly correlated if the wind is the same strength. Neither the winds nor the waves are causally connected between the continents.
It is the difference between necessary and sufficient conditions that unfortunately a lot of people who dabble in scientific matters cannot incorporate in their world view.
It is what one gets pounded on the head with when doing formal theory of mathematics, and absolutely essential for any scientific conclusions.
Anu (21:31:21) :
So yeah, if the Sun was brightening decade after decade after decade, that would certainly explain a big part of the planet warming decade after decade after decade.
But it isn’t, so it doesn’t.
Leif’s own research shows that solar activity increased from 1900 to 1960, with another peak in the 1980’s. This activity level has now dropped back to ~1900 levels again.
Along with the ~60 year cycles identified by Scafeta and many others, this provides a potentially viable explaination for terrestrial temperature change in the C20th, given an amplifying effect from cloud albedo.
So why are HIS (biased, propagandized and inaccurate) comments such as this
“…The two main assertions stated on the petition card were that there is no convincing scientific evidence that the human release of carbon dioxide and other gases is causing harmful atmospheric heating and climate change and that the U.S. government should reject the Kyoto Agreement and any other similar proposals. Arthur Robinson not only requested that recipients return the signed petition card, if they agreed with its assertions, but also arranged for the recipients to distribute petition packets to their colleagues. He also enabled other persons to obtain petition packets by simply requesting them through his website, and this procedure ultimately produced five percent of the returned petition cards. Thus, signed petitions were solicited in three different ways.
Although the website for the petition indicates that checks of credentials and identity were performed for signatories of the returned petitions, and invalid petitions were excluded, how the checks were performed is not described. Signed petition cards were accepted only if they came from persons who had “obtained formal educational degrees at the level of Bachelor of Science or higher in appropriate scientific fields”. …
— OK, so why discard the professional opinions of 32,000 (plus!) professionals in engineering, science, weather and statistics – while blindly accepting the (biased and proven worng) opnions of less than 50 “scientists” who are getting 80 billion in public funds and research – plus many hundred thousands in personal (!) monies – to promote THEIR view of global warming on the economies of the world.
It is THOSE 50 “scientists” who need be scrutinized, because THEY have the motives, methods, means, and determination to invoke their OPINIONS and linear forecasts on 5 billion others.
Guilty of fraud? Circumstantial evidence says “Yes.”
Actually guilty? Well, we (the AGW alarmists) know they have proved the degree of of their greed, pride, desire for power, and sense of “holier than thou” fervor that “excuses all crimes” – while (you!) deride 32,000 signatures because they are not “randomly selected” like a “poll” of the public masses would indicate.
Re Bob Tisdale (16:02:50) :
Thanks Mr Tisdale for the info about the 1945 discontinuity existing also on other datasets, this was new for me.
Leif Svalgaard (16:12:55)
I think my Leif number is imaginary.
Meanwhile…
Leif, in your 14 points, I’m not sure how you view lunar influences. Internal or external?
I still cannot get past the fact that we have “thousands” of reports of climate variations on decadal and bidecadal time frames. It seems to me that this can easily be explained by a combination of lunar and solar influences. I.e., take your ~0.1C variation in temperature (though I recall you calculating it more precisely to be 0.07C), and combine this with the lunar nodal cycle, and we have a mechanism for these decadal and bidecadal variations.
This may not explain the degree of temperature variation we see on centennial scales, but it may contribute to the “internal” factors that may drive temperature changes on that scale. To illustrate what I mean, the following image shows the effect of combining two cycles, one with approximately decadal frequency, and the other with bidecadal frequency, into a combined beat wave:
http://i39.tinypic.com/10xy0is.jpg
I’ve arbitrarily set these up to start at 1850, to give some frame of reference to the scale of time involved. What is interesting is that there is a multidecadal pattern ~60 years in the amplitude envelop, in which at the beginning of such a period, the amplitude is at a maximum negative value, and at the end of the period it is at a maximum positive value. Moreover, there is an upward trend in the troughs of the shorter cycles through these periods.
I note that Scafetta attempts to attribute 60 year cycles to certain “external” influences (I had to read the paper to determine what SCMSS referred to) that you consider unscientific. What I’m suggesting is that we do not have to go that far to explain ~60 year patterns in global temperatures. They can result simply from the interaction of shorter cycles that have less controversial origins.
Finally, while the bottom pane of the image linked above is “hypothetical,” it actually happens to match up fairly well with the actual historical record of global temperature over the last 160 years. I.e., a pattern of warming in the early 20th Century, a period of cooling, or at least stasis, about mid-century, followed by more warming. If the pattern is repeating, then we may be at the end of a 60 year cycle, and entering a period of stasis, if not cooling.
And I didn’t have to resort to SCMSS to get there.
Leif Svalgaard (19:40:28) :
the barycenter of the solar system is irrelevant because the Sun and all the stuff in the solar system are just in free fall in their combined gravitational field and feel no forces from that.
Ah, back to a priori Newtonian thought experiments.
You have no proof of this.
The sun is not a rigid point object for one thing. This means it’s going to undergo differential forces from one side to the other. If the quasi regular motion causes the resulting bulges to be reinforced rather than diminished, this could produce a significant effect building up over long periods of time. Of course, the bulges are pulled back to the suns average oblatene by it’s high surface gravity, but there will be a resultant meridional flow which wil accelerate sideways around the solar equator.
Given that the mainstream solar physicists (including Leif) still don’t know why the equatorial flow is faster than the higher latitude flow, they are in no position to make sweeping statements about the sun feeling no forces.
Phenomenological Models run certain risks simply because of what they ignore.
If one believes that the surface temperature is determined by a flux balance and that the fluxes are functions of temperature, GHG concentrations, solar irradiance, etc. and that they are locally linear functions of these known and unknown factors then you have the standard forcing/sensitivity model.
dT = (δF/δT)*(Fghg +Ftsi +Funknown -dE/dt) {where dE/dt is the rate of increase of global enthalpy}.
Now dE/dt is widely ignored in general, in this paper it is mentioned but does not seem to be quantified in any way.
Once ignored we have:
dT = (δF/δT)*(Fghg +Ftsi +Funknown)
and here lies a potential trap.
If we know dT and say that Ftsi (forcing due to TSI) is more significant than is indicated by the computer models that implies that (δF/δT)*Fghg is less significant implying that either (δF/δT) is smaller (the climate is less sensitive) or Fghg is smaller (GHG produce less forcing) or both.
If it were (δF/δT) that was smaller, then the necessary increase in Ftsi must be greater by a factor of 1/(δF/δT) than would otherwise be necessary. Now the known variance in TSI is small and has to be multiplied many times to get the required effect postulated in the paper.
Alternatively Fghg could be smaller implying that we have simply got all the radiative transfer equations wrong by a large factor/
Much of the same is true if one postulates that their is a significant Funknown.
Now that does not mean that (δF/δT) is not much smaller than the IPPC figures, it probably is, but if it is, there are a whole lot of things that suddenly do not seem to make a lot of sense. The prime one being how the effective forcing Ftsi is such a large multiple of the known variation in TSI. How large that multiple is would depend many further assumptions (see below).
The paper notes this discrepancy in the standard case but I do not see that it highlights the issue that I have mentioned, in that reducing the warming contribution due to GHGs makes things much more awkward. A factor of three or five is mentioned in the statndard case (page 15) but reducing the sensitivity down to say one third would require these multipliers to be nine and fifteen.
This is common to any model that proposes very low values for the sensitivity. The problem with low sensitiviites is the low sensitivity, it implies that it is very difficult to budge the temperature up or down. Hence the need for known fluctusations like the solar cyclce signature to be driven by large and totally unexplained variations in the effective solar forcing. If you like, a large positive TSI temperature feedback mechanism (page 16). Unfortunately that would not fit easily with the already difficult Faint Young Sun Paradox.
Like I said a problem with such models is what they ignore. It is one thing to indicate that there are complexities that are not dealt with in the computer models but to ignore the implied ramifications of postulating that GHGs have a much smaller effect than in the standard models is, I feel, a little reckless.
Personally I doubt that there is a lot of wiggle room in the models except on the high side (sensitivities above 3C which I find doubtful). I think that once you try and lower the sensitivity below 2C, you open up a whole can of worms and you start causing more problems than you are offering solutions. This is something that I think is ignored. The paper descirbes its approach as holistic, my point is that it is not in terms of the larger picture. It is all very well to indicate realtionships between data sets on the basis that we do not understand the science and we are still grasping for a pattern. But we do understand much of the science and we are capable of seeing the implied ramafications of notions like more than 60% of the warming since 1970 is due to a 60 year cycle.
Lastly this statement:
“Human emissions can have contributed at most the remaining 40%, or less, of the
warming observed since 1970 (if no overestimation of the global warming is assumed as Section 8 would suggest), not the 100% as claimed by the IPCC.” (Page 20)
does not sit very easily the phenomenological approach. There is an indication that there is something to be explained but that is a long way from such a categorical assertion. Particularly considering that the paper gives a completely different and more likely value for the amplitude of the 60 year cycle in Appendix U.
It is also very different to:
“At least 60% of the warming of the Earth observed since 1970
appears to be induced by natural cycles which are present in the solar system.” (Abstract)
Now I would prefer to believe that the author does realise the problems posed by the speculation of low values for climate sensitivity, so one must wonder why they do not seem to be highlighted (there is certainly nothing in the conclusions).
Alex
I think there is an error in the caption to the graph at the head of the post. The bottom figure shows the global temperature in red, not black, which is representing the solar motion relative to the barycentre.
Anu (22:12:26) :
“Sure, they “made up data for a 13 year stretch”.
I guess the Parliament investigation forgot to bring that one up. Which high schooler MySpace page did you find this out on ? I’d like to take a look at her evidence.”
You look foolish discussing something while being ignorant of the underlying information. Here, let me help you out.
From the Harry_Read_Me.txt file:
1990 – 2003 = 13 years of fabricated CRU data.
There’s more. Go read the file. Show us that MySpace part.
Correction to mine above:
In all cases (δF/δT) should of course read (δT/δF)
Apologies
Alex
Pity of Appendix B, this degrades the credibility of Scafetta’s work big time.
Apologies for the incorrect spelling of Scafetta.
Trouble is correlations will work, Scafetta or not, cold is due.
Smokey’s comment above at (03:56:03) is the reason why EVERY BIT of the CRU’s data, emails, papers, calculations, even napkins w/ notes should be open to the public and inspected by Scotland Yard. Let’s find out what happend once and for all.
Then we’ll go to NASA and do the same thing. The courts will have a heyday!
Re: Basil (Mar 15 03:40),
The Tsonis et al paper used the PDO ENSO, NAO, NPO cycles in a neural net program and came up with the fall of temperatures for the next twenty years, too, without invoking other mechanisms except chaotic beats in these currents.
https://pantherfile.uwm.edu/aatsonis/www/2007GL030288.pdf
Leif Svalgaard (16:12:55)
Thank you very much for making this “Leif Score” list. It provides an excellent frame work for understanding. But, I need some clarification.
5) What is “Long Term Variation”. Do you mean “No TSI Variation other than Annual (from its elliptical orbit)”?
10) Would you please provide a pointer to info on the Solar Polar Fields as predictor?
11) Yes, I see that current Climate Models are not very successful. No, I don’t see how Climate Models can work even in principle due to the nature of chaotic systems.
So, my Leif Score is 1111?1111??111 at present.
Also, could you post this ‘Leif Score” list on your own site for constant reference? Thanks.
Bob Tisdale (14:58:21) :
Bob,
The simple reason that your PDO proxys do not show any correlation is the fact that you have not (carefully) read how they created.
There are two broad groups amongst the tree ring PDO proxies. One group of PDO proxies (e.g. the Biondi and MacDonald data) are based upon trees that have tree ring growth that is sensitive to precipitation. While the second group (e.g. D’Arrigo) are based upon trees that have tree ring growth that is by and large sensitive to temperature.
Comparing temperature sensitive and preciptation senstive PDO tree-ring proxies is like comparing apples and oranges. Only one of these two factors (i.e. precipitation and temperature) correlates well with the sea surface
temperature distribution patterns associated with the positive and negative phases of the PDO.
The way to tell which are the correct proxies is to compare the PDO
tree-ring reconstructions with those obtained by an independant method.
If you compare the tree-ring PDO proxies with ionic ratios measured is South Sea corals whic are a proven indicator of sea surface temperatures, you find
the ONLY the temperature sensitive tree-ring PDO proxies of D’Arrigo
provide a valid PDO reconstruction.
I respectfully ask that you look a little deeper into the use of tree-ring PDO reconstructions before you talk about your results.
Here is the abstract of a paper that will be published in the next month or
so in Russian by Prof. Klige in a compendium of papers.
Are Changes in the Earth’s Rotation Rate Externally Driven and Do They Affect Climate?
Ian R. G. Wilson
ABSTRACT
Evidence is presented to show that the phases of two of the Earth’s major climate systems, the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) and the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO), are related to changes in the Earth’s rotation rate. We find that the winter NAO index depends upon the time rate of change of the Earth’s length of day (LOD). In addition, we find that there is a remarkable correlation between the years where the phase of the PDO is most positive and the years where the deviation of the Earth’s LOD from its long-term trend is greatest.
In order to prove that the variations in the NAO and PDO indices are caused by changes in the Earth’s rotation rate, and not the other way around, we show that there is a strong correlation between the times of maximum deviation of the Earth’s LOD from its long-term trend and the times where there are abrupt asymmetries in the motion of the Sun about the CM of the Solar System.
At first glance, there does not appear to be an obvious physical phenomenon that would link the Sun’s motion about the Solar System’s CM to the Earth’s rotation rate. However, such a link could occur if the rate of precession of the line-of-nodes of the Moon’s orbit were synchronized with orbital periods of Terrestrial planets and Jupiter, which in turn would have to be synchronized with the orbital periods of the three remaining Jovian planets. In this case, the orbital periods of the Jovian planets, which cause the asymmetries in the Sun’s motion about the CM, would be synchronized with a phenomenon that is known to cause variations in the Earth’s rotation rate, namely the long term lunar tides.
The periodicities seen in the asymmetry of the solar motion about the CM are all submultiples of the 179 year Jose cycle, with the dominant periods being 1/5 (= 35.87 yrs), 1/9 (= 19.86 yrs) and 1/14 (12.78 yrs). In addition, the realignment time for the orbits of Venus, Earth and Jupiter is a ¼ of the 179 year Jose cycle (= 44.77 yrs).
Through what appears to be a “Grand Cosmic Conspiracy” we find that:
6.393 yrs = (the 179 year repetition cycle of the Solar motion about the CM) / 28
6.396 yrs = (the 44.77 year realignment time for Venus, Earth, and Jupiter) / 7
which just happens to be realignment time for orbits of the planets Venus, Earth and Mars (= 6.40 yrs).
The significance of the 6.40 year repetition period is given added weight by the fact that if you use it to modulate the sidereal year of the Earth/Moon system, the side-lobe period that is produced, almost perfectly matches the 2nd harmonic time interval over which there are the greatest changes in the meridional and zonal tidal stresses acting upon the Earth (1 ¼ TD = 433.2751 days = 1.18622 years, where TD is the draconitic year).
We know that the strongest planetary tidal forces acting on the lunar orbit come from the planets Venus, Mars and Jupiter. In addition, we known that, over the last 4.6 billion years, the Moon has slowly receded from the Earth. During the course of this lunar recession, there have been times when the orbital periods of Venus, Mars and Jupiter have been in resonance(s) with the precession rate for the line-of-nodes the lunar orbit. When these resonances have occurred, they would have greatly amplified the effects of the planetary tidal forces upon the lunar orbit. Hence, the observed synchronization between the precession rate of the line-of-nodes of the lunar orbit and the orbital periods of Venus, Earth, Mars and Jupiter, could simply be a cumulative fossil record left behind by these historical resonances.
re Leif Svalgaard’s many comments on this thread:
Most of the regular commenters on this blog are interested in understanding things, as are many times more readers who comment little or not at all. Dr. Svalgaard would be more helpful in this regard if he just explained things instead of making glib, and often derogatory, statements that need to be interpreted in “just the proper way”. This shouldn’t be a classroom test to see who the bright students might be.
An example of unnecessary obscurity is the matter of an “effective” global temperature. As Dr. Svalgaard says, it is certainly possible to define such a quantity thermodynamically and, with an adequate system of satellites, measure it “backwards” from the radiation output of the entire planet at any moment. What isn’t possible, in any meaningful way for Planet Earth, is to “measure the average temperature” by “averaging a bunch of temperatures“, as I’m sure he well knows.
/dr.bill
Clive E Burkland (03:20:54) :
Point taken. You’re correct, per wiki 500,000 km + 696,000 km, that’s clearly outside. And my memory was about the earth-moon com being alway within. My calculation for kim is now too low, it’s ~0.0006%, still tiny. Thanks for pointing that out.
If you want to see the image associated with the following text you will have to go to:
http://astroclimateconnection.blogspot.com/2010/03/synchronization-between-solar-inertial.html
You may have to get a password to blogspot to see the plot. Go to
the astroclimateconnection blog.
Figure 6. The main curve shows the distance of the centre-of-mass of the Solar system from the sub-Jupiter point between 1220 and 2020 A.D. The sub-Jupiter point1 is located just above the solar surface on a line joining the centre of the Sun to Jupiter. Marked above this curve are years in which the Earth experienced exceptionally strong tidal forces over the last 800 years.
Figure 6 shows that the times when Solar/Lunar tides had their greatest impact upon the Earth are closely synchronized with the times of greatest asymmetry in the Solar Inertial Motion (SIM). Over the last 800 years, the Earth has experience exceptionally strong tidal forces in the years 1247, 1433, 1610, 1787 and 1974 (Keeling and Whorf, 1997). A close inspection of Figure 6 shows that these exceptionally strong tidal forces closely correspond in time to the first peak in the asymmetry of the SIM that occurs just after a period low asymmetry. These first peaks in asymmetry in the SIM occur in the years 1251, 1432, 1611, 1791, and 1971, closely correspond the years of peak tidal force.
Thus, there appear to be periodic alignments between the lunar apsides, syzygies and lunar nodes that occur at almost exactly the same times that the SIM becomes most asymmetric for the first time after a period of low asymmetry in the SIM. It means that precession and stretching of the Lunar orbit (i.e. the factors that control the long-term variation of the lunar tides that are experienced here on Earth) are almost perfectly synchronized with the SIM.
We know that the strongest planetary tidal forces acting on the lunar orbit come from the planets Venus, Mars and Jupiter. In addition, we known that, over the last 4.6 billion years, the Moon has slowly receded from the Earth. During the course of this lunar recession, there have been times when the orbital periods of Venus, Mars and Jupiter have been in resonance(s) with the precession rate for the line-of-nodes the lunar orbit. When these resonances have occurred, they would have greatly amplified the effects of the planetary tidal forces upon the lunar orbit. Hence, the observed synchronization between the precession rate of the line-of-nodes of the lunar orbit and the orbital periods of Venus, Earth, Mars and Jupiter, could simply be a cumulative fossil record left behind by these historical resonances.
Of course, the orbital periods of Jupiter and the other Jovian planets are responsible for the periodicities observed in the motion of the Sun about the Solar Sytem barycentre. Hence, the apparent link between the Sun’s barycentric motion and the orbit ofthe Moon may just be an artifact of the fact that both are heavily influenced by the periodicities in the motion of the Jovian planets
OK, so why discard the professional opinions of 32,000 (plus!) professionals in engineering, science, weather and statistics – while blindly accepting the (biased and proven worng) opnions of less than 50 “scientists” who are getting 80 billion in public funds and research – plus many hundred thousands in personal (!) monies – to promote THEIR view of global warming on the economies of the world.
You left out the medical doctors, chiropractors, dentists and vetinarians, some of whom also signed up. I don’t ignore them – I just note that of the available pool of such people, 32,000 (over a decade) is a tiny fraction, a lot less than 1% – so to present it as a meaningful representation of scientific/medical/engineering opinion is dishonest.
I suspect the 80 billion split 50 ways (1.6 billion each? Really?) must include the budget for the various satellite climatology programmes, so that is hardly relevant either. And there are rather more than 50 practising climatologists – EOS magazine sampled over 700 and found that all but 2% supported the assertion that the planet is warming and manmade influences are significant.
http://tigger.uic.edu/~pdoran/012009_Doran_final.pdf