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.
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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
tallbloke (03:51:26) :
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.
Your observations are correct tallbloke and perhaps what most are missing is the black line represents solar velocity. This velocity change is a result of the Sun taking a different path every 10 years approx, the inner path close to the SSB being the slower.
The 60 year pattern that he relates to the PDO, is the smoothed modulation of the overall velocity, which is now trending downwards.
Leif et al,
I could move up from 3FB4 [16308] to 3FB6 [16310] with further understanding of Leif’s point 13.
””” L13. -Various ‘external’ influences [planets, galactic ‘positions’, interstellar clouds, electric currents from the galaxy, etc] are either not operating or their effects are negligible”””
I have little concern with L13 that the ‘external’ influences enumerated are not operable or negligible, but I have concern that something that we think we currently can explain [current theory] later turns out to be dependent on some other factor/existent that we currently are not aware of. How does that fit into L13?
John
Paul Vaughan (14:48:50) :
I will add a clarifying note at the bottom of the page. Then you can retract your false accusation.
That is where the ‘cheat’ is. You make it look like the smoothed variation is as large as the raw.This is formally correct with your note, but deceptive nevertheless as people’s perception is what counts.
It would be easy not to normalize, so produce a non-normalized plot.
tallbloke (14:50:29) :
JPL Horizons presupposes that the solar system’s angular momentum sums to zero…
It’s that kind of statement that brands you as an ignorant person.
So, mister know-it-all show me the link where JPL claim that they presuppose anything.
oneuniverse (15:35:41) :
Nir Shaviv used iron meteorites as proxies for GCR flux (Shaviv 2002)
You miss the point completely. It doesn’t matter what the GCR flux is in space, what matters is that the GCR flux where the clouds are formed are controlled by the Earth’s [unknown at that time] magnetic field.
Section 3.2 of Kirby notes: “Overall, therefore, the present satellite observations, while suggestive, are insufficient either to establish or to rule out an effect of cosmic rays on clouds”
Ninderthana,
Using (average) periods:
(LNC/2)*(LAC) / (LNC/2 – LAC)
= (9.306474)*(8.847358) / (9.306474 – 8.847358)
= 179.3396597 years
where:
LNC = lunar nodal cycle
LAC = lunar apse cycle
(periods (not frequencies) in years)
Interesting questions arise since the 179 year “cycle” can only repeat so many times before it falls-out seriously with the true 171.4442259 year envelope. (For readers not familiar with these cycles, think of the difference between the lunar Metonic cycle & the LNC for a loose analogy.)
A note for other investigators:
An alternate to the asymmetry index Ninderthana presents here …
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_tG8JCC_Tnp0/S549wMcQ3rI/AAAAAAAAACY/Su5no2LPfeg/s1600-h/Solar_Lunar.JPG
… is the Saturn-Neptune synodic-timescale signal in the radial acceleration of the Sun with respect to the solar system barycentre.
Keeling, C. D.; & Whorf, T. P. (1997). Possible forcing of global temperature by the oceanic tides. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA 94(16), 8321-8328.
http://www.pnas.org/content/94/16/8321.full.pdf?ijkey=YjbRA3bMQaGic
See “Longer-Term Climate Variability” paragraph (near top of right column on p.8327 (pdf p.7 [of 8])) in conjunction with figure 8 (bottom of left column on same page).
http://www.sfu.ca/~plv/-LOD_aa_Pr._r.._LNC_NL.png
oneuniverse (14:20:55) :
“Look at their Figure 2. Now extend the graph to today. dT is the highest since 1957 [covered by their graph] and solar activity the lowest, so their suggested correlation did not hold up. ”
I couldn’t extend their analysis without some preparation (if you’ve done so, please consider sharing if possible). The correlations mentioned in the paper are not suggested, as far as I can see, but rather found in existing data
http://www.leif.org/research/Tung&Camp-update.png
As you can see, the correlation has broken down. As spurious correlations often do. Now, real enthusiasts will counter, “no not broken down, other factors that you did not consider are fooling you”. Other factors run the gamut from AGW to the influence of Neptune.
******
Leif Svalgaard (10:45:57) :
beng (10:15:32) :
You loaded the deck. By default, nobody can ever beat your score. 🙂
See reply just above. But you are evading an issue: what is your Leif number?
******
My reply was tongue-in-cheek. I actually don’t disagree w/any of your points. You’ve helped focus my opinion on climate change — a remarkably constant sun and an earth that is fairly sensitive to conditions resulting in internal oscillations like ice-ages. Does CO2 “cause” the oscillations? Two reasons suggest to me that it doesn’t in the present era and conditions — the 600-800 yr lag of CO2 concentrations vs temp in the ice-cores, and the fact that global temps haven’t changed nearly as much as GMCs say they would from the 280 ppm to 380 ppm increase over a century.
We’re prb’ly very fortunate to have such a constant sun.
I apologize if anyone has already pointed this out. But on the very interesting CMSS graphs, the description for the bottom graph seems to have a typo.
The graph legend states that the red line is 19-21 year band pass filter global temps, and the black rescaled SCMSS
But the descriptions says the opposite that the Global surface temperature (black) and the SCMSS (red).
they are so close that it’s hard to tell the differnece ;), but the black extends to 2100 which I’m sure we don’t have temp data for yet, yet would be easy to derive from orbital mechanics, and again the lengend says the inverse.
Not a biggie, I’m sure just a transposing error, kind I make 30 times a day, just wanted to point it out.
Leif Svalgaard (16:39:38) “[…] ‘cheat’ […] deceptive […]”
Unacceptable false accusations.
Scale-independent quantities:
Correlation, phase-correlation, cross-wavelet-transform, time-integrated cross-correlation, etc.
A useful visualization-aid is not mostly-blank. Objective normalization is prudent.
In physics calculations, absolute quantities are used.
John Whitman (16:26:59) :
I have little concern with L13 that the ‘external’ influences enumerated are not operable or negligible, but I have concern that something that we think we currently can explain [current theory] later turns out to be dependent on some other factor/existent that we currently are not aware of. How does that fit into L13?
First, people asked for personal opinion.
Second, I do not entertain unknown effects from unknown causes; makes me different from many posters here :-).
Does this mean we can now say “Barycenter” and not get jumped on? Just wondering….
Leif Svalgaard (08:17:07) :
::::::::::
::::::::::
Well, I’ve been to work and back, and you’re still at it. Admirable stamina.
But back to my original point, you are suggesting that apart from a few dubious Physics and Math issues, all we need, in addition to the 1000 or so thermometers presently included in the calculations, would be another 500 million of them, nicely set up, well-maintained, faithfully logging temperatures at least 4 times per day, and not being ignored or adulterated by the people who process them. Sounds like a plan! ;~p
My use of the phrase “in any meaningful way” was precisely directed at this issue.
/dr.bill
Explaining warming 1911-1941 in a prior comment spurred me to look at the history of ENSC Warm and Cool events back to 1868. I was very surprised to discover the frequency of warm events and what appears to be the unusual number of cool events 1960-1975. I figured I’d check to see if I could find earthquake records related to the ring of fire and ran across this article I thought you’d find interesting.
OT
Deep-sea volcanoes play key climate role -scientists
Mon Mar 15, 2010 5:36am GMT
http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKSGE62E03D._CH_.2420
“The latest study shows the amount of iron from deep-sea volcanoes is relatively constant over long timescales and is responsible for between 5 and 15 percent of the total Southern Ocean carbon storage, and in some regions up to 30 percent.”
Paul Vaughan (17:35:14) :
Unacceptable false accusations.</i<
Not 'false' accusations, REAL accusations.
Scale-independent quantities:
You did not plot any of those, just the amplitude, which is very much scale-dependent
A useful visualization-aid is not mostly-blank. Objective normalization is prudent.
‘Useful’ for deceptive purposes ?
‘Mostly blank’ may show the real truth, what you are doing in akin to ‘hide the decline’ in amplitude.
Perhaps an example might be helpful. Here http://www.leif.org/research/Erl76.png is 12 years of TSI data [a whole cycle]. Solar activity is the tiny wiggles sprouting from the smooth curve [that shows the influence of the changing distance through the year]. And here http://www.leif.org/research/TSI%20at%20Earth.png is TSI as observed by SORCE for the past 6 years, placing the yearly variation in perspective. And here http://lasp.colorado.edu/sorce/total_solar_irradiance_plots/images/tim_level3_tsi_24hour_640x480.png is SORCE TSI with the variation due to distance subtracted out. This last one is for maximum visual effect, but is deceptive as an illustration of the influence of TSI on climate. For not being deceptive the plot to the same scale would be more than a thousand inches tall.
So, plot the smoothed value to the same scale so people can at a glance see the size of the 20-year ‘signal’ that is purported to be in the original data. This would be honest.
dr.bill (17:53:38) :
Admirable stamina.
Matched by yours it seems 🙂
My use of the phrase “in any meaningful way” was precisely directed at this issue.
In ‘any practical way yet’ would have been a better phrase. I can see something like this happen in the future. As a not-quite-there-yet-but-getting-there example take the current measure of traffic flow on our roads: http://traffic.511.org/traffic_map.asp depending on where you are in the world this may not yet work for you, but it does for me. Lots of ‘meaning’ in that.
Just for fun, compare El Nino conditions against the backdrop of Solar sunspot cycles. You will find an El Nino (little ones or big ones, and sometimes more than one) somewhere near a regular point along the SSN up and down swings. Bar mitzvahs can also be correlated to SSN and solar cycles. So can the years in which a young wife tends to start having babies if she marries at a certain point along the SSN cycle. According to some, we only have to wait to discover the hidden mechanism.
I was also looking for a catalyst in the late 1800’s to early 1900’s that could explain the warming as anything other then natural.
So, I decided to look at from an AGW point of view:
Commercial oil drilling was on the rise from 1860 and they were burning just about anything to stay warm.
The origin of underground CO2
Frank E E Germann and Herbert Q Ayres
1941
(thermal dissociation)
Deep drilling: volumes estimated as high as 50 million cubic feet per day have been reported from various deep oil wells in the US and Mexico….
Ok, warming wasn’t caused by drilling rigs from 1868 – 1941 but they sure released a lot of gas 😉
sorry that should have read:
Deep drilling: CO2 volumes estimated as high as 50 million cubic feet per day have been reported from various deep oil wells in the US and Mexico….
Leif Svalgaard (16:50:17): “You miss the point completely. It doesn’t matter what the GCR flux is in space, what matters is that the GCR flux where the clouds are formed are controlled by the Earth’s [unknown at that time] magnetic field.”
It does matter what GCR flux is in space.
The Earth’s magnetic field modulates the rate of incoming GCRs from [solar system] space, which is the environment traversed by the meteorites. A flux reduction at the boundary of the Earth’s magnetic influence will reduce GCR flux at the top of Earth’s atmosphere, for any given strength or evolution of the Earth’s magnetic field.
With respect to Kirkby’s summary of cloud satellite data & GCR’s, it is a conservative and careful one. A look at the details, though, reveals that the 1994 breakdown or weakening of correlation coincides with instrumental issues involving recalibration & missing satellite coverage (in 1994):
Kirkby: “After detrending the cloud data, a reasonable consistency with GCR modulation is found over the full period [July 1983 to June 2005] and, furthermore, the GCR-cloud correlation suggests an increased amplitude at higher latitudes, consistent with what may be expected from GCRs. Questions have also been raised about apparent discrepancies between the ISCCP cloud measurements and
the independent cloud data from the SSMI (Special Sensor Microwave Imager) instruments on board the DMSP (Defence Meteorological Satellite Program) satellites. The discrepancies emerge around the end of 1994, which coincides with a period of several months during which no polar-orbiting satellite was available for inter-calibration of the ISCCP geostationary satellites.”
Some relevant papers:
“Evidence for a link between the flux of galactic cosmic rays and Earth’s climate during the past 200,000 years”, Christl et al 2003
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jastp.2003.12.004
Abstract: “The possibility that galactic cosmic rays (GCR) influence the Earth’s cloud cover and therefore have an important impact on the Earth’s radiative climate forcing has become a leading candidate to explain the observed sun–climate connection. [..] In this study, a record of geomagnetic paleointensity based on 10Be from deep sea sediments is used as proxy for GCR-flux over the past 200,000 years. It is compared with climate records from marine, terrestrial and ice core archives. Our results are consistent with the GCR–climate theory and suggest the existence of a GCR–climate connection over the past 200,000 years.”
“Cloudiness decreases associated with Forbush decreases of galactic cosmic rays.”
Pudovkin & Veretenenko 1995
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1995JATP…57.1349P
“Cosmic ray decreases affect atmospheric aerosols and clouds”, Svensmark et al. 2009.
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2009/08/svensmark-forebush.pdf
Some observational findings about geophysicial conditions under which the GCRs are able to effect a radiative change:
“Latitudinal dependence of helio/geophysical effects on the solar radiation input to the lower atmosphere”, Veretenenko & Pudovkin 1999
http://geo.phys.spbu.ru/magnetosphere/people/pudovkin/public/384.pdf
There’s evidence for the GCR-climate link spanning hundreds of millions of years.
There’s evidence that the link was intact for the past 200,000 years, and there’s evidence for it on the daily/hourly scale.
Image if CO2 had such powerful evidence for being a climate driver – Al Gore would be unstoppable 🙂
Also, two proposed mechanisms are being experimentaly investigated (although the project’s funding approval was put on ice for some time when Kirkby mentioned that sun and GCRs will probably be able to account for half to all of the Earth’s warming).
The ability of cosmic rays to form condensation nuclei (not yet cloud condensation nuclei) has already been observed in the lab.
NickB. (13:19:16) : You wrote, “Would be curious to get your thoughts, or anyone else’s for that matter, in regards to what is responsible for the warming between 1911-1945.” Then asked, “If it’s not the PDO, and it’s not TSI… then what could it be?”
If the global oceans integrate ENSO, then it would be a dominance of El Nino events. Just so happens El Nino events were dominant during that period:
http://i43.tinypic.com/33agh3c.jpg
Also refer to:
http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2009/01/reproducing-global-temperature.html
Re: Leif Svalgaard (18:17:26)
With all due respect Leif, you are belittling the intelligence of WUWT readers. Objective normalization is standard data-visualization practice and you are both falsely & rudely (with emphasis on the former – I can handle the latter no problem) assigning deceptive motive where none exists.
Leif Svalgaard (17:00:47) :
Impressive ! What is the updated dataset?
You need to change your point 4, I think?
Nice map. My own (in Montréal) is not that advanced yet, but perhaps before I follow the path of the Great Auk, we’ll have them in many more places. In the meantime, I’d have to classify it as “lovely, but limited”. On the matter of original focus, your ‘any practical way yet’ is an acceptable ‘edit’. Unfortunately, we live in the ‘now’, not in the ‘yet’. 🙁
/dr.bill
Another one bites the dust…
oneuniverse (19:27:03) :
A flux reduction at the boundary of the Earth’s magnetic influence will reduce GCR flux at the top of Earth’s atmosphere, for any given strength or evolution of the Earth’s magnetic field.
The Earth’s magnetic field is the MAJOR influence. Still today [it is decreasing] it is at least ten times larger than the solar modulation and larger than any galactic variation. If the galactic variation was much larger the influence on the climate would be too great. Remember it was generally warmer in the distant past.
The ability of cosmic rays to form condensation nuclei (not yet cloud condensation nuclei) has already been observed in the lab.
detailed calculations show that the efficiency of this process is many orders of magnitude too small. Observations of Forbush Decreases show that GCRs have no effect.
Paul Vaughan (19:32:13) :
With all due respect Leif, you are belittling the intelligence of WUWT readers.
Perhaps of WUWT writes 🙂
Objective normalization is standard data-visualization practice
Absolutely, used to exaggerate effects. Happens all the time, even Al Gore uses that.
Your reluctance to plot the simple graphs I’m asking for is perhaps telling.
oneuniverse (19:39:46) :
Impressive ! What is the updated dataset?
simply the TSI as observed and the dT observed, both treated the same way as Tung&Camp, de-trended, etc.
You need to change your point 4, I think?
“4) There is a 0.1% change of TSI between solar min and solar max, resulting ~0.1C temperature variation.”
No, if one actually calculates the regression, one finds R^2 = 0.1173 [i.e. not significant] and a slope of 0.1036, that is dT = 0.1036 * dS, so with dS = 1 W/m2, one finds dT = 0.1C.
dr.bill (19:53:20) :
On the matter of original focus, your ‘any practical way yet’ is an acceptable ‘edit’. Unfortunately, we live in the ‘now’, not in the ‘yet’. 🙁
The original focus was directed at people [and there are many of them] that think it is impossible in principle, not just that we have a lousy station network with unreliable processing at the moment.