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
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lgl (09:54:17) “I could agree if not for these, which seems to indicate a shorter period at higher latitudes.”
Can you clarify where you see a disagreement? (v. interesting paper, btw)
Re: Leif Svalgaard (12:46:49)
It seems we have different “lay people” in mind. Any major cautionary notes regarding the paper to which lgl (09:54:17) linked?
Paul Vaughan (16:03:51) :
Any major cautionary notes regarding the paper to which lgl (09:54:17) linked?
No, this is very much the usual stuff [there must be hundreds of such papers about QB and decadal cycles].
Tim Clark (14:10:49) :
Throughout 23 years of education, I never had an “F” ascribed to my name and refuse to begin now. ;~)
Is there not an ‘A’ lurking in the 14 bits 🙂
Amino Acids in Meteorites (06:05:15) : In response to NickB’s question to me, “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,” you repIied, “I have one—normal variation.”
Which was precisely what the link I provided in my reply to him showed; that is, that natural variables such as ENSO can account for the majority of variations in Global Temperature if the assumption is made that the global oceans integrate the effects of El Nino and La Nina events.
To save you some time searching for my earlier reply, here it is again:
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
Ninderthana: You replied, “Most people working in this field have never claimed that there is a pure 60 year pattern in the PDO. ”
Thanks for the additional input and clarification, but my comments on this thread were in response to the statements on this thread of a 60-year cycle in the PDO, AMO, etc.
You can see how fast the solar modulation falls to zero. Some number like 0.02 or less seems to cover the range above 10 GeV.
The figure is for dependance on ISSN rather than HMF, but ok: 0.02-0.03 for 10-12 GeV cut-offs, and 0.02-0.01 for 12-15 GeV.
So 2% GCR variation means 2% cloud cover, which means that the background GCR flux above 10 GeV accounts for all low clouds altogether.
The number just don’t work out right.
The 2% GCR variation is the solar capacity to modulate. The observed variation is more like 10% (in the data from the three stations we discussed earlier).
Finally, the reduction of the Forbush Decreases by GCRs takes place overwhelmingly at energies less that 10 GeV, so using FDs may not even be a good idea in support of the notion that only high-energy GCRs have any effect.
There’s an ~8% drop in the >13 GeV flux, looking at an online plot of the period around 19.10.1991, covering a strong Forbush Decrease:
http://cr0.izmiran.rssi.ru/huan/main.htm
The CRs at >10 GeV are capable of ionising particles in the [lower] troposphere. Those with lower energies can still ionise in the upper atmosphere, but whether, when and what effects might show up in the lower atmosphere is not understood, as far as I’m aware.
That 200,000 year GCR-climate study I linked to earlier was carried out using a proxy for geomagnetic intensity (itself as a proxy for GCR flux), which might impliy that lower energy GCRs may have an effect, or it might imply that the climate system has a high sensitivity to changes in the high energy flux, or that both high & low energy CRs are effective.
The following is another independent replication of the results of Svensmark’s original work :
“Empirical evidence for a nonlinear effect of galactic cosmic rays on clouds”, Harrison and Stephenson 2006
http://rspa.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/462/2068/1221.full
“This study has found a small yet statistically significant effect of cosmic rays on daily cloudiness regionally that supports the global results from satellite data (Marsh & Svensmark 2000). The method used is independent of the satellite results, and uses data from different surface sites extending over a longer period.”
oneuniverse (19:30:02) :
The 2% GCR variation is the solar capacity to modulate. The observed variation is more like 10% (in the data from the three stations we discussed earlier).
I read from the graph 5%, but quibbling about the small percentage distracts from the fundamental point that if the variation is n% and corresponds to 2% change in cloud cover, then the background GCR would determine 100/n*2% of the cloud cover, which for n=2 would be 100%, for n=5 would be 40%, and for n=10 [you quote a max of 8% in 1991] would be 20%. Nobody believes that the control is that strong, because if it were the correlation would be extremely strong, which it isn’t. In fact it has broken down completely with more data [often happens with spurious correlations]. Here is the visual low-cloud cover [that determines albedo]: http://isccp.giss.nasa.gov/zD2CLOUDTYPES/B41B46B51B56B61B66glbp.anomdevs.jpg
and if one desperately goes to infrared:
http://isccp.giss.nasa.gov/zD2CLOUDTYPES/B32glbp.anomdevs.jpg
Any correlation there might have been before say 1995, is now completely gone. Cosmic rays this minimum has been touted as the highest in a long time [and even if just the usual minimum value as I think it is], and the cloud cover should have increased since solar max in 2000, and it has decreased significantly, as you can see. Svensmark claims that the satellite data is wrongly calibrated, you may join that excuse as well.
“Empirical evidence for a nonlinear effect of galactic cosmic rays on clouds”
Non-linear? does that mean that the effect gets smaller [than linear] with increasing GCR flux? or larger? If it gets smaller, then the very large effect that Shaviv wants can’t happen. If larger, then we run up against the 100/n*2% problem.
Correction:
“There’s an ~8% drop in the >13 GeV flux, looking at an online plot of the period around 19.10.1991”
That should’ve been 29.10.1991 .
oneuniverse (19:30:02) :
which might impliy that lower energy GCRs may have an effect, […] both high & low energy CRs are effective.
Then we run up against the strong control by the Earth’s field which was unknown millions of years ago, so the paleo stuff cannot be used as evidence. Also, you begin now to have too many caveats [may have effect, might imply, …]. The ‘beauty’ of the GCR hypothesis and what have seduced most believers is its simple, direct, easy-to-understand, no-compromise mechanism. If you take that simplicity away, the the hypothesis is just another complicated, goofy ‘climate science’ WAG.
oneuniverse (19:30:02) :
That 200,000 year GCR-climate study I linked to earlier was carried out using a proxy for geomagnetic intensity (itself as a proxy for GCR flux),:
“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
I presume that you have read the paper and can supply me with a copy [I’m not going to battle the pay-wall]. Using 10Be for climate studies is a bit dangerous as the 10Be deposition depends somewhat on the climate as well.
We also need to track down the reference to >10 GeV.
[snip]
Hi Leif, I’ll have to reply tomorrow.
Very briefly re: your last post
No, I don’t have the Christl et al. paper either, just the abstract.
Yes, a reference for GeV/ ionisation heights would be good – I read of the 10 GeV troposphere cut-off at Shaviv’s site.
oneuniverse (21:16:13) :
Hi Leif, I’ll have to reply tomorrow.
Have a good rest. This is tiring business.
One thing is important: I read carefully EVERY paper that I cite [and try to – and mostly succeed – understand the physics and the data analysis], and I carefully read, in the same way, every link you [and others] provide. [Many of them I already knew, of course]. Only that way can a meaningful discussion result.
oneuniverse (21:16:13) :
No, I don’t have the Christl et al. paper either, just the abstract.
I procured the paper:
http://www.leif.org/EOS/GCR-200,000-Climate.pdf
Paul Vaughan (16:01:06) :
Not necessarily disagreement. Your data shows a 28 months cycle in the tropics. The Baldwin paper shows different periods and strengths at different latitudes, 8, 20, 24, 30 months.
Leif,
“Svensmark claims that the satellite data is wrongly calibrated, you may join that excuse as well.”
Wrongly calibrated or not, there are obvious problems with the ISCCP data at the end of 2001. (like told you a year ago)
“However, the sudden increase in upwelling LW flux in late 2001 may be exaggerated because it is associated with a spurious change of the atmospheric temperatures in the NOAA operational TOVS products that are used in the calculations”
http://isccp.giss.nasa.gov/projects/browse_fc.html
These step-changes seen in many of their radiation and cloud cover graphs clearly is not real. If corrected there is a clear solar cycle signal in cloud cover
http://www.virakkraft.com/NET-SRF-LLC.png
http://www.virakkraft.com/Low-clouds-ocean-temp.png
lgl (11:14:55) :
If corrected there is a clear solar cycle signal in cloud cover
‘Hide the decline’ 🙂
1. Adjusting data to make it fit better is somewhat dubious
2. The important cloud cover is the visual, not the IR, or at least both [average?]
3. Your doctored version omits the last several years where the disagreement is the largest
1. Not in this case. It is more wrong not to adjust.
2. You can’t use visual because it is so affected by volcanoes.
but the step is very visible there too and there is no doubt it is not real.
http://www.virakkraft.com/VIS-IR.png
3. Yes because they have not released the last years. Anyway, a few years disagreement doesn’t matter. Nobody is claiming GCR is the only factor.
lgl (13:07:17) :
1. Not in this case. It is more wrong not to adjust.
NASA claims they have corrected their known errors. And your plot was cherry picked for just a latitude band in the SH.
2. You can’t use visual because it is so affected by volcanoes.
but the step is very visible there too and there is no doubt it is not real.
You step correction looks extremely wrong. The volcano effect should be larger in infrared.
3. Yes because they have not released the last years
Up through half of 2008, and your doctored graph stops in 2005.
Anyway, a few years disagreement doesn’t matter. Nobody is claiming GCR is the only factor.
Disagreements do matter especially the ones that occur after a claim has been made – as they falsify predicted behavior], and people are claiming that GCR is the main factor [with the possible exception of AGW, which can always be invoked to explain anything – even Friis-Christensen et al. claims that AGW is the reason for breakdown of their correlation.
Now, if you concede that GCRs are just yet another tiny second order effect together with all the dozens of other second order effects, we may have made some progress.
lgl (13:07:17) :
Not in this case. It is more wrong not to adjust.
Haven’t we heard that one before :=)
Which of these known errors are you adjusting for:
http://isccp.giss.nasa.gov/errors.html ?
Leif Svalgaard (19:55:43): Svensmark claims that the satellite data is wrongly calibrated, you may join that excuse as well.
Svensmark wrote, considering alternative possibilities raised by the 1994 correlation weakening :
“(1) there is no cosmic ray – low cloud link and the correlation between 1983–1994 is an artifact, (2) that the relationship exists only under certain climatic conditions which change in time and space, and (3) that there is a problem with the ISCCP detection of low cloud.”
I assume (3) covers the potential calibration issue. The coincidence of the period of missing satellite coverage. the date of the recalibration and the beginning of the trend which detiorates the correlation means that such a concern shouldn’t be dismissed out of hand. If the trend is removed, the correlation is restored over the whole period, which might also mean that GCR-cloud effect is present but not dominant for the low-correlation period.
Harrison and Stephenson’s (2006) independent study, using a longer record of insolation diffusion fraction rather than the ISCCP cloud cover dataset, found that :
“The diffuse radiation changes are, therefore, unambiguously due to cosmic rays. Although the statistically significant nonlinear cosmic ray effect is small, it will have a considerably larger aggregate effect on longer timescale (e.g. centennial) climate variations when day-to-day variability averages out.”
There’s also proxy evidence for a GCR-climate link for the last 1000 years (Fig. 2 of Kirkby 2008 review), over the last 2000 years (Fig. 3), the last 10,000 years (Fig. 8, and separately, Fig. 9 for ~6.5-9.5 ky ago), the last 200,000 years (Christl et al.), the last 3 million years, (Kirkby Fig. 10), and over the last 550 million years (Fig. 11).
This list is not an exhaustive one. The probability of any of these long-term correlations being by chance is negligable. This leads one to the conclusion that probability (1) is unlikely.
oneuniverse (17:05:49) :
This list is not an exhaustive one. The probability of any of these long-term correlations being by chance is negligable.
That would be true if we had good data which we do not. Even the Christl paper you cited and I provided you with is not so sure. Their problem is that if true it would conflict somewhat with the Milankovic cycles being important.
I have presented my arguments for why I think the GCR hypothesis does not operate and does not work, I do not expect to convince true believers, just to explain why this skeptic does not find the evidence convincing enough to bother with.
oneuniverse (17:05:49) :
This list is not an exhaustive one.
I also expect that long, long after the mechanism has proven itself a failure, the true believers will still cling to it. Just like there are many people [even several posters here] who believe that all the progress made in science the past 50 years is not valid and that ‘modern’ science is a fraud and cover-up and is in deep crisis.
oneuniverse (21:16:13) :
No, I don’t have the Christl et al. paper either, just the abstract.
I provided it: http://www.leif.org/EOS/GCR-200,000-Climate.pdf
Their Figure 1 is the basic result. It does not look very convincing [as the authors themselves note] with some hits and some misses, and some uncomfortable coincidences with Milankovic cycles.
Leif Svalgaard (18:31:31)Their Figure 1 is the basic result. It does not look very convincing [as the authors themselves note] with some hits and some misses
I’d say it’s somewhat better than you describe. The other studies show stronger correlations, though, I agree it’s the weakest one.
Leif Svalgaard (20:23:43): “Using 10Be for climate studies is a bit dangerous as the 10Be deposition depends somewhat on the climate as well.”
In “Information on past solar activity and geomagnetism from 10Be in the Camp Century ice core” (1988), Beer et al. find “strong evidence that the isotope variations [in the 10Be and 14C records] have a common cause, namely changes in production rate”.
Ice-core 10Be and tree-ring 14C are closely correlated over the last 5,000 years once the low-pass filtering effect of the 14C sequestration process is accounted for, so changes in deposition rates must have been small over the period.