Levy walks, solar flares, and warming

Wasn´t it that the sun, that shiny and round thing up there used to warm the earth?. This is really Ravetz´s PNS…
Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine… ♪♪♪

hehe
Yep that diagram makes it all clear.looks like a toddler’s drawing.
They drew the squiggly lines wrong,should have drawn them this way.
Sorry,couldn’t resist,I know it’s important scientific stuff.I’ll stop now.

From the paper:
We were very surprised that Scafetta and West never show such results in their papers. It seems that they have designed all their tests with the purpose of proving a wanted result, and deliberately avoided analysis that points in other directions.
I’m surprised that they are surprised. This suggests they haven’t been following the posts and comments on WUWT and other sites. Someone send them a link!

Plotting flares (bell bottoms) and miniskirts as correlations to the rise and fall of the stock market. Why not.
Just remember, when we see superstition carry a huge weight in long term warming trends of a hockey stick nature, it is taboo to admit to being superstitious.

Actually, the author of the published story, Lisa Zyga (and maybe the researchers ?), claim:
As the researchers explain, the results provide more evidence to support the supposedly controversial theory of human-induced global warming.
This seems to be false logic of the “it does not follow” type (non sequitur).

Is this Levy track a fractal one?

Further on in the article is this: “As the researchers explain, the results provide more evidence to support the supposedly controversial theory of human-induced global warming.”
I don’t like statements like this. The paper may in fact refute Scafetta and West, but refuting this hypothesis doesn’t generate evidence for AGW. In fact, I would think that showing that the GTA exhibits “persistent fractional Brownian motion” would suggest the opposite. Brownian increments are supposed to be random, independent, and equally likely to occur in either direction. How does this correlate with constantly increasing GHG concentration?

LIEF: are you concerned about CO2 concentrations and emmissions? You said this over on another thread which caught by attention. Just wanted to clarify this
————————————————————-
Leif Svalgaard (10:50:22) :
Stephen Wilde (10:18:46) :
You could just have said that the expansion of the atmosphere below the thermosphere is insignificant but then it still wouldn’t be zero would it ?
If we put the lower border of the thermosphere at 100 km, then the expansion of everything below that would be precisely zero.
Where does that leave your assertion about the effect of more UV ?
This has been established for decades. See e.g. http://solarphysics.livingreviews.org/Articles/lrsp-2007-2/
There has been a long-term [i.e. not solar cycle related] change in stratospheric temperature, attributed to chemical composition changes [and Global Warming, even]
8042010 Leif Svalgaard (10:51:01)
————————————————————-
This last statement. About the Stratospheric Temp, attributed to chemical changes, and global warming even….
Is this something to worry about? Is CO2 doing the changing? The global warming you refer to: Is this the AGW ‘global warming’ or the general warming. (I assume we all agree there is warming)?

R. Craigen (09:22:46) :
“What we see here is the beginning of a LONG conversation. This smells a bit like the campaign to get rid of the MWP to me.”
I’m betting that the purpose of the paper is to keep variations in the sun’s output out of the discussion, which is kind of suspicious, as without the sun we wouldn’t be having a climate at all. It may well be that there is no direct coupling between solar explosions and the weather, but one might want to analyze the impulse response of the earth’s magnetosphere and ionosphere to the blasts, and then look at other coupling mechanisms. Maybe we’ve lucked out, and the Earth’s weather patterns are immune to solar strobes. As long as the science is good, we’ll survive, we just can’t take any more frauds.

Considering the complexity of the mechanisms interposed by the Earth system between incoming solar energy, an effect on tropospheric temperature (which is all they are really considering) and then departure of energy from the system this article is a pitifully inadequate attempt to distract from the very idea that solar effects could be significant without having to go to much effort or expense.
For what it’s worth my view is that they are probably right about short timescales where chaotic variability overlays and obscures the lesser solar and oceanic cycles but almost certainly wrong on longer timescales from say 500 years or more which lead to the longer term climate cycling from events such as the Mediaeval Warm Period to Little Ice Age to the current Modern Warm Period.
A lazy and disingenuous piece of work in my opinion.

Its in part 3 of 6.
http://www.youtube.com/redirect?username=AnonH5N1&q=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DeQSy4NFKZko&video_id=eQSy4NFKZko&event=url_redirect&url_redirect=True&usg=L0R1ry6O9Bo7YVOUK3wsZomhKPE=

Where at Minute 2:30 a visit to a river: The IGuato River (sp?) by Argentinian physicist Pablo Mauas (sp?) has found the ‘shethru’ (can’t make out what he says actually) goes up and down 3 times during that last century following sun spot levels beautifully (a scientific way of saying ‘so robustly you can’t deny it!).

Chaos breeds strange attractors. That the fractal horse head in the scribble is replicated through dimensions is not accidental. Random is an imaginary concept, chaos is a real phenomenon. Science is still in its infancy.

This final concluding paragraph from the Phys.org article is revealing of the mind set of the authors of the scientific paper in the post:
“The theory of anthropogenic global warming consists of a set of logically interconnected and consistent hypotheses,” Martin Rypdal said. “This means that if a cornerstone hypothesis is proven to be false, the entire theory fails. A corresponding theory of global warming of solar origin does not exist. What does exist is a set of disconnected, mutually inconsistent, ad hoc hypotheses. If one of these is proven to be false, the typical proponent of solar warming will pull another ad hoc hypothesis out of the hat. This has been the strategy of Scafetta and West over the years, and we have no illusion that our paper will put them to silence. However, the only scientifically valid strategy to confront these new hypotheses is to shoot down every new missile as they come in, using the most advanced weapons at hand. We believe that this operation was successfully accomplished with respect to the complexity linking hypothesis, but there will be many more battles to be fought until the issue of the contribution of solar variability to recent global warming is settled.”
http://www.physorg.com/news189845962.html
To highlight: “However, the only scientifically valid strategy to confront these new hypotheses is to shoot down every new missile as they come in, using the most advanced weapons at hand.”
While it’s admirable that the scientists are so up-front with their goals and purposes, this kind of pointed “outcome” oriented agenda should make readers cautious when considering what weight to give the conclusions of this paper and other papers who’s authors state similar “outcome” oriented agendas.

“These results provide strong evidence that the stochas-
tic properties of the temperature record are governed by
the long-memory internal dynamics of the climate sys-
tem and are not linked to the short-memory intermittent
fluctuations which characterize the solar output.”
for those of you commenting on the “brownian motion” aspect, you
need to realize that they detrended the data with a 4th order poly
that represented the decadal variations ( read oceanic cycles) in the
data. S&W missed this step and its fairly well known that to estimate
H ( Hurst ) you need to take care, as these authors did.

We only see the flares when the sun is facing us, but, when they could occur
around the otherside into the solar wind and blow back on us…without us seeing the flare, that could ramp up the intensity of the radiation without a corresponding flare obversation? Does a flare which propogates on the otherside, necessarily be there when that location rotates to face us, and therefore, us to observe the flare?

Actually, I like ‘Leif’s Eddy minimum’!

@Leif 10:20:25
Yes, the Oort was in the MWP, but brief and mild. Wolf, Sporer and Maunder were all “stronger” minima, and associated with LIA.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sp%C3%B6rer_Minimum

Leif Svalgaard (10:20:25) :
the MWP had the Oort Grand Solar Minimum smack in the middle of it.
And the dryest years contain record lows along with record highs.
Long dry spells give way to deluges in the same manner as flipping the light switch. Climate (and Weather) are full of stark and adjacent contrasts as well as longstanding slopes in both directions.
Yes, the records bear out that these oppositions are in microcosm and macrocosm. There are also relatively quiescent periods.
The model I would propose would test out even/odd numbers of drivers that can oppose or be caused to oppose, override/be overriden or be caused to overide/be overriden, as well as operate in either short or long terms cycles. Throw in some ellipticity to their strengths. That should make a wild output.

Leif: Agreed on the Iguato river. I’m going to see if I can find out who that guy is and if he ever published and why that hit him on the head like you did me with it. The sun is bloody annoying actually now that I think about it! A sort of Enigma in front of your face! Sending us off down blind alleys with spots and flares and non-barrycenters or not, cycles, etc. Even Oliver thinks it’s a neutron bomb encassed in a Iron core!

I feel like i’ve been rock face climbing for two years and I look down and i’m about 3 feet off the ground!!! : (

Dr. Svalgaard presents Evans (11:08:41) statement: “While it’s admirable that the scientists are so up-front with their goals and purposes”.
And Dr. Svalgaard (11:35:21) responds: “I think you miss the point. Their statement is not about goal and purpose, but about proper scientific analysis…”
I accept your point that part of the statement goes to proper scientific analysis…which is as you say, “to seperate the wheat from the chaff” and focus on one individual hypothesis at a time.
But I think it’s also fair to say the authors of the paper have an “outcome” oriented agenda, as evinced by this statement: “This has been the strategy of Scafetta and West over the years, and we have no illusion that our paper will put them to silence.”
It would seem that Martin Rypdal, an author of the posted paper, attributes motive to Scafetta and West, but is blind to the motive his statement reveals, “put them to silence”, or maybe Rypdal doesn’t care about whether people knows his agenda — in fact, it would seem from such a statement in the Phys.org article that, in fact, he does want people to know his agenda.
And, as stated above, knowing Rypdal’s agenda should make readers cautious when assessing the his work.

Leif: Okay. Agree about my daft River stuff. But, let’s hear Pablo Mauas out…
PABLO MAUAS and RIVER FLOW CORRELATIONS WITH SUN ACNE
‘……………………..
Flowrate of World’s 4th Largest River Linked to Solar Cycle
Monday, 05 April 2010 22:11 Dr. David Whitehouse .A new study has postulated a link between solar activity and the flowrate of one of the largest rivers in the world, and suggests that it will lose water as the current low solar activity continues.
The quantity of water flowing down a river is a good climatic indicator since it integrates rainfall over large areas. In a paper submitted to the Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics, Pablo Mauas and Andrea Buccino of the Institute of Astrophysics, and Eduardo Flamenco of the National Institute of Agricultural Technology, Argentina, follow-up a previous study of the influence of solar activity on the flow of the Paraná River – the fourth largest river in the world by outflow – and second only to the Amazon in South America.
They find that the unusual minimum of solar activity observed in recent years has a correlation with very low water levels seen in the Paraná’s flowrate. Additionally they report historical evidence of low water levels during the Little Ice Age.
They also consider flowrates for three other rivers (Colorado, San Juan and Atuel), as well as snow levels in the Andes. They conclude, after eliminating secular trends and smoothing out the solar cycle, there is a strong positive correlation between the residuals of both the Sunspot Number and the flowrates of these rivers as well.
Looking more closely at the data they say that the correlation between Sunspot Number and low water flow rates is stronger than that between flow rates and the incidence of Galacric Cosmic Rays suggesting that the chief influence on climate here is probably changes in solar irradiance and not changes in cosmic rays affecting levels of cloudiness over the region studied.
Both results imply that higher solar activity corresponds to more intense precipitation, in summer and in winter, in the large river basins of South America that have been studied.
The correlation between sunspot number and the rivers’ behavior has been tracked over more than one solar cycle suggests to the researchers that the low levels of activity expected for Solar Cycle 24 will result in a dry period for the river Parana in particular over the next decade.
Usually studies that investigate the effect of solar activity levels on climate have been carried out in the northern hemisphere and have been limited to studying Northern Hemisphere temperatures or sea surface temperatures. In recent years however some correlation has been postulated between solar activity and the Asian monsoon. This study is among the first to link the sun’s prolonged solar minimum at the end of cycle 23 to decadal variations in the weather.
Feedback: david.whitehouse@thegwpf.org This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
…………………………………………………………………………………………………’

For those asking about Levy Flights and fractals.
Persistent brownian motion is just a random walk in which the size of each step is described by a gaussian (normal) distribution.
A Levy flight (a motion often found in such things as the flight of an Albatross and animal foraging behavior) is just a random walk in which the size of each step is described by a power-law distribution (i.e. many small steps, fewer and fewer long steps).
That is, brownian motion has a definable scale (defined by the mean of that normal distribution), whereas a Levy flight does not (and is therefore a type of fractal).

Does this make sense?
The polar regions do not get much direct heating from solar radiation, far less than the tropical regions. Thus if you were trying to match up “pulses” from the Sun with temperatures, you certainly would not want to use the GTA which smears together all the regions. You should concentrate on tropical temperatures, as there you would find the strongest signal of heating influenced by solar variances.
Does that sound reasonable? Has anyone tried it?

That Levy walk resembles the route I take home when returning from the pub on a Saturday evening.

Quoting from Rypdal & Rypdal’s preprint” “….These results provide strong evidence that the stochastic properties of the temperature record are governed by the long-memory internal dynamics of the climate system and are not linked to the short-memory intermittent fluctuations which characterize the the solar output.” One is hard pressed to understand where L. Zyga came up with his or her conclusions. I suggest they be ignored. I see no problem with the math and must accept R&R’s work, until someone more qualified can show it to be in error. I do have many of the same concerns, already stated by others in this thread. I am not comfortable with any attempt to extrapolate their conclusions further then the authors have stated in their paper.

bubbagyro (12:04:37) wrote: “As to the shooting of missiles as they appear, this is the ABSOLUTE goal of science. Mr. Evans may not be a scientist, but our goal as scientists is to attack (nullify) every new hypothesis. Withstanding such attacks over time leads to theory. We expect our own hypotheses to be nullified; this we not ony deserve, but expect and embrace.”
Yes, I’ll stand corrected.
Perhaps, also, the goal should be to not assume prior theories are infalable and be open to challenges to those older theories. Sometimes, it seems such is not the case.
So, it depends on the quality and quantity of data, observations & measurements, methodology, and analysis & interpretation.
Close scrutiny with reasonable skepticism and an open-mind should be applied to all scientific papers.
Sometimes there is a thin line between proper scientific falsification and personal agendas.

@ Ian W (09:59:00) :
The chaotic behavior of the system has only been seen for a very brief interval yet mathematicians without knowing the interrelationships of the variables claim they can define a pattern?
Can one use an elastic metric like GTA and base a hypothesis on a ‘polynomial’ which has terms some of which are unknown and which interact in unknown ways, that has been studied over a brief period in which some polynomials have not fully cycled?

There are tests for chaotic behavior, but they are not simple or totally accurate. Generally, they are based on knowledge or “probability” of the initial, and boundary, conditions, often derived from what is called “prior” information, meaning that which is from scientifically, and/or experimentally established relationships and data, and often as the probability of applicable behavior stated by a “expert” in the field(s) and then compared to truly random behavior.
Every tree in a forest is unique in some respect, but discerning one from the other can be difficult. We can easily spot the difference between oaks and pine even tho both are trees, but may not be able to tell one pine from another. Initial and boundary conditions must be defined in terms of the question asked. Ask a fuzzy question and you’ll get a fuzzy answer. 🙂

From: Jim Clarke (12:54:32)
But that is the summation of the entire IPCC argument for accepting the AGW theory and making life more difficult for every man, woman and child on the planet. “Our models don’t work if we do not include greenhouse gases as the main driver of late 20th century warming, so CO2 must be the reason!” Why is the IPCC argument not immediately recognized as a fallacy by all reasoning people?
My television remote requires 2 AA batteries. Therefore only when you include 2 good AA batteries does the television work, and television programming exists at all.
The first part of the statement is considered valid by around 90% of the population, as most people have lost or never had the ability to use those funny buttons and knobs that may be present on a modern remote-equipped TV, if people know they exist at all. (And with these new flatscreens with the buttons at the rear to the side, they sure aren’t advertising they exist, and they’re barely labeled to boot.) Also, in the “all things are relative” file, if someone is not witnessing something then it does not exist. As I have said when stopping my dial-up connection, “time to shut down the internet for the night.” 😉

@ Jim Clarke (12:54:32) :
What scientists, technicians, engineers, etc. often fail to recognize is the hierarchy of decision making. Often, a decision must be made, at some level of responsibility, regardless of whether any data, etc. supports, is even available, or explicitly pertains. These are cultural, and/or political, etc. issues. Pay grade counts.

Can the cosmic rays perhaps change the Solar Radiance photon/wave itself. There appears to be a collision, and during high sunspots, the cosmic sourced radiation doesn’t come through. So, what is the physics going on there?
Secondly, are Photons generic?

Leif Svalgaard said :
“Compositional change does affect the stratosphere. This does not mean that that change propagates downwards to change the surface, which is [as far as I can ascertain] what Steve Wilde claims.”
I’ve laid this canard to rest several times but Leif keeps repeating it.
It appears to be the rate of upward energy transfer that changes from layer to layer of the Earth system. I do not propose that energy is ever propagated downwards.
The evidence for varying rates of upward energy transfer is the observed differential warming and cooling of troposphere, stratosphere, and the upper layers. They never warm or cool in parallel. All seem to react differently to stimuli from above and below.
Whether the rate of energy transfer is affected wholly by events emanating at the surface (the oceans) or whether there is a contribution from solar events is the critical issue and I am open minded about it but on the balance of the evidence overall I do not feel that Leif’s level of apparent certainty is justified.

Leif Svalgaard (13:52:12) :
who says you are wrong?
Well, you’re the sun guy and when someone floats a specious theory (especially anything involving the sun) you have no trouble making your objections known… which is really another way of saying you have a critical eye and are bluntly honest (both of which are good things). I wanted to make sure what I said, at least on first glance, passed the “Leif Smell Test” as I call it, so barring additional comment I will say thank you and continue to pursue this train of thought. Much appreciated 😀
One additional note, this thinking appears to be in keeping with Beenstock and Reingewertz (WUWT Discussion, Paper). The paper examines three variables – temperature, irradiance, and GHG – and finds that changes in GHG have a temporary effect on temperature and that a 1 W/m2 change in irradiance have an effective permanent effect of 1.47 C.
Of particular interest IMO are Tables 3 and 4 in the paper. The first shows “Impulse Responses” (i.e. time effects on temperature) which for irradiance is 0 effect year 1, 1.44 C year 2, dipping back down to .75 C year 3 and then eventually trending back up to 1.47 C as the permanent effect. Table 4 – Contributions to Global Warming in the 20th Century – shows how these play out in their analysis (GHG has been increasing over the period after all).
They appear to use the same irradiance data as: Lean, J. & Rind, D. How will earth’s surface temperature change in future decades.
Geophysical Research Letters 36, 1-5 (2009) (Paper, discussion on Pielke Sr.’s site here)
Cheers!

uhh, Leif? Where might you be located that said Sun is warming your back? Please post and I will buy a ticket to your location post haste.

Yarmy (12:57:04) : That Levy walk resembles the route I take home when returning from the pub on a Saturday evening. Leif Svalgaard (13:52:12) : If so, I’m amazed you made it home.
Not really. Chaos is deterministic. Solar flare systems, global climate systems, and Yarmy’s staggering home are NOT random (i.e. not stochastic). Those systems may or may not be connected, but randomness is not phenomenological.

Pam: Leif’s busy….so…..um…..I’m feeling hot too!?

But……like Hansen, CRU, Etc…..I really prefer hot models I can manipulate into being even hotter? : )

Leif Svalgaard (16:11:52) :
It was thought just a few years ago that TSI had two components: one that was simply proportional to the sunspot number plus one that was a long term variation, e.g. from the Maunder minimum to today. The latter component being the largest [simply because there is no clear and large 11-yr cycle in climate]. The pendulum is swinging towards abandoning the long-term component. Even Lean is doubting that long-term variations exist. See the last line of the green text in the lower right corner of http://www.leif.org/research/TSI-LEAN2008.png [from a talk in 2008 by Lean].
Wow – interesting! In the B&R post I was the one who kept bringing up that the data might be crap (which necessarily invalidates anything built on top of it). At the time I was thinking more about the surface temps than solar input, but the same rule would apply. I couldn’t get behind the paywall to see what they had actually used, but I am curious… this implies that the party line story here: http://www.climatewatch.noaa.gov/2009/articles/climate-change-incoming-sunlight might be overstated for natural variability. It would also imply that the TSI records used for both B&R and Lean and Rind are crap.
Is there anything definitive we can say about TSI over the last hundred or so years, what about 1978-on (when satellites came onto the scene)? It seems like we’ve gone from solar constant to highly variable sun to slightly variable sun back to solar constant.
I’m not a Scafetta proponent (i.e. thinking that solar variability directly correlates and explains more or less all things) although I do like his first name. I had, however, given a certain amount of reliance on the TSI chart from NOAA being a reasonable representation for the last 50-100 years. Don’t take it personally, consider this a rhetorical gripe of mine, but it’s more than a little frustrating to try and contemplate the workings of the climate when the story around the baseline input keeps changing 🙂
As always appreciate the replies and conversation. Best Regards.

Basil (15:17:18) :
NickB. (13:17:43) :
If insolation did match temps we would see measurable fluctuations every 11-or-so years, and on longer cycles, that correlate with solar input.
We do see measurable fluctuations, in the rate of change, that correlate with solar input, over 11-or-so year cycles. But only within the range of temperature change that can be explained by the 11 -or-so-year cycles in TSI. These are “wiggles” in the longer ~0.6C/century rise in global temperatures; they cannot explain the long term trend itself.
How can the portion of the system (atmosphere) that contains 1/1000 of another (oceans) – note: that’s without even including net energy stored in the land surface – control all of it?
Of the energy received from the sun at the equator, most of it is transported poleward through atmospheric circulation, not ocean circulation. Winds are far more important than you given them credit for. What we see as 30-60 year climate cycles may be the result of shifts in the jet stream. When the jet stream moves poleward, winds become more zonal, with maritime winds providing more moderate (warmer) climes for the continents. When it moves back to the south, the jet stream becomes more loopy, with meridional flows bringing more continental/polar air masses to dominate continental climates. Thus atmospheric circulation can have a lot to do with climate cycles.
____________________________
Basil there are changes in the meridional flow patterns that change in sync with the 27.32 day patterns of the Lunar declinational tides in the atmosphere, and also in it’s 18.6 year long Mn periods. These patterns work much the same in pumping the equatorial air into the mid-latitudes where they become mostly zonal in nature, it is my hypothesis that these effects are helping to drive the pulses in circulation that modulate the Thermostatic effects that Willis Eschenbach subscribes to, in short term pulses of forcings off center, that then average back, to keep it more stable in the long run.

Leif: I’ll not mention photons again. Don’t tell Pam but my knowledge of this stuff is not rock star….more roadie…or lower….Catering maybe. If you ever recall that thread, i’d love to read that thread you had with Arnold as I see he was a co-author of that linked document you posted here. You had a discussion with him about ‘that’ New Scientist article in 2006 we discussed. If it ever comes back to you let me know. I’ll keep looking now. I’m done for a while.
70 shots at Leif and not a single goal! Though I think NickB might have got one close but you let it in!
NickB-Your goal doesn’t count.

Nicola Scarfetta: Welcome to WUWT. Great to see you here. You’ve asked a interesting question i’ve never heard of:
‘…….The issue is why, when the data are analyzed without improper manipulation such as detrending, they suggest a link between solar activity and climate. Can somebody explain the mystery? : ) ……….’
But as you are 100 miles ahead of us, what would be your explanation?
I’ll take the answer off the air.

[quote johnythelowery (14:48:48) :]
Can the cosmic rays perhaps change the Solar Radiance photon/wave itself. There appears to be a collision, and during high sunspots, the cosmic sourced radiation doesn’t come through. So, what is the physics going on there?
[/quote]
This video should explain how the physics works. In a word, it’s electromagnetism.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUUvqtwL8hY&hl=en_US&fs=1&rel=0]

Rypdal and Rypdal hypothesized
Not a theory yet.

Nicola Scafetta (19:52:00) :
Thank you for the comments. I appreciate seeing them. And I appreciate more that you are congenial.
Sun and climate are quite linked!
Since the earth is in the atmosphere of the sun it seems completely feasible.

Leif Svalgaard
On average, overall, energy is not propagated downwards . It does however penetrate the atmosphere and the ocean surface via direct solar insolation before commencing it’s journey back upwards.
You know perfectly well what I meant. You have said it yourself previously.

Leif Svalgaard (02:52:59)
The rate of upwards energy transfer is the speed at which heat transfers upward from surface to space by whatever means is available. In the troposphere it is largely conductive and convective but from stratosphere upward it appears to be primarily radiative.
You have previously stated that radiative energy always travels at the speed of light which is all very well but we nevertheless see the atmospheric layers warming and cooling differentially which is an issue not resolved by your bald assertion.
I have no idea what the numbers are and nor it seems does anyone else although I have seen much speculation.
You have said that only the thermosphere expands and contracts in response to solar surface variability.
However you have also said that the stratosphere is warmed by the extra UV arriving during spells of a more active solar surface. If it is warmed then there must be some expansion.
However in contrast to that expected stratospheric warming the stratosphere actually cooled when the sun was more active and is no longer cooling now that the sun is less active. Indeed it may be warming again.
C02 proponents put that down to reduced rate of energy flow from troposphere to stratosphere.
You put it down to unspecified and unquantified reactions to changes in chemical composition. I assume you mean ozone related changes.
I think it more likely that there is a differential response in the seperate layers of the atmosphere caused by changes in activity levels on the solar surface.
Can you make your assertions more consistent with observations please ?

Of course sunspots are irrelevant to Earth’s Global Average Temperature; they are never strong enough to have any bearing upon the earth’s radiative budget. The interplay of coronal mass ejections with magnetic solar conditions that are responsible for stimulating the magnetic vulcanic potential on earth are, on the other hand, relevant to Earth’s Global Average Temperature because they do.
nonsensically complicated ideas and formulations about the causally simple relations between the earth and sun entertain to distract and manipulate

Leif Svalgaard (10:20:25) :
Dave F (10:00:36) :
So if the sun has an even smaller effect, then what caused the MWP? The LIA?
This is another example of false logic. The “appeal to ignorance”: ‘What else can it be? BTW, the MWP had the Oort Grand Solar Minimum smack in the middle of it
Dave F,
Poor Old Leif has trouble walking and chewing gum at the same time.
He, of cousre, is unable to deal with the possibility that the short term Oort “Grand” Solar Minimum in solar activity (~ 1050 A.D.) might be caused by a phenomenon that is acting on a different time scale to another (solar) phenomenon that might have caused the long-term increase in the Earth’s temperature (900 – 1300 A.D.) during the MWP. If you get beyond one phenomenon acting at one time, Leif gets lost.

Leif Svalgaard (08:21:29) :
You should study these Figures closely http://www.leif.org/research/Loehle-Temps-and-TSI.png
The two bottom panels how very recent reconstructions of TSI [which is a good proxy for solar activity as a whole.
I recognize Loehle’s non-treering temp reconstruction, but are the other 2 graphs TSI reconstructions? The blue line on the bottom graph seems to be a repeat of a section of the middle graph, but what’s the orange line?
But if the point is that there’s no decent correlation then I knew that anyway. 🙂

Ciao Nicola, bienvenuti!
It’s great to see you joining the fray – it might get a little rough and tumble here sometimes but there is, IMO, some very fascinating “sausage-making” going on here. It’s an honor to have you here. Now a question for you and Leif…
Leif, Nicola
Could I be correct in stating the following: the core of your disagreement is regarding the, more or less, direct correlation of solar input with climate – technical considerations aside.
My background is economics, not a solar physics, and I think it might be constructive for the bystanders here (like me) to really understand, in your own words perhaps, what it is the two of you are disagreeing on. I think I have a rough idea about the core of the issue and the consequences but, TBH, I’m not really sure how accurate it is. Just a thought…
Best Regards and, as always, thank you for being here!

Leif Svalgaard
Leans (2010) explanation of the recent cooling implies greater sensitivity to the solar component and concomitant phase process such as enso eg
Direct linear association of natural and anthropogenic influences explains 76% of the variance in the observed global surface temperature during the past 30 years (and also in the past 120 years22),Figure 2 shows how a model that combines these
influences clearly identifies the cause of the rapid global temperature rise from 1992 to 1998 as the result of ENSO-induced warming following Pinatubo produced
cooling. The cause of the lack of overall warming in the last decade is also identified, the result of decreasing solar irradiance in the declining phase of cycle 23 from 2002 to 2009 and La Nina cooling countering anthropogenic warming.
As around 25% of the qualities for warming (cooling) are unexplainable,and there are problematic reasons for this type of analysis for a velocity inversion,confidence is not great in the robustness of her arguments.

Wait a minute – self similarity on different time scales – surely not fractal pattern?? How bizzare is that! A system as simple as climate, passive to controlling forcing by CO2 and entirely explained by the Stefan-Boltzman law? Where could the complexity come from to allow non-equilibrium pattern formation and log-log distributions and fractal pattern? Must be an instrumental glitch – dodgy sensor somewhere.
If however strangely it was in fact a non-equilibrium (see LIndzen’s recent post) quasi-chaotic system then it might just turn out to be a periodically forced oscillatory non-linear system, which depends on the periodic forcing(s) but [this is the important bit] whose emergent patterns and frequencies bear only partial relation or no relation to the forcing frequencies.
Thus trying to match up neatly the periodicities of the solar cycles and climate cycles, plus planetary gravitational plus Milankotitch and all the others, cannot be the whole story. Correlation is not proof of causation. Nor in a non-linear periodically forced oscillatory system (e.g. reaction-diffusion system such as a Belousov-Zhabotinsky reaction) is non correlation proof of non-causation. Not even close I’m afraid.
BTW if you are looking for traditional correlations between variables A and B, if you subject either or both of A and B to some mathematical treatment, however righteous the justification, you will increase and multiply error and decrease the chance of a correlation remaining. So the authors subject the data to “de-trending”. And the correlation goes away! Again – how surprising is that??

Leif Svalgaard (12:06:52) :
If so, why do you bring up her paper.
Because you did,

Leif Svalgaard (12:22:10) :
Leif is feeling hot, and he is reminding us that the topic here is R&R’s paper. Fine.
Just a last comment on RR’s paper. This adds to my comment of yesterday in Nicola Scafetta (19:52:00)
The addition is:
Rypdal and Rypdal have proven that when the temperature data are altered, in their case by adopting several detrending procedures, the properties we found in the data, which are hidden in the smooth component of the temperature, disappear.
I suspect that R&R’s methodology can be used to disprove any study.
It is easy: take a study, alter the data in such a way to eliminate the part where the interesting properties are hidden, prove that the altered data do not contain any more the original properties and, finally, conclude that the original paper must be wrong! Great logic indeed!
As pointed above: The issue is why, when the data are analyzed without improper manipulation such as detrending, they suggest a link between solar activity and climate. Can somebody explain the mystery?
Leif’s scientific solution: it is god Chaos! 🙂

Leif Svalgaard (12:59:33) :
“If everybody disagrees with everybody, we must have really good data to base our fantastic correlations on, right?
As I said, it is down to cherry picking the data you like to support what you want.”
Sounds much like climate science to me:-)
I suspect that process on the sun, like those on Earth, are driven by deterministic chaos (not randomness). Trends have little meaning and any averaging, smoothing or other linear statistical manipulation of the data causes loss of signal.
I’m very surprised that we don’t have more reliable, high temporal resolution data of the sun’s total energy output and have to make do with daily means. I thought it was only climate science that suffered from low quality, temporally inadequate data! Does the new SDO have better instruments to measure solar output?

Leif Svalgaard (12:59:33) :
“Most of those records are obsolete and the correlations are shaky anyway.”
In my papers I always use the latest available data. One of my paper was published in Dec 2009 and another in February 2010.
The fact that there are problems with the data does not justify your choice of putting the solar activity “constant” (plus the 11-year cycle). However, clear patterns emerge from the records. Interpreting complex pattens in the data is where the scientific process must be applied and this is done by looking at the gig picture.
To say, the data are not perfectly consistent with each other and therefore no conclusion can be draw, it is just ignoring what does it mean to look carefully into the issues. Not all data are equally good, but it is possible to discriminate among them.
In any case, you said that you wanted to discuss the RR’s paper, did you forget it already?

Leif Svalgaard (14:28:45) :
the solar activity is still quite high relative to 100 years ago. It is your “constant” solar proxy that does not show any increase.
Moreover, the Earth system does not respond instantaneously to solar changes. Never thought about thermal inertia?
We just stated to observe a decrease in solar activity. The ocean needs time to cool. But the ocean is slowly cooling, following the Sun. This things are clearly written in my papers and in my december 2009 paper.

Nicola, Leif,
Grazie, Dank u for the replies. Having a good laymen’s explanation is, for me at least, a huge help for setting a baseline understanding for the discussion.
That said, I will now return to the sidelines – thanks again!

Leif Svalgaard (15:29:15) :
“People that find the 0.1K solar signal don’t find any significant lags”
Wrong: you do not read carefully my paper. The time lag depend on the frequency you are considering, this is basic math. Again you do not know how thermal inertia works.
“The latest TSI reconstructions [e.g. Steinhilber et al., 2009, http://www.leif.org/EOS/2009GL040142.pdf ] show variations of the order of 1 W/m2 over the past ~10,000 year you show Lean’s old 2005″
Wrong: you do not read carefully my paper. I used Solanki 2007. Steinhilber reconstruction came later I wrote my papers. Solanki and Steinhilber show approximately the same secular variation. Moreover, Steinhilber’s reconstruction shows an increase of TSI since 1900 contrary to what you have claimed above. And there exist a clear up ward trend since 1500.
Again you do not appear to read carefully the literature. This is probably the biggest problem in climatology. People read superficially the papers and do not get the right picture, however they criticize what they do not understand.

For TSI variations to be a major driver of climate, there should be a signatures in the temperature record. Doing FFTs on a number of places (and sun spot numbers equiv to TSI as a control gives this set of plots:
http://img15.imageshack.us/img15/1127/ffts.jpg
http://img21.imageshack.us/img21/9826/tsifft.jpg
There are no significant number showing anything like TSI peaks. I have seen similar plots from Leif.
/harry

James F. Evans (16:08:28) :
thank you for the nice analysis!

Leif claiming that the TSI data is shakey and then claiming there is no drop off in TSI when comparing with the last minimum is an oxymoron, or did Judith Lean say something similar about the “solar constant”
The UV values taken from CELIAS/SEM also display a 6% reduction when compared to 1996, or shouldn’t I mention the UV word?
Thanks very much for your contribution Nicola, its about time we had some balance in here. Leif’s arguments certainly do not seem so robust when questioned by others knowledgeable in the field.

Nicola Scafetta (16:06:52) :
Wrong: you do not read carefully my paper. I used Solanki 2007. Steinhilber reconstruction came later I wrote my papers. Solanki and Steinhilber show approximately the same secular variation. Moreover, Steinhilber’s reconstruction shows an increase of TSI since 1900 contrary to what you have claimed above. And there exist a clear up ward trend since 1500.
This is an important point, both sets of data which are totally independent show a very close match, especially when the Steinhilber data is re plotted (the flat graph hiding some of the detail). Both sets of data are showing a significant rise in TSI from 1500. The proxy data raises serious doubt about the 0.1 % TSI variance claimed by the AGW crowd.

suricat
FFTs can transform from time to frequency domain hence a time plot can be changed to periodic plot.
If the TSI effect is small and hidden by other effects then is it not insignificant?
Here’s another way of doing it
Get HADCRUT3V global temp record
Average over 6 months to remove some of the “noise”
Create a series of narrow band filters on the resultant temperature plot.
Tune each filter manually to isolate peaks in the output.
These SHOULD show peaks wherever there is a signal of, say, Scarfetta’s 60 years.
Take the output of each narrow band filter and generate a cosine wave that is as near as possible the same amplitude and phase as the filtered signal.
Do this a number of times isolating each frequency.
Add together the generated cosines. Multiply the result by a factor (approx 3 in the plot below). If there is a suitable long period – low frequency – signal isolated the resultant should match the original signal. IT DID NOT so a trend was added.
y = 2.44231E-07x^3 – 1.36387E-03x^2 + 2.53884E+00x – 1.57576E+03 (not good as it deviates before 1850.
This is what I got :
http://img576.imageshack.us/img576/905/temperaturesynthesis.png
Note
No 60 year signal
No massive TSI signal (there is some!)
The significant signals are all around 2 to 6 years
The plot shows prediction for the next few years!!!!
Get HADCRUT from CRU website
Get Excel from microsoft
Get bandpass filter from
http://www.web-reg.de/index.html
in general set the bandwidth to months/150 (e.g. period start 21.19 end 21.29 months ie. months/200 in this case)
\harry

Leif Svalgaard (19:23:53) :
Steinhilber et al. claims that the increase since the Maunder Minimum is 0.9 W/m2. For your information that is 0.9/1361*100 = 0.066%, only about half the 0.1% variance…
But if we read closer (which seems to be mandatory requirement for your references) Steinhilber states 0.9 W/m2 as an average with a error range of 0.4 W/m2. The MM figure is compared to the mean value of SC22 (1365.9 W/m2), if compared with solar max figures of say SC19 (1366.9 approx) the results would be very different. Your reconstruction shows about 1 W/m2 variance from the bottom of MM to the peaks of today. Steinhilbers results have the scope to be at least twice that figure. His study casts more doubt on your figures.
Also Steinhilber does not seem to be aware of the reported UV variances between 1996 and 2009. This graph might enlighten him and others.
http://www.usc.edu/dept/space_science/sem_data/SEM%20Data%20Graphs/SEM_1996-2009.jpg

James F. Evans (16:08:28)
Interesting background info. So Leifs posts generally translate as:
“who’s that walking over my bridge?!”

Leif Svalgaard (15:03:40)
“Perhaps we should clear up the fundamental position first. Does the temperature control the expansion or the expansion control the temperature?”
Obviously the rise in temperature occurs first then the expansion.
However the expansion then seems to facilitate an increased upward flow of energy from below. That increase in energy coming up from below adds to the solar warming effect in the upper layers which become warmer than they would have done just from the solar changes.
The extra warming of the upper layers is at the expense of cooling in the lowest layer, the stratosphere, so the stratosphere will cool when the upper layers warm and vice versa as per observations.
The effect cannot have any significant impact below the tropopause because below the tropopause the heat transfers are dominated by convective and conductive processes rather than radiative processes.
The stratosphere is thus a varying buffer between the conductive and convective processes in the troposphere and the radiative processes from tropopause to space.
The changes in the stratosphere then feed back to variability in the intensity and size of the Arctic and Antarctic Oscillations.
That is the only concept that I can think of that could explain the observed differential warming and cooling of the layers in the atmosphere.

Leif Svalgaard (23:39:11) : “What nonsense is that? There is a nice signal [..] Earlier studies were somewhat erratic, but later data is getting better and better. ”
What nonsense? You refused to consider the 10Be and 14C proxies when I was using them, but you deem them acceptable for use in your own work. That’s nonsense, Leif.
I’ve excerpted the thread of conversation pertaining to using proxies for CR below, so readers can judge for themselves. At no point did you admit that there’s a useful production signal derivable from the proxies – on the contrary, you strenuously argued against it.
From http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/03/14/dr-nicolas-scaffeta-summarizes-why-the-anthropogenic-theory-proposed-by-the-ipcc-should-be-questioned/ :
oneuniverse (09:46:52) :
I thought that there is ample paleoclimatic evidence to support the notion that cosmic rays affect terrestrial climate.
[Quoting] Jasper Kirkby : “Numerous palaeoclimatic observations, covering a wide range of time scales, suggest that galactic cosmic ray variability is associated with climate change. The quality and diversity of the observations make it difficult to dismiss them merely as chance associations.”
Leif Svalgaard (10:35:16):
Apart from the difficulties of determining the paleo-data [especially the cosmic ray intensity], there is little evidence from modern data to suggest the notion, so little reason to suspect it in the deep past.
oneuniverse (15:35:41):
The first part of this statement is in contrast to Kirkby’s, concerning the quality and diversity of the paleo-observations. You yourself kindly pointed me to a reconstruction on your site from proxy records . Not to dismiss the difficulties with proxy reconstructions, but not to dismiss the proxies altogether either.
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.
[[ I was trying to use them as proxies for CR, not climate btw ]]
oneuniverse (21:03:58):
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.
Leif Svalgaard (21:54:17):
From a 2010 paper co-authored by Beer [he has learned something since 1988]: “[20] The radionuclide concentration data contains two components: (1) a production signal induced by solar magnetic activity and long-term changes in the geomagnetic field intensity and (2) a (atmospheric) system signal related to the geochemical properties of cosmogenic radionuclides and climate effects.”
http://www.leif.org/EOS/2009JA014193.pdf
oneuniverse (07:00:20):
If you’d bothered including the very next sentence, readers would immediately realise that the findings support Beer et al.’s 1988 results :
“The observed changes in radionuclide concentrations between grand solar minima and grand solar maxima are mainly due to production rate changes as shown by McCracken [2004] and Heikkila¨ et al. [2008]. While the climate-induced system effects on the transport and the deposition of 10Be are comparatively small, they are not negligible.”
So the main signal is from the production rate, and the climate effects are not negligable, but comparatively small, findings in support of the results from their 1988 paper.
What Beer has reconsidered is the role of the geomagnetic field in modulating the production rate. Whatever the role, it’s just one more factor affecting the GCR flux, the relevant quantity under study.
Leif Svalgaard (21:54:17):
From: http://www.leif.org/EOS/2009GL038004.pdf comparing different ice cores:
“The good long-term agreement between 10Be variations in both cores reflects a regional response to production and climate changes, but the disagreements in the earlier parts of the two records suggest that 10Be should be measured in ice cores from locations with non-complex ice flow regimes.”
So, there is a growing realization that climate has an influence as well.
oneuniverse (06:58:34) :
From the same paper: “It is also clear that it is preferable to have 10Be records from sites with non-complex ice flow regimes, and no or infrequent summer melt, such as NGRIP and South Pole.”
So let’s use South Pole ice-core 10Be data – it’s clear from Kirkby’s Fig. 2b that for the last 1000 years it closely matches different 14C records and Greenland 10Be data. Furthermore, Beer et al. 1998 find the same relationship is present for over 5,000 years (a slight divergence between 10Be and 14C is noted for >10k years).
The ‘orthodox’ scientific understanding is that a good GCR flux signal can be extracted, carefully, from the 10Be records, particularly for the past millenia.
Leif Svalgaard (10:31:48):
Over short periods of time the production rate dominates. Over longer period the gromagnetic field and the climate are dominant.
oneuniverse (15:03:47):
According to the Usoskin et al. 2009, the climate is thought to be dominant only over short time-scales (which makes sense, given that we haven’t found a 10Be sink).
[..]
You’ll notice that over the longer timescales (>100 years) the solar and geomagnetic field are considered to be important. Since these affect the CR flux and so the production rate, not the deposition rate, this means that the data from the last 10k years can be used as a CR flux proxy.
Leif Svalgaard (15:45:15):
[Climate induced system effects] have been relatively small lately when climate has not varied much, but go back in time and much larger variations were present.
[..]
Imagine we have a ’snowball’ Earth, or a glaciation. That greatly interferes with atmospheric circulation that is instrumental in transporting 10Be to the poles. And on short time-scales you quote him saying that climate is dominant, e.g. for the sharp dips…
oneuniverse (06:56:29):
There haven’t been any snowball Earth or glaciation episodes during the last 10,000 years, the period in which the 10Be and 14C CR-proxy data is considered to be most reliable.
Leif Svalgaard (10:09:51):
Again, being selective. Your assumption is that the ‘evidence’ of paleo-stuff hundreds of million years ago is representative of today or can be used to draw conclusions about today. This assumes that the climate has not changed.
oneuniverse (16:22:34):
The hundreds of millions of year old data comes from meteorites, unaffected by the climate. The <10k yr statement comes from an analysis of data from the last 10k years.
Why not look at the CR-proxy data from the last 2000 years? We know climate hasn't changed that much over the period.

Unfortunately today I will be very busy, so I will not be able to comment and disprove Leif word by word. Only a few points
Ulric Lyons (03:25:08) : thank you for the web site showing that solar weather effects the Earth system. This indirectly suggest the physical plausibility of our conclusions.
Leif Svalgaard (19:23:53) :
you need to read the paper printed in the journals. It is a bad habit to criticize works without reading them!
Now let us move to R&R and to
Leif Svalgaard (22:32:02) :
“10: But Levy-walks are not self-similar, and the PDF changes as time goes by as shown in Figure 3 of http://www.leif.org/research/Rypdal-Levy-Paper.png . Note the ’spikes’. These occur because a Levy-Walk is not a self-similar random process.”
What are those strange spikes? What are you representing in the distribution #3? You have no clue of what a Levy-Walk is!
“11: To summarize the differences:
a. FBMs are self-similar, Both the self-similarity exponent h and the diffusion exponent H are defined, with h = H.
b. LFs are self-similar, with self-similarity exponent h, but with undefined H.
”
fine!
“c. LWs are not self-similar, i.e. h is undefined, but H is well-defined: H = 1 – u/2”
false, read my papers, h is defined and related to H!
Now, on to S&W. They postulate that
12: On time scales much shorter that the 11-yr solar cycle, the solar flare Index [SFI] and the Global Temperature Anomaly [GTA] have the same statistical properties.
false! We use the waiting time distribution between “large” flares not the SFI which has a completely different meaning! This is the major error of R&R. They take apples for oranges! We explicitly excluded indexes such as the SFI from the analysis.
By confusing apples for oranges R&R believed that the low frequency component of the temperature signal could be removed without problems. However, because we were talking about the time structure of the signal, the smooth part of the temperature is where the signal is and cannot be removed without alter the physical properties of the signal that we wanted to detect.
In conclusion: R&R took apples for oranges and inverted the physical meaning of the low and high frequency component of the signal!

Leif Svalgaard
One of the problems I have is that the sun cannot cause warming,but it is used as explanation for an absence of warming,and cooling in the past eg Lean 2010 and Lockwood et al 2010.
Are cold winters in Europe associated with low solar activity?
Abstract. Solar activity during the current sunspot minimum has fallen to levels unknown since the start of the 20th century. The Maunder minimum (about 1650–1700) was a prolonged episode of low solar activity which coincided with more severe winters in the United Kingdom and continental Europe. Motivated by recent relatively cold winters in the UK, we investigate the possible connection with solar activity. We identify regionally anomalous cold winters by detrending the Central England temperature (CET) record using reconstructions of the northern hemisphere mean temperature. We show that cold winter excursions from the hemispheric trend occur more commonly in the UK during low solar activity, consistent with the solar influence on the occurrence of persistent blocking events in the eastern Atlantic. We stress that this is a regional and seasonal effect relating to European winters and not a global effect. Average solar activity has declined rapidly since 1985 and cosmogenic isotopes suggest an 8% chance of a return to Maunder minimum conditions within the next 50 years (Lockwood 2010 Proc. R. Soc. A 466 303–29): the results presented here indicate that, despite hemispheric warming, the UK and Europe could experience more cold winters than during recent decades.
http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/5/2/024001/fulltext
The paper must be rigorous and robust as per said comment,
Michael Mann of Penn State University in the US says the research “appears to be a very solid analysis”, which “provides further support” for the idea that the Sun was behind Europe’s cold winters 300 years ago. He adds that he and other researchers have shown that fluctuations in solar activity can also explain the relatively warm winters that occurred in Europe about 1000 years ago’

Leif Svalgaard (07:56:03)
I don’t see that there has to be a runaway.
The solar effect both initiates and limits the process.
The atmospheric ‘stimulation’ from the solar variability can stop the process as easily as it can start it.
Why do you think otherwise ?

Tenuc (14:45:37)
When solar activity is high the Polar Oscillations are weaker, energy escapes faster to space, jet streams move poleward and the mid latitudes warm up.
When solar activity is weak the Polar Oscillations are stronger, energy escapes more slowly to space, jet streams move equatorward and the mid latitudes cool down.
However the behaviour of the oceans also has to be taken into account and I suspect you will find that the exceptions to the general rule always occurred when oceanic effects offset the solar effects.

These are the papers concerning tmy post above
http://www.astro.bas.bg/AIJ/issues/n11/14_BKomitov.pdf
http://www.astro.bas.bg/AIJ/issues/n12/07_BKomitov.pdf
http://www.astro.bas.bg/AIJ/issues/n13/BKomitov.pdf