Scientists find errors in hypothesis linking solar flares to global temperature
From Physorg.com. h/t to Leif Svalgaard who offers this PDF with this diagram that makes it all clear.
In contrast to a previous analysis, a new study has shown that the distributions of (a) the global temperature anomaly by month since 1880 and (b) the solar flare index by day over a few solar cycles are fundamentally different. One feature the detrended data do have in common is self-similarity: the probability density functions are the same on different time scales, which means that neither can be described as Lévy walks. Image credit: Rypdal and Rypdal.
(PhysOrg.com) — The field of climate science is nothing if not complex, where a host of variables interact with each other in intricate ways to produce various changes. Just like any other area of science, climate science is far from being fully understood. As an example, a new study has discredited a previous hypothesis suggesting the existence of a link between solar flares and changes in the earth’s global temperature. The new study points out a few errors in the previous analysis, and concludes that the solar and climate records have very different properties that do not support the hypothesis of a sun-climate complexity linking.
In a handful of studies published in Physical Review Letters between 2003 and 2008, a team from Duke University and the Army Research Office including Nicola Scafetta and Bruce West analyzed data that appeared to show that solar flares have a significant influence on global temperature. Solar flares, which are large explosions in the sun’s atmosphere that are powered by magnetic energy, vary in time from a few per month to several per day. Although solar flares occur near sunspots, their frequency variation occurs on a much shorter time scale than the 11-year sunspot cycle. In their studies, the researchers’ results seemed to show that data from solar flare activity correlates with changes in the global temperature on a short time scale. Specifically, their analysis showed that the two time records can both be characterized by the same Lévy walk process.
However, in the new study, which is also published in Physical Review Letters, Martin Rypdal and Kristoffer Rypdal of the University of Tromso in Norway have reexamined the data and the previous analysis and noticed some shortcomings. One of the biggest causes of concern is that the previous analysis did not account for larger trends in factors that affect solar flares and global temperature. For instance, the solar cycle has its 11-year periodic trend, where periods of lots of sunspots cause larger numbers of solar flares. Likewise, the global temperature anomaly has numerous other factors (a “multi-decadal, polynomial trend”) that impacts global temperature fluctuations. By not detrending this data, the analysis resulted in abnormally high values of certain variables that pointed to Lévy walk processes. By estimating the untrended data, Rypdal and Rypdal hypothesized that the solar flare records might be described by a Lévy flight, while the global temperature anomaly might obey a distribution called persistent fractional Brownian motion.
Read the entire article here at Physorg.com
A preprint of the paper is available here
Practice making your own Levy walks here
Leif Svalgaard (12:02:11) :
“As Roy Spencer points out a natural variation in the amounts of clouds resulting from chaos”,
Leif, if climate changes is caused just by (the god) “chaos” you have a Greek mythological understanding of nature.
Chaos does not explain the correlation with the solar records found in the papers that oneuniverse (11:35:37) references.
Climate is forced: its chaotic behavior is a fluctuation around the forcing patterns.
About the decreased solar activity which is now lower than ten years ago, you find the figure of both ACRIM and PMOD records here
http://acrim.com/TSI%20Monitoring.htm
These figures disagree with your reconstruction of the total solar irradiance. If you do not like PMOD, notice that ACRIM too disagrees with you.
Leif Svalgaard (12:06:52) :
If so, why do you bring up her paper.
Because you did,
Chaos and uncertainty, two fantastic solutions for what we do not know. That’s what your doctor tells you: Virus or Cancer, choose the lie you prefer!
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! 🙂
Nicola Scafetta (12:23:34) :
Chaos does not explain the correlation with the solar records found in the papers that oneuniverse (11:35:37) references.
Most of those records are obsolete and the correlations are shaky anyway.
If you do not like PMOD, notice that ACRIM too disagrees with you. and with PMOD as well.
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.
maksimovich (12:28:30) :
Because you did,
OK, I did it as an example of what is out there. If she back down from her earlier view or is not to be believed for some reason, that just adds to my point that the data barely shows any correlation.
Nicola Scafetta (12:23:34) :
About the decreased solar activity which is now lower than ten years ago, you find the figure of both ACRIM and PMOD records here
Adroitly avoiding the issue that ACRIM and PMOD disagree strongly for the three minima. What I’m saying is that the data is shaky and not a sound foundation to build on.
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 said:
“As Roy Spencer points out a natural variation in the amounts of clouds resulting from chaos in the complicated climate system is perfectly capable of causing the observed climate change.”
Why invoke chaos ? Just regular cycling around a point of equilibrium is what we need on longer timescales. Chaos is the default position for day to day weather and perhaps a degree of season to season variability but not for longer than that.
As the cloud bands move latitudinally beyond normal seasonal variation (as they clearly do) they will cause larger albedo changes than any albedo changes arising from the other proposed causes such as more cosmic rays increasing overall cloudiness. Clouds are far more reflective under a more intense sun.
Now if it can be shown that such latitudinal shifts can occur in both directions (poleward and equatorward) without any solar effects impacting on the atmosphere and thereby influencing the strength of the Arctic and Antarctic Oscillations then I could drop the solar driver component from my ‘model’ but frankly the complete lack of a solar effect from above seems highly implausible.
The oceans have little effect above the tropopause but we see differential warming and cooling of the upper layers. How can we account for that on the basis of variations from below the tropopause ?
Rossby waves et al are short term and local phenomena. We need to know exactly why the stratosphere appears not to warm and cool in parallel with the higher layers. Guessing about chemical composition changes in the atmosphere is just not good enough to remove the possibility of a solar effect.
So far Leif has failed to comment on the issue of differential warming and cooling of the individual layers above the tropopause. Perhaps he could now state his position on that ?
Bear in mind that he has admitted a supposed warming effect on the stratosphere from more UV from higher solar activity but denies any expansion of the stratosphere as a consequence. In practice however such warming has not been observed. The stratosphere actually cooled whilst the upper layers warmed from higher solar activity.
And if Leif accepts that layers of the atmosphere below the thermosphere (right down to the stratosphere) can be warmed by that extra UV then why does he say that there is zero expansion of the atmosphere below the thermosphere ?
To refine my climate model I’d like the answers please.
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?
Nicola Scafetta (12:57:00) :
Leif is feeling hot
I’m always feel that when on a roll 🙂
the properties we found in the data, which are hidden in the smooth component of the temperature, disappear.
As you chose not to get technical, we can stay hand wavy. The smooth component of GTA shows a steady rise over the interval, but solar activity right now [and lately] is back to where is was a century ago, thus showing that the temperature rise was not driven by solar activity. No chaos here, just simple [phenomenological] data.
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.
Tenuc (14:18:54) :
Does the new SDO have better instruments to measure solar output?
No, this is not the mission of SDO, SORCE is still going and new missions to follow up, e.g. PICARD are on the way.
Stephen Wilde (14:23:03) :
To refine my climate model I’d like the answers please.
Hard to give answers when you are so vague. Perhaps we should clear up the fundamental position first. Does the temperature control the expansion or the expansion control the temperature?
Nicola Scafetta (14:24:25) :
“Most of those records are obsolete and the correlations are shaky anyway.” In my papers I always use the latest available data.
Irrelevant, because you were referring to a load of references by ‘oneuniverse’ mostly from the 1990s.
Not all data are equally good, but it is possible to discriminate among them.
How do you do this? By how well they match your ideas? Sometimes the discrimination goes a bit to far, e.g. as pointed out here: http://www.leif.org/EOS/2009GL040707.pdf :
“that irradiance changes due to non-magnetic effects, if any, cannot be revealed by either SATIRE-S used here nor by SATIRE-T employed by Scafetta and Willson [2009]”
In any case, you said that you wanted to discuss the RR’s paper,
See already posted reply.
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!
Nicola Scafetta (14:53:05) :
the solar activity is still quite high relative to 100 years ago. It is your “constant” solar proxy that does not show any increase.
Again not being up-to-date. Solar activity is LOW, and most forecast even lower in years to come. So you would then predict a severe cooling of the Earth back to 1880-1910 levels [a drop of 1K]. This would be a good and strong test.
Moreover, the Earth system does not respond instantaneously to solar changes. Never thought about thermal inertia?
People that find the 0.1K solar signal don’t find any significant lags [a few years at most]. But I agree that with a suitable lag [perhaps even variable], one can explain almost anything. I have seen people talking about lags of 88 years.
The discussion is about long-term trends not half a solar cycle or less. 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, while in your papers [e.g. slide 72 of Feb/26/2009] you show Lean’s old 2005 reconstruction with systematic errors, e.g. the rise since the 1890s. As long as it comes down to haggling over whose data is best, the science can scarcely be said to be proven or ‘settled’. Whatever you might think [and the one to fool first is oneself], the evidence is simply not there.
The issue of TSI [and related proxies] might be resolved in the decade to come and the community might settle on something we can work with. At the moment it is cherry picking as usual.
Nicola, it is not too late to register for the SORCE 2010 meeting. Although the deadline for abstracts is passed, I can probably get them to accept a poster presentation by you. So, please come and join us.
http://lasp.colorado.edu/sorce/news/2010ScienceMeeting/
“The Current Solar Minimum and Predictions for Future Decades”
Why not compare satellite TSI with land based TSI guys? In particular the UV spectrum!
I think the UV spectrum varies by <30% at surface and we know that ozone propensity in the ionosphere lags any solar UV variation. Ozone is also a strong GHG that will absorb much of Sol's small IR signature before it gets deeper into the atmosphere and point it elsewhere. Stability and instability in one, it also looks like a variance multiplier.
I know this sounds like a 'forcing' from climate (as it's the Earth's atmosphere that reacts), but hey, the sun does it!
Best regards, suricat.
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.
Nicola Scafetta (10:25:29) :
Thank you for commenting.
The reason I point to your (10:25:29) comment is that it shows that Dr. Svalgaard has a dog in this fight — his own hypothesis depends on debunking your paper and the R&R paper acts as a proxy for his purpose of doing that.
A cat’s paw, if you will.
So, Dr. Svalgaard can grind his axe in the comments section (no surprise Dr. Svalgaard tipped this to Anthony Watts).
Not that Rypdal & Rypdal don’t have their own axes to grind, so the analogy isn’t perfect, but it will do.
Nicola Scafetta’s (12:57:00) comment: “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.”
Interesting and revealing that Dr. Svalgaard has no direct response to that specific statement — it’s a damning argument against the R&R paper (which Dr. Svalgaard complained was being ignored in the discussion).
What’s interesting to me is the word, “detrending”. The word suggests that manipulation is being removed from the data (which would make it more accurate), but it would seem that in actuality, it acts in an opposite way, it’s its own type of manipulation for a desired “outcome” in line with a political agenda. Something I tried to point out earier in the discussion, but perhaps met with limited success.
Nicola Scafetta points out that Dr. Svalgaard’s conclusions are an outlier from other scientists’ conclusions (which possibly suggests Dr. Svalgaard’s statements and conclusions on this website are not as representitive as he’d like readers to think).
Also, interesting is that when Dr. Svalgaard had it pointed out to him that his data and conclusions were an outlier from other papers, he cavalierly dismissed them all. Even satellite observations & measurements, which he then dismissed based on faulty apparatus, and then justified on an acceptance for publication of a presentation he gave supporting the dismissal of the data — sounds good.
But it turns out (thanks to Mr. Scafetta) there are other satellites which confirm the data. To this Dr. Svalgaard scrambled the discussion, saying there is so much disagreement among the data that nobody knows what’s going on — which would include Dr. Svalgaard, too, I might add (he doesn’t mention that, of course).
Dr. Svalgaard never does address the additional satellite data other than to attempt his “scramble”.
Perhaps this is too far afield: Dr. Svalgaard’s qualifications based on his own statements in other discussion threads boils down to him getting invited to make presentations at various conferences — mostly astrophysical conferences.
(Dr. Svalgaard makes reference to his making a presentation and that his presentation has been accepted for publication as proof for his assertions about the satellite data.)
Obviously, the conference organizers know what he will say and likely agree with him. (That’s how it works at many conferences. How many skunks get invited to the garden party?)
Turns out the vast majority of astrophysicists and astronomers totally buy into Man-made global warming (of course, there are important exceptions). And, Dr. Svalgaard’s conclusions fit in with these AGW perceptions in the astronomy community like a glove.
So, who else are you going call to invite to give a presentation, but a fellow astrophysicist that will reinforce their pro-AGW perception (it does not matter that Dr. Svalgaard doesn’t explicitly state support for AGW — that is cleverly left to the audience to make the connection between his conclusions and astrophysical support for AGW — it would be too ham-handed if he did — that’s not Dr. Svalgaard).
Many readers assume Dr. Svalgaard is a leader in helio-astrophysics (he’ll throw his conference presentations in your face if you challenge him), but Dr. Svalgaard’s role is as a statatician – one versed or engaged in compiling statistics – and mathematician, more than a front-line scientist engaged in observation & measurement, he gets that from others.
Perhaps, now, readers will understand why Dr. Svalgaard gets invited to make so many presentations — his conclusions are exactly what the pro- AGW audience wants to hear.
Make no mistake about it: Dr. Svalgaard has a dog in this fight. One could say, “he’s all in”, if one were playing poker.
Anyway, thanks again, Mr. Scafetta for participating and, yes, defending your paper from Dr. Svalgaard’s sharp and motivated intellect.
It provides real time discussion of points pro and con which allows readers to draw their own conclusions about the weight to be given respective papers and the weight to be given speaker’s arguments about those papers.
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
Leif Svalgaard (15:46:58) :
thank you for proposing me to come at the SORCE 2010 meeting.
I was invited but I could not go. I do not know yet if I can come now.
James F. Evans (16:08:28) :
thank you for the nice analysis!
Dr. Svalgaard: These correlations assume a TSI variation of 3-4 W/m2 over the past 400 years.
The papers consider sunspots, solar irradiance, and 14C and 10Be production (CR proxies). Which of them make the 3-4 W/m2 TSI assumption ?
Dr. Svalgaard to Dr. Scafetta: Irrelevant, because you were referring to a load of references by ‘oneuniverse’ mostly from the 1990s.
Over 50% of the 33 papers referenced in support of Dr. Scafetta’s statement were written in the 21st century. Most of the rest are from the 90’s, a few from earlier. Later research has confirmed and built on earlier results.
Dr. Svalgaard to Dr. Scafetta: Adroitly avoiding the issue that ACRIM and PMOD disagree strongly for the three minima. What I’m saying is that the data is shaky and not a sound foundation to build on.
You use such data in your own papers, so whatever caveats you feel you should apply in those papers, perhaps also apply in this discussion.
In an earlier post, you repeatedly refused to consider the cosmogenic 10Be and 14C CR paleo studies I referenced, saying they didn’t reliably carry a signal, even for the recent millenia. Yet in Svalgaard and Cliver 2007, for example, you use 10Be and 14C proxies – what’s more, you use the CR-determined production rate signal from the proxies to assume something about the solar wind strength – a further stretch than just using them as CR-flux proxies, which you’d rejected.
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.
Harry Lu (16:29:22) :
I’m no scientist, I’m an engineer. What on Earth are FFTs? Why do you compare regional temperatures with a global phenomenon if not to ‘cherry pick’?
“There are no significant number showing anything like TSI peaks. I have seen similar plots from Leif.”
There are TSI peaks, but they’re quite small when the totality of the solar spectrum is observed (from wherever).
Best regards, suricat.