Solar Science Bipolar Disorder
Guest post by Steven Goddard
About once every 11 years, the sun’s magnetic poles reverse. However some high profile solar scientists reverse their own polarity more frequently.
The BBC reported Wednesday that Mike Lockwood at the University of Reading has established a statistical link between cold weather and low solar activity.
The UK and continental Europe could be gripped by more frequent cold winters in the future as a result of low solar activity, say researchers.
“By recent standards, we have just had what could be called a very cold winter and I wanted to see if this was just another coincidence or statistically robust,” said lead author Mike Lockwood, professor of space environment physics at the University of Reading, UK.
To examine whether there was a link, Professor Lockwood and his co-authors compared past levels of solar activity with the Central England Temperature (CET) record, which is the world’s longest continuous instrumental record of such data.
The researchers used the 351-year CET record because it provided data that went back to the beginning of the Maunder Minimum, a prolonged period of very low activity on the Sun that lasted about half a century.
“Frost fayres” were held on the Thames during the Maunder Minimum
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The Maunder Minimum occurred in the latter half of the 17th Century – a period when Europe experienced a series of harsh winters, which has been dubbed by some as the Little Ice Age. Following this, there was a gradual increase in solar activity that lasted 300 years.
Professor Lockwood explained that studies of activity on the Sun, which provides data stretching back over 9,000 years, showed that it tended to “ramp up quite slowly over about a 300-year period, then drop quite quickly over about a 100-year period”.
He said the present decline started in 1985 and was currently about “half way back to a Maunder Minimum condition”. More at the BBC
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His study was basically a rehash of what many others have done previously over the past few centuries, but he has the BBC’s ear – because in 2007 he prominently claimed just the opposite.
No Sun link’ to climate change
Tuesday, 10 July 2007
“This should settle the debate,” said Mike Lockwood
Similarly, in 2006 David Hathaway at NASA reported that the Sun’s conveyor belt had “slowed to a record low.”
May 10, 2006: The Sun’s Great Conveyor Belt has slowed to a record-low crawl, according to research by NASA solar physicist David Hathaway. “It’s off the bottom of the charts,” he says. “This has important repercussions for future solar activity.”
Then on March 12, 2010 he reported the exact opposite:
March 12, 2010: In today’s issue of Science, NASA solar physicist David Hathaway reports that the top of the sun’s Great Conveyor Belt has been running at record-high speeds for the past five years.
In 1810, the great English astronomer William Herschel established a link between sunspot activity and the price of grain in Europe – a proxy for climate. As far as we know, he never reversed polarity on that belief. Modern solar science is just coming around to what Herschel hypothesized 200 years ago.
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UPDATE: Full Lockwood et al paper at Environmental Research Letters here
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.
Figure 2 from the paper:
- Figure 2. Variations since the mid-17th century of the following. (a) The mean northern hemisphere temperature anomaly, ΔTN: black shows the HadCRUT3v compilation of observations [17, mauve shows the median of an ensemble of 11 reconstructions (individually intercalibrated with the HadCRUT3v NH data over the interval 1850–1950) based on tree ring and other proxy data [18–23]. The decile range is given by the area shaded grey (between upper and lower decile values of ΔTU and ΔTL). (b) Average winter Central England Temperatures (CET) [5, 6] for December, January and February, TDJF. (c) The open solar flux, FS, corrected for longitudinal solar wind structure: dots are annual means of interplanetary satellite data; the black line after 1905 is derived from ground-based geomagnetic data [1]; and the mauve line is a model based on observed sunspot numbers [14]. Both curves show 1 year means. (d) Detrended winter CET, δTDJF, obtained by subtracting the best-fit variation of ΔTN, derived using the regressions shown in figure 3(b): the width of the line shows the difference resulting from the use of ΔTN = ΔTU and ΔTN = ΔTL prior to 1850. In all panels, dots are for years with δTDJF < 1 °C (the dashed horizontal line in (d)), colour-coded by year using the scale in figure 3(a). Data for the winter 2009/10 are provisional.”]
Bryn (23:38:57)
Please read Hathaway’s statements more closely. In 2006 it was at a record low. Now he says that it has been at a record high “for the past five years” (2005-present)
That means that 2006 was a record low and a record high.
It is to hoped that the migration of scientists from the perceived mainstream wisdom of the day(AGW/MMCC/AAM)to a more rational sceptical and common sense position will become common in the months to come.
The so called consensus is failing, the models are failing to match real world observations and the narrative is starting to look like what it is.
Science is and always has been about proving others wrong, falsification of others work and the constant improving of science through ever more detailed research.
No theory can be above critisism, no scientific discovery is above questioning and critisism, the certainty of the fool has no palce in science as history as proved again and again, the brightest scientific brains of the 18/19/20th centuries held beliefs and certainties that we now know are ridiculous.
Newton himself a genius of the ages held views so utterly wrong that we would laugh at them now, Einstein himself made errors of epic proportions and yet he is rightly regarded as a giant.
Science is the escape from ignorance, the dogged messy and determined pursuit of knowledge that has always entailed fighting against the commonly held wisdom of the day. Theories come into being and are knocked down to be replaced with better theories, old certainties are destroyed and new ones take their place.
The vain attempt to somehow preserve a theory from falsification and critisism is merely delaying the eventual demise of that theory, when the protected theory falls it will fall harder and hurt those supporters harder, it is to be hoped that more scientists will realise this and move out of the way before they are crushed by the fall out.
Leif, your post appeared after I had sent mine so apologies. The only possible explanation I have for the fact that ‘nothing correlates’ is Lindzen’s comment that the climate is never at equilibrium. The overall temperature then becomes a running mean.
i see ‘robust’ again. think I’ll vomit.
Cassandra King (23:55:42) :
Beautifully written.
Thanks.
The sun has an effect on earths’ climate cycles?
I’d never have guessed that in a million years.
@cassandra king: “The vain attempt to somehow preserve a theory from falsification and critisism is merely delaying the eventual demise of that theory, when the protected theory falls it will fall harder and hurt those supporters harder, it is to be hoped that more scientists will realise this and move out of the way before they are crushed by the fall out.”
Good post I like the last sentence, it brings to mind the eugenics craze of the last century.
Steve, let’s give them a break, there is no merit in consistency in science, and if you are a real scientist you report what you’ve seen. In fact it takes a lot of courage to reverse your previous opinions in the face of new evidence.
Anyway, the alarmists will tell you that this in no way contradicts the CAGW theory, because nothing does.
AlanG (23:49:18) :
* Ultraviolet irradiance (EUV) varies by approximately 1.5 percent from solar maxima to minima, for 200 to 300 nm UV.[42]
Lots of confusion about UV. The EUV which has a an Extremely low wavelength of ~30 nm [that’s the E in EUV] varies in phase with the sunspot number, but there is Extremely little of it [0.0005 W/m2 or so] and it doesn’t get down to the stratosphere.
The 200-300 nm ordinary UV actually varies inversely with the sunspot number: fewer spots, more UV. see the bottom two panels of http://www.leif.org/research/Erl70.png
* A proxy study estimates that UV has increased by 3% since the Maunder Minimum
cite, please. I bet it is based on Hoyt and Schatten’s obsolete TSI.
“established a statistical link between cold weather and low solar activity”
You couldn’t make it up could you.
stevengoddard (23:55:32) :
That means that 2006 was a record low and a record high.
Hathaway said in 2006 that the data [up to 2004] were at record low, so no disagreement.
Lockwood said in 2007 that there was no sun link to our current climate change, which has been unfolding over the last century. In context ,that claim was a response to those who claimed that AGW was in fact a result of the sun’s behavior over that period. In what way does his latest paper contradict this? In this paper,according to the abstract ,he discusses the influence of current low solar output over a short term and small area; “We stress that this is a regional and seasonal effect relating to European winters and not a global effect.” In what way is Lockwood reversing his professional “polarity” here?
Fitzy (22:05:08) :
Ah Ha!
So the Sun, which has no effect on climate (says U.N), has an effect on climate!
I knew sooner or later science WOULD/WOULD NOT discover, the primary mechanism that DOES/DOES NOT affect the weather.
Now that we kNOW/DON’T KNOW what effect the Sun IS/ISN’Thaving on the planet, we CAN/CAN’Tset a new tax regime that WILL/WON’T save the planet from GLOBAL WARMING/COOLING.
Luckily we’vre prepared an army of useful idiots to beg the UN for a totalitarian government based on what we KNOW/DON’T KNOW, and can get
down to really screwing mankind over for having such a NEGATIVE/POSITIVE effect on the CLIMATE/ARTIC ICE/UNICORNS/FAIRIES…
Ah me,….when did science get so schizophrenic? I feel terribly Post normal.
Ahhh Fitzy – a commenter after my own left ventrical…
All claims a bit dubious science of course.
The geomagnetic field and the sunspot activity are correlated
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/LFC9.htm
and so is the GMF and CET(central England Temp).
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/LFC8.htm
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/CETt.htm
Wait, wait, Figure 2 shows a fit of the solar flux to a short version of the Hockey Stick. Suspicious isn’t it?
‘Lockwood is quick to point out that even if the recent lull in sunspot activity extends into another Maunder minimum, the effects are regional and it will not offset global warming. “This is very much a European phenomenon,” he says.’
http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100414/full/news.2010.184.html
OK so he says this will affect only Europe but then says a Maunder Minimum will not affect global temps ~ er warming?
Does not make sense to me; surely a Maunder Minimum like effect would have global consequences, or am I not seeing this clearly?
Having now read this and the linked articles, am I missing something.
Lockwood is saying low sun activity = harsher winters over Europe.
Is that it???
OT, but there is an article in today’s FT about Climategate. It’s on their web site but behind a paywall so I’m transcribing some of the article from the paper. Perhaps someone else has a login. This will all be old news to people here. The FT is still in full establishment mode and their reporting is as selectively misleading as it is out of date.
Sceptics quizzed by police on beliefs
Police investigating the alleged theft of e-mails behind the recent “Climategate” uproar have been telephoning climate change sceptics to question about their political and scientific beliefs.
The Norfolk Constabulary was called in by the University of East Anglia after thousands of climate scientists’ confidential e-mails were published on-line last November. The documents appear to show the scientists concealing information and manipulating data to fit their theories although two independent inquiries have cleared the university of wrong doing…
Well, state of mind is acceptable evidence in a UK court of law so there is nothing sinister here folks 🙂 Should I volunteer and tell them about climate sensitivity, the PDO and the way CRU obstructed FOI requests and cooked the [temperature] books? Perhaps not.
It’s nice to know that we have a different sun in Australia and that our CO2 will cause our temps will remain on the increase.
“We stress that this is a regional and seasonal effect relating to European winters and not a global effect.”
Steve @23:55:32,if you read the March 12th NASA article,you’ll see this:
‘The second surprise has to do with the bottom of the conveyor belt’….etc.
[Hathaway]”While the top of the conveyor belt has been moving at record-high speed, the bottom seems to be moving at record-low speed. Another contradiction”
They say one thing, sceptics say another, we are called all sorts of names then down the line they concur or disagree. The science is settled. This is why I am sceptical of ANY new claims by these so called climate scientists. They really don’t know!!
My humble paper showed a remarkable correlation between global temperatures and the position of the Earth’s magnetic poles, but some journals rejected it because it was just a correlation with an unknown mechanism, yet here we see correlations without a mechanism seized on as the new truth.
However surely Lockwood is wrong as the hockey stick doesn’t show the low temperatures of the little ice age so it couldn’t have happened, or was Mann wrong?
Today’s Telegraph in the UK
“The ‘hockey stick’ that became emblematic of the threat posed by climate change exaggerated the rise in temperature because it was created using ‘inappropriate’ methods, according to the head of the Royal Statistical Society.”
[off topic. try tips and notes. ~ ctm]
I think people might be reading more into this than they should. Lockwood is not suggesting that solar activity is going to increase earth’s temperature – just that it may trigger the (well-known) cycles which affect ‘regional’ climate. Note that although it was a cold winter in *some* parts of the NH, the earth, as a whole, was particularly warm.
I’m not sure the solar link even exists. The coldest UK winter in the past 250 years was in 1962/63. This, though, occurred during solar cycle with the highest sunspot ever recorded (SC 19). Also Lockwood himself is quoted as saying “If we look at the last period of very low solar activity at the end of the 17th Century, we find the coldest winter on record in 1684, but the very next year – when solar activity was still low – saw third warmest winter in the entire 350-year (CET) record. ”
So there appears to be a link – except when there isn’t.
Finally there is the mistaken belief on this blog that AGWers don’t accept a solar-climate link. This is WRONG. In addition to the Lockwood study (above), Gavin Schmidt, Mike Mann and Drew Shindell have been involved in maunder minimum studies which come to pretty much the same conclusion as Lockwood.
They need solar variability in order to explain past climate fluctuations (repeating myself again). Without solar variability they would have to admit they didn’t know what was responsible for previous changes. Be warned!
OT
Iceland just farted on England. I’m sorry, I couldn’t help myself. ROTFLMAO. Check the news.
@ur momisugly stan stendera (22:57:14) :
“A rat deserting the sinking good ship AGW!”
Not if the BBC story is anything to go by:
“But they added that the phenomenon only affected a limited region and would not alter the overall global warming trend. ”
It’ll take more than evidence to shift these people’s beliefs. Cognitive dissonance is a powerful phenomenon and has a tendency to produce warmth even where there is none. Here in the Uk we are now fully committed, by both major parties’ policies, to enormous reductions in emissions of that deadly pollutant CO2. If we don’t freeze or fry, we’ll certainly be even more impoverished than we are currently.