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.”]
I got a chuckle from spaceweather.com today:
Maybe I missed it but exactly what is the mechanism that affects the AO but not other oscillations?
Seems more likely that we’re seeing the effects of the El Nino combined with other ocean heat releasing phenomena. If that is the case then this effect is truly global and we may just be seeing its initial phases.
{stevengoddard (08:15:19) :
It was a cold winter only in places where it was winter, like Siberia, Europe and the US.
Oddly enough, it was not a cold winter in the Southern Hemisphere, where it was summer}
Steve, Here in Vancouver, we had of course a very warm Jan/Feb/midMarch.
But the temps then dropped below seasonal normals, snowed like crazy for a couple of weeks (Whistler had a record Dec. snowfall, and now it looks like they will record their second snowiest winter), and voila, we are now up to 85% of our normal snowpack, so the vaunted water worries of just 2 months ago are basically gone!
We have just gotten back to our seasonal temps these past few days. Funny how some think that like the swallows at Capastranno, climate is the same monotonous cycle year after year…..
Bill Illis (07:50:27) :Volcanic eruptions are more frecuent at solar minimums (along with big earthquakes), like the VEI=6 Huaynaputina Volcano during the Maunder Minimum. If you enable Google-Earth for showing USGS information on earthquakes, plate tectonics, volcanoes, you´ll see action everywhere.
In Island are expecting the eruption of the Katta Volcano, after the recent eruptions of the other volcanoes. Here a video:
http://www.3tv.cl/index.php?m=video&v=11361
jeff brown (07:11:08) :
The planet and our weather is very sensitive to small variations in solar input and where this input is received, otherwise we wouldn’t have gone from glacial to interglacial periods.
The orbital changes causes variations a hundred times larger than solar activity. So the planet is not very sensitive to solar input, other than what we would expect from simple energy balance. A rough calculation shows why. The difference between glacial and interglacial temperature is about 5 degrees. A hundred times less than that is 0.05 degrees, which is about the difference between solar min and max.
k so you get a link and delete me anywayz, kthx, np, censorship alive and well, jeez i must be far out
Maybe the quick burst of activity for the last few months was the peak of SC24 … downhill from here.
bubbagyro (08:44:13) :
Earth’s temperature, let’s take it at 300°C higher than that (30°) for ease of calculation. Work with me here, please. 0.1% of this amount is 0.3°C. A fluctuation of 2% is 6°C!
The percentage change in temperature is 1/4 of the percentage change of radiation, so a fluctuation in radiation of 2% means a change of temperature of 2%/4 = 0.5%, or 1.5°C.
Yes Leif of course you are correct that orbital variations cause much larger solar input variability than the 11 year solar cycle. Otherwise we could be heading for another ice age 🙂
But given your expertise in the area of solar variability, do you think the changes in recent solar activity will be detectable in climate and weather patterns? From my knowledge solar variability explains less than 10% of the observed warming over the last 150 years. I would like to know where the other 90% comes from. GHGs certainly have been implicated, but what are the other factors?
This is how a proper science journalist picks Lockwood’s paper apart.
http://www.thegwpf.org/the-observatory/817-link-between-low-sun-and-low-temperatures.html
JonSelf (09:12:20) :
Very proper, indeed.
Jeff:
“with all due respect, changes in solar output do affect the entire planet, but will be manifested in different ways via atmospheric and oceanic circulation.”
Really doesn’t matter. If a decrease in solar output brings about a temperature decrease in England, it will do the same accross the rest of the planet. Temporary variations in regions will not change the fact that the temperature anomaly for the whole planet will change, not just England. Furthermore, even regional variations tend to be temporary and seldom last more than a decade or two.
JonSelf (09:12:20) :
This is how a proper science journalist picks Lockwood’s paper apart.
While generally correctly done, there are some inaccuracies [some due to the literature, not the journalist]. It is stated in the figure caption that the open flux [before 1900] is derived from the sunspot number [correct], but then later that “They use the open solar flux measurement of solar activity which by using historic observations of geomagnetic effects can be reconstructed back to about 1700”. This is in conflict with the above, and is not what was done. We can use geomagnetic data [back to 1835] to infer the open flux [better term is Heliospheric Magnetic Field – as not all the flux is ‘open’] and it does not show any marked difference between the 19th and 20th centuries as the first Figure claims. See Fgure 10 in http://www.leif.org/research/Heliospheric%20Magnetic%20Field%201835-2009.pdf
Lockwood is still under the AGW hammer as can be surmised that even his thesis that an inactive sun cools us off has the caveat that this only affects UK and continental Europe, not the rest of the world! Wow the sun is not only effective it is selective. But hold on here. The LIA extended beyond Northern EU: Please excuse the lack of links (they are easily googled). This is a paragraph of an arcticle I wrote for a newspaper in 2007 that rejected it:
“…The first time the Thames froze in recorded history was in 1607 and the last in 1814. In 1780, New York harbour froze and people walked on the ice from Manhattan to Staten Island. One third of Finns died of starvation and famine was rampant throughout Europe in the middle of the Little Ice Age when the growing season was shortened. In 1622, the Bosphorus and the Golden Horn estuary in Istanbul froze. In 1836, snow fell in Sydney Australia, an event never before or after seen by European settlers. In the mid 17th Century, glaciers advanced in Switzerland down into the valleys crushing numerous villages. Permanent snow for many years occurred on mountains in Ethiopia and in Mauritania where it hadn’t been seen before by modern man. Even Hollywood’s disaster extravaganzas fall short of this end-of-the-world like drama….”
Thanks, Leif. But 1.5° is a lot of heat. That is, of course ignoring concomitant effects of increased solar magnetic shield, which decreases cosmic rays, which decreases cloud cover, which decreases temp. further. Add in other possible asymmetric terrestrial amplification of radiation from a putative magnetic field lensing effect, or other factors we don’t understand yet.
This, IMO, is a true “forcing”, unlike the fantastic forcings attributed to CO2, because the incoming net increased heat has to be distributed away from earth by hypothetical weak mechanisms that may have century long sinusoidal variation.
JonSelf (09:12:20) :
This is how a proper science journalist picks Lockwood’s paper apart.
It is also clear from the Figures shown that the open flux now is back to where it was 110 years ago, while temperatures [top panel] are not. So the Sun does not seem to be a major driver here [except in Central England, apparently 🙂 ].
bubbagyro (09:49:17) :
Thanks, Leif. But 1.5° is a lot of heat. That is, of course ignoring concomitant effects of increased solar magnetic shield, which decreases cosmic rays, which decreases cloud cover, which decreases temp. further.
Except that the cosmic ray flux has not changed [apart from the obvious solar cycle effect] over the past 2/3 century.
John Finn (01:05:53) :
“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.”
Excellent! So the sun activity as described by Lockwood is really so specific that it distinguishes where to affect the -well known to boot!- regional climate! And Lockwood & Johnny Finn can write this with a straight face!
Man what’s next? The solar cycle made my garden bloom before yours too? Next it will also discriminate between good CO2 citizens and bad ones perhaps? Lockwood’s credibility is zero. Academics are simply trying to explain and own after the fact what Piers Corbyn was able to predict with accuracy, i.e. the present winter events.
Tilo Reber (09:33:31) :
Tilo, that is simply not true, for if it was then global warming would be global. Temperature is redistributed around the planet by the atmosphere and the ocean. Then too the warming in the 1930s/1940s would be global, but actually it was in the eastern Arctic.
I appreciate the comments from Jeff Brown and bubbagyro and Leif too but this scenario of warming is highly political. Govts. must believe in global warming to justify the taxes that are levied. It really doesn’t matter if the science is right or wrong. The science used will that to justify new taxes. This whole scenario is just a con which govts. will buy into to justify new taxation. The days of govt. for the people are long gone. Govt. is for the elite and they will make money from it. Yes, there have have been honest politicians in the past – I do not subscribe to the view that all politicians are corrupt. There have been many decent and upright people in politics. But right now we are dealing with a bunch of swindlers – some are malicious and some and are just stupid. How many of them have a science degree?
It really doesn’t matter. You are being taken for a ride and you will be hammered with your taxes. There is one prime mover of the global temperature and that is the Sun. The way things are going, we should be preparing for the next ice age, not global warming.
Michael (01:14:25) :
Iceland just farted on England. I’m sorry, I couldn’t help myself. ROTFLMAO. Check the news.
Actually, Scotland (oh and Ireland)! But close(ish)!
Lockwood is making a “yes, but” argument.
Yes, the Sun impacts climate, but only in Europe.
“Yes, but” arguments are usually in actuality last ditch arguments.
Beware of those in science who claim absolute certainty in the face of uncertainty about issues that are problematic — it’s likely they are simply attempting to be a shaman or worse, a charlatan.
New Scientist – 12 April 2010
“Sun rules Earth’s mysterious ‘night shining’ clouds
The researchers suspect that the amount of ultraviolet light Earth receives from the sun explains the link. The sun’s emissions of UV light are not uniform, so as it rotates UV-bright regions move in and out of view of Earth”
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20627554.300-sun-rules-earths-mysterious-night-shining-clouds.html
Leif:
True, but “apart from the obvious solar cycle effect” says that cosmic ray effects are apparent and do have an effect at least in fast solar cycles, but the effect over a Milankovich time frame is still unknown. I am thinking hundreds or thousand year stacked sinusoidal influences. And this is just one issue.
Grumpy Old man (10:26:59) :
There is one prime mover of the global temperature and that is the Sun.
The Sun is not the mover of small fluctuations of temperature around that grand average that is indeed determined by the Sun. Changes [primarily caused by Jupiter’s eccentric orbit] of the orbital parameters of the Earth cause glaciations, even if the Sun were absolutely constant. The climate system is not in equilibrium and therefore [as all such systems] has oscillations all on its own].