Spencer: SST's headed down – fast

What this shows is an unusually large increase in reflected sunlight over the last several months, probably due to an increase in low cloud cover.

More support for Henrik Svensmark.

tallbloke says:
June 22, 2010 at 12:19 am
Quick work Anthony!
Dr Roy is on the mark, and a very worthwhile mid-month update. The faster the drop, the sooner the bounce will be. I think we’ll see SST’s up again later next year, but to lower levels than this last El nino.
I would guess we will see a fat La Nina for a few years before any new el Nino forms. El ninos and ENSO in general is not the only mechanism for loss of OHC – there is a longer term decrease in OHC underway independent of the shorter term ENS oscillation. But we’ll see, I may be wrong.
Interesting stuff on your website BTW, e.g. the Willie Soon and Duhau & de Jager data.

That change rate is stunning. Looks like La Niña is setting up to kick in with a vengeance. Something tells me that this past winter, with only three months of snow, will be something I’ll be looking back on fondly this upcoming winter.

But is Dr Spencer on the approved list of scientists ?

At Anthony Watt/ David Archibald Climate Talk in Melbourne today, David A mentioned Roy Spencer’s comments on ocean cooling and predicted there could be a decade of cold weather ahead . I was pleased to be able to attend today’s talk by Anthony and David, a crowded and well received event. Glad to be able to thank Anthony personally for his contribution to evidence based debate on Climate Change. I thought it was somewhat symbolic that today’s event took place at The Institute of Public Enterprise ,as I listened to the accounts of two individuals working independently of consensus to question the data. Hasn’t this always been the case in the history of science? 🙂

Leon Brozyna says: “That change rate is stunning. ”
It’s nothing unusual. During the transition from El Nino to La Nina in 1998, the changes in weekly NINO3.4 SST anomalies were at times almost twice the rate that they are presently changing.
http://i49.tinypic.com/xfw7lk.jpg

phlogiston says: “El ninos and ENSO in general is not the only mechanism for loss of OHC – there is a longer term decrease in OHC underway independent of the shorter term ENS oscillation.”
The vast majority of the recent drop in OHC is in the North Atlantic:
http://i50.tinypic.com/2eexa8w.png
Note that the linear trend of the South Atlantic OHC is almost 1.5 to 2 times the trends of the “non-Atlantic” ocean basins. And the North Atlantic is about 3 to 4 times as high. One would think that the scientific community would see the disparity and conclude that the North Atlantic OHC is impacted by the same multidecadal process as SST: AMOC. But do we ever hear about it? Nope.
The above graph is from my post:
http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2010/02/ohc-linear-trends-and-recent-update-of.html

“I suspect that the second half of 2010 could ruin the chances of getting a record high global temperature for this year. Oh, darn.”
I suspect that a new class of thermometers will be added to the rolls. They will be located under the armpits of those scientists on the “good” list. Voolah! Hottest year ever in 2010.

Midwest Mark says:
“Maybe I’ll move to Seattle where they have more sunshine.”
You would be sorely disappointed. From today’s Seattle Times:
Sunday was darkest June day in Seattle in 15 years
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2012175164_weather22m.html

In air I don’t think droplets of sea-water would evaporate to crystals. I’d have thought, water being a polarized molecule, that each ion would have H2O molecules cluster around. These of course would seed clouds.

“We are experiencing a major Sunspot minimum. Could it be that the lower energy output from the Sun in the Ultraviolet frequencies and above is NOT warming the upper atmosphere? Could the increased ice crystals also be reflecting energy away from the Earth?”
Seems some titles are earned.

“During the transition from El Nino to La Nina in 1998, the changes in weekly NINO3.4 SST anomalies were at times almost twice the rate that they are presently changing.”
Oooh, that makes your NA OHC graph so much less frightening. I’ve lost(chasing a toddler, missing meals) 30 lbs. since last La Nina.

tallbloke says:
June 22, 2010 at 12:19 am
Quick work Anthony!
Dr Roy is on the mark, and a very worthwhile mid-month update. The faster the drop, the sooner the bounce will be. I think we’ll see SST’s up again later next year, but to lower levels than this last El nino.
TallBloke,
While I agree that the chances of a quick deep La Nina starting in early fall are looking pretty high. I would guess around 75% IMO. The Pacific Northwest U.S. is already seeing La Nina type weather patterns. I seriously doubt that the system will switch back to El Nino quickly, there is quite a large pool of cold (cooler than normal) water at depth accumulating across the Pacific. Nino 3.4 is cooling rapidly which is not unusual post El Nino, but the large pool of cold water at depth does not appear to be depleting at all while this is going on, in fact the anomaly appears to be slightly increasing even as SSTs drop.
I am curious to see how this plays out, as I don’t recall the last few La Nina’s starting with such a large pool of cold subsurface water. Of course all of this information is a preliminary signal contained in noisy data, and the only thing that is for sure at this time is that everything looks to be in place for a quick transition to La Nina conditions. Most of the Models that I have seen (And don’t get me started on the Models, because most of them are junk IMO) seem to indicated a quick dip to a shallow La Nina and then a return to ENSO neutral early next spring, but then again they are all over the place as usual, no matter what happens, a model will have predicted it.
Tallbloke, getting back to your comment about a quick dip into La Nina conditions and then back to El Nino, I curious, what makes you think that we will be heading back to an El Nino Next year?

Just a quick check on the Oulu Neutron monitor shows a peak of activity from the most-recent summer seasons in both hemispheres.
If the cosmic-ray “cloud-seeding” theory holds, then there are likely to be more clouds.
As the ocean take up a lot of heat during the summer from the sun, greater levels of cloud cover with reduce the takeup of heat. Then, as the southern oceans cool in the longer darkness of the southern winter, the cooling will be deeper than the previous winter’s.
The good news appears to be that the galactic flux is reducing, so there’s a chance of a little more warming in this northern-hemisphere summer than the previous one.

Read about “enhanced CO2 cooling” in the upper atmosphere.
http://www.physorg.com/news196366845.html
Cooling, rather than catastrophic heating? Maybe the science is not settled, after all.

So, if we go here;
http://cosmicrays.oulu.fi/
And plot from 1/1 2010 until now (ask for chart in checkbox) , it seems neutron count has been steadily decreasing since approx 1/1 2010.
That doesnt support cosmic rays support, does it? It does the opposite?

Knowing and understanding and accepting that Leif places no special stock in the Oulu monitor, I will mention that current cosmic ray counts remain at high levels, at or above most of the levels seen during the other solar minima Oulu has measured since it began service in 1964:
http://tinyurl.com/2erulnv

This natural variation between El Nino and La Nina conditions is always interesting to monitor, as is the current actual sea surface temperature anomalies in the Arctic, as noted here:
http://polar.ncep.noaa.gov/sst/ophi/color_anomaly_NPS_ophi0.png
Lot’s of warmth in the sea surface in the Arctic region, especially on the Atlantic side, and the 60 day project shows growing warmth in the Bering Sea region (La Nina or not).

Joe Bastardi has been predicting this cool down for some time.
http://www.accuweather.com/ukie/bastardi-europe-blog.asp
If you need accurate long term weather forecasting, Joe fits the bill.
If you need scary scenarios to raise taxes and funding, try other guys, like Dr. Hansen, or whatever.

Wife and I went to Wallowa County (NE Oregon) over the weekend, Sunday was grim,it was coastal- winter Oregon coastal ugly. So far we have not had a decent summer type
day with and exception for a couple of days last week constant cold rain.
Finally the Sun is out…
Not holding my breath…

Dr. Lurtz says:
June 22, 2010 at 4:35 am
We are experiencing a major Sunspot minimum. Could it be that the lower energy output from the Sun in the Ultraviolet frequencies and above is NOT warming the upper atmosphere? Could the increased ice crystals also be reflecting energy away from the Earth?
If lower Sun energy output, and higher reflectivity of the upper atmosphere are occurring, this would easily explain the “sudden” drop in ocean temperatures.
Of course the Sun is NOT variable star, “correct” ?!?! The TSI (Total Solar Irradiance) measurements do not appear to correctly measure TSO (Total Solar Output) that reaches the Earth’s surface.
___________________________________________________________________
It is more variable than the often quoted 0.1% change in TSI indicates. For one thing this
TSI Graph from NASA shows the TSI is lower than usual for this solar minimum and the minimum has gone on longer than usual. This means the total energy absorbed by the earth over a couple of years has decrease instead of decreasing for just a year or so. This is a decrease of “0.24 Watts for every square meter of our planet”
“….At solar maximum, the sun is about 0.1% brighter than it is at solar minimum. That may not sound like much, but consider the following: A 0.1% change in 1361 W/m2 equals 1.4 Watts/m2. Averaging this number over the spherical Earth and correcting for Earth’s reflectivity yields 0.24 Watts for every square meter of our planet….
Finally – and of most immediate relevance for Earth–SDO will observe the sun at wavelengths where the sun is most variable, the extreme ultraviolet (EUV). EUV photons are high-energy cousins of regular UV rays that cause sunburns. Fortunately, our atmosphere blocks solar EUV; otherwise a day at the beach could be fatal. In space, solar EUV emission is easy to detect and arguably the most sensitive indicator of solar activity….” SDO: The Variable Sun Mission
For the last two years the sun has been very quiet.
“…But is it supposed to be this quiet? In 2008, the sun set the following records:
A 50-year low in solar wind pressure: Measurements by the Ulysses spacecraft reveal a 20% drop in solar wind pressure since the mid-1990s—the lowest point since such measurements began in the 1960s. The solar wind helps keep galactic cosmic rays out of the inner solar system. With the solar wind flagging, more cosmic rays are permitted to enter, resulting in increased health hazards for astronauts. Weaker solar wind also means fewer geomagnetic storms and auroras on Earth.
A 12-year low in solar “irradiance”: Careful measurements by several NASA spacecraft show that the sun’s brightness has dropped by 0.02% at visible wavelengths and 6% at extreme UV wavelengths since the solar minimum of 1996. The changes so far are not enough to reverse the course of global warming, but there are some other significant side-effects: Earth’s upper atmosphere is heated less by the sun and it is therefore less “puffed up….” Deep Solar Minimum
The 6% change at extreme UV wavelengths is a change that effects the atmosphere especially ozone and oxygen. The interaction of oxygen with UV causes ozone formation.

● UVC (200–280 nm) is far more energetic and dangerous than UVB. UVC is sometimes
referred to as germicidal UV as it is deadly
to most forms of life, but luckily these
wavelengths are completely absorbed
in the Earth’s ozone layer. Light in this
range is useful for a number of scientific
measurements.
● VUV stands for vacuum ultraviolet and
spans from 200 down to 10 nm. These
wavelengths are absorbed by oxygen in the
Earth’s atmosphere so measurements of
VUV are usually made in vacuum conditions.
Source
So we are presently seeing a 6% decrease of these very energetic (and chemically reactive) wavelengths.
“The ozone found in our atmosphere is formed by an interaction between oxygen molecules (composed of two oxygen atoms) and ultraviolet light. When ultraviolet light hits these oxygen molecules, the reaction causes the molecules to break apart into single atoms of oxygen (UV light + O2 –> O + O). These single atoms of oxygen are very reactive, and a single atom combines with a molecule of oxygen to form ozone (O3), which is composed of three atoms of oxygen (2O + 2O2 –> 2O3). “ OZONE LAYER

Lief,
Does the energy distribution of electromagnetic radiation from the sun (at ~ earth orbit) vary with the ~11 yr solar cycle? If so, do you think there is any significance to any distribution shifts with respect to earth’s energy receipt?
John

Leif,
Sorry, got your name wrong in previous post. : (
I looked in my excuse file, and didn’t find one.
John

Dr.Roy Spencer has been honoured in the Deniers´Black List at Nr.27. Congratulations!
http://www.eecg.utoronto.ca/~prall/climate/skeptic_authors_table.html

It does not matter if under cloudy or under cloudless skies, but that Kid (El Niño) died from neumonia.

You have to start worrying about Leif when he goes fishing for other data graphs…..Either one is wrong or the other one is please provide back up evidence

@Amino Acids in Meteorites
‘I don’t see the same people commenting on this quick cooling who put up many comments on the warming of the first 1/4 of this year.’
Where did that warming really occur?
For some reason if there was any warming in the NH it apparently where not many a people live, and apparently not that many weather stations neither.
When talking about winter temps I once got the answer Australia, so being the very nice and humble person that I am, I happily pointed out that Australia is a very warm place in the summer indeed before I promptly LMAO. :p

Leif Svalgaard says:
June 22, 2010 at 12:26 pm
[To temper your anger, bear in mind that nitric oxide molecules are but some billionths of the molecules up there, so are not important for the energy budget.]
Leif, are you sure about that?
“The primary radiative cooling mechanism in the terrestrial thermosphere is the infrared emission from the NO molecule at 5.3 microns [Kockarts, 1980].”
From: http://asd-www.larc.nasa.gov/~kratz/ref/p32jgr.pdf
Dr. Mlynczak et al seem to think otherwise.

I went looking for something that would tell me how much delta would result from computing Wien’s Law from the last Solar Max to the 2008.8 Solar Min. Still scratching around. The remarks of a ‘bluer sun’ only tell me about ice crystals in the atmosphere, not whether the blackbody temp of the Sun has shifted due to spectral shift.

I look mostly at the Moscow Neutron Monitor, and that’s because it runs a bit ahead of the rest.
I see the Neutron Count as stepping down, last downslope was Jan – April, now running flat until further development.
Conversely, the Solar Activity is going up in steps, not in a steady incline.

thanks Leif i did look at those too.
Leif, i saw that over solarcycle24.com the solar flux was back down to 70, which led me to reference one of your graphs. it looks like solar flux has been declining long enough and has been back down around the low of 70, creating a downslope in the average. peculiar?
i also wondered what your thoughts are on the length of the solar cycle: is there any forecast to be made regarding the length of cycle 24 based on the long, slow, ramp up?
I did search through old threads and comments first, but i would also be interested in your opinion on the correlation archibald shows between solar cycle length and temperature.
thanks!

Gail Combs says:
June 22, 2010 at 10:08 am
The magnetic susceptibility of ozone is about 6.7 x10-6 cgs
for oxygen O2 varies by temperature from:
3,449.0 x10-6 cgs@ 293K
7,699.0 x10-6 cgs@90.1K
8,685.0 x10-6 cgs@70.8K
10,200.0 x10-6 cgs@ 54.3K
So incoming energy converts oxygen to ozone to conserve energy by dropping the magnetic resistance by 3 or 4 orders of magnitude, when the levels of energy drops the o3 reverts to 02. Which is why the hole in the ozone layer forms at the South pole, and the size of it is regulated by the total magnetic flux it feels.

Leif, very interesting thanks for the reply. you have inspired me to now go look up f-c&e
one thing i would say in their defense is we now know that the temperature record has substantially changed shape since 1991, distorting the record. so the 1991 record they use would have a much different shape for the same time period than your new hardcru. the newer, altered temperature record could be responsible for the uncorrelated scatter in your analysis.
as far as the solar cycle length, my laymans assumption is that there is consensus on the historical record for the length solar cycles. if this is not true i then would accept that anyone could ‘choose’ the solar cycle length record according to leif’s law. of course, i would also assume Leif follows leif’s law as well 😉
i appreciate your comments Leif because the correlation between sunspot length and temperature seems so simple and convincing. but alas i am a skeptic, so pardon me if rely on you to help further my inquiry

My understanding of Svensmark’s theory has the Muon count (not the Neutron count) influencing low cloud cover, but that seems to be heading down, http://www.bartol.udel.edu/~takao/test_nag.html at Nagoya, also at Hobart, Sao Martinho and Kuwait.
If you look at Sunspot activity since 1700 at http://www.climate4you.com/Sun.htm#Global ,we are close to the 1914 level and not that far from the zero at 1810 and 1712.

Leif Svalgaard

the galaxy is so big that there is very little variation in the cosmic ray flux from it. I don’t think any variation has been detected in recent times.

I’m puzzled by that remark. Have you read Calder’s article?

By 2000, Helio Rocha-Pinto and his colleagues were able to report clumps in the ages that told of several stellar baby booms during the Galaxy’s long history. The survivors seen today are necessarily modest, long-lived stars, but their massive cousins would have soon exploded and generated cosmic rays in abundance during those periods of high rates of star formation.

“The Snowball Earth scenario appears to be connected with the strongest episode of enhanced star formation recorded in the solar neighbourhood during the last 2,000 million years.”

Which squadron of stars included the one that blew up closely enough to splash the Earth with that identifiable trace of iron-60 atoms? The relative positions of the Sun and its violent neighbours have changed during the past few million years. At times the action was closer than it is now. Accurate plotting of distances and motions by the European Space Agency’s star-mapping satellite Hipparcos (1987–93) has helped astronomers to try to figure out where the culprit lay.

So there are clear signs of temporal and spatial variability in cosmic ray flux.
Oulo shows roughly 5% variation recently. The significance of that variation is defined by the actual sensitivity of water vapour to having high-energy particles acting as catalysts for the formation of droplet nucleation sites. That is to be determined experimentally by the CLOUD experiment at CERN. Earlier link and preliminary reports.

Bob Tisdale says:
June 22, 2010 at 4:54 am
Thanks for these illuminating data on the OHC downward trends, I’ve copied and saved them to file. It is indeed regrettable that the science media is little better than the MSM in extraordinary selectiveness in what they protray concerning climate. The North Atlantic fall in 0-700m OHC is indeed striking, as is the media silence about it.