I’m on my way back to the USA from my Australian speaking tour. I’ll be offline a couple of days. There are many, many, people who I owe a debt of gratitude to, for kindnesses big and small, but, there is one person to who I owe a debt that is much more prominent.
That person is Mr. David Archibald of Perth.
David has been my constant companion throughout the grueling continent crisscrossing pace of the tour, sorting out and correcting details, making sure I was where I needed to be when I needed to be, fighting some idiotic travel battles we faced, and most importantly, helping me hear. This was critical in Q&A after the lectures.
Without him, I would have been lost. He’s a gentleman, a scholar, and I count him as a friend. David, I cannot thank you enough.
That said, there’s something WUWT readers can do that can show gratitude on my behalf, while learning something in the process.
David spoke right along side me at each stop, and created an excellent presentation from the work he has done on his just printed book The Past and Future of Climate.
I’ll review this book in a future post, I’ve read a personal copy he gave me and it reads very well. Like WUWT, this book is heavy on illustrations. There’s not only some very interesting solar research, but some points on climate as well.
For example this illustration (from his slide show) is very interesting:
On my recommendation, if you wish, you can download an order form here:
The Past and Future of Climate – order form
He offers the book for $30AU post paid, and advises that he’ll also ship internationally as well. You can also visit his website at http://davidarchibald.info/
When I do my review, he’ll have an order form that can be used via PayPal, until then, direct by postal mail or PayPal via email contact are the only options.
Again my sincere thanks to David for his unfailing help, good cheer, and pathfinding. I hope WUWT readers can express thanks also.
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John Finn says:
July 4, 2010 at 6:36 pm
I am just back from three weeks on the road and have a lot on my plate. But what you say above is very revealling. You are not interested in the correct science, you just don’t want me to get traction. Well, that is too late. Earlier this year a warmer listed me as one of his top four sceptic scientists. In fact, he put me as number two after Fred Singer!
I’ll give you a bit of background to my book. In 2007, Professor David Bellamy, the world’s most eminent conservationist, came to see me in Perth because of my log CO2 graph. I thought “This is as it should be. Famour people are coming to see me now.” He urged me to write a book, and that became “Solar Cycle 24”. In April this year, I had a meeting with Vaclav Klaus, President of the Czech Republic, in Prague Castle. He keeps a copy of “Solar Cycle 24” in his office! He suggested that I update it, now that the science has progressed. It was like being in the Knights Templar – I meet my spiritual and temporal leader in his medieaval castle, and he gives me a mission to undertake. So I fulfilled the mission, and produced “The Past and Future of Climate”. So I am very susceptable to people telling me to write books, but those two gentlemen have enormous moral authority.
Mr Finn and Dr Svalgaard find my work very upsetting and paw at it constantly. If Anthony will allow me, I might produce some more posts on this subject and torture you both further. Baiting warmers is such fun.
Dr Svalgaard complained about my prediction re Canadian agricultural output. Well I have a major complaint about Australia’s Chief Scientist, Professor Penny Sackett, who in December 2009 said that the world has five years to avoid catastrophic global warming. Back in Perth, we have just produced a record string of low temperatures. In my book I refer to Professor Sackett as Australia’s Chief Shaman.
Back to those temperature graphs, it does not matter what has gone before. Anyone can repeat what I have done. It is so simple that high school science students could do it. If there are any high school science teachers reading this, get your students to do it. Plot up solar cycle length against average temperature over that cycle, and also against temperature over the following solar cycle. The latter has a better correlation. As I have said above, I regard Butler and Johnson’s graph as the Rosetta Stone of solar-climate studies. Copying their methodology (don’t worry about filters or the like) is easy, it’s fun and it has major economic consequences!
Anna
I can’t find an online copy of Friis-Christensen and Lassen’s original paper. But as I say, it doesn’t matter what they originally said if Butler and Johnson’s methodology produces the same results on individual station records, as it does. Good correlations exist for Armagh, de Bilt, Archangel and in the northeastern US, Providence, Rhode Island, Hanover, New Hampshire, Westchester, Pennsylvania and Portland, Maine. That is why I devoted four pages to including graphs from those last four stations. There is a warning in the stars that humanity can ignore at its peril.
John Finn says: (July 4, 2010 at 5:34 pm) … arguments out of the water in the bloink of an eye and the worry is that the whole ‘sceptic’ argument will be dismissed as loony nonsense from a bunch of crackpot deniers. …
Which exemplifies the basis of my concerns expressed here (comment 2); Open thread
Ric Werme: and once again the value of your Guide to Watts Up With That is demonstrated to me when I sought a link to a thread I wished to reference. Thanks.
In the top four! No 2 after Fred Singer! Here’s the link: http://environment.change.org/blog/view/4_favorite_climate_change_deniers
#
#
David Archibald says:
July 4, 2010 at 8:45 pm
In the top four! No 2 after Fred Singer! Here’s the link: http://environment.change.org/blog/view/4_favorite_climate_change_deniers
____________________________________________________
I read the article at that link and now I need a shower. You know the science is weak when they have to resort to ad hominem. But somehow “chili power” lacks the punch of “Crazed Sex Poodle” Especially when Skeptics can’t even be blamed for coming up with the label since the MSM spread it all by their lonesome.
John Finn’s not wanting me to get traction explains a mystery. I am not on the list of deniers made up by the National Academy of Sciences. Sloppy work by the NAS? A deliberate insult, like de Smog Blog refusing to put me on their list? Suddenly it is all so clear: I am not on the list so the list is all about me. The ultimate accolade. I am the denier whose name they dare not speak.
Steinar Midtskogen on July 4, 2010 at 1:26 pm
The best fit straight line is T = 12.12 – 0.267S (S is teh previous cycle length)
R^2 is 0.519 whcih I think is low
ecoeng says:
July 4, 2010 at 4:41 pm
Obsolete? Obsolete since 2005?
Yes, that seems to be the case. In the past 5 years the ‘background’ has slowly disappeared on the radar screen. Even Judith Lean doubts her early work [she was a co-author of Wang’s 2005]. Slide 15 of http://www.leif.org/research/Does%20The%20Sun%20Vary%20Enough.pdf shows one of Lean’s slide from the SORCE 2008 presentation. Note that she says “longer-term variations not yet detectable – … do they occur? ”
What has happened is that the Sun has had a very deep minimum comparable to those at the beginning of the 20th century. We would therefore expect that TSI now should also be comparable to TSI around 1900. Reconstructions such as Lean 2000, Wang 2005, and others, that show that TSI in 1900 was significantly lower than today are therefore likely in error.
David Archibald says:
July 4, 2010 at 7:56 pm
Mr Finn and Dr Svalgaard find my work very upsetting and paw at it constantly.
Not upsetting as such, just sloppy and misleading. It is of concern when sloppy work and bad science are promoted heavily [e.g. by Al Gore and by you – albeit with the opposite sign]. For example, if you now [in contrast to earlier] subscribe to the temperate correlation being for the next cycle, then you should have used Figure 7 and not Figure 5. And have stated that specifically. Also I note that you you the obsolete Hoyt and Schatten TSI reconstruction, again scientific sloppiness [although I can understand why: it fits better with your agenda].
For people who would like to plot for themselves, there is :
http://www.stat.psu.edu/~richards/papers/sunspot.pdf for length
(Leif’s link had a problem)
and http://star.arm.ac.uk/preprints/445.pdf
for Armagh temperatures
anna v says:
July 4, 2010 at 10:40 pm
One of the problems with this is that there is no agreed-upon list of solar cycle lengths [partly because it does not make much sense to express the length with any precision as solar cycles overlap].
Here are three compilations:
NGDC
Rogers
Wiki et al. Leif
1 11.3 11.4 10.74
2 9 9 9.11
3 9.3 9.2 9.09
4 13.7 13.6 14.08
5 12.6 12.3 11.94
6 12.4 12.7 12.28
7 10.5 10.6 10.9
8 9.8 9.6 9.87
9 12.4 12.5 12.43
10 11.3 11.2 11.12
11 11.8 11.7 11.63
12 11.3 10.7 10.18
13 11.9 12.1 12.5
14 11.5 11.9 11.38
15 10 10 10.35
16 10.1 10.2 10.41
17 10.4 10.4 10.54
18 10.2 10.1 10.05
19 10.5 10.6 10.55
20 11.7 11.6 11.21
21 10.3 10.3 10.34
22 9.7 11.1 10.04
23 12.6 12.35
Note, in particular the discrepant SC22.
The smoothed sunspot number is often used to find the minimum. There are problems with that, as the minimum found may not be unique, and the averaging interval is an arbitrary [as far as the Sun is concerned] average of two yearly averages staggered one month. A potentially better way is to use the fact that a third-degree polynomial is well-suited to represent the different decay and growth rates. By finding the extremum of the function, the minimum can be located. Here is an example [blue: raw monthly data; pink: snoothed values; smooth black curve: the polynomial fit. A yellow triangle marks the minimum determined from the fit]: http://www.leif.org/research/Minimum-17-18.png
John Murphy says:
July 4, 2010 at 10:20 pm
The best fit straight line is T = 12.12 – 0.267S (S is teh previous cycle length)
D.A. seems to conclude that the trend is -0.47 (a 1.6 degree drop after a cycle that is 3.4 years longer), which is much steeper. I calculated the averages with overlapping years between the cycles, though, which will make the decline slightly less.
It should be an easy task to write a script that calculates the trends for a list of temperature records. Is there a good source somewhere for worldwide temperature records that goes 150+ years back in time? In some format that can be easily read by scripting languages?
Steinar,
you can get ascii format data off http://www.woodfortrees.org (click the raw data link under the graphs), or try KNMI.nl
I’m not sure what the fuss is about here. Leif and I discussed a possible decadal lag between solar activity and Earth temperature response on his solar threads on climate audit around two years ago. He seemed to think it was reasonable then. What changed?
Leif Svalgaard says:
July 4, 2010 at 10:28 pm (Edit)
Even Judith Lean doubts her early work [she was a co-author of Wang’s 2005]. Slide 15 of http://www.leif.org/research/Does%20The%20Sun%20Vary%20Enough.pdf shows one of Lean’s slide from the SORCE 2008 presentation. Note that she says “longer-term variations not yet detectable – … do they occur? ”
But then she also recently said:
“Solar constant’ is an oxymoron…. Satellite data show that the sun’s total irradiance rises and falls with the sunspot cycle by a significant amount.”
So it looks like you can pick a Lean quote to suit your taste.
David Archibald says:
July 4, 2010 at 10:15 pm
I am the denier whose name they dare not speak.
The one with tongue planted well in cheek.
tallbloke says:
July 5, 2010 at 12:52 am
Steinar,
you can get ascii format data off http://www.woodfortrees.org (click the raw data link under the graphs), or try KNMI.nl
Thanks, I tried it out on the HADCRUT3 data (1850-). Here’s what I got:
trend = -0.154087 +/- 0.06085 (39.49%)
trend = -0.1852 +/- 0.05679 (30.67%)
trend = -0.121519 +/- 0.06521 (53.66%)
trend = -0.15349 +/- 0.06074 (39.57%)
trend = -0.187626 +/- 0.05636 (30.04%)
trend = -0.119709 +/- 0.06578 (54.95%)
The first three are variance-adjusted global means for global, NH and SH, and the last three are the corresponding unadjusted. I also included the asymptotic standard error as reported by gnuplot. I used the same method as I did previously.
Compared to Armagh:
trend = -0.266741 +/- 0.07122 (26.7%)
If there is a trend, it’s more evident in the NH.
Steinar Midtskogen says:
July 5, 2010 at 1:22 am (Edit)
If there is a trend, it’s more evident in the NH.
That makes sense to me. The northern hemisphere has a more immediate and direct response to solar input. The southern hemisphere is mostly ocean and the shortwave radiation from the sun is sequestered in it in ways we do not fully understand, although I think I’m getting there:
http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2010/02/06/el-nino-and-the-solar-cycle/
David hinted at other factors in play after long cycles that coincide with times of cooling. Not every long cycle has this effect, knowing these triggers and cycles is the key.
Interesting to watch the warmists go into panic mode.
Leif Svalgaard says:
July 4, 2010 at 10:36 pm
Also I note that you use the obsolete Hoyt and Schatten TSI reconstruction, again scientific sloppiness [although I can understand why: it fits better with your agenda].
So you think he should have used the Svalgaard/Frolich reconstruction, which you claim makes Hoyt/Schatten obsolete, and which fits better with your agenda. So what?
Cue claims that Ken Schatten has recanted… Three, two, one.
Geoff Sharp says:
July 5, 2010 at 1:43 am
David hinted at other factors in play after long cycles that coincide with times of cooling. Not every long cycle has this effect, knowing these triggers and cycles is the key.
Indeed. Alan Cheetham has an interesting analysis on his appinsys site here:
http://www.appinsys.com/GlobalWarming/ClimateRegimeShift.htm
Archibald obviously has medical knowledge as well as solar physics. I’m sure Dr Svalgaard cannot match that.
http://www.communitywebs.org/SAProstateCancer/pages/psaadelaide/documents/2006/marnl.pdf
John Murphy says:
July 4, 2010 at 10:20 pm
Steinar Midtskogen on July 4, 2010 at 1:26 pm
The best fit straight line is T = 12.12 – 0.267S (S is teh previous cycle length) R^2 is 0.519 whcih I think is low
John
Not only is it low. Any correlation that exists is probably due to coincidence. If you check the cycle lengths in Steinar’ s post here
You may notice that there is a cluster of 11+ years followed by a cluster 0f 10+ years (beginning in August 1913). Because the 20th century was generally warmer than the 19th century some correlation is bound to show up. This is probably why F-C & Lassen got such a good fit from ~1850.
Between August 1913 and October 1964 the solar cycle length was to, all intents and purposes, constant. It varied by only a few months which, if we use the “following solar cycle” rule should mean that the temperatures between 1933 and 1976 should have been more or less flat. They weren’t. In keeping with the rest of the NH, temperatures at Armagh rose quite sharply up until the 1940s before falling away after that.
Even if we accept that there is a general relationship between SCL and temperature, David’s predictions (2 deg decline) assume that temeprature is dependant only on the length of solar cycle 23, i.e. there is no cumulative from a series of short/long cycles.
Steinar
Re: Steinar Midtskogen
July 4, 2010 at 1:26 pm
You say “D.A. used fixed 11 year averages “
1. That’s not what he said in his latest post.
2. Over what period did he use fixed 11 year averages
Steinar, can I please ask you to read the article (A note of sincere thanks) at the head of the page. You will find his statement by Anthony
For example this illustration (from his slide show) is very interesting:
Underneath there is a plot showing the relationship between cycle length and temperature. This is an orignal plot by Butler and Johnson. David has added the points for SC22 and SC23. The caption below the plot read as follows:
Note B&J say nothing about about the average temperature over the following cycle. In fact they don’t mention the following cycle at all. So what has David done? Has he used data centered on maxima and minima as per the B&J method? If not –why not?
David Archibald says:
July 4, 2010 at 7:56 pm
Mr Finn and Dr Svalgaard find my work very upsetting and paw at it constantly. If Anthony will allow me, I might produce some more posts on this subject and torture you both further. Baiting warmers is such fun.
David
If there was any way I could be convinced about your methods, conclusions and predictions I would be more than happy to use them. I can point to a number of blog discussions where I have questioned mainstream AGW – including an exchange with Michael Mann where I challenged the methods he used to produce the hockey-stick. Steve McIntyre (CA) has referenced some of my blog discussions on more than one occasion. Your reference, therefore, to “baiting warmers” is not relevant in my case.
I don’t know why you are trying to make this personal. I am simply trying to scrutinise the methods you are using. That’s sort of what science is about. In a previous post I asked you a couple of questions. You ignored one and half answered the other. You say this:
Let’s take this one step at a time. What makes you think you have copied Butler & Johnson’s methodology.
John Finn says:
July 5, 2010 at 3:44 am
Note B&J say nothing about about the average temperature over the following cycle. In fact they don’t mention the following cycle at all. So what has David done? Has he used data centered on maxima and minima as per the B&J method? If not –why not?
I find it unclear what exactly it is that he’s done, except that the only quick way to get something similar to the claimed matches is to look at the following cycle, and when he in 2008 writes “will be” I read that as 2008-whatever rather than 1996-2008. But I don’t find this very interesting. As long as the following cycle is used and any reasonable start, stop and filter the plot should suggest a downward trend using the available data. Anyone can test that. A much more interesting discussion would be whether this is a coincident (which I’m inclined to think since we have so few cycles to test against), or if it could be something to it. If 2010-2020 indeed becomes cold, it may still be a coincident but I think it deserves a second look. If 2010-2020 becomes as warm or warmer than 2000-2010 (as otherwise advertised), then we can safely say coincident.
Piñatas in science, as in every other field or birthday party, usually require more than one blind swack to crack and scatter the goodies. The scientist or child who shatters the shell and releases the bounty for all to enjoy may get the Nobel Prize for his/her “achievement”, but it was truly done after seemingly endless attempts and partial cracks by many others and not the one who gets the pat on the back. Indeed, it is, as in all things in life, more than likely that the one who gets the credit may have done the least of all.