A note of sincere thanks

ecoeng says:
July 6, 2010 at 1:16 am
So I’m unconvinced that the recent deep solar minimum somehow means that the jury has already delivered a verdict.
It depends on which proposition is in front of the jury. Leif is arguing that there cannot be direct effects from the sun since the latest measurements say that the sun changes less than 0.1% from cycle to cycle.
If we accept this premise, this does not preclude amplifications and resonances, coming from the fact that climate is the prime example of dynamical chaos.
Spend some time to contemplate this parametric pendulum in the chaotic state.
http://brain.cc.kogakuin.ac.jp/~kanamaru/Chaos/e/PP/index-small.html
Climate on the planet earth is a confluence of many effects and it could easily be that there exist amplification factors , as the galactic cosmic rays in tandem with the ocean currents affecting albedo, for example, and controlling climate. This has not been excluded in any way. Tsonis et al ( there is a thread here) using just oceanic currents have been predicting the observed temperature stasis and tendency to cooling in a neural net chaotic model. If GCRs enter the game stronger effects may develop. It is an open research field. Even plankton and UV may pull an oar in this melange.

“If we accept this premise, this does not preclude amplifications and resonances, coming from the fact that climate is the prime example of dynamical chaos. ”
True. For “dynamical chaos” (just as Judith Lean noted) read:
non-equilibrium thermodynamics.
For non-equilibrium thermodynamics read:
“Non-equilibrium thermodynamics and the production of entropy” Axel Kleidon and Ralph D. Lorenz (Eds). Springer, 2005.
So Glassman not only does not preclude, but explicitly explores (in a mathematically mature way) “amplifications and resonances”.
I guess it is just the all out hubris and overbearing assumption that everyone else is a chump (boring, boring) which eventually tends to gall.

John Finn says:
July 5, 2010 at 7:16 am
I can’t speak for Leif, but I’d like to see a coherent and credible argument from those who are sceptical of AGW. The most damaging thing that could happen is that a high profile study or piece of research is later shown to be amateurish nonsense.
There are plenty of “coherent and credible” arguments made by skeptics/climate realists. I suspect it’s because you aren’t really looking. In any case, the null hypothesis is that climate is driven by natural variations involving primarily the sun, the oceans, and clouds. Volcanoes play some role, and to a minor extent, so does man.
I fail to see how the work of Archibald’s can be “damaging” (and certainly not “dangerous”), except to those who are agenda-driven and for whom his work is seen as a threat. If his work is dis-proven later, fine, that is how science is supposed to work. Those claiming that the sun plays a minor role in climate have a tough row to hoe though, beginning with the paleoclimatic history, which they keep trying to rewrite.

And yet, and yet …..even people such as the Mike Lockwood who has supposedly ‘changed his mind’ are still producing papers like this, submitted as only recently as 12 March 2010 please note:
Environ. Res. Lett. 5 (2010) 024001 (7pp)
Are cold winters in Europe associated with
low solar activity?
M Lockwood1,2, R G Harrison1, T Woollings1 and S K Solanki3,4
1 Space Environment Physics Group, Department of Meteorology, University of Reading,
Earley Gate, PO Box 243, Reading RG6 6BB, UK
2 Space Science and Technology Department, Rutherford Appleton Laboratory,
Harwell Campus, Chilton, Didcot, Oxfordshire OX11 0QX, UK
3 MPI f¨ur Sonnensystemforschung,Max-Planck-Straße 2, 37191 Katlenburg-Lindau, Germany
4 School of Space Research, Kyung Hee University, Yongin, Gyeonggi 446-701, Korea
E-mail: m.lockwood@reading.ac.uk
Received 12 March 2010
Accepted for publication 31 March 2010
Published 14 April 2010
Online at stacks.iop.org/ERL/5/024001
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 theoccurrence 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.
Keywords: regional climate, solar variability, blocking

A&A 467, 335-346 (2007)
DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361:20066725
Reconstruction of solar total irradiance since 1700 from the surface magnetic flux
N. A. Krivova, L. Balmaceda, and S. K. Solanki
Max-Planck-Institut für Sonnensystemforschung, Max-Planck-Str. 2, 37191 Katlenburg-Lindau, Germany
e-mail: natalie@mps.mpg.de
(Received 9 November 2006 / Accepted 23 February 2007)
Abstract
Context.Total solar irradiance changes by about 0.1% between solar activity maximum and minimum. Accurate measurements of this quantity are only available since 1978 and do not provide information on longer-term secular trends.
Aims.In order to reliably evaluate the Sun’s role in recent global climate change, longer time series are, however, needed. They can only be assessed with the help of suitable models.
Methods.The total solar irradiance is reconstructed from the end of the Maunder minimum to the present based on variations of the surface distribution of the solar magnetic field. The latter is calculated from the historical record of the sunspot number using a simple but consistent physical model.
Results.Our model successfully reproduces three independent data sets: total solar irradiance measurements available since 1978, total photospheric magnetic flux since 1974 and the open magnetic flux since 1868 empirically reconstructed using the geomagnetic aa-index. The model predicts an increase in the solar total irradiance since the Maunder minimum of 1.3+0.2-0.4 Wm-2.
Only 4 months in peer review too – they must have got lucky (;-)

Bruce Cobb says:
July 6, 2010 at 7:14 am
There are plenty of “coherent and credible” arguments made by skeptics/climate realists. I suspect it’s because you aren’t really looking.
Ok – thanks for that, Bruce. Would this be an example of me “not really looking”?
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/11/20/mikes-nature-trick/
Immediately below the first graph you will find the following
Back in December 2004 John Finn asked about “the divergence” in Myth vs. Fact Regarding the “Hockey Stick” -thread of RealClimate.org.
I am well aware of the main areas of uncertainty in the AGW argument.

This is what Glassman says about the IPCC view (omitting his figures and math, some minor comments and in some cases splitting paras):
As a result of its selective and incomplete modeling, IPCC determined, with an admittedly low level of scientific understanding, that solar radiation is insignificant compared to its chartered model. Using its ambiguous standard of radiative forcing (RF), IPCC calculates that the RF from the Sun is 0.12 [0.06 to 0.30] Wm-2, only 7% of the 1.66 [1.49 to 1.83] Wm-2 it attributes to CO2 (AR4, Figure TS.5, p. 32), all based on a constant Bond albedo. IPCC puts the total solar RF at a third of just the uncertainty in CO2 forcing. That figure of 0.12 Wm-2 approximates the best fit linear increase in solar radiation since 1750 using the model of Wang, et al. (2005), but after applying 11-year smoothing.
Why did IPCC first apply 11-year smoothing, and then model the Sun by a single trend covering almost twice the span of temperature measurements? The answer to the smoothing question is that Earth does not respond to the 11-year cycle. That large component dominating the solar pattern is noise with respect to climate, and it masks underlying patterns. IPCC chose the 250 year trend to minimize any pattern in the solar output, thus reinforcing its conjecture that CO2 is the cause global warming.
IPCC’s transcending argument is that if multiple records are similarly unprecedented, then they must have a common cause; and if any one of them is arguably manmade, then all must be. Applied to the Sun, IPCC urges that the current solar irradiance is not unprecedented, being within 0.05% of its level just 250 years ago. Therefore, IPCC concludes the Sun is not among the parameters with a common cause, and so it ruled out the Sun as a cause.
IPCC says,
… the solid Earth acts as a low-pass filter on downward propagating temperature signals… . AR4, ¶6.6.1.2 What Do Large-Scale Temperature Histories from Subsurface Temperature Measurements Show?, p. 474.
and with regard to the gaseous Earth it says,
As early as 1910, Abbot believed that he had detected a downward trend in TSI that coincided with a general cooling of climate. The solar cycle variation in irradiance corresponds to an 11-year cycle in radiative forcing which varies by about 0.2 Wm-2. There is increasingly reliable evidence of its influence on atmospheric temperatures and circulations, particularly in the higher atmosphere. Calculations with three-dimensional models suggest that the changes in solar radiation could cause surface temperature changes of the order of a few tenths of a degree Celsius. Citations deleted, AR4, ¶1.4.3 Solar Variability and the Total Solar Irradiance, p. 107.
If the Sun had no effect on albedo, or any other amplifying process, IPCC’s calculation would put to rest any consideration that solar variability might be the cause of the modern temperature variations. IPCC’s mistake is to abandon consideration of the Sun as the instrument of climate change based on its first-order forcing calculation with everything else held constant. Albedo, for example, is not constant.
Cloud albedo is a positive feedback that amplifies solar radiation while at the same time it is a negative feedback that mitigates warming from any cause. Increased solar activity initially causes more shortwave energy to be absorbed in the atmosphere. This warms the atmosphere, reducing cloud cover at a constant humidity, and thus increasing insolation at the surface. Only later does the resulting warming of the surface increases humidity as the ocean absorbs the higher insolation. The ocean is both the primary agent and a slow agent because of its high heat capacity. The increased humidity increases cloud cover, provided a surplus of cloud condensation nuclei is available, increasing cloud albedo, and mitigating the entire effect.
In the proposed model, albedo is linear with ΔS (i.e. delta TSI), with a small quadratic component. Meanwhile, temperature and humidity have the complementary effect, showing the amplification of the solar output and the negative feedback of albedo. The albedo amplification of the Sun would be rapid, while its negative feedback would be slow because of the lag in the ocean to produce increased humidity.
This model is approximately linear over a wide range of useful values for the constants, which remain to be optimized. With increasing solar output, Earth’s temperature and atmospheric humidity increase while albedo decreases. Here is a sample set:
CLOUD COVER MODEL PARAMETERS
# Parameter Value Comments
1 A0 0.3 Nominal current value
2 T0 133.4 For anomalies
3 H0 30% Nominal current value
4 kH 0.0001 Nominal current value
5 kO 0.1
6 kS 0.1
7 kH 31 For T = 1.1ºC @ur momisugly ΔS = 0.055
Between 1862 and 1998, temperature rose 1.1ºC (Figure 5) while TSI increased 0.22 Wm-2 (Figure 9, bold). Dividing by 4 for the geometric effect on Earth, the solar input increased by 0.055 Wm-2.
This cloud albedo model amplifies the Sun in the short term, and introduces the Earthly lags in the long term that tune the climate, making it selective to long term variations on the Sun. ……
IPCC employs centered symmetrical filters for its data records, which are unrealizable, meaning filters that are aware of the future. IPCC’s results are thus subjectively attractive, but to the extent that it applies such filtered data to its models, its work is physically problematic and not objective.
A prime example is IPCC’s unquantified attribution of the glacial cycles to the Milankovitch cycles (AR4 FAQ 6.1, with the humorous title “What Caused the Ice Ages and Other Important Climate Changes Before the Industrial Era”, bold added). Wikipedia falls in line, but steps over it to say, “Past and future Milankovitch cycles. VSOP [Variations Séculaires des Orbites Planétaires] allows prediction of past and future orbital parameters with great accuracy.” Bold added. Wikipedia puts the lie to its claim by saying the Milankovitch Climate model is “not perfectly worked out” (as if perfection were ever achieved in any science), listing eight named problems, which IPCC minimizes. See for example AR4 ¶6.7 Concluding Remarks on Key Uncertainties, p. 483. Among those problems are a mismatch between the magnitudes of the orbital forcings and the climate response, and a causal problem with the penultimate glacial cycle.
IPCC tries to salvage its AGW theory by making CO2 an agent of the Milankovitch theory, amplifying the variations without triggering them. AR4 Ch. 6, Executive Summary, p. 435. When the CO2 proves insufficient as a positive feedback, IPCC adds water vapor as the next, most important, and as clouds, the least understood feedback. AR4 FAQ 1.3 What is the Greenhouse Effect?, p. 116; AR4, Ch. 8, Executive Summary, p. 593; AR4 ¶8.6.3.2 Clouds, p. 636.
This cascade of speculation about causes and effects arises out of a lack of causality coupled into a model for Earth’s climate that is only conditionally stable, on the cusp of being triggered into a new state by an unidentified event, or crossing a model “tipping point”.
Nature doesn’t have systems balanced on a knife edge, round boulders perched on the sides of hills, or cones standing on their tips. To be objective, investigators should model Earth as deeply stable, that is, requiring by definition cataclysmic events to dislodge it from its conditionally stable state, and instead responding gradually to causal forces.