Guest post by David Archibald
Professor Jan-Erik Solheim of the University of Oslo recently contributed an article to the Norwegian magazine Astronomi with the title: “The Sun predicts a colder (next) decennium”. Oddbjorn Engvold, a Norwegian solar physicist, has summarised the article in English:
In the first section he refers to the earlier work by Eigil Friis-Christensen and Knud Lassen who showed a connection between the length of a solar cycle and temperature in the northern hemisphere.
The next section deals with “sunspot periods and temperatures in Norway”. He selected series of temperatures for a total of 10 locations in Norway. In these series of temperature he detected no, or hardly any, correlation between length of the sunspot cycle and temperatures averaged over the cycles. On the other hand, he found a strong dependence between the length of the sunspot cycles and the mean temperatures in the following period.
The diagrams shown on the following pages should be self explaining. The ledger at the bottom of the pages containing a map of Norway and the 10 diagrams says:
The red dots shows the measured temperatures at ten place in Norway (averaged for the sunspot periods; y-axis) and the length of the preceding sunspot periods (x-axis). The dark ellipses represent the predicted mean temperatures for the coming 11 years, while the mean measured temperatures for cycle 23 (1996-2008) are indicated with the circles.
If one trusts these findings, Solheim mentions that since the period length of previous cycle (no 23) is at least 3 years longer than for cycle no 22, the temperature is expected to decrease by 0.6 – 1.8 degrees over the following 10-12 years, relative to the mean values for period no 23.
Jan-Erik Solheim asks readers of this magazine to search for long temperature series in their home places and check whether or not the published correlation can be confirmed.
The table in the lower right on third page gives the starting years and lengths of the solar cycles from no 5 to no 24.
The final subsection discusses briefly possible explanations for the puzzling correlation that he presents here. I shall rather leave it to Jan-Erik himself discuss his ideas directly with you and others once he returns from his travel around 25 July.
It is my personal view that Jan-Erik’s results are astonishing and could potentially represent a breakthrough in our understanding of the Sun’s influence on climate.
The results that Professor Solheim got for the west coast of Norway are very similar to what Butler and Johnson found for Armagh in Northern Ireland in their 1996 paper.
I derive a steeper correlation for a number of sites in the north-eastern US, such as Hanover, New Hampshire.
Of course Norway has been at the forefront of wasting money on the global warming scare. It has been storing CO2 at the Sleipner gas field off the Norwegian coast since 1996, and more recently built another facility to waste money at Mongstad in 2008. Now comes a big whacking from the Sun.
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Note: There is no English version of the article, but you can try your luck reading it here with Google Translate. Messy, but best I can do.
Also for those that wished to order Archibald’s latest book covering many of these elements, but could not, there is good news.
He now has PayPal ordering available on his website here Direct by mail/personal check orders are also accepted via this order form – Anthony
As one who has a copy of David’s book, it is recommended. It is full of facts, figures and explanations that most of us can understand.
It is interesting to compare commentary by the alarmists and the realists-The realists can explain by simple facts and figures, as they only have to refer to the truth. Whereas the alarmists, have to resort to fanciful statements and when it comes to providing some sort of backup they can only do so by omission, moulding the data to suit and vague explanations, that can only be designed to confuse.
I wonder if Professor Solheim is related to the Norwegian Environmental minister Erik Solheim? In that case they have something common to discuss. Although the debate is supposed to be over.
The Norwegian environmental minister happens to be a more fanatic global warming fundamentalist than even James Hansen.
This is all good – They can release all that CO2 they’ve been storing and warm us all back up again.
Hey, as a Norwegian, it would have been fun for him to reference King Cnut’s practical experiment in climate change 🙂
Far better is to look back 179yrs and 1 month on your local temperature series, there you can find a good analogue for deviations from normals month by month, and see that the cold does not kick in too badly for another 4yrs yet.
but but but Nasa have it different
“Looks like disaster flicks aren’t too removed from reality since all this could well be the potential result of a gigantic solar storm, according to a new report by NASA. The report, a warning, says Earth and space are coming together in a way that’s new to human history. …A solar storm, which is essentially violent eruptions in the sun, can eject destructive radiation and charged particles into space. These are closely connected to magnetic fields – which are hazardous for satellites and space stations.”
http://www.examiner.com/x-10722-Austin-Science-Policy-Examiner~y2010m6d10-The-calm-before-the-solar-storm
Good article, than you Anthony
Hi,
Fascinating stuff. I’m from Norway so I could read the original article and can confirm that the points are covered correctly.
He points out that correlation is not evidence of a real connection but the findings warrants more research.
The possible physical connection he talks about in the end of the article is that sunspot periods are driven by a magnetic field in the sun, and a longer period could mean that the sun’s magnetic field is extra low and that causes the lower temperatures in the next period. He also points out the fact that 23. period was long and the current 24. period seems to be struggling to get going.
Whither Al Gore (WAG)? (Formerly AGW)
…-
“Alberta walloped with snow”
“July 13, 2010 — It’s mid July and parts of Alberta are dealing with heavy snow. ”
http://www.theweathernetwork.com/news/storm_watch_stories3&stormfile=jaspersnow_13_07_2010?ref=ccbox_weather_bottom_title
I came up with an r^2 of .62 for the data from Huntley, Montana. The record only goes back to 1906 so only cycles 15 thru 23 are used. Roughly the same scatter plot.
The death and destruction mantra from the left/AGW folks. They use programs which omit the very basic data required to make accurate prediction as they can not quantify water in its various forms.
Galactic radiation causes the form of water to change in the atmosphere which changes the globe albedo drastically from one minuet to the next.
you simply can not get a program to work if you do not understand the functions of each component.
Interesting…
the scatter plots from Casper Wyoming follow the solar patterns described…. when you look at the disparate points and adjust for Oceanic Positive or Negative water temp trends it falls very close to his predictions…
Going to have to do some number crunching… Nice Find!
A similar connection between length of solar cycles and climate was put forth in an article in Science by Friis-Christensen and Lassen (1991)
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/254/5032/698
Just today I had an e-mail correspondence with a prominent climate scientist who claimed “there has been no trend in solar activity of any sort that
can account for the recent warming.” I pointed out the research above (and this timely posting in WUWT) and suggested that the shorter solar cycles of the latter 20th century (referred to as a “solar maximum” period) provided an alternate (to CO2) explanation for the warming of the latter 20th century.
The prediction of colder temperatures going forward based on the length of the recent sunspot cycle is, of course, in direct contradiction to the theory that climate will heat up in the coming years due to increasing CO2 levels. The warmists have always been adamant about dismissing solar effects on climate. We will see over the next few years who is right! My money is on colder temperatures going forward and the vindication of the theory that solar influences on climate count for far more than CO2 levels.
Some may not want to venture into connecting sun to climate because they can’t refer to a nice, tidy mechanism. But let’s look at the graphs: there is clear relation.
I think one of the most important and fun breakthroughs since Einstein and Feynman is Svensmark view of Cosmic Rays!
5 parts in YouTube, starting here at 1:
Lets take this one step further…
if you plot the solar cycles as a sign wave and then over lay the mean temp sign wave from the following cycle they almost perfectly match.
Apply decadal oscillations positive or negative to the temp sign wave and you end up having identical waves….
Next…. Look at tropical cyclones.. (long thought to be indicators of total heat stored in the atmosphere and oceans) in the following cycle years the high and violent ones fall at the time distance from the peak of the last cycle and lasts two or three years… if this pattern holds true this year will be very calm for these storms…
this has unlocked a huge number of correlations… I have now plotted 9 cities from the highest rated (rural-monitored) weather monitoring stations and each one is within .010%…. in slope.. and it is consistent in both directions for heating and cooling over the last 100 years…. WOW!
John Westman says:
July 13, 2010 at 5:55 pm
It is interesting to compare commentary by the alarmists and the realists-The realists can explain by simple facts and figures, as they only have to refer to the truth. Whereas the alarmists, have to resort to fanciful statements and when it comes to providing some sort of backup they can only do so by omission, moulding the data to suit and vague explanations, that can only be designed to confuse.
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What a great statement John, so true.
Bill in AZ says:
July 13, 2010 at 6:12 pm
In the warmists computer-generated world, releasing the C02 would work.
In the real world that cools suddenly, the released C02 would be sucked up by the cold oceans in a futile gesture topped only by the waste of storing C02 in the 1st place.
Smart folks would use that C02 in a closed environment, like greenhouses, to grow precious food.
Don’t waste that precious plant fuel.
It is my personal view that Jan-Erik’s results are astonishing and could potentially represent a breakthrough in our understanding of the Sun’s influence on climate.
Indeed, David, the Solar Cycle Length is a winner when it comes to sorting climactic data.
Your book inspired me to try it out on my home town’s 140yrs of rainfall which graphs like this:
http://www.robertb.darkhorizons.org/TempGr/WeavervillePrecip.GIF
but sorts like this:
http://www.robertb.darkhorizons.org/TempGr/WvPrecipSC.GIF
Alas, NOAA records my temp data being taken back to 1870, but 40+ years of it is missing.
Bill H–
Many would be interested to see your overlay of a mean atmospheric-temperature sine-wave [not “sign”] over its subsequent solar-cycle analogue. As we understand it, setting leading decadal solar oscillations’ +/- signs opposite to periodic current (vs. lagged) temperature-curves correlates atmospheric with solar series 1:1.
This straightforward juxtaposition of valid long-term data-sets would constitute a powerful heuristic indicator, if not a causitive tool. Extrapolating over some four years to c. 2014 – ’15 would then provide the sort of testable –falsifiable– hypothesis that merely qualitative “climate studies” for the most part sadly lack.
This is very interesting, and will give me lots to research and ponder. Thanks for the find…
R. Gates says:
July 13, 2010 at 9:44 pm
I highly reccomend you get David’s book.
Norway temperatures are highly dependant on the Gulf Stream flow, as is the rest of the North Atlantic. The Gulf Stream flow into the Arctic Ocean in turn is dependant on the ice and cold waters return through the Denmark Strait. This is highly variable and it is possible that is affected by geological and geomagnetic changes in the area.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/LFC1.htm
These changes are correlated to the solar activity output (cause of this relationship is not known) , but it is unlikely to be a coincidence.
This article was discussed in the Armagh discussion recently. The trouble is that the plots don’t say much more than that there was a shift in solar cycle lengths about 1/3 into the rising temperature trend. So even if there is a real correlation, it can’t be convincingly shown until we have seen the temperature follow some more cycle length shifts.
David, the big mistake made by those who predict steadily rising temperatures for the next century is to assume that the just one of the many variables governing the climate can be more important than the rest combined. This they need to prove taking into account all the possible feedback effects, which may be impossible currently. In your attempt to show that CO2 isn’t such a dominant variable, you make the exact same mistake. Consider the possibility that the climate is more complex than any climate scientist can describe today, or yourself. Even if you’re convinced that the solar cycles rival CO2 as a climate driver, and this is true, you can’t make a strong argument for it by copying flawed reasoning.
Very interesting result. I think it confirms what I’ve been saying about heat being stored in the ocean for a lot longer than previously thought by the ‘experts’. It’s the only ‘Big assed heat flux capacitor’ on the planet. Thanks Anthony and David.
Very interresting. 🙂
And, Solheim means “Sun home”, but I suppose you knew that already. 🙂