Joe D’Aleo and Don Easterbrook have produced a new paper for SPPI. This graph of US Mean temperature versus the AMO and PDO ocean cycles is prominently featured:
I particularly liked the regression forecast fit:
They have this caveat:
Note this data plot started in 1905 because the PDO was only available from 1900. The divergence 2000 and after was either (1) greenhouse warming finally kicking in or (2) an issue with the new USHCN version 2 data.
Hmm. I’m betting USHCNv2.
Abstract:
Perlwitz etal (2009) used computer model suites to contend that the 2008 North American cooling was naturally induced as a result of the continent’s sensitivity to widespread cooling of the tropical (La Nina) and northeastern Pacific sea surface temperatures.
But they concluded from their models that warming is likely to resume in coming years and that climate is unlikely to embark upon a prolonged period of cooling. We here show how their models fail to recognize the multidecadal behavior of sea surface temperatures in the Pacific Basin, which determines the frequency of El Ninos and La Ninas and suggests that the cooling will likely continue for several decades. We show how this will be reinforced with multidecadal shift in the Atlantic.
Here’s the paper you can download:
UPDATE: The goodness of fit, seems almost too good. There may be a reason. I’m reminded in comments of this article by statistician William Briggs – (thanks Mosh)
Do not smooth times series, you hockey puck!
Where he points out:
Now I’m going to tell you the great truth of time series analysis. Ready? Unless the data is measured with error, you never, ever, for no reason, under no threat, SMOOTH the series! And if for some bizarre reason you do smooth it, you absolutely on pain of death do NOT use the smoothed series as input for other analyses! If the data is measured with error, you might attempt to model it (which means smooth it) in an attempt to estimate the measurement error, but even in these rare cases you have to have an outside (the learned word is “exogenous”) estimate of that error, that is, one not based on your current data.
If, in a moment of insanity, you do smooth time series data and you do use it as input to other analyses, you dramatically increase the probability of fooling yourself! This is because smoothing induces spurious signals—signals that look real to other analytical methods. No matter what you will be too certain of your final results! Mann et al. first dramatically smoothed their series, then analyzed them separately. Regardless of whether their thesis is true—whether there really is a dramatic increase in temperature lately—it is guaranteed that they are now too certain of their conclusion.
Perhaps Mr. Briggs can have a look and expound in comments. I only have the output, not the method. But let’s find out and determine how good the “fit” truly is. – Anthony
UPDATE: Statistician Matt Briggs responds in depth here. He says:
I want to stress that if D&E did not smooth their data, the correlation would not have been as high; but as high as it would have been, it would still have been expected. All that smoothing has done here is artificially inflated the confidence D&E have in their results. It does not change the fact that AMO + PDO is well correlated with air temperature.
Sorry. I meant to say, that I think Joseph and Donald have demonstrated that the natural climate variations are embedded in the natural decade oscillations, which were demonstrated to correlate and it would be surprising if they were not although the relation would not be immediately evident.
I understand Leif has concerns about the data, as outdated, but unless there was a determinate error that I’m not aware of in the old data, random and indeterminate errors of the would still be expected to correlate – there being as much variation above and below the means.
By the way the El Nino and the SO are associated but not related as to their causes, as far as I know, there is a good reason for the SO but the origins of the El Nino and it’s “inverse” are not
Re: Richard
Thanks for gracing the forum with these eloquent words.
Jim D says:
“…OK the warming effect sixty years later is three times as much, not four. As I said, it is accelerating.”
No, it isn’t. It just slowed from 4 to 3. ☺
“Choco rations have been increased to 25 grams per week, up from 30 grams per week.”
~Orwell, 1984
Jeff T says:
September 30, 2010 at 8:43 pm
“AMO and PDO are both headed down; we’ve had an extended solar minimum. D’Aleo Easterbrook will be proven wrong if the 2010-2012 temperature average is not significantly below the 2000-2009 average.”
Can you produce the hypotheses that imply your prediction? I think, my friend, that all you are doing is reading a graph and guessing about its extension into the future. Without hypotheses, that is not science; rather, it is a hunch. I do not mean to pick on you. But I believe that far too much of what passes for climate science is not science. The reason is that climate scientists offer no hypotheses that can be used for prediction and explanation of future events. Instead, they look at graphs and offer their hunches about the future. That is not science.
Doug Proctor writes:
“So, two positions for the warmists to argue invalidates this paper: 1) the recent satellite temperature history is wrong, and 2) warming from the LIA stopped by 1990.”
What reasons are given for the claim that warming from the LIA stopped by 1990? What reasons could possibly be given? Maybe the LIA warming paused and restarted. It is nature, you know.
feet2thefire writes:
“I’ve been trying to find what causes the El Niño, and haven’t found anything on it. Everyone seems to assume the El Niño is the cause of other things – as if it just appears out of nowhere.”
That is because what you are seeking does not exist. Climate science is in its infancy. There is no set of hypotheses which explain the phenomenon known as El Nino. If the Warmista, who call themselves scientists, would just acknowledge this fact then there would be no AGW/AGCD scare. The science is in its infancy.
dp writes:
“I think there are natural periodicities to be discovered.”
Yes, and those might be the first physical hypotheses in climate science. Until that time, everyone should adopt the humility appropriate to science and stop claiming that the world is about to boil.
Bob Tisdale says: Also, the “60 year cyclical nature of this cycle” [PDO] does not exist prior to the instrument temperature record. That is, there are no 60-year cycles in any of the paleoclimatological reconstructions of the PDO.
there are according to the wavelet analysis of Russian scientist Dr Oleg Pokrovsky
http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2010/04/more-on-60-year-climate-cycle.html
et al:
http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2010/01/fourier-analysis-of-climate.html
Towards overcoming absolutely nonsensical notions about smoothing (which are problematically prolific in this thread):
1) See Bill Illis’ example of a sensible application of smoothing.
2) Absorb sky’s wisdom.
Red herring:
Misguided “all smoothing is bad” chants.
More substantive shortcomings:
a) use of PDO.
b) 1905 start date.
Awareness needed here:
“PDO” has taken on a (very widespread) colloquial meaning that does not match its scientific meaning.
Perhaps this tide cannot be stopped and the dictionary will need more than one entry for PDO (and people will occasionally run into requests to clarify “which” PDO they mean). [Hopefully it won’t be nonalarmists undermining the nonalarmist movement with neverending misuse of “PDO”.]
While it may be obvious that smoothing over the day & the year (nice, well-known, stationary cycles) has merit for some purposes, it may take a bit more contemplation to appreciate the plethora of less clear-cut examples that attract intense focus in fields such as advanced physical geography. Ever heard of “Simpson’s Paradox”? Wavelet methods (just one example) apply a smoothing operator by definition. Aggregation criteria affect spatiotemporal pattern. Nonstationarity is a feature of nature. Randomness is often a silly (but mathematically convenient) assumption. Tradition is no excuse.
Mike M.: Not a bad idea to encourage such mixing.
Re: Hockey Schtick
There is no stationary 60 year cycle in the paleo-work which you cite:
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_nOY5jaKJXHM/S9cakOj6rHI/AAAAAAAABGk/AWkVwKr9d7M/s1600/Fullscreen+capture+4272010+91958+AM.jpg
Your challenge of Bob Tisdale’s claim is unsuccessful. However, whether these reconstructions represent PDO, something related to it (in a perhaps complex manner) – or whatever – could be debated endlessly.
Regardless:
Natural oscillations need be neither stationary cycles nor 60 years long to be natural oscillations.
And:
It’s fair (at this point in time) to say there have been a pair of near-60-year oscillations in the recent past.
I have not yet seen a convincing argument that the recent pattern can be extrapolated (to forecast the future by simply using a 60 year wave).
Paul Vaughan said “Hopefully it won’t be nonalarmists undermining the nonalarmist movement with neverending misuse of “PDO””
Like this site for example?
http://www.c3headlines.com/2010/09/phil-jones-the-closet-skeptic-is-he-throwing-the-co2-agw-hypothesis-under-the-bus-.html
Re: Hockey Schtick and further to this
“Predominant periods” that are not presented as a function of time can be seriously misleading:
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_nOY5jaKJXHM/S2YbU16yntI/AAAAAAAAAv8/N02pD2Htj5E/s1600-h/periodicities.jpg
Re: jimmi
When an oversimplified narrative (designed for easy consumption) fails scrutiny, the rearguard can respond with the next level of sophistication. In this case, if the nonalarmed masses see their cherished PDO failing a critically important test, they may crave extra details (like what PDO is not) …that might have precluded messaging receptivity if overloaded upfront. It’s like the trick profs use: “Remember that stuff we told you in first year? Well, it was a bit of a simplification…” – i.e. establish value & create desire before getting into “must haves”. Resistant types will continue their strategy of “winging” it. (For a good example, see alarmist behaviour.)
Brian G Valentine says:
October 1, 2010 at 6:11 pm
I understand Leif has concerns about the data, as outdated, but unless there was a determinate error that I’m not aware of in the old data
The ‘old data’ in question was the TSI reconstruction by Hoyt and Schatten. Thus not measured data, but an attempt to guess what the TSI was in the past. The ‘outdated’ bit is that we now know that the method to do this is in error and that therefore the inferred TSI is wrong [or as you might put it, has ‘a determinate error’].
Leif Svalgaard says:
October 1, 2010 at 10:15 am
rbateman says:
October 1, 2010 at 9:28 am
Leif: Geoff is talking about a certain ‘type’ of sunspot where, when it round the limb to the backside, the flux rises abruptly.
No such thing. The Sun is just messy. You can find all kinds of odd behavior, if you want to.
Perhaps it wasn’t so noticeable when there were plenty of large sunspots (the messy sun), but now that there are only a few at a time, the show is on. A low activity Sun is an uncluttered Sun.
Joe and Don have been a bit ‘ lazy’ in going for the easy assumption that the two biggest ocean cycles must be directly correlated and that in themselves they are powerful enough to override everything else and then drive climate changes.
I realised the weakness of that a long time ago and so have presented a rather more complex scenario.
Firstly, the Pacific and Atlantic Oscillations are not well correlated to each other.
Secondly there are other ocean cycles that have a bearing on the global net SST contribution to the energy budget at any given time. They can vary the net Pacific/Atlantic effect over time and sometines supplement and sometimes offset the Pacific/Atlantic effect.
Thirdly the oceanic effect on the flow of energy through the atmosphere operates through an intermediary namely the size, intensity and latitudinal positioning of the air circulation systems and as we are seeing from the apparent effect of the quieter sun on the polar oscillations that is also affected by solar variability.
As regards other variables although there are many they tend to balance each other out over time leaving solar and oceanic effect predominant so I tend to ignore other variables on longer time scales.
The effect of changes in GHGs would be a relevant variable save that in my judgement the effects are too small to be measurable within the large range of natural variability caused by solar and oceanic effects combined with the levels of natural chaotic variability within the system.
Furthermore Miskolczi’s point about the relatively stable optical depth seems to show that the effect of GHGs is naturally regulated by the speed of the hydrological cycle which works to maintain a steady optical depth by varying total global humidity.
So, Joe and Don are approximately at the same stage I was some ten years ago when I first became aware of the emerging significance of ocean cycles but not happy that they were enough of the whole story to rely on them exclusively. It was the start of the equatorward shift in the jets from around 2000 that started me off and it has been quite a trek.
The two main remaining issues for me are:
(i) the mechanisms that must exist within the oceans (all of them combined not just Pacific and Atlantic) that appear to impose (subject to that solar influence) the 500 to 1000 year variability revealed by the Roman Warm Period, Dark Ages, Mediaeval Warm Period, Little Ice Age and Current Warm Period. I take Bob Tisdale’s point about the PDO, Pacific SSTs and Pacific Decadal Variability being different from each other but the distinctions are hopelessly confused in the general discussions of the subject even amongst experts and I find it very difficult getting points across to people unfamiliar with those distinctions without using those terms in a manner that Bob disapproves of. I think Bob is right about everything ENSO related and I would like to see him extend his analyses beyond ENSO to the longer term Pacific Decadal Oscillations but I understand he is not interested in doing that which is a frustration to me because that extension would supplement my musings very well. I’ll just have to manage without him.
ii) The mechanisms that must exist in the atmosphere to translate variations in the level of solar activity into effects on the size and intensity of the polar oscillations. Leif is my main problem there because he is set on the view that the sun can have no such effect. However a chink in Leif’s armour that I would like him to address is that he has told me that solar variations have the same effect in tandem through all the layers of the atmosphere i.e. an active sun warms them all and a quiet sun cools them all. However when the sun was active the thermosphere and troposphere warmed but we all know that the stratosphere cooled and it now seems that the mesosphere cooled too:
http://www.voanews.com/english/news/science-technology/Australian-Scientists-Probe-Distant-Clouds-With-Giant-Antarctic-Laser-103849314.html
That sort of differential warming and cooling in the different layers of the atmosphere could well reverse the solar effect on specific layers and in particular the stratosphere the temperature of which sets the strength of the temperature inversion at the tropopause and that is intimately related to tropospheric pressure distribution hence the apparent effect on the polar oscillations. Reversing the sign of the solar effect on the stratosphere is critical to my current hypothesis on the basis that the jets cannot move poleward unless the stratosphere cools and will only go equatorward again if the stratosphere warms. Yet the jets move poleward when the sun is more active and equatorward when the sun is less active. That is the opposite of what ‘should’ happen yet we see it.
I need Leif’s explanation as to why a more active sun could result in a cooling stratosphere and a poleward shift in the jets or a less active sun a warming stratosphere with an equatorward shift in the jets.
For those who missed it previously here is evidence of the change in temperature trend in the stratosphere following the late 90s start to the decline in solar activity:
http://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/sola/5/0/53/_pdf
“The evidence for the cooling trend in the stratosphere may need to be
revisited. This study presents evidence that the stratosphere has been
slightly warming since 1996.”
Stephen Wilde wrote: “Thirdly the oceanic effect on the flow of energy through the atmosphere operates through an intermediary namely the size, intensity and latitudinal positioning of the air circulation systems and as we are seeing from the apparent effect of the quieter sun on the polar oscillations that is also affected by solar variability.”
The positions of the air circulation systems are responses to the temperatures of the oceans.
Bob Tisdale said:
“The positions of the air circulation systems are responses to the temperatures of the oceans.”
Yes Bob, I know but your comment is too cryptic. Do you mean the oceans alone ?
If so then I would have to disagree because the sun also seems to have an effect from the top down.
http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/5/3/034008/fulltext
Furthermore the polar oscillations were clearly highly positive when the sun was active and are now much more negative with the sun less active.
The solution has to be that the air circulation positioning modulates the energy balance between bottom up oceanic forcing and top down solar forcing. In doing so it responds to both simultaneously and proportionately to the scale of the respective forcing effects from moment to moment.
If I can get you and Leif on board with that (or at least accepting it as a possibility) then as someone else said, I’m home and dry.
If I can’t get one or both of you on board then I can only convince by showing up the illogicality of your respective positions.
Having read the original article published by SPPI, it appears to me that the statistical, and more importantly, the signal processing methods are seriously deficient and contain a number of very elementary errors.
My old Prof when I did my PhD used to remark that signal processing is a “field covered with traps for young players” and that without careful and rigorous analysis, one could blunder into major errors without recognising them.
If the SPPI publishes work such as this, they are leaving themselves open to substantial attack by agnostics or warmists who have a proper background in signal processing.
I can only suggest that the SPPI institutes peer review of their papers to ensure that the methods do not contain glaring errors and so avoid the risk of a kick in the b**ls.
Steven Wilde says above:
‘For those who missed it previously here is evidence of the change in temperature trend in the stratosphere following the late 90s start to the decline in solar activity:
http://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/sola/5/0/53/_pdf
“The evidence for the cooling trend in the stratosphere may need to be
revisited. This study presents evidence that the stratosphere has been
slightly warming since 1996.” ‘
Yes, but doesn’t Liu & Weng 2009 attribute the stratospheric warming post 1996 to an increase in stratospheric ozone?
Interesting ideas – not trying to be picky for the fun of it btw. I share your interest in the behaviour of the jet streams.
Dominic
Steven Mosher says:
October 1, 2010 at 4:24 pm
‘BBD.
Yes, Bob is tireless.
Let me try to explain why each and every study that tries to “explain” or “model” the temperature by appealing to factors such as SST indicies or sun spots or almost anything else ( position of planets, etc ) is destined to be taken to pieces and shown to be wrong in some fundamental way. […]’
Agreed – again!
Must be going soft in my old age.
You go on to remind us that GHGs and aerosols are not figments of the imagination but caution against uncertainty in the GCMs re projections of warming.
Like Bob Tisdale on the PDO, you must run the risk of RSI by repeating yourself endlessly on this point.
It’s a civic duty, I’m afraid.
Periodic mention of Lucia’s is a good idea too 😉
Dominic
Regarding the current debate over drivers of temperature variations. Ship’s logs have great historical information on trade winds. Strong Easterlies, and the diminution of Easterlies, have been documented. Thus we can reconstruct the onsets and offsets of El Nino/La Ninas previous to the modern record. With this in mind, correlations can be made of temperature changes through careful use of a variety of proxies, ship’s records, and other recorded histories of temperature variations. My opinion, and the hypothesis that is still at the top, is that ENSO parameters strongly and directly affect land temperatures and weather pattern variations, leading to great differences and wide variations in atmospheric weather pattern changes, along with land temperature variations. These variations are much, much wider than anything the Sun is capable of driving in terms of variation, along with anything greenhouse gasses and ozone changes are capable of driving in terms of variations. Flat out, the capacity of the oceans as the driver of variations, driven by changes in equatorial trade wind systems (which itself starts with the Coriolis affect) to affect all other parameters, is simply overwhelmingly stronger.
BBD said:
“Yes, but doesn’t Liu & Weng 2009 attribute the stratospheric warming post 1996 to an increase in stratospheric ozone?”
Yes indeed they do but I don’t think they are right.
The point is that the jets started to shift back equatorward at the same time as the stratosphere started to warm so on their reasoning it must have been the ozone reduction during the period of active sun that caused the jets to move poleward in the first place (cooling stratosphere) and it must therefore be the ozone recovery during the period of less active sun which caused the jets to move equatorward again (warming stratosphere ) and in each case they attribute the ozone trend to human CFCs.
However the jets moved poleward and equatorward long before CFCs so their assumption is illogical. Something other than CFCs caused stratosphere temperature changes and consequent jet stream shifts at earlier times so if ozone quantities were the cause it must follow that ozone changes occurred then too and not because of CFCs which did not then exist.
So following the logic a more active sun both decreases ozone and stratospheric temperatures and allows a poleward shift in the jets, human involvement not required.
A more active sun both decreases ozone and cools the stratosphere thereby weakening the inversion at the tropopause and that is the only way that the jets can shift poleward in the absence of a hefty oceanic shove from below.
The error must be either:
i) An active sun actually swings the balance of reactions in the stratosphere towards ozone destruction and not ozone creation as usually assumed and/or
ii) An active sun somehow accelerates the upward energy flux from the stratosphere.
If it were otherwise the more active sun would warm the stratosphere to increase the strength of the inversion at the tropopause and then and only then could the jets be forced equatorward.
In fact the jets only go equatorward when the sun is less active as now, or for a more extreme example during the Maunder Minimum when the jets were further south than now and the ITCZ was near the equator. In the MWP when the sun was more active the mid latitude jets were up near Greenland.
So logic says that the observed behaviour of the jets falsifies the normal assumption that a more active sun warms the stratosphere and increases ozone. It simply cannot be so otherwise the jets would behave differently from what we observe.
Can you show me a time when the jets have ever moved poleward when the stratosphere warmed or equatorward when the stratosphere cooled ?
Many have pointed out the short term equatorward shifts of the jets when so called sudden stratospheric warmings occur. For current climate theory to be correct those sudden warmings should have resulted in poleward shifts should they not ?
It just doesn’t (can’t) happen yet that is what current climatological theory must imply.
Stephen Wilde: You wrote, “If so then I would have to disagree because the sun also seems to have an effect from the top down.” And you provided a link to Lockwood et al (2010):
http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/5/3/034008/fulltext#SECTIONREF
They write parenthetically, “However, it should be noted that the fact that the disturbances appear first in the stratosphere does not necessarily mean that the stratosphere is driving the troposphere [13].)
Reference 13 is Plumb and Semeniuk (2003) “Downward propagation of extra-tropical zonal wind anomalies”. The title was changed from this 2002 version:
http://www-eaps.mit.edu/~rap/papers/AO_revised.pdf
They conclude their abstract with, “In particular, these results imply that
the similar downward migration observed in the Arctic Oscillation should
not be taken to indicate any controlling influence of the stratosphere on the
troposphere.”
Stephen Wilde says: October 2, 2010 at 3:30 am
“The positions of the air circulation systems are responses to the temperatures of the oceans.”
Yes Bob, I know but your comment is too cryptic. Do you mean the oceans alone ?
Position of the jet stream is directly related to heat release from the Gulf Stream into atmosphere, it takes place in northern latitudes (~ 60 N, Greenland-Iceland area).
Not directly related to the solar radiation. http://www.srh.noaa.gov/jetstream//global/images/jetstream3.jpg
http://planetearth.nerc.ac.uk/images/uploaded/custom/sea-circulation-920×644.jpg