This story was previously covered on Sept 24 on WUWT, but because it appeared in Nature today, everybody is exploding my inbox like maybe I’ve never seen it before. Thanks. 😉 So in hopes of avoiding more flooding, here it is again.
Be sure to read the essay by David Archibald on the Hathaway SC24 prediction.
Also please please pay attention to the bolded (mine) caveat by professor Haigh below about the duration of the study. Link to the paper follows also, though it is missing figures for some reason.
From Imperial College, London via Eurekalert:
The sun’s activity has recently affected the Earth’s atmosphere and climate in unexpected ways, according to a new study published today in the journal Nature
The Sun’s activity has recently affected the Earth’s atmosphere and climate in unexpected ways, according to a new study published today in the journal Nature. The study, by researchers from Imperial College London and the University of Colorado, shows that a decline in the Sun’s activity does not always mean that the Earth becomes cooler.
It is well established that the Sun’s activity waxes and wanes over an 11-year cycle and that as its activity wanes, the overall amount of radiation reaching the Earth decreases. Today’s study looked at the Sun’s activity over the period 2004-2007, when it was in a declining part of its 11-year activity cycle.
Although the Sun’s activity declined over this period, the new research shows that it may have actually caused the Earth to become warmer. Contrary to expectations, the amount of energy reaching the Earth at visible wavelengths increased rather than decreased as the Sun’s activity declined, causing this warming effect.
Following this surprising finding, the researchers behind the study believe it is possible that the inverse is also true and that in periods when the Sun’s activity increases, it tends to cool, rather than warm, the Earth. This is based on what is already known about the relationship between the Sun’s activity and its total energy output.
Overall solar activity has been increasing over the past century, so the researchers believe it is possible that during this period, the Sun has been contributing a small cooling effect, rather than a small warming effect as had previously been thought.
Professor Joanna Haigh, the lead author of the study who is Head of the Department of Physics and member of the Grantham Institute for Climate Change at Imperial College London, said:
“These results are challenging what we thought we knew about the Sun’s effect on our climate. However, they only show us a snapshot of the Sun’s activity and its behaviour over the three years of our study could be an anomaly.
“We cannot jump to any conclusions based on what we have found during this comparatively short period and we need to carry out further studies to explore the Sun’s activity, and the patterns that we have uncovered, on longer timescales. However, if further studies find the same pattern over a longer period of time, this could suggest that we may have overestimated the Sun’s role in warming the planet, rather than underestimating it.”
Professor Sir Brian Hoskins, the Director of the Grantham Institute for Climate Change at Imperial College London, added: “We know that the Earth’s climate is affected both by human activity and by natural forces and today’s study improves our understanding of how the Sun influences our climate. Studies like this are vital for helping us to create a clear picture of how our climate is changing and through this, to work out how we can best protect our planet.”
The researchers used satellite data and computer modelling to analyse how the spectrum of radiation and the amount of energy from the Sun has been changing since 2004. Instruments on the SORCE satellite have been measuring the Sun’s energy output at many different wavelengths. The researchers fed the data from SORCE into an existing computer model of the Earth’s atmosphere and compared their results with the results obtained using earlier, less comprehensive, data on the solar spectrum.
For further information please contact:
Laura Gallagher
Research Media Relations Manager
Imperial College London
email: l.gallagher@imperial.ac.uk
Tel: +44(0)20 7594 8432
Out of hours duty press officer: +44(0)7803 886 248
Notes to editors:
1. “An influence of solar spectral variations on radiative forcing of climate” Nature, 7 October 2010
Corresponding author: J.D. Haigh, Imperial College London.
For full list of authors please see paper.
Download a copy of the study using this link: https://fileexchange.imperial.ac.uk/files/ed69e40f87b/SIMpaper_5.pdf
2. The SORCE satellite (Solar Radiation and Climate Experiment) is a NASA-sponsored satellite that is measuring incoming x-ray, ultraviolet, visible, near-infrared, and total solar radiation. The measurements from SORCE’s instruments will help us address long-term climate change, natural climate variability, enhanced climate prediction, atmospheric ozone and UV-B radiation.
Stratosphere/mesosphere. The stratosphere is a layer in the atmosphere that begins about 6-8km above the Earth’s surface and extends to an altitude of 50km. The mesosphere lies above the stratosphere and extends to an altitude of 95-120km.
3. The University of Colorado was founded in 1876 in Boulder and is nested in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. CU-Boulder is a national public research institution with an enrollment of more than 30,000 students, both undergraduates and graduates. The student population comes from all 50 American states and from more than 100 foreign countries.
4. About Imperial College London
Consistently rated amongst the world’s best universities, Imperial College London is a science-based institution with a reputation for excellence in teaching and research that attracts 14,000 students and 6,000 staff of the highest international quality. Innovative research at the College explores the interface between science, medicine, engineering and business, delivering practical solutions that improve quality of life and the environment – underpinned by a dynamic enterprise culture.
Since its foundation in 1907, Imperial’s contributions to society have included the discovery of penicillin, the development of holography and the foundations of fibre optics. This commitment to the application of research for the benefit of all continues today, with current focuses including interdisciplinary collaborations to improve global health, tackle climate change, develop sustainable sources of energy and address security challenges.
In 2007, Imperial College London and Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust formed the UK’s first Academic Health Science Centre. This unique partnership aims to improve the quality of life of patients and populations by taking new discoveries and translating them into new therapies as quickly as possible.
Website: www.imperial.ac.uk
WHO reviewed this paper?
Cool, flamboyant, nice, beautiful, intellectual, gays, free thinkers, artist, poets, nature lovers, charming atheists, Gaia lovers, haters of those nasty and decadent people who work for a living, sons and daughters of Mommy and Daddy, equally qualified and selected people; summarizing: “They”
Enneagram says:
October 7, 2010 at 7:40 am
the researchers behind the study believe it is possible that the inverse is also true —–
Ha, Ha!….then if we were at a Maunder like minimum the world will be set on fire!
The world would both freeze and be set on fire (freezer burn). Remember, the theme now is Climate Disruption.
This has been picked up by today’s Daily Express “SOLAR PROBE WARMS HOPES OF CLIMATE CHANGE SCEPTICS”
http://www.dailyexpress.co.uk/posts/view/203989/Solar-probe-warms-hopes-of-climate-change-sceptics
An interesting and common sense comment is my by Lord Monckton:-
“You really have to look at a much bigger time-scale, not just three years. But we know there’s a very close correlation between changes in temperature of the earth’s surface and solar activity.”
Lord Monckton added: “The conclusion this report comes to is consistent with the growing movement among solar physicists that the sun has a much greater effect on climate change than the straight-forward measurable changes in its output would lead us to suspect.”
The sun drives climate by many different energy transfer processes, which are inextricably to the Earth/Moon and the rest of the solar system. Climate is simply the long term average (200y) of our (poorly) observed weather and out comes depend on the inherent deterministic chaos which drives this complex, interlinked, turbulent system.
Piers Corbyn says: October 7, 2010 at 5:27 am
When I was a student and doing research in Imperial evidenced-based science WAS at the fore; now however it appears spin rules.
Hi Piers
I was doing applied acoustics there in the early 70s; to paraphrase old prof. Leventhal: ‘science is built on reasoning of an individual’, or something like that.
All you folks are thinking yourselves into a puddle of mush. The earth heats up when people get fat. Fat people absorb more solar energy than skinny people. The effect is multiplied when fat people wear dark clothing (typically black) which tends to camouflage their girth. Al Gore should be required to wear a white sheet during daylight hours.
Claude Harvey
“The Sun’s activity has recently affected the Earth’s atmosphere and climate in unexpected ways,…..”
So…according the way this article is written, this hasn’t happened before? Never? Ever?
As solar activity waned at the end of one of the Sun’s 11-year cycles, the new data show the amount of energy reaching the Earth at visible wavelengths rose rather than fell.
Well, the Sun has a much larger spectrum than merely “visible wavelengths”
BTW, this is a remarkable study which sheds light to the Sun-Earth relations:
Heliospheric magnetic field Vs earthquake
http://daltonsminima.altervista.org/?p=11690
Piers Corbyn says:
October 7, 2010 at 5:27 am
Thanks Philip Bratby (Oct 6 11.47pm).
Piers, you obviously don’t remember, but I was in the same physics year as you at Imperial (65 to 68).
Cheers, Phil
vukcevic says:
October 7, 2010 at 8:46 am
Leventhal: ‘science is built on reasoning of an individual’
[sarc on]That is quite an antidemocratic thought; wasn’t it that “folklore” is the wisdom of the masses. Wow!, you look like a retrograde conservative [sarc/off]
Really, information being a quantity cannot be democratically distributed.
Anthony,
Where you normally place things very well in perspective, to my knowledge, you make a mistake here in the intro. The article in New Scientist talks about the ways in which the sun’s activity affects the earth’s temperature. More activity gives higher temperatures. The new article in Nature is exactly the opposite. More activity gives lower temperatures on earth. The only thing that is the same in both articles is that prof Joanna D. Haigh is one of the authors. The new article will fuel the thoughts that the sun has played no role in the warming at the end of the last century and it is going around the globe now at record speed.
To me it is counter intuitive but it is quite a piece of independent thinking and as such worth more study.
Actually, the REAL trick here is to not measure sunspots or whatever, but SIMPLY measure sun’s intensity at ground level. This change could be soot, change in cloud cover, change orbit or yes a change in the sun’s output (it will not matter what changed, but just that you measure at ground level).
In the following short video, towards the end, this sun’s intensity issue is mentioned, and it leaves VERY little energy left over for co2. Taking just 35% of this intensity means IPCC numbers for co2 are off by 500%, and taking much above 40% leaves NO ROOM for man’s co2.
Measuring sun’s intensify at ground level is likely the key to this whole issue.
Measuring intensity at ground level is VERY much being avoided by mainstream climate scientists.
On one or two occasions in the past I questioned reconstruction of 10Be data.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/CET-McC.htm
Now I think I have for the first time good 10Be data for the Dalton minimum period (not aware of existence anywhere else!).
I am aware that this is going against accepted wisdom that the Dalton minimum was period of ‘very low’ solar activity. My permanent ‘adversary’ Dr. Svalgaard has for some time advocated the idea that this was not entirely correct. I found myself in an odd situation that now my own work indicates that he could be correct.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/SSN-Mc.htm
In the above graph, from the suspect McCracken data, by subtracting raw data for NAP (North Atlantic precursor, I mentioned on the WUWT before), I obtained 10Be graph which is relatively flat bar SC7, where there is a bit of a gap in my NAP data
p.s. I do not expect Dr.S’s agreement on this, let alone praise.
To me it is counter intuitive
Indeed it is in the Waddington sense,the darn observations are inverse to theory and allows legitimate lines of enquiry into the ability of both GCM and CCM to distinguish the so called signals of natural vaariability,and other forcings etc.
So how well did the Lean model perform.
http://i255.photobucket.com/albums/hh133/mataraka/simspectralobservation.jpg
I am awaiting , probably still this month just before the us mid-term elections the continuation of this study , more a political pamphlet that the sun is cooling earth , even as a joke it is making you cry , that all warming is due to increasing carbondioxide levels . Yeah , the sun would only help us freeze to death . So carbondioxide is so powerful that a new ice-age would be out of the question . Would not everybody be happy to hear this . The proven scientific discussion is starting to get real interesting nowadays .
vukcevic says: October 7, 2010 at 10:57 am
re:http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/SSN-Mc.htm
Dr. Svalgaard’s detailed response is here
vukcevic says:
October 7, 2010 at 11:32 am
Did you see this?:
Heliospheric magnetic field Vs earthquake
http://daltonsminima.altervista.org/?p=11690 🙂
Chris Wright says:
October 7, 2010 at 3:34 am
This is so bad as to be almost beyond parody. A huge body of evidence and scientific research shows that the world is warmer when the sun is more active. For example, Lockwood recently showed that when solar activity falls, temperatures on the Earth also fall (he used the 350 year CET record). And yet apparently 3 years of data trump all this. No doubt the period was carefully cherry-picked to give the desired answer.
Why? Because if a more active sun, as in the 20th Century, actually causes a cooling effect, then it means the warming effect of CO2 was even stronger than previously thought. This is a gift to AGW.
Sometimes I almost despair. It seems there’s no real evidence-based science anymore. It’s been replaced by propaganda.
Chris
It is well known that the UK education system has been dumbed down over recent years, I had not realised how dumbed down it had become.
Some contributors seem not to realise that the effect described is limited initially to the stratosphere and mesosphere.
The temperature of the entire climate system including the oceans and troposphere is not immediately affected and initially, if ocean cycles are favourable, the temperature of the troposphere may indeed move in the opposite direction to that of the stratosphere.
The real effect follows on some time later as the changed temperature at the tropopause changes air circulation positioning to shift the rest of the globe fitfully with many stops and starts between net warming and net cooling.
Because the oceans are so powerful the short term effects are small and chaotic. It takes a century or more for solar induced changes to become significant. Say 0.7C per century or whatever it is we have observed and even the bulk of that would be ocean induced. The ocean cycles seem to take 1000 to 1500 years as energy moves along the horizontal track of the thermohaline circulation.
Robuk says:
October 7, 2010 at 12:08 pm
This is a gift to AGW.. Yes this is. The truth is, as it has been pointed out many times here in WUWT, that cooling precisely began when there was the big 97-98 El Nino, just because that was energy being emitted from the warmer sea waters to the cooler atmosphere, and it has not stopped until now when we are at a La Nina, when it is suppose the cold sea waters are ready and prepared to be warmed up again, however, this time, we are having a Sun that apparently caught the AH1N1 virus and it is not strong enough to give us a decent El Nino after the next NH winter (SH summer to warm waters up).
Piers Corbyn was a very active Imperial College Students Union President when I was there 1969-71. I am quite disgusted to find that Imperial College now has a Climate Change research unit that seems to be a propaganda arm of the UK government. Now independent of London University, it used to be a world-renowned institution. Incidentally Brian Hoskins was mentioned quite freqently in Clinategate emails.
BTW: Culprits identified in worldwide honeybee die-off
…military scientists has pinpointed likely culprits: a fungus and a virus, both of which flourish in cool, wet environments
http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_upshot/20101007/od_yblog_upshot/culprit-identified-in-massive-worldwide-honeybee-die-off
What a load of tosh. It is a sign of desperation
Is it the case that all the current climate models contain provision for a climate forcing component for human CO2 and CFCs ?
I seem to recall that that was deemed necessary to explain the unexpected cooling of the stratosphere when the sun was more active.
Now it seems that Joanna has observed that a more active sun may be enough to cause the observed stratospheric cooling on it’s own, exactly as often proposed by me.
So every model must have the anthropogenic forcing assumptions stripped out, be recalibrated with the newly found solar effect and re run on that basis.
I think that is pretty devastating is it not ?
In one innocent sounding paper Joanna has removed the legs from under every current climate model and climate theory except mine.
Back to the drawing board chaps. No policy decisions are now possible in the light of this fundamental reordering.