Old, but untold. Trenberth treated us to a trick in his Halloween interview with Bill Sweet by changing the sign on his own most famous quote. As Trenberth now tells it:
One cherry-picked message saying we can’t account for current global warming and that this is a travesty went viral and got more than 100,000 hits online.
The email in question actually bemoaned how Trenberth couldn’t account for the LACK of global warming:
The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t.
Global warming… LACK of global warming. Hey, what’s the difference?
This is Trenberth’s answer to having his doubts exposed by the ClimateGate leak: just cover them back up. Pretend that the revealing email said the opposite of what it actually said and PROBLEM SOLVED. The guy’s a genius. No wonder he rose to the esteemed lead author position.
Of course he’s not fooling anyone who knows what he actually said. Add that lack of warming does have to do with the state of global warming, and most knowledgeable people will grant Trenberth the benefit of the doubt, but should they? Ignorant people will be fooled, and Trenberth has a habit of misleading the ignorant.
Here is Trenberth in a follow-up interview with Sweet (after Sweet was apparently inundated with comments and email calling Trenberth a liar and castigating Sweet for playing softball—yay WUWT):
Sweet: Can you say something about the widespread belief that solar activity somehow accounts for the temperature changes we’ve seen in recent decades?
Trenberth: That’s easily disproven. It’s nonsense. Since 1979 we’ve had spacecraft measuring total solar irradiance, and there’s been no change—if anything the sun has cooled slightly. There’s nothing in the record that indicates that the sun is responsible for any of the warming in this period.
Trenberth knows full well that “solar activity” refers primarily to solar-magnetic activity, which varies by an order of magnitude over the solar cycle, while total solar irradiance is almost invariant over the solar cycle (which is why it is called the solar constant). Does he really think he can disprove the theory that 20th century warming was caused by solar activity without looking at anything but the least active solar variable?
Again, the knowledgeable will not be fooled, but it is perfectly clear that Trenberth’s intent in this instance is to deceive the ignorant. He is also providing us with an example of what he was talking about in his original IEEE interview when he said:
Scientists almost always have to address problems in their data, exercising judgment about what might be defective and best disregarded.
That pesky data about solar-magnetic activity and earthly temperatures being highly correlated? (“The long term trends in solar data and in northern hemisphere temperatures have a correlation coefficient of about 0.7 – .8 at a 94% – 98% confidence level.”) “Best disregarded.”
And it is easily done. Just change out “solar activity” for the least active solar quantity and, voilà. As easy as replacing “lack of global warming” with “global warming.”
As J.R. Ewing put it, “once you give up integrity, the rest is easy.”
Any other “lumpies”? (Santa must have had anti-CO2 alarmists in mind when he chose coal for the bad. Like crosses for vampires.)
Trenbeth long ago emigrated from the world of science to the world of politics. He says what he thinks his political paymasters want him to say. And, if there is any doubt, he will play harder for his money.
Trenbeth is not a scientist; he is a man on the make. If he claims he is a scientist, he is a fraud!
And you can quote me on that.
I have no problem with his comment about solar activity. I haven’t been convinced either by any of the proposed mechanisms for solar influence in weather pattern variation change. The null hypothesis still stands, meaning that the theory of a constant sun is still king no matter what part is being measured.
But I do have problems with his back track on not being able to account for global warming, IE the missing heat signal, “at the moment”. Eventually he will have to back up that comment with hard data. He is treating the missing heat signal like a theory when it is still a hypothesis. The proper way to phrase the conundrum would be to stipulate a hypothesis: An anthropogenic CO2 heat signal is somewhere in the complex nature of weather pattern variation. The null hypothesis (IE theory) would be that this heat is not building up within the physical world around us and is instead being leaked out into space or is so small that it can’t be physically measured outside natural variation.
What is it these days with some Ph.D. types? Are they so enamored with their intellectual skill that any and every thing they think up gets to bypass go and jump to a theory? And just to be clear, I would say that about both sides of this discussion. Discernment seems lacking in many a brain engaged in this debate.
Alec Rawls: Your linked Usoskin et al paper is not a paper I would have expected to see used in a discussion of natural climate variability, since it concludes with the following paragraph: “Note that the most recent warming, since around 1975, has not been considered in the above correlations. During the last 30 years the solar total irradiance, solar UV irradiance and cosmic ray flux has not shown any significant secular trend, so that at least this most recent warming must have another source.”
The paper cited concerning long term solar trends backs up what Trenberth said. It says:
“Note that the most recent warming, since around 1975, has not been considered in the above correlations. During these last 30 years the solar total irradiance, solar UV irradiance and cosmic ray flux has not shown any significant secular trend, so that at least this most recent warming episode must have another source.”
Now consider those correlation figures again for pre-1975. Alarm bells should be ringing if solar activity correlates so well with temperature up until 1975 and then suddenly it diverges. What has increased a lot in the past few decades that could be the new driver? *cough* co2
Bob and Onion: thanks for bring up the qualifier in the Usoskin paper. It’s about time they withdrew it, don’t you think? That is exactly what Trenberth’s travail over the lack of warming is about. We have now had over a decade of level or falling temperatures, coinciding with the fall off in solar activity, just as the long term correlation between solar activity and temperature would lead us to expect.
Pamela: Do you have to be convinced by the proposed mechanisms for solar activity on climate to have a problem with Trenberth’s “proof” against them? He’s using the solar constant to represent solar activity!
Speaking of disregarding things, you seem to have disregarded the following statements from your very own reference:
So, in fact, this is totally inline with Trenberth’s statement “Since 1979 we’ve had spacecraft measuring total solar irradiance, and there’s been no change—if anything the sun has cooled slightly. There’s nothing in the record that indicates that the sun is responsible for any of the warming in this period.” In fact, it adds the additional information that other aspects of the solar radiation…its UV irradiance and the cosmic ray flux (due to the sun’s magnetic variations or what-have-you) haven’t shown a trend that could account for the temperature trend either.
So, yes, somebody might deserve a lump of coal in their stocking, but it doesn’t look like it is Trenberth!
Alec Rawls: Also regarding Usoskin et al (2005) you linked…
http://www.mps.mpg.de/dokumente/publikationen/solanki/c153.pdf
…one of the long-term Northern Hemisphere temperature reconstructions Usoskin et al used to correlate with their sunspot reconstruction was MBH99, a.k.a. Mann, Bradley, Hughes (1999) = the controversial Hockey Stick paper. The other paper is Mann and Jones (2003). In other words, Usoskin et al (2005) was prepared to substantiate the hockey sticks. Are you sure that Usoskin et al is the paper you want to use to contradict Trenberth’s statement?
Remember: It is perfectly acceptable for those that agree with Trenberth to cherry-pick anything they want, but the minute someone who does not agree with him cherry-picks something … well now, that is taking things out of context.
I hate hypocrisy. Politicians like Trenberth always play the morality card or the “taken out of context” card. This reminds me of games we played as kids where if the person in control starts to lose, the rules suddenly change. Well, people like Trenberth are in control and the rules change so that he and his cartel always win.
Alec,
I now see that you have responded to the fact that your paper completely destroys your thesis by a really weak comment. If you want to claim that the temperature trend since the mid-1970s correlates well with the solar variation then you will have to actually prove it graphically. Hint, this is the sort of curve you will be trying to correlate to: http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.A2.lrg.gif and, no, it doesn’t show a decade of level or falling temperatures. It shows a general upward trends with lots of short term variability, just like climate models forced with steadily-increasing greenhouse gases show.
it’s “western science”. some more gems in here, competing for some lumps of coal:
24 Dec: Nature: Quirin Schiermeier: The toughest job in the world?
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change seeks its first communications chief.
Now, the IPCC is looking for its very first Communications and Media Relations Programme Manager to help it avoid the pitfalls of the internet media age…
“In a world of rapid communication you cannot move at the speed of the slowest,” says Nick Nuttall, Spokesperson and Head of Media with the United Nations Environment Programme, which set up the IPCC in 1988 jointly with the World Meteorological Organization. The glacier affair didn’t need to become the feeding frenzy for the international media that it did, he says. “In scientific circles it had been known for months that something was badly wrong with the glacier claim. A skilled public-relations manager with a good network of relevant scientists could have nipped the problem in the bud before it burst on the scene, rather than having journalists claim a scoop,” says Nuttall…
“It will be a very challenging job,” says Michael Mann, a climate researcher at Penn State University in University Park. Critics “will be taking pot shots from the sidelines at every turn”.
“But the clearer we can be in communicating scientific knowledge, the harder it will be for professional climate-change deniers to manufacture false doubt, confusion and controversy”, he says. “It isn’t enough to just report the scientific findings. We need to strive to do so in a way that makes them accessible to the person on the street.”…
(Nuttall) Given that the IPCC is often perceived as being ‘western science’, it will be essential to look at candidates from a developing country – although in the end it is the best person for the job that should be selected, he says…
http://www.nature.com/news/2010/101224/full/news.2010.692.html
onion says:
“What has increased a lot in the past few decades that could be the new driver? *cough* co2”
Other than climate grant money, enviro-fascism and the ego of the climate cult?
Well, this chart my give some clue:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:800px-Sunspot_butterfly_with_graph.gif
I find it amusing when people expect it to correlate exactly to temperature since these same climate scientists have for years said that heat is would be trapped in the ocean causing a lag in the atmosphere temperature readings. Why couldn’t that lag have been from the increasing solar activity since the end of the LIA? Combine that with measurement error, measurement bias, changing measurement methods and you may have a winner.
Perhaps you can also explain to me why temperature went down from 1940 to 1970 even though CO2 was increasing? Sulfates you say? Well then why hasn’t there been a significant rise in temperature in the past 10 years even though CO2 has been going up?
I think you’ll find that the temperature changing track much better with the oceanic cycles than they do with CO2. The problem is that the global warming nuts like Trenberth keep on changing their stories and coming up with new excuses because their various theories don’t hold water – instead they have to dazzle people with increasing levels of bullshit.
Anyway, thanks for the article Alec, this is the sort of thing that interests me.
Lump of Coal! Nonsense, he gets nothing or perhaps some poorly composted dung. Us coal geologists take offense. Coal gets a bad and not well deserved rap but this is too much. Has it ever occurred to anyone that the real lump of coal given by Cinter Clause (hope I spelled that correctly, my Dutch is poor to questionable) had real value, since it was the only portable fuel available when that story was written. And as I recall winter in the Netherlands in those days was cold with snow and frozen canals. Coal kept the dwellings at least habitable. He gets nothing of value for being a bad boy.
Bob: There are of course many other articles I could cite on the correlation between solar activity and climate. Two leading alarmists, Mike Lockwood and Claus Frohlich, began a 2007 paper by acknowledging that, “[t]here is considerable evidence for solar influence on the Earth’s pre-industrial climate,” citing 17 papers to this effect. Take your pick.
The point is, the long term correlation between solar acivity and climate is a very well documented phenomenon, and all the warmists are fully aware of it (the warmist climatologists at least, who are busy duping their followers).
In 2009 Frolich repeated the Usoskin et al. claim that the most recent solar-activity/climate data (post 1985 in his case) diverges from the long term correlation. Surely you agree that this dodge is no longer tenable (and wasn’t last year when he made it).
12 years with no warming. Where is the inexplicable warming that these people are talking about? There isn’t any. And we have a dramatic fall off in solar activity that CAN explain the end of post 1980 warming. The correlation is a textbook. The claim that the solar activity explanation is inconsistent with the latest data is just a lie.
Sun Oddly Quiet — Hints at Next “Little Ice Age”?
May 4, 2009
National Geographic News
… The sun is the least active it’s been in decades and the dimmest in a hundred years. The lull is causing some scientists to recall the Little Ice Age, an unusual cold spell in Europe and North America, which lasted from about 1300 to 1850. The coldest period of the Little Ice Age, between 1645 and 1715, has been linked to a deep dip in solar storms known as the Maunder Minimum.
During that time, access to Greenland was largely cut off by ice, and canals in Holland routinely froze solid. Glaciers in the Alps engulfed whole villages, and sea ice increased so much that no open water flowed around Iceland in the year 1695.
But researchers are on guard against their concerns about a new cold snap being misinterpreted.
“[Global warming] skeptics tend to leap forward,” said Mike Lockwood, a solar terrestrial physicist at the University of Southampton in the U.K.
He and other researchers are therefore engaged in what they call “preemptive denial” of a solar minimum leading to global cooling.
===========================
Quiet sun puts Europe on ice
04 May 2010
NewScientist
BRACE yourself for more winters like the last one, northern Europe. Freezing conditions could become more likely: winter temperatures may even plummet to depths last seen at the end of the 17th century, a time known as the Little Ice Age. That’s the message from a new study that identifies a compelling link between solar activity and winter temperatures in northern Europe.
The research finds that low solar activity promotes the formation of giant kinks in the jet stream. These kinks can block warm westerly winds from reaching Europe, while allowing in winds from Arctic Siberia. When this happens in winter, northern Europe freezes, even though other, comparable regions of the globe may be experiencing unusually mild conditions.
Mike Lockwood at the University of Reading in the UK began his investigation because these past two relatively cold British winters coincided with a lapse in the sun’s activity more profound than …
===========================
From preemptive denier to solar advocate in a year.
Of course the effects are not limited to Europe, as Mike would like.
Just an update;
Below are some of my latest thoughts on what is driving the weather and climate.
All of the universe affects the rest of it, it all sits in a bowl of gravitational and magnetically driven mass of ions and regular atoms, that respond to the basic physics detailing the “normal rules or laws”. To think that there are voltages or ions that move with out magnetic fields attached violates first principals. The magnetically permeable inductive components of planetary bodies are susceptible to Ohms laws, and Maxwells power equations apply to the full spectrum of from DC to most energetic particle seen.
So we should be able to calculate forces at work when planets have synod conjunctions, by determining the shifts of flux of the magnetic fields, with the shifting density and speed of the solar wind. When the Ulysses satellite was on polar orbit of the sun “they were amazed that the patterns usually seen in the solar wind were still there, but also much stronger than they expected by several orders of magnitude.” To me this means that the main crux of magnetic connections between the planets is in the normal distribution of concentrations at the poles/apexes of lab magnets and the large sweeping fields are weakest along the circumference, neutral current sheet, or equatorial regions, and also not only flowing with the neutral sheet of the solar wind but focus concentrations down onto the poles of the planets, as evidenced by the polar Auroral displays from the much larger loops further off of the ecliptic plane.
The galactic magnet fields are also influenced by basic rules of action as well, which leads me to the conclusion that the interactions of the composite system from the rotation of the Galaxy, and the declinational movement of the solar system in that larger frame of reference, as well as the density waves that propagate around driving the spiral arm flux variances give rise to the longer cyclic term climatology of the Earth. Some have been found, other underlying cycles that as yet we do not have their specific drivers identified. (back to this point later)
The heliopause seems to have auroral knotted bands (recently spotted ribbons of ion activity) on its leading side as it progresses through the interstellar gases and dust clouds, the solar system passes through in its travels. I think that this is due to the conductance of the galactic fields into or through the heliopause, coupling through the polar regions of the sun and planets, at near equilibrium, or the balance felt as steering currents in the slow transition of the orbital slowing and swaying of the solar system as it winds its way through the gravitational and radiation gauntlet, shoved around ever so slowly by the rest of the individual stars.
So then as a result the makeup of the planetary interaction periods have become some what stable, and have formed harmonic coupled interactions between themselves, and the non-random long term slower periods. Not much is said about the tilt of the magnetic poles, of most of the planets and the sun from their spin axes. I think even this has something to add about long term climate effects. In the common hospital use of MRI scanners, the magnetic induction pulses are used to flip atomic spin axes in line with the dense fields momentarily formed with pulse current on, and watching the return to ambient spin axes when current goes off. (back to this point later) If people have learned to control the effects would not they also occur in nature if they are so predictable? If you apply the calculations with the right power increase needed to satisfy the balance of the equation, the same effects should occur with reference to stars and planets.
If all of the planets and the sun are running along, in near balance with changes in outlying fluxes upon the solar system, disruptions in the periodic patterns should be minimal, with much greater stability being found in the harmonic patterns in the interactions between the planets of the solar system, as a result milder climate with less wild extremes would dominate at times of stability.
Currently the magnetic poles of the sun are running ~12 degrees off of its vertical axes of rotation, with a period of rotation of 27.32 days, as a result the Earth and Moon themselves move above and below the ecliptic plane alternately, while the system barycenter scribes a smooth ellipse responding to the gravitational and tidal tugs of the outer planets as we pass them almost every 12 months plus a few days. The resultant periodic 27.32 day flux of the polarity of the solar wind as it passes the Earth creates and drives the declinational swings North and South in the two bodies, as a giant pulsed oscillator circuit, dampened by the tidal drag of the fluidity of the various parts of the Earth, small solid core, outer liquid core, fluid mantel, and fragmented floating crust, that is itself creeping along tectonically in response to the dance of the combination of the additions of the other planetary tidal, gravitational, and electromagnetic induction fluxes that keep the inner fluids warm.
The further off of vertical, and/or the stronger the total magnetic flux of the sun’s magnetic poles, the more energy available to be driven into the lunar declinational cycle balanced by the tidal dampening into the Earth, hence the greater the solar magnetic impulse input the greater the resultant tectonic turmoil, the more extreme the weather and climate. The weaker the magnetic fields of the sun relative to the near DC fields of the galactic background levels, and the more vertical the magnetic fields of the sun the less energy gets driven into the lunar declinational movement and resultant tidal dampening energy into the Earth.
As the spin axes and magnetic axes of the sun approach straight on alignment, the whole declinational drive component of the Moon orbital dynamic decreases, to maybe as little as a degrees either side of the ecliptic plane, changing to a more synergistic combination of the solar and lunar tidal effects at an angle of 23.5 +/_.5 referenced to the equator, keeping the atmospheric global circulation in the kind of high turbulence blocking pattern, sort of weather we have been having the past two years and the next two as well. When continued past the normal length of time (about 3 years on the down and up side) in the 18.6 year variation of the mechanism of transport of equatorial heat towards the poles, stalled in the most active section of atmospheric lunar tidal effects, coupled in sync to the solar tides as well, the long term trend then becomes a constant la nina, and an ice age sets in.
Just as in MRI scanning the initial pulsed spin flip is nearly instantaneous, and does not seem to affect the covalent bonds the atoms are part of, so maybe the solar magnetic orientation to polar axes of rotation, flip is hardly noticeable over 100 years or less, just as the wandering of the Earth’s magnetic field pole positions are hardly noticed by the public. The ongoing dampening of the tidal movement of the lunar declinational extent at culmination would regulate the dropping rate due to actual amount of tidal dampening load transferred to the Earth. As the declination off of the ecliptic plane drive energy lessens and becomes slowly coupled out by tidal inter action, and the Lunar orbital diameter expanded to compensate slightly. This would explain the rapid onset of ice ages, and then the re-flip to off axes solar magnetic polar alignment, renew the declinational driver system again and cause the pulsation type exit usually seen from ice ages.
The short term inter ice age, realistic application of these ideas is in the much more recent history (due to short instrument records) of the past three to five maybe (Ulric Lyons says 10 cycles works best because it = the 178.8 year Landschmidt(sp) cycle period.) Can be assembled in composite maps that use the 6558 day period of 240 declinational periods that shows analog synchronization of the inner planet harmonic effects on the weather, from just the past three cycles as seen on the daily maps here.
http://www.aerology.com/national.aspx
The problem left is that the outer planet have a set of harmonics of their own that induce the 178.8 years envelope on the 18.6 year mn cycle pattern that have in turn a finer 27.32 day oscillation imposed, so the complete long period of compounded modulation is as Ulric Lyons suggests 178.8 years long as Landschmiedt (sp) was on about with the effects of the outer planetary returns driving the solar sunspot cycles due to SS Barycenter displacement due to Uranus Neptune synod conjunctions. The available data base gets extremely thin out 178.8 year ago. Due to data limitations, I have so far stayed with just the last three cycles of 6558 days or ~18.3 years.
On April 20th of 1993 we had the most recent synod conjunction of Neptune and Uranus, which the Earth passed on July 12th of 1993, presenting as an epic precipitation surge globally with heavy rains through the summer and massive flooding of several river system around the world. It is my contention that the increase in magnetic couplings through the polar magnetic field connections induces a homopolar generator charge increase at these times and a quick global discharge just after synod conjunction. The results of these increases in pole to equator charge increases drives positive ions off of the sea surface along the ITCZ, where by mutual static repulsion of the condensation nuclei inhibits cloud formation and precipitation, and at the same time allows more SW radiation to reach the tropical sea and land surfaces promoting rapid warming driving ENSO extremes, with the rapid precipitation that results on the global discharge side, post synod conjunction, also leaving clearer skies for additional warming after the flooding subsides.
The lunar declination phase of the 18.6 year mn cycle was in an increasing through 23.5 degree culmination angle at the same time, being in phase with the temperature increases. By early 2005 the declinational angle at culminations was at its peak extreme, and the distance between Uranus and Neptune was separating again to about 29 days apart August 8th of 2005 for synod of Earth and Neptune and September 1st of 2005 for synod conjunction of Earth and Uranus. The Southeast gulf coast was ravaged by Katrina and Rita as a direct result of these influences. Combining with the 27.32 day period lunar declinational tides culminations they rode in on, to produce the storm intensity that resulted.
As the outer planets Neptune and Uranus continued to separate and the declinational angle shifted past peak angle at culmination the resultant peak warming period shifted further into the late Summer and now is in the Fall in 2010. The reason I think the last season 2010 was so active but not as powerful in ACE production as 2005 was due to the addition of Jupiter in Synod conjunction on April 3rd in 2005 kicking things off, and on the 21st of September 2010 with Uranus on the same day, creating a late fast finish in 2010. But having a half hearted start of a season in 2010 as a result of the difference.
Over all the whole period of the close Neptune and Uranus synods in the mid to late summer allowed the extra clearing of clouds and resultant heating the last 15 years of the SST and ENSO intensity periods, CO2 just was in the air along for the ride. This is all part of the 60 year patterns in the weather cycles, and can be explained as such. Now that the outer planet synod conjunctions of the Earth with Neptune and Uranus are moving into the fall and early winter, we can expect them to produce the increased snowfall events and cold polar blasts being seen in both hemispheres.
With the investigation of these methods of predicting the extreme effects of the weather patterns they produce, long range forecasts for both weather and climate will become possible. I am betting my life savings and the rest of the creative efforts of my life time on it.
^ This new stuff I have been keeping to myself mostly, the rest of the inner planet and lunar interactions is posted to my research blog side of the http://www.aerology.com site.
Richard Holle, still expanding and organizing better……
The “no trend in solar activity since 1979” argument is nonsense. At that time it had already increased to a very high level and stayed there. As long the Sun was contributing extra energy to the Earth’s climate, the temperature would still rise until it reached equilibrium. When I put a pot of water on my stove I don’t have to constantly increase the temperature of the burner to get the water to boil. All I have to do is set it at a high enough level so that it increases the temperature of the water.
The Sun was contributing at least 0.5-1 extra watt per square meter for 50 years. The result was that the Earth warmed by about 2/10ths of a percent during that time. Is there anything surprising about that?
In Scotland there is a tradition of taking a lump of coal with you while New Year ‘first footing’. Mind you, we are usually pissed at the time…
A question for all the solar boffins: We are now on the 9th consecutive sunspot-free day. Is this unusual so far in to a solar cycle?
Doesn’t anyone have an account over there so they can leave a comment pointing out his dissembling?
Dennis Nikols, P. Geol. says: “Cinter Clause”
December 24, 2010 at 8:13 pm
Close. But . . .
The tradition of gift-giving from early christian times is attributed to the Greek Bishop, Nikolaos of Myra, part of modern-day Turkey. Other groups have different stories. But Nikolaos morphed into Saint Nicholas who the Dutch changed somewhat and named Sinterklass, a secretive night time giver of presents.
. . . only portable fuel available when that story was written . . .
I believe the Greek Bishop went around and placed good things (?), likely not coal, in shoes left outside for the purpose.
“And the Grinch thought up a lie, and he thought it up quick.” as he was preparing to steal the Christmas tree.
I try not to miss any opportunity to offer up the other Trenberth gem from the same Climategate thread:
“How come you do not agree with a statement that says we are no where close to knowing where energy is going or whether clouds are changing to make the planet brighter. We are not close to balancing the energy budget. The fact that we can not account for what is happening in the climate system makes any consideration of geoengineering quite hopeless as we will never be able to tell if it is successful or not! It is a travesty!”
Thanks Kev. The words “robust” and “unequivocal” come to mind when I think of you. Merry Christmas, and as always, Cheers!
Jimmy Haigh says:
December 24, 2010 at 9:02 pm
A question for all the solar boffins: We are now on the 9th consecutive sunspot-free day. Is this unusual so far in to a solar cycle?
Yes, and the further into the cycle you go, the more unusual it gets.
It’s a matter of degree of unusual, so open up a can of adverbs. You’ll need ’em.
Such solar behavior is highly erratic and chaotic.
SC24 is about to crash, and that is my personal outlook on where it’s headed.
No wonder he rose to the esteemed lead author position.
Nice! 🙂
Does he really think he can disprove the theory that 20th century warming was caused by solar activity without looking at anything but the least active solar variable?
After 22 years of bad science is it a big step to take to do that? Sure he can.
Any other “lumpies”?
Whoever it is (we could never know the names, 😉 ) at GISS that is calling 2010 the hottest year ever. Do they (whoever they are) really think people will believe it?
All very interesting, indeed. But please people, let’s not forget the short term goal of our conversation, which is to debunk the phony “hypothesis,” that all of this is due to mankind’s “overproduction” of CO2. Let’s focus on demolishing that piece of leftist propaganda and get on with making this a better world.
Then we can consider more serious conversations about what is actually going on. But if we fail to get that one thing done, there is no possibility whatever that the “conversation” will ever become remotely rational. There has been no evidence presented here, or elsewhere, that increasing CO2 (which is a measurable datum) is in any way connected to the slow increase in world temperature which has been taking place since the start of the continuing recovery from the LIA.
Focus on facts. The current Winter is perfectly consistent with the 60-or so- year cycle that has charcterized Earth’s climate since records began to be collected in the mid-19th Century. Patience is, indeed, a virtue. Stay on the political meme and dislodge the ‘conventional’ wisdom by continuing to point out the divergence between the ‘models’ and empirical reality; that will win this argument over the long haul, which it surely will be.
Merry Whatever to the AGW folk, and Merry Christmas to everyone else. L
Notice the central plank of the latest CAGW perversion of reason and scientific method rests on ‘the continued melting of the Arctic sea ice’?
The latest contortion already being pimped in the MSM states that colder winters are caused by a melting Arctic and that once the Arctic sea ice has melted away then global warming will really take off. It took a while for the stooge MSM to get the latest cover story up and running but now they have the full script handed down we can see the strategy, of course if the sea ice doesnt want to play then all they have achieved is a temporary reprieve but even that will allow the next grant cheque to fall from the warming skies.
The obvious problem with this short term stop gap excuse will be the Arctic sea ice recovery, for this latest theory to be correct then sea ice levels will decline next summer to below 2007 levels. If sea ice levels exceed 2007/8/9/10 then the theory of melting sea ice causing freezing winters will be disproved, the cultists can hardly explain away both sea ice recovery and a return to cold snowy winters with global warming can they? Er, yes they probably will try.
A theory that is being shown to be false time after time and a scientific community using ever more fantastical excuses as to why the theory is still valid, you have to wonder at their determination to deny or at least postpone the final reckoning.
Record cold and record snow this winter? You just wait until the Arctic sea ice has melted away then global warming will really take off and if you believe that then there really is no hope at all is there?
Thanks for an informative post Alex.
Trenberth has been shown to be a stick in the mud when it comes to credibility, and this article is no exception.
thegoodlocust said
“I find it amusing when people expect it to correlate exactly to temperature since these same climate scientists have for years said that heat is would be trapped in the ocean causing a lag in the atmosphere temperature readings. Why couldn’t that lag have been from the increasing solar activity since the end of the LIA?”
Excellent point. I was wondering about that myself. If the rise in CO2 is responsible for the minor rise in tempature, ( about .8) then we should see a rise of tempature AFTER a rise in CO2. The atmosphere would take time to correspond to the rise in CO2, it wouldnt be an instant factor.
Take a fireplace, for example.
You light it, and does it go straight into a massive maxed-out flame? No, it slowly warms up until it reaches its desired heat.
The Earth is the same way. You wont see an instant rise of temp. right alongside CO2. Thats something the warmists dont want to admit. Also, like you said, there was a decrease as well in the 40’s to 70’s, which caused holy hell on agriculture and farming at the time which was related to colder then ususal winters and summers. This destroys the warmists own arguements.
And Richard Holle,
Very thorough post on magnetic field activity. A friend of mine recently proposed the idea that changes in the magentic field have caused the warming as well. This post helps understand the mechanisms of the solar system’s relation to the Earth. Thanks.
Roughly 92.8% (1,041.6 million short tons) of total U.S. coal consumption (1,121.7 million short tons) was used for electricity production at 22 major coal-fired power plants in 2008, the last year for which complete figures are available.
3/19/2010 7:18:44 AM | Larry D. Spears, Money Morning
The problem is coal. It is cheap. It is everywhere. $100 worth of coal buys you 20 million BTU. The thermal equivalent of 100 human slaves working for you for a month, give or take efficiency losses. 100 slaves for $100 a month. In Roman times only a king could afford such luxury. We can’t let this continue. Only the rich and powerful should enjoy such affluence. It is wasted on the average man. We need to ban coal right away and switch to electricity.
First, 1975-2005 warming has been caused by oceans. Second, there is still that ACRIM vs PMOD conflict.
“……As J.R. Ewing put it, “once you give up integrity, the rest is easy.””
An even better quote:-
(stolen from “Aurelian” on http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/)
“I believe it was the late, great Bob Monkhouse who joked: “If you can fake the sincerity, the rest is easy.”
(Quoted in “Gordon Brown”, by Tom Bower, p264)”
Seems to have been created with Trenberth in mind……
PhDs invariably go from a Bachelor of Science (honours) to a PhD. Where have they ever learned to read Science papers in general along this path? Their PhD has them focused on the subject of the PhD. Outside of this focus they are scientifically ignorant. A lovely American saying is “Professor in the class, ignorant on the bus” . This saying must have been conjured up with PhDs in mind. I have never yet met a PhD student who could hold a decent scientific conversation outside of their subject unless they were a rare renaissance man (or woman).
Trenberth: That’s easily disproven. It’s nonsense. Since 1979 we’ve had spacecraft measuring total solar irradiance, and there’s been no change—if anything the sun has cooled slightly. There’s nothing in the record that indicates that the sun is responsible for any of the warming in this period.
Of course, recent scientific measurements are putting a crimp in the “solar constant” theory, as noted in a previous article:
“SORCE’s Solar Spectral Surprise – UV declined, TSI constant”
The “solar constant” may not be changing, but they’re finding changes in the spectrum (especially in the UV range). THERE’S where the changes in warming may be coming from.
Alec Rawls says: “Bob: There are of course many other articles I could cite on the correlation between solar activity and climate. Two leading alarmists, Mike Lockwood and Claus Frohlich, began a 2007 paper by acknowledging that, ‘[t]here is considerable evidence for solar influence on the Earth’s pre-industrial climate,’ citing 17 papers to this effect. Take your pick.”
And the conclusion of Lockwood and Frohlich reads: “There are many interesting palaeoclimate studies that suggest that solar variability had an influence on pre-industrial climate. There are also some detection–attribution studies using global climate models that suggest there was a detectable influence of solar variability in the first half of the twentieth century and that the solar radiative forcing variations were amplified by some mechanism that is, as yet, unknown. However, these findings are not relevant to any debates about modern climate change. Our results show that the observed rapid rise in global mean temperatures seen after 1985 cannot be ascribed to solar variability, whichever of the mechanisms is invoked and no matter how much the solar variation is amplified.”
Again, your reference promotes Anthropogenic Global Warming. That’s two so far.
And your belief that solar variations drive centennial scale global temperatures also contradicts the findings of Leif Svalgaard.
You wrote, “12 years with no warming. Where is the inexplicable warming that these people are talking about? There isn’t any.”
What surface temperature dataset are you referring to? The linear trends of HADCRUT (0.106 deg C/ decade), GISTEMP LOTI (0.205 deg C/decade), and NCDC (0.126 deg C/decade) for the past 12 years are all positive:
http://i54.tinypic.com/2ecjb7b.jpg
And based on the solar-global temperature link you’re promoting, the trends in global surface temperatures for the past 12 years should be the opposite sign (-0.093 deg C/decade):
http://i55.tinypic.com/1zya7mg.jpg
You’ve cited papers that promote AGW, and your arguments are not supported by data, Alec.
Trenberth: “That’s easily disproven. It’s nonsense. Since 1979 we’ve had spacecraft measuring total solar irradiance, and there’s been no change—if anything the sun has cooled slightly. >>>>>There’s nothing in the record that indicates that the sun is responsible for any of the warming in this period.”<<<<>>length.<<<
————
4…….20 PERCENT INCREASE IN VOLCANIC ACTIVITY CAUSED BY SOLAR WIND MAGNETIC INTERACTION WITH EARTH'S MAGNETIC FIELD .
There's some to start with for Mr Trenberth and a few others!
Trenberth: “That’s easily disproven. It’s nonsense. Since 1979 we’ve had spacecraft measuring total solar irradiance, and there’s been no change—if anything the sun has cooled slightly. >>>>>There’s nothing in the record that indicates that the sun is responsible for any of the warming in this period.”<<<<>>length.<<<
————
4…….20 PERCENT INCREASE IN VOLCANIC ACTIVITY CAUSED BY SOLAR WIND MAGNETIC INTERACTION WITH EARTH'S MAGNETIC FIELD .
There's some to start with for Mr Trenberth and a few others!
>> Kwhar
>> The sun is the least active it’s been in decades and the dimmest in a
>> hundred years.
Sun least active in 100 years.
Britain coldest December in 100 years.
Hmmmmm….
.
What has appalled me, and continues to appall me is the total lack of intellectual curiosity in the journalistic professions. What we need is a few sciency journos that would act a bit more like Jeremy Paxman ….. a terrier with bone ….. why couldn’t this guy “Sweet” have just said ” … but actually Kenneth – didn’t the original e-mail say ‘we can’t account for the LACK of warming’ ” And that would be the end of it.
Its not difficult … it just requires them to be a bit curious and a bit skeptical.
onion:
Now consider those correlation figures again for pre-1975. Alarm bells should be ringing if solar activity correlates so well with temperature up until 1975 and then suddenly it diverges. What has increased a lot in the past few decades that could be the new driver? *cough* co2
So we have one more “divergence problem” in addition to the well known tree-ring problem. If sunspots and tree-rings mostly agree and both disagree with GATA, then there is a problem with surface temperature record. NASA told us recently about up to 9 degrees UHI effect, maybe this is the source of both “divergence problems.”
onion says:
December 24, 2010 at 6:25 pm
What has increased a lot in the past few decades that could be the new driver? *cough* co2
CO2 has a lower specific heat capacity than O2 and N2: http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/spesific-heat-capacity-gases-d_159.html
It has been claimed that this means that it takes less energy to heat CO2 than it does O2 and N2, which, if these three substance were considered in isolation would be a valid point. But in the Earths atmosphere are are not in isolation.
In the atmosphere they are mixed. The true effect is that the gas with the lowest specific heat capacity, CO2 @ 0.0385% is forced into thermal equilibrium by the gases O2 and N2 @ 99%. The result being that in our environment (in the actual real testable world of reality) CO2 takes longer to warm and yet cools faster than both O2 and N2.
Therefore the effect of adding more CO2 to the atmosphere is the exact opposite of that claim by AGW fraudsters. More CO2 = Cooling.
I have demonstrated this fact with simple easily reproducible £3.50 experiments here: http://www.spinonthat.com/CO2_files/The_Diurnal_Bulge_and_the_Fallacies_of_the_Greenhouse_Effect.html
After more than 1 year I am still waiting for these experiments to be falsified by the AGW fraudsters. . . . . . still no takers!
Where are your genuine experiments demonstrating the heat trapping/temperature increasing properties of CO2 onion,
James Hansen, Phil Jones, Micheal Mann, Kevin Trenberth, Al Gore, Kieth Briffa, Gavin A. Schmidt, Andrew Watson, Rajendra K. Pachauri, David Viner, Vicky Pope, Lisa Jackson, Barrack Obama, Chris Hune, Ed Milliband, David Cameron, Prince Charles, David Meyer de Rothschild????
I am still waiting!
Merry Christmas to all genuine sceptics around the world.
Keep up the fight and beware of the ‘gate-keepers’.
@joel
Maybe that’s not the best graph to correlate to Joel:
http://cbullitt.wordpress.com/2010/09/25/all-your-agw-are-belong-to-us/
Do you have some info on the adjustments done to help clarify?
04 May 2010
New Scientist
Sorry, I nearly fell over while reading this post. New Scientist saying something not connected with CO2 and AGW !!
Either there is some mistake, or the worm has indeed turned. The para-military wing of Greenpeace saying something heretical about AGW?? Build a pyre immediately. Strap the editor to it!!
.
@Pamela Gray says:
December 24, 2010 at 5:48 pm
“..a constant sun is still king no matter what part is being measured..”
Plasma speed/temperature ?
@richard Holle says:
December 24, 2010 at 8:51 pm
179.05yrs. Its a useful look-back, but for good reasons conditions do not always repeat, eg 1814-1993.
‘Course there’s those pesky notes on the HADCRUT program about applying very artificial corrections for decline. Then there’s the horrible state the majority of the land based temperature monitoring stations have been allowed to get into.
Combine bad data collecting with bad computer programming and a bad ‘scientific’ process of skipping hypothesis and theorem straight to “fact”, well that gets you HADCRUT, GISTEMP, sampling of a couple of dozen Siberian trees with only ONE of them exhibiting a pattern of increasing growth… and all the rest of the quite easily debunked garbage, which is even easier to debunk with its proponents own words and program code and the rest of the CRU documents.
I’m a bit worried that people are jumping to conclusions that low sun spot numbers necessarily equal lower temperatures. This is a bit like climate scientists assuming rising C02 equals warming. We have two historical periods of low sun spot activity, the Daulton and Maunder minimums, but these are not the only times when global temperatures plunged – or can anyone prove otherwise? Might opaque skies be an under rated feature of the 17th century?
Re Will
December 25, 2010 at 3:18 am:
Those are interesting points Will but I am afraid I am no physics expert by a longshot and can’t really discuss details like that in any depth. I do though find it hard to reconcile why so many experts would think CO2 is a greenhouse gas if it was clear that it should have a cooling effect. I had thought radiation is the issue rather than heat capacity, not sure where heat capacity fits in.
Re Allan Kiik:
December 25, 2010 at 3:12 am
“So we have one more “divergence problem” in addition to the well known tree-ring problem. If sunspots and tree-rings mostly agree and both disagree with GATA, then there is a problem with surface temperature record. NASA told us recently about up to 9 degrees UHI effect, maybe this is the source of both “divergence problems.””
That’s a good connection you’ve made but if that was the case I would have thought the satellite record would have backed up the tree rings rather than the GATA. The satellite record isn’t affected by UHI so I wouldn’t expect the question to be entirely solvable with UHI.
Interesting paper to choose. So a reconstruction of past solar agrees with a reconstruction of past temperatures that uses questionable proxies and questionable statistical methodology. What the hell, let’s break out the Lean et al. 2000 TSI recon! It had nice peaks and valleys. It was wrong, but it looked good! 🙂
onion says:
December 24, 2010 at 6:25 pm
The paper cited concerning long term solar trends backs up what Trenberth said. It says:
“Note that the most recent warming, since around 1975, has not been considered in the above correlations. During these last 30 years the solar total irradiance, solar UV irradiance and cosmic ray flux has not shown any significant secular trend, so that at least this most recent warming episode must have another source.”
Now consider those correlation figures again for pre-1975. Alarm bells should be ringing if solar activity correlates so well with temperature up until 1975 and then suddenly it diverges. What has increased a lot in the past few decades that could be the new driver? *cough* co2
Cough, a ramp up of TSI from 1900 then a steady high from 1940.
Realclimate
Did the Sun hit record highs over the last few decades?
Alec Rawls says:
10 August 2005 at 2:04 AM
Nice post, but the conclusion: “… solar activity has not increased since the 1950s and is therefore unlikely to be able to explain the recent warming,” would seem to be a non-sequitur.
What matters is not the trend in solar activity but the LEVEL. It does not have to KEEP going up to be a possible cause of warming. It just has to be high, and it has been since the forties.
Presumably you are looking at the modest drop in temperature in the fifties and sixties as inconsistent with a simple solar warming explanation, but it doesn’t have to be simple. Earth has heat sinks that could lead to measured effects being delayed, and other forcings may also be involved. The best evidence for causality would seem to be the long term correlations between solar activity and temperature change. Despite the differences between the different proxies for solar activity, isn’t the overall picture one of long term correlation to temperature?
[Response: You are correct in that you would expect a lag, however, the response to an increase to a steady level of forcing is a lagged increase in temperature and then a asymptotic relaxation to the eventual equilibirum. This is not what is seen. In fact, the rate of temperature increase is rising, and that is only compatible with a continuing increase in the forcing, i.e. from greenhouse gases. – gavin]
===========================================================
http://i446.photobucket.com/albums/qq187/bobclive/reconstructedTSI.jpg
http://i446.photobucket.com/albums/qq187/bobclive/irradiance.gif
For me, the evidence above is clear, a ramp up of TSI from around 1900 and then a steady high from 1940 to 2000 leading to the slightly higher temperatures we see today, no room for CO2.
Sun spots or the lack of them are just the visual marker of an active or less active sun which correlate well with temperature trends here on earth. In fact it is hard to find a better correlation between two variables.
Gavins response is utter rubbish if the two graphs above are correct.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/08/did-the-sun-hit-record-highs-over-the-last-few-decades/
The above comments confirm that in the minds of AGW proponents and also in the minds of some single issue enthusiasts like Bob Tisdale (ENSO) and Leif Svalgaard (Solar) the sun cannot have caused the warming climate observed during the late 20th century either directly or indirectly.
A point made by me many times and by others in the above comments is that if the sun is at a historically high level of activity then of course warming will continue to a new equilibrium even if in the meantime there is a small downward trend in solar activity. That will take time, about 50 years as it happens involving all the high cycles 17 to 23 (with a slight pause for cycle 20 which was a little lower) and modulated by ocean cycles throughout.
On that basis all protestations of a so called divergence between climate and solar activity levels are utter nonsense.
My most popular article dealt with that very point long ago and I have no reason to revise it:
http://climaterealists.com/index.php?id=1396&linkbox=true&position=1
“The Death Blow To Anthropogenic Global Warming”.
Of course at some point sun and climate need to be seen to come back into line and the recent large and sudden decline in solar activity levels is a godsend in that respect albeit very dangerous for many if it continues.
I think we can safely say that the recent period of rising ocean heat content and associated tropospheric warmth whilst a new equilibrium was being sought has just come to an end with this years last gasp for AGW as tropospheric temperatures rose almost as high as in 1998.
More meridional jets with more regional variability has been common in the past and has always been associated with a cooler world. Think LIA, Dark Ages. mid 20th century cooling period.
AGW theory clearly stated that a warmer world would have more zonal and poleward jets. Never a mention of increased meridionality with associated regional cooling until now.
We saw 30 years of warming with increasingly zonal jets whilst Arctic ice declined. If the current AGW pronouncement about warming causing cooling had any substance we would have seen steadily increasing meridionality for the 30 years up to 2007. We didn’t.
On this occasion increased meridionality has come upon us rather suddenly (although I’ve been aware of the trend for 10 years now) whilst the troposphere has still been benefitting from residual ocean warmth so until the ongoing La Nina kicks in we won’t get the full global extent of it.
All we are now getting from the AGW crowd is panic driven thrashing about and backtracking whilst they await total collapse of their belief system once a couple of years of dominant La Nina (enhanced by reduced solar shortwave into the oceans from increased albedo) hits tropospheric temperatures.
A Merry Christmas to all doom mongers.
@Onion says:
December 25, 2010 at 3:57 am
“I do though find it hard to reconcile why so many experts would think CO2 is a greenhouse gas if it was clear that it should have a cooling effect.”
And so many think that volcanoes cause cooling, despite the lack of evidence after the the majority of large events. And so transfixed on the after effects, that the temperature rises beforehand causing the volcanoes, has been entirely overlooked.
Popularity of a postulation, does not guarantee that it is correct.
Onion says:
December 25, 2010 at 3:57 am
In our natural atmospheric environment, radiation, conduction, convection and specific heat capacity are absolutely inseparable without artificial means.
That is where specific heat capacity fits in. It is a part of reality which effects all physical substances.
So again, where are your or any other so called “expert’s” experiments supporting your belief in AGW?
Statements like that can only be made by a non-scientist.
A scientist is a practitioner of science.
Science is the art of objectively seeking the truth, even when that truth flies in the face of the most deeply-held beliefs of the practitioner.
Cassandra King says:
December 24, 2010 at 10:30 pm
“[…]
A theory that is being shown to be false time after time and a scientific community using ever more fantastical excuses as to why the theory is still valid, […]”
What “theory?”
As your comment (sorry to cut so much out) demonstrates, AGW is more like an apologia than a theory. When mama nature throws a monkey wrench into the gears of CAGW, we get, “yeah, but…” from the believers. AGW causes everything and and I wouldn’t be surprised to find that AGW can turn water into wine. (Wait… different religion… never mind.)
The “yeah, buts…” seemed to start around the time someone noticed the ice core data showed that the rise in CO2 lagged the rise in temperatures by 800-1000 years. The “yeah, buts…” seem to be increasing in frequency. If you ignore the fact that models fit the observations after the fact, well then AGW is a fine “theory.”
Joel Shore says:
“If you want to claim that the temperature trend since the mid-1970s correlates well with the solar variation then you will have to actually prove it graphically. Hint, this is the sort of curve you will be trying to correlate to: http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.A2.lrg.gif and, no, it doesn’t show a decade of level or falling temperatures. It shows a general upward trends with lots of short term variability, just like climate models forced with steadily-increasing greenhouse gases show.”
What it also shows is that then1998 peak anomaly was surpassed in 2005 and equalled in 2008. Not something I had noted from other temperature records!
Stephen Wilde wrote, “A point made by me many times and by others in the above comments is that if the sun is at a historically high level of activity then of course warming will continue to a new equilibrium even if in the meantime there is a small downward trend in solar activity. That will take time, about 50 years as it happens involving all the high cycles 17 to 23 (with a slight pause for cycle 20 which was a little lower) and modulated by ocean cycles throughout.”
Please document all of your claims with data, comparison graphs, etc., before you write, “The above comments confirm that in the minds of AGW proponents and also in the minds of some single issue enthusiasts like Bob Tisdale (ENSO) and Leif Svalgaard (Solar) the sun cannot have caused the warming climate observed during the late 20th century either directly or indirectly.”
Because if you are not aware, I do document the role of Downward Shortwave Radiation on the ENSO process–a fact you seem to have overlooked.
And you have obviously missed the point of my comments on this thread, and that was that Alec Rawls should not have cited a paper that contradicts his post, and, secondarily, he should not reply to comments with statements that are contradicted by data.
And Merry Christmas to you, too, Stephen.
Trenberth, Jones, Mann, Hansen, Schmidt, et al, of the anthropogenic global warming religious cult should read carefully the writings of Theodor Landscheidt. In the 1980’s he predicted the beginning of the next Grand Solar Minimum (ie: Little Ice Age type cooling) in 1990, bottoming out in 2030 and ending in 2070. And here we are careening down the slope.
Piers Corbin using his Solar Lunar Action Technique has way-out-predicted the Met Office and other august meteorological organizations with very long range weather forecasts with 85% or better accuracy.
How long will it take to recognize the true science of planetary mechanics of Landscheidt and Corbyn and dismiss the groundless agw nonsense of TJMHS et al?
Merry Christmas to all.
ge0050 says:
December 24, 2010 at 11:31 pm
“Roughly 92.8% (1,041.6 million short tons) of total U.S. coal consumption (1,121.7 million short tons) was used for electricity production at 22 major coal-fired power plants in 2008, the last year for which complete figures are available.”
A major coal fired plant burns 3-4 million tons of coal per year. 22 of them would only be 60-80 million tons/year. The US has 315 GW of coal fired generating capacity.
In addition no one in the US would consider coal at $100/ton cheap. Coal goes for $12/ton in Wyoming. Those folks in localities where the delivered price of coal is approaching $100/ton have already placed their orders for nuclear power plants.
‘Trenberth: That’s easily disproven. It’s nonsense. Since 1979 we’ve had spacecraft measuring total solar irradiance, and there’s been no change—if anything the sun has cooled slightly. ‘
Kind of ironic that the readings from them spacecraft works as references when it suits the hippies, otherwise it’s usually the mechanical apparatus’ that are wrong and the model that is right.
But, still, what matter if the sun has cooled, it’s not the heat, per se, from the sun that heats the earth, but all sorts of various kinds of radiations and particles and that magnetic love hate relationship going on. And should one also account for the specific effects that is affected by relation of distance in time and space between two and more interacting bodies?
Of course one could also infer that they’re always blowing smoke when they reference the sun since they have just started the research of finding out how the sun affects earth’s climate.
Stephen Wilde:
“The above comments confirm that in the minds of AGW proponents and also in the minds of some single issue enthusiasts like Bob Tisdale (ENSO) and Leif Svalgaard (Solar) the sun cannot have caused the warming climate observed during the late 20th century either directly or indirectly.
A point made by me many times and by others in the above comments is that if the sun is at a historically high level of activity then of course warming will continue to a new equilibrium even if in the meantime there is a small downward trend in solar activity. That will take time, about 50 years as it happens involving all the high cycles 17 to 23 (with a slight pause for cycle 20 which was a little lower) and modulated by ocean cycles throughout.”
If there is a long 50 year lag between solar cause and temperature response then why did the longterm correlation analysis cited in the article above find good correlation between temperature and solar output without applying any lag factor? Surely the lag should apply to pre-1970s temperatures not just starting to appear in the 1970s onwards.
Re Will
December 25, 2010 at 5:13 am
What sort of experiment are you suggesting? Describe the setup, maybe I can help.
I found this yesterday:
Maybe there is something in Piers Corbyn’s forecasts. 😉
Pamela,
the problem is that many PhD types and 99.5% of the climate scientists are arrogant, bearded quasi-intellectuals.
Merry Christmas everyone on WUWT. Enjoy your break Anthony.
Will says:
“In our natural atmospheric environment, radiation, conduction, convection and specific heat capacity are absolutely inseparable without artificial means.”
What the heck does that even mean? They are entirely separable, for example you can have a non-convective enviroment that is cooling by radiation, leading to radiation fog. What caused the surface to cool? It was radiation. What causes the air above the ground to cool to saturation? Conduction. Viola, I have separated convection, conduction and radiation in a natural atmospheric enviroment.
Meanwhile, your argument that CO2 cools the atmosphere because it has a low heat capacity falls over because when an IR photon is absorbed by CO2 the energy only remains with that CO2 molecule until is hits another molecule or until the CO2 spontaneously re-emits the energy. Turns out that as the mean free path in the atmosphere is on the order of 100nm, the CO2 will usually collide with another molecule before it re-emits. This has the effect of warming up the air.
However, the relaxation time of CO2 (time between absorption and re-emission of a photon) is pretty short, like it can happen hundreds of times a second or more, so the Co2 can’t store the energy it absorbs anyway. It can only get stored in the AIR, since most molecules in the air don’t spontaneously emit photons.
So CO2 absorbs energy, then usually transfers energy to an O2 or N2 molecule. Specific heat capacity is pretty much irrelevant.
Onion says:
December 25, 2010 at 7:53 am
Re Will
December 25, 2010 at 5:13 am
What sort of experiment are you suggesting? Describe the setup, maybe I can help.
Really?
Simply demonstrate experimentally, how by doubling CO2 in a particular body of 99% O2 and N2 will increase its temperature by 1.5 – 4 ºC.
Shouldn’t be too difficult.
Though after 150 years of “greenhouse effect” brainwashing one does start to wonder why you AGW fraudsters have yet to produce such an experiment.
Still I’m sure a capable individual such as yourself will make short work of such a trifling task.
I await your definitive proof of the “greenhouse effect” and AGW with pensive, trembling anticipation.
Pamela Gray says:
December 24, 2010 at 5:48 pm
(Hold on to your hat!)
“I haven’t been convinced either by any of the proposed mechanisms for solar influence in weather pattern variation change.”
(And Waite !! There’s more)
“The null hypothesis still stands, meaning that the theory of a constant sun is still king no matter what part is being measured.”
The Fact that our Sun is a healthy variable star, Meaning It has cycles of variable activity, This alone should be enough to convince you.
A “theory of a constant sun” is fantasy, every astronomer and astrophysicist on the planet knows this.
I have noticed that some meteorologists, climatologist dont understand this basic “Astronomical Fact”. In over 20 years of studying astronomy, I’ve never heard of this “theory of a constant sun” who made this nonsense up?
I propose to all CAGW proponents to take up a basic Astronomy class and realise for your self just how stupid you sound.
(In case you missed it)
Trenberth him self has said that the sun is a variable star, but worded differently with in a blatant and obvious lie!
(First he sets up the Lie “there’s been no change”)
“…spacecraft measuring total solar irradiance, and there’s been no change”
(Then he contradicts his own lie while confirming that the sun is a variable star by saying “..if anything the sun has cooled slightly”)
“..if anything the sun has cooled slightly. There’s nothing in the record that indicates that the sun is responsible for any of the warming in this period.”
(He then continues to reinforce his lie by adding his own questionable opinion to it by saying)
“..There’s nothing in the record that indicates that the sun is responsible for any of the warming in this period.”
No global warming:
YouTube – Climate Change – Is CO2 the cause? – Pt 1 of 4
YouTube – Climate change – Is CO2 the cause? – Pt 2 of 4
YouTube – Climate Change – Is CO2 the cause? – pt 3 of 4
YouTube – Climate Change – Is CO2 the cause?- pt 4 of 4
It is strange to see so many people here, who often seem skeptical of claims of warming in the pipeline, all-of-sudden embracing significant lags between the increase in solar luminance and the resulting temperature trend. Furthermore, as Onion notes, such large lags don’t seem consistent with what correlation is claimed in the past in the papers cited. Furthermore, the lags that climate scientists talk about are just that it takes the system a while to reach a new equilibrium; they are not literally that the system doesn’t respond for a while and then, all of a sudden, the temperature shoots up! Has the known negative feedback due to the Stefan-Boltzmann Equation suddenly become irrelevant where solar effects are concerned?!?
Frankly, this thread seems like a Christmas gift of confirmation to those of us who have long argued that most climate “skeptics” are anything but skeptical; they simply are refusing to believe the wealth of scientific evidence that points to something that they are ideologically-opposed to because of the potential policy implications and willing to believe anything that supports their ideological predispositions, no matter how flimsy! (Although kudos to BobTisdale for not doing this!)
Stephen Wilde wrote, “My most popular article dealt with that very point long ago and I have no reason to revise it:
http://climaterealists.com/index.php?id=1396&linkbox=true&position=1”
Are you aware that Lean no longer supports the dataset you used in that post, Stephen? It would suggest then that there is reason to revise your post, unless you want to continue to mislead your readers.
Re Will
December 25, 2010 at 8:44 am:
“Simply demonstrate experimentally, how by doubling CO2 in a particular body of 99% O2 and N2 will increase its temperature by 1.5 – 4 ºC.
Shouldn’t be too difficult.”
Should it not? What steps would you go through to set up this experiment then?
Personally I can only thing you’d need a second Earth to do the experiment you are thinking of (although I am having to guess what you are thinking).
Stu N says:
December 25, 2010 at 8:26 am
Semantics and waffle.
Most of what you have said here simply reiterates what I have already said, yet you present and conclude as if it was some kind of counter.
Very tired technique if you don’t mind me saying.
If you have any real world experimental evidence to present, lets see it. Otherwise its just more words. Fallacious argument with the intent to deceive, sophistry.
I want to see and experiment in which a doubling of CO2 will warm a body of 79% N2 and 20% O2 by 1.5 – 4 ºC.
Show me that please.
Will,
Far be it from me to defend the ‘fraudsters’ but can you be more specific about how you expect this experiment to be set up?
Is it as simple as having a balloon filled with air to the same relative proportions of different molecules as the atmosphere, doubling CO2 and seeing if it warms up? After all, that’s a body of 99% O2 and N2 as per your prescribed method.
If you think it will behave anything like planet Earth you’re barmy. Hint: not every object will warm up by 1.5-4.0C if you double the amount of CO2 that surrounds it (or, in your parlance, is in it).
So I repeat: how do you anticipate this experiment would be set up?
I guess I’m surprised that the Team has not published a rebuttal to Trenberth’s “missing energy” papers of the last year.
That seems to be their standard M.O. Every sceptical or questioning paper is immediately followed up by a rushed-to-press paper that disputes it (with flimsy data manipulation mostly). This is done so they can ignore the sceptical or questioning paper in the “science” and in the IPCC for example. Trenberth is a member of the Team but somebody must be working on a rebuttal.
Trenberth’s recent papers really say that global warming theory has to be wrong (or at least, has missed something in the climate that is very important).
Trenberth needs to say where the missing energy is or he should quit giving interviews stating that the theory is sound based on dozens of line of evidence (even though half of that evidence is missing apparently).
I don’t think the energy is missing. It is just gone. It has escaped from the atmosphere and is somewhere within 50 light years of Earth, travelling at the speed of light with a emission spectrum of 255K. I’m sure some climate model could simulate that it will turn-around and come back to the Earth with an even greater feedback factor and we will get warming of 20C like Richard Alley just said (having his own Greg Craven breakdown moment apparently). Lots of cognitive dissonance is keeping these guys awake at night apparently.
Will, thanks to your saying :
“In the atmosphere they are mixed. The true effect is that the gas with the lowest specific heat capacity, CO2 @ 0.0385% is forced into thermal equilibrium by the gases O2 and N2 @ 99%. The result being that in our environment (in the actual real testable world of reality) CO2 takes longer to warm and yet cools faster than both O2 and N2.”
my comment is most assuredly not “semantics and waffle”. Yes, the gases are always moving towards thermal equilibrium. And you would be right if all gases were warmed in the same way. But CO2 is warmed (or, more correctly, receives energy) by longwave radiation which it then transfers to molecules around it. O2 and N2 are not.
Moreover, because the gases are will mixed, one can consider the mix, called air, to have its own specific heat capacity. It’s like if you mix ethanol and water and keep it constantly agitated. Say you’ve warmed it to 50C and then let it cool down. It is NOT applicable to say that the ethanol cools down faster because it has a lower specific heat capacity; they both cool at the same rate because they are well mixed. Like the atmosphere.
Onion says:
“What steps would you go through to set up this experiment then?”
I blame government education for onion’s ignorance of the scientific method.
It is not the job of scientific skeptics to hold the hand of those making conjectures like CO2=CAGW, and try to help them show a cause-and-effect that appear to be wildly overblown. It is those who hypothesize that CO2 is gonna getcha to show how, through empirical experiments.
If you can’t design a testable, replicable hypothesis, then you’re back to making speculative conjectures.
Onion says:
December 25, 2010 at 9:14 am
Personally I can only thing you’d need a second Earth to do the experiment you are thinking of (although I am having to guess what you are thinking).
So gases will not scale, is that your point?
We can’t create scaled down environments in an attempt to demonstrate the greenhouse effect of CO2, is that what you are seriously trying to say?
This is the classic warmist’s cop-out.
I have conducted a simple reproducible experiment which shows that the higher specific heat capacity of O2 and N2 forces CO2 with its lower specific heat capacity, into thermal equilibrium and proves that CO2 is not a “greenhouse gas”.
If you can falsify this experiment, please go ahead. It has been 1 year since I published these experiments and I am still waiting.
I think Stu N and onion are in the midst of an identity crisis.
Will the real onion/Stu N please stand up.
I’m gonna call Troll on this one.
Looks like onion is covering for Stu N because its Christmas Day and Stu N is at home with kids.
I could be mistaken though. It could be that onion is home with the kids and Stu N is the cover man.
Who knows, who cares?
I’m out,
Merry Christmas.
Measure the temperature rise between Co2 in a balloon and Air in a balloon!!!
HAhaha!!!! Is this what it’s all come too?
Haa ha ha ha ha!
Thank you!! I love a good laugh!
That Lean et al. 2000 TSI reconstruction is used too often by too many people. It was a first stab at reconstructing TSI and many sun folks have learned from it and have improved reconstructions. There will more improvements as more is learned. I think that is why there is such a debate on the subject. also don’t confuse solar impact with natural oscillation variation. The PDO shift most likely started the flat temps from around 2000. A prolonged solar minimum will likely have a significant temperature impact, but it will probably take a while to dig it out of the natural variation climate noise.
Just another reminder that the land record has been thoroughly tampered with and not to be trusted:
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2010/09/25/thermometer-magic/
Since this appears to be easily forgotten, it would be nice if all articles regarding or referencing land temperatures contained a disclaimer as a reminder. Maybe a contest……
Will you’re clearly not paying attention to my arguments. Please consider all of the following carefully before you call it semantics and waffle, particularly the part on absorption in the infrared.
Firstly, the earth is surrounded by an atmosphere whose behaviour does not scale. Therefore you cannot create a scale model of the earth+atmosphere. The behaviour of the atmopshere contributes to the 1.5-4.0C estimated sensitivity to doubling Co2 (well, that’s one estimate anyway). If you cannot scale weather in this experiment, for example, then you cannot make the experiment analagous to the real thing. The same goes for the cryosphere/cloud/albedo changes, water vapour, etc etc.
The fact of the matter is that there is no ‘simple experiment’ that proves what climate sensitivity is. It’s not a cop out, it’s just true. However we most certainly do have evidence of a change in the longwave spectrum consistent with changes in radiatively active trace gases. If there is more longwave reaching the surface from the atmosphere, it ain’t gonna cool the surface.
I have actually looked at your website before. I think someone linked to it on scienceofdoom. Let me give you a pointer, look at the y-axes of your infrared absorption plots:
N2’s maximum line strength is about 1e-28 cm/molecule cm-2 (in the near-infrared).
O2’s is about 1e-24 cm/molecule cm-2 (but not in the infrared – that’s about 1e-28 again ).
CO2’s is about 1e-18 cm/molecule cm-2.
That is, in the infrared CO2 absorbs 10 orders of magnitude better than O2 or N2. That’s 10,000,000,000 times better. Think about what that means for the validity of your argument.
Also, I’m not Onion. I’m spartacus.
Re Smokey
December 25, 2010 at 9:58 am :
“I blame government education for onion’s ignorance of the scientific method.
It is not the job of scientific skeptics to hold the hand of those making conjectures like CO2=CAGW, and try to help them show a cause-and-effect that appear to be wildly overblown. It is those who hypothesize that CO2 is gonna getcha to show how, through empirical experiments.”
I was asking Will what experiment he was thinking of. Now you tell me that Will shouldn’t have to tell me. Why not? He must be thinking of something because he said such an experiment “Shouldn’t be too difficult”.
My point is that you can’t do an experiment such as filling a greenhouse with 500ppm CO2 (let alone using a balloon in some way) because that’s nothing like a planet. A greenhouse doesn’t have oceans, it isn’t surrounded by a vacuum.
A simple experiment with IR and a balloon or greenhouse could only demonstrate that CO2 absorbs infrared and that preventing energy loss by infrared causes the underlying body to warm. But that wouldn’t prove how much warming Earth will undergo, because the experiment is too simple (no oceans, no clouds, no anything really).
I assumed you aren’t asking for an experiment showing CO2 absorbs IR. I could be wrong. That’s why I asked Will what experiment he was asking for. I think it’s a legitimate question.
Re Will:
December 25, 2010 at 9:59 am
I guess my post above to Smokey is to you as well, but I have some more things I could have added now that I have read your post too.
“So gases will not scale, is that your point?”
I am saying the earth itself won’t scale. I am thinking of the difficulty of implementing a lapse rate of 5C/km in a greenhouse. Or even the difficulty of representing lines of latitude. Oceans? Clouds? Gases themselves probably could be scaled, but even there I am not certain (390ppm CO2 in a 14km high column of air is a lot of molecules, putting them in a greenhouse would probably require something like 5000ppm ).
“I have conducted a simple reproducible experiment which shows that the higher specific heat capacity of O2 and N2 forces CO2 with its lower specific heat capacity, into thermal equilibrium and proves that CO2 is not a “greenhouse gas”.”
What are the steps to reproduce this experiment?
Onion says:
December 25, 2010 at 11:11 am
“”My point is that you can’t do an experiment such as filling a greenhouse with 500ppm CO2 (let alone using a balloon in some way) because that’s nothing like a planet. A greenhouse doesn’t have oceans, it isn’t surrounded by a vacuum. ”
Where in the AGW conjecture is it stated that it only works on entire planets? Please point me to the according verse.
R.W. Wood disproved the “greenhouse” Earth hypothesis over a century ago. Despite lots of arm-waving by the alarmist contingent, Wood’s experiment has been replicated and confirmed. But feel free to try to falsify it yourself. It’s not that complicated.
Or, you could throw out more conjectures, and blame skeptics for your failing to show any testable, empirical evidence showing the degree of putative global warming caused by the truly minuscule anthropogenic component of CO2 compared with the CO2 emitted naturally.
Finally, if sensitivity were even slightly significant in the scheme of things, temperature would closely track CO2. It doesn’t. The relationship is mostly coincidental.
Smokey,
that argument rests on the simple assumption that the atmosphere actually behaves like a greenhouse. Which is doesn’t – the name just happens to be a bit of a misnomer.
I was highly dissapointed to find that string theory doesn’t talk about actual bits of yarn. And quarks, apparently, aren’t really different colours. I thought I spotted a red one the other day, but I must have been mistaken.
Anyway, Will’s website suffers from the same problem. Build up an entirely unrepresentative picture of what ‘greenhouse theory’ actually means and it’s dead easy to knock it over.
By the way, what do you guys things of Roy Spencer’s fairly recent efforts to convince the ‘skeptical’ community that the greenhouse effect actually does exist?
Re DirkH:
Well the greenhouse effect works because the Earth is surrounded by a vacuum and a lapse rate is needed for it to work (I have have been told this by people more knowledgeable than me/ half understand why).
If you just want evidence that CO2 absorbs infrared and that blocking infrared can increase the temperature of a body emitting it then experiments do exist that can show that. But if you want a scale model experiment of what doubling CO2 would do in Earth’s atmosphere then I am afraid that’s not possible.
Re Smokey:
December 25, 2010 at 11:51 am
“R.W. Wood disproved the “greenhouse” Earth hypothesis over a century ago.”
See my above post, you need a lapse rate for the greenhouse effect to work. His experiment didn’t include one. You need the top of the glass to be cooler (similar to near the top of the atmosphere) so that absorbed radiation from below cannot be emitted at the same intensity. That’s what causes the reduction in outgoing infrared.
The “lack of global warming” that Trenberth spoke about is also known as the problem of the “missing heat”. By Trenberth’s calculations, and by those of numerous others, there should be additional heat (specifically from AGW) somewhere in the earth’s systems. More exactly, Dr. Trenberth has made it quite clear where he and others think this missing heat is– the deeper oceans. His own website makes things quite clear, and I would hope everyone who is honest and wants the other side of the story will go to his site: http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/trenbert.html
Trenberth has been clear from the very beginning that he felt the “missing” heat must have gone into the deeper ocean as it is the only place that it could hide from being measured. The “travesty” was that we had no way of measuring the deeper ocean heat flux on any consistent basis. Very recent measurements and research by other scientists now seems to be confirming Dr. Trenberth’s expectations that the missing heat is in the deeper oceans:
http://blogs.ei.columbia.edu/2010/12/14/deep-ocean-heat-is-melting-antarctic-ice/
http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2010/20100920_oceanwarming.html
http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/2010JCLI3682.1
The discovery of the Trenberth’s missing heat, if confirmed by even more researchers, should put the “missing heat” travesty to rest once and for all, except of course, for the most imagninative of skeptics.
Anthony says
———–
Trenberth knows full well that “solar activity” refers primarily to solar-magnetic activity, which varies by an order of magnitude over the solar cycle, while total solar irradiance is almost invariant over the solar cycle (which is why it is called the solar constant)
———–
Goody. At long last. I no longer have to call out idiots for claiming the sun’s radiation output variations cause global temperatures to change significantly.
[Anthony didn’t write this story – look at the header -moderator]
R Gates – Yes, “if” is a very large word. Perhaps the missing heat is in a still undiscovered Saddam bunker in Iraq?
In any case, the topic of this post is simple. Trenberth changed the question in order to deceive… which is also known as lying. Liars are liars, and they cannot be trusted, period. And there seems to be too many professional liars among what someone here aptly called the crimatologists.
Where’s Trenberth’s missing truth?
R. Gates says:
“The discovery of the Trenberth’s missing heat”
Trenberth is looking for a bowling ball(1/2 watt), all anyone has found to date is a golf ball(2/100ths of a watt).
R. Gates says:
December 25, 2010 at 12:29 pm
‘The discovery of the Trenberth’s missing heat, if confirmed’
Philip of Macedon to the Spartans: “You are advised to submit without further delay, for if I bring my army into your land, I will destroy your farms, slay your people, and raze your city.”
The Spartans’ reply: “If.”
He never came, of course.
Stu N says:
🙂
By the way, just as a word of warning about Smokey from someone who has been around here a while: He has probably already been told about the Wood notions not being relevant a thousand times, as it has been explained to him a thousand times why it is incorrect to claim that “the anthropogenic component of CO2” “is truly minuscule” “compared with the CO2 emitted naturally”. Alas, it doesn’t stop him from repeating this nonsense over and over. He is a captive of his own ideological beliefs and emotionally incapable of digesting science that in any way threatens those beliefs.
But, sometimes I figure it is still worth explaining why he is mistaken for the 1001st time just so others here who may be more amenable reason will understand.
If there is heat building in the bottom of the oceans, you would want to rule out the most obvious source, that of El Nino heat. El Nino heat, the kind of heat the builds in the top ocean layers sufficient enough to mix into the deeper layers (though I question deep mixing due to the dynamics of cold layers, etc, ) is absolutely, without question, far far far greater than the minuscule surface skin heat LW radiation would cause.
Well, again this nonsense about “Kevin Trenberth travesty”.
As I exposed in a previous post, the “lack of warming” refer not to global temperatures (that have continue to warm, giving 2010 the hottest year on record) but to cean heat content (OHC).
Most of the energy that accumulates in the planet as a consecuence of the Earth energy imbalance (that Trenberth found, based on datellite data, in 0.9 W/m^2) go into the oceans(more than 80%), and only little go to warming the land, the atmosphere and melting ice and snow. So, this ocean warming should be evident in the oceanic subsurface temperatures.
So, Trenberth was upset after finding that estimates of OHC showed very little warming in the ocean.
Trenberth was referring to this in this email. And that was, for the people that follow the peer-reviewed temperature, absolutely no surprise. That was exposed in a paper called:
“An imperative for climate change planning: tracking Earth’s global energy”
link: http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/Trenberth/trenberth.papers/EnergyDiagnostics09final2.pdf
Here is reported a contradiction between the MEASURED (by satellites) energy imbalance of the Earth and the INFERRED OHC incresase based in calculated Thermo-steric SLR. The energy imbalance measured by satellites was much bigger than the inferred heat accumulation in the ocean.
This is the core of the “travesty”. Not a secret (it was published in a paper) and not an admission that “global warming has stopped”. Just a statement that the heat accumulated in the ocean inferred from estimates of thermo-steric sea level rise were inconsistent with satellite measurements of Earth heat imbalance.
It is not so surprising that the two datasets(one measured directly and the other inferred from estimates) were different. The “travesty” is precisely the poor methods avaivable at the moment to track heat accumulation in the Earth system, specially in the oceans (where most of heat accumulates).
Now that problem is improving. This paper:
“Global hydrographic variability patterns during 2003–2008”
poseidon.inogs.it/sire/conferenze/ppt…06…/Argo_von_Schuckmann.ppt
Shows a trend of 0.77±0.11 W/m^2 in the upper 2000 meters of the ocean, that corresponds to 1.01±0.13mm/yr of thermo-steric SLR.This is far better than the previous estimates using only the upper 900 meters of the ocean (a clearly incomplete picture) that showed a flat OHC after 2003.
This help close the energy budget, but is still not enough to account for the 0.9W/m^2 measured by satellites. More heat probably is accumulating below 2000 meters and perhaps there were errors in the ARGO data used by von Shuckmann(underestimating the warming) or in the satellite data (overestimating the energy imbalance).
Attacking Kevin Trenberth as if he was admitting that “global warming has stopped” only shows that the people that make this attacks do not follow the peer-reviewed literature.
R. Gates says:
“Dr. Trenberth has made it quite clear where he and others think this missing heat is– the deeper oceans.”
Your suggesting that the deeper oceans are adsorbing (the make believe) missing heat that Dr. Trenberth cant find and does not understand, even tho the deeper ocean temperatures are below radiative surface temperatures that are NOT being measured.
And bizarrely tho according to you he says; “as it is the only place that it could hide from being measured” How on Earth can he clam to have a global temperature of any thing if he is missing a huge part of it?
Thanks to Robuk for digging up my 2005 exchange with Gavin Schmidt, who agreed with my assertion that any warming created by solar activity had to be a function of the LEVEL of solar activity, not the trend. Schmidt: “the response to an increase to a steady level of forcing is a lagged increase in temperature and then a asymptotic relaxation to the eventual equilibirum.”
That’s an important admission, because what numerous alarmists were saying at the time, and have continued to say, is that since solar activity was not trending upwards in the last decades of the 20th century, solar activity cannot explain the warming over this period. Earlier that year I had criticized Schmidt’s co-blogger Rasmus Benestad for making this idiotic claim, and here Schmidt was admitting that I was right, that an increased “steady level of forcing” will lead to continued warming, tapering off “to the eventual equilibrium.”
Schmidt went on to claim that this tapering off: “is not what is seen. In fact, the rate of temperature increase is rising, and that is only compatible with a continuing increase in the forcing, i.e. from greenhouse gases.”
That’s garbage. There was a single spike of temperature in 1998, which everyone agrees was caused by ocean oscillations. Except for that there had been only a modest warming since 1980 (about .2°C from 1980 to 2005 according to UAH, just about the 20th century average). Add how ocean oscillations make the surface temperature record very noisy as a measure of global temperature (which is really the temperature of the ocean as a whole) and it is absurd for Schmidt to have been making claims in 2005 about a perceived tiny spurt in temperature increase being inconsistent with a steady high solar driver. It is even more absurd today, when folks like Trenberth are bewailing the lack of warming over the same period that solar activity has fallen off.
Set aside Schmidt’s untenable claims about what the data imply. If he has no trouble acknowledging that what would matter in a solar explanation of temperature is level, not trend, then how have so many other actual scientists managed to screw this up? Is it just more dishonesty from the solar-warming deniers? I’d say not. Maybe in the case of Benestad and Frolich, but not in general, because there turns out to be a technical basis for making this mistake.
Several of the seminal papers on the solar-activity/climate link were correlation studies, looking at the correlation between changes in solar activity and changes in temperature. If it is the level of solar activity that drives temperature, there will still be a correlation between changes in solar activity and changes in temperature. When solar activity goes up, the resulting higher LEVEL will tend to coincide with rising temps. Not always. An increase to what is still a low level could still yield cooling. Only in a regime of instant equilibration would trend upticks always correlate (ceterus paribus) with temperature upticks .
Usoskin 2005 was one of these correlation studies. They didn’t start with a model of how solar activity drives temperature and try to estimate its parameters statistically. They just looked for correlation between changes in solar activity and changes in temperature, and since this was the nature of their data, they continued to speak in those terms, even when it didn’t make any sense, as in the Usoskin sentence that Bob Tisdale quotes: “During the last 30 years the solar total irradiance, solar UV irradiance and cosmic ray flux has not shown any significant secular trend, so that at least this most recent warming must have another source.”
It’s a total non-sequitur. Can they really be that dumb? A steady very high level of solar activity cannot have caused warming? More likely Usoskin et al. just didn’t want to point out the deficiencies in their study: that instead of looking at simple correlations, they ideally should have been estimating the parameters of a physical model. (For instance, they could have estimated a simple linear model of how the equilibrium global temperature varies with the level of solar forcing, while simultaneously estimating how the speed of temperature change towards equilibrium varies with the distance from equilibrium.)
Maybe it was just too embarrassing to note in their own paper that what must actually be driving temperature (the level of solar activity) is not what they were looking at, leading them to keep mum as others kept making the same idiotic mistake. That’s my guess.
As for Bob Tisdale’s criticisms, it seems we are just going to disagree. He complains that by citing AGW alarmists like Usoskin and Frolich, I am citing references that undercut my claims. But that is false. I don’t disagree with Usoskin and Frolich on the data. I disagree with them on what it means, and I have been very explicit about exactly how I differ with them on what it means, and I’m glad to expand further.
Frolich makes the insane claim that because solar activity peaked in 1985, solar driven warming would have started falling off in 1985:
“In 1985, the Sun did a U-turn in every respect. It no longer went in the right direction to contribute to global warming. We think it’s almost completely conclusive proof that the Sun does not account for the recent increases in global warming.”
What? Solar driven warming should start to fall off when solar activity is at its absolute peak? Frolich takes trend-level confusion to its reductio ad absurdum. Ken Gregory has the most precise answer to this foolishness. Scroll down to his “Climate Smoothing” graphic to see how the temperature of a heat sink actually responds to a fall-off in forcing.
Frolich isn’t even right about the sun doing a U-turn in 1985. Solar cycle 22 (from 1986 to 1996) was one of the most intense on record. This is particularly true for solar activity as measured (inversely) by the cosmic ray flux. Solar cycle 22 shows the lowest levels of GCR in the instrumental record. Does that mean I can’t cite his admission of numerous studies showing a solar-climate link?
Tisdale goes so far as to accuse me of bad behavior: “Alec Rawls should not have cited a paper that contradicts his post, and, secondarily, he should not reply to comments with statements that are contradicted by data.” From someone who fails to grasp what I’m saying, that’s an awfully loose remark.
How about Bob answer the question I put to him in my first response? Isn’t it about time Usoskin stop claiming that only an increasing level of solar activity can cause warming (and that the steady high level of solar activity through 2003 couldn’t)? Isn’t it about time that Frolich withdraws his idiotic claim that the failure of temperatures to start falling when solar activity was at its peak proves that warming cannot have been caused by the sun?
If instead Mr. Tisdale is for some reason stuck on the idea that I just have to be wrong, well, it’s nice to meet him too. If he wants to shipwreck on the reef that I am trying to mark, he can be my guest.
The sun cannot have cause the last decades warming, since solar activity has been in steady decline since the maximum in the 1950s.
Alec Rawls says:
“Trenberth knows full well that “solar activity” refers primarily to solar-magnetic activity, which varies by an order of magnitude over the solar cycle, while total solar irradiance is almost invariant over the solar cycle (which is why it is called the solar constant). Does he really think he can disprove the theory that 20th century warming was caused by solar activity without looking at anything but the least active solar variable?”
Magnetic activity is proportional to Sunspot number, the data that has more ancient data:
http://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/images/bfly.gif
http://sidc.oma.be/sunspot-index-graphics/sidc_graphics.php
http://sidc.oma.be/html/wolfmms.html
This result is entirely consistent with the solar irradiance data.
R. Gates says:
December 25, 2010 at 12:29 pm
http://blogs.ei.columbia.edu/2010/12/14/deep-ocean-heat-is-melting-antarctic-ice/
Ok, Gates, your no-brained formulaic link using some of the usual anti-scientific tactics of the “Climate Science” CAGW Propaganda Op. says that the Antarctic’s oceanic ice sheets are being rapidly melted away by melting from the bottom/undersurface allegedly due to Trenberth’s lost heat, which so far has not been found to even be entering the oceans, so that, “This raises the specter of sea-level rise driven by melting in this region….”, when the only alleged melting it has directly mentioned cannot raise sea levels.
I only clicked the link to see if you are still as uncredible a source as I’ve known you to be right from early on at WUWT. Congratulations, yes, you are! And do you really think that there are enough hapless suckers reading WUWT to make your propaganda efforts worthwhile, especially when compared to the readers who will get from you the right idea that “Climate Science” CAGW Propaganda is not science, but instead only a cynically deluding part of a massive scam which, after all, is what Trenberth has also shown by his intentionally misleading statement above?
Alec Rawls says:
Alec,
That’s a strange conclusion given that the current trend for the cumulative UAH LT data since 1979 is 0.14 C per decade ( http://vortex.nsstc.uah.edu/data/msu/t2lt/uahncdc.lt ). That would give us a total rise between 1979 and now of ~0.43 C. Needless to say, temperature rises determined by RSS or the surface data sets are somewhat higher than this.
I am not sure what you mean by “except for that” but you are not allowed to just leave out years that you don’t like. After all, I personally don’t like the year 2008 where there was a downward spike due to La Nina but that doesn’t mean I can simply ignore it. (Actually, I don’t think leaving out the year of data around 1998 would even affect the trend very much, which makes me wonder what you did actually do to get your erroneous trend claim.)
Question: If our sun was to suddenly disappear, How long before we notice the light disappear?
Question: If our sun was to suddenly disappear, How long before we notice the warmth disappear?
Looking at the broader view, where is the upward trend, since about 1980 ?
http://members.casema.nl/errenwijlens/co2/europe.htm
Alec Rawls says: “How about Bob answer the question I put to him in my first response? Isn’t it about time Usoskin stop claiming that only an increasing level of solar activity can cause warming (and that the steady high level of solar activity through 2003 couldn’t)? Isn’t it about time that Frolich withdraws his idiotic claim that the failure of temperatures to start falling when solar activity was at its peak proves that warming cannot have been caused by the sun?”
I have no need to answer a hypothetical question that isn’t relative to the discussion, Alec. Isn’t it about time that YOU stop trying to redirect the topic away from the mistake made in your post, and the mistakes you’ve added in your replies. I didn’t write a post that references a paper that contradicts the point I was trying to make. You did that, Alec. Not me.
You wrote, “As for Bob Tisdale’s criticisms, it seems we are just going to disagree. He complains that by citing AGW alarmists like Usoskin and Frolich, I am citing references that undercut my claims. But that is false. I don’t disagree with Usoskin and Frolich on the data.”
So you have just stated that you support the Mann et al Hockey Stick, even though it was discredited at ClimateAudit years ago. And you are stating that you support the hypothesis of AGW, since both papers you cited in our exchange do precisely that. Your attempts at misdirection aren’t working, Alec.
You wrote, “Tisdale goes so far as to accuse me of bad behavior: ‘Alec Rawls should not have cited a paper that contradicts his post, and, secondarily, he should not reply to comments with statements that are contradicted by data.'”
I didn’t accuse you of bad behavior. I noted that the Usoskin and Frolich you cited support AGW and contradict the point you were attempting to make in your post. I’m not the only person noting this on this thread, or haven’t you noticed? And as I illustrated in an earlier reply, your statement, “12 years with no warming. Where is the inexplicable warming that these people are talking about? There isn’t any,” is incorrect. Your statement is not supported by the three global surface temperature anomaly datasets for the past 12 years.
The linear trends of HADCRUT (0.106 deg C/ decade), GISTEMP LOTI (0.205 deg C/decade), and NCDC (0.126 deg C/decade) for the past 12 years are all positive:
http://i54.tinypic.com/2ecjb7b.jpg
Climate satellites, the best data we have,
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/from:1979
show global cooling in the last 12 years.
On this graph you can see clearly how GISS manipulates the data
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/gistemp/from:1998/mean:12/plot/rss/from:1998/mean:12
Robuk says: “Gavins response is utter rubbish if the two graphs above are correct.”
The second graph you linked…
http://i446.photobucket.com/albums/qq187/bobclive/irradiance.gif
…is obsolete.
Judith Lean no longer agrees with the variability of TSI minimums shown in her 2000 TSI reconstruction. Refer to Leif’s 10/26/08 @ 14:55:41 comment on the following thread at WUWT:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/10/25/new-theory-predicts-the-largest-ozone-hole-over-antarctica-will-occur-this-month/
He wrote, “Note that Judith Lean [2002 and 2008] is agreeing with me that TSI hasn’t changed significantly over time. Nevertheless, the model-paper you reference, uses the old Lean [1995] and Hoyt and Schatten [1993] TSI-reconstructions that are simply wrong. Therefore the result is spurious and cannot be trusted.”
And if you’re wondering, there’s little difference between Lean 1995 and Lean 2000:
http://s5.tinypic.com/fp6qyp.jpg
Regards
If you want some reputedly very accurate humour about the making of PhDs, phdcomics.com is your meat. If you have the week off, start at the beginning of the archives and work forward.
🙂
Bob Tisdale writes: “I noted that the Usoskin and Frolich you cited support AGW and contradict the point you were attempting to make in your post.”
No these papers do not support AGW or contradict the point I was making in my post. They TRY to support AGW by interpreting the data in blatantly errant ways, but they utterly fail. Does Mr. Tisdale accept the bizarre position of Usoskin and Frolich that solar activity does cause warming, and has for thousands of years, but that the steady high level of solar activity post-1980 couldn’t have caused warming? In any case, he thinks it is improper of me to cite the data in these papers while rejecting this bogus post-1980 exception. It’s “misdirection.”
I have no problem with Tidsale’s criticism of Usoskin’s use of Mann’s temperature reconstruction. Of course Usoskin et al. is still one of the seminal studies in the use of cosmogenic isotopes to compare solar activity with paleo-temperatures, and its findings have been backed by numerous other studies, but sure, set it aside, as I welcomed Tisdale to do in my first reply to him, referring him to the 17 other studies that Frolich sites on the sun-climate link. But that’s not enough for Tisdale. He keeps harping on the flaws of Usoskin as if it was some great crime to have ever mentioned this very important paper, and he rejects the Frolich references as well because Frolich is also an AGW alarmist. Sorry, but making up excuses to ignore the data is willful blindness.
In broad strokes, the last forty years fit nicely with the solar-climate theory. The planet warmed while the sun was in its grand maximum phase, then temperatures flattened out after the sun went quiet in 2005. Tisdale ignores this big picture and cavils about my description of the recent flattening out of temperatures. I said there has been “no warming” for the past 12 years, or no “inexplicable warming.” Tisdale thinks he is catching me in something when he points out that there has indeed been a small amount of warming (which would be even smaller if he didn’t cut off the 98 El Nino):
These are tiny temperature changes, far outsized by the noise of ocean oscillations. It is absurd to say that this tiny and uncertain amount of warming is inconsistent with a solar-climate mechanism. The recent grand maximum in solar activity only ended in 2005 (2003 if you want to go back to the last energetic year, or 2008 if you want to go to the end of solar cycle 23). One might think that cooling SHOULD have set in by now, if it is really the sun that is driving things, but that is not the position Usoskin and Frolich are taking.
They both claimed that there is just too darned much warming to possibly account for by solar activity, which doesn’t begin to hold water. The only way they were able to say it all was by pretending that it is changes in solar activity that drive temperature, not the level of solar activity. I’d like to see the physics for that proposition. Usoskin and Frolich TRY to rule out a solar theory of post 1980 warming, but they FAIL. And no, it is not “misdirection” to point it out.
As for the noisiness of the temperature signal, it might be possible to do a little better than to just look at the raw temperature records. Why not in very rough fashion include what we know about ocean surface temperatures? There was a big El Nino in 1998, and a fairly big El Nino this year, so look at those two points.
It looks like the two years will have almost the same average temperature. Maybe a smidge lower this year? We’ll find out next week. I call that flat. What temperatures have certainly NOT done is go up so much as to be inconsistent with a solar theory of post 1980 temperature change.
Adrian the trend since 1998 is slightly upwards.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/from:1998/trend/plot/rss/from:1998
Therefore that isn’t global cooling. And technically since that’s the start of 1998 that’s 13 years to the end of 2010. So for 12 years start in 1999:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/from:1999/trend/plot/rss/from:1999
That’s a pretty strong upwards trend. But it only shows why you shouldn’t use so few years data, and the dependence on start and end points.
Re Alec Rawls
December 26, 2010 at 2:57 am:
“But that’s not enough for Tisdale. He keeps harping on the flaws of Usoskin as if it was some great crime to have ever mentioned this very important paper, and he rejects the Frolich references as well because Frolich is also an AGW alarmist. Sorry, but making up excuses to ignore the data is willful blindness.”
I think Bob Tisdale’s points are quite justified. The paper itself might be wrong but it backs up what Trenberth was saying, whereas you cited it as if it disagrees with him.
R. Gates says:
December 25, 2010 at 12:29 pm
“The “lack of global warming” that Trenberth spoke about….”
“Trenberth ….. felt the “missing” heat must have gone into the deeper ocean….”
Good to see you have acknowledged that there isnt much global warming to speak about.
Also good to see that you acknowledge that AGW is based on “feelings”.
Alec Rawls says:
Fine, so you don’t like the way that Usoskin and Rolich correlate temperature and solar activity. Then, why the heck do you cite them at all? Why don’t you show us the wonderful correlation that you can produce with your ideas and how it accounts for the post-1980 warming? Instead you try to piggyback on the part of what they say that you like and then agglomerate to it your ideas that contradict the part that you don’t like. That is incredibly weak!
If you can really explain the post-1980 warming in the same quantitative manner that one can explain the last several hundred years using solar activity, then show us this. Otherwise, you should apologize to the readers here and to Trenberth and be done with it.
.Joel Shore says:
December 26, 2010 at 6:20 am
Why don’t you show us the wonderful correlation that you can produce with your ideas and how it accounts for the post-1980 warming?
Joel, the ocean accumulates solar energy over long periods of time. Therefore the correct thing to do with the solar data is to integrate it to compare with OHC and SST
http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2010/07/21/nailing-the-solar-activity-global-temperature-divergence-lie/
tallbloke: I don’t find your agreement very impressive, especially over the long-term; I guess there is a reason why you didn’t try to put your integrated solar data and OHC on the same graph. I also find it amusing how those people who believe that feedbacks must be negative for CO2-caused warming strangely believe not only that unknown positive feedbacks or amplification factors must be at work for solar effects, but that even the most obvious “feedback”, namely the increase in radiative emission with warming described by the Stefan-Boltzmann Equation can be neglected, which is what your integration procedure essentially assumes!
Response to JPeden:
December 25, 2010 at 6:28 pm
________
The essential point– that there recent evidence for heating of the deeper ocean– is valid and I’ve provided the links for readers to understand the issue on a more honest and thorough level than your ad hominems on me would allow. Dr. Trenberth is very specific in his statements about the problems with the “missing heat” and where he suspects it must have gone based on the known and measured energy inputs and outputs from our planet. The deeper ocean is where it must have gone and now that the research is pointing that way it must drive the skeptics crazy (if they actually take the time to look at the current research) to see one of their favorite targets proven correct on this point.
________
kwik says:
December 26, 2010 at 5:57 am
R. Gates says:
December 25, 2010 at 12:29 pm
“The “lack of global warming” that Trenberth spoke about….”
“Trenberth ….. felt the “missing” heat must have gone into the deeper ocean….”
Good to see you have acknowledged that there isnt much global warming to speak about.
Also good to see that you acknowledge that AGW is based on “feelings”.
_____
If there is heat going into the deeper oceans, then in only means it isn’t showing up directly in upper ocean or atmospheric measurements. Any while I may have used the word “feelings” is had nothing to do with Dr. Trenberth’s contention that the heat must be in the deeper ocean, as that was based on very solid science in calculating the energy inflow and outflows from the planet. If the energy outflow is less than the inflow each year, yet we can’t account for that “missing heat”– the deeper ocean is the only place it could be as it is the only place we don’t have planetary wide temperature measurement in place. Skeptics of course wil argue that the missing heat doesn’t exist at all, but if the deeper oceans are warming (as the latest studies linked in my first post seem to be indicating) then Trenberth is right and the skeptics are wrong.
R. Gates says:
December 26, 2010 at 11:12 am
“…Dr. Trenberth’s contention that the heat must be in the deeper ocean, as that was based on very solid science in calculating the energy inflow and outflows from the planet.”
“Calculating” as you call what I’d call “estimating” is not “solid science.”
“If the energy outflow is less than the inflow each year, yet we can’t account for that “missing heat”– the deeper ocean is the only place it could be as it is the only place we don’t have planetary wide temperature measurement in place. ”
You are making the argument from ignorance; a logical fallacy often using by the religious to explain why god must have created the universe. This argument is just as silly coming from your mouth.
Assuming Trenberth’s “calculations” are correct, which is a mighty big assumption, there may be many places where the “heat” has gone. I’m assuming he is calculating the amount of energy received from the sun and using earthshine and similar measurements to determine the outgoing energy.
I’m obviously working from hypotheticals, so take take that with a grain of salt if you like, but I imagine the greening of the planet has converted much of that “missing energy” into biomatter. I would also imagine that the poles would be the be a good candidate for the energy escaping as actual heat since I believe the satellite coverage of the area is either sparse or non-existent.
Joel Shore wrote:
I did:
In 0rder to say that this sequence cannot be driven by the sun, Usoskin and Frohlich have to make the moronic claim that a steady very high level of solar activity could not cause warming. So why cite them? Here are leading CO2 alarmists ADMITTING that for the past thousands of years solar activity seems to have been a primary driver of climate, and Joel is looking for excuses to turn a blind eye. Ridiculous.
It’s probably unfair of me to call Usoskin a leading CO2 alarmist. His co-author Sami Solanki certainly isn’t. I think they just said what they had to say to get published. They needed to pretend that their findings did not support the solar theory of late-20th century warming so they concocted the crazy claim that a steady high level of solar activity was incompatible with a solar explanation.
Kind of amazing to me that Misters Shore and Tisdale are completely uninterested in this amazing phenomenon, where researchers make up an obviously untenable argument that just happens to allow them to stay on the safe side of the climate debate. Tisdale positively refuses to consider whether Usoskin’s post-1980 dodge is tenable, and Shore thinks I should APOLOGIZE for pressing this issue. Is this an alternate universe? Has WUWT become RealClimate?
Alec Rawls said, “No these papers [Usoskin and Frolich] do not support AGW or contradict the point I was making in my post. They TRY to support AGW by interpreting the data in blatantly errant ways, but they utterly fail.”
If they are such utter failures, why would you include Usoskin et al in your post to support your claims?
You wrote in the post, “That pesky data about solar-magnetic activity and earthly temperatures being highly correlated? (‘The long term trends in solar data and in northern hemisphere temperatures have a correlation coefficient of about 0.7 – .8 at a 94% – 98% confidence level.’)” You did not discuss the last 40 years as you are attempting to now. You accepted the Usoskin “similar long-term trends (‘hockey stick curve’) in the data,” as they noted in their conclusions. Your attempts to redirect the period and discussion don’t work, because what is being discussed is was what you wrote in the post.
Alec Rawls asked, “Does Mr. Tisdale accept the bizarre position of Usoskin and Frolich that solar activity does cause warming, and has for thousands of years, but that the steady high level of solar activity post-1980 couldn’t have caused warming?”
I do not accept the “position of Usoskin and Frolich that solar activity does cause warming”. You’re the one who brought them into this discussion. In fact, I do not accept anything presented by Usoskin et al (2005). What I do accept is that the variations in total solar irradiance have only a minimal impact on global temperatures, approximately 0.1 deg C per solar cycle (solar min to solar max) or approximately 0.1 deg C per watt/m^2.
Alec Rawls says, “In broad strokes, the last forty years fit nicely with the solar-climate theory. The planet warmed while the sun was in its grand maximum phase, then temperatures flattened out after the sun went quiet in 2005. Tisdale ignores this big picture and cavils about my description of the recent flattening out of temperatures.”
The data contradicts you once again. The following graph compares global temperature anomalies to TSI data that has been scaled by a factor of 0.1 deg C per Watt/m^2. Note the decadal variations in the solar cycle and how little they could contribute to the changes in the global temperatures. Also note the sign of the TSI data linear trend since 1970. It’s negative. It’s tough for you to justify a rise in global temperatures based on TSI data when the TSI data trend is negative:
http://i55.tinypic.com/rk2ae1.jpg
If you like, you could update that graph, but it won’t help.
Alec Rawls says, “I said there has been ‘no warming’ for the past 12 years, or no ‘inexplicable warming.’ Tisdale thinks he is catching me in something when he points out that there has indeed been a small amount of warming (which would be even smaller if he didn’t cut off the 98 El Nino)…”
Linear trends of 0.106 deg C/ decade (HADCRUT), 0.205 deg C/decade (GISTEMP LOTI), and 0.126 deg C/decade (NCDC) over the past 12 years are not “a small amount of warming,” as you claim. That’s 1.06 to 2.05 deg C/century. In fact, the period you, Alec Rawls, elected to discuss (the last 12 years) has higher linear trends than the often-cited period since 1900 (about 0.07 deg C/decade):
http://i54.tinypic.com/2mouubo.jpg
Also, there was no reason to include the 1997/98 El Niño. The 1997/98 El Niño did not occur in the past 12 years. That was the period you chose, the last 12 years, not the last 14 years.
You wrote, “…but sure, set it aside, as I welcomed Tisdale to do in my first reply to him, referring him to the 17 other studies that Frolich sites on the sun-climate link. But that’s not enough for Tisdale…”
If you insist: Your post is not about climate in general; it is about global temperature anomalies. The following lists the subject matter of the 17 papers cited by your linked Lockwood and Frolich (2007):
1. Davis & Shafer 1992 was about Arizona Monsoons.
2. Jirikowic et al. 1993 was a study of wet or dry periods at the Mission Cross Bog in Elko Co., Nevada.
3. Davis 1994 was about precipitation in the Southwest U.S.
4. van Geel et al. 1998 discussed the sharp rise in their proxy in 800 BC.
5. Yu & Ito 1999 was about drought frequency.
6. Bond et al. 2001 was about the North Atlantic.
7. Neff et al. 2001 dealt with monsoons in Oman.
8. Hu et al. 2003 was about the Alaskan Subarctic.
9. Sarnthein et al. 2003 studied sediment injections as a proxy of SST off the western Barents shelf.
10. Christla et al. 2004 was a study of climate over the past 200,000 years with a resolution that would not capture the recent warming.
11. Prasad et al. 2004 dealt with the period of 17,000 to 24,000 years BP.
12. Wei & Wang 2004 was about Asian monsoons.
13. Maasch et al. 2005 discussed atmospheric circulation and hydrology.
14. Mayewski et al. 2005 was another paper about atmospheric circulation.
15. Wang et al. 2005a is yet one more monsoon paper.
16. Polissar et al. 2006 discussed the tropical Andes during the Little Ice Age.
17. Bard & Frank 2006 concluded that proxies “are still not sufficiently precise to extract a meaningful solar component”.
Looks like the papers you cited, especially Bard and Frank (2006), do not support your claims about the impact of solar variations on Global temperatures.
Alec Rawls says: “Kind of amazing to me that Misters Shore and Tisdale are completely uninterested in this amazing phenomenon, where researchers make up an obviously untenable argument that just happens to allow them to stay on the safe side of the climate debate. Tisdale positively refuses to consider whether Usoskin’s post-1980 dodge is tenable, and Shore thinks I should APOLOGIZE for pressing this issue. Is this an alternate universe?”
There is no “post-1980 dodge”. Your claim that Usoskin et al “needed to pretend that their findings did not support the solar theory of late-20th century warming so they concocted the crazy claim that a steady high level of solar activity was incompatible with a solar explanation,” is not supported by the TSI data. In my above December 26, 2010 at 3:04 pm reply, I included a comparison of scaled TSI to HADCRUT global temperature anomalies that started in 1970. Here it is again:
http://i55.tinypic.com/rk2ae1.jpg
The same comparison starting in 1980 does not help your position:
http://i52.tinypic.com/2mq4xax.jpg
You concluded that comment with, “Has WUWT become RealClimate?”
No. This is WattsUpWithThat, which is why we respond negatively when someone claims a long-term correlation between solar and TSI and links in support of that claim a paper that compares a hockey stick solar reconstruction to two Mann Northern Hemisphere temperature hockey stick reconstructions.
Bob Tisdale is absolutely correct about WUWT. And anyone who takes Mann seriously should read up on the Tiljander upside-down proxy in The Hockey Stick Illusion and on Climate Audit.
Mann is no more honest than Trenberth, which is to say not at all. But it’s fun watching Gates doing flip-flops trying to keep up with their changing narrative. It’s hard being an apologist for liars.
And Joel Shore’s arm-flapping over my post – in which neither he nor anyone else addressed the central argument of low sensitivity to CO2 – is because Joel is still smarting from being exposed as an economic illiterate last week. But Marxists in general are economic illiterates, in addition to being clueless about human nature.
The Climategate emails are always fun peeks behind the scenes of IPCC charlatanism. Here’s Phil Jones discussing Trenberth with Michael Mann:
OK, R. Gates. Start spinning that one.
Alec Rawls said:
Well, in broad strokes, CO2 has been rising since the beginning of the industrial revolution…and especially since 1900 and so have temperatures. End of story.
Sorry…Broad strokes don’t cut it. Usoskin et al. (supposedly) find a good correlation between some specific measure of solar activity and temperature over a fairly long period. However, they claim this correlation breaks down over the last 30 years. You claim it doesn’t, or if you look at the correct thing it doesn’t, so I am just saying: Prove it. Show me a graph of whatever quantity related to solar activity you want to plot vs. temperatures over that period and that it gives a good correlation over the period that they talk about and continues to give a good correlation over the last 30 years. Is that too much to ask?
Hint: Over the past thousands of years until the last century, there was very little variations in forcings outside of variations in solar activity. The idea that solar activity may have played the most prominent role in climate change prior to the 2nd half of the 20th century is not an idea in conflict with the notion that this is no longer true today. In fact, Michael Mann and Gavin Schmidt, amongst other “CO2 alarmists” (terminology that for some reason is allowed here while the D-word is not), have written scientific articles about it. In fact, the higher-end estimates of the magnitude of solar variability on centennial scales would require there to be some noticeable temperature changes associated with the changes in solar forcing if the generally-accepted estimates of climate sensitivity are correct. (However, given the uncertainty in these estimates of solar variability and the general trend to believe the magnitude of this variability may not have been as large as was once believed, I am not sure if this is still true.)
This is the most lame sort of argument that I can possibly imagine. It is a nice little fairy tale that you have fabricated so that you can suitably grab what you like from their paper and then justify reaching conclusions completely different from theirs. But, of course, you are going to be showing us a plot proving me wrong…which I eagerly await.
I can wholeheartedly assure you that the posts here in WUWT by no stretch of the imagine resemble those on RealClimate. On that, I think we can both agree (even if we disagree on the reason why).
Smokey says:
It is interesting seeing lectures on moral failings of others coming from someone who refuses to post under his own name, who regularly distorts the facts and what others say, and who repeats long-discredited arguments again and again.
I’ve addressed your argument so many times that I can hardly keep count anymore but that doesn’t stop you from repeating it as if it has never been addressed.
It is a testament to your lack of maturity that
(1) you call anyone a Marxist who believes in anything but the purest laissez-faire principles that you subscribe to.
(2) and you call someone an economic illiterate if they think that there are actually alternate views to economics than what you can read on the Heritage Foundation website and the Austrian school (which probably makes about 98% of practicing economists “economic illiterates” in your book).
R. Gates says:
December 26, 2010 at 11:12 am
Response to JPeden:
December 25, 2010 at 6:28 pm
________
The essential point– that there recent evidence for heating of the deeper ocean [explaining Trenberth’s missing heat] – is valid and I’ve provided the links for readers to understand the issue on a more honest and thorough level than your ad hominems on me would allow….
Gates, it’s not an ad hominem if it’s true – Gates’ lack of credibility – which, thanks, your non-responsive, rotely perseverating claims above only confirmed again! And what’s perhaps even worse, since you will not allow your apparent claims to be disproven, they really don’t claim anything at all.
Now Bob Tisdale is dismissing a solar explanation for late 20th century warming by looking at the absence of any warming effect from TSI, exactly what my post criticizes Trenberth for doing. Asked about those who think climate change is being driven by solar activity, Trenberth says he can “disprove” this by noting that TSI has “if anything… cooled slightly.” But TSI is not “solar activity.” TSI is “the solar constant.” It is known for staying very close to constant over the 11 year cycle in solar activity (short for solar-magnetic activity).
Not only does Tisdale follow Trenberth in substituting the solar constant for solar activity, but he even seems to think that I am doing the same thing (making a TSI based argument for recent climate history). In short, he has no understanding of the subject I am addressing and doesn’t even seem to have read my short post, yet he feels no compunction about castigating me for various supposedly gross errors. In particular, it was terribly inappropriate for me to point out how even the AGW alarmists acknowledge thousands of years of evidence for a solar-activity/climate link.
Well, I invited Bob to shipwreck here. Looks like that is what he is determined to do. Okay, let’s finish it out. Go ahead Mr. Tisdale, point out how TSI and solar activity are correlated, making them equivalent or something, and I will explain to you why they are very very different.
Hint: just look at how you use TSI in your argument. You quantify it’s effect, based on its physical nature. That quantified effect does not, cannot, account for the physical effects of the solar flux and other components of solar magnetic activity.
Also, a friendly piece of advice if you are willing to take it. Why don’t you stop pretending you understand this subject better than me, when the evidence is that you have never even looked at it. If you wrote a post on something I was not particularly knowledgeable about, I can’t imagine jumping in with an accusatory presumption that I was catching you in some kind of misfeasance. Wouldn’t that be kind of crazy?
Trenberth trying to revise his infamous “lack of warming” statement into “current global warming” is a fact.
Trenberth ignoring all the dynamic variables implied by the phrase “solar activity” by limiting his response to “total solar irradiance” is a fact.
And those pixels on graphs showing a consistent warming trend appear to have no relationship whatsoever to the aggregate of chilling weather unfurling in the real world since the sun went quiet.
Alec Rawls: Regarding your December 27, 2010 at 1:06 am , since you now claim to be an expert on the relationship between solar variability and global temperatures, or at least you claim to be more knowledgeable than I am about the subject, you must have spent untold, countless hours sorting through data while performing your own research. This should mean that there is a readily available long-term (since 1900) solar dataset that you have used to confirm the beliefs you have presented in this post and thread. Please prepare a graph of that dataset, and compare it to a global temperature anomaly dataset, from 1900 to present. And please provide a link to the solar dataset you used. There are many who blog here at WattsUpWithThat, including solar physicist Leif Svalgaard, who would be very interested in how you “account for the physical effects of the solar flux and other components of solar magnetic activity.”
I and countless others await this simple product of your research.
Joel Shore wrote to Alec Rawls, “But, of course, you are going to be showing us a plot proving me wrong…which I eagerly await.”
That’s curious. You and I are on opposing sides in the AGW argument, but we both await the same thing. The final sentence of my last comment read, “I and countless others await this simple product of your research.”
Alec and Bob, two points.
1) Since the oceans accumulate and dissipate heat over mutidecadal timescales, the appropriate way to use the TSI data (which correlates well to sunspot number) is to integrate it as a cumulative total departing from the ocean equilibrium value. This shows that the influence of the solar contribution to global temperature is likely significant.
http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2010/07/21/nailing-the-solar-activity-global-temperature-divergence-lie/
2) We don’t yet understand the other ways variations in the spectral composition of solar irradiance affects Earth’s climate through the effect of various wavelengths on atmospheric chemistry, but the fact that EUV increased some 50% from the end of the Maunder Minimum to now is hardly likely to be insignificant, since EUV affects ozone production.
http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2010/12/27/solanki-krivova-vieira-crucial-new-solar-paper/
Bob Tisdale says:
Yeah…I was thinking much the same thing. If a post is such that both Bob Tisdale and Joel Shore can agree on how wrong-headed it is, then that’s saying something!
tallbloke says:
It would be a more significant visual test of how well-correlated the two things that you plot are if you were to plot them both on the same graph rather than on graphs one above the other. Also, it is quite an oversimplification that you do not in some way include the “negative feedback” described by the Stefan-Boltzmann Equation (i.e., as the oceans heat up, they radiate more)…which would tend to cause the warming to level off over time even if solar didn’t return to the arbitrary “neutral” level that you have chosen. Imagine if scientists ran climate models without this effect included in them…I don’t think people around here (including myself, actually) would be too happy about that!
tallbloke says: “Since the oceans accumulate and dissipate heat over mutidecadal timescales, the appropriate way to use the TSI data (which correlates well to sunspot number) is to integrate it as a cumulative total departing from the ocean equilibrium value. This shows that the influence of the solar contribution to global temperature is likely significant.
http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2010/07/21/nailing-the-solar-activity-global-temperature-divergence-lie/”
Please plot, on the same graph, the Global SST anomalies and a scaled version of the “cumulative total sunspot area”. These two datasets:
http://tallbloke.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/ssa-sst-ssn.jpg
Thanks
Tallbloke: Figure 8 “Ly-a irradiance” of Krivova et al (2010)…
http://tallbloke.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/solanki-2010-1.gif
…which you have displayed in your post here…
http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2010/12/27/solanki-krivova-vieira-crucial-new-solar-paper/
…may have increased 50%, but it still peaks in 1950, as does sunspot number and TSI, so any attempt to explain additional warming since 1950 as a response to solar variability is still difficult.
Bob, see my point (1). The issue isn’t just instantaneous peak amplitudes, but the cumulative effect of solar variation.
Also, although the peak amplitudes fell after 1960 (which possibly overcounted sunspots during the highest ever cycle) the cycles were short, with steep up and downramps, and short minima.
Solar activity was well above average for the whole of the second half of the C20th.
Bob Tisdale says:
December 27, 2010 at 7:45 am
Please plot, on the same graph, the Global SST anomalies and a scaled version of the “cumulative total sunspot area”. These two datasets:
http://tallbloke.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/ssa-sst-ssn.jpg
Not sure what you are getting at. That is what is plotted on that graph.
What I will have a go at is plotting cumulative sunspots against SST with the PDO and AMO removed. Maybe you could help me with that? This would smooth out the dips and peaks around 1900 and 1940 and help you see what I’m talking about I think.
Tallbloke replied, “Not sure what you are getting at. That is what is plotted on that graph.”
What you provided here…
http://tallbloke.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/ssa-sst-ssn.jpg
..are two separate graphs and you’ve placed them top to bottom. What I asked for was to have them appear on one graph, a comparison graph like this:
http://i52.tinypic.com/2mq4xax.jpg
If you’d rather I do it, please provide links to the datasets that make up the “cumulative total sunspot area” data and any equation that’s required.
Thanks
Joel Shore says: “Yeah…I was thinking much the same thing. If a post is such that both Bob Tisdale and Joel Shore can agree on how wrong-headed it is, then that’s saying something!”
Maybe we’ll both be enlightened by Alec’s upcoming plot of a solar variable and global temperatures–or we may be enlightened in another way.
Joel Shore says:
December 27, 2010 at 7:45 am
it is quite an oversimplification that you do not in some way include the “negative feedback” described by the Stefan-Boltzmann Equation (i.e., as the oceans heat up, they radiate more)…which would tend to cause the warming to level off over time even if solar didn’t return to the arbitrary “neutral” level that you have chosen. Imagine if scientists ran climate models without this effect included in them…I don’t think people around here (including myself, actually) would be too happy about that!
Joel, thanks, constructive criticism is always welcome. I think your contribution here is important for the pressure it puts on us to be clear with our arguments.
Small changes in SST cause bigger changes in atmospheric temperature. You can see this in the effect of the 1998 El Nino on SST and UAH lower troposphere temps. Higher emission by the ocean is to some extent suppressed by higher LT temps. This is evidenced by the way ocean heat content continues to build while the 98 El Nino plays out. There’s a limit to how fast the ocean can get rid of heat. Other factors are involved. The 98 El Nino cased a huge spike in humidity above the tropics. This retained heat and spread it out. We’re talking about a coupled ocean air system here. The terrestrial amplification of the solar signal identified by Nir Shaviv in his JGR paper on using the oceans as a calorimeter has to be taken into account too.
I didn’t choose an “arbitrary “neutral” level” for the ocean equilibrium value, I derived it from two different lines of investigation; the long term sunspot average over 250 years, and the average value over an extended period when SST didn’t vary much.
I understand why this can’t be regarded as a rigorous scientific procedure. It is an engineering estimate. The reason I think it is reasonable to use it is that since our data is so uncertain for SST’s and OHC anyway, it’s as good as anything else out there. You may disagree.
Check my second link too. The effect of changes within the solar irradiance spectrum are uncertain too. I’m just trying to point the way to a better understanding of the sun as it relates to climate change, not making strong claims for the completeness or accuracy of my method.
Cheers and seasons greetings to you.
Alec Rawls: I just noticed that you’ve linked your post about ocean cycles to your name in your most recent comment. This post:
http://errortheory.blogspot.com/2008/04/ocean-oscillations-are-not-masking.html
After you’ve enlightened all who are awaiting your documentation of your solar/global temperature beliefs, I’ll be happy to discuss with you the very obvious error in your ocean cycle post.
Tallbloke and others, please don’t give him any hints. We’re all awaiting his documentation of his solar-global temperature link. After we’re finished with that, we can discuss his ocean cycles post.
Regards
Bob Tisdale says:
December 27, 2010 at 8:52 am What I asked for was to have them appear on one graph, a comparison graph like this:
http://i52.tinypic.com/2mq4xax.jpg
If you’d rather I do it, please provide links to the datasets that make up the “cumulative total sunspot area” data and any equation that’s required.
Bob, with you now. As it happens, I’ve already started work on updating the graph. Please could you help by pointing me to those graphs you did of the global SST with the effects of PDO and AMO removed, and I’ll include those for comparison too.
Thanks.
Tallbloke says: “Bob, with you now. As it happens, I’ve already started work on updating the graph. Please could you help by pointing me to those graphs you did of the global SST with the effects of PDO and AMO removed, and I’ll include those for comparison too.”
You have my email address, or access to it as a WUWT moderator, don’t you? Let’s do it that way.
Bob, email sent.
tallbloke says:
December 27, 2010 at 6:29 am
the fact that EUV increased some 50% from the end of the Maunder Minimum to now is hardly likely to be insignificant, since EUV affects ozone production.
http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2010/12/27/solanki-krivova-vieira-crucial-new-solar-paper/
The ‘fact’? Big word there. The Krivova paper is based on the obsolete Group Sunspot Number and is thus not valid. Now, people often use out-of-date data if it supports their theory.
My recent AGU-presentation outlines the Group Sunspot Number problem: http://www.leif.org/research/AGU%20Fall%202010%20SH53B-03.pdf
Ken Schatten, Ed Cliver, and yours truly are putting these arguments together in a paper we’ll submit to Solar Physics so it’ll be proper peer-reviewed and reference-able.
tallbloke says:
Actually, the greater response in lower troposphere temps will tend to limit the effect of the solar forcing and tend to speed the approach back to equilibrium because this greater rise in temperature means (via the Steffan-Boltzmann equation) that there is a larger rise in radiation back out into space. This is why the “lapse rate feedback” is a negative feedback in the climate system.
If you prefer, you can change “arbitrary” to read that it is a fitting parameter that you have essentially adjusted to get agreement with the data. Hence in any comparison of your integrated solar vs the SSTs, one needs to be aware that there are essentially two-parameters in that fit (this one and the one controlling the relative scaling of the SSTs vs the cumulative total sunspot area).
Well, I think the point is that there are two extremes: one that compares the current solar activity to the temperature and yours that compares the cumulative (i.e., integrated) solar activity to the temperature are two extreme case. The correct picture would be somewhere in between these two extremes since there is a cumulative effect but it is also going to be reduced by the negative feedback that higher temperatures result in higher terrestrial emission back out into space. Essentially, one applies in the limit that the heat capacity in infinitesimally small and the other in the limit that the heat capacity is infinitely large. (One way to incorporate this would be to have the “neutral level” itself be a function of the SSTs since the is effectively what is going to be the case…because as the SSTs rise and the atmospheric temperatures rise also, the amount of heat that the earth radiates back out into space is going to increase.)
And, likewise to you!
Leif Svalgaard says:
December 27, 2010 at 10:21 am
Hi Leif,
FYI the paper I refer to is fully peer reviewed and referenceable .
JOURNAL OF GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH, VOL. 115, A12112, 11 PP., 2010
doi:10.1029/2010JA015431
Reconstruction of solar spectral irradiance since the Maunder minimum
N. A. Krivova, L. E. A. Vieira, S. K. Solanki
You say it uses the group sunspot number and that this is invalid. I believe that the invalidity of the group sunspot number is your opinion, rather than an fact established by peer reviewed referenceable science. Is that correct?
I look forward to reading your pdf, and good luck with getting it converted to peer reviewed referenceable science. Thanks for the link.
And merry christmas you old Grinch. 😉
tallbloke says:
December 27, 2010 at 11:02 am
FYI the paper I refer to is fully peer reviewed and referenceable .
As are hundreds of AGW papers, no?
You can read the full paper here: http://www.leif.org/EOS/2010JA015431.pdf
I believe that the invalidity of the group sunspot number is your opinion, rather than an fact established by peer reviewed referenceable science. Is that correct?
‘fact’? being peer-reviewed does not make something a fact. But, you are correct, it is my and Schatten’s opinion [Ken is one of the inventors of the Group Number]. We have, however very good reasons for this considered opinion.
Leif Svalgaard says:
December 27, 2010 at 11:14 am
You can read the full paper here: http://www.leif.org/EOS/2010JA015431.pdf
I believe that the invalidity of the group sunspot number is your opinion, rather than an fact established by peer reviewed referenceable science. Is that correct?
‘fact’? being peer-reviewed does not make something a fact. But, you are correct, it is my and Schatten’s opinion [Ken is one of the inventors of the Group Number]. We have, however very good reasons for this considered opinion.
Thanks for the ‘production’ copy of the paper, my preprint had all the graphs at the end, yours is much nicer.
I’m sure you have good reasons. Just as the peer reviewers of the Krivova et al paper had good reasons not to reject on the basis that it used the GSN, given the current levels of solar activity. Maybe they think your unvarying sun theory may have a bit of a reworking coming up?
tallbloke says:
December 27, 2010 at 11:33 am
Just as the peer reviewers of the Krivova et al paper had good reasons not to reject on the basis that it used the GSN, given the current levels of solar activity.
I think you have a misconception of what peer review is. Using GSN would not be a reason for rejection. Peer review does not address the validity of a paper, but whether the analysis is done correctly. The reader’s themselves decide on basis of the information given whether the paper is valid.
Maybe they think your unvarying sun theory may have a bit of a reworking coming up?
You have this somewhat backwards. What we are showing is that the Sun in the 18th and 19th centuries varied a lot more than the GSN suggested. The standard deviation of GSN over the interval 1749-1876 was 28. We think it should be 43.
Leif Svalgaard says:
December 27, 2010 at 11:46 am
What we are showing is that the Sun in the 18th and 19th centuries varied a lot more than the GSN suggested. The standard deviation of GSN over the interval 1749-1876 was 28. We think it should be 43.
Well, it all depends on whether you are considering solar variability over the 130 years from 1749-1876 or solar variability over the entire period from 1749-2010. Increasing the SD over the short term while at the same time raising the amplitudes to bring the run of cycles more into line with the long term average might be seen by some as another step in the direction of massaging the sun into having less variability.
I’m happy for there to be two schools of thought on this. Let them compete as we move through this exciting time in history when the sun is defying our long cherished conceptions of its behaviour at points in history beyond our direct knowledge.
How is it going with extending the geomagnetic analysis to earlier times before 1876?
tallbloke says:
December 27, 2010 at 12:17 pm
“The standard deviation of GSN over the interval 1749-1876 was 28. We think it should be 43.”
Well, it all depends on whether you are considering solar variability over the 130 years from 1749-1876 or solar variability over the entire period from 1749-2010.
For 1877-2010 the SD for GSN is 44, and for the [official] SSN 46, so no real difference with the earlier period.
might be seen by some as another step in the direction of massaging the sun into having less variability.
That is because those ‘some’ do not wish to study or even contemplate the evidence for the revision.
I’m happy for there to be two schools of thought on this
This should not be so, as the data should speak. And the data does not speak with forked tongue.
How is it going with extending the geomagnetic analysis to earlier times before 1876?
Solid back to 1836.
Joel Shore says:
December 27, 2010 at 10:33 am
(One way to incorporate this would be to have the “neutral level” itself be a function of the SSTs since the is effectively what is going to be the case…because as the SSTs rise and the atmospheric temperatures rise also, the amount of heat that the earth radiates back out into space is going to increase.)
Yes, I had given some thought as to how much the equilibrium value might alter with changing temperature. I came to the conclusion, having studied the relationship between OLR, TSI and the SOI, that it doesn’t make a big difference. Cloud variation caused by solar activity is a bigger issue.
Thanks for the feedback.
tallbloke says:
December 27, 2010 at 11:02 am
rather than a fact established by peer reviewed referenceable science.
Snide and disingenuous comments about peer-review and facts are two-edged swords, cutting sharply both ways.
Here is then a fact established by peer reviewed referenceable science:
http://www.leif.org/research/2009JA015069.pdf
showing that solar activity [measured by the sun’s magnetic field in the heliosphere] in the 1835-1875 interval was comparable to that in 1950-2000. See e.g. Figure 10.
Yet the GSN for the first interval was 43, for the second 72. Since the heliospheric magnetic fields [a ‘fact’ according to your logic] were the same, the GSN should have been the same, etc.
Bob Tisdale says that there should be :
He “eagerly awaits.” Dude, you can pick ANY temperature record and you can pick ANY measure of solar activity, and you will see that, just as I said:
Are those broad strokes the least bit contestable? Bob contests that they support a sun-climate link by doing what Trenberth did. Asked what he thought of the competing theory that temperatures were being driven by solar magnetic activity, not by CO2, Trenberth’s answer was to substitute the solar constant for solar activity, in effect pretending that solar magnetic variables and solar magnetic theories of warming don’t exist. Bob also fixes on TSI and pleads ignorance of solar-magnetic theories of warming, begging me to please tell him what other physical effects of the solar flux and other components of solar activity might need to be taken into account. In other words: what’s wrong with completely omitting all solar magnetic variables from his analysis?
What’s wrong with ignoring competing theories? Why not just pretend they don’t exist? Is this really the rock that Bob wants to defend?
Trenberth’s method for evading the sun-climate link was the original subject of this post. Bob discovered in the Usoskin paper I cited a second method of evasion that has been employed not just by Usoskin but also by Benestad, Frolich and several other solar scientists, so we started talking about it. This is something I have been writing about for years, how the solar scientists are all pretending that for a sun-climate link to be indicated, warming would have to be accompanied by rising levels of solar activity. If steady peak levels of solar activity coincide with warming, that is supposedly inconsistent with solar warming. Are they really that fruity, or are they stating this post-1980 exception in order to protect their funding?
Bob apparently thought his Usoskin find had caught me in some kind of mistake or faux pas and decided that it was illegitimate of me to start criticizing this second ploy for evading a sun-climate link. Having started down this road, it seems he can’t let it go. Well, if he wants to deny that warming, accompanied by steady peak levels of solar activity, is consistent with a sun-climate link, there are only two ways to go that I know of: there’s the Usoskin et al. evasion, and there’s the Trenberth evasion. (IPCC reports are built around both. They use the Usoskin evasion to help justify the exclusion of all solar variables but TSI from their models.)
Both of these evasions are completely untenable. They are not even close to legitimate. This is no place to make a stand.
As for any flaw that Bob wants to point out in my ocean oscillations post, I obviously welcome any rational input.
[snip – your comment is way over the top, Dr. Trenberth may have made mistakes, but let’s not go into this defamatory territory here – moderator]
Leif Svalgaard says:
December 27, 2010 at 1:39 pm
Snide and disingenuous comments about peer-review and facts are two-edged swords, cutting sharply both ways.
Take it easy Leif, I made the tongue in cheek comment about facts and publication because you didn’t acknowledge that the Kraviva et al paper had just been published (23rd Dec) in your first reply. I find all the work done on reconstructing the solar past fascinating and informative. It’s not my job to take sides, nor is it yours to force me to. I await with interest your further pushing back your study past the Dalton Minimum. I can’t remember how far back you said the usable magnetic records go. What are the prospects?
Alec Rawls said:
Yes…That is exactly right. If they have found a correlation between plots of solar activity (or some proxy of solar activity) and temperature over hundred of years, then temperature continuing to rise while solar activity remains constant is inconsistent with such a correlation. If instead they had found a correlation between graphs of something else, like solar activity being at a steady high level and temperature trends being positive then PERHAPS the last 30 years would not be inconsistent. However, that is not the correlation that they have reported finding and you have presented no evidence that such a correlation exists for the period before 1980 nor that, if it does, the correlation is such that the numerical rise in temperature seen since then is consistent with it. What Usokin et al. found was that the correlation that they had found between solar activity and temperature broke down in a big way after 1980, so much so that thought it better not to even show the data past then because it would look so lousy (although there are other plots out there where you can see how badly it does indeed break down).
You have also not explained why one expects temperatures to continue to rise so significantly for such a sustained period after the solar activity has reached a maximum, given that we know that as temperatures rise, the Stefan-Boltzmann Equation shows that the radiation from the earth and thus any forcing will decrease. I would just love to see the reaction around here if climate scientists used a model for the temperature rise from greenhouse gases increases that didn’t include the feedback implied by the Stefan-Boltzmann Equation! People would be yelling “fraud” and worse!
In other words, you’ve got nothing, and your continued contortions on this thread are frankly embarrassing.
Alec Rawls says:
December 27, 2010 at 1:46 pm
Asked what he thought of the competing theory that temperatures were being driven by solar magnetic activity, not by CO2, Trenberth’s answer was to substitute the solar constant for solar activity, in effect pretending that solar magnetic variables and solar magnetic theories of warming don’t exist.
Alec, have you read Trenberth’s paper on variation in insolation and its potential impact on future temperature?
http://tallbloke.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/trenberth-solar2009.pdf
Alec Rawls says: “Dude, you can pick ANY temperature record and you can pick ANY measure of solar activity, and you will see that, just as I said.”
Dude? No one in my lifetime has called me Dude, and I don’t expect to be called Dude again.
I presented a graph to you earlier using HADCRUT global temperature anomalies and scaled TSI:
http://i52.tinypic.com/2mq4xax.jpg
The TSI was scaled so that it represented about a 0.1 deg C variation for a change from solar min to solar max, which is what one would expect.
You then replied, “But TSI is not ‘solar activity.’ TSI is ‘the solar constant.'” I didn’t want to argue with you that the belief that TSI was constant departed with the advent of satellite-based solar irradiance measurement. So I asked you, Alec, to present the data as you would like it presented. It seemed logical to me then that since you are a self-proclaimed expert on the impacts of solar variations on global temperature that you must have created a multitude of graphs comparing solar datasets of your choice to global temperature anomaly datasets, also of your choice. All it would have taken was for you to copy a link from the numerous solar threads you now claim to have written for your blog. And of course you proved me wrong; you have failed to produce one comparison graph and discuss it so that all who are reading this thread could understand your point.
So in an attempt to put this to rest, I’ll use Sunspot Numbers, scaled so that the data represents about a 0.1 deg C variation for a change from solar min to solar max (for the last 3 solar cycles), and compare them to the same HADCRUT global temperature anomaly data. I’ve also “centered” the scaled sunspots for appearance purposes. I’ve start both datasets in January 1900, so that we get the long-term view. And I’ve added linear trends for those who might be interested:
http://i51.tinypic.com/4lo8ev.jpg
As is clearly visible, solar variations cannot explain the warming during the second half OR during the first half of the 20th century. I could switch back to TSI and show you the same thing.
Since you won’t present a graph of your own making, you’ll have to use that one, and based on it, please explain how solar variability could possibly have driven the global temperatures since 1900. If you disapprove of my scaling, please justify another scaling factor. But I’ve used the same scaling in other solar-related posts. Here’s a link to one that was cross posted here at WUWT:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/03/05/ipcc-20th-century-simulations-get-a-boost-from-outdated-solar-forcings/
Note the comments by Leif Svalgaard, a solar physicist. If my scaling was out of line, it’s likely Leif would have commented. But maybe he missed it. Since he’s been active on this thread already, if my scaling is out of line, I’ll ask for his recommendation.
Here’s the sunspot data since the start of that dataset. Maybe you or another person on this thread can use it as part of the discussion. It’s also smoothed with an 11-year filter to help illustrate when the sunspot data peaked in the second half of the 20th century:
http://i52.tinypic.com/xbmut5.jpg
If you like, I can prepare a similar graph using TSI data.
You wrote, “Bob also fixes on TSI and pleads ignorance of solar-magnetic theories of warming, begging me to please tell him what other physical effects of the solar flux and other components of solar activity might need to be taken into account.”
Wrong. Quote me if you can where I pleaded “ignorance of solar-magnetic theories of warming”, and begged you to please tell me “what other physical effects of the solar flux and other components of solar activity might need to be taken into account.” The comment you are referring to is here:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/12/24/lump-of-coal-award-to-ipcc-lead-author-kevin-trenberth-for-hiding-the-decline-or-the-lack-of-increase-in-global-temperatures/#comment-559781
I simply asked you, as have others on this thread, to produce one graph that compares the solar variable of your choice to a global anomaly dataset of your choice. Have you done so? No.
You wrote, “Bob apparently thought his Usoskin find had caught me in some kind of mistake or faux pas and decided that it was illegitimate of me to start criticizing this second ploy for evading a sun-climate link.”
Wrong. As I’ve repeatedly noted on this thread, my objection to Usoskin et al was their use of the two Mann et al hockey-stick reconstructions. It’s you who attempted to spin your inclusion of that paper in your post and redirect the discussion.
You asked, “Is this really the rock that Bob wants to defend?”
I’m defending what the data presents. As noted before, you, Alec, have been asked numerous times to present the data in a fashion that illustrates your argument, and you have failed to do so. There are a number of ways that the readers here at WUWT will take that failure on your part, and few of them will be in your favor.
You wrote, “As for any flaw that Bob wants to point out in my ocean oscillations post, I obviously welcome any rational input.”
About 50 of my posts have been cross posted here at WUWT, and many of them discuss the processes that drive the ocean oscillations and their impacts of global temperature. If my posts were not rational, Anthony would not continue to post them. We’ll eventually get to your mistake in your ocean cycle post.
Bob Tisdale says:
December 27, 2010 at 6:14 pm
If you disapprove of my scaling, please justify another scaling factor.
Bob, have you read Nir Shaviv’s JGR paper “using the oceans as a calorimeter”?
He has an easy read version on his site here:
http://www.sciencebits.com/calorimeter
Highly recommended for anyone interested in how the oceans accumulate heat.
Tallbloke says: “Bob, have you read Nir Shaviv’s JGR paper ‘using the oceans as a calorimeter’?”
Nir Shaviv’s JGR paper “using the oceans as a calorimeter” was discussed here at WUWT over a year and a half ago:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/04/15/the-oceans-as-a-calorimeter/
As always, Leif’s comments are worth the read.
Tallbloke says: “Highly recommended for anyone interested in how the oceans accumulate heat.”
By breaking the ocean basins into tropical and extratropical subsets, I’ve shown that much of the OHC gains are driven by ENSO, SLP, and the AMO:
http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2009/09/enso-dominates-nodc-ocean-heat-content.html
And:
http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2009/12/north-pacific-ocean-heat-content-shift.html
And:
http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2009/10/north-atlantic-ocean-heat-content-0-700.html
Joel Shore seems to think that Usoskin’s correlation results imply (if they are valid at all) a mechanism by which changes in the level of solar activity are causing temperature to change. That misunderstands what a correlation study is. Usoskin did not hypothesize a particular physical mechanism and then estimate its parameters. Instead, he was taking a preliminary step: “let’s look first to see if there is a correlation.”
Turning to physical mechanisms that could account for a correlation between solar activity and temperature, it can only be the level of solar activity that affects temperature. It can’t be the fact that the level is changing. Come on.
With his appeals to Stefan–Boltzmann, Shore is also demanding to know at what temperature steady peak levels of solar activity would equilibrate. Obviously that is a complicated question, and the idea that somebody in a comment thread should be scorned for not answering it is absurd. In general, answering this question requires modeling the physical mechanism. For instance, if the GCR-cloud theory is correct, and we can nail down the parameters of how solar activity blocks GCR and reduces cloud formation, then a GCM that includes modeling of this sun-cloud behavior would be able to tell us at what temperature steady peak solar activity would equilibrate.
I too would like to know whether the warming effects of our recent 80 year grand maximum of solar activity managed to reach equilibrium before solar activity fell off in 2005, but that’s a final step. The first step–what we have now–is numerous correlation studies which indicate that there is some mechanism by which solar magnetic activity has a powerful effect on climate.
We need to incorporate this evidence for a sun-climate link into our projections, even if we don’t know the mechanism. If we fail to account the likelihood that 20th century warming was caused by high levels of solar activity then these solar-warming effects get misattributed to CO2, giving the eco-lunatics an excuse to unplug the modern world.
tallbloke says:
December 27, 2010 at 3:41 pm
Take it easy Leif, I made the tongue in cheek comment about facts and publication
Then mark it as in-cheek, although I think you somehow mean it, judging from the word ‘crucial’.
because you didn’t acknowledge that the Kraviva et al paper had just been published (23rd Dec) in your first reply.
since I think it is no good, I see no reason to comment on it.
What are the prospects?
1720s, 1740s, and 1760s
Bob Tisdale says:
December 27, 2010 at 6:14 pm
Here’s the sunspot data since the start of that dataset. Maybe you or another person on this thread can use it as part of the discussion. It’s also smoothed with an 11-year filter to help illustrate when the sunspot data peaked in the second half of the 20th century: http://i52.tinypic.com/xbmut5.jpg
add 20% before 1945 and you should be good. The rationale is here:
http://www.leif.org/research/SPD-2009.pdf
Alec Rawls says:
And what they claim to have found is that there is a correlation but that it completely breaks down for at least the last 30 years and that is the point that you simply refuse to accept with your hand-waving nonsense.
What they showed the correlation between was the LEVEL of solar activity and the temperature AT THE SAME TIME. You may want to believe that there is a lag or a cumulative effect that you get by integration or what-have-you but that is NOT what they showed the correlation to be. And that correlation breaks down since 1980 (or the 1970s…or whatever). You may think that some other measure correlates better since the 1970s but then you have to demonstrate that this is the case and that it also correlates well prior to the 1970s as they have at least tried to demonstrate for their purported correlation.
Just admit it, you screwed up. It is not that hard to come clean and you will be more respected for it. Otherwise you can just continue to argue yourself into embarrassment and oblivion.
Bob: I am glad to use your graph of HADCRUT temperature anomalies vs. sunspot numbers. As I said, any temperature record and any solar activity record would illustrate how “the planet warmed while the sun was in its grand maximum phase, then temperatures flattened out after the sun went quiet in 2005.” Your graph is no exception.
By Usoskin’s calculations, the recent grand maximum of solar activity started in 1920 and ended in 2000. Your overlay shows how temperatures increased in two-steps-forward one-step back fashion throughout this span. Why the fits and starts in warming? Because ocean oscillations add a noise signal that can easily outstrip the temperature trend in any decade.
Taken separately, the periods before and after this grand maximum show approximately no temperature trend, but that must be largely coincidence. Ocean oscillations could have easily created a surface temperature trend in either direction, regardless of whether planetary temperature (the temperature of the oceans as a whole) was rising or falling.
You look at this graphic and say:
On the contrary. The 80 year grand maximum of solar activity explains the whole century quite nicely. You seem to be denying the significance of ocean oscillations. I thought they were your “bag” baby. (Sorry, I forgot. You’re not a dude.)
Bob Tisdale says:
December 27, 2010 at 7:05 pm calorimeter’?”
Nir Shaviv’s JGR paper “using the oceans as a calorimeter” was discussed here at WUWT over a year and a half ago:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/04/15/the-oceans-as-a-calorimeter/
As always, Leif’s comments are worth the read.
Nir Shaviv answered Leif’s complaints at the link I gave you.
On April 16th, 2009 Paolo M. says:
Solar physicist Leif Svalgaard state that you have tortured the data you used for your paper figure 2. Find his critics at
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/04/15/the-oceans-as-a-calorimeter/#comments
on 15.04.2009 at 9:48
Moreover Lean 2000 is an obsolete reconstrunction.
Would you provide an answer? Thank you.
On April 17th, 2009 shaviv says:
Yes, I pulled finger nails until the data said “I give up, I give up!”
o.k., now seriously.
In order to get the cleanest data I used the 24 tide gauges chosen by Douglas 1997 for different stringent criteria (e.g., in geologically stable locations, long records, consistent with other gauges nearby, etc). I used someone else’s tide gauges so that I could not be accused of cherry picking.
Secondly, because I am not interested in long term trends, but I am interested in short term derivatives, I treated the data differently than what other people do. Instead of averaging the station heights and then differentiating, I first differentiated the data for each station and then added the derivatives. The reason is that this way I avoid getting spurious jumps from the start or end of individual station data. Because it can give rise to spurious long term trends and because I don’t care about long term trends, I simply removed any linear trend from the data.
In the graph from 1870 that Lief Svalgaard points to, one cannot see the 11-year signal because the latter only amounts to a few cm amplitude (3.5 mm/yr!). It obviously drowns in the annual noise or the long term trends in Leif’s particular graph. Note that at least over the past 50 years, Holgate sees consistently the same 11-year variations in the data (e.g., referenced here). Of course, because he uses a lot of lower quality stations (177) and/or is not careful to first differentiate and then add the tidal gauge data, he sees somewhat different variations before 1950, than what I find. (Of course, this is not a problem because he does not care about 11-year variations). Anyway, did Holgate torture his data too?
Oh, and the fact that Lean 2000 is used for the TSI is totally meaningless. The correlation with any signal synchronized with the 11-year solar cycle would give the same result. Note that I removed any long term trends from the tide data and from the solar proxies (whether TSI or cosmic rays).
Perhaps Leif could use this opportunity to respond. I hope he does, because this is actually very important.
Leif Svalgaard says:
December 27, 2010 at 8:10 pm
What are the prospects?
1720s, 1740s, and 1760s
Do you mean to say there is good magnetic data in those decades, and then none until after the Dalton minimum?
tallbloke says:
December 28, 2010 at 3:04 am
Perhaps Leif could use this opportunity to respond.
What precisely am I supposed to respond to?
tallbloke says:
December 28, 2010 at 3:14 am
Do you mean to say there is good magnetic data in those decades, and then none until after the Dalton minimum?
No, those were just the earliest. There is good date from 1780 to 1804, then none until 1818, then good from 1818 on. So, unfortunately, there is no data from 1805-1817.
tallbloke says: “Nir Shaviv answered Leif’s complaints at the link I gave you.”
One needs to divide the ocean basins into tropical and extratropical subsets as I noted in my follow-up comment.
Regards
Leif Svalgaard says: “add 20% before 1945 and you should be good.”
Thanks. Here’s the result.
http://i51.tinypic.com/330cpb5.jpg
Leif Svalgaard says:
December 28, 2010 at 6:58 am
There is good date from 1780 to 1804, then none until 1818, then good from 1818 on. So, unfortunately, there is no data from 1805-1817.
Thanks Leif. SO is their any clue as to why there is no data from 1804 to 1817? Any written work from that time commenting on very low values making measurement difficult or anything? Sounds like an interesting project for a historian of science. Any pointers welcome.
Leif, please could you respond to Nir Shaviv’s reply to your objections to his JGR paper I quoted at:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/12/24/lump-of-coal-award-to-ipcc-lead-author-kevin-trenberth-for-hiding-the-decline-or-the-lack-of-increase-in-global-temperatures/#comment-560662
Thanks
tallbloke says:
December 28, 2010 at 8:01 am
Thanks Leif. SO is their any clue as to why there is no data from 1804 to 1817?
War [Napoleon]
tallbloke says:
December 28, 2010 at 8:03 am
Leif, please could you respond to Nir Shaviv’s reply to your objections to his JGR paper I quoted at:
What precisely? The reply as stated is not specific enough [and just describes various forms of data torture].
Alec Rawls says: “By Usoskin’s calculations, the recent grand maximum of solar activity started in 1920 and ended in 2000. Your overlay shows how temperatures increased in two-steps-forward one-step back fashion throughout this span. Why the fits and starts in warming? Because ocean oscillations add a noise signal that can easily outstrip the temperature trend in any decade.”
The first problem you have is the actual magnitude of the solar signal that’s present in the global surface temperature data. It reflects a signal that’s about 0.1 deg C from solar min to max. Unless you can provide and explain an unknown amplifying mechanism that does not exist in the global temperature data, the variations in solar can only create the trend shown in the graph I provided, or about 0.002 deg C/decade, while global temperatures rose at a rate of 0.07 deg C/decade.
http://i51.tinypic.com/4lo8ev.jpg
Since you continue to rely on Usoskin et al, I’ve got a question for you. Did Usoskin et al fail to mention that they needed an amplifying mechanism to make their wiggle matching work, or did they include that note and you failed to recognize its importance?
The second problem you have is your continued reliance on the Mann hockey stick data used by Usoskin et al. Enough said on this thread about Mann et al.
That brings us to the ocean oscillations, about which you stated, “add a noise signal that can easily outstrip the temperature trend in any decade.” And you added, “You seem to be denying the significance of ocean oscillations.”
There’s no denial on my part. Your comment is based solely on your incorrect assumptions, not on data. Obviously you’ve never removed ocean oscillations from the global temperature record; otherwise you would not have written what you did. Removing them is relatively easy. Let’s use global SST data (it’s not as noisy) and start eliminating them one by one. We’ll remove the effects of the AMO first.
The AMO data is North Atlantic SST anomaly data that have been detrended. But since you might want to argue that the trend is also natural, we’ll leave in the trend and use the North Atlantic data. The following graph compares the North Atlantic SST anomalies (0-75N, 78W-10E) to the global data (90S-90N). The variations in the North Atlantic data are much greater than the global data, but the trends are remarkably similar.
http://i55.tinypic.com/2bxyqp.jpg
If we assume the Atlantic represents 30% of the global ocean surface area and that the North Atlantic represents half of that, then the North Atlantic data cover 15% of the surface area of the global oceans. We’ll scale the North Atlantic data by 0.15 and subtract it from the global data. I’ve smoothed the data with a 13-month filter so that you can see the before and after results in the next graph. Some of the multidecadal variability has left the data.
http://i55.tinypic.com/sn1bva.jpg
Next is the PDO. The Pacific Decadal Oscillation data is the leading principal component of North Pacific (north of 20N) SST anomaly data, where the data in each 5X5 deg grid has been detrended. The PDO is also standardized, and this exaggerates the PDO signal. The PDO is NOT, definitely not, the SST anomaly data of the North Pacific, north of 20N. It is a statistically created dataset that represents the pattern of the SST anomalies, but it does not represent the SST anomalies themselves. And that’s the mistake you made in your ocean oscillation post. You assumed the PDO represents the SST data of the North Pacific, north of 20N. (That and assuming your comparison of Sunspots and global temperature anomalies was valid.) The PDO and the SST anomalies of the North Pacific (north of 20N) are actually inversely related. The ever-observant Tallbloke noticed that. Here’s a link to the post that shows the relationship.
http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2010/09/inverse-relationship-between-pdo-and.html
The next graph compares the statistically created PDO data to the SST anomalies of the North Pacific north of 20N (20N-65N, 105E-105W) and the global data with the North Atlantic removed. It shows how out of scale the PDO data is with respect to the actually SST anomalies of the same area of the North Pacific.
http://i52.tinypic.com/2rcc0ld.jpg
Let’s remove the PDO from that graph because it limits the ability to see the relationship between the North Pacific and the modified global data. The North Pacific data does have greater variability (It’s actually very similar to the North Atlantic data because the SST anomalies of the KOE, through teleconnections, are one of the drivers of the AMO) and that variability is an aftereffect of ENSO as discussed in the post linked above.
http://i54.tinypic.com/2u8kl79.jpg
Let’s remove the North Pacific data north of 20N, and for argument’s sake, we won’t detrend it. That subset represents about 11% of the global data. We’ll scale that data by a factor of 0.11 and subtract it from the Global data that’s had the North Atlantic data removed. The next graph (smoothed with a 13-month filter) shows the result. The multidecadal variations have decreased more. But the only thing that’s happening is the global SST data is flattening.
http://i55.tinypic.com/vdnus3.jpg
Next is the ENSO signal. We’ll use a common proxy of ENSO, NINO3.4 SST anomalies, for that. In the following short-term graph, the NINO3.4 SST anomalies have been scaled by a factor of 0.09. The wiggles in the NINO3.4 data are approximately the same magnitude as the resulting wiggles in the global SST data. Note also that I’ve lagged the NINO3.4 data by 2 months to align the leading edges of the 1997/98 El Niño.
http://i52.tinypic.com/r76az9.jpg
Here’s the long-term comparison:
http://i54.tinypic.com/20krk1v.jpg
Next: subtract the scaled NINO3.4 data from what’s left over from the other steps and compare it to the original global SST anomaly data. The multidecadal variations are greatly reduced and so are the year-to-year variations caused by ENSO. And the trend dropped a bit.
http://i53.tinypic.com/25s7kar.jpg
That’s it for the three major ocean cycle signals.
Let’s look at the solar data again. I’ve adjusted the pre-1945 Sunspot data per Leif Svalgaard’s comment above:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/12/24/lump-of-coal-award-to-ipcc-lead-author-kevin-trenberth-for-hiding-the-decline-or-the-lack-of-increase-in-global-temperatures/#comment-560504
Thanks, Leif.
The next graph compares the sunspot data to the adjusted sunspot data (per Leif). The higher pre-1945 sunspot data is not going to help your argument, Alec, because it will decrease the trend.
http://i51.tinypic.com/330cpb5.jpg
Here’s a graph of the adjusted and scaled (0.0008) sunspot data and the residual of all of the adjustments to global SST anomaly data. Removing the additional variability of the ocean cycles does not come close to accounting for the difference between the scaled solar signal and the adjusted global SST anomaly data. I’ve even given you the benefit of doubt, Alec, by not detrending the North Atlantic and North Pacific data. Based on a visual comparison, the scaling of the sunspot data appears a little high. But keep in mind we established the scaling for the land+sea surface data which has greater variability.
http://i55.tinypic.com/1xyqs6.jpg
A couple of notes: I am in no way representing that the residual data above is a product of Anthropogenic Greenhouse Gases. In fact, I argue against it at every opportunity I get. Much of the rise in global SST anomalies results from the fact that the SST anomalies of the East Indian and West Pacific Oceans (60S-65N, 80E-180, or about 25% of the global ocean surface area) can and do rise in response to both El Niño AND La Niña events. I’ve written posts about that for almost two years. Also, there is little to no evidence of anthropogenic warming in the Ocean Heat Content data from the NCDC (Levitus et al 2009). Most if not all can be explained as a product of natural variables: ENSO, AMO, and Sea Level Pressure in the form of the NAO and NPI.
You may try to argue that the oceans are somehow damping the effects of the variations in solar irradiance. But the land surface data is not governed by that damping and it also does not reflect the variations in the 11-year cycle that you would need to make the solar variations a major part of the rise in global land surface data.
The ball’s in your court, Alec.
Bob Tisdale says:
December 28, 2010 at 9:06 am
The first problem you have is the actual magnitude of the solar signal that’s present in the global surface temperature data. It reflects a signal that’s about 0.1 deg C from solar min to max. Unless you can provide and explain an unknown amplifying mechanism that does not exist in the global temperature data…
Bob, as you can see, Leif has no convincing reply to Nir Shaviv. The amplification mechanism is described in his JGR paper and remains unrebutted in the literature.
The reason it’s not seen as strongly as the actual energy flows would indicate it should be in the temperature record is due to the smoothing effect of big el ninos occurring near minimum, and big la ninas occurring near maximum.
Leif Svalgaard says:
December 28, 2010 at 8:29 am (Edit)
tallbloke says:
December 28, 2010 at 8:01 am
Thanks Leif. SO is their any clue as to why there is no data from 1804 to 1817?
War [Napoleon]
Napoleon never invaded England. Are British magnetic records present before and after the 1804-1817 period?
tallbloke says:
December 28, 2010 at 9:42 am
Bob, as you can see, Leif has no convincing reply to Nir Shaviv. The amplification mechanism is described in his JGR paper and remains unrebutted in the literature.
It is hard to reply to rambling. The fate of wrong papers is that they remain in the literature and are not rebutted, but simply ignored.
tallbloke says:
December 28, 2010 at 9:46 am
Napoleon never invaded England. Are British magnetic records present before and after the 1804-1817 period?
You have to begin to learn to take my word for what I say. There are no British records for that period that I know off. The French academy [and observatory] was otherwise occupied. Alexander von Humbolt observed in 1806 [he coined the term ‘magnetic storm’], but the records have not survived [AFAIK].
Leif Svalgaard says:
December 28, 2010 at 10:00 am
The fate of wrong papers is that they remain in the literature and are not rebutted, but simply ignored.
It’s the fate of inconvenient papers too…
I have to say that since I had no problem understanding Nir Shaviv’s reply to you, and I also know you have a brain the size of a planet, I remain unconvinced that the reason you can’t (won’t?) respond to his reply is the one you have given.
tallbloke says:
December 28, 2010 at 10:11 am
It’s the fate of inconvenient papers too…
No, as science is self-correcting. Inconvenient papers are rebutted if they are any good [and if not good, are not inconvenient]
I have to say that since I had no problem understanding Nir Shaviv’s reply to you, and I also know you have a brain the size of a planet, I remain unconvinced that the reason you can’t (won’t?) respond to his reply is the one you have given.
Then summarize here what your understanding of Shaviv’s reply is. Then we can take it from there.
tallbloke says:
December 28, 2010 at 9:46 am
Napoleon never invaded England. Are British magnetic records present before and after the 1804-1817 period?
Here is more about what we have:
http://www.leif.org/research/H02-FRI-O1430-0550.pdf
Leif Svalgaard says:
December 28, 2010 at 10:15 am
summarize here what your understanding of Shaviv’s reply is. Then we can take it from there.
That would just muddy the water. You need to reply to Nir Shaviv, not my interpretation of what he said.
tallbloke says:
December 28, 2010 at 11:05 am
You need to reply to Nir Shaviv, not my interpretation of what he said.
I don’t need to do anything. If you want my opinion, then be a bit cooperative and tell me precisely what you want my opinion about, instead of relying on my interpretation of what you want to hear or what Shaviv said.
Bob asks: “Did Usoskin et al fail to mention that they needed an amplifying mechanism to make their wiggle matching work, or did they include that note and you failed to recognize its importance?”
Usoskin et al. did not hypothesize by what mechanism solar activity might be driving temperature. They just noted the evidence that it does (while stating the funding-protecting qualification that, while solar activity seems to cause warming, don’t worry IPCC, there is no way that steady peak levels of solar activity could have caused post 1970’s warming).
Lots of other studies also show a solar-activity/ climate link. There is no reliance on Mann for this result. (But it is an interesting question whether Mann is really worthless in this application: a correlation study, where it would be the ups and downs in Mann’s record that drive the result, not Mann’s absolute temperatures. And Usoskin did find a very strong correlation, suggesting he did find something).
While Usoskin did not hypothesize a mechanism, yes, of course there would have to be one. Bob seems to think that this mechanism would have to be amplifying the very small variations in TSI. Somehow those little energy inputs are doing some big energy trapping thing:
What makes Bob think that the sun-climate mechanism revolves around the small variations in TSI? TSI is “the solar constant,” making it an unlikely candidate for whatever is driving the solar-activity/climate link.
The leading theory is Svensmark’s GCR-cloud theory, which does not work by amplifying the tiny variations in TSI. It works by increasing or decreasing the formation of clouds, tending to block or let through more or less of TSI as a whole. If TSI did not vary at all, this mechanism would hardly be affected.
If Svensmark is correct, how large a warming effect would the GCR-cloud mechanism create? All we have now is correlation studies. Bob has already listed a bunch of them. Take for instance the 2001 study by Neff et al: “Strong coherence [correlation coefficients of .55 and .60] between solar variability and the monsoon in Oman between 9 and 6 kyr ago.” The correlation is not directly to temperature. It is to a proxy for temperature, because that’s what is out there to find.
Shaviv and Veizer 2003 found strong GCR-temperature correlations on much longer time scales (545 million years): “We find that at least 66% of the variance in the paleotemperature trend could be attributed to CRF [Cosmic Ray Flux] variations likely due to solar system passages through the spiral arms of the galaxy.”
In rough terms, these studies find that variation in GCR “explains” in the statistical sense about half of the planet’s temperature history, maybe more, but that is different from quantification of the relationship: how much GCR creates how much cooling? Shaviv’s long time-scale study is in-effect looking at equilibrium temperatures. Neff’s high time resolution study would be looking at shorter term reactions to forcings, which would be great if we could quantify it, but how much monsoon translates into how much temperature? Quantification is difficult, and can’t really be nailed down until the physical mechanism if fully understood and calibrated. Since clouds are complicated, that’s going to take a lot of work, and that’s assuming the GCR-cloud theory is correct. If other solar magnetic mechanisms are behind the sun-climate link, quantification is even further off.
What we already have is very strong evidence that SOME feature of solar magnetic activity is driving global temperature. It could even be some amplification of the tiny variations in TSI, though no one has ever proposed such a mechanism. (Spectral shift, yes. TSI itself, no.) Since the IPCC omits solar activity completely (and quantifies TSI so that it CAN’T include an amplification mechanism), they end up misattributing the warming effect of solar activity to CO2, which has also been high in recent decades, GIVING THE ECO-LUNATICS AN EXCUSE TO UNPLUG THE MODERN WORLD.
That is why it is important for people like Bob not to follow Trenberth in acting as if solar activity means the tiny variations in TSI as solar activity varies. Obviously Bob has no desire to support the CO2 alarmists, is very much against them, and offers his own explanation for 20th century warming. But the point is, variation in solar activity does NOT capture “solar activity.” It is the least variant part of solar variability and can hardly begin to account for the observed sun-climate link. Bob keeps pointing out how little of 20th century warming can be accounted by TSI, so why are we on opposite sides here?
In any case, thanks very much to Bob for his extremely helpful review of oscillation data. Really a very nice summary. I will definitely bookmark it as a rebuttal to anyone who thinks variation in TSI can account for much of anything. Indeed, it is a good rebuttal to Trenberth, who acknowledges a solar explanation for warming prior to 1970. Since the warming from 1920 to WWII obviously can’t be explained by TSI, it is disingenuous of Trenberth to say that the inability of TSI to explain post-70’s warming “disproves” a solar explanation for that warming. TSI is at best a small part of the strongly evidenced sun-climate link, and I’m sure Trenberth knows it.
Turning to Bob’s final graph, if we allow that solar modulation of GCR may be affecting climate in a powerful way, this graph doesn’t seem to contain much that we wouldn’t expect. If the temperature data were smoothed, it looks like the only substantial deviation from a steady warming between 1920 and 2000 is the especially warm early 40’s. Isn’t that perfectly consistent with a GCR-cloud effect?
A question for Shaviv: I earlier considered what it would take for Usoskin to estimate the parameters of a physical model, rather than just do a correlation study:
Can the data from Shaviv and Veizer 2003 be used to set parameters for the first half of such a model?
By its long term nature, the 2003 data can only resolve equilibrium temperatures. Maybe that can be put to good use, cutting in half the work that Usoskin’s solar data would have to accomplish. It would just have to estimate the distance-to-equilibrium speed-to-equilibrium relationship. Possible?
Typo. I meant to write: “…variation in TSI does NOT capture “solar activity.”
Did not meant to write: “… variation in solar activity does NOT capture “solar activity.”
Doh.
Tallbloke says: “The reason it’s not seen as strongly as the actual energy flows would indicate it should be in the temperature record is due to the smoothing effect of big el ninos occurring near minimum, and big la ninas occurring near maximum.”
Sorry, Tallbloke. The sunspot and NINO3.4 SST anomaly data contradict that. You don’t even have to bother looking at El Niño events. All of the La Niña events occurring at solar minimums are enough to disprove the statement:
http://i56.tinypic.com/2s1pq0w.jpg
You wrote, “Bob, as you can see, Leif has no convincing reply to Nir Shaviv. The amplification mechanism is described in his JGR paper and remains unrebutted in the literature.”
There’s no need for me to wait for Leif to reply to Nir Shaviv. In my December 28, 2010 at 9:06 am comment, I went through a step-by-step process to remove ENSO, AMO, and the Multidecadal Signal in the North Pacific SST data from the global SST record, and it showed that the 0.1 deg C variation per solar cycle were in line with the residual variation in the global SST record.
http://i55.tinypic.com/1xyqs6.jpg
Bob Tisdale says:
December 28, 2010 at 2:07 pm
All of the La Niña events occurring at solar minimums are enough to disprove the statement:
http://i56.tinypic.com/2s1pq0w.jpg
I’ll rack my brains to think how I might be able to present the data in a way which makes sense to both of us. At the moment, I’m looking at the same graph as you, and seeing the opposite of what you’re saying.
Alec Rawls says: “What makes Bob think that the sun-climate mechanism revolves around the small variations in TSI? TSI is ‘the solar constant,’ making it an unlikely candidate for whatever is driving the solar-activity/climate link. “
Those are sunspot numbers used in the graph.
http://i51.tinypic.com/4lo8ev.jpg
Also, as I replied to you earlier, the belief that TSI was constant ended with the satellite-measured variability of TSI. Here’s a link to the SORCE TSI data webpage:
http://lasp.colorado.edu/sorce/data/tsi_data.htm
They write, “It was not until long-duration measurements from space were available that changes in TSI were accurately measured and the misconception of a ‘solar constant’ changed.”
Alec Rawls says: “Take for instance the 2001 study by Neff et al: ‘Strong coherence [correlation coefficients of .55 and .60] between solar variability and the monsoon in Oman between 9 and 6 kyr ago.’ The correlation is not directly to temperature. It is to a proxy for temperature, because that’s what is out there to find.”
Monsoons “in Oman between 9 and 6 kyr ago” are a proxy for temperature? Where does it state that in Neff et al? And you’re losing track of the fact that your argument earlier in this thread has been about the change in global temperature in the latter part of the 20th century, not “in Oman between 9 and 6 kyr ago”.
You wrote, “What we already have is very strong evidence that SOME feature of solar magnetic activity is driving global temperature.”
And as I illustrated for you in my earlier reply, the instrument temperature record shows that the variation is approximately 0.1 deg C from solar minimum to solar maximum. So unless the “SOME feature of solar magnetic activity” has a low-frequency component that is significantly greater than amplitude of the solar cycle and unless that component can be proven to drive the long-term trend in global temperatures, all you’re doing is speculating.
You wrote, “Since the warming from 1920 to WWII obviously can’t be explained by TSI, it is disingenuous of Trenberth to say that the inability of TSI to explain post-70′s warming “disproves” a solar explanation for that warming. TSI is at best a small part of the strongly evidenced sun-climate link, and I’m sure Trenberth knows it.”
Much of that belief was based on TSI datasets, like Hoyt and Schatten, that were created to reproduce the warming in the early part of the 20th century.
http://s5.tinypic.com/2mg6rll.jpg
That graph is from this post that was also cross posted here at WUWT:
http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2009/03/ipcc-20th-century-simulations-get-boost.html
With the work of Leif Svalgaard, those early TSI datasets are now considered obsolete.
You wrote, “That is why it is important for people like Bob not to follow Trenberth in acting as if solar activity means the tiny variations in TSI as solar activity varies.”
Those who are familiar with my posts are likely wondering why you insist on linking me to Trenberth.
And when you can provide me with a solar dataset and mechanism that shows a long-term, low frequency variation that can account for the rise in global temperatures, I’ll stop studying ENSO and its aftereffects. Because the aftereffects of ENSO can explain much of the rise in global temperature.
You wrote, “In any case, thanks very much to Bob for his extremely helpful review of oscillation data. Really a very nice summary.”
I’m glad you approve. You’ll likely see it rewritten as a post here at WUWT after the first of the year.
tallbloke says: “I’ll rack my brains to think how I might be able to present the data in a way which makes sense to both of us. At the moment, I’m looking at the same graph as you, and seeing the opposite of what you’re saying.”
No brain racking allowed. I’ve marked up the El Nino and La Nina events that contradict your earlier statement. All of them have to work, not just the big ones:
http://i55.tinypic.com/20zteog.jpg
Let’s try a 25-month smoothing and see if that helps:
http://i54.tinypic.com/2iiv5aq.jpg
Nope.
Alec Rawls says:
It amazes me how you can make again and again these immature, denigrating ad-hominem, unsupported, petty statements about these scientists just because they said something that you happen not to like and, which by the way, you can’t rebut despite your attempts to dance around this issue in long-winded posts. The fact is that the correlation that they found between sunspot activity and temperatures breaks down…and in a big way…from the mid-late 70s onwards. Those scientists just had intellectual honesty, something that might be a bit of a foreign concept to you.
Bob Tisdale says:
December 28, 2010 at 3:55 pm
All of them have to work, not just the big ones:
Err, why? What we’re interested in is the total energy variation across the solar cycle in the coupled ocean-atmosphere system. I’m stating an observation about a general tendency which covers the more significant energy transfer events, not a general law which can easily be falsified as part of some sort of debate point scoring exercise.
tallbloke says: “I’m stating an observation about a general tendency which covers the more significant energy transfer events, not a general law which can easily be falsified as part of some sort of debate point scoring exercise.”
I’m not trying to score points, Tallbloke. You made a general statement (“The reason it’s not seen as strongly as the actual energy flows would indicate it should be in the temperature record is due to the smoothing effect of big el ninos occurring near minimum, and big la ninas occurring near maximum.”) and it doesn’t ring true when the data is inspected.
And again, in my December 28, 2010 at 9:06 am comment, I went through an easy-to-reproduce deconstruction of SST data to removed the extra wiggles and that evaluation does not support Nir Shaviv’s conclusions.
Joel Shore says: “It amazes me how you can make again and again these immature, denigrating ad-hominem, unsupported, petty statements…”
Are you sure you’ve included enough adjectives?
Regards
It’s just another Joel tantrum. He does that a lot because he can’t get folks here to swallow his Kool Aid. I’m still waiting for verifiable examples of actual harm caused by the ginormous 40% increase in CO2. Maybe I’ll get some adjectives instead.☺
Bob, nino3.4 data covers 5N to 5S. I think we might get a clearer picture if we look at SST data where most of the insolation occurs in the tropics north and south of the ITCZ, which is pretty cloudy. It might be handy to have a map of the locations of Shaviv’s sea level stations too.
Can KNMI split out the SST data into latitudinal bands?
I think I can clarify our point of departure. It’s actually pretty interesting. Thanks for repeating the following, because I misread you the first time:
Thus your preference for something less speculative:
When I come to this “speculation” fork, I go the other way. To me, there doesn’t even need to be a theory of how solar activity is driving temperature. Data trumps theory. That’s the scientific method, and there is a mountain of evidence at this point for a powerful sun-climate link. This in itself tells us that the IPCC, by limiting solar effects to TSI (quantified to exclude any TSI amplifications or any correlated solar-magnetic forcings) is misattributing solar warming effects to CO2. We don’t need to know the solar-climate mechanism to know that CO2 alarm is a fraud.
But it’s important to figure out the mechanism too, which spawns a kind of guided speculation: how could solar activity be driving climate? What’s a live possibility? What’s a dead end? I’d say the same thing for studying ENSO. Not that it isn’t important in its own right, but for it to be driving climate, it’s probably going to have to itself be driven by solar activity.
Maybe ENSO is your “long term, low frequency” solar driven variation. Some evidence for it here, looking at ENSO response to extended high or low solar activity, not its response to intra-solar-cycle variation. Re your discussion with Tallbloke, this study suggests an inverse relationship between ENSO and solar activity (not correlated to ups and downs of individual solar cycles, as you all have been looking at).
But is “long term, low frequency” a real requirement? It doesn’t seem to me that the low solar cycle temperature signal is much proof against more immediately powerful solar effects. First is whether we can actually discern a meaningfully accurate temperature signal. I thought the issue with an intra-solar-cycle temperature signal was whether it was discernable at all, amidst the noise of ocean oscillations. To get an accurate temperature signal within solar cycles we would have to have a record of total ocean heat content. Can we actually get a meaningful short-term temperature signal just looking at surface temperatures?
Then there is the question of how much the surface temperature signal actually limits the amount of energy that could be getting deposited in the oceans. You suggest that I might think the temperature signal is being damped by the oceans, to which I say, “that’s a pretty gigantic possibility.”
Interesting caution you raise about how: “the land surface data is not governed by that damping and it also does not reflect the variations in the 11-year cycle that you would need.” If that turns out to be a real phenomenon, and a real constraint on possible solar mechanisms, I’d look to see how it could happen that solar activity could have a smaller warming effect on land. Maybe when solar activity blows the clouds away (GCR-cloud theory), daytime warming of the land radiates back out at night unblocked, as happens in the desert, while heat absorbed in the oceans gets tucked away deeper where it doesn’t radiate back out at night. Or maybe clouds form differently over land. Maybe X,Y, Z.
Speculative, yes, but these open doors are the places we need to look. We know there is some mechanism by which solar activity is driving climate. It is amongst the possible candidates for such a mechanism that the actual drivers of global climate are almost certain to be found. That might be a little too strong, but the evidence for a sun-climate link has really become overwhelming, so it seems we should look for that link, following the avenues of possibility, even where they get narrow. The truth often goes through narrow passages.
Maybe its not really a difference in philosophy. Maybe if you looked more at the evidence for a solar driver of climate you would also be skeptical of mechanisms that seem unlikely to be solar driven. Maybe if I studied more about ocean heat transfer and ocean temperature records, I’d think the door to drive a solar mechanism through the surface temperature record was not so wide-open after all.
In any case, I’m all for studying ENSO, but if it were me, I’d look for how it’s being driven by solar activity.
Alec Rawls says:
December 29, 2010 at 12:24 pm
I’m all for studying ENSO, but if it were me, I’d look for how it’s being driven by solar activity.
This is what I’m trying to do. Bob’s excellent oceanographic analysis points to how ENSO released the energy from the oceans which drove global warming. I’m trying to explain how the sun put that amount of energy into the oceans without anyone noticing, and the other factors which govern the way it gets released when it does.
A key to understanding this is to see that there are different types of el nino, in fact as many different types as there have been el ninos. Nonetheless, there are some features and logical deductions worth considering.
1) The amplification of the solar signal shown by Nir Shaviv’s JGR paper.
2) The simple logical point that there must be a solar activity level at which the oceans neither gain nor lose total energy content.
3) The simple logical point that when the sun’s activity is above this level the excess energy entering the oceans can only go downwards, as the rate at which it can be re-emitted is limited by the atmosphere and it’s associated phenomena (clouds, precipitation).
4) The simple logical point that if the excess energy can’t escape when the sun’s activity level is high, it is going to escape when the sun’s activity level is low. Hence big el nino’s near solar minimum.
This tends to flatten the SST’s variation and leads to the mistaken conclusion that the solar variation has little effect. The reason it is important to establish the size of the energy flow over a single solar cycle is that it will enable us to understand how a small variation in the long term solar activity level is sufficient to account for most if not all of the observed warming.
Bob Tisdale says:
Not as many as came to mind! I guess I just sort went off on Alec’s repeated claims that a statement that he doesn’t like in a paper that he cited in support of his argument is the result of the scientists groveling for grant money. It is just a really ludicrous, malacious, and unsupported claim (some more adjectives for you!), particularly given Alec has been unable to provide anything but a little verbal sophistry to rebut their statement about the breakdown of the correlation.
Of course, given how people around here jump (much more often pre-emptively than not) about people making any reference to fossil fuel industry influence or anything of that sort, it is strange that more people here aren’t offended by Alec’s completely unsupported statements. Basically, the scientists are being honest and Alec is denigrating them because he would prefer that they support what he wants to believe but alas the data does not support!
Tallbloke: So Shaviv has estimated ocean heat content by three different methods, finding a high confidence solar-cycle signal of large but not-so-certain magnitude. (His “three independent data sets consistently show [but each with low confidence] that the oceans absorb and emit an order of magnitude more heat than could be expected from just the variations in the total solar irradiance.”) That certainly suggests that the door is open for a solar explanation of 20th century warming.
The rough logic of your other three points is compelling, but I think it needs some elaboration. Supposing a solar-warming mechanism, it isn’t just the solar activity level that determines whether the oceans gain nor lose total energy content (as your point 2 suggests ). The current temperature of the oceans, or of the ocean surface, have to figure in as well.
For any given level of solar activity there should be an equilibrium ocean temperature. Conversely, for a particular ocean temperature there should be a particular level of solar activity that creates neither warming nor cooling. Thus we can’t just say that high solar activity means the oceans are absorbing energy. What if there is a super-high ocean temperature oscillation, pushing the ocean surface above the equilibrium temperature for that level of solar activity?
Well, that raises the question of what is meant by “equilibrium temperature” in this context, but you see my point.
Still, your logic seems likely to be correct, especially if there is any tendency for energy flows to self-organize in an efficient way. Willis Eschenbach had a post on this “constructural law of flow systems” not long ago:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/11/15/the-constructal-law-of-flow-systems/
Certainly the efficient way for the oceans to absorb and expel varying levels of solar energy is to have cold water on top when solar energy is high and warm water on top when solar energy is down.
Hi Alec,
yes, Joel made the same point about the ocean having a different equilibrium value depending on temperature. For the amount of variation on Earth I suggest this won’t make a lot of difference, but for fine tuning a model to a scientific standard a term should be included. One factor to consider is that solar energy penetrates the ocean to many metres, and the temperature gets more constant the deeper you go. However, a large percentage of solar absorption is in the first few metres.
The new Krivova et al paper estimates a 1.25W/m^2 increase in solar activity from the end of the little ice age to 2005.
http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2010/12/27/solanki-krivova-vieira-crucial-new-solar-paper/
Leif doesn’t like it because it uses the group sunspot numbers which he thinks are too low at earlier dates. Even with his uprated amplitudes there will still be a rise of (at a guess) 0.8W/m^2. This would equate to an extra 0.07W/m^2 at the surface, and if Shaviv is correct, equates to a rise of 0.5-0.7C since the end of the LIA.
This is just the direct TSI term and doesn’t account for the effect of a 50% increase in UV, also detailed in the linked paper. What that effect is, we don’t know, but may be linked to the inflation of the thermosphere, ozone, and other stuff.
How much warming has there been since the end of the LIA? We don’t know. Maybe 1.3-1.5C at the surface? Maybe less. Let’s see how the surface temperature debate shakes down. Current estimate seems to be that it is 0.2-0.3C too high, going on rumour.
Alec Rawls says: “I’m all for studying ENSO, but if it were me, I’d look for how it’s being driven by solar activity.”
I haven’t yet found evidence that ENSO is driven by solar activity, but it is FUELED by downward shortwave radiation (visible light) from the sun. Over the central and eastern equatorial Pacific, DSR will drop up to 45 watts/meter^2 below “normal” during an El Niño, because the ocean is releasing heat primarily through evaporation, which causes an increase in cloud cover. (And when that moisture turns to rain, the atmosphere is warmed.) During the La Niña, the trade winds increase in strength and reduce cloud cover. This reduction in cloud cover can raise DSR 45 watts/meter^2 above “normal”. That’s a 90 watts/meter^2 swing in DSR between El Niño and La Niña phases and that’s how ENSO releases heat and recharges it. A (less than) 1 watt/meter^2 variation in DSR over the solar cycle will impact the recharging during the La Niña phase, but the contribution of the solar cycle is impossible to quantify because all of the available warm water created during a La Niña is not used during the next El Niño. Some of the warm water is returned to the Pacific Warm Pool and some is redistributed to the surface of the East Indian and West Pacific Oceans, which is why SST there rises in response to both El Niño and La Niña events.
What I have been illustrating for almost 2 years is how ENSO-related mechanisms raise global temperatures outside of the tropical Pacific and how many climate studies (like Thompson et al 2009) misrepresent the effects of ENSO. Are you aware that you can reproduce the “base” global temperature anomaly curve from the early 1900s to present using NINO3.4 SST anomalies?
http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2009/01/reproducing-global-temperature.html
My interest is how ENSO drives the global temperature anomaly curve, while Tallbloke and others are interested in how the sun drives ENSO.
tallbloke says:
December 30, 2010 at 1:29 am
there will still be a rise of (at a guess) 0.8W/m^2. This would equate to an extra 0.07W/m^2 at the surface, and if Shaviv is correct, equates to a rise of 0.5-0.7C since the end of the LIA.
more like 0.3C. And what is that ‘the end of the LIA’? Krivova et al. didn’t say that. They said ‘end of the Maunder Minimum, i.e. 1715.
tallbloke:
What?!? Are you aware of what sort of climate sensitivity this would imply in C per W/m^2 and what it would then imply for a doubling of CO2? Surely you don’t believe in such high climate sensitivities, way higher than the IPCC estimates!
It is interesting that AGW skeptics are so doubtful of “high” climate sensitivities that apply to all warming mechanisms approximately equally but so unquestioningly embrace much, much higher effective climate sensitivities that rely on amplification of the solar mechanism specifically!
tallbloke says: “Can KNMI split out the SST data into latitudinal bands?”
I believe you’ll find what you want in the KNMI Climate Explorer. I started to write the attached post during one of my exchanges months ago with a blogger here who relies on conjecture and not data. And I finished it this morning.
http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2010/12/very-basic-introduction-to-knmi-climate.html
Regards
Thanks Bob.
Joel, you’re just jealous because we solar-climate theorists have a viable looking amplification mechanism while you co2 theorist’s water vapour feedback hasn’t worked out too well. 😉
By the way, fancy having a go at explaining this correlation?
Specific humidity at the 300mb level (approx height of max outgoing radiation) vs sunspot number (or TSI)
http://tallbloke.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/shumidity-ssn96.png?w=614
Nice.
Leif Svalgaard says:
December 30, 2010 at 8:08 am
more like 0.3C
Well we’re getting somewhere at least. A step up from Gavin’s 10% to somewhere around 20% of the warming.
I regard your number as being at the conservative end of the possibilities, commensurate with your minimal solar variation theory. My estimate treads the middle ground I think.
Not all Joules are the same. Joel needs to realise that too. Solar Joules penetrate the ocean and heat it. LW Joules don’t. The ocean drives atmospheric temperature in the main, not the other way round.
tallbloke says:
December 31, 2010 at 2:21 am
Well we’re getting somewhere at least. A step up from Gavin’s 10% to somewhere around 20% of the warming.
I don’t think so. The 0.3C was assuming that the Krivova et al. estimate is correct, which it isn’t.
So you say. Personally I trust Sami Solanki to get his solar physics right rather than Gavin Schnidt.
Also, I think you may be incorrect when you state that the Krivova et al reconstruction is based on group sunspot numbers. They state:
” In the SATIRE‐T model, the sunspot number and,
whenever available, sunspot areas are used to reconstruct the
evolution of the solar surface magnetic field following Solanki
et al. [2000, 2002], which is then converted into irradiance.
Recently, the physical model of the solar photospheric magnetic field was reconsidered and updated by Vieira and
Solanki [2010], so that it now provides an even better agreement with the independent open flux reconstruction from the
geomagnetic aa index [Lockwood et al., 2009]”
Now, I know you don’t like the Lockwood reconstruction either, so I know this won’t resolve the issue for you, but I thought it worth clarifying anyway. I’ll see if I can get a copy of the Solanki and Vieira 2010 paper to see if it gives more clues on which sunspot number series they use.
tallbloke says:
December 31, 2010 at 6:14 am
Also, I think you may be incorrect when you state that the Krivova et al reconstruction is based on group sunspot numbers.
You can safely assume that I would not state something like this without it being the case. Paragraph [14] of the paper says:
“[14] The flux emergence rates of AR, “act, and ER, “eph, which are the main inputs to the model, are calculated from the historical group sunspot number, Rg [Hoyt and Schatten 1993].”
tallbloke says: “Joel, you’re just jealous because we solar-climate theorists have a viable looking amplification mechanism…”
You do? Care to clarify?
Happy New Year to all. Here’s hoping for a positive result from CLOUD this coming year.
Cheers