By Dr. Roy Spencer, PhD (reprinted from his blog with permission)
UPDATE (12:35 p.m. CDT 19 May 2011): revised corrections of CERES data for El Nino/La Nina effects.
While I have been skeptical of Svensmark’s cosmic ray theory up until now, it looks like the evidence is becoming too strong for me to ignore. The following results will surely be controversial, and the reader should remember that what follows is not peer reviewed, and is only a preliminary estimate.
I’ve made calculations based upon satellite observations of how the global radiative energy balance has varied over the last 10 years (between Solar Max and Solar Min) as a result of variations in cosmic ray activity. The results suggest that the total (direct + indirect) solar forcing is at least 3.5 times stronger than that due to changing solar irradiance alone.
If this is anywhere close to being correct, it supports the claim that the sun has a much larger potential role (and therefore humans a smaller role) in climate change than what the “scientific consensus” states.
BACKGROUND
The single most frequently asked question I get after I give my talks is, “Why didn’t you mention the sun?” I usually answer that I’m skeptical of the “cosmic ray gun” theory of cloud changes controlling climate. But I point out that Svensmark’s theory of natural cloud variations causing climate change is actually pretty close to what I preach — only the mechanism causing the cloud change is different.
Then, I found last year’s paper by Laken et al. which was especially interesting since it showed satellite-observed cloud changes following changes in cosmic ray activity. Even though the ISCCP satellite data they used are not exactly state of the art, the study was limited to the mid-latitudes, and the time scales involved were days rather than years, the results gave compelling quantitative evidence of a cosmic ray effect on cloud cover.
With the rapid-fire stream of publications and reports now coming out on the subject, I decided to go back and spend some time analyzing ground-based galactic cosmic ray (GCR) data to see whether there is a connection between GCR variations and variations in the global radiative energy balance between absorbed sunlight and emitted infrared energy, taken from the NASA CERES radiative budget instruments on the Terra satellite, available since March 2000.
After all, that is ultimately what we are interested in: How do various forcings affect the radiative energy budget of the Earth? The results, I must admit, are enough for me to now place at least one foot solidly in the cosmic ray theory camp.
THE DATA
The nice thing about using CERES Earth radiative budget data is that we can get a quantitative estimate in Watts per sq. meter for the radiative forcing due to cosmic ray changes. This is the language the climate modelers speak, since these radiative forcings (externally imposed global energy imbalances) can be used to help calculate global temperature changes in the ocean & atmosphere based upon simple energy conservation. They can then also be compared to the estimates of forcing from increasing carbon dioxide, currently the most fashionable cause of climate change.
From the global radiative budget measurements we also get to see if there is a change in high clouds (inferred from the outgoing infrared measurements) as well as low clouds (inferred from reflected shortwave [visible sunlight] measurements) associated with cosmic ray activity.
I will use only the ground-based cosmic ray data from Moscow, since it is the first station I found which includes a complete monthly archive for the same period we have global radiative energy budget data from CERES (March 2000 through June 2010). I’m sure there are other stations, too…all of this is preliminary anyway. Me sifting through the myriad solar-terrestrial datasets is just as confusing to me as most of you sifting through the various climate datasets that I’m reasonably comfortable with.
THE RESULTS
The following plot (black curve) shows the monthly GCR data from Moscow for this period, as well as a detrended version with 1-2-1 averaging (red curve) to match the smoothing I will use in the CERES measurements to reduce noise.
Detrending the data isolates the month-to-month and year-to-year variability as the signal to match, since trends (or a lack of trends) in the global radiative budget data can be caused by a combination of many things. (Linear trends are worthless for statistically inferring cause-and-effect; but getting a match between wiggles in two datasets is much less likely to be due to random chance.)
The monthly cosmic ray data at Moscow will be compared to global monthly anomalies the NASA Terra satellite CERES (SSF 2.5 dataset) radiative flux data,
which shows the variations in global average reflected sunlight (SW), emitted infrared (LW), and Net (which is the estimated imbalances in total absorbed energy by the climate system, after adjustment for variations in total solar irradiance, TSI). Note I have plotted the variations in the negative of Net, which is approximately equal to variations in (LW+SW)
Then, since the primary source of variability in the CERES data is associated with El Nino and La Nina (ENSO) activity, I subtracted out an estimate of the average ENSO influence using running regressions between running 5-month averages of the Multivariate ENSO Index (MEI) and the CERES fluxes. I used the MEI index along with those regression coefficients in each month to correct the CERES fluxes 4 months later, since that time lag had the strongest correlation.
Finally, I performed regressions at various leads and lags between the GCR time series and the LW, SW, and -Net radiative flux time series, the results of which are shown next.
The yearly average relationships noted in the previous plot come from this relationship in the reflected solar (SW) data,
while the -Net flux (Net is absorbed solar minus emitted infrared, corrected for the change in solar irradiance during the period) results look like this:
It is that last plot that gives us the final estimate of how a change in cosmic ray flux at Moscow is related to changes in Earth’s radiative energy balance.
SUMMARY
What the above three plots show is that for a 1,000 count increase in GCR activity as measured at Moscow (which is somewhat less than the increase between Solar Max and Solar Min), there appears to be:
(1) an increase in reflected sunlight (SW) of 0.64 Watts per sq. meter, probably mostly due to an increase in low cloud cover;
(2) virtually no change in emitted infrared (LW) of +0.02 Watts per sq. meter;
(3) a Net (reflected sunlight plus emitted infrared) effect of 0.55 Watts per sq. meter loss in radiant energy by the global climate system.
WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR CLIMATE CHANGE?
Assuming these signatures are anywhere close to being real, what do they mean quantitatively in terms of the potential effect of cosmic ray activity on climate?
Well, just like any other forcing, a resulting temperature change depends not only upon the size of the forcing, but also the sensitivity of the climate system to forcing. But we CAN compare the cosmic ray forcing to OTHER “known” forcings, which could have a huge influence on our understanding of the role of humans in climate change.
For example, if warming observed in the last century is (say) 50% natural and 50% anthropogenic, then this implies the climate system is only one-half as sensitive to our greenhouse gas emissions (or aerosol pollution) than if the warming was 100% anthropogenic in origin (which is pretty close to what we are told the supposed “scientific consensus” is).
First, let’s compare the cosmic ray forcing to the change in total solar irradiance (TSI) during 2000-2010. The orange curve in following plot is the change in direct solar (TSI) forcing between 2000 and 2010, which with the help of Danny Braswell’s analytical skills I backed out from the CERES Net, LW, and SW data. It is the only kind of solar forcing the IPCC (apparently) believes exists, and it is quite weak:
Also shown is the estimated cosmic ray forcing resulting from the month-to-month changes in the original Moscow cosmic ray time series, computed by multiplying those monthly changes by 0.55 Watts per sq. meter per 1,000 cosmic ray counts change.
Finally, I fitted the trend lines to get an estimate of the relative magnitudes of these two sources of forcing: the cosmic ray (indirect) forcing is about 2.8 times that of the solar irradiance (direct) forcing. This means the total (direct + indirect) solar forcing on climate associated with the solar cycle could be 3.8 times that most mainstream climate scientists believe.
One obvious question this begs is whether the lack of recent warming, since about 2004 for the 0-700 meter layer of the ocean, is due to the cosmic ray effect on cloud cover canceling out the warming from increasing carbon dioxide.
If the situation really was that simple (which I doubt it is), this would mean that with Solar Max rapidly approaching, warming should resume in the coming months. Of course, other natural cycles could be in play (my favorite is the Pacific Decadal oscillation), so predicting what will happen next is (in my view) more of an exercise in faith than in science.
In the bigger picture, this is just one more piece of evidence that the IPCC scientists should be investigating, one which suggests a much larger role for Mother Nature in climate change than the IPCC has been willing to admit. And, again I emphasize, the greater the role of Nature in causing past climate change, the smaller the role humans must have had, which could then have a profound impact on future projections of human-caused global warming.
HenryP says:
May 22, 2011 at 8:18 am
Are you with me?
http://www.leif.org/research/CETandCO2.pdf
ferd berple says:
May 22, 2011 at 8:12 am
“is based on obsolete data”
the age of the data is irrelevant. the question is…
‘obsolete’ did not mean ‘old’, but that new data has invalidated the older data.
ferd berple says:
May 22, 2011 at 8:06 am
proxy(magnetic fields) –not– proxy(GCR)
You misunderstand the nature of a ‘proxy’. A measurement is normally not considered a proxy. If you read a thermometer, the number you get is not considered a ‘proxy’ for the temperature. We measure the magnetic field in space using the Earth as the instrument. The sun’s magnetic field impacts the Earth’s magnetosphere and generates an electric current in direct proportion to the field. An electric current has a magnetic field of its own. We usually measure a current by its magnetic field [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ammeter ]. The magnetic field of the current in space can be measured on the Earth [the Earth is an Ammeter]. We have such measurements [not proxies] going back almost two hundred years.
tallbloke says:
May 22, 2011 at 8:39 am
Everyone you think matters obviously.
Everyone who have seriously studied this and know what they are talking about.
Leif Svalgaard says:
May 22, 2011 at 8:44 am
We measure the magnetic field in space using the Earth as the instrument. The sun’s magnetic field impacts the Earth’s magnetosphere and generates an electric current in direct proportion to the field.
That would rest on the assumption that the Earth’s magnetic field is constant.
It isn’t.
So ‘corrections’ are applied using heuristic algorithms which we hope accurately model what has gone on in the past.
The ‘Ammeter’ is constantly being recalibrated using models.
This is where ‘confirmation bias’ has crept in, and is the reason past solar variability has been repeatedly squashed during the age of co2 driven climate science.
“He who pays the piper calls the tune.”
But the Sun itself is now proving the models wrong. Which is why Leif’s ‘floor threshold’ of 4nT is now out of the window.
tallbloke says:
May 22, 2011 at 8:39 am
I’m not convinced by a consensus
The derivation of the Heliospheric Magnetic Field is so straightforward that it can be followed and understood by persons who are not specialists [and only average faculties required]:
http://www.leif.org/research/The%20IDV%20index%20-%20its%20derivation%20and%20use.pdf and its follow up http://www.leif.org/research/2009JA015069.pdf
tallbloke says:
May 22, 2011 at 9:03 am
So ‘corrections’ are applied using heuristic algorithms which we hope accurately model what has gone on in the past.
The ‘Ammeter’ is constantly being recalibrated using models.
Just shows that you have not even read the papers. There is no constant recalibration or ‘corrections’. We even say explicitly “(We expect only a very weak influence in the basic response of the Ring Current (see section 2.1.5) to the change of the Earth’s magnetic dipole moment (as per Glassmeier et al. [2004]) over the interval in question, and so have not attempted to correct for this.)”
OK, I have read the papers again now.
So the ‘model’ is that changes in the Earth’s magnetic dipole over the last 200 years are assumed to have negligible effect on the inference of the IMF from IDV, which also filters out solar magnetic storms.
However, it is fluctuations caused by these storms which rapidly, and non-linearly increase the reconnection rate. I’m not convinced that disregarding the possible effects of that on GCR modulation is such a good idea.
Plus the shifting of the relative strength of the magnetic north poles situated in northern Canada and Northern Russia may have affected 10Be deposition in Greenland?
Leif Svalgaard says:
None of this has any bearing on solar activity.
Correct but solar activity has bearing on it.
L.S @ur momisugly tb
then you should welcome a development where everyone now begin to agree:
Even my calculations derived from the North Atlantic currents show similar results
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/AllvsVuk.htm
a bit closer to Svalgaard & Cliver than Lockwood.
tb. Take note, this is consensus of science, not science of consensus!
tallbloke says:
May 22, 2011 at 9:03 am
So ‘corrections’ are applied using heuristic algorithms which we hope accurately model what has gone on in the past.
No such ‘corrections’ need be applied [and we don’t]. We don’t expect any to be needed: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2004AnGeo..22.3669G [Glassmeier]
“we find that ring current perturbations do not increase with decreasing dipole moment”
These perturbations form the basis for assessing the Heliospheric Magnetic Field.
Leif Svalgaard asserted (May 21, 2011 at 4:52 pm):
“[…] you have to demonstrate that in this particular instance they are patently untenable.”
I’m a volunteer Leif. I don’t “have” to do anything, including take orders from gravy train riders. I volunteer what genuinely interests me when I have time for it. What others choose to do with it is their choice, not yours. You don’t have any authority whatsoever to set the terms of volunteer engagement.
http://www.leif.org/research/CETandCO2.pdf
AGU type cherry picking
HIDE THE DECLINE !
1950-1980 negative correlation not included!
tallbloke says:
May 22, 2011 at 10:05 am
OK, I have read the papers again now.
So the ‘model’ is that changes in the Earth’s magnetic dipole over the last 200 years are assumed to have negligible effect on the inference of the IMF from IDV, which also filters out solar magnetic storms.
It should be stated thus: there is no evidence [theoretical or observational] that the changes in the dipole have any effect, so we don’t apply any corrections. The ‘filter out’ I don’t understand. IDV measures the strength of solar magnetic storms.
However, it is fluctuations caused by these storms which rapidly, and non-linearly increase the reconnection rate.
You have this a bit backwards. It is the reconnection that causes the storm and the size of the storm is linear with the magnetic field. Physically, the electric field is speed times magnetic field [E = – V x B], so the currents etc scales with the field.
I’m not convinced that disregarding the possible effects of that on GCR modulation is such a good idea.
The modulation of GCR is caused by GCRs scattered by the irregularities in the field, which scale with the field. To be convinced or not, requires some knowledge of the subject. Now, the modulation is not just a simple relationship and is not well understood, but unless you can show that the modulation 150 years ago was not governed by the same rules as today, you have to go with the null-hypothesis that it was.
vukcevic says:
May 22, 2011 at 10:11 am
Correct but solar activity has bearing on it.
That you didn’t show.
Paul Vaughan says:
May 22, 2011 at 10:22 am
I don’t “have” to do anything
In normal human discourse there are several things one ‘has’ to do: be civil [your gravy-train thing is inappropriate], not waste people’s time with unsupported claims, not waste bandwidth, not be overly opaque, etc.
tallbloke says:
May 22, 2011 at 10:05 am
Plus the shifting of the relative strength of the magnetic north poles situated in northern Canada and Northern Russia may have affected 10Be deposition in Greenland?
The cosmic rays coming from afar do not ‘see’ the local anomalies of the field. Only the dipole component. The 10Be in Greenland was not generated in Greenland, but all over the Earth. During the more than one year residence time of 10Be it is moved around by atmospheric circulation. In fact, climate itself is a significant factor in determining the 10Be deposition, so to some extent [perhaps more than 50%] there is a circular argument here.
savethesharks requested (May 21, 2011 at 6:57 pm) a “translation”.
Hi Chris,
Please see my upthread response (May 21, 2011 at 10:37 am) to tallbloke & Stephen Wilde in conjunction with Appendix C here [ http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/05/15/interannual-terrestrial-oscillations/ ]. There’s no soundbite explanation and there never will be, but those who invest in developing conceptual understanding (via Leroux & Sidorenkov in particular) will easily see that Morner’s conceptualization is fundamentally flawed.
Leif Svalgaard wrote (May 21, 2011 at 10:26 pm)
“There are three strikes against the cosmic ray theory [which, BTW, did not originate with Svensmark].
1) the sun’s magnetic field that controls the amount of cosmic rays arriving at Earth is the same now as 150 years ago. Climate is not.
2) the amount of nucleation derived from GCRs is two orders of magnitude too small to have any affect. http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2009GeoRL..3609820P
3) the cosmic ray intensity has varied the past several years much more than the solar modulation and the climate has not varied with it, e.g. http://www.leif.org/research/CosmicRays-GeoDipole.jpg “
(1) & (3) are based on fundamentally flawed conceptualization. The ~11 year pattern is in the amplitude of semi-annual variations. The discussion cannot advance until people make the effort needed to wrap their heads around this.
Leif Svalgaard says:
May 22, 2011 at 10:28 am
The ‘filter out’ I don’t understand. IDV measures the strength of solar magnetic storms.
I was referring to this passage in the first paper (1.5)
“[5] Van Dijk [1935] criticized the u measure because it
failed to register the very high activity in 1930, resulting
from extensive recurrent storms and clearly shown in the
daily character figure, the Ci
index [see Feynman, 1980].
This problem was so severe that Bartels (after some
struggle [Bartels, 1950]) abandoned the u measure and
went on to invent the very successful K index [Bartels et
al., 1939] that we use to this day. As we shall see, the lack
of sensitivity of the u index to recurrent activity caused by
high-speed streams (also noted by Nevanlinna [2004])
from coronal holes [e.g., Neupert and Pizzo, 1974; see
also Crooker and Cliver, 1994] is an unexpected advantage of the index.”
But the only ‘advantage’ I see being referred to is that your IDV index also fails to register the storms and so correlates well with Bartels u index. Or did I miss something? (always possible).
Leif Svalgaard says:
May 22, 2011 at 10:35 am
vukcevic says:
May 22, 2011 at 10:11 am
Correct but solar activity has bearing on it.
That you didn’t show.
I offered it to you some time ago as a go-between to the Stanford climate department. You declined. Since I found exactly same effect in the Pacific currents, this time modulating PDO & ENSO.
Now you have to wait for the article. I am not in any hurry, once completed then I have to find another ‘a no go area correlation’ to irritate pompous world of academia.
vukcevic, Consider acknowledging wind’s role driving ocean currents.
lgl wrote (May 22, 2011 at 2:39 am)
“Clearly ENSO has not been adjusted for sufficiently.”
The mistake (a fundamentally serious one) is assuming that interannual variations in global surface T are just ENSO. ENSO sometimes goes 180 degrees out of phase with interannual global surface T. Cross-correlation is linear; it seriously misleads people.
tallbloke says:
May 22, 2011 at 11:06 am
I was referring to this passage in the first paper (1.5)
“[5] Van Dijk [1935] criticized the u measure because it failed to register the very high activity in 1930
This failure is the critical element that makes IDV so useful. There are two sets of currents generated in the magnetosphere: 1) the ring-current and 2) the auroral zone electrojets. The perturbations seen on the ground are a mixture of the two and it has taken a long time for researchers to realize that fact [there is a third set of currents which is generated by UV from the sun – just to make it extra hard; and a fourth set controlling the convection of plasma across the polar caps, see below].
The electrojets are controlled by reconnection and depends on the product of IMF magnetic field B and solar wind speed V: Activity ~ BV^2 and can be measured by the aa, Kp, and IHV indices. The ring current is a measure of the particle energy in the Van Allan radiation belts and is influenced by B only. Indices like Dst and u and IDV pick out the radiation belt energy, so IDV ~B. So, having two indices that respond differently to B and V allows us to determine both B and V. This is the breakthrough that Ed Cliver and myself realized about 10 years ago, and which is now generally accepted, providing a way forward, rather than getting stuck in nit picking. It took 10 years of fight to make people see this [there are deniers everywhere :-), you know the tune: ‘I’m not convinced etc…”], but that is behind us [and ‘everybody’ else] now. The polar cap current [ http://www.leif.org/research/No%20Increase%20VxB%20Since%201926.pdf ] depends on B times V, so if we can determine B from IDV, V from IHV, we can form the product B times V and see if it matches what the polar cap current gives. And it does, see Figure 12 of http://www.leif.org/research/IAGA2008LS-final.pdf
This gives us confidence in the reconstruction.
tallbloke says:
May 22, 2011 at 11:06 am
But the only ‘advantage’ I see being referred to is that your IDV index also fails to register the storms and so correlates well with Bartels u index. Or did I miss something? (always possible).
Is the ‘advantage’ that by being insensitive to high speed streams from coronal holes, the IDV and u indices are capable of being extrapolated to provide a reconstruction of sunspot numbers?
If so, how well is that working at the moment, with the sun in a quiet state?
Paul Vaughan says: May 22, 2011 at 11:15 am
vukcevic, Consider acknowledging wind’s role driving ocean currents.
Energy- temperature gradient – atmospheric circulation (wind) – temperature gradient- atmospheric pressure gradient etc, until energy runs out, which of course never does.
Source of energy is the controlling factor; quote from my post:
(Subpolar gyre) “It is a region of intense interaction between ocean and atmosphere: the winter’s cold winds remove heat at rates of several hundred watts per square meter, resulting in deep sea convection reaching as far as 2500 m below the surface.”
Leif Svalgaard says:
May 22, 2011 at 11:35 am
This failure is the critical element that makes IDV so useful. There are two sets of currents generated in the magnetosphere: 1) the ring-current and 2) the auroral zone electrojets. The perturbations seen on the ground are a mixture of the two and it has taken a long time for researchers to realize that fact [there is a third set of currents which is generated by UV from the sun – just to make it extra hard; and a fourth set controlling the convection of plasma across the polar caps, see below]…
Good stuff, and all very interesting. So does this mean you can also reconstruct Earthward solar wind speed and density back to 1835 and by subtracting out the activity due to sunspots, get a residual which shows us what was emanating from coronal holes and flares?
Useful:
Leif Svalgaard wrote (May 22, 2011 at 10:28 am)
“The modulation of GCR is caused by GCRs scattered by the irregularities in the field, which scale with the field […] the modulation is not just a simple relationship and is not well understood […]”
vukcevic says:
May 22, 2011 at 10:28 am
1950-1980 negative correlation not included!
The link was intended to show that the increases in temperature happen without CO2 being included. That there are negative correlations, even makes my point stronger. Thanks for supporting me fully on this.
vukcevic says:
May 22, 2011 at 11:07 am
I offered it to you some time ago as a go-between to the Stanford climate department. You declined.
Declined because it did not satisfy even elementary demands on quality.
tallbloke says:
May 22, 2011 at 11:38 am
Is the ‘advantage’ that by being insensitive to high speed streams from coronal holes, the IDV and u indices are capable of being extrapolated to provide a reconstruction of sunspot numbers?
u and IDV allows reconstruction of the Heliospheric Magnetic Field. We expect that the HMF should depend on the square root of the sunspot number and find that it does:
“The main sources of the equatorial components of the Sun’s large scale magnetic field are large active regions. If these active regions emerge at random longitudes, their net equatorial dipole moment will scale as the square root of their number. Thus their contribution to the average IMF strength will tend to increase as RZ^1/2 (for a detailed discussion, see Wang and Sheeley [2003] and Wang et al. [2005]). We find, indeed, that there is a linear relation between B and the square root of the RZ as shown in Figure 8.”
If so, how well is that working at the moment, with the sun in a quiet state?
Since it is based on sound physics and understanding of the mechanism we would expect it to hold at all times. Naturally, we find that this has been borne out by all data since our 2005 paper up to the present time, including the recent solar minimum. http://www.leif.org/research/HMF-B-1963-now.png
As we said in http://www.leif.org/research/Reply%20to%20Lockwood%20IDV%20Comment.pdf Our debate with Lockwood and colleagues on the long-term evolution of the coronal magnetic field and the solar wind may be resolved within the next few years if our prediction [Svalgaard et al., 2005] of a solar maximum with peak sunspot number comparable to that of cycle 14 bears out. If so, direct measurements of solar wind properties during conditions similar to those during the previous minimum of the Gleissberg cycle would take the estimates of IMF B out of the realm of extrapolation. It is noteworthy that the IDV index (and thus B, regardless of regression method) for 2006 (based on the first 7 months only, but expected to fall further as we approach solar minimum) is already the lowest in the last 94 years.”
This has, indeed, happened. We do the ‘quiet’ sun quite well.