I’ve managed to get a copy of the official press release provided by the Southwest Research Institute Planetary Science Directorate to MSM journalists, for today’s stunning AAS announcement and it is reprinted in full here:
WHAT’S DOWN WITH THE SUN?
MAJOR DROP IN SOLAR ACTIVITY PREDICTED
A missing jet stream, fading spots, and slower activity near the poles say that our Sun is heading for a rest period even as it is acting up for the first time in years, according to scientists at the National Solar Observatory (NSO) and the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL).
As the current sunspot cycle, Cycle 24, begins to ramp up toward maximum, independent studies of the solar interior, visible surface, and the corona indicate that the next 11-year solar sunspot cycle, Cycle 25, will be greatly reduced or may not happen at all.
The results were announced at the annual meeting of the Solar Physics Division of the American Astronomical Society, which is being held this week at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces:
http://astronomy.nmsu.edu/SPD2011/
“This is highly unusual and unexpected,” Dr. Frank Hill, associate director of the NSO’s Solar Synoptic Network, said of the results. “But the fact that three completely different views of the Sun point in the same direction is a powerful indicator that the sunspot cycle may be going into hibernation.”
Spot numbers and other solar activity rise and fall about every 11 years, which is half of the Sun’s 22-year magnetic interval since the Sun’s magnetic poles reverse with each cycle. An immediate question is whether this slowdown presages a second Maunder Minimum, a 70-year period with virtually no sunspots during 1645-1715.
Hill is the lead author on one of three papers on these results being presented this week. Using data from the Global Oscillation Network Group (GONG) of six observing stations around the world, the team translates surface pulsations caused by sound reverberating through the Sun into models of the internal structure. One of their discoveries is an east-west zonal wind flow inside the Sun, called the torsional oscillation, which starts at
mid-latitudes and migrates towards the equator. The latitude of this wind stream matches the new spot formation in each cycle, and successfully predicted the late onset of the current Cycle 24.
“We expected to see the start of the zonal flow for Cycle 25 by now,” Hill explained, “but we see no sign of it. This indicates that the start of Cycle 25 may be delayed to 2021 or 2022, or may not happen at all.”
In the second paper, Matt Penn and William Livingston see a long-term weakening trend in the strength of sunspots, and predict that by Cycle 25 magnetic fields erupting on the Sun will be so weak that few if any sunspots will be formed. Spots are formed when intense magnetic flux tubes erupt from the interior and keep cooled gas from circulating back to the interior. For typical sunspots this magnetism has a strength of 2,500 to 3,500 gauss
(Earth’s magnetic field is less than 1 gauss at the surface); the field must reach at least 1,500 gauss to form a dark spot.
Using more than 13 years of sunspot data collected at the McMath-Pierce Telescope at Kitt Peak in Arizona, Penn and Livingston observed that the average field strength declined about 50 gauss per year during Cycle 23 and now in Cycle 24. They also observed that spot temperatures have risen exactly as expected for such changes in the magnetic field. If the trend continues, the field strength will drop below the 1,500 gauss threshold and
spots will largely disappear as the magnetic field is no longer strong enough to overcome convective forces on the solar surface.
Moving outward, Richard Altrock, manager of the Air Force’s coronal research program at NSO’s Sunspot, NM, facilities has observed a slowing of the “rush to the poles,” the rapid poleward march of magnetic activity observed in the Sun’s faint corona. Altrock used four decades of observations with NSO’s 40-cm (16-inch) coronagraphic telescope at Sunspot.
“A key thing to understand is that those wonderful, delicate coronal features are actually powerful, robust magnetic structures rooted in the interior of the Sun,” Altrock explained. “Changes we see in the corona reflect changes deep inside the Sun.”
Altrock used a photometer to map iron heated to 2 million degrees C (3.6 million F). Stripped of half of its electrons, it is easily concentrated by magnetism rising from the Sun. In a well-known pattern, new solar activity emerges first at about 70 degrees latitude at the start of a cycle, then towards the equator as the cycle ages. At the same time, the new magnetic fields push remnants of the older cycle as far as 85 degrees poleward.
“In cycles 21 through 23, solar maximum occurred when this rush appeared at an average latitude of 76 degrees,” Altrock said. “Cycle 24 started out late and slow and may not be strong enough to create a rush to the poles, indicating we’ll see a very weak solar maximum in 2013, if at all. If the rush to the poles fails to complete, this creates a tremendous dilemma for the theorists, as it would mean that Cycle 23’s magnetic field will not completely disappear from the polar regions (the rush to the poles accomplishes this feat). No one knows what the Sun will do in that case.”
All three of these lines of research to point to the familiar sunspot cycle shutting down for a while.
“If we are right,” Hill concluded, “this could be the last solar maximum we’ll see for a few decades. That would affect everything from space exploration to Earth’s climate.”
# # #
Media teleconference information: This release is the subject of a media
teleconference at the current meeting of the American Astronomical Society’s
Solar Physics Division (AAS/SPD). The telecon will be held at 11 a.m. MDT
(17:00 UTC) on Tuesday, 14 June. Bona fide journalists are invited to attend
the teleconference and should send an e-mail to the AAS/SPD press officer,
Craig DeForest, at deforest@boulder.swri.edu, with the subject heading “SPD:
SOLAR MEDIA TELECON”, before 16:00 UTC. You will receive dial-in information
before the telecon.
These results have been presented at the current meeting of the AAS/SPD.
Citations:
16.10: “Large-Scale Zonal Flows During the Solar Minimum — Where Is Cycle
25?” by Frank Hill, R. Howe, R. Komm, J. Christensen-Dalsgaard, T.P. Larson,
J. Schou & M. J. Thompson.
17.21: “A Decade of Diminishing Sunspot Vigor” by W. C. Livingston, M. Penn
& L. Svalgard.
18.04: “Whither Goes Cycle 24? A View from the Fe XIV Corona” by R. C.
Altrock.
Source:
Southwest Research Institute Planetary Science Directorate
http://www.boulder.swri.edu/~deforest/SPD-sunspot-release/SPD_solar_cycle_release.txt
Supplemental images: http://www.boulder.swri.edu/~deforest/SPD-sunspot-release/
Wow even national geographic has just conceded I confidently predict the whole AGW scm if over (but for a different reason FEAR! of cold). Just watch the warmistas handle this one! Time to watch the movie get your popcorn out LOL Already noticed the wrmist trolls are out trying to debunk of course all the funds are going to dry up real quick.
link to national geographic
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/06/110614-sun-hibernation-solar-cycle-sunspots-space-science/
Time to short Wheat in Canada?
Time to invest in a snow shoe company.
Time to recognize David Archibald, Svensmark, Landsheit and yes even Vulvecic LOL. I remeber DA actually forecast a maximum of 40 SSN for solar 24. It looks like he might be on track. BTW this is really spinning look at the registers just released
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/06/14/ice_age/ greatest story of the century me thinks
Phase lag between readers of WUWT and ‘the more enlightened scientist’ = about 3 years.
……..and for climate scientists add another 10 – 15 years. (variability is directly proportional to the size of the grant cheque!)
It seems the science isn’t settled after all. That’s all anyone really wanted to be admitted. And if the science is not settled, then why are we convulsing over “Green” jobs, etc., etc.?
Joe Romm will be blaming a cloud of CO2, escaping from earth’s atmosphere, having an insulating effect on the sun
More yankees on their way to South Carolina
“If the trend continues…”
A word of caution to global coolers going forward, we’ve all heard that phrase before.
Wow, if this is turns out to be true, we are in for some big changes. This is far scarier than any bs AGW agenda. Here is hoping we somehow see some changes for the better.
Must keep an eye out for this in the MSM. It should be the top news story, lead in, with experts explaining the possible ramificatiions, history of periods of minimal sunspot activity, this is big…..just kidding, doesn’t fit the meme, ignore it.
This is another case where if we’re right, we won’t like the results. Last thing we need is cold weather and crop failures. Bring on the global warming, PLEASE!
Is there a history of hurricanes during the Maunder Minimum? I was just wondering if low activity and low number of sunspots had any coerlation to tropical weather. Also, does the earth’s magnetic fields weaken or stay about the same? Maybe the records are bad or non existant for these periods. I believe the Spanish were just starting many voyages to the New World about this time and some hurricane records I know do exist because several gold laden ships were sunk during or soon after the Maunder Minimum and were reported.
Laura says:
link to national geographic
Doesn’t exactly read like a concession: “I don’t think you’d see the same cooling effects today if the sun went into another Maunder Minimum-type behavior.”
I am pleasantly pleased that this paper was finally published; and that it received major news broadcast. There are some scientists who are still scientists, rather than propagandists for their paymasters.
Even science AAA has published it
http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2011/06/end-of-the-sunspot-cycle.html
Yes, mainstream media is really taking this up. Forecast AGW cannot proceed politically economically or in any other way. Cucinelli’s thing for Mann etc… has now become irrelevant LOL
Joshua Science said:
Yeah we’ve heard it said before but it’s not usually in connection to “observed data” , rather a trend drawn by a Nintendo 64.
I don’t think being short wheat, coal, oil or natural gas would be a good investment.
I know-Columbus/1492–etc. But I think most Spanish ships carring gold was late 15 hundreds and early 16 hundred.
Don’t be so silly. The models show that the sun has no effect on the Earth’s climate. 😉
Perhaps the Bilderberg group were receiving advice of this sort when they framed the agenda for their meeting last year.
German news magazine tells us already, that the outcome will be positive. Less distortions for power supply networks and mobile phones, even a “slight decrease in increasing global warming”. No cooling.
So don’t worry.
Warmist trolls Ramsdorf et al below. I thought according to AGW the sun had NOTHING to do with earth’s climate. Apparently, now it suddenly does. Their reply to above findings quoted from AFP just now….
“This “cancelled part of the greenhouse gas warming of the period 2000-2008, causing the net global surface temperature to remain approximately flat — and leading to the big debate of why the Earth hadn’t (been) warming in the past decade,” Lean, who was not involved in the three studies presented, said in an email to AFP””
Hoisted by their own petard…..
.
CO2 will keep us warm. After all, there’s 0.04 percent of it in the atmosphere. Imagine the backradiation. Hmmm…. warm backradiation…
Jaypan says:
June 14, 2011 at 4:11 pm
“German news magazine tells us already, that the outcome will be positive. Less distortions for power supply networks and mobile phones, even a “slight decrease in increasing global warming”. No cooling.
So don’t worry.”
I hope they did mention less Van Allen belts?
While I do find this interesting, it is a long way from matching cause to effect. Please, let us not in our haste to kill CAGW make the same mistakes they have, and jump to conclusions before the proof is in.
I know proposals have been put forth as to the vehicle of effect, but they have not been fully explored and tested. All we have are hypothesis at this point I believe. While they are encouraging and appeal to common sense, let us not form a IPSC (Intergovernmental Panel on Solar Change) and go through this corruption of the scientific process again!
Whew, posts and comments have been coming fast and furious, so apologies if someone has already mentioned this.
We can always count on NASA getting things right.
http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2008/11jul_solarcycleupdate/
Maybe Phil Clarke will show up telling us it was all correct, except for what they got wrong.
Tony: They (MSM) are already conceding “it may cool” its enough to stop the warmista agenda. We shall see what eventuates in the coming months, but I am pretty sure the AGW will fall on its legs because of this. REASON most people fear extreme cooling, especially in the higher latitudes, even if its a theory just like AGW. For example consider this: WE are going to prevent warming by AGW when in fact it MAY be cooling. I emphazise the “MAY” because that’s whats scares people. I predict a massive populist backlash against the warmista postion because of this when people become aware of this story. In any case we shall see.
Piers Corbyn vindicated?
It will be interesting to hear Piers take on all this as it unfolds I think. I don’t expect him to spare the warmists at all and I look forward to some skewering and wriggling.
Eriberto Calante says:
Yes, mainstream media is really taking this up. Forecast AGW cannot proceed politically economically or in any other way. Cucinelli’s thing for Mann etc… has now become irrelevant LOL
From the comments at the Register I was just reading, not so much. Then again, nothing changes the mind of the True Believer.
John M – Priceless! Thanks for that link
Please can we start an archive of links and screenshots of all the warmist claims that the sun has no effect climate – before they start erasing them. Warmists have a habit of trying to re-write history when their claims are proved to be false: Same way they denied the 1970’s claims of a coming ice-age & Nasa’s himalyan glaciers melt page etc.
Eriberto Calante says:
June 14, 2011 at 3:38 pm
Time to recognize David Archibald, Svensmark, Landsheit and yes even Vulvecic LOL. I remeber DA actually forecast a maximum of 40 SSN for solar 24.
____
Um, we’ve already exceeded 40 SSN in Solar Cycle 24, and have about 2 years left to solar max.
I have forwarded links to your article(s) to Sun TV News here in Canada, along with the article from Space.com. I am hoping our new “little network that could” up here will give this lots of airtime. I am beginning to think this may be the turning point — at last. I said it before some years ago that it is ironic that nature itself will prove to be the CO2 alarmists undoing. Regardless, this is a big story on it’s own. Great coverage BTW!
Cheers!
PS. For all my fellow canucks, email, tweet — or whatever — to Sun News to run with this story!
Email links to WUWT? to your favourite host, or go here and fill out the “contact us” form.
I have prepared a statement:
“There is consensus among Anthropogenic Solar Minimumologists that
western style capitalismhuman activity is the cause of the impending decline in solar activity — the precise mechanism is yet not fully understood. I hereby propose that the UN form a Intergovernmental Panel to study the link betweencapitalismhuman activity and the decline in solar activity. And let me be the first to say, that if you don’t believe in this yet-to-be-fully-understood mechanism, than you are a denier.”See, it won’t take long for the Team to pivot to a new cash cow. Let the fund raising begin.
Time to drag out the pitchforks and torches.
“The Age of Witch-Hunting thus seems pretty congruent with the era of the
Little Ice Age. The peaks of the persecution coincide with the critical
points of climatic deterioration. Witches traditionally had been held
responsible for bad weather which was so dangerous for the precarious
agriculture of the pre-industrial period. But it was only in the 15th
century that ecclesiastical and secular authorities accepted the reality of
that crime. The 1420ies, the 1450ies, and the last two decades of the
fifteenth century, well known in the history of climate, were decisive years
in which secular and ecclesiastical authorities increasingly accepted the
existence of weather-making witches. During the “cumulative sequences of
coldness” in the years 1560-1574, 1583-1589 and 1623-1630, again 1678-1698
(Pfister 1988, 150) people demanded the eradication of the witches whom they
held responsible for climatic aberrations. Obviously it was the impact of
the Little Ice Age which increased the pressure from below and made parts of
the intellectual elites believe in the existence of witchcraft. So it is
possible to say: witchcraft was the unique crime of the Little Ice Age.”
http://www.scribd.com/doc/32396573/Witch-Hunting-Maunder
Joshua Science says:
June 14, 2011 at 3:51 pm
“If the trend continues…”
A word of caution to global coolers going forward, we’ve all heard that phrase before.
_____
Indeed, and it would seem that some AGW skeptics are nearly frothing at the mouth with excitement over this…which really amounts to pure speculation of what might happen. Meanwhile, in the real world, arctic sea ice extent is at or near record low levels for this date in June.
R gates the current SSN is 16 and has been for a week calculate your means to date. I of course meant mean SSN. It can go to 200 for a day or so it does not mean the mean will be 200 pun intended.
http://www.solarham.com/
Just looked at TV ‘news.’ Too bad the Sun hadn’t fallen down a well, sent out some embarassing tweets, or was on trial for murdering its child. Might have got some coverage.
The other ‘big story’ is almost non-stop stories of ‘hackings’…. which appears to be leading up to the ‘need’ to clamp down on the inconvenient net.
re: R.Gates: …”arctic sea ice extent is at or near record low levels for this date in June.”
______________
http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/en/home/seaice_extent.htm
R gates Arctic ice at this time of the year is not indicative of arctic minimum ice (which is what warmistas really like to use example 2007 minimum why all of a sudden has June become so important?) look at ALL previous years here:
http://arctic-roos.org/observations/satellite-data/sea-ice/ice-area-and-extent-in-arctic
http://arctic-roos.org/observations/satellite-data/sea-ice/total-icearea-from-1978-2007
BTW look at SH ice its still above anomaly for the past 4 years from your pals at cryosphere today (just joking BTW re pals please don’t feel insulted just a bit of sarcasm).
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seaice.recent.antarctic.png
Thank you for the familiar link. It showed exactly what I stated…arctic sea ice extent is at or near record lows for this date in June. Looks like no pending “Little Ice Age” just yet…but in a sick sort of way, it seems the AGW skeptics are almost hoping for one and it can’t come too soon.
R Gates
Mostly I disagree with you but:
“Indeed, and it would seem that some AGW skeptics are nearly frothing at the mouth with excitement over this…which really amounts to pure speculation of what might happen. Meanwhile, in the real world, arctic sea ice extent is at or near record low levels for this date in June.”
Makes sense.
My own comment:
“While I do find this interesting, it is a long way from matching cause to effect. Please, let us not in our haste to kill CAGW make the same mistakes they have, and jump to conclusions before the proof is in.
I know proposals have been put forth as to the vehicle of effect, but they have not been fully explored and tested. All we have are hypothesis at this point I believe. While they are encouraging and appeal to common sense, let us not form a IPSC (Intergovernmental Panel on Solar Change) and go through this corruption of the scientific process again!”
Appears to be relevant
Please people, do not succumb to what the IPCC’ers did!! That is, and will never be science. Scientists do not gloat over their victories. They accept the new POSSIBLE paradigm.
R gates you might want to have a look at global temperatures as well while your at it (Tornadoes due to global warming when in fact ALL temperatures were BELOW anomaly SH, NH and tropics pluuezzz…..
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/600/dailyuahtempsmar312010.png/
Jack Morrow,
Just doing a quick search there are records of hurricanes hitting throughout the latter half of the 17th century and the early 18th century. A particularly famous storm created “flooding so great it created new permanent inlets”.
The only thing I’d like to see if it cools as much as some seem to think is a hurricane coming north in late October or November, becomes extratropical, and wraps a bunch of cold air into the system and drops a ton of snow. But I bet Co2 would still be to blame
Eriberto Calante says:
June 14, 2011 at 4:50 pm
R gates the current SSN is 16 and has been for a week calculate your means to date. I of course meant mean SSN. It can go to 200 for a day or so it does not mean the mean will be 200 pun intended.
http://www.solarham.com/
_____
Fair enough, but you said nothing about “the mean” in your original post. Thanks for clarifying your intent. The SSN has been trending upward for about 2 years and hit a peak so far over 50. But the point of a quiet sun is still valid…now we’ll have to see what actual real world effects it will have. If in fact a Maunder type minimum does develop, I think it’s far too early to say it wil definitely cool off globally because of it. I though this kind of frothy speculation was what skeptics were opposed to?
Eriberto Calante says:
June 14, 2011 at 5:03 pm
R gates you might want to have a look at global temperatures as well while your at it (Tornadoes due to global warming when in fact ALL temperatures were BELOW anomaly SH, NH and tropics pluuezzz…..
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/600/dailyuahtempsmar312010.png/
______
I well aware of the temperature variations around the world over the past few decades, years, months, days, and weeks. We know what happens during a La Nina (less heat is given off by the oceans to the atmosphere). Now that this particular La Nina has come to a close, let’s see what the next six months bring. If you were to listen to some of the AGW skeptics, we’ll have glaciers forming soon. I tend to think that we’ll probably say in a ENSO neutral range for a while, and tropo temps will reflect that. The continued near record low extent of artic sea ice reflects continued warmth in the Arctic, but why talk about the facts…
^^^that storm struck New York and New England
If this pans out, all of a sudden the Sun is going to become a climate driver……………….again
Only this time “global warming is still there, it would have been a lot worse, just wait until the sun gets back to “normal”
I don’t like that straight line extrapolation. A curve that has nearly or already reached the minimum would be a MUCH better fit, IMO. I would want to see more data to be even slightly convinced, and I am sure there must be more?
It could be just yet another example of looking at too short a period to and dragging out a trend that does not exist (a bit like the warming ‘trend’ from ’79 to ’99).
This is of course unprecedented and much worse than we thought. We must shut down our BIG OIL plants to save the world from man-made catastrophic warming. The signs are in the stars.
Queue snappy ska beat ….
“It’s the dawning
of a newwww era”
funny how skepticism about models and predictions all fly out the window
Here’s the quandary this sets up for the warmists
* If they claim the Sun has no significant impact on Earth’s climate, then as it continues to cool – their models and projections continue to be falsified making it increasingly apparent that CAGW is a falsified hypothesis.
* If they admit the Sun does impact Earth’s climate in substantial ways, they get a small temporary fig leaf to blame for why their projected warming has been delayed, however they are also admitting that the Sun may have been driving most or nearly all of the climate change we’ve seen. They would also be opening the possibility of dramatic solar forced cooling in the future which scares most people far more than warming.
They can’t have it both ways.
This is what happens when you get out of group think. This is settled science. Now let’s proceed to re-organise our entire energy infrastructure based on the finings of a few climate scientists whose very livelihoods depends on continued global warming.
HA ! So the “experts” predicts a big solar minimum.
That means we are 100% guaranteed to have a normal, large-ish cycle.
steven mosher says:
June 14, 2011 at 5:32 pm
“funny how skepticism about models and predictions all fly out the window”
Well, yes and no. If sceptics embrace models of the sun then they must do extra work to justify their rejection of models of climate. At this time, it is not entirely clear to me what part of the claims about the sun are based on models and what part on genuine physical hypotheses.
However, Svensmark’s work is pure science that follows scientific method perfectly. Now, I take it that Svensmark is not one of those who is predicting the sun’s behavior. But the sun’s changed output will provide him with new initial conditions for his universally generalized hypotheses and he can then predict changes in Earth’s climate.
When people show graphics of the sun’s cycles, it is a truly impressive sight. However, if they are simply saying that the existing graph really resembles the graph at the beginning of the Little Ice Age then that is just extrapolation and is not science. However, if time reveals that the graph for this time is identical to that for the Little Ice Age then Svensmark has the data that he needs for his genuine science.
Yes, that.
The fact is, we don’t really know what will happen. We’re dealing with a chaotic system (weather) that may or may not be influenced by the largest thermonuclear explosion in the solar system, that itself may have cycles that complete in time spans much longer than the average human lifespan.
Interesting times, for sure. I do wish it would cool the heck off. It’s hotter than blue blazes here in Houston.
R. Gates,
Don’t you think it is strange that the topic of this forum is the AAS announcement about solar activity and you talk endlessly about sea ice?
Mr. Mosher,
The new claims of climate change causes and proposed restructuring of our entire energy system is not being made by sceptics but by Warmists. What else do you want us to do? Accept the ‘settled’ science? Go along with program?
Models:
“Modellers have an inbuilt bias towards forced climate change because the causes and effect are clear.”
http://www.meteo.psu.edu/~mann/shared/articles/Schmidtetal-QSR04.pdf
Why Climate Models Lie
http://theresilientearth.com/?q=content/why-climate-models-lie
“The Royal Society’s motto ‘Nullius in verba’ roughly translates as ‘take nobody’s word for it’. It is an expression of the determination of Fellows to withstand the domination of authority and to verify all statements by an appeal to facts determined by experiment. ”
http://royalsociety.org/about-us/history/
Beware of pending new ice age predictions from the past .
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/sci;173/3992/138
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0033-5894(72)90047-6
http://georgewashington2.blogspot.com/2009/12/scientists-considered-pouring-soot-over.html
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,944914,00.html
http://old.businessandmedia.org/specialreports/2006/fireandice/fireandice.asp
I wouldn’t count on the sun taking a rest anytime soon.
http://dublinmick.wordpress.com/2011/05/25/mayan-elder-carlos-barrios-2/
http://dublinmick.wordpress.com/2011/04/29/little-darling-here-comes-the-sun/
http://dublinmick.wordpress.com/2011/04/28/nasa-warning-super-storms-billions-could-die/
http://dublinmick.wordpress.com/2011/06/14/controlled-power-cuts-likely-as-sun-storm-threatens-national-grid/
Living in Houston and having had all of my tropical plants killed by snow the last two winters, I do not like this report.
Mosher
It appears to be a prediction based on observation rather than a model… though it is still just a prediction. We will observe whether or not it comes true. At least no one is trying to change the way we all live based on this prediction…yet…
steven mosher says:
June 14, 2011 at 5:32 pm
funny how skepticism about models and predictions all fly out the window
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Could it just be that solar scientists are more respected than climate scientists? “Solargate” anyone?
That aside, all true scientists have good reason to hope this pans out. The opportunity to observe a prolonged solar minimum “up close and personal” may help to answer a lot of unresolved questions.
Yeah, the freeze pretty much kicked my St. Augustine in the cods and it still hasn’t really recovered. But I’m DONE with 100+ highs. I’m afraid for my new SmartMeter — it may get hot and shut me down. Thanks, Reliant!
The reason why I immediately distrust global warming climate scientists is because most of them rely on their livelihoods on continued global warming. What if the world cools for 30 years? What papers can we expect from them?
Now proponents of carbon climate control say that we should not believe reputable scientists when they release well composed and thoroughly reviewed papers. Make up your minds will ya! At least R.Gates has the decency to be transparent in his efforts to obfuscate and change the subject.
This is sort of being between a rock and a hard place!
On the one hand it [may] stop our governments recklessly spending trillions of OUR money on combatting [almost] non-existent AGW, but on the other we may have extreme global cooling.
R. Gates: “Which really amounts to pure speculation of what might happen. ” At least this speculation is based on something that is happening now and has happened in the past. Which is a heck of a lot more than what AGW models are based on. Increase in CO2 never lead to higher temperatures in the past.
Observe!!! That is what they don’t want to hear. People all over the world could be freezing their nuts off and they would be told that they are overheating. Amazing stuff!
Perpetual drought in Australia
Declining US snowpack
Sinking coral island atolls
Accelerating rate of sea level rise
Doomed and dead corals………………………………. FAIL.
Arctic spiral death – still waitng despite the long-term trend.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2010.08.016
http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2010GL045698
Jimbo says: June 14, 2011 at 6:18 pm
[ What if the world cools for 30 years? What papers can we expect from them?]
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Not a peep from RealClimate.
News like this is pretty much a layoff notice.
Why do they have the sun on the top of their webpage anyways?
Just one question for the AGW folks. Is the science still settled?
Well it isn’t on Drudge as of 9.30 pm so it can’t be in the MSM.
I have yet to hear of ex VP Joe Cool starring in a movie named “Convenient Lies” scolding the world that unless we burn all the fossil fuels we can lay our hands on very soon, that the Earth will plunge headlong into the Next Ice Age. I don’t hear the Coolistas demanding a tax on Oxygen as the evil poisionous gas that will freeze us all to death, castastrophically falling sea levels that make ports and canals useless, advancing ice sheets and glaciers wiping out billions of people, and summers will become a thing of the past. Don’t hear any Brown cries of “Save the Deserts”.
Nope, not a word.
Not yet, anyway.
Alvin says:
June 14, 2011 at 3:43 pm
More yankees on their way to South Carolina
************************************************
Too late. I did that in April. Cheers.
The Lean et al. (1995) forcing from the Maunder Minimum was estimated to be -0.5 W/m2 (this is now regarded too high if anything), while that from doubling CO2 is +3.7 W/m2. Which one will one in the next few decades? You can figure it out.
It should say … Which one will win…
steven mosher says:
June 14, 2011 at 5:32 pm
“funny how skepticism about models and predictions all fly out the window”
Not for me…if the sunspot number suddenly spikes, the modelers will be backtracking as usual (cf. David Hathaway).
Climate models, numerical methods, and predictions are much easier to criticize, however…(cf. NASA GISS)
The results were announced at the annual meeting of the Solar Physics Division of the American Astronomical Society, which is being held this week at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces…”This is highly unusual and unexpected,” Dr. Frank Hill, associate director of the NSO’s Solar Synoptic Network, said of the results.
I have been expecting this for some time now. But I looked at historical data.
Poor peeps in the Midwest… Tornado seasons over the next few years could be really bad if the earth starts cooling fairly rapidly while the gulf still warm.
This news has not hit the BBC yet, I wonder if it will? Top story in Science is Phil Jones now saying warming since 1995 ‘..is now significant’ !
I wonder how the MSM will treat this story – at least it shouldn’t be going via the ‘Environmental Correspondent’ so might scrape through, possibly without the reference to global cooling!
Who will be the first prominent Global Cooling Denier?
Al Gored: I was just singing that song from The Wizard of Oz – something about a big bad witch being brown-bread) and came upon your witty piece about pitchforks and witchhunting.
Yes, the warmists must be held accountable for the damage they have done. Wicked watermelons always had an antidevelopment agenda. They must not be allowed to slink quietly away. D’you reckon Al Gore will go in front of the cameras, all contrite, and weep like a disgraced Japanese businessman?
To Jim D.:
Check your circuits, sir, you’re getting wrong answers. That 3.7 W/m2 is not just from CO2, it’s from all anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions (e.g., methane, CFCs, etc.). And that is not a direct number, but includes much assumed feedback from water vapor–which could very well not be happening. All of which renders your point somewhat moot. Further, Judy Lean’s reconstructions may be wrong as well–even the IPCC admits that the level of our scientific understanding of solar effects is “LOW”.
Jim D says:
June 14, 2011 at 6:52 pm
The Lean et al. (1995) forcing from the Maunder Minimum was estimated to be -0.5 W/m2 (this is now regarded too high if anything), while that from doubling CO2 is +3.7 W/m2. Which one will one in the next few decades? You can figure it out.
=======================================================================
lol, would that be from the group that believes the sun has very little to do with our climate?……yeh I thought so.
How in the world would anyone believe that someone could estimate what the forcing was of the MM to tenths of a W/m2 when the event was mostly before thermometers?…….. sigh, nvm,
You know, faith is a good thing when properly applied……. I don’t think this is a case where it is being properly applied…….
Yeh, I measured the Sun’s output 300 years ago……. it measured in miliwatts………sigh.
Jim D says:
June 14, 2011 at 6:52 pm
The Lean et al. (1995) forcing from the Maunder Minimum was estimated to be -0.5 W/m2 (this is now regarded too high if anything), while that from doubling CO2 is +3.7 W/m2.
—————————————————————————–
Uh oh, can I smell a SCA …….. a “sunspot cycle adjustment” showing up in the temperature record ??
A study in the March 2010 issue of Geophysical Research Letters explored what effect an extended solar minimum might have, and found no more than a 0.3 Celsius dip by 2100 compared to normal solar fluctuations.
“A new Maunder-type solar activity minimum cannot offset the global warming caused by human greenhouse gas emissions,” wrote authors Georg Feulner and Stefan Rahmstorf, noting that forecasts by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change have found a range of 3.7 Celsius to 4.5 Celsius rise by this century’s end compared to the latter half of the 20th century.
“Moreover, any offset of global warming due to a grand minimum of solar activity would be merely a temporary effect, since the distinct solar minima during the last millennium typically lasted for only several decades or a century at most.”
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20110614/ts_afp/usspacesun
Just another scarewagon to jump on.
The SC24/25 grand minimum prediction is now being observed by regular science. But they have no clue as to why or even how long it will last. The Landscheidt Minimum will not be anything like the Maunder Minimum and should recover during SC26. The most interesting data to follow will be the solar pole field strength which has the very real prospect of showing a failure of the Hale cycle if the southern hemisphere fails to reverse.
For those interested in learning about a solid theory explaining how our Sun is controlled can read my paper published at the Cornell Uni website HERE.
You haven’t been looking hard enough
The article is under the picture of the Australian P.M.
I, for one, welcome our new glacial overlords! 🙂
Also, couldn’t the jet stream being monitored by the NASA group just have moved a little deeper, too deep to see…. and cycle 25 will be pretty normal? I’m not sure how you rule that out.
This is terrible.
Clearly we must immediately transfer trillions of dollars to developing countries to help them cope with the horrors to come from this Solar Cooling.
Now would be an appropriate time to read “The Chilling Stars” by Nigel Calder.
Just made Instapundit @ 10.43 ….an Instalanche…
Brent Hargreaves says:
June 14, 2011 at 7:26 pm
Al Gored: I was just singing that song from The Wizard of Oz – something about a big bad witch being brown-bread) and came upon your witty piece about pitchforks and witchhunting…………….
Brent I had similar thoughts, and Julia Gillard is not doing so well in the polls in Australia with her carbon dioxide tax she won’t put to the voters before forcing it upon us – shades of witch burning in the air!!.?? Then as I see the changing roles and places of those who are now the new sceptics I am reminded of that kindergarten song and dance – doing the Hokey Pokey, you know put your right foot in and shake it all about…. ……. then turn around, that’s what its all about!!
Science, Science…now what can I say!!
Replying to various people, the 3.7 W/m2 was for doubling CO2 from pre-industrial, which may happen within 50 years. So far we have had nearly 2 W/m2, also larger than the Lean estimated 0.5 for the Maunder Minimum. The downward revision of Lean’s number was from astronomical studies of sun-like stars that just don’t have much variability, but I’d tend towards Lean’s number, if I had a say. This is about 2.5 times a solar 11-year cycle variation which sounds reasonable, and even more recent work is revising it up again towards Lean’s number. Where do people get the idea that the IPCC discounts the sun when they were using solar forcing variations in addition to volcanoes, CO2, etc. The warming from 1910-40 relies on it for a significant fraction of the effect.
Station announcement at Las Cruces: Ladies and gentlemen, those of you who arrived on the AGW Gravy Train, now standing at platform one, will be required to seek new transportation to your next destination. Spaces are still available in the Maunder Minimum Special, now boarding at platform two. We regret that your tickets are not transferable, AGW grants can not be accepted for passage and no models can be accommodated. Only scientists with actual data in hand may board. Correction, only actual scientists with actual data in hand may board.
Theo Goodwin says:
June 14, 2011 at 5:55 pm
R. Gates,
Don’t you think it is strange that the topic of this forum is the AAS announcement about solar activity and you talk endlessly about sea ice?
—–
As the long-term decline in arctic sea ice is what IS happening in the region of the planet that is supposed to be on the front lines of global warming, when all the AGW skeptics are getting all frothy about a new pending Little Ice Age, I think it wise to keep them grounded in what actually is happening.
REPLY: Mr. Gates, since you mention “grounding” let me help you understand what that really means.. It’s my job (and moderators) to manage this forum and where it goes, not yours. Stay on topic or comment on another thread, but don’t clutter up this one with off-topic pronouncements because you think you’ve been assigned a job here.
– Anthony
I’m writing to several BBC shows suggesting that they run this story big style. Mostly a nest of warmist vipers, the BBC influences public opinion to such an extent that governments think, “Well, this global warming thing is just codswallop, but there are votes to be won from having green credentials.”
It’s infuriating that the public’s support for a green agenda has been hijacked by the wicked myth of Global Warming. How much better might these vast amounts of cash be spent? We squander billions on useless windmills, driving up energy prices to the detriment of manufacturing industry. And at the same time we barely scratch the surface of genuine problems such as habitat loss and endangered species.
Let’s hope that the NASA announcements signals the end of the Global Warming Religion and a return to sanity.
2012 is approaching and everything going on is just a coincidence.
I’d like to be joking around but I’m instead forced to at least ponder.
Geoff Sharp says:
June 14, 2011 at 7:44 pm
The SC24/25 grand minimum prediction is now being observed by regular science.
As was predicted by ‘regular science’ , e.g. http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2003SPD….34.0603S
The most interesting data to follow will be the solar pole field strength which has the very real prospect of showing a failure of the Hale cycle if the southern hemisphere fails to reverse.
That is a vacuous statement. A failure of the Hale cycle would result in ANY solar cycle if the polar fields did not reverse. However, the Northern Polar fields are already gone and the Southern are down to half of what it was.
Im just saying I dont see anyone clamoring for IV&V on the solar models. I dont see anyone taking a hard look at the hindcasts or the differences between models. I don’t see any of the RIGOR and DOUBT that one normally sees from a skeptical crowd.
The sun of course is hugely complex, the same fluids problems exist for the modelers of the sun. Yet, where are the guys screaming “chaos”. We cant predict the sun spots 4 weeks from now, what makes you think you can
forecast them years from now.. arguments that that.
There is a funny thing about skeptical arguments. they have specific forms. They can be applied to anything.
watching how and when people choose to apply them is interesting
R. Gates: Indeed, and it would seem that some AGW skeptics are nearly frothing at the mouth with excitement over this…which really amounts to pure speculation of what might happen. Meanwhile, in the real world, arctic sea ice extent is at or near record low levels for this date in June.
Excuse me Mr. Gates, you are the one with the pure speculation of what might happen. Those of us with clear thinking minds that are not poisoned by your AGW bias are cognizant of reality. We are capable of looking out the window and recognize that AGW is actually NOT happening.. Your postings are supported by nothing more than AGW money driven entities.
You are condescending in self high minded cloud of righteousness.
We welcome the warming your agendist claim is so dangerous. We are not ignorant to the consequence of substantial cooling. But your platform is that we are somehow behind the phantom AGW and should therefore succumb to a lessor life style that would falsely protect our future from ourselves. Does arrogant elitist ring any self examination? Please take this personal, as that is how I intend it. As for others who follow such Gore-ism clandestine money driven agenda do your family a favor…find a new agenda.
But Gordon Brown insisted, INSISTED dammit, that the science was settled.
He wasn’t telling fibs, was he?
Astrophysics is in its infancy. There have been some big advances recently but there’s a long way to go.
Sunspot predictions have smacked of dumb numerology until recently. But at least the predictions have been falsifiable (as Karl Popper insisted). Honest scientists acknowledge failures and adapt their theories. (Did somebody say that AGW science was “settled”? What a bizarre concept!) Chaos theory tells us that there will be a limit to solar forecasting (we’ll never be able to predict the emergence of individual sunspots) but they’re sure to gradually unearth the basic mechanisms as the decades pass.
R. Gates says:
June 14, 2011 at 5:00 pm
Looks like no pending “Little Ice Age” just yet…but in a sick sort of way, it seems the AGW skeptics are almost hoping for one and it can’t come too soon.
Not quite. As per our area of agreement concerning the wisdom of China and India’s going whole hog into the construction of coal-fired electricity plants in order to, as you said, ~”feed their people’s hungry mouths”, it looks more certain that China and India should even be considered downright prescient compared to countries falling for the stringent and irrational – “the alleged cure is worse than the alleged disease” – Kyoto Protocols. China and India’s emphasis upon development vs stasis or even regression is what I’m hoping for, for all people..
And whatever comes along the lines of a LIA was going to come anyway. We can’t control it. And we still really know we’re due for a glaciation, regardless.
Funny how mosher fails to differentiate the reasons for skepticism about climate models. Maybe some of the lower brow skeptics distrust the entire process of modeling, just like some lower brow warmists distrust all skepticism as oil funded. Invalid sure, but an easy straw man to beat. You must be proud of yourself for that gem. It is also somewhat ironic you would bring up the lack of doubt modeling the sun to people who accept proxies for the MWP and LIA. Surely skeptics are not allowed to accept proxies either, right? I mean, Mann and Briffa used proxies and they were the anti-Jeebus.
It’s disingenuous to say this, and you know it. The particular proxies people have a problem with are the “hide the decline” style proxies. The problems people have with models are that they do not understand basic weather processes. That is an issue. The thunderstorm thermostat Willis discusses is a good illustration of why ignoring the underlying process to rely solely on the average is unscientific, and if I may add, naive.
Leif: If the flux that has returned to the Northern Solar Pole never received any more, what would that flux then be capable of producing in a SC25 Northern cycle? You could give it in Active Regions and/or SSN.
Thanks.
steven mosher says: June 14, 2011 at 8:47 pm;
[We can’t predict the sun spots 4 weeks from now, what makes you think you can forecast them years from now.. arguments that that.]
Steven may of us have followed the ‘predictions’ about the solar cycle for a while, this last cycle, has been ‘re-predicted’ at least three or four times by the contributors to NOAA (www.swpc.noaa.gov/SolarCycle/) . Although it is not a consensus prediction the many revisions have shown that all they appear to have been doing in the past is ‘predicting’ more of the same. With each re-prediction is became clearer and clearer that the majority opinion does not really have any clue as to how things would unfold.
Now some of the contributors are saying ‘we do not know what comes next’, ‘we have never actually seen this before’. This is skepticism, the people doing the predictions are clearly skeptical of the understanding and knowledge themselves. What I see in the comments on this page is a ‘hope’, not that the predictions of the blank Sun will be correct, but rather if the blank Sun does persist that the outcome will consistent with some past solar minima, cooling.
Based on what has transpired over these last few years I think that most people realize that you can not really predict the Sun over the long term. We can’t predict the sun spots.
When I think of the current situation with people looking at experiments like CLOUD and models of the effect of the Sun the first thing that comes to mind is a scene in the movie Dante’s Peak where all the investigators are watching the effect of the earthquakes and a prediction of a volcanic eruption on their screens using data from seismometers, lasers and GPS units, and then one of them says I’m going outside to see the real thing.
Well, we may be able to go outside and see the real thing without a model, or a thermometer or a satellite. If the blank Sun persists then we will know the effect, one way or another we will know and no one will need scientists to tell them what happened; how maybe but not what.
As much as I would like to know the outcome, and may live to see it; I would rather not, if it means urban famine on a global scale.
Theo Goodwin says:
June 14, 2011 at 5:55 pm
R. Gates,
Don’t you think it is strange that the topic of this forum is the AAS announcement about solar activity and you talk endlessly about sea ice?
=====================================================================
Perhaps declining Arctic sea ice extent is one of the few remaining “proofs” of AGW.
Gary Krause,
Wow. Since you obviously know nothing about me nor my positions on anything, even if you meant your post personally, it can’t be…sorry.
I’d you enjoy science as I do, this is probably the most exciting time to be alive and if you knew me you’d know I could care less about the politics. With a possible new Maunder Minimum coming in the next few decades, what better time to put to the test all sorts of notions of how much influence the sun plays in climate as compared to the 40% increase in GH gases we’ve had since the last Maunder minimum next. Galactic cosmic rays should shoot right of the charts and people will be burning everything they can get their hands on just to stay warm. CO2 levels should skyrocket. But what if, even with a grand solar minimum we don’t cool that much or at all? What if we continue to warm? What will skeptics think then?
steven mosher says:
“funny how skepticism about models and predictions all fly out the window”
I think you make a fair point.
I’d say though, that this prediction, whilst model based, does have some important differences to the AGW predictions.
1: Sunspots measurement is well documented, follows well defined rules and is easily checked by anybody who cares to go to sites like spaceweather.com or http://www.solarham.com/ or the widget on this site. And it also is calibrated against the original instruments used to observe them.
2.. The prediction is made for a fairly short time span, so we should be able to observe and either confirm or falsify the prediction easily.
The other point is, there is a large difference, too, between superficial reaction to something and true level of skepticism. You could test it by asking how much tax they would be willing to pay to alleviate the risk of harm if it comes true. 🙂
D’you reckon Al Gore will go in front of the cameras, all contrite, and weep like a disgraced Japanese businessman?
No, he’ll probably commit Kama Sutra.
We must not forget all the talk of firing, non stop, rockets loaded with sulfates… Of dumping iron into the oceans, of stupendous quantities… Of constructing enormous sun shields to cool the earth… Of painting every surface with whitewash (lime)… Of the immediate decommissioning of every coal power station… Of a tax on everything!!!
Do these things sound prudent during a solar system event that has accompanied cold and famine before?
Where is our world stockpiles of foodstuffs during these present and past times of plenty? Even this obvious, prudent, logical precaution seems beyond, our enlightened intellects. Where are the grain filled, UN silos located? GK
steven mosher says:
June 14, 2011 at 8:47 pm
We cant predict the sun spots 4 weeks from now, what makes you think you can forecast them years from now.. arguments that that.
==============================================
Also, someone earlier compared modeling the sun to counting bubbles in boiling water. Surely that is the kind of ‘skepticism’ you are looking for Mr. Mosher?
Still, permit me to run with that example. Perhaps we will never be able to predict the sunspots emergent points. Even were that the case, I will return to the analogy of the boiling pot. You can model that process. You can give parameters for the amount of heat applied, the surface area it is applied to, the thickness of that surface area, the conductivity of the material it is applied to, the surface are of water that the heat is conducted to (should be greater than the SA receiving heat), the airflow of the room, the temperature of the room, the coverage of the pan doing the boiling, et cetera. You can see how truly complex modeling a pot of boiling water can be if you want to do it correctly.
Modeling climate is much the same. There are a great multitude of factors to consider. continental position, solar input, albedo, energy retention, system efficiency, feedbacks, etc. Yet, somehow, the attribution studies do not include them all. For instance, and comparable to my inclusion of the room’s temperature and air flow in my previous example, the addition of heat from the Earth’s core via volcanic venting in the ocean to the climate system. If deep sea heat is not important, by all means, ignore this source. But in that case, why study deep sea heat with diving buoys?
Maybe we can’t count all the bubbles in the climate system. Maybe we can’t measure some of the relevant factors. The point is, when someone says that the science is settled and then ‘loses’ some of their heat, it really is a travesty they can’t explain the warming. Especially so when they purport that the new null hypothesis should be that man causes warming by releasing CO2, without ever having sufficiently supplanted the null hypothesis that natural processes, both understood and not (csomic rays, anyone?), are causing the changes and that these said changes are outside the bounds of relevant factors. The assertions made at the beginning of this paragraph, as you know, were made by one person. A person with a heavy stake in the modeling. Yet, he can’t explain the travesty of his lost heat. I see solar scientists saying all the time that certain things are known, and certain things are not. I do not hear any talk now of ‘missing sunspots’, do you?
R. Gates says:
June 14, 2011 at 9:41 pm
I’d you enjoy science as I do, this is probably the most exciting time to be alive and if you knew me you’d know I could care less about the politics. With a possible new Maunder Minimum coming in the next few decades, what better time to put to the test all sorts of notions of how much influence the sun plays in climate as compared to the 40% increase in GH gases we’ve had since the last Maunder minimum next. Galactic cosmic rays should shoot right of the charts and people will be burning everything they can get their hands on just to stay warm. CO2 levels should skyrocket. But what if, even with a grand solar minimum we don’t cool that much or at all? What if we continue to warm? What will skeptics think then?
———————————————-
Hmmmmm, ……… being warm is nice ????
Mike says:
June 14, 2011 at 7:41 pm
A study in the March 2010 issue of Geophysical Research Letters explored what effect an extended solar minimum might have, and found no more than a 0.3 Celsius dip by 2100 compared to normal solar fluctuation.[quote]
And Hansen assured us that future glaciations simply would not occur, while we have also been recently appraised by “the physics”/Models of the fact that “irreversible” heating of Summers will strike within 20 – 60 yrs.. Not to mention “tipping points”. Shouldn’t the Modellers do some more “experiments” and crank us out some new “facts” pretty soon?
“apprised”
Well. . . Russian Habibullo Abdusamatov told this in 2005. So what’s the point?
http://www.gao.spb.ru/english/astrometr/index1_eng.html
Steven Mosher said, “funny how skepticism about models and predictions all fly out the window.”
This works the other way, too. i.e. the warmists are the ones who fervently embrace modeling. It’s the lynchpin of their theories. And several of their models now suggest global warming may be the last thing we need to worry about.
So the question is, will THEY address these latest results/predictions — generated by their own research — or with they throw them out the window?
R. Gates:
But what if, even with a grand solar minimum we don’t cool that much or at all? What if we continue to warm? What will skeptics think then?
Especially because I don’t have any problem with new empirical evidence, testable hypotheses, etc., and regardless would rather live in the Tropics than at the South Pole anyway, I’ll still be thinking that China and India have the right idea concerning energy. And that you really don’t.
It’s not even the end of the beginning for the Carbon Dioxide scam as can be seen from this ministry of truth report about the solar news.
“Not enough to offset global warming
The temperature change associated with any reduction in sunspot activity would likely be minimal and may not be enough to offset the impact of greenhouse gases on global warming, according to scientists who have published recent papers on the topic.
“Recent solar 11-year cycles are associated empirically with changes in global surface temperature of 0.1°C,” says Judith Lean, a solar physicist with the US Naval Research Laboratory.
If the cycle were to stop or slow down, the small fluctuation in temperature would do the same, eliminating the slightly cooler effect of a solar minimum compared to the warmer solar maximum. The phenomenon was witnessed during the descending phase of the last solar cycle.
This “cancelled part of the greenhouse gas warming of the period 2000-2008, causing the net global surface temperature to remain approximately flat — and leading to the big debate of why the Earth hadn’t (been) warming in the past decade,” says Lean, who was not involved in the three studies presented.
A study in the March 2010 issue of Geophysical Research Letters explored what effect an extended solar minimum might have, and found no more than a 0.3°C dip by 2100 compared to normal solar fluctuations.
“A new Maunder-type solar activity minimum cannot offset the global warming caused by human greenhouse gas emissions,” wrote authors Georg Feulner and Stefan Rahmstorf, noting that forecasts by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change have found a range of 3.7°C to 4.5°C rise by this century’s end compared to the latter half of the 20th century.
“Moreover, any offset of global warming due to a grand minimum of solar activity would be merely a temporary effect, since the distinct solar minima during the last millennium typically lasted for only several decades or a century at most.” ”
http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2011/06/15/3244234.htm
Steven Mosher says:
funny how skepticism about models and predictions all fly out the window.
Climate “Science” is the problem, not the use of Models per se. The record shows that none of Climate Science’s Model predictions have been correct, but that is of no concern to Climate Science! In practice, the Model predictions are “consistent with” everything, therefore, they say nothing to begin with.
Funny how everyone is making a leap based on pseudoscience.
There is a presumption of cooling to offset warming forcing, but no evidence to support it. No evidence = unsupported assertions.
And how long is a solar cycle in question here? Longer than this?
“This paper shows that the climate change that takes place due to increases in carbon dioxide concentration is largely irreversible for 1,000 years after emissions stop. ” http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2009/01/28/0812721106.abstract
Olavi says:
June 14, 2011 at 10:08 pm
> Well. . . Russian Habibullo Abdusamatov told this in 2005. So what’s the point?
> http://www.gao.spb.ru/english/astrometr/index1_eng.html
Confirmation is an important part of the scientific method.
I’ve got a theory. Those all-powerful aliens who observe and nurture our nascent civilization, they didn’t like where it has been going lately (namely, toward self-destruction by the way of the collective guilt-trip). They don’t want us to die out just because some crooks saw an opportunity to make big bucks on human stupidity again. They like Bach’s music, Persian rugs, Perelman’s geometric algebra, etc., and hope for more stuff like that in the future. Which isn’t coming if we invest all our money and efforts in whirligigs until all Earth looks like a used car dealership. Therefore, they decided to show Mr. Gore and Dr. Hansen one huge green middle finger, and shut down the Sun for a while — just to give us a chance to sober up and stop loathing ourselves so much. “Set the control in the heart of the Sun,” as Pink Floyd prophesied.
Do you think my theory has a chance to be published in Nature or Scientific American? Given the absolute junk these magazines peddle as “science”… My only problem, alas, is peer review. In my case it’s impossible. I have no peers. I am peerless.
It’s still not hit the BBC yet. Surprise, surprise.
Well, I did figure out that the global warming observed (from ca. 1974) is natural.
http://www.letterdash.com/HenryP/henrys-pool-table-on-global-warming
What still puzzles me though why there was no warming in the SH (the first 5 stations in the tables)
It all happened on the NH.
Anyone here with an idea on that?
Theo Goodwin says:
June 14, 2011 at 5:55 pm
R. Gates,
Don’t you think it is strange that the topic of this forum is the AAS announcement about solar activity and you talk endlessly about sea ice?
———————–
At least he hasn’t mentioned “snowball earth” or “non-condensing GHGs” yet. A true master of misdirection , diversion and ‘spotty’ logic.
Mountain snow packs in the Pacific Northwest are far above normal for this date. See the link to SNOTEL for water content equivalents in the Columbia River Basin. My local basin is 304% of normal. We have had overcast, clouds, rain and snow all spring and the solstice is fast approaching.
http://www.wcc.nrcs.usda.gov/reports/UpdateReport.html?textReport=Columbia+River+Basin&textRptKey=17&textFormat=SNOTEL+Snow%2FPrecipitation+Update+Report&StateList=Select+a+State&RegionList=17&SpecialList=Select+a+Special+Report&MonthList=June&DayList=14&YearList=2011&FormatList=N0&OutputFormatList=HTML&textMonth=June&textDay=14&CompYearList=select+a+year
Olavi says:
June 14, 2011 at 10:08 pm
Reminds me of the efforts of Picard at the Observatorie de la Paris making as precise measurements of the Solar Diameter as he could possibly muster. He was way ahead of his time. Something to look into.
I am waiting for the first Politician to latch on to this, anyone for a Sun Tax, or a Freeze your Nuts off Tax.
This may or may not be a Theory to disprove AGW but the ‘One Global Govt’ movement have no shame and will just swap ships.
Reading the comment above this one, I hope, (Richard G @ 11:01), I wonder if the climate models (sorry, Mosh another failure on their part) deal with the altitude of precipitation. Higher altitude precipitation means more albedo.
Make that Four lines of evidence. Unless they are going to continue to ignore the line of evidence which successfully predicted the solar slowdown many years in advance.
Another feather in the cap of the Solar-Planetary theorists.
What was the name of the 15 year old girl that had the school essay called “Ponder the Maunder? It is now hosted on http://www.globalwarminghoax.com/e107_plugins/content/content.php?content.6
I just went back for another read and the first picture accompanying the essay is interesting in light of the above article and comments!
let’s see … for the longer term history of earth’s climate :
were there periods during ice ages when CO2 levels were elevated from the current AND
any evidence such sub periods influenced climate from the boundary conditions and FW or REV in
either quote direction un quote ? ?
my concluded reaction is that this increase in GH gasses is going to be swamped by our star’s influence
upon the planet’s climate. i see how it’s one of the few remaining IF’s the AGW types have to hang their
hats on.
@ Henry P:
Heat leaving a system that stores heat in the ocean might decide to leave over the landmasses. There is an abundance of landmass on the NH compared to SH.
curses, it’s the hard carriage return come to bite me
From the following article: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/06/14/ice_age/page2.html
“The big consequences of a major solar calm spell, however, would be climatic. The next few generations of humanity might not find themselves trying to cope with global warming but rather with a significant cooling. This could overturn decades of received wisdom on such things as CO2 emissions, and lead to radical shifts in government policy worldwide.”
Says it all really …
Steven Mosher said, “funny how skepticism about models and predictions all fly out the window.”
Come on Steve! You of all people know that models are the result of data and statistical methods. I use several models in my electrical engineering work. All work exceedingly well.
It is the data and use of RE etc, used in the “Climate Models”, that has been questioned by the likes of McIntyre and many others and has led to the distrust!
If the warmists are right then we need more CO2 not less, otherwise it’s going to be a long winter.
Henry P : The warming in the Northern hemisphere seems to mostly follow ocean cycles of the 60 year variety. S. Hemisphere is a big puzzle and with so much less data we can not even be as sure as to whether it has warmed or cooled. (Current data seems to indicate rather steady temperatures overall…) Spectulation could go wild on this front in reality, but I think the largest case to be had is that the geography of the S. hemisphere is what drives its differences between it and the N. Hemisphere. Lots of study is really needed if its even desired to figure out the mechanism of the S. Hemisphere.
Ice ages give us a fundamental clue in this difference, as the ice ages tend to happen more in the N. Hemisphere and do not seem to occur in the S. hemisphere except on a very limited scale, which indicates that most of the cooling/warming is due to ocean current differences between the hemispheres. (geography).
This is all speculation, in that there is evidence to support it, but its by no means a sure thing.
Same thing with this entire Solar max that will appear to be a min. Until the Max has passed, its nearly impossible to guess what we will see. I have said all along that it appears to be something on the order of Dalton/Mara and that time will tell us the truth. We do know several things though after over 100 years of mostly good coverage of the world with temps.:
The cool-down will take a decent amount of time. The oceans so to speak hold a lot of heat and will be able to release this gradually to make it appear that the cooling is sudden. We will have time to adapt. The first thing we need to do is not panic (which I will repeat as a message over and over again.) The cool down will be gradual. I expect some “exciting” things as far as our understanding of the climate goes.
But in that vein, now is the time to make it even more important to drive the idiots in charge of climate science into the ground. The Team as we call them (not all climate scientists, but the ones who engage in pseudo science and propaganda.)
They need to be removed from the puzzle quickly and there is no way we should allow them any say in the future. That being said, they can be given jobs chopping down trees for firewood for all I care, because they obviously lack the morals and/or the intelligence to be good scientists.
But back to what we can expect:
Glaciers therefore will not be outside NYC or London are not a threat in our lifetimes.
Temperatures will plummet over next few years since oceans are in their “recharging phase.” This is what has been causing the flare-up in the AO which has really been the driver of weird weather events. But this will be gradual and I expect if the solar effects start really effecting the climate that the oceans will go into a warming phase again as they attempt to equalize temps. Therefore, we can expect BRUTAL winters for awhile, but overall temperatures should be rather steadilly dropping. (All except GISS of course with one temp. gauge and a crazy Dr. Hansen standing over it with a blow-torch yelling “Fossil fuel trains are death trains…” But moving on…..
If you want to see what our climate compares to today, go look up the 1950’s. Its like a mirror image of what we see today. High AO, newly cold PDO, Atlantic getting ready to switch to cold…its like case in point to what is happening today. 1970’s can also point to some events, but by far 1950’s are a better fit. Expect a very bad hurricane season this year. The la nina track with rising heat from the Atlantic as the Nina weakens….just spells disaster especially for the E. Coast of the US. But what does further cooling indicate for hurricanes? Let me be the first to say: It depends. One year could be like last year, then this year happens and blows the previous years away. Weather happens, the temperatures are what people should be concerned about.
As for temperatures, we have no idea of the actual effects. We know it got colder (1600’s), and the dominant theory is the solar cycles (or lack thereof) but before people start a panic, realize that all along we have to adapt.
Fossil fuels we have plenty of. Energy and heat will not be an issue, crops will be. This is the issue with farming in general, but on the bright side, there is plenty of fallow land in areas that will still be good farming land even with say a 2C decrease in temps. overall. Future will unfold as it will. The losers in this case will be Russia and Canada who will lose farming land as a 2C decrease (in my mind worst case scenario) would cause all of Canada to basically be unfit for farming. But that is the future. Hold onto reality, don’t look too much into guesses on future climate…we can not truly predict the future, which is something I have always said to alarmists.
And like I said previously, its now time to up the anty even more and drive alarmists out of science. Do not forget what they did in the past…they will do it to us again in a heart-beat and if you let them screw you over a second time, you have only yourself to blame for not fighting it out now.
JPeden says:
June 14, 2011 at 9:59 pm
“Shouldn’t the Modellers do some more “experiments” and crank us out some new “facts” pretty soon?”
A new term is needed. A “model fact”? Or, since the debate is over, a more authoritarian “Modelfact”? Or just MF. But for Planetary Fever PR purposes, best not to mention it. Facts are facts, and there are models that prove that.
Well the 20% increases this year and then 5% each year after that in energy bills here in the UK will be welcomed along with this news.
At least when the 10,000 die from the cold ti will bring the housing prices down, and make the enviro’s happy.
At least there will be no snow with the cold as AGW will make winters snow free.
benfromMO says:
June 14, 2011 at 11:52 pm
The cool-down will take a decent amount of time. The oceans so to speak hold a lot of heat and will be able to release this gradually
Good comment Ben. My simple model I built a couple of years ago agrees. Even if we get a Dalton style solar minimum, the solar heat stored in the oceans will see us through for a good while. Of course, that will be wilfully misinterpreted by the AGW loons to show the Sun has little effect on climate….
I would expect to see a 0.3-0.5C drop in the Northern Hemisphere over the next 25 years if the Sun stays quiet and we get a few more big volcanoes. Of course, that drop would be bigger than the Southern hemisphere will see.
Bad, but not catastrophic.
http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2010/01/05/my-simple-solar-planetary-energy-model/
If this is true, and we are headed for a new Maunder type minimum, shouldn’t we be worried that it will get colder than even the little ice age as the current warm period, just ending, has a lower temperature than the medieval warm period? It seems to me that if we experience a similar drop in temperatures, but start from a lower point, we will end up colder than last time.
Thanks Antony for keeping us informed. My blog (in Icelandic) has information obtained here. http://agbjarn.blog.is/blog/agbjarn/
The Team are on to it with comments by Schmitt on MSNBC Cosmic Blog
http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/06/14/6857473-solar-forecast-hints-at-a-big-chill
RC has their tame “little trolls” spreading the comments around. I picked up on a Australian newspaper blog.
Time to emigrate to the med before britain freezes!
That holiday home in Murcia may not be such a bad investment after all.
If you want to see a first response from the AGW “side” of the deabte, here is Gavin Schmidt’s early take, as reported on msn.
Gavin Schmidt, a climatologist at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies and one of the founders of the RealClimate blog, said the effects of solar activity on climate over the past 30 years have been “at the margin of what we can detect.”
“They are detectable in the high atmosphere, but when you get down to the surface, there is so much other stuff going on that it’s been really hard to get a clean signal,” he told me.
One of the reasons why so little is known about solar effects on climate is that the sun’s highs and lows have been within such a narrow range in recent history.
“If we were to see a return to what’s called Maunder Minimum conditions in the next 50 years or so, that would be interesting,” Schmidt said. “I think we’d learn a lot about solar physics and solar variability. … It’s going to be scientifically very exciting if all this pans out.”
Even then, however, he estimated that the effect of greenhouse-gas emissions would be on the order of 10 times as great. “What you might see over a 20- to 30-year period is a slight slowdown in the pace of warming,” Schmidt said. “In terms of how we should think about climate change prediction in the future, reducing emissions and so on, it really wouldn’t make much of a difference.”
Robin Barry says: June 15, 2011 at 12:26 am
If this is true, and we are headed for a new Maunder type minimum, shouldn’t we be worried that it will get colder than even the little ice age as the current warm period, just ending, has a lower temperature than the medieval warm period? It seems to me that if we experience a similar drop in temperatures, but start from a lower point, we will end up colder than last time.
Robin, I’ve written a piece on my private blog and I’d be interested in comments. It’s a very difficult balance. Obviously people ought to be aware of the possible implications, but obviously we don’t want another global warming scam and another huge waste of public money.
My fear is that we will get both: total denial by the warmist policy advisors suddenly switching to hysterical “sunspot” fever when the alarmist industry works out how to make money from the scare.
Whilst definitely relevant, surely forecasting solar activity, isn’t the sole issue, re: Svensmark and the influence (now seemingly confirmed by CERN, etc) of cosmic rays and their associated particles?
Are we considering the extra solar system flow, the level of availability, of cosmic rays, to be a constant? Wouldn’t that be a rather large assumption?
Are there perhaps cycles of cosmic ray availability? Plus perhaps irregular extra flows along with irregular lesser flows (supernovas don’t appear to happen every week, at regular distances).
Now if there’s a period of low solar activity, and the solar system’s resistance to the influx of cosmic rays weakens as a consequence, and that event should happen to coincide with a period of low cosmic ray flow rates, then that could be a remarkably different scenario to a period of low solar activity, coinciding with a period of high cosmic ray flow rates.
Given that we can only measure, and therefore know, the cosmic rays that the solar system grants entry to, by seeing what actually arrives here, it might be important to see if there are any other telltales that usually accompany them, which might have the potential to be measured at significant distances outside the solar system? So we get to know just what sort of ‘weather fronts’ might be moving in?
Otherwise, we would all appear to be up the creek without a paddle, and stumbling around in the dark, with everything being ‘after the fact’? I’m ok with being on the receiving end of ‘the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune’, but it would be nice to have that reality stressed properly if that is actually the case.
If being forced to acknowledge that allows ‘Government’ to become a little more humble than it presently seems to wish to be, then that itself could be a significant win for all of us.
At the end of the day, if the truth is ‘We don’t know’, then there’s absolutely nothing wrong with saying ‘We don’t know’. It can even be highly valuable to confirm it, and not just from the point of view of saving valuable wealth and resources from being wasted on futile follies..
Jim D says: June 14, 2011 at 8:16 pm wrote
quote
Replying to various people, the 3.7 W/m2 was for doubling CO2 from pre-industrial, which may happen within 50 years. So far we have had nearly 2 W/m2,
unquote
Tamino, owner of the blog Open Mind, was kind enough to calculate the warming from CO2 during the two 20th century warming spells. In the first it was 0.25 w/m^2, in the second 2.0 w/m^2.
quote
also larger than the Lean estimated 0.5 for the Maunder Minimum. The downward revision of Lean’s number was from astronomical studies of sun-like stars that just don’t have much variability, but I’d tend towards Lean’s number, if I had a say. [] Where do people get the idea that the IPCC discounts the sun when they were using solar forcing variations in addition to volcanoes, CO2, etc. The warming from 1910-40 relies on it for a significant fraction of the effect.
unquote
Presumably the same other forcings are occurring now — including albedo change and aerosols which are, perhaps, included in that little weasel word ‘etc’ in your statement above. Have you an explanation of how the extra 0.5 w/m^2 from the sun in 1925 compensated for the 1.75 w/m^2 less from the sun? Are sun’s watts more powerful than CO2 watts? Is this also discussed by the IPCC?
mosher wrote
quote
funny how skepticism about models and predictions all fly out the window
unquote
But what a time to test one set of forecasts against another! If, for example, the iris theory is correct then the putative cooling will be resisted by less heat dumping to space, if the climate is homeostatic then presumably albedo will drop. A good time to be a scientist who has nailed no flags to the mast. For those who have, not so much.
JF
Some genuine scientists have always said that the time has come when the whole warmist agenda will be smashed and made futile. This is the beginning of their contention that rather than warming, the planet was due for a cooling down, even to the point of entrance to a new mini ice age. The establishment laughed at us. Now there is **official** support for the contention that a solar minimum will bring about the cooling effects that will stop the global warning agenda dead in its tracks. As a certain fictional character once said: “The truth is out there”. This really is the beginning of the end!
BBC response: silence.
CNN response: silence.
The silence of the AGW lambs.
I would like to take credit, but I read it on another site…This should not be called a Maunder Minimum, but be referenced as “The Gore Minimum”
Another trend to worry about?
Another trend we have to live with and adapt to.
In a cyclic system any trend will only show which part of the cycle you happen to be on.
I am confused. Should I be hoarding drinking water for the prevously predicted long term droughts caused by climate change or building an ark to deal with the predicted flooding caused by climate change? I am just a simple person who needs some clarity and direction. Instead I seem to get any opinion that will suit climate change disaster predictors even if it totally contradicts the preceeding opinion. Whatever happened to the impartial scientific method?
Hmmmm !
did I not read somewhere that the egg beaters don’t work in extreme cold ?
A little help please!
Could someone point me to a link that seeks to prove the relationship between sunspots and climate. I have read of these things in the past but now can not find the links anymore. I used Google but got back millions of hits to sites saying that it was not the sun but rather it was CO2.
Would someone help me out here please?
Most of the last decade solar scientists were predicting strongest SC24.
How wrong they were.
Now solar scientists are predicting no sunspots at all.
My view is that they are unjustifiably leaping into another extreme.
Dalton type minimum likely, but anything more extreme is highly unlikely.
I hope we do not spend years speculating about something that we will not live to see.
“Saved by the sun. Despite the massive amounts of CO2 being spewed into the atmosphere at an increasingly, unprecedented accelerating rate, it is now obvious that mankind will be saved by the sun, what irony.”
This is how the agw crowd will save face.
So if the solar activity remains low, at the level it reaches during the abscence of sunspots for an extended time then the reduction in solar energy recieved will be about 1W/m2.
A doubling of CO2 gives an increase of around 3.7W/m2
If you accept the widely supported figure for climate senstivity of around 3degC for a doubling Of CO2 this would mean the new ‘Maunder minimum’ would cause cooling of around 1degC, negating up to a third of the rise from CO2.
If you prefer Lindzen and others much lower climate sensitivity then the drop in solar activity will cause a cooling of about 0.3degC.
But then scientists predicting the future behavior of what is clearly a chaotic system in the solar ‘cycle’ from the present ‘initial conditions’ are fooling themselves that such a system is even capable of prediction – according to Dr. Andy Edmonds!
It would appear the cognoscenti have flown, their paradigm having crashed and burned. Schadenfreude does not quite capture our delight.
I’m waiting for the “human caused warming is being masked by changes in the sun” argument. That is, a causal factor of climate change dismissed by the alarmists as being too weak and unimportant to be counted is now overcoming the factor they consider to be the primary cause of climate change.
For several years I posted on warmist blogs that solar influences on climate were supported by several lines of research. I was denigrated or my posts were expunged. Believers in global warming completely disregard solar influences in their climate models. They have long claimed that solar influences on climate are negligible compared to those of CO2. With this new release’s mention of the Maunder Minimum solar influences on climate will be hard to deny. It looks like nature may be giving us a test of the null hypothesis that the sun has no influence on climate.
Meanwhile, the view that a rise in CO2 can cause harmful warming has been challenged by the work of Richard Lindzen of MIT and others showing that CO2 does not have a positive feedback effect. Put the work on the importance of solar influences on climate together with the lack of support for CO2 increases causing harmful warming and the rational case for global warming has fallen apart.
AdderW: 3.54 am. As per my comment, 4:39 am (although it’s mid evening here in Australia) only the really stupid ones will make that argument, not realising how it undermines their whole case.
Couple of things people should keep in mind:
1) This possible maunder-or dalton-like period doesn’t look likely to be as low or long as the previous maunder.
2) We’re starting from a much better position. Global temps this decade were quite a bit higher than the period pre-maunder. Nearly .3C of this can reasonably be attributed to a-GHG warming. That’s about .3C of warming that otherwise would not be retained. Also, being well mixed, this is pretty even throughout the atmosphere. This prevents temperature drops from being as large and also means temperature differentials will be smaller than they otherwise would be. This should take the edge off the weather effects we would otherwise expect.
Recently I made a minor discover which shows that the changes in the North Hemisphere geomagnetic field intensity follow the solar magnetic activity.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/SSN-dBz.htm
Importance of this discovery may be properly assessed in the future years .
Good old Sol is taking a slumber, but we shouldn’t observe the sun because global warming, which must be catastrophic and anthropogenic otherwise taxpayers might want their money back, is still ongoing in the minds of the crazed climate hippie parade. Apparently some of the reasons are elderly getting heat strokes during warm weather because they can’t afford the new green world of electricity, hurricane season, it generally being warm during summer, folks being able to take a swim, in JUNE, for pete’s sake, and BEJESUS me but the arctic ice is melting at the outer rims during summer time! The horror, the horror of it all! o_0
So, essentially, the logic of the crazed climate hippie parade goes something like this: If we were really heading for global cooling (again!!!) why would people learn to swim?
In the world of the hippies, there is no lag time for they have still plenty of time to leave the 60’s behind? :p
It really is quite entertaining to watch the sudden embrace of models, not to mention the hope for severe cooling, by some sceptics at this news! It’s also enlightening to see the responses from Warmists, which I’m pretty sure they just cribbed from the Sceptic’s old notes. Makes me wonder if genuinely impartial scientific thought is possible given human nature 🙂
One thing that should be remembered about this, tentative, prediction, which sets it apart from most AGW pronouncements is that it’s validity will be testable over a relatively short time-span. It’s also falsifiable in that, if SC25 turns up on-time and on-strength then the prediction was wrong. So, within a decade, we’ll know one way or the other. That’s a very different proposition to climate models, where the modellers have set the rules such that they’ll be retired or dead (and so will most of us) before the results are in, because apparent results sooner than that “don’t count” unless they seem to follow the hypothesis. So we have to accept the predictions on faith (or not, as the case may be).
As for hoping for another Little Ice Age, I’d like nothing better than to see Dr Jones, Mann et all shivering beside a Frost Fair on the Thames, still trying to tell us that we’ve got to stop burning all that coal, oil and gas and put another ethnically produced sweater on instead. The ensuing lynching would be memorable.
Fortunately, we don’t actually need cooling that bad to scupper the AGW position. The hypothesis has always been based on the rather shaky ground that “it must be CO2 because we don’t know any other forcings strong enough”. They specifically rule out solar activity as being no-where near enough of a forcing.
Leaving aside any question of the validity of global mean temperatures for now, all that an extended solar minimum needs to do is cause a small drop, or even an extended plateau in that global mean. The CO2 forcing, and all hypothesised feedbacks, will still exist so any such drop or extended plateau will demonstrate that solar activity can at least</i. match the suggested total forcing from GHG emissions. Which completely invalidates the assertion that "it must be because nothing else is that powerful".
So, let's all wish for some scientifically interesting solar inactivity and some pleasant, snowy, winters ahead – even an occasional Frost Fair could be nice for the festive spirit – without hoping for conditions which will bring hardship, famine and death on a massive scale! If this extended minimum happens, and does cause cooling, then feel free to gloat (I know I will be) but gloat nicely, without wishing harm on anyone when that harm isn't needed.
In fact, if you see Dr Jones huddled by the Thames, buy him a hot-dog from me 🙂
[snip. Do not call people “deniers.” ~dbs, mod.]
vinnster says:
June 15, 2011 at 2:43 am
> I would like to take credit, but I read it on another site…This should not be called a Maunder Minimum, but be referenced as “The Gore Minimum”
Cute, but the general consensus here that that Gore hasn’t contributed anything to science and hence does not deserve the honor. Jack Eddy has contributed a lot to solar physics, does deserve such an honor, and a lot of us want it named the Eddy Minimum.
See
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/06/13/online-petition-the-next-solar-minimum-should-be-called-the-eddy-minimum/
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/04/22/wuwt-poll-what-should-we-call-the-current-solar-minimum/
What “alarms” me about this, is the mentioning of the Maunder Minimum. Why not the Dalton Minimum? The same with “lowest level since space based instruments”. Solar activity was pretty high right up to the end of the century, who’s to say this isn’t just a pause in that? My guess is we are going to be hearing a lot more about this as alarmists and politicians use it as their “Get out of Jail free” card.
scepticalnotyetcynical says at June 15, 2011 at 2:59 am
” Instead I seem to get any opinion that will suit climate change disaster predictors even if it totally contradicts the preceeding opinion. Whatever happened to the impartial scientific method?”
This is a strawman argument, and is a logically fallacy. A straw man is a component of an argument and is an informal fallacy based on misrepresentation of an opponent’s position
You are making a claim against climate science that is unsupported by the facts. Climate science has included solar forcing as a consideration, and there is no contradiction in the variability of solar forcing changing. In fact this line of argument just helps prove deniers wrong.
“As NASA has said – A deep solar minimum has made sunspots a rarity in the last few years. Such lulls in solar activity, which can cause the total amount of energy given off by the sun to decrease by about a tenth of a percent, typically spur surface temperature to dip slightly. Overall, solar minimums and maximums are thought to produce no more than 0.1°C (0.18°F) of cooling or warming.
In 2009, it was clear that even the deepest solar minimum in the period of satellite data hasn’t stopped global warming from continuing,”
BBC total silence boycott
So now we know! Low sunspot levels = cooling and visa versa. The problem is that, compared with a little warming, a little cooling could be a serious matter for us all.
I’ll still be thinking that China and India have the right idea concerning energy. And that you really don’t.
____
Don’t recall me ever expressing my ideas concerning energy, but perhaps you are a mind reader.
http://www.publish.csiro.au/?act=view_file&file_id=AS06018.pdf
Please read our paper above to see what we predicted in 2005 [but couldn’t get published until 2008] . If our work is correct, all solar-type stars showing cyclical solar activity will have have multiple Jovian-like planets in near-circular orbits with periods ~ 3 – 15 years. It is the (collective synodic) periods of these orbits that set the stellar magnetic activity cycles.
The real pioneers in this field are Paul Jose, Theodore Landscheidt, W. Fairbridge, J. Shirley, Carl Smith, Geoff Sharp, Tallbloke, Vukcevic, Timo Niroma, David Archibald and others who have dared to think differently.
Another L.I.A. in the offing? Maybe. Anybody want to buy a wind farm?
Thank goodness that, due to economics, there are zillions of tons of unexploited coal in Africa. That should keep my great grandchildren warm.
Time for a new word………………”Coolistas” !!!!!
I will agree with Mosh to a degree. For the last three years, to my eyes, the solar scientists as a group have generally born an unsettling resemblance to the Three Stooges in making predictions to watch them be shot down. This fact should be considered when assigning credibility to their newest effort here. I’m not generally a fan of “appeals to authority” in the first place, but to the degree I will give credence on that basis, your “authority” better be gleaming of late with right-on predictions proved true –and the solar boys and girls, of late– have not so gleamed.
Having said that, it also appears to be much more falsifiable than AGW modelling, and most of the predictions the solar boys have made have been able to be tested in months, or a few years, rather than, oh, “safely after I’m retired”. And for all their flailing around, that is far to be preferred (if sometimes gruesome to observe) than the AGW modelling crowd.
huishi says:
June 15, 2011 at 3:12 am
Could someone point me to a link that seeks to prove the relationship between sunspots and climate
The link between sunspots and climate is based on correlation without causation. There are a number of hypothesis but none have been proven.
steven mosher says:
June 14, 2011 at 5:32 pm
Nobody has rejected the idea of computer models completely. What we have rejected are climate models because of their complete failure to accurately predict anything. When the solar models fail as badly as climate models have, we will start rejecting them as well.
Let’s cut to the quick, earlier comments stated that the study of Astrophysics is in it’s infancy. I would argue that Man’s understanding of much of the world and the universe around him is also in it’s infancy. There is not a field of study where we have defined the whole of what there is to be understood. Not even close. To imply that we understand Climate and what will happen to Climate over the next 100 years based solely on rising CO2 levels is arrogant given the level of knowledge on the subject and the questionable data that gets massaged to try and understand it. Likewise, to say we know what the sun will be doing over the next 10-50 years is equally a reach. Other than counting sunspots we dont have longstanding records of the type we are just now developing regarding the processes of the sun. To say we have “understanding” of the sun from a 10-30 year snippet out of a 5 billion year time frame is ludicrous.
I know people feel more comfortable having someone of authority provide them some certainty in their lives, but we fail ourselves and our species when we “make believe” that we have all the answers.
Both this site and Bishophill state that the press release has been issued to the MSM.
Pity none of them are using it then.
Nearest we get is the lunar eclipse and the CME here in the UK.
For ANY of them here to admit to this report having any weight is to admit that
‘CAGW was BS all along and we supported it and lied to you’
Careers for many politico ‘scientists’ and ‘journalists’ and massive financial and job losses worldwide
could hang on this; so the establishment will circle the wagons but there
is a chance that this is CAGW’s last stand.
There are just too many downward indicators to ignore and although the cooling denial continues
outwardly I’m sure that behind closed doors an escape plan is being devised.
Also, couldn’t the jet stream being monitored by the NASA group just have moved a little deeper, too deep to see….
—
The jet stream was detected using sound waves. (Similar to how the interior of the earth was mapped using the sound waves from earthquakes.) These sound waves have been used to map the interior of the sun, all the way to it’s core. It is not possible for the jet stream to sink so low that it couldn’t be seen.
The best test of a theory is its ability to make predictions of future events. Over 20 years ago Landscheidt predicted a mini ice age around 2030. It is time to reconsider Landscheidt’s theories of conservation of angular momentum in the integrated Solar System and its effects on solar activity. The Sun should not be viewed as an isolated entity. Until the underlying physics is thoroughly understood, we will be unable to make accurate predictions regarding solar activity.
http://www.landscheidt.info/?q=node/172
R. Farr
The warming capacity available in anthropogenic CO2 can be mathematically calculated, all other things being equal. The warming capacity of available energy emanating from the Sun (in all its forms) can be mathematically calculated, all other things being equal. Guess which part of the statement is creating all kinds of stomach upset on both sides of the fence? As in “It’s a travesty that there has not been significant [fill in with your word] in the past 10 years. Apparently, Earth, and its oceans and atmosphere don’t give a rat’s hind end about “all other things being equal”.
I hate this phrase, “It’s the -blank- stupid” because it speaks of an underlying lack of basic scientific knowledge in physics and chemistry, let alone Earth science, combined with a lack of understanding regarding proper statistical analysis of noisy, hard to measure, baseline chaotic data in which is buried both CO2 changes and Sun changes on Earth’s temperatures.
aaron says:
June 15, 2011 at 4:52 am
OTOH, volcanism that accompanies the minima, mostly on the backend, has yet to take off. Note the coincidental spike in AP on 3/11/11. As the Sun reawakens the relaxed Lithosphere is going to see more rift activity as we’ve seen in recent weeks in Chile and Eritrea. SO2 outgassing will cool as surely as reduced TSI.
Ric Werme says:
June 15, 2011 at 5:55 am
Jack Eddy has contributed a lot to solar physics, does deserve such an honor, and a lot of us want it named the Eddy Minimum.
Jack Eddy did much to promote the better study of the Sun in general, and the Grand Minima, the Maunder in particular. But he didn’t forecast this one. Despite being persona non grata here, I think Landscheidt should get the honours for this paper:
http://bourabai.narod.ru/landscheidt/new-e.htm
When I predicted three decades of global cooliing in 2000 based on geologic data of recurring climatic cycles (ice core isotopes, glacial advances and retreats, and sun spot minima), I presented a temperature graph showing several possible historic analongs the 1945-1977 global cooling, the 1880-1915 cooling, the Dalton Minimum (1790-1820 cooling, and the 1650-1700 Maunder Minimum, and suggested that it was too early to tell which one we were most likely too experience. The graph and supporting data are available in several GSA papers, my website, and in a paper scheduled to be publishd in Sept. If we are indeed headed toward a disappearance of sunspots for decades, as in the Maunder during the Little Ice Age, then my most dire prediction may come to pass. As I have said many times over the past 10 years, time will tell whether my prediction is correct or not. The announcement that sun spots may disappear totally for several decades is very disturbing because it could mean that we are headed for another Little Ice Age during a time when world population is predicted to increase by 50% with sharply increasing demands for energy, food production, and other human needs. Hardest hit will be poor countries who already have low food production, but everyone would feel the effect of such cooling. The time to prepare is now–later may be too late.
The clock is ticking. Time will tell!
And the spin begins: http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20110614/ts_afp/usspacesun
They won’t give up this meme. Not ever.
The mainstream media is in fact already covering the story, and although there will be a lag with BBC, The Guardian etc, I predict even they will cover it in the next few days. While it is hard to know at this stage what the ultimate impact will be, the admission that the possibility of an extend quiet period could have a cooling effect is an important development in the public debate over the science.
What is also important is that the distinction has been made between, on the one hand, the impact of the normal variation within a solar cycle and between solar cycles (ie, some grander than others), and, on the other hand, the impact of the absence (or near absence) of any solar cycle altogether. This means that folks (including IPCC authors) that said the normal variation has an insignificant impact on climate are open to the idea that an extraordinary event like a Maunder Minimum could have a significant impact. In other word, there is a way out here for climate alarmists without them loosing face.
Gavin Schmidt has already been quoted as saying that the reason that so little is known about solar effects on climate is that the sun’s highs and lows have been within such a narrow range in recent history, however “if we were to see a return to what’s called Maunder Minimum conditions in the next 50 years or so, that would be interesting.” Schmidt again: “I think we’d learn a lot about solar physics and solar variability. … It’s going to be scientifically very exciting if all this pans out.” In other words: there’s more to learn, and so the question remains open. (See: http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/06/14/6857473-solar-forecast-hints-at-a-big-chill )
And then there is the Solar Physicist who was the main authority for the current IPCC report, Judith Lean:
“Recent solar 11-year cycles are associated empirically with changes in global surface temperature of 0.1 Celsius,” said Judith Lean, a solar physicist with the US Naval Research Laboratory. This she says “cancelled part of the greenhouse gas warming of the period 2000-2008, causing the net global surface temperature to remain approximately flat — and leading to the big debate of why the Earth hadn’t (been) warming in the past decade.” If Lean answers the question of why no warming so far this century by giving it to the negative effect of a quiet solar cycle, then she leaves herself wide open to the possibility of a much greater impact on warming by no solar cycle at all.
See AFP: http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gCyKV3JBekkM64KzB2y5sBT9cmFQ?docId=CNG.0859eaa6a7b504a1beff9276b550af2a.371 On Judith Lean and the IPCC see: http://climatechange.thinkaboutit.eu/think4/post/judithgate_ipcc_consensus_was_only_one_solar_physicist
The same AFP article goes on to quote a GRL paper giving the effect an extended solar minimum at around a 0.3 Celsius dip by 2100 compared to normal solar fluctuations. The authors are quoted as saying that “A new Maunder-type solar activity minimum cannot offset the global warming caused by human greenhouse gas emissions.” But what it is required to offset is given as the maximum 4.5 degree C rise given by the IPCC . Whereas, if we look to the IPCC estimated minimum rise, then 0.3 C does look like a significant offset.
The author’s of the GRL article are again quoted: “Moreover, any offset of global warming due to a grand minimum of solar activity would be merely a temporary effect, since the distinct solar minima during the last millennium typically lasted for only several decades or a century at most.” Hummm, ‘several decades or a centruy’ is getting into ‘grandchildren’ territory, and so i am not so sure that policy makers and the voting/taxpaying public would view this as exactly ‘short term.’ There’s still lots of spinning going on, but we can only wait an see how much traction can be achieved with this new development in the public debate over the science of AGW.
I forget to mention I. Charvátová
[reply] and P.A. Semi TB-mod
OT: Is there any reason why my posts spend over an hour awaiting moderation while the comments of others seem to continue being posted?
[reply] Moderation work can be patchy at this time of day. bear with us. TB-mod
And when this global cooling doesn’t happen, will you conveniently forget that you ever made this prediction?
Mark Wilson says at June 15, 2011 at 6:39 am
“Nobody has rejected the idea of computer models completely. What we have rejected are climate models because of their complete failure to accurately predict anything.”
That is a deceptive statement unsupported by valid evidence and historically false. A straw man is a component of an argument and is an informal fallacy based on misrepresentation of an opponent’s position.
Models have predicted the warming we are seeing, the CO2 concentration levels, the interplay between CO2 and other GHG, impact on ocean temperatures and ocean acidification.
Moderate Republican says:
June 15, 2011 at 5:56 am
Overall, solar minimums and maximums are thought to produce no more than 0.1°C (0.18°F) of cooling or warming.
Thought by whom? And why? Nothing to do with little things like funding, careers, egos?
“Gavin Schmidt, a climatologist at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies and among the founders from the RealClimate blog, stated the results of photo voltaic activity on climate in the last 3 decades happen to be “in the margin of what we should can identify”
Calling the sun’s effect on climate “photo voltaic” is nonsense. Photo voltaic is the conversion of light to electricity. Nowhere is electricity a measure of climate. Clearly physics is not Gavin’s subject.
RC is trying to confuse the issue and marginalize the solar influence on climate by using the term “photo voltaic” in place of “solar”. Since there is no “voltaic” measure of climate they can quite rightly claim there is no “photo voltaic” influence on climate.
Thus, by substituting the term “photo voltaic” for “solar”, RC is attempting to pull the wool over the eyes of the scientific community to perpetuate their own belief system.
This is no different than the continuing disingenuous terminology we have seen from “Climate Science”. Global warming, climate change, climate disruption. When the facts don’t support your position, change the terminology.
If you see the term “photo voltaic” used in place of “solar” you are seeing a disinformation campaign in action. You are seeing the corruption of language in science as a means of obscuring the lines between fact and fiction.
To Moderate Republican:
Your quote:
“As NASA has said – A deep solar minimum has made sunspots a rarity in the last few years. Such lulls in solar activity, which can cause the total amount of energy given off by the sun to decrease by about a tenth of a percent, typically spur surface temperature to dip slightly. Overall, solar minimums and maximums are thought to produce no more than 0.1°C (0.18°F) of cooling or warming.
In 2009, it was clear that even the deepest solar minimum in the period of satellite data hasn’t stopped global warming from continuing,”
….needs to be carefully assessed. The statement made there applies “for the period of satellite data”.. That period is only from approx. 1962 to now, What some here are talking about is a possible repeat of the Maunder Minimum, conventionally dated from 1650-1700, where sunspots disappeared for decades. This is believed to have resulted in a severe cooling referred to as the Little Ice Age. This is a far more severe event than anything in the past 5 decades. In fact, the past 5 decades include time when the Sun has been more active than at any time in the past 1000 years! (Search elsewhere on the Wattsupwiththat site for quoted papers on that.) The quoted statement for the last 5 decades, a period of very high solar activity, is almost completely irrelevant to the possible case being debated here. And as Steven Mosher has forcefully reminded everyone here, models of the Sun are not necessarily a priori more believeable than those of, say, the more extreme climate modellers.
Many commenter(s) seem to put all models on the same footing.
There are good models and there are bad models. There are testable models and there are untestable models. There are validated models and there are unvalidated models.
One thing for sure… if a model’s output does not match real life, empirical measurements… then it’s printout sheets retain usefulness, only as toilet paper or fire starter.
Good, valid models, have been in use for millennium, and are probably the single most important tool available for civilization. Mistaking a bad model for a good model can cause it’s destruction. Do I need to suggest which category our present, woefully inadequate climate modality falls into. GK
Were the results of this poll ever posted? I couldn’t find any.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/06/13/online-petition-the-next-solar-minimum-should-be-called-the-eddy-minimum/
Carbon market crash? Switch to long john futures?
rbateman says:
June 14, 2011 at 9:35 pm
Leif: If the flux that has returned to the Northern Solar Pole never received any more, what would that flux then be capable of producing in a SC25 Northern cycle?
There are something like five to seven ‘surges’ of flux that go to the poles. You can see them here http://obs.astro.ucla.edu/torsional.html so we expect there to be several more in SC24.
Moderate Republican(democrat) says:
June 15, 2011 at 7:25 am
“Models have predicted the warming we are seeing, the CO2 concentration levels, the interplay between CO2 and other GHG, impact on ocean temperatures and ocean acidification.”
WRONG.
No model has yet accurately predicted the decade plus stagnation and decline in global temperatures. All of the IPCC model simulations from the first IPCC though to AR4, from the highest estimate to the lowest they were all wrong. Climate models failed to predict the halt and recent decline in sea level rise, they failed to take account of negative feedbacks, they failed to predict a global sea ice stabilization. Climate models have been a spectacular failure and only the constant fiddling and adjustments and tinkering have made them anywhere near accurate. If a model is devised and run from 1990 and then needs constant corrective inputs to bring the model back from a false conclusion then that model has failed.
Show me a climate model that has accurately provided a global temperature prediction, one that has not been fiddled and adjusted over time to account for its failure. Climate models fail to predict, they are then adjusted with new data and still they failed, they were and are continually adjusted as they fail and still they fail. There has been no statistically significant warming since 1998. models from 1990 onward failed to predict the halt and decline.
Show me an unadjusted model that has been proven to have accurately forecast the last decades cooling. Please provide just one unadulterated model from the IPCCs stable that has proven to be accurate.
“Models have predicted … ocean acidification.”
In point of fact, temperature, CO2 levels and ocean PH levels are simply returning to the levels that they have been for most of the past 100 million years. The current climate conditions of low temperature, low CO2 and high ocean PH are the unusual conditions. They coincide with the current cycle of ice ages and are not the conditions that most of the life on earth evolved in.
The idea that a return to conditions prior to the past few million years in which ice ages ruled he climate will somehow harm life on earth ignores the reality of evolution. Life on earth evolved in a time prior to the ice ages, in which temperatures were warmer, CO2 levels were higher and ocean PH was more acidic than it is now. If these conditions were so bad for life, how did life survive? What built the huge deposits of limestone we find all over the planet if higher CO2 makes it impossible to shellfish to convert CO2 to limestone?
But the solar forcing climesci includes is only the direct heat impact, not the indirect and amplified effect of a reduction in solar wind leading to more cosmic ray nuclei to form clouds.
As for 2009, maybe there’s a lag and it takes a while for the earth to shed its heat. We should know a bit better in a few years.
He’d be a brave man to do that–to “confirm” that something “IS” going to happen. Foolhardy. But Hill, or one of the authors of these three papers, did state that the findings have implications for the earth’s climate. Therefore your words “completely unsupported” are a rash overstatement.
It is based on extrapolating the effects on temperature of earlier prolonged solar minimums. Your “no basis” is unwarranted.
Another rash overstatement filled with absolutes. “Deniers” presumably means all deniers, which isn’t justified. And “being totally useless” isn’t the objection that most deniers make to models. Here’s a quote, maybe from another thread, on this matter:
Pretty immoderate.
Cassie
Actually, some did. There are around 20 models or so. For Ar4 there were about 50 runs contributed by those models. The mean or average of all those runs is clearly above observations. However, some runs of some of the models were actually below observations. Some models run too hot, some run too cold. As it stands
now, more run too hot than too cold.
steven mosher,
Just because a model appears to get one prediction right out of multiple runs means nothing. Consistency is required. Let us know when a specific model consistently makes accurate predictions of the future climate, including temeprature. If that ever happens, I’ll start to believe that models have credibility. Until then, getting a hit once in a while is simply a model version of the Texas Sharpshooter fallacy.
[Labeling others “deniers” violates site Policy and results in your comment being snipped. ~dbs, mod.]
[Snip. Labeling others with the d-word is against site Policy. ~dbs, mod.]
Smokey says June 15, 2011 at 8:25 am “Just because a model appears to get one prediction right out of multiple runs means nothing. ”
This is a strawman argument because there are multiple climate models that have successfully predicted the warming we are seeing. Models have successfully predicted the following;
* Cooling of the stratosphere
* Warming of the lower, mid, and upper troposphere
* Warming of ocean surface waters
* Trends in ocean heat content
* An energy imbalance between incoming sunlight and outgoing infrared radiation
* Amplification of warming trends in the Arctic region
Moderate Republican,
I suggest you re-read Cassie King’s comment @7:59 am above.
~ Moderate Independent☺
Smokey – Cassie is wrong (as shown) and so are you.
It’s unusual to see myself agreeing with such people as R Gates, but stranger things have happened:
As a sceptic, I’m dismayed to see people jumping on this story like a proverbial tramp on a sandwich.
Despite (rightly) denigrating warmists for making un-founded assumptions and relying on wretched models, people on this site are doing those very same things, just because the story is about cooling rather than warming.
Case in point: After contributing an interesting and informative post about his work, Don Easterbrook then (in my opinion) ruined it all by coming out with the line, “The time to prepare is now–later may be too late.The clock is ticking. Time will tell!” Such a phrase could have been lifted verbatim from Real Climate.
If any cooling does happen, I believe it will be interesting for the following reasons:
1. Governments who have wasted billions on AGW legislation, such as the UK and Australia will have a hell of a lot of explaining to do
2. Greenpeace and their cronies will have to do a hell of a lot of back-pedalling
3. Hansen will have a sh*t-fit
However, I wouldn’t be surprised if the AGW team use a quiet Sun as an excuse to explain away the lack of warming that they had so confidently predicted i.e. “if it wasn’t for the lack of sunspots covering up the AGW we’d be really frying by now, so we need to keep cutting those CO2 levels!”
The Team and the IPPC will not give up so easily, so if cooling really does come about we may have an even bigger fight to try and win…
[Snip. If you continue to label others as “deniers” all your comments will be snipped. ~dbs, mod.]
Pete H says:
June 14, 2011 at 11:28 pm
Thanks for the link, Pete!
ModRep,
Actually, Cassie King was spot on. And your cherry-picked model ‘successes’ are one-offs. You cannot produce a model that hasn’t been tweaked, and that has correctly predicted any one of your parameters for a decade in advance within ±1 S.D. The Met office’s super expensive supercomputer predicted a “barbecue summer” for last year. That competely wrong prediction is typical of model outputs.
Climate models operate on the Texas Sharpshooter fallacy: shoot holes in a barn door, then draw a bulls-eye around them. Presto! Models can accurately predict…
…not.
steven mosher says:
June 15, 2011 at 8:20 am
Actually, some did. There are around 20 models or so. For Ar4 there were about 50 runs contributed by those models. The mean or average of all those runs is clearly above observations. However, some runs of some of the models were actually below observations. Some models run too hot, some run too cold. As it stands
now, more run too hot than too cold.
According to Andy Edmonds, in the recent June 13 post on chaotic theoretic modelling:
Models are generated by observing the earth, modelling land masses and air currents, tree cover, ice cover and so on. It’s a great intellectual achievement, but it’s still full of assumptions. As you’d expect the modellers are always looking to refine the model and add new pet features. In practice there is only one real model, as any changes in one are rapidly incorporated into the others.
So how different and independent are these 20 models you mention? Are they not just different implementation of more or less the same math(s)?
Moderate Republican@June 15, 2011 at 6:39 am
“Models have predicted the warming we are seeing”
What warming are we currently seeing? I haven’t seen any for the past decade.
Models have predicted the current warming.
They have? Where?
They have failed completely when they try to hindcast weather.
They can be tuned so that they predict the overall warming claimed by the extremely flawed ground based temperature network, however they fail to get any regional distribution right.
They fail when trying to handle cloud coverage.
They fail when trying to predict distribution of heat vertically as well as horizontally.
The truth is that the climate models have completely failed to predict anything.
Mosh,
“Actually, some did. There are around 20 models or so. For Ar4 there were about 50 runs contributed by those models. The mean or average of all those runs is clearly above observations. However, some runs of some of the models were actually below observations. Some models run too hot, some run too cold. As it stands
now, more run too hot than too cold.”
Just to clarify, was that around 50 runs in total (ie: about 2.5 per model)?
If so then it doesn’t really bode well for their skill that “some runs from some models” predicted lower than observations because it suggests that even those models that admitted a possibility of what we’ve observed were getting it right on some of their runs.
Seeing as “some runs” out of 2.5 each is between 40 and 80% that suggests that even the most accurate ( according to subsequent observations ) models were predicting higher than reality between 80 and 40% of the time and all the rest were predicting high 100% of the time. That smacks pretty strongly of a systematic bias somewhere in the way the models are constructed.
The warmists tell us that the reason we haven’t seen all of the heating that they are predicting is because the thermal lags of the oceans are decades in length.
Now they tell us, less than two years from the start of the current solar minimum, that because we didn’t see lots of cooling that this proves the sun has little impact on the climate.
Which is it. The oceans cause a decades long thermal lag, or changes should be seen instantly. You can’t have it both ways.
More wisdom from Gavin Schmidt:
http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/06/14/6857473-solar-forecast-hints-at-a-big-chill
Let’s see….Chile, Eritrea, maybe Iceland…..Maunder II, here we come!
Anyone want to buy a very nice chalet in Graubünden? Cheap?
Mod, please snip this junk:
Moderate Republican says:
June 15, 2011 at 8:40 am
“… denier deception.”
[Reply: Snipped. Moderate Republican is on thin ice with his pejorative labeling. ~dbs, mod.]
So the alarmist response from various sources has been the sun will not affect the climate enough to prevent so called global warming. Well, if the predicted sun decline did occur, it would be a much bigger change than the decline over recent years. This was enough to stop global warming at least over the recent decade, so it’s fair to say already wrong before this period in question even occurs. So the question I ask you, why then are global temperatures not warming?
No, Smokey you are still wrong and Cassie King remains wrong.
A straw man is a component of an argument and is an informal fallacy based on misrepresentation of an opponent’s position. it is inherently deceptive
smokey said “The Met office’s super expensive supercomputer predicted a “barbecue summer” for last year. That competely wrong prediction is typical of model outputs.”
Weather does not equal climate. presenting weather modeling as evidence as to the veracity of climate modeling is completely bogus. That makes this a strawman argument, and you wrong. Again.
[This is the last time I am going to ask: please stop shouting with bold font. Bold should be used sparingly, if at all. ~dbs, mod.]
A straw man is a component of an argument and is an informal fallacy based on misrepresentation of an opponent’s position. it is inherently deceptive
Mark Wilson saysJune 15, 2011 at 9:04 am “They have failed completely when they try to hindcast weather.”
[Bold font snipped. ~dbs, mod.]
Regarding the “turnaround” by NASA: I get the impression is that it is not so much a change of opinion of some scientists as it as the allowance of other voices to be heard. That can only be good. The messianic attitude of the Alarmists is one reason I am a sceptic, especially when they have so zealously sought to silence and dismiss dissent – a real red flag.
Correlation is not causation, but it takes a very special kind of person to dismiss correlation out of hand in order to promote his pet theory, especially when there are so many unknowns. I am 65 years old and I have seen enough to know that there is very often some subtle causation underlying the correlation that takes time to tease out.
If the alarmists are upset that they are ridiculed and dismissed by some they might consider looking in a mirror for the cause.
[snip]
Moderate Republican claims that models are proven because they “successfully” predict the current warming.
I point out that these same models fail completely when they try to do hindcasting.
MR accuses me of using strawmen.
Sheesh, is that really the best he can do?
paulhan says:
June 15, 2011 at 5:55 am
> What “alarms” me about this, is the mentioning of the Maunder Minimum. Why not the Dalton Minimum?
Until this AAS announcement, most people have been suggesting something like the Dalton minimum. Now with multiple lines of research raising the possibility of multiple cycles of no visible spots, that opens up suggestions of something closer to the Maunder Minimum which featured some 70 years of very few spots.
“If we are right,” Hill concluded, “this could be the last solar maximum we’ll see for a few decades. That would affect everything from space exploration to Earth’s climate.”
I thought sunspots or a lack thereof shouldn’t affect our climate. If this article is right about a minimum, we’ll find out probably within a decade or so.
ferd berple June 15, 2011 at 7:59 am:
Ignoring reality is what Mankind is supremely good at. Science would be second and must overcome the first, in order to dominate perception. This is the see-saw that EVERYONE sits on. Thanks for the raising our seat. GK
Bruce Cobb says:
June 15, 2011 at 7:36 am
Thought by whom? And why? Nothing to do with little things like funding, careers, egos?
Thought by those who have performed a fairly straightforward calculation using a well established formula which defines the relationship between energy anfd temperature. I doubt if anyone got any funding for it. If they did – I want my share.
Matt G says “This was enough to stop global warming at least over the recent decade, so it’s fair to say already wrong before this period in question even occurs.” at June 15, 2011 at 9:12 am
That is a factually incorrect statement Matt.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-13719510
If a trend meets the 95% threshold, it basically means that the odds of it being down to chance are less than one in 20.
Last year’s analysis, which went to 2009, did not reach this threshold; but adding data for 2010 takes it over the line.
“The trend over the period 1995-2009 was significant at the 90% level, but wasn’t significant at the standard 95% level that people use,” Professor Jones told BBC News.
“Basically what’s changed is one more year [of data]. That period 1995-2009 was just 15 years – and because of the uncertainty in estimating trends over short periods, an extra year has made that trend significant at the 95% level which is the traditional threshold that statisticians have used for many years.
“It just shows the difficulty of achieving significance with a short time series, and that’s why longer series – 20 or 30 years – would be a much better way of estimating trends and getting significance on a consistent basis.”
Can someone please explain how “alarmist” is not pejorative labeling?
RB says. quoting ‘msn’:
June 15, 2011 at 1:45 am
Even then [given Maunder Minimum Sun conditions], however, he [Gavin Schmidt] estimated that the effect of greenhouse-gas emissions would be on the order of 10 times as great. “What you might see over a 20- to 30-year period is a slight slowdown in the pace of warming,” Schmidt said. “In terms of how we should think about climate change prediction in the future, reducing emissions and so on, it really wouldn’t make much of a difference.”
Right, Gavin alleges that despite just having very effectively prevented a Maunder Minimum via CO2 production, we should still continue trying futilely to prevent net increases in atmospheric Global CO2 concentrations by next having the U.S. itself reproduce the current real world Fascist-Socialist European experiments which have already resulted solely in producing some of the nascent negative side effects of Gavin’s alleged “cure” to his alleged “disease”. With more to come!
Meanwhile, a large number of people living in India and China, who are the main alleged victims of the alleged fossil fuel CO2 = CAGW disease, just keep chugging along in a more rational fashion, producing the very same fossil fuel CO2 and energy which will instead be necessary to the effect the real cure to their own painfully real disease, underdevelopment – and a course which now will even prevent the effects of a Maunder Minimum to boot, as revealed by Gavin himself!
Then, as per the usual Climate Science “method” and contrary to even his own 15 yr. suggestion regarding the time period of no warming which would perhaps cast doubt upon the apparent CO2=GW hypothesis, Gavin ignores the likely fact that there has been no atmospheric warming over the past 15 – 17 years’ divergence of Model predictions of temperatures vs CO2 concentrations, and refuses to allow even the possibility of an extension of this most recent period’s behavior, something which should and would otherwise cast even greater doubt upon the CO2=GW hypothesis, if not effectively falsify it.
Ladies and Gentleman of the Jury, have you reached a verdict?
Re Moderate Republican: 6/15/2011; 9:54
“If a trend meets the 95% threshold, it basically means that the odds of it being down to chance are less than one in 20.”
Surely you know that statistic signifies correlation, not causation. As many have pointed out, there is a mass of data showing that CO2 increase lags temperature increase. There is robust theory that oceanic temperature increase releases CO2 and other less robust theories (e.g. decomposition of algae trapped in ice). Whether there is a positive feedback where CO2 then feeds into further warming and other positive feedbacks is the argument.
Moderate Republican says:
June 15, 2011 at 9:54 am
The one thing that is clear beyond the shadow of a doubt is that Phil Jones intentionally lied for the purpose of deceiving the public about climate change when he “hid the decline.” Why are you citing someone that we know to be a liar?
Is it just me, or does “new” commenter “Moderate Republican,” with his frequent use of bold, tossing around the “d-word,” and multiple assertions that sum up to ‘The (C)AGW-concluding climate scientists have always been right! It is you who is completely wrong!’, sound amazingly like the banned pest “Villabolo” (it was something like that, to use one of his aliases) to anyone else?
ModRep says: “Can someone please explain how ‘alarmist’ is not pejorative labeling?”
Sure, glad you asked. Calling someone a “denialist”, “denier”, etc., is deliberately conflating an opposing scientific view with reprehensible Holocaust deniers. It is a vicious and underhanded insult. On the other hand, those who are attempting to alarm the public with frightening and baseless predictions of looming climate catastrophe are properly referred to as alarmists, because that is exactly what they are trying to do:
The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.
~~ H. L. Mencken
Alarmism in its many forms has always been used by rabble-rousers for their own aggrandizement. Their unstated goal is to rule over the ‘stupid’ proles. Mencken also wrote:
‘The urge to save humanity is almost always only a false-face for the urge to rule it.
Smokey,
As I said on another thread. Is it just me or are there more trolls here now that Romm no longer allows comments?
REPLY: Romm allows comments, but comments are highly edited and/or censored there – Anthony
Re: Moderate republican :10:15
“Can someone please explain how “alarmist” is not pejorative labeling?”
I checked the dictionary definition and I concede your point. The definitions I find emphasize the point that an alarmist “needlessly” or “falsely” raises an alarm. since that seems to be the accepted usage, I will no longer use the term, although when I used it I was doing so to simply signify one who raises an alarm (IMO before the case is proven).
Wow the anti-science clerics are out in full force on WUWT doing serious damage control.
Judging by the weak arguments put forward here, the CAGW believers seem very much on the defensive.
Whether, the discussion here is reflective of how this will play out in the media and with the mainstream public is unclear. What is clear is that any suggestion that “something else” other than HUMANS might be possibly influencing the recent and current climate is a huge paradigm shift for so many folks who have been weened on so many lies after lies after lies. (And environmentalist hyperbole is lying as far as I am concerned, as it is stretching the truth