Solar activity report: the sun is still in a funk

” Further, there is evidence that it was warmer in the arctic during the Medieval Warming Period, which occured less than 2000 years ago. ”
No !:
Recent melt rates of Canadian Arctic ice caps are the highest in four millennia – Fisher et al. (2011)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S092181811100097X
“There has been a rapid acceleration in ice-cap melt rates over the last few decades across the entire Canadian Arctic. Present melt rates exceed the past rates for many millennia. New shallow cores at old sites bring their melt series up-to-date. The melt-percentage series from the Devon Island and Agassiz (Ellesmere Island) ice caps are well correlated with the Devon net mass balance and show a large increase in melt since the middle 1990s. Arctic ice core melt series (latitude range of 67 to 81 N) show the last quarter century has seen the highest melt in two millennia and The Holocene-long Agassiz melt record shows the last 25 years has the highest melt in 4200 years. The Agassiz melt rates since the middle 1990s resemble those of the early Holocene thermal maximum over 9000 years ago.”
—————
A millennial perspective on Arctic warming from 14C in quartz and plants emerging from beneath ice caps – Anderson et al. (2008)
http://www.glyfac.buffalo.edu/Faculty/briner/buf/pubs/Anderson_et_al_2008.pdf
“Observational records show that the area of ice caps on northern Baffin Island, Arctic Canada has diminished by more than 50% since 1958. Fifty 14C dates on dead vegetation emerging beneath receding ice margins document the persistence of some of these ice caps since at least 350 AD.[…] The rapid disappearance of these ice caps over the past century, despite decreasing summer insolation, further demonstrates the unusual character of 20th Century warmth.”
————
A millennial-scale record of Arctic Ocean sea ice variability and the demise of the Ellesmere Island ice shelves – England et al. (2008)
http://dro.dur.ac.uk/6877/1/6877.pdf
“[…] Removal of the remaining ice shelves would be unprecedented in the last 5500 years. This
highlights the impact of ongoing 20th and 21st century climate warming that continues to break up the remaining ice shelves and soon may cause historically ice-filled fiords nearby to open seasonally.”
———–
Examining Arctic Ice Shelves Prior to the 2008 Breakup – Mueller et al (2008)
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2008/2008EO490002.shtml
“This past summer, Ellesmere’s 50-square-kilometer Markham Ice Shelf also broke away, and there was major fracturing throughout the eastern half and well into the western half of the Ward Hunt Ice Shelf, which is the largest remaining ice shelf in the Northern Hemisphere. Together, all of the Canadian ice shelves lost a total of 23% of their area during summer 2008, leaving only 720 square kilometers behind. Some fjords along northern Ellesmere Island are now ice free for the first time in 3000–5500 years”

jtom says:
July 9, 2011 at 2:33 pm
Someone likened the cold winters to the door of a refrigerator (the polar regions) being left open, cooling the room (northern hemisphere). If you leave the door to a refrigerator open, it will cool a room down somewhat (assuming the heat from the refrigerator’s condensor isn’t pumped back in the room. But what happens to the temperatures inside the refrigerator?
It gets warmer. No CO2 involved.
Agree except for the “it gets warmer” part. With the sun out of the picture during the Polar Winter, the heat in the refrigerator is just like the leaking O2 aboard Apollo 13….it escapes to space. We certainly have extended winters and springs as collateral data, as well as cold fronts getting much further towards the equator. The next step is to be able to establish proof that the Sun is responsible.

steven mosher says:
July 9, 2011 at 3:34 pm
“Please cite the research showing the Arctic was warmer during the MWP than now…I’d love to take a look at it.”…
“I love the “evidence” people pull up to “prove” this. the same yokels who dont believe todays thermometers lap up the MWP bathwater.
C02 (according to the consensus) is less than 50% of all forcings. And, if the MWP was warmer, with less C02, then you’ve got a more sensitive climate. It makes for a worse future.”
———-
????? I find no logical consistency in your argument. If the climate were so sensitive to CO2 as you claim, would we not be much warmer now than in the Medieval Warm Period, no matter what the sun was doing? What has this to do with the so-called consensus that CO2 is responsible for less than 50% of all forcings? Since the warming in the MWP has not been explained, there is nothing to say that our current warming is not due to exactly the same factors, and that CO2 plays a miniscule role at best. “Sensitive climate” refers to CO2 sensitivity, for which I have seen no compelling demonstration from the scientific community. Where is the evidence that our supposed warming is worse than ever before (which is the warmist argument)?
I know R.Gates would like us to dig up the thermostatic scientific records from the WMP, to finally convince him. Of course, the thermometer lay 400 or more years in the future. I accuse him of ‘scientism’ which privileges scientifically-derived knowledge above all other forms. Surely the historical evidence must give some pause to the alarmists – records of Norse farming and semi-successful settlements in Greenland etc.. On top of this, modern archaeology (or simple observation) is discovering new northerly sites revealing human activity previously covered in glaciers or snow. I would like to see the warmist explanation for these phenomena, to justify the contention that it was not warmer in the past. It’s in your court, Steve Mosher and R. Gates.

“Here’s a clue gents.
1. it may well have been warmer in the MWP
2. That means the climate is MORE sensitive than we currently think”
This nonsense does not die.
How warm it was in the MWP, has nothing to do with “climate sensitivity”.

Those wishing the ice to melt in the Arctic to prove their precious CO2 global warming need to go further back to pre-history. Human habitation in the last ice age that has recently come to light with a melting of some previous ice covered areas, would tend to suggest that the arctic in an ice age is relatively benign. The nasty bit of the ice age is further south. Thus wishing the ice to melt in the Arctic is a fools errand that may be a precursor to our next cold spell.

BenfromMO says:
July 9, 2011 at 5:08 pm
“You can not tell me that the models are correct to within the required parameters to predict even arctic warming…..that is just a coincidence.”
____
Before making such an outrageously wrong statement, I suggest you really get familiar with the complexity of global climate models. Sure they aren’t perfect, but their ability to predict Arctic warming and decreased year-to-year sea ice is hardly a coincidence. I suggest you start here:
http://www.cesm.ucar.edu/
And this statement regarding your perception of how you perceive climate scientists think::
““We do not know what is causing the warming, so it must be CO2.”
Display incredible ignorance on how this process works. Really.

R. Gates tosses out a series of challenges that beg to be met. Inasmuch as R. Gates appears to have as little science background as I do, I’ll undertake to meet his simple challenges.
To begin with, R. Gates challenges skeptics to establish what their response will be if the predicted solar minimum fails to slow “decade to decade” rise in global temperatures. Next: R. Gates tells us that the “larger point” is that global climate models have “accurately predicted” a “decline of Arctic ice and general warming of the Arctic.” Moreover, if the Arctic and its sea ice have not recovered by the end of the solar minima, then climate is not warming because of natural variability, but because of CO2. After all, R. Gates says, CO2 based GCMs have been tested for decades….maybe 30 years or more! Lest we fear that GCMs do not take into account all the possible variables, R. Gates assures us, the models are continuously updated with all “forcing dynamics.” Indeed, R. Gates would head to Las Vegas if GCM, “running vastly different simulations, but using the basic physics of CO2” all indicated AGW! Moreover, CO2 is the thermostatic switch that Milankovitch cycles initiates.
My reply is: If the current solar minima turns out to be merely an unusual solar minima, then we’ve learned something. Hopefully, we’ve recorded all the lows and highs of solar variability and plugged them into our collective knowledge base. Nonetheless, I’m already in “Las Vegas” going long on orange juice futures and short on Canadian grain. I’m also thinking winter clothing is a good investment. Mr. Gates’ “larger point” that GMCs, tested for almost 30 years, “accurately predicted” the “decline of Arctic ice and general warming of the Arctic”; thus, if the Arctic ice doesn’t increase in the near future, then CO2 drives the climate! I’m not at all convinced that the Arctic is warmer and the ice there is less than frozen. Winds and currents appear to have moved the Arctic around a bit, but it still appears to be frozen. What I find interesting is that the Arctic Oscillation—discovered in the 19502—has recently turned largely negative, not to mention the NAO, PDO and ENSO. I personally am interested in seeing what that will do to not only the weather in the next few years, but to the Arctic ice as well. I personally wonder whether the prolonged diminution in solar wind has caused a “collapse” of the polar atmosphere, which in turn has caused a relative high pressure system and a negative AO. Maybe, after 30 years or so of study, R. Gates will add that into a GCM.
Given that GCMs rely on less than half a century of data and “hindcasts,” I find little comfort in R. Gates’ promises that GCMs are updated to include newly discovered “forcings dynamic” on climate and weather. Notwithstanding his assurances, heretofore, his CO2 AGW GCMs appear to marginalize TSI as a constant, which in recent years is shown to be far more variable than previously recognized. Indeed, the more energetic solar spectra vary significantly with the variability of the star.
Moreover, R. Gates is content that he is favored by a benign phase of the Milankovich cycle as well as multiple GCMs, “running vastly different simultaneous programs, but using basic physics of CO2,” so that he will head to Las Vegas at his earliest opportunity to lay down his money on global warming. I’d rather he tell us what he buys on Wall Street, so that we can take the contrarian view in the next few years and see who is the richer for the experience.