Paul Hudson of the BBC writes:
This is an exciting time for solar physics, and its role in climate. As one leading climate scientist told me last month, it’s a subject that is now no longer taboo. And about time, too.
His article is, ahem, illuminating:
For as long as I have been a meteorologist, the mere suggestion that solar activity could influence climate patterns has been greeted with near derision.
Quite why this has been the case is difficult to fathom. But it’s been clear for a long time that there must be a link of some kind, ever since decades ago Professor Lamb discovered an empirical relationship between low solar activity and higher pressure across higher latitudes such as Greenland.
Perhaps the art of weather forecasting has become so dominated by supercomputers, and climate research so dominated by the impact of man on global climate, that thoughts of how natural processes, such as solar variation, could influence our climate have been largely overlooked, until very recently.
In fact new research published this week & conducted by the Met Office and Imperial College London, showing how solar variability can help explain cold winters, will come as no surprise to readers of this blog.
Most studies in the past have largely focused on the sun’s brightness, but this research has discovered that it’s the variation in the sun’s Ultra Violet (UV) output that’s crucial.
According to the new paper, published in the journal Nature Geoscience, when UV output is low, colder air than normal forms over the tropics in the stratosphere. This is balanced by a more easterly flow of air over the mid-latitudes. The cold air in the stratosphere then makes its way to the surface – leading to bitterly cold easterly winds across the UK and parts of Europe.
When UV output is higher, the opposite is true, with warmer air making its way to the surface, and carried across the UK and Europe from the west.
Of course there are other factors involved in determining our weather, and this alone does not mean scientists have discovered the holy grail of long range forecasting.
Looking globally the research makes clear that the impact of the sun’s changing UV output acts to redistribute heat, with cold European winters going hand in hand with milder winters in Canada and the Mediterranean, for example, with little impact on overall global temperatures.
The work is based on an 11 year solar cycle, with the regional temperature changes associated with the peaks and troughs of the UV cycle effectively cancelling each other out over that time.
But there are some scientists who believe that there are longer term cycles, such as the bi-centennial cycle and that on average over the coming decades solar activity will decline.
If so, not only will cold European winters become more common, but global temperatures could fall, too, although the general consensus amongst most scientists at the moment is that any solar-forced decline would be dwarfed by man-made global warming.
This is an exciting time for solar physics, and its role in climate. As one leading climate scientist told me last month, it’s a subject that is now no longer taboo. And about time, too.
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dave Harrison says:
October 13, 2011 at 8:19 pm
Before you all get excited about a possible general acceptance of the sun’s role in climate change – how are they going to tax the sun?
————-
Its been done before, a window tax, see here
http://www.historyhouse.co.uk/articles/window_tax.html
Just for a bit of clarification – Paul Hudson works for a regional BBC studio (BBC North, based in Leeds). He’s not a big player in the hierarchy of BBC journalists but is a trained meteorolgist. I’m not sure whether he is strictly a BBC employee or a Met Office employee seconded to the Beeb (as are the national weather presenters). Of course it should also be noted that most of the BBCs environment correspondents (as opposed to the weather men) have absolutely no science background and are writers first and foremost.
He was not recipient of the Climategate leak several weeks before the ‘miracle happened’, but was the subject of a small sub-set of the e-mails (iirc between CRU and Richard Black, regarding an ‘off reservation’ web article). All he stated with regard to Climategate was that the e-mails relating to this string of communications appeared to be genuine and unedited. His choice of language was slightly ambiguous and has led to some confusion by those with an axe to grind against the BBC.
As for the phrasing on the blog (the bit about the consensus), looks like typical weasel words that can quite easily be read as ‘the author doesn’t believe this, but the editor wants it put in’.
Great argument until the last comment
“although the general consensus amongst most scientists at the moment is that any solar-forced decline would be dwarfed by man-made global warming.”
Show some balls or rather a vagina. Do not add a negative at the end of a pretty good post.
(For those who do not know the reference check the net)
“Solar forcing of climate is a subject that gets far more attention than any new observations or improved understanding would warrant.”
Gavin Schmidt/Michael Mann 2006.
Alexander Feht says:
October 13, 2011 at 10:58 pm
you need to find a similar solar cycle as a whole; picking one particular year wouldn’t make any sense even if you were correct, which you are not.
I didn’t think anybody could be so dumb as to assume that I picked just a particular year [but I was clearly wrong in that assumption]. It should have been obvious that what was meant was the situation as a whole. Solar cycle 24 being quite like cycle 14.
Mariss says:
October 13, 2011 at 11:28 pm
“solar activity [TSI, UV, magnetic field, etc] is now what it was 108 years ago”
Is this observation static (a moment captured in time like photograph) or is there an associated trend line leading one to believe solar activity will be less in the future, perhaps even like it was 350 years ago?
This observation pertains to the general level of activity. There is, indeed, a strong possibility that activity will be less in the future. Although it is not given that we may reach Grand Minimum levels.
Dear Paul,
We know that our EARTH is like a bottle. It can be filled up with certain quantity of water. We are using and consuming all the elements with limited volumes in this continent , better to say, changing their quality to whatever we like, but not eliminating the quantities. In wide variety of changes, we need to keep some vital elements or all of those effective ones to our lives. Our atmosphere is not a thick layer so we are living in an ocean that is not too deep, we have to breath. Fossil Based Fuels (FBF), with all its positive aspects are going to be a big problem for all the creatures living on the EARTH.
CO2 is only one side of a coin. O2 as a silent partner in Energy Convergence (Carbon+O2=Co2+Energy almost heat) is the other side of our coin as example.
I would be grateful to visit http://acckkii.tumblr.com .
We have a long way to get rid of the TABOO as you specified. Injecting daily huge amounts of OIL into our limited OXYGEN resource around us as ATMOSPHERE is a big threat. We have to enrich atmosphere with O2 that can no longer be Free!
Forests, Jungles, Green Zones as effective recycle plants with our destructive behavior against our beautiful EARTH are under pressure. I want to remind you “WHAT ABOUT US” by Micheal Jackson.
Regards,
ACCKKII
Durr says:
October 13, 2011 at 4:22 pm
“global temperatures could fall, too, although the general consensus amongst most scientists at the moment is that any solar-forced decline would be dwarfed by man-made global warming.”
Well, several years ago when the Met Office delivered their seasonal forecast for winter, during the height of global warming ideology (2009) they predicted “the period of mild winters continues…” and so we were expecting another mild/warm winter, which turned out to be the coldest for 50 years or so when the averages were calculated at the beginning of March. The statement from the Met Office was that “Yes it would have been even colder had it not been for global warming”. Somehow they think that sort of comment mitigates the ideology, which insures against every possibility.
Its like saying “My dinner is cold” and someone confirming that in fact that it was hot, then my saying “Yes but it would have been cold if it were not heated”
For years the dogma was that the sun was a steady star. I was taught this at university. This was how C-14 studies became established for dating historical artefacts. Until they kept finding Egyptian pharaohs being born before their grandfathers. At that point the game was up. Since then isotopic studies have demonstrated that the sun has a variable output. Meteorologists were a little behind the curve on this but they are now catching up
“The cold air in the stratosphere then makes its way to the surface – leading to bitterly cold easterly winds across the UK and parts of Europe.”
I don’t care for the cold and I sure hope that that stratospheric air will stay in Europe, and is not going to come blasting down on me. I can’t quite figure out how it could but then I’m not a meteorologist.
There is the inevitable reference to ‘most scientists’. ‘Most’ as in ‘most of those who’ve been asked’? Or as in ‘most cats prefer Kat-O-Meat’, perhaps.
R. Gates says:
October 13, 2011 at 8:17 pm
______
Rather than spout the traditional talking points of skeptics, you might do well to learn a bit of the science. Suggest you start here:
http://scienceofdoom.com/2009/11/28/co2-an-insignificant-trace-gas-part-one/
Read all 8 or so parts, and then we can have a discussion.
Part 1 is ignorant blather. Are any of the others not?
For as long as I have been a meteorologist, the mere suggestion that solar activity could influence climate patterns has been greeted with near derision.
This is an exciting time for solar physics, and its role in climate. As one leading climate scientist told me last month, it’s a subject that is now no longer taboo.
The simple fact is that no one of these believers of Geocentric Climate Ideology ever could explain the terrestrial climate pattern satisfactory.
I cannot see any climate science. I can see a lot of poetical marginalia. Science ever has a basis. Climate has no scientific basis. Climate science is a Phantom.
Solar physics can be a part of a Heliocentric Climate Ideology, but the processes on the Sun cannot be observed without the planets and its motion.
The simple fact is that the well known global terrestrial temperature spectra for the last three or five millennia easy can be calculated from the synodic motions of the planets in the solar system. Moreover, because the motion of the planets can be precisely calculated for the next 1000 years, the global terrestrial temperature spectra for this time interval can be simulated for frequencies up to some 1/month.
The climate code is solved
Taboo? Science and Taboo is incompatible. There is no taboo in science.
Volker
“….would be dwarfed by man-made global warming” – his opinion.
In the evening, with the sun about to set, even dwarfs give big shadows. Old wisdom. Lets wait a bit to see how man-made global warming finishes off all other weather events, patterns.
The story in itself is not very clear – maybe the confused BBC people had their hands on it.
‘dwarfed by man made global warming’
What a mighty creature is man! More powerful than the force of nature or the feeble sun!
King Canute knew this wasn’t true centuries ago.
Have to say, from a lay philosophical(?) point of view, whenever I follow a thread on the effect of the sun on weather/climate, I find it interesting that there are always those (they know who they are) who seem so CERTAIN that:
1. We even know all there is to measure about the sun.
2. That we are measuring those parameters accurately.
3. That we fully understand all the effects that changes to these parameters may have.
(I use ‘we’ to be kind)
Yet almost every day these days it seems to becomes clearer that things are anything but (ahem) clear…
Is it just me? Must be… too uneducated. Silly me for thinking that there is still vastly more to be discovered than we already know. And that any certainty is just a trifle premature….
R. Gates says:
October 13, 2011 at 9:58 pm
One of who, phil? This “us” versus “them” mentality is so tiresome.
===========================================
One of the – “Some people are just incapable of interpreting data correctly.” …. actually.
…. and add to that – “selectively, incapable of interpreting posts correctly”.
Sun-Climate change link: not TSI, not UV, it is the outbursts of the magnetic storms.
Here is direct evidence in a daily record since beginning of the year; every geomagnetic storm changes the Earth’s magnetic field by another notch.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/Tromso.gif
Link between the solar activity, Arctic’s geomagnetic field and climate is more than a coincidence:
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/MFc.htm
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/MF.htm
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/NFC1.htm
Scientists will only go by what is currently in vogue; if Faraday, Gauss, Maxwell or Tesla were around it would be a different story.
In decade or two it is all up to the sun, and it ain’t global warming:
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/LFC2.htm
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/NFC7a.htm
M.A.Vukcevic says:
October 14, 2011 at 6:11 am
Sun-Climate change link: not TSI, not UV, it is the outbursts of the magnetic storms.
Here is direct evidence in a daily record since beginning of the year; every geomagnetic storm changes the Earth’s magnetic field by another notch.
A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. The magnetic storms have no lasting effect on the Earth’s magnetic field which is generated at a depth of 4000 km in the molten iron core.
There is “no creditable experiment & data that proves that the greenhouse gas effect exists” Therefore the is no proof that Mann-made global warming exists! All the supposed data supporting Mann-made global warming exists is circumstational and most of it has been mannipulated.
“For as long as I have been a meteorologist, the mere suggestion that solar activity could influence climate patterns has been greeted with near derision.”
How odd as this is in the IPCC AR4 from 2007:
The effects of galactic cosmic rays on the atmosphere (via cloud nucleation) and those due to shifts in the solar spectrum towards the ultraviolet (UV) range, at times of high solar activity, are largely unknown. The latter may produce changes in tropospheric circulation via changes in static stability resulting from the interaction of the increased UV radiation with stratospheric ozone. More research to investigate the effects of solar behaviour on climate is needed before the magnitude of solar effects on climate can be stated with certainty.
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch1s1-4-3.html
‘……..although the general consensus amongst most scientists at the moment is that any solar-forced decline would be dwarfed by man-made global warming’.
Such a good article until the above. Usual kow towing to the unproven claim that mankind makes significant or indeed measurable contribution to ‘global warming’ nee ‘climate change’, nee whatever other scare the environmentalists try to pin on mankind.
R Gates–doubling of CO2 leads to 3C increase—rubbish.
For the believers in positive cloud feedback
I wonder how long it will be before research looks at differing cloud cover correlating with solar output and whether that affects oceanic absorption of energy, thereby influencing longer periodic effects of oceanic energy exchange etc etc?
Chris F says:
October 13, 2011 at 4:09 pm
Isn’t this the same Paul Hudson who sat on the Climategate files for several weeks before they became public?
I doubt it. This Paul Hudson is pretty small potatoes on the BBC. He just presents the regional weather to audiences in the Yorkshire area – BBC North. He works primarily for the Met Office as a meteorologist, is completely unknown to national audiences, and would not be on anyone’s shortlist to send Climategate files to.
Easy.
The mooted proposals to put vast mirrors into orbit to reflect sunlight are based on Monty Burns’ screen used to block out the Sun until the residents of Springfield pay him for his electricity. In the same way, tiny windows in the mirrors will be opened to allow sunlight to shine through, but only to those nations who have a punitive ‘carbon’ tax and/or an emissions trading scheme.