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.
Hm, was about time to get closer to reality, but there is still way to go.
“Quite why this has been the case is difficult to fathom. ” Good question:
http://motls.blogspot.com/2010/06/judithgate-ipcc-relied-on-one-solar.html
Our sun is a variable star. Of course, its output varies over time – only a CO2 addicted ‘climate scientist’ would refuse to acknowledge this.
Here’s typical Leif Svalgaard for you, turning on a dime when cornered:
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]
You did pick just a particular year, sir. It’s not a matter of assumption, it is a matter of fact.
Now you have clearly shown yourself as a man of little culture, unable to admit the truth or to conduct a civil conversation.
Leif Svalgaard says:
October 14, 2011 at 6:31 am
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.
And what is this
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/Tromso.gif
then ?
Pure coincidence, of course. Esoteric statistics clearly proves that such matches must maybe occur several times in the course of each megayear, so nothing should be inferred from it without many millennia of meticulous metrics.
/hyperbolic humo(u)r
Anthony Watts says:
“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.”
Do you have any evidence to corroborate this statement?
[REPLY: Read the article again. It was not Anthony making the statement. -REP]
We all know the sun’s infrared energy radiates heat, put who could have imagined the sun’s ultraviolet energy radiates cold — umm, like cold radiation? Is this a new wrinkle that can be subtracted from those doctored and highly-touted IPCC computer programs?
So, after spending millions and millions on climate research… we now know that the Sun appears to have an (unquantified) effect on Earth’s climate.
There are exciting times indeed.
/sarcasm
Latitude says on October 13, 2011 at 5:14 pm:
“The question is, why did CO2 levels drop so low?”
The answer is: Plants arrived on the planet and took a liking to the stuff.
Leif Svalgaard says: October 13, 2011 at 9:58 pm
Nobody is discounting ANY effect. It is easy to show that there must be about a 0.1 C solar cycle effect and such is also claimed to be observed. What is not established is that the Sun is a major driver of climate. For example: solar activity [TSI, UV, magnetic field, etc] is now what it was 108 years ago, yet the climate is quite different.
When looking at the CET record, the dropping temperature slope does look quite similar.
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcet/
Bob B says:
October 14, 2011 at 7:34 am
R Gates–doubling of CO2 leads to 3C increase—rubbish.
For the believers in positive cloud feedback
____
It’s pretty much what the paleo data from the mid-pliocene is telling us. But you can choose to believe whatever you want.
From the abstract that Hudson cravenly failed to link to:
“If the updated measurements of solar ultraviolet irradiance are correct, low solar activity, as observed during recent years, drives cold winters in northern Europe and the United States, and mild winters over southern Europe and Canada, with little direct change in globally averaged temperature.” — Ineson et. al in Solar forcing of winter climate variability in the Northern Hemisphere — http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/ngeo1282.html
How does Hudson get to his conclusions?
I think R Gates is male. The behaviour is masculine rather than feminine. IMHO. Has to win. Ignores arguments s/he cannot counter, and disses where s/he thinks it’s possible:
(1) saying the person to question whether the CO2 increase was manmade was a dumb idiot. R Gates has, it seems, never compared the size and fine patterning of natural CO2 cycles with the size and fine patterning of our emissions record. Natural cycles from both land and sea are huge and can easily swallow up all manmade CO2; and by way of proof, the fine patternings don’t fit. Oh, and pre-MLO CO2 measurements from Ice cores are not direct measurements, they are proxies which are highly suspect on many counts as too low.
(2) throwing eight pages of mathematical smoke in people’s faces, while ignoring the key issues of (a) logarithmic diminution of effect, and (b) geological evidence for governors / negative feedback / current variation well within natural limits, all of which which simply bypasses all those eight pages.
(3) the strawman argument that
because
Sorry mate. They didn’t diverge from 1980. What happened from that point was that UHI got noticeable, plus the bad thermometer record-keeping mushroomed, and both effects were hidden under the carpet of Jones and Wang’s paper that put ridiculously low values to UHI. I think the paper has been shown as “fraudulent”. Skeptics maintain the sun’s influence is as strong as ever – they actually maintain the IPCC has consistently refused to consider the divergence as UHI.
All this is covered by my “Primer”. Click my name. Shorter than your eight pages, far more comprehensive, and far more comprehensible.
R. Gates says:
October 14, 2011 at 12:04 pm
The paleo data has been from many millions of years ago been showing a cooling planet, irrespective of CO2 levels. Down to the changing land masses and introduction of them closer to the poles. The mid-pliocene was 2-3c warmer than today, but we are already at similar global CO2 levels. Global albedo is higher today with the Antarctic, Greenland covering more polar regions now than millions of years ago. The Greenland glacier formed with the advancing north of this land mass and cut off of the South American canal. (~ 3 milli0n years ago) While we have a large continental land mass covering more of the pole, the Greenland glacier in a more northern position, this global albedo will change little and never reach similar values in the mid-pliocene. Hence, why with similar CO2 levels now we are 2c to 3c lower than back then.
Mariss: “The more enterprising advocates who aren’t committed diehard zealots don’t wish to go down with the sinking HMS Global Warming. They are beginning to seek an exit because they have a future careers to attend to.”
No, that’s not happening. What has happened is that a sceptical commentator (Hudson) has placed a particular spin on some recent news about possible UV influence on northern hemisphere climate patterns.
Not much to do with global warming per se, so much as the distribution of energy.
There’s long been a tendency on WUWT, and climate sceptic blogs in general, to read the entrails of climate pronouncements with the aim of spotting a major turnaround in thinking among climate scientists about AGW.
This enterprise is doomed to failure. Any major turnaround in thinking would not occur “between the lines” of pronouncements on climate. It would occur either by the positing of a major new understanding of climate forcing (and that would be big news, no entrail reading necessary), or by a reversal of warming trends (and that would happen gradually, over a number of years).
GabrielHBay says:
… Is it just me?…
Nope, I think the same thing. Which is why I like reading Judith Curry’s site. The uncertainty monster can bite those that don’t pay attention to it.
Matt G says:
October 14, 2011 at 1:35 pm
R. Gates says:
October 14, 2011 at 12:04 pm
“The mid-pliocene was 2-3c warmer than today, but we are already at similar global CO2 levels.”
____
Mid-Pliocene (around 3.3 to 3 million year ago) were the last time CO2 levels were sustained at current levels or higher, so rather than guessing what the climate sensitivity is to these higher level, this is direct examination of the results. As we’ve only been at these levels for a few decades, the feedbacks (slow and fast) have only begun. Looking at the mid-Pliocene warmth gives us a good look at where earth’s climate is headed:
http://iopscience.iop.org/1755-1315/6/7/072003/pdf/1755-1315_6_7_072003.pdf
And the Milankovitch cycles are not anywhere close to bringing on the next glaciation, so we ought not expect cooling from astronomical forcing. Little cooling bumps down along the way, like we saw during the LIA, are just that, little bumps. 3C of warming (when all fast and slow feedbacks are included) is a pretty good a and reasonable approximation of what to expect from our current trajectory of CO2 warming.
Lucy Skywalker says:
October 14, 2011 at 1:16 pm
I think R Gates is male. The behaviour is masculine rather than feminine. IMHO. Has to win. Ignores arguments s/he cannot counter, and disses where s/he thinks it’s possible:
(1) saying the person to question whether the CO2 increase was manmade was a dumb idiot.
______
Lucy, it is not a question of winning or not, but moving on from what we are pretty certain of to cut to the chase, and get to the areas of we aren’t so certain of. The issue of whether or not humans have caused the current CO2 levels to go well beyond anything seen in the past 800,000 years is one of those things that we are pretty certain of. To keep discussing it is simply to never allow ourselves to get to the really important and truly uncertain issues.
Also, not only is the expression “dumb idiot” rather redundant, (have you ever met a smart idiot?), it is not something I have used here on WUWT, ever. If I question someone with a ??, it is not calling them stupid, but rather saying, “what’s the point of re-hashing this? Can’t we move on to the really uncertain things?” Said in another way, the issue of whether humans have caused the current levels of CO2 to be higher than we’ve seen during the past 800,000 is NOT part of the “uncertainty monster”, so why waste our time on it?
R. Gates says:
October 14, 2011 at 2:31 pm
That’s all well and good (model), but these feedbacks (short or long) are not demonstrated over these few decades on the real planet and counting. There is no sign of them occuring in the near future or long-term future. All step up in global temperatures covering these few decades have occurred exactly at the same time of strong El Nino’s. The global cloud feedback is opposite what it should be in this senario and has declined around ~5 percent until become stable. The main reason why global temperatures have been rising with strong El Nino’s because global cloud levels had been declining.
With this and the consideration of the last post I replied to you, this is by far the best scientific evidence of the situation available with nothing backing up the model. The fast feedbacks haven’t been demonstrated at all during this period and the slow (if have occurred) haven’t been enough to prevent the globe from becoming stable. In this senario a feedback of 3c will never be even closely reached with doubling of CO2. The most realistic senario is a rise between 0.5c and 1.2c for a doubling of CO2.
30 years is long enough to show any feedbacks of CO2.
“[REPLY: Read the article again. It was not Anthony making the statement. -REP]”
My apologies, I was thrown by the confusing formatting; the linked article was initially used indented italics, but I see now that this was dropped further into the OP. That said, my point still stands; if “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. can’t be corroborated, the BBC article is not so much “illuminating” as it is BS.
This is to Lucy:
1- You say:The issue of whether or not humans have caused the current CO2 levels to go well beyond anything seen in the past 800,000 years is one of those things that we are pretty certain of. To keep discussing it is simply to never allow ourselves to get to the really important and truly uncertain issues. THANK YOU, so clear. MAN-MADE CO2.
2- Thank you Paul Hudson that made everybody write 145 posts, whether you are right/wrong.
3- You are talking about uncertain things, from here on, we are free to followup our special goals, no need for more discussions. I feel free now man-made is man-made.
4- After this “Y” piece, you go to the oceans and find solutions for what we would face in the future because of warm/cold water/land and etc.
5- What is my goal? LESS O2 consumption, finding an economic solution to raise budget to make the world GREEN to recycle O2, because we want to breath.
6- I promise to you that if we get green, then at least you feel free of man-made CO2.
7- I promise to have the sun as an ever green resource to eternity.
Matt G says:
October 14, 2011 at 3:24 pm
“30 years is long enough to show any feedbacks of CO2.”
___
I am wondering what scientific basis you make this claim from, as there are no studies that I am aware of that come anywhere close to making such a claim. During the mid-Pliocene warm period, CO2 levels were at our current levels or higher for hundreds of thousands of years. The time frame of 30 years seems rather arbitrarily chosen on your part. The most recent science would show fast feedbacks (such as sea ice reduction and water vapor increases) occurring with increasing strength with CO2 levels at our present levels or higher, and slow feedbacks occurring over several centuries:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2010/09/introduction-to-feedbacks/
http://arxiv.org/pdf/1105.0968v3
We’ve already seen some of the most obvious of fast feedbacks occurring, such as the long-term decline in year-to-year Arctic sea ice and the increase in global water vapor and the cooling of the statosphere.
Again, your choice of 30 years, is curious, but as we’ve seen some of the early fast feedbacks occurring, perhaps that is not important anyway.
R Gates: Lucy, it is not a question of winning or not, but moving on from what we are pretty certain of…
You’re not behaving like a scientist, you’re behaving like a bully. You have simply ignored what I actually said, both evidence and pointers to evidence and science, and are instead using a royal “we” to suggest that the current scientific consensus “authority” is so unquestionably correct that challenges can be ignored, dissed, sneered at. B******s. Your attitude exemplifies exactly what is dangerously corrupt in Science today – the betrayal of the Royal Society motto Nullius In Verba, with the replacement of Science by Belief (trusting peer-reviews), then Superstition (trusting models), then sheer rubbish (trusting Pachauri).
This is to R Gates:
Come down man.
I have reached to a good point with Lucy and you and that is man-made CO2.
Try to find a solution for your discussions, Paul is sitting somewhere laughing at 145 posts!
THE ENGLISH MAN!
sorry! just for fun, cool down please.
Lucy Skywalker says:
October 14, 2011 at 1:16 pm
“Solar activity and temperatures begin to diverge around 1980…”
Sorry mate. They didn’t diverge from 1980. What happened from that point was that UHI got noticeable.
____
Lucy, the sun has been growing increasingly quiet since about 1980, and global temps have seen a steady increase during the same period, without need to even use ground based thermometers. Of course there are UHI effects, but even factoring these out, does not detract in any significant way from the late 20th century warming.
Prior to 1980 or sun, global temps and the sun marched pretty much in lock-step (when factoring out shorter-term effects such as Volcanoes, ENSO, etc.)
Now, here’s a promise: if someone can show me evidence that solar activity SINCE 1980 matches closely with global temps (using well established universal metrics), I’ll shift my vote in favor a being a skeptic to AGW. Why would I not, as prior to 1980 I believe it was mainly the sun as the driver of climate…so show me the evidence. I am not a “true believer” in AGW, as it is not a religion or matter of faith to me, but a matter of the sum total of evidence I’ve looked at over the past 30 years.
Severe UK winters are at least as common around solar cycle maxima as they are around minima. Including two of the three coldest on CET, 1684 and 1740.
ACCKKII says:
October 14, 2011 at 4:37 pm
This is to R Gates:
Come down man.
I have reached to a good point with Lucy and you and that is man-made CO2.
Try to find a solution for your discussions, Paul is sitting somewhere laughing at 145 posts!
THE ENGLISH MAN!
sorry! just for fun, cool down please.
——-
I am quite calm, but thanks for the reminder. My challenge is sincere– if someone can show me credible data that show me how global temps match solar activity for the late 20th century, I’ll shift over to being an AGW skeptic.
Hi Gates,
I’m following you 2 very carefully enjoying your discussions.
If I got you correctly, same as you, I don’t believe solar activities within 10-30 years that is nothing to our SUN, can change widely the way that Lucy is expecting.
Greater climate changes in the past had been due to other factors than the SUN. The problem occurs when an external factor make changes on the EARTH and because of reducing affects of the SUN light the EARTH gets problem.
I don’t want to say there are not some changes in the SUN, but suppose the ICELAND VOLCANO could be continued, such close factors somehow direct touching the EARTH are more important as a serious impact than what Lucy is looking for.
Gates!,
As you know we have four seasons in a year. The temp variation between the coldest and warmest day of a year about 50 degrees Celsius. This is some sort of climate change but it is regular.
We have 5 years-10 years-25 years, 50 years and 100 years flood forecasting. In DAM Construction this is very important issue. Now where is the year 1980?
So, high/low seasonal temp variations are under safety factor of the EARTH and all creatures living on it.
If you agree with what I am telling here, give me a strong OKAY, we would go on after this vote.