New paper by Love et al suggests no prominent role for solar‐terrestrial interaction in global climate change. I’m providing it here for discussion.
We are not convinced that the combination of sunspot‐number,
geomagnetic‐activity, and global‐temperature data can, with
a purely phenomenological correlational analysis, be used to
identify an anthropogenic affect on climate.
Abstract
Recent studies have led to speculation that solar‐terrestrial interaction, measured by sunspot number and geomagnetic activity, has played an important role in global temperature change over the past century or so. We treat this possibility as an hypothesis for testing. We examine the statistical significance of cross‐correlations between sunspot number, geomagnetic activity, and global surface temperature for the years 1868–2008, solar cycles 11–23. The data contain substantial autocorrelation and non-stationarity, properties that are incompatible with standard measures of cross-correlational significance, but which can be largely removed by averaging over solar cycles and first‐difference detrending. Treated data show an expected statistically significant correlation between sunspot number and geomagnetic activity, Pearson ρ < 10^−4, but correlations between global temperature and sunspot number (geomagnetic activity) are not significant, ρ = 0.9954, (ρ = 0.8171). In other words, straightforward analysis does not support widely‐cited suggestions that these data record a prominent role for solar‐terrestrial interaction in global climate change.
With respect to the sunspot‐number, geomagnetic‐activity, and global‐temperature data, three alternative hypotheses remain difficult to reject: (1) the role of solar‐terrestrial interaction in recent climate change is contained wholly in long‐term trends and not in any shorter‐term secular variation, or, (2) an anthropogenic signal is hiding correlation between solar‐terrestrial variables and global temperature, or, (3) the null hypothesis, recent climate change has not been influenced by solar‐terrestrial interaction.
Citation: Love, J. J., K. Mursula, V. C. Tsai, and D. M. Perkins (2011), Are secular correlations between sunspots, geomagnetic activity, and global temperature significant?, Geophys. Res. Lett., 38, L21703, doi:10.1029/2011GL049380.
Conclusions
One of the merits of using three separate data sets in a correlational analysis is that intercomparisons can be made. After treatment for removal of autocorrelation and nonstationarity through simple averaging and differencing, we find statistically‐significant secular correlation between sunspot number and geomagnetic activity. This is expected,
and it serves as important support for our analysis method. On the other hand, after making the same treatment to the global surface temperature, correlations between temperature and either sunspot number or geomagnetic activity are not significant.
We have not, in this study, considered derived proxy metrics of relevance to climate change, such as reconstructed total‐solar irradiance [e.g., Fröhlich and Lean, 2004] or
interplanetary magnetic field [e.g., Lockwood et al., 1999]. Still, we believe that our methods are general, that they could be used for other data sets, even though our analysis, here, is tightly focused on specific data sets. [15] From analysis of sunspot‐number, geomagneticactivity, and global‐temperature data, three hypotheses remain difficult to reject; we list them.
(1) The role of solarterrestrial interaction in recent climate change is wholly contained in the long‐term trends we removed in order to reduce autocorrelation and nonstationarity. This possibility seems artificial, but we acknowledge that our method requires a nontrivial time‐dependence in the data that is different from a simple trend. Still needed is a method for measuring the significance of correlation between data sets with trends.
(2) An anthropogenic signal is hiding correlation between solar‐terrestrial variables and global temperature. A phenomenological correlational analysis, such as that used here, is not effective for testing hypotheses when the data record a superposition of different signals. Physics is required to separate their sum.
(3) Recent climate change has not been influenced by solar‐terrestrial interaction. If this null hypothesis is to be confidently rejected, it will require data and/or methods that are different from those used here.
Paper: http://www.leif.org/EOS/2011GL049380.pdf
h/t to Dr. Leif Svalgaard
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Sparks says:
November 15, 2011 at 9:39 pm
I’m sometimes wrong or misinformed or rushed maybe, I’m never ever ‘not correct’
‘not correct’ = ‘wrong’
I was referring to this
“Gravity is stronger over the poles than it is over the equator therefor the poles will attract (build up) more charged particles, this should form a protective membrane (a kind of bottle neck for high energies), possibly reflecting excess charged particles, and given X amount of time the energy will begin to dissipate where the influence of CMEs decline then the influence of cosmic ray energies begin.”
And pointed out that this was not correct, i.e. wrong. That is not the way it works. I gave you then a 66-page paper with lots of substance to help you out. What more can I do? Did you read it? I guess not. Perhaps Paul Vaughan could explain it better. It is my wont to try to help, but if you don’t want it…
Did I use the words ‘not correct’ incorrectly [err… wrongly] or was I wrong [umm… not correct] to use those words in the wrong sense, or was it not correct of me to assume wrongly that not correct is not the same as wrong? Perhaps I should have said ‘not even wrong’ [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not_even_wrong ], but that might not have been correct.
Leif Svalgaard says:
Always going after the person, eh… [again]
———-
Oh my. Having read thru all of the comments, the richness of the irony in Mr. Svalgaard’s attempted criticism here is almost too much to bear. To see someone who’s repeatedly gone “after the person” as much as Mr. Svalgaard has done here, then trying to chastise others for simply replying-in-kind, immediately makes one think of a comedy skit on Saturday Night Live.
Leif Svalgaard says:
November 15, 2011 at 8:53 pm
George E. Smith; says:
November 15, 2011 at 8:20 pm
the sun only heats us by 0.1 deg, then I guess I must be wrong about that.
just silly.
William McClenney says:
November 15, 2011 at 8:21 pm
Paul Vaughan says:
November 15, 2011 at 8:22 pm
This analysis would be acceptable from someone with less than 1 year of experience exploring climate data. Also, there are catastrophic reference omissions.
Yeah, we know you are the expert and the rest of the world are morons.
I’m sorry, very sorry, Dr. Svalgaard, I meant no disrespect, I simply posed a reasonable question: “What does all this mean relative to the big picture?” Moronic? One might suppose. But if your analyses are to you so acute, what do they intimate relative to what might be about to occur or not within the possible grand scheme of things climate?
Is this an unreasonable question? I think not.
William McClenney says:
November 15, 2011 at 10:30 pm
what do they intimate relative to what might be about to occur or not within the possible grand scheme of things climate?
Is this an unreasonable question? I think not.
That is a very reasonable question. In the long run [tens and hundreds of thousands of years] the climate undergoes large swings – not because of the Sun, but because of the changes in Earth’s orbit and axial tilt [caused by the planets, of course, mostly Jupiter]. This is separate from the century-scale where the orbit does not change enough to produce measurable changes in the climate. At the other end of the scale – billions of years – the Sun is getting hotter as a natural consequence of stellar evolution, so the climate will change – catastrophically – the oceans will boil away. But those are very grand schemes of things. What concerns us at this time is whether the small changes we have observed in the climate are caused by the Sun. The paper in question finds that the data does not support this hypothesis in a significant way, which properly means that the Sun is not a major player in climate change at the moment. Whether one believes that depends, it seems, on personal biases, agendas, etc, but then we have left science behind.
Leif Svalgaard says:
November 15, 2011 at 10:13 pm
…
Gravity is stronger over the poles than it is over the equator. FACT !!
therefor…
Any discussion, elaboration would be appropriate, considering the magnitude of this implied fact and our hosts implied topic.
My creative imagination, thought or not for lack of ability in trying to communicate with planet Leif Svalgaard from planet earth for acknowledgment of even one fact before we move forward seems to be what I was expecting. or not…
Sparks says:
November 15, 2011 at 11:10 pm
Gravity is stronger over the poles than it is over the equator. FACT !!
therefore…the poles will attract (build up) more charged particles, this should form a protective membrane
The clause after the ‘therefore’ is the part that is not correct [wrong] and the rest thereafter also not. It doesn’t work that way.
My creative imagination, thought or not for lack of ability in trying to communicate with planet Leif Svalgaard from planet earth for acknowledgment of even one fact before we move forward seems to be what I was expecting. or not…
Communication is a two way street and I have given you a link to a very detailed explanation. Perhaps it was too detailed. Perhaps you wanted a three-line explanation. There is no such. It takes an effort sometimes to understand things.
Sparks says:
November 15, 2011 at 11:10 pm
My creative imagination, thought or not for lack of ability in trying to communicate …
Perhaps this from another sorry thread might help:
The solar wind pushes part of the Earth’s magnetic field back into a long tail. This stores energy in the tail. There is a boundary between field lines that are swept into the tail [we say they are ‘open’] and those that are not [we say they are closed]. Once in the tail the open field lines can reconnect and become closed again. This accelerates particles towards the Earth along the boundary between open and closed field lines. The particles collide with Nitrogen and Oxygen in the upper atmosphere which make those atoms glow and we observe aurorae. Under normal circumstances aurorae occur all the time at this boundary and we get what is called the ‘auroral oval’ situation near 67 degrees [magnetic] latitude. Once in a while, the solar wind is strongly enhanced by coronal mass ejections. The wind is compressed and the push on the magnetosphere is much stronger and the tail thickens as more and more field is pushed into it. This causes much more energy to stored, and the boundary, the currents, and the auroral oval move equatorward. If the push on the magnetosphere and the energy stored in the field is large enough, the auroral oval can move to mid-latitudes [and in extreme case even to near the equator] and then we record aurorae at mid-latitudes at the same time as strong magnetic activity is observed. The number and push of the CMEs depends on the solar cycle, being largest at solar maximum so the number of aurorae seen at mid-latitude is at a maximum when solar activity is at maximum, and at the same time great magnetic storms occur. Now, actually seeing the aurora depends on many other things than the aurora being there: weather, people’s awareness, number of observers and their motivation and interest. Observing the magnetic storms does not, as the observatories record 24/7 all the time. So if a record of aurorae does not show a strong maximum at solar maximum, it simply means that the record is faulty or unreliable. This is well-known and there is no mystery about it.
My paper published in E&E shows a remarkable correlation between the drift of the magnetic poles and global temperatures over a similar period. Additionally my statistics were checked by an independent researcher. You can download the paper from my website.
http://www.akk.me.uk/Climate_Change.htm
I could not identify the mechanism so would appreciate any comments.
This paper is flawed as it has been highlighted already.
If specific data records are examined closely there are irrefutable links between geomagnetic and the temperature data. This can be found easily in data relating to middle and high latitudes data for the Atlantic regions of the Northern Hemisphere, which due to volatility of its magnetic field is far more sensitive to the solar disturbances, than it is case for the more stable southern hemisphere.
The authors note that if other processes besides a solar-temperature driver are at work they could obscure the solar-temperature link, but then Love et al. omit the known dominant driver of surface temperature variability (ocean oscillations) and instead limit their mention of other possible drivers to “an anthropogenic signal” which could be “hiding correlation between solar‐terrestrial variables and global temperature.” That’s dishonest. They pretend not to even be aware of what EVERYBODY knows to be the primary short term temperature driver. Typical alarmist manipulation, and on such a short time series (140 years), the failure to account for ocean oscillations is bound to be fatal.
One fix is to look at longer time series, which one of the authors, Mursula, has worked on. See “Solar activity over the last 1150 years: does it correlate with climate?” (2004), where Mursula and his co-authors found that:
Numerous other studies going back much further find similar correlations.
Can these long-period studies be trumped by a 140 year statistical study that fails to control for the other climate drivers that could be controlled for in shorter term study? Ridiculous, which would be why the longer-period studies are not even mentioned, despite one of the authors having worked on them. Like the omission of ocean oscillations, this glaring omission has to be deliberate misdirection.
The other fix would be to try to control for ocean oscillations and volcanism. One thing to look at here is the temperature trend across PDO cycles during the 20th century’s period of high solar activity (from the 1920’s through the end of the century). Temperatures went up overall, rising relatively steeply when high solar activity was in sync with a warm PDO and falling when high solar activity was paired with a cool PDO (from the mid 40s to the mid 70s).
It is possible–and likely–that the temperature of the planet as a whole (the heat content of the oceans) was rising during this down-jog in surface temperatures. That is what the larger picture shows (the warming trend over the century). Thus by ignoring ocean oscillations Love et al. make it look as if solar activity and planetary temperature were anti-correlated from the 40’s to the 70’s when they may well in fact have been correlated.
Scientifically, there is no excuse for ignoring ocean oscillations when everybody knows that they account for most of the variability in the surface temperature record. So why were ocean oscillations omitted? Since the effect is to obscure the correlation between solar activity and global temperature, that is the obvious candidate for the intent as well.
Surely, until you can correlate the phenomena with something – whether or not you know the physics behind the correlation yet – you are not going to be able to define where and whether any putative anthropogenic effect exists.
As for the possibility of missing some cyclical effects because the cycles mutually cancel, Nicola Scafetta’s recent paper, for example, explicitly states (page 14, near end) that “Note that during the period 1915–1940 the decadal cycle seems to disappear because during this period the 9.1 and 10.5 year cycles interfere destructively.” It is precisely by performing the analysis of the cyclical effects that such cancellations are discovered – not just guessed at, or agonised over, but discovered. Why do so many people find it so hard to believe that our solar system, having had millions of years to settle down, exhibits internal resonances in its energetic structure which might well affect climatic conditions on our little speck of rock?
As Axel rightly points out, (not to mention the man himself), Piers Corbyn predicts from an astrophysical base and produces excellent prognoses repeatedly; the UK Met Office predicts from trying to model the physics and, er, doesn’t. You can scathingly dismiss his forecasts as “astrology”, or whatever, but the yawning gap in predictive ability speaks for itself.
I’m happy to take a knowledgable interpretation of cyclical variations over a hopeful extrapolation of known principles for now, and will cheerfully wait while people try to work out just how the (known, observed) cyclical variations arise out of the physics of the situation. When those who argue from a non-cyclical physical base can predict with comparable accuracy to the cycles crowd, I’ll put the same weight on their predictions. As things stand currently, the proponents of cycles predict coming conditions far better, even though we may not yet have worked out exactly why, which suggests that the secular correlations are not merely “significant”, they are the best indication we have of what might be going on “underneath”.
Anybody that thinks the sun doesn’t affect climate is either a fool or a charlatan ot both !
Anybody that thinks the “solar constant” is constant is either a fool or a charlatan ot both !
Anybody who thinks that the solar insolation is one quarter of the “solar constant” is either a fool or a charlatan ot both – what happened to the other three quarters !
Anybody who thinks the temperature on the Earth would be minus 18 centigrade “without greenhouse gases” while knowing the moon reaches ~120 centigrade during the lunar day (as predicted by Stefan-Boltzman for ~1368 W/sq m) is either a fool or a charlatan ot both !
I have no doubt the sun can fry us (unlike the measly 342 w/sqm allowed in the “energy budget”) but our atmosphere and oceans moderate the power – I find it inconceivable that a trace gas has much effect. I was taught the water cycle was the most important factor and when I compare the proven physical properties of water to the proven physical properties of CO2 I bet the multiphase, latent heat energy absorbing water molecule is so much more significant than a trace gas which is 50 to 60 times less abundant than the vapour phase of water and completely insignificant compared to the liquid phase.
What is it today that people seem to want tobelieve in doomsday – I want to get on with life not worry over some completely unlikely scenario.
Did the dinosaurs suffer from hotter temperatures and “climate change” or disruption or whatever sill new name they come up with next ? I think they lasted millions of years without succumbing to increased temperature induced climate catastrophes.
Leif Svalgaard says:
November 15, 2011 at 11:52 pm
Would it be fair that your argument is summed up by saying:
a) The sun during prolonged activity has no extra influence on the earth or it’s climatic state, nor does prolonged inactivity through it’s cycles.
b) Aurora, through heightened solar activity, is unaffected by frequency, intensity, lunar or seasonal position of earth and is the result of solar wind reaching earth caused by CMEs and there are no climatic observations to be made here relating to temperature anomalies or earths climatic state.
c) During solar activity as the sun ascends to a much quieter state, no effect can be observed in relation to earths climatic state.
d) Astronomers and Physicists have been collecting and studying centuries of useless data in relation to solar cycles and Earths climatic state.
Good luck trying to find that mysterious and illusive insignificant anthropogenic signal related to earths climatic state!
🙂
Well.. if this has not turned into the most entertaining dog-fight that I have ever spent my lunch time on (in Hout Bay, Cape Town)…
I have absolutely no dog in this fight, but come on guys.. give Leif a break. He is only human (although he may dispute that statement) and from what I can see, loving this rather lightweight paper merely constitutes indulging in a little confirmation bias. In all the many moons I have spent lurking on these threads I have never NOT known Leif to come out with guns blazing at the mere mention of more solar influence than the 0.1 degree (or whatever) so frequently quoted. Personally I love and appreciate deeply having my humble mind opened to the more interesting and promising lines of reasoning and research relating to the possible (probable?) influences of the solar system and cosmos on the conditions of our existence. Thanks to all…
Sparks says:
November 16, 2011 at 2:55 am
Would it be fair that your argument is summed up by saying:
No, you are too simplistic.
a) The sun during prolonged activity has no extra influence on the earth or it’s climatic state, nor does prolonged inactivity through it’s cycles.
There is a small 0.1 degree change related to solar activity.
b) Aurora, through heightened solar activity, is unaffected by frequency, intensity, lunar or seasonal position of earth and is the result of solar wind reaching earth caused by CMEs and there are no climatic observations to be made here relating to temperature anomalies or earths climatic state.
No, there are fewer aurorae near the solstices, because the interaction between the solar wind and the Earth has a component depending on the angle between the Earth’s magnetic field and the direction of the solar wind flow.
c) During solar activity as the sun ascends to a much quieter state, no effect can be observed in relation to earths climatic state.
See a)
d) Astronomers and Physicists have been collecting and studying centuries of useless data in relation to solar cycles and Earths climatic state.
No, both data sets are useful for other things.
Good luck trying to find that mysterious and illusive insignificant anthropogenic signal related to earths climatic state!
I think such a small [but not mysterious] signal will eventually be found lurking behind the large natural variability of the climate. Luck has little to do with it.
The is usual CAGW meme, after all it is on the roundup to Durban.
By coincident I have started to build a computer model describing the climate using similar possible climate forcing signals. The purpose I have is to identify possible forcing agents and their magnitudes. I like building computer models BTW.
Of course if I get any meaningful results I will publish it together with a description and with the computer code. This of course is not a standard practice used by today’s climate scientists.
===
Warning to the online climate discussion community:
Leif Svalgaard’s uniform 0.1K theory-based ABSTRACTION of solar-climate relations is RAZED by OBSERVATIONAL data.
===
William says:
November 15, 2011 at 11:46 am
“Solar activity, together with human activity, is considered a possible factor for the global warming observed in the last century. However, in the last decades solar activity has remained more or less constant while surface air temperature has continued to increase, which is interpreted as an evidence that in this period human activity is the main factor for
global warming.”
A pot of water on a stove continues to rise in temperature even if the flame is held constant. I’m not saying that the sun is a flame or the ocean a vessel of water. Do I really need to?
Solar activity rose to a sustained high level in the latter half of the twentieth century. This period of solar activity is called “The Modern Maximum”.
Obviously Leif’s detrending removed the signal of interest. His analysis wouldn’t find the flame under a pot of warming water either because both the flame and temperature rise are trends and detrending removes them.
Leif did a bang up job of showing how not to do something. Sort of like showing that using a flyswatter is not the way to pound nails into wood. I fail to see how this “paper” increases our knowledge of the world just as pointing out that a flyswatter won’t work as a hammer doesn’t increase our knowledge of carpentry.
If this study is robust statistically (looks at all the data and includes error bands), the results will leave the null hypothesis in place (Judith, take note). If another researcher objects and says this, “But during this or that particular decade it IS significant!”, it cannot be taken as an equal opposing argument. The null hypothesis still must stand.
M.A.Vukcevic says:
November 16, 2011 at 12:24 am
“If specific data records are examined closely there are irrefutable links between geomagnetic and the temperature data. This can be found easily in data relating to middle and high latitudes data for the Atlantic regions of the Northern Hemisphere, which due to volatility of its magnetic field is far more sensitive to the solar disturbances, than it is case for the more stable southern hemisphere.”
Per my usual when I see something I wasn’t aware of [my emphasis] I check it out. The act of so doing led to this web page produced by The British Geological Survey:
http://www.geomag.bgs.ac.uk/education/earthmag.html
The Earth’s Magnetic Field: An Overview
I must say my knowledge of the earth’s magnetic field was quite deficient in detail. I mean I knew the magnetic pole wandered and there were periodic reversals but other than that I though it was a featureless thing with smooth consistent field lines from north to south pole like the classic lines in iron filings on a sheet of paper with a bar magnet on it.
Thanks for inspiring me to learn more. I was particularly intrigued by figure 7 which is a graph of the rate of change of declination from 1900 to 2010 and how this bears an eerie resemblance to the AMDO. Methinks there might be more here related to climate variation than is commonly thought.
I must say that was quite educational.
The Sun’s output is constant. It has no influence on climate. Forget that pesky UV….
But most important, the Earth is the center of the Universe!!
Leif Svalgaard says:
November 16, 2011 at 5:20 am
There is a small 0.1 degree change related to solar activity.
This statement really doesn’t look good and severely exposes you to questioning. You are very aware of other solar influences that are currently being evaluated that provide a far greater range than the TSI only variant you peddle relentlessly (TSI also being subject to inconsistencies). You should recognize the science is not settled in this area and not make such grand statements that look to support the AGW crowd..
Dave Springer says:
November 16, 2011 at 5:57 am
Solar activity rose to a sustained high level in the latter half of the twentieth century. This period of solar activity is called “The Modern Maximum”.
There most likely was no Modern Maximum as the sunspot numbers are artificially inflated after 1945. See http://www.leif.org/research/IAUS286-Mendoza-Svalgaard.pdf and the assessment at the end of the Meeting: http://www.leif.org/EOS/Discussion_20111007_Schrijver.pdf slide 10
Obviously Leif’s detrending …
Not my paper. And the conclusion of the authors is that their analysis cannot reject that “(1) The role of solar‐terrestrial interaction in recent climate change is wholly contained in the long‐term trends we removed in order to reduce autocorrelation and nonstationarity.”
Pamela Gray says:
November 16, 2011 at 6:12 am
The null hypothesis still must stand.
The conclusion of the paper was basically that the null hypothesis cannot be rejected with present data.
Geoff Sharp says:
November 16, 2011 at 6:43 am
You are very aware of other solar influences that are currently being evaluated that provide a far greater range than the TSI only variant you peddle relentlessly (TSI also being subject to inconsistencies). You should recognize the science is not settled in this area and not make such grand statements that look to support the AGW crowd..
Science is never settled. The current evaluations of spectral irradiance variation show a 0.05K effect, e.g. http://lasp.colorado.edu/sorce/news/2011ScienceMeeting/docs/presentations/6b_Cahalan_Sedona_9-15-2011.pdf
Sparks says:
November 15, 2011 at 4:00 pm
“Gravity is stronger over the poles than it is over the equator therefor the poles will attract (build up) more charged particles,”
This [my emphasis] is not correct (by which I mean it is wrong). Centrifugal force increases with decreasing latitude so the closer you are to the equator the less you will weigh because centrifugal force is countering the force of gravity. The difference is about 0.3%
The force of gravity itself is actually slightly weaker at the pole because the earth is slightly flattened there. Imagine an exaggerated earth where it is a completely flattened into a disk. The pole would be at the center and the equator at the perimeter. If you were at the center you’d be weightless because gravitational attraction would be pulling you equally in every direction towards the equator.