Guest post by David Archibald
When I started out in climate science in 2005, the prevailing view in the sceptic community was that carbon dioxide-caused global warming was real but it wouldn’t be anything as bad as it was painted by the AGW crowd. Sceptics generally thought that climate was a random walk and at that stage we hadn’t quantified the carbon dioxide heating effect. Roy Spencer’s paper finding negative feedbacks from warming was at that stage two years off. At the time, I thought that climate was controlled by the Sun and set out to find the relationship. The relationship had been found by Friis-Christensen and Lassen in 1991, and I extended their work to use solar cycle length as a predictive tool.
Now has come the first paper from Northern Hemisphere scientists to use solar cycle length to predict climate. Three Norwegian researchers, led by Professor Jan-Erik Solheim of the Institute of Theoretical Physics of the University of Oslo, have just published a paper entitled “Solar Activity and Svalbard Temperatures”. It is available at: http://arxiv.org/abs/1112.3256
What these eminent scientists are predicting is significant: “We predict an annual mean temperature decrease for Svalbard of 3.5°C from solar cycle 23 to solar cycle 24 (2009–‐20) and a decrease in the winter temperature of ≈6°C.”
A 6°C temperature decrease in under ten years from the present day! This is significant at two levels. Firstly, it is going to get really cold very soon. This predicted cooling is calculated to have a 95% confidence level. Secondly, it gives the sceptic community a climate forecast that is based on physical evidence, with a statistician signing off. When the predictions of these three wise Norwegian are borne out, that is going to be a big thing.
Figure 3 from the Solheim paper is above. Forecasts for SC24 temperatures based on length of SC23 are given with 95% confidence intervals (diamonds with bars) for the year and winter temperatures. Temperatures over the rest of the decade will return to the early 20th Century.
This figure is from Willis Eschenbach’s post of 12th May, 2010. Location of Svalbard is marked by a snowflake and the North Pole is shown as a red star.
Things are getting curiouser and curiouser regarding just how tightly coupled terrestrial climate and sensible weather are with space weather. Someone shared with me very recent articles about the Black Box findings regarding the Air France crash off of Brazil. Based on the descriptions and transcripts, it appears that there was overt plasma discharge around and INSIDE the plane prior to all h__ breaking loose with the instruments and controls. After the discharge they smelled strong ozone odors. I’m thinking it was Blue Jet direct hit.
RE: Robert Brown says:
December 16, 2011 at 9:08 am
Nature bats last. (I love to roll out this fabulous old Greenie phrase and wave it in various faces).
Nikola Milovic says:
December 16, 2011 at 2:00 am
The very truth the Sun provokes the climate change on the Earth…. I have a solution, if any is interesting in this domain.
Nikola
_____________________________
You can submit the story/article for WUWT here:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/submit-story/
My Husband does technical writing/editing and has offered to fix your article so it is easier for others to read.
Mod see new e-mail address in box and send to Nikola please.
[REPLY: Done. -REP]
I’m looking at Fig.3 and I’m seeing warming if anything. What’s up?
Gareth Phillips says:
December 16, 2011 at 12:25 am
Something I have always found strange is that any increase in ice in the Antarctic is dismissed as just being sea ice, but a reduction in sea ice in the Arctic is seen as critical. What is the difference?
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The differende is hypocricy.
Njorway says:
December 16, 2011 at 1:49 am
“Long live Norway!!!”
Yes, but it will be because of oil,gas, and hydro powerplants, not windmills or solar panels.
Kohl: What’s up indeed. Current looks lower that recent past which was the point, I think.
mkelly – “KR per the link provided above the volume of multi-year ice has been getting larger each year since 2007”
To be blunt, _no_. I believe you are misreading that chart.
The image you linked to graphs percentages, not total volume, unlike the data I pointed you to (http://psc.apl.washington.edu/wordpress/research/projects/arctic-sea-ice-volume-anomaly/).
There’s certainly year-to-year variation in percentages, and as ice volume gets lower I would expect the variance in that percentage data to increase (with less ice, small volume changes will get magnified as percentages). But the trend in old ice, particularly 4-5+, is very distinctly _down_.
In the early 80’s roughly 35% of the ice volume was 5 years old or older. Now it’s only about 5%…
David A said:
“When the predictions of these three wise Norwegian are borne out, that is going to be a big thing.”
——
I think there is a bit of over-confidence in this statement. Probably better to have said “If the predictions of these three…” in looking at their paper in more detail, it appears that the correlation between solar cycle length and temperatures of the following solar cycle is much weaker after about 1980 (especially in summer and spring), and this has previously been pointed out in other solar cycle length/ temperature studies.
I happen to be one who believes the sun was largely responsible for most of the short-term (i.e non-Milankovitch) climate variability prior to our modern era of rapid greenhouse gas build-up, and I definitely believe that solar cycle length is a good general way to see the correlation with temps, but I also see that the correlation begins to weaken around 1980 or so. It is still there, but another signal, most likely the anthopogenic one, is replacing that solar dominance. So, it is likely we will see some cooling based on the solar cycle length increases in SC23, 24, etc. But this forcing to the cool side will be tempered by the longer-term forcing to the warmer side from anthropogenic greenhouse warming.
As I wrote at RealClimate, we now have a collection of predictions for the upcoming 2 decades, though some of the predictions are called “scenarios”, models, or projections. As time goes by, we shall learn which of the many predictions turns out to be the most accurate. It will be one of the most exciting epochs in the history of science. The total worldwide research effort is and will continue to be huge, spurred in part by worries over climate change, and in part by natural scientific interest. Let a thousand schools of thought contend! (only Mao didn’t really mean it.)
This prediction is interesting because it doesn’t require a wait until 2100 to be proven of disproven, but there are some things to bear in mind:
* The link between the length of the solar cycle and the temperature during the following cycle is weak at best for series (elsewhere) prior to about 1850, so either the relationship after is a coincident or the relationship is temporal and could end at any time.
* The observations for the Svalbard meteorological station only go back to 1975. The 1912-1975 period is a reconstruction. For great parts of the series data from stations several tens of km away have been used, stations which may be in quite different climate zones, and even observations from Greenland or just interpolations, and though there are data from Longyearbyen a few km away for quite a few years, temperatures in the town and at the airport are known to differ quite a bit due to the topology, and not necessarily in a systematic way. Temperature has been observed officially both at the airport and in the town for just two years, which is not that much to base the homogenisation on. I discussed this with Humlum a few years ago, who has spent many years in Longyearbyen, I believe, and he gave me a 9 year private temperature record observed just a few hundred meters from the old official sites in Longyearbyen, and that suggested that the reconstructed series might be nearly 1 degree off (too cold) both during the very warm 20’s and 30’s and the cold 60’s. Still, there can be no doubt whatsoever that the reconstruction shows the warming and cooling periods correctly. Only the exact amplitudes seems a bit uncertain.
* The current winter has so far been fairly mild and doesn’t seem to follow the cooling trend of the previous couple of winters, but that could of course still change. The fjord is still ice free (but that’s not exceptional in December).
I think a 100 year record is a bit too short to establish a certain relationship between solar cycle length and the temperature. The prediction of Solheim et al. might turn out to be correct, but I don’t think I’ll be fully convinced that they’re then right for the right reasons. It will add some credibility to the hypothesis, though.
What Robert Brown said.
Maybe now I’m going to have to pay closer attention to my wife when she talks about moving to a warmer climate. And here I was counting on global warming to stay in the Pacific Northwest.
KR says:
But the trend in old ice, particularly 4-5+, is very distinctly _down_.
The link I provided showed the 4-5 year ice was down, but failed to note in what I said and the graph shows that when updated in January all the first year becomes second, the second becomes third, etc. It will not be until 2013 when any first year ice that was left from 2007 can get to the 5 year mark and be added. But the graph shows an upward total of 1st, 2nd and 3rd year ice. So my point remains: it does not keep decreasing.
“Nice to see that E&E has some competition for incompetent publications.”
So your gold standard for publications is the Vatican Printing Office?
mkelly – “KR per the link provided above the volume of multi-year ice has been getting larger each year since 2007″
Do you understand the difference between percentage composition (the graph you pointed to) and total volume (which I pointed to)? If you do, then you are trying to shift the discussion from ice volume to %.
Furthermore, do you understand short term variations versus a longer term trend?
Ice volume, as I said, is decreasing.
Robert Brown says:
December 16, 2011 at 9:08 am
How can one get anyone interested in this? Everybody “knows” that we’re about to melt down, not freeze up. The real problem is that if we freeze up instead, a) we will be completely unprepared for it, I mean really, really unprepared; b) they will come for scientists the world over with pitchforks and torches as several billion people starve…..
………..
G. Karst says:
December 16, 2011 at 9:36 am
….What preparation for cold does ANYONE see being actively considered? Where are the giant UN silos located that are full to the rim with emergency food stocks? …..
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We are seeing the preparations for changes in the World Food Supply. Unfortunately they are not the ones Joe Sixpack would like to see. China, the middle east oil countries, large corporations and hedge funds are buying up large tracts of land in Africa and South America. George Soros is buying up lots of US farmland as is the Army Corp of Engineers.
Whether food is the next big “Investment Bubble” or if it is something much more ominous based on undisclosed scientific knowledge I do not know. Either way having the financial sector messing with the food supply like Goldman Sachs et all did in 2008 creating food riots, I consider that a major problem.
Nice Mea Culpa from Clinton but it did not get rid of NAFTA or the WTO nor did it stop anyone especially the World Bank from considering food as a money making commodity and to heck with the farmers trampled or peasants starved.
Interesting that while the World Bank and her banking buddies are screaming about global warming they are at the same time buying land near the equator just as Al Gore bought ocean front property while screaming about the sea level rise….
I am glad that David has done a lot of research on the subject and testified to Congress. Thanks David.
The Food Bubble: How Wall Street Starved Millions and Got Away With It
http://harpers.org/archive/2010/07/0083022
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/7/16/the_food_bubble_how_wall_street
FARMLAND Grab
http://www.pri.org/stories/world/africa/hedge-funds-buy-massive-tracts-of-farm-land-5343.html
http://farmlandgrab.org/
{warning alarmist site but basic info is true}
http://seeker401.wordpress.com/2011/06/30/george-soros-buying-up-flooded-farmland/
mkelly – Also note that 2007 was one of the low spikes in ice volume, melting off a lot of multi-year ice. It is entirely unsurprising that as 2008-2010 ice ages it will change the percentages.
However – this does not override the ongoing decline in total Arctic ice volume. Yearly variation will (as should be obvious) vary the percentages of ice at each age. But that yearly variation around the trend does not change the long term trend of decreasing ice volume.
I think you are not seeing the forest for the trees…
Robert Brown says:
December 16, 2011 at 9:08 am
b) they will come for scientists the world over with pitchforks and torches as several billion people starve…..
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
It is not just the scientists. They will burn the Universities and the banks to the ground while they are at it. History has taught us an angry mob is nothing to fool with and both the Tea Party republicans and the Occupy Wall Street democrats agree they hate the banks.
Large corporate farms and companies like Monsanto could also be targeted.
There has ALREADY been one incident.
Please, do not fall into the Obama administration trap of equating Occupoopers with the Tea Party folks. Tea Party gatherings have always been civil, public-spirited, and responsible, quite unlike the robotic chanting, irrational anarchism, mindless destruction, and even violence that have marked the OWSers.
Now what would happen in the event of severe food shortages in this country is another story; you might well see angry mobs at a level far beyond anything in our current experience. All the more reason, even if dire predictions of ‘global cooling’ are unlikely, to start discussing how we would deal with a crisis of that magnitude, and what we can do now to be ready. The first job is to sweep the ‘global warming’ hysteria off the stage and into the ash can of history. Warm is good; cold is bad.
First step: Get to the candidates running for public office. Maybe some of them will wise up.
/Mr Lynn
R. Gates;
I think there is a bit of over-confidence in this statement.>>>
Like your over confidence taking a bet with me regarding Al Gore’s on air experiment? Or your over confidence in stating that the globes were superflous? Or your over confidence in asserting that the experiment would produce the results illustrated when even a cursory examination of the set up revealed that the source of the heat was an IT lamp and by all the known physics of the last couple of centuries could not possibly produce the results illustrated? You mean like that?
R. Gates;
But this forcing to the cool side will be tempered by the longer-term forcing to the warmer side from anthropogenic greenhouse warming.>>>
You seem so confident in that statement. Given your demonstrably weak grasp of the physics involved, perhaps you should reword in such a fashion as to reflect that this is simply a contrived opinion on your part to continue the AGW meme, and actually has no basis in science.
Indigo Jones long range weather forcasting in australia used the sun and moon and past history he passed away a number of years ago but you look up his life on the web
I been posting too much on the computer threads. That would be an IR lamp, not an IT lamp 🙂
KR says: “And the Arctic ice cap is decreasing too, at an accelerating rate (see http://psc.apl.washington.edu/wordpress/research/projects/arctic-sea-ice-volume-anomaly/) – 2011 ice volume looks to be as low or lower than 2007. As that year-round Arctic ice goes away there is a direct effect on decreasing summer albedo – hence a warming feedback.”
It’s actually not that simple. One should note that KR’s link leads to an arctic sea ice chart that is based on modeling:
“Sea Ice Volume is calculated using the Pan-Arctic Ice Ocean Modeling and Assimilation System (PIOMAS, Zhang and Rothrock, 2003) developed at APL/PSC.”
Also, note that the albedo of open water at high zenith angles, as found at the poles, overlaps the albedo of ice. “Old ice,” for one thing, often exhibits surface effects from weathering and particulates (such as Chinese carbon) that lowers its albedo. Open water during winter has a much higher emittance than ice, and loses heat faster. There will always be ice at the poles in winter. Nor is Arctic ice loss solely related to putative AGW temperatures. Wind and sea currents can accelerate ice loss via transport out of the Arctic sea. It’s not as simple as KR seems to assert.
jorgekafkazar – Ice in the winter (during the Arctic night) isn’t going to affect albedo. Lack of ice in the summer, on the other hand…
“the albedo of open water at high zenith angles, as found at the poles, overlaps the albedo of ice… Old ice,” for one thing, often exhibits surface effects … that lowers its albedo.”
High zenith angles also interact with surface angles – i.e., waves and snow ridges. Note that snow has an albedo of 0.9 (0.8 for more textured Antarctic snow, though), while water in the visible wavelengths has an albedo of 0.1 at 60 degrees, <0.2 until you exceed 75 degrees, and is <0.8 until you reach an angle of about 85-88 degrees – and with waves, you just don't have a flat surface. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albedo – It would require a _lot_ of dirt to reduce snow albedo to the level of ocean water albedo.
So no, nothing (when examined closely enough) is simple. But the overall picture still holds.
—
Re: PIOMAS and models – the PIOMAS method is constantly being checked against submarine soundings, ice cap cores, and other direct observations. Every discussion of the uncertainties of that method that I have seen indicate that it may be conservatively overestimating ice volume. If you have disagreements with their methodology, feel free to point them out, though – I’m sure Zhang and Rothrock would love to refine their technique.
—
Agreed – currents and weather hugely influence volume and extent on a yearly variation basis. That said, however, a lower trending ice volume is far more susceptible to being washed out of the Arctic basin or piled up…
KR,
The North Pole has been ice free during the Holocene, and it may well be ice free again, since the planet is still warming from the LIA. So what? It’s natural variability.
What you are avoiding is claiming that anthropogenic CO2 is the cause of Arctic ice decline. Smart. Anyone who claims that is operating on an evidence-free belief system.
And I might add that the reason alarmists get a tingle running up their leg with Piomass is because of the scary Piomass chart, with the wild y-axis that makes it look like the Arctic will be completely ice free within the next twenty minutes. The antidote is a good healthy dose of John Daly.