Guest post by David Archibald
Figure 1: Ap Index 1932 – 2012
The Ap Index is the weakest of the solar activity indicators and has returned below the floor value of solar minima over the last 80 years – the green line in the chart above.
Figure 2: Solar Cycles 20 and 24 Ap Index and Neutron Count
The last time there was a cooling event in the modern instrument record was during Solar Cycle 20. Aligned on the month of minimum, Figure 2 shows that while the Ap Index and neutron count are co-incident to date in Solar Cycle 24, they were quite divergent over two thirds of Solar Cycle 20.
Figure 3: Neutron Counts over Solar Cycles 20 to 24
One big difference between Solar Cycle 20 and the other solar cycles of the modern instrument record is that just over half way through the cycle, the neutron count returned to levels of solar minima and remained there for the balance of the cycle. That is shown in Figure 3 above which also shows that the neutron count of Solar Cycle 24 is yet to depart from levels associated with previous minima, three years into the solar cycle.
Further to the post on Solar Cycle 24 length based on Altrock’s green corona diagram at:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/01/08/solar-cycle-24-length-and-its-consequences/, Altrock noted the slow progress of Solar Cycle 24 in mid-2011. From Altrock, R.C., 2010, “The Progress of Solar Cycle 24 at High Latitudes”:
“Cycle 24 began its migration at a rate 40% slower than the previous two solar cycles, thus indicating the possibility of a peculiar cycle. However, the onset of the “Rush to the Poles” of polar crown prominences and their associated coronal emission, which has been a precursor to solar maximum in recent cycles (cf. Altrock 2003), has just been identified in the northern hemisphere. Peculiarly, this “rush” is leisurely, at only 50% of the rate in the previous two cycles.”
Altrock’s green corona diagram is available here: http://www.boulder.swri.edu/~deforest/SPD-sunspot-release/6_altrock_rttp.pdf
If Solar Cycle 24 is progressing at 60% of the rate of the previous two cycles, which averaged ten years long, then it is likely to be 16.6 years long. Using that figure of 16.6 years would make Solar Cycle 24 seven years longer than Solar Cycle 22. Using a solar cycle length – temperature relationship for the US – Canadian border of 0.7°C per year of solar cycle length, a total temperature decline of 4.9°C is predicted over a period of about twenty years.
Has a fall of that magnitude happened in that time frame happened in the past? A good place to look is the Dye 3 temperature record from the Greenland Plateau, available here: ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/icecore/greenland/gisp/dye3/dye3-1yr.txt
Figure 4: Dye 3 Temperature Record from Oxygen Isotope Ratios
There is plenty of noise in this record and rapid swings in temperature, for example the 5.2°C fall from 526 to 531 at the beginning of the Dark Ages.
Figure 5: Dye 3 Temperature Record 22 Year Smoothed
Averaging the Dye 3 temperature record using the 22 year length of the Hale Cycle produces a lot of detail. What is evident is that there has been a very disciplined temperature decline over the last four thousand years. The whole temperature record is bounded by two parallel lines with a downslope of 0.3°C per thousand years. The fact that no cooling event took the Dye 3 temperature below the lower bounding green line over nearly four thousand years is quite remarkable. It implies that solar events do not exceed a particular combination of frequency and amplitude. From that it can be derived that this particular combination of frequency and amplitude with be ongoing – that is that cooling events will happen just as frequently as they did during the Dye 3 record.
Figure 6: North – South Transect through the Grain Belt
The relationship between temperature and growing conditions at about the latitude of the US – Canadian border is that one degree C will shift growing conditions by about 140 km. With a total 4.9°C temperature decline in train, that means a shift of about 700 km. Figure 6 shows the result of that temperature decline. Witchita will end up with the climate of Sioux Falls, which in turn will be like Saskatoon now. The growing season loses a month at each end.
David: I don’t understand your point.
Are you simply noting the correlation between AP Index and temperature and atributing causation?
Do you believe neutrons from the sun influence the earth’s temperature? If so, how?
Does this tie in with Svensmark’s theory? If so, how?
Stephan Richards echoes another concern: “I am uncomfortablewith graphs that have no scale names and with graphs that have very different timescales with no clear reason.”
Please label your graphs and follow up with a clear summary of how the AP index influences the earth’s temperature.
Ian E: Nice. Worlds shortest joke: “A baby seal walks into a club.”
The good news is, since the CO2 is higher now, the plants will grow faster allowing for the possibility of still having a successful growing season if it is shorter.
My theory:
1) Surface of the core [where fusion takes place] is depleted of Hydrogen.
2) Less fusion, less neutrons.
3) The Sun, near the core shrinks, doesn’t become more active until the Hydrogen levels increase in density. The density increase takes 20 to 50 years.
4) Two cycles; the ~11 year, the ~400 year [2 x 180 years].
5) We are into the ~400 year cycle.
The neutron count is the easiest way to determine the surface of the core activity. Neutrons are essentially not affected by electrical fields, magnetic fields. Since they have a mass slightly greater than a proton, they are only affected by gravity.
Quiet Sun, colder temperatures on Earth; active Sun, warmer temperatures on Earth.
Question: How does the fusion process affect gravity??
Gates:
… aka the null hypothesis. “The sun did it” is the default position to take; it doesn’t need “proving” in the popular sense of the word.
The CO2 position is the newcomer and it needs to be tested. So far, the few empirical tests designed to demonstrate the CO2 effect have generally falsified it or remained inconclusive which, in scientific terms, is pretty much the same thing. Null hypothesis wins again.
I too hope you’re wrong Mr Archibald. The last thing 8 billion (or however many) people need is less farmland.
Pamela Gray says:
January 22, 2012 at 7:16 am
How did the ‘pond’ get warm in the first place? Volcanism?
Archonix said:
“So far, the few empirical tests designed to demonstrate the CO2 effect have generally falsified it or remained inconclusive…”
_____
Test such as? Please be specific.
Edim says:
“The cooling will really kick in after the SC24 plateau (~2013-2015) and it will be dramatic.”
______
This seems to be the meme among some skeptics. It seems they’ve put their full faith in the belief that the solar variaitons trump everything. I am wondering what new meme they’ll have to embrace if the planet continues to warm after the SC24 plateau. Anything of course, other than accept the possibility that the buildup in greenhouses gases could be significant enough now to overpower solar variations.
Well, scratch planting palm trees in my backyard in Ohio. I was so looking forward to beach front property too.
The True Believer says:
“It will be all more evidence (except of course to hardcore skeptics), of the potency of the increases in greenhouse gases if, rather than go into a period of cooling, that the earth continues to warm over the next few decades. It would mean that the sun has indeed taken a back seat to anthropogenic effects.”
First, there are no “hardcore skeptics”. There are either skeptics [the only honest kind of scientists], or there are those who deceptively try to elevate the AGW conjecture to the status of a theory. CO2 may cause some minor warming, but the warming is a net benefit, as is the added CO2. Skeptics are critical of the “carbon” scare for a very good reason: there is no testable evidence supporting it.
On all time scales from months to hundreds of millennia, ΔCO2 follows ΔT. If CO2 had “potency”, then temperatures would closely track changes in CO2. But we know that is not the case. In fact, it appears that the rise in global temperature and the rise in CO2 is mostly, if not entirely coincidental, because CO2 only began rising with the industrial revolution – but global temperatures have been steadily rising along the same trend line for hundreds of years prior to the recent rise in CO2. That is a fact, so how can anyone credibly attribute the rise in temperature to CO2?
CO2 is harmless, and it is beneficial to the biosphere. More is better. Evidence shows that the largest part of the anthropogenic effect comes from changes in land use, such as the UHI effect. The planet will probably continue to warm along the same long term trend line it has followed since the LIA. To attribute that warming primarily to human-emitted CO2 is stubborn true belief in the face of contrary facts.
Stephen Rasey says:
January 22, 2012 at 2:28 am
Re: John Finn: Which cooling event …
Time Magazine Cover: April 8, 1977 “How to survive the coming Ice Age”
Hey, if you can’t trust TIME Magazine…..
You didn’t read (or didn’t understand) my post properly. The cooling didn’t begin in the 1970s or the 1960s – it began in the 1940s. David is trying to associate the mid-20th century cooling with the weak solar cycle 20 which started in 1964 – i.e. 20 years after the cooling kicked in. In actual fact global temperatures rose slightly after the mid-1960s. That’s using actual data rather than a magazine article.
The cooling had nothing to do with solar cycle 20. The cooling wewas pretty much over by the time solar cycle 20 started.
R. Gates says:
January 22, 2012 at 9:09 am
“Test such as? Please be specific.”
Here’s one:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/climate-fail-files/gore-and-bill-nye-fail-at-doing-a-simple-co2-experiment
Update:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/09/28/video-analysis-and-scene-replication-suggests-that-al-gores-climate-reality-project-fabricated-their-climate-101-video-simple-experiment
A D-O event would indeed be catastrophic because world trade in agri commodities would fall in nonlinear fashion. High commodity prices would induce potential exports from countries not experiencing impacts of cold climate change, but those source populations would then see extreme price moves in their home markets and attempt to enforce food protectionism. Food prices would spike on any news of further disruptions or and potential changes in trade flows from traditional suppliers. Somewhere in that late hour there might actually be a statement from retreating policymakers along the lines of ‘who could have known’ or ‘never let a good crisis go to waste.’
Smokey,
You really missed the whole point in those “experiments”. They said nothing about the function of CO2’s LW absorption spectrum. For you to throw those out as experiments that dissprove basic greenhouse gas theory is laughable in the extreme.
To label “greenhouse gases” a “theory” is laughable in the extreme. A theory makes repeatable, accurate predictions. GHG? LOL. Fail, pseudo-skeptic. The GHG conjecture can’t predict it’s way out of a wet paper bag, and the null hypothesis debunks it. As does Occam’s Razor.
Archonix asked for a test, which was cited. And there is also R.W. Woods experiment that debunked the greenhouse effect. His test has been replicated and confirmed. Not that I would expect a true believer who can’t even get the definition of ‘theory’ right to accept Wood’s experiment, or any other experiment that causes doublethink. Cognitive dissonance closes minds to inconvenient facts.
Smokey said:
“First, there are no “hardcore skeptics”.”
____
I disagree. There are those who, no matter what evidence is given to them, will continue with their beliefs. These “True Believers”, are found in every group, skeptic and warmist alike. They will go to their graves believing that they “know” they are right.
The honest skeptic is willing to change their beliefs, and as such, is skeptical even about their own skepticism…i.e. they are always looking at the true basis of their skepticism, and making sure it hasn’t become a religion.
R Gates imagines:
“ ‘True Believers’, are found in every group, skeptic and warmist alike.”
Not really, Gates. Skeptics are simply saying: “Prove it.” Or at least, provide convincing evidence that CO2=CAGW. The claim is entirely on the part of the alarmist crowd, therefore they are the True Believers because they have no testable evidence to support their beliefs. The onus is never on skeptics to prove a negative, much as you wish it were so.
Smokey said:
“Cognitive dissonance closes minds to inconvenient facts.”
_____
Indeed. I couldn’t agree more. Hence, why I am baffled by the fact that AGW skeptics keep citing the cooling that is upon on or coming or some such thing, and yet 9 of 10 warmest years on instrument record have occurred since the year 2000, with the only one outside of that time period being 1998. How is that skeptics simply dismiss this rather impressive string of warmer years? Furthermore, this tendency to see warmer years (on decadal time scales) is precisely what is expected in the Theory of AGW, that posits that human contributions to greenhouse concentrations in the atmosphere will lead to warmer and warmer conditions over the coming century. I should think this string of inconvenient facts must cause quite a bit of cognitive dissonance to “true believer” skeptics.
R. Gates says (January 22, 2012 at 8:36 am)
“potency of the increases in greenhouse gases”
No correlation between CO2 and temps:
1912 to 1961: temperature increase 0.52C, CO2 increase 18ppm.
1962 to 2011: temperature increase 0.41C, CO2 increase 74ppm.
http://www.thegwpf.org/the-climate-record/4808-100-years-of-co2-rise-and- – temperature lchange.htm
Any comment on “Warming since 1975 to 2008 is slightly more than 1915-44.”? (email 2234, Nov 2009, Phil Jones )
“It’s the sun, stupid” has been the explanation for centuries. CO2 and GHGs for only decades.
Maybe we had truth before we invented error. Frankly, I don’t know what drives the climate, or how, but CO2 is nowhere near having it’s culprit status confirmed.
Oh dear. Try again.
http://www.thegwpf.org/the-climate-record/4808-100-years-of-co2-rise-and-temperature-change.html
In other words, you’re saying that in a free market economy smart money is on an increased demand for energy in the future whereas more Leftist government hegemony over scarce resources and central planning based on the dogma of modern liberal utopianism will result in a lot more misery, poverty and death, right?
R. Gates@9:49
How correct you are. A skeptic looks for causeation and not just correlation. A skeptic looks at all the knowledge that is presently available, and understands that said knowledge is continuously improved and confirmed.
The current abatement in the rate of warming is somewhat alarming. TSI/Sunspot reconstructions indicate that during the 20th century there was very little variation in TSI. What is not as well known is the variation in the bands within said TSI.
Another unknown based on current literature is why we warmed at the same rate during the early 20th century and the late 20th century.
The actual study with instrumentation of our sun is very new. We have a tremendous amount to learn. This cycle, as I stated earlier, is different as there appears to be the L&P effect. What that portends for the future is anyone’s guess.
CO2 is a minor greenhouse gas. It kept rising as the temperatures fell in the past, and I don’t think there will be an exception this time if our primary driver decides to do something out of the ordinary.
R. Gates
“This seems to be the meme among some skeptics. It seems they’ve put their full faith in the belief that the solar variaitons trump everything. I am wondering what new meme they’ll have to embrace if the planet continues to warm after the SC24 plateau. Anything of course, other than accept the possibility that the buildup in greenhouses gases could be significant enough now to overpower solar variations.”
—————–
Solar variation is the knob and it trumps everything. It’s the firing part of the “boiler”. There are of course other variables. Regarding CO2, I agree with Salby that it sits in the back while temperature drives. So, there’s nothing unusual about buildups in atmosphere during warming periods.
The problem is that warmists have put their full faith in the belief that CO2 trumps everything, which is absurd for many reasons. I am wondering what new meme they’ll have to embrace if the climate continues to cool.
Gates,
You are “baffled” because you don’t read what is written. Show me where I’ve *ever* written that ‘cooling is upon us’. I wrote: “it appears that the rise in global temperature and the rise in CO2 is mostly, if not entirely coincidental, because CO2 only began rising with the industrial revolution – but global temperatures have been steadily rising along the same trend line for hundreds of years prior to the recent rise in CO2. That is a fact, so how can anyone credibly attribute the rise in temperature to CO2?”
So far, the rising temperature trend line remains unbroken:
http://i35.tinypic.com/2db1d89.jpg
Looking at that chart, it is obvious that later years will be warmer. It is also obvious that CO2 is not the cause, since CO2 only began rising – slowly – only around 1860. Those plain facts debunk your insistence on using the anti-science term ‘theory’ when referring to the AGW conjecture. When you mis-use words it either addles your mind, or it is the result of an addled mind. Which is it in your case?
Hoser, honestly. We are talking about trends and change, otherwise known as “anomalous” change. Of course solar IR is absorbed by the oceans and results in heat. It even heats land surfaces. That you confuse the two topics (heating, and change in ocean and land temperature trends over long periods of time) speaks volumes.