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.
I find it funny that you guys are arguing over a short temperature trend.
There is nothing unusual going on since the 1850’s.The AGW conjecture has been a proven failure in the idea that CO2 is a significant climate driver.It is telling when R Gates could do no better than ask a question.That has been answered many,many,many times in the last few years.
“Test such as? Please be specific.”
He is still looking for an answer?
ROFLMAO!
cui bono says:
January 22, 2012 at 2:10 am
„You cite a 5.2°C fall from 526 to 531. Are these dates absolutely certain? …
Tree rings from the year 535 A.D. show that the world’s climate was extraordinairily cold.”
It seems to me that the Greenland dates are in question and maybe by 5.5 years for that century. There is a coincidence of the high frequency data from Moberg et al. and the solar tide function of six synodic couples. If these Greenland dates are shifted by +5.5 years, the temperature profiles fits with both.
http://volker-doormann.org/images/gree_com_shift55.gif
Because this shift is not fixed on one year (535 AD), but valid over a century, temporary events cannot be the cause for that temperature gap in 535 AD.
V.
Smokey,
I find it curious that you’d use a Central England Temperature record to reflect what has been happening with global temperatures over the past few centuries. At least use Northern Hemisphere temperatures if you want to even come close to saying something meaningful about global warming. As it is, the CET temperature graph you’ve linked to doesn’t even reflect the full measure of, for example, the Dalton Minimum, in which temperatures declined after making a steady rise from the depths of the LIA. Why do you chose to use such a narrow geographic sample of data when trying to look at something that is global in scale?
Jack Simmons says:
January 22, 2012 at 7:26 am
……..
The CO2-Arctic temperature relationship is pretty well conclusive (there’s none).
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/CO2-Arc.htm
see also:
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/Arctic>.htm
Smokey says:
January 22, 2012 at 10:00 am
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.
Dear Smokey,
Perfectly stated.
Kind regards.
Geomagnetic storm (hit at ~ 16.00GMT) is in progres:
http://flux.phys.uit.no/cgi-bin/plotgeodata.cgi?Last24&site=tro2a&
Edim says:
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.
_______
“…climate continues to cool…”? It has started to cool? Since when? 9 of the 10 warmest years on instrument record have been since the year 2000, with 2011 in that group. Where exactly is the cooling?
Sorry, but the data would seem to put a few holes in the “climate is cooling” meme. No record of such. At the very most you could say that the climate has not been warming as fast over the past decade, but that is hardly the same as “climate continues to cool”. Really, your choice of words belies you underlying belief structure…
R. Gates, “if the planet continues to warm”? Don’t you mean “if the planet resumes warming”? I think we can agree that gilding one’s lilly is rampant in these various posts and comments and you should, given your credentials, be championing unbiased and accurate statements.
There has been a pause in global warming that you are well aware of. And don’t cough up the trendline hair ball. You know as well as anyone here what an inappropriate statistical measure that is for a sometimes chaotic, always oscillating system equipped with intrinsic, natural, and very powerful drivers of this influential, measurable and supremely difficult to cancel noise.
While I also find the solar post a very poor one, I would advise you not to swing the other way lest you sound just like the author.
That’s funny, Gates. CET was fine when it appeared to show warming but now it shows cooling suddenly it’s unreliable.
When it comes to warming, the sceptical argument has always been “so what?” CO2 and temperatures don’t correlate over anything but very short periods. Temperatures over the last decade have been essentially static (or trending down, but lets just say static) yet CO2 has continued to rise. As has been pointed out, temperatures were rising when humans were emitting no significant amounts of CO2.
Again and again these facts have been pointed out to you. Again and again the CO2 premise has been soundly proven false. Again and again you say “I want more proof!” when you have all the evidence you need.
And then you have the gall to refer to sceptics as “hardcore” and “believers”.
Gates says:
“I find it curious that you’d use a Central England Temperature record to reflect what has been happening with global temperatures over the past few centuries. At least use Northern Hemisphere temperatures…” &etc. Gates, you’re easier to deconstruct than arguing with a 9-year old.
The CET is the best recod in the world in it’s long time frame. Nothing will convince you though, because your mind is made up and closed tight. But if you want more locations, see here:
http://oi52.tinypic.com/2agnous.jpg
Copenhagen, Washington DC, New York, Geneva, Minneapolis, Berlin, St. Petersburg, London. Same gradually rising trend lines, and all starting to rise at the same rate before CO2 began to rise. And none of the warming is accelerating despite rising CO2. I also have a link somewhere for 150 world temperatures. Ask, and I’ll find it and post it. But no amount of evidence will ever convince you, will it?
Once again R. Gates, you are gilding your lilly. A sudden onset, then ramping down signal will have several “records” on the way down. It does not mean that the signal is increasing. Such a conclusion cannot be supported based on the “record highs” you speak of. These kinds of signals are easy to make (I’ve made them), and can be observed in nature sans human influence.
Archonix said:
“When it comes to warming, the sceptical argument has always been “so what?” CO2 and temperatures don’t correlate over anything but very short periods. Temperatures over the last decade have been essentially static (or trending down, but lets just say static) yet CO2 has continued to rise. As has been pointed out, temperatures were rising when humans were emitting no significant amounts of CO2.”
_______
Has “so what” to warming always been the skeptical argument? I think you’d find quite a few skeptics right here at WUWT who’d disagree with that.
But your post indicates the common logical fallacy that seems to permeate quite of bit of skeptical argument– and that’s related to the notion that all effects must have the same cause. Of course temperatures have gone up and down in past time frames when human influence was not a factor, and of course the sun (and other natural fluctuations) played a major role in those sub-Milankovitch temperature fluctuations. Not one climate scientist would disagree with this. But the climate is not a random walk, and temperature fluctuations have specfic causes. Yes, the system is complex and chaotic, but not random. Temperature increases had specific forcings associated with them, and trying to figure out what those were is the heart of climate study. Just because the sun or ocean cycles or volcanic activity play a role in temperature fluctuations, does not preclude that the rapid increases in CO2 and other greenhouse gases, to levels not seen in at least 800,000 years, might not also play a role in temperature increases. It is a both a logical fallacy and scientifically unsupportable to think otherwise.
R. Gates:
We are in a long term warming trend, with short up and down trends intermingled.
As far as cause of warming for that long term trend, please be more specific.
The warming started long before co2 rose significantly.
The rate of warming during 1970-2000 was certainly not significantly different than earlier short term warming periods.
I presented literature showing TSI has been constant for well over 100 years to Always Thougtful.
http://www.leif.org/research/The%20long-term%20variation%20of%20solar%20activity.pdf
I can only suggest that you read the “current” literature and research.
Here is a good place to start:
http://www.leif.org/research/
Another question to ask yourself, are current temperatures and rate of warming significantly different that those experienced during the total Holocene? The answer is a resounding no, but don’t take my word for it, do some research for yourself.
Pamela Gray says:
January 22, 2012 at 10:50 am
Once again R. Gates, you are gilding your lilly. A sudden onset, then ramping down signal will have several “records” on the way down. It does not mean that the signal is increasing. Such a conclusion cannot be supported based on the “record highs” you speak of. These kinds of signals are easy to make (I’ve made them), and can be observed in nature sans human influence.
____
I would agree that if the recent decade of higher temperatures (9 of the 10 warmest years on record) is a natural fluctuation, that from a statistical perspective, even once that peak has been reached, it will continue to set records “on the way down” as you say. This is of course logical.
However, if AGW theory is correct, and the recent string of higher temps is not natural and cyclical, but is caused by a longer term forcing (i.e. the buildup of greenhouse gases to levels not seen in at least 800,000 years), then one would expect that we will not see a “peak” anytime soon, and indeed, so the theory goes, we will not see a peak for many centuries, as even if we somehow stopped immediately in the growth of greenhouse gases, the final equalibrium temperature, when all slow “earth system” feedbacks are taking into account won’t occur until then.
So, for climate scientists (who don’t believe the climate is random walk, else why even study climate), the issue becomes one of looking at the total forcings on the system and trying to acertain which ones do what and to what degree. An excellent recent posting on this can be found at:
http://tinyurl.com/86vhqwc
Post hoc ergo procter hoc ad infinitum, amicus Portii?
Seems there’s a case of special pleading going on here, friend Gates, since you’re bringing up logical fallacies. Whilst you are right in a narrow sense, in the broader scheme the burden of proof for your theory of why, now, a minute change in the amount of CO2 should suddenly override all other effects rests on your broad and manly shoulders. You have not yet disproved the null hypothesis and no amount of flawed inductive logic will change that.
It is easy if your recognize that climate is cyclical. If you look at a cyclical curve like the sine curve, you see a nearly flat plateau as the curve passes over its peak. The straight line projections of the AGW curve assume that temperature is rising at a uniform linear slope. (if you lay the AGW projections along the rising front slope of the cyclical curve they both will agree for a considerable period of time, then suddenly diverge with the rate of change suddenly changing to near zero values.)
It is the belief of many “skeptics” that this is where the AGW crowd is going wrong, they are assuming a linear relationship between temperatures and CO2, to what is really the front rising portion of a cyclical curve of natural variability.
Current annual temperatures more closely match a sine curve near its peak than they do the linear projections proposed based on a direct correlation between warming and CO2 levels.
The indicator of a change in direction of a curve is not when it is falling but when the slope goes to zero over a short time span.
Such as this graphic:
http://www.columbia.edu/itc/sipa/math/images/calc_files/image161a.gif
If the zero slope is preceded by a rising slope you are crossing the top of convex curve (cycle). If the zero slope is preceded by a negative slope you are at the bottom of a concave curve (cycle).
Recent annual temperature numbers would fit very nicely along the top of that curve.
Larry
Gates wrote:
“Just because the sun or ocean cycles or volcanic activity play a role in temperature fluctuations, does not preclude that the rapid increases in CO2 and other greenhouse gases, to levels not seen in at least 800,000 years, might not also play a role in temperature increases.”
*MIGHT* play a role? Do you not understand that when the planet warms the CO2 in sea water comes out of solution and enters the atmosphere?.
Would love to see the neutron count overlaid with data about earthquake and volcanic activity.
CG
Archonix says:
January 22, 2012 at 11:11 am
Post hoc ergo procter hoc ad infinitum, amicus Portii?
Seems there’s a case of special pleading going on here, friend Gates, since you’re bringing up logical fallacies. Whilst you are right in a narrow sense, in the broader scheme the burden of proof for your theory of why, now, a minute change in the amount of CO2 should suddenly override all other effects rests on your broad and manly shoulders. You have not yet disproved the null hypothesis and no amount of flawed inductive logic will change that.
__________
I make no “special pleading”. I simply look at what AGW theory says will be happening and then compare it to the actual data. If 9 of the 10 warmest years on instrument record had not occurred since the year 2000, it would weaken the case (though not completely destroy it).
It terms of CO2 and other greenhouse gases “suddenly” overriding other natural forcings, this is not the position of climate scientists at all. Rather, CO2 and other greenhouse gases have been gradually building up in the atmosphere over centuries due to human activity. If you look at the latest attribution studies, you’ll see that CO2 was less of a factor in the early 20th century than it was in the later part of the century, and of course, that influence continues to grow yearly. So there was no “suddenly” about it. It slowly has grown, and slowly has overtook other natural forcings such as solar, ENSO, volcanic, etc. such that now it is the dominant forcing due to the fact that is is 30 to 40% higher than at any time during the past 800,000 years.
This is a most interesting discussion and article. For the science guy it is nice to see conformation more or less, from others, of conclusions and analysis made by myself. For the philosopher guy, I would however suggest we all use just a few more “should and aught” verbs and pronouns, when making projections or interpretations from models.
Smokey, do you have a link other then tinypic to these temperature records?
http://oi52.tinypic.com/2agnous.jpg
I think they are very impressive and I can use them to convince some AGW chicken littles that the world isn;t ending soon due to AGW
@ur momisugly R.Gates: It seems to me you are in need of some “tune up”, you are burning too much CO2 🙂
R. Gates,
Over the past decade, the trend was ~flat. The warming stopped, according to the official temperature indices. Of course, the plateau decade (2000s) will be warmer than the previous warming decade (1990s), by definition. Both solar activity and oceanic/atmospheric oscillations are entering (or have entered) a cooling phase.
Again, I predict that 2010s will be no warmer than 1990s, and therefore a flat linear trend for 1990-2020 (30 years). Time will tell.
Gates wrote:
“I make no “special pleading”. I simply look at what AGW theory says will be happening and then compare it to the actual data.”
You have it backwards. Data trumps theory. If the theory predicts something that doesn’t occur then the theory is wrong.
Hotrod (Larry L):
I appreciate your explanation of curves and reaching peaks etc., and it is much the same that Pamela gave, and so my reply is much the same as it was to her. What if this is not part of a natural cyclical event? What if we do in fact see a continual string of warmer decades in the coming century? My question to you and other skeptics, would be: If you are honest skeptics, then you’ll have some conditions whereby you’ll begin to accept the basic AGW Theory. And to be fair, I’ll gladly once more list the conditions whereby I will begin to have doubts about the basic tenets of AGW theory:
1) We see a decade where there are no new temperature records AND which there was no natural fluctuations (such as a series of large volcanic eruptions) to explain the lack of warming.
2) Ocean Heat content begins to decrease on a long-term basis
3) Arctic sea ice begins to expand on a long-term basis
4) Greenland and Antarctica begin to gain net ice as opposed to seeing loses.
So, to you and other honest skeptics, I’d ask: What are the conditions whereby you’d accept the basic tenets of AGW Theory: i.e. the build up o greenhouses gases (mainly CO2) over the past few centuries due to human activity will lead to increasing global temperatures?