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.
Edim says:
January 22, 2012 at 11:26 am
R. Gates,
Over the past decade, the trend was ~flat. The warming stopped, according to the official temperature indices.
_____
This argument, that “the warming stopped”, doesn’t stand up to analysis. Attribution studies, such as this one:
http://tinyurl.com/86vhqwc
Show quite the opposite. The warming from the additional greenhouse gases is still very much present, and can simply be masked by natural fluctuations. Everyone knows, for example, that during La Nina periods, we generally don’t see record high temperatures, but rather, as the oceans take up more net energy, there is less to be releases to the atmosphere. But the fact that 2011 was the warmest La Nina year on record means nothing to skeptics for some reason, yet it should speak volumes about the underlying warming.
Suppose that we get a record warm year in sometime between 2012-2015, with perhaps an El Nino coinciding near solar max 24 (however weak it might be). What will skeptics attribute this to? If we’re entering a “cooling period” how can we have a record warm year? Where is that heat comiing from? Why would it have been warmer than the last big El Nino year of 1998?
R. Gates:
From you link the certainty is not present. Good read tho…..thank you.
“However, our results
imply that CanESM2 overestimates the response to greenhouse
gases, natural forcings, and particularly aerosols, and
we find that its multi-decadal internal climate variability is
lower than that in other models. We therefore recommend
caution in interpreting the scaled projections derived from
this single model, since our uncertainty estimates account
only for possible errors in the magnitude of the simulated
responses to the forcings, and not for possible errors in the
observations, in the forcings, or in the spatio-temporal patterns
of response to those forcings?
R. Gates says:
January 22, 2012 at 11:22 am
“I make no “special pleading”. I simply look at what AGW theory says will be happening and then compare it to the actual data. ”
When I look at what AGW theory said and then compare it to the actual data it is with a feeling of great happiness! Won’t you please come to the party?
Gates wrote:
“Where is that heat comiing from?”
The big yellow ball in the sky.
Bob B,
I’m not sure exactly what you’re asking for. More charts? General information?
The following sites have lots of information and charts:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/05/23/little-ice-age-thermometers-–-history-and-reliability-2
http://www.john-daly.com
http://www.scirp.org/journal/PaperInformation.aspx?PaperID=3217&JournalID=69
http://www.greenworldtrust.org.uk/Science/Curious.htm
http://www.climate4you.com
http://www.mrc.org/bmi/uploads/pdf/FireandIce.pdf
http://www.c3headlines.com
[There are more good sites along the WUWT right sidebar under “skeptical views”.]
Here are some charts similar to the one you commented on:
http://img576.imageshack.us/img576/2681/temperaturewithrealbase.gif
http://vortex.accuweather.com/adc2004/pub/includes/columns/climatechange/2011/590x189_12100149_sc_rss_compare_ts_channel_tlt_v03_3.png
http://jonova.s3.amazonaws.com/graphs/hadley/Hadley-global-temps-1850-2010-web.jpg
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/USHCNvsCO2.jpg
http://members.shaw.ca/sch25/FOS/GlobalTroposphereTemperaturesAverage.jpg
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_cHhMa7ARDDg/SoxiDu0taDI/AAAAAAAABFI/Z2yuZCWtzvc/s1600/Geocarb%2BIII-Mine-03.jpg
http://notrickszone.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/Bastardi-10-years.gif
http://c3headlines.typepad.com/.a/6a010536b58035970c0128772998bd970c-pi
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/8YearTemps.jpg
http://www.climate4you.com/images/HadCRUT3%20GlobalMonthlyTempSince1940%20AndCO2.gif
R Gates:
What would it take to change my position?
Well, I once was an ardent believer in AGW. The more literature I read, the more uncertainty I recognized in the belief. As I observed the failings of some of the major AGW supposed outcomes, such as stratospheric cooling not happening for over 15 years…..in fact a bit of warming….as just one example….my belief went with the science rather than the conjecture.
When I see a break to the upside of significance in the long term rebound since the LIA, and there is not a cause presented for this break to the upside that can be anything but increased co2…that will capture my interest.
Till that time, there is absolutely no evidence that the present rate of warming is extraordinary at all.
R. Gates :
January 22, 2012 at 11:48 am
The greeks had a word for it, hubris. To call “record high temperatures” the temperatures we have now at the end of the holocene is hubris.
When one contemplates the temperatures of the Holocene, one sees fluctuations equal and even larger than the present one. I would say that the record temperatures were about 7500 years ago.
We are long overdue a dip to the next ice age, fortunately.
Hi Gates
Some ideas on the CET, cycles, future extrapolation etc.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/CET-NVa.htm
Edim says:
“Again, I predict that 2010s will be no warmer than 1990s”
_____
Then it better start cooling very fast if your prediction is going to come true. 2010 and 2011 have already been warmer than any year in the 1990’s except 1998, and it looks like 2012-2015 at least will also be warmer. This will only give you 2016-2019 for cooling to the 1990’s level, and it would have to be very very severe and rapid to see the decade of the 2010’s not warmer than the 1990’s.
Oh man!
The temperature trends from the 1850’s is falling within the first sigma line.
http://www.globalwarmingskeptics.info/forums/showthread.php?tid=1103&pid=9923#pid9923
The THREE warming trends since the 1850’s are nearly identical.
http://www.globalwarmingskeptics.info/forums/showthread.php?tid=1103&pid=8790#pid8790
There is NO evidence of any warming acceleration at all!
DR. Jones himself admits all this as true.There is nothing unusual going on.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8511670.stm
I am baffled on why this is so hard for AGW believers to grasp.
In reply to R. Gates says:
January 22, 2012 at 10:55 am
“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.”
Emphatically stating that is irrational to question the magnitude of the 20th century warming that is attributable to CO2, does not make that that statement correct.
Life can not exist on this planet without CO2. CO2 is not a pollutant. Atmospheric CO2 is the lowest in 500 million years. Plants eat CO2. Commercial greenhouses inject CO2 to reduce growing times and increase yields. The optimum level of CO2 for plant growth is 1000 ppm to 1500 ppm. Increases in atmospheric CO2 is positive for the biosphere if there is not dangerous planet ending warming.
There is in paleo climatic record periods of millions of years when atmospheric CO2 was high and the planet was cold and low when the planet was warm. The paleoclimatic record supports the assertion that planetary cloud cover regulates and resists climate change.
The changes in the cloud regulating mechanism itself is what cause the past ice epochs (ice house periods of millions of years that occur when the solar system passes through the spiral arms of the galaxy and GCR levels increase by a factor of 10 as that is the region where new stars are formed and that has a high stellar density.)
As noted in my comment above there is a second mechanism by which the sun modulates planetary clouds. The first is changes in the solar solar heliosphere (name for the cloud of magnetic flux that the sun creates about the solar system). The solar heliosphere deflects galactic cosmic rays (the name used for high speed mostly protons ). The GCR strike the atmosphere creating MUONs (heavy electron like particles) that create multiple ions in the atmosphere. The Svensmark in his SKY experiment and the CERN CLOUD experiment confirmed the mechanism.
The second mechanism is solar wind bursts which create a space charge in the ionosphere which in turns removes cloud forming ions which is called electroscavenging. The electroscavenging mechanism removes the ions formed by GCR so even if the GCR is high and neutrons are high there is a reduction in planetary cloud and the planet warms rather than cools.
The warming in the late 20th century was due to electroscavenging and due to a third mechanism. Ionization reduces the levels of high altitude cirrus clouds. The high altitude cirrus clouds warm the earth particularly at high latitude locations in the winter.
http://climate4you.com/images
/GISP2%20TemperatureSince10700%20BP%20with%20CO2%20from%20EPICA%20DomeC.gif
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2009/2009JA014342.shtml
If the Sun is so quiet, why is the Earth ringing? A comparison of two solar minimum intervals.
Observations from the recent Whole Heliosphere Interval (WHI) solar minimum campaign are compared to last cycle’s Whole Sun Month (WSM) to demonstrate that sunspot numbers, while providing a good measure of solar activity, do not provide sufficient information to gauge solar and heliospheric magnetic complexity and its effect at the Earth. The present solar minimum is exceptionally quiet, with sunspot numbers at their lowest in 75 years and solar wind magnetic field strength lower than ever observed. Despite, or perhaps because of, a global weakness in the heliospheric magnetic field, large near-equatorial coronal holes lingered even as the sunspots disappeared. Consequently, for the months surrounding the WHI campaign, strong, long, and recurring high-speed streams in the solar wind intercepted the Earth in contrast to the weaker and more sporadic streams that occurred around the time of last cycle’s WSM campaign.
See section 5a) Modulation of the global circuit in this review paper, by solar wind burst and the process electroscavenging where by increases in the global electric circuit remove cloud forming ions.
The same review paper summarizes the data that does show correlation between low level clouds and GCR.
http://www.utdallas.edu/physics/pdf/Atmos_060302.pdf
Earth’s varible fission rate is triggered by variations in solar and galactic neutrino bombardments. With 4 PPM Uranium and 7 PPM Thorium there is plenty of fissionable material in the very hot, high pressure mantle for controlled fission to produce varying amounts of heat causing the PDO< AMO etc. This fission creates 'elemental atoms' and 'elemental molecules' as by-products. This is described in "Motive Force for All Climate Change" and "The Neutrino Effect" both posted in the spring of 2009 at Climate Realist. One of the many 'elemental' by-products are Hydrocarbons as described in "Fossil Fuel is Nuclear Waste" posted at Canada Free Press and crosslinked to +11,000 websites within one day. Any uncertainity as to the physical structure of the mantle that allows this process is explained in "Earth's Elemental Petrol Production". We have been systematically lied to about a number of Earth's realities. The Hubbert Peak Oil Hypothesis is as defective as the Carbon Climate Forcing Fraud. Luckily, emperical evidence and trained intuition can overcome propaganda. It is time for a paradigm shift in mankinds thinking.
R Gates said;
” Suppose that we get a record warm year in sometime between 2012-2015, with perhaps an El Nino coinciding near solar max 24 (however weak it might be). What will skeptics attribute this to? If we’re entering a “cooling period” how can we have a record warm year? Where is that heat comiing from? Why would it have been warmer than the last big El Nino year of 1998? ”
———————————-
It’s known that during the depths of the Maunder minimum, England experienced a couple of it’s hottest summers on record.
Betting on La Nina’s and an inactive sun would seem to be a safer bet than a forlorn long shot on a poor El Nino and the sun deciding against all indications that it’s not going to have a bit of a snooze at mankind’s expense.
What did you think of the sunspot number max of 7 to 20 mentioned in the Livingston & Penn PDF ?
http://www.probeinternational.org/Livingston-penn-2010.pdf
Geomagnetic storm is changing rapidly the intensity of Earth’s magnetic field. Any earthquake sensitive area which has already gone ‘critical’ may snap in the next few hours into major quake at Mag 6 or above.
http://flux.phys.uit.no/cgi-bin/plotgeodata.cgi?Last24&site=tro2a&
Camburn says:
January 22, 2012 at 11:55 am
R. Gates:
From you link the certainty is not present. Good read tho…..thank you.
_____
This was intended to show the attribution part of the study, whereby global temperatures were shown with and without the effects of anthropogenic CO2, etc. Without the additional greenhouse gases, temperatures would be flat to slightly lower over the later part of the 20th century and into the 21st. The four graphs on page 2 are especially interesting in this regard. Is this model accurate or does it have a high degree of certainty? The caution given by the authors makes it clear that more such studies are needed, however, it is quite in line with other similar studies of attribution made over the past few years. They all show that anthropogenic CO2 increases have had an increasing role in the climate, with that role eclipsing natural forcings sometime in the later part of the 20th century.
M.A.Vukcevic says:
January 22, 2012 at 12:17 pm
That’s interesting. I’ve been wondering if the dust storm we’re experiencing in West Texas today had it’s origins in the solar storm.
It’s known that during the depths of the Maunder minimum, England experienced a couple of it’s hottest summers on record.
Betting on La Nina’s and an inactive sun would seem to be a safer bet than a forlorn long shot on a poor El Nino and the sun deciding against all indications that it’s not going to have a bit of a snooze at mankind’s expense.
What did you think of the sunspot number max of 7 to 20 mentioned in the Livingston & Penn PDF ?
http://www.probeinternational.org/Livingston-penn-2010.pdf
________
Some models are showing a possbile El Nino beginning this coming fall into winter, which would of course coincide approximately with Solar Max 24. Of course these are all forecasts, but my question to skeptics in general would be: If we get a record warm year in 2012-2015, to what do they would they attribute that?
As far as warm years in England during the Maunder Minimum– of course there were a few. And they were even “record warm” years until they were eclipsed in the 1700’s and of course more recently. Just goes to show you what “natural variability” will do– mainly the NAO in the case of Central England temps. But what should be kept in mind is that most of these natural factors represent short-term fluctuations, but the buildup of CO2 represents and on-going continual forcing that has become a dominant signal upon which the natural fluctuations ride.
R. Gates,
Now the global warming has become virtual (masked by natural fluctuations)? Laughable! Where were your natural fluctuations before? The same old “warming is CO2-caused, but any cooling is just a fluctuation”.
ENSO is just another index and an indicator of warming/cooling. During warming periods, ENSO is more on the warm side and vice versa. In the next decades we will get more (and stronger) La Ninas than El Ninos – it comes with the cooling.
http://climexp.knmi.nl/data/imei.png
2011 might be the the warmest La Nina year on record (there’s some uncertainty, due to the exaggerated 80s/90s/00s warming), but the record is very short. There could/should be hundreds of warmer La Nina years since the Holocene interglacial peak.
What record warm year are you talking about, 2011? It doesn’t look like a record to me.
http://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/UAH_LT_1979_thru_Jan_2011.gif
R. Gates:
I read the paper you presented and understand why you presented it.
The level of uncertainty has to be taken into consideration when reading it. I would like to know more of their methology concering what they consider natural verses anthropogenic. And I would also like to know what their levels of solar etc were based on. The newer papers since that paper has been published show a substaintally different level than had been previously considered.
There have been several papers posted just in this thread that bear reading.
I hope that you take the time to read them and share them with other sites. Some of us have tried to do so.
William,
No one would argue with the fact that we need CO2 in our atmosphere for both biological activity as well as the greenhouse benefits. When stating that something is not a “pollutant” however, you’d must be more specific. As Paracelsus said, “The dose makes the poison.” Many things that are beneficial at one level, become harmful at another. Best to probably look at the earth systems from a biological or pharmaceutical perspective in which the balances of different components are critical, and once certain thresholds are passed, what was once a benefit becomes a detriment…i.e. more is better doesn’t work at continually higher levels. Also, saying that CO2 was higher 500 Million years ago means nothing at all to the current biosphere. The sun was also dimmer and the continents in different positions, and whatever human acestors there were were nothing at all like humans of today (maybe something akin to a tree shrew?). Best to look at the closet analog time frame for which CO2 levels were somewhat similar to today’s and that would take us back to the mid-Pliocene or so. Earth’s climate was very different then (i.e. warmer), and this could be where we are headed.
Archonix says:
January 22, 2012 at 10:39 am
That’s funny, Gates. CET was fine when it appeared to show warming but now it shows cooling suddenly it’s unreliable.
It doesn’t show cooling. 2010 was a cool year but 2011 was the second warmest year in the record (the warmest year was 2006). So far (up to Jan 21st), January 2012 is almost 3 deg C above average.
I don’t know what is going on, but the whole atmospheric column is cooling. NOT just the trop, but the strat as well. http://discover.itsc.uah.edu/amsutemps/
@ur momisugly John Finn
Quote sources, show links.
When it does! So far temperatures lead CO2.
When are you going to show up at a thread, without an empty bag? The shock would be very convincing. GK
G. Karst says:
“When are you going to show up at a thread, without an empty bag?”
Good question. Gates refers to honest skeptics, which is redundant. Non-skeptics are not honest, eg: mis-labeling the AGW conjecture. I showed conclusively that AGW cannot qualify as a theory because it has not been validated. Words have meanings; dishonest people mis-use words as a ploy.
• • •
John Finn says:
“January 2012 is almost 3 deg C above average.”
Average for what?? You only mention 2010 and 2011. Or are you cherry-picking again?