Guest post by David Archibald
Three wise Norwegians – Jan-Erik Solheim, Kjell Stordahl and Ole Humlum – have just published a paper entitled “The long sunspot cycle 23 predicts a significant temperature decrease in cycle 24”. It is available online here: http://arxiv.org/pdf/1202.1954v1.pdf
The authors have found that Northern Hemisphere temperature changes by 0.21°C per year of solar cycle length. The biggest response found in the temperature series they examined was Svalbard at 1.09°C per year of solar cycle length. The authors also credit me with the discovery of a new branch of science. On page 6 they state.” Archibald (2008) was the first to realize that the length of the previous sunspot cycle (PSCL) has a predictive power for the temperature in the next sunspot cycle, if the raw (unsmoothed) value for the SCL is used.” I have decided to name this new branch of science “solarclimatology”. It is similar to Svensmark’s cosmoclimatology but much more readily quantifiable.
What we use solarclimatology for is to predict future climate. Professor Solheim and his co-authors have done that for Solar Cycle 24 which takes us out to 2026. Using Altrock’s green corona emissions diagram, we can go beyond that to about 2040: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/01/08/solar-cycle-24-length-and-its-consequences/
The green corona emissions point to Solar Cycle 24 being 17 years long, and thus 4.5 years longer than Solar Cycle 23. Using the relationship found by Solheim and his co-authors, that means that the 0.63°C decline for the Northern Hemisphere over Solar Cycle 24 will be followed by a further 0.95°C over Solar Cycle 25. That is graphically indicated thusly, using Figure 19 from the Solheim et al paper:
The last time we witnessed temperatures anything like that was in the decade 1690 – 1700. Crop failures caused by cold killed off 10% of the populations of France, Norway and Sweden, 20% of the population of Estonia and one third of the population of Finland.
As noted above, Svalbard’s relationship is 1.09°C per year of solar cycle length. That means that it is headed for a total temperature fall of 8.2°C. The agricultural output of Svalbard and the rest of the island of Spitsbergen won’t be affected though, because there isn’t any. The biggest effect will on some of the World’s most productive agricultural lands. The solar cycle length – temperature relationship for some localities in the northeast US is 0.7°C degrees per year, which is a good proxy for the latitude of the US – Canadian border and thus the North American grain belt. Newman in 1980 found that the Corn Belt shifted 144 km per 1.0°C change in temperature. With the temperature falling 5.2°C, the Corn Belt will shift 750 km south to the Sun Belt, as shown following:
The outlook for Canadian agriculture is somewhat more dire. I expect Canadian agriculture will be reduced to trapping beavers, as in the 17th Century.
The current cold conditions in Europe resulted in more than 300 souls departing this mortal coil, and has discomforted some millions. Solheim and his co-authors note “As seen in figures 6 and 7, the Norwegian and Europe60 average temperatures have already started to decline towards the predicted SC24 values”.
References:
Newman, J. E. (1980). Climate change impacts on the growing season of the North American Corn Belt. Biometeorology, 7 (2), 128-142. Supplement to International Journal of Biometeorology, 24 (December, 1980).
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Does anyone actually believe any of this nonsense about rapid temperature falls over the next few years? If so, I have $1k that says you’re wrong. Do you think these wise Norwegians, or the author of this post, will be interested?
Neapolitan – slight correction: Solar Cycle 23 ended in Dec 2008. Cycle 24 began in January 2009, not ’08.
Jim Cripwell 7:49 am
I have no problem with cellulose ethanol since it doesn’t contribute to huge dead zones in the Gulf of Mexico each summer. I do oppose a government mandate for its usage, however…
AFPhys-
Funny that you mentioned Neanderthals surviving cold weather just fine… [SNIP: Sorry, that really is off-topic and we don’t want to encourage a discussion in that direction. -REP]
A few years back I started to look at spectral analysis methods to see if it could give some insight
on future temperatures.
The following graphs use the HadCRUT3gl data set, & have three filtering methods:
MOV
Forward-reverse low pass (2 pole Chev) or MATLAB “filtfilt”
Fourier Convolution filter.
with a 10, 20 & 50 yr (0.1, 0.05, & 0.02 freq.) cut-off. The 50 yr. has incorrect legends indicating a 20 yr (0,05) instead of 50 yr. (0.02) that are in process of being corrected.
http://www.4shared.com/photo/XWqpz_GL/HadCRUT3gl-2011-10yr.html?refurl=d1url
http://www.4shared.com/photo/GZ2f6K-9/HadCRUT3gl-2011-20yr.html?refurl=d1url
http://www.4shared.com/photo/9T1DPKK5/HadCRUT3gl-2011-50yr.html?refurl=d1url
That being said, the 10 yr & 20 yr. (0.1 & 0.05) plots show a definite downtrend in the past
8-10 years, while the 50 plot shows a plateau. It takes a lot to “move” that 50 yr. line,
so it looks like a Union suit might be a good investment.
Below is a graph showing the updated HadCRUT3 spectral analysis.
http://www.4shared.com/photo/-ZyTzDOf/HadCRUT3gl-2011-PSD-10yr.html?refurl=d1url
showing the “energy” level of the various freq. These show strength of the 50-60 yr, 20 yr. & 8-10 yr cycles. It would be nice to have longer records, to see if there were lower freq. in the 200-1000 yr region.
Connolley shows his ignorance:
“Does anyone actually believe any of this nonsense about rapid temperature falls over the next few years?”
Abrupt 27°F change in temperature. Connolley is wrong as usual. He can donate his $1,000 to Lord Monckton, who is more honest and ethical than Connolley, doubled and squared.
[SNIP: Policy. -REP]
Extrapolating from points on a graph is not predicting. You might want to call it “forecasting,” because that reminds of the weathermen.
To make a scientific prediction, you have to begin with at least one well-confirmed physical hypothesis. Nothing that you present counts as a well-confirmed hypothesis.
I am not saying that your work is uninteresting. You have a very interesting hunch. But it is not yet science.
Judging by the locations of current corn & grain production in USA & Canada, movement of the temperature belt southward hopefully is accompanied by a southward shift in jet stream guided rain and snow. Bad things would happen if the corn belt were in a now dry belt and the Ogallala Aquifer has been all used up to water cattle. We will need another “green revolution” for rapidly growing, cold tolerant corn and grains instead of long season high yield crops. All within the realm of time and technology. We will need to build more dams to hold the waters of the Missouri, Red, and MIssissippi Rivers for agricultural sustenance. The Great Lakes will have a shorter shipping season. And, as for the Great Northwest Passage, through the Arctic Ocean; No Go. As man can survive living in the tundra of the Arctic as well the forests of the Equator, we’re pretty adaptable. Now when our sun begins to die and becomes a giant red sun enveloping earth, maybe that will be the time for us to move along to another solar system.
300 is on the low end. Closer to twice that. Last reports from European news agencies has the official toll at 590.
Highest snowfall in my home city (Montenegro) since 1957.
http://www.vijesti.me/slika-519×316/vijesti/podgorica-zabranjen-saobracaj-privatne-automobile-slika-107622.jpg
Talking of prediction I recall that snowfalls would be a thing of the past back in around 2000. Within a few years it was going to be a very rare and exciting event.
I feel for the folks in the UK who are apparently already at -17.8°C and could soon hit -18°C.
Neopolitan writes “When, then, will the hoped for cooling get underway? Isn’t time running out?”
I, for one, dont believe there is going to be any sort of rapid global cooling; as suggested by this paper. If we look at about the only bit of historey we have, the Maunder minimum, sunspots started disappearing around 1645. The really cold winters centered around 1685; 40 years later. We are still seeing sunspots. If Livingston and Penn are right, then sunspots will start disappearing somewhere around 2020 to 2025. If history repeats itself, then we should not expect really cold temperatures until around the 2060’s. Just a guess on my part.
The above article at page 4 states, “For updated NH-land series from the
4 HadCRU Centre, serial correlation in residuals could not be removed (Thejll,
2009).”
What does this mean or imply? Please ignore if you consider this going OT.
Danj says:
February 11, 2012 at 5:42 am
“And our EPA will probably still be retaining the ethanol mandate, increasing CAFE standards, and maintaining huge tax credits for the purchase of electric cars.”
Even if one were to buy the AGW claims, why would we want electric cars? 53% of that electricity to recharge cars is produced with coal. Makes no sense whatsoever.
Hope this is wrong as it changes the “freeze in the dark” scenario to “freeze in the dark while starving”. All we need are a few volcano eruptions to top it all off.
Hmm. The corn-based Cahokia culture in modern day IL collapsed in the late 13th century about when the cold summers began in Europe. Its demise is blamed on soil collapse, but some late frosts and cold summers would cause the corn crop to fail.
TX, OK, and AR has enough fallow farmland to take up the slack. Much of AR’s farmland now grows rice – and is irrigated. It will be fine for corn.
Corn requires heat and moisture. In TX and OK, due to moisture needs, we plant corn in March and it tassles in June. If it does not rain in May, then its a lost cause.
For the corn belt to shift South, rain must fall reliably in July and August, because we will plant in April/May. Given the latitude in TX, I am not sure that will occur. Summer rain is driven by the cap of dry air off the Mexican highlands and then high pressure systems.
The TX panhandle grows a lot of corn today. They plant in May like in IA. But, with the climate shift, they will have to stop growing corn. Ditto much of the other high plains irrigated sites.
For readers without time to squander, Figure 3’s “North Atlantic” panel (p.9) summarizes the whole paper. (Station locations are mapped in Figure 2 on p.8)
Solheim, J.-E.; Stordahl, K.; & Humlum, O. (2012). The long sunspot cycle 23 predicts a significant temperature decrease in cycle 24.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/02/11/quantifying-the-solar-cycle-24-temperature-decline/
It appears that the authors have not yet had time to interpret this carefully, but I applaud them for sharing without delay.
I predicted global cooling in a 2002 article, excerpted below – see the last sentence. Timing was based on my (then) ~17 years of research, the Gleissberg Cycle and a phone conversation with paleoclimatologist Tim Patterson. If the PDO cycle is a better timing indicator, then cooling could happen sooner.
I do not know if cooling will be moderate or severe, but i believe there is a ~40% probability of severe cooling, sufficient to harm the grain harvest.
I am a professional engineer, and we, as a profession, really hate to be wrong. When we are seriously wrong, bad thing happen to good people, When I write a prediction in an article, it is because I believe it has a high probability of being correct (imnsho). I don’t do this for money, and I don’t do it for fun.
“It is difficult to make predictions, especially about the future”
( attributed to many )
Prediction is also hard on the ego, when one is wrong. That is why so many people are reluctant to do it.
Regards, Allan
Excerpt:
Kyoto Hot Air Can’t Replace Fossil Fuels
Allan M.R. MacRae
Calgary Herald
September 1, 2002
The Kyoto Accord on climate change is probably the most poorly crafted piece of legislative incompetence in recent times.
First, the science of climate change, the treaty’s fundamental foundation, is not even remotely settled. There is even strong evidence that human activity is not causing serious global warming.
The world has been a lot warmer and cooler in the past, long before we ever started burning fossil fuels. From about 900 to 1300 AD, during the Medieval Warm Period or Medieval Optimum, the Earth was warmer than it is today.
Temperatures are now recovering from the Little Ice Age that occurred from about 1300 to 1900, when the world was significantly cooler. Cold temperatures are known to have caused great misery — crop failures and starvation were common. Also, Kyoto activists’ wild claims of more extreme weather events in response to global warming are simply unsupported by science. Contrary to pro-Kyoto rhetoric, history confirms that human society does far better in warm periods than in cooler times.
Over the past one thousand years, global temperatures exhibited strong correlation with variations in the sun’s activity. This warming and cooling was certainly not caused by manmade variations in atmospheric CO2, because fossil fuel use was insignificant until the 20th century.
Temperatures in the 20th century also correlate poorly with atmospheric CO2 levels, which increased throughout the century. However, much of the observed warming in the 20th century occurred before 1940, there was cooling from 1940 to 1975 and more warming after 1975. Since 80 per cent of manmade CO2 was produced after 1940, why did much of the warming occur before that time? Also, why did the cooling occur between 1940 and 1975 while CO2 levels were increasing? Again, these warming and cooling trends correlate well with variations in solar activity.
Only since 1975 does warming correlate with increased CO2, but solar activity also increased during this period. This warming has only been measured at the earth’s surface, and satellites have measured little or no warming at altitudes of 1.5 to eight kilometres. This pattern is inconsistent with CO2 being the primary driver for warming.
If solar activity is the main driver of surface temperature rather than CO2, we should begin the next cooling period by 2020 to 2030.
…
This complements David Stockwell’s Solar Accumulation theory. He predicts a Pi/2 (90 deg) or cycle length/4 lag between solar forcing and ocean temperatures. See:
Key evidence for the accumulative model of high solar infuence on global temperature, David R.B. Stockwell 4 August 23, 2011
http://vixra.org/pdf/1108.0032v1.pdf
Accumulation of Solar Irradiance Anomaly as a Mechanism for Global Temperature Dynamics
David R.B. Stockwell viXra:1108.0020 9 Aug 2011
On the Dynamics of Global Temperature David R.B. Stockwell 1 Aug 2011
viXra:1108.0004 1 Aug 2011
Archibald had previously referred to
See also Ed Fix’s solar cycle length model (that Archibald referred to WUWT July 13, 2011)
The Relationship of Sunspots to Gravitational Stresses on the Sun: Results of a Proof of Concept Simulation. Ed Fix
Evidence-Based Climate Science By Don Easterbrook p 335
Dixon says:
“…Take the catastrophe out of climate – we’ll get a lot more science done.”
But at what point do we attempt to start some engineering? For example, how many 100-year, spring-time floods should be experienced in Minot, North Dakota before we try to engineer the run-off of heavier snow melts in Canada? Already Minot has required the rebuilding of homes on higher ground, but we can’t so easily move the agricultural grainfields to higher ground.
Theo Goodwin says: February 11, 2012 at 9:27 am
Extrapolating from points on a graph is not predicting. You might want to call it “forecasting,” because that reminds of the weathermen.
Correct, I use forecast.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/Fc.htm
Forecast, as I understand it, is projection (or extrapolation) of the past data into the future, and does not allow subjective judgment, i.e. the opinion is irrelevant.
Prediction is based on judgment after balancing of all available and relevant information is taken into account, i.e. it is an opinion.
First to post this:
http://epod.usra.edu/blog/2012/02/bitter-cold-grips-europe.html
Nothing but WEATHER, really…just weather..
WHY IS NO ONE DOING A ATMOSPHERIC ENERGY BALANCED BASED ON THE ENTHALPY PER CUBIC FOOT OR METER?
I’m rather sure that running it for NH or SH would show (for example with this cold EUROPE winter and WARM North American winter) a net balance.
Dr. Archibald,
it appears that you have not taken into account the effect that the extra CO2 will have on your falling temperature prediction. If you are right about the effects of the length of the cycle to temps, then we may get some cooling, but I am putting my money on not as drastic as you imply.
Unbiased research has demonstrated that change to the amount of atmospheric carbon dioxide has had no significant influence on average global temperature. Google ‘sunspot “time integral”’ and follow the links to discover what has and why warming stopped.
Average global temperatures have been flat for a decade while, since 2001, atmospheric CO2 has increased by 24% of the increase from 1800 to 2001.