Foreword: Dr Sebastian Lüning and Prof. Fritz Vahrenholt, authors of a new controversial skeptic book now hitting German bookstores, have asked me to post their response to comments made by climate scientist Georg Feulner of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in an interview by NTV television. Feulner insists that CO2 plays the major role in climate change and that the sun has little impact.
You can read about the new book just published in Germany that is causing an uproar in the German green establishment here. The response is so vitriolic that one is newspaper (TAZ) is headlining “Skeptics are like viruses“. Greenpeace Germany has now gotten into the act, denoucing Lüning and Varrenholt (formerly a champion of the global warming cause) as an Ice Cold Denier.
The website (in German) for the new book (that has become a bestseller on three outlets) from Lüning and Vahrenholt is here. An English version is also planned which I will announce at WUWT. Sincere thanks to Pierre Gosselin of notrickszone.com for translation. -Anthony
Georg Feulner of the PIK runs in circles
Guest post by Sebastian Lüning and Fritz Vahrenholt
On the Germany television website Georg Feulner of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research comments on our recently published book “Die kalte Sonne”. As we have criticized his work in our book, we are not at all surprised by his rejection of our position.
First he disputes global warming has stopped for the time being. To do this he uses a special chart from a blog depicting a stepwise temperature development, which makes no sense for the particular topic at hand. The temperature plateau that we’ve had since the year 2000 is disputed by Feulner. However, the missing warming of the last 12 years is no fabrication made up by the authors of “Die kalte Sonne“. Anybody can plot it by going over to Woodfortrees.org. Or you can read up about it up in the peer-reviewed scientific literature, e.g. Kaufmann et al (2011). Even Prof. Ottmar Edenhofer of Feulner’s own Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research seems to see it the same way. Climate researcher Prof. Jochem Marotzke of Hamburg just confirmed it once again in a recent interview with the German TAZ daily (9 February 2012).
Next, Feulner tries to score points by using the 30-year climate rule. In some official definitions, climate is defined as the 30-year mean of weather. While this makes sense for some considerations, this rigid rule obstructs the discussion on the mechanisms that are involved in climate. It’s becoming increasingly clear that natural decadal cycles have been greatly under-estimated in the past. For example the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) is characterized by a warm and a cold phase, each lasting 20 to 30 years. They have a significant impact on global temperature. Should that 30-year-climate window unfortunately get placed between both phases, then the trends get mixed up and we end up comparing apples and oranges. The corresponding “climate“ results end up depending more on the choice of the start point of the 30-year window and less on the real, shorter-scale temperature trends. Consequently, looking at 10-year temperature trends is not only legitimate, but it also makes sense.
In discussing the sun, Feulner attempts to show that in the event of an impending significant drop in solar activity to Dalton or Maunder Minimum-levels, which he foresees as well, no considerable cooling is to be expected. Here he fails to mention that he forgot to include any solar amplification in his climate models. This is essential because it is only with such solar amplifiers that one is able to explain the synchronicity between the sun and the temperature, with at least a 1°C pulsating climate development, over the last 10,000 years. The climate model used by Feulner cannot explain the past, and therefore naturally is not suitable for projecting the future. To explain the Maunder-Minimum 300 years ago, Feulner resorts to the dubious volcano joker. But this still does not explain the overlying fundamental problem that there is a good sun-climate coupling over the other well-documented millennial cycles of the last 10,000 years.
When it comes to the Svensmark solar amplification effect, whose existence is supported by much evidence in peer-reviewed literature (see Chapter 6 and Svensmark guest contribution on page 209 in “Die kalte Sonne”), Feulner simply pushes it off the table without providing a good argument. Not a word on the independent confirmations of the important sub-processes of the effect (e.g. Usoskin et al. 2004, Laken et al. 2010, Kirkby et al. 2011).
The NTV interview illustrates just how much Georg Feulner runs in circles with his arguments. The arguments he presents are weak. When will the Potsdam Institute get around to addressing the millennium cycles of the last 10,000 years? On page 68-75 of our book (“The sun’s impact over the last 10,000 years”) we find one of the most important keys to the climate discussion. Strangely not a single media report following publication of our book has looked into this. Day eight and counting.
Example for millennial climate cycles: Studies of dripstones in Oman for the period 7500-4500 BC show a high degree of synchronicity between solar activity and temperature development. Figure modified after Neff et al. (2001)
Related articles
- ‘Germany’s George Monbiot’ turns climate sceptic (blogs.telegraph.co.uk)
- Two more scientists change sides in the AGW debate (hotair.com)
- Spiegel: ‘I Feel Duped on Climate Change’ (junkscience.com)
- Germany’s Top Environmentalist Turns Climate Sceptic (junkscience.com)
“too bad, Leif Svalsgaard has a bad attitude…..he reckons, he
knows it all, whereas there is substantially more, which he refuses to look at…”
=================
Here is my observation: Leif is a sceptic in the best sense of the word. He talks about what he does know and is silent on those topics that are currently unanswerable. (The opposite habit, perhaps, of most of the posters here.) Now, nothing wrong with speculation, but some posters here tend to blur the line between imparting information and speculating about causes.
Will Nitschke says:
February 15, 2012 at 1:36 pm
Here is my observation: Leif is a sceptic in the best sense of the word. He talks about what he does know and is silent on those topics that are currently unanswerable.
Get better glasses. Svalgaard speaks often, loudly, and rudely, about “topics that are currently unanswerable,” including cosmology, elementary particles, and other things he knows nothing about. He is not a skeptic, he is a stick in the mud.
Joachim:
I’ll confess, you have me guessing. If you don’t mean ‘oscillation’ can you suggest a synonym? ‘Osculation’ just doesn’t make any sense.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/osculation?show=0&t=1329363706
Definition of OSCULATION
: the act of kissing; also : kiss
— os·cu·la·to·ry adjective
In astronomy, its a standard term….there are osculating elements….
in this case it concerns the the Earth’s ecliptic plane of the orbit, which does not stay fixed
but moves slightly up and down and the planet Earth ” touches (kisses) slightly alternately the top
and the bottom ecliptic plane… go into the astronomy…..and look for the osculating elements….
“”””” Joachim Seifert says:
February 15, 2012 at 9:58 pm
In astronomy, its a standard term….there are osculating elements….
in this case it concerns the the Earth’s ecliptic plane of the orbit, which does not stay fixed “””””
Nothing wrong with your English Joachim; as you say, I believe you are correct in saying that “osculating” ; aka “kissing” is in fact a detail of orbital elements, and the word is used because of that ordinary “kissing” connotation. It is one of those orbital details along the lines of “nutation” where for example, the moon shows us slightly more of itself than one half, because its orbit about earth is NOT perfectly circular.
If the lunar orbit were a perfect circle, and the moon had locked onto earth so that one face always faced earth, then the orbital frequency would exactly math the rotation frequency; but since the orbit is NOT circular, then the moon slows down and speeds up in its orbit; but its rotation rate is essentially fixed, because the moment of inertia of the moon, simply will not allow it to have any significant frequency modulation component. It would take an enormous torque to rock the moon back and forth on its axis, speeding up and slowing down to match the orbital speedchanges, so that we only ever saw one half of the face. So the constant rotation rate of the moon allows it to rotate a bit ahead of itself when furthest from earth and slowest in orbit, and then it catches up by the time it is at perigee, and then it gets behind as the orbital angular velocity is now higher than the rotational.
So no need to hit the English books Joachim; you got your astronomical kissing osculation term correct.
Right on as always, George. But sadly I’ve lost a gif of the moon’s wobbling face as seen from earth. It was a time lapse that showed that the moon exposed a little more than 50% of it’s face to we earthlings over the course of a month. It was fascinating. It’s out there in cyberspace somewhere, but I’ve been unable to locate it. [I read all of your posts, BTW, and appreciate your immense knowledge & experience.]
This movement of the Moon is in Wikipedia under “Libration” ….. this movement allows
more than 50% of the Moon to be seen… Libration is a spiral shaped motion, the Moon spirals
or “ligates” around its mean progressive path…..Now, what has been left out by the IPCC is
that the Earth itself also spirals/ ligates around its progressive path, and there even is a trojan
object in the Earth’s orbit, following Earth in spiral/ligating/librating movement….see trojan libration….
Since spirals always have a diameter, on can put a bottom ecliptic plane to the spiral bottom and the real Earth trajectory touches or “kisses” (I believe, an astronomic aficionado invented this term) this plane from above….the second plane is put from above and the spiral progresses in between the two planes…..
thus osculating between the lower and the upper plane….
Actually, this movement is underrated by NASA JPL……and therefore missing in the climate
discussion… everybody focusses on atmospheric events, while one has to look to something
energetically stronger for climate change than Ninas, cloud formation, CO2 etc…..
JS
It was related to the comments (Joachim, George, Smokey). I just wanted to help and posted a link to lunar libration with animations.
[REPLY: That thread seems to have wandered a bit. Go ahead and repost your animations. -REP]
George, Smokey,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libration
http://www-spof.gsfc.nasa.gov/stargaze/Smoon4.htm
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap010218.html
Moderator, thanks.
Seifert, Smith, Smokey, Edim….
Thanks for the enlightenment. Learn something new every day. But I gotta get a bigger dictionary.
: > )
If it is spoken of solar activity and/or ‘cosmic ray’, whatever that mean, and cycles until 9000 years ago, the question comes up, what kind of ‘engine’ these strange cycles effects global temperatures. There are unfortunately no precise NASA ephemerides for the objects prior to 3000 BCE, and so it is a problem to verify the stalagmite spikes in the figure from Neff et al.
But because the main cycle is fixed to 2/1827 years maybe a shift of some periods can bring more light in that Neff et al. spikes.
http://www.volker-doormann.org/images/neff_vs_ghi3_shift.gif
It must be said that the oxygen marker differs from the carbon marker, but it seems that some of the GHI 3 spikes are coincident with some Neff et al. spikes. Maybe a blow up for this time window can show more.
That there is this astronomic cycle in effect shows the temperature reconstruction of E. Zorita (ECHO) for one millenium.
However is seems, that I am the only one studying and interested in the relation of solar tide spectra and terrestrial global temperatures, despised all the linarar fits and extrapolations of decades.
V.
Looks like “nutation” is the axis wobble of a run down top; I blieve that is the 26,000 year wander of the pole star.
Dunno where Wikileaks gets an orbital spiral from; well without an atmosphere.
From an astonomy study site:
Steve from Rockwood says:
February 14, 2012 at 1:28 pm
From Neff et al paper in Nature, May 2001:
“The 18-O [oxygen isotope] record from the stalagmite, which serves as a proxy for variations in the tropical circulation and monsoon rainfall, allows us to make a direct comparison of the 18-O record with the 14-C [carbon isotope] record from tree rings, which largely reflects changes in solar activity. The excellent correlation between the two records suggests that one of the primary controls on centennial- to decadal-scale changes in tropical rainfall and monsoon intensity during this time are variations in solar radiation.”
Sebastian Lüning and Fritz Vahrenholt show a graph of cosmic ray (intensity?) versus time and temperature versus time to show the close correlation between temperature change and cosmic ray intensity. The correlation is quite incredible (it makes me wonder if it is real). The correlation is so incredible in fact, that I wonder why this is not done routinely from every tropical cave containing stalagmites (and if it is – who is hiding the data).
I think some background thoughts are helpful.
I think it is no wonder that carbon and oxide marker on the globe Earth are coherent because of the Sun’s heat anomalies, which mechanism is not known today. But the miss of a plausible mechanism does not mean that this phenomenon can’t be an object of science, especial climate science. Each spike and gap in the marker data indicates an physical process as evident on the Sun, as well as luminosity of Neptune that correlates with the reconstructed global Earth temperature (Lockwood, Flagstaff). I am tired to read uncounted measurements or defined ocean indices, like the indices from the Wallstreet. They are idols to the climate folk, but not physics. I do not know what the measurements of Neff et al. which were cited by V. and S., should show.
Science always makes steps in the chain of recognized nature and new data must found to fit in this chain. To put out millions of papers without a conclusion from well recognized elements in science is no science, if there is nobody who put it in the knowledge of science.
Spectra of global temperatures with its hidden frequencies are well known by laymen and by the climate folk. And a part of the people belief in the Sun and her up and downs, the rest belief in that, what authorities pray from the ivory towers
Finding some relations to the data from Neff et al. I have plotted their data and have compared it to the graph showing both the oxide isotope and the carbon isotopes. I was wonder that there was some confusing mismatch in that plots. This is a problem if I would make some comparisons with the data from Bond et al 2001, or the GHI, I have taken from the solar tide functions of slow moving bodies.
Because there is a main pattern of 2/1827 years which can be found in the global spectra it is also of interest, whether the profile of the Oman stalagmite fits in the periods. But there is a general problem to do that because unfortunately there are no NASA ephemerides available, prior to 3000 BCE or 5000 y BP.
In this dilemma I have tried simple to shift the astronomical pattern 5 times 2/1827 or 913.5 years back in time, hoping to see any phase coherence between the Neff et al. data and the GHI.
http://www.volker-doormann.org/images/neff_vs_ghi3_shift.gif
But the result was a not fitting of the curves.
Now, the given error in the time of BP is given as 360 years and 260 year. So I have shifted the GHI seeking a match and as I have shifted the GHI by 260 years there was a weak correlation:
http://www.volker-doormann.org/images/neff_vs_ghi3_shifta.gif
One point here is that no one is asking on the absolute (astronomical) time value, look only for a correlation, but if the isotope data from the same sample (H5), there is no wonder that there is a correlation.
I don’t like the dimension BP, I prefer the dimension BCE or CE in years kyears. For accurate proposes it is best to make use of the Julian day because historians do not make use of the year 0.
Ok, I can understand if V. and S. make their job to inform the crowd that the Sun by no means runs as the corruptive scientist teach, but it must be clear, that the press and popular books cannot replace the work of science. Moreover, if there is an interest in truth, the science community itself must arrange a multidiscipline climate science of solar physicians, astronomers, maybe quantum physicians because the roll of Neutrinos, and geologists with their best tools.
There seems to exist a further phenomena that no scientist would shift to new areas where is only one ‘idiot’ at work. It is said: ‘Lord, there are many about the well, but no one in the well.’ means: There are many people close to knowing the truth, but none that truly do.
However, thanks to A.W. who gives space to alternative thoughts.
V.
Joachim Seifert says:
February 16, 2012 at 11:33 am
This movement of the Moon is in Wikipedia under “Libration” ….. this movement allows
more than 50% of the Moon to be seen… Libration is a spiral shaped motion, the Moon spirals
or “ligates” around its mean progressive path……. “””””
The moon’s orbit around the sun, is of course always “convex” like earth’s, so the center of curvature always lies on the sun side.
So I don’t understand where wikileaks get the “spiral” from. Seems to me that a spiral path involves a continually increasin (or decreasing)orbital radius.
Volker Doormann says:
February 17, 2012 at 6:28 am
… Finding some relations to the data from Neff et al. I have plotted their data and have compared it to the graph showing both the oxide isotope and the carbon isotopes.
I was wonder that there was some confusing mismatch in that plots.
This is a problem if I would make some comparisons with the data from Bond et al 2001, or the GHI, I have taken from the solar tide functions of slow moving bodies.
http://www.volker-doormann.org/images/neff_oxygen_iso_data_comp.jpg
How can this be?
V.
They have changed the labels in their last graph, swapping in ‘temperature’ variation for rainfall and mosnoonal variation. No explanation is given. No amount of blog speculation on the virtue of making this link undoes the fact that they have blatantly misrepresented the reference material. nor does such speculation ennoble it. The concluding remarks in the paper itself belie the faked and simplistic correlation projected by L&V.
The Warmists had their chance back in the year 2000, with their greatly laudated MILLENIUMs
report TAR, comprizing the most accurate climate warming models of more than 40 Warmist
institutes and issued then in March 2001……
Warming forecasting result from the time of issuing TAR : TAR Forecast 2001-2011 was 0.2 C global warming….vs. todays
observation Febr. 2001 – Feb 2011 global warming NIL for the decade, see graphs for this decade….
The Tars Milleniums performance: Only waste of money, forecast accuracy: NIL…..
This false performance feeds scepticism, which is on the upswing by looking for alternative
climate interpretations….. AGW forecast performance is just too bad, which answers your
question: Whom to believe…..Its is obvious by now….
JS
DER SPIEGEL takes a new look on the topic:
Both climate change skeptics and those who warn of global warming profit from such controversies — so who should we believe?
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,815478,00.html
That is a very precise statement. I challenge you to corroborate it.
It might be worth revisiting his first ever post at this site.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/05/14/the-solar-radio-microwave-flux/
As Svaalgard never made an argument about solar correlation with global temps in that post, it was warmly received by the regulars, and rightly so. The man is a decades-long expert in his field.
When his opinion is asked, he gives it in clear terms, When questioned, his answers have been direct, highly rational and free of molly-coddling. This ascetic rigour isn’t everyone’s up of tea. I find it refreshing.
A prediction for a single decade with no error margin? Horsepucky. I would love to see a reference for exactly this from the actual TAR.
Focus Online here in Germany has a whole subsection on climate with about five articles from a
(mostly) skeptical point of view (I believe some of them were in the print edition mentioned
in Pierre Gosselin’s blog). Looks like the MSM here is starting to let other voices appear
(or they’re too busy with other scandals 🙂 ).
Freeman Dyson article is here: (sorry, it’s in German, if someone could translate…)
http://www.focus.de/wissen/wissenschaft/klima/schwenk-zur-sonne-waermer-ist-besser_aid_708094.html
(After the last couple of weeks a little warmth would be nice, especially for those of us
who drive Diesels….).