Guest post by David Archibald
The most skillful climatologist the World has seen was Hubert Lamb (1913 – 1997). He can be credited with making the first prediction of the current solar minimum. This was in 1970 in a report (Weiss and Lamb) for the German Navy.
He did it by making a reconstructed record of the average frequency of southwesterly surface winds in England since 1340. Quoting Lamb “We sense a cycle or periodicity of close to 200 years in length.” and “There may be a valuable indication of the origin of this apparent 200 year recurrence tendency, in that the sharp declines of the southwesterly wind indicated in the late 1300s, 1560s, 1740s-1770s and now, in each case fell at about the end of a sequence of sunspot cycles which built up to periods of exceptionally great solar disturbance (around 1360-80, the 1570s, the 1770s, the 1950s and more recently). The frequency maxima of the southwesterly wind, and evidence of warm climate periods in Europe sustained over several decades, all bear a similar relationship to these variations of the Sun’s activity.”
Following is Figure 11.6 from Lamb’s 1988 book “Weather, Climate and Human Affairs”:
The frequency of the southwest wind at London is shown by the solar line. A tentative forecast (broken line) is made simply by moving the whole curve 200 years to the right, i.e. the forecast implied by accepting the apparent 200 year recurring oscillation shown by the series.
Successful predictions have many fathers. Lamb’s successful prediction forty years ago was the first prediction of the current minimum and reminds us that climate cycles can be relied upon to continue to the end of time.
References
Weiss, I. and Lamb, H.H. (1970) ‘Die Zunahme der Wellenhohen in jungster Ziet in den Operationsgebieten der Bundesmarine, ihre vermutliche Ursachen and ihre voraussichtliche weitere Entwicklung, Fachlich Mitteilungen, Nr. 160, Porz-Wahn, Geophysikalisher Bertungsdiesnt der Bundeswehr.
David Archibald
February 2012
Frequency of warm winds from South-West are basically result of Arctic or North Atlantic Oscillation index. NAO oscillates in 80-year long cycle and agrees with CET winter temperatures extremely well.
“The World won’t …………because they are inconvenient.”
Aint that the truth.
And an earlier prediction from 1979 here:
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2011/06/01/libby-and-pandolfi-were-correct/
“……and reminds us that climate cycles can be relied upon to continue to the end of time.”
I wouldn’t go quite that far.
Cycles may continue and they can change.
This reminds me of the work by Nicola Scafetta and Girma Orssengo.
Who will get the cycles right?
Does that mean you believe the current configuration of Earth’s continents is now fixed?
The Git’s chickens believe that being fed night and morning will continue to the end of time. Until they have their necks wrung and find themselves being cooked for dinner 😉
Please correct the source; some typos in there. Corrected it looks like:
Weiss, I. and Lamb, H.H. (1970) ‘Die Zunahme der Wellenhöhen in jüngster Zeit in den Operationsgebieten der Bundesmarine, ihre vermutliche Ursachen und ihre voraussichtliche weitere Entwicklung, Fachliche Mitteilungen, Nr. 160, Porz-Wahn, Geophysikalischer Beratungsdienst der Bundeswehr.
Cycles, cycles! AGW demands, indeed insists upon, straight lines or hockey sticks, nothing else will do!
Related:
Changes in total wind speed, kinetic energy of the atmosphere, over the last 150 years a 30% increase.
http://www.seafriends.org.nz/issues/global/fletcher.htm
> Lamb’s successful prediction forty years ago
It isn’t clear to me what Lamb is supposed to have predicted. Lamb doesn’t use the word prediction in any of the text you quote. If you take Lamb’s graph as a “prediction”, which I think is questionable, then he “predicted” the frequency of winds near London. Since you’ve made no attempt to verify that prediction, you can’t possibly claim it was successful. You appear to be claiming some kind of back-prediction from this to solar cycles, but I fear the connection is tenuous at best.
William M. Connolley says:
February 18, 2012 at 1:07 pm
“> Lamb’s successful prediction forty years ago
It isn’t clear to me what Lamb is supposed to have predicted. Lamb doesn’t use the word prediction in any of the text you quote. If you take Lamb’s graph as a “prediction”, which I think is questionable, then he “predicted” the frequency of winds near London. Since you’ve made no attempt to verify that prediction, you can’t possibly claim it was successful. You appear to be claiming some kind of back-prediction from this to solar cycles, but I fear the connection is tenuous at best.”
“Die Zunahme der Wellenhöhen in jüngster Zeit in den Operationsgebieten der Bundesmarine, ihre vermutliche Ursachen und ihre voraussichtliche weitere Entwicklung”
“The increase of wave height in the near past in the operating areas of the German navy, it’s probable causes and estimated future development.”
It helps to speak German.
I see that the correlation of shifting 200 years is pretty good.
But, and I may be miss-interpreting, but do these curves show London cooling until the end of the 20th century, then warming through the 21st?
“The Git’s chickens believe that being fed night and morning will continue to the end of time. Until they have their necks wrung and find themselves being cooked for dinner ;-)”
I believe that IS the end of time for that particular chicken. They may be smarter than you think. They might know they must eventually die in any case and realize they can’t train a fox to feed them twice a day…
@William Howard M Connolley
As tenuous as “temps have risen, CO2 has risen, therefore CO2 is the cause of rising temps”?
Natural variability and cycles
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/CET-NVa.htm
It’s nice to see Mr. Connolley has taken time from spinning climate change at Wikipedia to obfuscate at Watts Up.
There are cycles within cycles within cycles …
Ocean cycles, orbital cycles, solar cycles, galactic cycles. Some of these amplify, some of them cancel.
As Beesaman imputes, there are no straight lines or hockey sticks, only curves and aberrations – chaotic variations entirely expected and predictable by their very unpredictability.
We know so much and yet so little.
Les Johnson says:
February 18, 2012 at 1:17 pm
“…do these curves show London cooling until the end of the 20th century, then warming through the 21st?”
I assume the correlation is negative. It stands to reason – a blustery winter day versus the dog days of late summer.
No harm, no fowl said @ February 18, 2012 at 1:19 pm
http://landofblogging.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/poorpoorfifiagain.jpg?w=490
Robert in Calgary says:
February 18, 2012 at 12:41 pm
“……and reminds us that climate cycles can be relied upon to continue to the end of time.”
I wouldn’t go quite that far.
Cycles may continue and they can change.
Yes, they can continue to follow ever longer cycles, which may force amplitude and length changes in them.
Even the Ice Ages show a lot of variation in the last sequence of 8.
Heck, the Earth can drop as much as 4 C at the Poles and still not leave an interglacial.
I imagine the Sun can do lots of different dances we know nothing about.
Their ‘200 years’ may be actually the 170-180 years found by Carl Smith in the perturbations of the Sun’s net angular momentum:
http://www.landscheidt.info/
“The Git’s chickens believe that being fed night and morning will continue to the end of time. Until they have their necks wrung and find themselves being cooked for dinner ;-)”
The basic problem is that some chickens, and a lot of politicians and some of the hysterical crowd on all sides seem to be able to carry on without a head. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_the_Headless_Chicken
Typo
The frequency of the southwest wind at London is shown by the solar line.
Should be
The frequency of the southwest wind at London is shown by the solid line.
Here is an example of a very successful prediction: http://www.sciencemag.org/content/189/4201/460.short
Speaking about climate cycles and their causes, I’ve seen a couple of days an intriguing comment here on WUWT. It was about sun’s influence through UV and the “permeability” of the atmosphere (as to varying the part that is blocked by O3 and other not clouds).
It sounds reasonable and would have the potential to be a driver, much more then direct TSI, but wonder if we do have such data as to: what is the UV variability of the TSI and what is the TSI as measured at the ground in a certain location and not in space. I can imagine this would be highly variable and difficult to see a trend, but wonder if there have been any studies in this direction, or is it a dead end?
Les Johnson says:
February 18, 2012 at 1:17 pm
I see that the correlation of shifting 200 years is pretty good.
But, and I may be miss-interpreting, but do these curves show London cooling until the end of the 20th century, then warming through the 21st?
You’re absolutely right, Les; you are misinterpreting. Look again at the graph, and try reading what the units are this time! 😉
Andres Valencia says:
February 18, 2012 at 12:42 pm
This reminds me of the work by Nicola Scafetta and Girma Orssengo.
Who will get the cycles right?
Me. Please take a look on a comparison of adapted Bristlecone tree ring data in California after
H. H. Lamb (upper curve), with two GHI versions for the last 5000 years.
http://www.volker-doormann.org/images/ghi_23_lamb_comp.jpg Vertical lines guided the eye to remarkable peaks.
Next millennium extension ? : http://www.volker-doormann.org/images/ghi_23_moberg_ext.gif
It’s not a trick, it’s science.
V.
Speaking of wind and the colder temperatures they brought to England and Europe this year, you can imagine how some of the British pensioners must feel who were forced to turn down the thermostats and turn into bed earlier for lack of utility funds while their government sent millions to developing countries to help “plan” for climate change mitigation.
“Foreign aid cash spent tackling climate change
Nearly £1.5 billion has been spent tackling man-made climate change by Government department responsible for fighting poverty abroad, it can be revealed……”.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/9090830/Foreign-aid-cash-spent-tackling-climate-change.html
OT
There is a sudden and strong geomagnetic storm
http://flux.phys.uit.no/cgi-bin/plotgeodata.cgi?Last24&site=tro2a&
with no recent flares or CMEs detected
http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/rt_plots/Xray.gif
It is looking more and more sure that the astrophysicists were correct and the climatologist and amateur chemists wrong. Solar activity is much more important to climatic change in temperature, climate circulation, and cloud formation than CO2. Now would be a good time to look at the relationship between solar activity/planetary tilt and ozone ‘holes’, if any.
A real irony is that Hubert Lamb published a major paper pulling together mounds of evidence about the Medieval Warm Period and the subsequent small ice age. An even worse irony is that after a long career at the Met Office he was the founder in the 1970s of the now-discredited but whitewashed CRU at East Anglia.
Here is a link to the abstract of Lamb’s MWP paper :
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0031018265900040
MAVukcevic says:
February 18, 2012 at 1:38 pm
What is your opinion about the mild winter time in NA vs. the harsh winter in Europe? GMF changes?
It is great to see the founder of CRU, H H Lamb getting the attention he is due. (CRU only started down the propaganda road during Tom Wigley’s tenure.) A curious anticipation of the corruption climate science by the IPCC comes with a familiar sketch copy of Lamb’s sketch of English midlands climate now writ global in the First Report to show a distinct global medieval warm hump in the 12th cent — a graph much used by skeptics without due caution.
See down the page here:
http://enthusiasmscepticismscience.wordpress.com/global-temperature-graphs/
However, much as I love to see Lamb’s name in lights again (and as has already been suggested by others) David is reading more into Lamb’s projection of his own interpretation of it’s attribution. We can forgive his excitement at the find.
Many scientists were finding decadal and secular-scale climate cycles in all sorts of proxy evidence, and many long before Lamb. The link with solar cycles was more with others, like the founder of dendrochronology, A E Douglass.
See his 1909 classic: Weather Cycles in the growth of Big Trees.
http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/1520-0493%281909%2937%5B225d:WCITGO%5D2.0.CO;2
Back then it was mostly about precipitation. Before Lamb, E. Huntington had talked about the wax and wane of storm fronts activity into and out of the desert latitudes. Before the yanks and the poms, were the Germans. In Klimaschwankungen Seit 1700, Nebst Bemerkungen Über Die Klimaschwankungen Der Diluvialzeit (pub 1890. Climate Change since 1700) Eduard Brückner finds a global climate cycle, of variable length, but averaging around 35 years. (These cycles have some noisy anticipation of climate cycles familiar to us now.) Because in the AGW scare the history of climate science has been re-written in it’s own image (most prominently by Weart), we can anticipate more exciting finds such as this one by David.
it’s late, I’m one over the limit but . . . is this not showing the dominant effect of convection over radiation?
MangoChutney says:
February 18, 2012 at 1:19 pm
Or it might be as simple as “temps have risen, CO2 has risen, therefore temp is the cause of rising CO2!”
Ho ho! (At least ice cores support this latter rendition.)
Maybe Connolley believes throwing apples into the air will reverse the gravitational field.
OT, kinda.
Does anyone have a link to an article from around 2004 that reported a NASA scientist discovered a raindrop freezes from the outside in and not the inside out as was the consensus for 60 years?
I’ve searched extensively but it seems to have gone the way of the internet Twilight Zone.
TIA
Joel Shore says:
February 18, 2012 at 2:28 pm
“Here is an example of a very successful prediction:”
Did Prof. Broecker in the early 1970s, know that atmospheric carbon dioxide content followed atmospheric temperature?
http://icecap.us/index.php/go/joes-blog/co2_and_temperature_relationship_shown_questions_flat_ice_core_co2_graph_du/
Has there been an exponential rise in the atmospheric carbon dioxide content since the 1970s?
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/#mlo_full
What is it about the recent measured temperature of the lower atmosphere that seems not to fit with Prof. Broecker’s “very successful prediction”?” [quoting J. Shore, not W. Broecker]
http://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/UAH_LT_1979_thru_January_2012.png
Joel Shore says:
February 18, 2012 at 2:28 pm
2 ppm is NOT “exponential”. Not in the wildest stretch of the imagination.
I could never equate the claims about 2010 being one of the warmest years ever. I live in south east Queensland – our average temperature is in the low 20s – C not F. It never snows here and frosts are rare. Summers are usually warm to hot and most rainfall falls then.
The graph on Rou Spencers site seems at odds with my recollections.
We had drought conditions for most of the 2000s ending in late 2009. Early 2009 was very hot and we had August tempeartures – late winter – in excess of 32 C.
When the drought broke regionally we had wet conditions and mild temperatures throughout 2010 and 2011 – wet and overcast predominantly for months on end.
I don’t see this fact reflected in the graphs or statements about heat extremes – 2010 and 2011 were way cooler than we are used to – especially since last century.
As we have a high average and can experience extreme hot weather I just cannot reconcile these results.
William M. Connolley says:
February 18, 2012 at 1:07 pm
[SNIP: Fine, you don’t much like Dr. Connolley. Engage him or ignore him but leave off the gratuitous insults. -REP]
“Lamb’s successful prediction forty years ago… “. Again: “FORTY YEARS AGO”.
Take that NASA!!!:-)
Another point, how easy it’s now to talk about the new solar minimum, even “grand minimum” and how difficult nearly impossible was to say the same words just few years ago.
Are “we” learning something now? (hey, NASA it’s me again!)
Maybe the word “cycle” will start to be used more often in Climatology and Solar Science from now on.
Rosco
Ditto. Hawaii was so cold that fire places and sweat suits came back into fashion until late May.
John F. Hultquist says:
February 18, 2012 at 5:46 pm
“Did Prof. Broecker in the early 1970s, know that atmospheric carbon dioxide content followed atmospheric temperature?”
Fascinating. That is a very strong correlation.
In fact, the yearly variation in CO2 with temperature suggests a relationship. The powers that be have said that the acknowledged annual sensitivity is too small to account for temperature being responsible for driving the last century’s run up in CO2. But, that conclusion ignores the low pass relationship between temperature and CO2, which will attenuate the impact of higher frequency yearly variations relative to longer term variations.
Some time ago, I made the following calculations, which I think I posted at Judith’s site. This calculation is mainly for illustriation of the attenuating effect of frequency, and is not meant to be a rigorous calculation of the CO2 residence time time-constant. The model is very likely too simple, and the values for the sensitivities are coarse. Actually, I think I calculated a time constant of about 30 years previously, and I think I was more careful and had better sources then.
CO2 Anomaly Differential Equation
dC/dt = -C/tau + k*T
Frequency Response
C(f)/T(f) = k / sqrt( 1 + (2*pi*f*tau)^2 )
Annual MLO CO2 p-p variation
About 6 ppm.
Annual Global Temperaure Variation
Maybe 1 deg C
Gain at f = 1 year^-1
6 / 1 ppm/degC := k / sqrt(1 + (2*pi*1*tau)^2)
temperature increase 1970 to 2000
About 0.6 degC
CO2 concentration change 1970 to 2000
About 40 ppm
Gain Factor
k := 40/0.6 = 67 ppm/degC
Time Constant to make it all add up
tau = (k/6)^2/(2*pi) = 20 years
Oops…
Time Constant to make it all add up
tau = sqrt((k/6)^2-1)/(2*pi)= 1.8 years
Well, the numbers came out more realistically last time. It should be about 30 years, I think, FWIW. The point is, the yearly variation/sensitivity suggests it is possible for the CO2 concentration to be entirely temperature driven.
I think maybe I assumed a 2nd order response that last time.
Again, not the point. The point is, the people who have discounted the ability of temperature alone to drive CO2 levels such as we have seen over the last century have done so for spurious reasons. There is a wide range of physically unremarkable responses which could be consistent with the short term and long term observed variations in CO2 being driven by temperature.
Lars P. says:
February 18, 2012 at 2:41 pm
“[I] wonder if we do have such data as to: what is the UV variability of the TSI and what is the TSI as measured at the ground in a certain location and not in space.”
UV is measured from orbit by SDO
http://lasp.colorado.edu/home/eve/
Joel Shore @ February 18, 2:28 pm
And here is the abstract from that 1975 paper:
”If man-made dust is unimportant as a major cause of climatic change, then a strong case can be made that the present cooling trend will, within a decade or so, give way to a pronounced warming induced by carbon dioxide. By analogy with similar events in the past, the natural climatic cooling which, since 1940, has more than compensated for the carbon dioxide effect, will soon bottom out. Once this happens, the exponential rise in the atmospheric carbon dioxide content will tend to become a significant factor and by early in the next century will have driven the mean planetary temperature beyond the limits experienced during the last 1000 years.”
WOT!!!!!! For a start, what about the remarkable similarity between the warming cycle that ended in ~1940 to that ending in about 1998. (at the so-called super El Nino spike). Yet the escalation of CO2 that can be attributed to mankind did not really get going until after 1940, and there has been a plateau or slight cooling over the last decade or so despite still accelerating anthro’ CO2. (somewhat similar to the cooling cycle after 1940, when CO2 accelerated)
But anyway, I still don’t see a non-evasive answer from you to my important question of confirmation to you last stated here:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/02/03/monckton-responds-to-skeptical-science/#comment-891082
Bart:
>>
Time Constant to make it all add up
tau = sqrt((k/6)^2-1)/(2*pi)= 1.8 years
Well, the numbers came out more realistically last time. It should be about 30 years, I think, FWIW. The point is, the yearly variation/sensitivity suggests it is possible for the CO2 concentration to be entirely temperature driven.
>>
This is all very interesting. It would be better if you could post a link to where you got it right. These incoherent and contradictory posts are not too convincing.
I looked at decay of atmospheric CO2 containing C14 caused by atmospheric nuclear tests in 50 & 60s, it suggested a decay constant of about 5 years.
I think you will find there is a different time const for small amplitude variations circa 5ppm (surface water) and larger variations of the order of 100ppm which probably will involve deeper water.
What a superb and detailed paper! Thx muchly.
The annual 60° latitude swing of the intertropical conversion zone over Asia (vs. about 10° elsewhere) is astonishing.
Bart & David: I know what the units are; SW wind days. I also don’t think that it is a negative correlation, as Lamb uses “warming” in conjunction with the greater wind days. I also know that the SW wind is usually warm, as its a result of an enlarging of the Azores High. When the area of the Azores high is larger, there is clockwise circulation bringing more warm weather into Europe. If you have more days with a warm wind, you should see a warming.It should be a positive correlation.
GlynnMhor
Their ’200 years’ may be actually the 170-180 years …
Or their 200 years may actually be 200 years,
http://virakkraft.com/Sun-southwest-wind-London.png
I wonder if William M. Connolley is on his way to Damascas.
Some come to mock, but stay to heed.
Hubert Horace Lamb
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituary-professor-h-h-lamb-1249739.html
Quoting Lamb “We sense a cycle or periodicity of close to 200 years in length.” and “There may be a valuable indication of the origin of this apparent 200 year recurrence tendency, in that the sharp declines of the southwesterly wind indicated in the late 1300s, 1560s, 1740s-1770s and now, in each case fell at about the end of a sequence of sunspot cycles which built up to periods of exceptionally great solar disturbance (around 1360-80, the 1570s, the 1770s, the 1950s and more recently).
The frequency maxima of the southwesterly wind, and evidence of warm climate periods in Europe sustained over several decades, all bear a similar relationship to these variations of the Sun’s activity.”
Successful predictions have many fathers. Lamb’s successful prediction forty years ago was the first prediction of the current minimum and reminds us that climate cycles can be relied upon to continue to the end of time.
Since climate scientist have supposed periods in the temperature proxies, they have tried to press them into the dimension of earth years [y], mostly with a variation limit of years and sometimes with a label of the name of the scientist who has supposed that ‘cycle’. This exercise may be good enough for repetition of events of the July 4th but is not in science, and there are reasons for this.
Time cycles or periods of time have no existence in science in general, because the dimension of time is social defined dimension. Also the more useful dimension of a frequency f [Hz] has no existence in physics unless it is not coupled to energy E [J] or the Planck constant h [Js]. Multiple oscillating processes in nature and physics cannot be solved in earth years but with the dimension of energy E [J]. This is necessary because there can exist couplings or superimpositions of energies from objects in the solar system of difference frequencies which cannot be differenced in the dimension of time [y] (This is understandable if one should calculate the average velocity of an airplane which is 800 km per hour form London to New York and 1000 km per hour from New York to London because of the jet stream. The average velocity is about 888.88 km per hour and not 900 km per hour.).
Thinking in cycles in time is a trap in the work of science.
This holds also to the ‘close to 200 years in length’ of H.H. Lamb, but also for the cycles of N. Scarfetta or all other x year cycles, which have no existence or relation to an real object. Here waits another trap using ‘holy’ year cycles from FFT analyses because this tool is only able to analyse sinusoid frequencies, but there are no real sinusoid frequencies in the energies of the solar system.
On the other side, frequencies and difference frequencies if they supposed to the solar system are all precise known, and can be fitted and compared with the temperature proxies over 6 millennia.
H. H. Lamb has also published adapted Bristlecone tree ring data in California for the last 5000 years. And the data show that there may some or o lot of temperature frequencies hidden in the data, and it is not clear which frequencies with which non sinusoid function are involved.
But taking simple two or three non sinusoid frequencies from adequate objects in the solar system, the temperature spectrum given by H. H.Lamb is less mysterious:
http://www.volker-doormann.org/images/ghi_23_lamb_comp.jpg
Solving the strength of the single frequencies in the solar system it changes from a verification tool to a forecast tool for the next 1000 years:
http://www.volker-doormann.org/images/GHI_11_ghi4_.gif
And by superimposing more (eleven) frequencies from real objects in the solar system this forecast tool is able to forecast the climate up to temperature frequencies of 1/month as a comparison with the hadcrut3 archive shows:
http://www.volker-doormann.org/images/ghi_had_1960_3.gif
Lamb’s successful prediction forty years ago was the first prediction of the current minimum and reminds us that climate cycles can be relied upon to continue to the end of time.
I think a forecast by shifting curves in integer years (called cycles) becomes not a worth because the shift is done by a pioneer and authority in climate sciences. Evidence is not to be owned by authority; it must be recognized in each present anew.
If a prediction is right it does not says any about the logic. I you take the fraction 16/64 and canceling a six on top and a six on the bottom, you get that 16/64 = 1/4. The result is correct, but the logic is wrong.
V.
Time-weighted for accuracy and detail, Pandolfi and Libby’s forecast from 1979 is likely to have been the best prediction of the current minimum. What I like about Lamb’s forecast is that it is pure wiggle-matching and based on detailed work.
What about the mothers of invention?
In Reply to
William M. Connolley comment of
February 18, 2012 at 1:07 pm
Connelly: “You appear to be claiming some kind of back-prediction from this to solar cycles, but I fear the connection is tenuous at best.”
Astley: I do not understand why you statement “tenuous at best”. Have you examined the paleo record? There are 100’s of published paper concerning this issue. How do you explain the last 23 Dansgaard-Oeschger events all of which have cosmogenic isotope changes?
There is an exhaustive set of data that which unequivocally supports the assertion, that cyclic significant solar changes force the planet’s climate. Solar cycle 24 appears to be start of the cooling portion of a Dansgaard-Oesgher event.
Without question the 1470 year Dansgaard-Oesgher events (23 have been found) in the paleoclimatic record, have a physical cause. As there are cosmogenic isotope changes (smoking gun evidence, the same suspect is at the scene of the crime 23 times) at all of the Dansgaard-Oesgher events the question is not “if”, but rather “how” does the sun cause what is observed. It is interesting that the largest C14 change in the entire paleo record occurs at the Younger Dryas event. The cosmogenic isotope data indicates that there are cyclically small, medium, and very, very, large solar events.
It is interesting that the Younger Dryas cooling event occurred at the same time as a Dansgaard-Oesgher event. The 8,200 year ago abrupt cooling event (the 8200 year cooling event was about ¼ of the magnitude of the Younger Dryas cooling event) also occurred at the same time as a Dansgaard-Oesgher event.
http://www.climate4you.com/images
/GISP2%20TemperatureSince10700%20BP%20with%20CO2%20from%20EPICA%20DomeC.gif
There sun was at its highest activity level in roughly 11,000 years during the last half the 20th century.
http://www.climate4you.com/
http://arxiv.org/abs/1009.0784v1
Long-term Evolution of Sunspot Magnetic Fields
Independent of the normal solar cycle, a decrease in the sunspot magnetic field strength has been observed using the Zeeman-split 1564.8nm Fe I spectral line at the NSO Kitt Peak McMath-Pierce telescope. Corresponding changes in sunspot brightness and the strength of molecular absorption lines were also seen. This trend was seen to continue in observations of the first sunspots of the new solar Cycle 24, and extrapolating a linear fit to this trend would lead to only half the number of spots in Cycle 24 compared to Cycle 23, and imply virtually no sunspots in Cycle 25.
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2003/2003GL017115.shtml
Timing of abrupt climate change: A precise clock by Stefan Rahmstorf
Many paleoclimatic data reveal a approx. 1,500 year cyclicity of unknown origin. A crucial question is how stable and regular this cycle is. An analysis of the GISP2 ice core record from Greenland reveals that abrupt climate events appear to be paced by a 1,470-year cycle with a period that is probably stable to within a few percent; with 95% confidence the period is maintained to better than 12% over at least 23 cycles. This highly precise clock points to an origin outside the Earth system; oscillatory modes within the Earth system can be expected to be far more irregular in period.
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2002/2000PA000571.shtml
On the 1470-year pacing of Dansgaard-Oeschger warm events The oxygen isotope record from the Greenland Ice Sheet Project 2 (GISP2) ice core was reanalyzed in the frequency and time domains. The prominent 1470-year spectral peak, which has been associated with the occurrence of Dansgaard-Oeschger interstadial events, is solely caused by Dansgaard-Oeschger events 5, 6, and 7. … ..During this interval the spacing of the Dansgaard-Oeschger onsets varied by ±20% around the fundamental 1470-year period and multiples thereof. The pacing seems unaffected by variations in the strength of North Atlantic Deep Water formation, suggesting that the thermohaline circulation was not the primary controlling factor of the pacing period.
http://www.falw.vu/~renh/pdf/Renssen-etal-QI-2000.pdf
Reduced solar activity as a trigger for the start of the Younger Dryas? (Astley: The cause of the abrupt change was not a change in solar TSI. ) The Younger Dryas (YD, 12.9}11.6 ka cal BP, Alley et al., 1993) was a cold event that interrupted the general warming trend during the last deglaciation. The YD was not unique, as it represents the last of a number of events during the Late Pleistocene, all characterised by rapid and intensive cooling in the North Atlantic region (e.g., Bond et al., 1993; Anderson, 1997). During these events, icebergs were common in the N Atlantic Ocean, as evidenced by ice-rafted sediments found in ocean cores. The most prominent of these episodes with ice rafting are known as Heinrich events (e.g., Bond et al., 1992, 1993;Andrews, 1998). A Heinrich-like event (H-0) was simultaneous with the YD (Andrews et al., 1995). Moreover, the YD seems to be part of a millennial-scale cycle of cool climatic events that extends into the Holocene (Denton and KarleHn, 1973; Harvey, 1980; Magny and Ru!aldi, 1995; O’Brien et al., 1995; Bond et al., 1997).
http://scholar.google.com/url?sa=U&q=http://www.gg.rhbnc.ac.uk/elias/teaching/VanGeel.pdf
“A number of those Holocene climate cooling phases… most likely of a global nature (eg Magney, 1993; van Geel et al, 1996; Alley et al 1997; Stager & Mayewski, 1997) … the cooling phases seem to be part of a millennial-scale climatic cycle operating independent of the glacial-interglacial cycles (which are) forced (perhaps paced) by orbit variations.”
“… we show here evidence that the variation in solar activity is a cause for the millennial scale climate change.”
Last 40 kyrs
Figure 2 in paper. (From data last 40 kyrs)… “conclude that solar forcing of climate, as indicated by high BE10 values, coincided with cold phases of Dansgaar-Oeschger events as shown in O16 records”
Recent Solar Event
“Maunder Minimum (1645-1715) “…coincides with one of the coldest phases of the Little Ice Age… (van Geel et al 1998b)
Periodicity
“Mayewski et al (1997) showed a 1450 yr periodicity in C14 … from tree rings and …from glaciochemicial series (NaCl & Dust) from the GISP2 ice core … believed to reflect changes in polar atmospheric circulation..”
http://cc.oulu.fi/~usoskin/personal/nature02995.pdf
Unusual activity of the Sun during recent decades compared to the previous 11,000 years
We combine physics-based models for each of the processes connecting the radiocarbon concentration with sunspot number. According to our reconstruction, the level of solar activity during the past 70 years is exceptional, and the previous period of equally high activity occurred more than 8,000 years ago.We find that during the past 11,400 years the Sun spent only of the order of 10% of the time at a similarly high level of magnetic activity and almost all of the earlier high-activity periods were shorter than the present episode.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1500-year_climate_cycle
So, I don’t see an answer to my question: just exactly what is it that Lamb is supposed to have predicted? Was it, as the graph says, Southwest wind at London, or something else?
We take “Warmists” to task for not using the Scientific Method diligently, but this article also seems to be a bit abbreviated w.r.t. the Scientific Method. So apparently Lamb’s prediction was “successful”. If so, there must be details somewhere of the method of testing the prediction, and the the results that confirmed it was successful. Where?
William,
In the text that David quoted from the Lamb, you’ll see that Lamb attributed the changes in wind to some connection with changes in sunspot cycle intensity. It does seem that what he was trying to predict was the wind, but given that he was connecting it to the sunspot cycle, he was also predicting changes in that. I would very much like to see if his London wind prediction held up, which, as you pointed out, isn’t checked here. However, there has been a drop in solar activity right around the time he would have expected, so his indirect prediction seems to be coming true.
RockyRoad says:
Apparently, you don’t know what the word “exponential” means since your statement is nonsensical. An exponential function satisfies the relation that the rate of change of the function is proportional to the value of the function. And, in fact, if you take the function to be the excess of CO2 concentration above the ~280 ppm pre-industrial concentration, the rise has been approximately exponential. (If you take the function to be the total CO2 concentration instead, then the rise has been considerably faster than exponential.)
>Astley: I do not understand why you statement “tenuous at best”.. How do you explain the last 23 Dansgaard-Oeschger events
Err, but what has this got to do with the “prediction”?
> It does seem that what he was trying to predict was the wind
Insofar as he was trying to predict anything, yes. So you’d expect the author of this post to have attempted to verify this prediction, since that is clearly the primary “prediction”. But he appears to be totally uninterested in what Lamb was interested in.
> the sunspot cycle, he was also predicting changes in that
Well maybe, but in that case, what exactly was his prediction, in regard to the sunspot cycles? This post claims “the first prediction of the current solar minimum” but I can’t see that in Lamb’s words. This looks to me like a “prediction”, made after the fact, retro-fitted to some words that won’t support it.
Bob_FJ says:
Only in the minds of those who don’t understand the concept of statistical significance and errorbars in trend analysis.
I got bored of our discussion because you haven’t shown any ability to learn anything that in any way contradicts what your ideology forces you to believe. However, just gave it one more shot in that thread. Maybe you will surprise me.
When science becomes nothing but an exercise in wriggle matching you run the high risk of making the same mistake coders make when finding the name Obama in the Bible next to the phrase “antichrist”. It is a spurious finding not to be taken with anything but with your tongue in cheek.
In reply to William Connelly:
Lamb’s paper from the 1970’s is perhaps dated. I assume that is what your point is. Surely you are not asserting that the 1470 year Dansgaar-Oeschger (Bond) cycle and Younger Dryas (Heinrich cycles) did not occur or that cosmogenic isotope changes do not correlate in time with those events. Are you asserting that there are not cycles of warming and cooling in the paleo record?
Lamb’s 1970’s conclusion has been proven to be correct. There are cycles of warming and cooling in the paleo climate record. That is a fact.
See this link for graphs and data from some of the key papers.
http://www.climate4you.com/
Comment:
Mann’s attempt to remove the cycles with the Hockey stick paper not withstanding. That paper is a distraction. Mann used data from tree rings which are sensitive to both precipitation changes, as well as temperature changes (from a region that receives higher rainfall during cold periods and therefore exhibits greater tree ring growth when the planet is colder) and then used a mathematical technique “principal component” to force the cherry picked tree ring data force the other tree rings to fit the hockey stick. Following the hockey stick paper, there was the spaghetti paper, where appropriate and inappropriate proxy data is presented to make it appear (as the different proxies look like spaghetti on a page) that there is no way to know what has happen in the past. As noted above there are 100’s of papers that discuss and try to explain the Dansgaar-Oecshger cycles, the Heinrich cycles, the glacial/interglacial cycle, the Younger Dryas abrupt cooling event, and so. Unbiased specialists in proxy data interpretation no longer question whether the warming and cooling cycles occurred. The field has moved on to try to explain what causing the changes.
There are 100’s of papers published subsequent to Lamb’s 1970’s paper, that confirm that there are cycles of warming and cooling that correlate with cosmogenic isotope changes. The cosmogenic isotope changes are caused by solar cycle changes as well as by concurrent changes to the geomagnetic field. It is only in the last 10 years that scientists have made significant progress in the discovery of the mechanisms by which solar cycle changes modulate planetary cloud cover and planetary temperature (There are 7 different mechanisms which I am aware of.) Roughly 70% of the 20th century warming was due to electroscavening where solar wind bursts create a space charge differential in the ionosphere which removes cloud forming ions. There is an interesting series of papers that try to explain how and why the solar wind changed during this period.
What will happen next is completely dependent on the mechanisms, the current change to the sun, as well as the planet’s feedback response to a change in forcing.
It appears we will have a front row seat to observe the once in 1470 year Dansgaar-Oeschger cycle and it seems based on what has happened before that it is likely that this will be a medium or very large Dansgaar-Oescherger event. (See my comment above for links to some of the key papers.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubert_Lamb
Lamb was one of the first to propose that climate could change within human experience, going against the orthodox view of the time that climate could be treated as constant for practical purposes.[1] He developed early theories about the medieval warm period and little ice age, and became known as the “ice man” for his prediction of global cooling and a coming ice age.[3] In 1965 he published his study on “The early medieval warm epoch and its sequel”, based on “data from the realms of botany, historical document research and meteorology”. His view was that “Evidence has been accumulating in many fields of investigation pointing to a notably warm climate in many parts of the world, that lasted a few centuries around A.D. 1000–1200, and was followed by a decline of temperature levels till between 1500 and 1700 the coldest phase since the last ice age occurred.”[4] The paper included a series of diagrams of temperatures in central England over the period, simplified in a 1982 version adjusted to account for “probable under-reporting of mild winters in Medieval times” and “certain botanical considerations” including historical records of vineyards in southern and eastern England. This version was featured in the IPCC First Assessment Report of 1990, figure 7.1c on p. 202, as a “Schematic diagram of global temperature variations for the last thousand years.”[5]
Joel I don’t see an exponential rise in ppm of CO2. I question that prediction. You don’t?
> Lamb’s paper from the 1970’s is perhaps dated. I assume that is what your point is
No. My point is that the entire premise of this post – that Lamb predicted the “current solar min” (whatever exactly is meant by that) is spurious. Lamb made no such prediction. The post, when examined with vaguely “skeptical” eyes, falls apart.
> Lamb’s 1970’s conclusion has been proven to be correct. There are cycles of warming and cooling in the paleo climate record.
Yeees. But it isn’t in doubt. It wasn’t in doubt when Lamb wrote the paper. No-one is questioning that assertion.
Nice to se you quoting wikipeia. I’m sure everyone else here will tell you that’s a no-no (unless it says something you want to read, of course). As for IPCC First Assessment Report of 1990, figure 7.1c, you may find this helpful; I’ve edited the Lamb page to link to it so it can help others, too.
> It appears we will have a front row seat to observe the once in 1470 year Dansgaar-Oeschger cycle
How very nice. So, when is this event scheduled to begin? When will it peak? Indeed, when was the last peak?
David Archibald says:
February 19, 2012 at 6:43 am
Time-weighted for accuracy and detail, Pandolfi and Libby’s forecast from 1979 is likely to have been the best prediction of the current minimum.
Yes, it was a mostly correct prediction out of carbon isotope data more than 1800 years back i time. There is not a current minimum yet, they have predicted the temperatures will fall unto 2050 AD. Out of a time span of 1800 years+ it is possible to analyse the relevant temperature frequencies and their strength’s, especially because the main frequency of 913.5 years is twice found in the data. But as I have argued, the main job of climate science is not to make (correct) predictions, the main job is the produce knowledge based on real elements of nature.
The anomalies P+L have predicted, easy also could be calculated from the solar tide functions of the planets:
http://www.volker-doormann.org/images/hadc_ghi6_1000.gif
But the difference is that these functions are accurate known from astronomy laws of planets for the next 1000 years, and the knowledge ends not in 2050 AD:
http://www.volker-doormann.org/images/lockwood_vs_ghi_4.gif
What I like about Lamb’s forecast is that it is pure wiggle-matching and based on detailed work.
I think wiggle-matching is a serious part of empiric search of unknown elements in nature. I did such job to find the elements of the tensor elements of a magneto-optic garnet twenty years ago, and in the same manner I have wiggled out the strengths of the up to eleven planetary functions involved in the global temperature profile. But again, these heliocentric frequency functions have a basis in the real moving objects in the solar system. As a result it is possible now to verify the A. Moberg et al. data and the cold years around 535/536 AD in high time resolution as this graph shows:
http://www.volker-doormann.org/images/ghi_6_lockwood_2.gif
The point is whether the conclusion is based on well known facts or not. This is a lack also in the philosophy of N. Scarfetta; there is no logical connection from a (sinusoid?) 60 year cycle to a structure in nature; it could be a ‘Ignoratio elenchi’ : “The fallacy of Irrelevant Conclusion consists of claiming that an argument supports a particular conclusion when it is actually logically nothing to do with that conclusion.”
V.
“..climate cycles can be relied upon to continue to the end of time.”
There were warm decades centered at 1630, 1730, 1830, 1930, so roll on SC25 !
Hubert Lamb’s son is my MP and I have mentioned more than once to Norman Lamb that his father must be turning in his grave at the antics of the UEA CRU/Jones et al.
Pamela Gray says:
What does, “I don’t see an exponential rise in ppm of CO2” mean? You have actually taken the numbers and carefully compared it to an exponential? Here is a link to a news story about researchers who apparently have: http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2009/03/27/carbon-dioxide-rise.html
RE : IPCC -1990-figure-7c – S McIntyre investigated . . . http://climateaudit.org/2008/05/09/where-did-ipcc-1990-figure-7c-come-from-httpwwwclimateauditorgp3072previewtrue/
Proabably a better read that the wiki!
Re: “I don’t see an exponential rise in ppm of CO2″. It can be checked. I opened up this link ftp://ftp.cmdl.noaa.gov/ccg/co2/trends/co2_mm_mlo.txt Then I put the data into MSExcel, plotted it, and then used the Add Trendline facility to get the following.
Linear Trend:
y = 1.459x – 2548 (R^2 = 0.9782)
Exponential Trend:
y = 0.0866 e^0.0042x (R^2 = 0.9834)
So the exponential is slightly better than the linear. But I’ve still got to work-out whether the difference amounts to anything.
William Astley says:
February 19, 2012 at 7:35 am
The sun was at its highest activity level in roughly 11,000 years during the last half the 20th century.
Not so: http://www.leif.org/research/The%20long-term%20variation%20of%20solar%20activity.pdf
Prime Minister JULIA Gillard thinks she can stop climate cycles by destroying Australia’s economy. But I hear a lot of Australians have a problem with that.So one of the two parties commits suicide.
Clarke and Dawe
http://youtu.be/yQgL1KdW_cg
J Calvert N(UK) says:
Right idea…But, I think if you try plotting it, you’ll find that the reason that exponential isn’t that much better is because if you consider the function to be total CO2 concentration, it is considerably super-exponential.
What you really want to plot instead is the total CO2 concentration above 280 ppm and then fit an exponential to it…Or, alternately, what I just did is used SOLVER, which allowed me to specify a functional form to fit the data to that subtracted off the baseline of 280 ppm. What I see visually is that (CO2 – 280ppm) is considerably better fit by an exponential function than a linear function, although the exponential does have a bit too much curvature. (If one actually allows the baseline concentration to be another fit parameter, then the best fit to the exponential form is obtained with a baseline parameter of ~256 ppm.)
P. Solar says:
February 18, 2012 at 10:29 pm
“…it suggested a decay constant of about 5 years.”
That time is largely one of diffusion into the oceans. What I am getting at here is the time until ultimate sequestration. That time should be on the order of decades, or we should see more of the ~60 year temperature cycle in the CO2 measurements.
This is all very interesting. It would be better if you could post a link to where you got it right. These incoherent and contradictory posts are not too convincing.”
Well, the post shows the manner in which one could fit a model. And, a system with a low pass characteristic will generally show greater sensitivity for long term trends than it will for annual cycles. That is the main point.
I’m not trying to convince at this point, merely to keep minds open.
It’s been quite some time since I made my original analysis and, as this is not my day job, I’m not sure if I kept any record of my scribblings. But, I now recall I did assume a second order model rolling off at -40 dB/decade because there are two main reservoirs (system states), being the Atmosphere and the Oceans. It may even be possible to get steeper roll-off, hence longer dominant time constant, by including the Land reservoir. But, I do not want to go too far in this direction because it is somewhat speculative without performing an in-depth analysis of the data.
“I think you will find there is a different time const for small amplitude variations circa 5ppm (surface water) and larger variations of the order of 100ppm which probably will involve deeper water.”
I agree. The whole thing may even resemble a pink noise process, which can be modeled as an infinite expansion of exponential decays. That is precisely why I do not want to tie myself down to a particular model, and just want to make the point that the expected low pass characteristic can tie all the sensitivities together. There’s a fellow over at Judith’s who frequently argues for a “fat tail” response of this type. While I do not think his particular model is necessarily the true one, it is a plausible one.
Pamela Gray says:
February 19, 2012 at 10:39 am
“Joel I don’t see an exponential rise in ppm of CO2. I question that prediction.”
It could be all kinds of functions. It’s more or less linear with an apparent additional slightly positive curvature. Anything beyond that is speculation.
Les Johnson says:
February 19, 2012 at 1:44 am
I don’t know, Les. The main point I take away from the discussion is that fitting a sinusoidal expansion to data often does have predictive value. As I am sure you are well aware, that is something the AGW advocates are anxious to deny (but, something we in industry know very well) because the obvious ~60 year cycle in the global temperature metric explains the run up of that measure in the late 20th century, as well as the current lull, without any significant impact from CO2 being necessary. And, that fact alone obliterates the foundation of the CAGW conjecture.
JS: I tried some of those ideas. About the best fit I could get using Excel was 280+4*10^-18*e^0.0023x. This gave a doubing time of 154 years. I’m intrigued now. I guess I’ll have
to try and buy the article!
Just so everyone else can see, here http://www.frontiernet.net/~jshore/CO2_concentration.pdf is a plot of the Mauna Loa CO2 data with 3 fits:
Linear 2-parameter fit in black to the form y = m*x + b
Exponential 2-parameter fit in red to the form y = A*exp(B*x) + 280
Exponential 3-parameter fit in green to the form y = A*exp(B*x) + C
As noted, for the 3-parameter fit, the optimal value found for C turns out to be C = 256 ppm.
Joel Shore @ February 19, 10:23 am
Joel, please study the following, and see if you can de-mystify what you are on about. The sources include the IPCC and Hadcrut.
http://bobfjones.wordpress.com/2012/02/02/linear-trends-on-noisy-data/
I’ve responded to your still evasive, even irrelevant answer again here:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/02/03/monckton-responds-to-skeptical-science/#comment-897210
J Calvert N(UK):
I get a doubling time of 32 years for the 2-parameter exponential fit and 43 years for the 3-parameter exponential fit.
(By doubling time, I mean the time for the part above the baseline to double in value, not the time for the total CO2 concentration to double. If I instead ask when the CO2 levels will reach 560 ppm, i.e., double the pre-industrial value of 280 ppm, I get the year to be 2053 for the 2-parameter exponential fit and 2061 for the 3-parameter exponential fit.)
Bart @ February 19, 4:43 pm
Re the approx 60-year underlying sinusoidal, please see my comment to Joel below, with the earliest (2003) reference to it that I’ve seen graphed, and a very silly misleading graph from IPCC AR4 using linear trends, and Hadcrut comparison.
You might like to exchange notes with Joel. (it can be a bit like trying to remove an eel from the hook with bare hands without injuring it though)
JS: What do you make the Doubling Time to be?
Bob_FJ says:
February 19, 2012 at 5:57 pm
Your next comment hasn’t appeared yet, and I have to go. But, I do want to note this statement by Joel:
“Only in the minds of those who don’t understand the concept of statistical significance and errorbars in trend analysis.”
I find this kind of justification very annoying. Such concepts are meant for specific data sets which have a definite underlying trend and measurements which are corrupted by independent noise. The model is a trend. If the real world is not actually linear, if it does not fit that model, then the error bars calculated under that assumption are on very shaky ground.
There are two concepts in opposition in such a case: bias and variance. When the model does not fit, your estimate is biased. When the model is really poor, the bias can exceed the variance. That is why statistical models are sought to be consistent. (While it is not necessary for an estimator to be unbiased to be consistent, those which manage it tend to be contrived applications, and it is certainly not the case here.)
Joel Shore says:
February 19, 2012 at 5:24 pm
“…Mauna Loa CO2 data with 3 fits:”
Begging the question. Try a quadratic fit. A cubic fit. A quartic fit. At some point, you will find a truncated polynomial fit which gives a better fit than the exponential. At that point, should we conclude that the exponential model is wrong?
In reply to Connolley.
William M. Connolley says:
February 19, 2012 at 10:23 am
>Astley: I do not understand why you statement “tenuous at best”.. How do you explain the last 23 Dansgaard-Oeschger events
Err, but what has this got to do with the “prediction”?
As we watch this specific solar change unfold, it will be evident whether solar changes can or cannot abruptly change the climate. I do not expect to affect your paradigm with my comments. If the planet abruptly cools, your paradigm will change.
Obviously, if the planet starts to abruptly cool the entire extreme AGW hypothesis was incorrect and a new policy will be required. I completely understand the majority has not reviewed the paleoclimatic record and do not understand that abrupt climate changes, such as the Younger Dryas Heinrich event or the past termination of interglacials is a cyclic physical fact, i.e. The observational evidence of abrupt cyclic climate change cycles at which time there is concurrent cosmogenic isotope change is agreed to by specialists to be a fact. Where there is not agreement is to what caused the past cyclic abrupt climate change periods.
The “prediction” is that past solar cycles caused the Dansgaard-Oeschger cycles in the past which is warming followed by cooling and in some instances abrupt cooling. Solar cycle 24 is the start of the cooling phase of the Dansgaard-Oeschger cycle.
The observational record unequivocally supports this assertion. For example (see below for a link to Rahmstorf’s paper.)
“Timing of abrupt climate change: A precise clock by Stefan Rahmstorf
Many paleoclimatic data reveal a approx. 1,500 year cyclicity of unknown origin. A crucial question is how stable and regular this cycle is. An analysis of the GISP2 ice core record from Greenland reveals that abrupt climate events appear to be paced by a 1,470-year cycle with a period that is probably stable to within a few percent; with 95% confidence the period is maintained to better than 12% over at least 23 cycles. This highly precise clock points to an origin outside the Earth system; oscillatory modes within the Earth system can be expected to be far more irregular in period.”
If you presented a counter proposal as to what caused the Dansgaard-Oeschger cycle in the past, that included a physical cause, that included observational evidence to support the hypothesis, rather than link to to AR-4 with no explanation, as to what counter hypothesis you or AR-4 proposes, I can respond to your comment. What specifically in AR-4 supports your assertion, that 70% of the 20th century warming was not caused by solar magnetic cycle changes and that the planet is not about to abruptly cool?
I see multiple fundamental errors in AR-4. The IPCC document is obviously controlled by a select group of people who started with a conclusion rather than try to solve a scientific problem.
I provide the following link to a resignation letter in response a press conference held by the principal author of a section of AR-4 to support my assertion that the IPCC process is controlled by a group that have started with a conclusion.
http://www.climatechangefacts.info/ClimateChangeDocuments/LandseaResignationLetterFromIPCC.htm
“Dear colleagues,
After some prolonged deliberation, I have decided to withdraw from participating in the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). I am withdrawing because I have come to view the part of the IPCC to which my expertise is relevant as having become politicized. In addition, when I have raised my concerns to the IPCC leadership, their response was simply to dismiss my concerns….
Shortly after Dr. Trenberth requested that I draft the Atlantic hurricane section for the AR4’s Observations chapter, Dr. Trenberth participated in a press conference organized by scientists at Harvard on the topic “Experts to warn global warming likely to continue spurring more outbreaks of intense hurricane activity” along with other media interviews on the topic. The
result of this media interaction was widespread coverage that directly connected the very busy 2004 Atlantic hurricane season as being caused by anthropogenic greenhouse gas warming occurring today. Listening to and reading transcripts of this press conference and media interviews, it is apparent that Dr. Trenberth was being accurately quoted and summarized in
such statements and was not being misrepresented in the media. These media sessions have potential to result in a widespread perception that global warming has made recent hurricane activity much more severe.
…Moreover, the evidence is quite strong and supported by the most recent credible studies that any impact in the future from global warming upon hurricane will likely be quite small. The latest results from the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (Knutson and Tuleya, Journal of Climate, 2004) suggest that by around 2080, hurricanes may have winds and rainfall about 5% more intense than today. It has been proposed that even this tiny change may be an exaggeration as to what may happen by the end of the 21st Century (Michaels, Knappenberger, and Landsea, Journal of Climate, 2005, submitted).”
I cannot agree or disagree with AR-4 unless you present a specific scientific hypothesis, that includes data, analysis, and so forth. (i.e. A hypothesis that can be disproved.)
It is fact that there is in the paleoclimatic record 23 Dansgaard-Oescheger cycles which occur cyclically with a periodicity of roughly 1470 years plus or minus around 80 years.. The very large Heinrich cycles, including the 12,800 year before present abrupt cooling “Younger Dryas” cooling cycle and the past similar Heinrich cycles are concurrent in time with the Dansgaard-Oescheger cycles, as is the 8200 year cooling cycle.
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2002/2000PA000571.shtml
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2003/2003GL017115.shtml
http://www.esd.ornl.gov/projects/qen/transit.html
http://www.falw.vu/~renh/pdf/Renssen-etal-QI-2000.pdf
It is a fact that the magnetic field strength of newly formed sunspots is linearly less and less as compared to previously formed sunspots. If the trend continues the sun will no longer be capable for producing sunspots.
http://arxiv.org/abs/1009.0784v1
So in the paleo climatic record there are cycles of planetary warming, followed by cooling and in for come instances abrupt cooling at which time there are concurrent cosmogenic isotope changes and abrupt geomagnetic field changes. It seems logical that if the sun changes in the same manner as it has changed in the past that the same abrupt climate change will occur. What is not known is why the sun changed in the past and how that specific solar change caused the cyclic abrupt climate change.
My comment is we will have a front row seat to observe and resolve the questions noted above as it obvious that the current Dansgaard-Oescheger cycle is moving from the warming phase to the cooling or abrupt cooling phase.
Joel, please excuse my naivete. I always understood that exponential growth is marked as a rate of growth that increases as time increases. The curve is supposed to get steeper and steeper as time goes on. I just don’t see it. Now if you want to split hairs on a gnat’s ass, I suppose there are numerous degrees of exponential growth and algorithms to match. But that seems more like hedging your bet to me. It reminds one of the “acidification” montra. The ocean is a far cry from being acid and I think the growth of CO2 is a far cry from being what I consider to be exponential.
I also am wondering if we are being rather short-sighted. Looking at this very tiny snippet of CO2 in the ever-long history of CO2 on Earth seems a bit futile and demonstrates a desire to ignore the trees whilst we examine the little needles on the forest floor underneath just one little tree.
William Astley says:
February 19, 2012 at 7:15 pm
It seems logical that if the sun changes in the same manner as it has changed in the past that the same abrupt climate change will occur.
Except, as I pointed out, the sun did not change in the past the way you assume.
Bart @ February 19, 6:27 pm
1) Sorry Bart, I screwed up on the sequence; my relevant comment to Joel was above, not below that to you. Here it is: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/02/18/the-world-wont-stop-having-climate-cycles-just-because-they-are-inconvenient/#comment-897244 , and it contains the link to the sinusoidal/linear trend graphs that I’ve invited Joel to contemplate on. (If I were to ask direct questions, on form, he would probably divert to something else)
2) Yes, I also find that gobbledygook that caught your eye above to be exquisitely irritating.
In reply to Leif Svalgaard,
Leif Svalgaard says:
February 19, 2012 at 7:57 pm
William Astley says:
February 19, 2012 at 7:15 pm
It seems logical that if the sun changes in the same manner as it has changed in the past that the same abrupt climate change will occur.
Except, as I pointed out, the sun did not change in the past the way you assume.
Hello,
I do not believe I provided a hypothesis as to how the sun changed in the past during the Dansgaard-Oescheger cycle and the stronger Heinrich cycles. I stated that there are very large cosmogenic isotope changes that are concurrent with the Dansgaard-Oescherger cycles and there are larger cosmogenic isotope changes at the Heinrich events. There are unexplained geomagnetic excursions at the Heinrich events and at the termination of interglacial periods. I believe that is an observational fact, assuming the interpretation of the proxy record is correct. The specialists in that field have looked for different measurement techniques to confirm the observations.
If I understand your comment and lecture notes, the proxy solar activity based on direct observation is not necessarily and likely not constant overtime. (i.e. There is a subjective judgement as to what is or is not a sunspot and a sunspot group and the observational tools have changed.) I am not sure that invalidates Solanki’s assertion.
http://cc.oulu.fi/~usoskin/personal/nature02995.pdf
I provided a link to Solanki et al’s paper “Unusual activity of the Sun during recent decades compared to the previous 11,000 years”. Solanki compares cosmogenic isotopes deposits in the past to current to support his assertion. Is his assertion correct? It seems to provide a proxy measure of the heliosphere rather than sunspot count. I thought there was also geomagnetic field disturbance records that supports Solanki’s assertion for the short period of time that record is available. If I remember correctly the number of disturbances and the magnitude of disturbance in the geomagnetic field has increased by a factor of 2 comparing the 19th century to the later part of the twentieth century. The geomagnetic disturbance record supports Solanki’s assertion for the last 200 years.
http://www.climate4you.com/
Are there any hypotheses to explain why the magnetic field strength of newly formed sunspots is decaying linearly? Has this happened in the past?
http://arxiv.org/abs/1009.0784v1
Long-term Evolution of Sunspot Magnetic Fields
Independent of the normal solar cycle, a decrease in the sunspot magnetic field strength has been observed using the Zeeman-split 1564.8nm Fe I spectral line at the NSO Kitt Peak McMath-Pierce telescope. Corresponding changes in sunspot brightness and the strength of molecular absorption lines were also seen. This trend was seen to continue in observations of the first sunspots of the new solar Cycle 24, and extrapolating a linear fit to this trend would lead to only half the number of spots in Cycle 24 compared to Cycle 23, and imply virtually no sunspots in Cycle 25.
As I stated, it does appear we will have an opportunity to observe a Dansgaard-Oescherger cycle. What happened (geomagnetic field changes and paloeclimatic changes) before happened for a physical reason. (see the graph of past Dansgaard-Oescherger cycles in the Greenland Ice sheet core data.) There are a number of fundamental solar and paleo climatic questions that may be answered by those observations.
Nice, Bob_FJ. Thanks.
That IPCC AR4 chart … Wow. The guy who made it is either an imbecile or sociopathically dishonest.
William Astley says:
February 19, 2012 at 10:25 pm
I am not sure that invalidates Solanki’s assertion.
Solanki’s model is based on the assumed large secular change in the Group sunspot Number. This change is likely spurious and didn’t happen.
It seems to provide a proxy measure of the heliosphere rather than sunspot count. […] The geomagnetic disturbance record supports Solanki’s assertion for the last 200 years.
The heliomagnetic and geomagnetic data shows no difference between the 18th and 20th centuries. See e.g. Figure 10 of http://www.leif.org/research/2009JA015069.pdf
Are there any hypotheses to explain why the magnetic field strength of newly formed sunspots is decaying linearly? Has this happened in the past?
Sunspots form by the coalescence of smaller spots and pores. That mechanism seems to be weakening [we don’t know why, yet]. It is possible that it also happened during the Maunder Minimum.
Leif Svalgaard says:
February 20, 2012 at 4:26 am
The heliomagnetic and geomagnetic data shows no difference between the 19th and 20th centuries. See e.g. Figure 10 of http://www.leif.org/research/2009JA015069.pdf
Bart says:
I agree there is no law of nature that says it has to be exponential. The reason the exponential model fits so well is that our emissions of CO2 have been growing approximately exponentially and the fraction of CO2 that is rapidly partitioned into the oceans and biosphere has remained about constant. If either of these changes, then the growth of the CO2 concentration should change.
Of course, the part about emissions is in our hands. The part about the uptake of the oceans and biosphere is more complex…Some (many?) scientists believe that there will be some saturation effects eventually and these sinks will no longer be able to keep up; fortunately, we haven’t seen any sign of this yet.
Leif Svalgaard says:
February 20, 2012 at 4:26 am
Sunspots form by the coalescence of smaller spots and pores. That mechanism seems to be weakening [we don’t know why, yet]. It is possible that it also happened during the Maunder Minimum.
When you say “we” you are not including all solar science, only the brand you subscribe to.
Leif Svalgaard says:
February 20, 2012 at 4:26 am
Thank-you for your comments.
William
Geoff Sharp says:
February 20, 2012 at 5:35 am
“Sunspots form by the coalescence of smaller spots and pores. That mechanism seems to be weakening. [we don’t know why, yet]”
When you say “we” you are not including all solar science, only the brand you subscribe to.
The ‘we’ covers everybody. Unless you can provide links that show that somebody understands why the mechanism is weakening.
Joel Shore says:
February 19, 2012 at 12:05 pm
Depending on your source of information, the expected rise of CO2 is 2ppm per year–or 2% per year. The former would give you a linear (not exponential) rise; the latter would be an exponential number. (Your spurious argument depends on the data used, not the methodology–I could run circles around you in mathematics if you wish to compete.)
But getting past the arugment with curve fitting (which is a ridiculous discussion and an attempted hijack of the thread), estimates show that if ALL the known fossil fuels were burned, it would increase the CO2 content to about 600 ppm, and that’s about it. After that, it would be gradually absorbed in the biosphere and the level would drop, which is unfortunate.
However, more to the point–can you prove there’s a problem with a rise (linear or exponential) in the CO2 level?
And I’ll provide an answer for you, because you’d never respond with the truth–NO, THERE IS NO PROBLEM WITH RISING CO2 LEVELS.
CO2 doesn’t cause significant warming, although what warming it does cause is beneficial. It greatly improves the viability of plants, which contributes to the animal portion of the biosphere, including humans! And no–a bunch of “screaming in the night” articles by scientists protecting “The Cause” (and their grant funding) is NOT sufficient evidence to prove otherwise.
(Remember, the CO2 level throughout the vast majority of Earth’s history has been MUCH higher than it is today and the oceans aren’t found floating around in the atmosphere as a consequence of some horrible, catastrophic tipping point your crowd hasn’t and can’t idenify.)
Bottom Line: Your side has failed to falsify the null hypothesis regarding CO2. And as a consequence, the arguments you put up are also bogus. Sad, sad state of affairs for the CAGW meme. There’s global warming, (but only perhaps–because it doesn’t appear in data that hasn’t been squeezed until it screams), but is the warming we’ve (perhaps) detected caused by man? The vast majority has not. And is the minor warming we’ve seen catastrophic? No–unless you’re a grant seeking “climate scientist” (a very disparaging term, by the way) whose livelihood depends on crying “Wolf”!
William Astley says:
February 19, 2012 at 7:15 pm
That it would do so in a rather steady cycle confirms my long-held belief that it is/was the sun’s behavior that likely cause the onset of Ice Ages rather than the Milankovitch Cycle hypothesis, with which I have never been comfortable or convinced. My big worry is that we’re near or at the end of our current Interglacial, that we could see one of these “abrupt cooling phases” you indicate, and it could tip climate conditions that would have a catastrophic impact on Earth. The only catastrophic “tipping point” I believe in comes not from the CAGW crowd–they have nothing demonstrable–but from irrefutable geologic evidence of cyclical Glacial/Interglacial swings.
A very sobering thought.
Where does all that ‘convection’ finally dump it’s heat energy?
Can you (or we) say: “Radiated off the planet” ?
.
Joel Shore says:
February 20, 2012 at 4:49 am
“The reason the exponential model fits so well is that our emissions of CO2 have been growing approximately exponentially and the fraction of CO2 that is rapidly partitioned into the oceans and biosphere has remained about constant.”
That, again, is begging the question. The data are more or less consistent with the hypothesis, but do not rule out other possibilities.
“Some (many?) scientists believe that there will be some saturation effects eventually and these sinks will no longer be able to keep up; fortunately, we haven’t seen any sign of this yet.”
And, won’t. Our contribution is miniscule.
_Jim says:
February 20, 2012 at 10:29 am
“Can you (or we) say: “Radiated off the planet” ?”
From what altitude? By what gases? With what relative efficiency?
Pamela Gray says:
You can see it here: http://www.frontiernet.net/~jshore/CO2_concentration.pdf
RockyRoad says:
Those who say 2ppm per year are talking about the current rate of growth. They are not saying it has been 2ppm for all time because it hasn’t. The rate has been increasing over time as you can clearly see from the link to my graph of the Mauna Loa data above.
Oh brother; are you actually saying: “one way in, no way out” regarding thermal energy (received via insolation) and our planet ?
Seriously, a science course in radiation dynamics would be a good place to start*, or spend a night under a star-lit sky … the ‘effects’ of radiation are demonstrable in a number of ways (for instance: how does dew form, how does fog form.)
* Intro-level meteorology courses also cover these, well-known, widely accepted, easily demonstrable assertions. Just as Anthony.
.
Last sentence should be: “Just ask Anthony.” TIA
To Joel Shore: Re: “I get a doubling time of 32 years for the 2-parameter exponential fit and 43 years for the 3-parameter exponential fit.”
I totally disagree – that’s nonsense. In 1959 the CO2 was at about 313ppm. How long will it take to reach 626ppm? Well its been 50+ years already and it has not doubled. It is at 380 – an increase of only 21%. There is a long way to go before Doubling occurs! I make it about 160 years, so (1959 + 160 =) the year 2120.
So I can only conclude that the prediction you referred to (by Wallace S. Broeker in his article/paper to Science) is unsuccessful. And the outstandingly unsuccessful bit is the Doubling Time. Broeker (in the Doscovery link) said 30 years. That is way wrong = FAIL!
_Jim says:
February 20, 2012 at 12:24 pm
“Oh brother; are you actually saying: “one way in, no way out” regarding thermal energy (received via insolation) and our planet ?”
Frankly, your sentence is so convoluted, I’m really not sure what pigeonhole you are trying to stuff me into. You were pointing out that energy can only ultimately leave the system through radiation (duh!). I was simply pointing out that heat convected above the troposphere has alternative outlets besides CO2.
I would recommend less “gotcha”, more substance, if you want to prevail in this forum.
Leif Svalgaard says:
February 20, 2012 at 8:19 am
The following might be a physical clue as to why the Solar Cycle is stuck:
http://www.robertb.darkhorizons.org/TempGr/uvp2324a.PNG
Examine it carefully. It would appear that the average gap between the Northern and Southern spot belts is not closing since it began in mid 2009, at least not like it should. Runs of spots that migrate toward the equator on one side are accompanied by runs of spots on the opposite side away from the Solar Equator.
For lack of a better description I am wanting to call it an upwelling or resistance at the Solar Equator leading to a repulsion.
The other thing that is getting more significant is the lack of umbral spot area growth, now falling behind SC14 (which you probably already know):
http://www.robertb.darkhorizons.org/TempGr/uSC24vs13_14.GIF
Joel Shore @ Monckton responds to skeptical Science: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/02/03/monckton-responds-to-skeptical-science/#comment-897282
If Moderators agree: My reply is moved from the Monckton thread to here, because this thread is more on-topic and not so long and old in the tooth.
Well, out of all your extensive lectures on lapse rates and the upper troposphere etc, I’m struggling to understand why you suggest it is unreasonable to speculate that if the surface temperature, increases then the rate of evaporation would not also increase, although maybe biological transpirations might be a tad more complicated to assess. Are you suggesting a saturation problem, and if so, why? I seem to recall that somewhere you suggested rather the opposite WRT possible cloud cover changes.
Thus, on this point will you please elaborate the physics according to Joel that mystify me?
Oh BTW, there is also an argument that if CO2 increases then GHE theory gives that backradiation will increase, and since the wavelengths involved are absorbed microscopically in the skin on water, there might well be an increase in evaporation. However, there is no need for you to confirm your disagreement; the point above is sufficient.
rbateman says:
February 20, 2012 at 3:05 pm
The following might be a physical clue as to why the Solar Cycle is stuck
By mechanism, I mean equations, numbers, etc.
BTW, your F10.7 has a very large spike [above 900 sfu] on 2011/03/07. I know that it is in the data file from the Canadians, but it is spurious nevertheless. Earlier, those spikes where removed manually. Now it is all done by computer, as they ‘proudly’ proclaim: “This measurement has been derived, processed and transmitted automatically”. This means that some quality control is less than it used to be. The ‘correct’ value for that day [derived from comparing with other stations] is 150 sfu.
J Calvert N(UK) says:
(1) This would be a much better place if people around here actually improved their reading comprehension. Which part of the two sentences following the sentence that you wrote did you not understand. You know, the ones that said:
(2) Your prediction for how long it would take to double from the 1959 value appears to be based on the assumption that the CO2 levels continue to rise at the current rate of 2ppm per year, an idea that there is no evidence for whatsoever given that said rate has increased steadily over the past half century.
(1) The Broecker article did not make a prediction of doubling in 30 years. Actually, in Table 1 of that article, Broeker predicted a CO2 concentration of 403 ppm in 2010 (when it was at the time somewhere around 330 ppm). The actual value in 2010 was about 390 ppm. So, his prediction was a little high but not bad.
(2) The Discovery article was not by Broeker. And, while the article may have been a bit unclear on this point with their wording, it is pretty clear from the context that what they meant to say is that the contribution due to man, i.e., above the 280 ppm baseline, is on a path of doubling about every 30 years, not the total CO2 concentration. This is in line with my estimates based on the exponential fits of 32 – 43 years.
Leif Svalgaard says:
February 20, 2012 at 4:13 pm
rbateman says:
February 20, 2012 at 3:05 pm
The following might be a physical clue as to why the Solar Cycle is stuck
By mechanism, I mean equations, numbers, etc.
I can post up the numerical data in a csv file if you want it.
I just graph the stuff to see where it’s been and where it’s headed, as in a milestone watch.
rbateman says:
February 20, 2012 at 4:58 pm
The following might be a physical clue as to why the Solar Cycle is stuck
“By mechanism, I mean equations, numbers, etc.”
I can post up the numerical data in a csv file if you want it.
Numbers derived from a physical theory with equations and the lot. Data is not mechanism, although it may give one hints in which direction to look.
Bob_FJ says:
Actually, this thread really has nothing whatsoever to do with this issue of convection that you are so desiring to talk about…but whatever.
I am not saying that these things don’t increase. However, what I am saying is that these things increase in a way that we can understand and predict, not in some way that miraculously cancels out the radiative greenhouse effects that you really want to be miraculously cancelled out. And, the way that convection (including evaporation) increases is in such a way as to maintain the lapse rate at the adiabatic lapse rate. [The one slight complication in this is the issue of dry vs saturated adiabatic lapse rates.] And, this means that in fact the effect of an increase in the radiative greenhouse effect does not get cancelled out (although it is smaller than if convection were not able to compensate at all).
The basic point is that the atmosphere is only unstable to convection as long as the lapse rate exceeds the adiabatic lapse rate. This greatly limits the extent to which convection can cancel out the greenhouse effect, which is exactly why Nikolov and Zeller had to go to put convection into a model in a totally unphysical way (such that it drove the lapse rate to zero) in order to get the result that they, like you, wanted to get, which is convection canceling out the greenhouse effect.
JS: OK maybe I should have paid more credence to your definition of Doubling Time. But I ignored it because it seemed somewhat arbitrary compared with an absolute Total CO2 concentration doubling time – i.e. setting the criteria to fit the data. Arbitrary is messy – a significant part of the Moana Loa CO2 that is above 280 ppm is not directly anthropogenic but must come from the recent warming of the Pacific due to ENSO (1998 to 2009).
What I’m most interested in is which definition of Doubling Time was applied to this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Atmospheric_Transmission.png to obtain the crucial 32 W/m^2 per doubling of CO2. Gotta go it’s v late here.
Myrrh @ the Monckton/Skeptical Science thread here:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/02/03/monckton-responds-to-skeptical-science/#comment-897544
Thanks for your interesting comment Myrrh. Just one point of confirmation; when you wrote in part:
Well yes figuratively, but not necessarily because it is a GHG. The Trenberth cartoon attributes radiative heat loss from the surface of 23 W/m^2 as absorbed by all GHG’s, so that includes water vapour, the big one. However the cartoon gives that surface heat loss from evapotranspiration is much greater at 80 W/m^2, totally separately to absorption by GHG’s.
And Joel Shore, (he who knows everything), confirms that the Trenberth numbers are fine, so this must be true!
Leif Svalgaard says:
February 20, 2012 at 5:19 pm
So does the behavior of SC24 in the Sunspot belts ‘bouncing’ off the Solar Equator ( or even running all towards the same Pole (N or S), as shown by the data, give you any clues as to where to look?
btw… remember that multicolor depiction of the flows coming off the Solar Poles, where SC25 had not even shown up yet (and were supposed to by now)? What was the name of it?
“We expected to see the start of the zonal flow for Cycle 25 by now,” Hill explained, “but we see no sign of it. This indicates that the start of Cycle 25 may be delayed to 2021 or 2022, or may not happen at all.”
There was a color map of this flow, and I am wondering where it originated and is there a current update?
Joel Shore @ February 20, 6:20 pm
It seems Joel that you chronically disagree with just about everything. It is typical that many threads do wander off topic to varying degrees; it is the nature of the beast, but the moderator(s) agreed with me that this thread is more appropriate than the old and tired “Monckton replies to Skeptical Science Blog thread”. (and your description of my interest is flawed/incomplete)
I’m beginning to understand why Tallbloke has banned you from commenting on his blog. (whilst inviting you to post a meaningful article). I’ve also seen Anthony Watts scold you on several occasions, and I admire his patience.
This elitist grumpiness of yours is quite unnecessary and is not constructive.
IMO, you even exceed the elitism of Andrew Dessler!!!!!!
I’ll come to your other points later.
[Moderator’s Note: WUWT is a not entirely willing skirmish ground for a, uhhh, conversation that should be conducted elsewhere. All parties are expected to keep it civil and on topic while on our turf. Capice? -REP]
Bart @ February 20, 12:45 am
Or perhaps the eco-artist was typical of the altitude of many IPCC contributors?
ALL: The comical IPCC graph that Bart refers to, together with some interesting comparators is here:
http://bobfjones.wordpress.com/2012/02/02/linear-trends-on-noisy-data/
rbateman says:
February 20, 2012 at 3:05 pm
Great stuff and thankyou for the insight. No solar magnetic reversal at cycle maximum?
David Archibald says:
February 21, 2012 at 6:03 am
Or one that is not visible due to the sunspots/active regions not being strong enough to show themselves. It would be the proverbial tree falling in the forest. Does it makes a sound if nobody is there to witness it?
J Calvert N(UK) says:
No…Rather little is due to that. It is true that as the temperature increases, feedback effects on CO2 levels become an issue. However, it is still a rather small part of the total. That would be included in my point that some scientists predict that the fraction of our CO2 emissions that stays in the atmosphere will tend to increase; however, up to this point, such an increase has not been detected.
The increase in forcing for a doubling of CO2 levels is ~4 W/m^2. That number is based on a doubling of the actual CO2 levels in the atmosphere (e.g., going from 280 to 560 ppm).
Further to my February 20, 2012 at 9:15 pm:
I should belatedly follow-up on my comment to Joel:
AND, in response to this moderator note therein to me:
Non sono sicuro. Non ho capito. (comparativamente, con parole semplice)
Consequently, it is probably more sensible to refer to developments in this uhhh conversation starting here at Anthony’s “reject site”:
http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2012/02/21/joel-shore-the-radiative-greenhouse-effect/#comment-18261
BTW, it is interesting that Joel has not responded to this:
http://bobfjones.wordpress.com/2012/02/02/linear-trends-on-noisy-data/
It shows that his claims of expertise in trend analysis, and the IPCC corruption of such to suit their agenda is {….}; insert suitable four letter word.
More from Joel Posted by TB @ February 24, 2:46 pm:
This is pure obfuscation, on matters which I’ve specifically twice pointed out; arising from a BTW COMMENT of mine; should not be used to divert away from the simpler issues in my clearly identified enquiries to you. For a start, below is one short question that I quote from my last post here: http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2012/02/21/joel-shore-the-radiative-greenhouse-effect/#comment-18361
…”How did you obtain exactly 5 Km.?…” (in the context of the effective radiation surface height in the atmosphere, and the link above)
Could you please clearly answer that simple question. (the one identified in bold and italics text in the line just above). See also Markus Fitzhenry @ February 24, 5:53 am, suggesting 6 Km a la Hansen et al.
Joel Shore,
Further to my February 24, 6:12 pm, and my Email alerting you to it, I just want to make sure that when I re-quoted one very specific question thus:
…”How did you obtain exactly 5 Km.?…”
Context given; That there is still no confusion for you. Whilst I realise that you said the height was about 5 Km, you then went on to back-calculate the temperature of the surface using exactly 5 km to give an unqualified result of 287.5 K, just half a degree short of the desired 288K. Hai capito?
Bob_FJ: The calculation was meant to be illustrative. I did not claim that the effective radiating layer is at exactly 5 km; but I had to use something in the calculations, so I used that. And, I only quoted the resulting temperature to that many significant figures because I knew that if I just said the result was a greenhouse effect close to 33 K, someone would probably complain that it is really 32.5 K. (Besides which, you do want to keep enough sig figs to meaningfully compare to the case where you raise the level by 1 km.)
The “effective radiating layer”, as I have noted, is a single number that summarizes the actual complications of the real problem, which is that the level from which a photon can successfully escape to space is strongly-wavelength dependent and is a probabilistic thing, i.e., even at any given wavelength, there is a broad distribution of levels from which the photons that escape to space are coming from.
If you want to understand the details and exactly how accurately the models are able to reproduce the natural greenhouse effect, you will have to go to the literature. It is not something that I have studied in detail.
Joel Shore @ February 25, 5:59 am
Thanks Joel for your courteous discussion in reply to mine. The only real difficulty I have with it is that you did not answer the core question:
…”How did you obtain exactly 5 Km.?…” (for the effective radiative surface height (H) in the contexts given)
Please note the first word in the question is HOW not WHY or anything else.
Note too that I had acknowledged that you had said H was about 5km, however you went on to use exactly 5Km to give an unqualified surface T of 287.5K. Hmmm!
Whatever your species of H that you prefer, they both have to be derived from somewhere, and the HOW of this is what I’m asking.
Of course I would like you to show error-bars or confidence levels or the like in your anticipated elaboration.