UPDATE: The paper itself is available below.
There is a new paper published yesterday in the journal Geophysical Research Letters from NASA GISS/Columbia University and Brown University titled Hydroclimate of the northeastern United States is highly sensitive to solar forcing
Key Points
- Holocene northeast US hydrological change is consistent with solar forcing
- Small changes in solar forcing are amplified in our region by Arctic Oscillation
- Leaf-wax abundances in peatlands provide high-resolution climate information
This paper looks at hydrogen isotope proxy records over the past 6800 years and finds that the hydroclimate of the Northeastern U.S. is “highly sensitive” to solar activity.
The abstract of the paper says:
“The Sun may be entering a weak phase, analogous to the Maunder minimum, which could lead to more frequent flooding in the northeastern US at this multidecadal timescale.”
It is interesting to see this solar-hydro relationship defined in the USA. Previous similar works include defining a solar-hyrdo relationship to Nile River flow in Africa.
Here’s the paper and abstract:
GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS, VOL. 39, L04707, 5 PP., 2012
Hydroclimate of the northeastern United States is highly sensitive to solar forcing
Jonathan E. Nichols
Department of Geological Sciences, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, USA
Goddard Institute for Space Studies, New York, New York, USA
Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Earth Institute at Columbia University, Palisades, New York, USA
Yongsong Huang
Department of Geological Sciences, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, USA
Dramatic hydrological fluctuations strongly impact human society, but the driving mechanisms for these changes are unclear. One suggested driver is solar variability, but supporting paleoclimate evidence is lacking. Therefore, long, continuous, high-resolution records from strategic locations are crucial for resolving the scientific debate regarding sensitivity of climate to solar forcing. We present a 6800–year, decadally-resolved biomarker and multidecadally-resolved hydrogen isotope record of hydroclimate from a coastal Maine peatland, The Great Heath (TGH). Regional moisture balance responds strongly and consistently to solar forcing at centennial to millennial timescales, with solar minima concurrent with wet conditions. We propose that the Arctic/North Atlantic Oscillation (AO/NAO) can amplify small solar fluctuations, producing the reconstructed hydrological variations. The Sun may be entering a weak phase, analogous to the Maunder minimum, which could lead to more frequent flooding in the northeastern US at this multidecadal timescale.
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UPDATE: Here is the full paper (PDF)
As usual, the periods found do not agree with most of the other ones being peddled, e.g. 172y, 179y, 60y, 22y, etc.
Anthony,
It appears that you’ve got a one-day error in your “Posts by date” feature for Feb. (e.g. today is Wed. 2/29, not Tue.)
REPLY: I think that’s a wordpress problem, will check, thanks for pointing it out. – Anthony
“We propose that the Arctic/North Atlantic Oscillation (AO/NAO) can amplify small solar fluctuations…”
Hilarious, not because of the potential link between MPHs intensity and spatial distribution and the modulation of a solar signal, but because of the use of Walker 1927 indices that represent statistical entities not synoptical ones, therefore killing any potential physical link and explanation for processes.
Leif Svalgaard says:
February 29, 2012 at 10:08 am
As usual, the periods found do not agree with most of the other ones being peddled, e.g. 172y, 179y, 60y, 22y, etc.
It’s climate “science” not science. 🙂
By the way, when you calibrate sunspotnumbers, are you going to calibrate cosmicray proxies too?
It is interesting to see this solar-hydro relationship defined in the USA. Previous similar works include defining a solar-hyrdo relationship to Nile River flow in Africa
In South America as well. Published and peer reviewed.
Olavi says:
February 29, 2012 at 10:29 am
By the way, when you calibrate sunspotnumbers, are you going to calibrate cosmicray proxies too?
That is the idea: http://www.leif.org/research/Svalgaard_ISSI_Proposal_Base.pdf
Robert Brown says:
February 29, 2012 at 9:34 am
That is a brilliant post. 2 physicists with a sense of humour. I’m the other or at least was. Reading WUWT almost since it’s inception has driven all my humour underground. Thanks Robert
Garrett says:
February 29, 2012 at 9:15 am
“. . . the recent rise in temps.”
Beg your pardon, what recent rise in temps?
http://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/UAH_LT_1979_thru_January_2012.png
Robert Brown: There is so much real science to be done here.
Well said.
Too bad there is an entire group of scientists who actively oppose doing it, and who have exercised a horribly disproportionate influence on both the journals and granting agencies.
How much is reliably known about the horrible disproportionate influence that a group of scientists has exercised on the granting agencies? This work was funded by NSF and NASA, and one author is employed by GISS.
Garrett: It’s not about global warming. Sorry to disappoint you all. It’s about the local effects of solar forcing. The global effects of solar forcing are already very well understood, and scientists came to the conclusion a long time ago that it is not the source of the recent rise in temps.
In reverse order, much about the global effects of solar forcing are not very well understood, and the conclusion to which you refer is not universally agreed upon by scientists.
More importantly, the “global effects” are the aggregation of all the local effects, because the earth does not have a uniform surface and does not have spatio-temporally uniform insolation. Rather, the sun shines brightly in some places, dimly in others, dimly in sunny places during cloudy rainy weather, and not at all at night. The “global climate” is a complex statistical summary of particular weather events distributed around the globe, but everything that actually happens is recorded at a locale and during a specific interval of time. If this particular local instance of solar forcing has analogous instances of solar forcing in enough locations (as claimed in peer-reviewed publications cited above), then it is “global”.
Note that this paper is still very careful not to mention the possibility of any solar effects other than the very small variation in TSI. No mention of the possibility that climate may be modulated by the solar wind or other solar variables. From the conclusion:
The “weak solar signal” that they are assuming is the change in solar irradiance, but the change in solar wind, open flux, aa index, etcetera are anything but weak solar signals. The fluctuations are dramatic, yet Nichols and Huang only look at the “weak signal.”
So they haven’t completely gotten away from the problem that I documented in my review of AR5, where dissatisfaction with current theories of how a solar magnetic driver of climate could operate is used as an excuse for omitting the evidence that SOME such mechanism must be at work. Nichols and Huang are not omitting the evidence for a solar driver of climate. They are just still omitting to mention that the mechanism could include solar influences other than TSI.
Solar forcing … or … GCR variations driving changes in cloud cover and precip?
The moderators used to bar such posts and point the posters to Tips & Notes.
The fellows at GISS are reading their tea leaves on the coming election. They feel that the sane people are likely to get elected; and their free lunch of appealing to the green crazies is coming to an end.
They rightly fear that in the day when NASA is cutting funds and departments, abandoning new Space Shuttles and robotic explorers, their useless global warming rants can be zero-funded, and they will find themselves on the street and unemployed.
Not only the Nile river:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/07/22/solar-to-river-flow-and-lake-level-correlations/
MAVukcevic says:
February 29, 2012 at 8:47 am
Oh Boy!, that was a real “electromagnetic fart”! directed to those who still don´t believe the words “electro” and “magnetics” go together. 🙂
Alec Rawls says:
February 29, 2012 at 12:10 pm
The “weak solar signal” that they are assuming is the change in solar irradiance, but the change in solar wind, open flux, aa index, etcetera are anything but weak solar signals.
there have been no long-term changes in those over the past 300 years. Perhaps you are advocating that the same is true for the climate as well, in which case you may have a point, otherwise not.
Watts, why don’t you discuss the NASA/GISS Research Letter Newsletter titled “Earth’s Energy Budget Remained Out of Balance Despite Unusually Low Solar Activity” and dated Jan. 29, 2012?
A summary statement:
“A new NASA study underscores the fact that greenhouse gases generated by human activity — not changes in solar activity — are the primary force driving global warming.”
To help you find your way, here’s the link:
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/news/20120130b/
REPLY: Been there, done that Pierre. Why don’t you learn to use the search box on WUWT or Google?
If you had, you’d find this:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/01/31/jim-hansens-balance-problem-of-0-58-watts/
To help you find your way, it is in the upper right portion of the right sidebar.
-Anthony
What? That bright thingy in the sky matters?
I know nothing about the office politics at GISS but I’m guessing somebody isn’t going to get invited to Hansen’s next SunDeniers party.
Septic Matthew said @ur momisugly February 29, 2012 at 12:09 pm
Personally, I think the emphasis on “global” is a furphy. Climate seems to be a resolutely local phenomenon and is so described in ever so many dictionaries. My crops do not respond to global temperatures, they respond to local temperatures. Ditto for precipitation and wind. It’s true there occasional large lurches such as the Younger Dryas and the 8.2kYa event, but mostly the only thing that counts happens outside the back door. But then I do live in the Southern Hemisphere where average temperatures haven’t changed much for over a century.
Boy, that one stumped me. So I looked it up:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Furphy
Yes, Wikipedia has its uses. Thanks, Git. Amazing what one can learn here. And yes, the ‘global’ in ‘global climate’ and ‘global temperature’ smacks of tall tales and gossip mongering. One expects scientists of the future will regard it much as we regard ‘humors’ as related to disease.
/Mr Lynn
Garrett says:
February 29, 2012 at 9:15 am
“How come when peer-reviewed articles come out, that seem to support the views of Mr. Watts and most people reading this site, does he and everyone else become so quick to accept the results of peer-reviewed papers? I mean, why don’t you pay attention to ALL peer-reviewed papers. You can’t just cherry-pick the ones you want.”
Unfortunately, the warmeist extremists have successfully undermined the spirit and letter of “peer review” to the point that it’s no longer generally a good measure of scientific excellence. Indeed, it’s often quite the opposite, when one has their fellow warmist extremists–also fully dependent on the continued flow of billions of dollars in grants of public funds to “research” this “catastrophic global warming”–act as the “peer reviewers” of each others papers. Incest much?
The greatest harm the warmist extremists have done to society with their self-serving and reckless rape of the scientific method for selfish purposes is NOT the billions dollars of public funds wasted–money that could have been spent on clean drinking water or vaccines or health care or literacy for the third world, in other words, spent on REAL problems of humanity.
No, their greatest harm is that they have effectively undermined the concept of the scientific method as a force for good in the eyes of the greater society. They’ve reduced the “scientific method” (as THEY apply it) to being no more than another extremist cult absolutely intolerant of being questioned or of alternative hypotenuses, and instead see it as a means for obtaining politically awarded research grants of millions upon millions of dollars and their own glorification at scientific conferences around the world created for the sole purpose of waxing their egos.
The scientific method (as PROPERLY applied) has been the single greatest philosophical force for human well being in the last several hundred years, and it has NOTHING to do with squashing alternative hypothesis, hiding/changing data, or the use of lying and fraud. In the course of a mere couple of decades the warmist extremists have managed to profoundly undermine this popular view of the scientific method by the actions of a bunch of self-interested, red-carptet-seeking, lying, fraudulent, data-creating/hiding, obfuscating pseudo-scientists.
Good going, you jerks.
THAT is why the warmest extremists are despicable. Because these so-called “scientists” are betraying true science for self-serving personal gratification, to keep their grants flowing, their “careers” sustainable, their suites at 5-star hotels at conferences around the world, their business class airfares to the premier tourist destinations of the planet, the standing applause from rooms full of similarly situated “scientists” and “bureaucrats” latched tightly to the breast of public funding of “global warming” or “climate change” or “global cooling” or whatever they are calling it these days.
It all calls to mind the so called “priests” who betrayed their religions for self-serving personal gratification. Absolutely disgusting, in both instances. And which of those two groups has caused the greater societal harm, has harmed the greater number of individuals, and has wasted the greater share of public purse?
Despicable. Despicable. Despicable.
NICHOLAS says:
February 29, 2012 at 7:59 am
“(AFP) – 15 hours ago
WASHINGTON — Nearly two-thirds of Americans believe that climate change is real — the highest level in two years — as the public trusted its own observations of rising temperatures, a poll said Tuesday.”
Shows the power of relentless propaganda. Mild winter now means global warming.
If solar forcing “may” be significant, what does this mean for the certainty of measurements with regard to energy balance of the planet?
In order to establish “mising” heat, or too much heat, one must be referencing a static mean, or at least a perfectly predictable dynamic mean. If there is no static/dynamic number to reference, or one that is, say, not determinable within 1 W/m2, then no missing or excess amount can be identified outside of about 2X the variable.
Any admission of solar forcing, as in this paper, strikes me as a blow against the current situation. Today could be a result of “excess” solar heating if our understanding of what is neutral is slightly in error. CAGW in CO2 only explains the current situation if we can say that prior to about 1970 the TSI at the ground and in the air was perfectly balanced with the outgoing radiation.
I think the idea the warmists have is that we came out of the LIA because the negative heat anomaly that caused the LIA ended, and “normal” conditions reasserted themselves. We did not, in their view, come out because a normal plus 0.5 W/m2, for example TSI began, which, after bringing us out of the LIA would continue warming the planet until a balance was reached – a warmer balance than whatever they consider normal.
The value of “normal” is what counts, and not normal TOA, but within the atmosphere (absorption and refraction) and on the ground (absorption). Cloud changes or surface albedo changes will make the “normal” TSI TOA immaterial when it comes to the stabilized planetary temperature.
And here we all thought that weather != climate. 🙂