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)
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No word from “the cause”? Too busy planning their next data manipulation/modification/creation/imagination?
Leif wrote:
The study in question is a 6800 year study, not a 300 year study. Since I guess it wasn’t obvious, I was pointing out the failure of Nichols and Huang to consider solar-magnetic causes for the high sensitivity to solar forcing that they found for northeastern climate.
“We propose that the Arctic/North Atlantic Oscillation (AO/NAO) can amplify small solar fluctuations…”
As for AO and the Sun, there is another mechanism proposed other than sunspot numbers. Please pay attention to this theory in this discussion.
Reference:
Ramos da Silva, R., and R. Avissar (2005), The impacts of the Luni-Solar oscillation on the Arctic oscillation, Geophys. Res. Lett., 32, L22703, doi:10.1029/2005GL023418.
Alec Rawls says:
February 29, 2012 at 10:59 pm
The study in question is a 6800 year study, not a 300 year study. Since I guess it wasn’t obvious, I was pointing out the failure of Nichols and Huang to consider solar-magnetic causes for the high sensitivity to solar forcing that they found for northeastern climate.
Since there is no evidence for solar magnetic influence the past 300 years, why consider it for 6800 years?
@dahuang:Here the link to the paper
http://www.duke.edu/~renato/RamosdaSilvaandAvissarGRL2005.pdf
Typical Svalgaard, He can’t find a correlation; therefore there is none. Your ego astounds me. You reject a “300 year correlation”, but yet you have stated that there is an “11 year correlation” between Sunspot peaks and valleys.
Does the Sun affect our climate or not? Pick one.
Dr. Lurtz says:
March 1, 2012 at 6:33 am
Does the Sun affect our climate or not? Pick one.
Of course it does, just like CO2, and Jupiter shine. The question in all cases is “how much?”.
And the answer is the same: “not much”.
The IPCC’s judgement that the solar factor is negligible is based on satellite observations available since 1978 which show that the Sun’s total irradiance, though not being constant, changes only by about 0.1 percent during the course of the 11-year sunspot cycle. This argument, however, does not take into account that the Sun’s eruptional activity (energetic flares, coronal mass ejections, eruptive prominences), heavily affecting the solar wind, as well as softer solar wind contributions by coronal holes have a much stronger effect than total irradiance
Dr. Theodor Landscheidt
http://www.schulphysik.de/klima/landscheidt/iceage.htm
Humbling, but note that this prediction of a solar cycle max at 160 was released by NASA just over 5 years ago.
Scientists Predict Big Solar Cycle
Dec. 21, 2006: Evidence is mounting: the next solar cycle is going to be a big one.
see captionSolar cycle 24, due to peak in 2010 or 2011 “looks like its going to be one of the most intense cycles since record-keeping began almost 400 years ago,” says solar physicist David Hathaway of the Marshall Space Flight Center. He and colleague Robert Wilson presented this conclusion last week at the American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco.
Right: An erupting solar prominence photographed by the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO).
Their forecast is based on historical records of geomagnetic storms.
Hathaway explains: “When a gust of solar wind hits Earth’s magnetic field, the impact causes the magnetic field to shake. If it shakes hard enough, we call it a geomagnetic storm.” In the extreme, these storms cause power outages and make compass needles swing in the wrong direction. Auroras are a beautiful side-effect.
Hathaway and Wilson looked at records of geomagnetic activity stretching back almost 150 years and noticed something useful:. “The amount of geomagnetic activity now tells us what the solar cycle is going to be like 6 to 8 years in the future,” says Hathaway. A picture is worth a thousand words:
Above: Peaks in geomagnetic activity (red) foretell solar maxima (black) more than six years in advance.
In the plot, above, black curves are solar cycles; the amplitude is the sunspot number. Red curves are geomagnetic indices, specifically the Inter-hour Variability Index or IHV. “These indices are derived from magnetometer data recorded at two points on opposite sides of Earth: one in England and another in Australia. IHV data have been taken every day since 1868,” says Hathaway.
Cross correlating sunspot number vs. IHV, they found that the IHV predicts the amplitude of the solar cycle 6-plus years in advance with a 94% correlation coefficient.
“We don’t know why this works,” says Hathaway. The underlying physics is a mystery. “But it does work.”
According to their analysis, the next Solar Maximum should peak around 2010 with a sunspot number of 160 plus or minus 25. This would make it one of the strongest solar cycles of the past fifty years—which is to say, one of the strongest in recorded history.
Left: Hathaway and Wilson’s prediction for the amplitude of Solar Cycle 24. [More]
Astronomers have been counting sunspots since the days of Galileo, watching solar activity rise and fall every 11 years. Curiously, four of the five biggest cycles on record have come in the past 50 years. “Cycle 24 should fit right into that pattern,” says Hathaway.
These results are just the latest signs pointing to a big Cycle 24. Most compelling of all, believes Hathaway, is the work of Mausumi Dikpati and colleagues at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colorado. “They have combined observations of the sun’s ‘Great Conveyor Belt’ with a sophisticated computer model of the sun’s inner dynamo to produce a physics-based prediction of the next solar cycle.” In short, it’s going to be intense. Details may be found in the Science@NASA story Solar Storm Warning.
“It all hangs together,” says Hathaway. Stay tuned for solar activity.
Plots and photos available at http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2006/21dec_cycle24/
RACookPE1978 says:
March 1, 2012 at 7:19 am
Humbling, but note that this prediction of a solar cycle max at 160 was released by NASA just over 5 years ago.
Science [as opposed to politics and alarmism] is self-correcting. We learn from our mistakes. This is normal procedure and in a way not humbling. A prediction like that is a way to test a specific hypothesis. When the test fails, that hypothesis can be crossed off the list. So, rather than a humiliating failure, it is actually progress [as long as you don’t stick with the falsified hypothesis – and NASA, or rather Hathaway, did learn].
Leif Svalgaard says:
March 1, 2012 at 6:59 am
Dr. Lurtz says:
March 1, 2012 at 6:33 am
Does the Sun affect our climate or not? Pick one.
Of course it does, just like CO2, and Jupiter shine. The question in all cases is “how much?”.
And the answer is the same: “not much”.
But like a leaking faucet, a small delta mass eventually makes your water bill $1000s. With the Flux at ~100 for years, and Sunspots low for years; this is the reduced delta energy input that lowers the Earth’s temperature [or course, slowly, “not much”, but cumulative].
Certainly. And thank you for the pleasure of your reply.
But, in my defense, please do note that I specifically said “humbling” … as opposed to the more strict and implicitly more pejorative “humiliating” of your summary. 8<)
Would that the hundreds of other "scientists" who use their CAGW dogma in paths deliberately leading to the death of millions, and with billions of other permanently mired in sickness, starvation, parasites, insects, eking out dark cold lives handicapped by a lack of cheap energy, water, and food learn from your wisdom.
From Dr Hathaway’s press release discussed above: Most compelling of all, believes Hathaway, is the work of Mausumi Dikpati and colleagues at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colorado. “They have combined observations of the sun’s ‘Great Conveyor Belt’ with a sophisticated computer model of the sun’s inner dynamo to produce a physics-based prediction of the next solar cycle.”
Have we actually seen the corrections to Hathaway’s much-praised NCAR “solar circulation model” from NCAR? Corrections from Dikpati or his programmers? If revised, have those model corrections been tracking what is actually happening?
Assuming the corrected “solar circulation model” is actually tracking the sun over solar cycle 24, have its corrections or revisions been included into NCAR’s/NASA-GISS/NOAA “Approved” global circulation models the CAGW community uses for their power and academic/bureaucratic/political fund raising?
If NCAR’s “solar circulation model” cannot track (predict) solar activity over a 5 year period – considering the simplified physics in the rarified but pure gaseous electromagnetic solar atmosphereand – where the lack of water/solid ground/air/humidity/ice/winds/amplified feedbacks/clouds/ocean currents/aerosols/CO2/plants/ocean-ground-ice heat balances make modelling “simple physics” easier – why should we assume that NCAR’s GCM’s reflect much more accurately the earth’s more complex heat and radiation exchanges?
And don’t you jest love run-on sentence and sub-sub-subordinate clauses ? 8<)
February SIDC SSN=33 is on the low side.
Dr. Hathaway had already cut back severly on his earlier ‘prediction’.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/NFC7a.htm
I do hope it does come back, else my (nearly) 9 year old extrapolation ( NOT a prediction ! ) may look accidental. Either way I am happy to observe, but since extrapolations don’t tolerate future corrections I am stuck.
Leif Svalgaard says:
March 1, 2012 at 4:32 am
“Since there is no evidence for solar magnetic influence the past 300 years, why consider it for 6800 years?”
Leif,
Here is my own plot of the data at
ftp://ftp.ngdc.noaa.gov/STP/GEOMAGNETIC_DATA/AASTAR/aaindex
http://i279.photobucket.com/albums/kk145/pochas_2008/aaIndex.png
showing the monthly values averaged for the year plotted.
The data shows a minimum of 6.08 in 1901 and a maximum of 37.12 in 2003.
I can easily generate trends, std dev, etc, but what’s the point?
I don’t understand how you can insist that there is little variability in this data. I am sure you can cherry-pick a time way back in the past when the aa index is similar to today, but that tells us nothing useful if we are trying to investigate a possible solar influence on climate.
Leif wrote: “Since there is no evidence for solar magnetic influence the past 300 years, why consider it for 6800 years?”
So Leif thinks we came out of the Little Ice Age why? Because of CO2? His idea apparently is that solar activity has to KEEP going up to cause warming, a particularly foolish idea that, as he is well aware, I have countered many times.
Is this your position Leif? That to heat a pot of water, it is not enough to turn the flame up to high and leave it there. You have to slowly turn it up? Are you one of those who thinks that it is the trend in solar activity (or any climate driver) that causes warming, not the level. I would like to hear the theory behind that.
Alec Rawls
Pochas
Even when there is data which shows good correlation and spectrum confirming strong Hale cycle (22year) period, when the solar magnetic field is in and out of phase with the Earth’s magnetic field, that still isn’t sufficient.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/HMF-T.htm
Problem here is that very often the temperature peaks don’t correspond to the solar activity peaks, which indicates that may be it is the geomagnetic storms which could be a critical factor. Since 1940s & 50s there are good data for number of variables which can be synchronised only by introducing delays, but only for about 50 or so years.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/GNAP.htm
Visual inspection of the above graphs confirms that there is a five decades long linear dependence relationship which is unlikely to be a coincidence, but HMF fell out in the early 1990s, well before the SC23 peak, while the NAO is still there but with much stronger negative gradient.
Some of these factors were discussed with Dr. S. in past, but his attitude ‘no lasting correlation with clear physical mechanism means no valid hypothesis’ can be considered only as reasonable one.
Alec Rawls says:
March 1, 2012 at 10:51 am
Is this your position Leif? That to heat a pot of water, it is not enough to turn the flame up to high and leave it there.
Works for me.
My position is the reasonable one that over sufficiently long time the input determines the result. One can debate what ‘sufficiently’ is. A few years? A century? 10,000 years? What is your guess?
pochas says:
March 1, 2012 at 10:07 am
I don’t understand how you can insist that there is little variability in this data.
There is lots of variability, but no-long term trend.
Here is the equivalent ap-index [basically half of aa] since the 1840s:
http://www.leif.org/research/Ap-1844-now.png
Leif says: “My position is the reasonable one that over sufficiently long time the input determines the result.”
This would seem to imply that you DO accept that you can heat a pot of water by turning the flame to high and leaving it there. (I hope so.)
“One can debate what ‘sufficiently’ is. A few years? A century? 10,000 years? What is your guess?”
How about your 300 years? Your claim, as I (roughly) understand it, is that the high (but not extraordinary) levels of solar activity during the late 20th century actually began in the early 1700’s and pretty much stayed there with the exception of the Dalton Minimum and the turn of the 19th century lull. Can 300 years of high solar input determine a warming result, and in particular, continued warming over this period?
I certainly see no grounds to exclude the possibility, given the fact that the planet has many times warmed and cooled over periods of several centuries. These fluctuations could be equilibrium or near equilibrium phenomenon, where rapid equilibration tracks forcings that rise and fall over centuries, or they could be slow responses to long term step-changes in forcing. Or they can be a combination of both. The climate system can have parts that respond rapidly to changes in forcing (like the upper ocean layer) and parts that respond slowly (like deeper ocean layers).
If we were to experience another 100 years of high solar activity (instead of the low that has befallen) I would expect continued deep ocean warming over that 100 years. Wouldn’t you?
Alec Rawls says:
March 1, 2012 at 10:51 am
Are you one of those who thinks that it is the trend in solar activity (or any climate driver) that causes warming, not the level. I would like to hear the theory behind that.
It goes like this:
Say that at time t1 the level is L1 and the temperature is T1. Then at time t2 [ t2>t1 ] say that the level is L2, then the trend is dL = (L2-L1)/(t2-t1). If L2 > L1, there will be a warming from T1 to T2, where T2 > T1. I’ll say that dT = T2-T1 is a function of the trend dL. If the trend dL is larger, then L2 will also be larger and so T2, and hence the warming dT. For small enough changes all relationships are monotonic [the changes are small] so the above must hold.
Leif Svalgaard says:
March 1, 2012 at 12:38 pm
“There is lots of variability, but no-long term trend.”
Strange, but when I add a trendline to my graphic I get a trend of 8.6 aa index units / century. What could account for this?
http://i279.photobucket.com/albums/kk145/pochas_2008/aaIndex2.png
Alec Rawls says:
March 1, 2012 at 4:45 pm
How about your 300 years? Your claim, as I (roughly) understand it, is that the high (but not extraordinary) levels of solar activity during the late 20th century actually began in the early 1700′s and pretty much stayed there with the exception of the Dalton Minimum and the turn of the 19th century lull.
And the present low activity which I expect to last for quite some time.
Can 300 years of high solar input determine a warming result, and in particular, continued warming over this period?
So if solar activity stayed at the level of the past 300 years for another 6000 years, then the warming would continue unabated for all the 6000 years?
I certainly see no grounds to exclude the possibility
The shoe is on the other foot. I don’t have to exclude the possibility, you have to show that it will actually happen.
If we were to experience another 100 years of high solar activity (instead of the low that has befallen) I would expect continued deep ocean warming over that 100 years. Wouldn’t you?
And if solar activity stays low for a 100 years, the heat in the deep ocean will still be with us and temperatures will not fall?
In all these matters you have to be quantitative: what is the input, what is the mixing, what is the the time scale, etc? Mere hand waving will not do it.
And BTW, what if during the Maunder Minimum the solar magnetic field was not significantly lower? We know that the modulation of cosmic rays back then was a strong as it is now. What if the lack of black spots on the Sun [which are cool] actually meant that TSI was higher during the MM than now? Or at least was not significantly lower. Here is some food for thought:
“Therefore, the best estimate of magnetic activity, and presumably TSI, for the least‐active Maunder Minimum phases appears to be provided by direct measurement in 2008–2009. The implied marginally significant decrease in TSI during the least active phases of the Maunder Minimum by 140 to 360 ppm relative to 1996 suggests that drivers other than TSI dominate
Earth’s long‐term climate change.” http://www.leif.org/EOS/2011GL046658.pdf
pochas says:
March 1, 2012 at 5:25 pm
Strange, but when I add a trendline to my graphic I get a trend of 8.6 aa index units / century. What could account for this?
Two things:
1) the aa index does not go back far enough to include the high activity in the decades before 1868
2) the aa index is not calibrated correctly, it is systematic too low before 1957
Leif wrote: “If the trend dL is larger, then L2 will also be larger and so T2, and hence the warming dT.”
So just start your time period during the Maunder Minimum instead of right after. Then you get an upward trend from the Maunder Minimum to 2000, and expected warming over that period.
Leif wrote: “So if solar activity stayed at the level of the past 300 years for another 6000 years, then the warming would continue unabated for all the 6000 years?” Ocean equilibration need not take 6000 years in order to take 300+ years, but certainly I would expect warming to continue until the planet got at least as warm as it did when Greenland was actually green (around the edges).
Leif wrote: “The shoe is on the other foot. I don’t have to exclude the possibility, you have to show that it will actually happen.”
No, if you want to say that it can’t happen, you have to show that it can’t happen. Remember saying this:
Leif wrote: “And if solar activity stays low for a 100 years, the heat in the deep ocean will still be with us and temperatures will not fall?”
There are short term responses (the upper ocean layers) and long term responses (the deeper ocean layers). If solar activity stays low, it should QUICKLY get colder (with a lag of about one solar cycle says the correlation data). That would be the response of the upper ocean layer. But thanks to the heat that has been stored in deeper ocean layers since the Little Ice Age, it won’t get as cold as it otherwise would, and this moderation of cooling will continue until the full ocean equilibrates to the new level of solar forcing (for as long as that level of forcing persists).