On Saturday I posted about this study from Pierre Gosselin at No Tricks Zone:
New Study Shows A Clear Millennial Solar Impact Throughout Holocene
Now we have another that suggests little effect. and shows a business as usual projected warming trend.
From the:
JOURNAL OF GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH, VOL. 117, D05103, 13 PP., 2012
doi:10.1029/2011JD017013
What influence will future solar activity changes over the 21st century have on projected global near-surface temperature changes?
- Past solar activity is used to estimate future changes in total solar irradiance
- The impact on future global temperatures is estimated with a climate model
- The Sun’s influence is much smaller than future anthropogenic warming
Gareth S. Jones
Met Office Hadley Centre, Exeter, UK
Mike Lockwood
Department of Meteorology, University of Reading, Reading, UK
Peter A. Stott
Met Office Hadley Centre, Exeter, UK
During the 20th century, solar activity increased in magnitude to a so-called grand maximum. It is probable that this high level of solar activity is at or near its end. It is of great interest whether any future reduction in solar activity could have a significant impact on climate that could partially offset the projected anthropogenic warming. Observations and reconstructions of solar activity over the last 9000 years are used as a constraint on possible future variations to produce probability distributions of total solar irradiance over the next 100 years. Using this information, with a simple climate model, we present results of the potential implications for future projections of climate on decadal to multidecadal timescales. Using one of the most recent reconstructions of historic total solar irradiance, the likely reduction in the warming by 2100 is found to be between 0.06 and 0.1 K, a very small fraction of the projected anthropogenic warming. However, if past total solar irradiance variations are larger and climate models substantially underestimate the response to solar variations, then there is a potential for a reduction in solar activity to mitigate a small proportion of the future warming, a scenario we cannot totally rule out. While the Sun is not expected to provide substantial delays in the time to reach critical temperature thresholds, any small delays it might provide are likely to be greater for lower anthropogenic emissions scenarios than for higher-emissions scenarios.
Dr. Leif Svalgaard comments to me via email:
Whatever one’s take, it is an item in the debate. There are some
problems with the TSI series they use, e.g. the PMOD series which we now know has a problem with non-compensated degradation. This has been admitted by the experimenters, see Slide 29 of
http://www.leif.org/research/The%20long-term%20variation%20of%20solar%20activity.pdf
There is also a problem with the long-term slope, but none of these are serious, the fact remains that TSI has not varied enough. The argument that there are other solar variables that are responsible falls flat, because they all in the end correlate strongly with the variation of TSI. That the effect is man-made is also on shaky ground because there are longer term climate variations long before CO2 increases.
I don’t disagree with Dr. Svalgaard that variance of direct forcing on Earth’s climate via TSI has been small, but that’s why many are looking in other places, such as UV effects and GCR modulation of cloud cover for example. TSI really isn’t the “total” solar irradiance in the truest sense, there are other effects from the sun that are just now being researched and are beginning to be understood. My view is that there is an amplification effect going on related to one or more solar effects. GCR cloud modulation theory might just be one of those amplifications.
The full paper is here: http://www.leif.org/EOS/2011JD017013.pdf
Let’s have at it then.
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As Anthony rightly said, Jones et al. (2012) do not allow any solar amplifiers such as UV or cosmic rays/clouds in their models. So the result of their study is already included in their basic assumptions with which they started their study. It is clear that the weak solar radiative forcing that they use in their model cannot explain the strong millennial-scale cycles of the past 10,000 years which run parallel to solar activity, mostly the 1000 years Eddy cycle and the 2300 years Hallstatt cycle. The current models are not able to reproduce these pre-industrial temperature changes. So why do Jones et al. (2012) think they can model the future when they cannot even model the past?
After the hockey stick attempt failed and the temperature amplitude of the last 1000 years can no longer be ignored, IPCC now tries to interpret the Little Ice Age mostly by volcanoes. I would call this “hockey stick 2” because the only objective is to reduce the climate significance of solar activity changes. Let’s face it: In oder to explain the solar-synchronous temperature roller coaster of the past 10,000 years one needs to assume solar amplifiers.
“For the purposes of this study as it is not
imperative to be able to tune all the EBM’s parameters
simultaneously the default model parameters are as
described by Rowntree [1998] apart from two parameters;
the climate sensitivity parameter (l) and ocean vertical heat
diffusivity (kd).”
Oh goody ! They did not need to “tune all the EBM’s parameters simultaneously”!!!!! Only two of them! Lordy mine, I could write them a simple learning algorithm that automatically tunes their model for an optimal hindcast, probably even under the constraint that it should predict catastrophic warming at the same time… and we could fire them all and still enjoy all the doom-mongering we get now.
Let’s hypothesise that it is only a fraction of the TSI which interacts with earth to create climate effects. Let’s say it has a percentage of TSI of, say 1%.
Let’s say you vary that key variable by 50% through some sort of cycle.
The overall TSI changes by 0.5%, but the key variable changes by 50%.
That’s one way to explain the issue.
Another explanation:
The earth responds only to critical thresholds of key radiation emissions, typically only found during CMEs or Flares. Because these happen rarely, the overall effect on TSI may be small, but the short-term timescale variability may be very high.
It doesn’t matter if the population of Europe stays the same: if the population of the world grows by 50%, there are implications for all.
Equally, just because the world’s population might stay stable, if China’s grew by 50%, they’d have domestic issues to contend with.
What I think needs to be examined is whether scientists have yet found the key inputs which trigger changes.
Because if they haven’t, the discussion of causality may be being blurred.
Has anyone presented a yearlong variability index for various emissions from the sun and if so, where can we read about it????
As bubbagyro says TSI is picked as it is an average that doesn’t change much and all the other aspects of output from the Sun are ignored. So that makes a nice steady background for the simple CO2 climate model. It is very apparent that the authors appear to have stopped observations before 2000 – one wonders why this is, surely they would not wish to hide the decline of the last few years compared to their models monatonic rise?
It would appear from a simple check that the hypothesis that is embedded in their model has already been falsified.
They should really read some observational science such as Nir Shaviv’s ‘Using the Oceans as a Calorimeter’.
Id like then to argue with Piers Corbyn about it!!! Theyd loose. Imperical evidence PROVES them totally wrong!
They’re charletons who no nothing of physics. Paper returned to be reassessed -rejected return to author (sarc)
“During the 20th century, solar activity increased in magnitude to a so-called grand maximum. It is probable that this high level of solar activity is at or near its end.”
Well despite all the other obvious shortcomings of this Sims play at least we can put Jones, Lockwood and Stott down in the 20th century solar grand max camp. I’m somewhat surprised that Dr. S didn’t comment on that aspect of the report.
So, essentially, the study might be a waste of both money and energy due to the assumption that the warming is anthropogenic and that the anthropogenic part is of note.
What’s with the 9000 years of observations and reconstructions. Shouldn’t it be like 50 years of observations and 8950 years of reconstructions?
And yesterday we got a good probable explanation for why high precision, of the likes of 0.06K, in climate statistcs are more like the oozing from a dung heap.
Would many professors allow for an assumption and nullifying of the line between observational data and reconstructed data too begin with?
Leif Svalgaard:
“The argument that there are other solar variables that are responsible falls flat, because they all in the end correlate strongly with the variation of TSI.”
EUV and UV variation is larger than variation in visible light.
http://www.leif.org/EOS/2010JA015431.pdf
N. A. Krivova,1 L. E. A. Vieira,1,2 and S. K. Solanki1,3
If this is the case, it can be major factor in climate. And what about cosmic rays? Solar wind can be the other major driver to earth’s cilmate.
CO2 effect is 0,000014C 🙂
I thought the science was settled. Why do we keep funding climate scientists I ask?
At the end of the day all that matters for me are OBSERVATIONS V projections etc. and I observe no global warming for over a decade and I continue to observe.
For Gator:
Dr. S.
If I got this correct, the Aa spectrum is utterly uninteresting
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/AaSpec.gif
mike about town says:
March 5, 2012 at 1:05 am
does anyone know how high in the atmosphere CO2 is “well-mixed?” in other words…where is the “atmospheric ceiling” in terms of mixing of CO2?
=============
They say it’s thoroughly mixed all the way through.
They say that because they have no atmosphere. They have “empty space” created on an ideal gas fiction; their molecules are not subject to gravity, have no weight, no volume, no attractions. Instead they zip through the empty space at great speeds bouncing off each other to mix thoroughly. That’s why they have no water cycle, they have no atmosphere for water to evaporate into. They have no real molecules, so they don’t know the difference between real and the imaginary construct ideal gas. They say “gases have no buoyancy” because it doesn’t apply to their fictional empty space ‘atmosphere’ where only radiation exists.
As I’ve just posted elsewhere: Their ideal gas molecules zip through their empty space atmosphere at vast speeds thoroughly mixing by ideal gas diffusion or, they mix by Brownian motion! They don’t have a fluid gas medium for Brownian motion! Do they care? They don’t even understand it to care. So they extrapolate from nanometre scale Brownian motion in a fluid to the whole of their empty vacuum space ideal gas gravity less atmosphere! Stupid isn’t a strong enough word for this.
mike about town says:
March 5, 2012 at 1:05 am
does anyone know how high in the atmosphere CO2 is “well-mixed?” in other words…where is the “atmospheric ceiling” in terms of mixing of CO2?
It’s well mixed up to the tropopause, then it drops off quickly due to it being heavier than most other gases.
I suspect long term temperature trends is primarily related to albedo. How the sun influences albedo through mechanisms like GCRs, electroscavening, etc. is what needs to be better understood.
@Olavi,
Lief says “it’s not the sun” and he knows EVERYTHING about the sun, so don’t question him. Mmmkay??
Seriously though, how can someone just say that oh, all those other factors fall flat without showing studies and some sort of “proof” that they “fall flat”. I’ve seen several studies and reports that show T does correlate with GCR’S very well. To take the attitude that TSI doesn’t vary enough and all the other solar factors are closely tied to TSI therefore it can’t be any of them, is quite foolish.
Below a few salient comments from 300 years ago regarding “projections”…..
http://classiclit.about.com/library/bl-etexts/jswift/bl-jswift-gull-3-5.htm
If you want to see just how “unreal” this is, here is the HadCM3 model hindcast submitted to the IPCC AR4 versus Hadcrut3 observations from 1900 to Jan 2012.
I don’t see how the nearly random HadCM3 results would change depending on differing solar cycles. Obviously, the results presented in the paper have some very long smoothing routine.
http://img33.imageshack.us/img33/9600/hadcm3hindcast.png
It is becoming clear solar activity is a primary variable in natural climate temperature variations. To say it is not, and state that the trace gas CO2 is still the main contributor is restating the science is still settled. In which it is not. Papers like this continue to waste our intellectual and monetary resources.
Gareth S. Jones
Met Office Hadley Centre, Exeter, UK
Mike Lockwood
Department of Meteorology, University of Reading, Reading, UK
Peter A. Stott
Met Office Hadley Centre, Exeter, UK
Enough said.
“While the Sun is not expected to provide substantial delays in the time to reach critical temperature thresholds……..”
What critical temperature thresholds? Where? When? Can anyone tell me what is going to happen when we reach the “critical temperature thresholds”? Why so much certainty about CAGW is going to happen but so vague about the consequences?
The Met Office past predictions have been biased high and wrong for 11 years out of 12 because they over factor the CO2 and under estimate the solar impact. They are again predicting a rise in global temperatures for 2012 when all signs point to further dcline . Until they begin to produce credible forcasts , one doubts the science behind their forecats
It all comes down to answering the question:
Are we measuring accurately what we think we are, and are we measuring the full output and influence of the sun?
Since we do not actually understand much about the dynamics of the sun, and it is well demonstrated that we have no meaningful predicting ability irt to even sunspots, and we are not even certain what sunspots do, if anything to climate, perhaps it is a bit of hubris to dismiss the sun so readily.
As to the ever lengthening list of earnest papers predicting that the AGW signal will finally overwhelm natural variability, does anyone else notice that this clear signal is nearly always predicted to be years and years from now? And when papers do claim that the clear signal of CO2 wickedness is present now, a reasonable review of the claim shows it be based on data that is indistinguishable from the historical record?
bubbagyro says:
March 5, 2012 at 2:50 am
How much energy is supplied to earth by one single CME? How many CMEs per cycle?
About 1/2000 of that supplied by TSI during the largest events, a 1/10,000 for an average one. About 2 hits per month on average, each lasting a few hours. Only 2% of that energy is absorbed by the Earth’s magnetosphere, so we are talking about less than a millionth of the TSI input over a cycle, comparable to the energy consumption of mankind..
MAVukcevic says:
March 5, 2012 at 4:52 am
If I got this correct, the Aa spectrum is utterly uninteresting
depends on what you want to see in it. By definition, anything that does not confirm a pet theory is uninteresting 🙂
hunter says:
March 5, 2012 at 5:50 am
Are we measuring accurately what we think we are, and are we measuring the full output [and influence?] of the sun?
Yes we are.