Just a quick note to bring this to attention of readers. I have not been able to locate a copy of this paper other than the paywalled one at Springerlink, so I can’t comment much about it, but it looks interesting. The question is what is the mechanism? The abstract really doesn’t give a hint of that and just saying that “anomalously low solar activity” is the cause really isn’t definitive enough. – Anthony
The dynamics of solar activity and anomalous weather of summer 2010: 2. Relationship with the active longitude zone; effects in the west and east
(Geomagnetism and Aeronomy, Volume 52, Number 1, pp. 1-15, February 2012)
– K. G. Ivanov, A. F. Kharshiladze
Abstract:
“We confirm the close synoptic relationship of the sectoral structure of the Sun’s magnetic field of the with the near-Earth tropospheric pressure with a case study of three European points (Troitsk, Rome, Jungfrau) in the period of the anomalously hot summer of June–August 2010.
We substantiate the position that such a relationship was fostered by the anomalously low solar activity as a result of superposition of the minima of the 22- and 180-year cycles. Sectoral analysis of the solar-tropospheric relationships has shown that the appearance of a blocking anticyclone in the Moscow suburbs, its expansion to Rome and Jungfrau, and subsequent retreat at first from these points, and then from the Moscow suburbs was closely related to solar activity phenomena producing, according to contemporary notions, cyclonic activity, shown by simulation of the Earth’s electric field.”
http://www.springerlink.com/content/km64487726781347/
UPDATE: Thanks to readers, I have a copy of the paper, which I forwarded to Dr. Leif Svalgaard for inspection.In the introduction of the paper there is this:
1. INTRODUCTION
More than 40 years ago, a statistically significant relationship was discovered between the sectoral struc ture of the IMF and the zonal circulation in the atmosphere of the Earth’s Northern Hemisphere; it was suggested that so-called natural synoptic periods to
some degree were determined by the structure of the interplanetary medium (Dimitriev et al., 1978). Recently it was shown that in one important particular case, the anomalously hot weather of summer 2010, a synoptic relationship took place between the sectoral
structure of the solar and interplanetary magnetic field (SMF and IMF), on the one hand, and the surface atmospheric pressure in the suburban Moscow city of Troitsk, on the other (Ivanov and Kharshiladze, 2011).
Svalgaard writes:
The Russian paper “confirms the earlier conclusions on the
reality of a relationship between the sectoral structure of the IOMFS and the Earth’s troposphere (Mansurov et al., 1974; Wilcox, 1979; Wilcox et al., 1974;… Wilcox, J.M., Svalgaard, L., and Scherrer, P.H.,
Seasonal Variation and Magnitude of the Solar Sector Structure Atmospheric VorticityEffect, Nature, 1974, vol. 55, no. 5509, pp. 539–540.
We have long since abandoned the finding as spurious.
So it seems, they are chasing an old discarded theory, and their findings may be nothing more than coincidental – Anthony
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So effectively there is no way to know without wasting time asking each original author every time you cite their paper. Lack of citations can mean anything and it does not tell you the original author(s) later found the results spurious.
Poptech says:
April 1, 2012 at 2:47 pm
So effectively there is no way to know without wasting time asking each original author every time you cite their paper. Lack of citations can mean anything and it does not tell you the original author(s) later found the results spurious.
_____________________________________
What it means is you have to do a very thorough literature search, read every paper and Hope like heck everyone was honest.
The last is become more and more questionable as falsified research keeps popping up.
How Many Scientists Fabricate and Falsify Research? A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Survey Data
The frequency with which scientists fabricate and falsify data, or commit other forms of scientific misconduct is a matter of controversy….. This is the first meta-analysis of these surveys…
A pooled weighted average of 1.97% (N = 7, 95%CI: 0.86–4.45) of scientists admitted to have fabricated, falsified or modified data or results at least once –a serious form of misconduct by any standard– and up to 33.7% admitted other questionable research practices. In surveys asking about the behaviour of colleagues, admission rates were 14.12% (N = 12, 95% CI: 9.91–19.72) for falsification, and up to 72% for other questionable research practices. Meta-regression showed that self reports surveys, surveys using the words “falsification” or “fabrication”, and mailed surveys yielded lower percentages of misconduct. When these factors were controlled for, misconduct was reported more frequently by medical/pharmacological researchers than others.
Considering that these surveys ask sensitive questions and have other limitations, it appears likely that this is a conservative estimate of the true prevalence of scientific misconduct.
Citizens,
I was using CME in the broadest sense. Material of a very wide range of speeds came out of that event including electromagnetic and/or high energy particles which must have been moving at about half the speed of light judging by the timings of the ionospheric disturbance resulting. The jet stream shift was about 12 hours after the solar event which may have been a delayed atmosphere effect or it may have been the main particle arrival – ie about 8 times average solar wind speed which is a 4 day transit time.
Cheers Piers
You can demand the complete truth down to the last atom, but you’re always going to get the best estimate. Peer-review is a “necessary but not sufficient” barrier to pass on the road to uncovering the truth of things. Decicions and policy are almost always made with imperfect knowledge. Any policy that reaches into the future is based on best guesses.
An interesting challenge for your mind would be to come up with a system that is better than peer-review.
Further to…. of course it could be UV, X rays…. leaving at the same time as the rest of the CME event reaching the earth in 8 minutes and the ionosphere taking another 8 mins or so to respond in the way it did. So for those who want to waste time nit-picking rather than pay attention to what I reported I will rephrase: “electromagnetic or other signals leaving the sun at the same time as the recorded ejected material appear to have had an effect on the ionosphere suggesting their influence effectively moved at about half the speed of light”.
Cheers Piers
John says:
April 1, 2012 at 12:29 pm
Nice try, but solar activity was less than usual in 2010.
===========================
You don’t seem to know the drill.
Questions may get replies, vacuous statements almost never.
I am sorry, but I do not believe Corbyn either. I have the proof of the CME he is referring to. Aug 14th 2010. it was a C4.4 Flare. definitely not half the speed of light worthy.
I made an animated GIF of it for verification: http://s1073.photobucket.com/albums/w398/astrodanman79/?action=view¤t=Aug14210AniGif.gif
Well yeah S1 radiation storms do happen that fast from the initial blast.
Here is the SWPC report on it.
http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/advisories/201008141706_bulletin.html
**** FIRST SOLAR RADIATION STORM OF SOLAR CYCLE 24 ****
On Saturday, August 14, 2010 a small solar flare erupted on the Sun at about 6am EDT. Associated with this flare was a coronal mass ejection (CME) that was partially directed towards the Earth. Also associated with this event was a S1 or minor solar radiation storm on the NOAA Space Weather Scales http: http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/NOAAscales/. The only impacts expected for a solar radiation storm of this magnitude are minor impacts to HF radio communications in the polar regions. However, this is the first solar radiation storm of Solar Cycle 24 and the first solar radiation storm since December of 2006.
At this time, the solar radiation storm has subsided below threshold levels. However, oscillation around this threshold is possible for the next several hours. Subsequent significant activity is not expected but there may be some level of geomagnetic storming on or around August 17th and 18th from the coronal mass ejection associated with this event. Initial observations of the coronal mass ejection direction and velocity do not indicate a high likelihood of significant geomagnetic storming but the Space Weather Prediction Center will continue to monitor this event as it unfolds.
If solar effects can make one able to forecast the weather and climate with good accuracy, then personally I don’t really care if the science theory has not been confirmed yet. If it works over and over and time and time again, the science theory connections must be there, they just have not been discovered yet.
Piers, others & myself use these connections with good sucess, if they were not valid we could not do so!
I am sure you believed this as your class obviously lacked anyone qualified to defend the gold standard so you effectively participated in an echo-chamber.
Poptech says:
April 1, 2012 at 7:07 pm
My point is very clear and in relation to Anthony’s question, if there is no system to let you know that a certain paper’s results were later found to be spurious,
In practice it is not so hard. Spurious papers have their 15 minutes of fame, and are then not really cited anymore nor used to build upon. That is a good give-away and a practicing scientist soon learns to figure that out.
Is it possible for papers not to be cited and be completely valid?
Without asking you how would the author know this exact information?
In science, is it better to have correlation without causation, or causation without correlation?
The correlation – causation relationship is widely misunderstood. In part because of the frequently repeated aphorism ‘correlation isn’t proof of causation’.
Absent a chance result, cherry picking of data, and few other things, correlation is proof of a causative relationship, although it doesn’t tell you what the causative relationship is. A correlation between A and B may result from a common cause C.
No correlation is proof of no causal relationship..
The wikipedia article does a good job of explaining this.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correlation_does_not_imply_causation
To answer your question. Both are equally bad.
Poptech says:
April 1, 2012 at 11:20 pm
Is it possible for papers not to be cited and be completely valid?
I guess so, but then they would be rather inconsequential and thus not too interesting. We often value a paper not so much by its own merit but by the amount of further research it gives rise to [and that means lots of citations].
“We have long since abandoned the finding as spurious.”
Without asking you how would the author know this exact information?
by seeing that other scientists have not continued that particular line of research. This, of course, means that you have to do your homework and check this, but that you should to anyway.
Moderator Request: Can you please delete my comment “Poptech says:
April 1, 2012 at 7:16 pm” as I read her comment wrong, thank you.
[better to post this almost apology wouldn’t you say? . . kbmod]
I am well aware certain scientists place value on popularity and not scientific validity. Whether something is “consequential” or especially “interesting” is subjective. If it is possible for a paper to be valid but not cited then citations cannot be used to judge a paper’s scientific validity.
Seeing that a paper has not been cited does not tell me that the original author found the work spurious. If I were to research this particular paper I would find one of the authors to have left the field for roughly 20 years.
You have failed to provide a method to determine this information without asking the authors of each paper you cite when you cite them and it has nothing to do with “doing your homework”. Mind reading technology has not been invented yet.
Poptech says:
April 2, 2012 at 8:21 am
I am well aware certain scientists place value on popularity and not scientific validity.
Popularity among other scientists in the field is a good measure of validity [not perfect, but good]. And popularity should be taken in the sense that other scientists can build on the works and advance the field.
You have failed to provide a method to determine this information without asking the authors of each paper you cite when you cite them and it has nothing to do with “doing your homework”. Mind reading technology has not been invented yet.
Asking the authors is not a good thing, because many cling to their old [and spurious] work far too long. The way to go is to see how influential [‘popular’] the paper was. This is the only gauge I know of. So, do you homework.
Poptech says:
April 2, 2012 at 8:21 am
I am well aware certain scientists place value on popularity and not scientific validity.
Scientific validity is a slippery concept. The work can be done correctly [and thus be ‘valid’ at the time] and yet the finding [with later or more data] turn out to be spurious [as happened with our paper in question]. This happens all the time. In fact, most papers in this field fall in that category. Again, the real measure of worth is to what degree the paper spurred further research and advancement of the science, and for that the citation count is a good measure. So, again, do your homework.
Can a paper be widely cited and later found to be spurious or invalid?
Michael Mann’s Hockey Stick papers are widely cited and very influential does this mean they are valid? Popularity does not mean something is scientifically valid. Therefore there is no homework that can be done to determine this. It is the responsibility of the original authors of a paper to publish a later work if their opinion on their earlier work has changed and present their reasoning. Otherwise their is no reasonable way for another author to know this information.
Thank you for deleting it.
If anyone thinks they can do a better job of medium term forecasting then Piers then lets see it? Either put up or shut up.
This is all subjective and there is no homework that can be done to determine this.
Poptech says:
April 2, 2012 at 10:03 am
This is all subjective and there is no homework that can be done to determine this.
I do it all the time. And the worth is often subjective. One applies a ‘smell test’. It helps to know something about the field too. If one knows nothing and is not willing to do one’s homework, then there is not much hope, except appealing to authority, and if that is your choice, then that is also your loss.
Michael Mann’s Hockey Stick papers are widely cited and very influential does this mean they are valid?
No, but the research they spur can be very useful, if nothing else to expose the errors.
It is the responsibility of the original authors of a paper to publish a later work if their opinion on their earlier work has changed and present their reasoning.
Not at all, and in any event that is not the way it is done. Usually, a paper dies because other scientists cannot reproduce the results, or because general interest wanes and nobody continues that line of research. Often the last person to give up on a paper is the original author. So asking him, is about the worst gauge one can apply. It is rare that you get a statement like mine saying ‘that our finding was spurious’.
Leif Svalgaard says:
April 2, 2012 at 10:36 am
It is rare that you get a statement like mine saying ‘that our finding was spurious’.
Although it does [rarely] happen:
http://articles.latimes.com/1990-02-20/news/mn-1150_1_initial-pulsar
Poptech says:
April 2, 2012 at 10:03 am
It is the responsibility of the original authors of a paper to publish a later work if their opinion on their earlier work has changed and present their reasoning.
The last work our group did on that paper is here:
http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu//full/1981SoPh…74..421W/0000421.000.html?high=4d4c8d460221039
John Wilcox died accidently shortly after and we did no further work on this. The paper ends:
“we prefer to wait for the results of several investigations in progress before making a final assessment”.