Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
Since I was a kid I’ve been reading stories about “The Year Without A Summer”. This was the summer of 1816, one year after the great eruption of the Tambora volcano in Indonesia. The Tambora eruption, in April of 1815, was so huge it could be heard from 2,600 km away (1,600 miles). The stories were always about how the following summer was outrageously cold. Supposedly, the summer was so cold it was like having no summer at all.
Being a suspicious fellow, I got to thinking about that, and I realized I’d never seen any actual temperature data for the year of 1816. So I went off to find some early temperature data. I started with the ECA dataset, and downloaded the Daily Mean Temperature TG (162Mb). That revealed five stations with daily temperature records with starting dates before 1816—Stockholm, Bologna, Milan, Praha-Klementinum, and Hohenpeissenberg.
So once again, I found myself playing “Spot the Volcanoes”, as in my previous post on this subject. When I wrote that post, I hadn’t been able to spot the smaller eruptions of Pinatubo and other modern volcanoes, but Tambora was the big cheese, the grand gorgonzola of volcanoes. Surely I could find that one … so here’s the record from Stockholm.
Figure 1. Two ten-year periods from the early 1800’s in Stockholm
So the question is, which year is “The Year Without A Summer”? The year indicated by the blue arrow, or the year shown by the green arrow?
Actually, I fear that was a trick question. Here’s the same data, this time with the years indicated.
Figure 2. Two ten-year periods from the early 1800’s in Stockholm, including the dates.
As you can see, the 1816 “Year Without A Summer” actually was warmer than a number of other summers in Stockholm. It’s the third peak from the left in the top panel, and was above 20°C. Just in this tiny sample we see some six summers that were cooler than the summer of 1816 in Stockholm …
So, I looked at the other locations. Here are the other four European cities with records that cover the Tambora eruption—Bologna, Milan, Praha-Klementinum, and Hohenpeissenberg. In these, both the upper and lower panels are from the early 1800s. No more trick questions, in all cases, one or the other of the green and blue arrows actually indicates the “Year Without A Summer”.
Figure 3. Two ten-year periods from the early 1800’s in Bologna.
Figure 4. Two ten-year periods from the early 1800’s in Milan.
Figure 5. Two ten-year periods from the early 1800’s in Praha-Klementinum.
Figure 6. Two ten-year periods from the early 1800’s in Hohenpeissenberg.
That was all the daily temperature records I could find from that far back. There’s a monthly record from Armagh, in Ireland. Here’s that record.
Figure 6. Two ten-year periods from the early 1800’s in Armagh.
I’m sure that you can see the difficulty. If Tambora actually did something to the temperature, you sure couldn’t tell it from these records. Not one of them is readily distinguishable as missing a summer.
In “The Great Tambora Eruption in 1815 and Its Aftermath” (paywalled, Science Magazine, 1984), the author says (emphasis mine):
To Europeans and North Americans, 1816 became known as “the year without a summer” (41). Daily temperatures (especially the daily minimums) were in many cases abnormally low from late spring through early fall; frequent north-west winds brought snow and frost to northern New England and Canada, and heavy rains fell in western Europe. Many crops failed to ripen, and the poor harvests led to famine, disease, and so- cial distress, compounded by the aftermath of the Napoleonic wars.Tambora’s dust veil is often blamed by modern researchers for the cold summer of 1816. The argument given is that the stratospheric dust veil would have absorbed or reflected solar radiation that could otherwise have reached the ground (42). Not all regions,however, experienced abnormally low temperatures, and the preceding winter had generally been mild. Therefore, a few researchers deny that there was any (or at least a strong) connection with the volcano (39,43).
I’m leaning towards the “few researchers” that deny a strong connection with Tambora. What other records do we have? Well, over at KNMI I find the record for Manchester, England:
Figure 6. Two ten-year periods from the early 1800’s in Manchester.
Moving across the Atlantic, here’s the record from New Haven in Connecticut.
Figure 6. Two ten-year periods from the early 1800’s in New Haven, Connecticut.
I’m just not feeling the Tambora love here … where are the records of years without a summer? Or at least of a summer that’s significantly colder than its neighbors?
Don’t get me wrong here. I suspect that generally, the summer of 1816 was a bit colder than most summers. But as the graphs above show, in all of these datasets there are comparable summers within a few decades either side of 1816 that have summers that are as cool, or cooler, than the summer of 1816.
And I would guess that a careful search would reveal some records with cooler summers than the ones I’ve found here. But overall, let me suggest that over the years the Tambora story has gotten greatly exaggerated, just as we do today with our stories of “Cold? You haven’t seen real cold. Why, when I was a young man it was so cold that …”
Conclusions? Well, my main conclusion is what I’ve been saying for some time. The temperature of the earth is not particularly ruled by the changes in how much energy it receives. Tambora cut off a huge amount of sunlight, but the effect was small. Yes, some areas had a summer that was a bit cooler than most summers. And I’m sure there were certain locations where it hit harder than others. But overall? The thermostatic mechanisms of the planet kept Tambora from having a much of a cooling effect.
My best to all. I append all of the figures below, with the dates, so you can see the lack of effect. Note that in many of them, the temperature in 1815 was about the same as 1816 … and that despite the size of the volcano, if there was any effect, it was totally gone by 1817.
w.
If that’s what a really big volcano can do, I’m not impressed. Well, I am impressed, but what’s impressive is the strength of the thermostatic mechanisms that keep the earth’s temperature within a very narrow band. Even a huge volcano can’t put it out of sorts for much more than one summer, and even then not too much.
The place to look for the effect of volcanic eruptions on the climate is in food commodity prices. That is where climate change has its greatest impact on human society. In those records the Tambora eruption is unmissable.
Myrrh says:
April 16, 2012 at 5:32 pm
Of course it’s a quote, Myrrh, I did read the page you got it from. I did not think it was your words, so you’ve misunderstood me, perhaps my writing wasn’t clear.
My point was that if you’re foolish enough to quote someone who likes CAPITAL LETTERS and FALSE INFORMATION, without making sure that they have their facts straight, that’s on you, not them. I wasn’t talking about what you said, but about the quality of your citations. You don’t seem to have the sense to realize that things with CAPITAL LETTERS are more likely to be bogus, especially when their citation says:
Whoa … impressive … “Climate and the Affairs of Men”, and they can’t even spell the author’s name correctly (it’s “Browning”). Browning is famous, but not for climate. In August 1990, he famously said “There’s probably a 50-50 chance of Richter 7 plus earthquake on the New Madrid Fault on or around the evening of December 2nd or the morning of December 3rd.” He based his prediction on “peak gravitational pressure on the earth’s crust from the moon and planets “. I’m sure you know how that turned out …
His earthquake skills were obviously just as good as his climate skills … because the book they refer to, “Climate and the Affairs of Men”, was published in 1975, and forecast a coming period of global cooling. Oh, yeah, his doctorate is in Zoology.
And Michael Zahorchak? You can buy his book on climate cycles, they have it at the astrology store, eight bucks, I’m sure it’s worth every penny …
Now, you could have done this research and realized you were reading the ravings of some not too firmly grounded folks … but noooo, instead you just treated us to their CAPITAL LETTERS. Writing like that, all capital letters and exclamation marks, is the sign of an “SIF”, Myrrh. a single-issue fanatic. I didn’t think you wrote the capital letters. I thought you were incredibly foolish to quote anyone who writes like that without checking their facts.
Regarding Wikipedia, some articles there are gold, some are garbage, and some of us can tell the difference. If you can find an error in the page I cited, bring it on. Otherwise, you’re just complaining to complain, and not because I’ve cited incorrect info.
w.
Imagine how much of a temperature difference volcanism could cause if it had generated a significant tax and grant funding system and its own religion!
“The temperature of the earth is not particularly ruled by the changes in how much energy it receives”
aaaand that’s why it doesn’t get cold at night! Consider me a convert to this genius theory 🙂
Two new climate proxies for the year without a summer?
(with apologies to Jane Austen, who died in the following year)
A. Marriage as a proxy for economic optimism?
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man after a good summer must be in want of a wife….
Marriage rates, England (from August in the tabulated year until the following July)
All data in thousands:
1814 94.3
1815 93.8
1816 83.4
1817 84.3
1818 88.1
1819 91.7
Data: Wrigley, E.A. and Schofield, R.S. 1981. The Population History of England 1541-1871: A Reconstruction. Cambrideg University Press.
Honey-mead availability?
Jane Austen writing to her sister Cassandra, Sept. 8, 1816:
“We hear now that there is to be no honey this year.”
From Philip Bradley on April 16, 2012 at 6:16 pm:
Who ya gonna believe, the father of Marxist propaganda or your own lying eyes?
Same source, pg 81-2:
“Hence, we do not allow much weight to the alleged inefficient state of our Corn Laws, and the Act of 1815 in particular. As that Act is now about to be repealed, and the whole system materially changed, it is not necessary to enter at length into its real or supposed defects. These defects were, 1st, The admission of foreign grain, duty free, for three months at a time, whenever the ports opened; with the exception of imports from France and Holland, or from places between the rivers Eider and Ridassoa, which were limited to six weeks; 2d, The imperfect mode of obtaining the averages which regulated the opening and shutting of the ports; and 3d, The clause which allowed foreign corn at all times to be imported for the warehouse.”
Keep reading, around pg 88-9 is interesting. As protectionist as the Corn Laws were supposed to be, between loopholes and graft they didn’t mean much.
As a publishing scientist (in environmental science, not climate specifically) I think that this kind of information could be published in some relevant journal. Along with a discussion about the absolute decrease in degrees there could be some general information about rain for those years and also something about the build up of a legend. It might well be as one (or a few) commentators wrote, that the rains at the wrong time of the year were to blame. Also frost is a really destructive condition. We only need to go from +1 to -1 C (thats 2 C) for a period of hours or days in order for cells the freeze and a crop is lost. The year without a summer is perhaps a general idea (meme) that is applied whenever it is needed. For the Nordic countries such an event occurred 1867 (due to an unknown cause! something that has been speculated by meteorologists). This wikipedia article states that it is the “Finnish famine”, but it struck northern Sweden as well. The famine could haven been avoided if necessary preparations would have been made, but that does not remove the fact that the weather behaved really strange those years. This kind of events, although not striking complete countries, create legends, some true while others salted. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finnish_famine_of_1866%E2%80%931868
Willis Eschenbach says:
April 16, 2012 at 6:55 pm
Of course it’s a quote, Myrrh, I did read the page you got it from. I did not think it was your words, so you’ve misunderstood me, perhaps my writing wasn’t clear.
My point was that if you’re foolish enough to quote someone who likes CAPITAL LETTERS and FALSE INFORMATION, without making sure that they have their facts straight, that’s on you, not them. I wasn’t talking about what you said, but about the quality of your citations. You don’t seem to have the sense to realize that things with CAPITAL LETTERS are more likely to be bogus,
Good grief, if you saw the page you would have also noticed what a small part of the picture it took up – the capital letters were just fine, pointing out the very salient conclusion – that it looks LIKE SHOUTING TO SOME HERE IS SOMETHING THAT AN ADULT WOULDN’T MISTAKE – AND IT REMINDS ME THAT SOME ALSO GET THEIR KNICKERS IN A TWIST BECAUSE THEY THINK THAT EVERYTHING IN QUOTES IS, OH GOSH, “SCARE QUOTES”…
I KEPT IT IN JUST AS I KEEP IN CAPITALS IF I’M PUTTING IN TITLES WHICH WERE GIVEN IN CAPITALS, WHICH IS, ACTUALLY, WHY I ALSO DECIDED TO KEEP IT IN….
As I don’t like using capitals for stressing a point, I think they’re difficult to read in this typeface, I’m more inclined to use italics..
especially when their citation says:
Global temperature chart was complied by Climatologist Cliff Harris that combined the following resources:
“Climate and the Affairs of Men” by Dr. Iben Browing.
“Climate…The Key to Understanding Business Cycles…The Raymond H. Wheeler Papers. By Michael Zahorchak
Weather Science Foundation Papers in Crystal Lake, Illinois.
Whoa … impressive … “Climate and the Affairs of Men”, and they can’t even spell the author’s name correctly (it’s “Browning”). Browning is famous, but not for climate. In August 1990, he famously said “There’s probably a 50-50 chance of Richter 7 plus earthquake on the New Madrid Fault on or around the evening of December 2nd or the morning of December 3rd.” He based his prediction on “peak gravitational pressure on the earth’s crust from the moon and planets “. I’m sure you know how that turned out …
You’re such a “clever” arguer, just like the majority of warmists, you pick on irrelevancies and go on and on and on about them to distract from the fact that you won’t deal with what is being said when it contradicts the scenario you’re pushing..
His earthquake skills were obviously just as good as his climate skills … because the book they refer to, “Climate and the Affairs of Men”, was published in 1975, and forecast a coming period of global cooling. Oh, yeah, his doctorate is in Zoology.
And yours is in what? As they were all forecasting then, and, with better information about cycles they would have been very reasonable to do so – timing is more difficult, but it is inevitable.
BECAUSE WE’RE AT THE END OF OUR INTERGLACIAL AND THE ONLY WAY IS DOWN.
And Michael Zahorchak? You can buy his book on climate cycles, they have it at the astrology store, eight bucks, I’m sure it’s worth every penny …
Probably is, they hadn’t got into manipulating the records and information to the extent they do now, they’d only just begun – now the pages disappear, like the National Geographic I had bookmarked from 1976 – but with better understanding the agenda driven warmists also saw they could take advantage of the coming decades of warming after the cooling of the previous to create a ‘common state of fear’. It was around then that CRU began changing NZ temp records, iirc, for the building of the scam.
Anyway, as all this has become better understood, by those still looking at actual cycles and not flattening out all record of them, these dips into colder can be rapid:
“However, there were at least some rapid climate transitions which occurred when ice sheet extent was no greater than at present, such as the apparently widespread late Holocene cool/arid events at 8200 yrs BP, at around 3,800 yrs BP, and another cool event around 2,600 yrs BP. (although the time taken for onset of these later Holocene changes in regional and global climates does not yet seem to have been determined).” http://www.esd.ornl.gov/projects/qen/transit.html
“Does not yet seem to have been determined”, to the best of their knowledge at the time, from looking at all information available, objectively. No agenda driven spouting inanities from selective cherry picking created from a superficial reading of temperature records, like this latest ‘crusade’ of yours to wipe out any possibility of cause and effect. Which I’ve now reluctantly have to conclude from your posts here is what you’re doing.
Now, you could have done this research and realized you were reading the ravings of some not too firmly grounded folks … but noooo, instead you just treated us to their CAPITAL LETTERS. Writing like that, all capital letters and exclamation marks, is the sign of an “SIF”, Myrrh. a single-issue fanatic. I didn’t think you wrote the capital letters. I thought you were incredibly foolish to quote anyone who writes like that without checking their facts.
Well, Willis, you continue to be fixated on that one trick pony rebuttal as it gets you out of looking at the actual data and any information presented which shows your concept lacking substance.
Regarding Wikipedia, some articles there are gold, some are garbage, and some of us can tell the difference. If you can find an error in the page I cited, bring it on. Otherwise, you’re just complaining to complain, and not because I’ve cited incorrect info.
Sure it varies, among the gold includes a fair selection of historical information, observation, as I said in my first post here, and the gem “That the 1815 eruption occurred during the middle of the Dalton Minimum (a period of unusually low solar activity) may also be significant.” Which I now see, from further research on this and having found a vast study which had been embargoed for the 30 years they got into the swing of ‘Carbon Dioxide causes global warming’, is very significant.
But, you’d rather cherry pick only that which supports your view and Frank found some more for you. Ignore, or rather, denigrade contemporary observation, don’t take difficulties of farming into account as others have explained so well, don’t bother with the fascinating conclusion of the study I’ve presented, all just so you can continue to play down any volcanic effects on climate, though why you’re doing this remains an mildly interesting question.
It’s obvious some warmists keep promoting themselves as sceptics in their determination to continue to push the junk science of AGW, and some, like Monckton and Fred Singer get into quite a rage against any pointing out the flaws in their carbon dioxide warms the earth claims by bringing in real physics, such as gravity missing from the cartoon energy budget they keep pretending is real. Their ‘denialists give sceptics a bad name’ meme, trying to set themselves apart as if rational and logical to protect the deliberately dumbed down fictional fisics of AGW.. Wolves in sheep’s clothing is how I’ve come to think of them.
Anyway whatever the reason, my mistake, again, I see you’re not at all interested in the scientific pursuit of reality here as just like Monckton and Singer you wail and moan when you’re on the receiving end, but get into full swing with the same tactics against those pointing out how illogical you’re being – “Logic didn’t work for you, so you now try insults?”
Willis re your: “Second, no way there were “90 major eruptions” in the Little Ice Age. Your reference shows the LIA lasting from 1350 to 1850, which is odd in itself, but never mind. A major eruption is often taken as one with a “VEI”, or volcanic explosive index, of 5 or more. Wikipedia has a list of “large volcanic eruptions”, VEI of 5 or more. There are exactly nine eruptions on that list during the Little Ice Age.”
I ask again. Why odd in itself? This is on the lines of the general spread as wiki says:
” It may be conventionally defined as a period extending from the 16th to the 19th centuries,[3][4][5] or about 1350 to about 1850 [6] though climatologists and historians working with local records no longer expect to agree on either the start or end dates of this period, which varied according to local conditions.”
But a general spread from around 1250 also common. Here it has from 1300 to 1870: http://www.eh-resources.org/timeline/timeline_lia.html
“The Little Ice Age is a period between about 1300 and 1870 during which Europe and North America were subjected to much colder winters than during the 20th century. The period and can be divided in two phases, the first beginning around 1300 and continuing until the late 1400s. There was a slightly warmer period in the 1500s, after which the climate deteriorated substantially. The period between 1600 and 1800 marks the height of the Little Ice Age.”
Wiki on the Little Ice Age also says:
“There is no agreed beginning year of the Little Ice Age[9][10], although there is a frequently referenced series of events preceding the known climatic minima. Starting in the 13th century, pack ice began advancing southwards in the North Atlantic, as did glaciers in Greenland. There is anecdotal evidence of expanding glaciers almost worldwide. Based on radiocarbon-dating of roughly 150 samples of dead plant material with roots intact collected from beneath ice caps on Baffin Island and Iceland, Miller et al. (2012)[11] state that summer cold and ice growth began abruptly between 1275 and 1300 AD, followed by “a substantial intensification” from 1430 to 1455 AD.[12] The three years of torrential rains beginning in 1315 ushered in an era of unpredictable weather in Northern Europe, which did not lift until the 19th century[citation needed].
In contrast, a climate reconstruction based on glacial length[13][14] shows no great variation from 1600 to 1850, though it shows strong retreat thereafter.
For this reason, any of several dates ranging over 400 years may indicate the beginning of the Little Ice Age:
1250 for when Atlantic pack ice began to grow
1275 to 1300 based on radiocarbon dating of plants killed by glaciation
1300 for when warm summers stopped being dependable in Northern Europe
1315 for the rains and Great Famine of 1315–1317
1550 for theorized beginning of worldwide glacial expansion
1650 for the first climatic minimum.
The Little Ice Age ended in the latter half of the 19th century or early in the 20th century”
So, what is your objection to 1350-1850?
As for your claim that wiki says only “exactly” nine 5+ eruptions during the LIA, I haven’t found it, but looking at the 19th century (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_large_volcanic_eruptions_of_the_19th_Century) it says there were five such to 1850, six if you include 1854. It also comes with a caveat:
“Note that there may be many other eruptions that have not been identified, and estimates for the size of eruptions can be subject to considerable uncertainties.”
Please give the link to the page you’re referring to as your ‘clue’, “large volcanic eruptions”, throws up a rather long list which I don’t have the inclination to sort through. I’d like to see where the other 4 were and when exactly they were…
Re the comments above about Corn laws, wheat imports etc – the point is, the commodity price graphs do not support the notion of massive crop failures. It is true that there was a slight uptick in prices in 1816 – 1817, but it is simply not possible that import substitution would have kept prices so relatively stable across so many products if there had been massive crop failures across the board for whatever reason.
As the graph demonstrates, there were much worse years for price inflation than 1816 -17. It is quite likely that the 1816 harvest was not a bumper year, but it is just not possible that it was catastrophically bad, either.
As for the contemporary accounts, the day farmers stop complaining about weather and prices is the day they stop being farmers!
Given the difficulty that this site has exposed in using temperature records to detect climate trends it should really come as no surprise that even earlier records are inadequate to determine the climate change that resulted in the widespread agricultural failures of the years after the 1810 and 1815 eruptions.
The purpose of the weather records made at the time was to record the local macro changes in the weather. It was not designed and is really unsuitable to detect the MUCH smaller climate trends. A half dgree deficit over many months is swamped by a daily variation at leats and order of magnitude greater.
It is hard enough to derive a climate trend from the modern weather station network for similar reasons. Epecting a clear signal from the few primitive weather observations from the 1800s is unrealistic. Equally mistaken to assume that because those records do not show it clearly it does not exist.
That weather station data was originally intended for no more than comparing short term variations of several degrees in a local area and is not appropriate for deriving accurate long term trends of less than a degree is a problem that has dogged climate research since its infancy. It is possible to extract data on small long term trends from this data that was intended for other use with much lower resolution, but as has been evident here that can give rise to dispute.
The most important impact of climate changes is not the absolute temperature or rainfall or KJoules/kg of air, its how that impacts on the agricultural production that feeds us all. Obviously other factors influence agricultural production, but the growing conditions are key. With temperature and rainfall the dominant factors.
Extreme weather or climate trends are only of significant interest if they kill people. The main way they do that is through crop failure and famine. Whatever the weather, if it causes crop failure it is catastrophic even if it does not show up in historical observations, tree rings or other complex proxy indicators.
The data on crop prices from the early 1800s globally shows the influence of the two major eruptions, the unknown source in ~ 1810 and Tambora in 1815. Commodity prices in Britain and some other parts of Europe is complicated by the transition to a post war economy, but taking arable crops from all markets the impact of both eruptions can be seen. And as several posters have presented here there are extensive contemporary records of the problems and hardships the widespread crop failures of the time caused.
The surface temperature variability will inevitably swamp any small trend in historical weather data – especially as that variability, NOT the small trend is what the record was intended to record. But weather and climate variations are of most significance to human society if they affect crop yields. I posted this link before that gives access to a wide range of global market prices at the time.
http://www.gcpdb.info/index.html
The magnitude, localisation and scale of any climate change caused by a major volcanic eruption may be open to dispute. It is certainly more obvious in the temperature record of the lower troposphere than at the surface as the UAH data show. But the magnitude does not matter if the effect is crop failure.
Even if Willis shows that a volcanic cooling event is much smaller in degrees C and shorter lasting than other studies, that does not reduce the known damage such events did to the agricultural production.
How many degrees the average temperature dropped and for how long and where is really of less importance than how many people starved because the crops failed as a result of the volcanic induced climate change.
Willis Eschenbach says:
April 15, 2012 at 11:02 am
Nylo says:
April 15, 2012 at 8:42 am
Willis, it is true that 1816 was just a case of “one more cold summer”, and not a really, really cold summer anywhere, but the big difference is that this cold summer happened in all places, while normally, if somewhere in the world is particularly cold, it is because it is hotter in other parts.
Nylo, the graphs above show that there were a number of places that didn’t suffer the terrible summer, the “year without a summer”. So if you want to claim that “this cold summer happened in all places”, you’ll first have to explain why it didn’t happen in Stockholm, Milan, Bologna, Manchester, New Haven, and the other places for which I’ve shown records.
Willis, as your own graphics show, summer 1816 was indeed a cold summer in all of the places that you cite, in all cases among the coldest in the plotted periods. The fact that it was not always the coldest doesn’t mean that it wasn’t cold. So I don’t have to provide any further citations, I cite you, I cite your own data. And I repeat that the key is that it was a quite cold summer everywhere (for their respective standards), while in ordinary years you have some places with unusual cold and some other places unusually hot. I tell you, find one single record of one single place in the world that had a particularly hot summer in 1816, or just a summer with above average temperature. Having everywhere cold is something quite remarkable, even if nowhere had been a record cold.
Nisse says: April 17, 2012 at 12:04 am
Also frost is a really destructive condition. We only need to go from +1 to -1 C (that’s 2 C) for a period of hours or days in order for cells the freeze and a crop is lost. The year without a summer is perhaps a general idea (meme) that is applied whenever it is needed. For the Nordic countries such an event occurred 1867 (due to an unknown cause! something that has been speculated by meteorologists). This wikipedia article states that it is the “Finnish famine”, but it struck northern Sweden as well.
_______________
Thank you Nisse for raising my major concern. In 2003 I wrote that global cooling would resume by about 2020 to 2030.
The basis for this bold prediction, made almost a decade ago during the height of global warming hysteria, was:
Examination of multiple forms of scientific data indicated that temperature changes were natural and probably cyclical, the cycle could be related to the Gleissberg Cycle (or the PDO), climate sensitivity to CO2 was low and NOT a significant driver of climate, and Earth was nearing the end of a natural warming half-cycle that commenced in ~1975, after a natural cooling half-cycle that lasted from ~1940 to ~1975.
A phone call to paleoclimatologist Dr. Tim Patterson resulted in the predicted timing, based on Tim’s work on the Gleissberg Cycle. If the shorter PDO is a better indicator, global cooling could start sooner, about now.
In ~2003, NASA was projecting a fairly robust Solar Cycle 24 (Hathaway, not Svalgaard) and a quiet SC25. To date, SC24 has been very quiet (Leif the Lucky?). The PDO was still in “warm” phase in 2003. NASA announced the shift in PDO to “cool” phase in 2008.
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2008-066
Also, Earth is nearing the end of a brief warm interglacial, between longer periods when continental glaciers covered much of what is now Western Europe, Russia and Canada. There goes the neighbourhood.
So what happens if I’m wrong? There is some modest (NOT catastrophic) warming, and the majority of humanity actually benefits. History shows that humanity and the environment benefit during warm periods.
And what happens if I’m right? That depends how much global cooling occurs. If cooling is moderate, more early frosts will reduce the grain harvest locally – not a huge problem. If global cooling is severe, frequent and widespread early frosts will significantly reduce the grain harvest, driving up food prices and having a major negative impact on humanity, and particularly the poor.
All in all, I’d prefer to be wrong. I could live with that – and so could many other people.
In the meantime, our politicians continue to obsess about mythical catastrophic manmade global warming (CAGW), despite the fact that there has been NO net global warming for ~10-15 years.
Should severe global cooling occur, humanity will be woefully unprepared.
The “Year Without A Summer” on the Iberian Peninsula:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/02/090225161422.htm
I agree entirely with izen. Temperature records are a poor indicator of anything. A couple points:
The repeal of the corn law was the single greatest boost to the British economy and directly responsible for the huge increase in economic output throughout the 19th century. Low or zero tariffs work.
Crops grown in the northerly reaches of the grain growing areas of the world are nearly always marketed the following year because they are often harvested later in the year. For example, on the Canadian prairies crops seeded in May are sometimes not off the fields until late October and sometimes even into November. In western Canada the marketing crop year for grains seeded in spring 2012 ends on August 1, 2013.
I have lived through 2 volcanic eruptions; Pinatubo 1992 and the Icelandic eruptions of 2010. In both cases the summers that coincided with those eruptions were cold. 1992 was cold and dry and 2010 was cold and wet. In fact 2010 was so wet that many acres on the Canadian Prairies were left unseeded. By October 27th 2010 most of the prairies were inundated with snow and some of that snow stayed until spring 2011.
izen says:
April 17, 2012 at 3:45 am
Thanks, Izen. It’s not clear what your claim is here. I provided actual temperature records. I was not trying to “determine the climate change” as you say . I was not looking at a “climate trend” as you speculate.
I was looking at what you call local macro changes in the weather, which as you point out is what the thermometric record was for. I was not looking at climate at all. Why is a thermometric record inadequate for determining if Stockholm was cold in 1816 compared to 1815 or 1825? That’s what thermometers are for. You are correct that the Stockholm record would be inadequate for determining a half-degree change over a century … but I’m not looking for that, I’m looking at the difference from one year to the next.
And for that, thermometers are quite adequate.
w.
Myrrh says:
April 17, 2012 at 1:19 am
Like I said, Myrrh, that’s why I ignore your posts, because it seems that for you “the only way is down”, so you are going down in flames, shouting in capital letters as you go and citing astrologers as your authorities on the way down.
I thought perhaps pointing out your egregious errors in this case might make a difference, but I see now that that was a forlorn hope. From your perspective you weren’t wrong then, you aren’t wrong now, and by God you’ve never been wrong.
So, I’m gonna go back to ignoring your posts, sorry to have disturbed you …
w.
izen says:
April 17, 2012 at 3:45 am
Thanks for a thoughtful post, izen. You are 100% correct as far as the effect on humanity goes. But I’m investigating a very different question.
This is the claim made by the AGW supporters that volcanoes seriously depress the global temperature for an extended period of time. And for answering that question, “how many degrees the average temperature dropped and for how long and where” is extremely important.
The reason this question is of interest, to me and to others, relates to the climate sensitivity. The AGW folks claim that for each watt per square metre (W/m2) of additional forcing, the temperature goes up by 0.8°C, and for each loss in forcing of 1 W/m2, the temperature goes down by 0.8°C.
However, if the climate sensitivity were really as high as they claim, then the change in forcing from a big volcano like Tambora should be a global temperature drop of a couple degrees for three or four years … which is what I set out to investigate.
In fact, what I found is that Tambora had effects, but they were local rather than global (central Europe but not Russia, for example), short rather than long (basically, one summer was affected), and involved a change in the weather patterns instead of a general decline in temperatures (late frosts and unseasonal rains rather than a decline in average temperature).
Was there a “year without a summer”? Sure, from the human viewpoint, because crops failed. But was there a global reduction in temperatures as claimed by the AGW supporters?
If so, I can’t find it.
All the best,
w.
Willis;
The impact the farmers noticed in 1992 was not in the yields but in the failure of the crop to ripen. I drove from Winnipeg to Regina and on to Saskatoon (~1000km) in the first week of September that year. Almost all the crop was still in the field and still green (unripened). Many farmers salvaged the crop, which was good because of adequate rain and cooler temperatures, by applying a desiccant, usually Roundup, to make the crop suitable for harvesting.
Nylo says:
April 17, 2012 at 5:15 am
In Armagh, as my own graphics show, for the period from 1813-1817, 1816 was the second warmest year. For the plotted period (ten years) it was the fifth warmest. So I fear my own graphics don’t bear out your claim.
Was there an effect from Tambora? Yes. Was it global? No way. The Lauterbacher data is quite clear on that point:
Bear in mind that these are shown as anomalies from the modern era, which is about 1°C warmer. So to compare it to that time, whatever is in orange should be in red. Whatever is in white should be in orange. And what ever is light blue should be in white. Which, of course, further reduces the size of the area where it occurred, as well as the amount of the temperature drop.
But even in its current form, it clearly shows that the summer of 1816 was NOT a cold summer everywhere, so your theory is falsified.
w.
Tim Ball says:
April 17, 2012 at 11:57 am
Thanks, Dr. Tim. I’m always reluctant to contradict you because of the overall quality of your work, but I fear I must do so.
It sounds like you are talking solely about wheat. But the chart I showed above displays the yield variations in all of the fruits, vegetables, grains, tubers, and pulses (peas and beans) grown in Canada.
Not one of them shows a meaningful reduction in yield from what you claim were very bad conditions. Not one. And certainly not all of them were “salvaged” by using a dessicant.
So I fear that your explanation only explains a very small part of the lack of your claimed effect from Pinatubo in the summer of 1992. Yes, it was cool and rainy … welcome to Canada …
w.
Looking in “Seasons and Prices -The role of the weather in English Agricultural History” E.L.Jones It does seem that the harvest of 1816 was bad one
‘A backward spring followed by a cold wet summer resulted in a in a late harvest deficient in both quantity and quality’
John Hoyte of Leicestershire “A very serios cold and wet summer …there was Hundreds of Loads of White corn cut in November and there is Thousands got as is so Heated and Grown that it is neither fit for Bread or Pigs…… some oats still stood (here) on Jan 13th 1817″
William Flemming of Cumberland: November 8th ” There is at this time much Grain particularly Oats out in the Fields. It is very uncommon to see Fields of Grain some uncut and some standing in the Shock or Stook covered with Snow and frozen together, but it is the case this Year”
It doesnt argue for a major volcano effect on temperature but maybe it is worth considering how sunshine hours impact on the difference between the maximum temp and the average temp, looking at some numbers for monthly June temps; with 300 hours the monthly average maximum is around 6 Centigrade above the monthly average temperature, whereas with 100 hours its only 3.5 Centigrade.
-and of course this is measured inside a screen and underestimates the effect ‘out in the sun’.
Looking at the CET monthly anomalies from KNMI, it is quite striking/strange that Jan 1814 was 6 Centigrade below normal for January ( preceding the eruption), and that a big step-change drop in temperature that occured around 1782 also preceded the 92 Gt SO2 Northern Hemisphere injection of 1783 (according to Gao’s dating). The very cold January of 1795 (6 Centigrade below the Jan average) again preceded the smaller 6.7Gt N-H injection of 1796.
From johanna on April 17, 2012 at 2:55 am:
Did you even try reading the source material I gave the link for? The warehousing operations to control prices were quite extensive, with grains stored for rather long periods. You supported a thoroughly modern view with the market prices reacting even before the harvest was in. You have no appreciation for the long delays back then. As on pg 80: “…1817 and 1818, that is to say, to the prices of the two very inferior crops 1816 and 1817, which then came into consumption.” So an 1816 crop failure would be shown in 1817 prices, if it was otherwise what we expect of modern commerce, which it wasn’t.
Again, the prices need not reflect the reality due to then-existing market manipulations. We have the written account published 1822 that the 1816 British harvest was lousy with 1817 also being miserable. Do you have any direct accounts saying it wasn’t?
Which is fair for farmers as their crops are their lifeblood. Way back then, before crop insurance and government disaster programs, farming on rented land or as sharecroppers with no safety net, with a much larger portion of the populace involved in the raising of food than today, with food costing a much larger portion of wages than today, loud complaints were justified.
kakada:
Yes, I did look at your source. Firstly, note what it is:
On the depressed state of agriculture
James Cleghorn, Highland and Agricultural Society of Scotland, Edinburgh
A. Constable and Co., 1822
It’s a polemic from a farmers’ lobby group which seeks – surprise, surprise – government action to help farmers. There is nothing wrong with that, but as a source it is far from impartial.
Secondly, it is just not true that a complicated mechanism of storage and market controls was responsible for the fact that a whole range of commodities – not just a few selected grains – remained quite stable in price over 1816 – 17. For a start, many agricultural products are substitutable, and/or interdependent. This means that if there is a shortage of grain, or hay, it affects the price of stock feed, which affects the price of meat. It is absurd to suggest that there was so much stock feed and hay in storage in 1816 and 1817 that a disastrous harvest had virtually no effect on either grain and hay prices, and therefore on meat prices, for two whole years. Where were these massive, weatherproof, vermin-proof storage facilities for relatively low value products? Who paid for them and the storage costs for all that time, with no cost increase reflected in prices? It simply doesn’t make sense.
Thirdly, it is odd that this remarkable storage and price stabilisation system failed so miserably in other years, but worked a treat on this occasion to compensate for the ‘missing summer’.
Finally, to suggest that rising or falling prices in future due to current harvest sizes were not taken into account in the early 19th century is to seriously underestimate the intelligence of the populace, who were just as smart as we are today. Indeed, given that maintaining the food supply chain was much more important in those times (due to lack of safe storage, no refrigeration and less surplus), the knowledge that there would be less barley for future beer would quickly spread through the brewing industry, large and small. Markets worked just the same then as they do now.
Perhaps I should have put in a couple of smilies, I thought using the caps was funny..
I wonder where Willis got his nine 5+ eruptions during the LIA?
One of the problems of identifying Tambora among temperature plots is that there were other eruptions, not quite as large, prior to that year and similarly for a few decades later in the early 1830s.
For a wealth of information on the subject, see H. H. Lamb, 1970, VOLCANIC DUST IN THE ATMOSPHERE; WITH A CHRONOLOGY AND ASSESSMENT OF ITS METEOROLOGICAL SIGNIFICANCE, Phil. Trans. Roy. Soc. London, v266, 425-533.
There was another practical problem with this WUWT piece in that many of the graphs have no years on the x-axis! This may be late for the blog, but was late seeing it and finding the paper.
If you cannot find a copy, I can send you a pdf version.