From Sun and Liu 2012: all of the deep solar minima of the last millennium (Oort, Wolf, Spörer, Maunder and Dalton) correspond to periods of drought in the Qilian Mountains of the northeastern Tibetan Plateau according to this tree-ring study.
Guest post by Alec Rawls
Like the Central Asian precipitation study that Anthony posted about yesterday, this one also comes via a review by “Cold Sun” authors Sebastian Lüning and Fritz Vahrenholt, as translated by Pierre Gosselin.
Using tree ring width as a proxy for precipitation (about a 50% correlation over the period of the instrumental rainfall record) Chinese scientists Junyan Sun and Yu Liu found the remarkable correspondence between solar activity and precipitation seen in the graph above. As summarized by Lüning and Vahrenholt:
The Great Drought occurred during a weak period of solar activity, the so-called Spörer Minimum, which occurred from 1420 to 1570. Interestingly, almost all other periods of drought occurred during times of solar minima, among them the Oort Minimum, Wolf Minimum, Maunder Minimum and Dalton Minimum. Every time the sun goes into a slumber for a few decades, the rains on the Tibetan Plateau stay away.
A frequency analysis of precipitation curves also delivers evidence on solar cycles. Here the Gleissberg Cycle (60-120 year period) and the Suess/de Vries Cycle (180-220 years) are seen in the datasets.
Yesterday’s study, which also looked at the Tibetan Plateau but about 1400 kilometers to the west, found the opposite relation, with “Bond events” (episodes of ice rafting in the North Atlantic, which Bond identified with periods of low solar activity), corresponding to periods of higher humidity (colder and wetter) in the Taklamakan Desert. The two studies taken together seem to suggest a solar driven shift in weather patterns.
Is this support for Stephen Wilde’s theory about high solar activity pushing the polar jet stream northward? Any significant change in the jet stream would likely cause its latitudinal waves to shift as well, so even though the two Tibetan sites are at the same latitude, it is plausible that rainfall in the two locations could be oppositely affected by the sun.
In general, if solar activity is by any mechanism a powerful driver of climate then corresponding changes in weather patterns would seem to be unavoidable. This would account both for the high number of studies that find solar signals in paleo-climate proxies and for the difficulty in fitting these studies together into a larger picture. Maybe with enough more precipitation studies at enough locations a coherent map of fluctuating weather patterns will emerge.
Are there enough old Coastal Redwoods to do tree ring studies up and down a thousand miles of Pacific coast? If Redwood rings correlate well with precipitation, that could be a good place to look for shifting weather patterns. Has this already been done? The Save the Redwoods group claims to be compiling their own such database now. Maybe it will show something.
On the difficulty of finding simple relationships, note that the correlation Sun and Liu found between solar activity and precipitation in the Qilian Mountains goes wobbly over the last dozen decades. If the correspondence between low solar activity and dry weather at this location is real then it seems that the 1900 lull in solar activity was not deep enough to trigger the changed weather pattern. Precipitation was actually high across the 1900-lull, then was below average in the 1940s, 50s and 60s when the sun was particularly active.
It’s a reminder to take the remarkable coincidence between precipitation and deep solar minima in the Qilian Mountains with a grain of salt. In any one location the relationship between climate and weather is going to be noisy, which not only can obscure real relationships but can also point to false ones. Still, the evidence for a powerful solar driver of climate keeps piling up.
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The mainstream has falsely assumed uniform modulus of continuity.
Rather than try to explain that (“WTF?!”), let’s take a simpler route…
Stephen Wilde (May 16, 2012 at 3:47 pm) wrote:
“All we need for the observed effects is differential responses between equator and poles which then gives the required seesaw movement in the atmospheric heights.”
And we have the BASE for that:
Net Surface Solar Radiation:
http://i53.tinypic.com/2r5pw9k.png
…and so we have equator-pole GRADIENTS:
2m Temperature:
http://i55.tinypic.com/dr75s7.png
…and of course water is affected BY ABSOLUTES (not anomalies):
Precipitable Water:
http://i52.tinypic.com/9r3pt2.png
…and TEMPERATURE GRADIENTS DRIVE WINDS:
Near-Surface (850hPa) Wind:
http://i52.tinypic.com/nlo3dw.png
Near-Surface (850hPa) Wind — Polar View:
http://i54.tinypic.com/29vlc0x.png
Wind-Driven Ocean-Surface Currents:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/67/Ocean_currents_1943_%28borderless%293.png
Note that PATTERNS ARE DIFFERENT UP HIGHER:
Zonal Wind Vertical Profile:
http://i51.tinypic.com/34xouhx.png
200hPa Wind:
http://i52.tinypic.com/zoamog.png
200hPa Wind — Polar View:
http://i52.tinypic.com/cuqyt.png
Isotachs & Pressure at 550K:
http://i56.tinypic.com/14t0kns.png
“Apart from all other reasons, the parameters of the geoid depend on the distribution of water over the planetary surface.” — N.S. Sidorenkov
What do equator-pole temperature-gradient-driven wind-&-water-pumps do on average?
Column-integrated Water Vapor Flux with their Convergence:
http://i51.tinypic.com/126fc77.png
Evaporation Minus Precipitation:
http://i43.tinypic.com/2isvynb.png
Monthly Maximum of Daily Precipitation:
http://i41.tinypic.com/34gasr7.png
ENSO is just a smaller thing that rides on top of all of that. And then the solar cycle just amplifies that a bit (nonuniform modulus of continuity — Mother Earth’s not always equally receptive to Father Sun’s advances — has her own cycles). The “bit” accumulation = small multidecadal variations.
One needs globally constrained metrics to reliably see something so subtle. It’s A NO-BRAINER to see that not all of the variables are coherent across all levels (like atmospheric height & oceanic depth). Here are a few more variables to emphasize this point:
Vertical Velocity:
http://i54.tinypic.com/2ch4x28.png
Mean Sea Level Pressure:
http://i54.tinypic.com/swg11c.png
There is one big shared feature: THE YEAR. Note particularly how it shows up differently in 200hPa & 850hPa winds.
With (a) better community understanding of the concept climatologists call “thermal wind” and (b) stronger community awareness of terrestrial circulatory topology, the discussion CAN advance.
It IS possible to translate rate of change of solar cycle length into an equivalent metric that’s far more tangible to folks, but that won’t help people who don’t (a) understand thermal wind and (b) have good awareness of basic circulatory topology.
Credit: Climatology animations have been assembled using JRA-25 Atlas [ http://ds.data.jma.go.jp/gmd/jra/atlas/eng/atlas-tope.htm ] images. JRA-25 long-term reanalysis is a collaboration of Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) & Central Research Institute of Electric Power Industry (CRIEPI).
2 recommended quick-reads:
1) p.433 [pdf p.10] here:
http://images.astronet.ru/pubd/2008/09/28/0001230882/425-439.pdf
2) abstract here:
http://trs-new.jpl.nasa.gov/dspace/bitstream/2014/28080/1/95-0060.pdf
For those with 5 more minutes to see pictures of what Stephen Wilde writes about:
Study Figures 8, 11, 13, & 15 comparatively to very carefully “spot the differences” between pictures & hemispheres, consulting the associated text for reinforcement: http://ddata.over-blog.com/xxxyyy/2/32/25/79/Leroux-Global-and-Planetary-Change-
1993.pdf
Best Regards to All.
Alec Rawls says:
May 16, 2012 at 5:42 pm
………………..
UV has no polarity, so ionospheric events due to UV have no polarity change.
Magnetic field of an incoming magnetic storm is either of a north or south orientation, this most often is not much to do with solar polarity at the time. Both polarization buffet magnetosphere, but it is a southward polarization, that will reconnect and geomagnetic storms ensures. Polarity of the income storm often isn’t known until it hits one of the satellites. It has to be remembered that despite total axial current could be of order of billion Amps, only a fraction hits the magnetic poles, on average estimated 0.5 to 1 million Amps, but it is spread over large area. Magnetic induction is strong enough to overcome inertia of a magnetic needle and move it by a degree or two. It could be postulated that similar force may act on each molecule of saline water and vectorialy combine with existing forces. It is not known if this effect is anything more than negligible.
Arctic Ocean currents system is complex but well researched. Antarctic’s Circumpolar current (ACC) system was thought to be relatively simple, but that appears not to be the case.
http://www.accessscience.com/popup.aspx?figID=YB001060FG0020&id=YB001060&name=figure
If there is coupling between the changes in the Earth’s magnetic field and ACC circulation than it would be bi-directional, but high correlation between solar activity as expressed in the TSI reconstructions and the Antarctic’s MF bi-decadal variability is unlikely to be a coincidence.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/SSN-dBzA1.htm
Circumpolar temperature wave.
http://www.spacedaily.com/images/antarctic-circumpolar-wave-bg.jpg
recently discovered, is also puzzling event.
Satellite altimetry and sea surface height analysis have recently revealed a previously unknown feature of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current, the Antarctic Circumpolar Wave. This wave propagates westward against the current but ultimately ends up traveling eastward, due to the massive size of the ACC, at a slower rate than the mean flow. The wave circles the earth every eight to nine years (White and Peterson, 1996). It has a long wavelength (wavenumber=2) resulting in two crests and two troughs at any given time. The crests and troughs are associated with massive patches or pools of warm water and cold water respectively. The areas can be thousands of kilometers long. The warm patches are 2 to 3°C warmer than the mean sea surface temperature (SST) and the cold patches are 2 to 3°C cooler than the mean SST (White and Peterson, 1996). Though it is not yet clear how these waves are triggered or maintained, they directly influence the temperature of the overlying atmosphere. While the Wave’s effects on climate are just beginning to be studied, the phase (warm pool vs. cold pool) correlates well with four to five year rainfall cycles found over areas of southern Australia and New Zealand (White and Cherry, 1998). Some scientists believe that the Antarctic Circumpolar Wave may be more important than El Niño in governing rainfall over these regions.
http://oceancurrents.rsmas.miami.edu/southern/antarctic-cp.html
vukcevic (May 17, 2012 at 1:05 am) linked to:
” http://www.spacedaily.com/images/antarctic-circumpolar-wave-bg.jpg “
Cautionary Note to Readers: That image is modeled …but certainly Warren White’s interesting work is based on observations …and some investigators are (quietly) exploring a lunisolar-ACW connection.
Vukcevic:
You appear to ignore the fundamental role of thermal wind in terrestrial circulation.
However:
Perhaps it’s best for the community this way, since your ideas about mysterious magnetic forces appeal to so many people and help keep them interested.
Questions:
1. Does the climate affect the geomagnetic field?
2. Does the geomagnetic field affect the climate?
3. Is coupling bidirectional?
4. Or do the climate & geomagnetic fields just share parallel solar modulation?
5. Through ongoing exploration, can we sufficiently improve our collective awareness to refine this oversimplified stream of questions?
The answer to the last question is “Yes”.
…And we needn’t answer the other questions today.
All the Best.
@Paul Vaughan says:
Answer to all is possible ‘Yes’
1. Does the climate affect the geomagnetic field?
Ocean currents create counter EMF which in turn is reflected in secular MF change
2. Does the geomagnetic field affect the climate?
Temperature variability is a factor of the ocean currents velocity which is reduced by stronger MF
3. Is coupling bidirectional?
2 & 3 suggest a bidirectional effect
4. Or do the climate & geomagnetic fields just share parallel solar modulation?
Probability of affirmative 4 is at least twice as great as for 1 & 2.
My very own mother explained this to me when I was 6 years old in 1974 (long before AGW) – that reduced sunspot numbers means less rain in general. I don’t know why they have to continue studying this and come to the same conclusion, excepting in the last remaining days of “climate studies = $$:..