Ian H. Bryce writes at Jo Nova’s website:
The thing that intrigued me about the maximum temperatures is the high peaks, which occur at the peak of the odd solar cycles, and four other times, when we had strong El Nino events. (Most recently, three in four years) It is interesting to note that we did not have the Super EL Nino in 1998!
One wonders when our climate scientists graph global mean temperatures for tens of thousands of stations worldwide, that they “miss the wood for the trees.” I contacted the BOM some time ago about this phenomenon, but I have not had a reply yet. (Surprising?)
Read the entire fascinating article at Jo Nova’s website.
UPDATE: Willis finds some serious problems and posts in comments:
Not sure why I usually end up being the one to rain on the parade, but I’ve accepted my lot in life. Here is the Echuca data plotted against the peaks of the solar cycles, as measured by sunspot counts.
A couple things of note. First, he has misidentified the Cycle 11 peak, it happens earlier. Second, he is very vague about the timing of the cycles. Yes, the high years occurred during those cycles, but if we look at the actual peak year of each cycle, some happen two years before the peak temperatures, some three years before, some four years before, and some show no relation at all to the peak temperatures.
Sorry … but that’s the real data, and the sunspot/temperature correlation doesn’t hold up in the slightest.
SOURCES:
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
I made a similar plot comparison along with several other comparisons for a client some years ago(04 I think). I could not find any real correlations between sun cycle (max or min) and ENSO. I did find a number of correlations between ENSO and natural gas prices, and monsoon activity but not the sun. It did appear that if the max occurred at the same time as El Niño we thought some enhancement was probably present. Were it so simple… it is anything but.
Willis Eschenbach
Thanks, Kasuha. You clearly illustrate the problem with the human eye, which is trained and honed to detect patterns … so much so that it easily and regularly detects patterns that aren’t even there.
So why not do a simple autocorrelation? Take the sunspots numbers, and subtract the average. Take the temperature, subtract the average. Then multiply the two together and average. Then offset the two by -5 to +5 years and graph the average of the correlation.
If the two are correlated, there will be a peak, if they are not it’ll be a flatish graph. This will show the point of maximum correlation … any delay between the two, and given the right scale, it’ll show how big the correlation is compared to the size of the signal.
Cloud cover controls the maximum temperature in interior Australia. With ENSO is where you will find a good correlation with maximum temperature.
Scottish Sceptic says:
June 25, 2012 at 4:32 pm
Hey, go for it, Scotty. I’ve provided the sources for the two datasets. Me, I don’t dig in dry holes …
w.
David Archibald says:
June 25, 2012 at 3:43 pm
No, it is not a good example of the Hale cycle. It is a lousy example of any kind of cycle. Take another look at the graph I posted above. Several of the Hale cycle maxima are not associated with any temperature maximum. Several of the temperature maxima are not associated with any Hale cycle maximum. When they are near each other, the timing ranges from solar max three years before temperature max to four years after temperature max. That is a very, very poor example.
There are some climate datasets that are claimed to show a good correlation with the Hale cycle, from memory the rainfall in southern Africa, although I haven’t checked them. But the correlation in Echuca is non-existant.
w.
Willis,
Thanks for your comments. I must say that I enjoy reading your blogs. I am no expert in atmospheric physics, but was only trying to show temperature patterns in an area where we go tomatoes, and what effect temperatures may have had on their growth. By plotting max and min temperatures, I was able to find two different patterns.
I was interested in the following:
1. Why was the max trend not rising?
2. Why was the min trend going down? (Thinking about your work on clouds)
3. There does appear to be a solar pattern, but maybe I was remiss in saying it appears at the peak of the odd cycles instead of “around” the peak. There always seems to be some sort of lag in these systems.
4. I was trying to point out that when we look at global average temperatures sometimes we miss out on the detail.
5. Finally, I was pointing out that here was a station that was not close to the oceans, shielded by a mountain range, and the temperatures should not be affected by the UHI.
Regards,
Ian
P.S. it is important to look at patterns e.g. Ice cores because from there we can construct formulae that we can check to see if it fits the data as you do. One day someone may come up with a unified theory on climate.
vukcevic says: “I have also noticed some passing resemblance between the ENSO and changes in the geomagnetic field, possibly just coincidence:”?
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/ENSO-dB.htm
I seem to see a pattern. It…it…looks like…a mango. NO! It’s a tiger! Run away. Run away! Oh, wait, it may be just coincidental wiggle matching, as you suspected in the first place. ENSO is most likely independent of the geomagnetic field. I sure can’t posit a mechanism, and ENSO is well explained except for what triggers the El Nino phase. Any ideas on the latter, Vuk?
If it isn’t possible to make a correlation between sunspots and temperature, is it any more possible to make a correlation between CO2 levels and temperature?
David, have you ever watched “The Life Of Bryan”? There is a scene in that movie that reminds me of your comment. Anyone who is married to their hypothesis should watch that movie before they write an article.
Willis
On correlation with the 22 year Hale cycle (~ odd Schwab solar cycle) see the analysis by
WJR Alexander who found correlations and predictions based on the 22 year Hale solar cycles on precipitation/runoff based on his exhaustive compilation of Southern African records.
Linkages between solar activity, climate predictability and water resource development*
W J R Alexander, F Bailey, D B Bredenkamp, A van der Merwe and N Willemse
Journal of the South African Institution of Civil Engineering • Volume 49 Number 2 June 2007 pp 32-44
https://www.up.ac.za/dspace/bitstream/2263/5326/1/Alexander_Linkages(2007).pdf
While there are chaotic fluctuations, Alexander shows statistical evidence for a strong change on the Hale cycle. He put all > 100 year Southern African hydrological data on a CD to give to anyone wanting to evaluate it.
Alexander’s findings could in turn infer clouds varying with the Hale Cycle.
Note your finding an opposite trend between temperate vs tropical regions in terms of increased rainfall vs increasing temperature. ie there could be correspondingly opposite trends in temperature vs tropical albedo with the Hale cycle.
Happy hunting.
Willis…Curious as to a relation in temperature (more so at the poles?) not necessarily to the peak sunspot counts, but how active the sunspots were, ie…CME’s and solar winds (CHHSS) actually impacting Earth. From what I’ve seen, there seem to be periods when Cme’s impact us more often, even though we’re seeing fewer spots, and vice versa.
Willis Eschenbach says:
June 25, 2012 at 12:49 pm
Sorry … but that’s the real data, and the sunspot/temperature correlation doesn’t hold up in the slightest.
This does not deter the true believers the slightest.
@Willis
Pretty much the relationship between Milankovitch and glacial/interglacial periodicity.
Department of life lessons from actual work: one apprehends physics prying a rock out of a ditch in a way that can never be imparted in a classroom.
@Willis Eschenbach (June 25, 2012 at 12:49 pm)
Dickey, J.O.; & Keppenne, C.L. (1997). Interannual length-of-day variations and the ENSO phenomenon: insights via singular spectral analysis.
http://trs-new.jpl.nasa.gov/dspace/bitstream/2014/22759/1/97-1286.pdf
There’s a lot in this paper you have not understood.
I read here on WUWT recently about a correlation between something (weather? temperature? .clouds? sunshine hours? … ) and the peak of the *previous* cycle. Cycles average 11 years but are not exact. What would it look like if this possible delay were to be factored in?
Just curious.
@David Archibald (June 25, 2012 at 3:43 pm)
Solar magnetic ~22 year is phase-confounded with something else that has not been reported/discussed (so far as I’m aware).
@Lucy Skywalker (June 25, 2012 at 1:50 pm)
See the Dickey & Keppenne (1997) paper to which I linked.
There are comments in this thread from Willis, Leif, & Pamela that are inconsistent with earth rotation observations.
Paul Vaughan says:
June 25, 2012 at 9:13 pm
Dickey, J.O.; & Keppenne, C.L. (1997). Interannual length-of-day variations and the ENSO phenomenon: insights via singular spectral analysis. …
There’s a lot in this paper you have not understood.
since the paper has nothing to do with solar variations it is hardly relevant what Willis understands.
Jo replies: Thanks for the extra detail Willis. I’ve posted your graph on my site too.
You are not pouring cold water on the parade at all. I posted it as a “curiosity”, wondered if it was a one off fluke, didn’t draw any major conclusions. What parade?. Clearly it is worthy of discussion. No big conclusions can be drawn from one graph, and we didn’t do that. Instead it’s done just what I hoped, generated an interesting thread — in no small part thanks to you. 🙂
It’s clear in your graph that temperatures rise soon after the solar max in 5 out of 6 cases – as if the solar max effect may have a two year delay. The years circa 1901, 1916 and late 2000’s break the pattern (and the first two of those occur in a discontinuous early part of the series), but for 80 years from 1920 – 2002 we see a strong cycle that tightly fits with each second solar cycle delayed by 2 years. My original point remains, that this may be random, unless we see it at other sites (thanks to commentators who report they may have seen this elsewhere. )
Obviously other factors are also affecting the climate producing some noise? (Do I need to say this — seems obvious?)
There is plenty of fodder for more investigation. I hope someone can follow it up properly.
Thanks to David Archibald for the Hale cycle information — I’ll add those notes to the post too. Ta.
All this attention to temperature maximums. The minimums from some desert regions might show something.
Paul Vaughan says:
June 25, 2012 at 9:39 pm
There are comments in this thread from Willis, Leif, & Pamela that are inconsistent with earth rotation observations.
Not with the observations, but perhaps with your unsubstantiated interpretation. And as long as you remain cryptic and don’t spell out clearly what bugs you, you are not bringing anything to the table.
jorgekafkazar says: June 25, 2012 at 5:26 pm
……………
Hi Jorge
You post is reminiscent of the long forgotten comic strips I use to read; on the less serious note though (this is climate science after all), without meaning to step on anyone’s toes, the ENSO appears to be the simpler equatorial version of the AMO, kind of the ‘AMO-lite’.
Willis Eschenbach says:
June 25, 2012 at 3:52 pm
Thanks, Kasuha. You clearly illustrate the problem with the human eye, which is trained and honed to detect patterns … so much so that it easily and regularly detects patterns that aren’t even there.
______________________________________
You completely ignored the first part of my post which was supposed to mean that there is a lot of noise. Now if you want to do real analysis, please remove the noise first. I’m not saying there is correlation, I only say I see that there may be some if you take care of the noise. And your way of analysis is no proof there isn’t any because what you are looking at is just the noise and nothing else.
Paul Vaughan says:
June 25, 2012 at 9:13 pm
Paul, the mere fact that you have recommended the paper in such an unpleasant and paternalistic manner greatly reduces my chances of reading it. You desperately need to adjust your attitude if you want people to follow your lead, and do try not to be so unbearably supercilious, you don’t wear it well. You have no clue what I do and don’t understand, either about LOD or El Niño, so don’t pretend you do, you just look foolish.
If you have a point to make, Paul, then make it … but absent any clue about what your point is, I can hardly see what length of day and ENSO have to do with the subject under discussion. You sure you read the head post? I’m commenting on the Hale cycle and its lack of correlation with the Echuca temperature … how on earth does LOD or El Nino fit into that?
w.