Another regime change indication – this time in solar data

GeoLurking says:
July 4, 2012 at 10:20 am
So what would be the Hurst Rescaling of the data using your refinement of the sunspot activity?
No idea specifically, and you may call that confirmation bias, but I basically agree with the author, as it is clear that solar activity is on the downslope. I was just pointing out that the Figure you referred to is misleading if interpreted as showing a direct measure of solar activity.
vukcevic says:
July 4, 2012 at 10:27 am
“the various other things you claim are unsubstantiated conjecture”
Agree. No point in restating what is well known and part of the accepted science.
What you are claiming is not part of accepted science.

Holy Higgs boson! It’s even noted by Wikipedia!

Golden Arches Theory of Conflict Prevention
In Thomas L. Friedman’s 1999 book The Lexus and the Olive Tree the following observation was presented: “No two countries that both had McDonald’s had fought a war against each other since each got its McDonald’s”. While that statement was somewhat tongue-in-cheek, his point was that due to globalization, countries that have made strong economic ties with one another have too much to lose to ever go to war with one another. Regardless of whether the statement is true, the conclusions to be drawn are unclear. The global expansion of McDonald’s restaurants is a relatively recent phenomenon when put into the context of the history of warfare, and, with a few notable exceptions, has proceeded into relatively stable markets.
The 2008 South Ossetia war between Russia and Georgia is a counterexample to the theory, both countries having McDonald’s at the time (started in 1990 and 1999, respectively).[25] Other conflicts that provide possible counterexamples, depending on what one considers “a war”, include the 1989 United States invasion of Panama, the bombing of Serbia, and the Kargil War along with ongoing skirmishes between India and factions of Pakistan over the Kashmir region.
The appearance of McDonald’s does not end an existing state of war: the states of Lebanon and Israel have been under a state of war since 1973, with South Lebanon occupied until May 2000 and a significant flareup in 2006, which did not hinder the establishment of McDonald’s franchises in Israel and Lebanon in 1993 and 1998, respectively. The two countries engaged in a brief war in the summer of 2006, although the Lebanese Armed Forces were not a party to the fighting, the Israel Defense Forces action being taken instead against the paramilitary group Hezbollah.

Correlation is not causation, etc. But a cause does not have to yield an absolutely consistent effect to be valid due to confounding factors.
And India and Pakistan have backed down from “the nuclear option”. McDonald’s correlates with pacification.

Douglas Cohen says:
July 4, 2012 at 10:15 am
and noticed a temperature downtrend in the last part of the 19th century with distinct dips at around 1890 and 1910 — that is, 10 years or so past the 1880 and 1990 dips in the solar index. Is this just a coincidence? I wonder.
Vuk will tell you that is probably a new important discovery 🙂 brought about by “A luxury strictly reserved for the spare time mental unproductive activity” \sarc [just in case you misunderstood]
I agree it’s just a straw in the wind, the product of ten minutes idle curiosity, proving nothing at all, just like the idle observations of all those 18th and 19th century beginning geography students noting how neatly the bulge of South America fit into the concavity of Africa when they first saw a map of the South Atlantic. (Oh, wait..)

“Correlation is not causation”
Well, I would say there is a very strong correlation between pirates and global warming. I mean, just look at what has happened since the pirates in Somalia started up.

vukcevic says:
July 4, 2012 at 12:24 pm
Take another look at Tromso, just added a bit.
To paraphrase Ovid: Adding nonsense to nonsense and soon you have a big pile. As a ‘practical and experienced engineer’ [p.s. I would not let you build my bridge] you should know that changes in the external field on the time scale of changes in Ap cannot penetrate to [and into] the core where the main field is generated [look up skin effect].

Well, I would say there is a very strong correlation between pirates and global warming. I mean, just look at what has happened since the pirates in Somalia started up.
Ah, a fellow Pastafarian. Cool noodlings, my brother!
I reside in Beaufort, NC at the moment — one-time home to Blackbeard, home to an annual “Pyrate Invasion”, and summer residence of many graduates from East Carolina University in nearby Greenville. In other words, there are pirates everywhere you look. Although we had a cool (almost cold!) June, July has been scorching so far — for Beaufort.
The evidence doesn’t lie.
rgb

agree it’s just a straw in the wind, the product of ten minutes idle curiosity, proving nothing at all, just like the idle observations of all those 18th and 19th century beginning geography students noting how neatly the bulge of South America fit into the concavity of Africa when they first saw a map of the South Atlantic. (Oh, wait..)
somewhat pompous and pretentious to think that your ten minutes of idle curiosity will produce a similar revolution of science, but, hey, you can join Vuk in the genius department.
Never claimed to be a genius — just like all those beginning geography students weren’t geniuses.
The point is that the naive amateur eye will notice things that the expert eye has learned to ignore because those experts have been carefully trained to look elsewhere for significance.
Rather than trying to come up with some more prose designed “to put me in my place” — amusing as that may be to you, are you sure it improves your character? — you might want to estimate the probability that the correspondence in the two curves is just a coincidence. I wouldn’t be sure how to do it, but I’ll bet you could if you wanted to.

@ur momisugly Kadaka 11.27
Similarly, no two countries that ever joined the Euro have been at war since (though many of them were perpetually at war with each other prior to that). But how ironic, to be united in eternal peace by financial stupidity, culinary vulgarity and nutritional suicide. And how delightfully human. Aliens would be appalled..

The step-change alone did not define the changepoint. It just happens to be the point where the integral crossed the deviation baseline. It was a big step. It covered a large range. That range intersected the baseline. However, that alone does not make a changepoint; there has to be persistence of deviations towards either vertical side of the baseline on either horizontal side of the baseline-crossing step. A polarity flip in deviation persistence is what defines a changepoint. This changepoint is not spurious. It is real. However (and this is important), the interpretation of what this particular changepoint indicates has been quite sloppy. Best Regards to All.

Dr. Lurtz says:
July 4, 2012 at 4:35 am
Picard, working at the Observatorie de la Paris during the Maunder Minimum, claimed to have measured a slightly shrunken sun by means of his painstaking timing method. There being no others at the time capable of measuring the Solar diameter, it is hard to prove or disprove, unless the Sun once again falls into a prolonged period of spotlessness. That we may yet have opportunity to witness.
Leif Svalgaard says:
July 4, 2012 at 9:23 pm
Precisely what one would desire, a lone coincidence whereby a root process might be discovered, rather than a tangled mess of indicators. Part of the process of elimination is already done for you.