When will it start cooling?

Meanwhile the elephant in the room (the short and long term oscillating teleconnections between oceanic and atmospheric intrinsic drivers) is bringing previously warmed pools here and shoving cold pools there, producing well-known weather pattern variation oscillations within the broad outer limits of regional climate parameters. But please, carry on. Ignore the elephant and continue to search for mouse droppings among the teeny tiny anthropogenic portion of CO2 additions to the atmosphere and/or solar-barycenter-planetary-galactic-universe ethereal boogymen.

Leif Svalgaard says:
August 16, 2012 at 7:54 am
“You are confusing the absolute calibration which has that uncertainty and the relative accuracy [‘instrument precision’]that measures changes over time. The latter is about 30 times smaller at 0.007 W/m2.”
The statement on page 33 of the http://lasp.colorado.edu/sorce/news/2011ScienceMeeting/docs/presentations/1g_Schmutz_SORCE_13.9.11.pdf document is “when assessing long term trends, allow for an uncertainty of at least 0.2 W/m^2 for the 1996 solar minimum!” where it is referencing uncertainty in measuring long term trends, in measuring trends over time, in measuring changes over time.
In fact, looking closely now at page 30, zooming in closely on the multiplot graph, every single one of the different TSI measurements depicted is greatly inconsistent on this scale not just in absolute offset but also in changes over time. For instance, DIARAD in January 1996 is tenths of W/m^2 below ACRIM, but, in the spike in late 2008, DIARAD becomes at least 0.3 W/m^2 above ACRIM, before DIARAD then goes back to much less above ACRIM.
To create an illustration, here is one location where first ACRIM has a downwards trend relative to DIARAD and then another where ACRIM has an *upwards* trend relative to DIARAD:
http://img31.imagevenue.com/img.php?image=34476_allTSIlousy_122_583lo.JPG
Actually doing this investigation makes me see now that TSI measurements are even worse than I thought as a choice of metric (unlike the alternative metrics I already favored where one does not have to worry about fractions of 0.1% variation, where multiple percent variation instead exceeding uncertainty is seen). As in the prior graphical illustration, when none of the TSI instruments consistently match each other within a tenth of a W/m^2 even in change over time, at least all but one of them (or very simply all of them) has major error on this scale.
Leif Svalgaard says:
August 16, 2012 at 7:54 am
“The problem with PMOD is that they have not properly corrected for instrument degradation, as pointed out by Schmutz [and me].”
At least one of the problems.
No two of the TSI instruments depicted fully match each other in data output on the scale relevant here, having spurious relative downwards and upwards trends.
Leif Svalgaard says:
August 16, 2012 at 7:54 am
“As long as the degradation is not accounted for correctly, there will be such a downward trend which will get worse and worse”
As noted in my last comment, your publication had, as its reported possible degradation, -0.080 W/m2 total 2004 to 2010.25 and -0.172 W/m^2 1996.75 to 2010.25, which, if one thought it sufficed as a summary of the matter, would suggest on the order of 0.27 W/m^2 or lesser degradation over 1986.75 to 2008.9. Yet that is when the PMOD trendline in http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/pmod/from:1986.75/to:2008.9/plot/pmod/from:1986.75/to:2008.9/trend over that period for a complete cycle 22 plus a complete cycle 23 is between -0.5 W/m^2 and -0.6 W/m^2. Even with your publication’s correction, it would still be a decline in TSI, an apparent decline being halved but around -0.3 W/m^2 over that period. With that said, however, after such as my graphical illustration earlier in this comment, I wouldn’t assume TSI measurement inaccuracy isn’t more complicated.
Where there is clarity, in contrast, is in other metrics.
For instance, a blatant illustration is http://cosmicrays.oulu.fi/webform/query.cgi?startday=01&startmonth=01&startyear=1964&starttime=00%3A00&endday=30&endmonth=08&endyear=2012&endtime=00%3A00&resolution=Automatic+choice&picture=on
For the top several-month average, the minimum following cycle 23 is seen to be around +11% on a neutron monitor count scale where the minimum following cycle 22 only reached around +7% in those terms.
Such as that 4% difference vastly beats arguing over fractions of 0.1% in TSI with mediocre measurement instruments.
Leif Svalgaard says:
August 16, 2012 at 7:54 am
“The best instrument we have is TIM on SORCE http://lasp.colorado.edu/sorce/data/tsi_data.htm SORCE started in 2003 and the average for the last year [up to the present] is 1361.46 W/m2 which is already higher than the average of the first year of data [2003] which was 1361.32 w/m2.”
Such is curious. However, considering the utter TSI mess previously discussed, with both downwards and upwards trends at different times between different instruments varying by tenths of a W/m^2 and no instrument fully matching any other instrument even in trends, one instrument giving hundredths of a W/m^2 between unequal time sections of two solar cycles is not as meaningful as the non-TSI metrics.
For a clearer observation, in contrast, even over those example (albeit uneven) time periods:
Average cosmic ray flux over 25 February 2003 to the end of 2003: 5751
Average cosmic ray flux over 1 January 2011 to now: 6363
Unlike TSI, those figures have large enough variation as fraction of the total to not be clouded in measurement error uncertainty. So does solar cycle length change, sunspot number change, and even spectral distribution (e.g. UV) change.

Henry@Stephen Fisher
Stephen, it looks like I can can correlate my resuts with the decrease and increase in ozone in the upper atmosphere. Namely from 1945 ozone has been decreasing (to the extent that everyone thought at one stage that man must be causing the ozone breakdown with CFC’s) but since 1995 it started moving up. It also seems to follow the same parabolic curves as evident by my results on the maxima, suggesting a natural process that has been going on for many, many years. I think it must be to do with the sun-UV-O3 cycle or some contraction of the atmosphere itself, causing higher ozone. Note that ozone deflects a lot of sunlight due to re-radiation. More ozone means more deflection. That high energy light of <0.3 um would otherwise be absorbed in the oceans as heat. The 50 year cycle was important in the Hebrew calendar (7 x 7 + 1 Jubilee year) and I suspect Moses picked up this knowledge from the Egyptians who knew everything that happened on their god Ra.
There is nothing new under the sun….

HenryP says:
August 16, 2012 at 12:23 pm
Note that ozone deflects a lot of sunlight due to re-radiation. More ozone means more deflection.
There is no such thing as ‘deflection’ of sunlight. We have discussed this at length already, but you apparently didn’t learn anything.

Thanks HenryP.
However one needs to be careful about the height at which the ozone increases or decreases.
It seems that the sign of the ozone response to solar changes is the opposite of conventional climatology above 45km (decreasing when the sun is active instead of increasing) and that the response above 45km dominates over the response below 45km ( increasing when the sun is active as per conventional climatology) with the net result being a natural reduction in stratospheric ozone and natural cooling of the stratosphere when the sun is more active.
The effect is greater at the poles so the gradient of the tropopause height rises more at the poles due to the stratospheric cooling being greater there.
That decreases the slope of the tropopause height between equator and poles to allow the climate zones to slide poleward beneath the tropopause.
Cloudiness declines due to a widening of the sub tropical high pressure cells and a reduction in the length of the lines of air mass mixing which allows more energy into the oceans to skew the ENSO balance towards more El Ninos relative to La Ninas.
The opposite process occurs when the sun is inactive. Then, the stratosphere warms more towards the poles and presses the tropopause height downward to push the climate zones back equatorward.
Note that oceanic variability operates in exactly the same way working from the equator but with an opposite effect on the tropopause height. Warm oceans push the height up more at the equator for a poleward shift and more zonality whereas cooler oceans allow the height to drop above the equator allowing more meridionality.
There is a sort of fulcrum or seesaw in the mid latitudes and the latitudinal position of the fulcrum at any given moment depends on the netted out balance of the top down solar and bottom up oceanic effects on the slope of the tropopause height between equator and poles.
It is that variability which provides a negative system response to any forcing process that seeks to change total system energy content from that determined by surface atmospheric pressure and top of atmosphere insolation.

Leif Svalgaard says:
“The bottom line: one way or another, many physicists and astronomers are optimistic that hard evidence for dark matter particles will be found in the next few years. If not, they will be faced with an even deeper mystery than they now confront.”
You give yourself away with your own quotes. You refuse to treat theoretical explanations as theory rather than dogma. Read what you quoted to me above. The “hard evidence” is not yet in and if not, “they will be faced with an even deeper mystery”. Note also, “many physicists and astronomers”, many think otherwise and neither group has come up with the hard evidence for any of the variety of theories out there, while you still claim DM has been “observed”. You continue to confuse cause, which you call DM, with the observed gravitational effect, which could be from another entirely different cause or a lack of complete understanding of the physics involved. You may fear a deeper mystery, luckily many do not and see it as a path to further knowledge. The human nature seeks certainty and fears the unknown so the box in which you find yourself is lined with fear.

“There is almost no ozone above 45 km, so no effects are to be expected”
Then why did Joanna Haigh say this?
“We also show, using the SIM data, that solar radiative forcing of surface climate is out of phase with solar activity”
and:
“our findings raise the possibility that the effects of solar variability on temperature throughout the atmosphere may be contrary to current expectations”
More from the article:
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v467/n7316/full/nature09426.html
“a significant decline from 2004 to 2007 in stratospheric ozone below an
altitude of 45km, with an increase above this altitude.”

Jim G says:
August 16, 2012 at 3:43 pm
There was no subject in your last post about which I had not read so I find no need to go to leif.org for information.
So you claim to have read http://www.leif.org/EOS/CosmicSoundWaves.pdf ?
just like DE and DM have yet to be proven to actually exist.
They certainly exist, for example we know that there is 9*10^9 kg DM in the solar system. That we don’t know in detail what they are is a different matter.
for answers outside of your box as well as inside.
This is not ‘my box’, but generally accepted facts. See, e.g. here http://pdg.lbl.gov/2012/reviews/rpp2012-rev-astrophysical-constants.pdf . That you cannot stomach modern cosmology is really your problem [which you share with many]. Progress will happen without you.
One of my colleagues has written a recent review which might illuminate the matter for your:
‘Dark Matter Searches with Astroparticle Data’
Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysics
Vol. 49: 155-194 (Volume publication date September 2011)
DOI: 10.1146/annurev-astro-081710-102528
Troy A. Porter, et al., Hansen Experimental Physics Laboratory, Stanford University, Stanford,
ABSTRACT
The existence of dark matter (DM) was first noticed by Zwicky in the 1930s, but its nature remains one of the great unsolved problems of physics. A variety of observations indicate that it is nonbaryonic and nonrelativistic. One of the preferred candidates for nonbaryonic DM is a weakly interacting massive particle (WIMP) that in most models is stable. WIMP self-annihilation can produce cosmic rays, gamma rays, and other particles with signatures that may be detectable. Hints of anomalous cosmic-ray spectra found by recent experiments, such as PAMELA, have motivated interesting interpretations in terms of DM annihilation and/or decay. However, these signatures also have standard astrophysical interpretations, so additional evidence is needed in order to make a case for detection of DM annihilation or decay. Searches by the Fermi-LAT for gamma-ray signals from clumps, nearby dwarf spheroidal galaxies, and galaxy clusters have also been performed, along with measurements of the diffuse Galactic and extragalactic gamma-ray emission. In addition, Imaging Air Cherenkov Telescopes like HESS, MAGIC, and VERITAS have reported on searches for gamma-ray emission from dwarf galaxies. In this review, we examine the status of searches for particle DM by these instruments and discuss the interpretations and resulting DM limits.
So, the existence is not in doubt. The nature of the beast is what the search is about.

Leif Svalgaard says:
August 16, 2012 at 12:33 pm
“However Abdussa does not base his ‘prediction’ on those other indices, only on TSI.”
The foundation of his prediction, in terms of such as the reduced solar activity seen during the Maunder Minimum and his estimation that it is time for that to occur again, comes from historical data at a time when TSI was directly measurable not at all, even less measurable than now. The solar activity drop in general is the most important part of his prediction from my perspective, since I don’t assume TSI variation is the only aspect of solar variation which effects climate.
For instance, cosmogenic isotopes like Be-10 and C-14 which show major change in solar activity during the Maunder Minimum do not show TSI; they imply cosmic ray count variation which traditionally is ascribed to mean TSI variation meanwhile as well but with the latter conceivably perhaps not the case.
For recent years, now, and coming decades, Dr. Abdussamatov’s prediction, based on history, has lesser sunspot number counts and lesser solar activity in other indicators than during the 20th century period of high solar activity. Conceivably, what is being seen now is actually what approaching a Grand Minimum looks like. If modern satellite instruments were aloft back then, perhaps they would have shown no more TSI variation than now at this stage, with the observed climate effects coming from the rest of solar variation.
However, TSI variation was consistently reported as a factor by researchers in the era before the global warming political war began, which does not directly prove they could not all be accidentally mistaken but does correspond to when I am certain basically nobody was intentionally skewing matters (having no likely motive when the field was relatively purely academic so to speak). Already how cosmic rays and UV change more than TSI is known, but to have TSI outright unchanging regardless of sunspot number change is an extraordinary claim requiring accordingly utterly extraordinary evidence for me to be confident in trusting, although that does not rule it out as a conceivable possibility.
If essentially a second Maunder Minimum occurs in future years and decades, those years also will provide from my perspective the final test of what happens to TSI during such, as Dr. Abdussamatov’s estimates of tenths of a W/m^2 TSI change up to now are almost nothing compared to his predictions for an order of magnitude greater drop in the future. Changes in TSI or not at the W/m^2 level will be simpler to check from multiple instruments than tenths of a W/m^2.
Leif Svalgaard says:
August 16, 2012 at 12:33 pm
“The relative precision is much better, 0.007 W/m2 for SORCE/TIM which currently is the only instrument good enough for any trend measurements.”
The position that every other instrument is wrong on that scale but that they are reporting accurate data is conceivable, as in (1) they have better design and get better data plus (2) they report it accurately. #2 is extra particularly a concern which I can not directly verify one way or another, though. In the mess of having no two independent instruments matching on TSI at the tenths of a W/m^2 level, they could report practically about whatever they wanted, right or wrong, with no easy direct way for outside observers to check. I don’t doubt that there is plausibly instrument degradation. It just is impossible in this context to easily externally tell, for example, if X degradation occurs, whether someone slips in 1 * X effective compensation, Y * X overcorrection, or almost any other figure they wanted.
I never like relying upon only one group not externally verifiable on any climatological matter, and I don’t trust the University on Colorado on not fudging sea level rise rates, considering past history, so whether I can trust them on TSI is an unknown. In the context of the IPCC’s approach that only TSI variation is to be taken into account at all as climate-impacting solar variation, to “prove” that TSI never varies when sunspot numbers change so that they could claim the Maunder Minimum had nothing to do with the Little Ice Age and so on could be practically a coup. So there would be potentially powerful motive as well as means. There are already “peer-reviewed” papers coming out conveniently claiming the LIA was due largely to activities of the small human population of the time. Motive and means together do not directly prove anything. They do raise questions, though.
Anyway, the overall result from my perspective is even more so my always-standing preference for other metrics than TSI. For instance, there is no possible way, not by accidental error nor by intentional error, that the 30% difference in solar cycle length between cycle 22 and cycle 23 didn’t occur, or that the multiple percent change in average GCR flux then didn’t occur, whereas variation in TSI down to fractions of 0.1% is such a mess to verify.

Henry Clark says:
August 16, 2012 at 6:48 pm
Leif Svalgaard says:
August 16, 2012 at 12:33 pm
“However Abdussa does not base his ‘prediction’ on those other indices, only on TSI.”
The foundation of his prediction, in terms of such as the reduced solar activity seen during the Maunder Minimum and his estimation that it is time for that to occur again, comes from historical data at a time when TSI was directly measurable not at all, even less measurable than now. The solar activity drop in general is the most important part of his prediction from my perspective, since I don’t assume TSI variation is the only aspect of solar variation which effects climate.
Abdussamatov assumes that TSI is the only aspect [and I will agree with him on that], and he states “Both bicentennial and eleven-year cyclic variations of TSI and solar activity are synchronized and inter-correlated in both phase and amplitude (Fig. 1)”. This means that as the sunspot number goes, so will TSI go. This is the basis for his extrapolation. It also means that if the sunspot number falls to nothing, TSI will obtain its lowest values.
This has been directly confirmed by
GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS, VOL. 38, L06701, doi:10.1029/2011GL046658, 2011
The minimal solar activity in 2008–2009 and its implications
for long‐term climate modeling
C. J. Schrijver, W. C. Livingston, T. N. Woods, and R. A. Mewaldt
[1] Variations in the total solar irradiance (TSI) associated with solar activity have been argued to influence the Earth’s climate system, in particular when solar activity deviates from the average for a substantial period. One such example is the 17th Century Maunder Minimum during which sunspot numbers were extremely low, as Earth experienced the Little Ice Age. Estimation of the TSI during that period has relied on extrapolations of correlations with sunspot numbers or even more indirectly with modulations of galactic cosmic rays. We argue that there is a minimum state of solar magnetic activity associated with a population of relatively small magnetic bipoles which persists even when sunspots are absent, and that consequently estimates of TSI for the Little Ice Age that are based on scalings with sunspot numbers are generally too low. The minimal solar activity, which measurements show to be frequently observable between active‐region decay products regardless of the phase of the sunspot cycle, was approached globally after an unusually long lull in sunspot activity in 2008–2009. Therefore,
the best estimate of magnetic activity, and presumably TSI, for the least‐active Maunder Minimum phases appears to be provided by direct measurement in 2008–2009. The implied marginally significant decrease [which we now know didn’t even happen] in TSI during the least active phases of the Maunder Minimum by 140 to 360 ppm relative to 1996 suggests that drivers other than TSI dominate Earth’s long‐term climate change.
http://www.leif.org/EOS/2011GL046658.pdf
If so, we can reconstuction TSI from the sunspot number [red curve] http://www.leif.org/research/TSI-LEIF.png . There is a roughly 100-yr period [not 200-yr as he claims] in the maximum TSI values [and Sunspot numbers], but the minima stays nearly the same. This constancy near minima is what was painfully confirmed this past minimum. It is also clear that with solar activity the coming cycles being predicted [by me: http://www.leif.org/research/Cycle%2024%20Smallest%20100%20years.pdf ] to be small [perhaps even a Maunder Minimum as suggested in a paper [under review] by Livingston, Penn, and me] TSI will be smaller, but still above its minima plateau. This is where Abdussamatov goes wrong [ http://www.leif.org/research/Abdussa3.png ].
but to have TSI outright unchanging regardless of sunspot number change is an extraordinary claim requiring accordingly utterly extraordinary evidence for me to be confident in trusting, although that does not rule it out as a conceivable possibility.
But that is not the claim. The claim is much simpler: as the variation in TSI is caused by variation in the Sun’s magnetic field of which sunspots [SSN] are a good proxy, TSI should follow SSN closely [as Abdussamatov said].
The position that every other instrument is wrong on that scale but that they are reporting accurate data is conceivable, as in (1) they have better design and get better data plus (2) they report it accurately.
We are back to the issue of accuracy vs. precision. Due to design differences one instrument can have an offset compared to another one [e.g. if a little extra light leaks into the sensor – which is what happended] but that offset is usually nearly constant or at least slowly varying, so when you subtract the offset from the instrument with too much light, the result can now be directly compared to the other instrument. Here is such a comparison http://www.leif.org/research/TSI-SORCE-PMOD-2004.png for every single day during 2004. The offset was 4.5 W/m2 in 2004, but as you can see the relative difference between SORCE and PMOD was very small, almost undetectable. This is what is meant by instrument precision and you can see that the two instruments register VERY nearly the same flux. The calibration problem comes in because the offset changes slowly with time due to different degradation.
#2 is extra particularly a concern which I can not directly verify one way or another, though.
The plot I just showed is such a verification. Furthermore, I know both teams personally and can vouch for their integrity.
Anyway, the overall result from my perspective is even more so my always-standing preference for other metrics than TSI.
That may be but Abdussamatov is a TSI guy, and as we have seen his extrapolation doesn’t hold up.