Guest post by David Archibald
My papers and those of Jan-Erik Solheim et al predict a significant cooling over Solar Cycle 24 relative to Solar Cycle 23. Solheim’s model predicts that Solar Cycle 24, for the northern hemisphere, will be 0.9º C cooler than Solar Cycle 23. It hasn’t cooled yet and we are three and a half years into the current cycle. The longer the temperature stays where it is, the more cooling has to come over the rest of the cycle for the predicted average reduction to occur.
So when will it cool? As Nir Shaviv and others have noted, the biggest calorimeter on the plant is the oceans. My work on sea level response to solar activity (http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/02/03/quantifying-sea-level-fall/) found that the breakover between sea level rise and sea level fall is a sunspot amplitude of 40:
As this graph from SIDC shows, the current solar amplitude is about 60 in the run-up to solar maximum, expected in May 2013:
The two remaining variables in our quest are the timing of the sunspot number fall below 40 and the length of Solar Cycle 24. So far, Solar Cycle 24 is shaping up almost exactly like Solar Cycle 5, the first half of the Dalton Minimum:
The heliospheric current sheet tilt angle has reached the level at which solar maximum occurs. It usually spends a year at this level before heading back down again:
Similarly, the solar polar field strength (from the Wilcox Solar Observatory) suggest that solar maximum may be up to a year away:
Notwithstanding that solar maximum, as predicted from heliocentric current sheet tilt angle and solar polar field strength, is still a little way off, if Solar Cycle 24 continues to shape up like Solar Cycle 5, sunspot amplitude will fall below 40 from mid-2013. Altrock’s green corona emissions diagramme (http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/01/08/solar-cycle-24-length-and-its-consequences/) suggests that Solar Cycle 24 will be 17 years long, ending in 2026. That leaves twelve and a half years of cooling from mid-2013.
From all that, for Solheim’s predicted temperature decline of 0.9º C over the whole of Solar Cycle 24 to be achieved, the decline from mid-2013 will be 1.2º C on average over the then remaining twelve and a half years of the cycle. No doubt the cooling will be back-loaded, making the further decline predicted over Solar Cycle 25 relative to Solar Cycle 24 more readily achievable.
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Stephen Wilde says
We need to see a significant fall.
Henry says
I am not particularly looking forward to my own predictions coming true. I hate cold. I can take more heat easier than more cold. If it is too hot I climb in my POOL. But I cannot change NATURE.
God has ordained a very neat self regulatory arrangement that explains why we have had liquid oceans for 4 billion years despite massive disruptions from impact events and widespread volcanism.
True.
Stephen Wilde says:
August 17, 2012 at 7:43 am
If a change in trend is to be regarded as having been observed then that implies that the change exceeds the error margin so your comment is redundant.
Try to think as a lawyer and note how vacous your comment is. Maybe what you are trying to say is that in order for a change to be accepted as real it must exceed its error bar. So, again: no error bar, no observed change.
Never mind the convoluted semantics, Leif.
The stratosphere cooled until the late 90s then stopped cooling.
High and mid level clouds declined until the late 90s and then started to increase.
The climate zones and jets drifted poleward until the late 90s and now appear to be moving back equatorward.
Warming of the troposphere has come to a virtual halt since the late 90s.
The sun became less active from the late 90s to date.
Ocean heat content is not rising as quickly as it was with the rate of sea level rise declining.
Even the rate of CO2 accumulation in the atmosphere seems to be declining a little.
What we have here is numerous changes in trend all occurring from the late 90s and it is not necessary to show precise quantities and error margins to realise that something is up.
Dark Matter strikes !
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/17/dark-matter-detected-gamma-ray-signal_n_1795645.html
Leif Svalgaard says:
August 17, 2012 at 6:46 am
“Abdussamatov used and depended on the flawed PMOD for his extrapolation. It is good to see that you agree.”
If the ACRIM results are more true than PMOD (something I would have difficulty quickly absolutely verifying as a outside observer but already strongly suspect in context), TSI increase would have extra contributed to the natural component of warming up through part of the 1990s (leaving still less gap to be ascribed to be anthropogenic causes after taking into account the 60-year ocean cycle, temperature data not wrongly adjusted, and all else). Yet, even while ACRIM data, unlike PMOD, shows a relatively substantial rise in TSI between the 1986 and 1996 solar minimums, ACRIM *also* actually then depicts a greater fall in TSI between the 1996 and 2008 solar minimums than PMOD does. The preceding for the difference between ACRIM and PMOD data is seen by comparing and contrasting http://www.acrim.com/images/earth_obs_fig26.jpg for ACRIM versus http://www.acrim.com/images/earth_obs_fig27.jpg for PMOD.
I doubt you will really like the preceding chain of observations at all, but I think you momentarily slipped into being more focused on aiming to score debate points, in a manner of speaking, than thinking of what would be the consequences if ACRIM is more accurate than PMOD.
I wouldn’t be surprised if you respond saying the ACRIM-depicted rise and decline in TSI of the different minimums is due to errors in ACRIM. Proving the exact quantitative magnitude of errors negate the existence of the preceding would be a separate matter than showing errors exist, though (when, with real-world instruments, there are always non-zero complexities of measurement, like as far back as the 1980s the ACRIM1 science team was applying corrections for degradation mentioned in http://tallbloke.files.wordpress.com/2010/11/acrim.jpg ).
If using ACRIM data more or less, Dr. Abdussamatov would be off in the exact location of the overall peak in solar activity, but I’d be more concerned about the general picture. In that regard, with ACRIM showing a greater fall in TSI in the recent minimum than PMOD did (and the likelihood of that being solely measurement error looking still less), such would be a bit like the remark I made way back on August 14th:
*******************
Dr. Abdussamatov has some weaknesses, like he uses a common temperature dataset (unfortunately fudged by the CAGW movement) in one of the figures (rather than http://img111.imagevenue.com/img.php?image=43034_ScreenHunter_296_Apr._08_09.29_122_441lo.jpg plus http://hidethedecline.eu/media/PERPLEX/fig75.jpg and other data discussed before … which would support his observations … more).
*******************
Leif Svalgaard says:
August 17, 2012 at 6:46 am
“Your paranoid comments about trust are just silly and need no further arguments.”
After severe dishonesty on 20th-century temperature history (Hansen, GISS, etc.), the MWP and other millennial-scale temperature history (Mann, etc.), sea level rise rates, arctic ice history, hurricanes, tornadoes, AGW effects on malaria, et cetera, widely not apologized for but in practice condoned, the inescapable conclusion is that, while the majority of all people are honest, such does not extend to the majority of activists who rise to the top of institutions gravitating to them. The preceding does not directly prove anything on another topic (as in TSI measurement) but discourages being automatically unable to consider other than 0% probability of a little number massaging by anyone, when there is means, motive, and practically nil chance of serious negative repercussions for responsible parties if applicable, if done with almost any care at all. As the saying goes, “fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me” — except I don’t know a saying for “fool me ?? times in a row”
In context, I’ll take being called paranoid as a compliment, which is an exact word I’ve been called by CAGW supporters on another site (the run-of-the-mill type who could argue on all AGW-related topics without blowing their cover since having none), as I would also if, as there, called a conspiracy theorist. With that said, conspiracy is not the right term when conspiracy connotates a movement which collapses if publicly exposed much at all, with the instability of true conspiracies making them rare in the real world, whereas the CAGW movement has proven quite able to survive many dissenters. It represents not a conspiracy in sense of centralized organization but rather the natural inclinations of the majority of individuals flocking into the relevant organizations at this point, a little like Greenpeace spreading utter inaccuracy about nuclear power is not a conspiracy but the natural inclination of the majority of individuals who would join Greenpeace in the first place (for that subset is not identical in makeup to the general population, being by now more predominately the type not bothered by Greenpeace’s past inaccuracies and thus still wanting to join).
Stephen Wilde says:
August 17, 2012 at 10:11 am
Never mind the convoluted semantics, Leif.
The stratosphere cooled until the late 90s then stopped cooling.
The observers think that the solar cycle variation of the spectral irradiance happens in every solar cycle, not just once in the late 90s.
vukcevic says:
August 17, 2012 at 10:31 am
Dark Matter strikes !
This may, if confirmed, go some ways to elucidate [excuse the pun] the nature of DM. The existence is no longer in doubt.
“The observers think that the solar cycle variation of the spectral irradiance happens in every solar cycle, not just once in the late 90s”
Of course.
But if it happens with the solar variation during every cycle then it also happens through the solar variations from MWP to LIA to date. Think in terms of multiple cycles over centuries gradually changing their average level of activity and therefore also the spectral composition of the radiation supplied.
The stratosphere did not just cool during part of a single cycle and recover during another part. It cooled for decades whilst solar activity remained relatively high then stopped cooling when the level of solar activity dropped below a threshold in the late 90s.
If the stratosphere cools when the sun is more active through a single cycle then it also cools when the sun is more active through a series of cycles and it is that cooling response in the stratosphere which produces the poleward shift in the climate zones during the centuries long period of increasing solar activity.
The opposite when the sun gradually becomes less active through multiple cycles such as from MWP to LIA.
If you cannot see it then you simply won’t see it because you are well capable of seeing it.
ACRIM data showing a rise in minima up to the minima ending cycle 22 (before the later fall) would help explain why cycle 22 has 1.032x of the average inverted cosmic ray neutron count of cycle 20, like cycle 21 also had 1.032x. That is in the context of despite the nominal borderline decrease in peak sunspot number count between cycles 21 and 22, by fitting having the minima rise increase the average in itself in a manner compensating for a little lower sunspot-count peak.
Leif Svalgaard says:
August 17, 2012 at 6:46 am
“Abdussamatov used and depended on the flawed PMOD for his extrapolation. It is good to see that you agree.”
If the ACRIM results are more true than PMOD (something I would have difficulty quickly absolutely verifying as a outside observer but already strongly suspect in context), TSI increase would have extra contributed to the natural component of warming up through part of the 1990s (leaving still less gap to be ascribed to anthropogenic causes after taking into account the 60-year ocean cycle, temperature data not wrongly adjusted, and all else). Yet, even while ACRIM data, unlike PMOD, shows a relatively substantial rise in TSI between the 1986 and 1996 solar minimums, ACRIM *also* actually then depicts a greater fall in TSI between the 1996 and 2008 solar minimums than PMOD does. The preceding for the difference between ACRIM and PMOD data is seen by comparing and contrasting http://www.acrim.com/images/earth_obs_fig26.jpg for ACRIM versus http://www.acrim.com/images/earth_obs_fig27.jpg for PMOD.
I doubt you will favor the preceding chain of observations, but I think you momentarily slipped into looking at what would superficially be against Abdussamatov without considering all consequences if ACRIM is more accurate than PMOD. SORCE does not extend back before less than a decade ago anyway.
I wouldn’t be surprised if you respond saying the ACRIM-depicted rise and decline in TSI of the different minimums is due to errors in ACRIM. Proving the exact quantitative magnitude of errors negate the existence of the preceding would be a separate matter than showing errors exist, though (when, with real-world instruments, there are always non-zero complexities of measurement, like as far back as the 1980s the ACRIM1 science team was applying corrections for degradation mentioned in http://tallbloke.files.wordpress.com/2010/11/acrim.jpg ).
If using ACRIM data more or less, Dr. Abdussamatov would be off in the exact location of the overall peak in solar activity, but I’d be more concerned about the general picture. In that regard, with ACRIM showing a greater fall in TSI in the recent minimum than PMOD did (and the likelihood of that being solely measurement error looking still less), such would be a bit like the remark I made way back on August 14th:
——
Dr. Abdussamatov has some weaknesses, like he uses a common temperature dataset (unfortunately fudged by the CAGW movement) in one of the figures (rather than http://img111.imagevenue.com/img.php?image=43034_ScreenHunter_296_Apr._08_09.29_122_441lo.jpg plus http://hidethedecline.eu/media/PERPLEX/fig75.jpg and other data discussed before … which would support his observations … more).
——
Leif Svalgaard says:
August 17, 2012 at 6:46 am
“Your paranoid comments about trust are just silly and need no further arguments.”
After severe dishonesty on 20th-century temperature history (Hansen, GISS, etc.), the MWP and other millennial-scale temperature history (Mann, etc.), sea level rise rates, arctic ice history, hurricanes, tornadoes, AGW effects on malaria, et cetera, widely not apologized for but in practice condoned, the inescapable conclusion is that, while the majority of all people are honest, such does not extend to the majority of activists who rise to the top of institutions gravitating to them. The preceding does not directly prove anything on another topic (as in TSI measurement) but discourages being automatically unable to consider other than 0% probability of a little number massaging by anyone, when there is means, motive, and practically nil chance of serious negative repercussions for responsible parties if applicable, if done with almost any care at all. As the saying goes, “fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me” — except I don’t know a saying for “fool me ?? times in a row”
In context, I’ll take being called paranoid as a compliment, which is an exact word I’ve been called by CAGW supporters on one forum, as I would also if, as there, called a conspiracy theorist. With that said, conspiracy is not the right term when conspiracy connotates a movement which collapses if publicly exposed much at all, with the instability of true conspiracies making them rare in the real world, whereas the CAGW movement has proven quite able to survive many dissenters. It represents not a conspiracy in sense of centralized organization but rather the natural inclinations of the majority of individuals flocking into the relevant organizations at this point, a little like Greenpeace spreading utter inaccuracy about nuclear power is not a conspiracy but the natural inclination of the majority of individuals who would join Greenpeace in the first place (for that subset is not identical in makeup to the general population, being by now more predominately the type not bothered by Greenpeace’s past inaccuracies and thus still wanting to join).
Henry Clark says:
August 17, 2012 at 11:46 am
The preceding for the difference between ACRIM and PMOD data is seen by comparing and contrasting http://www.acrim.com/images/earth_obs_fig26.jpg for ACRIM versus http://www.acrim.com/images/earth_obs_fig27.jpg for PMOD.
ACRIM shows that there is no long-term downwards trend in TSI, thus nicely refuting Abdussamatov.
After severe dishonesty on 20th-century temperature history (Hansen, GISS, etc.)
None of this has anything to do with Abdussamatov’s errors, unless you classify him as dishonest too.
Stephen Wilde says:
August 17, 2012 at 12:55 pm
But if it happens with the solar variation during every cycle then it also happens through the solar variations from MWP to LIA to date.
Including the rise in the first half of the 20th century and the low cycle 20, which both should then behave just like cycle 23.
If you cannot see it then you simply won’t see it because you are well capable of seeing it.
Without numbers and dates one can see nothing.
Henry Clark, we got five (5) copies of that long post. There’s no need to keep reposting. Just wait for the (overworked & mourning) moderators to get to it.
Amos Batto, where’d you go? Couldn’t find those NASA data files after all?
Stephen Wilde says:
August 17, 2012 at 12:55 pm
it is that cooling response in the stratosphere which produces the poleward shift in the climate zones during the centuries long period of increasing solar activity.
Actually, you have cause and effect reversed here.
“We demonstrate that this enhanced cooling is a direct response of the lower-stratospheric temperature to the poleward shift of subtropical jets.”
Fu, Qiang, Pu Lin, 2011: Poleward Shift of Subtropical Jets Inferred from Satellite-Observed Lower-Stratospheric Temperatures. J. Climate, 24, 5597–5603.
“it is shown that the subtropical jets have shifted poleward by 0.6° ± 0.1° and 1.0° ± 0.3° latitude in the Southern and Northern Hemispheres, respectively, in last 30 years since 1979, indicating a widening of tropical belt by 1.6° ± 0.4° latitude.”
Here you have number, error bars, and dates. This is science.
I said:
“But if it happens with the solar variation during every cycle then it also happens through the solar variations from MWP to LIA to date.”
Leif said:
“Including the rise in the first half of the 20th century and the low cycle 20, which both should then behave just like cycle 23.”
Why ?
The effect of each single cycle is influenced by the cycles preceding and following it and modulated by the delayed oceanic response. There is no reason why cycle 23 should have mirrored cycle 20 or the early part of the 20th century.
Leif, you appear to be reduced to throwing out chaff to distract from the important points.
Even if cooling does soon set it you will deny that it has anythng to do with solar changes. On the other hand if the sun stays quiet without cooling setting in I have accepted that I would be in some difficulty and then I would seek to amend my model to try and accommodate the new observations.
My mind is open but yours is slammed shut so you wriggle and divert to avoid the logical implications of observations.
daveburton says:
August 17, 2012 at 3:08 pm
Henry Clark, we got five (5) copies of that long post. There’s no need to keep reposting. Just wait for the (overworked & mourning) moderators to get to it.
I greatly apologize. The duplication was unintentional. I kept having the post not appear as posts normally do as pending moderator screening. I was getting a javascript error message in Firefox for some reason on the page (actually probably unrelated as such turns out), and, thinking it was not getting to the point of mods seeing it for screening, I was trying submission by multiple methods including with and without java / javascript active.
[Your (multiple) posts WERE going into a “test” thread last evening…. Robt]
Leif Svalgaard says:
August 17, 2012 at 2:33 pm
“ACRIM shows that there is no long-term downwards trend in TSI, thus nicely refuting Abdussamatov.”
Depending on your definition of long-term, that could be rather hard to satisfy without waiting longer to see, although waiting and seeing how several years from now goes and beyond is exactly what I am looking forward to in a way. (I don’t operate under a mode of investigation where part of someone’s work being imperfect means ignoring the rest; if I literally did, I would have to discard every publication short of a non-existent perfect analysis properly combining everything from all external forcings to ocean cycles at once and proving its correctness by future predictions coming true relatively precisely).
Leif Svalgaard says:
August 17, 2012 at 2:33 pm
“None of this has anything to do with Abdussamatov’s errors, unless you classify him as dishonest too.”
I wasn’t talking about him there. Aside from this being a bit of a generalization and everything a matter of probabilities until knowing otherwise, I trust Russian sources more by default on climatological topics, for reduced likelihood of intentional fallacies, based on past experience, which doesn’t rule out some accidental errors or imperfections but helps.
Stephen Wilde says:
August 17, 2012 at 3:27 pm
The effect of each single cycle is influenced by the cycles preceding and following it
So the system is clairvoyant…
My mind is open but yours is slammed shut so you wriggle and divert to avoid the logical implications of observations.
Perhaps so open that the brain has fallen out. As I said, no numbers, no error bars, no dates = no theory. And, as I pointed out “Actually, you have cause and effect reversed here.”
Henry Clark says:
August 17, 2012 at 4:11 pm
I don’t operate under a mode of investigation where part of someone’s work being imperfect means ignoring the rest
The rest is unfounded as well in case of Abdussamatov. As I said, there is no foundation for his alarmist ‘prediction’.
I trust Russian sources more by default on climatological topics
The Russian sources here are not about climate, but about the sun. And, again, it is not about trust, but about being right, and Dr. A has clearly been proven wrong.
“We demonstrate that this enhanced cooling is a direct response of the lower-stratospheric temperature to the poleward shift of subtropical jets.”
No mechanism is suggested as to how a movement poleward of the jets could ’cause’ a cooling of the lower stratospheric temperature.
In contrast I have suggested a mechanism whereby a cooling stratosphere could cause a poleward shift n the jets.
Do you have any ideas as to how their speculation could work ?
For other readers here is the paper which Leif refers to:
http://www.atmos.washington.edu/~qfu/Publications/jc.fu.2011.pdf
They also say this:
“The TLS (Temperature of the Lower Stratosphere) trends in last three decades are also caused by the change of the atmospheric compositions such as the increase of
the CO2, O3 depletion, and possible long-term changes
of H2O”
If we focus on O3 depletion then there we have it but they are all over the place with their unquantified alternative suggestions.
How do they suggest that shifting the jets first can then alter the balance of ozone destruction / creation ?
What do they think shifts the jets in the first place ?
The most notable upper air atmosphere trend (as regards composition) has been ozone reduction during the long period of high solar activity. Given the known association of ozone quantities with stratospheric temperatures why would they need any more than that ?
Their paper as a whole is vindication of my earlier insistence that latitudinal jetstream shifting is associated with stratospheric temperatures.
They are confirming points that I have been putting into the public domain for some time now but I submit that they have got cause and effect the wrong way round.
The only ways to shift the jets and climate zones poleward are by oceanic warming of the equatorial troposphere or by solar (via ozone chemistry) cooling of the stratosphere.
Their mere speculation that shifting the jets cools the stratosphere is not science at all.
The increase of CO2 in the troposphere is a possible candidate as per AGW theory but that is falsified by the recent cessation of stratospheric cooling despite continuing increases in CO2.
CFCs destroying ozone is another candidate but the change in the stratosphere temperature trend from cooling to relative stability and maybe slight warming fits the timing of the quiet sun better than the reduction in CFCs following implementationof the Montreal Protocol.
The finding that at a time of quiet sun ozone increases above 45km is in my view the critical issue , if confirmed, because that provides an explanation for observed stratospheric temperature trends and for the observed jet stream shifting and in particular the observation that the recent trend for the jets to shift back equatorward is solar induced.
Stephen Wilde says
CFCs destroying ozone is another candidate but the change in the stratosphere temperature trend from cooling to relative stability and maybe slight warming fits the timing of the quiet sun better than the reduction in CFCs following implementationof the Montreal Protocol.
The finding that at a time of quiet sun ozone increases above 45km is in my view the critical issue , if confirmed
Henry says
The CFC’s destroying ozone was another red herring. I feel stupid to have been associated with that. (I helped develop a PCBoard soldering procedure that did not require CFC cleaning)
No, if you look at the speed of warming/cooling in degrees C per annum and measure that against time you actually get to have a look at acceleration. And if you look at the curves I get for that you can see that it looks completely parabolic, as if someone is throwing a ball at you. That suggests a completely natural process and the roots for the curves for maxima acceleration can be associated with 1995 changing sign here from warming to cooling and on the other side it looks like 1945 when it started warming. It is this natural process that suggested to me that the most likely candidate is the sun- UV-O2-O3-cycle. During the 50 year warming period less ozone allowed more light of <0.3 through the atmosphere. We are now cycling back to 2045 when it will be as cold as it was in 1945….
During the cooling period ozone is increasing causing more high energy light being re-radiated to space.
Stephen Wilde says:
August 18, 2012 at 12:34 am
For other readers here is the paper which Leif refers to:
http://www.atmos.washington.edu/~qfu/Publications/jc.fu.2011.pdf
Whatever the merit of their paper is, one should note the difference with your hand waving. Their paper is specific, is numeric, has error bars and is science [right or wrong]. Yours has none of this.
“We are now cycling back to 2045 when it will be as cold as it was in 1945…”
The sun is a lot less active than in 1945 or during the slightly lower cycle 20 so there is potential for a faster, deeper fall.
Leif Svalgaard says:
August 17, 2012 at 6:46 am
Nobody has any knife out for Scafetta.
The low quality of his papers speaks for itself as several reviewers can testify too, and as any competent scientist can readily discern.
Lol. Nice self contradiction Leif. Thanks for proving the point so ineloquently.
So if somebody sings out of tune we should expect them to win X Factor (or do we point out that they can’t sing)?
“Their paper is specific, is numeric, has error bars and is science [right or wrong]. Yours has none of this.”
There is nothing specific or numeric as regards their speculation that the shift of the jets allegedly causes a cooling stratosphere.
In so far as they do produce specifics and numbers they can be adopted by me to support my previous insistence that stratospheric temperatures relative to troposphere temperatures are critical to jet stream positioning.
Therefore,thanks to them,I now have the specifics and numbers to support that part of my case and meanwhile their assertions about causation are entirely unscientific and unsupported and indeed go contrary to common sense and basic physical principles.
Notwithstanding all that I am grateful to you for the links you have provided here since they are replete with the sort of data that I need to eventually prove my case though I accept more data is needed to make it more persuasive.
Stephen Wilde says:
August 18, 2012 at 6:44 am
In so far as they do produce specifics and numbers they can be adopted by me to support my previous insistence that stratospheric temperatures relative to troposphere temperatures are critical to jet stream positioning.
Except causality is the other way around.