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
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.
Henry says
I am going from the principle that the next 50 years of cooling will be like a mirror of the previous 50 year of warming. 1995 is my point of reference where the input of energy was at maximum and where the signal changed from positive to negative.We are now 17 years from that point.
Due to a number of reasons earth lags a bit in the energy output and it seems from various data sets that earth reached its maximum energy output in 1998, when it was the “warmest”. If I now deduct my 17 years on the new cycle from 1998 I come to 1981. In 1981 was the last time it snowed in Johannesburg. In 2012 it was for the first time since 1981 it snowed again in Johannesburg.
So, as my example shows, you can predict more or less what earth’s weather will be like by looking how far we are on the cycle….. We also don’t have to worry now anymore whether or not we will survive it: we have been there, done that, many times before….I suspect even the Egyptians knew about this cycle. Independent of this cycle there may be others that may bring us up or down a bit but I suspect that within a hundred years there is not that much change. So there is nothing new under the sun. The weather is now what it was in 1912, give or take a few years.
“Except causality is the other way around”
Please explain how shifting the jets cools the stratosphere.
And what makes the jets shift in the first place.
They don’t explain it yet at the same time they concede that O3 chemistry (amongst other things) can do it from above.
In fact they explicitly exclude matters of atmospheric chemistry from their paper so how could they safely come to such a conclusion ?
The only thing that will shift the jets poleward is warming from below (at the equator) or cooling from above (at the poles) or a combination of the two and either way one has to change the gradient of tropopause height between equator and poles to allow such latitudinal shifting.
Stephen Wilde says:
August 18, 2012 at 8:31 am
And what makes the jets shift in the first place.
Global warming would do nicely.
“Global warming would do nicely.”
So why are the jets now becoming more meridional / shifting equatorward again despite continuing increases in CO2 ?
Am I to take it that you are of the belief that human CO2 emissions were indeed the cause of warming and the poleward shift?
If so, how would you explain the latitudinal shifting from MWP to LIA and LIA to date ?
Stephen Wilde says:
August 18, 2012 at 10:47 am
“Global warming would do nicely.”
So why are the jets now becoming more meridional / shifting equatorward again
If [for some reason] the sun would become significantly brighter and the Earth would heat up [by a lot, sat 10C] I think you would not dispute that the tropical belt would become wider. So, global temperature and width of the tropical belt go together. Since global warming has not occurred the past 10 year or there may even be a slight cooling, it stands to reason that the belt would no longer be moving polewards and might even retreat again.
despite continuing increases in CO2 ?
Who said CO2 has anything to do with this? This is the major flaw in your argument.
If so, how would you explain the latitudinal shifting from MWP to LIA and LIA to date ?
Global temperature changes all the time and the climate zones shift accordingly. What is so hard to understand about that?
Leif said:
“So, global temperature and width of the tropical belt go together. Since global warming has not occurred the past 10 year or there may even be a slight cooling, it stands to reason that the belt would no longer be moving polewards and might even retreat again”
Yes, absolutely and I see that you acknowledge that it isn’t a CO2 issue and you acknowledge that global temperatures change all the time and the climate zones shift accordingly.
But the point is that the stratosphere cools when the temperature rises and the equatorial belts widen.
AGW theory says that the stratospheric cooling is a consequence of the CO2 holding energy back in the troposphere which warms at the expense of less energy in the stratosphere which then cools.
But you don’t support that CO2 scenario, do you, so how do you think that the stratosphere could cool when the troposphere warms ?
A warmer troposphere should also give a warmer stratosphere especially since you previously said (as per established climatology) that an active sun warms the entire atmospheric column.
But it doesn’t.
The stratosphere cooled when the sun was active and now might be warming a little while the sun is less active. Meanwhile the troposphere temperatures go in the opposite direction and the jets are going back equatorward again.
The only logical answer that I can come up with for that combination of facts is a top down solar effect having opposite thermal effects in the stratosphere as compared to the troposphere.
Which is now partially substantiated by the recent observations of increasing ozone higher up when the sun is less active. More ozone = warmer.
I look forward to hearing an alternative equally plausible scenario from you (or anyone else for that matter).
Stephen Wilde says:
August 18, 2012 at 11:26 am
“So, global temperature and width of the tropical belt go together. Since global warming has not occurred the past 10 year or there may even be a slight cooling, it stands to reason that the belt would no longer be moving polewards and might even retreat again”
Yes, absolutely and I see that you acknowledge that it isn’t a CO2 issue and you acknowledge that global temperatures change all the time and the climate zones shift accordingly.
Still you have this somewhat backwards. I see that you admit that ozone and UV aren’t issues at all. The tropical belt will widen even if there were no ozone at all simply because the temperature goes up.
Stephen Wilde says:
August 18, 2012 at 11:26 am
“So, global temperature and width of the tropical belt go together. Since global warming has not occurred the past 10 year or there may even be a slight cooling, it stands to reason that the belt would no longer be moving polewards and might even retreat again”
Yes, absolutely and I see that you acknowledge that it isn’t a CO2 issue and you acknowledge that global temperatures change all the time and the climate zones shift accordingly.
The tropical belt would widen if the global temperature goes up, even if there were no CO2 and no ozone in the atmosphere at all and no change in the sun either [e.g. if the change of temperature were due to changes in the insulation, in turn due to orbital changes]. It is good to see that you finally agree on this.
Thus the connection between width of the belt and global temperature is a first order effect that has nothing to with CO2 or UV, everything else are secondary perturbations, that can only be detected by careful numerical analysis, complete with error bars and the rest.
The cooling/warming of the stratosphere can have many sources, CO2, CLFs, volcanoes, etc.
Some of those may have a slight effect on the troposphere, for example as speculated by by good friend Kristoffer Rypdal:
JOURNAL OF GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH, VOL. 117, D06115, 14 PP., 2012
doi:10.1029/2011JD017283
Global temperature response to radiative forcing: Solar cycle versus volcanic eruptions
Key Points
Solar cycle signal in global temperature is no more than 0.02 degrees K
A 0.2 K periodic signal observed in phase with solar cycle is due to volcanoes
Volcano cooling in 20th century more than offsets solar activity warming
K. Rypdal
Department of Physics and Technology, Faculty of Science and Technology, University of Tromsø, Tromsø, Norway
I show that the peak-to-peak amplitude of the global mean surface temperature response to the 11-year cyclic total irradiance forcing is an order of magnitude less than the amplitude of a cyclic component roughly in phase with the solar forcing which has been observed in the temperature record in the period 1959–2004. If this cyclic temperature component were a response to the solar forcing, it would imply the existence of strong amplifying feedbacks which operate exclusively for solar forcing, such as top-down mechanisms responding to the large variability in the ultraviolet part of the solar spectrum. I demonstrate, however, that the apparent cyclic component in the temperature record is dominated by the response to five major volcanic eruptions some of which incidentally took place a few years before solar minimum in four consecutive solar cycles, and hence that the correlation with the solar cycle is coincidental. A temperature rise of approximately 0.15 K over the 20th century ascribed to an increasing trend in solar forcing is more than offset by a cooling trend of about 0.3 K due to stratospheric aerosols from volcanic eruptions.
—-
Lots of things to ramble about. But don’t lose track of the primary cause.
“I see that you admit that ozone and UV aren’t issues at all. The tropical belt will widen even if there were no ozone at all simply because the temperature goes up.”
I made no such ‘admission’.
Ozone and UV (and possibly other processes affecting ozone) combine to produce the top down effect such that when the sun is more active ozone ,contrary to expectations, actually decreases at higher levels to cool the stratosphere.The temperature inversion in the stratosphere serves to oppose the widening of the tropical belt caused by any surface warming depending on the strength of the inversion.
Decreasing ozone weakens the inversion and reduces the opposition to expansion of the tropical belts and so allows a poleward drift of the climate zones (cooling the stratosphere has the same effect as warming the surface). We then see more jetstream zonality resulting in less cloudiness and more solar energy reaches the oceans which then warm up leading to an enhancement of El Nino events relative to La Nina.
So the extra incoming sunlight is a positive feedback from the cooling stratosphere but is offset by the poleward shift because larger equatorial air masses with less clouds radiate faster to space for a negative system response offsetting the initial positive feedback from the solar induced changes.
Essentially the entire atmosphere reconfigures itself to ensure energy in equals energy out at the top of the atmosphere despite the chemical changes that have occurred as a result of the solar influence.
To dismiss that scenario you need to explain how the troposphere temperature would otherwise rise. To get the temperature rise in the troposphere before the cooling of the stratosphere you would have to create a warming without any extra sunlight getting into the oceans.
How would you work that miracle ?
And you still have to explain how you think the stratosphere could cool whilst the troposphere warms unless there is a top down solar induced effect on ozone quantities given that you don’t subscribe to the AGW explanation involving CO2.
Don’t we all know that the temperature inversion in the stratosphere is caused by ozone ?
How do shifting jets in themselves alter the balance of the ozone creation / destruction process?
“Lots of things to ramble about. But don’t lose track of the primary cause”
The primary cause is solar effects on ozone chemistry. That is then modulated by ocean cycles.
The shifting jets then alter the rate of energy flow from surface to space so as to maintain system stability.
Volcanic effects are small and short term and easily cancelled by jetstream shifts as have been the past potentially catastrophic effects of asteroid impacts and widespread volcanism.
Human CO2 effects are infinitesimal.
Everything else is of far smaller significance and on balance all the other variables cancel each other out over time.
Stephen Wilde says:
August 18, 2012 at 12:55 pm
“I see that you admit that ozone and UV aren’t issues at all. The tropical belt will widen even if there were no ozone at all simply because the temperature goes up.”
I made no such ‘admission’.
Then we must go slower. Would you admit that even if there were no ozone and no CO2 but the temperature went up, the tropical belt widens? And if the temperature fell [as in a glaciation], that the tropical belt would contract? And that that would not depend on CO2 or UV or Ozone?
Answer my earier questions..
The temperature will only rise or fall if there is a change in the amount of solar energy able to enter the oceans. The changes in TSI are too small to create the observed changes so an amplification factor is required.
That factor is changing albedo from changing cloudiness and to get changing cloudiness we need to change jetstream behaviour from zonal to meridional or from meridional to zonal and / or change the average latitudinal positioning.
To do that requires changes in the temperature of the stratosphere relative to that of the troposphere with an associated change in the slope of tropopause height between equator and pole.
UV and likely other aspects of solar / atmosphere chemistry are involved but I accept that human emitted CO2 would have a similar effect but vanishingly small in comparison.
Internal opcean variability modulates the process.
The shifting of the jets and limate zones is simply a negative system response which prevents those energy budget changes from affecting total system energy content. The rate of energy throughput changes instead.
Am I going too fast for you ?
I recommend that you start by answering my earlier questions.
To remind you:
i) To get the temperature rise in the troposphere before the cooling of the stratosphere you would have to create a warming without any extra sunlight getting into the oceans.
How would you work that miracle ?
ii) You still have to explain how you think the stratosphere could cool whilst the troposphere warms unless there is a top down solar induced effect on ozone quantities given that you don’t subscribe to the AGW explanation involving CO2.
iii) Don’t we all know that the temperature inversion in the stratosphere is caused by ozone ?
How do shifting jets in themselves alter the balance of the ozone creation / destruction process?
“Would you admit that even if there were no ozone and no CO2 but the temperature went up, the tropical belt widens? And if the temperature fell [as in a glaciation], that the tropical belt would contract? And that that would not depend on CO2 or UV or Ozone?”
While you think about the answers to my questions I will answer yours.
If the temperature in the troposphere increases with no change in the temperature of the stratosphere then the tropical belts will widen with no contribution from CO2, UV or Ozone but (apart from internal ocean variability) one does need CO2, UV and Ozone to change the relative temperatures of troposphere and stratosphere. The CO2 changes the energy content of the troposphere (not necessarily temperature because I aver that it all goes to increased latent heat transfer for a faster exit of the extra energy to space)) and the UV / Ozone reactions change the temperature of the stratosphere.
In practice, subject to the modulating effects of ocean cycles, it is not possible to change the relative temperatures of troposphere and stratosphere significantly without changing TSI (the variations in TSI are too small),) or the strength of the inversion in the stratosphere.
To change the strength of the inversion in the stratosphere requires changes in ozone concentrations.
For the switches between glaciations and interglaciations TSI changes via the Milankovitch cycles are sufficient but in the meantime the primary cause of temperature changes is variations in upper atmosphere ozone chemistry altering global cloudiness in the way I have proposed.
Henry@Stephen Fisher
I just want to leave you all with one more thought. It looks like the degree of acceleration of warming (positive values for degree C/annum) or cooling (negative values) due to the sun-UV-O2-O3 cycle in itsself does seem to cause peculiar weather patterns, that are possibly predictable. Another exmaple on this: We are now about 17 years on a cooling curve when observed by energy input. But as I said before , I believe/hope that it mirrors the previous warming curve except that the positive has changed to negative. I notice the current July drought in the USA is being compared with the Dust Bowl of 1930. Notice that, as my results seem to suggest, in 1930 we were about 15 years from the change from cooling to warming. But the amount of deceleration of cooling in 1930 before changing to warming in 1945 would have been about the same as the current acceleration into cooling. (If you can follow my thought of a sinus wave like pattern of warming and cooling)
Hi Henry. I agree that your approach is reasonable. A simple sine wave may not be enough though because ever since the LIA each upward curve has become a little higher than the previous one so there is another wave pattern in the background that appears to be linked to solar activity.
I would say that the sine wave you are seeing is a product of the Pacific Multidecadal Oscillation whereas the longer term wave is solar in origin.
My concern is that if the current low level of solar activity continues then applying the shorter term sine wave on its own may be unduly optimistic.
Henry@Stephen Fisher
I am bit sceptic about that. You must just remember that automatic recorders of temps. were only introduced in the early 70ties, that is why as a matter of principle I cannot really reliably report on results before that time. These recorders can be set at reading every second and at the end of 24 hours you can get a good daily mean.
Before that we had to rely on people doing the readings at certain set times, which can change from hour to hour)./
Obviously you cannot compare those results with those before 1970….Whenever you look at results you have to compare apples with apples. So I am not going to say that I would trust anything reported before automatic temperature recording.I can only talk with some certainty about my own data, and only for the period 1973-2011. Because of the pattern of the acceleration and deceleration of the warming observed here, I will take it back as far 1945 because at rsquare 0.998 I think we can assume that the plot must have been on that route.
Stephen Wilde says:
August 18, 2012 at 10:36 pm
If the temperature in the troposphere increases with no change in the temperature of the stratosphere then the tropical belts will widen
This is going halfway to full admission. Now for the other half: Will you admit that even if there were no stratosphere [no ozone] there would still be tropics and polar regions? That is: the existence of climate zones has nothing to do with ozone, CO2, or a stratosphere, but has as its primary cause the simple fact that the Earth is round.
Leif Svalgaard says,
his paper shows
Key Points
Solar cycle signal in global temperature is no more than 0.02 degrees K
A 0.2 K periodic signal observed in phase with solar cycle is due to volcanoes
Volcano cooling in 20th century more than offsets solar activity warming
K. Rypdal
Department of Physics and Technology, Faculty of Science and Technology, University of Tromsø, Tromsø, Norway
I show that the peak-to-peak amplitude of the global mean surface temperature response to the 11-year cyclic total irradiance forcing is an order of magnitude less than the amplitude of a cyclic component roughly in phase with the solar forcing which has been observed in the temperature record in the period 1959–2004
Henry says,
This is not possible.First of all, my tables for means show a rise of about 0.7 degrees C from 1974 to 1999 and a decrease of 0. 2 degree C since 2000. If you look at the table Maxima we can conclude FOR SURE that the increases and decreases of global temps. are forced from the top down. If volcanism or CO2 had anything to do with it, it would have been the other way around, i.e. Minima forcing Means up. In addition, if we take the last 12 years as a full solar cycle they are out by a factor of at least 10 x ….
Also, volcanism does not follow on predictable cooling and warming curves……
gentlemen, for the last time, it is the sun-UV-O2-O3 cycle that causes the change in maxima and the amount of heat being slammed in the oceans. I picked that up already from my first table pool table.
I concede that the rise or fall in ozone could also be relatedor due to respectively, the contraction and expansion of the atmosphere itself due to some magnetic or planetary forcings. I cannot comment on that. But I do know the global warming and global cooling periods are due to the rise and fall in ozone. IT IS A COMPLETELY NATURAL PROCESS.
“the existence of climate zones has nothing to do with ozone, CO2, or a stratosphere, but has as its primary cause the simple fact that the Earth is round.”
But there is a stratosphere and ozone which affects the entire global air circulation such that the presence of the stratosphere with its temperature inversion and changes in the temperature of the stratosphere will influence the range of sizes intensities and positions of the climate zones.
If there were no stratosphere with its temperature inversion there would still be climate zones but they would be distributed differently.
The atmospheric circulation and the volume of the atmosphere will always configure itself to cause energy out to equal energy in at the top of the atmosphere.
If one places a temperature inversion above the layer nearest the surface (the troposphere) then in order to achieve balance at TOA the configuration of the air circulation will be different to that which would be required in the absence of that temperature inversion.
Furthermore any change in the temperature within that inversion layer (relative to the temperature of the lower layer) will require a different configuration to maintain TOA energy balance.
So one gets latitudinal climate zone shifting whenever either the troposphere warms or cools relative to the stratosphere or the stratosphere warms or cools relative to the troposphere.
Now you say that the warming of the troposphere comes first and then the stratosphere cools because of the warming troposphere.I know of no way that can happen unless something blocks the energy flow from troposphere to stratosphere. AGW theory claims that CO2 does that but you say you do not accept that so what is your explanation ?
I do accept it in principle but say that the effect is insignificant compared to oceanic and solar influences.
The troposphere relies upon solar energy to warm up (if we ignore internal ocean variability for the moment) yet we agree that TSI variations are insufficient. That means the extra energy needs to come in some other way and the only way I can see is by reducing global cloudiness and albedo.
So you have to reduce cloudiness and albedo BEFORE the troposphere warms up.
How do you propose to warm the troposphere without a sufficient change in TSI and without reduced albedo first letting more energy into the oceans ?
Focus on answering my questions.
Henry@tallbloke
(if you still follow this blog)
would it be possible for planets to come in a line to cause a subsequent contraction in our atmosphere due to gravitational pull and it expands when they move out again? I am thinking about that 45 year cycle, where a few planets come into one line, which is a possible candidate for my 50 year ozone cycle ( I concede that the 50 year is only my estimate from a probable plot. I could easily be a bit out there by a few years)
Henry@tallbloke
(if you still follow this blog)
would it be possible for planets to come in a line to cause a subsequent contraction in our atmosphere due to gravitational pull and it expands when they move out again? I am thinking about that 45 year cycle, where a few planets come into one line, which is a possible candidate for my 50 year ozone cycle ( I concede that the 50 year is only my estimate from a probable plot. I could easily be a bit out there by a few years
“It is the sun-UV-O2-O3 cycle that causes the change in maxima and the amount of heat being slammed in the oceans”
Agreed absolutely.
The ozone changes alter the global albedo by changing jetstream characteristics and the positions of the climate zones.
Reduced ozone when the sun is active causes a more positive AO, poleward jets, less clouds and more energy into the oceans for net warming.
Established climatology is going to have to accept that the stratosphere cools naturally when the sun is active and warms naturally when the sun is inactive.
That is the only way one can get poleward or more zonal jets with an active sun and equatorward more meridional jets with an inactive sun.
If the sun really did warm the stratosphere when it is more active the opposite would hold true as witness the fact that sudden stratospheric warming events push cold air equatorward.
The late 20th century cooling stratosphere with more zonal poleward jets has to be a natural solar induced phenomenon acting on ozone quantities so as to influence the behaviour of the polar vortices and through them the entire global air circulation.
HenryP says:
August 19, 2012 at 9:42 am
“Solar cycle signal in global temperature is no more than 0.02 degrees K”
This is not possible. First of all, my tables for means show a rise of about 0.7 degrees…
Perhaps you might consider that your tables are just your opinion…
But I do know the global warming and global cooling periods are due to the rise and fall in ozone
And the cause for ice age glaciations are then also just fall and rise of ozone?
Forget about my previous comment. I was confused. I am looking for a complete 100 year cycle.
I think this guy is right.
http://www.cyclesresearchinstitute.org/cycles-astronomy/arnold_theory_order.pdf
Note in V : 1750-1850-1950, not bad compared to my own observations.
Note in VI: the graph looks exactly like my graph for the acceleration of warming and cooling (maxima)
I got it. The cycle I was looking for.
strange that Leif did not know about this?
“And the cause for ice age glaciations are then also just fall and rise of ozone?”
No, you have to add the effect of the Milankovitch cycles for that but even so, ozone changes will occur if the Milankovitch cycles also lead to a change in the solar spectral (or particle) mix.
Anyway, whether it be ozone changes or Milankovitch cycles the configuration of the atmospheric circulation simply changes to maintain top of atmosphere energy balance.
Hence jets and climate zones much closer to the equator during glaciations which allows the ice to advance from the poles.