From the The Washington Times – By Willie Soon and William M. Briggs
Scientists have been studying solar influences on the climate for more than 5,000 years.
Chinese imperial astronomers kept detailed sunspot records. They noticed that more sunspots meant warmer weather. In 1801, the celebrated astronomer William Herschel (discoverer of the planet Uranus) observed that when there were fewer spots, the price of wheat soared. He surmised that less light and heat from the sun resulted in reduced harvests.
Earlier last month, professor Richard Muller of the University of California-Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature (BEST) project announced that in the project’s newly constructed global land temperature record, “no component that matches solar activity” was related to temperature. Instead, Mr. Muller said carbon dioxide controlled temperature.
Could it really be true that solar radiation — which supplies Earth with the energy that drives our climate and which, when it has varied, has caused the climate to shift over the ages — is no longer the principal influence on climate change?
Consider the accompanying chart. It shows some rather surprising relationships between solar radiation and daytime high temperatures taken directly from Berkeley’s BEST project. The remarkable nature of these series is that these tight relationships can be shown to hold from areas as large as the United States.
This new sun-climate relationship picture may be telling us that the way our sun cools and warms the Earth is largely through the penetration of incoming solar radiation in regions with cloudless skies. Recent work by National Center for Atmospheric Research senior scientists Harry van Loon and Gerald Meehl place strong emphasis on this physical point and argue that the use of daytime high temperatures is the most appropriate test of the solar-radiation-surface-temperature connection hypothesis. All previous sun-climate studies have included the complicated nighttime temperature records while the sun is not shining.
Read more: SOON AND BRIGGS: Global-warming fanatics take note – Washington Times
This study is consistent with other studies. There is doctoral research archived at the University of Southampton which shows a clear connection between the sunspot cycle and the production of tin in the Cornish mines stretching back to the 10th century. When agricultural yields are high tin production slows and vice versa. Neither the student nor I as her supervisor saw the significance of this discovery at the time it was made but if anyone is interested in pursuing it they can contact me for the reference through your website.
Air temperature is not a measure of the heat content of Earth’s air.
All previous sun-climate studies have included the complicated nighttime temperature records while the sun is not shining.
They use minimum temperature which generally occurs in the daytime shortly after dawn when the sun is shining. The minimum temperature occurs when solar radiation exceeds outgoing LWR.
Small changes in solar irradiance won’t affect minimum temperatures, but people who claim to be climate scientists should get this basic fact right.
For those curious about the use of daily Tmax, John Christy discusses it here:
Steven Mosher says:
September 6, 2012 at 11:08 pm
“2. the US is 2% of the globe.”
With the most extensive and reliable set of measurements to be found, n’est-ce pas?
The sun is a variable star and satellites have demonstrated short term cycles in its energy output. However the magnitude of these cycles is very small and not enough to explain climate change in recent years.
We obviously have no records of the sun’s output prior to the 1990s, so we can only speculate about whether or not there are much bigger cycles which were responsible for the MWP and LIA.
The eccentricity of the Earth’s orbit around the sun is undoubtedly a big factor affecting climate in the long term, likewise the small changes in its angle of tilt.
At the end of the day, I suspect most readers believe in a small amount of AGW, which has been largely beneficial, and are fervent opponents of CAGW, which has no scientific basis. The global warming industry is totally dependent on promoting the hoax of CAGW by linking it to the mild amounts of AGW we have seen over the last half century.
There is a clear lag in the graph of at least a year, which IMO makes temperature changes from solar irradiance changes very unlikely even with oceanic effects. Rather it indicates some third factor at work (assuming it isn’t chance, faulty data, etc)
Slabadang says:
September 6, 2012 at 11:04 pm
Leif s forgot?
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/05/10/new-solar-reconstruction-paper-suggests-6x-tsi-change-than-cited-by-the-ipcc/
And you forgot to check my comments to that post.
Kasuha says:
September 6, 2012 at 11:07 pm
“The graph shows the radiation from the sun above the atmosphere, reduced to a constant distance to the sun.”
How do you know? I don’t see it mentioned in the article anywhere.
Because the numbers on the Y-axis are what that radiation is. So now you know it too.
Occam’s razor strikes again!
Wow, total peak-to-trough TSI varied by an amazing 4.5 W/m² between 1890 and 2000? According to whom? And the Wolf Cycle peaks seem very odd — is there some odd form of smoothing being used?
I guess it’s just too obvious to point out that if Soon & Briggs had anything useful to say, they could have, would have, and should have, passed peer review; then maybe simple questions like this could have been answered. But the Washington Times? C’mon.
Leif Svalgaard says:
September 6, 2012 at 9:05 pm
Leif Svalgaard says:
September 6, 2012 at 8:51 pm
As usual, the curve showing ‘solar radiation’ is wrong. Here is what it should look like [the red curve]: http://www.leif.org/research/TSI-LEIF.png with justification here: http://www.leif.org/research/The%20long-term%20variation%20of%20solar%20activity.pdf
Been ironing the data a bit more Leif? Not got all those nasty creases out yet? Never mind the trousers, the sun has a big hat on today to draw attention away from them.
Until you manage to iron the data completely flat, a suitable scaling of the data will always reveal that pesky sun-climate relationship which you yourself say is a problem for the IPCC because they can’t manage without it for explaining climate variation prior to co2 rise, and so can’t really dismiss it as they have after the co2 rise either. All very inconsistent.
Don’t forget Prof Shaviv found an amplification of solar variation in the Earth’s climate systems by using the oceans as a calorimeter.
http://sciencebits.com/calorimeter
Slabadang says:
September 6, 2012 at 11:04 pm
http://www.oar.noaa.gov/spotlite/archive/spot_sunclimate.html
states that “It is well documented that the early part of the 20th century was much colder than it is today.”
It is also well documented that solar activity today is back to what it was in the early part of the 20th century, but apparently temperatures are not…
Legatus says:
September 6, 2012 at 8:12 pm
this idea ignores most of the surface of the earht, and “prooves” it with only a fraction of the data available.
An older graph by Soon from the other side of the Pacific:
http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2010/06/21/willie-soon-brings-sunshine-to-the-debate-on-solar-climate-link/
A UK sunshine hours study with global extrapolation from Doug Proctor:
http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2012/02/13/doug-proctor-climate-change-is-caused-by-clouds-and-sunshine/
There is one underlying truth to the whole debate. The sun heats the earth. Something modulates temperatures and produces observable cycles. Tilt, Cosmic Rays, Moon, ENSO, and the list goes on.
The one thing that does not is CO2……
I would love to know the answer but until real science is restored and something other than single sided research can be performed we are lost in political limbo.
yeah,yeah I know heat is a generalized term but if the big bright thing in the sky turns off my bet is it gets cold real freaking fast.
JJ says;
Steve is doubting the paper. Seems like a basic skeptical stance. Is your definition of a skeptic “one who is against the AGW alarmism”?
BEST got rejected didn’t it? Why is anyone suggesting it any correlation or lack of it with a flawed study.
Muller did not make the same media blitz when his papers got rejected (twice IIRC) , are we supposed to carry on refering to the BEST reconstruction despite it not being accepted because … well Muller is a future genius?
Washington Times? National Enquirer didn’t want to bite?
Leif Svalgaard says:
September 7, 2012 at 12:03 am
Because the numbers on the Y-axis are what that radiation is. So now you know it too.
__________________________________________
So it’s just your guess from values on the scale. You don’t have any other evidence for that.
But what I notice is, even the worst of reconstructions you have on your graphs is always over 1363 while values in this graph are all below 1362. So I guess your guess is wrong.
But it’s not just sunspots it is the whole panoply of radiation, UV visible IR microwave radio, and magnetic that varies and affects temperature. But sunspots are a good start.
Legatus wrote:
“Come back when you add the rest of the planet.”
You do realize that Michael Mann’s hockey sticks, so often portrayed in the media as representing “global” warming, only apply to the northern hemisphere.
Hmm, looking at the discontinuities in the graph I would say that it tends to indicate that solar radiation FOLLOWS Earth temperatures! That doesn’t really seem likely if we are talking about sunspots, although it could be possible if we were talking about clouds.
I wouldn’t have used BEST data at all as it involved the contributions of those unqualified to contribute aka Mosher and Muller.
Mosher has worthless statistical qualifications – BA’s in both English Literature and Philosophy and a career history that includes bringing MP3 players to market for Creative Labs.
http://berkeleyearth.org/steven-mosher/
While William Briggs has a Ph.D. in Statistics,
http://wmbriggs.com/public/briggs_cv_new.pdf
Leif can make the solar charts as flat as he likes, there are still too many real world correlations to observed solar behaviour to ignore.
I like the ‘ironing the creases out’ analogy from tallbloke.
The image of Leif standing over an ironing board scrubbing furiously is so very apt.
Curious: Do periods of lower sun spots coincide with lower nighttime temperature, regionally?
Lief Svalgaard, I have a problem, you stated that there is no connection between sun spots and climate. You may discount the long observations of the chinese and their connection between sunspots and climate.
I would however find it difficult to forget the lack of sunspots over a long period and the L.I.A. and the ice fairs on the Thames. You may be right it is not the lack of sunspots that causes cooling, maybe it is what is causing the lack of sunspots that causes the cooling.
Whatever it is that causes the climate to change the lack of sunspots is a reliable indicator of cool, the lag in the system to remove excess heat is just about over and the future looks cool.