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
Dr. S.
Did you get as far as the sunny island of Hvar ?
I’m not going to pretend to “get it” on all things discussed here, but this scenario seems reasonable to me:
Energy Source (Sun) “heats up” foreign body (Earth). The Earth also has its own ecosystem, independent of the sun, still totally dependent on the sun (duh), but only within certain ranges. IOW, the Sun *could* vary from X to Y in total energy output, and the Earth could “modulate” accordingly within those limits (I think Leif says 0.1C). Put another way, the variation of the sun may NOT cause much variation in the Earth, even though the Earth is dependent on it. If the sun falls below X or goes above Y, we might have something to talk about. Establishing X and Y should be our focus.
No its carbon dioxide that heats the earth by causing the sun to shine brighter.
My reading of the paper was they were using the same data as Muller. What solar insolation did Muller consider when he claimed the warming was due to CO2? I would suspect this article is using the same data to show a different conclusion based on the wording they used.
Does anyone know this level of detail or shall we all just keep speculating?
Leif Svalgaard (September 6, 2012 at 10:47 pm) wrote:
“If you plot the yearly average the, large, effect due to the elliptical orbit averages out. This variation is some 70 times larger than the solar cycle variation, but washes out when averaged over a year.”
Moderators / barry @ur momisugly September 7, 2012 at 8:55 am – Re: Login request when viewing a thread…
I’ve seen that on other blogs – that password query is due to the inclusion of some graphics from a site that requires a log-in. The best approach is probably to get a copy of the graphic of interest and host it on the WP site, rather than referring to the original.
“All previous sun-climate studies have included the complicated nighttime temperature records while the sun is not shining.” Doesn’t the nighttime low have a higher rate of temperature increase than the daytime high? How do sunspots explain this since the “sun is not shining”? Then there’s the limited scope of just using the lower 48 states and as Leif points out repeatedly use invalid sunspot data. Yep, I agree with Leif – pseudo-science. How could anyone take this article seriously?
Antartic seasonal temperatures have ranged from no daytime low at Vostok of −89.2 °C (−128.6 °F) to most northern point summer day high of 15°C (59°F).(look it up) Additionally, Antartica has coal and oil (look that up too); I wonder what that says about climate and the sun relationship for Antartica and how did small percentages of solar radiance do that? Maybe the sun has more long term cummulative effect than some like to admit or have an understanding of.
Add the unknown object or event that alters the current earth sun variables… ouch.
Leif Svalgaard said:
September 6, 2012 at 9:55 pm
Mark and two Cats says:
September 6, 2012 at 9:42 pm
“Why is Leif quoting himself”
Because he likes redundant tautologisms.
Nonsense, because he corrected an earlier comment.
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Leif – I was just kidding because of your “solar insolation” comments in another post.
Don’t take it personal – just teasing 🙂
Reading the information presented by Soon and Briggs always causes a certain cartoon picture to be seen in my mind’s eye: A woman, representing CAGW, is standing on a chair exhibiting total fright caused by a mouse, representing CO2, in her kitchen.
Leif Svalgaard says:
September 7, 2012 at 7:11 am
beng says:
September 7, 2012 at 6:59 am
Thanks. It must seem like an endless struggle….
Science always is. The struggle against pseudo-science and the post-normal science practiced by most people here pushing their politically motivated agenda is ever-lasting. In the end, science will prevail.
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Leif, I have followed this website for about 5 years now. I always take you at your word on the science along with everyone else. And I try to read between the tea leaves.
If what you say is true in the above statement, then why do you bother to post comments here?
Just being curious on my part. I do enjoy the back in forth as long as no one is insulting each other!
Rick Lynch says:
September 7, 2012 at 6:25 am
We are in a period of minimal sunspot activity, and yet the earth isn’t cooling. Temperatures have been pretty flat for the last 10 years. So something is keeping us warm despite the lower level of solar radiation. Greenhouse gasses?
While many argue not to rely on Wikipedia – because I remain confused when reading such statements as quoted, I looked there:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_variation#Sunspots
Sunspots are relatively dark areas on the radiating ‘surface’ (photosphere) of the Sun where intense magnetic activity inhibits convection and cools the photosphere. Faculae are slightly brighter areas that form around sunspot groups as the flow of energy to the photosphere is re-established and both the normal flow and the sunspot-blocked energy elevate the radiating ‘surface’ temperature. Scientists have speculated on possible relationships between sunspots and solar luminosity since the historical sunspot area record began in the 17th century.[21][22] Correlations are now known to exist with decreases in luminosity caused by sunspots (generally < – 0.3 %) and increases (generally < + 0.05 %) caused both by faculae that are associated with active regions as well as the magnetically active 'bright network'.[23]
So Rick Lynch (and many others) appear to equate “minimal sunspot activity” with a “lower level of solar radiation” and then I note the last three years of measured output from our Sun
http://www.leif.org/research/TSI-SORCE-2008-now.png
and l look in vain for a downward slope. Not there! What’s going on?
Leif’s chart – with the red line – labeled LEIF2007 shows a downslope but seems not to have been updated to the current month and year.
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An aside: pochas says @ur momisugly 9:01 pm “When my doctor takes my temperature”
They used to do this at the clinic I go to but stopped about 3 or 4 years ago as it was found to be unreliable. We are back to the under-the-tongue routine. But take a dog or cat to the Vet and they stick the thermometer in the other end. This temperature business is hard whether it is of the Sun or where the sun don’t shine.
barry says: September 7, 2012 at 8:55 am
National Snow & Ice Data Center (NSIDC) – click to view at source[/caption]
excuse me, i’m getting an error whenever I load up or post in the following thread;
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/09/04/sea-ice-news-volume-3-number-12-has-arctic-sea-ice-started-to-turn-the-corner/
A login po-up keeps appearing
“Enter user name and password for ftp://sidads.colorado.edu”
I know the site, so I went to retrieve NSIDC (NOAA) sea ice data from here;
ftp://sidads.colorado.edu/DATASETS/NOAA/G02135/
and got the same message.
I’ve frequently accessed these sites of late and never had issues. Is there a bug on this page or maybe my computer?
I posted in the sea ice thread, but don’t know if my posts made it owing to the pop-up login appearing there.
My bad, I hotlinked, instead of saving, this image previously:
Northern Hemisphere Sea Ice Extent Anomalies for March:
[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="640"]
Since corrected. Apologies.
And something nobody has mentioned here…
The TSI stays remarkably stable around the 1360 mark. Thus the temperature variability must be regulated by something other than TSI. I would suggest that magnetic variability has the greater effect, but you need to find the mechanism for this.
Big prises for anyone that does. I would suggest that Svenmark is closest to the prize.
Leif Svalgaard says:
September 7, 2012 at 12:30 am
“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…”
As others have mentioned, there is a time lag in these things. Accumulation of heat depends on both magnitude of incoming energy as well as duration. And, it is all limited in bandwidth by the rate at which the body can gain or lose heat.
It drives me crazy seeing people think that responses should be instantaneous. They never are, often by a wide margin, when you are talking about systems as expansive as the Earth.
Credentials matter and I see no reason to begin to consider statistical arguments from someone who does not even have the basic qualifications to be making these arguments. Too many people are unaware of his completely worthless qualifications and it does matter with how much weight his opinion is incorrectly given. When a discussion involves English, Philosophy or bringing MP3 players to market I would give equal weight to his opinion otherwise I would not waste my time.
Silver Ralph says: September 7, 2012 at 12:15 pm
I would suggest that magnetic variability has the greater effect, but you need to find the mechanism for this.
Yes, you may have a point, but it is not the way you would expect it. If you look here
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/TMC.htm
you can see that that TSI (derived from sunspot magnetic activity) changed puny 0.1% since the Maunder minimum, while the Antarctic magnetic field percentage change was 40- 50 times greater (about 4-5%), and it closely follows the TSI.
Q: why is this not mentioned anywhere?
A: Simple, I discovered it some 6 months ago. Response from science: this can’t happen, so it must be a coincidence.
Q: What is mechanism?
A: Work in progress.
Global temperatures from hadcrut3 are matching up closely with the AMO. The up and down trend in global temperatures are also matching the sun cycle with PMOD TSI monthly data.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1978.83/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1978.83/trend/plot/pmod/normalise/offset:-0.4/plot/esrl-amo/from:1978.83/offset:0.2
Leif Svalgaard says:
September 6, 2012 at 9:55 pm
Mark and two Cats says:
September 6, 2012 at 9:42 pm
“Why is Leif quoting himself”
Because he likes redundant tautologisms.
Nonsense, because he corrected an earlier comment.
———————–
Leif adding two words like “ups, corrected link” (well three) helps a lot the communication.
Thanks Mark for the good laugh!
Leif Svalgaard says:
September 6, 2012 at 8:51 pm
As usual, the curve showing ‘solar radiation’ is wrong.
______________________________________________
Okay.
I actually went ahead, digitized the graph, and fixed it to “Leif 2007” assuming that they used “Lean 2000” (worst case scenario) as basis.
Thick black line – original TSI assumed to use “Lean 2000”
Thin orange line – recalculated TSI using “Leif 2007” (original values from the graph divided by appropriate “Lean 2000” values and multiplied by appropriate “Leif 2007” values)
http://i45.tinypic.com/8wxt1e.png
You may disagree but it doesn’t look all that different to me.
Nobody has commented on the post by William McClenney [September 6, 2012 at 10:40 pm].
Quote: Putting it all together, we are eerily close to a half-precessional cycle old interglacial. Pegging the Holocene start at the end of the Younger Dryas cold interval, the Holocene is 11,715 years old this year. We are also at the long end of the precession cycle (19-23kyrs) making 11,500 half. Five of the last six interglacials have each lasted about half a precession cycle.
My comment: Possibly this is why so many geologists are either skeptics or lukewarmists. The Quaternary and Holocene specialists will know about the work of A. Berger who calculated from celestial mechanics that the Holocene is analogous to MIS-11, the interglacial that lasted about 50,000 years with sea-level about 20 meters high than the present. It seems that it takes time for ice to melt and 11,700 years was not long enough to do the trick. Nor does 20,000 years seem long enough.
You would never guess from the biography in Wikipedia that H.H. Lamb, founder of the UEA Climate Research Centre concluded in the second edition of his Climate, History, and the Modern World, concluded with the view that too little was known to predict changes in climate regimes. He did say that he expected the present interglacial has only 2000 years left. So William and Hubert Lamb may both have been too conservative because the low stand (-120 m) was probably 22,000 years ago. [Google: Hanebuth Curve] The party may be nearly over.
Unless A. Berger was correct. If so, even without greenhouse gases and whatever else humans
do, the ice will melt if low eccentricity extends this interglacial.
Or unless, humans can keep the party going like horticulturalists do in the Autumn by keeping the greenhouse warm and feeding the plants elevate CO2. We may even be able to feed the world’s growing population by keeping the CO2 level high and avoiding the next downturn in global temperature.
Will Nitzschke says
Interesting observations in these comments. There was the warming period from 1900-1940 that requires explanation. Leif Svalgaard insists this warming period cannot be explained by increased solar activity. The IPCC rules out CO2. So what caused it?
We seem to understand depressingly little about the drivers of the climate system.
Henry says
it is relatively simple to understand
study the max. temps. as the authors here (correctly) suggest
and you get the whole story.
from my sample of 47 weather stations I was able to figure out that global warming stopped in 1995 and has turned to cooling since then. It further looks like that it follows on a sine wave with wavelength of 88 years, meaning 44 years warming followed by 44 years of cooling.
The correlation with ozone going up in 1996 and down in 1950 is stunning. Clearly, the sun’s change in the distribution of energy changes ozone production and this allows (some) more energy in when ozone is less and (some) less when ozone is high. I am saying that that is one of the major drivers that actually causes what has been termed “global warming” (from 1950-2000) that few people have even recognised.
Matt G says: September 7, 2012 at 12:55 pm
…………….
Only sometime
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/AMO-SSN.htm
and that isn’t good enough.
Poptech says:
Credentials matter …
No, they don’t. Not to science. Or other rational thought.
Credentials are the stuff from which ad hominem and ad verecundium fallacies are constructed. Those are called fallacies for a reason.
… and I see no reason to begin to consider statistical arguments from someone who does not even have the basic qualifications to be making these arguments.
Compare to “You’re not a climate scientist !!!”, and consider where it is you are posting that nonsense.
Too many people are unaware of his completely worthless qualifications and it does matter with how much weight his opinion is incorrectly given.
Statistics are not opinions. They are calculations. They are either correct, or they are not. Science does not weight opinions based on the mouth from which they are spoken, it verifies facts and reasoning and tests hypotheses. If you are not capable of verifying or impeaching the facts and reasoning presented by someone else, then you are not capbable of forming an informed assessment, and frankly you should stfu. Scientifically speaking, of course.
If you truly are interested in impugning someone’s scientific assertions by making personal attacks against what you define as their “qualifications”, then science is not for you. Perhaps what you are looking for is “Post-normal Science”. PNS is a POS faux-science that does provide explicit cover to people who like to puff their chests and argue “expertise”. There are plenty of venues that offer up that crap, and they tend to be chock full of people who are Verified (TM) REAL (TM) Climate Scientists (TM).
When a discussion involves English, Philosophy or bringing MP3 players to market I would give equal weight to his opinion otherwise I would not waste my time.
Who? Einstein? On theoretical physics? Please! Call me when you need a patent application processed for an electric razor, otherwise I wouldn’t waste my time.
Uh-huh.
vukcevic says:
September 7, 2012 at 1:10 pm
Matt G says: September 7, 2012 at 12:55 pm
…………….
Only sometime
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/AMO-SSN.htm
and that isn’t good enough.
______________________
Only proxy data though, not instrumental as in the above.