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
Leif says
“The easiest one to fool is oneself”
Henry says
The easiest one (you) is to fool oneself (yourself)
You continue to deny/ignore my results. 47 weatherstations’ daily data analysed, balanced by 70/30 sea-inland and by latitude +/-
My results for the maxima for the speed of warming/cooling in degrees K per annum versus time now is 0.036 from 1974 (38 yrs), 0.029 from 1980 (32 yrs), 0.014 from 1990 (22 years) and -0.016 from 2000 (12 years)
You should be able to figure it out what they mean. I think you do know what they mean because the last time we quibled, I asked you why the learned gentlemen studying climate science never even looked at maxima? If you want to know what energy is coming in you must study maxima, not means or minima.
At least in this post the guys knew where to look to find the answers. You still have not figured that one out. Or you don’t want it figured out. I fear it could be the latter.
HenryP says:
September 8, 2012 at 1:23 pm
You continue to deny/ignore my results.
Let us say your ‘results’ are not convincing [to be kind].
Leif Svalgaard says:
September 8, 2012 at 12:20 pm
“It takes ~10,000 years to get into a glaciation with, say, a 5 degree drop in temperature, yielding an order of magnitude of the gradient of 5/10,000*100 = 0.05 degree per century [and we are actually now dropping]”
My impression is that the function is not at all linear, so could not the instantaneous slope at a particular point be significantly higher than the average? And, again, if the incident irradiance is now decreasing, there is a lag time associated with the Earth’s response.
Bart says:
September 8, 2012 at 2:30 pm
My impression is that the function is not at all linear, so could not the instantaneous slope at a particular point be significantly higher than the average?
It could be, but actually isn’t as the decent into a glaciation is slow and gradual.
And, again, if the incident irradiance is now decreasing, there is a lag time associated with the Earth’s response.
Sure, but the forcing is tiny and in the opposite direction of the increase since the LIA.
“””””…..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. …..”””””
I believe I have lost count of how many times I have posted here at WUWT that radiatively active atmospheric gases (GHGs) that can absorb incoming solar spectrum EM radiation from the sun, and stop it from reaching the main solar energy storage system (the oceans); such as for example H2O which does so in all of its phases, alter the planet’s energy budget, and it is simply unthinkable that changing the intensity of that solar driving signal, would not also change the outcome. I have ALSO made the point many times, that Kevin Trenberth et al’s “earth energy budget” that foolishly places the value of the TSI at 342 W/m^2, instead of its real value of 1362 W/m^2, simply avoids the obvious that 342 W/m^2 can’t even heat, (for an instant), any point on earth to its 288 K mean Temperature, whereas the real value of 1362 W/m^2 clearly can.
Dr Soon and Briggs have (apparently) documented from BEST’s own data, that 1362 W/m^2 really does heat the surface more than does 342 W/m^2, even if the 342 operates 24/7 and at places like the south pole in the dead of winter midnight.
Why is this so hard to grasp.
If you drop a 20 kton bomb on UC-Berkeley say once ever 30 years (standard climate time unit), on average, the damage is not really all that great. But neither bombs, nor weather/climate are average responding; they both integrate the instantaneous values.
Another excellent post from george e smith. Here is an extended chart of TSI, which clearly shows the LIA and subsequent recovery.
Not to mess with your discussion, but I am very curious about the Svensmark Galactic Cosmic Radiation affecting cloud cover between Gleissberg cycles? Has that been partly added to your thinking? There are so many earth bound sources and non-earth bound variables that affect climate that it seems implausible to make but a very general prediction when arguing the merits of just solar affect. Obviously, IF the sun is going to take a couple of solar cycles nap as one might put it, then some other variables also change because they are driven by the same common source of energy; the sun. The problem seems to be putting a weight to the numerous changes just the sun can have. Its like a pin ball machine, we know we can release the ball and predict an initial outcome, then it is how long to the final outcome – if that is the ultimate question here (climate, not the pinball) :).
Smokey says:
September 8, 2012 at 6:40 pm
Another excellent post from george e smith. Here is an extended chart of TSI, which clearly shows the LIA and subsequent recovery.
No, that is not what we think TSI has been doing. The curve should look more like the red one in
http://www.leif.org/research/TSI-LEIF.png
OK, Leif, thanks for the update. Your chart also shows the LIA, which is why I posted the other one.
Smokey says:
September 8, 2012 at 7:41 pm
Your chart also shows the LIA, which is why I posted the other one.
TSI during the LIA was comparable to what it was at the 2008 minimum. The temperature difference is then estimated to be 0.04 degrees.
Leif Svalgaard says:
September 8, 2012 at 7:23 pm
Could you give us a brief description of the differences between the curves in the plot to cite, and why any one is to be preferred over the other?
Bart says:
September 8, 2012 at 7:47 pm
Could you give us a brief description of the differences between the curves in the plot to cite, and why any one is to be preferred over the other?
The biggest difference is that the older curves are based on a fit to the Group sunspot number which has been shown to be faulty. The best estimates of TSI are mine, Preminger et al., and Schrijver et al.’s as shown here: http://www.leif.org/research/Temp-Track-Sun-Not.png If you want a paper to cite Schrijver’s is good: http://www.leif.org/EOS/2011GL046658.pdf Various papers give various proxies but they are all equivalent as TSI depends on magnetic activity, so any proxy of that will be a proxy for TSI.
Dear Dr.Svalgaard,
Unfortunately it doesn’t seem that you can’t make a simple admission that you did not seem to have read my post and understood it’s context. It was in plain and simple english and I can’t believe that you couldn’t have understood the context, judging from your other posts here on other complex topics.
it looks like your ind goes int a negative overdrive moment ” solar ” is mentioned by anybody else except you and you just take off blindly.
That does not show much integrity.
My discussions with Poptech and JJ on this thread have nothing to with this thread’s topic or solar or Mosher’s comment on solar. It was about Mosher’s issues related to the BEST paper and ho he represented himself at JC’s thread.
But you took off unrelatedly on something else based on your rage against Soon and Brigg. You don’t have to read and respond to every thread. If you don’t read or understand a thread, please refrain from commenting instead of making bloomers like you’ve done.
Leif says
TSI during the LIA was comparable to what it was at the 2008 minimum. The temperature difference is then estimated to be 0.04 degrees.
Henry says
I don’t think the TSI is the factor to look at, it is the distribution of the solar constant over the wavelengths that might differ leading to a different interaction of high energy wavelengths photons in the top of the atmosphere.
Otherwise, I also agree with george smith’s post. Add ozone to your list. It “absorbs” (re-radiates) about 25% of all that is being back radiated by GHG’s
Smokey:
I’m too busy this weekend in real life to really get involved in this thread for long, but, just as some quick notes, including explaining how the following relates to looking up solar activity history:
You may happen to recall the recent sea ice thread we both were in at http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/09/04/sea-ice-news-volume-3-number-12-has-arctic-sea-ice-started-to-turn-the-corner/
Normally not meaning to inappropriately boast but just as such a perfect illustration in this case, observe the webcitation record and graph of http://www.webcitation.org/6AKKakUIo posted first by me as comment #3 in the thread which you used later too. As the webcitation archive proves, I guessed *in advance* on August 31st that something so politically inconvenient would be deleted from the U.K. scientific website (even though I didn’t know it would be deleted quite so soon as to be within several days later); my superficial paranoia works because it is based on experience.
I know from your posts that you are a true skeptic too and often far from naive either, so that’s good.
However, now to give an example demonstration of certain cross-checking methods and then how similar can be applied to solar activity history:
As was implied in that thread, the increasingly accepted (in the recent political climate) reconstruction of the most widely publicized source (Cryosphere Today) utterly flattened pre-1950s arctic sea ice history as in
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seasonal.extent.1900-2010.png , but one could cross-check versus a combination of:
(1) Russian sources — without the same Western environmental movement’s increasingly high dominance in recent years — such as http://nwpi.krc.karelia.ru/e/climas/Ice/Ice_no_sat/fig2.gif and others described more at http://nwpi.krc.karelia.ru/e/climas/Ice/Ice_no_sat/XX_Arctic.htm
(2) Anything published anywhere prior to the rise of the CAGW movement, back when accidental errors could occur but not the huge intentional errors systematically each in the same direction afterwards
For example, the Cryosphere Today dishonest pre-1950s trend line absurdly contrasts to what is seen in:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/05/02/cache-of-historical-arctic-sea-ice-maps-discovered/
and
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/ArcticIce/Images/arctic_temp_trends_rt.gif
(3) Cross-checking versus other data for what is most plausible:
For instance, while the Cryosphere Today graph would indirectly encourage a CAGW-convenient narrative of implying pre-1950s temperatures were flat, that overall false picture is hardly encouraged by how global sea level rise was slower in the latter half of the 20th century than the first half: “1.45 ± 0.34 mm/yr 1954–2003″ versus “2.03 ± 0.35 mm/yr 1904–1953″ ( http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2007/2006GL028492.shtml ).
Considering experience elsewhere like Hansen and Mann on flattening pre-late-20th-century temperature reconstructions, I wouldn’t be surprised if they had a superficial qualitative scientific excuse for error correction or adjustments, “coincidentally” happening to only attack errors inconvenient to CAGW rather than ever any others, yet snuck in fudging more subtly on the magnitude of the specific quantitative numerical adjustments. Whatever the method, the net result utterly and drastically failed the #1, #2, #3 cross-verification there as can be seen by comparing the prior graphs.
With that example in mind, for determining solar activity history (or the history of any major quantity of billion-dollar-significance in the global warming political war), a semi-similar approach may be followed:
For solar activity history:
(1) Even simply google such as: solar reconstruction LIA site:.ru while not forgetting the site:.ru … which will still find results in English, and look at result after result including the most recently published ones.
(2) Among other examples, look under appropriate sections at http://www.co2science.org/subject/s/subject_s.php where part of a paper’s title can be placed in quotes and searched for with the word PDF added to often find online. Look at what Carbon-14 as well as Be-10 reconstructions show — such as the discussion of solar activity and cosmic ray history in http://rjes.wdcb.ru/v06/tje04163/tje04163.htm
(3) Cross-compare versus other data including the trend in recorded auroras and where they occur in latitude now versus during the Maunder minimum, demonstrative of solar activity increase over the past couple centuries since the LIA and the effect on GCRs and clouds.
See http://trs-new.jpl.nasa.gov/dspace/bitstream/2014/20689/1/98-1743.pdf by Dr. Feynman et al. of JPL (possibly a recognizable name), http://adsabs.harvard.edu/full/2005A&G….46d..31H (alternate backup version of link: http://tinyurl.com/9pu6946 ) — and really other sources too, but I’m aiming to rapidly finish up this already-lengthy post.
You’ve probably encountered before the propaganda being pushed by CAGW proponents everywhere of claiming cloud cover trends in the past several years went the opposite direction of what cosmic ray theory would imply, but always look at the source of any cloud cover trend chart, as even those on climate4you.com are based on inaccurate data from the ISCCP headquartered at Hansen’s GISS. Like the Cryosphere Today “data”, the situation is not that such data is well-funded and widely distributed in “public education” *despite* its falseness but rather *because* of its very convenient falseness. Read http://calderup.wordpress.com/2011/10/05/further-attempt-to-falsify-the-svensmark-hypothesis/ on the “accidentally” uncorrected error from change in ISCCP satellite viewing angle occuring then, including the graph showing other cloud cover trend datasets going the opposite direction then. The latter are what do not blatantly contradict the picture suggested by albedo trends ( http://tallbloke.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/albedo.png ). Hansen’s GISS (and the ISCCP headquartered at it) is a compromised untrustworthy source in general; a quick smoking gun illustration with temperatures is http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/hansen_07/fig1x.gif versus http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs_v3/Fig.D.gif where the former shows shows the 5-year mean of U.S. temperature in the high point of the 1980s was 0.4 degrees Celsius cooler than such in the 1930s but the latter is fudged to make the same less than 0.1 degrees Celsius apart. When people happily flock to employment at such an institution’s climate departments even now and rise to the top in the current political climate, fitting in, to expect them to be unbiased would be like expecting Greenpeace leadership to be unbiased.
Such is part of a series of orchestrated dishonest tricks trying to publicly discredit any effect of cosmic rays on clouds at all cost:
http://www.sciencebits.com/RealClimateSlurs
http://www.sciencebits.com/HUdebate
and so on
I did a simple quick illustration myself of solar/GCR activity versus high-altitude specific humidity illustrating the matching four corresponding peaks each in data over the 1960s through now:
http://img218.imagevenue.com/img.php?image=27173_globalwarmingGCRsvshumidity_122_1193lo.jpg
The top is from:
http://www.climate4you.com/images/NOAA%20ESRL%20AtmospericSpecificHumidity%20GlobalMonthlyTempSince1948%20With37monthRunningAverage.gif
The bottom is from:
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
Someone could rather claim there is nil solar/GCR effect and just strange coincidences with volcanoes every last single time in a row or other BS, but it is beautiful how much more relatively consistent data gets (particularly for effects of solar-GCR variation on top of ocean cycles, with some effects rapid and some with a longer tail of time lag with regard to the depths of the oceans) once one realizes when to discard false propaganda from untrustworthy sources.
As illustrated at http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/from:1998/plot/rss/from:1998/trend , global temperatures have been relatively flat to declining overall since the 1998 El Nino, which followed the rise in solar activity in relative inverted average cosmic ray counts from solar cycle 20 -> 21 -> 22 of 1.00 -> 1.032 -> 1.032 before solar activity decline after the cycle ending in 1996 (even though this is meanwhile near the peak of the 60-year ocean cycle as could be guessed even from http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/ArcticIce/Images/arctic_temp_trends_rt.gif although a lengthy FAO report was exceptionally illustrative).
Broken link fix for my previous comment:
What does not work actually:
http://img218.imagevenue.com/img.php?image=27173_globalwarmingGCRsvshumidity_122_1193lo.jpg
What does work:
http://s18.postimage.org/n9nm5glc7/solar_GCRvswatervapor.jpg
(backup version: http://postimage.org/image/bkjmhhudh/ )
Source data and description = in prior comment
Leif Svalgaard says:
September 8, 2012 at 7:43 pm
So do you mean that if the minimum around 2008 occurred for 50+ years with no change at all, there would only be a 0.04c temperature change on Earth?
Venter says:
September 8, 2012 at 10:03 pm
Unfortunately it doesn’t seem that you can’t make a simple admission that you did not seem to have read my post and understood it’s context.
I did read the comments you mention and while I have no issue with Mosher or your characterization of him, my comment was directed at your assertion that Briggs has integrity. In plain English I remarked that the fact that he lend his name to a press release [or paper] using outdated solar data shows that he did not do the due diligence a co-author should do [and that that IMHO is a problem in the integrity department], while Mosher did. There is nothing complex to understand here. But, in truth, I do not understand what you are so worked up over.
Matt G says:
September 9, 2012 at 2:21 am
So do you mean that if the minimum around 2008 occurred for 50+ years with no change at all, there would only be a 0.04c temperature change on Earth?
Yes, even it occurred for 5000+ years. The normal solar cycle variation of the total energy output of the Sun is of the order of 0.1%, so the average over a cycle is half that, or 0.05%. The change in temperature as a result of a change in energy is 1/4 of the change in energy, or 0.05%/4 = 0.0125%. That percentage of the average temperature of 289K is 0.036K
Matt G says:
September 9, 2012 at 2:21 am
So do you mean that if the minimum around 2008 occurred for 50+ years with no change at all, there would only be a 0.04c temperature change on Earth?
Good to see some are seeing through the rhetoric.
Leif Svalgaard says:
September 9, 2012 at 3:16 am
I did read the comments you mention and while I have no issue with Mosher or your characterization of him, my comment was directed at your assertion that Briggs has integrity. In plain English I remarked that the fact that he lend his name to a press release [or paper] using outdated solar data shows that he did not do the due diligence a co-author should do [and that that IMHO is a problem in the integrity department], while Mosher did. There is nothing complex to understand here. But, in truth, I do not understand what you are so worked up over.
I suppose Briggs does have some sort of an excuse since he doesn’t (AFAIK) profess to have any expertise in solar matters. Willie Soon, though, has no excuse whatsoever. He must know that the solar reconstruction is invalid. Briggs could perhaps be given the benefit of the doubt since it’s conceivable he wouldn’t necessarily question the validity of solar data if it had been provided by his co-author who just happened to be “an astrophysicist and geoscientist at the Solar and Stellar Physics (SSP) Division of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics”.
Geoff Sharp says:
September 9, 2012 at 3:35 am
Good to see some are seeing through the rhetoric.
My interpretation of Leif’s comment is that he is referring to the changes due to variations in solar activity. Since most of the solarphiles on this blog seem to be having trouble explaining how the sun is responsible for any more than a fraction of one tenth of a degree temperature change I’m inclined to agree with his assessment.
The botttom line is the earth (as a whole) can only warm if it receives more energy from the sun than it emits to space. So over to you…..
John Finn says:
September 9, 2012 at 6:01 am
My interpretation of Leif’s comment is that he is referring to the changes due to variations in solar activity. Since most of the solarphiles on this blog seem to be having trouble explaining how the sun is responsible for any more than a fraction of one tenth of a degree temperature change I’m inclined to agree with his assessment.
The botttom line is the earth (as a whole) can only warm if it receives more energy from the sun than it emits to space. So over to you…..
And herein lies yours and Leif’s greatest conundrums. The empirical evidence tells us the earths temperature through the ages has aligned with solar output. The many warming and cooling periods going back thousands of years corresponding with the high and low outputs of the Sun.
Leif very skillfully will quote dubious TSI variances measured over very short time frames to support is claim that the Sun is only capable of minute climate changes due to TSI variances.
The TSI variances he claims are still open for discussion, along with his condemnation of the H&S group sunspot record that aligns with the earlier Lean TSI reconstructions that have many unanswered questions. The last time I endeavored to disclose the truth he said ” I was full of shit”
The Soon example is still unclear, but looking outside the TSI record there is ample evidence from a multitude of respected researchers that other solar factors are very capable of varying our climate. TSI is still a player but other components such as UV, solar wind and magnetic changes may prove to be more important. Once again John its time to take in multiple drivers and not isolate an individual.
Geoff Sharp says:
September 9, 2012 at 7:35 am
The empirical evidence tells us the earths temperature through the ages has aligned with solar output. The many warming and cooling periods going back thousands of years corresponding with the high and low outputs of the Sun.
There are no such evidence, mostly because we don’t have a good temperature record.
Leif very skillfully will quote dubious TSI variances measured over very short time frames to support is claim that the Sun is only capable of minute climate changes due to TSI variances.
Several things wrong with this. First ‘skillfully’ should be ‘carefully’. ‘Dubious’ should be ‘High Precision’. And TSI is a measure of the total energy radiated by the Sun [in our direction].
condemnation of the H&S group sunspot record that aligns with the earlier Lean TSI reconstructions
Lean’s reconstruction does not ‘align’ [as if two independent measures] with the Group Number, but is simply derived from it.
The last time I endeavored to disclose the truth he said ” I was full of shit”
Last time you endeavored to smear me, I told you the truth, and if you persist, that truth becomes even more evident, for all to see.
TSI is still a player but other components such as UV, solar wind and magnetic changes may prove to be more important.
All these other components vary with TSI. Solar wind, UV, and magnetism can be independently reconstructed back to the 1830s and do not show the variation Soon [and Lean] claim for TSI.
Once again John its time to take in multiple drivers and not isolate an individual.
It is time to realize that all these drivers do not add up to anything significant.
Leif Svalgaard says:
September 9, 2012 at 3:16 am
Thank you for the explanation, the only thing I disagree about is the thinking that this very short change can’t have a longer period affect before the cycle ramps up again. Only reason why this small amount is currently detected is because the cycle ramps up before it gets any possible longer term affect going. Therefore I am not convinced if the cycle didn’t ramp back up this small change just over a year or two normally, won’t have a bigger affect over a much longer period. To believe that this short term affect occurs immediately doesn’t back up climate history.
John Finn says
My interpretation of Leif’s comment is that he is referring to the changes due to variations in solar activity. Since most of the solarphiles on this blog seem to be having trouble explaining how the sun is responsible for any more than a fraction of one tenth of a degree temperature change I’m inclined to agree with his assessment.
The botttom line is the earth (as a whole) can only warm if it receives more energy from the sun than it emits to space. So over to you…..
Henry@John
I am not sure what yours and Leif’s agenda’s are, (I suspect inome might be in jeopardy?) ,
I notice that he has not reacted to me thinking that he is not honest in the interpretation of all results. Either way, I told him, as I am telling you now: After analysing the daily data from 47 weather stations, balanced by latitude and sea-inland 70-30, my results for the speed of warming/cooling in degrees K / annum for maxima versus time now stands at 0.036 from 1974 (38 yrs), 0.029 from 1980 (32 yrs), 0.014 from 1990 (22 years) and -0.016 from 2000 (12 years). Clearly, if you take the trouble to do the plot, you will note that the deceleration of warming in degrees K/tsquare where t= years, follows on a binominal plot, as if somebody threw a ball at you! Further to this, I was able to fit it also into a sine wave, giving me the best fit at a wavelength of 88 years – the exact length of the Gleissberg cycle…
So clearly, the best variable to look at, giving you the least noise, is maximum temperatures.
Noting my last quoted result, I count a drop of 12 x -0.016= -0.2 degrees K in maximum temperatures, global average, since 2000. That is quite a bit more then the fraction of one tenth that you and Leif want it to be. What I find sad, is that in places where the cooling is the worst, like in Anchorage, Alaska, farmers are not getting warnings that it is going to get a lot colder still. They think that they can still carry on planting whereas by now you all and everyone who has brains should know that cooling is not going to stop until about 2038 or 2039. If you do not believe my results, why don’t you check it out for yourself? (Anchorage has two big weatherstations, and temperatures have fallen there by the largest margin, more than 1.5 degrees K since 2000).