F10.7 Flux, Sea Level and the Holocene

Interesting thoughts. This seems like a rehash of previous thoughts, with just a bit more information. This idea is what really tweaked my interest in looking more carefully at weather and climate and lead to my beginnings of skepticism of AGW. As others have said before, ‘it could get interesting’. Countries could be scrambling to deal with the repercussions. The need for more food and energy for heating would make the current effort to deal with the nice gentle warming look like child’s play.

An easily testable hypothesis. Too bad it will take 10 years to even start to have the data, but that’s the nature of the thing being tested.

Todd says:
September 15, 2012 at 8:47 am
An easily testable hypothesis. Too bad it will take 10 years to even start to have the data, but that’s the nature of the thing being tested.
Since it fails for the past, the test has already been done.

To Davis Archibald: David, we are about to issue a new paper: “Five forcing
mechanisms govern 10,000 years of climate change”. These forcings are all
macro-forcings, whereas the Sun’s output variation is only a micro-forcing…..
We have a pre-announcement of the paper available with details on the subject,
I would send it knowing to where….
JS

To make this work we need to get more solar energy into the oceans when the sun is active and less solar energy into the oceans when the sun is inactive.
More solar energy getting in causes thermal expansion, sea level rises and, yes, more outgassing of CO2 from the sunnier oceanic regions beneath expanded subtropical high pressure cells.
That requires albedo changes via cloudiness variations because the raw TSI changes are insufficient.
Which all links back to the various papers that suggest a top down solar effect on the global air circulation so as to cause global cloudiness variations by expanding or contracting the polar vortices.
Relatively straight zonal jetstreams when the polar vortices are contracted (positive AO and AAO) gives less clouds globally than bendy meridional jetstreams waving about latitudinally when the polar vortices are expanded (negative AO and AAO).
A lot of observed phenomena fit into such a scenario very neatly.

How is it that the sunspot number is given for a period of thousands of years? I thought it had only been measured for a couple of hundred years.
REPLY: Proxy reconstruction using C14/Be10 isotopes – Anthony

(William, the authors of this paper are confusing the dog with the tail.)
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
I presume this last sentence is a mod comment that hasn’t been identified as such?

I think Flux Solar x LTT (UAH) makes sense (at my house and Antarctic Peninsula)
http://i1195.photobucket.com/albums/aa391/MAFILI/MAKESENSE.png

Other considerations, such as what is contained in the plasma stream (solar eruptions with varying elemental properties emanating from its depth over time) heading our direction may have significant importance. The 10.7GHz wavelength is just that, and not an indication of the matter arriving at our bow shock. The Van Allen belts rise and fall with a variety of particle matter and under varying conditions!

Chewer says:
September 15, 2012 at 10:34 am
The 10.7 cm wavelength is just that, and not an indication of the matter arriving at our bow shock
But the resulting geomagnetic activity is, and that does not show any trend over the past almost two centuries: http://www.leif.org/research/Ap-1844-now.png

One thing is what Leif wrote – the reconstruction of past sunspot numbers is flawed and numbers should be shifted way up.
Another flaw I can see is that there is no physical basis for hypothesis that “above 40 sunspot sea is rising, below it is declining”. It may be true now, but definitely cannot hold throughout all the holocene. Given a lot of assumptions, certain average sunspot number defines certain sea level, not its eternal rise or decline.
What’s funny about this is that if we correct for both of these errors and assume the sun activity forecast is correct, then the conclusion may actually hold.

tallbloke says:
September 15, 2012 at 9:09 am
Nice consensus you’ve got coming together there Leif.
Funny how they never show up to speak for themselves.
They do, and more importantly other scientists agree:
http://www.leif.org/EOS/Munoz-Jaramilo_etal_ApJ2012.pdf
“It has been found that one of the most important quantities when determining the evolution of geomagnetic activity indicators (which have been measured for more than a century) is the
heliospheric magnetic field (HMF; Stamper et al. 1999). Direct HMF observations have existed since the beginning of 1965 and these observations can be extended all the way to the mid 1800s using the aa geomagnetic index (Lockwood et al. 2009) and the InterDiurnal Variability geomagnetic index (Svalgaard &Cliver 2010). Following a decade of vigourous debate, different reconstructions of HMF based on geomagnetic data have gradually reached consensus (see Lockwood & Owens 2011; Svalgaard & Cliver 2010 and references therein), providing us with the opportunity of studying the combined role of active regions (ARs) and polar flux in determining the characteristics of the heliospheric environment (as well as acting as a consistency check for our polar flux database).”
Their Figure 17 is instructive.

Leif Svalgaard said
“Glaciations are due to changing orbital elements [and axial tilt] of the Earth [cause by gravitational perturbations mainly by Jupiter] and have nothing to do with the Sun and its activity”
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
There is plenty of discussion about how Milankovic doesn’t quite fit, of which you’re no doubt aware. Perhaps Milankovic provides the underlying long cycle, with other events varying the timing and intensity, one prospective candidate being the Sun.
So anyway Leif, where’s your money on temperatures over the next 20 ++ years ?
Geoff Sharp’s Dalton repeat ?
David Archibald’s maunder repeat ?
William’s Younger Dryas repeat ?
Warmer ?
Stable ?

vukcevic says:
September 15, 2012 at 11:08 am
What is this about Grand Maximum ?
Myth.
J Martin says:
September 15, 2012 at 11:12 am
So anyway Leif, where’s your money on temperatures over the next 20 ++ years ?
Geoff Sharp’s Dalton repeat ?
David Archibald’s maunder repeat ?
William’s Younger Dryas repeat ?
Warmer ?
Stable ?
None of the above, but colder, but not because of the sun.
As far as solar activity is concerned, I’m beginning to lean towards a Maunder Minimum, especially if L&P holds up. We shall see.

Leif:
….colder, but not because of the sun.
back to the oceans

Tim Walker says:
September 15, 2012 at 11:43 am
Glaciations have nothing to do with the Sun? Wow, quite the statement of certainty.
Absolutely. Perhaps just as certain as the oft repeated statement “it’s the Sun, stupid”.
When I see definitive statements about theories, I expect to see those statements proven wrong at least to some degree in the future.
All theories are eventually [to a degree] proven wrong. The issue is whether they are good enough for now.
For your definitive statement about the sun to be true, then the Maunder Minimum must not have been caused or affected by the sun in anyway or else the sun does have some kind of effect on glaciations.
For your information, a glaciation [or ice age] is something completely different from what happened 400 years ago. The last glaciation ended some 15,000 years ago, and the next is 50,000 years in the future.
vukcevic says:
September 15, 2012 at 11:54 am
We got you on record ‘large SC25 ’ ( presumably larger than SC24)
No, you don’t. What you have is a speculation of mine [and labeled as such] that if SC24 were to change polarity or reach maximum very quickly, that might leave much more time for SC25 to build up, but since that didn’t happen, a small SC25 is ruled out.
Dale says:
September 15, 2012 at 12:07 pm
Colder by how much?
Don’t know, wild guess: less than half a degree perhaps.

HenryP says:
September 15, 2012 at 12:20 pm
the process of cooling, initiated by natural processes coming from the sun, is already underway, from 1995, to be precise.
The Sun may have shown less activity, but somebody forgot the tell the Earth that, as temperatures since 1995 have increased.

LS says
The Sun may have shown less activity, but somebody forgot the tell the Earth that, as temperatures since 1995 have increased.
Henry says
Are you sure -you want to quible again? With me?
Can you please answer my question that I have asked you a few times before, as to why the so-called climate scientists (including yourself) never ever bothered to even look at maxima which was readily available for every one to look at, especially since the recording of maxima and the method has been known for more than a hundred and fifty years?
Obviously energy-in is not the same as energy-out; there is a bit of a lag, due to earth’s ability to store energy (in the oceans, mostly).\
Most datasets agree however, that the max. of energy output (when earth was the “warmest”) was around 1999. Since 2000 we have started going downhill, I am afraid.

Leif Svalgaard says:
September 15, 2012 at 10:52 am
“…and that does not show any trend over the past almost two centuries:”
Looks to me like it might, if the low frequencies are stripped out. What happens if you feed this series through a low pass filter with a very low bandwidth?
I do not know who this belongs to – it’s just a random link I saved some years ago. The blue line is observed temperate anomaly, and the green line is said to be the “integrated sunspot”. An integral, of course, is a first order low pass filter with infinite time constant.
It stands to reason that the effect of solar heating should be cumulative, with a thermal time constant which could be quite long, given the immensity of the system. Just as a pot of water on the stove on low heat will take a long time to reach steady state temperature, imagine the time it would take for a pot big enough to hold the world’s oceans.

Tim Walker said, “For your definitive statement about the sun to be true, then the Maunder Minimum must not have been caused or affected by the sun in anyway or else the sun does have some kind of effect on glaciations.”
Leif Svalgaard said, “For your information, a glaciation [or ice age] is something completely different from what happened 400 years ago. The last glaciation ended some 15,000 years ago, and the next is 50,000 years in the future.”
Glaciation for your information is The process, condition, or result of being covered by glaciers. During the Maunder Minimum glaciers grew in Europe and most other parts of the world that have been thoroughly checked. Therefore there was glaciation happening during the Maunder Minimum. It did not get to the extent of ice sheets covering large portions of the northern continents, but it was glaciation. I presume you are thinking in only the situation where glaciation has happened to the point of ice sheets covering large portions of the northern continents, you did clarify your use of glaciation by [or ice age] otherwise you might not of been so pedantic sounding. I say pedantic sounding as apposed to pedantic, because the use of pedantic also implies being correct..
I appreciate your agreeing with me about your definitive statement not being correct.
Leif said, “Glaciations have nothing to do with the Sun.”
Tim said, “When I see definitive statements about theories, I expect to see those statements proven wrong at least to some degree in the future.”
Leif said, “All theories are eventually [to a degree] proven wrong. The issue is whether they are good enough for now.”
That is why making definitive statements about theories puts the speaker in a bad light. They come across as just argumentative instead of as entering into a discussion
Thanks for the chat, Leif..

Archi: “Figure 18 shows that the average sunspot number over the Holocene was very near 40. ”
It does? Could you explain how you read 40 off that graph? Mean, median, mode what are we talking about here. If you mean the middle of the fitted parabola: a) Why?; b) is 32 “very nearly ” 40?
It’s not at all clear what you are reading off this graph.
c) Whatever the average for the Holocene is , how does this relate to the zero in sea level rise? On that time scale temps have been falling for the last 10,000 years. That would imply falling sea levels
You seems ot be working on the erroneous assumption that temperatures have been oscillating around this “average” value for the entire Holocene period and that it thus is the neutral point for sea level rise.
I would also suggest that basing climate analysis on one parameter is unlikely to be useful , whether it be sun spots or CO2.

Leif,
You replied to the question: “So anyway Leif, where’s your money on temperatures over the next 20 ++ years ?” …
“None of the above, but colder, but not because of the sun.”
If not because of the sun, what then ?

OK Bart, I just found your preceding comment about the integral being infinite period low pass filter. and Leif’s “less activity”. Less is still some , so continued increase or reduceing increase is sitll possible.

Leif Svalgaard says:
September 15, 2012 at 12:39 pm
“The Sun may have shown less activity, but somebody forgot the tell the Earth that, as temperatures since 1995 have increased.”
If rate of change of temp (aka global warming) and rate of rise of sea levels have fallen drastically since 1995 , somebody forgot to tell Leif.
http://i46.tinypic.com/2myp2rk.png

Leif Svalgaard posted this,
Tim Walker says:
September 15, 2012 at 1:32 pm
Glaciation for your information is The process, condition, or result of being covered by glaciers.
“Glaciation’ has a very precise meaning: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glacial_period
“A glacial period (or alternatively glacial or glaciation) is an interval of time (thousands of years) within an ice age that is marked by colder temperatures and glacier advances. Interglacials, on the other hand, are periods of warmer climate within an ice age. The last glacial period ended about 15,000 years ago”
I appreciate your agreeing with me about your definitive statement not being correct.
In spite of your appreciation, my statement stands.
That is why making definitive statements about theories puts the speaker in a bad light.
Not when they are true
They come across as just argumentative instead of as entering into a discussion
Your education is not a discussion.
Your problem sir is that you posted not the precise meaning of glaciation, but of GLACIAL PERIOD. Your condescension gathered around your obvious error is very bad sir. I sir looked up the meaning of glaciation and used it in my post, sir. You sir did not use a PRECISE meaning of glaciation or even a meaning of glaciation. You, sir, used the wikipedia definition of GLACIAL PERIOD. This gives me serious doubts about what else you are sharing here. As I have sadly found out in recent times, science is occupied by many with larger egos than desires for truth and knowledge. Good day sir. I will from hence forth take all you have to say with a very large grain of salt.
[I’m not condescending to think I could teach you anything. It sounds as if you just might know it all. SARC]

Ric Werme says:
OT – There are nice comments about Leif over at
I propose some slogans
Save the Leif
No Leif for oil
Leif’s Day
I guess without the presence of Dr Leif. My misconceptions were permanently crystallized,
Thanks Dr Leif.
Anthony: The best blog in the solar system.

Leif Svalgaard says:
September 15, 2012 at 12:26 pm
The last glaciation ended some 15,000 years ago, and the next is 50,000 years in the future.
Of the last six interglacial episodes, five lasted for 1/2 of a precessional cycle (12,500 years) and the sixth, for unknown reasons lasted for a full precessional cycle (25,000) years).
Upon what information are you claiming the current interglacial will last for two full precessional cycles?

AnonyMoose says:
September 15, 2012 at 9:38 am
0 BC? So the seas stopped rising when Jesus appeared, and again when Obama appeared. 🙂
————————-
I’m going back to my old training ….. something about causation and …….now what was that?

Dr Burns says:
September 15, 2012 at 2:07 pm
If not because of the sun, what then ?
Any sufficiently complicated system has internal variations.
chris y says:
September 15, 2012 at 2:20 pm
It is presented as the official prediction of NASA Marshall Space Flight Center.
Nowhere does it say that. NASA subscribes to the official prediction here:
http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/SolarCycle/SC24/index.html
“April 25, 2008 The official NOAA, NASA, and ISES Solar Cycle 24 prediction was released by the Solar Cycle 24 Prediction Panel on April 25, 2007″
P.S. I am on that prediction panel.
P. Solar says:
September 15, 2012 at 2:22 pm
If rate of change of temp (aka global warming) and rate of rise of sea levels have fallen drastically since 1995
Except they haven’t
vukcevic says:
September 15, 2012 at 2:29 pm
“But puts you in a very poor light, doesn’t it”
Indeed it doesn’t , not as yet, so far so good
The poor light comes from misrepresenting a tongue-in-cheek statement by me, as my ‘opinion’ [we got you on record …]
This is very poor style
Tim Walker says:
September 15, 2012 at 2:33 pm
Your problem sir is that you posted not the precise meaning of glaciation, but of GLACIAL PERIOD.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glacial_period : “A glacial period (or alternatively glacial or glaciation)”
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/glaciation.html
http://www.nationalatlas.gov/articles/geology/a_glacial.html
You confuse the term ‘glaciation’ with ‘glacier’. Glaciers expand and shrink all the time. Geologists call it a glaciation when glaciers expand and move on a continental scale. This happens rarely [every tens to hundreds of thousands of years] controlled by changes in the orbital elements of the Earth [caused predominantly by Jupiter] and seems to be contingent of particular arrangements of the continents and ocean currents. In the past 500 miliion years there have been a handful of periods where glaciations happened. We call those ‘ice ages’ [each ‘age’ consisting of many ‘glaciations’]. And they are not caused by variations of activity of the sun.
Neville. says:
September 15, 2012 at 3:17 pm
I would like Leif or anybody to explain why the next glaciation could be 50,000 years into the future?
Because the slide into a new glaciation happens at ‘glacial’ speed [i.e. slowly]. There are more than one cycle: 21k, 41k, 100k years aprox.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milankovitch_cycles
jjfox says:
September 15, 2012 at 3:42 pm
Upon what information are you claiming the current interglacial will last for two full precessional cycles?
“More recent work by Berger and Loutre suggests that the current warm climate may last another 50,000 years”
Berger A, Loutre MF (2002). “Climate: An exceptionally long interglacial ahead?”. Science 297 (5585): 1287–8.

chris y says:
September 15, 2012 at 4:57 pm
Do you still stand by your prediction of cycle 24 maximum occurring in 2011?
If you read the paper you’ll see that we actually did not try to predict the time of maximum. We mentioned 2011 as the ‘canonical time’ which is simply 11 years after the previous maximum in 2000, just to indicate that we were predicting an occurrence pretty much in the future [like at least 7 years]. Not everyone follow the solar cycles so some perspective is needed. I actually wanted to use a later date [as cycle 23 was rather low so its length was expected to be somewhat longer than average], but the referee wouldn’t let me, so we simply threw him a bone with the ‘canonical time’.

Leif Svalgaard says: “Except they haven’t”
Yeah, let’s play “did , didn’t” for a while, that’ll fix it.
UAH lower tropo does show a marked reduction in rate of change: http://i45.tinypic.com/2lt1r4l.png
Tide gauges also show the moderate increase in sea levels of the early to mid 90’s was gone by 2000. (Satellite versions suggest the water was piling up in mid ocean until around 2005.)
If you want to comment on rate of change you’d better look at rate of change, not the time series.

P. Solar says:
September 15, 2012 at 2:12 pm
There is also the issue of which heat reservoirs lose energy faster, and which slower. In the same way a cookie on a baking sheet continues to cook after you take it out of the oven. If you want nice, soft cookies, you have to remove them from the baking sheet immediately. Otherwise, they will continue to brown and get crunchy (and, I don’t like crunchy cookies). The heat is still flowing from one reservoir, the baking sheet, to the other, the cookie. In the case at hand, from the oceans to the atmosphere.
Leif Svalgaard says:
September 15, 2012 at 2:08 pm
“How low? A century per data point? or a solar cycle?”
Significantly lower, I believe, than a solar cycle. Try different values, and see what you come up with. With the different reservoirs in play, as I mention above, higher than first order is justified.
I’m not saying it would necessarily bear fruit – it seemed to for the guy at the link I posted, but I don’t really know what all he did or which data he was using. I’m just saying that an instantaneous response is not what I would expect in any case.
If I had the data (and the time), rather than such trial and error, I might try estimating an actual transfer function under the assumption that the solar activity is the dominant influence on the temperature, and see if I could replicate the output temperature by passing the input solar activity through it.

Bart says:
September 15, 2012 at 5:59 pm
Significantly lower, I believe, than a solar cycle. Try different values, and see what you come up with. With the different reservoirs in play, as I mention above, higher than first order is justified.
Often people use the 22-yr average which looks like this: http://www.leif.org/research/Ap-22yr-Averages,png
The green box shows that at the height of the “Grand Maximum in the last half of the 20th Century’ 22-yr [centered] average AP was no different from what it was in the 1860s. Now, perhaps it was the same as it was in the 21st century BC and there is a 4100 year lag…
P. Solar says:
September 15, 2012 at 6:03 pm
Leif’s comment in reply to Bart: “somebody forgot to tell the Earth” thus remains incorrect , which was my basic point.
somebody forgot to tell the Earth about the drastic change…

Bart says:
September 15, 2012 at 5:59 pm
I might try estimating an actual transfer function under the assumption that the solar activity is the dominant influence on the temperature, and see if I could replicate the output temperature by passing the input solar activity through it.
If you do that be sure to use the phony Group Sunspot Number to ensure a good correlation.

Bart , I have a lot of respect for some oh the stuff you have posted at Tallbloke’s and CA but I think you’re going off line on this one.
Your cookies may continue to cook , that is a chemical change caused by their temparature, but they will not continue to get hotter once they are removed form the oven. The heat in the tray may slow down thier cooling but that tray (ocean) will not be getting any hotter either once the oven is turned off .
You can have a phase lag while the heat is still applied but falling like August being hottest yet two months after peak solar input. The rate of change will still be +ve, though reduced (deceleration). That is what the data shows in the plots I provided above.
Perhaps that’s what you’re trying to say to Leif. The fact that the temp is still rising (probalby not the case anyway) during a reduction in solar input does not prove solar isn’t a (or the) major driving force.
That is why I am saying we should be looking at rate of change. When the driving force is reducing the rate of change will be reducing. That is exactly what is shown in the data I plotted.

Bart says:
September 15, 2012 at 7:03 pm
Perhaps you could suggest the best data to use, and where to find it? Not saying I will do it, or at least anytime soon, so don’t hold your breath.
It depends on which parameter you want to use. There are several
1) TSI [the most obvious one]
2) SSN [everybody uses this one]
3) Ap [for the ones that say that what matters is the solar wind]
4) and for the temperatures: no matter what you do, someone will say the data is invalid
And which time resolution [month, 27-day rotation, yearly average]
I would use SSN or TSI.
A preliminary SSN series is here http://www.leif.org/research/New-SSNs.txt and an old [but still good] TSI series is here http://www.leif.org/research/TSI-LEIF.xls column L
Both of these are works in progress and may differ in details, but the general run should be better than the ‘official’ values. Another way to look at the difference is that represent some measure of uncertainty.

Don’t be fooled on the attempted discreditation of the GSN record. This is science with an agenda.
There has been a flood of statements in the last few weeks on the unreliability of the GSN record coming from one source who has the ironing board out. The whole truth once again needs to be placed on the record, which has not been done yet and it is way too early to be making grand statements.

Geoff Sharp says:
September 15, 2012 at 7:33 pm
There has been a flood of statements in the last few weeks on the unreliability of the GSN record coming from one source who has the ironing board out. The whole truth once again needs to be placed on the record, which has not been done yet and it is way too early to be making grand statements.
The whole truth has been on the record for a while, even Ken Schatten agrees with our findings:
http://www.leif.org/research/HAO-Seminar%2C%20How%20Well%20Do%20We%20Know%20the%20SSN.pdf
http://www.leif.org/research/SSN/Schatten.pdf
http://www.leif.org/research/IAUS286-Mendoza-Svalgaard.pdf
But I can understand your uneasiness when your foundations crumble.
and SC25 was going to be a large cycle (a recent statement)
You make the same mistake as Vuk.
It is clear that SC24 is going to be like SC14:
http://www.leif.org/research/SC14-and-SC24-overlap.png
http://www.leif.org/research/SC14-24-Smoothed-Adj-3.png
and it has been clear for quite some time [since 2003] that we are headed for a period of low activity :
“The surprising result of these long-range predictions is a rapid decline in solar activity, starting with cycle #24. If this trend continues, we may see the Sun heading towards a ‘Maunder’ type of solar activity minimum – an extensive period of reduced levels of solar activity.
This based on the polar field method that we pioneered back in 1978
http://www.leif.org/research/Using%20Dynamo%20Theory%20to%20Predict%20Solar%20Cycle%2021.pdf
RACookPE1978 says:
September 15, 2012 at 7:41 pm
But how long does that bit of energy take to get up from the core to the “emitting” surface of the sun so that it can get to the earth’s orbit
It takes about 200,000 years
if (big if there) 10Be ratios relate to solar energy that we believe are related to TSI levels, when did that change in solar energy occur, and when did the changes in fusion that caused the original change in solar energy occur?
99.9% of the change in TSI comes from the fusion in the core, the remaining 0.1% comes from changes to the surface magnetic field.

Geoff Sharp says:
September 15, 2012 at 7:20 pm
I am very disheartened that the skeptic community has not challenged the so called L&P theory.
And for good reason!
Our latest paper in the Astrophysical Journal notes:
Decreasing Sunspot Magnetic Fields Explain Unique 10.7 cm Radio Flux
Livingston, W.; Penn, M. J.; Svalgaard, L.
The Astrophysical Journal Letters, Volume 757, Issue 1, article id. L8 (2012).
Abstract
Infrared spectral observations of sunspots from 1998 to 2011 have shown that on average sunspots changed, the magnetic fields weakened, and the temperatures rose. The data also show that sunspots or dark pores can only form at the solar surface if the magnetic field strength exceeds about 1500 G. Sunspots appear at the solar surface with a variety of field strengths, and during the period from 1998 to 2002 a histogram of the sunspot magnetic fields shows a normal distribution with a mean of 2436 ± 26 G and a width of 323 ± 20 G. During the observing period the mean of the magnetic field distribution decreased by 46 ± 6 G per year, and we assume that as the 1500 G threshold was approached, magnetic fields appeared at the solar surface which could not form dark sunspots or pores. With this assumption we propose a quantity called the sunspot formation fraction and give an analytical form derived from the magnetic field distribution. We show that this fraction can quantitatively explain the changing relationship between sunspot number and solar radio flux measured at 10.7 cm wavelengths.

This is what Mr. Svalgaard, our want to be teacher, said, “Tim Walker says:
September 15, 2012 at 2:33 pm
Your problem sir is that you posted not the precise meaning of glaciation, but of GLACIAL PERIOD.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glacial_period : “A glacial period (or alternatively glacial or glaciation)”
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/glaciation.html
http://www.nationalatlas.gov/articles/geology/a_glacial.html
You confuse the term ‘glaciation’ with ‘glacier’. Glaciers expand and shrink all the time. Geologists call it a glaciation when glaciers expand and move on a continental scale. This happens rarely [every tens to hundreds of thousands of years] controlled by changes in the orbital elements of the Earth [caused predominantly by Jupiter] and seems to be contingent of particular arrangements of the continents and ocean currents. In the past 500 miliion years there have been a handful of periods where glaciations happened. We call those ‘ice ages’ [each ‘age’ consisting of many ‘glaciations’]. And they are not caused by variations of activity of the sun.
This is what I say Mr. Svalgaard.
Since when does the Wikipedia provide the precise meaning of anything, as you put it and are now trying to weasel out of. Here is the precise meaning of the word glaciation and as anyone can see unless they have their eyes shut and are repeating, “If I don’t see it I don’t have to believe I am wrong.” glaciation is not a synonym for GLACIAL PERIOD.
‘Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary’ defines glaciation as: the noun of the verb glaciate, which is to (a) cover with a glacier, (b) to subject to glacial action.
‘The Free Dictionary’ by Farlex defines glaciation as: noun 1. glaciation glaciation – the condition of being covered with glaciers or masses of ice; the result of glacial action; “Agassiz recognized marks of glaciation all over northern Europe”
‘Merriam-Webster’ defines glaciation as the noun of the verb glaciate: (a) to subject to glacial action; also: to produce glacial effects in or on; (b) to cover with a glacier.
McGraw-Hill Science and Technology Dictionary defines glaciation as: Alteration of any part of earth’s surface by passage of a glacier, chiefly by glacial erosion or deposition.
Macmillan Dictionary defines glaciation as: the process in wich land becomes covered by glaciers.
I could go on sir, but I suspect you are just like other bad scientists I have heard about in the last few years. You are so right in and of yourself you will refuse to discuss something that might impinge upon your own ideas. You just want to pontificate as you have so ably shown here.
In the beginning I just said this: Glaciations have nothing to do with the Sun? Wow, quite the statement of certainty. I like this statement better that Leif Svalgaard made, “There is still debate about the Maunder Minimum, but that is what our ISSI workshop [next one in April, 2013] is meant to resolve.
And there is something true about the bruises….”
I like seeing debate between scientists. When I see definitive statements about theories, I expect to see those statements proven wrong at least to some degree in the future.
For your definitive statement about the sun to be true, then the Maunder Minimum must not have been caused or affected by the sun in anyway or else the sun does have some kind of effect on glaciations.
Saying this I tried to get a bit more discussion and less of, ‘This is the facts from on high.’. But no. You insist on pontificating or as you, Mr Svalgaard said: Your education is not a discussion.
You Sir sound like the worst of the professors I ever had in college or as the worst of the AGW crowd.

RaCookPE1978 says
So, if (big if there) 10Be ratios relate to solar energy that we believe are related to TSI levels, when did that change in solar energy occur, and when did the changes in fusion that caused the original change in solar energy occur?
Henry says
I have been studying the rate of change of maxima against time (data from 47 weather stations) , this is the deceleration of warming and the curve looks like someone threw a ball: completely natural, binominal. My rsquare on that was 0.998. From that I calculated that in 1995 we changed signal, from warming to cooling. Realizing this is an ac-wave I was able to put it in a sine wave, best wavelength 88 years. So we came from 44 years of warming and now moved into 44 years of cooling (from 1995), looking at energy in. I have since been doing some puzzling, coming to the conclusion that the rise and fall of energy in coincides with the decline and rise of ozone, both NH and SH. On the SH the fall in ozone until 1995 was as much as 100% and more. So it seems to me that a small change in the distribution of the solar constant changes the chemical reactions happening on top of the atmosphere.

Tim Walker says:
September 15, 2012 at 10:26 pm
Since when does the Wikipedia provide the precise meaning of anything
In Science, some words have a more precise meaning than in ordinary speech. ‘Glaciation’ is one of them. Another one is ‘theory’. I [and Wikipedia – and the other references which you ignore] gave you the scientific meaning of ‘glaciation’. That you will not learn is your loss.
HenryP says:
September 15, 2012 at 10:35 pm
Going by Vukcevic’s June data quoted above it amounts to ca. 0.02 to 0.03 degrees C over the past 200-300 years. … We will fall by about 1 full degree C or K until about 2039.
So, you claim that in the past 300 years temperatures have increased 0.03 C and in the next 25 they will fall 1 C…

Tim Walker says:
September 15, 2012 at 10:26 pm
In Science, some words have a more precise meaning than in ordinary speech. ‘Glaciation’ is one of them
As in http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/09/16/onset-of-the-next-glaciation/

How is it that the sunspot number is given for a period of thousands of years? I thought it had only been measured for a couple of hundred years.
REPLY: Proxy reconstruction using C14/Be10 isotopes – Anthony
Thanks, Anthony. Is there any measure of there accuracy vis a vis recent empirical observations?

Leif Svalgaard says:
September 15, 2012 at 7:28 pm
P. Solar says:
September 15, 2012 at 7:04 pm
Perhaps that’s what you’re trying to say to Leif. The fact that the temp is still rising (probalby not the case anyway) during a reduction in solar input does not prove solar isn’t a (or the) major driving force.
A time base of a decade or two is not enough to decide this. The FAIL comes from the fact that temperatures have risen significantly the past 200-300 years, but solar activity has not.
No, Leif , the FAIL (failure in English) comes from making a statement and then, when it is shown to be incorrect by referencec to multiple sources of data, you skip timescale by an order of magnitude instead of admitting your statement was wrong.
Have you ever admitted you were wrong. Ever ?

Vukcevic says
If I do bit more of a ‘cherry pick’ , the summer temperatures (J,J,A) in C. England for 290 year long period 1700-1990 have actually fallen, it is the winter temperatures that went up.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/CETsw.htm
and there is perfectly good explanation for it, if a geomagnetic hypothesis is considered as valid
Henry says
I am inclined to believe that winters in highly populated spaces like central England and Holland (that I also looked at) got somewhat warmer mostly because people remove snow quickly now with salt and heat (on roofs) so there is no more reflection back from snowed-in places when the sun shines again.They all now have a lot more quick access to heat (from gas burning) than a few hundred years ago. But if you can prove a geomagnetic connection, that only works his juice in winter time (?), I would like to know about it.
(don’t let Dr.S intimidate you…he is just a person, you know…..I think….)

tallbloke says:
September 16, 2012 at 1:32 am
“99.9% of TSI comes from the fusion in the core [which does not change on time scales for which we have data], the remaining [variable] 0.1% comes from changes to the surface magnetic field.” next time you use the argument that it’s not possible that the planets are affecting the sun contemporaneously because it takes ever so long for energy to get from the core to the surface.
It seems from your comment that you agree that the 99.9% of TSI does not change [and thus is not changing because of planets].
The longer term oscillations in the suns core might easily exhibit a 0.1% variability over a few hundred years since the nadir of the little ice age and the Maunder Minimum in solar activity.
Even if the core varied a lot we would not see any periodicity because of the long diffusion time for radiation to get out of the core. You could turn off energy generation completely and we wouldn’t know it for thousands of years.
It is estimated that global average surface temperature may have risen around 1.5C since then.
‘may’ ?
It appears then that the Sun can account for most or all of the climate variation we have observed and reconstructed from proxies
Except that the solar variability does not match climate variability.
P. Solar says:
September 16, 2012 at 1:57 am
Have you ever admitted you were wrong. Ever ?
Sure, in a paper in 1978 I thought that the solar magnetic field had doubled since 1900. In a paper in 2002 after a re-analysis of the [since then more extensive data] I concluded I was wrong and that there had been no century-scale doubling of the sun’s magnetic field.
If you present a coherent argument backed up by good data that will go a long way to change my opinion, but you haven’t.

Glaciation – noun – as Leif means it.
Glaciation – verb – the process of glaciating as Tim Walker means it.

Leif Svalgaard says:
September 16, 2012 at 8:05 am
“Except that the solar variability does not match climate variability.”
Leif, there is a correlation between the temperature charts and the 10Be variations which is used as proxy for solar activity.
Is your understanding that there is no such link? 10Be fluctuation are wrongly brought in relation with solar activity and sunspot numbers?

Lars P. says:
September 16, 2012 at 12:55 pm
Leif, there is a correlation between the temperature charts and the 10Be variations which is used as proxy for solar activity.
Here is what that ‘correlation’ looks like: http://www.leif.org/research/2000%20Year%20Temp%20and%20TSI.png
The ‘TSI’ is really just derived from 10Be, so essentially the lower plot is of 10Be.
Here is another such ‘correlation’ adding another temperature reconstruction:
http://www.leif.org/research/Global-Temperatures-2000-yrs.png
Are you impressed? I am not.

Dr. Svalgaard said this:
there is no glaciation going on now or during the Maunder Minimum.
I say no matter how many times you say the wrong thing it doesn’t make it right. I still stand by all of the definitions I provided. I notice that you didn’t challenge them. Is this how you do scientific debate? Keep saying the same time until someone dies. The one that lives wins. In fact you means of arguing seems really quite similar to how children argue. They do tend to just repeat themselves. How old are you?
Why do you not want to admit that there is glaciation going on right now? Is it because it waxes and wanes. Some papers actually show that the current waxing and waning of ongoing glaciation might have some connection with solar activity. You wouldn’t want to go there, no sir.
There fore you will state that there is no glaciation going on right now. Do you believe in the existence of the continent Antarctica and its glaciers? Do you think that all of the dictionarys ordinary and scientific that I quoted definitions from are wrong? No body on this forum knows these answers, because you just keep repeating the same words. There is no glaciation going on right now.
People are going to doubt your veracity if you continue making strange statements.

Mr. Svalgaard said all of this stuff down to where I respond:
Stephen Wilde says:
September 16, 2012 at 12:07 pm
Glaciation – noun – as Leif means it.
Glaciation – verb – the process of glaciating as Tim Walker means it.
Either way, the word ‘glaciation’ in the geophysical sciences refers to the episodes of ice covering extensive land areas intermittently several times during an ice age. As per the several examples I just gave. One of Tim’s quotes reads “‘Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary’ defines glaciation as: the noun of the verb glaciate”, although he is confused about the distinction between noun and verb. But none of this matters: the word ‘glaciation’ is in the geological sciences meant to signify wide-spread ice cover [which happen to be caused by changes in the orbital elements].
Mr. Svalgaard I have not disagreed that the term glaciation is used to refer to past episodes of ice covering extensive land areas. It also is used correctly for the results of glacial activity. By the way Mr. Svalgaard you do know that Antarctica is a extensive land area covered by ice. You do know Mr. Svalgaard that Greenland is a extensive land area covered by ice.
Oh, and sir I am not confused about the distinction between nouns and verbs. But since you are so pompous as to say such a thing maybe, sir you should give me your definition of a verb and of a noun. Doing so is pedantic and quite fitting for someone that would say I am confused about the distinction between nouns and verbs.

I always find it interesting that commenters in thesesolar discussions have the exact same “feel” as the rest of climate science :-
There are experts who know it all and they use denigrating language – now where have I seen this behaviour before ???

common sense says if the sun is pumping out more energy the earth is receiving more energy but that alone cannot explain Global Warming. It is not as simple as that. The Earth is a complicated entity that will not be defined by such simplistic scientific ideas and that is why the debate continues. Science should stop predicting the future where the Earth is involved, they will always miss the mark.
Here’s a bit of observational science. Living in the south of Australia, two members of the family just spent 4 weeks in USA, mainly California and didn’t use sunblock and didn’t get sunburn. To compare your August/September summer/fall would be February/March summer/autumn in Australia. You can’t spend a day in the sun unprotected as you will get severely burned. Obviously there is a substantial difference between the North and the South of the Planet and science uses averages to explain it and the non-scientific person has to trust the scientist that he/she knows what they are doing. I think not.

askwhyitisso says
Here’s a bit of observational science. Living in the south of Australia, two members of the family just spent 4 weeks in USA, mainly California and didn’t use sunblock and didn’t get sunburn. To compare your August/September summer/fall would be February/March summer/autumn in Australia. You can’t spend a day in the sun unprotected as you will get severely burned. Obviously there is a substantial difference between the North and the South of the Planet and science uses averages to explain it and the non-scientific person has to trust the scientist that he/she knows what they are doing. I think not.
Henry says
The explanation is that the ozone layer is a lot thinner in the SH and also depleted by more than 100% in the SH during the warming period 1951-1995. Depletion of ozone in the NH was a lot less, for some reason.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/09/15/f10-7-flux-sea-level-and-the-holocene/#comment-1079609

Henry@William Howard
So to summarize ur comment
We are on the same curve as compiled by Vukcevic
– june temps central England
We will drop by about one degree K until the end of the cooling
period 2039.
You agree?

ferdberple says:
September 17, 2012 at 7:00 am
That is one theory. The 100k year problem suggest it is not the whole story.
Indeed, the whole story is a bit more involved and the eccentricity of the Earth’s orbit has a 400k period and is near zero every 400k years, so the 100k cycle does not operate for about 100k years every 400k years, in particular, the coming 100k years. During such periods the 40k-yr variations of the axial tilt provide the necessary modulation. I include that variation in the general term ‘orbital variations’ [although not strictly correct]. The main point is that this variation will be there even for a completely constant sun.
William says:
September 17, 2012 at 8:55 am
The last solar magnetic cycle interruption occurred during the 8200 year BP
Whatever is the cause for the YD etc, it is not the ‘mystical solar magnetic cycle interruption’ [you have still not defined what you man by that]. Even during the Maunder Minimum we know that the solar cycle operated normally as cosmic rays were modulated as today [or perhaps even a bit more strongly]
vukcevic says:
September 17, 2012 at 11:58 am
There is a big question mark about the TSI reconstructed from close magnetic flux, since there is a similar but % -wise far greater variability in the Earth’s magnetic field.
Just shows that there is no physical coupling between the two.

vukcevic says:
September 18, 2012 at 5:52 am
Your vigorous protestations are suggesting that your are in a direct conflict with your own data.
More crap. Don’t you think I take my own data into account.
– re: Closed flux In comparison, the recent reconstruction of Y. Wang et al. (2005) is based on solar considerations alone, using a flux transport model to simulate the long-term evolution of the closed flux that generates bright faculae. yours truly IPCC
1: not recent [already outdated]
2. based on faulty Group Sunspot Number
3. I am one of the foremost experts on this subject and have, in fact, peer-reviewed several of Wang [and Sheeley]’s papers on this so no need to dig your hole any deeper
4. You have learned a new word ‘closed’ flux, but apparently have no idea what it means and how it relates to the rest. The SSN is a good measure of the ‘closed flux’. The heliospheric magnetic field is a mixture of open flux [mostly polar fields] and closed flux [mostly CMEs] and is well described by this formula: HMF = floor + coefficient * SQRT(SSN) as Wang points out [“should scale with the square root of the sunspot number”]. There is some confusion in the literature where some people call ALL of the HMF ‘open’, but that is a detail.
– re: What a load of self-serving c… no need to comment that one
I take it would be painful to realize how true that statement is. But you do not need to comment on that pain, just accept my true statement.
progress of science requires understanding of natural process not a denunciation .
Your comments and suggestions show abundantly that you have no understanding of any of those natural processes, and nonsense pseudo-science should be denounced for what it is.
J Martin says:
September 18, 2012 at 2:47 pm
So perhaps the Younger Dryas was the 41k World reasserting itself ?
I don’t think so as the duration the YD was much too short for that.

vukcevic says:
September 19, 2012 at 3:52 am
she might help to get my result published possibly as a ‘letter to the Editor’ in Nature or similar
You may have better luck here http://www.jir.com/

Leif Svalgaard says:
September 15, 2012 at 12:39 pm
HenryP says:
September 15, 2012 at 12:20 pm
the process of cooling, initiated by natural processes coming from the sun, is already underway, from 1995, to be precise.
“The Sun may have shown less activity, but somebody forgot the tell the Earth that, as temperatures since 1995 have increased.”
Not according to most sources, http://flowingdata.com/2009/07/20/important-data-please-act-responsibily/

Henry@Vukcevic
I am not sure how you can reconstruct TSI back in time by 200 or 300 years. I think the first distribution of TSI (for wavelength) was established in the early 70ties. I don’t know how and if it was done again since, or even how many times this distribution (over wavelengths) was measured again? I believe it is the variance in the distribution of the solar constant that causes a “differing” shield, e.g. differing amounts of ozone & , which in turn leads to warming and cooling periods of ca. 44 years (1 cycle =88 years)

Jim G says:
September 19, 2012 at 12:04 pm
“as temperatures since 1995 have increased.”
Not according to most sources
http://www.drroyspencer.com/latest-global-temperatures/