New study finds that a Carrington class solar event could cause global cooling of more than 3C

I don’t remember reading about a similar cooling event following the 1859 Carrington even.

The thing with Carrington level events being rare on a once in 500 year frequency, is that only tells us how many times we happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, the events could be much more common given how narrow a firing arc we have to be in to get hit.

We know the study is wrong because only man can cause holes in the ozone layer.

Solar cycle was relative quiet at that time. Are you sure it is carrington itself that caused global cooling?
I’d say we’d need another event like that to see of that happens but that would have been pointless anyway.

I get that electronics made of Integrated circuits will be dead. What about discrete components such as resisters, capacitors, diodes, and transistors? My friend has 4 model T Fords restored, so we will have transportation until the gas runs out.

”New study finds that a Carrington class solar event could cause global cooling of more than 3C”
WOW!!! It’s not enough bullshine produced by IPCC and Hansen, for the terminal bullshine addicts – now need to dig old lies from 1883. Shell we name it ”Guano addiction”
Because somebody produced a big lie 130y ago; not to go to waste; demand for crap is now bigger than ever. They should state on the label: how many calories per wheelbarrow /is it fattening… Go for it gays, from both camps; demand controls supply.
The TRUTH: the planet wasn’t getting warmer – it’s not going to get colder. ”Self-adjusting mechanism” and my formulas are fanatically ignored. the truth will win, time is against the Bulshine producers and their addicts.

David Ball says:
September 26, 2012 at 7:49 pm
Who would CARE what the temperature would be? I think there would be more pressing problems.
REPLY: Excellent point, we probably would lose the technological capability to measure and record the cooling – Anthony

Actually no it’s not a good point, because if it happens during winter and without power you and billions of others would wish it was 5° C warmer. Remember no power = no home heating sources outside of wood burning stoves = millions freeze to death.

Hold on.
A Carrington even WOULD cause a drop in temperatures of 3 degrees?
Well if that is true, by extension, the Carrington event in 1859 DID reduce temperatures by 3 degrees.
And if THAT is true, then the next question would be:
How long would it take for temps to recover? 10 years? 100 years? How much of the “warming” during the instrumental record is just a recovery from the Carrington event in 1859?
On the other hand, I question the results of this study for the simple reason that we DON’T have evidence (historical or otherwise) for such a massive amount of cooling in that time period.

How long to repair the grid if this occurred?

For a temperature chart, try this:
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcet/

PaulID: “the way I understand a carrington event only those electronic things that are turned on at the time of impact will be wiped …”
Sorta. There’s off and then there’s off. By and large, anything with a mechanical power switch close to the electronics will be fine. But a very large number of electronic devices are ‘on’ when they’re ‘off’. This is true for most kitchen electronics (microwave, etc.) as well as most entertainment devices. Even then, anything with a ‘soft off’ still has to deal with any antenna effect from an attached power cord whether the cord is plugged in or not.

Carrying ton events are pure chance. You can’t tax that, apart from at the betting shop.

tallbloke says:
September 26, 2012 at 11:09 pm
Given that HADsst2 shows a warming over the 1859-69 decade, perhaps more than anything, this study indicates how much ozone has been used incorrectly as a negative forcing in the models to help counteract the overestimation of the positive forcing of co2.
Pretty much everything is used in the climate models has an incorrectly high negative forcing or an incorrectly low positive forcing.
Gotta maintain that high CO2 forcing at all costs. Otherwise the gravy train gets derailed.

Katla did blow in 1860 gaining it a VEI-4 assignment. Other than for that activity, everything else was extremely low. If this is accurate.
http://www.volcano.si.edu/world/find_eruptions.cfm

Based on a model? Interesting, but has about as much credence as other model based predictions, all of which are wrong when compared to the present.

I am intrigued by the apparent acceptance that the solar effects involved in a Carrington event would reduce ozone higher up and thus cool the upper atmosphere.
The result would be a cooler mesosphere and stratosphere and a rising tropopause especially towards the poles allowing a poleward shift in the climate zones and more energy into the oceans to warm rather than cool the troposphere just as I have proposed previously.
Thanks to tallbloke for pointing out that according to HADsst2 there was warming after the Carrington event.
Also thanks to HenryP who shares my view that the models have the sign of the system response wrong as regards the effect of ozone changes.
The actual observed system response may be opposite to that used within their model and Joanna Haigh recently pointed out there is some evidence that the response to solar changes above 45km is the opposite of that previously thought.
The question then is whether solar variability on a 500 year timescale such as from MWP to LIA and LIA to date is also capable of reducing upper atmosphere ozone in the way observed during the late 20th century.
We do know that the mesosphere cooled along with the stratosphere at that time and my proposition has been that the cooling response higher up outweighed any warming response lower down to produce a solar induced cooling of both stratosphere and mesosphere when the sun was more active.
The observed climate changes on the surface would all be a consequance of the resultant shifts in the climate zones, jet stream behaviour and cloudiness / albedo variations causing a change in the amount of solar energy getting into the oceans to drive the climate system.
We also know that the cooling of the stratosphere stopped in the late 90s as solar activity declined from the peak of cycle 23 and that slight warming of the stratosphere may now be in progress coinciding with low cycle 24.
Simultaneously we see more meridional jets, a cessation of tropospheric warming (possibly slight cooling), and a stall in the increase in ocean heat content.
A lot of stuff comes together if one proposes a solar effect on ozone differentially at different heights plus a reversal of the usually assumed ozone response to solar variations.

more taxpayer money wasted:
27 Sept: Tampa Bay Times: AP: Gore to visit Nova’s coral reef research center
HOLLYWOOD, Fla. (AP) — Former Vice President Al Gore is slated to speak at the opening of Nova Southeastern University’s $50 million coral reef research center…
Nova received a $15 million dollar federal stimulus grant to help fund the center. University officials said the center has created 22 new academic jobs, 300 construction jobs and will employ 50 graduate students.
Researchers will also study the effects of climate change on reefs and examine their ability to recover from damage.
U.S. Congresswoman and Democratic National Committee Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz will also attend Thursday’s event.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/F/FL_GORE_CORAL_REEF_RESEARCH_FLOL-?SITE=FLPET&SECTION=HOME

Cars electronics should still work. The steel bodies will act as a Faraday cage, works with lightning so it should work against the odd proton. Put your computer etc. in a metal box.
Interesting post.

60+ comments and no one has actually noticed that the paper doesn’t anywhere discuss “global” cooling. This appears to have been invented by the headline writer of this post – as is the insertion of the “[global]” in the quote from the paper. It is obvious from their fig 9 (shown above) that the cooling is regional and associated with a shift in the arctic oscillation with cooling of *up to* 3K.
Way to go with the skepticism people…

Anthony,
In theory…a large meteor passing close to our atmosphere could disrupt our atmosphere and take some particles in it’s trailings.
The velocity of objects has very different effects depending on the speed of velocity.
If hitting the sun, a slow moving object would melt but an extremely fast object would disintegrate by friction and impact depending on size. Rotation helps greatly in deflection but our poles have the smallest velocity and vastly less atmosphere…

Commenters referring to global average temperatures (& CET) haven’t listened carefully before reacting. The paper speculates about terrestrial circulatory morphology changes due to solar modulation of temperature gradients (not averages) in the polar (not global) regions. Discussion: http://www.atmos-chem-phys-discuss.net/12/14747/2012/acpd-12-14747-2012-discussion.html

Since the entire global air circulation is a single entity I fail to see how one can have regional changes that do not have global implications.
Simply, any regional changes are a reflection of a changes in the global energy balance.
I think the effect of the Carrington event may have been spread over the subsequent couple of decades producing the global warming that occurred from 1859 to about 1880 though it is clear that regional effects were much less straightforward and clearly varied within that two decade period.
The important thing is that warming followed it in global terms and not cooling.
Even if that single event was too short lived to account for observations it remains my view that solar variations on a multicentennial timescale nonetheless produce the proposed or similar ozone effects but with a reverse sign system response.
An active sun cools the stratosphere for more zonal jets and a warming troposphere.
An inactive sun does the opposite.
The changes being implemented by global cloudiness and albedo variations.

Tallbloke says
Given that HADsst2 shows a warming over the 1859-69 decade,
Henry says
I see some of you guys are picking up on this: a reduction in ozone causes warming, not cooling.
Clever. You figured it out. Thanks.
I would imagine that the upper atmosphere acts like a sponge taking solar effects and converting it into chemical reactions (NOx, HOx + Ox) and distributing it. A massive ozone loss, if this is what the C-effect causes, would ultimately lead to a warming effect, but probably spread over 5-10 years.
Can you show me that graph, Tallbloke?

David Ball says:
September 26, 2012 at 9:16 pm
boballab says:
September 26, 2012 at 9:06 pm
Uhmmm, that is what I was talking about. No power? It would be anarchy.

You wouldn’t need to worry about the anarchy that follows since you would already be dead. Let me put it in perspective. If the power goes out for a long time people have the erroneous assumption that everyone will start attacking each other instantly. They won’t, it will take a while for the reality of he situation to sink in. Human beings are very good at self deception. So lets say it happens in late December, now we need to take a look at how long each possible killer is out there:
Starvation takes 30-60 days
Lack of water (Dehydration) takes 3-5 days
Freezing to Death (Hypothermia) <12 hours
A vast majority of deaths north of 40° Lat will be from Hypothermia long before they run out of water, or starve and well before the anarchy of the thing sets in. Freezing to death does not equal anarchy, anarchy is the breakdown of government and order and has nothing to do with the temperature.
Two things to look up is what happened at the end of the MWP to France and read John Ringo's "The Last Centurion" both deal with what happens in a slowly cooling world. In both cases the deaths from anarchy is a pittance to deaths from freezing, lack of water and food.

“Notice also the el Nino events at solar minima”
Looks like the extra energy entering the oceans during solar max is discharged some years later in El Ninos around solar minimum.
I hadn’t seen evidence on the timescale of single solar cycles before but it fits in well with my proposition that a more active sun alters the air circulation to allow more energy into the oceans to skew the ENSO balance in favour of El Nino.

@richardscourtney (September 27, 2012 at 8:08 am)
An average isn’t a gradient.

Stephen Wilde (September 27, 2012 at 8:47 am)
“Since the entire global air circulation is a single entity I fail to see how one can have regional changes that do not have global implications.”
Careful here. Be wary of accidental misinterpretation.
Global implications? Of course, but a gradient is not the same thing as an average. AAM & LOD tell us not that a global average temperature is modulated by the solar cycle, but rather that the midlatitude westerly winds are. That points directly to a modulation of equator-pole temperature gradients (via the thermal wind relation).
There’s NOT a 1:1 correspondence between equator-pole gradient changes and global average changes.
Cordial advice: Tell a story that’s consistent with observation.
Best Regards.

Ulric and Peter,
I don’t see anything in your comments that is inconsistent with what I said.
I deliberately left the fine details of the process alone in order to focus on the grand overview. Your comments simply help to flesh out the fine detail
Stefan,
Not all the solar energy gets to provoke more evaporation immediately. A lot of it penetrates the surface to depths of up to 300 metres and is moved around before it can return to the surface in order to affect the evaporation rate. The return to the surface at other places and other times affects the winds as Ulric points out.
Furthermore the actual data shows reduced cloudiness when more energy is getting into the oceans..Tallbloke correctly draws attention to that counter intuitive fact. Most of the extra energy going into the oceans when the sun is active occurs under dry, cloud free, subtropical high pressure cells where cloud development is suppressed by descending air.

Kelvin Vaughan says: September 27, 2012 at 3:34 am said: ”I have just decided what I want written on my headstone. “I told you it wasn’t warming!” and you can have “My formulas were fanatically ignored!.”
Hi Kelvin, idea is goood.
2]It’s no point proving to them; that they are wrong; they know that they are wrong – by trying to silence you – they are admitting that they know that they are wrong. 3] when you see some juicy lies, copy and keep for record, for the time when ”truth and reconciliation” comes. .
4]If one ”pretend” to know what was the GLOBAL temp for 1885, he will be on a witness stand under oath. By having temp for London for that year – knowing what was daily temp on Easter island, Midway in Pacific, Antarctic ocean / continent… he is talking about his integrity, not about the GLOBAL temperature
At that time wasn’t collected for Oceania, inland Australia; but now is. Will be compared: if when the temp in London goes up or down by a degree – does it goes same simultaneously on those places also?! THEY ARE 70 TIMES LARGER THAN ENGLAND!!!
5] nobody knows the GLOBAL temp for last year, to save his life, because on 99,9999999% of the planet nobody is monitoring now, they know about 19 century…?! Now they monitor for the hottest minute, but the other 1439 minutes is ignored – the other minutes are much more important, than the hottest – thousand to one influences… they don’t get cooler simultaneously by 2C, if the hottest minute is colder by 2C than yesterday. 6] if between two monitoring places is 100km and gets warmer by 2C than yesterday – but between the next two monitoring places is 1300km gets colder by 0,5C ====== for them larger area doesn’t have any different meaning. Because of their misleadings, trillion $$$ has being squandered, children brainwashed in school and university, lots of other crimes in progress. Punishment must fit the crime. The more evidences = the better for the jury. They are avoiding my proofs, facts and formulas as the devil avoids the cross
Kelvin, guess what’s the temp in your room – then look at the thermometer – most of the time you will be wrong guessing by 1-2-3-4C, your room temp, Kelvin, now. They can guess what was the temp in midway / mid pacific, 130y ago, on the other side of the planet… They know even what the amount of ozone was then…? using ozone as a smokescreen… because they started panicking – time is against them. People on the street will not buy for much longer; warmer / colder / warmer planet. It only proves that they don’t even know how the ozone functions. We overlooked the white lie regarding ozone, to prevent plastic burning, CFC; but using ozone to con about global temperature – they will discover that in industrial chemistry, the truth is already known; and the manipulators are 101% WRONG. Cheers.

@Stephen Wilde
Can you point me to cloud data that matches solar variables?
I need a direct link to a plain-text data-page.
Tallbloke or anyone else:
I make the same request of you.

Is there anyone here that thinks atmospheric wind patterns have nothing to do with surface temperature gradients?

Ulric.
One just needs to time shift the El Ninos by 5 years or so which is approximately half a solar cycle.
It is reasonable to accept some delay between solar energy entering the ocean and accumulating during solar max and then being released at or around solar minimum.
Obviously it isn’t quite that simple since other factors affect the ENSO process but in broad terms that is entirely plausible and seem to be largely borne out by tallbloke’s link.

I note evasion of my solar/cloud question:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/09/26/new-study-finds-that-a-carrington-class-solar-event-could-cause-global-cooling-of-more-than-3c/#comment-1092487
That’s the result I expected.

Ulric Lyons says: ”@stefanthedenier The trade winds force upwelling of colder water by Ekman pumping”
Ulric, I wasn’t arguing with you; but pointing that: trade-winds do many things, but don’t cause El Nino. ,Same as: you don’t use umbrella, to bring rain, but rain makes you to use umbrella.
2] people avoid the ”self adjusting mechanisms”; because are in details, in my book. People that hate me for bringing the truth and real proofs.
a] yes, seawater serves as shock absorber, and takes few months to readjust, but not ”many years”! If you want to ignore that evaporation is cooling process – if you want to ignore that extra clouds = extra sun-umbrella for the sea and land… you are maybe suffering from ”truth phobia” same as tallblocke.
b] but the biggest precursor of all misleading comes from; avoiding my proofs that: temperature in the troposphere OVERALL, adjust itself in less than 10 minutes / in ice age and in all the phony GLOBAL warmings; overall – warmth in the troposphere is and was ALWAYS the same!!! Laws of physics don’t change and don’t tell lies / they are the most reliable – if they don’t approve of some theory = that theory is a misleading crap. Avoiding those laws has created all the confusion – confusion doesn’t bring solutions to real problems
P.s. heat in the sea is ”STORED HEAT” sometimes more, others less – some places more / other places less. 2] ”stored heat”; as in the sea, in new trees, in fossil fuel, in plutonium, in the magma are not part of the official GLOBAL temperature, before that heat is released into the atmosphere. Therefore, sea-temperature can tell if is going to be more or less rain for the next few months – but incorporating the sea-temperature into the official global temp is for creating more confusion for the already confused. Same as if you incorporate Bill Gates’ money into your bank account, will not make you richer or poorer, but would be accused of dishonesty.
P.s. extra heat in the sea doesn’t come from the sun; but from activated submarine volcanoes / hot vents. b] 99% of the faulty line is on the bottom of the sea. Movements of the tectonic plates activates El Nino than la Nina – sometime neutral. c] when the sun intensity increase – so does the glare / reflection (sea-surface has mirror effect) ALL, 100% of the heat from submarine volcanoes / vents is absorbed by the water and spread by currents. d] the ocean is 2-4-6km closer to the earth’s center than land. e] 1km deep in the mine-shaft is 40C – average dept of the sea is more than 1km – all the dots are connected on my blog. Most people are for creating / increasing confusion; I’m for simplifying and bringing the truth – truth always wins on the end. Cheers!

Ulric said:
“What I describe corroborates with the evidence that my last link provided, that much warmer periods in the past had very little Nino conditions, while cold periods saw an increase in Nino episodes. Can we get on the same page on this most important point Stephan?”
I think we will need to respectfully disagree until more up to date data becomes available.
There is no doubt on the basis of recent observations that El Nino warms the troposphere and La Nina cools it or at the very least there is a redistribution of warmth and cold between regions.

“On what basis do you disagree with all these findings?
http://www.co2science.org/subject/e/summaries/ensogw.php”
I don’t disagree with any findings of fact, merely your interpretations of them or of their significance.
It is quite possible for all those findings to be accurate yet, on time scales that are relevant for us today, El Nino and LA Nina events and their varying dominance over time still to be the primary causes of tropospheric temperature changes and solar variations to be the primary causes of the changes in the relative dominance of El Nino and La Nina.
Quite simply, there are many factors that could be more influential on paleological time scales but that does not detract from the power of El Nino and La Nina on shorter time scales.

“El Nino usually happens when the AO/NAO are negative, as they are driven by the same solar signal.”
During the late 20th century we had run of powerful El Ninos at a time of generally active sun with positive AO.
Since 2000 we have seen less El Ninos, a quieter sun and more negative AO.
The recent record low solar minimum was accompanied by a record negative AO and we now have weaker El Ninos as compared to La Ninas.
It isn’t El Nino frequency or timing that matters. What matters is the thermal effect of El Ninos as compared to the thermal effect of La Ninas so the data you linked to does need interpretation.

Hi Henry.
Like you, I would be inclined to await better evidence of any link between the position of the magnetic pole and the shape of the atmospheric circulation or the size of the polar ice caps.
Overall I’m doubtful unless the magnetic changes serve as a proxy for the solar induced ozone changes which do appear to alter the air circulation from above.

I think FUV is Far Ultra violet and EUV is Extreme Ultra Violet.
The magnetic field only affects charged particles so I have proposed that the quantities of them could contribute to the ozone changes higher up especially since some of them affect NOx production which is highly reactive with ozone.

Perhaps the EUV and FUV photons are with a charge, sort of?

Remember that our ozone shield is not equal over the earth. It is much less in the SH and therefore, %wise, the drop in ozone until 1995/6 was much more spectacular in the SH. The SH oceans are really earth’s biggest energy store. I am thinking that this unequal distribution of ozone between the SH and the NH could have something to do with H-O compounds being naturally more available above the SH oceans, landing on top of the atmosphere by diffusion and with a bit of energy could collide and turn into peroxides that eat the ozone away? ( I am not sure of the potentials involved in those reactions, I will have to check). If I am correct on that, then that would explain a lot of things for me at the same time.
(your assumption that N-O could have something to do with it could also be correct, but then I would expect to see a more equal distribution of ozone over both hemispheres?)

you guys might be interested to have a look at this:
http://blogs.24.com/henryp/2012/10/02/best-sine-wave-fit-for-the-drop-in-global-maximum-temperatures/
any comments?

Kelvin Vaughan says: ”I enjoyed reading you blog up to the end, but 101%? That means out of 100 statements they made they were wrong 101 times?”
Hi Kelvin; almost in every statement, they are wrong on 2-3-4-5 things. I said as 101%, as a conservative estimate