An article in the New Scientist says:
But Dr. Leif Svalgaard, one of the worlds leading solar physicists and WUWT’s resident solar expert has this to say:
Solar max is a slippery concept. One can be more precise and *define* solar max for a given hemisphere as the time when the polar fields reverse in the hemisphere. The reversals usually differ by one or two years, so solar max will similarly differ. The North is undergoing reversal right now, so has reached maximum. The South is lagging, but already the polar field is rapidly decreasing, so reversal may be only a year away. Such asymmetry is very common.
Here is a link to the evolution of the polar fields as measured at WSO:
http://www.leif.org/research/WSO-Polar-Fields-since-2003.png
And here’s data all the way back to 1966, note there has not been a crossing of the polar fields yet in 2012, a typical event at solar max:
http://www.leif.org/research/Solar-Polar-Fields-1966-now.png
Here is a link to a talk on this: http://www.leif.org/research/ click
on paper 1540.
Dr. Svalgaard adds:
Solar max happens at different times for each hemisphere. In the North we are *at* max right now. For the South there is another year to go, but ‘max’ for a small cycle like 24 is a drawn out affair and will last several years. To say that max falls on a given date, e.g. Jan 3rd, 2013, at UT 04:15 is meaningless.
“””””…..John Whitman says:
September 28, 2012 at 4:14 pm
george e smith says:
September 28, 2012 at 3:25 pm
Any fly fisherman knows that when you cast a fly line, you have to make the cast in such a way, that the linear momentum, and angular momentum, are both of the same sign, either both positive (forward cast) or negative (backward cast), and if you launch it with crossed up momentum signs, you get a tailing loop mess; every time..
= = = = = =
george e smith,
For casting a fly line, you must have a time lag after your back or forward false cast for the fly line to become approximately straight before you reverse your false cast in another direction. The key is that time lag judgment by the fisherman……John Whitman says:
September 28, 2012 at 4:14 pm
george e smith says:
September 28, 2012 at 3:25 pm
Any fly fisherman knows that when you cast a fly line, you have to make the cast in such a way, that the linear momentum, and angular momentum, are both of the same sign, either both positive (forward cast) or negative (backward cast), and if you launch it with crossed up momentum signs, you get a tailing loop mess; every time..
= = = = = =
george e smith,
For casting a fly line, you must have a time lag after your back or forward false cast for the fly line to become approximately straight before you reverse your false cast in another direction. The key is that time lag judgment by the fisherman……”””””
Well I don’t do much, if any, false casting, that just wastes time and effort so the fish has gone bye bye by the time you decide to cast to it.
And you don’t need any more time than it takes for the line to unroll and turn over the leader and fly; after that it will drop on the ground, if you wait any longer.
Mr Perlwitz says:
“…all the statements that build the theory of climate are tested against data from the real world.”
For a ‘scientist’, Mr Perlwitz cannot seem to understand scientific terminology. There is no “theory of climate”. There are conjectures and hypotheses. But a theory must be able to make testable, consistent and accurate predictions. As we see, no models are capable of accurate forecasting unless the error bars are so gigantic that the result is meaningless.
And, peak at ~2010: about 50. Conclusion: significant decline, expect temperatures to start dropping soon.
JanP
Then, if one wants to study climate change, one branches off simulations from the control simulation. In the branched off simulations, the boundary conditions are allowed to vary with time, and it is still a pure boundary condition problem that is being numerically solved. Then the statistics of the changed climate are compared with the statistics of the control simulations.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
There’s your problem. You’ve arrived at a simulation that when run over thousands of years arrives at some approximation of current conditions. You then make the assumption that by changing a given input such as 2X CO2, you can run the simulation forward in time and arrive at an approximation that is valid for the future.
The error you are making is in your assumption that there are no OTHER input properties to a given set of boundary conditions that, when run forward in time, wind up approximating current conditions. In fact, we have evidence that other value of input properties DO result in a an approximation of current conditions. We know this for the very reason that richardscourtney keeps on pointing out to you. The fact that inputs for aerosol forcing between models have a dramaticaly broader range than the model outputs themselves, is de facto evidence that the models are dependent upon input factors that are WRONG.
This being the case, the combination of input factors, which we know to be wrong for (at a minimum) all except one of the models, we can have NO CONFIDENCE AT ALL in their results projected into the future.
D Böehm says:
September 29, 2012 at 7:06 pm
I kind of expect him/her to come back with the old standby “Apparently you don’t understand science.” Which makes me think of my favorite Dilbert cartoon.
“””””…..Bart says:
September 28, 2012 at 4:55 pm
……………………………..
george e smith says:
September 28, 2012 at 3:25 pm
“…so you point your thumb in the positive angular rotation or velocity, or angular momentum direction and your fingers wrap around the vector direction in a clockwise direction…”
Use your other right hand. Or, get a new clock ;-)…..”””””
Well Bart, When I point MY right hand thumb at an analog clock face, I find that MY right hand fingers DO curl around that thumb direction in the usual clockwise direction.
So Why would I be looking at a clock face from INSIDE the clock. The only other explanation for your conclusion, could be that you are choosing as the right hand, what some primitive people use to wipe their rear end; In the West we use paper instead.
kadaka (KD Knoebel) wrote in
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/09/28/dr-leif-svalgaard-on-the-new-scientist-solar-max-story/#comment-1095241
We are talking about Volume 1 of the IPCC Report, “The Physical Science Basis”. It is obvious that your “argument”, with which you dismiss the IPCC Report, is based on hearsay without you bothering to do any fact checking. The assertion about all the “grey literature” allegedly thrown in is not true for this volume. Each chapter of this volume is based on a few hundred papers from peer reviewed scientific journals.
You are free to check for yourself:
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/contents.html
Bart says:
September 29, 2012 at 7:00 pm
So, we have four decades over which solar activity can tell us reliably which direction temperatures are headed, yet you insist that there is no correlation.
Your assertion is much too naive [you should listen to the EE in you] as your other suppositions of solar activity. The climate system has large inertia and will respond [if at all] only to the longer-term evolution of solar activity as given by the century-scale ‘swells’. Even if you allow shorter responses you still find a disconnect and no correlation, e.g. http://www.leif.org/research/Lockwood-2447-60.pdf
“Here we show that over the past 20 years [by now 25], all the trends in the Sun that could have had an influence on the Earth’s climate have been in the opposite direction to that required to explain the observed rise in global mean temperatures.”
“The thermal capacity of the Earth’s oceans is large and this will tend to smooth out decadal-
scale (and hence solar cycle) variations in global temperatures, but this is not true of centennial variations”
You are way out of your depth here.
“””””…..Bart says:
September 29, 2012 at 1:12 pm
Bart says:
September 29, 2012 at 1:01 pm
Cue Leif screaming “It’s an 11 year cycle!” in 3-2-1…
The 11 year cycle is the rectified energy output of the 22 year Hale cycle, which is the period required for the Sun to return to its previous state. “””””
Well Bart, you seem to be full of avant garde definitions. Most people would regard any cycle as the period required to return to the same state; not to some previous different state. So just how does one “rectify” energy ? Are you sugesting, that there are energies where you have to add more energy just to get to NO energy at all ?
Jan P Perlwitz says:
September 29, 2012 at 5:51 pm
“Why are you faulting me? You have to admit that everyone has been piling on me, after I replied to some initial comment here.”
You made the initial and conscious decision to raise a controversial issue concerning greenhouse gasses being the dominant driver of temperature, wrong thread, wrong topic. You haven’t shown any courtesy to the wide variety of opinions here and have been dominantly vocal throughout. It seems as tho even from early on, your intentions were to disrupt what is actually a very interesting topic.
“Why don’t you blame them?”
I actually read Anthony Watts blog regularly and have become familiar with many of the readers and the variety of opinions they have, I think it would have been reasonable for you to a least engage with the readers here on topic instead of jumping in off the deep end, besides there are discussions on greenhouse gasses here too.
“And I haven’t even been able to answer to all of them, which has been very hurtful. And now you pile on me, too, and you promptly triggered another reply by me.”
It does seem that you made an incredible effort to answer (or dismiss) all of them, including being able to post some very unfair deceptive (hurtful?) articles about WUWT on your blog and encourage comments about how unscientific it’s readers are, which after I read prompted my response. (like I’ve nothing better to do! well actually I don’t, so your in luck).
“What can I do?”
Ha! [self snip] /jk
george e smith says:
September 29, 2012 at 7:24 pm
Well, Geo, that’s the convention. Google, e.g., “counterclockwise positive rotation” for confirmation. You’ll find many references, such as this. For the clock, you point your thumb normal to the clock face coming out of the clock, and the clock hands move opposite your fingers wrapping around it, so the rotation is negative (clockwise).
Leif Svalgaard says:
September 29, 2012 at 9:03 am
“In general, it is rather simple: solar activity has gone down the past several cycles, cosmic rays have gone up, and in contrast: cloud cover has gone down and temperatures have gone up.”
To present the actual data in contrast, with readily verifiable links, so some readers may get over naivety about Svalgaard:
Under increased (not decreased) solar activity with more GCR deflection, average cosmic ray flux went down (not up) a substantial 3% from cycle 20 (1964-1976) through cycle 21 and the cycle 22 ending in 1996.
The late 1970s through part of the 1990s, the heart of the anthropogenic global warming scare’s basis, was a time of substantially increased average solar activity (and reduced GCR flux reducing shading cloud cover) compared to the time of the global cooling scare before it. The El Nino in the late 1990s is when global temperatures peaked, being afterwards at most approximately flat to declining subsequently through now (2012), as seen at http://woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/from:1998/plot/rss/from:1998/trend
Cycle 23 from 1996 to 2008 later corresponded to about 0.5% more average cosmic ray flux than cycle 20, but the magnitude of the smaller difference there contrasts to the preceding. Only very recently has cosmic ray flux started to get much above the levels of cycle 20.
Solar cycle 20: October 1964 to June 1976 = 6180.84 average measured neutron count
Solar cycle 21: June 1976 to September 1986 = 5991.43 average measured neutron count
(showing cycle 21 had 96.9% of the cosmic ray index of cycle 20, 1.032x the inverted cosmic ray count, with increased solar activity deflecting more cosmic rays and decreasing GCR flux)
Solar cycle 22: September 1986 to May 1996 = 5991.56 average measured neutron count
Solar cycle 23: May 1996 to December 2008 = 6213.57 average measured neutron count
No appeal to sunspot number trend claims can truly counter what the neutron monitor data shows for cosmic ray counts having primarily gone down (not up) during the heart of the global warming scare, as expected under GCR theory, for the neutron counts are a more direct indicator of GCR flux.
The preceding figures are shown respectively by:
http://cosmicrays.oulu.fi/webform/query.cgi?startday=01&startmonth=10&startyear=1964&starttime=00%3A00&endday=01&endmonth=06&endyear=1976&endtime=00%3A00&resolution=Automatic+choice&picture=on
http://cosmicrays.oulu.fi/webform/query.cgi?startday=01&startmonth=06&startyear=1976&starttime=00%3A00&endday=01&endmonth=09&endyear=1986&endtime=00%3A00&resolution=Automatic+choice&picture=on
http://cosmicrays.oulu.fi/webform/query.cgi?startday=01&startmonth=09&startyear=1986&starttime=00%3A00&endday=01&endmonth=05&endyear=1996&endtime=00%3A00&resolution=Automatic+choice&picture=on
http://cosmicrays.oulu.fi/webform/query.cgi?startday=01&startmonth=05&startyear=1996&starttime=00%3A00&endday=01&endmonth=12&endyear=2008&endtime=00%3A00&resolution=Automatic+choice&picture=on
The fraction of cycle 24 from December 2008 through now is of 6549.4 average neutron count, corresponding to a substantial rise in GCR flux and decline in solar activity relative to cycle 20. However, the past few years are a far cry from the past several decades or the past several solar cycles.
With this having been pointed out repeatedly before, Svalgaard already knows this, but he follows the standard strategy that blatant and shameless repetition of a claim often enough gets many naive people to fall for it (while occasionally throwing in a superficial one-liner against CAGW if posting on WUWT, of never any serious argument against it but getting the naive to auto-trust).
Leif Svalgaard says:
September 29, 2012 at 6:49 pm
“http://www.leif.org/research/Cloud-Cover-GCR-Disconnect.png”
Debunked before.
GISS-ISCCP junk.
As a prior post of mine earlier in this thread remarked:
“There is a series of attempts by the CAGW movement to discredit cosmic rays having an influence ( http://www.sciencebits.com/RealClimateSlurs , http://www.sciencebits.com/HUdebate , etc.), and a particularly common one is to claim such is disproven by divergence between the cloud cover trends reported by the ISCCP at Hansen’s GISS in recent years (unfortunately publicized in climate4you.com graphs using them as a source) and that expected from GCR trends. However, http://calderup.wordpress.com/2011/10/05/further-attempt-to-falsify-the-svensmark-hypothesis/ illustrates the “accidentally” uncorrected error from change in ISCCP satellite viewing angle occurring then, including a graph showing how other cloud cover trend datasets went in a different direction. The latter are less divergent from 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.
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://s18.postimage.org/n9nm5glc7/solar_GCRvswatervapor.jpg
The top is from:
http://www.climate4you.com/images/NOAA%20ESRL%20AtmospericSpecificHumidity%20GlobalMonthlyTempSince1948%20With37monthRunningAverage.gif
The bottom is from, inverted:
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“
Leif Svalgaard says:
September 29, 2012 at 7:34 pm
“The climate system has large inertia and will respond [if at all] only to the longer-term evolution of solar activity as given by the century-scale ‘swells’.”
Again betraying your lack of experience with dynamic systems. Things start changing immediately. The lag is in the steady state. But, because the inertia is large, the near term response is essentially an integration. And, there you go.
You really ought to be more cautious when venturing outside your area of expertise. You keep making these outlandish statements which, frankly, would subject you to ridicule in knowledgeable circles.
george e smith says:
September 29, 2012 at 7:54 pm
“Well Bart, you seem to be full of avant garde definitions.”
Pretty standard, actually. Every undergraduate EE knows that full-wave rectification of a sine wave doubles the frequency (halves the period) of the fundamental harmonic. It’s because of the trig identities sin(x)^2 = 0.5 – 0.5*cos(2x), cos(x)^2 = 0.5 + 0.5*cos(2*x).
Leif and I have been through this conversation before. The PSD of the SSN shows four main peaks with periods of 10 years, 10.8 years, 11.8 years, and 131 years. These four peaks are expected when the SSN is a rectification of a process with major harmonics at 20 years, and 23.6 years.
A pretty decent stochastic model of the SSN can be constructed from the absolute value of two lightly damped oscillators driven by wideband random processes (idealized as “white” noise). Simulation of this model produces data similar to what we observe.
Leif should get himself a Kalman Filter expert. Using a model such as this, he could obtain optimal estimates of future solar activity with associated error bounds. But, it’s a subject he doesn’t know much about, so he assumes it is unimportant.
Bart says:
September 29, 2012 at 8:36 pm
The PSD of the SSN shows four main peaks with periods of 10 years, 10.8 years, 11.8 years, and 131 years. These four peaks are expected when the SSN is a rectification of a process with major harmonics at 20 years, and 23.6 years.
Indeed, we have been over this nonsense before. You have the physics all wrong. The solar cycle is not “the absolute value of two lightly damped oscillators driven by wideband random processes (idealized as “white” noise)”.
subject you to ridicule in knowledgeable circles.
Most certainly not. Only in the pseudo-science circles you frequent.
Bart says:
September 29, 2012 at 8:36 pm
A pretty decent stochastic model of the SSN can be constructed from the absolute value of two lightly damped oscillators driven by wideband random processes (idealized as “white” noise).
You might educate yourself a bit on what the solar cycle really is:
http://solarphysics.livingreviews.org/Articles/lrsp-2010-6/
Bart says:
September 29, 2012 at 8:36 pm
Leif should get himself a Kalman Filter expert.
Oh, but I have. Here is a paper by two of my colleagues
http://arxiv.org/pdf/0807.3284v3.pdf
The technique works by data assimilation if the underlying model is valid, and yours is not. Again, you are way out of your depth.
Bart says:
September 29, 2012 at 8:36 pm
Leif should get himself a Kalman Filter expert.
Here is a tutorial for you [hopefully accessible enough]:
http://ihy.boulder.swri.edu/WHI/WHI_2WS/PRESENTATIONS/SOLARCYCLE/PLENARIES/Data_Assimilation_Approach_Kitiashvili_Kosovichev.pdf
where you can learn more about Kalman Filtering and the solar cycle.
From Jan P Perlwitz on September 29, 2012 at 7:25 pm:
Volume 1? Presumably you mean Working Group 1. Strange mistake for someone appearing to be such an expert on the IPCC reports.
An independent audit of the Fourth Assessment Report has already been completed, all references researched and vetted. WG1 did best, it averaged out to only 7% non-peer-reviewed sources, varying from Chapter 1 at 20% non-peer-reviewed, with Chapters 3,5, and 7 at only 4% non-peer-reviewed.
For all 44 chapters of the Report, 21 chapters had 59% or less of their references actually being peer-reviewed.
That’s a lot of grey literature. Even in WG1. And that’s not hearsay.
JanP;
As you have yet responded to my point about the low level of scientific understanding reported by the IPCC in AR4 WG1 regarding the vast bulk of factors affecting earth’s radiative balance, I thought I would also draw your attention to AR4 WG1 8.1.2.3 Testing Models Against Past and Present Climate in which it is stated that:
“Knutti et al. (2002) showed that in a perturbed physics ensemble of Earth System Models of Intermediate Complexity (EMICs), simulations from models with a range of climate sensitivities are consistent with the observed surface air temperature and ocean heat content records, if aerosol forcing is allowed to vary within its range of uncertainty. ”
There you have it yet again Dr JanP. The models only reach an output that approximates measured value if, and only if, aerosol forcing is allowed to be different for every model such that it results in them agreeing with each other. Since the real world can have only one actual aerosol forcing value, the only conclusion one can daw by the need to use values that are widly different from one another is to use them to cancel out other mistakes inherent in the model and hope nobody notices. This is exactly what richardscourtney has been complaining about, and a charge you refuse to answer. With Aersol values all over the map, we can only conclude that there is only one valid number to use for Aerosol forcing, and all the others are wrong. That being the case, the close approximations achieved between models shows that they have the balance of their analysis also wrong, way wrong, and the aerosol fudge factor is simply applied in an amount equal and opposite to the error inherent in each model in the first place. The problem with this is that since we don’t know the source of the error, the calculations producing it will result in new unexepected errors as time goes forward, forcing researchers to either admit that their models were wrong in the first place, or to change the aersosol number yet again to bring that model back in line. That you cannot see this for what it is, using aerosol forcing as a fudge factor that can, at best, get a model to approximate current conditions but render it useless for predicting future conditions in beyond me.
But you were the one the stipulated to IPCC AR4 WG1 as being representative of your views.
JanP;
From IPCC AR4 wG1 8.1.3.1 Parameter Choices and “Tuning”
The number of degrees of freedom in the tuneable parameters is less than the number of degrees of freedom in the observational constraints used in model evaluation. This is believed to be true for most GCMs – for example, climate models are not explicitly tuned to give a good representation of North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) variability
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
See the problem here JanP? Modeling the NAO isn’t very easy for the models to do. BUT, we have considerable evidence to suggest that the NAO has a measurable effect on global temps, so NOT being able to model it makes he model…useless. And don’t even get me going on ENSO, the models can’t predict either ENSO or the effects of ENSO on climate. But hey, you said you were in agreement for the most part with IPCC AR4 WG1 so, do you agree that these are major problems or not?
JanP
You may also want to refer to IPCC AR4 Wg1 8.2 Advances in Modelling which says:
Despite the many improvements, numerous issues remain. Many of the important processes that determine a model’s response to changes in radiative forcing are not resolved by the model’s grid. Instead, sub-grid scale parametrizations are used to parametrize the unresolved processes, such as cloud formation and the mixing due to oceanic eddies.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Gee JanP, would this be the same cloud albedo that was ranked by the IPCC has having a very low level of scientific understanding? Are you sure this is the source that you want to represent your opinion of the state of the art of the science?
I’m only scratching the surface here, but the hour is late. By the time I wake up again I imagine richardscourtney and others will have torn a few more strips off you. Do no shrink from the fight man! If you believe so strongly in your position, then defend it, by all means.
Jan P Perlwitz:
At September 29, 2012 at 4:26 pm you yet again you resort to blatant lies when asked to justify your assertions of superstitious twaddle.
I wrote saying to you at September 29, 2012 at 2:24 pm
Your reply is so jaw-droppingly, ridiculous, outrageous and untrue that few would believe anybody would write it. Therefore, I copy all of it to ensure that others know I am replying to what you actually wrote which was
NO REPORT OF THE IPPC SAYS, IMPLIES OR SUGGESTS
“that anthropogenic greenhouse gases have become the dominant climate driver on a multi-decadal and centuries time scale”.
I do study the scientific literature and – as this thread demonstrates – you don’t, and you deny what the literature says when it is quoted to you. And because of that difference you comare me to “creationists”!? ROFL
Indeed, your post replies to my accurate statement that says
By saying
I made no falsehood and you have cited none that you claim I have made.
You have replied to none of my points – none, not one, not any – except with blatant and demonstrable lies.
Are you real or are you pretending to be employed by GISS in attempt to discredit that Agency?
I ask because I am both appalled and surprised that any Agency of a Western government would employ a deluded, arrogant, bigoted, pseudoscientist of your kind.
Richard
Leif Svalgaard says:
September 29, 2012 at 8:48 pm
‘The solar cycle is not “the absolute value of two lightly damped oscillators driven by wideband random processes (idealized as “white” noise)”.’
“Here is a paper by two of my colleagues”
Bless your heart, Leif. You don’t realize that is precisely equivalent to what your guys are doing. Except they’re only modeling a single mode. And, there are several other things they could do to improve their processing.
Jan P Perlwitz says:
September 29, 2012 at 4:04 pm
……………….
Re: Central England Summer-Winter Temperatures apparent ‘paradox’
Vukcevic:
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/MidSummer-MidWinter.htm
1. the 350 years long record of the CET the mid-summer temperatures has no rising trend, but one would be expected, at least since 1950s if ‘the GHG factor’ was active. (see graph in the link above)
2. the 350 years long record of the CET the mid-winter temperatures has an even rising trend, going back to 1660s, but that would not be expected, at least not before say 1860s, some 200 years later, and continue at same rate post 1860 if ‘the GHG factor’ was active.(see graph in the link above)
Perlwitz:
I asked you to elaborate to what central statements of the theory the CET temperature record was in contradiction, if you make such an assertion. Just repeating the assertion that it was in contradiction isn’t really for what I asked you. How am I supposed to reply, if you don’t tell me, because I wouldn’t know what the alleged contradiction is supposed to be.
Dr. Perlwitz, I do not accept that you do not clearly understand what is meant by the above, what I am not certain whether your aim was to explain science or to ‘play cat and mouse game’, if the later, as it appears to be the case, I am not interested.
Dr. Perlwitz, you failed not because you didn’t , but because you clearly did understood ‘CET paradox’. You are always welcome back with good solid reasoning on the subject.
It is incumbent on those who define and promote a hypothesis of great uncertainty, on which the law of ‘green taxes’ in the UK and many other countries is based, to do explaining.
You have to make your living, and I have to keep paying not insubstantial ‘green tax.