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.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Anthony:
This is, in my opinion, one of the best threads ever since I started attending your campus several years ago! – and looks like it is not over yet.
Thanks.
Bart says:
October 1, 2012 at 2:19 pm
The oscillations of the SSN have very regular and repeatable structure, with some stochastic or chaotic variation. That makes them predictable with calculable error bounds.
Here you are completely wrong. The SSN is at most predictable one cycle ahead.
Leif Svalgaard says:
October 1, 2012 at 3:21 pm
“The SSN is at most predictable one cycle ahead.”
Have some oatmeal.
Leif Svalgaard says:
October 1, 2012 at 3:21 pm
Bart says:
October 1, 2012 at 2:19 pm
The oscillations of the SSN have very regular and repeatable structure, with some stochastic or chaotic variation. That makes them predictable with calculable error bounds.
Here you are completely wrong. The SSN is at most predictable one cycle ahead.
==========================
Umm, would unpredictable be too strong a word, Leif ?
Bart says:
October 1, 2012 at 3:36 pm
Have some oatmeal
It is people like you and your ilk that make one feel pity for the human race. You should be ashamed of yourself, but probably are not.
u.k.(us) says:
October 1, 2012 at 3:45 pm
Umm, would unpredictable be too strong a word, Leif ?
Probably, as it seems that we can predict at least between half and one cycle ahead:
http://www.leif.org/research/Predicting%20the%20Solar%20Cycle%20%28SORCE%202010%29.pdf
http://www.leif.org/EOS/Jiang-Choudhuri-2007.pdf
REPLY: Copied fixed link here. W.P. steals some special chars so needs unicode. -ModE ]
WordPress mangles the file name at times, this may work better:
http://www.leif.org/research/Predicting%20the%20Solar%20Cycle%20%28SORCE%202010%29.pdf
Leif Svalgaard says:
October 1, 2012 at 4:18 pm
WordPress mangles the file name at times, this may work better:
http://www.leif.org/research/Predicting%20the%20Solar%20Cycle%20%28SORCE%202010%29.pdf
==========================
Thanks for the update, Leif.
I scanned the first few pages, which certainly confirmed I was in over my head.
I’ll give it another try though.
Leif Svalgaard says:
October 1, 2012 at 4:01 pm
“It is people like you and your ilk that make one feel pity for the human race. You should be ashamed of yourself, but probably are not.”
Right back atcha’, big guy. You have no consideration whatsoever for other people. I’m just feeding you a mirror image. Don’t like what you see? Then, heal thyself, and start engaging constructively with people who, incredibly as it may seem, know a few things you do not.
Bart says:
October 1, 2012 at 5:18 pm
Right back atcha’
As I said you have no shame.
Leif Svalgaard says:
October 1, 2012 at 4:13 pm
“The SSN is at most predictable one cycle ahead.”
“Probably, as it seems that we can predict at least between half and one cycle ahead:”
And, so, you find yourself having to climb down, because you let your emotions get to you, and had to issue a categorical imperative, pound your chest, and bellow your alpha status.
Pah! It’s possible to predict several cycles ahead. Actually, you can predict as far as you like, but the predictions don’t mean much without error bars. That’s what the Kalman Filter formalism gives you.
Vucevik’s done a creditable right here, using just trial and error. An advanced method would be able to do a lot more, but you don’t want to hear about it. That’s your choice.
Leif Svalgaard says:
October 1, 2012 at 5:26 pm
“As I said you have no shame.”
Mirror, mirror…
Bart says:
October 1, 2012 at 5:30 pm
Actually, you can predict as far as you like, but the predictions don’t mean much without error bars.
Error bars larger than the ‘predicted’ values make the predictions useless to the point that they are no predictions at all. You seem not to have learned anything from our discussion, which would fit with your idea of ‘oatmeal’ being constructive engagement..
Serious and reliable prediction is of great societal and monetary importance.
From Bart on October 1, 2012 at 2:19 pm:
I was outdoors a while ago grilling sausage. I watched some stalks of overgrown grass, weeds, as their seedpod heads swayed in the wind, somewhat repeatably. I would not call them oscillators. Inherent in the concept of an oscillator is transformation, a stream of energy is transformed into a regulated pattern.
But what transforming were the stalks doing? Generalized, they were just a wad of cotton fibers wrapped around the end of a thin elastic rod. With a constant air flow, the heads should bend over so far and stay there, once the force from the wind balanced the elastic force from the stalk. Why were they coming back?
Which leads to the revelation I’m not watching the weeds acting as an oscillator, I’m watching the weeds react to variations in the wind.
Which brings up the importance of knowing the model, the physical mechanisms involved. Observations and correlations may indicate something worth investigating. But without having a plausible mechanism, that can be tested, they have little value. It is very important to identify the driver and the driven, and what is an effect of being driven. By observing the seedpods alone I might determine the weeds are oscillators, but the model reveals they are driven, and would not show apparent oscillation without the wind varying.
I can observe changes with a very regular and repeatable structure, by observing the display of my LCD wristwatch. But I do not declare the display an oscillator as I know the underlying mechanism. We have assorted old wind-up analog clocks with some stochastic or chaotic variation, that are predictable with calculable error bounds. But likewise I do not declare their hands and faces to be oscillators.
Provide a plausible testable physical mechanism, or you just have numbers. I can find existing examples with similar “predictable” apparent patterns to that seen with the solar cycles, that are not oscillators. I can find those that by simple observation could be declared oscillators, if it was not known they were driven by the real oscillators, or even by non-oscillating variations.
So provide the plausible testable mechanism where the Sun as an oscillator has the output of the observed solar cycles. Provide the proposed driving force. Provide the proposed restoring force, which would be required. Then you may have a chance at being persuasive.
Leif Svalgaard says:
October 1, 2012 at 5:55 pm
Do you really think you are supplying information here?
“Error bars larger than the ‘predicted’ values make the predictions useless to the point that they are no predictions at all.”
No kidding??!! Duh… gee, Laef, I never’da thunk ’bout it lak thayat. Is that really how you see yourself? Is this a joke? For crying out loud, get over yourself.
Reply: This is getting close to the edge of too insulting. I’m letting it through as Leif is a strong personality who can deal with it. Please be more polite. -ModE]
Bart says:
October 1, 2012 at 5:49 pm
“As I said you have no shame.”
Mirror, mirror…
I am amazed at your capacity for demeaning yourself. I guess I have not been exposed enough to people like you at the bottom of the scale. Well, one learns all the time. Very sad.
richardscourtney wrote in
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/09/28/dr-leif-svalgaard-on-the-new-scientist-solar-max-story/#comment-1097319
Mr. Courtney opens his comment with two argumentative fallacies, which are appeal to (anonymous) majority, who allegedly supported his accusations, and poisoning the well. The first one probably serves the function to reassure himself and as a try of intimidation, the second one to create a bias against the opponent from the beginning.
I do not lie. I misperceive things, sometimes. I make mistakes, sometimes. I do not phrase precisely enough, sometimes, what I want to say, But I do not deliberately tell falsehoods. These are comments in an opinion blog, not everything said here is perfect. I’m not perfect. I apologize for all the instances where I have done this, and to be on the safe side, already for all future instances.
What “detail” in the IPCC Report is supposed to have shown that I deliberately told a falsehood?
I have to admit I still fail to anticipate the high degree of maliciousness, with which “skeptics” like Mr. Courtney, when they have lost the scientific argument, twist words in someones mouth, just to make some cheap propaganda points and to have a pretext to personally attack the opponent. I said the IPCC Report agrees with my views, essentially. I wanted to have a theoretical basis for discussion, without the need to explain all my views here, first. Expecting, using the world essentially would be sufficient, I did not anticipate that this was going to be twisted in a way, that I allegedly said to agree with every single word in there. I should have explicitly stated that this doesn’t mean to agree with everything. My bad.
1. The statement to which I had replied originally was about “flat” temperatures “for 15 years”, which, given the context, likely was made to suggest, that those “flat” temperatures contradict the prediction of a global warming.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/09/28/dr-leif-svalgaard-on-the-new-scientist-solar-max-story/#comment-1095799
What the IPCC Report said about “committed warming” didn’t play a role there. It was about a statement I made.
I replied to that here:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/09/28/dr-leif-svalgaard-on-the-new-scientist-solar-max-story/#comment-1097319
Then JJ replied to my reply:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/09/28/dr-leif-svalgaard-on-the-new-scientist-solar-max-story/#comment-1097319
So, JJ’s argument, as I understand it, was that a time period of “15 years” make the difference for the assertion global warming “stopped”.
The topic was still not what the IPCC Report said about “committed warming”.
In reply to that I brought an example for 16 years “flat” temperature record from the last 40 years, which turned out to be only a wobble within an intact multi-decadal trend of a statistical significant temperature increase:
http://woodfortrees.org/plot/gistemp/from:1980/to:1995/plot/gistemp/from:1980/to:1995/trend/plot/uah/from:1980/to:1995/plot/uah/from:1980/to:1995/trend/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1980/to:1995/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1980/to:1995/trend/plot/rss/from:1980/to:1995/plot/rss/from:1980/to:1995/trend
(http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/09/28/dr-leif-svalgaard-on-the-new-scientist-solar-max-story/#comment-1096128)
And my request was to provide the scientific arguments for what makes the difference between the 16 years back then and the recent 15 years of “flat” temperatures, so that recent 15 years were evidence that global warming “stopped”, although back then it was just a temporary wobble due to internal natural variability.
Up to this point, this was the question, and not what the IPCC Report said about “committed warming”.
So far, no one of the “skeptics” has given any scientific argument, not a single one, what is different in Nature today compared to the time period 1980-1995, so recent 15 years were evidence that global warming “stopped”, while it didn’t back then.
2. Mr. Courtney’s has not provided any evidence so far, for his assertion that the recent temperature record was in contradiction to what the IPCC Report says.
I have already made my arguments in my previous comment regarding this, which Mr. Courtney has chosen to ignore, very likely for good reasons. My arguments are:
a)
And the IPCC doesn’t say it must be exact 0.2 K/decade. It says about 0.2 K/decade, of which about 0.1 K/decade are committed. As one can see from the figure, there is an uncertainty range, also for the committed increase:
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/figure-ts-26.html
Mr. Courtney has not shown to be able to refute this.
b)
The “about 0.2 K/decade” is the ensemble mean prediction, calculated from all the model realizations. Nature provides only one realization. We can’t restart Nature for the same boundary conditions and randomly perturbed initial conditions to get a statistical sample with sample size > 1. There is no reasonable argument why a single random realization from all possible realizations of a statistical population must be equal to the average of a sample that is an estimate of the mean of the population. If the single realization is within a defined uncertainty range, one can’t draw a valid conclusion, according to which the single realization doesn’t belong to the population.
Mr. Courtney has not shown to be able to refute this.
c)
I also want to point out that there are conditions made in the quote above from the IPCC report, cited by Mr. Courtney, for the about 0.2 K/decade increase, which are:
in the absence of large changes in volcanic or solar forcing.
In reality, at least solar forcing has decreased in the previous decade. Some predict it is going to decrease further in the next years. This has to be taken into account also, when doing an honest comparison between the prediction from the IPCC Report and real world data.
Mr. Courtney has not shown to be able to refute this.
The only scientifically valid approach to demonstrate that the recent temperature record is in contradiction to the statements about “committed warming” or the predictions of the temperature increase made in the IPCC Report, is to demonstrate that the recent temperature record is outside of the uncertainty range of the prediction.
Mr. Courtney has not done this. Therefore he has not demonstrated that the recent temperature record is in contradiction to the statements and predictions in the IPCC Report.
He can’t do it, because the temperature record is not outside the uncertainty range:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2012/02/2011-updates-to-model-data-comparisons/
Mr. Courtney goes on,
The rest of your post is similar. Indeed, it purports to be a defence against your exposure as a liar but adds more lies; for example, this
Back to the recent 15-year period and what the IPCC allegedly says about “committed warming”. Mr. Courtney asserts that “committed warming” hasn’t happened, and can’t happen until the year 2020 for reasons of physics.
That is another blatant lie.
I wrote
Such a rise would be extraordinary and is probably a physical impossibility because of the thermal capacity of the oceans.
“Probably a physical impossibility” is NOT “can’t happen … for reasons of physics”.
Indeed, Mr. Courtney did not say, it can’t happen. He said instead, it was “probably a physical impossibility”. I reproduced it as an absolute statement, although he had added a “probably”, which includes the possibility that he was mistaken. My phrasing was not precise, but it was not a deliberate falsehood. I apologize for my sloppy phrasing.
I use the opportunity to get back to this statement by Mr. Courtney:
(http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/09/28/dr-leif-svalgaard-on-the-new-scientist-solar-max-story/#comment-1095773)
Assuming, for the sake of the argument, that the IPCC Report claimed a “committed warming” of exactly 0.2 K/decade until 2020 (which it didn’t. See above).
Mr. Courtney claims, a rise sufficient to get there from the year 2012 would be “extraordinary”.
I say he is wrong about “extraordinary”. Similar has happened before. I already presented the time period 1980-1995 as the example for a similar “flat” temperature record within the last 40 years, which is very similar to the recent one. From the end of year 1995 to 2000, only five years were left. The decadal trend from 1981 to 2000 was 0.165 K at the end. The globally averaged temperature anomaly increased from about 0.2 K in mid 1996 to about 0.6 K early 1998 in the surface data sets (the satellite data sets show an even larger increase over this short period). That did it.
Now, there are even more than eight years left until the end of 2020.
Bart;
Pah! It’s possible to predict several cycles ahead.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
So put your prediction on the table. That’s about the only way the argument gets settled. Make a prediction and we can revisit it in a decade or two or three and see how close you got. Bold claims are meaningless.
I’ll make this observation however. There’s a lot of people who were quite certain that they could predict all manner of things about this planet we live on. We’ve got more information, in more detail, for longer time periods about earth than we do about the sun, and so far all the prognosticators who knew for certain what our climate was going to do and when have wound up with a considerable amount of egg on their faces. By all means, make your prediction. I suggest you keep some paper towels at hand because my prediction is that you’ll need them.
kadaka (KD Knoebel) says:
October 1, 2012 at 5:59 pm
“Which leads to the revelation I’m not watching the weeds acting as an oscillator, I’m watching the weeds react to variations in the wind.”
Nope. You’re watching the damped oscillations at the natural frequency of the stalk excited by the input wind gusts. This is really a trivial example.
“But without having a plausible mechanism, that can be tested, they have little value. “
Nope. Empirical methods are used all the time. They work. These methods have grown out of functional analysis, which allows an incredibly wide range of processes governed by partial differential equations to be expanded as a set of eigenfunctions harmonic in time. Such behavior is ubiquitous in Nature.
” But I do not declare the display an oscillator as I know the underlying mechanism. “
The underlying mechanism is, in fact, a quartz oscillator.
Adding to the last comment by me, alternatively look at the temperature trend for the various data sets from 1984 to 2003 to also have eight additional years after the period 1980 to 1995. All temperature trends are about or above 0.2 K/decade, despite “flat” temperature from 1980 to 1995.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/trend.php
Leif Svalgaard says:
Error bars larger than the ‘predicted’ values make the predictions useless to the point that they are no predictions at all.
Leif, please. Show some compassion.
Don’t say things like that in front of the ‘climate scientists’.
davidmhoffer says:
October 1, 2012 at 6:30 pm
“So put your prediction on the table.”
Why should I? It’s not my job. I just know the methodology exceedingly well, and can recognize when it hasn’t been employed even near to its fullest. Vucevik’s demonstration alone is enough to confirm what I say. He nailed the latest cycle peak.
“I suggest you keep some paper towels at hand because my prediction is that you’ll need them.”
I suggest you keep your day job – stand up isn’t for you.
Bart says:
October 1, 2012 at 6:57 pm
I just know the methodology exceedingly well, and can recognize when it hasn’t been employed even near to its fullest.
The world is full of people who ‘know things exceedingly well’. As Mark Twain said “it’s not what you know that gets you in trouble, it is what you know that ain’t”. In science, claims must be validated by successful prediction. If you cannot, you have nothing but numerology, but then lots of people also believe in that, so you are in good company.
JJ says:
October 1, 2012 at 6:52 pm
Show some compassion.
Don’t say things like that in front of the ‘climate scientists’.
I didn’t know they pay attention to error bars…
Jan P Perlwitz says:
I do not lie. I misperceive things, sometimes. I make mistakes, sometimes.
Perhaps if you made fewer ‘mistakes’ and owned up to them when they were pointed out, you wouldn’t be so ‘misunderstood’.
I apologize for all the instances where I have done this, and to be on the safe side, already for all future instances.
Mother never accepted such weak sauce. She knew that an apology could not be sincere if the apologist could not, or would not, bring himself to identify his err.
Then JJ replied to my reply:
“Uh no. Not like that at all. None of those periods is anywhere near fifteeen years in length.
From your arguments above, you demonstrate that you understand and affirm the difference between short periods and long periods WRT statistical significance in trends.”
So, JJ’s argument, as I understand it, was that a time period of “15 years” make the difference for the assertion global warming “stopped”.
No. JJ understands that there is no warming over any period when the trend is zero. Goes to the definition of “trend”.
The issue: is the period in question of sufficient duration to falsify a hypothesis test of the ‘global warming’ conjecture that there exists a dominant and increasing warming factor attributable to anthropogenic CO2.
And my request was to provide the scientific arguments for what makes the difference between the 16 years back then and the recent 15 years of “flat” temperatures, so that recent 15 years were evidence that global warming “stopped”, although back then it was just a temporary wobble due to internal natural variability.
Your request is nonsensical. It demands that the respondent accept your ‘global warming’ theory in order to answer. This is a form of confirmation bias, in that you cannot even conceive of an alternative interpretation such that you can ask an unloaded question. It is also a decidedly unscientific attempt to redefine the null hypothesis. Tsk.
From where we sit, both 15 year periods you refer to may be due to natural variability. There need be no identifiable difference between them, as ‘natural variability’ does not require that there be any. Flat may be followed by falling, by rising, or by more flat.
Conversely, ‘global warming’ theory makes claims that put bounds on the behaviour of the temp trend. What remains before us unanswered is where you draw those bounds. To wit:
Given that you clearly hold your own conceptualization of ‘global warming’ to be a scientific proposition, what are your falsification criteria for temps?
How long can global average surface temps remain flat before you admit your theory is bust?
How long would they have to rise at less than the 0.2C/decade rate predicted by the low end of your scenarios before you will accept that you are wrong?
How much can they drop, before you will come to that conclusion?
These are very simple questions, for someone who has indeed developed a useful ‘theory of climate’. In fact, having the answers to those questions is a necessary condition to any claim to having done so. Be a dear and answer them.
Please be specific.