Global Cooling – Climate and Weather Forecasting.
Guest post by Dr. Norman Page
Introduction.
Over the last 10 years or so as new data have accumulated the general trend and likely future course of climate change has become reasonably clear. The earth is entering a cooling phase which is likely to last about 30 years and possibly longer. The major natural factors controlling climate change have also become obvious.Unfortunately the general public has been bombarded by the scientific and media and political establishments with anthropogenic global warming – anti CO2 propaganda based on the misuse and misrepresentation of already shoddy IPCC “science” for political ,commercial and personal ends.
The IPCC climate science community largely abandoned empirical Baconian inductive scientific principles and built worthless climate models based on unfounded assumptions designed to show that anthropogenic CO2 was the driving force behind changing climate. Most of the IPCC output is useless as a tool for predicting future climate trends and their impacts and in particular the IPCC Summaries for Policymakers can be safely ignored for practical purposes. The divergence between the IPCC Hansen projections and the observed trends is shown below.
Fig 1 ( From Prof. Jan-Erik Solheim (Oslo) )
Fortunately, however , the basic data is now easily available so that any reasonably intelligent person can check on line daily or monthly to see what the incoming empirical data actually is and draw ones own conclusions.
Here’s how to do it in a few simple steps. I have put in CAPITALS the main empirical observations on which one can draw conclusions re climate change ,its causes and future trends and also get a good idea of weather patterns and trends for the next year or so.
1. Check the Temperature Trends and Data.
Because of the Urban Heat Island effect ,the built in local variability of the NH land data and the thermal inertia of the oceans, Sea Surface Temperatures are the best measure of global temperature trends. These show that the global warming trend ended in about 2003. THERE HAS NOW BEEN NO NET WARMING SINCE 1997 -15 YEARS WITH CO2 RISING 8.5% WITH NO GLOBAL TEMPERATURE INCREASE. SINCE 2003 THE TREND IS NEGATIVE.
To check the past years go to
ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/anomalies/annual.ocean.90S.90N.df_1901-2000mean.dat
and for monthly updates go to.
ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/anomalies/monthly.ocean.90S.90N.df_1901-2000mean.dat
The 2012 average NCDC SST anomaly thru Sept was .4438 versus the 1997 annual anomaly of .4575.
The peak anomaly was .5207 in 2003.
An excellent site for reviewing all the basic temperature data is http://www.climate4you.com/
2. Check the current phase of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation.
Here is a plot and suggested projection based on the Hadley SST3 from Tallbloke.
(See: http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2012/10/23/the-carbon-flame-war-final-comment/) He says “I have put together a simple model which replicates sea surface temperature (which drives global lower troposphere temperature and surface temperatures a few months later). The correlation between my model and the SST is R^2=0.874 from 1876 FOR MONTHLY DATA.” The model is shown with predictions to 2050 (blue) along with the HADsst3 (red).
I included Fig 2 because an approximate 60 year cycle is obvious by inspection and this coincides well with the 30 year +/- positive (warm) and 30year +/ negative (cold) phases of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation. Figure 2 shows warming from about 1910 – 1940-45 , cooling from then to about 1975 -.warming to about 2003-5 and cooling since then. Total warming during the 20th century was about 0.8 degrees C. For a complete discussion and review of the data relating the PDO to the other oceanic cycles and temperatures see
For latest PDO data see http://jisao.washington.edu/pdo/PDO.latest
IT IS CLEAR THAT WE ARE IN THE EARLY STAGES OF A THIRTY YEAR NEGATIVE (COOLING ) PDO CYCLE.
3. Check Solar Activity – where are we at?
The major ice age climate cycles are controlled by the sun – earth orbital eccentricity,and the earth’s obliquity and precession. These cycles are approximately 100,000, 41,000 and 21000 years in length respectively and are well documented in the ice core and geological record. It is useful to keep in mind that the warmest temperatures in the current interglacial occurred about 7500+/- years ago and the GENERAL TREND IS NOW A COOLING TOWARDS THE NEXT ICE AGE.
Fig 4 http://colli239.fts.educ.msu.edu/1999/07/11/vostok-1999/
These long term cycles are modulated by quasi cyclic trends in solar activity which may be decadal ,centennial or millennial in length.Of particular interest in deciding where we are with regard to the solar cycles is the approximately 1000 +/- year cycle which produced succesively the Roman Warm Period, the Dark Ages,the Medieval Warm Period, the Little Ice Age and the recent 20th century warming.
Fig 5 (From http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/07/10/global_warming_undermined_by_study_of_climate_change/ )
The red line shows the continuing cooling trend from the Holocene optimum and the 1000yr +/- solar cycle is clearly seen.
NOTE – A REASONABLE CASE CAN BE MADE THAT THE WARMING PEAKS OF A 60 YEAR PDO CYCLE AND THE 1000 YEAR SOLAR CYCLE COINCIDED AT 2000 +/- AND WE ARE LIKELY ON THE COOLING SLOPE OF BOTH.
The clearest empirical measure of solar activity is the solar magnetic field strength. On an empirical basis Livingston and Penn have shown that the decline in solar magnetic field strength suggests that sunspots could disappear by about 2015 signalling THE START OF A NEW MAUNDER MINIMUM WITH SIGNIFICANT COOLING.
For a semi-empirical estimate of the possible cooling if a Maunder Minimum does develop see http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/2001/2001_Shindell_etal_1.pdf
Note the abstract of the Shindell paper (Mann is one of the et als) says “THIS LEADS TO COLDER TEMPERATURES OVER THE NORTHERN HEMISPHERE CONTINENTS ESPECIALLY IN WINTER (1 to 2 C), IN AGREEMENT WITH HISTORICAL RECORDS AND PROXY DATA FOR SURFACE TEMPEERATURES
“For a good review of the latest sunspot and magnetic data see
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/09/03/the-sun-still-slumping/ and to keep with the decline in solar magnetic field strength and the liklihood of a Maunder Minimum check monthly the Livingston and Penn thread at
http://solarcycle24com.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=general&action=display&thread=855
Perhaps the best indicator of the effect of the declining solar magnetic field can be seen in the Galactic Cosmic Ray flux.
This can be checked on a daily basis at http://cosmicrays.oulu.fi/#database
Fig 6 Neutron count since 1964 from the Oulu data base.
The Dec 2009 neutron maximum ( solar cycle 23 -24 minimum) is greater than anything seen previously and the neutron count is now (Nov 2012) higher than at any comparable time in previous cycles since we are only 12 -18 months away from the cycle 24 solar maximum.There was a secular change in solar magnetism in 2005 – check the WUWT link posted earlier. The neutron count ties to earths climate via cloud cover and albedo. Simply put – the lower the neutron count the lower the cloud cover and the warmer the temperature. Because of the enthalpy and thermal inertia of the oceans there is a 10 – 12 year lag between the neutron troughs and global SSTs. The short term temperature record is variable over shorter times than 12 years because of El Ninos and La Ninas and volcanic and lunar effects but the increasingly lower counts on the three troughs from 1970 – 1991 are well matched by the temperature rise from 1981 – 2003. THE RELATIVELY HIGH NEUTRON COUNT IN 2012 COMPARED WITH 1970 SUGGESTS THAT BY 2024 GLOBAL TEMPERATURES WILL BE BELOW THOSE OF 1970 WHICH WERE ALREADY BELOW 2012 BY ABOUT 0.36 C.
4. Check the Southern Oscillation Index.
Fig 7 http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/enso/
In Fig 7 values above +8 indicate La Ninas, values below -8 are El Ninos and values in betwen are neutral or La Nadas.
Figure 7 also has some predictive value relative to global temperatures. ( Mclean et al JGR 2009) Global temperatures appear to lag the SOI by about 7 months.
5. Climate , Weather and Extreme Events.
Sections 1 – 4 above show that the earth has entered a cooling trend which will continue for at least 30 years and perhaps longer. To get some idea of possible extreme weather events we might look at extremes found between the MWP and the Little Ice Age. It is unlikely however that any future extremes will be “unprecedented”.There is a large literature on this topic which interested parties can consult.Some general empirical observations can be made.
On a cooling earth there is a steeper temperature gradient from the Tropics to the Poles. This produces instabilities with the jet stream swinging meridionally further south and north. Thus blocking high pressure systems develop with extremes of cold and heat and sharp temperature gradients between air masses with for example Sandy type blizzards or tornado swarms. A cooler world will be a generally drier world with increasing droughts globally and in e.g the USA corn belt and in the USA in general When combined with shorter growing seasons and possible early and late frosts this is likely to threaten world food production as population increases.
The PDO and SOI indices are the main ocean climate and weather indicators.Obviously ,for regional analyses at particular times, the phases of other ocean systems relative to the first two – for the U.S for example the AMO and NAO need to be considered. These are easily checked by looking from time to time at the work of the best climate and weather interpreters Joe D’Aleo and Joe Bastardi on http://www.icecap.us/
6.Summary of some Future Trends and Policy Suggestions.
The empirical observations highlighted in CAPITALS above indicate that the global warming temperature trend has peaked .The peak is broad with only a little cooling to date but this will likely accelerate from 2015 or 2016 on reflecting the beginning of the increase in the cosmic ray count already seen from 2004 – 2009 in Fig 6. The cooling will last until 2030- 2040. Often the signal for a climate direction change is a see saw effect between Arctic and Antarctic sea ice. The Arctic is still reflecting the peak in the warming trend with low summer ice values.
The first indication of a cooling event is however the increase in Antarctic sea ice which has already occurred.
This alters the oceanic deep water circulation patterns and spreads the cooling world wide. The Arctic ice will begin to catch up in a five years or so.
With a cooling world sea levels will stop rising and begin to fall as glaciers and ice caps begin to increase and the oceans compress with cooling.Eventually the rate of CO2 increase will slow and may even reverse even if human emissions continue to rise .
Because the error bars in our rough estimates of natural temperature variations are larger than any possible
As usual, the solar/cosmic ray data are muddled and cherry picked to have the desired effect.E.g. the cosmic ray intensity, compare with: http://www.puk.ac.za/opencms/export/PUK/html/fakulteite/natuur/nm_data/data/SRU_Graph.jpg
Hermanus has the longest record. It is very difficult to maintain a correct long-term stability and Oulu is one of the stations that seem to have problems in that regard. Here is more on the long-term variation of solar activity: http://www.leif.org/research/The%20long-term%20variation%20of%20solar%20activity.pdf
Section 4: “El Ninos are more common during the positve phase of the PDP ”
Shouldn’t that be PDO?
According to UN predictions, the world’s population is likely to peak in the next 20 to 40 years anyway. In my opinion, the peak is much closer, more like 10 to 20 years.
If you extend Fig5 back to the so-called Minoan Warm Period, c. 3300 years ago, the downward trend of global temperature is even more pronounced. Yet that warm period wasn’t even the hottest part of the Holocene, which occurred during the Climatic Optimum, at various points prior to 5000 years ago.
Now that my “snowblowers” have grown up and moved out, maybe I should buy one that runs on gas?
The introductory paragraph is excellent. Sums it up nicely.
However the rest of the post lacks pocus, seems bit rambling and does not make the point particarly well.
On Figure 4, that looks like a true peak to me. That is not good.
“The earth is entering a cooling phase which is likely to last about 30 years and possibly longer. ”
I think you are correct. My guess is that’s why UEA is asking for openess now, instead of concensus. They are seeing the writing on the wall too……
The IPCC fraud was to take the rising phase of long established natural variation and pretend it will continue to rise for the next 100 years.
They’ve got a lot of people suckered.
http://i49.tinypic.com/xbfqtw.png
Discrepancy in war years is due to many hurricanes being missed due to shipping disruption.
(Vecchi and Knutson 2008)
Let’s say c02 has raised 8.5 %, is that anthropogenic. How come no one seems to differentiate, when talking c02 rise, between natural and anthropogenic.
Ya but the rise in c02 will mellow out the coming cool period. Do not decrease, increase 🙂
Because of the enthalpy and thermal inertia of the oceans there is a 10 – 12 year lag between the neutron troughs and global SSTs.
I very much doubt this. And given this is the period of the solar cycle, I’d suggest you have the wrong sign on the effect.
“In general ,food stocks should be built up, GM seeds adapted to drought and cold should be developed.The use of ethanol from food stocks is criminal folly and all subsidies and mandates should be abolished immediately.”
Yet thanks to Larry Summers (ex Goldman Sachs) and current Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner the Clinton administration pass the ‘Commodity Futures Modernization Act’ which became law in 2000. This allowed large grain companies to turn the food markets into commodity funds like the Goldman Sachs Commodity Index for everything from corn to coffee and pigs — so now the US does not have a Grain Reserve but lots of rich bankers and hedge funds betting on the grain prices. As the rules were set to prevent short selling, prices ratchet continually upward – lots of happy money men driving around in their corn fueled flex-fuel vehicles,
http://www.globalresearch.ca/getting-used-to-life-without-food/25483
Unfortunately, the poor cannot eat complex derivatives – and currently “a child dies every 5 seconds from hunger”
Now as the grow-lines start moving south and even equatorward of the grow-lines, the weather becomes less crop friendly, those grain reserves would have been useful. However, if we are indeed looking at more than 10 years of cooling – it will mean world wide disaster. And the hedge funds and bankers will profit from the famine as even more people die – aren’t they clever bankers.
You’ve made a definite verifiable prediction, but it will take a considerable time to decide. The current values are an up tick. If the longer term trend continues, the CAGW people are in real trouble, and will implode. If the up tick continues, even briefly, they will still have talking points. Neither their ideas nor yours can be confirmed or denied on a decadal basis.
Yeah, who you gonna believe?
Al Gore or those lying thermometers?
So what?
No, no, no!
Can’t believe that, here in Italy this night the news just told me that in 2060 there will be no difference between winters and summers!
Dr. Page is surely wrong, TV media can’t lie on that.
(It’s sarcastic of course, this morning we get a nice +3°C nearby Milan)
Much as I’ve been saying since 2008 and furthermore I’ve suggested a variety of mechanisms that fit observations.It appears to be solar wavelength and particle effects altering the ozone balance in the atmosphere so as to swing the AO and AAO between positive and negative.
I notice though that the writer supports the cosmic ray link to cloudiness whilst acknowledging greater jetstream movement which would inevitably produce more clouds and that latter proposition is more likely in my view.
Cosmic rays just being one of several proxies for the level of solar activity but having little causal influence if any in themselves.
Amen to that Gunga.
lsvalgaard says:
November 19, 2012 at 3:18 pm
Sorry Leif. I have some problems at the moment and can’t read long explanations due to lack of concentration among other things. (No worries, I know what the problem is and am working to fix it.)
I know you have problems with the Oulu readings and that they are an outlier. Are the other stations with problems on a similar latitude?
Is there any other reason than that it is an outlier that you have problems with it? (Outliers are not always wrong.)
DaveE.
The alarmism over global warming is misplaced. Global cooling is the real threat. Look at what happened before the Holocene [Holocene = past ≈10,000 years].
If you want the weather to change, hang around for like 30 – 70 years
Want the Climate to change.. just wait 30-70 years! http://www.ironmill.com/2012/11/19/global-cooling-in-the-near-future/
For many reasons it seems likely there are 3 possibilities of merit
that can happen from here regarding climate theory.
We have 16 going on 17 years of zero trend in temperature. The MET
(British meteorological) office admitted this in an article in the
Daily Mail several weeks ago. The debate has been fierce. This is
even with the various adjustments that are made constantly to the
temperature data which have a suspicious bias to 100% of the time
adjust our measurements to show higher temps. Nonetheless even
accepting all these suspicious adjustments we are left with 16 years
of no movement. Even the agw crowd including Hansen and Gavin Schmidt
etc… Seem to have accepted what seems like an inconvenient
statistical improbability. They admit it is so.
The agw enthusiasts are admitting that 20 years would be only A 2%
chance event and likely prove the agw theory to be essentially dead as
is. So a couple years should pretty much decide this. I will
disregard that they’ve said forever that an 8 or 10 year pause was
fine but 15 would be the death but now we’ve got 16 or 17 flat and
they believe 15 is not that remarkable so they want another 5 years.
Similarly a lot of skeptics believe that natural variability was
responsible for the majority of the climb between 1978-1998. The
iPcc said that climb was so far outside the bounds of natural
variability that it was irrefutable evidence of Mankinds involvement.
They used that to argue that nothing could stop co2 that was in the
natural variability because natural variability could not cause a 20
year rise. However apparently co2 can and has apparently been trumped
for 16 years in a row. It is troublesome they can’t say why this
pause has taken place or where the missing energy is but nonetheless
they seem undiminished in their faith as good disciples of their
religion. One can only admire their faith.
I know those on the agw side are caterwauling as I write this as they
always do when confronted with this annoying pause “it has been hot”
they say. 2000s were hotter than 1990s. Yeah we know that but that’s
not what you said. You said it was going to be roughly 0.4C warmer
today than it was 20 years ago and it hasn’t moved a smidgen. That’s
not confirmation. That’s a problem. Yes temperatures haven’t gone
down but the natural variability folks have argued that this is
because the sun has been active and the PDO cycle was positive. So
they are not arguing things should have gotten cooler over the last 16
years either. The argument has been about which theory was right or
wrong.
The folks who believe that natural variability driven mainly by the
PDO 60 year cycle now are asserting that we are definitely in a down
cycle of PDO. Also those who believe solar variability was a factor
in late 20th century warming also agree that the sun has become more
quiescent. As a result they are all predicting a decline over the
next 20-40 years. Both camps of these folks expect temperatures to
decline starting very soon maybe next year.
There is a third possibility which I have elected generally which is
that these other factors are not accounted for in the models by the
agw theory but that co2 has some effect. Given this possibly the 2
things compensate for each other so I see a third possibility that
temps basically don’t go anywhere for 10 or 20 years.
These 3 theories are all at a critical juncture. If co2 really
overwhelms natural variability then the agw crowd really needs the
temps to start accelerating in the next couple years. Time is
effectively up. They don’t have 15 more years to wait. It’s over.
This is put up or shut up time. Not even the intelligentsia accept
the idea of 20 year zero or close to zero warming. On the other hand
those claiming that temperatures are not being influenced by co2 very
much are clearly on the line as well. They need temps to start
declining over the next few years if the theory of sun or PDO are
still intact because these indicators have now gone decidedly
negative. A further push upward would violate their models and
descriptions as much as a cold surge would almost surely crush agw
theory.
If we see flat temps for the next 2 years then I think we see that
these things must be offsetting each other.
Therefore we could do several things. We could have a party in a
couple years and possibly the losers pay for the party. We could have
bets or other humiliating acts. For instance those that believe in
agw – if their theory is proven wrong may have to endure swimming in
Ice cold river for an hour. If it turns out the natural variability
folks win then maybe they have to walk in the hot dessert for a
weekend or something.
I guess if I’m right then maybe I get a vacation in Hawaii for a
month. :). if I’m wrong maybe I have to do half of what the
proponents of the theories will have to do. 🙂
The stage is set. The la Nina year is set – the pacific ocean is
telling us next year is going to be cold. The sun is quiescent. .
PDO is negative. Sun is negative. On the other hand the limit of
natural variability is being reached according to even the most
stalwart agw religious zealots. Therefore if co2 is the overwhelming
factor in climate the agw adherents believe then co2 has finally come
to show itself after 17 years. There’s no point in debating this
anymore. The predictions are cast in stone.
If its cool then I think the agw folks have to have a come to Jesus
confession and admit that their religion has some serious flaws and
apparently co2 isn’t the devil they believe it is.
If we get a soaring hot year next year and the year after worldwide
then nothing in the other theories could explain that they would have
to admit that co2 must be having a big effect.
The time for endless debate is over. Now the dice are cast and I
think nature will tell us the answer over the next year or two.
🙂
A recent letter from the nonsensically titled ‘Minister of Climate Change’ in New Zealand confirms the worst. The climate change agenda and policies have now almost nothing whatsoever to do with ‘global warming’ and CO2. This tenuous and simplistic relationship was only the game starter. It has now been safely (from a political perspective) morphed by the socialist-green agenda into a climate change catastrophy and euphemistically laid at the feet of any and all anthropogenic influences. There is no attempt to attribute causation scientifically. Anthropogenic ‘influence’ alone is sufficient raison d’etre to impose policy at the frightful cost of human impoverishment, energy inefficiency and shrinking freedom. In New Zealand it is starting. The high quality aluminium smelter at Bluff is faced with the perfect storm. A market downturn for high quality aluminium and massively increased power price at the hands of Meridian Energy (Government owned), who pride themselves on their wind and hydro generation. The tax payer paid for all the hydro development in the last generation and 60% of all power generated in New Zealand comes from this source. The costs per unit have continued to climb in order to promote renewable energy targets (RET’s), in this case, wind power. If the Bluff smelter closes, which appears possible, this will perfectly characterise the dawn of the new age of impoverishment and hopelessness at the hands of the agenda driven ‘Ministry of We Know Best’. The irony here, if indeed there is one when so much human suffering in the form of joblessness is present, is that the incumbent government in New Zealand is centrist tinted ‘blue’.
The horrific extent of the crimes of the warmists/alarmists are likely to become apparent within a decade. The deceit based diversion of political will to carbon dioxide emission reduction from preparations for the coming major fall in global temperature will cost many lives, possibly hundreds of millions or more, should a Maunder minimum be about to descend upon us.
It will soon become clear that grain production in the Northern hemisphere is about to collapse as the growing zones move southward hundreds of kilometres. It will be clear that the recent “good years” surpluses should have been preserved and stored for the decades of low food production which lie on our immediate horizon. Instead the cupboard is bare and we may only have wind generators to keep us warm. Its just a shame they don’t burn – the wind generators, that is.
Stay cool….
Has there been any explanation/excuse for IPCC not being invited to Doha?
The politics of AGW must be observed acutely. This was a political expedient that has run amuck. Neither evidence nor argument will change the minds of a whole generation. They will still be trying to stop carbon emissions when they are skating on the Thames and the Rhine.It is reported that the consequences of winter of 1708-9 included 600,000 deaths in France alone from starvation by 1710.
What is to be done?