Guest post by Alec Rawls
In an interview with NewScientist magazine, Imperial College professor of atmospheric physics Joanna Haigh scoffs at the idea that late 20th century warming could have been caused by the sun:
Haigh points out that the sun actually began dimming slightly in the mid-1980s, if we take an average over its 11-year cycle, so fewer GCRs should have been deflected from Earth and more Earth-cooling clouds should have formed. “If there were some way cosmic rays could be causing global climate change, it should have started getting colder after 1985.”
What she means is that the 20th century’s persistent high level of solar activity peaked in 1985. That is the estimate developed by Mike Lockwood and Claus Fröhlich. The actual peak was later (solar cycle 22, which ended in 1996, was stronger than cycle 21 by almost every measure) but set that aside. Who could possibly think that cooling should commence when forcings are at their peak, just because the very highest peak has been passed?
Haigh’s argument against solar warming was in response to my suggestion that one new sentence in the leaked Second Order Draft of AR5 is a “game changer.” That is the sentence where the authors admit strong evidence that some substantial mechanism of solar amplification must be at work. The only solar forcing in the IPCC’s computer models is Total Solar Irradiance so if some solar forcing beyond TSI is also at work then all their model results are wrong.
No, no, no, Haigh told the NewScientist, it is “the bloggers” who have it all wrong:
They’re misunderstanding, either deliberately or otherwise, what that sentence is meant to say.
Look whose accusing people of misunderstanding. This woman thinks that warming is driven, not by the level of the temperature forcing, but by the rate of change in the level of the forcing. When a forcing goes barely past its peak (solar cycle 22 nearly identical in magnitude to cycle 21), does that really create cooling? Haigh should try it at home: put a pot of water on a full burner for a minute then turn the burner down to medium high. Does she really think the pot will stop warming, or that it will actually start to cool?
“Deliberately or otherwise,” this is an astounding misunderstanding of the very most basic physics, and Haigh is not the only consensus scientist who is making this particular “mistake.” Hers is the stock answer that pretty much every “consensus” scientists gives when asked about the solar-warming hypothesis. I have collected examples from a dozen highly regarded scientists: Lockwood, Solanki, Forster, Muscheler, Benestad, and more. Not surprisingly, it turns out that they are all making some crucial unstated assumptions.
Solar warming and ocean equilibrium
To claim that the 20th century’s high level of solar forcing would only cause warming until some particular date such as 1970, or 1980, or 1987, one must be assuming that the oceans had equilibrated by that date to the ongoing high level of forcing. That’s just the definition of equilibrium. After a step up in forcing the system will continue to warm until equilibrium is reached.
When I asked these scientists if they were making an unstated assumption that the oceans must have equilibrated by 1980 say to whatever forcing effect high 20th century solar activity was having, almost all of them answered yes, each giving their own off-the-cuff rationale for this assumption, none of which stand up to the least bit of scrutiny. Isaac Held’s two-box model of ocean equilibration is better than Mike Lockwood’s one-box model, but just move to the next simplest model, a three-box model of ocean equilibration, and any idea that longer term forcing won’t cause longer term warming collapses.
The well mixed upper ocean layer (the top 100-200 meters) does equilibrate rapidly to a change in forcing, showing a response time of less than ten years, but that isn’t the end of the story. As the top layer warms up it transfers heat to the next deeper ocean layers. If the elevated forcing persists then these next deeper layers will continue to warm on the time scale of multiple decades to multiple centuries. This warming will reduce the temperature differential between the upper and deeper layers, causing there to be less and less heat loss over time from the upper to the deeper layers, causing the upper layer to continue to warm on the time scale of multiple decades to multiple centuries.
This accords with what we actually see. Since the 50 year absence of sunspots that coincided with the bottom of the Little Ice Age, 300 years of uneven warming have coincided with an uneven rise in solar activity. Any claim that these three centuries of natural warming had to have ended by a particular 20th century date (never mind right when solar activity was at its peak), is at the very least highly speculative. To claim that we can be confident that this is what happened is borderline insane.
Or maybe it’s that other thing that Joanna Haigh insinuates about. Maybe there is an element of deliberateness to this “misunderstanding” where scads of PhD scientists all pretend that warming is driven by the rate of change of the temperature forcing, not the level of the forcing. How else to blame late 20th century warming on human activity? Some rationale has to be given for why it can’t have been caused by the high level of solar activity that was still raging. Aha, what if temperature were driven by the trend in the forcing rather than the level of the forcing? That would do it. Let’s say that one. Let’s pretend that even peak forcing will cause cooling as soon as the trend in the forcing turns down.
It’s one psycho-drama or the other: either Haigh’s insinuations about dishonesty are projection, accusing others of what she and her cohorts are actually doing, or she’s just dumber than a box of rocks.
Haigh also channels Steven Sherwood, pretending that the highlighted sentence is just about GCR-cloud
The draft report acknowledges substantial evidence for some mechanism of solar amplification and lists Henrick Svensmark’s GCR-cloud theory as an example of one possible such mechanism (7-43 of the SOD):
Many empirical relationships have been reported between GCR or cosmogenic isotope archives and some aspects of the climate system (e.g., Bond et al., 2001; Dengel et al., 2009; Ram and Stolz, 1999). The forcing from changes in total solar irradiance alone does not seem to account for these observations, implying the existence of an amplifying mechanism such as the hypothesized GCR-cloud link.
Haigh claims that the evidence about cloud formation being induced by cosmic rays points to a weak mechanism, then simply ignores the report’s admission of substantial evidence that some such mechanism must be at work:
Haigh says that if Rawls had read a bit further, he would have realised that the report goes on to largely dismiss the evidence that cosmic rays have a significant effect. “They conclude there’s very little evidence that it has any effect,” she says.
Rawls says that if Haigh had read the actual sentence itself, she would have realized that it isn’t about galactic cosmic rays, but only mentions GCR-cloud as one possible solar amplifier.
Aussie climatologist Steven Sherwood did the same thing, claiming (very prematurely) that the evidence does not support GCR-cloud as a substantial mechanism of solar amplification, then pretending away the report’s admission of clear evidence that some substantial such mechanism is at work:
He says the idea that the chapter he authored confirms a greater role for solar and other cosmic rays in global warming is “ridiculous”.
“I’m sure you could go and read those paragraphs yourself and the summary of it and see that we conclude exactly the opposite – that this cosmic ray effect that the paragraph is discussing appears to be negligible,” he told PM.
As JoNova and I blogged last weekend, this ploy inverts the scientific method, using theory (dissatisfaction with one particular theory of solar amplification) as an excuse for ignoring the evidence for some mechanism of solar amplification. Using theory to dismiss evidence is pure, definitional anti-science. Unfortunately, NewScientist gives this slick anti-scientist the last word:
“The most interesting aspect of this little event is it reveals how deeply in denial the climate deniers are,” says Steven Sherwood of the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia – one of the lead authors of the chapter in question. “If they can look at a short section of a report and walk away believing it says the opposite of what it actually says, and if this spin can be uncritically echoed by very influential blogs, imagine how wildly they are misinterpreting the scientific evidence.”
Sherwood and Haigh are flat lying to the public about what a simple single sentence says, pretending the admission of strong evidence for some substantial mechanism of enhanced solar forcing was never made, then trusting sympathetic reporters and editors not to call them on it. This is why the report had to be made public. After my submitted comments showed how thoroughly the new sentence undercuts the entire report it was obvious that the consensoids who run the IPCC would take the sentence right back out, and here Sherwood and Haigh are already trying to do exactly that.
Too late, anti-scientists. Your humbug is on display for the whole world to see.
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Harry van Loon says:
December 21, 2012 at 8:11 am
Read Van Loon et al. in JGR 2012
[Reply: a link would be helpful. — mod.]
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2012/2012JD017502.shtml
pat says:
December 21, 2012 at 9:10 am
Did she think we all forgot the mid-1990s extremely active solar cycle that coincided with the 1998 surface temperature measure?
‘Mid-1990s’ [1996] was a solar MINIMUM and the cycle that peaked in 2000 was lower than the previous two cycles, so she did not forget anything.
Dr. Svalgaard,
Your comments on this thread leave readers with the impression that, as far as this topic is concerned, your science consists of two things: monitoring of TSI and monitoring of GCRs. You seem to report that there has been no change in either and, for that reason, the topic of the sun’s influence on the earth is closed.
Surely, you do not really mean to create this impression. Surely, you do not mean to leave readers with the impression that your goal is to end discussion of the matters raised by Rawls.
lsvalgaard says:
December 21, 2012 at 7:36 am
There has been no rise in solar activity the last 300 years:
Leif, 10Be proxy shows a different story:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Solar_Activity_Proxies.png
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch2s2-7-1-2.html
how do you reconcile this?
ConfusedPhoton says:
December 21, 2012 at 8:57 am
You are missing Dr. Svalgaard’s point in that temps DID rise and CO2 didn’t. Yet, CO2 is a pillar of AGW……and apparently a very very in fact……VERY new pillar that does not bear up when looked at robustly.
ConfusedPhoton says:
“CO2 the last 300 years has risen considerably as have temperatures…”
Misleading as usual.
Not at all, CO2 is now considerable higher than it was 300 years ago as is temperature. You should not take that as showing that CO2 is the reason for the temperature rise.
Temps lags sun exposure. For example, today is Winter Solstice but our coldest temps aren’t typically until late January/early February. Same with the Summer Solstice. Longest day is June 21st but warmest temps are late July through early August. An easy way to see is to go to weather.com (looking at temps rather than propaganda) and look at the average for your city. For Denver:
http://www.weather.com/weather/wxclimatology/monthly/graph/80231
July clearly shows to be the warmest “Average” and January shows to be the coldest “Average”.
The point is, there is almost nothing with an instantaneous reflection of change. Almost everything lags something else.
Max Hugoson says:
December 21, 2012 at 8:26 am
WHAT would QUANTIFY SOLAR ACTIVITY FOR 300 years??? Some of the alledged isotope connections are, frankly, “stuff and nonsense”. In terms of records, Sunspots is all we have. And DUE to the inaccuracies of counting and identification, there are rather large error bars there too.
This argument cuts both ways. If sunspots are unreliable, they cannot be used to argue that solar activity has risen the past 300 years. Recent work on the sunspot record going back to original sources has shown that the sunspot record is indeed incorrect, but also that it is possible to correct for the discrepancies http://ssnworkshop.wikia.com/wiki/Home
Steven Mosher,
I’ve heard you and others make this assertion before and have no reason to doubt what you say. Indeed Svensmark and co-workers say the same thing. I’m just beginning to get interested in the GCR-climate link from the point of view of understanding the faint sun paradox and early glaciation on Earth and have come across an interesting thesis by Torsten Bondo (2009): Influence of cosmic radiation on aerosol and cloud formation over short time periods. Svensmark is the thesis advisor. My very brief skimming of this work is that the magnitude of a Forbush events effect on ionisation is not directly related to the impact on the neutron monitor count. They’ve calculated a rank order of Forbush events based on ionisation and find a link with cloudiness. I’m only reporting what is in the abstract (copied below). I don’t want to discount the GCR-climate link, certainly not till I have understood this work.
ABSTRACT
This thesis describes a study of Forbush decrease events. These are rapid decreases in the cosmic ray intensity in the Earth’s atmosphere, which are caused by a temporary increased magnetic shielding at Earth due to solar eruptions. The aim is to investigate how these transient ionization phenomena in the atmosphere affect aerosol and cloud creation and whether it is realistic to observe Forbush decrease events in climate data.
The thesis involves a theoretical examination of the ionization caused by Forbush decreases based on studies of hourly neutron monitor data and muon telescope data as proxies for cosmic rays. A list of the ionization change in the troposphere of the strongest Forbush de- creases as compared to the ionization change over the solar cycle is calculated and indicates that only a few events induce ionization changes comparable to the solar cycle.
Studies of recently available high resolution satellite data and aerosol ground based mea- surements are presented. Here it is observed that significant decreases in the angstrom exponent from AERONET aerosols and cloud liquid water from satellites take place after the largest Forbush decreases. The timescales of this indicate that the ionization decrease caused by the Forbush decreases diminishes the aerosol nucleation rate which, over time, affects first cloud condensation nuclei size aerosols and then clouds.
As a part of the thesis, a model of the growth of neutral sulfuric acid aerosols has been developed. Assuming an initial distribution of stable nucleated clusters, the model takes condensation and coagulation into account and includes various loss mechanisms. This model is used to investigate the growth of aerosols into cloud condensation nuclei size particles and to study the influence of nucleation rates and background vapour gas con- centration on aerosol and cloud optical properties over short time. The model is used to examine experimental efforts at DTU Space on the role of ions in nucleation, as well as it is used to investigate observational data on Forbush decreases in aerosols. The model con- firms the existence of decreases in angstrom exponents observed in AERONET aerosol data under assumption of realistic ion induced nucleation rates.
The work presented in the thesis indicate that the largest Forbush decreases affect aerosol formation and in turn cloud cover on a global scale.
Harry van Loon says:
December 21, 2012 at 8:11 am
Read Van Loon et al. in JGR 2012
[Reply: a link would be helpful. — mod.]
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
I found this:
Many comments on blogs make some sort of claim regarding the sun and Earth’s climate. Fair enough. Insofar as the claims are widely different it is, at this point, watchful waiting seems a good strategy for those of us not involved in real research. Leif (posting as lsvalgaard) shows a lack of change in solar activity thereby inciting folks to search for variable X (Sun related) that will explain variable Y (Earth related). So far so good (despite some poor reading comprehension and thought processes).
Comments to this current post include a quote, in part:
Although the Earth’s surface overall continues to warm, the new analysis has revealed a correlation between periods of low activity of the Sun and of some cooling — on a limited, regional scale in Central Europe, along the Rhine.
Having just read about going blind (or not) . . .
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/12/19/keep-doing-that-and-youll-go-blind/#more-76011
. . . and the issues of Ps and Qs, false certainty and such, the part about “on a limited, regional scale in Central Europe, along the Rhine”, makes me wonder if searchers for Sun/Earth (S/E) correlations have not committed the same felony. One can search for any number of measures of the Sun and any number of weather changes on Earth (cooling along the Rhine?) and without any plausible mechanism get a fit, of sorts, one to another. Next, create a title with global warming or climate change in it and a publication is assured. Can an unruly argument be far behind?
Theo Goodwin says:
December 21, 2012 at 9:19 am
Surely, you do not mean to leave readers with the impression that your goal is to end discussion of the matters raised by Rawls.
People will discuss what they want. I’m pointing out that in my opinion Rawls is not correct in claiming ‘Haigh is flat out lying’.
Lars P. says:
December 21, 2012 at 9:20 am
how do you reconcile this?
We have a whole [ongoing] workshop dedicated to that problem: http://www.leif.org/research/Svalgaard_ISSI_Proposal_Base.pdf
The end is not in sight. Next meeting is in April.
Richard Alley, in 2008 he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences. He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2010.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Alley
To paraphrase Richard Alley
‘Beryllium 10 in the ice core is made by cosmic rays, but 40,000 year ago, the magnetic field zero’d out for a millennium or so and the cosmic rays came streaming in and the climate ignores it. It’s just about that simple, the cosmic rays didn’t do enough to leave a record. So it’s a fine tuning knob for the climate at best!’
If I remember correctly didn’t Svensmark point out a schoolboy error in using 11 year averages when this is known to give errant results? He argued that using the actual cycle time gives different results.
Oh and you can also add Dr van Loon’s paper from last year
Bob Tissdale should be interested in this paper.
“Haigh should try it at home: put a pot of water on a full burner for a minute then turn the burner down to medium high. Does she really think the pot will stop warming, or that it will actually start to cool?”
If it is an electric stove and the controls are “properly adjusted” it can work like that. Under those circumstances ordinary people would call for a repairman.
Oh what do you expect from New Scientist?
Being a total ignoramus to me something is really very obvious: Occam’s razor applied it can only be the sun which causes a real effective permanent global warming.
>Hothouse gases are just way to rife with if’s and but’s to be in anyway near in the running.
>No other adequate heat source is available.
So if the many solar scientists don’t see any real changes in solar output it means they are missing something and just don’t have sufficient knowledge to account for the added heat IF there is any.
So either there isn’t any added heat, or if there is it’s caused by the sun. QED.
Svalgaard
What happened to the ocean thermal inertia that Alec Rawls stress to much?
Leif, my observation is that the oceans have their own cycles and inertia,which is somewhat different and lagged from solar sunspot cycles .Each of the oceans seem to have their own cycle to some degree but they clearly interact too.The solar sunspot cycle affects the oceans but its effect is recognizable in a lagged timing because of its own flywheel.When the ocean cycles happen to be in sync with the sunspot cycle , there is more cooling[ like 1880-1910 or more warming like 1910-1940’s. The ocean amplification effect[ cooling or warming] gets even greater when the Atlantic Ocean temperatures [AMO] is also in sync with the global SST pattern, primarily the Pacific like 1900-1925 and again 1964-1995. This fact becomes clear when you see that in 1877-78 we had one of the largest El Ninos ever and it happened during a solar minimum and again during the Maunder Minimum when the sunspot cycle was at a very low level, but the ocean temperatures were rising.
lsvalgaard says: December 21, 2012 at 7:36 am
There has been no rise in solar activity the last 300 years: http://www.leif.org/research/Solar-Petaluma–How%20Well%20Do%20We%20Know%20the%20SSN.pdf slide 8
_________________________________________
You have repeated this assertion many times. But if the Zurich Sunspot numbers are so wrong, as you say, then why do the completely independent Greenwich Sunspot counts agree with them?
http://images.intellicast.com/App_Images/Article/130_12.png
As you can see in this graph, the Greenwich Sunspot count also shows a clear increase in activity since the LIA, just like the Zurich count that your are disputing. So why is this Greenwich count (also) wrong, if it was made by different observers with different methodology?
.
Carter says:
December 21, 2012 at 9:47 am
‘Beryllium 10 in the ice core is made by cosmic rays, but 40,000 year ago, the magnetic field zero’d out for a millennium or so and the cosmic rays came streaming in and the climate ignores it. It’s just about that simple, the cosmic rays didn’t do enough to leave a record.
Indeed
lsvalgaard says:
It is all about galactic cosmic rays.
No, it is not.
It is all about whatever is responsible for the “Many empirical relationships have been reported between GCR or cosmogenic isotope archives and some aspects of the climate system …”
Among other things, that could be:
1. Change in GCR/cosmic isotopes causing changes in the climate system.
2. Change in some other solar factor causing changes in GCR/cosmic isotopes and the climate system.
3. Change in some non-solar factor causing changes in GCR/cosmic isotopes and the climate system.
GCR/clouds is but one proposed mechanism for #1 on that non-exhaustive list.
Joanna Haigh is absolutely correct.
No. Joanna Haigh is absolutely dishonest, using a false argument to dismiss GCR/cloud, and then pretending that GCR/cloud was all the IPCC statement of evidence was about, in order to dismiss the statement. No. GCR is only part of what that statement is about.
Alec is absolutely correct. IPCC identifies that something other than TSI is likely happening, dismisses the notion that one thing is happening, and concludes that nothing is happening. This is false reasoning.
Carter,
The lack of a strong climate response to the Laschamp event has been cited several times as an argument against the GCR-climate link. I’ve given this some thought in the past and am not particularly surprised that the Laschamp event doesn’t provoke a strong climatic response. 40,000 years ago significant parts of the northern hemisphere were covered in ice with a very large impact on planetary albedo. The dominant response mode hypothesised in the GCR-climate link is through albedo associated with increased cloudiness. If the planetary albedo is already very much increased then an increased GCR flux may not have much more effect on an already high albedo.
The thing that has changed in the last 100 years and is getting progressively worse is the weakening of earth’s magnetic field.
Carter says:
Quoting Alley:
“It’s just about that simple,
the cosmic raysAGW didn’t do enough to leave a record. So it’s a fine tuning knob for the climate at best!”Fixed it for you, Carter. The climate is ignoring AGW, as it always has. All you were ever seeing was a short term, coincidental correlation from around 1980 – 1998. But if you believe that you have testable, empirical scientific evidence proving AGW, post it here. Keep in mind that peer reviewed papers, models, and conjectures do not constitute scientific evidence.
And don’t waste your time posting your silly video propaganda. Learn to think and speak for yourself for a change.