Guest post by Jan Zeman
![Escalator_2012_500[1]](http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/escalator_2012_5001.gif?resize=500%2C340)
Some CAGW proponents argument against the recent stall in the global warming trends with this graph called “escalator”. Source: www.skepticalscience.com
But one of my favorite “escalators” is this one:
Source: http://www.woodfortrees.org
The beginnings and the ends of the global sea surface temperature (SST) trends – the colored lines – are the time centered solar minima and maxima – quite clearly follow the solar signal – except the last: a quite apparently downward(!) slope from the minimum to the current maximum period of the solar cycle SC24 – e.g. until the most recent Hadsst2gl data available.
…and some say the trends shorter than 30 years don’t tell anything about the climate and its drivers…
It quite consistently looks like the sea surface temperature anomaly trends in the last ~half of the century more or less follow the rises and drops of the solar activity during the solar cycles, except the last trend since the beginning of the SC24, where the temperature trend goes down, although the solar cycle was on the rise – but it appears to agree with the really considerable descent of the solar activity since the peak of the SC22 and especially after the peak of the SC23, only with a minor lag.
I would like to note that the heat capacity of just the upper ~3.2 meters of the ocean water out of the several kilometers deep ocean is the equivalent of the whole atmosphere’s heat capacity, so the global sea surface temperature anomaly looks like it is even better indicator of the solar activity’s influence on the Earth surface heat budget and temperatures than the global air surface temperature anomaly.
Let’s have look at the trends for the same periods using HADCRUT4GL data for comparison:
Again the global surface air temperature trends’ direction more or less follow the solar cycles up or down, up until the peak of the SC23. After which there is an anomaly – first the trend goes up while the solar activity descends and then it goes down while the solar activity rises. Which I propose could be attributed to a transient lag in the periods when the solar activity trends abruptly change as in our case after the SC22 peak and especially after the SC23 peak. (The SSN averages are in SC21 81.16, in SC22 80.63, in SC23 53.92, and in the SC24 at its peak period is so far 34.36 and it will yet fall significantly.)
All real thermodynamic systems, especially those involving significant latent heat exchanges – as in our case with the ice melting and evaporation (both from the sea surface and land) – have some thermal inertia. The question is only how big its effect is on the surface temperature anomalies.
Let’s yet check the same periods with the GISTEMP data:
Source: http://www.woodfortrees.org
We can see quite a similar pattern as with the HADCRUT4GL data.
…some say the sun does not have major influence on the surface temperatures (– sometimes they say at least since ~mid 20th century – which seems to me a bit like a contradiction: Sometimes influences, sometimes not? Such a hot giant as our sun, delivering most if not practically all the heat to the Earth’s surface?)
I don’t think so. The solar activity measured in sunspot number obviously correlates well with the TSI and it correlated quite well with the surface temperature anomalies throughout most of the record up until the end of the 1970’s too. We can see it prima facie:
Source: http://www.woodfortrees.org
The only question in my opinion is how fast the solar activity influences the global surface temperature anomalies when the solar activity trends relatively abruptly change (– as in the last two solar cycles) and transient phenomena take place.
The visual comparison of the trend graphs (- the above SSN v. SST, HADCRUT4GL and GISTEMP) also seems to provide a clue that the changes of solar activity could influence the sea surface temperature anomaly a bit faster than it influences the surface air temperature anomaly. Which is what one might expect (anti-intuitively): In my opinion it is caused by the fact that the epipelagic zone (the “sunlight zone” below the ocean surface up to ~200m depth) of the sea has more than 50 times higher heat capacity than whole the atmosphere. Therefore it always traps much more solar radiance converting it to heat than the atmosphere*.
This massive reservoir of sea surface heat** moreover mostly stays on the top, because most of the ocean surface water has lower density than the water below. The waters are mixed by wind and waves only to quite shallow depths. The heat gets into the depths of the ocean mainly by the thermohaline circulation, and it takes quite a long period of time for them to get the heat into the ocean depths. Some estimate this is taking hundreds to thousands of years (see slide 29 here). Otherwise the heat from the ocean’s surface propagates into deeper ocean layers by thermal conduction. Liquid water however does not have very high thermal conductivity, so it also takes considerable time to change the temperature equilibrium state this way, when the long-term solar irradiance/heat input trends and also the possible inducted cloudiness/albedo trends change (as proposed by H. Svensmark and others). So there quite likely can be lags of the surface temperature anomalies trends behind the solar activity trend changes. The question in my opinion is just how long the lags are.
The Occam’s razor principle says “that among competing hypotheses, the one that makes the fewest assumptions should be selected” or in other words: “simpler hypotheses about nature are more likely to be true”.
The average total solar irradiance per time descended quite sharply during the SC22 and SC23 with the pace of ~0.4W/m2 (SC22) and ~0.7W/m2 (SC23) per solar cycle*** and quite apparently continues to further significantly descend in the SC24. Similar it is with the sunspot number, which looks to touch the Dalton minimum levels****. Do you really think this will not have a significant impact on the surface temperatures in the future?
You decide.
* this underlines the fact that the sea surface water has also higher average temperature (the global average sea surface temperature is about 290 Kelvin) than the global average surface air temperature (~287 Kelvin) and is much higher than the average temperature of the atmosphere (254.3 Kelvin is the blackbody temperature of the Earth’s atmosphere which well agrees with the average temperature obtained by the standard atmosphere model). But is also good to note, that the constructs of the global average temperatures and their anomalies respectively have big uncertainties (estimated as high as ±0.46 degrees Celsius), that it poses serious question how significant the warming trend last hundred years of like ~0.72 (HADCRUT4GL) or ~0.77 (GISTEMP) degrees Celsius per century really is. But this is not the topic of this my article.
** continuously and distinctively heating the surface air wherever its temperature is lower and cooling it wherever its temperature is higher, while the water also evaporates from the surface, mainly due to direct heating effect of the solar irradiance on the water surface’s skin able to “knock out” the water molecules into the air.
*** just for illustration see the trends here – note: the PMOD values must be corrected according to this TIM/PMOD correlation, so in reality the SC23 trend (green) is up to ~0.05W/m2 per solar cycle less steep then the graph shows.
**** especially if we use the sunspot number correction proposed by L. Svalgaard – see the slide 8 here)
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/sidc-ssn/from:1855.95/to:2013/mean:533/normalise/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1855.95/to:2013/mean:533/normalise/plot/hadsst2gl/from:1855.95/to:2013/mean:533/normalise
The plot looks quite convincing until I took off the blinkers and ran it to 2013.
Even better, the skepticalscience graph starts in 1973– the lowest point of the last cooling event we had. That’s how AGW fetishists see the climate– in chunks small enough to support their pre-selected conclusions.
When I saw the cut-off I was instantly suspicious. When it is run to 2013 the whole thing falls apart.
Now there may be a reason for that and we could look into it but if you have a major issue like that don’t some along and try to con us into seeing something else without being up front about it.
We’ve seen enough of that sort of game from the Team.
Just to add, I don’t think you are wrong about the long term link with solar but it’s not this simple and what you are doing is slight of hand. Alex Rawls , I think has said quite a lot about how it is the cumulative effect of high solar peaks for most of 20th c. that need to be looked at.
You may want to look at that.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/sidc-ssn/from:1855.95/to:2013/mean:533/normalise/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1855.95/to:2013/mean:533/normalise/plot/hadsst2gl/from:1855.95/to:2013/mean:533/normalise
Running your plot up to the end of data looks like about the most convincing argument for a strong CO2 effect I have ever seen. Quite worrying.
On the face of it your plot shows that early 20th c. rise was due to solar and later rise was due to CO2 since 1960.
I may have a closer look at this myself. Don’t like to look of it.
This spring the CET ( Central England Temp) is on a down escalator
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/CET-daily.htm
An even more complex attempt at fitting a series of linear projections to a sinusoidal function. Why won’t they consider a Fourier transform of the data series? Lines are simply not appropriate.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/gistemp/from:1879.93/to:1986.3/trend/plot/gistemp/from:1986.3/to:1989.6/trend/plot/gistemp/from:1876.5/to:1979.93/trend/plot/gistemp/from:1968.91/to:1976.5/trend/plot/gistemp/from:1964.83/to:1968.91/trend/plot/gistemp/from:1996.41/to:2000.25/trend/plot/gistemp/from:2000.25/to:2008.95/trend/plot/gistemp/from:1864/to:2013.3/mean:12/plot/gistemp/from:2008.95/trend/plot/sidc-ssn/from:1864/mean:12/normalise
Again, if I extend you first graph backwards that fall apart too. During 20s 30s and 40s it’s almost totally out of phase with SSN.
This typical of what people do at WTF.org
Running means, straight line fits. That plus cropping off the bits which don’t fit
Sorry, this is worthless.
It’s a “heat pump”!
The first graph looks like/resembles the graph that Bob tisdale presented to show zero AGW because the steps coincided with the El Nino events. I prefer Bob’s explanation.
I can draw an escalator too! 🙂
http://woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1905/to:1960/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1905/to:1960/trend/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1905/to:1915/trend/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1919/to:1930/trend/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1934/to:1952/trend
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/sidc-ssn/from:1855.95/to:2013/mean:65/mean:47/mean:34/normalise/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1855.95/to:2013/mean:65/mean:47/mean:34/normalise
OK , the improbably looking temperature curve you had was a result of your 44 year running mean !! Why you did that is anybodies guess but it’s a fine example of the kind of crap you can get with running means if you don’t understand how to use them (which most scientists don’t seem too hot on either).
The above composite running mean produces are reasonable frequency filter to remove 5.4 y and shorter. Provides sufficient ‘smoothing’ effect without shortening the data too much.
Temperatures start to drop around 1940, fully two solar cycles before the peaks drop. Also pre-1880 goes the wrong way re. solar.
The correlation is not the simplistic idea you were trying to suggest. It does not match the pre-1960 warming and so the later divergence is not the stunningly good argument for CO2 powered post 1960 AGW that it appeared to be.
PHEW. You had me worried for moment.
Try selling this to SepticScience.org, they’ll probably be happy to run it with the 44 running mean as proof of global warming. 😉
This escalator takes you down. Question for those smarter than me, “Were humans emitting CO2 in the 1950’s and 1960’s or did we start doing that in the 1980’s?
http://woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1940/to:1978/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1940/to:1947/trend/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1947/to:1955.5/trend/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1955/to:1969/trend/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1970/to:1978/trend
Running your plot up to the end of data looks like about the most convincing argument for a strong CO2 effect I have ever seen. Quite worrying.
Ah, but don’t stop there. Why “550 months”? 600 months is a fifty year centered average, but it is pretty arbitrary, right? We don’t know the time constants for any of the processes associated with the hypothetical oceanic turnover, and of course it isn’t going to show any of the recent flattening of temperature or the effect of the last two solar cycles as they simply haven’t been around long enough to show up. Of course if you drop it to 60 months (five year centered average) nothing interesting shows up. If you go to 800 months, you don’t HAVE to clip the ends, they get clipped for you. The “perfect” correspondence goes away, of course, but you still get that correlation that is still (last time I looked) not causality.
And note well, Lief hasn’t even shown up yet to point out that the SSN counts in this database are all incorrect pre-1980, and that by the time they are all corrected even the 550 month truncated correspondence is largely gone.
Let’s not forget, others would have us plotting planetary influences against the temperature, so even if any given single parameter fits fails it doesn’t mean that it is wrong, only that other things are right as well. You assert that it is convincing to you that CO_2 might be the cause of the divergence at the end, but if you plot the same temperature series against carbon dioxide, you get an absurdly inadequate result because CO_2 was almost flat over the first 2/3 to 3/4 of the graph and has been a smooth monotonic function throughout where the temperature curve has a variety of slope and curvature variations.
And then there are the global decadal oscillations: ENSO, the PDO, NAO. It actually isn’t completely crazy that these oscillations might substantively moderate the overall heating/cooling efficiency of the planet on a decadal timescale, given that they make significant changes in where heat picked up one place is transported to another, lifted up to be radiated away, or modulates cloud cover and hence albedo or cloud/water vapor GHE (where there is 30 times more water vapor in the troposphere at any given time than CO_2, and where it is a potent GHG all by itself responsible for the vast majority of the GHE). Bob Tisdale has argued persuasively that ENSO alone is largely responsible for the “escalator” pattern in the late 20th century temperature series, not CO_2.
Somewhere under there are some very slowly varying causes — variations in orbital cycle, for example — but those causes are nonlinearly coupled to everything else so it is not really safe to say that they are irrelevant. In the long-time-series historical record, they very likely constitute a nearly irresistible factor that drives some sort of set-point for the climate, quite possibly with a decadal to century timescale lag, so the Earth could still be “catching up” to variations that occurred 600 years ago and that are responsible for some unknown fraction of the curve.
At some point, plotting “global T” against any single parameter, especially a monotonic parameter over an interval where “global T” itself was nearly monotonic, becomes a completely empty exercise. That point was reached long ago. It is perfectly clear that no single driver can explain the global temperature series of the entire Pliestocene. We have no single-parameter model that can describe the temperature series for the last billion years. We have no model that can describe the temperature series (deduced from e.g. ice cores) for the Holocene. We have no model that can describe the last 2000 years. We have no model that can describe the last 1000 years. We have no model that can describe the last 500 years. Not single parameter, not two parameter, not ten parameter (well, we can fit anything with ten parameters, of course, but at that point we can fit it hundreds of ways and none of the extrapolate or hindcast the rest of the series above and hence all of them are meaningless.
Can I point out one more time that this is a hard problem? One that is unlikely to yield to mere numerology?
And don’t even get me started on the data itself, or the fact that nobody makes woodsfortrees plots with error bars. I mean if one were going to try to fit the data, or look at any sort of correlation matrix or covariance matrix of the two (or more) proposed correlated entities, that would be one thing, but the significance of the fit depends pretty strongly on the error bars one assigns to the points on the basis of unknown factors, since none of the data represented there is pulled from an iid process. One of the factors is data “adjustment”, for example, where a stunning series of adjustments have almost universally increased the perceived warming in the temperature series.
IMO, one can really only trust the satellite derived post 1979 temperature estimates. Before that time, it is too, too easy to tweak the data within very large error bars and accept this, reject that, UHI another bit, and end up (somehow) with a lot more warming than one might expect looking at the raw thermometry. How one can tweak a UHI to make the series warmer in the present is a good trick, of course.
Finally, one needs to read about Hurst-Kolmogorov in order to understand the data escalator. This works both ways — the current flat is indeed not necessarily significant. Neither is the trend it is superimposed on. Insufficient information in a strongly coupled multivariate nonlinear system.
rgb
Again, it all depends on the choice of end points. What’s magical about 1970?
That first chart is not how I view “global warming”, so maybe I’m not a skeptic. Then again, I AM a realist, and the big red line that slashes its way through the clearly visible 180 degrees of a sine wave is highly offensive.
On the third hand, the “skeptical science” site has very little to do with skeptics, so… hmm.
I still wonder how “climate change panickers” are going to handle the next 10 years, when their beloved (but still fictional and meaningless) “global average temperature” starts dropping farther away from even the most optimistic “best case” scenarios. No matter how you slice it, more warming is off the table for the next few decades. And that will eventually be impossible to avoid.
I see about 0.6c rise in 42 years on the red line. So this is consistent with the rise we have seen recovering from the LIA, 1.5C per century.
Where is the temperature rise caused by CO2 ? Why is the slope constant?
Where is the catastrophe?
Where are the bodies?
Let,s get real “Realists”
rgbatduke says:
April 19, 2013 at 5:11 am
Finally, one needs to read about Hurst-Kolmogorov in order to understand the data escalator.
==========
Which tells us that temperature will wander about naturally without any forcing or feedback with a much different pattern than would be expected from random noise. That the predictions of natural variability based on classical statistics have likely misled a generation of climate scientists and the IPCC. What we see as meaningful trends in the temperature data could just as easily be an illusion of HK dynamics, similar to animal shapes we see in clouds.
I love SepticScience calling themselves “realists”. Great propaganda coup that: I’m a realist (because I say so) and therefore whatever I tell you is real. Don’t even doubt it, it’s reality.
They yet again use the well known “warming trend” of the cosine function:
http://climategrog.wordpress.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=209&action=edit
The usual trough to peak trickery. Pathetic.
But this is of course REAL, after all, they are realists. If you fit a straight line to a carefully cropped off cosine you REALLY DO get a BS answer.
First I’d say Leif Svalgaard wouldn’t approve that sunspot graph.
And second, averaging over 44 years??? Come on. Hasn’t here been an article just recently about how unethical it is to use smoothing to improve your correlation?
” Do you really think this will not have a significant impact on the surface temperatures in the future? “
Your question is riding a dead horse. The temperatures in the future are known for long.
http://www.volker-doormann.org/images/ghi_bild_vd_1.jpg
http://www.volker-doormann.org/images/bond_2001_hema_invers4.jpg
V.
I would suggest doing a competing graphic. Show “how skeptics view global warming” and show the last 1200 years of temperatures. It’s a downward slope. Then show “how alarmists view global warming” where the the 1200 to 40 years ago record gradually disappears, leaving them with their exact graphic doing it’s comparisons as above.
Cycle 24 is not anonymous. If one takes the integral of the Solar Cycle, i.e., area under the curve, it matches perfectly with the increase/decrease of heat added to the Earth. Cycle 24 area is only 1/10 of Cycle 22 and 1/8 of Cycle 23.
Theory:
1) High energy short radiation penetrates the ocean waters [say 20 meters].
2) Infrared reflects off of the ocean surface.
3) High energy short radiation [UV] changes radically from Cycle minimums to maximums.
4) During a Solar Cycle peak, Solar energy at the Equator in the Pacific [example] moves to Indonesia.
5) Ocean heat moves to North/South Pacific and around Africa to eventually create the Gulf Stream.
6) During a Solar minimum, Indonesian ocean temperature will fall. The North/South Pacific will not be warmed, but will cool.
7) During this minimum [Cycle 24/25], expect the Sea Ice around Antarctic and the Antarctic Peninsula to suddenly increase. The South Pacific heat is almost gone with nothing to replace it.
8) Long time lag to the Arctic, expect the Arctic Ice to increase greatly next year – 2014/2015.
Not TSI [relatively constant], but high energy short radiation [highly variable] driving the Earth’s temperature.
Forget Leif. Hell my DOG thinks this is crap not worth investigating!
dr brown says
Insufficient information in a strongly coupled multivariate nonlinear system.
henry says
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:2002/to:2013/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:2002/to:2013/trend/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:2002/to:2013/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:2002/to:2013/trend/plot/rss/from:2002/to:2013/plot/rss/from:2002/to:2013/trend/plot/gistemp/from:2002/to:2013/plot/gistemp/from:2002/to:2013/trend/plot/hadsst2gl/from:2002/to:2013/plot/hadsst2gl/from:2002/to:2013/trend
the trend over the equivalent (time) of one solar cycle, namely 11 years,
is down on almost all data sets, including my own.
Now, to prove where we are going, you only need one first year statistics class of people,
of about 47 students, who each do an analysis of one weather station, in a similar way as I have done, here:
http://blogs.24.com/henryp/2013/02/21/henrys-pool-tables-on-global-warmingcooling/
If you would try and fit the drop in maximum temps. you will most probably get something like this:
http://blogs.24.com/henryp/2012/10/02/best-sine-wave-fit-for-the-drop-in-global-maximum-temperatures/
there probably is no other best fit they will get than the one I got.
That means we are on a cooling curve until around 2038-2040
It seems to me this 88 year solar/weather cycle was already calculated from COSMOGENIC ISOTOPES as related in this study:
quote:
Persistence of the Gleissberg 88-year solar cycle over the last ˜12,000 years: Evidence from cosmogenic isotopes
Peristykh, Alexei N.; Damon, Paul E.
Journal of Geophysical Research (Space Physics), Volume 108, Issue A1, pp. SSH 1-1, CiteID 1003, DOI 10.1029/2002JA009390
Among other longer-than-22-year periods in Fourier spectra of various solar-terrestrial records, the 88-year cycle is unique, because it can be directly linked to the cyclic activity of sunspot formation. Variations of amplitude as well as of period of the Schwabe 11-year cycle of sunspot activity have actually been known for a long time and a ca. 80-year cycle was detected in those variations. Manifestations of such secular periodic processes were reported in a broad variety of solar, solar-terrestrial, and terrestrial climatic phenomena. Confirmation of the existence of the Gleissberg cycle in long solar-terrestrial records as well as the question of its stability is of great significance for solar dynamo theories. For that perspective, we examined the longest detailed cosmogenic isotope record—INTCAL98 calibration record of atmospheric 14C abundance. The most detailed precisely dated part of the record extends back to ˜11,854 years B.P. During this whole period, the Gleissberg cycle in 14C concentration has a period of 87.8 years and an average amplitude of ˜1‰ (in Δ14C units). Spectral analysis indicates in frequency domain by sidebands of the combination tones at periods of ≈91.5 ± 0.1 and ≈84.6 ± 0.1 years that the amplitude of the Gleissberg cycle appears to be modulated by other long-term quasiperiodic process of timescale ˜2000 years. This is confirmed directly in time domain by bandpass filtering and time-frequency analysis of the record. Also, there is additional evidence in the frequency domain for the modulation of the Gleissberg cycle by other millennial scale processes
end quote
It is going to get cooler. Prepare for it.
Dave Barton just pointed out I put the wrong link for the cosine warming plot. Thx 😉
They yet again use the well known “warming trend” of the cosine function:
http://climategrog.wordpress.com/?attachment_id=209
The usual trough to peak trickery. Pathetic.
Maybe Al Gore will make another “documentary”? He can call it “Up the Down Staircase”.
Dr Lurtz:
“2) Infrared reflects off of the ocean surface.”
Reflected no, but a lot of it probably gets transferred almost instantly to the atmosphere by evaporation.
“8) Long time lag to the Arctic, expect the Arctic Ice to increase greatly next year – 2014/2015.”
Arctic melting season ramped up in 1987, it has been drifting generally downwards ever since. and recently fell below the six month line:
http://climategrog.wordpress.com/?attachment_id=210
Unless some similar event (whatever that was) happens again, I think we may start to see beginnings of a recovery in the next year or two.
Rate of change is closing on zero. I’ll have an update on this plot soon. it is now closer to zero than where this plot stops
http://climategrog.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/ddt_arctic_ice.png
“Not TSI [relatively constant], but high energy short radiation [highly variable] driving the Earth’s temperature.”
Indeed. TSI has long been used to brush off solar link, by those who are in denial about the failure of the AGW hypothesis. Unfortunately I don’t know of anything but very recent data that could be used to test the UV hypothesis.
Maybe we need a new UV proxy 😉
Dr Lurtz says
Not TSI [relatively constant], but high energy short radiation [highly variable] driving the Earth’s temperature.
Henry says!
Agreed! there are not too many who have figured that one out yet!
Trenberth showed that of all that is being back radiated, (i.e. deflected to space= cooling)
ozone on its own accounted for ca. 25% but he forgot about the NOx’s and the HxOx’s that are also formed by the E-UV from the sun. I have ozone data from the Swiss alps showing 1951 and 1995 as bending points. I have also data from the SH showing 1950 and 1995 as bending points.
Do you see the pertinent correlation of the dates with my sine wave?
http://blogs.24.com/henryp/2012/10/02/best-sine-wave-fit-for-the-drop-in-global-maximum-temperatures/
(The notion of CFC’s destroying ozone was probably a red herring or a minor factor.)
They can show all the trends and graphs they want to…….
We are cooling down!
They can talk as much as they want about AGW
The sun is the main driver!
They can talk as much as they want about CO2
When all humans aren’t here anymore, the earth will still be here!
We are entering a minmum period, maybe such as the Dalton or Maunder but we do not know,
It could be even worse!!
John Cook left my alternative escalator up at Scomical Science for less than a minute, no doubt he and Scooter got the point within a second or two…
Perhaps a mod might change my link into an embedded image
Running your plot up to the end of data looks like about the most convincing argument for a strong CO2 effect I have ever seen. Quite worrying.
On the face of it your plot shows that early 20th c. rise was due to solar and later rise was due to CO2 since 1960.
I may have a closer look at this myself. Don’t like to look of it.
#################3
ya, basically you can explain all the rise by C02. FWIW
Pet peeve rant on.
From the article,
“The Occam’s razor principle says “that among competing hypotheses, the one that makes the fewest assumptions should be selected” or in other words: “simpler hypotheses about nature are more likely to be true”.
This is one of the bastardized versions of Occam’s Razor and is incorrectly applied when trying to prove one’s point.
A more accurate meaning is: “when needing to choose from a set of otherwise equivalent explanations of a given phenomenon the simplest one should be selected. “.
Notice the key words “otherwise equivalent”. Occam’s Razor CANNOT be used to settle a dispute between competing hypotheses. It should only be used as a guiding principle in developing more complex theories.
Rant off
***
Steven Mosher says:
April 19, 2013 at 8:41 am
ya, basically you can explain all the rise by C02. FWIW
***
Sure. Just like the rises to the Holocene optimum, Minoan, Roman, Medieval & other warm periods. /sarc
Given that La Nina’s are said to have been keeping things cool it could suggest a strong CO2 effect, depends on where we go in 5 to 10 years. It makes no sense to me that only in the last several years that a CO2 effect would suddenly become visible. Me skepta.
Steven Mosher says:
April 19, 2013 at 8:41 am
“…ya, basically you can explain all the rise by C02. FWIW…”
Thanks for the laugh. Has CO2 suddenly taken a nosedive? There is a blizzard blowing in my backyard, adding to the 5 feet of snow we’ve had since March 1st. You might read rgbduke’s comment at April 19, 2013 at 5:11 am.
In reply to Jan Zeman
“The only question in my opinion is how fast the solar activity influences the global surface temperature anomalies when the solar activity trends relatively abruptly change (– as in the last two solar cycles) and transient phenomena take place.”
Hi Jan,
Interesting post.
I support your assertion that the planet will cool due to a sudden slow down in the solar magnetic cycle. What we are observing and living through appears to be a Dansgaard-Oeschger cycle. If we are and I understand the mechanisms we will start to experience anomalous cooling in high latitudes particularly in the Arctic. (i.e. The mechanisms are reversing.)
The following are some thoughts concerning the 20th century warming pattern and the underlying mechanisms related to the Dansgaard-Oeschger cycle.
If one looks at this plot of planetary temperature Vs sunspot number, planetary temperature more or less tracks the solar magnetic cycle (we are assuming the solar mechanisms that modulate planetary temperature are directly related to the number of sunspots on the surface of the sun which is not correct, from about 1994 and on.) up until the mid-1990s at which point there is a step increase in planetary temperature and then a plateau.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1850/mean:6/offset/plot/sidc-ssn/from:1850/mean:12/normalise
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1900/mean:6/offset/plot/sidc-ssn/from:1900/mean:12/normalise
What is required is an explanation for the mid-1990’s step change in the planetary temperature.
The explanation is not CO2 forcing. The CO2 AGW warming mechanism is continuous; it cannot turn on or off, or accelerate and then stop. The general circulation models predicted that there would be a slope increase in planetary temperature. The normal chaotic internal planetary forcing functions would oscillate around the slope increase. That is not what is observed.
Also the general circulation models predicted that the majority of the warming would be in tropics. The observed warming is in high latitude regions, particularly in the Arctic. The GCM predicted that there would be tropospheric warming in the tropics at about 8 km above the surface of the planet. The tropospheric warming at 8 km in the tropics would then by long wave radiation warm the surface of the planet. There is no observed tropical tropospheric warming, the tropics did not significantly warm.
The fundamental discrepancy between observations and the AGW fundamental mechanism indicates that something is fundamental in correct concerning the AGW theory. It appears conditions in the upper troposphere are different than what is assumed and it is the different condition (the ‘laws’ or basic models of physics still apply to AGW) that causes the AGW mechanism to unexpectedly saturate. (There is paleo data to support that assertion that the AGW mechanism saturates; there are periods of millions of years when planetary temperature does not correlate with atmospheric CO2 levels.)
It appears the planetary feedback response to a change in forcing is negative, the planet resists forcing changes by increasing or decreasing planetary clouds. Negative feedback does not however explain the mid 1990s step increase or the plateau of no warming. Negative feedback would reduce the slope of the temperature rise, it would not create a plateau.
There are cycles of warming and cooling in the paleoclimatic record, Dansgaard-Oeschger (D-O) cycles. The D-O cycles have a periodicity of roughly 1450 years plus or minus 500 years. There are cosmogenic isotope changes that correlate with the D-O cycles which connect the solar magnetic cycles changes to the D-O cycles. The D-O cycles require a physical explanation. The regions of the planet that warm and cool during the D-O cycles are the same as the regions that warmed and cooled during the 20th century. It appears the some solar change serially changes climate. (i.e. The same pattern of planetary temperature change repeats. It appears the same basic mechanism causes abrupt climate changes that terminate the glacial periods and terminate the interglacial periods. The observed abrupt climate change events, a very, strong version of the D-O cycle, called a Heinrich event occurs with a periodicity of roughly 6000 years to 8000 years.
http://www.climate4you.com/images/GISP2%20TemperatureSince10700%20BP%20with%20CO2%20from%20EPICA%20DomeC.gif
http://www.climate4you.com/images/VostokTemp0-420000%20BP.gif
There is a peculiar geomagnetic anomaly that is concurrent with the mid-1990s step change in temperature. For the last 150 years, the North geomagnetic pole has wandered, moving at 10 km to 15 km per year. In the mid 1990s the North geomagnetic pole movement suddenly accelerated moving at 50 km per year. The geomagnetic pole movement continued at 50 km/per year until the current time. It is now starting to slowdown. During this period the ionosphere’s height anomalously dropped.
In the last 10 years the geomagnetic specialists have found that the geomagnetic field in the past has frequently changed (orders of magnitude faster and more frequent than possible based on the assumed model of the geomagnetic field, a core based self exciting dynamo.) for some unexplained reason. There are climate changes including the termination of the glacial period and interglacial period that coincide with the strongest abrupt geomagnetic field change, a geomagnetic excursion. Abrupt climate change caused by an abrupt geomagnetic field change is in agreement with Svensmark’s ion mediated cloud mechanism. When the geomagnetic field intensity drops the region of the planet that is affected by GCR is greater. The solar heliosphere modulation of GCR therefore causes increased cooling for all solar cycles.
Curiously the abrupt changes to the geomagnetic field appear to be connected to the solar magnetic cycle. Based on the current theoretical solar model, the sun cannot cause large changes to the geomagnetic field, yet it appears it has and does cyclically. There are burn marks on the surface of the earth that have been precisely date and roughly dated to be concurrent with two of the last geomagnetic excursions (12,900 BP and 41,000 BP (Dating is more difficult for older events). The mechanism is dependent on the eccentricity of the earth’s orbit at the time of the event and which hemisphere is closest to the sun at perihelion which determines whether the solar event will ultimately increase or decrease the strength of the geomagnetic field. The same mechanism is happen today although at a lower rate and not sufficient to maintain the current geomagnetic field intensity which explains why if one extrapolates the decay of the geomagnetic field intensity that there would be no geomagnetic field in roughly 1000 years. The mechanism is also affected by whether there is or is not, insulating ice sheets on the planet at the time the solar magnetic cycle restarts. The intensity of the geomagnetic field during the interglacial periods is 2 to 6 times greater than the intensity during the glacial phase.
To enable the sun to cyclically change the geomagnetic field a different solar model is required. There is a list of other solar system observational anomalies that appear to be connected with this cyclic solar change. For example the orientation of magnetic field of Uranus and Neptune which are not aligned with the rotational axis of the planet and the axis of is offset from the core of the planet. That is not possible with the self dynamo mechanism. (i.e. One would expect more or less symmetry with the planet’s rotational axis and certainly with the center of the planet.)
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2010EO510001/pdf
What Caused Recent Acceleration of the North Magnetic Pole Drift?
http://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/416/1/gubbinsd4.pdf
Is the geodynamo process intrinsically unstable?
Recent palaeomagnetic studies suggest that excursions of the geomagnetic field, during which the intensity drops suddenly by a factor of 5 to 10 and the local direction changes dramatically, are more common than previously expected. The `normal’ state of the geomagnetic field, dominated by an axial dipole, seems to be interrupted every 30 to 100 kyr; it may not therefore be as stable as we thought.
http://sciences.blogs.liberation.fr/home/files/Courtillot07EPSL.pdf
http://geosci.uchicago.edu/~rtp1/BardPapers/responseCourtillotEPSL07.pdf
Response to Comment on “Are there connections between Earth’s magnetic field and climate?, Earth Planet. Sci. Lett., 253, 328–339, 2007” by Bard, E., and Delaygue, M., Earth Planet. Sci. Lett., in press, 2007
Also, we wish to recall that evidence of a correlation between archeomagnetic jerks and
cooling events (in a region extending from the eastern North Atlantic to the Middle East) now covers a period of 5 millenia and involves 10 events (see f.i. Figure 1 of Gallet and Genevey, 2007). The climatic record uses a combination of results from Bond et al (2001), history of Swiss glaciers (Holzhauser et al, 2005) and historical accounts reviewed by Le Roy Ladurie (2004). Recent high-resolution paleomagnetic records (e.g. Snowball and Sandgren, 2004; St-Onge et al., 2003) and global geomagnetic field modeling (Korte and Constable, 2006) support the idea that part of the centennial-scale fluctuations in 14C production may have been influenced by previously unmodeled rapid dipole field variations. In any case, the relationship between climate, the Sun and the geomagnetic field could be more complex than previously imagined.
Here’s mine:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1850/trend/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1910/to:1940/trend/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:2001/trend/offset:-0.1/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1860/to:1880/trend/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1970/to:2000/trend/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1880/to:1910/trend/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1940/to:1970/trend/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1850/to:1860/trend/plot/hadcrut4gl/mean:120
As a hat tip to a poster of last year, its PIRATES people.(Or reportage of pirates)
We have correlation here, as there have been fewer and fewer news reports of pirate activity, the world apparently has cooled.
Of course the basic question still stands, what are we measuring?
What are we inferring?
What do we know?
After all the noise, it was the idiotic claims of certainty that led me to start investigating this rumour of Anthropogenic Global Warming, Catastrophic even, unless we bought the juju, right now, hurry hurry step right up.
So far “the science” TM Climatology has failed to provide any of the requirements of traditional science, let alone an engineering quality case for the existence of a problem.
My best hope is that a real theory of climate cycles, weather prediction ect,will arise from this backlash against pseudo science, political fraud and public hysteria.
Never before have we had this tool to enable crowd sourced knowledge and immediate argument, welcome to the future of public science.
Greg Goodman says: “Running your plot up to the end of data looks like about the most convincing argument for a strong CO2 effect I have ever seen. Quite worrying.”
Post hoc logic. Quite worrying; not very convincing.
Fascinating as this post may be, Jan, it depends on wiggle matching, with some slopes thrown in. Hypotheses that live by wiggle matching usually die by wiggle non-matching, given enough time. Don’t even have to call in Leif on this one. Nice WFT plot work, Greg. Good commentary, as usual, rgb.
Wouldn’t the global temperature anomaly be isolated or shielded from solar activity as individual stations adapted better standards?
Also, a global anomaly is not representative of any measure of precise area of longitude and latitude positioning where solar activity could be shown, as the anomaly is just a spaghetti junction of temperature values from the equator to the poles, borderline meaningless in my opinion. So, even if the anomaly shows a close approximation of earths actual temperature, to understand what is actually happening it will have to be dismantled and each of the thousands of readings analyzed individually for a trend between solar activity and temperature at each site, geographically there are places that receive more solar energy from the sun than others.
There are many individual data sets I’ve looked at, that actually show an excellent trend with solar activity including a variable lag between the observed activity and temperature reading of 4 to 8 weeks and depending on the season up to 12 weeks.
‘Thanks for the laugh. Has CO2 suddenly taken a nosedive? There is a blizzard blowing in my backyard, adding to the 5 feet of snow we’ve had since March 1st. You might read rgbduke’s comment at April 19, 2013 at 5:11 am.”
###################3
no C02 continues to climb. As will temperatures. or did you think that the effect was instantaneous? or did you think that C02 was the one and only factor?
Its pretty straightforward to show that C02 can explain over 50% of the rise. not 100% of course.. its also clear that nothing else, to date, can explain the rise..
I think the connection has to do with babies surviving past their first year, people getting taller and everyone growing older. That change in human charateristics matches global warming quite well! Causation! Therefore it IS AGW! Who knew!!!! Tall people caused global warming! (she said, all 4 ‘ 11 ” of her, with a mischieveous smile)
Jan, Jan, Jan. Have you not been reading much here?
Mosher, I take it you do not consider Tisdale’s work to have any merit.
Steven Mosher (April 19, 2013 at 12:28 pm) says
“…… Its pretty straightforward to show that C02 can explain over 50% of the rise. not 100% of course.. its also clear that nothing else, to date, can explain the rise…”
/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
Steven
Natural variation can explain everything.
What we do know is that CO2 cannot explain;
(i)
the 1850 to 1860 cooling
(ii)
the 1860 to 1878 warming
(iii)
the 1878 to 1890 cooling
(iv)
the1890 to 1905 warming
(v)
the 1905 to 1915 cooling
(vi)
the 1915 to 1945 warming
(vii)
the 1945 to 1975 cooling
(viii)
the about 1998 to date temperature stasis (or possible marginal cooling)
In fact until such time as we know absolutely everything there is to know about natural variation and fully understand it, including being able to identify each and every individual natural component and its direction of forcing and its upper and lower bounds, we are unable to assess whether CO2 does anything at all in the real world environ of this planet in the Holocene era.
I have read your numerous comments on climate sensitivty but the reality is that until natural variation is fully understood, we are not in a position to assess real world climate sensitivity to CO2. We are not able to extract the CO2 signal (if any) from the noise of natural variation. In fact, we do not even know whether in real world conditions, the addition of CO2 acts overall to cool the planet rather than to warm it (albeit, I think that is unlikely but it cannot from observational data be ruled out).
Hansen still has not given up on his concerns that the Earth could become another Venus, see
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2311699/Could-Earth-barren-Venus-Climate-change-scientist-warns-planet-ice-free-human-free.html
Pam says
Mosher, I take it you do not consider Tisdale’s work to have any merit.
(she said, all 4 ‘ 11 ” of her, with a mischievous smile)
Henry says
Pam,
S. Mosher has never reacted to anyone’s work.
I argue that the change from periodic (human) daily observation (before 1970) to continuous automatic measurement (/s) could have been a cause of considerable change in official
T observation…
Dr. Lurtz has got the theory right….
(see previous comments)
Don’t worry about your size/ imperfection/handicap/etc
it is how your Maker wanted you to be.
http://blogs.24.com/henryp/2013/03/01/where-is-your-faith/
Steven Mosher says:
April 19, 2013 at 12:28 pm
“…C02 continues to climb. As will temperatures.”
As temperatures continue stagnate and fall, isn’t it likely that the oceans will absorb more CO2 from the atmosphere. And as CO2 is a low lying gas in a nitrogen and oxygen atmosphere, a property that plants have evolved to take advantage of, wouldn’t CO2 be naturally sequestered from the atmosphere anyway at any point in the future?
Also, where are you getting the “extra” energy to heat up the “extra” carbon dioxide?
Jan Zeeman
Per your thesis of TSI impacting temperature, I recommend reviewing David Stockwell‘s
solar accumulation theory at Niche Modeling.
On The Dynamics of Global Temperature Fig. 4 cum solar & volcanism R^2=0.66.
Note particularly his predicted phase lag of Pi/2 (90 deg) or 2.75 years for the 11 year solar cycle.
The changing height between steps looks to also correlate with economic activity. Fewer people flying must mean fewer jet heaters operating near thermometers, quite likely also affecting urban thermometers as offices empty out. We’ve also had some very significant improvements in fuel efficiency in these heat producers – aircraft and motor vehicles, the installation of heat pump technologies. If UHI is correctly taken into account, surely these changes in energy use, both in absolute and relative terms, must affect these thermometers.
The waters are mixed by wind and waves only to quite shallow depths. The heat gets into the depths of the ocean mainly by the thermohaline circulation, and it takes quite a long period of time for them to get the heat into the ocean depths.”
Absolutely incorrect.
Let’s start with the so called “thermohaline circulation”, which may be thermohaline, but not circulation at all. It is only the (subpolar) downwelling branch of a true circulation pattern called MOC (Meridional Overturning Circulation). However, even this downwelling branch is incapable “to get the heat into the ocean depths”, quite the contrary. This is what removes heat from the abyss.
It is easy to see why. Density of seawater (unlike that of fresh water) is highest just above freezing and it is obviously water masses with the highest density that sink. In other words, as long as there is sea ice anywhere in contact with liquid water, their temperature is not determined by climate, but the physical properties of (sea)water. This is why downwelling happens in the vicinity of ice margin.
However, this downwelling could never go on indefinitely in itself, because abyssal water masses eventually get as cold & dense as possible. From that point on not even water just above freezing is dense enough to sink, so the circulation grinds to a halt. Or, rather, to a crawl, because there still would be some geothermal heating at the ocean floor. As water there gets slightly warmer, it would promptly be replaced by colder & denser subpolar water from above. But geothermal heat flux is orders of magnitude smaller than the one needed to support observed circulation mass fluxes.
So, one needs an opposing process somewhere, which moves heat down. The author correctly observes that it can’t be heat conduction, because heat conductivity of sea water is very small, it could not support MOC. Otherwise a warmer water mass would never go down on its own, because of its smaller density. Therefore this second branch of MOC is not thermally driven.
How can that be? By turbulent mixing, of course. The author observes again, correctly, that over most of the ocean surface “waters are mixed by wind and waves only to quite shallow depths”. However, there are also internal waves in the ocean, excited by surface winds and tides. These waves can propagate to large distances with very small resistance (hence dissipation), until they break over rugged bottom features (at mid ocean ridges) or continental margins of complex geometry.
Those are the (ill identified) locations of (intermittent) deep turbulent mixing, where average downward heat flux is several orders of magnitude higher than over the bulk of surface.
The lesson learned here is a serious one. It is pure mechanical energy input (supplied by surface winds and lunisolar tides) which keeps up deep circulation, not some thermodynamic process.
About half of this mechanical energy input is supplied by tides, while 80% of the other half by winds over the southern ocean (Roaring Forties, Furious Fifties & Shrieking Sixties).
The next lesson to be learned is that temperature of deep water is determined by the freezing point of water, not “climate” (as long as there is ice in contact with water somewhere). Therefore there is no way “to get the heat into the ocean depths”, deep sea temperature is a regulated quantity. If there is more mechanical energy available to mix lighter & warmer water masses down either because tides are more vigorous at certain phases of the Metonic cycle or it gets a bit more windy over the southern ocean (or the North Atlantic), it only speeds circulation up by sucking more dense cold water down where it is available.
Of course there are density differences even along the ice edge, and this is what determines the specific sites where downwelling would occur over this vast area. But it has no influence on the integrated downwelling flux whatsoever, that’s determined by mechanical energy input over other regions.
This is where the thermohaline thing comes into play. Density of seawater in contact with ice depends on two factors, its temperature and its salinity. Temperature at the surface is restricted to a very narrow range by physics, but at some depth it is not so any more. Freezing point of water decreases with increasing pressure, so the the underside of the great Antarctic ice shelves (which can be hundreds of meters thick), is considerably cooler than the freezing point at the surface. That is, “virtual temperature” of liquid water in contact with them is below freezing, which implies higher density. Abyssal water masses produced there make up the so called “Antarctic Bottom Water”, which is very cold, but has lower salinity than “North Atlantic Deep Water”, which originates from salty water masses drifting northward and cooling next to freezing close to the surface.
There is no downwelling over the North Pacific, because salinity of water there is insufficient for that.
We can see now, that contrary to what was said before, there is a way to increase average abyssal temperatures slightly by increasing average salinity (and temperature) of the densest water masses available. However, there is a hard limit to that, as salinity of deep water can’t increase indefinitely. As the entire flux is limited by mechanical energy input, under the current configuration of continents & ocean basins it is basically an exchange between Antarctic & North Atlantic downwelling. Whenever the latter increases for whatever reason, the former has to decrease and vice versa. However, as soon as all downwelling stops around Antarctica, abyssal temperatures (and salinity) can’t increase further, no matter what “climate” does.
On the other hand, should the North Atlantic Drift decline, more Antarctic Deep Water is produced and abyssal temperatures go down (very slightly).
Of course, location of downwelling and drifts close to surface supplying them with water do have some effect on (local) climate. But other than that, heat can’t be stored at depth (to come back later to haunt us) for simple physical reasons until all sea ice is gone (which will not happen, even in the wildest computational climate model projections).
The upshot is that we are looking for Trenberth’s missing heat at depth in vain, it went to the other cold reservoir around, to outer space (which is happy at 2.72548±0.00057 K).
Only escalator (and it is very jerky, it doesn’t always move up) that can move the SST is to be found in the far north Atlantic.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/SST-NAP.htm
Despite my better judgment I hope Steven Mosher is right, and that his prophesy ‘it will get warmer’ comes true, here in the UK we had 5 and ½ months ) of winter (Nov, Dec, Jan, Feb, Mar & ½ Apr) and we had enough of the Hibernis Horribilis
ferd berple says:
April 19, 2013 at 6:31 am
rgbatduke says:
April 19, 2013 at 5:11 am
Finally, one needs to read about Hurst-Kolmogorov in order to understand the data escalator.
==========
Which tells us that temperature will wander about naturally without any forcing or feedback with a much different pattern than would be expected from random noise. That the predictions of natural variability based on classical statistics have likely misled a generation of climate scientists and the IPCC. What we see as meaningful trends in the temperature data could just as easily be an illusion of HK dynamics, similar to animal shapes we see in clouds.
You are right – however why do you say “without feedback”? Feedbacks often play an important role in nonlinear oscillatory systems. Positive feedbacks push the system toward regular oscillation, while negative feedback (otherwise referred to as friction or damping) lead to more complexity and emergent pattern in the system’s trajectory and the appearence of attractors.
Steven Mosher says:
April 19, 2013 at 12:28 pm
Its pretty straightforward to show that C02 can explain over 50% of the rise. not 100% of course.. its also clear that nothing else, to date, can explain the rise..
Straightforward that is if you are inside the church preaching to the choir. But step outside the church and its a different matter..
Which tells us that temperature will wander about naturally without any forcing or feedback with a much different pattern than would be expected from random noise. That the predictions of natural variability based on classical statistics have likely misled a generation of climate scientists and the IPCC. What we see as meaningful trends in the temperature data could just as easily be an illusion of HK dynamics, similar to animal shapes we see in clouds.
Oh, Fred, I like you. You are so dead on right. Or, or course, there could really be animal shapes in there, obscured by the noise, only we cannot be certain what they are.
rgb
its also clear that nothing else, to date, can explain the rise..
Nothing? You sure about that?
rgb
For the period of interest nominated by the author of the top article, sea surface temperatures have increased, while solar activity has decreased.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadsst2gl/from:1964/to:2013/mean:12/plot/sidc-ssn/from:1964/to:2013/mean:12/normalise/plot/hadsst2gl/from:1964/to:2013/trend/plot/sidc-ssn/from:1964/to:2013/normalise/trend
Best you could say is that solar activity influences fluctuations in temperatures on Earth, but since the mid-60s at least it has had no influence on the long-term trend.
In fact, the solar trend is opposite the global trend. This is especially so, as the nominated period begins with a low phase of the solar cycle, and ends on a peak. This should give every chance for a positive trend in solar influence, but it is still negative.
The rise in global temps since the 60s is not caused by the sun. Lief has been saying that here for ages.
Thank’s to all for all the comments. Some are quite informative. But I can’t answer all, we have 2am here now and I must also sleep a bit. So those I don’t reply, don’t take it personally please.
Greg Goodman says:
April 19, 2013 at 4:11 am
“Running your plot up to the end of data looks like about the most convincing argument for a strong CO2 effect I have ever seen. Quite worrying.”
If there’s any significant CO2 effect on the temperature then quite clearly not before the time around the SC22 peak when the temperature average happens to cross from under the long-term trends:
See the trends comparison here:
http://tumetuestumefaisdubien.sweb.cz/SSN-BerkeleyGlobalTemp1.png
(data here: tumetuestumefaisdubien.sweb.cz/SSN-BerkeleyGlobalTemp.ods)
I’ll add that this Berkeley GL temperature (the most rising in the recent times temperature anomaly dataset I’ve seen so far) versus corrected SSN/ comparison was suggested to me recently L. Svalgaard.
So I did it.
It also circumvents the problem with smoothing using running averages (- instead I used fixed averaging of Solar cycle periods, which I centered at their middle).
I was also myself quite stunned how the trends (-derived from the monthly data, not the solar cycle averages) since the beginning of the Dalton minimum fit.
Interesting that just ~one solar cycle after the Berkeley gLobal temperature average crossed the longterm trend, and just half of the solar cycle after the solar activity started to decline, the shortlasting warming trends apparently stalled in all other global temperature anomaly datasets available. Mind also the huge scatter of the temperature values way to the past, marking the magnitude of the record uncertainty.
Greg Goodman says:
April 19, 2013 at 4:48 am
“the improbably looking temperature curve you had was a result of your 44 year running mean !! Why you did that is anybodies guess but it’s a fine example of the kind of crap you can get with running means if you don’t understand how to use them ”
44 years = 2 average Hale cycles – it has its purpose. I’ve used WFT for convenience of the readers and the graph was just for the illustration. But I rather should use the really longterm trend comparison.
Now it looks like “I was hidding the decline” :))) – It was definitely not my intention. Contrary to that whole my article intended the opposite – there’s a very steep decline since the peak of the Solar cycle 22 (1986-1996) – while the Hale Cycle SC21-22 had quite a simmilar SSN average as the Hale Cycle SC18-19 (80.9 v. 82.9), the SC23 had 53.9 and the current SC24 has so far 34.6, which means more than 130% lower SSN than is the average of the SC21-22, and it will further decline…. I don’t think it is a coincidence that we don’t see any significant warming since the end of the SC22 (1996)…
Kasuha says:
April 19, 2013 at 6:44 am
“Firstl I’d say Leif Svalgaard wouldn’t approve that sunspot graph.”
Yes, he didn’t. I was discussing it with him recently. And using his suggestions I’ve looked into the correction of the SSN and comparison of the corrected SSN data to the global temp anomaly dataset he suggested to me.
“And second, averaging over 44 years??? Come on.”
I did it to smooth out the Hale cycle signal on the side of the SSN and also the after mid 1940’s temperature decline, so I think it was a “fair trade”. (The decline mid1940’s-mid 70’s I guess is there not because we didn’t burn fossil fuels then, or because the sun was not shining enough – although it was then also intermitently on the decline in the SC20 – but although Anthony laughs at this idea, I would think the cause could be the dust and change of the radiation background (due to atmospheric nuclear explosions) which went multiple folds up since mid 1940’s to 50ties and I have some calculations from another discussions about this topic, suggesting it could be quite enough dust and radioactivity in the upper troposphere and stratosphere to change aerosols significantly – and if H. Svensmark is right with the ionization mechanism of the cloudseeding -as the preliminary results from the CLOUD experiment suggest…but it is quite OT here, so please take it easy)
Dr. Lurtz says:
April 19, 2013 at 6:56 am
“Not TSI [relatively constant], but high energy short radiation [highly variable] driving the Earth’s temperature.”
Quite very possible.
For me the TSI is just one of the indicies, I think it is far more complex how sun influences the climate, not just by direct irradiatin in visible spectrum. The sun has much wider spectrum than is the visible. And the UV can in my opinion play major role. ..But even the TSI went down like ~1W/m2 relatively to the levels in SC21-22 …how much they say is the CO2 forcing?
HenryP says:
April 19, 2013 at 7:11 am
“It is going to get cooler. Prepare for it.”
I think not so much cooler – it takes long time for the oceans to lose heat. And until the oceans don’t, the air will stay relatively warm. But I believe we will not see any significant warming trend at least until 2030’s if the sun is the chief climate driver. And this would be really killing for the CAGW bussiness…
William Astley says:
April 19, 2013 at 10:39 am
Very interesting suggestions about the geomagnetism. I must have a closer look into this.
Berényi Péter says:
April 19, 2013 at 2:43 pm
Thank you for the elaborate explanation. I’m a bit aware of the anomaly of the water, sinking of the more dense warmer water just at certain temperatures close to freezing point etc. and what the salinity has to do with it. When I was writing about the heat going into the ocean depth, I meant very slight deep ocean temperature changes, barely measurable, although the heat so stored is still much more heat than the heat contained in the atmosphere.
I also asked here several times, where all the heat for the measured ocean heat content comes from, when the measured sea surface temperature has the downward trend and the air above is in average colder than the ocean water. This just does not ad up for me thermodynamically. But so far nobody has given me any answer.
Lurzt ignores the Earth’s capacity to easily mitigate a relatively steady Sun. In fact, between the two bodies, Earth far outweighs the Sun in terms of variability.
barry says:
April 19, 2013 at 4:20 pm
“The rise in global temps since the 60s is not caused by the sun. Lief has been saying that here for ages.”
Leif most probably doesn’t say anything about a warming since 60s. It takes just a glance on the temperature graphs and one sees there was no rise “since the 60s” – A rise of the temperatures is first apparent since mid 1970s, when the global temperature anomaly average happened to be well under the line of the longterm warming trend since the Dalton minimum (see here ) and according to most of the global temperature anomaly datasets the rise again became unsignificant at least since the peak of the SC23 and continues to be not apparent even just past the peak of the SC24.
When we take your period 1964-2013 – a significant warming is on the graphs apparent with naked eye only half of that time. And since the peak of quite a powerfull SC22 (SSN average 80.6) after similarly powerfull SC21 – SSN average 81.2 – which coincided with the warming since mid 1970s) it took just one solar cycle and the temperature rise stalled.
And because I see the longterm temp trend since the Dalton minimum more or less agreeing with the magnitude of the SSN trend and I also see that the SSN trend now during just one Hale cycle already fell almost to the depths of the Dalton minimum levels (which can’t be seen on the above linked graph, because it ends with the beginning of the SC24 – I didn’t include SC24, because it’s not finished, but I can tell you from the data that according to Leif corrected SSN average of the SC5 is 27.1 and so far the SC24 at the peak has SSN average 34.6 and it will again descend) and I see the more than decade long stall in the temperature recently, so I presume the sharply changed trend of the SSN starts to turn the longterm trend of the temperatures. Again – if the sun caused the rise of the temperatures in the past, it would be a bit contradictory to claim that it can’t cause the fall of the temperatures down in the future when having significantly lower than average activity – or that it magicaly didn’t caused the rise of the temperatures then and then, while it is claimed it was caused by the CO2, which nevertheless still rises exponentially at more or less same pace as since the beginning of its measurement, while the temperature not for more than decade, which coincides with the sharp solar activity decline. What should I think?
We should expect the weakest solar max in at least a century to cause a pause in the warming.
David L. Hagen says:
April 19, 2013 at 1:27 pm
Yes, the accumulation is basically how I intuitively see it when considering the solar activity/temperature issue. That’s why I always count with the SSN averages, which are in my opinion more important than the levels of the solar cycle peaks. The ocean – with its heat capacity just in epipelagic zone (where it traps the solar irradiance converting it to heat) many times higher than whole the atmosphere – is quite well insulated by the atmosphere and I think that when there’s a period of increasing solar activity for many decades, there must be heat accumulating in the system slightly changing the eqilibrium, which then intensifies the heat exchange at the level where the colder insulator is in the contact with the much higher volumetrric heat capacity of the warmer liquids and solids on the surface, which are able to convert the irradiance to heat much more efficiently than air does, which then can lead to slight rise of the surface temperature and whole chain of other phenomenas from releasing the GHG into the atmosphere to melting of the icecaps due to changes in winds and currents. But nothing too catastrophic. There’s almost absolute zero just thousand km up there and if the surface heats up a bit it also dissipates more. I don’t think we should worry about heat, if something we should worry about the cold. The ice ages aren’t a fairy tale. At the current pace it would take many thousands of years to melt both the Greenland or even Antarctica and so I think there’s nothing to worry about a warming (especially when we see the rapidly falling solar activity since the beginning of the 1990s) and I think that trying to mitigate it by reducing CO2 emissions to “save” whatever looks to me like a textbook example of a globalized Groupthink:.
“Groupthink is a psychological phenomenon that occurs within a group of people, in which the desire for harmony or conformity in the group results in an incorrect or deviant decision-making outcome. Group members try to minimize conflict and reach a consensus decision without critical evaluation of alternative ideas or viewpoints, and by isolating themselves from outside influences. Loyalty to the group requires individuals to avoid raising controversial issues or alternative solutions, and there is loss of individual creativity, uniqueness and independent thinking. The dysfunctional group dynamics of the “ingroup” produces an “illusion of invulnerability” (an inflated certainty that the right decision has been made). Thus the “ingroup” significantly overrates their own abilities in decision-making, and significantly underrates the abilities of their opponents (the “outgroup”). (Wikipedia)
Jim D says:
April 19, 2013 at 9:41 pm
“We should expect the weakest solar max in at least a century to cause a pause in the warming.”
Surely. I think that if we look at the L. Svalgaards correction of the SSN record, it very much looks to me and others that this solar cycle could be even on par with the Dalton minimum solar cycle 5 two centuries ago. If it causes another 10 years of the warming stall, I would think it can completely bury whole the CAGW nonsense. Problem is, that then they will invent next nonsense to dumb the people down and exploit them.
tututu says
But I believe we will not see any significant warming trend at least until 2030′s if the sun is the chief climate driver. And this would be really killing for the CAGW bussiness…
henry @tututu and Dr Lurtz
I just wanted to tell you again that about every 44 years there is switch taking place TOA.
(amongst other switches at other time scales?)
You can see that by evaluating the change coming through the TOA.
http://blogs.24.com/henryp/2012/10/02/best-sine-wave-fit-for-the-drop-in-global-maximum-temperatures/
The date when ozone (and probably others lying on TOA like NOx and HxOx) started decreasing is around 1951. I found this confirmed both by results on the NH and the SH. The continued descent of ozone led to the so called “ozone hole” – and “CFC” – scares and the establishment of the Montreal Protocol. In hindsight I think that was also a red herring.
From around 1995 ozone (and others) started increasing again. Now, Trenberth calculated that of all that is being back radiated, ozone accounted for about 25% but he forgot about the others.
I think that is where the missing heat goes. It goes to space instead of heating up our oceans.
Dr Lurtz has figured it out but I am not sure if he has a mechanism or if he agrees with mine.
Now, I will agree with you that earth’s mean T might not follow 100% on what comes through the atmosphere (by observing change in maxima).This is because earth has its own volcanic action and iron core shifts, and land shifts, lunar influences, etc. But on the long run it will follow. In your graph, you can draw a half parabolic curve going up from 1951 and reaching max. at around 1998/1999 after which the 2nd half of that curve can run downwards until 2040. That means net cooling. By 2040 we will be back to where we were in 1950, more or less. That means all arctic ice will come back.
Another important point not to forget, is that due to the cooling trend, the differential T between the equator and the poles grows and as it will become bigger, there will naturally be more cloud formation at lower latitudes and less at higher latitudes. In a way, that amplifies the cooling effect coming from the top, due to less insolation. (remember: insolation on the equator is the biggest on earth).
In effect, what all this means: poor crops at higher latitudes (which is already happening – see Anchorage 2012 crops) and more rain and better crops at lower latitudes.
To keep feeding 7 billion people and counting, we urgently need to encourage more agriculture at lower latitudes like in Africa and south America.
tumetuestumefaisdubien1,
Leif tends to say that the trend in solar activity is pretty much zero for 50 or 60 years (since about the 60s), and can’t be responsible for multicentennial warming.
All I did was use the author’s time period. It includes significant warming for most of the period.
But I did another trend estimate based on your comments. Here is the temperature trend and solar trend since the mid-70s.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadsst2gl/from:1975/to:2013/mean:12/plot/sidc-ssn/from:1975/to:2013/mean:12/normalise/plot/hadsst2gl/from:1975/to:2013/trend/plot/sidc-ssn/from:1975/to:2013/normalise/trend
Global temperature is signficantly positive, solar activity has a negative trend. The sun is not responsible for the warmng since the mid-70s.
Now, do you want to see how the trends work if we decide there is no warming since 2002?
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadsst2gl/from:1979/to:2005/mean:12/plot/sidc-ssn/from:1979/to:2005/mean:12/normalise/plot/hadsst2gl/from:1982/to:2002/trend/plot/sidc-ssn/from:1982/to:2002/normalise/trend
Have to be careful with the start date to match the phase in the solar cycle, otherwise you weight the data inappropriately. The sun is not responsible for the warming 1981 to 2002, either.
The sun may have short-term influence, but from the 60s solar trends have been negligible, and cannot be responsible for the warming of the past 40 years. It’s seems pretty straightforward to me.
barry says:
April 20, 2013 at 3:27 am
“Leif tends to say that the trend in solar activity is pretty much zero for 50 or 60 years (since about the 60s)”
“zero for 50 or 60 years? -0.49, -1.79, -3.16, -5.54. Tell me, can you see a tendency in this row of numbers? Do you just listen to Leif as your prophet or you also think for yourself?
“Have to be careful with the start date to match the phase in the solar cycle, otherwise you weight the data inappropriately.”
The OLS trends with unsymetric noisy periodic series can be quite deceptive, it is better to use averages or polynomials then OLS, but all you here need to know from trends are the trend turning poins. For this, if you want to use WFTmonthly data always do multiple trends over at least one Hale cycle from statistic min-min or max-max of the cycles. Never use ad-hoc periods. (an example how to find the last turning point in the last century trend using WFT – it is the SC22 peak – since then there’s a slope of SSN ~ -90! per Hale cycle which is quite pretty much something else than a “zero” no matter what Leif tends to to say. It coincides with the GW trends stall which follows <decade after the turning point, moreover starts at the next SC23 peak – although the picture is a bit complicated with the 97-98 strong ENSO event.)
I wrote “multicentennial”, but was thinking multi-decadal. So the sentence should read;
Leif tends to say that the trend in solar activity is pretty much zero for 50 or 60 years (since about the 60s), and can’t be responsible for multi-decadal warming
Good post. There is thermal inertia, but there’s also some exaggeration of the warming since ~1960 (ALW), so that the 2000s decade is not that much warmer than the 1940s.Almost all variation at the multi-decadal/centennial timescales seems to be solar.
barry,
Are you confusing TSI with solar activity?
For a little fun. What you should measure; is the sunspot area record and look at the minimum vs maximum, measure how many cycles there are over the 1800’s and compare that with the 1900’s.
In my opinion each solar cycle is treated in the wrong way, sunspot activity is treated a having an effect where as no sunspot activity is ignored.
From
Low EUV causes the Thermosphere to collapse: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/07/15/earths-thermosphere-collapses-film-at-11/
note the follwoing graph:
http://science.nasa.gov/media/medialibrary/2010/07/15/graphs_circle.jpg
In 2008 and 2009, the density of the thermosphere at 400km above earth was 28% lower than expectations set by previous solar minima.
once again, another connection with EUV and TOA chemistry…
barry says
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadsst2gl/from:1975/to:2013/mean:12/plot/sidc-ssn/from:1975/to:2013/mean:12/normalise/plot/hadsst2gl/from:1975/to:2013/trend/plot/sidc-ssn/from:1975/to:2013/normalise/trend
henry says
well there is something interesting about that plot
1) the trends run exactly opposite, meaning that there could be good correlation, of around -1 or so?
2) they cross each other at exactly around 1972 or thereabout.
This is the date where we know from the data from weather stations that the acceleration of warming started on its curve spiraling downwards, decelerating.
http://blogs.24.com/henryp/2012/10/02/best-sine-wave-fit-for-the-drop-in-global-maximum-temperatures/
….now, if we only could get those lazy statisticians here out of their seats and do some work so that everyone can come on the same page and we could start saving a few lives by taking preventative actions….
http://blogs.24.com/henryp/2013/02/21/henrys-pool-tables-on-global-warmingcooling/
cooling weather has been on record to cause many deaths, especially more so when it also starts affecting food production.
Jan Zeeman says
Never use ad-hoc periods
henry says
good point.
you must be dutch.
tumetuestumefaisdubien1 says:
April 19, 2013 at 5:36 pm
“For me the TSI is just one of the indicies, I think it is far more complex how sun influences the climate, not just by direct irradiatin in visible spectrum. The sun has much wider spectrum than is the visible. And the UV can in my opinion play major role. ..”
This statement seems to indicate that you are saying that TSI only includes the visible spectrum. TSI, as Dr S has stated on this blog numerous times, is total solar irradiation and includes all wavelengths. He has also stated numerous times that the UV part of TSI is relatively very small and the UV influence, as much as actually gets through to the surface, gets swamped by the rest of the irradiation.
Tom in Florida says:
April 20, 2013 at 10:45 am
“as Dr S has stated on this blog numerous times, is total solar irradiation and includes all wavelengths. He has also stated numerous times that the UV part of TSI is relatively very small and the UV influence, as much as actually gets through to the surface, gets swamped by the rest of the irradiation.”
It depends what surface you mean and what UV you mean. I would think important is what gets at the surface and what under the surface and heats.
At the solid or liquid surface we have mainly the UVA ~320-400nm – I mean in more than minute amounts of >0.1W/m2/nm, from it almost all is capable to penetrate deeper – I mean 1m and deeper – under the water surface and get there an energy of like in total ~~30W/m2 (- which I agree could to some look small compared to the 1360+ W/m2 TSI). Nothing like that is capable the reradiated IR at longer wavelengts pertinent to the CO2 GHE debate, because the water is almost absolutely opaque to the longwave IR – so when the water reradiates the energy acquired from the sunlight the IR then even if it gets reflected back by the GHE its effect on rewarming the sea water is negligible. If it’s there the “~10 times larger variance of the UV than of the total SI” then if there would be a longer lasting spectum shift, where the UVA irradiance would drop considerably due to changed solar activity it could have a significant impact on the sea heat content which is the main stabilizing factor of the climate on this planet, because the average sea surface temperature is much higher than the blackbody temperature of the atmosphere and it stores much more heat then the atmosphere. And that’s just the UVA and the sea level surface, I hope I must not continue with the UVC and ozone, or the EUV and ionosphere.
This UV thing is just another mouse and elephant story. First of all it is a myth that a mouse drives an elephant into a corner shivering with fear. However, for the sake of the metaphor, surely the mouse’s whisker will not even cause the elephant to blink.
henry@Tom
I have argued this point with leif several times,
namely that TSI may not change much,
but it is a known fact that E-UV and F-UV do vary, on significant scales,
Basically what (I think) happens is that due to a change in gravitational (planetary)- or electro magnetic forces (various causes, including planetary), there is a small shift in re-distribution within TSI and this is causing a different chain reaction of (natural) chemical reactions happening TOA.
Total TSI may stay the same, or much the same, but the end result on earth is different….
The reason why I know this is happening and that it is natural is by looking at the heat coming through the atmosphere:
http://blogs.24.com/henryp/2012/10/02/best-sine-wave-fit-for-the-drop-in-global-maximum-temperatures/
But even the TSI went down like ~1W/m2 relatively to the levels in SC21-22 …how much they say is the CO2 forcing?
henry says
The initial value of 1.7 W/m2 that was used for a long time came originally from the IPCC AR4 2007.
When I first studied this, I realized what they had done.
1) make a decision: earth is getting warmer, and man is to blame.
everybody agreed.
2) scientists then went ahead and made a (proportional) weighting of various factors that changed from 1750-2005 versus the amount of observed warming 1750-2005….
the weighting for CO2 increase ended up at 1.7
You see what the problem is?They looked from the wrong end because you have not established exact cause…. It is the worst mistake a scientist can make… and I blame the IPCC and all that signed their names to it.
HenryP says:
April 20, 2013 at 12:15 pm
“the weighting for CO2 increase ended up at 1.7”
Increase how much? Doubling?
To convert TSI into forcing you have to use 0.25 for the earth surface average and 0.7 for the albedo leaving 0.25*0.7*(-1) which is about -0.2 W/m2 forcing change. Doubling CO2 is a forcing change of +3.7 W/m2, so you can objectively compare them. The LIA might have been -0.5 W/m2 but some dispute it was that much.
”
phlogiston says:
April 19, 2013 at 3:33 pm
Steven Mosher says:
April 19, 2013 at 12:28 pm
Its pretty straightforward to show that C02 can explain over 50% of the rise. not 100% of course.. its also clear that nothing else, to date, can explain the rise..
Straightforward that is if you are inside the church preaching to the choir. But step outside the church and its a different matter..
###########################################
I once had dinner with a skeptic. I pulled out a chart where I had labelled C02 as a combination of several solar variable. That is, I showed him a C02 curve but I told him it was
a convolution and integration of key solar parameters including adjustments for jupiters orbit.
I then showed him the regression.. where temperature was explained by this “solar” variable.
He was convinced it was the sun.
When I told him the joke and that I had merely labelled the c02 curve as something else.
he got this sick kinda look on his face.
Steven Mosher says:
I pulled out a chart where I had labelled C02 as a combination of several solar variable.
Hi Steven
I got similar chart, I even sent you data, but regrettably as Dr. S. often says ‘you appear to be impervious to my teaching’. 🙂
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/SNT.htm
However, on this side of the Atlantic we would more than welcome some of that CO2 magic, but sadly it ain’t working.
Just spent a few weeks in Hld. Awful. God bless Vukcevic. Sorry man. I do so wish that more CO2 could make things warmer*.
No can do. It was all a hoax based on stupendous science. Have a nice cooling off time you all. Until 2040. Give or take few yrs.
England not too badly affected I think.
Steven Mosher says:
April 20, 2013 at 1:33 pm
Telling lies to tell a lie is not an story worth sharing! honestly mate.
Steven Mosher says:
April 19, 2013 at 12:28 pm
“Its pretty straightforward to show that C02 can explain over 50% of the rise. not 100% of course.. its also clear that nothing else, to date, can explain the rise..”
What about this
I note that it came out from my recent discussion with Dr. S. who suggested to me to do such a comparison and provided me with the links to the data, and also that nothing there is a mislabelled CO2 curve nor the plot does include any adjustments for jupiters orbit. 😉
Telling lies to tell a lie is not a story worth sharing! honestly mate.
Yup Mr. Mosher, there are gullible people on both sides. Ever seen the videos of people signing petitions to ban dihydrogen monoxide?
How about someone just uses the REAL temperature record back to say 1900 (or before, where they exist) rather than the UNREAL Hansen/Jones pre-1979 mal-adjustments.
The whole story would change radically
We desperately need someone to go back to the REAL RAW data and produce a much more realistic ‘global temperature series’ (if that is what people really want to use) than Hadley or Giss provide.
ps: doing ANY pre-1979 analysis using Giss or Hadley data is a fools erand.
“richard verney says:
April 19, 2013 at 12:57 pm
Steven Mosher (April 19, 2013 at 12:28 pm) says
“…… Its pretty straightforward to show that C02 can explain over 50% of the rise. not 100% of course.. its also clear that nothing else, to date, can explain the rise…”
/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
Steven
Natural variation can explain everything.
#####################
Natural variation is not an explaination. It is re naming the observation as the cause.
U
sparks,
That is Jan Zenman’s premise in the article here. I agree with it.
tumetuestumefaisdubien1,
Yep, but as you don’t explain how they are derived, I don’t find them at all convincing. The cryptic reply is off-putting, too. As is the next thing you say.
I started out here charting trends myself. You know this because you replied to those posts. I’m not sure what you hope to gain by insulting me, but I can assure you that it will not persuade me to your view. It also makes for a bit of a strain for me to continue thinking of you and treating you respectfully. Perhaps you can assist by being civil.
A polynomial based on three or four cycles with such large amplitude will not be reliable, and it is useless at any rate without a clear physical basis. It’s just curve-fitting and explaining after the fact. Change the period of interest, and hey presto, you will find the curve peaks at different places.
It’s mathturbation, nothing more. So too, is the curve-fitting in Zeman’s article. Change or extend the period, and the correlation breaks down.
It aint the sun. The effect is too weak at any rate to account for the warming of the last 40 years or so. Too many people torture the data to get the result they want.
barry says:
April 20, 2013 at 5:11 pm
Sorry, just teasing you. The numbers are the trends of the solar activity in SSN for the following cycles since 1964 (in the order). Don’t be too defensive please. I appologize to be too agressive maybe, but I couldn’t help myself, when you were writing so ridiculous stuff. The trends show inadvertently, there IS a trend since 1960s and quite almost unprecedented one.
Steven Mosher says:
April 20, 2013 at 4:37 pm
“Natural variation is not an explaination. It is re naming the observation as the cause.”
=========
Niceties aside, let’s explore this statement.
It starts with “Natural variation is not an explaination”, which is saying nothing more than effects observed without an attributable cause.
Then we get to, “It is re naming the observation as the cause.”
I missed the leap in logic.
Care to explain ?
u.k.(us),
Then you didn’t read the post Mosher was replying to, where the leap occurred.
richard verney quoted mosher,
richard verney replied,
Mosh was pointing out the (il)logical leap in that post.
I don’t want to give the CAGW crowd more food for turning the whole CO2 scare into CAGC but I will to explain it again to S.Mosher from another angle, seeing as that he refuses to understand. Check this graph:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Solar_Spectrum.png
The red is what you get on your head. Do you get that? The yellow marked amount of radiation of that solar spectrum is what is being back radiated, to space, mostly by the O3, O2, HxOx and NxOx, and lastly also by CO2. This is why we are even able to measure it (the absorption spectra of these gases) as it bounced back to earth from the moon. All these gases are GHG’s, agreed?
Now, do you not understand that if there is more of these gases coming into the atmosphere, either naturally or man made, that more of it is being back radiated? If more is being back radiated it means that less radiation is coming in, the red part is becoming smaller, hence we are cooling. So, more GHG naturally means more cooling.
Hence the reason why I say that if you want to prove that the net effect of an increase in one particular GHG is that of warming rather than that of cooling you have to show me a balance sheet that would prove how much cooling and how much warming is caused by a certain% increase of that gas.
The problem is that science has stood still in this regard and has relied heavily on the closed box experiments – by Tyndall and Arrhenius-, and these only show one side of the coin. Further more, the absorption of CO2 causing the back radiation to earth 14-16 um, is at around 200K, while the incoming radiation at 1-2 and 4-5 um being back radiated to space is around 5000K. Therefore, I am naturally inclined to think that the net effect of more CO2 in the atmosphere is that of cooling rather than warming.
Do you now see what the problem is? If you want to prove to me that more CO2 causes warming you have to give me the balance sheet that would convert those 2 differences in energy caused by a certain % increase of the GHG, so that I can compare… If you say such proof exists, of all GHGs, then where is it?
Steven Mosher says:
April 20, 2013 at 4:37 pm
“…Natural variation is not an explaination. It is re naming the observation as the cause…”
/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
Steven,
I take it from your response, that you do not seek to suggest that CO2 can explain, the matters that I said (in my post of April 19th 12:57pm) it could not explain. Instead, you limit your response to semantics.
You are confusing full knowledge and understanding, with explanation. One can frequently explain matters without having a proper knowledge and understanding of all relevant issues: the most obvious one being gravity. We do not know what gravity is or how it works, merely that it exists and its effect.
Take for example a hot air balloon. An observer notes that the balloon rises. A clever bod asks the observer why does that balloon rise? The observer replies, ‘because it is full of hot air’. That is an explanation, a correct explanation, even though the observer may have no understanding or appreciation as to why hot air rises.
We know as fact, that the climate system has natural variability. It therefore follows that when we observe a change in that climate system, that change can theoretically be explained by natural variation.
Of course, it would be nice to know precisely what natural variation encompasses and how it works. That is why I said on another post. “The holy grail of climate science is to know and understand absolutely everything there is to know and understand about natural variability.” The reason for this is as I said in my Aprril 19th 12:57 pm post “…until such time as we know absolutely everything there is to know about natural variation and fully understand it, including being able to identify each and every individual natural component and its direction of forcing and its upper and lower bounds, we are unable to assess whether CO2 does anything at all in the real world environ of this planet in the Holocene era.”
Reverting to your original post (Steven Mosher says: April 19, 2013 at 12:28 pm) you stae;
“Its pretty straightforward to show that C02 can explain over 50% of the rise. not 100% of course.. its also clear that nothing else, to date, can explain the rise.”
The truth of the matter is that we do not know what CO2 does in the real world environs in Earth’s atmosphere and climate. That experiment is currently underway and it may be that in 20 or 50 years time, we will have the result. Until then, If you desired to be correct in your use of language you should have stated that CO2 MIGHT explain or MAY POSSIBLY explain rather than CAN explain. Presently, in the real world we simply do not know what CO2 CAN explain.
barry says
too many people torture the data to get the result they want.
henry@barry
try looking at the raw data,
e.g. frm
http://www.tutiempo.net
go to the place you live and chose clima
to get the old data.
which way it is going in the place you live,
warming or cooling?
let me know
do the job and get wise
HenryP says:
April 21, 2013 at 5:18 am
“which way it is going in the place you live, warming or cooling? let me know”
I did my homework quite a time agohere and here is my recent comparison of the unique 240+ years long Prague Klementinum temperature original (uncorrected for the UHI) record (quite different than the “amputated and with other record mended” GISS version) with the solar activity.record. (mind the fact that the solar trend is still a bit steeper than the temperature record)
I also live on Earth, so here is my comparison of the BerkeleyEarth Global Temperature Anomaly record with the solar activity – which was suggested to me by L. Svalgaard as well as the SSN data correction for the Waldmeier discontinuity. (mind the fact that the solar trend is still a bit steeper than the temperature anomaly record and also the fact, that the solar trend from the uncorrected SSN data – the tiny pink line – is much steeper than the temperature anomaly trend, while the trend from the corrected SSN data quite well matches the temperature anomaly trend which can well suggest L. Svalgaard has it right with his SSN correction)
I also used to live in England, so here is my comparison of the the unique Central England Temperature record with the solar activity. (mind the fact that on this comparison it is the temperature trend which is a bit steeper then the solar – which coud again suggest L. Svalgaard has it right with his SSN correction and different temperature records just have a bit different trends, so they fluctuate close around the solar trend)
I think the match of the longterm trends over more than two centuries is quite a stunning one and it quite well suggests it is indeed the sun what is the chief driver, despite the variations atributable to other factors, and that the recent warming well can be just a short-term variation, result of a temperature lag behind the strong SC21-22 solar activity, or – as is quite clear from the Prague Klementinum (in the very center of Prague) record – can be partially attributed to UHI effect on the urban stations (there are several independent UHI estimations for the Prague Klementinum record with UHI proved significantly rising after ~1920s and mainly after 1960s).
(data I used for the comparisons are here – please note that the spreadsheet and the graphs is a working version for my next article, so please don’t publish it anywhere – but a private sharing is of course welcome)
barry says:
April 20, 2013 at 8:21 pm
“Mosh was pointing out the (il)logical leap in that post.”
====
Maybe, I don’t know his mind.
( I wouldn’t mind having its capacities though), just need a bit more information released to catch its drift.
barry says:
April 20, 2013 at 8:21 pm
////////////////////////////////////
Barry
There was no leap in logic in my post. I am not in any way conflating cause with observation.
It is Steven Mosher’s reply which is illogical.
The observation is the change in temperature anomaly/ change in temperature. The explanation behind that change (according to the null hypothesis) is that it was due to natural variation.
The fact that we cannot yet provide more detail as to what is encompassed in natural variation, does not stop natural variation from being the cause of the observed change in temperature anomaly.
This is just like the situation where you let go of an apple and it falls to the ground. The observation is the fall, the explanation is gravity. The fact that we do not understand why objects attract one another, how that process works does not mean that the force of gravity is not the correct explanation as to why the apple fell to the ground.
No doubt one day we will be able to explain the workings of gravity. Just like one day, no doubt we shall be able to identify each and every component in natural variation and explain gow each and every component works and the upper and lower bounds of their individual forcings. But even though we presently lack the required knowledge and understanding to do this, does not in any way reduce or lessen the likelihood of the correctness of the null hypothesis explanation for the observed change in temperature is due to natural variation.
I attribute it to the Gods of Cargo, myself.
http://www.tutiempo.net/clima/Praga_Ruzyne/115180.htm
Average temperatures (means) in Prague have been going up on average by
0.0071 degrees C /annum since 2000
that is about 0.08 K up in total since 2000.
That is not much.
Over the whole of the period from 1980, it was 0.0569 degrees C/annum, on average
That shows you that warming is decelerating, fast…
In line with this, minimum temperatures there have already started dropping, and is now already negative, at
-0.0236 degrees C/ annum since 2000.
So, minimum temps. are down by about – 0.3 K in total since 2000.
(I get a shiver, I hate cold)
Over the whole of the period from 1980, minima rose 0.0487 degrees C/annum, on average
That shows you that warming has already turned to cooling….and how far we have fallen already….
Of course that shows you all also that the warming is and was never caused by an increase in GHG because the GHG theory proposes that the cooling of earth is delayed by more GHG in the atmosphere. That would imply minimum temps. should start to rise, pushing up mean temperature.
I have again showed that the opposite is happening.
It is sun, going (a bit) down on all of us.
We should act. To counteract the occurrence of poor crops due to the (coming) freezing weather, which is only going to get worse, climate science must make a statement, encouraging agriculture at lower latitudes.
As I understand it, the whole “blue end” weakened and the “red end” strengthened. Since redish and IR are surface absorbed and cause evaporation, less ocean heating. As blue-UV go deep, they slowly warm the ocean. So during High UV times, a thick layer of ocean slowly warms. During low UV times, that heat slowly leaves the ocean and the Red-IR causes a short spike in surface temps (that 1998-9 spike?) then mostly just drives more rain (as we’ve seen since).
It is the confounding of heat and temperature, mixed with ignoring enthalpy, and not paying any attention to where the different parts of the spectrum go; that’s the error in “climate science”.
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2013/04/09/where-the-uv-goes/
barry,
Leif tends to say that the trend in solar activity is pretty much zero for 50 or 60 years (since about the 60s), and can’t be responsible for multi-decadal warming
Leif would have been discussing TSI and how it had no comparison to solar activity. …Meaning. TSI is not a measurement of solar activity .