Guest post by Jan Zeman
![Escalator_2012_500[1]](http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/escalator_2012_5001.gif)
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)
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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?