Yesterday, WUWT carried the headline: Coldest Spring In England Since 1891. This essay offers what could be an explanation for it. Judge for yourself. – Anthony
Guest essay by David Archibald
Back in 2006, I published my first paper in climate science. That paper, Solar Cycles 24 and 25 and Predicted Climate Response, predicted a temperature decline of 1.5°C over Solar Cycle 24. The model has become a little more refined since then, and further updated by the papers of Jan-Erik Solheim, Ole Humlum and Kjell Stordahl. Given that Solar Cycle 23 was three years longer than Solar Cycle 22, the average temperature of Armagh in Northern Ireland and the CET is modelled to be 1.4°C colder over Solar Cycle 24 than it was over Solar Cycle 23. The model is based on the theory of Friis-Christensen and Lassen in their 1991 paper.
We are now four and a half years into Solar Cycle 24. So how is the prediction holding up? That is shown in Figure 1 following:
Figure 1: CET Average Temperatures 1990 – 2025
Over Solar Cycle 23 the average temperature of the CET was 10.4°C so the model predicts that the average over Solar Cycle 24 will be 9.0°C. For the first four years of Solar Cycle 24, it has averaged 9.8°C. For the prediction to hold from here, the average temperature over the remainder of the cycle will have to be 8.7°C. The average temperature of 2010 was 8.8°C – only 0.1°C more than what is needed from here. With solar maximum of Solar Cycle 24 now past us, the prediction is in the bag.
Thanks to Richard Altrock’s green corona emissions diagram we can also predict average temperature over Solar Cycle 25. Interpreting that diagram, Solar Cycle 24 will be at least 16 years long. In turn, that means that the CET over Solar Cycle 25 will be a further 1.4°C cooler than the average over Solar Cycle 24. The following graph shows what that looks like:
Figure 2: CET Average Temperatures 1960 – 2037
The CET record is now 354 years long. Has something like that happened before? Yes it has. Figure 3 following shows the CET record from 1659 and puts our Solar Cycle 24 and 25 predictions in that context:
Figure 3: CET Average Temperature 1659 – 2037
Some individual years have had averages colder than our Solar Cycle 25 prediction. The eleven years centred on 1695 had an average temperature of 8.1°C. This cold period killed off 30% of the population of Finland. The cold period centered on 1740 affected Ireland badly, killing several hundred thousand people – 20% of the then population. The better known potato famine was one hundred years later. There was a major volcanic eruption in 1739, Tarumai in Japan, that would have contributed to the cooling over 1740. Volcanic effects last only a couple of years though. There seems to have been a regime change with temperatures after 1740 about 1.0°C colder than the years before it. This suggests a solar origin. In fact the high temperatures up to 1740 look similar to the high temperatures of the late 20th century.
Perhaps a solar regime change is in train once again. Livingstone and Penn forecast a maximum amplitude for Solar Cycle 25 of 7 which would make it the smallest solar cycle for over 300 years. Figure 4 shows what that will look like:
Figure 4: Solar Cycles 1749 – 2040
Despite what is happening to their climate, the UK is persisting with a project to convert their largest coal-fired power station, Drax in North Yorkshire, to burning woodchips to be imported from the United States. This is an attempt to placate the gods of climate at a capital cost for the conversion of £700 million ($1,070 million). This is laughable and very tragic at the same time. The whole circus will end in tears.
Not exactly.
CET is following progression of the N. Atlantic tectonics around Iceland, and in particular ocean warm/cold currents balance in the Denmark Strait.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/CET-NV.htm
Should that first image’s “Solar Cycle 24 Average Temperature” be for Cycle 23?
You flipped your labels in Fig. 1. Swtich the “24” and “25”
And the MADNESS continues……. !!!
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/energy/10095188/Ed-Davey-attacks-papers-who-report-destructive-climate-sceptics.html
presumably potation ->potato
I assumed the 1.5C prediction was for the WHOLE PLANET, not just central England…
“Potation famine?”
None of this makes sense.
First you have :
We are now four and a half years into Solar Cycle 24. So how is the prediction holding up?
A few sentences later we have:
For the first four years of Solar Cycle 25, it has averaged 9.8°C.
Graph 1 shows the solar cycle average temperature to be in somewhere of the region of 1980, or perhaps, as the prediction is shown, centred around 2017.
REPLY:incorrectly placed labels on the graph and text have been fixed, refresh – Anthony
The incorrect positions of labels in graphs of figure 1 and 2 have been fixed, along with the text. Thanks to everyone who pointed it out.
Richard Bell
Sounds like the UK energy secretary, Mr Davey thinks it is wrong to tell the truth to the Uk public about the coming cold weather . Even the Met Ofiice, a branch of his own government is saying there will be no warming for at least the next 5 years despite the rising co2 levels .
Well… This article does not make a great deal of sense. But the great news is that we will know the results of the prediction within a decade so…
Solar sunspot activity is at the lowest level since 1900. During the decades of 1880, 1890 and 1900 the average sunspot numbers [NSO] were 45.2, 55.1 and 42.6. During 2000 decade they were 49.6. During the last 10 years the average sunspot number was 29.3. When the average solar level drops to about 40-50, cooler weather sets in. Although the exact mechanism is not yet understood, low solar sunspot numbers seem to correlate with low global surface temperatures especially when ocean and solar cycles are both in sync during declining or rising phases. Low solar cycles typically come in threes, so it is possible that low sunspot number may exist for several decades into the future .Typically these longer solar minimums are characterized by a long solar cycle followed by three low level sunspot cycles resulting in some 45 years of lower sunspot activity, like 1872 – 1917 and again 1790-1836. There are 11, 22, 70-80, 200 year and even longer solar cycles .
Current UK temperature trend is consistent with past similar solar cycle patterns as David points out
SNIP With solar maximum of Solar Cycle 24 now past us, the prediction is in the bag.
What? Models are good, models are bad?
Meanwhile DMI ice is showing a stall on melting at the north pole.
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/icecover.uk.php
But beware NORSEX has already delayed showing this for 2 days
http://arctic-roos.org/observations/satellite-data/sea-ice/
and Cryosphere today doesnt show it at all.
Be very very wary of ice “adjustments” at this time of year, especially if trending against the teams desires. Recommend freezing the web page with date stamp to compare later.
find a review of David’s 2006 paper here
http://n3xus6.blogspot.com/2007/02/dd.
The abstract
Projections of weak solar maxima for solar cycles 24 and 25 are correlated with
the terrestrial climate response to solar cycles over the last three hundred years,
derived from a review of the literature. Based on solar maxima of approximately
50 for solar cycles 24 and 25, a global temperature decline of 1.5°C is predicted to
2020, equating to the experience of the Dalton Minimum. To provide a baseline for
projecting temperature to the projected maximum of solar cycle 25, data from five
rural, continental US stations with data from 1905 to 2003 was averaged and
smoothed. The profile indicates that temperatures remain below the average over
the first half of the twentieth century
So,
A. his prediction was based on solar maximum being 50. Its greater than that
B. His prediction was for global.
Now, all you folks who complain that thousands of stations are not good enough?
“To provide a baseline for projecting temperature to the projected maximum of solar
cycle 25 in 2024, data from five, rural, continental US stations with data from 1905 to
2003 was averaged and smoothed. That is shown in Figure 3. Rural stations were
chosen so as to eliminate the possibility of contamination by the urban heat island
effect. The use of a 98 year long data set precludes the possibility of the data being
affected by short term local conditions. The smoothed average annual temperature of
the Hawkinsville (32.3N, 83.5W), Glennville (31.3N, 89.1W), Calhoun Research
Station (32.5N, 92.3W), Highlands (35.0N, 82.3W) and Talbotton (32.7N, 84.5W)
stations is representative of the US temperature profile away from the urban heat
island effect over the last 100 years (Data source: NASA GISS)”
Notice the lack of a representative sample of latitude, longitude, altitude, and distance from coast.
For a full read of the joke
http://meteo.lcd.lu/globalwarming/Archibald/Solar_Cycles_may07.pdf
Parts of your text are confusing.
The wood chip part has been discussed here:
http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2013/05/28/power-station-conversion-from-coal-to-woodchip-is-not-sustainable/
. . . with information from the Wall Street Journal.
This thing the English Government has for sourcing trees from North America has a long and unhappy history. So, I agree with the “end in tears” part.
http://www.mainememory.net/sitebuilder/site/283/page/546/display?use_mmn=
Looks like we are in for some additional cooling to make the “in the bag” prediction.
Steven,
That link would be . . .
http://n3xus6.blogspot.com/2007/02/dd.html
It was 63 degrees here in Texas when I got up this morning, and the day is beautiful. For a Texas June, that’s unreal, but very welcome! As things cool down, the weather down here is getting better and better. Texas just gets to be a nicer place to be every day!
(maybe file that under “it’s an ill wind….”
Not really much in favor of crystal balls that predict things with too fine a point on it. What I would accept is something along the lines of “conditions are set for temperatures to fall” but exactly how much they fall will depend on external variable factors. These factors include: the cosmic ray density of the space through which the solar system is passing, volcanic activity on Earth during the period, other things that change the levels of particulates in the air including pollution, fires, etc.
Also, I am curious if anyone ever studied the impact of the Kuwait oil well fires when Saddam Hussein ordered the oil wells there set fire. That should have dumped a huge load of black carbon into the atmosphere over a short period of time.
http://www.lpi.usra.edu/publications/slidesets/humanimprints/images/himp_s16.jpg
“B. His prediction was for global.”
That’s what I thought I remembered too. We’re no where close to that prediction being true. This is almost as bad a using one tree in the Urals to make a hokey stick….
What are some of the leading hypotheses? It’s not reduced electromagnetic radiation output from the sun, right? Is it cloud formation? Other ideas?
And yet, from NOAA, we report the 13th warmest April, and 8th warmest ytd.
I would not hold my breath waiting for cooler temperatures.
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global/2013/04/
As has been pointed out up thread, the original paper (and therefore it’s predictions) apparently had some significant weaknesses (like not using CET then as now) which the poster says have been improved in unspecified ways. But it made testable predictions, as did the AR4 GCM ensemble. So far it is doing better than the IPCC. As yet that says nothing. Time will tell.
BUT at least this post has a plausible natural variability explanation in figure 4, which if accurate data (I haven’t bothered to double check, which one should always do in climate research–remember Mann and Marcott) even explains the two periods of temperature rise in the 20th century with a mid century pause. If the underlying theory predicting future solar cycle intensity holds, then to some degree the posts temperature prediction likely will also. That would be where to investigate plausibility.
By comparison, the GCMs have a proven and well documented moist bias, resulting in overstating both positive water vapor feedback and cloud feedback and therefore sensitivity. That moist bias is inherent in GCM inability at present grid scales to adequately model tropical convection (thunderstorms, and Lindzens adaptive iris hypothesis). So the temperature records of the past 12-15 years have already falsified them almost to the undeniable satisfaction of their most ardent AGW proponents.
This post may not be right either, but it is provably already better than the IPCC both in explanation and near term prediction.
Thanks for hosting such an interesting ‘paper’ Anthony.
One last label fix. Shouldn’t the label in Fig. 1 be “Solar cycle 24 (not 25) Average temp over rest of cycle.” ?
REPLY: It may very well be, unfortunately Mr. Archibald is out of touch due to time zone differences. – Anthony
A better joke comes from the IPCC who also claims global warming even though the globe hasn’t warmed (warming has been regional), and hasn’t necessarily warmed over a 24-hour day, for all or even most days of the year, nor evenly along decadal time periods. A better joke came from James Hansen who believes NYC will be under meters of sea water. Lewendowsky is quite the jokester as is Cook at SkS who likes to spin up really good tales.
I think it is not a bad prediction for David to claim global changes when the driver is the sun as that tends to affect all things and all places better than say El Niño/La Niña events or volcanoes. I’ll bet Archibald will be shown to be more accurate than James Hansen.
What do you predict?