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.
jimarndt says:
June 3, 2013 at 1:52 pm
“You need to show how this happens and the mechanism. I am a solar advocate but we can’t just say so without a mechanism. just saying.”
Absolutely. Mechanisms rule. Like the climate folks have this mechanism where aerosols just balance the CO2 increase to produce 17 years of no warming. They don’t need no steenkin’ sun.
This is junk
Leif Svalgaard says:
This is junk.
So Leif, what is YOUR prediction or projection for the next 10 years?? We can then compare then while sniping at each other over the period.
Still get a chuckle about needing man made generators to produce electricity!!!
This punctuated cold might tie into legend well. What if the “little ice age” isn’t a period of broadly lower average temperatures as it is an average period punctuated with early and harsh winters intersperced with mild winters.
The Little Ice Age shows up in Autumn and Winter temperatures, not in Spring and Summer temperatures. Which is clearly a reduced clouds effect. Interestingly, we see a very similar change over the last 15 years. I’m neutral on whether this is linked to the solar cycle.
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/documents/421974/1295957/Info+sheet+%233.pdf/9e79ea64-6ee2-4939-9a12-9a34079f3cc9
Note the link to the graph image is broken, but can be viewed with a magnifier.
Philip Bradley says:
June 3, 2013 at 9:55 pm
“The Little Ice Age shows up in Autumn and Winter temperatures, not in Spring and Summer temperatures. Which is clearly a reduced clouds effect. Interestingly, we see a very similar change over the last 15 years. I’m neutral on whether this is linked to the solar cycle.”
Nice observation. I too think that cold spells under quiet sun conditions may be due to modified wintertime atmospheric circulation (you say reduced clouds). Note that UAH tlt temperatures are still fairly warm whereas Europe and other areas experienced abnormal cold.
Philip Bradley
Here is CET graphed in decadal and 50 year periods through most of the LIA
http://climatereason.com/Graphs/Graph04.png
http://climatereason.com/Graphs/Graph05.png
Tonyb
Thanks for the link to the original paper, Steve. When I was reading the article I was thinking why wouldn’t be link his own paper? Don’t worry I knew the answer 😉
Although this does make a pretty good parody of Mann defending Hansen’s predictions for those who don’t want to take it too seriously. Most of the same tricks are used just less subtle!
Mardler says:
June 3, 2013 at 9:45 am
////////////////////////////
The Met Office state:
“…This March has been the coldest since 1962 in the UK in the national record dating back to 1910…As well as being very cold, March has also been very snowy and joins 2006, 2001, 1995, 1987, 1979, 1970 and 1962 as years when March saw some significant snowfall. ”
We now know that Spring in the UK has been the coldest for over a 100 years. It is interesting to note that it appears that 4 of the smowiest Marchs 9including 2013) have occurred since 1995, and 6 since claims of AGW took off in the late 1970s. from that data, it does not appear that snows in the UK are or will be things of the past, and that ‘our’ children will not know what snow is.
There appears to be a trend developing for snowier winters. CET shows that winter temperatures this century (ie., as fromm 2000) have fallen by almost 1.5degC. That is much more than the last century warming.
Governments and Climate Scientists have to start appreciating that climate is regional and impacts of climate change 9whatever be the cause0 are felt locally, not globally. Whatever, the Uk government may think about global warming and what steps 9if any) should be taken to address such issue, the UK government’s paramount concern should be to consider and address what is happening to the UK. If the present trend for decling temperatures (especially winter temperatures) in the UK continues then the government needs to address the challenges that will need to be taken to keep the country moving (public transport, buses, trains, air ports open, roads properly gritted etc) and the increased demands that will be placed on energy (this March the UK almost run out of gas reserves and was only about 6 hours away from rationing heavy industrial users). If energy can not meet demand this will have a big impact on needlessly premature winter mortality rates, and industrial output 9the last thing a struggling economy needs). Further, it needs to ensure that energy is affordable since with increased energy usage during winter and spring months, the average citizen will have to fork out much more money on energy just simply because they are using more. The number of people in fuel poverty will increase dramatically not simply because of rising energy costs, but simply because they are using more because of the cold.
As regards the drive for green energy, the UK needs to consider carefully the performance of windfarms during the winter and spring. If ever increasing reliance is being placed on that form of energy production, the UK government needs to consider how effective it is at coping with demands during peak usage. The past experience of the last few years would suggest that it is worfully inadequate at meeting any significant demand during cold winters when a blocking high is sitting over or near the UK.
There are interesting times lying ahead for the UK but politicians appear oblivious to this near since they are so blinded by the spin of global warming, and fail to look locally.
crosspatch says:
June 3, 2013 at 8:28 am
Perhaps it was only coincidence, but that same year the Iceman was discovered.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%96tzi
All of this took place in 1991. The ice just happen to melt enough to expose him the same year all that soot was put up in the atmosphere by the oil fires. A lot would depend on where the wind patterns moved the soot.
I’ve often wondered about that.
Totally in agreement with Russian claims based on solar research. since the sun is the only source of heat to drive the climate system a cooling would be on the cards given its present course.
Leif Svalgaard says:
June 3, 2013 at 8:13 pm
This is junk
Of course. Nothing to do with the fact that it threatens your line of work either.
wws says: @ur momisugly June 3, 2013 at 8:15 am
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….
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Tell me about it.
It is 8am here in mid North Carolina and it is 64F. We have yet to see a day above ninety degrees. Ten years ago in 2004, we had 6 days over 90F in April and 17 days in May with two days over 98F. It was only a week or two ago that farmers started to plant there fields.
I feel like I am back in New England!
This cool weather could have some nasty repercussions later this year.
I did a round-up of planting news in the first week of May here. (Ground temperature for corn planting in NC was STILL not warm enough in my area that first week of May.)
kuhnkat says:
June 3, 2013 at 9:23 pm
“This is junk”
So Leif, what is YOUR prediction
The article rests on its own demerits, regardless of anybody else’s prediction…
Leif Svalgaard,
Yes, the article stands on its own. Interestingly you are simply ad homing it. Since you won’t tell us why it is just junk I need your prediction to have something to go on. Or is this something else you will not provide meaning you actually have nothing worthwhile to say. Don’t forget many of us do not have your lofty level of education, experience, and abilities.
We also do not have your need to support the Consensus.
In my opinion there are better predictions for solar cycle 25 available than the work of Livingstone and Penn, see http://www.cdejager.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/2012-sudden-trans-JSWSC-2-A073.pdf
Bruce Cobb says:
June 4, 2013 at 4:33 am
“This is junk”
Of course. Nothing to do with the fact that it threatens your line of work either.
Quite the contrary. If it were not junk, it would show the importance of solar research and attract more welcome funding.
I do not understand the skepticism concerning the solar magnetic cycle modulation of climate. There are nine (9) cyclic warming and cooling periods during the current interglacial period (the Holocene) and there are a further 14 more warming and cooling periods in the glacial period. (23 in total that can be tracked and the warming and cooling periods correlate with solar magnetic cycle changes.) There is smoking gun evidence that solar magnetic cycle changes are the cause of the cyclic climate change (warm periods followed by cooling periods and the abrupt climate events).
To be fair the naysayers, the recent abrupt change to the solar magnetic cycle inhibited the GCR mechanism that modulates planetary cloud cover. As the planet has started to cool, the GCR modulation of planetary cloud cover that modulates low level clouds and high level clouds has resumed.
The regions of the planet that warmed in the 20th century are the same regions of the planet that warmed during the Medieval Warm period. As many are aware the pattern of 20th century warming (primarily high northern hemisphere and southern hemisphere excluding the Antarctic ice sheet) does not match the pattern predicted by the AGW hypothesis or the IPCC models.
It appears the majority of the 20th century warming was not caused by the rise of CO2 in the atmosphere. An observation to support that assertion (pattern recognition and reversibility) is the recent cooling and wet weather is in the same regions that experienced the Little Ice age.
There is now record sea ice in the Antarctic and there is cooling in the high Arctic.
The lifetime of sunspots on the surface of the sun is becoming less as sunspots become pores. It appears the sun will be spotless by the end of this year which is anomalous. If the sun becomes spotless there will be another NASA solar update.
The IPCC can explain a lack of warming with heat hiding in the ocean. It is not possible to hide cooling. Significant planetary cooling will require an explanation. No doubt there will be scallywags that assert the planetary cooling must be due to the abrupt change to the sun.
The tone of the climate change discussions will change if there is significant cooling of the planet that coincides with an abrupt change to the solar magnetic cycle.
http://www.ospo.noaa.gov/data/sst/anomaly/2013/anomnight.6.3.2013.gif
Comment: Scallywag
1. Informal a scamp; rascal
2. (Historical Terms) (after the US Civil War) a White Southerner who supported the Republican Party and its policy of Black emancipation. Scallywags were viewed as traitors by their fellow Southerners.
http://www.climate4you.com/images/GISP2%20TemperatureSince10700%20BP%20with%20CO2%20from%20EPICA%20DomeC.gif
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Ice_Age
Europe/North America
The Little Ice Age brought colder winters to parts of Europe and North America. … …Iceland also suffered failures of cereal crops, and people moved away from a grain-based diet.[21] The Norse colonies in Greenland starved and vanished (by the early 15th century), as crops failed and livestock …. …. Hubert Lamb said that in many years, “snowfall was much heavier … ….Crop practices throughout Europe had to be altered to adapt to the shortened, less reliable growing season, and there were many years of dearth and famine (such as the Great Famine of 1315–1317, although this may have been before the LIA proper).[25] According to Elizabeth Ewan and Janay Nugent, “Famines in France 1693–94, Norway 1695–96 and Sweden 1696–97 claimed roughly 10% of the population of each country. In Estonia and Finland in 1696–97, losses have been estimated at a fifth and a third of the national populations, respectively.”[26] Viticulture disappeared from some northern regions. Violent storms caused serious flooding and loss of life. Some of these resulted in permanent loss of large areas of land from the Danish, German and Dutch coasts.[24]
Historian Wolfgang Behringer has linked intensive witch-hunting episodes in Europe to agricultural failures during the Little Ice Age.[36]
http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2013/06/02/europe-floods.html
Antarctic
Kreutz et al. (1997) compared results from studies of West Antarctic ice cores with the Greenland Ice Sheet Project Two (GISP2) and suggested a synchronous global Little Ice Age.[46] An ocean sediment core from the eastern Bransfield Basin in the Antarctic Peninsula shows centennial events that the authors link to the Little Ice Age and Medieval Warm Period.[47] The authors note “other unexplained climatic events comparable in duration and amplitude to the LIA and MWP events also appear.”
(Why is there a sudden increase in Antarctic sea ice?)
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/S_timeseries.png
Australia
There is limited evidence about conditions in Australia, though lake records in Victoria suggest that conditions, at least in the south of the state, were wet and/or unusually cool. In the north of the continent, the limited evidence suggests fairly dry conditions, while coral cores from the Great Barrier Reef show similar rainfall as today but with less variability. A study that analyzed isotopes in Great Barrier Reef corals suggested that increased water vapor transport from southern tropical oceans to the poles contributed to the LIA.[53] Borehole reconstructions from Australia suggest that, over the last 500 years, the 17th century was the coldest in that continent,…
http://www.skynews.com.au/national/article.aspx?id=876722
lsvalgaard says:
June 4, 2013 at 5:34 am
Quite the contrary. If it were not junk, it would show the importance of solar research and attract more welcome funding.
Bzzzzzt!
You wish. In the highly-politicized and even corrupt realm of climate “science”, that isn’t how funding works.
Try again.
William Astley said ” It appears the sun will be spotless by the end of this year which is anomalous.”I thought that the last brief from the pen of Livingston, Penn & Svalgaard was for a spotless sun at about 2020.
Leif, I think, may be of the opinion that cooling might occur over the coming years but will have something to do with Jupiter and not the sun. Should cooling show its hand as we approach 2020 then hopefully Leif will enlighten us as to the Jupiter link at that time, though I hope for an illuminating post from him here on the subject rather sooner, 7 years is a long time to wait at my age.
Anyway, it’s an infinitely safer bet than co2 catastrophic warming.
J Martin says: June 4, 2013 at 10:19 am
Re Jupiter
a) Was referring to the Milankovic cycles.
b) Was sarcastic, since there are many ‘pseudo-scientists’ who consider that Jupiter’s gravity etc., controls solar activity.
Vuk.
I’m not sure that a) or b) are the case. I’m sure that Leif knows to use the /sarc tag, and if I recall correctly he didn’t. Anyway if was being sarcastic then I will be disappointed as I thought a post from Leif to do with planets other than the sun would have been interesting.
Not convinced about Milankovic, I reckon it sets the background conditions or potential, but there are so many other factors, that actual timing, rate, extent etc are effectively unpredictable, unfortunately, though in some ways, timing, rate, extent etc are or should be the Holy Grail of climate science.
“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.”
I’ll not hold my breath to see the “at least 16 years long” solar cycle…
I must agree with Leif this is junk and I wonder why Archibald didn’t even bother to see the updated Altrock’s green corona diagram he was pointed to already some months ago to see that his extraordinary length of the SC24 “prediction” is quite baseless.
The Suns activities through time modulated via the tidal forces of planets are an interesting thought. But as we know are not set as fact.
As yet we don’t know enough when it comes to stars with or without such effects.
I have once read on a site which played with this theory; one young guy took the Solar activity record and broke it down with DSP, reducing it to a series of resonances. The result was very compelling because they reasonably matched most of the major planets.
tumetuestumefaisdubien1 says:
June 4, 2013 at 11:37 am
Not holding your breath to see an at least 16 year long cycle? Well, some lead and others follow. Have a look at slide 13 on this presentation:
https://www2.hao.ucar.edu/sites/default/…/Synoptic-Observations_LS.ppt..
In the box in the lower right corner, highlighted in orange.
David, that is a dead link, due to it being abbreviated with /…/
David Archibald says:
June 4, 2013 at 9:06 pm
I recall this question was in the discussion here already months ago and if I remember it well after pointed to the updated 2012 diagram it led back to “constant as polar cepheid” arguments of pointing back to the Altrock’s 2010 paper, where I’m somehow unable to find any base for an “at least 16 years long” SC24 -at least beyond leisurely put “peculiar oracle on the mountain” sort of arguments.
I’m not an English native, but given the past experience wouldn’t you think that rather than peculiar a more apposite characteristic for an “at least 16 years long” solar cycle would be extraordinary, outstanding, unprecedented or something like that?
Even the longest SC4 Usoskin et al prolong to (almost) 16 years and half in two, so I wonder if this is another such clear as sun piece of science feat and see some more from the oraculum to enrich my occult stories lower right corner highlighted in orange repertoir. Unfortunately while I would like to follow the leaders to the holy mountain. What if something is there, after all. But somehow the broken blink after click leads me to a blind rabbit hole for now.