Solar gains in Spain may cause warmists pain

Having solar panels everywhere is going to make solar changes too obvious to hide. This should be amusing.

Frack Nation on SunTV tonight…it’s the premiere

Frack Nation on SunTV…
The premiere

Global warming is based on a positive feedback from a reduction in cloud optical thickness letting more solar radiation in. The feedback assumption is about 0.75 W/m2 per 1.0C increase in temperatures.
The cloud feedback is less than the water vapor feedback but it is still a make or break factor in the theory. Lower feedback values significantly reduce the eventual climate sensitivity. At 50% of the assumption, the CO2 sensitivity falls by about 0.6C. At a negative feedback value of the same amount (and we don’t really know if clouds will be a positive or negative feedback), the climate sensitivity falls by 1.5C.
This study might indicate it is, indeed, a strong positive feedback. Or maybe it is actually the aerosol reduction that caused the changes in solar radiation rather than temperatures affecting clouds.

a scandal brewing:
6 June: News Ltd. Australia: AAP: Program sparks broader legionnaires’ fears
CONCERNS have been raised about the safety of thousands of hot water systems, amid a deadly outbreak of legionnaires’ disease at a Brisbane hospital…
One patient has died and another is in intensive care after being infected at the hospital.
The legionella bacteria has been found in taps at the hospital and an electrical engineer has linked the outbreak to a state government energy efficiency program.
The electrician, who worked on the government’s defunct Climate Smart program, says the hot water system at the Wesley was turned down to 50 degrees to save power.
He said the government ignored warnings that the move could encourage the growth of harmful bacteria in hot water systems…
http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/national/no-early-end-to-qld-legionnaires-outbreak/story-e6frfku9-1226659037176#ixzz2VTZNB9HB
6 June: ABC Australia: Legionnaires’ disease outbreak: Wesley Hospital took more than a week to notify Queensland Health
But a Brisbane electrician who worked for the State Government’s now defunct Climate Smart Program says anyone who used that service would have had their hot water system temperatures reduced to 50C to save energy…
“Anybody that had the Climate Smart service had the temperature of their hot water system reduced [from] 65 to 70 degrees down to 50.”…
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-06-07/electrician-says-efficiency-program-put-homes-businesses-at-risk/4739254

Well remember that “an increase in clouds” (or a decrease) means for some climate significant time scale; not just last night’s weather.
More clouds reflects, and blocks more sunlight, which therefore will never reach the deep ocean storage bin.
If those clouds get warmed by LWIR from the surface, they will simply radiate to space even faster.
According to Frank Wentz et al, a 1 deg. C increase in global surface Temperature gives a 7% increase, in global evaporation, total atmospheric water content, and global precipitation. Perish the thought that such increases might be accompanied by about a 7% increase in cloudiness (in total area, total density, and total persistence time, in some combination).
I have no idea how clouds could produce a positive feedback. They can’t transport “heat energy” back to the surface; they can only lose it to space.

Dr Spencer also alluded to this in one of his recent posts. http://www.drroyspencer.com/2013/05/surface-radiation-budget-wheres-the-proof/
The Wild, et al presentation of an analysis of over 40 BSRN sites revealed an increase of 3 w/m per decade of shortwave radiation from 1992 to 2012 and an increase of 2 w/m per decade of long wave down welling radiation. The global brightening and dimming cycle appears to also be a sixty year cycle and look a lot like the PDO/AMO combination cycle that Joe always points to. It looks to me that the brightening peaked about the same time (2005) that the North Atlantic heat content did.

Leif Svalgaard says:
“This increase is linked to the decreased presence of clouds
So fewer and fewer clouds along with a less active sun…”
Leif, I understand what you are implying, that a weaker sun seems to be correlated with FEWER clouds, not more, the opposite of the hypothesis that a weaker sun will let in more cosmic rays, create more cloud condensation nuclei, and therefore more clouds.
But there are three things to keep aware of:
1. The sun has only been weaker for less than a decade, while the increase in sunlight, and the decrease in cloud cover, in Spain has occurred in every decade since the 1980s.
2. Spain isn’t the world, it is one data point.
3. The decrease in pollution has been worldwide since the late 1980s, and the solar brightening started around 1990; thus the increase in sunlight correlates better with the decrease in sulfate and other human emissions that block sunlight and help clouds form.
Summary: one place doesn’t really tell us anything, but IF it did, it would be more likely to say that reducing sulfate warmed the planet, as opposed to a weakening sun failed to increase cloud cover.
But in reality….this study doesn’t really tell us much at all about worldwide cause and effect for temperatures, it just is an interesting data point.

stuart L says:June 6, 2013 at 7:00 pm
I have the same question as David in Cal.
Cloud cover means it is cooler during daytime but warmer at nightime
If you don’t get the heat during the day, there is less heat to retain at night, resulting in overall cooling.

The rise in atmospheric pressure observed in temperate regions of both hemispheres since the climatic shift of the 1970s has been well documented (Leroux). It is the result of renewed higher pressure anticyclones moving deeper toward the equator that feed stronger anticyclonic agglutinations, typical of a rapid mode of circulation observed during cooling periods. Thus one can expect wider areas with fewer clouds and increased insolation even if the solar output is weakening, as this paper presents. As seen in South America for a few years now, winter weather tends to be clearer sky with plummeting temperatures. Russia, China and Western Europe have also experienced strong cold snaps (Moscow had its coldest winter in a century about two years ago). Meanwhile in summer we have seen heat waves in both hemispheres (USA, Russia, and Australia). These regional extreme temperatures are a consequence of these high pressure agglutinations.
That all this happens during a weakening of solar output is in fact very logical. But since we have been repeatedly told by eminent solar scientists that the TSI variations cannot alone account for climatic shifts, this suggests that more research could focus on mechanisms that could amplify small variations in order to directly influence the nature and speed of atmospheric circulation beyond the known astronomical longer term changes.
BTW there is an interesting debate on Jo Nova’s blog about lunar influence on climatic cyclical variations such as ENSO. Obviously the science is not settled.
http://joannenova.com.au/2013/06/can-the-moon-change-our-climate-can-tides-in-the-atmosphere-solve-the-mystery-of-enso/#comment-1282843

There are 3 important points about (aerosol seeded) cloud decreases.
1. They warm the surface and then the troposphere, although by less. The exact opposite of GHG warming. Hence the divergence between surface temperature measurements which have increased over this period, and troposphere temperatures which have increased hardly at all. Clear evidence that surface warming was not caused by GHGs.
2. They increase minimum temperatures disproportionately, especially in winter at mid to high latitudes for reasons I explain in the link below. Essentially, almost half of the increase in minimum temperatures is spurious.
3. An analysis of Australian temperatures and clouds by an Australian statistician (also documented at the link below) shows all the cloud decreases and temperature increases occur between 6 am and 12 am. This is clearly the result of decreased locally produced smoke, primarily from fires for heating and to a lesser extent cooking. And not due to any solar or galactic effect, which would not conform human routines.
http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2011/11/4/australian-temperatures.html

George E Smith : “I have no idea how clouds could produce a positive feedback. They can’t transport “heat energy” back to the surface; they can only lose it to space.”
——
If I point an IR thermometer at a cloud I get a reading of the temperature of that cloud, which must be heat energy radiated back to the surface.

ralfellis says:
June 7, 2013 at 1:36 am
“Errrr, but this finding is in direct contravention to the established wisdom that the sun in dimming. I thought it was an established fact that the-evaporation rates were decreasing, due to increased aerosols and increased high altitude aviation activity (contrails).
So which is the correct data here?”
As you can see even the wikipedia about global dimming says
“Global dimming is the gradual reduction in the amount of global direct irradiance at the Earth’s surface that was observed for several decades after the start of systematic measurements in the 1950s. The effect varies by location, but worldwide it has been estimated to be of the order of a 4% reduction over the three decades from 1960–1990. However, after discounting an anomaly caused by the eruption of Mount Pinatubo in 1991, a very slight reversal in the overall trend has been observed.[1]”
They must call it a “very slight reserval” as otherwise they would have to consider that sunlight, not CO2, is the driver of the recent warming.
So in Jimbo Wales’ NPOV-speak, Global Brightening is the very slight reversal of Global Dimming.

[trimmed at writer’s request. Mod]

Jon says:
June 6, 2013 at 9:42 pm
I guess it’s about the position of the polar front. Spain did have huge problems a few years ago with little rain and rivers drying up. Means less low pressures(rain) and more high pressures(dry)?
———————————————————————————————————
The last winter was the wettest in decades in Spain. At times, they got even more precipitation than we here in Germany did.
Some say, the Jet Stream has relocated southward and the lows, which used to hit central Europe before, are now bound for Spain and the Mediterranean Sea. (A closer look at the precipitation data of Spain, Morocco an Algeria should provide some very interesting results.)

Little confusion. Isn’t “global brightening” an increase in albedo, the opposite of what’s described in the column?

David in Cal says:
“Does the impact of greater cloud cover in the net produce more warming or more coollng?”
I would think that it is a cooling affect since there would be less rays reaching the surface in the first place reducing the amount that reflects back to earth.

lsvalgaard says:
June 6, 2013 at 5:32 pm
This increase is linked to the decreased presence of clouds
So fewer and fewer clouds along with a less active sun…
Are you suggesting that during weak solar cycles/ less solar activity, the sun produces less cloud cover as it is unable to drive enough moister into the air that will form clouds which in-turn will keep the geographic area that the clouds form over warm a night?
Would this process also cause an increase in fog during autumn, winter and spring?

Let’s eliminate confusion as to correlations between solar brightening, on the one hand, and reduced airborne pollutants, on the other, in several different parts of the world. I use the term “several parts of the world” because places like southern Asia have been increasing such pollutants, as the US and OECD Europe and Russia have been decreasing them. See:
“Anthropogenic and natural contributions to regional trends in aerosol optical depth, 1980–2006,” Streets et al., JGR, 2009.”
Look at Figs 5 and 6 specifically.
Bottom line: solar brightening in different parts of the world is well correlated with reduced airborne pollution, whether the trends of pollution is up (south Asia, where solar dimming has been occurring), or the US and OECD Europe (poluttion slowly dropping since early 1980s, starting data point in study) and Russia (pollution dropped most dramically in early 1990s, when FSU dissolved.
A weaker sun has only been in the last 6 or so years, hasn’t it?

So much confusion here that I hardly know where to start.
I’d like to see the Spanish numbers for 2011 and 2012.
Suffice it to say that global cloudiness has been increasing since about 2000 but slowly and the Spanish observations show a peak in 2005 and a slight fall by 2010.
Interestingly both the recent Spanish peaks in sunshine correlate well with the last two El Nino events.
So what we have here is a pause in increasing sunshine for Spain rather than a fall in sunshine for Spain because the global trend of increasing cloudiness has been disguised for Spain by that location’s sensitivity to El Nino events.
As I’ve been saying for years the climate shifts that we have seen are a result of a continual interaction between bottom up oceanic effects and top down solar effects.
Each region responds slightly differently depending on its position relative to the nearest climate boundary or jet stream track.
The fact is that global dimming has been in train since about 2000 but Spain has a lagged effect due to local and regional factors such that so far it only registers a pause since 2005.
If the sun stays quiet I expect La Nina to become more dominant and Spain to then join the rest of the globe in dimming.
Meanwhile our CO2 emissions will continue to rise.

To Leif Svalgaard:
Here I was thinking that the amplitude of solar cycles, and the numbers of sunspots, were the appropriate proxies for short term solar influences. This isn’t my field, so I’m going to defer to you, Leif. When I suggested that the drop in solar activity was just the last six years or so, I was thinking about how weak the current solar cycle has been.
Looking back over longer periods, here is a NASA link showing sunspot numbers since the Maunder Minimum, with a big drop in the early 1800s (Dalton miminum). There doesn’t seem to be much of a downturn from the late 1980s in that data.
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/SORCE/sorce_03.php
Here’s another graphic, this one also showing a pretty slight drop since around 1990:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Sunspot_Numbers.png
But if you say that there has been a significant weakening since 1987, I won’t argue — it is your field.

Brian H said on June 7, 2013 at 10:35 am:

Should there be a net figure for direct minus diffuse?

Nah. Direct plus diffuse equals total illumination, or insolation, whatever the exact circumstance is.
Think of a windowless room in your house. Direct light onto the desk is from a lamp with a mini flood light, there is a shaded ceiling fixture supplying diffuse light. Direct on or off with diffuse on or off has meaning. What is physically described by direct minus diffuse?

The chart above that shows that “Solar radiation in Spain has increased by 2.3 percent every decade since the 1980s” looks very similar to My resonance Model derived from the ephemerides DE 102, this model stretches back to 1850, it should not be read as a statistical trend, but as a physical position or “resonance” in relation to Solar activity over the stated interval of time.
http://thetempestspark.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/solar-activity-mod-1.gif
The reason why I have used ephemerides DE 102 only between 1875-2050, even tho it covers the span from 1411 BC to 3002 AD, is because the more accurate positions are given by DE 102 for time around the present epoch over the interval between 1850 – 2050.
The accuracy of the angular positions of these objects degrade as the time interval is extended and estimated as:
– less than 1 arc-second for the Mercury through Saturn;
– a few arc-seconds (up to 4″) for Uranus through Neptune;
The rate of growth of position errors over of time is about 0.04″ per century for the Earth and Mars, about 0.06″ per century for the Venus, and about 0.14″ per century for the Mercury (Unused). The outer planets have progressively larger errors.
This resonance Model below, also derived from the ephemerides DE 102, but stretching between 1749-2040 will not be as accurate as the model above over the interval between 1850-2050. But, it does give me a good idea of where the resonance plot will be after the time interval is corrected for, until I have the time to update my ephemeris to the latest data.
http://thetempestspark.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/ssn-monthly-average-1749-2040-n-n1-n2.jpg

Leif said:
“You also quote selectively and ignore “on the other hand…” and this “However, such renewed dimming and associated impacts would likely have a limited persistence,”
I quote the bits that involve data but ignore the bits that are subjective opinion.
Leif accepts subjective opinion whenever it suits him but if it does not suit him he rejects it.
It is not a demonstrable fact that human emissions of particulates will override the effect of naturally induced dimming, it is merely an agenda driven guess.

Leif:
Neither you nor Wild have demonstrated that aerosol effects are significant in the face of naturally induced dimming (or brightening for that matter).
I have specified a mechanism as you well know since you have commented extensively on it. I agree that it is not yet proven but it has been specified and thus far it fits ongoing observations.
I previously gave you an extensive list of observations that would falsify it but none have yet occurred.

Stephen Wilde says:
June 7, 2013 at 12:44 pm
Thanks to Matt G and Sparks.
Both your charts add to my submissions and detract from Leif’s.
I’m not exactly clear on what Leif and yourself disagree on, Leif stated to me above;
” I’m pointing out that observations show that during the decreasing solar activity, there was also decreasing cloud cover. Whether these things are related is another matter, but any claim that they are must account for the above empirical fact.”
Which is his position, It sounds sensible to me and I think it is correct.
I have also just noticed this chart that Mat G Posted from the Met office,
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate/uk/actualmonthly/17/Sunshine/UK.gif
How is it possible that this Met office chart of Sunshine also matches this resonance Model derived from the ephemerides DE 102?
http://thetempestspark.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/solar-activity-mod-1.gif

Leif.
You leave me speechless (almost).
You know full well that my contention is that a change in the mix of particles and wavelengths from the sun when the level of solar activity changes alters ozone quantities in stratosphere and mesosphere preferentially towards the poles. The consequence is a change in the gradient of tropopause height between poles and equator which allows the jets and climate zones to shift latitudinally with effects on global cloudiness and albedo.
That is a mechanism. All that remains is to support or rebut that proposition.
As for quantification, no one has the data I need so I suggest the professionals go to it but in the meantime the real world climate observations are illustrating it perfectly.
Not surprising really because instead of applying ideology I simply asked myself what scenario could result in what we observe whilst complying with the basic laws of physics.
Sparks:
Leif considers that solar variations have little or no effect on climate but nonetheless he thinks that global cloudiness decreased whist the sun became less active and increased whilst the sun was more active.
In fact global cloudiness decreased whilst the sun was active (up to about 2000) and has been increasing whilst solar activity has declined (since 2000).
It is true that solar activity was declining slightly throughout cycles 21,22 and 23 but I would aver that throughout those 3 cycles the level of activity was high enough to keep the level of cloudiness decreasing. Only at the end of cycle 23 did solar activity decline sufficiently to reverse the trend in cloudiness.
You will see from both your charts that we have just passed a peak and are now on a decline in tune with reducing solar activity.

So you hide behind a perverse definition of ‘mechanism’?
We know that the precise balance of ozone creation / destruction is what determines stratospheric temperatures over time.
We have seen that the stratosphere cooled when the sun was active and may now be warming with the sun less active (the cooling has certainly stopped).
We know that a warmer stratosphere pushes the stratosphere down and a colder stratosphere pulls it up.
We know that solar effects on the atmosphere are greater at the poles than above the equator due to the lower height of the atmosphere and the magnetic field lines converging at the poles.
We know that the MWP and today saw zonal / poleward jets and the LIA (and glaciations) saw more equatorward / meridional jets.
We see that the global cloudiness trend went into reverse at the same time as the jets began to become more meridional and at the same time global warming stalled as did the earlier increase in ocean heat content. All those factors correlate with the decline of solar activity from cycle 23 to cycle 24.
Put it all together and there is a clear mechanism.
That mechanism covers all observations to date and I will not give up on this until the real world behaves in a way inconsistent with that mechanism.
Wake me up when we see a long term trend of more zonal jets at a time of inactive sun or an increasingly positive AO whilst the sun stays quiet or clouds decreasing again whilst the jets stay meridional.
In the meantime I suggest you keep an open mind as will I.

Nowadays were pretty quick to put out wildfires, does anybody know if there were more or less acres burned by wildfires 30 years ago and earlier?
How much do wildfires affect cloud formation?

Leif said:
“Stratospheric temperatures have not recovered since 2000, they continue downwards”
Really?
Your own paper shows them pretty much flat since the late 90s.
Give it time.
The cessation of the cooling trend correlates with the decline in solar activity.
We are currently at the peak of cycle 24 so that is probably holding back the warming process.

Leif said:
“So, no recovery.”
So no decline either. Where does that get you except to appear deceitful? At least I only said it ‘may’ now be warming and pointed out that we need to give it time. You categorically tried to imply a continuation of the earlier declining trend which is clearly false.
I think this makes it clearer:
http://climaterealists.com/index.php?id=8723
As regards the size of the temperature trends above equator and poles I fail to see the relevance.
The bottom up oceanic effects obviously have a powerful effect at the equator.
The top down solar effects may well have a smaller effect above the poles but what matters is the net effect of both effects combined on the equator to poles gradient of tropopause height.
I have always said that the climate outcome is determined by the interplay between the two with a miniscule effect from GHGs but so small as to be not discernible on a multi centennial time scale.
From MWP to LIA to date the shift appears to have been 1000 miles or so latitudinally. Our emissions might contribute a mile or so at a stretch.
The glacial / interglacial shift is even larger.

Leif said:
“So, no recovery.”
So no decline either. Where does that get you? At least I only said it ‘may’ now be warming and pointed out that we need to give it time. You categorically tried to imply a continuation of the earlier declining trend which is clearly false.
I think this makes it clearer:
http://climaterealists.com/index.php?id=8723
As regards the size of the temperature trends above equator and poles I fail to see the relevance.
The bottom up oceanic effects obviously have a powerful effect at the equator.
The top down solar effects may well have a smaller effect above the poles but what matters is the net effect of both effects combined on the equator to poles gradient of tropopause height.
I have always said that the climate outcome is determined by the interplay between the two with a miniscule effect from GHGs but so small as to be not discernible on a multi centennial time scale.
From MWP to LIA to date the shift appears to have been 1000 miles or so latitudinally. Our emissions might contribute a mile or so at a stretch.
The glacial / interglacial shift is even larger.

http://www.leif.org/research/Stratosphere-Temp-Trend.png
http://www.ecmwf.int/products/forecasts/d/inspect/catalog/research/eraclim/timon/timon_ana_2D!TLS!anom!Globe!198901-201303!/
??

Stephen Wilde says:
June 7, 2013 at 11:05 am
The Earthshine project comes down more clearly in favour of dimming at the surface since 2000 on the basis that the Earth has become brighter from space due to more clouds.
I like that answer to this question.
Dr. S. thinks you need a mechanism for moving the jet stream around the solar cycle. Ask him if this works.
Don’t let the title throw you off..
Storm Time Meridional Wind Perturbations in the Equatorial Upper Thermosphere
R.A. Haaser1, R. Davidson2 R.A. Heelis1, G.D. Earle2, S. Venkatraman1, and J. Klenzing3
..First storm observations by C/NOFS occur about 3-5 hours after the first southward-turning of the Bz reported by ACE/Wind, in agreement with previous studies suggesting that phase fronts in the thermosphere propagate from the polar regions toward the equator with velocities of about
500 – 800 m/s3,4,5.
Evening and nighttime neutral wind perturbations in figures were noticably higher than those occurring during the day [II., IV.] .This is likely the result of stronger daytime ion density motions and gradients in the ionosphere/thermosphere system. Most of the storms are observed in the southern magnetic latitudes, except for the [IV.] Jan 2012 storm. As expected, a majority of the observed storms, demonstrated equatorward perturbations of meridional neutral winds (including the Jan 2012 storm), propagating away from the nearest magnetic pole, on the order of about
100 m/s.
However, one exception to this rule was the set of [V.] Mar 2012 storms which appear to exhibit poleward flow. This storm occurs when northern magnetic pole rotates through midnight during the storm onset. Such a case is consistent with equatorward meridional winds propagating across the equator into the opposing hemisphere, similar to the model prediction by Fuller-Rowell et. al [1994]…

Dr. Svalgaard, recent IBEX results are saying the H ENA has ahh disappeared. Since like 2009 to 2011. Possibly solar activity picked up a little related. I wondering if they considered a shift.
As in:
“An unexplained 10–40 degree
shift in the location of some diverse neutral atom data at 1 AU”
Michael R. Collier a,*, Thomas E. Moore a, David Simpson a, Aaron Roberts a,
Adam Szabo a, Stephen Fuselier b, Peter Wurz c, Martin A. Lee d, Bruce T. Tsurutani e
or is the IBEX not going to miss shifting flow patterns?
I highly recommend this NASA Tv conference Dr.S.
Scientists Discuss Space Matter

IBEX lead Dave McComas, Scientist Pricilla Frisch and Dr Eberhard Mobius.
And a Special Invited guest Seth Redfield (Remember “Cloud Tripping The Milky Way” Redfield and Linsky?) Seth is also involved in locating and plotting nearby astrospheres in the cloud maps. This is all too cool.
Quote from Dr. David McComas IBEX Lead.
“””The heliosphere is then dominated more by the Interstellar Magnetic Field than by pressure. Makes the magnetic field component even more important. My picture of the heliosphere now is that this is even more compressed by the Interstellar Magnetic Field and less driven by the inflowing pressure.”””
E. Mobieus says of those pesky neutrals, “they just punch their way in”

lsvalgaard says:
June 7, 2013 at 9:43 pm
You didn’t watch the NASA conference yet did you? No, critiquing on the first watch either, Dr. S. The findings Dr. S., in our generation how cool is this?

Leif thinks that a cessation of stratospheric cooling since the late 90s nonetheless amounts to an unabated continuation of cooling.
AGW proponents think that a stall in tropospheric warming since 1998 nonetheless amounts to an unabated continuation of warming.
One cannot overcome that sort of mental block until the data becomes even more overwhelming.

From Willis Eschenbach on June 8, 2013 at 12:04 am:

Hmmm … according to the paper, the solar radiation increased by 9 W/m2 over the period of the study, 1990-2012.

Huh? Says above:

“The mean annual G series over Spain shows a tendency to increase during the 1985-2010 period, with a significant linear trend of + 3.9 W m-2 [2.3% more] per decade.”

Found a link to the paper’s paywall:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921818112002238
It’s Elsevier and they want $39.95, so they’re not going to get it, but the abstract is there. From 1985-2010, if that’s 25 years and not 26, at 3.9 Wm^-2/decade that’s a 9.75 Wm^-2 increase (round that as you please).
I checked out your BEST link. What are these fools calling an “Annual” figure? After playing with a sample in the spreadsheet, I find the “January” 2012 value is an average of August 2011 to July 2012. Thus from the start of 1/2012, what I would expect, they’ve averaged 5 months back with 7 months forward. Likewise 12/2011 averages 7/2011 to 6/2012. They’re filling up column entries with monthly “annual” figures that are really just 12-mo running means, and can’t even indicate the center properly.
Who programmed up that cluster-BEST anyway?

On 12 March 2012 I flew to Madeira. On the way I observed a vast area of smoothed water — 20,000 sq miles plus — where wave action was reduced. Something was smoothing the surface.
If this phenomenon is now common then fewer salt aerosols will be produced by breaking waves. This will lead to fewer clouds and warming.
I have postulated that the smoothed areas are caused by oil and surfactant pollution — human spills. Someone has mentioned surfactant production by phytoplankton, and the fact that we are producing a huge fertiliser boost from the Haber process and from dissolved silica run-off may mean we have changed the ecology of the ocean surface. Or it may change of its own accord, changing cloud amounts as it does.
Lower albedo will not produce a tropospheric hotspot and as such would match reality better than the models.
Warming may not be CO2 at all.
JF

vukcevic says:
June 8, 2013 at 7:19 am
It is indeed nonsense to declare reliable data ‘nonsense’.
The nonsense is to claim they are physically connected.

From Pamela Gray on June 8, 2013 at 7:48 am:

Why the obsession with tiny? Bigger is better.

So says our favorite almost-5-ft-tall Irish pixie.

Pamela Gray says:
June 8, 2013 at 8:12 am
That will leave a mark on NASA’s backside.
‘That’ what?

vukcevic says:
June 8, 2013 at 9:25 am
Solar activity and the tectonic forces in Iceland are synchronous
In http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/STNA.htm the ‘geological record’ is moved forward half a solar cycle for best fit, thus precedes solar activity by half a cycle.
William Astley says:
June 8, 2013 at 9:47 am
I have solved how the sun caused what is observed current and past. There are fundamental assumptions about the sun that are incorrect.
This explains why you are resistant to learning.
I will provide a full explanation of the warming that has been observed in the last 20 years, what causes the glacial/interglacial cycle, and what to expect next, when there is public announcements concerning the interruption to the solar magnetic cycle and cooling.
Since you have never explained what an ‘interruption’ is, don’t expect any such announcements, so your secret is safe.
Ulric Lyons says:
June 8, 2013 at 10:08 am
Globally, a less active Sun lowers the cloud base and increases low level cloud amounts at the expense of mid level clouds.
The opposite of what is observed…

From vukcevic on June 8, 2013 at 12:55 pm:

I read almost all of your papers and many of the links, but I do learn from what I see in the data:
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/CET-NV.htm
If you were not so trivializing and dismissive you could learn something new too, from the link above.

First graph, I see a sine wave added to something else, added to a slope line. I do not know where this compound sine wave comes from, although the coloration tells me it is somehow “Natural Variation”.
There is an inset graph, “Future is ‘cool'”. It looks like a mirror image. The previous amplitude sequences had small-medium, small-medium. You mirror it, straight line is negative as shown, and pattern would be medium-small, as shown. No explanation why it should go negative, and that pattern should flip.
Huh? Main graph is absolute °C on Y-axis, “Future” is anomaly of unknown base.
At second graph, I find out the CET record, starting circa 1660 and having a positive trend to the linear fit to current times, has a natural drop starting in 2006, so that’s why that trend line went negative. After three and a half centuries, suddenly based on six years data it’s been determined the CET has a long natural drop coming, that’ll last longer than 140 years by the length of that plotted trend line.
350 years later, 6 years says it’ll flip over to long-term cooling. Okay…

Natural variability function is a simple equation directly derived from the CET data, in the long term it is trend-less, the function is directly added to the CET 350 year long trend of 0.250 C/ century.

You derive from CET, so the resulting equation theoretically describes CET, then you add the equation back to CET, reinforcing the description on the CET.
Much like taking the linear fit of some data, merging the line to the data. And marveling at how well the “improved” data resembles a linear fit?
Third graph. That compound sine is “CET syntesis from its 3 harmonic components”.
It’s synthesis, syn + thesis.
Somewhere you must have decided the CET was frequency-based, as you have found harmonics.
Wait, you’ve actually been using a ‘CET synthesis’ instead of the real CET, from which you derived the “natural variability” equation, which gets added back into this ‘CET synthesis’ to yield that compound sine “Natural Variability” in the first graph?
Too much unexplained. Cooling trend will be 1/2 the warming trend, based on only 6 years data? Questionable derivations with too much “self reinforcement”. Etc.
Besides, the ranges of values around your “great fits”, makes me feel you were asked what is 1+1, you responded with 1.7 +.6/-.3, thus both 2.2 and 1.5 can equal 1+1.
At this point, I have pushed onward into your page half-again as deep as did before I declared it nonsense, just in case it redeemed itself later.
And came across your special “North Atlantic Geological Records” (NA Precursor) again. You know, it looks like you traced a city skyline on the left 1650-1860, many block shapes, then finished with the woods next to it, many little zigzags and curves. Why has the nature of the data changed so dramatically?

MattG @ here
I don’t know where the data for your chart comes from, but I am going from the study that is the topic of this post. The researchers have said that the data pre-1994 is unreliable. From their viewable charts of the data, there is a 3w/m2 increase in global solar radiation from 1994 to 2010. Assuming, as the researchers indicate, that their local results are reflected globally, and that there has been little to no surface/tropospheric warming from about 1996, then does this suggest that solar influence on surface/tropspheric temperatures is insignificant?

Leif,
I can not agree with that statement from the link you provided in a response above.
http://www.wunderground.com/resources/climate/strato_cooling.asp?MR=1
The main reason for the recent stratospheric cooling is due to the destruction of ozone by human-emitted CFC gases.
This is purely a Hypothetical (Get out of jail free card) assumption from those who have been proven wrong when they claimed have claimed for over 25 years (most of my existence) that anthropogenic CO2 would cause the Warming, now their so-called “mechanism” causes Ozone depletion and cooling that overrides the “warming”, I read what you also said to Stephen Wilde; that he did not have a “mechanism” with low solar activity having any effect.
Is it not suspicious sounding at all to you if after the fact, Anthropogenic CO2 models failed, there is now a switch to Ozone depletion and Anthropogenic CFCs as a new “mechanism” to explain away the failure? That’s called “a slight of hand” scientist or not.
I have also said that it is my opinion that successive weak solar cycles do appear to effect temperatures around the Earth and not just on earth but on other planets too. As hand waving “mechanisms” go the Colossal natural factors will trump anthropogenic fantasies about trace gases every time.
http://thetempestspark.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/nov-ssn-v-feb-tmin-1875-20121.gif
http://thetempestspark.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/stornoway-nov-ssn-v-mar-tmin-1875-2012.gif
http://thetempestspark.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/oxford-average-november-sunspot-number-and-march-minimum-temperature-1865-2012.gif
Talking about trace gases!! Is it a major kink in the “green house effect” when it comes to planetary temperature, which it is always claimed by “climate scientists” that all planets emit more energy than the amount of solar energy absorbed? Because this claim is untrue, Uranus emits less energy than the amount of solar energy it absorbs. So, there are factors not yet understood and never discussed by the school of ‘anthropogenic climatology’, I suspect when they get wind of this we should expect paper after paper on how clouds of methane and traces of hydrocarbons in the atmosphere have a “Green House Dampening Effect” on Uranus.

Leif Svalgaard says:
June 9, 2013 at 8:25 am
..Uranus’s weather and climate show extreme seasonal variations of which we have only the poorest of observations…
New Horizons is headed for Pluto and should be revealing some new information.
November 28, 2012
Halfway Between Uranus and Neptune, New Horizons Cruises On
Today the New Horizons spacecraft passed the halfway point between the orbits of Uranus and Neptune, zooming past another milepost on its historic trek to the planetary frontier
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/newhorizons/main/index.html
Interstellar..IceCube..information overload..
But here goes..Southern hemisphere winter, earths orbit on heliosphere upwind side, GCR deficit region.
Northern hemisphere winter, earths orbit heliosphere downwind side, GCR excess, reconnection occurs inn heliotail.
Why some of the difference in polar regions climate change.
get your laundry done ok

Carla says:
June 9, 2013 at 9:22 am
But here goes..Southern hemisphere winter, earths orbit on heliosphere upwind side, GCR deficit region. Northern hemisphere winter, earths orbit heliosphere downwind side, GCR excess, reconnection occurs in heliotail.
There is no such variation. There is a very small variation [fraction of a percent] related to the heliographic latitude of the Earth and controlled by the polarity of the solar polar fields [thus regulated from the ‘inside’ of the heliosphere]
Why some of the difference in polar regions climate change.
So, no difference is to be expected [nor observed].

Sparks says:
June 9, 2013 at 9:42 am
I accept that your point was about the data, But, In this case, do you agree with the accompanied verbiage?
There is no doubt that greenhouse gases cool the upper atmosphere and warm the lower. The question is ‘how much’? and that is still not fully understood, nor demonstrated.
Also, can you elaborate on how the weather and climate show extreme seasonal variations caused by the tilt of Uranus without showing any apparent Green house effect
We simply do not enough data to answer that question, as the ‘year’ on Uranus is very long [84 years].
If there is a lack of data why is there so much written and being claimed?
much of what is claimed is by people that have an agenda and is therefore not reliable. As far as I know the data isn’t there.
Carla says:
June 9, 2013 at 9:22 am
But here goes..Southern hemisphere winter, earths orbit on heliosphere upwind side, GCR deficit region. Northern hemisphere winter, earths orbit heliosphere downwind side, GCR excess
The annual variation [12 months repeated in right-hand side] of the Neutron Monitor Counts at Thule [near geomagnetic pole] 1958-2008 http://www.leif.org/research/Cosmic-Ray-Annual-Variation-Thule.png
The lower panel shows the variation with the right perspective [relative to zero counts].

vukcevic says:
June 9, 2013 at 10:17 am
Get cartload of firewood and get rid of the heretic (person who holds controversial opinions, especially one who publicly dissents from the officially accepted dogma).
Your opinion is not controversial, just wrong and is not worth wasting firewood on.

Carla says:
June 9, 2013 at 10:22 am
Earth in particular is unique in its orbit due to proximity with its sun. We have the good fortune of orbiting through a halo on our upwind, downwind swing. 75% water. give or take
There is no upwind/downwind difference.

vukcevic says:
June 9, 2013 at 11:08 am
“There are umpty thousand spurious correlations
perhaps you over-interpreted the word ‘such’…
I scanned all of N. Hemisphere in blocks of 10×10 degrees latitude-longitude (in 9 sweeps, each sweep does 360 degrees in steps of 10) and there isn’t another one.
thus looking for one…
And it just has to happen at the confluence of large volumes of salty water, electrically highly conductive and fresh water, far less conductive.
And so? the magnetic effects of such are extremely small. No viable mechanism there. And no explanation for the strange multi-year lag.
So you opt out for coincidence lasting for 15 decades?
The data is not reliable so far back. The mark of a spurious correlation is one that ‘works’ even with poor data [sometimes even better].

Carla says:
June 9, 2013 at 11:17 am
The location the magnetic equator has my curiosity.
ANISOTROPY OF TEV COSMIC RAYS AND THE OUTER HELIOSPHERIC BOUNDARIES
You have no sense of proportions. That presentation was for extremely rare TeraVolt cosmic rays which are many thousands of times more energetic than the ordinary cosmic rays and are not modulated at all by solar activity.

Leif Svalgaard says:
June 9, 2013 at 10:16 am
“There is no doubt that greenhouse gases cool the upper atmosphere and warm the lower. The question is ‘how much’? and that is still not fully understood, nor demonstrated.”
Therefor the accompanied verbiage which clearly states “The main reason for the recent stratospheric cooling is due to the destruction of ozone by human-emitted CFC gases.”
Is nothing but complete nonsense and they can not attribute a human mechanism to the data.
Surly, to make such an extraordinary statement like this you would disagree with their use of this data in this way? especially as it is still not fully understood, nor demonstrated. No mechanism has been shown.
Basically what these people playing scientist are saying is; the fluctuations that the data shows is as a matter of fact, the interactions between human-emitted CFC’s and human-emitted CO2, if it’s Warming it’s human CO2 and if it’s cooling it’s human CFC’s.
So what they have claimed to have found in the data is a new kind of artificial system that has all the understood behaviors of a Natural system.
Ah… Life! Ah… finds away! /jk

vukcevic says:
June 9, 2013 at 11:59 am
the year when Gauss introduced magneto-graph, and the difference is obvious, prior and after, pre Gauss resolution of the data is too low to establish correlation..
There were no observations in the Yamal region that far back, so Gauss is irrelevant.
Your ‘mechanism’ is not viable as we have discussed at length elsewhere.
which you as a scientist of repute are wrong to dismiss
Scientists evaluate claims from their store of knowledge and understanding of how nature works and I find your stuff wanting and hence dismissable.

vukcevic says:
June 9, 2013 at 12:30 pm
Time to reconsider ?
no, because you correlate oranges and apples. Now, if I am completely wrong and you are correct, I must be incompetent and unable to recognize good science when I see it. That is, in effect, what you are saying. I am, however capable of recognizing bad ‘science’ when I see it, and yours certainly qualifies, or rather, since it is not science at all, Pauli’s saying ‘that it is not even wrong’ applies.

vukcevic says:
June 9, 2013 at 12:59 pm
It is not just one or the other exclusively, solar or the Earth’s core, it is cross-modulation of two at the receptor.
You are regressing back into nonsense…

vukcevic says:
June 9, 2013 at 1:19 pm
It is not consensus but contradictions that move science forward.
It are valid contradictions that move science forward, not amateurish nonsense, no matter how entertaining. And I am concerned with your dilution of the value of WUWT. I often am met with the question why I bother frequenting a blog that harbours cranks and the like.

Carla says:
June 9, 2013 at 2:16 pm
Thanks for the link Dr. S. Figures 2a and 2b from your link are comparable to the figure 2, I directed your attention too.
Yes, it seems that we back then had a pretty good idea about what to expect.

u.k(us) says:
June 9, 2013 at 5:41 pm
Don’t encourage us Leif, we’ve only just begun 🙂
You have not yet reached the lofty heights of some others here.

Leif,
We’re all cranks huh? 🙂
Actually, it may seem like that sometimes, but I think it’s a case of; when people know all there is to know about a subject, they like to explore it a bit further and move into unknown territory, If you were to ask me any textbook question about the sun for example, I could give you the correct textbook answer, I could even quote Wikipedia until the cows come home, personally for me It gets boring, there’s no challenge and no mystery when there’s nothing new to learn. The other point is; if every commenter of this blog agreed with everything you say and quoted directly from the great work you have done, would you become board? I think you wouldn’t even reply and eventually stop commenting here altogether. I enjoy hearing all the different views, the advanced overly complex explanations of simple processes makes my day, I do take scientific subjects seriously and I’m not being condescending but sometimes you do have to have a laugh!
The most annoying occurrence I’ve noticed on blogs is when two or more stubbornly arrogant personalities clash, two or more intelligent people battling it out to the death over mildly trivial issues like spoiled brats is hilarious, but also can be annoying.

I read that the Sun’s core is 27 times the diameter of Earth. I was just wondering where this figure came from, is the size of the suns core worked out? or is it just considered to be this size. an internet search and cross checking in some books I own is producing different values. should I just average these values and use that? lol

Sparks says:
June 10, 2013 at 12:39 pm
I was just wondering where this figure came from, is the size of the suns core worked out?
We have very accurate models of the sun’s interior and can calculate e.g. the temperature. Where the temperature is high enough fusion sets in. The fusion process is extremely gentle. The rate at which energy is generated is so low that it would take several weeks to bring an ordinary tea kettle of water to a boil.