From the FECYT – Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology via Eurekalert comes this interesting note about solar forcing. It seems there’s a 2.3% per decade increase in solar radiation observed in Spain. Surely this is more than enough to account for the warming there? Cloud cover is said to be the issue, as Dr. Roy Spencer has previously pointed out, it only takes a small amount of cloud cover change to make a warming trend. – Anthony
Spain receives ever more solar radiation
Solar radiation in Spain has increased by 2.3% every decade since the 1980s, according to a study by researchers from the University of Girona and the Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich. This increase is linked to the decreased presence of clouds, which has increased the amount of direct radiation reaching us from the Sun.
“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.” This is the main conclusion of a study published in the magazine ‘Global and Planetary Change‘ by researchers from the University of Girona and the Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETH, Switzerland).
The season-by-season data show the same “significant” increase in solar radiation impacting the nation: + 6.5 W/m2 per decade during the summer, + 4.1 W/m2 in autumn, + 3.2 W/m2 in spring and + 1.7 W/m2 in winter.
“These data relate to global solar radiation, in other words the increase in direct radiation reaching us from the Sun plus diffuse radiation which is scattered previously by clouds, atmospheric gases and aerosols,” explains one of the authors, Arturo Sánchez-Lorenzo, currently a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Girona.
What is intriguing is that the scientists found a decrease in the diffuse component, because of which direct radiation has increased to a proportionately higher degree. Only in 1991 and 1992 did diffuse radiation rise, and this was due to the ashes from Mount Pinatubo. In general, however, we can observe a downward trend of – 2.1 W/m2 per decade between 1985 and 2010.
VIDEO: Solar radiation in Spain has increased by 2.3 percent every decade since the 1980s.Click here for more information.
“The explanation lies in the fact that in Spain the amount of cloud has decreased markedly since the 1980s – as we have ascertained through other studies – and the tropospheric aerosol load may also have decreased,” states Sánchez Lorenzo. “It seems to be very simple: fewer clouds result in higher solar radiation on the surface,” he continues.
According to the scientists, this increase may also go hand in hand with more ultraviolet rays, an excess of which presents a health risk, potentially leading to skin cancer.
More global brightening
The increase in global solar radiation is a phenomenon that has been observed in other parts of the world for almost 30 years, especially in developed countries, and it has been named “global brightening”. The fall in the diffuse component has also been observed in Central European and Eastern countries.
The team behind the study has not yet analysed the solar radiation data for 2011-2013 provided by the Spanish State Meteorological Agency, but the data from other European weather stations suggests that this brightening is still on the rise.
“Studies such as these may be of interest to the solar energy industry, especially in countries like Spain, where not only do we already have a lot of direct solar radiation but now we are getting even more,” affirms one of the other authors, Josep Calbó, who is a professor at the University of Girona.
References:
A. Sanchez-Lorenzo, J. Calbó, M. Wild. “Global and diffuse solar radiation in Spain: Building a homogeneous dataset and assessing their trends”. Global and Planetary Change 100: 343–352, 2013.
h/t to Dr. Leif Svalgaard
kadaka (KD Knoebel) says:
June 8, 2013 at 5:15 pm
………………
It is simple as it can get, you read too much into it..
First graph is an ‘abstract’ of what is to follow.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/CET-NV.htm
Spectrum analysis identified 3 primary periods shorter than 100 years, anything longer (which appears to be there) may or may not be in the data, but also inherent result of the analysis.
Combination of the above frequencies (with the longest period less than 100 years) for a time span of 3-400 years gives as result a trend-less ‘wiggle’, but since the CET has 0.25C/century rising trend; this rising trend is added to the trend-less spectral reconstruction.
Why is this done?
To be able to extrapolate few decades in the future. The 0.25C/century rising trend is incorporated in the equation for the total length of the extrapolation, and despite it the shorter likely ‘future CET trend’ does reverse, as shown in the inset and in the graph 2.
I shall leave rest for another occasion, since any post longer than 3-4 paragraphs are often ignored.
Leif Svalgaard says:
“And 1970 and 1980 are the usual low points right at maximum. The fact is that coronal holes and high-speed solar wind [which presumably are when any effects are] usually occur just before solar minimum, c.f. the Recurrence Index. The flow pressure [which must be one of the determining factors] is lowest at solar maximum.”
Again, I was talking about velocity not pressure, and many more cycles have the lowest speeds just after minimum as can be seen by the Ap index.
Ulric Lyons says:
June 9, 2013 at 1:26 am
Again, I was talking about velocity not pressure, and many more cycles have the lowest speeds just after minimum as can be seen by the Ap index.
The Ap index is a composite of speed and magnetic field strength and the mimina in Ap are mainly caused by minima in the magnetic field, not in velocity. The pressure is what compresses our magnetosphere and is therefore the important agent in the interaction between the solar wind and the earth.
vukcevic says:
June 9, 2013 at 12:56 am
Combination of the above frequencies (with the longest period less than 100 years) for a time span of 3-400 years gives as result a trend-less ‘wiggle’, but since the CET has 0.25C/century rising trend; this rising trend is added to the trend-less spectral reconstruction.
it should be:
Combination of the above frequencies (with the longest period less than 100 years) for a time span of 3-400 years gives as result a trend-less ‘wiggle’, but since the CET has 0.25C/century rising trend (which is not result of the such combination of frequencies, and is due to some other factor such as solar, CO2, tectonic, etc), this rising trend is added to the trend-less spectral reconstruction.
barry says:
June 8, 2013 at 8:01 pm
The data is from the ISCCP.
http://isccp.giss.nasa.gov/index.html
I don’t agree with the conclusion that any global cloud data is unreliable pre 1994 (it it still very useful), it still covers most of the planet with about 6 percent missing. This conclusion is only based on the bias for not liking what is seen. It is the same bias why some rather use a much inferior surface temperature record to satellite data. if this data is unreliable what word could describe the much poorly represented surface temeprature data. Around 1999 a 4 percent gap missing in the satellite data was replaced with newer technoogy observing the region. Hence, it is unreliable pre 2000 if you are going to include the data pre 1994 to 1983 as unreliable. (that is because the data is generally the same until 1999)
The global satellite data doesn’t support this conclusion for the Spain solar radiation data and neither does the UK sunshine data..
“1994 to 2010 is a period in which surface/tropospheric temps appeared to have stalled or risen very little while solar radiation has increased due to fewer clouds.”
(this awful software won’t let me type any more directly)
More accurately surface temperatures significantly increased form 1980 until 1998, while solar radiation increased due to fewer clouds. This stabalized after 2000 for both solar radiation reaching the surface and global temperatures. This is supported with sunshine levels in different countries too.
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.
Sparks says:
June 9, 2013 at 8:02 am
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 link showed data. The verbiage one could agree/disagree with according to one’s bias [which will then show for all to see], but that was not the point. The data was.
Because this claim is untrue, Uranus emits less energy than the amount of solar energy it absorbs
How do you know? and BTW, Uranus lies on ‘its side’. At times we are looking at its south pole [don’t remember which, but that doesn’t matter]. If someone was looking at the Earth’s south pole, they might also say that it emits less energy [being cold] than the Earth gets from the sun. Anyway, because of the axis tilt, Uranus’s weather and climate show extreme seasonal variations of which we have only the poorest of observations.
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
Leif you bring up an important point about observation. One of the purest forms of observation is simply to draw what you see in close detail, no bias, no assumptions. Wildlife artists demonstrate this most basic and purest form of scientific observation. We would all be improved by remembering how to observe, and then do it again, and again. Too many self-named “climate scientists” seem too eager to get to the other stages of the scientific method, believing that there is nothing more to observe and why bother, it isn’t important to their results anyway.
Our own Bob Tisdale demonstrates how to observe. I would bet he is near the top of the few who have spent untold hours simply observing and describing ocean heat moving around our globe.
If we fail in this first and supremely important scientific step, we end up saying something profoundly stupid about Uranus because we failed to notice we were looking at the butt end.
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].
Leif Svalgaard says:
June 9, 2013 at 8:25 am
http://www.wunderground.com/resources/climate/strato_cooling.asp?MR=1
“The link showed data. The verbiage one could agree/disagree with according to one’s bias [which will then show for all to see], but that was not the point. The data was.”
I accept that your point was about the data, But, In this case, do you agree with the accompanied verbiage?
If someone was looking at the Earth’s south pole, they might also say that it emits less energy [being cold] than the Earth gets from the sun.
Can we? oh, and I thought climate scientists were claiming that the green house effect was global, it seems that the data is dependent on the orientation of the satellite instruments or the planet itself. So, we could look at Jupiters poles and discover that it is also cooler and produces less energy than it absorbs or any other planet and moon for that matter.
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?.
Something fishy is going on, and I don’t accept “Lack of data” as an excuse, In that case I’ll throw out every paper written on the subject. If there is a lack of data why is there so much written and being claimed?
(I hope I don’t come across as sounding too sarcastic or bemused about this subject, as I am genuinely very interested and have been studying it.)
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].
Leif Svalgaard says to vukcevic
No, you misinterpret what you see and don’t learn from the data. Learning is acquiring knowledge from well-established, sound principles.
What you claim is trivial, unfounded, and unsound, often even against the laws of physics. Such things are naturally dismissed.
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).
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.
Pamela Gray says:
June 9, 2013 at 9:31 am
If we fail in this first and supremely important scientific step, we end up saying something profoundly stupid about Uranus because we failed to notice we were looking at the butt end.
Try this out Pamela. Why are the solar systems, planetary dipoles laid out the way they are? Like Leif said Uranus is laying on its side or so that is our perception from our vantage point.
But.. the solar dipole cycles.
Earths north pole Negative.
Jupiter and Saturn north pole Positive.
Uranus and Neptune north pole Negative.
So it goes outward negative, positive, negative. All the planets are interacting with their system as they orbit from upwind to downwind around their sun. 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
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.
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
Colleagues of mine long ago used a diurnal variation to infer the direction of the Galactic Magnetic Field: http://www.leif.org/EOS/JA074i016p04157.pdf
Leif Svalgaard says:
June 9, 2013 at 10:20 am
Your opinion is not controversial, just wrong
Hi doc
Look at this: Ob and Yenisey are two largest sources of the Arctic’s fresh water inflow, discharging ~32,000 m3/sec of fresh water in the Arctic Ocean. Some 12 years later portion of these waters will pass through the Denmark Strait with the East Greenland Current, one of the main contributors to the sub-polar gyre -SPG, affecting salinity and thermo-haline circulation. The SPG is the home of the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscilation and the AMO.
And what I see in the data is the direct correlation of the AMO (generated by the SPG) with geomagnetic changes 12 years earlier, at the delta of the two great Siberian rivers 6,000km away.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/YAMAL-GMF-AMO.htm
Further away the correlation progressively weakens.
Just result of observations.
Is this against the laws of physics as you understood it or just plain coincidence lasting whole of 170 years decade by decade?
I can email you raw data.
vukcevic says:
June 9, 2013 at 10:43 am
And what I see in the data is the direct correlation of the AMO (generated by the SPG) with geomagnetic changes 12 years earlier, at the delta of the two great Siberian rivers 6,000km away.
There are umpty thousand such spurious correlations, but correlations are not causations. And no knowledge can be derived from them, unless a plausible physical mechanism can be extracted from the data.
There are umpty thousand such spurious correlations,
Wrong.
I scanned all of N. Hemisphere in bocks of 10×10 degrees latitude-longitude (in 9 sweeps, each sweep does 360 degrees in steps of 10) and there isn’t another one.
How do you know that is spurious?
And it just has to happen at the confluence of large volumes of salty water, electrically highly conductive and fresh water, far less conductive.
So you opt out for coincidence lasting for 15 decades?
Leif Svalgaard says:
June 9, 2013 at 10:25 am
Carla says:
June 9, 2013 at 10:22 am
There is no upwind/downwind difference.
You might want to have a look at figures 1 and 2 especially 2.. A coincidence in this is that it bears a striking resemblance to our now famous IBEX ribbon. The location the magnetic equator has my curiosity.
ANISOTROPY OF TEV COSMIC RAYS AND THE OUTER HELIOSPHERIC BOUNDARIES
P. Desiati
Wisconsin IceCube Particle Astrophysics Center (WIPAC)
Department of Astronomy, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI
A. Lazarian
Department of Astronomy, University of Wisconsin, Madison,
http://arxiv.org/pdf/1111.3075.pdf
Here is a link to the slide presentation for the above.
http://www.nucleares.unam.mx/mfu4/Talks/Desiati.pdf
You might want to more closely examine the next article Dr. Svalgaard, the Parker/Sweet model looks a bit turbulent in the tail region. Turbulence is becoming noisy and pesky.
Cosmic rays and stochastic magnetic reconnection in the heliotail
P. Desiati1,2 and A. Lazarian2
1Wisconsin IceCube Particle Astrophysics Center, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI
2Dept. of Astronomy, University of Wisconsin
http://www.nonlin-processes-geophys.net/19/351/2012/npg-19-351-2012.pdf
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
“There is no upwind/downwind difference”
At the Earth where it would matter for climate
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