Guest essay by David Archibald
Wiggle-matching has been used by the best. Hubert Lamb, considered to be the most meticulous climatologist of all time, used wiggle-matching in this wind data graph he published in 1988:
He had plotted up 600 years of wind data at London, noted a 200 year periodicity and copied the line 200 years to the right to make a forecast.
One of the puzzles of the last 300 years of climate is the temperature drop of 1740. It came out of the blue after a number of warm years in the 1730s. There is nothing in the Be10 record or the volcanic record to suggest a cause.
It came a couple of years after the peak of a fairly strong solar cycle. The event of 1740 attracted the attention of Briffa and Jones in their 2006 paper “Unusual Climate in Northwest Europe During the Period 1730 to 1745 Based on Instrumental and Documentary Data”. From the abstract of that paper,” This study focuses on one of the most interesting times of the early instrumental period in northwest Europe (from 1730–1745) attempting to place the extremely cold year of 1740 and the unusual warmth of the 1730s decade in a longer context.” The only conclusion that they came to was climate might vary more than is commonly accepted.
So what does that period up to 1740 wiggle-match with? It matches with the warmth of the last 30 years:
The graph above shows the Central England Temperature (CET) record from 1703 to 1745 as the blue line. Plotted on it is the CET record from 1978 to 2012. Normally when you align 34 year lengths of temperature records you don’t get any correlation. The correlation on this particular matchup is 0.112. The statisticians amongst us can argue over whether or not anything can be read into that. If something can be read into it, we only have to wait two years to experience the consequences. The spike down is also prominent in the de Bilt record:
My link above didn’t seem to work right for some reason. Here it is again: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_Famine_(1740%E2%80%9341)
This is a fairly unbelievable reach to be posted on the #1 science blog.
@ur momisugly Greg Goodman, you said “or else correlated to that which does dominate.”
You might want to check out some of Vuk’s graphs where he gets remarkably good correlation between polar magnetic fields and temperatures.
jai mitchell says:
June 18, 2013 at 9:30 pm
More research on the Greenland blocking high
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/capital-weather-gang/wp/2013/03/21/record-blocking-patterns-fueling-extreme-washington-d-c-march-weather/
As stated, a blocking pattern like this ranks among the strongest ever; to further illustrate that fact, I have plotted the 500 mb height composite anomaly from the 12 separate dates on which the AO plunged to its most negative values in recorded history. The composite, shown below, reveals positive anomalies in excess of 350m near Greenland – neatly matching the current block’s intensity.
One more remarkable aspect of this major league block: observations over Greenland are threatening to break the worldwide record for highest barometric pressure of 1083.3 mb, set on Dec. 31, 1968 in Siberia. NCEP’s Ocean Prediction Center analyzed the surface map (from Tuesday night) below, which features a high pressure center of at least 1074 mb over Greenland.
You don’t get research from newspapers.
These are somewhat imaginary pressures because in the case of Greenland the actual highest measured pressure at Summit Camp (3209 meters altitude) was 691.1mb at midnight 21 March 2013 when the temperature was -47.8C; referred to sea level using the ICAO Standard Atmosphere correction this is 1073mb. Twelve hours later, the measured pressure had only fallen 0.6mb but the temperature had risen to -32.7C which when corrected gives 1052mb – a huge difference.
The 1968 Mongolian record (1083.3mb) was set at an altitude of 261 meters so the pressure when referred to sea level using the ICAO Standard Atmosphere correction is less affected by temperature which was between -40C and -50C on the day of the record. At -50C the measured pressure at Agata (the record site) would have had to be 1035.6mb and at -40C the measured pressure would have had to be 1038.9mb to achieve the record value when referred to sea level.
Oh, by the way, the WMO Extreme Weather Records Committee don’t accept pressure records from sites above 750 meters elevation. That pretty much rules out most of the Greenland ice cap so ‘major league’ blocks over Greenland won’t be threatening any records.
Wiggle-matching: we’re looking for correlations that can be used for predictive purposes, so they are useful. There is much complaint that we use correlation to determine causation – like the correlation between the numbers of pirates and temperatures. Fact is, in a practical sense, we shouldn’t care if we don’t understand the connection to some other, common cause. If we note that hog prices in Chicago rise two weeks before silver prices 75% of the time, we can use that correlation to become rich. When something works we shouldn’t turn our noses up at it because we don’t understand why it works.
We are in a time where our historic temperatures are maybe 1C higher than they were pre 1740, and warmer than we were pre-1820. If temps fall, they will start higher, but whether they fall a certain amount or to a certain level is disputable. I would say a certain amount, believing that in the shorter term we suffer variation from a present mean, not a long-term or future term mean. If so, we could go back to the early 60s, or perhaps the 20s. Not the 1820s or the 1740s, though.
The other thing to remember is that a drop of 1C in the Central UK correlates with a drop of perhaps 0.4C globally – look at all the temp profiles of global, hemispheric, land-only, SST-only, individual countries, individual regions within countries and individual sea/ocean basins. CEUK is not the world, though those of a London-lifestyle (like New Yorkers) often act as if it is.
The future, I agree is colder, but not a disaster. Except to the warmists, (who would delight in a 1C spike for 10 years, thousands of deaths from heat stroke and dehydration in war-torn Africa, and mass migration to Dairy Queen ice cream shops. How peculiar it is when you wish to be right).
Looks like 1740 was another case of a recent switch to a negative PDO while the AMO is strongly positive. The resulting atmospheric pressure zones create high pressure over the N. Atlantic sending the jet stream northerly and then it sweeps down over western Europe. Not a global effect.
The main reason for bitter winters here in the UK are the jet stream pushed to the south and blocking highs. lf the very low temps came with mostly with sharp frosts and winds that were mostly from the north then it was a Greenland block. lf the winds came in from the east then a blocking high was sitting to the north of the UK. But if they were low temps that came with very heavy snow then the most likely thing that was happening was that the jet stream split (most likely over the ocean) and a branch of it pushed up to the north flowed over the pole and came back down on the other side of the Earth. lts this sort of jet stream pattern that causes very sudden cooling, with bitter winter weather and heavy snow.
Dr. Lurtz says:
June 19, 2013 at 7:29 am
Year 2000 was the Peak of Solar output for a while…. we are in a natural 350 to 400 year cycle of Hydrogen burning then replenishment. This cycle appear to behave like a “sawtooth”. A gradual rise to the peak, then a sudden drop: repeat….
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So how come Svalgaard and company say the sun’s output is ~constant and are ‘adjusting’ the historic sunspot record?
Although I did like your explanation here.
In the rest of the comment you go into further detail of a ‘reasonable model of the internal workings of the Sun’ and Svalgaard weighs in further down in the comments.
I wonder if there is any causal relationship between the temperature phenomena in 1745 and the Scottish uprising of 1745?
With the way the jet stream is looking at the moment, the coming winter looks to be setting up a hard winter for many in the NH.
With central northern asia, europe and Canada looking the most at risk.
In looking deeper on this ,the 1740 record winter cold was part of a much longer climate event that culminated in the very cold January [-2.8 C] and February [-1.6 C] and overall winter of -0.4 for 1740. The annual climate had been cooling since about 1733 and all seasons were cooling except the winters which really only started to cool significantly about November 1739 and nose dived in 1740. There were below normal temperatures from about November 1739 to almost june 1740. Winters stayed below normal for almost 6 years there after. I very much doubt if this was some short term blocking incident of the jet stream but anyting is possible I suppose. Could also be SSW caused ?
Retired Engineer John says:
June 19, 2013 at 7:44 am
“When I put an ice cube into my glass of water, I expect it to cool the water.”
Not if you had more ice to start off with, which had been melting because of increasing ambient temperature. The water temp would gradually warm.
That dip kicked off a few decades with lots of fun and games especially within the UK and its possessions at the time (he wrote a mere few days prior to 4-July).
Bob Rogers says:
June 19, 2013 at 11:45 am
I wonder if there is any causal relationship between the temperature phenomena in 1745 and the Scottish uprising of 1745?
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Probably not much. The timing of the ’45 was determined by the War of the Austrian Succession more than climate. Bonnie Prince Charlie was a tool of French war aims. With the British Army occupied in fighting on the continent, France planned invasions of both England & Scotland to restore the Stuart dynasty, backed by many Tories, out of power under the Whig-dominated Hanoverian Georges. In the event, only the Scottish plan went ahead, but without the originally proposed French support.
Historians disagree over the causes of the Industrial Revolution of the mid-18th century, but the cold LIA climate may have contributed to the innovations of that period. Its onset is generally dated around 1760, but some key technological improvements occurred before then.
herkimer says:
“The annual climate had been cooling since about 1733..”
It looks warm to 1738 to me: http://climexp.knmi.nl/data/tcet.dat
There was a solar cycle maximum in 1739, it is common to see hard winters close to maxima.
All,
there are simply too many to respond to all at once, I understand why some here would be skeptical about the blocking patterns in the atmosphere. This simply presentation shows why the blocking patterns are happening. These patterns did happen on a regular basis but they did not happen after the fall, they NEVER happened in the summer and the jet stream is so erratic now we are getting cut off lows and blocking pattern highs that are throwing the Jetstream in an East to West pattern as is shown in the following video. You don’t need me to tell you how the meridional flow of the jet stream moving to the extreme and causing an east to west flow is EXTREMELY unusual.
This is the presentation by Jennifer Francis who very simply describes why this is happening.
URIC LYONS
I looked at the CET ANNUAL TEMPERATURES which peaked at 10.47 C in 1733.You can check it on the Met Office data base HadCET mean.
From jai mitchell on June 19, 2013 at 3:51 pm:
From her Peer-reviewed Publications list at her Rutgers faculty page, see seems very proud of her last paper, Francis, J. A. and S. J. Vavrus, 2012: Evidence Linking Arctic Amplification to Extreme Weather in Mid-Latitudes, Geophys. Res. Lett., Vol. 39, L06801, doi:10.1029/2012GL051000 PDF
She’s quite a science celebrity, with about 49 appearances and mentions proudly listed. Sample:
Skeptical Science 4/11/12
http://www.skepticalscience.com/Linking_Weird_Weather_to_Rapid_Warming_of_the_Arctic.html
NewScientist article 7/9/12
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21528721.800-how-global-warming-is-driving-our-weather-wild.html?page=1
Climate Central post 22 August 2012
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/08/22/727501/arctic-death-spiral-how-it-favors-extreme-prolonged-weather-events-such-as-drought-flooding-cold-spells-and-heat-waves/?mobile=nc
I really love this one:
Citizen’s Climate Lobby 10/26/12
http://citizensclimatelobby.org/content/q-role-global-warming-plays-extreme-weather-such-hurricane-sandy
SST’s at all-time record high off Northeast North America? Where’s Tisdale?
Bob Rogers says:
June 19, 2013 at 11:45 am
I wonder if there is any causal relationship between the temperature phenomena in 1745 and the Scottish uprising of 1745?
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Generally there is. Hunger is a great motivator even today. In 2008 more than 60 food riots occurred worldwide in 30 different countries. Unfortunately we are not very far from a repeat of the 2008 food riots since the USA, a major grain producer no longer has a Strategic Grain Reserve but is instead importing grain. link
From the UN (FAO) food price index graph NOTE: the real price is the nominal price Deflated by the World Bank. Deflated??? What the heck happen to inflation?
jai mitchell says….
Do you have anything written. I do not have sound on my computer.
RE: Jai Mitchel
Among the many ideas that try to explain why we move through periods where the jet stream are zonal and periods where blocking patterns make the jet stream loop and even produce cut-off-lows, (in a way like an oxbow lake next to a river,) the one that has you so excited is interesting.
A different theory which also might enthuse your eager mind involves the AMO and PDO. While the entirety of both oceans don’t change greatly, when averaged out, the locations of warm and cold pools do shift. When the AMO is in its warm phase, the entirety of the ocean is pretty normal, but the warmth is up where it can melt polar ice and get noticed.
When the PDO and AMO are both in “warm phases” together, or are both in “cold phases” together, there is harmony, and the jet streams are zonal. They make a nice ring around the pole. However when one is in a warm phase as the other is in a cold phase, harmony gives way to discord, the jet stream gets all out of whack, and it loops all over the place.
While I understand this theory is different from the theory you currently are focused on, I think it does a fairly decent job explaining current changes.
I also suggest you take care when dealing with terms such as “highest since records began.” The problem is that many records begin not even sixty years ago, and both the AMO and PDO swing through their cycles in a period which is (very roughly) sixty years in duration.
Lastly, be aware the cycle of the PDO and AMO are but one factor in a chaotic system. As such they are not written in stone, but rather rather are written on water and air, and they can be moved by other factors, such as the sunspot cycle. The fact the current sunspot cycle may involve a “minimum,” may actually incorporate yet another cycle, of a much longer duration.
My own guess? We are headed for a very cold winter, and it will not take two years to get here, in my neck of the woods, in New Hampshire. I’m starting to collect my firewood early.
kadaka (KD Knoebel) says: @ur momisugly June 19, 2013 at 5:23 pm
SST’s at all-time record high off Northeast North America? Where’s Tisdale?
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Actually the SST’s have been cold and so has the weather in mid NC. It is now 69F and we have only had two days above 90F so far this year compared to thirty one days over 90F ten years ago.
François GM says: June 19, 2013 at 2:06 pm
Retired Engineer John says:June 19, 2013 at 7:44 am
“When I put an ice cube into my glass of water, I expect it to cool the water.”
“Not if you had more ice to start off with, which had been melting because of increasing ambient temperature. The water temp would gradually warm.”
It requires 3.33x10E5 Joules to melt one kilogram of ice. This energy is taken from the water and cools the water. The ambient air temperature will not heat the water above 0 C as long as ice is present.
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Jai, I’m not making a comment on what you have said. But the “style” in which you make your comments makes it difficult sometimes to tell whether you are quoting something followed by your response or making a number of separate points.
If the later, perhaps add to your style “1.”, “2.” etc. for the new points?
jai mitchell says:
June 19, 2013 at 3:51 pm
Take a deep breath; I have it on good authority that all this will pass as ‘there is nothing new under the sun’.
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