Guest essay by David Archibald
This post drew attention to the similarity between the recent warm decades and the period leading up to the extremely cold year of 1740. Now let’s investigate how a 1740-type event might play out. This graph shows the average of the monthly temperatures for the years 1736 to 1739 plotted with the monthly temperatures of the year 1740:
With respect to growing conditions, the 1740 season was a month later than the average of the previous five years and the peak months of the season were 2.5°C cooler. To get a perspective on how a repeat of 1740 might affect growing conditions in the Corn Belt, Bill Fordham, advising the grain industry in the Midwest, has kindly provided an update on the current season:
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“So far here in the center of the Midwest, the 2013 growing season is almost identical to 2009 in regards to Growing Degree Days (GDD).
In 2009 48% of the corn was planted by May 12 and 62% was planted by May 19.
In 2013 18% of the corn was planted by May 12 and 71% was planted by May 19.
In 2009, we never received a killing frost until November 5 when the low was at 28F. The Midwest had a huge crop that was wet and light test weight, but never got killed by a frost. In 2009, the total GDD accumulation from May 15 thru September 30 was 2,530 GDD.
The bulk of the corn planted in the Midwest ranges from 2,300 to 2,700 GDD (based on Fahrenheit). With the volcanoes that have been erupting in Alaska and Russia, especially with Mt Sheveluch erupting to 7.4 miles on June 26, I will be surprised if we get through the month of September in 2013 without an early killing frost. If the heat dome and high pressure ridge stays centered in the west and over Alaska until Labor Day, the clockwise rotation will pump the cold air south over the Midwest along with the ash. There are millions of acres at risk in IA and MN, that are 2-3 weeks behind normal.
After silking, it takes 24-28 days to reach the Dough Stage when kernel moisture is about 70% and about 50% of the total dry matter has accumulated in the kernel.
After silking, it takes 35-42 days to reach the Dent Stage when kernel moisture is about 55% and about 70% of the total dry matter has accumulated in the kernel.
It takes about 55-65 days after silking for a corn plant to mature and for the kernel to reach black layer, normally at 30-35% moisture.
A killing frost, <30F, will do damage whenever it occurs before black layer, the earlier the frost, the more severe the damage. A hard killing frost <28F can reduce the yield up to 25%, or more depending on the variety, even a week before black layer.
In 1974 I experienced severe loss on some late planted corn when I got rained out on May 7 and didn’t get back in to finish planting for 3 weeks. The May 7 corn yielded 190 bushels per acre and the May 28 corn yielded 90 bushels per acre, same variety.”
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Based on Bill Fordham’s experience of 1974, planting three weeks later reduced the crop yield by 50%. If the peak growth months of June, July and August are 2.5°C (4.5°F) cooler as per the CET record of 1740, that would reduce the GDD by 414.
A repeat of the climate of 1740, with a late planting and reduced heat in the three months prior to harvest can be expected to reduce crop yield by well more than 50%.
Leif, Here’s the link to Spencer’s WUWT article. http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/06/05/spencer-on-climate-sensitivity-and-solar-irradiance/
geran says:
July 6, 2013 at 8:18 pm
Amazing how something we cannot see (dark matter) is so easily “proven”….
Nobody had ever seen Neptune before 1846 and recognized it as a planet. In 1821 tables of positions of Uranus were published. But observations showed that with time Uranus deviated more and more from its calculated position as if another [unseen] planet was tugging on it. From the deviations, the position of the unseen planet was computed and Neptune duly found at that place in 1846.
So we can infer the existence of matter [Neptune] from its gravitational influence on other matter [that we can see, Uranus], in this way dark matter is observed [by its effect] even if it has not been seen. Nothing amazing about that.
bones says:
July 6, 2013 at 8:23 pm
Note that … the temperature varies about 0.08 C
The variation of TSI at the TOA is typically 1.2 W/m2. From dS/S=4 dT/T we find for T=289K that dT =0.08K. What is your mystery?
lsvalgaard says:
July 6, 2013 at 9:03 pm
So we can infer the existence of matter [Neptune] from its gravitational influence on other matter [that we can see, Uranus], in this way dark matter is observed [by its effect] even if it has not been seen. Nothing amazing about that.
>>>>>>>
Nothing amazing to you maybe, but your scientific method fails miserably. You get to “infer” whatever you want or need (for funding}, yet you deny others the same capability. You slap down Vuk, for example, for being an “out-of-the-box” thinker, as if you have total authority over all scientific endeavors. You do not seek to actually teach so much as pontificate. You need evidence–study this thread.
geran says:
July 6, 2013 at 9:30 pm
You slap down Vuk
As I slap down you. Dark Matter [DM] was proposed 80 years ago as out-of-the-box. It has taken 80 years of painstaking observations to convince astronomers of the reality of DM. That you do not rejoice in this masterpiece of scientific endeavor is your loss, but a sad commentary on science literacy in today’s America. Vuk is not an out-of-the-box ‘thinker’, he is simply and glaringly wrong and self-aggrandizing.
he is simply and glaringly wrong and self-aggrandizing.
>>>>>>
You would know a lot about that….
geran says:
July 6, 2013 at 9:45 pm
“he is simply and glaringly wrong and self-aggrandizing”
You would know a lot about that….
Having seen him in ‘action’ makes that an easy diagnosis…
You, on the other hand, do not reach halfway up his leg.
Your childish insults reveal more than I need to say….
An academic child, fully funded by his parents, never out in the real world…oh, the genre is sooooo well known.
geran says:
July 6, 2013 at 9:51 pm
Your childish insults reveal more than I need to say….
Yet, you cannot help yourself:
geran says:
July 6, 2013 at 9:53 pm
An academic child, fully funded by his parents, never out in the real world…oh, the genre is sooooo well known.
I look forward to the next entertaining installment.
lsvalgaard says:
July 6, 2013 at 9:36 am
Because no cycles are alike on a day-to-day basis, so the details don’t matter much http://www.leif.org/research//SC14-and-24.png.
Details don’t matter? How very unscientific of you, the detail is everything. The daily/monthly data shows the two cycles are in no way related.
The big swings in SC14 began about the point of the cycle where we are at now in SC24, so watch for them from now on.
You are living a fantasy, the swings should have started 18 months ago.
As do I.
Gentlemen,
Please act like adults, sadly if I found my children acting like you are, I would revoke their IP lease at the router until they started to act mature again. Ponder the fact that your digital words will exist long after you leave this mortal coil. In no way, is science being advanced by either side.
Jack H Barnes
bones says:
July 6, 2013 at 8:23 pm
Note … the temperature varies about 0.08 C
A simplified version of the formula is dT [C] = 0.053 dTSI [TOA W/m2].
so dT varies with the solar cycle. Here is a table
dTSI 0.5 W/m2, dT = 0.025C [small solar cycle]
dTSI 1.0 W/m2, dT = 0.053C [smallish cycle]
dTSI 1.5 W/m2, dT = 0.079C [medium cycle]
dTSI 2.0 W/m2, dT = 1.062C [large cycle]
By pairing a number in one column with a number in a random place of the other column, you can produce ratios up to factors of 4. But you shouldn’t do that, you should pair values in the same row, then there is no mystery.
FerdinandAkin says:
July 6, 2013 at 4:44 am
This is too funny. David Archibald writes the article, but Dr.Leif Svalgaard takes all the questions.
Ferdinand, your mystery is explained thusly. Driven by my natural curiosity and sense of public duty, I do original research and publish the results here on WUWT, expanding human knowledge, pushing back against the darkness and generally advancing human civilsation. The good doctor is best known for some papers he co-authored back in the 60s. Was it the 60s? Nevermind, as the White House says about Benghazi, it was a long time ago. Now he realises that his greatest relevance to 21st century science is to provide comment on my posts on WUWT, helping the less knowledgeable amongst us gain a better understanding of our natural world. Though I must say his weltanschauung seems to be a bit blinkered on the role of the Sun in determining climate. I guess it is a journey in progress and perhaps we shouldn’t be too critical of someone who might be struggling in understanding. So his comments, helpful as they are, should be considered in the context of his limited understanding of the Sun’s role in climate. One of the co-authors of Dr Svalgaard’s better known papers, Ken Schatten, wrote, together with Douglas Hoyt, a book entitled “The role of the Sun in Climate Change”. Though that book is also last century (1999),it is a good place to start for someone who has a long way to go and I commend it to the good doctor, my bearded and blinkered helpmate.
Stephen Walters says:
July 6, 2013 at 9:59 pm
The daily/monthly data shows the two cycles are in no way related.
Of course they are not related, as SC5 and SC24 also are not related. Solar cycles are not related, each cycle is independent of the other cycles, being born, growing, and dying on its own merit. Now, you are still evading:
A recent reconstruction of the number of sunspot groups is not sensitive to the Waldmeier sunspot weighting and thus has no issue with ‘corrected’ data. It also has error bars that reflect the 1-sigma confidence. We can compare SC5, 6, 12, 14, 16, and 24 http://www.leif.org/research/Sunspot-Groups-Small.png and you can judge for yourself how SC24 compares and report here what you found.
Macro Contrarian (@JackHBarnes) says:
July 6, 2013 at 10:03 pm
In no way, is science being advanced by either side.
science was left behind long ago as soon as the attacks started. For those kind of people science does not seem to be a priority. Sadly enough.
If you could predict a 1740-like year in advance, what’s the soil profile further south for corn growing?
David Archibald says:
July 6, 2013 at 10:16 pm
Driven by my natural curiosity and sense of public duty, I do original research and publish the results here on WUWT, expanding human knowledge, pushing back against the darkness and generally advancing human civilsation.
You are almost up to Vul’s standard of self-aggrandization, not quite, but close.
The good doctor is best known for some papers he co-authored back in the 60s.
Wrong, one of my best known papers is a prediction of the sunspot number written in 2004: http://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=qFdb2fIAAAAJ&pagesize=100&view_op=list_works
I have written several papers on Sun-Weather-Climate with the founder of NCAR and we were widely credited [e.g. http:///www.leif.org/EOS/Sun-Weather-Climate.pdf ] with reviving that field in the 1970s when the field had died due to failure of earlier correlations to work with new data: e.g. http://scholar.google.com/citations?view_op=view_citation&hl=en&user=qFdb2fIAAAAJ&pagesize=100&citation_for_view=qFdb2fIAAAAJ:zYLM7Y9cAGgC which is still cited today.
You ignorance of the literature shines through.
lsvalgaard says:
July 6, 2013 at 10:19 pm
Now, you are still evading:
A recent reconstruction of the number of sunspot groups is not sensitive to the Waldmeier sunspot weighting and thus has no issue with ‘corrected’ data. It also has error bars that reflect the 1-sigma confidence. We can compare SC5, 6, 12, 14, 16, and 24 http://www.leif.org/research/Sunspot-Groups-Small.png and you can judge for yourself how SC24 compares and report here what you found.
Using a group sunspot number is evading the detail again, it seems you will use all forms of smoke and mirrors to push your agenda.
Your 2004 paper is of little importance and will have no place in solar science history. The solar polar fields do not drive the next cycle, and DA should use the term honorary doctor.
Stephen Walters says:
July 6, 2013 at 10:50 pm
Using a group sunspot number is evading the detail again, it seems you will use all forms of smoke and mirrors to push your agenda.
So show us the detailed daily numbers for SC5 compared with SC24. And you still evade:
A recent reconstruction of the number of sunspot groups is not sensitive to the Waldmeier sunspot weighting and thus has no issue with ‘corrected’ data. It also has error bars that reflect the 1-sigma confidence. We can compare SC5, 6, 12, 14, 16, and 24 http://www.leif.org/research/Sunspot-Groups-Small.png and you can judge for yourself how SC24 compares and report here what you found.
The solar polar fields do not drive the next cycle
http://www.leif.org/EOS/Choudhuru-forecast.pdf shows otherwise.
lsvalgaard says:
July 6, 2013 at 10:58 pm
So show us the detailed daily numbers for SC5 compared with SC24. And you still evade:
Monthly numbers are sufficient for showing the detail during the Dalton Minimum (and all that is available as you know), the monthly numbers do not hide the swings as the yearly numbers do. The SC5/SC6 numbers are backed up by other data with only you disputing the existence of the Dalton Minimum. SC24 is showing us a first grand minimum cycle does not have big swings and is more like the SC5 record. (even allowing some missing data) If SC5 had the huge swings like the unrelated SC14 it would have been picked up even with the lesser counting days.
Not using highly smoothed data or group data when detail data is available is not evading, but proper science, perhaps you could learn something from this?
Choudhuru in falling into the same trap does not make it so.
Stephen Walters says:
July 6, 2013 at 11:33 pm
Monthly numbers are sufficient for showing the detail during the Dalton Minimum (and all that is available as you know)
But as you apparently do not know. Here are the daily numbers http://www.leif.org/research/dailyrg.txt
No cycle is like any other cycle in daily or monthly numbers; what matters is the overall run of the data. The climate does not react to daily or monthly numbers. SC5 did not have big swings http://www.solen.info/solar/cycl5.html
Choudhuru in falling into the same trap does not make it so.
When prominent solar physicists agree that makes it so http://solarphysics.livingreviews.org/Articles/lrsp-2010-6/ : “One method that has yielded predictions consistently in the right range during the past few solar cycles is that of K. Schatten, P.H. Scherrer, L. Svalgaard, and J.M.Wilcox., whose approach is mainly based on the polar field precursor” and “In the version of the code adapted for cycle prediction (Choudhuri et al., 2007; Jiang et al., 2007), the “surface” poloidal field (i.e., the poloidal field throughout the outer half of the convection zone) is rescaled at each minimum by a factor reflecting the observed amplitude of the Sun’s dipole field. The model shows reasonable predictive skill for the last three cycles for which data are available, and can even tackle hemispheric asymmetry (Goel and Choudhuri, 2009). For cycle 24, the predicted amplitude is 30 – 35% lower than cycle 23.”
That you don’t know it, does not un-make it so.
lsvalgaard says:
July 6, 2013 at 11:59 pm
But as you apparently do not know. Here are the daily numbers http://www.leif.org/research/dailyrg.txt
I am aware of the daily group numbers and your attempt to change the data, I was referring to sunspot numbers.
No cycle is like any other cycle in daily or monthly numbers; what matters is the overall run of the data. The climate does not react to daily or monthly numbers. SC5 did not have big swings http://www.solen.info/solar/cycl5.html
The daily or monthly data shows the state of the dynamo (or whatever you want to call it). The high and low peaks of SC14 are significant and show a solar state of unusual proportions. It is quite different now with basically just low activity, this can only be seen with detailed data.
When prominent solar physicists agree that makes it so
Only those in the Babcock camp would consider Choudhuru prominent. No doubt he is a solid scientist, but unfortunately he is on the wrong train. Times are a changing.
Stanford’s Supreme Solar Sage Svalgaard Suffocates Spurious Science Single Handed
SSSSSSSSSH !
RE: lsvalgaard says:
July 6, 2013 at 12:37 pm
Gail Combs says:
July 6, 2013 at 12:03 pm.
“…..The problem is the alarmism Archibald is peddling. There is no valid basis for ‘predicting’ a repeat of 1740 in 2015.”
I’m not so sure about that. I found Gail’s mention of her male goat coming into rut in July pretty alarming.
RE Gail Comb: Interesting observation about the goat. The reek of the musk must be a bit intense, in July heat. My sympathies to those downwind.
And by the way, my doe goats were doing a a bit more tail-wagging last week than is usual in late June. I thought it was odd, but brushed it off by assuming they had found some forage they particularly liked.
The following is a link to a paper that was published in October, 2011 which notes the current solar grand maximum was uniquely long lived, was uniquely long lived, was uniquely lived, was unique long lived. Please note I am repeating the phrase ‘uniquely long lived’ as the fact that the Svensmark grand solar maximum was ‘uniquely long lived’ is from a physical standpoint key to explaining what is happening to the sun now and is key to explaining the warming of the 70 years and the expected imminent significant cooling.
The principal issue theoretically and practically to resolve is how much of the warming in the last 70 years was caused by solar magnetic cycle changes and how much was caused by the increase in atmospheric CO2. This question will soon be resolved by observation, as the Svensmark grand solar maximum is over. Based on observational evidence it appears the sun will be entering a Maunder like minimum which will bring this solar grand maximum to an end.
http://www.solen.info/solar/images/comparison_recent_cycles.png
As many are aware there are cycles of warming and cooling in the paleo record, the Dansgaard-Oeschger cycles. The following is a proxy record that shows how the temperature on surface of the Greenland ice sheet has changed over the last 11,000 years determined from ice core analysis, Richard Alley’s paper.
http://www.climate4you.com/images/GISP2%20TemperatureSince10700%20BP%20with%20CO2%20from%20EPICA%20DomeC.gif
http://www.wsl.ch/fe/landschaftsdynamik/dendroclimatology/Publikationen/Esper_etal.2012_GPC
Palaeoclimatic evidence revealed synchronous temperature variations among Northern Hemisphere regions over the past millennium. The range of these variations (in degrees Celsius) is, however, largely unknown. We here present a 2000-year summer temperature reconstruction from northern Scandinavia and compare this timeseries with existing proxy records to assess the range of reconstructed temperatures at a regional scale. The new reconstruction is based on 578 maximum latewood density profiles from living and sub-fossil Pinus sylvestris samples from northern Sweden and Finland. The record provides evidence for substantial warmth during Roman and Medieval times, larger in extent and longer in duration than 20th century warmth.
William: As many are aware curiously and anomalously the Greenland Ice has experienced the greatest amount of warming during the last 70 years.
The warming in the last 70 years has not been global and has been confined to specific latitudes matching the warming pattern of the past Dansgaard-Oeschger cycles. The D-O cycles’ warming period has been found to occur when there is a concurrent solar grand maximum. The cooling phase of the Dansgaard-Oeschger cycle occurs when there is a concurrent solar Maunder like minimum. The latitudinal pattern of the warming in the last 70 years does not match the pattern predicted by the general circulation models and cannot be explained by the CO2 forcing mechanism.
As CO2 is eventually distributed in the atmosphere the potential forcing due to an increase in atmospheric CO2 should be roughly the same for regions of the entire planet. The actual CO2 forcing is also proportional to amount of long wave radiation that is emitted at the latitude in question. As the there is more long wave radiation emitted in the tropics of the planet the most amount of warming due to the increase in CO2 should be observed in the tropics. The warming in the last 70 years has not been global. The higher latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere have warmed twice as much as the planet as a whole and four times more than the tropics. There is currently no explanation as to why that is true.
It should be noted that the latitudinal pattern of warming in the last 70 years matches the pattern of past D-O cycles. The past D-O cycles were not caused by atmospheric CO2 changes.
Solar magnetic cycle changes correlate with the D-O cycles as has been noted in paper after paper. That is a fact. Svensmark, Tinsley, Yu, and others researchers has been working to find out how the solar magnetic cycle changes cause the planet to warm and to cool cyclically. The mechanisms by which the solar magnetic cycle changes cause the planet to cyclically warm and cool, is due to multiple mechanisms that modulate the amount of low level and high level clouds. As low planetary clouds reflect sunlight into space, more low level clouds causes the planet to cool and less low level clouds causes the planet to warm.
Due to the strength and orientation of the geomagnetic field, solar magnetic cycles changes have a greater modulation effect on planetary clouds in higher latitudes. The regions of the planet that have warmed in the last 70 years are the same regions that are most greatly affected by the solar magnetic cycle cloud modulation mechanisms. There is now observational evidence that the slowdown in the solar magnetic cycle has started to affect planetary climate causing the planet to cool and causing there to be an increase in precipitation.
http://www.cato.org/blog/long-awaited-snowfall-increase-antarctica-now-underway
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/S_timeseries.png
http://centaur.reading.ac.uk/23935/1/2011%20Owens%20et%20al.,%20GRL,%202011GL049328.pdf
Solar cycle 24: Implications for energetic particles and long‐term space climate change
The recent solar minimum was the longest and deepest of the space age, with the lowest average sunspot numbers for nearly a century. The Sun appears to be exiting a grand solar maximum (GSM) of activity which has persisted throughout the space age, and is headed into a significantly quieter period. … ….[3] Average solar activity, as quantified by a variety of parameters, has been declining since about 1985 [Lockwood and Fröhlich, 2007] and the recent exceptionally low minimum is part of this decline [Lockwood, 2010]. From a study of the durations of Grand Solar Maxima (GSMs) during the past 9300 years, as detected in cosmogenic isotope data, Abreu et al. [2008] deduced that the current GSM was uniquely long‐lived and due to end soon. This was supported by extrapolations of recent trends in heliospheric parameters [e.g., Lockwood et al., 2009b]. This decline has potential implications for predictions of winter climate in Europe [Lockwood et al., 2011] and of hazardous particles in Earth environments [McCracken, 2007; Barnard et al., 2011], specifically galactic cosmic rays (GCRs) and solar energetic particles (SEPs).
William: If you are interested in more information concerning the D-O cycles and how solar magnetic cycle changes and long term changes in galactic cosmic ray modulate planet cloud cover and planetary temperature I would highly recommend reading the following two books.
http://www.amazon.com/Unstoppable-Global-Warming-Updated-Expanded/dp/0742551245
http://www.amazon.com/dp/1840468661