From the GWPF and Dr. Benny Peiser
“Weakest Solar Cycle In Almost 200 Years”
The sun is acting bizarrely and scientists have no idea why. Solar activity is in gradual decline, a change from the norm which in the past triggered a 300-year-long mini ice age. We are supposed to be at a peak of activity, at solar maximum. The current situation, however, is outside the norm and the number of sunspots seems in steady decline. The sun was undergoing “bizarre behaviour” said Dr Craig DeForest of the society. “It is the smallest solar maximum we have seen in 100 years,” said Dr David Hathaway of Nasa. –Dick Ahlstrom, The Irish Times, 12 July 2013
The fall-off in sunspot activity still has the potential to affect our weather for the worse, Dr Elliott said. “It all points to perhaps another little ice age,” he said. “It seems likely we are going to enter a period of very low solar activity and could mean we are in for very cold winters.” And while the researchers in the US said the data showed a decline in activity, they had no way to predict what that might mean for the future. –Dick Ahlstrom, The Irish Times, 12 July 2013
“We’re in a new age of solar physics,” says David Hathaway of NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, who analysed the same data and came to the same conclusion. “We don’t know why the Gleissberg cycle takes place but understanding it is now a focus.” As for when the next Maunder minimum may happen, DeToma will not even hazard a guess. “We still do not know how or why the Maunder minimum started, so we cannot predict the next one.” –Stuart Clark, New Scientist, 12 July 2013
Those hoping that the sun could save us from climate change look set for disappointment. The recent lapse in solar activity is not the beginning of a decades-long absence of sunspots – a dip that might have cooled the climate. Instead, it represents a shorter, less pronounced downturn that happens every century or so. –Stuart Clark, New Scientist, 12 July 2013
A number of authors think it is probable that the sun is headed for a grand minimum similar to the Maunder-Minimums of 1649-1715. That may already manifest itself in 2020. There have been studies that attempt to project the impacts on global temperatures. Included here is a study by Meehl et al. 2013. The authors look at an approximately 0.25% reduction in Total Solar Irradiance (TSI) between 2020 and 2070: They fed this into a climate model. Result: global temperatures could drop around 0.2-0.3 degrees Celsius with local peak values of up to 0.8°C, especially in the middle and upper latitudes of the northern hemispheres. –Frank Bosse, NoTricksZone, 14 July 2013
When the history of the global warming scare comes to be written, a chapter should be devoted to the way the message had to be altered to keep the show on the road. Global warming became climate change so as to be able to take the blame for cold spells and wet seasons as well as hot days. Then, to keep its options open, the movement began to talk about “extreme weather”. Those who made their living from alarm, and by then there were lots, switched tactics and began to jump on any unusual weather event, whether it was a storm, a drought, a blizzard or a flood, and blame it on man-made carbon dioxide emissions. –Matt Ridley, The Australian, 10 July 2013
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I see a ~100 year cycle. I understand I’m looking at only 200+ years of record displayed. So, do the min/max cycles prior to 1749 indicate any periods of repetition?
For the record, I identify as a rank amateur and avid reader.
Sval gaard
You said
” then that only shows that other factors than the Sun is at play.”
I agree that other factors can cause climate change like changing ocean cycles and volcanic eruptions just to name two. But I find it quite strange that these other factors for some 400 years now cause the global climate to cool every time there is a sustained period of low or zero sunspot activity . Personally I think there is only one elephant in the room and it is not these other factors primarily. I don,t think we know everything that there is to know about the sun yet and what energy particles that it puts out . The climate scientists claimed that the global warming science was settled and solid and look at the unexpected climate that emerged instead… More surprises are likely. We will all have a better opportunity to observe this over the next decade as the solar activity in terms of sunspots drops. I hope that you have your snow tires in good shape just in case, Leif.
Leif – I’m confident that looking at repetitive patterns is better than modelling. As to the actual forecasts I made Here is the end of the original comment
“How confident should one be in these above predictions? The pattern method doesn’t lend itself easily to statistical measures. However statistical calculations only provide an apparent rigour for the uninitiated and in relation to the IPCC climate models are entirely misleading because they make no allowance for the structural uncertainties in the model set up.This is where scientific judgement comes in – some people are better at pattern recognition and meaningful correlation than others.A past record of successful forecasting is a useful but not infallible measure. In this case I am reasonably sure – say 65/35 for about 20 years ahead. Beyond that, inevitably ,certainty drops rapidly.”
It appears Leif has staked out his turf, and is defending it to the hilt. Science doesn’t really enter into it.
herkimer says:
July 16, 2013 at 7:52 am
cause the global climate to cool every time there is a sustained period of low or zero sunspot activity
Not so, check out Slide 20 of http://www.leif.org/research/Does%20The%20Sun%20Vary%20Enough.pdf
Dr Norman Page says:
July 16, 2013 at 7:58 am
However statistical calculations only provide an apparent rigour for the uninitiated
I take a dim view of people who claim ‘they are in the know’ compared to the rest of us unwashed masses who are ‘uninitiated’.
Bruce Cobb says:
July 16, 2013 at 8:01 am
Science doesn’t really enter into it.
I was waiting for your first snotty comment. And you delivered.
Dr Norman Page says:
“You don’t need to know what the drivers are initially. Start with the low frequency Milankovitch events .Then look for progressively shorter frequency quasi – periodicities in the temperature data itself a la Scaffetta. This will carry you a good way and point to the principal components in the driving mechanisms. for further investigation.”
I thoroughly disagree, only by knowing the drivers can there be any certainty. Scaffetta’s forecast warms up to 2024, which is the opposite to your “Built in cooling trend until at least 2024”:
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/scafetta_figure-original1.png
Leif Svalgaard says:
July 16, 2013 at 6:28 am: If the temperature difference is larger, then that only shows that other factors than the Sun is at play.
The sun is a factor with the other factors in combination. Is there a history of a continuous (as in multiple cycles being void of peeks) Maunder type solar minimum or less? The begging question is putting all the scenarios together that starts a glaciation. Is the key obvious and being overlooked? Are we in a schedule of ever colder earth? Or will an aging sun reheat the planet faster than our gradual expanding orbit. Is there any mechanism more powerful than the solar effects that are internal to our solar system? Is it some galactic event not known till it arrives? Why can’t we get similar climate change evidence from Mars or other planets further out to get a better picture of solar influence?
Invest in cave homes. Apparently the cave man did better than the surface dweller. 🙂
Back in the day, when everyone was predicting the next ice age (whatever the revisionists may now claim) the theory was the the climate wouldn’t just get cooler by degrees (as it were) but that one year spring would just not occur and from then on it’s downhill all the way!
steveta_uk says:
July 16, 2013 at 8:23 am: Back in the day, when everyone was predicting the next ice age (whatever the revisionists may now claim) the theory was the the climate wouldn’t just get cooler by degrees (as it were) but that one year spring would just not occur and from then on it’s downhill all the way!
A good indication is Antarctica which nobody seems able to explain the increase in ice. (more cold than warm?) Maybe if the current cold spell at the North Pole continues in a way that influences a growing amount of annual snow/ice coverage, then we should get concerned. Reflectivity from the south pole could spill over into the northern hemisphere and in combination the total increasing reflectivity is effectively enough to find a tropics condo.
Leif
herkimer says:
July 16, 2013 at 7:52 am
cause the global climate to cool every time there is a sustained period of low or zero sunspot activity
Not so, check out Slide 20 of http://www.leif.org/research/Does%20The%20Sun%20Vary%20Enough.pdf
Your slide is about global temperatures and TSI. I am talking about sunspot numbers . and global temperatures The web page of CLIMATE4YOU has some excellent graphs that illustrate what I am referring to. If you plot decadal sunspot numbers and decadal global temperatures you will see what I mean . You need to go decadal because when it comes to sun/ocean/ atmosphere connection , there are multi year lag factors that come to play
Ulrich
Scafetta’s earlier papers deal only with decadal cycles .My forecast is made by including a possible millenial cycle which Scafetta recognises in a later paper.. He says
” The second result was obtained by using solar, volcano, greenhouse gases and aerosol constructors to fit modern paleoclimatic temperature reconstructions (e.g.: Moberg et al., 2005; Mann et al., 2008; Christiansen and Ljungqvist, 2012) since the Medieval Warm Period, which show a large millennial cycle that is well correlated to the millennial solar cycle (e.g.: Kirkby, 2007; Scafetta and West, 2007; Scafetta, 2012c). These findings stress the importance of natural oscillations and of the sun to properly interpret climatic changes.”
See ” Discussion on common errors in analyzing sea level accelerations, solar trends and global warming”
at http://www.pattern-recogn-phys.net/1/37/2013/prp-1-37-2013.html
I think the Christiansen paper is very useful.btw
Leif I’m suggeting that the general public is impressed by IPCC saying that they are 95% confident of this or that based on the misuse of statistics.
CAGWECCECDEESE (Catastrophicus Anthropogenctium Globaleus Warmingneis et Climaticus Changea et Climaticus Disruptioni et Extremea Weatheranus Eventimea
…some humor. Maybe too much coffee.
I’m aware of that, and I don’t concur with 100% of his conclusions….however, I find it very likely that, during periods of solar minimum, increased cosmic radiation is having an effect on the atmosphere that helps to reduce absorbance of energy from the sun.
Dr. Joel Norris of the Scripps Institution gave quite a fascinating colloquium speech on the “climate-cloud dilemma” which can be viewed at this website:
http://vmsstreamer1.fnal.gov/VMS_Site_03/Lectures/Colloquium/100512Norris/f.htm
I’m not saying we can do much about it….if anything, higher GHG levels in the atmosphere may be holding back a much more impressive temperature decline, holding off a Maunder Minimum-type “little ice age.” I have no empirical proof, but I appreciate your discussion on the subject as always.
The earth is chilling, pump methane.
Dr. Page, Dr. Svalgaard, Dr. Brown
I have read all your comments above, and I agree with all you said, it is a pity you could not agree among yourselves.
Now, my friend Barry is a real cyclomaniac crank and he strongly disagrees; recently he produced this
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/BC.htm
and now is convinced that the latest rise in the CET could well be anthropogenic, nevertheless puto ridiculum est.
“(2) the solar activity increase during the 20th century contributed at least about 50% of the 0.8 °C global warming observed during the 20th century instead of only 7–10% (e.g.: IPCC, 2007; Benestad and Schmidt, 2009; Lean and Rind, 2009; Rohde et al., 2013). ” http://www.pattern-recogn-phys.net/1/37/2013/prp-1-37-2013.html
Half of 0.8C is 0.4C which is more than the 0.1C that Leif claims is the only difference the sun attributes to global temperature change. If the sun can warm the planet over a period of solar cycles, then the extended period of diminished solar activity will cause cooling.
herkimer says:
July 16, 2013 at 8:36 am
Your slide is about global temperatures and TSI. I am talking about sunspot numbers . and global temperatures
My slide was expressed as TSI, but was actually derived from cosmic ray flux. TSI, cosmic ray flux and Sunspot number are usually so strongly correlated that it doesn’t matter which one you use. During a Maunder Minimum [past and the one to come?] the SSN is probably not a good measure of solar activity. If you subscribe to the cosmic ray mechanism the proper variable to use is the cosmic ray flux which is really what my slide shows.
Another contributor is the increasing CO2’s effect on increasing green vegetation that cool the surface.
Vuk
Leif hasn’t actually made any comments on the specific forecasts I made.Neither has Brown. This is because using their approaches they can only say they don’t know the future and basically Leif refuses to guess – which is certainly his prerogative.To Brown the system appears chaotic or at least indecipherably complex- this isn’t the case for practical purposes because global temperatures have stayed within livable limits for complex life forms for the last 600 million years or so and certain quasi -periodicities are very obvious and are likely to prove useful for prediction.
It is very important to gather the most accurate instrumental and proxy data as far back as possible.to establish an accurate temperature and possible driver record.. Leif has contributed and continues to contribute enormously to this absolutely essential effort – thanks.
Leif says:
Re: herkimer says:
July 15, 2013 at 6:11 pm
“some people expect a lot more, but cannot really justify their belief in this without invoking mysterious ‘feedback’ or unknown mechanisms”
Sounds just like the AGW argument ! While the doubling of CO2 to 800ppm would only increase global temperatures by .75 – 1.5K, the numerous scientists predict runaway global warming based on a positive atmospheric water vapor feedback mechanism, which observational and empirical evidence shows does not exist ! Or at least nowhere near the sensitivity they claim exists – which they need to justify their excessive predictions.
Is this an accurate statement you can agree with Leif ? If not please explain why.
Leif says:
Re: CRS, DrPH says:
July 16, 2013 at 12:11 am
“Sounds like dogma to me. There is no good evidence for your assertion. But for dogma, no evidence is needed.”
Given the complete failure of climate models to accurately predict global temperatures and the lack of any “statistically significant warming” in the past 17 years, can we say that the theory of AGW has degenerated to nothing more than dogma ?
If you do not agree, can you please explain why ?
Thank you Leif,
GW
GW says:
July 16, 2013 at 10:14 am
Sounds just like the AGW argument !
can we say that the theory of AGW has degenerated to nothing more than dogma ?
If you do not agree, can you please explain why ?
Every belief system has its own set of dogmas, that are non-negotiable.
I comment on things I believe that I know something about [and that is always negotiable as Mother Nature always shows us the way in the end].
The global temperature periods are mostly controlled by the Sun’s heat *) , which is controlled by the tide forces from the planets.
The stable Sun oscillator is biased in its frequency shown by the Sun spot frequency shifts from the tide forces.
The frequency is shifted the lower frequencies if the tide forces are high and vice versa the frequency is shifted to higher frequencies if the tide forces are lower.
There is a weak positive correlation between the frequency shift and the Sun spot number.
The present cycle maximum is shifted in its frequency to a lower frequency and this means that the global temperature will decrease in the next years.
These relations can be seen in this graph:
http://www.volker-doormann.org/images/sunspot_tides.gif
*) The shorter time periods are mixed with the chandler wobble spectrum of the earth axis, which effects the ocean movement indicated as ENSO or MEI + temporary volcanic drops in temperature.
BTW. This is well known here since more than two years.
http://www.volker-doormann.org/frequencies_of_climate.doc
V.
Dr Norman Page says:
July 16, 2013 at 10:00 am
certain quasi -periodicities are very obvious and are likely to prove useful for prediction.
Slide 4 of http://www.leif.org/research/SHINE-2011-The-Forgotten-Sun.pdf shows predictions of solar cycle 24. The blue bars are predictions based on ‘cycles’ [called spectral methods there]. Most of those are very sophisticated [that is their main problem, btw], yet as you can see their predictions were all over the map, so not useful at all. The same can be said for all the others, except the two that are based on a solid physical model [Rmax ~72].
Leif – As you said, most of the predictions you refer to are based on complex models of the solar dynamo etc. This is not the way to go. Several years ago on the solar ham site I was predicting 24 at a peak of 50 -65 based on a simple correlation of cycles 20 – 24 with cycles 1-5. It is looking pretty good so far.- its results that count – a Dalton type minimum is now looking quite likely.
The main periodicities are the milankovitch cycles – possibly with the addition of the precession of the perihelion http://journalofcosmology.com/JOC22/Steel_PPPIGW.pdf
These are modulated by cycles of solar activity – notably the 60 year and millenial cycles.
I agree that the mechanisms and teleconnections of these variables with climate remain obscure.The UV – climate connection looks like being more influential than previously supposed.
Leif Svalgaard, you have no clue about climate/solar interactions. I can see your knowledge in the area of climate is next to zero.
You are in denial, and like the global warming crowd nothing will change your mind.
I can see you sticking with your old fashion obsolete thoughts even as the temperatures decline due to the prolonged solar minimum we have entered,( after going through one of the most intense solar periods last century), starts to take hold.
Leif, the prolonged solar minimium started in earnest in year 2005 and cycle 24 Leif is tracking solar cycle 5 ,and is not even close to solar cycle 14 in activity. Then again you cannot and will not be swayed because you think you are always correct ,when infact you are clueless.
Leif, I challanged you to prove me wrong, you have done nothing so far but talk the same BS with nothing to back up what you say ,other then the fact; this is how it should be according to Leif.
Explain the many abrupt climate changes the earth has had in the past. Explain the recent cool periods of the Maunder Miniumum and the Dalton Minimum. Explain the Younga Dryas, explain the rapid mlet off of the ice sheet just prior to the Younga Dryas?
I have an explanation(thresholds being reached caused by magnetic field strength variations and the associated secondary effects) you don’t , and past history supports what I am saying.
I will be telling you soon, I TOLD YOU SO.
Many on this board agree with me by the way.
highflight56433 said:
“Half of 0.8C is 0.4C which is more than the 0.1C that Leif claims is the only difference the sun attributes to global temperature change”
I think Leif said the TSI varies by 0.1% which is not 0.1C
I have no reason to disagree with that but the TSI change is not the relevant factor.
The mix of particles and wavelengths changes and that has a more substantial effect on ozone amounts above the tropopause and I suggest that that is what changes the climate zone distribution and jet stream tracks for a net warming or cooling effect greater than 0.1%.