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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Excuse me, anyone else getting a 404 Error message when clicking on this link?
http://www.leif.org/EOS/swsc120049-Cosmic-Rays.pdf
Carla,
I imagine that everyone is getting the 404 message. That’s why I asked Leif to respond again. If not muon induced clouds, then WHAT is causing the solar wind/F10.7 to have such an effect on the earth’s temperature? You can’t keep repeating what doesn’t work without providing an alternative theory… or just stating calmly that scientists currently have no idea what the linkage is. I can accept that.
GreGG says:
July 16, 2013 at 7:03 pm
…correlation between solar wind strength and global temperature or do you just suspect what doesn’t work …
—
I think.. related to ionization rates. More ionization more inflation, less ionization less inflation. Energy in..
Someone recently said, might have been Seth Redfield, don’t think dampening, think ionization..
Leif has been mentioning ionosphere and ionospheric coupling..
Found this on his site.
The Solar Wind – Magnetosphere Coupling Function and Nowcasting of Geomagnetic Activity
http://www.leif.org/research/Coupling-Function-AMS93.pdf
Leif You seem very pessimistic with regard to the possibility of any climate prediction at all.
I am convinced that the IPCC modelling approach is inherently useless and that another approach would be more useful.Here it is , We will see how it turns out – so far so good.!! -early days but I’m encouraged.
I put out on my blog at
http:climatesense-norpag.blogspot.com
on 6/18/ 2010 a fairly generalised “”Thirty Year Climate Forecaste ” with a 2year update
on 7/19/2012
Following a series of supporting posts I put out the more detailed forecast quoted in the original comment on his thread ( 7/15/ 4.13 ) see
http://climatesense-norpag.blogspot.com/2013/04/global-cooling-methods-and-testable.html
This post opens
“My approach to climate science is based on Baconian empirical principles as presented in a series of earlier posts on this site (http://climatesense-norpag.blogspot.com) notably:
6/18/10 Thirty Year Climate Forecast
7/19/12 30 Year Climate Forecast -2 year Update
10/30/12. Hurricane Sandy-Extreme Events and Global Cooling
11/18/12 Global Cooling Climate and Weather Forecasting
1/22/13 Global Cooling Timing and Amount
2/18/13 Its the Sun Stupid – the Minor Significance of CO2
From the data and papers linked to on these earlier posts I have drawn on a few basic premises on which the new forecasts rely.
I think these present a coherent method and a set of forecasts testable over the next 5 years.
One thing for sure, if another LIA is upon us, this planet will have trouble sustaining 6 billion people, that is what policy makers should be considering.
‘Further investigation’ is always nice, but curve fitting to not-understood cycles has no real predictive power.
… as many an investor in the stock market and gambler with a “system” has discovered the hard way.
Needless to say, I categorically disagree with Norman Page. Also, he asserts that I think that the climate is too complex to predict and then “refutes” this assertion by noting that empirically it has had some bounded behavior and therefore we can confidently predict that it will continue to have that behavior. This is a straw man argument, making a claim to know my thoughts and then refuting what it is asserted that they are with a non-sequitor.
FWIW, I think that the climate is too complex to predict accurately now, for the simple reason that nobody has managed to do so yet. I don’t think that it is intrinsically impossible to ever predict. I agree that it is probable but not certain that its future state will remain within bounds compatible with “life”, but that isn’t saying much even over the last 5 million years, let alone what we can plausibly infer from the last 500 million. During the last glaciation, atmospheric CO_2 dropped dangerously close to a partial pressure that would have started to kill at least some plants. There have been ecological/climatological catastrophes in the past that may not have caused universal extinction, but were hardly pleasant to live through for the species that did.
As I said, nobody seems to be able to accept that we just don’t know what the climate will do over the next 80 to 90 years (or the next 8 or 9, or 800 to 900). We have no bets that “should” be substantially different from a metaphorical coin flip. One person invokes pure numerology to justify their “certainty” that some particular thing will happen. Another invokes models that fail elementary hypothesis testing when they are compared internally, when they are compared to other (also failing) models, and when their predictions are compared to nature to justify their “certainty” that a different particular thing will happen.
Leif has the right of it. Mother Nature will have the last word. Perhaps that word will — eventually — validate one theory or computation or another. Or perhaps it will be something almost completely unexpected.
rgb
GreGG says:
July 16, 2013 at 7:03 pm
http://www.leif.org/EOS/swsc120049-Cosmic-Rays-Climate.pdf
RGB I didnt say that I thought the climate was too complex to predict I said that you thought the climate was too complex to predict. You more or less agree with what I said about your views when you say “FWIW, I think that the climate is too complex to predict accurately now”
Do you have any interesting discussions with your colleague Scafetta.? I would assume that your views clash on this matter of predictability.
GreGG says:
July 16, 2013 at 7:03 pm
Yet, you seem not to adhere to the theory that low altitude clouds cause enough shadowing to do the job.
The paper explains the Svensmark correlation as a fluke. The fact is that newer data does not support the theory. This is a good sign that the correlation is spurious to begin with.
GreGG says:
July 16, 2013 at 7:19 pm
WHAT is causing the solar wind/F10.7 to have such an effect on the earth’s temperature?
Except there is no such effect above the expected level of 0.1 deg C.
stating calmly that scientists currently have no idea what the linkage is. I can accept that.
I’ll state calmly that most scientists are not convinced that there is a link to begin with, as the data does not support such a link.
Dr Norman Page says:
July 16, 2013 at 7:46 pm
Leif You seem very pessimistic with regard to the possibility of any climate prediction at all.
No, I think we’ll crack that nut eventually, but not by naively extrapolating not-understood quasi-cycles beyond the domain on which they are derived.
I think these present a coherent method and a set of forecasts testable over the next 5 years.
considering that climate is defined over a 30-yr span, the next 5 years will not tell us anything. Perhaps 1/2 of the 30 years – i.e. 15 years – might provide a hint of where the climate is going. But not 5 years.
Leif Svalgaard says:
July 16, 2013 at 5:28 pm
“A difference of 10 in SSN corresponds to 0.1 W/m2 of TSI corresponding to 0.005 degrees C”
1. While even the SSN data show trend 38.97 per century for the 20th century the Solanki TSI reconstruction data show 0.694 W/m^2/century trend for the 20th century.
So it looks your 10 SSN/0.1 W/m^2 ratio is somewhat inflated.
2. Now, how much 0.694 W/m^2/century trend warms open ocean surface layer (the strip at latitudes ~0-65°, 200m deep)?
Waveless ocean average reflectivity from Fresnel equations at 0-65° is 0.03 (and wavy ocean reflectivity is even up to half lower at high angles than what comes out from Fresnel equations…)
(0.694/3.63 [0-65° Earth strip/6371km radius circle surface ratio]) x (1-0.03[open ocean 0-65° average reflectivity]) x 3.1536×10^9 [number of seconds in 100 years] x 0.9 [0-65° strip surface/whole Earth surface] = 5.27×10^8 J/m^2 surplus heat which would warm the 200m of water below:
5.27×10^8 / 4.1813[heat capacity of 1cm3 water] / 2×10^8[number of cm3 in 200 m thick 1m^2 surface column of water] = 0.63 K – which means slightly less than ~0.1 degree SST change per 0.1 W TSI change.
But the figure would be somewhat smaller because of clouds – we really don’t know exactly how much (something like 10-25%).
The observed global sea surface temperature anomaly rise in 20th century according to HadSST2 dataset was 0.629 K (HadSST3 11 year running average to filter out solar signal)
Which means the theoreticaly predicted figure (without accounting for uncertain cloud albedo) using Solanki TSI reconstruction 20th century trend differs 0.001 K from the figure measured as it comes out from the HadSST3 dataset.
But good to mention the error range for the HadSST3 figure is quite high for low and uneven ocean coverage and the figure differs considerably even from the previous version of the SST anomaly dataset HadSST2, where the temperature anomaly rise in 20th century comes out 0.658 K. And given the presumed confirmation bias at Hadley Centre the figure can be even considerably lower than what comes out from HadSST3 dataset due to systematic bias.
Nevertheless – although my result can differ from reality up to ~25% because of cloud albedo (assuming here the HadSST3 gives real figure) I’m anyway afraid your 0.005 C (per 0.1 W/m^2) figure would even so be at least order of magnitude lower than what was observed and can be theoretically predicted.
Leif Svalgaard says:
July 16, 2013 at 5:28 pm
Sorry, the link for the SSN chart somehow didn’t go through: Here it is
tumetuestumefaisdubien1 says:
July 16, 2013 at 9:52 pm
Sorry, the link for the SSN chart somehow didn’t go through: Here it is
The SSN between 1720-1755 is critical for the SSN in the 18th century. Wolf gave fairly low values. Cosmic ray data suggests that the values should be much higher, on par with the late 20th century, see Figure 2 of http://www.leif.org/research/Svalgaard_ISSI_Proposal_Base.pdf [the HMF B depends on the SSN]. This issue is now under study, so the fat lady hasn’t sung yet. We hope to have the issue resolved by our final meeting in Locarno, Switzerland in May 2014 [ http://ssnworkshop.wikia.com/wiki/Home ]
tumetuestumefaisdubien1 says:
July 16, 2013 at 9:49 pm
1. While even the SSN data show trend 38.97 per century for the 20th century the Solanki TSI reconstruction data show 0.694 W/m^2/century trend for the 20th century.
So it looks your 10 SSN/0.1 W/m^2 ratio is somewhat inflated.
The trend over a century is meaningless as it depends on where you choose the end points. What is the trend from 1957 to 2013, for example? or from 1870 to 1970?
Now, the Solanki reconstruction is probably not correct. All evidence we have shows that all observed solar indices in 1901 were very similar to those of 2008, so one would expect TSI to also obey that. The 0.1 W/m2 per 10 sunspot numbers is an observational fact for the time of spacecraft data [1978-2013].
Which means the theoreticaly predicted figure (without accounting for uncertain cloud albedo) using Solanki TSI reconstruction 20th century trend differs 0.001 K from the figure measured as it comes out from the HadSST3 dataset.
Since Solanki is not correct, your calculation is moot.
rgbatduke said:
“Leif has the right of it. Mother Nature will have the last word. Perhaps that word will — eventually — validate one theory or computation or another”
For those prepared to listen Nature is already screaming the answer at us.
When the sun became less active in the mid 20th century the global air circulation shifted towards the equator.
When the sun became less active in the late 20th century the global air circulation shifted towards the poles.
Since 2000 it has shifted back towards the equator again.
In the MWP the circulation was at least as poleward as it was in the late 20th century and in the LIA it was at least as equatorward as it has been recently.
The shifts are accompanied by changes in the balance between jet stream zonality and meridionality such that greater extremes as a result of atmospheric blocking events occur during more meridional periods.
tumetuestumefaisdubien1 says:
July 16, 2013 at 9:49 pm
Let me go with your calculation, but assume a much gentler trend:
Assume the trend was 38.97 over 100,000 years. Solanki TSI reconstruction data would then show 0.694 W/m^2 for the 100,000 years as the assumption is that it is the 38.97 which is responsible for the 0.694.
2. Now, how much 0.694 W/m^2/100,000 years trend warms open ocean surface layer (the strip at latitudes ~0-65°, 200m deep)?
Waveless ocean average reflectivity from Fresnel equations at 0-65° is 0.03 (and wavy ocean reflectivity is even up to half lower at high angles than what comes out from Fresnel equations…)
(0.694/3.63 [0-65° Earth strip/6371km radius circle surface ratio]) x (1-0.03[open ocean 0-65° average reflectivity]) x 3.1536×10^12 [number of seconds in 100,000 years] x 0.9 [0-65° strip surface/whole Earth surface] = 5.27×10^12 J/m^2 surplus heat which would warm the 200m of water below:
5.27×10^12 / 4.1813[heat capacity of 1cm3 water] / 2×10^8[number of cm3 in 200 m thick 1m^2 surface column of water] = 630 K … that is real global warming…
Stephen Wilde says:
July 16, 2013 at 11:21 pm
When the sun became less [perhaps you mean more – to make sense] active in the mid 20th century the global air circulation shifted towards the equator. When the sun became less active in the late 20th century the global air circulation shifted towards the poles. Since 2000 it has shifted back towards the equator again.
So, when the Sun became even less active than in the late 20th century the circulation should have shifted even more towards the poles, but you say it has shifted towards the equator again. Nature may be screaming something at you, but you seem to muddle her message a bit.
Leif Svalgaard says:
July 16, 2013 at 10:23 pm
“The SSN between 1720-1755 is critical for the SSN in the 18th century. ”
Could be.
But I somehow don’t see point what it has with the SSN in the 20th century (to show it I linked the chart in the first place) where even with the pre-1947 +20% correction comes out almost SSN 40 per century upward trend.
Nor I see what it has to do with the Solanki TSI trend in the 20th century (which I compared with the SSN trend to show your SSN/TSI ratio is somewhat inflated – if we compare the 20th century SSN trend with the 20th century Solanki TSI trend then by factor ~1.78).
Nor I see what it has to do with resulting SST change and its ratio to the TSI change my post was in the first place about – to show using the MJ/m^2/century calculation that your TSI/temperature change ratio estimate is at least order of magnitude too low.
All together would give SSN +10 corresponding to TSI ~+0.178 W/m^2 corresponding to ~+0.12 °C SST (in fact whole epipelagic zone!) temperature change – if we account for the bit overkill 0.25 cloud albedo value – (not SSN +10 corresponding to TSI +0.1 corresponding to +0.005 °C – such ratio I would also not call Grand – but as you can see it is quite an unrealistic one).
tumetuestumefaisdubien1 says:
July 16, 2013 at 11:47 pm
Nor I see what it has to do with the Solanki TSI trend in the 20th century (which I compared with the SSN trend to show your SSN/TSI ratio is somewhat inflated – if we compare the 20th century SSN trend with the 20th century Solanki TSI trend then by factor ~1.78).
You do not see that when you compare SSN with Solanki TSI, that that has anything to do with Solanki?
It was very clever to invert my ratio: I said that +10 SSN increases TSI by 0.1 W/m2, you want it to be by 0.178 W/m2 and then you call my estimate ‘inflated’…
In my previous comment I show that your calculation has no merit.
tumetuestumefaisdubien1 says:
July 16, 2013 at 11:47 pm
(which I compared with the SSN trend to show your SSN/TSI ratio is somewhat inflated
The TSI/SSN ratio [0.1 W/m2 per +10 sunspots] is an observed fact during the space age [no funky reconstruction needed]. When the sunspot number increases by 150 from min to max, TSI increases 1.5 W/m2: 1.5/150*10 = 0.1 W/m2 as order of magnitude; a regression analysis give 0.073. Cannot be inflated or fiddled with. This is a directly observed fact.
tumetuestumefaisdubien1 says:
July 16, 2013 at 11:47 pm
All together would give SSN +10 corresponding to TSI ~+0.178 W/m^2 corresponding to ~+0.12 °C SST (in fact whole epipelagic zone!) temperature change
The trend from 1957 to 2013 was -54 sunspots, which with your numbers gives a SST change of -0.64 °C. So has SST cooled by more than 0.6 °C since the mid-20th century? I don’t think so.
Leif,
You appear to be muddled.
The sun became slightly less active in cycle 20 and we saw a small equatorward shift.
It became more active in cycles 21 to 23 when there was a noted poleward shift.
Cycle 24 is less active and we see an equatorward shift.
Note that the timings are not exactly coincident with solar variations due to oceanic lag times.
Leif Svalgaard says:
July 16, 2013 at 11:32 pm
“5.27×10^12 / 4.1813[heat capacity of 1cm3 water] / 2×10^8[number of cm3 in 200 m thick 1m^2 surface column of water] = 630 K … that is real global warming…
Nice try, but not quite real – it would definitely not work like that:
1. SSN 38.97 per 100000 years trend means SSN 0.03897 per century trend which with my SSN/TSI/temperature ratio corresponds to 0.000684 W/m^2 per century and the warming result for the 100000 years would be basically identical.
2. even if your calculation crib would be right (which isn’t), then in 100 thousand years you would even just with usual water thermal conductivity warm whole the ocean top to botom (several times) – which means ~19 times more water to heat. Which means – assuming no thermal dissipation change! – the temperature of the ocean would rise not 630 K but only ~33 K and we don’t know how the thermocline would change, so we can’t say how much would the surface temperature change. We can only assume the sea surface temperature would be something between ~50 and 100 C
3. But don’t forget that the radiation flux rises with fourth power of temperature
(Stefan-Boltzman law I = sigma T^4)
-so for example for the >33 K surface warming from the ~290K the direct mid-IR radiance of the ocean (- while for the ~290K is 401.057 W/m^2) would be >617.196 W/m^2 >1.55 times higher, while for the ~290.63 K it is 404.553 W/m^2 = just ~0.0087 times higher (for most of the real calculations we can omit it) – so for the >33K surface temperature change the ocean radiation change would be 1.55/0.0087 ~>178 times higher than for the 0.63 K surface temperature change while the irradiation would change only like 3.9 x 0.178 = ~0.7 W/m^2 which means 0.7/1361 = ~0.0005 times. Such delta I/delta TSI we surely can’t omit and in fact it would just for the 33.6 K higher surface temperature mean I= 617.196-401.057 = 216 W/m^2 ocean radiation rise, so you would need for every square meter subtract ~216 Joules per second which in your 100000 thousand years (of supersteady superflat SSN upward trend 38.97 per 100000 years – SSN 0.03897 per century) means at least half of 6.8×10^14 = 3.4×10^14 J which anyway is clearly 65 times higher number than your 5.27×10^12 J figure.
…which all together makes absolutely clear your plagiariristic calculation try is a complete mess.
Leif Svalgaard says:
July 17, 2013 at 12:13 am
“The trend from 1957 to 2013 was -54 sunspots, which with your numbers gives a SST change of -0.64 °C. So has SST cooled by more than 0.6 °C since the mid-20th century?”
Let’s look at the issue a bit differently for a period we can compare with another period:
The 30 year SSN trend from 1964 – 1994 (and since then we almost don’t have really significant SST warming and the period since then is anyway still too short for robust conclusions, because transient lags – especially in such period of abrupt solar activity decline as the 1994-2013 period surely is – can intervene) was SSN +24
The Solanki TSI reconstruction gives TSI trend for the same period 0.438 W/m^2, from my ratio comes out 0.18 x 2.4 = 0.432 W/m^2 – 0.006 W/m^2 difference between the two.
(0.432/3.63 [0-65° Earth strip/6371km radius circle surface ratio]) x (1-0.03[open ocean 0-65° average reflectivity]) x 9.467×10^8 [number of seconds in 30 years] x 0.9 [0-65° strip surface/whole Earth surface] = 9.835×10^7 J/m^2 surplus heat which, would warm the 200m of water below: 9.835×10^7 / 4.1813[heat capacity of 1cm3 water] / 2×10^8[number of cm3 in 200 m thick 1m^2 surface column of water] = 0.118 K
The HadSST3 shows for the period 1964-1994 0.188 K warming – some 0.07 K higher temperature anomaly rise in that 30 years than my theoretical result, which would look another minor factor(s) could intervene (such as GHG – and I don’t deny such possibility). But this difference well could be also at least partially a result of observational errors and/or systematic bias.
For check we can also compare to a comparable 30 years period 1902 – 1932 (both periods are 30 years and both begin in the year of solar minimum), where we could assume not much GHG emissions in comparison with the 1964-1994 period could intervene.
The 30 year SSN trend 1902-1932 was +19, the Solanki TSI trend for the same period was 0.282 W/m^2 and from my ratio comes out 0.18 x 1.9 = 0.342 W/m^2 – 0.06 W/m^2 difference between the two.
(0.342/3.63 [0-65° Earth strip/6371km radius circle surface ratio]) x (1-0.03[open ocean 0-65° average reflectivity]) x 9.467×10^8 [number of seconds in 30 years] x 0.9 [0-65° strip surface/whole Earth surface] = 7.787×10^7 J/m^2 surplus heat which, would warm the 200m of water below: 7.787×10^7 / 4.1813[heat capacity of 1cm3 water] / 2×10^8[number of cm3 in 200 m thick 1m^2 surface column of water] = 0.093 K
The HadSST3 shows for the period 1902-1932 0.169 K warming – some 0.076 K higher temperature anomaly rise during the 30 years than my theoretical result. In this case we wouldn’t expect significant GHG contribution, but the difference between the theoretical result and the HadSST3 is anyway very simmilar for both the compared 30 years periods.
So either there’s indeed observational error and/or systematic bias in the HadSST3 (and one could expect that with the poor coverage and confirmation bias the ~0.02 K/decade difference could easily be there), or my ratio still underestimates the temperature/TSI change ratio or doesn’t work well for short periods (or all together).
Also, good to note we have a relatively huge anomaly in 20th century which can’t be attributed nor to the GHG, nor sun – the after mid 1940s cooling, which could be well the reason of underestimation of my temperature/TSI change ratio, because I in fact derive it empiricaly from the 20th century observations (I unfortunately don’t have anything better).
Unfortunately there aren’t SST data back to 1800, so we can’t compare the 1800-1900 with 1900-2000 period to see if the ratio would work for another 100 years period.
For those prepared to listen Nature is already screaming the answer at us.
When the sun became less active in the mid 20th century the global air circulation shifted towards the equator.
When the sun became less active in the late 20th century the global air circulation shifted towards the poles.
Since 2000 it has shifted back towards the equator again.
In the MWP the circulation was at least as poleward as it was in the late 20th century and in the LIA it was at least as equatorward as it has been recently.
Ah, I see. And these shifts in global air circulation have nothing to do with the (mostly) periodic decadal oscillations, with fluctuations in oceanic heat flow, with atmospheric composition changes natural or anthropogenic (and you are, of course, certain of all of this). And you can, naturally show me physically why all of this is true and you have sound evidence of what global air circulation was in the LIA and MWP to back up your assertion of knowledge of this era in the remote past. Because I’m pretty skeptical of your having any actual evidence at all for the LIA, where it is at least not completely impossible to make inferences from ship records on global voyages in the latter part of the 17th century (although I seriously doubt anyone has done so and suspect enormous error bars if they have). I’m really skeptical that anybody has the foggiest idea what “global air circulation” was doing in the MWP. (And to Norman Page — except, of course, that it probably was circulating enough to maintain life etc. I mean, we can be pretty sure that half the earth wasn’t in a vacuum and the other at a 2x overpressure…:-)
But aside from your assertion of knowledge (as always, without any acknowledgment of possible error, it is always certain that the circulation in the remote past was “like” it is today in some way, not “from records maintained by the Greek Orthodox Church in Siberia, it is plausible that circulation there was like, although of course nobody has any idea what was happening in Antarctica because no humans lived there…”) that you almost certainly don’t have, you make one more really basic error in your eagerness to find springy little lambs in the clouds and dragons outlined in the patterns of the stars.
Post hoc ergo propter hoc is a named fallacy for a reason. Yesterday I found a four leafed clover in the grass and last night I slept like a baby. The day before that a black cat (that lives next door) crossed my path at least once, and my back kept me awake all night tossing and turning. Ergo, black cats cause back pain, but fortunately four leafed clovers are a cure!
The problem is that our brains are greedy pattern-matching engines, to a fault. In many cases this is a good thing, because on a quotidian basis lots of stuff is linearizable. Very small children learn that hot stoves burn the shit out of your fingers very quickly because inference is literally built into our brains in a generally good way. The side effect, however, of this tendency is the creation of elaborate mythologies based on the most tenuous of associations, unwarranted extrapolations, the misapplication of Platonic idealism, and a certain amount of personal hubris and interpolated human greed and cunning (stable mythologies are usually socially and economically beneficial to some group or another of priests even as they are supported by true believers on the basis of anecdotal evidence or none at all).
The only cure for this tendency that we as a species have discovered is the rigorous application of a skeptical mind and an absolutely rabid insistence on a mix of extended empirical association and a consistent causal reasoning chain to the entire, painfully developed, empirically supported consistent causal mechanism that in total we call “science”, a knowing that is not, ultimately pulled out of our asses on the basis of anecdotes and pretty patterns seen in chaotic noise.
I generally respect your contributions to this list, BTW — I am only stating this as emphatically as I am for your own benefit. Leif has the right of it, and I think he and are in pretty good agreement here. The climate system isn’t unsolvable, but I see little to convince me that it has been solved yet, or that we even fully understand all of the inputs and connections needed to begin to construct a working (at some level of consistent accuracy) approximation. Perhaps in a few decades, especially if we continue to improve our empirical knowledge so it is no longer derived from ancient sunspot records of dubious and difficult to correct accuracy, ships’ logs kept for some other purpose entirely by persons of indifferent skill and motivation obtained with poor instrumentation, court or church records ditto, or inferred on the basis of highly multivariate and possibly confounded proxies that sample a wholly inadequate fraction of a rather large globe (which at least have the advantage of having some possible statements of error made that nobody ever makes when presenting the results to make inferences about modern climate).
Uh oh, there’s that damn cat outside. You’ll have to excuse me, I’ve got to go find a four leafed clover…
rgb
Resourceguy says:
July 16, 2013 at 7:14 am
Maybe magnetic field line re-connection is part of the answer. The frequency of the these re-connections is associated with heat.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/07/130715164909.htm
Very interesting. As some of you may remember I have been pushing a possible connection between CMEs and blips in the daily global temperature. Almost every time we see a surge upward it is timed with a CME. These blips often last for a week or two. My thought is that enough of these small blips over any time period will lead to a warmer average temperature than the same period without these blips.
I mentioned a couple of other times that CMEs had been hypothesized to be due to Solar Magnetic Reconnections (SMRs). As the article indicates, these SMRs can be very energetic. One can see how the SMR could itself also influence the Earth’s magnetic field when the magnetic lines involved directly connect to the Earth’s magnetic field. We could end up with what we actually see. Not all CMEs cause a rise in Earth’s temperature but rises always correspond to a CME.
I doubt we have the data to understand this relationship enough to verify my thoughts. But, if it turns out a more active sun does lead to more SMRs-CMEs then we could have a mechanism for an active sun warming the Earth.
Finally, if you think about the sun being a little more active in the 18th-20th centuries that is all one needs to climb out of the LIA. A very small but consistent warming would slowly raise the average global temperature. The 60 year and 100 year cycles probably have little effect over 3 centuries but they do nicely cloud the picture.
rgb
i) I have stated that the solar induced circulation shifts are indeed modulated by ocean cycles (substantially) and atmospheric composition (slightly). They could also be affected by GHGs but to only a miniscule degree.
ii) Tonyb has lots of historical evidence to show that past cool periods had more equatorward climate zones and past warm periods had more poleward climate zones. One can even see population movements poleward during warm periods and equatorward during colder periods. I don’t think that climate history is your strong point.
iii) I have accepted the possibility of error and have set out a list of observations (for Leif) that could prove such error but none have happened thus far.
iv) Changes in the balance of ozone creation/destruction above the tropopause are critical to stratosphere temperatures which are in turn critical to the height of the tropopause and the height gradient between equator and pole. That gradient then determines the latitudinal positioning of the permanent climate zones. Those permanent climate zones are influenced by the land mass distribution but the basic structure has been there for as long as the Earth has had oceans.
v) Do you think that the global air circulation is NOT affected by changes in the energy budget? Do you think that such changes are NOT a negative system response?
I think your emotional rant is misplaced.