This is interesting, especially since Solar Cycle 23 was quite long.
The Hockey Schtick writes:
A paper published by the Danish Meteorological Institute finds a remarkable correlation of Arctic sea ice observations over the past 500 years to “the solar cycle length, which is a measure of solar activity. A close correlation (R=0.67) of high significance (0.5 % probability of a chance occurrence) is found between the two patterns, suggesting a link from solar activity to the Arctic Ocean climate.” The paper adds to several others demonstrating that Arctic sea ice extent and climate is controlled by natural variations in solar activity, ocean & atmospheric oscillations, winds & storm activity, not man-made CO2.
Multi-decadal variation of the East Greenland Sea-Ice Extent: AD 1500-2000
Knud Lassen and Peter Thejll
Abstract:
The extent of ice in the North Atlantic varies in time with time scales stretching to centennial, and the cause of these variations is discussed. We consider the Koch ice index which describes the amount of ice sighted from Iceland, in the period 1150 to 1983 AD. This measure of ice extent is a non-linear and curtailed measure of the amount of ice in the Greenland Sea, but gives an overall view of the amounts of ice there through more than 800 years. The length of the series allows insight into the natural variability of ice extent and this understanding can be used to evaluate modern-day variations. Thus we find that the recently reported retreat of the ice in the Greenland Sea may be related to the termination of the so-called Little Ice Age in the early twentieth century. We also look at the approximately 80 year variability of the Koch [sea ice] index and compare it to the similar periodicity found in the solar cycle length, which is a measure of solar activity. A close correlation (R=0.67) of high significance (0.5 % probability of a chance occurrence) is found between the two patterns, suggesting a link from solar activity to the Arctic Ocean climate.
…
Conclusion:
In view of the large significance observed we suggest that the correlation of 0.67, between
multi-decadal modes in the Koch ice index and the solar cycle length, is indicative of a relationship not due to chance. The multi-decadal modes still represent only a small fraction of the total variance in the ice series, which illustrates that while the kind of solar activity characterised by the variable length of the solar cycle may cause some of the variability seen in the ice series, the majority is caused by other factors.
Whereas the multi-decal mode may be a result of varying solar activity, the cause of the slowly varying mode is not directly seen from the data presented here. Obviously, it must be due to a natural variation of the climate. A variation of similar shape may be recognised in the solar cycle length (Figure 1.5), but it has not been possible from the present data to deduce a correlation that is significant. Nevertheless, the similarity of the variation of the ice export through the Fram Strait and the smoothed variation of the solar cycle length shown in Figure 1.7 speaks in favour of the assumption that the solar cycle variation may include both natural modes. This conclusion is in accordance with the finding by Bond et al., 2001 (their Figure 2) that a persistent series of solar influenced millennial-scale variations, which include the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age, reflect a baseline of the centennial-scale cycles.
values of solar cycle length (SCL121) (heavy curve).
The ’low frequency oscillation’ that dominated the ice export through the Fram Strait as well as the extension of the sea-ice in the Greenland Sea and Davis Strait in the twentieth century may therefore be regarded as part of a pattern that has existed through at least four centuries. The pattern is a natural feature, related to varying solar activity. The considerations of the impact of natural sources of variability on arctic ice extent are of relevance for concerns that the current withdrawal of ice may entirely be due to human activity. Apparently, a considerable fraction of the current withdrawal could be a natural occurrence.
Full paper is here (PDF)
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This paper is not new. It was published in 2005.
Thanks, Anthony. An interesting paper.
Possible Solar influences on Earth’s climate are coming to attention, more and more.
Since the correlation is with cycle length and not number I don’t see why Leif should object. Cycle length is largely unaffected by the kinds of measurement problems he is most concerned with.
Why look at sunspots though? What other correlations did they try? Did they look at the CET record? The corellation between sunspots and ice would appear to me to be indirect and is presumably a consequence of the well known but poorly understood corellation between sunspots and the climate.
Having said that, if modern observations of sunspots and ice as viewed from Iceland are correlated and well within the historical range, it does at least suggest that a natural cause for the loss of arctic ice should not be ruled out.
Virtually every major study over the last several years accords in one form or other with Dr. Sebastian Luning and Prof. Fritz Vahrenholt’s “cold sun” hypothesis (qv), to effect that solar cycles are major if not all-determining influences on long-term terrestrial climate fluctuations.
AGW catastrophists with their linear extrapolations of CO2 –in fact a benign trace-gas– have absolutely zero empirical scientific basis, relying instead on utterly simplistic if convoluted “global climate models” (GCMs) which of course parrot programmers’ tautological assumptions: A = A.
But of course, “global warming” is no more about Climate Science than blood-and-soil “environmentalism” (sic) is about peace-and-prosperity. If you would see this Green Gang’s legacy, circumspice.
Sadly they dont use raw data:
“The method used by Koch in 1945 to construct his ice index is in fact not known – the details given
in Koch’s publication are not sufficient to understand how the index was constructed. However,
Wallevik and Sigurjónsson have probably figured out what Koch did. By testing several algorithms
on Koch’s original data they have reconstructed almost exactly the index, as published by Koch for
the period 1880 to 1939. ”
“Schmith and Hansen (2003) published a reconstruction of the ice export through the Fram Strait.
Annual values of the ice export through the Fram Strait in the period 1830-1994 were modelled from
historical observations of ’Storis’ in the southwest Greenland waters obtained from ships log-books
and ice charts.”
Also, A peer review would have been nice.
RoHa says:
July 18, 2013 at 6:18 pm
Heat from the sun can affect Arctic ice? Ridiculous!
…and further that day time highs are linke to that same sun! What a stretch! 🙂
Heh heh heh. I only saw Barbara the Idiot Boxer for a few minutes today, but what I did see was that her implied position is that man-made carbon dioxide causes global warming because anyone who says it doesn’t is funded by the Koch brothers and Exxon/Mobil.
Is she still on dial-up ? Hello …. Earth to Idiot ….
Whew: nice to get back to “puzzling things” again. A few random points, if I may:
1. Just to mention that the Fram Strait doesn’t appear to be shown on the artic map image under the Sea Ice Reference Page – if it’s that important, perhaps it should be …?
2. If there is this solar effect shouldn’t an effect also be seen in the Antarctic as well – I know solar orbital perigee is in January but TOA insolation presumably doesn’t vary that much during the year?
3. I recall that my old geography master used to say (all too many years ago now – in the late 1950’s) that the polar icecaps on Mars also could be seen (by telescope) to vary in size periodically – has anyone done an analysis of that, since that must presumably be down to our Martian cousins burning their oil too (/sarc)
4. Is it valid to say “a close correlation (R=0.67)” gives “0.5 % probability of a chance occurrence” – the R value is surely not that high to give a 200:1 causation probability …?
Ian H says:
July 18, 2013 at 7:51 pm
Since the correlation is with cycle length and not number I don’t see why Leif should object. Cycle length is largely unaffected by the kinds of measurement problems he is most concerned with
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Well I’ll let Leif speak for himself, but my reaction is that you are correct, and that is the problem. The way they have done this divorces the sea ice measurements from ANY physical process in the Sun. Without a physical process to correlate to, you’ve got nada but a correlation.
“””””…..The amount of sea ice sighted from Iceland ?…..””””””
Can you see Wassila, Alaska or Siberia from Iceland ??
OOps ! wrong ocean again. Just how far can one see from Iceland, well from the top of a Viking longboat mast anyhow ?
Well I’m always interested in correlations. Of course the correlation often depends on some other factor that happens to be related to both observations, which however have nothing to do with each other.
But it is amazing what knobs people will twist, just to see what happens.
davidmhoffer said:
“Without a physical process to correlate to, you’ve got nada but a correlation”.
There is a physical process.
The solar changes acting on stratospheric temperatures differentially between equator and pole affect the gradient of tropopause height to allow the climate zones to shift to and fro latitudinally beneath the tropopause which alters global cloudiness and the proportion of ToA solar energy able to enter the oceans to fuel the climate system.
George:
Correlation does not imply causation. However, high correlation does lend itself to good prediction, regardless of whether we know the reason. Why something happens is an intellectual luxury.
Stephen Wilde says:
July 18, 2013 at 9:30 pm
davidmhoffer said:
“Without a physical process to correlate to, you’ve got nada but a correlation”.
There is a physical process.
The solar changes acting on stratospheric temperatures differentially between equator and pole affect the gradient of tropopause height to allow the climate zones to shift to and fro latitudinally beneath the tropopause which alters global cloudiness and the proportion of ToA solar energy able to enter the oceans to fuel the climate system.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
There’s no physical process. The correlation they present is to the rate of change of the processes which is entirely different from being correlated to the processes themselves. Further, if you were correct, then the arctic and antarctic ice extents would also be correlated. A quick look at the sea ice page will show you that based on the satellite record since 1979, if anything, they are anti-correlated. And no, I’m not talking about on an annual basis where they are obviously anti-correlated, I’m talking about a decadal basis that roughly matches solar cycle lengths. Can you propose a physical process which fluctuates over about an 11 year span that would be correlated to one pole and anti-correlated to the other?
Further, there’s no lag. Show me a physical process that has zero lag!
Cycle length clearly is linked to physical processes in the sun. But I agree that they lack a mechanism explaining the link to sea ice. Correlation without a known physical mechanism can be coincidence. It can also be a clue that a physical mechanism exists which we don’t yet understand.
Ian H;
Cycle length clearly is linked to physical processes in the sun.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
So show me the correlation to the physical processes and you’ve got something. But that’s not what they have done.
Interesting, in the early days of questioning strange claims of CAGW, I spent some time observing post at Real Climate, you know the one where THE scientists hold sway. Whenever someone dared to suggest that solar or clouds had anything to do with CLIMATE they were howled down or projected as nut cases, this puzzled me, are the for real or just fakers, scared of the sun. After a while their treatment of questioners made me vow to avoid the site – too much censoring, ignorance and use of authority not science to silence dissenters.
Ignorance and ultimate arrogance.!! May they reap what they sowed.
The strong correlation between the length of the solar magnetic cycle and land temperatures in the northern hemisphere was reported by Baliunas and Soon back in 1995,
See http://oldfraser.lexi.net/publications/books/g_warming/solar.html
davidmhoffer asked:
“Can you propose a physical process which fluctuates over about an 11 year span that would be correlated to one pole and anti-correlated to the other?”
Yes.
The oceanic lag times are different in each hemisphere.
Warm water entering the Arctic Ocean after a period of high solar activity results in the Arctic staying warm after the Antarctic has begun to cool.
If the sun stays quiet for long enough we should see Arctic ice recovery plus continuing Antarctic ice accumulation.
As for the apparent lack of a significant lag I suspect that any change in solar activity results in a change in the global air circulation which would immediately start the process of change at the sea ice periphery even though the water temperature underneath the ice at the north pole itself takes longer to catch up with the solar change.
The sea ice periphery would thus respond quickly and that would disguise the ocean induced lag towards the pole itself.
davidmhoffer said:
“There’s no physical process. The correlation they present is to the rate of change of the processes which is entirely different from being correlated to the processes themselves”
The cause of the effect on stratosphere temperatures is a change in the mix of wavelengths and particles from the sun which alters the ozone creation / destruction balance above the tropopause.
A long low activity solar cycle favours ozone creation and so causes equatorward climate zone and Jetstream shifting whereas a short high activity solar cycle favours ozone destruction and causes poleward shifting.
During the late 20th century warming period the short intense solar cycles reduced ozone, cooled the stratosphere, caused poleward climate zone shifting, less clouds, more energy into the oceans, El Nino became more dominant relative to La Nina and the air warmed a fraction.
Now we have the opposite scenario which is being reflected in Antarctic sea ice growth but not yet in the Arctic.
We can see that Arctic sea ice loss has already pretty much bottomed out if one ignores the exceptional storm induced loss last season so the Arctic trend has responded without significant lag, just not yet as emphatically as in the Antarctic. The Arctic lag seems to be only about 10 years which does not show clearly in the above graph due to the scaling. The big El Nino of 1997/8 would have reached the Arctic to result in the ice loss which occurred in 2007.
Stephen Wilde says:
July 18, 2013 at 10:16 pm
davidmhoffer asked:
“Can you propose a physical process which fluctuates over about an 11 year span that would be correlated to one pole and anti-correlated to the other?”
Yes.
The oceanic lag times are different in each hemisphere
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
The satellite record is roughly 3 full 11 year cycles, about 1.5 22 year cycle, and nearly 1/2 of an 80 year cycle. Show me the lag that would then correlate them.
Sorry, but 100 volts rms at 50 Hz heats the pot of water exactly the same as 100 volts rms at 60 Hz. This paper is telling you to ignore the volts and focus on the Hz.
davidmhoffer says:
July 18, 2013 at 9:05 pm
Without a physical process to correlate to, you’ve got nada but a correlation.
===========
Physics exists to make predictions about the physical world. we have no idea “why” gravity happens, yet we make exceedingly good predictions by knowing the correlation between mass, distance, time. We call this correlation the gravity.
The insistence on physical process is bad science. How can we understand anything new if it has to fit to a known process? As a result, the least interesting question in physics is “why” something happens. no matter what explanation you can find for “why” something happens, some future generation of scientists will prove you wrong as our level of understanding increases.
We Invented a process called “gravity”, to explain why things fall. That doesn’t mean that gravity is a process. Rather that we understand it as a process by applying a name to the observed correlation, and we develop mathematical rules to allow us to predict future events based on this correlation.
Stephen Wilde;
The cause of the effect on stratosphere temperatures is a change in the mix of wavelengths and particles from the sun which alters the ozone creation / destruction balance above the tropopause.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
So how me THAT. Not the length of the cycle of THAT, but THAT. If the correlation is there, then it is there and directly linked to THAT physical process or processes. But this paper measures something completely different and assumes a further correlation to the kinds of things you are talking about without presenting any data to show they do.
“Correlation without a known physical mechanism can be coincidence. It can also be a clue that a physical mechanism exists which we don’t yet understand.”
[Ian H at 9:42PM 7/18/13]
Dear David Hoffer,
Could we find common ground in the above? That is, would you agree that we have, in short, (at the very least)….. a clue. What Stephen and Ian and Ferd and others said above sure made a lot of sense to me.
Your sister in climate sleuthing,
Miss J. Marple
Ian H says:
July 18, 2013 at 9:42 pm
Correlation without a known physical mechanism can be coincidence. It can also be a clue that a physical mechanism exists which we don’t yet understand.
========
Exactly. Rather than rejecting correlation as co-incidence we should embrace unexplained correlation as an opportunity to increase our understanding. Something happens a couple of times, that is one thing. Regularly for 800 years, that is another.
To suggest that there is no physical mechanism to connect the length of the solar cycle to ice cycles seems rather near sighted to me. The sun is a massive source of energy and particles, that pulses and flips polarity with a frequency of about 1 cycle / 11 years. This will induce resonance in any object on earth that has a natural frequency at some harmonic of the solar frequency. This resonance will be much greater than that predicted for linear forcings.
Hey, Ferd Berple! Great minds!! (yeah, yeah, dream on, hm? — well, it encouraged me, regardless)
Here’s what I wrote and was about to post just before reading yours above. I don’t expect you to respond. It was directed to Mr. Hoffer anyway:
“… indicative of a relationship not due to chance… .” [cited article]
This statement appears to me to acknowledge their lack of certainty to a degree that makes it highly likely to be a true statement, given the high correlation in the cyclic data.
That is, it appears to be a valid “clue.”