Guest essay by H. Luedecke and C.O.Weiss
We reported recently about our publication [1] which shows that during the last centuries all climate changes were caused by periodic ( i.e. natural ) processes. Non-periodic processes like a warming through the monotonic increase of CO2 in the atmosphere could cause at most 0.1° to 0.2° warming for a doubling of the CO2 content, as it is expected for 2100, within the uncertainty of the analysis.
We find that 2 cycles of periods 200+ years and ~65 years determine practically completely the climate changes. All other cycles are weaker and non-periodic processes play no significant role. ( See Fig. 4 )
The ~65 year cycle is the well-known, much studied, and well understood “Atlantic/Pacific oscillation” ( AMO/PDO ). It can be traced back for 1400 years. The AMO/PDO has no external forcing it is “intrinsic dynamics”, an “oscillator”.
Although the spectral analysis of the historical instrumental temperature measurements [1] show a strong 200+ year period, it cannot be inferred from these with certainty, since only 240 years of measurement data are available. However, the temperatures obtained from the Spannagel stalagmite show this periodicity as the strongest, by far, climate variation since about 1100 AD.
The existence of this 200+ year periodicity has none the less been questioned, doubting the reliability of temperature determinations from stalagmites. ( Even though the temperatures from the Spannagel stalagmite agree well with the temperatures derived from North Atlantic sedimentation; and even though the solar “de Vries cycle”, which has this period length and agrees in phase, is known for a long time as essential factor determining the global climate. )
A perfect confirmation for the existence and the dominant influence of the 200+ year cycle, as found by us [1] and with it the definite proof of absence of CO2 influence on the climate, is now provided by a recent paper [2] which analyses solar activities for periodic processes.
Fig. 1 Spectrum of solar activity showing the 208 year period as the strongest climate variation
The spectrum Fig. 1 ( Fig. 1d of [2] ) shows clearly a 208 year period as the strongest variation of the solar activity.
Fig. 2 ( Fig. 4 of [2] ) gives the solar activity of the past until today, as well as the prediction for the coming 500 years. ( This prediction is considered possible due to the ( multi-) periodic character of the activity. )
Fig. 2 Solar activity from 1650 to present ( measurement, solid line ) and prediction for the coming 500 years ( light gray: prediction from spectrum, dark gray: prediction from wavelet analysis ). Letters M,D,G denote the historical global temperature minima: Maunder, Dalton, Gleissberg
The solar activity agrees well with the terrestrial climate. It shows, in particular, clearly all historic temperature minima. Thus the future temperatures can be predicted from the activities – as far as they are determined by the sun ( the AMO/PDO is not determined by the sun ).
The 200+ year period found here [2], as it is found by us [1] is presently at its maximum. Through its influence the temperature will decrease until 2100 to a value like the one of the last “little ice age” 1870.
The wavelet analysis of the solar activity Fig. 3 ( Fig. 1b of [2] ) has interesting detail. In spite of its limited resolution it shows ( as our analysis of the Spannagel stalagmite did ) that the 200+ year cycle set in about 1000 years ago. This oscillation appears, according to Fig. 3, regularly all 2500 years. ( The causes for this latter 2500 year periodicity are probably ununderstood at present.)
Fig. 3 Wavelet analysis ( showing which oscillations were active at which time ) of solar activity. The dominant oscillations (periods between 125 years and 250 years) are clearly recognizable and recurring every 2500 years
Summarising: the analysis of solar activity proves the existence and the strength of the 200+ year periodicity which we found from historical temperature measurements, as well as from the Spannagel stalagmite data. This 200+ year cycle is apparently the one known as “de Vries cycle”.
This solar “de Vries cycle” together with the AMO/PDO determine practically completely the global climate of the past ( Fig. 4 ). This rules out any significant influence of CO2 on the climate. The latter is not surprising in view of the small amount of CO2 in the atmosphere and its weak infrared absorption cross section (also in view of the various proves of NEGATIVE water feedback ).
Fig. 4 ( Fig. 6 of [1] ) Measured temperatures ( black ) and constructed from the strongest 6 Fourier components ( red ). The Fourier analysis yields the 200+ year cycle for the main excursion: the drop of temperature from 1780 to 1870 and its subsequent rise to the present. This cycle was confirmed by the stalagmite data [1] and is again now confirmed by the solar activity [2] . One can see that the temperature is determined essentially by the 200+ year cycle superimposed with the 65 year cycle.
Fig. 5 Predicted global temperature of “official” models ( red ) and real ( measured ) global temperature ( green ), arbitrarily adjusted to agree at 1980. Source: Met Office
The present “stagnation” of global temperature ( Fig. 5 ) is essentially due to the AMO/PDO: the solar de Vries cycle is presently at its maximum, around which it changes negligibly. The AMO/PDO is presently beyond its maximum, corresponding to the small decrease of global temperature. Its next minimum will be 2035. Due to the de Vries cycle the global temperature will drop until 2100 to a value corresponding to the “little ice age” of 1870.
One notes that in Fig.5 the curves were adjusted to agree at 1980. Correctly they should agree for preindustrial times. Such correct adjustment would probably increase the discrepancy between models and reality further substantially.
One may note, that the stronger temperature increase from the 1970s to the 1990s, which is “officially” argued to prove warming by CO2 is essentially due to the AMO/PDO.
References:
[1] Multi-periodic climate dynamics: spectral analysis of long-term instrumental and proxy temperature records. H.Luedecke, A. Hempelmann, C.O.Weiss; Clim. Past. 9 (2013) p 447
[2] Prediction of solar activity for the next 500 years. F.Steinhilber, J.Beer; Journ. Geophys. Res.: Space Physics 118 (2013) p 1861
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Note: By publishing this, I offer it for discussion and consideration, I don’t explicitly endorse its methodology or conclusion as I have seen a number of curve fitting and cyclical exercises before that are able to extract cycles and then hindcast fit those cycles. This may be one of those instances, so I urge caution in consideration of the claim. On the plus side, I did find this Nature SR article that shows a 208 year cycle (Seuss cycle) in Indian Monsoon data., and of course we know that there is a 65 year cycle in the AMO as outlined here. – Anthony
RokShox says: December 17, 2013 at 4:17 am
Also note that the Figure 4 data is for the Northern Hemisphere, as shown in the caption to Figure 6 of reference 1, which says, “Fig. 6.(color online) 15 yr running average record SM6 (black); re-construction RM6 according to Eqs. (1), (3) and (4) (red); projection of future NH temperatures mainly due to the ~ 65-yr periodicity (dashed blue).”
The paragraph above Figure 4 misleadingly says, “This solar “de Vries cycle” together with the AMO/PDO determine practically completely the global climate of the past ( Fig. 4 ).” But Fig. 4 is Northern Hemisphere, not global climate data.
“The AMO/PDO has no external forcing it is “intrinsic dynamics”, an “oscillator”.”
Think what you mean to say is the long term negative to positive cycles for both AMO and PDO are caused by ocean circulation with no external forcing directly, but the very components of it via ENSO are directly related to external forcing.
“Here is another clue. Any result that finds a small influence for C02 is wrong.”
Just for you,
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1998/plot/hadsst2gl/from:1998/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1998/trend/plot/hadsst2gl/from:1998/trend/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1980/to:1998/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1980/to:1998/trend/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1934/to:1980/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1934/to:1980/trend
I make that at least 70+ years that show CO2 has small influence. How bad are you cherry picking the period in between that can be demonstrated mostly by AMO, PDO, solar activity and global cloud albedo?
Steven Mosher says: December 17, 2013 at 8:16 am
What article are your reading??
“Ice core from antarctica” is never mentioned in the article. The “southern hemisphere” is not mentioned.
The article does discuss the Spannagel stalagmite results, “However, the temperatures obtained from the Spannagel stalagmite show this periodicity as the strongest, by far, climate variation since about 1100 AD.” and further says “the Spannagel stalagmite agree well with the temperatures derived from North Atlantic sedimentation”. No mention of Antarctic ice core!
A spectral analysis of the Spannagel cave stalagmite temperature reconstruction shows a 197-year period as the strongest climate variation by far since about 1100 AD. The Spannagel cave is located in the Central Alps. Considering the uncertainty in the age model used, the Spannagel temperature cycle very likely corresponds to the “de Vries cycle” (a.k.a.Suess solar cycle). See Fig. 3 at:
http://quaternary.uibk.ac.at/CMSPages/GetFile.aspx?guid=ee69d3cd-a51d-4c5f-9933-b0c048607ede
This cracks me up.
1. they use 6 european stations back to 1757. As Anthony will tell you all station exposure prior to the CRS means large uncertainties in the underlying record
2. They do a simple average of the stations.
3. They then use the ANOMALY divided by the standard deviation. Oi vey.
4. They use ice core from antartica to ‘stand in” for the southern hemisphere
Here is a clue. You can find anything you look for. Moreover, you’ll get a much better answer if you divid by the cube root of the standard deviation, multiply by nostradamuses birth weight, and subtract 1.33576, on tuesdays.
I agree with Da Mosh here. Indeed, he hasn’t even scratched the surface. First, it is numerology. Fine, I like a bit of numerology as much as the next guy and sometimes numerology preceeds understanding. Second, as several have noted, it is devoid of any hint at the answer to the question WHY does the AMO/PDO/ENSO warm or cool the Earth. I can go grab HADCRUT4 and construct a 3 independent parameter fit to the GASTA that works pretty darn well, and yeah, it will have a ~sixty year sinusoid around a non-periodic secular/linear trend in it, but all that does is SUGGEST that the PDO might be causally linked to it (and says even less about the AMO, that IIRC is more or less chaotic with no particular period, where the PDO appears to be quasi-periodic over at least our very small data range. Was the PDO sixty years back in 1100 BCE? I have no idea. I don’t know how anyone could even reliably/believably tell.
This is yet another in a long line of papers that do fourier analysis of some version of temperature data (usually on a timescale that is absurdly long, and ignoring the probable error in the early data. Fourier analysis is fraught with peril — one can easily get artifacts that have nothing to do with the actual data. In fact, one can hardly NOT get artifacts. It also yields zero useful predictive information, especially without some sort of theory to explain WHY some particular frequency is important.
I’m in the bizarre position, then, if thinking that it is quite possible that the decadal oscillations have a significant influence on GAST (and even having some small inkling as to how they might affect it) while still not trusting somebody else’s numerology any more than I trust my own. It is suggestive, but hardly conclusive.
If we were all completely, painfully honest about error in even HADCRUT4 or the other estimates, we would all probably conclude that one cannot infer anything at all particularly reliably about the past climate. The honest error bars would all be dangerously close to the entire supposed warming or cooling that is supposed to have taken place in size, at least for estimates from before the latter half of the 20th century (or even the latter quarter of the 20th century) on.
In the meantime, just because you can fit a data interval with some model functional form does not mean that the fit will extrapolate outside of the fit region. In actual fact, it almost never will extrapolate outside of the fit region, in some fundamental sense — it will only happen when the actual underlying behavior is really correctly described by the fit form, which requires a theory to justify, not numerology (and can still easily be wrong).
Regarding the one thing Steven said that I don’t completely agree with — I am not convinced that one can separate out the CO_2-linked warming from the natural warming at any point in the climate record. To accomplish this requires a verified model, and so far the models we have are themselves little BETTER than numerology and it is far from clear that THEY will extrapolate/predict outside of some comparatively small fit region of past temperatures (to the extent that we even know them) either. With that said, I don’t believe the top article’s claim of 0.1 to 0.2 any more than I believe the “GCM consensus” that is currently around 2.5 C and dropping. If you wanted to say 1.0 C plus or minus 2.0 C, I might buy it.
rgb
With four parameters I can fit an elephant, and with five I can make him wiggle his trunk.
Attributed to John von Neumann by Enrico Fermi, as quoted by Freeman Dyson in “A meeting with Enrico Fermi” in Nature 427 (22 January 2004) p. 297.
Steven Mosher: Here is another clue. Any result that finds a small influence for C02 is wrong.
That is what has to be decided. All calculations of the supposed CO2 effect have problems, including those that assume a uniform texture to the Earth surface, uniform surface insolation, and uniform .surface temperature. The post today has the limitations that you describe, but might prove to be reasonably accurate.
rgbatduke: This is yet another in a long line of papers that do fourier analysis of some version of temperature data (usually on a timescale that is absurdly long, and ignoring the probable error in the early data.
It will be interesting to see whether any of them survive the upcoming 20 years of new data.
Each new author or set of authors is extraordinarily confident given the liabilities of the method.
Richard M says:
December 17, 2013 at 8:44 am
Mosher says:
“You can find anything you look for. ”
“Any result that finds a small influence for C02 is wrong.”
QED.
LULZ!!!11!!
As a side note, on WUWT’s ENSO Meter Page, 100% of the ENSO climate models that NOAA tracks now show we’ll be in an El Niño cycle or at least >0.0C by this time next year.
Although my statistics professors would always throw erasers at my head when I said this, we are “due” for an El Niño since we haven’t had one since 2010 and there are huge areas of the Pacific with +2.0C surface temps.
The Warmunists are desperately praying to the CAGW gods for an El Niño event, which they can exploit as “proof” CAGW is still alive and well and that it’s, “worse than we thought TM”…..
Do you really want me to red pen this paper???? Really?????? Are you that hard up for punishment??????????
Paul Vaughan says, December 17, 2013 at 3:43 am:
“This isn’t about total energy input but rather spatial distribution of input and consequent circulation. (Wind is the primary driver of ocean currents.)”
I think you nailed it, Paul. Something truly fascinating happened in the tropical Pacific in 1976/77 and it had long-term pan-Pacific (and thus global) implications. The mean level of the pressure gradient between east and west tropical Pacific, driving the trade winds, suddenly dropped significantly and stayed there for 30 years. This is well reflected in the SOI:
http://i1172.photobucket.com/albums/r565/Keyell/SOI_zps4a244c80.png
http://i1172.photobucket.com/albums/r565/Keyell/SOIvslatentampwind_zps8dcdab36.png
But what caused this sudden drop? And why did it stay there for three decades?
rgbatduke says:
December 17, 2013 at 3:03 pm: Agree about numerology. It’s as hilarious as that ticking numerologic clock: 399 ppm of CO2 on the wall; 400 ppm of CO2 on the wall. There is a grand global mystery out there waiting to be solved, and idiots run around babbling numbers.
RGB: “If we were all completely, painfully honest about error in even HADCRUT4 or the other estimates, we would all probably conclude that one cannot infer anything at all particularly reliably about the past climate. The honest error bars would all be dangerously close to the entire supposed warming or cooling that is supposed to have taken place in size, at least for estimates from before the latter half of the 20th century (or even the latter quarter of the 20th century) on.”
Indeed, that is the biggest problem. Hadley “bias corrections” are speculative, yet are about as large as the warming effect that is supposed to be be a world threatening crisis. (NB I’m not saying they are adding the warming signal, simply that they are making adjustments that are about as big as the “alarming” rise.)
The world threatening crisis that we and future generations will face is not climate change but the changes that are being forced through using the supposed threat of climate as a pretext.
The work described in this article is interesting, albeit it can’t be perfect when it is matching a version of temperature history (European-station black line in figure 4) which is either atypical of a wider Northern Hemisphere average, or making the common naive mistake (done by near 100% of skeptics) of using data after the usual warmist “adjustments” made by the most highly-funded reporting bodies, or both. Such can be deduced by comparing to the magnitude of mid-20th century temperature peak and dip seen in pre-CAGW-movement data for the Northern Hemisphere average. The global cooling scare by the early 1970s happened for a reason, as seen in thermometer readings published at the time.
Looking at this article’s related PDF, unsurprisingly part of the data used is from the activist-compromised CRU of Climategate, for example.
Antarctica is not a close proxy for global (or Northern Hemisphere) temperatures at this timescale, particularly for the reasons implied in a subsequent link.
Also, as some other commenters have implied, the AMO is not completely independent of solar-GCR forcing: By definition it is merely an index of North Atlantic temperatures relative to the global average, but northern latitudes tend to warm more than the tropics or the global average during any solar-caused warm period (Medieval Warm Period, Holocene Climate Optimum, the recent although soon ending Modern Warm Period including its two peaks in the 20th century, etc.).
Non-revisionist temperature history, double peak rather than hockey stick in the 20th century, does fit well with solar-GCR forcing history, though, as illustrated along with much else (matches too to sea level, humidity, clouds, etc) in http://img250.imagevenue.com/img.php?image=45311_expanded_overview2_122_15lo.jpg
(The prior link is the first new revision in 3 months of my usual grand overview link, adding some more paper references and quotes, though, for those who have seen it before, the bulk of it and its plots are the same).
Greg Says:
“The world threatening crisis that we and future generations will face is not climate change but the changes that are being forced through using the supposed threat of climate as a pretext.”
Precisely! It’s the perception (or optics as Washington hacks call it) that’s most important, not the pursuit of truth and actual scientific discovery.
Intelligent people (like RGB for example ) are honest and realize what they DON’T know but have genuine curiosity and the intelligence to seek and try understand the unknown.
Idiots and tyrants assume (or try to create the impression thereof), that they KNOW for a fact much more than they actually do as a means to obtain a Machiavellian end.
I guess I fall into the “Idiot” category because I “know” for a fact that CAGW is complete and utter BS….
Therein lies the rub….
rgbatduke asks:
“WHY does the AMO/PDO/ENSO warm or cool the Earth. ”
It does neither.
Ocean heat content is simply exchanged for air heat content at varying rates depending on varying internal ocean circulation.
The Earth is warmed or cooled by solar induced changes in total global cloudiness which affects the proportion of solar energy able to enter the oceans and drive the system.
The Hot Water Bottle Effect of the oceans is many magnitudes more powerful than any greenhouse effect.
Doubling CO2 would only cause .1-.2 degree C warming after feedbacks? Even Dr. Roy Spencer goes along with 1.1 degree C per 2x of CO2 before feedbacks, unless he changedhis mind in the past several months.
This means nature has negative feedback by a factor of 5.5-11 on effect of changes in atmospheric concentration of CO2.
I don’t buy that, considering how much nature has allowed climate to change from other causes including solar variations.
rgbatduke says:
December 17, 2013 at 3:03 pm
Was the PDO sixty years back in 1100 BCE? I have no idea. I don’t know how anyone could even reliably/believably tell.
I doubt it; certainly the AMO was not even 60 years ago, reconstructions from 1700-2000 shows that the AMO oscillates with period between just over 50 to just under 70 years with the amplitude changing to a similar extent
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/AMO-recon.htms
From this can be concluded that the AMO is not some kind of a fundamental periodicity but a by-product. Another example of numerology elsewhere shows that the AMO could be related (indirectly) to the length and phase of the sunspot cycle.
Lubos Motl said:
“It’s also my understanding that there’s no before-20th-century evidence supporting the omnipotence of PDO/AMO/Solar etc.”
This mistaken belief has only come about because of the blind leading the blind. You can actually follow PDO back ~ 300 years (and possibly further) if you use sound scientific logic.
The PDO is a decadal sea-surface temperature anomaly PATTERN that spans most of the Pacific ocean, Some try to discount its use as a good climate metric by claiming that it is not a measure of the mean sea surface temperature in the North Pacific. They seem to ignore the fact that very few people are actually claiming that it is a measuring the mean sea surface temperature.
When the PDO is positive,sea surface temperature anomalies in the western Nth Pacific and the Sth Pacific Ocean (South of – 30 degrees) are negative, while the temperature anomalies are positive off the west coast of Nth America and in the central and eastern tropical/equatorial Pacific Ocean. When the PDO is negative the sign of the temperature anomalies in each of these regions is reversed.
If you are careful to use trees along the Coastal Rockies of Nth America that are primarily growth limited by temperature, you can use their tree ring widths to get a good idea of the actual sea surface temperature anomalies off the west coast of Nth America.
The long-term temperature anomaly series that is produced from the tree-ring data can be can be cross-checked by a direct comparison with sea surface temperature anomaly obtained from Sr isotope measurements obtained from sea corals in the far Sth Pacific Ocean.
Provided the PDO sea surface temperature pattern has remained stable over the time period in question, the two temperature series should be anti-correlated. This is indeed the result you get.
Unfortunately, some people have unfairly used [well founded] doubt about the use of tree-ring widths of some variety of trees to completely discredit all of the tree-ring proxy measurements. This despite the fact that clear scientific evidence exists to show that,there are some tree varieties that have tree-ring widths that have faithfully measure nearby sea-surface temperature anomalies for well over 100 years.
Please read the following for more detail:
Wilson, I.R.G., 2011, Are Changes in the Earth’s Rotation
Rate Externally Driven and Do They Affect Climate?
The General Science Journal, Dec 2011, 3811.
http://gsjournal.net/Science-Journals/Essays/View/3811
and
http://astroclimateconnection.blogspot.com.au/2008/08/blog-post_02.html
http://astroclimateconnection.blogspot.com.au/2010/03/can-we-predict-when-pdo-will-turn.html
http://astroclimateconnection.blogspot.com.au/2010/03/60-year-periodicity-in-earths-trade.html
http://astroclimateconnection.blogspot.com.au/2012/06/lod-aam-and-land-surface-temperatures.html
Could the moderator please explain what was even remotely controversial about my last post?
[comments with more than 3 links trigger the filter as possible spam. Yours had 5. -mod]
It’s unfortunate the authors were not deign to reply to some of the technical criticisms made here. This is probably one of the most poorly executed frequency analyses that I’ve seen get into the PR literature.
Trying to DFT a cropped and inverted half cycle by padding each side with zeroes …. For fear of being rude I will bite my tongue.
Maybe just as well the authors did not show.
Henry Clark says:
“Also, as some other commenters have implied, the AMO is not completely independent of solar-GCR forcing: By definition it is merely an index of North Atlantic temperatures relative to the global average, but northern latitudes tend to warm more than the tropics or the global average during any solar-caused warm period (Medieval Warm Period, Holocene Climate Optimum, the recent although soon ending Modern Warm Period including its two peaks in the 20th century, etc.).”
Looking at the AMO at a yearly noise scale it is well apparent that it is warmest when the solar forcing is at its weakest, the same time as there are strong El Nino’s:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/26/Amo_timeseries_1895-2008.svg
The main interest of most commentators here is probably in forecasting future global temperature trends – but most of the discussion seems to center around trying to elucidate the processes involved or various ways of bringing more precision to the numerology.I submit again that it is not necessary to understand the processes involved to make reasonable forecasts .The late 20th century warming peaked at a warming peak in an approximately 60 year cycle. We have every reason to suppose that the next thirty years from about 2000 will be the cooling part of that quasi cycle. It is also obvious by inspection that we may be also at the peak of a millennial cycle – If so surely it is more likely than not that, looking at the last 1000 years that the next 600 will be a down trend .The most conservative assumption given our state of knowledge is that the shape of the downtrend will be similar to the trends between 1000 and 1600.
This idea is also testable in a fairly short time frame -say by 2018 -20. For the Figs and data supporting this argument see http://climatesense-norpag.blogspot.com
I don.t understand why this simple approach to forecasting is not more widely adopted.
Dr Norman Page says:
December 18, 2013 at 7:59 am
“The main interest of most commentators here is probably in forecasting future global temperature trends – but most of the discussion seems to center around trying to elucidate the processes involved or various ways of bringing more precision to the numerology.”
Agree 100 percent. We are getting well ahead of ourselves trying to elucidate the process. Curve fitting is indeed the best forecasting method available at present. But some folks here are curious about the processes involved and willing to hazard some thoughts on the subject, even if wrong, and I think that’s ok, as long as we don’t take ourselves too seriously.