Readers may recall when Dr. Gavin Schmidt appeared on a television program with Dr. Roy Spencer, but by Gavin’s cowardly choice, not at the same time.
After listing the known causes for climate change aka global warming, Gavin Schmidt said:
“We’ve looked at the sun; it’s not the sun. We’ve looked at volcanoes; it’s not volcanoes. We’ve looked at the orbit; it’s not the orbit.”
Interestingly, Gavin lists solar forcing as primary cause of colder temperatures during the Maunder Minimum and “little ice age” in this 2001 paper co-authored with Mike Mann:
Science 7 December 2001: Vol. 294 no. 5549 pp. 2149-2152 DOI: 10.1126/science.1064363
Solar Forcing of Regional Climate Change During the Maunder Minimum
Drew T. Shindell1, Gavin A. Schmidt1, Michael E. Mann2, David Rind1, Anne Waple3
+ Author Affiliations
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NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and Center for Climate Systems Research, Columbia University, New York, NY 10025, USA.
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Department of Environmental Sciences, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA 22902, USA
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Department of Geosciences, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA 01003, USA
Abstract
We examine the climate response to solar irradiance changes between the late 17th-century Maunder Minimum and the late 18th century. Global average temperature changes are small (about 0.3° to 0.4°C) in both a climate model and empirical reconstructions. However, regional temperature changes are quite large. In the model, these occur primarily through a forced shift toward the low index state of the Arctic Oscillation/North Atlantic Oscillation as solar irradiance decreases. This leads to colder temperatures over the Northern Hemisphere continents, especially in winter (1° to 2°C), in agreement with historical records and proxy data for surface temperatures.
The full paper is here at PSU: http://www.meteo.psu.edu/holocene/public_html/shared/articles/Shindelletal01.pdf
The conclusion reads (bold mine):
The GISS model results and empirical reconstructions both suggest that solar-forced regional climate changes during the Maunder Minimum appeared predominantly as a shift toward the low AO/NAO index. Although global average temperature changes were small, modeled regional cooling over the continents during winter was up to five times greater. Changes in ocean circulation were not considered in this model. However, given the sensitivity of the North Atlantic to AO/NAO forcing (37), oceanic changes may well have been triggered as a response to the atmospheric changes (38). Such oceanic
changes would themselves further modify the pattern of SST in the North Atlantic (39) and, to a lesser extent, the downstream air temperature anomalies in Europe.
These results provide evidence that relatively small solar forcing may play a significant role in century-scale NH winter climate change. This suggests that colder winter temperatures over the NH continents during portions of the 15th through the 17th centuries (sometimes called the Little Ice Age) and warmer temperatures during the 12th through 14th centuries (the putative Medieval Warm Period) may have been influenced by long-term solar variations.
==============================================================
In the paper: A History of Solar Activity over Millennia (PDF) it is demonstrated:
The modern level of solar activity (after the 1940s) is very high, corresponding to a grand maximum. Grand maxima are also rare and irregularly occurring events, though the exact rate of their occurrence is still a subject of debates. These observational features of the long-term behavior of solar activity have important implications, especially for the development of theoretical solar-dynamo models and for solar-terrestrial studies.
More here: Paper demonstrates solar activity was at a grand maximum in the late 20th century
Another paper recently published predicts the sun is headed for a Dalton-like solar minimum around 2050
The author notes solar activity has been at a higher level in the 20th century saying”
“the Sun has emerged from a Grand Maximum, which includes solar cycle 19, the most active solar cycle in the last 400 years. Earth was cooler in Grand Minima. The trend line indicates we have entered a period of low solar activity.”
Note the red horizontal line on the graph below shows 50-year mean solar activity was at the highest levels of the past 300 years during the latter half of the 20th century.
From the WUWT Solar reference page, Dr Leif Svalgaard has this plot comparing the current cycle 24 with recent solar cycles. The prediction is that solar max via sunspot count will peak in late 2013/early 2014 (now):
Predictions are that cycle 25 will be even lower: First Estimate of Solar Cycle 25 Amplitude – may be the smallest in over 300 years
Based on the slowing of the Sun’s “Great Conveyor Belt”, NASA solar scientist David Hathaway predicted that
“The slowdown we see now means that Solar Cycle 25, peaking around the year 2022, could be one of the weakest in centuries.” He is very likely to have got the year wrong in that Solar Cycle 25 is unlikely to start until 2025.
In this paper: http://www.probeinternational.org/Livingston-penn-2010.pdf,
Livingston and Penn provided the first hard estimate of Solar Cycle 25 amplitude based on a physical model. That estimate is 7, which would make it the smallest solar cycle for over 300 years.
Yet according to Gavin in his recent television interview,
“We’ve looked at the sun; it’s not the sun.”
Right, apparently the sun can only force climate one-way.
So in the upcoming two decades, as solar activity wanes, if it becomes globally cooler, will Gavin and Mike blame the sun, or will the disavow their previous work, pointing to studies like this one?
- Claim: Solar activity not a key cause of climate change, study shows (wattsupwiththat.com)
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goldminor says:
December 28, 2013 at 4:47 pm
“…What a coincidence that this so exactly matches the ebb and flow of the solar output.”
___________________________
Right, a coincidence.
vukcevic says:
December 28, 2013 at 2:32 pm
but is the Ap index as measured the true representation of the interplanetary magnetic field for the solar magnetic field alone, i.e. magnetic field carried by the solar wind among the planets of the Solar System, or those planets have something to do with it as well
The Ap index is a proxy for the product of the magnetic field and the square of the solar wind speed. The IDV-index is a pure [and very good] proxy of the magnetic field alone which we then can infer back to the 1830s. The planets have nothing to do with this, except, of course, the Earth itself which we use as the measuring device. But the Earth and other planets do not disturb the heliosphere or the Sun to any noticeable degree..
Ahhh, another [snip] from down under.
And if we think we are heading for global cooling for reasons other than the sun?
2013 Australia’s hottest year on record.
Sure, once they changed the system they used. Now they measure temperature in the middle of the country by satellite, where there are no thermometers and where no-one lives. That’s where the nice new colours are needed.
One of the big issues sceptics have is this need on the warmists behalf to continue to change the system or metric used in order to keep pumping out the alarm.
No-one has the slightest idea how warm the centre of Australia was 100 years ago. So we can’t refute their new system. Which is why they like it.
Wait until the E=GREENS find out that Photovoltaic cells are made using ARSENIC
Just wait until people learn that salt – a necessary component of life is made with a gas used to poison millions of soldiers – CHLORINE.
==================
The real deal is this —> is the poison freely available as the mercury in a CFL is? Or is it chemically attached as the chlorine in salt is? The ARSENIC is chemically bonded. The bond is not as strong as a NaCl bond. But there is a SiAs bond.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arsenic
BTW you think As is bad? You will need to give up GaAs LEDs and lasers.
Jimbo wrote:
“Wasn’t Gavin for a specified period of no global surface warming after which he would reconsider CAGW? I can’t find it but I vaguely recall it was a question in one of Real Climate’s comments sections.”
Ah, Gavin’s goalposts. Gavin Schmidt of NASA has a website called RealClimate. Back in 2007 there was a post on signs of climate change.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/12/a-barrier-to-understanding/
In the discussion thread Daniel Klein asks at #57:
“OK, simply to clarify what I’ve heard from you.
(1) If 1998 is not exceeded in all global temperature indices by 2013, you’ll be worried about state of understanding
(2) In general, any year’s global temperature that is “on trend” should be exceeded within 5 years (when size of trend exceeds “weather noise”)
(3) Any ten-year period or more with no increasing trend in global average temperature is reason for worry about state of understandings
I am curious as to whether there are other simple variables that can be looked at unambiguously in terms of their behaviour over coming years that might allow for such explicit quantitative tests of understanding?”
[Response: 1) yes, 2) probably, I’d need to do some checking, 3) No. There is no iron rule of climate that says that any ten year period must have a positive trend. The expectation of any particular time period depends on the forcings that are going on. If there is a big volcanic event, then the expectation is that there will be a cooling, if GHGs are increasing, then we expect a warming etc. The point of any comparison is to compare the modelled expectation with reality – right now, the modelled expectation is for trends in the range of 0.2 to 0.3 deg/decade and so that’s the target. In any other period it depends on what the forcings are. – gavin]
stevek says:
December 28, 2013 at 1:44 pm
It reminds me of all the times we hear about an apparent cure for cancer,
Funny. We may have a cure for cancer:
http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/pdq/cam/cannabis/healthprofessional/page4
http://patients4medicalmarijuana.wordpress.com/2012/10/23/biochemist-who-cured-his-stage-4-prostate-cancer-with-cannabis-oil-explains-how-it-works/
And you never hear that on the news either. My conclusion? The news is biased.
Svalsgaard says [December 28, 2013 at 2:29 pm]
“Just pointing out that solar activity was just as high in the 1830-1870s and in the 1780-790s…”
I’m just a 50-year geologist, not a solar scientist. But I fail to see how relative highs in sunspot activity during the Little Ice Age (you DO agree that it happened, I presume?) compare with the absolute high levels of sunspot activity during the 1960s-1990s. Many commenters have pointed out that the critical metric in sunspot numbers may not be ABSOLUTE numbers but rather RATES OF CHANGE in sunspot activity.
No offense, Dr Svalgaard, but I think you’re hiding behind the old paradigm of the “Solar constant” and resisting acknowledgement of the many facets of solar-energy variation through time.
Surely the correlation of solar inactivity (Maunder Minimum) and the deepest depths of the Little Ice Age warrant some thoughtful consideration, eh?
GeologyJim says:
December 28, 2013 at 5:52 pm
But I fail to see how relative highs in sunspot activity during the Little Ice Age (you DO agree that it happened, I presume?) compare with the absolute high levels of sunspot activity during the 1960s-1990s. Many commenters have pointed out that the critical metric in sunspot numbers may not be ABSOLUTE numbers but rather RATES OF CHANGE in sunspot activity.
Solar activity is measured by the NUMBER of sunspots, and that number has reached about the same level in each of the centuries 18, 19, and 20.
Surely the correlation of solar inactivity (Maunder Minimum) and the deepest depths of the Little Ice Age warrant some thoughtful consideration, eh?
And it is getting all it deserves, but no more. E.g. http://www.leif.org/research/Does%20The%20Sun%20Vary%20Enough.pdf
It’s not difficult to produce a good match between solar activity and modern warming
http://woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/mean:30/normalise/plot/sidc-ssn/offset:-40/integral/normalise
Leif Svalgaard says: “…that number has reached about the same level in each of the centuries 18, 19, and 20”
Sorry Leif, but “about the same level” does not answer my question about the RATE OF CHANGE.
Nor does it answer my question about the correspondence of the Maunder Minimum and the deepest times of the Little Ice Age.
The Medieval Warm Period also corresponds to high solar activity (or its inverse, low galactic cosmic rays as evidenced by Be10) suggesting that solar activity has a long-term influence on global climate.
Of course, you know there are other correlations that support this connection.
So as one scientist to another, I’m just having a hard time understanding your reluctance to acknowledge the effect of that gigantic fusion reactor in the sky that daily bombards the Earth with ga-ziggawatts of energy, plus or minus a few ziggawatts. [pay attention to the ziggawatt differences]
And cryptic responses don’t sit well with me or other commenters.
Happy New Year, but it’s going to be colder than 2013. Wanna bet?
Watts
Im sure Appell can explain.
geologyjim on December 28, 2013 at 6:20 pm
If you integrate sunspot count, you get a good match between solar activity and 20th century temperature.
http://woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/mean:30/normalise/plot/sidc-ssn/offset:-40/integral/normalise
. Svaalgard Then how and why did the Schiddell paper get published in Science? As usual the Climate drivel reply crowd. This guy has been wrong on all counts apart from his occasional HT contributions. A bit like Mosher, Conollet, Tamino, Schmidt etc….
Lov that “Coober Pedy” accent! Ha ha.
Hope Gav’s renewal of his H-1B goes OK. And good tidings Old Boy to your Obama Care Application: Uh Oh … not and American … Uh Oh …. not born in USA …. OK .. supports Obama with cash … Lovely that Obama has such generous cash supporters as Gav.
Waltz that Matilda Gav for all its worth.
😉
Where the hell is my “hat tip” for providing this reference to you?
REPLY: Well the quandary was that you’ve gone from using your real name to the fake name “justsomeguy”, and that made me think twice about giving you a credit since that’s a blog policy violation to change handles.
If you want credit, pick one, and I’ll gladly add it.
Thanks – Anthony
Joe says:
December 28, 2013 at 5:04 pm
For all of you who think we are heading for global cooling due to the sun:
2013 Australia’s hottest year on record
One year Russia is hot, later the United States has a very hot year and this year Australia is very hot. Of course this is not global warming. According to RSS, this year is only 9th so far. The article you quote says: “Certainly there is no global surface data set which shows 1998 was the warmest on record.”
All of the following have 1998 as the hottest year, however I assume that none strictly qualify according to his definition of “global surface data set”: UAH, RSS, HadCRUT3, Hadsst2, and Hadsst3. I can see the arguments for 4 of these, and presumably HadCRUT3 is out because it has been replaced by HadCRUT4. However Gavin below seems to have a broader view.
DB says:
December 28, 2013 at 5:34 pm
Ah, Gavin’s goalposts.
If 1998 is not exceeded in all global temperature indices by 2013, you’ll be worried about state of understanding
[Response: 1) yes,
My conclusion is that Gavin is now worried about his state of understanding the climate.
Mosher=Appell
But Gavin’s disheveling of his positions may be too unsettling of the settled science for even these two to harangue out an excuse for Schmidt.
After all it is the Appell who has been the loudest any pronouncing “Nothing but CO2 emissions can explain the 20th century warming.”
geologyjim says:
December 28, 2013 at 6:20 pm
does not answer my question about the RATE OF CHANGE.
Becasue the Rate of Change is not important. The amount of energy output is.
Nor does it answer my question about the correspondence of the Maunder Minimum and the deepest times of the Little Ice Age.
About the coincidence? Check out slide 32 of http://www.leif.org/research/SSN/Svalgaard14.pdf
The Medieval Warm Period also corresponds to high solar activity (or its inverse, low galactic cosmic rays as evidenced by Be10) suggesting that solar activity has a long-term influence on global climate.
There is good evidence that the 10Be record to a large degree is driven by climate, so you have a bit of a circular argument there.
And cryptic responses don’t sit well with me or other commenters.
Sometimes it is necessary to actually read a link to grasp its significance. Try to do that.
Happy New Year, but it’s going to be colder than 2013. Wanna bet?
Solar activity now is on par with what it was about 110 years ago, is the climate also?
Elizabeth says:
December 28, 2013 at 6:38 pm
Svalgaard Then how and why did the Schiddell paper get published in Science?
Partly because at that time [2001] it was not well known that the Hoyt-Schatten reconstruction was faulty. And even today when we know, people still cling to it if it fits their agenda. To wit some of the comments on this thread…
Gavin’s comments are not “complete”.
As it has been demonstrated many times in my papers the GISS model does not reproduce any of the oscillations observed in the temperature record since 1850, including the temperature standstill observed since 2000.
See here:
Scafetta, N. 2013. Discussion on climate oscillations: CMIP5 general circulation models versus a semi-empirical harmonic model based on astronomical cycles. Earth-Science Reviews 126, 321-357.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0012825213001402
Scafetta N., 2012. Testing an astronomically based decadal-scale empirical harmonic climate model versus the IPCC (2007) general circulation climate models. Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics 80, 124-137.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364682611003385
Scafetta N., 2010. Empirical evidence for a celestial origin of the climate oscillations and its implications. Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics 72, 951-970.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364682610001495
Thus, when Gavin says “We’ve looked at the sun; it’s not the sun. We’ve looked at volcanoes; it’s not volcanoes. We’ve looked at the orbit; it’s not the orbit.”
He did not complete the list.
He should have added that he has also looked at the anthropocentric forcings and everything else he knows and still his GISS model does not get the data.
Thus, the truth is that Gavin does not have any clue about what is happening to the climate. The only scientific conclusion that he could reach is that the GISS model is wrong, and therefore, his own understanding of climate change is wrong as well. But he did not acknowledged it explicitly, just implicitly for those who can understand.
All evidences, as shown in my papers, point toward a synchronization of the climate system to a set of specific astronomical/solar/lunar harmonics as everything else synchronizes in the solar system. A new paper explaining this synchronization has been just accepted today.
At the moment the only model that has been successful in hind-casting and forecasting climate change has been my semi-empirical model based on astronomical cycles plus some anthropogenic and volcano forcing.
My last November model-temperature comparison update see here:
http://people.duke.edu/~ns2002/#astronomical_model_1
lsvalgaard says:
there is some evidence of correlation with solar activity.
Like these? :
http://www.leif.org/EOS/swsc120049-GCR-Clouds.pdf
http://www.leif.org/EOS/Cloud%20Cover%20and%20Cosmic%20Rays.pdf
————————————————————
bones says:
I was thinking of something that more directly related surface insolation variations to the solar cycle. In a previous post, I provided a reference to direct solar insolation measurements from Antarctica. I will try to find it and post it again. The effect was large; several percent change.
————————————————–
Here is a link to the abstract of the paper.
http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/11/1177/2011/acp-11-1177-2011.html
bones says:
December 28, 2013 at 7:43 pm
I was thinking of something that more directly related surface insolation variations
Your link says “The best-estimate declines appear too large to originate in the sun” and more likely to be terrestrial in origin, especially since the estimated solar cycle effect 2.4 ± 1.9% has such large uncertainty as not to be significant.
Joe says at 5:04 with comments by others regarding
Australia = hottest
This issue is covered frequently by Jo Nova and you can read those posts by going to her site and going to “Archives” under the white on blue box “Find Things” under some small photos near the top right. Search using ‘ hottest ‘ or other tags. Here’s one:
joannenova.com.au/2013/09/australias-record-hottest-12-month-period-junk-science-say-the-satellites/
A truly telling video once again…… (Thank you Dr Spencer)
A spoiled rich kid (government funded Gavin) not wanting to face the reality of the science on record with anyone…..
How absolutely child like…… cowardly for that matter.
When do you like minded people finally come together in a policy impacting way?
Not just individual efforts (Thank you again Roy and Matt)….
I am just not seeing the progress as it should be with all that is happening..
Scientifically, it doesn’t make sense…..
Has our science community really (insert your specifics here)》》》》》》
Dire straits “money for nothing” video redacted.
Presumably the Maunder Minimum was caused by people not driving their SUV’s to work. Does anyone know if he has withdrawn his paper he wrote with the help Michael Mann?