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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Yea, ignore that continuous fusion explosion 1000 bigger than the Earth turning a million tons of matter into energy every second for the last five billion years and can kill you just from the UV…. Can’t have any effect..
“Joe says:
December 28, 2013 at 5:04 pm”
You link to an article written by Peter Hannam, well known for his biased reporting on all things climate. You link to an article published by the SMH, well known for reporting popular alarmism on all things climate (That being anything either side of an average is alarming).
From the article;
“Global interest in Australia’s weather flared early. In January, when models predicted heat that was literally off the charts, the Bureau of Meteorology added colours to maps – a deep purple and pink – to indicate maximum temperatures of 50-54 degrees.
But for David Jones, head of climate analysis at the bureau, 2013’s stand-out event was a month largely overlooked by a media diverted by football finals and federal elections: “From a climate point of view, what happened in September was probably the most remarkable.” September’s mean temperature soared to be 2.75 degrees above the 1961-90 average, eclipsing the previous record monthly deviation set in April 2005 by 0.09 degrees.”
This was all after the BoM changed the way they calculate a national average using satellites for areas that were never measured before as well as introducing new colours (Which, if you recall had to be withdrawn). The BoM sill uses ground based thermometers, almost all based in cities and at airports. How many airports existied 100 years ago and in areas now being measured? And why do the BoM continue to compare an absolute temperature against an average calculated from data between 1961 – 1990? Given the BoM previously used ~112 ground based thermometers to calculate a national average (Thats 1 device for every ~68,500 square kilometers), the actual data suggests this summer is nothing out of the ordinary, for Australia during summer.
You will find only garbage published about climate at the SMH and by Peter Hannam.
Oh Gavin! What a baby! What a B-A-B-Y. Refusing to sit in the chair while the other guy speaks. What a baby.
charles nelson says:
December 28, 2013 at 3:32 pm
If Leif was a tv detective, he would be the kind of tv detective that solves cases on the basis of a ‘hunch’. He just kinda ‘knows’ deep down he’s on the right trail – even if the pesky clues don’t seem to line up!
————————————————————————————————————-
Come on give him a break. He is in my opinion the embodiment of a 21st Century Lord Kelvin and knows he is right . Wait a sec !……………………..
FrankK says:
December 28, 2013 at 10:13 pm
He is in my opinion the embodiment of a 21st Century Lord Kelvin and knows he is right
Perhaps I’ll get ‘degrees of certainty’ named after me, like Kelvin has his temperatures…
“We’ve looked at the sun; it’s not the sun.”
What planet did they find themselves on, intrepid explorers?
P.S.
I’ve noticed that the more attention people pay to the outside appearance of their head, the less there is, usually, inside the same appendage.
lsvalgaard says:
>> geologyjim says:”does not answer my question about the RATE OF CHANGE.”
Becasue the Rate of Change is not important. The amount of energy output is.
Indeed , so “activity” probably needs to be integrated in some fashion to get energy.
Simply integrating some measure of activity over all time would not be reasonable since as the Earth warms or cools in response to a changing input there will be tendency to return once the perturbation ends.
If climate has linear relaxation response to such perturbations the Laplace response will be convolution with a decaying exponential. That is basically a weighted integration. As an illustration SSN is integrated with 20 year time constant response and compared to low-pass filtered SST.
http://climategrog.wordpress.com/?attachment_id=752
Anthony-
I have no real choice on the handle I use when I post a second time, the problem is WordPress requires me to pick a name when I log in the first time and I never remember (or generally do not remember) that my WordPress handle. Thus, it is not really my choice to post under different names but a fluke in a crappy software installation.
No need for the hat tip
REPLY: OK, but thanks just the same – Anthony
One significant point in the previous plot is the divergence since 1998. Could this finally be a sign of AGW or perhaps the increased radiative input from a more transparent stratosphere letting more solar into lower climate levels?
http://climategrog.wordpress.com/?attachment_id=750
Both major eruptions in the record resulted in a definitive drop in TLS implying less blockage of incoming solar.
Leif-
You certainly have strong opinions and I respect that, that said not all of them to end in correct observations. Namely, this cycle is not turning out like Cycle 14 which you insisted was the model, instead it looks weaker and likely shorter with fewer “spikes”. You insist the sunspot for the second half of this century is wrong but argue little when it comes to how specks are counted in the modern satellite age. You seem like many faculty to me, namely you insist you are correct and block any paper or thought that might disagree and that seems a bit unacademic.
As for the solar theory, it is still espoused by Mann and I will send Anthony some papers to show that.
“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.”
In addition: “We have looked at the feasible money, ….”
Global versus regional.
Next.
There is no modern maximum in TSI.
Next.
REPLY: Oh yea of narrow possibilities. Not one mention of TSI. There are other mechanisms – Anthony
Indeed there are.
According to what is known to date, the strength of the solar wind magnetic field as measured by Ap index, in long term averages in the range of 4-25 nT (nanoTesla).
http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/SolarCycle/Ap.gif
It is also known that the Earth’s magnetic field in the polar regions shows similar or identical long trends as the sun’s variability (with temperature in the Arctic and Sunspot/TSI in the Antarctic) http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/PolarGMF.htm
but at intensity of 2 orders of magnitude ( 100 times ) greater than the Ap index, or more than 2 microTesla since Maunder minimum.
Those who wish to maintain ‘settle science’ status quo, impeding any progress that could be made in the ‘sun – earth –climate’ chain, dismiss above as irrelevant.
Dismiss any inconvenient finding as irrelevant, is that what science is about?
I would think not.
I do not think this is worth a post, but this is how Mann is now dealing with this clear issue of his prior position to current one: he builds a model which says that based on his climate proxies the Little Ice Age was much different than today, but we all know it isn’t.
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00382-012-1297-0
Something else your readers might be interested in, real time info on where the latest ice breaker is trying to save the climate crazies in Antarctica: http://www.sailwx.info/shiptrack/search.phtml and http://www.sailwx.info/shiptrack/shiplocations.phtml?lat=-65.6&lon=144.1&radius=200
Tim Obrien says:
December 28, 2013 at 9:00 pm
Yea, ignore that continuous fusion explosion 1000 bigger than the Earth turning a million tons of matter into energy every second for the last five billion years and can kill you just from the UV…. Can’t have any effect..
Tim:
It’s not ignored – far from it.
It’s observed in great detail.
The point is not the absolute energy it sends us – but variations in that energy.
We know the Earth’s orbit around it has a great effect in the NH (due preponderance of land-mass and the affect that insolation has on the accretion/melt of snow there).
We are in a point where the SH is receiving more insolation than the N – so that’s not it.
We have observed sunspots long enough to know what variation they cause in output (~0.1%) and perhaps the LIA was ~0.2%. This is not enough to cause current warming and anyway the sun has been relatively quiet in recent years and slowly calming down for longer.
I talk here of radiative power. There are affects that impinge the Stratosphere and cause warming there that can down-well to the Troposphere, but there is no net gained energy – just a nudging to alter weather patterns for a time.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0d/Solar-cycle-data.png
Leif,
As I recall in a previous conversation you at least acknowledge that we don’t understand all the links ebtween our nuclear fireball neighbour and us, and thus there may well be links between solar climate and earth climate that we dont know yet. IE things we don’t know that we don’t know.
I for example wonder if increased UV heating of the stratosphere could lead to a temperature inversion like effect, leading to changes in convective cooling.
The man has the title of Professor but acts like a spoiled child.
Quite pathetic actually.
Seems kind of unreasonable to hold someone to account today for a theory or opinion expressed 12 or 13 years ago. Sorry, I hate to defend the same man who refuses to engage with Sceptics, but it’s how I feel.
And thanks Leif for your input here. Illuminating.
From Tallbloke’s Talkshop: http://www.pattern-recogn-phys.net/special_issue2.html#
Special Edition of Pattern recognition: http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2013/12/13/special-edition-of-pattern-recognition-in-physics/#
Does Anyone Real know what TSI it is? http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2013/12/15/does-anybody-real-know-what-tsi-it-is/#comments
lsvalgaard says:
December 28, 2013 at 1:55 pm
The ap index and the solar wind have shown no trend the past 170 years:
Are you sure the global temperature has actually increased over that time? Other than a few bumps due to the 60 year ocean cycles I still have some doubts. With siting changes, UHI, AHI, vertical mixing and biased adjustments impacting the temperature record, the real warming could be almost non-existent.
Richard M says:
December 29, 2013 at 7:05 am
“The ap index and the solar wind have shown no trend the past 170 years”
Are you sure the global temperature has actually increased over that time?
There are many people out there who believe so; they even claim that the Sun did it. Try to convince them that they are mistaken….
vukcevic says:
December 28, 2013 at 3:32 pm
@ur momisugly R. de Haan
Piers Corbyn, Gavin Schmidt and I are products of the same university (GS university college, P.C and I imperial)
Interesting to hear about that.
Maybe someone should submit to an ethics inquiry.
Greg says: @ur momisugly December 28, 2013 at 11:58 pm
lsvalgaard says:
>> geologyjim says:”does not answer my question about the RATE OF CHANGE.”
Because the Rate of Change is not important. The amount of energy output is….
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
However Gerald Roe (Department of Earth and Space Sciences, University of Washington) showed the rate of change IS IMPORTANT in his paper: In defense of Milankovitch An explanation by Luboš Motl link
So at least in this case the rate of change in the solar insolation is important.
Dr. Richard Alley, looking at the history of global climate changes by reading the annual rings of ice from cores drilled in Greenland made headlines in the 1990s with the discovery that the last ice age came to an abrupt end over a period of only three years.
Seems that change in rate can cause sudden climate change or at least something does. It certainly is not my driving an SUV since the CO2 levels coming out of an ice age are low.
You can see why Gavin Schmidt didn’t want a “debate” format as most of what he said was contestable on the face of it. The extreme weather claims being an easy example. The inherent imbalance of a media member presenting the critical questions to a “scientist” was a essential to the assumed authority of his presentation.
An extensive focus on the political I.D. of warming activist science would clear the debate up more quickly. Warming science is corrupt by nature and the agenda it holds. Endless banter about current talking points will carry the debate and thereby the statist agenda on indefinitely.