Guest essay by David Archibald
There were two papers published in 2013 that, when considered together, paint a bleak picture of North American climate and agriculture for the rest of the century and beyond. Firstly from the abstract of “Multidecadal to multi-century scale collapses of Northern Hemisphere monsoons over the past millennium”1 by Asmerom et al.:
“Late Holocene climate in western North America was punctuated by periods of extended aridity called megadroughts.” And “Several megadroughts are evident, including a multicentury one, AD 1350–1650, herein referred to as Super Drought, which corresponds to the coldest period of the Little Ice Age. Synchronicity between southwestern North American, Chinese, and West African monsoon precipitation suggests the megadroughts were hemispheric in scale. Northern Hemisphere monsoon strength over the last millennium is positively correlated with Northern Hemisphere temperature and North Atlantic SST.” And “the megadroughts, including the Super Drought, coincide with solar insolation minima, suggesting that solar forcing of sea surface and atmospheric temperatures may generate variations in the strength of Northern Hemisphere monsoons.”
So droughts in North America are coincident with solar insolation minima. We already know of the cause and effect relationship between solar cycle minima and East African rainfall. West African drought has been found to be linked to Atlantic sea surface temperatures2.
With that knowledge, all we need to predict the timing of the next megadrought in North America is a long term solar activity forecast. That was also provided in 2013 by Steinhilber and Beer3. They predict a deep low in solar activity starting straight away and continuing for 150 years. This is Figure 4 from that paper:
Figure 4 from Steinhilber and Beer – Prediction of solar activity on the left axis and total solar irradiance on the right axis. M, D and G refer to the Maunder, Dalton and Gleissberg minima respectively. The lighter grey band is based on FFT (fast Fourier transformation) and the darker grey band is based on WTAR (wavelet decomposition using autoregression). As the paper demonstrates, amplitudes of solar activity are better predicted by the FFT method than by the WTAR method.
In effect, Figure 4 predicts a megadrought for North America from at least 2050 to 2200. Generations of people will experience what a Dalton Minimum is like, all their lives. In the meantime it will get colder and drier. In terms of the effect on agricultural productivity, productivity of corn production in the Corn Belt falls by 10% for each 1°C fall in annual average temperature. The Corn Belt also moves south by 144 km for each 1°C fall in annual average temperature. Soil quality declines to the south of the Corn Belt though so farms won’t be as productive. For example, one hundred years ago Alabama had four million acres planted to cotton. Today only 1.3 million acres are devoted to all agricultural crops. Unable to compete with the Corn Belt as it is now, a lot of acreage in Alabama has reverted to pasture and woodland.
A fall in annual average temperature of 2.0°C might decrease production by 20% and the southward move to poorer soils might decrease production by 10% (purely a guess, but I do have a botany major). What drought might do on top of all that is a 30% fall for a total decrease in production in the range of 50% to 60%. Two big corne states, Illinois and Indiana, had corn production falls of 30% in the 2012 drought year:
The US could then feed 600 million vegetarians instead of the current 1.2 billion vegetarians. Food that we would want to eat will become expensive with wide price swings. That is what these two papers are saying about what the future holds for us.
David Archibald, a Visiting Fellow at the Institute of World Politics in Washington, D.C., is the author of Twilight of Abundance (Regnery, 2014).
References
- Asmerom, Y. et al., 2013, “Multidecadal to multi-century scale collapses of Northern Hemisphere monsoons over the past millennium” PNAS vol.110 no. 24 9651-9656
- Shanahan, T.M et al., 2009 “Atlantic Forcing of Persistent Drought in West Africa” Science, Vol. 324 no 5925 pp. 377-380
- Steinhilber, F. and Beer, J., 2013, “Prediction of solar activity for the next 500 years” Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics, vol. 118, 1-7
G P Hanner says
Last winter was very cold, windy, and dry, dry, dry.
Henry says
What did you expect (from global cooling)?
As the temperature differential between the poles and equator grows larger due to the cooling from the top, very likely something will also change on earth. Predictably, there would be a small (?) shift of cloud formation and precipitation, more towards the equator, on average. At the equator insolation is 684 W/m2 whereas on average it is 342 W/m2. So, if there are more clouds in and around the equator, this will amplify the cooling effect due to less direct natural insolation of earth (clouds deflect a lot of radiation). Furthermore, in a cooling world there is more likely less moisture in the air, but even assuming equal amounts of water vapour available in the air, a lesser amount of clouds and precipitation will be available for spreading to higher latitudes. So, a natural consequence of global cooling is that at the higher latitudes it will become cooler and/or drier.
As the people in Alaska have noted,
the cold weather in 2012 was so bad there that they did not get much of any harvests. My own results show that it has been cooling significantly in Alaska, at a rate of -0.55K per decade since 1998 (Average of ten weather stations).
http://oi40.tinypic.com/2ql5zq8.jpg
That is almost one whole degree C since 1998. And it seems NOBODY is telling the poor farmers there that it is not going to get any better. NASA also admits now that antarctic ice is increasing significantly.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/10/22/nasa-announces-new-record-growth-of-antarctic-sea-ice-extent/#more-96133
vukcevic says:
May 14, 2014 at 12:58 pm
Oh, that looks like fun, can I play too? Here’s my submission to the Most Egregious Cyclomania Competition:
Heck, I forgot to mention the precession time of the line of the lunar apsides …
w.
Willis Eschenbach says:
May 14, 2014 at 2:39 pm
Oh, that looks like fun, can I play too?…..
“Then the carousel started, and I watched her go up and down, round and round…”
Child’s carousel rides begotten belief in cycles…no belief, no play.
Cyclomania Competition:…
Cyclomania? No such thing, more like cyclophobia from the non-believers.
Willis Vukcevic You don’t need to do these mathematical calculations. Just see what is there in the actual proxy temperature record. There are obvious 60 and 1000 year quasi-periodicities. The 60 year balances out over longer times but is useful for decadal estimates. The 1000 year one is the one that is most significant for centennial and millennial forecasts see Figs 3 and 4 and resultant cooling forecast at
http://climatesense-norpag.blogspot.com/2013/10/commonsense-climate-science-and.html
The biggest uncertainty in my forecasts is the timing of the current peak or near peak in the 1000 year periodicity. I think that the current decline in solar activity suggests that we are over the hump – but nature being sort of fuzzy it might actually be somewhat late – another 20 years or so – we’ll see.
Well I didn’t quite get the gist of the Steinlager and Beer prediction of solar activity, but it seems they are well on their way to intoxication by 2,000.
Now I already knew that getting a bit soused, led to one having to recreate from lack of memory of past events; but it is news to me that it also scrambles one’s clear vision of the future too.
Hopefully they will sober up long before 2,500.
I forgot to add that this cooling / drought relationship, that is clearly well established, should put the kibosh on ANY notion, that clouds are in any way a warming positive feedback effect.
OH burn.. who unlocked Willis Eschenbach cage?
I agree, somewhat. but I’m laughing so hard right now I’ll refrain from commenting further.
Burrrrrrn…! lmgdao.
Looks like a lot of people who don’t want to believe models and predictions by scientists have decided to swallow this solar cooling prediction, which is based on models.
But note this important statement Steinhilber and Beer make about any effect of the solar minimum they predict. It’s in the Conclusion of the paper:
“As a consequence, the increase of global warming will be slightly attenuated until 2100 A.D. However, the subsequent increase in solar activity will further enhance the global warming.”
The paper’s right here. 2013_steinhilber.pdf
It seems Mr. Archibald forgot to include the fact that the authors themselves are not predicting cooling, just a slowdown in warming.
And if you look at figure 3 of the paper – the figure that uses their prediction method to compare to the previous solar activity recorded in their isotope-proxy reconstructions – both of their methods do a fairly poor job of tracking against the solar record over the last 1000 years. As they say in the paper “Overall, the three examples show that our methods are more successful in predicting the shape of the solar activity than its amplitude”. Amplitude matters.
Doug Proctor says:
May 14, 2014 at 9:02 am
The planet [average temperature] rose 0.7C in the last century so an equal fall would be small in the scheme of things. Solheim is predicting a 0.9C fall over Solar Cycle 24 (now a third over). Iowa gets more polar amplification than what you suggest – slightly above twice the global fall. There is a paper coming out in a couple of weeks from which it can be interpreted that most of the fall will occur over the next two and a half years. As regarding planning, I find that I am the only one that is pointing out what is obvious to me. Feel free to do some high quality work in this field. I won’t mind if you join me and show us all how it is done.
Dr Norman Page says:
May 14, 2014 at 11:35 am
“The time frame for the significant cooling in 2014 – 16 is strengthened by recent developments already seen in solar activity. With a time lag of about 12 years between the solar driver proxy and climate”
This is a very good prediction. The cooling in train to mid-2016 will reverse most of the warming of the 20th century.
Willis Eschenbach says:
May 14, 2014 at 12:05 pm
Thanks for your effort on this and you will be thanking me too. Because here is an unequivocal example of an eleven year effect on rainfall: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/07/22/solar-to-river-flow-and-lake-level-correlations/
Which means that the Sun has an effect on climate and that makes Dr Svalgaard a discredited element, to use the Marxist lexicology.
If another entity equally explains, mechanistically (without the use of fudge factors), temperature trends, you have at best a tie. When you have a tie, you must accept the null hypothesis. Solar and CO2 theories are currently in a tie with intrinsic natural variation. Therefore continuing to toot the trumpet of either theory makes the authors look rather foolish, or at least quite unfamiliar with gold standard scientific research methodology.
David, it is not Leif you fight against. It is Earth’s intrinsic variability re: its own ability to shutter out or allow in varying amounts of solar input and to store it up in varying amounts till it gets belched up onto land and temperature sensors. You must face Earth to state your case, not Leif.
Pamela – you refer to ” intrinsic natural variation” which is a meaningless phrase.
Earths climate is the result of resonances and beat frequencies between various quasi-cyclic processes of varying wavelengths. The long wave Milankovich eccentricity,obliquity and precessional cycles are modulated by solar “activity” cycles with millenial centennial and decadal time scales .These in turn interact with lunar cycles and endogenous earth changes in Geomagnetic Field strength ,volcanic activity and at really long time scales plate tectonic movements of the land masses.The combination of all these drivers is mediated through the great oceanic current and atmospheric pressure systems to produce the earths climate and weather.
To help forecast decadal and annual changes we can look at eg the ENSO PDO, AMO NAO indices and based on past patterns make reasonable forecasts of their effects for varying future periods. Currently the 60 year solar cycle (seen in the PDO) suggests we may expect 20 – 30 years of cooling in the immediate future. Similarly for, centennial and millennial predictions we need to know where we are relative to the 1000 year solar quasi periodicity . The best proxy for solar “activity” is the GCR produced neutron count .This solar index is particularly important past history which can be retrieved from the 10 Be data,
In a previous post on htpp://climatesense-norpag.blogspot.com on 1/22/13 – Global Cooling – Timing and Amount(NH) I have made suggestions of possible future cooling based on a repetition of the solar millennial cycle.
. The 1000 year quasi-periodicity is the one that is most significant for centennial and millennial forecasts see Figs 3 and 4 and resultant cooling forecast at
http://climatesense-norpag.blogspot.com/2013/10/commonsense-climate-science-and.html
Mr. Archibald, can you please provide links to peer-reviewed papers that make you contradict the conclusions of the Steinhilber and Beer paper?
I believe I’m looking at the correct one.
It’s Journal Of Geophysical Research: Space Physics, Vol. 118, 1–7, doi:10.1002/jgra.50210, 2013
Title is: Prediction of solar activity for the next 500 years
Friedhelm Steinhilber1 and Jürg Beer
Received 18 May 2012; revised 18 February 2013; accepted 2 March 2013.
Here is the first paragraph of the Conclusions section of their paper: “Based on the past millennia of solar magnetic activity derived from cosmogenic radionuclides, our two methods predict a clear decrease in solar activity, reaching a minimum comparable to the Dalton minimum around 2100 A.D., in good agreement with previous predictions. This minimum will be followed by a slow more or less steady increase until 2400 A.D. As a consequence, the increase of global warming will be slightly attenuated until 2100 A.D. However, the subsequent increase in solar activity will further enhance the global warming.”
Please note the last two sentences, which predict that global warming will continue throughout their projected 500 year period, despite the steep minimum TSI they predict around 2100.
You titled your essay: “Studies: Weaker solar activity means colder, and colder also means drier”
And repeated in the essay itself: “In the meantime it will get colder and drier.”
You finish with: “That is what these two papers are saying about what the future holds for us.”
What extra information leads you to directly contradict what the authors say about future temperature trends? I’d be interested to read it.
Thanks!
b fagan says:
May 14, 2014 at 8:47 pm
Mr Fagan, in a number of your books you have referred to arrowheads weighing 1 kg. That betrays a lack of understanding of the physical world which detracts somewhat from your standing when scientific matters are under discussion. But perhaps you are operating at a sociological level rather than a scientific one. Your enquiry has given me the idea for a post on how to read between the lines in papers that have any reference to climate. Perhaps you have caught up with the latest news with respect to Lennart Bengtsson. You have had plenty of time to read the literature and if you still believe in AGW then that means you haven’t made enough effort yet. Do try harder.
I was disappointed by Dave Archibald’s book. It makes just as wild unsubstantiated claims as the climate change establishment. Whereas they say we’re heading for runaway warming, he predicts a mini-ice age.
Just as they mix in their left-green opinions with science, so does Archibald with his neo-conservative agenda.
Mr. Archibald, you must have me confused with archaeologist Brian Fagan. I’m not him, though I did buy one of his books years ago.
So please, you contradict Steinhilber and Beer’s paper where they state that the global temperature will continue to rise even if their predicted decrease in TSI takes place.
They say “As a consequence, the increase of global warming will be slightly attenuated until 2100 A.D. However, the subsequent increase in solar activity will further enhance the global warming.”
Yet you say “cooling” multiple times. Again, please provide whatever other information let you to disregard their conclusion. I’d be interested to read it.
Interesting correlation between cooling cycles and drought. S I understand it, the desertification of the Sahara apparently took place mostly after the end of the Egyptian 3rd Millennium BC warm period; before that, much of what is now the Sahara was prairie and steppe.
Mr Fagan, here’s a couple:
http://arxiv.org/abs/1112.3256
http://www.google.com.au/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CDgQFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Farxiv.org%2Fabs%2F1202.1954&ei=0WJ0U43BFcijkAWR8oHwBA&usg=AFQjCNElWkIX6BKHsRIptlxBJZhYfBC72w&sig2=5gBpSU2hgtVKLseUL7IhVA
‘predicting’ centuries ahead based on cycles is silly. At best we can observe the recent past, say, 200 years where we have reasonable data and try to extrapolate [if we must]: http://www.leif.org/research/HMF-B-200yrs.png Perhaps there is a ~100-yr ‘cycle’ in the sizes of the regular 11-yr solar cycles and perhaps it is allowed to extrapolate that using the principle that ‘the past is the guide for the future’. In any case, solar activity the past 200 years has not resembled the climate variation observed, so why would we expect it to do so in the future. This post is just alarmism that does not seem to serve a purpose other than peddling D. A’s views to the gullible.
3 Cheers for Anthony!
I agree isvalgaard! pure speculative spurious and dubious nonsense. This very website said that solar minimums increase cloud and rain(http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/08/04/a-link-between-the-sun-cosmic-rays-aerosols-and-liquid-water-clouds-appears-to-exist-on-a-global-scale/), so they want it BOTH ways now!
This leaves the anti AGW argument looking like this ‘I’m right and you are wrong and here is another dodgy graph to prove it’
After all the critisism of the hockey stick by the anti AGW band , they do no better and Archibald is a prime mover and shaker for dodginess, and cant apparently spell corn.
It may well get cooler, as cloud cover increases due to more nucleii caused by more cosmic rays as the solar protection decreases if the sun really is entering a grand minimum,(if i really understand the theory!) but more clouds means more rain! The truth of the matter is nobody predicted a twin peak 3 years ago in this cycle so how can we predict drought in 500 years time!
Even Joseph in the Bible could only do 14 years, and that was with the help of God!
The only thing you could predict is the date!
There are too many ifs and buts here to publish.
lsvalgaard says:
May 15, 2014 at 12:31 am
‘predicting’ centuries ahead based on cycles is silly. At best we can observe the recent past, say, 200 years where we have reasonable data and try to extrapolate.
I think most of us should agree on that one.
However I would like to here your opinion of the previous Steinhilber’s paper , on which this prediction is directly based.
I think the Steinhilber’s past (9,400 years bp) solar activity reconstruction is wrong, and here is why:
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/GCR-etc.pdf
( page 8: 2pi insertion required)
We have but one source of heat, that our little blue ball we live on varies somewhat between ice ages and warm periods would tend to suggest that something modulates our heater.
Those such as Willis and Lief who denigrate those looking for the modulator should be a tad embarrassed, as some where in the music of the spheres and cosmos lay’s the key.
The key is not on the Earth, it responds to the inputs only as an unplumbed chaotic air-conditioning unit trying to reach equilibrium. Those thinking outside the square are looking for the harmonics that bring stability from chaos that are inherent in the entire universe, they should be encouraged.