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
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Sparks says:
May 18, 2014 at 9:34 pm
You’re preaching your dogma again Leif, I’ve pointed out a fault,
What fault? The theory and the observations are in good agreement:
http://www.leif.org/research/Babcock-vs-Observations.png
Sparks says:
May 18, 2014 at 9:34 pm
You’re preaching your dogma again Leif, I’ve pointed out a fault, if you believe and ignore the fault you will resolve it with distraction, won’t you.
You are not making much sense. I’m comparing theory with observations and find excellent agreement:
http://www.leif.org/research/Babcock-vs-Observations.png
What was your point again?
lsvalgaard says:
May 18, 2014 at 9:53 pm
“What was your point again?”
Babcock is half right for the wrong reason, what is your point?
If your putting me into moderation, it’s time to part company. good bye 🙁
@Sparks
No, its the spam filter, Babcock contains the word “cock” which is a trigger word.
Thanks Anthony, I appreciate that. 🙂
Sparks says:
May 18, 2014 at 10:20 pm
Babcock is half right for the wrong reason, what is your point?
As you can see from the Figures, Babcock is right all the time, whatever the reason.
lsvalgaard says:
May 18, 2014 at 11:11 pm
As you can see from the Figures, Babcock is right all the time, whatever the reason.
His work is very good, If I could sit down with him and explain the part that didn’t work, after he overturned the coffee table in a fit I think he would agree.
There will come a time in the not to distant future when you will be censored for saying “Babcock” albeit selectively… lol
David, you’re just trying to sell your book. There no science here!
I misspelled can’t? Quite! put a different vowle in and its correct.
Any comment on this 970yr peak Leif?
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3617729/figure/f0035/
Sparks says:
May 18, 2014 at 11:45 pm
His work is very good, If I could sit down with him and explain the part that didn’t work, after he overturned the coffee table in a fit I think he would agree.
Well, you have not explained here the part that you think does not work, so I doubt Babcock would react other than by shaking his head. Try again.
Ulric Lyons says:
May 19, 2014 at 6:30 am
Any comment on this 970yr peak Leif?
Part of the 2000-yr, 1000-yr, 500-yr, … series. Harmonics and sub-harmonics. And not stable in phase. People find all kinds of cycles. Some find 1470-yr cycles and swear they are real. What say you?
lsvalgaard says:
“What say you?”
I would expect many repeat events at a pitch of 953 years.
just in case
I am not sure if all the people here understand that “weaker” solar activity
means a “hotter” sun, at least as far as the most energetic particles coming from the sun are concerned – there would be more of them during a period of low magnetic strength
http://ice-period.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/sun2013.png
in turn this (these more energetic particles) causes global cooling due to the reaction of these particles TOA>
HenryP says:
May 19, 2014 at 11:18 am
I am not sure if all the people here understand that “weaker” solar activity
means a “hotter” sun, at least as far as the most energetic particles coming from the sun are concerned – there would be more of them during a period of low magnetic strength
It would be good if people don’t understand this as it is not true.
Says you
And who else?
HenryP says:
May 19, 2014 at 12:50 pm
Says you And who else?
Everybody who knows anything about this/
Leif Don’t you think that the decline in the solar magnetic field strength evidenced in the increase in the neutron count between the cycle 23 and cycle 24 sunspot peaks strengthens the working hypothesis that the 1000 quasi periodicity is past its latest peak and that we can therefore anticipate a cooling trend.
I’m really not much interested in making debating points with you – I genuinely would like to know what evidence suggests to you that the 1000 year peak is ahead rather than just behind.
One of STEREO A B accomplishments is a contribution to the understanding of the penetration of interstellar neutrals into the solar system..forming a 180 degree “Interstellar Crescent,” at 1 AU.
This crescent looks a lot like what we see happening in stellar accretion models, Dr. S., except it is our solar system..
pg. 14
Figure II-12. A schematic of the pickup ion flux (color-coded
contour). Interstellar neutrals enter the heliosphere from the right
and generate regions of enhanced interstellar material in the well
known focusing cone and the newly discovered crescent.
pg. 17
Figure II-13. Four orbits of the STEREO-A providing longitudinal observations for pickup ions C+, O+, and Ne+. The
focusing cone for interstellar neon is seen near 77o, similar to that for He+ (not shown). The newly discovered interstellar
crescent for He+, Ne+ and O+ spans nearly 180o in the upwind region, and provides a best estimate inflow direction
in the range of 78.9 o – 80.4 o. Both structures are aligned around the inflow direction of interstellar neutrals. In contrast,
pickup carbon is statistically consistent with an isotropic distribution, as expected for an inner source.
STEREO : “What lies behind the Sun”
http://stereo-ssc.nascom.nasa.gov/publications/stereo_sr_2013_proposal.pdf
pg. 17
“””The crescent formation results from the enduring depletion of interstellar neutrals during their flight
through the heliosphere combined with a geometric effect. Neutrals at ecliptic longitudes that are not
aligned with the axis of the inflowing material have had a longer exposure to solar radiation and to
the solar wind if they are observed at a fixed distance from the sun. As a result the observed PUI
intensity shows a clear longitudinal dependency that resembles the form of a crescent if viewed in
polar coordinates (thick red line in Figure II-12). Both the focusing cone and interstellar crescent are aligned
along the inflow axis of the interstellar medium, with some modest deviations from systematic transport effects.
The STEREO results of inflow directions for the cone and the crescent (Figure II-13) are important for
interpreting earlier results from Ulysses, Prognoz 6, and ACE in the context of the recent IBEX results
for the inflow direction.”””
Rosine Lallement et al is making corrections to Priscilla Frisch et al on the 6 degrees in 40 years of the flow variation of interstellar neutrals through the system. Something about the math and the hydrogen not checking out.. Wonder if R. Lallement et al have seen the Stereo results above and the “Interstellar Crescent?”
Dr Norman Page says:
May 19, 2014 at 5:38 pm
Leif Don’t you think that the decline in the solar magnetic field strength evidenced in the increase in the neutron count between the cycle 23 and cycle 24 sunspot peaks strengthens the working hypothesis that the 1000 quasi periodicity is past its latest peak
Since the Sun now is where it was a hundred years ago [and a hundred years before that] it does not seem to be connected to anything on a 1000-yr time scale, so, no, I see no such evidence for ‘strengthening’.
and that we can therefore anticipate a cooling trend.
The climate warms and cools all the time. Sooner or later it will start to cool. This is regardless of any putative cycles. I see no reason to even think there even is a cycle, but if we assume by extrapolation [which is always dangerous when you don’t know the cause of assumed variation] that there is one it is not evident that we have past its maximum.
Carla says:
May 19, 2014 at 6:13 pm
One of STEREO A B accomplishments is a contribution to the understanding of the penetration of interstellar neutrals into the solar system.
All very interesting but irrelevant for the variation of solar activity and thus for the topic of this thread.
lsvalgaard says:
May 19, 2014 at 9:56 pm
Carla says:
May 19, 2014 at 6:13 pm
One of STEREO A B accomplishments is a contribution to the understanding of the penetration of interstellar neutrals into the solar system.
All very interesting but irrelevant for the variation of solar activity and thus for the topic of this thread.
————————————————————-
Dr. S., the penetration of energetic neutrals, pickup ions and neutrals accelerated to cosmic ray levels (ACR) are appropriate for this topic.
A newly found 180 degree crescent (equinox to equinox) inside 1 AU, on the upwind side of the heliosphere, composed of He, Ne, O and Carbon and dust should be of great import to climate discussion. ACR are found in the radiation belts as a belt..
And also for solar science, these particles are reconnecting in the inner system..
Any expansion of the solar outer corona? That you are aware of? What about changes in solar differential rotation?
lsvalgaard says:
May 19, 2014 at 9:09 am
“Well, you have not explained here the part that you think does not work, so I doubt Babco*k would react other than by shaking his head. Try again.”
I think the toroidal explanation for the solar dynamo is wrong, at solar maximum the polar field may take the shape of a toroid and obviously the physics of magnetic behavior in a toroid is the template for the for sunspot activity, The toroid explanation is flawed because it assumes that it is the currents and electrical activity that cause the suns polarity reversal even though currents and the electrical activity always have to travel in one direction being east to west on the sun (therefor the right hand rule applies and sunspots should always be moving away from the equator) they do not.
In my opinion it is the suns polar reversal that produces the toroidal shape during solar maximum and it is also the cause of the differential rotation between the poles and the equator, and therefor the cause of observable sunspot activity and magnetic behavior.
The Strength of sunspot activity is dependent on how quickly the north/south polar field interacts with itself at the equator, when the suns N/S Polarities are moving faster there is a more active interaction at solar maximum, greater sunspot number and a more pronounced semi-circular shape to the observed magnetic activity that even your work verifies, It also means weaker solar activity has a slower N/S Polarity reversal and it has a weaker interaction with itself at the equator and produce a less pronounced semi-circular shape to the observed magnetic activity.
I’ve worked out a way to mathematically simulate the timing and shape of the N/S polar reversals and I have explained to you the correct sequence of events and I hope I’ve cleared up the issue somewhat for you in this comment, I look forward to your reply! 🙂
Carla says:
May 20, 2014 at 5:53 pm
A newly found 180 degree crescent (equinox to equinox) inside 1 AU, on the upwind side of the heliosphere, composed of He, Ne, O and Carbon and dust should be of great import to climate discussion.
Except that it is not of any consequence as the energies involved to extremely minute.
Sparks says:
May 20, 2014 at 7:12 pm
because it assumes that it is the currents and electrical activity that cause the suns polarity reversal
You may think so, but that is not how it works. The polarity reversal, as Babcock explains, is caused by small magnetic flux bundles carried to the poles by a circulation of material much like the Hadley cells on Earth. These magnetic elements cancel out the old polar fields slowly over time and then establish the new polar fields with the opposite polarity. The process is also discussed here http://www.leif.org/research/Asymmetric-Solar-Polar-Field-Reversals-talk.pdf
lsvalgaard says:
May 20, 2014 at 8:42 pm
The polarity reversal, as Babco*k explains, is caused by small magnetic flux bundles carried to the poles by a circulation of material much like the Hadley cells on Earth.
That scenario is incorrect, the trajectory and speed of the suns N/S polar reversal is a primary cause over the cause of “magnetic flux bundles”.
These magnetic elements cancel out the old polar fields slowly over time and then establish the new polar fields with the opposite polarity.
Again incorrect, the polar field interacts with itself at the equator and produces a sporadic chaotic appearance, the magnetic field and the polarities are never canceled out, they produce activity such as sunspots until this interaction subsides.
Sparks says:
May 20, 2014 at 9:28 pm
That scenario is incorrect, […] Again incorrect,
What I described are based on direct observation of the process. If you have a different theory then know that data trumps theory. If there is any discrepancy your theory is wrong.
lsvalgaard says:
May 20, 2014 at 9:33 pm
If you have a different theory then know that data trumps theory. If there is any discrepancy your theory is wrong.
Theories evolve and improve, facts are not built on theory. 🙂