Guest essay by David Archibald
The Maunder Minimum was not completely devoid of sunspots, as shown by the following graphic using data from SIDC. Will global warming be attenuated due to our current low solar activity?
In a comment on a previous post, a Mr B. Fagan notes that the authors of the solar physics paper quoted 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.”
He plaintively asks why the conclusion that global warming will overwhelm whatever the Sun might do is ignored.
Well, the reason it is ignored is because all solar physics papers that touch on climate have the same sort of wording, for exactly the same reason. For example, here’s a Usoskin et al. paper in which at the end of the abstract they say “Although the rarity of the current episode of high average sunspot numbers may indicate that the Sun has contributed to the unusual climate change during the twentieth century, we point out that solar variability is unlikely to have been the dominant cause of the strong warming during the past three decades.” It is like reading Pravda in Soviet times. You ignore the Party line and read between the lines.
The price of getting published in solar physics is abjuring any role for the Sun in climate. Solar physicists will start giving that up over the next couple of years with the sharp step down in temperature that is underway because otherwise they will run reputational risk for ignoring the obvious. In the meantime they stoically bear the humiliation of having to utter these inanities.
What if you are a normal climate scientist, doing the usual modelling and so on, and you want to get the message out about the effects of the cold climate coming? Well, that requires some mental gymnastics. But it has been done. Professor John Kutzbach of the University of Wisconsin shows how. In the CIA climate report of 1974 predicting severe cooling and a return to the climate of the neo-arboreal era (1600-1850), he is mentioned on page 24. Forty years later, Professor Kutzbach is still at the University of Wisconsin and still warning of cooling. In 2010, he was the co-author of a paper which investigated the effect of a 3.1°C temperature decline on plant productivity. The basis of the 3.1°C assumption was the low carbon dioxide levels of the glacial periods.
Saying the magic words “The Sun can’t have caused the warming” is enough to get most solar physicists published. Others have to recant in public if their findings proved to be inconvenient. For example, in 2011 Dr Richard Altrock published a paper in which he said that, based on observations of the green coronal emissions of the Sun, Solar Cycle 24 was 40% slower than the average of the previous two cycles. This would have a significant effect on climate through Friis-Christensen and Lassen theory. That was followed in 2012 by a paper in which he said that some data had been overlooked in the 2011 paper and that Solar Cycle 24 was back to normal. He hasn’t published his diagram again since.
As far as I can tell, the first solar physicists to suggest that we are heading into a Maunder Minimum were Schatten and Tobiska in 2003. From their abstract,” The surprising result of these long-range predictions is a rapid decline in solar activity, starting with cycle #24. If this trend continues, we may see the Sun heading towards a “Maunder” type of solar activity minimum – an extensive period of reduced levels of solar activity.”
Others on their own efforts have subsequently attempted to untangle the solar record and derive a prediction from it. Thus Steinhilber and Beer, and from the tree rings, Libby and Pandolfi and the Finnish foresters. All are pointing down, steeply down from now. By the time of the CIA climate report in 1974, there was still a living memory of the colder years of the early 20th century, and an appreciation that humanity was in a special time of warmth and abundance. Now forty years on, the cold years that preceded the current warmth are not even a distant memory. Most think that this is the new normal.
Dikpati and Hathaway, both of NASA, in 2006 had predictions of Solar Cycle 24 amplitude of 190 and 170 respectively. In their press release, NASA said that,”Dikpati’s prediction is unprecedented.” It was also terribly wrong, possibly unprecedentedly so. Significantly, no solar physicist is now predicting a return to the high levels of activity of the second half of the 20th century. Schatten and Tobiska’s prediction of a Maunder level of activity stands, is on track, and has no competition. Everyone is well advised to plan accordingly.
David Archibald, a Visiting Fellow at the Institute of World Politics in Washington, D.C., is the author of Twilight of Abundance (Regnery, 2014).
I remember the comment from the thread and the two sentences from the study that prompted the comment. Will “time tell” ? The solar physicists say “time has told” ?
Dr. Archibald, it would be interesting to hear your personal opinions on where we are headed. Do you see the possible coming minimum as causing the temperature to decline substantially? How much? For how long?
Can someone explain why the 2003 paper, in full, is not “available” ?
As far as I can tell, the first solar physicists to suggest that we are heading into a Maunder Minimum were Schatten and Tobiska in 2003. From their abstract,” The surprising result of these long-range predictions is a rapid decline in solar activity, starting with cycle #24. If this trend continues, we may see the Sun heading towards a “Maunder” type of solar activity minimum – an extensive period of reduced levels of solar activity.”
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I believe the forbidden Dr T. L predicted a Maunder Minimum type heading in about 2001.
Leif in 5…….. 4……………. 3………………………… 2 3/4…………………………………..
As to my own thoughts: I started serious reading in skeptic blogs in 2006. Oddly enough, if I recall rightly, it was This blog, and the first article I read was about the changes in the Sun in 2005. (I could be wrong. I’m a Skeptic after all 😛 )
The more I have read / looked around, the more things seem to have started sliding towards cooling since…. 2005. 2008 is the second year that comes to mind, though the start of colder, snowier winters so far appears to be the major thing I saw beginning at that point.
If I may ask everyone else here: When and where do you see things having started? If you are on the same track I am, that is.
Whatever man does, or can do, is irrelevant to the power of nature, with the obvious exception of a full scale nuclear war precipitating a devastating nuclear winter.
Obviously, the concept of “It is the sun wot done it” is far too a simplistic reason for explaining all climate change, likewise so is the alarmists’ contention that we need to manipulate (at unbelievable cost) a return to the year of the supposed climate norm – 1947?
Natural climate cycles and the sun are the two main heresies of the Climate Cult and are therefore always assumed to be irrelevant and unimportant.
Given a choice between the mostly beneficial effects of global warming and the mostly adverse effects of global cooling, give me the former of the two any time.
The nightmare scenario is, of course, a Maunder Minimum coinciding with a global economic depression brought about by supposedly trying to counteract the effects of global warming.
What about Dr. Habibullo Abdussamatov–head of the space research laboratory of the Russian Academy of Science’s Pulkovo Observatory and of the International Space project? He has been projecting a cold downturn for years. Hasn’t Russia been building super Icebreakers in anticipation?
@ C Muir: Hasn’t Russia been building super Icebreakers in anticipation?
Yep, 3 of them in fact, that will be able to sail through ice up to 3m thick.
http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/NN-Russia-awards-icebreaker-contracts-0905147.html
I did my planning 2 years ago – I’ve moved my family from England to Hervey Bay, Australia, 25 degrees south of the Equator – with the option of, if all else fails, walking another 10 degrees closer to the equator, if the climate gets seriously nasty.
BruceC / C Muir
Russia had the advantage of a science academy which wasn’t corrupted by the Western global warming religion.
http://en.ria.ru/russia/20060825/53143686.html
The problem with building on a foundation of falsehood is that you are “building on sand”. People who dream that “the ends justify the means” are constructing a Tower of Babble that is going to fall down and go boom.
A sane government would be taking immediate steps to make sure the people it protects are fed and warm during a time of colder winters, if for no other reason than those in power like to stay in power. No throne is secure when the “rabble” are cold, hungry, and grumbling.
The forbidden Dr TL actually predicted a Maunder Minimum in 1989 in his book with the title something like, The Sun and Man……not an easy book to find, and at that time worked closely with NASA…..that book seemed to end the close relationship. His predictions were based on solar inertia – and that method has also been used by solar scientist Irina Charvatova at the Inst of Geophysics in Czech Republic. She doesn’t pose a mechanism, but assumes from the strength of the correlation that there is one. She is shunned by the climate modelling establishment. Her colleague at the Institute, Vaclav Bucha also has mechanismless correlations between geomagnetic status and the loopiness of the jetstream – published material, but also ignored.
Just a thought – but everyone assumes the Sun could enter either a Dalton type minimum or a Maunder type. I am not so sure we know enough about what duration of funk the Sun is capable of – I have a hunch, little more than that (though Mukul Sharma’s analysis of be-10 records thinks it found a 100,000 year magnetic cycle), where the ice-age climate cycles may be caused by a prolonged shut down…..thus the deglaciations are triggered not by Milankovich variations in solar irradiation, but shifts in the jetstream and hence ocean circulation caused by a big shift in solar farUV or some unknown magnetic effect….
lets not forget, global T has been declining in steps since the Holocene optimum 8000 years ago…..
and actually the global average is far less important than what happens in the the grain belts of the northern hemisphere….
Robert over at Iceagenow.info has also written a book and been warning of cooling for quite some time.
he is also looking more correct as time passes and it gets colder:-)
@Peter Miller
…with the obvious exception of a full scale nuclear war precipitating a devastating nuclear winter…
Based on the results of the Iraq war smoke, nuclear winter ain’t going to happen. It’s another of those ‘Panic, we’re all going to die!’ scenarios.
Humans are terribly prone to these. I don’t think that a week goes past without some newspaper publishing a new way that humanity is going to collapse in tragedy. It never happens, of course…
–The more I have read / looked around, the more things seem to have started sliding towards cooling since…. 2005. 2008 is the second year that comes to mind, though the start of colder, snowier winters so far appears to be the major thing I saw beginning at that point.
If I may ask everyone else here: When and where do you see things having started? If you are on the same track I am, that is.–
I don’t the sun activity of late has had much effect of global climate, what interesting is we might
enter a Maunder level and therefore it could effect global climate.
So in terms last 10 years, I think it recovery from the Little Ice age and variability. Or without the recent change in solar activity I believe we would have basically had same rise and plateau of temperatures. And I think the low solar activity has reduced the chance of natural variability in future of increasing further. Or I don’t think there currently much chance of 1998 super Nino event
and odds favor slightly cooler in next decade. And after decade, it will dependent of next 5 year of solar activity and activity beyond this. But it seem it take a long period of low solar activity to have much effect upon climate. Though if had a volcanic eruption which had ejecta of over 100 cubic km, then one could have steep reaction in terms of climate.
So if actual enter Maunder level for next couple decades over longer than I expect less than .5 C of cooling and/or little in terms increasing temperatures. So we could have a year or two downward spike of .5 C within a few years but it would bounce back as it’s been doing and not be steep downward trend- yet, if ever.
Dodgy Geezer says:
May 18, 2014 at 2:13 am
The cooling effect is close to 0.1 degrees C per 100 megatonnes of groundbursts per annum. So there will be a significant effect from a big exchange in which people try to dig each other’s bunkers up.
If I understand what is currently happening to the sun we are going to experience a once in 8000 to 10,000 year solar event, an interruption to the solar magnetic cycle as opposed to a Maunder minimum. The paleoclimatic record shows past interglacial periods ended abruptly not gradually. There is evidence of cyclic abrupt climate change in the paleo record, however, there is no physical explanation for what could be causing what is observed and how the mechanisms work. The excitement comes when the solar magnetic cycle restarts, the cause of the Younger Dryas burn marks and cyclic abrupt changes to the geomagnetic field.
I have been following astronomical anomaly analysis for 20 years. If I understand the physics, what is currently happening to the sun explains the spiral galaxy rotational anomaly, explains the quasar, galaxy, and cluster red shift anomalies, explains the quasar ejection anomalies, explains the quasar magnetic field anomalies, and so on.
http://arxiv.org/pdf/0711.4531v2.pdf
Evidence in Support of the Local Quasar Model from Inner Jet Structure and Angular Motions in Radio Loud AGN
http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0105073v1
Time Dilation and Quasar Variability, by M. Hawkins
We find that the timescale of quasar variation does not increase with redshift as required by time dilation.
http://www.scirp.org/journal/PaperInformation.aspx?paperID=5509
Pending Problems in QSOs
In support to:
As for China, it comes in for a roasting. Archibald describes it as a police-state kleptocracy looking for an opportunity to demonstrate its power by attacking a neighbouring country. He thinks this may happen before the 2016 US presidential elections, because Obama is seen by the Chinese as likely to hesitate before coming to the rescue of the country attacked.
William:
Interesting thought. 904 days to the presidential election.
Watching the solar cycles is like watching a NASCAR Sprint Cup race – you’ll be able to predict the order of finish at the end of the race.
“How the world looked during the last ice age: The incredible map that reveals just how much our planet has changed in 14,000 years”
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2630738/How-world-looked-ice-age-The-incredible-map-reveals-just-planet-changed-14-000-years.html
In the Twilight Zone episode “Midnight Sun”, the earth has fallen out of its orbit and is getting closer and closer to the sun. People have fled north to escape the heat, while the two main characters remain, suffering from the heat, and lack of food, water, and power. Chaos reigns supreme. The twist is that in actuality, the earth is moving away from the sun. The woman was in a high fever and had been dreaming. She tells her friend about her dream, then adds “Isn’t it wonderful to have darkness, and coolness?”, to which her friend replies “Yes, my dear, it’s… wonderful.”
It is as if mankind itself is in a sort of dream, and Warmism is a state of feverish, delerious minds. Soon however, mankind will awake to reality.
“Dikpati and Hathaway, both of NASA, in 2006 had predictions of Solar Cycle 24 amplitude of 190 and 170 respectively. In their press release, NASA said that,”Dikpati’s prediction is unprecedented.” It was also terribly wrong, possibly unprecedentedly so.”
But David, you know who got it right based on his understanding of how the sun works. Why no mention of him?
“It is like reading Pravda in Soviet times. You ignore the Party line and read between the lines.”
Very good comment. A lot of scientists seems too scared to actually publish what the science says but do seem to want to sneak it in somewhere. Presumably in years to come they will say “well I did publish this years ago but the prevailing orthodoxy prevented me from putting it in the abstract, introduction or conclusions of the paper”.
It’s a bit like medieval scriptures, there’s the profane message for the sheep and an archane esoteric reading for initiates.
It appears we are already seeing the beginnings of this ice age. Antarctica is slowing a highly significant rising trend in ice extent for years now..its not reversing or stopping.NH winters seem to be getting more intense.with colder air delving closer and closer to the tropics each year in places only such as North America and possibly scandinavia? (needs to be checked from what I recall this and last winters anyway).I expect to see a bitterly cold winter coming in SH this year IF the colder air building up in Antarctica starts to reach closer to the equator. I ascribe colder air to most of the heavy rains etc in Europe, NOT warmer air.
By sheer coincidence I just posted today about an article from the Astrophysical Journal Letters about the possibility of a Maunder Minimum with small sunspots, written by Nagovitsyn, Oetrov, and Livingston. They suggest that from 1998 to 2011, large sunspots (as they define them) decreased, while small ones increased. They suggest this might account for the decline in average sunspot field strength. http://www.coldplanet.org/?p=43
It will be interesting to see how the SCOSTEP Sun to Earth Mini Max 24 campaign data is interpreted and discussed iat STP13 in China this Fall. http://stp13.csp.escience.cn/dct/page/1
In science, the quality of one’s predictive track record is, I suggest, the best objective measure of one’s competence.
The IPCC has NO successful predictive track record – and hence no demonstrable competence.
In 2002 I was asked by my Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of Alberta (“APEGA”) to debate in writing the issue of catastrophic humanmade global warming and the proposed Kyoto Protocol.
[PEGG debate, reprinted at their request by several professional journals, the Globe and Mail and la Presse in translation, by Baliunas, Patterson and MacRae]
http://www.apegga.org/Members/Publications/peggs/WEB11_02/kyoto_pt.htm
We knew with confidence based on the evidence that global warming alarmism was technically false, extremist and wasteful.
We clearly stated in our 2002 debate:
On global warming:
“Climate science does not support the theory of catastrophic human-made global warming – the alleged warming crisis does not exist.”
On green energy:
“The ultimate agenda of pro-Kyoto advocates is to eliminate fossil fuels, but this would result in a catastrophic shortfall in global energy supply – the wasteful, inefficient energy solutions proposed by Kyoto advocates simply cannot replace fossil fuels.”
On real pollution:
“Kyoto will actually hurt the global environment – it will cause energy-intensive industries to move to exempted developing countries that do not control even the worst forms of pollution.”
On squandering resources:
“Kyoto wastes enormous resources that are urgently needed to solve real environmental and social problems that exist today. For example, the money spent on Kyoto in one year would provide clean drinking water and sanitation for all the people of the developing world in perpetuity.”
I suggest that our four above statements are now demonstrably correct, within a high degree of confidence.
I suggest that we, and a few others like us, have been essentially correct in our predictions to date.
I also wrote in an article in the Calgary Herald published on September 1, 2002, based in part on a phone conversation with Paleoclimatologist Dr. Tim Patterson:
On global cooling:
“If (as I believe) solar activity is the main driver of surface temperature rather than CO2, we should begin the next cooling period by 2020 to 2030.”
When I wrote this in 2002, SC 24 was predicted to be strong, and we now know it is quite weak.
I still think my (our) 2002 global cooling prediction will materialize, although I wonder if this cooling will start a bit sooner than 2020. Maybe this cooling has already started.
There is just not adequate understanding as the processes are so complex, so I listen to what is said. I would not be surprised to see the end of the Holocene, but I would consider the position that it is definitely in progress or about to happen to be reading bones cast on a rock. However, AGW consensus in my mind is in the same category as flat Earthers – they had their day in the sun and will soon find their fellow believers falling away into the shadows. No need to rub their noses in it. Higher levels of CO2 are a gardener’s blessing. Best to all, stay kind and generous.
PS Don’t be surprised to hear of dark horse economic fusion competitive to coal in real terms not Popular Science Magazine fantasy, this year. General Fusion Inc is just one of many (forget ITER and NIF boondoggles, nice complete career science projects though). Keep looking up.
Tom in Florida says: May 18, 2014 at 4:23 am “But David, you know who got it right based on his understanding of how the sun works. Why no mention of him?”
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Well then Tom, you put his name there so we can research it. I hate mystery.
Buy Natural Gas
With solar activity trending downwards for the last 50 years:
http://www.sidc.be/silso/monthlyhemisphericplot
and not a hint of the Great Cooling we have been promised, rumours are rife among the Villagers that we’re in a “Great Global Cooling Swindle” situation. It was not in fact the Sun wot done it, aided and abetted by Cosmic Rays, but the Sun wot done it by warming up the Pacific to produce El Niño’s driving the last 50 years warming. We are presently undergoing intensive coaching, by members of The Monastery of Climate Truth, to expect, not CSGC in the near future, but in fact a rise in global temperature. Whether this is simply hedging or genuinely expected, is not for us to know, but us ordinary Villagers are entering a time of great testing with regards our Faith.
If there is warming in the next few years, this will at least have the advantage of sparing us the monotonous monthly mockery of Monkton’s maladroit mallard – the so called 17 year + pause.
I think there is also the possibility of cold temperatures like during the MAUNDER MINIMUM but due to causes other than the sun Just look at the temperature drops in Canada during the past winter.
Atlantic Canada has cooled 4C since 2010 (7.2 F)
Great Lakes and St Lawrence valley cooled 5.6 C since 2012 ( 10F)
Northern Ontario and Quebec has cooled 6.9 C since 2010 (12.4F)
Northern western forests cooled 6.8 C since 2012 (12.2 F)
Prairies cooled 8.0 C since 2012 ( 14.4F)
Canada’s National winter temperature cooled 4.5 C since 2010 ( 8.1 F)
Extended periods where the polar vortex wanders further south can quickly drop the temperatures and very dramatically . There was an scary similarity between the pattern of extreme cold temperatures right across Canada ( as low as -50C in some parts of the Prairies) and the polar ice sheet( Laurentide ice sheet) that covered Canada during the last glaciation period . Northern Ontario and Quebec had the 6 th coldest winter in 67 years . Are we on the cusp of the period between the glaciation and inter-glaciation eras? Instead of worrying about global warming only we should also consider other risks which may dwarf global warming.
The Maunder Sunspots were sparse, large, and primarily Southern Hemispheric. I thing the hemispheric asymmetry is a huge clue. I think the Livingston and Penn Effect explains ‘sparse’ and ‘large’, but not the asymmetry.
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Oh, well, that really wasn’t very clear. I think all three have the same cause, but only understand the ‘large’ and ‘sparse’ from L&P.
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Joseph Priestly’s discovery of “dephlogisticated air” is just one landmark in the volatile, ambiguous ‘progress’ of scientific revolution. Although an important milestone in the revolution with regard to our understanding of chemistry, clearly Priestly was not a conceptual convert.
Nonetheless, the revolution proceeded. We stand at a similar juncture with respect to the Climate and Solar sciences. It should already be obvious that the notion of ‘backradiation’ is bankrupt, similarly, the practice of statistically correcting the data is revealed a transparent, craven fraud.
Until such time as a plausible source of Solar dynamo perturbation is settled on, e.g., the Lorentz Force, we are left simply to wait on events.
“the increase of global warming will be slightly attenuated until 2100 A.D”
As around 0.5K of around 0.6K of global warming over the past century came from increased solar activity (counting the effect on cosmic ray deflection), if we enter a Maunder Minimum situation (which had a 20+% difference in CRF, a number of times more change than seen yet in this somewhat weak solar activity time), residual El Ninos will weaken after maybe one last semi-high strength echo, and there will be a lot more than slight attenuation, to say the least, as implied in my usual http://tinyurl.com/nbnh7hq .
Sorry I don’t buy it. The tiny change in TSI that is important to Earth’s temperature due to changes in sunspot activity, whether it be raging or asleep, cannot have an observable impact on Earth. Earth intrinsic variability creates wider swings and more pronounced trends than the Sun is capable of producing. It comes down to energy available to force oceanic atmospheric telenconnections to move from a status quo to another stage. And the only source of energy sufficient to do that is what is stored in the oceans through Earth’s own ability to let more in or reflect more away, coupled with how much energy the oceans belch out or keep stored.
So no, I would have to continue to keep the null hypothesis and reject this solar conjecture, especially based on such little evidence.
The sun accounts for 99.8 of all energy stored in the ocean you have your cuased and effect backwards.
Elaine Meinel here: My father, founder of the first solar observatory on Kitt Peak, Arizona, was CENSORED by the publishers of scientific papers due to his claim the sun was ‘variable star’ and we are entering a Maunder Minimum.
So you don’t see Dr. Aden Meinel in any capacity of the last 12 years and he is now deceased. Couldn’t understand why he was censored. I read some of the emails sent to him. One editor said, ‘If you are right, this is TOO SCARY for our readers’! Another said, ‘The sun doesn’t affect the climate’ which to me is totally insane.
You link doesn’t work.
James you are right of course in terms of where energy comes from that is stored in the oceans. As measured at the top of the atmosphere there is slight and predictable variation that can be mathematically modeled but not to the degree that matters on Earth’s surface. The amount that hits the ocean surface is far more drastically changed by our own atmosphere and its intrinsic ability and variability to allow it in or reflect it away. Also heat energy stored in the oceans can come out in varying amounts and in varying locations and in varying time spans. Intrinsic processes, variable atmospheric conditions, and oceanic heat release or heat storage, are intrinsic to the Earth and which causes weather and climate variability within short and long term time spans of interest to the discussion of the issues related to the past century’s global warming trend.
This is the correct link for Allan MacRae’s Kyoto debate at May 18, 2014 at 5:38 am
http://www.apega.ca//Members/Publications/peggs/WEB11_02/kyoto_pt.htm
Pam, it’s both; a pair at the dance.
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emsnews says:
May 18, 2014 at 9:12 am
….
Hi Ms Meinel Supkis
It is rather tragic that scientific community (for ulterior reasons) could be so intolerant of views and eventually cruel to those who have done great deal for advance of science.
I have been thinking that even though the number of sunspots correlates to Earth’s global temperature during the Dalton, Maunder and Spörer minima and can be used to support a hypothesis about the Sun controlling our climate, it is the Sun’s magnetic field that has a direct effect, like the one on cloud formation proposed by Svensmark.
Earth is not the only “globe” to be experiencing “global” cooling. I did my solar studies under Chapman, Larmore and others (at the time Akasofu was honored in our class by Chapman and raised to a full professor) so extra-terrestrial behaviors were not included in the coursework. I would suggest, tho, that the cooling is affecting our neighboring giant buddy in the extreme. I can only suggest that if there is less energy arriving there, the storms would have less energy to dissipate in their dynamical system. So, my personal conviction of gross levels of cooling lies with the evidence recently reported by Hubble folk:
http://www.universetoday.com/111907/hubble-sees-jupiters-red-spot-shrink-to-smallest-size-ever/
Kim, “a dance” is not a scientific rebuttal.
Vuk, science must be cruel. It MUST be!
@ David, did Schatten and Tobiska produce any graphs you could add to your post ?
@ JH. The name you are missing is Leif Svalgaard. But he doesn’t think that any reduction in sunspots in the next solar cycle (25) will cause cooling. Though he does think that the reduction in sunspots my veer nearer to that of the Maunder than the Dalton. Perhaps he will correct me if I have made an erroneous statement.
J.H. says:
May 18, 2014 at 6:02 am
Tom in Florida says: May 18, 2014 at 4:23 am “But David, you know who got it right based on his understanding of how the sun works. Why no mention of him?”
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Well then Tom, you put his name there so we can research it. I hate mystery.
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Most of us know I was speaking of Dr Svalgaard. David knows that also but he and the Dr disagree on this subject as we have seen over many solar threads.
That said Vuk, it must avoid at all cost, politicalization efforts. NOAA now has a climate.gov site that is an example of the reason why our founding organizers demanded the separation of church and state. A church is a church, whether it is based on sacred myth scripture filled with gods or political factions fueled with environmento-watermelon wine.
Pam, hum a few bars of science and I’ll fake the rest.
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Pamela Gray says:
May 18, 2014 at 9:32 am
“James you are right of course in terms of where energy comes from that is stored in the oceans. As measured at the top of the atmosphere there is slight and predictable variation that can be mathematically modeled but not to the degree that matters on Earth’s surface. The amount that hits the ocean surface is far more drastically changed by our own atmosphere and its intrinsic ability and variability to allow it in or reflect it away”
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To many people do not understand the difference between changes in TSI and changes in insolation. It is the insolation that counts the most in changing climate with orbital mechanics being the elephant in the room.
For those who do not get it, stand outside in direct sunlight then move into the shade. You will notice a very large difference in the amount of energy that hits your skin. The Sun did not change its output during those few seconds, you changed the insolation on your skin.
It is blatantly obvious that the US needs to spend more money on the sun. We have a serious lack of federal spending in the research of solar activity and ways we can mitigate this sluggishness. We need to develop the technologies required to reinvigorate solar activity. In fact, it is very likely that the root cause of this is magnetic fields generated by power transformers. We should immediately rid ourselves of these power transformers and invest in large scale active switching power conversion products and this is going to require billions in investment and government loans. We can’t allow this to happen. (think of the children!). Fork over your cash today!
policycritic says on May 18, 2014 at 9:36 am
This is the correct link for Allan MacRae’s Kyoto debate at May 18, 2014 at 5:38 am
http://www.apega.ca//Members/Publications/peggs/WEB11_02/kyoto_pt.htm
Thank you PolicyCritic – my professional organization has changed its name and website.
It is perhaps worth repeating another excerpt from our 2002 PEGG paper, to show how little this debate has progressed in 12 years – despite a complete failure of the IPCC’s prediction of alarming global warming due to increased atmospheric CO2.
REBUTTAL OF POINT
(BY COUNTERPOINT AUTHORS – Baliunas, Patterson and MacRae)
http://www.apega.ca//Members/Publications/peggs/WEB11_02/kyoto_pt.htm
The Pembina Institute’s authors have chosen to avoid the science topic, perhaps because there is no credible scientific basis for the Kyoto Protocol.
Advocates of Kyoto mistakenly cite the United Nations IPCC 2001 report and the U.S. National Academy of Sciences 2001 report as authoritative scientific sources. Dr. Richard Lindzen, Sloan professor of meteorology at MIT and a co-author of both reports, wrote in 2001:
“We are not in a position to confidently attribute past climate change to carbon dioxide or to forecast what the climate will be in the future…
“Science, in the public arena, is commonly used as a source of authority with which to bludgeon political opponents and propagandize uninformed citizens. This is what has been done with both the reports of the IPCC and the NAS. It is a reprehensible practice that corrodes our ability to make rational decisions. A fairer view of the science will show that there is still a vast amount of uncertainty – far more than advocates of Kyoto would like to acknowledge…”
kim…I have no idea what you tried to communicate in your last comment and its connection to our discussion. You have lost me. You seem to want to rebutt my comment and you have responded now twice. I have yet to comprehend the scientific details of your rebuttal..
@ David. Was there a graph to go with Schatten and Tobiska projections ?, its always nice to have something to look at.
mark in toledo says:
May 18, 2014 at 12:44 am
If you want the long version of this, buy my book. In the meantime, a 0.6 degree C fall from now to mid-2016, then sideways to down to the mid-2020s and then the big plunge to 2040. Then flat for a Maunder-type experience. More coming out in a couple of weeks.
Pamela Gray says:
May 18, 2014 at 10:47 am
Vuk, science must be cruel. It MUST be!
Ms Gray
Demonstrating that a work or hypothesis is wrong, cruelty is not, denial of the public voice could be harder to bear than a gulag.
J Martin says:
May 18, 2014 at 10:47 am
They talked about the SODA Index but no graphic on why they believed in weaker activity post-Solar Cycle 25.
Dr. Archibald you predicted .7C of cooling at the Canadian border for every year extra that solar cycle 23 lasted over solar cycle 22, during solar cycle 24. If this winter was any indication it appears you are correct.
So far during SC24
Coldest start up to a year in the contiguous 48 states. “Steve Goddard”
Large gain in global sea ice.
Record great lakes ice.
Record Antarctic sea ice.
Ground frozen to 2 meters in Winnipeg.
Substantial multiyear ice gain in the Arctic.
Well done sir and will be watching to see if next winter carries through on this.
Tom in Florida says:
May 18, 2014 at 10:49 am
You are all missing the point of those few sentences. NASA had a whole section, or perhaps even more than one, studying the Sun. They had people working full time on it. If not the world’s pre-eminent experts, they were up there. But they were wrong, wrong, wrong. Hathaway said he went for a high number because he expected the trend of high numbers to continue. No physical basis but it was put out as a NASA forecast. Dikpati was NASA’s star and perhaps Hathaway had to be up close to her otherwise there would be questions and internal political problems. This is about experts being wrong (hint – think IPCC and the concensus), not about three co-authors who got it right.
Reblogged this on The Next Grand Minimum and commented:
I have been writing about cooling since 2006, when I write a short paper on cooling cycles. See the discussion below. We are in the Next Grand Minimum camp as the sun spots decline.
A number of high temperature records have fallen in Calif, Alaska and Hawaii in the past few days. Probably a much larger number of US national low temperature records have been broken in the last three days. Quite a few of these records previously dated back to the early 1900’s. Record lows extend from near the Mexico border area of McAllen & Brownsville, Texas up through Kansas to North Dakota. From Brownsville they go across the Gulf Coast through Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama to Florida. From Florida up through W Virginia passing Green Bay, WI. New record lows were recorded all within this large area such as Memphis, Nashville, Little Rock, St Louis, Lexington, Kansas City, Omaha etc… Many locations that are not listed here at this link to NOAA have local news stories about their record lows. There is an interesting snow season record for Rockford, IL for May 16.
http://www.nws.noaa.gov/view/national.php?prod=RER
-SXUS73 KLOT 170647
RERRFD
RECORD EVENT REPORT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE CHICAGO IL
0145 AM CDT SAT MAY 17 2014
…RECORD DAILY MAXIMUM SNOWFALL SET AT ROCKFORD IL…
A RECORD SNOWFALL OF A TRACE WAS SET AT ROCKFORD IL
YESTERDAY…MAY 16TH.
IN ADDITION…ONLY ONCE BEFORE IN RECORDED WEATHER HISTORY FOR
ROCKFORD HAS THERE BEEN A TRACE OF SNOW IN THE SNOW SEASON ON OR
AFTER MAY 16TH AND THAT WAS ON MAY 24TH 1925.
At the beginning of the Little Ice Age (from 1200’s to 1800’s – I hardly call it little) a very large mountain almost on top of the equator in Indonesia exploded (Mt. Rinjani), sending ash eventually to the poles to be imbedded in ice and later extracted in ice cores (the composition of the ash matches that of ash from the still active volcano). Other volcanoes errupted throughout this extended period.
Many climate scientists (Mann included with his tree ring data) have discussed subsequent cooling caused by either direct processes (as in it gets colder because the sun has a big black cloud in front of it) or indirect ones such as an influx of fresh water reducing the overturning processes between fresh and salt water. Mann found that tree rings do not quite match the fairly well identified timing of eruptions. He has proposed an error in analysis related to “missing rings”. Regardless, subsequent cooling related to a volcano does not necessarily explain long term cooling as was experienced during the Little Ice Age.
However, I think there is another reason why subsequent cooling (which under current theories can only last as long as the ash remains suspended in the air in terms of direct effects) lasted for such a long time. It has to do with Tisdale’s discharge/recharge theory related to El Nino/La Nina events and oscillations. The Rinjani explosion was quite large and it was in the right spot to send ash across the Pacific along the equatorial El Nino region especially if the trades had stopped and wind bursts in the opposite direction were active. On top of El Nino related clouds, you now have ash preventing the sun from warming the equaorial ocean. And during a subsequent La Nina, when recharge is really active, again that recharge would not be happening much at all. How many months would there have to be of very little sunshine getting to ocean surface across the Pacific span when you reach a lack of recharge critical level? And how many years were there of that ash meandering around in the equatorial region, preventing the sun from recharging the oceans. Add to that the habit of volcanoes wanting to continue to burp and spew more ash from time to time, sometimes years after the big one.
Now send that less than warm water on its way circulating to the shores of the continents, bleching out what little warmth the ocean has to give, and one can imagine a fast plunge into a cold climate as well as at different start times. If the volcano continued to pulse as they often do, the ash injection gets re-upped, again continuing to cause plunging cold but at different start times globally as the now much cooler pools of water circulate thoughout the globe. Might this be the source of what is referred to as the estimation error due to missing tree rings proposed by Mann? Might this be the cause of the different results seen on the global scale? Might this be the cause of the Little Ice Age and not lack of sunspots? Certainly what little change there would be in TSI because of disappearing spots pales in comparison to changes driven by an equatorial shade pulled down over the ocean drastically reducing equatorial insolation so critical to the recharge phase of ENSO processes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Rinjani
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Indonesia_(orthographic_projection).svg
http://www.meteo.psu.edu/holocene/public_html/Mann/articles/articles/jgrd50609.pdf
Busted link during cut and paste
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Indonesia_(orthographic_projection).svg
Trying again
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indonesia
Village Idiot (May 18, 2014 at 6:46 am) says “With solar activity trending downwards for the last 50 years [..] and not a hint of the Great Cooling we have been promised“. A pot on the stove still heats when the stove is turned down a bit.
You mean this link to the map??
<a href=”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Indonesia_%28orthographic_projection%29.svg”>this link to the map?</a>
Thanks Ric. Yes.
Pamela, that is a wonderful melody complete with lyrics. Can the Earth’s internal mechanisms generate the millennial scale changes in climate? Well, sure, but do they? I am more suspicious of the sun, but don’t have a mechanism. Cosmic rays are so seductive but it, erl, Happens, I like UV rays. The dance is on stage, but the curtain is still down, the audience fascinated and blinded.
=====
Pamela has the right idea.
Now extend the principle to solar induced cloudiness changes as per my New Climate Model and there you have it.
Solar induced cloudiness changes alter the amount of solar energy entering the oceans so as to skew the balance between El Nino and La Nina.
Wow. Talk about your Pacific Rim of Fire! This is quite a system! I wonder how many of them were active during the LIttle Ice Age. I can imagine a big one to get things going, then the others sputtering and spewing sometimes at the same time and sometimes serially in a 700 year time span or there abouts. The ash rises up and catches a ride on El Nino wind bursts. Right along the very area that would allow winds to carry all that ash over the equatorial band, thus pulling down the blind and blocking a recharging soak in the Sun.
http://www.volcanodiscovery.com/indonesia.html
Pamela,
There was some previous discussion of the volcanic aspect here:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/01/30/new-paper-speculates-on-volcanoes-during-the-little-ice-age/
Towards the end you can see my comments about the importance of changes in the balance of ozone creation / destruction so as to alter the equator to pole tropopause height gradient which results in changes in global cloudiness.
Volcanic activity causes short term changes because volcanic aerosols soon drop out of the atmosphere.
For a multicentennial trend one really does need a solar influence as well.
Stephen, think. Please. In order to create the degree of insolation change that would plung us into The Little Ice Age, your solar connection would have to be very large. Imagine (or read several articles that mathematically calculate this) the insolation change created when there is a black ashy cloud blocking the sun. Now create in your mind, based on your conjecture, the amount of solar change that would have to happen (if your idea holds in conditions other than the lab experiment) in order for cosmic rays to change cloud cover sufficient to compare to the same level of ash cloud blocking insolation change.
For those wanting a peer-reviewed discussion at a level far above my head:
http://www.leif.org/EOS/Cloud%20Cover%20and%20Cosmic%20Rays.pdf
Stephen may also be referring to his conjecture related to solar influences on the pressure systems at the poles (monitored via the Arctic Oscillation index) that pushes and pulls the jets out into a loopy broken ribbon or into a nice tight circle, thus affecting something else, which affects something else, which affects something else, etc…, amplifying in some way at each stage such that long term temperature trends become evident.
Again, not observed Stephen. But ash clouds do indeed immediately have an affect on temperature. My conjecture is that equatorial volcanoes blew their tops and continued to belch and sputter keeping the recharge phase of ENSO processes from working the way they should.
David Archibald says:
May 18, 2014 at 1:29 pm
“You are all missing the point of those few sentences. NASA had a whole section, or perhaps even more than one, studying the Sun. They had people working full time on it. If not the world’s pre-eminent experts, they were up there. But they were wrong, wrong, wrong. Hathaway said he went for a high number because he expected the trend of high numbers to continue. No physical basis but it was put out as a NASA forecast. Dikpati was NASA’s star and perhaps Hathaway had to be up close to her otherwise there would be questions and internal political problems. This is about experts being wrong (hint – think IPCC and the concensus), not about three co-authors who got it right.”
=========================================================================
But you know that’s how real science works. People make predictions based on theories. Theories that show themselves to be correct get accepted and those that fail are discarded. (unlike current AGW). As long as one moves along that path even incorrect theories are valuable as they can be eliminated. So Dr Svalgaard based his prediction on the way he believed the cycles to work, so far is has been correct. So pointing out only the incorrect theories as some kind of damnation of those people isn’t helpful.
You go on to say “Significantly, no solar physicist is now predicting a return to the high levels of activity of the second half of the 20th century. Schatten and Tobiska’s prediction of a Maunder level of activity stands, is on track, and has no competition. Everyone is well advised to plan accordingly.” That is a direct result of earlier theories about cycle strength being wrong and discarded so that the focus is on the theory that so far looks to work. That is why you should have mentioned the “three co-authors who got it right.” But I understand the issues between you and Leif so it is not surprising you did not give him any credit.
David Archibald says:
“In the meantime, a 0.6 degree C fall from now to mid-2016, then sideways to down to the mid-2020s and then the big plunge to 2040. Then flat for a Maunder-type experience.”
David, last August I discovered how to map the position and duration of each grand minimum astronomically. From 1000 AD they alternate from between three and four solar cycles being weaker in each grand minimum at a mean interval of 110.7yrs, but at Maunder the pattern changes, with five cycles being effected. The Dalton minimum then effected mainly cycles 5&6. the Gleissberg minimum effected cycles 12 to 14, and the current minimum seems to have mainly cycles 24&25 weakened. The 2040’s should be well past this grand minimum and the worst cold.
On the longer term, new work that I have done this week identifies key break down points in Jovian cycles that occur at the dominant cold periods over the last 6,500 years. Each colder period lasts ~150-250 years, and their frequency varies dramatically over a 4627yr cycle, with intervals between them from as little as 90-150yrs and up to 1300yrs, as happened during the MWP era. Provisional dates for the start of the cold periods are from around: 4340 BC, 3530 BC, 2980 BC, 2570 BC, 2100 BC, 1350 BC, 510 BC, 380 AD. 1650 AD, and the next one is from 2056 AD. On the basis of these findings, I find myself somewhat agreeing with the general outlook that Steinhilber and Beer have for the next 200 years of solar activity.
The # 1 driver of our climate is always the sun. This is why, when the sun sets, it gets colder especially in hot deserts. The thing that makes things milder is moisture which is why wet climate areas see less drop in temperatures when the sun vanishes than hot deserts.
Pretending the sun is this steady state star is a total mistake. It is a variable star and we are parked quite close to its proximity so even seemingly small changes in radiance and activity has a huge impact on our planet’s climate.
I am baffled as to why many people can’t understand this simple business. Our oceans are ‘big’ but are tiny droplets compared to the sun. When the sun ‘warms’ the ocean, it does this ONLY when it is daytime, not at night. The temperature of the oceans are controlled by this level of sun shining which is why our polar regions are below freezing even when the sun never sets there due entirely to the fact that the sun isn’t shining directly on the oceans or Antarctic but is at an extreme angle and the atmosphere breaks up the light sufficiently to keep the sun from melting the ice to the same degree that is heats up the equator.
The la Nina/el Nino is an equatorial situation driven by varying levels of solar activity. The weaker the sun is, the more la Nina dominates and the more sun spots, el Nino strengthens and dominates. Nothing else drives these events as strongly as the sun.
Pamela Gray says:
May 18, 2014 at 8:23 am
“And the only source of energy sufficient to do that is what is stored in the oceans through Earth’s own ability to let more in or reflect more away, coupled with how much energy the oceans belch out or keep stored.”
But do we really know how much of that stored energy might come from under sea volcanic activity? I think not. The Earth’s internal heat is another large elephant in the room.
emsnews, three counter points.
1 The variation in solar insolation at Earth’s surface as well as total solar irradiance at the top of the atmosphere have been monitored for decades. It does not vary much at all. However, the small variation it does have mathematically affects the temperature but only by a small fraction of a degree.
2. We receive only a small portion of the Sun’s rays as most of those rays bypass us because we are so small compared to the Sun.
3. As to your poles and day/night comment, the rotation and seasonal tilt of the Earth are intrinsic Earth based factors, not related to your supposed solar variability.
The Earth is why temperature varies so much, not the Sun.
emsnews says:
May 18, 2014 at 5:41 pm
You say:
1) “The # 1 driver of our climate is always the sun. This is why, when the sun sets, it gets colder especially in hot deserts….”
But that has nothing to do with any changes in the Sun, it is simply a rotating Earth.
2) ” even seemingly small changes in radiance and activity has a huge impact on our planet’s climate.” but then later you say ” our polar regions are below freezing even when the sun never sets there due entirely to the fact that the sun isn’t shining directly on the oceans or Antarctic but is at an extreme angle and the atmosphere breaks up the light sufficiently to keep the sun from melting the ice to the same degree that is heats up the equator.”
Again, not changes in the Sun, changes in orbit and obliquity.
3)”The weaker the sun is, the more la Nina dominates and the more sun spots, el Nino strengthens and dominates”
Obviously you do not read Bob Tisdale’s very informative essays on these conditions.
Yes, the Sun is the sole warmer of the oceans, however air temperature and wind can lower the SST. Case in point: last weekend the Gulf of Mexico off my beach was a nice 85 F but after several days of cooler weather and strong winds, especially at night, the temperature this weekend was 82 F. Very unusual for the temperatures to get lower this time of year. Now the cold front is gone, the winds have calmed and the Sun will reheat the water back to around 85 F very quickly. This also happens each winter. Cold air comes in and cools the water but in winter the angle of the Sun only allows enough energy to hit the water to warm it to around 55 F. As we move towards summer solstice the Sun becomes more and more overhead allowing more of it’s energy to hit the water so it continually warms. But this is not about changes in the Sun but rather the Earth and its orbit.
One more thing, the little that the Sun varies would not produce enough energy to drive and sustain changes in ENSO parameters related to El Nino/La Nina.
Wow, percolating volcanic activity following the massive Samalas eruption in Indonesia preventing a recharge phase during La Niña. That has to be one of the most logical explanations for how the cold was maintained for so long after the abrupt kick start of the LIA. Kamchatka certainly has percolated since 2009.
There have been numerous eruptions in Indonesia in the last six years, though nothing too big.
We seem to be plenty cool now without a really large eruption and following the harshest winter in over a century. Certainly breaking low temp records at times. Crops are planted in fairly good shape (5 year avg) but germination is behind… Come on El Niño, don’t putter out.
See 6 refereed Citations to: Schatten and Tobiska in 2003.
Note:
Sunspot Number Prediction by an Autoregressive Model Werner, R. Sun and Geosphere, vol.7, no.2, p.75-80. 11/2012
Werner’s 2012 prediction appears to have been more accurate than Dikpati and Hathaway (2006)
I noticed when solar cycle 24 had been predicted to be the most active solar cycle ever, (which is true) the media and famous futurists at the time exclaimed how this solar cycle would exacerbate Global Warming, now that this cycle has turned out to be a ‘weak solar cycle’ we are hearing from the experts that solar activity has nothing to do with solar activity, on top of all this expertise these claims are disappeared as quick as they were made up! hahahaha!
Her colleague at the Institute, Vaclav Bucha also has mechanismless correlations between geomagnetic status and the loopiness of the jetstream – published material, but also ignored.
Piers Corbyn uses that “fact” or similar for long term weather prediction.
http://classicalvalues.com/2014/05/follow-the-evidence/
I noticed when solar cycle 24 had been predicted to be the most active solar cycle ever, (which is true) the media and famous futurists at the time exclaimed how this solar cycle would exacerbate Global Warming, now that this cycle has turned out to be a ‘weak solar cycle’ we are hearing from the experts that GLOBAL WARMING has nothing to do with solar activity, on top of all this expertise these claims are disappeared as quick as they were made up! hahahaha!
(sorry about the error in my last comment) 🙂
Stephen, I know the paper and the discussion we had surrounding it. The authors point to a decreased overturning circulation due to an influx of fresh water at the poles where the overturning process takes place. That may indeed have happened (I think it is a stretch) but that theory still needs to answer why the oceans got cold in the first place. What about the far flung effects starting at different times?
I speculate that the La Nina recharge process was severely diminished due to ash riding the winds along the equatorial belt, essentially pulling a blind over the equatorial belt. Eventually that cooler water would circulate via the currents and instead of handing out warming to the land, there was nothing in the “bank” so to speak. This would result in pulses of extreme cold dry weather that would ice up decreased river flows, eventually leading to near continuous winter conditions especially in northern areas of the Pacific.
But what of England? If that ash made its way into the Caribbean area of the Atlantic where the Gulf Stream originates and is warmed by the Sun, equally cold currents (since the Sun had a shade in front of it) would turn England into a frozen world, devoid of its normally pleasant weather due to an unusually cold gulf stream current.
Village Idiot says:
May 18, 2014 at 6:46 am
Let me explain to you why there is Time.
So everything doesn’t happen all at once.
Again, can someone explain why the 2003 paper ( Schatten and Tobiska ) is not available, in full ?
Actually, the cold years that preceded the current warmth are STILL a memory for some of us. I was in my teens in New England during the polar vortex of 1963, and the decade of the ’60s was cold and snowy for much of the northeast. Back then, though, we boomers were about 45% of the population, whereas we’re about 20% now. If a boomer described the late ’50s and early ’60s to the current majority age group, they’d look at him as if he were describing an exotic culture from ancient times. That’s why “Mad Men” is so popular.
Steve try Google Scholar. Just type it into the address bar. Next, once you are searching with Google Scholar, type in the name of the article with the letters “pdf” before the title. This will often lead to the article preprint.
Steve in Seattle says:
May 18, 2014 at 9:07 pm
Again, can someone explain why the 2003 paper ( Schatten and Tobiska ) is not available, in full ?
Private circulation perhaps? all you need is the ‘abstract’ anyway.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2008JD010239/full
Gao et al (2008) shows approximate sulfur loading in the atmosphere for the last 1500 years. It shows the spikes of volcanic eruptions leading into the LIA and throughout. The eruptions from remote places are surprisingly easily hidden, so you won’t see that many of them at the Smithsonian. Quilotoa in Ecuador was a VEI 6 about 1280, Pinatubo VEI 5+ sometime in the 1400’s, Sakurajima VEI 5+, Bardabunga VEI 6, VEI 5 from St Helens. Who knows how many eruptions came from some remote places.
There was a warm up about 1400 then the other smack down. You see another spike in sulfur loading in figure 2. So there was definitely a lot going on back there volcanic, compared to the 20th century.
IMO solar minimum is a plausible explanation for past cold periods. This is hard to prove since we don’t have direct measurements of solar irradiance in the past. The earliest measurement was in 1838 by Pouillet. He got a value of 1,228 W/m^2 or 133 W/m^2 lower than today. More than enough to make global climate cooler. That was after the Dalton Minimum and near the end of the Little Ice Age. Read this http://documents.irevues.inist.fr/bitstream/handle/2042/16943/meteo_2008_60_36.pdf
For those interested in geopolitical matters, a post of mine now up at American Thinker:
http://americanthinker.com/2014/05/chinas_mobile_national_territory.html
David Archibald
“China will wear down the Japanese forces and then invade the Senakaku and Yaeyama Islands. If successful in taking them, China will then extend its ADIZ to at least 300 km east of the Yaeyama Islands, isolating Japan from the rest of Asia. “
🙂
Pamela,
Changes in cloudiness affecting the proportion of solar energy reaching the surface are powerful enough as argued on this site previously.
The sequence of changes that I listed in my ‘conjecture’ is exactly in accordance with actual observations.
Volcanic outbreaks do have the effects you mention but not for long enough and not large enough over centuries.
It is indeed all about ‘closing the blinds’ so as to affect the proportion of solar energy entering the oceans but I think the cloudiness changes are the main player with volcanic activity modulating the cloudiness effects in the same way as internal ocean cycles modulate the cloudiness effects.
The recent cessation of warming has occurred despite a relatively low level of volcanic activity but instead correlates to more cloudiness since around 2000 when the jets started to become more loopy again.
David Archibald says:
May 19, 2014 at 12:41 am
Good show.
Ed, thanks. I know several authors have directed our attention to these events during the LIA. Their theories as to the commenced cooling generally turns to either a direct effect (Sun’s rays deflected thus creating instant cooling), or an indirect affect related to overturning circulation halt due to a fresh versus salt water issue. I don’t think either proposed mechanism has the strength to sustain itself for as long as it did. Bob Tisdale’s explanation of the El Nino/La Nina discharge/recharge funtion of ENSO processes offers both short and long term consequences of circulating less-warmed water due to atmospheric ash pulling a blind down over the equatorial band of ocean so important in the recharge process. Your link certainly demonstrates active tropical volcanoes. The geographic location and sheer size, activity, and number of volcanoes in the Indonesian area provide a tantalizing clue when combined with trade wind and wind burst mechanisms that could keep all this exploded, burped and belched ash in the equatorial atmosphere. Did it eventually get rained out? Probably. Did it ride the wind currents to other part of the Earth? Yes. And that would have been the end of it but I wonder if these volcanoes kept pumping more into the atmosphere to replace the initial load. They often do.
I am also thinking that some enterprising volcanologist could estimate the amount of ash this massive collection of volcanoes could spew into the air if a few of them were active during this time span.
Funny thing about that overturning process. Global warming has been targeted at one time or another to cause a slow down in that process. So too it seems global cooling. Which is it? Who cares. Under a scenario of less warm surface waters due to lack of recharge, this less warm surface water should sink just fine, since colder water sinks easier than warmer water. Remember, the Pacific sends used surface water into the Atlantic and the Atlantic sends us nutrient rich deep water into the Pacific. That overturning process is caused by topographical barriers at the two entrances into the Arctic basin. In the North Atlantic surface waters sink, and in the Northern Pacific deep water rises up. The circulation continues through the Indian Ocean – the connection between the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean. The surface part of this conveyor belt would be severely affected by an ash blind pulled down across the equatorial Pacific.
In summary, I don’t think the overturning circulation in the North Atlantic was affected during the LIA. If anything, less warmed water from lack of recharge and then circulated into the Atlantic would sink easily causing bottom water to be shoved aside and pushed up just fine. And I don’t think the degree of saltiness would have much of an affect due to the rather choppy North Atlantic. Any ice melt (bergs have less salt in them) would be mixed pretty well with salty water, and the colder water would readily sink. If the whole damned thing were to be cooled by lack of equatorial recharge from a drastic reduction in solar insolation, we have the makings of a very cold world. And attempts to rebuild that store of oceanic heat would take a very long time if volcanoes continued to reduce solar insolation along the equatorial belt.
Stephen, any decrease in insolation will have an affect. But I am focused on the Maunder Minimum and the Little Ice Age, proposing a driver that has shown to be present throughout the 600-700 year period. And the affect was drastic, whatever the cause! Your conjecture and its source would not have that kind of power. Besides, the Sun went [quiet] AFTER the Little Ice Age began.
Pamela many disagree with many of the points you keep trying to make. None of them hold water!
Ted, why do they not hold water? Critique please. Leave the drive bys to the warmists.
Thanks to P Gray.
Yes, passionate speculation. I love it.
=================
Electro Magnetic connection beteen the sun and the earth from Piers Corbyn: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6R26PXRrgds#t=565
I have only one issue with the Maunder minimum: As I have come to understand the correlation between (low) sunspot activity and the Maunder minimum is based on the observations of Galileo and some contemporaries using the first telescopes ever available. Apart from the fact that one is not advised to look at the sun directly through a telescope if one wants to keep his eyesight I wonder about one thing: Wasn’t it also Galileo who spotted the canals on Mars? Haven’t others then after his publication of that “fact” “seen” them too? Regardless of whether or not the sun is responsible for the climate and whether sun spots have to do with it – how can we be sure that during the Maunder minimum there were less sun spots than “usual” if it is based (only) on Galileo’s observations if these were of the same “quality” as his Martian reports? Or are there other sources that indubitably can prove that in the 1600s there were fewer sun spots than normally?