Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
I hear a lot of folks give the following explanation for the vagaries of the climate, viz:
It’s the sun, stupid.
And in fact, when I first started looking at the climate I thought the very same thing. How could it not be the sun, I reasoned, since obviously that’s what heats the planet.
Unfortunately, the dang facts got in the way again …
Chief among the dang facts is that despite looking in a whole lot of places, I never could find any trace of the 11-year sunspot cycle in any climate records. And believe me, I’ve looked.
You see, I reasoned that no matter whether the mechanism making the sun-climate connection were direct variations in the brightness of the sun, or variations in magnetic fields, or variations in UV, or variations in cosmic rays, or variations in the solar wind, they all run in synchronicity with the sunspots. So no matter the mechanism, it would have a visible ~11-year heartbeat.
I’ve looked for that 11-year rhythm every place I could think of—surface temperature records, sea level records, lake level records, wheat price records, tropospheric temperature records, river flow records. Eventually, I wrote up some of these findings, and I invited readers to point out some record, any record, in which the ~ 11-year sunspot cycle could be seen.
Nothing.
However, I’m a patient man, and to this day, I continue to look for the 11-year cycle. You can’t prove a negative … but you can amass evidence. My latest foray is into the world of atmospheric pressure. I figured that the atmospheric pressure might be more sensitive to variations in something like say the solar wind than the temperature would be.
Let me start, however, by taking a look at the elusive creature at the heart of this quest, the ~11-year sunspot cycle. Here is the periodogram of that cycle, so that we know what kind of signature we’re looking for:
Figure 1. Periodogram, showing the strengths of the various-length cycles in the SIDC sunspot data. In order to be able to compare disparate datasets, the values of the cycles are expressed as a percentage of the total range of the underlying data.
As you’d expect, the main peak is at around 11 years. However, the sunspot cycles are not regular, so we also have smaller peaks at nearby cycle lengths. Figure 2 shows an expanded view of the central part of Figure 1, showing only the range from seven to twenty-five years:
Figure 2. The same periodogram as in Figure 1, but showing only the 7 – 25 year range.
Now, there is a temptation to see the central figure as some kind of regular amplitude-modulated signal, with side-lobes. However, that’s not what’s happening here. There is no regular signal. Instead of there being a regular cycle, the length of the sunspot cycle varies widely, from about nine to about 15 years, with most of them in the 10-12 year range. The periodogram is merely showing that variation in cycle length.
In any case, that’s what we’re looking for—some kind of strong signal, with its peak value in the range of about 10-12 years.
As I mentioned above, when I started looking at the climate, like many people I thought “It’s the sun, stupid”, but I had found no data to back that up. So what did I find in my latest search? Well, sweet Fannie Adams, as our cousins across the pond say … here are my results:
Figure 3. Periodograms of four long-term atmospheric pressure records from around the globe.
There are some interesting features of these records.
First, there is a very strong annual cycle. I expected annual cycles, but not ones that large. These cycles are 30% to 60% of the total range of the data. I assume they result in large part from the prevalence of low-pressure areas associated with storms in the local wintertime, combined with some effect from the variations in temperature. I also note that as expected, Tahiti, being nearest to the equator and with little in the way of either temperature variations or low-pressure storms, has the smallest one-year cycle.
Other than semi-annual and annual cycles, however, there is very little power in the other cycle lengths. Figure 4 shows the expanded version of the same data, from seven to twenty-five years. Note the change in scale.
Figure 4. Periodograms of four long-term atmospheric pressure records from around the globe.
First, note that unlike the size of the annual cycle, which is half the total swing in pressures, none of these cycles have more than about 4% of the total swing of the atmospheric pressure. These are tiny cycles.
Next, generally there is more power in the ~ 9-year and the ~ 13-14 year ranges than there is in the ~ 11-year cycles.
So … once again, I end up back where I started. I still haven’t found any climate datasets that show any traces of the 11-year sunspot cycles. They may be there in the pressure data, to be sure, it is impossible to prove a negative, I can’t say they’re not there … but if so, they are hiding way, way down in the weeds.
Which of course leads to the obvious question … why no sign of the 11-year solar cycles?
I hold that this shows that the temperature of the system is relatively insensitive to changes in forcing. This, of course, is rank heresy to the current scientific climate paradigm, which holds that ceteris paribus, changes in temperature are a linear function of changes in forcing. I disagree. I say that the temperature of the planet is set by a dynamic thermoregulatory system composed of emergent phenomena that only appear when the surface gets hotter than a certain temperature threshold. These emergent phenomena maintain the temperature of the globe within narrow bounds (e.g. ± 0.3°C over the 20th Century), despite changes in volcanoes, despite changes in aerosols, despite changes in GHGs, despite changes in forcing of all kinds. The regulatory system responds to temperature, not to forcing.
And I say that because of the existence of these thermoregulatory systems, the 11-year variations in the sun’s UV and magnetism and brightness, as well as the volcanic variations and other forcing variations … well, they make little difference.
As a result, once again, I open the Quest for the Holy 11-Year Grail to others. I invite those that believe that “It’s the sun, stupid” to show us the terrestrial climate record that has any sign of being correlated with the 11-year sunspot cycles. I’ve looked. Lots of folks have looked … where is that record? I encourage you to employ whatever methods you want to use to expose the connection—cross-correlation, wavelet analysis, spectrum analysis, fourier analysis, the world is your lobster. Report back your findings, I’d like to put this question to bed.
It’s a lovely Saturday in spring, what could be finer? Gotta get outside and study me some sunshine. I wish you all many such days.
w.
For Clarity: If you disagree with someone, please quote their exact words that you disagree with. It avoids all kinds of pernicious misunderstandings, because it lets us all know exactly where you think they went off the rails.
Why The 11-year Cycle?: Because it is the biggest cycle, and we know all of the other cycles (magnetism, TSI, solar wind) move in synchronicity with the sunspots. As a result, if you want to claim that the climate is responding to say a slow, smaller 100-year cycle in the sunspot data, then by the same token it must be responding more strongly to the larger 11-cycle in the sunspot data, and so the effect should be visible there.
The Subject Of This Post: Please do not mistake this quest for the elusive 11-year cycle in climate datasets as an opportunity for you to propound your favorite theory about approximately 43-year pseudo-cycles due to the opposition of Uranus. If you can’t show me a climate dataset containing an 11-year cycle, your hypothesis is totally off-topic for this post. I encourage you to write it up and send it to Anthony, he may publish it, or to Tallbloke, he might also. I encourage everyone to get their ideas out there. Here on this thread, though, I’m looking for the 11-year cycle sunspot cycle in any terrestrial climate records.
The Common Cycles in Figures 3 and 4: Obviously, the four records in Figs. 3 & 4 have a common one-year cycle. As an indication of the sensitivity of the method that I’m using, consider the two other peaks which are common to all four of the records. These are the six-month cycle, and the 9-year cycle. It is well known that the moon raises tides in the atmosphere just as it does in the ocean. The 9-year periodicity is not uncommon in tidal datasets, and the same is true about the 6-month periodicity. I would say that we’re looking at the signature of the atmospheric tides in those cycle lengths.
Variable-Length Cycles, AKA “Pseudocycles” or “Approximate Cycles”: Some commenters in the past have asserted that my method, which I’ve nicknamed “Slow Fourier Analysis” but which actually seems to be a variant of what might be called direct spectrum analysis, is incapable of detecting variable-length cycles. They talk about a cycle say around sixty years that changes period over time.
However, the sunspot cycle is also quite variable in length … and despite that my method not only picks up the most common cycle length, it shows the strength of the sunspot cycles at the other cycle lengths as well.
A Couple of my Previous Searches for the 11-Year Sunspot Cycle:
Looking at four long-term temperature records here.
A previous look at four more long-term temperature records.
Atmospheric Pressure and Sunspot Data:
Tahiti to 1950 and Tahiti 1951 on (note different units)
Darwin to 1950 and Darwin 1951 on (note different units)
Sunspots These are from SIDC. Note that per advice from Leif Svalgaard, in the work I did above the pre-1947 values have been increased by 20% to adjust for the change in counting methods. It does not affect this analysis, you can use either one.
For ease of downloading, I’ve also made up a CSV file containing all of the above data, called Long Term Atmospheric Pressure.csv
And for R users, I’ve saved all 5 data files in R format as “Long Pressure Datasets.tab”
Code: Man, I hate this part … hang on … let me clean it up a bit … OK, I just whacked out piles of useless stuff and ran it in an empty workspace and it seemed to fly. You need two things, a file called madras pressure.R and my Slow Fourier Transform Functions.R. Let me know what doesn’t work.
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I read about 2/3 of the comments, and from the information in Willis’ post and the comments, it is my belief that you will never find a suitable “cycle.
In the first place, the sunspot cycle is not ~11 years, but varies considerably according to the graphs in the post.
Secondly, temperature, pressure, rainfall each have their own cycles.
Without getting any further involved, simply combining the additive effects of the cycles noted would result in a relatively chaotic overall “cycle”.
Even if powerful computing equipment could determine a cycle, daily changes in something as simple as construction activity would alter the computed “cycle”.
Over geologic time, the extremes of change in thins such as [plate] tectonics, sea level rise/fall, changes in ocean area and volcanism would ruin the most complex computations that could be imagined.
It is my opinion that the problem Willis encountered is essentially analogous to peeling an onion, albeit a very big one: as more is learned, there is even more that remains to be learned if one is to ever solve the puzzle.
I’m thinking thermostat effect. The sun’s activity has to remain elevated or depressed for some time before the increase or decrease triggers global warming or cooling. Kind of like the formation of thunderstorms and how they might continue even though the temperature has dropped below the level necessary to trigger a thunderstorm?
Willis
Your posts are always thought provoking, which I appreciate. Even the non-scientific ones.
I have three questions:
1. Isn’t the information always in the modulation rather than the carrier, regardless of the frequency of the carrier? There seems to be both amplitude and frequency modulation going on with the 11 year sunspot cycle. Perhaps the pertinent information is in the area under the curve (average power), rather than the peak of the signal.
2 I realize there is a very long record of sunspot activity, but is the number of visible sunspots really a good proxy for how much of the EME’s hit the earth? Of the sunspots that are counted, very few are pointed directly at us. The Earth is a very tiny target for the sun, so perhaps we should only be concerned about those that impact the earth.
3. What is required is how warm is the earth at any given moment. ignoring the “adjustments”, UHI and siting issues, is air temperature the best indicator of that? Is it appropriate to derive an average air temperature from min/max temperatures?
Had the article author been a real scientist, he would have understood that his arguments are as valid as the wellknown usage of valid but in sound fallacies proving the moon to be a cheese He would have known but that that doesn’t make a conclusion true. In other words arguments can one by one can be valid, but only if the premises for the arguments are sound it’s possible to draw conclusion . If not than reality wins over fiction.
If an argument is valid and its premises are true, the argument is sound. If an argument is not sound it is unsound. An argument can be valid even if its premises are false—but such an argument is unsound. For instance, the following argument is valid but unsound:
Cheese more than a billion years old is stale. The Moon is made of cheese. The Moon is more than a billion years old. Therefore, the Moon is stale cheese.
If all three premises were true, the conclusion would have to be true. The argument is valid despite the fact that the Moon is not made of cheese, but the argument is unsound—because the Moon is not made of cheese. Chapter 16, Propositional Logic, discusses validity and soundness in more detail.
The logical form of the argument just above is (roughly):
For any x, if x is A and x is B then x is C. y is A. y is B. Therefore, y is C. [+]
…….
An argument consists of a sequence of statements. One is the conclusion; the rest are premises. The premises are given as evidence that the conclusion is true. If the conclusion must be true if the premises were true, the argument is valid. A valid argument is sound if its premises are true. Valid arguments result from applying correct rules of reasoning. Examples of correct rules of reasoning include:
• A or not A.
• Not (A and not A).
• A. B. Therefore, A and B.
• A. Therefore, A or B.
• A and B. Therefore, A.
• A or B. Not A. Therefore, B.
• Not A. Therefore, not (A and B).
• Not (A and B). Therefore, (not A) or (not B).
• Not (A or B). Therefore, (not A) and (not B).
• If A then B. A. Therefore, B.
• If A then B. Not B. Therefore, not A.
Validity and soundness, Valid rules of reasoning paragraph in Chapter 2 Reasoning and Fallacies, stat.berkeley.edu
Some people calling themself scholars must have been asleep during Theories of Science lessons…….
I’m with Alec here. The sun is not heating the wheat in England or the rain in Spain. It is not heating the Nile (very much). It is heating the ocean and the land. The land pretty much blows it off the next night. The ocean stores it for…the ENSO cycle, the AMO cycle, maybe the PDO cycle. The net effect is that always the ocean heats the atmosphere somewhere, sometime with varying lags and spatial distribution.
I’ve been in Maui a few days pondering the trades wrecking havoc with a southwest swell. When we take a typical graph of an oscillation it is essentially one dimensional with time. So we are really in a four dimensional realm and only two are represented in the graph. We are trying to deconstruct a 4d signal from an unknown number of components in 2d.
What the trades are doing is introducing a chop with a much higher frequency than the southwest swell. The incidence is maybe 45 degrees north of the swell. Occasionally a large wave comes along that seems to be at an average of the competing angles.
You are right as far as you go. All we can do is watch and learn.
The solar magnetic cycle most certainly modulates planetary climate and we are going to have a front row seat to watch the cooling phase of a Dansgaard-Oeschger cycle. Willis you are plotting the wrong variables.
GCR at high latitudes is modulated by the solar heliosphere strength, extent, and density which lags sunspot count by two or three years.
Planetary cloud cover at high latitudes increases when GCR is high and decreases when GCR is low however as noted below solar wind bursts over ride GCR and can therefore if the solar wind bursts occur at solar minimum which they have make it appear the that GCR does not modulate planetary cloud cover.
Solar wind bursts (not the speed of the solar wind but rather the change in the speed of the solar wind) creates a space charge differential in the ionosphere which in turn removes cloud forming ions. The solar wind bursts are caused by both sunspots and low latitude solar coronal holes which last for two or three solar rotations. The coronal holes have for some unknown reason (the cause of coronal holes is not understood) been appearing in low latitude regions of the sun at the end of solar cycles which creates solar wind bursts.
The solar wind bursts by the process called electroscavenging remove ions from both high latitude regions and equatorial regions. Even when GCR is high if there are high solar wind bursts the GCR created ions are removed which causes a reduction in cloud cover in high latitude regions. The solar wind bursts late in the solar cycle make it appear that changes to GCR do not affect high latitude planetary cloud cover.
The change in charge caused by the solar wind bursts at the equator changes the number and size of droplets in the clouds which in turn changes the amount of upward long wave radiation that absorbed by the clouds. This mechanism amplifies El Niño and La Niña events.
As noted in the AGU conference Oct, 2013 the solar heliosphere density has reduced by approximately 40%. The reduction in the density of the solar heliosphere density has reduced the magnetic field intensity of the solar wind bursts. The solar wind bursts relative strength is measured by how much they effect the geomagnetic field in a three hour period (Ap). As noted it the short term change in the solar wind speed that controls how large the affect is (in addition the magnetic field strength of the wind burst itself.)
There is a fundamental error concerning the solar model which is the physical reason why the GCR mechanism has been inhibited for roughly 7 years. The fundamental error when corrected will have a profound effect on both cosmology, climatology, and geophysics. I will explain the details of this issue when there is unequivocal cooling.
This graph shows GCR at high a high latitude region. As the graph shows the GCR level is very high.
http://cosmicrays.oulu.fi/webform/query.cgi?startday=27&startmonth=03&startyear=1975&starttime=00%3A00&endday=27&endmonth=04&endyear=2014&endtime=00%3A00&resolution=Automatic+choice&picture=on
Persistent solar signatures in cloud cover: spatial and temporal analysis
Voiculescu & Usoskin 2012
“We have analyzed the coherence between the time variations of two solar proxy drivers, cosmic ray ionization and UV irradiance, on one hand, and low, middle and high clouds, on the other hand, in order to check the persistence of solar signal in cloud cover between 1984 and 2009. Coherence plaots show that for most of the selected regions cloud type varies in phase or anti-phase with solar activity, depending on cloud type and geographical region. The area where the confidence level is greater than 95% is large in many of the coherence plots, which can hardly be a random coincidence.”
Sounds like a heat transport effect to me but that’s just a guess. Don’t count solar out yet.
It seems to me that if I wanted to look for the signature of the eleven-year solar cycle in some other climate data, I would focus on high resolution and low noise data like atmospheric CO2. I would ask questions like: Does the magnitude of the seasonal fluctuation change at all on an 11-year cycle? I’m not a climate scientist, but it seems to me like the temperature records and other climate data are way too noisy to be able to find a tiny contribution from the solar cycle.
Solar power is a constant and large source of energy for the earth, so changes to climate will not be easy to measure. It seems unlikely that an 11 year cycle will be seen in any length of climate record due to the fact that noise in the system will be higher than the overall effect. the 11 year cycle is most likely modulating longer term cycles such as ENSO,PDO or AMO etc eg-
http://www.nature.com/ncomms/journal/v2/n2/full/ncomms1186.html
the spectrogram in that (fig 5) shows an approx 60yr cycle which would fit.
the point is though that I never thought i would read this- “So no matter the mechanism, it would have a visible ~11-year heartbeat.” from willis. I just dont understand how one goes from the questioning to the assertive with so little actually known about the ‘mechanisms’ and how the sun affects our climate.
the only real evidence that stands up so far is that changes in the solar energy reaching the earth (in some form or another) directly affect our climate in relatively short periods of time (hundreds of years). it is up to us to find the hows and whys, not just declare that it cant be the sun, stupid!
Color me stupid, but why, Willis, are you using atmospheric pressure records instead of atmospheric temperature records?
William Astley says:
May 24, 2014 at 9:36 pm
The solar wind bursts relative strength is measured by how much they effect the geomagnetic field in a three hour period (Ap).
Apart from yuor musings being incorrect, e.g. as shown by the direct observations of Ap shows both a solar cycle and the lack of any trend over the last 170 years http://www.leif.org/research/Ap-1844-now.png
Yep, can’t see any reason why you’d use atmospheric pressure records instead of temperature records. Care to redo with the proper sort of records?
Willis, how come dependent on the orbit and angle towards the sun, do we get season? Sunspots do have a degree of influence on rain and cloud formation. I see where you are coming from. Earth reflects heat into the lower atmosphere, UHI, but without clouds the heat is no kept down under then. See how deserts are hot during day and freezing during the night without clouds. And of course all living organisms can get sunburned.
I have no idea what your “periodogram” is, but the “11 year” cycle in it is rather small.
Why?
The 200 year period in your “periodogram” – whatever it is – is evidently much more powerful (integral under the curve).
I´d expect the climate responses to the 200 year cycle, rather than to the 11 year artefact.
alex says:
May 24, 2014 at 10:13 pm
I´d expect the climate responses to the 200 year cycle, rather than to the 11 year artefact.
So compare the climate now with that of 200 years ago…
I am out of town and away from my computer but I always thought this was an interesting correlation
http://climatechange.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=003801
Willis says….”Why The 11-year Cycle?: Because it is the biggest cycle” and ….
“The earth’s temperature swings on the order of 6°C peak to peak over the course of a year. Why would it not respond over an 11-year period?”
I think you may be incorrect on both counts. We may not know what the biggest solar cycle is.
The 11 year period may not be of adequate length to measure an input that may take far longer to manifest in the atmosphere, and may last far longer then 11 years.
In my view the money quote in Monckton’s post was this…”One should not expect the ~11-year cycle to have a major influence on global temperature, owing to the homoeostatic effect of the two boundaries of the atmosphere: the near-infinite heat-sink that is the ocean and the infinite heat-sink that is outer space. Temperature will only change significantly if there is a sufficiently long period of persistently higher-than-normal solar activity (as there was during most of the past century) or lower-than-normal solar activity”
The GHE works on the principle of increasing the residence time of radiant energy in the earth’s atmosphere. (Some of the Energy that would normally escape to space via radiation is instead redirected back towards the surface, or is conducted to from additional GHG molecules to non GHG molecules.) While this energy stays longer, additional energy enters, thus more energy = warming. Basically warming or cooling comes down to the residence time of the energies involved.
In order to determine where to look for a solar affect on climate, it would be wise to know the residence times of disparate solar spectrum. Some of the solar energy can penetrate up to 800′ in the deep oceans. The residence time of solar energy is dependent on the wavelength of said radiant energy, and the materials it encounters. Some of that energy may well stay within the oceans for decades, or centuries. As such it may take decades or centuries to reach the atmosphere in order to manifest as a GAT.
Also remember it is competing with dozens of other GAT factors, all changing on different time scales, some cyclical, some not, but definitively existing within an inherently chaotic system. As such we may not be capable of determining one affect as, due to different factors rarely repeating on the same scale and cycle, any one affect may not manifest in the same way each time.
Willis, this rational approach of yours is only going to upset most of the followers of this site.
LT says:
May 24, 2014 at 10:22 pm
I am out of town and away from my computer but I always thought this was an interesting correlation
http://climatechange.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=003801
==================================================================
It is interesting. As the Arctic atmosphere is composed of much lower energy then the tropics, it is logical to think it may be more sensitive to solar input. (Although I tend to think it is very sensitive to ocean currents.)
What is the arctic T based on in this chart?
In reading the above comments I notice many contrasting views, some showing support for different complicates aspects of solar factors, some showing inconsistency, much like Willis has showed with the projected volcanic affect, much like skeptics show with CO2, much like can be found with any one factor competing in a soup of different ingredients.
It is possible that major shifts in climate (other then those caused by one off or extinction events) mainly occur only when several strong factors all come together in harmonic resonance.
Willis: “So no matter the mechanism, it would have a visible ~11-year heartbeat.”
You need to look at 94-year trend to look earth’s response to the climate. 11-years is two short for the earth’s ocean to respond to the sun spot variation.
Charles Nelson says:
May 24, 2014 at 5:39 pm
Normally I wouldn’t do this but Mr Eschenbach has attempted to slight me by saying my lake level graph is hilarious. Well, it is someone else’s graph in the first instance. As for the evidence provided by that graph, as the Bible says “There are none so blind as those who will not see.” Mr Eschenbach has not been able to determine the physical basis of the Sun – climate relationship. In his mind, if he can’t do it, then it doesn’t exist. Also in his mind, that means that others who have provided evidence for the relationship are wrong, and fools for even attempting. But why, you would then ask yourself, did he feel compelled to go on the public record with this “garbage” post? A post which betrays a refusal to accept scientific reality in the form of the papers of Solheim et al, amongst hundreds of others?
lsvalgaard says:
May 24, 2014 at 10:16 pm
So compare the climate now with that of 200 years ago…
……………..
Yes, but the problem is we have only 400 years of direct sunspot observations and only 100 years of relatively good temperature measurements. This is barely too small to compare.
Anyway, any theory must have a predictive value. This means, we have to wait for another 1000 years or so…
David,
Forgive me I’m doing this from my iPhone and I can’t read the paper to find the source of the Arctic temperature but I believe this is the paper that the graph was lifted from
http://www.oism.org/pproject/GWReview_OISM150.pdf
Willis about 1990 I was on my schooner about 80 miles from la pas in baja the substellar point of a eclipse of the sun, it took about six minutes. My grandchilderen were with me, so I got them to measure the temperature change. As I recall we lost about 20 degrees F starting from about F. The birds settled down and the fish begain jumping. I would estimate the temperature fall to be around120 Degrees in say about 4Hr. Anyone saying the sun does not change the earths temperuature needs to spend a year above 60N or S by the following February or August they would have better understanding of weather.