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Has solar activity influence on the Earth’s global warming?
A recent study demonstrates the existence of significant resonance cycles and high correlations between solar activity and the Earth’s averaged surface temperature during centuries. This provides a new clue to reveal the phenomenon of global warming in recent years.
Their work, entitled “Periodicities of solar activity and the surface temperature variation of the Earth and their correlations” was published in CHINESE SCIENCE BULLETIN (In Chinese) 2014 No.14.
The co-corresponding authors are Dr. Zhao Xinhua and Dr. Feng Xueshang from State key laboratory of space weather, CSSAR/NSSC, Chinese Academy of Sciences. It adopts the wavelet analysis technique and cross correlation method to investigate the periodicities of solar activity and the Earth’s temperature as well as their correlations during the past centuries.
Global warming is one of the hottest and most debatable issues at present. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) claimed that the release of the anthropogenic greenhouse gases contributed to 90% or even higher of the observed increase in the global average temperature in the past 50 years. However, the debate on the causes of the global warming never stops. Research shows that the current warming does not exceed the natural fluctuations of climate. The climate models of IPCC seem to underestimate the impact of natural factors on the climate change, while overstate that of human activities. Solar activity is an important ingredient of natural driving forces of climate. Therefore, it is valuable to investigate the influence of solar variability on the Earth’s climate change on long time scales.
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This study also implies that the “modern maximum” of solar activity agrees well with the recent global warming of the Earth. A significant correlation between them can be found (Figure 2).
As pointed out by a peer reviewer, “this work provides a possible explanation for the global warming”.
See the article:
ZHAO X H, FENG X S. Periodicities of solar activity and the surface temperature variation of the Earth and their correlations (in Chinese). Chin Sci Bull (Chin Ver), 2014, 59: 1284, doi: 10.1360/972013-1089 http://csb.scichina.com:8080/kxtb/CN/abstract/abstract514043.shtml
Science China Press Co., Ltd. (SCP) is a scientific journal publishing company of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). For 60 years, SCP takes its mission to present to the world the best achievements by Chinese scientists on various fields of natural sciences researches.
I wonder how long it will take before the powers that be to try and take this apart!
I thought Willis just debunked any 11-year cycle?
Except that there very likely was no Modern Grand Maximum [see e.g. slide 29 of]
http://www.leif.org/research/Confronting-Models-with-Reconstructions-and-Data.pdf
I believe Al Gore said “Bullshit” to this concept.
Duh… wait 1, 2, 3 LEIF!!!! LOL
I wonder how long it will take before the powers that be to try and take this apart!
It’s a scientific paper. We should all be trying to take it apart, same as any other paper.
A bit OT – The Portland, ME Press Herald has a headline article this AM. It states that Maine has been warming over the past 30 years at a higher rate than any other state bar one and that Climate Change is here! Is this just manipulation of data or what?? The article seems to be based on a reporter’s analysis of NOAA data plus a lot of anecdotal evidence. TRUE?? Is there a good counter to this?
The climate models of IPCC seem to underestimate the impact of natural factors on the climate change, while overstate that of human activities…..so more Chinese coal plants are fine
Mann-handling is imminent.
Beware of giving support to a study simply because it is in line with what you believe. I don’t have the credentials to check their science, so have to rely on their credibility. Given that China is leads the world in actual pollution, and not just co2, and all science is state funded, I’m not sure how much faith to put in this.
Am looking forward to reading letters from people who do have the ability to check the science.
wow, this paper isnt even bad.
As leif points out there is no modern solar max.
here is a clue guys. If you are working with solar data you had better be aware to the state of the science and the work that Leif and others are completing. Publishing anything that assumes a modern solar max, is just asking for trouble and embarassment.
Also, read the abstract to get some idea of the R^2 found and pay close attention:
基于太阳黑子历史数据、太阳总辐照（TSI）重构数据和实测地球表面平均温度数据（全球、陆地、海洋），利用小波分析和交叉相关分析等方法，考察了太阳活动和地表温度变化在数百年时间尺度上的周期性及相关性. 主要结果有：（1） 在所考察的时间范围内，太阳活动（包括黑子和太阳总辐照）存在4个置信度高于95%（白噪声）的主周期变化，分别为11 a周期、50 a周期、世纪周期和双世纪周期，全球温度存在64.3 a的主周期变化，接近太阳活动的50 a周期；（2） 太阳活动与全球温度变化具有22，50 a的显著共振周期；（3） 太阳活动与地表温度长期变化的相关性高于其短期变化的相关性，以黑子为例，它与地表温度年均值的相关系数为0.31~0.35，11 a滑动平均值相关系数为0.58~0.70，22 a滑动平均值相关系数为0.64~0.78，太阳总辐照与地表温度的相关性高于黑子与地表温度的相关性；（4） 太阳活动在近100年里有明显增强，它与全球温度（包括陆地、海洋）近百年的升温是一致的，太阳活动与海洋温度的相关性略高于太阳活动与陆地温度的相关性. 这些结果表明，太阳活动在百年时间尺度上对于地表温度的变化具有不可忽略的影响.
The Chinese “powers to be” are not the same as the American and EU ones. This is not the only such paper that points at the sun, published in the Chinese Science Bulletin. It is clear that the Chinese leadership wants to have an independent opinion on this, their own, and supports their scientists’ independent efforts. This also suggests that American and EU scientists, who have difficulties publishing their work, because it questions the dogma imposed by their colleagues, should look towards the Chinese Science Bulletin, also Japanese and Korean journals as an alternative publishing venue.
Except Leif says it’s wrong…
so more Chinese coal plants are fine
And fewer American coal plants are even better.
Steven Mosher,
So, you read Chinese? Give us an abstract! ☺
Best Steve Mosher drive by yet, done with a QBZ-95 I’d say 😉
@Gustav
That is quite correct.
And the Chinese burn the coal, their own and vast amounts of imports.
“this work provides a possible explanation for the global warming”.
Possible. That sounds like science. Not the rote meme of others that “the science is settled”.
Abstract, courtesy of Google translate:
Based on historical data of sunspots , the total solar irradiance (TSI) data reconstructed and measured the Earth’s average surface temperature data ( global , land, sea ) , using wavelet analysis and cross- correlation analysis method to study solar activity and changes in surface temperature periodic and correlation time scale for centuries the main results are: ( 1 ) within the study time frame , solar activity ( including sunspots and solar total irradiance ) the existence of four confidence level higher than 95% ( white noise ) of the main cycle , namely 11 a cycle , 50 a cycle , cycle century and double century cycle , the presence of 64.3 a global temperature change of the primary cycle , nearly 50 a cycle of solar activity ; ( 2 ) solar activity and global temperature change significantly with 22,50 a resonance cycle ; ( 3 ) solar activity and long-term changes in surface temperature above its short-term correlation between changes in correlation with sunspots , for example, it is the annual average surface temperature with a correlation coefficient of 0.31 ~ 0.35,11 a moving average correlation coefficient was 0.58 ~ 0.70,22 a sliding average of the correlation coefficient from 0.64 to 0.78 , the correlation of the total solar irradiance and surface temperature is higher than the correlation between sunspots and the surface temperature ; ( 4 ) sun Events in the last 100 years has significantly enhanced its global temperatures ( including land, sea ) in the past century warming is consistent, slightly higher than the correlation between solar activity and ocean temperature solar activity and terrestrial temperature correlation of these results indicate that solar activity on centennial timescales for surface temperature changes have a non-negligible impact.
If they disagree with Leif it’s whatever Leif says. They should have asked his permission to publish.
This is in agreement with my “dumbstuff” model of TSI v. Hadcrut from 1850-2013. It has an r-squared of .61 and explains what happened since 1998.
Google Translate of Mr Mosher’s post:
“Based on historical data of sunspots , the total solar irradiance (TSI) data reconstructed and measured the Earth’s average surface temperature data ( global , land, sea ) , using wavelet analysis and cross- correlation analysis method to study solar activity and changes in surface temperature periodic and correlation time scale for centuries the main results are: ( 1 ) within the study time frame , solar activity ( including sunspots and solar total irradiance ) the existence of four confidence level higher than 95% ( white noise ) of the main cycle , namely 11 a cycle , 50 a cycle , cycle century and double century cycle , the presence of 64.3 a global temperature change of the primary cycle , nearly 50 a cycle of solar activity ; ( 2 ) solar activity and global temperature change significantly with 22,50 a resonance cycle ; ( 3 ) solar activity and long-term changes in surface temperature above its short-term correlation between changes in correlation with sunspots , for example, it is the annual average surface temperature with a correlation coefficient of 0.31 ~ 0.35,11 a moving average correlation coefficient was 0.58 ~ 0.70,22 a sliding average of the correlation coefficient from 0.64 to 0.78 , the correlation of the total solar irradiance and surface temperature is higher than the correlation between sunspots and the surface temperature ; ( 4 ) sun Events in the last 100 years has significantly enhanced its global temperatures ( including land, sea ) in the past century warming is consistent, slightly higher than the correlation between solar activity and ocean temperature solar activity and terrestrial temperature correlation of these results indicate that solar activity on centennial timescales for surface temperature changes have a non-negligible impact.”
Personally very sceptical of this. Correlation is not proof, and there is plenty of evidence – as Mr LS points out – that there is no modern solar maximum anyway.
I think research into the 1980-2000 warming and subsequent “hiatus” would more fruitfully be directed at ocean cycles and climate sensitivity (or lack thereof).
Is this basically a problem of torturing data that is limited to begin with, like counting El Ninos events across time if there were no other details on size, etc.?
Re: AlBeaMaine at June 5, 2014 at 9:24 am
The Boston Globe carried a similar article today US hottest spots of warming: Northeast, Southwest
,
“To determine what parts of the country have warmed the most, The Associated Press analyzed National Climatic Data Center temperature trends in the lower 48 states, 192 cities, and 344 smaller regions within the states. Climate scientists suggested 1984 as a starting date because 30 years is a commonly used time period, and 1984, which had an average temperature, is not a cherry-picked year to skew a trend either way. The trend was calculated by the NCDC using the least squares regression method, which is a standard statistical tool.”
May I remind everyone of WUWT Quote of the Week #11?
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/06/21/quote-of-the-week-11/
Jack Eddy: “Were God to give us, at last, the cable, or patch-cord that links the Sun to the Climate System it would have on the solar end a banana plug, and on the other, where it hooks into the Earth—in ways we don’t yet know—a Hydra-like tangle of multiple 24-pin parallel computer connectors. It is surely at this end of the problem where the greatest challenges lie.”
Perhaps Solar Physicists should not be too sure of their subject…
Since it is in Chinese, it hasn’t been peer reviewed by the Team, and so doesn’t count.
Move along.
Yeah, but you can’t always trust the Chinese. I once read that the ‘ancient Chinese secret’ to getting out tough stains in clothes was actually Calgon detergent. Ancient Chinese secret, huh?
The solar-climate link (if it exists) appears to end in about 1975. Funnily enough that’s just about the time that the warmists claim that ghg-enhanced warming could be detected from natural variability.
Did a Chinese Michael Mann author this paper?
What has the dictator, Obama, have to say about this?
The plot from paper suggests recent warming has suddenly broken out of mere solar influence, alarmingly.
I thought Willis just debunked any 11-year cycle?
This is not an 11-year cycle. this is the first solar maximum since 450 BC. Still not much TSI variation, but there’s more to it than that. Worth a wait-and-see.
Meh…
There’s no reason to post that lame Google translation. The link provided has a readable English translation:
Abstract：
Based on the well-calibrated systematiCmeasurements of sunspot numbers, the reconstructed data of the total solar irradiance (TSI), and the observed anomalies of the Earth’s averaged surface temperature (global, ocean, land), this paper investigates the periodicities of both solar activity and the Earth’s temperature variation as well as their correlations on the time scale of centuries using the wavelet and cross correlation analysis techniques. The main results are as follows. (1) Solar activities (including sunspot number and TSI) have four major periodic components higher than the 95% significance level of white noise during the period of interest, i.e. 11-year period, 50-year period, 100-year period, and 200-year period. The global temperature anomalies of the Earth have only one major periodic component of 64.3-year period, which is close to the 50-year cycle of solar activity. (2) Significant resonant periodicities between solar activity and the Earth’s temperature are focused on the 22- and 50-year period. (3) Correlations between solar activity and the surface temperature of the Earth on the long time scales are higher than those on the short time scales. As far as the sunspot number is concerned, its correlation coefficients to the Earth temperature are 0.31-0.35 on the yearly scale, 0.58-0.70 on the 11-year running mean scale, and 0.64-0.78 on the 22-year running mean scale. TSI has stronger correlations to the Earth temperature than sunspot number. (4) During the past 100 years, solar activities display a clear increasing tendency that corresponds to the global warming of the Earth (including land and ocean) very well. Particularly, the ocean temperature has a slightly higher correlation to solar activity than the land temperature. All these demonstrate that solar activity has a non-negligible forcing on the temperature change of the Earth on the time scale of centuries.
That’s a great quote from Jack Eddy. He had a good sense of humor, and, it appears, awareness of the unreliability of science to always produce definitive answers.
I’m not a scientist, but that seems like a useful message. From what I’ve seen, it’s inevitable that we have to try every wrong connection before we get the plug that fits.
Bill Parsons says:
June 5, 2014 at 12:04 pm
There’s no reason to post that lame Google translation. The link provided has a readable English translation:
I confess to being intrigued by the comment “lame Google translation” and don’t know the source of the “…provided…readable English translation.” I did an uneducated comparison to shed some light on the difference. The provided translation has 30 more words and considerable more context and explanation. Would be interested in comments about the differences from the subject experts.
@ Leif
Could you provide raw SSN4 data? My eyeball still detects a modern maximum, how “grand” it is I don’t know.
Interesting. A few years ago I did my own similar model. My analysis was mostly “physics based” (rather than purely statistical) with a tiny number of adjustable parameters (each parameter an estimate of an established physical property). It spanned the mid 1700s to now (based on data I could download). I accounted for volcanic activity.
Keeping it simple: My results said “the Sun ‘seems’ somehow responsible” for the temperature changes over the last couple hundred years (both amplitude and periodicity). But, the exact heating/cooling mechanism was not presupposed or elucidated.
So, this paper’s result is not surprising. However, I don’t know if their methods are sound.
John West says:
June 5, 2014 at 12:35 pm
Leif’s team is trying to enforce their change in the way sunspot numbers are counted, which just happens to get rid of the grand maximum so odious to CACA advocates. No doubt a coincidence.
“I thought Willis just debunked any 11-year cycle?”
He didn’t debunk anything. He merely was unable to find any 11-year cycles in the temperature data he was looking at. Absence of discovering cycles is not proof of absence of cycles.
Why do we think it’s easy to find true cycles in data? Is it as simple as applying Fourier transforms to sampled data and declaring every peak that pops up a cycle?
So it seems that there are 11-year cycles in solar sunspot cycles. Yet this periodicity wasn’t discovered until 1843 (by Schwabe), a hundred years or so after modern systematic observations started in the 18th century (and earlier, before the Maunder Minimum).
Actually, there is a bit of uncertainty on how many cycles have occurred since 1755. It is claimed that SC 4 (1784-1798) consisted two cycles, based on sightings of high-North latitude sunspots in 1793) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_cycle_4
Usoskin, I. G.; Mursula, K.; Arlt, R.; Kovaltsov, G. A. (2009). “A Solar Cycle Lost in 1793-1800: Early Sunspot Observations Resolve the Old Mystery”. The Astrophysical Journal, http://iopscience.iop.org/1538-4357/700/2/L154/
So which cycle are we currently in? SC24 or SC25?
Leif, what say you? (I know you take a dim view of cycle-mania)
The modern maximum isn’t real? If cycle 25 turns out to be as some predict then what would you call the period of relatively high solar activity between the Dalton Minimum and cycle 25, the modern not-so-maximum but still relatively active compared to bounding cycles period? Modern Maximum has a nicer ring to it.
That circa 20-yr periodicity shows up
in a good number of climatological series.
John West says:
June 5, 2014 at 12:35 pm
Could you provide raw SSN4 data? My eyeball still detects a modern maximum, how “grand” it is I don’t know.
There is a local maximum in the 20th century, and in the 19th, and in the 18th, …
None of them ‘Grand’.
daymite says:
June 5, 2014 at 12:55 pm
Leif, what say you? (I know you take a dim view of cycle-mania)
There is no good evidence for a missing cycle. Claims that a cycle was lost go back at least 150 years.
Whoever claims there was no solar activity peak towards the end of the 20th century will have a problem with Steinhilber, et al., doi:10.1073/pnas.1118965109, Usoskin, Living Rev. Solar Phys., 5, (2008), 3, Georgieva, et al., Mem. S.A.It. Vol. 76, 969, Vieira, et al., doi:10.1051/0004-6361/201015843, Lockwood, et al., doi:10.5194/angeo-31-1979-2013, Avakyan, doi:10.1134/S1019331613030015, and quite number of other authors, and, of course, the measurements they talk about.
Even with Leifs adjusted numbers there is a modern maximum but he does not want to understand the difference between peak power and energy so the disinformation continues.
http://virakkraft.com/Solar-GISS.png
So… maybe it’s just me, but I’m put off by bad grammar, run-on sentences, confusing syntax, etc., and unlike Mr. Mosher, lack the facility with decoding to translate the meaning from the original Chinese. So I go looking for a usable translation. Like you, I tried reading a few of the posted Google translations, got burned by the opening (what looked like) run-on-sentence, and when all else had failed, went back and re-read the o.p. The link was there
http://csb.scichina.com:8080/kxtb/CN/abstract/abstract514043.shtml
Google translator mangles most languages, so, on scanning the translations, wasn’t surprised to see things like “11 a cycle , 50 a cycle , cycle century and double century cycle”, etc. I get that the “a” in this case must be Google’s shorthand for annum or years… just don’t like having to use quite so much of my brain to figure it out.
We can say that sunspot cycle, geomagnetic activity steadily rose from around 1910 to 1957. Then steadily declined until now, where it hit the floor. Didn’t quite hit the ceiling, oh well.
I see there is slowly growing a split between East and West on the subject of climate change. Good news for the conference next year in Paris, no consensus Russia, China and the Middle East and other oil producing countries versus Europe and USA. A standoff will be the result.
Further I want to add that it doesn’t matter anymore what the content of the scientific article is, pseudoscience is sufficient for the political leaders.
Gustav says:
June 5, 2014 at 1:23 pm
Whoever claims there was no solar activity peak towards the end of the 20th century will have a problem with Steinhilber, et al., doi:10.1073/pnas.1118965109, Usoskin, Living Rev. Solar Phys., 5, (2008),…
Perhaps those people are the ones with the problem. Take for example Usoskin and Steinhilber and compare their data as I do in slide 6 of
http://www.leif.org/research/The%20long-term%20variation%20of%20solar%20activity.pdf
or look at slide 45 that shows the Steinhilber data since 1700. Further comparisons can be found in http://www.leif.org/research/Confronting-Models-with-Reconstructions-and-Data.pdf [see e.g. last slide].
Now, there is a concerted effort to push the notion of a Modern Grand Maximum in order to provide a natural [?] explanation for ‘Global Warming’. Unfortunately, it doesn’t hold water.
lgl says:
June 5, 2014 at 1:34 pm
Even with Leifs adjusted numbers there is a modern maximum
And there is a 19th century maximum and a an 18th century maximum, too. Some of those are particularly Grand or stand out compared to the other ones.
lgl says:
June 5, 2014 at 1:34 pm
Even with Leifs adjusted numbers there is a modern maximum
And there is a 19th century maximum and a an 18th century maximum, too. None of those are particularly Grand or stand out compared to the other ones.
Leif said:
Now, there is a concerted effort to push the notion of a Modern Grand Maximum in order to provide a natural [?] explanation for ‘Global Warming’. Unfortunately, it doesn’t hold water.
= = =
Now there is a concerted effort by historical revisionists to portray the current temperature regime on Earth as unprecedented so that an unnatural carbon-dioxide forced explanation of the non-warming situation can be used to manufacture consent for genocidal social engineering goals.
But yesterday, i.e., THEN (when warming was real)– it was the sun to blame:
Khwarizmi says:
June 5, 2014 at 3:21 pm
it was the sun to blame
Sure, you blame the one [rightly or wrongly] that fits your agenda.
lsvalgaard says:
June 5, 2014 at 3:35 pm
Leif, the problem we are faced with is that there is no known causal mechanism that vaguely explains intermediate to short geological scale changes. By “short” geologically, I mean variation on the millennial to century level, and by “intermediate” variation on millennial to multimillennial time scales less than Milankovitch scales. The obvious culprit would be the sun, but you say not. It is self-evident to any one that is not a “team” member, and who IS conversant with real paleoenvironmental data that there is nothing unusual about the current “warming,” even if it is not an artifact of “adjustments” by folks like Hansen and Trenberth who blame the data rather than the models. Do you have any “culprits” you consider plausible?
Climate is a complex coupled non-linear system. Complex = many factors. Coupled = the factors interfere with each other. Non-linear = some effects appear random. Even over modest timescales, no factor, including the sun, is likely to have a nice clear-cut linear effect. A factor which has a clear-cut effect over one period of time is likely to have a different effect over other periods. IOW, Jack Eddy was right (Jimmy Haigh. June 5, 2014 at 10:41 am). My understanding is that the best that a study such as this can ever do is to provide clues. Assuming that the work is valid (I have no reason to doubt it) this CSSAR/NSSC study has done that, and Dr. Zhao Xinhua and Dr. Feng Xueshang should be congratulated by all of us for conducting genuine climate science in a world where that is not the norm. Next, mechanisms are needed.
Duster (June 5, 2014 at 4:10 pm): I like your question, but beware the logical fallacy it can lead to. Absence of an alternative theory does not demolish criticism of a proposed theory. IOW, Leif may be right in his criticisms of solar-climate theories even if he can present no alternative. OTOH, my feeling is that Leif’s criticisms of some solar-climate theories [NB solar-climate, not solar] tend to lean on linear thinking and thus may themselves be invalid.
Perhaps I am just a dumb ass, and if so go ahead and call me out but this has me a little troubled:
“Figure 1: The global wavelet coherence between Sunspot number (a), Total Solar Irradiance (b) and the anomalies of the Earth’s averaged surface temperature. The resonant periodicities of 21.3-year (21.5-year), 52.3-year (61.6-year), and 81.6-year are close to the 22-year, 50-year, and 100-year cycles of solar activity.”
OK, 21.3 (21.5) is close to 22 and 52.3 is close to 50 (not so much the 61.6) but what really troubles me is the claim that an 81.6 year cycle is close to a 100 year cycle.. In only 5 cycles you will be an entire cycle off.
What…no Vuk tech talk?
Some people get their knickers in a twist. The conclusion said that the effect of the sun is non-negligible.
Duster says:
June 5, 2014 at 4:10 pm
Leif, the problem we are faced with is that there is no known causal mechanism that vaguely explains intermediate to short geological scale changes
My aim here was much simpler and more direct: did we just have a Modern Grand Maximum? The best data we have says ‘no’, so any claim that something, e.g. climate, is due to the Modern Grand Maximum becomes spurious. This is regardless of whether one is a believer or not of ‘it’s the Sun, stupid’.
Leif, I’m no way near as knowledgeable as yourself and many others on here, I’m wondering if you had some good links to the ‘no solar maximum’ hypothesis. I’m not being facetious I’m really interested in learning about it.
Alex – in science, the wrong result is bad science, but so is the right result for the wrong reason. That’s why some people who think the effect of the sun is significant can still criticise this study.
I thought Willis just debunked any 11-year cycle
=========
Willis sailed south from England and didn’t hit America. From this should we conclude that Willis proved America doesn’t exist?
Compare the rate of temperature change (first derivative of temperature) to the length of the solar cycle and report back.
To understand why this is, Imagine that you are trying to correlate the amount you press the gas pedal to the distance you travel in your car. When you start, you are pressing the gas pedal a lot, but the car is not moving very much. When the car is at speed you are not pressing the gas pedal very much, yet the car is traveling a lot of distance.
We know from experience that the gas pedal does control distance traveled, yet we can see from the above that the relationship does not lend itself to simple statistical analysis. So why should temperature and sunspots be any different?
lsvalgaard says:
June 5, 2014 at 9:06 pm
“My aim here was much simpler and more direct: did we just have a Modern Grand Maximum? The best data we have says ‘no’, so any claim that something, e.g. climate, is due to the Modern Grand Maximum becomes spurious. This is regardless of whether one is a believer or not of ‘it’s the Sun, stupid’.”
Leif, what’s the best data? What’s wrong with these?
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/3/32/Carbon14-sunspot-1000px.png
http://www.mps.mpg.de/3196311/standard_sans_both.jpg
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/sidc-ssn/plot/sidc-ssn/trend/plot/sidc-ssn/from:1800/trend/plot/sidc-ssn/from:1900/trend
Do you think at all that there’s multidecadal and/or multicentennial variability in solar magnetic activity?
Mike Jonas
Grandma knows how to suck eggs
The change in TSI (0.5 W/m^2) is too small to account for the change in temperature (0.8 C). TSI can only account for 0.03 C. If the sun is the cause of global warming, there must be something else other than TSI. Maybe it affects the clouds that produces a bigger forcing.
Edim says:
June 6, 2014 at 12:09 am
Leif, what’s the best data? What’s wrong with these?
Since about 1947 the sunspot number measured in Zurich [and Locarno which all other sunspot counts are normalized to] has been artificially inflated by about 20% by counting larger spots more than once: http://www.leif.org/research/The-Effect-of-Weighting-in-Counting-Sunspots-and-More.pdf
First, the change in TSI is uncertain too (different constants, seasonal cycle..). Second, i think nobody claims it’s the change in TSI and there are many plausible mechanisms. Even a small variability in latitudinal distribution of clouds could do the trick of global warming/cooling.
Dr. Strangelove
TSI variation from 1979 to 1998 was somewhere between 4 and 5 watts per sq mtr
http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/stp/solar/solarirrad.html
Alex says:
June 6, 2014 at 1:37 am
TSI variation from 1979 to 1998 was somewhere between 4 and 5 watts per sq mtr
No, http://www.leif.org/EOS/2011GL046658.pdf
Alex says:
June 6, 2014 at 1:37 am
TSI variation from 1979 to 1998 was somewhere between 4 and 5 watts per sq mtr
No, http://www.leif.org/research/SSN/Froehlich.pdf
lsvalgaard
We are speaking about different things. The paper you referrred me to has nothing to do with TSI measured by satellites. I was just mentioning to Dr Stranglove that his figure of 0.5 watts didn’t seem to match the satellite data. BTW the different satellites seem to give different readings. The difference is up to 10 watts per sq mtr.
When people are discussing earth energy balance and referring to fractions of watts per sq mtr as making some sort of significance then I get suspicious. Particularly as ‘we’ cant even get it right as far as incoming energy from the sun/universe
Off topic
At least we sceptics argue with each other-healthy.
The AGW ers agree with each other-unhealthy
Alex says:
June 6, 2014 at 2:04 am
We are speaking about different things. The paper you referrred me to has nothing to do with TSI measured by satellites.
It most certainly has, but let me give you a few more:
http://www.leif.org/EOS/swsc130036-TSI-Climate.pdf
http://www.leif.org/EOS/TSI-Record-Climate.pdf
The various differences between satellites are due to calibration errors [e.g. correcting for stray light and degradation] and are well-understood. We can measure TSI with precision.
lsvalgaard
Thanks for those links. I will look at them in detail later. My initial skimming of the first link seemed to confirm what I was saying. I will look at them deeper to avoid ‘confirmation bias’ on my part. I have to go have dinner now (as I tell my students). I will definitely look at this stuff and maybe discuss with you later. The thread will probably close soon anyway. I may cross swords with you later. I hope I have something intelligent to say.
lsvalgaard says:
” There is a local maximum in the 20th century, and in the 19th, and in the 18th, …
None of them ‘Grand’.
Again, are you sharing the raw data? And, of course there was a solar maximum and a temperature maximum in the 20th century, and in the 19th, and in the 18th, …
Wow the Sun affects climate ? Thanks. As if we needed yet another [yawn] ‘study’, paid by taxpayers to state the obvious. The entire climate-scam and its gov’t teated funding needs to be stopped. Now.
If the science is settled it is time to stop funding academics in ivory towers to study climate. Rather, the climate money should be going to engineers to design solutions.
The current “proposed” solutions have been designed by politicians, bankers and academics. Would you trust an airplane or a bridge designed by any of these? So why should we trust that they are any better at designing climate solutions?
The problem is very simple. We need X units of energy generation, 7 days a week, 24 hours a day, for similar cost to current coal plants, with zero emissions and zero harmful effects on the environment. And we need it to be able to scale worldwide.
This is not a climate science problem. It is an engineering problem. It is high time the academics, politicians and bankers got out of the way and let the engineers design the solution.
If we took the 100 billion we have spent of climate science and instead offered this as a prize to the company that solves the problem, we would have companies worldwide falling all over themselves, investing their own time and money trying to solve the problem, and it would not cost the taxpayers a dime until a solution was found!
And in return for the 100 billion, we the taxpayers would get a solution that could be licensed worldwide, and the license fees used to repay the100 billion prize money. Instead the US and EU are proposing to set up a 100 billion dollar fund at taxpayer expense to bribe the third world leaders to keep their people in poverty, in perhaps the biggest crime against humanity ever imagined.
Alex says:
June 6, 2014 at 2:52 am
Thanks for those links. I will look at them in detail later. My initial skimming of the first link seemed to confirm what I was saying.
quite the contrary. “As magnetic activity varies through the 11-year solar cycle, this periodicity shows prominently in TSI giving ~0.08% increases during solar maximum”.
I may cross swords with you later
The purpose of this exchange is not to cross swords, but to provide education.
John West says:
June 6, 2014 at 4:30 am
lsvalgaard says:
John West says:
June 5, 2014 at 12:35 pm
Again, are you sharing the raw data?
The detailed data set is still in the works. A preliminary set you can make yourself by simply decreasing the official SIDC values since 1947 by the 20% that was artificially introduced at that time.
lsvalgaard
Your links haven’t shown to me that the TSI doesn’t vary. In fact they have confirmed the opposite. TSI is variable The solar constant is not a constant. Touche
Alex says:
June 6, 2014 at 7:06 am
Your links haven’t shown to me that the TSI doesn’t vary.
TSI varies by 0.08% over a solar cycle [about 1 W/m2]. The much larger variations [5-10 W/m2] that you think you see are due to different calibrations between spacecraft. Those differences are now understood and can be reliably corrected for.
lsvalgaard
Please have the courtesy to look at the link I showed you (it is in fact in the links you showed me). The 10 watts is between various satellites. The 4-5 watts is for specific satellites individually. Calibration will only effect the offset, not the span. I don’t really see that a few watts should make that much difference, but apparently many people will argue about the significance of 0.5 watt.
Alex says:
June 6, 2014 at 7:29 am
Please have the courtesy to look at the link I showed you (it is in fact in the links you showed me). The 10 watts is between various satellites. The 4-5 watts is for specific satellites individually. Calibration will only effect the offset, not the span.
The span is irrelevant because the dips caused by very large sunspots are rare and short-lived and therefore not of interest for climate. The important number is how much TSI varies on, say, a yearly time scale, and that is about 1 W/m2 resulting in a 0.1 degree temperature change.
lsvalgaard
OK. If you say so. You win.
Alex says:
June 6, 2014 at 7:40 am
OK. If you say so.
You should be able to figure that out for yourself…
Belief trumps data. Every time. Blind faith is the hope of every sale and the person behind it. It is the stuff advertising is made of. God could present the it’s-about-time corrected SSN data yet those who will not see because of faith in the old data will continue to hold onto their beliefs as if life itself depended on it. They will stick their fingers in their collective ears, complete with lalalalalalalala, to any discussion of satellite or weighting artifact present in the old data sets, clinging to them with iron-fisted grip.
It is why science is so hard to teach to adults, not so much to teens. Adults have wrapped themselves round with a thick sticky blanket of faith. Teens question everything and have been known to argue with a stop sign. One of the tricks I have used to get teens to grapple with math proofs is to argue with the answer to a mathematical problem as if their parents had just said, “No you can’t go out with your friends.” It works every time in group discussions and nearly always leads to the discovery of at least part of the proof.
Leif, you are up against the sticky blanket of faith.
Pamela Gray says:
June 6, 2014 at 7:44 am
Leif, you are up against the sticky blanket of faith.
In addition to that there are powerful research groups whose funding depends on the old data. Rocking that boat is vigorously resisted…
Pamela Gray
If you are referring to me as some sort of believer then you are wrong. I believe nothing. I backed away from Leif because because I don’t get into a battle of wits with an unarmed man.
Alex says:
June 6, 2014 at 7:54 am
I don’t get into a battle of wits with an unarmed man.
Wits have nothing to do with anything. Data rules, regardless of wits, arms, or other silly things.
Good morning, Leif. Have you written a blog post for WUWT about the grand solar maximum…or lack thereof?
lsvalgaard says:
June 6, 2014 at 1:19 am
“Since about 1947 the sunspot number measured in Zurich [and Locarno which all other sunspot counts are normalized to] has been artificially inflated by about 20% by counting larger spots more than once..”
…”A preliminary set you can make yourself by simply decreasing the official SIDC values since 1947 by the 20% that was artificially introduced at that time.”
Would a 20% decrease in SSN after 1947 reduce the Mean peak in this graph to about 58?
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/sidc-ssn/mean:1008
1. Alex shows Leif a graph that shows TSI (satellite data) of over 4 watts variation.
2. Leif tells Alex that it is irrelevant and it is only 1 watt.
3. Therefore Alex is an idiot
4. Alex does a facepalm and tries to walk away but there are zombies grabbing at his shirt
Bob Tisdale says:
June 6, 2014 at 8:02 am
Good morning, Leif. Have you written a blog post for WUWT about the grand solar maximum…or lack thereof?
No, not specifically. But many of my recent papers and talks touch on that, e.g. http://www.leif.org/research/Solar-Activity-Past-Present-and-Future-Notes.pdf
http://www.leif.org/research/Confronting-Models-with-Reconstructions-and-Data.pdf
http://www.leif.org/research/The%20long-term%20variation%20of%20solar%20activity.pdf
Alex says:
June 6, 2014 at 8:07 am
3. Therefore Alex is an idiot
Or just a slow learner…
Bob Tisdale
You are truly evil
Sparks says:
June 6, 2014 at 8:06 am
Would a 20% decrease in SSN after 1947 reduce the Mean peak in this graph to about 58?
What do you think? Slide 8 of http://www.leif.org/research/Solar-Petaluma–How%20Well%20Do%20We%20Know%20the%20SSN.pdf shows the effect of removal of weighting [here I have increased values before 1947 by 20%]. We now believe it is better to reduce the values after 1947.
Alex, those are “facts”, not zombies tugging at your shirt.
To see why your 10-watt TSI spread is bogus, just need to look at the third chart on Greg Kopp’s TSI page (Greg is the principal investigator for the TIM (Total Invariance Monitor) mission on several of these TSI missions)
http://spot.colorado.edu/~koppg/TSI/
This “Total Solar Invariance Data Record” neatly displays the results of 34 years of research in measuring TSI from outer space. Each cluster of points represents a different mission.
Each mission presents a fairly consistent set of TSI measurements, which tend to sag in the middle, reflecting a strong correlation to solar sunspot activity (plotted at the bottom of the chart). But the total sag amounts to only a watt or so of TSI change induced by solar activity change. So roughly about 0.1% change. (Not very big, IMHO).
But each mission seems to have produced a different average TSI value. Does this mean the TSI actually varied that much over this 34 year period? No, it’s simply a matter of calibration, and learning the correct biases to apply to account for all the solar radiation impinging on the instrument (which BTW is the _total_ EMR spectrum, accounting for _all_ of the electromagnetic energy at all frequencies generated by the SUN).
Up to a few years ago (and still prevalent in many reference books) the value of 1366 was considered the best nominal value for TSI. But more recent research (learning about new calibration issues) has caused that estimate to be lowered to 1362 watts per sq meter, which is currently our ‘best guess’ at average TSI.
Does that help your understanding of what Leif told you? (He can be ornery at times, but is mostly trying to educate us).
Thanks for commenting Dr. S. Always a pleasure to get your take on things.
daymite
I said about 4 watts change up and down per satellite, and 10 watt spread over several satellittes. The new figure you referred me to shows about 1-2 watt. At no point did I refer to sunspots or some personal theory about TSI or its absolute value. I just remarked to someone else on the thread who said 0.5 watt that the figure was different according to NOAA. Then Leif is jumping on my back and answering questions that I didn’t ask. Maybe he is a grumpy old man who can’t tolerate fools. I happen to be a grumpy old man too, and don’t like to be treated like a fool, especially when I am staring at a graph from a reputable source that tells me something different.
I gave the link I was referring to.
I’m not upset but I have lost respect for Leif. Not that that will bother him.
Alex says:
June 6, 2014 at 10:57 am
don’t like to be treated like a fool,
Behave like one and you are treated accordingly. The ‘span’ is irrelevant for the climate as it refers to rare large sunspots and is short-lived excursions. The relevant time scale is years or more and there the ‘swing’ is much smaller [1 W/m2]. You took your span to indicate that TSI was unreliable. Quite the contrary, every satellite shows the same rare excursions. Those are not indications of uncertainty in determination of TSI as you suspected. So, behave as a man and learn.
Alex says:
June 6, 2014 at 2:04 am
When people are discussing earth energy balance and referring to fractions of watts per sq mtr as making some sort of significance then I get suspicious.
The relative uncertainty of TSI [after correcting for scattered light and sensor degradation] is a small fraction of a Watt, e.g. for TIM/SORCE: 0.007 W/m2
Apparently I am misreading the graphs
http://spot.colorado.edu/~koppg/TSI/
Forgive me for interfering with your agenda. Whatever that is.
Your name will never pass my lips again and I will never respond to you again. Deal?
from one fool to another
So, you read Chinese? Give us an abstract
my Korean is better than my Chinese..
직접 가서 지랄
Alex says:
June 6, 2014 at 11:21 am
Apparently I am misreading the graphs
You are misinterpreting what you see. The large excursions are rare and short-lived and irrelevant to the debate about TSI’s influence on climate. They are not indicative of uncertainty of the measurements of TSI. Every satellite will have those same excursions.
Deal?
The greater fool is the one who refuses to learn.
lsvalgaard says:
June 6, 2014 at 8:26 am
“What do you think?”
The peak of that graph above has a data point at about 1966 of 68.0336, a 20% decrease would reduce it to 54.42688, looking at the decreased data point there still appears to be a substantial increase in sunspot activity through the 20 century.
I think the decrease in the more accurate modern sunspot numbers (not counting A+B specks etc..) is preferable to an increase in pre 1947 sunspot numbers.
Sparks says:
June 6, 2014 at 11:42 am
there still appears to be a substantial increase in sunspot activity through the 20 century.
As there was in the 19th and the 18th. The 20th is no different.
Sparks says:
June 6, 2014 at 11:42 am
I think the decrease in the more accurate modern sunspot numbers (not counting A+B specks etc..)
A+B specks have been counted since 1876…
lsvalgaard says:
June 6, 2014 at 11:44 am
Sparks says:
…there still appears to be a substantial increase in sunspot activity through the 20 century.
“As there was in the 19th and the 18th. The 20th is no different.”
I agree, I will however point out the same can also be said about temperature variability during the 19th and the 18th century.
lsvalgaard says:
June 6, 2014 at 11:45 am
Sparks says:
I think the decrease in the more accurate modern sunspot numbers (not counting A+B specks etc..)
“A+B specks have been counted since 1876…”
Of course, (nice factoid) if you say so… I specifically meant the suggested post 1947 20% sunspot number decrease.
The extremely small variance in TSI throughout the solar cycle is the primary reason that Warmists dismiss this cycle in all their climate models. At ~1360 watts per sq meter, TSI definitely IS the reason for ALL warming on Earth but in their view it’s simply a strong constant in the equation.
But other outputs from the Sun display much higher variability throughout the cycle, so they are strongly affected by weaker cycles: specifically, the Sun’s magnetic field (which augments the Earth’s field in moderating Cosmic Rays) and the Sun’s X-ray output (which varies by a factor of over 10x). We are just now sorting out these and other effects of our local star on true multi-decadal to millenial climate cycles.
Sparks says:
June 6, 2014 at 12:19 pm
I agree, I will however point out the same can also be said about temperature variability during the 19th and the 18th century.
I don’t think so. You will have to document and show your claim with data.
I specifically meant the suggested post 1947 20% sunspot number decrease.
Has nothing to do with A+B specks, but with the introduction of weighting of large spots [not A+B which are small spots].
lsvalgaard says June 6, 2014 at 7:51 am
“In addition to that there are powerful research groups whose funding depends on the old data. Rocking that boat is vigorously resisted…”
I believe there is the same resistance to Tisdale’s (and others) natural intrinsic ENSO driven SST and land temperature trends. It is a plausible hypothesis with a plausible mechanism that better explains the rise in global temperatures. The puny amount of change in anthropogenic CO2 just doesn’t have the necessary energy chops to drive an energy sucking temperature trend. But the ocean storage capacity and belching mechanisms teleconnected with atmospheric mechanisms certainly do. So if Tisdale’s hypothesis is indeed the case, it will call into question hundreds of well-funded papers and groups ascribing human cause to temperature increase (or change or catastrophe, or whatever they now call it).
djtex says:
June 6, 2014 at 12:20 pm
But other outputs from the Sun display much higher variability throughout the cycle, so they are strongly affected by weaker cycles: specifically, the Sun’s magnetic field…
Which has not changed the past 180 years [except for the cyclic solar cycle variation]. See e.g. slide 3 of http://www.leif.org/research/Confronting-Models-with-Reconstructions-and-Data.pdf
djtex says:
June 6, 2014 at 12:20 pm
“…the Sun’s X-ray output (which varies by a factor of over 10x). We are just now sorting out these and other effects of our local star on true multi-decadal to millenial climate cycles.”
X-ray intensity varies by a factor of almost 100% between solar minimum and solar maximum.
lsvalgaard says:
June 6, 2014 at 12:23 pm
“You will have to document and show your claim with data.”
And you will no doubt understand such a claim!
“Has nothing to do with A+B specks, but with the introduction of weighting of large spots [not A+B which are small spots].”
Therefor the specks that they couldn’t see to even count in the past are ok today, interesting!
Are specks weighted today?
Sparks says:
June 6, 2014 at 1:35 pm
Therefor the specks that they couldn’t see to even count in the past are ok today, interesting!
Specks have been seen and counted ever since Wolfer started in 1877.
Are specks weighted today?
Large spots are weighted, so it depends on your definition of specks. This obsession with ‘specks’ is misplaced. Specks are just small spots and they have been counted for 138 years.
Leif,
I have no misplaced obsession about sun spots, I have some questions and a few thoughts here and there, so… are Specks Weighted? regardless from when they have been counted.
The old Leif is back! (after an apparent short break…good to see, even if I don’t agree with everything you say!)
Sparks says:
June 6, 2014 at 2:12 pm
are Specks Weighted?
Since you have not defined what a ‘speck’ is, it is hard to say. Large specks are weighted [since 1947]. To be precise: a spot with penumbra has weight 3, no matter how small it is.
The last 60 years has had the strongest cycles in it, with the exception of the weak one that occurred during the sixties. Any one can see there is clearly an impressive maximum that occurred during the 80’s and 90’s and into early 2000, and then it slowed, and the world started cooling, just like it did during the sixties when we had the last weak cycle. Do not let a solar physicist interpret their own data.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/sidc-ssn
Sparks says:
June 6, 2014 at 2:12 pm
I have no misplaced obsession about sun spots
Here is the problem: the word ‘speck’ is not used by solar observers, so from that end there are no specks. It has been used by some people with the intention of throwing doubt on the modern way of counting. So when you use the word ‘speck’ you [inadvertently or not] put yourself in that same group. It is like any other loaded word, e.g. ‘ni**er’. If you use that word, you give a strong impression that you are racist [whether or not you are]. So, since there are no specks, just spots, you may just be asking if small spots are weighted, something that is done exclusive with large spots, so there is a bit of disconnect here.
LT says:
June 6, 2014 at 4:18 pm
The last 60 years has had the strongest cycles in it,
Simply because the sunspot count since 1947 has been inflated by 20-25 % on average. You can verify that yourself: here is a drawing of the spots on Jan. 1st, 1981 http://www.specola.ch/drawings/1981/loc-d19810101.JPG
The table at the upper right shows how many spots the observer allocate to each numbered group. Take, for instance groups 717 and 719, They contain [according to the table] 4 and 3 spots, respectively. Now count how many spots you see in each group [I count one in each].
For all the groups I count a total of 52 spots [as opposed to the count of 127 reported by the observer]. How many do you count?
So do you think they weighted them because they thought these were spots really close together and because of that were hard to count as individual spots? Did they think that there must be more than one spot given the irregular shape? Are these irregular spots just another form of a single spot? Or do spots ever “run together” and combine into one spot?
Pamela Gray says:
June 6, 2014 at 4:49 pm
So do you think they weighted them because they thought these were spots really close together…
No, simply because they thought that a large spot is more important [e.g. carries more magnetic flux] than a tiny spot, and they felt that that somehow should be reflected in the count. This practise can be defended provided it is done at all times. What destroys its value is that it was stealthily introduced some time in the 1940s, c.f. slide 22 of http://www.leif.org/research/SHINE-2011-The-Forgotten-Sun.pdf
Alex says:
June 6, 2014 at 11:21 am
Apparently I am misreading the graphs
http://spot.colorado.edu/~koppg/TSI/
Forgive me for interfering with your agenda. Whatever that is.
Your name will never pass my lips again and I will never respond to you again. Deal?
from one fool to another
lsvalgaard says:
You are misinterpreting what you see. The large excursions are rare and short-lived and irrelevant to the debate about TSI’s influence on climate.
===
Well to look at those graphs it seems obvious that general level of ERB data from the dense baseline to the high around 1979 is at least 2.5 W/m2
So perhaps you need to define what you call “short-lived” and what kind of filtering you suggest is necessary to reveal the “true” figure.
Greg says:
June 6, 2014 at 5:08 pm
Well to look at those graphs it seems obvious that general level of ERB data from the dense baseline to the high around 1979 is at least 2.5 W/m2
You should not look at the upper envelope, but take a reasonable mean. A good and natural time scale is 27 days [one solar rotation]
lsvalgaard says:
June 6, 2014 at 4:08 pm
Q. are Specks Weighted?
“Since you have not defined what a ‘speck’ is, it is hard to say.”
incorrect, you did acknowledge and define what I am referring too, a sun speck, “A+B specks, but with the introduction of weighting of large spots [not A+B which are small spots].”
Small Spots.
Are Specks Weighted?
Sparks says:
June 6, 2014 at 5:21 pm
incorrect, you did acknowledge and define what I am referring too, a sun speck, “A+B specks, but with the introduction of weighting of large spots [not A+B which are small spots].”
You did not define what a speck is. Perhaps I did [to speak your language]. If by ‘speck’ you simply mean a small spot, then by definition they are not weighted, as only large spots are weighted. Now A+B spots make up about half of all spots. So your question is a contradiction in terms, unless you have something else in mind.
Leif,
A “speck” as in a “speck of dust” http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/speck
“A+B spots make up about half of all spots.”
Specks.
Sparks says:
June 6, 2014 at 5:57 pm
A “speck” as in a “speck of dust” http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/speck
Sunspots are bigger than the Earth…
“A+B spots make up about half of all spots.”
Specks.
Solar observers do not use the word ‘speck’, all we see are spots of various sizes. If you want to communicate you should use accepted terminology in the field. If you don’t, you just look like a fool. Is that what you aspire to?
Planet Earth absorbs and disperses energy from the Sun at a relatively constant rate thanks to the worlds oceans and relatively small land mass. Think of our planet as a giant spherical battery. During some point in the assent of any solar cycle toward solar max, the Earth is absorbing energy at a faster rate than it is being dispelled. The planet is heating up slightly. It would appear the planet is still heating up during the peak of solar max to some point in the decent to solar minimum, when it would appear the planet is cooling down slightly toward the trough of solar minimum till some point in the next ramp up. Relative temperature is smoothed due to lag time effect of recharge and discharge cycle of the battery.
Lag time effects shrink and expand with varying intensity of each solar cycle. The field of climate science should include research into the time lag effect of solar cycles. I suspect solar cycle 24 will provide invaluable data for this. While there are many factors that affect climate, I believe our Sun is the biggest factor.
michaelwiseguy says:
June 6, 2014 at 6:04 pm
I believe our Sun is the biggest factor.
As Pamela observed: “belief trumps data”.
michaelwiseguy says:
June 6, 2014 at 6:04 pm
“As Pamela observed: “belief trumps data”.”
I should have said, with my educated guess.
What do you think about a Time Lag Effect study, in the event the Sun is relevant?
So… a “speck of dust” is weighted relevant to mountain and are treated equally. Regardless or oblivious of all the semantical nonsense and suggestive crap your dishing out.
lsvalgaard says:
June 6, 2014 at 6:03 pm
Sparks says:
June 6, 2014 at 5:57 pm
A “speck” as in a “speck of dust” http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/speck
Sunspots are bigger than the Earth…
a speck is smaller than a sunspot. what is your point?
* a mountain
Sparks says:
June 6, 2014 at 6:19 pm
a speck is smaller than a sunspot. what is your point?
The point is that there are no specks, only spots of various sizes. The smallest ones (A and B classes) are not weighted, so whatever you want to say about specks and weighting is not relevant.
So… a “speck of dust” is weighted relevant to mountain and are treated equally.
Mountains has been weighted since 1947 and dust not. To make the record homogeneous we remove the weight on the mountains to be compatible with how the counting has been done the 350 years before 1947. We could also do it the other way around, but since the reference station [Locarno in Switzerland] is the only station in the whole world that weights it seems more reasonable to go with the majority.
If you wish not to understand the above, perhaps do as Alex.
michaelwiseguy says:
June 6, 2014 at 6:13 pm
What do you think about a Time Lag Effect study, in the event the Sun is relevant?
People who do regression analysis on spots and temperature find no time lag and I wouldn’t expect any in the first place.
Looking at the graph it seems that beginning in about 1975, the temperatures begin rising out of sync with the solar variables. One could very easily conclude that this is the A in AGW.
So a first glance for me seems to confirm anthropogenic rather than refute it.
lsvalgaard says: “You should not look at the upper envelope, but take a reasonable mean. A good and natural time scale is 27 days [one solar rotation]”
Thanks, I ran a lanczos filter designed to remove 27d and below. Taking mid-points of the remaining short term fluctuations gives 1979.5 at 1374.0 and the low being 1987.0 at 1371.3 ; that gives 2.7 W/m2 difference.
This confirms my original eyeball figure of “at least 2.5″. Somewhat short of Alex’s ” 4 or 5″.
“The important number is how much TSI varies on, say, a yearly time scale, and that is about 1 W/m2 resulting in a 0.1 degree temperature change.”
I would have thought the important number was how much it varied from peak of solar cycle to a trough, although the annual variation will matter in some contexts.
Taking your suggested scaling that would be about 0.3K temp change across a solar cycle.
If a study is to truly be done on our Sun they should be saying this maximum is no big thing.
Lets think about the role of the Sun it supplies the fuel. The clouds and the Oceans are like the regulator on a Steam engine.
How much does Co2 effect Earth’s temp?
Think about this…… you know how the clouds at night can keep it warm?
Well the Co2 levels have not changed they remain almost constant within respective hemispheres of air.
So it was the 95% greenhouse gas = water vapor…… that caused the effect,
and not the 0.4% Co2
makes sense to me,
How about you?
oops 0.04% damn typos oops
“So a first glance for me seems to confirm anthropogenic rather than refute it.”
Yes. In fact it was predicted back in 1896 that if C02 increases the temperature will eventually increase all other things being equal.
Since that time scientists have been busy trying to pin down the following.
1. How much warming: our best guess is between 1C and 6C
2. How will this temperature increase manifest itself
A) smoothly and globally?
B) in fits and starts in spatially irregular ways?
3. What other forces can increase it or diminish it?
A) what changes in internal variability can “mask” the increase
B) what other systematic changes (feedbacks) can increase it
Bascially #3 looks at how we can account for “all other things” NOT being equal.
So, a prediction was made. The evidence supports the prediction it does not count against the prediction.
However, the prediction was far from exact and the details are still subject to constant revision. its science.
It may turn out that the effect is smaller than we think ( <1C) it may turn out that it is larger than we think.
But the best science has the answer narrowed down to a range. It's like this with all complicated systems. You bound the problem and keep refining.
Of course some people want to act on this knowledge. Other say we need to know more. Thats besdide the point. The point is c02 raises temperature it does not lower it.
Greg says:
June 6, 2014 at 6:43 pm
I would have thought the important number was how much it varied from peak of solar cycle to a trough, although the annual variation will matter in some contexts.
I was referring to yearly averages, not variation within the year.
The generally accepted variation over the cycle [with short-term variations filtered out] is 0.1% or 1.5 W/m2. See e.g. Figure 5 of http://www.pmodwrc.ch/pmod.php?topic=tsi/composite/SolarConstant
lsvalgaard says:
June 6, 2014 at 6:32 pm
“The point is that there are no specks…”
If there is nothing smaller than a small sunspot, why are all sunspots getting counted (including the little ones), and then they are statistically removed. Obviously if you have a value of sunspots stretching back several centuries, then why all this manipulation? Leif, You are doing a sea-saw act with solar activity to suit yourself.
Your attitude toward me is bla.
lsvalgaard says: “People who do regression analysis on spots and temperature find no time lag and I wouldn’t expect any in the first place.”
Well most people doing regression don’t seem to be doing lagged correlation so the reason they are not finding a lag is because they are not looking for one.
This seems to be the fundamental error in most regression analyses since, a change in radiative forcing (whatever it’s origin) will cause a rate of change of temperature dT/dt . Only once the system has reached equilibrium can one expect to find a final change in settled temperature that can be related to the change in radiation. That will necessarily have a considerable time lag.
Since power (rad) and energy (temp) are orthogonal the direct correlation will be rad vs dT/dt. Climate response ( feedbacks, sensitivity etc. ) once it plays out can relate delta rad vs delta T but it will be a lagged response.
If you wouldn’t expect one in the first place you have not thought it through.
excerpt from Spencer and Braswell 2011 show observational data of rad and temp.
http://climategrog.files.wordpress.com/2014/04/sb11_fig31.png?w=521
The negative quadrant is the settled response and it peaks at about 11 months lag.
Similar to what I found in the reaction of tropical climate to Mt Pinatubo forcing changes:
http://climategrog.wordpress.com/?attachment_id=884
Greg says:
June 6, 2014 at 7:41 pm
“Well most people doing regression don’t seem to be doing lagged correlation so the reason they are not finding a lag is because they are not looking for one.”
Exactly my point. The theory is probably valid and should be explored more in depth. If we shift temperature records 1 to 3 years before and after solar max, we may find some correlation with solar activity. The fact that virtually no one is looking for it is a problem. Good response Greg.
You guys dont get it the or a lag don’t matter as much as looking back further pull back on the graph include more years. The more years back look at geological evidence in stalagmites.
it ain’t Co2 that drives temperatures.
It is the Sun that drives temps but it ain’t driving much now as much as it has in the past during other peaks or valleys in modern history compared to even when we went into ice ages.
Steven Mosher says:
1. How much warming: our best guess is between 1C and 6C
The real world says it’s ≤0.5ºC.
2. How will this temperature increase manifest itself
Good question. So far, it hasn’t. We might be seeing a decrease.
3. What other forces can increase it or diminish it?
Plenty of unknown unknowns are out there.
Planet Earth is clearly telling us: CO2 is a non-problem. There are lots of real problems in the world. Instead of this ridiculous ‘carbon’ scare, let’s fix the real problems.
Sparks says:
June 6, 2014 at 7:26 pm
If there is nothing smaller than a small sunspot, why are all sunspots getting counted (including the little ones), and then they are statistically removed.
Nothing is removed.
Obviously if you have a value of sunspots stretching back several centuries, then why all this manipulation? Leif, You are doing a sea-saw act with solar activity to suit yourself.
The see-saw is a historical artifact that we have inherited. The new series that we are working on removes all of that nonsense and is simple and straight-forward SSN = 10*Groups+real spots
e.g. http://www.leif.org/research/SSN/Stenflo.pdf
Your attitude toward me is bla.
I am trying to educate you a bit, but obviously fail.
Greg says:
June 6, 2014 at 7:41 pm
The negative quadrant is the settled response and it peaks at about 11 months lag.
On the time scale of solar cycles that is a negligible lag.
michaelwiseguy says:
June 6, 2014 at 8:01 pm
If we shift temperature records 1 to 3 years before and after solar max, we may find some correlation with solar activity.
‘may’?
Again, such a short lag is no real lag.
and Cheers !
dbstealey says:
June 6, 2014 at 8:05 pm
Study magic
Miss direction is key
Well deception is in play once again.
oops too dunk write, I just reread what I wrote earlier.
“.It is the Sun that drives temps but it ain’t driving much now as much as it has in the past during other peaks or valleys in modern history compared to even when we went into ice ages.”
Should say :
It is the Sun that drives temps but it ain’t driving much now as much as it has in the past
the peaks and valley matter less than the current and previous trending
Co2 has been sky high 8k or so i s it not the 800 ppm if we burn all Co2
and we still went into ice ages.
Why because the Sun had waned in trend and previous trend. This DIRECTLY leads to
increase and/or decrease of Co2
As it cooled earth cooled
As it warms earth warms
But trend does weigh more than current level
But it never hicupped in the past don’t expect it to react
that way now.
LOL burn all Co2
burn all fossil fuel
then we can burn all the plant matter wonder how much Co2 then
I Wish Thorium reactor research got as much funding as Co2 BS
or Fusion even
But we know Thorium works, only downfall is less high grade material for A bombs.
Unless I have made an unintended colossal blunder, a little calculation to gain an order-of-magnitude perspective of solar input to climate compared to the IPCC surmised global temperature rise of 4degC, is at http://cleanenergypundit.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/eating-sun-fourth-estatelondon-2009.html. Another of my ‘musings’ regarding ‘truth’ and its connotations, could also be of interest, posted at http://cleanenergypundit.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/brainology-101-midwives-hold-thenewborn.html
Someone Delete the AD for Cleanergy pundent please lol
this is too funny
“CLEAN ENERGY is energy that is limitless in availability, is ubiquitous, is pollution free, is capable to provide source to use proximity, empowers rural populations, does not deplete food, forest or water resources, does not deplete biomass, and does all that for generations to come. The challenge is to propagate and implement CLEAN ENERGY production throughout 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th(Favelas) Worlds, employing all its technological, humanist and democratic dimensions.”
thats what the guy llnked?
well sounds more like a nice pipe dream.
maybe like the water powered car engine or other famous pipe dreams or perpetual motion
sorry it does not exist guy
All energy has their good and bad sides.
Coal has the benefit of feeding plants what they want but has some particulate and other problems but Co2 is not a problem unless you have no brain.
oil or gas less problems
hydro dams way less (but many local, fish, and biological push out problems)
and Nuclear (uranium) the least cost in pollutants and the cheapest energy by far
no nasty coal mine ponds of waste that often flood out into farming, waterways, rural areas, and more.
or oil every once in a while we know a tanker will screw up or a well may break on land or at sea.
solar well it isn’t totally clean either on production side. and the cost means under developed nations lose out, making it hard for them to get loans for power plants that people can afford like coal and oil or gas.
natural gas fraking no need say much there we all get the don’t mess with my drinking water or aquifer issue.
I like plants so Co2 or Nukes nice cheap fuel till we bring costs down on solar and wind and other looks best to me.
I’m waiting for the first time that one of the catastrophists makes a public statement to the effect: We can ignore any climate science that comes out of China because Chinese industry wants to keep spewing out CO2 and Chinese scientists are subject to political pressure. I give it six months at most before we hear something like this.
Wait for it . . .
lsvalgaard says:
June 6, 2014 at 8:12 am
Bob Tisdale says:
June 6, 2014 at 8:02 am
Good morning, Leif. Have you written a blog post for WUWT about the grand solar maximum…or lack thereof?
No, not specifically. But many of my recent papers and talks touch on that, e.g. http://www.leif.org/research/Solar-Activity-Past-Present-and-Future-Notes.pdf
————————————————————————-
I think you are doing a great job on the historical sunspot cycle reconstruction. Using other older indices to help confirm your findings is interesting too. I’ve done some genealogy and worked with some older documentation.
Leif isn’t doing this under a rock, those that have used the “Grand” solar maximum as a mantra for their technical papers will be watching this closely, just waiting to find some mistake.. well good luck guys, I think Leif is gettin’ done right. Some of them are reviewers?
Did have a slight issue with the above link, but it is your notes, didn’t always line up with the respective slide.
thanks
• Sunspot Number (and Area,
Magnetic Flux)
• Solar Radiation (TSI, UV, …,
F10.7)
• Cosmic Ray Modulation
• Solar Wind
• Geomagnetic Variations
• Aurorae
• Ionospheric Parameters
• Oscillations
• Climate?
• More…
http://www.leif.org/research/Solar-Activity-Past-Present-and-Future-Notes.pdf
Maybe not useable for the sunspot series reconstruction but as a another parameter for how the sun and earth interact we very soon may be adding LOD Length of Day (earth rotation rate) to the list…
THE IERS BULLETIN C
AND THE PREDICTION OF LEAP SECONDS
Daniel Gambis*
http://www.cacr.caltech.edu/futureofutc/preprints/files/42_AAS%2013-522_Gambis.pdf
page 4
It appears that, since the year 2000, the Earth is relatively speeding up,
and the rate of introduction of leap seconds has significantly decreased.
Figure 3. Leap seconds per year between 1972 and 2010 (courtesy of W. Dick8, 2011)
Not all the ‘absences’ of adding leap seconds coincide with lower solar polar field, as there are other perturbations, like solar and lunar tides that can affect rotation but quite striking by comparison to the solar polar fields graph here.
http://www.leif.org/research/Solar-Polar-Fields-1966-now.png
Puts a new twist on orbital drag (resistance) when the drag (solar wind/speed/density/storms etc.) are minimum as they have been for solar cycle 24.
Stronger rotation, stronger vortexes, more cold air pushing southward from the poles in the winters…..
Warm air from the equator unable to push it out the way (blocked). The two didn’t mingle nice together last winter…They took on the appearance of an older atmospheric regime that Earth has had before in its past.
In addition to the figure 3 on page 4 below. One leap second was added in 2012 (per IERS bulletin). So between 1998 and 2014 only 3 leap seconds have been added.
THE IERS BULLETIN C
AND THE PREDICTION OF LEAP SECONDS
Daniel Gambis*
http://www.cacr.caltech.edu/futureofutc/preprints/files/42_AAS%2013-522_Gambis.pdf
page 4
It appears that, since the year 2000, the Earth is relatively speeding up,
and the rate of introduction of leap seconds has significantly decreased.
Figure 3. Leap seconds per year between 1972 and 2010 (courtesy of W. Dick8, 2011)
Carla says:
June 7, 2014 at 6:53 pm
Maybe not useable for the sunspot series reconstruction but as a another parameter for how the sun and earth interact we very soon may be adding LOD Length of Day (earth rotation rate) to the list…
I don’t think so. According to the paper you cite the decadal and longer changes are due to interaction between the core and the mantle, not the Sun or solar wind.
Carla says:
June 7, 2014 at 6:53 pm
Maybe not useable for the sunspot series reconstruction but as a another parameter for how the sun and earth interact we very soon may be adding LOD Length of Day (earth rotation rate) to the list…
I don’t think so. According to the paper you cite the decadal and longer changes are due to interaction between the core and the mantle, not the Sun or solar wind.
lsvalgaard says:
June 7, 2014 at 8:17 pm
—————————————–
The paper cited contains the LOD time series so that others may see that yes the Earth is rotating faster at this time than 1998.
But other papers are available which use solar cycle parameters to make their case, that solar activity influences atmospheric angular momentum (AAM) and Length of Day (LOD).
And the jury is still out on this Dr. S.
For instance:
Manifestation of Solar and Geodynamic Activity
in the Dynamics of the Earth’s Rotation
V. L. Gorshkov, N. O. Miller, and M. V. Vorotkov
Central Astronomical Observatory, Russian Academy of Sciences, Pulkovo, St.Petersburg, Russia
http://www.gao.spb.ru/english/as/publ/gorshkov_etal_ga-2012.pdf
Abstract—The relationships between different manifestations of solar and geomagnetic activity
and the structural peculiarities of the dynamics of the pole wobble and irregularities in the Earth’s rotation are studied using singular spectrum analysis.
There are two close major peaks and several lower ones in the same frequency range
(1.1–1.3 years) in the Chandler wobble (CW) spectrum. Components in the geomagnetic activity were distinguished in the same frequency band (by the Dst and Ap indices). Six to sevenyear oscillations
in the Earth’s rotation rate with a complex dynamics of amplitude variations are shown in variations in geomagnetic activity. It is revealed that secular (decade) variations in the Earth’s rotation rate on average repeat global variations in the secular trend of the Earth’s geomagnetic field with a delay of eight years during the whole observation period.
..pg. 9 of conclusions,
..The Earth’s rotation rate is closely related to solar and, especially, geomagnetic activity in the region of
5 to 6year periods. Beginning from the second half of the 20th century, an increase in solar activity generally corresponds to a decrease in the Earth’s rotation rate
(vice versa for Dst) in this region of periods, although phase variations sometimes strongly disturb the correlation between these processes…
Now that solar activity is lower than what has been, the correlations should become even more evident in this.
More fun to come in the future on this topic..
Solar differential rotation is also becoming more fun..lol
Solar equator rotation more dominant now, due to the lack of repression from sunspot magnetic fields.
How about the solar polar rotation, my brain keeps tripping on that…and the lack of twisting up of the dipolar field, breaking off, and making flux.
What a mess, seems all fluxed up..hee hee eeeeek
lsvalgaard says (June 6, 2014 at 7:51 am):
“In addition to that there are powerful research groups whose funding depends on the old data. Rocking that boat is vigorously resisted…”
Would this author be one of them?
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=8&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CGIQFjAH&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cdejager.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2008%2F10%2Freviewsolarforc-ssr.pdf&ei=MY2UU8vTA8OnyASH4oLQBg&usg=AFQjCNE3I-eEhxJQ4EocAWWNJZbcUiklyw&sig2=u_KTUn7i0YmOtFUMjmrxzA
lsvalgaard says:
June 6, 2014 at 8:37 pm
“Nothing is removed.”
The present sunspot record includes all of the sunspots that were not visible to the observer in the past.
Leif,
What are your thoughts on this?
“A still unresolved question is how Hoyt & Schatten got the K-factors so wrong”
Are there any clues/suggestions why?
source: http://www.leif.org/research/Solar-Petaluma–How%20Well%20Do%20We%20Know%20the%20SSN.pdf
Below fig 12.
Sparks, the telescopic power used back “in the day” is the same one today. Are you saying that today’s humans have better vision? Because it has nothing to do with the telescope used. Same power.
What has been done is overcounting the big ones because of weighting them. They count the small ones same as before. The corrected data will hopefully remove that 1940’s addition.
Pamela Gray says:
June 8, 2014 at 1:55 pm
———————————–
Pamela, Wolfer saw more spots (80mm 64X) than did Wolf, pocket scope (37mm 20X).
pg. 12 http://www.leif.org/research/Solar-Activity-Past-Present-and-Future-Notes.pdf
Not why I am here though.
Well went on the hunt for solar differential rotation and landed in Russia again. huh go figure. Then on page 2 she finds this kinda thing..
Solar cycles, velocity of Earth rotation, speed of the stratospheric winds.
Cycles of the magnetic activity of the Sun and
solar-type stars and simulation of their fluxes
E.A. Bruevich a , I.K. Rozgacheva b
Sternberg Astronomical Institute, Moscow, Russia
Moscow State Pedagogical University, Russia
http://arxiv.org/pdf/1204.1148.pdf
2012 April 5
pg 2 In the recent studies on the subject of quasi-biennial variations of so-
lar radiation (Ivanov-Kholodnyj & Chertoprud 2008; Bruevich & Ivanov-
Kholodnyj 2011) the importance of this problem study were emphasized. It
turned out that quasi-biennial solar cycles are closely associated with vari-
ous quasi-biennial processes on the Earth, in particular with quasi-biennial
variations of the velocity of the Earth rotation and speed of the stratospheric
wind…………….
Dr. S., you have got to check this little wavelet analysis out. Picture this after a little sunspot number fine tuning. It is already the most remarkable analysis of magnetic cycle I have ever seen. Don’t be shy, blow up the image, get a 2D feel going. It is good … I start seeing background like ISM.
..Figure 2: Wavelet-analysis (Daubechies wavelet) of time series of annual
averages of Wolf numbers. The ordinate axis is the duration of the cycles
(Cyclicity, years), the abscissa axis is the time (years)
Cycles of the magnetic activity of the Sun and
solar-type stars and simulation of their fluxes
E.A. Bruevich a , I.K. Rozgacheva b
Sternberg Astronomical Institute, Moscow, Russia
Moscow State Pedagogical University, Russia
http://arxiv.org/pdf/1204.1148.pdf
2012 April 5
Carla, check slide 4 in your link to Leif’s powerpoint. Large spots were given extra weighting because it was thought they had more of an influence on other “stuff”.
Carla says:
June 8, 2014 at 4:56 pm
quasi-biennial variations of the velocity of the Earth rotation and speed of the stratospheric
wind
The literature is full of such nonsense, especially from Russian researchers. You shouldn’t uncritically believe everything you find on the Internet, and especially not when what you find are what you want to find. BTW, you may safely assume that I am fully aware of all relevant scientific literature.
Sparks says:
June 8, 2014 at 1:17 pm
“A still unresolved question is how Hoyt & Schatten got the K-factors so wrong”
Are there any clues/suggestions why?
H&S seem to be unaware of the fact that Wolf used two telescopes of different power at different times. This confuses their analysis. I asked Schatten what he thought, and he said [somewhat incredulously] that he can’t recall how they did the analysis….
Sparks says:
June 8, 2014 at 1:10 pm
The present sunspot record includes all of the sunspots that were not visible to the observer in the past.
Nothing is removed. Observations by different observers are calibrated to a standard observer by multiplying by an appropriate factor to allow difference in telescopes and eyesight.
Pamela Gray says:
June 8, 2014 at 6:42 pm
“Carla, check slide 4 in your link to Leif’s powerpoint. Large spots were given extra weighting because it was thought they had more of an influence on other “stuff”.
Pamela,
Lets discuss Large spots, should there be a decrease in their value?
Should small sunspots be increased in value?
Regardless of influence at this point, the fact remains…
lsvalgaard says:
June 8, 2014 at 6:55 pm
“H&S seem to be unaware of the fact that Wolf used two telescopes of different power at different times. This confuses their analysis. I asked Schatten what he thought, and he said [somewhat incredulously] that he can’t recall how they did the analysis….”
Don’t give me a half-ass excuse like that Leif, it’s not scientific, there has to be a reason. You will need need to produce more…
And be clear! 🙂
Sparks says:
June 8, 2014 at 7:10 pm
Regardless of influence at this point, the fact remains…
The total count on each day [of all spots, large and small] should be decreased by an appropriate factor. You can see the result of such a decrease in the plot of all total counts for the past decade on slide 17 of http://www.leif.org/research/Confronting-Models-with-Reconstructions-and-Data.pdf
The blue curve is the official sunspot number, the red curve is what it should be after correction for weighting. That is the simple fact. Nothing mysterious, nothing strange, nothing to get confused about.
Sparks says:
June 8, 2014 at 7:20 pm
And be clear! 🙂
I am as clear as anyone can possibly be.
lsvalgaard says:
June 8, 2014 at 7:21 pm
“The total count on each day [of all spots, large and small] should be decreased by an appropriate factor..”
By the ‘slight of hand’ no thank you… you have refused to resolve issues, maybe you don’t see them yet, I’ll give you the benefit of doubt.
lsvalgaard says:
June 8, 2014 at 7:23 pm
“I am as clear as anyone can possibly be.”
To yourself perhaps.
Thank you for the advice about not believing everything on the internet Dr. S.
But the wavelet analysis is way too cool. You might enjoy it. So have a look at the Magnetic elephant walking through the heliosphere’s room.
Not too mention use of the HK project..
Cycles of the magnetic activity of the Sun and
solar-type stars and simulation of their fluxes
E.A. Bruevich a , I.K. Rozgacheva b
Sternberg Astronomical Institute, Moscow, Russia
Moscow State Pedagogical University, Russia
http://arxiv.org/pdf/1204.1148.pdf
2012 April 5
“”To study the cycles of magnetic activity of the atmospheres of the stars
we use new dataset of simultaneous observations of variations of the pho-
tospheric and chromospheric radiation fluxes of he Sun and of 33 stars of
“HK-project”.””
page 6
..Figure 2: Wavelet-analysis (Daubechies wavelet) of time series of annual
averages of Wolf numbers. The ordinate axis is the duration of the cycles
(Cyclicity, years), the abscissa axis is the time (years)
page 10
Figure 4: Wavelet-analysis (wavelet Morley) of the time series of monthly av-
erageWolf numbers. The ordinate axis is the duration of the cycles (Cyclicity,
years), the abscissa axis is the time (years)
I’d like to see, page 6. Figure 2: in the new sunspot series and not the Wolf series. The more fined tuned version of this .. extra cool..
Sparks says:
June 8, 2014 at 7:36 pm
“I am as clear as anyone can possibly be.”
To yourself perhaps.
I can’t help it that you are above average when it comes to not wanting to understand anything. But, hey, you are not alone, there are many like you at WUWT. Few as persistently dense, though.
Carla says:
June 8, 2014 at 8:09 pm
But the wavelet analysis is way too cool. You might enjoy it. So have a look at the Magnetic elephant walking through the heliosphere’s room.
Repeating the same nonsense does not help
lsvalgaard says:
June 8, 2014 at 8:18 pm
“I can’t help it that you are above average when it comes to not wanting to understand anything. But, hey, you are not alone, there are many like you at WUWT. Few as persistently dense, though.”
Have you got you big boy pants on Leif? go on.. throwing insults about isn’t scientific, but fun nonetheless, please continue.. we’re all learning.:)
lsvalgaard says:
June 8, 2014 at 8:18 pm
“I can’t help it that you are above average”
Leif,
I’ve never liked how you would take people out of context and reply to them until now.
You know it…
Sparks says:
June 8, 2014 at 8:32 pm
we’re all learning
You are showing no signs of having learned anything, but I’ll give you one more chance:
On slide 14 of http://www.leif.org/research/Confronting-Models-with-Reconstructions-and-Data.pdf you see a drawing of the sunspots made in April. You can see all drawings here http://www.specola.ch/e/drawings.html
Now comes the learning part: you see five sunspot groups [numbered from 141 and up]. For each group you simply count the number of spots you see. I have made little boxes with a blow-up of each group. My counts for each group are shown in red. Are you with me so far? The weighted counts are shown in black in the table on the plot. The colums marked ‘f’ shows the official count [with weighting]. Still with me? Their total count is 44, mine is 19. What is yours? The sunspot number is now 10*groups+spots, i.e. 94 for them and 69 for me. Then you do this for every single day since 2003 and plot the result, shown in slide 17. Still with me? If not, which step do you falter on?
Sparks says:
June 8, 2014 at 8:53 pm
I’ve never liked how you would take people out of context and reply to them until now.
Should I care about what you like or dislike? Now show that you are capable of learning something by responding meaningfully to my post of 8:58 pm.
Leif,
🙂
Sparks says:
June 8, 2014 at 9:22 pm
🙂
You call that a ‘meaningful response’?
I have done this 8:58 pm exercise with scores of people. You stand out as the only one who did not produce anything. As I said: you are above average in that respect.
That’s smiley face, catch yourself on…
Sparks says:
June 8, 2014 at 9:26 pm
That’s smiley face, catch yourself on…
As in ‘silly’. Do the 8:58pm or shut up.
Maybe your “exercise” flawed!
Sparks says:
June 8, 2014 at 9:29 pm
Maybe your “exercise” flawed!
You wouldn’t know unless you tried.
Leif,
I’m not here to tick your boxes or jump through hoops on demand, get used to it..
lsvalgaard says:
June 8, 2014 at 9:30 pm
You wouldn’t know unless you tried.
Let’s try this with tiny steps. How many spots do you see in the box labeled 141?
Sparks says:
June 8, 2014 at 9:32 pm
I’m not here to tick your boxes or jump through hoops on demand, get used to it..
As I said: learning-resistant. In which case nothing is gained by feeding that particular troll.
lsvalgaard says:
June 8, 2014 at 9:35 pm
“As I said: learning-resistant. In which case nothing is gained by feeding that particular troll.”
As I have said “To yourself perhaps.”
Sparks says:
June 8, 2014 at 9:32 pm
I’m not here to tick your boxes or jump through hoops on demand, get used to it..
Since you confirm that you are unable [or worse: unwilling] to learn how the sunspot weighting is performed and what effect it has on the sunspot number the loss is yours alone. Hopefully other people will understand and appreciate the facts, in which case this whole charade would not have been totally in vain.
The sun is less active or more active that’s the question. How active? Varies I’m sure. Cycles? I don’t doubt anyone can argue that. Affects climate? We will see. I’m staying with my own research, if the Chinese agree that just confirms what I already thought. Although this entire debate has raised some interesting ideas, I’m sticking with whether the sun is active or not in its affect on weather and climate.
Here’s an interesting thought: The IPCC has put so much effort into co2 related climate change and trying to bring about political goals, what if they are wrong? (Which increasing they seem to be) By trying to silence some people by linking them with denying that the holocaust ever happened, what should be the proper response if it gets colder rather than warmer? The idea is that we think globally, but act locally. My idea based on cycles and sunspot activity is that I act locally and move to a warmer climate. I’m going to be proactive, I don’t need to close my eyes and hope everything is going to be just fine. Somewhat like moving inland away from the sea where there is a high probability of hurricanes, or the shape and design of my house in Kansas. If there are large scale crop failures due to colder climate, who do I hold responsible? If they are going to send out an alarm, it better be right. So far I see no evidence that they are.
rishrac, please don’t make the same mistake catastrophic global warming advocates do. This endeavor should not be a guess and check process. The fall back position is the null hypothesis against human caused or solar caused warming temperature trends. That fall back position is that Earth’s oceanic and atmospheric teleconnections cause short and long term chaotic variations in the amount of solar insolation (IE the entire infrared spectrum) that arrives at the surface to penetrate and heat the oceans at considerable depth (you can safely ignore land surface as this surface prevents deep penetration or storage). The oceans are fully capable of then storing that heat, moving it around, and belching it up all at once or in fits and starts. Why is this the null hypothesis? Because mathematically it is plausible. It can even be modeled using wind, cloud, and aerosol variations that have sufficient capacity to filter solar irradiation such that the amount of heat taken up and stored in the oceans is significantly affected. From there global circulation models show how this ocean heat can be released, made to vary by known oceanic atmospheric oscillations. If you can’t go all the way to the null hypothesis, at least keep in mind that Earth is a far more variable entity than the Sun is.
lsvalgaard says:
June 9, 2014 at 5:02 am
“Since you confirm that you are unable [or worse: unwilling] to learn how the sunspot weighting is performed and what effect it has on the sunspot number the loss is yours alone.”
Leif, if there are no solar effects on the weather or even climate (as you claim) from the representation of the sunspot cyclical activity and various permutations of these cycles, then any adjustment is irrelevant, whether it’s a 20% increase of the past ssn record before 1947 or the recent suggestion of a 20% decrease of sunspot numbers after 1947.
Prove to me that there is no planetary solar influence, prove to me that it is not colder (snowier) at higher and lower longitudes during solar minimums, and prove to me weaker maximums don’t effect planetary solar budgets during their preceding solar minimums, prove to me that prolonged solar inactivity like the maunder minimum has no solar planetary effect.
Also, prove to me that there are sunspots present during previous ice ages and that the familiar and regular solar cycle was present, prove to me that these cold periods on a planetary scale with beginning with higher carbon dioxide levels than today have no solar relationship at all.
You see Leif, it’s not that I’m indifferent to your education or your scientific opinion, in the grand scale of things your adjustments on either side of 1947 are trivial and almost irrelevant to me, but obviously noted as you know. I have frequently used your ssn count, btw out of curiosity what name does the ‘sea saw’ ssn adjustments go by lol 🙂
Note; when I say “planetary solar” above I’m referring to the sun/solar influence upon planets as in a planetary scale.
Pamela Grey,
Of course you are right, climate is very complex. I removed most of the complexity out it of similar to AGW, in that regard we are both alike. For one, I thought that I had lost the argument completely before the sun went quite after solar cycle 23. There was no reason to think that there would even be a quite sun. All of the solar predictions had the sun continuing on as it had been. Interestingly, I or any body else can go back and reconstruct the cycles that rhyme. Sometimes they are exact and other times they aren’t. I had the sun go quite within a range of +/- a few cycles. Hence I didn’t think it would matter much in that if it came 22 or 23 years from now, laws would have been passed, I’d be completely out of the picture. And certainly, correlation is not causation. I may not know what is causing people to be sick, but if I find the well they are drinking from, there may be something wrong with the water. Certainly, I don’t know, but what I do know is that nobody else does either.
And then there are periods of time when weather affects climate. My main and overriding concern is how can any group of reasonable people decide that the science is settled when there are so many complex variables. I made a decision based upon the best information and consideration available. The worst case if I moved south, I’d be warm. Of course if it gets cold, there is no best case. Others can nit pick over what’s a sunspot and what isn’t. Whether the timing for a change in the climate occurred at exactly the same time as when the sun went active or not. Generally, I looked very carefully at AGW and decided that they were in error. Do I know whether a quiet sun will produce a new LIA? Or an active one will produce more warming. All things being equal, yes, but also no and here’s why. I think this planet is like a low pass band filter. It is specifically designed to keep the temperature within certain limits. (Hint: start from a design point of view. With all the stuff out there, what elements would you incorporate into a planet that would make it for the most part livable?) The atmosphere filters out higher energy waves starting with the ultra violets and going on up, and the lower end the magnetic field blocks lower energies. And from there it’s a sliding scale. An increase or decrease in the opaqueness of the atmosphere has an effect, and so does an increase or decrease in the magnetic field strength. ( We will need a bigger computer ) So you have a quite sun and a decrease in magnetic field strength, more microwave energy? An active sun and a large volcano goes off? And/or ocean oscillations, and other feed backs that are both positive and negative? And to completely add discontinuity to this conversation, Jupiter. Does it matter where this planet is in relation to it’s trip around the sun, and since we are along for the ride, where we are as well? I think it does. Jupiter’s solar year is about the same as a solar cycle. Is it in or out of phase when the sun goes quite or is active?
If you want to see something interesting see if you can find a calendar from China a couple thousand years ago.
Sparks says:
June 10, 2014 at 3:34 pm
Leif, if there are no solar effects on the weather or even climate (as you claim) from the representation of the sunspot cyclical activity and various permutations of these cycles
But, for your information, there is: The solar cycle induces a 0.1 degree cyclic variation of the Earth’s temperature, which is lost in the noise.
then any adjustment is irrelevant,
We care about getting the sunspot number right because we want to learn how the predict the solar cycle and weather in space. The solar cycle is important for planning the lifetime of satellites and space weather is important for management of the health of our space assets and of humans in space. NASA already issues space weather forecasts for a spacecraft in orbit around another planet [Venus].
Prove to me that there is no planetary solar influence…
apart from the difficulty of proving a negative, what do I care what you believe? And there is [as I noted above].
lsvalgaard says:
June 8, 2014 at 8:18 pm
Carla says:
June 8, 2014 at 8:09 pm
But the wavelet analysis is way too cool. You might enjoy it. So have a look at the Magnetic elephant walking through the heliosphere’s room.
Repeating the same nonsense does not help
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You may have missed the boat on this one Dr. S. A nice little refresher on the HK project. (observing solar like stars in the H Ca II lines for their cycles and rotation)
For me I got brief intro to O. Wilson, one of the projects founders. Figured you knew about the project for sure…
Was looking for solar rotation and gee found the grand caravan..
Out of the HK project we learn there is a 7 to 20 year periodicity in solar like cycles. And rotation varies from hmm.. 3 days to 43 days for some solar like stars. And we are able to detect flux modulation through the H and K CaII on these solar like stars.
And the wavelet analysis still looks like magnetic elephant legs walking through the heliosphere in time. (they used the Wolf series and understanding of radiation flux of the sun and solar like stars)
NO REALLY Dr. S., like gargantuous, interstellar size flux tubes, including null points.. the imagery and how it reproduces the magnetic cycle in the wavelet analysis is pretty cool..
lsvalgaard says:
June 11, 2014 at 2:58 am
“The solar cycle induces a 0.1 degree cyclic variation of the Earth’s temperature, which is lost in the noise.”
I call Lief to the stand. 0.1, is this a value you will stand by?
X-ray and UV variation between solar minimum and solar maximum stands at 100% regardless.
The average is irrelevant.
Carla says:
June 12, 2014 at 5:37 pm
“Out of the HK project we learn there is a 7 to 20 year periodicity in solar like cycles. And rotation varies from hmm.. 3 days to 43 days for some solar like stars. And we are able to detect flux modulation through the H and K CaII on these solar like stars. “
This is interesting, I’d like some more information on this please Carla. 🙂