Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
In a recent interchange over at Joanne Nova’s always interesting blog, I’d said that the slow changes in the sun have little effect on temperature. Someone asked me, well, what about the cold temperatures during the Maunder and Dalton sunspot minima? And I thought … hey, what about them? I realized that like everyone else, up until now I’ve just accepted the idea of cold temperatures being a result of the solar minima as an article of faith … but I’d never actually looked at the data. And in any case, I thought, what temperature data would we have for the Maunder sunspot minimum, which lasted from 1645 to 1715? So … I went back to the original sources, which as always is a very interesting ride, and I learned a lot.
It turns out that this strong association of sunspot minima and temperature is a fairly recent development. Modern interest in the Maunder sunspot minimum was sparked by John Eddy’s 1976 publication of a paper in Science entitled “The Maunder Minimum”. In that paper, Eddy briefly discusses the question of the relationship between the Maunder sunspot minimum and the global temperature, viz:
The coincidence of Maunder’s “prolonged solar minimum” with the coldest excursion of the “Little Ice Age” has been noted by many who have looked at the possible relations between the sun and terrestrial climate (73). A lasting tree-ring anomaly which spans the same period has been cited as evidence of a concurrent drought in the American Southwest (68, 74). There is also a nearly 1 : 1 agreement in sense and time between major excursions in world temperature (as best they are known) and the earlier excursions of the envelope of solar behavior in the record of 14C, particularly when a 14C lag time is allowed for: the Sporer Minimum of the 16th century is coincident with the other severe temperature dip of the Little Ice Age, and the Grand Maximum coincides with the “medieval Climatic Optimum” of the 11th through 13th centuries (75, 76). These coincidences suggest a possible relationship between the overall envelope of the curve of solar activity and terrestrial climate in which the 11-year solar cycle may be effectively filtered out or simply unrelated to the problem. The mechanism of this solar effect on climate may be the simple one of ponderous long-term changes of small amount in the total radiative output of the sun, or solar constant. These long-term drifts in solar radiation may modulate the envelope of the solar cycle through the solar dynamo to produce the observed long-term trends in solar activity. The continuity, or phase, of the 11-year cycle would be independent of this slow, radiative change, but the amplitude could be controlled by it. According to this interpretation, the cyclic coming and going of sunspots would have little effect on the output of solar radiation, or presumably on weather, but the long-term envelope of sunspot activity carries the indelible signature of slow changes in solar radiation which surely affect our climate (77). [see paper for references]
Now, I have to confess, that all struck me as very weak, with more “suggest” and “maybe” and “could” than I prefer in my science. So I thought I’d look to see where he was getting the temperature data to support his claims. It turns out that he was basing his opinion of the temperature during the Maunder minimum on a climate index from H. H. Lamb, viz:
The Little Ice Age lasted roughly from 1430 to 1850 … if we take H. H. Lamb’s index of Paris London Winter Severity as a global indicator.
After some searching, I found the noted climatologist H. H. Lamb’s England winter severity index in his 1965 paper The Early Medieval Warm Epoch And Its Sequel. He doesn’t give the values for his index, but I digitized his graph. Here are Lamb’s results, showing the winter severity in England. Lower values mean more severe winters.
So let me pose you a small puzzle. Knowing that Eddy is basing his claims about a cold Maunder minimum on Lamb’s winter severity index … where in Lamb’s winter severity index would you say that we would find the Maunder and Dalton minima? …
Figure 1. H.H. Lamb’s index of winter severity in England.
As you can see, there is a reasonable variety in the severity of the winters in England. However, it is not immediately apparent just where in there we might find the Maunder and Dalton minima, although there are several clear possibilities. So to move the discussion along, let me reveal where they are:
Figure 2. As in Figure 1, but with the dates of the Maunder and Dalton minima added.
As we might expect, the Maunder minimum is the coldest part of the record. The Dalton minimum is also cold, but not as cold as the Maunder minimum, again as we’d expect. Both of them have warmer periods both before and after the minima, illustrating the effect of the sun on the … on the … hang on … hmmm, that doesn’t look right … let me check my figures …
…
…
…
… uh-oh
…
…
Well, imagine that. I forgot to divide by the square root of minus one, so I got the dates kinda mixed up, and I put both the Maunder and the Dalton 220 years early … here are the actual dates of the solar minima shown in Lamb’s winter severity index.
Figure 3. H.H. Lamb’s England winter severity index, 1100-1950, overlaid with the actual dates of the four solar minima ascribed to that period. Values are decadal averages 1100-1110,1110-1120, etc., and are centered on the decade.
As you can see …
• The cooling during the Wolf minimum is indistinguishable from the two immediately previous episodes of cooling, none of which get much below the overall average.
• The temperature during the Sporer minimum is warmer than the temperature before and after the minimum.
• The coldest and second coldest decades in the record were not associated with solar minima.
• The fastest cooling in the record, from the 1425 decade to the 1435 decade, also was not associated with a solar minimum.
• Contrary to what we’d expect, the Maunder minimum warmed from start to finish.
• The Dalton minimum is unremarkable in any manner other than being warmer than the decade before the start and the decade after the end of the minimum. Oh, and like the Maunder, it also warmed steadily over the period of the minimum.
Urk … that’s what Eddy based his claims on. Not impressed.
Let me digress with a bit of history. I began this solar expedition over a decade ago thinking, along with many others, that as they say, “It’s the sun, stupid!”. I, and many other people, took it as an unquestioned and unexamined “fact” that the small variations of the sun, both the 11-year cycles and the solar minima, had a discernible effect on the temperature. As a result, I spent endless hours investigating things like the barycentric movement of the sun. I went so far as to write a spreadsheet to calculate the barycentric movement for any period of history, and compared those results to the temperatures.
But the more I looked, the less I found. So I started looking at the various papers claiming that the 11-year cycle was visible in various climate datasets … still nothing. To date, I’ve written up and posted the results of my search for the 11-year cycle in global sea levels, the Central England Temperature record, sea surface temperatures, tropospheric temperatures, global surface temperatures, rainfall amounts, the Armagh Observatory temperatures, the Armagh Observatory daily temperature ranges, river flows, individual tidal stations, solar wind, the 10Beryllium ice core data, and some others I’ve forgotten … nothing.
Not one of them shows any significant 11-year cycle.
And now, for the first time I’m looking at temperature effects of the solar minima … and I’m in the same boat. The more I look, the less I find.
However, we do have some actual observational evidence for the time period of the most recent of the minima, the Dalton minimum, because the Berkeley Earth temperature record goes back to 1750. And while the record is fragmentary and based on a small number of stations, it’s the best we have, and it is likely quite good for comparison of nearby decades. In any case, here are those results:
Figure 4. The Berkeley Earth land temperature anomaly data, along with the Dalton minimum.
Once again, the data absolutely doesn’t support the idea of the sun ruling the temperature. IF the sun indeed caused the variations during the Dalton minimum, it first made the temperature rise, then fall, then rise again to where it started … sorry, but that doesn’t look anything like what we’d expect. For example, if the low spot around 1815 is caused by low solar input, then why does the temperature start rising then, and rise steadily until the end of the Dalton minimum, while the solar input is not rising at all?
So once again, I can’t find evidence to support the theory. As a result, I will throw the question open to the adherents of the theory … what, in your estimation, is the one best piece of temperature evidence that shows that the solar minima cause cold spells?
Now, a few caveats. First, I want to enlist your knowledge and wisdom in the search, so please just give me your one best shot. I’m not interested in someone dumping the results of a google search for “Maunder” on my desk. I want to know what YOU think is the very best evidence that solar minima cause global cooling.
Next, don’t bother saying “the Little Ice Age is the best evidence”. Yes, the Maunder occurred during the Little Ice Age (LIA). But the Lamb index says that the temperature warmed from the start of the Maunder until the end. Neither the Maunder’s location, which was quite late in the LIA, nor the warming Lamb shows from the start to the end of the Maunder, support the idea that the sun caused the LIA cooling.
Next, please don’t fall into the trap of considering climate model results as data. The problem, as I have shown in a number of posts, is that the global temperature outputs of the modern crop of climate models are nothing but linear transforms of their inputs. And since the models include solar variations among their inputs, those solar variations will indeed appear in the model outputs. If you think that is evidence for solar forcing of temperature … well, this is not the thread for you. So no climate model results, please.
So … what do you think is the one very best piece of evidence that the solar minima actually do affect the temperature, the evidence that you’d stand behind and defend?
My regards to you all,
w.
[UPDATE] In the comments, someone said that the Central England Temperature record shows the cooling effects of the solar minima … I’m not finding it:
As you can see, there is very little support for the “solar minima cause cool temperatures” hypothesis in the CET. Just as in the Lamb winter severity data and the Berkeley Earth data, during both the Dalton and Maunder minima we see the temperature WARMING for the last part of the solar minimum. IF the cause is in fact a solar slump … then why would the earth warm up while the sun is still slumping? And in particular, in the CET the Dalton minimum ends up quite a bit warmer than it started … how on earth does this support the “solar slump” claim, that at the end of the Dalton minimum it’s warmer than at the start?
The Usual Request: I know this almost never happens, but if you disagree with something that I or someone else has said, please have the common courtesy to QUOTE THEIR EXACT WORDS that you disagree with. This prevents much confusion and misunderstanding.
Data: Eddy’s paper, The Maunder Minimum
Lamb’s paper, The Early Medieval Warm Epoch And Its Sequel
Berkeley Earth, land temperature anomalies
“As to Greg, unless you appointed him as your spokesmodel, his attempts to speak on your behalf were both meaningless and disruptive, and I told him so. I’m sick of “well-meaning” people getting in the middle of some dispute or discussion and trying to tell me what the other person talking to me is thinking”
I was speaking on my own behalf and expressing my own opinion on your “real name ” ranting. No where did I try to tell you what tonyb was thinking, so you just making shit up in a pathetic attempt to justify yourself.
This concerns me too because like I posted, I sometimes make the same mistake and post as climategrog. So your stupid insult that his somehow indicates tonyb is not “man enough” and is using sock-puppets could by the same logic apply to me.
Not only is this spurious, it is hypocritical when you are bravely sitting there throwing out insults from the safety of you Macbook.
You’ve been getting increasingly shitty with an increasing number of posters here recently. Maybe you should take your personal frustrations elsewhere and leave this place for scientific discussion.
Konrad : “Then allow me to clarify. Biology studies have found the strength of UV-B in some waters to 10 w/m2 at 50m depth. That’s just one UV frequency. Nasa studies have found surface incident UV to have risen as much as 20% since 1978 (flat-lining just before satellite measured tropospheric temps did). So that could be as much as 2 w/m2 variance in the layers of the ocean where energy accumulates. This is clearly comparable to the “forcing” falsely attributed to CO2. ”
Could you provide links to that, it sounds relevant but “studies have found ” does not carry any weight and is of no use other than bar chat.
I think net SW variations are a significant factor in the last few decades
http://climategrog.wordpress.com/?attachment_id=955
http://climategrog.files.wordpress.com/2014/04/tropical-feedback_resp_ci.png?w=843
If you have links what you reported, it would be useful.
Willis Eschenbach says:
June 27, 2014 at 1:08 am
“Look, db, please be clear that I’m NOT saying that anonymity is wrong. Some people have very valid reasons for not wanting to take a public stand—job, family, military, stalkers, age, public position, vulnerability, those are all very valid reasons for posting anonymously.
But when you choose to do that, you lose some things. For example, you lose ownership of your own ideas.”
That whole post is sensible and relevant comment , without the need for insults or questioning peoples manhood.
Perhaps we can now get back to the science.
Thanks, Willis.
My comment re: tonyb was in response to Pamela Gray, not you. But I appreciate your input. You always have my respect.
Konrad. says:
June 26, 2014 at 10:25 pm
Nasa studies have found surface incident UV to have risen as much as 20% since 1978 (flat-lining just before satellite measured tropospheric temps did).
If you have no link to this, it is worthless. The MgII-index I linked to shows no such increase.
Oh, and “over the solar cycle”? Everything I have written on this issue states “between solar cycles”.
Again you are imprecise. Do you mean ‘at solar minimum between two cycles’ or the ‘difference of the solar cycle average from one cycle to the next’.
Leif You think that my choice reflects my “agenda” while your choice represents a sober scientific choice. Not so. We just choose differently based on our different experience of how to analyze complex systems. Based on my methods I have made forecasts of future temperature trends
see
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/10/29/commonsense-climate-science-and-forecasting-after-ar5/
which can be judged as time passes.
.As I understand it you are unwilling to make any forecasts of future temperature trends presumably because you think either that the sun has little effect on climate or you that you don’t know enough to say anything meaningful. This is a perfectly reasonable position – but provides no basis for judging how useful your methods are.
Dr Norman Page says:
June 27, 2014 at 6:45 am
Leif You think that my choice reflects my “agenda” while your choice represents a sober scientific choice. Not so. We just choose differently based on our different experience of how to analyze complex systems.
I choose what the reliable data says. That data is not about a complex system, but about a well-understood and rather simple physical process [the ring-current around the Earth – the Van Allen belts].
As I understand it you are unwilling to make any forecasts of future temperature trends
A forecast should be made based on correct understanding of the physics and on the ability to explain the past. As you do not have those, a ‘forecast’ is no more than wishful thinking.
Willis Eschenbach says:
June 26, 2014 at 9:47 pm
“Thanks, Ulric. Actually, the claim of what to expect is made by those that say that the cause of the dip in temperature is less energy from the sun.
IF that is the case, if it is true that the temperature rises and falls with the slight variations in the sun, then we would not expect the temperature to rise until the energy of the sun increases.You could think of it as a stove. If you turn down the gas, the temperature of the frying pan drops.
But if the temperature rises BEFORE you turn the gas back up, that’s not what you’d expect.
Actually, as you point out, that’s not what I would expect … so what would you expect? Because that’s what the earth is doing. So … would you expect the frying pan to warm up before you turn the gas back up?
I thought not … so in answer to your question, that’s how we “know what to expect”, in the same way that we make many such evaluations—by analogy with a parallel situation.”
Actually, prior to your obfuscation of what I pointed out, I pointed out that you don’t know what to expect, but you think you do, and that’s your mistake. And because your expectations have not been met, you then declared:
“As you can see, there is very little support for the “solar minima cause cool temperatures” hypothesis in the CET”
And yet without fail it gets colder in every solar minima through CET.
No I don’t want to think of it as a gas stove, and about slight variations in TSI that are not large enough to account for the magnitude of the temperature changes anyway. All that we can see very little support of, is of your expectations of when it should be cooler or warmer. Your analogy or model fails to explain the cold, and by no means does it prove that it was not the Sun.
You asked: “so what would you expect?”
Nothing, I would try to understand why the cold happened where it did actually happen. Not try to claim that it should be also happening elsewhere through the minimum. You can’t do that as you have not explained the cold bits yet, i.e.:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/06/23/maunder-and-dalton-sunspot-minima/#comment-1669328
The warming over the last 50yrs, comes down to two possibilities, CO2, or the Sun. Those who insist that it is not the Sun, are doing Mann et al, the greatest of services.
Dr Norman Page says:
June 27, 2014 at 6:45 am
Based on my methods I have made forecasts of future temperature trends…
In your forecast posting you said”
“With that in mind it is reasonable to correlate the cycle 22 low in the neutron count (high solar activity and SSN) with the peak in the SST trend in about 2003 and project forward the possible general temperature decline in the coming decades in step with the decline in solar activity in cycles 23 and 24.”
This is a typical example of how lack of understanding leads you astray. Due to the drift of cosmic rays in the heliosphere as a function of the sign of the solar polar fields, the neutron count is ALWAYS lower in every other solar minimum [such as your cycle 22 low] and has nothing to do with solar activity. Here is an example of this phenomenon http://www.nwu.ac.za/sites/www.nwu.ac.za/files/files/p-nm/SRU%20Neutron%20Monitors%20Monthly%20Graphs.pdf
So a ‘forecast’ based on lack of understanding is not worth to even consider.
Willis Eschenbach says:
“Thanks, Ulric. I used the standard definition of the Dalton minumum. While you are free to cherry-pick any interval you want to try to bolster your claims, I fear your personal definition has nothing to do with my analysis. What’s next, you gonna adjust all of the minima to fit your preconceived ideas, shift the dates of the Maunder? ”
I’m not so sure that there is a standard, Dalton is often said to be from 1795 to 1825. If that is the standard though, it makes little difference the pattern of where the colder run of years happened in each recent minimum. http://snag.gy/eZDgi.jpg
I want to be clear about my view of Mann’s work and in fact all year by year reconstructions based on a small set of locations. It cannot be said enough that the location of material used for proxy records may unfortunately give the impression that global temperatures were thus and so. Or that the cold versus the warm was limited and not global. On the contrary, almost paradoxically, the spatial pattern of warm and cold could very well be used to confirm that it was generally colder or generally warmer. I say this because of what we currently understand about spatial weather patterns of, for example, a negative leaning Arctic Oscillation http://www.nc-climate.ncsu.edu/climate/patterns/NAO.html . This link, from the State Climate Office of North Carolina, has done a great job of demonstrating visually this phenomenon.
It follows then that reconstructions need to be seen in light of whatever oceanic/atmospheric teleconnections were in place at each individual “ring” of data and at each individual location of the tree. These spatial patterns may indeed show up in the proxies as being warm in one latitude and very cold in another, with both confirming that indeed the global average cooled, or warmed, whatever the case may point to. Mann seems to have tried to get rid of the MWP by showing that his tree ring data flattened it. He may have actually confirmed it as part of the spatial pattern one would expect in a warming world. Indeed, a ring of tree rings at the same latitude would help determine whether or not there was a loopy jet stream undulating with persistent blocking pressure systems, or it was generally warmer while just a few latitude degrees higher all the tree rings indicate it was freezingly colder. I wonder.
Could it be that Mann did just the opposite with his tree rings? Did they confirm the MWP? Were his trees at that latitude telling us about El Nino? Or a negative phase of the Arctic Osillation? Or a warm Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation? It does seem interesting that Mann has been studying the AMO. Maybe he is beginning to see that average global temperature trends are really a combination of entrenched spatial weather patterns that are a combination of lesser or greater warmth “here” and lesser or greater “cold” there that when averaged together, demonstrate a trend.
Which leads me back to this thread. We may be addressing this ass backwards. Instead of starting with the Sun, we should start with the weather pattern variation that would make a great deal of the Northern Hemisphere cold during the time span encompassing the LIA. And then follow the trail back to where it might show us the cause of that weather pattern variation.
Dr Norman Page says:
June 27, 2014 at 6:45 am
Based on my methods I have made forecasts of future temperature trends
Your ‘forecast’ said:
“1) The millennial peak is sharp – perhaps 18 years +/-. We have now had 16 years since 1997 with no net warming – and so might expect a sharp drop in a year or two – 2014/16 -”
With May 2014 being the warmest ever recorded, it seems that your forecast is already in a bit of trouble.
Pamela Gray says:
June 27, 2014 at 7:32 am
Which leads me back to this thread. We may be addressing this ass backwards. Instead of starting with the Sun, we should start with the weather pattern variation that would make a great deal of the Northern Hemisphere cold during the time span encompassing the LIA.
………..
Ms Gray
In that case you could start by reading Tony Brown’s contributions.
leif You keep on about why my forecasts are useless. You say
“A forecast should be made based on correct understanding of the physics and on the ability to explain the past. As you do not have those, a ‘forecast’ is no more than wishful thinking”
My concern was about your forecasts, if any, which you would define as “made on correct understanding of the physics and on the ability to explain the past.”
Are you or are you not willing to make any forecasts of future temperature trends made on your , no doubt, correct understanding of the physics and on the ability to explain the past.
Or to back off a step would you would you be willing to forecast the HMF at the Cycle 25 solar activity peak?. If so are you able or willing to forecast whether global temperature will be warmer or cooler than the present at that time based on the HMF or any other criteria you may judge appropriate?
As to my forecasts there are different ways of projecting past trends to the future ( multiple working hypotheses) and I used a different approach in the NH and Global forecasts.
I also said
“1. NH
1) The millennial peak is sharp – perhaps 18 years +/-. We have now had 16 years since 1997 with no net warming – and so might expect a sharp drop in a year or two – 2014/16 -with a net cooling by 2035 of about 0.35.Within that time frame however there could well be some exceptional years with NH temperatures +/- 0.25 degrees colder than that.
2) The cooling gradient might be fairly steep down to the Oort minimum equivalent which would occur about 2100. (about 1100 on Fig 5) ( Fig 3 here) with a total cooling in 2100 from the present estimated at about 1.2 +/-
3) From 2100 on through the Wolf and Sporer minima equivalents with intervening highs to the Maunder Minimum equivalent which could occur from about 2600 – 2700 a further net cooling of about 0.7 degrees could occur for a total drop of 1.9 +/- degrees
4)The time frame for the significant cooling in 2014 – 16 is strengthened by recent developments already seen in solar activity. With a time lag of about 12 years between the solar driver proxy and climate we should see the effects of the sharp drop in the Ap Index which took place in 2004/5 in 2016-17.
4/02/13 ( Global)
1 Significant temperature drop at about 2016-17
2 Possible unusual cold snap 2021-22
3 Built in cooling trend until at least 2024
4 Temperature Hadsst3 moving average anomaly 2035 – 0.15
5 Temperature Hadsst3 moving average anomaly 2100 – 0.5
6 General Conclusion – by 2100 all the 20th century temperature rise will have been reversed,
7 By 2650 earth could possibly be back to the depths of the little ice age.
8 The effect of increasing CO2 emissions will be minor but beneficial – they may slightly ameliorate the forecast cooling and help maintain crop yields .
9 Warning !! There are some signs in the Livingston and Penn Solar data that a sudden drop to the Maunder Minimum Little Ice Age temperatures could be imminent – with a much more rapid and economically disruptive cooling than that forecast above which may turn out to be a best case scenario.
How confident should one be in these above predictions? The pattern method doesn’t lend itself easily to statistical measures. However statistical calculations only provide an apparent rigor for the uninitiated and in relation to the IPCC climate models are entirely misleading because they make no allowance for the structural uncertainties in the model set up. This is where scientific judgment comes in – some people are better at pattern recognition and meaningful correlation than others. A past record of successful forecasting such as indicated above is a useful but not infallible measure. In this case I am reasonably sure – say 65/35 for about 20 years ahead. Beyond that certainty drops rapidly. I am sure, however, that it will prove closer to reality than anything put out by the IPCC, Met Office or the NASA group. In any case this is a Bayesian type forecast- in that it can easily be amended on an ongoing basis as the Temperature and Solar data accumulate. If there is not a 0.15 – 0.20. drop in Global SSTs by 2018 -20 I would need to re-evaluate.”
Incidentally these forecasts are in the ballpark with the new cooling predictions on the Jo Nova site.
From Greg Goodman on June 26, 2014 at 11:45 am:
I had wondered about your SSN 5y relaxation vs hadSST3 post, where was the rest of the data? HadSST3 goes back to 1850, so why terminate it about 1865?
But now I see, your “fit” goes noticeably out of phase about 1890, your “relaxed” SSN starts matching peaks to SST troughs as it goes further back. The 1910 mismatch is allowable as a quirk of the SSN minimum of a large cycle that shows up due to the data mangling, about 1895 is arguably a peak to peak match, but beyond there they are clearly not synchronized.
Plus my eyeball tells me there is likely divergence, if there was SST before 1850 it’d be trending lower and would not match the mangled SSN.
You showed enough to show a “fit”, had to have enough pre-1900 to indicate it was close, but pre-1865 would have obviously shown problems.
Likewise on the near end, about a 1975 mangled SSN dip is where they go out of sync towards the present, SST looks like it might continue trending up post-2000 while the mangled SSN is already going down, and the data is cut off either at or just before 2000.
To be honest and look at where they are in sync, actually 1925 could be the start, 1975 the end, thus they’re only together for fifty years out of 164 years of SST data.
Now the cutoffs could be unintentional, as with an honest 30 year running mean there would be 15 years cut off both ends. But you groan and moan exuberantly about the awful “runny mean” so would never use it and your legend swears a “5y filter” was used so only 2.5 years would be lost.
Thus as was obvious with the tree ring divergence and the Hokey Stick, I find only one conclusion makes sense as to why the rest of the data was “disappeared”.
Good Afternoon Willis
You seem to be expecting me back,so I will return for one final attempt at conducting a civil exchange with you
In creating my own reconstruction of temperatures prior to Manley’s 1659 CET record (which incidentally is by no means entirely instrumental) it seemed a useful exercise to do this whilst walking alongside two much more famous reconstructions, that of Dr Mann and Hubert Lamb, who presented two very different (for the most part) versions of our climate. This provided the opportunity of looking at the detailed background and evidence used in each reconstruction in a way that neither myself, nor probably most of my readers will have previously done.
Not all of what Dr Mann produced was by any means bad, and not all of what Hubert Lamb produced was by any means good. As I made abundantly clear in this article, as in others, I do not agree with Dr Mann’s view of a stable climate but side with Hubert Lambs argument that climate is highly variable, albeit there were a few parts of his work that I disagreed with, or that surprised me.
When assembling evidence in order to put forward the viewpoints of both parties in an even handed manner –so it does not degenerate into a polemic and turn off your audience at the outset- you are going to be relaying information you may disagree with. The time to put forward an alternative view is later in the article when discussing their relative merits.
In this context you continually claim that I believe the Hockey stick to be essentially confirmed and as a result spit fire and brimstone at me. I said nothing of the sort, I said;
“The accuracy of the ‘hockey stick’ type reconstruction shown above was essentially confirmed by The National Academies of America in 2006 with their paper ‘Surface temperature reconstructions for the past 2000 years.”
Not essentially confirmed by me Willis-but by the NAA. Once the evidence setting out the stalls is out of the way I make my feelings on the dubious science of the HS and the results achieved by the spaghetti derivatives perfectly clear. There is however a very pertinent part of the NAA report that speaks directly to me. It is this;
“Large-scale surface temperature reconstructions have the potential to further improve our knowledge of temperature variations over the last 2,000 years, particularly if additional
proxy evidence can be identified and obtained from areas where the coverage is relatively sparse and for time periods before A.D. 1600 and especially before A.D. 900.”
http://dels.nas.edu/resources/static-assets/materials-based-on-reports/reports-in-brief/Surface_Temps_final.pdf
That is exactly what I am trying to do –to improve our understanding of the climate prior to 1600 because it is an Achilles heel.
The methods of creating temperature reconstructions through the use of proxies are described in such works as ‘A millennium of weather winds and water’ by A Van Engelen, J Buisman and F Unsen of De Bilt, whereby you give a weighting to various climatic states. One off anecdotes by unknown persons may be interesting but have little value by themselves and there is no point you quoting them out of context back to me. Those from reliable commentators, diaries and other information such as rainfall, snow and crop records can be put together with scientific papers (of which there are many) academic books (again there are many of these) glacier records etc, and combined with other unlikely proxies such as fish movements and Malaria incidence, both reliant on cold or warm weather.
Now, here is the crux of the matter. I have previously said in this thread that I am inconsequential. You seem to have missed this in somehow believing that I have in some way been offended by your not recognising me. So what? That was not the point. So let me repeat again, I am inconsequential to climate science. But, and here is the thing Willis. So are you.
We are so far outside the big tent of climate science and policy makers making decisions that affect our lives, that we are wholly invisible. Sitting inside the big tent -whether we like it or not- is Michael Mann and his acolytes and the main stream thinking-albeit it has evolved-is that climate varied little in the past until our co2 producing ways fundamentally changed it. That is to say the Hockey Stick and its direct descendants have come to be the predominant icon of our age.
Now we can either shout very loudly and froth at the mouth at a great distance from the tent that the HS has been proven to be broken and its mastermind is a ‘crook’ and believe that by so doing we are having an impact on those running the show. Or we can attempt to deal with the realities of where we find ourselves-on the outside looking in.
My viewpoint is that if we want to be seen by those in the big tent and taken seriously we can do one of two things. Match their science by trying to tackle the inconsistencies in the data head on with better science and try to disprove various parts of their narrative and view of climate history. Or we can try to gain their attention by brawling in an unseemly fashion. Whilst the latter may prove temporarily entertaining to the very few outside of the sceptical blogosphere who notice it, such behaviour will have no impact whatsoever on policy and thinking.
I would prefer to be inside the big tent talking in an appropriate fashion to those inside rather than brawling. I think that can best be done by calm, sensible and rational debate in the knowledge that the vast majority of those inside the big climate tent are not involved in a conspiracy, or attempting a hoax, or are ‘crooks,’ but are for the most part highly intelligent and scientifically trained people who we greatly underestimate if we believe they have not examined most aspects of climate science in a manner far more diligently than we can manage with our extremely limited resources, albeit through the too narrow prism of co2.
You are perfectly capable of producing peer reviewed science that will have an impact. So are a number of others in the sceptical blogosphere. Rather than fighting amongst ourselves don’t you think we would be better employed meeting those we disagree with head on, testing our ideas first in excellent blogs such as this one, then engaging the wider world by producing material of lasting merit and interest that have been peer reviewed and is agreed to have some worth by those who control this debate?
Now if you want to be outside the big tent frothing at the mouth with impotent rage that is your decision but would be a waste of a fine and incisive mind. For my part I have chosen to tread a rational path of engagement in attempting to demonstrate that the belief in climate stability is misguided. That includes being realistic in recognising the importance and influence of those we might disagree with, such as Dr Mann. Thank you
Tony Brown (tonyb)
Owner of climate reason.com-a repository of related climate material maintained at my cost for use by anyone interested in paleoclimate.
Hi Mods
A few minutes I posted a long reply to Willis. Normally when something is over long or has too many links it will display the post on my screen and read ‘under moderation.’ However there is no sign of it. Has it gone into the netherworld of spam?
Thanks
Tonyb (Tony Brown)
Maunder through CET shows a very similar pattern to later solar minima in where the longer runs of colder years occur relative to the solar cycles. The first run of persistently colder years starts just before the cycle maximum at around 1675, and continues to the next maximum at 1685 where it warms briefly for a couple years. It then returns to a persistent run of cold years lasting two solar cycles, up to around the cycle maximum of 1705.
The reason CET reaches 10°C in 1686 in the middle of this very cold period, is short term planetary ordering of solar activity. The same type of configuration is behind warmer years around 1727, 1796, 1826, 1865, 1934, 1948, 1975, and 2003: http://snag.gy/OhdXX.jpg
Dr Norman Page says:
June 27, 2014 at 8:15 am
My concern was about your forecasts, if any, which you would define as “made on correct understanding of the physics and on the ability to explain the past.”
Are you or are you not willing to make any forecasts of future temperature trends made on your, no doubt, correct understanding of the physics and on the ability to explain the past.
I don’t think ANYBODY can make a good forecast of the temperature trend at this point in time.
Or to back off a step would you be willing to forecast the HMF at the Cycle 25 solar activity peak?.
As HMF is well approximated [and we understand why] by HMF nT = 4 + 0.318 SQRT(SSN) a forecast of the HMF hinges on forecasting the sunspot number SSN. This we can do as soon as the solar polar fields stabilize after their reversal at solar maximum. In the past that has been a good forecast for several cycles including cycle 24 which we successfully forecast back in 2004. As the polar fields are the ‘seed’ for the solar dynamo generating solar activity, we also understand why the polar field method works, so have confidence in it. The polar fields right now are reversing and the new polar fields have not been established yet, so we cannot forecast cycle 25. We can GUESS that SC25 will be small, but that is not valid forecast, just a guess.
How confident should one be in these above predictions?
I would not place any confidence in your predictions.
PS to Goodman, fix your dang image linkings. MouseOver of your d/dt(CO2) vs SST [1 year filter] graph shows the same title as your post, but the link goes to “attachment_id=721”, next post by the numbering.
When I do a MouseOver and see the pointer change, I normally expect a link to a larger version. Sometimes I might expect a link to the next in a series, if I’m reading webcomics and I know there is no larger version.
But when I MouseOver “SSN 5y relaxation vs hadSST3”, the graph title is again the same but your link is to “attachment_id=36”, some junk named “icoads_monthly_adj0_40-diff1-gauss24_FFT”!
It’s crud like that backed by deceptive practices that led to good browsers displaying what URL you’d be clicking to. Thankfully I have one or I wouldn’t know where the hell you were trying to send me and what possible malware would await.
Learn how to do correct linking or don’t do it at all. And Fix Your Mess!
Dr Norman Page says:
June 27, 2014 at 8:15 am
My concern was about your forecasts, if any, which you would define as “made on correct understanding of the physics and on the ability to explain the past.”
Back in 2003 there were concerns that the Hubble Space Telescope would crash to Earth because of increasing solar activity. Such an uncontrolled crash has the potential of damage to structures and people and is not considered acceptable, so NASA were investigating methods of a controlled re-entry
http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewsr.html?pid=9909 which would cost $60-230 million. Our forecast in 2004 of SC24 promising to be “the smallest in a 100 years” was deemed to be reliable by NASA and Hubble was left in orbit, did not crash, and has since given us a lot of wonderful science. This is an example of an ‘actionable’ forecast so reliable that you can make serious decisions based on it. Why was it reliable? Because we understand the physics and mechanisms.
Leif Thanks – Fair enough. Since you said “I don’t think ANYBODY can make a good forecast of the temperature trend at this point in time.”
Would it be correct to assume that you also think that all the temperature forecasts (predictions-projections),.impact studies etc of the IPCC on which the climate and energy policies of the UNFCCC, European Governments and the OBama administration are based also provide no reliable scientific basis for action relative to predicted climate change.
Dr Norman Page says:
June 27, 2014 at 10:41 am
Would it be correct to assume that you also think that all the temperature forecasts (predictions-projections),.impact studies etc of the IPCC on which the climate and energy policies of the UNFCCC, European Governments and the OBama administration are based also provide no reliable scientific basis for action relative to predicted climate change.
They are in the same league as you as far as predictions are concerned, although their science is far better, yet still not good enough.
Someone said (I won’t say who because this is not about him):
This is extremely insightful and also wrong. It illustrates a very common mindset, which happens to sidetrack the science. There are not just two possibilities, there are many, not to mention the ones which cannot be mentioned but which still have their vocal advocates. Willis has done us a great service by eliminating another article of faith.
willis, I was referring to the curve done by your “digitizer”. Others knew what I meant, even if you did not. George Brown tried to get you to see that your plot was obscuring the MWP-LIA, but you would not take a hint. We were just trying to be helpful, Willis, but you won’t let yourself be helped.