Guest essay by David Archibald
A couple of years ago the question was asked “When will it start cooling?” Of course solar denialists misconstrued this innocent enquiry. There is no doubt – we all know that lower solar irradiance will result in lower temperatures on this planet. It is a question of when. Solar activity is much lower than it was at a similar stage of the last solar cycle but Earthly temperatures have remained stubbornly flat. Nobody is happy with this situation. All 50 of the IPCC climate models have now been invalidated and my own model is looking iffy.
Friss-Christenson and Lassen theory, as per Solheim et al’s prediction, has the planet having a temperature decrease of 0.9°C on average over Solar Cycle 24 relative to Solar Cycle 23. The more years that pass without the temperature falling, the greater the fall required over the remaining years of the cycle for this prediction to be validated.
The question may very well have been answered. David Evans has developed a climate model based on a number of inputs including total solar irradiance (TSI), carbon dioxide, nuclear testing and other factors. His notch-filter model is optimised on an eleven year lag between Earthly temperature and climate. The hindcast match is as good as you could expect from a climate model given the vagaries of ENSO, lunar effects and the rest of it, which gives us a lot of confidence in what it is predicting. What it is predicting is that temperature should be falling from just about now given that TSI fell from 2003. From the latest of a series of posts on Jo Nova’s blog:
The model has temperature falling out of bed to about 2020 and then going sideways in response to the peak in Solar Cycle 24. What happens after that? David Evans will release his model of 20 megs in Excel in the near future. I have been using a beta version. The only forecast of Solar Cycle 25 activity is Livingstone and Penn’s estimate of a peak amplitude of seven in sunspot number. The last time that sort of activity level happened was in the Maunder Minimum. So if we plug in TSI levels from the Maunder Minimum, as per the Lean reconstuction, this is what we get:
This graph shows the CET record in blue with the hindcast of the notch-filter model using modern TSI data in red with a projection to 2040. The projected temperature decline of about 2.0°C is within the historic range of the CET record. Climate variability will see spikes up and down from that level. The spikes down will be killers. The biggest spike you see on that record, in 1740, killed 20% of the population of Ireland, 100 years before the more famous potato famine.
I consider that David Evans’ notch-filter model is a big advance in climate science. Validation is coming very soon. Then stock up on tinned lard with 9,020 calories per kg. A pallet load could be a life-saver.
David Archibald, a Visiting Fellow at the Institute of World Politics in Washington, D.C., is the author of Twilight of Abundance: Why Life in the 21st Century Will Be Nasty, Brutish, and Short (Regnery, 2014).
UPDATE:
For fairness and to promote a fuller understating, here are some replies from Joanne Nova
Heh, it all depends upon what the meaning of ‘garbage’ is. I doubt the reconstructions are random garbage.
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Monckton of Brenchley says:
July 1, 2014 at 9:20 am
Those who persist in pretending that Dr Evans is wrong about the decline in solar activity since 2003 might care to look at his latest posting at Joanne Nova’s website.
It would be useful if you give an exact URL or other reference. Wading through it all to find occasional gems is a tedious exercise.
kim says:
July 1, 2014 at 9:19 am
ls, @ur momisugly 9:17. I don’t think that is necessarily true.
Too thin. What URL?
Monckton of Brenchley says:
July 1, 2014 at 9:20 am
Those who persist in pretending that Dr Evans is wrong about the decline in solar activity since 2003 might care to look at his latest posting at Joanne Nova’s website.
Those who persist in pretending that Mr Evans is right about the decline in solar activity since 2003 might care to look at the actual measurements of TSI
http://www.leif.org/research/Monckton-Flaw-3.png and
http://spot.colorado.edu/~koppg/TSI/TSI_Composite.jpg
Agnostic says:
July 1, 2014 at 8:21 am
“I am absolutely amazed at the position Willis is taking on this. He has insisted repeatedly that Dr Evans… “He refuses to reveal the data” (that’s a direct quote)…. when he explicitly has said that he will.”
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I once served on a civil jury where the plaintiff’s lawyer, in his opening statement, told us the “facts of the case” and that he would present evidence to prove that his facts would indeed support his conclusion of liability. While there were constant referrals to these “facts”, I did not hear or see any evidence to support the lawyer’s conclusion at all. He even used a distorted fact, one he hoped the jurors wouldn’t notice. He was almost successful in pulling the wool over the eyes of some jurors until I was able to bring in expert knowledge to easily show that they had not proven anything but that their case was based on the hope that the jury would accept the distorted fact and then come to a predictable conclusion in favor of the plaintiff.
My point being that saying you will reveal the data is far from actually revealing it, especially when the facts used in producing your conclusion are questioned.
(PS – for the curious the distorted fact was implying that a practicing, private physician with hospital privileges who was on weekend call was up and working 72 straight hours such as a resident physician does. The assumption was that common people would not know the difference and after watching numerous TV shows about physicians in residency would conclude he must have been overtired which lead to a wrong medical decision and thus liability. What makes it worse is that the medical decision was proven to be correct; a fact the plaintiff’s attorney never acknowledged but rather just kept on referring to it as an incorrect decision based on being over tired. )
Lief says
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/06/28/a-cool-question-answered/#comment-1674003
@Leif@Bill illis
Thanks Leif for that last comment. I knew about those problems with sensors and consequently did not trust TSI. I don’t have a clue how you can sense radiation <350 nm that simply destroys everything….
I refer to my previous comments made on this thread: I find that there is absolutely no influence of CO2 [on minimum temperatures]. In fact, I donot even trust most global temp. data sets [except my own] because I think they are not properly globally representative/ balanced. Unfortunately, for myself, I therefore have to reject the "Evans model" out of hand. I don't know of anyone here who supported it anyway – it seems even Lord M does not really understand it [the mathematics] , if I heard him correctly. Realizing that we are looking at non-linear processes, the best correlation I did find is the drop in the rate of change in maximum temperatures versus the drop in the solar magnetic field strengths. The drop in [solar field strength] comes from the deadstop top in 1972 to an apparent minimum in 2016/ at least that date, give or take a year, is what my various calculations and planetary positions imply. Something has to switch on the sun, to get the field strengths going up again. It looks like an electrical switch. The question I have, what is pulling that switch?
Leif, GIGO is a platitude. Don’t depend upon it in all cases.
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HenryP says:
July 1, 2014 at 9:35 am
Thanks Leif for that last comment. I knew about those problems with sensors and consequently did not trust TSI. I don’t have a clue how you can sense radiation …
That you don’t have a clue, does not mean that other people are clueless. TSI is today measured very precisely and there is no doubt about the results since 2003.
kim says:
July 1, 2014 at 9:39 am
Leif, GIGO is a platitude. Don’t depend upon it in all cases.
Well, carefully constructed garbage will give you other garbage that might show what you intended by manipulating the input garbage.
Meh, Leif, unresponsive to my point, and tangentially obnoxious and catty. Meow!
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Those who persist in pretending that Dr Evans is right about the decline in solar activity since 2003 might care to appreciate that the decline – as Dr Evans made explicitly clear on the graph that is for some unknown reason complained of – is in 11-year-smoothed TSI.
kim says:
July 1, 2014 at 9:53 am
Meh, Leif, unresponsive to my point, and tangentially obnoxious and catty. Meow!
I didn’t see where you had a point. Could you explain “If Evan’s method pulls predictability from the garbage…”
Henry says
Meh, Leif, unresponsive to my point, and tangentially obnoxious and doggy. Woef!
@Kim
we know him like that, when he does not know it himself?
The point is, Leif, that the reconstructions are tainted, just how is unknown. They are not completely garbage. If Evan’s method pulls predictability out of that mess, that means something. Note the ‘if’.
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Monckton of Brenchley says:
July 1, 2014 at 9:54 am
Those who persist in pretending that Dr Evans is right about the decline in solar activity since 2003 might care to appreciate that the decline – as Dr Evans made explicitly clear on the graph that is for some unknown reason complained of – is in 11-year-smoothed TSI.
Those who persists in pretending that Mr Evans’ 11-yr smoothed TSI are meaningful should appreciate that an 11-yr smooth to be meaningful must stop 5.5 years before the end of the data. Furthermore, real data is always better than botched smoothed data
http://www.leif.org/research/Monckton-Flaw-3.png
From lsvalgaard on July 1, 2014 at 8:43 am:
At ftp://ftp.pmodwrc.ch/pub/data/irradiance/composite/DataPlots/org2pmod_composite.dat it says it contains:
Thus I’m wondering which of the components is suspect. It was mentioned before ACRIM is erroneous. But there is this recent paper at arXiv by Nicola Scafetta and Richard C. Willson (grain of sea salt, anyone?) titled ACRIM total solar irradiance satellite composite validation versus TSI proxy models and stating in the abstract:
Thus these changes to ACRIM have not propagated to the PMOD composite values at WFT as they do not have the latest values.
Was ACRIM the sole major problem with the PMOD composite thus a correct fix is in the pipeline?
Or have I just completely misread the abstract, the official ACRIM series was not changed, and this is just an intellectual exercise of Scafetta and cohort? After all, the abstract does conclude:
kim says:
July 1, 2014 at 10:00 am
The point is, Leif, that the reconstructions are tainted, just how is unknown.
We have made great progress in understanding TSI and how to reconstruct, so to say that the errors are ‘unknown’ is much too strong. Of course, if you use older versions and make your own data then that is another story, but then not much of value can be extracted.
kadaka (KD Knoebel) says:
July 1, 2014 at 10:06 am
Thus I’m wondering which of the components is suspect.
PMOD is as I have shown and as the institute producing PMOD has admitted.
[PMOD = ? .mod]
Forget about the meagre changes in the TSI, head north to the Arctic.
Every meteorologist knows that the N. Hemisphere’s weather is dictated by what is going in the Arctic and its atmospheric pressure as it is shown here. .
.
kadaka (KD Knoebel) says:
July 1, 2014 at 10:06 am
Thus I’m wondering which of the components is suspect.
PMOD is as I have shown:
http://www.leif.org/research/PMOD%20TSI-SOHO%20keyhole%20effect-degradation%20over%20time.pdf
and as the institute producing PMOD has admitted:
http://www.leif.org/research/Monckton-Flaw-4.pdf
Leif, I have great respect for your knowledge, and suspect your reconstruction is the best, but regret it if you’ve developed in a world without unknown unknowns.
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kim says:
July 1, 2014 at 10:38 am
Leif, I have great respect for your knowledge, and suspect your reconstruction is the best, but regret it if you’ve developed in a world without unknown unknowns.
It was developed in a world with known knowns. And as to the unknown unknowns, I’ll quote Wittgenstein: Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muß man schweigen.
Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.
lsvalgaard said in part July 1, 2014 at 10:00 am:
“ Those who persists in pretending that Mr Evans’ 11-yr smoothed TSI are meaningful should appreciate that an 11-yr smooth to be meaningful must stop 5.5 years before the end of the data. Furthermore, real data is always better than botched smoothed data “
Absolutely. There is a too-common false impression that smoothed data are “better” than original data. In truth, it is no longer even data. The problem is of course greatly magnified at the ends. There are suggested “methods” of dealing with the end effects: windowing, padding with some averages, mirroring, mirroring and inverting, etc., all of which further remove us from reality. The inevitable nonsense is accompanied by a “menu” of outcomes against which our favorite theories are differently supported or disconfirmed. Real data please!
What amazes me is when a potential source for climate change is talked about how so many try to say wrong this can not be because the climate is not responding the way it should.
The problems with this line of reasoning are the climate first has noise in the system which can obscure a potential source producing climate change. Noise is always present. An example would be a strong ENSO EVENT, or a random large volcanic eruption.
Next is the climate has thresholds which when reached could cause the climate to change in a major way while if approached and not reached may cause very little
change to the climate. An example would be a increase in sea ice if it reaches a certain critical mass it has a major climate effect, if it increases but does not reach that critical mass it has a small effect or no effect. The same for snow cover and clouds perhaps. (albedo change)
Next are lag times . A potential source could be having a climatic effect but because of lag time needed the effect may not show up until several years later. This then complicates matters by obscuring a possible correlation. Ocean Heat Content change comes to mind.
Next the initial state of the climate can cause a potential source for climate change to have a big impact or a very small impact. If the initial state of the climate is such that it is near the threshold value of glacial versus inter- glacial then a potential source for climate change could have an a big impact. If on the other hand if the initial state of the climate is firmly in a glacial state or inter-glacial state then a GIVEN change in a potential source for climate change may have no impact or very little.
Next the climate is random and chaotic which means a potential source for climate change if it happens in the correct location on earth or correct part of the atmosphere could have a either a big impact or no impact, or it could result in positive feedbacks or negative feedbacks.
Next the initial state of the arrangement of the oceans and land masses have to be evaluated which can have a big impact on how much climate change a potential source for climate change could have.
The point of all of this is do not expect x plus x to equal x outcome and do not expect a given change in a potential source for climate change to give a given climate result in a given period of time and hence right it off as a non climate change player as so many keep doing. .
Since Mr. Monckton is clearly one who keeps count of apologies let me apologize in advance for whatever future slights he may perceive that humblest i may do to him when and if I take the time to comment upon his commentary. In this present marathon, Mr. Monckton surprised me and I imagine others with this really well-put observation:
“At present, the world’s governing class has discovered that, thanks to the near-universal scientific and mathematical ignorance to which generations of State-controlled education has reduced the populace, it can manufacture scientific scare stories as justification for a vast centralization of power in the hands of new supra-national bodies elected by nobody.”
I am not sure what this opinion has to do with in a debate by climate specialists about a TSI model, but that seems to be the pattern with perhaps 97% of the commentary posted by Mr. Monckton, so who am humblest i to complain?
Especially given Mr. Monckton’s lordly succinct summation of the presently stymied United States when it comes to climate change.
Indeed, the US educational “system”, which is controlled by the individual US States, has a pitiable record of performance, particularly in science and math teaching. And Mr. Monckton is correct again that this State incompetence seems to account for the susceptibility of a very large proportion of the US populace to the scare stories regarding global warming and climate change conspiracies propagated by the Heartland Institute among others. And, most tellingly of all, in my view, Mr. Monckton has witheringly explained how the ignorance and gullibility of these mis-led Americans has enabled the “vast centralization of power in the hands of new supra-national bodies elected by nobody”, namely the international fossil fuel industries and their institutional allies.
Well expressed, Mr. Monkcton!
Now, you get a little silly, Leif. Clearly, you’ve developed with an understanding that ‘unknown unknowns’ exist. So why your certainty about your reconstruction?
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kim says:
July 1, 2014 at 10:51 am
Now, you get a little silly, Leif. Clearly, you’ve developed with an understanding that ‘unknown unknowns’ exist. So why your certainty about your reconstruction?
first, one is never ‘certain’, only ‘less uncertain’. second: we have learned a lot about how the measure TSI and what TSI depends on. This knowledge goes into the reconstructions, which then as time goes on become as better and better approximation to what we believe is the elusive ‘truth’.