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
Ms Gray appears incapable of being civil.
I see that Evans has been updating the dotted end of his graph related to the PMOD data. Yet it appears he still uses Lean’s 2000 TSI reconstruction which she no longer proposes. In addition, why the 11 year smoothing for TSI compared to a 25 year smoothing for temperature? Did we go fishing for a fit? Hmmm? Do tell, what is the complicated reasoning for such a difference in smoothing? There must be some scientifically valid reason supported in the literature review for such a statistical maneuver. Otherwise, without such vetting Evans would not use such a technique I am sure.
Me thinks it is the case, in substantial probability, that Evan’s has modeled the wriggle of an elephant’s trunk, not the holy grail of solar driven temperature trend.
http://joannenova.com.au/2014/06/big-news-viii-new-solar-model-predicts-imminent-global-cooling/
A week, a month, a year. The man, who has impeccable credentials, has pledged to release everything and will undoubtedly do so once some wrinkles have been ironed out, deserves a modicum of respect from supposedly like minded individuals. I have followed the big news posts on the other blog with excitement and anticipation. To come here and see people say these kinds of things is disturbing. A scientist who is willing to admit his hypothesis may prove to be rubbish in x number of years based on observations should be commended and at least given the opportunity to publish his entire assertions before being lambasted.
Lord Monckton, I’ve watched deliberations in your parliment. I’m a well-mannered lamb compared to both sides of your parlimentary setup.
Travis, it is my opinion that it is rubbish now. No need to wait. That Evans would update the PMOD information (which indicates he had to rely on others to do the work he was charged with doing) but not use publically available and more accurate reconstructions (IE NOT Lean’s debunked 2000 data) is telling. Besides, he stepped out in public. Heat, kitchen, that sort of thing.
Sorry about the bad use of apostraphe. Fingers flying faster than internal grammar check.
Mr Casey is right at all points. Ms Gray, as usual, is relentlessly wrong. The 11-year filter is present in all the TSI datasets: Dr Evans’ result is not dependent on only one dataset. Not is it particularly dependent upon a continuing downturn in solar activity. It is a shame that a few know-it-alls have shot their foul mouths off prematurely. As Mr Casey says, Dr Evans, who is fully competent to handle time-series, and much more so than your average climate scientist or solar physicist, will disclose his results in detail in due course, when he has finalized everything. Best not to assume the worst until the full picture is revealed.
And relentlessly a bad speller! Apostrophe for cris sake
Good Lord, I was questioning the comparison of an 11 year smoothed series with a 25 year smoothed series. Why that comparison? Does the graph “picture” change if you change the temperature filter? I would guess so. It would be a good guess because I’ve done a bit of filtering myself on brain waves and sound waves.
Recent advances in reconstructions of solar activity can be described thus [I’ll number them for easy reference. Papers and analyses can be given for each point, but are better presented if and when a point is up for discussion]:
1) Variations of TSI are the result of variations of the Sun’s magnetic field.
2) The sunspot number is a very good measure of solar magnetic fields.
3) Variation of the UV flux is due to variations of the Sun’s magnetic field
4) The F10.7 microwave flux is a very good proxy for the UV flux and it at the same level at every solar minimum.
5) The variation of the diurnal variation of the geomagnetic field is caused by the UV and is a very good proxy for said UV since 1781
6) The solar magnetic field is dragged out into the heliosphere and can be measured directly by spacecraft or almost as accurately by its effect on the Earth’s ring current (Van Allen Belts) whose magnetic effect can be measured on the ground, since 1830s.
7) The magnetic effects caused by the solar wind can also be monitored at auroral latitudes, allowing determination of both the solar wind magnetic field and the solar wind speed. Different research groups agree on these determinations.
8) Cosmic Rays modulation depends [inversely] largely on the heliospheric magnetic field.
8) These various determinations [by several researchers] of the solar magnetic field agree, so we know with good accuracy the solar magnetic field back to at least the 1830s, and hence also TSI.
9) The sunspot number has recently been revised and the result is that solar activity in each of the centuries 18 to 20 is very similar: a minimum about every 100 years near the turn of the centuries.
10) There is therefore no Modern Grand Maximum.
11) A result of all of the above is that solar activity reaches almost the same low level at every solar minimum.
12) Early reconstructions of TSI assumed that the solar cycle variation was riding on a varying background level which itself varied as a function of solar activity
13) This background was assumed to be caused by a solar-cycle dependent emergence of small magnetic [so-called] ephemeral regions. Modern measurements show that this assumption is false and that the emergence rate of ephemeral regions is constant in time and thus does not vary with solar activity.
14) Thus, reconstructions that show varying background level [e.g. Lean, Krivova, Wang, and others] are not correct, and conclusions based on them are similarly suspect.
15) All our determinations show that solar activity recently are very much the same as a century ago.
16) This means that the decrease of solar activity from the 1870s to the 1910s is very much similar to the decrease from 1980 to now. In particular, TSI [and any force ‘x’] now is very likely the same as it was 100 years ago
17) If our climate depends strongly on solar activity [be it TSI, magnetic field, UV, cosmic rays, what-have-you] then our climate the last 30-40 years would be very similar to that a century before [even allowing lags of several solar cycles], and it is not.
20) nobody sustains damage to their scientific reputation by being wrong. Being wrong is the normal in science. That is how science progresses and all true scientists wish science to progress.
The two points 8) should perhaps be called 8a) and 8b), respectively.
From Monckton of Brenchley on July 1, 2014 at 6:48 pm:
http://lasp.colorado.edu/data/sorce/total_solar_irradiance_plots/images/tim_level3_tsi_24hour_640x480.png
Not there.
http://lasp.colorado.edu/home/sorce/data/
Not in the daily values.
Willis [snip] with this claim:
“Exactly the same thing” – show the quotes from all parties then we can decide if they are all saying “Exactly the same thing”. Your rules, not mine.
David Evans has explained the timeline and given us a rationale and has said all will be revealed as the timeline progresses. Your interpretation that equates it to what ever Jones and Mann may have said is just that – as meaningless as any opinion can be. The author, not the reader, sets the schedule.
kadaka (KD Knoebel) says:
July 1, 2014 at 7:47 pm
“(…) The 11-year filter is present in all the TSI datasets: (…)”
Not there. [and] Not in the daily values.
You cannot expect the lay person Mr Monckton to know what he is talking about.
Pamela Gray says:
July 1, 2014 at 6:16 pm
“I see that Evans has been updating the dotted end of his graph related to the PMOD data.”
—————————————————————————————————————————
Yes, I see the update also. It seems now to better reflect the TSI graph here:
http://www.leif.org/research/TSI-since-2003.png
H/T to Dr Svalgaard for bringing this to Dr Evans’ attention so that he was able to provide a more accurate graph.
Tom in Florida says:
July 1, 2014 at 7:55 pm
Yes, I see the update also. It seems now to better reflect the TSI graph here:
http://www.leif.org/research/TSI-since-2003.png
H/T to Dr Svalgaard for bringing this to Dr Evans’ attention so that he was able to provide a more accurate graph
This is what true science is all about: correcting errors in a cooperative spirit. Activists such as Mister Monckton would not understand that, but, hey, he has no grasp on the science in the first place, so perhaps we should not fault him too much.
Willis, hold your piece? The Bloody bastard of an editor of my book, told me that is how one should spell it. Actually it made less sense, than peace. Good job it was a humorous book, eh? I fell out with him after the launch as a friend who bought the book, saw 169 errors. Some editors are not too good, eh.
That is an astonishing thing to write and an even more astonishing thing to read. In your opinion do we lay persons have a role or do we all just accept from on high the spewage you elitists choose us to consume? At your service, always,
dp – a devoted lay person humbled by your eminence
dp says:
July 1, 2014 at 9:38 pm
You cannot expect the lay person Mr Monckton to know what he is talking about.
That is an astonishing thing to write and an even more astonishing thing to read. In your opinion do we lay persons have a role>/i>
Lay persons can be very smart and are not easy to fool. Mr Monckton [self-professed lay person] fools himself and shows how little grasp he has on science. Some other lay persons present a challenge to the scientist demanding great precision of expression without jargon and with little hope for the scientist to hide behind mumbo-jumbo. In general, though, we all have to trust in some measure the experts in other fields. When I’m having a medical check-up I need to in general trust the results and act on my doctor’s advice, and I must trust the heart-surgeon operating on me.
Monckton of Brenchley says:
July 1, 2014 at 5:22 pm
My apologies to you, sir, you are correct. You didn’t directly threaten legal action.
Instead, you personally accused Leif of libel a number of times … and you publicly advised your friend David Evans regarding taking legal action … and you put your lawyers on the case, viz:
So … as you say, no threat of legal action … just repeated accusations of libel, advice to a friend that he should consider suing for libel, plus paying your lawyers to go to working on the libel case.
My friend, after admitting that you are paying your own personal lawyers to advance a libel case against Leif, I fear that your pettifogging hair-splitting means nothing. When a man tells his opponent that he is paying his lawyers to investigate a libel case against him, and trying to figure out how to triple the damages, he is threatening legal action.
All your well-known eloquence can’t peanut-butter over the fact that you have informed Leif that you are paying your lawyers to figure out how to screw Leif to the wall with triple damages for libel … and out here in the real world, we call that “threatening legal action”. Pretending your hands are clean in this one doesn’t pass the laugh test.
In addition, you say that:
I’m sorry, but I find both of those equally wrong. For you to discuss legal action in any context, whether by you or Dr. Evans, as a solution to a scientific dispute is an abomination.
And to use your position and reputation to attempt to threaten Leif’s employment his University? That is equally unacceptable.
To date, that kind of cowardly attack has been the exclusive province of the alarmists. I know of no other occasion when a climate skeptic has threatened to cost a man his job because of his scientific beliefs. I am deeply distressed that you have brought such filth to the skeptic side. Threaten a man’s livelihood because you disagree with his science? Advise your friends to sue him in an attempt to shut him up and cost him money? Pay your lawyers to figure out how to nail him to the wall?
For shame. Look, I’m not a British Lord, I’m just a guy. It would be unacceptable for a man in the street like me, with little in the way of resources, to do those things.
But you have a position, and a reputation, incredible eloquence, wealth, a title, privilege, lawyers on call, money to pay the lawyers, powerful friends … and you threaten to use any and all of that to damage Leif’s position at the University, and shaft him with triple damages?
I truly feel sorry for you, my friend. I’d read before of people having this kind of vindictive response to someone telling them the truth … but my goodness, I never, ever thought I’d see that kind of behavior from you.
I beg you on my knees as your friend, give up this crazy path! It is destroying your reputation. Nobody likes a bully. Nobody trusts a man who says he has not “threatened legal action” when at the same time he’s paying lawyers to find out how to get triple damages. You’ve lost your way on this one, Christopher, and it breaks my heart to see it.
It is my sincere wish that you cut your losses, stop paying your lawyers, and stop discussing legal action in any form. Truly, I wish you well, and I say that in the fervent hope that you stop doing yourself damage.
Finally, let me return to what this ugly tempest in a legal teapot is all about. Leif pointed out that in addition to using the Lean and PMOD datasets, which are widely accepted as being incorrect, David Evans had made up 900 days worth of imaginary data with an arbitrary value, and appended them to the end of the actual (albeit terribly flawed) dataset. I know of no scientific basis for such an action, nor have I ever heard of it being done.
Leif said of that combination of using known-bad data and imaginary data that …
First, does David Evans have “an agenda”? He’s not only got an agenda, he has a timetable for the rollout and presentation of the whole circus. Note that I don’t see having an agenda as a bad thing. I have one myself—I’m in thrall to transparent science, and I want to advance my hypothesis that the climate is ruled by emergent phenomena. There’s no problem with having an agenda. It’s only when your agenda leads you to use bad data and to make up data that it’s a problem.
Next, Leif described the use of the known-bad datasets plus imaginary data as “almost fraudulent”, a term which you have violently objected to. And I admit, I’m not entirely comfortable with it myself.
So … to try to remove this from the legal arena and return it to the scientific, how would you describe Dr. Evans large departure from the scientific norms? Most people will just look at the graph, they won’t even realize that the Lean and PMOD data are known to be bad and that on top he’s added bogus datapoints. So we can assume that people will be deceived, intentionally or not, by Dr. Evans’ choices.
So rather than “almost fraudulent”, would you prefer “deceptive”? I mean, some people will assuredly be deceived by the use of imaginary data plus bad data. Or would you describe it simply as “newbie mistakes”? Would ” woefully inadequate due diligence” be a better term in your opinion? How about “didn’t check the literature”? I’m open to alternative terms.
As far as I’m concerned, you’re welcome to take your pick of terms, because no matter what terms you use to describe the David Evans patented secret combination of bad data and imaginary data, Leif’s underlying point is totally true—the model is already falsified because of the use of invalid input. Garbage in, etc …
Look, Christopher, I’m not trying to bust your chops here, truly I’m not. I suspect you don’t understand many people’s visceral reaction to what you’ve done. Americans don’t stand for that kind of thing. Calling the law on somebody in a scientific dispute is seen, and properly in my opinion, as the unacceptable last desperate throw of a man who is a unmanly coward and not only a loser but a bad loser … e.g., Michael Mann …
Now, in my experience, you are neither unmanly, nor a coward, nor a loser … but good heavens, you are doing your very best to pass yourself off as all of them.
And please, I beg of you, stop with the hair-splitting. When you inform Leif that you are already paying your own personal lawyers to figure out how to screw him out of triple damages for libel, you are definitely threatening him with legal action, no matter how you might try to spin it … and your attempts to spin it just make you look deceptive.
My advice, which you are free to disregard, would be to man up, admit you threatened Leif with legal action, admit it was the result of an unfortunate rush of blood to your head, stop trying to diss him with his employers, save your money and stop paying your lawyers, leave the legal threats to Michael Mann and his unpleasant ilk, and let’s get back to the science, can’t we … please? Pretty please?
In the ever-optimistic hope that you will take steps to end what appears to be your determined quest to achieve a final completely and utterly Pyrrhic victory, I remain,
Your friend,
w.
lsvalgaard says:
July 1, 2014 at 9:57 pm
dp says:
July 1, 2014 at 9:38 pm
You cannot expect the lay person Mr Monckton to know what he is talking about.
That is an astonishing thing to write and an even more astonishing thing to read. In your opinion do we lay persons have a role
Lay persons can be very smart and are not easy to fool. Mr Monckton [self-professed lay person] fools himself and shows how little grasp he has on science. Some other lay persons present a challenge to the scientist demanding great precision of expression without jargon and with little hope for the scientist to hide behind mumbo-jumbo. In general, though, we all have to trust in some measure the experts in other fields. When I’m having a medical check-up I need to in general trust the results and act on my doctor’s advice, and I must trust the heart-surgeon operating on me.
Don’t know much about sophistry but MN had just had its coldest winter in 130 years. Today, July 1st, was 61 F and rainy. A number of farmers will have a bust year after a bad 2013, median farm income $43K, exasperating LP shortages last winter with that used to dry corn for Ethanol contracts. This is not weather, it’s climate and your ‘Solar Science’ is a load of crap.
It is strange, nay suspicious, that certain people here are becomming violently opposed to an idea that may or may not be accurate but by all accounts can be falsified in a short period of time. Why are some people so worried as to completely discount the theory without giving David Evans the respect to let him complete his postings (and even to wait a few years)> I am a natural Sceptic, and I feel that something sinister is happenning here. Rather than helpful discussion we get attacks and outright denials, perhaps we have some dopplegangers amongst us, pretending to be sceptics but all along deep undercover agents for the “consensus”
Just a theory but there re lage stakes in the argument and I dont trust the establishment notmto have placed a few deep cover agents ready to sabotage any promising theory as it emerges.
Stupendus says:
July 1, 2014 at 10:07 pm
It is strange, nay suspicious, that certain people here are becoming violently opposed to an idea that may or may not be accurate but by all accounts can be falsified in a short period of time.
Is already falsified.
Willis Eschenbach says:
July 1, 2014 at 10:01 pm
Instead, you personally accused Leif of libel a number of times … and you publicly advised your friend David Evans regarding taking legal action …
Thanks you Willis for your insight into this matter. I feel, though, that your friend has dug himself a hole that is too deep to slither out of. We shall see if Mr Monckton is a man and a gentleman.