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
New ideas are always welcome but I see several serious problem with Dr Evans’ idea that he has not replied to.
1. The idea of 0.5K worth of “nuclear winter” is frankly a fudge factor. If you look at how they present it you can see they know they are pushing the limits. A couple of years ago I tried to find some variation in temperature close to some of the major aerial tests, fully expecting to be able to find something. I was mistaken, I could not find anything, even speculative.
To get from there to 0.5K which is almost the total “global warming” over the last 100 years…. sorry, that requires some pretty firm evidence, not a fudge factor pulled out of the air.
2. The idea of the “notch” filter is an error of interpretation. He starts from the assumption that TSI is _the_ input and SST is _the output. Then does an EE’s FFT on input / FFT of output as a “blackbox” investigation.
This is to erroneously generalise a specific case ( in electronics ) where the input and the output are known and measured, to a much more messy case where he is guessing the two quantities are the input and the output.
Even is SST can be hypothesised to be the “output” there is not justification for thinking that the low frequency noise in SST is the LF part of SSN passed through the “transfer function” of the climate system. It almost certainly is not.
Of that is borne his , IMO, spurious idea of a notch filter. There is an 11y peak in the “input” and no 11y peak in the “output”.
What is more he clearly states that the “notch filter” is non-causal. This makes it physically meaning as a model for a physical system which must be causal. ( He also runs it backwards in time too, just as well it’s non causal ).
I see not reason to conclude an 11y “notch” filter, rather than a >11y low-pass filter which could at least be physically meaningful and easier to justify.
It would be equally valid to conclude from what he presents in FFT that there is no discernible connection between input and output. No doubt that will please uncle Willis.
Then he has to go fishing for another fudge factor to explain the lag he needs to make the notch filter line up.
At this point I think he needs to ask if the model is both physically realistic and parsimonious.
I would say it’s neither.
Now I recently showed that there is a roughly 10y lag between SSN and SST.
http://climategrog.wordpress.com/?attachment_id=958
( Correlation does not prove causation but it’s there, on average ).
I also showed that a more physically realistic, yet equally speculative, link can be obtained by a relaxation response to SSN:
http://climategrog.wordpress.com/?attachment_id=981
short term ( 11y ) detail shows phase drift as has often been noted ( except by cherry-pickers ) , however the underlying, long term trend seems to match rather well.
There is a notable divergence since about 1990 but it would be an easier starting point that the “notch-delay” scheme.
I think the idea of trying to construct a non AGW model is a good exercise but the Evans model has serious issues as it stands.
oops: What is more he clearly states that the “notch filter” is non-causal. This makes it physically meaningless as a model
Doug Proctor says:
“But more importantly, Gore, Hansen, Romm, McKibben will HAVE to admit…”
Will never happen. These guys, and their ilk, will always have a dodge or an excuse of some kind.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/06/28/a-cool-question-answered/#comment-1671519
Willis’ block diagram simplifies it nicely from Evans’ verbiage. The the jonova posts are now at “Big News VII” without any maths being presented getting near to a joke. (Perhaps beyond)
Ah, the graphic is from jonova.
http://jonova.s3.amazonaws.com/evans/graphs/part-iii-fig-6-schematic-cotch-delay-solar-filter.gif
David Evans’ notch-filter theory of the climate is infinitely fine-tuned:
http://motls.blogspot.nl/2014/06/david-evans-notch-filter-theory-of.html
I last thought.
At this stage I believe neither side is going to be able to convince the other side they are correct. Everyone has dug in and are convinced they are correct.
Time will tell and it is not far off.
This has me confused. Total Solar Irradiance (TSI) varies from a smoothed high of 1366.5 W/m2 to a low of 1365.5, or +/- 0.5 W/m2. This represents a change of less than 0.04% in TSI over a complete solar cycle, i.e. 100*(0.5)/1366. This is responsible for climate changes of 0.5 deg C? If that is the case we never evolved because the earth is too sensitive to changes in TSI to support life.
The story of Icarus from Greek mythology should be borne in mind by anyone trying to predict the climate by looking ONLY at the sun’s output. Also bear in mind the theories of next years harvest based on previous correlations with sacrificed goats.
This article gives scepticism a bad name.
greg Goodman commented on A Cool Question, Answered?.
It does indeed please uncle w.. and I pointed it out to David Evans. You get the same result running his magic model against white noise instead of the global surface temperature.
All Evans has shown to date is that the surface temperature is immune to small changes in the solar input, either fast or slow … which I’ve been saying for some time now …
w.
For about three years now, I have read every paper I could find on the subject of the N. Atlantic, analysed records of the CET, NAO, AMO, AO, etc, .
What I have learned is that there are very few authors (mainly oceanographers) who understand the ocean-atmosphere system operating there. However that doesn’t mean that the complexity of causes is entirely clear to anyone I came across.
Therefore, I would suggest that anyone’s guess Archibald’s, Evans’, yours or mine is as good or as bad as any other is.
I await the rest of David Evans conjecture.
So far I like the roll out and approach.
If the solar data used is rubbish and the land based temperature record as flawed as I believe, then there is also a chance the proposed model can be useful.
G.I.G.O can produce weird truths.
What I do admire is the process, soon enough all of the Australian Duo’s theory will be on line for all to see and assault.
leif says
http://www.leif.org/research/TSI-since-2003.png
annum
henry says
I have recently updated my tables [to 2014]
and find that we already cooled from 2000-2014 by -0.014K/annum [for Means]
that is -0.2K in total since 2000, globally…..
If anyone does not get the same results, then that is your fault, not mine.
As to what is causing the cooling, [I think} I have figured that out too.
As you can see from Leif’s chart, the trend of TSI is somewhat up, rather than down.
I figure that there must be a small window at the top of the atmosphere (TOA) that gets opened and closed a bit, every so often. Chemists know that a lot of incoming radiation is deflected to space by the ozone and the peroxides and nitrogenous oxides lying at the TOA. These chemicals are manufactured from the UV coming from the sun. Luckily we do have measurements on ozone, from stations in both hemispheres. I looked at these results. Incredibly, I found that ozone started going down around 1951 and started going up again in 1995, both on the NH and the SH. Percentage wise the increase in ozone in the SH since 1995 is much more spectacular.
This is the graph (I think also from Leif) that is relevant here:
http://ice-period.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/sun2013.png
[if you can predict where it is going, which should not be so difficult for Leif?]
So it appears there is some variation within TSI, mainly to do with the UV (C). It appears (to me) that as the solar polar fields are weakening, more energetic particles are able to escape from the sun to form more ozone, peroxides and nitrogenous oxides at the TOA.
In turn, these substances deflect more sunlight to space when there is more of it. So, ironically, when the sun is brighter, earth will get cooler. This is a defense system that earth has in place to protect us from harmful UV (C).
Most likely there is some gravitational- and/or electromagnetic force that gets switched every 44 year, affecting the sun’s output. How?
You tell me?
Anyone got any ideas?
I consider that this analysis is dubious, at best.
that said, it appears that there is some measure of correlation between a quiet sun and lower temperatures. Why that is the case, the mechanisms etc involved is not clear, and since correlation does not necessarily point to causation, past observations may be nothing more than coincidental.
However, it does appear likely that the sun is entering a quiet phase. Obviously, this is not certain, but the balance of observational data, and such little understanding that we have regarding the workings of the sun and its behavoir, points towards that conclusion.
If the sun does go quiet over the next 10 to 20 years or so, we will get an opportunity to observe what happens here on planet Earth. In particular, we will get to see whether temperatures increase, continue to stay steady, or decrease, and if the ‘pause’ in temperature anonaly is broken, we will get to see the rate of change.
If the sun goes quiet and if temperatures begin to rise, then that will add weight to the (c)AGW theory, and will cast doubt on the sun being a major player. On the otherhand, if temperatures begin to fall, this will not prove that it is ‘the sun stupid’, but it will certainly lead scientists to consider in more detail the role that the sun plays in driving temperatures here on planet Earth. In this latter scenario, I would expect to see an increase in the number of papers suggesting that the sun is a significant driver of temperature, and conjecture as to why this is the case. These papers will also no doubt suggest that climate sensitivity to CO2 is less than previously suggested.
It will be insteresting to revisit this in 10 to 20 years time. If we see a fall of temperatures over the next 10 to 20 years of say 0.2 to 0.3 degC per decade, it will be interesting to see whether lief is less certain on his views as to the extent to which the sun and changes in its activity influence temperatures here on planet Earth.
Whilst any prediction is always interesting, especially since it leads to an opportunity of falsification, in reality we know and understand so little that these predictions are nothing more than a guess. I would not even clasify them as an educated guess, but of course where reasons are put forward, they are a reasoned guess.
Lets wait and see. Matters may well be much clearer in the coming decade. My only concern about sitting back and waiting to see what, if anything of note happens, is the risk that in the meantime our political leaders will have destroyed our energy generation, and will have locked us all into high energy prices put considerable stress on the consumer and rendering industry uncompetitive. thank heavens for the fact that the western economies are burdened by so much socialist debt and substantial deficits that the western economies have been forced to slow down there pursuit of green and renewable technoligies. This high level of debt probably means that we can sit back and see what happens over the coming decade.
I would not fault the Evans-Nova team for their roll-out. Think of the early posts as the abstract of the paper that they will release. OK, they set the all-time record for complexity and convolution in an abstract, but that seems to be the idea. They believe, for rhetorical purposes, that their paper will be more effective if the audience sees a semi-technical exposition first. That may be wrong, for some readers, but since the climate science world will get all the code and data within about two weeks, their approach hardly seems a crime against science. After all, there was a time when it would take more than two weeks to get a letter from Australia.
Their approach certainly compares favorably with the Team, whose data releases have been delayed for years or more in some cases.
In reply to:
“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.”
To make an accurate prediction of what will happen next it is necessary to understand what is happening to the sun currently and the physical reasons why the planet warmed in the last 150 years. Roughly 90% of the warming in the last 150 years was caused by solar magnetic modulation of planetary cloud cover. There is now observation evidence that what was inhibiting the solar magnetic modulation of planetary cloud cover has started to abate. The planet has started to cool, there is record sea ice in the Antarctic and Arctic sea is starting to recover. Cloud properties and periods of cloud cover have started to increase in high latitude regions. The number of high precipitation events has started to increase.
There is a physical reason for the delay in cooling (something is physically inhibiting the solar modulation of planetary cloud cover mechanisms). If solar magnetic modulation of planetary cloud cover mechanism was not inhibited (the inhibiting started around 2003) the planet would have cooled due to the following:
1) Solar wind burst intensity has dropped by a factor of two due to the reduction in the heliosphere density by 40%
2) The number of high speed protons striking the earth is the highest ever measured during a solar maximum. During a solar maximum the solar heliosphere increases in extent and there is an increase in the number of magnetic flux pieces from the sun that are ejected into the heliosphere. A ‘stronger’ (more magnetic flux pieces and a greater extent) solar heliosphere deflects and blocks more high speed cosmic protons.
The high speed cosmic protons strike the earth’s atmosphere creating ions that strongly affect cloud droplet size and the duration that clouds persist. Due to the current weakening of the solar heliosphere the number and intensity of the high speed cosmic protons that strike the earth (the high speed cosmic protons are called galactic ‘rays’ (GCR) or cosmic ray flux CRF for historical reasons. The first discovers of the phenomena though the effect has caused by a ray rather than particle and the idiotic scientific community names phenomena after discoverers and keeps confusing terminology due to weird sociological reasons.) that are striking the earth is the highest ever measured during a solar maximum.
http://cosmicrays.oulu.fi/webform/query.cgi?startday=27&startmonth=03&startyear=1969&starttime=00%3A00&endday=14&endmonth=05&endyear=2014&endtime=00%3A00&resolution=Automatic+choice&picture=on
Comment: Solar wind bursts create a space charge differential that removes cloud forming ions from high latitude regions of the earth and changes the cloud droplet size in the tropic region clouds of the planet by a process that is called electroscavenging. At high latitude regions the removal of ions reduces the amount of cloud cover which causes high latitude warming. It should be noted that solar wind bursts are created both by sunspots and coronal holes. The cause of solar coronal holes is not known. If there are low latitude coronal holes during a solar magnetic cycle minimum there will be solar wind bursts which will remove ions from the earth’s atmosphere which makes it appear incorrectly that high levels of GCR does not correlate with an increase in cloud cover.
A reduction in GCR causes there to be less clouds in high latitude regions of the planet. The reduction in GCR has no significant effect in the low latitude regions are the GCR in question is blocked due to orientation of the magnetic field. (See Svensmark’s book Chilling Stars for an explanation of the GCR mechanism.)
The increase in cloud droplet size in the tropic region when there are electroscanvenging events, causes the tropical clouds to be less transparent to long wave radiation which amplifies El Niño events. As most are aware something is now inhibiting El Niño events. As most are aware there is now an unexplained increase in sea ice both poles which supports the assertion that cloud cover is increasing at high latitude regions. Both of these observations support the assertion that what ever has inhibiting the solar magnetic cycle modulation of planetary cloud cover is abating.
P.S.
The IPCC models are fundamentally incorrect. The AGW mechanism saturates at high altitudes (the lack of warming in the tropic troposphere at 10 km issue) and the planet resists forcing changes by an increase or decrease of clouds in the tropics (sensitivity issue).The majority of the warming in the last 150 years was caused by solar magnetic cycle modulation of planetary cloud cover. Observational evidence to support this assertion would be the sudden and rapid reversal of the warming in the last 150 years. The majority of the cooling will occur over the next 3 to 4 years, not 2020.
Leif:
This is a link to the latest visual picture of the sun. http://sdo.gsfc.nasa.gov/assets/img/latest/latest_4096_4500.jpg
How many sunspots do you see? Do you observe pores (tiny sunspots) or sunspots. Why are there no large sunspots as observed in previous solar cycles? How long are you going to keep up the charade that the solar cycle 24 changes are not unprecedented? I notice you have no explanation for what is happening to the sun and you have no prediction of what will happen next based on a physical model and mechanisms which can be used to falsify or confirm your ‘beliefs’ and what ever physical model those beliefs are based on.
P.S. Amateur solar observers have noted there is an unexplained change to solar magnetic cycle and that the sunspot count is rigged in a misguided effort to try to hide what is happening. P.S. The gig will be up when the planet cools.
HenryP says:
June 28, 2014 at 9:58 am
“Incredibly, I found that ozone started going down around 1951 and started going up again in 1995, both on the NH and the SH. Percentage wise the increase in ozone in the SH since 1995 is much more spectacular.”
Quite so:
http://www.newclimatemodel.com/new-climate-model/
“11) Solar activity passes its peak and starts to decline.
12) Ozone levels start to recover. The stratosphere warms.”
which is the reverse of standard climatology 🙂
http://gravity.wikia.com/wiki/Solar_variation
The above presents much data that supports the case that is being made by those of us who feel primary and secondary solar changes play a very important role in climatic outcomes over time.
Again I am going to repeat the climate is non linear, chaotic and random not to forget the initial state of the climate is in constant flux and thresholds are out there which means a given force put upon the climate is NOT going to give the same result. Lag times are also involved which are tied into the initial state of the climate.
There is so much noise in the climate system which often times in the short run will obscure factors which indeed correlate to the climate but not over the long term which is where we are now with the given prolonged solar minimum.
Enough duration of time and degree of magnitude change in activity has now taken place (once solar cycle 24 max ends which is happening now) which should start showing up in the climatic system. Year 2014 will be the last year with out a global temperature decline.
William Astley says:
June 28, 2014 at 10:14 am
Roughly 90% of the warming in the last 150 years was caused by solar magnetic modulation of planetary cloud cover.
There is no evidence for that. And all the rest of your stuff are misunderstandings, unsupported, and rambling nonsense.
This is a link to the latest visual picture of the sun. http://sdo.gsfc.nasa.gov/assets/img/latest/latest_4096_4500.jpg
How many sunspots do you see? Do you observe pores (tiny sunspots) or sunspots.
There are six groups with a total of 11 spots, so the official sunspot number is 0.6*(10*6+11)=43, which is what SILSO [formerly SIDC] reports for today http://www.sidc.be/silso/home
Since the spots are smallish, they will not be weighted.
You can cut the crap about sunspot counts being manipulated.
In due course this will boil down to a simple issue.
Solar changes cause albedo changes on the Earth which affect the proportion of TSI that gets into the oceans to drive the climate system.
Cloudiness is responsible for those albedo changes.
Svensmark suggests that changes in the amount of available cloud condensation nuclei (affected by cosmic ray amounts) are the relevant parameter.
I suggest that cloudiness changes are a consequence of changes in the length of the lines of air mass mixing when jet stream tracks become more meridional or zonal as a result of the permanent climate zones altering their latitudinal positions and that solar variability alters those positions via differential changes in ozone concentrations above the tropopause.
David Evans’s ‘force x’ is the change in the mix of wavelengths and particles from the sun which causes those differential changes in ozone concentrations above the tropopause.
Any better ideas?
We should see result even before the climate summit the coming year(november) in Paris, if it really would happen that the temperature have dropped by a little bit at that time that would be a blessing.
An what about the El Nino, would that be a false tune in the story.
Willis said:
“All Evans has shown to date is that the surface temperature is immune to small changes in the solar input, either fast or slow … which I’ve been saying for some time now ”
Yes, Willis, and you received credit for that limited insight.
I told you that you needed to expand it beyond tropical thunderstorms but did you listen ?
It is a matter of the entire global air circulation responding to solar (or any other) variations in order to maintain system stability.
The entire global air circulation is intimately tied to adiabatic uplift and descent which I was previously abused for drawing attention to on this very site.
C’est la vie.
I notice that I am being subjected to moderation these days simply for expressing an unpopular opinion.
Sceptics are right to scoff at the Team’s “gas jar” theories of the climate system, but should not then fall prey to much worse hubris, claiming to be able to predict the coupled Sun/Earth/Cosmic-ray system (complete with electromagnetic radiation, many gases, ionisation, water in 3 states, heat, biological systems, …) with a simple filter.
I can’t believe that some people are falling for this.
The real point is planning. Are you an ant or a grasshopper? 🙂
lsvalgaard says:
June 28, 2014 at 10:28 am
There are six groups with a total of 11 spots, so the official sunspot number is 0.6*(10*6+11)=43, which is what SILSO [formerly SIDC] reports for today http://www.sidc.be/silso/home
Since the spots are smallish, they will not be weighted.
Since there is a large sunspot just coming around the East limb, the final sunspot number for the day may be adjusted upwards [SILSO updates the count is real-time].