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
OMG such debate. Plate tectonic theory next?
It’s obvious Dr Svalgaard wasn’t one of the scientists that Dr David Evans has consulted with in producing his model, which by the hysteria he shows here was a good thing. He doesn’t seem to have read all the posts at Jonova, along with other critics like Willis who also appear not to have. Otherwise he would not have had this outburst, which is not dissimilar to the worst kind of bullying from climatologists like Mann. Just shut up Dr Svalgaard, and wait until it’s all out there, then you can be free to criticize all you want.
This just proves Evans’ approach was right in a deliberate effort to educate the rest of us in a field few of us are expert in. As he said, if it turns out wrong, throw it out! Patience is a virtue.
Meh. We’re doomed anyway.
A lot of people are missing the big picture. All 50 of the IPCC models have been proven wrong, invalidated, shown to be worthless, demonstrated as no good, falsified by actual observation. Tens of billions have been spent on the basis that those models would be proven to be correct. That didn’t happen and it is like the weight of medieval superstition has been lifted from mankind, all over again. We are free to pursue what might really work. We are well into the 21st century and, as far as I know, there are only two models with predictive ability that are still in the game – mine and David Evans’. Of those two, the former is very blocky with an eleven year average forecast while the latter has monthly data input providing a monthly output profile. This much finer resolution, once validated, will be of great practical value to real world practitioners. People who speculate on corn futures perhaps, the longer dated contracts especially. His model is full of goodies – it is an Aladdin’s Cave of data sets all put together very neatly. Its release will be Christmas come early for all who have a natural curiosity re climate. Those in the pay of Soros won’t like it so much.
Willis E needs to grow up. Sheesh!
I am grateful to NikfromNYC for having compared Dr Evans’ graph of total solar irradiance with an official dataset and for having found the two to be substantially similar: certainly not dissimilar enough to make an issue of. Yet – let it not be forgotten – Mr Svalgaard made an issue of it, saying that Dr Evans had deliberately used wrong total-solar-irradiance data, saying he had an “agenda” and, for good measure, accusing him of coming close to fraud.
And Mr Svalgaard has unbecomingly ducked and dived and wriggled instead of apologizing promptly, which is what a true scientist would have done after having made such serious and – as NikfromNYC has now discerned for himself – baseless allegations about Dr Evans.
The bullying tone adopted by too many commenters here – whether through fear that Dr Evans may be right or through jealousy that he might get to the truth first – is unbecoming. I, for one, have less and less patience for those who make outright false allegations. Mr Svalgaard is very lucky that it was not I who was his victim.
It is beginning to look as though the only successful method of reminding true-believers in the New Superstition of their moral obligation not to make up falsehoods about those with whom they disagree, and to remind them also that the laws of libel apply to blog comments, is to take one of them to court. I have just discovered that a notorious individual on Joanne Nova’s site has been saying I “faked” a graph in whose design, production and publication I played no part at all. I am giving the individual in question a fair opportunity to back off. If he does not do so, I shall issue proceedings for libel. The outright mendacity of those who see the climate scare collapsing around them does them no credit. It reeks of the desperation of the cornered rat.
First, Christopher, my thanks for your prompt and thoughtful reply.
Monckton of Brenchley says:
June 28, 2014 at 5:54 pm
You, David, Jo, Phil Jones, and Michael Mann are all taking the identical position—we don’t have to reveal the data and code until we want to, and right now, we don’t want to.
I fail to see how this can be blamed on the scientific community. I manage to publish my data and code along with my theory. Steve McIntyre publishes his data and code. We don’t stand around and complain that the “scientific community” isn’t rational.
We just publish our data and code. How hard can it be, Christopher?
Ooooh, bad Lord Moncton, no cookies, logical fail. David has published all of the teasers and all of the advertisements for his work, but he has refused to publish the code, the data, the equation for the model, the number of parameters, or the out-of-sample tests.
Now, if you publish the uniportant half and refuse to publish the important half, when you come back and complain that people are attacking the half you’ve published, I’m just going to point and laugh. They’ve published I think seven posts now, ASKING FOR COMMENTS without posting the important stuff … so you simply cannot bitch that William Connelly (and I for that matter) have taken them up on the invitation to comment on the work. My comment to them was, stop faffing around and publish everything. Should I not have said that as well? They published in sections asking for comments, Christopher, and as a result, you absolutely can’t bust people for commenting. That’s not on.
If David didn’t want people attacking half of a theory, he has a simple option—reveal the data, reveal the code. The exact same thing Thompson refused to do. The same thing Phil Jones refused to do. Since David has steadfastly refused to do that, despite others asking and me begging him to reveal the data and code, you have no moral standing to complain when someone attacks the half-portions and teasers and advertisements that he has published.
Actually, I have noticed a whole group of scientists responding both on and off his blog to say that his math is badly flawed … in any case, aren’t you the guy who said that “appeal to authority” is a well-known logical fallacy? Except you said it in Latin, but still …
He has indeed put forth a genuine effort, and it is great that he has proposed a falsifiable test. It is a tragedy that he has spoiled it by channelling Phil Jones.
Christopher, I have a simple rule that has never failed me. When a man is hiding something, it’s because he’s got something to hide.
Let me suggest that you apply this rule to both David Evans and to Nicola Scafetta …
And while it’s wonderful to be assured that some day soon the great magicians will condescend to lift the veil of mystery and reveal to the undeserving polloi the code, the data, the equation for the model, the number of parameters, the out-of-sample tests, and everything else that they are keeping secret …
… I do not see what they are gaining by continuing to hide their light under a bushel. I mean, what is the gain in all of this? You’re left having to make excuses for them, and to come up with some BS claim about how it’s the fault of the “scientific community”; people who are honest scientists are pointing out that they are acting just exactly like the alarmists; nobody can check their work; people are giving objections based on half-information; we can’t answer Leif’s question because we don’t have the code and data … and for what?
What have they gained by this, other than deserved approbrium, and division among the people who should be their supporters? The only thing I can see that they’ve gained is a whole host of suckers who have signed on and are busily defending the theory before seeing the out-of-sample tests that Jo says are already completed. Was this their intention going in? I doubt that greatly … but it’s the situation coming out.
Now, perhaps you and they think that tradeoff, gaining devotees and losing scientists, is worth the approbation. Or perhaps you are amazed that I and others would hold David to the same standard to which we hold Michael Mann. Or perhaps you agreed with Jo, that their five years of hard unpaid work and dedication buys them exemption from scientific transparency. Or perhaps you just misjudged the outcome. I don’t know.
To me, every bit of what has happened is totally predictable. This is 2014, and science has changed. We got burned, Christopher, and burned very badly, by people doing just exactly what David and Jo are doing as I write this—hide the data, hide the code.
And as a result, the rules changed. Even Science magazine now has a policy requiring the authors to post data and code, not after the first seven publications as David is doing, but at the same time they post the theory …
But nooooo, you and Scafetta and David and Jo think you get some kind of special exemption from the rules because you’re on the side of the angels … never gonna happen. Scafetta will never be a scientist until he reveals his work.
In any case, if you have any swing with them, tell them it’s way past time, that their reputations are suffering along with yours, that their advertisement for their science is way past its use-by date, and the hour has come to extract digit …
As always, my friend. Please know that none of this is personal regarding you, other than my heartbreak at the fact that for the second time, I see you supporting someone who is spitting in the face of scientific transparency, and I want to shake you and say wake up, dear fellow, it’s 2014, wake up to the current scientific reality …
w.
PS—An exit question. If you had it to do again, would you advise them to post up the results when they posted up the theory? I mean … was all of this worth it?
It seems to me that you’all are talking about a change of maybe a little more than 1 W/m2. Would you even notice it if the left side (vertical) went from 0 – 2000 W/m2 instead of being centered on a tiny portion of that such as it is now?
On the contrary, medieval superstition is alive and well. In some cases it’s gotten worse.
Christopher, one more comment. You’ve read enough of my stuff to know that when I get interested in something, I go get the data and run the numbers myself. I don’t trust anyone’s numbers, including my own. In that way I can understand what the authors have done, I can evaluate their work, I can see if I can improve on their method.
So when I started looking at the “notch filter” hypothesis, and discussing it with David, I found myself at a huge disadvantage—he had all of the secret information, and I had none. So I could and did make objections, but he could just say oh, you misunderstand what I did, or wait until the data is published or …
And I was left with no possible way to show that he was wrong. Without the data and code, science comes to a grinding halt.
As a result of not revealing the data, code, and results, he has established himself in an impregnable position. A number of signal engineers have posted strong objections to his work … but he can just say the same thing, that they don’t understand his deep mathematics … the math he hasn’t revealed. So they, like me, grind to a halt with nothing to say.
As a result, nobody can show that his work is flawed, nobody can falsify it, nobody can get him to concede a single point, nobody can say anything. It’s not possible. He just goes on blithely, asking for comments, as though it were a discussion between equals, when in fact he holds all the cards.
And he has kept up this highly asymmetrical charade for I think seven posts now. Of course, the credulati think that he’s da bomb, here he is blowing all of these signal engineers out of the water, and even Willis can’t find anything to say …
I’m sorry, Christopher, but I find his whole charade deeply depressing. Have we really sunk that low, that some charming fellow who invites comments on seven successive posts about his theory but steadfastly refuses to show his out-of-sample tests has people like you claiming that he’s doing science?
w.
cynical_scientist says (emphasis mine):
June 28, 2014 at 3:53 pm
Thanks, cynical. As I told David Evans, we agree that the temperature record shows no 11-year cycle. We just differ on the cause.
David posits a hugely complex system involving something described as a thermal notch filter. I asked him if he know of one other example of a natural thermal notch filter … crickets. He has steadfastly refused to publish his results, and has no observational evidence to support his ideas.
His original claim was that the notch requires a notch filter. You disagree, saying “duh” to the alternative, but that was his claim. After I and others noted the “duh”, he changed it to say that IF we assume the system is linear (or semi-linear), so that a change in the input GUARANTEES a change in the output, then the system requires a notch filter. I agree … and I say that is strong evidence that the the system is not linear in the slightest.
In contrast to David, I say that the reason we don’t see the 11-year solar cycles in the temperature is the same reason the global temperature shows no sign of the ~ 5% increase in solar input over the last half billion years—because the earth has strong thermoregulatory systems that maintain the temperature within a very narrow range (e.g. it was temperature-stabilized to within ± 0.3°C over the entire 20th century, a remarkable record). And I have provided a host of observational evidence to support this theory, and published the data and code for each analysis of the observations.
Your choice …
Regards,
w.
I cannot understand what Willis Eschenbach is wittering on about. Michael Mann has refused, to this day, to part with all his code and his data, and spent a fortune trying to make sure that the courts did not get to see his emails about it either. I have given a plain and clear account of the manner in which Dr Evans will shortly make everything available to everybody. Unlike Mann, he has no intention of concealing any inadequacies in his work from the public so that he can go posturing around the world sure in the knowledge that no one will be able to falsify what he refuses to make available.
Mr Eschenbach complains simultaneously that Dr Evans has not published his math and that some who have not seen his math have criticized it. Well, they should be more careful. I was taught not to criticize what I had not myself read.
It would be much better if Mr Eschenbach were to campaign against those “scientists” and journals that have a policy of refusing to make everything public, and of spending large sums with lawyers to keep publicly-funded scientific research permanently secret, than to whine at such pointless length about someone who has said that he will imminently make everything available, and in the most transparent and accessible way. There is a clear distinction between these two positions,
One realizes that Mr Eschenbach has strong views on the Sun’s lack of influence on the climate. He is entitled to those views. But other views are possible. It does seem to have been very cold on both sides of the Atlantic during the little ice age, which coincided with – and may have been caused by – the prolonged absence of sunspots during the 70 years of the Maunder Minimum. And it is also arguable that, given the large quantity of square meters on Earth, and the fact that 1 Watt per square meter is one Joule per square meter every second, a prolonged change in the activity of the Sun can indeed alter the climate on Earth, particularly if the small variations in solar activity are amplified by cosmic-ray displacement or some other such factor.
Dr Evans, instead of starting by trying to work out by what mechanism the Sun influences climate, has started by trying to work out whether the Sun influences climate. His broad conclusions are that solar variability can influence the climate; that at present one may attribute all of the past century’s global warming either to the Sun or to CO2 or to any combination of the two, or to natural variability.
But the interesting point about the current stage of his drip-feed release of his project is that he now foresees the impact of the two theories diverging. For most of the past century, solar activity was rising. From 1925-1995, peaking in 1960, there was a quasi-Grand Maximum. That may have caused some of the 20th century’s warming, just as our adding CO2 to the air may have caused some warming. But solar activity is now in decline and, if the solar physicists are right, it will be in decline for 20-60 years. Yet CO2 concentration is rising. So now it may become possible to discern which of the two theories predominates. This is potentially very interesting. Let the man have his say before you shoot him down.
Willis , you’ve made it clear where you’re coming from. But it looks like a storm in a teacup.
In ‘Strine terms (Down Under Speak) you could be seen to be accusing DA of “under-arm bowling”.
But it looks to me like he’s gone out to face Denis Lillee , without even a box. Pretty damn gutsy for mine.
Sorry , that should be DE (David Evans)
” Let the man have his say before you shoot him down.”
Hear hear.
Brad says:
June 28, 2014 at 3:47 pm
Gosh, you mean skeptics are human too?
Brad, if you don’t think skeptics can sling mud, look at the abuse I’ve taken for saying that I can’t find evidence of the 11-year cycle in the temperature data.
However, if you think you’ll find a more “sciency” site out there, I doubt it. The truth of the matter is that science is a blood sport. You have to understand that the central activity in science is showing that some guy’s precious pet idea is wrong, wrong, wrong … surely you don’t think that will be all flowers and rainbows.
But that’s what scientists do. And if you can show that e.g. some guy’s idea that he’s given his life to is based on some embarrassingly obvious error … well, despite stereotypes, he’s not likely to shake your hand and thank you warmly for advancing the science. Like any cornered animal, he’s likely to lash out.
Finally, we are at a turning point in science. It used to be OK to post your ideas without archiving the data and the code. We trusted that the scientists were doing what they were saying.
However, we got burnt very, very badly by that trust. And as a result, the new scientific requirement is total transparency—for your work to be considered science, you have to show everything.
Some people, unfortunately, haven’t gotten the memo … and as a result, the fight is intense. Look, I tried nice. I literally begged David Evans to please, please stop hiding the data … and I got bupkis.
As a result, I now speak strongly about his actions. And you may not like that, but he’s doing damage to both science and to the skeptical cause, so I’m not going to just stand by. So I use hard words, but it’s not because I haven’t tried the gentler methods …
In any case, I’d advise continuing to read WUWT, if only to see how this all plays out. Grab a beer and some popcorn, it’s always a good show around here.
Best regards,
w.
Monckton of Brenchley says:
June 28, 2014 at 8:22 pm
Perhaps you haven’t noticed, but David Evans has refused, to this day, to part with any of his code and his data. How is that any different? Yes, one day Mann and Evans may come to their senses and reveal their code and data … so how does that help us today?
w.
i’m happy to let jo and dave have fun presenting their discoveries and interpretations. it’s interesting and fun.
at xmas i hide presents and we wait for the day. half the fun is the surprise of opening them.
i don’t think that makes me treacherous and deceitful, but a wall of text in 24 pt Calumny Bold might persuade me…lol
Monckton of Brenchley says:
June 28, 2014 at 8:22 pm
Thanks, Christopher. I begged David to reveal his work to the public. He refused. To date, David has concealed any inadequacies so that he can go posturing around the web, sure in the knowledge that no one will be able to falsify what he refuses to make available.
He has kept up this charade for seven posts now, inviting comments while he knows no one can falsify anything he says, and thus able to appear to defeat their counter-arguments.
Sure, now that he has done that, now that over the course of the seven posts he has convinced the true believers and the less inquisitive that he’s able to vanquish me and a bunch of signal engineers and other scientists with one hand behind his back, perhaps at that point he’ll reveal the secrets …
How you find this charade anything but depressing is beyond me.
w.
Patience is not your strong suit Willis,
There are a lot of riduculous unscientific comments on this, so I would like to point out the following
Dr Evans’ model is valid for any system, any system having a notched transfer function can be described by the collection of elements that David has described… it’s a model, an approximation of the way TSI maps to temperature.
He makes an assumption that temperature should be driven by TSI, that’s part of the hypothesis.
Leif, jumps to unwarranted conclusions. I understand David has updated the input data and that does not change the conclusion. Leif is also seemingly unacknowledging of the possibility that he doesn’t know everything about Sun-Earth interactions. Dr Evans is not so dismissive. I might point out that Leif hasn’t mentioned the biggest failing of the model… an exercise best left to the reader.
From a science/engineering point of view there is nothing wrong with the model put forward, other than it might not descrribe Sun-earth interactions adequately. For that we must wait and see, until about 2020.
From a personal note, it’s extremely interesting to note that TSI modulates temperature on a daily, annual and geologic scale, but not across the sunspot cycle. Dr Evans is seeking to find out WHY? This is an interesting question all on its own, the idea that thermal inertia irons out the 11 ripple doesn’t work, it doesn’t result in the empirically derived transfer function, indeed David’s model finds that effect, but limited to a 5 year response.
For those that think TSI is too small to be discernable, – you will note that GPS signals are about 20 dB below the noise floor, GPS works by adding up multiple samples over many repeated cycles, the signal is correlated, the noise is not, and the signal rises from the noise (otherwise GPS “can’t work”). Even with this technique 11 year ripple doesn’t appear in the output temperature… now isn’t that interesting?, where did it go? Maybe TSI doesnt affect temperature and our observations that winter is colder than summer is all in our imaginations?
Give this model a chance, if its wrong we’ll know in a few years. If you have criticisms, send them politely to Dr Evans. If you have other ideas then do your own competing model.
Guys cool it maybe good idea! Wait till it is all revealed shortly and then have your say, anything said now is just conjecture and looks from the reading like a cream pie fight in the comics to the viewer,guys Cool it!
Monckton of Brenchley says:
June 28, 2014 at 8:22 pm
Christopher, if you have been reading my work, then surely you must know that I have been doing exactly that. I’ve campaigned very loudly for scientific transparency. I’ve written a number of open letters on the subject to e.g. the head of the NSF and the editor of Science and another editor of Science and a variety of other people, arguing forcefully for them to require archiving of code and data as a condition of publishing. I’ve done exactly what you recommend, in spades.
I see. You think I should hold my opponents to one standard, and David to another. Not gonna happen, my friend. It is because I have done what you recommend, it is because I have strongly advocated transparency in science, that I have no choice but to hold the skeptics to the same standard to which I hold the alarmists. Any other position would be hypocritical.
At this point, David has kept up this charade for seven long posts now, in a position which you describe accurately as being “sure in the knowledge that no one will be able to falsify what he refuses to make available.” After the publication of the second one, I told him his tactics were unethical, and I begged him to publish … and I waited through another post … and another …
If the data and code were one post late, I wouldn’t care. If it were two posts, I’d get concerned.
At seven posts, I’m sorry, but this evasive behavior is way, way past its use-by date. He’s maintained the fraudulent position where no one can falsify him for seven long and complex posts now, with equally long and complex comment threads, during which predictably he has roundly and unfairly “defeated” every opponent including myself, which has clearly impressed the credulous to no end, but which is an insult to science.
Color me unimpressed …
I’m sorry, Christopher, but that’s not science in any form. David’s pulling the same BS Mann pulled, and with exactly the same outcome—no one can possibly falsify his claims. You sure you want to endorse that?
w.
Willis
I guess I’m one of those you accuse of being sucked in. Well I haven’t formed an opinion one way or the other yet. I will wait until all the information is out.
If you keep doing things the same way in life you are unlikely to get much change. So David Evans has decided to publish what is a quite big and complex issue in a new way. It is still to be seen if it improves the publication of the information. Obviously you do not like this. A number of others have commented that they like what are doing.
But it is his work , not paid for by Government or anyone else, so it is his right to decide how to publish it. It is certain he would not have got it published by any of the main journals.
May I suggest you take up a suggestion made on Jo’s site to you — contact David privately and ask him for the full details ( which he intends to make public in the near future) so you can look at it , on the proviso you do not make any public comments on it until he has released it publically in the way he wants to.
But if you have already made up your mind that his work is useless it would probably be a waste of time.
farmerbraun says:
June 28, 2014 at 8:23 pm
I fear you’re going to have to translate that for me, farmer. I’ve been to Oz more than once … but I have no clue what “under-arm bowling” is when it’s at home, I don’t know who “DA” might be, and I haven’t any idea what it’s like to face the mysterious “Denis Lillee”, a being who sounds like the local Australian equivalent of the Headless Horseman …
My best to you,
w.
RossP says:
June 28, 2014 at 9:18 pm
Thanks, Ross. In that case, you’re definitely not one of the ones I would say were sucked in.
w.