'unexpected link between solar activity and climate change' found in Greenland ice

thumb its the sunLund University have published a reconstruction of solar activity vs snow accumulation in Greenland, which indicates a strong correlation between solar minima and a colder climate.

‘The study shows an unexpected link between solar activity and climate change,’ Dr Muscheler said in a press release.

‘It shows both that changes in solar activity are nothing new and that solar activity influences the climate, especially on a regional level. ‘Understanding these processes helps us to better forecast the climate in certain regions.’

According to the study abstract;

http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/ngeo2225.html

“We find that during the Last Glacial Maximum, solar minima correlate with more negative δ18O values of ice and are accompanied by increased snow accumulation and sea-salt input over central Greenland. We suggest that solar minima could have induced changes in the stratosphere that favour the development of high-pressure blocking systems located to the south of Greenland, as has been found in observations and model simulations for recent climate9, 10. We conclude that the mechanism behind solar forcing of regional climate change may have been similar under both modern and Last Glacial Maximum climate conditions.”

Dr. Muscheler emphasised that he does not believe that the sun is the main factor driving current global warming – but he does believe that climate modellers will have to pay more attention to the influence of the sun on climate change.

However, he warned that the sun was not the only factor in causing climate change.

‘Climate skeptics like to say sun is causing more global warming than we think but I don’t think so.

‘What our paper shows is we need to include all processes – greenhouses, the sun and so on, especially for local climates which is important of course.

Persistent link between solar activity and Greenland climate during the Last Glacial Maximum

Florian Adolphi,Raimund Muscheler,Anders Svensson,Ala Aldahan,Göran Possnert,Jürg Beer,Jesper Sjolte,Svante Björck,Katja Matthes& Rémi Thiéblemont

Nature Geoscience (2014) doi:10.1038/ngeo2225

Changes in solar activity have previously been proposed to cause decadal- to millennial-scale fluctuations in both the modern and Holocene climates1. Direct observational records of solar activity, such as sunspot numbers, exist for only the past few hundred years, so solar variability for earlier periods is typically reconstructed from measurements of cosmogenic radionuclides such as 10Be and 14C from ice cores and tree rings2, 3. Here we present a high-resolution 10Be record from the ice core collected from central Greenland by the Greenland Ice Core Project (GRIP). The record spans from 22,500 to 10,000 years ago, and is based on new and compiled data4, 5, 6. Using 14C records7, 8 to control for climate-related influences on 10Be deposition, we reconstruct centennial changes in solar activity. We find that during the Last Glacial Maximum, solar minima correlate with more negative δ18O values of ice and are accompanied by increased snow accumulation and sea-salt input over central Greenland. We suggest that solar minima could have induced changes in the stratosphere that favour the development of high-pressure blocking systems located to the south of Greenland, as has been found in observations and model simulations for recent climate9, 10. We conclude that the mechanism behind solar forcing of regional climate change may have been similar under both modern and Last Glacial Maximum climate conditions.

Key data used in this study.
Figure 1

a, δ18O variations as recorded in the GRIP ice core21. b, 10Be concentrations from the GRIP (red: this study, black: refs 4, 5) and GISP2 (ref. 6; blue) ice cores. c, 10Be fluxes using accumulation rates inferred from the GICC05 age

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milodonharlani
August 20, 2014 4:09 pm

Uncle Gus says:
August 20, 2014 at 3:00 pm
Some of the Old Guard did change their minds about “Flood Geology” as more evidence became available. Even in 1785, Hutton got a respectful hearing from the Royal Society of Edinburgh for his views of the great antiquity (at least) of the earth, & published two volumes in 1795. Lyell was able to publish his three volumes in 1830-33. In 1831, Darwin worked for Sedgwick, an Anglican cleric, on his geological expedition to Wales, which helped him identify the Cambrian Period.
Even the eccentric but distinguished Anglican cleric Buckland, of dinosaur fame, came around in 1840 after joining Agassiz in Scotland, where they found clear signs of glaciation, not a universal flood of water, but of local & regional ice.

August 20, 2014 4:10 pm

statement A:
Lund University have published a reconstruction of solar activity vs snow accumulation in Greenland, which indicates a strong correlation between solar minima and a colder climate.
and
statement B:
“Climate skeptics like to say sun is causing more global warming than we think but I don’t think so.”
So which is it? Skeptics agree with statement A, that the sun has more of an effect than “we think”. Statement B contradicts statement A. –And since non climate skeptics believe the sun has no influence (ref IPCC).
The 2 statements are at odds with each other.
The author had to throw a big bone to the CAGW proponents to get published.

Tom in Florida
August 20, 2014 4:14 pm

Orbital mechanics were different during the Last Glacial Maximum which would have an affect on the TSI at TOA; less obliquity, more eccentricity and NH winter solstice at aphelion. Orbital mechanics do create differences in TSI at TOA throughout the year, so how does one use deposits to differentiate between real changes in solar activity and the perceived solar activity at TOA especially from ages past. As Leif explained on another thread, when discussing climate TSI at TOA is what counts and that those orbit created differences during the year are not the same as real changes in solar activity. So is it more likely that the Earth itself is the real culprit due to it’s changing orbit?

August 20, 2014 4:47 pm

Reblogged this on sainsfilteknologi and commented:
strong correlation between solar minima and a colder climaaate

ROM
August 20, 2014 5:37 pm

As Nature and global temperatures and the global climate refuse to do as instructed by the climate science chicken entrails modeling reliant climate scientists, the great backdown and cover up is now well and truly under way.
Remember how just how fixed in stone for eternity, the SCIENCE WAS SETTLED only a short three or so years ago and no debate or argument would be allowed or countenanced at all as it was a completely established unarguable fact that the Earth was inevitably heading into a CO2 driven climate catastrophe entirely of mankind’s own making.
Now we see an increasing volume of mostly seriously bad papers and unsubstantiated claims, nothing unusual in that with current climate science, all suggesting that perhaps there is something else other than m,an made CO2 that might be having an effect on the climate.
The above paper is another example of the backdown from yesterday’s hard fixed, not to be challenged or allowed to be debated climate science, a back down, a snake like sliming slithering away they hope to get away with after their sheer ineptitude and outright ignorance of the real drivers of the global climate has been so clearly revealed for all to see.
And god forbid, it might just even be that the Sun, that great fusion furnace way up there that pours it’s immense energy into the global atmosphere might just possibly have a minute effect on the climate. But only in some regions and patches you understand, regions and patches that somehow seem to link up an cover the earth’s surface as we are assured by those expert climate scientists.
And we are still most categorically assured by those same expert climate scientists that we will be all still going to a climate hell in a red hot carbon basket.
It’s just that the timetable has been delayed by unforeseen events such as the failure to warm and the unpredictability of the ENSO and the fact that they forgot about Clouds and have a few problems why the Antarctic ice is expanding as is the Arctic ice following the categorical assurance that we will have an” ice free Arctic by 2013″ and a few other minor hitches in the predictions such as we didn’t figure on the Sun having any effect on the climate but perhaps it does after all.
My contempt for climate catastrophe scientists rises by the day.
Not once, not a single one has ever even hinted at an apology for getting so much so wrong, a wrongness so wrong that the governments of the world on the heavily promoted ideologically driven advice of those same climate scientists have now expended close to a trillion dollars of the world’s treasure and wealth on to try and prevent those catastrophic outcomes in the climate so firmly and unashamedly predicted by those same climate scientists.
The resulting tens of thousands of deaths from energy poverty and the consequent lack of affordable energy for heating for the old and the poor leading to hypothermia in so many countries when the politicals and greens forced the closing down of the tried and true and absolutely reliable fossil fueled generators which were suposedly to be replaced by the totally unreliable, unaffordable, totally ineffective so called renewable energy, which it is anything but.
All proposed, promoted, and backed to the hilt by climate catastrophe scientists. based on nothing more than the outputs of some heavily biased climate models which are so damn primitive and ineffective that they can’t even get the past history of the climate right when that past climates observed data is fed into them
And the results of all this vast waste of lives and treasure at the bidding of climate science?
Zilch, nada, nothing !,
Not even a hint that all this totally unnecessary sacrifice of lives and treasure made one iota of difference to the climate or anything else except to create fear and societal dissension and to transfer vast amounts of wealth from the poor to the rich via the vastly corrupt and leech like renewable energy industry.
The climate just rolls right on and keeps right on rolling on as usual despite some of those same climate scientists aided and abetted by their unbounded and complete arrogance, ignorance and hubris imagining that they can control the global climate by twiddling a couple of Carbon knobs.
The message from climate science of only a couple of years ago has been that Nature has been stood aside and mankind is the one who now controls the global climate.
Nature laughed and turned the solar wick down and now it starts to cool and there is not a damn thing those abjectly ignorant climate scientists or their running dogs in the greens and enviro water melons can do about it.
I have no problems with climate science researching the climate and coming to the wrong conclusions as science in the long term is self correcting.
What I most strongly object to and which has brought me to the point of complete and open contempt for climate science and climate scientists is the way in which they used their trusted positions a scientists to impose their own brands of personal ideology and beliefs in a model predicted outcomes onto the rest of society to our extreme detriment in health, wealth, creation of unneeded economic malaise and societal dissension.
Modeled predictions that were nothing more than reflections on the climate modeler’s own biases but which were hyped up to the maximum by a group of arrogant, hubris laden, self promoting, narcissistic and as it turns out abjectly wrong climate scientists, into a predicted carbon dioxide driven climate catastrophe,
An ideological derived belief which had absolutely no underpinning in science other than pure conjecture on the part of those same hubris driven climate scientists.
When I see some deep humble apologies from climate science and climate scientists and a clean out of the worst of those climate charlatans by climate science itself and an admission and a full humble acknowledgment on how they, through their gross and complete hubris laden ignorance on their part and who have totally failed to comprehend how the global climate really works allied with their overwhelming hubris about their own omnipotence in climate knowledge, a position which they blatantly used to both impose their own ideology and suppress any others who dared to question or were at all skeptical about pronunciations of those oh so omnipotent climate scientists.
And who so deliberately and openly fed the hysteria of a predicted climate catastrophe due to mankind’s sinfulness in using fossil fuels with their CO2 emissions to enhance his health wealth and living standards over the last few centuries,
When I see a full open and humble apology from all of climate science and those same hubris driven climate scientists openly admitting that they were completely wrong in their climate catastrophe predictions and they humbly apologise and assume responsibility for the immense amounts of harm and destruction of lives and living standards and treasure they have created through their heavy promotion of what turned out to be nothing but predictions based on abject ignorance and hubris, then I will consider climate science with a somewhat better but still very wary consideration.

August 20, 2014 5:38 pm

In a series of posts at
http://climatesense-norpag.blogspot.com
I have forecast a coming cooling based on the 60 and 960 year periodicities in the temperature data and used the 10Be record and neutron count as the best proxy for solar activity. The new Lund paper is also based on isotope data from ice cores. It confirms the same occurrence of weather patterns during the last age as I forecast in 2010 as likely to be more frequent on a cooling earth.
At the end of the latest post at the link above I say

b) The Polar Vortex Excursions.
I will quote again from the 2010 forecast:
“There will be a steeper temperature gradient from the tropics to the poles so that violent thunderstorms with associated flooding and tornadoes will be more frequent in the USA. At the same time the jet stream will swing more sharply North – South thus local weather in the Northern hemisphere in particular will be generally more variable with occasional more northerly heat waves and more southerly unusually cold snaps”
This forecast was spectacularly confirmed by the early 2014 excursions of the Polar Vortex into the United States. Indeed, as I write this in Houston on July 29, 2014 another unusually early Canadian front has just gone through Houston with heavy rains and thunderstorms. This is a harbinger of weather patterns which will become more frequent on a cooling planet. As the excursions occur later in the spring and begin earlier in the fall, the snow cover finally never melts over the NE of the American continent and after a few thousand years full ice age conditions will develop, as suggested by Steve Goddard:” See Fig 18 at the link .above.
For evidence of the important 960 year periodicity see Figs 5,6,7,8,and 9. at the same post for evidence of the 960 year periodicity in the Holocene temperature data.
The same 960 year periodicity is seen during glacial times in the new paper check the 480 year peak (960/2) seen in Fig S4 top and bottom panels at
http://joannenova.com.au/2014/08/new-paper-shows-solar-activity-is-linked-to-the-greenland-climate-even-20000-years-ago/#more-37812
Just scroll down the link to find the Figure.
The key to climate forecasts is knowing where we are right now relative to the current peak in this quasi-millennial cycle.

August 20, 2014 5:40 pm

The problem is that Adolphi and Muscheler measure 10Be and 14C on Earth as
value for INCOMING SOLAR RADIATION (“Insolation”) and reckon this was theTSI
(“Total solar irradiation”) – which is the different Sun´s OUTPUT. They forget that
the Earth orbit oscillates on a centennial scale, thus received Insolation on Earth
can go up and down, while the Earth orbit oscillates – and, at the same time – the
TSI, the Sun´s activity OUTPUT remains CONSTANT.
More at: see website. JS.

u.k.(us)
August 20, 2014 5:42 pm

Tim Ball says:
August 20, 2014 at 2:36 pm
…”It is the comment of a person who knows virtually nothing about climate and certainly is ignorant of the climate literature.”
==============
So, we’ve got “knows virtually nothing” vs “ignorant”.
We need more innuendos to flesh this one out.

August 20, 2014 5:48 pm

The overall TSI variance is small but as Einstein’s photoelectric effect showed, not all bandwidths are equal. UV radiation that affects stratoshpheric ozone varies much more widely than TSI. Maybe these guys need a talk with the CCl4 guys to see if their model knows all this stuff. Another interesting study would be carbon and oxygen isotope variations by solar cycle. Carbon dating is fine without considering the variations but I’d bet CO2 is a bit more sensitive. Isotope variation would shed light on carbon sources. A few years ago it was revealed that plants preferred isotopes of carbon as the minute nuclear changes made a difference in some of the rate equations.

August 20, 2014 6:12 pm

“What our paper shows is…” you got some money.
“It (the toilet paper) shows both that changes in solar activity are nothing new”…really?? ” and that solar activity influences the climate…” OMG!!! Solar activity declines sharply after sunset = temps fall. Then, amazingly, solar activity increase sharply at sunrise = temps rise.

Don
August 20, 2014 6:12 pm

Of course Dr. Muscheler ruins it when he gives the usual, and obviously necessary, ass kissing to the AGW crowd. Money talks.
“Local climate”? Only when warmer than normal in the Lower 48 is that climate. When it is cooler than normal in the Lower 48 that’s weather. Someone clue him in. LOL

lee
August 20, 2014 6:25 pm

“The study also shows that the various solar processes need to be included in climate models in order to better predict future global and regional climate change.”

lee
August 20, 2014 6:30 pm

Dr Norman Page says:
August 20, 2014 at 5:38 pm
I have often thought that with all these various cycles of variable length, is how to determine what the algebraic sum is at any given time. With a 60 year and 960 year cycle, they will correlate nicely, but are they in phase? Or is there a lag/lead?

August 20, 2014 7:03 pm

Lee It is certainly possible ,even likely, that the early 21st century temperature peak represents a peak in both quasi-periodicities. I think that because of the number of variables involved that the exact length and amplitude of both solar activity cycles will vary about some mean. There is also a variable lag time between the solar driver peaks and the corresponding peaks in the climate data.
This lag has been variously estimated between 12 and 20 years.
Thus I suggest that the solar activity peak seen in the neutron data at about 1991 ( see Fig 14 at http://climatesense-norpag.blogspot.com ) would produce the possible 960 year peak at 2003 or thereabouts. The lag in the shallower ocean OHC data would likely be closer to 20 years.
My reason for thinking we are just past the peak is shown by the drop in solar activity from the 1991 peak and especially the sharp drop in 2005/6 as seen also in the Ap index ( Fig 13 ) and the high neutron count at the cycle 24 maximum (Feb 2014) relative to solar cycle 23 and earlier maxima.
Taking a best guess as to the lag time I am suggesting a sharp drop in temperature about 2017-18.

lee
August 20, 2014 7:18 pm

lee says:
August 20, 2014 at 6:25 pm
“The study also shows that the various solar processes need to be included in climate models in order to better predict future global and regional climate change.”
Damn, lost the comment.
The IPCC say the models don’t do predictions.

njsnowfan
August 20, 2014 7:22 pm

No mention of the positive or negative effects of the AMO, may because the other meaning for the negative AMO is “Alrmist Move On”
AMO any Greenland melt season, Oh Never Mind.
https://mobile.twitter.com/NJSnowFan/status/502279165035307008/photo/1

August 20, 2014 7:26 pm

I am not, and never have been, a “solar denier”…

charliexyz
August 20, 2014 9:02 pm

Paging Willis E.
Seriously, I’m hoping that he reviews this paper for validity/reliability/believability. It seems like there are lots of papers the are only very weakly supported by the evidence they show.

ren
August 20, 2014 9:34 pm

“The results of this study showed that the evolution of the stratospheric polar vortex plays an important part in
the mechanism of solar-climatic links. The vortex strength reveals a roughly 60-year periodicity influencing
the large-scale atmospheric circulation and the sign of SA/GCR effects on the development of baric systems
at middle and high latitudes. The vortex location is favorable for the mechanisms of solar activity influence
on the troposphere circulation involving variations of different agents (GCR intensity, UV fluxes). In the
periods of a strong vortex changes of the vortex intensity associated with solar activity phenomena seem to
affect temperature contrasts in tropospheric frontal zones and the development of extratropical cyclogenesis.”
http://geo.phys.spbu.ru/materials_of_a_conference_2012/STP2012/Veretenenko_%20et_all_Geocosmos2012proceedings.pdf

rogerknights
August 20, 2014 10:20 pm

u.k.(us) says:
August 20, 2014 at 5:42 pm

Tim Ball says:
August 20, 2014 at 2:36 pm
…”It is the comment of a person who knows virtually nothing about climate and certainly is ignorant of the climate literature.”
==============

So, we’ve got “knows virtually nothing” vs “ignorant”.
We need more innuendos to flesh this one out.

Agnorant.

Evan Jones
Editor
August 20, 2014 11:53 pm

but then again who counts on a sceptic amateur researcher to come up with anything useful:
#B^)

August 21, 2014 1:09 am

william says at August 20, 2014 at 2:05 pm

I don’t think the results of this study will pass muster with Dr. Leif. There is no explanatory mechanism. The results can be a nice coincidence but don’t illuminate any causation. Just like an increase in ice cream sales in the summer is not the cause of higher temps in July-Sept.

If the correlation is real and not mere luck…
We don’t need an explanatory mechanism in this case to determine the line of causality.
It can’t be Greenland affecting the Sun. That’s like a gnat’s wing knocking over the ox.
It can’t be a third factor affecting both Greenland and the Sun as the Sun is far away. We would notice something else out there (planetary movements aside, of course, but that isn’t observed to correlate).
So, If the correlation is real and not mere luck…we know it is the Sun that dominates at this timescale.

August 21, 2014 1:10 am

Trying again with formatting.
william says at August 20, 2014 at 2:05 pm

I don’t think the results of this study will pass muster with Dr. Leif. There is no explanatory mechanism. The results can be a nice coincidence but don’t illuminate any causation. Just like an increase in ice cream sales in the summer is not the cause of higher temps in July-Sept.

If the correlation is real and not mere luck…
We don’t need an explanatory mechanism in this case to determine the line of causality.
It can’t be Greenland affecting the Sun. That’s like a gnat’s wing knocking over the ox.
It can’t be a third factor affecting both Greenland and the Sun as the Sun is far away. We would notice something else out there (planetary movements aside, of course, but that isn’t observed to correlate).
So, If the correlation is real and not mere luck…we know that it is the Sun that dominates at this timescale.

August 21, 2014 1:19 am

OK, here it is: I am 97% sure, no let’s make that 99.999% sure the Sun is going to rise tomorrow morning somewhere on planet Earth ( the 0.001 is in case of my untimely demise). Result: It will be a 100% surety it will get warmer (unless of course the sun rise is followed by an Arctic Polar Vortex, so see how easy the “unless, maybe, could etc can change a sure statement and CYA)).

richardscourtney
August 21, 2014 2:12 am

lee:
In your post at August 20, 2014 at 7:18 pm you claim

The IPCC say the models don’t do predictions.

Your claim raises two issues: viz.
the truth of the claim
and
the warmunist myth of the claim.
The claim is untrue because the IPCC says the models do predictions but the predictions are “inherently limited”.
This is stated in the glossaries of the IPCC reports and is most recently stated by the IPCC in its IPCC WG1 AR5 Glossary which is here and provides these definitions

Predictability
The extent to which future states of a system may be predicted based on knowledge of current and past states of the system. Because knowledge of the climate system’s past and current states is generally imperfect, as are the models that utilize this knowledge to produce a climate prediction, and because the climate system is inherently nonlinear and chaotic, predictability of the climate system is inherently limited. Even with arbitrarily accurate models and observations, there may still be limits to the predictability of such a nonlinear system (AMS, 2000).
Prediction quality/skill
Measures of the success of a prediction against observationally based information. No single measure can summarize all aspects of forecast quality and a suite of metrics is considered. Metrics will differ for forecasts given in deterministic and probabilistic form. See also Climate prediction.

Projection
A projection is a potential future evolution of a quantity or set of quantities, often computed with the aid of a model. Unlike predictions, projections are conditional on assumptions concerning, for example, future socioeconomic and technological developments that may or may not be realized. See also Climate prediction and Climate projection.

The warmunist myth that “The IPCC say the models don’t do predictions” is an attempt to pretend that the IPCC models cannot be shown to be wrong.
However, the IPCC makes no such claim and, as I have quoted from the IPCC Glossary, the IPCC says, “Measures of the success of a prediction against observationally based information” are called “Prediction quality/skill”.
However, the myth has a long history of promotion by warmunists. For example, I recount the following anecdote.
In June 2000 there were 15 scientists assembled from around the world to give a briefing at the US Congress in Washington, DC. The briefing was in three sessions each with a Panel and I accepted a request for me to Chair the second panel. In each session the panel members each gave a presentation and after that the session was opened to the floor for questions. In our session, one ‘questioner’ made a speech and when he sat down I replied saying,
“Sir, I agree much of what you say but not all. For example,
you say, “The IPCC doesn’t make predictions”.
The IPCC says the Earth is going to warm.
I call that a prediction.”

The ‘questioner’ did not reply, and that was probably wise because since then the Earth has not warmed discernibly although IPCC AR5 predicted (n.b. predicted and not projected) the rate of warming from 2000 to 2020 would be at 0.2°C per decade, and IPCC AR5 glossary says, “Measures of the success of a prediction against observationally based information” are called “Prediction quality/skill”.
Richard