Guest blog by Marcel Crok
Over at Climate Dialogue we have started a new discussion about the influence of the sun on the climate. People familiar with climate discussions know that the sun has been and still is a popular argument to explain at least part of the warming since 1750. This has to do with solar proxies correlating well with climate proxies (in the distant past), although Willis Eschenbach in a series of posts here at WUWT has shown that the solar signal is often not easily detected in climate records.
Also the Little Ice Age coincided with the Maunder Minimum, a period with few visible sunspots. So if the sun played a role in the past, why shouldn’t it in the present?
But figuring out how the sun has varied in e.g. the past millennium isn’t easy. And in fact, the science seems to be developing in the other direction, i.e. showing an even smaller solar influence than scientists thought let’s say a decade ago. AR5 said that in terms of radiative forcing since 1750 the influence of the sun is almost negligible.
Meanwhile solar activity has dropped to levels last seen a century ago. Some scientists suggest the sun might go into a new Maunder Minimum in the coming decades. What influence will that have on our climate?
So the timing of this dialogue is apt. We have a record number of participants, namely five. Two of them – Nicola Scafetta (USA) and Jan-Erik Solheim (NOR) – believe in a large role of the sun. Mike Lockwood (GBR) – in line with AR5 – thinks the sun is only a minor player. The two other participants – Ilya Usoskin (FIN) and José Vaquero (ESP) – seem somewhere in between.
In our Introduction we asked the participants the following questions:
1) What is according to you the “best” solar reconstruction since 1600 (or even 1000) in terms of Total Solar Irradiance?
2) Was there a Grand Solar Maximum in the 20th century?
3) What is your preferred temperature reconstruction for the same period? How much colder was the Little Ice Age than the current warm period?
4) What is the evidence for a correlation between global temperature and solar activity?
5) How much of the warming since pre-industrial would you attribute to the sun?
6) Is the Total Solar Irradiance (TSI) of the sun all that matters for the Earth’s climate? If not, what amplification processes are important and what is the evidence these play a role?
7) what is the sun likely going to do in the next few decades and what influence will it have on the climate? Is there consensus on the predictability of solar variability?
There will be a lot of area to cover. Please head over to the dialogue and feel free to leave a public comment. Keep in mind that the goal of Climate Dialogues is to find out on what participants agree, on what they disagree and why they disagree.
Sounds like a very interesting forum brewing! I think this is an area of science that needs to be explored as it relates to climate.
I should have written dialogue, not forum. Sorry about that.
Yeah, you were forum before you were against em.
”6) Is the Total Solar Irradiance (TSI) of the sun all that matters for the Earth’s climate? If not, what amplification processes are important and what is the evidence these play a role?”
This is an excellent question but incomplete. Amplification processes are not the only ways solar variation could have significant impacts to Earth’s climate. Variations in the components of TSI are orders of magnitude greater than variation in TSI itself. As we all know UV, Visible, and IR have very different capabilities/characteristics, for example interaction with O2 & O3, ocean penetration, and reflection by different surfaces just to name a few. So I would add: If not amplification processes then what component variations have the most impact and why?
Well stated John West!
Well, there’s more we don’t know about things we don’t know about. I often wonder whether the black body temperature of the sky isn’t variable. We take it as a constant, but is it really the same in all directions?
Why would it be the same in all directions ?
One half of the sky is illuminated by the sun and the other half by the darkness of space.
So it couldn’t possibly be at any equilibrium Temperature, or even a steady state Temperature, since the earth rotates.
The day side radiates at a much higher BB effective temperature. That’s why Trenberth’s budget cartoon doesn’t work.
IMO, UV component (which varies by about 100% while TSI only around 0.1% across cycles) & magnetic flux are IMO the most important solar variations affecting climate.
Completely agreed. We need to watch Vincent Courtillot’s presentation on YouTube again to remind ourselves that there’s more to the sun than TSI.
“Climate science” needs to become climatology once again, focusing on observation rather than GIGO computer modeling, as Freeman Dyson has so eloquently called for.
Great advances have been made in climatology despite the baleful influence of CACA since 1980, yet the GCMs still take no note of them. Fairly recently SORCE showed the surprise variation in the UV component of TSI, & before that it fell to a salmon fisheries student to discover the PDO, followed in the late ’90s by the AMO.
More data, please, & less modeling which produces the results its programmers are paid to show.
If the primary influence on the Earth’s climate is magnetic, via cosmic ray fluctuations, then there is no need for any ‘amplifications’.
Ralph
Exactly. Cosmic rays promote cloud formation and the sun governs cosmic ray of closure inversely to its sunspot activity a. Clouds are th v median blinds and I h wun’s irradiance in infrar d is virtually constant and inconse he rial.
See Paullitely.com for the full description of a global temperature model that WORKS. Also see Graphs of manipulation a of temperature records by virtually every official authority. Shameful!
It could be like this;
The sun is pouring out more or less a constant amount of energy per time.
We have a ball of water, where circulations are created because of the coriolis effect. These seacurrents are inhibited from flowing as they would have done without any landmasses.
This create complex oscillations.
It is the result of these oscillations we measure.
And that is all. When we started measuring, we jumped into a curve, seeing it go up and down. When it went a bit up, some people got panicked. Instead of just waiting a few years, and it would go down again.
Yes.
And could the periodicity of these oscillations be affected by changes in TSI and/or changes in solar magnetic field strength?
Yes, but there is also longer cycles. So sun output causing oscillations that we can wait to return,
but there centuries and tens of thousand of years cycles.
It seems the ocean dominates, but there is also atmospheric processes which are involved- particularly more relevant in shorter periods of time.
It seems to me oceanic mixing plays large role particularly in the longer term.
But generally speaking there is a lot unknown, other than we can fairly certain CO2 levels do
not have much effect upon global temperature.
Exactly. Climate patterns ranging from sudden changes to indefinite periods of stability can be explained solely by the sun’s energy input, without additional sources. This does not mean that the sun is the sole source in the system, but it does imply that we lack the ability to identify, let alone discern the effects of different sources and sinks. The present and foreseeable scientific domain simply does not contain the skill and knowledge to forecast or predict chaotic processes over large time and space offsets from a known frame of reference. The system is both incompletely or insufficiently characterized, and unwieldy.
Actually, your premise is wrong. Changes in the Sun’s energy output (from full of spots to quietly sleeping) measured at the top of the atmosphere does not explain to any great, dominant, or even less than half of temperature trends. Why? Not enough energy available in that variation to force trends up or down in our atmosphere or the oceans. Therefore, without a reasonable and plausible amplification device which would obviously track solar variation, solar variation by itself is an unlikely culprit.
Pamela, I’ve done the calculations for the additional energy added to earth between solar minimum and maximum. There is sufficient energy to explain a 2 degree C variation in temperatures.
VikingExplorer, so have others in peer reviewed journals. You may need to double check your calculations. You are off by at least one decimal point.
Lean, Judith L., and David H. Rind (2001). “Earth’s Response to a Variable Sun.” Science 292: 234-36 [doi:10.1126/science:1060082].
Lean, Judith L., and David H. Rind (2009). “How Will Earth’s Surface Temperature Change in Future Decades?” Geophysical Research Letters 36: L15708 [doi:10.1029/2009GL038932].
Lean, Judith L. (2010). “Cycles and Trends in Solar Irradiance and Climate.” Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change 1: 111-22 [doi:10.1002/wcc.018].
Viking, you will find this paper of interest. Caveat: Whether or not solar-driven ozone cycles at the poles in the mesosphere layer is enough to cause differential heating changes on a global scale is not deduced. A possible link to local and regional affects is deduced. Given the much greater complexity of our Earth, it is my opinion that a series of higher solar cycles versus a series of lower solar cycles will not result in an identifiable temperature signal (given the degree of intrinsic noise in the temperature data) as a result of changes in polar ozone when comparing a low series to a high series of solar cycles.
http://www.nature.com/ncomms/2014/141014/ncomms6197/full/ncomms6197.html
Total solar output is now measured to vary by approximately 0.1% or about 1.3 Watts per square meter (W/m2) peak-to-trough from solar maximum to solar minimum during the 11-year sunspot cycle. How do you get a 2 degree Celsius bump from that? As a pre-clude, if you site UV variance as your source of this temperature change, remember that the energy “potential” in a smaller portion of TSI will be less than TSI, and in the case of UV, significantly less unless you believe that Earth supplies some kind of amplification.
Viking, I have searched high and low for any peer reviewed calculation that demonstrates a 2 degree Celsius change due to solar cycle min to max. Can’t find it. At most I found 1 degree. I found several less than that.
Energy in the Atmosphere:
mass = 5.1480×10 ^18 kg, Cp ~= 1000 J/kg/K, T = 287K (assuming most of the mass is near the surface), E = 1.48 x 10^24 J
Energy required to increase atmospheric temperature by 2 degrees C:
mass = 5.1480×10 ^18 kg, Cp ~= 1000 J/kg/K, T = 2K (assuming a lower average temperature), E = 1.03 x 10^22 J
Ok, it’s common knowledge that the sun receives 1.5 x 10^22 Joules each day, but let’s check that it makes sense. Because the earth is a sphere, only a quarter of the surface area is actually receiving the energy at any given point.
Surface area of earth facing the sun = 510 M km^2 / 4 = 127 M M m^2 = 1.27 x 10^14 m^2.
Seconds in one day: 60 * 60 * 24 = 86400 seconds
Energy received in 1 day = 1366 W/m^2 = 1366 Joule/sec /m^2 * Area * duration = 1366 Joules * 1.275 * 10^14 * 86400 = 1.5 x10^22 J
This matches the published value. As you pointed out, the delta TSI (max-min) = .1% of 1366 = 1.366 W/m^2
Extra received/day (Solar Max) = 1.366 W/m^2 = 1.366 Joule/sec /m^2 * Area * duration = 1.366 Joules * 1.275 * 10^14 * 86400 = 1.5 x10^19 J
Extra received (solar cycle) = Extra received/day * 5 years = 1.5 x10^22 * 365 * 5 = 2.746 x10^22
This is 2.66 x the amount needed to raise the atmospheric temperature by 2 degrees.
Even if we use only 3 out the 11 year cycle for “full power”, we still get 1.647 x10^22 Joules (1.6 times the energy required).
Not all of that final number is used to raise temperature. You must add together absorbance, reflectance, and transmittance (which must always equal 1). Absorbance is the part of incoming TSI calculations that is used to determine rise in temperature since that is the only part of the calculation that can heat. And you have to dig and tease for that heat because it is spread between land (the easier part to find) surfaces and transferred to air, and the ocean column. Needless to say, these two absorption “sinks” themselves vary in their absorption capacity on a seasonal and likely decadal basis in a feedback loop.
There are modeled calculations that will give you estimates of these three metrics but use with caution. As you must know error bands for estimates are huge.
Here is a beginning text on what happens to the top of the atmosphere calculation of TSI expressed as watts/m2.
http://www.eoearth.org/view/article/156098/
>> Not all of that final number is used to raise temperature
Pamela, I will not let you get off topic. The question was:
Is there enough additional energy in a typical solar maximum to explain a 2 deg C temperature variation.
You said: “Not enough energy available in that variation to force trends up or down ”
These calculations clearly show that the answer is yes. While it’s true that the internal thermodynamics are complicated, we can say with confidence that as long as the temperature variation remains within the 2 deg C range, nothing extraordinary has happened.
>> heat because it is spread between land … seasonal and likely decadal basis
I did a steady state analysis, as opposed to writing time domain differential equations to study the dynamics. The point is to get a ballpark for the maximum variation possible.
Pamela Gray
October 19, 2014 at 1:06 pm
Pamela:
From the reference you linked to above:
That reference page is out of date (its graph, for example, extends through only 1999.) Leif tells us now that the correct Top-of-atmosphere TSI should now be revised DOWN to 1362 watt/m^2.
Now, given that the ENTIRE CAGW-hype is about a theoretical increase of solar radiation equal to only 3.2 watt/m^2 … should not ALL papers and programs written using previous 1367 averages be re-written to eliminate the CAGW effect entirely?
Victor, you are using an unconventional method. Every other calculation I have seen regarding the effects of TSI on temperature use the generally accepted set of factors. And certainly they all factor in reflectance before determining energy available for a temperature response.
RACook, thanks for the reminder regarding Leif’s work. You are right. However, if I remember the conversation correctly, Leif did not think it would make an important difference with regard to global temperature models using the higher number versus the lower number.
>> you are using an unconventional method.
How can basic science be “unconventional”? This one statement is a microcosm of the entire AGW movement.
>> Every other calculation I have seen regarding the effects of TSI on temperature use the generally accepted set of factors.
It’s best to start with first principles of physics, not applied mathematics.
>> And certainly they all factor in reflectance before determining energy available for a temperature response
But I assume that it’s obvious that reducing TSI by 30% (for reflectance) will not change the conclusion.
Yup. Add ice-field albedo positive feedback, ice-sheet dynamics & Milankovitch cycling & you get glacial/interglacial oscillations. No TSI change required.
Except the sun is NOT a constant source of energy, it varies. It is NOT stable at all. It is entering the next stage of existence which is more and more variable which is why we now have sudden ice ages and then very sudden ice melts.
Question “1) What is according to you the “best” solar reconstruction since 1600 (or even 1000) in terms of Total Solar Irradiance?” will be the one that stirs a lot of debate. As John West suggests, it’s changes other than just the total TSI that are of importance here. And the proxies are difficult at best to show the specific components of the TSI, at least in the past proxy records. I believe Leif thinks this is not an important area that should be studied – whether or not the sun influences climate significantly – but I strongly disagree. There is much to learn about how the ultimate source of earth’s received energy affects our planet and its climate.
I believe none of the TSI reconstructions are accurate. None.
Why? What part of the measurements do you think have errors?
Excellent question Pamela. The statement by A Smith is meaningless without qualification.
A belief doesn’t require qualification.
The answer may well lie in: “When and how was TSI first measured?”
TSI measurements are quite accurate and satellites have measured a full-on spotted Sun as well as a quietly sleeping spotless Sun. The difference in TSI between those two states in terms of temperature change at Earth’s surface under clear sky conditions has also been calculated. Unfortunately, in our noisy temperature data, the approx. 11 year cycle-sourced change in TSI and its affect on our temperature is buried in the noise of all the other intrinsic sources of variation we have on Earth.
Solar cycle signals have been recovered in many atmospheric phenomena on earth. Also hydrospheric & arguably even lithospheric. Study after study finding these signals have been quoted & linked on this blog. Don’t know how you missed them.
To include citations by others & me in comments to this very post, as this from, among others of his comments, by William Astley (October 18, 2014 at 2:43 am): :
http://www.pnas.org/content/109/16/5967.full
See also please my comment noting the connection between solar cycles & Asian monsoons, known at least since 1926.
Same goes for Girma @ October 18, 2014 at 4:08 am.
At least dozens of such papers have been cited on this blog over the years.
How about the solar wind?
“Here are excerpts from a NASA press release in 2008:
Curiously, the speed of the million mph solar wind hasn’t decreased much—only 3%. The change in pressure comes mainly from reductions in temperature and density. The solar wind is 13% cooler and 20% less dense.”
see
http://iceagenow.info/2014/10/solar-wind-13-cooler-20-dense/
http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2008/23sep_solarwind/
Bingo.
The ions in the atmosphere are also affected by solar wind bursts. High speed solar wind bursts create a space charge differential in the atmosphere which creates a electrostatic voltage differential in the ionosphere which in turns removes ions from high latitude regions and affects cloud formation in the tropics. This mechanism is called electroscavenging. Solar wind bursts are caused by sunspots and coronal holes. What causes coronal holes is not known. For some unexplained reason there have been coronal holes in low latitude positions on the sun late in the solar magnetic cycle. These coronal holes created a solar wind burst which in turn removed ions from the earth’s atmosphere which in turn made it appear that high cosmic ray flux does not result in more clouds.
An observed change in the solar heliosphere during solar magnetic cycle 24 is a 40% reduction in the density of the solar heliosphere (The solar heliosphere is the tenuous cloud of gas and magnetic flux which the solar magnetic cycle creates that stretches past Pluto. The solar heliosphere and the earth’s magnetic field block cosmic ray flux. (See science, Swarm data, which notes for some unexplained reason the earth’s magnetic field is decaying 10 times faster than it had for the last 200 years.)
Due to a reduction in the density of the solar heliosphere the electrostatic strength of the solar wind bursts has decreased by a factor of roughly 2. (This was noted by solar specialists who gave an update of solar magnetic cycle 24 and how the solar magnetic cycle 24 changes have affected the solar heliosphere at the Fall, 2013 AGU meeting.) Due to the reduction in the intensity of the solar wind bursts, solar wind bursts will remove less ions from the earth’s atmosphere by the electroscavenging process.
This paper explains the mechanisms by which solar magnetic cycle changes modulate planetary cloud.
http://www.utdallas.edu/physics/pdf/Atmos_060302.pdf
Now as this paper notes coronal holes appeared late in the solar cycle creating solar wind bursts. The solar wind bursts removed cloud forming ions making it appear that high galactic cosmic rays levels (GCR striking the atmosphere is the primary mechanism to create cloud forming ions in the atmosphere.) does not result increased cloud cover.
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2009/2009JA014342.shtml
If the Sun is so quiet, why is the Earth ringing? A comparison of two solar minimum intervals.
How is it that radio communications, for example in the 10-15 meter band, might travel only a few hundred miles at the low point in the solar cycle, and many thousands of miles at the high point in the cycle, if the change in TSI is so small during the cycle?
Umm, maybe it’s because the TSI has nothing to do with freeing up electrons in the ionosphere because it’s a measure of photon intensity. On the other hand, the charged particles which are propelled by the solar wind ….
It’s the significant changes in UV. Up to 700% in some parts of the UV bandwidth. It is the UV that causes the ionisation.
Fred that is a very good and relevant question. To those who say in effect that the tiny variation in TSI ‘can’t have a strong effect on the atmosphere’ (which I hasten to point out is different from saying it can’t have a strong effect on temperature) I would also point out the dramatic change in the E and F layers of the atmosphere.
I attended a meeting of HAMs in Toronto many years ago at which a presentation was made attempting to demonstrate that injecting a radio signal into these layers at various angles did not ‘reflect’ signals but refracted them which contradicted contemporary and textbook explanations. Signals arrive at distant ground stations with ‘far too much energy’ to have arrived by multiple reflections. He demonstrated that he could pick different signal touchdown distances with conserved power by changing the tilt of the antenna. It was pretty convincing.
The overall efficacy of the layers to refract radio signals is strongly affected by the sunspot cycle. The variation is certainly more than an order of magnitude if one measures the efficiency with which the magnetic radiation from the transmitter is conserved within the system. It could be three orders of magnitude. Maybe more.
Solar radiation striking these active layers at a low angle could be assumed by atmospheric models to travel through the atmosphere and back into space when in fact they are refracted into the E and F layers, leaving later or making it to the surface.
As the incident angle covers the range from 0 to 90 degrees all the time, some angle is just right to be preserved, if the layers are ‘active’ or ‘efficient’. The state of these layers is posted continuously by HAM enthusiasts who know darn well and to their frustration, the efficiency variation. I have clearly heard a 4 watt transmission from a dipole under a roof near New York picked up by my 7 element copper wire Yagi in Swaziland – in the 70’s. It would require one or two orders of magnitude more power to accomplish that now – unless there was a burst of solar activity for a few hours.
It appears the E and F layers are able to harvest more energy from the sun, or less, varying almost immediately with solar activity.
I don’t know why you’re all wasting your time with this.
Leif has explained quite clearly and in some depth that the earth’s climate is in no way affected by the sun.
Why can’t we all accept this and just drop the subject?
I don’t recall that statement. The Sun does indeed have a cyclic warming affect. However, Earth’s own rather energetic weather pattern noise, variations, and oscillations obscure this mild affect handedly.
Please humor an old man and learn the proper usage of the words “affect” and “effect”.
Affect: one fect
Effect: affect on the internet, e.g., an emailed fect
Infect: affect inbound; affect contained within an inbox
Disinfect: affect that is incoming and nearby; a particular infect implying a contrast
Perfect: a ratio obtained by dividing by affects; a singer/keyboardist married to a guitarist
Feckless: a joke without affect
Have you considered that he may be wrong?
Have you considered he may be right – but measuring the wrong thing(s), and/or using the incorrect metrics. After all the climatologists are all measuring atmospheric heat content using temperature which is entirely the incorrect metric for atmospheric heat content due to enthalpy changes; but that doesn’t seem to stop ‘scientists’ using it. Perhaps there need to be more engineers, metrologists rather than scientists and academics; even an HVAC technician would know better.
I keep seeing reports on the Indian Monsoon rainfall following the solar cycle.
Here is one example:
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2012GL051977/abstract
Conclusion
[12] There is greater rainfall over Arabian Sea, the west coast of India, Nepal, eastern India and the Bay of Bengal in 14 sunspot peaks. This pattern indicates an enhancement of mean monsoon precipitation. The average precipitation anomalies in the five recent sunspot peaks reach values as high as 20% above normal. This is also the case for the SLP anomalies, with relatively larger negative values over the Arabian Sea and Bay of Bengal, and smaller negative anomalies over central India. Thus, the response to the 11 year cycle in sunspot maxima is an enhancement of the mean monsoon precipitation and sea level pressure patterns, with a strengthening and eastward shift of the Findlater Jet off the coast of Africa.
This correlation has been found in paper after paper at least since 1926 for the Chinese & Indian monsoons:
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CCAQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.researchgate.net%2Fpublication%2F256146174_Solar_Cycle_Signature_in_Decadal_Variability_of_Monsoon_Precipitation_in_China%2Flinks%2F00b7d521e0eaac6813000000&ei=TdBBVPijIcbriQKZnoCYBQ&usg=AFQjCNHZcvymbUzTlMzNCsvEhBat2cV-Qg&sig2=JdqgZJ7PItevN5Vdu-WDBQ&bvm=bv.77648437,d.cGE
Fritz Fahrenvolt (sp?) has demonstrated quite well, in, “The Quiet Sun”, that the Earth’s climate is profoundly affected by the Sun. This is another area of settled science which is open to dispute. Are you sure you didn’t leave /sarc off by mistake?
Oh rly!
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/sidc-ssn/mean:12/from:1850/plot/hadcrut4gl/mean:48/offset:1/scale:100
These attempts at minimizing the sun as the major driver of climate amazes me. I figure we won’t be around for the next Ice Age cycle which looms in the future. I bet when this happens, we will notice the sun isn’t operational as a steady state star at all.
Seemingly small variations in solar energy output hitting the planet coupled with where the planet is in the 36,000 year cycle, can trigger either glaciation or swift melting. Neither the earth nor the sun are ‘stable’ anymore.
Hear are some fun facts. http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/sunearth/overview/Helio-facts.html#.VEGYoIxuvMI
1934 is considered one of the, if not the warmest year on record. Yet the 3 solar cycles preceding were very weak. ???????????
One year doesn’t mean much when the minimum period of climatic analysis is weather averaged over at least 30 years.
Yet the graph from this article shows the 1930’s as the decade with the most high temperature records.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/07/14/newly-found-weather-records-show-1930s-as-being-far-worse-than-the-present-for-extreme-weather/
The first cool counter-trend cycle of the Modern Warm Period occurred c. 1879 to 1915, coinciding with weak solar cycles after the strong mid-19th century cycles so well attested in history, to include its effects on the US Civil War. The solar cycle around the First World War however was stronger, which correlates with the pro-trend warming cycle of the 1920s to ’40s. There was a weaker solar cycle during this temperature upswing, but not weak enough to make a difference, apparently. The next cooling counter-trend cycle in the secular warming of the Modern WP was from the late ’40s until 1977, when the PDO shifted so dramatically.
Clearly, solar influence is modulated by the hydrosphere, atmosphere & lithosphere on earth.
Taking a longer-term view, the Little Ice Age emerges as a secular cooling interval dominated by three or four major solar activity lows, the Wolf, Spoerer, Maunder & Dalton Minima. The Wolf is generally considered a cooling counter-trend cycle in the secular Medieval WP, as it transitioned into the LIA. The correlations IMO are too telling to be dismissed, let alone ignored.
Sorry. Forgot to post the graph illustrating my commet:
http://science.nasa.gov/media/medialibrary/2008/07/11/11jul_solarcycleupdate_resources/ssn_yearlyNew2_strip3.jpg
According to your graph the solar cycle around WWI may have been “stronger” relative to cycles before and after but it was still a weak cycle and does not account for the temperature increases. As you state in a later comment, insolation changes due to Milankovitch cycles are what gives us the major changes in climate, from glaciation into inter-glacials and back. I really think everything in between is relatively so small it can be written off simply as random flucuations in a chaotic system.
The expansion of the US really began in earnest during the end of the 1700’s and early 1800’s coinciding with 2 sunspot cycle lows. The way west out of New England was thru NY, Philadelphia and on into North Carolina. It became too cold to live in New England. If you don’t believe that, try driving from Trenton NJ to NYC on Rt 1 in the am. The sun is right in your eyes.
The USA data does not always track the global average.
What was the UV?
Only in North America.
@Tom ; “Yet the 3 solar cycles preceding were very weak. “, WEAK ? not even close to the Maunder Min. ?????
Tom, that was a mix of local weather with the usual outside forcings. Bad farming practices and the fact nobody knew they were sitting over an underground sea of fresh water. Temperature gains at the time which did nothing to wet the sky and allow precipitation, a hanging high pressure and so on..
What I find quite extraordinary is that for such a massive and unavoidably obvious input into the earth’s climate, in fact really the only fundamental input, is that all aspects of the Sun’s influence have not been the primary if not obsessive focus of climate ‘scientists’ the world over. Instead we have had billions if not trillions of dollars wasted on exploring and reacting to symptoms without really understanding if they are real, just appear so or are quite imaginary . Is this AGW alarmism all actually a placebo study?
I guess we will start to get a clearer picture over the next five years or so as cycle 24 starts to drop away from its peak.
The billions and trillions was always about regulating people, not climate. Climate is the yoke we’re all being strapped to. The loss of quality of life is the burden we will bear once the last yoke harness’ rivet is peened.
As a kid I was fascinated by watching waves on the open ocean (living in California, near the coast). I sat for hours and hours, sometimes with a stopwatch, sometimes just watching. I could see certain patterns that allowed the short term prediction of when the next few waves would come by, and about how big they’d be.
Now, some 50 years later, and being somewhat accomplished in both digital signal processing theory (and practice), as well as having physics, chemistry and computer science on my lapel, I reflect back on those wave-watching days, and it recurs to me that the superposition of wave-trains of varying frequency, amplitude, phase and in multiple-dimensions, direction behave in observably semi-predictable, but still quite chaotic ways.
In the case of Climate and Weather, we have well regarded influences from multiple directions, multiple periods, varying amplitudes. Indeed, many of the cycles aren’t even nicely sinusoidal. They are composed of many frequencies and their spectra is both complex and time varying.
With this observation, then it seems obvious that things such as the Sun and its varying solar cycles and conditions WILL affect both weather and climate overall. Factors such as the integration-over-time of insolation-turned-to-heat in the oceans, in the ecosphere, in the gases of the atmosphere, all contribute. The periodicity of the seasons, the precession of the poles, the nucleating influence of cosmic particles and rays (and their modulation by solar cycles) … again, all contribute. So do the influences of aerosols, both man-made and volcanic or environmental. Caprice of nature, the jiggling of Mother Nature’s bag of dice … cause sometimes the cycles to overlap in ways that exacerbate what would nominally have been “near – normal” weather conditions.
Like the Great Drought which lead to the Dust Bowl in the 1930s, sometimes the factors aren’t entirely cosmogenic or anthropogenic, but seem more just to be like the ocean’s waves: when a few key wavelets align on troughs or peaks, then together their effect can be multiplicative, with a factor k > 1.0 for the additive effect they otherwise would have. Sometimes, in the case of volcanism, the effects in the short term can so overwhelm the rest of the waves, that it might be likened to a great earthquake causing such a shift in water that Tsunamis are 10x to 100x the size of the normal background chatter of wave and wind.
From work that was done in Europe by [Svensmark] and others, I cannot agree with those who hold that the solar cycles, the effect of cosmogenic rays and particles, of the variability of the Suns output … amount to nothing compared to the other extant local variables. The answer is TOO pat. The effect of bloody stratospheric jets is itself rarely given consideration, but is yet another of the many contributing waves.
I hope that this monologue matches the eventual findings of this new blog, posted by the OP.
GoatGuy
So eloquently put…..
Go GoatGuy!
On the scale of 100,000 & 10,000 years the most important of the many factors controlling climate are Milankovitch Cycles, the superposition of earth’s orbital & rotational mechanics to affect insolation. IMO these cycles also influence climate on the order of millennia & centuries, & some on decades. But at these shorter time scales, variations in solar radiation & magnetism become significant, too.
On the order of millions, tens & hundreds of millions & billions of years, solar irradiance is also important, as it increases by about one percent each 110 million years. But if you want an ice age, it appears that you need particular arrangements of ocean currents & a land mass over a pole, although there does seem to be a 150 million year ice age cycle, too, based upon the solar system’s passage through a spiral arm of the galaxy, influencing cosmic ray flux. The Mesozoic had a cold spell at the appointed time, but a full fledged ice age didn’t develop because Antarctica & Australia weren’t far enough south & the continents weren’t sufficiently split up then.
In the long run, the fact that a big part of the earth’s continental landmasses are moving relentlessly towards the Arctic means yes, there will be a lot more ice in the future and much of the northern pole will be more like Antarctica and Greenland today: mostly ice bound.
All these factors are at work and CO2 is the least of these, of course, but the easiest to tax! Thus the relentless focus on it by elites wishing to tax us somehow without us revolting.
Yes as someone who has worked collecting data in the natural environment I have become intolerant of anyone who dismisses a hypothesis because a perfect correlation between cause and effect can not be established. As far as I’m concerned when I see a perfect correlation I see fudging at best and fraud at the worst.. The fact that a perfrect correlation may not exist between solar activity, TSI or magnetic, does not in any way imply that the sun does not have a significant effect on then climate of planet earth.
That is particularly true of inputs to non linear chaotic systems. The timing as well as the magnitude of the input will affect its effect . The butterfly has to flap is wings as the chaotic system is in precisely the right state or transition or there will be no effect.
If we could , and the sun has no effect on the earth warming why don’t we just turn it off .
That is a rather dim retort. The Earth receives a fairly steady beam from the Sun. But the movement of the Earth (on its axis and in its orbit) and its round shape creates large scale circulation patterns in the oceans and in the atmosphere. Because it is round-ish, there is also differential heating (more in the middle, less at the poles) that combines to set up unique fluid dynamics in both water and air that teleconnect with each other in large and small ways. Add to that the placement of continents and you have plenty of systems interacting with each other to create weather pattern variations and trends, let alone noise, in various temperature and pressure metrics.
We live on a highly variable planet. Far more variable than the Sun in terms of heat coming in at the top of the atmosphere (a rather steady beam) versus heat used on Earth (not so steadily used up through absorption and reflection variables). The Sun’s variability, which can be calculated, is buried in such a lively planet as we have here on Earth.
Pamela Gray writes: “The Earth receives a fairly steady beam from the Sun.” This is a rather dim statement, one which is only true if you state the beam in terms of TSI. Though it only varies some 0.2% from strong vs weaker cycles, the beam is not steady at all in other energy frequencies. This cannot be denied. Your statement precludes much fact about the sun.
Mario Lento October 17, 2014 at 11:21 pm
Mario, this claim might make sense … but only if you supported it by actual facts about the variation (in W/m2) over the cycle at various frequencies.
Since the variation in TSI is tiny (less than 0.5 W/m2 on a 24/7 global basis), I find it hard to believe that there is significant variation (in W/m2) in some sub-section of the total. As a result, some actual facts to back up your claims would be most welcome.
Thanks,
w.
Willis Eschenbach October 17, 2014 at 11:39 pm
Mario Lento October 17, 2014 at 11:21 pm
Though it only varies some 0.2% from strong vs weaker cycles, the beam is not steady at all in other energy frequencies. This cannot be denied. Your statement precludes much fact about the sun.
Mario, this claim might make sense … but only if you supported it by actual facts about the variation (in W/m2) over the cycle at various frequencies.
Since the variation in TSI is tiny (less than 0.5 W/m2 on a 24/7 global basis), I find it hard to believe that there is significant variation (in W/m2) in some sub-section of the total. As a result, some actual facts to back up your claims would be most welcome.
Thanks,
w.
++++++++++++
WIllis: Pardon, but you are referring to TSI, and I am not. I assume TSI varies only slightly, hence power over a given area remains too constant to be the cause of the magnitude of climate change we see. I suggest that the frequencies change substantially within that relatively constant power output. Different frequencies have effects other than direct radiative heating. Considering only total energy and not the make up of that energy leaves out the range of frequencies that vary substantially.
Let’s consider a reductio ad absurdum thought. Given that the sun’s TSI stayed perfectly constant, but the frequency output changed to include only 100% deep UV, and zero any other frequency including visible light. The watts/square meter would be the same. Would you bet this would have no measurable affect on Earth’s climate?
I remain a fanboy just the same Willis.
My reading, and i would have thought that this was the natural and ordinary reading, of Mario’s comment is that he is referring to the point made by John West
October 17, 2014 at 3:25 pm, namely:
“Variations in the components of TSI are orders of magnitude greater than variation in TSI itself. As we all know UV, Visible, and IR have very different capabilities/characteristics, for example interaction with O2 & O3, ocean penetration, and reflection by different surfaces just to name a few. So I would add: If not amplification processes then what component variations have the most impact and why?”
You will note that Mario endorsed that significant comment.
Rephrasing Clinton: ‘It is not all about TSI st*p*d’ It is far more suttle than that.
It also raises the question of whether a watt is just a watt, no matter where within the system it is inputted.
There is much yet to be undestood.
Mario Lento October 17, 2014 at 11:53 pm
Thanks, Mario. You said:
If the “it” you refer to is NOT talking about TSI … then what are you referring to?
Next, you say:
Thanks for the suggestion, Mario, but I was asking for facts, not suggestions. You know, numbers showing how much and how the frequencies change, and which ones change, that kind of thing.
w.
Willis Eschenbach October 18, 2014 at 12:15 am
Mario Lento October 17, 2014 at 11:53 pm Edit
WIllis: Pardon, but you are referring to TSI, and I am not. I assume TSI varies only slightly, hence power over a given area remains too constant to be the cause of the magnitude of climate change we see. I suggest that the frequencies change substantially within that relatively constant power output.
Thanks, Mario. You said:
Though it only varies some 0.2% from strong vs weaker cycles, the beam is not steady at all in other energy frequencies.
If the “it” you refer to is NOT talking about TSI … then what are you referring to?
Next, you say:
I suggest that the frequencies change substantially within that relatively constant power output.
Thanks for the suggestion, Mario, but I was asking for facts, not suggestions. You know, numbers showing how much and how the frequencies change, and which ones change, that kind of thing.
w.
+++++++++++++
richard verney October 18, 2014 at 12:14 am distilled the subject matter correctly.
The “it” is TSI.
The frequencies change substantially (on at least an order of magnitude)
Energy thrown at the Earth has to go somewhere. So where does the UV go?
Variances are extremely dramatic within the 8% (UV) everyone ignores.
http://www2.mps.mpg.de/projects/sun-climate/resu_body.html
http://www2.mps.mpg.de/projects/sun-climate/image/Rel_contri_col.png
“The Sun’s variability, which can be calculated, is buried in such a lively planet as we have here on Earth.”
Pamela, the problem with this affirmation is that we find the signal from Sun’s variability in the Earth climate:
For instance at the resilient earth there is a study where the tiny 11 years cycle variations are shown to have influence:
http://theresilientearth.com/?q=content/atmospheric-solar-heat-amplifier-discovered
“Though the Sun’s output varies by less than a tenth of a percent in magnitude during its 11-year sunspot cycle, that small variation produces changes in sea surface temperatures two or three times as large as it should. A new study in Science demonstrates how two previously known mechanisms acting together amplify the Sun’s impact in an unsuspected way. ”
OK, it is a modelling study, but sounds reasonable (at least to me).
Then prof Courtillot showed connection with the UV variability:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/04/05/courtillot-on-the-solar-uv-climate-connection/
And another one about the UV :
http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2012/09/new-paper-finds-another-mechanism-by.html
“According to the authors, the “mechanism describes how solar UV changes can lead to a significant enhancement of the small initial signal and corresponding changes in stratospheric dynamics”, which in combination with a natural atmospheric circulation, the Quasi-Biennial Oscillation, causes a “significant ocean response,” “
Prepare for NO government paid climate “scientist” to show up at all.
Is there any other kind of climate “scientist” (i.e., other than government-paid)?
Not as far as the government is concerned. That is unless you are the more enlightened Australian Government.
Why has no one mentioned “The Role of the Sun in Climate Change,” Douglas V. Hoyt and Kenneth H. Schatten, (C) 1997, Oxford University Press? Although Hoyt & Schatten do not come up with the definitive solution, they thoroughly review the data and thinking extant in the mid 1990’s. As a measure of their thoroughness, their bibliography comprises about 500 references. Their book would be an excellent starting point for this discussion.
A more recent book on solar influences on climate, Die kalte Sonne, is now available in an updated, English version.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/07/14/highly-controversial-german-climate-book-to-appear-worldwide-in-english-september-1st/
A report on the bstorm its initial publication caused among German Green Meanies:
http://www.energytribune.com/10076/germanys-godfather-of-green-turns-skeptic#sthash.dPmJXycI.dpbs
I have always been disappointed that many seem to believe that the Sun’s influence should be measured only or primarily via changes in TSI, and am glad to see that other solar pathways, e.g Svensmark, the solar wind, even the Madman Hypothesis of Increased Volcanism During Deep Solar Minimums, are being explored in more depth.
Well, the Madman Hypothesis is still not being studied all that much yet, but my dog is totally onboard.
But figuring out how the sun has varied in e.g. the past millennium isn’t easy. And in fact, the science seems to be developing in the other direction, i.e. showing an even smaller solar influence than scientists thought let’s say a decade ago.
Smaller solar influence? A recent paper said:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/10/17/climate-dialogue-about-the-sun/
That doesn’t suggest smaller to me.
Dang, mess up the link. It should have been:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/10/14/yet-another-significicant-paper-finds-low-climate-sensitivity-to-co2-suggesting-there-is-no-global-warming-crisis-at-hand/
I know this may appear to be an ignorant question but why, when the sun goes down at night, does it get cooler?
If it’s a “minor” player that is?
The fact that Earth gets cooler is a reflection of what the Earth does, not the Sun. Night and day heating differences are therefore intrinsic (Earth) factors, not extrinsic (solar) factors.
http://www.space.com/18175-moon-temperature.html
Pamela Gray : take a look at this sight if you believe direct sunlight makes no difference c.
Psst lonie.. that’s a “site”, not a sight.
Think what happens when you step out of direct sunlight into shade. The Sun has not changed, you have changed the insolation on your skin. When we discuss whether or not the Sun has a significant effect on climate, we are paying attention to the amount of changes in solar output..
Thank you kindly,
Yes, I do get that. I guess my point was that the big, hot, yellow ball in the sky MUST have a most profound effect on the climate/weather (and not a minor one) in view of the energy it puts into the system (yes, assuming the energy can get into the system…clouds, particulates, interstellar dust and the like permitting).
Thanks again for your reply.
I’m not in any way a climate scientist (whatever that term actually means) hence my understanding is purely that of the laity.
Jones
It is interesting that on the dark side of the moon, the temperature is no where near absolute zero. Indeed, even in some of the craters at the poles that never receive sunlight, the temperatures are about 30 to 40K, so nowhere near the 3K of background space. The same is so regarding Pluto, even though it receives little sunlight.
re Jones:
The Sun certainly sets the base conditions for life on Earth. Insolation differences are responsible for the creation of seasons and types of climate in different areas of Earth. But these insolation differences are due to conditions of the Earth not the Sun. The discussion of how the Sun influences climate is centered around the question of whether the slight CHANGES in solar energy originating in the Sun can overcome the insolation changes due to orbital mechanics. Another question is whether or not CHANGES in solar energy can be a factor in cloud creation due to GCRs. So we are always addressing the CHANGES in solar energy represented by TSI at 1 AU.
By “it”, I presume you mean the location where you are. While your location is moving into the the shade, other locations with equal area are emerging into the sunshine. For the Earth as a whole, the solar energy received does not change significally (in the short period of a day).
SR
Over the period of a day, no, TSI apparently does not change.
But Leif’s daily TSI/TOA solar database from 2001 through 2015 DOES CHANGE by +1/-1 watts/meter^2 from year-to-year.
Is the Sun a constant from a modeling standpoint ?
Everything else is secondary, no?……
In my paper “Power spectral analysis of total & net radiation intensities” published in Indian Journal of Radio & Space Physics 6: 60-66 [1977] I observed that the total solar radiation and net radiation intensities shows sunspot cycle [10.5 years].
Dr. S. Jeevananda Reddy
Due to the reduction in the magnetic field strength of newly formed sunspots, the magnetic flux tubes that rise up to the surface of the sun to form sunspots are now being torn apart by convection forces in the solar convection zone. The solar wind removes roughly 99% of the magnetic flux that is produced in the sun to create sunspots. The remaining sunspot flux is believed to create, maintain, and explain the variance of the solar large scale magnetic field. This process (reduction in sunspot intensity, followed by tiny sunspots, and then finally followed by no sunspots only a region that has a slightly higher magnetic field) is more advanced in the solar northern hemisphere than the solar southern hemisphere. There are now almost no remaining sunspots in the solar northern hemisphere and only tiny sunspots (referred to as ‘pores’ by the solar specialists) in the solar southern hemisphere.
http://sdo.gsfc.nasa.gov/assets/img/…_4096_4500.jpg
Comment:
The northern polar field changed polarity first in June 2012, then weakened and was near neutral in March 2014. (William: The solar northern polar field intensity is now roughly zero which is anomalous and indicates the solar magnetic cycle has been interrupted. The sun is very, very rapidly moving to a type of deep Maunder minimum.) The southern polar field reversed in July 2013. In past solar cycles when the solar polar field reversed, the solar polar field intensity passes through intensity zero and rapidly increases in intensity soon after reversal. As can be seen in this graph the solar northern magnetic field is now essentially zero.
http://www.solen.info/solar/polarfields/polar.html
Now a solar polar field that is essentially zero indicates the solar magnetic cycle has been interrupted and the sun is about to very rapidly move to a ‘Maunder minimum’ state where the sun no longer produces sunspots. The past deep solar magnetic cycle minimums have lasted roughly 100 to 150 years
The following is an explanation of what is physically happening to the sun.
1) Sunspots are believe to be formed from magnetic flux tubes that formed deep within the sun at the solar tachocline which is the name for the narrow region of the sun that separates the solar convection zone from the solar radiative zone. The magnetic flux tubes are buoyant and rise up to the surface of the sun traveling through the solar convection zone.
2) Calculations indicate that the magnetic flux tubes require a minimum field strength of around 20,000 to 30,000 gauss when they leave the tachocline to enable them to withstand the turbulent forces in the convection zone. The small tight bundle of magnetic flux tubes expands as it rises up through the convection zone. For some unknown reason the magnetic field strength of newly formed sunspots has been decaying linearly for a number of years.
3) We are now at the point where the magnetic field strength of the flux tubes is less than the minimum strength to avoid being torn apart in the convection zone. Initially just as that threshold (magnetic flux tubes are starting to be torn apart as they rise up through the convection zone) is reached and there is an increase in sunspot number as large sunspots are replaced by many tiny pores (small sunspots)
4) As the process continues (magnetic field strength of the flux tubes continues to decline) the magnetic flux tubes are torn apart in the convection zone and there is nothing left to create a sunspot on the surface of the sun. Observational evidence to support that assertion are regions on the surface of the sun that have higher than average magnetic field strength but no sun spots.
Marcel, thanks for the post. You say:
The LIA started well before the Maunder Minimum. So for the LIA to be caused by the Maunder Minimum we’d have to believe in the reversal of time …
I’m so tired of people posting this kind of solar nonsense without the slightest attempt to substantiate it. How about you give us a graph showing the LIA and the Maunder Minimum?
The sun may indeed have an effect on climate … but nonsensical claims about the Maunder and the LIA aren’t doing your cause any good.
w.
Willis Eschenbach,
You assert that Marcel Crok has a ’cause’. What ’cause’ do think Marcel Crok has?
John
Planetary cooling is also caused by an abrupt reduction in the geomagnetic field intensity which can occur in advance of the Maunder like minimum. Of course there was a physical reason why the planet cyclically warmed and cooled cyclically in the past, the Dansgaard-Oeschger cycle. The modulation of planetary cloud cover is caused by three principal mechanisms. 1) High or low galactic cosmic rays (also called cosmic ray flux CRF which are mostly high speed protons). The GCR/CRF create ions in the atmosphere which increases the amount of low level clouds. 2) Solar wind bursts that create a space charge differential in the ionosphere which in turn then removes cloud forming ions for roughly 2 weeks creating a space charge differential in the ionosphere. The resulting global electric current reduces cloud cover in high latitude regions and reduces the lifetime of tropical clouds. and 3) changes to the geomagnetic field intensity and orientation (the geomagnetic poles abruptly change position which moves the highest GCR/CRF regions to lower latitudes).
P.S. Curiously or ironically the geomagnetic field intensity is now dropping 10 times faster than physically believed possible 2%/decade rather than 2%/century. There is now unequivocal observational evidence of the start of global cooling, record sea in the Antarctic and the start of the recovery of sea ice in the Arctic. The cooling will accelerate. There is of course a physical reason why the geomagnetic field intensity is suddenly now dropping at 2%/decade. Subject for another comment.
In reply to:
lsvalgaard says:
November 1, 2013 at 8:25 am
William:
Problem solved, the paradox is resolve. You (William: Svalgaard and others) quoted older papers that were incorrect and have been superseded. The Maunder minimum is return (there is an explanation for why the planet cooled during the Little Ice age, very low period of solar magnetic cycle activity and why the planet warmed during the Medieval warm period, very high period of solar magnetic cycle activity) The recent grand solar maximum is returned. Furthermore the 2012 paper notes the high resolution long term climate record tracks the solar cosmogenic isotope changes (planet warms when the solar magnetic cycle is high and there is low cosmic ray flux and the planet cools when the solar magnetic cycle is low and there is high cosmic ray flux), which as the paper notes: “is remarkable because the Earth’s climate has not been driven by the Sun alone.” This is fortunate as this provides a physical explanation as to why there is cyclic global climate change in the past.
The 2012 paper notes the cosmic ray flux during the Maunder minimum was 1.6 times greater than current, see figure Fig. 3. (C) Same as (B), but zoom-in of the past millennium. Capital letters mark grand solar minima: O: Oort,W:Wolf, S: Spörer,M: Maunder, D: Dalton, G: Gleissberg.
The older papers you quoted concerning cosmogenic isotope analysis were incorrect. They used the old Antarctic Be10 record which does not capture Be10 changes as the rate of snowfall in that region has not sufficient. That explains why the Greenland Be10 record which is high temporal resolution did not agree with the old low temporal resolution Antarctic Be10 record. The 2012 paper uses a high resolution Antarctic ice core and uses multiple radionuclide records. As the 2012 paper notes there is strong correlation of past climate changes and solar activity which “is remarkable because the Earth’s climate has not been driven by the Sun alone.”
The following are key quotes from the paper.
http://www.pnas.org/content/109/16/5967.full
“9,400 years of cosmic radiation and solar activity from ice cores and tree rings” by
Friedhelm Steinhilber, Jose A. Abreu, Jürg Beer, Irene Brunner, Marcus Christl, Hubertus Fischer, Ulla Heikkilä, Peter W. Kubik, Mathias Mann, Ken G. McCracken, Heinrich Miller, Hiroko Miyahara, Hans Oerter, and Frank Wilhelms, February 14, 2012
The LIA started well before the Maunder Minimum.
True.
But there was also the Wolf Minimum from 1280-1350 followed by the Spörer Minimum from 1460-1550.
The increasing depths of the 3 minimums correlate nicely with the increasing depths of the Little Ice Age:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Ice_Age#Solar_activity
(compare radiocarbon record with temperature reconstructions)
As I’ve repeatedly mentioned in response to comments by you & others on the Maunder Minimum & the LIA, please recall that the LIA contained not just one extended solar minimum but three or four, depending upon from when you date its onset.
The Wolf Minimum occurred from c. AD 1280 to 1350, the Spörer from c. 1460 to 1550, the Maunder from c. 1645 to 1715 (or 1710) & the Dalton from c. 1790 to 1820. In between were warming intervals, most notably that from c. 1716-39 (IMO from 1710), which was greater in amplitude & longer in duration than the recent warm spell from c. 1977-96.
The correlation is so great that the LIA is best seen as centuries of unusually deep & frequent solar minima, centered on the Maunder, which was preceded & followed by similar but less powerful, pro-secular-trend cooling cycles. I don’t include the Wolf, since IMO it occurred as a counter-trend cooling cycle during the transition out of the peak of the Medieval Warm Period into the LIA, but was followed by decades of strong warming before the plunge into centuries of a secular cooling trend.
OK. So let us test that hypothesis:
1. Assume that visible sunspots are proportional to solar activity, and that visible solar activity does actually vary at the same time as “total heat sent towards earth”. Note that either of those assumption may, or may not, be correct. Regardless, assume that sunspots are proportional to “heat available to the earth”….
2. Sunspot counts (solar cycles) vary by length of cycle AND by intensity (peak visible sunspot count) of each cycle.
3. So, to eliminate variations of length of solar cycle, peak count, and positive/negative cycles, sum every six cycles into a solar group, beginning at the first solar cycles counted. You will get – on average, a 66 year period that may, or may not, correspond to the short term temperature cycle, but remember, you are NOT counting spots every 66 years, but the sum of six cycles each time:
Plot the total sunspots for each group nbr against the earth’s best-available long-term temperature record. If there is a temperature pattern that varies with either even or odd solar cycles, or if there is a period of times when sunspots are more frequent and solar cycles are occur faster (closer together) , if either affects the earth’s measured temperatures, then that effect should be visible.
If several solar cycles occur closer together, and if the timing of solar cycles matters, then it should be visible.
If several solar cycles in a row are higher (have more sunspots) then that effect should be visible.
If positive cycles are in some way different than negative cycles, then that should be visible over time.
IMO all those results are visible, within the error limits of solar activity & temperature records, which are large.
Thank you for the information…we must never forget the sun is the main driver of climate for all the planets…many people like to ‘simplify’ things in order to win an argument. The complex pattern of solar sun spot events in the past runs alongside seemingly huge changes in climate especially in the vulnerable northern hemisphere.
The sun is not stable. The output varies and each variation caused a ripple effect on earth, either melting ice or freezing water depending on whether there is an increase or decrease in sun spot activity.
Other factors feed into the system, too like volcanoes, cloud formation, magnetic field strength, tilt of the planet relative to the sun, etc.
Can I add another meaningless vote for NOT assuming that the sun’s effect on Earth’s climate is limited to, proportional to, or defined by TSI? Thank you.
Hi Willis
Thanks for your comment. I read with great interest your articles about the solar “influence” on the climate.
Please understand that in this short announcement I try to introduce the dialogue and the range of views that it covers. I am myself fully open to the possibility that a) the Little Ice Age wasn’t that cold after all (although the advancement of glaciers in this period is the best indicator that some global cooling happened) and b) that the sun played only a marginal role in this period.
So let’s just see how the dialogues and how convincing different hypotheses will be presented.
Cheers
Marcel
Ionization in the zone ozone, contrary to appearances, is not evenly distributed over the polar circle (magnetic field). As a result, the jet streams are blocked in polar vortex. This weakens the polar vortex and causes pressure anomalies in the troposphere above the polar circle. This forces the circulation. These developments are particularly evident in winter, when the jet streams in the stratosphere gain speed.
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/stratosphere/strat_a_f/gif_files/gfs_o3mr_40_nh_f00.gif
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/blocking/real_time_nh/500gz_anomalies_nh.gif
According to my observations that greater solar activity accelerates the jet stream and reduces the pressure anomalies over the polar circle.
The density of the solar wind affects the galactic radiation that actively affects the state of the ozone over the polar circle (magnetic field).
http://cosmicrays.oulu.fi/webform/query.cgi?startday=01&startmonth=01&startyear=2014&starttime=00%3A00&endday=18&endmonth=10&endyear=2014&endtime=23%3A30&resolution=Automatic+choice&picture=on
The NAIRAS model predicts atmospheric radiation exposure from galactic cosmic rays (GCR) and solar energetic particle (SEP) events. GCR particles are propagated from local interstellar space to Earth using an extension of the Badhwar and O’Neill model, where the solar modulation has been parameterized using high-latitude real-time neutron monitor measurements at Oulu, Thule, Lomnicky, and Moscow. During radiation storms, the SEP spectrum is derived using ion flux measurements taken from the NOAA/GOES and NASA/ACE satellites. The cosmic ray particles – GCR and SEP – are transported through the magnetosphere using the CISM-Dartmouth particle trajectory geomagnetic cutoff rigidity code, driven by real-time solar wind parameters and interplanetary magnetic field data measured by the NASA/ACE satellite. Cosmic ray transport through the neutral atmosphere is based on analytical solutions of coupled Boltzmann transport equations obtained from NASA Langley Research Center’s HZETRN transport code. Global distributions of atmospheric density are derived from the NCEP Global Forecasting System (GFS) meteorological data.
Interesting graphs… FWIW, I gathered a bunch of nullschool temp and wind graphs from just 2 days before those graphs. Shows the vortex and cyclones nicely. Comparing them is interesting:
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2014/10/17/gonzo-gonzalo-and-cyclone-up-vortex-down/
Clearly shows warm air rising in cyclonic systems over the ‘low pressure regions’ and the polar vortex descending in the middle. Massive heat engine driven by water heat moving to stratospheric radiation to space ( IR is irrelevant to the troposphere, it is in the stratosphere that the air radiates, and then CO2 cools to space.) In the troposphere it’s all mass flow and phase changes. The images make that clear to see.
Broad circular warm flow down low, narrowing to dissipation at height. Polar vortex huge at height, narrowing to a small swirl at the surface (where you can see cold air outflow over Canada / USA and toward EurAsia…) Circles both ways moving huge heat flux via mass flow / enthalpy. IR need not apply… it only does anything of interest in the stratosphere (about 70 mb).
Now my question is what happens to the IR flow when the thermosphere about the stratosphere has a huge temperature shift from that huge UV solar shift. Hmmm? What happens when the only place where IR does anything is facing a hot thermosphere ‘up’ vs. a relatively ‘cold’ one? Can the solar UV modulate the stratospheric cooling via the thermosphere large temp and density swings? (We know that the low UV level had the thermosphere cool and shrink so much that satelite orbital life changed from the lower drag… not a subtle effect at all.)
Willis is the pressure distribution in the lower stratosphere over the polar circle.
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/stratosphere/strat_a_f/gif_files/gfs_z100_nh_f00.gif
Marcel Crok,
For your wonderfully arranged dialogue, as a minimum it would be valuable to consider various historical timescales of 100 to 200 years when evaluating EAS changes versus solar changes.
It seems on that timescale is where many disputes are centered.
John
Solar influence could be incredibly simple. EUV from high activity periods causes the atmosphere to expand slightly. Larger atmosphere = larger catchment area for other incoming solar radiation.
IMO solar effects on the hydrosphere & lithosphere are also involved.
Re Question 7) “Is there consensus on the predictability of solar variability?”
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/03/06/new-book-twilight-of-abundance/#comment-1584185
Here is a compilation of predictions for SC24.
As you can see, there are 45 of them, more than enough to fill a roulette wheel, and they are “all over the map”.
http://users.telenet.be/j.janssens/SC24.html
SC25 is just around the corner.
Ladies and Gentlemen, faites vos jeux!
Allan, I wouldn’t say that 2021 is “just around the corner”. There, there’s my jeu…
Rich.
Thank you Rich,
A good segue to my recent post, excerpted below:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/10/11/agricultural-losses-in-2014-due-to-cold-temperatures/#comment-1759748
I wrote this twelve years ago in an article published Sept 1, 2002 in the Calgary Herald:
“There is even strong evidence that human activity is not causing serious global warming.”
“If solar activity is the main driver of surface temperature rather than CO2 [as I believe], we should begin the next cooling period by 2020 to 2030.”
In 2002, SC24 was projected (by NASA) to be robust and we now know it is a dud. If anything, global cooling will happen sooner and perhaps has already started.
Bundle up this winter – looks like another cold one like last year, especially in Central and Eastern North America.
Regards to all, stay safe and warm, Allan
Re SC25 prediction, here is a note from Leif … … and 2016 IS just around the corner…
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/10/28/bbc-real-risk-of-a-maunder-minimum-little-ice-age/#comment-1461494
Allan MacRae says: October 30, 2013 at 11:38 am
Have you made any prediction for SC25?
lsvalgaard says: October 30, 2013 at 11:43 am
A highly speculative one is here: http://www.leif.org/research/apjl2012-Liv-Penn-Svalg.pdf
Come 2016 we should see the new polar field build and from then on I think we can predict with some confidence, not before.
May be the sun is more mysterious than climate scientist presently give it credit. See
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2797310/dark-matter-particles-finally-coming-core-sun.html
Why a small change in TSI and spectrum over a prolonged period of time might have the opposite effect as CO2 is assumed to have. For example, forcings, change in albedo(snow cover), another one is cloud cover and another one is an increase in ice formation. The inertia of the global system suppresses the impact and makes it to look as a slow process. However the coming years it should become visible assuming cycle 25 is even weaker.
Sunspot counting is an archaic ineffective method to look for how the changes to the solar magnetic cycle and changes to the geomagnetic field intensity and orientation cause cyclical planetary warming and cooling and abrupt climate change events. There was and is a physical reason for past gradual cyclically warming and cooling and the abrupt climate change events that initiate and terminate interglacial periods.
As I noted solar wind bursts remove cloud forming ions. Solar wind bursts are caused by both sunspots (coronal mass ejections) and coronal holes. Coronal holes can and have recently occurred late in the solar cycle anomalously in a low latitude position. The coronal holes created solar wind bursts which in turn removed cloud forming ions which hence if a person does not understand the mechanisms make it appear that high GCR/CRF does not cause an increase in cloud cover. The solar wind burst create a space charge differential in the ionosphere which cause an electrical current to flow from high latitude regions to the tropics affecting cloud cover in both regions. In the high latitude regions there is a reduction in cloud cover and in the tropics due to the change in the electrical differential between cloud top and surface a reduction in cumulus nimbus lifetime.
William: The geomagnetic field index is a measurement of disturbances to the geomagnetic field which are caused by solar wind bursts (coronal hole or sunspot). This paper notes there is has been a significant increase in geomagnetic field disturbances caused by very high solar activity.
http://www.ann-geophys.net/27/2045/2009/angeo-27-2045-2009.pdf
Most of you focus on the radiative effect of the sun. I think, gravitational forces must also be considered, as they induce waves (and thus also mixing) in the oceans, but of course also in the atmosphere, and even magma (that could contribute to (underwater) volcanism by inducing stresses att he junction of tectonic plates. .As the viscosites of these three media are extremely different, so will also be the corresponding time constants and phase shifts.
Gravitational forces are linked to the relative position, and the distance between the sun and the earth, the orientation of the earth rotation axis and the speed of this rotation. The moon interacts as a stabilizing gyroscope for the earth. Conjunction /opposition of other (heavy) planets reinforce / deforce the gravitational effects, as can be seen by observing periods of “extreme” high / low tides of the ocean. All this generates a full set of pseudo periodic waves, with periods ranging from hours to millions of year.
Look at the waves in the stratosphere associated with changes in solar activity.
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/stratosphere/strat-trop/gif_files/time_pres_WAVE1_MEAN_ALL_NH_2014.gif
Abstract
Stratospheric Sudden Warmings (SSWs) followed by the formation of an elevated stratopause at ~70–80 km occurred in four of the five recent Arctic winters (2009–2013). We use global high-latitude temperature measurements from the Solar Occultation for Ice Experiment (SOFIE) to analyze the gravity wave (GW) activity in the upper stratosphere and mesosphere (30–90 km) during different phases of the SSW events. We characterize GW activity in terms of temperature fluctuations and the growth of GW potential energy with altitude. At both 40 and 60 km, compared to the non-SSW year of 2011, the GW activity in the SSW years of 2009, 2010, 2012, and 2013 was reduced after the warming, during the occurrence of an isothermal atmosphere and an elevated stratopause. In contrast, at 80 km the GW activity was highly variable between the individual stratospheric warming events. A case study of GW activity during the 2013 warming event and coincident SOFIE observations of water vapor (H2O) from ~40 to 90 km indicate a correlation between increase in wave activity at each altitude and the time of descent of dry air. This study supports previous modeling studies’ findings that enhanced GW activity is responsible for the downward transport of trace species from the mesosphere to the stratosphere following an SSW event.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2014JD021763/abstract
The following is a hopefully working link to Georgieva, Bianchi, and Kirov’s Once Again about Global Warming and Solar Activity.
Once again about global warming and solar activity, by K. Georgieva, 1 , C. Bianchi , 2 and B. Kirov
This link worked for me:
http://sait.oat.ts.astro.it/MSAIt760405/PDF/2005MmSAI..76..969G.pdf
As many are aware planetary cloud cover is modulate by Svensmark’s mechanism where an increase in galactic cosmic rays/cosmic ray flux (GCR/CRF is the confusing historical name for mostly high speed protons which create cloud forming ions in the atmosphere, the first discoverers where not sure whether it was a ray or particle and the idiotic field did not correct the term) causes an increase in cloud cover in high latitude regions and a decrease in GCR/CRF causes an increase in cloud cover in high latitude regions. The level and intensity of GCR/CRF that strike the earth’s atmosphere is dependent on the strength and extent of the solar heliosphere (the solar heliosphere is the name for the tenuous solar wind and pieces of magnetic flux that is created by the solar magnetic cycle and that can extend well past the orbit of Pluto).
CRF/GCR is also modulated by changes to the geomagnetic field intensity and orientation. It was assumed that the geomagnetic field did not and could not rapidly and cyclically change. Over the last 10 years the geomagnetic paleo research indicates that the geomagnetic field does rapidly and cyclically change and the climate change events correlate with the geomagnetic field changes. There is of course a physical reason, a forcing mechanism why the geomagnetic field is cyclically changing and why the changes are more than 10 times faster than the geomagnetic models indicate is possible.
P.S. As noted above cloud cover is also modulated by solar wind bursts (Tinsley’s mechanism) which Tinsley called electroscavenging. Electroscavenging affects cloud cover in high latitude regions and changes cloud properties in the tropics.
As few are aware there is a large region of the geomagnetic field in the vicinity of South America where the geomagnetic field intensity has dropped by 60%. This geomagnetic anomaly is called the South Atlantic geomagnetic anomaly. In the 1990’s the North geomagnetic pole drift velocity suddenly for unexplained reasons started to increased by a factor of five.
Both of these changes to the geomagnetic field intensity and configuration are observational evidence that a geomagnetic field excursion is underway and is accelerating for some unknown reason. The earth’s magnetic field intensity drops by a factor of 5 to 10 during a geomagnetic field excursion. Geomagnetic excursions correlate with the termination of interglacial periods.
A European set of three satellites called ‘SWARM’ was launched in the fall of 2013 to study why the earth’s geomagnetic field intensity is now dropping at 5% per decade rather than 5% per century which is ten times faster than believed possible. The first set of data from the SWARM satellite confirmed that the geomagnetic field intensity is dropping at 5% per decade and showed the large regions of the planet where the field intensity is changing.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/ar…than-expected/
The following research indicates the last geomagnetic polar reversal occurred more than ten times faster than the current geomagnetic computer models indicate is physically possible, with the reversal occurring in less than a hundred years, rather than 1000s of years (computer models of the geomagnetic estimate the duration of a geomagnetic reversal is 1000 to 10,000 years).
http://gji.oxfordjournals.org/conten…/1110.abstract
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases…1014170841.htm
The following is the Wikipedia summary that summarize the paradox.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geomagnetic_reversal
William, I am following your comments with great interest. From your post above, is the following correct:
“As many are aware planetary cloud cover is modulate by Svensmark’s mechanism where an increase in galactic cosmic rays/cosmic ray flux … causes an increase in cloud cover in high latitude regions and a decrease in GCR/CRF causes an increase in cloud cover in high latitude regions….. “
I have seen clouds build and disappear as if by pen and magic eraser. I know the reason for that and it is entirely intrinsic to Earth. You say there is another source of cloud variation and say it with firm words. Please post a link that correlates measured/observed cloud cover with this mechanism you state so firmly.
You state a fact, but your fact is in reality, a hypothesis yet to be proved. However, I will concede that you apparently believe it is a fact. Fine. Back it up with cloud observation data. We do have some you know. And the effect would be nearly instant.
How did you miss this?
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/09/04/svensmarks-cosmic-ray-theory-of-clouds-and-global-warming-looks-to-be-confirmed/
It was even in the papers at the time.
As for observations of clouds in nature to go with the lab results:
http://www.atmos-chem-phys-discuss.net/12/3595/2012/acpd-12-3595-2012.html
“Effects of cosmic ray decreases on cloud microphysics
J. Svensmark, M. B. Enghoff, and H. Svensmark
National Space Institute, Technical University of Denmark, Copenhagen, Denmark
Abstract. Using cloud data from MODIS we investigate the response of cloud microphysics to sudden decreases in galactic cosmic radiation – Forbush decreases – and find responses in effective emissivity, cloud fraction, liquid water content, and optical thickness above the 2–3 sigma level 6–9 days after the minimum in atmospheric ionization and less significant responses for effective radius and cloud condensation nuclei (<2 sigma). The magnitude of the signals agree with derived values, based on simple equations for atmospheric parameters. Furthermore principal components analysis gives a total significance of the signal of 3.1 sigma. We also see a correlation between total solar irradiance and strong Forbush decreases but a clear mechanism connecting this to cloud properties is lacking. There is no signal in the UV radiation. The responses of the parameters correlate linearly with the reduction in the cosmic ray ionization. These results support the suggestion that ions play a significant role in the life-cycle of clouds."
Sorry, but your anecdotal observations of cloud formation at random moments don't count. Systematic observation of cloud formation during & analysis of Forbush events does.
Unfortunately milo, your sited paper was not accepted for publication. So I prefer not to see it as definitive to your case. I am surprised you do.
On your planet that a European journal doesn’t chose to print a paper makes it invalid? Have you ever heard of Climategate? You call yourself a skeptic?
Comment on what the researchers found, please, not whether it passed muster by the CACA pal review Team.
Besides which, as noted, untold numbers of valid papers over the past century, at least, have found the solar cycle signal & the effect of clouds on albedo. Did you learn from Willis to find fault with single papers, whether justified or not, while ignoring the reams of good science destructive of your cherished delusions?
Before commenting on climatology, how about actually studying it?
Milo, I highly recommend reading this text. It outlines the very issue we often discuss here. Cherry picking induced bias in research. No wonder your sited paper will not see the light of day.
http://www.atmos-chem-phys-discuss.net/12/C1000/2012/acpd-12-C1000-2012-supplement.pdf
…and dispassionate discourse enlarges our shared understanding while vehement writing does not.
Let me get this straight. You object to a letter by Svensmark, et al, in the open access portion of the Journal of Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics of the EGU, while taking as gospel what you read here from Bob Tisdale and Willis Eschenbach, whose climatological work can’t get published in mainstream science periodicals?
Strange.
But not to worry, since the same observations noted by Svensmark, et al, 2012, have repeatedly been noted by other scientists. The quickest, most cursory search would have produced many such studies.
For instance, this came up, which is not the most resounding support for Forbush decreases, but indicative:
Forbush decreases – clouds relation in the neutron monitor era
A. Dragi´c1, I. Aniˇcin1, R. Banjanac1, V. Udoviˇci´c1, D. Jokovi´c1, D. Maleti´c1, and J. Puzovi´c2
1Institute of Physics, University of Belgrade, Pregrevica 118, Belgrade, Serbia
2Faculty of Physics, University of Belgrade, Studentski trg 16, Belgrade, Serbia
Received: 15 November 2010 – Revised: 15 February 2011 – Accepted: 23 March 2011 – Published: 31 August 2011
Abstract. The proposed influence of cosmic rays on cloud
formation is tested for the effect of sudden intensity changes
of CR (Forbush decreases) on cloudiness. An attempt is
made to widen the investigated period covered by satellite
observation of cloudiness. As an indicator of cloud cover,
the diurnal temperature range (DTR – a quantity anticorrelated
with cloudiness) is used. The superposed epoch analysis
on a set of isolated Forbush decreases is conducted and
the results for a region of Europe are presented. The effect
of Forbush decrease on DTR is statistically significant only
if the analysis is restricted to high amplitude FDs (above the
threshold value of 7% with the respect to undisturbed CR intensity).
The magnitude of the effect on DTR is estimated to
be (0.38±0.06) C.
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=3&ved=0CDIQFjAC&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.astrophys-space-sci-trans.net%2F7%2F315%2F2011%2Fastra-7-315-2011.pdf&ei=aulCVLiaM6mWigLY64CoBA&usg=AFQjCNE0LgTifsZnYu-FgYL_1ESbZTXn6w&sig2=6msDblQ50kdSMWBUv7_boA&bvm=bv.77648437,d.cGE
Or, had you ever bothered to study the subject, you’d already know about Forbush decreases, to which observation Mosher so strenuously objects on this blog. And you’d know that CERN has experimentally demonstrated the underlying physical mechanism behind these observations.
Now aren’t you embarrassed?
Making completely baseless assertions such as that any possible solar cycle signal is totally submerged in atmospheric phenomena deserves rebuke. There is zero evidence to support that unfounded claim, & all the evidence in the world against it. The problem is that you haven’t studied the subject & indeed apparently prefer to remain blissfully ignorant of it.
Now kindly respond to the substance of the many Forbush decrease findings & the experimental research supporting the GCR cloud hypothesis, rather than siding with the Team’s publication gatekeepers, as you do with them on the subject of volcanoes & the LIA.
Sturgis, your citation actually scores a point for no discernable affect in global temperature data.
“The effect of Forbush decrease on DTR is statistically significant only
if the analysis is restricted to high amplitude FDs (above the
threshold value of 7% with the respect to undisturbed CR intensity).
The magnitude of the effect on DTR is estimated to
be (0.38±0.06) C.”
Because this paper also refers to a non-random subsample of Forbush events, and even then produces an effect that would not be detectable in any form due to signal noise in our current temperature series, I rest my case on the laurels of your cited evidence.
“although Willis Eschenbach in a series of posts here at WUWT has shown that the solar signal is often not easily detected in climate records.”
No, the solar signal is clearly detected!
The paper by Tung and Camp shows that:
Surface warming by the solar cycle as revealed by the composite mean
difference projection:
http://depts.washington.edu/amath/old_website/research/articles/Tung/journals/GRL-solar-07.pdf
Some here have quibbled with Judith Lean’s reconstruction of TSI & UV time
series, but I’m convinced.
My understanding is that even Judith now quibbles with it. Does that mean you are still convinced of Judith’s previous reconstruction while she has moved beyond it?
Of course. Revisions by Lean, et al don’t change the conclusions of Tung & Champ, IMO. But if you think they’re no longer valid, please show why.
You can read about her revisions, thanks to SORCE, here:
http://www.nrl.navy.mil/media/news-releases/2014/dr-judith-lean-receives-double-honors-in-geophysical-research-letters-top-40
Recall that SORCE is how science learned about the unexpected large fluctuation in the UV component of TSI, as well as leading to lowered estimates for that value. The implications for the climatic effect of this surprise variation in solar irradiance were huge, & still completely missing from CACA GIGO GCMs.
Girma, that study did NOT use actual temperature data. Instead, it used a NCEP computer model reconstruction of past temperatures. As such, while it is revealing as to the existence of solar cycles IN COMPUTER MODEL OUPUTS, it says nothing about solar cycles here on the real earth.
In addition, as Pamela pointed out, it uses the Lean reconstruction … which even Lean has now backed away from.
Next, they have done a curious thing—they have taken the average of the “solar max” and the “solar min” temperatures, and calculated the difference … but since their data starts with a solar min cycle and ends with a solar max cycle, this is bound to show a trend and a difference, just as if you’d done the same thing using a sine wave.
Finally, it’s the usual piece of anti-scientific bunkum, with no code as used and no data as used. As Mosher observed, that’s an advertisement for someone’s claims, not science in any form.
For example, they say that they did a “Monte Carlo analysis” to determine statistical validity. A MC analysis is quite tricky to do, and depends exquisitely on how you produce the pseudodata. You want your pseudodata to have the same characteristics (mean, SD, skew, kurtosis, autocorrelation, etc.) as the real data … but here’s all they offer as a description:
IF I understand their test correctly, it is worse than useless. They’ve taken a dataset with a very high autocorrelation, and by randomly mixing it, destroyed the autocorrelation structure entirely. Also, by allowing replacements, they’ve also screwed with both the mean and the SD, and likely the skew and kurtosis as well. That’s what can only be described as an epic fail of a Monte Carlo test, IF (as it seems) that’s what they did … but we don’t really know what they did, do we, because we don’t have their code.
You can swallow it whole if you wish … I’ll pass.
All in all? Sorry, Girma, but they’ve only shown what happens in Modelworld, they used the Lean TSI reconstruction, they’ve provided no data as used and no code as used, their Monte Carlo test is a joke, and as a result, back here in the real world the solar signal is NOT clearly detected in any sense.
Look, guys, it’s far from enough to point to some peer-reviewed, published study and claim that the question is settled. The ugly reality is that many, perhaps most peer reviewed climate studies are wrong. You need to read the study critically and think about it critically. The Tung and Camp study is a farce, it has nothing to do with the real world, and the statistical claims are a joke.
w.
There is a physical reason for all observations. (There is now the start of cooling of the ocean due to the increase in GCR/CRF).
http://www.ospo.noaa.gov/data/sst/anomaly/2014/anomnight.10.16.2014.gif
The following are hopefully working links to the geomagnetic field papers and announcements.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/earth-s-magnetic-field-flip-could-happen-sooner-than-expected/
http://www.spacenews.com/article/launch-report/38301swarm-satellite-trio-launched-to-study-earth%E2%80%99s-magnetic-field
http://gji.oxfordjournals.org/content/199/2/1110.abstract
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/10/141014170841.htm
http://sciences.blogs.liberation.fr/home/files/Courtillot07EPSL.pdf
I have a question, aimed at anyone with the data.
Twenty years ago one of the arguments I used against AGW was that there were a number of solar bodies that were warming up without any combustion of hydrocarbons (Mars, Jupiter moons, Uranus etc) . So it was obviously the Sun’s fault.
Does anyone know what the status is on the various heavenly bodies currently. Are they still warming, are they in a pause, or have their orbits changed so that they are cooling?
Nobody has printed anything (gotten a paper through the CAGW-filter of the CAGW-centric-pall-review/CAGW-philiac-government-funding bureaucracy and review process.
I cannot tell if anybody is looking for extra-terrrestial CSGW effects either! After all, somebody finding such an effect would upset everybody else’s CAGW-centric funding apparatus.
Overall Solar Activity increases and decreases in correlation with orbital changes, this has been the case over the past 400 years seen in this graph below.
My advice to all the scientists using CO2 as the main factor in climate fluctuations and TSI as a minimal factor is to continue to do so. This way it will be so much easier to avoid hundreds of failed global climate models.
The blue line is sunspots recorded, right? But what is your black line?
Yes the blue line is a sunspot record, this sunspot record is Leif’s, The orange points are a 10 year sample of the orbital changes over the past 400 years. the black line is a basic moving average trend of the 10 year sample.
This is an observational based plot not a model. And yes the added forecast is accurate.
Interesting clouds in the photo above, eh?
Anthony,
Could you feature the following paper as it shows a clear solar signal in the global mean temperature?
http://depts.washington.edu/amath/old_website/research/articles/Tung/journals/GRL-solar-07.pdf
For me, this paper is the “smoking gun” for the current solar maximum to be the cause of the global warming of the 20th century.
Regards,
That’s from 2007 and we covered it then
Girma you appear to have missed Willis Eschenbach’s reply to you about the paper – see above. The gun was smoking even though they shot themselves in the foot.
”
Willis Eschenbach
October 18, 2014 at 5:46 pm
Girma, that study did NOT use actual temperature data. Instead, it used a NCEP computer model reconstruction of past temperatures. As such, while it is revealing as to the existence of solar cycles IN COMPUTER MODEL OUPUTS, it says nothing about solar cycles here on the real earth……”
Its worth reading the rest of the reply if you understand the statistical methodology.
In the first post “What will happen during a new Maunder Minimum,” Figure 1 shows an IPCC AR5 chart of “natural” vs anthropogenic forcing.
In that chart, why is the “forcing” of atmospheric water vapor not included in the “natural” column, or failing that, why isn’t the extra forcing due to supposed anthropogenic emissions at least expressed as a ratio or component of the TOTAL forcing from all GHG, including water vapor? If anthropogenic GHGs are a requirement for evaporation to take place, this is news to me. The primary effects of atmospheric water vapor are (conservatively) 3 or 4 times greater than that of CO2. So why does the IPCC talk about “forcing” without including this largest and completely natural forcing?
Other facets of that table seems to be a bit of bait and switch, too. While I concede that humans emit and are responsible for some increase in atmospheric CO2 and other GHGs, this table appears to blame ALL the GHGs (other than H2O) on human emissions, as if the natural world didn’t contribute anything. AND it also blames all cloud aerosol effects on humans, too. Aren’t there a few natural cloud aerosols? Did clouds never form prior to the industrial age?
Can someone who thinks it’s correct explain and defend the logic of this table to me?
Here’s the link: http://www.climatedialogue.org/what-will-happen-during-a-new-maunder-minimum/
Actually Willis, I’ll challenge you a little further with that requirement:
Assume there is a 1000 year long term temperature cycle (and a shorter 60-70 year cycle we will ignore for a few minutes). That single long-term cycle is, obviously, shown by the long-term temperature records, right? Those go up and down.
Now, if there were only two “forcings” controlling that single temperature cycle, a reasonable question is: “When did the forcings change to make the temperature go up and down?” And, naturally, one would – like Marcel just did – associate a peak in the temperature record with a peak in a positive forcing, and the dips in the temperature record with either a peak in a negative forcing, or a maximum dip in a positive forcing.
After, that is the “natural, everybody knows it” consensus, right?
I submit instead the opposite: The “forcings” remained constant. Their summed “feedback” however are the gains and losses from the earth’s total thermodynamic system – which, on a minute-by-minute, hour-by-hour basis – IS NEVER in equilibrium and is NEVER in any ideal “steady state” from which it has been “forced” away from a natural temperature by man’s action.
Pick a boundary: Top of Atmosphere for example is the most convenient boundary around the earth’s sphere.
Heat energy is rather always Radiated Inbound, Radiated Outbound, Being Stored (going from a hotter mass in one region to a colder mass in another region), or Being Released (going from a hotter mass in one region to a colder mass in another region.) Include phase changes (melting and freezing ice, melting and freezing rock, evaporation and condensation of water vapor) in those Storage mechanisms.
Radiation losses increase as (T kelvin)^4
Temperatures rise, and losses increase.
Temperatures fall globally, and losses decrease.
The “forcing” function did not change.
The negative effect from a constant “forcing” was greatest at the time of maximum temperature.
The positive effect from a constant “forcing” was greatest at time of lowest temperature.
(Plus the varying lag times for storage and release of the thermal energy within the system boundary.) But heat losses, gains, and transitions continued during the maximum, crossing, and minimum points. When losses = gains, were we at the “average”? Were they both “zero”? Or were they changing the fastest? Length of day (amount of solar energy arriving each minute) each year is after all, changing fastest at the spring and fall equinoxes, NOT at mid-winter or mid-summer.
When temperatures were at their peak in 1100, they did not begin to fall because a single short “forcing” event that occurred in the Dark Ages of 450-475 AD, nor did they fall because of a future 70-90 year Maunder Minimum centered around 1630.
Perhaps, it is as equally correct to say today’s 2000 Modern Maximum Period is due to a reduced negative forcing 450 years ago – more accurately, a “reduced negative forcing” that has lasted from 1650 through 2000. (Or was its effect only from 1850 through 1996?) That today’s 2000-2010 short term peak is in the end/middle/beginning of it’s current “pause” only means that immediately energy losses over the whole year = immediate energy gains over the whole year. As long as immediate energy losses exceed immediate energy gains, we will continue to cool from the 2000-2010 Modern Warm Period. And, as it happens, that IS what is occurring as Antarctic sea ice continues to expand to new record highs, and Arctic sea ice continues to retreat and cause increased heat losses 7 months of the year.
Thus, we should look for one or more 450 – 550 year continuous – or very slowly changing – influences whose NET EFFECT is OUT-OF-PHASE with the long-term temperature record, but whose NET EFFECT the same LENGTH as the long-term temperature record.
Further, that long-term net influence need NOT be a perfect continuous wave of constant period and amplitude. If a varying period is found in the temperature record, then a varying length but periodic influence MUST be looked for. (A fault of the orbital-balance-rotation theories! They keep trying to find non-constant temperature effects (which may likely be the summed results of several varying length slowly-changing forcings) into co-relations found in the peaks and valleys from the constant periods of the proposed orbital and barycentric influences. Now, IF – and ONLY IF – those orbital influences are found NOT to be periodic, but themselves vary at the SAME varying PERIODS of the long-term (or short term) temperature records and/or sunspot records, then they would have a much stronger podium to stand behind.)
Whatever influence is found “is what it is” but – if the temperature record has a varying period, then the influence can ONLY be discovered by looking AWAY from anything that has a constant period during this 12,000 year glacial interval.
A decreasing positive influence, or an increasing negative influence, is actually more what we do see in the long-term temperature record as the Minoan Optimum was hotter than the Roman Optimum, which was hotter than the Medieval Optimum, which was hotter that today’s CO2-aided/CO2-speeded-up/CO2-influenced Modern Optimum Period.
The Sun provides the Earth with 386.4 x 10^22 joules of energy each year (after albedo reflection).
The Earth is currently accumulating that energy at 0.62 x 10^22 joules of energy each year (or 0.16%).
–> 386.4 10^22 joules coming in: –> 385.8 10^22 joules going back out: –> Slight warming trend as a result.
It is not hard to imagine the Sun’s energy just varying by 0.2% over long time-scales such it causes a long-term slow accumulation of energy or a long-term slow drawdown of energy.
That is what is missing from the debate. The Earth can very slowly accumulate and lose energy. Just tiny amounts per year but over 30, 50, 1000 years, it adds up to a large temperature differential.
Bill, I get a 0.1554% difference, between your gozinta, and gozouta numbers (to the same number of significant digits of course.)
I wouldn’t believe ANY measure particularly of the gozouta, to even 0.1%; maybe not even 1%.
The earth does not radiate over 4pi steradians, at some single black body Temperature,and I’m not aware of any 4pi continuous monitoring of the exiting radiant energy.
And it seems to me, that such a small energy flux imbalance would have to be monitored to that resolution or accuracy over that whole, 30, 50, 0r 1,000 year time frame. I might buy the 30 years, but not the longer periods. And I wouldn’t believe ANY proxy for actual measurements.
My take on the solar/climate connection the why and how it may occur.
Many of us are of the opinion that the chances of cooling going forward are near 100%.
CO2 is a non player in the global climate picture as past historical data has shown.
CO2 and the GHG effects are a result of the climate not the cause in my opinion.
I maintain these 5 factors cause the climate to change and they are:
Initial State Of The Climate – How close climate is to threshold inter-glacial/glacial conditions
Milankovitch Cycles – Consisting of tilt , precession , and eccentricity of orbit. Low tilt, aphelion occurring in N.H. summer favorable for cooling.
Earth Magnetic Field Strength – which will moderate or enhance solar variability effects through the modulation of cosmic rays.
Solar Variability – which will effect the climate through primary changes and secondary effects. My logic here is if something that drives something (the sun drives the climate) changes it has to effect the item it drives.
Some secondary/primary solar effects are ozone distribution and concentration changes which effects the atmospheric circulation and perhaps translates to more cloud/snow cover- higher albebo.
Galactic Cosmic Ray concentration changes translates to cloud cover variance thus albedo changes.
Volcanic Activity – which would put more SO2 in the stratosphere causing a warming of the stratosphere but cooling of the earth surface due to increase scattering and reflection of incoming sunlight.
Solar Irradiance Changes-Visible /Long wave UV light changes which will effect ocean warming/cooling.
Ocean/Land Arrangements which over time are always different. Today favorable for cooling in my opinion.
How long (duration) and degree of magnitude change of these items combined with the GIVEN state of the climate and how they all phase (come together) will result in what kind of climate outcome, comes about from the given changes in these items. Never quite the same and non linear with possible thresholds.. Hence the best that can be forecasted for climatic change is only in a broad general sense.
In that regard in broad terms my climatic forecast going forward is for global temperatures to trend down in a jig-saw pattern while the atmospheric circulation remains
THE CRITERIA
Solar Flux avg. sub 90
Solar Wind avg. sub 350 km/sec
AP index avg. sub 5.0
Cosmic ray counts north of 6500 counts per minute
Total Solar Irradiance off .15% or more
EUV light average 0-105 nm sub 100 units (or off 100% or more) and longer UV light emissions around 300 nm off by several percent.
IMF around 4.0 nt or lower.
The above solar parameter averages following several years of sub solar activity in general which commenced in year 2005..
IF , these average solar parameters are the rule going forward for the remainder of this decade expect global average temperatures to fall by -.5C, with the largest global temperature declines occurring over the high latitudes of N.H. land areas.
The decline in temperatures should begin to take place within six months after the ending of the maximum of solar cycle 24.
ONE ADDED NOT ABOUT THE EARTH’S MAGENETIC FIELD
Earth’s Impending Magnetic Flip” – Scientific American
Posted on September 30, 2014 by BobFelix
“A geomagnetic reversal may happen sooner than expected,” says this article in Scientific American.
“The European Space Agency’s satellite array dubbed “Swarm” revealed that Earth’s magnetic field is weakening 10 times faster than previously thought, decreasing in strength about 5 percent a decade rather than 5 percent a century,” the article continues. “A weakening magnetic field may indicate an impending reversal.”
Three of the characters in the Climate Dialogue banner appear to be smoking heavily, btw.
🙂
Ban imagery of smoking then. burn books etc..
A reasonable dialogue on solar changes versus EAS changes contains a fundamental debate on models related to the solar dynamic.
John
I want to add this, thresholds, lag times,the initial state of the climate(how close to glacial/interglacial conditions climate is), land/ocean arrangements, earth magnetic field strength , phase of Milankovitch Cycles ,random terrestrial events ,concentrations of galactic cosmic rays within 5 light years of earth due to super nova or lack of for example, the fact that the climate is non linear is why many times the solar/climate correlation becomes obscured, and why GIVEN solar variability(with associated primary and secondary effects) will not result in the same GIVEN climate response.
What is needed is for the sun to enter extreme quiet conditions or active conditions to give a more clear cut solar/climate connection which I outlined in my previous post.
The solar criteria I suggested needed to impact the climate to make it more likely to become colder, which I suggest can happen if the prolonged solar minimum continues and becomes more established going forward.
If the suns polar field remains unchanged for an extended amount of time it will falsify the current solar dynamo theory. If the negative/positive magnetic poles remain at the geographic poles of the sun for an extended period what will happen? The dynamo does not have an explanation for this, this is unlikely to happen anytime soon, but it will happen and it has happened. Earth has a stable geographical polar magnetic field, and many stars do.
[On this site, do not post a video link without an introduction or description of that video. .mod]
Gotta love the subtle satire! Thanks Admad.
Yep, Sol’s in the dumps recently since most of humanity discounts him. Sceptics can relate Sol. He used to be known to give us the time of day, now it’s been claimed by vibrating gases. He used to be known to give us the warm temperatures, now even that’s been claimed by vibrating gases. What’s an old sun to do ??
Lets pray nothing.
The sun is not static, it changes, whether in number of solar flares, solar wind, various type of frequencies etc, then it affects the climate, since hello, no sun and then we really have significant climate change. The question is how and how much does changes in the suns various outputs affect earths climate.
The answer is extremely difficult to determine since not only the sun, but atmospheric gasses, water vapour, various physical processes, constantly evolving land and water eco systems, land and undersea volcanoes, how many people fart in New Jersey in a given time frame, the list just goes on and on, there are too many unpredictable factors working in a chaotic way to determine specifically what any 1 factor contributes to temperature change. Yes a reseacher can plug a bunch of observed data, proxy data, extraploated data, averaged data, derived data, cherry picked, apple picked, watermelon picked and best guess data, into a spreadsheet and then graph it and say, “A ha I got it! It’s the _________ (fill in the blank).”
What the researcher has is an interesting exercise that may get us an inch closer to understanding climate, but not the magic lever that controls temperature, which then controls climate and then hurts all life on earth.
Probably the biggest sin of climate science is the irrational belief in the singular magic lever that controls all.
In long periods of time (44 years) the sun decides on climate change in middle and high latitudes.
“how many people fart in New Jersey in a given time frame,”
Does this replace the flapping butterfly wings starting a hurricane concept?
On the news, “The storm was caused by a significant fart in a bar in New Jersey.”
Let’s see what happens at an altitude of about 30 km above the Arctic Circle. Solar activity decreases, ozone anomaly increase.
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/stratosphere/strat_a_f/gif_files/gfs_t10_nh_f00.gif
How is the impact of the distribution of ozone in the stratosphere the temperature? Us see it at a height of about 3500 m.
http://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/isobaric/700hPa/overlay=temp/orthographic=25.21,88.12,366
Sorry, Ren, but that is NOT “what happens at an altitude of about 30 km above the Arctic Circle “. It is merely what is happening in Modelworld. It’s not actual observations. Instead, it is the output of a computer model. If you believe computer models, I suppose it might mean something … me, I don’t believe in them without extensive V&V testing, testing which the NCEP models have never undergone.
w.
Sorry, Willis, but that *IS* what is happening. It in *NOT* merely what is happening in ‘Modelworld’ as you say. It is the result of a conglomeration of actual Polar & Geostationary orbiting, passive & active Atmospheric Sounding instrument observations and a few RAOBS (RAdiosonde OBServations) that make it up that high.
This picture is not about ‘believing a model’ because it is not a forecast. The numbers in the lower right corner (00z + f00) show this is the Initialization or Analysis phase – the ‘kickoff’ of the forecast process.
If you do not believe the information in that image, please *prove* it is incorrect.
Jeff
Willis, whether also is not happening?
http://www.sat24.com/image2.ashx?region=world&time=false&index=1
Willis, see the temperature of the Great Lakes. This is happening?
http://www.wunderground.com/wundermap/
Willis is also the only model.
http://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/isobaric/10hPa/orthographic=-100.04,74.92,454
Willis may other satellite data?
http://exp-studies.tor.ec.gc.ca/ozone/images/graphs/o3_allmaps/current.gif
Who knows, ren? You’ve given us a graphic without a scrap of provenance. Where did you get it? Because if it is from NCAR or NCEP, it’s an odds-on bet that it’s computer model output and not data in any sense of the word.
w.
Wilis this winter in North America will be similar to the winter 2013/14.
http://ozonewatch.gsfc.nasa.gov/ozone_maps/images/Y2014/M10/OZONE_D2014-10-16_G%5e716X716.IOMI_PAURA_V8F_MGEOS5FP_LNH.PNG
Given the sun is constant, then there would be other factors to consider in global climate change. However, the sun is not constant. Just ask Mars. If the ice on the poles on Mars have receded in sync with warming on Earth, then we might legitimately assume the changes in the sun is a common factor combined with the earth orbit changes and tilt changes.
Maybe Habibullo I. Abdussamatov is more correct than his critics claim:
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/abduss_APR.pdf
Considering that changes on earth are basically non existent since the last iceage, on a planetary scale. How would comparing UHI on earth with mars prove a point?
If total cloud cover influences global temperatures, and cloud cover is influenced by the sun, then the sun influences global climate.
…helps to type the correct words. 🙂
So cloud cover metrics/observations should track solar metrics. So far, it does not.
Here is one particularly long cloud cover record. Sorry no graphs. But it is likely easily converted to Excel and graphed.
http://cdiac.ornl.gov/ndps/ndp021.html
I saw nothing for an equivalent “Arctic” (Alaskan North slope ?) cloud cover on that site:Do you know of one?
Did you check the location of all the stations? I would imagine at least one above the 45th parallel.
Researchers were surprised by observed decrease in precipitating Arctic clouds, contrary to expectations:
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&ved=0CCcQFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.atmos.washington.edu%2F~rmeast%2FBarrowPresI.pdf&ei=1uJCVOfPFaiGigKs14CwBA&usg=AFQjCNGi9ust5KZZ2BQySQJM2cYMVrBVRA&sig2=7jeieNZLA2-e9sy2Pm4DRA&bvm=bv.77648437,d.cGE
milo, interesting powerpoint. Has the paper come out yet? I would hope the researchers compare the ice and cloud data to the major atmospheric pressure system at work in the Arctic. During their study period the seasonal JFM indices was heading up and I remember several alarmists stating that rise was due to global warming. Those alarmists spoke too soon because it then headed back down and may slide even further.
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/daily_ao_index/JFM_season_ao_index.shtml
I think it’s a Master’s Thesis.
There are several by these authors. Not a Master’s. These are refereed scientists. Haven’t read the submitted paper yet or determined whether or not it has been published in a journal.
http://www.atmos.washington.edu/~rmeast/Full_Text_D1.pdf
From: http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2008/23sep_solarwind/
“Global measurements of solar wind pressure by Ulysses. Green curves trace the solar wind in 1992-1998, while blue curves denote lower pressure winds in 2004-2008. [click on link]”
http://science.nasa.gov/media/medialibrary/2008/09/23/23sep_solarwind_resources/276531main_McComas-2ndImage-full.jpg
“Curiously, the speed of the million mph solar wind hasn’t decreased much—only 3%. The change in pressure comes mainly from reductions in temperature and density. The solar wind is 13% cooler and 20% less dense.”
“The temperature and density of electrons in the solar wind have dropped since the mid-1990s, according to measurements made by the Ulysses spacecraft. [clink on link]”
http://science.nasa.gov/media/medialibrary/2008/09/23/23sep_solarwind_resources/electrons.jpg
The point is that the sun has significant multiple mechanisms that can directly influence our climate and influence what the universe and Milky Way can influence on our planet.
Fortunately we can measure solar parameters quite accurately and can even calculate energy available from those various parameters. We can also measure the strength of temperature changing pressure systems here on Earth and whether or not the next one that comes along can move it out of the way. It takes quite a bit of energy to do that. Meteorologists are working on that metric. How much energy does it take to heat us up? Or cool us down? And how much energy does it take to sustain a trend for days, months, or decades? While the exact number is not yet known, it is thought to be a lot.
In fact, the energy available from the presence of human-sourced CO2 is not enough to explain the previous rise in temperature. One has to involve an amplification mechanism which then has to be cooled down a bit by aerosols else it runs way too hot. It gets pretty convoluted and thus seriously dilutes the CO2 theory. The same is true for solar parameters. All sides agree that some kind of amplification must be employed because solar energy variability alone in what ever frequency flavor you want to address, is not enough. Many times the solar discussion on this blog is like watching someone throw the contents of a trash can on the wall hoping some of it will stick. In the end, all we end up with is a mess.
The same is not true for “solar parameters”. Yet again you commit the fallacy of begging the question. Please present a shred of evidence in support of this baseless assertion.
The only garbage here is being slung by you. Solar modulation of climate, in combination with other mechanisms such as Milankovitch Cycles, has not only been repeatedly observed, but plausible mechanisms have been proposed, with strong experimental support, as posted here over & over again. What do you have to the contrary?
Nada, zip, zilch.
Maybe, but it is our own mess, and there isn’t any lack of volunteers looking to clean up the mess.
I don’t think anyone is still suffering under the delusion of a quick and clean exorcism.
So far the mechanisms proposed here have not been plausible because they are often just one person’s pet and rather convoluted theory. Read up thread for several examples of the eclectic mix of parameters deemed necessary for a quiet Sun or a busy Sun to possibly show up on our sensors.
Milo, you might be interested in the data base related to TSI and all its wavelengths. The data base is composed of actual top of the atmosphere measurements via satellite and archival measurements at the surface.
http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/stp/solar/solarirrad.html
And if you don’t trust these sources, you can measure it for yourself at the surface. Just remember to consider that when measuring at the surface, you may not be aware of aerosol veils (or lack thereof) that you cannot see with the naked eye causing an intrinsic sourced decrease (or increase) in TSI or any one particular bandwidth within the total spectrum.
http://www.azom.com/equipment-details.aspx?EquipID=2518
Reading thru the comments here and on this website in general, I conclude that there are so many, many variables that may or may not contribute to the state of the climate, that I find it hard to believe that any scientist worth a damn would try and pin the cause of warming on one single minor constituent gas.
It was a politician what did it.
I disagree (you knew I would) –
Because there are so many, many variables that may or may not contribute to the state of the climate, it’s got to be a lot easier to pin the cause of warming on one single minor constituent gas….& they almost got away with it.
Shame on all us skeptics.
Where you been all these years , shame on who ?
Mario Lento October 18, 2014 at 9:01 am
All Richard did was to connect your vague handwaving to John Snow’s vague handwaving. Not impressed.
Dear heavens, you just claimed you were NOT talking about TSI, but when I asked, you now say you WERE talking about TSI.
Please make up your mind.
I asked for NUMBERS and FREQUENCIES, first by asking:
and then when you replied with more handwaving, I made it very clear, viz:
To date, it appears that neither you, nor Richard Verney, nor John West have any actual facts to back up your handwaving … not uncommon in claims about solar energy.
So please, I invite you to come back with actual data. You know, observational evidence for your claims, showing which frequencies increase and which ones decrease, and by how much. Airily waving your hands and claiming blithely that “the frequencies change substantially” is meaningless. Which frequencies change, and how much do they change?
w.
Willis: Nowhere did I suggest or write that TSI was not relatively constant. So please correct yourself when you write argumentative statements like “Please make up your mind.” It is not constructive Willis; and I don’t knew where I got such a notion.
I also assume you know something about radiation frequencies that change dramatically more than total solar irradiance. Leif and I spent time discussing this on threads. He agrees with this notion. However, he does not see the evidence that it causes change in climate. This is the area of science I think is up for debate.
Here’s a few links I found with 10 seconds of research to show you what you seem to deny.
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch2s2-7-1-3.html
http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2013/04/new-paper-finds-large-changes-in-solar.html
The point I made was clear, that there should be more studies in that area of effects caused by changing frequencies of solar output.
Thanks for the links, Mario. According to the first link, the largest change is in the EUV (extreme ultraviolet) … which according to the link makes up about 1% of the TSI.
Again according to your citation, in W/m2,15% of change in the TSI is from the EUV. Since the TSI change is on the order of 0.25 W/m2 (24/7 global average), this means that the change in EUV is on the order of 0.037 W/m2, that is to say, four hundredths of a watt per square meter, peak to peak.
If you believe such a microscopic signal will affect the earth in any meaningful way, you’ll have to tell me how. Yes, PERCENTAGEWISE it varies a lot … but that is only because it is so damn small.
Finally, even the percentagewise change is small. It sounds big and impressive when they say “solar UV radiation is fractionally more variable by at least an order of magnitude” … but again, that is because we start with such small numbers. TSI varies by about one watt out of 1,360, which is about seven hundredths of a percent peak-to-peak.
So if the variation in EUV is ten times that, it is still only seven-tenths of a percent change in 1% of the TSI over an eleven year period… color me unimpressed.
This is why when you try to diss my research abilities by saying:
you miss the point entirely. I deny nothing. Nor did I want to just give you my numbers to show how trivial an effect you are talking about.
I wanted YOU to back up your claims with citations, so that I could use YOUR numbers to show how trivial an effect you are talking about. That way, you can’t bust me for using the “wrong” numbers.
I don’t deny that the EUV changes more than the TSI in percentage terms, and I know many people who have been fooled by that claim. I wanted your numbers to show you what that means in real world terms, which is a few hundredths of a watt per square metre change.
And if you think a few hundredths of a watt is changing the climate, well, more power to you … but you’ll have to explain and demonstrate how that works, how a few hundredths of a W/m2 is having some big effect, in order for it to get any traction.
w.
Willis:
You are arguing with someone else not me.
I trust I can clear up teh confusion here, and respond to your most statement where you wrote: “If you believe such a microscopic signal will affect the earth in any meaningful way, you’ll have to tell me how. Yes, PERCENTAGEWISE it varies a lot … but that is only because it is so damn small.”
My answer is as follows:
Willis, I NEVER EVER said or suggested that the amount of energy of UV had a direct affect in terms of total energy flux to earth. You seem to want to argue in terms of total energy in our system or TSI. This is NOT my argument. If TSI does not change, (then in your argument), it rightly does not matter what spectrum we’re talking about. I have always agreed with this notion. If only TSI mattered, and TSI does not change then case closed. I stated as much in my first post about the subject. I am a process control engineer and under this stuff.
I am saying, AND LISTEN CLOSELY, because you continue to argue with me as if I am saying something else. Here it is:
There are changes in the sun’s frequency output far greater than 0.1%. I gave you some evidence. Can we get past this? We’ve always agreed on this and I never changed my mind or what I said! YOU AND I AGREE RIGHT?
This is a YES or NO answer I am looking for here.
I submit that different frequencies of energy affect different things on planet earth in different ways. This is a broad statement, and I don’t have proof of any such affects. But I believe these effects should be studied because there is ample evidence that UV changes things. For instance what affect does a long term continued reduction of UV energy have on (fill in the blank). How does this affect albedo directly or indirectly or creation of other compounds in our atmosphere or oceans?
FINALLY, Mario supplies some numbers which Willis E condenses to this:
Willis, you’re a master of understatement. That simple fact should blow away all the litter.
beng – The point being made, and which w has missed, is that Certain factors, which vary more in % terms than TSI, may have an effect in their own right and not just as a component of TSI.
Willis Eschenbach October 18, 2014 at 4:52 pm: wrote: “So if the variation in EUV is ten times that, it is still only seven-tenths of a percent change in 1% of the TSI over an eleven year period… color me unimpressed.”
+++++++
This may be a learning moment for me. But you conclude that that UV varies .7% of 1% of the TSI in an eleven year period. Not sure how you concluded that. The top of the atmosphere receives approximately about 50% infrared light, 40% visible light, and 10% ultraviolet light, for a total ultraviolet power of about 140 W/m2 in vacuum just before it hits earth. So if the UV varies by close to 1% (call it 0.7% if you want) wouldn’t that be about 1.4 W/m2 variation of UV at TOA? Again – I am not concerned with the heating effect of that significant change in energy at that frequency because TSI in total only changes by 0.2% from really weak cycles to really strong cycles. But a 1% change in that enormous amount of UV is not so small if I understand it right.
For those who look at variation of a sub-wavelength span within the Total Solar Irradiance spectrum, remember that a % change in the total spectrum output will have a vastly different “potential” compared to a sub-wavelength’s energy output. The energy needed to penetrate and heat Earth’s oceans or air is the metric that needs an equal partner. So if you think you have found such a partner in a sub-wavelength’s variability, what makes you think it is equal to the task of driving a temperature trend up or down over a 20 year period? If the calculations do not balance you must acquit.
I must admit I find this comment baffling.
The effect of UV on atmosphere & ocean is well known.
This is why you need systematically to study climatology and keep up on it, if you want to comment usefully on outstanding issues. And I might add physics.
Here is a summary of some of the correlations of solar activity with climatic phenomena which are well supported by field observation and lab experiment: These proposed and demonstrated mechanisms are not the “garbage” which you allege above, but genuine science.
1) Ozone. UV and solar magnetic flux vary together over the solar cycle. The effect of more or less UV on ozone is well established, and the effect of ozone on climatic phenomena has strong support.
2) Clouds. Modulation by solar magnetic flux of GCRs leading to increases or decreases in CCNs has been shown experimentally and the predicted effect in nature on cloud formation observed as well.
3) Ocean circulation. While ENSO is a sub-climatic time frame oscillation, the average over decades of La Ninas v El Ninos v La Nadas is a climatic phenomenon. It has been shown to reflect the solar cycle. Solar activity influence on the PDO and AMO, which are climatic phenomena, has similarly been demonstrated, along possibly with other external forcings. Among other causes, the fluctuation in UV, shown to affect ocean heating, is demonstrably responsible.
4) Sea ice. Just one of the many parameters found in longer-term studies of the effects of solar activity on climate. The signal shows up throughout the Holocene and in previous interglacials, as well as glacials.
5) Wind, air pressure and precipitation. As often noted on this blog, one of the earliest and still best-established connections between solar cycles and climatic phenomena were the Asian monsoons.
6) Centennial scale warm and cold periods in interglacials. Many have commented at length here on the close connection between temperature fluctuations in the Medieval Warm Perod and Little Ice Age and solar minima and maxima. This connection holds as far back into the Pleistocene as the proxy record of 14C & 10 Be works.
Many have posted links here supporting all these connections, so it’s frustrating that you continue to ignore this overwhelming evidence of the influence of solar variations on earth’s climate (and on that of other planets) and blithely assert without any basis whatsoever that any such influence is so minor as to be lost in the whatever it is you imagine it to be lost.
If you are really interested in studying climatology, I’d urge you to search for the many papers supporting each of these connections. Posting yet more links here for your benefit would only get this comment moderated.
Sturgis, all of those assertions have been made many times here in this blog over the years. All have proven to be less than paradigm shifters in terms of the source of the recent, now stalled, temperature rise. And you know that. I have posted many links to peer reviewed papers too. And read them critically. It’s a good skill to have in the face of biased proponents of either theory.
You posted the garbage of Mann, et al, re volcanoes, designed to show that the LIA wasn’t caused by naturally recurring cycles, despite all evidence to the contrary. You appear incapable of reading papers critically. You read them to reinforce your preconceived notions, accepting blatant nonsense if it supports your view.
The evidence in support of each connection I mentioned is overwhelming. Only a true believer could d*ny their validity.
I posted this:
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2011GL050168/abstract
Mann is not one of the authors. When this article was first viewed here (way back when) I initially discounted it, along with many others. The likely volcano has since been identified. To be sure, several well-respected bloggers that post here still discount it (Willis being one). His argument against it was and still is persuasive but I have since changed my mind after looking more closely at Bob Tisdale’s work on how El Nino surface waters echo themselves through the years and into other locations around the globe.
It is reasonable to propose that a significant disruption in the normal discharge/recharge action of ocean heating would trigger climate affecting feedback loops and be echoed through several years, possibly decades or longer following a catastrophic volcanic event marked by sulfuric acid veiling in the Stratosphere around the equatorial belt large enough to eventually migrate to the poles and dump a VERY large amount of volcanic evidence onto the snow and ice. That is a significant amount of sunshine hours NOT happening to recharge a heat depleted ocean (The Medieval Warm Period just before the slide into the Little Ice Age is thought to have occurred because of decades of oceanic evaporation of stored heat thus creating a cozy warm Earth).
As for Mann, I do not discount work simply because of a name, nor do I discount others who have sited his work simply because of a name. I read his work as critically as I read anybody else’s, including your words Sturgis. I even critically read the work of those whose speculations, hypotheses, or theories track with my thinking and have been known to severely criticize the work of highly respected kingpin researchers whose work many depend on for their current endeavors. Even the best will produce poor work now and then.
Amplification of TSI at the surface snuck into peer-reviewed literature:
Stott, P. A., G. S. Jones, & J. F. B. Mitchell, Do Models Underestimate the Solar Contribution to Recent Climate Change?, J.Clim., v. 16, 4079-4093, 12/15/03
and
Tung, K. K., J. Zhou, & C. D. Camp, Constraining model transient climate response using independent observations of solar-cycle forcing and response, Geoph.Res.Lett., v. 35, L17707, 5 pp., 9/12/08.
Stott, et al. was published before AR4, but IPCC understating its message on various grounds. AR4, Ch. 2, §2.7.1, p. 188 (detectable tropospheric changes associated with solar variability); Ch. 9, §9.4.1.5, p. 690 (not able to completely rule out the possibility that solar forcing might have caused more warming) & 691 (more uncertainty regarding the causes of early 20th-century warming). Tung et al. was not published in time for AR4, and in time for AR5. These authorities postulate two different mechanisms.
However, a simple, intuitive candidate for the positive feedback to TSI is the cloud burn-off effect, occurring perpetually on the morning side of Earth. Cloud albedo feedback is the most powerful feedback in all climate because it gates the Sun on and off. It is rapid and positive with respect to TSI, and slow and negative with respect to Global Average Surface Temperature (GAST). Cloud albedo mitigates warming from all causes. IPCC can’t simulate these effects in GCMs because their cloud cover model is not dynamic.
For a model of how cloud feedback works, see SGW at
http://www.rocketscientistsjournal.com/2010/03/sgw.html
Figure 1 shows the simple 4 or 5 parameter transfer function on solar radiation that reproduces the entire 140 year surface temperature history at that time with an accuracy comparable to IPCC’s unrealizable smoothed estimator. For that accuracy, GAST lags the Sun with a pair of time constants of 134 years and 46 years. Eq. (1), id.
The next of two of many stumbling blocks to the radiative forcing paradigm and the GCMs are (1) that the response of the climate system is neither instantaneous nor ever in equilibrium, and (2) that the GCMs have no flow variables to drive any transfer function. Instead, they advance through a sequence of phantom equilibrium calculations.
Willis Eschenbach
Willis, how about this solar cycle-climate link:
http://woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/mean:60/detrend:0.45/offset:0.2/plot/sidc-ssn/from:1979/scale:0.001/plot/rss/mean:60/detrend:0.45/offset:0.201
Does not the above data clearly shows the global mean surface temperature moving approximately in PHASE with the 11 year solar cycle?
Are not RSS and Sunspot counts “real earth” data?
Here is plot that includes HadCRUT4 (detrended)
http://woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/mean:60/detrend:0.45/offset:0.2/plot/sidc-ssn/from:1979/scale:0.001/plot/rss/mean:60/detrend:0.45/offset:0.201/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1979/mean:60/detrend:0.5/offset:0.05
Note that during an ENSO and volcanic years, the solar-climate link gets disturbed.
How can you make such a statment before you attempt to reproduce their results with other global mean temperature data set as I have done in the link above?
The Sun has a little effect on climate ….really ?
What would the climate be like without the Sun !
The Sun and only the Sun is responsible for all of our weather and therefore is critical to the climate. To argue otherwise is simply ridiculous
Why can’t people understand it is about the CHANGES in solar radiation. The question is are they enough to influence significant CHANGES in climate. Remember we are not talking about insolation changes that are the result of what the Earth does but only the small differences in solar radiation coming from the Sun itself. You measure TSI at 1 AU to find out what the Sun is doing and you measure TSI at TOA to find out how obliquity and eccentricity change the TSI received by the Earth.
here is a climate model that works based on the classic water cycle, the three phases of water, and recent research on the Sun’s indirect control of cloud cover. Solar irradiance variation is so small as to be insignificant and irrelevant.
http://Paullitely.com describes a global climate model that works, driven by the sun’s surface activity as measured by sunspots. Solar irradiance varies so little that it is insignificant and irrelevant. We are observing the Sun’s magnetic poles flip right on schedule.
Except that Svensmark’s recent paper on observed Forbush events and cloud observations (done to add observations to cloud chamber experiments) was examined prior to acceptance into publication and found wanting. So far, it has been denied publication by one on-line journal. I am not aware of it being published by another journal. It was denied publication because of his selective use of 6 extreme Forbush events out of his sample of 13, skewing his research towards a biased sample, not a random sample, to determine if indeed cosmic rays have an affect on cloud nucleation to the degree that would be necessary to explain temperature trends here on Earth.
IMO relative radiative forcing is more relevant than absolute radiative forcing. Analogy, a little boy can move a cart when no other forces are at work. When a sumo wrestler is also pushing and pulling the cart, the little boy becomes insignificant.
CO2 forcing is much greater than solar forcing. But in the past 2,000 years until 1850, CO2 was below 300 ppm. The small solar forcing might had been enough to affect the climate. The solar physicists saying the sun had insignificant effect in 20th century climate and those saying it had significant effect in past 2,000 years may be both correct.
BTW I’m not impressed with curve fitting exercises. With enough free parameters, any model can fit empirical data. It’s von Neumann’s flying elephant. More important is understanding the physical mechanisms behind the empirical data.
Which curve fitting are you discussing?
All sorts of curve fitting of proxy data to ‘prove’ a hypothesis. Example, cosmic rays proxy data. If we don’t know how they can form clouds then we don’t know how they affect the climate. Without valid physical explanations, we’re just looking for familiar images in the night sky.