Could a quiescent sun portend a new little ice age: a chilly era for humanity and agriculture?
Guest opinion by Paul Driessen
President Obama, Al Gore and other alarmists continue to prophesy manmade global warming crises, brought on by our “unsustainable” reliance on fossil fuels. Modelers like Mike Mann and Gavin Schmidt conjure up illusory crisis “scenarios” based on the assumption that carbon dioxide emissions now drive climate change. A trillion-dollar Climate Crisis industry self-servingly echoes their claims.
But what if these merchants of fear are wrong? What if the sun refuses to cooperate with the alarmists?
“The sun is almost completely blank,” meteorologist Paul Dorian notes. Virtually no sunspots darken the blinding yellow orb. “The main driver of all weather and climate … has gone quiet again during what is likely to be the weakest sunspot cycle in more than a century. Not since February 1906 has there been a solar cycle with fewer sunspots.”
“Going back to 1755, there have been only a few solar cycles that have had a lower number of sunspots during their maximum phase,” Dorian continues. This continued downward trend in solar sunspot cycles began over 20 years ago, when Earth stopped warming. If it continues for a couple more cycles, Earth could be entering another “grand minimum,” an extended period of low solar activity.
That would mean less incoming solar radiation, which could have a marked cooling effect – as happened during previous decades-long episodes of low solar activity. The “Maunder Minimum” lasted 70 years (1645-1715), the “Dalton Minimum” 40 years (1790-1830); they brought even colder global temperatures to the “Little Ice Age.”
Solar activity is in free fall, Reading University (UK) space physicist Mike Lockwood confirms, perhaps “faster than at any time in the last 9,300 years.” He raised the likelihood of another grand minimum to 25% (from 10% three years previously). However, he claims a new little ice age is unlikely.
“Human-induced global warming is already a more important force in global temperatures than even major solar cycles,” Professor Lockwood insists. That warmist mantra may keep him from getting excoriated for even mentioning solar influences. But it ignores Earth’s long history of climate change.
And what if Lockwood is wrong about human influences and the extent of a coming cold era? Habibullo Abdussamatov, director of Russia’s space research laboratory and its global warming research team, is convinced another little ice age is on its way. (See pages 18-21 of this report.) That would be LIA #19.
A couple degrees warmer, with more carbon dioxide in the air, would be good for humanity and planet. Crops, forests and grasslands would grow faster and better, longer growing seasons over larger areas of land would support more habitats, wildlife, agriculture and people – especially if everyone has access to ample, reliable, affordable energy, especially electricity, and modern farming technologies. Most people, including the elderly, can easily handle such warmth, especially if they have air conditioning.
But a couple degrees colder would bring serious adverse consequences for habitats, wildlife, agriculture and humanity. Though geologists say we are overdue for one, this does not mean another Pleistocene ice age – with glaciers obliterating forests and cities under mile-thick walls of ice across North America, Europe, Asia and beyond. Maybe Lockwood is right, and it won’t be a full-blown Little Ice Age déjà vu.
However, Antarctic sea ice just set a new April record. Ice conditions are back to normal in the Arctic. Winters have become longer, colder and snowier. With less meltwater, sea levels are barely rising.
Moreover, a 2-degree drop in average global temperatures would shrink growing seasons, cropland and wildlife habitats. Agriculture would be curtailed across Canada, northern Europe and Russia, putting greater pressure on remaining land to feed hungry families without turning more habitats into cropland. Governments might even have to stop mandating corn for ethanol and devote the land to food crops.
Our ability to feed Earth’s growing population would be seriously impaired, especially since the same factions that wail about fossil fuels, fracking and “dangerous manmade climate change” also despise the chemical fertilizers, insecticides, biotechnology and mechanized farming that would enable us to get far more food per acre under colder conditions, even if crops are starved for plant-fertilizing CO2.
Generally colder conditions can also bring more unpredictable storms and cold snaps during shortened growing seasons. That happened frequently during the last Little Ice Age (1350-1850), resulting in frequent crop failures and bouts of hunger, malnutrition, starvation and disease in much of Europe.
Worst of all, cold kills. Modern homes and buildings with affordable heat make it easy to survive even brutal winters in comfort. However, carbon taxes, restrictions on coal and natural gas, renewable energy mandates and other ill-conceived programs have sent electricity and home heating prices soaring.
When energy is rationed, expensive and unpredictable, businesses lay people off or close their doors. Forced to go on welfare, people’s health and well-being suffer. The elderly are especially susceptible. In Britain, many pensioners now ride buses or sit in libraries all day to stay warm, while others burn used books in stoves (they are cheaper than coal or wood). Thousands die of hypothermia, because they can no longer afford proper heat.
In Germany, Greece and other countries, rising energy costs have caused a surge in illegal tree cutting, as desperate families try to stay warm. Hungry, unemployed families are also poaching wildlife. Meanwhile, forests of wind turbines generate minimal expensive electricity but do slaughter millions of birds and bats every year, leaving crops to be eaten by hordes of insects, across Europe and the United States.
These realities portend what will likely happen on a far larger scale, if we do enter another prolonged cold era under anti-fossil fuel rules imposed in response to global warming hysteria. The specter of widespread turmoil, rising death tolls and climate refugees by the millions could become reality.
And still alarmists say, even if temperatures aren’t rising, we should force developed nations to curtail their energy use and living standards – and modernize developing countries in a “sustainable” manner. We should use the “climate crisis” to “move the world in a greener, more equitable direction.”
As though wind, solar and biofuel energy and widespread organic farming are sustainable, under any objective standard. As though government elites have a right to tell poor countries what level of development, what energy technologies, what farming methods they will be “permitted” to have – and what level of poverty, disease, malnutrition and early death they must continue to suffer.
Ending this insanity must begin with the climate scientists and modelers. They are taking our tax dollars and promoting constant scare stories. They owe it to us to be objective, transparent and willing to discuss and debate these issues with those who question human influences on climate change. They owe it to us to get the predictions right, so that we can be properly prepared, especially if the iceman cometh again.
That means basing their models on all the forces that determine global temperature and climate fluctuations: the sun, cosmic rays, deep ocean currents, volcanoes and other natural forces, as well as the 0.04% of Earth’s atmosphere that is carbon dioxide. It means comparing predictions with actual (non-averaged, non-manipulated) real-world observations and data. If the improved models still do not predict accurately, it means revising hypotheses and methodologies yet again, until they square with reality.
Meanwhile, our politicians owe it to us to start basing energy and environmental policies on reality: on how Earth’s climate and weather actually behave – and on how their policies, laws and regulations affect job creation and preservation, economic growth and opportunities, and human health and welfare, especially for poor and minority families, and even more so for the poorest people on our planet.
Paul Driessen is senior policy analyst for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (www.CFACT.org), author of Eco-Imperialism: Green power – Black death, and coauthor of Cracking Big Green: Saving the world from the Save-the-Earth money machine.
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Ice in Antarctica is still a record.
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/S_stddev_timeseries.png
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/global.daily.ice.area.withtrend.jpg
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/sea.ice.anomaly.timeseries.jpg
Reblogged this on The GOLDEN RULE and commented:
There are many who refuse to consider the possibility that a “threatening climate change” is not due to atmospheric CO2 increases, of any cause, let alone man-made.
This lack of consideration may turn out to be a cause of a great deal of “egg on face”, according to this article.
Of course, we can expect the response that the world control agenda is still required, irregardless of the fact that the claimed basis for it is actually fictional.
There are multiple papers that outline how solar cycle changes modulate planetary cloud cover. One of the principal mechanisms is solar wind bursts caused by coronal holes.
http://www.albany.edu/~yfq/papers/TinsleyYuAGU_Monograph.pdf
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0273117707001135
http://sait.oat.ts.astro.it/MmSAI/76/PDF/969.pdf
It is interesting that the current observed cooling and wet weather, that coincides with the sudden change to solar cycle is in the same regions that experienced the Little Ice age.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Ice_Age
http://www.solen.info/solar/images/comparison_recent_cycles.png
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seaice.anomaly.antarctic.png
I’m a bit confused. You say:
But then you quote http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Ice_Age
This implies that the “sudden change to solar cycle” occurred at different dates “which varied according to local conditions.”
The Maunder Minimum was in something like 1645-1715, perhaps you’re referring to a different sudden change in the solar cycle.
There current solar cycle 24 is a sudden slowdown in the solar cycle.
The Maunder minimum was preceded by a series of weak cycles.
The complication is the sun is significantly different that the standard model. The solar changes cause a change to both the orientation and magnitude of the geomagnetic field which takes hundreds of years to dissipate and equalize which explains why the climate change can occur for hundreds of years after the solar cycle change.
The geomagnetic field specialists have found the geomagnetic field has changed abruptly in the past and the changes correlate with solar cycle changes.
As noted in my below comment the Northern geomagnetic pole drift speed increased by a factor of five starting in the 1990s. This is consistent with a the start of a geomagnetic excursion. There is no physical reason why the geomagnetic field would suddenly in the mid 1990s start to abruptly change.
As a result of other abrupt changes to the geomagnetic field the European launched SWARM a set of three satellites in tight formation that enable almost real time measurements at laboratory accuracy of the magnetic field strength of the entire earth.
The SWARM data indicated that geomagnetic field intensity is now dropping at 5%/decade, ten times faster than its previous rate of fall of 5%/century. A fall of 5% per decade is ten times faster than a core based movement liquid can cause (a back EMF is generated which resists rapid field changes which is the reason why geomagnetic field flips were assumed to take 1000s of years to happen), regardless of the fact that there is no mechanism that can cause sudden and massive movement of liquid in the earth’s core.
The only possible physical mechanism to cause what is observed, very. very, rapid geomagnetic field changes is a massive change of electric charge on the earth’s surface.
The abrupt unexplained changes to the geomagnetic field correlate with the abrupt climate changes and the termination/initiation of the interglacial period.
http://sciences.blogs.liberation.fr/home/files/Courtillot07EPSL.pdf
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2010EO510001/pdf
http://www.scientificamerican.com/ar…than-expected/
http://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/416/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geomagnetic_reversal
The complication is the sun is significantly different that the standard model.
No, not at all. As I have demonstrated the standard solar model is an excellent description of the structure of the Sun [and stars].
The only possible physical mechanism to cause what is observed, very. very, rapid geomagnetic field changes is a massive change of electric charge on the earth’s surface.
This is complete nonsense. The main geomagnetic field is generated deep in the core, thousand of miles below the surface.
William, you display not only a priori biased assumptions, but are producing a type I error, the most egregious research error in my book and is often caused by bias. This error is attributing an observation to something that is, in fact, not the cause. How do you avoid such an error? By ruling out all other possibilities and by demonstrating a plausible new mechanism. First get rid of your bias, then rule out all other possibilities. Since you seem quite convinced of your thesis, how have you ruled out the other possibilities? I would be interested in hearing about your work on that all important first step following an observation.
a lesson for all to follow.
Over the last few years I have come to realize that very few have any clue as to what causes real climate change as verses the fake change that is done by falsifying the data sets. I have also come to realize that well known examples are swept under the rug by some climate “scientists”; for example, the Roman Warming or the Little Ice Age. I suppose that any data that goes against theory must be tossed aside in this post-real-science age.
Only the foolish would argue that the sun is not a major player in climate on the planet earth. On the other hand, only the foolish would claim that the sun is the sole driver of climate on the planet earth. I would give my pet theory of climate … but it is just that … a theory … not enough to make governmental policy to cripple our industrialized society.
If we step back a moment from the political climate wars we would see that mankind at this point in time is a long, long way from knowing what drives the climate on this planet. I understand that the climate models (computer toy games) don’t even consider wind patterns, cloud patterns, ocean currents moving heat around, and so on with any realism. Oh my God! And they want to destroy western civilization without even knowing what really causes climate???
When I was young and in grade school, we were told there was little chance our civilization would survive a nuclear holocaust in a war with the USSR. Now we are telling the young that there is little chance civilization can survive climate change. What a load of manure to heap upon the young. We just don’t know what is going to happen next; and that my friends is the truth.
‘…mankind at this point in time is a long, long way from knowing what drives the climate on this planet. ‘
Our star is the main driver and when its on the blink the oceans become cooler. If you take the time to read William Astley’s comment above its patently clear.
I have often said that the big ball of fire in the sky is damn important. But the whole weather system is far more complex than a simplistic — ‘it is only the sun’.
As I said, we are a long, long way from knowing. (guessing we do well)
Mark
If there is significant variability in the suns output then it would of necessity be the major driver of climate change. Leif argues there isn’t, the question is whether he is correct or not.
Variations in the total column water vapour in the atmosphere since July 1983. The upper graph (blue) shows the total amount of water in the atmosphere. The green graph shows the amount of water in the lower troposphere between 1000 and 680 mb, corresponding to altitudes up to about 3 km. The lower red graph shows the amount of water between 680 and 310 mb, corresponding to altitudes from about 3 to 6 km above sea level.
http://www.climate4you.com/images/TotalColumnWaterVapourDifferentAltitudesObservationsSince1983.gif
Clearly drop of water vapor in the troposphere, especially the top. Therefore, the temperature will drop (with increased air ionization and precipitation).
Figure 2. Idealized portrayal of global deep cumulus rain and cloud areas. The left diagram illustrates the upper-level sinking mass coming from the raining deep Cb cloud. This sinking acts to dry and warm the upper troposphere. The right diagram shows water-vapor and cloud particles being advected from the same high rain areas. Observations indicate that the sinking-drying in the upper troposphere is greater than the water-vapor and cloud water replacement by moist air outward advection and evaporation. Enhanced Cb convection leads to upper-level drying and extra IR loss to space.
In shorter periods of time TSI change by more than 1 W / m ^ 2 depending on solar activity.
http://lasp.colorado.edu/data/sorce/total_solar_irradiance_plots/images/tim_level3_tsi_24hour_3month_2400x1800.png
None of this is an issue if you remember your dealing with the ‘heads I win , tails you lose ‘ approach to science. So even an new ice age would be ‘prove ‘ CAGW .
Given one question the alarmists cannot or will not answer is , what in your eyes would disprove CAGW ?, you can see how it works.
Again, to combat the narrative of CO2, use the proper definition of “ice age”. We’re IN an ice age. We have alternating periods of glaciation and a bit of warm(th). The intent is to force the alarmist narrative away from “warming” have the public think they’re supporting a return to glaciation.
‘So-called climate change on Earth is a naturally occurring process from the Sun-Earth electromagnetic relationship.
Richard Moore
https://youtu.be/QxVfJ2HXCU4
Speculation on the the Maunder for cooling, etc. is exactly of the same kind as speculation on the warming. If the sun isn’t the factor, then it is an unknown cause and the recovery to some point is something of the same. However, the cause of the warming as posited by proponents is inferior thinking simply because recovery from the LIA must be some factor in the warming and proxy-based levels (yeah I know!) for CO2 appear to have been higher in the LIA than in the MWP and, in the latter, higher than all the previous Holocene.
http://www.biocab.org/Holocene_Delta_T_and_Delta_CO2_Full.jpg
Skeptical scientists, certainly most geologists, have for a couple of decades been telling proponents of CO2 -caused heating that natural variability IS larger than they think, and for at least a decade, that agents resisting the warming (my favorite Le Chatelier Principle as my “model”) that should be caused according to the simple CO2 radiative physics are evidently significant. It took the 18yr, and counting, pause – virtually a period as long as the main warming that has been agonized over. Critics of this will say that anthropo warming is 150 or 200 years long, but this major shift in the goal posts from the 1950s was a desperate addendum when the much hated UK’s Daily Mail reported that global warming had stopped:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2217286/Global-warming-stopped-16-years-ago-reveals-Met-Office-report-quietly-released–chart-prove-it.html
They all knew this (Phil Jones had commented on it in 2007 in climategate emails) but they sat in dreaded silence and deep hope for resumption of warming until the Mail reported on a quiet press release from the Met Office of a 16 yr ‘pause’ and Lord Monckton dropped this bomb on the CAGW meeting of ostriches in Doha in the Emirates. This resulted in a number of proponents succumbing to a deep clinical depression known as the climatology blues (these were honest believers, now in DNile in the original clinical use of the term). In the anger and anguish, the real ideological agenda behind it all came out and today, they make no pretense otherwise.
Are we headed for another ice age? That is always a possibility for sometime in our future but not very likely in our near term , although during the past winter and in particular during February , it sure felt like it when the coldest temperatures and the highest snow fall ever recorded were experienced in many parts of eastern US and Canada
I believe that we are headed for another global cool phase like we had 1940-1980 and it begins in North America. That cool cycle stared as follows
• Arctic starts to cool after 1938
• PDO pattern starts to decline from mostly warm( positive ) phase pattern after 1941
• Cooler temperatures start in western North America after about 1935/1940
• Contiguous US temperatures start to fall after mid 1930’s
• Canadian National temperatures start to decline after 1940
• Cooler temperatures in Eastern North America after 1945/ 1950
• PDO goes mostly negative 1944
• AO goes mostly negative 1950
• Europe and Russia starts to cool by 1950 except a brief cold 1939/1942)
• Asian temperatures start to fall after 1945
• Mexico temperatures start to decline after 1950
• AMO goes negative 1965-1995
• Cold temperatures trough in the 1970,s
• No net warming( A PAUSE) between 1940’s and 1980’s
A similar slightly modified pattern has already started since about 1998 but more in earnest after 2007 when PDO went again to a negative pattern and especially since 2014. North American temperature anomalies have been declining since 1998. AMO has been declining now for a decade and is currently negative .
I think this cycle has very little to do with solar cycles or climate change caused by global warming but due to natural earth cycles mostly due to ocean SST patterns and deep ocean currents
I don’t look at a list of things or even patterns. I am proposing a dynamic mechanism. I rather am thinking about how the oceans store and cough up heat, and how they re-charge. I think it is possible that we are in store for either more warming or a stable elevated warm period while the Oceans disgorge what is left of their heat, which inadvertently encourages cloud formations and disallowing recharge balance, eventually leading to colder regimes. An interglacial cold period perhaps but we have a ways to go yet.
If the medieval warm period was just such a result of this ocean heat release mechanism, it stands to reason it will happen again, and that at the final peak of that warmth, we will begin another slide down to colder patterns (which by the way, serves to clear away the clouds and allows recharge to once again commence). Given the size of the oceans, it would stand to reason that this imbalanced process takes many hundreds of years, possibly thousands. And given the wont of massive volcanoes to go off now and then within such a long period of time (purely coincidental of course), a jagged cold era would be the result if those volcanos shoot off after the oceans peak and have given up their heat stores.
This cycle would be less hardbound than the Sun and thus much harder to pin down in terms of predictions. Its boundaries could easily differ by thousands of years. The increase in CO2 stands to reason in that a warmer world produces more green areas thus more CO2 emitting fauna, especially insects eating away at that banquet.
Fascinating really.
In reply to :
William,
Yes. bias thinking makes it impossible to solve a problem. A person must follow the solution where every it leads. Follow where the evidence leads. I have done that.
I have solved the puzzle. As we are getting closer to the in your face abrupt cooling, this is a Coles notes explanation. Trying to follow and understand this particular paradigm, as opposed to giving me advice how to create other paradigms.
I have solved the puzzle what caused the glacial/interglacial cycle, why did the planet warm in the last 50 years, how the sun and stars are different than the standard model, what is currently happening to the sun, what and why the geomagnetic field is currently changing, and what is going to happen next to the earth’s climate, the geomagnetic field and the sun.
I did not guess. I am quite sure I am the only person who does cross discipline research at a specialist level (I have textbooks from multiple fields, I read the text books and studied the papers to understand the issues) and who understands how to solve constrained holistic physical problems (I used the same method as used by Michael Faraday, I read a half a dozen books on Faraday analysis results and his analysis methodogy).
When I say the sun and stars are different than the standard model there are hundreds of astronomical observations in peer reviewed papers to support that assertion. I looked for and found observational evidence in peer reviewed papers to support a line of thought, a different paradigm. I found peer reviewed astronomical papers and books written by specialists looking at the same anomalies with possible solutions which I leveraged off of. I did not guess. The paradox and anomalies go away with the correct solution.
The current and past geomagnetic field changes must have had a physical cause. The glacial/interglacial cycle must have had a cause.
There is a very, very, short list of astronomical bodies that could cause a massive charge change on the surface of the earth, the sun is suspect number one. What is stopping people from considering the sun as the cause of what is observed is the sun would need to be significantly different than assumed to cause what is observed.
Now as there were burn marks on the surface of the earth at multiple locations in the Northern hemisphere when the Younger Dryas abrupt cooling change occurred and I found evidence of burn marks on the surface of the earth at an earlier period of time that coincides with another cooling event, the hypothesis appears to not be not out in left field, has the hypothesis/paradigm appears to have legs.
During the Younger Dryas abrupt cooling event the planet went from interglacial warm to glacial cold with 75% of the cooling occurring in less than a decade. The Younger Dryas abrupt cooling event lasted for 1200 years. There is an abrupt change in the geomagnetic field that correlates with the Younger Dryas event. Come on man. The observations are screaming out the solution.
The general public and people in this forum do not understand the implications of abrupt climate change. The interglacial periods end abruptly not gradually. The planet resists forcing changes hence an abrupt change in planetary temperature requires a massive forcing change. There are no earth systems/mechanisms than can cause a massive cyclic climate change both hemisphere. The sun causes the massive cyclic climate changes. The sun can cause the massive climate change as the sun is different than the standard model. The sun changes in a manner which we currently do not believe is possible.
http://cio.eldoc.ub.rug.nl/FILES/root/2000/QuatIntRenssen/2000QuatIntRenssen.pdf
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1134%2FS0001433812080063#page-1
I have solved the puzzle what caused the glacial/interglacial cycle, why did the planet warm in the last 50 years, how the sun and stars are different than the standard model, what is currently happening to the sun, what and why the geomagnetic field is currently changing, and what is going to happen next to the earth’s climate, the geomagnetic field and the sun.
You seem to be afflicted with a bad case of the D-K syndrome
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
William, while your response has its own golden nuggets into your thinking, you failed to answer my question. Please elucidate the rest of us on your review of the research literature showing neither Earth’s oceans store of heat, nor CO2 can be the cause of significant warming or cooling.
oops. nested in the wrong nest.
With regard to your prediction in 2004 concerning solar maximum in 2011, were you referring to “a” local maximum? And if so, have I missed the part where that is made clear?
The prediction was for the size of the cycle, not for the time of maximum. The 2011 number was included for illustration only of when solar activity would be high again, and indeed it was [in the northern hemisphere] while going to even a bit higher in 2014. Such swings are typical for weak cycles.
William
The evidence that the YD cooling was caused by a comet impact is substantial as I’m sure you know. As to the associated C14 increase see for comparison the comet strike of 775 AD
http://www.sis-group.org.uk/news/back-775ad-event-chinese-broadside.htm
There is precisely no evidence in support of that hypothesis.
Sturgishooper.
Total Nonsense read the paper and check the references at
http://www.pnas.org/content/109/44/E2960.full
for starters.
I agree that the idea is controversial .However I find the considerable body of evidence reasonably persuasive.
For forecasts of the timing and extent of the coming cooling based on the natural solar activity cycles – most importantly the millennial cycle – and using the neutron count and 10Be record as the most useful proxy for solar activity check my blog-post at
http://climatesense-norpag.blogspot.com/2014/07/climate-forecasting-methods-and-cooling.html
We are past the 1991 millennial peak in solar “activity” (figs 14 and 13) and 12 years past the corresponding temperature peak in the RSS data in 2003. See
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/from:1980.1/plot/rss/from:1980.1/to:2003.6/trend/plot/rss/from:2003.6/trend
The general cooling trend will likely continue to the depths of the next LIA at about 2650. This trend will be modulated on the way down by the shorter term temperature periodicities ( De Vries , Gleissberg and 60 year cycles)
That the 20th century was the time of a long term solar maximum is further demonstrated by Lockwood et al 2014.
But Mike Lockwood is wrong about this. See e.g. slides 31-38 of http://www.leif.org/research/Report-on-Extreme-Space-Weather-Events-2014.pdf
From one of your posts to the subject referenced below:
“Not only that but the group sunspot number is just plainly wrong. Progress has happened since 2010. Here is the current status [btw Usoskin is member of our team too”
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/09/13/paper-demonstrates-solar-activity-was-at-a-grand-maxima-in-the-late-20th-century/
Here is Usoskin in response to your participation in that thread:
“Thus, I consider Leif’s comments ungrounded and offensive as publicly discussed behind my back. I advice everyone to ask experts first if you think some data are wrong, not just claiming the data wrong because they don’t support someone’s idea.”
https://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2012/11/21/ilya-usoskin-vs-leif-svalgaard-oulu-neutron-monitor-data-quality/
Usoskin makes no mention of you in a recent article:
“Therefore, the Grand Maximum in the 20th century is not a unique event but a rare event. ”
http://www.climatedialogue.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Blog-Ilya-Usoskin-def.pdf
I suspect that the “modern” or “grand” maxima of the 20th century is not really challenged by many except maybe by you: Usoskin: “The very existence of the Grand Maximum is not questioned by others I think”.
What above do you mean by Lockwood being wrong “about this”?
.
I suspect that the “modern” or “grand” maxima of the 20th century is not really challenged by many except maybe by you
You could do well to acquaint yourself with the recent literature, e.g. http://www.leif.org/research/Revisiting-the-Sunspot-Number.pdf and http://www.leif.org/EOS/apj2015-Riley-Maunder.pdf
Usokin is a co-author of the Riley paper so presumably he agrees with it.
Here is a Figure from that paper:
http://www.leif.org/research/SSN-ApJ-2015.jpg
And here is now it agrees with the assessment of the expert participants of the SSN workshops:
http://www.leif.org/reseach/SSN-Consensus.png
so as you can see, you are not up to date.
Leif For the solar – climate ( temperature ) connection I rely on the 10 Be flux data For a good illustration see the N Grip Be flux data in Fig 11 at my post linked above The Maunder minimum,( Flux Max) Dalton minimum ( Flux Max) and 20th century activity rise ( Flux Min) are clear and obvious . For shorter term correlations see Fig 10 B C D
TSI periodicity is about 2400 years and the amplitude change is small enough to be difficult to pick out from the effects of the greater percentage changes in the cosmic ray flux EUV variability etc.
As to the mechanisms I say in the post
“NOTE!! The connection between solar “activity” and climate is poorly understood and highly controversial. Solar “activity” encompasses changes in solar magnetic field strength, IMF, CRF, TSI, EUV, solar wind density and velocity, CMEs, proton events etc. The idea of using the neutron count and the 10Be record as the most useful proxy for changing solar activity and temperature forecasting is agnostic as to the physical mechanisms involved.
Having said that, however, it is reasonable to suggest that the three main solar activity related climate drivers are:
a) the changing GCR flux – via the changes in cloud cover and natural aerosols (optical depth)
b) the changing EUV radiation – top down effects via the Ozone layer
c) the changing TSI – especially on millennial and centennial scales.
The effect on climate of the combination of these solar drivers will vary non-linearly depending on the particular phases of the eccentricity, obliquity and precession orbital cycles at any particular time.
Of particular interest is whether the perihelion of the precession falls in the northern or southern summer at times of higher or lower obliquity.”
The idea of using the neutron count and the 10Be record as the most useful proxy for changing solar activity and temperature forecasting is agnostic as to the physical mechanisms involved
Except that the cosmic ray record is severely contaminated by the climate itself, so is not a good proxy for solar activity
http://www.leif.org/research/SSN-Consensus.png
Leif. If you are trying to understand the relationships between the multiple variables of a complex interacting system – the emergent properties of one variable depend on the state of the system as a whole. There is no contamination – it is all information which requires understanding and pattern recognition. Look at the differences between the Dye 3 and N Grip 10 Be flux data for example. These are no doubt due to local weather and climate differences. However what you do is to take bits of one and bits of the other and cobble them together to make a coherent illustration of what is going on with regard to any particular variable.
In geology this is done all the time to produce composite logs of a particular area. Some sections are designated type sections which best illustrate the geological history of a particular area or time. I’m sure to someone with a background in physics and maths this is seen merely as cherry picking- but it is really the only were to work with complex open systems. Some people are better cherry pickers than others. This can only be determined by checking everyone’s forecasts against future outcomes. I’ve made some forecasts – we will see.
There is no contamination – it is all information which requires understanding and pattern recognition. Look at the differences between the Dye 3 and N Grip 10 Be flux data for example. These are no doubt due to local weather and climate differences. However what you do is to take bits of one and bits of the other and cobble them together
That is, indeed, cherry picking.
Study http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1004/1004.2675.pdf
“This is a particular problem for historical projections of solar activity based on ice core measurements which assume a 1:1 correspondence. We have made other tests of the correspondence between the 10Be predictions and the ice core measurements which lead to the same conclusion, namely that other influences on the ice core measurements, as large as or larger than the production changes themselves, are occurring. These influences could be climatic or instrumentally based.”
and http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1003/1003.4989.pdf
“The distribution of yearly averages in the 10Be concentration level in the data from the Dye-3 ice core in Greenland for the time period 1939-1985, contains a “spike” of high concentration one year averages which is not seen in the production calculations. These and other features suggest that galactic cosmic ray intensity changes which affect the production of 10Be in the Earths atmosphere are not the sole source of the 10Be concentration changes and confirm the importance of other effects, for example local and regional climatic effects, which could be of the same magnitude as the 10Be production changes.”
and http://www.leif.org/EOS/2009GL038004-Berggren.pdf
“the regional nature of the 10Be signal in ice cores is confirmed. The good long-term agreement between 10Be variations in both cores reflects a regional response to production and climate changes, but the disagreements in the earlier parts of the two records suggest that 10Be should be measured in ice cores from locations with non-complex ice flow regimes. […] We observe that although recent 10Be flux in NGRIP is low, there is no indication of unusually high recent solar activity in relation to other parts of the investigated period [the past 600 years].”
So, lots of contamination.
Leif Your quote says
” We observe that although recent 10Be flux in NGRIP is low, there is no indication of unusually high recent solar activity in relation to other parts of the investigated period [the past 600 years].”
Whether it is unusual or not is a question of semantics. The fact is that the recent low 10 Be flux in the NGRIP core implies a level of solar ” activity” that is clearly usefully measurably higher than that shown by the high fluxes from 1680-1700 and 1815 – 20 which mark the peaks of the Maunder and Dalton minima respectively.
This general correlation between solar activity and temperature is good enough to build a working hypothesis on. At this time we don’t know enough about the processes involved to come up with a neat little
equation to quantify the relationship. You should consider the possibility that in complex systems such equations between two variables cannot be found because the interrelationships depend on the state of the system as a whole and are inherently incomputable. Forecasts can still be made however on the basis of pattern recognition and reasonable projection of these patterns forwards.
I don’t think you should second guess what the authors themselves have to say. It could well be that the higher flux has other reasons [e.g. global warming or instrumental drift].
This general correlation between solar activity and temperature is good enough to build a working hypothesis on.
I don’t think so. You are misled by confirmation bias, and for that there is no cure.
Leif You’ve got it backwards the NGRIP and DYE 3 flux data don’t conftrm a working hypothesis – they produce it.
While were are here . My approach is very transparent.
1.Would you agree that Figs 5-9 at the linked post suggest that there is an approximate millennial cycle in the temperature data and that
2. Fig 9 is a useful time series showing the NH temperatures over the last 1000 years. and that
3. The same Fig suggests that we are approaching, just at, or just past a millennial peak in the late 20th century or the first decade of the 21st century. and that
4 Figs 14 and 13 indicate that there has been a decline in solar activity since 1991 with a notable break to the downside in 2005-6. and that
5 It requires no great leap of the imagination to equate the switch to the downside of solar activity since 1991 to the millennial temperature peak – with a variable lag time from the driver peak in 1991 to the different climate metrics as measured in different regions. The NH data looks like a useful subset since the variations there are greater and more obvious than over the globe as a whole.
the NGRIP and DYE 3 flux data don’t confirm a working hypothesis – they produce it.
Makes no sense, as they disagree
1.Would you agree that Figs 5-9 at the linked post suggest that there is an approximate millennial cycle in the temperature data
No as for example the peak is missing in Figure 9 at year 0, and the peaks disagree in Figure 8 and 9, and Figure 7 looks like random noise, there is an extra peak in Figure 5 at 1600 yrs BP.
2. Fig 9 is a useful time series showing the NH temperatures over the last 1000 years
No, as there is no peak at year 0, and the time frame is 2000 years, unless you cherry pick just the last 1000, and that the peak now may be man-made [in one way or another].
4 Figs 14 and 13 indicate that there has been a decline in solar activity since 1991 with a notable break to the downside in 2005-6
The decline is no different from the ones in 1870 and 1770 or 1640, so nothing special about 1991
5 It requires no great leap of the imagination…
I think that your imagination is running wild, so will disagree with your claim that you have made no great leap.
Global warming has been the subject of arduous debates for more than 20 years. And most of the claims say that modern civilization is responsible for the higher atmospheric temperatures, which were caused by man-made greenhouse gases. The oceans affected by naval and merchant ships operating and sailing the seas back and forth should have been the hottest topic in the debate on climate change since meteorology was established as a science in the late 19th century. Instead of that, oceans were ignored up to the late 20th century and not even today do they enjoy the significant position they deserve. Oceans are a decisive climatic force, the second after the sun.You can find more at http://www.1ocean-1climate.com on the ‘Booklet on Naval War changes Climate’.
Paul Driessen
We have already seen through 2009-2013, negative AO/NAO values not seen since previous solar minima, despite a higher global mean surface temperature. Following the pattern of the last two minima, there should be a sharp increase in negative AO/NAO and El Nino episodes/conditions, roughly between the sunspot maxima of the first two weak sunspot cycles (+1yr), e.g. 1807-1817, 1885-1895, and 2015-2025. The increase in negative NAO will cause a renewed and strong warming of the AMO and Arctic through the next ten years. Continental interior drought will increase globally, with more maritime regions like NW Europe becoming wetter and much colder.
Note the lack of Aurora sightings in the colder years of the Dalton Minimum on CET:
http://www.leif.org/EOS/92RG01571-Aurorae.pdf
In reply to:
William,
OK just for fun I will repeat three of the logical arguments (I have three more logical arguments but what is the point) which supports the assertion that the primary cause of warming of warming in the last 30 years is not the due to the increase in atmospheric CO2.
When a hypothesis/model fails the next step is to relook at the hypothesis/model to see which assumptions in the modeling/hypothesis are incorrect. The CO2 mechanism has either saturated and/or is counter acted by increased movement of latent heat and increased cloud cover in the tropics.
Critical analysis is different than ‘skepticism’ or being a ‘denier’ or being contrary. Critical analysis looks at what a theory predicts and then compares the observations to what is observed.
The observations do not support the assertion that the increase in atmospheric CO2 was the principal reason for the increase in planetary temperature.
1) Latitudinal temperature anomaly paradox (Strike 1)
The latitudinal temperature anomaly paradox is the fact that the latitudinal pattern of warming in the last 50 years does match the pattern of warming that would occur if the recent increase in planetary temperature was caused by the CO2 mechanism.
The amount of CO2 gas warming observed is theoretically logarithmically proportional to the increase in atmospheric CO2 times the amount of long wave radiation that it emitted to space prior to the increase.
As gases are evenly distributed in the atmosphere (ignoring very heavy or very light gases which biases the altitudinal distribution in the atmosphere), the potential for warming due to CO2 should be the same at all latitudes.
The amount of warming is also proportional to amount of long waver radiation that is emitted to space prior to the increase in atmospheric CO2.
Now we know that as the earth is a sphere the tropical region of the planet receives the most amount of short wave radiation and hence also emits the most amount long wave radiation. The tropical region of the planet should have hence warmed the most due to the increase in atmospheric CO2.
There is in fact almost no warming in the tropical region of the planet. This observational fact supports the assertion that majority of the warming in the last 50 years was not caused by the increase in atmospheric CO2.
2) The 18 year pause without warming (Strike 2)
As atmospheric CO2 is increasing with time, the delta T (increase in planetary temperature due to the increase in CO2) should also be increasing with time. As we now that there has been a period of 18 years with no warming when atmospheric CO2 has increasing for each and every year we know that the majority of the warming in the last 50 years was not due to the increase in atmospheric CO2 and the IPCC general circulation model calculated warming due to CO2 is orders of magnitude too high.
3) The tropical tropospheric 8km no hot spot Paradox (Strike 3 and the CAWG is disproved)
The IPCC’s general circulation models predict that most amount of warming on the planet should occur in the tropics at 8k above the earth’s surface. The long wave radiation from warming at 8 km then warms the earth’s surface by of course radiation.
At the earth’s surface there are more CO2 molecules and there is more water vapor. The amount of CO2 warming decreases as the number of molecules increases and as the frequencies that water absorbs long wave radiation overlaps with the CO2 absorption frequencies, the most amount of warming on the earth due to the increase in CO2 theoretically occurs in the tropics at 8km above the surface of the planet where there is less water and less CO2 molecules and the most amount of long wave radiation emitted to space prior to the increase in atmospheric CO2.
Does everyone understand the above? No, why not? Help me out.
The signature of CO2 warming, the tropical tropospheric hot spot at 8km is not observed which is consistent with the observational fact that there has been almost no tropical region warming. The
The following peer reviewed paper provides the strike 1 and strike 2 observational data and specifically states the observations support the assertion that majority of the warming in the last 30 years was not due to the increase in atmospheric CO2.
P.S. The fact that there has been almost no tropical tropospheric warming also rules out an increase in TSI (total solar radiation) as the cause of the warming, in addition to the fact that TSI has not significantly increased. If TSI did increase the tropics will warm more than the poles of the planet.
http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/0809/0809.0581.pdf
The following is the paper that supports the assertion that there is no tropical tropospheric hot spot at 8km which is strike 3 for the CAGW theory.
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/DOUGLASPAPER.pdf
http://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/TMI-SST-MEI-adj-vs-CMIP5-20N-20S-thru-2015.png
http://www.eoearth.org/files/115701_115800/115741/620px-Radiation_balance.jpg
P.S. The fact that there has been almost no tropical tropospheric warming also rules out an increase in TSI (total solar radiation) as the cause of the warming, in addition to the fact that TSI has not significantly increased.
Hooray, you have seen the light: solar activity [as it increases TSI, UV, magnetic fields, etc] is not the cause of the warming.
Duh, the sun causes high latitude warming by changing the amount of low level and high level cirrus clouds.
As I have noted there are cycles of high latitude warming (both hemispheres) that correlate with solar magnetic cycle changes.
There is a cottage industry of people trying to flatten out the past cyclic warming and cooling in the paleo record and trying to hide the fact that solar cycle variance correlates with the cyclic warming and cooling.
Hint: Where and who did we hear from the Maunder minimum did not happen and that the Little Ice Age did not happen?
No worry. We are going to experience in your face global cooling. At that point the gig is up for the cult of CAWG.
Time for you to admit I caught you with your pants down.
William Astley May 11, 2015 at 5:40 pm
that the Little Ice Age did not happen?
From Matt Owens:
http://www.leif.org/research/Owens-No-Little-Ice-Age.png
I haven’t found your reference to Owens et al 2014 yet, but have found this:
“[4] The last 5 or 6 solar cycles, which includes the space-age, have displayed higher average sunspot numbers than the rest of the record, suggesting grand solar maximum (GSM) conditions [Solanki et al., 2004], in agreement with geomagnetic [Lockwood et al., 2009; Lockwood and Owens, 2011] and GCR reconstructions of the HMF [McCracken, 2007; Steinhilber et al., 2010]. However, over the last 2 or 3 solar cycles, the solar magnetic field has declined, suggesting the current GSM is ending [Abreu et al., 2008; Lockwood et al., 2009, 2012]. From the GCR record, around 10% of previous GSM exits have resulted in Maunder Minimum-like conditions within 50 years [Steinhilber et al., 2010; Lockwood, 2010; Barnard et al., 2011].”
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/wol1/doi/10.1029/2012GL053151/full
You might want to check the level of *your* pants. Do you insist that the little ice age is a myth?
Owens did.
Slide 9 of http://www.leif.org/EOS/Owens-MM-Talk.pdf
And slides 34 ff might be of interest too.
Perhaps you should try to understand the issues rather than why Lockwood et al. are flailing around. As I mentioned [slide 5] of http://www.leif.org/research/Confronting-Models-with-Reconstructions-and-Data.pdf
“After a Decade of Struggle, Lockwood et al. (2014) are Fast Approaching the Svalgaard et al. Reconstructions of 2003. This is a healthy development and they should be congratulated for their achievement”
Slide 24 might be of interest, showing how they are realizing that the open flux for the past three centuries is essentially the same in each [within the uncertainty].
If the TSI for 50 years will fall by 0.2 W / m ^ 2 less how much energy reaches the oceans? The greenhouse effect turns away. The amount of water vapor in the air will decrease.
“Owens did.”
I asked if *you* insisted there was no “little ice age”, not whether Owens did.
People with their pants down often behave in such a manner.
And now onto oceans and their variability in storing or disgorging heat over very long time scales. It is a very unbalanced system poorly measured. Very hard to predict. Have you ruled that out? Review of the literature please. And good luck. Because it is hard to predict and hard to develop proxies without large error bands, you will struggle to rule it out. But one thing can be said for sure. It has a plausible mechanism and the energy necessary to bring about climate regimes, be it warming, or cooling regimes.
I have to search in years prior to AGW funding but there are good papers out there that offer glimpses into the dynamic mechanism whereby the oceanic/atmospheric teleconnection allows the oceans to warm us up or cool us down over timescales beyond the noisy observations.
http://ruby.fgcu.edu/courses/twimberley/EnviroPhilo/TreeRing.pdf
The PDO as you may know was discovered not by blinkered “climate scientists” but a UW fisheries biologist. So much actual climate relevant science that has happened since 1988 has occurred outside of “climate science” that we would be well advised to shut down the whole enterprise and let real scientists take it over.
http://woodfortrees.org/graph/pmod/from:1900
http://woodfortrees.org/plot/pmod/from:1900
Unfortunately, the decline in PMOD in not real, but caused by sensor degradation:
http://www.leif.org/research/PMOD%20TSI-SOHO%20keyhole%20effect-degradation%20over%20time.pdf
http://lasp.colorado.edu/sorce/news/2011ScienceMeeting/docs/presentations/1g_Schmutz_SORCE_13.9.11.pdf
slides 31-33: “Observed data do not support a measureable TSI trend between the minima in 1996 and 2008”
“It is not what you know that gets you in trouble, it is what you know that ain’t”
This is less and less. 235.3 W / m ^ 2.
http://www.ospo.noaa.gov/data/atmosphere/radbud/gs19_prd.gif
TSI is falling faster than you think. It is important that there is a lot lower throughout the cycle 24. If it will take several decades the temperature of the oceans will fall.
Man has indeed contributed to climate change in the seventies.
Interfered in the most sensitive place climate – in the ozone layer. Stratospheric nuclear tests have caused a dramatic increase in atmospheric ionization.
One strong piece of evidence for greenhouse warming is that we have had 13 of the 14 warmest years during this period of low solar radiation.
(Boeing patented) Laser Plasma Shields* to escape electro-volcanic winters and deadly space super-storms: National Space Weather Strategy Released for Public Comment | NOAA / NWS Space Weather http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/news/national-space-weather-strategy-released-public-comment 2015: http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/sites/default/files/images/u33/final_shibata_SWW_2015.pdf
* https://ShieldEarthFromSpaceDisasters.wordpress.com
My message to the climate change / global warming community, “A real scientist can admit he made a mistake”. We are wasting valuable time and resources chasing CO2 as the cause for climate change. The truth is, the coming mini ice age will force the country to unite and solve the pending food crisis. We can beat this phenomenon of solar hibernation but we must act now. Only technogy can provide an answer to feeding 7 billion people in a mini ice age. I urge everyone to become a “denier” and start looking for answers to the pending crop losses and how we can grow the food needed to feed ourselves.