Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
Dr. Nir Shaviv and others strongly believe that there is an ~ 11-year solar signal visible in the sea level height data. I don’t think such a signal is visible. So I decided to look for it another way, one I’d not seen used before.
One of the more sensitive signal analysis tools in our arsenal is the Fourier transform. If we have a complex signal, like say the sunspot signal, Fourier analysis allows us to see just how strong the different frequencies are that make up the signal. To start with, Figure 1 shows the sunspot record.
Figure 1. New SILSO monthly sunspot record.
As you can see, there is a clear cyclical signal. However, the cycles vary in length. A Fourier periodogram reveals the strength of the various underlying signals:
Figure 2. Fourier periodogram of the data shown in Figure 1. Shortest period shown is four years, as there are no strong cycles with shorter periods.
As you can see, most of the power is in the 11-year and nearby cycles. There is cycle strength out to twelve years or so. There is also a second smaller group of cycles with a period of ten years, of about half the strength of the 11-year cycle.
Now, if there is actually a solar cycle in the sea level height as Dr. Shaviv believes, then it should peak somewhere around 11 years. To look for such a cycle, I decided to look at the sea level records from the tidal stations of the world. These are available from the Permanent Service for the Mean Sea Level. For your convenience in investigating the question, I’ve collated them as an Excel worksheet here.
I like to have an absolute minimum of three cycles of data to use for my longest term analysis. So I started by selecting all of the tide station datasets that have sixty years or more of data, to allow me to look at cycles up to about twenty years. There were 199 such records. Here are some sample periodograms of four of these longest tide records.
Figure 3. Four periodograms of long-term tidal records. Shortest period shown is four months. The scale on the left is the range (maximum minus minimum) of the fitted cycle as a percentage of the range of the underlying tide data.
The largest period in the tidal records, as we might expect, is a one-year cycle. There is also a smaller cycle visible at half a year (six months). However, as you can see, there is no readily apparent strong 11-year cycle, although Swinoujscie (top right) has a small hint of an 11-year cycle … or it may be a random fluctuation.
Now, the averaging of tidal data has some large problems. The different locations have widely varying tidal amplitudes, so the large swings tend to swamp the averages. As a result, I decided to average the periodograms rather than averaging the data. Since all of the periodograms are expressed in scaled units as percentages of the range of their individual underlying datasets, they are directly comparable. And since the random variations would average out, I figured that averaging them should reveal even small signals. Figure 4 shows the 199-periodogram average:
Figure 4. Average of the periodograms of the 199 long-term tidal station records. Note that the error bars are not the error of the mean, which is much narrower. Instead, they reflect the spread of the underlying individual results.
As with the four individual periodograms, the average clearly shows the one-year and the six-month cycles. And as expected, the averaging of so much data allows us to see even very small cycles. I note, for example, a cycle of a bit more than three and a half years. I’ve noticed this same signal before in other natural datasets, and I’ve never discovered its origin.
There is also a similar-sized small peak visible at about six and a quarter years, also of unknown origin.
But the purported ~ 11-year solar-related cycle? Nowhere to be seen. Not a hint, not a twitch.
Conclusion? If there is any ~ 11-year signal in the sea level height, it is so small as to be lost in the noise.
That was a main problem that I had with Dr. Shaviv’s study. He stated that there appeared to be a cycle in the short satellite sea level height data, and he claimed it was a solar cycle … but for me that’s backwards. For me, the starting point for investigation has to be noticing some verified unexplained anomaly in the actual observational records. First we have to find something unusual, then we can speculate as to its causes and consequences. For example, just what is the odd 3+ year cycle in Figure 4? Now that we know that cycle is real, we can speculate and investigate its origins.
So for me, until there is evidence of an actual ~11 year cycle in the sea level height, any speculation as to the possible solar nature of said unobserved cycle is wildly premature.
And that’s the story of the missing ~ 11-year cycle.
w.
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It’s been may years since I needed to do much Fourier analysis, although my lens design software can use FFT for computing MTFs and the like, or it can do full Fraunhoffer integration as well.
So just what is the result of doing Fourier transforms on finite length data series.
Not that I’m suggesting that artifacts introduced due to finite time data series are hiding Willis’s nemesis.
He seems to be doing a good job of not finding an 11 year itch.
But I was wondering if ANY of his mystery peaks might be simply mathematical artifacts of the transform of a finite length data series.
I know that when I do MTFs either by direct integration or FFT, I get all kinds of rubbish pops up out of nowhere if I don’t put in a lot of data.
g
George,
I use the FFT for a great many things in Seismic Data processing and analysis. Each seismic trace has an average of 2000 samples sampled at 4 milliseconds which has a nyquist of 125 Hz.. The general rule of thumb is that anything stronger than 20 DB down is resolvable with an FFT in the seismic world. For instance the analog to digital converters in seismic acquisition as well as the geophones themselves often pick up 60 hz. power line interference that shows up on an FFT power spectrum of each trace even though you cannot see any visual evidence of the 60 cycle sine wave when visually inspecting a plot of each seismic trace. In other words it is a very robust algorithm that is used for deconvolution, filtering, spectral balancing and signal to noise improvement, in my experience. The use of a hanning or other type of taper applied to the leading and trailing samples of a finite signal can dramatically cut down on the aliasing and edge effects.
Thanks, LT. I’ve used a hanning filter on my analysis.
w.
Hi willis.
http://rankexploits.com/musings/2011/estimates-of-mass-and-steric-contributions-to-sea-level-rise/
ENSO.
Thanks, Mosh. A most interesting analysis.
w.
It would seeem to me that the best place to look would be to isolate the Steric component and look for the signal there… remove amounts added by melting ice, remove ENSO effects ..(maybe your 3 and 7 year bumps) and you look at Steric component
That really amounts to looking at the increase due to warming…
The crazy thing in my mind is to look at sea level at all since the 11year effect will be buffered.
If the 11 year cycle doesnt show up in Tmax… well everything after that is just a wild goose chase
Steven Mosher August 19, 2015 at 11:05 am
Thanks, Mosh. I agree that looking in the ocean is the wrong place, for no other reason than the amount of noise and thermal buffering.
w.
The difference seems obvious to me. Willis, you’re using tidal gauge data, while Dr. Shaviv is using the flawed satellite altimetry data which has been adjusted to “prove” the scary accelerated 3 to 3-1/2 mm/yr rate of rise, so sea-level rise rate can be pointed at as one more calamitous result of AGW. There are two problems I see with Dr. Shaviv’s use of the satellite data – 1) the possibly intentionally introduced warming bias not supported by tidal gauge data, and 2) the short duration of the satellite record being insufficient to show clear trends or cycles.
It is not inconceivable that the 11-ish year cyclical signal Dr. Shaviv noticed in the satellite data was inadvertently introduced by the algorithms used to produce the more-rapid-than-reality rate of rise. I have no evidence of that, of course, but Occam’s Razor… if the data are flawed to begin with (rate of rise 1-1/2 – 2 mm/yr faster than reality) can perceived cycles in that data be trusted?
Or maybe the satellites have noise problems that correlate with sunspots? They are sitting outside the atmosphere with all that radiation coming down on them, it wouldn’t surprise me.
I want you all to imagine the following.
Imagine that C02 cycled like sunspots do.
Imagine someone argued that this cycle must show up in the sea level data. It just MUST!
Imagine you just read Willis’s Post, showing no such thing.
1, How many of you would scream “falsified”
2. How many of you would say ” no wait, look here, willis, no wait do this first, twist this thing for me willis’
in other words how many of you would go excuse hunting
does that excuse hunting remind you of excuse hunting you see to explain the pause.
You want to find a solar signal. Sea level is the last place you would look, Tmax would probably be the first place to look
Steven Mosher August 19, 2015 at 8:32 am
We’re nothing if not a full service website. Here, to the same scale as Figure 4 above, is the periodogram of the Berkeley Earth Maximum Temperature …
w.
Thank You willis.
My sense of things is that if the 11 year cycle ( a small increase in wattage ) would show up ANYWHERE
it would show up FIRST in TMAX as TMAX is directly related to incoming energy.
Having Not found it there, the temptation is to go on a snipe hunt. Of course we cant stop snipe hunts…
Willis please fix the scale.
Willis I am with you on the 11 year sunspot no real climate correlation connection as I show clearly in what I have to say below ,but that is by no means to suggest there is not a solar /climate connection.
My argument with you is not over the 11 year so called sunspot cycle climate connection but extreme prolonged periods of solar minimum activity versus the climate.
Willis here is my argument as to why you fail to connect the solar/climate dots in any convincing way although you do leave the door opened.
A quote from Willis, which is excellent.
“
Any natural regulatory system has bounds on the variations it can control, and there are events that could alter or destroy the regulation.
Second quote from Willis which is excellent.
“
“Willis- The sun has no effect whatsoever on climate you are correct I apologize also to L svaalgard
Willis says below that
Eliza, I have never said that, nor anything even remotely resembling that. Those are YOUR WORDS, not mine.
I have to apologize to Willis for not listening to him carefully enough because if one really listens to what he is saying he is opened to solar, while also saying there are events that can destroy or alter the natural regulatory system of the climate.
So I have a starting point with Willis , which at one time I thought I did not have.
Another point we agree on is if the sun varies enough it will have an impact on the climate. Everyone submits to this ,the disagreement however, is not if solar variation will change the climate but does the sun vary enough to accomplish this?
This leads to my argument with Willis , which is the so called 11 year sunspot normal cycle is not where one is going to be able to find solar/climate connections, because the EXTREMES in solar activity are not strong enough in degree of magnitude or long enough in duration of time to have a climate effect. In addition the 11 year cycle going from weak to strong sunspot activity cancels the climate effect it may have before any significant impact could come about.
In other words thresholds can not be reached in the climate system due to these 11 year variations in solar activity. This is the wrong place to look if one wants to find a solar climate connection.
The place to look is when the sun enters an extreme period of prolonged minimum solar quiet and when one looks at these periods the data does show a climate/solar correlation to one degree or another.
The problem is there are other factors superimposed upon even this extreme solar variability which although keeps the lower global average temperature trend in place there are periods of rising temperatures within the overall lower temperature trend.
Why ? Because within any global temperature trend initiated by solar variability one has to take into account the following factors;
1. all solar minimum differ as was the case recently with the 1996 solar minimum versus the 2008-2010 solar lull, which effects the climate in a different manner..
2. the stage of where earth is in respect to Milankovitch Cycles is either going to work in concert or against the current trend the solar variability is exerting upon the climate. Right now I would say Milankovitch Cycles are on balance acting in concert with minimum prolonged solar activity.
3. the geo magnetic field can enhance given solar activity effects or diminish given solar activity effects upon the climate. A weaker field compounding given solar effects.
4. land /ocean arrangements and elevations. Right now acting in concert with reduced solar activity very favorable for cooling.
5. the ice dynamic/snow cover which when at a critical stage can enhance or diminish the solar impacts. Right now not that favorable.
6. the rogue terrestrial event such as a super volcanic eruption or the rogue extra terrestrial event such as an impact could turn things upside down in the climate system.
7. this being very important which is the elusive thresholds which I think are out there but I do not know what degree of solar extremes are needed to bring them about, but there must be solar extremes that will bring them about. This is also probably tied into the initial state of the climate , for example point 5, which is to say just how far is the climate system of the earth from that inter –glacial/glacial threshold at the time the prolonged minimum solar conditions commence, which I think go a long way in the climatic effect the given solar variability will have upon the climate. .
8. the normal earth intrinsic climate factors which superimpose themselves upon the big general climatic trend regardless if they are associated directly with given solar activity or not.
9. Lunar input- which could possibly enhance or diminish given solar activity.
My best guess based on the historical climatic record is the solar extremes needed to have a clear climatic impact and not one that is obscured have to be slightly less then quote so called normal 11 year sunspot minimums but more importantly the duration of time has to be longer.
Once this is in when combined with the points in the above the climate result should come about, with the exception if point 6 were to take place.
Possible important (some) secondary effects due to solar activity which in turn can moderate the climate.
cosmic ray change moderates cloud coverage.
ozone changes moderates atmospheric circulation
geological activity moderation.
As far as the thermo regulator you have suggested again that works to keep the tropics regulated within a range as dictated by the overall climatic regime the earth is in.
Your regulator however can not does not stop the climate from going from one regime to another as the historical climatic record shows and in no way does it give a semi cyclicality to the climate.
What gives a cyclicality to the climate is most likely extra- terrestrial beats ranging from Milankovitch Cycles to Solar Variability to the Geo Magnetic Field Strength to Land/Ocean Arrangements .
Your thermo regulator at best keep the earth range bound but the range is to large to stop the earth from going from a glacial state to an inter- glacial state which for practical terms makes the climate of the earth unstable.
Averaging the solar cycle doesn’t even fit solar cycle data.
Actual solar peak years:
2000, 1989, 1979, 1968, 1958, 1947, 1937, 1928, 1917, 1906, 1894, 1883
11 year cycle
2000, 1989, 1978, 1967, 1956, 1945, 1934, 1923, 1912, 1901, 1890, 1879
Why wouldn’t you just compare actual sunspots for a given year to sea level rise for a given year to see if there was a coloration?
try harmonic analysis just pull a Nir and say its 12.6 years
Willis is approaching this in a way which is meaningless which is the 11 year sunspot cycle is not the climate game changer . This is not the argument , the argument is does the sun vary enough when it reaches prolonged minimum conditions when combined with other factors result in the climate of the earth going from one regime to another regime.
When the Sun is in prolonged minimum conditions it does not vary much [per definition], so don’t expect any effects to come from that non-variation.
Unfortunately the historical climatic data does not support your conclusions. This is why we are having the discussion.
Climate data cannot show how the sun varies a lot during prolonged periods of no variation.
And this is not a discussion, just a debunking of your claim that the sun varies a lot during prolonged periods of no variation.
If it were as clear cut as the way you see it , this discussion and difference in opinion would have been settled a long time ago. This however is clearly not the case and many are of my opinion as opposed to your opinion.
That you are fixated on your untenable view is no argument in favor of that view. Lots of people claim stuff that is false, you included.
Willis is concentrating on the small detailed picture rather then looking at the big far reaching picture.
Frankly his commentary about the value of Nir Shaviv work is meaningless ,and it does not really matter if you agree with Dr. Shaviv , or not.
This is at best a distraction to the real issue which is does a prolonged minimum solar event when taken in totality with other items that influence the climate of the earth as I have pointed in my earlier post result in a significant climate change or not?
This is the central issue.
Salvatore, since the topic of the article is Willis’ analysis of Dr. Shaviv’s study finding a correlation between sea level and the 11-ish year solar cycle, it’s your commentary that’s distracting, in my opinion.
Not everything on WUWT has to be about significant climate change, or about the big picture. There are plenty of articles posted on those topics, but this one is not, and from what I understand, Anthony’s site here is not all about that big picture of what has significant impact on climate change – it’s about whatever interests Anthony.
Salvatore, wouldn’t that properly be, “Dr. Shaviv is approaching this in a way which is meaningless …” if the 11 year cycle is irrelevant? It looks to me as though Willis is looking for a signal in the tidal gauge data to see if he can find what Dr. Shaviv claims is present in sea level data – a roughly 11 year cycle which correlates with the solar cycles. He’s not (from my reading) trying to prove that the 11 year cycle is a climate game changer.
I can go with your conclusions.
It’s time for the more learned to explain to this layman why there is such a fixation on the 11 year solar signal. I fully understand that the AVERAGE solar cycle length is 11 years however that is simply the AVERAGE length. The actual lengths vary from 9.0 to 13.7 years. So the question I have is how can one expect to find an 11 year signal in a cycle length of 9, 9.7 or 9.8 years? If you look at the period from Dec 1913 to Oct 1964, cycles 15 – 19, the cycle lengths were 10.0, 10.1, 10.4, 10.2, 10.5 years. Again I ask how can an 11 year signal be expected to found in this period? Just want to know.
Again I ask how can an 11 year signal be expected to found in this period?
Because such a [strong] signal is actually found. Here is another cut at it. Showing the FFT of the area of the solar disk covered by sunspots:
http://www.leif.org/research/FFt-of-Sunspot-Areas.png
As you can see there is a strong 11-year peak [and no 22-year peak].
Thank you. So if the sunspots show such a strong signal at 11 years, why do the cycles vary so much in length?
Because solar activity is very much a random process [variability] constrained by a very constant ‘basal’ sun [rotation and energy production].
As you can see there is a strong 11-year peak [and no 22-year peak.””
Wow, there you go freaking me out again. Why is that??
But not why I am here today.
Thank you for sharing your knowledge and information with us Dr. S.
Just want to share back at you some good info from the Interstellar Magnetic Fields researchers….
ON THE ROTATION OF THE MAGNETIC FIELD ACROSS THE HELIOPAUSE
M. Opher and J. F. Drake 2013 ApJ 778 L26
…The solar magnetic field strongly affects the drapping of the interstellar magnetic field (B ISM) around the HP. B ISM twists as it approaches the HP and acquires a strong T component (East-West). The strong increase in the T component occurs where the interstellar flow stagnates in front of the HP. At this same location the N component BN is significantly reduced. Above and below, the neighboring B ISM lines also twist into the T direction. This behavior occurs for a wide range of orientations of B ISM.
The angle δ = asin (BN /B) is small (around 10°-20°), as seen in the observations. Only after some significant distance outside the HP is the direction of the interstellar field distinguishably different from that of the Parker spiral….
http://iopscience.iop.org/2041-8205/778/2/L26?rel=sem&relno=2
Interstellar magnetic fields: from Galactic scales to the edge of the heliosphere
Katia Ferri`ere
IRAP, Universit´e de Toulouse,
13th Annual International Astrophysics Conference: Voyager, IBEX, and the Interstellar Medium Journal of Physics: Conference Series 577 (2015)
pg. 9…The conclusions here are similar to those reached in Section 3.1, namely, the ISMF orientation in the close vicinity of the Sun departs significantly from that observed in the large-scale ISM beyond 500 pc of the Sun. The former must be associated with discrete features within the Local Bubble – possibly with the G-cloud that lies just outside the Local Cloud in the general
direction of the Galactic center [44]. [44] interpreted their derived ISMF orientation, together with the direction of the interstellar flow past the heliosphere, as evidence that the local ISM is an expanding fragment of the S1 shell of the Loop I superbubble….
pg. 10… The only in-situ measurements of ISMFs were made by Voyager 1, which is now believed to have crossed the heliopause into the very local ISM [49]. Ever since August 25, 2012, when the spacecraft was at 122 AU of the Sun, it has been measuring ISMFs [50]. For the first month after August 25, 2012, the average magnetic field strength was B = (4.4 ± 0.1) μG and the average
magnetic field direction had azimuthal angle B = 287±1 and
elevation angle B = 14±2 in RTN coordinates [51]. This field direction is close to the Parker spiral direction, P = 270 and P = 0. Since then, the field strength has been smoothly varying in the range (3.8 − 5.9) μG,
and the field direction has been increasingly deviating from the Parker spiral [50]. TheVoyager 1 measurements are consistent with the very local ISMF draping around the heliosphere and being twisted toward the Parker spiral [52].
Very cool figure on pg.6
Figure 4. All-sky map in Galactic coordinates (with the Galactic center in the middle) of the rotation measures of ‘ 42 000 extragalactic radio point sources from the NVSS ( > −40) and S-PASS ( < 0) surveys.
Positive (negative) rotation measures, which correspond to a magnetic field pointing on average toward (away from) the observer, are plotted in blue (red).
http://iopscience.iop.org/1742-6596/577/1/012008/pdf/1742-6596_577_1_012008.pdf
March 3, 2015
NASA-Funded Study Finds Two Solar Wind Jets in the Heliosphere
..“If there were no interstellar flow, then the magnetic fields around the sun would shape the solar wind into two jets pointing straight north and south,” said Drake.
“The magnetic fields contract around these jets, shooting the solar wind out like squishing a tube of toothpaste.”
In the presence of the interstellar flow, these jets are bowed backwards, creating a crescent shape, as seen from the side of the sun. The jets erode in the presence of the strong interstellar flow, leading to two attenuated, short tails. This leads to a much shorter heliosphere of only about 250 times the distance between Earth and the sun, or about 23 billion miles..
https://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/two-solar-wind-jets-found-in-the-heliosphere
Dr. S., with respect to solar hemispheric preference to sunspots production , how long will one hemisphere dominate, before switching to the other hemisphere dominating? What about polarity in this hemispheric dominance?
What is the polarity of the ISMF that is denting the nose of the heliosphere creating that big dent and ribbon of Energetic ‘neutral’ Atoms (ENA)?
How does the IBEX seen ribbon of charged particles, change and evolve over solar cycle? position/extent
Is it the same polarity ISMF that is squeezing the solar polar fields and bending them backwards? (sounds like magnetic reconnection)
On N-S asymmetry: http://www.leif.org/research/Asymmetric-Solar-Polar-Field-Reversals-talk.pdf
see also http://www.sidc.be/silso/monthlyhemisphericplot
On ISMF: the ISMF does not penetrate into the heliosphere and has no influence on on the Sun .
Does the pos/neg polarity changes in ISMF occur around approx. 100 year periods? Are there active boundaries?
done
Willis
Re: “If there is any ~ 11-year signal in the sea level height, it is so small as to be lost in the noise.”
See Scafetta 2013 Fig. 3. Periodogram of New York City.
While Scafetta “highlights a dominant quasi 60 year oscillation”, this periodogram also shows substantial evidence for an 11-12 year oscillation. Note Scafetta’s use of the “Maximum Overlap Discrete Wavelet Transform (MODWT)”
Scafetta, N. Common errors in analyzing sea level accelerations, solar trends and temperature records. Pattern Recognition in Physics 1, 37-58, doi:
10.5194/prp-1-37-2013, 2013
Note further discussion by Benestand and then Scafetta:
Benestad, R.E.: Comment on “Discussions on common errors in analyzing sea level accelerations, solar trends and global warming” by Scafetta (2013), Pattern Recogn. Phys., 1, 91–92, doi:10.5194/prp-1-91-2013, 2013. http://dx.doi.org/10.5194/prp-1-91-2013
Reply to Benestad’s comment on “Discussions on common errors in analyzing sea level accelerations, solar trends and global warming” by Scafetta (2013)
———————
PS Note the dominant ~ 60 year sea level oscillation
Scafetta, N. Multi-scale dynamical analysis (MSDA) of sea level records versus PDO, AMO, and NAO indexes. Climate Dynamics July 2014, Volume 43, Issue 1-2, pp 175-192
, – See more at: http://notrickszone.com/2013/04/23/duke-scientist-on-sea-level-rise-patterns-in-tide-gauge-records-mostly-driven-by-natural-oscillations/#sthash.Mj2EXJmo.dpuf
Mazzarella A. and N. Scafetta, 2012. Evidences for a ~60-year North Atlantic Oscillation since 1700 and its meaning for global climate change Theoretical Applied Climatology 107, 599-609. DOI: 10.1007/s00704-011-0499-4
Parker, A. Reply to “Comment on “Sea-level trend analysis for coastal management” by A. Parker, M. Saad Saleem, M. Lawson” Ocean & Coastal Management 87 (2014) 116e118
David L. Hagen August 19, 2015 at 9:35 am Edit
Dear heavens, anyone but Scafetta. He is a cyclomaniac who loves to use multi-parameter fitted models. In the paper you link to he says of his results:
Seriously? He says he is fitting “solar, volcano, greenhouse gases and aerosol constructors” to things like the 2008 paleo temperature reconstruction by Michael Mann he can show that solar is The Winnah!, and you believe his conclusions? See my post “Kill It With Fire” for a discussion of just how bad Mann2008 is.
And what is a “constructor” when it’s at home? Scafetta seems to use the term to mean “independent variable”, but that’s not clear.
And the model? Well, Scafetta’s as bad as Shaviv’s. This time around, Scafetta uses things like a five-parameter linear model where the variables are the ENSO signal, the solar signal, the volcano signal, a trend, and an offset. It is a bog-simple straight linear model. Will it fit the data? Given five tunable parameters, and a variable (ENSO) which is a part of what you are trying to predict, it would be shocking if Scafetta couldn’t fit the temperature data … so?
Not only that, but in the past Scafetta has used the magical power of tunable parameters to fit things like the cycles of Jupiter and such to the temperature … and those astronomical based models fit the temperature just as well as the new whiz-bang volcano-solar-ENSO models. If one model is right the other must be wrong, but Scafetta has argued passionately for both …
People don’t seem to get it. FITTING THE TEMPERATURE RECORD WITH A MULTI-PARAMETER LINEAR MODEL IS TRIVIAL! Give me ten parameters like some of Scafetta’s models, and three datasets of most any type, and I’ll make the climate elephant wave his trunk … but so what? Scafetta has fit half a dozen models so far to the temperature record, using wildly disparate variables, and all of them fit the temperature record with reasonably good fidelity … so? All that proves is that if Scafetta has N different models purporting to explain temperatures using different variables, a minimum of N-1 of the models must be wrong …
Seriiously, SO WHAT! Fitting multi-parameter models to the historical climate record is meaningless child’s play.
Pass.
w.
Willis
You can do better than that -(ad hominem genetic and red herring).
I explicitly pointed to: Scafetta 2013 Fig. 3. Periodogram of New York City. See also Fig. 2b which looks to similarly show about 27 cycles at about 11 years over 300 years. Those are two explicit frequency analysis methods that both appear to show ~ 11 year oscillation in sea level (which should stand on their own on an analysis basis separate from the rest of the argument.)
The question is why you found no ~ 11 year signal with your method while Scafetta did with his method.
David
PS Scafetta’s “empirical model” still appears to be predicting temperatures better than the IPCC’s from 2011.
It still amuses me that people think that reproducing the Global temperature index is some great feat.
At a minimum a model of temperature should be tested by.
1. Its ability to get SAT correct globally
2. its ability to get SST correct globally
3. Its ability to get each hemisphere correct (SAT and SST)
4. Its ability to get TTL correct.
not just the global temmperature index.
David L. Hagen August 19, 2015 at 5:21 pm
It appears you weren’t around for the previous go-rounds with Scafetta. He’s a piece of work. See:
Loehle and Scafetta calculate 0.66°C/century for AGW
Guest post by Craig Loehle and Nicolas Scafetta
Human Effect on Climate Clearly Detected
(but is 0.66 deg C/100yr since ~1950!)
Loehle, C. and N. Scafetta. 2011. Climate Change Attribution Using Empirical Decomposition of Historical Time Series. Open Atmospheric Science Journal 5:74-86.
Riding a Pseudocycle 2011-07-30
Loehle and Scafetta recently posted a piece on decomposing the HadCRUT3 temperature record into a couple of component cycles plus a trend. I disagreed with their analysis on a variety of grounds. In the process, I was reminded of work I had done a few years ago using what is…
Congenital Cyclomania Redux 2013-07-23
Well, I wasn’t going to mention this paper, but it seems to be getting some play in the blogosphere. Our friend Nicola Scafetta is back again, this time with a paper called “Solar and planetary oscillation control on climate change: hind-cast, forecast and a comparison with the CMIP5 GCMs”. He’s…
You go on to say:
Who knows? Scafetta is well known for refusing to show his source code despite repeated requests. As a result, nobody but Scafetta knows most of that kind of stuff.
In any case, if you look closely there’s a much larger problem. The length of the New York tide dataset is 119 years. As I’ve said, to have any faith in a cyclical analysis you need a minimum of three cycles, and I much prefer four. That means four cycles of about thirty years, or maybe three cycles of 40 years if I was really desperate … but that’s all the further I’d trust it, and I’d doubt the 40 year cycles.
He shows cycles out to 100 freakin’ years, in a 119 year dataset … and there are not eve two cycles for his claimed 60 year cycle. Those are both jokes.
It gets worse. He claims the cycles are 150 to 300 mm in height … but the standard deviation of the detrended NYC monthly tide dataset is only about 80 mm, and the annual swings are maybe 150-250 mm. There’s no 300-mm 60-year cycle in the data, that’s easy to disprove, just take a look at the data.
You can follow Scafetta all you want. Me, I’ll pass until you can show me his claimed 60-year 300-mm cycle in the NYC tide data. You’re welcome to start down that rabbit-hole and listen to the mad hatter, up to you … it’s not for me.
w.
That you are fixated on your untenable view is no argument in favor of that view. Lots of people claim stuff that is false, you included.
Leif says in the above.
My response.
Again this is your opinion which does not make it correct or in the majority.
I am glad you voice your opinions but that is all they are opinions.
Voicing opinions is very different from discussing science, and it is good that you acknowledge that. And we have now heard enough of your opinion. Come back when you have changed it.
The only way I change my mind is if the temperatures for the globe go up despite prolonged minimum solar conditions.
Thus far temperatures have been steady since 1998.
If you compare temperatures during your lulls you will find that in the past 300 years temperatures have gone up although solar activity has not.
Climate data cannot show how the sun varies a lot during prolonged periods of no variation
Leif says which is totally false when one looks at the recent solar lull 2008-2010 versus the solar activity of the last half of the last century. I see plenty of variability.
What you see is that during that ‘lull’ as you call it, global temperatures have been high compared to the average over ‘the last half of the last century’. That we can agree on.
Again you not understand the climate system when you make those kind of statements.
Again you do not listen to what I have said about how it works, you have paid no attention for if you have you would have known I expected no climate reaction from that solar lull.
Yet you drag out the lull to show just the opposite. And you are correct that I don’t listen to your explanation about ‘how it works’, because your utterances make no sense.
The purpose of the lull being dragged out as you say is to show the sun has variability not to show a climate connection because the necessary criteria I called for was not all met during that lull.
At every sunspot minimum, sunspots almost go away and solar activity relaxes to the same state. A good indicator of solar activity is the F10.7 microwave flux. There is that flux back to 1840:
http://www.leif.org/research/F107-Flux-Reconstruction.png
As you can see, at every minimum the flux [and thus solar activity] is the same. No variability during lulls.
http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/products/solar-cycle-progression
As the data clearly shows solar activity has much variability.
But no long-term trend on contrast to the climate. And that is what matters.
Again the historical climatic record says otherwise.
Am probably stating the obvious here – but observations of sunspots are directly ‘on’ the sun – and can clearly be counted, noted, etc, and seemingly display an 11 year cycle. Great! We can further suggest that said cycle may imply cyclic changes in activity and the energy giving (out) properties the sun has, yes? Now – the sun chucks out these mega-amounts of energy in roughly all directions, yes? (lets ignore the odd solar flares for the moment!) How much of the given outflow of energy actually reaches the earth? Answer – not much. So then, Gaia decides to tinker with the tiny bit of sun’s overall actually arriving energy further, via cloud cover, stored ocean heat, etc, etc, etc This introduces lags, enhancements, reductions, etc, etc. So, how does anyone realistically expect to find a signal comparable to the observed ‘on the sun’ sunspots?, Even if we said the earth receives 0.1% of the suns energy then clearly, the range of variation we might see would only be 1000th of the observed ‘on-sun’ solar sunspots (assuming a direct spot/energy/activity correlation actually exists). Whichever way you look at it – earthbound detections of variations in solar energy are likely to be very small compared to the directly observed (sunspot) data and masked by the ‘other’ noise of the whole earth climate system. i.e. the observed sunspot data is unlikely to be directly comparable in scale and size to any ‘recorded on earth’ data given the likely noise in the system and small ‘sampling’ (of the actual emitted energy) involved. Needle and haystack may be a more sensible way of looking at it?
So, how does anyone realistically expect to find a signal comparable to the observed ‘on the sun’ sunspots?
But that is precisely what the ‘sun nuts’ are claiming to find. We hear things like “solar activity accounts for 70% of observed climate variation”. So you would wholeheartedly agree that such utterings are nonsense.
I do not even have sunspots in my criteria so do not include me in this.
Nonsense, Sal. Many of the things you trot out are directly controlled by sunspots.
Not really Leif. It is entirely logical to consider that any variations in incoming energy from the sun will affect climate. Even a tiny percentage point variation will affect the climate over a long enough timescale. The trouble is we do not have enough measurements of such variation – and solar spot counting just doesn’t cut it! Those constantly trying to link to 11 year cycles are the ones making the error in my opinion, as they are comparing melons to amoebas (scalewise!).. I do believe that it is realistic to explain past climate variation via long term solar variation (such as the YD and MM) because these can be seen over multi-decades and even century timescales. It is more likely that solar activity changed during these periods, given that there are not other earth based phenomena likely to have such an impact – even big volcanoes only last a year or two. Hence, (unless there have been some mega-catastrophes not recorded?) we must logically conclude that something external caused these clearly evident (and recorded) climate variations. Ignoring astronomical and any weirdo alien type stuff leads us to solar variation as the most likely culprit… which then leads us to ‘suspect’ that such variation is still ongoing and possible, yes? Yes, the 70% claim may be unrealistic, but on a cumulative effect basis, can this be completely dismissed?
but on a cumulative effect basis, can this be completely dismissed
As solar activity is cyclical, effects will also be cyclical and not cumulative.
There is no doubt that the sun has influence, the question is how much, and it seems clear [at least to me] that the answer is ‘not much’, otherwise there would not be continuing strife about this as the evidence would be clear [and it is not].
Exact, solar activity is the main driver of climate variability. But this occurs through the oceans. In other words, baroclinic waves are resonantly forced by solar cycles, then SST anomalies promote cyclones or anticyclones at mid-latitudes, depending on the sign of the SST anomalies. Unfortunetely, the 11-yr cycle does not resonate.
JL
and 100-yr periods apparently also not.
:”There is no doubt that the sun has influence, the question is how much, and it seems clear [at least to me] that the answer is ‘not much’, otherwise there would not be continuing strife about this as the evidence would be clear [and it is not].”
Yup. If it was “the sun stupid” the evidence would be clear.
Sure, but the 128 yr period cycle resonates.
Evidence?
Wavelet analysis of SST in the Northern Pacific (http://climatorealist.neowordpress.fr/).
Such a long, rambling text is not evidence. Point to exactly where you show something that you consider evidence.
Sorry, it’s in the northern Atlantic (long SST series is available)
Jean-Louis Pinault August 19, 2015 at 10:58 am
lsvalgaard August 19, 2015 at 10:59 am
Jean-Louis Pinault August 19, 2015 at 11:06 am
Thanks, Jean-Louis. To do any analysis of a Fourier or other periodic type on natural data, you need to have an absolute minimum of three cycles worth of data, and I prefer to have at least four. You can verify this by taking a long natural dataset, dividing it in half, and doing a Fourier analysis on the whole as well as the two halves. They will often be very different, with apparent cycles that are clear and strong in one half of the data but which disappear in the second half.
This is an oddity of the climate—apparent cycles will appear, and last for a while, even for three or four cycles, and then simply fade away and die. So you need to be most suspicious of conclusions about long-period cycles.
As a result, I’d reject out of hand any claimed analysis of a 128 year cycle based on sea surface temperatures. We don’t have good data for SSTs for 128 years, much less for three times that long.
w.
As an evidence of solar interaction with baroclinic waves, the wavelet analysis of SST in the 48-96 yr band, to highlight 64-yr period SST anomalies:
https://youtu.be/r38sQoAgNhM
Those anomalies are harmonics of the 128-yr cycle that is resonantly forced by the Gleissberg solar cycle.
The wavelet analysis does not obey the same rules as the FFT. Only a part of the series is used.
Now the 128-yr period SST anomalies:
https://youtu.be/-4vJOPHmA3U
In the North Atlantic SST series seems to be reliable over one century and half.
JL
Those anomalies are harmonics of the 128-yr cycle that is resonantly forced by the Gleissberg solar cycle
First of all, your cycles are generally artifacts generated by band-pass filtering. Second, Even if similar periods were found, there is no evidence that they are causally related.
SST anomalies within the relevant bands are not artifact, which could be questionable for the 128-yr cycle, not for the 64-yr cycle: precautions were taken to check the evolution of the amplitude and phase of the SST anomalies when shifting the window required for the wavelet analysis, along the period of observation.
The causal relationship between the 64-yr and 128-yr period SST anomalies is largely beyond the scope of this discussion intended to highlight oceanic areas where the Sea Surface Height (SSH) oscillates. I would prefer to refocus the debate on its goal by adding a video highlighting this time SSH anomalies within the 6-12 yr band.
https://youtu.be/Wz7fWozqLVE
On the left, in the North Atlantic, are shown the surface height anomalies induced by the 8-year period gyral Rossby wave, red anomalies indicating the lowering of the thermocline, blue anomalies its rising: SSH anomalies range between -0.16 and 0.16 meters.
These antinodes are always associated with a modulated geostrophic current at the node of the quasi-stationary wave, as shown at right, red anomalies indicating that the modulated current flows eastward, blue anomalies westward: the modulated component of the Surface Current Velocity (SCV) range between -0.08 and 0.08 m/s.
https://youtu.be/NMiRxE-fgPA
JL
The question is the variability extreme enough and long enough in duration to impact the climate?
However to access the impact the other 9 points I posted earlier have to be taken into consideration.
That post made at 8:48 am Aug.19th.
Your argument is a bit circular: if the sun has not varied enough to influence the climate we should just wait long enough until it looks like it has. It is like if I claimed that I mentally can force a coin always to show heads when flipped and I claim that the coin will show 6 heads in a row, so just keep flipping until it does and my claim is validated.
No my argument is solar activity has to reach certain criteria before it can trigger a climate reaction in a significant way and until that criteria is reached do not expect much in the way of solar /climate connections.
Again we have a test coming we will see what happens or does not happen.
I say lower global temperatures going forward in response tot The expected low solar activity .
Yep. The old clock test. Wait long enough and your prediction that it is 12:00 will come true. Setting up a bunch of solar parameters (that can easily just be reduced to one that reflects and drives all the other measures) and then waiting for average temperatures to perform to your expectations is not even low hanging fruit in proper scientific methods.
IF there’s some correlation between temperature and the sunspot cycle, the only place I can imagine it would be seen is in deeper ocean temperatures where blue sunlight penetrates deeply and where it is that same blue light that varies most greatly with the sunspot cycle. Even then it might take decades of the sun’s penetrating blue rays to affect things enough so that a correlation would reveal itself.
It’s too bad there isn’t more ARGO data.
Nonsense. There is absolutely no match between the energy required to variably heat such a massively large volume of water and the extrinsic solar energy available in “blue” light (I am guessing you mean UV light), above short term sub-surface intrinsic-driven temperature variations related to mixing, overturning, etc.
Leif let us see what happens?
Come back in 30 years?
A ‘lets see what happens’ must include a time horizon to be valid. How long must we wait? To be sure that we are not just seeing yet another random fluctuation. I would say 30 years would be convincing to take the effect seriously, but not, of course, to settle the question definitively [that might take a century or two and/or a quantitative and plausible physical mechanism]. I can make an analogy with solar activity and geomagnetic effects, where about a century was the time scale for understanding and acceptance to emerge.
I hope we will be here to see what happens. I hope good fortune will come to both of us.
No, I think baroclinic waves are resonantly forced by solar cycles, inducing up and down motions of the thermocline. So, the heat is hidden a few tens or hundreds of meters deep. The equations of motion of long baroclinic waves show that the thermocline is in quadrature relative to forcing.
And apparently that heat stays hidden for centuries or longer.
There is good evidence that the Earth has liquid water and life 3000 million years ago, yet the Sun’s luminosity back then was only 70% of what it is today, so even such a MAJOR change did not make a great dent in the climate. Eventually, however, when the Sun swells up to engulf the Earth in 5000 million years time, the solar influence will be strongly felt. In the meantime, perhaps not so much.
Milankovitch cycles show heat can be ‘hidden’ for tens thousands of years.
No they don’t. http://www.leif.org/research/2006GL027817-Milankovich.pdf :
“Basic physical arguments are used to show that, rather than focusing on the absolute global ice volume, it is much more informative to consider the time rate of change of global ice volume. This simple and dynamically-logical change in perspective is used to show that the available records support a direct, zero-lag, antiphased relationship between the rate of change of global ice volume and summertime insolation in the northern high latitudes.”
http://www.leif.org/research/Milankovich.Fit.png
http://www.leif.org/research/Milankovich-Fit.png
lsvalgaard: “Sun’s luminosity back then was only 70% of what it is today…”
And the day was…what?..11, 12 hours long? I wonder what winds were like back then.
Is there any evidence of past atmospheric pressures? I recall reading that pterodactyls needed a denser atmosphere to fly.
Google is your friend. There are lots of speculation on this. Search and ye shall find. The point is that the Earth’s climate is hard to perturb.
“Google…friend…Lots of speculation…”
I searched before posting. I consider myself a pretty good searcher, but Dim Sun Paradox speculation seems focused on greenhouse gases.
Wikipedia gives various possibilities, including tidal heating from a close moon. But no consideration of fast spin, which affects low latitude winds, Hadley cell circulation, and cloud formation.
Earth’s climate is naturally perturbed.
Here is one of the better reviews: http://arxiv.org/pdf/1204.4449v1.pdf
and here is a more controversial view:
http://www.leif.org/EOS/1306-3166-Faint-Sun.pdf
Leif writes “No they don’t. http://www.leif.org/research/2006GL027817-Milankovich.pdf :
“Basic physical arguments are used to show that, rather than focusing on the absolute global ice volume, it is much more informative to consider the time rate of change of global ice volume.”
This is the same argument that Shaviv is using wrt sea level.
I don’t know if he means delta h or differential h, but in any case his conclusion is absurd [the 70%] so I don’t worry too much what he thinks or how people interpret it. As they say “color me unimpressed”.
lsvalgaard:
What I was hoping for.
Perhaps tidal heating and vulcanism, faster spin of Earth and Sol, weaker magnetic field, stronger solar wind, higher UV luminosity, and greenhousey atmosphere were all required. Perhaps there’d be no life on Earth without the moon.
The references, and your contributions generally, are much appreciated. Thanks for taking the time.
A comparison between Solar Cycle 12 and the current Solar Cycle 24. Set against a comparison of winter temperatures during the two periods. Winter temperatures from the Central England Temperature set.
I am slightly bemused as to why anyone would think there should be an 11-year solar signal in the sea level record.
The oceans are a fixed volume of water in a basin of fixed dimensions (when taken over a single decade). While warming will effect sea levels, I see no hope of that happening over such a short time period of 11 years (actually, 5.5 years).
In short, there is nothing to see here – move along. If they had investigated a centinial or millenial signla, it would have made more sense.
Yup
lsvalgaard
August 19, 2015 at 10:49 am
but on a cumulative effect basis, can this be completely dismissed
As solar activity is cyclical, effects will also be cyclical and not cumulative.
No – I can’t accept that – you are implying that for every rise there should be a drop – however, as I mentioned, we see the sun activity ramping up and ramping down. If the first cycle is +2 and the next cycle is -1; then the cumulative effect is +1 and so on…..for all the reasons everyone knows, seeing this overall effect as measurable within the cycles may not be possible….but it doesn’t mean the cumulative effect (either up or down) is not present!
In the long run there is a drop for every rise, certainly [as we now know] that is the case every 11 years, every 100 years, and no trend the past 300 years, so there is no evidence for a cumulative effect.
Are you not accepting that Younger Dryas and Maunder Minimum are most LIKELY solar related? On the reasonable assumption that you accept they existed/occurred – how else are you going to explain them other than via a cumulative decline in solar input?
Also, no trend for 300 years (based presumably only on observed SS numbers?) does not necessarily equate to no trend in incoming solar variation! Hence, I mentioned before that we simply do not have enough modern measurements of actual radiation to use. Old SS data is no more or less a proxy, the same as ice cores, etc. It is assumed to be correct (though still ‘corrected’ lol) and is assumed to ‘match’ current SS observations – which are ‘correlated’ to current solar measurements. That ‘assumed’ correlation may or may not be valid – hence the need for much more time/data.
Of course I do not. There is no evidence that they are solar-related. And all the other solar parameters we know off follow the sunspot number. You are, of course, allowed to pick and chose what you want to believe, but that does not count as evidence.
>>Leif
>>There is no evidence that they (ice ages) are solar-related.
Yes, you believe it is all Milakovitch cycles, as you have said previously.
So how did we recover from the Younger Dryas, while solar NH insolation was DECREASING? And how did we stay locked in the ice age before last when NH insolation increased by 10%?
Admit it, Leif, there are other factors at play here.
http://s16.postimg.org/63v3fs8xx/Last4_Ice_Ages_Milankovitch.png
We have to go by the strong evidence we have. Other, unknown influences can be discussed when evidence and theory are developed to the point where they can be taken seriously. Just saying that they may be other things in the mix does not do anything for me, but apparently enthralls you beyond reason. So are we all different.
“In the long run there is a drop for every rise”
But not over a constant timebase and the sunspot record is somewhat saw-toothed. Every Watt (a joule in a constant, precise time interval) counts.
>>Just saying that they may be other things in
>>the mix does not do anything for me.
But you are emphatically saying ‘its not the Sun’, when there is another unknown factor at play here. And you do not know if that factor is solar related or not. So you bald assertion is unjustified.
R
No, I’m saying there is no evidence that it is the Sun. Very different thing. What people took as evidence [that solar activity has been steadily increasing] has turned out not be happening.
There is a strong underlying assumption of seeing an ~11 yr cycle in the solar data and looking for an 11 year signal in other datasets, such as this sea level data or any other dataset which might be effected.
There is an implicit assumption that the earth-ocean-atmoshphere system does not act as a filter on the input signal, or that the filter is spectrally white.
I am sure any electrical engineers or geophysicists reading this get where I am coming from with this. We have an input signal that is being convolved with the earth-ocean-atmoshphere system to yield an output signal (such as the sea level curve in question). By assuming you should see a frequency spectra of the output signal that matches the input signal is to assume the frequency spectra of the earth-ocean-atmoshphere system is completely white.
In geophysics , we never see the earth filters behave that way with seismic signals. I see no physical reason to believe the ocean-atmoshphere system would behave that way either, given the myriad of processes at work.
Bottom line – until you know what the earth-ocean-atmoshphere filter response to incoming solar energy is, you can not prove or disprove solar inlfuence on climate via signal analysis.
Bottom line – until you know what the earth-ocean-atmosphere filter response to incoming solar energy is, you can not prove or disprove solar influence on climate via signal analysis.
Tell that to all the sun-nuts who claim that they can. If you can’t see it, you cannot claim it.
“I am sure any electrical engineers or geophysicists reading this get where I am coming from with this. We have an input signal that is being convolved with the earth-ocean-atmoshphere system to yield an output signal (such as the sea level curve in question). By assuming you should see a frequency spectra of the output signal that matches the input signal is to assume the frequency spectra of the earth-ocean-atmoshphere system is completely white.”
Precisely
Just to further the last point, I could design a match filter such that when convolved with the input solar signal you would get the output sea level signal.
But this would have no physical basis and be completely meaningless. Similarly, looking for 11 year signals in output data is meaningless unless you know what the earth-ocean-atmoshphere filter looks like.
agree
Agreed, that there’s no physical basis to connect solar activity to sea level variations. But, I seriously doubt that any matched convolution filter could be designed that would convolve with the “input solar signal” to obtain a credible replica of the “output sea level signal.” You might design a filter whose output may have a very similar power spectrum as sea level, but by all indications the requisitely high cross-spectral coherence simply would NOT be there.