From the Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel (GEOMAR)
New perspectives for long-term climate predictions?
This image shows a time series of solar activity (bottom) and the North Atlantic Oscillation in two model simulations, without (blue) and with (yellow) solar forcing. Credit, GEOMAR.
Are climate predictions over periods of several years reliable if weather forecast are still only possible for short periods of several days? Nevertheless there are options to predict the development of key parameters on such long time scales. A new study led by scientists at GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel shows how the well-known 11-year cycle of solar activity affects the long-time development of dominant large-scale pressure systems in the Northern Hemisphere.
For their investigations the scientists used a coupled ocean-atmosphere model. In addition, this model includes an interactive chemistry module which can for instance cope with the effect of ultraviolet radiation (UV) in the upper atmosphere. This additional component seemed to be key to transmit the variations in the solar radiation which might have only a small direct impact on the earth’s surface, through a complex mechanism from the stratosphere (10-50 km altitude) to the lower atmosphere.
“We have carried out several experiments,” says Dr. Rémi Thiéblemont from GEOMAR, lead author of the study. “We conducted model experiments over a period of 145 years, with and without the influence of solar activity “, Thiéblemont continued. The sun’s influence could clearly be identified in the so-called North Atlantic Oscillation, which is roughly speaking the pressure difference between the Azores high and the Iceland low. The ratio between these two pressure systems often determines the weather in Europe over longer time periods, such as whether the winter months turn warm and stormy or cold and snowy. The researchers found a time lag between variations in solar irradiance and atmospheric pressure patterns of about one to two years, which can be explained by an interaction between the atmosphere and the ocean. By comparing the two experiments with or without solar activity, they were able to prove for the first time that the sun irradiance serves as a phase-lock for the North Atlantic Oscillation. With this context, an increase of the predictability of the decadal NAO phase can be expected.
“The fact that the circulation in the upper atmosphere responds significantly to the solar fluctuations, is already known”, Prof. Dr. Katja Matthes, initiator and co-author of the study from GEOMAR explains. “On one hand we can demonstrate with this new study how the transmission of the signal to the Earth’s surface and its interaction with the ocean works, and on the other hand we can show the importance of the chemical reactions for the coupling”, Prof. Matthes continued. So far, most global climate models have neither a sufficient resolution in the stratosphere nor interactive chemical components. “Although the solar effect on the North Atlantic Oscillation explains only a few percent of the total variance, the close relationship between solar activity and phase North Atlantic Oscillation is an important indicator to improve the predictability of climate variability”, Dr. Thiéblemont summarizes.
There is still a long way to go, for successful and reliable long-term forecasts up to a decade. Nevertheless, for successful predictions it is important to include solar fluctuations, Professor Matthes concludes.
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Scientific paper:
Thiéblemont, R., K. Matthes, N.-E. Omrani, K. Kodera and F. Hansen, 2015. Solar forcing synchronizes decadal climate variability North Atlantic. Nature Communications, doi: 10.1038/ncomms9268.
Our planet is warm due to two things: the planet’s core is very hot still unlike say, the moon, and the local star, the Sun heats our planet up nicely due to our oceans and atmosphere which holds in the heat enough to allow life to thrive here.
We know for a fact that the sun isn’t all that steady state and the latest solar cycle is particularly weak and the next one is expected to be even weaker and all global warming worries that are now called ‘climate change’ for political reasons because this is not the ‘hottest year evah’ not even slightly for the last 200 years much less, 2,000 years.
All this means that the entire discussion is becoming crazy. It isn’t real.
The Met Office has just told us via the BBC in the UK that a very cold winter similar to 2010/11 is about to hit us because of cold waters in the north Atlantic …..but, lest we get the wrong idea, the rest of the world will be very hot.
Of course it will. We knew that.
At least they are starting to look in the right area and beginning to understand that the weather has a key role to play in climate change. Long term high pressure blocking during the winter months over the northern Atlantic and northern europe would soon bring about climate change to europe. Weather or not if the northern Atlantic is running warm or cool.
This idea that the sun has something to do with temperature and climate is breathtaking.
A professor, a long long time ago told me that when you are studying a system, you just might want to take a look at the input signal, just saying.
How old is this knowledge of the sun and moon cycles?
When man first had enough brain power to know he had sun burn.
Long, long, llllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllooooooooooooooooooonnnnnnnnnnnnnnggggggggggggg ago.
Then better with say Chaco Canyon and the rounded rocks leaning up with circles and arrows to show the way.
http://www.nps.gov/chcu/index.htm
Past this deal of the old ones, the study becomes the study of chaos.
Thinking you can know chaos means you know nothing.
This looks like the autocorrelation that occurs between two windshield wipers on the school bus wired to two separate motors. Eventually they coincide and eventually they are opposite. In addition, adding a small signal to a very strong one is of no value to me, for obvious reasons. For me, I just don’t see much here in this paper.
The way I see it, the model output is a hypothesis. Now, the hypothesis must be proved by comparison with data. (Actual data measured of the climate.)
“There is still a long way to go, for successful and reliable long-term forecasts up to a decade.”
…but we can tell you with 95% certainty what will happen in 100 years.
8:30 minutes ago the sun exploded! the co2 magic dust camp, “yea we won!”
//kappa
“Are climate predictions over periods of several years reliable if weather forecast are still only possible for short periods of several days?”
Hopeless. What they should be looking at is solar effects on the NAO at down to daily scales, i.e at the scale of weather variability. And not by UV variability but by the solar wind (see Brian Tinsley’s papers). Forecasting such solar forcing of atmospheric teleconnections at the noise level, and extrapolating from that how the oceanic modes will respond, is the only effective way to forecast future climate states.
The funniest thing here is, the sun and suddenly change gears and act differently! Note that no Ice Age ended slowly, all ended very, very abruptly. And very messily with sudden total freezes and secondary sudden melting episodes that were quite explosive in nature. With vast floods, for example.
By the way, humans (and pre-humans) in Africa barely noticed all of this since glaciation didn’t trouble the continent very much at all. It was just alterations between kind of wet and cool and quite warm and dry.
It appears we have several commentators who are in need of education on this subject of UV variation and its ability to measurably affect ocean temperatures, and by absorption and transfer, atmospheric temperature trends. The breadth of total solar irradiance contributes at most a fraction of Earth’s temperature variation. The effects of intrinsic weather pattern changes and climate regime shifts simply buries the effects of solar irradiance:
“…global surface temperature warms ∼0.1°C as solar irradiance increases ∼0.1% from the minimum to the maximum of recent solar activity cycles [Lean and Rind, 2008, 2009].”
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2010GL045777/full
The UV spectrum is a fraction of that. Even if you say there is a cumulative effect, it would be impossible to parse out from the very noisy and poorly measured global data, whether it be local, regional, or globally averaged.
http://spgftp.ucsd.edu/People/Mati/2003_Ahmad_et_al_UV_radiation_SPIE.pdf
If you have disagreements with me, don’t bother. Instead present a cogent argument against the articles I have linked to.
No, just no. Have they eyes? They get one flat wiggle with a lag that doesn’t help the overall fit. Everything else varies from phase to antiphase. Just like the Milankovitch stuff (absent the unexplained period shift).
The problem with the climate realists camp is this.
The global warming alarmists are united behind one key body, namely, the United Nations (which has global influence over the left wing media, politicians and government paid/funded climate scientists, to help push their IPCC climate lies).
Which unifying body represents the climate realists? There isn’t one. Is it therefore any surprise that governments don’t get to hear the truth about the climate? For example, Obama recently presented his climate lies speeches in Alaska, yet nobody knows his rhetoric was lies.
It is studies like this one about solar influence on climate that should be distributed across the world to all governments and media and science academies. Yet there is nobody doing this although I recognise the efforts of the NIPCC.