Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming (CAGW)
Guest essay by Dr. Norman Page
1.The Problems with the IPCC – GCM Climate Forecasting methods.
Harrison and Stainforth say in: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/eost2009EO13/pdf
“Reductionism argues that deterministic approaches to science and positivist views of causation are the appropriate methodologies for exploring complex, multivariate systems … where the behavior of a complex system can be deduced from the fundamental reductionist understanding. Rather, large, complex systems may be better understood, and perhaps only understood, in terms of observed, emergent behavior. The practical implication is that there exist system behaviors and structures that are not amenable to explanation or prediction by reductionist methodologies … the GCM is the numerical solution of a complex but purely deterministic set of nonlinear partial differential equations over a defined spatiotemporal grid, and no attempt is made to introduce any quantification of uncertainty into its construction … [T]he reductionist argument that large scale behaviour can be represented by the aggregative effects of smaller scale process has never been validated in the context of natural environmental systems .”
The modelling approach is inherently of no value for predicting future temperature with any calculable certainty because of the difficulty of specifying the initial conditions of a sufficiently fine grained spatio-temporal grid of a large number of variables with sufficient precision prior to multiple iterations. For a complete discussion of this see Essex:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvhipLNeda4
and for a detailed discussion see Section 1 at
http://climatesense-norpag.blogspot.com/2014/07/climate-forecasting-methods-and-cooling.html
Section IPCC AR4 WG1 8.6 deals with forcings, feedbacks and climate sensitivity.It recognizes the the short comings of the models.The conclusions are in section 8.6.4 which concludes:
“Moreover it is not yet clear which tests are critical for constraining the future projections, consequently a set of model metrics that might be used to narrow the range of plausible climate change feedbacks and climate sensitivity has yet to be developed”
What could be clearer. The IPCC in 2007 said itself that it doesn’t even know what metrics to put into the models to test their reliability (i.e., we don’t know what future temperatures will be and we can’t calculate the climate sensitivity to CO2). This also begs a further question of what erroneous assumptions (e.g., that CO2 is the main climate driver) went into the “plausible” models to be tested any way.
Even the IPCC itself has now given up on estimating CS – the AR5 SPM says ( hidden away in a footnote)
“No best estimate for equilibrium climate sensitivity can now be given because of a lack of agreement on values across assessed lines of evidence and studies”
Paradoxically they still claim that UNFCCC can dial up a desired temperature by controlling CO2 levels .This is cognitive dissonance so extreme as to be irrational.There is no empirical evidence which proves that CO2 has anything more than a negligible effect on temperatures.
Equally importantly the climate models on which the entire Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming delusion rests are structured without regard to the natural 60+/- and more importantly 1000 year periodicities ( observed emergent behaviors) so obvious in the temperature record. The modelers approach is simply a scientific disaster and lacks even average commonsense .It is exactly like taking the temperature trend from say Feb – July and projecting it ahead linearly for 20 years or so. The models are back-tuned for less than 100 years when the relevant time scale is millennial.
Fig1 (Amended ( Green Line Added) from Syun-Ichi Akasofu)http://www.scirp.org/journal/PaperInformation.aspx?paperID=3217
Figure 1 above compares the IPCC forecast with the Akasofu paper forecast and with the simple but most economic working hypothesis of this post (green line) that the peak at about 2003 is the most recent peak in the millennial cycle so obvious in the temperature data.The data also shows that the well documented 60 year temperature cycle coincidentally peaks at about the same time.
The temperature projections of the IPCC – UK Met office models and all the impact studies which derive from them have no solid foundation in empirical science being derived from inherently useless and specifically structurally flawed models. They provide no basis for the discussion of future climate trends and represent an enormous waste of time and money. As a foundation for Governmental climate and energy policy their forecasts are already seen to be grossly in error and are therefore worse than useless.
A new forecasting paradigm needs to be adopted.
2. The Past is the Key to the Present and Future . Finding then Forecasting the Natural Quasi-Periodicities Governing Earths Climate – the Geological Approach.
2.1 General Principles.
The core competency in the Geological Sciences is the ability to recognize and correlate the changing patterns of events in time and space. This requires a mindset and set of skills very different from the reductionist approach to nature, but one which is appropriate and necessary for investigating past climates and forecasting future climate trends. Scientists and modelers with backgrounds in physics and maths usually have little experience in correlating multiple, often fragmentary, data sets of multiple variables.
It is necessary build an understanding of the patterns and a narrative of general trends from the actual individual local and regional time series of particular variables. Earth’s climate is the result of resonances and beats between various quasi-cyclic processes of varying wavelengths.
It is not possible to forecast the future unless we have a good understanding of where the earth is in relation to the current phases of these different interacting natural quasi-periodicities which fall into two main categories.
a) The orbital long wave Milankovitch eccentricity,obliquity and precessional cycles which are modulated by
b) Solar “activity” cycles with possibly multi-millennial, millennial, centennial and decadal time scales.
2.2 The Present Warming in Relation to the Milankovitch Cycles.
Fig. 2 (From Wiki-Milankovic)
We are past the peak of the latest interglacial warming ( Fig.2) with a declining trend for the last 3500 years. (Fig 3)
2.3 The Quasi – Millennial Solar Cycle -Periodicity.
Fig 3 (http://www.climate4you.com/) -(See Humlum’s overview section)
Note the peaks at about 10,000,9000,8000,7000,2000,1000 BP and then the latest peaks seen more clearly at about 990 in Fig 4 and about 2003 in Fig 5.
Fig 4. ( Christiansen and Ljungqvist 2012 (Fig 5) http://www.clim-past.net/8/765/2012/cp-8-765-2012.pdf )
Fig 5.
From Figures 4 and 5 the period of the latest millennial cycle is from about 990 to 2003 or 1,013 years. This is remarkably consistent with the 1,024 periodicity seen in the solar activity wavelet analysis fromhttps://epic.awi.de/30297/1/PNAS-2012-Steinhilber-1118965109.pdf
It is of interest that the quasi millennial peaks in Fig 3 are from Greenland while the 1024 year periodicities in Fig 6 are from Antarctica.
Fig 6
2.4 The Quasi-Millennial Temperature Cycle – Amplitude
A useful empirical estimate of the amplitude of the NH temperature millennial cycle can made from the 50 year moving average curve (red) of Fig 4 above.It is about 1.7 degrees C from the 990 peak to the LIA minimum at about 1640.This is consonant with the estimate of Shindell, Schmidt,Mann et al Solar Forcing of Regional Climate Change During the Maunder Minimumhttp://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/2001/2001_Shindell_etal_1.pdf
2.5 The Solar Driver.
.The most important factor in climate forecasting is where earth is in regard to the quasi- millennial natural solar activity cycle which has a period in the 960 – 1024 year range. From Fig 4 above it is trivially obvious that the earth is just approaching ,just at or just past a peak in the millennial cycle.
The best proxy for solar activity is the neutron monitor count and 10 Be data.
The general increase in solar activity which accounts for the temperature rise since the Little Ice Age is obvious in the ice core 10 Be flux data between about 1700 and the late twentieth century.
Fig. 7 ( From Berggren et al) http://www.eawag.ch/forschung/surf/publikationen/2009/2009_berggren.pdf
My view ,based on the Oulu neutron count – Fig 8 combined with Figures 4,5, 6 and 7 above is that the solar activity millennial maximum peaked in Cycle 22 in about 1991.
Fig 8
There is a varying lag between the solar activity peak and the corresponding peak in the different temperature metrics. There is a 12 year delay between the solar activity peak and the millennial cyclic temperature peak seen in the RSS data at 2003.( Fig 5 above )
3.Forecasts
3.1 Long Term .
I am a firm believer in the value of Ockham’s razor thus the simplest working hypothesis based on the weight of all the data is that the millennial temperature cycle peaked at about 2003 and that the general trends from 990 – 2003 seen in Fig 4 will repeat from 2003-3016 with the depths of the next LIA at about 2640.
3.2 Medium Term.
Looking at the shorter 60+/- year wavelengths the simplest hypothesis is that the cooling trend from 2003 forward will simply be a mirror image of the rising trend. This is illustrated by the green curve in Fig,1.which shows cooling until 2038 ,slight warming to 2073, then cooling to the end of the century.
3.3 Current Trends
The cooling trend from the millennial peak at 2003 is illustrated in blue in Fig 5. From 2015 on,the decadal cooling trend is obscured by the current El Nino. The SOI peaked in late 2015.Temperature peaks usually lag the SOI peak by 6-7 months so there may be further modest warming through April 2016. Thereafter during 2017 – 2019 we might reasonably expect a cooling at least as great as that seen during the 1998 El Nino decline in Fig 5 – about 0.9 C
It is worth noting that the increase in the neutron count in 2007 seen in Fig 8 indicated a possible solar regime change which might produce an unexpectedly sharp decline in RSS temperatures 12 years later – 2019 +/- to levels significantly below the blue trend line in Fig 5.
4.Conclusions.
To the detriment of the reputation of science in general, establishment climate scientists made two egregious errors of judgment in their method of approach to climate forecasting and thus in their advice to policy makers in successive SPMs. First, they based their analyses on inherently untestable and specifically structurally flawed models which included many questionable assumptions. Second they totally ignored the natural, solar driven , millennial and multi-decadal quasi-cycles. Unless we know where we are with regard to and then incorporate the phase of the millennial cycle in particular, useful forecasting is simply impossible.
It is fashionable in establishment climate circles to present climate forecasting as a “wicked” problem.I would by contrast contend that by adopting the appropriate time scale and method for analysis it becomes entirely tractable so that commonsense working hypotheses with sufficient likely accuracy and chances of success to guide policy can be formulated.
If the real outcomes follow the near term forecasts in para 3.3 above I suggest that the establishment position is untenable past 2020.This is imminent in climate terms. The essential point of this post is that the 2003 peak in Fig 1 marks a millennial peak which is totally ignored in all the IPCC projections.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
I looked at the PDF(http://www.scirp.org/journal/PaperInformation.aspx?paperID=3217) and saw no “Green line extension” as indicated in Fig. 9. What am I missing.
Also I am unsure about how applicable “Ockham’s razor” is to any science project. For example when an electron is combined with a proton one would expect simply a charge cancellation combination that produces a neutron. However the electron mysteriously changes one of the “quarks” in the proton to make it a neutron. Another example is statistical handling of clusters (cancer for example) which in many cases acquit what would appear to be an obvious cause such as leaked radiation or other poisons.
See Fig 1 title – Fig1 (Amended ( Green Line Added) from Syun-Ichi Akasofu
I added the green line.
Sometimes things can be a lot simpler that they seem. If one wants to learn about the relationship between two variables, one has to get the best data available for as long time as possible and then observe how they change. Dr. Svalgaard is right. Periods of high solar activity do not coincide with periods of high temperatures. But there is a clear relationship. It is the periods of low solar activity that coincide with periods of low temperatures. Whenever you get periods of low solar activity, specially grand minima, and very specially clusters of grand minima, temperatures are always below average. The cycles are very clear, a ~2500 years cycle, a ~1000 years cycle, and a ~210 years cycle. Sometimes they become weak and disappear, but they always come back. The ~210 years is only apparent near the lows in the ~2500 years cycle lows, like now. The ~1000 years cycle disappeared between 5000 and 2000 years BP, but is back now. They are detected not only in solar activity or temperatures, but also in glacier dynamics, ocean sediments, tree rings, cave speleothems…
In my opinion the millennial cycle will peak in the third quarter of the 21st century, but we should not see much more solar warming since we are very close to its peak. We have entered a short period of reduced solar activity that should last until around 2050, so not much warming coming for the next decades.
So in the next figure what you have to look is not to the highs in solar activity, but to the lows, they are the ones telling how the cycle is doing.
DO NOT PAY MUCH ATTENTION TO THE HIGHS IN SOLAR ACTIVITY. JUST WATCH FOR THE LOWS!
http://i1039.photobucket.com/albums/a475/Knownuthing/Scafetta2_zpsa4hcvfi3.png
If you are still doubtful, just draw there any cold period using your favorite temperature reconstruction or CET.
By the way, temperature is not determined by the level of solar activity, but by the degree of obliquity of the Earth’s axis. Low solar activity causes cooling followed by slow recovery after solar activity recovers due to the system inertia. The recovery from a low in the 2500 years cycle takes up to 400 years. After the recovery ends temperatures slowly move towards the value determined by obliquity, which in the present is below current average by 0.4-0.6°C.
Leif,
Nature is full of cycles and quasiperiodic oscillations. Some respond to permanent causes and persist even if they come and go. An example is the Dansgaard-Oeschger cycle. It comes and goes depending on conditions, but when it returns, it does so with the exact same periodicity that it had before, indicating that the mechanisms causing the oscillation have been ticking even when no effect was produced.
Others are simply oscillations that appear, repeat for some time and then disappear, indicating that they are a product of changing conditions, like waves in the water from a random stone.
In any case the use of this oscillations improves the predictive capabilities over other methods. One can learn more about what is a watch, how it works, and what is measuring, simple by observing it and opening its back (top down), than by starting from its pieces, specially if one does not know how to put them together (bottom up).
I have reached the same prediction as you about cycle 25 (about the same as 24) simply by looking at how cycles evolve. I can even predict cycles 26 to 29 as returning to values close to cycles 21-22. To you this has no value because I can’t explain why, but neither can you, and a description of how the system works is important and useful to investigate why it works that way. By rejecting this description of cyclical phenomena in solar output you blind yourself to its causes. I will not find out why the solar cycles take place and how, but that is not my job, as I am not a solar physicist. I am a scientist in biological sciences very used to see cycles in nature and all type of biological pacemakers. Some cycles are real and others are not, but a thorough description of the system is an essential first step to start understanding how it works. Carl Linnaeus was not an evolutionist, but his accurate description of taxonomical groups without understanding how they arose was essential to the evolutionary theory and is still used.
Why do you not think that the last millennial temperature cycle ran from 990 – 2003 (Figs 4 and 5) -1013 years.
The wavelet analysis Fig 6 shows a periodicity at 1024 and the solar peak is plausibly at 1991- add on a 12 year delay = 2003. Fig 8
I think these are close enough not to be coincidental.
What about a deVries cycle from 1810 – 2020.That would suggest a Dalton type minimum at the 24/25 low at about 2020.
See also section 3.3 above “It is worth noting that the increase in the neutron count in 2007 seen in Fig 8 indicated a possible solar regime change which might produce an unexpectedly sharp decline in RSS temperatures 12 years later – 2019 +/- to levels significantly below the blue trend line in Fig 5.”
Cyclomania
Simple common sense a la Ockham
Norman,
You are running the millennial cycle from high to high, it has to be run from low to low. Starting 11,200 years BP, and once the ~2500 years cycle is accounted for, there are 12 lows in the millennial cycle giving its average duration at ~985 years. Lows in the cycle tend to produce grand solar minima but they can take place within a three centuries period of the low, so the dating has some imprecision.
Lows numbers 12 to 8 coincide with Bond events 8, 7, 6, 5b and 5a. Then the cycle starts to weaken and lows 7 and 6 contribute to two peaks in Bond event 4. You can see the weakening of the millennial cycle between 5000 and 2000 years BP in the wavelet analysis shown in your figure 6. Still the lows 5 and 4 contribute to the much reduced Bond events 3a and 2b. The low 3 is nowhere to be seen in the Bond series, but is marked by the grand solar minimum at -2310 BP (360 BC) named the Greek grand solar minimum, whose end marks the start of the Roman Warm Period. Then the millennial cycle resurges and the next low is marked by the Roman grand solar minimum at -1265 BP (685 CE) that together with a strong volcanic eruption dated at 682 CE caused a marked decline in temperatures and a global glacier advance, separating the Roman Warm Period from the Medieval Warm Period. The last low is at the Little Ice Age, that is also a low in the ~2500 years cycle and together produce four grand solar minima, making it difficult to date the low in the millennial cycle but probably around 1670 CE. The next low should therefore be around 2650 CE.
You are more interested about cycle highs, but this is a cycle defined by its lows. There is no high in solar activity and grand solar maxima do not show any periodicity nor appear to affect temperatures much. Peak temperatures during the cycle are not necessarily at mid-cycle and they are affected by other factors, like volcanic eruptions and the ~1500 years oceanic cycle. Given that Late Holocene temperatures are declining due to falling obliquity, peak temperatures tend to happen before mid-cycle. Previous mid-cycle was at about 1200 CE but temperatures seem to have peaked around the 11th century.
The de Vries cycle goes from 1670 to 1880. The next low should be around 2090, but since we are already far from the ~2500 years cycle low, it might not have much of an effect. The Dalton minimum was a product of the millennial cycle being still close to its low. Current reduction in solar activity should not produce a grand solar minimum, nor the next as we are close to the high of the millennial solar cycle. We are essentially safe from grand solar minima until after 2200 CE. Cycle 25 should be about the same as cycle 24, and cycle 26 should start a recovery in solar activity.
We are truly living the best of times, as the Romans did. Global warming should stall and we might see a moderate reduction until 2030-2050, with a moderate increase afterwards, being pretty much in a plateau interrupted temporarily by El Niño Southern Oscillation and occasional volcanic eruptions. The dangerous cooling is left for future generations.
You call it “Cyclomania”, but the fact is that we know there ARE cycles, and we know they impinge on temperature. Yes, it’s a difficult problem to solve, but throwing your hands up and chanting “CO2, CO2, CO2” isn’t helping.
“Guest essay by Dr. Norman Page”.
I read your page a couple of days back, nicely done, enjoyed it the first time so read it twice, good to see it re-posted on WUWT.
Now to me if I look to the future to predict future climate I’m guessing but if I look at the past climate (which is certain unless modified by NOAA) I can have a basic but very rough assessment of what the climate might be like next year .
Or even further out Co2 or no Co2 induced , don’t know why it’s so hard for the boffins .
The graph of surface temperatures in figure 1 is out of date and doesn’t truly reflect how poor the IPCC models have performed. Surface temperatures have plummeted since 2009 with some of the coldest years on record in the last few years. We are now back to 1970 temperature levels on some days. At this rate Syun-Ichi Akasofu’s prediction of cooling might be an underestimate.
The cooling green line is my amendment of Akasofu’s paper.
I am not very keen on Leif’s dismissive attitude to problems. Blaming the 1,000-year temperature cycle on noise is just too simplistic and convenient. A true scientist would be piqued by the mystery, and want to know more.
We had this before, when Leif dismissed the missing precessional cycles in the ice age record. Rather than dismissing it, I put the grey matter to use and developed the dust-ice albedo theory of ice age modulation (which is in formal peer review at the moment). But despite being so animated about that topic, Leif will not even comment on it. (A much improved final version was uploaded last week.)
I find this strange. There are mysteries still to be solved out there, and by solving them you might discover something else. In my case, the dust-ice albedo theory completely negates the role of Co2 within ice age temperature modulation. It is simply not required. So solving one small mystery has undermined the great theory of our age.
Ralph
Our sun is cyclic in many ways, those that deny it are cyclophobic.
Can you be prosecuted for cyclophobia? Or is that another one? There are so many modern taboos, I get confused sometimes. 😉
Only if you have it but deny having it in a rash tweet.
I think Rash Tweet would be a groovy name for a band, man.
Groovy!
Could you add more recent data points onto figure 1 please? 2008 is included, but that is a long time ago. If you added recent data we could see which line was closer to reality.
From a quick view it looks as tough the green line is hopelessly off target, whilst the IPCC prediction looks much closer to what has happened.
…You truly are delusional !!
See Fig 5 which goes through Feb 2016.
Yes, that is what I mean. The anomaly shown in figure 5 is close to 1C. If we plot this on figure one, it looks like it would be close to the IPCC line, and way off the green line.
Marcus – why do you say I am delusional? A simple look at the numbers in the article seems to show I am right.
catweazle666 (March 24, 2016 at 3:03 pm) asks
“If the apparent (millennial) cycle is not solar in origin, what do you suggest produced – and apparently is still producing – it?”
Millennial cycle is caused by aliasing between lunar orbital ocean tides (lunar synodic month 29.53 days) and the change in the annual insolation caused by the Earth’s orbital period of 365.25 days
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/MC.gif
3.1 Long Term .
I am a firm believer in the value of Ockham’s razor thus the simplest working hypothesis based on the weight of all the data is that the millennial temperature cycle peaked at about 2003 and that the general trends from 990 – 2003 seen in Fig 4 will repeat from 2003-3016 with the depths of the next LIA at about 2640
You have Occam’s Razor wrong. The best answer is not the simplest, but the one with the fewest assumptions. Simple assuming that previous trends will continue requires more assumptions than physical explanation of the temperature. Occam’s Razor does not support your predictions.
I am the one who does not assume straight line projections for the future The main take away from this post is that the millennial cycle peaked about 2003 and we are headed for a general cooling for the next 650 or so years. The establishment projects straight ahead. You can’t have fewer assumptions than one.!!
The establishment says “more carbon == more heating” and says that it’s simple physics, and if you don’t reduce carbon in the atmosphere, you ARE GOING TO (97% agreement) have more warming.
Russ Nelson (@russnelson)
How many government self-called “climate scientist establishments” can you buy for 92 billion in research funds, salaries, travel, new labs, new computers, endless publication promises, promotions, bureaucracies, offices, staffs, programming and publicity?
How many government establishments can you buy for 1.3 trillion dollars a year in carbon taxes?
How many establishments and governments and banks and stock markets and futures markets can you buy for 31 trillions dollars a year in carbon futures trading and unregulated carbon offset purchases and exchanges?
Oh. I’m sorry. $25,000.00 in a one-year contract forever corrupts a conservative, doesn’t it?
How many of Hillary’s 31,000 deleted emails were about carbon taxes and carbon offset bribes from the oil-producing cartels?
The answer is well-known: any complex non-linear system has quasi-periodic internal fluctuations at frequencies determined by the parameters of the system.
================
the sun is just such a system
occasionally it does get out of control as it did in 1780s, otherwise it is a well behaved star.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/C14s.png
I am now convinced that the sun has only a minor effect on our climate. My eyes have been opened by the following “powerful” arguments:
1. Cyclomania.
2. Sun too weak.
3. Your brains are falling out.
4. Volcanoes, aerosols, manmade influences, oceans, etc.
Did I miss any?
5. We don’t know the cause so it can’t be the sun.
If it’s not the sun then it must be CO2.
See how that works?
I am happy to let you know that my brains have been put back into their proper place now that the ” Cyclophobic ” has left the building !!
*laughs so hard milk comes out of nose*
And to all of the above, remember and add http://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/03/16/climate-variations-analyzed-5-million-years-back-in-time-show-repeating-fractal-patterns/ : that the Earth’s climate is a non-linear, chaotic system. Complex doesn’t begin to describe it.
Re solar effects. The emphasis here appears to be primarily on the solar output. A far greater effect is probably the solar magnetic field’s effect on cloud-causing cosmic radiation.
http://drtimball.com/2011/svensmark%E2%80%99s-cosmic-theory-confirmed-explains-more-than-solar-role-in-climate-change/
http://www.solarstorms.org/CloudCover.html
http://www.sciencebits.com/ice-ages
Except that cosmic rays have not varied the same way as global temperatures
Leif I’ve always admired your paper and Fig 5 at http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1004/1004.2675.pdf
I like to stay as close to the basic data as possible. This Fig shows very clearly in the Be10 flux data the increase in solar activity from the late 17th century Maunder minimum to the later 20th century solar maximum .Note also the solar low at the Dalton minimum.-about 1815.
For an intriguing speculation I repeat an earlier comment from above.:
“Why do you not think that the last millennial temperature cycle ran from 990 – 2003 (Figs 4 and 5) -1013 years.
The wavelet analysis Fig 6 shows a periodicity at 1024 and the solar peak is plausibly at 1991- add on a 12 year delay = 2003. Fig 8
I think these are close enough not to be coincidental.
What about a deVries cycle ((210 years )) from 1810 – 2020.That would suggest a Dalton type minimum at the 24/25 low at about 2020.”
That would be a real shocker if it turns up.!!
I’m aware of your original conclusions “this implies that more than 50% the 10Be……..etc”
I think you would do better sticking with Fig 10 as a guide to the solar – temperature connection.
Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.
Anyway thanks for the work on original paper- very helpful.
This Fig shows very clearly in the Be10 flux data the increase in solar activity from the late 17th century Maunder minimum to the later 20th century solar maximum
First, it is wrong to base the trend from a minimum to a maximum. Second: the paper purports to show that the data is unreliable. Progress happens. Here is the evolution of cosmic rays and the sunspot number the past 400 years:
http://www.leif.org/research/Comparison-GSN-14C-Modulation.png
The Waldmeier Effect says the same thing, see Slide 23 and 27 of
http://www.leif.org/research/The-Waldmeier-Effect.pdf
“From which one can conclude that our records that show that Solar Activity reached the same level in each century from the 18th onwards (and possibly from the 17th as well) are very likely correct
• Therefore the Modern Maximum has not been particularly Grand compared to the maxima in previous centuries”
So, no recent 1000-year cycle peak in Solar Activity.
What about a deVries cycle ((210 years )) from 1810 – 2020.That would suggest a Dalton type minimum at the 24/25 low at about 2020. That would be a real shocker if it turns up.!!
Many people have suggested that, so the shock will not be all that great. There is a 100-year quasi-cycle, but that could just be a random fluctuation that may not be something one can predict on. As far as we can tell at this time, Cycle 25 will be like Cycle 24 [but it is really to early to make an actionable prediction – NASA and ESA actually use our predictions for satellite de-orbit planning], see http://www.leif.org/research/Comparing-HMI-WSO-Polar-Fields.pdf
You say “First, it is wrong to base the trend from a minimum to a maximum. ” I’m not. I say it is common sense to look at the minimum envelope – connect 1695 ,1810 1905,2000.That trend is the trend of increasing solar activity. I do not understand why you can’t accept that.Obviously during the period of this graph there is some general maximum cut off at 800 – 850 Mev. We enter a new regime about 2007/8.
connect 1695 ,1810 1905,2000
2000 is a sunspot maximum year. Try 2009.
And often you say that 1700 was small compared to late 20th century. You cannot compare a single year with half a century. Try to compare 1700 to 2008 for proper perspective.
The solar data shows that there is no trend from the 18th to the 20th century. If you don’t want to accept that, there is really not much further discussion needed nor desirable.
Actually that trend is the rising leg of the asymmetric 1024 year cycle.
There is no trend connecting the minima either:
http://www.leif.org/research/Estimate-of-Group-Number.png
Leif – just do it. Stretch the vertical scale a bit for visibility and carefully join the minima from 1697. -the present.Although the previous graph was a better representation of the Maunder –
Recent relative flux strength.
Be my guest:
http://www.leif.org/research/Fig-36-Estimate-of-Group-Number-Big.png
Leif, I think Norman is referring to something like this:
A straight line joining the maximal number of spots from the lower cycles turns out to be the average of recorded temperatures.
http://i1039.photobucket.com/albums/a475/Knownuthing/Scafetta2b_zpsudzo8hhu.png
If that is what he means, he should make that Figure the central one on his post and website. I’m waiting for him to do that.
Javier No – just join the actual minimas as I said.
You mean like this???
http://i1039.photobucket.com/albums/a475/Knownuthing/Scafetta3_zpssmplfapv.png
Looks good to me:
http://www.leif.org/research/Page-Fail-1.png
Shows the falling branch of the “1000-year” cycle …
Javiers version is what I meant. .This shows why in my forecasts I rely on the cosmogenic data. as the most useful proxy for solar activity ( including especially Leifs Fig 5 )
See fig 1 at http://arxiv.org/pdf/1512.05516.pdf.
Both the GSN and the cosmic ray data are proxies for” solar magnetic activity”. with some deeper solar origin .How ever the GSN only captures a portion of the effects of solar variability which is better captured in the NM count on earth ( Oulu is my choice) and which is ,I think ,the main control on climate on millennial time scales via clouds and natural aerosols (optical depth). and closely related to temperature.
the effects of solar variability which is better captured in the NM count on earth
I have given you several links to show that the NM count is heavily influenced by climate and is a poor measure of solar activity.
And here is Usoskin’s (middle panel, from http://arxiv.org/pdf/1507.05191v1.pdf ) cosmic ray modulation parameter:
http://www.leif.org/research/Usoskin-et-al.png
As you can see there is no trend since 1700.
I think you meant to say the 10 Be ice core flux.
The 10Be ice core flux is highly unreliable, up to half of it due to non-solar effects, e.g. climate.
While not exactly identical, as they shouldn’t be since there is a known contribution to temperatures by many other factors, like volcanic activity, oceanic currents, changes in GHGs, and so on, these two things (temperatures and solar irradiance) bear a striking similarity. So, is it just chance?
http://i1039.photobucket.com/albums/a475/Knownuthing/NotFlimsyTempTSI_zps1xdzheln.png
The bottom figure is a northern hemisphere temperature reconstruction from multiples proxies and sources by Wenner et al. 2008 in their Holocene review.
If the relationship is not by chance, then any periodicity found in one by Fourier/wavelet analysis could show up in the other. I think we have the cause/effect relationship sufficiently clear to not claim that temperatures on Earth are influencing solar irradiation variability.
Earth temperature is primarily and to the greatest extent controlled by our local star, or at least that is what our longest instrumental temperature record appears to show.. According to scientists solar activity is well represented by the C14 proxy.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/C14b.png
This may be to a degree correct, but there is an un-natural burst in 1780s. There is no logic or reliable data to justify this. An up tic in solar activity equal to that in the previous or following decades is most likely
There is a good reason for the CET not following the sun, since there was strong volcanic activity in Iceland at that time, which had large effect on the N. W European climate for a number of years.
The Laki eruption starting in June 1873 lasted for about 8 months, ejecting an estimated 14 km3 of basaltic lava from more than 100 vents along more than 20 km fissure and cones. This was one of the largest basaltic eruptions known. Nearby Grímvötn erupted more than half a dozen times from 1783 to 1785. For Iceland itself, the following winter (1783/84) was known as the ‘Famine Winter’: 25% of the population died.
UK winter (1783 December – 1784 February) was one of the coldest, CET was 1.2C, some 2.5C below the all-series average. The Thames was completely frozen in February and traffic crossed on the ice.
1784 was cold year (in the ‘top-10 coldest years in the CET record), the summer was very wet in London/South; sleeting in the Moray Firth in August with a heavy snow in London on in October.
Above graph shows that CET apparently leads solar C14 modulation.
Explanation could be as follows:
The C14 data shown in the graph is extracted from tree rings . There is a primary delay of one year due to the time solar wind takes to reach heliopause where the solar modulation takes place, so intensity of cosmic rays reaching us today was modulated by solar activity of a year ago.
The greatest amount of delay (I am told by the resident expert) is due to the ‘the residence time of 14C which is of the order of 40 years’.
Or (as I suspected in past) the amount of C14 in the atmosphere could be also dependant on atmospheric precipitation which is dependant on the temperatures, in which case the C14 proxy is an excellent proxy only for the C14 itself, as is is the case for the other well known proxy, the 10Be.
Evidence of climate being controlled by sun for all or at least the most of 350 years of the CET records would be compelling if the C14 data was good proxy for solar activity, but that is a big if.
New Svalgaard’s sunspot data from the 1700s is based only on an average of 22 sun observations/annum, it has 40% difference between minimum and maximum estimates, and surprisingly the mid value(despite its + or – 20% uncertainty) happens to closely follow the C14 average.
I am sceptical about the total reliability of the C14 data itself as well as the C14 being a reliable proxy for the all solar energy delivered into the geo-sphere’s totality.
New Svalgaard’s sunspot data from the 1700s is based only on an average of 22 sun observations/annum
The ‘classic’ sunspot number [that you seem to like] is based on the very same observations…
And 22 observations per year are all it takes to get a good average yearly value [Hoyt & Schatten, 1998].
But, as usual, you don’t know what you are talking about.
Hoyt and Schatten in their first look at solar activity concluded
http://www.leif.org/EOS/H-and-S-1992-GSN.pdf
that “the yearly peak for 1769 should be about 139. The 13 month running mean equals 146.8 and occurs in October, 1769. Thus solar cycle 2 is much like solar cycle 8 with a smoothed peak of 1837, solar cycle 11 with a smoothed peak of 140.5 in 1870, or solar cycle 18 with a smoothed peak of 151.8 in 1947”.
– than just as bad as the newly designed ones
– they would say so, wouldn’t they.
– not knowing, preferable to telling wrong
YOU WROTE:
“It is not possible to forecast the future unless we have a good understanding of where the earth is in relation to the current phases of these different interacting natural quasi-periodicities which fall into two main categories.”
MY COMMENT:
The sentence would be more accurate is it stopped after:
“It is not possible to forecast the future.”
It would be possible to have a goof understanding of what causes climate change … and still be unable to predict the future climate.
Data on sunspots and very rough estimates of CO2 levels and average temperatures from climate proxies may be far from reality.
Earth’s ice ages, I’ll assume five of them so far, were not evenly spaced in the past 4.5 billion years.
Should one focus on the current ice age and ignore the prior four?
Or is that done only because the data for the current ice age are better?
THE PRIMARY PROBLEM with the current sorry state of “climate science” is too many predictions of the future.
I guess with every decade of my life I realize more and more that predictions of the future are so often wrong I’m better off ignoring them.
It is certainly not possible to forecast the future without a correct climate physics model that ex[plains climate change.
Until that model exists, and probably after it exists, predictions of the future climate are likely to be wrong.
Free climate blog for non-scientists
A public service
No ads — no money for me
http://www.elOnionBloggle.Blohgspot.com
Not so .If you take a view over an appropriate time scale – a couple of thousand years say and know where you are re the natural periodicities, reasonably accurate predictions are fairly straightforward.
Provided that there is a real periodicity. The standard way of showing that is to make a forecast and see the forecast come true, which you have not done [it will take 1000 years].
I made some forecasts in the posts above .Here is what I say about verification See
http://climatesense-norpag.blogspot.com/2015/08/the-epistemology-of-climate-forecasting.html
“Ava asks – the blue line is almost flat. – When will we know for sure that we are on the down slope of the thousand year cycle and heading towards another Little Ice Age.
Grandpa says- I’m glad to see that you have developed an early interest in Epistemology. Remember ,I mentioned the 60 year cycle, well, the data shows that the temperature peak in 2003 was close to a peak in both that cycle and the 1000 year cycle. If we are now entering the downslope of the 1000 year cycle then the next peak in the 60 year cycle at about 2063 should be lower than the 2003 peak and the next 60 year peak after that at about 2123 should be lower again, so, by that time ,if the peak is lower, we will be pretty sure that we are on our way to the next little ice age.
That is a long time to wait, but we will get some useful clues a long time before that. Look again at the red curve in Fig 3 – you can see that from the beginning of 2007 to the end of 2009 solar activity dropped to the lowest it has been for a long time. Remember the 12 year delay between the 1991 solar activity peak and the 2003 temperature trend break. , if there is a similar delay in the response to lower solar activity , earth should see a cold spell from 2019 to 2021 when you will be in Middle School.
It should also be noticeably cooler at the coolest part of the 60 year cycle – halfway through the present 60 year cycle at about 2033.
We can watch for these things to happen but meanwhile keep in mind that the overall cyclic trends can be disturbed for a time in some years by the El Nino weather patterns in the Pacific and the associated high temperatures that we see in for example 1998 ,2010 and especially from 2015 on.
Why is Leif allowed to be snotty to everyone who disagrees with him, but if Marcus is snotty back he is threatened with moderation?
It is OK, Leif believes climate science is a contact sport – it is just the way he is. His remarks are usually extremely pertinent and make one think – this is not a bad thing. You usually don’t learn much from people who agree with you.
…mummble…mummble mummble………mummble !!! ( I’m safe talking this way though !! ) LOL
..Probably not quite as funny though !!
Not bad the first time, really.
I was going to ask the exact same question Keith.
‘Twas ever thus it seems.
Norm Page,
And yet, your approach is also a model. Any theory constructs a model of past events in order to project future events. If you are saying models are “inherently of no value”, then no attempt to make projections should be made at all. Your article then serves no purpose.
No, that is what you are doing. You are criticizing the act of plugging past events into a mathematical model, constructing a trendline, and projecting that line forward, without any understanding of what caused the past events to occur. That is precisely your own approach.
Oh, wait, you are merely saying this simplistic form of projecting-without-understanding should use a longer timeline. The error you are decrying is the error you are yourself committing — you’re just doing more of it. And then you’re claiming that any attempt to understand the causes of the observed changes is doomed to failure. In other words, the whole idea of science and technology, you say, is silly.
Yet you say this over the internet. Very amusing.
As “Smart Rock” put it above:
No, that’s exactly not how science works. A collection of observations is, at best, uncategorized data. If there is no attempt at understanding the cause behind the observations, it is mere trivia. In contrast, science is the process of determining and proving the causes. Collecting observations is just one of the tools of science.
Smart Rock (and some others) seem to be saying that any proposed explanation is as good as any other, and all are really irrelevant — what matters is the mathterbation of imagining “cycles”. Norm Page seems to be saying something similar, in his contempt for “modelling” [sic] (even though his “cycles” also constitute a “model”. albeit a laughably simplistic one). The process of explanation-by-cycles is precisely equivalent to constructing constellations by imagining them to be outlines of terrestrial animals.
The desire to “explain” by used of unexplained “cycles” is a most regrettable form of anti-science.
Explain why some rocks will spin to face north.
Oh, you can’t?
Obviously, they don’t, then, without your explanation.
I am not trying to explain the cycles – merely in the first instance observing them and their periodicities – like e g the Babylonians who were then able to forecast eclipses
For a detailed explanation of why the IPCC climate models are useless see Section 1 at
http://climatesense-norpag.blogspot.com/2014/07/climate-forecasting-methods-and-cooling.html
Precisely my point. Since correlation is not causation, your past observations are of less value than an theory based on actual physics which satisfactorily explains the causes of past events. You claimed the opposite, that an understanding of causes is less valuable than non-causal pattern-seeking.
The constellation of Orion is not actually a big man up in the sky, even if you think you see a pattern there. Documentation of patterns might help in an effort to seek knowledge about the underlying realities, but such pattern-making does not, in itself, tell us anything we didn’t already know.
For example, when unprecedented influences happen (such as massive injection of infrared-absorbing gasses into the atmosphere), the already limited value of non-causal pattern-making vanishes completely. Pattern-making cannot tell us anything about what might happen next. Only an understanding of the underlying physics can tell us what effect, if any, the unprecedented influences will have, and what the extent of that effect is likely to be.
My favorite TV show was aired every Thursday at 8:00 pm for many years when I was a child. It was an unmistakable pattern, and quite reliable. I could project it unto the future, because the cycle was well-documented. Then the network canceled the show, and it vanished. A knowledge of the cycle couldn’t predict that, and couldn’t explain it. Only a knowledge of the television industry could have helped, and even then, it would have to be augmented by knowing about ratings, aging actors, and a variety of other facts.
So too here. Your cycles don’t explain anything, and since they don’t, there isn’t even any reason to think they have any more reality than the guy up in the stars whom we call Orion.
You say ” It was an unmistakable pattern, and quite reliable. I could project it unto the future, because the cycle was well-documented”
My contention is that based on my experience in these matters the evidence presented in the Figs in the post ,documents the evidence well enough to make useful predictions. You disagree . We will see.
“I am not trying to explain the cycles – merely in the first instance observing them”
but Dr. Page, climate cycles don’t exist, they are product of our imagination
http://killingbatteries.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/loch_ness_monster.gif
…LOL
Insight. I would say
Scientific investigations are competitions to see who are the best cherry pickers of the data to come up with a testable hypothesis.
Your hypothesis cannot be tested for a couple of centuries…
But we can certainly see which way the wind is blowing c f the IPCC projections.
Wishful thinking.
A being wrong, does not make B right.
Let’s go back to basics.
We know that there have been episodes of warmer and colder climate in the recent past. Given the complexity of the Earth’s climate and natural variation, should we really expect these to fit precisely into narrowly defined timescales?
Obviously not. But just because they don’t does not mean that natural cycles don’t exist.
And just because we cannot explain them also does not mean they don’t exist.
And until we can properly explain them we cannot begin to understand recent warming.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/03/24/collapse-of-the-cagw-delusion-untenable-past-2020/
Yeah, if only…..
I no more believe your prediction of collapse than I do believe the CAGW delusion, sadly. I think it will go on until 2030. The power of idiots to reinforce each other’s stupidity is routinely underestimated.
Won’t take that long. The climate worm has turned
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/GTn.gif
(p.s. Shakespeare had dragon in mind)
Question:
What happens next IF Dr Page and others (including me*) who predicted imminent global cooling are correct?
[*In 2002 I wrote that global cooling would commence by 2020 to 2030; I now say cooling starts by about 2017.]
One scenario will be that the warmist camp will respond the same way they did to the natural global cooling that occurred from ~1940 to ~1975. Then they fabricated phony aerosol data to force their flawed climate models to hindcast that cooling, so they could continue to use a ridiculously high figure for climate sensitivity to atmospheric CO2 (ECS) in their models – thus predicting runaway global warming due to increased CO2, which has NOT occurred.
Global warming acolytes should pause and consider one glaring fact:
“Every scary prediction by the global warming camp has FAILED to occur.”
The warmists have a perfect negative predictive track record, so that if one wants to predict the future, one should assume the OPPOSITE of warmist predictions. Ergo, it is probable that global cooling is imminent. 🙂
________________________________
** See Douglas Hoyt’s conversation with me in 2006 at:
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=755
“So when MacRae (#321) says: “I suspect that both the climate computer models and the input assumptions are not only inadequate, but in some cases key data is completely fabricated – for example, the alleged aerosol data that forces models to show cooling from ~1940 to ~1975. Isn’t it true that there was little or no quality aerosol data collected during 1940-1975, and the modelers simply invented data to force their models to history-match; then they claimed that their models actually reproduced past climate change quite well; and then they claimed they could therefore understand climate systems well enough to confidently predict future catastrophic warming?”, he close to the truth.”
One scenario will be that the warmist camp will respond the same way they did to the natural global cooling that occurred from ~1940 to ~1975. Then they fabricated phony aerosol data to force their flawed climate models to hindcast that cooling
Not restricted to ‘warmist camp’. People will dream up phony arguments no matter what ‘camp’ they are in, e.g. this claim by David Evans: “1945-1995: Cooling from atmospheric nuclear bomb tests, or aerosols, or global dimming” [http://joannenova.com.au/2016/02/new-science-22-solar-tsi-leads-earths-temperature-with-an-11-year-delay/].
Agreed Leif – and don’t forget global intellectual dimming. 🙂
For the record, I believe the following ten points are essentially correct. Only #7 below (imminent global cooling) has yet to materialize.
Happy Easter to you and yours, Allan
Presentation of Evidence Suggesting Temperature Drives Atmospheric CO2 more than CO2 Drives Temperature
September 4, 2015
By Allan MacRae
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/06/13/presentation-of-evidence-suggesting-temperature-drives-atmospheric-co2-more-than-co2-drives-temperature/
Observations and Conclusions:
1. Temperature, among other factors, drives atmospheric CO2 much more than CO2 drives temperature. The rate of change dCO2/dt is closely correlated with temperature and thus atmospheric CO2 LAGS temperature by ~9 months in the modern data record
2. CO2 also lags temperature by ~~800 years in the ice core record, on a longer time scale.
3. Atmospheric CO2 lags temperature at all measured time scales.
4. CO2 is the feedstock for carbon-based life on Earth, and Earth’s atmosphere and oceans are clearly CO2-deficient. CO2 abatement and sequestration schemes are nonsense.
5. Based on the evidence, Earth’s climate is insensitive to increased atmospheric CO2 – there is no global warming crisis.
6. Recent global warming was natural and irregularly cyclical – the next climate phase following the ~20 year pause will probably be global cooling, starting by ~2020 or sooner.
7. Adaptation is clearly the best approach to deal with the moderate global warming and cooling experienced in recent centuries.
8. Cool and cold weather kills many more people than warm or hot weather, even in warm climates. There are about 100,000 Excess Winter Deaths every year in the USA, up to 50,000 in the UK and several million worldwide.
9. Green energy schemes have needlessly driven up energy costs, reduced electrical grid reliability and contributed to increased winter mortality, which especially targets the elderly and the poor.
10. Cheap, abundant, reliable energy is the lifeblood of modern society. When misinformed politicians fool with energy systems, real people suffer and die. That is the tragic legacy of false global warming alarmism.
Allan MacRae, Calgary, June 12, 2015
You are mixing science, politics, and personal bias to the point where they cannot disentangled.
Leif said: “You are mixing science, politics, and personal bias,,,”
Only my Point #7 involves personal bias Leif – the rest are demonstrably correct.
I will very happily be wrong about my/our prediction of imminent global cooling in Point 7. Perhaps you could just wait and see instead of being aggressive – it is only a few years to 2020…
🙂