I read yesterday that someone had supposedly provided evidence in support of Svensmark’s hypothesis that cosmic rays affect the weather. So I went to look it up. The study is called Cloud cover anomalies at middle latitudes: links to troposphere dynamics and solar variability, by S. Veretenenkoa and M. Ogurtsova, paywalled here. Let’s look at this one backwards, first the data and then their explanation of the data. Here’s their money graph, showing the relationship between the low cloud anomaly (LCA) and the galactic cosmic rays (GCR) for the period June 1983 – December 2009:
Figure 1. ORIGINAL CAPTION: Time variations of LCA [low cloud anomaly] and GCR [galactic cosmic ray] fluxes (detrended monthly values) in the Northern (a) and Southern (b) hemispheres. Thick lines show 12-month running averages of LCA; c) correlation coefficients between yearly values of LCA and GCR fluxes for sliding 11-yr intervals in the Northern (solid line) and Southern (dashed line) hemispheres. Dotted lines show the significance levels: 0.95 (curves 1) and 0.99 (curve 3) for the Northern hemisphere; 0.99 (curve 2) for the Southern hemisphere.
Now, my interpretation of this data is that we see very little correlation between the two datasets. There is a period of common increase from about 1990 to 1997, but other than that the correlation is poor.
In addition, galactic cosmic rays vary basically in synchrony with the solar magnetic field, which like sunspots has an approximately 11 year cycle. Their data is 26.5 years long, a bit more than two cycles. This is far, far, far too short to establish any kind of correlation.
So looking at their data, I wouldn’t even begin to make any claims of anything. The data is too short, the correlations are too sketchy, and there are no common cycles in the two datasets.
Having seen that, here is their interpretation of the results as given in their abstract, from the above link:
Highlights
• Cloud cover at extratropical latitudes is closely related to cyclonic processes.
• Links between cloud cover and solar activity phenomena/galactic cosmic rays observed on the decadal tome scale are indirect and realized through changes in cyclonic activity.
• Effects of solar activity phenomena/galactic cosmic rays on troposphere dynamics at middle latitudes may vary depending on the state of the polar vortex.
Abstract
In this work we study links between low cloud anomalies (LCA) at middle latitudes of the Northern and Southern hemispheres and galactic cosmic ray (GCR) variations used as a proxy of solar variability on the decadal time scale. It was shown that these links are not direct, but realized through GCR/solar activity phenomena influence on the development of extratropical baric systems (cyclones and troughs) which form cloud field.
Let me stop here and discuss the first problem with the study, which is bad statistics. They have divided the clouds into low, middle and high clouds. These occur in low, middle and high latitudes in both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. This gives us no less than eighteen possible places to look for the putative effect.
The problem is that the more places you look, the more likely you are to find oddities. For example, they say regarding mid-latitude low clouds:
It is seen that a rather high positive correlation significant at the levels 0.95 (the Northern hemisphere) and 0.99 (the Southern hemisphere) was observed from the middle 1980s to the late 1990s.
Now, that would be meaningful IF they only looked in one place. But if you are looking in eighteen places (three cloud levels times three latitude zones time two hemispheres), your chances of finding something “significant” at the 0.95 level are better than fifty-fifty, meaning their finding is neither unusual nor significant in any manner.
To handle this you can use the “Bonferroni Correction”. For this we need the “p-value” they are using, which is one minus their significance level of 0.95, or 0.05. The Bonferroni Correction states that you divide that p-value by the number of trials, and the result is the p-value you need to find in order to actually be statistically significant at the 0.95 level. This means that for any of their findings to be significant, they need to have a p-value of 0.05 / 18 = 0.003. This is a significance level of 0.997, and none of their results have that level of significance.
Anyhow, that’s their bad statistics … moving on, you remember how over the short 26-year length of the record the two datasets were in agreement for only a brief period, and went totally out of phase after that? Here is their description of that same situation:
The violation of a positive correlation between LCA and GCR intensity which was observed in the 1980s–1990s occurred simultaneously in the Northern and Southern hemispheres in the early 2000s and coincided with the sign reversal of GCR effects on troposphere circulation.
I gotta confess, that is one stupendous piece of writing. Me, I would say something like “the two records agreed for a short while, but after that they diverged badly”.
Not the authors. They say that there is a pre-existing “positive correlation” that is “violated” in the early 2000s, followed by a “sign reversal of GCR effects” … say what? Sign reversal? Positive correlation violation? It is a ridiculously short record and even in that time the two datasets (LCA and GCR) diverge badly. You cannot draw any conclusions from that. Must say, though, I particularly admired their describing when the correlation totally falls apart as a time of “sign reversal of effects” …
Anyhow, the data is far too short, the two datasets disagree, their description is special pleading, and their statistics are bad. I cannot justify going any further than that, I try not to dig in dry holes.
Finally, do cosmic rays affect the weather? That’s a good question. I started out thinking they did, but I’ve been unable to find any significant 11-year cycles in any surface datasets. However, cosmic rays certainly might have some effect somewhere/ All I can say is despite looking in a lot of places, I’ve not seen any data to support that claim. The studies are like this one, they fall apart when examined closely.
Now, if you think differently, if you think there are valid studies showing that cosmic rays DO affect weather down here at the surface, then send me TWO LINKS, one to what in your opinion is the most solid study you know of, and one to the data used in that study. Don’t bother sending one link. I can’t analyze the purported claims without a link to both the study AND the data. And please don’t send me a data dump of fifty studies, I’m only one guy, no assistants, I can’t examine them all. I only want to know what you think is the one best shining example of a study that shows that GCRs are affecting surface weather, AND the data underlying that study.
My best to everyone. Here the rains have returned, and outside my window clouds thread themselves between the redwood trees on the far hillside, while a lethargic cat and I regard them through the glass … and I wish for all of you whatever in your world corresponds to watching it storm outside from a warm dry place.
w.
My Usual Request: Confusion is a huge stumbling block in written communication, so if you disagree with me or anyone, please quote the exact words you disagree with so we can all understand your objections. I can defend my own words. I cannot defend someone else’s interpretation of some unidentified words of mine.
My Other Request: If you believe that e.g. I’m using the wrong method or the wrong dataset, please educate me and others by demonstrating the proper use of the right method or the right dataset. Simply claiming I’m wrong doesn’t advance the discussion.
Previous Posts Looking For The 11-Year Cycle:
I actually wrote about looking for the 11-year sunspots / solar magnetic field / solar wind / cosmic ray cycle in cloud data some time ago, viz:
Splicing Clouds 2014-11-01
So once again, I have donned my Don Quijote armor and continued my quest for a ~11-year sunspot-related solar signal in some surface weather dataset. My plan for the quest has been simple. It is based on the fact that all of the phenomena commonly credited with affecting the temperature …
I also have posted a number of analyses of other solar studies and solar claims:
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…
Cycles Without The Mania 2013-07-29
Are there cycles in the sun and its associated electromagnetic phenomena? Assuredly. What are the lengths of the cycles? Well, there’s the question. In the process of writing my recent post about cyclomania, I came across a very interesting paper entitled “Correlation Between the Sunspot Number, the Total Solar Irradiance,…
Sunspots and Sea Level 2014-01-21
I came across a curious graph and claim today in a peer-reviewed scientific paper. Here’s the graph relating sunspots and the change in sea level: And here is the claim about the graph: Sea level change and solar activity A stronger effect related to solar cycles is seen in Fig.…
Riding A Mathemagical Solarcycle 2014-01-22
Among the papers in the Copernicus Special Issue of Pattern Recognition in Physics we find a paper from R. J. Salvador in which he says he has developed A mathematical model of the sunspot cycle for the past 1000 yr. Setting aside the difficulties of verification of sunspot numbers for…
Sunny Spots Along the Parana River 2014-01-25
In a comment on a recent post, I was pointed to a study making the following surprising claim: Here, we analyze the stream flow of one of the largest rivers in the world, the Parana ́ in southeastern South America. For the last century, we find a strong correlation with…
Usoskin Et Al. Discover A New Class of Sunspots 2014-02-22
There’s a new post up by Usoskin et al. entitled “Evidence for distinct modes of solar activity”. To their credit, they’ve archived their data, it’s available here. Figure 1 shows their reconstructed decadal averages of sunspot numbers for the last three thousand years, from their paper: Figure 1. The results…
Solar Periodicity 2014-04-10
I was pointed to a 2010 post by Dr. Roy Spencer over at his always interesting blog. In it, he says that he can show a relationship between total solar irradiance (TSI) and the HadCRUT3 global surface temperature anomalies. TSI is the strength of the sun’s energy at a specified distance…
Cosmic Rays, Sunspots, and Beryllium 2014-04-13
In investigations of the past history of cosmic rays, the deposition rates (flux rates) of the beryllium isotope 10Be are often used as a proxy for the amount of cosmic rays. This is because 10Be is produced, inter alia, by cosmic rays in the atmosphere. Being a congenitally inquisitive type…
The Tip of the Gleissberg 2014-05-17
A look at Gleissberg’s famous solar cycle reveals that it is constructed from some dubious signal analysis methods. This purported 80-year “Gleissberg cycle” in the sunspot numbers has excited much interest since Gleissberg’s original work. However, the claimed length of the cycle has varied widely.
The Effect of Gleissberg’s “Secular Smoothing” 2014-05-19
ABSTRACT: Slow Fourier Transform (SFT) periodograms reveal the strength of the cycles in the full sunspot dataset (n=314), in the sunspot cycle maxima data alone (n=28), and the sunspot cycle maxima after they have been “secularly smoothed” using the method of Gleissberg (n = 24). In all three datasets, there…
It’s The Evidence, Stupid! 2014-05-24
I hear a lot of folks give the following explanation for the vagaries of the climate, viz: It’s the sun, stupid. And in fact, when I first started looking at the climate I thought the very same thing. How could it not be the sun, I reasoned, since obviously that’s…
Sunspots and Sea Surface Temperature 2014-06-06
I thought I was done with sunspots … but as the well-known climate scientist Michael Corleone once remarked, “Just when I thought I was out … they pull me back in”. In this case Marcel Crok, the well-known Dutch climate writer, asked me if I’d seen the paper from Nir…
Maunder and Dalton Sunspot Minima 2014-06-23
In a recent interchange over at Joanne Nova’s always interesting blog, I’d said that the slow changes in the sun have little effect on temperature. Someone asked me, well, what about the cold temperatures during the Maunder and Dalton sunspot minima? And I thought … hey, what about them? I…
Volcanoes and Sunspots 2015-02-09
I keep reading how sunspots are supposed to affect volcanoes. In the comments to my last post, Tides, Earthquakes, and Volcanoes, someone approvingly quoted a volcano researcher who had looked at eleven eruptions of a particular type and stated: …. Nine of the 11 events occurred during the solar inactive phase…
Early Sunspots and Volcanoes 2015-02-10
Well, as often happens I started out in one direction and then I got sidetractored … I wanted to respond to Michele Casati’s claim in the comments of my last post. His claim was that if we include the Maunder Minimum in the 1600’s, it’s clear that volcanoes with a…
Sunspots and Norwegian Child Mortality 2015-03-07
In January there was a study published by The Royal Society entitled “Solar activity at birth predicted infant survival and women’s fertility in historical Norway”, available here. It claimed that in Norway in the 1700s and 1800s the solar activity at birth affected a child’s survival chances. As you might imagine, this…
Changes in Total Solar Irradiance 2014-10-25
Total solar irradiance, also called “TSI”, is the total amount of energy coming from the sun at all frequencies. It is measured in watts per square metre (W/m2). Lots of folks claim that the small ~ 11-year variations in TSI are amplified by some unspecified mechanism, and thus these small changes in TSI make an…
The New Sunspot Data And Satellite Sea Levels 2015-08-13
[UPDATE:”Upon reading Dr. Shaviv’s reply to this post, I have withdrawn any mention of “deceptive” from this post. This term was over the top, as it ascribed motive to the authors. I have replaced the term with “misleading”. This is more accurate…
My Thanks Apologies And Reply To Dr Nir Shaviv 2015-08-17
Dr. Nir Shaviv has kindly replied in the comments to my previous post. There, he says: Nir Shaviv” August 15, 2015 at 2:51 pm There is very little truth about any of the points raised by Eschenbach in this article. In particular, his analysis excludes the fact that the o…
The Missing 11 Year Signal 2015-08-19
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 …
Is The Signal Detectable 2015-08-19
[UPDATE] In the comments, Nick Stokes pointed out that although I thought that Dr. Shaviv’s harmonic solar component was a 12.6 year sine wave with a standard deviation of 1.7 centimetres, it is actually a 12.6 year sine wave with a standard deviation of 1.7 millime…
23 New Papers 2015-09-22
Over at Pierre Gosselin’s site, NoTricksZone, he’s trumpeting the fact that there are a bunch of new papers showing a solar effect on the climate. The headline is Already 23 Papers Supporting Sun As Major Climate Factor In 2015 “Burgeoning Evidence No Longer Dismissible!…
Jan. 19, 2016
NASA’s Van Allen Probes Revolutionize View of Radiation Belts
http://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2016/nasa-s-van-allen-probes-revolutionize-view-of-radiation-belts
…Rather than the classic picture of the radiation belts — small inner belt, empty slot region and larger outer belt — this new analysis reveals that the shape can vary from a single, continuous belt with no slot region, to a larger inner belt with a smaller outer belt, to no inner belt at all. Many of the differences are accounted for by considering electrons at different energy levels separately.
…The researchers found that the inner belt — the smaller belt in the classic picture of the belts — is much larger than the outer belt when observing electrons with low energies, while the outer belt is larger when observing electrons at higher energies. At the very highest energies, the inner belt structure is missing completely. So, depending on what one focuses on, the radiation belts can appear to have very different structures simultaneously.
These structures are further altered by geomagnetic storms. When fast-moving magnetic material from the sun — in the form of high-speed solar wind streams or coronal mass ejections — collide with Earth’s magnetic field, they send it oscillating, creating a geomagnetic storm. Geomagnetic storms can increase or decrease the number of energetic electrons in the radiation belts temporarily, though the belts return to their normal configuration after a time.
………………….But the higher-resolution Van Allen Probes data found that these lower-energy electrons circulate much closer to Earth than previously thought…………………………..
Published on Sep 23, 2013
In September 2012, NASA’s Van Allen Probes observed the radiation belts around Earth had settled into a new configuration, separating into three belts instead of two. Scientists think the unusual physics of ultra fast electrons within the belt helped cause the unusual shape. Credit: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center
Yet another factor to consider folks… How complex are these systems ehhh!? (:-) Maybe one day we’ll figure it all out, but for sure it will take models with many more parameters/variables than currently used…..
Carla, can these variable radiation belts affect GCR at all (type &/or magnitude)?
Willis,
good night, sleep tight.
You never knew what damons You’re wakening – You just wanted.
Nearly all of the ‘bottom up’ analyses of over 100 GCMs which run on super computers exhibit ‘epic failure’ to predict the average global temperature trend.
A simple ‘top down’ analysis run on a desk top computer calculates average global temperatures that are a 97% match to measured values since before 1900 even when the effect of CO2 is ignored. Accounting for CO2 increases the match by only 0.1%. http://globalclimatedrivers.blogspot.com
The Van Allen Belts Probe just taught me a new acronym containing the word LIGHTNING and the role the Radiation Belts play in this LIGHTNING…
World Wide Lightning Location Network (WWLLN)
A statistical study of whistler waves observed by Van Allen Probes (RBSP) and lightning detected by WWLLN
Authors Hao Zheng, Robert H. Holzworth, James B. Brundell, Abram R. Jacobson,
John R. Wygant, George B. Hospodarsky, Forrest S. Mozer, John Bonnell
First published: 8 March 2016
Lightning-generated whistler waves are electromagnetic plasma waves in the very low frequency (VLF) band, which play an important role in the dynamics of radiation belt particles. In this paper, we statistically analyze simultaneous waveform data from the Van Allen Probes (Radiation Belt Storm Probes, RBSP) and global lightning data from the World Wide Lightning Location Network (WWLLN). Data were obtained between July to September 2013 and between March and April 2014. For each day during these periods, we predicted the most probable 10 min for which each of the two RBSP satellites would be magnetically conjugate to lightning producing regions. The prediction method uses integrated WWLLN stroke data for that day obtained during the three previous years. Using these predicted times for magnetic conjugacy to lightning activity regions, we recorded high time resolution, burst mode waveform data. Here we show that whistlers are observed by the satellites in more than 80% of downloaded waveform data. About 22.9% of the whistlers observed by RBSP are one-to-one coincident with source lightning strokes detected by WWLLN. About 40.1% more of whistlers are found to be one-to-one coincident with lightning if source regions are extended out 2000 km from the satellites footpoints. Lightning strokes with far-field radiated VLF energy larger than about 100 J are able to generate a detectable whistler wave in the inner magnetosphere. …
Variable ice on Mars would concur.
Bond Cycles and the Role of The Sun in Shaping Earth’s Climate
Wrong answer, amateur. In real science there are principles. When someone purports to have violated those principles – their reputation as an intellect is done. It doesn’t matter how many Beer Review idiots help them publish a paper.
It’s the great thing about physics. If you try to make kook claims, even students can see the holes in your stories and simply rule you out as serious or intelligent at the first whiff of thermodynamic impropriety.
You’ve purported before the face of the world, you don’t believe the
fire
warming a rock in vacuum,
affects the temperature of the rock.
You can try desperate K-Mart class publicity stunts, you can roll around like a worm in hot ashes all you want, to try to get yourself some credibility.
But when you said you don’t think the temperature of a rock,
warmed by a fire,
depends on the fire,
your personal intellectual credibility as an intellectual is gone.
You’re not very intelligent Eisenbach. Your constant self-blowing is the proof nobody important cares about your wacko exploits in public.
Bombastic physics deniers are everywhere and you’re one of them.
Nobody has to ”prove” or ”present a paper” explaining to your stupid ass the fire warming a rock affects it’s temperature.
It’s just that simple. Stupid is as stupid does, and when you start talking about the temperature of air not being calculable without magic, and the amount of fire warming a rock not affecting it’s temperature, it’s k o o k v i l l e.
Furthermore – your claims of ”my reputation” are among the field so loaded with diseased intellects that most people WITH a reputation – refuse to even associate their name with anything you, or any of the rest of the
scientific sewerclimate kook field of today.Real scientists HIDE our names from having it even associated with you.
That’s why dozens of scientists are on the internet with their own websites, and Youtube has scores of films on whats wrong with
science sewerthe sewer known as climate pseudo science – but none of them want to have anything to do with the people – like you.It’s not that people clamor to have their names associated with you. We who HAVE scientific reputations to protect, HIDE from being associated with you.
Claiming you are able to get published in climate science is a confession you hardly have a brain in your head. Not that you’re some kind of genius.
You really need to face the fact that mere reference to you in papers means nothing. Probably half if not more of papers referring to you are debunking papers.
Furthermore modern climate science is scamville.
If you ever have something printed in a field that’s real – whose scientific leadership aren’t busted and confessed fakes – then – maybe – that’s maybe- it’ll be evidence you’ve got some kind of intellectual horsepower of note.
But in fact you’re one of the people probably more despised for your pseudo-scientific slop than respected for some great intellectual work you’ve done.
Remember again – real scientists HIDE to keep their name from being associated with you. They don’t even use their own real names, because they have real reputations to protect
in real fields where being wrong about thermodynamic fundamentals just once – is practically death to your reputation, because the laws are so simple and inviolable.
If you were a respected intellect in thermodynamics important people and even not important ones would constantly be referring to your work as important.
Instead, people refer to you personally as one of the numerous thermodynamically illiterates who flooded science when the scam daddies who fathered your movement – the AGW/GHG movement – cleared peer review of serious scientists,
and started promoting Bozo the Buffoon class wannabes, such as yourself.
Ignatz (real name? I doubt it),
Instead of hating on Willis, why don’t you cut and paste what you disagree with?
You’re just another jerk who’s got nothin’. If you had something you could argue, you would have.
shades of doug c .
R. Hawkins April 11, 2016 at 8:18 am
“Wrong answer” to what? And where did I “purport” what you speciously claim I said?
Not only are you being childishly unpleasant, it appears you have reading difficulties, so let me point you in the right direction by quoting what I said above:
If you still can’t understand that, I could write it again for you, and to assist you, next time I’ll write it real slow and in CAPITAL LETTERS …
w.
PS—For a man who claims to see “holes in my stories”, you have very carefully avoided pointing out even one of those holes … so far, you’re all mouth.
Usurbrain – Perhaps this is what you are looking for. A simple ‘top down’ analysis using only the time-integral of sunspot number anomalies and an approximation of the effect of ocean cycles achieves a 97% match (R^2 = 0.97+) with measured average global temperatures since before 1900. All of the minutia must find room in the unexplained 3%. http://globalclimatedrivers.blogspot.com
It is disturbing that so many scientists appear to not grasp that a forcing must be integrated (mathematically) to determine its effect on temperature.
As sunspots numbers are always positive the integral will always increase, unless you subtract a suitable offset. If that offset is the mean over the interval of your data, the integral is always zero, so you must find a better offset to subtract. That makes the offset a free parameter that you can set from the value that makes the best fit, so no physics here. Adding an empirical ocean term also helps the improve the fit. But all this is just numerological voodoo without any physical foundation. That is why so many scientists grasp that this approach is not meaningful.
Perhaps if you had understood or possibly even looked at the analysis you might have realized those things you say shouldn’t be done were not done.
The method allows predicting future temperatures from any time in the past using data up to that time. As shown at http://agwunveiled.blogspot.com the predicted temperature anomaly trend in 2013 calculated using data to 1990 and actual sunspot numbers through 2013 is within 0.012 K of the trend calculated using data through 2013. The predicted trend still holds. That’s 25 years. The predicted trend is down.
The 97% match since before 1900 has already demonstrated that my approach is meaningful. The “epic fail” of the GCMs has demonstrated that that approach is not meaningful.
Thanks, Leif, you beat me to it.
Dan, while I acknowledge all the work you’ve done, I fear that you are just fitting a tuned-parameter model to the temperature. As many people have observed, you can do the same using 60-year and 20-year cycles, no need for any sunspots at all.
From examination, your tunable parameters are A, B, C, D, and F, plus the value you subtracted from the integral, plus the starting value, plus the frequency, phase, and amplitude of the sawtooth wave. That is a total of nine tunable parameters … let me strongly recommend that you give up curve fitting using tunable parameters as an analysis method. It doesn’t go anywhere.
Here’s advice on the subject from a much better scientist than I, Enrico Fermi. He says the same thing—tunable parameters don’t help. Fermi quoted Von Neumann as saying,
Sadly, since you are using no less than nine parameters, I fear your R^2 of 0.97 is MEANINGLESS … it would only be significant if you could NOT get a high R^2 using nine parameters.
Best regards,
w.
Apparently you did not look or, if you looked, did not grasp what was done. The only coefficient which was not otherwise at least roughly obvious is B which is the combined influence coefficient and proxy factor for the time-integral of the sunspot number anomalies.
Enrico was joking.
It’s a 22-year cycle they should be looking for in climate variability, since that’s the Sun’s magnetic cycle.
Ian,
That connection has repeatedly been found in weather and climate observations, but the sun also displays longer cycles. Here’s a classic 2001 paper on the subject:
Persistent Solar Influence on North Atlantic Climate During the Holocene
Gerard Bond,1* Bernd Kromer,2 Juerg Beer,3
Raimund Muscheler,3 Michael N. Evans,4 William Showers,5
Sharon Hoffmann,1 Rusty Lotti-Bond,1 Irka Hajdas,6 Georges Bonani6
Surface winds and surface ocean hydrography in the subpolar North Atlantic
appear to have been influenced by variations in solar output through the entire
Holocene. The evidence comes from a close correlation between inferred changes in production rates of the cosmogenic nuclides carbon-14 and beryllium-10 and centennial to millennial time scale changes in proxies of drift ice measured in deep-sea sediment cores. A solar forcing mechanism therefore may underlie at least the Holocene segment of the North Atlantic’s “1500-year” cycle. The surface hydrographic changes may have affected production of North Atlantic Deep Water, potentially providing an additional mechanism for amplifying the solar signals and transmitting them globally.
From the same long ago fin de siecle period:
The Sun and Climate
pubs.usgs.gov/fs/fs…00/fs-0095-00.pdf
Good graph on the 200-year solar cycle.
Another golden oldie:
Letters to Nature
Nature 411, 290-293 (17 May 2001) | doi:10.1038/35077048; Received 14 September 2000; Accepted 26 March 2001
Strong coherence between solar variability and the monsoon in Oman between 9 and 6 kyr ago
U. Neff1, S. J. Burns2,3, A. Mangini1, M. Mudelsee4, D. Fleitmann2 & A. Matter2
Heidelberg Academy of Sciences, Im Neuenheimer Feld 229, Heidelberg, Germany D-69120
Geological Institute, University of Bern, Baltzerstrasse 1, Bern, Switzerland CH-3012
Institute of Meteorology, University of Leipzig, Stephanstrasse 3, Leipzig, Germany D-04103
Present address: Department of Geosciences, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Massachusetts 01003, USA.
Correspondence to: S. J. Burns2,3 Correspondence and requests for materials should be addressed to S.B. (e-mail: Email: sburns@geo.umass.edu).
Top of page
Abstract
Variations in the amount of solar radiation reaching the Earth are thought to influence climate, but the extent of this influence on timescales of millennia to decades is unclear. A number of climate records show correlations between solar cycles and climate1, but the absolute changes in solar intensity over the range of decades to millennia are small2 and the influence of solar flux on climate is not well established. The formation of stalagmites in northern Oman has recorded past northward shifts of the intertropical convergence zone3, whose northward migration stops near the southern shoreline of Arabia in the present climate4. Here we present a high-resolution record of oxygen isotope variations, for the period from 9.6 to 6.1 kyr before present, in a Th–U-dated stalagmite from Oman. The delta18O record from the stalagmite, which serves as a proxy for variations in the tropical circulation and monsoon rainfall, allows us to make a direct comparison of the delta18O record with the Delta14C record from tree rings5, which largely reflects changes in solar activity6, 7. The excellent correlation between the two records suggests that one of the primary controls on centennial- to decadal-scale changes in tropical rainfall and monsoon intensity during this time are variations in solar radiation.
Ian Ridpath April 11, 2016 at 1:18 pm
Yes, that is the sun’s magnetic cycle, but unfortunately for your lovely theory, the cosmic ray data doesn’t show a 22-year cycle … it shows an 11-year cycle, and has very little strength in the 22-year region. As usual, observations beat speculation.
Look, guys, I understand you all have your theories about this stuff … but how about y’all actually TEST YOUR THEORIES by looking at the evidence before presenting them as facts?
Thanks,
w.
PS—the temperature data also has very little power in the 22-year region.
justanotherpersonii April 10, 2016 at 10:20 am
Good heavens, Mr. Person, you must indeed be new to climate science. Peer review is generally useless in climate science. It serves more as a bar to any innovative ideas than as a guardian of the gates.
As to whether this paper is “garbage”, here’s the thing. If a study involves looking for correlations in multiple subsets of the data, you MUST use the Bonferroni Correction. If you do not do so, it can turn even a good study into garbage. And in this case, it has assuredly done so—not one of their results is statistically significant when you include the Bonferroni Correction. The study is only valuable as a demonstration that they failed to show what they thought they showed.
Now, I know that you may not understand the Bonferroni Correction; like most people on the planet you are probably not a statistician.
The problem is that it is also clear that the authors of the study in question also don’t understand the Bonferroni Correction.
Sadly, this ignorance of statistics is rife in the climate science field, including among those people who are doing the peer-reviews. Not only do most climate scientists not understand Bonferroni, they’ve never even had the thought that investigating multiple subsets of a larger dataset has crucial statistical implications.
This widespread ignorance of statistics, particularly the statistics of non-normal datasets, is particularly crippling in climate science for a strange reason. Climate science is the only physical science I know of where the field of study is not the physical objects themselves. Remember that “climate” is defined as the long-term (30+ year) AVERAGE of various physical variables, so we are studying averages, not objects, and our results are nothing but statistics … and despite that, statistical ignorance seems to be the rule rather than the exception among climate scientists.
That’s why I have to laugh at folks like Maximum Gloating and the others objecting to me calling a spade a spade, they’re just revealing their statistical ignorance … as in this case, if you do the statistics wrong, even the finest, best designed study is converted to garbage, and we’d be fools not to acknowledge that hard fact.
w.
Willis,
Your analysis here fails statistically, as commenters have tried to enlighten you, as well as scientifically. The paper isn’t the greatest, but it’s not garbage either. Neither are the hundreds of other papers which you called garbage without bothering to read any of them.
Gloateus Maximus April 11, 2016 at 4:19 pm
The only comment I’ve seen on the statistics is from 1sky1, who specializes in saying “red” every time I say “blue”, and “up” every time I say “down”. I pay no attention to such attention-whores, particularly bulbs as dim as his.
If you have other comments on statistics please link to them, I’m not doing your homework for you.
w.
Willis,
You should do your own homework. Such as reading the essential cosmoclimatological papers before presuming to categorize them all, the work of real scientists, as garbage. Svensmark and his colleagues, for instance, actually practice genuine science, complete with experimental tests of predictions. Shaviv and his collaborators also make predictions and test them with present and proxy data.
You, by contrast, crunch numbers, sometimes ineptly. Is 1sky1 right or wrong? Maybe he does always question your analytical procedures. Does that make him wrong?
You have contributed to the discussion by finding data sets, such as from the CA coastal buoys, that aren’t valid in one way or another, but science is more than that.
Dear Willis Eschenbach, I’ve been reading a lot of comment re what “isn’t” causing global temperature changes – could you please summarize what you believe are the major drivers? Tied in with that, do you have a reasonable “best guesstimate” for the proportion of increased warming attributable to increased CO2 (or whether it is more that increased global warming is causing the increased CO2)? Would be interested in your thoughts. Thanks for that, Cheers. Lewis
Thanks, Ilydon. For my ideas on the subject please see:
w.
Thanks w., much appreciated… Cheers. L
I completely disagree. It is a shame that you think that of peer-review, for though it is flawed and it can be biased, it is, in my opinion, the best system we have right now for scientific ideas. If you don’t like peer-review, could you tell me what is better? I mean, just look at the peer-review system for Elsevier journals! You think that if their paper was that bad it would’ve got caught in that huge process. That’s why it takes at least multiple months to get papers published, they have to get through that.
I do agree that this “correlation” is rather odd and it doesn’t seem like the correlation is good (if there is any at all), but this is just one of many papers supporting my position on this subject, and other papers have much better correlations than this one. Besides, these authors have proposed this theory in many other papers and it got past peer-review. See here, here, here, here, and here. So no, I still don’t think this paper is garbage, since this theory has already passed peer-review multiple times in multiple journals.
If ever you want some more papers on cosmic rays or Svensmark’s hypothesis I will be happy to oblige you (but don’t worry, I don’t think that they caused all or even most of the 20th century warming).
Inasmuch as it applies only to frequentist statistics used in testing multiple hypotheses–not to comparisons of signal characteristics in pairs of time-series–Invocation of the Bonferroni correction here is pseudo-erudite nonsense. Sadly, ignorance of conceptual analytic foundations of computational methods is rife among amateur data analysts.
That is absolute hogwash. The Bonferroni Correction is for multiple tests on subsets of data as well. See, e.g, Multiple significance tests and the Bonferroni correction, which discusses this exact situation in terms of medicine and looking at subsets of large groups.
w.
You responded to my question before the mods accepted my comment.
Gloateus Maximus April 11, 2016 at 6:01 pm
Since I’m responding to 1sky1, I don’t have a clue what you are talking about.
w.
Equating hypothesis testing on frequentist statistics from subsets of medical data with establishing geophysical connections between pairs of time-series is complete amateurish rubbish! Once again, total lack of mathematical training leads to fundamental confusion about the tests and techniques that are appropriate in a particular problem. The basic mistakes made are so outlandishly wrong-headed that they are nowhere discussed in the literature, which presumes at least a modicum of competent comprehension. The worst part is that, without even comprehending the substantive issue, stark ignorance is projected in Trumpian fashion upon others.
1sky1 April 12, 2016 at 12:26 pm
The best part about discussing statistics with you, sky, is how you stay strictly to cited and supported logical mathematically based arguments, and you avoid sweeping emotion-laden personal subjective generalizations that have nothing to do with math or logic …
I leave it to the readers to decide if my citation is appropriate to the situation or not. Let me recap the bidding:
In our case we are looking for significance among subsets of cloud data (by latitude, cloud height, etc).
In the cited case, we are looking for significance among subsets of personal medical data (by sex, age, etc).
I say those are the same situation, statistically. For example, the authors say:
I fail to see the difference between that and our current situation. The authors of our study are doing significance testing regarding cosmic rays and clouds; if they “go on testing long enough [they] will find something which is `significant'”; and they find “no significant difference overall”, but they find significance in a “particular subset of subjects”, such as low clouds.
How is that situation different from the one that the citation discusses?
Regards to all,
w.
The intrinsic difference between the medical case and the one at hand is stark. In the former we are dealing with frequency-of-occurrence statistics from a large sample, which can be subsampled, which invites cherry-picking. In the present, geophysical case we are dealing with entire time-series–not just ordinate distributions–of two physical variables, GCR intensity and the global low-cloud anomaly LCA. While the record-length of these two variables will certainly effect the confidence intervals for the cross-spectral coherence, there is no subsampling of the variables themselves. That’s why you will not find Bonferroni corrections applied in bona fide system analysis; there’s only the degrees-of-freedom dependence for cross-spectral estimates.
there is one thing i do “see”
i do think that solar energy influences the climate, but that solar cycles are far too short of a signal to really be detectable, so looking for an 11 year cycle to prove or disprove solar influence and CR effects seems to be a bit looking in the noise of the real signal. To see, prove or disprove the correlation, the dataset is ways too short.
i also think the 11 year cycle is too short to see the difference. just two back to back el nino’s (or nina’s) in these 11 year cycles are enough to give a complete uncorrelated graph set. then we don’t include AMO PDO,…. in the set
so i believe that every paper that attempts to “prove or disprove the 11 year cycle” of solar variance is basicly “obolete”. the data would be too noisy to find a perfect correlation. your article proves this very clearly. you can find as many 11 year based correlation points as there are 11 year based uncorrelated points. But that’s imho losing sight of the bigger picture.
The papers that do somewhat prove solar influence are using more long term methods and proxy methods. Are these correct? Maybe. I leave that open to debate to the people like you Willis that are in it and follow the matter. Pro or contra get my equal attention.
however what i see is that those using proxies are showing bigger cycles. no 11 year ones.
i even see in those studies that you need at least 2 or more “maunder or Dalton like minima cycles” before the effects really kick in. Thus there is a lag between solar radiation changes and climate response. i do expect that this is also the case for CR and cloud cover. i do not expect a sudden CR zap of a month long to be visible as a spike in cloud cover graphs.
in short my personal thoughts are this:
– a lot of low cycles did correlate with the LIA
– when the sun got more active in the 1900’s the global temperature did rise
– an occasional hiccup of one solar cycle didn’t impact this rise
– cloud cover and cosmic rays were different during the LIA then they were now.
– does that implicate Cosmic rays do influence cloud cover? no variations in solar power output do this
– however a more active sun means less cosmic rays so it may SEEM as IF there is a correlation while in fact there can also be none, any correlation would be a resulting correlation not a causative correlation.
that last point is what i see as being overlooked in the very intense debates in the comments. a resulting correlation is not the same as a causative correlation…
forgot to add: a resulting correlation will always be less strong than a causative one, so a resulting correlation can have episodes where both diverge to do completely the opposite. resulting correlations are seen as “part of a larger picture, where the cause of this resulting correlation needs to be discovered.
by this addition i hope i somehow made some sense
Frederik, “Hear hear”, well said, probably the most sensible post I have read on this blog! The complexity of the system includes no doubt numerous conflicting, confounding and confusing effects working in synchrony, in opposition, laterally, vertically…. you name it… all different directions. And I think yours is the first (that I have read anyway) to mention lag… Again, in such complex systems lag phases are going to be interacting in all manner of directions! Every individual forcing effect will have its own inherent “lag” in addition to the inherent variability…. As with other spheres of scientific research, trying to nail down one or even a few “causal factors” in complex systems is like looking for a needle in a haystack. You’ve got to develop some really clever analysis to find that needle (akin to burning down the haystack and using a metal detector perhaps!? (:-)) I realize I haven’t said anything particularly profound here, but I think it accounts for 90+% of the “disagreements” on this blog (:-)
& yes, great point re resulting vs causative correlations, probably confusion over this accounts for majority of “bad science” in our history. eg. presence of cholesterol in arteries of people who have died of “stroke” does not mean that cholesterol “caused” the problem….
Frederik April 11, 2016 at 6:09 pm
Thanks Frederik, but I don’t understand this. We can see the effects of daily solar cycles, and yearly solar cycles … so why is an 11-year cycle suddenly “far too short” to be detectable?
Best regards,
w.
Willis, I guess a quick answer is the strength/magnitude of the effect….
llydon2015 April 11, 2016 at 7:02 pm
Thanlks, Ilydon, but I wanted to know what Frederik thought.
Best,
w.
LLyndon 2015 says it the strength magnitude is not as powerfull as a winter/summer effect or day/night effect. From what i understood of the solar cycles the difference between peak and valley is only 1 or 2 watts per square meter. (if it’s even that much, sorry i did read it but don’t know the exact figure by head)
compare it in an analogy with the heater in your room that you turn cyclically a tiny bit down and up in your room every 2 hours (= the solar cycle). while you randomly open and close the front door (= our climate)
the amplitude of the slight change in heat which could be found in a constant static closed environment (a lagged slight cooling or warming of the room in response to the turning down or up of the heater) is completely masked by the random opening and shutting of the door that lets amounts of outside air inside that do completely mask any significant correlation. (or how the randomness of our climate is to erratic to make this signal visible or significan)t. if you would do the same but with an interval of a week opening the door two or three times can just mask this “cycle” (you turn the heater up or down so that in a stable environment the room would just heat or cool 0.3°C)
in this same analogy i see the “bigger cycles” with the Dalton maunder minima and our modern maxima as bigger steps of turning the heater of the room up and down. ((lets say to have a 2 degrees C difference) Such bigger steps can then be big enough that they become visible/measurable even if the door opens and closes randomly a few times more or less.
hope that sheds a good light on how i see this 11 year cycle as “too weak to be able to be measured”?
forgot to add: that heater in the room analogy is the best way i could explain the term i used with “looking in the noise of the real signal”: the big multi century cycles are visible to some degree (=the real signal), but not every cycle is thus strong enough/lasts long enough to be seen. (= looking for these signals is looking in the noise)
so i hope willis that these additions do help a bit to give you the context of what i mean?
Dear w. Just read your Emergent Climate Phenomena 2013-02-07 post – thanks for that, great read… (1) I guess it is a lot about “buffering” of the system by emergent phenomena. (2) Doesn’t the emergent phenomena, once initiated become a feedback mechanism (I think that you are saying this but by definition I would think that they would qualify as such?)… (3) And so for a significant warming event (eg. MWP) or cooling period (LIA) I take it the forcing (or lack thereof) would have to be sustained in duration and significant in influence (and probably external?)?
Thanks, llydon. Per your questions:
1. Yes, the emergent phenomena keep the system from straying too far, in a buffering manner.
2. It’s Not About Feedback
3. The reasons for slow drift in the governed climate system are unclear. I speculated about them in my first post on the question, The Thermostat Hypothesis.
w.
To Willis,
Not looking for an argument here but, you say:
”’Let me stop here and discuss the first problem with the study, which is bad statistics. They have divided the clouds into low, middle and high clouds. These occur in low, middle and high latitudes in both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. This gives us no less than eighteen possible places to look for the putative effect.”’
But the Abstract says:
“””In this work we study links between low cloud anomalies (LCA) at middle latitudes of the Northern and Southern hemispheres and galactic cosmic ray (GCR) variations used as a proxy of solar variability on the decadal time scale.”””……….
Nothing in the abstract is stating, high clouds or middle clouds.
1. low cloud anomaly (LCA)
2. middle latitudes
3. N. hemi
4. S. hemi
And not sure about this reversal thingy here though goin on…
…”””The violation of a positive correlation between LCA and GCR intensity which was observed in the 1980s–1990s occurred simultaneously in the Northern and Southern hemispheres in the early 2000s and coincided with the sign reversal of GCR effects on troposphere circulation. It was suggested that a possible reason for the correlation reversal between cyclonic activity at middle latitudes and GCR fluxes is the change of the stratospheric polar vortex intensity which influences significantly the troposphere-stratosphere coupling…..”””
Javier April 12, 2016 at 1:03 pm
Javier, regarding a ~ 200-year cycle, your wavelet analysis shows that it exists for three short periods, around 5000, 3000, and 500 years ago. In each case the cycle lasted for 500 years or so, and died away entirely in between.
Next, rather than being a 200-year cycle, the cycles shown in the wavelets cover a frequency range from about 128 to 256 years.
In short, it is not a “200-year” cycle in any sense of the word. It is a rarely occurring (three times in 8000 years) group of related frequencies in the band from 128 to 256 years.
Finally, surely you must realize the absurdity of trying to tie that group of odd and occasional occurrences to the climate …
w.
From the Abstract
…”””The violation of a positive correlation between LCA and GCR intensity which was observed in the 1980s–1990s occurred simultaneously in the Northern and Southern hemispheres in the early 2000s and coincided with the sign reversal of GCR effects on troposphere circulation. It was suggested that a possible reason for the correlation reversal between cyclonic activity at middle latitudes and GCR fluxes is the change of the stratospheric polar vortex intensity which influences significantly the troposphere-stratosphere coupling…..”””
Propagation of GCR into the Earth system will change with solar magnetic cycle as we know.. but …
Modulation of anomalous and galactic cosmic rays
http://www.ieap.uni-kiel.de/et/ag-heber/english/ket/gcr_spatial.html
B. Heber, M.S. Potgieter, A. Burger, F. McDonald, H. Kunow, P. Ferrando, J. B. Blake, C. Paizis
Galactic cosmic rays are energetic particles entering the heliosphere from the interstellar medium. Anomalous cosmic rays are believed to be at the termination shock accelerated pickup ions with maximum energies of ~300 MV. These particles are modulated by the solar wind and the solar magnetic field carried out by the solar wind. The important processes describing particle propagation in the heliosphere are convection, diffusion, adiabatic deceleration, gradient and curvature drifts. Because of drift effects electrons and protons should be modulated differently. At solar minimum during an A>0-solar magnetic epoch like in the 1970’s and 1990’s protons are expected to drift in into the inner heliosphere over the poles and out along the heliospheric current sheet, while electrons should show the opposite trajectories (see right inlet of the 1st following figure.
http://www.ieap.uni-kiel.de/et/ag-heber/english/ket/gcr_spatial_html_1b9ab73d.png
http://www.ieap.uni-kiel.de/et/ag-heber/english/ket/habintro.png
OK …but then something happens during the unusual solar minimum
to follow next.
The minimum was not all that unusual. We have seen these things before, e.g. in 1901.
Anomalous cosmic rays are believed to be at the termination shock accelerated pickup ions with maximum energies of ~300 MV.
These are much too low-energy to have any effect. The people who believe climate is influenced by cosmic rays require energies 30 times as high, so forget about the Anomalous rays.
MODULATION OF GALACTIC COSMIC RAY PROTONS AND ELECTRONS DURING AN UNUSUAL SOLAR MINIMUM
http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/0004-637X/699/2/1956
B. Heber1, A. Kopp1, J. Gieseler1, R. Müller-Mellin1, H. Fichtner2, K. Scherer2, M. S. Potgieter3, and S. E. S. Ferreira3
Published 2009 June 26 • © 2009. The American Astronomical Society
Abstract
During the latest Ulysses out-of-ecliptic orbit the solar wind density, pressure, and magnetic field strength have been the lowest ever observed in the history of space exploration. Since cosmic ray particles respond to the heliospheric magnetic field in the expanding solar wind and its turbulence, the weak heliospheric magnetic field as well as the low plasma density and pressure are expected to cause the smallest modulation since the 1970s. In contrast to this expectation, the galactic cosmic ray (GCR) proton flux at 2.5 GV measured by Ulysses in 2008 does not exceed the one observed in the 1990s significantly, while the 2.5 GV GCR electron intensity exceeds the one measured during the 1990s by 30%-40%. At true solar minimum conditions, however, the intensities of both electrons and protons are expected to be the same.
Conclusions
…Although the sunspot number and the heliospheric magnetic field strength reached solar minimum values in 2008 the count rate of electrons exceeded the proton count rate by about 30%. During the 1980s, when first long-term charge-sign-dependent measurements became available, both electron and proton count rates reached the same level at solar minimum early 1987. In contrast to the period in 2008, the tilt angle, i.e., the maximum latitudinal extent of the HCS, was in 1986 below 10°. This leads us to the conclusion that curvature and gradients drifts, as predicted by Ferreira & Potgieter (2004), prevent the proton count rates to reach real solar minima level, because the particles have to drift into the heliosphere along the HCS, while the electrons already reached their solar minimum intensities. Therefore, the proton intensity is still lower than expected. Another important conclusion for the current solar cycle 23 minimum is that the proton intensity will increase by ~30% and will reach the highest intensities ever measured in heliospheric space, if the tilt angle will decrease below 10°. This work also shows the importance of simultaneous measurements of protons and electrons in order to understand the modulation of GCRs in the heliosphere….
wow this cycle has a proton shortage….gets its electrons though…sarc
The important statement is this
At true solar minimum conditions, however, the intensities of both electrons and protons are expected to be the same.
Hi Willis,
You did Title this:
Cosmic Disconnections
Willis Eschenbach / 3 days ago April 9, 2016
There was a cosmic disconnect Willis.
Their, as you called it, “money graph.”
Well here is the disconnect for the time period in the “money graph.”
Look at the top right box disconnect.
Look at the bottom right. Solar field and current sheet tilt.
MODULATION OF GALACTIC COSMIC RAY PROTONS AND ELECTRONS DURING AN UNUSUAL SOLAR MINIMUM
http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/0004-637X/699/2/1956
http://cdn.iopscience.com/images/0004-637X/699/2/1956/Full/apj306163f8_lr.jpg
Willis said,
They say that there is a pre-existing “positive correlation” that is “violated” in the early 2000s, followed by a “sign reversal of GCR effects” … say what? Sign reversal?
There was a change in the GCR that coincided with solar sign.
No, Carla. The minimum was not ‘unusual’ and the sun’s polar fields change sign in every cycle.
There really was a true disconnect.
BTW, the ’tilt angle’ is a highly artificial quantity. Due to the very large ‘pixel’ size for the WSO [1/11 of the solar diameter] the ’tilt angle’ always reaches 70 degrees at every solar maximum and always goes down to about 10 degrees at every minimum with a large error bar.
e.g. here http://www.leif.org/research/Model%20Polar-Sector%20Solar%20Magnetic%20Fields.pdf
lsvalgaard
April 12, 2016 at 7:02 pm
The important statement is this
At true solar minimum conditions, however, the intensities of both electrons and protons are expected to be the same.
————————————————————————————————————————————-
Thanks Dr. S.
I try not to get too involved in some of this climate debate stuff.
H. current sheet and tilt timing, with sectors and boundaries is fun. The timing of Earth bobbing up and down in it is another thing toooo..
All this was found out and understood almost half a century ago [mostly by me]
should have gone here.
see e.g. here http://www.leif.org/research/Model%20Polar-Sector%20Solar%20Magnetic%20Fields.pdf
lsvalgaard
April 13, 2016 at 1:29 pm
No, Carla. The minimum was not ‘unusual’ and the sun’s polar fields change sign in every cycle.
=========================================
Thanks Dr. S.
Perhaps the authors should have said, “most unusual of the space age.” Or, most unusual in the past 100 years or looking now like 200 years…
Yes, Dr. S., sun’s polar fields change sign in every cycle.
And hopefully will continue to do so.
Interesting times indeed.
No, only since about 1975. The ‘space age’ has been rather typical of solar activity the last 300 years.
http://kaltesonne.de/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/maerz1.gif
Fig. 1: The current solar cycle 24 compared to the mean of all previous cycles (blue) and to solar cycle no. 1, 1755-1766, (black).
Svensmark and Christenson’s,
and the lightening guys who preceeded them, were game changers in atmospheric chemistry – explaining a BUNCH of things about the atmosphere people had wondered since forever.
Working in atmospheric radiation I’m always interested of course in weather since it affects what we do in communications radiation.
Some guys got their hands, on some spectra readings from I think, -it’s been thirty years -the U.S. but maybe a joint metrics program.
I think it happened by first the lightening guys, using the information on one spectrum of Cosmic Rays and discovering that a lot of lightening is directly caused by Cosmic Rays; and the chemistry of the whole thing was very clear when people went over what they said.
Like all atmospheric physics, it’s very simple, once you have the readings, because it’s gas: there’s nothing secret in the mechanics; it’s the simplest phase of matter. There aren’t unusual boundaries, there are very few bounds that limit other phases of matter so when you see effects, it’s very clear.
Turns out that a lot of what’s often referred to as ‘sheet lightening’ where entire sections of the sky light up in what’s obviously an event seeded over a large area at once- is caused by this spectrum of Cosmic Rays the lightening guys were studying.
And I think the Svensmark and Christenson guys just heard about their discovery and decided to take the rest of the spectra and apply their presence to various events. It turns out, that when another spectrum of Cosmic Rays impinge on the atmosphere, it provides free electrons that allow the water in the air to become ice crystals, en mass. And although there isn’t a lot of water at high altitude there’s always some; so sometimes, these tiny, tiny ice crystals, that are so thin that at times you can hardly see them – just *bang* pop out and form.
People had wondered about both these things forever; and it turned out that whenever they showed other chemists the questions they had, the high energy guys all said – looks to me, like – this is the proper chain of events.
Everybody was pretty happy to hear about that because the questions were both pretty much, free from hooterville fake atmospheric chemical scammers claiming magic is involved.
That story is probably under-told and it’s an example of some guys just finding out something very cool to know, through precisely the right steps, and it being obvious to pretty much everyone at the time, that the answer was correct; same thing for the lightening.
I don’t remember where I saw it said but you’d see people saying sort of ”around” – wherever people gathered to talk about stuff that – it’s amazing what you can find out if you simply go measure.
Thanks Dr. S. for the link below. (I see there is now another one)
Even a newbie who looks at Figure 1 (1f) pg. 2 reads the description,
http://www.leif.org/research/Model%20Polar-Sector%20Solar%20Magnetic%20Fields.pdf
Then looks at this image, will have a better understanding of what they are looking at.
http://www.zam.fme.vutbr.cz/~druck/eclipse/Ecl1991a/Ecl1991wa_in04/Hr/Tse1991wa_in04.png
Heliospheric current sheet Neutral boundary and magnetic equator is still obscure for me.
gotta go
Heliospheric current sheet Neutral boundary and magnetic equator is still obscure for me.
This lecture may be useful:
lsvalgaard, have you seen this one? Not sure how “into” the life sciences you are but plenty of crossover with your field here also I think?
While Schumann Resonance is real, the connections alluded to look like coincidences to me.
lsvalgaard… Nice to put a face to a name (:-)
Thanks again for this link Dr. S.
This should work just fine.
I just need to buckle down and read it through. Start and stop, start and stop, get back to it weeks later and well, then you have to start over…
http://www.leif.org/research/Model%20Polar-Sector%20Solar%20Magnetic%20Fields.pdf
And … on how the interstellar background is not homogenous.
One of todays pictures on spaceweather.com
MARS AND SATURN: This weekend, if you wake up before sunrise, step outside and look south. Mars and Saturn are having a get together in the constellation Scorpius:
The two bright planets, one burnt-orange and the other golden-hued, are very bright and easy to see with the naked eye. A bit of extra exposure with a digital camera reveals the planets surrounded by the star-forming clouds of the Milky Way:
http://spaceweathergallery.com/full_image.php?image_name=Bill-Metallinos-Rho_5d_metallinos_1460717234.jpg
Until the next space weather/ solar topic, fare thee well…
on how the interstellar background is not homogeneous
It is, on the time and length scales of interest to us.