Guest opinion by John Hardy (UK)
Abraham Hondius “The Frozen Thames” 1677 (during the Maunder minimum)
Two separate indicators of climate change suggest that there is a risk of substantial cooling from 2017 onward. There is also likely to be a gap in energy production worsened by hasty climate change policies, making it three unrelated problems at the same time. In the worst case we could have rolling blackouts in Europe in the next few years.
Why might we expect the climate to cool? Both sides in the climate change debate (see for example this document from CRU) acknowledge a number of factors which appear to correlate to some degree with global temperature:
1. The concentration of water vapour, methane, carbon dioxide and some other gases (“Greenhouse Gasses” or GHGs) in the atmosphere
2. Solar cycles (specifically sunspot cycles)
3. The El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO)
4. Aerosols (from volcanic eruptions and other sources)
5. Milankovitch cycles
[Note – “correlate” i.e. both change in step. There is violent disagreement on “causation”, i.e. whether one actually causes the other. It is possible for example that rising temperatures cause an increase in carbon dioxide rather than the other way around]
Number 4 in our list – Aerosols – are rather unpredictable. Number 5 – Milankovitch cycles – are very long. No one credible on either side of the argument maintains that GHG will cause a step change in climate in the near term.
This leaves number 2 – Solar cycles, and number 3 – ENSO. Historical data and present trends suggest that both may be heading for a strong downturn at more or less the same time.
Whammy 1 – Solar Cycles
There are records of sunspot activity going back hundreds of years. Rather bizarrely there is a historical correlation between low sunspot activity and cooler periods:
Graph of sunspot numbers against year
(from Wikipedia – CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=969067. Downloaded 27 June 2016)
There is an obvious 11 year cycle but with other variations on top of that. The critical point is that levels of sunspot activity correlate strongly with temperatures: in particular the Maunder Minimum coincided with the Little Ice Age and the Dalton Minimum likewise was a cold period.
In 2006 NASA predicted “Solar Cycle 25 peaking around 2022 could be one of the weakest in centuries.” (http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2006/10may_longrange/), and it is shaping up that way. Several recent posts have made a similar point:
Graph of sunspot numbers against year on a shorter timescale
(From ftp://ftp.swpc.noaa.gov/pub/weekly/RecentIndices.txt . Data downloaded 6 June 2016)
This pattern is similar to the cycles at the start of the Dalton minimum above, a period of significant cooling. This suggests the possibility that we might be heading for a similar temperature “minimum”.
Note again that this is only correlation, not causation. It could be coincidence.
Whammy 2 – ENSO
It was well known to peoples living on the Pacific coast that temperatures were cyclic. The warm years were dubbed “El Nino” and the cold ones “La Nina”. The ENSO index attempts to put some numbers on this. Six variables related to the tropical Pacific are combined into a “multivariate ENSO index”.
So what is the evidence that this correlates with global temperature more widely? It has been gleefully and widely reported that 2015 global temperatures were the highest in recent years. This is certainly so in the global temperature data sets we have available, although they are all different and all disputed. The higher temperatures in 2015 have been interpreted in the media as a resumption of CO2 induced warming, but the correlation is far stronger with ENSO. 1998 and 2015 were both strong “el Nino” years. Here is the detail
The graph below is the HADCRUT4 (Met Office and UEA Climate Research Unit) data set with the 1998 and 2015 peaks circled:
UK Met. Office temperature anomaly versus year
(Downloaded from http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcrut4/diagnostics.html 27June 2016. Emphasis added)
And here is the University of Alabama satellite data set, again with 1998 and 2015 circled:
University of Alabama temperature anomaly versus year
(Downloaded from http://nsstc.uah.edu/climate/ 27 June 2016. Emphasis added)
These two datasets are different in detail, but both agree that there was a peak around 1998 which was not significantly exceeded until 2015.
The graph below plots the multivariate ENSO index. The positive red peaks are (warm) “el Nino” years and the negative blue peaks are (cold) “la Nina” years. Again, 1998 and 2015 are circled:
Graph of ENSO index against year
Downloaded from http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/enso/mei/ 27 June 2016. Emphasis added
If (and only if) previous patterns are repeated, we are now headed into the “La Nina” part of the cycle. If this occurs we would be likely to see a reduction in global average temperatures, although the correlation with temperature appears to be different in different locations.
Whammy 3 – Power supply
There seems to be a strong possibility of a shortfall in UK energy supply in the coming years, and this reflects a pattern over much of Europe. A report from the UK Institute of Mechanical Engineers noted that it is UK government policy to close all remaining coal-fired generating capacity by 2025. They conclude that “…The loss of coal by 2025, along with growth in demand and the closure of the majority of our nuclear power stations will therefore be significant, leaving a potential supply gap of 40%–55%, depending on wind levels….” And “…we have neither the time, resources, nor the sufficient [Sic] number of skilled people to build enough CCGTs [Combined Cycle Gas Turbines] to plug this gap…”
If this analysis is correct (and they discuss various scenarios) the UK may have a growing power problem, and other western countries may have similar problems in the rush to scrap coal-fired and nuclear power stations.
Discussion
Relatively sudden temperature changes do occasionally occur. The most extreme in the time scale of human agriculture was the Younger Dryas about 12,000 years ago. In Greenland at that time the temperature is believed to have dropped 10oC in 10 years although the change in global average may have been less. 10oC is the same order as the difference between the mean temperature for January and the mean temperature for May in London.
We would be extremely unfortunate to be hit by a Younger Dryas magnitude event; but two of the main factors correlating to earlier climate changes appear to be heading for a strong downturn at the same time. If we are hit by a combination of a very strong La Nina at the same time as a repeat of something like the Dalton minimum we could be in for some cold winters.
The uncertainty of the power supply, caused in part by green opposition to coal and nuclear, could make it a triple whammy. Rolling blackouts are a possibility, particularly on cold, still, evenings. To some pensioners, alone in the dark on a freezing night with heating inoperative, it would mean a lonely death. Folk with the honourable intention of “saving the planet” may instead be killing their grannies.
So the Atlantic Ocean didn’t make the cut?
Your ENSO index graph appears to be missing.
…The road to Hell is paved with good intentions “
I constructed this graph about 3 years ago
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/CET-NV.gif
decline in the CET is already under way.
All is lost.
If I were a power production hardware company, I’d do a little pre-planning. Sketch out the requirements for building and selling a LOT of gas-fired turbine power plants, for example. They wouldn’t have to be state of the art, but they would need to be built in a short time frame.
On the other hand, the world is going to be a few years into the cold before most folks realize just how bad their bet on AGW was…
What? There cannot be problem–Michael Mann did away with the LIA in his famous graph! 🙂
Doesn’t matter if it keeps warming or if it starts cooling.
So long as the T change is at the same rate it has been.
Most people barely notice a difference until they remember more snow in Winter 40 years ago.
It’s not a problem at this pace.
John hardy
Here is my reconstruction of CET which extends this long running temperature series back to 1540 .
As can be seen, the LIA can be viewed as intermittent rather than a several centuries long cold period. Also within the graphic are various sun spot minimums and also volcanic eruptions.
As can be observed, there is some sort of correlation with the maunder minimum, but less so with other sun spot minimum periods. However, after an examination of Hubert lambs work on winds it would appear that at least some of these cold periods , including th Maunder, coincided with a considerable increase of winter easterlies. It is extended winter easterlies that gives us exceptionally cold winters, similarly extended periods of westerly winds bring us warm winters.
Whether sun spots cause weather patterns to shift to bring wind directions from one direction or another I can not say, or whether it causes the jet stream to move its position is similarly unknown.
I am ambivalent about the effects of sun spots and also volcanic eruptions. Consequently, unless something happens to cause material changes to the jet stream or wind directions, I think it likely we will generally continue the warming we can observe, that commenced some 300 Years ago.
Tonyb
“Killing Granny”…a great book for O’Reilly or even for Anthony
Sunspot numbers or Solar Activity (SA) can serve as a proxy for changes in heat content added into earth’s climate system. But the temperature response will be to the accumulation of heat over time, and not immediately to the SA variations. An approach to this is explained here:
https://rclutz.wordpress.com/2016/06/22/quantifying-natural-climate-change/
I fully expect the climate to get much colder in the near future, based on many factors. But the one factor that I would mention first is that the climate has been cycling hotter and colder for a long, long time. Why should it stop now? Just because silly progressives want to tax CO2 and take down Western civilization?
I think Mother Nature will continue to be the dominate force in climate — not puny mankind.
UK grid is a problem next winter no matter what the weather does. It is cold and dark in winter. Peak demand is after dark on winter days. Solar is useless then. Wind output is frequently zero for days given prevailing winter weather patterns. Those same highs also cause comtinental wind to go to zero at yhe same time. The grid now has zero reserve capacity including interconnects, thanks to several old end of life coal station closures. The National Grid is planning to keep some of this mothballed old coal capacity on standby for restart. But it is old and unreliable, cannot start or ramp rapidly, and in any event amounts to 5% reserve when the norm is a bare minimum of 10%, and 12-15% is considered normal. Disaster by design.
John
Sorry, forgot to mention that you are of course right about our lack of energy supplies. Successive govts seem to have wilfully ignored the need to provide sufficient amounts of affordable base power. Our latitude makes us unsuited to solar power and our wind is too intermittent to be reliable , especially during a cold windless winter high pressure event.
Should Hinckley point nuclear power station, approved today, actually go ahead, it will be a dozen years until we feel the benefit. In the meantime perfectly useable power stations are closed in order to meet our carbon reduction strategies. We must hope that the coming winter is as mild as the last one, second warmest in CET. The warmest was over 150 Years ago.
Tonyb
Ban Coal and Nuclear. Let the Buggers Freeze in the Dark
“Why might we expect the climate to cool?
Because the last 500,000 years has been predominantly ice age with brief warm periods, like the one we are in now.
NG peaking stations are efficient and are just a jet engine or two or three. They are modular in design, can be put in place in 12 months or less and can be started and stopped quickly. Just need a plug into the grid and a NG source. We have a few here in North Carolina. Someone could probably put one in and charge a fortune when it is needed.
New England is racing England to see who can be the first to cause a mass blackout during a major cold snap. Some rivalries never die.
There was a story posted this week in USA Today about how the power grid is currently doing just fine, touting someone as saying “I told you so” to people warning that too much base load was being put on gas. They don’t seem to understand that the problem will occur in the middle of winter when pipeline infrastructure literally cannot physically move the gas that will be demanded for heat and electricity. It almost happened two winters ago, but there is much less coal power now.
Bad Luck as Robert A. Heinlein said in relation to disregarding facts and their proponents.
“… a number of factors which appear to correlate to some degree with global temperature:
1. The concentration of water vapour, methane, carbon dioxide and some other gases (“Greenhouse Gasses” or GHGs) in the atmosphere …”.
==========================================
It is claimed with varying degrees of attribution that the GAT rise since the pre-industrial LIA can be at least partly attributed to human GHG emissions then, who knows, even the miserablists amongst us may ‘learn how to stop worrying and love the Anthropocene’.
As a farmer in the south of England, and someone whose livelihood is dependent on the weather I take a close interest in it, and I would have to say on a purely anecdotal basis that temperatures here may well have risen on average, but that is definitely NOT the same as rising absolutely. I would suspect that the main reason for the statistical higher temperatures in the last decade is due to higher minimum temperatures, not rising maximum temperatures. Summers particularly are noticeably wetter and cooler and winters are milder than they used to be. We rarely get very hot spells in summer in recent years, and prolonged cold snaps in winter have become rarer too (though we did have a couple of cold winters a few years back). Ask anyone who has been farming here for 40+ years and they will tell you that summers particularly were hotter and dryer in past decades, and winters colder – the seasons appear to have become closer together, with less overall variation. Farmers are people who spend their time out in all winds and weathers and whose knowledge of the weather is direct experience, not from a chart of statistics.
I am off to see my old granny in the UK before the winter sets in. I am bringing a bottle of good old Aussie sunshine for her and she can put her tired old work worn feet on it in the cold and darkness. She will then not have to decide to ”Eat or heat”?(She could use the bottle as an excuse to invite the old guy next door for a sleep over!).
IPCC AR5 WG1 says “it is more likely than not that internal climate variability in the near-term will enhance and not counteract the surface warming”, there will be a strong rebound from the ‘hiatus’, and solar influences will be less. There are some testable predictions. Meanwhile since 1996 CO2 concentration has increased by half the total since 1958, UAH global anomaly trend is +0.1C for this period, and 55% of monthly UAH variation is associated with the MEI 5 months previously (74% using 12 month means). Stand by.
Core samples indicate that during the last ice age, the co2 level were up to 100o percent greater than now. Were there fridges, trucks and jumbo jets in that time?
[Typo in the number: “o” is inserted; also “times as much” or “percent greater” ? .mod]
Prediction: It’ll be President Trump’s fault when CAGW becomes CAGC in the 2018 midterm US election spin cycle.