Guest essay by Andy May and Javier
The evidence for a persistent irregular climate cycle with a period of 2400 ±200 years is strong. There is compelling evidence of a solar cycle of about the same length and phase; suggesting that the solar cycle might be causing the climate cycle. We will present a summary of the evidence, beginning with the original paleontological evidence, followed by the cosmogenic radionuclide (10Be or Beryllium-10 and 14C or Carbon-14) evidence. For more information, a bibliography of many papers discussing topics relevant to the Bray (Hallstatt) cycle can be found here. Only a small portion of the relevant papers are mentioned in this summary post.
In the November 16, 1968 issue of Nature, James R. Bray first proposed the idea of a 2600-year solar-driven climate cycle based primarily upon evidence of Holocene global glacier advances and retreats. We prefer to call this period the Bray Cycle after him, but the same cycle is often called the Hallstatt Cycle. In this post, we will use both names interchangeably to refer both to the climate cycle and the solar cycle. Bray only considered the maximum advance of a glacier field or a major re-advance that reached the near vicinity of the maximum. He used glacier fields in North America, Greenland, Eurasia, New Zealand and South America in the study. The glacial advances were dated using tree rings, lichenometry and radiocarbon dating. Glacial events for the last 13,700 years suggested an optimum interval of 2600 years. He used a “solar index,” based upon sunspots, sunspot cycle length and auroral records that covered the period from 700BC to the present day to show the cause might be a solar cycle. Over this period, the chi-square statistictied the glacial events to solar activity with a score of 28.6 (P<0.001).
While the use of changes in the rate of 14C production as a quantitative indicator of solar activity had not matured in 1968, Bray does mention that glacier records and 14C measurements correlate. He recognizes that 14C increases in periods of low solar activity and decreases in periods of high solar activity. Later researchers take advantage of this relationship to provide more evidence for the Bray cycle and to better estimate its length.
In 1988, Pestiaux, et al. found a strong 2500-year statistically significant cycle in the δ18O (delta-Oxygen-18, an indicator of air temperature) concentration in three deep sea cores taken in the Indian Ocean. Vasiliev and Dergachev (2002) reviewed the available evidence for a ~2400-year climate cycle and summarized (note the dates of the cold periods are all a bit later than the dates we use in this post):
“There are many data confirming the cyclical nature of the Earth’s climate. The study of the δ18O concentration in ice core (Dansgaard et al., 1984) showed a ∼2500-year climatic cycle to exist. A ∼2400-year quasiperiod was observed in the δ18O concentration of deep sea core with high sedimentation rates (Pestiaux et al., 1988). Similar periodic behaviour has been found in GRIP2 and GISP ice cores over the last 12 000 years. Glaciological time series indicate that the Holocene was punctuated by a series of ∼2500-year events (O’Brien et al., 1995). The Middle Europe oak dendroclimatology demonstrates that the Little Ice Age (1500–1800 yr. AD), the Hallstattzeit cold epoch (750–400 yr. BC) and the earlier cold epoch (3200–2800 yr. BC) are separated by 2200–2500 years (see Damon and Sonett, 1992, p. 378). The time positions of these epochs are correlated with the periods of large 14C fluctuations …”
O’Brien, et al. in the December 22, 1995 issue of Science describe their geochemical analysis of the Summit Greenland ice cores. The data demonstrates that cooler climates occur at roughly 2600-year intervals in the Holocene. The oldest of these events is the Younger Dryas period cooling event (12,800BP) and the most recent is the Little Ice Age (roughly 700BP to 130BP). We will use BP as years before 1950 in this post. O’Brien continues:
“Cold events identified in our [ice core] glacio-chemical series correspond in timing to records of worldwide Holocene glacier advances and to cold events in paleoclimate records from Europe, North America, and the Southern Hemisphere, as determined by combining glacier advance, oxygen isotope (δ18O), pollen count, tree ring width, and ice core data.”
A plethora of climatic proxy evidence supports a well-established ~2400 year climatic cycle. Even in 1995, using 14C as a climate and/or solar activity proxy was controversial. But, O’Brien continues:
“Although a Δ14C -climate link is controversial, a Holocene climate quasi-cycle of ~2500 years (close to our quasi-2600-year pattern), in phase with Δ14C variations, has been identified by a number of researchers examining glacial moraines, δ18O records from ice cores, and temperature-sensitive tree ring widths.”
Van Geel, et al. (1998) discusses the dramatic rise in 14C during the Little Ice Age (1300AD-1850AD) and during the Greek Dark Age (roughly 1100BC to 800BC). The history of these cooler periods is fairly well known, so they can provide evidence of the link between 14C concentrations and climate. Van Geel discusses techniques of matching 14C reconstructions with historical and paleontological evidence, like the moss species composition of peat bogs. He also provides archaeological, paleontological and geological evidence that climate change around 850BC occurred simultaneously in both hemispheres. To this point, the 14C and 10Be radionuclide concentrations in the Earth’s carbon cycle and in ice cores, respectively, have mostly been used in a qualitative way. It was difficult to use them to estimate solar activity or climate quantitatively due to problems in determining the computational parameters. For 14C, the problems are removing the long-term geomagnetic variation and estimating the total amount of carbon in the system at the time the 14C was created by cosmic rays. For 10Be, also created by cosmic rays, it is knowing the precipitation rate in the area where the ice core was cut and how it varies over time. Steinhilber, et al., 2012, explain it well, see Figure 1:
Figure 1 (Steinhilber, et al., 2012)
Steinhilber, et al. explain the problems:
“14C enters the global carbon cycle, and therefore fluctuations of the atmospheric 14C concentration … measured as Δ14C in tree rings are damped, smoothed, and delayed relative to the 14C production. The effect of the carbon cycle can be removed by inverse carbon cycle modeling. The resulting 14C production rate … is a better measure of the cosmic radiation, but it still contains a climate signal component due to unknown temporal changes of the carbon cycle … In contrast to 14C, aerosol-borne 10Be is removed from the atmosphere relatively fast, within a few years, and stored in natural archives such as polar ice sheets. Because of its short atmospheric residence time, 10Be directly reflects cosmic ray intensity variations with almost no attenuation and a delay of 1–2 y. Uncertainties are introduced mainly on annual time scales by atmospheric mixing processes and wet and dry deposition from the atmosphere to the ice.”
Steinhilber, et al. use 14C concentrations from tree rings and 10Be ice core records from both Greenland and Antarctica. Since both are created by cosmic rays, but suffer from different environmental effects, they use principal component analysis to extract the cosmic ray effect. They found that the first principal component explained 69% of the total variance and used it to model the total radionuclide production rate.
The Bray cycle appears to be closely tied to tight clusters of grand solar maxima and minima. The Little Ice Age Wolf, Spörer, Maunder and Dalton grand minima are the best example of a solar grand minima cluster and they fall in a Bray low. The Greek Dark Age and the Homer grand minimum also fall in a Bray low. Significant historical events that fall in Bray lows are labeled in figure 2. A more complete picture of these events can be found here. The Little Ice Age (LIA) is a well-known cold period filled with plagues and suffering due to cold, for more details see here and in Dr. Wolfgang Behringer’s excellent book. The period labelled “GDA” is the Greek Dark Ages, during this Bray low the Late Bronze Age ended and after a period of civilization collapse, the Early Iron Age started. The “Uruk” Bray low event corresponds with the expansion of the Uruk civilization and the growth of some of the world’s first cities. Near the end of the Uruk Bray low, the Middle East transitions from the Copper Age to the Early Bronze Age and cuneiform writing appears.
The earliest Bray low shown corresponds with the beginning of the “LBK” or the Linear Pottery Culture along the Danube River in Europe. This period marks the beginning of the end of the hunter-gatherer culture in Europe and the beginning of the growth of an agricultural economy. We are not certain the LBK and Uruk historical events were determined by Bray lows, we just mention them to position the lows in terms of human history. However, the more recent Greek Dark Ages and the Little Ice Age are well established colder periods with numerous historical climatic crises.
It is interesting that each Bray low corresponds to a major cultural transition. The LBK is roughly the end of the Early Neolithic in Europe, when agriculture started to spread. The Uruk period is when the Middle East transitions from the Copper Age to the Early Bronze Age. The GDA occurs as the Middle East moves from the Bronze Age to the Iron Age and the LIA occurs when humans transition from the Pre-industrial era to the Industrial era. Other cultural transitions have been identified in different parts of the world for these periods. Cooler and more difficult climates times do stimulate innovation. This evidence has led some archaeologists, like Weninger et al., 2009, or Roberts et al., 2011, to develop the theory that climate caused environmental stress is an engine to societal change, and they both point to the lows of the Bray cycle as some of the best examples.
Usoskin, et al. (2016, Astronomy and Astrophysics) performed a spectral decomposition of 14C and 10Be curves to 7,000 BC. Once the first component was removed a very strong, in phase, 2400-year cycle was uncovered in both curves as shown in Figure 2. The blue curve is 14C and the red is 10Be, the vertical scale is a computed “sunspot index number.” Solar grand maxima are shown as red stars and solar grand minima are shown as open blue circles. We have historical records establishing the grand minima after 1500BC, the earlier ones are based on a model of 14C and 10Be curves.
Figure 2 (after Usoskin, et al.)
Steinhilber, et al. found that using the first component of a principal component analysis eliminated terrestrial effects from the curves and resulted in a 2200-year cycle. Usoskin, et al. used a related but different statistical technique to remove terrestrial effects and extracted a 2400-year cycle from the data. Usoskin’s Pearson’s coefficient between the 10Be and 14C records was 0.77 which is highly significant (p<10-5). Usoskin notes:
“This Hallstatt cycle has so far either been ascribed to climate variability (Vasiliev & Dergachev 2002) or to geomagnetic fluctuations, particularly geomagnetic pole migration (Vasiliev et al. 2012). However, the fact that the signal we found is in phase and of the same magnitude in the two cosmogenic isotope reconstruction implies that it can hardly be of climatic origin. As already pointed out, 14C and 10Be respond differently to climate changes. In particular, 14C is mostly affected by the ocean ventilation and mixing, while 10Be (in particular, its deposition in central Greenland) is mainly affected by large-scale atmospheric circulation, particularly in the North Atlantic region (Field et al.2006; Heikkila et al. 2009). … We thus conclude that the ≈2400-yr Hallstatt cycle is most likely a property of long-term solar activity.”
McCracken, et al., 2013, also looked at the 10Be data and the 14C data together and separately. He provides the figure below showing how well they match each other at about 2300 years. In this Fourier amplitude spectrum, the 10Be and 14C Bray cycle peaks only differ by 20 years. They also match the cosmic ray modulation function (“Ф”) quite well. The modulation function is described by Gleeson and Axford, 1968.
Figure 3 (McCracken, et al., 2013)
Neither the Bray cycle nor the pattern of clustered grand solar minima are perfectly timed. Both, largely vary around a 2400-year cycle by about 200 years each way. Allowing for this, the Bray cycle lows and the clustered grand solar minima do correspond with major historical cold periods as shown in figure 2. Although the 10Be and 14C records suggest a regular pattern of solar and cosmic ray intensity, the grand solar minima and maxima effects on the Earth’s climate do not depict a dominant periodic behavior. The minima and maxima appear to be modified by other climatic factors that may, in part, be chaotic. That said, there is a tendency for the grand minima to cluster in Bray lows. Usoskin has investigated this and presents a probability function of the tendency, we show this in figure 4. Grand solar minima do occur outside Bray lows, but almost half occur within 250 years of a Bray low.
Figure 4, after Usoskin, 2016
The evidence herein and in the bibliography provided, supports the existence of both a climatic cycle and cosmogenic radionuclide cycle of ~2400 ±200 years that are in phase. The lows of the cosmogenic cycle have a high probability of containing grand solar minima of the Spörer and Maunder type. There are only two possible explanations for this evidence. Either the climate variations are responsible for the changes in cosmogenic isotopes 14C and 10Be, or the solar variability is responsible for the changes in the rate of production of both isotopes and is having a strong effect on the centennial to millennial climatic variability of the planet. The latter explanation is supported by two lines of evidence. For the period of time for which we have records of solar activity, the rate of cosmogenic isotope production correlates with solar activity, as figure 5 shows. Also, the lows of the Bray cycle represent the periods of highest cosmogenic isotope production and are marked by about half of the solar grand minima on record, including the Wolf, Spörer, Maunder and Dalton minima. To claim the isotopes represent a climatic contamination is akin to a claim that the cosmogenic isotopes do not represent a solar proxy at all. Given that cosmogenic isotopes are well established as a proxy for solar activity, that claim requires strong evidence that so far does not exist.
Figure 5 (References here and here)
Summary and Conclusions
The Bray cycle was first proposed as a climate cycle driven by a solar cycle of the same length and phase by James Bray in 1968. He correlated glacial advances (representing colder periods) around the world to a sunspot index and concluded that the solar cycle and the cold periods were linked. This was the same conclusion reached, with far more data in 1990 by Hood and Jirikowic, and in 2016 by Usoskin, et al.
At each Bray cycle low, beginning with the Little Ice Age and ending with the Younger Dryas period, there are significant historical and archeological events indicating a colder climate. In addition, Usoskin has shown that grand solar minima tend to cluster in Bray cycle lows. The Bray cycle varies between 2200 and 2600 years from peak to peak, with a most common length of 2300 to 2400 years. The cycle may be much more regular than that, the variation in length could be caused by two other problems. First, our ability to date events in the past is not very accurate, errors of 100 years or more are very common. Second, existing climatic conditions going into a Bray low and the state of other cycles (for example the 1000-year Eddy cycle and the 208-year de Vries cycle) help to determine the Bray cycle effect. A Bray low during a glacial period will be different than a Bray low today. So, the fact that we cannot be precise about the Bray cycle length does not invalidate the cycle.
While the cause of the solar cycle of Bray length is currently unknown, Scafetta, et al. (2016) have suggested that the orbits of the larger planets have a repeating pattern of 2318 years that might be the cause. Proof is elusive, but this is a fascinating area of study.
The Bray cycle has been recognized in glacier advances and re-advances, ice raft data, peat bog studies, δO18 data, and in 10Be and 14C records for almost 50 years. It is supported by historical accounts from Bray lows and archeological data. There is little doubt that the cycle exists, but its exact length and its ultimate cause are unknown. However, much work is being done that should bear fruit with time.
One inescapable conclusion, from the evidence presented, is that solar variability is an important cause of climate change in the centennial to millennial time frame. Therefore, it must have contributed more to recent warming since the last Bray low ended at the end of the Little Ice Age than the IPCC suggests.
This post is in response to Willis Eschenbach’s posts entitled “Sharpening a Cyclical Shovel” and “The Cosmic Problem with Rays.” His posts were in response to our previous posts on natural climate cycles: Impact of the ~ 2400 yr solar cycle on climate and human societies, Periodicities in solar variability and climate change: A simple model, and Solar variability and the Earth’s climate.
And in spite of all the long term evidence, the WMO defines climate as average weather over 30 years. In my 7 decades I have only witnessed weather like my grand parents and great grand parents before me and their ancestors before them. No one alive today has probably witnessed true identifiable climate change. Climate is regional, weather is whatever you see when you look outside or at a satellite image of the earth. My grandparents and parents drove mules/horses to till the land and lived to see man walk on the moon. My ancestors traveled to and from India and Australia and to North America from Europe. The weather they talked about is the same as we see today, perhaps not as severe. Is less severe weather climate change?
Wait till next year. (Common saying on the farm/ranch.) This year, 10% of the central and northern Alberta crops were under snow or too wet to harvest. Is that because of “Global Warming” or just weather?
Me? I betting on weather.
Plus technology has made all weather pretty bearable compared to 100 years ago. Easy to weather the weather in our synthetic clothing and fossil fueled housing.
d
You are on the correct track. The sun causes cyclic climate change, including massive climate change such the Younger Dryas 12,900 BP climate change event.
The Younger Dryas climate change ‘event’ occurred when solar insolation at 65N was maximum.
12,900 years ago the earth cooled from interglacial warm to glacial cold, (the ice sheets returned, North Atlantic ocean froze each winter to a latitude mid- Spain (UK average year average temperature for 1200 years minus 3C) with 70% of the cooling occurring in less than a decade.
The YD cooling period lasted for 1200 years, after which the planet warmed back to interglacial temperatures.
The YD event is a Heinrich event which occur roughly every 10,000 years. The Heinrich events are the largest change in climate. The Heinrich events initiate and terminate the interglacial periods.
Comment: There has a theory that the YD event has caused by a melt water pulse. That theory was disproved as the massive melt water pulse occurred a 1000 years before the YD event (no evidence of any cooling at that time). Another problem with the melt water pulse theory is basic modelling (peer reviewed) shows that a complete stoppage of the North Atlantic drift current would only cause slight cooling of Northern Europe, a factor of roughly ten less than the observed cooling.
In the last decade, the geomagnetic field specialists have found that the geomagnetic field changes cyclically and the cyclic change to the geomagnetic field correlate to cyclic warming and cooling of the planet. In addition the have found the cyclic changes to the geomagnetic field correlate to solar cycle changes.
The cyclic and in some cases, very, very, large changes to the direction and magnitude of the geomagnetic field are too rapid and too large to have been caused by a change in the convection motion of the liquid core.
Even if there was mechanism that could cause cyclic abrupt changes in convection flow in the liquid core, a change in convection flow in the liquid core cannot could not cause the changes to the geomagnetic field. Field changes caused by a change in liquid core convection is resisted by a back EMF that is generated in the mantel which limits the rapidity of any core based change to the field for both direction and magnitude.
The sun is causing the change to the geomagnetic field. There are no other suspects. There must be a physical explanation for ever thing that has or will happen.
The sun causes cyclic climate change by directly modulating the cosmic ray flux and modulating cosmic ray flux.
There are roughly 200 astronomical paradoxes and anomalies in peer reviewed papers that are explained by how the sun caused the geomagnetic field to change.
http://geosci.uchicago.edu/~rtp1/BardPapers/responseCourtillotEPSL07.pdf
http://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/416/1/gubbinsd4.pdf
The sun is causing the change to the geomagnetic field. There are no other suspects. There must be a physical explanation for ever thing that has or will happen.
Even so, the Sun is not causing the changes to the main field of the Earth, originating in the Earth’s core.
The sun causes cyclic climate change by directly modulating the cosmic ray flux and modulating cosmic ray flux.
Repeating it, does not make it any more true. The main modulator is the changing field of the Earth.
Changes in the Earth’s geomagnetic field are demonstrated by “magnetic striping” at mid-ocean ridges..
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mid-ocean_ridge
Why does the polarity flip ?
A good field for research as no one knows [but there are lots of guesses] however it’s unlikely to be anything to do with the sun.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geomagnetic_reversal
Solar cycle changes caused the majority of warming in last 150 years. If that assertion is correct, global warming is reversible.
There continues be observational support (for example the sudden change to the North magnetic pole drift velocity for example and a tenfold increase in the drop in the geomagnetic field intensity, the 11 year delay in the start in cooling from the drop in the solar cycle, the massive coronal holes on the surface of the sun) for the assertion the solar cycle has been interrupted which is different than a simple slowdown in the solar cycle.
The warming in the last 150 years has primarily high latitude which is the same as in the past during the cyclic warming and cooling events that correlate with solar cycle changes.
http://www.ospo.noaa.gov/data/sst/anomaly/2016/anomnight.11.24.2016.gif
the solar cycle has been interrupted
Not at all. The solar cycle progresses normally.
“The Middle Europe oak dendroclimatology demonstrates that the Little Ice Age (1500–1800 yr. AD), the Hallstattzeit cold epoch (750–400 yr. BC) …”.
======================================
Off topic: the name ‘Hallstatt’ will be familiar to those interested in European pre-Celtic / Celtic archaeology and history.
Hallstatt is the town in Austria near where rich burial sites were found of an iron-using distinctively Celtic culture which flourished from ~700 to ~400 BC.
Thank you to all these scientists contributing to this thread. As a humanities graduate with insatiable curiosity I continue to learn from your comments.
I don’t understand the point of this whole exercise. Let us suppose that there actually is a cycle that ranges (according to the data above) from 2200 to 2500 years. In fact, the ∆14C records don’t show that cycle, they show a cycle that ranges between 2000 and 2700 years, but contains nothing in the 2200 to 2500 year period.
SO … suppose this is some kind of real and lasting cycle, and as Javier has claimed it might last for 2000 years and it might last for 2700 years and it might be anything in betwen.
What does that gain us? I mean, we don’t know if this dang cycle is gonna be 2000 years or 2700 years, so it’s useless for any kinds of predictions. And if we look at the past, since the cycle might be anything from 2000 to 2700 years, we can claim just about anything as being this cycle … but again, SO WHAT???
I mean, let’s imagine that we’ve conclusively proven that this 2000-year to 2700-year cycle actually exists … how on earth does that help us here on earth? It can’t tell us anything about either the future or the past, so what the hell good is it to us?
Regards to all,
w.
Might be useful for creatures with a life span of 20,000 years or so
(yeah, in the end we’re all dead… ☺)
Yup, nobody gets out alive.
Willis,
We know that Milankovitch orbital cycles and the glacial cycle are related and that interglacials can take place at any time between 80,000-120,000 years, and that they last any time between 8,000-28,000 years.
“What does that gain us? I mean, we don’t know if this dang interglacial is gonna be 12000 years or 28000 years, so it’s useless for any kinds of predictions.”
Your approach is not a scientific one. We study cycles because they exist. The usefulness of science is removed from the studies, but it is indubitable.
Also:
You keep saying this, but that doesn’t make it any truer.
Let’s take the Berilium data from ice cores (letter d).
http://i.imgur.com/niNSwIr.png
It shows a probable Bray cycle low at 17,700 BP. Let’s take the Spörer minimum as the center of the last Bray cycle low at 500 BP (1450 AD). The average duration for the cycle in the last 20,000 years is then (17700 – 500)/7 = 2460 years
Now let’s check predicted versus observed:
1. Chosen 17,700
2. Predicted 15,240. Observed 15,000 (Be data)
4. Predicted 12,780. Observed 12,600 (C & Be data. Younger Dryas)
5. Predicted 10,320. Observed 10,300 (Boreal GSM. 10.3 kyr event)
6. Predicted 7,860. Observed 7,700 (Jericho cluster GSM. 7,7 kyr event)
7. Predicted 5,400. Observed 5,500 (Sumerian cluster GSM. 5.2 kyr event)
8. Predicted 2,940. Observed 2,800 (Homer minimum. 2,8 kyr event. GDA)
9. Chosen 500. (Wolff/Spörer/Maunder cluster GSM. LIA)
Evidence from cosmogenic and climatic data for numbers 5 to 9 is provided here:
https://judithcurry.com/2016/09/20/impact-of-the-2400-yr-solar-cycle-on-climate-and-human-societies/
Given that there is a significant dating uncertainty I would say that the match is excellent and in no way supports your assertion that the cycle can be anyway from 2000 to 2700 years.
Number 10 in that series should be around 3,900 ± 150 AD. There is an increased probability that our interglacial will end around that date.
Best regards.
Since most climate theories extend beyond human lifetimes, the main value of alternative theories is to keep doubt in the system and perhaps keep folks from attempting to fool with a climate which we really have insufficient data to truly understand. Our ability to actually have any significant long term impact upon our climate is very doubtful, at best. Destroying the fossil fuel markets and industrial efficiency, spraying SO2 into our atmosphere, or even nuclear war would likely have little effect upon long term climate.
Scientific inquiry is, indeed, justified for its own sake but it is unlikely that science history will even portray the truth, such as it is, accurately without political ramifications again due to the long time frames involved and the fickleness of human vanity. A significant extraterrestrial strike will change the ballgame in any event and at the very least introduce more doubt into what is a very chaotic system, not to mention potentially eliminating future climate historians.
Insert “probably” rgarding the extraterrestrial strike.
Javier’s reply is excellent and I only have this to add. To understand how climate changes, we need to understand the effect of solar variability and long term ocean cycles. There are many of these cycles, some are very clear in the record, some less so. The Bray cycle is one of the clearest in the record. So establishing it in our thinking is critical to move forward with this work.
The usefulness of an established Bray cycle in the scientific process is that it shows all of the warming since our records began in the 19th century cannot be due to man. Further, it shows that the effect of solar variability is not zero from 1951 to 2010 as the IPCC assumes. We have no idea how much the Bray cycle, since the LIA, has contributed to warming, but we do know (IMHO) that it is greater than zero. The Eddy cycle is also trending up since the LIA and it likely has an impact as well, but we have not addressed it in this post. I suspect other long term natural cycles are important as well (de Vries cycle for example), but these need to be studies and quantified, not ignored.
Science is its own reward. I was a professional scientist for 42 years and was always challenged on the value/applicability of my work by various bosses. Now I do science for fun, it is much more rewarding when you do it for fun and to learn. The solar cycles and the ocean cycles need to be studied, we cannot continue to assume, without proof, that they have no effect. That is quite foolish. Just my opinion.
The solar cycles and the ocean cycles need to be studied, we cannot continue to assume, without proof, that they have no effect.
We cannot assume that the solar cycles have a dominant [or major, or significant] effect without proof, especially since solar activity and climate have not correlated the past 300 years.
Leif,
That you keep saying that doesn’t make it any truer.
I find the correlation between climate and solar activity good enough to support that solar variability is an important factor in climate change. Obviously it is not the only forcing, so we should not expect a perfect match.
http://i.imgur.com/aXMnuOu.png
Now comes the part when after I demonstrate a good correlation you change the tune and claim that it is due to a climate contamination of the solar proxy. To save time I will put again figure 5 for the same period.
http://i.imgur.com/ubjPFYH.png
You are much too gullible. Some peaks coincide with cooling, some with warming. Considering the well-established climate contamination to the 10Be record, one cannot separate the influences.
As they should unless you are prepared to claim that volcanic eruptions and other climate forcings should not have an effect on climate for you to believe in a solar variability effect on climate.
I knew we would come to that after I showed the correlation. There is no need to separate the influences. 14C and 10Be have completely separate deposition pathways and therefore partially self-correct for some climatic effects when both are taken into consideration. And since the 2400 year cycle is based on the most outstanding cosmogenic signal during grand solar minima, it is impossible that climate contamination might account for that and 14C and 10Be remain a valid proxy for solar activity. And everybody in the field accepts that cosmogenic isotopes are valid solar activity proxies and as such are used in every article that deals with solar variability in the past. So you are handwaving your climate contamination card, while the signal we are analyzing is just too strong to be a problem of systemic noise or contamination. You do believe that solar grand maxima exist and have a strong effect on cosmogenic isotopes production rate, don’t you? Then bite the bullet and accept what almost every paleoclimatologist accepts.
You do believe that solar grand maxima exist and have a strong effect on cosmogenic isotopes production rate, don’t you?
There have been no Grand Maxima the last 400 years.
http://www.leif.org/research/The-Waldmeier-Effect-Levi.pdf
http://www.leif.org/research/EUV-Magnetic-Field.pdf
“You do believe that solar grand maxima exist”
Sorry that was a typo. I meant Solar Grand Minima, i.e. the periods of maximal rate of cosmogenic isotopes production.
It is difficult to know when what you write makes sense, but if you meant minima, then there are issues that you may not be aware of, e.g. that the equation [Gleeson & Axford’s] used for deriving the cosmic ray modulation is not valid during deep solar minima [as it assumes the corona is spherically symmetric, which it is not at minima]. As a result the derived solar activity often becomes negative [meaningless] at grand minima.
Yes, i ignored that, but I fail to see how that affects the point being made that Solar Grand Minima are the periods of highest ∆14C and ∆10Be, and that Solar Grand Minima distribution defines a ~ 2400 yr cycle.
The question therefore still is:
“You do believe that solar grand minima exist and have a strong effect on cosmogenic isotopes production rate, don’t you? Then bite the bullet and accept what almost every paleoclimatologist accepts.”
A strong effect? Probably half of the total, which leaves the other half for a climate signal, causing what you see in your comparisons.
almost every paleoclimatologist accepts
Like what almost every Climate Scientist accepts about AGW….
Leif,
I understand that you did your sunspot number tuning by consensus. And not everybody agrees.
The problem is that your position that no conclusions can be drawn to support the existence of the 2400 year cycle because of proxy climatic contamination does not have enough evidence. The existence of this cycle is not a controversial issue and it is accepted almost unanimously whenever mentioned in the literature. That’s why you always cite your personal opinion, while I can cite dozens of articles to back mine.
It is very likely that you are wrong on this one.
sunspot number tuning by consensus
No, not at all. By critical examination of the raw data.
Since there is a strong climate element in the radionuclide record, it is not surprising that some coincidences can be found, regardless of the consensus of almost all researchers you quote.
There is no evidence and no viable mechanism linking the long-term climate record to solar cycles.
Leif,
And approved in a congress by consensus as you have said at WUWT. That’s why it is an international number.
There’s plenty of evidence as we have showed in the article and comments, and the mechanism is being worked out with interesting hypothesis like stratospheric warming from UV.
Your position in this topic is not reflected in the scientific literature. That’s why you never back it up with references. Your quantification that half of the cosmogenic signal is climate induced seems like being pulled out of your hat. Where is the evidence?
And approved in a congress by consensus
It was approved because the evidence is compelling. Of course, there will always be a dwindling rearguard opposition clinging to the old, obsolete series, because the revised series undermines their pet theories.
Your position in this topic is not reflected in the scientific literature. That’s why you never back it up with references
It is pretty well generally accepted that there is a climate signal in the 10Be data, check out the discussion in the Varve-paper I linked to, and the Owens paper on heliospheric magnetic field determination, referred to earlier. Or the papers by Webber and higbie that I have referred you to in earlier posts. This last paper has had problems with publication because it exposes an inconvenient truth [the climate signal in the cosmic ray proxies].
I would agree to a point. While we cannot definitively link the 2400-year climate cycle to a 2400-year solar cycle, they are in phase and have the same length. It is not conclusive evidence, but suggestive of a link. And a mechanism is missing, is it the solar dynamo? An orbital thing? Solar wind variations? Without a good well accepted mechanism it is hard to be definitive.
But, the climate cycle can be shown to exist, in phase and of approximately the same length in all of the areas (glacial, iceberg, historical records, foram fossils, etc., etc.) in both the northern and southern hemispheres at the same time. Strongly suggestive of an extraterrestrial link.
Leif,
That’s exactly what the CAGW consensus says. It looks like the same arguments. But don’t get me wrong. I always accept the data from the experts in a field unless there is evidence that it is wrong. I have no problem with the revised SSN and am confident that it represents an improvement. You won’t see me using the old SSN. But you cannot poo-poo on the Bray (Hallstatt) solar cycle consensus, while pushing your own consensus on SSN.
There’s no discussing that, but that climate signal has not been shown to invalidate a conclusion that comes from the analysis of 14C, 10Be, and GSM distribution. Your position can be taken to question absolutely everything that science believes to be true as every dataset has noise and contaminations.
Your position can be taken to question absolutely everything that science believes to be true as every dataset has noise and contaminations
The issue is if the contamination is serious enough to invalidate too much extrapolation and signal confounding.
Here are some papers that you should check out:
Field CV, Schmidt GA, Koch D, Salyk C (2006): Modeling production and climate-related impacts on 10Be concentration in ice cores. J Geophys Res 111 (D15107). doi: 10.1029/2005JD006410
Aldahan A, Hedfors J, Possnert G, Kulan A, Berggren A-M, Soderstrom C (2008): Atmospheric impact on beryllium isotopes as solar activity proxy. Geophys Res Lett 35. doi: 10.1029/2008GL035189
Belmaker R, Lazar B, Tepelyakov N, Stein M, Beer J (2008): 10Be in Lake Lisan sediments—A proxy for production or climate? Earth Planet Sci Lett 269:448–457
Owens et al. 2016:
“The extracted cosmic ray record may be affected by such factors as terrestrial climate effects on the deposition into the reservoirs in which they are measured”
As I said, it is generally accepted that there is climate contamination. One can argue if it is 20% or 35%, or more than 50%. It is large enough to make suspect any correlations with climate itself.
Leif,
Sincere thanks for the bibliography. I will check it up.
It doesn’t affect the existence of the ~ 2400 yr solar activity cycle. We do have direct evidence for solar activity during the Maunder minimum when we can link a cosmogenic grand minimum (maximal production) to a solar activity grand minimum. And we have indirect evidence from naked-eye SSN and auroral records of a similar link for the Spörer and Wolff solar and cosmogenic grand minima. The conclusion is that climate contamination is not enough to affect the identification of solar grand minima from cosmogenic records unless climate cooling affects sunspots in the Sun, and auroras. So the evidence is quite clear. As the ~ 2400 yr solar cycle is grounded also in the Solar Grand Minima distribution, the available evidence supports the reality of a solar activity ~ 2400 yr cycle regardless of how much climate contamination is in the data.
And we have indirect evidence from naked-eye SSN and auroral records of a similar link for the Spörer and Wolff solar and cosmogenic grand minima.
That ‘evidence’ is flimsy at best and would only cover one 2400-yr ‘cycle’.
Yes it is flimsy and unreliable, but the difference between no auroras and lots of auroras is clear enough to identify grand solar minima in that record. And that identification fully agrees with the temporal position of solar grand minima according to cosmogenic isotopes.
That the evidence only covers one cycle is no obstacle. It confirms that cosmogenic grand minima (maximal rate of production) coincide with solar activity grand minima, and that is enough to confirm the ~ 2400-yr solar activity cycle.
difference between no auroras and lots of auroras is clear enough to identify grand solar minima in that record
Show the difference…
That the evidence only covers one cycle is no obstacle. It confirms that cosmogenic grand minima (maximal rate of production) coincide with solar activity grand minima
A bit of circular reasoning here…
Leif,
You know the data much better than I do. You should stop playing this game.
http://i.imgur.com/xCko7V2.png
It is not too late for you to change your opinion (again) and recognize that solar variability has a 3-5 times bigger impact on climate on the centennial to millennial time scale than currently assumed. That is what the evidence says.
The 2400 year climate cycle is real
The 2400 year cosmogenic cycle is real
The 2400 year solar activity cycle is real
All the rest we have to find out. But we won’t if we negate the evidence.
No 2400-yr cycle in those 1000 years of ‘data’. So, your claim is not substantiated. Your earlier post suggested that we had thousands of years of auroral sightings [which we don’t] such that they would support a 2400-yr cycle. So, again you are overplaying your hand. And keep repeating the mantra that all your cycles exist does not make them do so.
And, as usual, you only show a selected part of the record. Here is the data since 1500 [providing the missing part]: http://www.leif.org/EOS/92RG01571-Aurorae.pdf
http://www.leif.org/research/Aurorae-1500-1948.png
You keep playing “the game” to try to confuse people.
The auroral data, together with sunspot data, supports a correlation between solar activity and cosmogenic isotope production for over 700 years despite your feeble claims for climate contamination. No climate contamination in aurorae and sunspots, sorry.
The identification of the last 6 grand solar minima: Roman, Oort, Wolff, Spörer, Maunder, and Dalton, in both solar activity records (aurorae and sunspots) and cosmogenic isotope records, lends credibility to the previous grand solar minima identified in the cosmogenic isotope records for the past 10,000 years. The distribution of those grand solar minima of the past 10,000 years supports the existence of the 2400 year cycle. This is the argument that you cannot dismiss, no matter how much you spin the discussion.
I show what is shown in my source. With the population explosion and progress, the number of auroral reports also explodes. But since 1625 we have the sunspot data which is as you have pointed is less flimsy. So why would you want to use aurorae for that period?
supports a correlation between solar activity and cosmogenic isotope production for over 700 years despite your feeble claims for climate contamination.
Of course there is a correlation, but there is also a climate contamination. This makes the amplitude of the solar variation smaller, making the case for solar influence on climate weaker. But in any event, the 2400-yr ‘cycle’ in cosmic rays is so weak that it is not significant, and the dips to unphysical [negative] values of solar activity [below the floor in HMF b] are likely climate related to begin with.
Here I have been nice and indicated with shading where the contamination probably is present:
http://www.leif.org/research/Steinhilber-HMF-B-Spikes.png
You might want to overplot what you consider to be the best temperature record for this interval.
Leif,
This makes no sense to me. The climate variation is what it is and if it is the result of the solar variability it is the result of whatever solar variability has taken place. The evidence supports that the climate cycle is the result of the solar variability cycle because both show a good correlation with the cosmogenic cycle, specially in the presence and distribution of grand solar minima. If changes in isotopes production correlate with changes in solar activity, as it has been shown repeatedly, and changes in climate correlate with changes in isotopes production as it has also been shown, then the simplest explanation is that solar variability has an important effect on climate change.
That is very ugly what you have just done. That is not your figure. It is Steinhilber et al., 2010 “Interplanetary magnetic field during the past 9300 years inferred from cosmogenic radionuclides”.
You have not shaded anything in that figure, and you have been very naughty. Let’s see what the authors of that figure say about “your contaminated shading”:
http://i.imgur.com/5E0XVC1.png
Ouch! you have been caught lying. Cutting the figure caption to say that it supports you when the authors actually support me and saying that you have shaded the places where contamination takes place when in reality the shades indicate the Hallstatt cycle minima as I say. You really are prepared to go to extremes to defend your bias.
Perhaps I should have been more precise: I presented a figure with shading left in [I thought you would like the shading]. Steinhilber notes that the Halstatt cycle is really ~1000 years. Also note that the derived solar magnetic field is unphysically negative, showing that the reconstruction breaks down at times, and that is the cause of the very deep minima, rather than the much more modest solar signal [as McCracken also showed]. Now, in your zeal you neglected to overplot the carefully selected climate data. I suspect that you might find cold periods, just when Steinhilber’s reconstruction breaks down [due to climate contamination].
The evidence supports that the climate cycle is the result of the solar variability cycle because both show a good correlation with the cosmogenic cycle
Here your ‘reasoning’ is circular as [supposedly] solar activity is derived from the cosmogentic data.
Javier, cool it.
I have said this before: you are not up to the latest literature, e.g. this one:
Geomagnetism and Aeronomy, September 2016, Volume 56, Issue 5, pp 641–644:
“The Hallstatt solar cycle from radiocarbon data” by M. G. Ogurtsov:
Abstract: “The data on the 14C concentration in the Earth’s atmosphere are studied on a time span of 50000 years. It is shown that the Hallstatt cycle (a temporal variation with a period of 1500–2000 years) has been present in this series for at least 30000 years. However, this cycle is not purely of solar origin; nonsolar (supposedly climatic) factors contribute into it in certain epochs.”
Your cycle is sometimes hard to see:
http://www.leif.org/research/No-Halstatt-Cycle-Here.png
Leif,
I agree. Perhaps you should have said that the authors of the figure you were using against my arguments, actually supported my arguments. As far as I know Steinhilber’s group is one of the leading groups in past solar activity reconstruction.
You have not read that paper carefully. It says:
“During the past 9300 years, we find that there were four cycles of the Hallstatt periodicity in the IMF with a mean period of about 2250 years. Grand solar minima have largely occurred in clusters around the years -5300, -3400, -1100, and +1500 A.D. corresponding to the Hallstatt cycle minima. The last cluster lasted from +1300 to +1800 A.D. including the Dalton, Maunder, and Spörer Minima.”
I find significant climate change at the lows of the solar Bray (Hallstatt) cycle, as predicted by the solar variability-climate change hypothesis. You say it is climate contamination. Steinhilber et al., defend that it is solar.
You got it backwards. It is the changes in solar activity that produce the changes in cosmogenic isotopes.
I know Steinhilber’s group is one of the leading groups in past solar activity reconstruction
Steinhilber has left the field and is no longer an active scientist.
It is the changes in solar activity that produce the changes in cosmogenic isotopes
And it is climate contamination that produces the unphysical very deep [even negative] solar minima.
Leif,
That may be so, but an obscure article publish originally in Russian in “Geomagnetizm i Aeronomiya” is not going to prove it.
And this article has a serious problem. The periodicity they find is:
“As is seen from Fourier spectra of the restored components, most of them fall at the variation of 1786 years.”
That ain’t the Bray (Hallstatt) cycle. Given the period analyzed where they find the signal between -40,000 to -20,000, and given that the signal is absent from the last 10,000 years of data (the Holocene), it is clear that they are detecting the 1740-year Dansgaard-Oeschger cycle. So yes, it is a climate contamination, but no, it is not the Bray (Hallstatt) cycle. So another article that you cite that doesn’t support you. As you see (and know perfectly well) my position is a lot better grounded on the scientific literature than yours, and a lot better grounded on the evidence too.
That ain’t the Bray (Hallstatt) cycle
Because, perhaps, that cycle isn’t really there.
You seem to take your failure rather personally. Advice: don’t.
Leif,
It has been shown to be present during that time through the modulation of the de Vries 205 yr cycle in the 10Be record, that shows a ~ 2400 yr periodicity, as has been discussed and illustrated with figures in the comments here.
I am not taking anything personally, and I haven’t noticed any failure from my part. I enjoy discussing with you and I consider it a privilege to discuss with someone who knows so much. I am getting from you relevant bibliography and the impetus to sharpen and improve my arguments. You are still wrong on this issue, but that doesn’t diminish you at all. Everybody is wrong on something and knowing a lot about something doesn’t protect from falling to cognitive biases. What you and I think about the Bray cycle is irrelevant. Science will find out. Scientists are constantly adding more and more data and the evidence on the Bray cycle is growing. We now know a lot more about it than we did 15 years ago, since a lot of the evidence is from this century. Eventually the real impact of solar variability on climate change will be measured, perhaps within the next decades if we continue getting lower than average solar variability. In the end your defense of the role of solar variability in climate change when you were younger will be vindicated.
Well, your faith in this is strong. Mine is weak. I have studied this subject for 50 years and others have been at it for almost 400 years. No compelling evidence and no plausible mechanism have been found. As you have found out, there are MANY, MANY claims, but in my book they all fall short and are wanting. I have had the privilege to discuss this in person with the foremost luminaries in this field [McCracken, Beer, Siscoe, Usoskin, Wang, Lockwood, a.o.] and much have been learned and many past misconceptions and exaggerated claims have been corrected, but no resolution has been arrived at. It may take us another century or two to debunk fully the wild speculations of the past.
Leif, By all means keep looking for a reference that disputes the Bray climate cycle or, for that matter the Bray solar cycle. There may be one out there. Both Javier and I would like to see it. As you say, perhaps it isn’t really there. But, 48 years of research, by dozens of people, say it is. So, until you find a valid reference or can show some data that says otherwise, prudence dictates we assume they are both there. You seem to be saying “It isn’t there because I say so.” That will not fly.
Fascinating discussion.
Very interesting, and somewhat amusing, to witness the defence of most people’s ‘confirmation bias’. Many on here would deny having one. I admit mine: “It’s the sun, stupid!” (lol). Who doesn’t look for confirmation of, maybe just a tiny, long-held belief in something? That belief becomes even stronger when one has gone out of their way to show, in minute detail, how right they believe they are.
Personally, I take great pleasure from reading all the opposing views on a subject. This confirms my own bias that verily, the science is not settled. Therefore all the BS spouted by the AGW crowd is exactly that.
Off topic but can anyone throw any light on something for me, please? Although my comment is, as usual, innocuous and adds nothing ‘sciency’ to the discussion, it may answer my own question – (I shall watch the time it is posted). Having refreshed this page to look for recent comments going by the time-stamp, I am confused as (being in the UK) I am eight hours ahead of California, which I guess is where this blog is based, I see recent comments only seven hours behind UK time (currently the same as UTC). So what time is shown by the time-stamps and why is it set to that time?
i think they may have forgotten to “fall back” after day light savings time…
Mr. Ozade,
discussion was with substance, the topic difficult, 100dres of replies…..but
one can see that there is some major topic entirely missing, NOBODY
goes into this….and for this reason, the scientific answer cannot be found
with the presnted type of arguments in this post.
Missing is the discussion of EARTH ORBITAL CHANGES,
Isvalgaard points out that there were NO SUN output changes over the
past 300 years and he is right. For this reason, only the Earth orbit
is capable to produce such cold periods as the LIA, the Younger Dryas,
the Ice Ages….. the Sun´s OUTPUT stays the same, but in July, only
1320 W/m2 arrives on the top of the atmosphere, whereas in Jan 1407
W/m2 arrives much more…. this is a difference of 90 W/m2!! The Orbit
has the POTENTIAL of governing the climate…..more on
http://www.knowledgeminer.eu/climate-papers.html
Solar changes are peanuts, what does the climate change? The ORBIT.
JS
A reminder about milankovitch dynamics. The present consensus is that orbital dynamics change the angle and incidence of solar irradiance, that then affects climate. It is not the change in the total amount of w/m2. Pardon the early morning poor references. But the third one makes the point one step at a time.
http://www.indiana.edu/~geol105/images/gaia_chapter_4/milankovitch.htm
http://www.physicalgeography.net/fundamentals/6i.html
http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/glacial/glacial.pdf
That said, there could be a driving mechanism here having to do with equatorial band changes in millennial timed net absorption/net evaporation of solar heat thus producing the ocean/atmosphere parameters needed to swing between the two stages not exactly timed to milankovitch cycles. The exact orbital timing mismatch being ocean recharge/discharge battery inertia working in concert with a highly variable internally ocean/landmass/atmosphere teleconnected planet.
“What does that gain us? I mean, we don’t know if this dang cycle is gonna be 2000 years or 2700 years, so it’s useless for any kinds of predictions. And if we look at the past, since the cycle might be anything from 2000 to 2700 years, we can claim just about anything as being this cycle … but again, SO WHAT???”
I would suggest that it is an exercise in hunting for any/all possible means to refute AGW.
Simples.
Just like the “Wot did the MWP then?”.
IMO: lot’s of pretty graphs that invent dips/troughs that would not be seen unless you had them in mind before drawing.
Curve fitting, and coming on here usually draws the awe-inspired claps and cheers.
For once most peeps see the Emperor is, err, embarrassed.
It suggests that natural variations are big enough to account for observations to the extent that our influence may be close to or at zero. Even for a cycle 2000 years long or more there is enough natural variation within that cycle and other observed cycles to reassure us so that we need not or should not accept ‘blame’ for what we have seen thus far.
Any, any explanation as long as is non-anthropocentric. Talk about outliers.
There is much to critique about the amplifier-needed AGW hypothesis, including the mismatch of energy supplied by just the anthropogenic increase in CO2 and the energy needed to change a massively strong climate system from one regime to another and keep it there.
My theory (in a nutshell) is 1000x better then AGW theory . My theory is based on the following: Which is weak solar/geomagnetic fields when in sync IF the degree of duration and magnitude of change is long/strong enough will push the terrestrial items that govern the climate into a cooling mode.
Terrestrial items
sea surface temperatures
major volcanic activity
global cloud coverage
global snow coverage
global sea ice coverage
atmospheric circulation pattern changes
oceanic current changes
The cooling I think has started and the above items which should respond to very weal magnetic fields that being solar/geo magnetic should be able to result in the albedo of the earth to increase. Even a 1/2 of 1% increase n the albedo would wipe just about al of the last century’s warming.
The cooling I think has started
There is no evidence for cooling. On the contrary, warming is still here. That you think cooling has started is not evidence.
I disagree.
with no evidence to support your disagreement…
Sea surface temperatures have come down and global temperatures have come down since June.
The ending of EL NNO playing a large part in the global temperatures going down initially.
You have been saying for years now that the cooling has begun…
http://www.ospo.noaa.gov/data/sst/anomaly/2016/anomnight.7.25.2016.gif
July 23 sea surface temp
Look how warm it is…
http://www.ospo.noaa.gov/data/sst/anomaly/2016/anomnight.11.24.2016.gif
current , it looks cooler to me.
Local weather is not climate.
That is the entire globe.
The value on a single day is weather not climate.
The YD guys would suggest that the 2400 year periodicity is due to earth crossing relatively thick portions of the Taurus Complex debris stream. However, there has not been nearly enough data gathered to reconstruct those periods. So at this time, it is mostly arm waving, though with some possibilities that are being explored. Cheers –
That there is a natural warming trend that started with the end of the little ice age does not seem to be in dispute, whatever its cause. The larger this trend the less important AGW must be. Pinning down the magnitude of the natural warming trend would seem to me to be key to estimating the magnitude of AGW for the future. 0.4 degrees C of the warming trend over the last 100 years occurred before 1970. This, in my opinion, approximates the magnitude of the natural warming trend. So an increase in atmospheric CO2 of 100 ppm is responsible for no more than about 0.4 degrees C of the total rise.
I do not know how accurate your estimates are, but you are correct that no estimate of AGW is possible without a good estimate of natural warming. Assuming the natural warming over the period to be zero is a non-starter as far as I’m concerned. Science is hard work, we divide the possibilities into small chunks that can be defined and solved and work on them one-by-one until we explain it all. There are no lightning flashes of brilliant simple solutions to problems like you see in films, most if it is a hard slog through mountains of data that have to be carefully and painstakingly organized.
Here is my take: The gross-scale inertia of the system predicts warmth for the century. What little it may continue to get warmer is not an issue in terms of the identified cycle. There is a proposed, “…formulation of the thermal bipolar see-saw concept is qualitatively analogous to that of (9) in that it implies the existence of a heat reservoir that convolves the northern signal, producing a southern signal with a longer characteristic time scale.” This seems the best we have so far. And given the lack of an extrinsic solar data variation correlation to this swing, we can dismiss it as an extrinsic driver. Unless of course we want the solar data to wriggle an Elephant’s trunk.
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.420.2030&rep=rep1&type=pdf
Javier November 25, 2016 at 3:53 am
Javier, it’s perfectly OK by me if you want to study meaningless cycles just “because they exist”. All that tells me is that you agree with me that the cycles are useless.
javier, I pointed out to you that the CEEMD analysis shows that the cycles are wildly variable, viz:
Your reply was that yes the cycles vary … but so do the sunspot cycles. The discussion starts here.
In any case, are you now denying that the “Bray” cycle in the ∆14C data is highly variable?
Well, since the beryllium data from the north pole is totally different from the beryllium data from the south pole, I’m sure if you picked the right one, and you adjust your cycle length to be just what matches the data, I’m sure you can match the data somewhere. I’m sure you can do it by “wiggle-matching”, which is what you’ve done here. That’s where you stand across the room and claim that the wiggles kinda look like each other …
First, I didn’t make an “assertion” that the so called “Bray cycles” in the ∆14C data vary from 2000 to 2700 years. I MEASURED THEM using a CEEMD analysis. Here it is, the “Bray Cycle” is in empirical mode C9.
You truly should learn to use CEEMD, Javier, I can guarantee the results will surprise you. You get to have your choice of explanations for that variation in cycle length, but you don’t get your choice of facts.
Second, you’ve cobbled together Beryllium data (but of course not all of it since it disagrees with itself), plus ∆14C data from 12,600 years ago that you’ve told us is too old to be used in calculation. Then you’ve added in putative “Grand Solar Minima” for which your data is of the vaguest type. I tried to follow your link to your sources, but it just leads to your previous post, so it’s not at all clear just what the “Sumerian Cluster Grand Solar Minimum” is when it is at home.
So yes, Javier, you’ve managed to line up a bunch of pre-selected dates, each of which has huge uncertainties. You say, for example, that there is a ‘Wolff/Spörer/Maunder cluster GSM” [grand solar minimum] … say what? I never heard anyone but you try to jam those three quite distinct time periods into one “GSM”, and then arbitrarily assign it a date of 1450 … that’s A QUARTER OF A MILLENNIUM before the actual Maunder minimum.
Here’s the bottom line. I agree that if you play fast and loose with the data and you choose your start and end points very carefully and you allow up to a quarter of a millennium of slop factor you can make things line up if you squint at them from across the room, but again i have to ask … SO WHAT? Because if it is true as you say above that all that this is is a scientific wankfest with no possible practical use, just science for science’s sake … then why do it? It reminds me of the old joke:
What’s the difference between a mouse running a maze, and a solar cycloholic running a maze?
The answer is, when you take the cheese out of the maze, the mouse stops running … I mean truly, Javier, do you want your epitaph to read:
Here Lies Javier
He Went Around In Cycles
He Says He’ll Be Back In Exactly 2460 Years
Because me, I’m trying to accomplish things on this planet before I take my definitive journey … however, it’s always true that YMMV …
w.
Willis,
Thanks. Most people do not consider Milankovitch cycles as meaningles even though they do not affect their lives. To understand climate change you have to understand its cycles at every time scale from millions of years to decades. That includes the 2400 year solar cycle.
And I pointed to you that your results are in disagreement with the published science on the subject. As many scientists have done and keep doing this analysis in many different ways, with different isotopes, and different techniques and keep reporting the same result, your result doesn’t have the same credibility.
The cosmogenic Bray cycle does not rest exclusively on ∆14C data. The integrated ∆14C and ∆10Be analysis that reconstructs solar activity is the way to go, as Steinhilber showed.
And you got an answer, but your answer differs from what other scientists with more experience and knowledge have published. I rather go with their answer.
There are several publications dealing with Grand Solar Minima, what they are, and their distribution in time. I am not responsible for the accumulated knowledge that you ignore.
Yes. It is amazing how much you ignore about the issues you write about. And the problem is that you rather come challenging me in the comments that dedicate 30 seconds to google scholar to find out.
http://i.imgur.com/msIP9Zn.png
You will see why you don’t have my confidence when you try to challenge the 2400 yr solar cycle. You simply ignore everything that has been discovered about that cycle for decades. The burden of proof is on you to demonstrate that all that is wrong, not on me to prove you wrong.
You are not the first one to challenge the usefulness of basic science versus applied science. It is one more symptom of your ignorance of all things science. The thing is that you can never anticipate what science is going to produce. In this case you cannot understand how the climate got to be what it is and how it is likely to evolve without understanding the contribution from solar variability. it is one of the reasons why climate models do not work.
Kudos to you. I am sure that your efforts to convince WUWT clientele that your amateurish approach to scientific issues yields better results than the traditional scientific approach will make a long lasting contribution to progress.
Best regards.
Willis agree or not with me I have definitive solar parameters which say if reached will cause the climate to cool and that is happening now in my opinion.
I also say if the solar parameters are reached and global temperatures do not go down that I will be wrong.
What I am trying to say is I am being very clear and predicting a turn in the climate before it really has happened to any significant degree.
I also say if the solar parameters are reached and global temperatures do not go down that I will be wrong.
As long as you don’t say WHEN this point is to be reached, your statement has no value.
Willis,
I see your comments are addressed to Javier, however, I wrote both the first draft of the post and the last, so I will take a stab at answering your challenges. Javier had considerable input to the post and knows much more about the Bray cycle than I do, so he may have additional comments. But, mostly, this post is a summary of previous work by other researchers. We’ve cited what we think are the best papers on the Bray cycle. The details you might want to see are in these other publications.
—————————————-
“javier, I pointed out to you that the CEEMD analysis shows that the cycles are wildly variable, viz:”
Willis, here you are applying a micrometer to a brick. 14C is formed by cosmic rays and then immediately enters the carbon cycle. How long it stays in the carbon cycle before being “frozen” in a tree ring or a foraminifer shell is unknown. How much carbon is in the carbon cycle at the time of formation is also unknown.
10Be is also formed by cosmic rays, but stays in the environment a shorter time. It is deposited in ice at the poles within a year or two of being formed, so the time delay is much shorter. It is affected by precipitation rate though.
So, both have terrestrial environmental effects, but a common origin in the atmosphere. We need to find the common source and exclude the terrestrial effects, spectral decomposition and principle components are perfect techniques for this (see post for references, basically Steinhilber and Usoskin) . Both have been used and come up with similar cycle lengths that are in phase. Principal components: 2200 years and spectral decomposition 2400 years. Considering the very best dating techniques and data are +- 100 years, this is a good match.
—————————————
“Well, since the beryllium data from the north pole is totally different from the beryllium data from the south pole, I’m sure if you picked the right one, and you adjust your cycle length to be just what matches the data, I’m sure you can match the data somewhere. I’m sure you can do it by “wiggle-matching”, which is what you’ve done here. That’s where you stand across the room and claim that the wiggles kinda look like each other …”
I’m a geoscientist by training and I used to “wiggle match” for a living. We call it “correlating,” it is what all geoscience is based upon. Of course, the 10Be curves in Antarctica are different from those in the Arctic, they are separated by 12,000 miles! There is no ice bridge! So, we match the curves by correlating them. As long as you can count the years in the cores, this is a valid and standard technique in all Earth sciences.
Because the terrestrial effects have a shorter delay with 10Be, the timing is better. 14C is fuzzier time-wise.
“First, I didn’t make an “assertion” that the so called “Bray cycles” in the ∆14C data vary from 2000 to 2700 years.”
You need to stop worrying about the 14C cycle lengths. The 14C cycle length is the worst measure of the actual Bray cycle length that we have due to terrestrial carbon cycle problems. 10Be is much better for timing. For more accurate timing in more recent times, we can use historical records and often very accurate glacial advance timing (Bray, Bond and many others). 14C is a minor player, it is useful, but not for timing. It is useful because it is available world-wide.
—————————————
“Here’s the bottom line. I agree that if you play fast and loose with the data and you choose your start and end points very carefully and you allow up to a quarter of a millennium of slop factor you can make things line up if you squint at them from across the room, but again i have to ask … SO WHAT?”
First of all, I can assure you that Javier never plays fast and loose with the data. In a true scientific debate, ad hominem attacks are never appropriate. Let’s stick with the science please. Second, a quarter of a millennium of slop factor is what we have. Carbon-14 dating (at the very best!) is +- 100 years. And those are the dates we normally work with. All geology is done by correlation, if you don’t like squinting at geological records across the room then most of our geological science is out the window. This is not an acceptable objection, correlation has been used to determine common geological records on every continent of the world since the very earliest days of geology. The “father of geology” William Smith used it in the early 19th century. This is an everyday technique for many thousands of geologists.
Andy
There is no doubt that our climate has been changing even over the relatively short timescale that includes the Roman period, Medieval warm period and the little Ice Age, not to mention the recent blip.
Solar activity has been changing too, with some coincidental matches but no overall correlation. That does not surprise me. The length and bunching of consecutive solar cycles of similar (high or low) activity seems to have some importance. It makes me think of the threshold reactions found in nature. Processes such as ripening of fruit or flowering of plants usually involve the effect of temperature and/or light on the production of a chemical such as a protein. The level builds up then resets to zero and keeps doing this until a threshold is passed. This prevents the premature trigger of the biological change.
I tend to think of low solar activity causing cooling when the low activity cycles are low enough, short enough and high enough in frequency. Just any old low activity cycle will not do the job, hence the lack of correlation.
Switching to another argument, the most likely influence on climate is cloud coverage and its albedo consequences. Combining both thoughts, perhaps solar induced clouds are normally short lived or transient, but if they are produced at a high enough frequency, they effectively become continuous and have a dramatic effect on climate.
Now, that last bit was just made up to illustrate the threshold effect and to illustrate why correlation is not the only way of looking for cause and effect. As I said, the threshold trick is very common in nature.
A final thought is that there is much circumstantial evidence to suggest that solar activity has a role in influencing our climate, though clearly, we do not yet understand the mechanism. There is no evidence over the same time period to believe that carbon dioxide has any effect at all.
Andy May November 25, 2016 at 11:17 am Edit
Andy, this is just more handwaving. Please provide a link to the actual datasets that you are claiming support the Bray cycle. You could provide a link to the studies as well the datasets, but it’s not necessary, because solar studies and claims generally provide more heat than light on the subject …
As to whether they are “conclusive”, if they were we wouldn’t be having this discussion.
As to you being “very familiar” with the flaws of the ∆14C, I don’t think that you’ve truly grasped the nettle exposed by the CEEMD analysis of the ∆14Cdata. There are NO cycles in that data between 2100 and 2600 years. Neither you nor Javier have done anything but say that that’s just fine. It’s not.
w.
Willis, the complete bibliography is in the first paragraph of the post. Everything you need to prove to yourself that the climate and solar cycles exists in that bibliography, I made it for you. I don’t know where you are getting the wild idea the Bray cycle doesn’t exist, it has been found by James Bray, Vasiliev and Dergachev, Steinhilber, Bond, Usoskin,and on and on. I’m not sure, maybe Javier found someone besides you that looked and couldn’t find it; but in all of my reading I didn’t.
As a geoscientist, I am very familiar with spectral decomposition. CEEMD is a variety of that tricky technique. I suspect the data you fed into it or the specific code you used. I think you use R, I use it as well. Send me your R data and code and I’ll look it over. If you can’t find the cycle, the problem is in one or the other. The cycle has been found by everyone else I know who has looked in the available 14C data, the 10Be data, the glacial advances, the historical data, the dO18 sediment data. It is a worldwide cycle and there is a better than a 95% to 99% chance it is linked to and extraterrestrial cycle of the same length (probably solar).
I think the problem is you are looking at the elephant in the room with a microscope. Step back and look at the larger picture. Micrometers are not appropriate for measuring bricks. There are a lot of ways to go wrong with spectral decomposition. That said, I think Usoskin et al. (2016, Astronomy and Astrophysics) did a good job with it. Start there and with their data. It is the basis of figure 2 in the post.
Do you know of anyone that agrees with you that the Bray climate and solar cycles do not exist? I don’t.
there is a better than a 95% to 99% chance it is linked to an extraterrestrial cycle of the same length.
You cannot say ‘an extraterrestrial cycle’ without specifying exactly which one. And you cannot discount that the climate has this cycle as part of its natural internal variability.
Andy May November 25, 2016 at 3:27 pm
Yes, and the “Gleissberg Cycle”, which was found by Gleissberg, and agreed upon by a raft of people, doesn’t even show up in half the sunspot data … but you believe in it. I don’t. The difference is, I’m not impressed by names like Bray and Gleissberg, and you are.
Andy, since you say are very familiar with CEEMD, how about you present YOUR own CEEMD analysis of the data? Never mind my analysis, you know CEEMD you say, so give us your own breakdown of the intrinsic modes ∆14C data so we can see if it agrees with mine or not.
And as to whether you’ve “grasped the nettle” exposed by the CEEMD analysis, you claim you have … BUT YOU HAVEN’T EVEN DONE THE DAMN ANALYSIS!!
Andy, you seem to accept the things you agree with without the slightest attempt at replication to see if they are true. Such credulity in any scientific field is lethal, but in the solar field it is lunacy. The amount of bogus claims of significance in the solar field is huge. Bear in mind that across the board something like half the peer-reviewed studies are overturned in a couple years … and that solar studies is no exception, quite the opposite.
Meanwhile you seem to think it’s valid science to ignore my contradictory analysis without replicating it either … do you not test or replicate anything? You think it’s enough to wave your hands and say magic words like “tricky technique” and “I suspect the data” to falsify a mathematical analysis?
I await your CEEMD analysis … or you could just blow off scientific replication …
w.
PS—I am still waiting for either you or Javier (or anyone else) to provide me TWO SIMPLE LINKS, one to the study you think best establishes the Bray Cycle, and the other to the data they used. I’ve asked repeatedly. Your choice to not provide two simple links is telling …
PPS— You say that “the complete bibliography is in the first paragraph of the post”, but your document dump claiming to support the Bray cycle is a joke. I just took a look at the final document. It says (emphasis mine):
Not one damn word about the Bray cycle, not one word about cycles of any kind. Pathetic.
This might give you a clue why I ask for TWO LINKS rather than a garbage pile data-dump like your “Bibliography”. I’m sorry, but a study covering 1100 years will NOT tell us a damn thing about the Bray cycle.
You’re wasting my time, Andy. Send me the two links to the study and data you think is best, I’m tired of this runaround.
Willis, the best posts summarizing the Bray cycle and the other major cycles are this one and those by Javier referenced in this post. I consider all of the papers in the bibliography to be important if you want to understand the subject. There are a lot more, I did cull the list down and I had some in there that I later removed. As for the history papers, like the one you cite, they are to show that the impacts of climate change in Bray lows are significant. To show that this cycle produces very significant climate change. The historical, archaeological, paleontological, and glacier advance data; which you seem to want to ignore, is actually the most important data. 10Be is nice for timing because it has a low lag time, 14C is somewhat useful because it is worldwide; but the other data is actually what makes this whole topic relevant.
Andy May November 26, 2016 at 5:05 am
Look, Andy, if you don’t have the albondigas to BACK UP YOUR OWN SCIENTIFIC CLAIMS by providing a link to one damn study and another to its data, just say so. I don’t care if you are unwilling to back up your claims, but I hate being put off with platitudes, and and I’m totally uninterested in long lists of stuff that might or might not be a total waste of time.
I am very unwilling to go through your list once more. I generally don’t do that even once, but because you seem like a good guy, I tried that with your list … foolish me. The first paper I grabbed from your list of the best studies supporting the Bray Cycle had an odd characteristic. IT DIDN’T SAY ONE DAMN WORD ABOUT BRAY!! More timewasting, you’ve just steered me into fifteen minutes of nothing.
You’ve already suckered me into your game once, Andy, and I didn’t even get a T-shirt. You don’t get to play me for a fool twice. You can either back up your claim with two links, one to a paper and the other to its data, or you can continue with the bafflegab.
I’ve also invited you to back up your claims about my CEEMD analysis by providing your own CEEMD analysis … you waved your hands and said my analysis was likely wrong, and there are likely folks here who take you at your word. Me, I’m a scientist, nullius in verba. So I gave you the chance you won’t give me. You have a link to my study and to the data, you know, the two links you keep shying away from, so you are free to back up your claim that my analysis is wrong … again, crickets.
Meanwhile, Leif Svalgaard took me up on the challenge that you and Javier are running from. He provided a link to the study and the data which he thought made the strongest case for the 10Be data. It was a very poor study, as it turns out, but he gets huge props from me for having the scientific honesty to put it up for examination.
So you could do what Leif and other actual scientists do, and PUT YOUR CLAIMS TO THE TEST by letting us know just why you believe as you do. I’m not asking for your password, or the keys to your car, or a list of every study that is of interest—just a link to the one study you think is the solidest, and another link to the data that they used.
You have a chance here to make your case and prove me wrong. The fact that neither you nor Javier has been willing to put your own claims to the test is … well … let me call it “not encouraging” and leave it at that.
Or you can continue with your line of patter and your fast tapdancing around the question … I gotta confess, it is a bizarre mix of funny and tragic watching you guys try to get out of backing up your own claims.
Your choice,
w.
Willis,
I already did that and what you did with that only showed your heavy bias. It was … well … let me call it “not encouraging” and leave it at that.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/04/27/steinhilber-2009/
I suppose an obvious suggestion from my comment above at 2:00pm is to ask if anyone has done a study of the solar activity over a bunch of like cycles? Sort of area under the cycle envelope, or integral vs temperature.
Complex systems, especially nonlinear ones, almost never produce simple responses to highly variable, wide-band inputs. The apparent lack of periodic temperature variations always neatly in phase with narrow-band solar cycles thus should be expected. That does not, however, preclude much-more-complicated causal connections which may be restricted to certain frequency bands beyond the Hale cycle or to integral or envelope properties of the solar activity. While the large amplitude of the Hale and/or Wolfe cycles produces negligibly small overall correlation between temperature and solar activity, the possibility of strongly coherent behavior in other frequency bands of various bandwidths very much remains.
Unfortunately, the analyses that we see in paleoclimatology are usually little more than visual time-domain comparisons or raw periodograms of proxy data records. What is needed as a serious starting point for scientific insight are proper cross-spectrum analyses in the context of stochastically linearized system theory, which takes into account the signal-envelope characteristics (defined by Hilbert transforms) as well as the spectral transfer functions of the proxies. Without such analyses, what we get is largely tendentious conjectures tempestuously argued in a roiling sea of misconceptions about complex system behavior. Tealeaf readings should never be mistaken for science.
1sky1 November 25, 2016 at 4:25 pm
Thanks, 1sky1. You mean that we shouldn’t expect periodic temperature variations neatly in phase with the daily solar cycles? Does that also mean that we shouldn’t expect periodic temperature variations neatly in phase with the annual solar cycles?
My question is, since the planet produces simple temperature responses to daily and annual solar variations quite quickly, responses that are neatly in phase (constant phase lag) with changes in daily and annual solar input, why do so many people believe that at eleven years things change fundamentally and completely, such that suddenly it fails to produce simple responses to eleven year solar variations?
And again: IF we need “cross-spectrum analyses in the context of stochastically linearized system theory, which takes into account the signal-envelope characteristics (defined by Hilbert transforms) as well as the spectral transfer functions of the proxies” to see what is happening with the 11-year cycles, how come we can see the daily and annual temperature responses without the need of such statistical analysis?
w.
Lack of basic analytic comprehension of system response to input is what prompts such questions.
Clearly the very strong, astronomically produced, strictly periodic variations of insolation produce strong periodic diurnal and annual temperature cycles, with relatively minor perturbations. By contrast the 11-yr. narrow-band Schwabe cycle of sunspots produces only very weak variations of insolation with a similar temperature response that gets buried in very wide-band temperature fluctuations and measurement noise.
By contrast, the response to wide-band random excitations depends critically upon specific features of the transfer function of the system. If it contains strongly resonant peaks, corresponding narrow-band, quasi-cyclical variations will be produced. Without such high-Q response characteristics, the response will be far more irregular (wider band), prompting the impression in analytically unschooled minds that there is no real causal connection. That seems to be the case with quasi-centennial and longer variations. \
I don’t intend to spend any more time explaining such basics here, when scores of well-written introductory texts are available to anyone seriously interested in learning, as opposed to posturing and arguing.
1sky1 November 25, 2016 at 5:52 pm
Lack of basic decency is what prompts such answers.
Huh? Now you’ve changed your argument entirely. Now you say that we can’t see the 11-year sunspot cycle reflected in the climate, not because it’s 11-years, not because it is wide-band or narrow-band, but because it’s too weak a signal to make it out of the noise … but then we already knew that.
Move the goalposts much?
First off, I’m not clear how say an annual swing in TSI and an 11-year swing in TSI differ from the perspective of the earth.
Next, I’m not clear why you say the 11-year signal is “narrow band”, but the 12-month signal is “wide band” … so far your explanation doesn’t explain, it simply names. We have variations in the sun that peak once per day, once per year, and once per decade or a bit more. Why do you say that they are fundamentally different?
Finally, your explanation sounds a lot like the curious “11-year notch filter” arguments of JoNova and David Evans, which is that the sun-earth transfer function has a period-sensitive component. Of course, neither you nor they tell us what the physical basis might be for such a period-sensitive transfer function. I mean, when the surface gets an extra W/m2 of TSI, it doesn’t know if that’s because the day is going towards noon, or the year is going towards summer, or the 11-year cycle is peaking. So why would it respond to the changes in one differently from the changes in the others?
And it’s such a pleasure to talk to you too.
In fact, in your interchanges you seem to get to the point very quickly where you tell us you are unwilling to explain anything further about how your ideas apply to the actual physics of the climate … I can believe that part, at least, although perhaps “unable” is more accurate than “unwilling”.
I’ve never seen you explain anything on this site, 1sky1. All you ever provide is claims that your giant brain has discovered a truly remarkable proof, which this website is too small to contain … and once again, you’re heading for the door.
Here’s the issue, 1sky1. Like many signal engineers, you know that you can take say a radio signal, catch it with an antenna, amplify it, heterodyne it with a second signal, split off the sideband, extract the envelope, rectify the result, and come out with the audio of Frank Sinatra singing “I Did It My Way”.
The problem is that like many signal engineers, you also think that those kinds of transformations occur in the climate system so commonly that you can simply posit them as being the explanation for something, without any attempt to actually find a physical explanation for each of the necessary transformations.
My experience is that
1) As predicted by the Constructal Law, the climate system is very highly damped, so that it doesn’t “resonate” for beans. It’s a common characteristic of natural systems of a wide variety of kinds, which is why we don’t have wooden church bells.
2) Many of the common electronics components, such as amplifiers and rectifiers and antennas and frequency doublers, have no obvious analogues in the climate system.
3) Thermal radiation is very different from radio waves. For example, you say ” If it contains strongly resonant peaks, corresponding narrow-band, quasi-cyclical variations will be produced.”
But I know of no natural system that, if you drive it thermally at a certain frequency, will begin to “resonate”. I don’t even know what that would look like. I mean, “resonate” generally means that if you remove the signal it will continue “ringing”.
But what kind of natural climate-related system has a temperature that continues to go up and down after the driving thermal signal is removed? I know of none, but you have based your entire claim on that postulated “resonance”.
Do you have even one example of such a system where temperature tends to rise and fall after the driving thermal signal is removed? If so, now would be the time to break it out …
And this is why I always am very cautious when signal engineers start wanting to lecture me about resonances and notch filters and the like … there are few correspondences between the world of an electronics lab and the climate.
Ah, well.
w.
Willis, I think that 1sky1 is referring to is that the longer cycles (“wide band”) have a larger effect on the climate. This is well established in the bibliography, I provided for you, especially in the articles on history that you don’t seem to like. I think you are misreading the “12 month” part. The shorter cycles (like the 11 year cycle) have a very small effect due to system inertia probably.
Willis:
You claim:
This disingenuous retort to my brief explanation of the different responses of the climate system to periodic, narrow-band, and wide-band excitation of various magnitude is precisely what I don’t have time for.
Prompted by a sage commenter’s observation that deeper insight into the issue of very long climatic cycles is required, I originally wrote that “complex systems, especially nonlinear ones, almost never produce simple responses to highly variable, WIDE-BAND inputs.” Clearly, I had “much-more-complicated causal connections which may be restricted to certain frequency bands beyond the Hale cycle” in mind. It is YOU who moved the goal posts entirely by questioning that assertion via examples of response to very large but short STRICTLY PERIODIC insolation cycles and small NARROW-BAND random variations due to the ~11-y Schwabe cycle.
All that your long-winded retort establishes here is not only lack of any clear concept of the significance of excitation bandwidth but also the lack of objective comprehension of what was actually said.
BTW, I’m not a signal engineer nor an idle comment writer, but an analytically-trained geophysicist who enjoys amateur football far more than amateurish postures of doing science.
1sky1 November 26, 2016 at 4:26 pm
Willis:
You keep claiming that you don’t have time, but here you are again.
I keep hoping that you are telling the truth about not having enough time to keep bothering us … so far, no luck.
Ah, well,
w.
A few final thoughts before I pack it in for the evening. I have speculated that the size and shape of the envelope around low activity solar cycles have a relationship with cooling and the envelope around active cycles affects warming.
The important point is that correlation is not the only proof of causation. Most solar-climate discussions are obsessed with correlation and particularly its absence.
I’ve discussed threshold mechanisms, but there are other solar induced possibilities. In a previous post, I’ve mentioned the possibility of solar magnetic fields directing cosmic dust and other extraneous matter towards our atmosphere, leading to albedo changes at times determined by the solar cycle.
The solar wind, consisting of charged particles and influenced in terms of speed and direction by solar activity and magnetic field, interact with our earth’s field. Such particles interact with cloud chambers, proving that they have cloud seeding potential. It is entirely possible that they correlate with solar activity modulated by other variables such as the earth’s magnetic field or the gravimetric and magnetic influences of other planets in our solar system.
The general point I am making is that the solar effect on climate may not be direct and obvious, but may be indirect and modified by other variables. Correlation may not be strong, but circumstantial evidence is a strong clue. There is obviously at least one other variable involved. A more creative, innovative outlook is required. This has been lacking in a science dominated by a single, assumed and largely incorrect driver.
Lack of correlation can involve dynamic delays, thresholds, and other constructs. Lack of correlation is a clue, not a stopper. The challenge is to find the missing factor.
We need some innovative thinking to solve this question. I put my money on solar activity and albedo, but the relationship is not as simple as that.
I certainly agree a lot more work needs to be done in this area. Just assuming that solar variability is zero, when there is so much evidence that isn’t true is silly. As you note there are a lot of ways the sun could have an influence. Solar wind, changes in the sun’s magnetic field and other factors may be important.
Nobody assumes that solar variability is zero. That you say things like that casts doubt on your sincerity.
Solar wind, changes in the sun’s magnetic field and other factors may be important
All solar parameters follow the sunspot cycle. There is almost no energy in the solar wind and magnetic field, so it is wishful thinking that they [and other, even less energetic, factors] may be important.
Isvalgaard, the IPCC explicitly assumes that the solar variability (in fact all natural variability) is zero from 1951 to 2010. This one of the reasons this work on cycles is so important. See figure 10.5 in WG1 AR5 Chapter 10 (page 884) here: https://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar5/wg1/WG1AR5_Chapter10_FINAL.pdf
No they don’t. Here is what they say [page 885]: ” The effect of solar forcing on GMST trends has been found to be small, with less than 0.1°C warming attributable to combined solar and volcanic forcing over the 1951–2010 period”. That is totally in line with what one would expect.
<0.1C +-0.1C is still zero to me Leif, sorry.
That is how much the Sun can contribute. The Sun is a very stable star [which you should be glad about, not sorry for].
Leif,
Hmm, no. You can talk about solar variability, but we ignore the climate response to that variability. It is perfectly possible and indeed is supported by evidence that in the centennial to millennial scale the climate response is far stronger. The thing is that small changes accumulated over very long periods have a disproportionate effect to what they have over short periods.
It has not been shown that the climate varies like that. On the contrary, if the Earth warms, it radiates more and so cools down again. The climate has negative feedback.
Globally, climatic temperatures respond not only to variations in direct solar excitation, but to adaptive variations in the planetary response characteristics of the ever-changing Earth. While changing albedo due to changing vegetation and glaciation is perhaps the most obvious factor, there may be other, more indirect factors–internal or external–that affect wide-band variations on time-scales intermediate between the ice ages and the patently periodic seasonal and diurnal cycles. Given the crude analytic tools and unreliable data of “climate science,” little should be dismissed out of hand on the basis of arm-waving notions of over-riding “feedback.”
Leif,
Yes it has. Climate changes to Milankovitch orbital changes are a good example. Orbital changes cause far less changes in hemispheric solar energy than the seasonal changes during the year, however as their effect accumulates over thousands of years, their impact on the climate is huge, being able to produce or melt huge ice sheets several kilometers thick over big areas of the planet. And it all happens despite negative feedbacks and Earth’s capacity to radiate as much energy as it receives.
Javier or Andy,, I’m perplexed by this, and looking at the original documents hasn’t helped.
http://i.imgur.com/niNSwIr.png
The link to the source of that image, which once again you’ve omitted, is here. Please add links to your graphs. I’m getting damn sick of having to go on a google hunt and spending far too long to find a document when you know (or should know) exactly where it can be found.
My problem with your graph is this. There are four panels with orange lines in them. In each case it is identified as 10Be or 14C normalized, both in the caption and on the graph itself.
So … why are the first three orange lines identical, and the fourth one totally different? It’s perfectly regular and obviously an interference pattern between two or more underlying perfectly regular frequencies … why?
What am I missing here?
I also place absolutely no credence on the black line in (d) which is supposed to be ∆14C records from the Hulu cave speleothem. I’ve looked at the cited original study here, and I find nothing like that, either in their graphics or in their description.
Again, what am I missing?
w.
“A: is the 10Be concentration (thin green line) from GRIP ice cores, the orange line in A, B, C is the 10Be flux. The blue line in b is the d14C in tree rings (without timescale changes). “C”: d14C from the speleothem. “D” is an extracted solar de Vries cycle (180-230 yrs). This is a display of the latest high-resolution 10Be record from GRIP, the supplementary data includes all of this. They are trying to show how well (or poorly) the 10Be and the 14C data compare after normalization. See the text for details. The supplementary data shows that the extracted de Vries cycle matches the Holocene records, this is evidence that their normalization process is working. Figure 1 in the same paper shows the raw data, unnormalized.
You seem less interested in the evidence for the Bray cycle and more interested in d14C and d10Be specifically. There is a good paper on the cosmogenic radionuclide records, their problems and how to fix them that I did not include in the bibliography because it did not relate to the Bray cycle much, but it does discuss the radionuclides. See it here: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/252303485_Constraints_on_long-term_changes_in_solar_activity_from_the_range_of_variability_of_cosmogenic_radionuclide_records
Plus Adolphi’s paper is good on the subject as well. Just remember the 14C and 10Be data only play a minor role in supporting the Bray cycle.
Willis,
Well, that’s too bad. I have all these papers on my hard drive, so to provide a link I have to do exactly the same work. However I am willing to provide a link if available and somebody requests it. Doing all that work to put a link that probably nobody will use is a waste of effort. So feel free to ask and I will do my best to provide.
Willis,
Reading the figure caption?
(d) is band passed for 180-230 yr to highlight the signal in the de Vries range.
Javier November 24, 2016 at 7:22 pm
Javier, I’m not seeing how this is supposed to work. If you add a 205-year and a 2400-year cycle, you don’t get anything that looks like panel (d) above. The short-period signal just gets added to the long-period signal, it’s not modulated.
Panel (d) is a modulation pattern between two signals with similar periods, not a modulation pattern between a 205-year and a 2400-year cycle.
What am I missing? You need to demonstrate just how a long-period cycle modulates a short-period cycle to give something like panel (d).
w.
Panel d in Figure 2 is the evidence Willis. It’s in the unscaled data. The swings in the shorter cycles are larger in Bray lows. There were very warm periods in the little ice age due to this effect. The data (in the radiogenic nuclides, paleontological, archaeological, and historical) show this pattern. I’ve not seen a physical explanation for it, but it is well supported in the data from many sources.
Sorry we can’t give you a tidy package. This is ongoing research, come back in 300 years, maybe everyone will have figured it out by then.
Lordy. Without a mechanism, you overstate the case for wriggle matching. You might as well say that prior to age 13, hormone levels were low. Then they became significant till around age 60. Hormones are now trending down. Now that’s a good match for the previous cold regime followed by a warming trend. So based on current diminution of hormones, Earth should begin to cool again. Why can I connect me with climate? Because I found one human cycle, mine, that matches how the climate has changed. Maybe in 300 years, someone else will figure out the mechanism.
The post isn’t even low hanging fruit.
Pamela,
Thinks are real whether there is a mechanism or not. Lightning was known to be a real phenomenon millennia before anybody could propose a credible mechanism. You cannot discount evidence for lack of mechanism.
Willis,
That much is clear. This is well discussed in the bibliography. The signal of the 205-year cycle depends on the 2400-year cycle. It is maximal at the lows of the 2400-year cycle and minimal at the highs. Both cycles are not independent.
Duster November 25, 2016 at 7:49 pm
Actually, there is much better dating than that, 1613 ± 7 years … but I’m not sure what you think this has to do with what I wrote. A quotation of my words would go a long way towards figuring what you’re talking about.
w.