Guest essay by David Archibald
From a post a couple of days ago: “an F10.7 flux above 100 causes warming and below that level causes cooling.” Greg asked “Can you prove that?” I already had in this WUWT post from 2012. But it is worth revisiting the subject because it answers the big question – If all the energy that stops the Earth from looking like Pluto comes from the Sun, what is the solar activity level that corresponds to our average climate? Because solar activity is falling and climate will follow.
As Nir Shaviv observed, the oceans are a big calorimeter. First, proof of concept comes from a much smaller body of water: Lake Victoria in East Africa. Back in the 1920s it was realised that the level of Lake Victoria went up and down with the solar cycle. Then the relationship broke down in the 1930s, corresponding to the beginning of the Modern Warm Period, before resuming again in the 1970s.
Figure 1: Lake Victoria lake level 1896 to 2005 (data courtesy of Dr Peter Mason)
If we take out the period of non-correlation and detrend afterwards for the 2 metre rise from 1962 to 1964, this is what the relationship between lake levels and solar cycles looks like:
Figure 2: Solar Cycles and Lake Victoria lake level 1896 to 2005
The relationship is very clear, in fact beyond indisputable. It also holds true for the body of water that covers 70 percent of the Earth’s surface as shown by Figure 3:
Figure 3: Solar Cycles and Sea Level 1909 to 2000
From that data, a 33-year subset from 1948 to 1987 has a high correlation:
Figure 4: Sea Level Change and Solar Activity 1948 to 1987
Bingo. If we take the change in sea level from one year to the next plotted against average sunspot number for that year, we get a near-straight line relationship. The breakover between sea level rise and sea level fall, and thus warming or cooling climate, is a sunspot number of 40, which in turn corresponds to an F10.7 flux of 100. The average sunspot number over the Holocene was 40 which in turn makes sense of the last half-century of climate. The Earth’s climate was in equilibrium with an average sunspot number of 40, and the higher solar activity of recent years disturbed that. Now we are returning to normal.
At the end of this decade, at the solar cycle 24/25 minimum, we might get a few years of as much as 2.0 mm per annum sea level fall. If you don’t believe that, perhaps you would rather believe this:
Figure 5: Global Mean Sea Level Time Series 1993 to 2016
That is from the clown show that is the Colorado University Sea Level Research Group.
That graphic is based on satellite data and shows a scary, nearly monotonic sea level rise of 3.4 mm per annum. How they get that is explained in this graph:
Figure 6: Creating a graph that keeps the grant money flowing
Figure 6, from this paper, shows that sea level, as measured by satellites – the lower line, has been flat. How they generate the graph they need, the upper line, is by adding an isostatic adjustment, which is a number plucked from thin air. No more needs to be said.
David Archibald is the author of American Gripen: The Solution to the F-35 Nightmare
David, you say:
Gosh, you mean that if you remove all of your data that isn’t correlated, you can get “beyond indisputable” correlation?
Who knew?
w.
PS—Here’s a rule of thumb for the lurkers.
If someone says their scientific results are beyond question, it usually means the exact opposite.
Results in science are always subject to further dispute.
Yes, but he claimed it was “beyond indisputable”, that’s like beyond beyond question. We need to know what happens when you go beyond indisputable. Maybe there’s an inversion 😉
What is the actual reason for the cause and effect between solar and sea level? That is the key question. Is it due to water expanding during warmer times? Is there a strong corration for many decades between a) solar sun spots b) global temps, or c) the F 10.7 flux? Doesn’t it take 800 years of ocean warming to show signifant degassing of CO2? Why instantaneous feedback for solar and sea level changes?
Gary
Seems to me establishing whether there is correlation would come. Hasn’t been done yet by the by.
The numbers given are wrong, and there’s no explanation of the mechanisms. The sea level and sunspot number data used should be linked, and F10.7cm, and the irregular phasing of SL wrt SA explained.
How the Holocene average sunspot number of 40 was derived isn’t specified; is that in v2 numbers?
The 1749-2017 v1 and v2 SSN averages are higher. v1 is 52, v2 is 83.
Equating the sunspot number of 40 to F10.7cm of 100 sfu isn’t supported, and it’s wrong.
My statistical work into this matter two years ago of the correlation between F10.7cm and SSNs indicates they correlate thusly:
Monthly F10.7cm of 100 sfu, binned at 5 sfu equates to a v1 SSN of 47, and v2 of 66, not 40 in either SSN version.
All my regression models indicate the same thing: F10.7cm @100sfu is not equivalent to SSN @40!
I work says HadSST3 warms/cools at an F10.7cm of 120 sfu at decadal scales, not 100, at a v1 SSN of ~65 and a v2 SSN of ~90 (statistically).
You’re way off David!
David Archibald, you end your post with:
Well … no, not “plucked from thin air” as you claim. The paper says:
You’ll have to point out exactly where you think they were wrong in that calculation.
As my quotation above from the actual paper proves, there is almost always more that needs to be said … and trying to claim otherwise is a vain attempt to close off further objections.
Regards,
w.
Science or fake science? Where there is a will there is a way.
It is asserted that there is both climategate and Seagate.
http://www.21stcenturysciencetech.com/Articles_2011/Winter-2010/Morner.pdf
http://ruby.fgcu.edu/courses/twimberley/EnviroPhilo/PastRecords.pdf
This is backed up by extensive photographic evidence, which shows sea level as seen in pictures from numerous sites around the world, 100 years ago and more, was indistinguishable from current levels.
On top of that, textbook accounts of sea level from several decades ago tell a far different story that what we see and hear now.
I am not even sure i would trust the tide gage data…it states that the curves have seasonal variations removed…which does not sound too bad, until one realizes that they are plainly stating the tide gage charts are not raw data at all, but forced through some model or other.
It is also very interesting to note the almost complete lack of any trend at all from tide gages located on islands in the central Pacific.
Trying to discern trends and correlations from altered data seems to me to be the ultimate fools errand.
Not that anyone in particular is a fool, but we have all been played for fools.
In my personal life, I have noted that when a certain person is found to be dishonest, either a liar or a thief or whatever, it makes no sense to try to delineate the limits of the lies or the thievery…one can never be certain.
We are beyond casual lies or small deceptions here…this is gaslighting on a scale that is difficult to fully come to terms with.
We all find ourselves using this information…trend charts and the like…knowing they are altered, but having to use anyway.
It is worse than a tangled web…it is a Gordian Knot.
The US has been cooling, becoming less hot, for over 100 years…I am increasingly unable to convince myself that it should be supposed the whole world has gone the other way.
Hi Willis,
i seem to recall someone, and I think it may have been you, mentioning that some charts of water depths that are very accurate might be used to compare estimates of sea level rise from the various sources to what can be determined by actually measuring the depth of the water and when boats will and will not run aground.
Was that you?
If so, have you ever compiled results obtained by comparing old charts and newer ones?
I thought at the time that it seemed like an excellent idea…those charts are detailed and very accurate, by necessity.
Willis, WIlliam, and David: I think the standard IPCC approach to sea level rise appears deeply flawed. David’s characterization of GIA “plucked out of thin air”, while not technically accurate, points out serious problems. The equation for the sea level rise observed via tide gauges and satellite altimetry, SLR(obs) should be:
SLR(obs) = TE + MC(melting) – GIA(GRACE)
where MC(melting) is the mass change of the ocean due to melting ice caps, and TE is thermal expansion (change in volume per unit mass from ARGO), and GIA(GRACE) is a large uncertain correction factor (1-2 mm/yr) applied to GRACE data due to the change in the rotating center of mass caused by melting ice caps. (For simplicity, all of these quantities are converted to the equivalent in mm of ocean height, even though they are called mass or volume.) However, consensus scientists use a different definition, which I will call SLR(IPCC). SLR(IPCC) includes a correction for GIA.
SLR(IPCC) = SLR(obs) + GIA
This glacial isostatic adjustment, GIA, is also due to the changing center of mass and rate of rotation, but it is much smaller, 0.3 mm/yr, when applied to SLR data (instead of GRACE data). Scientists want to prove to policymakers that they can “close the sea level rise budget”.
The only thing the public needs to know is SLR(obs), the rate at which tide gauges – located where people live – show sea level rising. Individual tide gauges contain a signal for local land motion and are extremely noisy (requiring a period of 30-50 year to get a good signal to noise ratio). Nevertheless, this is the rise people are experiencing. The rest is scientific handwaving intended to prove that scientists quantitively understand why sea level is rising.
Satellite altimetry may or may not be a better way of measuring SLR(obs). Converting satellite altimetry data into sea level rise is an extremely complicated process that requires calibration, because the drift in satellite orbit height is about 1 cm/yr. The shift in SLR about 2000 that Morner complains about arose when reliable methods of calibrating satellite orbits began to be used. (If you read the IPCC SAR on satellite altimetry, you will find that scientists didn’t know what to conclude from the data at that point in time.) The advantage of satellite altimetry are that sea level is measured in millions? of locations every day, providing a trend with a reasonable signal-to-noise ratio for periods as short as a decade, and it eliminates local land motion.
The mass change in Greenland and Antarctica measured by GRACE is the result of melting and glacial isostatic rebound of denser rock underneath the ice. The mass of rock that is rising under Greenland, GIRB(G), and Antarctica, GIRB(A), is equal to the mass of the sea floor that is dropping around Greenland and Antarctica. To distinguish this type of glacial isostatic adjustment from adjustments mentioned above for rotating center of mass, I will call them GIRB where RB is for rebound of land with a lower loading of ice (including none in some places) AND and subsidence of an equal mass at the bottom of the ocean. GIRB lowers sea level. I’m not sure how consensus scientists account for the net global subsiding sea floor.
MC(observed) = MC(melting) + GIRB(G) + GIRB(A)
It isn’t obvious that GIRB correction factors were used in this paper, but they are commonly encountered when MC(melting) is determined from changes in the height of ice sheets. In those cases, the height loss due to melting can be mostly cancelled by the height gain from GIRB. The large uncertainties in GIRB(G) and GIRB(A) make M(melted) very uncertain, and they should do the same in this paper. The total global decrease in mass at the bottom of ocean basins, GIRB, should be equal to the total mass of land rising above sea level, which includes rebound of the land surface we can see, GIBR(L). So global GIRB should be:
GIRB = GIBR(A) + GIBR(G) + GIBR(L)
To the best of my knowledge, the consensus don’t apply a global GIRB correction to SLR. This potentially allows them to inflate MC(melting) by assuming a large amount of GIRB(G) and GIRB(A), without having to properly account for it in terms of the subsiding sea floor.
Most of your comment has merit.
This part is questionable.
Why would land below Greenland and Antarctica be rebounding?
Both still have incredible weight of ice.
Without a definitive prior to Holocene ice height knowledge; any assumptions are based on bias, not knowledge.
For that matter, now that the glaciers have been removed from surrounding Greenland and Antarctica; why would that land subside?
Is there some mechanism for glaciers to raise landform?
Claiming knowledge that “mass change” is caused by glacial isostatic rebound, under huge glacier masses borders on religious belief.
Don’t forget, many of those NOAA scientists have denied and still minimize volcanism under Western Antarctica.
If human activity be affecting sea level, it’s more from pumping ground water and from impounding and using surface water than from adding a fourth molecule of CO2 per 10,000 dry air molecules.
“Figure 6, from this paper, shows that sea level, as measured by satellites – the lower line, has been flat.”
There is no Fig 6 in that paper. I presume you mean Fig 1, as illustrated. That isn’t a graph of sea level. It is a graph of ocean mass. A large part of the sea level rise is due to a change in density.
You are correct that is it labelled as ocean mass but look at the units on the y axis, and the GAIA correction is given in mm/y not mass units.
“correction is given in mm/y not mass units”
Yes. As they say in the paper:
“To estimate the ocean mass component,
…
We next express the results in terms of Equivalent Sea Level, noted ESL (see Lombard et al., 2007 for details about the GRACE data analysis).”
I have yet to hear even an attempt to explain why anyone should accept whatever result is spit out by that convoluted processing of data from satellites, over the number read from a steel pole anchored to the sea floor that has been fixed in one spot for a very long time.
Or why the pictorial evidence and direct physical evidence regarding the proximity of the sea to fixed structures and landmarks should be ignored.
David,
You said, “From that data, a 33-year subset from 1948 to 1987 has a high correlation:…” An R^2 value of around 0.5 says that about half the variance in the dependent variable can be predicted by the independent variable. So, after you remove the very poorly correlated data, you still don’t have anything that is much better than flipping a coin to predict what will happen, particularly if you have a run of heads or tails. Obviously, I don’t agree that an R^2 value of 0.54 indicates a “high correlation.” It is higher than zero, but only marginally better than a random positive trend.
Wow. Impressive. This post is so scientifically relevant that no-one that knows anything has even commented yet.
Well I know a lot more than David about look for correlation. Oddly he has not replied to any of the criticisms yet.
Wow. Impressive.
Opps. I missed Nick Stokes. But he is just asking a question that would be embarrassing to answer.
So changes in sea level causes solar cycles. I doubt that the solar cycles caused by changes in sea level are at all dangerous to the existance of the Sun. I strongly doubt that our sun will go supper nova because of sea level changes here on Eartn.
In rebuttal of the University of Colorado claimed sea-level rise of 3.4 mm per year: NOAA keeps records on 199 tide gauges that were active last century. The average sea-level rise rate was 1.08 mm/year, and 86% showed sea-level rise below 3.4mm/year. No tide-gauge studies show acceleration, let alone sudden doubling, and sea levels first recorded by the Topex-Poseidon satellite array showed no rise from 1993-2001. Envisat (the European satellite) showed no rise from 2003-2011, in total a remarkable twenty years of raw satellite data showing very little rise. The following description of the satellite sea-level measurement program is from the NOAA Laboratory for Satellite Altimetry: “A series of satellite missions that started with TOPEX/Poseidon (T/P) in 1992 and continued with Jason-1 (2001–2013) and Jason-2 (2008–present) estimate global mean sea level every 10 days with an uncertainty of 3–4 mm.”
The NOAA’s 10-day satellite uncertainty (three to four millimeters) is three times greater that the NOAA tide-gauge annual average.
I’m pretty sure 97% of climate scientists think it’s worse than we thought. We will be boiled aliive as we drown. Possibly, maybe, probably almost certainly within 6 months to a acentury.
THUS IT BEGINS
http://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/UAH_LT_1979_thru_June_2017_v6.jpg
Lowest global temperature anomaly in last 2 years (since July, 2015)
If it falls below zero, as it did after the 1999 super El Nino, then CACA should be doomed. But more likely, UAH will come under renewed attack.
“Lowest global temperature anomaly (0.21C) in last 2 years (since July, 2015)”<
By a slender margin. It was 0.23C in March (given as 0.19 at the time) and 0.27 in April.. And all are still well above the 1981-2010 base.
Patience, Nick, patience… Rome wasn’t built in a day (and it fell anyway)
Nick,
Is +0.21 really “well above” the baseline?
The lowest monthly anomaly was -0.51 in July 1985 (I think). The highest was 0.83 in February 2016. The average of those two data is +0.16.
We’re cooling off from a super El Nino. If UAH observations stay above the baseline for the rest of this year and the next, then maybe slight warming will return. But still far below model outputs and not in the least bit dangerous.
Gabro, things could get interesting… All Gaia has to do is sneeze and it’ll have all the warmists in a tizzy.
Fonz,
CACA is a political construct, which will be slain only when the spigots are turned off.
Construct, as in Frankenstein’s monster.
(i hate those little blue question mark thingies)…
Hydrology of Lake Victoria …
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.399.8481&rep=rep1&type=pdf
So in Figure 2, you “take out the period of non-correlation”, 1/3 of the data, then “detrend afterwards” for another 1/3 of the data, but then claim “The relationship is very clear, in fact beyond indisputable”, and you are not laughed off the field?
C’mon, do I need to spell out what kind of science this is?
The coefficient of thermal expansion of seawater varies significantly with temperature as well as salinity.E.g.:
http://slideplayer.com/slide/10021304/32/images/4/the+modern+equation+of+state+for+seawater.jpg
Thus surface water being incrementally warmed (or cooled) in the tropics will not produce the same volume change as polar waters being incrementally warmed (or cooled) by the same amount. The problem appears insoluble, IMO, given our incomplete knowledge of all oceanic waters. [In principle it also allows Trenberth to hide his missing heat in the oceans without it being detected as volume change.]
what do the contours represent. Out of context and poorly labelled this is not very informative. Are you suggesting that 5 degrees warming at the equator and 5 deg. cooling in arctic, will have a large enough differential in expansion to be measurable?
How about a back of envelop calculation to support that?
Greg July 4, 2017 at 2:00 am Edit
Greg, it appears that michael hart is off involved in real life. It happens.
To answer your question, the contours represent lines of constant density. Temperature makes sea water less dense. Salinity makes sea water more dense. The lines are where the two counteract each other to give constant density.
As to whether it is what I call “a difference that makes no difference”, your intuition is correct. Consider that over the satellite era of 1993-present the sea level has risen by something on the order of say 50 – 75 mm. From memory, the amount due to oceanic warming is around half of that, call it 25 to 40 mm or so.
The difference due to density between the poles (low temperature, high salinity) and the equator (high temp, low salt) is on the order of one part in a hundred. This would mean that the resulting error in sea level rise would be 0.25 to 0.4 mm …
Interesting question, thanks …
w.
So what. Can’t prove any hard science this way. However statistically significant, any result is only a statistical correlation with actual data that looks for correlation using a numerical model – and tries to enforce it in the case of CO2 as a variable. No controlled experiment is possible to isolate and prove deterministic laws of cause and effect in a repeatable way. More relevant, all this effort is inside the noise compared to actual range and natural periodicity, and there is nothing anyone can do that the plants are not already doing about that, as they alway have. (Except make a lot of money promoting fear of the unknown and selling bogus snake oil solutions). Next event is the next ice age as we approach the end of this interglacial, in a hundred or so short human lifetimes, perhps. Nothing to see here. Sorry to disappoint.
brianrlcatt July 4, 2017 at 4:29 am
Thanks, Brian. Since in general nothing can be proven in science, I fear this is less than meaningful …
This is a claim that statistics is meaningless and cannot be used to establish facts. Consider the question of a pair of dice. We roll them a hundred times. Out of the hundred times we throw snake-eyes (two “ones”) sixty seven times.
Are the dice loaded, or are they unbiased?
So yes, correlation is NOT causation … but causation IS correlation. So establishing correlation is a NECESSARY but NOT SUFFICIENT step to establishing correlation.
Finally, in some cases it is clear which direction the correlation runs. When the sun comes up the world gets bright. Either brightness is causing the sun to rise, or vice versa …
Similarly, IF there were a correlation between sea levels and sunspots, the causation WOULD BE clear. However, there is no such correlation AFAIK, despite studies claiming that there is. In general the authors have not adjusted for (a) autocorrelation and/or (b) periodicity in their calculations of statistical significance.
Regards to all,
w.
FURTHER READING: Sunspots and Sea Level, by yours truly …
Most certain prediction is Sea level will fall 300 feet over the next 80K years or so as our now quite long interf glacial warming winds down. Pr: >0.99. Happened every 100K years, each MIlankovitch extreme eccentricity, for 5 cycles at least. It will fall. not much on a planetary scale, not a disaster except for those wh fail to prepare over generations. Result? 300 Foot bleached Coral hills Ozzies can walk to and admire, and Brexit will be pointless, as they can all walk here. Actually we will have to walk there across Doggerland, probably armed to invade a part of Europe, but stick around on the Cote d”Azure, as all of Northern UK down to St Jonn’s Wood will be under glaciers, as will Scandinavia, Canada, Russia, etc.
What is amazing is the very close temperature range this happens within, +/_ 12 degrees or so, the periodicity is a smoking gun, but the causal effect still unclear. What seems clear is the ice age is Earth’s natural state now, but it gets a large disruptive enrgy input every 100K years, then cools gradually back to the next impulse. How do 70 x 10^24 Joules get into the oceans in 1,000 years to create each short interglacial – what we are now in , towards the end of in panetary tome, few more 1,000’s of years? As solar radiation evens out plus and minus during an eccentric orbit I think the cause must be a quite dramatic increase in vocanicity, which is anyway heating the deep oceans all the time, triggerred by the 30% pa variation in gravitational stresses on our very thin tectonic plates siding on the majority soft/molten core, but it still needs A LOT of Magma through holes in the ocean floor, even at 1200 degrees.
Just think what Solar gravity, 200 times the Moon’s, can do to thin 7 km crustal plates, floating like the skin on a 12,000 Km ball of soft rock pudding, though…. things are not as “most people” think they are. Which is why ‘most people may not get through the Great Nuclear Migration Wars of the next ice age onset, as ignorant belief and political corruption for short term human lifetine gain of short term humans failure to plan for this event over thousands of years will triumph over doing the right thing on the real facts over generations, as it already has with “climate” change”, beinf g amde worse by renewable laws, tackling a phony cause. But that’s another story. Oceans will fall, 100 metres over 80K years. We can stop worrying about it for a bit and do something useful for others. IMO.
The Holocene so far hasn’t been a particularly long interglacial. The previous one, the Eemian, lasted 16,000 years and was hotter. The interglacial of MIS 11 was a lot longer.
If you go by axial tilt, the Holocene has about 3000 more years to go. If by eccentricity, then more than 30,000 years.
Doesn’t mean however that the next cool cycle won’t necessarily be colder than the LIA.
http://notrickszone.com/2017/05/25/robust-natural-variability-affirmed-in-global-sea-level-rise-rates-no-correlation-with-co2-forcing/
http://notrickszone.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Sea-Level-Rise-Rates-TSI-Correlation1700-2013.jpg
Your graphs actually support no correlation between solar irradiation and sea level rise rates. It moves from high negative correlation around 1800 to positive correlation towards 1950-2000, showing that the periodicity is not the same.
Re questions about the data: in this site – a presentation by W Alexander – http://www.droughtsandfloods.com/WR4%20Solar%20linkage%20and%20periodicity.pdf
the Lake Victoria data are also shown with a gap from 1930 to 1960. Maybe chase the name Peter Mason (who is credited with the data) to find out. W Alexander also sees a correlation of the sun cycle to flows in the Vaal River South Africa, although others see an 18.3 year periodicity rather than 21 / 22 years. https://cyclesresearchinstitute.wordpress.com/2010/07/10/vaal-river-flow-cycles/
Further to that, here is a paper in J Geophysical Res incorporating the Lake Victoria levels data of Mason
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2006JD008362/epdf
Figure 9 from that paper shows October-December and March-May rainfall anomalies 0-1 year before solar maxima. The extent of the anomalies over Africa likely explain the Vaal River flow cyclicity highlighted by W Alexander, as well as Nile River flood cyclicity.
Hmmm. In regards to figure 6, I scanned that paper you cited and it references a 1mm/yr to 2mm/yr GIA adjustment factor. I read up on the GIA and I’m not sure why it’s even a thing. Essentially saying because the Earth’s crust changes over time the absolute sea level doesn’t matter just the adjusted relativistic sea level matters? And then to confounding this strange correction, the below link says to use an approximate 0.3mm/yr which in of itself carries a 50 percent uncertainty. So I’m not sure how this strange but marginal change in Sea height correction is equating to 2mm/yr.
http://sealevel.colorado.edu/content/what-glacial-isostatic-adjustment-gia-and-why-do-you-correct-it
Dr. Archibald, a question for you. What do you make of the sunspot cycle correlation with Great Lakes water level, especially the positive correlation before approximately 1940, and the negative correlation after that date?
This is from
“Recent Water Level Declines in the Lake Michigan−Huron System,” Cynthia E. Sellinger, Craig A. Stow*, E. Conrad Lamon and Song S. Qian, Environ. Sci. Technol., 2008, 42 (2), pp 367–373
link to full article with charts:
http://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/es070664+
“[The lake level data] suggest a remnant oscillation with a periodicity of ∼11–13 years, approximately that of the sunspot cycle. When [lake level] residuals and sunspots are plotted together, the peaks and troughs appear approximately consistent before 1940, with a near reversal of this pattern after ∼1940 (Figure 3). Bivariate plots of STL residuals vs sunspots before and after 1940 confirm a weak positive relationship in the earlier period and a pronounced negative relationship in the latter period.”
Very interesting post above about Lake Victoria.
Interesting question.
Although correlation factor r appears to be very low (statistically insignificant) the visual comparison is more compelling.
INMHO it shows that there is some key other factor, not just simply a coincidence.
(‘nature abhors coincidence. it is driven by cause and consequence’- vukcevic).
I took a quick look at some of my graphs, there is no obvious analogy elsewhere, the answer might be far too difficult to extract from what is currently known.
However, there might be a pointer in data for the rate of Earth’s core rotation as derived from geomagnetic measurements.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/GL-CR.gif
Green line shows that the Earth’s core rotation changes its direction from slowing down to speeding up around 1940.
Anyone else?
ps. geomagnetic data are from one of the Jackson-Bloxham papers, available only up to 1995
Thanks, Vukcevic. i’m not as persuaded as you about the absence of natural coincidences. I have seen quite a few. I’m also of the opinion that what we now see as unexplainable coincidences may one day be explained with causal mechanisms. Also, I believe the scientific method allows for a small percentage of outcomes to be purely by chance, by coincidence. To be a recognized causal and effect, the relationship must occur more often than it would by mere chance. Or that is my paraphrase of the situation.
Am also a bit skeptical of how the Earth’s magnetic core could possibly impact surface rainfall. Perhaps the magnetic field also changed?
Re the Great Lakes water levels, I’m looking into man-made events or structures during the decade or two leading up to 1940. Seems the great depression and public works projects abounded, and the Dust Bowl years right before then, too.
I haven’t any experience with evaluating lake levels at the Great Lakes, but it could be the data in that paper was simply wrong and the peer reviewers did not catch it.
I have some buddies that live around the Great Lakes and have for decades. I can ask them about this. They may get a good laugh out of it.
Mr. Sowell thank you for your comment.
As you rightly say, it is difficult to say that the small changes in the magnetic field attributed to change in rotation of about 4-5 ms (from 1940 to 1980) could do much. It is most likely to be the other way around. Atmospheric and in particular oceanic circulation are the largest contributors to the angular momentum exchange as the driver of the rate of rotation changes. I have no idea what might be the unique and critical event (ocean currents ?) for the period around 1940 to cause the reversal.
Thankyou for the kind words. There are solar-hydrological relationships in different parts of the planet. For example, in the Murray Basin at one place there is a rainfall response to the Schwabe cycle. With respect to the Great Lakes, I suggest that the strong rise in solar activity itself caused the reversal of the relationship.
David Archibald July 4, 2017 at 5:31 pm
I greatly enjoy these ad hoc reasons that continue to be given when the data does not act as someone’s theory demands … especially vague excuses such as the one given above.
David, perhaps you could give an example of some natural system which reverses in phase as a result of increasing amplitude. I can’t think of any offhand … doesn’t mean they don’t exist, but I can’t even cook up a theoretical example in my mind. Why would increasing amplitude reverse the phase?
w.
Part of the problem is that people truly don’t understand how the statistics of correlations with a cyclical signal is so different from looking for correlations with a normal signal. I see no sign that David Archibald has investigated this question, although I may have missed it.
The result of comparing the sunspot signal to a random ARMA signal of the common type found in nature (high AR, negative MA) is that very often, it appears that there is significant correlation where none truly exists.
w.