By Javier
So, you still don’t believe small changes in solar activity can significantly affect climate? You know a very cold period during the Little Ice Age coincided with the Maunder Minimum, but you have heard that the Little Ice Age could have had other causes, like volcanoes. You have been told repeatedly that since 1980 solar activity has been decreasing while global temperature has been increasing, so it can’t be the Sun.
Not so fast. There is a vested interest in climate change not being due to the Sun, as the Sun can’t be taxed or prevented from doing what it does. A further problem is that solar physicists have no clue about how the Sun can show centennial or millennial periodicities. As they prefer to talk about what they know, they reject such periodicities, even though we have evidence in cosmogenic records (14C in tree rings and 10Be in ice cores).
And if I tell you that little changes in the Sun have a disproportionate effect on climate you won’t believe me. You shouldn’t believe me. You shouldn’t believe anybody. Science is not about believing. Religion is about believing. So, I propose that you prove to yourself what effect little changes in the Sun have on climate.
You start with solar variability over the Holocene. There are lots of reconstructions, but not all are equally good. You choose Steinhilber et al., 2012 (SAB2012 from now on). It might not be the best, but it is quite good and uses both 14C and 10Be. The isotopes have different pathways. 14C makes it to CO2 and it is breathed in by trees and deposited in their rings. 10Be makes it to the ice in ice cores partially through a dry deposition pathway associated with dust, but mainly through a precipitation-dependent pathway. As the isotopes have different climatic dependencies, the effect of climate on the reconstruction is minimized by using both.
You can get the article here:
http://www.pnas.org/content/109/16/5967
And you can get the data here:
ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/climate_forcing/solar_variability/steinhilber2012.txt
You can choose solar modulation phi (MV) or Total solar irradiance TSI (W/m^2). It is the same for our purpose. Let’s go with Phi (column 4). A plot of this data is:
Figure 1. Steinhilber et al., 2012 solar activity reconstruction for the past 9400 years from Cosmogenic Isotope data.
The date is in years BP (before 1950). The values after 0 BP show contamination from atomic bomb tests so they are higher than they should be. The last trough below -100 MV is the Maunder Minimum.
Now you should run a frequency analysis on the data, but you don’t need to. SAB2012 already provides a Lomb normalized periodogram as figure S16 in the supplemental data here:
http://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/suppl/2012/04/02/1118965109.DCSupplemental/Appendix.pdf
Figure 2. Steinhilber et al., 2012 Lomb normalized periodogram of total solar irradiance (a) and Asian climate record (δ18O) from Dongge cave, China (b). The horizontal line marks the 95% significance level.
SAB2012 noticed the similarity between solar activity and the Asian monsoon frequency analyses, but you want to keep it even simpler. You are going to select the prominent ~ 980-year periodicity. This periodicity or millennial solar cycle was named the Eddy solar cycle by Abreu et al. in 2010. So you build a 980-year sine function with the formula y = sin 2π/980(x) or its Excel equivalent = SIN((2*PI()/980)*x)
Figure 3. 980-year sine function
You need to find the phase shift, or horizontal distance that the function needs to be displaced, to match the solar activity record. It is easy to see that the solar grand minima (SGM) that are producing the 980-yr periodicity are those labeled with arrows in figure 4, so you don’t need to go into a mathematical fit for your purpose. This match requires a 500-year shift in the function.
Figure 4. Solar activity reconstruction and 980-year periodicity match.
This match is further confirmed by a different solar reconstruction that shows the entire Holocene (11,700 years). The additional 2,300 years have not been included in the periodogram from SAB2012, yet the prolongation of the sine wave (figure 5 black wave) identifies two new SGM perfectly aligned with the Eddy cycle (figure 5 arrows).
Figure 5. Vieira et al., 2011 Holocene solar activity reconstruction and the 980-year periodicity. Arrows indicate the two grand solar minima not included in the frequency analysis that clearly belong to the same cycle.
Now that you have the solar 980-year Eddy cycle correctly identified you move to some climatic data to see if solar activity affects climate. To that end you choose the Bond series of ice-rafted debris that is a proxy for iceberg activity in the North Atlantic. The data is available here:
ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/contributions_by_author/bond2001/bond2001.txt
You are interested in:
“1. Figure 2, “a,b,e,e,d,g” Columns 9-10: Age model and stack (“ocean stacked” record) of % HSG from MC52, V29191, MC21, and GGC22 cores [Figure 2, 7th panel]”.
This stack averages different proxies from four cores and is what everybody uses. The Bond series reproduces very well-known Holocene climate features, like the 8.2 kyr event, the Roman Warm Period, the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age.
You plot it with the 980-year solar cycle. You might want to plot Bond data with the Y axis inverted so high iceberg activity coincides with low solar activity.
Figure 6. Bond et al., 2011 North Atlantic iceberg activity reconstruction and the 980-year periodicity. Both series show an excellent agreement except for an age drift in the Bond series and a period of poor match between ~ 4100-1800 BP.
Given the excellent match, it becomes clear that there is a drift in the data as it gets older. It is small, about ~ 200 years in 11,600 years (~ 1.7 %), and it clearly corresponds to an incorrect age model in the Bond series, since the radiocarbon data is dated to the year through tree rings, because that is how we date very old organic things.
So, the match is excellent except for a period between ~ 4100-1800 BP. What happened then? To clarify the issue, you can look at the power of the Eddy cycle over time. For that you need a 2-dimensional frequency analysis known as a wavelet spectrum. Steinhilber & Beer, 2013 provide one in their figure 1. It can be found here:
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jgra.50210/full
You select the 980-year periodicity band and ignore the rest.
Figure 7. Steinhilber & Beer 2013 wavelet spectrum of solar activity over the past 9400 years.
The 980-year band shows a fall in power over the period ~ 4100-1800 BP. Now you have a possible explanation for the poor Eddy solar cycle-climate match over that period. The Eddy solar cycle had lower power then and couldn’t affect climate as much.
So, what have you shown so far?
- There is a 980-year periodicity in solar activity cosmogenic isotope records, known as the Eddy cycle.
- This periodicity shows an excellent match with North Atlantic iceberg proxy records, known as the Bond series, except for a period ~ 4100-1800 BP.
- The period of poor solar-climate match corresponds to a period when solar activity does not show a strong Eddy cycle, further reinforcing the solar-climate relationship.
What else can you conclude?
- Modern global warming corresponds to a period of high Eddy cycle solar activity.
- The next peak of the 980-year Eddy cycle extrapolates to ~ 2095. So more solar activity should be coming in the 21st century.
By now you might have finally convinced yourself that the evidence supports a very strong effect of solar variability on climate, without having to “believe” in anybody. The final question is more difficult, so it is better left for the experts.
Why has global temperature been increasing since 1980 while solar activity has been decreasing?
The answer is that solar variability has multiple effects on climate with different time lags. Total Solar Irradiation variability has a direct effect on temperature within 0-2 years of ~ 0.2 °C (Tung & Camp, 2008) for the 11-year solar cycle. This is the effect accepted by all. The stratospheric effect of UV solar variability influences the North Atlantic oscillation that is lagged by 2-4 years (Scaife et al., 2013). Kobashi et al. 2015 describe a 10-40-year lag on Greenland temperature from ice cores that they attribute to the slowdown of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation and correlates with changes in the wind stress curl in the North Atlantic with a lag of 38 years in solar variability. Several studies correlating changes in tree-ring width and solar variability document a 10-20-year lag (Eichler et al., 2009; Breitenmoser et al., 2012; Anchukaitis et al., 2017).
The existence of multiple lags means that for the full effect of solar variability to be felt on climate there is a delay of ~ 20 years. The delay is due to the recruitment of slower changing atmospheric and oceanic climatic responses.
This means two things:
- Changes over the 11-year cycle are too fast to have much impact on climate.
- The general decline in solar activity since 1980 has been felt on climate from ~ 2000, and the low solar activity of SC24 should have a maximum effect on climate ~ 2035.
The evidence suggests that solar variability strongly influences climate change. The solar-hypothesis makes very clear predictions that are the opposite of predictions from the CO2-hypothesis. Regardless of changes in CO2 levels and emissions, the world should not experience significant warming for the period 2000-2035, and might even experience some cooling. If the prediction is correct we can assume that the solar contribution to climate is stronger than the CO2 contribution. Then more warming should take place afterwards.
[Ed. Note: And that is how science should be done! Make a clear testable prediction. Andy did some very minor editing for language clarity.]
Bibliography
Abreu, J. A., Beer, J., & Ferriz-Mas, A. (2010, June). Past and future solar activity from cosmogenic radionuclides. In SOHO-23: understanding a peculiar solar minimum (Vol. 428, p. 287).
Anchukaitis, K. J., Wilson, R., Briffa, K. R., Büntgen, U., Cook, E. R., D’Arrigo, R., … & Hegerl, G. (2017). Last millennium Northern Hemisphere summer temperatures from tree rings: Part II, spatially resolved reconstructions. Quaternary Science Reviews, 163, 1-22.
Bond, G., Kromer, B., Beer, J., Muscheler, R., Evans, M. N., Showers, W., … & Bonani, G. (2001). Persistent solar influence on North Atlantic climate during the Holocene. Science, 294(5549), 2130-2136.
Breitenmoser, P., Beer, J., Brönnimann, S., Frank, D., Steinhilber, F., & Wanner, H. (2012). Solar and volcanic fingerprints in tree-ring chronologies over the past 2000 years. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, 313, 127-139.
Eichler, A., Olivier, S., Henderson, K., Laube, A., Beer, J., Papina, T., … & Schwikowski, M. (2009). Temperature response in the Altai region lags solar forcing. Geophysical Research Letters, 36(1).
Kobashi, T., Box, J. E., Vinther, B. M., Goto‐Azuma, K., Blunier, T., White, J. W. C., … & Andresen, C. S. (2015). Modern solar maximum forced late twentieth century Greenland cooling. Geophysical Research Letters, 42(14), 5992-5999.
Scaife, A. A., Ineson, S., Knight, J. R., Gray, L., Kodera, K., & Smith, D. M. (2013). A mechanism for lagged North Atlantic climate response to solar variability. Geophysical Research Letters, 40(2), 434-439.
Steinhilber, F., Abreu, J. A., Beer, J., Brunner, I., Christl, M., Fischer, H., … & Miller, H. (2012). 9,400 years of cosmic radiation and solar activity from ice cores and tree rings. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 109(16), 5967-5971.
Steinhilber, F., & Beer, J. (2013). Prediction of solar activity for the next 500 years. Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics, 118(5), 1861-1867.
Tung, K. K., & Camp, C. D. (2008). Solar cycle warming at the Earth’s surface in NCEP and ERA‐40 data: A linear discriminant analysis. Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, 113(D5).
Vieira, L. E. A., Solanki, S. K., Krivova, N. A., & Usoskin, I. (2011). Evolution of the solar irradiance during the Holocene. Astronomy & Astrophysics, 531, A6.
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This is just 1/f noise which has been misinterpreted as occurs so often, notably with temperature:
“Natural habitats of 1/f noise errors”.
http://scottishsceptic.co.uk/2014/12/09/natural-habitats-of-1f-noise-errors/
Thanks, Sceptic. People truly don’t understand that 1/f noise looks just like many natural climate datasets. Your post contains excellent examples of that.
w.
whether or not it proves the author correct – this article’s format should be be widely emulated – just brilliant
lsvalgaard March 13, 2018 at 10:37 am Edit
Thanks, Leif. This agrees totally with my own study of the 10Be proxy entitled “Cosmic Rays, Sunspots, and Beryllium”. It’s a lousy proxy all around, and despite that it’s used over and over to give bogus “support” to various solar-climate claims.
w.
But note that after correcting for climate and ground-level events, the 10Be can be brought into agreement with solar activity measured by the SSN. The point is that the whole thing is not as simple as people used to think [and still cling to]. Just using cherry-picked ‘internet’-versions won’t do. Javier started out by pushing Steinhilber’s version with it negative modulation potential ‘phi’. Phi cannot be negative. A negative phi would mean that we see MORE cosmic rays than there are outside of the solar system.
And here’s a look at how the small variations in the sun do NOT rule the temperature …
I’m sure you can see the problems. First, the temperature starts dropping BEFORE the sunspot changes in about 1945.
And after 1975, bad news … sunspot numbers are dropping toward the current low levels, but the temperatures keep increasing …
w.
Which neatly shows just how fictitious are HadCRU’s fake “data”. Books cooked to a crisp.
Chimp March 22, 2018 at 12:21 pm
Chimp, I fear you’ve misread the data … since 1980 HadCRUT agrees extremely well with the UAH MSU satellite data.
And that means that the post-1980 divergence of solar activity and temperatures is quite real, and not “fictitious” in any manner. For the last 35+ years temperatures have gone UP and solar activity has gone DOWN.
And what is your explanation for that? Nobody else here has one, they treat that inconvenient fact like dogsh*t by carefully stepping around it … are you going to address it?
w.
Willis,
You don’t show 1979-1989, nor note the divergence between HadCRUT and UAH during the pause:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/06/09/huge-divergence-between-latest-uah-and-hadcrut4-revisions-now-includes-april-data/
Besides the bogus “data”, the obvious reason for the apparent divergence between SSN and temperature is time lag, as so many have noted and quantified. Just whom do you imagine steps around this easily explained, largely fake divergence?
Chimp March 22, 2018 at 1:10 pm Edit
Thanks, Chimp. I made that graph for the previous thread, in response to a claim of something happening since the end of the eighties … hang on …
There you go … it changes absolutely nothing. It shows everything you asked and makes no difference to the divergence post-1980 between solar and temperature.
Lag? You’ll have to explain to me how lagging the sunspot data below fixes this divergence …
I don’t care how far to the right you lag the sunspot data, it does NOT remove the divergence.
Well, that would be you and everyone else who is promoting the handwaving and incorrect “lag” explanation that explains exactly nothing.
w.
Willis,
Easily explained.
Given the watery nature of Earth’s climate system, lags are an unavoidable part of the system. The Maunder Minimum persisted even as sunspots began to recover. Thermal inertia is huge.
Dunno why this is even an issue with you. Every cold and hot cycle shows the lag. The so-called Pause has occurred during the transition from the previous sun-based warming to the coming sun-based cooling, just as has happened so many times before.
Seems like there is a quite solid duplication at or near 200 years between the insolation and asian climate record (Figure). If this signal is true (a simple coherence estimation will yield the answer), perhaps reproducing the analysis with this periodicity will provide a distinct hypothesis.
Let me show that figure again:
?zoom=2
https://www.bing.com/search?q=was%20solar%20the%20trigger%20for%20the%20younger%20dryas&qs=n&form=QBRE&sp=-1&pq=was%20solar%20the%20trigger%20for%20the%20younger%20dryas&sc=0-43&sk=&cvid=5468AAEF11F143819008DCEE218ED697
A very good paper showing how low solar could have been the trigger for the YD. Lends support to this article which I agree with in large part.
Gothenberg magnetic excursion also occurred during this time.
Always wondered Why do we look at the r value, correlation coefficient, instead of r2, coefficient of determination, when this latter measure is a measure of the percent of variation in y explained by the relationship with x? Seems a more explanatory measure, but of course is a lower value for all r less than 1, which normally are less than 1, which would be a perfect one to one correlation. R does, of course, make our correlations look better, but still does not make them into causation.
Huh? They measure very different things. R, the correlation coefficient, shows where the two datasets are positively and negatively correlated. Sometimes that’s what you want to know.
w.
Has no real meaning other than the square root of r2. Percent of variation in one variable explained in terms of the other has meaning. What is the meaning of r, mathematically?
[pi r round, usually. .mod]
Mod,
Know that fellow from GA who took his kid out of that school up north for telling him “pie are square”.
http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2010/01/climate-modeling-ocean-oscillations.html
And it is the sunspot integral that matters which means lag times are involved. Look at the correlation ,very strong.
http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2010/01/climate-modeling-ocean-oscillations.html
“Excellent correlation (R²=.96!) with temperature is obtained by adding to the sunspot integral the most significant ocean oscillations (the PDO-Pacific Decadal Oscillation + AMO- Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation*3)”.
________________
I like “the INTEGRAL of solar activity” – it makes sense. That is how the system works (imo), together with oceanic cycles.
Is there a spreadsheet published? What does this formula PREDICT for the next few decades? That is the acid test.
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1610036419073914&set=a.1012901982120697.1073741826.100002027142240&type=3&theater
When matching data for analytical purposes you should always seek to explain where the data do not match. That’s how science works. Like the orbit of mercury.
Cyclomania is a powerful intoxicant.
Most certainly, I have to say that I have enjoyed following the patterns over the years. Especially as there have been good results from that, from my perspective.
So is cyclophobia.
Insulting those that have a different point of view on a matter that is not settled by comparing their ideas with a mental illness. A clear mark of an open mind.
Let us not forget that we are surrounded by cycles, from days, seasons, years, tides, biological cycles, hormones, ice ages, heart beats… Apparently thinking that cycles are a reality is a mental illness if you propose them in forbidden areas, like the Sun. Wait the Sun already has cycles.
Yes we are surrounded by cycles, as you say. We live and breath cycles on almost all timescales. That is exactly why cyclomania is so seductive. It takes extraordinary statistical discipline to keep from getting fooled by the spurious appearance of cycles in time series data. Even good scientists get lured onto the rocks by the Sirens of cyclomania.
I don’t have time for cheap psychology intruding in science.
Here is something directly correlated to solar changes. A comment made at the end of February caught my attention “…See any pattern in TCs hitting Onslow the TC capital of Australia CO2 fans?
http://www.bom.gov.au/cyclone/history/wa/onslow.shtml…”.
The comment implies to me that the author of the comment never expected anyone to arrive at an answer to the question. So I took a look at the graph from the above link. My first reaction was that the person making the comment had a valid point, but then a second later I saw the correlation. I left a series of comments about the correlation. …https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/02/27/study-extremely-stormy-weather-in-california-happened-over-150-years-ago/comment-page-1/#comment-2753898
Some days later it came to me that I should quantify the plain numbers of how the 43 years of Onslow tropical cyclones out of a 107 year time span correlate with the sunspot number. There are 43 years where TCs strike off of the coast from Onslow, Australia. Of those 43 years 31 of those years/TCs occur when the sunpsot number has dropped below 100. Then there are 12 years of cyclone activity which occur during periods of higher sunspot numbers, but all of the 12 appear to have occurred after a large and rapid drop in sunspots. A striking example of that would be TC 202 of 4/15/1958, in the middle of the largest SC maximum. Sunspots peak towards the end of 1957, then fall rapidly almost halfway from that peak by the time the TC forms in mid April of 1958.
Then there are 18 TCs which are rated as having the greatest impact on Australia. Of that number 6 strike when ssn is close to zero. Eight strike when the ssn is 100 or less, and 4 strike after rapid drops from higher sunspots to a lower count. … http://www.bom.gov.au/cyclone/history/wa/onslow.shtml
Also it is interesting to note that the Onslow TC generator is working on a fairly new rotation at the moment. …https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/surface/level/overlay=total_cloud_water/orthographic=108.29,-11.36,1823/loc=105.630,-14.459
That makes sense as the current low sunpot count should mean that this is the most probable period for TCs to form in this location.
goldminor March 13, 2018 at 1:44 pm
goldminor, we invented statistics so that we could tell when we’re fooling ourselves … which we’re very good at doing, because we see patterns in everything. For example, we see constellations in random distributions of stars, and solar effects in random distributions of cyclones.
In your case, I’ve done what you neglected to do, which is to look at the distribution of annual sunspot counts for the years in your dataset (1910 – 2017), and compared that to the distribution of annual sunspot counts for just the years when Onslow was hit by cyclones.
For those interested in looking at the data themselves, from the link above, Onslow recorded a cyclone in the following years:
1911 1915 1916 1917 1918 1921 1923 1927 1929 1934 1939 1940 1942 1943 1945 1948 1951 1952 1953 1956 1958 1960 1961 1963 1964 1965 1966 1967 1970 1975 1977 1990 1992 1995 1996 1999 2004 2006 2008 2009 2011 2012 2015
Here’s the comparison, two boxplots. Usual stuff, the boxes show the interquartile ranges …
As you can see, there is almost no difference in sunspots between looking at all of the years 1910 – 2017 (the expected distribution of any random subset) and the years when there have been cyclones. So no, cyclones hitting Onslow show no evidence of being “directly correlated to solar changes”.
And another solar myth goes hard aground on a reef of ugly facts …
w.
If my assumptions are correct, then the next 4 years should be a very active period of time for TC development at this location. There should be at least one TC in every year. I will wait and see how that works out.
Say what? Goldminor, I just showed that your assumptions are NOT correct, and four more years of data won’t change that at all. But heck, repeat my boxplot above in four years if you wish …
w.
It looks like the next Onslow TC is now on its way. One point for me. Let me add to my prediction. The most likely years for a larger TC are the next two seasons after this one, 2019 and 2020. Also one of those years will likely spawn 2 TCs over the season. Lastly,I would rate the chance for TCs in 2021, and 2022 to be high. That is based on the TC grouping around the solar minimum of 1965/66 as an analog. …http://www.bom.gov.au/cyclone/images/history/wa/tc_onslow.jpg
goldminor March 17, 2018 at 5:26 pm
I see. You are allergic to statistics.
w.
And the TC in question which is slated to end its run just past the historic original spot of the town. This system started up around 8 days ago. …https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/surface/level/overlay=total_cloud_water/orthographic=108.03,-17.09,1823/loc=115.808,-16.215
The government moved the town of Onslow to try and avoid it being constantly destroyed by cyclones.
Thanks, I didn’t know that.
Yeah, they moved it in 1923, but they only moved it 11 miles up the coast …
w.
Javier: The periodogram solar activity (Figure 2) provides you with a frequency, but not necessarily an amplitude. The amplitude in Figure 5 (TSI) is about 1.5 W/m2 and it looks too big. Was it chosen by eye or mathematically?
Other sources typically say the maximum change in TSI at the Maunder minimum is -1 W/m2 AND lower. That would be a solar forcing of -0.25 W/m2 AND about 1/10 the magnitude of the current forcing change from rising GHGs. If solar effects are mediated through TSI alone, I conclude they are negligible compared with rising GHG’s. Any comments?
Do we have any way to convert the amplitude in solar modulation and drift ice into an amplitude in temperature change?
Javier wrote: “By now you might have finally convinced yourself that the evidence supports a very strong effect of solar variability on climate, without having to “believe” in anybody.
I disagree. There appears to be no way to know whether the effect will be “very strong” or trivially weak. It all depends on amplitude, which isn’t fully discussed in this post. The amplitude of the LIA reputedly is less than 1 K. If so, rising GHGs combined with high climate sensitivity will dominate. (If climate sensitivity is low, there is little to worry about.
Javier wrote: The final question is more difficult, so it is better left for the experts. “Why has global temperature been increasing since 1980 while solar activity has been decreasing?”
You can’t ignore the radiative forcing from rising GHGs.
Frank, the problem of reducing solar effects to energy changes in TSI is that it assumes that the only effect of solar variability on climate is through energy changes in TSI, so it becomes circular reasoning. We know that solar variability has many aspects like spectral variability, magnetic variability, solar wind variability. And warming and cooling of the planet are not due solely to changes in the arrival of energy. Milankovitch forcing is extremely powerful yet the orbital changes do not alter the amount of energy that arrives to Earth over a year, they only alter their spatial and temporal distribution. The temperature of the planet is fundamentally controlled by the poleward transport of heat from the tropics, and if solar variability is capable of affecting that transport, as it has been suggested, the final effect could be many times bigger than the actual energy change in solar variability.
I don’t ignore the radiative forcing from rising GHGs. I just think the feedbacks are not properly accounted for and therefore its final contribution is not known, and probably a lot lower than currently assumed.
“he temperature of the planet is fundamentally controlled by the poleward transport of heat from the tropics, and if solar variability is capable of affecting that transport…”
But isn’t that more a function of insolation than solar output variability?
It appears to be affected also by solar output.
“Similar spatiotemporal temperature changes (e.g., multidecadal lags) in the North Atlantic Basin have been identified in coupled climate model simulations with TSI variations (first mechanism) [Cubasch et al., 1997; Swingedouw et al., 2011; Waple et al., 2002]. In these models, increasing solar activity induces a buoyancy forcing due to warming and increased freshwater inputs into the subpolar North Atlantic, which reduces deepwater formation (or AMOC strength) and lead to a reduction in heat transport from low to high latitudes [Menary and Scaife, 2014; Swingedouw et al., 2011; Waple et al., 2002]. This results in a cooling in the subpolar North Atlantic (i.e., Greenland) and induces a positive North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO)-like atmospheric circulation [Gastineau and Frankignoul, 2012; Swingedouw et al., 2011].”
Kobashi, T., Box, J. E., Vinther, B. M., Goto‐Azuma, K., Blunier, T., White, J. W. C., … & Andresen, C. S. (2015). Modern solar maximum forced late twentieth century Greenland cooling. Geophysical Research Letters, 42(14), 5992-5999.
Link in the bibliography of the article.
Javier: I don’t know whether all solar effects (on temperature) can be reduced to effects on TSI or not. (I believe non-TSI effects of the solar cycle have been demonstrated in changed stratospheric winds that then have an effect on surface wind – but not temperature). I’m just saying that the TSI effect ALONE (a FORCING of less than 0.25 W/m2) is trivial compared with GHGs. Can we agree upon that?
Other solar effects are plausible, but their magnitude (cycle amplitude when converted into temperature change) isn’t well defined. Can we agree that this post provides no useful information about the magnitude of temperature change, just on the magnitude of changes in some climate proxies? If not, please explain why I’m wrong.
Javier wrote: “Milankovitch forcing is extremely powerful yet the orbital changes do not alter the amount of energy that arrives to Earth over a year, they only alter their spatial and temporal distribution. The temperature of the planet is fundamentally controlled by the poleward transport of heat from the tropics, and if solar variability is capable of affecting that transport, as it has been suggested, the final effect could be many times bigger than the actual energy change in solar variability”
I’ll agree with the importance of Milankovitch, but I won’t call it a FORCING, something I personally feel is measured in W/m2. “Externally-driven” would be a better description. When the planet is warmer, the temperature difference between the equator and polar regions is smaller (because surface albedo is lower in polar regions when it is warmer). The existence of a CORRELATION between average temperature and the meridional temperature gradient is far from proving that meridional transport “fundamentally controls” the temperature of the planet. What controls temperature on the Milankovitch time scale is imperfectly understood and may not be relevant to the Eddy time scale. The “fundamental control” is radiative balance across the TOA. I don’t think that can be reduced to only meridional transport, especially meridional transport somehow driven by non-TSI changes in solar activity. I’m willing to keep an open-mind about the subject, but keep looking for useful information at the magnitude/amplitude of the temperature change that is driven by this mechanism.
Respectfully, Frank
Yes, but that is irrelevant, as the feedbacks are unknown and potentially very large.
No, I don’t agree on that because the Bond series represents the biggest climate changes on a centennial basis during the Holocene. There is comparative information that says associated temperature changes cannot be small, as otherwise the effect would not be noticeable. You might consider that not useful, but I do.
Other people do. A search for “Milankovitch forcing” returns 15,100 results, and it can be expanded to “orbital forcing” for 95,300 more. It even has its own Wikipedia page:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orbital_forcing
You bet for TOA balance, I bet for Meridional transport. Meridional transport has been implicated in the glacial cycle.
“The gradient (or difference) in summer half-year insolation between 25° and 70°N (Figure 3) is almost completely dominated by obliquity (spectra shown in Figure 4). It is this temperature gradient that drives the poleward heat, moisture, and momentum fluxes in the atmosphere; the correlation between d18O and the insolation gradient (Figure 5) suggests that increased gradients promote ice sheet growth”
Raymo, M. E., & Nisancioglu, K. H. (2003). The 41 kyr world: Milankovitch’s other unsolved mystery. Paleoceanography, 18(1).
As I have said elsewhere in the comments, meridional transport changes have been correlated to solar activity by Kobashi et al., 2015. The small change in TSI or spectral insolation might be recruiting a much more powerful force than TOA balance.
Javier wrote: “Yes, but [TSI] is irrelevant, as the feedbacks are unknown and potentially very large.”
This is why I prefer to separate forcing (measurable in W/m2 at the TOA) and feedbacks (measured in W/m2/K, W/m2 change at the TOA per K rise at the surface) from other phenomena that can’t be easily expressed in these terms. So I don’t talk about Milankovitch “forcing”. And “feedbacks” are therefore independent of the cause of temperature change. We have forcing and feedback and everything else. I’m not implying that I’m “right”, or traditional; just organized and internally consistent.
Javier wrote: “No, I don’t agree on that [this post provides no useful information about the magnitude of temperature change, just on the magnitude of changes in some climate proxies] because the Bond series represents the biggest climate changes on a centennial basis during the Holocene.”
My problem is that I find no fluctuations in the Holocene temperature record (ice or ocean cores) big enough to compete with future GHG-mediated warming. I don’t care how strong/clear the signal in the drift ice index is until we have some way to convert its amplitude into degC. Also, that signal originates in Greenland. We have ice and sediment cores from two polar regions, scattered glaciers and many locations in the ocean.
No real temperature change can compete with predicted imaginary warming to happen in the future.
Temperature is a highly constrained parameter in the Earth and the changes are opposed by changes in the three states of H2O and changes in transport. I’ll write about conservative climate projections in my next article at Climate.Etc that are more likely to take place than IPCC unconservative projections.
No real temperature change can compete with predicted imaginary warming to happen in the future.
No real temperature change can compete with predicted imaginary cooling to happen in the future.
Exactly. The future is unknowable, but scientific hypotheses live and die by their predictions.
but scientific hypotheses live and die by their predictions.
Go back half a century and see how many of the then proposed predictions have died. Just about every one.
Same with hypotheses. Time is a stiff test. But they contribute to the increase in knowledge.
@ur momisugly Frank…regarding this “…changed stratospheric winds that then have an effect on surface wind – but not temperature). …”. Imo, temperatures almost always change depending on the surface wind. Surface winds typically either warm or cool from what I can see. So a change in stratospheric winds, which then leads to changes in surface wind patterns, will also lead to temperature changes in affected areas/regions of the surface.
These surface winds for example, they are blocking warmer air flows from moving north to warm the UK and Europe. Although, I see the first signs of change in the wind flow after 17 days of blocking warmed air from moving north. …https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/surface/level/overlay=temp/orthographic=-23.85,46.59,672/loc=-23.731,44.627
@ur momisugly isvalgaard …Not true, imo, “…No real temperature change can compete with predicted imaginary cooling to happen in the future. …”. None of us will live to see whether or not the warming scare is justified, whereas the cooling being discussed is going to take place in the near future. Whether or not the premise is right, we get to find out at the least.
whereas the cooling being discussed is going to take place in the near future
Wishful thinking. No indications of that.
Then we at least get to find that out, and learn from the mistake made.
learn from the mistake made
People who live by wishful thinking never learn…
Not more snow now in USA?
Javier
My work shows we arrived at the cooling side of the gb cycle but we are at the warming side of the Eddy cycle. Agreed?
Javier wrote: “No real temperature change can compete with predicted imaginary warming to happen in the future. Temperature is a highly constrained parameter in the Earth and the changes are opposed by changes in the three states of H2O and changes in transport. I’ll write about conservative climate projections in my next article at Climate.Etc that are more likely to take place than IPCC unconservative projections.”
There was a very hot period during the Eocene. IIRC, the period allegedly was comparable or warmer than predicted future warming under some scenarios. If I am correct, that is “real” not imaginary.
Of course, nothing predicted about the future is “real”. However, if we know the correct climate feedback parameter – the increase in emitted OLR and reflected SWR per degC of surface warming – calculating the amount of warming needed to compensate for a particular forcing is trivial. (This is true even if the climate feedback parameter isn’t constant and varies with warming.) The climate feedback parameter is inversely proportional to ECS. There are many estimates for ECS and therefore the climate feedback parameter (a more fundamental property of our climate system), most of which are too high for this lukewarmer. However, the only sensible thing to do with the potential influence of the sun on past and future climate (IMO) is to compare it with the potential influence of rising GHGs on climate.
From my perspective, the climate feedback parameter is a very real quantity. A highly linear climate feedback parameter can be observed in LWR during warming associated with the annual seasonal cycle and a less linear response in SWR. Since seasonal warming is composted of an average of about 3 K of cooling in the SH and 10 K of warming in the NH (due to lower heat capacity), the climate feedback parameter for global and seasonal warming can differ (especially in the SWR channel). Nevertheless, there is a large (5-10 W/m2) seasonal change in reflected SWR and emitted TOA LWR driven by surface warming that is monitored from space every year. This makes the idea of an equilibrium response to a forcing is a very real concept – for me.
Since we don’t understand well what is happening today let’s go to a distant event, the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, of which we know very little to see how much light we get. The PETM is not understood at all. We don’t know what happened and what caused it. For all we know something could have hit the Earth at the time. Comparable is a very loose term.
The problem is everything you think you know rests on unproven assumptions. ECS assumes all of the warming since 1950 comes from GHGs. If half of the warming is of solar origin, ECS plunges to about half.
http://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/Otto-vs-anthro-fraction-ECS-550×458.jpg
The only real knowledge comes from the evidence. And it shows that the assumptions that went into the models are incorrect.
I’ve just been countering crazy solar misinformation from a climate scientist (and her sycophants) on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/coralsncaves/status/972102857464958976?s=21
All I had to do was find the relevant page in the IPCC 5th Assessment Report (AR5 WG1) and underline it in red. From WG1 Chapter 10, regarding contributions to the 0.6°C temp rise since 1951:
“natural forcings [previously stated on the same page as being only solar] likely to be between -0.1°C and +0.1°“
This is 17% of the quoted 0.6°C global SAT rise since 1951.
I replied to the climate scientist at a time when she’d had 220 retweets. She didn’t reply, left the tweet up, doubled her retweets, and then started retweeting the indignant replies from these newly misled tweeps.
The climate changes 4 times a year here on Earth depending on your location , each change has a name,summer, autumn, winter and spring and it has nothing to do with the sun , Its all about inclination or axial tilt. “For planets and other rotating celestial bodies, the angle of the equatorial plane relative to the orbital plane — such as the tilt of the Earth’s poles toward or away from the Sun — is sometimes also called inclination, but less ambiguous terms are axial tilt or obliquity.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orbital_inclination. What I see, is the sun also has seasonal changes every 11 earth years as it travels at some 500,000 MPH around the galaxy and the galaxy probably goes through changes as it goes around the universe . The temperature of a planets surface is governed by it’s spin generated by the dynamo effect and the resistance given of by it’s internal electrical process which in turn generates Earth’s magnetic field lines .these magnetic field lines are electrically strengthened by the solar winds ion’s + and electrons – (plasma). Heat is a product of resistance between the solar wind and Earth’s internal processes known as the global electric circuit. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PvoIi_4JiU
This is P-hacking:
* No hypothesis to underlying physical causality
* Selective datasets
* Selective variables (why the 980 periodicity and not the 200 or 400 which are ‘significant’)
* Adjusting data:
“Given the excellent match, it becomes clear that there is a drift in the data as it gets older. It is small, about ~ 200 years in 11,600 years (~ 1.7 %), and it clearly corresponds to an incorrect age model in the Bond series,”
Why is there a need to adjust the data if the match is excellent?
Do records support his hypothesis of cooling (or not “significantly warming”) since 2000?
Why would this mechanism which in the past caused cooling now just no cause warming?
Would anybody let a climate scientist get away with this stuff?
No hypothesis is needed for an observation that the main periodicity in cosmogenic isotope records matches the main periodicity in one of the most important climate records of the Holocene. It just happens.
And if you knew the literature you would know that this same observation was made by climate scientists in one of most highly cited articles in climate science, and it was published in one of the highest ranked journals after peer review.
Bond, G., Kromer, B., Beer, J., Muscheler, R., Evans, M. N., Showers, W., … & Bonani, G. (2001). Persistent solar influence on North Atlantic climate during the Holocene. Science, 294(5549), 2130-2136.
Over 2500 citations. The amount of scientists that disagree with you is staggering.
I am just letting people repeat the same observation by themselves in a simple manner accessible to anybody with a computer.
Clearly your criticism is out of place (everything is already published) and motivated by your disagreement. Well, I’m not sorry to prove you wrong.
Javier: “Over 2500 citations.”
As usual, you exagerate. According to ADS, there are only 1229 citations which still is a lot].
The amount of scientists that disagree with you is staggering
Perhaps 97%…
Once again, I can demonstrate what I say:
SAO/NASA ADS Astronomy Abstract Service
· Find Similar Abstracts (with default settings below) Toggle Highlighting
· Electronic Refereed Journal Article (HTML)
· Full Refereed Journal Article (PDF/Postscript)
· References in the article
· Citations to the Article (1229) (Citation History)
· Refereed Citations to the Article
· Also-Read Articles (Reads History)
·
Title:
Persistent Solar Influence on North Atlantic Climate During the Holocene
Authors:
Bond, Gerard; Kromer, Bernd; Beer, Juerg; Muscheler, Raimund; Evans, Michael N.; Showers, William; Hoffmann, Sharon; Lotti-Bond, Rusty; Hajdas, Irka; Bonani, Georges
So what. I was correct in what I said according to Google Scholar and you were incorrect in saying I exaggerated. Looking for a lower count citation service does not change that.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bond_event
“For reasons that are unclear, the only Holocene Bond event that has a clear temperature signal in the Greenland ice cores is the 8.2 kiloyear event”.
Reasons that are unclear to you. Kobashi has demonstrated in a series of articles that Greenland has an opposite response to solar forcing. GISP2 is a Central Greenland climate record, not a global record. It doesn’t have to agree with Bond series. You are very fond of false postulates and dichotomies.
Kobashi, T., Box, J. E., Vinther, B. M., Goto‐Azuma, K., Blunier, T., White, J. W. C., … & Andresen, C. S. (2015). Modern solar maximum forced late twentieth century Greenland cooling. Geophysical Research Letters, 42(14), 5992-5999.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0031018211005141
We have discussed this several times. It just doesn’t sink. Watch those old neurons.
“solar-climate associations remain weak” Kobashi et al.
“Modern solar maximum forced late twentieth century Greenland cooling” Kobashi et al. And that is the title.
As Greenland shows an opposite response to solar forcing than the rest of the NH, it follows that “Modern solar maximum forced late twentieth century NH warming.” But that is too much to say in the current scientific climate if one wants to have a career.
lsvalgaard March 13, 2018 at 10:24 pm
Here, let me fix that for you:
I also note the following (emphasis mine):
w.
reported c. 1,500 ± 500-year period was a statistical artifact
Yes, to recover from this they postulated that there were two periods: a 1000-year and a 2000-year one, that were out of sync, so gave the illusion of a 1500-year period. I discussed this with Gerard many years ago:
http://lasp.colorado.edu/sorce/news/sns/2003/sns_dec_2003.pdf page 4
Sorry to break the news, but the 1500-year cycle is alive and kicking. Stephen Obrochta has acknowledged that the GICC05 chronology on GISP2 removes the sharp peak at 1470 and redistributes its power over other peaks, including a 1500-year one.
And that doesn’t eliminate the cycle, because NGRIP doesn’t have the same dating problems as GISP2 and still shows it, and the most recent best-dated events show the 1500-year periodicity,
The cycle is also well described in the Holocene in storminess.
You can read about the 1500-year cycle in my article at Climate.Etc, but it is not relevant to this discussion as it is not of solar origin.
Code and data please.
Nobody at WUWT remember the GREAT and POWERFUL WILLIS
Nobody, except me and willis.
Willis did a bold thing he asked Phil Jones for data.
Jones pointed him at the web.
Willis asked again for the data, because merely Pointing someone at the data is not enough
Later Willis would FOIA Jones.. it was the begining of climategate.
The fundamental problem I have with all the solar analysis ( except the stuff willis does) is that sun NUTS
NEVER NEVER NEVER provide the actual data they use and the actual code
This goes from Scafetta to Javier.
so. Javier Please provide the ACTUAL DATA for every graph. Not a link to the paper, not a link to the ftp, but an ACTUAL FILE of the ACTUAL DATA, actually used in every graph.
I want to check.
And then
Provide the ACTUAL CODE for all the work.
Javier wont. The only guys who actually provide code and data are guy like willis and Leif.
In the end 99% of you wont excercise any skepticism about the cut paste “science” of Javier.
You like the story. you swallow it whole. All of you will miss the gross error in his first sentence.
Robert B March 13, 2018 at 3:49 pm
Man, Mrs. Henniger, my high school science teacher would have beaten me severely about the head and shoulders with her red pencil if my citation for something were “there is a paper somewhere” …
Sheesh.
w.
Lazy, Willy, but not exactly hard to google if you’re interested. Did actually link to it in a comment before.
Its a suggestion for how there could be correlation between Earth’s climate and the Sun’s activity without a direct effect. Not an hypothesis.
I do think that you are in this for egotistical reasons sometimes.
Robert B March 14, 2018 at 2:50 pm
Thanks, Robert. I used to do that. I’d go off on a snipe hunt looking for a paper describing “tremors in the south pacific and El Nino”. After much searching, if I was able to find it, I’d come back and start discussing it … and the charming fellow who had sent me on a snipe hunt would say “No, Willis, you idiot, that’s not the paper I meant” …
And in fact, with a vague description like that, there is NO way for me to tell just which paper you are referring to.
After being subjected to that indignity a couple of times, I gave it up. I don’t go on a snipe hunt for any man including you. You can either cite it properly, or I’m not interested.
Someone is being lazy here, but it’s not me. You STILL haven’t provided a link to the paper.
Sheesh … this is simple high-school level stuff. Citing your claims is YOUR job, not mine.
w.
Yogi Bear March 13, 2018 at 5:44 pm
Since there are only two solar minima, and there were dozens of cold years around 1690, I have no idea what you mean.
More to the point, the temperature started warming in the middle of the Maunder Minimum, when the sunspots had bottomed out … so why did it start warming?
And the Dalton minimum warmed from beginning to end … so why did it warm when the sun was low?
w.
Answer: climate feedback and lags in the system response.
“Since there are only two solar minima, and there were dozens of cold years around 1690, I have no idea what you mean. ”
Don’t tell me you have forgotten about the Gleissberg solar minimum already, that’s not good. Simply look at the graph for the three coldest periods, they are all during solar minima.
“More to the point, the temperature started warming in the middle of the Maunder Minimum, when the sunspots had bottomed out … so why did it start warming?”
Not even a valid or true point, the coldest years were in the 1690’s nearer the end. Maunder has the coldest period in CET. Why some parts of Maunder are warm is another question.
“And the Dalton minimum warmed from beginning to end … so why did it warm when the sun was low?”
Dalton has a very cold period in the middle, forming one of the three coldest periods in CET.
Y
Thanks, Yogi. Did I forget the imaginary “Gleissberg Minimum”? A more relevant question might be, did you know that I’ve written two full posts about it?
The Tip of the Gleissberg
The Effect of Gleissberg’s Secular Smoothing
And no, as far as I know there is no one period called THE “Gleissberg Minimum”, the proponents of the Gleissberg Cycle can’t even decide its length. They’ve said anything from sixty to a hundred years … Here, for example, are the periodograms of the Complete Ensemble Empirical Mode Decomposition (CEEMD) of the CET record …
From this you can see why folks have claimed the so-called “Gleissberg Cycle” is anywhere from sixty to a hundred years … because as in most natural data there are a host of cycles present. However, the usual length given for the GC is eighty years … and there’s no cycle of that length in the CET data.
Next, here are the actual cycles that add together to make up the CET. Note (from above) that the broad peak at 100 years is in Empirical Mode 7. Below, you can see how weak it is, and how the length varies from cycle to cycle. This , plus the fact that there are only a couple of cycles visible in a short record such as this, leads to the width of the peak in Mode 7 in the previous graph.
Next, you have not defined what a “cold period” is, so I fear I can’t comment on your allegation. However, please make your definition WITHOUT reference to the data, because that would be cherry picking. How long does it have to be to qualify as a “cold period”? Five years? Twenty-five years? How do we recognize the onset? Does it have to be colder than the overall average? Colder than the average of five years before and after? Ten years? And how much colder does it have to be to qualify? One degree? A quarter degree? How do we know where the end of the “cold period” is.
Define your terms WITHOUT looking at the data, and we can discuss it.
Finally, IF the sun caused the two minima, then it is totally relevant that the Dalton Minimum warmed overall from beginning to end. It is also very relevant that the Maunder Minimum warmed for 25 years before the sun heated up again … unless you have facts to explain those, they count strongly against the theory that “it’s the sun, stupid” …
Best regards,
w.
Deary me Willis you are in a pickle. The first coldest period on the smoothed line on your CET chart is during the Maunder Minimum, particularly the 1690’s. The next two coldest periods on your chart are in the Dalton Minimum, through 1807-1817, and during the Gleissberg solar minimum starting from SC12, with its coldest period through 1885-1895. That is a standard name for the late 1800’s solar minimum, that has been pointed out to you ages ago, and others have used this name for it in posts on WUWT.
“A more relevant question might be, did you know that I’ve written two full posts about it?”
They are irrelevant, I am referring to the Gleissberg Solar Minimum starting from SC12, not the Gleissberg centennial cycle of solar minima. That should have been obvious.
Yogi Bear March 14, 2018 at 2:27 pm
Thanks, Yogi. Come back when you define what you are calling a “cold period” and we can discuss it. Until then, you’re just waving your hands and uttering platitudes.
And while you claim that there is something called THE “Gleissberg Minimum”, I cannot find any reference to it anywhere. Citation?
w.
I’ll come back when you acknowledge that the three coldest periods in your CET chart are all during solar minima.
Signatures of the Maunder, Dalton and Gleissberg minima….
http://www.leif.org/research/On%20solar%20cycle%20predictions%20and%20reconstructions.pdf
“Thanks, Yogi. Did I forget the imaginary “Gleissberg Minimum”?”
Pathetic.
Yogi Bear March 14, 2018 at 5:19 pm
Yogi, I don’t know how to say this any clearer. Until you DEFINE whatever it is that you might be calling a “cold period”, your claim cannot be evaluated, falsified, or even discussed.
In addition, you have not defined whatever it is that you are calling THE “Gleissberg Minimum”. I cannot find one single description of it on the web so you’ll have to help us out here. When did it start? When did it end? And how long is what you are calling the “Gleissberg Cycle”? 60 years? 80 years?
Finally, if the so-called “Gleissberg cycle” is say 80 years, then in the 450 years of the record shown above, there should be no less than five “Gleissberg minima” … where are they?
w.
There seems to be some confusion here. The Gleissberg cycle has nothing to do with the Gleissberg Minimum. From a paper I’m working on:
“The only truly Grand Minimum in the `telescope’ era has been the Maunder Minimum (1645-1700). There have since been several `centennial’ (but not Grand) minima: the Dalton Minimum (1798-1823), the Gleissberg Minimum (1878-1933), and the still ongoing Eddy Minimum (2009-20??). With Cycle 25 probably being larger than Cycle 24, the chances of a new Grand Minimum unfortunately (as we otherwise would have learned something) seem slim.”
“Until you DEFINE whatever it is that you might be calling a “cold period”,”
I didn’t, I said the three coldest periods on your CET chart. For one who insists on your exact words being quoted, you’re doing a great job of misquoting mine today. You know I reckon that I could train a monkey to find the three coldest periods on that chart.
“In addition, you have not defined whatever it is that you are calling THE “Gleissberg Minimum”. I cannot find one single description of it on the web so you’ll have to help us out here. When did it start? When did it end?”
Ridiculous, I just gave you a link with start and end dates. The colder period in CET 1885-1895 is patently during that solar minimum.
“And how long is what you are calling the “Gleissberg Cycle”? 60 years? 80 years?
Finally, if the so-called “Gleissberg cycle” is say 80 years, then in the 450 years of the record shown above, there should be no less than five “Gleissberg minima” … where are they?”
You’re off track again, I’m talking about CET temperatures during solar minima, not the pitch of solar minima. Give the jukebox a kick.
lsvalgaard March 14, 2018 at 6:16 pm
Thanks Leif. I should have known that you’d provide the data that Yogi has refused to provide.
My question is, just about everything is on Google, but I can’t find any reference anywhere to the term “gleissberg minimum” meaning one specific minimum. How come you are the only guy using the term?
Next, who decided that the Gleissberg Minimum ran from 1878-1933, and what criteria were used to determine the start and end dates?
Here’s my problem:
The Dalton minimum starts and ends at the peaks at either end (although not the highest peak”), and the Maunder Minimum ends at a peak … but the “Gleissberg Minimum” starts and ends at the low spots. Who makes these decisions?
And what evidence do we have that the Dalton MInimum and the “Gleissberg Minimum” are anything other than random fluctuations which are not separable from the rest of the data by artificial boundaries?
Here’s what I mean. I did a CEEMD analysis of the data. The figure below shows the periodograms of the CEEMD empirical modes of the annual sunspot data:
So is there a “Gleissberg Cycle” in there? Sure looks like it, see the ~ 80-year peak in Empirical Mode 6?
However, nature is never simple. Here are the actual empirical modes, the signals that add together to form the sunspot data …
Once again, the ~ 80-year cycle in the data is shown in Empirical Mode 6 … but it fades in and out, and the only real low point is at the time of the Dalton Minimum. And when I do a CEEMD analysis of the recent half of the sunspot data, the 80-year cycle is trivially small … so no, in fact the Gleissberg Cycle is a pseudocycle that fades out by about the year 1900.
I do love science, always more questions than answers …
w.
How come you are the only guy using the term?
Because I’m ‘da man’ 🙂
The Maunder Minimum really ended in 1700, not 1715 as is often assumed.
To my knowledge the term ‘Gleissberg Minimum’ was first used by Bonini et al. in 1995, then by McCracken in 2007. McCracken also mentions the Gleissberg cycle [with some confusion]. A recent mention is by Gao (2016), so the term has gotten currency.
The Gao paper mentions Gleissberg 35 times …
http://www.leif.org/research/Gao_2016_ApJ_830_140.pdf
BTW, the Gleissberg cycle lately has been about 105 years long. It is probably just intermittent and thus not a ‘real’ cycle with its own mechanism.
Lately there was no prolonged min or max. By my calculations the last gb is 86.5 years.
“so no, in fact the Gleissberg Cycle is a pseudocycle that fades out by about the year 1900.”
In fact that is pseudoscience, if it had faded out there would be no current solar minimum.
It just shows how little you know of the things you like to discuss and write articles about.
For your education, there are two types of solar minima. The “regular” minima that fall between two 11-year solar cycles, and the “extended” minima that refer to two or more 11-year solar cycles with lower than average activity. The extended minima get names from solar researchers as solar cycles, so there is an Eddy cycle and minimum, and a Gleissberg cycle and minimum, but they are unrelated. The Eddy minimum is not part of the Eddy cycle. The extended minima should be dated from the regular minima before their first 11-year solar cycle to the regular minima after their last 11-year solar cycle, but not everybody does that.
Your article on CET and solar activity is really bad. Yogi Bear is correct that the data shows its three biggest downward deviations from trend at the times of the three extended solar minima in the period. But as you are incapable of accepting any data that supports a solar-climate relationship you enter into a discussion on definitions and try to divert the issue towards an ill-defined Gleissberg cycle that has nothing to do with what Yogi Bear is correctly saying. Of course I didn’t expect any better from you.
Javier March 15, 2018 at 4:18 am
Thanks, Javier. I have invited Yogi several times to define what he is calling a “cold period” so we can determine whether his claim is true or not.
Now, you think you are backing him up, but you don’t even have the nous to use the term he used. Instead, you’ve introduced an entirely new measure, saying that the three biggest “downward deviations from trend” are in solar minima.
So let me invite you to define your terms, since you’re NOT talking about “coldest periods” as Yogi did. What is a “downward deviation from trend”, and how do we measure the “biggest one”. Distance of deviation from the trend? Time below trend? Total integral of time below trend?
And what kind of “trend” are you referring to? Simple linear trend? Gaussian trend?
Until one or both of you provide a bright-line definition for whatever it is that you are describing, I fear that neither I nor anyone else can determine whether your claim is true or not.
Best regards,
w.
PS—It would help if you gave the exact time period for what you are calling the “Gleissberg Minimum”. In addition, from your rather vague description it seems that you think that there is more than one “Gleissberg Minimum”. What are the start and end dates for those as well?
“I have invited Yogi several times to define what he is calling a “cold period” so we can determine whether his claim is true or not.”
Do you need that to find the three coldest periods? The monkey wouldn’t.
“My question is, just about everything is on Google, but I can’t find any reference anywhere to the term “gleissberg minimum” meaning one specific minimum.”
I didn’t have a problem finding the pdf that I posted. You need to be a bit smarter with you google search words, “gleissberg minimum” will lead to many finds about the Gleissberg cycle rather than the Gleissberg Minimum.
“Gleissberg minimum cycles 12 to 14”
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=gleissberg+solar+minimum&ei=wg6rWq7VINKtgAajrLvoDw&start=30&sa=N&biw=911&bih=444
I bet if you weighted your 980-year Eddy cycle with a ratio of the F10.7 flux (with 100 being the 0 line… so if it’s F10.7 200, you’d double your 980-year Eddy cycle height, if it’s F10.7 50, you’d halve your 980-year Eddy cycle height), you’d get an even closer match to the temperature chart.
Ed – you claim that this article makes a clear testable prediction – what is it? All I can see is the statement that
Regardless of changes in CO2 levels and emissions, the world should not experience significant warming for the period 2000-2035, and might even experience some cooling.
So is the clear testable prediction that the world is cooling or that the world is warming but not
significantly? This seems like an attempt to cover all bases – warming, cooling, staying the same
all fall under this prediction. And if this is a prediction then it would appear to be wrong with three of
the warmest years on record occurring in the period 2000 -2035. Of course there is that weasel word “significant” which would allow Javier to always claim that he is right no matter what the temperature does.
The premise is that there is an overlying cool trend in place now. The El Nino spike was big, no question about that. Now we wait and see what the next 5+ years brings. The next several years should be cooling due to the near at hand solar minimum. Then it is wait and see how temps and the oceans respond to the solar upswing after the minimum.
Subject to no large volcanic events ravaging the stratosphere again; might as well toss a coin on that one.
The world could use a big eruption right about now. How about that North Korean volcano, for example.
The article doesn’t make any prediction. The solar-hypothesis does. The solar hypothesis states that solar variability is a very important driver of long-term temperature changes but acts with a lag of ~ 20 years. Perhaps the main proponent of this hypothesis is Stephen Wilde, that has participated in the comments.
http://joannenova.com.au/2015/01/is-the-sun-driving-ozone-and-changing-the-climate/
Other scientists like Willie Soon and Nicola Scafetta are also proponents of this hypothesis.
Temperature is not determined only by solar variability. Other factors and feedbacks affect it, so it is not possible to predict exactly what temperatures are going to do even if a good prediction of solar changes can be made (it can’t). Therefore you are asking for an impossible when asking for a number.
However we have two competing hypothesis with starkly different predictions. CO₂-hypothesis predicts +0.3 °C/decade depending solely on atmospheric CO₂ levels increasing as before.
Solar-hypothesis can be stated as at least 50 % of the observed temperature change is due to solar activity changes, and can be quantified as 0.0 °C/decade for as long as solar variability remains below its long-term average.
We can say that any change of less than +0.1 °C/decade for the next two decades means that the solar-hypothesis is better at explaining temperature changes, and thus wins. Change above +0.2 °C/decade means that the CO₂ is better at explaining temperature changes, and thus wins. Is that specific enough for you?
Personally if temperature change for the next two decades is above +0.2 °C/decade (+0.4 °C anomaly in 13-month smoothed monthly HadCRUT global surface anomaly for the Jan 2018-Dec 2037 period) I will recognize that the solar-hypothesis has no value, and will abandon it. Not even a strong El Niño in 2037 should give that much.
I will recognize that the solar-hypothesis has no value, and will abandon it.
This is inconsistent with the thousands of papers you claim support the hypothesis.
If they are any good the hypothesis cannot be abandoned.
It will be consistent with going with the evidence no matter the theory. If the evidence doesn’t support a hypothesis, it has to be abandoned or modified. Popper’s falsifiability criterion is very clear. To me strong warming during low solar activity requires a different explanation.
You have at times said that you don’t support the CO₂-hypothesis, yet you never seen to propose an alternative and vehemently reject the most obvious one.
The number of forcings that we know about is very limited, and internal variability just moves around heat within the system. If it isn’t GHGs and it isn’t the Sun, what is it? Unicorns?
It will be consistent with going with the evidence no matter the theory
Those thousands of papers purport to be observational evidence, not theory.
A hypothesis is just one of the many possible interpretations of the evidence. The evidence (data, observations) is good and valid unless new evidence shows it isn’t. The hypothesis however can be wrong even with the same evidence if different evidence is incompatible with it.
Strong warming during multi-decadal low solar activity like the one we are having is not compatible with the solar-hypothesis of modern global warming, even if it is compatible with solar activity having an effect on climate.
The evidence (data, observations) is good and valid unless new evidence shows it isn’t.
No. Evidence is evidence at all times. Interpretation of evidence may vary.
You are confusing evidence with your interpretation of what the evidence shows.
So, you don’t ‘go with the evidence’. You ‘go with your interpretation of evidence’.
Nope. A comparison of INTCAL98 with INTCAL13 shows differences. Hypothesis based on INTCAL98 might need adjusting to the new evidence.
Then it is not evidence to begin [with.]
And the point stands: If you abandon your view then all those thousands of papers would have to be adjusted too.
You are such a polemic-loving character that you, as usual, defend one thing and the opposite in the same page. How can then the graphs that I posted be outdated?
How can then the graphs that I posted be outdated?
Because they are old and cherry-picked to prop up your view.
The Muscheler one is a good example.
Being old doesn’t affect the evidence.
Being old doesn’t affect the evidence.
If the ‘evidence’ is just some model-derived interpretation being old is detrimental. Think the difference between INTCAL98 and INTCAL13
“The solar hypothesis states that solar variability is a very important driver of long-term temperature changes but acts with a lag of ~ 20 years.”
The solar hypothesis? a solar conjecture more like. There isn’t any direct evidence that it is lag. There is evidence against such a lag, for example the Dalton solar minimum didn’t drive colder temperatures 20 years later.
The evidence for the lag is exposed in numerous articles, some of which are listed in the bibliography.
Climate change during the Dalton minimum period had a very important volcanic forcing, recognized by everybody. You can’t ignore it.
“The evidence for the lag is exposed in numerous articles, some of which are listed in the bibliography.”
Not exposed, but specious postulates. Low solar drives a warm with little lag.
“Climate change during the Dalton minimum period had a very important volcanic forcing, recognized by everybody. You can’t ignore it.”
Which has nothing to do with my original point which you are ignoring. There is no 20 year lag of the effects of weak solar activity in the Dalton Minimum.
You are entitled to your opinion.
How do you know?
“How do you know?”
Five El Nino episodes 1807-1817.
Five La Nina episodes 1827-1837.
“Five La Nina episodes 1827-1837.”
Scrub that, it’s a mistake.
Javier, you say:
“CO₂-hypothesis predicts +0.3 °C/decade depending solely on atmospheric CO₂ levels increasing as before.”
Does it? IPCC AR4 WG1 Projections of Future Changes in Climate says:
“Since IPCC’s first report in 1990, assessed projections have suggested global average temperature increases between about 0.15°C and 0.3°C per decade for 1990 to 2005. This can now be compared with observed values of about 0.2°C per decade, strengthening confidence in near-term projections.”
So values of around +0.2 °C/decade is exactly consistent with the CO2 hypothesis. Your falsification needs to be <<0.15 °C/decade. Really, if it does what you say it should, it should have cooled since 2000.
Mat
My sets do show some cooling. Have you already checked what happened IYOB? Use the original daily data from station nearby you. Compile them to an average yearly value. Look at the trend over the past year.
Tell me what you find.
Mat, IPCC has scaled down its claims and it is rewriting history to hide their many failures. The claim was:
“Under the IPCC Business as Usual emissions of greenhouse gases the average rate of increase of global mean temperature during the next century is estimated to be 0.3°C per decade (with an uncertainty range of 0.2°C – 0.5°C)”
IPCC FAR. 1990
But I am willing to accept +0.2 °C/decade as their new reduced value. Clearly CO₂ is not as potent warming agent as was originally believed.
“Relationship between the global electric circuit and electrifiedcloud parameters at diurnal, seasonal, andinterannual timescalesThomas Lavigne1, Chuntao Liu1, Wiebke Deierling2, and Douglas Mach31Department of Physical and Environmental Sciences, Texas A&M University, Corpus Christi, Texas, USA,2Department ofAerospace Engineering Sciences, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, Colorado, USA,3Science and TechnologyInstitute, Universities Space Research Association, Huntsville, Alabama, USAAbstract In the early 1900s, J. W. Whipple began to validate C. T. R. Wilson’s global electric circuit (GEC)hypothesis by correlating the diurnal variation of global thunder days with the diurnal variation of the fairweather electric field measured by the Carnegie Cruise. This study applies 16+ years of precipitation feature(PF) data from the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission, including lightning data from the Lightning ImagingSensor, alongside 12 years of electric field measurements from Vostok, Antarctica, to further examine thisrelationship. Joint diurnal-seasonal variations of the electric field are introduced and compared with a varietyof PF parameters that are potentially related to the GEC. All tested PF parameters showed significantcorrelations to the electric field on the joint seasonal-diurnal timescale, with the flash rate and volume of30 dBZ between the 5°C and 35°C isotherms showing the best linear correlations with R2values of 0.67and 0.62, respectively. Furthermore, these relationships are analyzed during the two different phases of the ElNiño–Southern Oscillation. Results show different seasonal-diurnal variations of the electric field during ElNiño and La Niña periods, with enhancements in the electric field between the months of January throughApril at 16–24 UTC in La Niña years. A similar trend is shown in global PF parameters, indicating relationshipsbetween the variations seen in the fair weather electric field and the variations of global PFs at diurnal,seasonal, and interannual timescales. This provides further evidence that PFs around the globe have a directconnection to the GEC.
Relationship between the Global Electric Circuit and electrified cloud parameters at diurnal, seasonal and interannual timescales: TRMM Cloud Parameter Correlation to GEC (PDF Download Available). Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/319074516_Relationship_between_the_Global_Electric_Circuit_and_electrified_cloud_parameters_at_diurnal_seasonal_and_interannual_timescales_TRMM_Cloud_Parameter_Correlation_to_GEC [accessed Mar 14 2018].”
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/319074516_Relationship_between_the_Global_Electric_Circuit_and_electrified_cloud_parameters_at_diurnal_seasonal_and_interannual_timescales_TRMM_Cloud_Parameter_Correlation_to_GEC
One can only wonder, the sun spot count does tend to align with cold periods in history but it may only be an indicator of other stuff the sun is doing that we know nothing of. When the sun is quiet we also get more earthquakes and volcanoes, what could the sun be up to, there is more, much more to the sun than we think we know. We are but babes in the woods when it comes to understanding our solar system let alone the universe.
Lots of two and fro-ing going on. I see it as differing definitions and context. weather, climate, manmade, natural. language is tricky and takes a while to get on the same page. For me, one key point to clarify is Energy v heat v temperature and, as stated prior, weather v climate.
The earth surely gets Energy from “off planet” ie the sun (its huge!!) and the galaxy ( its even hugerrrrr!!). All that stuff is not man-made and its effects are as obvious as Day (clear/cloudy) v Night. just walking on the beach in bare feet is enough evidence of the full spectrum intensity. I also burn like a fair-redhead.
When it comes to planetary stuff; convection, conduction, emissitivity and intensity all count. Its estimated the top 3-4m of all ocean surfaces contain the same energy as the entire atmosphere. WOW. There is no chance the air (gas) is going to heat the ground (solid). Simply put, without any atmosphere we would be extremely HOT and COLD, but as much as I loathe to average a temperature it is cooler with an atmosphere. I have had enough references to CO2 causing any significant efffect – too many locations where it is not influencing temperature yet is “uniform” on a planetary scale and highly NOT uniform at ground levels (crop studies at <10m).
Heat Capacity and prevalence of water is huge and EBRE shows negative feedback while the GCM model charts I have seen show the feedback positive – a big issue for me. Finally there is Gravity….many guru's seem to dismiss this as being constant so having no effect on pressure or temperature. The argument uses a pushbike tyre analogy – initial inflation gives rise in temperature that then stabilises. Claims the planet got its gravity so long ago its now stable as an inflated tyre?!! I can't see that being valid. First, the air is not captured by a solid (tyre), its free to space. Second, gravity is always working to keep the particles close to ground (ms-2). When the suns energy is converted to a hot surface the convection and conduction gives cause to rise – kinetically push apart and create more space between each other. this leads to the PVnRT relationship. No doubt there is plenty of energy leaving the surface but the heated partices "coming back" cannot affect the surface.
So ends my little non-technical diatribe…Mr S Wilde & Mr E Happ are onto the climate weather drivers IMO. Some others (Slayers?) are also in the mix re: gravity / pressure concerns with the GHG effect. The for planetary energy budget stuff I like Jonova's partner – aka 4 pipes to space and a bypass Notch theory is very good stuff with solid maths to back it. what I like about Javier & Leif is its great to highlight we should not be sweating the small stuff and take a look at loooong term history. Without taking the P155 the comedian "Carlin" puts it all into perspective nicely.
Much of the intellectual effort in this space could really be put towards securing reliable efficient energy sources for those that do not have any NOW rather than the current fetish with dilute greenie cool-aid stuff like large scale wind & solar, or even CO2 levels in 100+ years. CO2 is plant food anyways, so more of that and good electricity supply will help with global population, health, wealth and diversity issues all in one go. cheers.
Macha very well put.
https://www.iceagenow.com/Magnetic_Reversal_Chart.htm
Javier I hope you will look into this a little. I think there is a tie in here if for no other reason a weak magnetic field will enhance given solar effects, and they do seem to correlate with a cooling climate..
I also think it is not just lag times and duration of time for solar to have an effect on the climate but the degree of solar change which if deep enough could perhaps bring the climate to some sort of threshold which can set in motion the processes which bring about the ability to the climate to change into a different mode.
The evidence to me for this is the fact that more often then not the climate when looking at the historical climatic record changes rather abruptly when it changes. This against a background of slow gradual changes at other times.
As far as galactic cosmic rays, does it support an increase in cloud coverage and an increase in volcanic activity ? I think this is one of those areas which is hidden in obscurity because I think it is not an increase per say that is going to give one the correlation but rather there are critical threshold values(like I think there is for all items which effect the climate) that are needed in order for these things to bring about a climatic impact. In other words the items which impact the climate in order to it in a significant way need to undergo an x change in degree of magnitude and duration of time.
This is why it is so hard to detect and gives those who oppose solar/climate connections opportunities to say no . An example would be solar has been weakening for the last half of last century and yet temperatures are still going up. A complete bogus argument as you have noted.
AS far as thresholds you yourself Javier used that reasoning by showing why the so called 11 year sunspot cycle tied into the climate is hard to detect due to the fact the degree of magnitude change and duration of time is to short.
Javier in closing you are a great spokesmen for our position when it comes to solar /climate relationships. You have that gift to get your point across in a complete comprehensive manner which is a wonderful ability to have.
I am pretty much in agreement with you and Andy May.
https://helios.gsfc.nasa.gov/qa_cr.html
Extensive Info on galactic cosmic rays . Super nova cosmic ray tie in is interesting along of course with possible climatic effects.