Approaching 'grand solar minimum' could cause global cooling

There’s a lot of evidence mounting that solar cycle 25 will usher in a new grand solar minimum. Since about October 2005, when the sun’s magnetic activity went into a sharp fall, solar activity has been markedly lower, with solar cycle 24 being the lowest in over 100 years.

Interplanetary magnetic field – Image from NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center
Solar cycle 24 – Image from NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center

Cycle 24 is part of a weakening progression of solar cycles since 1980:

Daily observations of the number of sunspots since 1 January 1900 according to Solar Influences Data Analysis Center (SIDC). The thin blue line indicates the daily sunspot number, while the dark blue line indicates the running annual average. The recent low sunspot activity is clearly reflected in the recent low values for the total solar irradiance. Data source: WDC-SILSO, Royal Observatory of Belgium, Brussels. Last day shown: 28 February 2018. Last diagram update: 1 March 2018. (Credit climate4you.com)

Meteorologist Paul Dorian at Vencore weather writes:

All indications are that the upcoming solar minimum which is expected to begin in 2019 may be even quieter than the last one which was the deepest in nearly a century.

Some scientists are even saying that we are on the cusp of a new grand solar minimum, and the upcoming cycle 25 may have even lower cycles after it.

This empirical modeling of solar recurrent patterns has also provided a consequent multi-millennial-scale experimental forecast, suggesting a solar decreasing trend toward Grand (Super) Minimum conditions for the upcoming period, AD2050–2250 (AD 3750–4450).

Source: Evidence of cosmic recurrent and lagged millennia-scale patterns and consequent forecasts: multi-scale responses of solar activity (SA) to planetary gravitational forcing (PGF) (open access)


Simon Constable, in Forbes writes:

The question is whether we will enter another grand solar minimum just like the Maunder minimum which, if history is a guide, would mean a period of much colder weather winters and summers.

Once upon a time, people would worship the sun as a deity. It was with good reason that they did so for the sun provided much of what sustains life on our small planet, warmth and bountiful harvests. How would we survive if the sun stopped beating down on us? It was a real fear.

Then came science and industrialization. As the new era took over, we mostly forgot the sun and its importance to our existence. (Of course, most people occasionally complain that it is either too sunny or not sunny enough.)

But just because we stopped paying close attention doesn’t mean that it lost any of its importance to our world. And neither does the fact that the life of the sun is far more complex than many people realize. Indeed, if we are to believe the experts,the sun’s behavior is about to change in a way that could have dramatic consequences for the food we eat and the broader economy.

 That’s why it is rather handy that an important book on the matter was recently published in paperback. Nature’s Third Cycle: A Story of Sunspots by Arnab Rai Choudhuri.
The third cycle is that of the Sun and the dark spots which appear on the solar surface. The first two cycles are day versus night and the changing seasons.
Choudhuri gives us a condensed history of the study of the sun and of sunspots over the past few centuries back to Galileo Gailiei, whose discovery of the Sun’s 27-day rotation marked the serious start of solar physics.

The remarkable tale includes skilled amateurs as well as professional academics, the rivalries between the main players, and a probable husband-wife murder-suicide thrown into the mix. Yes, there is a lot in the story of studying the sun, and the author does a masterful job of making it a fascinating read. Not too shabby when many scientific books do more to muddle the reader than to enlighten.

The names which might be familiar include the following: space observatory pioneer George Ellery Hale; discoverer of Uranus William Herschel; and astronomer Edward Maunder. It was the last of those men who identified a period from about 1640 through 1715 when the spots on the Sun disappeared. Usually, the number of dark blemishes on the solar surface tends to rise and fall in somewhat predictable 11-year cycles.

The period when the spots vanished, a so-called grand solar minimum, also coincided with a sort of mini-ice age with harsh winters and short cool summers. It became known as the Maunder minimum after the man who studied it.

Of course, the idea that the temperature of the earth could be changed by mysterious fluctuating dark patterns on the sun’s surface is nothing if not controversial. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t true, as the author states:

[…] the earth indeed becomes cooler when sunspots go missing. Exactly how this happens is still a question on which experts seem to have very differing views and which is unlikely to be settled definitively in the near future.

Choudhuri takes pains to add that none of this negates the effect of industrialization on climate change. They are both critical factors.

However, the whole matter is complicated by the fact that while the world was warming up in the 20th century the number of sunspots were above their average count. Remember, other things being equal, more spots means warmer earth temperatures.

When the book was published in hardback in 2015, the author was reluctant to forecast the likely outcome of the current sunspot cycle.

But what has become more apparent based on more recent research from NASA is that we are now in a period of very few or no sunspots. This has coincided with the brutal winter we are going through now.

The question is whether we will enter another grand solar minimum just like the Maunder minimum which if history is a guide would mean a period of much colder weather winters and summers. More than a few experts with whom I speak regularly believe that we shall enter such a grand minimum along with the resulting bone-chilling weather.

If that happens, then there will be profound influences on the economy, including possible crop failures and rising energy use for home and workplace heating. Or in other words, expect bigger bills for food and energy. After a period in which the supply of both has been increasingly abundant then this change will likely come as a shock to many people and likely the broader global economy as well.

Read the full story

We live in interesting times. More at the WUWT Solar Reference Page

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March 18, 2018 11:44 am

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.

Editor
Reply to  lsvalgaard
March 18, 2018 12:10 pm

Hi Leif. Long time.
Hope you and yours are well.
Cheers
Bob

Reply to  Bob Tisdale
March 19, 2018 4:29 pm

I find it more than a bit curious that the vast majority of “climate change” narratives don’t mention the fact that since the Indonesian quake/tsunami of 2004, the earth has changed it’s orbit quite noticeably. The sun now rises and sets over Canada at summer solstice, instead of it’s old northern limit of 23.5 degrees which latitude runs through central mexico.
And why are you guys apparently “not allowed” to speak of the fact that the moon’s orbit is now like a lasso at a rodeo show? Anyone, edumacated or no, can see the moon swing through dozens of degrees per month, instead of the old limit of 10 total per year. Not only has the sun’s radiative output changed considerably, but now the northern and southern extremes of our planet, receive much more direct solar radiation then ever recorded in the past.
Search – “Huge Media Blackout Regarding Supemoons”
Search – “Pole Shift of Noah’s Day About to Happen Again?”
See – “Big earthquakes predicted for 2018, but NOT for reason they are saying!”
Good Journeys

Reply to  Bob Tisdale
March 19, 2018 5:00 pm

Mitch, I truly, truly hope that that was sarcasm. If you actually believe that mad stuff, like the limit of the tropics moving up to Canada, then you should NEVER comment on scientific topics—people will just point and laugh.
w.

Pop Piasa
Reply to  lsvalgaard
March 18, 2018 12:19 pm

Leif, weren’t the Dalton minimum’s weather effects amplified by the eruption of Tambora? What is the historical time lag before solar minimal induced cooling occurs?
Also, is there a connection between deep minimae and tectonic events such as the New Madrid quake of 1811-1812?

Reply to  Pop Piasa
March 18, 2018 12:27 pm

The weather/climate was indeed influenced by Tambore [the year without a summer] and several other volcanic eruptions. Nothing to do with the sun, though. But confounding the issue for sure.

2hotel9
Reply to  Pop Piasa
March 18, 2018 12:43 pm

Magnetic fluctuations within the Sun, just how far out into the Solar System do they reach and what effects could manifest within planets? Each solar body has its own magnetic field and fluctuations, just how do they all interact with Sol’s field and its cycles of fluctuation? Some observations of strange events on Jupiter, Red Spot behaving oddly. Could magnetic field fluctuation be causing that, and is it related to Sol’s magnetic hiccups? Environmental Warriors keep loudly proclaiming “Everything is connected!”. Well, just how connected is “everything”? Lots of questions we are just figuring out we don’t know answers to.

Yogi Bear
Reply to  Pop Piasa
March 18, 2018 1:54 pm

“Nothing to do with the sun”
You don’t know that for sure.

bill hunter
Reply to  Pop Piasa
March 18, 2018 2:33 pm

Tambora erupted 2 months AFTER the coldest winter in Central England was recorded during the Dalton Minimum.

Reply to  bill hunter
March 18, 2018 2:37 pm

There were several other big volcanic eruptions around and just before that time.
E.g. Mayon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayon#1814_eruption

Cointreau
Reply to  Pop Piasa
March 18, 2018 4:06 pm

Solar cycle 25 is projected to be demonstrably weaker than cycle 24. And yes, there is a strong correlation between solar minimums and increased volcanic and seismic activity. You only have to look at the historical record damnit. Not sure why Isvalgaard thinks 25 will be stronger.

Reply to  Cointreau
March 18, 2018 5:21 pm

Not sure why Isvalgaard thinks 25 will be stronger
Because the cycle size depends on the polar fields that are now larger than before cycle 24.
This is how it it done: by measurement, and not by hand waving.

Alan Tomalty
Reply to  Pop Piasa
March 18, 2018 4:57 pm

Yogi how would a volcano have anything to do with the sun?

2hotel9
Reply to  Alan Tomalty
March 19, 2018 7:42 am

Got his question backwards, what effect, if any, does magnetic fluctuation in the Sun have on volcanic/tectonic activity in planets. Its all connected, that is what we keep hearing. Just how connected is everything? Does magnetic activity of Sol have effects on the various planets?

Pop Piasa
Reply to  Pop Piasa
March 18, 2018 5:00 pm

Leif’s predictions are the product of the state-of-the-science in solar & heliospheric studies, it will be fascinating to see how accurate the present consensus is.

Tom in Florida
Reply to  Pop Piasa
March 18, 2018 5:21 pm

Cointreau March 18, 2018 at 4:06 pm
” Not sure why Isvalgaard thinks 25 will be stronger.”
Because he is the expert and was one of a very few who got 24 correct.

KRM
Reply to  Pop Piasa
March 18, 2018 6:52 pm

Cointreau March 18, 2018 at 4:06 pm
“And yes, there is a strong correlation between solar minimums and increased volcanic and seismic activity.”
Not correct. For the best refutation of this claim suggest you see the article on this site by W Eschenbach:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/02/09/volcanoes-and-sunspots/

Reply to  Pop Piasa
March 18, 2018 9:10 pm

As for global cooling to be caused by the current decline of solar activity: I have heard predictions dating back to almost 10 years ago that this cooling would have started by now. But not even UAH v6 as of the February determination during a mild La Nina is showing cooling.
Suppose global temperature stays about the same or gets a very slight increase into the mid 2030s despite solar activity briefly dipping to nearly the depth of the Maunder Minimum?
And then suppose solar activity rebounds, and then from around ~2035 to around ~2070, global temperature gets back to increasing as rapidly as “IPCC median track” as of AR5, halting the increase of the shortfall of the prediction, and maintaining its shortfall of “IPCC median track” at around or a little more than a degree C short of “IPCC median track”, as measured by the version of HadCRUT that was current when IPCC’s AR5 was being written, and that was HadCRUT3. HadCRUT3 was new at about the time for the CMIP5 climate models to be transitioning from hindcast (“historical”) to forecast (projections). HadCRUT3 is described in a paper that was written shortly before “The Pause” was well known (and got its explanations/”explanations” and being subject of debates), even published shortly before most noticing of The Pause, so I expect HadCRUT3 to have little bias againat showing The Pause.

Reply to  Pop Piasa
March 19, 2018 4:06 am

Isvalgaard you are wrong. Sun magnetic fields and solar storms are important to North Atlantic ocean currents variability.comment image?itok=gpQQsorg

Yogi Bear
Reply to  Pop Piasa
March 19, 2018 7:32 am

Large volcanic eruptions typically follow these cold winters, and they tend to have a slight warming effect on N Hem winter seasons.

Reply to  Pop Piasa
March 19, 2018 9:32 am

Wrong, the suns weakening output has everthing to do with increased volcanic activity. You clearly do not understand the cosmic ray flux and how it effects the silica magma. This triggers volcanos and is already doing so.

Reply to  Ian Fenn
March 19, 2018 12:50 pm

Yogi Bear March 19, 2018 at 7:32 am

Large volcanic eruptions typically follow these cold winters, and they tend to have a slight warming effect on N Hem winter seasons.

Ian Fenn March 19, 2018 at 9:32 am

Wrong, the suns weakening output has everthing to do with increased volcanic activity. You clearly do not understand the cosmic ray flux and how it effects the silica magma. This triggers volcanos and is already doing so.

I don’t know about volcanoes and “cold” winters, whatever “cold” might mean in that context, but the claim about volcanoes and sunspots is simply not true.
How do I know?
Because unlike you, I’ve actually looked at the data. My posts on the subject are here and here. Read’em and weep …
Your move … break out the data on “the cosmic ray flux and how it effects [sic] the silica magma” and post it up here so we can all see whether or not it holds up.
w.

Reply to  lsvalgaard
March 18, 2018 2:18 pm

There are several school of thoughts about the behaviour of the Sun. I think that the best model of the Sun’s behaviour is the double dynamo model of Shepherd, Zharkov & Zharkova. This model maches very well the real behaviour during the cycles of 22 and 23. It predicts even lower Sun activity for the coming years.comment image/v1/fill/w_480,h_360,al_c,q_80,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01/c266e2_5fde0ba6c3704f1e97dbf4854e06c8b0~mv2.webp

Reply to  aveollila
March 18, 2018 2:19 pm

Sorry, another trial with the figure:comment image

Reply to  aveollila
March 18, 2018 2:26 pm

I think that the best model of the Sun’s behaviour is the double dynamo model of Shepherd, Zharkov & Zharkova.
That ‘model, has been thoroughly debunked:
https://arxiv.org/pdf/1710.05203.pdf
http://www.leif.org/research/Zharkova-Fail2.png
No match whatsoever.

Reply to  aveollila
March 18, 2018 11:36 pm

To Isvalgaard. When I compare your Fig. 1 and the Fig of S&Z&Z, I find a problem with the activity index trends. The decrease of the solar activity in your Fig.1 from 1980 to 2000 seems to stay at the very high level. Your Fig. 1 does not show the trend from 2000 onward for different estimates. Are they available somewhere?

Reply to  lsvalgaard
March 18, 2018 8:38 pm

I see the upcoming expected “grand” minimum to be a result of the ~70-88 year Gleissberg cycle and the ~210 year Seuss cycle having coinciding minima. This “grand minimum” could be deep, but I expect it to brief, with a duration a fraction of that of the Maunder Minimum, which was a minimum of the ~1,000 year (or ~980 year) Eddy cycle.
The previous minimum of the Seuss cycle was the Dalton Minimum. A repeat of that with a coinciding minimum of the Gleissberg cycle means a minimum getting deeper than the Dalton Minimum, but only briefly, for one or at most two ~11 year cycles (the Schwabe cycle).

Sparks
Reply to  lsvalgaard
March 18, 2018 11:22 pm

Leif what are you going on about an “Eddy Minimum” if you don’t believe it is true? and the fact that Eddy had never anything to say about a so called “grand solar minimum” or ever predicted it, which you seem to say does not exist and wont happen. I liked Eddy but don’t be a hypocrite. I have shown you this before, what do you see? (mod can I start swearing?)comment image

Jeff Mitchell
Reply to  lsvalgaard
March 18, 2018 11:33 pm

Wouldn’t we say it is fortunate if we don’t have a Maunder like minimum? Cold is so much more dangerous, isn’t it? That is, of course, if the minimum does cause cooling…

A C Osborn
Reply to  Jeff Mitchell
March 19, 2018 5:17 am

This, Isvalgaard used Unfortunately, which was rather unfortunate.
I am sure it would be of great interest to Solar Scientists, but not so much the rest of us.

Catcracking
Reply to  Jeff Mitchell
March 19, 2018 12:47 pm

Cold may not be the worst case, if there is even a smidgen of warming, the government bodies will potentially sell their alarmist global warming claims to the electorate and the public causing all the economies of the western world to collapse resulting in a worldwide depression with hunger and poverty without essential fossil fuels.

Sparks
Reply to  lsvalgaard
March 18, 2018 11:33 pm

For someone who has already named a future event, says it all.

WE
Reply to  lsvalgaard
March 19, 2018 2:26 pm

That is because, where the money is, is not on the Sun’s activities, but on human causes to our climate. If this would change, so would the emphasis.

James of the West
Reply to  lsvalgaard
March 20, 2018 7:19 am

Almost a prediction……cycle 25 will be larger than 24 (probably)
It seems like scientific boilerplate “probably” is useful to successfully predict all future outcomes….
What is the probability that 25 is weaker than 24?

HotScot
March 18, 2018 11:47 am

Great. Another doomsday event the doom mongers can exploit.

2hotel9
Reply to  HotScot
March 18, 2018 12:10 pm

I don’t know! Price of cordwood will go up, that means more money for me. Remember, the glass is not half empty, it is just twice the size it needs to be. 😉

HotScot
Reply to  2hotel9
March 18, 2018 12:27 pm

2hotel9
I like your glasses. 🙂

RockyRoad
Reply to  2hotel9
March 18, 2018 4:37 pm

But a good engineer would say that glass is twice as big as it needs to be and save on materials and fabrication.

2hotel9
Reply to  RockyRoad
March 18, 2018 4:46 pm

Yea, jelly jars ain’t as useful as they used to be! Got to be able to find that silver lining, don’t ya know.

Reply to  HotScot
March 18, 2018 12:12 pm

This is very inconvenient for the doom-mongers, because if it is true (and I personally believe that it is), there is nothing humanity can do to prevent it. I predict that they will attribute the cooling to man-made “climate change”. These predictions need to be publicised as much as possible, because the scientific evidence is there for all to see and is very easy to understand, unlike the role played by a 0.008% increase in atmospheric CO2. Show the public a Wilson Cloud Chamber experiment both with and without magnetic interference and they will soon get the message.

HotScot
Reply to  andrewmharding
March 18, 2018 12:33 pm

Andrew
“there is nothing humanity can do to prevent it”
There’s nothing humanity can do about atmospheric CO2, it didn’t stop the doom mongers spending trillions claiming they could reduce it.
Which sounds almost defeatist, but this latest news will have us all sheltering under taxpayer funded solar radiation shelters and walking around with stylish tinfoil hats and matching clothing.
Precautionary only, of course.

Reply to  andrewmharding
March 18, 2018 2:10 pm

How do you calculate 0.008% increase? The CO2 concentration increase has been from 280 ppm to 400 ppm.

François
Reply to  andrewmharding
March 18, 2018 2:16 pm

I have a problem with your figures : where does that 0.008% come from, it seems to me we are more in the vicinity of 0.5% per annum.

Alan Tomalty
Reply to  andrewmharding
March 18, 2018 5:06 pm

yes andrewmharding
We want to hear your explanation for a 0.008 % increase which is actually a 0.00008 actual increase * the amount you started from.

Duster
Reply to  andrewmharding
March 22, 2018 2:45 am

HotScot, there might be something we really could do. Although very few seem to mention, the planet is presently geologically in a replay of the later Permian. The Permian terminated in a glacial epoch (nothing like actual observations of geology) marked by a strong sea level drop. At the same time, that period was also the only other time in the last 600 MY during which the planet experienced both temperatures as cool as the present and CO2 as LOW as the present. Available geological and paleontological evidence suggests that over geological time spans the capacity of the biological portion of the planet can outstrip the mean carbon out put of the natural sources. Weathering for instance can’t do much.
The Paleozoic peak CO2 was more than 20 times present levels and the Mesozoic peak was around 10 times present. While levels have fluctuated and there as a short-term spike in the early Cenozoic the trend of atmospheric CO2 has been nothing but downward. Essentially there has been NO primary peak during the Cenozoic at all. Turning to the effects of carbon availability on plant evolution, carbon poverty has been the primary driver, resulting the appearance of CAMS cycle plants and later ca. 20 MYA C4 plants, both of which are evolved to use carbon more efficiently. If carbon levels drop much more, to glacial maxima levels, then plant primary productivity will very nearly halt. If that occurs at the same time as some other serious stressor, then we could easily see another Permian-class extinction.
The best thing we could to help avert such an event is to increase carbon in the atmosphere. Curiously we are the only species on the planet that can actually do this. It could almost make you think the Gaia hypothesis had something to it.

HotScot
Reply to  HotScot
March 18, 2018 12:24 pm

By sheer coincidence, seconds after posting, I received this in my in box.
http://www.rationaloptimist.com/blog/good-news-is-no-news/

HotScot
Reply to  HotScot
March 18, 2018 12:52 pm

Unbelievably, minutes after Matt Ridleys email, I had one from George Monbiot about his positive approach to his recently diagnosed prostate cancer.
Whatever my opinion of George (which swings from admiration to contempt) I wish him well. We need more people with the courage of his conviction on both sides of the climate change debate. As counter intuitive as it seems, George is a staunch advocate of nuclear power.

2hotel9
March 18, 2018 12:13 pm

I remember reading articles 10-12 years ago forecasting lower solar activity affecting the Earth’s climate and people in certain “climate” circles poopooing the concept. Ham radio operators have been sounding the bell on changes in solar activity for even longer. Time keeps rolling along, guess we will be finding out one way or the other.

Cointreau
Reply to  2hotel9
March 18, 2018 4:15 pm

What insight do ham radio operators have on solar activity?

2hotel9
Reply to  Cointreau
March 18, 2018 4:43 pm

Solar activity has serious effects on long and short wave radio operations. Want to know what the Sun has been doing? Talk to the ham operators, especially the old ones. I know several who have been in radio since the ’30s, two of them US Navy radio specialists. They have been discussing what is going on with solar activity as long as I have known them, and since the early 2000s they have not liked what they have been seeing.

Reply to  Cointreau
March 18, 2018 4:56 pm

Cointreau, as a ham operator myself, H44WE, I can tell you from long personal experience that the changes in the sun related to the sunspots affect the ionosphere and thus absolutely affect long-distance radio transmission.
HOWEVER, despite looking in heaps of places, I can find no indication that these changes in either the sunspots or the ionosphere make or have made any difference down here at the surface.
Best regards,
w.

Bad Penguin
Reply to  Cointreau
March 19, 2018 10:49 am

I hope you guys are also factoring in the fact that the earths magnetic field is changing due to the stopping of the earths wobble and the current straight line course of the magnetic north pole moving at 5 miles per year north and west toward Siberia.

Gary Pearse
March 18, 2018 12:21 pm

So our pooh pooping of SSN and temps could be premature. the earlier article advises that GCRs are over 20% greater than previously thought. Who knows, that cpould be a tipping point and the Nobel goes to Svensmsark and Gore, Whitehouse and Mann can retire and we can start dropping fur coats to Polar bears. Adelie penguins can be caught and released in Tasmania.

Editor
March 18, 2018 12:25 pm

The author says:

[…] the earth indeed becomes cooler when sunspots go missing. Exactly how this happens is still a question on which experts seem to have very differing views and which is unlikely to be settled definitively in the near future.

Yeah, right …comment image
If this is any indication, temperatures are currently going opposite to the sunspots.
w.

Tom Halla
Reply to  Willis Eschenbach
March 18, 2018 12:35 pm

Yeah, for three or so cycles, there was some correlation between sunspot numbers, but not at the start of the proxy record or currently.

Pop Piasa
Reply to  Willis Eschenbach
March 18, 2018 12:52 pm

Willis, you just illustrated why I asked Doc S above about any historical time lag in solar minimum caused cooling. I only got one of my three wishes, though. Do you have any enlightenment on the chronological relationships previously observed?

Reply to  Pop Piasa
March 18, 2018 1:02 pm

Pop Piasa March 18, 2018 at 12:52 pm Edit

Willis, you just illustrated why I asked Doc S above about any historical time lag in solar minimum caused cooling. I only got one of my three wishes, though. Do you have any enlightenment on the chronological relationships previously observed?

Since despite extensive investigations I’ve never found any evidence for “solar minimum caused cooling”, including looking for it at various lags using a cross-correlation analysis, I fear that you are asking me about the lag in something for which I have no evidence …
For example, we’ve seen three “centennial minima” during times when we’ve had at least some temperature records, the Dalton Minimum (1798-1823), the Gleissberg Minimum (1878-1933), and the still ongoing Eddy Minimum (2009-20??). Records for the Dalton Minimum are scarce but both the Central England Temperature and the Lamb winter reconstruction show that temperatures warmed overall during the Dalton minimum.
And there is no sign of the Gleisberg Minimum or the Eddy Minimum in the HadCRUT or other global temperature datasets.
Regards,
w.

Yogi Bear
Reply to  Pop Piasa
March 18, 2018 1:47 pm

Again, the three coldest periods in CET are during solar minima.comment image

Reply to  Yogi Bear
March 18, 2018 1:51 pm

Again, the three coldest periods in CET are during solar minima.
and during the recent ‘smallest cycle in 200 years, CET has been very warm. Right?

Reply to  Yogi Bear
March 18, 2018 2:15 pm

Again, despite numerous requests you still have not defined whatever the heck you might be calling a “cold period”, so your claim is meaningless …
w.

Yogi Bear
Reply to  Pop Piasa
March 18, 2018 5:43 pm

LS
“and during the recent ‘smallest cycle in 200 years, CET has been very warm. Right?”
Generally, some very cold episodes too, temperatures not seen since previous solar minima. But that is usual to see only occasional cold periods on the rising side of the first small sunspot cycle in a solar minimum, the bulk of the negative NAO/AO should be from now until around 2024.

Yogi Bear
Reply to  Pop Piasa
March 18, 2018 5:48 pm

“Again, despite numerous requests you still have not defined whatever the heck you might be calling a “cold period”, so your claim is meaningless …”
No it’s your request that is meaningless. We can all see where the three coldest periods are, including yourself.

Reply to  Pop Piasa
March 19, 2018 4:10 am

Isvaalgaard can you explain this me, sun interplantetary magnetic field stregnt and CET temp
http://static-sls.smf.aws.sanomacloud.net/tiede.fi/s3fs-public/styles/medium_main_image_no_upscale/public/discussion_comment_image/aurinkovs_cet.jpg
I think that that strong correllation is not coincidence…
You should to take notice that CET weather station have nowadays UHI – warming.

petermue
Reply to  Willis Eschenbach
March 18, 2018 2:31 pm

Willis, the first thing that comes into my mind when looking at your first diagram is fudged temperature data.
It began about the end of the 80’s, when Mann and others start crying wulf and demonstrably altered data.
I really give a [pruned] about temperature data since then, because I watched our national temperature data in Germany and it has not changed since then, except data straight from airports.

Reply to  petermue
March 18, 2018 2:54 pm

peter, here’s the HadCRUT data vs the UAH satellite data since 1989, which I took as “the end of the 80’s” from your post.comment image
As you can see, there’s little difference in the two.
w.

jonesingforozone
Reply to  Willis Eschenbach
March 18, 2018 10:45 pm

That does not even closely resemble the latest graph:comment image

TA
Reply to  Willis Eschenbach
March 18, 2018 3:34 pm

If 1934 was hotter than 1998 and 2016 (Hansen 1999) then the chart wouldn’t look anything like HadCRUT3, would it. And you wouldn’t have an argument to make.
How does one get at the truth by using bogus surface temperature charts?

Reply to  TA
March 18, 2018 9:56 pm

Something I wanted to say many times. But I won’t talk to habitual liars.

Tom
Reply to  Willis Eschenbach
March 18, 2018 4:10 pm

W.E.-Thanks for answering my question.

Hans-Georg
Reply to  Willis Eschenbach
March 18, 2018 4:37 pm

Heavy colored lines are 30 year gaussian averages. No wonder, you can see nothing in your graphs. Incidentally, the blue line can not be a 30-year-old Gaussian line, as the sunspot’s decline did not take place until well after 2000. That’s right with Cycle 24. I think that’s a malicious alarmist graph. You have no source of the graph.

Reply to  Hans-Georg
March 18, 2018 5:08 pm

Hans-Georg March 18, 2018 at 4:37 pm

Heavy colored lines are 30 year gaussian averages. No wonder, you can see nothing in your graphs.

Say what? I can see plenty in the graphs.

Incidentally, the blue line can not be a 30-year-old Gaussian line, as the sunspot’s decline did not take place until well after 2000. That’s right with Cycle 24. I think that’s a malicious alarmist graph. You have no source of the graph.

The source of the graph is me. The data is as specified, sunspots and HadCRUT data. And I’m sorry, but the blue line absolutely is the 30-year Gaussian average of the sunspot data. I see that you don’t like it … but that doesn’t make it wrong. The sunspots began to decline about 1980. You get your own ideas … but you don’t get your own facts.
But heck, if you still don’t believe me, I invite you to get the sunspot data yourself and calculate the Gaussian average … please report back with your findings. The sunspot data is available from SILSO here.
Regards,
w.

Alan Tomalty
Reply to  Willis Eschenbach
March 18, 2018 5:14 pm

Neither sunspots nor CO2.Then what is really causing millennial climate change? The answer is blowing in the wind.There was a song about that.

Kristi Silber
Reply to  Alan Tomalty
March 18, 2018 11:34 pm

Alan, maybe it’s time to review your premises, question your assumptions.

Mike Slay
Reply to  Willis Eschenbach
March 18, 2018 6:30 pm

Willis & Leif,
Let me give y’all some food for thought. If solar activity affects temperature by affecting cloud nucleation, then there’s a 1/x effect, since it’s the LACK of deflection of cosmic rays that (theoretically) lowers temperature.
Therefore, the thing that one would want to try to correlate with temperature isn’t exactly sunspots. I doubt it would exactly be 1/sunspots either, since sunspots aren’t a linear measure of the cosmic ray deflection.
One likely effect of the 1/x functionality would be that the height of a solar max doesn’t matter much because the deflection is “pretty good” in any case. It’s the length and depth of the minimum that matters because that’s when the clouds get significantly increased (if the effect is there at all).
To do this right, someone needs to define a function that fits clouds as a function of sunspots, then correlate that with temperature (or the first derivative of temperature). There’s an “impulse response” effect that needs to be considered too.
Cheers to all. I enjoy reading these threads.
Mike

Reply to  Mike Slay
March 18, 2018 6:49 pm

since sunspots aren’t a linear measure of the cosmic ray deflection
It actually is, but not [of course] as an 1/x function as the sunspot number goes from zero and up, while the GCR number goes from a high base value as down. Now, the ‘deflection’ is measured by something called the ‘modulation parameter’ or ‘potential’ which the energy a cosmic ray particle must have to not be deflected away. During solar maximum a cosmic ray must have a high energy for it to be able be penetrate into the solar system. And there is a good linear relation between the sunspot number and that energy.

Mike Slay
Reply to  Mike Slay
March 18, 2018 9:40 pm

Leif,
Thanks. Is there a plot of CGR vs. sunspots anywhere?

Mike Slay
Reply to  Mike Slay
March 18, 2018 9:42 pm

GCR.

R.de Haan
Reply to  Willis Eschenbach
March 18, 2018 9:01 pm

Right, that’s why I’m melting @ minus 12 degree Celsius.

Sparks
Reply to  Willis Eschenbach
March 19, 2018 12:35 am

Willis did you make that graph? hadcrut3 and temperature? still pondering big questions over there are you?

BoyfromTottenham
Reply to  Willis Eschenbach
March 19, 2018 4:07 am

Willis, I may have misunderstood some of this discussion, but the graph merely indicates correlation ( or lack of it) between the two variables (the number of sunspots and global temperature). But of course we all know that correlation does not imply causation. If we could only exclude all other possible causes, we could assume that changes in global temperature are in some way ’caused’ by changes in sunspots. More science needed, I think. Let’s work on it.

Olavi
Reply to  Willis Eschenbach
March 19, 2018 9:22 am

There is so much adjustment in HadCRUT 3 and 4 data that nobody knows what is the truth. Postmodern science tortures data to get right answers.

March 18, 2018 12:36 pm

Leif
we have our differences, but I agree with you that there is no grand minimum coming. It is obvious from the solar polar magnetic field strengths that SC25 shapes up to be similar in strength to SC 17, i.e. the new GB cycle started in 2014 when the poles switched.
Speaking about that graph for the solar magnetic field strengths,
is there a reason why it is not updated for quite some time now?

Reply to  henryp
March 18, 2018 12:39 pm

Updates every week or so:
http://wso.stanford.edu/gifs/Polar.gif

Reply to  lsvalgaard
March 18, 2018 12:43 pm

Except that WordPress does not update its own copy, so you have to go to the wSO website for the updates version: http://wso.stanford.edu/Polar.html#latest

Reply to  lsvalgaard
March 18, 2018 12:44 pm
Reply to  henryp
March 18, 2018 12:47 pm

Well, WSO went bad in late 2016 until mid-2017 and we are still working on fixing that. A preliminary fix is here: http://www.leif.org/research/WSO-Polar-Fields-since-2003.png

2hotel9
Reply to  lsvalgaard
March 18, 2018 12:47 pm

There is one to ponder! Is the lack of sunspots causing wordpress to not be able to operate their platform? Film at 11!

Phil.
Reply to  lsvalgaard
March 18, 2018 6:02 pm

henryp March 18, 2018 at 12:44 pm
I was talking about your graph.

Click on it and you’ll see that it’s up to date (it’s a World Press issue).

Editor
March 18, 2018 12:48 pm

The problem with the claim that

[…] the earth indeed becomes cooler when sunspots go missing. Exactly how this happens is still a question on which experts seem to have very differing views and which is unlikely to be settled definitively in the near future.

is that the changes every sunspot cycle are much larger than the secular slow changes that cover several cycles. Sunspots “go missing” every sunspot cycle. So we should see the ~ 11-year sunspot cycle showing up in temperature records.
But we don’t. Here are the underlying cycles for the sunspots and the HadCRUT global temperature records for 1850 to 2017, from a CEEMD analysis:comment image
You can see the ~ 11-year cycles in the sunspot data … but there is no sign of them in the temperature data.
Go figure …
w.

rbabcock
Reply to  Willis Eschenbach
March 18, 2018 12:59 pm

Assuming you believe the HadCRUT temperature data.

Reply to  rbabcock
March 18, 2018 2:33 pm

rbabcock commented
“… Assuming you believe the HadCRUT temperature data.”
Thanks, r. If you have another dataset you’d prefer I’d analyze I’m more than happy to do it. If so, please provide a link to the dataset you think is better.
w.

rbabcock
Reply to  rbabcock
March 18, 2018 5:59 pm

Willis- I’m afraid I can’t because about the best we have is the UAH which only goes to 1979, and even it isn’t direct measurements.
But how do you publish temperature analysis with data which has been adjusted, estimated and filled in and manipulated to fit an agenda?
But maybe you are right. HadCRUT4 is the best we got.

Reply to  Willis Eschenbach
March 18, 2018 1:07 pm

Hi Willis,
What about the notch/delay theory of David Evans? Something in the sun delays the influence of the sun activity to earth temps by 10-14 years?

Reply to  Johannes Herbst
March 18, 2018 1:21 pm

Johannes Herbst March 18, 2018 at 1:07 pm

Hi Willis,
What about the notch/delay theory of David Evans?

Johannes, this theory has been discussed at length on WUWT here, here, and here.
w.
w.

Hans-Georg
Reply to  Willis Eschenbach
March 18, 2018 4:46 pm

A 11year cycle is to short to see any in a global scale. The earths surface is 70 % + Water. And the water ist also in the atmosphere. There must be a greater time-lag, given to the the thermal inertia of the water..

Reply to  Hans-Georg
March 18, 2018 5:35 pm

Hans-Georg March 18, 2018 at 4:46 pm

A 11year cycle is to short to see any in a global scale. The earths surface is 70 % + Water. And the water ist also in the atmosphere. There must be a greater time-lag, given to the the thermal inertia of the water.

I’m sorry, but this is simply not true. Here are the annual sea surface temperature (SST) changes in the 1°x1° gridcell at 45N, 170E in the Central Pacific.comment image
The SST in that ocean gridcell changes by as much as 5°C (9°F) per month. Not only that, but a cross-correlation analysis shows that the time lag between the solar change and the temperature change is only two months … so the idea that 11 years is too short a time to affect the SST doesn’t pass the laugh test.
w.

Reply to  Hans-Georg
March 19, 2018 8:12 am

@Willis Eschenbach: The temp recordings are for the surface. What percent of the ocean is at the surface?

Clyde Spencer
Reply to  Willis Eschenbach
March 18, 2018 5:14 pm

Does anyone else hear fingernails scratching on a black board when they read “go missing” or “went missing?”

Reply to  Clyde Spencer
March 18, 2018 5:39 pm

From the web:

One meaning of the word ‘go’ (of which ‘went’ is the past tense) is:
to pass into a specified state
Thus, it acts similarly to the word ‘become’ and in that case, works perfectly well in the example cited in the question.
He went missing. vs. He became lost.
Hope that helps.
N.B. Understand then, that in this case, the word ‘go/went’ is intransitive and is nothing to do with movement as it would be in the sentence, ‘He went to work.”

It has been common parlance since the 1970s or so, although it was used well before that:comment image
w.

Phil Rae
Reply to  Clyde Spencer
March 18, 2018 6:14 pm

Does anybody else see a striking resemblance between Willis’s graph and infamous plot from a (now-debunked) IPCC report? Or is it just me? : ]
Seems some folks from the the CAGW community just went off the rails!

noaaprogrammer
Reply to  Clyde Spencer
March 18, 2018 8:25 pm

The graph just went hockey-stick!

Clyde Spencer
Reply to  Clyde Spencer
March 19, 2018 10:34 am

Willis,
I guess what bothers me is that it is more common to use “went” in association with an activity, such as “He went fishing.” However, “missing” is a state of being, not an activity. Also, there are perfectly good alternatives, which are more informative, such as “He is missing,” or “He was reported as being missing.” Additionally, to me, “went” implies an act of volition or choice. Whereas, someone may be missing and have had no choice in the matter. Would you say “He went elated,” or “He went sad?” Using “became” implies a process or period of time over which the state of being is achieved. Thus, “He became enlightened” versus “He went enlightened.” I’m still shivering!
This table of conjugations of “missing” does not offer “went missing” as a valid conjugation: http://conjugator.reverso.net/conjugation-english-verb-missing.html

Reply to  Clyde Spencer
March 19, 2018 1:14 pm

Clyde Spencer March 19, 2018 at 10:34 am

Willis,
I guess what bothers me is that it is more common to use “went” in association with an activity, such as “He went fishing.” However, “missing” is a state of being, not an activity.

Ah, there’s your problem. You expect English to be logical.
But logic be damned, all the time we say things on the order of “When he heard the news he went crazy and broke all the furniture” or the like. Now “crazy” is a state of being, not an activity. We know that because we say “He is crazy” … but we still say “He went crazy.”
Logical? No. Valid English? You bet.
w.
PS—Here’s an excellent historical overview, emphasis mine. In fact, the phrase has been around for 170 years, and as the article says, it “fulfills an important semantic function” that I’d never thought about … dang, that sounds important …

If you happen to be friends with newspaper editors (as we happen to be), you find that some of them have very strong opinions about phrases and collocations that you give little thought to whatsoever. Sometimes their dislike of these phrases is so strong that you begin to wonder if you should excise it from your vocabulary altogether. Which phrases should go missing?
For starters, go missing. This is a phrase that grates against many editorial nerves here in the States, and the reasons behind the annoyance are inevitably that a) it’s new, and b) it’s a British import.
Neither of these reasons are quite correct. Go missing (in all its conjugations of go) has been in written use for the last 170 years, and the earliest evidence lexicographers have found for it so far shows that it first originated in American English. That said, the phrase has gained more use in the few decades of the 20th century, which leads people to believe that it’s new, and is more common in British English sources than in American English sources. Those who complain that British English has no place on American shores should perhaps pause and consider where, exactly, the English language originated.
There are others who try to prove their nerd bona fides by claiming that go missing is ungrammatical: that gerunds (which are noun substitutes) like running and fishing can follow go, but participles (which are adjective substitutes) like missing cannot. This is generally twaddle: simply because go isn’t paired with many participles doesn’t mean that it’s not allowed to be paired with a participle like missing. There are other idioms that pair go with participles, and some of them are far older than go missing:
When a Shipp sailes, and the Sheate is veered-out, wee saie she goes veering.
— Henry Mainwaring, Nomenclator Navalis, 1625
A slip of the foot may soon be made, which will make a man go halting all along after.
— Thomas Boston, The Crook in the Lot, 1732
The railing against go missing is relatively recent and seems to be a peeve of the newspaper industry: the AP Stylebook advises that one should use vanish or disappear instead. Still others suggest is missing instead of gone missing or went missing. Yet go missing actually fulfills an important semantic function that none of those other substitutions does: it subtly signals that the disappearance of a person or thing might be intentional (“My cat went missing over the weekend, but came back home on Monday.”) or unintentional (“My keys have gone missing.”), or voluntary (“When talk turned to politics, Uncle John suddenly went missing.”) or involuntary (“The football trophies went missing from the display case over the weekend.”).

henry
Reply to  Clyde Spencer
March 19, 2018 10:18 pm

“Went missing” conveys suspicion about the disappearance. This expression of stance and the irreverent tone that results from its idiomatic construction are value added.

Peter Langlee
Reply to  Willis Eschenbach
March 19, 2018 1:31 am

Interesting, by eyeballing the sunspot vs temperature graph a few posts ago I saw a 50-75 year lag, which your analysis here clearly shows! Heat is probably stored in the oceans and we sea the effects in the strengths of AMO and PDO.

March 18, 2018 1:01 pm

Okay, we had about 0.5°C warming from 1940 to 2010. Both tops of AMO cycle.
http://woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/mean:37/mean:13/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1940/to:2005/trend/offset:0.2/plot/sidc-ssn/from:1850/normalise
You just see just a small correlation between Temp and Sun Spot numbers from 1900 to 1940. But what happened afterwards? Nuclear fallout from bomb testing? An then CO2 increase startig from 1950?
I’m not so convinced, that the sun has the influence for a big cooling.

Joel O’Bryan
March 18, 2018 1:03 pm

IMHO, Solar prognostications are best done by using historical analogs.
SC23-SC 24 series (24 is our current one) bests look like SC 11-12, and as such I would expect SC 25 to look something like SC 13. SC 13 (1890-1902) was in fact slightly higher in SSN than SC12 (1878-1890). And certainly Leif has stated here at WUWT his rational explanation (magnetic based) to say that SC 25 will be slightly stronger than SC 24.
The question then becomes what did GMST do 1878-1902? (yeah, I know, the temperature data sets are crap during that time, basically no coverage in the Southern Hemisphere save for a few stations, but let’s see what the data at least says.
HADCRUT4 Global Mean, GISTEMP LOTI global mean temps, plotted with SIDC SSN offset by 110 and scaled by 0.004 to put them all on on the same plot.
http://i67.tinypic.com/3012gz8.png
http://woodfortrees.org/graph/hadcrut4gl/from:1878/to:1902/plot/gistemp/from:1878/to:1902/plot/sidc-ssn/from:1878/to:1902/offset:110/scale:0.004/plot/gistemp/from:1878/to:1902/trend
What we see is likely an El Nino event in 1888-1889 spiking global temps, but the GISTEMP trend is essentially flat. After that 1889 spike temps went down about -0.7 deg and stayed there through SC 13. And this was during the period of global recovery from the LIA when global temps are generally assumed to be recovery in broader sense.
So what can we expect going forward to SC25? Well looking at 1995-2018 global temperature anomalies,
http://i64.tinypic.com/2whgy0k.png
we can see that a -0.7 deg C drop from the recent El Nino peak 2015-16, will put the HADCRUT4 global mean anomalies back down into the Pause region of 2002 to 2005, or maybe slightly lower. IOW, the Pause (hiatus) undeniably returns by 2023.
So much for global warming.

Reply to  Joel O’Bryan
March 18, 2018 1:11 pm

Solar prognostications are best done by using historical analogs.
No, that is not how the Sun works. Physical understanding and actual measurements of what we think controls the solar cycle [the polar fields] are the only ways to get an actionable prediction: “should we de-orbit that spacecraft or not?”

Joel O’Bryan
Reply to  lsvalgaard
March 18, 2018 1:23 pm

The “`centennial’ (but not Grand) minima ” (your own words) are real, and they repeat. Use them. They carry on for 2-3-4 cycles typically. Your prediction of SC25 didn’t come until last year, ~36 months before the likely start for SC 25. I would put SC 26 also in the range slightly below SC24 at this point as the Eddy minimum continues for probably 3 solar cycles.
At this point, global warming has been cancelled by the sun. And not to resume until at least after 2042 (the start of SC 27).

Reply to  lsvalgaard
March 18, 2018 1:47 pm

joelobryan March 18, 2018 at 1:23 pm

At this point, global warming has been cancelled by the sun.

Riiight …comment image
“Canceled by the sun”? I don’t think so …
w.

jonesingforozone
Reply to  Willis Eschenbach
March 18, 2018 10:59 pm

Yes, a 30 year Gaussian average effectively filters the pause.

Joel O’Bryan
Reply to  Joel O’Bryan
March 18, 2018 8:25 pm

I should have noted 1888 in SC 12 is about where we are today in SC24 progression to the start of the next solar cycle. That is 130 years, or very close to 2 multidecadal ocean cycles of ~65 years each.
That is why any attempt to find correlation say as Willis does in his graph above falls apart around 1980s onward. The ocean cycles out of phase with the SC doesn’t allow internal climate variability to stay in pacing with the SC.
Essentially: 12 SCs x 11 yrs/SC = 2 multidecadal ocean cycle x ~65 yrs/multidecadal ocean cycle = 130 years is the common denominator bewteen SCs and multidecadal ocean cycles.
That is my hypothesis on the pacing on our climate on a centennial scale, a pacing of the natural harmonics of major ocean cycles by the solar cycles ~130 years.
JD Hays, J Imbrie, NJ Shackleton – 1976 found in ocean sediment cores the evidence for the Malinkovitch pacing that drive the glacial ice sheets (glaciations).

Joel O’Bryan
Reply to  Joel O’Bryan
March 18, 2018 8:34 pm

And someone is sure to point out “why not just 6 SCs or 1 multidecadl ocean cycle period?”
That is because the sun has a centennial cycle (as Leif notes in the first comment on this thread).
Thus 1 multidecadal ocean cycle period is pi out of phase with the centennial cycles.

Kristi Silber
Reply to  Joel O’Bryan
March 18, 2018 11:47 pm

“IOW, the Pause (hiatus) undeniably returns by 2023”
Oh c’mon. That’s just silly. “Undeniably”? Some “skeptics” make the worst skeptics!

Editor
March 18, 2018 1:14 pm

I said I’d done “extensive investigations” of sunspots … here you go:
Congenital Cyclomania Redux 2013-07-23
Well, I wasn’t going to mention this paper, but it seems to be getting some play in the blogosphere. Our friend Nicola Scafetta is back again, this time with a paper called “Solar and planetary oscillation control on climate change: hind-cast, forecast and a comparison with the CMIP5 GCMs”. He’s…
Cycles Without The Mania 2013-07-29
Are there cycles in the sun and its associated electromagnetic phenomena? Assuredly. What are the lengths of the cycles? Well, there’s the question. In the process of writing my recent post about cyclomania, I came across a very interesting paper entitled “Correlation Between the Sunspot Number, the Total Solar Irradiance,…
Sunspots and Sea Level 2014-01-21
I came across a curious graph and claim today in a peer-reviewed scientific paper. Here’s the graph relating sunspots and the change in sea level: And here is the claim about the graph: Sea level change and solar activity A stronger effect related to solar cycles is seen in Fig.…
Riding A Mathemagical Solarcycle 2014-01-22
Among the papers in the Copernicus Special Issue of Pattern Recognition in Physics we find a paper from R. J. Salvador in which he says he has developed A mathematical model of the sunspot cycle for the past 1000 yr. Setting aside the difficulties of verification of sunspot numbers for…
Sunny Spots Along the Parana River 2014-01-25
In a comment on a recent post, I was pointed to a study making the following surprising claim: Here, we analyze the stream flow of one of the largest rivers in the world, the Parana ́ in southeastern South America. For the last century, we find a strong correlation with…
Usoskin Et Al. Discover A New Class of Sunspots 2014-02-22
There’s a new post up by Usoskin et al. entitled “Evidence for distinct modes of solar activity”. To their credit, they’ve archived their data, it’s available here. Figure 1 shows their reconstructed decadal averages of sunspot numbers for the last three thousand years, from their paper: Figure 1. The results…
Solar Periodicity 2014-04-10
I was pointed to a 2010 post by Dr. Roy Spencer over at his always interesting blog. In it, he says that he can show a relationship between total solar irradiance (TSI) and the HadCRUT3 global surface temperature anomalies. TSI is the strength of the sun’s energy at a specified distance…
Cosmic Rays, Sunspots, and Beryllium 2014-04-13
In investigations of the past history of cosmic rays, the deposition rates (flux rates) of the beryllium isotope 10Be are often used as a proxy for the amount of cosmic rays. This is because 10Be is produced, inter alia, by cosmic rays in the atmosphere. Being a congenitally inquisitive type…
The Tip of the Gleissberg 2014-05-17
A look at Gleissberg’s famous solar cycle reveals that it is constructed from some dubious signal analysis methods. This purported 80-year “Gleissberg cycle” in the sunspot numbers has excited much interest since Gleissberg’s original work. However, the claimed length of the cycle has varied widely.
The Effect of Gleissberg’s “Secular Smoothing” 2014-05-19
ABSTRACT: Slow Fourier Transform (SFT) periodograms reveal the strength of the cycles in the full sunspot dataset (n=314), in the sunspot cycle maxima data alone (n=28), and the sunspot cycle maxima after they have been “secularly smoothed” using the method of Gleissberg (n = 24). In all three datasets, there…
It’s The Evidence, Stupid! 2014-05-24
I hear a lot of folks give the following explanation for the vagaries of the climate, viz: It’s the sun, stupid. And in fact, when I first started looking at the climate I thought the very same thing. How could it not be the sun, I reasoned, since obviously that’s…
Sunspots and Sea Surface Temperature 2014-06-06
I thought I was done with sunspots … but as the well-known climate scientist Michael Corleone once remarked, “Just when I thought I was out … they pull me back in”. In this case Marcel Crok, the well-known Dutch climate writer, asked me if I’d seen the paper from Nir…
Maunder and Dalton Sunspot Minima 2014-06-23
In a recent interchange over at Joanne Nova’s always interesting blog, I’d said that the slow changes in the sun have little effect on temperature. Someone asked me, well, what about the cold temperatures during the Maunder and Dalton sunspot minima? And I thought … hey, what about them? I…
Changes in Total Solar Irradiance 2014-10-25
Total solar irradiance, also called “TSI”, is the total amount of energy coming from the sun at all frequencies. It is measured in watts per square metre (W/m2). Lots of folks claim that the small ~ 11-year variations in TSI are amplified by some unspecified mechanism, and thus these small changes in TSI make an…
Splicing Clouds 2014-11-01
So once again, I have donned my Don Quijote armor and continued my quest for a ~11-year sunspot-related solar signal in some surface weather dataset. My plan for the quest has been simple. It is based on the fact that all of the phenomena commonly credited with affecting the temperature,…
Volcanoes and Sunspots 2015-02-09
I keep reading how sunspots are supposed to affect volcanoes. In the comments to my last post, Tides, Earthquakes, and Volcanoes, someone approvingly quoted a volcano researcher who had looked at eleven eruptions of a particular type and stated: …. Nine of the 11 events occurred during the solar inactive phase…
Early Sunspots and Volcanoes 2015-02-10
Well, as often happens I started out in one direction and then I got sidetractored … I wanted to respond to Michele Casati’s claim in the comments of my last post. His claim was that if we include the Maunder Minimum in the 1600’s, it’s clear that volcanoes with a…
Sunspots and Norwegian Child Mortality 2015-03-07
In January there was a study published by The Royal Society entitled “Solar activity at birth predicted infant survival and women’s fertility in historical Norway”, available here. It claimed that in Norway in the 1700s and 1800s the solar activity at birth affected a child’s survival chances. As you might imagine, this…
The New Sunspot Data And Satellite Sea Levels 2015-08-13
[UPDATE:”Upon reading Dr. Shaviv’s reply to this post, I have withdrawn any mention of “deceptive” from this post. This term was over the top, as it ascribed motive to the authors. I have replaced the term with “misleading”. This is more accurate…
My Thanks Apologies And Reply To Dr Nir Shaviv 2015-08-17
Dr. Nir Shaviv has kindly replied in the comments to my previous post. There, he says: Nir Shaviv” August 15, 2015 at 2:51 pm There is very little truth about any of the points raised by Eschenbach in this article. In particular, his analysis excludes the fact that the o…
Is The Signal Detectable 2015-08-19
[UPDATE] In the comments, Nick Stokes pointed out that although I thought that Dr. Shaviv’s harmonic solar component was a 12.6 year sine wave with a standard deviation of 1.7 centimetres, it is actually a 12.6 year sine wave with a standard deviation of 1.7 millime…
The Missing 11 Year Signal 2015-08-19
Dr. Nir Shaviv and others strongly believe that there is an ~ 11-year solar signal visible in the sea level height data. I don’t think such a signal is visible. So I decided to look for it another way, one I’d not seen used before. One of the more sensitive …
23 New Papers 2015-09-22
Over at Pierre Gosselin’s site, NoTricksZone, he’s trumpeting the fact that there are a bunch of new papers showing a solar effect on the climate. The headline is Already 23 Papers Supporting Sun As Major Climate Factor In 2015 “Burgeoning Evidence No Longer Dismissible!…
The Cosmic Problem With Rays 2016-10-17
Normal carbon has six neutrons and six protons, for an atomic weight of twelve. However, there is a slightly different form of carbon which has two extra neutrons. That form of carbon, called carbon-14 or ’14C’, has an atomic weight of fourteen. It is known to be formed by the …
In NONE of these did I find any sign of sunspots having any significant correlation with any of the various datasets.
Doesn’t prove that such a sunspot/cimate connection doesn’t exist, you can’t prove a negative … but I sure can’t find it.
Bear in mind that I started out on this quest as a firm believer that the sunspot cycle had a large effect on surface climate datasets … I thought it would be no problem to back up the theory, that I’d find lots of evidence, but instead I found … well … nothing.
As John Maynard Keynes said, “”When my information changes, I alter my conclusions. What do you do, sir?”
w.

greuve
Reply to  Willis Eschenbach
March 18, 2018 5:40 pm

As John Maynard Keynes said, “”When my information changes, I alter my conclusions. What do you do, sir?”

Ludwig von Mises presented compelling contrarian information way before Keynes even thought about business cycles. Keynes never changed his conclusions though. My advice therefore is to never stop looking!
Gerhard Reuvekamp
p.s. The jury on Mises vs. Keynes have yet to settle the science :o)

Sparks
Reply to  Willis Eschenbach
March 19, 2018 12:44 am

shut up willis!

WXcycles
Reply to  Sparks
March 19, 2018 5:42 am

Someone call sparks’ mother, he’s kacked his nappy again.

Bob Hoye
March 18, 2018 1:21 pm

The temp record is sort of like the stock market.
The latter has clocked a huge increase. But if you take out the days that the Fed makes its magnificent utterances, there is barely any advance over the past 20 years.
On the Satellite temp record, take out the weather events of the El Ninos of 1998 and 2016, there is little increase over the last 20 years or so.
We have to be as patient as, well, a real climate change.
For this year, the number of spotless days is at
🙂

Reply to  Bob Hoye
March 18, 2018 1:30 pm

I’m sorry, but that is simply not true. After the “weather events of the El Ninos of 1998 and 2016” temperatures returned to about where they were before the El Ninos. And there is a trend over the last 20 years (Mar 1999 – Feb 2018, UAH MSU data) of 0.14°C ± 0.11°C per decade, although it’s not statistically significant.
w.

Kazuario
Reply to  Bob Hoye
March 19, 2018 5:20 am

I don’t get this. How can you take out the El Ninos. Where does the energy come from in the El Ninos? And aren’t there either (a) always El Ninos – in which case you can compare the early ones and the late ones and see the late ones are higher or (b) more El Ninos now than before — in which case, you have to ask, what’s causing that?

Javier
March 18, 2018 1:23 pm

I don’t know why so many people insist there is a solar grand minimum approaching.comment image
Solar grand minima (SGM) are the black boxes.
Solar grand minima have a strong tendency to fall in the red areas. We are now and for the next 350-400 years in a white area. And white areas get one SGM every 1000 years on average, so the chances of getting one this century are extremely low. I would gladly take bets on it if it weren’t because it won’t be settled for at least 15 years.

pochas94
Reply to  Javier
March 18, 2018 2:11 pm

I’m with you, Javier. I don’t think we’re in for a grand minimum just yet.

Reply to  Javier
March 18, 2018 2:14 pm

That’s quite hilarious, Javier. Another unsourced graph … in which the red areas cover more than half of the time period, and you proudly proclaim that things fall in preferentially in the red areas … statistics much?.
Next, I do love that someone thinks they can tell when “solar grand minima” happened 11,000 years ago.
Some background to your plot would be helpful, like a link to wherever you dug it up from, so we can figure out how someone identifies “Grand Minima” thousands and thousands of years ago …
w.

pochas94
Reply to  Willis Eschenbach
March 18, 2018 6:33 pm

Willis, I’d be interested in learning what you think caused the Maunder Minimum.

Reply to  Willis Eschenbach
March 18, 2018 6:38 pm

pochas94 March 18, 2018 at 6:33 pm

Willis, I’d be interested in learning what you think caused the Maunder Minimum.

As far as I know, nobody knows what causes solar minima … but I’m sure Leif Svalgaard could give a more definitive answer.
w.

2hotel9
Reply to  Javier
March 18, 2018 4:16 pm

Looking at the graph you posted SGM have occurred between the “red boxes” several times, and at the leading and trailing edges of the “red boxes” several times, also. So apparently you are telling us that SGM can occur whenever whatever causes them to occur. Thanks! That cleared everything right up. Oy!

Javier
Reply to  2hotel9
March 18, 2018 5:19 pm

87% of SGM fall at or right next to the periods when one of the cycles is at its lowest 20%, that corresponds to 54% of the time. So yes, SGM can happen at any time, but 9 out of 10 times they’ll show up when the cycles are low. As the cycles are not low now, the chances of a SGM now are very low. If you look for certainties look at religion, not science.

Reply to  Javier
March 19, 2018 9:48 pm

If there is any relationship going on in this graph – and I really have no idea about its validity – I’d point out that the gap between the Little Ice Age Grand Solar Minimum and the present is the largest gap between GSMs on the graph. So, if they do occur at regular intervals, we’re due for one any time now. Give or take a century.

Reply to  Steele
March 19, 2018 9:51 pm

Oops. Misread the graph. It’s projecting to the year 3000. Never mind.

Javier
Reply to  Steele
March 20, 2018 3:50 am

You didn’t look at the graph correctly. The present is the dashed line. Only 350 years from last SGM, and several periods of 800 years and one of 1000 years have taken place.
And “we’re due for one any time now” means nothing. We’re due for a big asteroid any time now and the probability is so tiny that many millions of years could pass without one. And in California they are due for a big earthquake since the 1980’s, and lots of people have lived their lives without it showing up. We only have probabilities to guide us, and the statistics of rare infrequent events suck. There is little doubt that one or more grand solar minima will take place in the next 700 years. A period of increased probability starts in 400 years. That’s all. That’s why I would take any bet that it won’t happen in the 21st century if I had any certainty that I would cash it.

Bob Hoye
March 18, 2018 1:23 pm

Had a problem:
The spotless count is at 41 days or 53%. For 2017 the numbers were 104 days and 28%.

ren
March 18, 2018 1:24 pm

People can not even measure the exact TSI, they have no comparison with previous cycles. So what do they know about the impact of changes in Sun’s activity on the climate?

Reply to  ren
March 18, 2018 6:50 pm

People can not even measure the exact TSI
Yes we can, with enough precision for the purpose of judging its important for the climate.

ren
March 18, 2018 1:27 pm

If the spring in middle latitudes starts in April, is it cool or not?

taxed
March 18, 2018 1:31 pm

A other spike of “sudden Arctic warming” is on the way.
On March 23/24th there will be a mass of warm air pushing up deep into the Arctic. But this time instead of coming up from the Atlantic it will be moving up from the Pacific. This will push warm air across the Russian side of the Arctic. Then will feed a flow of cold air down across NW Russia from the 26th. lf this type of weather patterning and a increase in blocking can be linked to low sunspot activity. Then you will have the very likely cause of the cooling in the LIA.

pochas94
March 18, 2018 1:40 pm

Hats off to you, Anthony, for airing both sides of this controversial topic. I believe you are addressing real science. Keep it up.

ren
March 18, 2018 1:43 pm

If the Earth’s albedo grows, is not it cool?comment image

taxed
Reply to  ren
March 18, 2018 2:03 pm

Yes this year’s spring snow extent will be worth watching.
Northern Russia is currently running colder then average, and from late March jet stream activity in the mid Pacific suggests there maybe a increased risk of cold air pushing down across N America during the spring..

ren
Reply to  taxed
March 18, 2018 2:22 pm

Snow cover in Europe is growing now.

bitchilly
Reply to  ren
March 18, 2018 3:28 pm

i am just as interested in what that large amount of potential water vapour lying on the ground won’t do insulation wise.

Bob Hoye
March 18, 2018 1:43 pm

Kept getting hits as I was trying to write and then post.
In the late 1990s, solar physicists Penn and Livingston concluded that the sun was going into a significant quiet phase. The other way to make the call was through the roughly 200-year cycle. Solar activity has been declining and is approaching the lows of some 200 years ago.
As noted above, we have to be patient until it shows in the temp record.
🙂

BallBounces
March 18, 2018 1:44 pm

OK, but these maunders and these minimums are somehow all our fault, right? I mean, we’ve worked awfully hard to re-establish man and Earth as the centre of things. It would be a shame to have to put the sun back at the centre, with us subordinate to it.

Javier
March 18, 2018 1:44 pm

We are in a period of lower than average solar activity, and coincidentally there hasn’t been any warming, except for a very strong El Niño whose effects are slowly disappearing.comment image
So why can’t the lack of warming be due to low solar activity? It is certainly one of the best explanations available. If it is the Sun we shouldn’t see much warming until solar activity goes up.

Reply to  Javier
March 18, 2018 1:48 pm

If it is the Sun we shouldn’t see much warming until solar activity goes up.
You could have said that decades ago, and yet as solar activity declined over the past half-century temperatures have soared…

Javier
Reply to  lsvalgaard
March 18, 2018 1:51 pm

Decades ago solar activity wasn’t below average. It was above average. There is also the issue of the ~20 year lag in the maximum effect of solar variability on climate identified by several groups in ice cores and tree rings.

Reply to  Javier
March 18, 2018 1:53 pm

Decades ago solar activity wasn’t below average. It was above average.
So, as solar activity declined to much below average temperatures soared, right?

Javier
Reply to  lsvalgaard
March 18, 2018 2:00 pm

Reducing multifactorial phenomena to a single factor is not an advance. Temperatures soared because CO₂ increased, solar activity was above average, the solar lag coincided with a maximum 20 years before, and the 60 year oceanic oscillation changed to warming.
Now even though CO₂ is still increasing, solar activity has applied the brakes. So no warming. If the oceanic oscillation changes we could even have some cooling.

Reply to  Javier
March 18, 2018 2:04 pm

Reducing multifactorial phenomena to a single factor is not an advance
But removing spurious factors is an advance,..

Javier
Reply to  lsvalgaard
March 18, 2018 2:06 pm

It is spurious to you, not to many others. And you could be the mistaken one here.

Reply to  Javier
March 18, 2018 2:15 pm

It is spurious to you, not to many others
Like you’re saying “smoking is healthy as many do it”…
It is spurious because the ‘evidence’, if any, is so weak.
Now, throwing everything at it [‘the kitchen sink’ approach], like variable lags, cycles coming and going, other cycles interfering, data being uncertain, thousands of contradictory low-quality papers, etc, one can by careful picking get whatever one wants, as you aptly demonstrate.

Reply to  Javier
March 18, 2018 2:28 pm

Javier, you reference:
” … maximum effect of solar variability on climate identified by several groups in ice cores and tree rings.”
Are you allergic to providing links to support your claims? Surely at this point you can’t believe that your unsupported word is worth anything?
w.

Alan Tomalty
Reply to  lsvalgaard
March 18, 2018 5:31 pm

Javier
“Temperatures soared because CO₂ increased”
Could you please point out when that has happened in the last million years?

Latitude
Reply to  lsvalgaard
March 18, 2018 5:48 pm

“over the past half-century temperatures have soared”…huh? temps “soar” more than that when the sun goes behind a cloud…..first they make you believe they can measure temps in 1/10th degree….then convince you it soared

jim
Reply to  lsvalgaard
March 18, 2018 8:03 pm

Ehm, temperatures have not soared. Averages may have increased slightly due to minimums increasing slightly faster than maximums have decreased. Some perspective please.

Reply to  lsvalgaard
March 18, 2018 9:15 pm

“Now even though CO₂ is still increasing, solar activity has applied the brakes.”
The brakes must be very good, if you take strictly atmospheric concentration of CO2; or it’s nearly time for a brake job if you take the natural log of CO2, the best empirical fit to temperature.comment image
This is all Berkeley Earth data kindly provided by Mr. Mosher, scaled to the same start on the same axis. The temperature series is land only, the darling of modelers because it shows the greatest acceleration (and hey, this is where we live). The CO2 hockey stick is out to lunch. The Ln is closest to reality.comment image
For the record, I would LOVE to post my data if someone less WordPress retarded than me could explain how get a spreadsheet to appear as anything but a greyed out icon.

Whit Tarleton
Reply to  lsvalgaard
March 20, 2018 1:58 pm

In light of the following information, Sir, I am calling bovine excrement on your contention that “solar activity declined.” If one admits that there are indeed time lags when dealing with heating and cooling vast quantities of H2O via solar insolation, then your “assessment” is disingenuous at best:
“The new study, led by Sami Solanki of the Max Planck Institute in Germany, employed a novel approach to pinning down sunspot activity going back 11,400 years:
Cosmic rays constantly bombard Earth’s atmosphere. Chemical interactions create a fairly constant source of stuff called carbon-14, which falls to Earth and is absorbed and retained by trees. But charged particles hurled at Earth by active sunspots deflect cosmic rays. So when the Sun gets wild, trees record less carbon-14.
While trees don’t typically live more than a few hundred years or perhaps a couple thousand, dead and buried trees, if preserved, carry a longer record, “as long as tree rings can be identified,” said Manfred Schuessler, another Max Planck Institute researcher who worked on the study.
The study’s finding: Sunspot activity has been more intense and lasted longer during the past 60 to 70 years than at anytime in more than eight millennia.

March 18, 2018 1:48 pm

Willis
have you have tried looking at real daily data from weather stations? I collated these in average yearly results.
Of all places, I started looking in Alaska where there was a station with good data on maxima going back to 1942.[maxima is a good proxy for incoming energy, i.e. that what comes through the atmosphere]
http://oi60.tinypic.com/2d7ja79.jpg
Only mistake I made is that I took the GB at 88 years. It turns out that the last GB is 86.5 years and the minimum (in the sine wave) was reached in 2014 when the poles of the sun switched.
Here is Honolulu maxima:
http://oi65.tinypic.com/2u8axl5.jpg

Reply to  henryp
March 18, 2018 2:19 pm

Thanks, Henry, but without a link to the source of your data as used, I fear that I can’t comment.
Also, how on earth are you determining the length of the Gleissberg Cycle to the nearest tenth of a year? That makes no sense at all.
Thanks,
w.

March 18, 2018 1:53 pm

Willis (2)
Looking at minima is also a give away:
Concerned to show that man made warming (AGW ) is correct and indeed happening, I thought that here [in Pretoria, South Africa} I could easily prove that. Namely the logic following from AGW theory is that more CO2 would trap heat on earth, hence we should find minimum temperature (T) rising pushing up the mean T. Here, in the winter months, we hardly have any rain but we have many people burning fossil fuels to keep warm at night. On any particular cold winter’s day that results in the town area being covered with a greyish layer of air, viewable on a high hill outside town in the early morning.
I figured that as the population increased over the past 40 years, the results of my analysis of the data [of a Pretoria weather station] must show minimum T rising, particularly in the winter months. Much to my surprise I found that the opposite was happening: minimum T here was falling, any month….I first thought that somebody must have made a mistake: the extra CO2 was cooling the atmosphere, ‘not warming’ it. As a chemist, that made sense to me as I knew that whilst there were absorptions of CO2 in the area of the spectrum where earth emits, there are also the areas of absorption in the 1-2 um and the 4-5 um range where the sun emits. Not convinced either way by my deliberations and discussions as on a number of websites, I first looked at a number of weather stations around me, to give me an indication of what was happening:comment image
The results puzzled me even more. Somebody [God/Nature] was throwing a ball at me…..The speed of cooling followed a certain pattern, best described by a quadratic function.
I carefully looked at my earth globe and decided on a particular sampling procedure to find out what, if any, the global result would be. Here is my final result on that:comment image
Hence, looking at my final Rsquare on that, I figured out that there is no AGW, at least not measurable.
Arguing with me that 99% of all scientists disagree with me is fruitless. You cannot have an “election” about science. You only need one man to get it right…..
Clearly you can discern the half cycle of the GB (43 years)?

Reply to  henryp
March 18, 2018 1:58 pm

Willis (3)
If you want an impressive list from me of cyclicity caused by the sun, look in Tables II and III
http://virtualacademia.com/pdf/cli267_293.pdf
all in the range of 80-100 years,
just as I had figured it……

Reply to  henryp
March 18, 2018 2:24 pm

Oh, right, that “henryp”, I remember you now. You’re the guy who is truly convinced that you can fit a quarter of some cycle to half a dozen data points and declare victory … sorry, amigo, I cannot argue against that kind of innumeracy.
Regretfully, I’m gonna have to pass on further discussions,
w.

Reply to  Willis Eschenbach
March 19, 2018 1:39 am

Willis
I was trying to shed some light for you as I noticed you are still stumbling around in the darkness.
fyi
a whole cycle SC is ca. 22 years, not 11 years, and each whole SC makes only for one quadrant of the GB sine wave for incoming energy. The 4 quadrants make up for the 87 years of the GB cycle.
From your latest post I notice that you are still trying to compare pears with apples i.e. IMHO you cannot really compare the collection of data from before 1970 with that of after 1970. (Changes: automatic recording, data collection, etc)

March 18, 2018 1:54 pm

It is the combination of weakening geo/solar magnetic fields which if they should decrease enough in degree of magnitude and duration of time will impact the climate.
Weakening geo magnetic field give rise to magnetic excursions which also have a role in the climate.
I think this is where we are heading for all of this and as a consequence I expect an increase in geological activity and global cloud coverage.
Overall sea surface temperatures should continue their decline.
It is wait and see time, and by time I mean this year.

Bob Hoye
March 18, 2018 1:54 pm

W.
So frustrated with hits–intended to write …approaching the levels without the El Ninos. As with the comparison to the stock market, it is conjecture.
Thanks for your precision.
🙂

Yogi Bear
March 18, 2018 1:55 pm

“There’s a lot of evidence mounting that solar cycle 25 will usher in a new grand solar minimum.”
I’ve seen much speculation, no evidence though.

March 18, 2018 1:59 pm

According to my studies solar activity should have been warming the planet at least until year 2005 if not a few years later.
It was not until late year 2005 that solar went from an active to an inactive mode as is evidenced by the AP index.

March 18, 2018 2:20 pm

http://www.climatedepot.com/2014/07/28/new-paper-finds-high-correlation-between-solar-activity-and-earths-temperature-over-centuries/
Study after study not to mention Javier have shown clear solar /global temperature correlations.
The missing piece is the neglect of the role of the geo magnetic field which has to work in tandem with solar to give a maximum result.

Walter Sobchak
March 18, 2018 2:22 pm

Rubbish. The sun has nothing to do with the climate. The climate is controlled by carbon. The science is settled.

Alan Tomalty
Reply to  Walter Sobchak
March 18, 2018 5:39 pm

Please put your sarc on

Bob Hoye
March 18, 2018 2:26 pm

Hi Ren
It is worth looking at albedo, but the chart you used is Snow Water Equivalent, which is still going up.
Perhaps you should look at the Snow Cover chart of the Northern Hemisphere, which may be better represent reflective qualities.
It is been at the high-side of the mean, but in line with the seasonal mean–has rolled over. So has the chart on NA.

ren
Reply to  Bob Hoye
March 18, 2018 3:15 pm

Will more snow be melted longer?comment image

Bruce Cobb
March 18, 2018 2:26 pm

It’s the sun, oceans, and clouds, stupid.

ren
Reply to  Bruce Cobb
March 18, 2018 3:34 pm

Is La Nina strong?comment image

ptolemy2
Reply to  ren
March 18, 2018 5:42 pm

Ask the anchovies.

Reply to  ren
March 18, 2018 6:33 pm

ptolemy2 March 18, 2018 at 5:42 pm

Ask the anchovies.

As a man who used to fish those very anchovies off of the famous Cannery Row, I can attest that the anchovies are a good gauge to the temperature of the ocean.
w.

Ashok Patel
Reply to  ren
March 19, 2018 4:20 am

The 2017-18 La Nina Event Expected To Commence At The End Of March – Four Consecutive 3-Monthly Seasons Have ONI Index -0.5ºC Or Below Till February 2018
Details here http://www.gujaratweather.com/wordpress/?p=16009

john cooknell
March 18, 2018 2:32 pm

Nice to have Leif back, he always makes me think for myself.

John F. Hultquist
March 18, 2018 2:57 pm

So far I find 3 instances of the word “soared” and a few other words of dubious merit.
There is a chart of temperatures using the Kelvin scale.
I looked in vain for soaring temperature.
Sad.

whiten
March 18, 2018 2:57 pm

Another futile try on my part, if I may say, one that maybe not making much sense, or also maybe non valid.
But for whatever.
I do not think that ppl really realize the problem with addressing the point of the radiation imbalance being always positive.
Oh well, whatever, but still it is positive even in the case of solar minima or ppm minima.
Try to leave with it, in a possible rational way, if you can make it reasonable…..tough….and workable.
Solar Grand minima may very well possibly be considered as with a warming affect in climate, especially in the case of LIA period.
Oh, well, I did put it as per the meaning of the “affect”, not “effect”.
cheers

Alan Tomalty
Reply to  whiten
March 18, 2018 5:52 pm

Whiten said
“radiation imbalance being always positive”
No one has proved or even shown that there is an energy imbalance. There are dozens of earth energy budget charts with every one showing different numbers.

donald penman
March 18, 2018 3:17 pm

The next few winters in the Northern Hemisphere should be interesting, I predict that Arctic sea ice minimum will be higher at the end of this period. The Antarctic sea ice minimum is not going to be affected because Southern ice melts more easily with increased solar radiation and I don’t have much confidence in global temperatures. There is a propaganda campaign to get us to except the idea of a global temperature we must wait for each monthly update, I don’t care what the global temperature is. It is snowing heavily again where I live in the UK in the middle of March even at sea level and it is below freezing during the day.

bitchilly
Reply to  donald penman
March 18, 2018 3:34 pm

donald, it’s not snow, it is ash from all the barbecues people are now using in our mediterranean climate brought on by global warming 😉

Hans-Georg
Reply to  donald penman
March 18, 2018 5:04 pm

Also this winter is interesting. After only two weeks Great Britain is hitten by another unusual late and record breaking mayor snow storm.
https://www.wetteronline.de/wetterticker?postId=post_201803184356801
Also in Germany there is record breaking cold in a two weeks rythm in this march.
And, after a warm Winter, this march is pretty cold at the north pole:
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/plots/meanTarchive/meanT_2018.png

Hans-Georg
Reply to  Hans-Georg
March 18, 2018 5:07 pm

Please, click on the graph above…..

John F. Hultquist
Reply to  Hans-Georg
March 18, 2018 5:14 pm

Your chart is 3 weeks old.
The current one shows the little red line almost touching the green line – – for day 77, March 18.
DMI Arctic

R. Shearer
Reply to  Hans-Georg
March 18, 2018 6:08 pm

Nice one!

whiten
March 18, 2018 3:27 pm

Oh, correlation does not by default necessary mean causation, but…but…but, lack or null in correlation means clear lack and null of causation, especially in the relation of this subject!!!
Grow up, get a life…oh that is the wrong way to address it! Bad affect…really really sorry.
cheers

co2islife
March 18, 2018 4:51 pm

It isn’t so much the output of the sun that matters, what matters is the amount of radiation that reaches the oceans. A hot sun and lots of clouds mean a cooling globe. A cool sun and clear skies mean a warming globe.
Understand the Oceans, Understand the Global Temperatures
Here at CO2isLife we have consistently maintained that to understand the climate you have to understand the oceans. The oceans, not CO2, is are the major drivers of global climate and temperatures. The oceans contain 2,000x more energy than the atmosphere, and CO2’s only defined mechanism by which to affect climate change is by thermalizing … Continue reading
https://co2islife.wordpress.com/2018/02/22/understand-the-oceans-understand-the-global-temperatures/

John F. Hultquist
Reply to  co2islife
March 18, 2018 5:20 pm

A cool sun …
Please stop. Sól is not cool.

co2islife
Reply to  John F. Hultquist
March 18, 2018 5:51 pm

You know what I mean.

Alan Tomalty
Reply to  co2islife
March 18, 2018 6:11 pm

Clearly the oceans are key and even Willis is gravitating towards that explanation cycle of evaporation condensation ad nauseum as explaining our climate BUT what is missing is what is warming or cooling the oceans enuf to make the large changes we see in climate over the eons of time. The sun is a tantalizing attraction since it is the ultimate source of our energy but as Willis has shown there is no data that correlates with any short or long term known changes in the sun. As Churchill said in 1939 “It is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside of an enigma”. He was referring to Russia.

Richard M
Reply to  Alan Tomalty
March 18, 2018 8:51 pm

A new paper shows that ocean salinity tracks SSTs very well.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-02846-4

co2islife
Reply to  Alan Tomalty
March 19, 2018 8:15 am

Visible radiation and geothermal warm the oceans, mostly visible radiation. That is why it is important not to know how hot the sun is, but how much radiation reaches the oceans. Alarmists always claim the sun is too stable to cause the warming, and that it has to be CO2. That is their argument. That argument is wrong. First the suns output is variable as demonstrated by sunspots, second solar activity and cosmic rays “seed” clouds which block incoming radiation, third, the key isn’t output by the sun, it is absorption by the earth. If the radiation doesn’t reach the ocean, it isn’t going to warm. Also, you also have to align the earth’s seasons with the sun activity. A hot sun and S Hemi Summer will warm a whole lot more water than a hot sun and a N Hemi Summer. Warming land isn’t as important as warming oceans.

Javier
March 18, 2018 5:01 pm

The solar cycle is very noisy. It is illustrative to plot the number of sunspots per solar cycle that gives a better idea of how active the cycle has been. Here I have used SILSO yearly sunspot number, adding the yearly values for all the years of the cycle as follows:
SCE 1700-1711 364.9
SCD 1712-1723 550.75
SCC 1723-1733 896.6
SCB 1733-1744 945.1
SCA 1744-1755 746.35
SC1 1756-1766 770.5
SC2 1766-1775 895.25
SC3 1775-1784 1025.65
SC4 1784-1798 1405.5
SC5 1798-1810 473.2
SC6 1810-1823 389.9
SC7 1823-1833 663.2
SC8 1834-1843 1064.2
SC9 1844-1855 1227.5
SC10 1856-1867 1043.35
SC11 1867-1878 1035.2
SC12 1878-1889 634.85
SC13 1889-1901 772.6
SC14 1901-1912 620.6
SC15 1913-1923 741.15
SC16 1923-1933 683.55
SC17 1933-1943 1003.5
SC18 1944-1954 1109.7
SC19 1954-1964 1358
SC20 1965-1975 986.9
SC21 1976-1986 1168.5
SC22 1986-1996 1055.4
SC23 1996-2008 1019.1
SC24 2009-2017 533.6
For shared years each cycle gets half the sunspot number. SC24 lacks a couple of years but they won’t raise the count much.comment image
The trendline shows how solar activity has been growing, and the midline at 768 separates periods of above average and below average solar activity. The modern maximum corresponds to the long period of above average activity from ~1935 to ~2005, that coincides pretty much with the last phase of modern global warming. It is very plausible that solar variability has contributed importantly to the warming observed.

Javier
Reply to  Javier
March 18, 2018 5:06 pm

Average is 868 (typo). The figure is correct.

Reply to  Javier
March 18, 2018 5:39 pm

The sunspot number has been revised, but the revision before 1947 was just an adjustment of the scale [dividing by 0.6] without a re-analysis of the original sources. This is coming in version 3 that is underway.
On the other hand, the new Sunspot Group numbers by Svalgaard & Schatten [yes, that Schatten who was a co-author of the old Group Sunspot Number] was a complete re-assessment of most of the original sources.
The Group Numbers are a more direct measure of solar activity [as the users of the GSN so often stressed]. Here is the regression result for the new Group Numbers since 1700 AD, i.e. the last 318 years:
http://www.leif.org/research/GN-Regression-Since-1700.png
As you can see [perhaps], there is no long-term trend over the last 300+ years so your argument fails.

Javier
Reply to  lsvalgaard
March 18, 2018 6:09 pm

You keep adjusting as much as you want, because it is already essentially the same as the group number and as ¹⁴C, so the result of the adjustments can’t change much.comment image
Solar activity has been increasing for the past 300 years while Modern Global Warming was taking place.

Reply to  Javier
March 18, 2018 6:21 pm

You keep adjusting as much as you want, because it is already essentially the same as the group number and as ¹⁴C, so the result of the adjustments can’t change much.
You are ignorant about the revisions. The sunspot numbers were adjusted. The group numbers were re-derived from scratch from [mostly] original sources. No adjustments whatsoever. So, no trend over the past 300+ years.:
http://www.leif.org/research/GN-Regression-Since-1700.png
Perhaps a Figure would aid your understanding:
http://www.leif.org/research/Open-Flux-since-1600.png

Javier
Reply to  lsvalgaard
March 18, 2018 6:26 pm

So, no trend over the past 300+ years.:

I don’t care about the revisions. I assume they are properly done.
But the rising trend is right there. That black line in the figure that everybody but you can see. Perhaps are you seeing it flat? Is that the effect of your bias?

Reply to  Javier
March 18, 2018 6:36 pm

I don’t care about the revisions. I assume they are properly done.
If you don’t care, you have no argument. The sunspot number was adjusted before 1947 by dividing by 0.6, but is otherwise unchanged before that [including a small trend]. Your assumption [in spite of my telling you that it is incorrect] gives away your bias.
The Group number was re-derived and re-assessed from scratch and is better than the SN [as also shown by comparisons with GCR proxies and the EUV-F10.7 reconstruction. The GN has no trend. Solar activity has no trend the last 300+ years.
What we have here is a collision between the careful decade-long work of people [S&S] on the frontline of solar activity research and someone who doesn’t care.

Javier
Reply to  lsvalgaard
March 18, 2018 6:45 pm

All your talking amounts to little. The figure shows that the average GSN, the ¹⁴C proxy, and my Sunspots/cycle graph contain essentially the same information. You know that figure because you have used it yourself on several occasions to defend the goodness of the revised GSN. So you are incorrect. There is a trend and it is rising.

Reply to  Javier
March 18, 2018 7:05 pm

my Sunspots/cycle graph contain essentially the same information
The weasel word is ‘essentially’. As even the slightly wrong sunspot series has a trend with very low statistical significance, R Square = 0.01586.
The variable to use [as Muscheler did correctly] is the group number.
If you persist in using the sub-optimal sunspot number for purpose, you just lay bare your bias and ignorance about solar activity and how we measure it.

Javier
Reply to  lsvalgaard
March 18, 2018 8:00 pm

If you persist in using the sub-optimal sunspot number for purpose, you just lay bare your bias and ignorance about solar activity and how we measure it.

That’s what you say, but for the period 1700-1800, the “sub-optimal” sunspot number shows a better agreement with the ¹⁴C proxy than the “super-optimal” GSN. Perhaps GSN is not “perfect” and is overestimating solar activity in the 1725-1775 period. At least that is what the ¹⁴C proxy and the sunspot number agreement appears to indicate.comment image
As usual you cling to tenuous excuses, like a supposed climate contamination of the cosmogenic isotope record that only shows in every solar reconstruction that you don’t like, or a supposed betterness of the GSN. Tomorrow I’ll redo the graph with GSN to see what it shows and I’ll report back.

Reply to  Javier
March 18, 2018 6:27 pm

Javier, you say:

The trendline shows how solar activity has been growing, and the midline at 768 separates periods of above average and below average solar activity. The modern maximum corresponds to the long period of above average activity from ~1935 to ~2005, that coincides pretty much with the last phase of modern global warming. It is very plausible that solar variability has contributed importantly to the warming observed.

I point out once again that even per your method of counting, the number of sunspots have been dropping since 1960, but temperatures have been rising. Also, your result is only slightly different than a gaussian smooth of the sunspot data.
w.

Javier
Reply to  Willis Eschenbach
March 18, 2018 6:38 pm

the number of sunspots have been dropping since 1960, but temperatures have been rising

So what. You can reduce the fire under a pot and the pot continues warming. Only when you go below a threshold and the pot loses more heat than it gains from the fire it will start cooling.

March 18, 2018 5:20 pm

comment image

JRF in Pensacola
Reply to  Max Photon
March 18, 2018 11:05 pm

Outstanding!

J Mac
Reply to  Max Photon
March 18, 2018 11:10 pm

HA!
I was just thinking “I should have popped a BIG pot of popcorn, before I started reading the comments on this article!”

markl
March 18, 2018 5:48 pm

Where are the models that predict this? Not sarc. Should be easy to show we’ll freeze to death by 2025 unless something is done to protect humans.

Editor
March 18, 2018 5:49 pm

Cointreau March 18, 2018 at 4:06 pm

Solar cycle 25 is projected to be demonstrably weaker than cycle 24. And yes, there is a strong correlation between solar minimums and increased volcanic and seismic activity. You only have to look at the historical record damnit.

As you advise, I have looked at the historical record, “damnit” … there is no correlation between sunspots and volcanoes. The ugly details are here.
w.

JimG1
Reply to  Willis Eschenbach
March 18, 2018 6:24 pm

Willis,
Not that ugly. Perhaps setting the eruption value at 5 has something to do with the results though the fact that 70% of the planet is covered with water probably has more to do with them as we probably miss significant eruptions under sea making such measurements very difficult to impossible. May not be statistically significant but sure looks like more eruptions when there are less sunspots at least at the eruption intensity level you have indicate. Also, I could only find 36 in your “bins” which are labeled as containing 37, last chart?

March 18, 2018 5:58 pm

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/03/13/do-it-yourself-the-solar-variability-effect-on-climate/comment-page-1/#comment-2764566
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

Reply to  ALLAN MACRAE
March 18, 2018 6:03 pm

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/12/13/over-2000-cold-and-snow-records-set-in-the-usa-this-past-week/#comment-1502081
[excerpt}
The scientific understanding of the Sun’s role in climate is imperfect. Many respected scientists say the Sun does not vary enough to be a significant driver of global temperatures. I disagree, although my understanding, and that of the science community as a whole, is less than adequate.
I (we) predicted the commencement of global cooling by 2020-2030 in an article published the Calgary Herald in 2002. That prediction is gaining credibility as solar activity has crashed.

Here is my concern:
IF the Sun does indeed drive temperature, as I suspect, then successive governments in Britain and continental Europe have brewed the perfect storm.
They have crippled their energy systems with excessive reliance on ineffective grid-connected wind power schemes.
I suggest that global cooling probably WILL happen within the next decade or sooner, and Europe will get colder, possibly much colder.
I suggest that Winter deaths will increase in the Europe as cooling progresses.
I suggest that Excess Winter Mortality rates will provide an estimate of this unfolding tragedy.
As always in these matters, I hope to be wrong. These are not numbers, they are real people, who “loved and were loved”.
Best regards to all, Allan MacRae

meteorologist in research
Reply to  ALLAN MACRAE
March 18, 2018 6:42 pm

Allan – what’s the mechanism(s) to cause the cooling?

Reply to  ALLAN MACRAE
March 19, 2018 1:22 am

meteorologist in research asked:
“Allan – what’s the mechanism(s) to cause the cooling?”
Your guess is as good as mine meteo.
I would say for a decadal or centennial scale:
A relatively simple energy balance governs = [solar energy input accumulated (hence the integral)]
minus [accumulated energy radiated to space];
moderated by
[major oceanic cycles (primarily the PDO/ENSO and to a lesser degree the AMO)].
Above a certain value there is global warming, below that value there global cooling.
The impact of increasing atmospheric CO2 can be ignored, since the sensitivity of climate to increasing CO2 is near-zero – “much ado about nothing”. Heresy to warmists, I know, but true. 🙂
Hope this helps. It’s the middle of the night here and pre-coffee, so take this with the usual “ton of salt”.
Regards, Allan

Reply to  ALLAN MACRAE
March 19, 2018 1:34 am

Addendum for metoe – I omitted century-scale volcanoes – need coffee:
I would say for a decadal or centennial scale:
A relatively simple energy balance governs = [solar energy input accumulated in oceans (hence the integral)]
minus [accumulated energy radiated to space];
moderated by
[major oceanic cycles (primarily the PDO/ENSO and to a lesser degree the AMO)]
AND
[cooled by major volcanoes (approx. VEI5 and greater)]
The 1982 eruption of El Chichon was VEI5. The 1991+ eruption of Mt Pinatubo was VEI6, roughly an order of magnitude greater.The eruptions of both El Chichon and Pinatubo had significant temporary global cooling effects

meteorologist in research
Reply to  ALLAN MACRAE
March 19, 2018 7:49 am

Thanks Allan, so should we wait for large volcanic events before expecting cooling to become the statistical trend?

Reply to  ALLAN MACRAE
March 19, 2018 9:47 pm

meteo wrote:
“Thanks Allan, so should we wait for large volcanic events before expecting cooling to become the statistical trend?”
My guess is NO. I think when the PDO and AMO both go negative (cool mode) Earth will start to cool moderately.
This is only my guess – I have not studied this issue as much as some others on wattsup, or professionals like Joe d’Aleo.
I still think global cooling starting by 2020-2030 is probable, and am leaning closer to about 2020. Some will say cooling already started circa 2005 to 2009, and this point will be debated for years to come as the data unfolds.
Obviously, an major volcanic eruption of magnitude VEI5 or VEI6 could kick-start global cooling, but unless other conditions support cooling the impact of such a major volcano will dissipate in about 5 years, similar to El Chichon and Mt. Pinatubo.

Reply to  ALLAN MACRAE
March 23, 2018 1:23 am

meteorologist in research asked:
“Allan – what’s the mechanism(s) to cause the cooling?”
I responded:
“I would say for a decadal or centennial scale:
A relatively simple energy balance governs =
[solar energy input accumulated in oceans (hence the integral)]
minus [accumulated energy radiated to space];
moderated by
[major oceanic cycles (primarily the PDO/ENSO and to a lesser degree the AMO)]
AND
[cooled by major volcanoes (approx. VEI5 and greater)]”
Here is a similar answer I just read, from Happer, Konin and Lindzen (an excellent paper):
“Incremental changes of the surface temperature anomaly can be traced back to two causes: (1) changes
in the surface heating rate; (2) changes in the resistance of heat flow to space. Quasi periodic El Nino
episodes are examples of the former. During an El Nino year, easterly trade winds weaken and very warm
deep water, normally blown toward the coasts of Indonesia and Australia, floats to the surface and
spreads eastward to replace previously cool surface waters off of South America. The average
temperature anomaly can increase by 1 C or more because of the increased release of heat from the
ocean. The heat source for the El Nino is solar energy that has accumulated beneath the ocean surface
for several years before being released.”
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA
SAN FRANCISCO DIVISION
THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF
CALIFORNIA,
Plaintiff,
v.
B.P. P.L.C., et al.,
Defendants.
Case No. C 17-06011 WHA
Case No. C 17-06012 WHA
Hearing Date: March 21, 2018 at 8:00 a.m.
ADMINISTRATIVE MOTION OF
WILLIAM HAPPER, STEVEN E. KOONIN,
AND RICHARD S. LINDZEN FOR LEAVE
TO SUBMIT PRESENTATION IN
RESPONSE TO THE COURT’S
TUTORIAL QUESTIONS
The Honorable William H. Alsup
http://blogs2.law.columbia.edu/climate-change-litigation/wp-content/uploads/sites/16/case-documents/2018/20180319_docket-317-cv-06011_na-1.pdf

Reply to  ALLAN MACRAE
March 18, 2018 6:11 pm

What does this formula PREDICT for the next few decades? That is the acid test.
The integral has no predictive power.

meteorologist in research
Reply to  lsvalgaard
March 18, 2018 6:36 pm

Is the Sun putting out less heat, or is it just a relaxation of the twisting magnetic field? I would think that the Sun’s core is the source of our heat.

Reply to  meteorologist in research
March 18, 2018 6:53 pm

It is for 99.9 %. Solar activity [magnetic field] only account for 0.1%.

Reply to  lsvalgaard
March 18, 2018 7:06 pm

Hi Leif – hope you are well.
Since ~2009, Dan Pangburn has published charts which also use the integral of solar activity, together with a ~64-year “sawtooth” that reflects oceanic cycles. See his Fig, 10, 11 or 14, which suggest imminent mild global cooling.
http://globalclimatedrivers2.blogspot.ca/
I recall in my many conversations with Joe d’Aleo that global cooling should start when both the AMO and the PDO go negative (cool mode).
My (our) 2002 prediction of global cooling starting by 2020-2030 was made in consultation with Tim Patterson, Paleoclimatologist at Carleton University. It was based on the Gleissberg Cycle.
I think everyone is just taking their “best guesses” right now – that the general understanding of the impact of solar activity on climate, directly and indirectly, is poorly understood.
I understand that your best guess is that solar activity varies too little to be a significant driver of global temperature variability. Please correct it if there is a better way to state your position.
I think that the data is messy and inconclusive, but my “prejudice” is that the integral of solar activity, together with the PDO and the AMO, have a significant impact on global temperatures at decadal and centennial scales.
So I expect to see some moderate global cooling starting by 2020-2030, probably closer to 2020. I hope to be wrong, because humanity and the environment suffer during cold periods, based on the historical evidence.
Best personal regards, Allan

Reply to  ALLAN MACRAE
March 18, 2018 7:13 pm

One problem with the integral business is “what sunspot series to use?”
In addition there are free parameters, e.g. the average to subtract [if you use the real average the integral is always zero], the window over which to integrate [clearly you don’t start 4.6 billion years ago], what other cycles to include [e.g. AMO], etc
With free parameters, the method is just an exercise in ordinary curve fitting which is not my cup of tea.

meteorologist in research
Reply to  lsvalgaard
March 18, 2018 7:08 pm

“It is for 99.9 %. Solar activity [magnetic field] only account for 0.1%.”
Thanks, we’ve been watching the planetary wave number shrink from 7-9 down to 5-7 since this onset in 2011. El Nino intervened, but it’s been interesting, from Tennessee to California, and now this winter making the headlines.

Reply to  meteorologist in research
March 18, 2018 7:14 pm

Well, weather is not climate…

meteorologist in research
Reply to  lsvalgaard
March 18, 2018 7:31 pm

Can we say changing weather is regional climate change? The progression of Rossby Waves form and sustain regional climates.

Reply to  meteorologist in research
March 18, 2018 7:32 pm

yes over a 30-yr period.

meteorologist in research
Reply to  lsvalgaard
March 18, 2018 7:55 pm

Yes, we have thought in terms of about 30 yrs, but what about the future? Should we look for 20 year patterns in the coming decades? What is your sense of it?
I’m glad i’m not a climatologist these days.

wsbriggs
March 18, 2018 6:47 pm

I’m always delighted to have Leif and Willis engaging in the discussion of sunspots and solar activity. There seem to be a number of people who engage the Mk I eyeball to seek explanations, ignoring the real scientific effort being put forth by Leif and Willis. Leif is an experienced scientist with a number of papers on the physics of the sun, one should not lightly dismiss what he’s saying. Willis, Willis digs in to data like no one I’ve ever seen. I’ve learned an immense amount from his writing. When he says he doesn’t find any correlation, I’m inclined to think he’s worked the area thoroughly.
Note that we are talking about chaotic systems here, chaotic systems have strange attractors in their vector space. Just because it looks periodic, doesn’t mean it is – coupled pendulums being a classic example. Could there be reinforcing behaviour between chaotic systems? Yes, there are several electronic experiments that demonstrate this. It still doesn’t mean that we have neat cycles, rather, it means that prediction, in particular of the future, is difficult. It’s particularly difficult if you don’t know what components go into the production of some of the cyclic behavior of elements of our weather, let alone climate drivers.
Me, I’m getting a bag of popcorn and watching the show.

Reply to  wsbriggs
March 18, 2018 7:45 pm

Hi Matt,
Hope you are well.
When/if you have some time, please revisit the email I sent you on Thu 10/11/2016 5:19AM Mountain time.
I think you will find a striking correlation between Nino34 sea surface temperature and atmospheric CO2 12-13 months later.
The mechanism is Nino34 SST drives tropical humidity and temperature ~3 monthsl later and global temperature one month thereafter, which drives atmospheric CO2 trends 9 months after that.
The impact of century-scale volcanoes and the AMO are also significant, but secondary.
Regards, Allan
In other news – you may find this of interest:
THE MAZEPPA CRITICAL SOUR GAS STORY
I received an award this past week from the Society of Petroleum Engineers.
As an uninvolved citizen and a Professional Engineer, I was advised in May 2016 of an extremely dangerous situation. Following the Professional Engineers’ Code of Ethics, I investigated, established the facts and reported to the Alberta Energy Regulator (AER). This situation was then made safe by the AER.
This action by the AER is the most severe reprimand against any company in the history of the Alberta energy industry.
The potential death tool in a worst-case scenario could have totaled many tens of thousands – a Hiroshima-scale disaster.
Next week I get a spandex outfit, complete with a cape. 🙂
– Allan MacRae. P.Eng.
Public Documents:
1. AER SUSPENDS MAZEPPA PLANT OPERATIONS AMID CONCERNS
High River Times, August 27, 2016
“LEXIN FAILED TO COMPLY WITH AER REQUIREMENTS BETWEEN FEBRUARY AND JUNE AND WAS ORDERED TO SUSPEND ALL FACILITY AND INFRASTRUCTURE OPERATIONS ON AUG. 9.”
http://www.highrivertimes.com/2016/08/25/aer-suspends-mazeppa-plant-operations-amid-concerns
2. WATCHDOG TAKES UNPRECEDENTED STEP OF FORCING OIL AND GAS PRODUCER INTO RECEIVERSHIP
Calgary Herald, March 21, 2017
THIS ACTION BY THE AER (FORMERLY THE ERCB) IS THE MOST SEVERE REPRIMAND AGAINST ANY COMPANY IN THE HISTORY OF THE ALBERTA ENERGY INDUSTRY.
http://calgaryherald.com/business/energy/watchdog-takes-unprecedented-step-of-forcing-oil-and-gas-producer-into-receivership
3. LEXIN RESOURCES AND THE DARK SIDE OF ALBERTA’S DOWNTURN
CBC, April 24, 2017
THE MAZEPPA PROJECT WAS RUNNING 40% H2S. H2S IS HEAVIER THAN AIR AND INSTANTLY LETHAL AT CONCENTRATIONS OF 0.1% AND LESS. THE POTENTIAL DEATH TOLL COULD HAVE NUMBERED IN THE TENS OF THOUSANDS.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/lexin-resources-what-went-wrong-1.4038838
4. IN REVERSAL, LEXIN ADMITS TO BREAKING ENVIRONMENTAL, INDUSTRY RULES
Calgary Herald. July 10, 2017
“[LEXIN EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR} SMITH PAID THE REGULATOR A $175,000 PENALTY FOR HIS ROLE IN LEXIN’S MISDEEDS, AND ACCEPTED A LIFE-TIME BAN FROM CONTROLLING ANY COMPANY INVOLVED IN EXPLORING FOR, PRODUCING OR TRANSPORTING OIL AND GAS IN ALBERTA.”
http://calgaryherald.com/business/energy/lexin-agrees-it-breached-environmental-industry-rules
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

archibaldperth
March 18, 2018 6:49 pm

Right at the moment the indications are that the Sun is reverting to 19th century-like levels of activity which will result in 19th century-like climate. No sign of a minimum at this point. It would take a volcano for things to go bad from here.

Larry in Texas
March 18, 2018 7:37 pm

This is why I am hoping that agricultural and plant genetics scientists are working on ways to breed food crops that are more cold-tolerant and able to use sunlight more efficiently. As always, we need to find a way to adapt to changing climate instead of expecting the government to do everything.

Reply to  Larry in Texas
March 19, 2018 2:18 am

I agree with you Larry – improving food crops is important – far more important than obsessing with increasing atmospheric CO2 and the false global warming crisis.
You may find the following of near-term interest:
The C4 Rice Project.
http://c4rice.irri.org/index.php/component/content/article/19-about/56-what-is-c4-rice
Also: Making Rice Healthier – High-iron, high zinc, golden rice.
http://irri.org/our-impact/making-rice-healthier
Finally, this rant may be valid, in the longer term:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/11/19/storing-carbon-dioxide-underground-by-turning-it-into-rock/comment-page-1/#comment-2347545
ON CO2 STARVATION
Summary
1. Atmospheric CO2 is not alarmingly high; in fact, it is dangerously low for the survival of terrestrial carbon-based life on Earth. Most plants evolved with about 4000ppm CO2 in the atmosphere, or about 10 times current CO2 concentrations.
2. In one of the next global Ice Ages, atmospheric CO2 will approach about 150ppm, a concentration at which terrestrial photosynthesis will slow and cease – and that will be the extinction event for much or all of the terrestrial carbon-based life on this planet.
3. More atmospheric CO2 is highly beneficial to all carbon-based life on Earth. Therefore, CO2 abatement and sequestration schemes are nonsense.
4. As a devoted fan of carbon-based life on this planet, I feel the duty to advocate on our behalf. I should point out that I am not prejudiced against non-carbon-based life forms. They might be very nice, but I do not know any of them well enough to form an opinion. 🙂
_________________________________________________________________________

Reply to  ALLAN MACRAE
March 23, 2018 1:57 am

I have written about the vital issue of “CO2 starvation” since 2009 or earlier. For example:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/11/19/storing-carbon-dioxide-underground-by-turning-it-into-rock/comment-page-1/#comment-2347545
SUMMARY
1. Atmospheric CO2 is not alarmingly high; in fact, it is dangerously low for the survival of terrestrial carbon-based life on Earth. Most plants evolved with about 4000ppm CO2 in the atmosphere, or about 10 times current CO2 concentrations.
2. In one of the next global Ice Ages, atmospheric CO2 will approach about 150ppm, a concentration at which terrestrial photosynthesis will slow and cease – and that will be the extinction event for much or all of the terrestrial carbon-based life on this planet.
3. More atmospheric CO2 is highly beneficial to all carbon-based life on Earth. Therefore, CO2 abatement and sequestration schemes are nonsense.
4. As a devoted fan of carbon-based life on this planet, I feel the duty to advocate on our behalf. I should point out that I am not prejudiced against non-carbon-based life forms. They might be very nice, but I do not know any of them well enough to form an opinion. 🙂
Others including Dr. Patrick Moore, a co-founder of Greenpeace, have also written on this subject:
https://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2016/06/moore-positive-impact-of-human-co2-emissions.pdf
Here is Happer, Konin and Lindzen on CO2 starvation (p, 19&20 of an excellent paper – READ IT):
“By geological standards, the Earth is currently starved for atmospheric CO2. Past CO2 levels estimated from various proxies are shown in the adjacent figure. The horizontal scale is geological time since the Cambrian, at about 550 million years ago. The vertical axis is the ratio, RCO2, of past atmospheric CO2 concentrations to average values (about 300 ppm) during the past few million years, This particular proxy record comes from analyzing the fraction of the rare stable isotope 13C to the dominant isotope 12C in carbonate sediments and paleosols. Other proxies give qualitatively similar results.
Only once in the geological past, the Permian period about 300 million years ago, have atmospheric CO2 levels been as low as now. Life flourished abundantly during the geological past when CO2 levels were five or ten times higher than those today.”
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA
SAN FRANCISCO DIVISION
THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA, Plaintiff,
v.
B.P. P.L.C., et al., Defendants.
Case No. C 17-06011 WHA
Case No. C 17-06012 WHA
Hearing Date: March 21, 2018 at 8:00 a.m.
ADMINISTRATIVE MOTION OF WILLIAM HAPPER, STEVEN E. KOONIN, AND RICHARD S. LINDZEN FOR LEAVE TO SUBMIT PRESENTATION IN RESPONSE TO THE COURT’S TUTORIAL QUESTIONS
The Honorable William H. Alsup
http://blogs2.law.columbia.edu/climate-change-litigation/wp-content/uploads/sites/16/case-documents/2018/20180319_docket-317-cv-06011_na-1.pdf

Brett Keane
March 18, 2018 8:35 pm

20ya there was panic over UV/EUV, slip-slap’n slop. It is hard for me to burn these days except during a solar flare event, I have found. There IS an integral of energy into the oceans with that. We may still be using the last of it, but the instantaneous solar heating of air (and from ground conduction) seems to be pretty much easing down. Watch and wait, I reckon. Time will enlighten us, like it or not. If we are up to it.

goldminor
Reply to  Brett Keane
March 18, 2018 9:58 pm

There has been a recent change of surface wind patterns in ths region. The result, imo, is that both cold surface waters and cold air masses are making their way to mid latitudes. That is a cooling pattern. Now it is a matter of how long does this new pattern last. …https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/surface/level/overlay=temp/orthographic=-53.85,-83.87,482/loc=50.927,-79.800

March 18, 2018 8:51 pm

Greetings from the Big Mango (BKK). This is my pet theory of why volcanic activity increases slightly with lower sunspots.
The Earth is a spinning ball of liquid rock at about 3000 degrees Centigrade enclosed in a thin crustal shell. As this shell contracts contracts the Earth spins faster, increasing the pressure of the liquid on the inside of the crust. Where there are thin spots or small holes the pressure relieves by volcanic activity. QED, heh.
Sandy, Minister of Future

A C, of Adelaide
March 18, 2018 9:39 pm

I take great heart from the fact that in a cooling world – everything will be better.

Bob Bobby
March 18, 2018 10:31 pm

Strange how quick lack of knowledge is ignored resulting in statements like volcanic activity like Tambore is unrelated to solar activity! Is there some definitive research on this you can help me with?
After 4+ billion years forces appear to reach almost steady state at least to human time frames. But our solar system has many orbital elements that vary causing unexpected or difficult to predict orbits of comets, meteors. How can one just disregard solar activity’s effects on geophysical systems here on earth so handily?
BTW, NASA recently added new solar instruments to ISS https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2017/four-decades-and-counting-new-nasa-instrument-continues-measuring-solar-energy-input

jonesingforozone
March 18, 2018 10:52 pm

Via direct satellite measurement, the EUV flux (He II) is 2 thirds (66%) of what it was Feb. 24, 1996, and the minimum has not even arrived:comment image
Sunspots are so yesterday.
Expect Leif any minute now…