Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
When folks tell me that the sunspot-related changes in total solar irradiance make changes down here on the surface of our amazing planet, I suggest that they take a look at the numbers.
From peak to trough over the sunspot cycle, the top-of-atmosphere total solar irradiance varies by about 1.2 watts per square metre (W/m2) … which, when averaged over the entire surface of the earth gives a change of about 0.28 W/m2. This is less than a tenth of one percent variation in total incoming energy.
But in fact, it’s less than that. Only about half of the sunlight makes it to the surface, so we’re down to 0.14 W/m2 change from peak to trough, less than a twentieth of a percent.
Now, downwelling radiation at the surface of the earth averages about 500 W/m2 on a 24/7 average basis. And out of that, we’re supposed to believe that a variation on the order of a tenth of a W/m2 is going to make a difference …
“Ah, you don’t understand”, folks inform me, “Yes, TSI only changes by a tenth of a percent over a solar cycle. But extreme ultraviolet (EUV) varies as a percentage much, much more than that!” … and you know what?
They’re right …
… but they’re also wrong. Let me explain why.
To start with, here’s the breakdown of the strength of the solar radiation by wavelength.
Figure 1. Spectrally resolved top-of-atmosphere sunshine. X-axis units are nanometres (nm).
In the middle is the visible spectrum, from about 380 nm to about 750 nm. Longer wavelengths than that are called “near infrared”. Wavelengths shorter than that are ultraviolet (UV).
And way over on the left, at 10 – 24 nm wavelength between the vertical red lines, is the tiny amount of extreme ultraviolet (EUV).
So that is the first problem. Even though it varies on a percentage basis more than the TSI, the EUV represents such a small part of the sun’s energy that it cannot be even seen at this scale.
The second problem is that the variation in EUV is much, much smaller in absolute terms than the variation in TSI. In Figure 2 I’ve compared the variations in the middle of the EUV spectrum (18 nm) to the variations in the blue part of the visible spectrum (~500 nm).
Figure 2. Monthly variations in solar output, measured in the EUV (red/yellow line) and in the visible spectrum (blue line)
As you can see, the variations in the EUV are very small compared to the variations in the visible spectrum.
In fact, the only reason that the percentage variations in EUV are greater than the percentage variations in TSI is that changes in EUV start from almost zero … so even a tiny absolute change in EUV is a large percentage change in EUV.
For those reasons, I hold that looking at EUV to explain surface climate variations is a blind alley … but as always, YMMV …
Best to everyone on a warm and quiet night,
w.
AS ALWAYS: I politely ask that you QUOTE THE EXACT WORDS THAT YOU ARE DISCUSSING so that we can all understand the subject of your thoughts.
DATA: I’ve used the solar data recommended here for use in the CMIP6. Yes, I know it has manifold problems, I pointed some of them out here on WUWT, but none of them affect these results.
Thank you Willis, clear and to the point. Unless a major atmospheric affect can be shown that EUV is essential for then I now believe you are correct.
Indeed, I’d go as far saying its a slam dunk. But if you’re desperately trying to prove its anything but CO2, some are going to cling on to the delusion regardless.
Lots of negative votes there, RyanS. Could it be the “desperately trying to prove its anything but CO2” statement? I mean, really, nothing can cause warming other than CO2? NOTHING?
Well I will have nothing to do with likes/dislike buttons, but anyone who comes in talking about “slam dunk” gets cred=zero in terms of having an objective discussion. It’s about as good as “debumking” , “robust” and other terms that do not belong to science.
One of the big problems with attempts to find a solar connection is that sometimes it works, sometimes it does not. Not a good start when looking for correlation. The other problem is it is almost always done as part of a multivaraite linear regression, which is somewhat arbitrary and prone to false attribution especially in the probable presence of other possible drivers which are not part of the regression, or bear fluctuations of similar timescales, like volcanoes.
The surface record is full of non-attributable fluctuations and climate noise. However the stratosphere gives us a much more settled signal.
https://climategrog.wordpress.com/uah_tls_365d/
Much of the interaction there is in the UV ( not the tiny EUV ) but also particulate aerosols from anthropogenic pollution also play a part in other wavelengths.
The net effect is clear, after both the most recent major stratovolcanic events the was a temporary rise and then a quasi permanent drop in TLS. (Temperature of the lower stratosphere).
So where did this energy go have not been blocked by ozone and stratospheric aerosols? Well, I guess it must have made it to the lower climate system.
What it did there is anybodies guess. But it does correspond to the late 20th c. OMG warming. Flip and compare.
beng135
“anything but CO2” is not the same as “nothing other than CO2”.
The reason for the negatives is plainly obvious: the high correlation between the desperate “anything but CO2” crowd and the belief in UV unicorn rays.
Funny how Leif agreed but got positives…
Leif agreed that the UV issue is moot — so do I & gave him a +1. My point was that you d*ny any cause for warming other than CO2 (in the past, the Gods/sins were responsible). Do you realize how many changes have occurred during the Holocene, let alone before that? Were those changes man-made? Of course not. Why can’t similar changes be occurring now? Do you realize that people were hunted, persecuted and even executed/sacrificed because of fear & superstition of such natural changes? And how similar the current warmunist fear-mongering sounds to those previous episodes? One might observe that behavior is an in-built, irrational human flaw, at least without proper education and rational analysis.
“you d*ny any cause for warming other than CO2 ”
For the second time – no I don’t. It’s in your head.
@ RyanS
The earth’s orbit is out 3%. Many times larger than the variable TSI, that we know of at this time. How do you compensate averaging without a capacitor? A small downturn in TSI has a profound effect on the storage of capacitance. ( not enough to melt a snowflake?) Without that capacitance, we would experience violent extremes compounded by seasonal changes. Or where is 0.65 C hiding since Feb 2016. … 0.65 C of heat on the planet is an extreme amount of heat. On a weighted average what has/is happening that the temperature would decline so much in a short amount of time? Hiding in the oceans? What flips the switch for the oceans to sink that much heat? Just happens? What’s the mechanism for it?
I’m not delusional at all, co2 has little or no affect on temperature.
How many ppm/v of co2 does it take to raise the temperature 1 C RyanS ?
The actual TSI and the stated warming from co2 as a result of TSI don’t match.
I’m still waiting for you provide the first piece of evidence that CO2 has caused the extremely mild warming that the earth has experienced over the last 150 years.
“anything but CO2”?
CO2 hasn’t shown virtually any correlation to temperature over hundreds of millions of years. Yet many still bitterly cling to the notion that it’s the temperature or bad weather control knob.
RyanS, you do love your Alinsky ‘accuse your enemy of doing exactly what you do yourself’ tactics. Meanwhile back in the real world of mainstream climate “science,” desperately trying to prove its NOT anything but CO2, some are going to cling on to the delusion regardless.
Indeed. The EUV band is a 1/4 million times less than TSI.
And what might be that bad in Leif’s comment it earned negative votes?
I’m sorry, but if you think in the magic EUV instead of the magic gas, please elaborate why it works.
Hugs,
My guess is because readers realize that the share of TSI in the UV band doesn’t matter. What counts is the unique ability of UVC and UVB to ionize molecules, leading to the ionosphere and ozone in the stratosphere and troposphere, and of UVA to penetrate deeply into the oceans, among other properties of this distinctive high-energy portion of the solar radiation spectrum.
Yes, I think restricting the argument to EUV or even “mid EUV” is a red herring.
See my graphs above. Ozone creation / depletion and UV penetration yes. Though I think volcanic eruptions also result in natural purging of other pollutants from the stratosphere. Volcanic aerosols provide condensation nuclei and the resulting precipitation purges other pollutants at the same time. A few years after major events the atmospheric optical depth decreases : ie cleaner stratosphere.
Positive top-of-atmosphere flux anomaly after Pinatubo :
just a test
There is one thing that makes UV unique, though I don’t believe it is the cause of significant change in earth climate. UV is very energetic. More energy is transferred to the ocean when it absorbs a UV photon than when it absorbs a visible light photon. Also, UV penetrates more deeply into ocean and ice depositing that energy farther from the surface. So while UV is only a tiny portion of the total spectrum, it is a larger portion of total energy. One UV photon carries 100 to 1000 times as much energy as a visible light photon and an infrared photon 100 to 1000 times less.
True, but the energy of the photons is already factored into the graph in figure 1. The graph is Watts/ square meter (per nanometer band), not photons/ square meter.
Exactly, and why just look at EUV? This post doesn’t include any real data, let’s compare the entire solar spectrum between a peak and a trough in solar flux instead. It’s not just EUV, or UV light that is penetrating the oceans and increasing absorptivity, but all higher frequency light is going to penetrate significantly deeper — red light hardly penetrates water compared to blue light and IR doesn’t make it past the skin of water.
This entire post is another red herring, someone someday should seriously look at the net effect of solar flux if climatology is to progress- spectral shift, ozone flux, biosphere changes, and cosmic rays need to all be addressed in a single study but all you ever see is mention of sunspots and poor correlation with 20th century temperature.
Transmission *peaks* at blue, and decreases at lower wavelengths.
Dear Willis.
Please keep in mind that UV, EUV and X-rays are one thing that radio, IR and visible are not.
And that is that they are ionizing radiation. Solar protons should also be included in this category for their ionizing capability.
While true that the thermal energy provided by these wavelengths is essentially inconsequential, the ionizing characteristics have a different impact. For instance, EUV is the main energy source in the Thermosphere. (J. Lilensten, et. al., Ann. Geophys., 26, 269–279, 2008)
Regarding solar protons, the Bastille Day Solar Radiation Storm was reported to have destroyed 70% of the ozone layer in the mesophere and 9% reduction in the upper stratosphere. Granted, these were short term effects (1-several days), but how do the effects vary between active and mild cycles? Especially if you have a series of active or inactive cycles.
https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/ProtonOzone
Unfortunately, there is just so much that we do not know.
But we’re learning along the way.
Cheers.
In periods of low solar wind, air ionization by secondary galactic radiation from 5 to 20 km is more important.
The highest rate of carbon-14 production takes place at altitudes of 9 to 15 km (30,000 to 49,000 ft) and at high geomagnetic latitudes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon-14
In this study we show that correspondence of the main structures of geomagnetic field, near surface air temperature and surface pressure in the mid-latitudes, reported previously in the 1st part of the paper, has its physical foundation. The similar pattern, found in latitude-longitude distribution of the lower stratospheric ozone and specific humidity, allows us to close the chain of causal links, and to offer a mechanism through which geomagnetic field could influence on the Earth’s climate. It starts with a geomagnetic modulation of galactic cosmic rays (GCR) and ozone production in the lower stratosphere through ion-molecular reactions initiated by GCR. The alteration of the near tropopause temperature (by O3 variations at these levels) changes the amount of water vapour in the driest part of the upper troposphere/lower stratosphere (UTLS), influencing in such a way on the radiation balance of the planet. This forcing on the climatic parameters is non-uniformly distributed over the globe, due to the heterogeneous geomagnetic field controlling energetic particles entering the Earth’s atmosphere.
http://journals.uran.ua/geofizicheskiy/article/view/111146
Thanks, Jim. On average, the EUV radiation varies from about 3e-5 to 14e-5 W/m2 per nm. The range of EUV is 14 nm wide, meaning that the total energy in EUV varies between 0.0004 and 0.002 W/m2 between solar max and solar min.
I’m sorry, but even with ionizing radiation, 0.002 W/m2 is to small to make a difference down at the surface. Yes, it might affect the thermosphere. But that’s because there are almost no molecules of air in the thermosphere, viz:
And down here at the surface, such a trivial amount of energy (0.002 W/m2) is not all that consequential.
Best regards,
w.
I would suggest that EUV is an independent variable that spawns many dependent variables that cascade through the climate system. From a comment on Sept 6, Leif posted:
Leif Svalgaard ;
“A composite record of the total unsigned magnetic (line-of-sight) flux over the solar disk can be constructed from spacecraft measurements by SOHO-MDI and SDO-HMI complemented by ground-based measurements by SOLIS covering the period 1996-2016, covering the two solar mimina in 1996 and 2009 and the two solar maxima in 2001 and 2014. A composite record of solar EUV from SOHO-SEM, TIMED-SEE, and SDO-EVE covering the same period is very well correlated with the magnetic record (R2=0.96), both for monthly means. The magnetic flux and EUV [and the sunspot number] are extremely well correlated with the F10.7 microwave flux, even on a daily basis. The tight correlations extend to other solar indices (Mg II, Ca II) reaching further back in time. Solar EUV creates and maintains the ionosphere. The conducting E-region [at ~105 km altitude] supports an electric current by a dynamo process due to thermal winds moving the conducting region across the Earth’s magnetic field. The resulting current has an easily observable magnetic effect at ground level, maintaining a diurnal variation of the geomagnetic field [discovered by Graham in 1722]. Data on this variation go back to the 1740s [with good coverage back to 1840] and permit reconstruction of EUV [and proxies, e.g. F10.7] back that far. We confirm that the EUV [and hence the solar magnetic field] relaxes to the same [apart from tiny residuals] level at every solar minimum. Since the variation of Total Solar Irradiance [TSI] is controlled by the magnetic field, the reconstruction of EUV does not support a varying ‘background’ on which the solar cycle variation of TSI rides, strongly suggesting that the Climate Data Records advocated by NOAA and NASA are not correct before the space age. Similarly, the reconstruction does not support the constancy of the calibration of the SORCE/TIM TSI-record since 2003, but rather indicates an upward drift, suggesting an overcorrection for sensor degradations.”
I would highlight this passage:
“The magnetic flux and EUV [and the sunspot number] are extremely well correlated with the F10.7 microwave flux, even on a daily basis. The tight correlations extend to other solar indices (Mg II, Ca II) reaching further back in time. Solar EUV creates and maintains the ionosphere. The conducting E-region [at ~105 km altitude] supports an electric current by a dynamo process due to thermal winds moving the conducting region across the Earth’s magnetic field. The resulting current has an easily observable magnetic effect at ground level, maintaining a diurnal variation of the geomagnetic field [discovered by Graham in 1722].”
This inductive process should introduce Lorentz force vectors into the atmospheric circulation processes? Changes in EUV should introduce changes in circulation?
And to follow on from Richard G’s point, since O3 is a GHG and its above the ERL, then any changes in it’s concentration will be a forcing in exactly the same way CO2 would. More O3 would cause the ERL to be at a greater altitude and less to be at a lower altitude.
Willis wrote
…is about as useful as people arguing that since only 0.0004% of the atmosphere is CO2, it cant cause any great warming.
I was under the impression most of the skeptic arguments here are about attribution rather than finding (or dismissing) a single cause.
Tim,
That’s true of most skeptics, but apparently not of Willis.
One gets the impression that solar storms are fairly frequent but that their effects usually miss the Earth. We have observations of the effects of the Bastille Day event. The big one, so far, was the Carrington event.
Solar events may affect the ozone layer. Is there any evidence that the ozone layer, in turn, may affect the climate?
So, there’s some reason to believe that solar activity, by affecting the ozone layer, may have some effect on the climate.
As you say, there is much that we do not know. In any event, the alarmists use the fact that no other explanations work very well to insist that the main control knob is CO2. The CO2 explanation also has holes you can drive a bus through but that doesn’t bother them.
Good morning Willis.
I think that you may have missed my point regarding ionizing radiation.
Your response looked at the radiative heat transfer of those wavelengths. My point was regarding that these photon energies with break molecular compounds, altering the chemical composition thus changing the feedback associated with those compounds. If the feedback change is even just a few percent, that changes the forcing contribution of temperature due to CO2. (I realize now that I didn’t say that explicitly.) UV and other higher energies will break apart ozone and N2. The free nitrogen will combine with the free oxygen to create NOx compounds. This would be the most prevalent interaction, but they would split other molecules as well.
Called away….
Jim, from peak to trough the EUV goes from 0.0004W/m2 to 0.0020 W/m2. You are telling me that a change in EUV of about a thousandth of a W/m2 will make a difference.
…
If you have evidence that it makes a difference, now would be the time to bring it out. Until then, I’ll hold that such a microscopic change, about a milliwatt/m2, won’t make a perceptible difference.
w.
It’s more UVB than EUV but you’ve surely experienced a sunburn. By far, the majority of solar radiation reaching the Earth’s surface is longer wavelengths but you’re not going to get a sunburn from those.
It’s not just the watts, wavelength matters. Ultraviolet is dangerous even when measured in milliwatts per square meter. link
Bob,
Yup. Thank God for the ozone layer, which filters out most of the UVB and all the UVC, due to ionizing oxygen molecules. Thanking Him even more, clouds do a pretty good job of blocking the UVB that makes it to the troposphere. UVA, not so much, but it’s less damaging.
Forty years ago, I warned my teen female friends not to tan from ten to two, because of the enhanced UVB, but they wouldn’t listen. Now they’re so leathery at reunions that they resemble their saddles. Not to mention skin cancer, which I have, too, but only carcinoma, not the lethal melanoma associated with UV damage.
Sorry about the almost literally “tanned” hides of my classmates, but it’s true. Also all our female wheat truck drivers over the intervening decades, whom I tried to warn. To no avail. Ideal of beauty over survival, anytime for a teen for whom 40 seems a distant and disgusting prospect.
And our culture looks down on Africans who practice scarification.
There was a spoof paper, Body Rituals of the Nacirema. Viewed from an objective standpoint, our culture can be pretty darn strange.
And getting stranger, now that tattoos and multiple piercings are so normal that only branding and horn implants are all that those who wish to shock have left.
John
Oh, if that were only true. Someone will come along with a new shock effect – how ’bout wearing organs OUTSIDE the body?
Javert,
Well, underwear on the outside is already a thing.
Wearing internal organs on the outside could well be the next big fashion statement later in this century. Breast and gluteal implants are so last century.
Loved that story.
I found the book at an old book store one day.
Great descriptions of the Holy Mouth Men.
Cheers.
it makes a HUGE difference in radio propagation. Many orders of magnitude in 10-30 meter SW bands.
Bob,
Ozone has a profound effect on climate, in the stratosphere, troposphere, in the sea and on land. Its impact goes far beyond the ballyhooed Antarctic ozone hole.
For starters, it’s a greenhouse gas. It warms the stratosphere both from the GHE and from its reactions with oxygen molecules.
Ozone affects climate, and climate affects ozone. Temperature, humidity, pressure, winds and the presence of other molecules and chemical compounds in the atmosphere influence ozone formation, and the presence of ozone, in turn, affects those atmospheric phenomena and constituents. Dunno about precipitation, but odds are good.
It penetrates deeply into the ocean, with an outsized effect on warming there beyond the small share of TSI composed of the little UVB and all the UVC that reaches the surface might indicate.
Science probably doesn’t know all the ways in which ozone affects climate.
CommieBob
The SH ozonehole does not alter SH circulation, the ozonehole is caused by changes in atmospheric circulation as a consequence of increased tropical evaporation since the late seventies. The same evaporation increase that has influenced the 2 meter temperature. That’s what occurs during a warm phase.
Regards
‘Here we use satellite observations from the ACE-FTS, MLS/Aura and SABER/TIMED to study the effects of solar proton events (SPEs) and strong sudden stratospheric warmings (SSWs) on the middle atmospheric odd nitrogen (NOx) and ozone levels in the Northern Hemispheric polar region. Three winters (January–March) are considered: (1) 2005 (SPE), (2) 2009 (SSW), and (3) 2012 (SPEs and SSW). These different cases provide a good opportunity to study the roles that transport from the mesosphere-lower thermosphere region and in situ production due to particle precipitation have on stratospheric NOx levels and the consequent effects on the middle atmospheric ozone. The observations show increases in NOx after both the SPEs (days to weeks) and SSWs (weeks to months) by up to a factor of 25 between 40 and 90 km. The largest mesospheric NOx increases are observed following the SSW in late January 2009, but the most substantial effects in the upper stratosphere are seen when both an SSW and in situ production by SPEs take place (2012), even though the in situ NOx production in 2012 was relatively weak in magnitude compared to periods of much higher solar activity. In 2012, both short-term (days, due to SPEs and odd hydrogen) depletion and longer-term (months, due to several drivers) depletion of ozone of up to 90% are observed in the mesosphere and upper stratosphere, coinciding with the enhanced amounts of NOx.’
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/236742146_Observed_effects_of_solar_proton_events_and_sudden_stratospheric_warmings_on_odd_nitrogen_and_ozone_in_the_polar_middle_atmosphere
All things ozone are discussed here. Especially southern hemisphere and observational no models.. https://reality348.wordpress.com
Are there any experts out there who can comment on potential climate impacts caused by variations in the sun’s magnetic field which telegraph to the earths magnetic field?
Isn’t this the domain of Svensmark?
Gerkenstein – I think of Svensmark as expert in cosmic-ray-induced cloud cover in the Hadley Cell near the equator. Granted, it is a secondary effect of reduced solar wind as the sun’s magnetic poles do a switch-a-rue. I was thinking of a more direct effect on climate resulting from earths own magnetic field as it changes in concert with the sun’s magnetic field.
I do not dispute your figures or your conclusions Willis, what I would add is that when the Sun has a sabbatical like it is at the moment, it would seem that something else other than TSI starts to interfere with all the planets?
unicorns, they explain everything
Isn’t that what you measure Mosh, statistical unicorns and then assign blame to someone?
first person truth thru sarcasm
Hi Willis,
What is your source of the UV irradiation back to 1850?
Soon after the launch of Al Gore “Earth in the Balance” I read his claims of Patagonian fish and rabbits going blind from increasing UV from the Sun. Having done work with UV myself, I went looking and could not find much at all about systematic global or even local UV measurements. Maybe the data had not yet gone into the public domain.
Re extreme solar UV, I doubt it can be measured without satellites. It is a touchy wavelength bracket. So I am guessing, are your numbers are from a proxy? Geoff.
Geoff, see the note at the end for the data source.
w
Geoff, Al Gore did relate blindness developing in Patagonia as a manifestation of carbon pollution, but the reality is different. Volcano Hudson erupted in 1991 and spread pyroclastic ash all over Patagonia. When I was first there in 1997 we worked one day when the 24 hour average wind speed was over 100 miles per hour. The blowing ash built up over the day and the effects were dramatic, like red eyes and stopped electric watches. Ranchers told us their sheep were having real problems with their eyes due to this blowing ash. It was common to find sheep skeletons huddled together under overhanging banks where they tried to get away from the initial pyroclastic event. Try peeing in a 100 mph wind, if you just turn your back to the wind you will discover the eddy effect. Back to EUV discussion!
Geoff,
There was a time that I was following the so-called “Ozone Hole” issue very closely. I tried very hard to uncover systematic global measurements of ground-level UV measurements. The lack of such data led me to write a computer model to try to predict surface-UV based on published Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer data. Even today, the best that seems to be available is a UV Index on a scale of 0 to about 14, which is a prediction for potential skin effects. As I understand it, one of the problems with measurement is the inability to keep systems well-calibrated because of the effects of UV on the pass-band of the filters.
Solar radiation doesn’t have to make it to the surface of the Earth to have an effect on climate.
All UVC and most UVB is absorbed by oxygen, yet these wavelengths have a profound effect on atmospheric chemistry and hence on Earth’s climatic system. They make and break ozone, for starters. The longer wavelengths which do reach the surface also have an outsized effect on climate.
That UV constitutes on average only some ten percent of TSI at the top of the atmosphere doesn’t mean that its climatic effect is insignificant. Higher-energy radiation has a qualitatively different impact on climatic phenomena, far beyond its quantitative share of TSI. This is true not only of the effect of UVC and UVB in the stratosphere and troposphere, but also of the UVB and UVA which do make it to the surface, since UV penetrates more deeply into water than visible and IR light.
The ozone-effective wavelengths of UV (130 to 240 nm) fluctuate far more than does TSI. The UV average hides huge swings during a solar cycle, and between cycles. Longer wavelength UVB and UVA also vary more than TSI, although less than UVC and higher-energy UVB wavelengths.
John Tillman
Thanks, John. Perhaps in percentage values that’s true … but not in absolute terms.
w.
Willis,
Happy Saturday morning!
The point I was trying to make is that it doesn’t matter that the share of TSI that is ozone-effect is small. As Jim also observes, UVC and UVB are uniquely able to make and break ozone. Thus, the fact that the amount of this ionizing radiation fluctuates widely is the relevant issue, not that it constitutes a tiny fraction of all solar EM flux.
Make that “ozone-effective”. I changed the sentence without correcting all its parts. No excuse given the edit function.
Exactly correct John.
In addition to the large fluctuations of UV/EUV light the climatic impacts of both UV light and EUV light are significant.
UV light impacting overall oceanic sea surface temperatures as is what is happening now , they are trending lower due to very weak UV light while EUV light impacts the atmospheric circulation tending to make it more meridional in nature when EUV light intensities are low.
As is evident the global temperatures are trending down, and once again happening when solar is in the tank, and this is the 1st inning.
Another attempt to try to diminish the role of the solar/climate connection.
And the elephant in the room:
GCRs and Svensmark’s hypothesis!
KAT, how is that “the elephant in the room” when we’ve discussed it here over and over?
If you have evidence (actual observations) that GCRs affect the climate at the surface, now would be the time to break it out.
w.
Elephant in the room
(idiomatic) A problem or difficult issue that is very obvious, but is ignored
Nowhere in the above post are either Galactic Cosmic Rays or Svensmark’s name mentioned. The CLOUD experiment provided scientific support for Svensmark’s hypothesis with regard to the formation of clouds. Clouds affect climate at the surface do they not?
http://ddears.com/2017/07/28/clouds-and-global-warming/
Svensmark and Shaviv’s work is often cited here. Note a video from 03.18 where Svensmark takes on the CLOUD results carefully, reveals CERN modelled aerosol growth, not measured it. ~52 min into
KAT,
in reading through the comments, it is apparent that you (we) need to be specific with respect to what climate you are talking about.
The qualifier “… affects the climate at the surface …” is used to distract, as if there were two distinct separate non-interacting climates.
Above, in response to Jim G, he also wants to make the point that it (ionizing radiation) is to slight to make a difference at the surface.
So apparently, you need to differentiate between atmospheric climate and surface climate … they are two different non-interacting things. To assume otherwise confounds the intent of the subject post. 🙂
DonM
No, it is not “used to distract”. Perhaps you do that kind of thing. I do not. I used the term for a specific reason, a reason which you could have easily found out if you’d had the common decency to ask why I used it before launching into attack mode …
Look, the climate involves everything from the bottom of the ocean to the highest levels of the atmosphere above the level of the Space Station. However, unless changes in the climate system affect us here at the surface, unless they affect our surface rainfall or our surface temperature or some other surface variable, they make no significant contribution to our understanding of the important issue—the climate at the surface.
So if say the temperature at some spot in the thermosphere warms by 10°C, from 636°C to 646°C, and that makes no observable change of any kind in any surface dataset … so what?
Yes, changes in the ionosphere follow the sunspot cycle … but unless those in turn make changes here at the surface, again, so what?
What is of interest is what people keep claiming, which is how and whether solar changes or CO2 changes affect the temperature, or the droughts, or the flooding, or the river volumes, or the lake levels, or something else down at the surface.
Because when people talk about “global warming”, I can assure you that they are very, very, very rarely discussing the temperature of the thermosphere …
Regards, and next time, ask before attacking, OK? …
w.
So I’ll ask. Are you, or are you not, saying that changes at the mid to upper-stratosphere (whether related to UV or GCR) do not (cannot?) translate to measurable or observable changes at the surface…?
You mention the ionosphere (and inclusive thermosphere) … I don’t care.
See reference (by gans krishna) to article (& paper by ) below at 10:00 am.
See http://jultika.oulu.fi/files/nbnfi-fe2018051524133.pdf
See Stephen Wilde
I realize it is an old thread, but I’ll inquire again.
Do you think there is not a significant connection between surface and stratosphere?;
or do you think SUN/GCR changes do not significantly impact stratosphere?;
and why do we want to talk about the thermosphere?
(and I gave you a ‘+’ for not calling my cousins parasites this time)
Sorry, Don, but I gave my answer above and I’m done with you. Here was my answer:
So I truly don’t give a rat’s okole what you think or believe. Next time, perhaps you will not go out of your way to attack the person that you are discussing things with, and if you do so, you may even get to have a discussion with them.
But with me? Sorry, but you’ve burned that bridge … perhaps in the next thread, perhaps not. I’m not enamored of discussing science with people who publicly accuse me of acting with bad intentions and underhanded motives …
w.
PS—You say:
I have no idea who your parasitic or non-parasitic cousins are, or when I might have said something about them. I do know for a fact, however, that you think you are too high and mighty to accede to a simple request to quote whatever you are talking about …
Yep, tell us more about the thermosphere….
All the evidence is there from changes in the global electrical circuit to Forbush events which effect cloud coverage all tied into to changes in galactic cosmic rays.
It is just not the solar magnetic field when it comes to galactic cosmic ray intensities and where they may be concentrated on the earth but also the geo magnetic field strength and configuration.
The bottom line being to get the proper handle on galactic cosmic rays and their impact as it may relate to solar , the geo magnetic field contribution must be taken into account.
This makes the solar /galactic cosmic ray connection much less straight forward, as is the case with all the solar/climate connections. This is why so many can’t get it. They want black and white instant results.
The MHD plasma simulation of the Magnetosphere and Solar wind, looks even more difficult than the atmospheric models. Although maybe not – I’ll bet LLNL could handle it.
Still, has anyone seen such a model for 1 solar cycle. As mentioned above no satellite has lasted 1 full cycle, so it looks like a very difficult test. Add GCR’s into that already active plasma. Self organizing plasma activity is likely flattened out by the MHD theory.
Willis has outdone Warhol as a climate bore– sitting down to watch the Empire State building for 24 straight hours pales in comparison to sharing even the briefest of prayer breakfasts with the Solomon Islands answer to Willie Soon.
That didn’t sound bitter and twisted at all, did it?
I didn’t know Andy Warhol ever talked about climate though, that would be interesting as he was actually a very clever man, contrary to the dismissive attitude some people have to his art.
Perfectly balanced – chip on each shoulder
IIRC, Warhol’s definition of a “supermodel” was one whom you could take to a party and she wouldn’t steal the silverware.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veruschka_von_Lehndorff
I believe that Mr. Warhol held this conversation over a cup of tea and soup.
Tomato of course.
Oh my! Bilge, your information-free comment is a ‘tell’. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if guys like Willis would just go away and let your elitist marxbrothers тотаliтагуаиs just get on with their nice plans for us.
“From peak to trough over the sunspot cycle, the top-of-atmosphere total solar irradiance varies by about 1.2 watts per square metre (W/m2) … which, when averaged over the entire surface of the earth gives a change of about 0.28 W/m2. This is less than a tenth of one percent variation in total incoming energy.”
…but that’s obscuring the story…
If you discount the amount of TSI variation that much, you also have to discount the same percentage of global atmospheric effects from AGW, too, since the falloff in solar energy reaching the ground is affected in exactly the same way.
That one-tenth of one percent of variance (not what reaches the ground) is interesting, when you note that Earth’s average temperature is about 290 Kelvin. It’s about 0.29K (the same in degrees C, of course). Account for that, and a lot of the “0.8 C observed global warming” goes away.
Chad,
Also, small changes in TSI over the decades adds up. Heat is stored in the oceans and moved around by them. During long solar minima, such as the Maunder, oceans naturally cool off. During long intervals of higher activity, such as in the 20th century, Earth’s waters warm up.
More active solar cycles also affect other climatic phenomena.
Willis said
“Now, downwelling radiation at the surface of the earth averages about 500 W/m2 on a 24/7 average basis.
Thanks to you Willis I no longer believe in the IR magnetic gradient theory as it applies to radiation transfer between 2 bodies. My mistake was in believing Dr Charles Anderson at face value. I am beginning to think he even made that theory up.
However your quote is based on accepting the word of NASA who also makes things up. One cannot have an internal system (which is basically at equilibrium or is oscillating around an equilibrium ) which has an average flow greater than the original flow (even if diurnal ) that supplied the system in the 1st place. It is a mathematics flow problem with a 1st law as stated above. Another problem with the back radiation is that NASA measures it with pyrgeometers which default to emissivity of 1. The earth atmosphere is definitely not a black body. A 3rd problem is that NASA doesnt even show upward radiation for the rest of the emission of back radiation . If there is DWIR there has to be an upward flow to equal it because the photons are directed isotropically (all directions).
“Ah, you don’t understand”, folks inform me, “Yes, TSI only changes by a tenth of a percent over a solar cycle. But extreme ultraviolet (EUV) varies as a percentage much, much more than that!”
Willis mate, I may be senile and out of touch but this is a straw man I have never heard anyone voice.
You do well at knocking it down, but who, pray, is setting it up?
It comes up here every time the topic of solar influence comes up, I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve corrected posts on the subject. Recently in a post by Andy May he made the following comment:
“in particular there is considerable circumstantial evidence that variations in the solar magnetic field and variations in high frequency radiation, such as UV and EUV, play a role in climate and are only loosely related to variations in TSI”
Ah. Ok.
I notice for some reason you have been downvoted..
Well thanks for the info anyway.
hmm but what else gets in when the mag shield is weaker as is stated to be the current state?
spaceweather is saying quite a bit more then “normal/usual” radiation incoming though mainly at 10k ft n up
would have some effect?
Mh, that’s a very short article. No solar researcher will refer to extreme ultraviolet radiation alone when changing ultraviolet radiation. Total ultraviolet radiation (which Willis largely omits) will decrease by 7 percent at a (supposed) Maunder minimum, which may be within the whole TSI a tiny fraction. But, however, ultraviolet radiation is not only relevant to the thermozone. For example, ultraviolet radiation penetrates far deeper into water than the TSI radiation as a whole, so there is not only an effect on the stratosphere i.e thermozone (which Willis only uses, in realities there is a lot more), but there are also effects directly on the surface of the earth. I am not a solar scientist, but with the knowledge that I have so far learned about such studies, this article comes to me as a typical Willis (anti-solar in terms of climate effects).
Hans-Georg,
This is the key point, ocean warming or cooling is disproportionately affected by UV. UV can penetrate 1,000 meters into the ocean, IR and red are absorbed.
Another point, whatever is causing the 0.9 degrees of warming over the last 120 years is an extremely small effect, integrated over that time. One solar cycle, which is all the consistent data we have, is not long enough to give us a hint of longer term changes in the Sun. No solar satellite has lasted more than one cycle. So we are looking for a very small long-term change in the Sun, that integrates and we don’t have accurate long-term data. Too early to rule out the Sun as a cause of warming.
Exactly Andy, and we are seeing it happen yet again. Look at he overall oceanic sea surface temperatures down almost .2c in the last year.
Too early to rule out the Sun as a cause of warming.
By the same token it is too early to rule in the Sun.
Leif, true enough. The proper answer is we don’t know. The necessary change is so small and over such a long time, we may not know in our lifetimes.
Then we should not pretend that we know…
I apologize, but I must disagree sir.
We posit theories based on what we think we know. As we should.
However, these theories, with associated cgi models that would make George Lucas proud are based on hundreds of variables that we are unsure of the magnitude, and in some cases, may actually be wrong in regards to the sign.
The problem here is that these theories are demanding the expenditure of 100’s of billions to trillions of dollars on a problem that may very well be out of our control.
Instead, we should be examining the cost-benefit analysis based on the world’s problems.
e.g. with $1 billion (US) and a course of treatment cost of $2.50 for malaria, you could treat 400million people. If you ask me, that would have a far greater impact on the human condition than 300-400 2MW wind turbines.
If Feynman could wiggle an elephant’s trunk with 5 variables, CMIP-5 should be able to put a Conga line of elephants on Pluto.
but I must disagree sir
What exactly do you disagree with?
Well, going back over your first statement, “too early to rule the sun in” several times, I may not be entirely sure that I understood what you meant.
I believe that by your statements (past and present) that the sun has been or could be ruled out as a culprit behind present warming/climate change.
By saying that it is too soon to rule it in to me implies that we have the necessary and sufficient knowledge to make the claim that CO2 is the driver behind warming/climate change.
Jim,
IMO all objective evidence from reality shows that we can rule out CO2 as the control knob on climate.
There is ample evidence for ruling solar variations in as at least a control knob, if not the control knob. As modulated by orbital and rotational mechanics (Milankovitch cycles), oceanic circulation and longer term factors such as plate tectonics, internal Earth heat loss and solar evolution.
Solar variation does not explain this: http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/uah6/plot/uah6/trend
..
Nor does solar variation explain this: http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/gistemp/plot/gistemp/trend
The orbital variations are not solar variations and work on timescales too long to be of interest or consequences for the current debate.
You are jumping to an unwarranted conclusion.
What I say is that we don’t have enough evidence that the Sun is the major driver. That alone does not imply what you surmise. There could be other reasons, e.g. ocean currents, or just random fluctuations of a complex, non-linear system. Climate change may have many causes all working at the same time.
There is always the possibility that the recent rise in atmospheric green house gasses has led to the recent warming .
The problem I see is that assuming there is a “control knob” is incorrect. There are multiple control knobs that have bizarre interactions between each other that we as yet don’t understand.
DD,
Yet “consensus” paper after paper insists upon the CO2 “control knob”. Indeed, the whole CACA scam requires this antiphysical fantasy to sustain its scare tactics.
Your strawman holds no water. Why don’t you explain what is “antiphysical” Can’t wait for you to see how you upend physics.
DD,
Need you ask? Wouldn’t want to keep you waiting.
Actual physical observations of the real climate system, rather than GIGO computer games, show that at most ECS lies in the range 1.0 to 1.5 degrees C per doubling of CO2.
The lab value, without feedbacks in the complex climate system in 1.1 to 1.2 degrees C. But under certain circumstances, such as the hot, moist tropics, the feedback is net negative. On a global basis, the best observations show a range of 1.0 to 1.5 degrees C.
That’s what’s physical. IPCC’s 1.5 to 4.5 degrees C is pure fantasy, except at its lower range, where it’s merely fictional.
You did not tell me what is “antiphysical”
ECS is not “observable” because the climate is not in EQUILIBRIUM (the E in ECS)
…
ECS is inferred, didn’t you know that?
DD,
Yes, I did.
We know that ECS can’t be in the range of IPCC GIGO derivations, except possibly at its lowest possible extent, because “equilibrium” is itself unphysical.
It’s just another weasel word for squirming away from physical reality.
Tell me when in your opinion the Modern Warming Period will be in equilibrium, and when the LIA was in equilibrium. Thanks!
No, its’ not inferred. It’s assumed at some future date, always conveniently after Michael Mann will be retired or dead.
Thank you Tilman, you’ve shown you don’t know what ECS really is.
..
Still waiting on your explanation of “antiphysical.”
DD,
I know what the GIGO charlatans of IPCC claim it to be.
That alone shows it has no physical reality.
LOL @ Tillman, an “inferred” value of something that will happen sometime in the future is anti-physical.
…
You’d be good as a stand up comic
DD,
And yet, that is precisely what the comics at IPCC do.
For them, ECS is whatever they want it to be and mean, so far in the future is it.
Why is this hard for you to grok?
Please state what you imagine ECS to have been in AD 1850. How about during the Cretaceous Period? Have I lost you entirely?
I’m laughing at what you posted: “Actual physical observations of the real climate system, rather than GIGO computer games, show that at most ECS lies in the range 1.0 to 1.5 degrees C per doubling of CO2”
…
No such “observations” exist.
DD.
Just because you somehow have missed these observations, apparently because you haven’t wanted to look at them, doesn’t mean that they don’t exist.
Were you to read posts on this blog, rather than just spew CACA cant, you’d know of numerous recent papers finding ECS well below 1.5 degrees C, even assuming the physical reality of the construct “equilibrium climate sensitivity”.
You can find papers that show ECS > 3.2 degrees C.
…
How do you know which “papers” are correct and which ones are not?. Obviously if your source of information is this blog, your data source is somewhat limited and biased.
DD,
I don’t get my scientific papers from this blog.
There are no credible papers showing ECS higher than 2.0 degrees C per doubling.
Those supporting the “canonical” 3.0 or higher are packs of lies.
CACA spewers claim one degree C warming since AD 1850, which is a lie. But for the sake of argument, accept that totally bogus mendacity.
Now consider that the effect is logarithmic. That means that most of the warming should already have occurred from 280 ppm in AD 1850 to 410 ppm in 2018. If this increase has produced a degree of warming, and it’s all due to humans, which of course it isn’t, then that means that ECS must be less than two degrees C per doubling.
QED.
LOL… “credible”
..
Your opinion is noted.
DD,
Not an opinion. A conclusion based upon the abject pathetic special pleading of any paper finding an ECS greater than 2.0.
I’ve already referenced actual physical reality since AD 1850 to show this to be the case. But CACA acolyties aren’t interested in reality.
Case in point, if the rise in CO2 has caused modern warming, we’ve already passed 1.0 degrees C in warming in going from 280 ppm to 410 ppm with 150 ppm yet to go to double CO2 from pre-industrial times. (not counting thermal inertia lag)
DD,
Your baseless conjecture is easily shown false.
From the 1940s until 1977, Earth cooled dramatically, despite steadily rising CO2. Then the PDO flipped and the planet warmed slightly for about 20 years, until the super El Nino of 1998. After that, at best we enjoyed flat global temperatures for about another 20 years, again despite even more rapidly increasing CO2, until the super El Nino of 2016. Since then, in spite of even more rapidly increasing CO2, Earth has cooled rapidly.
Hence, the 1988 hypothesis of CACA was born falsified.
The original proponents of AGW considered it beneficial. To the extent that it exists, Arrhenius and Callendar were right.
There is no such thing as a “hypothesis of CACA”
DD,
Of course there is. It’s the whole enchilada of the “climate change” scam.
Climate is scarcely affected by anthropogenic activity, except on a regional basis. So far, man-made increases in vital plant food in the air have been beneficial, not catastrophic.
Hence alarmism is not only unwarranted but clearly against all reality.
Post a link to a scientific paper with “catastrophic” in it’s hypothesis
DD,
If man-made CO2 isn’t dangerous, a threat, disastrous or catastrophic, then what is the problem?
We know that so far more plant food in the air has been highly beneficial.
How can you possibly imagine that The Team hasn’t tried to sell man-made CO2 as a dangerous threat, the gravest which mankind now faces, or has ever faced? Have you been packed in cotton since 1988?
Hansen says that we’re “on the Venus Express” to boiling oceans. That’s a whole book, not just a paper. Here’s his short version of “boiling seas”:
Climate Threat to the Planet The Venus Syndrome
http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/2008/AGUBjerknes20081217.pdf
“The Venus syndrome is the greatest threat to the planet, to humanity’s continued existence.” That doesn’t sound “catastrophic” to you?
But I’m sure you’ve been shown numerous papers predicting catastrophic effects in the past, but keep, out of paid trolling, asking for the same papers over and over again.
It’s quite simple, we DO NOT KNOW what is going to happen. It could be mild, it could be bad, or it could wipe out humans. Nobody knows.
We do know it is warming things up.
So what do you tell the investors that want to build in Miami? Do you say, “don’t worry about seal level rise?” Do you tell them “build on the highest ground you can find?” Or do you tell them don’t build in Miami? (basements flooding with salt water are problematic)
That would be Miami Beach? I politely refrained from correcting friends about that situation at dinner last night, but let’s review:
1. Flooding areas are built on former mangrove swamps which are subsiding. Over 80 years, this means older homes have subsided 16-24 cm. See http://www.ces.fau.edu/arctic-florida/pdfs/fiaschi-wdowinski.pdf
2. Increased impervious area (i.e. buildings and roads) with nowhere to drain the water effectively (since this is all low-lying land) means that when land area can no longer function to absorb tidal surges and storm events, that water doesn’t just magically evaporate. This is basic civil engineering!
One should say that the problem of Miami Beach flooding is primarily a problem of increased impervious area in low-lying coastal land with a high water table. Relative sea level trend of Miami Beach– which includes subsidence of about 2-3mm/year according to Fiashi and Wdowinski– is 2.39mm/year, which in light of the subsidence component is extremely hard to pin on “rising sea levels,” except in the minds of those who specialize in misappropriating causes in order to “prove” their theory. Any minor actual sea level rise is exacerbated and magnified by the unfortunate civil engineering conditions, which are the true and primary cause of the flooding.
Don132
“From the 1940s until 1977, Earth cooled dramatically”
.
Nope
.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/gistemp/from:1945/to:1977/plot/gistemp/from:1945/to:1977/trend
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/gistemp/from:1944/to:1977/plot/gistemp/from:1944/to:1977/trend
Of course we all know why your cut-off date was 1977,
.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/gistemp/from:1944/to:1978/plot/gistemp/from:1944/to:1978/trend
My “cutoff” date was for no other reason than that the PDO so dramatically flipped that year, as I well remember.
That was the one year in my whole life in which we came close to having a wheat crop failure. There was practically no snow in the Wallowa Mountains, yet it was bitterly cold.
Why do you suppose I mention the well know year of PDO flip?
Plainly, you know nothing and wrongly assume much.
So, you’re admitting to cherry picking.
.
Thank you
DD,
Are you so naive actually to believe that GISS’ cooked to crisp books reflect reality?
Look at NOAA’s own temperature reconstruction from 1977. Since then, the dramatic cooling of the ’40s to ’70s has of course been “adjusted” out of existence by criminal CACA conspirators.
You might be too young to recall the concern over a returning ice age in the 1970s, after three decades of cold, colder and coldest climate.
Thus, CACA was born falsified.
Got proof? Waving your hands doesn’t count for much.
” the concern over a returning ice age in the 1970s” Wasn’t any scientific evidence to back it up.
..
I’m impressed at all the “myths” you believe in: https://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/2008BAMS2370.1
Not only do alarmists misappropriate causes to “prove” their theory, but they also rewrite history! https://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2013/05/21/the-1970s-ice-age-scare/
Wait a minute– fears of impending cold while CO2 levels were rising? Oceans must have eaten an awful lot of warmth in those years.
Don132
There is no doubt that it led to some warming. The question is How Much?
No it is not true we know the sun influences the climate and many papers support this and it is happening right now again. it is not just the sun it is
also the geo magnetic field.
What we do not know is what are the thresholds necessary (in regards to magnitude degree of change/duration)e to create a more dramatic change in the climate as opposed to minor ones. That is the million dollar question
Leif, Who is pretending? Why would you write that? Presumably you are referring to the IPCC who claim to “know” the Sun has been invariant for the past 67 years. In my last post on the subject I wrote the following:
Source ( https://andymaypetrophysicist.com/2018/05/03/climate-change-due-to-solar-variability-or-greenhouse-gases-part-b/ )
And, of course, the satellite measurements are far too inaccurate and short to make any difference.
who is pretending
Most people on this blog, e.g. Salvatore:
No it is not true we know the sun influences the climate and many papers support this and it is happening right now again.
and Javier, and …
I am not referring to IPCC, but to me. The sun has been invariant [except for cyclic sunspot related variations] for at least 300 and perhaps 400 years, that is: there has been no long term trend [up or down] over that time interval.
A very bold assertion, given the poor quality of our solar and climate proxies. Who knows, maybe we will live long enough to find out if you are right. Personally, I don’t want to pretend I know …
Our solar data [not proxies] are actually pretty good and consistent among themselves. The climate ones not so much.
The solar data have been consolidated and cross-checked.
A good source is: http://www.leif.org/research/EUV-F107-and-TSI-CDR-HAO.pdf
Leif, thanks for a most fascinating resource. Always so much more to learn.
w.
Leif,
In the calculations above I should have corrected for energy reflected, which is about 30%. That reduces the starting point to about 240 W/m2. 2.3/240=1%. Thus, over 120 years, 0.008%/year. The best data is from 1996 to 2016, this is a change of 0.2%, we would never see it.
Andy
Leif,
Your underlying assumption that all proxies have a horizontal floor that represents a constant low level of solar activity in recent centuries is questionable. And as your powerpoint shows it is still up for debate. Correlation is not causation.
Besides, we do not know how your solar proxies relate to solar output precisely enough to detect a change that could affect climate. The Sun puts out ~1361 W/m2, measured at 1AU, corrected to an average at TOA we divide by 4, and get ~340 W/m2. The total change in forcing required to cause the warming we have seen recently, according to the IPCC (AR5 WG1, page 696-698), is about 2.3 W/m2 or 0.7%. If the Sun were to supply all of that forcing, but as a steady change over 120 years, the change each year would be 0.019 W/m2/per year or 0.006%/year.
In short, your proxies are nowhere near accurate enough over the short time periods we are discussing. We need exceedingly accurate measurements to detect the solar changes that could account for our observed climate changes.
Thanks for the ppt, but it isn’t enough. I agree there is no support (at least not yet) for a “variable TSI background.” But, the data provides no way to see one with the precision we need to see. Thus, we cannot conclude the Sun is constant. If it varied enough to matter to our climate, we still wouldn’t see it with the data we have.
Your underlying assumption that all proxies have a horizontal floor that represents a constant low level of solar activity in recent centuries is questionable
Not an assumption, but an observation. Already Loomis knew that in the 1870s.
If it varied enough to matter to our climate, we still wouldn’t see it with the data we have.
The inferred solar magnetic field [both in interplanetary space and on the surface – given by EUV] are well-observed. TSI depends directly on that field. Our proxies show very clearly the solar cycle variation of TSI [0.1%] which is much less than your 0.7%, so that change would be observable.
Because dS/S = 4 dT/T, a 1 degree change in temperature (dT= 1) would require a change of 20 W/m2 of TST (S) which is 3000 times greater than the precision of TSI or 40 times greater than the accuracy with which we measure TSI., thus easily measured.
Another way of putting it: the 0.1% change of TSI over the solar cycle which is easily measured corresponds to a dT of 0.07 degrees.
I don’t understand the 20 W/m2. But, the other number I get. I computed 0.009%/year for an average solar cycle of eleven years, although twice that number (0.018%/year) might be better since that covers just the increase to the middle of the cycle, say 6 years. The forcing required for a 1 degree change in global temperature, according to AR5, is 2.3 W/m2. 102 W/m2 is reflected. 1361/4=340.25. 1370/4=342.5. It would seem the total solar output change, over 120 years (or longer) would be ~9.0W/m2, right? This is 0.075 W/m2/year. One solar cycle is about ~1.3 W/m2 total or 0.22 W/m2/year using a 6 year half cycle to divide with (I’m eyeballing the ACRIM composite, perhaps 2 W/m2 peak to trough is better, not sure). I need to check on the computed accuracy of the TSI measurements. Especially considering that no satellite has operated for longer than a cycle and a half. Anyway, it is still possible a long term change (120 years) is lost in the noise and the data massaging.
I don’t understand the 20 W/m2
This is very simple and not controversial:
The relation between radiation S and temperature T is dS/S = 4 dT/T because of the Stefan-Boltzmann law. The dS means the change of S and dT is the change of T.
This means that dS=4 S dT/T. With S = 1361 W/m2, T = 288 K, and dT = 1 K, we get dS = 19 W/m2. Note that things like albedo and emissivity [black or grey body] and greenhouse gas effects cancel out in the relative variability dX/X by using the actual observed mean temperature T = 288 K.
Looking at solar cycles: an average cycle varies from 0 to 10 Groups [yearly average] and TSI varies 1.5 W/m2, so 1 group means 0.15 W/m2. Since we have determined the Group Number for every year since 1610, we have a corresponding TSI value for every year, unless you postulate that the Sun behaved differently in the past from now. In science we usually go with ‘the smallest miracle’ principle. To claim that the Sun has changed in such a fundamental way just when we are looking at it would be a greater miracle than believing that it did not, and thus that we have a well-determined series for TSI into the past.
Since we actually measure TSI [and not the forcing], I use TSI. This removes a lot of useless whining about forcing etc.
If we use your value of 0.075 W/m2/year, then over the 40 years of observed TSI, we should have seen a change of 40*0.075 = 3 W/m2, which is 6 times larger that the accuracy claimed for SORCE 0.5 W/m2, and is not observed . So your calculation does not hold water.
OK, thanks Leif. A lot to look over and think about. Whether the Sun needs to vary 9 W/m2 or 20 W/m2 over 120 years, is probably not a big deal in this context. I’ve not seen the dS/S calculation before, but I’ll work on it. As for the 40-year record, I’m still troubled by the composites of the data. Although I agree the accuracy of SORCE should be about 0.5 W/m2 in the beginning of the record, it changes over the life of the instrument, increasing at the end. Presumably the other satellites are worse in this regard, so long-term trends are problematic. How much is assumption and how much of the long-term trend is in the data? What is the real long-term trend error. I’ll look into it.
One way of looking at it is to note that ALL of our other solar proxies agree on their long-term variation [at least back to the 1880s] and with the TSI composite based on the magnetic field. The result is that they all agree that we now have the same situation as we had at the beginning of the 20th century. Thus TSI back then was not markedly different from now while it should have been 8 W/m2 lower with your adopted 0.075 W/m2/yr change.
Ok, worth checking out. 9 is a lot, so you might be right.
“By the same token it is too early to rule in the Sun.”
By the same token it is too early to rule in anything.
No, we can, for example rule in that the Earth is round and revolves around the Sun.
Leif,
Or to be more technically accurate, the barycenter of the lumpy, ovoid spheroid Earth and its moon orbit the shifting barycenter of the solar system, which happens usually to lie within the Sun, but not at its center.
That is, ignoring galactic effects, as the solar system orbits the barycenter of the Milky Way.
I mention this quibble because I’ve noticed that gravity “denying” “electric universe” whacko birds sadly frequent this esteemed blog.
But at least they are less numerous than the creationist whacko birds which have regrettably garnered such negative PR for this otherwise excellent site, which has attracted such luminaries as yourself.
No, the Earth orbits the center of the Sun. We know this because very accurate measurements of TSI shows that TSI depends on the inverse square of the distance between the Earth and the center of the Sun.
Some musings about this:
http://www.leif.org/research/TSI-SORCE%20Friday%20Effect.pdf
The distance between to Earth and the center of the Sun is 215 solar radii. If that distance would be only 214 solar radii [e.g. to the ‘barycenter’] TSI would be 1% larger and that is not observed
Leif, correct me if I am wrong, but doesn’t the Earth orbit the Sun in an ellipse, with the center of the sun being one of the foci, and the difference between perihelion (147 Mkm) and aphelion (152 Mkm) being about 5 million km?
[?? .mod]
mod…….learn about orbital mechanics please, and don’t put question marks up that show you don’t know about reality
You are correct. We see that as a 7% variation of TSI.
Thank you Leif
Start here “mod” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth%27s_orbit
Note the table of “orbital characteristics” with aphelion, perihelion, semi major axis, and eccentricity.
Leif,
The barycenter is constantly changing, so within the limits of measurement, how can one conclude one way or the other?
Simply on physical grounds, IMO, the correct answer is that it’s the barycenter, which moves, but is usually so close to the center of mass of the sun as to make no discernible difference.
The measurements are precise enough that one can conclude which way it is. At times the barycenter is even outside the Sun. The distance between the barycenter and the Earth would then be smaller than between the center of the Sun and TSI would be different enough that we could easily measure it. No such discrepancy is found.
Leif,
You are oh so right! In part.
The solar system of course has a barycenter. Based upon locations of the planets, the barycenter of the solar system can be below the surface of the sun or more than twice the sun’s diameter outside of the its surface.
Thus we have the two-body problem, which in the case of the Earth-Moon system is at least three bodies.
But if you’re convinced that the Earth-Moon system, despite its own constantly changing barycenter, always orbits the center of mass of the Sun, with only its orbital eccentricity affected by Jupiter and the rest of the mass of the solar system, then who am I to question your authority in celestial mechanics?
My take, however, remains that, disregarding the effects of Jupiter and other mass in the solar system, the Earth-Moon system in isolation orbits the barycenter of the Sun-(Earth-Moon) system, which is so close to the center of mass of the Sun as to make no difference.
At least, it seems to me that that is the correct solution in both the Newtonian and relativistic models. Please correct if wrong.
You don’t need to believe my authority on anything. We have precise measurements of TSI. TSI varies with the inverse square of the distance to the Sun so we actually measure that distance and we find that it is precisely the distance to the center of the Sun at all times [with a very small modulation due to the Moon] and not to the barycenter.
You can make a thought experiment: image a double star with two stars of equal mass in orbits with eccentricity zero. Their barycenter is precisely halfway between the two stars. The intensity of the light that each star shines on the other depends on the [constant] distance between the two stars and not on the distance from the invisible barycenter.
The same way, TSI from the Sun depends on the distance to the center of the Sun, and not to the invisible barycenter.
Lief,
I’m talking gravity, not TSI.
Now, I grant you that gravity and EM radiation both travel at the speed of light, hence are subject to the inverse square law.
But solar radiation doesn’t emanate from the gravitational center of the Sun, at least not immediately.
And we also know that gravity affects EM radiation.
The differences are likely to be too small to measure, but light and gravity relative to Earth and Sun aren’t identical.
TSI and gravity depends on distance exactly the same way [except from very tiny relativistic effects that we actually correct for.]. And the issue at hand is the Sun’s influence on climate, so TSI is the quantity to measure. And the radiation we measure varies as the distance from the center of the Sun. This is not controversial. LASP uses that distance to refer TSI to a distance of 1 AU in order to eliminate the effect of the orbit.
Leif,
TSI is not the only solar parameter relevant to terrestrial climate.
As repeatedly pointed out here, the ozone-effective UV component has its own effect on climate. UV in general fluctuates more widely than TSI, and also differentially affects such climatic phenomena as ocean water penetration, a separate issue from its effect on O2 in the atmosphere.
Then there are the knock-on effects of ozone on the atmosphere, to include air pressure, hence wind and circulation, and precipitation.
That UV is a small share of TSI scarcely matters, given its qualitative differences with visible and IR radiation.
UV varies in synchronism with the sunspot number, but no sunspot cycle effect on climate above the noise has been firmly established, so no effect of UV is evident. Observations trump wishful thinking.
Leif,
No wishful thinking. Simply observations.
Longer cycles of solar cycles correlate with the Modern Warming Period, just as lower cycles of cycles correlated with the Maunder and Dalton Minima.
IMO the evidence is overwhelming and incontrovertible that multidecadal to centennial scale solar variation satisfactorily explains observations of climatic fluctuation, with oceanic lags and events such as volcanic eruptions thrown in.
Perhaps Andy’s admission that “The proper answer is we don’t know. The necessary change is so small and over such a long time, we may not know in our lifetimes.” would be helpful to you.
It is also an observational fact that climate and solar activity have been going in opposite direction the last ~40 years, which is less than ‘satisfactorily’. Now, throw in enough of various other aspects [lags, volcanoes, fluctuations, etc] and you can ‘explain’ anything.
on a ‘centennial scale’ the sun has not varied at least the last 300 years.
Leif,
I beg to differ. Please compare average strength of solar cycles in the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries.
It is precisely by doing that that you see that there is no significant difference. E.g. http://www.leif.org/research/Revisiting-the-Sunspot-Number-LWS.pdf
“UV can penetrate 1,000 meters into the ocean” Do you have a citation for that? Everything I’ve read indicates that UV penetrates water poorly, and salt water even less. At 1000 meters, there’s hardly any light, and what light there is is mostly blue.
Mcswell,
You’re right about blue.
Of course UV penetration depends upon the water, whether fresh, salt or dirty, lake, coastal or deep ocean. Here’s the curve for pure water:
http://www.flyonahook.me.uk/images/spectrum.jpg
Naturally, the highest energy UV doesn’t make it to the surface.
It shows UV down to 200 meters, not 1000, but maybe it’s wrong. In some environments, UV only reaches 50 meters (or less), shallower than some colors of visible light.
http://media.midcurrent.com.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/depth_distance_640.jpg
John, your graph is highly idealized and very approximate. The 350-450 nm wavelengths go much deeper than 200 meters. This is why fish eyes see down to 350 (or lower) nm.
Andy,
The first one isn’t idealized. But it’s for pure water, not seawater. It shows a penetration peak right at the UV/visible boundary.
The second, colored graph shows 600+ feet for UV, without segregating out the relic UVB from near-visible UVA.
Fish which can see in UV vary in this trait. Some use it only in shallow water, rather than oceanic depths.
Molecular analysis of the evolutionary significance of ultraviolet vision in vertebrates
http://www.pnas.org/content/100/14/8308.full
“It should also be noted that many fish have UV vision, but this does not necessarily mean that they use UV vision their entire lives. On the contrary, UV vision in many of them may decline during development. For example, young brown trout (Salmo trutta) has UV vision, but the adults do not use it (37). This change in gene expression is closely related to the change in their habitats: young fish live in shallow water and feed on plankton, where UV light is essential, whereas adults live in deeper water and do not receive much UV light.”
The footnote is to this 1987 reference:
Ultraviolet receptors, tetrachromatic colour vision and retinal mosaics in the brown trout (Salmo trutta): Age-dependent
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0042698987901246
The functionality of UV receptor genes in some sea creatures which spend all or part of their time at depth, such as coelacanth and dolphin, has been lost. With genes, it’s use it or lose it.
Snailfish species found at over 8000 meters in the Marianas Trench has eyes.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2880612/World-s-deepest-fish-Ghostly-snailfish-27-000ft-deep-bottom-Pacific-s-Mariana-Trench.html
Its larvae might however spend time in shallower water, around 1000 meters deep.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudoliparis_swirei
It could be the top predator in its environment, so if there be any UV, visible or IR light around, from whatever source, vision would be a big plus.
Dunno if its eyes work in the adult. Others of its fellow Trench dwellers are blind, like the mucous-filled cusk eel Aphyonus gelatinosus.
mcswell, you sort of answered your own question, the oceans are blue and bluer with depth. The near-UV penetrates very deep as it is next to blue in the spectrum. The shorter the wavelength, the more it is attenuated. Most UVB is gone in the upper 5 meters or so, but the longer UVA wavelengths can penetrate very deep.
mcswell, here is a link. UV starts at around 400 nm.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/10/28/solar-spectral-irradiance-uv-and-declining-solar-activity/
The graph shows a penetration of 10,000 meters at 400 nm wavelength for a normal ocean. The graph was made by Dr. Jan Zeman.
Andy, you said
“This is the key point, ocean warming or cooling is disproportionately affected by UV. UV can penetrate 1,000 meters into the ocean”
with no links or substantiation. And when you eventually produce one, it says that while 50% of 400 nm light (edge of visible/UV) penetrates to 10 m, only 0.1% penetrates to 100 m. That is less than for visible blue, and diminishes at shorter wavelengths.
Sorry Nick I cannot find the info you give in the reference. I only find the graph that says 10,000 meters. You will have to be more specific. That said, different sources give different depths, but near UV penetrates very deep in the right conditions, that is the main point.
Andy,
Here is the graph from this WUWT post that you linked to as support. I have added green lines at 10 m penetration ( he uses comma for decimal pt) and 400 nm. The depth is logarithmic downward on the y-axis. The top red curve is 50% penetration, the bottom blue curve is 0.1% (or as they say, 99.9% attenuation). The bottom shows maximum penetration of about 400 m (not km) in the visible (about 470 nm). Any % level of penetration reaches its maximum in the visible range, showing less penetration at 400 nm, and diminishing rapidly with shorter wavelength.
Sorry, Andy, but I’m not believing that 50% of the UV penetrates twelve kilometres in the ocean. That doesn’t pass the laugh test, it made my bad number detector go crazy. Upon some research I find the following:
That shows a maximum penetration of around a hundred metres, not 12,000 metres as you claim.
w.
We also have Fleischmann from 1989.
I suppose it’s possible that the occasional single photon of UV makes it to the bottom of the deepest ocean trench but that’s not the usual definition of penetration. 🙂
Bob,
That’s one of the studies upon which UV penetration in shallow coastal water is based. Testing stopped at 25 m. depth in water different in composition from deep, open seawater.
You’re right that such tests rely on many more than a single, highly elusive photon. Exposure of film for varying lengths of time at different depths obviously have to register a lot of photons.
Willis, I will let you and Dr. Zeman debate the actual depth of penetration and by all means include Smyth. I’ve seen a number of “maximum” depths in articles. However, the key point is the deepest penetration is in the near UV or between there and blue. In your quote, the author admits using an empirical look up table. I wouldn’t take his depth estimate very seriously. Blue light is detected at 1,000 meters in real life in many areas.
From the National Ocean service: “Sunlight entering the water may travel about 1,000 meters (3,280 feet) into the ocean under the right conditions, but there is rarely any significant light beyond 200 meters (656 feet).” Between 200 m and 1,000 m is called the “twilight zone.” This is a zone with light, but not enough for photosynthesis.
https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/light_travel.html
” I will let you and Dr. Zeman debate the actual depth of penetration”
No, you have just mis-read Dr Z’s plot (shown above).
” However, the key point is the deepest penetration is in the near UV or between there and blue. “
No, Dr Z’s plot shows the deepest is at about 470 nm, in the visible (blue).
Nick, “Maximum” penetration of light estimates are all over the place in the literature. Sorry I misread the graph, I always forget it is common practice in many countries to use commas as decimal points. To make matters worse, he grouped his zeros in threes! It’s a tipoff when the zeros are not in threes, otherwise I assume it is a comma, not a decimal point. Anyway, light has been detected at 1,000 meters by NOAA.
Willis,
This might be a first for you, relying on atmospheric models rather than real data, ie observations of nature.
Also, I’m surprised that a Californian would use British English spelling.
Andy,
Can you provide me with a reference for the absorption of UV in water. I’m fairly certain that clouds are effective at absorbing UV, and I thought that the explanation for why beached whales and dolphins get sunburned, but not while swimming near the surface, was because water was a strong absorber of UV.
From the National Ocean service: “Sunlight entering the water may travel about 1,000 meters (3,280 feet) into the ocean under the right conditions, but there is rarely any significant light beyond 200 meters (656 feet).” Between 200 m and 1,000 m is called the “twilight zone.” This is a zone with light, but not enough for photosynthesis.
https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/light_travel.html
Clyde, Wrong UV. The sunburn rays are UVB, we are discussing the near UV or UVA. UV has a very large range (10 nm to 400 nm). The shorter wavelengths don’t penetrate very far, the longer ones do.
Andy,
It appears that UV is absorbed about as well as red and IR:
Clyde, Not 300-400 nm.
I’m a semiconductor guy, and we use EUV (14nm wavelength) as the light source in the most advanced processes. But it has to be in a machine in an almost total vacuum, with reflective optics, since everything absorbs EUV. So does EUV even get close enough to the surface to be relevant?
Paul,
I believe that ultrapure H2 does not absorb EUV wavelengths. You are correct that the laser/Pb droplet plasma section of the current EUVL tools operates in a high vacuum, however the light path is purged with H2.
I agree with you that EUV wavelengths should be absorbed by atmospheric gases and will not penetrate very far into our atmosphere.
Solar EUV is absorbed in the atmosphere above 80km.
“The thermosphere of the earth, 80 to 600 km in altitude, is heated predominantly by solar EUV radiation. The EUV photons also ionize the atmosphere creating electrons, which form the ionosphere. Solar EUV irradiance varies by as much as an order of magnitude on time scales of minutes to hours (solar flares), days to months (solar rotation), and years to decades (solar cycle). The highly varying EUV radiation causes the thermosphere and ionosphere to vary over similar magnitudes and time scales.”
How does the emission spectra change during the cycle? Do the emissions at some wavelengths actually increase from peak to trough? I am wondering about the accumulative changes due to proportional changes of all the different components of the emission spectra.
Willis, ask a ham radio operator if there is only a few percentage change in radio propagation due to changes in the atmosphere due to solar cycles.
The differences are enormous which is due to changes in the ionization of the upper atmosphere.
If you believe that climate is only driven by watts per meter squared then this will not seem important.
I expect that as we come to understand clouds we will find that ionization and the solar wind plays a much larger role than currently recognized. That watts per meter squared provide a much too simplistic measure of what is actually happening.
You have put this in words much better than I could.
I also have never seen any discussion on the drastic changes in the various atmospheric layers from day to night and how this affects this magical DWIR, etc. In this theoretical climatic science, all theories seem to use averages.
ferdperple
Dude, do your homework before uncapping your electronic pen. I actually AM a ham radio operator, H44WE … and yes, ionization changes in the upper atmosphere do affect radio propagation.
What we have no evidence for is whether that change in the ionosphere affects the weather down here on earth. If you have such evidence, now would be the time to bring it out …
w.
Willis,
I seem to recall a WUWT blog post on the effect on weather, if not climate, of the ionosphere following powerful volcanic eruptions, based upon this 2018 paper:
Electrostatic levitation of volcanic ash into the ionosphere and its abrupt effect on climate
Matthew J. Genge1
https://gsw.silverchair-cdn.com/gsw/Content_public/Journal/geology/PAP/10.1130_G45092.1/1/g45092.pdf?Expires=2147483647&Signature=i1-ylsPheYEzwfVZUsoshDFllU8c6u1H6pLm~6oKXRystNXalNHqGdBb74hNBzkdJm0J0GATF6BkOOEajNSqp4Dxvlr9bbFU8CGxGLeiMyacs0FX5R2AXMR6MKAWUlmaGwpIfiiRx761s9UMHMNlVlzfealpADUKVuvcMsa1exOZQsAlSyY9Mtm0683l-i3nEoAL0YvBe0VTHMIZT8Q04wGafAYjX92kGYk93~P34Zwi9VJ~OETgN-K2NvHa6dCWvsWcDK9VBXhL7m7OstNTxnITudvtQbniOwW5UjltlLjVlcZuMqpjprkst2V9G5S-gMY3Idi8ZhOcgyBakTq3QQ__&Key-Pair-Id=APKAIE5G5CRDK6RD3PGA
OTOH, this 2017 paper found that there doesn’t appear to be a GHE in the ionosphere, as previously hypothesized. Rather, changes there appear solely to be caused by variation in solar activity. There’s a big difference between temperature there between high activity and average years during the ~11-year solar cycle.
https://eos.org/research-spotlights/is-there-a-greenhouse-effect-in-the-ionosphere-too-likely-not
Willis, this is somewhat off topic but as you are discussing incoming solar radiation, how does increasing CO2 affect incoming long wave radiation?
Longwave IR is a very small part of the incoming radiation from the sun. Were it significant, CO2 would already be satiated from it. The effect of increasing CO2 and water vapor would then have a cooling effect, absorbing incoming LWIR and re-emitting half of it back out to space before it could interact with the surface. Nighttime emissions from the surface would also pass uninhibited out through the atmosphere into space and we would have an even colder nighttime than present deserts have.
Hmmm… this suggests the possibility for a super experiment on CO2 in a desert at night with no wind (or some lateral windbreak setup to keep the air still) and very low humidity. Fill a broad flattish thin clear plastic baloon with helium and 400ppm CO2. Measure the natural LWIR (without the balloon above). Measure it with to obtain a coefficient of the baloon effect. Progressively increase the CO2 amount by increments of 100ppm and take measurements. Try measurements with 300ppm, and 200ppm as well and correct for the 400ppm naturally in the intervening space. Correct for whatever humidity there is. ???
In your experiment Are there any clouds?
Note: for those not familiar with radio propagation, changes in the sun make the difference between a weak 10 watt signal being received on low cost equipment at 100 miles or 10 thousand miles.
The changes can fluctuate day to day or persist for decades depending on the sun.
sunspot-related changes in total solar irradiance
========
Where is the proof that TSI is a complete metric for the solar effects on climate. Perhaps it is like BMI as a metric for health. It tells a story but not a complete story.
if willis has evidence … maybe it would be a good time to bring it out ??
mtvessel said
Empty Vessel, at the end of my post it says the following:
That’s aimed at folks like you … but clearly, it didn’t work. So I’m left with a couple of possibilities.
1. You didn’t read my polite request.
2. You read it and decided it didn’t apply to you.
Either way, because of your choice, I don’t have a clue what you are now babbling about.
And what’s more, I don’t have any interest in finding out.
Why don’t I care about what you are talking about?
Because obviously, you don’t care about what I say. Either you don’t care enough to read or you don’t care enough to follow a polite request.
And either way there’s no cheese for me at the end of that maze …
You’re welcome to stay and babble … just don’t expect me to reply.
w.
polite request..petulant demand? Semantics mate.
3rd possibility… you paint a picture with broad strokes and add a signature.
When somebody says that picture doesnt have merit you continually ask “which bit?”…and then get busy obsessing about your signature.
So anyway, that all comments need specifically address a specific quote by yourself are the power-divider of your laser like focus.
The info is there -3db
I’m not sure what the top of the atmosphere irradiance chart is showing? Or how it applies to global warming. Incoming radiation isn’t what is important, the radiation that reaches the surface of the earth and warms the oceans is. You can have a hot sun and cloudy skies and the globe will cool. The sun’s irradiance is only half the story. The ocean temperatures are a better proxy for energy reaching the earth’s surface. Many of the wavelengths in the spectrum won’t even make it through the thermosphere, and will never reach earth. CO2’s only contribution to global warming and climate change is to thermalize outgoing LWIR between 13 and 18 microns, that is it, that is the only defined mechanism attributed to CO2. CO2 is transparent to incoming radiation, and LWIR is irrelevant to incoming radiation. How do you tie the incoming radiation to CO2 and outgoing LWIR? How does this apply to CO2?
I believe that the reason you must measure TSI at the TOA is to determine the amount of solar energy available to start with. The amount of that total reaching the surface can be changed by the atmosphere conditions you mention but it starts with what is available in the first place. It also shows how small the changes in TSI itself are without regard to any other influences.
Of course it is insolation at the surface that counts the most but that is influenced by many different things outside of the Sun’s actual changes in output.
Sigh…
https://motherboard.vice.com/amp/en_us/article/pa8edb/wind-and-solar-farms-could-make-parts-of-the-sahara-green-with-vegetation
“Li and his colleagues found that such a large-scale project would generate over four times the amount of electricity as the entire 2017 global energy budget. ”
I would like to see the calculations. Elsewhere it has been calculated that to power all the world’s electricity (which is only 20% of world energy use) you would need a solar farm half the size of Russia.
A lot smaller than that: https://www.csmonitor.com/Environment/Energy-Voices/2014/0729/How-many-solar-panels-would-it-take-to-power-Earth
25,000 square miles
John,
There’s a three order of magnitude error in the article. Nine million sq km is about 100 percent of the Sahara Desert, not 0.1 percent.
El Sol has a greenhouse gas. A very tenuous layer of ‘stuff’ (high) above its surface.
Not unlike carbonoxide on Earth.
For Sol it’s called the Corona (sphere)
Seemingly for Sol, it’s gas made of stuff like Calcium, Iron and Nickel and it has temperature estimated to be one million degrees centigrade plus and at that kinda temperature, most things will be gaseous.
As per Stefan’s Law and the strictures of the GHGE *and* being conservative, we thus calculate that Sol is emitting 50 million million million Watts per square metre (5E19)
Fantastic. What’s not to like.
But where does the generally accepted figure of 64 MegaWatts come from?
The Corona is between us and Sol’s surface, why do we not see the 5E19 figure.
GHG Theory says we should.
Ah but you say, the Corona is very tenuous, it cannot sustain that output.
In which case, how do the tenuous (including water vapour = 4% maximum concentration) Green Houses Gasses generate the claimed 500 Watts per square metre?
Still with Big Numbers, an essayist here did a post here recently about such things. Middling numbers divided by small numbers creating huuuuuuge numbers.
In order to gain credence and entrance to these Hallowed Halls, they felt duty bound to assert their allegiance to the GHGE and did so by simply stating:
“Deserts are cold at night because there is no water in them to provide a Green House Effect”
OK
But why are not cold during the daytime also?
I assume you are asking “Why doesn’t heat escape from the surface as rapidly during the day as it does at night?”
It does, but during the day incoming radiation overwhelms outgoing.
SR
Thanks. Good piece, interesting and somewhat thought provoking. I have nothing to argue.
I would add that short wavelength UV below 200 nm, often generally referred to as Vacuum Ultraviolet, and which includes Extreme UV at its short wavelength extreme, can break bonds, is ionizing and can excite and strip electrons from molecules like O2, H2O, CO2, etc. It is the excitation of oxygen and bond breakage that leads to ozone formation. With regard to sunlight, people are probably familiar with UVA, UVB and UVC (shortest wavelength of these, about 100-280 nm). It is UVC that is most dangerous to life because of its ability to degrade DNA (kills germs too).
Somewhat analogous to a spark, in that a spark can start a fire – think of the new plasma cigarette lighters, short wavelength UV can initiate numerous high energy reactions and can make the atmosphere electrically conductive to an extent. In the laboratory, one must purge instrumentation operating in VUV to prevent ozone from interfering. I’m not suggesting anything, just rambling. You might have smelled some ozone around a copier machine under heavy usage because it gets formed in this manner by UV. Copiers contain ozone traps or destruction catalysts, but these can be overwhelmed.
This following post helps put these concepts in the context of CO2.
Why CO2 is Irrelevant to the Earth’s Lower Atmosphere; You Can’t Absorb More than 100%
https://co2islife.wordpress.com/2018/09/08/why-co2-is-irrelevant-to-the-earths-lower-atmosphere-you-cant-absorb-more-than-100/
Katherine Hayhoe says that up to 123% of global warming is human-caused.
…. and the amp on my keyboard goes to eleven. 😉
Where did you get your blackbody calculator?
Willis, I always read your articles as they are informative and based on the best factual information available.
“Only about half of the sunlight makes it to the surface, so we’re down to 0.14 W/m2 change from peak to trough, less than a twentieth of a percent.” I get it to be around 0.03%
It would seem to me that with this conclusion, you may also have proven that climate changes alarmist propaganda is just that as 400ppm works out at 0.04% (if I get my calculations right). I doubt if a difference of 0.01% is going to make a big difference. So why should a similar percentage of CO2 have a vast influence when a similar increase in sunlight makes not a bit of difference? I am puzzled in the extreme.
Thanks for your good work.
Because the CO2 is a major contributor to the IR absorption of the atmosphere (~10% of surface emissions). Ninety-nine %+ doesn’t contribute at all.
No it is not, Water is.
Reading comprehension not your strong point.
Willis …. I do not agree with the premise of your approach to assessing the influence of the sun and solar system on earths climate. I’m not saying you are wrong necessarily, but if you to not asssess the situation using the correct approach, you risk a false negative.
More specifically, using your own work as supporting evidence, it is more likely that the influence of the sun on climate has more to do with how the earth system responds to changes in the sun, to include magnetic, solar wind, UV, etc …. such that the amount of TSI reaching the surface and entering the system changes, without the actual value for TSI changing significantly.
Dr. D., my “approach” has been to look for ~ 11-year cycles in a whole host of climate datasets. I’ve done this because the solar-related phenomena (magnetic field, galactic cosmic rays, EUV, TSI, etc.) all vary in sync with the ~ 11-year sunspot cycles.
So … where is the “premise” in my approach that you do not agree with?
w.
“So … where is the “premise” in my approach that you do not agree with?
w.”
The premise of using the 11-year cycle assumes that the climate system is restricted to immediate or near immediate responses to changes in TSI or UV, or Magnetics, etc. My question is, where is it written that a measurable earthly climate response of temperature must be associated with the 11-year cycle?? I would think looking at the data that it most certainly is NOT a function of the 11-year cycle, and in fact your own research supports that position.
As you note in your article “But in fact, it’s less than that. Only about half of the sunlight makes it to the surface, so we’re down to 0.14 W/m2 change from peak to trough, less than a twentieth of a percent.
Now, downwelling radiation at the surface of the earth averages about 500 W/m2 on a 24/7 average basis. And out of that, we’re supposed to believe that a variation on the order of a tenth of a W/m2 is going to make a difference …”
Based on your own work, I think you would agree that the TSI need not change at all, as a change in albedo, clouds, atmospheric absorption, etc are what determines what actually reaches the surface. Further, your work has focused on the near tropical regions, and rightly so, given that that is where the highest levels of solar input would be expected. However, subtropical input also occurs, thus the atmospheric dynamics of clouds, etc, are relevant there as well. Maybe I missed it, but I don’t recall your assessment of daily cloud formation for all regions of the earth. But back to your point, I agree, a change in a twentieth percent of TSI in and of itself will have not any effect on the amount of energy reaching the ocean. Which brings up another aspect of the Climate that is poorly understood, and IMO, is the primary reason MODELS fail miserably. The OCEAN. I would not expect an increase or decrease in energy input into the oceans to show up in any 11 year cycle of temperature. Yet, this does not mean that there was not an increase or decrease in energy input that would appear over a cumulative time. Granted, my response focuses on the ocean, because frankly, I don’t’ think the land portion of the earth is a significant contributor in comparison.
You next say, “As you can see, the variations in the EUV are very small compared to the variations in the visible spectrum.
In fact, the only reason that the percentage variations in EUV are greater than the percentage variations in TSI is that changes in EUV start from almost zero … so even a tiny absolute change in EUV is a large percentage change in EUV.
For those reasons, I hold that looking at EUV to explain surface climate variations is a blind alley … but as always, YMMV …”
I may be wrong, but it seems you are viewing this from a perspective that the EUV would “directly” warm the surface. AND .. I would agree, I wouldn’t expect EUV to directly heat the surface either, at least not over an 11 year period. But as I understand it, EUV is one of those indirect influencers. Baldwin et al, Science, 15 Jun 2007, note that changes in Stratospheric chemistry and circulation may have a profound impact on the “pattern” of climate change. UV and EUV have effects in the Stratosphere. I don’t think we know all the interactions that occur between the Strat and surface, or on clouds and the input of energy to the surface, in particular the OCEAN. Again, the ocean.
The basis of my skepticism regarding your premise of using the 11-year cycle and trying to tease out a temperature signal, is that the ocean is going to mask any impact of short term solar changes on earth’s temperature (e.g. an 11 year cycle). Any impact of the Sun is going to be the result of cumulative impacts that are masked over time, which is going to make it very difficult to tease out the signal. If I had the time, and knew all that you know, I’d be looking at very long term changes … Like the cumulative effects of prolonged maximums and minimums.
Cheers …. (BTW .. I really do like all your post)
Dr. Deanster
Sorry, but that’s not my premise, that the response is immediate.
My premise is that whether the response is immediate or lagged, the response to an 11-year forcing will be an 11-year response. Some examples will explain why.
The hour-by-hour response to changes in the sun is lagged, temperature peaks during the day well after the sun peaks … but it is still daily, because the forcing varies over a 24-hour period.
The response to monthly-by-month changes in the sun is lagged, temperature peaks during the year well after the sun peaks … but it is still annual because the forcing varies over a 12-month period.
So I fear you’ll have to explain in detail how an 11-year change in solar forcing is somehow immune to having an 11-year response, whether lagged or not …
w.
Willis,
Earth’s climate system doesn’t just respond to one solar cycle, then switch to reacting only to the next cycle. The effects of each cycle add or subtract from preceding cycles, some of which will be weaker or stronger.
But they tend to come in clumps of higher and lower cycles, making supercycles. When combined with lags, superimposed cycles will damp our the effect of the most recent one, whether more or less powerful than its predecessors.
Here’s an example of an apparently repeating pattern, comparing SC 3-6 with recent solar cycles, for instance:
This shows that strong cycles tend to be followed by similar cycles, until the trend reverses. Also that the 20th century was more active than the 19th or 18th centuries. It doesn’t show the 17th century Maunder Minimum nor the first half of the 18th century:
http://users.telenet.be/j.janssens/Extremeall.png
So …. what is your opinion of this picture? ….
http://www.oism.org/pproject/Slides/Presentation/Slide3.png
I do not see any 11 year fluctuation …. but, to what extent that “presentation” influences the view …. there does seem to be some semblance of a relationship …. on the order of multiple decades. Further, even the lower point around 1970 is still well above the 1880 point ….. thus cumulative effects over a longer period of time.
What I find interesting, is this only seems to apply to the arctic ….. but then, … so called “global warming” is in reality just the global average being influenced by changes in the arctic …. there is little to no warming in other areas aside from those manufactured by mathematical manipulation. Even your own research has shown that cloud systems in the tropics will respond to surface heating to limit incoming solar, thus setting a ceiling on the maximum tropical SST, which rarely if ever goes above 30 C (I think).
Of course the question is …. is this a result of EUVs.? … TSI? I think it mostly has to do with ocean currents pushing warm water into the arctic. But what effect do changes in the sun effect those currents? Since it is for all practical purposes, the arctic that is driving the increase in average global temperature, the effects of an 11 year cycle will be mixed and diluted in the transport of increased energy to the arctic. So, while there may be an 11 year cycle impact for some point, the energy dissipates into the system, and the changes are so slow that I wouldn’t think you’d see an effect on an 11 year time frame. But a cumulative effect over a period of 1880 to 2000 …. maybe so, as shown in the picture above.
deleted
I too tend to see W/m^2 as too small of an analytical aperture to allow the best insight on how solar variations can affect Earth’s climate.
There’s more to life than W/m^2.
I don’t have my act together to argue the specifics, but I hope to get there eventually.
I don’t believe TSI is the key. It is something else that changes at the same time TSI changes. Maybe it is cosmic rays, we’ll see over the coming cycle as cycle 25 is now forecast to be as weak as 24 was. Last time we had two weak cycles in a row we did get significant climate cooling.
Willis, I know you love fishing. Here is an image from space clearly showing sediment plumes at an offshore wind farm.
https://mobile.twitter.com/hashtag/offshorewindlies?src=hashtag_click
This can’t be good for marine life…
Ignorant question here: What causes the sediment plumes? Agitation to the base of the turbine mount (from rotation-induced vibrations)? Or is it a byproduct of mounting these things in a zone of sea current, where disturbing the sea floor to create the base enables temporary plumes? Or something else?
Theyouk,
Tidal currents are at least part of the picture:
https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/89063
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0034425714000224
I used this image of wind wake turbulence in an article I penned some time ago:
http://dailybail.com/home/why-wind-power-wont-work.html
Tidal/ocean currents have the same effect on the platforms they use on the sea bed.
Agreed, john. But then windmills don’t seem to be good for any life …
w.
You forgot about cows Willis, they like the water pumped by windmills.
?776501
DD,
I’m pretty sure that you knew Willis was referring to electric power turbines, not water-pumping windmills.
John, unlike you, I cannot read Willis’ mind, but he did say “windmill” and not “wind turbine.” (but then, you know how he demands direct quotes)
DD,
That’s common usage. Wind-powered stock tank pumps aren’t technically mills, either.
From the context, it was obvious to what he referred, so no mind reading required. Just reading what came before his comment, which arose in the context of a discussion of wind turbine farms at sea. Did you really not read the comment to which Willis responded?
They don’t have “windmill farms” at sea Jonny-boi. So no, it was not obvious because the common term for what they install on wind farms (on or off shore) are wind turbines. Even you made this distinction in your first reply to me. ” electric power turbines , not water-pumping windmills.” (your words)
DD,
You’re wasting your own and everyone else’s time.
It was obvious to anyone with a room temperature IQ that Willis was referring to wind turbines, since marine wind farms were the topic. Willis clearly referred to those on land as well, which massacre birds and bats in their tens of millions, at least.
And, as noted, wind-powered pumps aren’t “windmills”, either. They don’t grind grain.
Wait a minute there John, you called them ” water-pumping windmills” …….if they aren’t “windmills” why did you call them that?
LOL……..had to edit it hugh?…..too funny !!!
DD,
Why is it so hard for you to understand that “windmill” has become a generic term, so that your attack on Willis is meaningless and without merit.
Its original meaning was for grinding grain, but has come to be extended to any other use of wind power, whether pumping water or generating electricity.
That the company uses the term just means that the word has long since become standard in English, yet away from its original meaning.
I doubt that you’re really so dense as not to understand this, so must conclude that you’re just trolling, having nothing better to do.
Willis said “windmill”, he did not say “wind turbine.” More to the point, irrespective of what you call them Willis said: ” to be good for any life.” Now, I don’t give a hoot what you call them the word ANY in Willis’ post is wrong, because as you can see from the picture the COWS love them.
Obviously John you seem to lack even a tidbit of a sense of humor, and mistake a “joke” for “trolling”.
.
.
Sad.
The trolling is your continuing to make an issue of “windmill”, which is a standard English word long applied not just to actual mills, but to wind-powered pumps and now turbines. The first American “windmill” pump was so-called in 1854.
I live in the largest concentration of wind farms in the world, and we call the monstrosities “windmills”. To include those responsible for perpetrating the scam, which has made my friends and family rich off the federal subsidies.
My sense of humor requires that an attempted joke be funny to be humorous.
Your issue is with Willis, not me. He’s the one that said “windmill.” Go argue with him.
Oh, and by the way, look at the picture, the cows LOVE the windmill
Surely you have been making comments on “climate” sites long enough to know that using the term “windmill” when referring to wind turbines is going to be called out or treated like “troll bait.”
FYI John, look at the name of the company that makes those things: https://aermotorwindmill.com/
..
Funny how “windmill” is in the company’s name
Excerpted from above article, to wit:
To correctly measure the above stated “variance” in solar irradiance from peak to trough over the sunspot cycle, …… all said measurements must be made at a “point location” at the TOA that is situate at 90° perpendicular between the center of the earth and the center of the Sun.
And constant adjustments to the aforesaid “point location” measurements have to be made simply because of the “change-in-distance” between the earth and the Sun due to the earth’s elliptical orbital movement.
Anyway, why in the world would anyone want to measure the variance in solar irradiance at a “zenith point location” at the TOA ……… and then “average that “measurement” over the entire surface of the earth?
One half (1/2) the surface of the earth is always in darkness (no solar irradiance) ……. and any variance in solar irradiance that is measured at the TOA between the Tropic of Cancer and Tropic of Capricorn has very little to no effect whatsoever on surface temperatures at higher latitudes and/or altitudes.
That’s a good question by Sam C C.
Why, indeed, would we “dilute” the intensity of this variance spontaneously over the entire surface of the Earth? Why would we assume that the effect caused by this variance would be only measured by this “dilution” factor, rather than by the exact intensity of the effect on a given point in a smaller area near where the variance effect hits?
Also, I’m thinking of Van Allen Belts, aurora, Birkeland currents — the whole plasma/electric/magnetic connection between Sun and Earth — I doubt that all this is figured out yet, let alone figuring out how small changes here might somehow be amplified into larger changes for the climate.
To alter a familiar phrase slightly, “Think cosmically, act locally.”
Thinking only watts/m^2, then, seems a bit near sighted. And averaging an already seemingly small effect — as though it occurs with the same value at every point on the globe simultaneously (night side/day side/high latitude/mid-latitude/low latitude) — seems arbitrary and unreal.
IMHO Averaging the various phenomena that may affect Earth’s temperature is like using the average temperature of bath water and then unknowingly placing the baby in a hot spot and wondering why you burned the baby. Surely many reading this have nearly burnt their feet while warming up the water while taking a bath. Hot spots and temperature differentials can cause and effect circulation in the atmosphere and ocean. Using averages in models will not demonstrate this effect.
Willis.
Do you have any data to suggest that DLR (downwelling longwave) has increased in line with global temperatures or in line with CO2?
As far as I am aware, if the primary feedback for temperature is CO2, then DLR needs to be increasing alongside CO2. If there is no increase in DLR, then there is no increase in greenhouse warming. (Because DLR is greenhouse warming). And in your article on Ceres and ARGO, your graph showed no increase in DLR.
Ergo, it is not CO2 that is causing the present increase in global temperature….
Ralph
CO2 causing increased DLR is one theory. But since there has been no significant increase in DLR, the new theory is that CO2 raises the emissions height; we then count down from there, using the lapse rate, to get a warmer surface temperature.
So now they’re using a pressure-dependent phenomenon, the lapse rate, to prove a radiative effect, and of course they can’t prove this is how it works.
Question: at point z in the atmosphere, which is the emissions height, if we add a small amount of IR radiative gas, wouldn’t that increase the rate of cooling? Why would adding a very small amount of IR radiative gas at that point cause decreased cooling?
If CO2 cooling inhibition throughout the troposphere is instead expanding the troposphere and thereby raising the emissions height, then aren’t we back to the DLR theory that posits a direct heating of the troposphere? Which we don’t see?
Don132
Willis, thank you for the essay.
Thanks Willis. Much needed. Solar variability is the illusion (or drug) of choice for many skeptics. However big solar influence may be, we have ice core and ocean sediment core records for 100 centuries of the Holocene that show that climate change produced by solar variability ( or any other form of natural or unforced variability) is modest compared with the warming projected by AOGCMs. We can legitimately hope that those models are wrong (and their projected consequences vastly exaggerated), but the likelihood of being saved by a coming LIA is negligible. And solar output could go up.
The UV where irradiance is significant (250-350? nm) does an increase and decrease about 5% associated with the solar cycle. THIS IS REAL. However, since that radiation is absorbed in the stratosphere, most of its effects (on ozone and winds) are confined to the upper atmosphere. The review article linked below covers the solar cycle linked changes that have been observed during the satellite era and proxy evidence from earlier periods.
http://scostep.apps01.yorku.ca/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/Gray_etal_2009RG000282.pdf
Willis,
Some years ago, I have read a report that during a solar cycle, it is the “normal” UV which changes with about 10%, nothing was said about EUV. As that is a larger part in energy of the full spectrum, it can have more effect.
The effect mentioned in that report were:
– heating up of the ozone layer in the upper troposphere / lower stratosphere (about 1 K if my memory is right).
– which increases the equator-poles gradient at that level.
– which pushes the jet streams more polewards.
Jet streams are responsible for changes in cloudiness and rainfall, which should be visible in rain patterns over the solar cycles. Not necessary for global rainfall but in latitude bands if the jet streams shift in position.
I haven’t found the original report, but here is one that goes in the same direction:
http://www.see.leeds.ac.uk/research/icas/research-themes/atmospheric-chemistry-and-aerosols/groups/atmospheric-chemistry/research-highlights/impact-of-11-yr-solar-cycle-on-stratospheric-ozone/
They even mention up to 100% change in the UV range, be it that the instruments on board of satellites which measure UV in the stratosphere seems to have a lot of problems…
Ferdinand: See my link immediately for a review on this “normal UV” and the solar cycle. Some contradictory data about the size of the change in UV exists, but it is probably closer to the value you cite.
Thanks Frank!
Hadn’t seen your posting before mine was posted. Confirms my (rusty) memory:
More recently, analysis of the NCEP/National Center for Atmospheric Research reanalysis data set shows a response in both tropospheric zonally averaged temperature and winds in which the midlatitude jets are weaker and farther poleward in Smax years
Sadly, Frank, “reanalysis data” is nothing of the sort. It is not data of any kind, which is why they’ve named it that.
Instead, it is the output of a computer climate model. I’ve shown before that the output of such models is just a lagged linear transform of the input forcings.
And since the reanalysis climate model input includes the solar forcings, yes, you’ll find solar signals in the output of reanalysis climate models.
Finally, if you truly think that finding a solar signal in the output of a climate model which has been fed solar signals as input is significant regarding the real world … well, I have a bridge for sale in Brooklyn that is a wonderful deal …
Best regards,
w.
Willis: Thanks for the reply. Sorry I missed responding for so long. As I’m sure you know, re-analyses are the output from a climate model CONSTRAINED to agree with all of the observations that are available, especially the output from several hundred radiosondes launched twice daily and with the data recorded by satellites like CERES. In theory, the output consists of observations in some grid cells twice daily, many observations near the surface, and some constraints from the total radiation received by CERES from a column of grid cells. The biggest problem with re-analysis is that the amount, quality, and consistency of the observations has gradually evolved, making changes over multiple decades less reliable. When did we start collecting reliable data on the UV channel of SWR and start using it in re-analyses?
Are the changes attributed to the solar cycle in reanalyses of the upper atmosphere big enough to be trusted? Only an expert can pass judgment on that. The article I cited was a review, which criticized the quality of some records. I understand that the data showing that UV varies far more TSI during the solar is sound. This must produce changes in ozone and ozone is responsible for the 50 K rise in temperature with altitude in the lower stratosphere. So there is plenty of opportunity for sizable changes in the stratosphere, but no obvious mechanism by which those changes can reach the surface.
So, my best guess is that there are changes, but probably none that climate skeptics should pay attention to. If you could abstract CERES data from an O3 channel, however …
Frank
So your claim is that “constraining” a climate model to kinda sorta agree with some (not all) of the observations available somehow magically makes the model more than a lagged linear transform of the inputs?
As one of the few folks who have actually programmed computers for over half a century, I find that idea charmingly simplistic. Here’s Pat Frank on the subject:
Best regards,
w.
Willis: Pat Frank’s comments are the usual BS of saying that because a model isn’t perfect, it can’t be useful. “All models are wrong, some are useful.” As I’m sure you know, radiosonde data and the other “real-time” data used in re-analysis forms the basis for weather forecast models. Those models are reasonably accurate for a few days, and re-initialized with new data every 12 hours. With only twelve hours between being constrained by new data, re-analyses should be fairly close to reality most of the time. And different re-analyses use different models to predict evolution of weather. Finding the same phenomena in more that one re-analysis helps. Different re-analysis groups are competing to provide the most accurate recreation of weather and correct known biases.
Re-analysis showed the existence of the QBO long before “unconstrained” AOGCMs were able to reproduce that phenomena. AOGCMs today can’t replicate the Madden-Julian oscillation, but it is certainly present in reanalyses. We have a very poor idea of where a hurricane will be a week from now, or whether and El Nino will develop next winter until after spring. That doesn’t mean that re-analyses don’t provide a very accurate picture of these phenomena. AOGCMs produce hurricanes without “seeding” and downscaling, but weather prediction models do a decent job predicting what will happen over the next day or two.
There is no doubt that the amount of data being used to constrain re-analyses has grown tremendously. So reanalysis from the 1970’s might reflect the biases of the model more than reanalysis in the 2010’s. If you are looking for a change from the 1970s to the 2010s, then that change could be due to the gradual reduction of model bias in re-analysis due to more data constraining the output. If one is looking at the difference in average wind in January in a particular location in the lower stratosphere during the last two solar maxima and minima, that difference could be real – especially if it is large and consistent with other data. Authors and peer reviewers need to be skeptical (and frequently aren’t skeptical enough) of what the find in a re-analysis, especially if it is small. Authors of review articles like the one I cited need to (and did) warn non-specialists about the weaknesses of some of the raw data being analyzed. And the climate alarmist publicity machine probably has little interest in distorting research on the solar cycle.
Willis, you are looking at the wrong place, “changes down here on the surface of our amazing planet”. The energy is in the atmosphere during Solar Maximum and is dissipated during Solar Minimum. The energy is stored as a expansion of the atmosphere – the atmosphere puffs up due to the stored energy. The amount of energy is small, but the thermal inertia of the atmosphere is small. However, the added energy causes the atmosphere to mix better and reduces the temperature extremes that we are seeing now. Cooling occurs when the atmosphere has hot areas due the 4th power of the absolute temperature in the radiation equation.
Great theory, zero evidence.
Sorry,
w.
“Ozone in the stratosphere is mostly produced from short-wave ultraviolet rays between 240 and 160 nm. Oxygen starts to absorb weakly at 240 nm in the Herzberg bands, but most of the oxygen is dissociated by absorption in the strong Schumann–Runge bands between 200 and 160 nm where ozone does not absorb. While shorter wavelength light, extending to even the X-Ray limit, is energetic enough to dissociate molecular oxygen, there is relatively little of it, and, the strong solar emission at Lyman-alpha, 121 nm, falls at a point where molecular oxygen absorption is a minimum.”
Mg II index data
The Mg II data are derived from GOME (1995-2011), SCIAMACHY (2002-2012), GOME-2A (2007-present), and GOME-2B (2012-present). All three data sets as well as the Bremen Mg II composite data are available (see links below). In late years the GOME solar irradiance has degraded to about 20% of its value near 280 nm in 1995, so that the GOME data have become noisier.
http://www.iup.uni-bremen.de/gome/gomemgii.html
UV-C, which is very harmful to all living things, is entirely screened out by a combination of dioxygen ( about 200 nm) by around 35 kilometres (115,000 ft) altitude. The ozone layer (which absorbs from about 200 nm to 310 nm with a maximal absorption at about 250 nm) is very effective at screening out UV-B; for radiation with a wavelength of 290 nm, the intensity at the top of the atmosphere is 350 million times stronger than at the Earth’s surface.
Well noting that in some systems a small change can have a bigger effect – but other the greater point – I thought when the sun is quiet it affects solar winds and the magnetosphere which causes more cosmic rays and other high energy particles to hit earth causing changes in cloud cover.
Read this article posted by the GWPF – it’s a bit long, but shows a remarkable similarity between the uber-sleazy academic tactics of the radical feminists and the radical climate alarmists.
It appears that the pink slime is similar to the green slime in blatant misconduct and lack-of-ethics .
See also: Alinsky’s “Rules of Radicals” – aka “Any lie is OK if it serves the cause.”
Academic Activists Send a Published Paper Down the Memory Hole
https://quillette.com/2018/09/07/academic-activists-send-a-published-paper-down-the-memory-hole/
Allan, I read that this morning. Totally disgusting to delete a paper that has been formally published. PC should never control science.
I agree with you Andy – but as bitter experience has taught us, the climate alarmists re not interested in science OR the environment – theirs is a far-left political objective – to ruin the economy and take control, like they have done in over 100 countries around the world – see Venezuela and Zimbabwe for prime examples.
Patrick Moore, a co-founder of Greenpeace, provides a history of the rise of eco-extremism, below. Moore says that the far-left political movement effectively annexed the green movement after the fall of the Berlin Wall, when pro-Soviet groups were discredited and needed to find a new power base for their far-left political agenda.
The extremists have obviously succeeded. Governments, academia, the media and large corporations are all cowed into submission. Leading scientists have been ousted from their universities for speaking and writing the truth. Only a few tenured or retired professors and the occasional renegade dares to speak out, and some use aliases for fear of retaliation.
I suggest it is time for all those who have been cowed into submission by the bullying of global warming alarmists to grow a pair and stand strong for your convictions.
Despite increasing atmospheric CO2, there has been little or no global warming for almost 20 years. Climate is relatively INsensitive to increasing CO2.
The global warming crisis does not exist, except in the fevered minds of its minions.
Best personal regards, Allan
Reference:
The Rise of Eco-Extremism
by Patrick Moore (1994)
http://www.ecosense.me/index.php/key-environmental-issues/10-key-environmental-issues/208-key-environmental-issues-4
Alan, a depressing article, but it fits with my thoughts on the fall of the once great universities. Oxford and Harvard are not exceptions. I’ve been wondering where my grandson should go to college. First, the social sciences have been everywhere corrupted even at the time I studied in the 1950s.
Interestingly, the corruption is of the same kind we see today in climate science and clisci has an unholy alliance with the now pure activist humanities. Free enterprise and democracy are to blame for all the ills of society. The difference is that today they have identified the шнутемаи as the underlying cause. So the humanities are off limits for a wouldbe scholar. I’ve been thinking Czech Republic or Russia for science, engineering, and the like.
My own engineering association is getting full of this ecowarrior/diversity/neomarxy, sensitivity training social claptrap. I was informed that I was to become a life member with no more annual dues (I’m 80 and still actively working). This was taken up by a young engineer who charged that this was age discrimination! I countered that no one was being barred from getting older and serving honorably so there was no discrimination. Nevertheless they wrote me and said their (moronic) legal counsel advised withdrawing the honor.
.
Wow Allan,
What a story is that! Real science flushed into the drain…
I agree Ferdinand, and nice to hear from you. Hope you are well.
I have NO opinion on the validity of this paper – it is outside my areas of expertise.
I object to the execrable conduct of the miscreants involved in killing this paper and burying it – these people have identified themselves as scoundrels – human slime – and their covert misconduct has been properly exposed by the author for all to see – these academic scum have disgraced themselves for all time.
I do observe that gender studies has become a minefield of politically correct hysteria and hostility, not unlike climate science, where the tendency is to shout down one’s opponent rather than talking with hem (Hem is my new gender-correct word, combining Him and Her – the singular version of Them – let’s see if it catches on in PC-NewSpeak 🙂 ).
EUV range has traditionally been defined as 124 nm to 10 nm.
How can a change of the percentage of CO2 of all the GHG, when accounting for the effectiveness of each, that is less than the percentage change of TSI caused by some other factors, like a change of UV, or a combination of factors such as UV and radio wave energy, have greater effect on global temperature than this larger change?
As I have commented before, the energy from UV through IR is a very, very, small part of the Total spectrum of energy emitted by the Sun when considering the energy emitted from Gamma rays through the longest radio waves. The typical display is shown logarithmically which distorts the width of the spectrum. My 5th-grade teacher told me that a very small number multiplied by a massively large number is a big number. I can tune my Ham radio to any signal at random and receive a signal greater than 2 or 3 microvolts with an un-tuned length of wire less than ten feet long. There are multi-millions of radio frequencies. The energy is hitting the Earth and doing something. The Sun’s EME spectrum is greater than a power of twenty in width. Visible light and near IR are less than 1/100th of that and CO2 affects only a small portion of that, and that is further blocked by H2O. There is a chart of the EME spectrum that is not displayed using a power of ten compression on the internet. This chart is huge.
Then there are the other effects of the Sun heating the earth – Like Gravity effects. Where are these in the AGW studies? And the gravity heating from other planets.
FTA: From peak to trough over the sunspot cycle, the top-of-atmosphere total solar irradiance varies by about 1.2 watts per square metre (W/m2) … which, when averaged over the entire surface of the earth gives a change of about 0.28 W/m2. This is less than a tenth of one percent variation in total incoming energy.
That’s not how it works. It’s the area of the curve over a characteristic time span that matters. The impact is smoothed by processes operating with characteristic time constants, and with something as immense as the Earth, those time constants can be very long, indeed.
For example, here is the SSN data smoothed by a 1st order lag filter with a 100 year time constant. In the latter half of the 20th century, it peaked at a 90/80 ratio compared to the previous peak in the mid-to-late 19th century.
http://oi68.tinypic.com/2z850s4.jpg
Sorry, Bartemis, but that is using the deprecated version of sunspots. You can get the modern versions from SILSO below.
w.
dailyspots http://sidc.be/silso/DATA/SN_d_tot_V2.0.txt
monthlyspots http://sidc.be/silso/DATA/SN_m_tot_V2.0.txt
yearlyspots http://sidc.be/silso/DATA/SN_y_tot_V2.0.txt
groupspots http://www.sidc.be/silso/DATA/GroupNumber/GNbb2_y.txt
Willis wrote:
Sorry, Bartemis, but that is using the deprecated version of sunspots. You can get the modern versions from SILSO below.””
Does it make much difference? Is it material?
Is not the new version of sunspots just the opinion of a few (generally respected) scientists?
Yes, it makes a lot of difference. Yes it is material. No, it’s not just the opinion of a few scientists.
w.
How about instead of plugging your ears and chanting “nah, nah, nah”, you actually take the data, whichever one strikes your fancy, put it through a long term lag filter, and verify for yourself the increase in solar forcing that occurs in the latter 20th century?
Bartemis, how about you do it rather than demanding that others do your work for you?
I ask in part because I don’t know what it is you are calling a “long term lag filter” …
w.
Aw, what the heck. If I wait for Bartemis it may be a long wait. I took what I would use as a long term lag filter and applied it to the modern annual sunspot record. Here are the results …
I’m sorry, Bartemis, but I’m not seeing the “increase in solar forcing” that you claim “occurs in the latter 20th century”.
Here is the code I used to create the graphs …
# set up variables. "tsyearlyspots" is the yearly sunspot data tau=36 lambda=1 alpha=exp(-1/tau);alpha newdata=ts(rep(0,length(tsyearlyspots)), start=start(tsyearlyspots), frequency = 1) # create empty time series # step through lagging for (i in 3:length(tsyearlyspots)){ newdata[i]=newdata[i-1] + (tsyearlyspots[i]-tsyearlyspots[i-1])* (1-alpha)*lambda + (newdata[i-1]-newdata[i-2])*alpha } plot(newdata,ylab="Sunspots",xlab="Year",type="n") # set up plot blackline(newdata,frontcol = "red") # plot lagged spots title(main=paste0("Lagged Annual Sunspots", "\ntau = ",tau," years"), cex.main=.9,line=.8) # add titlePlease don’t bother telling me this is wrong unless you are willing to point out in the code exactly where you think I went off the rails …
w.
Why did you stop at 16 when I clearly went to 100?
I went through all this with Leif on a previous board. I redid the filtering with every data set he suggested. They all come out pretty much the same.
The bottom line is the peaks are essentially meaningless. What matters is the area under the curve.
Hi Bart – Your statement is what I recall, but my recollection is far from perfect.
Can you kindly reference the previous subject url?
I wish I could, Allan. I searched for it, but cannot remember the specific thread, and could not find it.
Willis,
Also congratulations on the fine title.
My interactions with UV principally involve sun tanning and sun burning. I have had second-degree burns on my shoulders, arms, and forehead, but luckily no third-degree burns, which I understand are possible. Also, sun burns raise my temperature about a degree F. Naively then, I find it hard to believe that an increase in UV at the surface, day after day for long periods, can produce no warming. On the other hand, with 3/4 of the Earth surface covered in water, and with UV penetrating deeply (warming a large mass of water slightly), there might be nothing more than a slight increase in water vapor, LWIR absorption, cloud cover, and speed of hydrological cycle. I doubt that the effects of an increase in UV can be accurately modeled.
This, of course, is incidental to your nice article.
Concerning UV exposure raising your body temperature – Surely, you realize your body raises its temperature in response to UV damage, by increasing its metabolic rate, in order to hasten its healing? The extra heating does not come from received UV, but from the food you eat.
SR
Steve Reddish: Surely, you realize your body raises its temperature in response to UV damage, by increasing its metabolic rate, in order to hasten its healing?
Oh yes. It is a most indirect effect of the energy transfer into the tissues. Possibly the fever is monotonically related to the damage, hence to the absorption: either intensity of the fever, its duration, or the intensity times the duration, or some other attribute of fevers.
On the other hand, a very small increase in UV reaching the oceans, over a long time period, should result in a small warming of the oceans, and thus a noticeable warming of the atmosphere.
No doubt, but the temperature change may be extremely small, given the total mass of water to be warmed.
On the other hand, a very small increase in UV reaching the oceans, over a long time period, should result in a small warming of the oceans, and thus a noticeable warming of the atmosphere.
Sunlight drives ocean, ocean drives atmosphere. Also note sunlight drives land surface, land surface drives atmosphere.
SR
I too am intrigued by the idea that the changes in solar UV fluxes has effects on atmospheric ozone and thus on weather systems, and why it asn’t been further developed. After all, this is the point of having complex climate models. Much of it sounds entirely plausible, but Willis is correct to always ask “where is the evidence”.
But that also puts him closer to the Steve Mosher attitude of “Ha Ha. I’ve got the funding and the (useless) models to argue my case, whereas you have no model and no funding. So I win.”
Michael,
A lot of work has been done on the effects of ozone on weather and climate, but not enough. It has been relatively ignored, as not fitting the ruling paradigm that CO2 is the control knob on climate, such that little else matters much.
From 2004:
http://theozonehole.com/climate.htm
Mee Too! Anything humans can’t control is ignored by the modelers as incapable of generating large flows of money for their benefit. And since humans can’t even control the weather, we have here a phenomenal emptiness into which we are made to cast our tithes.
Sunspot activity – UV – equatorial elctrojet- tropical storms distribution – equatorial weather patterns change -meridional polar jet excursions – climate change
Dotted white lines mark regions where rising tides of hot air indirectly create the bright, dense zones in the bands, the bright plasma pairs are areas with lots of thunderstorm activity, in this case were located over Africa, Indonesia and costal region of South America.
p.s.
EQUATORIAL ELECTROJET
This region creates the plasma bands above it when high-altitude winds of subtropical jet stream blow plasma across the Earth’s magnetic field -NASA.
Willis
Agree on the eUV magnitudes. For published explicit eUV data see:
Beckmann, M., Václavík, T., Manceur, A.M., Šprtová, L., von Wehrden, H., Welk, E. and Cord, A.F., 2014. gl UV: a global UV‐B radiation data set for macroecological studies. Methods in Ecology and Evolution, 5(4), pp.372-383.
https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/2041-210X.12168
39 citations
For the official UNEP statement on ozone changing climate see:
DOI: 10.1039/C6PP90004F (Perspective) Photochem. Photobiol. Sci., 2016, 15, 141-174
Environmental effects of ozone depletion and its interactions with climate change: progress report, 2015
United Nations Environment Programme, Environmental Effects Assessment Panel†
Received 6th January 2016 , Accepted 6th January 2016 First published on 28th January 2016
3.10 Ozone depletion is changing the global climate (wind patterns, temperature, and precipitation) across the globe with consequences for agriculture, ecosystems, and human health
“These ozone-related changes are manifested at the Earth’s surface in the Southern Hemisphere during summer (December–February) and in the Northern Hemisphere in spring (April–May),29,31,177,189,225–229 with widespread implications for terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems, human health and food security, some of which are detailed below.”
“4 Aquatic ecosystems: the effects of solar UV radiation and interactions with climate change”
“5 Biogeochemical cycles: the effects of solar UV radiation and interactions with climate change” etc.
http://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlehtml/2016/pp/c6pp90004f
Now which is the cause and which the effect? To what probability? And how can it be tested?
I have read many of your posts where you argue that something is too little and could have no effect. But sometimes little things have huge effects we would not expect.
For example .3 ppm of copper in my 30,000 gallon swimming pool absolutely keeps the pool pristine. .3 ppm of copper kills all the bacteria and algae.
And trace minerals are necessary for life, copper being one of the ones necessary to sustain human life. And too much copper is just as deadly for humans as it is for bacteria and algae.
So I always take your “too little” arguments with a grain of copper.
davidgmills: For example .3 ppm of copper in my 30,000 gallon swimming pool absolutely keeps the pool pristine. .3 ppm of copper kills all the bacteria and algae.
The point of the post is not that increased UV will have no effect, but that will most likely have no measurable effect on the global mean temperature. As with my sun burn anecdote, doubling UV might significantly increase my sun burn risk without having a measurable effect on the temperatures of the beach sand and ocean surface.
I read a conjecture once that the increased UV (from chlorofluorcarbon pollution) would increase the rate of genetic defects of near-surface dwelling krill. Maybe, but that isn’t going to show up in changes in the ocean temperatures.
It is really amazing, that the guys supporting climate effect due to Sun’s variation still do not get it, that that is a dead end, or a silly dud at this point in time to consider.
It is so amazing to see that there is no difference when it comes to the Sun’s effect in climate, according to their approach, whether it is addressed due to a variation or no variation at all.
In the end is the same premise, about the Sun’s effect in climate, whether variation or no variation at all considered. Same. Null climatic effect whatsoever.
And still no difference actually whether there is a Sun’s variation or not there….same silly thing.
Same outcome whether variation or not.
The negative part of variation does not negate the positive part of variation….more to it, even it hypothetically claimed as the negative part negating the positive part of the variation, then the effect is completely irrelevant to climate….the power of that signal will be even below of the Enso signal strength….really insignificant.
Oh well keep going that way, if you pleased with it…still sillier than the premise of AGW hypothesis.
cheers
Whiten tell us what has caused all of the climatic variations?
Salvatore.
My above comment that you replying to, clearly states my position in what has not, and can not be considered as a cause of climate, or the climatic variation.
At least you being too kind not using climate change as a term. 🙂
It is irrelevant while I care to tell you or not what has or what causes climate variation.
Unless at least you actually at some point ready to accept that the Sun or its variation is not it… clearly and with no doubt at all.
As otherwise in any case I will be wasting my time and your’s too for nothing.
cheers
fine
Sorry but your post is not at all clear to me.
You simply keep repeating there is no difference – the only claim I can see is your statement that “The negative part of variation does not negate the positive part of variation” which by your logic would say there IS a difference.
MarkMcD
“The negative part of variation does not negate the positive part of variation” which by your logic would say there IS a difference.
——–
Yes Mark that is the idea.
If you think carefully, there being a difference due to the positive part
not negated by the negative part, it means that there will be no difference whether there is or not a variation there to consider.
Still the Sun’s effect will be positive in a cumulative mode.
In both cases there will be a Sun’s effect in climate over time…regardless of the variation…if considering that the Sun effects climate.
Some how I think you still will not understand the point made.
Also the power of El Nino-La Nina pump will really reduce the difference of power of the variation versus no variation of the Sun, so over time both more or less will have the same effect in climate.
cheers
The only problem is ENSO is connected to the sun solar activity. The sun drives the climate.
Hello again Salvatore.
If you read this reply of mine and care to engage with it, please let me propose that we do try to fairly engage.
First let me say that according to my position regarding your overall position, at some point I ended up to think and consider you as the “guy who gets it”.
Maybe me simply ending there, at such a point, in that conclusion, due to an assumption….
But what I am trying a say here is that, I thought and maybe simply assumed that you got the point…. that the TSI potential of the Sun, whether considered as per it’s base value or as per the variation value in top of it, still fails, according to the data, as there is no any “hot spot” to support it…in the data.
Technically and otherwise the lack of the “hot spot” debunks and falsifies the Sun’s effect in climate due to the TSI.
So please tell me if my thinking on that regard is simply an assumption, and a wrong one, when it comes in addressing your latest position in that case.
It will be interesting for me to engage further with you in this aspect…but only if you clarify.
Saying that Sun is connected with Earths functioning and mechanisms, does not much help by default, when attempted to be used as a default base used to propagate that the Sun drives climate….To cheap of an approach.
Please give it a thought.
cheers
You are right on Mark.
Wouldn’t the dramatic change in solar wind during the solar cycle have a greater impact for affecting temperature change than a small delta in solar irradiance — at least in the upper atmosphere? Disclaimer: I am not an expert in this field, nor do I pretend to be.
The article should mention the different intensity. A small quantity UV will burn your skin in minutes whereas IR or visible is fine all day long.
Macha,
That’s why blogs have comments sections. Many have pointed out in comments that UV is ionizing radiation, unlike visible and IR light.
This makes UV qualitatively different from the rest of the solar spectrum (except the minor X- and gamma-rays). So that it doesn’t matter how small a portion of TSI UV might be. What matters is that it can make and break ozone, among other physical and chemical effects.
Plus, it also does contribute to warming the oceans, in this case with visible and IR light. And it’s a “greenhouse gas”. So UV and its O3 product affect climate in a whole range of ways.
Many have pointed out in comments that UV is ionizing radiation, unlike visible and IR light.
Only true for UV below 124nm, i.e. EUV.
Phil,
It doesn’t matter what you consider the threshold. The salient fact is that some portion of the UV spectrum is qualitatively different from other bands.
But I must beg to differ, since wavelengths about double your cited value still make and break ozone, which is produced, as you must know, by splitting O2 and ionizing its atoms, so that they might form O3.
And the UV of longer, non-ionizing wavelengths affects climate through various pathways, such as warming the upper ocean.
It doesn’t matter what you consider the threshold. The salient fact is that some portion of the UV spectrum is qualitatively different from other bands.
It’e the US Federal Communications Commission’s definition not mine.
But I must beg to differ, since wavelengths about double your cited value still make and break ozone, which is produced, as you must know, by splitting O2 and ionizing its atoms, so that they might form O3.
Yes I do know how ozone is produced, it’s via dissociation, not ionization!
Phil,
A distinction without a difference. High energy UV is ionizing. It also, at somewhat lower energy, is still able to make ozone.
Splitting an O2 molecule produces oxygen ions, which are then free to form O3.
The fact is that high energy UV makes ozone, by whatever process. That’s what matters.
The share of TSI, or the precise chemical or physical process doesn’t matter. What is important is that high energy UV does what lower energy EM radiation from the sun can’t.
This should be obvious.
High energy UV is ionizing. It also, at somewhat lower energy, is still able to make ozone.
Splitting an O2 molecule produces oxygen ions, which are then free to form O3.
No it doesn’t, the production of ozone is by oxygen atoms not ions, which require less energy.
The fact is that high energy UV makes ozone, by whatever process. That’s what matters.
EUV, which is the subject of this post, does not produce ozone, it produces oxygen ions which is why it’s termed ionizing radiation.
What is obvious is that you don’t understand the photochemistry involved.
Phil – why are you arguing that UV has no impact on ozone? At least, that appears to be what you are arguing.
Do try to keep up Bart, it’s EUV.
Phil,
I do understand that the oxygen ions recombine to form ozone, so you’re quibbling about a distinction without a difference.
That’s your problem, you don’t understand the chemistry. Oxygen ions do not recombine to form ozone!
I’ve always doubted the TSI cause – from the start it’s been clear that while TSI provides a better match to the record than CO2 changes, it’s nowhere near good enough to explain what goes on.
What MIGHT be good enough is that TSI is only one indicator of solar activity. The dual magnetic fluxes that drive the cycle strength in the Sun are a MUCH better match for our climate changes.
Zharkova et al have out several papers on the ‘heartbeat’ of the Sun and they’ve pushed the match back 3 millennia.
And now we appear to have a triple whammy coming our way. The Sun is going to sleep for several decades just as the Earth’s mag field is dropping precipitously AND the solar system is moving into a nice clear patch between interstellar fluff and the lo9cal supernova cloud.
GCR (Galactic Cosmic Rays) counts are at an all-time high and seem to be heading higher so if we add in Svensmark’s and CERN’s CLOUD experiments it would seem we are in for an extended cold spell, at least as deep as the LIA. (Little Ice Age)
GCRs up 18% since Dec 2014.
See
http://spaceweather.com/images2018/30jul18/stratosphere_california_strip.png
Semi off-topic but is connected to previous comments regarding ionizing radiation and “we don’t know what we don’t know.”
I remember when SC24 was not progressing as predicted, particularly as compared to Dr. David Hathaway’s forecasts.
However, what I appreciated about him, is when the sun was blank. And blank for a long time; He came out with this quote:
“These findings have thrown our best computer models of the sun into disarray. “It is certainly challenging our theories,” says Hathaway, “but that’s kinda nice.””
To me, that quote captures the spirit of a true scientist.
SC24 humbled a lot of solar physicists. I suspect SC25 will too.
I stumbled across a phrase the other day watching a TedX talk on YouTube.
The term was “intellectual phase-locking.” Essentially that term explains the consensus on not just climate science, but on solar physics too. No one who wants to be seen as “credible” wants to buck the consensus. Thus everyone phase-locks their view of their field to the consensus.
Thus it often takes a young patent office clerk (or similar without vested baggage) to come along and disrupt the consensus.
Joel,
Nature has a way of doing that.
Mother Nature apparently agrees with Feynman that science is the belief in the ignorance of experts. And she delights in showing up those who presume to be experts in aspects of her doings.
And, Feynman famously described Joel’s phenomenon relating to Millikan’s oil drop experiment.
Inspired by an earlier comment:
Thank you for explaining in an analog the CO2 silliness.
As you said, EUV may change by a large percentage, but in absolute values it is really quite small.
For CO2, percentage wise, it has increased by 43% since the pre-industrial age. 280ppm to 400ppm.
But for actual change, it has only increased by .000120
Interestingly, in the combustion of fossil fuels, an approximate equal amount of water vapor is liberated. Couple that with changes of water usage in irrigation, home lawns and parks in places that grass didn’t exist, water is a heat exchange medium for power plants. Heck, where we live construction areas are required to spray the dirt so that it doesn’t kick up dust. In the desert. It seems to me that the amount of water vapor that humans add to the atmosphere dwarfs the amount of carbon added.
But carbon is much easier to regulate than water.
Willis,
Sorry, I did not see your small note about data source buried in your usual comments about stating differences by quotation of your original words.
The actual monthly UV flux was not measured for most of the time shown in your graph. It was reconstructed from proxies.
One proxy is the sunspot number. It is full of calibration difficulties back to your 1850 date, as you know. See for example http://www.leif.org/research/Defense-of-GN-Revisions.pdf
There are at least 2 sources of error to question here.
1. Is a historic sunspot number known to vary in harmony with the extreme UV flux? Unproven, I think. Probably not now possible to prove now. Problems with slow drifts.
2. Is the variation in sunspot number counted by different authorities large enough to significantly affect extreme UV flux interpretations? Probably yes.
Most worrying is the general treatment of the extreme UV intensity by the IPCC related authorities, in preparation for CMIP6, the periodic comparison of climate models, given in your reference here:
http://solarisheppa.geomar.de/solarisheppa/cmip6
There are two broad ways to consider this problem.
The first is to accept that the best and brightest researchers have brought their skills together and accepted that many assumptions are valid for future use, as here in calculating climate forcings. These assumptions include acceptance of the accuracy of past sunspot counts, the validity of corrections to them, the relation of the count to other factors such as solar irradiance, neutron counts, Be-10 isotope abundance etc. Because temperature is a primary parameter, the associations of these with temperature as appropriate has been studies and understood well enough to allow researchers to proceed with the IPCC based assumptions. The error terms at each stage for each parameter are well understood, reported and carried through with formal propagation mathematics where required; and they are deemed acceptable.
The second is to accept that in the absence of direct measurement of solar extreme UV (or indeed any solar UV) for many decades before say 1985, it is pissing in the wind to pretend that a reconstruction of any significance can be made of daily or monthly UV fluxes for model inputs, but hey! This is climate science.
When I started in measurement science with CSIRO in the 1970s, I would be sacked if I proposed to run models of global importance on input data that infilled decades at a time, in the absence of direct measurement. My standards have not changed. So, I feel confident in calling bulls*** on the modelling input data here. It is simply preposterous to claim that one can make reconstructions to the resolution given with the IPCC input data for CMIP6.
Willis, you are aware of snake oil data, so I wonder why you presented it without more visible caveats. I agree with your finding that total extreme UV variation is very small, plausibly too small to matter for global climate changes, but I disagree with part of the part you took to get there. Geoff.
Is a historic sunspot number known to vary in harmony with the extreme UV flux? Unproven, I think. Probably not now possible to prove now. Problems with slow drifts.
EUV creates and maintain the ionosphere at the altitude of 105 km. Solar heating and moves the air and the ions [and electrons] across the Earth’s magnetic field generating by dynamo action an electric current the magnetic effect of which we can detect at the surface as a diurnal variation of the geomagnetic field. This variation was discovered back in AD 1722 and we have kept track of ever since. The physics of this direct effect is well-known and is not controversial. This means that we have a reliable record of EUV stretching back that far.
http://www.leif.org/research/Reconstruction-of-Solar-EUV-Flux-1740-2015.pdf
It happens that this record validates the sunspot [group] number record, e.g. Slide 41 of
http://www.leif.org/research/Defense-of-GN-Revisions.pdf
So, we do know the run of EUV for more than 200 years.
There is much more that we do not know then know.
Yep, some people don’t know much…
I should have said we know it all.
What is the consensus (if any) about the effects of cosmic rays on ozone destruction (or production?) at different layers of he atmoshere? If there is indeed an effect, then variation of cosmic rays correlating with changes in solar magnetic fields would provide a more plausible cause than changes in UV radiation, since the correlation between solar variability and changes in cosmic rays is not disputed I think.
Currently Cosmic rays are up 18% since Dec 2014.
See
http://spaceweather.com/images2018/30jul18/stratosphere_california_strip.png
Willis I always like your articles because you provide data and often take a new approach to analysis. That said I think you need to write down and look at your initial assumptions and ask if there is evidence that contradicts those assumptions.
In this case you make the assumption that 1 watt of visible light radiation is equivalent to 1 watt of extreme UV. Since you show the total energy is very constant changes in solar radiation should have negligible effect. Except we know low orbit satellites are dragged out of orbit early when the upper atmosphere expands when the sun is active and there is more solar wind and extreme UV. This occurs even though the total energy changes very little. Your assumption fails. There are dramatic effects that can hit you in the head (literally in this case). Others have commented on UV- ozone and other effects that are not controlled by the IR through visible spectrum. Ozone is generated by UV but has significant IR absorption so we have a significant change in IR absorption in a total high energy portion of the spectrum controlled by changes in a very low total energy portion of the solar spectrum and it change a lot.
In the past you have used Fourier analysis on weather patterns. The people who write the math and statistics books usually are weak at emphasizing the assumptions or requirements for a particular technique. Fourier analysis is for stationary linear systems. Its great for looking at the performance of your radio circuit but that fails when your son is wildly twisting the tuning knob in the circuit. Weather is chaotic, not linear. The changing time lags of the yearly cycle means its not stationary. Fourier analysis will not work. It may kind of work for the fundamental frequency but the higher order frequencies will be smeared out into random noise.
Gary Palmgren
Thanks, Gary.
Since I’ve never denied that solar changes have an effect on the upper atmosphere, I fear you are mistaken about my assumptions …
Same objection. I know changes in the sun cause changes in the upper atmosphere and have said so many times. What I’ve never seen are any observations showing any such changes down at the surface.
Nonsense. The sunspot cycles are about as far from a “stationary linear system” as you can get, but Fourier analysis works just fine with sunspots.
I have no idea what you are calling the “changing time lags of the yearly cycle” … but whatever they are, they don’t obliterate the yearly cycle or make it unanalyzable.
Ah, yes, now you’ve moved on to science by assertion, my favorite kind. Please give us an example where Fourier analysis does NOT work on a weather-related dataset.
And in any case, I’m only looking for the fundamental frequency of ~ 11 years, not “higher order frequencies”.
Regards,
w.
UV radiation is resposible for more or less heating of the ozone layer, more UV, more heat and the polar jet stream is rotating well, less UV, less heat and the jet stream is meandering and produces blocking weather situations.
that’s what Joanna Haig found out, the results may be cold winters or hot summers
[url=https://www.nature.com/news/2010/100414/full/news.2010.184.html]One source[/url]
An other [url=http://www.landscheidt.info/?q=node/128]source[/url]
Link correction:
Source
Second link correction:
[url=https://www.nature.com/news/2010/100414/full/news.2010.184.html]One source[/url]
Sorry !
correction of the “correction”
One source
Willis’s head post is correct but irrelevant.
This is how it works via solar changes affecting global cloudiness:
http://joannenova.com.au/2015/01/is-the-sun-driving-ozone-and-changing-the-climate/
Looking at the spectral chart, something looks off. It shows 500nm as being ‘blue’, but it is not. That’s well within the ‘green’ part of the spectrum. Or is there a spectral shift when the spectrum is measured in vacuum as compared to at the bottom of the atmosphere?
That graph is a little off, but not by a huge amount. The boundary between baby blue and green lies around 500 nm. Green shades into yellow about 600 nm.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/25/Electromagnetic-Spectrum.svg
TSI is a minor player but in the same direction as the dramatic influence of clouds on average global temperature. DIY on that; perhaps use this as a guide http://lowaltitudeclouds.blogspot.com. The time-integral of SSN is a good proxy for the influence of clouds and/or TSI on average global temperature.
Leif,
Re WUWT September 9, 2018 12:15 am
I study your writings with deserved respect, more closely than most writers, because you operate in a way similar to mine. Having studied a topic and assessed it, you then defend or reject it with the firm hand that comes from proper study and experience.
It was with surprise that you defended the proxy method of calculating past UV irradiance after I had earlier written with deliberate provocation that, in part, “These assumptions include acceptance of the accuracy of past sunspot counts, the validity of corrections to them, the relation of the count to other factors such as solar irradiance, neutron counts, Be-10 isotope abundance etc. … The error terms at each stage for each parameter are well understood, reported and carried through with formal propagation mathematics where required; and they are deemed acceptable. The second is to accept that in the absence of direct measurement of solar extreme UV (or indeed any solar UV) for many decades before say 1985, it is pissing in the wind to pretend that a reconstruction of any significance can be made of daily or monthly UV fluxes for model inputs, but hey! This is climate science”
This concerns your response including “So, we do know the run of EUV for more than 200 years.”
I have not seen any publication yet that covers the topic with “The error terms at each stage for each parameter are well understood, reported and carried through with formal propagation mathematics where required; and they are deemed acceptable”.
But there are many papers that I miss. There are so many papers, so few with high quality science. Can you support your assertion that the run of EUV is known over the past 200 years, with a statement that the errors involved in those measurements are also known?
And can you do so against the challenge that I consider the relevant IPCC science as pissing in the wind? Please convince me that your science has stayed hard and has not strayed into the realm of belief.
Best regards Geoff.
Figure 1 of http://www.leif.org/research/Reconstruction-of-Solar-EUV-Flux-1740-2015.pdf
shows the processes involved. Each ‘box’ represents a physical process that is well-known in quantitative detail [and most are verified by rocket launches]. The main error source is the variation from station to station due to differences in underground conductivity. Figures 11-13 summarizes the results and their errors. The errors are tiny compared to the signal. Figure 15 shows the relation between F10.7 [a good proxy for EUV] and the diurnal range. Again, the error is negligible.
Notice that the sunspot numbers are not used to infer the EUV. In fact we do it the other way around. The geomagnetic data let us infer EUV; it so happens that the EUV [the actually measured diurnal variation] can be used to validate the sunspot [group] numbers: section 11 of the link I gave you.
Leif,
Thank you for your responses.
Sadly, they seem to confirm what I have suspected for years, that the climate industry has next to no idea of how to properly handle overall mathematical uncertainty in the use of proxies. Geoff.
That seems to be so, but in no way casts doubt on the proxies themselves. The proxies are well-determined within their known uncertainties. That they are misused in climate ‘research’ is a problem of that field, not of the proxies.
“but in no way casts doubt “
Leif Svalgaard
Typo fixed.
w.
Leif.
When you write “That seems to be so, but in no way casts doubt on the proxies themselves” I am reminded of the MBH tree ring proxies, as is you are saying of them they are reliable. We can, with accuracy, count the number of rings, measure their density or width or whatever, all with good accuracy. But that is not the problem. The problem is to calibrate them against some other parameter, like temperature or rainfall. That cannot be done with accuracy. There are too many known unknows and you have to make too many assumptions of indefinable accuracy. Same with reconstructions of solar irradiance. It is the step of calibrating against a useful other parameter where the severe errors can lurk. Geoff
The tree ring proxies ar likely to be uncertain. However, the solar TSI reconstruction, in my view is on firm ground, c.f. http://www.leif.org/research/EUV-F107-and-TSI-CDR-HAO.pdf
There is general agreement that variations in TSI are due to variations of the solar magnetic field. The latter is now firmly constrained, thus also constraining TSI. There are still people that cling to the old obsolete group sunspot number [and thus TSI] for several reasons [e.g. funding = don’t rock the boat].