Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach [See Update At End]
In a recent post, Anthony published Leif Svalgaard’s new paper showing 9,000 years of reconstructed solar activity.
Svalgaard paper: Reconstruction of 9000 years of Solar Activity
In the discussion, someone pointed out that the “Maunder Minimum”, a time of very low solar activity, corresponds with the coldest decade in a long-term reconstruction of summer temperatures in Scotland. Their temperature reconstruction is based on a group of pine tree-ring records spanning 800 years. Their graph is shown below:
As you can see, the period around 1690 is extremely cold. This was put forward as support for the idea that sunspot cycles affect the temperature. The idea is that when sunspots are low, temperatures are low as well. And the year 1690 is during the Maunder Minimum, a time of low sunspots.
However, as you may know if you follow my work, I like to take the largest look at the longest data that I can find. So rather than build a theory based on one decade of cold temperatures lining up with one sunspot minimum, I decided to compare the two graphs shown above. I first “standardized” both datasets, meaning that I set each of their averages to zero and each of their standard deviations to one. That allows us to compare them directly. Here is that result:
Now, the commenter was indeed correct that the low temperature in 1690 was during the Maunder Minimum.
However, the other minima do not line up with much of anything. The Wolf Minimum occurred during not just a warm period, but during the warmest period in the record. Similarly, the Sporer Minimum occurred during the warm period just before the drop to the “Little Ice Age” of the 1600s.
Then we have the Maunder Minimum. Temperatures started dropping about 150 years before the start of the Maunder Minimum, and during the first hundred years of dropping temperatures the sunspots were increasing. So obviously, the sun was not the cause of the drop in temperature.
Next, although the Dalton minimum occurred during a cold period. temperatures started dropping some seventy years or so before the start of the Dalton minimum … and temperatures warmed from the start to the end of the Dalton Minimum.
Finally, in recent times, you can see that sunspots started decreasing about 1980, while temperatures have risen during that time.
I leave the reader to draw the obvious conclusions regarding sunspots and Scottish temperatures …
[UPDATE] Some folks in the comments have said that the Scottish pine series is just as bad as many of the other tree ring series, such as those abysmal creations of Michael Mann et ilk …
However, this doesn’t appear to be the case, viz:
So while it is true in general that trees are not thermometers … when handled properly, they do appear to do a reasonable job of recording thermal variations.
w.
PS—When you comment, please quote the exact words that you are referring to, so that we can all understand what you are discussing.
The sunspot number reconstruction is very poor. There were centennial solar minima beginning from close to 1320, 1430, and 1550, which agrees with the tree ring proxy.
The three coldest periods in CET were all during solar minima.
Willis:
The discrepancy between Scottish tree ring data and reduced solar activity, which you point out, arises from the fact that it is IMPOSSIBLE to determine changes in solar activity through proxy measurements of C and Be isotopes, due to interception of incoming cosmic radiation by volcanic
Sulfur Dioxide aerosol emissions.
The proxy measurements actually detect varying levels of volcanic activity, rather than any changes in solar output.
You don’t know much about radiation physics do you? If you did you would realize that your theory is about equivalent to using a gossamer sheet to stop incoming bullets.
I would never imagine a one to one relationship between the cause and the effect of the sun and the earth because of the huge oceanic temperature buffer effect. What has happened may be cumulative over a few cycles. The cyclical decrease in the solar magnetic shield is now occurring from Cycle 22 to 24 to 2018, and we appear to be in a hiatus. It takes years because it has taken deep time to build climate stability with its minor aberrations from the mean.
The global T is suspect in any case because of the cultural effect. Toronto Pearson Airport is several degrees higher T than The Billy Bishop Airport. One has 100 TO/Landings /hr of Jumbo Jets and the other is 25 Turboprops a day.
The only real conclusion I can draw is that tree rings are a really bad proxy for sunspot numbers.
Willis explained how he standardized the y axis. What about the x-axis?
Svalgaard’s reconstruction is in decadal data, one datum every ten years.
Decadal averages hide a lot of the action.
The Scottish Pine data is based on something different, no?
You’re counting on the SSN reconstruction being right. Remember what Leif said,
Your graphic shows fairly good correspondence since ~1620, near the time of real SSN data, possibly indicating flaws in the WEA reconstruction, not Leif’s use of it.
If all but the recent sunspot minima had faithfully coincided everywhere with significant temperature drops, then one could aver that the present warming was possibly due to greenhouse gas increases. I have to agree (assuming Leif’s dates match his data reasonably well) that the ssn minima and temp drops don’t match up consistently. This is one failed relationship that illustrates sceptics can be as tenacious as ghg warming proponents in hanging on to failed theory.
Some skeptics realize the limitations of thousands of years old tree and cosmogenic proxies.
I doubt the climate control issue can be resolved with this data.
Ridiculous to use trees. Use Ocean mud. The Oceans warm and/or cool based on the Sun. Trees are affected by Ocean temperatures, Arctic Ice, Water vapor, Rain, etc…….
Largest look at the longest data? I remember a short look at data as long as the Nile, and as lucid as aurorae.
Per Feynman, Joan, et al.
=======================
An old canard. This is what drew me back in the day, why is this?
PMOD depicts a non-linear SSN-TSI relationship that becomes more linear with increasing solar mean field strength:
The rankings show a “sweet spot” for TSI when SSN is 160-220; note the highest TSI years are not during the highest SSN years:
Rank PMOD1709 SSN
2002 1361.6119 163.6
2000 1361.5917 173.9
2001 1361.5312 170.4
1980 1361.5147 218.9
1981 1361.5048 198.9
1989 1361.4849 211.1
1979 1361.4294 220.1
1990 1361.4294 191.8
1999 1361.3642 136.3
1991 1361.3542 203.3
The SC23 ’99-02 TSI climb provided the energy for the step-up after the ’98 ENSO.
Finally, the modern temperature rise is owed to sunspot activity being higher than the amount necessary to just maintain the temperature, the decadal warming/cooling v2 sunspot number threshold of 94, for much of the 1978-2003 period, and in again in 2013/14.
Although this could be a resolution issue regarding the sunspot reconstruction. The recent solar cycles have less variability compared with earlier times of the last millennium, so this will effect climate differently.
Correct Bob, but minds on this subject have been made up and no one is going to change their mind.
That is because there is only one driver of the climate. Climate is not, absolutely and totally not driven by thousands of different processes which have their own timing, connections, lags and other variables. Thus, we can determine that sunspots have no effect at all on climate.
tty:
Far from a gossamer sheet, SO2 aerosols (tiny droplets of Sulfuric Acid) are millions of times larger than C and Be atoms.
Which matters not in the least. 14C and 10B are created by nuclear reactions. By interaction of high energy neutrons with 14N nuclei and spallation of 14N and 16O nuclei respectively. The oxygen atoms in SO2 will work as well as any other oxygen nuclei, so the only difference those SO2 droplets will make is in the very rare cases when a cosmic ray particle hits a 32S nucleus. Which will happen very, very rarely since the proportion of sulfur atoms to oxygen and nitrogen atoms in the atmosphere is infinitesimally small even after the largest volcanic eruptions.
That those aerosols have a climatic effect is because they can both absorb and scatter sunlight which is low energy and will interact with the whole droplet which isn’t millions, but billions of times bigger than the nuclei.
Some comments have already included some problems with these reconstructions, but there is also another factor although impossible to found out at the moment during the past.
The mode of different wavelengths from the sun changes through time so temperatures will affect oceans differently depending how far these penetrate them. The sun may show different activity of sunspot periods, but these are only comparable with exactly the same shortwave radiation from different bands of the emission spectrum.
1) Increase the length of overall wavelengths reaching the planet and the oceans will cool because more of them will only come in contact with shallower depths.
2) Decrease the length of overall wavelengths reaching the planet and the oceans will warm because more of them will come in contact with deeper depths.
Until this is known more secrets of solar activity on climate will be hidden.
Variation in the visible wavelength is very small. The variation in UV is considerably larger, but most of this doesn’t reach the surface but rather is absorbed in the stratosphere. So it is in the stratosphere, not in the sea where one would expect solar variability to have a major effect.
To be a little more precise, this data indicates that some variation in the Sun’s activity may or may not have caused temperature variations, but sunspot data is not an indicator of it.
That’s not very precise. It’s more precise to say the WEA reconstruction may not result exclusively from sunspot activity, making it a suspect solar proxy and temperature indicator, meanwhile the observed sunspot data since the 1600’s is a better solar energy proxy and indicator of temperature variations.
In response to comments that the Scottish pine series is just garbage like say the tree ring fantasies of Michael Mann, I’ve added this to the head post …
As you can see … the Scottish pine series appears to be a reasonable proxy.
w.
So pine trees that show growth from may to August are a suitable proxy for a four seasons instrumental temperature?
Fine by me, as it illustrates the extraordinary rise in temperature from 1690 unprecedented in the modern era.
Now, do you want to tell dr Mann he was right after all ? A nice phone call or an email?
Tonyb
Tony,
IMO tree rings can be used as proxy data, although more for net precipitation than temperature. The main problems with Mann’s misuse of them are his fractured fairly tale statistical analyses and tacking an instrumental record onto these cherry-picked, upside down, bent, folded, spindled, mutilated and abused curves, with hanging chads.
John
Yes, I am happy with some proxy for precipitation . Bearing in mind the limited growing season and the nature of the micro climate in a forest , apart from any quasi scientific related matters, I do not see the proxy for temperatures.as being valid.
I think I remember people coming up with all sorts of tree ring proxirs sch as sales of burgers correlated closely.
I am sure Willis will have more to say
Tonyb
Tony,
Since temperature and precipitation are related, it is possible, IMO, with careful scientific technique, to derive a T signal from tree rings, at least in some cases.
Such as the papers here, from last year:
Tree rings and climate in Scandinavia and Southern Patagonia
https://gupea.ub.gu.se/handle/2077/53971
But Mann, et al, engaged in scientific malpractice and statistical sleight of hand in order to fabricate their HS, or intentionally sloppy, at best.
Another recent example of teasing out T from tree rings, by comparison with sez ice and SST:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921818114000253
A 70–80 year periodicity identified from tree ring temperatures in Northern Scandinavia and its relation to the Arctic sea-ice oscillation AD 550–1980
IMO, simply eyeballing solar cycles show that at times multi-cycle periodicities occur, with waxing or waning magnitude in following cycles, although rarely six or seven such ~11-year fluctuations in sequence.
This is the former cycle reconstruction, but close enough for intergovernmental work. It shows, with one exception, rising magnitude during the 18th century recovery from the Maunder, followed by the Dalton Minimum.
The Modern WP also shows up from the mid-19th century, with a drop off in general from the late 20th century. IMO, the overall decline since then wasn’t enough promptly to overcome the accumulated heat of the prior century or so.
Some scientists argue that Earth soon radiates away increased solar radiation absorbed during higher activity intervals, but others are convinced that heat does accumulate over time, to be moved around by oceanic and atmospheric currents and oscillations before being lost to space. So that lags exist and can be observed, akin to the effect of added GHGs in raising emission height in the troposphere.
Tonyb October 29, 2018 at 11:38 am
Hey, I’m just publishing the results. Looks to me like they work as a reasonable proxy. Do you have evidence that contradicts that?
What are you calling the “modern era”? 1690 onwards? Because if you mean say from 1200 onwards, the modern rise is far from either the fastest or the largest.
Read the link I published above, Tony. Mann used stripbark pines in direct defiance of a number of authorities saying that they were inappropriate. His reconstructions are a pile of crap, as shown by multiple analyses.
Not only that, but I believe that he’s a plagiarist who stole my analysis and published it as his own. Pathetic.
So it will be the next glacial maximum in the place of eternal perdition before I apologize to that sleazeball for anything.
w.
Willis,
We agree that Mann is a charlatan and trickster, who doesn’t practice the scientific method, but instead advocacy, with all the ruses of persuasion and none of the valid data and reasoning therefrom that ought to characterize science.
But it has worked for him, to include funding from Big Oil.
Willis
“What are you calling the “modern era”? 1690 onwards? Because if you mean say from 1200 onwards, the modern rise is far from either the fastest or the largest.”
No, I meant the modern era from 1690 for which we have instrumental temperature records.
I had been selling tickets for seats to eavesdrop on your phone conversation with Dr Mann. Guess I will have to think of another way to earn an honest penny.
In all seriousness, the proxy is interesting but of course it SHOUDNT be correct, as a four season temperature is somewhat different to a may to august imperfect tree record.
However the peak around the 1500’s then the drop afterwards matches my published reconstruction of CET to 1538 and the rise in the 1300’s after the cold of the 1200’s again matches the reconstruction I am currently working on. Curious.
Tony,
It’s the rise in the second half of the 14th century which makes dating the start of the LIA problematical. I prefer beginning around AD 1400, but others, to include Mann, back when he believed in the MWP, ended it c. 1250. That’s too early, IMO, even if one assigns the Wolf Minimum to the beginning of the LIA rather than last cool cycle toward the end of the MWP.
So the MWP either suffered only one minor minimum, the Oort, or two, with the middling Wolf Minimum as well. And hence the LIA owed either to three or four minima, the three being the bigger Spoerer, biggest Maunder and lesser Dalton.
The Modern WP has yet to experience any distinct minimum at all. Some think we might be in store for a Dalton-level hit, but those predicting an impending Maunder-like event are, IMO, liable to be shown incorrect.
John
Mann believed it was a major volcano eruption in 1250 that precipitated the LIA or ended the mwp , depending on how you want to look at it.
I have acquired hundreds of observational recrds from the period and 1250 was merely one of a number of cold years in that period, all interspersed with warm years. I seem to remember that miller and his moss also claimed a down turn but its not apparent when you look at the extended record in context
I haven’t done a study yet of the 1400’s so can not comment on the climate in that period
Tonyb
Tony,
Yes. Some have blamed the volcanic eruption of AD 1257 for the end of the MWP. Before 2009, Mann might have been among them.
But in Mann, et al., 2009, he blamed shifts in Atlantic wind patterns from radiative forces for the only regional MWP and LIA:
Global Signatures and Dynamical Origins of the Little Ice Age and Medieval Climate Anomaly
http://science.sciencemag.org/content/326/5957/1256
There were, as you note, good and bad years in the second half of the 13th century.
John
You will note that I started this thread by referring to my article that I entitled ‘the intermittent little ice age’
I think this notion of a climatic deep freeze lasting from say 1200 to well into the 1800’s is a simplistic one. There were plentyof periods of cold weather in the warm spells and plenty of warm weather in the cold spells.
The intense periods of cold appeared to be concentrated and intermittent but having said that a twenty year period of mostly cold winters and cool summers would wreak havoc with an agrarian based society
What effects the intense cold spells had on sea temperatures and wind direction, jet stream etc and therfore on subsequent weather is something that people like Lamb used to investigate but no one is dong that sort of work these days.
Tonyb
Tony,
My concept of centennial scale warm and cold secular trends starts with Bond Cycles, which are the interglacial equivalent of D/O cycles in the longer glacial cycles.
Within each secular trend, whether warming or cooling, lie stronger or weaker counter-trend cycles, ie multidecadal warmings within cool periods, such as the early 18th century warming coming out of the Maunder Minimum, or coolings during warm intervals, such as the c. 1945-77 dramatic cooling during the Modern WP.
But they’re all down more or less to the sun, IMO, as modulated by previous and prevailing conditions on Earth.
The author states that, to wit:
When I look at the above noted Scottish Tree Ring-Svalgaard Sunspot graph …. I simply discredit the “tree ring” temperature proxy data because there are far too many variables that can affect the seasonal growth of a tree’s cambium layer which is responsible for adding a new layer of xylem (tree ring) to the tree’s trunk and branches (limbs).
And in the case of “Scottish Pine Temperature Reconstructions” via use of the “growth rings” or ”tree rings”, …. it would not be illogical, unreasonable or unprofessional to infer, suggest or claim that the aforesaid Scottish Pine growth rings are highly unlikely to be affected by any near-surface temperature increases/decreases associated with Sunspot activity, ……. simply because, to wit:
Therefore, …. maybe, ….. just maybe, …… the aforenoted Scottish Pine Temperature Reconstruction proxy …… can also be cited as being a Gulf Stream Temperature Reconstruction proxy. 😊 😊
Try using Haggis rings ….. way more tasty !!!!! thee noo.
In general, it appears to me that tree rings make good proxies only for temperatures that you are looking for.
Tree rings are subject to so many other variables that they may only give general hints to provoke better methods.
Using 10yr vs 1yr SSN averages distorts the accumulation curve:
This means decadal reconstructions won’t work very well for climate work.
Good point.
But IIRC, and I might not, so I hope that Leif will correct me if wrong, he doesn’t buy the heat accumulation hypothesis, since IHO, Earth rapidly radiates any extra heat away to space.
I incline toward your view, in which our water world is capable of storing heat accumulated over more powerful solar cycles for some time, producing a lag effect in cooling when weaker solar cycles occur.
And moving that accumulated heat around via oceanic and atmospheric circulations and oscillations.
There are of course also negative feedback effects, such as increased evaporative cooling and possibly cloudiness as a result of more solar radiation hitting the tropical oceans for longer intervals. Ours is a largely homeostatic planet, as long as other conditions remain basically the same, such as tectonic arrangements and Milankovitch cycles. But we can tip from interglacial to glacial phases and out of them at geologically prompt rates.
Some studies have found that oscillations such as ENSO occur more often and with stronger magnitude during warmer, sunnier intervals.
It was once thought that during the balmy Pliocene, without the Isthmus of Panama, Los Ninos were more or less constant, so that ENSO was less an oscillation than a nearly permanent phenomenon. This proposition might not be as widely held now as formerly.
Thanks John. Our thinking is similar.
My graphic should say “Sum of SSN-94″.
De nada.
For the Sum of the Sun, you graduate Summa.
John Tillman
Re your post of Oct 29, 3:55 pm:
For my reference, I have used “Volcanoes of the World”, 3rd edition (2010).
(1) The Roman Warming Period ended with the VEI6+ eruption of llopango (El Salvador) (450 AD), and the Plinian (most powerful category known) eruption of Pele (c. 450 AD). This was followed by Vesuvius (VEI5), in 472, and at least 71 VEI4, or higher eruptions in the interval before the MWP, including 3 additional Plinian eruptions in c. 730, 823, and 890.
With respect to the LIA, references typically assign its beginning to the eruption of Mount Rinjani (VEI7) in 1257, followed by the eruption of Quilotoa (VEI6)(c. 1280) and a string of 25 VEI5, 5 VEI6 and 1 VEI7 (Tambora)(1815). between then and its “end” in 1850 . There were also at least 95 VEI4 eruptions within the period, which would have contributed to maintaining the cooling.
(Within the period 1850-present, there have been 31 VEI4 eruptions that have spewed enough SO2 into the atmosphere to cause the formation of a La Nina, so their cooling effect is far from negligible)
(2) “Variations in the solar cycle before telescopic observations can be reconstructed using 14C and 10Be isotopes”
NO, they cannot. Observed reductions in isotopic levels are are due to interfering levels of volcanic SO2 aerosols in the atmosphere, and not due to changes in solar output. This CAN be proven
Burl,
I’d be obliged if you could prove that 14C and 10Be isotope levels can be shown to correlate with SO2 levels in the air rather than solar output. I have not seen any studies to that effect. Thanks!
The beginning of the LIA is not typically assigned to AD 1257. Only CO2 special pleaders date the end of the MWP from that time.
I’d also appreciate it if you could show all the VEI 4 and 5 eruptions which you suppose caused the LIA, and compare and contrast their frequency during that interval with before, during the MWP, and after, during the Modern WP.
Then kindly please explain why prior such warm and cool fluctuations in the Holocene lack volcanic connections, and the same for all previous interglacials of the past 2.6 million yeas.
Thanks again!
John Tillman:
I had posted this on a previous thread, but here it is again:
“I would point out that it is IMPOSSIBLE to determine changes in solar activity via proxy measurements , because of varying interference from volcanic SO2 aerosols (tiny droplets of H2SO4) in the atmosphere.
This can be proven by examination of the graph “Solar Irradiance, 1880-present”, which was constructed from proxy measurements, as those of the LIA, and other eras. It can be Googled.
It shows, for example, a solar minimum between 1983-1986, which coincides with the 1984-1985 La Nina (caused by increased SO2 levels from the El Chicon eruptions of 3-29-82 (VEI4+) and 4-3-82 (VEI5).
It also shows a large solar maximum (again, for example), between 1985 and 1995, which coincides with the El Ninos of 1986-88, 1991-92, and 1994-95, all of which were due to reductions in the amount of atmospheric SO2 aerosol levels.
Thus, these changes, attributed to changes in solar output, were instead caused by changes in atmospheric SO2 aerosol levels, which changed the magnitude of the proxy measurements, and led to erroneous conclusions.
Finally, satellite TSI measurements are available for the above periods, and they show NO corresponding large changes in solar output”.
Regarding prior Warm and Cold periods throughout Earth’s history, there is no reason to believe that they were not also driven by volcanic activity. Ice Ages could easily be maintained by extensive volcanic activity, and the cessation of extensive volcanism would explain the rapid warming seen at the end of Ice Ages, with their volcanic SO2 aerosols settling out of the atmosphere within a decade, or less.
Further responses to your questions will require another post.
See my comment above. SO4 droplets will have virtually no effect whatsoever on 14C and 10B production since the proportion of sulfur nuclei to nitrogen and oxygen nuclei will be extremely small even after the biggest eruptions.
tty:
You need to re-read my comments.
I pointed out that when SO2 levels increased , proxy measurements of the 10Be and 14C decreased. And when SO2 levels decreased, proxy measurements of 10Be and 14C increased. And that satellite measurements showed NO corresponding changes in solar irradiance.
All of this indicates that my analysis is correct, and that your objections are meaningless. However, I am open to an alternate explanation of the facts, if you can provide one.
“All of this indicates that my analysis is correct, and that your objections are meaningless”
Since your theory requires extensive revision of basic nuclear physics I think you will have to do better than just wiggle matching. How significant is the correlation? Five sigmas or better?
Burl,
Glaciations lasting tens of thousands of years or more can’t be maintained by volcanic eruptions. For one thing, volcanism can warm the atmosphere as well as cool it.
The Cretaceous Period was much more volcanic than most of the Cenozoic Era, eyt it was hot, hot, hot, not icy. By contrast, the cold Carboniferous and early Permian Periods were comparatively non-volcanic.
John :
“Glaciations lasting tens of thousands of years or more can’t be maintained by volcanic eruptions”
And the reason for that is ?
During the Little Ice Age, we were only a few large eruptions away from slipping into a new Ice Age. Once snow coverage and sea ice formation increase sufficiently, Earth’s albedo will change, and eruptions will have even greater effect in an already cooled climate.
As such, periods of extensive eruptions could easily have maintained Earth’s Ice Ages.
You may be correct about the extent of volcanism in the mentioned periods, although I find it difficult believe that much could be known about their occurrences in such distant times.
You correctly mention that volcanoes can also cause warming. However, the mechanism for the warming is cleansing of the lower atmosphere by the rain of stratospheric SO2 aerosols settling out, and flushing out others in the troposphere, on their way to the Earth’s surface, thus cleansing the air enough to increase insolation. But if there are frequent eruptions, any such warming would be quickly quenched, or might not even occur.
I just think Eisenbach makes too much of too little data. Even Mann agrees with solar forcing of temperature.
Mann and friends : Solar Forcing of Regional Climate Change During the Maunder Minimum (http://science.sciencemag.org/content/294/5549/2149.full)
A better paper on climate forcing: Chapter 14 – Cause of Global Climate Changes: Correlation of Global Temperature, Sunspots, Solar Irradiance, Cosmic Rays, and Radiocarbon and Berylium Production Rates (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/B9780128045886000148)
Wex Pyke October 29, 2018 at 8:05 pm
Then we’re even, because I think you are objecting with far too little data about just what it is you are objecting to … as you obviously have trouble with reading comprehension, let me repeat what I said at the end of the head post:
You continue:
Mann is a liar, a plagiarist, and a totally inept scientist. If he agrees with something, you can make money by betting it is BS. In any case, it’s paywalled, and no way I’m paying for anything Mann had a hand in … not to mention that we know next to nothing of regional climates during the 1600s.
I’m sorry, but linking to seventeen pages of random information covering a host of different proxies and a bunch of claims about said proxies with no less than 37 graphs doesn’t advance the discussion at all.
Out of those dozens and dozens of claims, which one are you talking about? Oxygen isotopes and GISP2? Cooling and cloud cover? 10Be and ice cores? SSNs during 1945-1977? Obsolete HadCRUT3 temperatures 1880-1915? Lean’s TSI reconstruction that even she has disowned? Imaginary and totally bogus CET temperatures from 1635 to 1658, BEFORE the CET even started? The uncited, unreferenced graph of putative glacier advances?
Sorry, but it appears that you are easily impressed … you need to dial up the sensitivity of your skepticism meter.
Regards,
w.
Willis-
Objecting to the premise, the idea that you are using one proxy to attack a single paper, and then taking that stawman to attack a huge swath of papers that show solar forcing is real, is not very scientific.
You can only handle one graph? I find this odd, you are arguing that a paper that attempts to look at all the data is wrong … because it uses too much data and thought? … but OK lets go to some easy math. Lets look at the single comparison of the best sunspot data graphed with the best temp data we have (which is manipulated). Graph NASA or any other temp data since 1978 against the sunspot data from the same period. What does it show? A correlation so clear that you don’t even need to run stats…climate4you.com does this under their “sun” section. Try it, you might like it.
As for Mann – you again create a strawman about what you think of him instead of thinking through that even folks on the other side (for whom the solar forcing is not just inconvenient but could threaten their whole lie) agree that it exists.
Goodbye and good luck!
Wex Pyke October 30, 2018 at 4:19 am
I objected to the paper because of the junk that it contained, and because you have given me a pile which is a mixture of gold and garbage and said something like “See! This proves my point!”. When I asked which of the dozens of claims in the paper prove your point, you go schtumm.
Wex, you seem to be operating under the assumption that this is my first post about sunspots. Nothing could be further from the truth. See below.
As to Mann, AS I TOLD YOU, the paper is paywalled and I’m not going to pay $40 or so to read his junk. Point me to an unpaywalled version and I’ll be happy to take a look.
Finally, here’s your requested graph of sunspots and HadCRUT data … note that in total contradiction to all solar claims, which are that times of low solar activity cause low temperatures on the earth, sunspots have been going down while temperatures have been going up. However, there is NO statistically significant correlation between the two variables.
Best regards,
w.
Sunspots
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In investigations of the past history of cosmic rays, the deposition rates (flux rates) of the beryllium isotope 10Be are often used as a proxy for the amount of cosmic rays. This is because 10Be is produced, inter alia, by cosmic rays in the atmosphere. Being a congenitally inquisitive type…
The Tip of the Gleissberg 2014-05-17
A look at Gleissberg’s famous solar cycle reveals that it is constructed from some dubious signal analysis methods. This purported 80-year “Gleissberg cycle” in the sunspot numbers has excited much interest since Gleissberg’s original work. However, the claimed length of the cycle has varied widely.
The Effect of Gleissberg’s “Secular Smoothing” 2014-05-19
ABSTRACT: Slow Fourier Transform (SFT) periodograms reveal the strength of the cycles in the full sunspot dataset (n=314), in the sunspot cycle maxima data alone (n=28), and the sunspot cycle maxima after they have been “secularly smoothed” using the method of Gleissberg (n = 24). In all three datasets, there…
It’s The Evidence, Stupid! 2014-05-24
I hear a lot of folks give the following explanation for the vagaries of the climate, viz: It’s the sun, stupid. And in fact, when I first started looking at the climate I thought the very same thing. How could it not be the sun, I reasoned, since obviously that’s…
Sunspots and Sea Surface Temperature 2014-06-06
I thought I was done with sunspots … but as the well-known climate scientist Michael Corleone once remarked, “Just when I thought I was out … they pull me back in”. In this case Marcel Crok, the well-known Dutch climate writer, asked me if I’d seen the paper from Nir…
Maunder and Dalton Sunspot Minima 2014-06-23
In a recent interchange over at Joanne Nova’s always interesting blog, I’d said that the slow changes in the sun have little effect on temperature. Someone asked me, well, what about the cold temperatures during the Maunder and Dalton sunspot minima? And I thought … hey, what about them? I…
Changes in Total Solar Irradiance 2014-10-25
Total solar irradiance, also called “TSI”, is the total amount of energy coming from the sun at all frequencies. It is measured in watts per square metre (W/m2). Lots of folks claim that the small ~ 11-year variations in TSI are amplified by some unspecified mechanism, and thus these small changes in TSI make an…
Splicing Clouds 2014-11-01
So once again, I have donned my Don Quijote armor and continued my quest for a ~11-year sunspot-related solar signal in some surface weather dataset. My plan for the quest has been simple. It is based on the fact that all of the phenomena commonly credited with affecting the temperature,…
Volcanoes and Sunspots 2015-02-09
I keep reading how sunspots are supposed to affect volcanoes. In the comments to my last post, Tides, Earthquakes, and Volcanoes, someone approvingly quoted a volcano researcher who had looked at eleven eruptions of a particular type and stated: …. Nine of the 11 events occurred during the solar inactive phase…
Early Sunspots and Volcanoes 2015-02-10
Well, as often happens I started out in one direction and then I got sidetractored … I wanted to respond to Michele Casati’s claim in the comments of my last post. His claim was that if we include the Maunder Minimum in the 1600’s, it’s clear that volcanoes with a…
Sunspots and Norwegian Child Mortality 2015-03-07
In January there was a study published by The Royal Society entitled “Solar activity at birth predicted infant survival and women’s fertility in historical Norway”, available here. It claimed that in Norway in the 1700s and 1800s the solar activity at birth affected a child’s survival chances. As you might imagine, this…
The New Sunspot Data And Satellite Sea Levels 2015-08-13
[UPDATE:”Upon reading Dr. Shaviv’s reply to this post, I have withdrawn any mention of “deceptive” from this post. This term was over the top, as it ascribed motive to the authors. I have replaced the term with “misleading”. This is more accurate…
My Thanks Apologies And Reply To Dr Nir Shaviv 2015-08-17
Dr. Nir Shaviv has kindly replied in the comments to my previous post. There, he says: Nir Shaviv” August 15, 2015 at 2:51 pm There is very little truth about any of the points raised by Eschenbach in this article. In particular, his analysis excludes the fact that the o…
Is The Signal Detectable 2015-08-19
[UPDATE] In the comments, Nick Stokes pointed out that although I thought that Dr. Shaviv’s harmonic solar component was a 12.6 year sine wave with a standard deviation of 1.7 centimetres, it is actually a 12.6 year sine wave with a standard deviation of 1.7 millime…
The Missing 11 Year Signal 2015-08-19
Dr. Nir Shaviv and others strongly believe that there is an ~ 11-year solar signal visible in the sea level height data. I don’t think such a signal is visible. So I decided to look for it another way, one I’d not seen used before. One of the more sensitive …
23 New Papers 2015-09-22
Over at Pierre Gosselin’s site, NoTricksZone, he’s trumpeting the fact that there are a bunch of new papers showing a solar effect on the climate. The headline is Already 23 Papers Supporting Sun As Major Climate Factor In 2015 “Burgeoning Evidence No Longer Dismissible!…
The Cosmic Problem With Rays 2016-10-17
Normal carbon has six neutrons and six protons, for an atomic weight of twelve. However, there is a slightly different form of carbon which has two extra neutrons. That form of carbon, called carbon-14 or ’14C’, has an atomic weight of fourteen. It is known to be formed by the …
Willis,
“Point me to an unpaywalled version and I’ll be happy to take a look.”
It’s here.
Thanks, Nick. Wex posted it below, and I replied.
Best regards,
w.
“Then we have the Maunder Minimum. Temperatures started dropping about 150 years before the start of the Maunder Minimum, and during the first hundred years of dropping temperatures the sunspots were increasing.”
The drop does coincide with first European contact with the New World and resultant decimation of native American populations. This would have caused a reduction in agricultural activity and forest regrowth.
The drop beginning late 14th century also coincides with the peak of the Plague in Europe.
Thanks, James. While there would have been some forest regrowth, the amount of agriculture practiced by the American Indians was trivial compared to the land area … and the US is only about 2% of the surface of the globe.
So I fear that would make absolutely no detectable difference.
w.
I think you are wrong there Willis. The amount of agriculture practiced before European contact was quite extensive in the southeastern US and very extensive in Central and South America. Large parts of the Amazon were farmland in 1500.
The earliest spanish explorers like DeSoto in the southeastern US and Orellana in the Amazon describes densely populated country with large towns and kingdoms.
Tty,
Agriculture, or at least cultivation, was also practiced in the NE US and SE Canada, well into the Midwest. Remember Squanto’s fish fertilizer and Pocahontas’ tobacco.
The Spoerer Minimum led to the collapse of civilization in the Mississippian Culture:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cahokia
And to agriculture in much of the US SW:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancestral_Puebloans#Migration_from_the_homeland
The main regions of North America which didn’t support much agriculture in AD 1492 but do now were the Great Plains, the Pacific Coast and intermountain NW. Nature was so bountiful on the CA and PNW coasts that, while the people knew about agriculture, it required more work without much more reward than hunting and gathering.
Indians did however burn grassland and forest to manage their resources.
And there was ag on the Great Plains along the major rivers, as in the Mandan villages on the Missouri.
Yes, however some of the Northwest Coast indians did grow tobacco, they really wanted that and couldn’t get it by hunting and gathering.
The Jomon culture in Japan was somewhat similar. It lasted for more than 10,000 years as a sedentary hunting/gathering culture without ever adopting farming. Also in a rich coastal environment.
An often quoted number is that 95% of native americans were wiped out by diseases introduced by europeans. This included the Aztecs and Incas as well as N Americans. There is also some thought that the bison underwent a huge expansion following this.
It has been speculated that the vast numbers of Passenger Pigeons was also a temporary and abnormal phenomenon due to the expansion of young productive oak forests on abandoned farmland (the pigeons largely lived on acorns).
As others have pointed, it is certainly more than just the US involved. Population densities, and presumably amount of agriculture, in Mexico and Central America were much higher.
The Amazon is a real unknown. I don’t doubt the large populations but I’m not sure how much land clearing was involved vs. more intensive agriculture on a smaller amount of land.
Interestingly, the Cahokia link mentions a 14th century decline possibly related to deforestation. Agriculture without plows and modern seed would be more land extensive and necessarily involve more land clearing to sustain a population than today’s agriculture. Even with the decline of the large centers (the sort of things most easily studied), the people don’t go anywhere but just keep doing what they were doing in a more dispersed manner. Or, the centers move elsewhere.
We need to look not just at the effects on the carbon budget of deforestation and reforestation but also the effects on clouds from aerosol production.
I’m not arguing for a single explanation. I think the great fault of many is to look for some simple explanation – like the sun or planetary cycles or whatever – when we are dealing with a very complex system and a lot of moving parts.
And of course we also have the collapse of the Anasazi and Hohokam farming systems in the SW, though at least the Anasazi collapse was earlier and very likely connected to 13th Century megadroughts.
The collapse of the Classic Mayan Civilization (approx. 900 AD) is sometimes also attributed in part to drought. Some think there is an association between deforestation and drought. And, even if periodic droughts have other explanations, deforestation could exacerbate them.
W-
This is not personal, your tone sure does not seem to show a common interaction with the normal scientific discourse. How many of your solar publications were peer reviewed?
As for Mann, here it is unpaywalled from Mann’s own website, thoughts? http://www.meteo.psu.edu/holocene/public_html/Mann/articles/articles/Shindelletal01.pdf
The paper I cited is complex but it is certainly not tripe.
As for your graph, a linear comparison over the timeframe is irrelevant, isnt it? The timeframe covers several solar cycles where temperature would be predicted (by “solar forcers”) to wax and wane with every solar cycle thus a linear regression would need to go from peak, or just after peak, to each sunspot minimum. Look at your own graph, it shows temp dropping, or at least increasing at a lower rate, during sunspot lulls each eleven years. You find this in every temp record since ’78.
Wex
Wex, as I detailed in the post I linked to above, Mann stole my ideas and published them as his own. After that, you seem to think I should rub his tummy and blow in his ear … sorry, not gonna happen.
As to peer review, every scientist knows that there are piles and piles of absolute nonsense that make it through peer review. There is a huge replicability problem in many parts of science, and peer review hasn’t slowed that down one bit. If you believe something because it has been peer-reviewed, more fool you.
As a result, I publish here on WUWT, where my work is examined in detail by a host of experts, many of whom would like nothing more than to find something wrong with my work … and when they do, I’m the first to admit it and to thank them for pointing it out. It’s infinitely more rigorous than any peer-review.
Why do I thank them for pointing out when I’m wrong? Because it’s saved me from endless months of following blind trails based on some mistake I’ve made.
Now, did you read my posts that I linked to about sunspots? If not … why are we discussing my work? And if you did, did you find any errors at all in my claims? Speak up, this is your chance to show me wrong …
I pointed out several pieces of tripe in what you cited, including the Lean data that Lean herself has disowned. I’ve asked what among that huge pile you think falsifies what I’ve written. Instead of answering, you want to lecture me on my tone? Yeah, that’s legit …
As to the graph, you appear to have forgotten why I posted it. It was in response to this request of yours:
And now that I’ve shown the graph, you say that “a linear comparison over the timeframe is irrelevant, isnt it?” Say what? YOU REQUESTED THAT EXACT GRAPH, and when I post what you asked for, you want to whine about it?
As to your claim that “it shows temp dropping, or at least increasing at a lower rate, during sunspot lulls each eleven years”, I’m sorry, but that is simply not true. Here’s a scatterplot of sunspots versus detrended temperature. I’ve detrended the temperature to remove the effect of the overall trend. If the two variables moved in parallel as you wrongly claim, we’d see as a correlation of the two datasets. But we don’t see that.
As you can see from the scatterplot, despite your claim that we’d see “A correlation so clear that you don’t even need to run stats”, there is ABSOLUTELY NO CORRELATION of the two datasets, no matter what you think you see. And yes, you do need statistics, otherwise our eyes will fool us and find patterns where none exist …
Finally, the Mann paper. As I suspected, he did NOT find a correlation between sunspots and temperature. He found a correlation between MODELED sunspots and MODELED temperature, which he claims (but doesn’t demonstrate) is backed up by a few of his bogus proxy reconstructions, amazingly including his many-times-falsified Hockeystick BS … and if you are impressed by climate models plus the Hockeystick, you are not the scientist you claim to be.
w.
PS—I have 6 peer reviewed pieces, including a “Brief Communications Arising” in Nature. They’ve garnered over 125 citations in scientific journals, including ten citations to my piece in Nature. I can assure you that the public review my work gets here on WUWT is far more rigorous than the peer review for any of those pieces.