Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach [See update at the end]
I started out as a true believer that sunspots (or something that changes in sync with sunspots, like heliomagnetism, cosmic rays, solar wind, etc.) had a strong effect on the weather. When I was a kid I read that the great British astronomer William Hershel had said that British wheat prices were affected by the sunspot cycle. Made sense to me …
So when I started looking into the question, I figured it would be a piece of cake to find evidence supporting the connection … but nothing in climate science is simple. I started by looking into Hershel’s claim, and I was going to write it up … but then I found a scientific paper entitled “On the insignificance of Herschel’s sunspot correlation“. I hadn’t put much time into my research, and it was much better than my poor attempt. It clearly showed that Herschel was … well … not to put too fine a point on it, completely wrong.
Undaunted, I continued to look for correlations, and I’ve done so from time to time ever since. At this point I’ve looked in more than 20 places, and found no correlation. I append these studies at the end of this post.
Yesterday, a chance comment about sea surface temperature (SST) gave me a new thought about how to look for the signal. In general, I’ve looked at various time-series records of some parameter—river levels, lake levels, cloud amounts, volcanoes, and the like. I’ve analyzed them either with Fourier Analysis or CEEMD analysis.
Anyhow, the idea I had was to divide monthly gridded temperature datasets into months where the sunspots were higher than the median sunspot number for the period, and months where sunspots were lower than that median. Then, I’d subtract the gridcell-by-gridcell average of the low-sunspot months from that of the high-sunspot months. If the theory that low sunspot cycles were associated with low temperatures were true, I’d expect to find a positive difference between the two.
Since the original idea was about sea surface temperature (SST), I thought I’d start with that. The best gridded SST dataset I know of is the Reynolds OI dataset. It starts in 1981, and uses a mixture of satellite and surface data. From the NOAA site:
The NOAA 1/4° daily Optimum Interpolation Sea Surface Temperature (or daily OISST) is an analysis constructed by combining observations from different platforms (satellites, ships, buoys) on a regular global grid. A spatially complete SST map is produced by interpolating to fill in gaps.
It’s available here as a NetCDF document. Figure 1 shows the result of the analysis.
Figure 1. Average of high-sunspot-number months minus the average of low-sunspot-number months, Reynolds Optimally Interpolated Sea Surface Temperature. “High-sunspot” months averaged 135 sunspots; “low-sunspot” months averaged 26 sunspots.
As you can see, not only is the difference very tiny, it has the wrong sign. If low sunspot numbers actually lead to low temperatures, then high minus low should give a positive result. But in this case, it’s a negative result, and it’s only four-hundredths of one degree. In other words … no sign of sunspots affecting the SST.
Next, I thought I’d take a look at a global dataset. I used the Berkeley Earth gridded land and ocean data. I picked an arbitrary cutoff date of 1950, because observations before that start getting sparse. The data is available here as a NetCDF document. I did the same thing, dividing it into high-sunspot and low-sunspot months, and subtracted the low from the high. Figure 2 shows the results.
Figure 2. As in Figure 1, but with the Berkeley Earth global temperature data. Over this period, “High-sunspot” months averaged 155 sunspots; “low-sunspot” months averaged 33 sunspots.
Once again … same result. Wrong sign, tiny difference, no apparent effect of sunspots on the global temperature.
This finding is supported by a CEEMD analysis of the datasets. Here are the results for the Reynolds data:
You can see the sunspot peak (red line, Empirical Mode 6) at about 11.5 years. There’s nothing to match it in the Reynolds OI SST data. And here’s the corresponding chart for the Berkeley Earth data:
In this longer dataset, the sunspot period is 11 years, closer to the long-term average. And as with the Reynolds data, there is no 11-year cycle in the temperature records.
Conclusion? Once again, I’ve looked for a solar signal and found none.
Does this mean that the sunspot cycle doesn’t affect surface weather?
Nope. It just means that I haven’t been able to find one. Might be out there, but I’m up to 25 places or so that I’ve looked without finding it.
[UPDATE] In the comments, someone pointed to a study claiming that the winters in Eurasia are colder when sunspots are low. So I got the Berkeley Earth data and looked at the winter [DJF]. I used data back to 1900, although it’s less accurate, because I needed the longer period to have enough data to study just the wintertime. Once again … no joy.
Figure 3. Winter (DJF) high and low sunspot months. Over this period, “High-sunspot” months averaged 144 sunspots; “low-sunspot” months averaged 28 sunspots.
Update 2. I did the same analysis using the UAH MSU satellite-based lower troposphere temperatures.
Figure 4. As in Figure 1, but with the UAH MSU satellite lower troposphere temperature data.
12:32 AM here, my eyelids are drooping. Hang on, let me go outside … ah, great lungfuls of crisp air on a starry moonless night have me back in shape. Can’t hear the ocean, the wind is wrong. It’s 38°F, or 3°C, the forest is quiet, life is good. I’ll leave this here and come back to trim it up for publication in the morning.
11:30 AM, next morning. Sun is out, the tiny bit of the ocean I can see from our house is shining in the sunshine …
Ah, dear friends, what a world this is!
Best to all,
w.
PS: When you comment please quote the exact words you’re discussing, so we can all understand your subject.
FURTHER READING: Here are my previous posts on the subject.
Congenital Cyclomania Redux 2013-07-23
Well, I wasn’t going to mention this paper, but it seems to be getting some play in the blogosphere. Our friend Nicola Scafetta is back again, this time with a paper called “Solar and planetary oscillation control on climate change: hind-cast, forecast and a comparison with the CMIP5 GCMs”. He’s…
Cycles Without The Mania 2013-07-29
Are there cycles in the sun and its associated electromagnetic phenomena? Assuredly. What are the lengths of the cycles? Well, there’s the question. In the process of writing my recent post about cyclomania, I came across a very interesting paper entitled “Correlation Between the Sunspot Number, the Total Solar Irradiance,…
Sunspots and Sea Level 2014-01-21
I came across a curious graph and claim today in a peer-reviewed scientific paper. Here’s the graph relating sunspots and the change in sea level: And here is the claim about the graph: Sea level change and solar activity A stronger effect related to solar cycles is seen in Fig.…
Riding A Mathemagical Solarcycle 2014-01-22
Among the papers in the Copernicus Special Issue of Pattern Recognition in Physics we find a paper from R. J. Salvador in which he says he has developed A mathematical model of the sunspot cycle for the past 1000 yr. Setting aside the difficulties of verification of sunspot numbers for…
Sunny Spots Along the Parana River 2014-01-25
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Usoskin Et Al. Discover A New Class of Sunspots 2014-02-22
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Solar Periodicity 2014-04-10
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Cosmic Rays, Sunspots, and Beryllium 2014-04-13
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The Tip of the Gleissberg 2014-05-17
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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
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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
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Splicing Clouds 2014-11-01
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Volcanoes and Sunspots 2015-02-09
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Early Sunspots and Volcanoes 2015-02-10
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Sunspots and Norwegian Child Mortality 2015-03-07
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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
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Is The Signal Detectable 2015-08-19
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The Missing 11 Year Signal 2015-08-19
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23 New Papers 2015-09-22
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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 …
Is it possible the effects of solar changes are on a delay? That seems more likely than an instantaneous effect. Some years ago I read about Dr David Evans working on something like that.
Ingenious methodology as usual, Willis. Probably a foolish question: are the numbers of high SSN periods ~equal to the numbers of low SSN periods in your samples?
Gary, as I mentioned above, the only foolish question is the one you don’t ask, because you won’t learn the answer.
Yes, high/low numbers are ~equal because I’ve divided them at the median, rather than the mean.
w.
“Does this mean that the sunspot cycle doesn’t affect surface weather?”
But then you analyze global surface TEMPs. The important WEATHER is over LAND aka jet stream oscillation in North America and how that affects surface temperatures, especially regarding crops (and possibly cold spell energy shortages in those states stupid enough to hate fossil fuels). Does the solar cycle in some way effect jet stream oscillation?
BFL, I keep hearing this. But when I ask “How does one measure ‘jet stream oscillation’, and what are the units?” … crickets.
w.
Willis
I’ve played around with this too. I used the BEST data for monthly average highs, lows, and mid-range temperatures, and subjected the data to FFT decomposition. I was surprised to find only small peaks around the nominal 11-year solar cycle. However, there were stronger peaks centered around 21.3 years. Indeed, the 21.3-year peak was stronger than the 1-year peak, which, even for the whole Earth, should at least be reflecting the eccentricity of our orbit. Incidentally, the results for high and low-temperature series look a little different, suggesting that the lows may have a better correlation with the magnetic cycle.
When I make some time, I’ll go back and look at data for just the northern hemisphere land temperatures. I think that should be more sensitive to variations than global and sea surface temperatures. In any event, with lots of competing influences, I think that it is noteworthy that the complete solar magnetic cycle appears to show up in the FFT analyses.
Thanks, Clyde. Look at my CEEMD analysis above. There is a broad area with some energy that stretches from about 18 to 25 years. But there’s no sharp peak at “21.3 years”.
Next, you say “the results for high and low-temperature series look a little different, suggesting that the lows may have a better correlation with the magnetic cycle.” That’s true for any two datasets you might pick. One will correlate better than the other.
The problem with the solar magnetic cycle is that the polarity flips when sunspots are at their peak. I’ve never figured out how to convert the sunspots to the equivalent strength of the heliomagnetic field. And we have only recent data measuring that directly.
Do you have a citation showing long-term variations in the sun’s magnetic field?
Best regards,
w.
Willis
You asked about long-term variations in the solar magnetic field. I wouldn’t expect such information to go back more than a few decades, at most.
This quote is written under a chart that indicates ~0.7K cooling after the year 2000, which should give the answer anyhow.
1. The CET record shows significant annual variation but the 20 year mean temperatures (since 2000) exceed the Lamb reconstructed temperatures from the warmest period of the MWP.
2. I can’t see any 0.7 degree cooling immediately after 2000 in the CET.
3. It is almost certainly the case that Lamb (& the IPCC) used the CET in order to reproduce the MWP & LIA graphic. See Steve McIntyre’s post on this.
4. Willis’ use of the CET was prompted by a readers suggestion that the CET demonstrated a link to solar activity (sunspots). It doesn’t.
https://climateaudit.org/2008/05/09/where-did-ipcc-1990-figure-7c-come-from-httpwwwclimateauditorgp3072previewtrue/
Of course there are plenty of witnesses of the Little Ice Age, like progressing alpine glaciers destroying villages,
Right, so you’ve got some anecdotes about alpine glacier advance to ‘prove’ that the LIA was a global event.
Willis
Very nice piece, thank you. I have studied some 2000 years of British climate, of which the last 700 years are in considerable detail as records become better and references relating to religion and superstition become less prevalent.
I examined sun spots as part of a longer piece some 5 years ago entitled ‘the intermittent little ice age’ expecting to see evidence of the effects of sun spots on climate. Here is an extract;
https://judithcurry.com/2015/02/19/the-intermittent-little-ice-age/
“Whilst the various charts, such as Figures 6 and 7, together with Met office and other data referenced, demonstrate many individual cold years and more surprisingly perhaps, many warm ones as well, what can’t be discerned is one long uninterrupted block of blue representing very cold years extending from the beginning of the record and expiring sometime in the middle of the 19th century, thus matching the ‘official’ definitions of the LIA.
So clearly the period wasn’t one monolithic cold era. Indeed, this occurrence of warm and very warm years amongst the cold and moderate ones clearly confuses our popular understanding of this period. (See 3.9 for the scientific definition) Whilst the era might be characterised as generally cold with many moderate to very warm spells, it might also almost be characterised as generally warm with many moderate to very cold years.
Another notable feature is the sheer variability that can be observed in Figures 6 and 7, with the intermittent nature of genuinely cold years being juxtaposed in close proximity to years with a very different temperature profile. Any lengthy periods when the cold clearly predominated are rather limited.
The effect of sunspots on the climate is contentious. Looking at the data in Figure 8, it appears that the impact of the second half of the Sporer minimum on temperatures is difficult to discern. The Maunder minimum however appears to largely coincide with colder years, whilst the Dalton minimum is more mixed. However, there had been many cold years prior to the onset of these sunspot minimums and cold years returned after they had finished, so the relationship appears unproven and may be coincidental, where there is some correlation.”
So as you can see I am certainly in the ‘not proven’ camp as regards the direct impact of sunspots .
What has better correlation is wind direction. Generally when it comes from the west (for the UK) it is often cloudy mild and wet. when it switches to the east it is often cooler and sunnier in winter and hotter and sunnier in the summer, this latter obviously warming up the oceans.
Whether sun spot activity affects wind direct/jet stream etc I don’t know.
tonyb
Thanks, Tony, that fits with my own research.
w.
Climate is like the stock market. There are secular trends, with counter-and pro-trend cycles within the prevailing trend.
It’s not surprising that the counter-trend cycles in cool periods are like the dead cat bounce rallies on short covering during bear markets. The early 18th century warming, coming out of the LIA depths of the Maunder, bounced higher and lasted longer than the late 20th century pro-trend cycle of the Modern Warm Period.
The LIA was chiefly due to its four solar mínima, with counter-trend dead cat bounce warming cycles in between. The Medieval WP, by contrast, suffered just one shallow minimum. (Some would say the MWP had two minor mínima and the LIA three major.). The Modern WP has not yet endured even one minimum. Its counter-trend cooling cycles have been driven by normal oceanic and atmospheric circulations.
The effect from even the biggest volcanic eruptions is too short-lived to matter. But the late 20th century warming was helped by the developed world’s cleaning up its air.
John Tillman (and others):
“The LIA was chiefly due to its four solar minima
As, I have previously pointed out to you, it is IMPOSSIBLE to determine any changes in solar irradiance by any kind of proxy measurements when there are interfering layers of SO2 aerosols in the atmosphere (which were plentiful during the LIA) because of their attenuation of any incoming radiation, either
solar or cosmic.
Solar minima during the LIA is pure fiction!
You also state that “the effect of even the biggest volcanic eruption is too short- lived to matter”
I would remind you of the chain of 6 VEI5 eruptions of Tarawera in 1310, 1311, 1312, 1313, 1314, and 1315 whose cooling of the climate caused the death of an estimated 7,500,000 people in the Great Famine of 1315-1317. It mattered to those people, and they were only VEI5 eruptions.
John Tillman:
I have just completed annotating the plot of the Hadley Center Central England Temperature (HadCET) data set, for the years 1660-1875, with the dates of all recorded VEI4?, VEI5, VEI6, and VEI7 volcanic eruptions within that period.
This was done by enlarging their plot 400 times, which gave the horizontal axis a resolution of 1.2 years per millimeter. These years cover most of the Maunder Minimum and all of the Dalton Minimum.
WITHOUT EXCEPTION, the dates of the sixteen VEi5-7 eruptions fell precisely on a downward temperature excursion, proving that it was caused by the cooling from volcanic SO2 aerosol emissions, rather than from any reduced sunspot activity.
At least five of the VEI4? eruptions also coincided with a downward temperature excursion, with the result that all of the cooling shown on their plot from 1660-1775 was simply due to volcanic SO2 aerosols.
Along with the impossibility of measuring solar activity at the Earth’s surface by any proxy measurements, this should destroy the hypothesis that reduced sunspot activity will result in cooler temperatures.
Tonyb:
A question, if I may:
The Hadley Centre listing of Central England temperatures shows the temperatures of the following years to be:
1875 9.48 deg. C
1876 9.53
1877 9.19
1878 9.26
1879 7.44
1880 9.10
What do your records show?
There really aren’t a lot of choices for the origins of forcing’s that can explain the variation in temperatures we have observed during the Holocene. Variation in solar activity is certainly a possibility. There are lots of papers in the scientific literature that show a relationship between solar activity and surface temperatures. Below is one, though I don’t know that the entire paper has been translated.
Periodicities of solar activity and the surface temperature variation of the Earth and their correlations ZHAO XinHua*, FENG XueShang*
State Key Laboratory of Space Weather, Center for Space Science and Applied Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, ChinaAbstract：Based on the well-calibrated systematiCmeasurements of sunspot numbers, the reconstructed data of the total solar irradiance (TSI), and the observed anomalies of the Earth’s averaged surface temperature (global, ocean, land), this paper investigates the periodicities of both solar activity and the Earth’s temperature variation as well as their correlations on the time scale of centuries using the wavelet and cross correlation analysis techniques. The main results are as follows. (1) Solar activities (including sunspot number and TSI) have four major periodic components higher than the 95% significance level of white noise during the period of interest, i.e. 11-year period, 50-year period, 100-year period, and 200-year period. The global temperature anomalies of the Earth have only one major periodic component of 64.3-year period, which is close to the 50-year cycle of solar activity. (2) Significant resonant periodicities between solar activity and the Earth’s temperature are focused on the 22- and 50-year period. (3) Correlations between solar activity and the surface temperature of the Earth on the long time scales are higher than those on the short time scales. As far as the sunspot number is concerned, its correlation coefficients to the Earth temperature are 0.31-0.35 on the yearly scale, 0.58-0.70 on the 11-year running mean scale, and 0.64-0.78 on the 22-year running mean scale. TSI has stronger correlations to the Earth temperature than sunspot number. (4) During the past 100 years, solar activities display a clear increasing tendency that corresponds to the global warming of the Earth (including land and ocean) very well. Particularly, the ocean temperature has a slightly higher correlation to solar activity than the land temperature. All these demonstrate that solar activity has a non-negligible forcing on the temperature change of the Earth on the time scale of centuries.
I admire Willis’s work.
But as mentioned upthread, solar cycles MUST affect weather and temperature, even if observations don’t show a correlation.
Here is how a correlation would be easily observed:
Measure SST for months with high sunspot activity. Compare this to SST for the SAME months had there been low sunspot activity. Apples to apples.
Snape February 4, 2020 at 9:55 am
Science at its finest. Assert a correlation while admitting that you have no evidence.
Pass.
w.
Willis,
The evidence is physics based. SWIR has been shown to affect the temperature of a body that absorbs it. Only sometimes?
What if I took a drink from a pint of beer and asserted the volume of liquid in the glass had decreased?
Would you need me to take measurements before agreeing?
Snape, if you truly think those are equivalent to claiming that a variation of ±0.1% in solar output will have a detectable effect weather on the earth’s surface, you need to think again … if it truly were that simple, we wouldn’t still be debating it 300 years after Hershel.
w.
Willis,
I am saying that changes in solar insolation will have an effect on weather and temperature (basic physics), even when the effect cannot be detected. Here’s an analogy:
Hershey is a member of the S&P. As such, it has an effect on the market. When Hershey’s stock is up it is better for the S&P than when Hershey’s stock is down. Basic math.
So shouldn’t there be a correlation? Not necessarily. If Hershey was the only member of S&P, then yes, a clear relationship. As it is, there are over 500 other companies to muck things up. Almost zero correlation is actually observed between the performance of Hershey and the S&P.
Effect, yes. Correlation, no.
Snape, that goes into the category of a difference that makes no difference.
w.
“A difference that makes no difference.”
Lol. Yes, that’s one way of looking at it.
*******
Suppose your house is a comfortable 70 F. You crank the thermostat to 80 F, but at the same time open a window, letting a cool breeze through. The temperature stays at 70 F.
Which is more accurate?
A) turning up the thermostat made no difference in temperature.
B) turning up the thermostat prevented your house from cooling to 60 F.
Snape, first you claimed the solar change was there but too small to matter, like a change in one stock in the Dow Jones.
Now you claim it’s big but counteracted by some mystery force.
Make up your mind.
w.
Ok.
I really am impressed by your work, BTW.
Thanks, Snape, your kind words are appreciated.
w.
Nelson, I can’t find the paper. SciHub doesn’t have it.
Pass.
w.
Here is an old post from the Reference Frame blog that addresses the issue.
https://motls.blogspot.com/2004/09/sunspots-correlations-with-temperature.html
It is old – from 2004. Some of the points made in the article are now known to be wrong. The F-C & L Solar Cycle length and temperature has completely broken down.
The lack of a correlation between sunspot activity and sea surface temperature found by Eschenbach may not indicate that sunspots do not affect the climate or weather, but may only reflect the fact that the oceans have a huge heat capacity, and that any response in sea-surface temperatures to sunspot activity (a relatively small percentage of the normal solar radiation intensity) will necessarily be slow, over a matter of months or years, and the response may be delayed, with a large phase shift and/or damping coefficient.
There does seem to be some correlation between the Maunder Minimum and the relatively cold climate at that time, which was noted over land. Dry land has a much lower heat capacity and a lower albedo than the oceans, so that air temperatures over land may be much more responsive to sunspot activity (or lack thereof) than sea surface temperatures.
It is also possible that mankind’s ability to measure sunspot activity and measure temperatures over large land masses was more limited during the 1700’s than now, so that the older data may have a larger margin of error than more recent data (if they are not massaged or fudged by global-warming advocates).
If there is a correlation between sunspot activity and the climate, it would more likely be found over land than at the surface of oceans.
Steve Z February 4, 2020 at 9:32 am
See above.
w.
In your Reynolds image, I see the two sea areas that generate heavy seas regularly (50 foot waves) both have +0.4 SST readings (off west coast of US/Canada and off west coast+ of Australia). Could this have any relevance to your search for correlation?
Those are not shown using the Berkeley Earth data, so that likely reduces any possible meaning from Reynolds data.
And, those high seas areas likely have their cause in the wind over long distances, so probably even less relevance to Reynolds data.
If some argue that the warming (or some of it) experienced during the 20th century is due to human activity, then it is incumbent upon those who make this claim to EXPLAIN the Medieval Warm Period; a several hundred year warm period that occurred hundreds of years before the commencement of the Industrial Revolution.
My point is that all ( one? two? five? 50? 100? ) the warm periods that occurred before, say, 1850, could NOT have been due to human activity and must therefor have been caused by factors external to human activity. These “factors” – whatever they are – where significant enough to shift the earth’s climate from warm to very cold to warm. to very cold to …..and so on; climate shifts far more extreme than we have witnessed over the last 120 years.
What could these factors be?
Volcanic activity?
Variation in the Sun’s activity?
The magnitude of cosmic rays impacting the earth?
????
????
There is no doubt that those historical (near historic and in geologic time historical) external influences that have DETERMINED earth’s climate are still extant and their influence is far more significant than factors introduced by human activity.
Think about it; nobody predicts – irrespective of human influence on climate – that a new ice age is impossible.
In fact, it is safe to say that in the future there is a very high probability of another ice age.
So, if human introduced CO2 (an atmospheric TRACE gas and essential to all living things on earth) is going to burn up the earth than the AGW proponents should be 1000% confident in predicting an new ice age will never again occur on earth.
Of course, they will never predict this because they will be revealed as crazy and it would call into question their veracity.
Lastly, the only chart I have seen of CO2 vs. time (going back millions of years) shows today’s level of CO2 to be in the bottom decile of CO2 levels. Assuming this chart is correct (and I have zero idea if it is or not) one can argue we are in a CO2 drought.
It’s great that researchers put forth all their physics and mathematical analyses of climate behavior, but it appears to me at least, that in doing so, basic and fundamental questions are never addressed.
What could these factors be?
Volcanic activity?
Variation in the Sun’s activity?
The magnitude of cosmic rays impacting the earth?
Simples, one of the turtles moved.
John Tyler:
You ask “What could these factors be? Volcanic Activity?”
Bingo!
The Medieval Warm Period, for example, was caused by very low levels of volcanic activity, and consequently, very low levels of dimming SO2 aerosols in the atmosphere.
There were many VEI4, VEI5, and VEI6 eruptions during the following Little Ice Age, with Megatons of volcanic SO2 aerosol emissions circulating in the atmosphere from the eruptions, albeit with warming periods between eruptions spaced far enough apart to allow their aerosols to settle out roughly 3-5 years, or more)
My interpretation of the lack of correlation in the data being examined is that it may be as simple as looking at the wrong data.
We see from Willis’s analysis, and that of other people, that there is no discernable 11 year pattern in global temperatures. We also see that there is a ~11 year cycle of sunspot activity. What I think we can infer is that the “normal” sunspot variation has little to no effect.
However, we have evidence of cold periods occurring, and observational evidence that these coincided with periods of low sunspots.
I think it possible that there is another solar cycle, maybe regular, maybe not, which is not the same as the sunspot cycle, but has a side effect of suppressing the sunspot cycle, and probably having other effects in irradiance and spectral distribution of radiated energy.
Since we don’t have hard data going back several centuries, data analysis is not going to help detect these. Since we (or at least I) don’t have a clue about what the cause might be, modeling isn’t going to help much either.
This may be one of those things that with current data (and knowledge) limitations, the cause and effect are unknown, and possibly unknowable.
Thanks Willis Eschenbach. That is quite impressive. Or I’m least I’m impressed. So many people just don’t seem to be able to do that.
That is so many people, most people, seem unable to recognize when the data isn’t supporting their belief.
I already had a pretty high opinion of what you are doing. I’m thinking particularly of your discovery of the very clear feedback, semi-negative, between clouds and temperature in the tropics. Unfortunately that just hasn’t got the attention in the wider world that it should have. That should have been published, or republished, in Nature or in Science or a comparable journal. That it wasn’t is an indictment of the field of climate science.
You might not be looking the right way. Alfred Wegener said the continents moved in 1912, yet the scientists did not believed it and it took 50 years to demonstrate.
One of the problems is the way you assume solar variability should affect weather. What the evidence supports is that low solar activity shifts the atmospheric state towards more meridional facilitating a bigger loss of heat at the poles. The effects accumulate over time and are bigger when the Quasibiennial Oscillation is easterly, so a big effect is only noticeable after several decades of low solar activity. Others are doing it more correctly than you:
Kobashi, T., Box, J. E., Vinther, B. M., Goto‐Azuma, K., Blunier, T., White, J. W. C., … & Andresen, C. S. (2015). Modern solar maximum forced late twentieth century Greenland cooling. Geophysical Research Letters, 42(14), 5992-5999.
The way you are looking at the problem just makes sure you cannot find the solution. It is a lot more complex than just comparing two variables and claim success or failure.
There are older QBO studies in my link to the 2010 survey above.
I hope that Willis will read the more recent paper you cite.
I’ll take a look. However, I need to point out a couple of things before I do.
• Greenland is less than half a percent of the surface of the planet. If you can’t find some half-percent of the surface that correlates with solar, I’d be shocked.
• Greenland has less thermostats per square metre than just about any place on earth.
• The solarmaximum forced cooling? How does that work?
Now, I’ll go read it … hang on …
…
Yeah, it’s as I feared. Here’s the graph corresponding to their Figure 1.
Now, you’d be tempted to say that the 1/2% of the globe that is Greenland is an anomaly … until you look down by Antarctica and you see the same thing in reverse, anomalous warmth. Are we supposed to believe that that is due to solar effects as well? There’s just as much evidence for that as for the Greenland claim.
And here’s Figure 2 from above, rotated 180° to show Greenland:
As you can see, there’s NO affect of the sunspot cycle on Greenland.
Finally, I simply don’t buy the argument that the long-term effect is visible, but not the 11-year effect. That’s akin to saying “Well, we see a solar effect on an annual basis, but not on a daily basis.” That’s absolutely not true about the sun.
And I’m endlessly skeptical of claims built on paleo records that are not visible in modern records. I know of no reason why that should be the case.
Finally, they’ve verified their results by comparing them to Moberg et al., 2005 and “Moberg Mann et al., 2008” … yeah, that’s totally legit. If they agree with Moberg and Mann, you can guarantee that they’re wrong. The mere fact that they use those means that they are not interested in the slightest in science. For details on those pieces of junk, see here and here.
Regards to all,
w.
Heh, hard to believe he thinks it is that simple.
====================================
Willis has his emergent phenomenon hypothesis based on convective changes which of course equates to rainfall over the continents. A temperature effect so small it actually shows up as increased or decreased rainfall as it is convection changes as the real regulator that keeps Earth’s temperature largely stable and confined to a narrow range.
For example Central Europe:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/330818342_Influence_of_solar_activity_changes_on_European_rainfall
Or the The Loess Plateau of China:
https://www.hindawi.com/journals/amete/2017/9823865/
I hope that Willis addresses your and Javier’s links rather than for the dozenths of times running for the door.
According to Dr. Spencer, the tropical thunderstorm hypothesis was proposed long before Willis. He just thought he invented it because he has never formally studied atmospheric physics in the systematic way the subject requires.
Dr. Spencer was 100% wrong. He’s one of my scientific heroes, but in this case he didn’t do his homework. See my post here for the truth about this, rather than foolishly buying in to the total bullshit that John Tillman is spreading.
As to “addressing Joel’s links”, hadn’t seen that yet, but I’m happy to look at them.
…
OK, checked out the first of Joel’s links. I cannot find their data. They claim that it is in the Online SI … but that link is circular, just going back to the paper itself. If Joel can find the data, I’ll go forward with that one.
…
Same problem with the second link. The supposed link to the data says:
Again, if Joel can provide a link to the data I’m more than happy to take a look.
Let me comment, however, that regarding that second study, building a case based on 9 rainfall stations in an area that is only around one hundredth of one percent of the surface of the planet is … well, not surprising. There are no less than 7,232 such parts of the planet, and you can be damn sure that in more than one of those you’ll find some kind of correlation with solar variations. And their claimed correlation is very weak.
w.
Hope you do read all the links.
I’m spreading the facts. Dr. Spencer is right. You’re wrong. As my link to Dr. Lindzen’s lecture shows, tropical thunderstorms are a commonplace. Students study them in Meteorology 101.
You only imagined you discovered something because you never studied elementary atmospheric science.
John, Dr. Roy foolishly claimed that a) my hypothesis was the same as Ramanathan’s, and b) I hadn’t acknowledged Ramanathan.
Ramanathan’s hypothesis was that in the area of the Pacific Warm Pool, something developed that he called a “super greenhouse effect”:
So his hypothesis was that in a very small area of the Pacific, a “super greenhouse effect” traps infrared radiation.
My hypothesis had nothing to do with either a “super greenhouse effect” or the Pacific Warm Pool. My hypothesis is that emergent climate phenomena act all over the planet to maintain the average planetary temperature within a fairly narrow range, e.g. ± 0.3 °C over the 20th century.
And if you truly think those two are the same, you’re dumber than you act.
Regarding giving credit to Ramanathan, Dr. Roy was wrong about that as well. I don’t owe him credit for my theory, as it is totally different from his. But where I’ve referred to his theory, I absolutely gave him credit.
I was sorry that Dr. Roy had gotten so far off the rails. He’s one of my scientific heroes, and one of my friends, but unfortunately he didn’t do his homework on that one.
John, you’re letting your insane hatred of me overcome your good sense. As I said before, if you don’t want to simply point out the solar study you think is best, that OK—bizarre, but OK.
But going off on spittle-flecked rants against me because you don’t want to take on a simple task? Not a good look on you …
w.
It wasn’t just Ramanathan. Dr. Spencer also points out that nothing is more commonplace in meteorology than homeostatic effects. He credits God for that, but that’s beside the point.
Please get a basic textbook and study it. You’ll see tropical rainstorm formation discussed.
Or, as I suggested, read Dr. Lindzen’s address.
Pointing out facts doesn’t indicate insane hatred. Do you also imagine that Dr. Spencer (with whom I agree on his specialty) and Nikolov and Zeller (with whom I don’t) harbor insane hatred of you?
https://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2012/02/09/nikolov-zeller-reply-eschenbach/
They too question your grasp of math and physics.
John, Dr. Roy called me the “sharpest citizen scientist I know”. And he put up an entire post about my work entitled “Giving Credit To Willis Eschenbach”
When he says that about you, let me know.
Until then, keep up the whining and bitching to try to distract from the fact that you don’t have the hair to point out your favorite solar study. Nobody’s getting fooled by that, but it’s hella funny to watch.
w.
One of the sharper knives in the chest still can’t carve out the sun’s role, but not for lack of trying. It’s a tough and knotted plastic medium, with no easy spindle to pull out to simplify the task.
=============================
Have you reviewed the study by Professor Valentina Zharkova, whose solar dynamo model succesfully predicts past cooling periods? I would like to see your comments on her study.
LINKS! I don’t go on a snipe hunt for anyone. In the past, I used to do that. I’d go and at the end of an hour or two of searching, I’d find it. Triumphant, I’d return with it, only to have the person say “No, I meant the other Zharkova study”. So I don’t do ‘dat no mo’ …
w.
I was going to ask about this, too. The GWPF’s latest newsletter contains a link to “video of Prof Valentina Zharkova’s GWPF talk on ‘The Solar Magnet Field and the Terrestrial Climate’. Here’s the link to the video from 2018:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_yqIj38UmY&t=3s&utm_source=CCNet+Newsletter&utm_campaign=830eb221a5-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2020_02_04_03_11&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_fe4b2f45ef-830eb221a5-20163885&mc_cid=830eb221a5&mc_eid=31832528ac
It’s 1.5 hrs long, so I haven’t listened to the whole thing, but it seems interesting and worth looking into. The note under the YouTube video describes it (in part):
Prof Zharkova was quoted extensively in a Sun article, quoted in the GWPF newsletter:
In her talk, she says that, unlike the predictions by the IPCC crowd of disaster a century from now, her prediction of an imminent Grand Solar Minimum this decade can be falsified soon.
I don’t recall if there are links to her papers in the video.
Don’t overestimate the power of correlation. It is essentially a linear operator, and, as such, it may not detect strongly non-linear effects. For example, take an alternating current and a rectifier. The positive half-wave of a sine input perfectly correlates with the output. The negative half-wave perfectly anti-correlates. Overall, the correlation is a cold zero.
Your not looking in the right places (who would of guessed)
https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/earth-and-planetary-sciences/maunder-minimum
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/full/1978A%26A….66…93W
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/0004-637X/830/2/140
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://arxiv.org/pdf/1507.05191&ved=2ahUKEwjG6aGU0LjnAhUCi1wKHZxiCp4QFjAPegQIChAB&usg=AOvVaw2s3n0QWxU_X0ot5d4v6z3V&cshid=1580844649357
It would seem theres a lot of folk who disagree with you,
“Your not looking in the right places (who would of guessed)”
Your elementary school English teacher sure would have guessed.
B d Clark February 4, 2020 at 11:40 am
Oh, piss off with the snark. When you’ve posted up 25 analyses of faulty papers, THEN you can rag on me. Until then, STFU with the ugliness. You haven’t earned the right.
Meanwhile, figure out which of those papers you think demonstrates the sunspot-related effect most strongly, clearly, and irrefutably. Then post up TWO links here, one to that study and the other to the data as used in the study, and I’m happy to take a look at it.
Caveats:
• No reanalysis “data”. It’s not data as we commonly understand the term, it is the output of a climate model.
• Surface datasets only. The effects of the sun on the ionosphere are well known … however, they don’t seem to translate to the surface.
I await your TWO links.
w.
Eschenbach
Your not reading what’s put in front of you, you have deteriorated into a defensive corner with no analysis of what’s put in front of you. Every ones wrong but your right a, that includes the authors of links and people who have replied to you. Its suspicious that amount of writing you have done regarding sun spots ,TSI ect ect, and you resort to foul language, your basically saying every paper every scientist on this subject is wrong and your right. Which is impossible, I accused you of having a hidden motive before, I see no reason to change my mind.
Come on man you tube presenters have a better grasp of the sun and its effects than you.
Thanks, BD. I’m not at all surprised that you won’t put your money where your mouth is. Everyone talks big like you, but then when I ask them to point out the best study they know, almost every one has come up with an endless string of excuses just as pathetic as yours. John Tillman has done just that, excuse after excuse. Others have just ignored my request.
From the way you and the others run when I make this simple, easy-to-fulfill request, you’d think I was asking y’all to sacrifice your firstborn rather than provide a couple of links. Pathetic.
Next, I’ve NEVER said, “Every ones [sic] wrong but I’m right.” I’ve been right, others have been wrong. Heck, I’m likely the only climate blogger to have two posts, one called “Wrong Again”, and the other called “Wrong Again, Again” … when I’m wrong, I admit it right out in public. It’s one of the reasons that so many people trust what I say, because they know if I’m wrong I won’t hide it or deny it. I admit it out in the midday sun.
And as to “you tube [sic] presenters have a better grasp of the sun”, I’ve put up 25 studies of mine, and so far you haven’t pointed to one single scientific error in any of them. Where are your 25 studies so we can see just how much you know?
Look, if you don’t want to stand behind your claims by linking to one study and its data, that’s fine.
But that’s on YOU, not me. Don’t include me in your ridiculous excuses, I have nothing to do with your choices.
w.
All you have done eschenbach is dismiss papers presented to you , you accuse others of not presenting credible evidence, when you dont analyze the above papers in the first place, your language is defensive ,flippant, your very broad denial is insulting to the authors.
B d Clark February 5, 2020 at 2:02 am
That’s it? That’s your latest pathetic excuse for not wanting your favorite study to be exposed to the light? Because I’m a bad man?
Funny thing is, you might not have noticed, but I predicted that joke of an excuse yesterday, viz:
Willis Eschenbach February 4, 2020 at 9:48 pm
Yeah, B d, run towards the door with that ludicrous and sad excuse, that’s totally legit, and I’m sure nobody will notice your lack of albondigas …
w.
You have been called out by numerous posters on here yet you refer to me again, that’s very telling eschenbach,EG minipulated a graph ,you could not even read and give a proper analysis of the links I provided.
Every single link posted on here in reply to you ,you have belittled ,and or ignored.
B d Clark February 5, 2020 at 9:56 am Edit
Pass. Come back when you grow a pair and are willing to provide a link to the one study you think is best and a link to the data used. Tough task … NOT.
w.
So still not reading the links I provided, still no understanding of sun cycles and spots, hint read the many links provided for you.
Ambient heating…. “It’s the core and it’s mantel…stupid” is obviously absurd but it’s not the sun that is heating the earth’s crust. It takes a year for solar heat to penetrate 10 meters of crust and the record temp is only 158F at a desert and the mantel is extraordinarily hot. No mantel heat and well drillers would but hitting super-cold permafrost very quickly. And the jury is out regarding ambient mantel heating of the oceans. If the mantel can heat 30 kilometers of crust, the mantel can certainly heat some ocean water. We are just scratching the surface on submarine volcanism….can’t even detect them nor the multitude of of earthquakes 3 and under that could happen in a year. This question may demonstrate my weak laymanship, but does anyone know if there is a relationship between the variability of cosmic rays and radiogenic heating in the mantel? (effect of cosmic rays on the decay chains of uranium-238 and thorium-232, and potassium-40. ) Thanks Jeff
The geothermal energy is highly variable in space and also in time, making estimates difficult. When I was younger, the accepted average was 70 mW/m2, today it is closer to 100 mW/m2 (that’s milliwatts per square meter). The Earth is getting some 340 W/m2 of solar energy on average.
Willis,
You are without doubt the Grand Master of digging out data and your analyses of data are legendary. I am among your biggest fans in that regard. My approach is quite different. I use long-term geologic data (isotope data from ice cores, solar data, temperature measurements, etc). In a perfect world, our different approaches would lead us to similar conclusions. But they don’t and the puzzling question is why not?
I just published a book “The solar magnetic cause of climate changes and origin of the Ice Ages,” based on analyses of all warm and cold periods over the past 800,000 years, and stumbled upon what must be the cause of the Ice Ages and other climate changes. I looked at oxygen isotope temperatures, deuterium temperatures, CET temperatures, sunspot numbers, total solar irradiance, production rates of beryllium-10 and radiocarbon, and cosmic ray intensity for every warm and cold period (for which data is available) in the past 800,000 years. The data is truly remarkable˗˗EVERY cool period without exception was characterized by low sunspot numbers, indicating low strength of the sun’s magnetic field, and high production rates of beryllium˗10 and radiocarbon, indicating high intensity of cosmic rays. EVERY warm period was coincident with high sunspot numbers and low production rates of beryllium˗10 and radiocarbon. The book is available on Amazon.
At the end of the last Ice Age, several abrupt climate changes occurred, going from full glacial to full interglacial back to full glacial and then back to full interglacial with transition times of only a century or so. What is most astonishing about these abrupt, intense periods of cooling and warming is that abrupt changes in the production rate of 10Be are exactly coincident with all of the sudden changes in climate. This remarkable parallelism of abrupt 10Be and 14C production, indicating increases in cosmic rays, and sudden, intense climate changes can only mean that the climate changes were the result of the increase in cosmic ray intensity.
So, Willis, what would you say about the statistical probability of exact coincidence between every climate change (including Ice Ages and Interglaciations) without exception and spikes in beryllium-10 production over the past 800,000 years?
Mother nature is presently conducting a great experiment that will likely prove (or disprove) the concept I elucidated in my book, ie. the sun’s magnetic field controls the Earth’s climate. The sun has just entered a Grand Solar Minimum (GSM), much like the Dalton Grand Solar Minimum from 1790 to 1820. Temperatures are beginning to decline and cosmic radiation is increasing. So, I am predicting that the next several decades will be severely cold and snowy, just like the last GSM. Nature will be the judge of the correctness of this concept.
Will all best wishes,
Don
Willis, I support, Don’s comment:
There is no physical explanation for any of the large past climate changes and there is cosmogenic isotope changes at all of them. For example for the Younger Dryas 12,900 year ago abrupt cooling at which time there is the largest change in C14 in the Holocene record, nor is there an explanation for the 8,200 year ago cooling event or the other smaller warming periods that are followed by cooling periods in the paleo record.
As this paper notes something is cyclically changing the Greenland ice sheet temperature (just like we are observing).
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2003/2003GL017115.shtml
Timing of abrupt climate change: A precise clock by Stefan Rahmstorf
Many paleoclimatic data reveal a approx. 1,500 year cyclicity of unknown origin. A crucial question is how stable and regular this cycle is. An analysis of the GISP2 ice core record from Greenland reveals that abrupt climate events appear to be paced by a 1,470-year cycle with a period that is probably stable to within a few percent; with 95% confidence the period is maintained to better than 12% over at least 23 cycles.
This highly precise clock points to an origin outside the Earth system; oscillatory modes within the Earth system can be expected to be far more irregular in period.
This is a constrained problem, there is the sun and there is the earth.
There is unequivocal observational evidence of strange changes to the earth in the last 30 years which we have found that cannot explain with current assumptions about the earth and the sun.
For example:
We know whatever is moving the large ocean plates all over the planet, is changing in real time, leading temperature changes on the planet by two years.
There is a sudden increase in mid-ocean earthquake frequency two years before the 1997/1998 and 2015/2016 El Nino events.
… and the geomagnetic field abruptly changed (the change started in 1994) and continue to change (north magnetic pole drift velocity suddenly increased by a factor of 5 and remained at the high rate for the entire warming period) at the same time, the mid-ocean earthquake frequency increased by 300% .
Mid ocean earthquake frequency increased by a factor of 300% at the start of the warming (1994) and stayed high for the entire warming period.
https://www.omicsonline.org/open-access-pdfs/the-correlation-of-seismic-activity-and-recent-global-warming-2016update.pdf
The Correlation of Seismic Activity and Recent Global Warming: 2016 Update
The Correlation of Seismic Activity and Recent Global Warming [1] (CSARGW) demonstrated that increasing seismic activity in the globe’s high geothermal flux areas (HGFA) is strongly correlated with global temperatures (r=0.785) from 1979-2015.
Namely, increased seismic activity in the HGFA (i.e., the mid-ocean’s spreading zones) serves as a proxy indicator of higher geothermal flux in these regions. The HGFA include the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, the East Pacific Rise, the West Chile Rise, the Ridges of the Indian Ocean, and the Ridges of the Antarctic/Southern Ocean.
Equally important, the HGFA seismic frequencies accurately predicted the unusually powerful 2015/2016 El Niño, one of the strongest on record (Figure 2). As illustrated in CSARGW, jumps in HGFA seismic activity can amplify an El Niño event, a phenomenon referred to as a SIENA or a Seismically Induced El Niño Amplification [1]. Accurately predicting two of these amplified El Niños (i.e., the 2015/2016 event plus the1997/1998 episode) is an important outcome of the HGFA seismicity/temperature relationship.
Temperatures are beginning to decline
Really? Where?
Globally. Earth has been in a cooling trend at least since February 2016, the peak of the Super El Niño, which was insignificantly warmer in UAH satellite observations than the 1998 Super El Niño. Hence no statistically significant warming in 22 years, despite steadily rising plant food in the air. And a cooling trend for the past four years.
John Tillman February 4, 2020 at 3:55 pm
From Dr. Roy Spencer’s blog …
Cooling from 2016 to mid 2018, warming since then.
w.
Temperatures have been declining slight for the past 15 years and since 2016 have been declining more rapidly. You can find the data in my book.
Don, see above.
w.
Don, the average surface temperature for the month of January was the third warmest in over 40 years, behind only February and March 2016, so I guess that does mean it’s getting cooler.
https://climate.copernicus.eu/surface-air-temperature-january-2020
Where does the data in your book come from – and why can’t you provide a link to the data?
Don Esterbrook:
You stated “EVERY cool period without exception was characterized by low sunspot numbers”
As I pointed out in my earlier post to John Tillman, Feb. 4 9:27 pm, it is IMPOSSIBLE to determine sunspot activity from the Earth’s surface by ANY proxy measurement if there are any volcanic SO2 aerosols in the atmosphere.
They intercept much of any incoming solar or cosmic radiation and give the FALSE impression that the sun’s output has changed.
When present, they also cool the Earth’s surface, affecting all biologic proxies.
Willis is entirely correct when he can find no climatic effect from sunspot activity.
Burl Henry February 6, 2020 at 7:19 pm
I also find very little climatic effect from SO2 activity, even in volcanic amounts. See here for the details.
w.
Speaking of Sunspots:
The sun is currently spotless again:
http://www.solen.info/solar/images/AR_CH_20200203_hres.png
And also by ftp download from SWPC, the current quiet sun can be seen in SWPC’s latest 02/04/2020 1339 UTC synoptic map:
ftp://ftp.swpc.noaa.gov/pub/synoptic_maps/202000204_1339_NL053.jpg
My solar AR sunspot hypothesis predicts this quiet this will change dramatically o/a 13 February, so that starting on Valentine’s Day (2/14/2020) some significant spots with possible delta character (60-70% probability) with first activity around Carrington longitude 245º (Carrington longitude is at roughly -90º Heliographic longitude today, i.e. the eastern limb wrt to Earth) , and then by another Southern Hempisphere AR about 90º eastward at Carrington longitude 335º (more Earth facing at that time ~16 Feb).
Feb 14th to Feb 16th they will grow in spot# with some polarity mixing (“delta” character), and become active flaring ARs, albeit still B and low C-class Xray flares due to the still incipient early stage of SC25.
This prediction is based on a 125-130 m/s flux tube average rise speed through the solar convective zone and a modestly strong trigger on 29 January 2020.
Willis,
The is really solid work and I hate to just dump stuff into your in-basket but …
If the “sunspot hypothesis” is true, wouldn’t the correlation be between sunspots and the first derivative of temperature, not temperature itself? That is, when sunspots are low, we’d see temperatures falling, and their minimum would be at the end of the low sunspot period. Then as sunspots increased, we’d see temps rising. This would yield no correlation between sunspots and temperature as the two would be effectively 90 degrees out of phase.
The other thing that might be significant is if the impulse response of global temps is too slow to show much impact within a single solar cycle’s window. If so, we might need the current weak cycle to continue to get a significant effect.
My thoughts exactly!
Frederick Michael February 4, 2020 at 12:45 pm
Mmmm … yes and no. When the sun comes up in the morning the world starts to heat up. Is the solar correlation with temperature, or the first derivative of temperature?
Well … it’s with both. When the first derivative of temperature goes up, it is because the temperature is going up.
w.
My point is that if you compute the correlation, you’d see it mainly in the first derivative. The same applies to the seasonal variation. There’s a phase lag because, in the differential equation, the solar input is driving the first derivative of temperature, not the temperature itself. In the case of water temperature, the phase lag is almost 90 degrees – September has the warmest oceans where I live. Thus, you’d see almost no correlation between ocean temp and solar activity (in your hemisphere) even though the sun is the driver.
To analyze the relationship between sunspots and global temps, look first to the first derivative of temps. You may not find a correlation there either but not finding it in the absolute temperature isn’t conclusive.
Frederick, this illustrates why my intention is to always run the numbers first. I just went to look at solar input vs temperature in the northern hemisphere.
Correlation of solar and temperature, 0.84
Correlation of solar and first derivative of temperature, 0.74
w.
Hmmm. Thanks for being so responsive, especially on a thread that’s a few days old.
Gotta admit that surprises me. Are you analyzing hourly, daily, seasonal, what? I can see this if you’re looking at the temp variation over the day/night cycle, but the results would be different if you looked at the seasonal pattern. The “inertia” effect is larger then, and larger still if you look at water temps.
In any case, I think I’ve taken too much of your time and don’t deserve any more. My guess is that we’ll only see a solar effect of global temps if this current minimum runs really long, and that’s looking less likely of late. The Thermosphere Climate Index and the 10.7 cm flux (on Spaceweather.com) haven’t yet gotten as low recently as they got in 2009. Meanwhile solar cycle 25 is already showing signs of life.
Monthly, but the principle should be the same.
When the sun suddenly increases from say C to D, temperature rises from say A to B. At the exact same time the first derivative goes from zero to (B-A). Not sure why the derivative would correlate better.
w.
The Ocean does not remain static…waiting for its temperature to be measured to a 1/100th part of a degree.
Nor does the atmosphere for that matter. One only has to consider clouds and surface winds. Yesterday the thermometer on my porch read 35˚C…today 21˚. Right now, Eastern Australian conditions are being strongly influenced by cold water in the Indian Ocean; cold dry air from Antarctica resulting in cloudless hot days.
Whilst I fully admire efforts to turn this complexity into numbers I feel it is beyond the capacity of mathematics.
I am reminded of PID controllers which are used in industrial processes. Even in a relatively simple system, where a limited number of conditions and variables are known and can be governed precisely; managing the feedback loop is far from simple. I therefore suggest that searching for a connection between Sunspots and Earth Climate…on this timescale, with the data we have available… is not likely to produce a useful result.
Years ago I read an article in Scientific American (I belive!) that described the Hudson Bay Company’s records of Snowshoe hare and Lynx catch. This had an 11-year cycle in sync with the sunspot cycle. This was before SA shed its scientific agenda, so i think it must have been at least before year 2000. The connection to the solar cycle was the snowdepth where the hare outran the Lynx.
I remember reading this analysis a while ago that seemed to show that there was a delayed effect of sunspot number on temperature. I’m not sure if it is accurate but for what it is worth the link is below.
https://digitaldiatribes.wordpress.com/2008/10/07/solar-cycle-length-sunspot-count-and-temperature-an-insurance-pricing-analysis/#more-503
and an update
https://digitaldiatribes.wordpress.com/2009/05/13/may-2009-sunspot-update/
Willis,
SSN Climate connection is a very well-established branch in climate science. Many top scientists are working in this area and there are many published papers in international journals. I expected people to do some little groundwork before making such a post.
Thanks for all your links.
SSN Climate connection is a very well-established branch in climate science.
Evidence for a connection is weaker – and getting steadily weaker.
Mark February 4, 2020 at 1:51 pm Edit
Are you insulting by nature or do you work at it? I just posted up links to the 25 studies I’ve done of those “many published papers”, and you accuse me of not doing groundwork???? How many studies have you posted up on the subject?
But if you’re so sure, let me make the same offer to you that John Tillman is running from. Figure out which of that vast stack of papers you think demonstrates the sunspot-related effect most strongly, clearly, and irrefutably. Then post up TWO links here, one to that study and the other to the data as used in the study, and I’m happy to take a look at it.
Caveats:
• No reanalysis “data”. It’s not data as we commonly understand the term, it is the output of a climate model.
• Surface datasets only. The effects of the sun on the ionosphere are well known … however, they don’t seem to translate to the surface.
I await your TWO links.
w.