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
In a comment on a recent post, I was pointed to a study making the following surprising claim: Here, we analyze the stream flow of one of the largest rivers in the world, the Parana ́ in southeastern South America. For the last century, we find a strong correlation with…
Usoskin Et Al. Discover A New Class of Sunspots 2014-02-22
There’s a new post up by Usoskin et al. entitled “Evidence for distinct modes of solar activity”. To their credit, they’ve archived their data, it’s available here. Figure 1 shows their reconstructed decadal averages of sunspot numbers for the last three thousand years, from their paper: Figure 1. The results…
Solar Periodicity 2014-04-10
I was pointed to a 2010 post by Dr. Roy Spencer over at his always interesting blog. In it, he says that he can show a relationship between total solar irradiance (TSI) and the HadCRUT3 global surface temperature anomalies. TSI is the strength of the sun’s energy at a specified distance…
Cosmic Rays, Sunspots, and Beryllium 2014-04-13
In investigations of the past history of cosmic rays, the deposition rates (flux rates) of the beryllium isotope 10Be are often used as a proxy for the amount of cosmic rays. This is because 10Be is produced, inter alia, by cosmic rays in the atmosphere. Being a congenitally inquisitive type…
The Tip of the Gleissberg 2014-05-17
A look at Gleissberg’s famous solar cycle reveals that it is constructed from some dubious signal analysis methods. This purported 80-year “Gleissberg cycle” in the sunspot numbers has excited much interest since Gleissberg’s original work. However, the claimed length of the cycle has varied widely.
The Effect of Gleissberg’s “Secular Smoothing” 2014-05-19
ABSTRACT: Slow Fourier Transform (SFT) periodograms reveal the strength of the cycles in the full sunspot dataset (n=314), in the sunspot cycle maxima data alone (n=28), and the sunspot cycle maxima after they have been “secularly smoothed” using the method of Gleissberg (n = 24). In all three datasets, there…
It’s The Evidence, Stupid! 2014-05-24
I hear a lot of folks give the following explanation for the vagaries of the climate, viz: It’s the sun, stupid. And in fact, when I first started looking at the climate I thought the very same thing. How could it not be the sun, I reasoned, since obviously that’s…
Sunspots and Sea Surface Temperature 2014-06-06
I thought I was done with sunspots … but as the well-known climate scientist Michael Corleone once remarked, “Just when I thought I was out … they pull me back in”. In this case Marcel Crok, the well-known Dutch climate writer, asked me if I’d seen the paper from Nir…
Maunder and Dalton Sunspot Minima 2014-06-23
In a recent interchange over at Joanne Nova’s always interesting blog, I’d said that the slow changes in the sun have little effect on temperature. Someone asked me, well, what about the cold temperatures during the Maunder and Dalton sunspot minima? And I thought … hey, what about them? I…
Changes in Total Solar Irradiance 2014-10-25
Total solar irradiance, also called “TSI”, is the total amount of energy coming from the sun at all frequencies. It is measured in watts per square metre (W/m2). Lots of folks claim that the small ~ 11-year variations in TSI are amplified by some unspecified mechanism, and thus these small changes in TSI make an…
Splicing Clouds 2014-11-01
So once again, I have donned my Don Quijote armor and continued my quest for a ~11-year sunspot-related solar signal in some surface weather dataset. My plan for the quest has been simple. It is based on the fact that all of the phenomena commonly credited with affecting the temperature,…
Volcanoes and Sunspots 2015-02-09
I keep reading how sunspots are supposed to affect volcanoes. In the comments to my last post, Tides, Earthquakes, and Volcanoes, someone approvingly quoted a volcano researcher who had looked at eleven eruptions of a particular type and stated: …. Nine of the 11 events occurred during the solar inactive phase…
Early Sunspots and Volcanoes 2015-02-10
Well, as often happens I started out in one direction and then I got sidetractored … I wanted to respond to Michele Casati’s claim in the comments of my last post. His claim was that if we include the Maunder Minimum in the 1600’s, it’s clear that volcanoes with a…
Sunspots and Norwegian Child Mortality 2015-03-07
In January there was a study published by The Royal Society entitled “Solar activity at birth predicted infant survival and women’s fertility in historical Norway”, available here. It claimed that in Norway in the 1700s and 1800s the solar activity at birth affected a child’s survival chances. As you might imagine, this…
The New Sunspot Data And Satellite Sea Levels 2015-08-13
[UPDATE:”Upon reading Dr. Shaviv’s reply to this post, I have withdrawn any mention of “deceptive” from this post. This term was over the top, as it ascribed motive to the authors. I have replaced the term with “misleading”. This is more accurate…
My Thanks Apologies And Reply To Dr Nir Shaviv 2015-08-17
Dr. Nir Shaviv has kindly replied in the comments to my previous post. There, he says: Nir Shaviv” August 15, 2015 at 2:51 pm There is very little truth about any of the points raised by Eschenbach in this article. In particular, his analysis excludes the fact that the o…
Is The Signal Detectable 2015-08-19
[UPDATE] In the comments, Nick Stokes pointed out that although I thought that Dr. Shaviv’s harmonic solar component was a 12.6 year sine wave with a standard deviation of 1.7 centimetres, it is actually a 12.6 year sine wave with a standard deviation of 1.7 millime…
The Missing 11 Year Signal 2015-08-19
Dr. Nir Shaviv and others strongly believe that there is an ~ 11-year solar signal visible in the sea level height data. I don’t think such a signal is visible. So I decided to look for it another way, one I’d not seen used before. One of the more sensitive …
23 New Papers 2015-09-22
Over at Pierre Gosselin’s site, NoTricksZone, he’s trumpeting the fact that there are a bunch of new papers showing a solar effect on the climate. The headline is Already 23 Papers Supporting Sun As Major Climate Factor In 2015 “Burgeoning Evidence No Longer Dismissible!…
The Cosmic Problem With Rays 2016-10-17
Normal carbon has six neutrons and six protons, for an atomic weight of twelve. However, there is a slightly different form of carbon which has two extra neutrons. That form of carbon, called carbon-14 or ’14C’, has an atomic weight of fourteen. It is known to be formed by the …
Willis,
was just falling over two findings:
New Science 22: Solar TSI leads Earth’s temperature with an 11 year delay
Lots of things will fall into place — as befits a potential paradigm step forward. For decades, people have been looking to see if the Sun controlled our climate but the message was perplexingly muddy. In the long run, solar activity appears linked to surface temperatures on Earth. (Solar activity was at a record high during the second half of the 20th century when temperatures were also high.) But when we look closely, firstly the solar peaks don’t exactly coincide with the surface temperature peaks, and secondly, the extra energy supplied during the solar peaks is far too small to do much warming. So how could changes in surface temperature be due to the Sun?
The second was a different view of TSI:
TSI 1AU and TSI true earth
TSI true earth means TSI at earth distance with a much greater variability.
Maybe s.th. worth looking at ?
Unfortunately the time serie is a rather short one.
@John
It seems you could not follow what I said. I am not forgetting solar variability as it is the most important driver of climate. Solar influence is a complex issue and not as simple and linear as you suggested.
Solar influence is a complex issue and not as simple and linear as you suggested.
And yet it is often claimed that there has been a clear & obvious solar-climate correlation over several millenia.
You say that it is a complex issue. Indeed, the Gray paper, despite considering all the scientific evidence, can find no significant solar effect. As things stand, therefore, the NULL Hypothesis (no solar effect) has not been rejected.
Mark: to reply to a comment, please click the “Reply” button placed at the very bottom of the comment. It is a new tool available to you. So, instead of “@John” in a new comment, you can reply to John’s comment directly. Does it seem too difficult?
Willis,
As I understand the basis for your temperature data, you use the Berkley Earth gridded land and ocean data. Here is how they describe the data.
“During the Berkeley Earth averaging process we compare each station to other stations in its local neighborhood, which allows us to identify discontinuities and other heterogeneities in the time series from individual weather stations. The averaging process is then designed to automatically compensate for various biases that appear to be present. After the average field is constructed, it is possible to create a set of estimated bias corrections that suggest what the weather station might have reported had apparent biasing events not occurred. This breakpoint-adjusted data set provides a collection of adjusted, homogeneous station data that is recommended for users who want to avoid heterogeneities in station temperature data.”
What has always bothered me about this approach is that by ‘homogenizing’ the data, it is not longer ‘real’ data but what they think the data ‘should’ be. Therefore, I’ve never trusted the Berkeley data. I’m wondering if the raw data would give a different result. How does the Berkeley data compare with satellite data over their period of overlap?
Don, lots of folks scream about “adjusted” data. However, there’s a real problem with the raw data.
As one of many examples, many stations moved from somewhere near downtown to the outskirts, or to the nearby airport.
So … what would you propose we do with the data? We can use it as it is, but it’s bound to have a large jump (discontinuity) on the date of the move. And if we throw out all of those stations, we will have very few stations left. So … how should we adjust for that?
A number of methods have been used. They all have pluses and minuses.
However, no matter what your answer might be, we’ve left the world of raw data and we’re in the world of “adjusted” or “homogenized” data.
Not an easy question by any means.
Best to you,
w.
Don, I got interested in your question, viz:
So, as you might imagine, I did the exercise. Here’s the graphic showing average temperatures over the period. Since they were each anomalies around different periods, I’ve set each of them as anomalies around their mean. As a result, the overall difference is zero, and individual area differences are accurate.
Interesting. First, Berkeley Earth’s land is warmer and the ocean is cooler than with UAH.
Next, the largest differences are in the areas of sea ice. I suspect that this is a difference in what temperature is used. You have two choices—air temperature over the ice and sea temperature under the ice. My guess is that the Berkeley Earth dataset is using sea temperature, where the UAH is obviously air temperature.
Overall, I’d say that’s a pretty good fit.
Having said that, the trends are different …
I must also add that among a number of major datasets (RSS MSU, UAH MSU, Berkeley Earth, JMA, HadCRUT, and GISS LOTI), the UAH MSU data has the smallest trend.
w.
Willis
You remarked, “First, Berkeley Earth’s land is warmer …” UHI contamination?
We have little choice but to work with adjusted or homogenized data, but it should be treated for what it is. It’s our best guess, not too much more than that.
Taking the data and then wielding it as if it’s a scientific, social and political truth that cannot be questioned has brought us to the current state of affairs.
I agree with Willis but I live in hope that an explanation will be found. I am not too hung up on finding correlation or an eleven year cycle and of course, sunspots are the proxy, not the trigger.
The sun interacts with our planet by means of its magnetic field, a whole spectrum of electromagnetic radiation, the solar wind and also modulates the impingement of interstellar materials such as cosmic rays and the dust of comets. Although the TSI is nearly constant, some parts of the spectrum, e.g. microwave and UV vary in amplitude throughout the cycle more than other frequencies.
If we speculate about how these solar effects interact with our planet then atmospheric chemistry is an obvious factor. There is knowledge of UV-ozone interactions but little known about the effect of the solar wind. These extremely high speed, high energy particles seem to do very little, something I find difficult to accept. Again, if we speculate on how interactions with the atmosphere could affect climate, then cloud formation is the most obvious candidate. Svensmark is a leading promoter of this thinking. It would also be a very effective candidate, modulating the direct solar warming of the land and oceans.
As we consider the lack of correlation and periodicity, the circumstantial evidence shows that climate effects tend to occur when there has been a series of weak (or strong) solar cycles. This implies a build up or prolonged depletion before an effect is seen. This could be a threshold effect. These are common in the biological world but I cannot see one here. A time lag such as one involving the temperature inertia of the oceans is much more likely in a climate context.
A TSI type phenomena or cloud coverage change could store and accumulate a positive or negative trend in ocean temperatures that are not measurable until after the solar changes that caused them. Due to the interactive nature of our climate this could be more complex than a simple time lag. For example, any ocean effect would be overlaid on the existing ocean currents and oscillations.
I hope that Willis finds time to reflect and comment on these thoughts because he has the skills and ingenuity to find ways of doing the analysis.
Willis,
Thanks for running the other data–interesting.
When stations are moved, the data obviously have to be adjusted or treated as a new site. Those kind of adjustments aren’t what I worry about. I do worry about (1) the kind of ‘adjustments HadCRUT makes to bias the data–for example, they didn’t like the 1945-1977 cooling, so they simply erased it with ‘adjustments,’ and (2) in large areas that have no temp data at all (Arctic, Antarctic, Africa, and central South America) temp data is arbitrary made up and used as if it were actual measurements over major areas of the globe. So you can get any global temp you want by just making up whatever temps you want for these areas. I don’t know what the Berkeley group uses for the four major areas with no temp measurements, but I suspect they also make it up.
Best to you,
Don
Thanks, Don. You’ve overlooking a very simple problem when you say “in large areas that have no temp data at all … temp data is arbitrary made up and used as if it were actual measurements”. The problem is that 99.99% of the planet has no temp data. Each temperature station is valid for maybe fifty feet in every direction, and beyond that is the unknown …
What’s your plan for dealing with that? Berkeley Earth defines a “temperature field” based on latitude and elevation, and compares that with individual stations. I took a look at this method here.
But it’s a problem no matter how many stations there are in an area.
w.
I fully agree, Willis. I guess we can only ‘do the best we can with what we have at the time’ (FDR WWII). I wonder what the data would look like if we applied no temp values at all to the Arctic, Antarctic, Africa, and central South America. That would make a restricted ‘global temp’ but at least it would (might) be free of overt bias. Maybe it’s pointless to talk about a single number for global temp.
dje
Good that you are discussing that point.
Recently I was checking some temperature data of Sunderbans India using ERA-Interim. I was surprised to see that all the stations in that remote locations have an abrupt jump in temperature since 2013. Interestingly there were no trends of temperature for a long period covering 1979-2013. Hence I agree that there could be a question of manipulation of temperature in remote locations where there are not enough observation.
Do not you think all those remote locations need to be investigated thoroughly? How those remote locations are contributing global average temperature could be a burning topic.
I read a paper on Herschel’s linkage between sunspots and wheat price that demonstrated it was correct, until international trade in wheat interfered with and then destroyed the linkage. Any study that ignores that trade is bound to say that Herschel was wrong.
Willis,
I have read your 24 earlier posts and the present addition.
I think the Svensmark theory of the galactic cosmic ray input into the Earth’s atmosphere causing variations in the nucleation of low level clouds is both controversial and unproven.
I have also put the line through some 6 claims of alleged Earth Sun inter-relations that are said to play a role in the climate listed in other works discussing this subject e.g.
Schwab, Hale and Gleissberg périodicities,
LOD,
Lunar Nodal Cycle,
Bond Cycle etc.
There are too many suppositions and statements like ‘the D-O cycle may be in response to solar forcing’, etc.
I did pause however over one paper.
I am mindful of your direction-
(1) nominate the unpaywalled paper and (2) give the exact data set which the authors rely on.
The paper is Neff et al 2001 which is unpaywalled. I don’t have the data set of the authors.
However you may be able to dispose of this one quickly.
Neff et al 2001provides evidence from paleo climate records for a link between varying cosmic radiation and climate.
Using samples from a cave in Oman, Middle East, these authors showed that a close correlation exists between radiocarbon production rates ( driven by incoming cosmic radiation which is solar modulated ) and rainfall( as reflected in the geochemical signature of oxygen isotopes)
If it all hangs on the dataset, don’t bother but it was intriguing.
Herbert, the general problem that I have with the paleo based on beryllium and carbon isotopes is that the rate of deposition of those seems to be weather-dependent. So they are not, as is often claimed, a simple measure of the activity of the sun.
Do you have a link to the Neff et a. paper?
Thanks,
w.
Willis,
Thanks.
The Paper is “Strong Coherence between Solar variability and the Monsoon in Oman between 9 and 6 kyr ago,’ U.Neff et al, Nature 411, 290-293,(2001).
Interesting list of References, from Lamb to Overpeck.
Let me know your thoughts.
Herbert, my first question without even reading the paper is, if the coherence is so strong, why do the authors have to look back six THOUSAND years to find the evidence?
Next, I see that they say that they are using the “Delta14C record from tree rings, which largely reflects changes in solar activity”. But in fact, we have little actual observational evidence that that is true. See my post called “The Cosmic Problem With Rays“.
Next, they say “The delta18O record from the stalagmite, which serves as a proxy for variations in the tropical circulation and monsoon rainfall …” I’ve never heard that claim. ∂18O is widely used as a temperature proxy, not a rainfall proxy.
Finally, we have reasonable records of the temperature in Oman. Hang on … OK, here’s the CEEMD analysis:
No sign of a solar connection. Here’s a scatterplot of Oman temperature versus sunspots:
So … we have absolutely no correlation of temperatures and sunspots now, but we’re supposed to believe that there is a correlation between ∂18O (generally a temperature proxy) and temperature 60 centuries ago? …
Pass …
w.
Willis,
Thanks.
Well, that leaves 0 remaining compelling claims of Earth Sun inter-relations affecting climate.
As you say, although it does not mean that no such relationship exists, it’s just that there are no papers that stand up to scrutiny establishing the relationship!
Willis. you said:
“Undaunted, I continued to look for correlations [between the Earth’s temperature and sunspot activity, and I’ve done so from time to time ever since. At this point, I’ve looked in more than 20 places, & found no correlation.”
I would like to respectfully suggest to you that you are looking at the wrong celestial object when it comes to changes in the world’s mean SSTs. I believe that you should be looking at (the tides of) the Moon rather than the Sun.
Given the minimum requirement of at least 5 – 10 cyles per data set length for reasonable time series spectral analysis, your CEEMD of the BEST data (spanning ~ 70 years) would have trouble detecting temperature cycles much longer than 7 – 14 years. Hence, the main long-term cycles that you detect in the temperature records are the ones with periods of 9.1 years and possibly a bi-decadal component.
If you use a much longer SST temperature record e.g. The SST data set extracted from ERSST Version 3 which is a monthly record with {a} global coverage at 2° × 2° grids for the period of January 1854 through December 2007. This longer temperature record allows you to extend your spectral analysis to ~ 15 – 31 years.
Such an analysis has been done by Chen et al. (2009) who find that:
Ref: Ge Chen Baomin Shao Yong Han Jun Ma Bertrand Chapron, 2009, Modality of semiannual to multidecadal oscillations in global sea surface temperature variability, Journal of Geophysical Research. Oceans, Vol 115, Issue C3.
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2009JC005574
“Among the dozens of potential IDO [Inter-Decadal Oscillations] modes in global SST variability (some have been identified by previous investigators during the past two decades), four of them are, in many aspects, critical: The sub-decadal mode at 9.0 years, the quasi-decadal mode at 13.0 years, the interdecadal mode at 21.2 years, and [possibly] the multidecadal mode at 62.2 years.”
I believe that the four IDO modes that they find are all related to well known lunar tidal cycles. These are:
9.0 years –> the lunar forcing cycle of 9.1-years (i.e the harmonic mean of half the 18.6-year Draconic cycle and the 8.85-year Anomalistic Cycle)
13.0 years –> the pseudo period formed by the difference between the 31.0-year half Perigean New/Full Cycle and the 18.03-year Saros Cycle (such that 31.0 – 18.0 years = 13.0 years).
21.2 years –> possibly the 20.37-year extreme Perigean lunar tidal cycle
62.2 years –> possibly the full 62.0-year Perigean New/Full Moon tidal-cycle.
Norman Treloar (2002, 2017, 2019) and Nikolay Sidorenkov and I (2012, 2013, 2018, 2019) have published a number of papers outlining the case for a lunar tidal explanation for the observed variations in the world mean temperatures.
Ian Wilson February 6, 2020 at 5:05 am
The problem is that there is absolutely no trend in the tides, and they repeat on an ~51-year cycle … and neither of those is true about the temperature.
w.
I’m not sure why we would try to disprove the connection between our sun and climate but there it is in black and white. The pile of speculation, and pure guesses is pretty deep.
Why not try to prove that cold weather here on earth causes a lack of sunspots? Just reorganize some of the techno-babble.
If we are going to stop the climate crazies articles like this are not the way forward. The sun and our climate are inextricably linked. This is a fact that is easily understood. The Maunder minimum occurred during the Little Ice Age. Another fact.
We live in an era of sound-bytes. Sophistry is not going to win.
Jay Ayer February 6, 2020 at 5:20 am
My 25 analyses say they are not. Or more precisely, if they are, I cannot find where. If you think they are, you need to demonstrate it, not just claim it.
w.
Willis ‘My 25 analyses say they are not’.
25 is not good enough for such a claim.
25 is more than enough – unless you can provide one which shows that there is a clear solar-climate link.
John, in this thread there are mentions of many such papers. If you do not accept that is your problem.
Please provide a link to the best one that you have read.
There aren’t any. Mark provided a link to the Gray papers which has reviewed at all the available evidence and cannot find anything other than a small temperature change due to TSI variability.
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2009RG000282
See here
The most obvious mechanism for solar variations affecting the Earth’s climate is due to the
change in heating of the Earth system associated with varying TSI. These are found to partially explain the variations in the temperature of the oceanic mixed layer, but even in this case, it appears that modulations in the ocean‐atmosphere sensible and latent heat fluxes are needed to explain the observations,
and here
A value of 0.24 W m−2 solar radiative forcing difference from Maunder Minimum to the present is currently considered to be more appropriate. Despite these uncertainties in solar radiative forcing, they are nevertheless much smaller than the estimated radiative forcing due to anthropogenic changes,
Forget the sun and focus on the magnitude of the climate response to increasing GHGs. That’s the only issue for debate.
Mr Finn you said
“Forget the sun and focus on the magnitude of the climate response to increasing GHGs. That’s the only issue for debate.”
The problem is that if you apply the same kind of analysis to CO2 v Global temperature, CO2 fails at the first hurdle,
It cannot be isolated from natural causes.
Unless you believe scientists that say the late 20th century warming cannot be explained by anything other than CO2. Which is patently false.
John Finn February 7, 2020 at 2:52 am
Folks, this is exactly why I ask people for two links, one to the paper and one to the data, for the best study that they know of. Otherwise, we just end up with people like the good Mr. Finn waving his hands at some big pile of studies and saying the answer is in there somewhere.
I see the same behavior on the other side, where they wave their hands at the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report and say they answer is in there somewhere.
And neither of those answers is worth a bucket of warm spit.
Look, this is not a hard ask. Figure out the study you think is the best, and send me a link to the study and the data. Anything else is totally worthless and totally uninteresting to me.
Best to you,
w.
Camp and Tung argue there is a spatial pattern and a phase lag to the response to the solar cycle. “Using NCEP reanalysis data that span four and a half solar cycles, we have obtained the spatial pattern over the globe which best separates the solar-max years from the solar-min years, and established that this coherent global pattern is statistically significant using a Monte-Carlo test. The pattern shows a global warming of the Earth’s surface of about 0.2 °K, with larger warming over the polar regions than over the tropics, and larger over continents than over the oceans. It is also established that the global warming of the surface is related to the 11-year solar cycle, in particular to its TSI, at over 95% confidence level.”
Solar-Cycle Warming at the Earth’s Surface and an Observational Determination of Climate Sensitivity.
Ka-Kit Tung and Charles D. Camp
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.75.1288&rep=rep1&type=pdf
Martin,
It seems there is no point in making any comment in this thread to make Willis, John Finn/ Curious George convinced. Inspite of all the proof they will keep on blabbering I did not see any proof.
Hence we need to focus our attention from such silly conversation to actually understand more and more on solar-climate science. Anyone reading this thread will figure out how complex this branch of science is and above all how important it is. Hence obviously only a very top class scientist can pinpoint this area. If someone analyses in details they will be able to figure out some excellent solar climate scientists. There are still some top solar climate scientists according to whom Science is their top priority and not politics.
Paul February 7, 2020 at 5:25 am
Say what? NOT ONE OF YOU, INCLUDING YOU, PAUL, HAS SENT ME TWO LINKS TO THE STUDY YOU THINK IS BEST.
However, I’m still here. And since you seem to think you’re an expert in these matters, how about you step up to the plate and give me your two links? What are you waiting for?
w.
PS—In general, you can’t “prove” anything in science. So if you think you are providing proofs … you aren’t.
Willis,
A trend in the Earth’s mean temperature can just be a long-term cycle in the world’s mean temperature e.g. the ~ 2300 year Hallstatt (Bray) cycle. Viewed on a short time scale e.g. decades to centuries. the longer cycle can appear to be a slow trend (either upward or downward).
The lunar tides are most effective when they act in resonance with the seasonal cycle (i.e. multiples of the tropical year). I have never heard of a stable 51.0-year lunar tidal cycle that is associated with the alignment of peaks in the strength of the lunar tides at the same point in the seasonal cycle.
The alignment of the lunar perigean New/Full Moon tidal cycles with the seasonal year [when viewed in a frame of reference that is fixed with respect to the precession of the Earth’s obliquity, corrected for the slow drift of the Perihelion of the Earth’s orbit] has a 416.0-year cycle. This twice the length of the 208-year de Vries Cycle. The widely recognized 59.75-year Perigean New/Full Moon tidal cycle plays a key role in establishing the 208/416 year lunar tidal cycle.
28.75 + 31.0 years = 59.75 years
59.75 + 28.75 years = 88.5 years (Gleissberg cycle)
88.5 + 59.75 years = 148.25 years
148.25 + 59.75 years = 208.0 years (de Vries cycle)
Apologies if already posted, but the irony is too good to pass. If solar is not and issue why does this article claim worse warming when clouds DISSSPPEAR ?!!
https://e360.yale.edu/features/why-clouds-are-the-key-to-new-troubling-projections-on-warming?fbclid=IwAR3xdZ3bdmnv8IOgrvzjEZ6CdDkZwH0W7gj8yRkI7d-BuNMPfQhY9X7F0yE
The solar cycle does indeed cause a very predictable pattern of warming and cooling in the tropics. In this study, I took the HADSTT3 tropics data all the way back to 1850 and found a significant relationship. Every solar cycle is broken down into a 3 wave pattern. The length of each wave is approximately 3.6 years or 1/3 solar cycle. The la nina down beat occurs on a 3.6 year delay from the solar min. (indicated by yellow line) When the solar cycle is longer, shorter, these cycles expand / compress. Other longer period cycles such as the Yoshimura 60 year cycle are superimposed on top of this wave pattern. Each proxy location also has a predicable pattern of strength. For instance wave 1 of 3 goes from low, mid, high, mid, low etc. 2 of the waves are in sync, and the 3rd is offset by 1 1/2 solar cycles. It’s all there for you guys if you are willing to look for it with an open mind. https://www.facebook.com/100000276969216/posts/2979081735444363/?d=n
Don’t let it grow a manic obsession. The man from the 3rd stone from the sun:
https://www.google.com/search?gs_ssp=eJzj4tFP1zcsNjAtLk8pyDZg9JLNyszNVMhIzUspyqxQyE3My0xWSEktKEotLs7MzwMAVgsP5Q&q=jimi+hendrix+manic+depression&oq=Jimmy+hendrix+mani&aqs=chrome.