All things Solar

[cmc0605]

Snowlover or anyone,

Would it be reasonable to assume a lag period between a major change in the sun's output and a change in Earth's temperatures due to the high specific heat of the oceans? If so, does anyone have a feel for the general range for the length of the lag?

I would think of the heat capacity of the ocean as causing a delay to equilibrium, rather than delaying a temperature response. This would show up as a decrease in the rate of warming with time.

(P.S. Keep in mind that the aa-index above is a measure of geomagnetic disturbance. It correlates well with neutron count rate, irradiance, and phenomena such as aurorae. I don't deny an increase in the early to mid 20th century, although since 1960 or so there is no trend in any significant solar variable, including aa-index. And even if there was, no one has shown that these myriad number of "indirect solar effects" mean much to climate whatsoever. Snowlover evidently disagrees, though I find his evidence rather weak, and largely based on selected correlations. This is not at the level of being identified in detection and attribution studies, or being quantified as a radiative forcing, or even surviving more robust correlation analysis across many locations. This is because there's no suitable physical mechanism, and without a mechanism we can't identify how the forcing should propagate onto the spatial and temporal structure of the observed warming...which is absolutely critical for D&A, and relevant for your question)

[GaWx]

I would think of the heat capacity of the ocean as causing a delay to equilibrium, rather than delaying a temperature response. This would show up as a decrease in the rate of warming with time.

With the delay in equilibrium due to the high heat capacity of the oceans and considering just the solar input portion (direct and indirect) (whatever % impact on global temp's it may be) to the late 20th century global warming, can't one argue that having the most active sun during 1950-2000 of any 50 year period overall over the last several hundred years still quite possibly allow for some warming during that period as opposed to level temp.'s?

[cmc0605]

With the delay in equilibrium due to the high heat capacity of the oceans and considering just the solar input portion (direct and indirect) (whatever % impact on global temp's it may be) to the late 20th century global warming, can't one argue that having the most active sun during 1950-2000 of any 50 year period overall over the last several hundred years still quite possibly allow for some warming during that period as opposed to level temp.'s?

Also see my edit above*

Yes, the sun is almost certainly responsible for some warming in the 20th century, mostly in the early 20th century. But you need to actually quantify it. When you do so, the changes are exceedingly small...an order of magnitude smaller than GHGs. This is why people need to either 1) inflate the solar sensitivity by a factor of 10-20 to make their hypotheses work, while leaving the GHG sensitivity unchanged (and that's just considering global averages, you also need to simultaneously ignore the spatial-temporal fingerprints) and would be impossible to reconcile with a negative water vapor feedback; or 2) they need to put their faith in some secondary solar mechanism like cosmic rays, none of which have much explanatory ability.

[Snow_Miser]

1.1C or 1.2C ? Close agreement with the difference representative of part of the range in uncertainty.

Sensitivity? How sensitive is the climate to a perturbation equaling 1.1C? The consensus of equilibrium climate sensitivity studies places the uncertainly most likely to fall between 2C and 4.5C.

So, whether by the Sun or greenhouse, a warming of 1.2C is expected to be amplified to between 2C and 4.5C by feedback within the climate system.

That is under significant question, and is not settled by any means.

Observations suggest a negative feedback instead of a positive feedback, with decreasing RH, leading to a neutral to a slightly negative water vapor feedback and a negative cloud feedback.

This produces a radiative forcing equaling 0.24 watts/meter squared and a Planck temperature response of 0.08C. As it happens about a 0.1C variance has been teased out of the surface temp record over the course of the 11 year cycle, thus confirming the physical expectation.

Yes, but the total radiative forcing observed during the solar cycle is 5 to 7 times LARGER than TSI alone during the solar cycle, and we STILL only get only 0.1 Degrees C of warming with the solar cycle.

This indicates an insensitive climate system, which means that CO2 can not be causing the 20th Century Global Warming.

The radiative forcing by CO2 is so much larger than that for solar variation and thus the Planck temperature response is many times greater.

That can not be said, because as you, yourself said:

The radiative forcing produced by changing low cloud amount would certainly be more than sufficient to explain current climate change and appear to cast doubt on AGW.

If CERN provides results in the future that GCRs have a SIGNIFICANT impact on Cloud formation (all they have confirmed so far is that GCRs influence the nucleation rate by up to a factor of 10) then this will definitely cast some doubt.

[Snow_Miser]

Also see my edit above*

Yes, the sun is almost certainly responsible for some warming in the 20th century, mostly in the early 20th century. But you need to actually quantify it. When you do so, the changes are exceedingly small...an order of magnitude smaller than GHGs. This is why people need to either 1) inflate the solar sensitivity by a factor of 10-20 to make their hypotheses work, while leaving the GHG sensitivity unchanged (and that's just considering global averages, you also need to simultaneously ignore the spatial-temporal fingerprints) and would be impossible to reconcile with a negative water vapor feedback; or 2) they need to put their faith in some secondary solar mechanism like cosmic rays, none of which have much explanatory ability.

Warmers only believe that the only solar influence is TSI, that is how you guys crunch your numbers and then conclude that the sun is not responsible for climate changes on Earth.

The fact of the matter is that we have OBSERVED that there is an amplifying mechanism associated with the solar cycle, and this confirms the GCR-Cloud theory, and a potent indirect solar influence.

[Snow_Miser]

Snowlover or anyone,

Would it be reasonable to assume a lag period between a major change in the sun's output and a change in Earth's temperatures due to the high specific heat of the oceans? If so, does anyone have a feel for the general range for the length of the lag?

There is a lag with solar activity, and this is primarily because of the large thermal lag with the oceans. Scientists are unusure with as to how long this lag is, but I would say that it is around 7-8 or so years.

This is an excellent graphic that helps depict what I am saying:

These are pure arbitrary numbers, but note that even as the forcing is going down, temperatures are still increasing, making Lockwood and Frolich's paper (the one CMC was very eager to show everyone) completely useless.

[cmc0605]

Warmers only believe that the only solar influence is TSI, that is how you guys crunch your numbers and then conclude that the sun is not responsible for climate changes on Earth.

The fact of the matter is that we have OBSERVED that there is an amplifying mechanism associated with the solar cycle, and this confirms the GCR-Cloud theory, and a potent indirect solar influence.

Sorry, words are not physics. Quantify your influence and then publish it.

And try to be consistent. On the one hand, you want a very insensitive climate system. On the other hand, you want an absurdly hyper-sensitive system, but only when it suits your solar ideas. Work out what a negative water vapor feedback would actually imply for your hypothesis. Stop being lazy and do the math.

Then, try to actually read some of the papers I cited. No one believes TSI is the only thing going on (whatever a "warmer" is) and nothing about L&F is invalidated because of thermal inertia. Anything more than simple back-of-the-envelope calculations involve some sort of thermal intertia, including comprehensive models, but that doesn't save your hypothesis.

At this point, this is more of a dicussion for a psychologist than a scientist.

[Snow_Miser]

Sorry, words are not physics. Quantify your influence and then publish it.

And try to be consistent. On the one hand, you want a very insensitive climate system. On the other hand, you want an absurdly hyper-sensitive system, but only when it suits your solar ideas. Work out what a negative water vapor feedback would actually imply for your hypothesis. Stop being lazy and do the math.

Then, try to actually read some of the papers I cited. No one believes TSI is the only thing going on (whatever a "warmer" is).

The increased radiative forcing observed during the solar cycle does NOT confirm a positive feedback response to the warming impact from the solar cycle! It confirms that there is a mechanism (from GCRs) that amplifies the warming from TSI over the solar cycle.

Decreasing RH has been observed by multiple papers, signifying a neutral water vapor feedback as has net negative feedback in the climate system.

[cmc0605]

The increased radiative forcing observed during the solar cycle does NOT confirm a positive feedback response to the warming impact from the solar cycle! It confirms that there is a mechanism (from GCRs) that amplifies the warming from TSI over the solar cycle.

This is an assertion, nothing more. It has no grounds in physics (as an aside, some people have tried to infer the transient climate response from the 11-year solar cycle, Camp and Tung come to mind and they find consistency with high sensitivity... but it's not a very useful constraint and I don't think I ever claimed the solar cycle was a good diagnostic for feedback strength).

Once again, there are indirect solar effects with the 11-year SC that I never denied...they are very small though in terms of global surface temperature, and project more strongly on other climate variables, especially regionally or in the upper atmosphere. If you read the Gray et al. paper you'd know this.

Decreasing RH has been observed by multiple papers, signifying a neutral water vapor feedback as has net negative feedback in the climate system.

That's not necessarily what a decrease in RH would imply. Observed changes in RH are nowhere large enough for that conclusion to follow. You continue to make things up. Keep going though, I do need occasional comic relief in my day, but my responses are going to have to be less periodic in order to get my work done.

[Snow_Miser]

This is an assertion, nothing more. It has no grounds in physics (as an aside, some people have tried to infer the transient climate response from the 11-year solar cycle, Camp and Tung come to mind and they find consistency with high sensitivity... but it's not a very useful constraint and I don't think I ever claimed the solar cycle was a good diagnostic for feedback strength).

Once again, there are indirect solar effects with the 11-year SC that I never denied...they are very small though in terms of global surface temperature, and project more strongly on other climate variables, especially regionally or in the upper atmosphere. If you read the Gray et al. paper you'd know this.

No, what you claimed was that I was inconsistent with claiming an insensitive climate system, while saying there was an amplifying mechanism associated with the solar forcing.

Keep track of your claims.

There are multiple analyses pointing to net negative feedback in the climate system, so this amplifying response is not from positive feedback, it is from an indirect solar impact known as GCRs.

What Camp and Tung have done is assume that the TSI alone is creating a 0.1 to 0.2 Degree C signal in the temperature record, and then come to high sensitivities. It has been observed that there is an additional factor that multiplies the forcing from the sun by a factor of 5 to 7 over the solar cycle, and yet we only warm 0.1-0.2 Degrees C for the solar cycle, suggesting an insensitive climate system.

That's not necessarily what a decrease in RH would imply. Observed changes in RH are nowhere large enough for that conclusion to follow. You continue to make things up. Keep going though, I do need occasional comic relief in my day, but my responses are going to have to be less periodic in order to get my work done.

I can see then why you have not replied to any of my previous posts concerning this subject...

http://pielkeclimate...09/10/r-337.pdf

“An increase in the atmospheric moist content has been generally assumed when the lower-tropospheric temperature (Tcol) increases, with relative humidity holding steady. Rather than using simple linear regression, we propose a more rigorous trend detection method that considers time series memory. The autoregressive moving-average (ARMA) parameters for the time series of Tcol, precipitable water vapor (PWAV), and total precipitable water content (PWAT) from the North American Regional Reanalysis data were first computed. We then applied the Monte Carlo method to replicate the ARMA time series samples to estimate the variances of their Ordinary Least Square trends. Student.s t tests showed that Tcol from 1979 to 2006 increased significantly; however, PWAVand PWAT did not. This suggests that atmospheric temperature and water vapor trends do not follow the conjecture of constant relative humidity over North America. We thus urge further evaluations of Tcol, PWAV, and PWAT trends for the globe.”

http://journals.amet...earchHistoryKey=

"extended calculation using coupled runs confirms the earlier inference from the AMIP runs that underestimating the negative feedback from cloud albedo and overestimating the positive feedback from the greenhouse effect of water vapor over the tropical Pacific during ENSO is a prevalent problem of climate models.”

From the first paper: Water Vapor content has remained roughly unchanged during a timeframe we have warmed, suggesting neutral water vapor feedback.

[WeatherRusty]

That is under significant question, and is not settled by any means.

Observations suggest a negative feedback instead of a positive feedback, with decreasing RH, leading to a neutral to a slightly negative water vapor feedback and a negative cloud feedback.

Yes, but the total radiative forcing observed during the solar cycle is 5 to 7 times LARGER than TSI alone during the solar cycle, and we STILL only get only 0.1 Degrees C of warming with the solar cycle.

This indicates an insensitive climate system, which means that CO2 can not be causing the 20th Century Global Warming.

That can not be said, because as you, yourself said:

The radiative forcing produced by changing low cloud amount would certainly be more than sufficient to explain current climate change and appear to cast doubt on AGW.

If CERN provides results in the future that GCRs have a SIGNIFICANT impact on Cloud formation (all they have confirmed so far is that GCRs influence the nucleation rate by up to a factor of 10) then this will definitely cast some doubt.

I may have missed it, but where does the 5 to 7 times the radiative forcing of TSI supposedly come from? From changes in cloudiness? Is this quantified somewhere?

[Snow_Miser]

I may have missed it, but where does the 5 to 7 times the radiative forcing of TSI supposedly come from? From changes in cloudiness? Is this quantified somewhere?

Shaviv does not give a specific answer in his paper, but he states that GCRs creating cloud changes is definitely one of the main possibilities for this observation illustrated in his paper.

[cmc0605]

So, to summarize the sequence of "ifs."

1) If GCR's impact clouds...(psst..we have to ignore recent data though)

2) #1 could happen if CERN, in the future, provides support for this

3) Then, if those changes in cloud properties are large enough...and caused by cosmic rays and not by variability or feedback...and only low clouds though because high clouds would probably have a stronger greenhouse effect

4) If the radiative influence of those changes in low clouds is strong enough...but the radiative influence isn't quantified yet...

5) Then, if we can sort out all the other confounding variables like internal variability, aerosols, GHGs, etc that may be relevant over an 11-year cycle

6) Then, if we assume that the radiative forcing is so large as to overwhelm the strong negative feedback influence from water vapor...

7) Point #6 is based on some reanalysis data, not observation, and is in contrast to much more robust observational datasets and modeling results..but if it's right

8) If we assume some interesting conspiracy between ozone destruction caused by the sun, thermal inertia, cosmic rays, and the radiative interaction of CO2 being "shut off."

9) If we wish away the lack of trend in cosmic rays over the last half century

10) The "real" trend/effect of cosmic rays should have a similar spatial and temporal structure as that of GHGs. No one has modeled this yet, but if it does...

..The obvious answer is that we should have 100% confidence that cosmic rays are a significant driver of long-term climate change and amplify the 11-year cycle!

[Snow_Miser]

So, to summarize the sequence of "ifs."

1) If GCR's impact clouds...(psst..we have to ignore recent data though)

2) #1 could happen if CERN, in the future, provides support for this

3) Then, if those changes in cloud properties are large enough...and caused by cosmic rays and not by variability or feedback...and only low clouds though because high clouds would probably have a stronger greenhouse effect

4) If the radiative influence of those changes in low clouds is strong enough...but the radiative influence isn't quantified yet...

5) Then, if we can sort out all the other confounding variables like internal variability, aerosols, GHGs, etc that may be relevant over an 11-year cycle

6) Then, if we assume that the radiative forcing is so large as to overwhelm the strong negative feedback influence from water vapor...

7) Point #6 is based on some reanalysis data, not observation, and is in contrast to much more robust observational datasets and modeling results..but if it's right

8) If we assume some interesting conspiracy between ozone destruction caused by the sun, thermal inertia, cosmic rays, and the radiative interaction of CO2 being "shut off"

9) If we wish away the lack of trend in cosmic rays over the last half century

..The obvious answer is that we should have 100% confidence that cosmic rays are a significant driver of long-term climate change and amplify the 11-year cycle!

Are you going to address anything my post addressed to you raised or are you going to throw a red herring and misrepresent my arguments again like usual?

[cmc0605]

I am beginning to notice that CMC likes to deliberately misrepresent people so that he can try to gain gain the upper hand and not have to address anything I brought up in my earlier posts. The lay lurker should note that CMC has not replied to anything in my post nor has he provided concrete evidence that carbon dioxide is responsible for most of the recent past temperature variations nor has he provided any evidence that the climate system is a particularly sensitive system. What he has done is make a cute series of misrepresentations so that he would not have to address anything I brought up.

Talk about evading and manipulating the points.

Oh please. Your whole hypothesis requires at least a dozen steps in logic, at least half of them have very little support or are highly controversial in the literature. Somehow you prefer this to physics established for roughly a century.

Let's get this straight. You made a very confident claim that the radiative forcing is amplified by a significant factor over an 11-year cycle, and rather confidently attributed this amplification to cosmic rays. But no one has quantified this. It's not even established that the clouds are being impacted by just the cosmic rays and nothing else. Indeed, the relation between cosmic rays and low cloud cover doesn't even work for the most recent solar cycle. But you now say it's guesswork by Shaviv.

Why is anyone supposed to be convinced by this? Forget sensitivity, forget CO2, forget water vapor. We're clearly not even reading the same book to even begin getting more complex. Why would anyone in their right mind believe all of the required steps that are needed to make a positive and significant attribution of the late 20th century warming, or even the alleged solar cycle "amplification," to cosmic rays?

[WeatherRusty]

Are you going to address anything my post addressed to you raised or are you going to throw a red herring and misrepresent my arguments again like usual?

Snowlover,

You are the one making extraordinary claims based on controversial evidence. The stuff you are touting is out on the fringe of mainstream science. It is not total junk science, but I have to think you are placing way to much stock in GCRs and a solar influence on global cloud amount given the science that supports it.

You know me, I will give you a fair hearing.

To bad about the demise of the environment site by the way.

[Snow_Miser]

Let's get this straight. You made a very confident claim that the radiative forcing is amplified by a significant factor over an 11-year cycle

Yes.

rather confidently attributed this amplification to cosmic rays.

It seems like a likely factor.

But no one has quantified this.

It's been qualified that such an amplifying mechanism exists, and it has been qualified in the paper that this is not due to positive feedback. (If positive feedback magnified the radiative forcing by a factor of 5-7 times we should have warmed much more over the last 100 years than 0.6-0.7 Degrees C).

Where there exists some doubt is whether it is due to Cosmic Rays, though stacking up all of the evidence, it seems more likely that GCRs are creating such an amplification.

But you now say it's guesswork by Shaviv.

That's not what I said.

Why would anyone in their right mind believe all of the required steps that are needed to make a positive and significant attribution of the late 20th century warming, or even the alleged solar cycle "amplification," to cosmic rays?

The solar cycle can not cause warming since it goes up and down. Trends up and down are what can create warming, and an amplifying mechanism would create even more warming.

[Snow_Miser]

Snowlover,

You are the one making extraordinary claims based on controversial evidence. The stuff you are touting is out on the fringe of mainstream science. It is not total junk science, but I have to think you are placing way to much stock in GCRs and a solar influence on global cloud amount given the science that supports it.

You know me, I will give you a fair hearing.

To bad about the demise of the environment site by the way.

Perhaps I am misinterpreting the data. I am not a scientist, but looking at all of the evidence, that's how it stacks up for me.

And agreed about the closing of the Environment Site. It is a real shame, considering 10 years of posts on that forum have been lost.

[Snow_Miser]

So here is how it stacks up for me:

1) An amplifying mechanism over the Solar Cycle has been observed that amplifies the radiative forcing from TSI

2) This is an indirect forcing from the sun

3) GCRs are a likely candidate, since observational evidence has shown that they are highly correlated to precipitation decreases, (cloud changes which substantially impact the climate) substantially impact the DTR, and impact the atmospheric aerosol content.

4) A trend in GCRs that has been observed with a record low occuring in 1992 would amplify changes in the sun.

5) Global Warming occurs.

[Snow_Miser]

Going on...

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364682605000374

The monthly sunspot number (SSN) for January 1749–August 2004, the global sea-surface temperature (gmSST) and the regional SSTs in the northern N. Pacific (npSST) and the Nino3.4 (ninoSST) areas for the winters of 1870–2004 are analyzed by a wavelet transform to show their multi-scale nature. On the interdecadal timescales, both gmSST and npSST have similar variation tendencies with that of the intensity and cycle-length of the 11 yr SSN, with slight phase differences. The npSST and ninoSST are often out of phase on the decadal–interdecadal timescales. The ninoSST is predominated by the interannual timescales peaking around 3.8 yr. Moreover, the ninoSST exhibits an apparent 80–90 yr signal that is almost out of phase with that observed in SSN. Numerical experiments using a simple nonlinear system illustrate that the intensity of the seasonal forcing, modulated by the 11 yr solar activity, is likely an important factor causing different dominant timescales in regional SSTs. Even a small change in the “solar constant” by 0.04% on the 11 yr timescale may result in a regime change in the response (e.g. SST) with various dominant timescales, including the 77 and 88 yr signals that are similar to those of the “Gleissberg cycle” in observed SSN. The results show that part of the energy of the internal variability of the system is transferred to the forced variability that may have richer timescales than those in the forcing itself due to nonlinear resonance. This suggests that observed interannual–centennial climate signals are not purely internal, but also external because of the existence of the 11 yr solar activity cycle, which has changed the “solar constant” in the past and will continue doing so in the future. It also suggests that if the solar “Gleissberg cycle” is included in the forcing term, the 77 and 88 yr interdecadal signals and their subharmonics on centennial timescales may be more significant than what is shown here, which might have some implication to “global warming” research.

[GaWx]

 Now, the most active 15 day period of cycle so far on SESC basis is taking place for this cycle. Before this month, 11/2011 had the highest official avg. sunspot # with 96.7. The previous busiest 15 day SESC based periods were 10/11-25/2011 followed closely behind by 11/5-19/2011. Oct. 2011's official monthly was the 2nd highest of this cycle at 88.0. Unless 5/18-31 were to be drastically reduced from current levels, the official May 2013 # could be the first one to exceed 100 for the current cycle and could very well mean that the highest 12 month avg. # would be in 2013-4. I've been expecting the peak to be within 2013-4 based on past cycles' timing.

[skierinvermont]

 Now, the most active 15 day period of cycle so far on SESC basis is taking place for this cycle. Before this month, 11/2011 had the highest official avg. sunspot # with 96.7. The previous busiest 15 day SESC based periods were 10/11-25/2011 followed closely behind by 11/5-19/2011. Oct. 2011's official monthly was the 2nd highest of this cycle at 88.0. Unless 5/18-31 were to be drastically reduced from current levels, the official May 2013 # could be the first one to exceed 100 for the current cycle and could very well mean that the highest 12 month avg. # would be in 2013-4. I've been expecting the peak to be within 2013-4 based on past cycles' timing.

 

 

I hadn't noticed your question about lags until now. A forcing agent, by definition, immediately alters the net radiation balance of the planet  by the magnitude of the forcing agent. Thus forcing agents are immediately detectable as alterations in the radiation balance of the planet. 

 

The radiation budget of the planet for the past couple decades has been running around +.5-.6W/m2. In other words, the planet is gaining energy at a rate of .5-.6W/m2, which if you understand the units you will understand to be an incomprehensibly large rate of energy gain. While the precision of our ability to measure the positive energy balance is not perfect, a generally large positive energy imbalance has persisted despite the historic solar minimum. This unequivocally proves that historic weak solar activity is not a strong negative forcing agent. Not only has it failed to to reverse the energy balance of the planet (the planet continues to gain incredible amounts of heat) but the large positive energy balance has failed to appreciably decrease. There may have been some small reduction in the positive energy balance of the earth from perhaps +.7W/m2 to more like .5W/m2, but our precision in measurement is not so great as to say for sure.

 

The oceans would cause surface temperature to lag if a major negative forcing occurred because they take a long time to cool. However, the oceans are not cooling now. They are continuing to warm rapidly, perhaps at a slightly reduced rate. For example, other strong negative forcing agents have caused an immediate reversal in the earth's energy balance and surface temperatures immediately began to cool. For example, when Pinatubo erupted the earth's energy balance went negative, the oceans and surface temperatures began to cool. If the negative forcing had persisted, it would have taken many many years (decades possibly centuries) for the oceans and surface temperatures to cool fully. This is the lag that is often referred to with statements like "the thermal inertia of the oceans." However, cooling commenced immediately as soon as the negative forcing was applied. If the forcing was weaker, the positive energy balance might not have been reversed but it would have been reduced and the oceans and surface would warm more slowly. This latter scenario is probably a good description of what has been occurring during this solar minimum. The negative forcing such low solar activity is not enough to reverse the net radiation balance from positive to negative, but it may have been enough to reduce it. The precision of the measurements is not quite good enough to say for sure. But, the energy balance is definitely still quite positive, so we know definitively that such low solar activity is not a particularly strong forcing agent. At most, perhaps -.3W/m2. 

 

The following chart illustrates the concept well. Solar forcing reached a minimum back 4 years ago, and yet the earth's energy budget remained positive. As the chart shows, if the forcing was strong cooling would have commenced already. 

 

 

 

 

 

[Snow_Miser]

I hadn't noticed your question about lags until now. A forcing agent, by definition, immediately alters the net radiation balance of the planet by the magnitude of the forcing agent. Thus forcing agents are immediately detectable as alterations in the radiation balance of the planet.

The radiation budget of the planet for the past couple decades has been running around +.5-.6W/m2. In other words, the planet is gaining energy at a rate of .5-.6W/m2, which if you understand the units you will understand to be an incomprehensibly large rate of energy gain. While the precision of our ability to measure the positive energy balance is not perfect, a generally large positive energy imbalance has persisted despite the historic solar minimum. This unequivocally proves that historic weak solar activity is not a strong negative forcing agent. Not only has it failed to to reverse the energy balance of the planet (the planet continues to gain incredible amounts of heat) but the large positive energy balance has failed to appreciably decrease. There may have been some small reduction in the positive energy balance of the earth from perhaps +.7W/m2 to more like .5W/m2, but our precision in measurement is not so great as to say for sure.

The oceans would cause surface temperature to lag if a major negative forcing occurred because they take a long time to cool. However, the oceans are not cooling now. They are continuing to warm rapidly, perhaps at a slightly reduced rate. For example, other strong negative forcing agents have caused an immediate reversal in the earth's energy balance and surface temperatures immediately began to cool. For example, when Pinatubo erupted the earth's energy balance went negative, the oceans and surface temperatures began to cool. If the negative forcing had persisted, it would have taken many many years (decades possibly centuries) for the oceans and surface temperatures to cool fully. This is the lag that is often referred to with statements like "the thermal inertia of the oceans." However, cooling commenced immediately as soon as the negative forcing was applied. If the forcing was weaker, the positive energy balance might not have been reversed but it would have been reduced and the oceans and surface would warm more slowly. This latter scenario is probably a good description of what has been occurring during this solar minimum. The negative forcing such low solar activity is not enough to reverse the net radiation balance from positive to negative, but it may have been enough to reduce it. The precision of the measurements is not quite good enough to say for sure. But, the energy balance is definitely still quite positive, so we know definitively that such low solar activity is not a particularly strong forcing agent. At most, perhaps -.3W/m2.

The following chart illustrates the concept well. Solar forcing reached a minimum back 4 years ago, and yet the earth's energy budget remained positive. As the chart shows, if the forcing was strong cooling would have commenced already.

Those numbers in the chart I posted are all completely arbitrary. I've mentioned it several times when I posted that chart.

If the lag time is long as some studies have found, then we shouldn't be dramatically cooling right now.

[GaWx]

 Now, the most active 15 day period of cycle so far on SESC basis is taking place for this cycle. Before this month, 11/2011 had the highest official avg. sunspot # with 96.7. The previous busiest 15 day SESC based periods were 10/11-25/2011 followed closely behind by 11/5-19/2011. Oct. 2011's official monthly was the 2nd highest of this cycle at 88.0. Unless 5/18-31 were to be drastically reduced from current levels, the official May 2013 # could be the first one to exceed 100 for the current cycle and could very well mean that the highest 12 month avg. # would be in 2013-4. I've been expecting the peak to be within 2013-4 based on past cycles' timing.

 

 Well, right after I posted the above, the SESC dailies fell pretty sharply. 5/18-26 has been nearly 30% lower than 5/1-17 with numbers expected to be mainly on the lowish side for 5/27-31. With that being the case, the chances for May, 2013, to be 100+, officially, has dropped way down from how it looked just nine days ago. Now, it looks like it may not even reach the 11/2011 cycle high to date of 96.7.

Regardless, I'm still going with the highest 12 month average to be within the 2013-14 period. We'll see.

 Looking ahead based on prior weak cycles and other indicators, I'm expecting the moving multimonth sunspot average to start dropping off noticeably around 2016 (maybe starting as early as late 2015) with 2017 seeing the start of an even deeper minimum than 2006-10 (based on past patterns as well as current developments), which itself was the quietest since 1910-14. 2018-22 will be very interesting as far as how quiet it could end up being. There is a realistic possibility that it will be the quietest five year averaged period since one of the Dalton cycle mins, 1820-4, and there is even the chance for it to be the quietest since the deepest part of the Dalton dip, 1808-12! It still remains to be seen whether the current/anticipated mulitdecadal minimum will turn out to have had a sig. cooling effect on our planet. If that is going to turn out to be the case, I'd expect to see some indication of that by no later than ~2018 as that will have given us ~10 years since the prior cycle min.

 

 Monthly sunspots since 1749:

 

 ftp://ftp.ngdc.noaa.gov/STP/SOLAR_DATA/SUNSPOT_NUMBERS/INTERNATIONAL/monthly/MONTHLY

[AvantHiatus]

Those numbers in the chart I posted are all completely arbitrary. I've mentioned it several times when I posted that chart.

If the lag time is long as some studies have found, then we shouldn't be dramatically cooling right now.

The world is not dramatically cooling....and if cooling was occuring, it would disprove your sun cycle theories considering more solar activity = higher temperatures.

[Snow_Miser]

The world is not dramatically cooling....

 

Never said it was.

[AvantHiatus]

Never said it was.

 

Those numbers in the chart I posted are all completely arbitrary. I've mentioned it several times when I posted that chart.

If the lag time is long as some studies have found, then we shouldn't be dramatically cooling right now.

What exactly did you mean by the bolded part, may have misread your post. So you're saying the studies were inaccurate and that we should expect cooling in the future because there is a delay between solar activity and temperature?

[Snow_Miser]

What exactly did you mean by the bolded part, may have misread your post. So you're saying the studies were inaccurate and that we should expect cooling in the future because there is a delay between solar activity and temperature?

 

I believe you did. My post referred to skier's claim that if Solar Activity caused a large part of the 20th Century Warming, then we should be cooling right now, given that solar activity has declined dramatically in recent years. I responded saying that there are papers that document a 10-30 year lag, and some that document a 40 year lag. Given that such a lag may exist, the solar activity decrease may only just be starting to have a cooling influence. Thus, assuming a large solar role in the 20th Century Warming doesn't mean that we have to cool rapidly right now in order for the hypothesis to be legitimate. If we don't cool by 2020, I'm going to be with GaWx in supporting a minor solar role over the 20th Century

[AvantHiatus]

I believe you did. My post referred to skier's claim that if Solar Activity caused a large part of the 20th Century Warming, then we should be cooling right now, given that solar activity has declined dramatically in recent years. I responded saying that there are papers that document a 10-30 year lag, and some that document a 40 year lag. Given that such a lag may exist, the solar activity decrease may only just be starting to have a cooling influence. Thus, assuming a large solar role in the 20th Century Warming doesn't mean that we have to cool rapidly right now in order for the hypothesis to be legitimate. If we don't cool by 2020, I'm going to be with GaWx in supporting a minor solar role over the 20th Century

Makes sense and I agree but if it were true one may think that we would be seeing a more substantial drop in the global energy imbalance.

[Snow_Miser]

Makes sense and I agree but if it were true one may think that we would be seeing a more substantial drop in the global energy imbalance.

 

I question our ability to measure Earth's Energy Balance. We can try and do so through satellites, but the estimated imbalance is a magnitude too small for satellites to detect with any confidence. Thus, Energy Balance measurements mainly come from OHC measurements, which are more than uncertain at best.