Climate Change: Don't Blame the Sun

[Snow_Miser]

LIA during the Maunder Minimum saw a global cooling of around 0.3° to 0.4°. However, some areas, particularly in the Northern Hemipshere saw a decline in temperatures on the order of around 1°C - 2°C during the winter. The mechanism was the increased incidence of blocking that led to that outcome.

http://pubs.giss.nas...dell_etal_1.pdf

I can see how the LIA saw only 0.3-0.4 Degree C cooling, but I think that's on the low side... Mallow's argument was that the Globe did not experience an overall cooling during the LIA, which is just bizarre.

[donsutherland1]

One should be very skeptical of the Hansen Energy Imbalance paper that you like to post a lot on this forum. There are substantial regions of the ocean that the ARGO floats are not covering, and the timeframe is way too small to make any reasonable conclusions from the data.

Especially when the people at ARGO themselves say that a 6 year period for evaluating trends as Hansen has done is,

“not yet long enough to observe global change signals.”

Should later research come out on the issue, I'll certainly be interested in reading it.

Dr. Hansen is not the first scientist to note that the earth is in a positive energy imbalance. In the past, some researchers were unable to account for the full imbalance. Hansen's work is important in that it demonstrates that there is no "missing energy." That proof of sorts reaffirms the existence of the positive energy imbalance. His paper is also important, because it is the first work to rigorously test the solar amplification hypothesis. During the abnormally deep and prolonged solar minimum, neither the drop in TSI nor hypothesized amplification resulted in an elimination of the energy imbalance.

Finally, the longer OHC record shows that the oceans have been adding heat and are continuing to do so.

http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/3M_HEAT_CONTENT/heat_content2000m.png

As there is no offsetting cooling on land or the atmosphere, one can be confident that there is, in fact, a positive energy imbalance.

[donsutherland1]

I can see how the LIA saw only 0.3-0.4 Degree C cooling, but I think that's on the low side... Mallow's argument was that the Globe did not experience an overall cooling during the LIA, which is just bizarre.

I suspect that he meant that the LIA had its biggest effects in parts of the Northern Hemisphere, not that there was no net cooling globally. Also, I was covering the portion of the LIA that fell during the Maunder Minimum. The full cooling was likely modestly larger.

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/pubs/jones2004/fig5.jpg

[Mallow]

I can see how the LIA saw only 0.3-0.4 Degree C cooling, but I think that's on the low side... Mallow's argument was that the Globe did not experience an overall cooling during the LIA, which is just bizarre.

No, my argument was that it was largely a local phenomenon.

2. The LIA was likely a somewhat localilzed phenomenon, rather than a global phenomenon. No need to introduce an arbitrary solar multiplying factor to explain a non-global temperature trend.

I guess I could have chosen my wording better, but I did not intend to imply that the globe as a whole wasn't cooler (largely due to the very cold regions in the northern hemisphere). But the magnitude of the global cold during the LIA wasn't nearly as significant as the localized cold regions.

According to Yu 2002, the Cosmic Ray Flux has decreased on the order of 2-4% during the late-20th Century, which would represent an increase in Solar Activity during this timeframe.

The Cosmic Ray Theory has not been debunked by any means. In fact, there is a growing body of evidence that suggests that Cosmic Rays have a substantial impact on Global Cloud Cover.

Cosmic ray theory as it pertains to explaining a chunk of modern climate change (that is, climate change over the past 50-100 years) has been largely debunked... in that cosmic ray fluxes haven't changed nearly enough during that time to explain any substantial amount of the warming that has occurred. At least based on what I've read.

[ORH_wxman]

No, my argument was that it was largely a local phenomenon.

I guess I could have chosen my wording better, but I did not intend to imply that the globe as a whole wasn't cooler (largely due to the very cold regions in the northern hemisphere). But the magnitude of the global cold during the LIA wasn't nearly as significant as the localized cold regions.

Cosmic ray theory as it pertains to explaining a chunk of modern climate change (that is, climate change over the past 50-100 years) has been largely debunked... in that cosmic ray fluxes haven't changed nearly enough during that time to explain any substantial amount of the warming that has occurred. At least based on what I've read.

There's been more proxy evidence recently that the LIA occurred globally at a higher magnitude than previously claimed...South America and Antarctica. The most intense cooling was definitely still in the northern hemisphere though. I don't have the papers handy as I'll have to go back and look them up. This would be consistent though with past climate variability. Rarely do we see a temperature change of that magnitude that only affects one hemisphere.

[Isotherm]

There's been more proxy evidence recently that the LIA occurred globally at a higher magnitude than previously claimed...South America and Antarctica. The most intense cooling was definitely still in the northern hemisphere though. I don't have the papers handy as I'll have to go back and look them up. This would be consistent though with past climate variability. Rarely do we see a temperature change of that magnitude that only affects one hemisphere.

Agreed, and also from the papers I've read, most seem to converge on values of about 0.7C to 1.0C of cooling during the LIA. 0.3c/0.4c seems very low to me. Actually I saw a very recent paper explaining that the temp drop was about double what most thought.

[donsutherland1]

Agreed, and also from the papers I've read, most seem to converge on values of about 0.7C to 1.0C of cooling during the LIA. 0.3c/0.4c seems very low to me.

I noted that the 0.3°C-0.4°C cooling only concerned the portion of the LIA related to the Maunder Minimum. The overall cooling was somewhat larger.

[PhillipS]

Agreed, and also from the papers I've read, most seem to converge on values of about 0.7C to 1.0C of cooling during the LIA. 0.3c/0.4c seems very low to me. Actually I saw a very recent paper explaining that the temp drop was about double what most thought.

Could you please share links to the papers you referenced?

[ORH_wxman]

Could you please share links to the papers you referenced?

This paper that came out this year shows that the Antarctic response to the LIA was around 0.50C of cooling...which is less than the Northern Hemisphere, but still quite significant.

This would support the idea that the LIA was a global event that dropped temperatures somewhere between 0.50C and 1.0C....with the largest impact in the northern hemisphere. I agree with Isotherm's statement.

http://www.agu.org/p...2GL051260.shtml

[JBG]

Since there is a much higher percentage of land mass in the northern hemisphere, the warmer oceans will create a positive feedback of warming continents, and thereby warmer oceans, etc. The Arctic Ocean is essentially a puddle of water surrounded by asphalt. When the land masses continue to warm w/ the accumulation of +AMO years post 1995, the arctic sea ice will also continue to decline. Hence this summer and recent summers are fairly close to record low ice minima in the arctic, and this particular pattern is probable to continue for at least the next few years.

Wasn't there a breach of a major ice dam during 1988, which caused more warm water to flow into the Arctic Ocean via the strait west of Nome?

[Snow_Miser]

No, my argument was that it was largely a local phenomenon.

I guess I could have chosen my wording better, but I did not intend to imply that the globe as a whole wasn't cooler (largely due to the very cold regions in the northern hemisphere). But the magnitude of the global cold during the LIA wasn't nearly as significant as the localized cold regions.

Cosmic ray theory as it pertains to explaining a chunk of modern climate change (that is, climate change over the past 50-100 years) has been largely debunked... in that cosmic ray fluxes haven't changed nearly enough during that time to explain any substantial amount of the warming that has occurred. At least based on what I've read.

Okay, largely local = Global. Glad we cleared that up.

During any Global Warming or Cooling, there will be regions warming/cooling faster than the Global mean, and there will be places warming/cooling slower than the Global Mean. Take this present episode of Global Warming for example. Antarctica is barely warming, wheras places like the Arctic are warming significantly faster than the Global Mean.

The Cosmic Ray Flux can explain the warming over the last 50-100 years. Read the papers I posted and my post.

Thank you.

[Snow_Miser]

I suspect that he meant that the LIA had its biggest effects in parts of the Northern Hemisphere, not that there was no net cooling globally. Also, I was covering the portion of the LIA that fell during the Maunder Minimum. The full cooling was likely modestly larger.

http://www.ncdc.noaa...es2004/fig5.jpg

The biggest effect was definitely felt across the Northern Hemisphere... however it was definitely a Global phenomenon.

[Snow_Miser]

Should later research come out on the issue, I'll certainly be interested in reading it.

Dr. Hansen is not the first scientist to note that the earth is in a positive energy imbalance. In the past, some researchers were unable to account for the full imbalance. Hansen's work is important in that it demonstrates that there is no "missing energy." That proof of sorts reaffirms the existence of the positive energy imbalance. His paper is also important, because it is the first work to rigorously test the solar amplification hypothesis. During the abnormally deep and prolonged solar minimum, neither the drop in TSI nor hypothesized amplification resulted in an elimination of the energy imbalance.

Finally, the longer OHC record shows that the oceans have been adding heat and are continuing to do so.

http://www.nodc.noaa...ontent2000m.png

As there is no offsetting cooling on land or the atmosphere, one can be confident that there is, in fact, a positive energy imbalance.

Our deep ocean data is not very good at all. The upper ocean data has better sampling and more floats than the deep ocean has.

Source

There was pretty much zero sampling of the Deep Ocean before 2002-2003, before the ARGO era came around. The sampling is definitely better than it was before, but it is extremely poor still, having only about 6000 samplings per month for the Deep Ocean all across the globe, this is not nearly enough sampling that would be adequate.

Also, there is currently only one OHC dataset. With a very poor and questionable dataset as OHC, one should be skeptical of this one dataset on OHC. A recent OHC dataset that was added (but subsequently deleted) demonstrated how uncertain and how many grains of salt the deep ocean data should be taken with.

The UKMO EN3 OHC data for 0-2000m showed little to no trend at all in the OHC.

Hence, all deep ocean OHC datasets should be taken with a grain of salt, regardless if they show an increasing or flatlining trend in OHC, since there remain large uncertainties with the OHC data at those depths.

[The_Global_Warmer]

The recent solar min and weak solar max so far hasn't stopped the global sst's from staying warm. Now up to .30C. The previous NINO started in the summer of 2009 and peak in early 2010. It's gonna be very interesting how this plays out. We will certainly be seeing a response in the global temp data sets soon.

display plot oiv2.ctl

ssta 1

03jan2009 to 08aug2012

[donsutherland1]

The UKMO EN3 OHC data for 0-2000m showed little to no trend at all in the OHC.

The NODC's data, which was used in a paper by Levitus that was published this year, shows warming even from 2003-present.

http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/3M_HEAT_CONTENT/heat_content2000m.png

Hansen's trend line is sharper, because he took a compromise between two datasets, one of which had more aggressive warming than he has.

[skierinvermont]

Again, the event needs to ACTUALLY happen wxrusty. Your dismissing the lag, see: http://www.sciencedi...364682612000417

Highlights

► A longer solar cycle predicts lower temperatures during the next cycle. ► A 1 °C or more temperature drop is predicted 2009–2020 for certain locations. ► Solar activity may have contributed 40% or more to the last century temperature increase. ► A lag of 11 years gives maximum correlation between solar cycle length and temperature.

It will not be hypothesis tested until this grand minimum in reality occurs, and not using prognosticated "proof".

There is a lag to the response, but not to the mechanism.

As Rusty put it, a solar minimum is akin to turning down the flame on a pot of hot water. Yes you are correct it takes time for the temperature of the water to cool. But the water begins to lose energy immediately. The earth on the other hand has continued to rapidly gain energy despite the solar minimum.

[PhillipS]

There is a lag to the response, but not to the mechanism.

As Rusty put it, a solar minimum is akin to turning down the flame on a pot of hot water. Yes you are correct it takes time for the temperature of the water to cool. But the water begins to lose energy immediately. The earth on the other hand has continued to rapidly gain energy despite the solar minimum.

Skier, you and Rusty make very good points. Changes in the climate forcings quickly show up in the global temperature record. We observe this with volcanic eruptions where their effect shows up in the months following the start of the eruption.

We saw how fast the effect can be when plane flights were curtailed after 9/11 which reduced the number of contrails. Here's a paper by Travis et al 2004 onthis event.

Lag applies most to to the climate reaching equilibrium - which, of course, takes decades longer due to the enormous mass of the oceans.

If the hypothesized solar amplification were real then it would be possible to see its effects in the temperature record. Just like volcanic eruptions and other changes to climate forcings. The solar minimum from 2007 - 2009 was the lowest solar activity in years so it would leave a clear and unique 'fingerprint' in the temperature record that could not be explained by anything else. If the solar amplification were real.

The lack of any solar signal other than the known and quantified TSI variation makes it very clear that the solar amplification hypothesis is falsified.

[Mallow]

Okay, largely local = Global. Glad we cleared that up.

During any Global Warming or Cooling, there will be regions warming/cooling faster than the Global mean, and there will be places warming/cooling slower than the Global Mean. Take this present episode of Global Warming for example. Antarctica is barely warming, wheras places like the Arctic are warming significantly faster than the Global Mean.

Obviously for ANY period of "global" temperature change, the local effects will necessarily be greater. However, I was under the impression that over long time periods, the LIA was only cold (though significantly so) in specific regions... that is to say, the areal coverage of cold anomalies was still not much more than 50% of Earth's surface. That assumption may be wrong, though? But that's where I couldn't see the analogy to modern global warming, where the areal coverage of the warm anomalies averaged over a relatively long time period (say years to decades) is much greater than 50% of Earth's surface. Hence the "global" in global warming. But it's really just semantics, and I can see your argument.

The Cosmic Ray Flux can explain the warming over the last 50-100 years. Read the papers I posted and my post.

Thank you.

Sorry, I'm going to be lazy here and trust the majority climate science opinion that CRF can't explain recent warming, rather than your conclusions from your interpretation of a few papers I'm too lazy to actually read right now.

[The_Global_Warmer]

Skier, you and Rusty make very good points. Changes in the climate forcings quickly show up in the global temperature record. We observe this with volcanic eruptions where their effect shows up in the months following the start of the eruption.

We saw how fast the effect can be when plane flights were curtailed after 9/11 which reduced the number of contrails. Here's a paper by Travis et al 2004 onthis event.

Lag applies most to to the climate reaching equilibrium - which, of course, takes decades longer due to the enormous mass of the oceans.

If the hypothesized solar amplification were real then it would be possible to see its effects in the temperature record. Just like volcanic eruptions and other changes to climate forcings. The solar minimum from 2007 - 2009 was the lowest solar activity in years so it would leave a clear and unique 'fingerprint' in the temperature record that could not be explained by anything else. If the solar amplification were real.

The lack of any solar signal other than the known and quantified TSI variation makes it very clear that the solar amplification hypothesis is falsified.

Or weaker than other factors.

If we want we can try to find correlations everywhere.

Here is May 2012 Gisstemp(land only) temp data. I like this format because we can see a cross-section of the land temps over the Northern Hemisphere. There was more warming between 60-70N or so. Which happens to be the main area of snow cover anomalies in May. Is this a direct correlation or feedback with snow albedo?

April 2012: There is a spike upwards in anomaly's around 42N-55N Which coincides with the snow cover anomalies on both sides of the Northern Hemisphere.

May 2012: There is a more obvious spike right where the snow cover anomalies are.

Here is June. Snow cover anomalies shifted further North sitting along 65-78N. And as we can see temperature anomalie go up rapidly over this area.

I don't know how big of an impact it has, total solar insolation will factor in as well, obviously May/June Sun strength up North is powerful.

[skierinvermont]

So has the dramatic decline in solar activity beginning 8+ years ago had any effect on earth yet whatsoever?

Why do surface temperatures continue to warm?

Why does the earth remain in a large positive energy imbalance?

Why do the oceans continue to rise due to thermal expansion?

The fact is there has not been a single detectable effect on earth from this record low solar activity other than the expected direct response to TSI.

But we are told by various bloggers and pseudo-scientists that magically effects will begin to occur in the future. Lags on earth occur due to the thermal inertia of the oceans.. not magical time warp. You still would notice a negative energy imbalance before actual cooling commenced. A positive energy imbalance guarantees we will continue to warm for decades to come. Those promising us that we will begin to cool in 5, 10 years (the same ones that 5 years ago said we would be cooling today) fail to understand the significance of a large positive energy imbalance. A positive energy imbalance guarantees that the earth will continue to warm for decades to come and that their predictions of cooling are destined to fail.

There are posters in this thread that said we need to wait 5, 10 even 30 years to test the possibility of a lag. If any of them understood the significance of the earth's very large energy imbalance, they would know that it is virtually guaranteed that the earth will be warmer in 30 years than it is today. On a daily, monthly, annual basis the earth receives far more energy than it is emitting to space. This guarantees warming until the surface can warm enough to increase radiation to space and close the imbalance.

The earth's current energy imbalance of ~.7W/m2 commits us to a further ~.55C*** of warming. The surface of the earth would need to warm by .55C just to rebalance the energy budget.

***edited

[LakeEffectKing]

So has the dramatic decline in solar activity beginning 8+ years ago had any effect on earth yet whatsoever?

Why do surface temperatures continue to warm?

Why does the earth remain in a large positive energy imbalance?

Why do the oceans continue to rise due to thermal expansion?

The fact is there has not been a single detectable effect on earth from this record low solar activity other than the expected direct response to TSI.

But we are told by various bloggers and pseudo-scientists that magically effects will begin to occur in the future. Lags on earth occur due to the thermal inertia of the oceans.. not magical time warp. You still would notice a negative energy imbalance before actual cooling commenced. A positive energy imbalance guarantees we will continue to warm for decades to come. Those promising us that we will begin to cool in 5, 10 years (the same ones that 5 years ago said we would be cooling today) fail to understand the significance of a large positive energy imbalance. A positive energy imbalance guarantees that the earth will continue to warm for decades to come and that their predictions of cooling are destined to fail.

There are posters in this thread that said we need to wait 5, 10 even 30 years to test the possibility of a lag. If any of them understood the significance of the earth's very large energy imbalance, they would know that it is virtually guaranteed that the earth will be warmer in 30 years than it is today. On a daily, monthly, annual basis the earth receives far more energy than it is emitting to space. This guarantees warming until the surface can warm enough to increase radiation to space and close the imbalance.

The earth's current energy imbalance of ~.7W/m2 commits us to a further ~1.1C of warming. The surface of the earth would need to warm by 1.1C just to rebalance the energy budget.

[tacoman25]

So has the dramatic decline in solar activity beginning 8+ years ago had any effect on earth yet whatsoever?

Why do surface temperatures continue to warm?

Why does the earth remain in a large positive energy imbalance?

Why do the oceans continue to rise due to thermal expansion?

The fact is there has not been a single detectable effect on earth from this record low solar activity other than the expected direct response to TSI.

But we are told by various bloggers and pseudo-scientists that magically effects will begin to occur in the future. Lags on earth occur due to the thermal inertia of the oceans.. not magical time warp. You still would notice a negative energy imbalance before actual cooling commenced. A positive energy imbalance guarantees we will continue to warm for decades to come. Those promising us that we will begin to cool in 5, 10 years (the same ones that 5 years ago said we would be cooling today) fail to understand the significance of a large positive energy imbalance. A positive energy imbalance guarantees that the earth will continue to warm for decades to come and that their predictions of cooling are destined to fail.

There are posters in this thread that said we need to wait 5, 10 even 30 years to test the possibility of a lag. If any of them understood the significance of the earth's very large energy imbalance, they would know that it is virtually guaranteed that the earth will be warmer in 30 years than it is today. On a daily, monthly, annual basis the earth receives far more energy than it is emitting to space. This guarantees warming until the surface can warm enough to increase radiation to space and close the imbalance.

The earth's current energy imbalance of ~.7W/m2 commits us to a further ~1.1C of warming. The surface of the earth would need to warm by 1.1C just to rebalance the energy budget.

According to you, the leveling off of global temps over this period can be explained almost entirely by decreased solar activity.

[skierinvermont]

According to you, the leveling off of global temps over this period can be explained almost entirely by decreased solar activity.

The direct (small) response to TSI. Yes. It is likely responsible for most of the decrease in warming trend from .15C/decade to .1C/decade.

If you read carefully, that is not inconsistent with my statement above:

The fact is there has not been a single detectable effect on earth from this record low solar activity other than the expected direct response to TSI.

[skierinvermont]

Cherry -picking. First you select HadCRUT3 which has been replaced by HadCRUT4 because it doesn't include the arctic. (HadCRUT4 correctly shows more warming in recent years). Then you select 2004-2012 basically starting in a massive El Nino period and ending in a Nina period. You must either select a more ENSO-neutral period, or statistically remove ENSO from the record. When you do so, the warming trend is around .1C/decade.

[tacoman25]

The direct (small) response to TSI. Yes. It is likely responsible for most of the decrease in warming trend from .15C/decade to .1C/decade.

Actually, the trend now has decreased to closer to .05C/decade overall if you look at the average of the global temp sources. And the trend for the 1975-2005 period was closer to .2C/decade.

[WeatherRusty]

Actually, the trend now has decreased to closer to .05C/decade overall if you look at the average of the global temp sources. And the trend for the 1975-2005 period was closer to .2C/decade.

We receive about 1.3W/m^2 less radiative power from the Sun during solar minimum compared to solar maximum.

Converting this to a radiative forcing we get 0.2275W/m^2 which give us a Planck temperature response of 0.8K or nearly 0.1C of variance over the 11 year solar cycle.

Just from the physics of radiative forcing we can account for much of the decline in the rate of global warming. During the period of extended solar minimum, positive radiative forcing by increasing CO2 will have about equaled the decline due to reduced solar.

We need to account for about 0.1C of decline over what we should theoretically expect from a monotonic temperature response to rising CO2 alone. Solar decline has slowed the rate of warming without a doubt, but after about 7 years of growing CO2 forcing the negative solar forcing will be overcome and warming rate should increase.

With solar no longer at minimum, the trend should be still faster, but this increase is probably negated by La Nina's and -PDO.

The real question for those who doubt global warming should be, why have global temps not declined 0.2C over the past 10-15 years?

[skierinvermont]

Actually, the trend now has decreased to closer to .05C/decade overall if you look at the average of the global temp sources. And the trend for the 1975-2005 period was closer to .2C/decade.

False. Temperature trends since 1999 are .13C/decade, .1C/decade, .05C/decade, and .18C/decade for GISS, Had, RSS and UAH respectively. That comes out to .115C/decade. The ENSO trend is still slightly positive, so you can knock it back to .1C/decade.

Doing the trend from 2000-present, for which the ENSO trend is slightly negative, gives around .08C/decade for the average of the 4 (.01, .05, .08, .15).

.1C/decade falls in the middle of the 1999-present and 2000-present trends and is a good estimate of the ENSO-neutral trend.

TSI over the period has probably had a direct forcing enough to cause .1C of cooling. Which means that without the solar minimum we would be warming at close to .2C/decade.

[LakeEffectKing]

Cherry -picking. First you select HadCRUT3 which has been replaced by HadCRUT4 because it doesn't include the arctic. (HadCRUT4 correctly shows more warming in recent years). Then you select 2004-2012 basically starting in a massive El Nino period and ending in a Nina period. You must either select a more ENSO-neutral period, or statistically remove ENSO from the record. When you do so, the warming trend is around .1C/decade.

Oh....sorry, just trying to help by adding visual aids to your statements....I wanted to give the readers a visual to your "8+ years" statement and I randomly picked a temperature data set from WFT.....

[skierinvermont]

Oh....sorry, just trying to help by adding visual aids to your statements....I wanted to give the readers a visual to your "8+ years" statement and I randomly picked a temperature data set from WFT.....

Yes, coincidentally the decline in solar activity began during a massive El nino period and ended in a Ninaish period.

[tacoman25]

False. Temperature trends since 1999 are .13C/decade, .1C/decade, .05C/decade, and .18C/decade for GISS, Had, RSS and UAH respectively. That comes out to .115C/decade. The ENSO trend is still slightly positive, so you can knock it back to .1C/decade.

Doing the trend from 2000-present, for which the ENSO trend is slightly negative, gives around .08C/decade for the average of the 4 (.01, .05, .08, .15).

.1C/decade falls in the middle of the 1999-present and 2000-present trends and is a good estimate of the ENSO-neutral trend.

TSI over the period has probably had a direct forcing enough to cause .1C of cooling. Which means that without the solar minimum we would be warming at close to .2C/decade.

Because of year to year variability, the fairest way to measure it is to look at the 5 year moving average. So compare the 5 year moving average in 2002 to now and you'll get about .05C/decade warming for an average of the global temp sources.