Solar climate influence?

[northsphinx]

What's wrong with the sun?
www.newscientist.com/article/mg20627640.800-whats-wrong-with-the-sun.html?full=true

[stranger]

Someone has decided to look at the data instead of the monitor. There will be many more surprises when they decide to come out of their habitat and go outside.

Stranger

[glc]

What's wrong with the sun?
www.newscientist.com/article/mg20.....html?full=true

Not sure - but it's not clear what effect it will have on the climate - if any. This is from the link:

The first sign that the prediction was wrong came when 2008 turned out to be even calmer than expected. That year, the sun was spot-free 73 per cent of the time, an extreme dip even for a solar minimum. Only the minimum of 1913 was more pronounced, with 85 per cent of that year clear.

1913 was just about the time that the early 20th century warming kicked in.

[woodstove]

Jun 24, 2010 7:28:26 GMT glc said:

What's wrong with the sun?
www.newscientist.com/article/mg20.....html?full=true

Not sure - but it's not clear what effect it will have on the climate - if any. This is from the link:

The first sign that the prediction was wrong came when 2008 turned out to be even calmer than expected. That year, the sun was spot-free 73 per cent of the time, an extreme dip even for a solar minimum. Only the minimum of 1913 was more pronounced, with 85 per cent of that year clear.

1913 was just about the time that the early 20th century warming kicked in.

It's a shame you couldn't have seen the "warming" in person with Shackleton.

[stranger]

Early 20th Century warming? GLC should go back and read the "dispatches from the front" which detailed the brutally cold winters "in Flanders Fields." Or the reports of how the record setting cold affected people who had gone bust in the "Panic of '21." Or the late 1920's reports of ice dammed rivers flooding as far south as Arkansas, US.

Of course, the "dust bowl summers" were as hot as the winters were cold. Parts of Kansas hit 126 "in the shade and there ain't no shade" in 1936. But the winters were as cold as the summers were hot. By both the record, and by memory, North America's median temperature did not start to warm until 1945-46, when the increase in solar radiation was already well under way.

Now, a half century later, the sun has started to moderate. But since "Ol Sol" is a very massive object in a hard vacuum, it takes time to radiate enough energy to really be noticeable. Take a little tincture of time and the decline will be noticeable even to a skeptic.

Stranger

[glc]

It's a shame you couldn't have seen the "warming" in person with Shackleton.


Are you suggesting there wasn't warming between ~1910 and the early 1940s.

[glc]

Early 20th Century warming? GLC should go back and read the "dispatches from the front" which detailed the brutally cold winters "in Flanders Fields." Or the reports of how the record setting cold affected people who had gone bust in the "Panic of '21." Or the late 1920's reports of ice dammed rivers flooding as far south as Arkansas, US.

Of course, the "dust bowl summers" were as hot as the winters were cold. Parts of Kansas hit 126 "in the shade and there ain't no shade" in 1936.

Is there just the slightest chance that we could stop viewing the 2% of the earth's surface whch is covered by the USA as being represesentative of the globe as a whole. This seems to be a peculiarly american thing.

As far as Flanders is concerned. Any cold weather would feel "brutal" in the trenches.

[nautonnier]

Jun 24, 2010 21:36:45 GMT glc said:

Early 20th Century warming? GLC should go back and read the "dispatches from the front" which detailed the brutally cold winters "in Flanders Fields." Or the reports of how the record setting cold affected people who had gone bust in the "Panic of '21." Or the late 1920's reports of ice dammed rivers flooding as far south as Arkansas, US.

Of course, the "dust bowl summers" were as hot as the winters were cold. Parts of Kansas hit 126 "in the shade and there ain't no shade" in 1936.

Is there just the slightest chance that we could stop viewing the 2% of the earth's surface whch is covered by the USA as being represesentative of the globe as a whole. This seems to be a peculiarly american thing.

As far as Flanders is concerned. Any cold weather would feel "brutal" in the trenches.

The USA is a little larger than the Yamal Peninsula yet that was used as a proxy for the global climate

[glc]

Jun 25, 2010 1:31:16 GMT nautonnier said:

Jun 24, 2010 21:36:45 GMT glc said:

Early 20th Century warming? GLC should go back and read the "dispatches from the front" which detailed the brutally cold winters "in Flanders Fields." Or the reports of how the record setting cold affected people who had gone bust in the "Panic of '21." Or the late 1920's reports of ice dammed rivers flooding as far south as Arkansas, US.

Of course, the "dust bowl summers" were as hot as the winters were cold. Parts of Kansas hit 126 "in the shade and there ain't no shade" in 1936.

Is there just the slightest chance that we could stop viewing the 2% of the earth's surface whch is covered by the USA as being represesentative of the globe as a whole. This seems to be a peculiarly american thing.

As far as Flanders is concerned. Any cold weather would feel "brutal" in the trenches.

The USA is a little larger than the Yamal Peninsula yet that was used as a proxy for the global climate

I'm not using proxies at all. I'm looking at the Hadcrut and GISS surface records which both show pronounced warming in the early 20th century - which started round about the same time as the deep solar low in 1913.

Some of the responses to my earlier post suggest that this early 20th century warming didn't exist. This tends to fly in the face of what other sceptics are saying, i.e. that GISS has manipulated the temperature record to show that early periods are cooler.

Can we establish the approved sceptic view here. Was there warming from about 1913 or not? If not, then the recent warming would appear to be unprecedented over the last 400 years at least.

[nautonnier]

Jun 25, 2010 9:37:54 GMT glc said:

Jun 25, 2010 1:31:16 GMT nautonnier said:

The USA is a little larger than the Yamal Peninsula yet that was used as a proxy for the global climate

I'm not using proxies at all. I'm looking at the Hadcrut and GISS surface records which both show pronounced warming in the early 20th century - which started round about the same time as the deep solar low in 1913.

Some of the responses to my earlier post suggest that this early 20th century warming didn't exist. This tends to fly in the face of what other sceptics are saying, i.e. that GISS has manipulated the temperature record to show that early periods are cooler.

Can we establish the approved sceptic view here. Was there warming from about 1913 or not? If not, then the recent warming would appear to be unprecedented over the last 400 years at least.

I was of course referring to your statement:

"Is there just the slightest chance that we could stop viewing the 2% of the earth's surface whch is covered by the USA as being represesentative of the globe as a whole. This seems to be a peculiarly american thing. "

Using a single point in the Yamal peninsula then is a typical 'British' thing ?

Seems to me that half a continent is a little more meaningful than a stand of trees on a small Siberian peninsula?

But then you are the mathematician you can tell me the difference in significance.

[hunter]

And not actually a stand of trees, but only the trees Briffa and pals decided told the story that needed telling.
In fact there is one tree whose story is so clear, it was given a solo, but through the magic of statistics made to appear to be a global chorus.

[jimcripwell]

I hestitste to comment on this thread at all. I dont know much about it, and these are idle thoughts of an idle fella. It seems to me that sunspots do not DIRECTLY affect the world's climate. They are a proxy for something, possibly magnetic, that does; and we dont know what that something, or more likely plural, is.

It also seems to me that sunspots not only have quantity, they also have quality. This may have been why we tend to use sunspot number rather than number of sunspots. I have seen comments by people who wonder whether we ought to be counting sunSPECKS, and whether some of these would have been counted many years ago.

Bill Livingston gave us a measure of sunspot quality when he started measuring the magnetic field strength of sunspots. When he first started this was around 3000+ gauss; now it is around 2000- gauss. Is it not possible that the solar force that drives climate is a function of both quantity and quality of sunspots?

If the sunspots of SC 24 are qualitatively different from those around 1913, then maybe the driving force behind climate is also different. Maybe this does not make much sense. But if Leif Svalgaard happens to be monitoring this thread, maybe he might like to comment as to whether this idea of sunspot quality has any merit, and whether the sunspots of 100 years ago might be different as to quality, compared with those we are now observing. And if there is a significant difference , then maybe we ought not to expect climate to behave the same way in 2010 as it did in 1913.

[icefisher]

Jun 25, 2010 9:37:54 GMT glc said:

Jun 25, 2010 1:31:16 GMT nautonnier said:

The USA is a little larger than the Yamal Peninsula yet that was used as a proxy for the global climate

I'm not using proxies at all. I'm looking at the Hadcrut and GISS surface records which both show pronounced warming in the early 20th century - which started round about the same time as the deep solar low in 1913.

Some of the responses to my earlier post suggest that this early 20th century warming didn't exist. This tends to fly in the face of what other sceptics are saying, i.e. that GISS has manipulated the temperature record to show that early periods are cooler.

Can we establish the approved sceptic view here.

Was there warming from about 1913 or not? If not, then the recent warming would appear to be unprecedented over the last 400 years at least.

Where in the world did you get the idea there is or should be an "approved" skeptic position on anything beyond a more carefully developed datasets?

IMO, you are just projecting your frustration at being unable to provide a cohesive argument for your point of view and you wish to turn the tables and reverse the burden of proof.

Whether there was a warming climate between 1913 and 1944 or between 1976 and 2005 depends largely upon your definition of climate change. Indeed the Pacific Ocean exhibited warm phases during both those periods and is well evidenced by the ocean temperature records. But is this just weather? After all variations in atmospheric circulation is considered weather why wouldn't variations on ocean circulation also be considered weather?

Hansen has argued that its easier to detect trends than it is absolute temperatures. That can be true but there are caveats.

You have potential problems when the region with the best sampling down weather from the most stable region on earth is experiencing no measurable warming. The Pacific is the most stable region on earth by virtue of its size and heat content potential and the US is the best long term sampled region in the world.

Europe OTOH is down weather from the Atlantic. Since the Atlantic is recipient of virtually all NH ice change, the most delayed indicator from ice age to ice age, temperatures there could be affected for centuries, perhaps millennia due to a gradual melt back in ice. The unique vigor of the Atlantic's thermohaline conveyor is a manifestation of that.

And the rest of the world is less well sampled.

So in analyzing your ability to detect trends within the absolute temperature error bars + or - 1degC do you become concerned that the best sampled and most stable part of the world has shown no warming over the past 70 years? Or do you favor the regional perhaps polluted climate record of Europe? Or do you go for broke and ignore that the vast world has been poorly sampled going back 70 years.

So yes trends are easier to see but there are ifs and buts and when you have a situation like the above you probably should be nervous about your long term sampling being able to properly detect 70 year plus trends. That becomes a much bigger issue when the trend is within your absolute error bars and when you have all the primary efforts of measuring this being run by doctrinaire individuals of the same bent as cautioned against by Eisenhower.

So what is the official skeptic position on that? I think it is lets regather, revalidate, and reassemble a dataset on this in a transparent manner and subject all parts of the data set to a standardized approach for any value-added work that takes steps to ensure that a bias is not introduced via cherrypicking issues.

And with regards your constant pedanticism regarding solar minima. I suggest that sunspots might not directly affect our planet by may well be caused by the same force that does. Therefore, like this planet having an inertia that causes temperatures to not track precisely any and all forcings sunspots may have multiple forces working on them that may not be identical to what is working on our planet.

For example to get good tracking between sunspots and earth temperature changes you have to do smoothing to flatten the solar cycle. When you flatten the cycles themselves you get the same pattern our climate exhibits. Therefore all you need is to factor sunspot averages to average global temperature and you get a good fit of the curves.

You love to ignore the smoothing and claim failure of the solar theory on the basis of having no immediate effect when you know any correlation isn't the solar cycle itself but solar cycles relative to one another. Its either intellectually dishonest to pursue as an argument correlation within the solar cycle in question as these forces are too short term to produce a clear signal here.

Now you can use that argument in maybe 5 to 7 years if the solar cycle plays out at predicted or lower values.

[stranger]

I generally use the parts of the world I have seen, in the period I was there, for commentary. If that covers most of the United States heartland, so be it. And if that offends someone, everyone here is supposedly an adult.

However, if you really WANT to use the rest of the world circa 1933 to 1940 as data points, the relevant data is readily available. It makes somewhat dry reading, and is likely to break a warmist out in a sweat but it is available. Particularly for Germany and German possessions. For some reason, Italy was very lax about keeping climatological records and most of Russia's data is still unavailable.

However, I can assure you that the data from Europe and Asia in no way contradict my previous comments.

Stranger

[socold]

Smoothed sunspots and co2 vs temperature: