Global warming temperature predictions

[matt]

Mar 4, 2011 22:27:05 GMT spaceman said:

I've always seen it as a very complex set. The major player is the sun.

you see it wrong. the sun is a minor player

[glc]

Mar 5, 2011 0:27:16 GMT matt said:

Mar 4, 2011 22:27:05 GMT spaceman said:

I've always seen it as a very complex set. The major player is the sun.

you see it wrong. the sun is a minor player

I agree. If the sun was a major factor we'd have been cooling since ~1991. Solar Cycle 23 was a pretty average cycle. Why did temperatures hit new highs during SC23. Oh yes - it's because of the lag. So where was the lag during the Dalton minimum. How come temperatures across europe began falling in the 1780s and 1790s, i.e several years before the DM cycles.

The solar-climate link is a crock. It's always been a crock but certain researchers have employed dubious filters in order to tease out a fit between solar activiy and temperature. There isn't a fit - not a recognisable one anyway.

[spaceman]

you see it wrong. the sun is a minor player

That has to be the funniest thing ever said. WOW, I'm sure glad youse guys set me straight on this. And all this time I thought the sun drove the weather on this planet. Simply incredible. Nobody but me and only a handful of others saw any connection, but now .... proof.. certain researchers have employed dubious filters in order to trease out a fit between solar activiy and temperature. And I thought all they did was look at the graph, sun became more active temps got warmer, sun grew quite colder temps, little did I know there were dubious filters. I was led astray. OH, the shame of it all

I'm sure that quote will stand the test of time. Meanwhile, gold hits a new high and in some places eggs are $10.00/dozen. Now that's funny, but only if you don't need to eat

[glc]

I thought the sun drove the weather on this planet

The Sun is the heat source for the planet but since the output from the Sun is relatively constant it doesn't appear to be a major factor in climate changes.

Why, for example, are current LT temperatures during a La Nina AND a weak solar cycle almost as high as LT temperatures during the 1986/87 El Nino when the Sun was extremely active?

[madgit]

Mar 5, 2011 1:09:45 GMT glc said:

Mar 5, 2011 0:27:16 GMT matt said:

you see it wrong. the sun is a minor player

I agree. If the sun was a major factor we'd have been cooling since ~1991. Solar Cycle 23 was a pretty average cycle. Why did temperatures hit new highs during SC23. Oh yes - it's because of the lag. So where was the lag during the Dalton minimum. How come temperatures across europe began falling in the 1780s and 1790s, i.e several years before the DM cycles.

The solar-climate link is a crock. It's always been a crock but certain researchers have employed dubious filters in order to tease out a fit between solar activiy and temperature. There isn't a fit - not a recognisable one anyway.

so glc and matt the sun is not a major player then` if not then winter would be the same temp as summer or do you think we should blow up the sun as only minor. never in all my life for 46 year have i ever hard so much bs that comes from you glc steve and matt
`funny how the sun was at max when the warming started no sorry the sun not player as you said .

[glc]

so glc and matt the sun is not a major player then` if not then winter would be the same temp as summer or do you think we should blow up the sun as only minor. never in all my life for 46 year have i ever hard so much bs that comes from you glc steve and matt
`funny how the sun was at max when the warming started no sorry the sun not player as you said .


The sun was not at a max when the warming started. Explain what you mean.

[spaceman]

The solar cycle ramps up and it also ramps down. The rate at which is does those things varies. I would think that weather on this planet does some of the same things. While not an EXACT fit, it is fairly close. And "but since the output from the Sun is relatively constant it doesn't appear to be a major factor in climate changes." Relative? So the energy varies? So heat and light travel the inverse of the square. So a decrease in energy over the entire surface of the sun and the distance the earth from the sun equals.. .. So a decrease in the solar wind is not a variable? Increase or decrease in magnetic flux is not a variable? The interaction of the sun on the earth's core is not a variable? Other forms of radition that do vary don't have an effect either? Just sunlight?

[glc]

The distance between the earth annd the sun varies over the duration of the year. The earth is much closer to the sun in january than in july. This results in ~7% more insolation in the NHowinter months. This has always happened - what of it?

As far the rest of the variables you mention - has their been any trend in any of them over the past 50 years or so. Do you have any data to show that the solar wind, for example, has been steadily increasing since ~1950.

[douglavers]

Quote from GLC: "The distance between the earth annd the sun varies over the duration of the year. The earth is much closer to the sun in january than in july. This results in ~7% more insolation in the NHowinter months. This has always happened - what of it? "

I thought the essence of the Milankovich ice age formation theory was that ice ages occurred when the earth was closest to the sun in December/January. The effectiveness of the sun in melting ice was much diminished in the Northern Hemisphere winter, despite the closer approach. The same "extra" heat in Summer would have a much more drastic effect. For example. raising temperature from -10degC to -5degC does not have much effect, but raising temperature from +5degC to +10 degC has a large effect.

BTW, if Milankovich proves at least partially right, we are on the edge of a precipice [Ice Age].

[gfw]

Doug, you are correct that the current Milankovich forcing would be slowly pushing towards a glacial period, over thousands of years. However the strength of the Milankovich forcing is calculated, well known (look it up in Wikipedia) - and very weak. The only reason it drives glacial periods is because of feedback mechanisms including ice albedo, vegetation shift albedo, and ocean-air CO2 transfer. That last is actually the strongest (other than water vapor, which is relatively so fast as to simply be an amplification rather than a feedback). Before humans decided to burn all those fossilized plants, CO2 could be understood as a feedback with processes of different timescales - ocean-air transfer, volcanism of subducted carbonaceous rock, rock weathering, etc. Burning all that fossil fuel has been done on a time scale very much shorter, so CO2 is effectively a forcing, not a feedback anymore. Thus the upcoming ice age has been postponed indefinitely.

[gfw]

To those who would seize upon a statement such as "The sun is a minor player" and pretend that the person saying it was talking about anything other than the magnitude of variation in solar output, please grow up. The warming of the last 40 years is clearly decoupled from variation in TSI.

Solar variability did play a significant role in the Little Ice Age as far as we can tell, but there was also volcanism, and likely an ocean circulation change that amplified the effect for Europe relative to other places on the globe. We should hope the recorded effects of the LIA in Europe were not entirely due to the sun, because that would imply a higher climate sensitivity. The climate system can't (*) tell the difference between heat added from a hotter sun and heat retained by greenhouse gasses.

(*) To a first order calculation like the sensitivity! The system really does show different detailed responses to those two different ways of increasing heat - for example, more from the sun means days and summers warm faster than nights and winters, while more retained by greenhouse gases means exactly the opposite - nights and winters warm faster than days and summers. (And guess which has been happening on average during the modern warming period.)

[magellan]

Mar 5, 2011 1:09:45 GMT glc said:

Mar 5, 2011 0:27:16 GMT matt said:

you see it wrong. the sun is a minor player

I agree. If the sun was a major factor we'd have been cooling since ~1991. Solar Cycle 23 was a pretty average cycle. Why did temperatures hit new highs during SC23. Oh yes - it's because of the lag. So where was the lag during the Dalton minimum. How come temperatures across europe began falling in the 1780s and 1790s, i.e several years before the DM cycles.

The solar-climate link is a crock. It's always been a crock but certain researchers have employed dubious filters in order to tease out a fit between solar activiy and temperature. There isn't a fit - not a recognisable one anyway.

You play the game of climate being all or none with the sun. Well glc, there are multiple processes going on that frankly, nobody understands. That is the cold hard truth. You don't know if it is a crock, that is simply your opinion in order to boost the ego as that's what happens when one boxes himself in a corner.

Now that you've announced to the world you have all the knowledge of understanding how the sun does or doesn't affect climate on earth, would you mind explaining the following mere coincidence. It's been posted before, so a refresher. Will Alexander has been studying and documenting solar-hydrological connections for several decades as well. There is a clear connection between solar activity and hydrological, but apparently water is not a part of climate?

While you're at it, explain to us what mediates clouds, which in turn controls the amount of sunlight reaching earth's surface, or maybe clouds aren't that important either. Wouldn't it be more honest if you admitted you really don't know how much the sun affects climate? To say it doesn't at all....that is the real CROCK.

tinyurl.com/6bfk8jh


Also glc, I'm wondering what Roy Spencer meant when he said:

if the satellite warming trends since 1979 are correct, then surface warming during the same time should be significantly less, because moist convection amplifies the warming with height.

Sound familiar?

[glc]

GFW and Magellan (as this relates to your post as well)

Solar variability did play a significant role in the Little Ice Age as far as we can tell, but there was also volcanism, and likely an ocean circulation change that amplified the effect for Europe relative to other places on the globe.

The underlined part is the the key comment here. The sun does possiby influence weather patterns around the world. For example, there were reportedly colder winters across europe during the period generally defined by the LIA. This may have been related to the NAO, AO and other oscillatory factors. During December in the UK we had a brief glimpse of the conditions that may have been more common at that time.

However, while it was cold in the UK - it was warm in Greenland and elsewhere. Do you not see that this is probably just due to a shift in weather patterns and not due to a change in energy input/balance. Recently on this blog, someone linked to 2 studies on the CO2science web-site. They were trying to show that the MWP and LIA existed. But as is the case with the MWP/LIA studies, the message was mixed. For example, one study on Southern Greenlancd found that there had been warming during the 1550-1750 period. This period includes the maunder minimum - i.e. exactly the time when europe was cooling.

One of the great myths on sceptic blogs is that AGW proponents don't accept anything other than CO2 as a cause for climate change. This is not true. The following Abstract is from a paper by Shindell, Schmidt, Mann et al.

We examine the climate response to solar irradiance changes between the late 17th century Maunder Minimum and the late 18th century. Global average temperature changes are small (about 0.3° to 0.4°C) in both a climate model and empirical reconstructions. However, regional temperature changes are quite large. In the model, these occur primarily through a forced shift towards the low index state of the Arctic Oscillation/North Atlantic Oscillation as solar irradiation decreases. This leads to colder temperatures over the Northern Hemisphere continents, especially in winter (1-2°C), in agreement with historical records and proxy data for surface temperatures

This paper was published around 10 years ago. I'm no fan of Michael Mann or Gavin Schmidt, but it's clear they do not dismiss the sun's influence as a factor in climate and it's unfair to claim otherwise. Furthermore what we have seen over the past couple of years is consistent with their model results, i.e. regional changes can be quite large while global changes are much less.

We will, therefore, continue to get strong regional shifts - whatever happens on a global level. It's the steady upward trend in global temperature that needs to be explained.

[steve]

Magellan,

You missed out the important caption of your picture:

Streamflow has been lagged 34 years after the Geomagnetic data.

Essentially we are supposed to believe that the memory of the sun existed (in the oceans?) for 34 years before influencing the streamflow of the Mississippi.

Now that may be so, but another interpretation is that the two series were simply shifted back and forth till the best fit was found at 34 years, and then the scientist said "Aha!".

It is reasonable to me that something that affected the hydrology of a large basin like that of the Mississippi 34 years ahead would have had much stronger effects when it first happened. Unless you apply homeopathy "science" perhaps.

[glc]

Essentially we are supposed to believe that the memory of the sun existed (in the oceans?) for 34 years before influencing the streamflow of the Mississippi.

Now that may be so, but another interpretation is that the two series were simply shifted back and forth till the best fit was found at 34 years, and then the scientist said "Aha!".

If Hansen had come up with something similar which supported AGW can you imagine the reaction on sceptic blogs.