Friday, August 26, 2022

 New post  8/26/2022 - 

More confirmation https://astronomynow.com/2015/07/17/diminishing-solar-activity-may-bring-new-ice-age-by-2030/ (7/2015) ., with support here https://www.sciencealert.com/something-is-up-with-the-sun-and-it-could-mean-our-models-are-wrong (6/2022).

 Note: climate4you has been updated to mid-2022, see  http://www.climate4you.com/GlobalTemperatures.htm#Recent . It seems the next cooling period has started with 2016 being the probable peak year,

Saturday, April 8, 2017

 Confirmation and explanation of some of the climate cycles.

Re my opus on solar cycles, Wilson published a new paper in Dec 2013 that provides a good description of the orbital mechanisms involved and provides more accurate estimates of the probable cycle lengths. See  http://www.pattern-recogn-phys.net/1/147/2013/prp-1-147-2013.pdf  . His computation would put the Deep Grand Minima cycle at 353 years compared to my estimate of 363 years, which changes the average solar cycle length by 0.3 years which is within measurement error. Similarly he estimates the long cycle I used as 1156 years vs the 1050 years that I used. Since we don't know the peak of the MWP within an accuracy of +-100 years that is also simply a refinement.

Note, in July 2015 I wrote the following, but did not post it to the blog. I wish I had known of Wilson's paper at that time. He provides an explanation for and better definition of some of the cycles discussed. One takeaway from these analyses is that there may not be a Dansgaard-Oeschger cycle- it might simply be an average of two other long cycles (McCrackens's 1301+-96 years, not confirmed by Wilson, and 1768+-174 years giving 1535 years, or the following 1339 and 1681 giving an average of 1510 years) much like the possible highly variable Bond cycle.
Confirmation and refinement of the key cycles
From this source http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/reprint/holocene_temperature_records_show_millennial_scale_peroidicity.html  we can elucidate quite a bit more detail about periodicities. Also see  https://www.ras.org.uk/news-and-press/2680-irregular-heartbeat-of-the-sun-driven-by-double-dynamo  .

The analyses of several different proxy records of past temperatures provide a large set of apparent cycles that seem to group into a near 1100 year cycle and a near 1500 year cycle.
All values presented (extracted by the method of analysis from the data presented) for the near 1000 year cycle are 1000 (faint), 1030, 1067, 1089, 1152, 1190, 1200 and 1230 years. The authors find a 1013 year mean without saying exactly how.  The average of the values given above is 1120 years. Excluding the questionable 1000 year case, the median value is  1089 years.  Using the extremes  a value could be inferred of 1130 +- 100 years.  Perhaps 1100 years would be the best estimate to use.
For the near 1500 year cycle we find mentions of  a possible 1339 year case and more likely 1408, 1436, 1470, 1479, 1486, 1527, 1552, 1571, 1650, 1660, 1667, and 1681 year examples. The authors find a 1525 year mean. Using all of the above I find a 1533 year mean, or excluding the doubtful 1339 years, a mean of 1549 years. Using all of the values, the median is 1527 years and the range would be 1510+-170 years. Excluding the 1339 case the range would be 1540+-140 years. If we leave out the 4 values greater than 1600 which seem rather anomalous we are left with a mean of 1491 very close to the 1470 yr  Dansgaard/Oeschger  (Bond event?) cycle.
Given the margin of error on any of the estimates, and the difficulty of identifying when a real peak or bottom takes place,  the simple original value of 1500 years seems good enough.
We seem to have 2 possible cycles, 1100 years and 1500 years, which would peak in phase about every 4400 to 4500 years. Is there a 4500 year cycle? The DGM would also peak in phase with these two at intervals of 12 DGM cycles. If all of this speculation is valid, all 3 (and the Jose cycle) were last in phase at the Dark Ages or Migration minimum  about 570 AD.
The authors also find 2 groupings for the date of the MWP peak. The first is AD 798, 833, or 948, giving a mean about AD 860. The second group is AD 1036, 1047, 1088 and 1138 giving a mean of 1077. The latter value seems more consistent with most other findings. The range for this group would be 1087+-51 years. Was there an earlier peak near AD 860?? . Loehle 2007 finds the main peak about 880-900 and the second lower peak about 1000. Using a Jose cycle of very near 180 years could give a peak about  870 and 1050, and then exactly 5 cycles later at 1950. (The mid 20th century peak was 1944) That seems fairly compelling.
 My 365 - 370 yr DGM cycle gives a pre-DGM peak about 900. A 60 year cycle peak about 890 and the Jose cycle at near 870, with the 1100 year cycle about 60% of the way from valley to peak. We would then get the next Jose cycle peak about 1050, the 60 year cycle peak about 1070 and the 1100 year cycle peak near 1100, giving an extended plateau, with its maximum value suppressed by the Oort SGM.  This likely arrangement would support the 2 apparent peaks at about 880 and 1060.
Note: Between these two peaks, the valley would be the bottom of the DGM about 950, and the Jose cycle at 960. Thus the two peaks seen by the millennium study are explained, consistent with the Jose cycle and SGM/DGM cycle.
Taking the bottom of the 1100 year cycle as AD550, right at the bottom of the Migration Cold Period, the next bottom would be about 1650, and would correspond with a Jose cycle bottom at  near 1680, 60 year cycle bottoms at 1640 and 1700 and a DGM at 1680. Having all of these cycles in such close proximity explains the depth and duration of the Little Ice Age.
The  solar “deep grand minimum cycle” (DGM) theory has a DGM cycle of very near 365 years split into a section of 13 solar cycles of averaging slightly less than 11 years (140 years) from a DGM to a shallow grand minimum (SGM), followed by 20 solar cycles averaging slightly more than 11 years (225 years) to the next DGM. The SGM to DGM relationship, given the uncertainties involved, can be be considered as   the “golden ratio” and the average solar cycle length across all 33 cycles is 11.06 years. Three DGM cycles = 1095 years and 4 DGM cycles = 1460 years, very close to the 1100 and 1500 year cycles. (Note: the 1500 year cycle as proposed by Dansgaard/Oeschger was 1470 years). Also the 1500 year cycle does not show up consistently in the Holocene. Why every 3rd DGM cycle should be prominent remains unexplained.
The DGM theory also posits a sharp temperature plunge from the peak at the start of the DGM to a bottom about 30 to 40 years later, followed by a long rise (330yrs?), with the long rise punctuated by an SGM. The earliest dates estimated for the start point of or peak prior to grand minima are Wolf (DGM)-1280, Sporer (SGM)-1420,  Maunder (DGM) -1640,  and Dalton (SGM)- 1790. The DGM theory fits exactly with start dates as Wolf-1280, Sporer-1420, Maunder-1650, Dalton-1790. This correspondence is well within the margins of error of the dating. This dating would confirm the Oort (SGM) at ca 1050, very near the second peak of the MWP, making the Oort very hard to discern and of uncertain dating in the proxy records.
 Going backwards, we would have had a DGM starting in 908 and bottoming about 940, right between the peaks of the MWP (870 and 1050), and this, with the Oort,  would account for the 890 peak being higher than the 1050 peak. Going farther back we have a DGM beginning at about 550 and bottoming about 580, and coinciding closely with a bottom of the 1100 year cycle that bottomed near 1650 in the LIA. That looks just in time for the Dark Ages or Migration Minimum. Going back further we would have a DGM at 182 which corresponds to a bottom in the proxy records at near 200 AD.

These figures give a Jose cycle bottom at 2033, corresponding with a DGM starting in 2012 and reaching its coldest point about 2032-2042. The approximately 60 year cycle should also bottom at about 2035. The 1100 year cycle should peak about 2200 given all of this conjecture, so the conjunction of the other cycle bottoms will be close to the top of the 1100 year cycle, meaning that this cold period will not be as cold as the LIA.  

Tuesday, November 29, 2011




1.

RootlessSays:


November 18th, 2011 at 7:26 pm

In the following your excerpts of my comments are in quotations. My excerpts of your comments are in orange. My replies
to your comments are in black.

murrayv, you wrote:
"There is no hard evidence that the factor is proximate in an open system like the atmosphere."

Proximity means that A and B are close enough in space and time so that cause and effect can be mediated.

Nonsense, proximate in this sense means that cause and effect are directly linked. In an open system with
numerous other effects in play, direct causation is very hard to establish. The earth swims in a sea of broad
spectrum energy emitted by the sun. Some of the incoming energy (uV) is absorbed in the stratosphere,
some (mostly visible light) is reflected by clouds in the upper and lower troposphere, some penetrates to
the surface where it warms land during the day, but sea not so much. The heat from the warmed land is
reradiated as IR, and a small portion of the reradiated bandwidth is absorbed by CO2 molecules, briefly
raising their energy state. Most of the rest radiates back into space. A CO2 molecule is struck by a
reradiated IR photon and moved to a higher energy state. It then collides with a nitrogen (or other)
molecule and gives up the energy it received, so is again available to intercept another photon. With
enough such interactions to absorb all emitted photons within the applicable energy window, increasing
the CO2 concentration will have no additional effect. That is just about where the atmospheric
concentration is today, and given well mixed CO2 in the atmosphere, we are well past that state at high
latitudes. Therefore warming at high latitudes occurs because of heat transport through convection from
lower latitudes, and from ocean circulation with some delay, not from increased CO2 concentration. That
can scarcely be called proximate. AGW advocate scientists agree with this science.
"even if the factor were proximate the response of temperature to increasing CO2 concentration is
logarithmic and doubling CO2 now would only increase temperature 0.3 degrees C maximum. not
the 2 to 7 degrees the catastrophists claim".

Where does this denialist claim about the 0.3 degrees come from? From any scientific research? Or where
from? And how would you know this number was right, in contrast to what the results from in peer-
reviewed journals published studies of mainstream science are?

AGW scientists agree that the warming response to increasing atmospheric CO2 concentration is
logarithmic in a closed system. That is undisputed science. If you don’t know that, then the rest of your
arguments have little value. Accept that and you can use agreed data, and a sheet of log paper, and do your
own projection. The doubling from ca 280 ppm concentration pre-industrial era to 560 ppm would raise
the temperature 1.1 degrees C in a closed system. The increase so far is about 0.8 degrees C, leaving o.3
degrees C to go. Given the amount of fossil fuel available, and the rate of absorption by the oceans there
just might be enough additional CO2 to get to 560 ppm.

"The catastrophic increase comes only from models,"

No, it doesn’t. The scientific statements about the expected temperature increase for an increased CO2-
concentration, all other climate drivers staying the same, are also based on observations. On
measurements and paleo-data. Your claim is not based on facts

And just how do you get a projection of future conditions from current and past observations and paleo
data? We don’t have data for the future yet. Even a straight line projection from past data into the future is
a model, and depends on the usually unstated assumption that the future will be like the past. All models
depend on assumptions, and for the model to be dependable the assumptions have to be justifiable. We
have no paleo data giving temperatures 7 degrees C warmer than the present even with CO2
concentrations a large multiple of the present, and we have never had catastrophic or runaway warming,
or we would not be here to be collecting the data. Please state your source of observations. All model
projections diverge dramatically from actual post ca 1998.
"and they require a fudge factor to get there. The fudge factor is positive feedback via water vapor."

It is news to me that the positive water vapor feedback simulated by the climate models was introduced
into these models by a "fudge factor". Please could you reveal the source of your claim? Or did you make
this up yourself? Perhaps you can show me where I find this alleged "fudge factor" in the NASA GISS Earth
System model ModelE? I would say this claim by you is also not based on facts.

Simply look at the history of model projections going back to the early 1990s. First they used an
assumption of no deep ocean mixing to get the needed warming. When they couldn’t backcast cooling they
introduced aerosols. Then, in order to get more serious warming, the models were "improved" by adding water vapor feedback.
"There is no scientific evidence for such feedback,"

There isn’t? Are you saying there isn’t any scientific evidence for the validity of the Clausius-Clapeyron
equation, from which directly follows that a volume can hold more water vapor with increasing temperature before saturation occurs? Are you saying there isn’t any scientific evidence that water vapor is radiatively active in the thermal range of the radiation spectrum? Both establishes important aspects of the theoretical physics basis for the water vapor feedback.

Of course raising the surface temperature increases evaporation and raises the amount of water vapor in
the atmosphere, and of course water vapor is a much more powerful GHG than CO2. That doesn’t assure
positive feedback in an open system with many complex mechanisms functioning. Making the leap from
the physics to the feedback requires ignoring all other related effects. (That might be good enough for
"Climate Science". – sarc off). In the real world, surface warming also powers convection which lifts the
increased water vapor into the cooler upper troposphere, creating reflective clouds and leading to cooling
and recondensing which releases the latent heat to space, and frees the now cool water to fall back to the
surface, cooling the surface. Because of air circulation, the warming and cooling occur at different latitudes, allowing the machinery to keep running. If the cooling effects in the upper troposphere and higher latitudes exceed the warming effect at the surface and lower latitudes then we have negative feedback, empowered by the very water vapor you so condescendingly insist on. See following excerpt.

"but there is both theory and some (albeit not overwhelming) evidence for negative feedback via cloud formation".

The mere existence of negative feedbacks doesn’t invalidate AGW, or any of the criteria above. No one says
there weren’t any negative feedbacks, involving clouds or others variables. So just stating the fact that there were such feedbacks isn’t sufficient to make this a relevant argument for the question at hand.

Irrelevant arm waving. No comment.

"Since Q4 1997 temperature has declined slightly"

Show me the data. Your statement is un-scientific nonsense.

Here is a good one stop source for a lot of graphs, Hadcrut3, UAH, RSS, GISS.  


There was
a global temperature offset during 1997. Starting at the midpoint of that increase, to avoid start point bias, they all show slight cooling to now. The reasons for the choice of starting point are twofold, the change in trend and the beginning of the major divergence of actual from model projections.

and even if a trend analysis is done with all the data, the results needs to be statistically robust, which is
not the case for such a short time scale, to make a valid statement.

Scientific papers in the early 1970s focused on global cooling. By the late 1980s the focus was warming,
1975-1988. (First IPCC report was 1990). Same short time scale. And since we are dealing with only a
multi-decadal time scale at best, why do the AGW "scientists" dismiss other explanations with little to no
discussion of what part may be attributable to known multi-decadal processes such as ENSO, AO, PDO,
AMO, solar radiation, volcanoes, land-use change, etc.
"although CO2 continues to rise, even faster than from 1944 to 1975. Clearly the correlation is not statistically valid for these periods".

Since no one says that CO2 was the only climate driver that had an effect on the global temperature so that
there would be a linear correlation, and no one says that a correlation needs to be found on every times cale, even on short ones, not finding a linear correlation only disproves a straw man argument that is your own invention.

Pick your time scale. Cooling from Holocene optimum to now, (8000 or so years) or from Minoan warm
period to now (3000 or so years), or Medieval warm period to now (1000 or so years, or 1944-75 (30 yrs)
or 1997-2011 (14 yrs so far). By 2035 we will probably say 2005 – 2035 30 yrs). Warming from LIA to now
(300 + years) or 1910/15 to 1938/44 (30 years), or from ca 1975 to ca 2005 (30 years). We only have a
reliable record of rising CO2 from 1952, and it has been rising steadily, with slight acceleration, with no
pauses or decreases, unlike temperature. There was no similar rise from 1910 to 1944 to correlate with that
warming period. Curious that CO2 only became "causative" from a selectively started low temperature
period. Let’s start in 1938 and measure from a high to a high.

"The models apply a fudge factor of aerosols to explain the 1944-1975 period "

The same as for the water vapor feedback. What "fudge factor" where in the models, e.g., in ModelE, and
what is the source for your claim?

See 
http://www.atmos.washington.edu/~ackerman/Kiehl_2007GL031383.pdf as only one good source.
Kiehl is too politic to refer to a fudge factor, but given at least 10 different IPCC models, with widelydifferent sensitivities, all back casting similarly due to a 3:1 difference in aerosol forcing, what should it be called?

"but there are no papers that quantify the aerosols, identify their source(s)"

Again, a baseless, non-factual claim as following abstract should be sufficient to show:


Your reference uses only simulations, not measurements of aerosols, and includes no information on the
assumptions used in the modeling . However, I quote from the reference "Results show that the global sulfate

burden doubles from 1875 to 1950, and again from 1950 to 1990. Black carbon, which has a substantial biomass
burning fraction, increases by about 30% between 1875 and 1950, and by another 50% between 1950 and 1990.
Since sulfate increases faster than the carbonaceous aerosols, the global fraction of the aerosol mass that is sulfate
also increases (doubles) from 0.2 to 0.4 during the century."
S
o why did the aerosols become ineffective after 1975 as I asked before?
"describe why they ceased to be effective after 1975".

Of course there aren’t any papers for this, since no one claims that aerosols "ceased to be effective after 

1975・・. You just have made up your own reality, again.

The aerosols are the "plug" that accounts for the cooling from ca 1944-1975, while CO2 increased. Then the
cooling stopped. Why did the aerosols cease to contribute effective cooling? See the quote above.

"Solar variation (the clearly present ca 60 year cycle) explains both of the anomalous periods".

How would you know this is the case? Just because you assert this? This assertion clearly contradicts the
findings of mainstream science, doesn’t it?

I don’t "know it". I know that there are several solar system cycles, ranging from the 11 year sunspot cycle
through 60 year period of the sun’s circuit around the SSB, to the approximately 180 year Jose cycle and
the probable 363 year deep grand minimum cycle. There is a clear near 60 year climate cycle, most
recently showing warming from ca1910 through 1944, then cooling to ca 1975 then warming again to ca
2005 (Using moving averages), and now flat to cooling. The 60 year solar cycle seems like too good a
match to be coincidence and therefore can explain both anomalous (in AGW terms) coolings. For recent
confirmation see   http://www.landscheidt.info/?q=node/233 and
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364682611002872
Note - Scafetta does not include possible effect of current
DGM so it will probably get cooler.

"Finally the surface instrument data is not adequately corrected for all of the warming biases that
are known to exist even for HADCRUT",

Again, a claim for which no evidence is provided. What is the source for this assertion? Any scientific
publications? Or just the assertions made by other pseudo-skeptics, which they tell each other in their
opinion blogs?

I can send you several pages of urls providing such evidence if you send your e-mail address. Or you can
check hard data for yourself for a good selection of rural sites that have metadata showing no major
changes and no likely UHI effect. High latitude sites are best. You will find recent max temperatures are no
higher than the decade from 1934 to 1944 maximums.
"and the NASA GISS data has been severely manipulated to get the last decade to be warmer than
1934-1944".

I call such an accusation libelous against the GISS scientists involved in the analyses. There is no basis in
reality for such an accusation. Although it is a known strategy applied by the denialists to defame the
scientists on personal grounds, because the scientific findings aren’t liked, but can’t be refuted on scientific
grounds.(
(Nonsense)

Call it what you like. See
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.D.gif and check how 1930s got cooler and 1998 much
warmer between 1999 and 2011. What do you call revising history? You can find more examples if youhave the open-mindedness to look. And if you think climatologists are above fudging data I leave you onefamous quote:
"To capture the public imagination, we have to offer up some scary scenarios, make simplified dramatic statements and little mention of any doubts one might have. Each of us has to decide the right balance between being effective, and being honest." Dr Stephen Schneider (interview for "Discover" magagzine, Oct 1989). And then, of course, there is "Climategate", with a second release just out, (
http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2011/11/22/breaking-news-foia-2011-has-arrived/ ) and this http://opinion.financialpost.com/2011/11/22/fix-it-or-fold-it/ and this
http://www.thegwpf.org/images/stories/gwpf-reports/mckitrick-ipcc_reforms.pdf

"You can go to
http://www.agwnot.blogspot.com for some treatments of solar cycles,"

What could an opinion blog written by a pseudo-skeptic layman offer me to learn about solar cycles? I
have higher standards for my sources of knowledge than what can be found there.

Forget opinion. The cycles listed are those generally accepted by "science", in a convenient summary. So
far you have shown no evidence of any standards.
"and review the following for GISS manipulation".

Yet another pseudo-skeptic opinion blog.
With links to countless scientific references and data sources, a
couple of which I have provided for you above, because you simply reject a source you disagree with,without checking it out. Are you afraid your cherished belief will be challenged?.


The fact that data used and methodology applied have been revised in the course of time, which led to
slight changes in the results of the analysis? More data become available in time, sometimes data are
corrected, methodologies are improved, sometimes scientists also make mistakes, which are being
corrected. All this is a normal part of the scientific process. You don’t seem to think so.

Try finding any description by NASA/GISS of new data, methodologies, corrections for the changes in
their urls that I have provided above. They don’t even issue a change announcement. When all changes are
in the same direction (exaggerating warming) and are not used by others relying on the same raw data
sources (eg HADCRUT), and are vital to a committed storyline I definitely don’t find it normal science.

And that the temperature in the contiguous US hasn’t increased over the last decade doesn’t invalidate the
global long-term warming trend due to anthropogenic greenhouse gases either. It’s just another pseudo-
skeptic straw man argument.

Who said anything about the contiguous US. The curves I have referenced for you are global

The contiguous US cover only about 1.5% of Earth’s surface. To conclude from the trend in US about the
global trend is a logically fallacious generalization. So is basing a conclusion about the global warming
trend on about only a decade of data.
Talk about fallacious!!. See above points.
"there is a lot of data that eliminates the statistical validity of AGW."

. You only have delivered the usual mix of straw man arguments, arguments that lack relevance, assertions
that aren’t based on facts, and libelous accusations of forgery against scientists. But no data.

Ok – see above for data. You are strong on accusations, but present no data or useful references yourself. If
you had based your cherished belief on >15 years of objective and holistic study as I have you wouldn’t
need my data.

All tests failed. Murray

Sunday, January 23, 2011

Chaotic Climate and the Next Ice Age
Four items appeared on WUWT recently that started me on a small project.
1) Someone insisted that climate is chaotic. I think the drivers of climate are deterministic, but their combined results may appear chaotic.
2) There have been recent mentions of the end of the Holocene from Loutre & Berger (2003) at 50,000 years to Piers Corbyn - we are back in an ice age.
3) Don Easterbrooke contributed a somewhat controversial paper that included as Fig 5 an excellent GISP2 ice core graph.
4) Someone posted this link: http://www.roperld.com/science/currentmajorinterglacial.pdf to a paper by Roper that included as fig 2.1 an intriguing comparison of the Eemian with an Antarctic ice core, but GISP2 looks like a better comparison.
These inputs made me wonder if the recent Holocene could be approximated by a few simple variables, and if it might look a bit like the end of the Eemian. I chose 3 regularities that I had identified here: http://www.agwnot.blogspot.com/ that are long enough to give very visible change, that appear with little variability for the last few thousand years, that have widely different frequencies, and that could be reasonably approximated with sine curves; the 60, 179 (Jose) and 1050 year cycles..
To generate a composite curve, I then had to choose both phase offsets and amplitudes, that wouldn’t be too arbitrary. I set the 60 and 179 year cycles to peak in the 1940 to 1945 period, with the 60 year leading a bit so that the recent 1938-1944 peak warming would be a bit higher than the more recent 1998-2006 peak warming. (I believe that if all of the warming biases in the surface instrument global average temperature calculations were corrected 1938-44 would be warmer). I then set the 1050 year cycle to peak about 1150 (MWP) and to bottom about 1675 (LIA). I then set amplitudes to be fairly similar, with a targeted increase of 0.45 degrees C from 1910 to 1944. Then using “MathGV” I was able to fiddle the following formulae and generate the curves as:
60 year cycle y = .15sin[5.23[x-.4]], Jose cycle y = .145cos[1.75[x+.3]] and the 1050 year cycle as y = .22sin[.299x], giving the following composite: 

The 1910-1944 excursion (just before the vertical axis) looks about right, and the MWP to LIA excursion is close to the spaghetti graphs and less than the Loehle reconstruction.
There is still too much regularity in the composite, but it looks pretty chaotic on a 300-400 year time scale. We can see the 1940-45 peak just before the Y axis, and the smaller 1998-2006 peak just after the Y axis, and both the MWP and LIA . Part of the problem is that in the real world these regularities are not sinusoidal. Based on the 20th century the 60 year cycle trend is more like - up for about 20 years then flat for 10 years, then sharply down for 10 years and flat for 20 years, with considerable fluctuation around the trend. Given the scale I have used, such detail would have little effect on the composite curve. From Geoff Sharp’s work the 179 year cycle seems to be a near 80 year high mean segment followed by a near 100 year low mean segment, with 20 year oscillations around the mean. Using such a representation would change the shape of the major peaks, but not the overall pattern. Now there are 2 more elements that need to be added that cannot be represented (approximated) so easily.
Here I need help from one of the computer whizzes out there. I need to add the Deep Grand Minimum (DGM) cycle of approx. 364 years (near 33 sunspot cycles), and a linear trend. I have done this manually on paper, and the results have a couple of very suggestive surprises. Can one of you wizards add these two elements so the resulting composite can be displayed electronically?
To get the trend, I simply took the downtrend from the Minoan optimum shown in the GISP2 curve, and halved it to represent a world trend. That gave me a downslope of 0.01 degrees C per century, applied from the peak of the MWP. The DGM is a little trickier. I took a 30 year linear temperature plunge at the beginning of a cycle (from +0.1 degrees C to -0.2 degrees C), followed by a ca 334 year linear rise to the peak before the next plunge. I located the current DGM by considering the peak of the 60 year curve, just to the left of the Y axis above, as 1940, and then moving right a little more than one cycle to start the 30 year down at about 2009. I then simply reproduced that cycle forward and back, using the 60 year curve to scale time on the X axis. With these two additions we have just 5 variables, (all of which are somewhat more regular than reality), and we start to get a temperature curve that looks pretty chaotic on any scale less than 500 years, and isn’t so far from reality. The biggest problem that appears is a severe cooling about 1850, that just didn’t happen, but then, looking at some of the SSB (careful, forbidden term) drivers there seems to have been what has been referred to as a “phase catastrophe” about 1850, which I have no way to factor in, so I have simply smoothed out the 1850 downspike in my manual composite, leaving the Dalton and the 1910 bottoms fairly clear. Given the different “spaghetti graph” depictions of the Holocene, this curve looks fairly good

For comparison of the MWP/LIA with an historic reconstruction see:


Some of the interesting results:
• The MWP and LIA extremes are clearly represented, with the LIA being relatively severe, and the MWP/LIA excursion is very close to the Loehle reconstruction.
• The 1998-2006 peak moves a little closer to the 1938-44 peak, but stays slightly cooler, which is probably realistic.
• The 1976-2006 supposed AGW is just a little insignificant shoulder on the long rise from the LIA, and we don’t max out until about 2300. The warmers “ain’t seen nothin’ yet”.
• The cooling we are now entering looks to be slightly colder than the Dalton, but way short of the LIA, with about 80 years of cool, followed by 280 more years of warm.
• At about AD 2300 we see the last warm peak before descending into cold about as deep as the LIA, but lasting unremittingly a lot longer, perhaps enough for the northern hemisphere albedo to grow to a “tipping point”, leading to the next glacial period.
So, here is a third ice age prediction. Should it be given even more than a moments consideration? Well there is one comparison that is kind of spooky. Go back to http://www.roperld.com/science/currentmajorinterglacial.pdf, fig 2.1, and zoom in to see detail for the Eemian. Consider that the Younger Dryas event, (I like the meteorite shower/Atlantic conveyer shutdown theory) simply blew the peak off the Holocene, without which we would look like an Eemian repeat. Looking at the GISP2 curve, we have 10 spikes at near 1000 year intervals. (The Minoan to the Roman is about 1300 years and the MWP to 2300 is about 1300 years). It is pretty easy to find 10 similar spikes of the Eemian. Just before the 10th Eemian peak, the downslope goes from about 0.04 degrees C/century to a bit more than 0.1 degrees C/century (.02 to .06 if divided by 2 as I did for the Holocene trend). My downslope from the Holocene Optimum  (ca 8000yrs BP) to 2300 is about 0.01 degrees C/century, and then it goes to about .07 degrees C/century.  My oversimplified model is better for curve shape than magnitudes and the slope change may be too abrupt, but the similarity to the Eemian is at least suggestive.

Note that Roper ascribes the long Holocene cooling trend to gradual reduction of polar summer insolation, particularly north polar, in his Fig 2.3. The total polar summer insolation is about to turn down as the north flattens at the bottom, and the south goes into the steep part of its decline. Since the Holocene Optimum north pole summer insolation has declined from about 565W/m2 to 521 W/m2, a drop of almost 8%, accompanying a GISP peak temperature cooling of nearly 1%K. Roper also suggests that we could be on the brink of the next major ice age.
My prediction – 2300-2310 for the last warm peak before we head into the next ice age.
My request – someone create the composite curve electronically, including the long cooling and the DGM effect as I have described above.
My hope – some good discussion, picking all of this apart, or adding something to it. Other reconstructions/projections welcome.

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Climate and Solar Regularities and Global Cooling

Climate and Solar Regularities and Global Cooling
Introduction
I was thinking recently about the downside of the 60 year cycle that we seem to be into and wondering if there might be any other cycles in phase with the 60 year cycle that would make the cold period worse than it would otherwise be. That led me to some research on climate cycles that would seem to be driven by solar effects related to planetary orbits. It was not difficult to find several such climate cycles, including some that seem to have little or no connection with planetary motion. Perhaps more interesting was the number of papers that identify climate periodicities, without any attempt at explanation, that do have clear connection to planetary/solar cycles.
The “no connection” cycles led me to the question of whether some apparent cycles were simply sidebands or beat frequencies of the well-established cycles. I had just begun to struggle with that issue when I found Wilson's paper at www.alp.org.au/Congress 2006/625.PDF and discovered that he had already done most of the work for me. His other works then led to several other mysterious connections.
Following is a summary of the more or less well-known regularities that I could find.
Recognized regularities or cycles
• 9 year – Lunar cycle – evident in weather if not climate.
• Schwabe 11 year sunspot cycle – a bimodal cycle of approximately 10 years and 12 years synchronized to the Venus/Earth/Jupiter cycles. Can be from 9 to near 14 years.
• 18.6 year lunar nodal cycle – clearly apparent in Arctic proxies
• Jupiter/Saturn synodic period - 19.86 years average. Possibly confounded with the lunar nodal cycle in some proxies.
• Hale 22.3 year average solar magnetic polarity cycle. Every second Schwabe cycle, but no other specific link to planetary orbits. Could be influenced by the lower beat frequency of the Jose cycle and the Jupiter/ Saturn synodic cycle as a strange attractor. No significant climate signature.
• Saturn orbital 29.5 years – some weak evidence of thirty-year cycle in climate records.
• Unnamed 60 to 62 year cycle – three Jupiter/ Saturn synodic cycles – time for the sun to repeat one complete tour of its track around the SSB. Very clear climate cycle in the last several hundred years.
• Gleissberg cycle – variously expressed as 72 years to 120 years. Also seen as 72 to 83 year sunspot cycles. Climate sources used by Wilson give an average of 88.7 years. The lower sideband (beat frequency) of the 60 year cycle and the Jose cycle is 90 years. Use 90 years. Wilson describes why the Gleissberg cycle changes so widely. http://www.scribd.com/doc/16785737/Does-Spin-Orbit-Coupling-Between-the-Sun-and-Jovian-Planets-Govern-the-Solar-Cycle-

• José cycle – 178.7 years – the shortest time for each near alignment of the Jovian planets. Also the beat frequency of the 22.34 average length of the Hale cycle and the 19.86 year average length of the Jupiter/Saturn synodic cycle. The variable length of these two cycles can give a fairly wide range for this beat frequency, from about 172 to 189 years.
• DeVreiss cycle – 200 to 210 year cycle. Wilson's sources average 201 years, but 205 and 210 years are more commonly mentioned. No obvious driver. Wilson notes a beat frequency between the first harmonic of Hallstatt cycle and the Jose cycle, but that seems like a long reach.
• Deep Grand Minimum (DGM) period – 363.3 years - the length of a Deep Grand Minimum cycle that meets the “golden proportion”. See “Solar Grand Minima” below. (My contribution – Duffin cycle??)
·    .950 – 1100 year cycle -  A cycle of near 1000 years shows up strongly in some reconstructions. See http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/papers/originals/climate_change_cause.pdf page 33. Since originally writing this I have come across the Climate theory presented here http://climaterealists.com/index.php?id=6482 . This cycle could be a terrestrial thermohaline cycle.
• 1500 year - Dansgaard/Oeschger (D-O) events recur in last Ice Age cores at 1470 years, + -12%. Bond events appear in Holocene records as about 1500, + -500 years. The last four Bond event are spaced about 1400, 1400 and 1700 years apart. (4, 4,and 5 DGM periods? )
• 1800 year tidal cycle based on shifting lunar declination ??
• 2300 year Hallstatt cycle - seen in C14 tree ring data. Wilson notes that it takes 121 Jupiter/Saturn synodic periods or 2403 years for the alignment to return to the same position with respect to the stars, which doesn't seem very meaningful in climate terms. Charvatova notes that every 2400 years the Jose cycle drops to 160 years for a period of about 370 years, which does seem meaningful. The next occurrence will be between 2240 and 2610. Strangely the 370 years is very close to one 363 year DGM period.
Solar Grand Minima

Name            Period                  Cycles from prior               Type

Oort         1010—1050                                                   Shallow
Wolf         1280--1340                          24                        Deep
Sporer      1420—1530                        12.6                   Shallow
Maunder   1642—1705                        20                         Deep
Dalton       1790—1820                       13.3                     Shallow
SSC24/25 2009--??                            19.7                       Deep


What about the date of the Oort minimum? It seems to have been determined by radiocarbon dating. How accurate is that? Three laboratories working independently provided a consensus date for the Shroud of Turin as 1260 to 1390. That is 1325 +- 65 years. The Oort minimum occurred about 300 years earlier, so might have an uncertainty range of +- at least 80 years. If the start of the Oort was 50 years later (1060) we could have a pattern of 20,13,20,13,20 cycles between grand minima. (In the curve shown here http://www.landscheidt.info/ the bottom of the Oort is just about exactly at 1060).

Given the 20,13 repetition, it appears that each grand minimum at the end of a 20 cycle period is deeper and longer than after a 13 cycle period, and has a greater impact on climate. Call them deep and shallow grand minima (DGM and SGM). Wolf and Maunder were DGM and have clear signatures in the proxy record. Oort, Sporer and Dalton were SGM. The proxy records display the Sporer but not the Oort. We are probably now entering a DGM. Curiously the DGM cycle is near 360 years or near 2 Jose cycles, and given my assumptions below, they seem to align pretty closely during the last 2000 years.

Could there be an orbital/SSB reason for such regularity? 221 years (20 Schwabe cycles) is very close to the DeVreis regularity. Also 13 cycles at average length of 10.68 years and 20 cycles at average length of 11.23 years is the golden proportion (38.2:62.8), with a DGM cycle length of 363.3 years. (The 20 11.23 year cycles take 224 sidereal years, which is strangely close to Wilson’s 224 year period noted here http://astroclimateconnection.blogspot.com/2010_05_01_archive.html). The average solar cycle length for the 363.3 year period is 11.01 years. Wikipedia gives an average length of 11.04 years (ignoring Usoskin et al’s extra cycle at the beginning of the Dalton), which is close enough given the degree of uncertainty in estimating prior sunspot cycles. Four such DGM cycles = 1453.2 years, very nearly one D-O event period.

There is another strange factor appearing now. Usoskin et al invoke the Gnevyshev-Ohl (G-O) rule that says odd numbered sunspot cycles are always stronger than the preceding even numbered cycle. Unfortunately for G-O this rule has only been valid for the period since the Dalton minimum. The last 2 cycles at the beginning of the Maunder and Dalton grand minima had the odd number intensity lower than the preceding even number. We now have cycle 23 lower than cycle 22, entering another grand minimum. It seems that the G-O rule needs to be refined, and Usoskin et al’s extra cycle at the beginning of the Dalton may be invalid. Maybe SGM are always preceded by extra long cycles.

Observations
The biggest problem with the cycles and events in the proxy climate records is inconsistency. They are confounded by contributions from plate tectonics, volcanoes, meteorites, ocean currents and variable delay times in earth systems. When such factors were isolated, there were still major irregularities that are just now becoming understood. Trying to get a layman’s understanding of the mechanisms required more digging. Nearly a decade ago I had found Niroma, DesMoulins and Landscheidt, and while they provided insight on correlations, they didn’t help much with mechanisms. Now one finds several gifted amateurs (Tallbloke, Stephen Wilde, Geoff Sharp, Ian Wilson, Nicola Scafetta) with various particular skills collaborating informally on the internet to produce quite profound analyses of probable mechanisms, including some realistic quantification. The most helpful (for me) of these was I. R. G. (Ian) Wilson. The seminal work seems to have been done by P. D. Jose, published in a 1965 paper. As with other pioneering iconoclasts (think evolution and plate tectonics) his work was largely ignored until now. Based on several days of digging I have tried to write a simplified description that can be understood to a reasonable degree by the “great unwashed”, like myself.
Non- Technical Description of Solar Mechanisms
Viewing a diagram of the sun’s motion relative to the solar system barycenter (SSB) (http://www.orbitsimulator.com/gravity/articles/ssbarycenter.html) it is obvious that sometimes the Barycenter is near the center of the sun, and sometimes well outside its circumference. Sometimes the sun is moving toward, sometimes away from the barycenter. Conversely, viewing the barycenter moving relative to the sun it is intuitive that the barycenter accelerates and decelerates the sun, and imparts angular momentum varying from substantial to near zero. Simultaneously the planets exert gravity on the sun that varies with their orbital distances (elliptical orbits), and alignments. All of these forces perturb the rotation of the solar dynamo in patterns that repeat, but not exactly. For a pretty good animation go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1iSR3Yw6FXo . As a thought experiment, imagine a snowglobe rotating around an axis that in turn is being swung around on the end of a string. Now imagine that the strings anchor is being moved back and forth, while the string is getting shorter and longer, and both the string’s and the globe’s rotation rates are being speeded and slowed. One can imagine the complexities imparted to the rotational movement of the liquid inside the globe. Think of it as swirl, stir, shake and slosh.
Missing from this thought experiment is any sense of scale. Imagine that the snow globe is ginormous and is a vast distance away, so that all of the forces are attenuated almost to the point of triviality in relative terms, but still able to have some effect. That is something like what is happening to at least the outer layers of the solar plasma. Agitation of the plasma, and variations of the strength and speed of the solar dynamo cause waxing and waning of sunspots, increases and decreases of solar uv output, strengthening and weakening of the solar magnetic field, and periods of stronger or weaker CMEs, all of which drive our climate change. However the sun is not uniform in density and the state of agitation will never be the same at the time of repeated planetary alignments or position relative to the SSB, so the solar reaction does not repeat exactly in timing or intensity.
If one follows the work of the a/m group of amateurs, one can see an holistic understanding of the complexities of the solar system, and their impacts on our climate developing, with growing elucidation and quantification of the mechanisms involved. This work is already so advanced that it is very difficult for a rational person to follow it with an open mind and not agree that the sun is the primary driver of climate change and that the 30 year warming from 1975 to 2005 was simply the upside of a natural climate cycle, with a cooling to follow.

What might we expect for this cooling?
Start with the probability that the 1976 to 2006 surface instrument warming peak is overstated, and was probably less than the prior 1938 to 1944 peak. The 60 to 62 year cycle peaked in about 1820, 1880, 1940 and 2000. At 62 years it would be 1820, 1882, 1944 and 2006 which might be a little better. It is now on a downslope to about 2030 – 2040. The José cycle seems to be near to in phase with the 60 year cycle. If the José and 60 year cycles bottomed about 1650 and 60 year cycle about 1600 and 1710, it would partly account for both the depth and length of the bottom trough of the L I A. If so, it (the Jose cycle) bottomed again 1850 – 1860 (cool period) and can bottom again 2030 – 2040. It could have peaked near the 1938 – 1944 peak warming contributing to that peak being higher than the recent peak. The cycle from 1910 to 1974 warmed 1910 to 1938 (28 years), flatlined to 1944 (34 years overall), then plunged 0.3 degrees C to 1953 (9 years) then flatlined to about 1976 (23 years). The current cycle warmed from 1976 to 1998 (22 years), flatlined to 2006 (8 years), warming at the same rate as the previous cycle, and has now cooled slightly for 4 years (36 years overall). Could it be ready for a 0.3 degree C plunge during the next 7 years?
The 1400-1500 year Bond Event is the wild card. Chiefio (http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2010/09/13/an-interesting-view-of-temperatures/) has already mused on the idea that the last Bond event (event number one) occurred during the Dark Ages or Migration Period cooling (about 400 – 900 A.D). It appears in several climate proxy records at about 550 A.D. as a brief downward spike, but shows up as a severe cooling event in Greenland ice cores. 1470 years later is 2020! Oops!
Solar activity – timing looks like a deep grand minimum for cycle 24/25. We can probably expect a cooling at least as severe as the Dalton minimum, and possibly similar to the L I A. However, Wilson (http://ozwx.plasmaresources.com/wilson/Syzygy.pdf) has raised the possibility, even while casting doubt on it, that we might be back to something like the Oort Minimum, which occurred during the MWP and left no real mark on the climate. Since the Oort was not a DGM, I would share Wilson’s doubts.
Backcasting
To use the cycles enumerated above to backcast, I have to make assumptions about past phasing. My assumptions following seem to work pretty well.
• The coolest part of a DGM occurs 25 to 40 years after onset
• The 950 – 1100 year cycle is close to 1050 years long and last peaked during the MWP at about 1150 and bottomed last during the LIA AD 1650-1700
• The Jose cycle last peaked about 1940-1945
• There was a 60 year cycle peak at 1940.
• Leaving out Gleissberg and DeVreis because too variable
For prior warm/cold periods we then find:
• Roman warm period: 1000 year peak about 200 AD, Jose peak 156 AD, 60 year cycle peaks at 140, 200, 260 AD. DGM at 182 AD. 3 warm, 1 cool.
• Dark Ages cold period: 1000 year bottom at 670 AD, Jose mins at 424 and 603 AD, 60 year mins at 530 and 590 AD, and a Bond event about 550 AD. 4 cools with an extended spread.
• MWP warm 1000 year peak at about 1150, Jose peak at 1050, 60 year peaks at 1040 and 1100 and 1160, SGM at 1060. 3 warm, 1 weak cool. Oort swamped by warm peaks.
• LIA cold: 1000 year bottom at 1650-1700, Jose bottom about 1680, 60 year bottoms at 1610m and 1670, Maunder DGM coolest about 1670-1680. 4 cool, very closely grouped.
• Dalton cool: 1000 year 30% up from bottom, Jose bottom 1840, 60 year peak 1820, SGM weak bottom 1810-1820. 2and 1/3 cool, 1 warm.
• 20th Century warm: 1000 year ½ way+ to peak, Jose peak 1940-1945, 60 year peak 1940, mid cycle between grand minima. 2 and ½ warm. Like Roman warm period, cooler than MWP?


Forecasting
• Cycle 24/25 cool: 1000 year ¾ way to peak, Jose bottom 2030-2040, 60 year bottom 2030, DGM coolest about 2030-2040. Bond event 2020?? 3 cool and ¾ of a warm with Bond event wild card. Cooler than Dalton, not as cold as LIA.
• Looking a lot farther forward we would have the next peak of the 1000 year cycle at about 2200, corresponding to a Jose bottom at near 2215, and about half way between 2 DGMs. Not as warm as the MWP, consistent with the long trend down since at least the Minoan Optimum. The next 1000 year cycle bottom would be about 2725 and would correspond closely with a Jose bottom near 2755 and a DGM near 2773, and 60 year bottoms near 2690, 2750 and 2810. This would give us 5 coolings fairly closely grouped, cooler than the LIA. Could that be the start of the next ice age? Happily it does not align with a Bond event.

Questions for the amateur experts
• Are my phasing assumptions supported by planetary alignments, or no?
• Why would grand mimima repeat in an alternating 20 and 13 sunpot cycle pattern?
• Why would 4 DGM periods equal one D-O period?
• What is the significance of Wilson’s 224 sidereal year “strange attractor”?
• Why would the phase change period every 2400 years last one DGM period?
• What mechanism could drive Landscheidt’s phase reversals?
• What are your thoughts looking forward?




Additional References: - far from exhaustive

http://astroclimateconnection.blogspot.com/ I.R.G. Wilson- also Google to find several papers – Probably the easiest to understand and most informative
http://www.ann-geophys.net/18/399/2000/angeo-18-399-2000.pdf - Charvatova
http://www.jupitersdance.com/ a lot of info, perhaps marred by Mayan speculation
http://personal.inet.fi/tiede/tilmari/sunspots.html#tdist
http://www.appinsys.com/GlobalWarming/SixtyYearCycle.htm the outstanding reference on the 60 year cycle
http://tallbloke.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/solartidalinfluencesofvej_w01.pdf Interesting,
but the prediction has been blown.
http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/ A lot of good material and discussions, but you have to hunt for it.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/ Lots of interesting analyses, but lousy labeling so hard to understand.
http://www.landscheidt.info/ excellent source
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/papers/originals/climate_change_cause.pdf A most informative argument for solar forcing and against AGW. See the appendices
http://www.fel.duke.edu/~scafetta/pdf/scafetta-JSTP2.pdf More from Scafetta
http://climaterealists.com/index.php?tid=37 Stephen Wilde makes a lot of contributions to the discussion
http://agbjarn.blog.is/users/fa/agbjarn/files/ljungquist_temperature_reconstructions_2009.pdf Many proxy reconstructions for last 2 milennia.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC18099/ 1800 year tidal cycle, note connection to 360 year cycle that seems like DGM, plus Jose cycle and probable 18 year lunar nodal cycle.
http://icesjms.oxfordjournals.org/content/63/3/401.full Lunar influence in Arctic proxies
http://spaceweb.oulu.fi/~kalevi/publications/non-refereed2/ESA_SP477_lostcycle.pdf Usoskin et al.