Wednesday, May 8, 2013


Natural Climate Change has been Hiding in Plain Sight


See refined assessment with evidence (thermalization) that CO2 has no significant effect on climate at http://globalclimatedrivers2.blogspot.com  (rev 10/23/16)

 Summary

About 41.8% of reported average global temperature change results from natural ocean surface temperature oscillation and 58.2% results from change in the rate that the planet radiates energy to outer space and/or reflects it, as calculated using a proxy, which is the time-integral of sunspot numbers. Using just these two factors explains average global temperatures (least biased values based on HadCRUT4 and other credible measurements) since before 1900 with 89.82% accuracy (R2=0.8982). [See revised attributions] (rev 8/3/19)

If atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) is included in the calculation, it might account for as much as 17.6% of reported average global temperature (AGT) change during the period 1909-2005. If CO2 has that much influence, then the calculated ocean surface temperature effect decreases to about 37.8% and sunspot influence decreases to about 44.6%, but accuracy increases an insignificant amount to 90.06%. This miniscule increase in accuracy indicates that CO2 change probably has substantially less than 17.6% influence on average global temperature change.


Ocean oscillations

Some ocean cycles have been named according to the particular area of the oceans where they occur. Names such as PDO (Pacific Decadal Oscillation), ENSO (el Nino Southern Oscillation), and AMO (Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation) might be familiar. They report the temperature of the water surface while the average temperature of the bulk water that is participating in the oscillation can not significantly change so quickly because of its high thermal capacitance 5.

This high thermal capacitance absolutely prohibits the reported rapid (year-to-year) AGT fluctuations as a result of any credible forcing. According to one assessment 5, the time constant is about 5 years. A possible explanation is that the reported rapid fluctuations may be stochastic artifacts of the process that has been used to determine AGT. A simple calculation shows the standard deviation of the reported annual average measurements to be about ±0.1 °K with respect to the trend. The temperature fluctuations of the bulk volume near the surface of the planet are more closely represented by the fluctuations in the trend. The trend is a better indicator of the change in global energy; which is the difference between energy received that is above or below break-even and energy radiated above or below break-even.

There is some average surface temperature oscillation that accounts for all of the oceans considered together of which the named oscillations are participants. Studies 1,2,3,4 of the primary contributor (the PDO) to this planet-wide oscillation have been done which identify the period of this oscillation to be in the range of 50-70 years. One of these studies considered data from as far back as 1000 years.

Complex phase relations between the various local cycles cause the effective over-all oscillation to vary in magnitude and period over the centuries. In the present assessment, the period of the planet-wide oscillation, since before 1900, has been found to be about 64 years with a magnitude of about ± 1/5 °K. The most recent calculated trend peak was in 2005.


Sunspot number time-integral

Sunspots have been suspected as being associated with climate change for a long time. Sunspot numbers are recorded as solar cycles which have been considered by others for magnitude or for time factors with poor success when trying to correlate with AGT trends.

A low but broad solar cycle may have just as much cumulative influence on AGT as a high but brief one. Both magnitude and duration are accounted for by using the time-integral of sunspot numbers. The temperature trend rise from the Little Ice Age and over half of the AGT rise of the 20th century are accounted for by the time-integral of sunspot numbers with an appropriate proxy factor. Of course, the time-integral of increase above or below break-even must be reduced by the time-integral of energy radiated from the planet above or below break-even; which varies with the fourth power of its absolute temperature.

The first law of thermodynamics, conservation of energy, is applied to evaluate the hypothesis that the temperature trend is influenced by sunspot numbers. Average global temperature has not changed much over the centuries so on average, over the centuries, energy-in equals energy-out. In any one year, the energy-in is given by

Ein = B * S(i)               (a)

where ‘B’ is the proxy factor. If the AGT never changed, the energy-out is given by

Econst AGT = B * Savg

To account for the yearly variation in energy-out it is multiplied by the fourth power of the temperature ratio which gives

Ei out = B * Savg * [T(i)/Tavg]4                (b)

Subtracting (b) from (a) results in the energy change for any year. Also, factor out B

Echg = B * {S(i) – Savg * [T(i)/Tavg]4}               (c)

Dividing the energy change by the thermal capacitance gives the temperature change from the previous year. Summation of changes for previous years obtains the total change from the start of the summation.

Tchng = B/Ceffective * Σyinitial {S(i) – Savg * [T(i)/Tavg]4}                        (d)

With appropriate offset this becomes the sunspot number contribution to the temperature anomaly. The high coefficient of correlation demonstrates that the hypothesis is true.


Atmospheric carbon dioxide

Atmospheric CO2 is called a greenhouse gas (ghg) because it absorbs electromagnetic radiation (EMR) within the range of significant Stephan-Boltzmann (black body) radiation from the planet. The EMR that CO2 absorbs (and emits) is only over a very narrow band of the over-all radiation spectrum from the planet (never mind that the ghg effect is an insignificant factor in how greenhouses work). Most of the EMR that is absorbed is emitted (nearly all of the absorption and emission is actually by water vapor) but about 11.59% is thermalized 8 and appears as sensible heat which warms the atmosphere.

Added increments of CO2 and other ghgs exhibit a logarithmic decline in their influence on AGT. This is accounted for mathematically for each year by taking the logarithm of the ratio of the average CO2 level for the year to the CO2 level in 1895, which was 294.8 ppmv (Law Dome 7). The cumulative effect to a year of interest is the summation of the effects for prior years plus the effect for the current year. The best current source for atmospheric carbon dioxide level 6 is Mauna Loa, Hawaii.


Combined equation

The net effect on AGT of the combination of the above three contributing factors is obtained by their sum. The word equation is: anomaly = ocean oscillation effect + net sunspot & thermal radiation effect + CO2 effect + offset. This is expressed in the following physics-based equation. 
      (1)


Where:

anom(y) = calculated average global temperature anomaly in year y, in K degrees.

(A,y) = Effective Sea Surface Temperature Anomaly (ESSTA) in year y calculated using a range (peak-to-peak magnitude) of A, °K, and the number of years since the last maximum or minimum. ESSTA is a simple (saw-tooth) surface temperature approximation of the net effect of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) and all of the other natural ocean oscillations, named or not. It has a maximum amplitude of about ± 1/5 °K with no intrinsic energy change for the bulk volume at any time between the beginning value and the end value of its estimated 64 year period. The most recent peak was in 2005.

s(i) = average daily Brussels International sunspot number in year i

17 = effective thermal capacitance 5, W Yr m-2 K-1

43.97 = average sunspot number for 1850-1940.

286.8 = global mean surface temperature for 1850-1940, °K.

T(i) = average global absolute temperature of year i, °K,

ppm co2(i) = ppmv CO2 in year i

294.8 = ppmv atmospheric CO2 in 1895

B is a proxy factor in the function that accounts for the solar radiation, W yr m-2.

C is a multiplier in the function that accounts for the influence of atmospheric CO2, W yr m-2

D is merely an offset that shifts the calculated trajectory vertically, without changing its shape, to center it over the measurements, K degrees. This offset is equivalent to having selected slightly different reference temperatures for the measured anomalies.

A, B, C, and D are calibration coefficients which have been determined to maximize the coefficient of determination, R2 (which makes the least biased fit of the trajectory, that is calculated using the physics-based equation, to measurements). Some have mistakenly interpreted these coefficients to indicate mathematical curve fitting, which is something that is entirely different. Instead, the coefficients allow the rational estimation of the amount that each of the two or three major contributors has made to the total temperature change.

It is worth emphasizing that equation (1) provides for a test to determine the influence, or lack thereof, of CO2 to the total contributions to global anomalies by forcing the coefficient, C, to zero and adjusting the other coefficients to maximize R2.


In Figure 1, the anomaly trajectory calculated using Equation (1) is co-plotted with measurements. The excellent match of the up and down trends since before 1900 is displayed and corroborates the usefulness and validity of Equation (1).

Figure 1: Measured average global temperature anomalies with calculated prior and projected trends.


Projections until 2020 use the expected sunspot number trend for the remainder of solar cycle 24 as provided 9 by NASA. After 2020 the limiting cases are either assuming sunspots like from 1925 to 1941 or for the case of no sunspots which is similar to the Maunder Minimum.

The influence of CO2 can be removed from the equation by setting C to zero. Doing so results in an insignificantly lower coefficient of determination (R2). The coefficients in Equation (1) and resulting R2 are presented in Table 1.

Ocean oscillation, A
Sunspot integral, B
Carbon dioxide influence, C
Offset, D
Accuracy, R2
0.3593
0.003731
0.3112
–0.3903
0.900641
0.400
0.004894
0.0
–0.3892
0.898220

Table 1. Coefficients in Equation (1) and resulting accuracy.

The graph for zero CO2 influence is not significantly different through 2005. After 2005 the slope is slightly steeper resulting in a projected temperature trend approximately 0.12 K cooler in 2020.
Complementary theories as to why this calculation works have been described previously10. The most significant theory appears to be: Fewer sunspots; reduced solar magnetic shielding; increased galactic cosmic rays penetrating the atmosphere; increased low-level clouds; lower average cloud altitude; higher average cloud temperature; increased cloud-to-space radiation; declining AGT.

It is easy to show that an increase in average cloud altitude of about 100 meters would account for half of the AGT increase in the 20th century that some have referred to as ‘Global Warming’. Increased low level clouds also means increased over-all cloud cover with attendant increased albedo. This also leads to declining AGT 11.

Without human caused Global Warming there can be no human caused climate change.

Climate science appears to have missed the above and other factors 12.


Corroboration that CO2 is not a significant forcing  (added 2/10/15)

It is trivially easy for anyone with access to existing CO2 and temperature measurement data-sets to falsify the statement that CO2 (at any level that ever existed) causes significant warming.

If CO2 is a forcing, a scale factor times average CO2 level times the duration divided by the effective thermal capacitance (consistent units) equals the temperature change of the duration. Thus the temperature responds gradually to a forcing. During previous glaciations and interglacials (as so dramatically displayed in An Inconvenient Truth) CO2 and temperature went up and down nearly together. This is impossible if CO2 is a significant forcing so this actually proves CO2 CHANGE DOES NOT CAUSE SIGNIFICANT CLIMATE CHANGE.


See more on this and discover the two factors that do cause climate change (95% correlation since before 1900) at http://agwunveiled.blogspot.com . The two factors which explain the last 300+ years of climate change are also identified in a peer reviewed paper published in Energy and Environment, vol. 25, No. 8, 1455-1471.

Conclusions

This assessment demonstrates that the annual average temperatures of the planet, for at least as far back in time as accurate temperatures have been measured world wide, are accurately calculated by considering only natural ocean oscillations and the sunspot numbers, and that credible changes to the levels of non-condensing greenhouse gases have no significant influence on average global temperature.

Equation (1) explains approximately 90% of the AGT trajectory since before 1900. All factors that were not explicitly considered must find room in the unexplained 10%.




References:


  1. MacDonald, Glen M. and Roslyn A. Case (2005), Variations in the Pacific Decadal Oscillation over the past millennium, Geophysical Research Letters, 32, L08703
  2. Mantua, N. J., S. R. Hare, Y. Zhang, J. M. Wallace, and R. C. Francis, A Pacific interdecadal climate oscillation with impacts on salmon production. Bull. Am. Met. Soc. 76, 1069-1079, 1997
  3. Minobe, S., (1999), Resonance in bidecadal and pentadecadal climate oscillations over the North Pacific: Role in climatic regime shifts, Geophys. Res. Lett., 26, 855–858.
  4. Minobe S., (1997) A 50–70 year climatic oscillation over the North Pacific and North America. Geophs. Res. Lett., 24, 683–686.
  5. Schwartz, Stephen E., (2007) Heat capacity, time constant, and sensitivity of earth’s climate system, J. Geophys. Res., vol. 113, Issue D15102, doi:10.1029/2007JD009373
  6. Annual average atmospheric carbon dioxide level at Mauna Loa ftp://ftp.cmdl.noaa.gov/ccg/co2/trends/co2_annmean_mlo.txt
     7.      Atmospheric CO2 level measured in Law Dome, Antarctica ice cores   http://cdiac.ornl.gov/ftp/trends/co2/lawdome.combined.dat

  1. http://climaterealists.com/attachments/ftp/Cloudaltitudevsglobaltemperature.pdf
  2. Graphical sunspot number prediction for the remainder of solar cycle 24 http://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/predict.shtml
  3. http://climaterealists.com/attachments/ftp/Verification%20Dan%20P.pdf
  4. http://endofgw.blogspot.com/

Obsolete graph

32 comments:

  1. Dan, I don't wish to be pedantic, but, if I don't mention it, other more cynical people will and it would otherwise detract from the great work you've done.

    "Degrees" shouldn't be attached to Kelvins. For an explanation as to why, just see here.. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelvin

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks, suyts
    I'm a bit paranoid about ambiguity and didn't want some dope to think that the K stood for 1000 or that an anomaly was an absolute temperature.

    ReplyDelete
  3. In your conclusion you write:
    "This assessment demonstrates that the annual average temperatures of the planet, for at least as far back in time as accurate temperatures have been measured world wide, are accurately calculated by considering only natural oscillations and the sunspot numbers, and that credible changes to the levels of non-condensing greenhouse gases have no significant influence on average global temperature."

    That is in clear contradiction of the informative case made at SkepticalScience.com: "Solar activity & climate: is the sun causing global warming?"
    http://www.skepticalscience.com/solar-activity-sunspots-global-warming-advanced.htm
    =============================

    As for your claims regarding CO2 - sounds like you are disputing most of the foundation of greenhouse gas properties as described by V. Ramanathan, who seems to be a recognized authority on the topic. Would you care to comment on the discrepancy between your contradictory conclusions?

    Trace-Gas Greenhouse Effect and Global Warming
    Underlying Principles and Outstanding Issues
    V. Ramanathan | Ambio Vol. 27 No. 2, May 1998

    http://www-ramanathan.ucsd.edu/files/pr72.pdf
    =================================

    Finally are you going to get this paper published in a peer reviewed journal?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Skepticalscience can't seem to get past direct solar effects. Because the sunspot time-integral to average global temperature works so well, as shown in Figure 1, a secondary effect must be controlling.
      ===========
      As shown in the table, including CO2 or not made no significant difference in accuracy. This corroborated my findings 5 years ago at http://www.middlebury.net/op-ed/pangburn.html that noncondensing greenhouse gases had no significant influence on average global temperature.

      Delete
  4. ... and what about this study by David Thompson?

    GHG's Swamp Influence of Sun on Climate
    Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA
    Vol. 94, pp. 8370 8377, August 1997
    Colloquium Paper

    Dependence of global temperatures on atmospheric CO2 and solar irradiance

    by DAVID J. THOMSON
    Mathematics of Communications Research Department, Bell Laboratories

    http://www.heatisonline.org/contentserver/objecthandlers/index.cfm?id=6006&method=full

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. AT the time of this 1997 paper, CO2 and temperature had been going up together for over 20 years. They parted ways in 2001 with CO2 continuing to go up but the average global temperature trend staying flat. The measured trend is consistent with calculations using the equation.

      Delete
  5. Hmmm,
    Can you explain why when I look at the NASA Marshall Flight Center - Solar Physics website,
    their graph of sunspot cycles sure doesn't look anything like the graph you have up there... nor does it resemble the temperature record.

    http://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/images/Zurich_Color_Small.jpg

    ====================

    Also, have you noticed "Frank's critique at
    http://scienceofdoom.com/about/#comment-25865

    would you have any comments on that?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Because, when you work for the American Enterprise Institute or the Heritage Foundation or EXXON facts aren't important friend. The only thing that is important is creating pro-Carbon Corp. propaganda that sounds like science , but is really just meant to confuse everyone. It's an old strategy used by lying liars and BIG LIE fascists. It's called Baffle them with Bullshit.

      Delete
    2. I am unfunded. The atmospheric CO2 level continues to go up while the average global temperature doesn’t. I wonder how wide this separation will need to get for some people to realize that they haven’t understood the science very well themselves and have been misled by people whose paychecks depend on continuing the AGW mistake.

      Delete
  6. Peter,
    Look closer. It's the same raw data. The only difference is that the site that you reference gives a dot for each average daily value for each month and the equation uses the average daily value for each year.
    ======
    It appears that Frank does not understand the math, or the physics, or even the concept. He doesn't seem to grasp that the only independent inputs to the equation are the sunspot numbers. 'A' is obvious from the graph (trend 1909-1941), 'B' is a proxy factor for the sunspot numbers, 'C' can be set to zero, and 'D' is equivalent to picking a different reference temperature for the anomalies.

    He does not appear to grasp the huge difference between sunspot numbers (proportionate to the [math] derivative of energy change to the planet) and the time-integral of sunspot numbers (proportionate to energy change to the planet)

    Calculations of the substantial change in average global temperature that results from a tiny change in low altitude clouds might provide some insight. See http://lowaltitudeclouds.blogspot.com/

    ReplyDelete
  7. A straight-forward and convincing explanation for the vagaries of our climate.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Mr. Pangburn, I find many errors in your analysis. For example, the very first sentence is seriously flawed:
    "About 41.8% of reported average global temperature change results from natural ocean surface temperature oscillation..."

    What do you mean by 'average global temperature change'? Are you referring to the concept universally described as 'temperature anomaly'? Or are you talking about change from year to year? Decade to decade? This kind of terminological sloppiness bespeaks a poor grasp of the subject.

    The next clause creates even more problems:
    "...58.2% results from change in the rate that the planet radiates energy to outer space"

    That change also has a formal term: "the greenhouse effect". In other words, you state right up front that most of the change (whatever you mean by that) is due to ACC. But then later you reverse course and declare the opposite. What do you really mean to say?

    Here's another problem: the over-precision of your numbers and your failure to specify error bands. How do you know that the correct value isn't 58.3%? If it could be, why didn't you say so? Indeed, given the complexities of the issue, I'd guess that the error band should be so wide that you couldn't reliably determine which effect is greater.

    Your statement regarding the time constant of change in earth surface temperatures (as distinct from atmospheric surface temperatures) is easily demonstrated to be incorrect. Five years is far too short a period; the most commonly used figure is about 30 years, and that figure was the basis of the formal definition of climate back in the 1930s. The calculation is trivial; if you truly understand the physics, you should have no problem carrying it out.

    These are just a few of the blatant errors in your analysis. I think I can answer the question posed by Mr. Meisler (will you submit this for publication?) You have no intention of submitting this paper for publication because you know perfectly well that it would never get through peer review.

    This analysis reflects a great deal of work reflecting an expert's grasp of statistics and a dilettante's grasp of physics. I suggest that you immerse yourself in the scientific research on these matters. In particular, you should devote a lot of time to studying the physics of sunspots. You appear to be grabbing this phenomenon randomly. You could just as well have looked at frequency of earthquakes, mosquito populations in South Carolina, or felony conviction rates for drug trafficking in Arizona. You can always come up with interesting statistical correlations if you cast your net wide enough. Such correlations are meaningless unless you can put forward a physical mechanism underlying them -- which you cannot do with your assumed connection between sunspots and climate. Even the simple-minded should be able to figure out that, since sunspots appear on an 11-year cycle, their effects on climate should appear in something like an 11-year cycle -- and since there are no such cycles, the likelihood of such a connection is remote.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Chris,
    You failed to actually point out any errors; possibly because there are none and possibly because there are errors in your thinking. I will try to further clarify some of the things that you commented on.

    The ‘average global temperature change’ is the range of the calculated trend from the low in 1909 to the high in 2005 (range 0.9543 C) as shown on Figure 1. The stated percents result from values calculated using Equation (1).

    The trend was constructed using 118 year-average measurements each with a standard deviation of approximately ±0.1 C so the trend has a standard deviation of approximately ±0.1/√118≈±0.01 C.

    The so-called ‘greenhouse effect’ refers to the fact that the planet surface is warmer than it would be if there were no ‘greenhouse effect’. (Never mind that greenhouses don’t actually work that way) It was warmer in 1909 than it would have been without the greenhouse effect and it was warmer in 2005 than it would have been without the greenhouse effect. The trend change, however, (from 1909 to 2005) is accurately calculated using ocean temperature oscillation cycles and the time-integral of sunspot numbers with a possible insignificant contribution from change to the level of atmospheric carbon dioxide. I did not as you erroneously assert “reverse course and declare the opposite”.

    The standard deviation of the trend is about ±0.01 C so the percents have a standard deviation on their magnitude of approximately ±1%. Thus 41.8% has a standard deviation of approximately ±0.4%, etc. Note that these values are based on existing measured data so they will not change.

    See Reference 5 for the time constant. If it is longer, it means that the effective thermal capacitance is even greater than the value I used. But 5 years is long enough to “absolutely prohibit the reported rapid (year-to-year) AGT fluctuations.” I find it odd that no one else seems to have noticed this. Examination of Equation (1) reveals that the use of a different value for effective thermal capacitance would change the values of B and C but would not alter the percent values in the Summary.

    The term that is scaled by the proxy factor ‘B’ in Equation (1) uses the first law of thermodynamics, conservation of energy. If you really understood physics you should have recognized that. The time-integral of sunspots is the ONLY thing that works (along with net effective natural ocean surface temperature oscillations) to accurately explain the average global temperatures that have been measured (and widely reported) since before 1900. The equation correctly predicted the current decade-plus flat temperature trend which is contrary to the uptrend that the IPCC and the consensus aka mob-think predicted.

    The notion that a physical mechanism must be defined for a calculation to be correct is bogus. However, the high sensitivity of AGT to tiny change to low-altitude cloud quantity as shown at http://lowaltitudeclouds.blogspot.com/ combined with Svensmark’s paper showing the connection between sunspots and the quantity of low-altitude clouds may provide that mechanism.

    Your statement, “since sunspots appear on an 11-year cycle, their effects on climate should appear in something like an 11-year cycle” may explain why you can not grasp this concept. The 11 year solar cycles do appear as the squiggles in the trend line as shown in Figure 1. The trend cycle, however, is about 64 years and is driven by the cumulative effect of solar cycles. The cumulative effect of solar cycles is calculated using the time-integral of sunspot numbers. This gives energy input to the conservation of energy equation. Energy output is the time-integral of radiation from the planet. The difference is energy change which is proportional to temperature change.

    If you are actually interested in finding out what has been happening lately with AGT and why, there is more information and lots of sub-links to follow in http://endofgw.blogspot.com/

    ReplyDelete
  10. Mr. Pangburn, I won't bother with further explanations; your claims are so far beyond the pale of science that I'd have to start with high school physics just to get you pointed in the right direction. The intellectual universe has already chosen to ignore you, as evidenced by the paltry commentary here. I dropped by only in response to another person's suggestion, and I think the best course for me now is to leave you to your own little corner of the cybersphere, babbling quietly to yourself. Goodbye.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

      Delete
    2. Thank you, Dan, for this fascinating hypothesis. To falsify it requires facts, but I have not seen any verifiable facts that deconstruct your analysis.

      [And all we have to do is look at Chris Crawford's icon to realize he is projecting in his comment above.]

      As stated above, Mr Crawford has provided no substantive facts to debate. [His "other person" is Peter Meisler, a long time SkS escapee who at WUWT went by the name of "citizenchallenge".]

      These folks are true believers, who can never be convinced that there is ZERO empirical evidence supporting the AGW conjecture. And the more time that passes, the more we see that empirical evidence for AGW is completely non-existent.

      Delete
  11. Chris has revealed himself as not understanding the science, or being mired in the minutia, or that he is blinded by his ideology. Probably some of each.

    It's actually quite simple. Equation (1) calculates what has happened since before 1900 with 90% accuracy. Figure 1 shows that and projects what will happen for a decade or two as determined by Equation (1) and projections of future sunspots and ocean oscillations.

    Bad weather in the U.S. means bad weather in less than 2% of the planet surface.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Dan, I would also add that we haven't had a major volcanic eruption over 5 on the Volcanic Explosivity Index in over 20 years (Pinatuba - 1991) and that that may be a factor in the '90s warming as well.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Will-Thanks for the heads-up. I had looked briefly earlier and noticed the temperature drops coincident with Pinatubo, 1991, and el Chichon, 1982, but nothing much for Krakatoa, 1883. I expect their is an effect but it (VEI 5) appears to be about the same magnitude as the random fluctuations in reported average global temperatures and temporary so influence on the trend is small. You did motivate revisiting the issue which led to this timeline for volcanos http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703465204575208412972387390.html

    ReplyDelete
  14. Dan I think the neutron count is probably the best proxy for solar "activity" Would it be possible for you to download and integrate say the oulu monthly neutron count.
    http://cosmicrays.oulu.fi/
    There is likely a +/-12 year lag between the count lows ( = sunspot highs so you have to invert the curve.)It looks to me e,g that the count low for cycle 22 = the temperature peak about 2003/4
    You might also like to check various posts on my blog
    http://climatesense-norpag.blogspot.com
    I forecast cooling which might well match your projections Best Regards Norman Page.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Norpag - Thanks for the comments and links.

    Sunspot numbers have been recorded since 1610 (compared to 1964 for cosmic rays)and 90% accuracy since before 1900 would be hard to improve on. An informative graph of the sunspot time-integral (it's called 'cumulative departure' there)for the entire period since 1610 is at http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2010/01/blog-post_23.html
    My first discovery of the sunspot time-integral correlation with average global temperature was disclosed in a paper made public 6/1/2009 at http://climaterealists.com/index.php?tid=145&linkbox=true . Much of the work presented there has since been refined.

    Also, the high effective capacitance and resulting time constant (about 5 years)for the planet really dampens the immediate direct result of anything.

    Cosmic rays may well be involved. Svensmark found a correlation between cosmic rays and low altitude clouds. I found that average global temperature is very sensitive to the amount of low altitude clouds in http://lowaltitudeclouds.blogspot.com/

    Much of process and findings in your blog are very similar to my own. You may find http://consensusmistakes.blogspot.com/ an interesting read.

    ReplyDelete
  16. Very good and interesting analysis demonstrating the 60 year cycle. Natural variations in Solar flux reaching Earth's atmosphere raise or lower the plot of temperature against altitude, whilst that plot maintains the same gradient except for variations in water vapour. Where the plot intersects the surface we have the "supporting temperature" which is thus pre-determined and is roughly the minimum at night.

    The reason carbon dioxide has no effect is because the temperature gradient (badly named "lapse rate") results from an autonomous molecular process whereby thermodynamic equilibrium (with the greatest accessible entropy) evolves spontaneously. This is precisely what the Second Law of Thermodynamics says will happen. Thermodynamic equilibrium is thus isentropic, and so it exhibits a temperature gradient, cooler at the top.

    Heat transfers can then pass in any direction over the sloping thermal plane. This is the only possible explanation as to how the required energy gets down into the atmospheres of Uranus, Venus, Earth and other planets. The Sun cannot heat the surface of Earth sufficiently without the "support" of a warm atmosphere that prevents the surface cooling too much at night. Back radiation has nothing to do with the process, and nor has upward convection from a warm surface. Uranus has none.

    To those who choose not to believe me, my response is here where I also talk about natural climate cycles.

    ReplyDelete
  17. Doug - Thanks for the comments. The period of the net natural oscillation turned out to be 64 years using data since accurate measurements have been made world wide. However, because the net oscillation consists of several named and unnamed oscillations, the magnitude and period of the net oscillation will probably drift over future decades so a 60 year period may well occur sometime in the future.

    Since the equation calculates average global temperature anomalies since before 1900 with 90% accuracy, there is not much room for improvement here on earth.

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  18. Effective Sea Surface Temperature Anomaly is included in the equation as a part of the explanation but it is also what is explained by the equation. So it seems to me that the greenhouse effect can seep into the Effective Sea Surface Temperature Anomaly.

    ReplyDelete
  19. Hello, Dan.

    I see you stepped on some toes here! I am Elaine Meinel Supkis,

    daughter of well-known astronomer, Dr. Aden Meinel. I was raised on top of various mountain observatories and played, as a child, in the Solar Observatory on Kitt Peak.

    My grandfather, Edison Petitt, along with his neighbor and friend, Dr. Hubbel, studied the sun very closely since 1915 and my father, all his life, too.

    The facts uncovered by these observations, examination of the Ice Age cycles and satellites studying the sun, led my father to write his last paper before dying last year. It was called 'The Sun Is A Variable Star'.

    In it, he explained how he detected a drop in solar activity. What he used to call, when I was a child, 'The long walk to the surface of the sun' whereby the molecular fires move from deep within to the surface before ejecting into space...this activity suddenly fell off greatly!

    That is, the sun showed deep interior signs of shutting down the level of activity and this would be confirmed by two things: the sudden end to sun spot activity and the 'dark regions' of the sun which emit 'solar wind' would grow greatly in size.

    Which is exactly what is happening now. Instead of reaching a solar peak, we suddenly have hardly any sun spots and sometimes even half of the sun (to my great shock) is 'dark'.

    Literally dark!

    Nature magazine which had published my father in the past refused to publish this, his crowning achievement. They said on the phone, 'No one wants to hear this. It is too incredible. If it is true, we should all commit suicide'.

    My grandfather talked a lot about the Ice Ages. He impressed on me the urgency of understanding what caused it. 'It had to be the sun,' he said often. 'It is the main source of energy and like any star, can be quite fickle'.

    I see from the comments by Chris Crawford, the global warming people utterly disregard sun spot activity as any indicator of warming or cooling. They simply wiped out ALL the research done by my father, grandfather, Hubble...sheesh.

    Nothing makes me madder. This is OUTRAGEOUS. These fiends even tried to eliminate the Little Ice Age which is now called the Maunder Minimum. Only this year, did these vandals admit it was cooler then...only to then turn around and say, 'But not EVERYWHERE.'

    The Ice Ages didn't hit the Southern Hemisphere even remotely as hard as the Northern Hemisphere. Even more interesting is the fact that Siberia and Alaska had less ice than Europe or the Midwest while the Northeastern half of the North American continent was under a mile of ice!

    This uneven cooling is similar to uneven warming. By the way, it nearly froze last night on my mountain in NY. First week of September and no major volcanic eruption! It was just plain cold!

    The latest scam is the claim made this week that the cold is caused by the ocean soaking up the sun's heat. This is silly beyond words. These same people claimed we would see more el Nino events.

    Instead, la Nina has sat in the Pacific for several years now with no sign of departing. They also predicted more and more hurricanes. Zero this year so far! Utterly devastated the official predictions of at least 12.

    Where are these hurricanes? What prevents them? Hurricanes grow in warm water so why isn't the water off of Africa and in the Caribbean warm enough? While supposedly soaking up all that sun with no sun spots?

    So, they claim now that global warming will NOT have hurricanes and big storms! And I suppose, will cause early freezes, too. As well as more blizzards and bigger glaciers. This isn't science, this is childish.

    The true nature of science is to be able to ACCURATELY PREDICT THE FUTURE. If the models don't match reality, they, not reality, must fall. I see virtually no accuracy in global warming model predictions so long as they leave out the sun spot element. And I hope they figure this out before they are eaten by polar bears roaming London and Virginia.

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    1. No spots, but half of the sun is dark... of course!

      My dear playing child, the dark thingies on the solar surface are what is usually called "spots", you know?

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    2. @astropov....she is not talking of sun spots, duh
      sun spots would only comprise a small percentage of sun surface even at peak.

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    3. Apparently I left astropov's dopy/snarky comment for all to see. Sorry about that.

      Delete
  20. Dan,

    Congratulations on having found a relatively simple mathematical 'climate model' that fits the temperature record with such high accuracy. I am sure that Chris Crawford's pseudo-objections will not deter you for one moment.

    It is not incumbent on a scientist who finds an equation that hind-casts the annual mean global temperature record so well to have to explain how and why it works, although the variables your equation contains (annual PDO, sunspot and CO2 anomalies) are hardly irrelevant ones, in stark contrast to Chris Crawford's facetiously contrived ones which he tries to compare with yours by way of rebuttal.

    As a good scientist I am sure you would agree that your equation will stand proud only as long as it follows the future path of the global temperature record with such high precision, and no longer. If it does endure, it will continue to demonstrate the irrelevance of the CO2 anomaly as a significant driver of climate change.

    Another decade of global temperature readings should do the trick. All things take time in (real) climate science!

    David Cosserat

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  21. Dan,

    If you are willing to accept peer-review, could you please publish the exact data you were using in your analysis? I could only find direct references to the CO2 concentration data.

    Thank you.

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  22. Could you please provide a best fit result, both Graph and R^2, setting both B and C to zero?

    Moreover, could you explain the physics behind the sum over the logs of the CO2 level?

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