Thursday
Oct072010
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill New solar study
Oct 7, 2010 Climate: Models Climate: other There is much excitement in the MSM today over a new paper by Joanna Haigh et al. This is Nature's take:
An analysis of satellite data challenges the intuitive idea that decreasing solar activity cools Earth, and vice versa. In fact, solar forcing of Earth's surface climate seems to work the opposite way around — at least during the current Sun cycle.
The Express asked me to comment on the story and I gave them a couple of lines that I imagine they will have found rather too cautious for their liking. I can't see their story online though.
Update on Oct 7, 2010 by
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill
The Express story is here, and they have squeezed me in near the end.
Reader Comments (80)
Odd, the Telegraph article this morning contained the quote "... that increased sun-powered warming probably had as much effect on global temperature as carbon...." I have just re-visited and now it doesn't! http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/8046586/A-stronger-Sun-actually-cools-the-Earth.html
Did I misremember it? At the Register I find this;
"The prof considers that increased sun-powered warming probably had as much effect on global temperature as carbon during the period of her study." http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/10/07/solar_as_big_as_people/
This is still there though: "I think it doesn't give comfort to the climate sceptics at all," she said. "It may suggest that we don't know that much about the Sun. It casts no aspersions at all upon the climate models."
Which prompts me to this;
"Oh! what a tangled web we weave; When first we practise to deceive!" Sir Walter Scott.
Pharos
I thought the Cloud Chamber led off the Hadron Collider?
BBD
How is it possible to work out that the warming is due to visible light and not solar magnetic activity affecting cosmic rays?
Dung
Svensmark postulated that a decrease in the solar winds would result in an increase of cosmic ray interaction leading to greater cloud formation.
This new research showed a simpler cause-and-effect interaction - an upward change in solar irradiation with remarkably similar changes in ozone - an increase in visible radiation leading to an increase of surface temps. An admission thru gritted teeth that this warming was of a similar magnitude as modelled predictions of warming due to CO2.
Now that is CAGW heresy. It is a tenet of CAGW faith that solar activity plays no part in climate change, the science is settled. To suggest otherwise is to court controversy, bring forth condemnation and to hurt your scientific aspirations.
It is little wonder that warmists doubt the data, raise concerns over the period of measurement, attempt to muddy the waters by connecting overall downward trend in solar activity to increasing temps or to state that solar activity has a greater impact on regional weather but lesser impact on climate........ but it is that admission of lesser impact that is telling. It is a game changer. The Sun has rejoined the great global warming debate.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGKPHFrHVVY
Dung
The Svensmark hypothesis predicts COOLING when the sun is quiet, as it is now.
The SORCE observations show WARMING from increased SW flux despite the low sunspot count.
Two different mechanisms with two different (opposed) outcomes.
Either the Svensmark hypothesis is wrong, or the 'Svensmark effect' is weak and being over-printed by the increase in downwelling SW.
Mac, BBD
I need to go read the paper before I say any more but I do question this opening statement:
An analysis of satellite data challenges the intuitive idea that decreasing solar activity cools Earth, and vice versa. In fact, solar forcing of Earth's surface climate seems to work the opposite way around — at least during the current Sun cycle.
Decreasing solar activity = less sunspots. The records of hundreds of years of sunspot activity show that less sunspots = warming so where does this intuitive idea that decreasing solar activity cools Earth come from?
"Daily measurements of the solar spectrum between 0.2 µm and 2.4 µm, made by the Spectral Irradiance Monitor (SIM) instrument on the Solar Radiation and Climate Experiment (SORCE) satellite3 since April 2004, have revealed that over this declining phase of the solar cycle there was a four to six times larger decline in ultraviolet than would have been predicted on the basis of our previous understanding."
What was our previous understanding?
We couldnt measure it previously so how do we know anything has changed?
For years Sceptics have been saying that contrary to warmist consensus, the Earth has cooled or at least not warmed since 1998.
I have seen no reports from satellites or surface thermometers claiming that in fact the Earth was warming?
I am really suspicious of this report and that should carry the full weight of a report from alcoholics anonymous!
Dung
The Maunder and Dalton solar minima were identified as periods of low solar activity during which the sun spot number FELL. Thus low SSN = cooling.
You say above that:
'The records of hundreds of years of sunspot activity show that less sunspots = warming so where does this intuitive idea that decreasing solar activity cools Earth come from?'
Perhaps this is the source of your confusion?
You are entirely correct BBD ^.^ I do get confused hehe
So to try and overcome my tendancy to get confused:
An analysis of satellite data challenges the intuitive idea that decreasing solar activity cools Earth, and vice versa. In fact, solar forcing of Earth's surface climate seems to work the opposite way around — at least during the current Sun cycle.
"surface climate seems to work the opposite way around "
The records of hundreds of years of sunspot activity show that less sunspots = cooling
does 3 years change that?
BBD
OK I got confused on that point but can you comment on the other points I made also?
A short 3 year study, computer climate modelling to process the data and the Grantham Institute, this has all the hallmarks of a spoiler.
Solar activity out of phase with temperatures, this is not what many studies over longer periods have shown going back to the corn price/sunspot activity comparison hundreds of years ago. Lets hope they have not just been cherry picking here and published the the only 3 year cycle where the computer model actually matches data.
Oh and GC - love your previous comment about Louise Gray.
I think i could agree with the statement " the vast majority of CO2 warming is anthropogenic" but the question remains , how much warming CO2 produces.
Dung
You say:
'The records of hundreds of years of sunspot activity show that less sunspots = cooling
does 3 years change that?'
No, it doesn't.
If the results are correct, we learn that AT LEAST ONCE a decreasingly active sun has caused warming through increased SW flux.
This was observed by the (new) SORCE instrument which provides much better measurements of the various types of radiation the sun emits.
The three year observation 2004 - 2007 took place as the 11 year (average) solar cycle was entering its phase of lowest activity (correlated with low sun spot numbers).
This is NOT the same as an observation showing higher SW flux associated with LONG PERIODS of low SSN. So the suggestion already being made by some that the Maunder and Dalton minima 'should' be warming events is nonsense.
The researchers make several bold claims, including that as solar activity IN GENERAL has slightly INCREASED over the C20th, then SW forcing might have fallen during the same period.
The inevitable corollary to this is the claim that the hypothesised climate sensitivity for CO2 is NOT HIGH ENOUGH to account for the observed warming.
If we are going to make bold claims, then why not ask this: if a new instrument shows more SW flux than previous measurements indicated, even for a short period, then how do we know that we have not underestimated SW forcing for decades - even a century?
In other words, how do we know that the hypothesised value for climate sensitivity to CO2 is not TOO HIGH?
Hope this helps,
Dominic
BBD
I wrote this in a post above:
Climate Experiment (SORCE) satellite3 since April 2004, have revealed that over this declining phase of the solar cycle there was a four to six times larger decline in ultraviolet than would have been predicted on the basis of our previous understanding."
What was our previous understanding?
We couldnt measure it previously so how do we know anything has changed?
So until I got mixed up, maybe we were in complete agreement? ^.^
Dung
You say above:
'What was our previous understanding?
We couldnt measure it previously so how do we know anything has changed?
So until I got mixed up, maybe we were in complete agreement? ^.^'
Previous understanding of UV flux was - like all other measurements of solar flux - provided by less accurate instruments than SORCE. So it was measured, certainly, just never quite so accurately. I agree that a large revision of the value like this might prompt questions. But that's how it works. Use what there is until something better comes along.
I don't think there was any disagreement - just a certain amount of confusion.
Dominic
BD
OK tnks and I realise that most if not all the confusion was mine.
Dung
No problem. Glad I was able to help.
Dominic
Piers Corbyn put some comments on WUWT blog concerning recent misleading and absurd claims in an article in Nature and regurgitated by the BBC. Links -
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/10/06/study-sheds-new-light-on-how-the-sun-affects-the-earths-climate/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/mobile/science-environment-11480916?%253FPDA=1%2525253F%2525253FPDA=1%252525253Fbject
(posted Oct 6th 9.28am)
It has been known for MANY YEARS that solar activity (e.g. sunspot numbers or ANYTHING which follows the 11 year cycle) is NOT a detailed driver of world temperatures (i.e. on time scales of less than one solar cycle); this is evidenced by the FACT that the main signal in world temperatures is the magnetic ‘Hale’ (22 yr) cycle.
SO – and this would be grasped by an 8 year old – for about half the time solar activity (e.g. smoothed on 3-year moving averages) and temperatures move together, and about half the time they move oppositely.
THIS IS NOT NEW but the fact that temperatures and solar activity do not always move together is “rediscovered” and restated at approximately 6 monthly intervals (most notably Professor Lockwood but the Grantham Institute will rope in anyone they can). It is utterly pathetic that Nature publishes this piffle as ‘new’; but then where do they stand in the fight to defend evidence-based science?
The purpose of their misinformation is of course to undermine the observed fact of EXCELLENT correlation between smoothed-out solar activity** (on all time scales of more than the Hale cycle) and world temperatures; and these ‘experts’ move on (or imply) “It’s not solar activity so it must be CO2″ (using its not a dog so it must be a cat logic).
It’s wondrous – no completely unsurprising – that the same ‘experts’ have yet to “discover” that world temperatures don’t always follow CO2.
In fact, temperatures statistically DON’T follow CO2 on ANY time scale: years, decades, centuries, millennia, millions, or hundreds of millions of years. Now there IS something for Nature to “discover”.
This campaign to mislead was the original subject of the ongoing post on Climate Realists (where RED BOLD highlights in the Comments indicate key items which I think help get to key points quickly) – “World cooling has……” =
http://climaterealists.com/index.php?id=3307&linkbox=true&position=5
** Importantly, a better correlation is found between temperatures & geomagnetic activity than temperature and solar activity (eg on 22 yr smoothing).
Peaks of temperatures are around peaks of odd sunspot cycles and troughs in temps are around peaks in even cycles.
The DETAILS of temperature in the world or any region are NOT in general correlated in any simple way to sunspot counts on short time scales (of say months or a year). The proper relationships are complicated but very real and make solar-based prediction possible.
Examples of the chain of causality:-
major events on the sun => events in the ionosphere & geomagnetic activity
=> jet stream changes => significant PREDICTED weather events are documented in e.g. WeatherAction news no 31 –
http://climaterealists.com/index.php?id=6165
and the RTV film via
http://climaterealists.com/index.php?id=6173
This paper is important because it surprised the scientists. The assumptions, the tenets of faith, what was known, the projections, all failed. The sun does have an impact. What we thought we knew about the cyclic behaviour of sun-spot activity and the spectral variations in solar radiation have been thrown into confusion.
1. The decrease in ultraviolet radiation was a big surpise. Not only could you argue that such a variation would increase the likelihood of cold winters (Lockwood 2010) you now cannot exclude the significant possibility that this was cause of the recent Russian and Europena heatwaves.
2. The increase in visible light was a surprise as was the impact it had in warming the planet to level projected for CO2. You cannot now discount the possibility that due to our ignorance of the different magnitudes of radiation across the solar spectrum, as this 3 year period of research has shown, that the warming that the satellites have monitored over the past 30 years is simply due to an increase in visible light spectrum of the sun.
The sun is back big time in the global warming debate. The warmists know that as we now do.
@ Mac
Oh yes indeed. Which is why the chatter surrounding this study is all about how it has 'no impact' on our 'understanding' of the potential role of the sun in climate change.
Pace Piers Corbyn, but these results were - as you say - a big surprise for many. And I suspect as the implications sink in, the efforts to muddy the waters and gloss over this work will intensify.
Unfortunately, unless something unfortunate happens to SORCE, there's more to come...
Nigel Calder's opinion-
'Valiant efforts of British physicists to deny that the Sun is important in climate change have always been good for a laugh. Names like Mike Lockwood and Arnold Wolfendale spring to mind. But with what she’s published in today’s Nature a professor at Imperial College London, Joanna Haigh, wins the my Gag of the Year prize.
The 200-year-old problem for solar-terrestrial physicists is to explain why the historical record shows strong and persistent links between solar activity and climate change over decades, centuries and millennia. Variations in visible light won’t do the job. The only mechanism powerful enough is Svensmark’s hypothesis about cosmic rays governing low cloud cover....'
More at
http://calderup.wordpress.com/2010/10/07/sun-cools-how-daft/
Re Dung
It's CO2 wot done it. Must be. Climate scientists have a graph showing CO2 increasing, and temperatures increasing. Therefore CO2 must be the cause, because the Carbon industry wishes it to be so.
But we could, and we did, see here for more info-
http://www.srrb.noaa.gov/surfrad/index.html
Currently seven SURFRAD stations are operating in climatologically diverse regions: Montana, Colorado, Illinois, Mississippi, Pennsylvania, Nevada and South Dakota. This represents the first time that a full surface radiation budget network has operated across the U. S. Independent measures of upwelling and downwelling, solar and infrared are the primary measurements; ancillary observations include direct and diffuse solar, photosynthetically active radiation, UVB, spectral solar, and meteorological parameters.
For the US. Only 7 stations, and only been fully running since 1993, but has been generating data showing changes in spectral composition. So the variability isn't really any great suprise to non-climate scientists I'd suspect. Other places have also been runing UV spectroradiometers.
Challenge though is as Pharos says. Solar spectral changes are relatively small, as are the magnetic changes from both Sun and Earth. So the challenge is finding and proving hypotheses where these small changes can generate bigger effects, like Svensmark or UV driven changes on wind currents.
It's not really any different to the CO2 'forcings' challenge. CO2's physics is known, and it's a weak greenhouse gas, so climate scientists attempt to boost it's warming potential by linking it with water vapour to make it fit temperature observations and models. When it doesn't add/remove aerosols to taste. Recognising (at last) that TSI isn't a simple constant means models get more variables to deal with and factor in spectral changes to atmospheric chemistry, the biosphere etc etc.
GCR's are I neat theory. I think currently given declining Earth magnetosphere and lower Solar magnetic activity, now would be a good time to go collect data around the South Atlantic Anomaly. Earth's magnetic field is weakest there, so may be able to observe Svensmark-related effects, plus other potential anomalies. Especially if this involves us bimbling around the South Atlantic in a nice research vessel during the SH's summer. I volunteer my services to mix drinks and slice limes :)
Pharos
Nice try by Calder, but the main outcome from this paper is the surprise and the confusion caused by the data.
A closer analysis shows where attempts have been delibrately made to muddy the waters and sow confusion in order to maintain the CAGW arguement. Again from this 3 year study
1. The large decrease in utlraviolet solar radiation was a surprise.
2. The increase in visible light was a surprise and so was the magnitude of the surface warming associated with it.
It was always assumed that the radiation from Sun was in all respects a constant, the figure of a change of less than 0.1% is quoted, and so could be discounted in the global warming arguement.
Lockwood did show a link between variations in sun-spot activity/ultraviolet radition and colder European winters, but we are beginning to understand that such a variation is also a cause of an increase in prolonged heat waves. What can't be discounted now is that due to our ignorance of spectral solar variability that the intensity of colder and warmer events, in magitude and number, may have been be going on for quite some time. CO2 may not be to blame.
Haigh did show a link between an increase in visible light and surface warming of the same magnitude as due to a warming projection for CO2. Again you cannot discount is that due to our ignorance of spectral solar variability the possibility that such variations in visible light may have been responsible for all the warming and cooling over the past 30 years that have been monitiored by satellites. CO2 may not be to blame.
Svenmark's hypothesis is now not the sole arguement. It certainly cannot be discounted either, it could well be that variations in the solar winds result in variations in cloud cover producing global cooling as well as warming. CO2 may not be to blame.
What this research shows you cannot now discount the Sun, it weakens the AGW arguement, and puts the boot into CAGW.
Pharos says:
'For the US. Only 7 stations, and only been fully running since 1993, but has been generating data showing changes in spectral composition.'
Could you be more specific about the nature of the changes in spectral composition. I know it's a long thread now but there are others here who may still be interested...
Mac says:
'Nice try by Calder, but the main outcome from this paper is the surprise and the confusion caused by the data.'
I have to agree. I have lots of time for NC but he is VERY defensive of the Svensmark hypothesis and I think he's called this one wrong. He says:
'Let’s say that the satellite results are surprising, but as they concern solar irradiance and not variations in cosmic rays, there’s no reason to expect a big climatic impact.'
Why ever not? If energetic SW flux to the oceans is varying in previously unexpected ways, then who is to say that it hasn't altered OHC? With climatic effects on multi-decadal timescales?
Everything about this paper seems to be generating spin. Which is interesting in and of itself.
Dominic
David Whitehouse at GWPF summarises the impact of this research, thus, "The sun is making a comeback. Look at articles in the leading journals as well as press reports of 15 years ago and it was not uncommon to see scientists saying that the sun was an important influence in climate change. About a decade ago that changed, but in recent years it has been coming back in many ways. "
http://www.thegwpf.org/the-observatory/1662-solar-speculation.html
Sol Invictus!
Atomic, Pharos, Mac and BBD
I would say Calder is being positive in his support for Svensmark not defensive. As someone has previously pointed out we are discussing two seperate mechanisms. Svensmark's work at the moment carries more weight:
The relation ship between sunspot activity and climate has been known and recorded for many hundreds of years. It is a fact.
Svensmark has searched for a mechanism, came up with a hypothesis, proved it in his lab and is currently trying to replicate that at CERN.
I read some early reports in April May this year and they were having success.
How much recorded correlation between UV and climate do we have?
Dung
What you say maybe the case, I'm sure Svensmark will have his day, but what cannot be discounted now is other aspects of solar variability and the impact that has on short-term climate and long-term weather patterns. All the recent warming and recent extreme weather events over the past few decades could all be due to the sun. That weakens the arguement over AGW and gives CAGW a good kick in the nuts.
Yes there does seem to be that Calder vented his frustration without counting to ten this time. But he has cause to be bitter, his ostracisation for his opinion by the scientific press, after rising to editor of New Scientist, and by the BBC after he ran a series of major science documentaries for them, and the protracted delays of running the Cloud simulation.
Actually, I dont think the cosmic/solar physicist community is anything like so welded to CO2 dogma as to require the sort of jumping through hoops we see in the rest. Emotion and politics do not have that power with them, as they do in environmental departments and media. Lockwood himself was swaying to and fro on magnetic influences not so long ago, and even in his Roy Soc 'rebuttal' to Svensmark, much of the content of his paper supports a significant solar influence on all but the last 30 years or so. I suspect the conclusion could cunningly be justified by using ground station temperatures rather than satellite, allowing Svensmark to come back with a reply. Of course he has a department requiring funding, but of course that has nothing to do with it. Isn't Lockwood on the Cloud team anyway? If the data's clear, he will go with it.
I'm just a crude engineer, but these are all just bits of the puzzle. Pielke Snr's been saying for a while that global warming is about joules, not centigrade. Being a simple soul, what I'd like to see is linked measurements. So solar spectrum measured from Sun towards Earth, ie SORCE. Then at ground level, ie enhanced Surfrad. Then in orbit looking at the Earth, which I'm not sure what's instrumented. But comparing top down and bottom up spectrum levels, it should be possible to see where the energy's going missing. Then figure out why, and what the implications are.
It's like Dung said re Svensmark, that's a different piece of the puzzle to the Haigh paper, but where relatively small energy events could create bigger 'forcings' or 'feedbacks'.