298 Responses to “A phenomenological sequel”

1. Magnus W Says:
   27 November 2007 at 2:59

   Think you missed the links to GCR (here, here, here)

   [Response: Thanks! Fixed now. -rasmus]

2. Martin Vermeer Says:
   27 November 2007 at 3:06

   Hmmm, this contribution could do with a little polish.

   - The article critiqued isn’t actually quoted (a problem for those not having online access to this AGU journal)
   - Spell checking! (What is ‘buildt’?)
   - The language is not good (’How could they ignored [sic] that?’; ‘I’d flunked’; similarly in many places) and a bit rambling
   - The claim ‘The paper also offers some incorrect references’ is unintentionally funny as it is followed by an incorrectly written author name, and no actual reference in sight

   [Response: Link added now. -rasmus]

   - GCR = Galactic Cosmic Rays. Who knew?

   I don’t doubt the validity, but presentation is important. While this is not a peer reviewed journal, what about showing it to a colleague with a red pencil first?

   [Response: Point taken, sorry about that! I was a bit too quick, but it’s good to get some feedback. I have fixed the typo and a few of linguistic details. My old English teacher would probably have given me a ‘D’ for this -rasmus]

3. Timo Hämeranta Says:
   27 November 2007 at 4:15

   The study Rasmus Benestad tries to evaluate is

   Scafetta, Nicola, and Bruce J. West, 2007. Phenomenological reconstructions of the solar signature in the Northern Hemisphere surface temperature records since 1600. J. Geophys. Res. – Atm., 112, D24S03, doi:10.1029/2007JD008437, November 3, 2007, and available online http://www.fel.duke.edu/~scafetta/pdf/2007JD008437.pdf

   Earlier studies by the authors are e.g.

   Scafetta, Nicola and Bruce J. West, 2003. Solar flare intermittency and the Earth’s temperature anomalies. Physical Review Letters 90, 248701, June 20, 2003, online http://www.fel.duke.edu/~scafetta/pdf/PRL48701.pdf

   Scafetta, Nicola, and Bruce J. West, 2005. Estimated solar contribution to the global surface warming using the ACRIM TSI satellite composite. Geophys. Res. Lett., 32, L18713, doi:10.1029/2005GL023849, September 28, 2005, online http://www.fel.duke.edu/~scafetta/pdf/2005GL023849.pdf

   Scafetta, Nicola, and Bruce J. West, 2006. Phenomenological solar contribution to the 1900–2000 global surface warming. Geophys. Res. Lett., 33, L05708, doi:10.1029/2005GL025539, March 9, 2006, online http://www.fel.duke.edu/~scafetta/pdf/2005GL025539.pdf

   Scafetta, Nicola, and Bruce J. West, 2006. Phenomenological solar signature in 400 years of reconstructed Northern Hemisphere temperature record. Geophys. Res. Lett., 33, L17718, doi:10.1029/2006GL027142, September 15, 2006, online http://www.fel.duke.edu/~scafetta/pdf/2006GL027142.pdf

   Enjoy reading!

4. Charles Muller Says:
   27 November 2007 at 4:32

   A [pdf] of the full text we’re discussing here :
   http://www.acrim.com/Reference%20Files/Scafetta%20&%20West_2007JD008437.pdf

5. Alexander Harvey Says:
   27 November 2007 at 7:27

   Work of this nature is important but it needs to be reasonable.

   I also will not be reading this paper (no free access) so I am reluctant to comment but even the diagrams shown here raise some problems.

   One can get some idea of the model being invoked from the implied amplitude and phase delays.

   We have two diagrams (their figure 4) both of which appear to correspond to a simple lumped (thermal)capacity/conductivity system. I note that there is a starting transient (both the input and response are 0 at time 0, and the phase angle and vertical displacement changes with successive cycles).

   Is the reason for the transient explained in the text? (genuine question not rhetorical).

   Such a model has some consequences in that it is a simple low pass filter which would severely attenuate higher frequencies and give them a phase lag of approaching pi/2.

   Now there is some support for this at diurnal and annual timescales over the oceans but less so for the continents.

   Do they give any figure for the time constant or constants they feel explain their effect?

   Too long and the seasons will disappear, too short and the solar cycle will not be attenuated in the temperature record.

   The lumped capacity/conductivity model is but one of several available that might apply to the earth or most importantly the oceans.

   At the ocean surface (well mixed layer) a lumped model may be appropriate, below that a diffusion model (which tends to give a pi/4 phase delay) is believed to be appropriate, and for the deep ocean flows, a more complex transmission line that incorporates the effects of momentum would seem appropriate.

   If we are looking for heat to be returned at a later date in some sort of coherent way only systems that incorporate flow would seem to be likely candidates. Both the lumped and diffusive models smear out the signal (a wiggle in the past will not reproduce that wiggle in the future). Is this what they claim?

   The thermal response of the earth (primarily the oceans) holds an important key to understanding the entire system. It is at least an equal third of the (forcing, long term sensitivity, thermal response) system. It is also the least loved and perhaps the least sexy of the three.

   Analysing the thermal response to accurately known cyclic forcings will give insights into how the oceans behave thermally at various timescales.

   More needs to be done, for instance, what is the amplitude of the 11-ish year solar cycle in the record. Some say it is too attenuated to be found, some say it is big (rather too big perhaps). Which is correct?

   If we do not know the thermal response of the earth well enough to know the size of the solar cycle response how close are we to knowing the relationship between observable (short term) climate sensitivity and the long run sensitivity. Getting the answer to this question wrong has large implications 50 or 100 years out.

   As I understand it, the observable (short term) climate sensitivity is a bit too low to be reasonable and hence much of the thermal excess must be being stored in the oceans. By a bit two low I mean that simple analysis of the 20th century response against long term (CO2) forcings gives a low value to the sensitivity. It is believed that the difference will show up the record in centuries or millennium to come.

   Now it is important to be able to put some limits on the nature of this returned flux. If the paper is saying that stored energy (excess/deficit) is being returned. This must be true but without any knowledge of the timescales and coherence of the returned signal I can not see that it is possible to make any meaningful judgement on such an issue.

   Best Wishes

   Alexander Harvey

6. Alexander Harvey Says:
   27 November 2007 at 7:30

   Timo,

   Thank you for the link, so I will be able to read it after all.

   (Postings crossed)

7. Martin Vermeer Says:
   27 November 2007 at 7:44

   #4: Thanks Charles.

   The good news is that the language in the article isn’t so much better… and it went through peer review

8. Alexander Harvey Says:
   27 November 2007 at 7:49

   Now that I am reading the paper some notes.

   Camp & Tung found a 0.18 (+/1.08) K solar cycle signal in the (1959-2004) record. This is the one that I felt seems a little too big. It is not I think quoted by the authors but it is quite recent (May 2007).

   Both 0.1 (+/- .01) K (from this paper) and the above figure can not be correct. The uncertainty in this figure between authors is massive but the values are often precise. One needs ot be cautions.

9. Urs Neu Says:
   27 November 2007 at 8:31

   Some additional problems of the Scafetta and West (SW) paper:

   SW are proud of the good match of their solar reconstruction and global temperature on the multidecadal time-scale (SW Figure 5). However, this match is without any time lag and thus is strong evidence against a slow system response. If the increase of global temperature since 1970 should be a lagged reaction on the increase of solar activity before 1950 (time lag of maybe about 50 years), such lagged reaction should be detectable for multidecadal variability since 1600, but there isn’t any at all.

   Besides, SW recycle a bunch of tiring old sceptic arguments. They argue e.g. that the CO2 increase during industrialisation might be partly due to a temperature increase. This is funny, since one of the beloved sceptic arguments is that the CO2 increase during ice age cycles lag the temperature increase by more than 600 years. So we will still have to wait a few hundred years to see the CO2 increase due to the temperature increase since the Maunder Minimum (apart from evidence by the isotopic footprint).

   SW completely ignore the third available TSI composite by Dewitte et al. (2005; IRMB), which shows no significant TSI trend in the satellite period. They also ignore that the positive trend of the 11y-cycle minima in the ACRIM data (which they used for their estimations in a previous paper) has almost vanished when including the current minimum (the trend is 10 times weaker now; see http://www.acrim.com/ACRIM%20Composite%20Graphics.htm).

10. Alexander Harvey Says:
    27 November 2007 at 8:32

    I think I am getting a feeling of deja vu here.

    Did we not have another paper trying to extract the time constants and deduce sensitivity a little while back. I think it used autocorrelation.

    Unfortunately the world is a bit more complex than that.

    When the lump models run out to timescales longer than their time constant other mechanisms must be considered to take over. I really wish that the lumped capacity/conductivity model was put in a box marked “dangerous”.

    My quick look at their “time constant”/sensitivity values tells me to consider that the top ~100m of the ocean is well mixed. Which is often regarded to be the case. So this could be a mechanism.

    The question is “is that all there is to it?”.

    Well no, below the well mixed layer diffusion takes over with much longer time constants. Also the deep circulation must be considered with timeconstants of the order of centuries to millenia. Even the mixing of the ocean surface is a complex affair and the depth of the layer is seasonal and dependent on latitude and is unlikely to behave with a single time constant.

    Best Wishes

    Alexander Harvey

11. Ray Ladbury Says:
    27 November 2007 at 8:52

    Sounds like they followed the time-honored tendency of grad students to start from the answer in the back of the book and work backwards until they got it. It appears, however, that their book had the wrong answers in it.
    My questions: Where has all that energy been hanging out for the past 60 years? How do they manage to get a “timed release” of the energy so that it kicks in just in time for the millennium celebration? And most important: Why work so hard to produce such crappy science (e.g. poor reconstructions, no physical understanding…) when we have a model that is physics-based and actually works quite well?

12. Alexander Harvey Says:
    27 November 2007 at 9:50

    Can anyone follow the production of T(MANN03) etc.

    Rearranging gives:

    ((T18-T17)+(T19-T17))/2 = ((T18-T17)+((T19-T18)+(T18-T17)))/2

    = ((T19-T18)+ 2*(T18-T17))/2

    = (T19 + T18)/2 - T17

    which is the average of (average 19thC + average of 18thC) - the average of 17thC (temperatures)

    Far too many averages for my liking also the distance from the temporal average of the 17thC to the temporal average of the temporal averages of the 18thC and 19thC is 150 years not 100 years.

    I.E. if they must do this should there not be a 3 not a 2 in the denominator?

    Try it with a 1K/Century linear slope from 1610-1910.

    Apply their formula and you get 1.5K/Century:

    (1-0)/2 = 0.5 (T17)
    (2-1)/2 = 1.5 (T18)
    (3-2)/2 = 2.5 (T19)

    ((1.5-0.5)+(2.5-0.5))/2 = 3/2 = 1.5

    If this is really is the case I have to ask when papers get reviewed does anyone check the equations?

13. Nick Says:
    27 November 2007 at 10:25

    But it is unclear why the temperature then flattened out and even dropped a little between 1940-1970 at the time when it really should have increased fastest

    The reason is one that realclimate keeps pushing on the CO2/temperature correlation problem.

    1940-1970 the correlation between CO2 and temperature is not positively correlated, and yet realclimate doesn’t view this as a problem.

    However, if an alternative explanation has the same issue, then its a major flaw.

    Is is it that rasmus in his original post things that pollution causing the temperatures to drop 1940-1970 isn’t a good explanation? If so, if he would let me know, I’d like to have a realclimate statement that there’s a major flaw in AGW.

    Nick

    [Response: Arrggh! The whole point of the ‘mainstream’ view is that you are not going to get very far with simple one-factor correlations. It doesn’t work for solar, and it doesn’t work for CO2 either - too many of the forcings are correlated. You absolutely need to use all major forcings before you can do an attribution. When you do that, GHGs are very likely responsible for the rise in recent decades. - gavin]

14. James Davey Says:
    27 November 2007 at 10:32

    PMOD link is broken. I assume it should point here (www.pmodwrc.ch/pmod.php?topic=tsi/composite/SolarConstant) rather

15. Timo Hämeranta Says:
    27 November 2007 at 12:02

    Dear Alexander, it’s good when you direct attention to the oceans.

    Please see:

    Wunsch, Carl, 2007. The Past and Future Ocean Circulation From a Contemporary Perspective. Chapter in Schmittner, Andreas, John Chiang, Sidney Hemmings, Editors, 2007. Ocean Circulation: Mechanisms and Impacts. AGU Geophysical Monograph Series Vol. 173, 2007, online http://ocean.mit.edu/~cwunsch/papersonline/present_pastocean_rev_2april.pdf

    Abstract

    Meridional overturning of the ocean, particularly the North Atlantic, is commonly invoked as the “trigger” and major cause of global climate change in a series of stories based upon a very simplified view of the circulation (a “conveyor belt”). Observational and computational progress in physical oceanography, however, over the last 30 years has rendered obsolete the old idea that the fluid ocean is a slowly changing, passive, almost geological system. Instead, it is a dynamically active, essentially turbulent fluid, in which large-scale tracer patterns arise from active turbulence and do not necessarily imply domination of the physics and climate system by large-scale flow fields. To the contrary, oceanic kinetic energy is dominated by the time and space-varying components. The complexity of the resulting fluid pathways is an essential part of any zero-order description of the system. Thus general circulation models are the essential tool for understanding past, present and future climate states. Quantification of the likely major errors in using oversimplified models with inadequate turbulence closures and undersampled data becomes the main issue. Determining the past and future circulations is not easy, but hiding the difficulties is not a viable option.

    ….

    Well, as far as I can see, before we are able to correctly model the oceans we are unable to forecast (almost) anything.

    Actually, honest modelers have already admitted that 30, 50 or 100 yr forecasts/projections are too uncertain and have no practical value.

    Please see e.g.

    Cox, Peter M., and David B. Stephenson, 2007. A Changing Climate for Prediction. Science Perspective Vol. 317, No 5835, pp. 207-208, July 13, 2007

    Stainforth, David A., M.R. Allen, E.R. Tredger, and L.A. Smith, 2007. Confidence, uncertainty and decision-support relevance in climate predictions. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A Vol. 365, No 1857, pp. 2145-2161, August 15, 2007

    Collins, Matthew, 2007. Ensembles and probabilities: a new era in the prediction of climate change. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A Vol. 365, No 1857, pp. 1957-1970, August 15, 2007, online http://www.journals.royalsoc.ac.uk/content/u0106636v6g14764/fulltext.pdf>

    Extract:

    “…Model imperfections, coupled with fundamental limitations on the initial-value prediction of chaotic weather and the unknown path that society may take in terms of future emissions of greenhouse gases, imply that it is not possible to be certain about future climate…”

    Even the IPCC admits:

    ”the future is inherently uncertain” (IPCC AR4 2007 WGIII SPM, last sentence)

    ….

    Well, when we discuss about solar influence, which has been flat for the last two or so decades, I’m pondering inertia in the oceans. I recall seeing an estimation of 10 years lag time in the mixed layer. Any confirmation?

    If correct, we may have one possible explanation (among others) to current non-warming of surface and oceans, despite CO2 increase (?).

    Another explanation we have in the study

    Smith, Doug M., Stephen Cusack, Andrew W. Colman, Chris K. Folland, Glen R. Harris, and James M. Murphy, 2007. Improved Surface Temperature Prediction for the Coming Decade from a Global Climate Model. Science Vol. 317, No 5839, pp. 796-799, August 10, 2007, online http://www.precaution.org/lib/warmer_after_2009.070810.pdf

    [Response: Lack of absolute certainty is not the same as no knowledge. All scientific knowledge is preliminary and not absolutely certain, so by your implication, we know nothing useful about anything. I find it odd that you only apply this heuristic to climate change. - gavin]

16. jonny Says:
    27 November 2007 at 12:10

    Check out www.co2ticker.com to see co2 emissions BY THE SECOND and compare different countries co2 emissions .

17. Chris C Says:
    27 November 2007 at 12:20

    rasmus, the point on the “upper limit” had to do with the study being sun-centric. In other words, S&W don’t put much emphasis of volcanoes, pre-industrial anthropogenic, and possible other natural causes for pre-industruial climate variability. Not much to my liking, but that’s life. I did not like your point on S&W comments about the sun-CO2 feedback relationship. It should be clear the sun isn’t doing anything to CO2, the temperature change (generally centered in orbital variations) is. Simple gas proportionality inversely related to temperature and we reproduce a feedback. Of course, the sun isn’t digging up buried CO2. S&W specifically note atmosphere-ocean gas exchange. However, S&W is also trying to get more CO2 feedback than is possible. S&W should go over the CO2-temperature response at http://www.springerlink.com/content/9q2hwxrhr3cm8g87/?p=6ee1c184f37d4955a354d64157c3a084&pi=11 (and since solar is a minimal impact next to GHG, and we’re not yet even at 1 C, you can’t get the feedback being discussed- not to mention what we know about the Suess Effect and known fossil fuel emissions)

    Secondly, if we accept figure 5b from S&W, I have a hard time accepting the “thermal lag” argument. We run into the same problem repeated here often- if the lag was so huge, we expect the rate of warming to drop over time as the ocean adjusts to the level of forcing, but instead we are seeing the opposite. Perhaps a lag over years to decades, but 50 years and still no signal of the decline? And then we reproduce a graph with direct correlation with no lag?

    A few other things
    - Mann et al. does not “get rid” of a MWP and LIA
    - “weaker TSI forcing would imply the presence of a stronger climatic feedback to TSI variation and/or a stronger climate sensitivity to other solar changes” - What about non-solar changes? True, a larger change from unmodified causes means a more-sensitive climate system but here there is no reason to necessitate unmodified causes. The logic could also apply to GHG’s.
    - Your points still remain: stratosphere cooling? PMOD? ERBS/ERBE, GCR, the aa-index, 10.7cm flux, solar cycle length, sunspot number, etc showing no trend…Silliness

18. Daniel C. Goodwin Says:
    27 November 2007 at 12:22

    Re: Ray Ladbury “Why work so hard to produce such crappy science?”

    Odds are they’re being rewarded for their tireless contributions somehow, along with the editors of the crappy journals… [edit]

    [Response: But JGR-A is not, in general, a crappy journal. Where there is some controversy, editors often like to lean over backward to let things into print so they can be discussed out in the open. This flaws in this paper should have been caught in review, though. Taken together with other deeply flawed papers that S&W have been able to publish in AGU journals, it does seem to me that a pattern is emerging which suggests some breakdown of the review process at AGU. [edit] –raypierre]

    I’m a rank amateur where the study of science is concerned, so RealClimate continually amazes me with the sheer flim-flammery of some people who call themselves scientists, and some journals which call themselves scientific. Silly me, I used to think “peer-reviewed” meant something.

    Are there any conventions regarding financial disclosure for scientific journals? Just wondering. Enhanced transparency could restore the reputation and vitality of scientific publishing. Such standards could take the form of voluntary protocols, certified by an independent organization as is “Fair Trade” coffee. Maybe that’s just a con game as well, but at least I (the coffee purchaser) can distinguish between coffee vendors who at least care about seeming to care, and those who clearly don’t.

19. Charlie Webster Says:
    27 November 2007 at 12:28

    With respect, I have read many excellent articles on this site followed by interesting discussions.

    The content of this article is interesting, however the presentation is so poor—well it’s hard to believe we are reading it a realclimate.org

    The article needs a rewrite from top to bottom.

    [Response: I’m sorry about this. I have re-read the post, and made slight improvements (removed ‘and’s and hopefully improved the grammar). But that aside, I think the points are clear. Is it ‘contaminated’ by my Norwegian, do you think? -rasmus]

20. Robert A. Rohde Says:
    27 November 2007 at 12:38

    Rasmus or someone else here, can you give examples of papers that discuss the impact of solar variation over the last 400 years that you do like?

21. Joao Vasco Says:
    27 November 2007 at 12:53

    I couldn’t find other way to address this blog’s contributors so I will try here.

    What do you think about the recent Oxfam study, which states that the major climate disasters have multiplied by four due to the global warming? Does it have any credibility? Is it serious? Is it a gross overstatement of something that is happening? What do you believe on that matter?

    Sorry for my english, and thank you for your time

    

22. Ray Ladbury Says:
    27 November 2007 at 12:56

    Timo, you are once again falling victim to the fallacy that because we don’t understand everything, we understand nothing. Some results remain robust over the entire possible range of likely changes in ocean circulation. What is more, those arguing for complacency fail to understand that most of the risk uncertainty is on the upside. By all means, we need to keep studying the problem, but we need to be working on mitigation in parallel with those efforts. Not to do so when dealing with a physical system with large and ill constrained positive feedbacks is negligent to the degree of criminality.

23. Ray Ladbury Says:
    27 November 2007 at 12:59

    Charlie, re: 19. I think you are being entirely too harsh. There are gramatical errors and organization could be improved, but the points Rasmus makes, he makes quite clearly. Sometimes it’s kind of fun to go along with the experts as they annotate their reaction to an article in quasi-real time.

24. Charles Muller Says:
    27 November 2007 at 13:24

    Some first comments.

    Rasmus : But it is unclear why the temperature then flattened out and even dropped a little between 1940-1970 at the time when it really should have increased fastest.

    Could aerosol direct and indirect effects explain that ? (The diminution of ongoing SW counterbalancing the delayed effect of 1900-40 warming)

    [Response: Yes, it think so,. But if the relaxation time is long and the solar forcing the dominant driver, no.. -rasmus]

    *

    Rasmus : The problem with the UV-explanation (ii) is that the stratosphere has been cooling – some of which is due to the ozone depletion. How could they ignored that?

    First, stratospheric T 100-50 hPa has a global cooling trend for past 50 years (see Sterin thereafter for example), but how could we explain that if TSI has no change at all, particularly since 1980 (PMOD composite) ? The usual anwsers are : O3 depletion and CO2 forcing. But in this case, is the stratospheric trend of any help to infer a solar UV or TSI trend, if O3 and CO2 are the main drivers ?
    http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/temp/sterin/steringrap.html

    [Response: One proposed mechanism for how the solar signal may be amplified is that solar UV alters the density/temperatures in the stratosphere, which subsequently affect planetary wave propagation. This may have an effect of the redistribution of heat, and thus lead to a warming response near the surface. One would expect a warming of the stratosphere with increased solar activity levels (increased absorption of UV). But if ozone-depletion takes place, this will counter this mechanism, and since the stratosphere has cooled, seems to be the strongest effect (well increased GHGs also play a role).-rasmus]

    Second, we should precise which level of stratosphere and which latitude are concerned. I read for example in ML Chanin 2006 or Labitzke 2006 that stratospheric response to solar maxima minus minima is not a univocal warming trend. See special issue of Space Science Reviews, recently published by Springer in Space Science Series ISSI 2007 :
    http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/klu/spac/2006/00000125/f0040001

    [Response: I think this depends where you are looking. -rasmus]

    *

    #9 Urs In the figure 5, the 1900-2000 period is the sole to exhibit a constant rising trend for TSI proxies. So, in previous periods, the long term response could be cancelled by short term variations (at least theoretically). Anyway, I fastly read S&W paper but I don’t find the 50 yrs time lag you mention. Could you precise ?

    *

    More generally, all TSI reconstructions (see Lockwood et Frohlich 2007, Lean et Wang 2005, Solanki et Krivova 2006, Beer, Vonmoos et Muscheler 2006, etc.) agree on one point : the Sun is more active on 1960-2000 than in 1900-1940. And more active for 1900-2000 that for past two centuries, at least if TSI reconstruction from magnetic proxies (open flux) are correct.
    The fact that there’s no trend for 1980-present (or a small decrease) should not dismiss this evidence : the 20th Century global warming seems to correlate with a global brightening of our star. Astrophysician and others work on the physical explanation and evaluation of this correlation (UV-ozone and stato-tropo circulation, with QBO and BDC, effect on GCR and nebulosity, etc.). That’s the normal job for science, the same is done for CO2 effects on climate.

    [Response: Actually,. there is little trend from the end of the 1950s. -rasmus]

25. Steve Bloom Says:
    27 November 2007 at 13:43

    Re #s 19/23: I agree with Ray. As long as the points are made clearly (which they were in this case), perfect English grammar isn’t a necessity. We want to encourage non-native speakers of English, and unfortunate remarks like Charlie’s have the opposite effect.

    [Response: Having said that, we should have done a grammar check before posting. - gavin]

26. nick Says:
    27 November 2007 at 13:47

    [Response: Arrggh! The whole point of the ‘mainstream’ view is that you are not going to get very far with simple one-factor correlations. It doesn’t work for solar, and it doesn’t work for CO2 either - too many of the forcings are correlated. You absolutely need to use all major forcings before you can do an attribution. When you do that, GHGs are very likely responsible for the rise in recent decades. - gavin]

    Quite right. However, rasmus uses this argument to say that S&W are wrong.

    I’ll post the sentence again

    But it is unclear why the temperature then flattened out and even dropped a little between 1940-1970 at the time when it really should have increased fastest.

    [Response: I think we all agree and it’s not really unclear to me… As Gavin says, there are several forcings. But if you play along with S&W that (i) the relaxation time is long and (ii) that the solar forcing is the dominant forcing, then it’s hard to explain. S&W do not discuss this or why different forcings should have different relaxation times. -rasmus]

    Let me put this in CO2 terms.

    But it is unclear why the temperature decreased during the 1940-1970 period at a time of rising CO2.

    This is identical logic used by rasmus to say that S&W are wrong. If you apply the same standard and level of scientific thought, you come to the conclusion that AGW is wrong.

    One could argue that something else also happened then

    Exactly. The arguments that you apply to the correlation being negative in this period, also apply to the question of solar.

    Put it this way.

    What evidence do you have that your claim of polution 1940-1940 does not apply to S&W solar explainations?

    None.

    That’s why the original article by rasmus is deeply deeply flawed.

    [Response: Don’t agree, because you misunderstood my point. This merely shows that solar forcing is not the main driver (as S&W presume) and the additional variations suggest a shorter relaxation time than S&W suggest, as they imply that a long relaxation time is means that the present warming is part of a recovery from increased solar activity in the past. -rasmus]

    Nick

    [Response: Rasmus can defend himself, but S&W have started with the assumption that solar is the only important driver, therefore the criticism made is justified. Rasmus is not doing the opposite (i.e. assuming that CO2 is the only driver) therefore your equivalency is in error. - gavin]

27. nick Says:
    27 November 2007 at 14:16

    I’ve quoted directly from rasmus’s post and he taken the view that you can use a one-factor model for solar.

    To then come back and say that he isn’t because he isn’t assuming that CO2 is the only driver is distorting what I’ve said.

    I’ll spell it out again to make it clear.

    Rasmus says in the article that 1940-1970 there is not a good fit of temperature with solar, contradicting the model which predicts a rise.

    The implication here is that because the model (single factor) does not fit then the premise of a large solar component is falsified.

    The problem is back on the single factor model which doesn’t work for CO2 either. You, as you rightly point out, need more factors.

    It is at this point that the article goes wrong. As you Gavin well know, the single factor CO2 model doesn’t work 1940-1970 because of the factor of polution.

    Introduce that and there is clear explaination of why 1940-1970 shows a temperature drop in spite of a solar increase.

    What rasmus is arguing is that you can use pollution for a CO2 model, but you can’t use it for a solar model.

    [Response: Actually, I’m saying you can’t have a long relaxation time and a dominant solar driver. The clue to S&W’s argument is that precisely this combination is used to explain the recent global warming. I also say that the climate responds to many forcings (GHGs, aerosols, volcanoes, solar, etc), but there are also internal variations. -rasmus]

    He should have said that the 1940-1970 drop is expected from a solar model, for the same reason as there is a drop 1940-1970 from a CO2 model.

    Nick

    [Response: We don’t appear to be communicating. S&W assume a one factor solar model. Rasmus points out (correctly) that this fails a number of tests. No one is assuming a one factor CO2 model. There is only one correct model which is to take all forcings together. Criticising S&W for not doing so is perfectly fair game. - gavin]

28. Ray Ladbury Says:
    27 November 2007 at 14:35

    Charles, You seem to be saying, “Let’s forget the last 20 years. Then we can just assume it’s all due to the Sun.” I don’t think that’s going to work. The fact of the matter is that you can’t consider factors in isolation, and if you don’t include the added warming due to greenhouse gasses, you don’t match the trends. What we have is a situation where the sun gets warmer and the climate gets warmer. Then the Sun cools and the climate still gets warmer. Hmm. That ought to tell you something.

29. henning Says:
    27 November 2007 at 14:46

    Gavin - I can not find anything in the paper suggesting that S&W assume solar to be “the only important driver”. And even if they were - how does that contradict the point nick made? Even with solar being the most important driver, the standard explanations for cooling in the mid 20th would still apply, wouldn’t they?

    [Response: The assumption is built in to their ‘model’. If they wanted to include other factors - aerosols, GHGs etc. they could have done so. The ‘real’ explanation is a combination of aerosol forcing, combined with some internal variability - neither of these factors are accounted for here. - gavin]

30. Majorajam Says:
    27 November 2007 at 15:03

    Nick,

    Further to Gavin’s point, Rasmus has only demonstrated that there is an serious inconsistency in S&W’s premise that variation in solar activity is the lone forcing of climate change. Namely, it requires near uniform response times, which is manifestly at odds with even their, (questionable), data. See post #9 for more on this. It is a perfectly valid point and totally inapplicable to the mainstream understanding of the system, which, as indicated by Gavin, is nothing if not multi-causal. I sense there is a question underlying this accusation, which IMOHO, would probably be a better approach.

31. henning Says:
    27 November 2007 at 15:11

    But as I understand it, the whole point of their model is a (unique?) approach to quantify solar influence on climate variability based on different proxy studies - they don’t try to explain the recent decadal temperatures in detail. They’re talking at some considerable length about anthropogenic influences in the text and state, that solar merely contributes to recent warming. (And if you pick MBH rather than Moberg, that contribution is rather small).

    [Response: That might be what they are trying to do. But it is flawed because other factors correlate with solar over these timescales and the role of unforced noise is not quantified. Unique is not the problem. -gavin]

32. Joe Says:
    27 November 2007 at 15:30

    Okay, so the big issue here is the importance of just focusing on the “solar issue”
    From a non-expert view, can you come up with at least a ball park ratio of forcing?

    If solar output=1
    Then aerosols= 0.2?
    And CO2=0.4?

    Any way to put a value on what is most important?

    [Response: It depends on what period you are talking about. For the twentieth century, normalising to solar=1, you would get CO2=8 (that is eight times solar, not 0.8), other GHGs=5, aerosols=-4 etc. In the pre-industrial period, solar=volcanic=1 (roughly). - gavin]

33. Chuck Booth Says:
    27 November 2007 at 15:41

    Re # 18 Daniel C. Goodwin “RealClimate continually amazes me with the sheer flim-flammery of some people who call themselves scientists, and some journals which call themselves scientific. Silly me, I used to think “peer-reviewed” meant something.”

    Are you referring to the RC contributors (none of whom, to the best of my knowledge, receive funding from the power industry, nor consult for the power industry), or the authors of papers critiqued by the RC contributors? Please clarify!

    As for peer review, it means only that reasonably qualified scientists examined the manuscript and recommended changes to improve the paper, or recommended that the paper be rejected; the journal editor has to make a determination about the merits of the paper based largely, but not entirely on the reviewers’ comments (the editor has some discretion in deciding to accept or reject - his/her reputation as an editor, and the reputation of the journal, depend on sound editorial judgments).

    The quality of peer review varies with the individual reviewers, some of whom put tremendous effort into a review (possibly even checking the math in equations, checking computer code, etc), whereas others may not put much effort at all into their review (I’ve certainly had reviews of my papers that indicated to me that the person didn’t carefully read, or simply didn’t understand, my manuscript). This is why, as others on this site have repeatedly warned, you can’t put too much stock into any single paper - it needs to be viewed in the context of the wider body of literature on the subject and the work currently in progress (this is why scientists go to conferences to hear about research being conducted). Scientists doing research and publishing in a given field will have more, or less, confidence in the findings in a new paper depending on their particular knowledge and experience. Publication in a peer reviewed journal is just the starting point for research to make an impact on the scientific community - it is not the final word.

    As for your question, “Are there any conventions regarding financial disclosure for scientific journals?” - it depends. Here are the ethical guidelines for AGU journals:

    http://www.agu.org/pubs/pubs_guidelines.html

    I see no mention of financial conflict of interest disclosure (though, most funding agencies require acknowledgment of funding source in any publication). However, I am not surprised - this has only recently become an issue in the medical literature, because of revelations of bias associated with corporate (e.g, drug companies) support of clinical research. Certainly, if a climate scientist is supported by an oil company or other source that could be considered to have a stake in the research findings, this should be disclosed in the acknowledgments section of the paper. Is this always done? I don’t know.

    [Response: To, blogs (like RC) may play an important role, as papers get discussed. Poor papers will be torn apart, and when authors know that they risk their paper being scrutinized and criticized, they will hopefully take more care to check their analysis. -rasmus]

34. Robert A. Rohde Says:
    27 November 2007 at 16:17

    I think some of the comments are misconstruing the work of S&W.

    Yes, the only forcing in their model is solar variability. But their purpose is not to say that the sun explains all behavior, but rather to characterize how much variation might be explained by solar forcing.

    For example, from page 7:

    The Sun might have contributed at most ~0.35K during the preindustrial era (1600–1900) and ~0.4 K from 1900 to 2005. Thus the Sun could have contributed roughly 4/8 = 50% of the global NH surface warming that occurred from 1900 to 2005. Since 1950 the Sun might have contributed ~0.05K (0.5/6 = 8% of the warming) using LEAN2000, or ~0.15K (1.5/6 = 25% of the warming) using WANG2005.

    Using the preindustrial period to calibrate the impact of solar forcing is quite reasonable, given the high apparent correlations between solar variation parameters and temperature reconstructions such as Moberg’s. Finding that some fraction (e.g. 8-25%) of the warming post-1950 might be explained as a residual solar effect, isn’t even entirely unexpected and doesn’t appear to challenge the consensus that most of the post-1950 warming is anthropogenic.

    Some of the criticisms being made here are legitimate (e.g. ACRIM/PMOD), but a number of comments seem to spuriously assume that they were attempting to explain all of 20th century warming. Their model certainly doesn’t explain all of the features of the temperature record, but since it was never their claim to have done so, such criticisms seem misplaced.

    S&W still believe that GHG are major climate forcing and that anthropogenic effects are responsible for most of the recent (post-1950) warming.

    [Response: The series of S&W papers have many assumptions that always increase the attribution to solar. I doubt that I am alone in perceiving a desire to make the number as big as possible. It is not that the answer is zero, but the likely answer (roughly 10%-20% of 20th Century warming, more like 0% for post 1980) never appears to be bracketed by their error bars. Aren’t you curious why not? - gavin]

35. David B. Benson Says:
    27 November 2007 at 16:51

    Joao Vasco (29) — Your English is quite good, but I fear that ‘major climate disasters’ is subject to misinterpretation. To me, the spread of the Sahara Desert south into the Sahel might be called a major climate disaster, as are the devastations of the world’s tropical rain forests. These are caused by humans, although climate change may also play a role in the expansion of the Sahara Desert.

    If you are referring instead to extreme weather events, then yes, global warming is thought to make such more likely. I don’t know about the factor of four, which seems too high to me.

    I’m not sure I have answered your questions (and anyway, I am an amateur here). If not, please rephrase and I (or someone) will try again.

36. Charles Muller Says:
    27 November 2007 at 16:55

    #28 Hank, I don’t forget at all the past 20 years and it would be very surprising that solar forcing explains all the modern GW. In fact, I’m not much interested by “correlation game” ad attribution-detection with ad hoc parametrization, neither for S&W here nor for AR4 models. Ingram 2006 shows interestingly in his paper that 11 years smoothing of T and Fs give a very good correlation (but very bad for CO2) and inversely for a 8 yrs smoothing. More broadly, many signals of XXth century climatologies are degenerated (the better illustration of that : 23 models perfectly match the T curve 1900-2000… but with different parametrizations, different forcings, different simulations of nebulosity/insolation, different complexities… so we must suppose it’s not so difficult to reproduce the modest 0,76 °C slope for 1850-99 / 2005 — and to reproduce it uncorrectly).

    Ingram 2006 :
    http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/klu/spac/2006/00000125/F0040001/00009057

    The physical question is : do we fully understand solar effects on climate and do we fully implement the mechanisms in models ? I guess the answer is no and no, as Haigh pointed it in the introduction of the special issue of SSR I mention above. So, there’s no reason to believe attribuction-detection of climatologies will not evolve in the future, as well as climate sensitivity for 2xCO2.

37. Eli Rabett Says:
    27 November 2007 at 17:25

    An earlier try at something like this was Soon and Baliunas, Ap J 472 (1996) 472. Failed, and was commened on in the TAR

38. Erik Hammerstad Says:
    27 November 2007 at 18:01

    The solar expert Leif Svalgaard had some interesting postings on Tamino’s blog arguing for a floor in solar activity at sunspot minimum, i.e. that solar forcing at the Maunder minimun is about equal to today’s. He has some interesting papers on his website, see http://www.leif.org/research/

    Back to the S&W paper, could anyone give a reason for why the two “doctored” TSI curves (which are equal after 1950) show a difference in modelled temperature for the last decade increasing to 0.1 degree (figure 6b)?

39. Steve Bloom Says:
    27 November 2007 at 19:32

    Re #38: More than that, Erik, IIRC he argues that irradiance hasn’t varied at all (and will be presenting at AGU to that effect). In addition, he stated that the latest S+W paper is invalid on its face because the data sets upon which it’s based are no longer deemed valid. If nobody beats me to it, I’ll see if I can pull out his specific remarks later.

40. Alexander Harvey Says:
    27 November 2007 at 20:22

    Joao,

    I do not no much about this study but I can say that it was treated cautiously on BBC radio news:

    I can include the following extract from the original report:

    http://www.preventionweb.net/globalplatform/first-session/docs/session_docs/ISDR_GP_2007_3.pdf

    Note 1

    By analysing the EM-DAT database, it is possible to reveal patterns and trends in disaster occurrence and loss globally, comparing countries, comparing time periods and comparing hazard types. The EM-DAT database contains data entries from 1900 through to the present, and registers events as disasters if they produced 10 or more deaths, 100 or more affected people, or where a state of emergency was declared or a call for international assistance was made. The data has a global level of observation and a national scale of resolution. The data is gathered from UN agencies, government sources, IFRC, insurance sources, press and others and is maintained by CRED. EM DAT has a number of data fields including, numbers killed and affected, and economic losses.

    The BBC implied that this statement represents what the authors defined as a disaster.

    Two of these:

    “a state of emergency was declared” or “a call for international assistance was made”

    the BBC noted that these are political decisions not objective measures.

    I hope this helps you.

    Best Wishes

    Alexander Harvey

41. Chris C Says:
    27 November 2007 at 20:30

    Question- can you pull the difference between 1900-1950 and 1950-2000 from the S&W2007 data alone because it is pretty well established solar was more important earlier on, with anthropogenic dominating in the second half of the century. But the period of interest in the paper (the 50% number) is from 1900. Still an overestimate, but the number is higher when you include earlier in the century.

42. Alexander Harvey Says:
    27 November 2007 at 20:37

    Joao,

    Here is the Oxfam page that contians the link:

    http://www.oxfam.org.uk/resources/policy/climate_change/bp108_weather_alert.html

    and the headline quote:

    The total number of natural disasters has quadrupled in the last two decades – most of them floods, cyclones, and storms.

43. Charlie Webster Says:
    28 November 2007 at 1:03

    Please excuse my harsh comments on the writing and thanks for the edits. It’s a very interesting piece—and yes I would prefer to have imperfect prose than no prose.

    [Response: ..and I should take more time to check the prose of my own post. -rasmus]

44. Timo Hämeranta Says:
    28 November 2007 at 2:33

    Re 15 To Gavin’s response:

    Gavin, you do know I critizise unjustified certainty and we both know Climatology is all about probabilities and uncertainties, even unknowns, only.

    It’s strange how scientists interested in probabilities are annoyed about scientists interested in uncertainties (to put it nicely).

    Re 22 Ray:

    Additionally to above, too often I see Logical Fallacies when the cause identified actually is only a (tiny) part of a whole gengre of causes.

    Re 33 Rasmus’ response

    Rasmus writes “Poor papers will be torn apart, and when authors know that they risk their paper being scrutinized and criticized, they will hopefully take more care to check their analysis”

    Well, if you behave otherwise, i.e. rely the studies you like, and don’t rely the studies you don’t like, you are no scientists.

    Scepticism, criticism, validation and replication are the only means Science can survive.

    [Response: Scientific debate and discussion is important - actually essential. We can at least agree on that. -rasmus]

    ….

    Well, no comments so far about ocean inertia.

    When the sun has been exceptionally active and 80 % of solar heating sinks into the oceans, in recent years I have several times inquired whether the current warming were a coincidence of numerous variations, oscillations and cycles originating from the oceans?

    But, unfortunately, as Carl Wunsch has pointed, the oceans are a similar nonlinear, chaotic and turbulent system as the atmosphere.

    Like it or not, but so far I see more uncertainties than probabilities.

45. CobblyWorlds Says:
    28 November 2007 at 3:09

    #38 Erik Hammerstad,

    From S&W para 31:
    “Figure 6 shows the comparison between the two NH
    temperature reconstructions shown in Figure 1 and the
    phenomenological solar temperature signatures obtained
    with the TSI proxy reconstructions corrected with the
    ACRIM TSI satellite composite since 1980, as shown in
    Figure 3.

    By assuming ACRIM, the solar activity has an
    increasing trend during the second half of the 20th century.”

    That’s why there’s a difference in modelled temperature for the last decade between 5b & 6b.

46. Geoff Sherrington Says:
    28 November 2007 at 4:55

    At 27, Rasmus writes
    [Response: Actually, I’m saying you can’t have a long relaxation time and a dominant solar driver. The clue to S&W’s argument is that precisely this combination is used to explain the recent global warming. I also say that the climate responds to many forcings (GHGs, aerosols, volcanoes, solar, etc), but there are also internal variations. -rasmus]

    What, precisely, are these internal variations and what is their approximate magnitude and sign compared to forcings typically used in GCMs? I mean “precisely”, not a wave of the arm. 35 years in geology helps understand. What really caused the surface temperature drop, say 1940-70? You skirt all around the answer but you don’t answer it. Precisely.

    [Response: Precisely? - should we ignore the uncertainties in the forcing history, the difference in the transient behaviour in the real world and any one model simulation? Precision is all well and good, but I prefer accuracy. The accurate statement is that some part of the 1940’s to 1970’s change was likely driven by aerosols, and some part was due to the internal variability - possibly related to ocean circulation changes in the Atlantic making the 1940s anomalously warm. All of these proportions can be estimated, but the error bars are large. Thus no ‘precise’ attribution is ever likely to be credible. Unfortunate, but that’s just how it is. - gavin]

    Next, at 33, Rasmus notes in response to funding for authors and possibilities of undue influence - [Response: To, blogs (like RC) may play an important role, as papers get discussed. Poor papers will be torn apart, and when authors know that they risk their paper being scrutinized and criticized, they will hopefully take more care to check their analysis. -rasmus] Question. From where does the financial backing for Real Climate weblog come? [edit]

    [Response: RC is a volunteer effort. No one gets paid for anything. Our annual expense are $30 for the domain name registration. - gavin]

47. Martin Vermeer Says:
    28 November 2007 at 7:45

    Aren’t you curious why not? - gavin

    What I love about RC

48. Pete Says:
    28 November 2007 at 8:01

    Someone earlier enquired about the differences in the Solar TSI reconstructions, and especially the PMOD/ACRIM ones. I think this issue has been treated unfairly in this RC article, and I think it is due to a lack of understanding on the ACRIM project. The actual ACRIM website goes into detail about both these reconstructions, and why they believe the ACRIM one is probably more accurate.
    http://www.acrim.com/

    In Summary, what I feel is not being represented here is that BOTH the ACRIM and PMOD reconstructions use the ACRIM dataset from both ACRIM I and ACRIM II - You need to understand this. The problem lies in the ‘ACRIM GAP’ This was a two year period in which the ACRIM II satellite was delayed due to the Shuttle Challenger Disaster. To fill this two year gap ONLY the PMOD and ACRIM used other data to fill the gap years.

    Full details of this are on the ACRIM website. Also F&L used one of these reconstructions in their paper earlier in the year, and yet the validity of them using a ‘patched up’ TSI series was not even challenged by RC - so why drag this up for this paper?

    Simply speaking there are still major sensor problems in current TSI measurements. SORCE/TIM and ACRIM 3/ACRIMSAT both give differences in TSI readings in the order of almost 5 w/m2 ! It is still not understood why this is, as stated on the website, and hence modern measurements of TSI are anomalous to say the least -when the two current modern satellites give readings that are so apart.

    People on here seriously need to read and understand the information on http://www.acrim.com/ before making some of these misguided comments.

49. Cobblyworlds Says:
    28 November 2007 at 8:12

    #45 Timo Hämeranta,

    The link you posted doesn’t work for me, but the paper is available from Wunsch’s page http://puddle.mit.edu/~cwunsch/ Link entitled “C. Wunsch, 2007. The Past and Future Ocean Circulation from a Contemporary Perspective, in AGU Monograph, 173, A. Schmittner, J. Chiang and S. Hemming, Eds., 53-74, (pdf) ” Wunsch’s publications page is great food-for-thought, I particularly enjoyed his papers on Ice Age changes and the Milankovitch cycles. But I’ve not read that one - yet.

    I pondered the ocean while still sceptical, once I’d satisfied myself that there was no evidence for a solar role in the recent warming (0.6degC in the last 30 years). This is very roughly why I ditched the oceanic line of thought:

    If the ocean were the source of the warming:
    1) Why is the warming concentrated over land in the Northern Hemisphere? http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/
    2) Why does there seem to be a correlation between warming rate and changes of “global dimming” (Wild) indicating a radiative source for the warming.
    3) Why the diurnal range changes and vertical profile of changes? Surely the ocean causing the warming (at the base of atmosphere) would cause a warming in all parts of the atmosphere.
    There may be other points - this is a rushed lunchtime post. I don’t see from the abstract you quote how that work supports an oceanic cause for the recent warming. The atmosphere may well be chaotic etc - however we still see the hadley cells shift in a reliable enough manner for cultures to have prospered for centuries with monsoonal rain patterns. i.e. chaotic does not mean devoid of predictable patterns.

    You are right in that there’s a lot of uncertainty, but I disagree that such uncertainty means we can attribute the observed warming to the ocean, or vulcanism, sensible industrial heat emissions, Piratic upwelling reductions etc etc etc

    As far as I can see, the best bet for explaining the last 30 years remains CO2. My attitude - go with the best working theory until/unless you have enough evidence to go with an alternate.

    PS “rely the studies you like, and don’t rely the studies you don’t like, you are no scientists.” In view of S&W’s lack of argument for choosing ACRIM over PMOD I wonder to whom you should be addressing that statement. In my experience it’s the denialist camp that engages most in cherry picking.

    That reminds me: I must check to see if you have enlightened us as to the rationale for your raising arctic oceanic circulation during what I recall was a discussion about the (atmospheric) AO.

50. Ray Ladbury Says:
    28 November 2007 at 8:56

    Timo, re: 45,
    My beef with your approach is that you are emphasizing uncertainties without considering their relative magnitudes or without considering the likely importance of the effects of those uncertainties. OK, let us say the oceans do wind up being more important (there’s no evidence supporting this, but assume it anyway). Does that mean that we will reduce CO2 sensitivity? No, because it is constrained by many independent lines of evidence. Rather, the give would have to come from some other less certain piece of the puzzle. Bottom line, only the feedbacks would likely change, and the feedbacks are more likely to result in an increase than a decrease (since that’s how they are distributed).
    Being a scientist means learning to deal with uncertainties and make predictions that take them into account. It does not mean throwing up you hands when confronted with a complex system and saying that it is beyond all human understanding.
    CO2 is emphasized because you simply cannot explain what is going on without it. That does not mean that other factors are being ignored.

51. Urs Neu Says:
    28 November 2007 at 9:52

    Re 20, 24, 29, 34

    Re 20 (Robert):
    E.g.
    Ammann C.M., F. Joos, D.S. Schimel, B.L. Otto-Bliesner, R.A. Tomas, 2007: Solar influence on climate during the past millenium: Results from transient simulations with the NCAR Climate System Model. PNAS, 104, 3713-3718.

    Foukal P., C. Fröhlich, H. Spruit, T.M.L. Wigley, 2006: Variations in solar luminosity and their effekt on the Earth’s climate. Nature, 443, 161-166.

    Bard E., M. Frank, 2006: Climate change and solar variability: What’s new under the sun? Earth and Planet. Sc. Lett., 248, 1-14.

    Gray L.J., J.D. Haigh, R.G. Harrison, 2005: A review of the Influence of Solar Changes on the Earth’s Climate. Hadley Centre technical note 62.

    Shindell D.T., G.A. Schmidt, R.L. Miller, and M.E. Mann 2003: Volcanic and solar forcing of climate change during the preindustrial era. J. Climate, 16, 4094-4107, doi:10.1175/1520-0442(2003)016.

    Solanki S.K. and N.A. Krivova, 2003: Can solar variability explain global warming since 1970? J. Geophys. Res., 108, 1200.

    Re 24 (Charles):
    If you want to explain the temperature rise after 1970 by the solar activity increase in the first half of the century, you need a time lag reaction of about 50 years (or more). SW do not mention that, they are just talking about lagged reaction (large relaxation time), but do not consider, what that would mean and if there is any hint in the data that would point to a corresponding relaxation. However, at the end they are talking about a time lag of 6 to 12 years which would exclude a current influence of the solar activity rise before 1950.

    Re 29 (Henning):
    From SW: Our calculations also assume that the observed secular preindustrial warming before 1900 is induced by the contemporary solar activity increase.

    Re 34 (Robert):
    The problem with SW is, that they try to get a possible percentage of solar influence as high as possible, regardless of the likelyhood of their assumptions. You are right to point out that per se the search for an upper limit is all right. However, some of their assumptions are very unlikely or questionnable. They assume e.g. that before 1900 the whole temperature trend is due to TSI increase and that the whole variability of global temperature on the interannual (about 10y) time scale is due to the 11y solar cycle (these are the two constraints they build their model on), and that 1 Wm-2 equals 1 K (very interesting…).
    Besides, their difference (citing themselves) comparing sun cycle 21-22 to 22-23 of ACRIM (0.45Wm-2) is also the highest one can find, since their cycle 21-22 does not begin at the maximum of 21 but ends at maximum of 22. My estimation for the cycles encompassing the maxima (1979- 1991, 1992 - 2000; the definition of the time of maximum is somewhat arbitrary, dependent on averaging) gives a difference of only about 0.25 Wm-2 for ACRIM, which is half of the SW value. For the averages of cycle 22 and 23 (1987- 1996.5, 1996.5 – 2007.3) I get a difference of about 0.04 Wm-2.

52. Timo Hämeranta Says:
    28 November 2007 at 10:11

    Re 48 & 49,

    I do know all you say, I have discussed with the authors many times and filed all the relevant studies, over 6000 now. Besides uncertainties I’m always looking for alternative explanations to everything, and first after critical scrutiny we’ll see (or not) where the beef may lure.

    Well, when I take the big picture, in last three decades I see three major incidences

    - the 1977/78 global shift,
    - the 1998 super-el Nino, and
    - the enormous burst of warm water to Arctic Ocean observed from 2004 on

    About the latest one please see

    Polyakov, Igor V., et al., 2005. One more step toward a warmer Arctic. Geophys. Res. Lett., 32, L17605, doi:10.1029/2005GL023740, September 9, 2005

    Extract from the Abstract

    “This study was motivated by a strong warming signal seen in mooring-based and oceanographic survey data collected in 2004 in the Eurasian Basin of the Arctic Ocean. The source of this and earlier Arctic Ocean changes lies in interactions between polar and sub-polar basins. Evidence suggests such changes are abrupt, or pulse-like, taking the form of propagating anomalies that can be traced to higher-latitudes. …”

    AGU Highlights:

    “Arctic Ocean waters warm suddenly

    New research on water flowing from the North Atlantic Ocean into the Arctic provides evidence that the Arctic Ocean is warming. Polyakov et al. measured the temperature, salinity, and velocity of the Atlantic Water, a warm, salty layer (150-900 meters [500-3,000 feet]) of ocean water that flows through the Norwegian Sea into the Arctic Ocean. The temperature of the Atlantic Water entering the Arctic Ocean increased dramatically in 2004, warming in two abrupt stages in February and August. The anomalously warm water is currently flowing along the basin margins toward the interior of the Arctic Ocean. The authors suggest that enhanced westerly winds in the North Atlantic pushed warm water into the Norwegian Sea, and from there it flowed into the Arctic Ocean. These winds are due to changes in atmospheric conditions, but the authors say more evidence is needed to determine if the associated warming is the result of long-term change or part of a recurrent climate cycle. The authors’ observations do indicate, however, that the Arctic Ocean is currently warming, a trend that could reduce Arctic ice cover and influence ocean processes in more southerly regions.”

    See also

    Sitnews June 12, 2005 at
    http://www.sitnews.us/0605news/061205/061205_ak_science.html

    Extract:

    “…A rise in water temperature from 0.4 to 0.8 degrees Celsius (32.7 to 33.4 degrees Fahrenheit) is a big change in the stable environment of the Arctic Ocean, said Dmitrenko’s colleague, Igor Polyakov, who also works at the International Arctic Research Center in Fairbanks.
    “It’s as if the planet became warmer in a single day,” Polyakov said.
    Interested in the pulse of warm water, Polyakov contacted oceanographers from around the world to backtrack the water on its path to the high Arctic. Norwegian scientists have moored stations in the Norwegian Sea, and German scientists monitor stations in Fram Strait, between Greenland and Svalbard. Using information from those stations and others, Polyakov and his coworkers found that the warm water passed Norway in 1998 and took about six years to reach the mooring station north of the Laptev Sea. That warmer water now resides in the Arctic Ocean, where it will remain for years caught up in currents that swirl counterclockwise in several giant basins north of the world’s landmasses…”

    ….

    Well, besides these three huge incidences originating from the oceans other climatic events and trends are quite trivial. Speaking of climate I always exclude weather events.

    Finally, when we return back to the main issue of this discussion, the Sun, please see the new study

    Usoskin, Ilya G., Sami K. Solanki, and G.A. Kovaltsov, 2007. Grand minima and maxima of solar activity: new observational constraints. Astronomy & Astrophysics Vol. 471, No 1, pp. 303-307, August III 2007, online http://cc.oulu.fi/~usoskin/personal/aa7704-07.pdf

53. tamino Says:
    28 November 2007 at 10:19

    Re: #46 (Pete)

    Regarding PMOD vs ACRIM, the information on the ACRIM website is only one side of the story. Interested readers should also study this paper by Frohlich, and I’ve posted on that topic myself.

54. Daniel C. Goodwin Says:
    28 November 2007 at 10:52

    Re Gavin: “RC is a volunteer effort. No one gets paid for anything. Our annual expense are $30 for the domain name registration.”

    Just the kind of full financial disclosure I’d like to see from other sources of putatively scientific information! To cut to the chase: the single property shared by the “science” of almost all the stuff RealClimate takes pains to debunk is corruption - plain and simple. I don’t mean to sound moralistic in this assertion, but only to point out an obvious thing

    [edit - please don’t make unsubstantiated specific allegations]

55. Daniel C. Goodwin Says:
    28 November 2007 at 11:31

    Thank you for your conscientious edit (really).

    It’s a challenging concept to frame dispassionately, which is my goal here - obviously, you’ll hold this one back if you find it inappropriate, and I can appreciate that. One more try…

    A phenomenon which might be called “scientific fraud” is a feature, in my view, not only of several shoddy papers I’ve seen of late, but also an attribute which attaches to the authors and publishers of those papers (particularly in cases where the same cast of characters keeps coming up with the same tired old nonsense - I don’t mean to include honest mistakes in this category). It seems like a fairly bland assertion to me, and yet it is tricky to posit in a manner which doesn’t upset the lawyers.

    This phenomenon has a rich and storied history as long as that of science itself - so in a way my suggestion is that historical precedents for “scientific fraud” are ripe for the plucking, in case they inform your discussion.

    [Response: Shoddy is not necessarily fraud. Ignorant is not fraud. Deliberate obfuscation or repeating tired old nonsense is not fraud either (though it doesn’t do much for ones scientific credibility). Faking data, doctoring photographs or samples is fraud though. In the cases we have been discussing the problems don’t add up to anything approaching that and the accusations that they do, don’t lead to very much except to ever more expansive rhetoric. Sticking to the issues and assuming good faith (unless it is clearly not warranted) is more fruitful in the end. - gavin]

56. Pete Says:
    28 November 2007 at 11:32

    Re: #53 (tamino)

    I do appreciate this Tamino, and I have previously read your thread in which Dr Willson himself appeared

    I just wanted to highlight that PMOD(composite) is still stitched together from 7 segments from 1980: ERB>ACRIM1>ERB>ACRIM1>ERB>ACRIM2>VIRGO then reconciled to the VIRGO scale and then fitted into a previous proxy reconstruction pre 1979.

    Whereas ACRIM(composite) is stitched together from 1980: ERB>ACRIM1>ERB>ACRIM2>ACRIM3.

    I just think both methods are unsatisfactory really, but it’s the best we have from real data. The current ACRIM 3 / SORCE differneces just show the uncertainties currently existing in this field.

    Any paper using either of these, in my view, is well advised to model results and conclusions on both these composites, as has happened with S&W. Whereas the Royal Society F&L paper earlier this year chose to ignore the ACRIM composite completely. Who’s the more incorrect in this situation? With S&W you have a choice it seems to me!

57. Jim Galasyn Says:
    28 November 2007 at 11:41

    In 52, Tim makes the extraordinary claim that “besides these three huge incidences originating from the oceans other climatic events and trends are quite trivial.”

    Tell it to Perth and Sydney.

58. Erik Hammerstad Says:
    28 November 2007 at 11:41

    Re #45 Cobblyworlds:

    The problem I saw was not with fig 6b vs 5b, but in the last decade of 6b where the two modeled temperatures deviate by 0.1 degrees despite the two TSI curves being the same for the last six decades. But also why is there almost no difference between the two modelled temperature curves both in fig 5 and 6 pre-1950 where the two TSI curves deviate by up to 1.5 W/m2? The only sensible conclusion seems to me that these deviations demonstrate how non-physical the results are.

59. Ray Ladbury Says:
    28 November 2007 at 12:10

    Timo,
    Thanks for Usoskin’s latest contribution. After a quick perusal, it looks interesting–particularly the lack of periodicity seen. A couple of comments and questions. The statistics are really not good enough to make detailed conclusions about distributions. In particular, it is not clear to me that the distribution of Minima distributions would necessarily be bimodal. It could be simply long-tailed, with the clustering in the second “mode” being due to statistical fluctuations. This is particularly true, since these long-duration events are infrequent, and the reconstructions may have more uncertainty the further back one goes. I don’t see any obvious implications for current climate studies of models.

60. wayne Davidson Says:
    28 November 2007 at 13:14

    #9, Urs, “This is funny, since one of the beloved sceptic arguments is that the CO2 increase during ice age cycles lag the temperature increase by more than 600 years. So we will still have to wait a few hundred years to see the CO2 increase due to the temperature increase since the Maunder Minimum (apart from evidence by the isotopic footprint).”

    We don’t have to wait 600 years, all we have to do, is go back 600 years, use a proper proxy and look for a 1407 spike in CO2… Thank goodneess for contrarians pointing out the right direction. Now they will have irrefutable proof that they are full of ideas devoid of verification.

61. Timo Hämeranta Says:
    28 November 2007 at 13:25

    When Tamino (#52) refers to Klaus Frölich’s new paper (and Gavin Schmidt has used the same reference), it’s proper to refer to the following new paper, too, and to the comments it has invoked:

    Lockwood, Mike, and Claus Fröhlich, 2007. Recent oppositely directed trends in solar climate forcings and the global mean surface temperature. Proc. Royal Soc. A, in press, July 2007, online http://www.pubs.royalsoc.ac.uk/media/proceedings_a/rspa20071880.pdf

    Abstract

    There is considerable evidence for solar influence on the Earth’s pre-industrial climate and the Sun may well have been a factor in post-industrial climate change in the first half of the last century. Here we show that over the past 20 years, all the trends in the Sun that could have had an influence on the Earth’s climate have been in the opposite direction to that required to explain the observed rise in global mean temperatures.

    5. Conclusions

    There are many interesting palaeoclimate studies that suggest that solar variability had an influence on pre-industrial climate. There are also some detection–attribution studies using global climate models that suggest there was a detectable influence of solar variability in the first half of the twentieth century and that the solar radiative forcing variations were amplified by some mechanism that is, as yet, unknown. However, these findings are not relevant to any debates about modern climate change. Our results show that the observed rapid rise in global mean temperatures seen after 1985 cannot be ascribed to solar variability,
    whichever of the mechanisms is invoked and no matter how much the solar variation is amplified.

    ….

    Well, very, very determined position.

    Yet, please see e.g.

    Reference Frame / Lubos Motl July 22, 2007

    “Nir Shaviv: Why is Lockwood and Fröhlich meaningless?

    One of the newest articles at RealClimate.org contains a link to the full text of a recent article by Lockwood and Fröhlich who argue that “all” potential aspects of the Sun in the last 20 years that could be responsible for warming in that period went the wrong way. Well, there are many questions: for example, was there a warming that one should talk about? There wasn’t one in the last ten years.

    A more important question is whether their whole article is correct…..”

    Please see also

    Reply to Lockwood and Fröhlich –
    The persistent role of the Sun in climate forcing

    Svensmark, H. and Friis-Christensen, E.

    Danish National Space Center
    Scientific Report 3/October 2007

    online http://www.spacecenter.dk/publications/scientific-report-series/Scient_No._3.pdf/view

    …..

    Well, my only comment is that experts disagree.

    As far as I can see, also in the foreseeable future.

    [Response: Ahh… experts disagree (about what we are not told), therefore we know nothing. Perfect! Actually they don’t. Even S+FC’s latest (unpublished) piece accepts that the trend in temperature cannot be explained by the CR data (since they remove the trend from their analysis). Thus, we actually find an agreement! Maybe we do know something? - gavin]

62. Timo Hämeranta Says:
    28 November 2007 at 13:29

    Re #59 Ray:

    I ask Ilya Usoskin. My dear friend Ilya usually is willing to communicate, if not too busy.

63. wayne Davidson Says:
    28 November 2007 at 13:53

    Errata, its easier, we rather need to look for a 1407 spike in temperature, or any other recent 600 year temperature to CO2 correlation, lets say something known like 400 to 1000 AD correlation etc.. .

64. Daniel C. Goodwin Says:
    28 November 2007 at 13:54

    Re Gavin: on fraud (#55)

    I’ve very much taken your response to heart. I think you are right about what is productive and non-productive discussion, an insight so key to making RealClimate pertinent. I learn even more than I expect to here. Thanks.

65. Timo Hämeranta Says:
    28 November 2007 at 14:54

    Re # 61 Gavin’s comment:

    Link to Nir Shavis’s analysis (above) is

    http://motls.blogspot.com/2007/07/nir-shaviv-why-is-lockwood-and-frohlich.html

    I further copy a bit as follows:

    “…L & F state that from 1985, there is a discrepancy between solar activity, which decreased, and the global temperature, which increased. Hence, solar activity cannot explain the observed warming. This conclusion, however, is flawed for several reasons….

    So why has the temperature continued increasing even though the solar activity diminished? This has to do with the second point, which is very important, but totally ignored by L & F.

    L & F assume (like many others before) that there should be a one-to-one correspondence between the temperature variations and solar activity. However, there are two important effects which should be considered and which arise because of the climate’s heat capacity (predominantly the oceans). First, the response to short term variations in the radiative forcings are damped. This explains why the temperature variations in sync with the 11-year solar cycle are small (but they are present at the level which one expects from the observed cloud cover variations… about 0.1°C). Second, there is a lag between the response and the forcing. Typically, one expects lags which depend on the time scale of the variations. The 11-year solar cycle gives rise to a 2 year lag in the 0.1°C observed temperature variations. Similarly, the response to the 20th century warming should be delayed by typically a decade. Climatologists know this very well (the IPCC report, for example, include simulation results for the many decades long response to a “step function” in the forcing, and climatologists talk about “global warming commitment” that even if the CO2 would stabilize, or even decrease, we should expect to see the “committed warming”, e.g., Science 307), but L & F are not climatologists, they are solar physicists, so they may not have grasped this point to the extent that they should have….”

    …

    Hopefully the link above opens to everyone interested to read the full text.

    [Response: Ahh…. so the acceleration of the warming in the last 30 years is because of the solar forcing increases in the 1940s? And this is the expected outcome from a simple model with an ocean heat capacity? Hmm… maybe you could point us to a simple model that shows this behaviour if it is so obvious? All of the ones I have seen respond to a step with an exponentially decreasing warming, not an ever increasing one. But not even S+FC make this argument! They state clearly that:

    “After the removal of confusions due to … a linear trend … the negative correlation between cosmic-ray flux and tropospheric air temperatures is impressive.”

    Thus they are no longer claiming the trend is due to GCR. Why do you insist that it is? - gavin]

    [Response: To re-iterate one of the points made here in this thread: It’s a fact that the global mean temperature leveled out after 1940 and even decreased a little until 1970. A delayed response from a solar forcing - if it were important - would on the other hand suggest strongest warming in this period. So you need to answer: ‘Can a response to a forcing wait and then bounce up after a period of inertness?’. The alternative explanation is that there are other factors which are more important than solar forcing. One such candidate is aerosols, but the pronounced warming since 1970 is still difficult to explain in terms of solar forcing. However, if the climate sensitivity is high for these factors, why should it be any less for increased GHG? After all, AGW surely involves many of the similar feed-back processes e.g. involving changes in vapour, snow/ice albedo, lapse-rate, and clouds. -rasmus]

66. Marcus Says:
    28 November 2007 at 15:31

    Timo (#61): You claim that “experts disagree” and yet the “expert” you cite states “there wasn’t [a warming] in the last ten years”. That, in my opinion, means that your “expert” is only an expert in obfuscation, and not in real climate science. Look at either the GISS or HadCrut temperature records: do a multiple year smoothing (try 5 years for example) and you’ll see a clear continuing warming signal.

    Meanwhile, Svensmark et al. (these were the same folks that in the early 90s attempted to attribute recent warming to solar trends, only to have it pointed out that their 30 year averaging algorithm meant they couldn’t actually talk about anything post 1960 or so, right?) detrend their signal by 0.14 K/decade to get a match to a cherry-picked tropospheric data set (claiming that some mysterious natural greenhouse feedback is as likely as anthropogenic GHGs to account for it), and claim that their ocean and troposphere data sets are more reliable than surface temperature records? And also claim that figure 1e is “roughly flat” since 1998, when even the roughest attempt at statistical analysis beyond eyeballing it shows that it isn’t at all flat.

    All in all - I find your “experts” quite lacking.

67. Michael Says:
    28 November 2007 at 15:41

    Gavin, you suggested climate science is in its adolescency. Where is your current focus? What else could be discovered that we don’t already know? Is your main job from here on out media relations? Why not just turn off your Blueice and go home?

    [Response: There’s tons to do: Getting a grip on D/O events, understanding the last deglaciation, understanding the variability in ‘interglacial times’, aerosol impacts, improving the models, ice sheet dynamics, cloud resolving etc. No need to go home just yet. But if all you want to know about is the impact of greenhouse gases, you already know enough to act. - gavin]

68. Steve Bloom Says:
    28 November 2007 at 15:58

    Svalgaard is presenting at the 8:00 AM Wednesday session (GC31B), presided over in part by Scafetta and Willson. As Erik noted, Svalgaard is talking about minima being the same, but I believe he’s referring to minima of the 22-year cycles, which would imply that the maximas can’t have much variation either, leading to the conclusion that there isn’t a century-scale solar forcing (as opposed to a decadal one, which would refer to the 22-year cycle).

    TI: (No?) Century-scale Secular Variation in HMF, EUV, or TSI
    AU: * Svalgaard, L
    EM: leif@leif.org
    AF: ETK, Inc., 6927 Lawler Ridge, Houston, TX 77055-7010, United States
    AB: Recent work suggests that the Heliospheric Magnetic Field (HMF) strength, B, at each sunspot minimum varies but little (less than a nT). The variation of B within a solar cycle seems to be due to extra (and likely closed) magnetic flux added by Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs) riding on top of a “floor” of somewhere between 4 and 5 nT, leading to the conclusion that the open magnetic flux is nearly constant with time, and that, in particular, there is no secular variation of the open flux. B inferred from geomagnetic data back to the 1840s further support this conclusion. In fact, B for the current cycle 23 matches well B for cycle 13, 107 years earlier. The amplitude rY of the diurnal variation of the geomagnetic Y-component is an excellent proxy for the F10.7 radio flux and thus also for the EUV flux (more precisely, the FUV, as the Sq current flows in the E layer). As for the HMF there seems to be a “floor” in rY and hence in F10.7 and hence in the FUV flux, thus the geomagnetic evidence is that there has been no secular change in the background solar minimum EUV (FUV) flux in the past 165 years. Direct measurements (although beset by calibration problems) of the Total Solar Irradiance (TSI) from satellites have only been available for 30 years and indicate that solar irradiance increases with solar activity. Correlating mean annual TSI and sunspot numbers allows one to estimate the part of TSI that varies with the sunspot number. If TSI only depends linearly on the sunspot number then irradiance levels during the Maunder Minimum would be similar to the levels of current solar minima. But TSI is a delicate balance between sunspot darkening and facular brightening, and although both of these increase (in opposite directions) with increasing solar activity, it is not a given that there could not be secular variations in the relative importance of these competing effects. Reconstructions of TSI, all postulate a source of long-term irradiance variability on centennial time scales. Each group of researchers have their own preferred additional source of changes of the “background” TSI, such as evidence from geomagnetic activity, open magnetic flux, ephemeral region occurrence, umbral/penumbral ratios, and the like. The existence of “floors” in HMF and FUV over ~1.6 centuries argues for a lack of secular variations of these parameters on that time scale. I would suggest that the lack of such secular variation undermines the circumstantial evidence for a “hidden” source of irradiance variability and that there therefore also might be a floor in TSI, such that TSI during Grand Minima would simply be that observed at current solar minima. This obviously has implications for solar forcing of terrestrial climate.

69. Larry Says:
    28 November 2007 at 16:03

    Regarding Nick #13 and later responses.

    I have to agree with Nick’’s response, at least that was the thought I had when reading the article. In other words if S&W claim solar is the only forcing worth considering and feel the cooling is due to delay only and not Aerols etc., Rasmus could be more clear. I am glad Nick asked this question better than I could and for Gavin’s reply.

    I have to admit the discussion though is a bit too technical for me to follow. But I will take a few more passes at it.

70. CobblyWorlds Says:
    28 November 2007 at 16:04

    #58 Erik Hammerstad

    Sorry about that, I misread.

    They use different values of relaxation time reponse(Tau), and insolation scaling factor(alpha). I think the main factor in creating the effect you describe would be the value of Tau. Fig 6a and both of 5 show lesser deviations

    As they’ve derived the values of Tau and Alpha from the whole of each respective Lean/Wang Dataset I’d expect the parameters to differ and S&W’s defence to what you say could be that the difference is down to the difference between Lean & Wang.

    That one aspect doesn’t bother me about the paper. Its unphysical because it’s trying to get agreement between one variable, in a multivariable context. I accept that they could be argued to show the (surely accepted) pre-1950 dominance of solar forcings on a multi-decadal scale. Note that their graph has significant enough deviations from observations for the “wiggle room” needed for other “natural” factors.

    Indeed whilst I certainly wouldn’t rely upon this paper it seems to me to generally suggest Mann03 rather than Moberg05 is closer to reality. That’s because the latter 20th Century deviation suggests the sort of room CO2 increases take up in attribution studies. With the same sort of deviation from modelled results in the 1950s (must find out if it’s known what that was due to). e.g. http://www.globalwarmingart.com/wiki/Image:Climate_Change_Attribution_png Note - I am comparing northern hemisphere vs global here- so it’s rough.

    If I had to bet on what I think is the most “true” of the four graphs I’d bet fig5a - but that’d be a hunch nothing more. On balance though, I’m just not keen on “phenomenological approaches”, even when they support the theory of AGW (there was a statistical attribution study that did a while back - but I forget the names now).

    *******************************************************

    I’ve got some sympathy with Robert A Rohde, but given S&W’s track record and notably paragraph 7. Which seems to me can only be placed there to confuse those who don’t know of the multiple strands of evidence that support the conclusion that the rise in CO2 is due (substantially) to fosil fuel burning.

    Is the paper about TSI/GAT attribution or about CO2? What they’re doing there is superfluous to their scientific purpose, as far as I can see it’s inclusion demonstrates their real purpose - to hoodwink those unfamiliar with the wider body of evidence.

71. Steve Bloom Says:
    28 November 2007 at 16:34

    Svalgaard explains that S+W 2007 is based on bad data:

    “Scafetta & West 2007 uses and compares the TSI [Total Solar Irradiance] reconstructions by Lean 2000 and Wang et al. 2005. Lean’s is pretty much ruled out as the secular increase since the M.M. [Maunder Minimum] is much too large. Wang’s has no secular change [check the minima values] up to 1900, but then takes off during the 20th century, largely based on the Lockwood open flux doubling. Since not even Lockwood believes the doubling any longer, there is no reason for Wang and us to believe in it either, and the large increase [S&W, Figure 3] in TSI during the 20th century is simply not there. Therefore the solar influence is also not there. So, now we have two things to explain:
    1) the warming during 20th century, and
    2) the cooling during the LIA
    None of which are caused by the sun.
    So, we invoke Natural [other than solar! other than solar! other than solar! other than solar!] Causes [NC] for the cooling and Human causes [HC] for the warming. Doesn’t sound right to me.”

    On those latter points, IIRC there are perfectly good reasons why the anthropogenic causes would net out to warming, and the LIA could only be a problem if it is a) assumed to be a substantial global phenomenon (a point which is at least in some dispute) and b) not largely explainable by a combination of natural variability and volcanic activity. But is there any validity to the supposition (which Svalgaard admitted was based on very little direct knowledge of the models) that knocking out the solar trend from the first half of the twentieth century would throw the models for a loop? I said I didn’t think so, but there I’m on very shaky ground. Gavin?

72. CobblyWorlds Says:
    28 November 2007 at 16:47

    #52 Timo Hämeranta

    No problem with asking the awkward questions, when it’s done to provoke fruitful re-examination of things which are tacitly accepted.

    - the 1977/78 global shift,
    - the 1998 super-el Nino, and
    - the enormous burst of warm water to Arctic Ocean observed from 2004 on
    also
    - 1990s shift in modal tendency of the Arctic Oscillation.
    - what looks like an upward trend in NATL cyclone activity.
    etc

    All happening at the same time as increasing CO2 levels (a gas expected to cause warming on a global average basis) and a “coincidental” global warming. A warming that, if not forced by internal variability, does affect the sort of climatic phenomenae we expect. e.g. Coral research suggesting a predominant EN state in warmer periods.

    By the way.
    Check out the graph of seasonal area(extent?) at Cryosphere Today: http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seasonal.extent.1900-2007.jpg
    It’s apparent that there’s been a summer warming trend long before 2004 (some small factor being “amiplified” by ice-albedo feedback?). And the flushing out of perrenial ice due to the +ve AO mode happened in the 1990s. With the reduction of the damping factor that is perrenial ice, natural changes are then able to have an impact they didn’t have before.

73. cbone Says:
    28 November 2007 at 17:08

    [Response: RC is a volunteer effort. No one gets paid for anything. Our annual expense are $30 for the domain name registration. - gavin]

    Wow.. really. Where can I get a free host and web server for my domain. Thats a sweet deal. Especially for the bandwidth that a site like this consumes. Inquiring minds want to know.

    [Response: Inquiring minds should simply try looking. This is what we said when we started. - gavin]

74. Michael Says:
    28 November 2007 at 18:28

    Help me out, I don’t grasp how “Getting a grip on D/O events, understanding the last deglaciation, understanding the variability in ‘interglacial times’, aerosol impacts, improving the models, ice sheet dynamics, cloud resolving etc.” won’t impact my understanding of the role of greenhouse gases, and what I should do about them.

    We are somewhere in the middle of an ‘interglacial time’, are we not?

    [Response: Sure, but this is the only one CO2 has reached 380 ppm and is still climbing. We are not going to learn from past interglacials what that does (since it hasn’t happened before), but we may learn something about the stability of the ice sheets, ecosystem and ocean circulation dynamics in those regimes. It all might feed into improved model evaluation, and conceivably improve predictability into the future. These factors are the most uncertain going forward, but there’s tons of stuff that is pretty certain that no amount of D/O-related research is going to shift. Bottom line, tons of science to do, probably minimal change in what policy-makers will hear. - gavin]

75. cbone Says:
    28 November 2007 at 18:31

    [Response: Inquiring minds should simply try looking. This is what we said when we started. - gavin]

    So, you are ‘hosted’ by a sock puppet for an environmental PR firm that also represents groups like Greenpeace and other environmental firms who do have a vested financial interest in promoting AGW. Based on the standard that skeptics are held to here, with regards to similar ties to industry they are immediately dismissed without comment on the merits of their arguments. Why should your commentary not merit similar treatment (Just because they don’t pay you doesn’t mean that your access to this venue is not of some value to you.) Again, based on the standards for credibility that you have repeatedly endorsed (usually) indirectly by allowing them to pass unchallenged, you too represent a biased viewpoint and your credibility too is questionable.

    [Response: Credibility is a funny thing. I generally reserve it for people who have been conscientious about they do, have a track record of not dissembling or passing disinformation, who do not misrepresent what others say and who argue honestly. I have