Another Reason Why the Latest "Consensus" Study is Meaningless

The latest study done by John Cook has now gotten a lot of attention from the press, but has found to have had a lot of problems associated with it. Another problem that may have been overlooked, is that Cook lumps skeptical papers as allegedly supporting Anthropogenic Global Warming.

At "The Consensus Project" you can search for abstracts to various papers yourself to assess whether these papers should be placed in the correct group of papers or not.

There, you can search for various key terms, and specifying the qualifications for the search, such as the year of publication, and select the endorsement level to which the paper allegedly supports Anthropogenic Global Warming.

While I was searching, I came across a peculiar paper that was placed in the second Category. This category "explicitly endorses but does not quantify Anthropogenic Global Warming."

The search I put in was "cosmic rays" and I wanted to see which papers would pop up in the second category which allegedly housed papers that supported Anthropogenic Global Warming.

One result popped up, and it was a very surprising result.

The paper was by Dr. Nir J. Shaviv, who is a widely known skeptic of Anthropogenic Global Warming.

The paper was titled "On climate response to changes in the cosmic ray flux and radiative budget" and concludes that,

"Subject to the above caveats and those described in the text, the CRF/climate link therefore implies that the increased solar luminosity and reduced CRF over the previous century should have contributed a warming of 0.47 ± 0.19°K, while the rest should be mainly attributed to anthropogenic causes. Without any effect of cosmic rays, the increase in solar luminosity would correspond to an increased temperature of 0.16 ± 0.04°K."

How at all does this endorse Anthropogenic Global Warming when it concludes that over half of the 0.7 Degree C warming observed over the 20th Century can be explained by Solar Luminosity and the Cosmic Ray Flux?

This find not only casts doubt on John Cook's methodologies, but it also raises questions about how many other papers are incorrectly placed in John Cook's study.

This increases doubts about how many of the alleged papers that were classified as supporting Anthropogenic Global Warming actually do support Anthropogenic Global Warming.

References

Shaviv, Nir J. "On climate response to changes in the cosmic ray flux and radiative budget." Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics (1978–2012) 110.A8 (2005).

On the Relationship Between Solar Cycle Length and Regional Climate Change

In 1991, Friis-Christensen and Lassen 1991 published an extremely controversial paper, with an equally controversial graph that claimed that most of the Northern Hemispheric warming could adequately be explained by Solar Forcing.

Above is the very controversial graph from Friis-Christensen and Lassen 1991. This graph shows an incredibly close relationship between the length of the solar cycle and Northern Hemispheric temperatures over the last 130 years. They found that a shorter length of the solar cycle heralded warmer temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere. Likewise, they found that longer lengths of the solar cycle corresponded with colder temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere. In addition, the correlation was even better if the length between Solar Maximums between Solar Cycles was used as an indicator for the Solar Cycle Length.

However, not everyone agreed that this was clear evidence that Solar Activity dominated Global Temperature Change. A year after Friis-Christensen and Lassen's paper was published, Kelly and Wigley 1992 noted that even with optimized solar forcing, the Greenhouse Forcing was still larger. This is likely because Kelly and Wigley 1992 only took Solar Irradiance into consideration when they computed radiative forcings for Solar Activity. As discussed in a previous post, only including Solar Irradiance as the only solar forcing, substantially underestimates the role of the sun in recent Global Warming. It is quite plausible that the sun has had a radiative forcing of anywhere between 1-3 w/m^2 when accounting the indirect solar variables into consideration. While the relationship between Hemispheric Change and Solar Activity is interesting, this post will focus on the relationship between Solar Cycle Length and Regional temperature change, since such relationships have been largely overlooked since Global Warming has become a top climate research topic.

In Saudi Arabia, Almleaky et al. 2005 noted that there was a very good correlation between Solar Cycle Length and Regional Temperature change in Saudi Arabia during the late-20th Century, with correlation coefficients reaching up to 0.8 in some locations. This indicates that 80% of the variability in temperature can be explained by solar variability alone, which is a large portion of the total variability.

In the Qinghai Plateau, over the last 450 or so years, Jin et al. 2005 confirmed an earlier paper by Friis-Christensen and Lassen 1995, at least over the Qinghai Plateau, by noting that,

"A 7.5-year lag cross-correlation analysis indicates that the changes of the spring maximum temperature in Southern Qinghai Plateau is negatively significant (at the 0 01 level) related to the changes of solar cycle length during the period of 1550～1995,showing the influence of the solar activity on temperature changes over the Qinghai Plateau."

In "Matsumoto, M, Berndtsson, R, Kawamura, A, and Jinno, K, A relationship between temperature and Sunspot Cycle Length in Lund Sweden" (Matsumoto et al. 1996), the authors noted in a later paper that a figure from their previous paper, "presents a rather striking comparison between cold and warm periods and corresponding long and short SCLs," at least in Lund, Sweden.

The variation between Swedish temperatures and Solar Cycle Length can be seen above from Matsumoto et al. 1996. The correlation has been good between Solar Cycle Length in Saudi Arabia, Sweden, and the Qinghai Plateau so far on different timescales. Does this correlation extend to any other regional climate?

In a different region in China, the Gansu Providence, Guo et al. 2005 looked at the relationship between Dust Storm frequency. They noted that warming temperatures were likely a cause of the decreased Dust Storm frequency, and connected the recent warming to changes in the Solar Cycle Length.

Especially, the warming winter phenomena happened in the 1990's, the minimum temperature rose prominently, the scope of daily temperature range reduced; in the other words, the heavy cold airs influencing the region weakened so much, the spring dust-sand storms tended to less. Global warming is the background of the warming in the west and middle of Gansu since 1980's. Furthermore, the warming in the region related closely to the sunspot cycle length (SCL).

In Ireland, another interesting relationship arose in Butler 1994, three years after Eigil-Friis Christensen and Knud Lassen's 1991 paper was published. The relationship was confined to Ireland, where a strikingly close relationship was found between temperature variations and Solar Cycle Length.

The above figure shows the temperature with the red dots, as well as solar cycle length with the black line below. The two, like in China, Sweden, and Saudi Arabia, show a very nice correlation.

However, even with such an intricate relationship found in 5 completely separate regional studies, Kelly and Wigley 1992 bring up a very important point. What if Solar Activity variations aren't able to explain the warming, because they have such a small forcing, and the relationship found was largely a coincidence? This seems unlikely, because as discussed above, the study most likely did not take indirect solar forcing into account. Fastrup et al. 2000 highlighted this huge uncertainty in indirect solar forcing with this chart below.

The direct effect is so uncertain, that the Level of Scientific Understanding is Unknown. We have no idea how large the indirect solar effects are. Shaviv qualified them as around 1-2 w/m^2 over the course of the solar cycle, but there is still uncertainty there as well. The Anthropogenic forcing from Greenhouse Gases is relatively well understood, and can be seen in the image above.

From the regional studies above, and the large uncertainties discussed above with the indirect solar forcing, why do so many continue to insist that the science in settled on Anthropogenic Global Wamring?

References

Almleaky, Y. M., et al. "Temperature increasing trend due to solar activity at Western Saudi." Memorie della Societa Astronomica Italiana 76 (2005): 923.

Berndtsson, Ronny, et al. "Dynamic Links between Climate and Environmental Change."

Butler, C. J. "Maximum and minimum temperatures at Armagh Observatory, 1844–1992, and the length of the sunspot cycle." Solar physics 152.1 (1994): 35-42.

Fastrup, B., et al. "A study of the link between cosmic rays and clouds with a cloud chamber at the CERN PS." Preprint CERN/SPSC 21 (2000).

 

Friis-Christensen, Eigil, and Knud Lassen. "Length of the solar cycle- An indicator of solar activity closely associated with climate." Science 254.5032 (1991): 698-700.

GUO, Hui, et al. "Causes of Spring (Mar. to May) Sand-dust Storms in Gansu Province." Journal of Desert Research 3 (2005): 019.

 

JIN, L. Y., QIN, N. S., GOU, X. H., CHEN, F. H., LI, J. "SERIES OF SPRING MAXIMUM TEMPERATURE IN SOUTHERN QINGHAI PLATEAU AND ANALYSIS OF ITS VARIATIONS DURING THE LAST 450 YEARS."

Kelly, P. M., and Tom ML Wigley. "Solar cycle length, greenhouse forcing and global climate." (1992): 328-330.

 

Lassen, Knud, and Eigil Friis-Christensen. "Variability of the solar cycle length during the past five centuries and the apparent association with terrestrial climate." Journal of Atmospheric and Terrestrial Physics 57.8 (1995): 835-845.

 

Matsumoto, M, Berndtsson, R, Kawamura, A, and Jinno, K, "A relationship between temperature and Sunspot Cycle Length in Lund Sweden."

 

 

 

Direct and Indirect Solar Radiative Forcings

This image made by Dr. Nir Shaviv, uses data from Shaviv 2008 shows the estimated Indirect Solar Forcing from amplifying factors like Cosmic Rays compared to the Direct Solar Forcing from brightness variations alone. Not including the indirect solar forcing and only including brightness variations alone significantly underestimates the role of the sun. The indirect radiative forcing was estimated from Ocean Heat Content changes, Sea Surface Temperature changes, and Sea Level Rate changes over the course of the 11 year solar cycle. Shaviv calculated that the indirect solar forcing is likely between 1.0-2.0 w/m^2 over the course of the 11 year solar cycle according to his graph below. This is significantly larger than the estimated 0.1-0.2 w/m^2 change in solar brightness variations over the course of the 11 year solar cycle.

References

Shaviv, Nir J. "Using the oceans as a calorimeter to quantify the solar radiative forcing." Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics (1978–2012) 113.A11 (2008).

Global Warming and Solar Activity

The figure below is from a paper by Kishcha et al. 1999. The strong similarity between the solar activity variations and temperature indicates a solar link to temperatures over the 20th Century. The top panel represents Solar Cycle Length. The panel below shows a Composite Total Solar Irradiance Reconstruction from Hoyt and Schatten 1993 based off of five solar indicies. Hoyt and Schatten found that a large portion of the variance in temperature can be explained by Solar Activity. The panel below the Hoyt and Schatten 1993 reconstruction is the Northern Hemispheric Surface Temperatures. At the bottom, are sunspot numbers. Unfortunately, since Sunspot Numbers do not account for all solar activity, they are not particularly good solar activity proxies.

A portion of the 20th Century Warming is likely due to Carbon Dioxide and another portion is likely due to Solar Activity. It is likely that both of these factors have contributed significantly to the 20th Century Global Warming.

 

Cosmic Rays and Temperatures

There have been a few myths propagated on the "mainstream" side of the climate debate. One of these myths is that since there has been no trend in Cosmic Rays over the last 50 years, they can not be causing warming. This is not true at all.

The figure above compares the number of sunspots in green, to the Cosmic Ray Intensity (CRI) in blue.

The figure above shows the yearly global temperatures over the last 140 years, and the error bars for these yearly global temperatures. Comparing the Cosmic Ray Intensity to this graph, a slight increase in the minima of the Cosmic Ray Intensity from 1955-1970 corresponds well to a flatline in temperatures from 1940-1975.

The CRI then plummeted to a record low in 1992, which corresponds to a temperature increase during this period. Also note that towards the end, the temperatures have recently flatlined, as cosmic ray intensities have gone up slightly.

This figure from Dorman 2012 above combines the global temperature anomalies to the Cosmic Ray Flux (CRF) from 1937-1994. There is a very good correspondance between the two variables, suggesting that Cosmic Rays (modulated by solar activity) play a large  and dominant role in current climate change.

A reply to Peter Sinclair's video "Solar Schmolar"

Peter Sinclair is a blogger who runs the website Climate Crocks. It is a website that purports to debunk Climate "Denialist" myths. Every week he creates a new video titled "Climate Denial Crock of the Week" and one of his most famous videos is a video titled "Solar Schmolar." In this video, he looks into the possible solar contribution for recent climate change.

Sinclair states at 0:43 into the video,

 "Solar activity has been accurately measured using both ground and space based systems for decades."

While this is true, it does not state that we haven't measured solar activity accurately for most of the 20th Century. Only in the late 1970s was solar activity starting to be accurately measured from satellites like ACRIM I and NIMBUS7. Some of the satellites like SOHO and VIRGO came even later.

Sinclair then goes on to state at 0:52,

"No change in solar output has been detected that could be responsible for the observed Global Warming, especially over the last 30 years."

There are many studies that Sinclair chose to ignore that has a long term upward trend in solar activity that could explain the long term increase in temperatures over the 20th Century.

For example, Mufti and Shah 2011 found that,

"The 11-year and 23-year overlapping means of global (δt_g) as well as northern (δt_n) and southern (δt_s) hemispheric SST anomalies reveal significant positive correlation with both R_z and a_a indices. R_z, a_a and δt_g depict a similar trend in their long-term variation and both seem to be on increase after attaining a minimum in the early 20th century (∼1905)."

So a long term increase in magnetic activity can explain the long term increase in Global Temperature anomalies, which is contrary to what Peter Sinclair claimed.

Sinclair also completely ignored the indirect variations from the sun, which include the variations in Galactic Cosmic Rays.

In figure 4 of Dorman 2012 it is shown that cosmic rays can explain much of the temperature variations from 1937-1994.

In Figure 2 of Carslaw et. al 2002  it is shown that there is a long term decrease in GCRs over the 20th Century, which would correspond to a more active sun, as this would mean that there would be more solar wind to prevent GCRs from reaching Earth. It is also shown that in 1992, a record low in GCRs was recorded, indicating record high amounts of solar activity occured during the late-20th Century.

Then there is Palle Bago and Butler 2001, which states,

"Together with the increased forcing of increased solar irradiance, this leads to a total solar-activity induced change in the global mean temperature of ~0.5 Degrees C, which is very close to the 0.55 Degrees C observed since 1900."

From Figure 1 of Palle Bago and Butler 2001. This graph shows low cloud cover changes are highly correlated to the GCR Flux, and total cloud cover is not. This means that attempts to correlate total cloud cover to the GCR Flux to try and undermine the GCR hypothesis are misleading.

This means that solar activity can account for more than 90% of the variations in global temperatures since 1900.

Georgieva et. al 2005, which states,

"We show that the index commonly used for quantifying long-term changes

in solar activity, the sunspot number, accounts for only one part of solar activity and using
this index leads to the underestimation of the role of solar activity in the global warming
in the recent decades. A more suitable index is the geomagnetic activity which reflects all
solar activity, and it is highly correlated to global temperature variations in the whole period
for which we have data

...

The correlation

between the two quantities is 0.85 with p

<0.01

for the whole period studied."

The graph above from Georgieva et. al 2005 shows a good correlation between the Geomagnetic AA Index and Global Temperature anomalies over the last 150 years.

Meaning that 85% of the variations over the last 150 years can be accounted for by solar activity.

Crowley and Kim 1996 find a correlation coefficient between solar activity and temperature since 1600 of 0.57-0.74, meaning that the sun can account for 57-74% of the variability in temperatures during this timeframe.

All of these studies undermine Peter Sinclair's claim that "No change in solar output has been detected that could be responsible for the observed Global Warming, especially over the last 30 years."

Peter Sinclair then goes on to state at 1:03,

"If the sun were warming the atmosphere from space, we would expect to see a uniform warming pattern all the way down. But that's not what we see."

Mr. Sinclair is right that we do not see a uniform warming trend in the atmosphere, but we observe stratospheric cooling and trophospheric warming.

The stratospheric cooling likely has to do with recent ozone depletion due to anthropogenic and natural causes. A strong natural cause can be identified when simply looking at stratospheric temperatures.

What major natural cause can we see here? During a major volcanic eruption, the stratospheric temperatures spike because of increased solar radiation being absorbed by the volcanic aerosoles now into the stratosphere. The stratospheric temperatures then decline rapidly, because of the ozone depletion the volcanic aerosoles cause, and less UV Rays are absorbed by the ozone, and therefore stratospheric cooling occurs. Anthropogenic CFCs also probably play a major role in ozone depletion, as well as solar storms. The sun can actually be responsible for ozone depletion, if more solar storms creating ozone depletion holds to be true. This just goes to show that the science is by no means settled, and Peter Sinclair left out some serious uncertainties in his video about stratospheric cooling. Peter Sinclair, if CO2 and GHGs causing stratospheric cooling is "the smoking gun" that most of the warming is due to anthropogenic greenhouse gases, why have we stopped cooling in the stratosphere since 1995, while CO2 and other GHG concentrations rose sharply?

Peter Sinclair then goes on to state at 1:44,

"The planet is warming at the same rate at night as it is during the day."

Sinclair is mistaken on this issue, nighttime temperatures are actually warming faster than the daytime temperatures, which, according to some AGW Advocates is another smoking gun that most of the warming can be attributed to Greenhouse Gases.

Of course, according to the actual scientific peer reviewed literature, we get a different answer than what Peter Sinclair is saying, about whether a decrease in the DTR in some weather stations is a smoking gun of anthropogenic greenhouse gases being responsible for most of the warming observed.

Vose et. al 2006 does observe a general decrease in the DTR, but they attribute it to factors not related to anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions.

"Changes

in cloud cover, precipitation, soil moisture, and
atmospheric circulation likely accounted for much of the
trend differential during the period (e.g., Dai et al., 1999;
Przybylak, 2000; Braganza et al., 2004). Changes in
land use also impacted the DTR in some areas (e.g.,
Balling et al., 1998; Bonan, 1999; Small et al., 2001)."

 Fall et. al 2011 finds that in the CRN 5 weather stations, there is a significant decrease in the DTR range. Keep in mind that the CRN 5 stations are the worst quality stations, with many of them being impacted by urbanization.



The graph above shows the trends in the diurnal temperature range for each type of weather station. There is no statistically significant trend in the diurnal temperature range for the best quality stations, wheras in the urbanized stations there is a statistically significant decrease in the DTR. What does this mean? It means that urbanization could account for most or all of the decrease in the DTR for most of the weather stations, since the highest quality weather stations do not display a trend in the DTR.

This also means that CO2 is not the driver of climate change in the best quality weather stations, or else we still would have observed a statistically significant decrease in the DTR in these non-urbanized weather stations, since there is no urban effect to contaminate the trends in the DTR in the best quality weather stations.

We don't observe that.

This indicates that Carbon Dioxide is not driving climate change in these regions.

Since the DTR range has not changed for these high quality weather stations, and temperature anomalies have gone up with these better quality weather stations (albeit not as much as the poorer quality weather stations) then we can conclude that a forcing that does not change the DTR is responsible for temperature changes in these weather stations.

TSI increasing makes a plausable candidate for these temperature changes, since it doesn't impact the DTR, and no change in DTR has ben observed for the high quality weather stations, while temperature anomalies in these high quality weather stations rose.

Blanter et. al 2008 found a significant correlation to solar activity and temperature changes in the United States, which would further support the above hypothesis.

Quoting Paper:

We analyze temperature data from meteorological stations in the USA (six climatic regions, 153 stations), Europe (44 stations,
considered as one climatic region) and Australia (preliminary, five stations). We select stations with long, homogeneous series of
daily minimum temperatures (covering most of the 20th century, with few or no gaps).We find that station data are well correlated
over distances in the order of a thousand kilometres. When an average is calculated for each climatic region, we find well
characterized mean curves with strong variability in the 3–15-year period range and a superimposed decadal to centennial (or
‘secular’) trend consisting of a small number of linear segments separated by rather sharp changes in slope. Our overall curve for the
USA rises sharply from 1910 to 1940, then decreases until 1980 and rises sharply again since then. The minima around 1920 and
1980 have similar values, and so do the maxima around 1935 and 2000; the range between minima and maxima is 1.3-1.8C. The
European mean curve is quite different, and can be described as a step-like function with zero slope and a 1.8C jump occurring in
less than two years around 1987. Also notable is a strong (cold) minimum in 1940. Both the USA and the European mean curves are
rather different from the corresponding curves illustrated in the 2007 IPCC report.We then estimate the long-term behaviour of the
higher frequencies (disturbances) of the temperature series by calculating the mean-squared interannual variations or the ‘lifetime’
(i.e. the mean duration of temperature disturbances) of the data series.We find that the resulting curves correlate remarkably well at
the longer periods, within and between regions. The secular trend of all of these curves is similar (an S-shaped pattern), with a rise
from 1900 to 1950, a decrease from 1950 to 1975, and a subsequent (small) increase. This trend is the same as that found for a
number of solar indices, such as sunspot number or magnetic field components in any observatory. We conclude that significant
solar forcing is present in temperature disturbances in the areas we analyzed and conjecture that this should be a global feature.


Fall et. al indirectly supports the ACRIM TSI composite which shows TSI increasing between 1970-2000, and would make solar activity as a whole, a potential significant contributor to climate change over the last 30 years.

Zhou et. al 2004 found that the more urbanized the surroundings were around the weather stations in China, the greater the decrease in the DTR was, thus indicating a significant urban influence on the DTR.



The less the urbanization, the more positive the DTR trend, thus indicating that Urbanization could have a major role in DTR decreases in China as well.

Liu et. al 2007 found that the urbanization impact is the strongest in the nighttime, thus supporting the hypothesis, that urbanization has played a major role in the DTR changes.

Gallo et. al 1996 found that rural weather stations had a higher DTR than urbanized regions, thus indicating that the urbanized regions could have contributed to the reduced DTR in those places.

Quoting Paper:

Those stations that were
associated with predominantly rural land use / land cover (LULC) usually
displayed the greatest observed DTR, whereas those associated with urban related
land use or land cover displayed the least observed DTR. The results of this
study suggest that significant differences in the climatological DTR were
observed and could be attributed to the predominant LULC associated with the
observation stations. The results also suggest that changes in the predominant
LULC conditions, within as great as a 10 000 m radius of an observation station,
could significantly influence the climatological DTR.

Remar 2010 found that Las Vegas' minimum temperatures are increasing faster than its maximum temperatures, but in other rural stations near it, no such discrepency between the steepness of each of the slopes is observed.

Quoting Paper:

“Las Vegas’ urban minimum
temperatures have been increasing at a substantial rate, while minimum
temperatures in its rural surroundings have shown no statistically significant
changes or trends. … these unnatural increases in minimum temperatures have
reduced the diurnal temperature range of Las Vegas’ urban areas by 3°F more than
its rural surroundings.”
Mr. Sinclair then goes on to state at 1:50,


Mr. Sinclair then states at 1:54,

"There is more warming at the poles than at the equator."

This is true, but once again, is not an indicator of anthropogenic greenhouse gases being responsible. It is a basic fact of warming.

Chylek et. al 2009 found that the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation and the Arctic temperatures are closely linked. The abstract states,

"Analyzing temperature records of the

Arctic meteorological stations we find that (a) the Arctic
amplification (ratio of the Arctic to global temperature trends)
is not a constant but varies in time on a multi-decadal time
scale, (b) the Arctic warming from 1910–1940 proceeded
at a significantly faster rate than the current 1970–2008
warming, and (c) the Arctic temperature changes are highly
correlated with the Atlantic Multi-decadal Oscillation
(AMO) suggesting the Atlantic Ocean thermohaline
circulation is linked to the Arctic temperature variability on
a multi-decadal time scale."

They also found that the rate of Arctic Amplification varies greatly on a multidecadal timeframe. Once again, there is no mention of Greenhouse Gases or Carbon Dioxide as being a cause of Arctic Amplification in the peer reviewed paper as Peter Sinclair suggested there was in his video.

Even Skeptical Science agrees that Arctic Amplification is what you would expect with any type of warming.

"The surface warming is modest in summer because energy is used to melt remaining sea ice and warm the upper ocean. The majority of the winter warming is associated with changes in sea ice cover even though the sea ice declines at this time of the year are relatively small. During summer, the atmosphere loses heat to the ocean whereas during winter, the flux of heat is reversed. Reduced summer sea ice cover allows for greater warming of the upper ocean but atmospheric warming is modest. The excess heat stored in the upper ocean is subsequently released to the atmosphere during winter."

In other words, natural variability, or any radiative forcing could be responsible for the ice-albedo feedback in the Arctic, and the reason for why the poles are warming the fastest during winter. It is not exclusively CO2 that can create changes in the albedo of snow and ice in the wintertime and the summertime.

Peter Sinclair then goes on to state, later in his video at 2:28,

"In marked constrast to the sun's steady activity, we see a constant rise in temperature, decade after decade."

Mr. Sinclair must be unaware that there are multiple TSI datasets other than the dataset that he presented in his video, that measure Total Solar Irradiance. In addition to the PMOD dataset, which is the dataset he showed in his video, there is the IRMB dataset and the ACRIM dataset. These three datasets are all different from each other, which poses a problem for attribution over the last 30 years. The PMOD dataset shows no trend over the last 30 years, which would mean that solar activity would be constant, and it would be difficult to try and explain the warming over the last 30 years to the sun if the PMOD dataset were to be correct. The IRMB dataset shows a statistically insignificant increase in TSI from the minima of Solar Cycle 21 to the minima of Solar Cycle 22, it wouldn't be as hard to explain the warming with the IRMB dataset, since using the chance that the TSI did increase, (which is 71% in the paper) the amplifying mechanism with Cosmic Rays would amplify this small increase in the sun's output. The ACRIM TSI dataset would be able to explain most of the warming over the last 30 years as Scafetta 2009 documents. Note that this does not include changes from Cosmic Rays or other solar amplifying mechanisms.

Now the question is, what has solar activity done over the last 30 years? Fortunately, there are other solar indicies other than TSI than can be measured to determine how active the sun was.

Solar Cycle 22 ran more solar flux than Solar Cycle 21 did, which is an indicator of a rise in solar activity. Note the tremendous increase in solar activity over the entire 20th Century.

Solar Cycle 22 was also shorter than Solar Cycle 21, and the shortest cycle in the entire 20th Century, and the shortest solar cycle since 1833 (the shorter the solar cycle, the more active the sun.) It should be noted though, that according to Wiki, Solar Cycle 22 was even shorter than Solar Cycle 8.

 

GCRs reached an all time record low in 1992, which gives credence to the ACRIM dataset showing increasing TSI (an indicative of increasing solar activity) over the last 30 years.

In addition to all of the variables above that contradict PMOD's depiction of a flat line, satellite based measurements and ground based measurements have both confirmed an increase in TSI reaching Earth's Surface.

From Pinker et. al 2005,

"We observed an overall increase in S from 1983 to 2001 at a rate of 0.16 watts per square meter (0.10%) per year."

This probably has to do with Cloud Cover decreasing, since increased solar irradiance alone cannot be responsible for such a large increase in solar radiation reaching Earth's Surface. The decrease in Cloud Cover, caused by GCRs is what is creating an overall upward trend in solar radiation reaching Earth, an indicative of increased solar activity. If this increase in Solar radiation is caused by a decrease in Cloud Cover, the 0.16 w/m^2 per year would not be an accurate representation of a forcing, since decreasing Cloud Cover would allow for more infared energy to be radiated out to space. Overall though, Clouds have a cooling effect, so a decrease in cloud cover would result in a positive radiative forcing on Earth's Energy Budget.


Forgan et. al 2005 also finds an increased trend in solar radiation reaching Earth's Suface, which began in the late-1980s. They find that decreases in Cloud Cover can largely be responsible for this increase in solar radiation reaching Earth's Surface.

This decrease in Cloud Cover, likely caused by GCRs is what likely contributed to most of the climate change observed over the last 30 years.

Some scientists argue that a decrease in aerosoles, sunlight-reflecting particles, are what are creating an increase in solar radiation by 3 w/m^2. Unfortunately for their hypothesis, the radiative forcing of aerosoles during the 20th Century could have been only -0.3 w/m^2, and there are still aerosoles in the air from human activity, which means that the amount of increased solar radiation from a decrease in aerosoles is minimal, and cannot explain the increase in solar radiation. A decrease in Cloud Cover is sufficient to explain the increase in solar radiation reaching Earth's Surface, which ties in with an increase in solar activity.

Later in the video, Peter Sinclair shows a graph that purports to show what the rest of the data would look like up to the present, which is an extension of Friis-Christensen and Lassen's 1991 data. The result showed a downward sloping line of solar activity, which would correspond to an increase in the solar cycle length. I honestly am not sure how the author of that graph created that downward sloping line of solar activity, when solar cycle length was getting shorter during the later part of the 20th Century, not longer, like Peter Sinclair's graph shows. This is corresponding to an increase in solar activity.

Given that there are multiple errors in Peter Sinclair's video, it should be seriously re-edited to include the uncertainties that surround each piece of data that he presented, and to correct other claims that he made in the video.

Estimating the Solar Contribution to Global Warming over the 20th Century

Attribution to climate change over the past 100 years has been difficult because of the chaotic nature of the climate system. The addition of the anthropogenic forcings to the climate system has only made this more difficult. The sun is the supply of energy to Earth, but has it caused Global Warming over the last 100 years? All of the studies below indicate that it has been the cause of Global Warming.

Above is the percentage of warming over the last 100 years caused by the solar forcing as documented by nine studies. From left to right: Palle Bago and Butler 2001, Georgieva et. al 2005, Cliver et. al 1998, Solheim et. al 2012 , Link et. al 2011, Scafetta and West 2008, Scafetta and West 2007, Ogurtsov 2007, and Blanter et. al 2008.

 

Palle Bago and Butler 2001

Palle Bago and Butler 2001, using many formulas they derived in their earlier, 2000 paper, calculated that the solar effects, directly and indirectly, caused 0.5 Degrees C of the 0.55 Degree C warming. This means that they found that 91% of the warming over the past 100 years can be explained by solar variability, directly and indirectly alone. They mention that there is a "possibility" that solar attribution could be less during the most recent decades, but they are not definite with this statement. They simply state that the solar contribution an unknown over the last and most recent decades. This probably has to do with the ACRIM and PMOD TSI Composites and the controversy surrounding these datasets which Scafetta 2009 documents.

Georgieva et. al 2005

Georgieva et. al 2005 used the Geomagnetic AA Index to quantify the solar impact on Climate Change, rather than the sunspot number, because using the sunspot number to quantify the solar contribution to climate change, as many studies do, leads to an underestimation of the Solar impact on Climate Change.

The above figure from Georgieva et. al shows the Geomagentic AA Index with the broken line, and the Global Temperature Anomalies with the solid line. They find that the correlation coefficient between the AA Index and Global Temperatures is 0.85, meaning that the sun can explain 85% of the variances in temperatures over the last ~150 years.

Cliver et. al 1998

Cliver et. al 1998 also used the Geomagnetic AA Index to estimate the solar contribution to climate change.

Above figure: From Cliver et. al 1998. The AA Index is the dotted line, and the solid line are the temperature anomalies.

They found that 50-100% of the warming could be due to the sun, but it should be noted that this analysis does not include other factors like volcanic activity and anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions when estimating the total contribution. Nonetheless, this study also shows that other studies which do include these factors are only at the lower end of the 50-100% range for the solar contribution over the last 100-150 years. It also supports other studies with a larger solar contribution to climate change because of the remarkable correlation with the AA Index and temperatures.

Solheim et. al 2012

Solheim et. al 2012 found that the solar signal is reinforced by the Atlantic Ocean, and this reinforcing signal in the Atlantic Ocean is calculated to be from 63-72% of the variances in temperatures over the entire timeframe. They get a lower solar contribution to land based stations, but the reinforced signal is probably what would lead to a more accurate solar contribution, since most of the world is covered by oceans, and likely, reinforcing the solar signals.

Link et. al 2011

The box that represents the % solar contribution from Link et. al 2011 actually represents the probability whether the entire trend over the last 100-150 years is natural. The authors calculate that the probability of the warming being caused by solar activity over this entire timeframe is 40-90%. It should be noted that these probabilities go up significantly over shorter timeframes like 1900-1950 and 1960-2005.

Scafetta and West 2008

Scafetta and West 2008 adresses the uncertainty raised in the first paper. If a TSI curve that shows an upward trend from Solar Cycle 21 to 22 is used from the ACRIM TSI composite rather than the flat PMOD TSI composite, then a higher contribution from the sun would be needed. The authors find that up to 69% of the variances in temperatures can be explained by solar activity.

The image above from Scafetta and West 2008 shows the divergence between the PMOD and ACRIM TSI datasets, which makes attribution to past climate change even harder. The red curve is the ACRIM TSI composite, the blue curve is the PMOD TSI Composite, and the black curve and green line are the Global Temperature anomalies.

Scafetta and West 2007

The ACRIM verses PMOD controversy continues in this paper. 50% or more of temperatures can be attributed to the solar forcing, depending if the ACRIM TSI composite is used or not. This further adds on to resolving the uncertainty between the PMOD and ACRIM datasets during the ACRIM Gap.

The graph above from Scafetta and West 2007 shows the excellent correlation between solar activity and temperatures. It also shows that a large portion of the warming can be attributed to solar activity. Over the last 30 years, a significant portion of the warming can be attributed to solar activity if the ACRIM TSI composite is used.

Ogurtsov 2007

Ogurstov 2007 estimated that the solar contribution directly and indirectly caused about 0.25-0.35 degrees C of the warming that took place during the 20th Century. Using the Skeptical Science trend calculator gives an approxiate warming of 0.6 Degrees C during the 20th Century. This means that 41-59% of the trend upward can be attributed to solar activity over the past 100 years.

Blanter et. al 2008

Blanter et. al 2008 found that temperatures correlated remarkably well for all periods between the solar activity indicies and the observed temperatures for stations in Europe and the United States during the 20th Century. They used a finding from a previous study that the temperatures at weather stations correlated remarkably well if they were up to a 1000 km distance from each other. They also state in the abstract that these changes can "possibly" be extended onto a Global scale. Being that they found that solar activity can account for all temperature changes over the 20th Century, I reduced the range slightly from 100% to somwhere in the 90-100% range to account for the anthropogenic forcings.

 

Conclusions

Many studies on both sides argue various causes of Climate Change, natural and anthropogenic. The nine studies that were posted support the counter-consensus that most of the climate change observed over the 20th Century is likely solar induced. So to find out what has been causing recent climate change over the last 100 years, all one needs to do is go outside during lunchtime and look up to the sky.

 

Acknowledgements

My inspiration to produce the first graph came from a Skeptical Science graph that was posted many times on a forum by a member of that forum.

Synopsis of the upcoming Weather for the week of 6/13

This upcoming week looks to be quite tranquill, but somewhat variable in the eastern part of the United States. Tomorrow should be quite a bit below average, due to increased cloud cover associated with showers. The showers should end on Wednesday, and nice weather should occur for Wednesday. Thursday looks to be tranquill as well, but instability should be on the rise, so there is a chance for thunderstorms on Thursday and Friday.

Overall, it seems like no major storms are going to plague the area anytime soon, and the only rain we may see from this week, would be from a spotty shower, or thunderstorm.

Why we know that Global Warming is Natural

There has been so much alarmism about Man-Made Global Warming, that many are now saying that Carbon Dioxide could create a 6-7 Degree Celcius warming by the end of the twenty-first century.

This assumption is based off of the notion that increased Carbon dioxide would then produce an increase in Temperature. But many prominent scientists, including renowned physicist Dr. Miklos Zagoni are realizing that this notion contradicts energy balance formulas.

Dr. Ferenc Miskolczi has published recent papers that show it is impossible for Carbon Dioxide to create "Catastrophic Global Warming."

The reason being, as seen in a fairly recent Peer Reviewed paper, is that Natural Changes in Global Cloud Cover have three times the impact on surface temperatures, than Greehouse Gas Emissions.

In order for an object to keep constant temperature, energy in = energy out. The warming since 1979 indicates that there is an energy imbalance in the Earth's Climate System.

Overall, Outgoing Longwave Radiation, or (OLR) has been increasing slightly. This contradicts the CAGW belief that increased GHGs would reduce Outgoing Longwave Radiation, therefore warming the Earth.



The slight increase in Outgoing Longwave Radiation is consistant with reductions in Global Cloud Cover, or (GCC) since 1979, since Increased Cloud Cover creates a reduction in OLR.



However, the net effect of all clouds being removed, would actually create warming. This is because the clouds reflect more incoming energy, than they trap outgoing energy.


Quoting Climate4you.com

The overall reflectance (albedo) of planet Earth is about 30 percent, meaning that about 30 percent of the incoming shortwave solar radiation is radiated back to space. If all clouds were removed, the global albedo would decrease to about 15 percent, and the amount of shortwave energy available for warming the planet surface would increase from 239 W/m2 to 288 W/m2 (Hartmann 1994). However, the longwave radiation would also be affected, with 266 W/m2 being emitted to space, compared to the present 234 W/m2 (Hartmann 1994). The net effect of removing all clouds would therefore still be an increase in net radiation of about 17 W/m2. So the global cloud cover has a clear overall cooling effect on the planet, even though the net effect of high and low clouds are opposite (see figure above). This is not a pure theoretical consideration, but is demonstrated by observations (see diagram below).




So therefore, since OLR has been increasing by the order of several Watts per Meter squared since 1979, indicates that Global Warming is being caused by increases in Incoming Radiation from decreasing Cloud Cover. This is contrary to the claim by CAGW Proponents that OLR should be decreasing. This would also increase the Outgoing Energy, as observed, since less Cloud Cover would create Outgoing Energy. Since the Outgoing Energy is less than the incoming energy, the Earth warms.

In conclusion, the Earth has been warming due to natural changes in GCC, not Increased Carbon Dioxide.

A Potential Storm on the 20th of February

The mild spell that will plague the east will last for roughly seven days. before a storm system moves through, changing the pattern back to a cooler and stormier one.

But before that potential storm arrives, the tenacious warm up is first. This image from Dr. Maue's COAPS site shows the extent of the warm up.



You can see that temperatures should soar well into the 50s along the Eastern Seaboard. This also calculates Global Temperature. Notice how cool the anomaly is in the upper right hand corner.

Then, after this mild spell comes the pattern changer.

The 18Z GFS showed this as a coastal, though this will change.



Details are extremely uncertain with the storm on the 20th, but it has the potential to give some snow to our region. The time period from Late February to April should be below normal and stormy.

-Snowlover123