12 New Papers: North Atlantic, Pacific, And Southern Oceans Are Cooling As Glaciers Thicken, Gain Mass

By Kenneth Richard on 11. September 2017

Graph Source Duchez et al., 2016

Contrary to expectations, climate scientists continue to report that large regions of the Earth have not been warming in recent decades.

According to Dieng et al. (2017), for example, the global oceans underwent a slowdown, a pause, or even a slight cooling trend during 2003 to 2013. This undermines expectations from climate models which presume the increase in radiative forcing from human CO2 emissions should substantially increase ocean temperatures.

The authors indicate that the recent trends in ocean temperatures “may just reflect a 60-year natural cycle“, the AMO (Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation), and not follow radiative forcing trends.

Dieng et al., 2017 We investigate the global mean and regional change of sea surface and land surface temperature over 2003–2013, using a large number of different data sets, and compare with changes observed over the past few decades (starting in 1950). … While confirming cooling of eastern tropical Pacific during the last decade as reported in several recent studies, our results show that the reduced rate of change of the 2003–2013 time span is a global phenomenon. GMST short-term trends since 1950 computed over successive 11-year windows with 1-year overlap show important decadal variability that highly correlates with 11-year trends of the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation index. The GMST 11-year trend distribution is well fitted by a Gaussian function, confirming an unforced origin related to internal climate variability.

We evaluate the time derivative of full-depth ocean heat content to determine the planetary energy imbalance with different approaches: in situ measurements, ocean reanalysis and global sea level budget. For 2003–2013, it amounts to 0.5 +/− 0.1 W m−2, 0.68 +/− 0.1 W m−2 and 0.65 +/− 0.1 W m−2, respectively for the three approaches. Although the uncertainty is quite large because of considerable errors in the climate sensitivity parameter, we find no evidence of decrease in net radiative forcing in the recent years, but rather an increase compared to the previous decades.

We can note that the correlation between GMST [global mean surface temperature] trends and AMO trends is quite high. It amounts 0.88 over the whole time span. At the beginning of the record, the correlation with PDO trends is also high (equal to 0.8) but breaks down after the mid-1980s. The GMST and AMO trends shown in Figure 6 show a low in the 1960s and high in the 1990s, suggestive of a 60-year oscillation, as reported for the global mean sea level by Chambers et al. (2012). Thus the observed temporal evolution of the GMST [global mean surface temperature] trends may just reflect a 60-year natural cycle driven by the AMO.

Subpolar North Atlantic Cooling Rapidly Since 2005

According to Piecuch et al. (2017) there has been no net warming of the North Atlantic Ocean in the last quarter century. The warming that occurred in the 10 years from 1994-2004 has been completely negated by an even more pronounced cooling trend since 2005. The predominant (87%) cause of the warming was determined to be of the same natural (non-anthropogenic) origin as the subsequent cooling: advection, the movement/circulation of heat via internal processes. In fact, human CO2 emissions are never mentioned as even contributing to the the 1994-2004 warming.

Piecuch et al., 2017 The subpolar North Atlantic (SPNA) is subject to strong decadal variability, with implications for surface climate and its predictability. In 2004–2005, SPNA decadal upper ocean and sea-surface temperature trends reversed from warming during 1994–2004 to cooling over 2005–2015. … Over the last two decades, the SPNA has undergone a pronounced climate shift. Decadal OHC and SST trends reversed sign around 2004–2005, with a strong warming seen during 1994–2004 and marked cooling observed over 2005–2015. These trend reversals were pronounced (> 0.1 °C yr−1 in magnitude) in the northeastern North Atlantic (south and west of Iceland) and in the Labrador Sea. … To identify basic processes controlling SPNA thermal variations, we diagnose the SPNA heat budget using ECCOv4. Changes in the heat content of an oceanic control volume can be caused by convergences and divergences of advective, diffusive, and surface heat fluxes within the control volume. [Advective heat convergence] explains 87% of the total [ocean heat content] variance, the former [warming] showing similar decadal behavior to the latter [cooling], increasing over 1994–2004, and decreasing over 2005–2015. … These results demonstrate that the recent SPNA decadal trend reversal was mostly owing to advective convergences by ocean circulation … decadal variability during 1993–2015 is in largest part related to advection by horizontal gyres.

Yeager and Robson (2017) also point out that, like it did from the 1960s to 1980s, the North Atlantic “has again been cooling”, a trend which they and others expect to continue. Sea surface temperatures are no warmer today than they were in the 1950s.

Yeager and Robson, 2017 [W]hile the late twentieth century Atlantic was dominated by NAO-driven THC [thermohaline circulation] variability, other mechanisms may dominate in other time periods. … More recently, the SPNA [sub polar North Atlantic] upper ocean has again been cooling, which is also thought to be related to a slowdown in the THC. A continued near-term cooling of the SPNA has been forecast by a number of prediction systems, with implications for pan-Atlantic climate.

The Southern Ocean Has Been Cooling Since The 1970s, Contrary To Models

Latif et al., 2017 The Southern Ocean featured some remarkable changes during the recent decades. For example, large parts of the Southern Ocean, despite rapidly rising atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations, depicted a surface cooling since the 1970s, whereas most of the planet has warmed considerably. In contrast, climate models generally simulate Southern Ocean surface warming when driven with observed historical radiative forcing. The mechanisms behind the surface cooling and other prominent changes in the Southern Ocean sector climate during the recent decades, such as expanding sea ice extent, abyssal warming, and CO2 uptake, are still under debate. Observational coverage is sparse, and records are short but rapidly growing, making the Southern Ocean climate system one of the least explored. It is thus difficult to separate current trends from underlying decadal to centennial scale variability.

Turney et al., 2017 Occupying about 14% of the world’s surface, the Southern Ocean plays a fundamental role in ocean and atmosphere circulation, carbon cycling and Antarctic ice-sheet dynamics. … As a result of anomalies in the overlying wind, the surrounding waters are strongly influenced by variations in northward Ekman transport of cold fresh subantarctic surface water and anomalous fluxes of sensible and latent heat at the atmosphere–ocean interface. This has produced a cooling trend since 1979.

Sea Ice Has Been Expanding For The Entire Southern Hemisphere Since The 1970s

Comiso et al., 2017 The Antarctic sea ice extent has been slowly increasing contrary to expected trends due to global warming and results from coupled climate models. After a record high extent in 2012 the extent was even higher in 2014 when the magnitude exceeded 20 × 10⁶ km² for the first time during the satellite era. … [T]he trend in sea ice cover is strongly influenced by the trend in surface temperature [cooling]. … A case study comparing the record high in 2014 with a relatively low ice extent in 2015 also shows strong sensitivity to changes in surface temperature. The results suggest that the positive trend is a consequence of the spatial variability of global trends in surface temperature and that the ability of current climate models to forecast sea ice trend can be improved through better performance in reproducing observed surface temperatures in the Antarctic region.

The Pacific Ocean Has Also Been Cooling Since The 1970s

Li, 2017 In the Southern Ocean, the increasing trend of the total OHC slowed down and started to decrease from 1980, and it started to increase again after 1995. In the warming context over the whole period [1970-2009], the Pacific was losing heat, especially in the deep water below 1000 m and in the upper layer above 300 m, excluding the surface 20 m layer in which the OHC kept increasing through the time.

**Glaciers, Ice Sheets Stable, Even Gaining Mass**

Goel et al., 2017 Ice rises are a useful resource to investigate evolution and past climate of the DML coastal region. We investigate Blåskimen Island ice rise, one of the larger isle-type ice rises at the calving front of the intersection of Fimbul and Jelbart Ice Shelves, using geophysical methods. … Using the Input-Output method for a range of parameters and column setups, we conclude that Blåskimen Island has been thickening over the past nine years [2005-2014]. Thickening rates cannot be determined precisely, but ensemble results show that thickening rate averaged over the ice rise varies between 0.07 m a−1 and 0.35 m a−1 [per year]. On longer timescales, we speculate that the summit of Blåskimen Island has been stable within several kilometers at least in the past ∼600 years but no longer than several millennia.

Bader et al., 2017 Rather than reflecting major changes in ice flow path over time, the provenance changes are interpreted to indicate relative stability of the East Antarctic ice sheet.

Martín-Español et al., 2017 We investigate the mass balance of East Antarctica for 2003–2013 using a Bayesian statistical framework. … We apportion mass trends to SMB and ice dynamics for the EAIS, based on two different assumptions, different remote sensing data and two RCMs. In the first experiment, the model apportions about a third of the mass trend to ice dynamics, +17 Gt/yr, and two thirds, +40 Gt yr−1 to SMB, resulting in a total mass trend for the EAIS [East Antarctic Ice Sheet] of +57 ± 20 Gt yr−1.

Bolch et al., 2017 Previous geodetic estimates of mass changes in the Karakoram revealed balanced budgets or a possible slight mass gain since ∼ 2000. Indications of longer-term stability exist but only very few mass budget analyses are available before 2000. Here, based on 1973 Hexagon KH-9, ∼ 2009 ASTER and the SRTM DTM, we show that glaciers in the Hunza River basin (central Karakoram) were on average in balance or showed slight insignificant mass loss within the period ∼ 1973–2009.

Predictions Of Future Cooling, Ice Expansion

Årthun et al., 2017 Statistical regression models show that a significant part of northern climate variability thus can be skillfully predicted up to a decade in advance based on the state of the ocean. Particularly, we predict that Norwegian air temperature will decrease over the coming years, although staying above the long-term (1981–2010) average. Winter Arctic sea ice extent will remain low but with a general increase towards 2020.

Pittard et al., 2017 We suggest the Lambert-Amery glacial system will remain stable, or gain ice mass and mitigate a portion of potential future sea level rise over the next 500 years, with a range of +3.6 to -117.5 mm GMSL-equivalent.

Posted in Cooling/Temperature, Glaciers | 10 Responses

“Net Increase In Greenland Ice Mass…First Time This Century” Amid Northern Hemisphere Cool-Down

By P Gosselin on 10. September 2017

The Arctic and the Northern Hemisphere surprise experts with impressive snow and ice gains, decade-long stability.

Reader David at Facebook brought my attention to the fact that Greenland this year has in fact been increasing in ice mass.

The National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) was forced to admit:

Overall, however, reduced melting and heavy early springtime snowfall may result in a net increase in Greenland’s ice mass this year for the first time this century.

The 2017 melt season has been less intense than recent years, and is below average melting for the 1981-to-2010 reference period. Surface melting has been low in the southeast, and has been limited to coastal regions at low elevations. “

What follows is the chart provided by the NSIDC:

Greenland’s ice melt this season has been well below normal, the NSIDC reports, and may end up seeing a net increase this year for the first time this century. Chart: NSIDC.

Above average snow extent

Meanwhile the University of Rutgers reports that Northern Hemisphere snow extent in August, 2017, was above normal at 2.915 million square kilometers, some 118,000 square kilometers above the mean.

Surprising Arctic sea ice stability

Arctic sea ice, unquestionably in decline since satellite measurements began in 1979 – which was a peak period for sea ice cover – has shown surprising stability over the past 10 years despite all the claims “the Arctic is melting rapidly“.

Arctic sea ice extent stable since 2007. Source NSIDC.

The plot of Arctic sea ice shows that extent did not even come close to setting a new record, which many alarmist experts had predicted earlier this year. Indeed the following chart shows Arctic sea ice has already begun to increase – some 7 – 10 days earlier than normal:

Chart courtesy of Ice Age Now.

Just as we discussed the situation on Greenland above, the sea ice surrounding the Danish island has been extraordinarily high this year, thus extending a stable ice extent plateau of the past 17 years.

It’s no surprise that the ever more desperate climate alarmists have decided to chase hurricanes this year. The Arctic is not cooperating with the warming, “death spiral” scenarios any longer.

Posted in Arctic | 13 Responses

German Energy Expert Shreds Wind Power: “Everyone’s Loses With Wind Energy”!

By P Gosselin on 9. September 2017

Late last month a video of a discussion round featuring green energies was put up on Youtube.

The segment that follows below shows Dr. Detlef Ahlborn, President of the Wind Energy protest group Bundesinitiative Vernunftkraft (German Initiative for Sensible Power) telling us, without mincing words, why wind energy has been a flop in Germany.

Though the discussion round took place late 2015, it resonates just as loudly today.

On German MDR public television, the moderator asks Ahlborn just who profits from wind energy. According to Ahlborn:

The only one who profits from all the ones you mentioned is the landowner because he has a contractual right. All the others are losers.”

Ahlborn says that 80% of German wind parks are making losses. In the German state of Hesse, for example, “not a single newly installed wind park has yielded what was promised. These yields are up to 20% below what was forecast. And the biggest losers are all of us. All of us!”

The problem, Ahlborn elaborates, is that 25% of the wind energy that gets produced is “waste energy”, energy that cannot be used because there is no demand for it. This waste energy ends up getting dumped onto other foreign markets, so much so that neighboring countries have implemented measures to block it out. Ahlborn then says:

The real scandal is that this power gets sold at negative prices, or below market prices and needs to be disposed of at a fee.”

The discussion round then puts up a graphic showing power demand by the German state of Thuringia (middle curve), the state’s wind power output (lower light curve), and the max. peaks of wind power (highest curve):

Chart cropped from MDR FAKT IST!

Ahlborn blasts this inefficient production of wind energy and the waste power that results, saying that wind park projects produce waste that “is a burden on the consumers, a burden on the economy, and a burden on all society – and with this they are destroying our landscape.”

Costs out of control…huge loss of prosperity

Little wonder that the director of Germany’s top economists, Christoph M. Schmidt, recently named Germany’s Energiewende (transition to renewable energies) as being among the top three programs in need of major reform in the country, saying that “the costs are way out of control” and that it will not succeed without a “huge loss in prosperity“.

Schmidt recently handed the latest annual recommendations over to Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Over the past years, led by strong personalities like Ahlborn, and leading environmentalists, resistance to wind energy in most parts of Germany has grown to formidable levels. Lately protest groups have been increasingly successful at blocking projects. Even the government has even rolled back subsidies.

Posted in Alternative Energy | 27 Responses

Bad Luck: Monster Hurricane Irma Could Rack Up $1 Trillion In Damages!

By P Gosselin on 8. September 2017

UPDATE 4: See animation here.

UPDATE 3: Dr. Roy Spencer thinks Miami may have averted disaster.

UPDATE 2: Euro model shows Irma eye tracking along Florida west coast. The NAM model showing eye moving along OFF west coast.

UPDATE 1: Levi Cowan of Tropical Tidbits reports at Twitter that the forecast path has shifted westward, something he calls “some good news for the Miami area”. Let’s hope for more positive developments.

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

All the models agree that Irma will almost certainly hit Florida directly and that it would take a miracle to divert the storm away. It’s going to hit.

A number of factors could have prevented Irma from reaching the proportions and magnitudes that it has grown to, but unfortunately luck has played against Floridians and others in the region.

The steering troughs from the High out in the Atlantic and the Low plunging down across the southeast USA could have directed the storm out to sea, if only they had been positioned just a few dozen miles differently.

Shearing could have been stronger and weakened the storm, or the storm might yet track closer to Cuba, causing it to weaken some. But that is all not to be, and this time the die came up snake eyes. Instead, all factors unfolded in total favor of Irma in almost every way possible. The result: a very powerful hurricane, one we don’t see very often.

Levi Cowan at Tropical Tidbits here explained late Thursday evening the factors driving the storm, and the likely path in the days ahead. It really couldn’t be worse and more unfortunate.

The damage is going to be great. Hurricane conditions could extend up into southern Georgia. High winds and storm surges will be widespread along all coastlines on both sides of the Florida peninsula where many metropolitan areas happen to be sitting.

Map as per 2010 US Census showing cities with a population greater than 150,000, and their respective metro areas. Image by: Comayagua99 at English Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0

Damage per square mile

Florida’s area is some 65,700 square miles and has a population of nearly 19 million, most of whom living in coastal areas. Property and infrastructure are naturally concentrated there and thus the state’s metropolitan areas will see tens of millions of dollars in damage per square mile, with some places possibly seeing damages in the hundreds of millions per square mile. Like Houston did.

Especially the areas along the coast, with their ports, harbors, high-rises, transportation facilities and extensive infrastructure, will see severe damage from high winds and storm surges. Rural areas of course will see less damage per square mile.

If half (conservative) of Florida’s area (32,000 sq mi) gets hit hard by surge and/or wind conditions with an average damage of $20 million per square mile (rough estimate), then we are looking at a potential of more than $600 billion in damage for Florida alone.

Now add the damage already done in the Caribbean, plus what will happen in Georgia and beyond. We are getting close to the astronomical sum of a trillion dollars.

There is still some time to get property out of harm’s way, but it’s just about run out. Residents need to focus on getting the hell out of the way and saving their lives.

Expect hysterical and irrational demands

Expect global warming alarmists to seize on the final damage tally, no matter what it turns out to be. They’ll be hysterical, and will irrationally demand that leaders implement multi-trillion dollar “climate protection” measures mostly aimed at reducing greenhouse gases, especially CO2 emissions from burning fossil fuels.

The problem with these measures, however, is that there is no evidence that they would have any impact on future hurricanes – none! Hurricanes have always occurred, and always will no matter how ecologically pious we may become.

In fact a look at the past shows that hurricane activity trends have been decreasing over the past 140 years while CO2 emissions rose:

Hurricane activity has been falling over the past 140 years. CO2 curve added by NoTricksZone (not necessarily to scale).

If climate and hurricanes are indeed related to CO2, as alarmist and activist scientists insist, then the data are telling us to emit more and not less. Of course the CO2-hurricane-activity-relationship is silly, and is no solution.

Complacency after 12 years of low activity

The best advice here would be to invest the money into better infrastructure and more sensible urban planning. That lesson was learned long ago, but obviously got forgotten along the way.

Twelve years of no major hurricane strikes and decreasing activity likely led to just a little too much complacency.

Posted in Alarmism, Hurricanes/Tornados | 17 Responses

Past Sea Levels Rose 4-6 Meters Per Century, Shorelines Retreated 40 Meters Per Year…Without CO2 Flux

By Kenneth Richard on 7. September 2017

New Paper: Modern Sea Levels Rising

20-30 **Times Slower Than The Past**

Currently, sea levels are “believed to be” rising at a rate of 1.7-1.8 millimeters/year.

This modern rate – just 0.17-0.18 of a meter per century – has remained relatively unchanged from the overall 20th century average, and there has been no statistically significant acceleration in the sea level rise rate (just 0.0042 mm/yr-²) since 1900.

Wenzel and Schröter, 2014 “Global mean sea level change since 1900 is found to be 1.77 ± 0.38 mm year on average. … [T]he acceleration found for the global mean, +0.0042 ± 0.0092 mm year-², is not significant“

In a new paper just published in the journal Climate of the Past, 7 scientists detail the long-term context for the modern rates of sea level rise. Between 16,500 years ago and 8,200 years ago, the average rate of global sea level rise was 1.2 meters per century (12 mm/yr), which is about 700% faster than the rate achieved during the last 115 years. … Included in that rate average is the “meltwater pulse” epoch around 14,500 years ago, when sea levels rose at rates of 4 meters per century (40 mm/yr).

Cronin et al., 2017 “Rates and patterns of global sea level rise (SLR) following the last glacial maximum (LGM) are known from radiometric ages on coral reefs from Barbados, Tahiti, New Guinea, and the Indian Ocean, as well as sediment records from the Sunda Shelf and elsewhere. … Lambeck et al. (2014) estimate mean global rates during the main deglaciation phase of 16.5 to 8.2 kiloannum (ka) [16,500 to 8,200 years ago] at 12 mm yr−1 [+1.2 meters per century] with more rapid SLR [sea level rise] rates (∼ 40 mm yr−1) [+4 meters per century] during meltwater pulse 1A ∼ 14.5–14.0 ka [14,500 to 14,000 years ago].”

Other scientists recently suggested that hemispheric-scale sea levels rose by 12 to 22 meters in just 340 years 14,500 years ago, which is 3.5 to 6.5 meters per century. This explosive sea level rise coincided with a Northern Hemisphere-wide warming event of 4 to 5 °C within a span of a few decades, but it did not coincide with a change in CO2 levels.

Ivanovic et al., 2017 “During the Last Glacial Maximum 26–19 thousand years ago (ka), a vast ice sheet stretched over North America (Clark et al., 2009). In subsequent millennia, as climate warmed and this ice sheet decayed, large volumes of meltwater flooded to the oceans (Tarasov and Peltier, 2006; Wickert, 2016). This period, known as the “last deglaciation,” included episodes of abrupt climate change, such as the Bølling warming [~14.7–14.5 ka], when Northern Hemisphere temperatures increased by 4–5°C in just a few decades (Lea et al., 2003; Buizert et al., 2014), coinciding with a 12–22 m sea level rise in less than 340 years [3.5 to 6.5 meters to per century] (Meltwater Pulse 1a (MWP1a)) (Deschamps et al., 2012).”

J.F. Donoghue (2011) puts the historical magnitude of the “more than 20 times that of today” sea level rise rates into perspective. Shorelines would have necessarily retreated by as much as 40 meters per year – 75 centimeters per week – during those centuries of obscene sea level rise.

Furthermore, Donoghue specifies that during the last 20,000 years, the overall average sea level rise has been 6 mm/yr, which is more than 3 times the rate of the last century. In other words, modern rates of sea level rise have significantly decelerated compared to the overall long-term trend.

Donoghue, 2011 “For much of the period since the last glacial maximum (LGM), 20,000 years ago, the region has seen rates of sea level rise far in excess of those experienced during the period represented by long-term tide gauges. The regional tide gauge record reveals that sea level has been rising at about 2 mm/year for the past century, while the average rate of rise since the LGM has been 6 mm/year, with some periods of abrupt rise exceeding 40 mm/year [4 meters per century].”

“Sea level has at times risen at rates more than 20 times that of today, more than 40 mm/year. At such rates, the regional shorelines would have retreated by as much as 40 m/year, or more than 75 cm/week.”

UK geologist Dominic Hodgson and colleagues have determined that sea levels rose at rates of 1.2 to 4.8 meters per century near East Antarctica about 10,000 years ago, when sea levels were 8 meters higher than they are now.

Hodgson et al., 2016 Rapid early Holocene sea-level rise in Prydz Bay, East Antarctica … The field data show rapid increases in rates of relative sea level rise of 12–48 mm/yr between 10,473 (or 9678) and 9411 cal yr BP in the Vestfold Hills and of 8.8 mm/yr between 8882 and 8563 cal yr BP in the Larsemann Hills. … The geological data imply a regional RSL [relative sea level] high stand of c. 8 m [above present levels], which persisted between 9411 cal yr BP and 7564 cal yr BP, and was followed by a period when deglacial sea-level rise was almost exactly cancelled out by local rebound.

And Zecchin et al. (2015) have suggested that “episodic” and “rapid” sea level rises could reach 6 meters per century (60 mm/yr) for hundreds of years at a time. That’s about 35 times the current rate.

Zecchin et al., 2015 “The evidence presented here confirms drowned shorelines documented elsewhere at similar water depths and shows that melt-water pulses have punctuated the post-glacial relative sea-level rise with rates up to 60 mm/yr. [6 meters per century] for a few centuries.”

In sum, there has been nothing unusual about the modern rates of sea level rise over the last century.

Actually, sea levels are currently rising at less than a third of the average rate (6 mm/yr) of the last 20,000 years (Donogue, 2011).

The continuance of this long-term deceleration during an era of allegedly significant anthropogenic climate influence strongly suggests that abrupt sea level rise (and fall) occurs independently of the variations in the atmospheric CO2 concentration.

Posted in Natural Variability, Paleo-climatology, Sea Levels | 10 Responses

Former NOAA Expert, High-Accuracy Hurricane Predictor Says “Natural Cycles” Major Driver

By P Gosselin on 6. September 2017

A former NOAA meteorologist and 40-year veteran of hurricane predictions believes Irma will continue to move move west toward Florida and reach near the southern tip of the Florida Peninsula around Sunday, September 11th, as a major category 4 hurricane.

Irma eerily similar to Hurricane Donna’s (1960) track. Public Domain image.

Both David Dilley of Global Weather Oscillations and the National Hurricane Center now believe Irma will make landfall near the southern tip of Florida, from near or just west of Miami to just west or near Jacksonville and then run up the coast into eastern Georgia.

Dilley adds: “It all depends on exactly when it makes the turn to the north – just 20 miles makes a big difference. Historical tracks favor a landfall near or south of Miami.”

Predictions based on natural cycles

Dilley had predicted a harsh hurricane season already back in early February, long before most forecasters were ready to go public with their forecasts.

In his February forecast, he predicted that the USA’s record 12-year run without a major hurricane hit would end in a big way.

He also predicted that the southern tip of Florida would be hit by a major hurricane, one that would move northward through the state after making landfall, and that this southern Florida zone overall would enter the strongest and most active hurricane cycle since the period from 1945 to 1950 (65 to 70 years ago).

Dilley wrote in an e-mail that during this 6-year active period, five out of the 6 years had hurricanes, and some years had multiple landfalls, adding:

There were a total of 8 hurricanes during this 6-year period, and 6 of the 8 hurricanes were major Category 3 to 5 hurricanes.”

So far his predictions for the current season have been impressively accurate. Dilley says he is tracking 4 historical analog years that are like the 2017 season, noting that hurricane patterns have a strong tendency to repeat in cycles.

He reminds us that three of the 6 landfalls from 1945 to 1950 were major hurricanes, with 2 of them being strong Category 4 hurricanes. There were also two category 3 hurricanes – and only one hurricane was a Category 1.

The analog years he used for forecasting the current season go back to 1910.

The bottom line, says Dilley: “This Southern Florida zone has entered the most active and dangerous cycle in 65 to 70 years. About 70% of the hurricanes that strike this zone are major hurricanes.” This year mostly likely will not be any luckier.

No global warming – “all using natural cycles”

On what’s behind the hurricanes, the 40-year veteran does not believe it has anything to do with manmade global warming and higher atmospheric CO2 concentrations. According to Dilley: “I nailed it 8 months in advance and the likely Texas hurricane – all using natural cycles of the earth-moon-sun interactions – and No Global Warming.”

While most models predict little danger from now forming José, Dilley wrote that it will develop into a hurricane and that there’s a chance José “could pose a New England threat near the 21st“.

A New England hurricane hit was also among Dilley’s predictions from earlier this year.

Posted in Hurricanes/Tornados | 8 Responses

Climate Scientists Conceding Natural Ocean Cycles Playing Major Climate Role

By P Gosselin on 5. September 2017

Dawning on Scientists: Atlantic Ocean Cycles Drive

By Dr. Sebastian Lüning and Prof. Fritz Vahrenholt
(German text translated/edited by P. Gosselin)

The oceans are the world’s largest water reservoirs, and over 60-year cycles they swallow heat three decades long, and release over the 30 years or so that follow. In the Atlantic this phenomenon is called the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO).

Climate models have not been able to correctly account for them, and thus the climate prognoses are fraught with uncertainty.

However, much has been done in the area of ocean cycles research over the past years. The systematic climate impact has finally been accepted by the scientific community. A good example is a paper authored by Dan Seidov et al appearing in the Geophysical Research Letters in May.

Multidecadal variability and climate shift in the North Atlantic Ocean
Decadal variability of ocean heat content (OHC) and temperature trends over ~60 years in the North Atlantic Ocean were analyzed using a new high-resolution ocean climatology based on quality-controlled historic in situ observations. Тwo ~30 year ocean climates of 1955–1984 and 1985–2012 were compared to evaluate the climate shift in this region. The spatial distribution of the OHC climate shift is highly inhomogeneous, with the climate shift being the strongest southeast of the Gulf Stream Extension. This may be caused by the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation slowdown in conjunction with heaving of warm subtropical water. The 30 year climate shift shows higher OHC gain in the Gulf Stream region than reported in shorter timescale estimates. The OHC change is generally coherent with the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation index. This coherence suggests that quasi-cyclicity of the OHC may exist, with a period of 60 to 80 years, superimposed on the slow basin-wide warming trend.”

Finally climatic mid-term prognoses are able to benefit from the ocean cycles, which some five years ago – when our book “The Neglected Sun” was published – we were viciously attacked by the somewhat humiliated climate establishment.

Today we are far better informed. In Ireland temperatures and precipitation are 90% related to the AMO, as McCarthy et al. documented in the journal ‘Weather‘ in July 2015:

The influence of ocean variations on the climate of Ireland
The influence of the ocean circulation on the climate of Ireland is more subtle than it first appears. Temperatures in Ireland are warmer than similar Pacific maritime climates. It is heat – carried primarily in the Atlantic overturning circulation – released over the Atlantic that provides this additional warmth. We investigate variations in Irish climate using long-term station-based time series. The Atlantic multidecadal oscillation (AMO) explains over 90% of the pronounced decadal temperature and summer precipitation variation. Understanding the impact of these ocean variations when interpreting long climate records, particularly in the context of a changing climate, is crucial.”

The natural decadal variability of the Irish climate is two times more than the warming trend the study shows. In the years of 1990-2002 variability contributed to the trend. It is not stated, but it is warned of the other downward side of the temperature signal flank:

Otherwise, decades of cooling can be seen as a contradiction to increased surface temperature trends (in response to continually increasing greenhouse gas emission) when natural ocean variability may be the cause.”

Models that well reproduce the rising flank of the AMO, and attribute it solely to CO2, overestimate CO2. Even if the full knowledge of the different reasons cannot be fully named, the profound importance of the ocean cycles and their contribution to the warming phases is emerging more and more.

A paper Bowene et al appeared in the PNAS in May, 2017. In it the authors did not dare to examine the current cycle and instead chose to look at an earlier cycle. Their message: The warming of the early 20th century in the Arctic was enhanced by ocean cycles. What follows is the press release from Kyoto University (via Science Daily):

Scientists uncover a cause for early 20th century Arctic warming

Is a warmer Arctic a canary of global warming?

Since the 1970s the northern polar region has warmed faster than global averages by a factor or two or more, in a process of ‘Arctic amplification’ which is linked to a drastic reduction in sea ice. But then how to explain a similar rapid warming that occurred during the early 20th century, when the effects of greenhouse gases were considerably weaker than today? And what can we prove about the period, given the scarcity of usable data and observations prior to the 1950s? Now scientists from Kyoto University and UC San Diego have discovered that this phenomenon occurred when the warming phase — ‘interdecadal variability mode’ — of both the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans coincided. The team’s findings appeared recently in the journal PNAS.

“We found that early 20th century sea surface temperatures in the tropical Pacific and North Atlantic had warmed much more than previously thought,” explains lead author Hiroki Tokinaga of Kyoto. “Using observations and model simulations, we’ve demonstrated that rising Pacific-Atlantic temperatures were the major driver of rapid Arctic warming in the early 20th century.” Previous explanations for early Arctic warming have including decreased volcanic aerosols and increased solar radiation, but none of these have been able to simulate observed conditions from the period.

Tokinaga’s team found that when the interdecadal rise in sea surface temperatures was included in simulation calculations, the results properly reflected early Arctic conditions. “Coupled ocean-atmosphere simulations also support the intensification of Arctic warming,” continues Shang-Ping Xie of UCSD, “which was caused by a concurrent, cold-to-warm phase shift of Pacific and Atlantic interdecadal modes.” The researchers explain that these new findings can help constrain model climate projections over the Arctic region.

“It is likely that temperatures in the Arctic will continue to rise due to anthropogenic global warming,” concludes Tokinaga. “Our study does not deny this. We are rather suggesting that Arctic warming could accelerate or decelerate due to internal variability of the Pacific and the Atlantic.” “It is a challenge to accurately predict when the next big swing of multidecadal variability will occur. Careful monitoring is essential, given the enormous impact on the Arctic climate.”

Gabriel J. Bowene et al. Early 20th-century Arctic warming intensified by Pacific and Atlantic multidecadal variability. PNAS, May 2017 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1615880114“

In September 2015 Judith Curry discussed a paper by McCarthy et al., which projected an imminent change of the AMO to the negative, cooling AMO phase:

Ocean impact on decadal Atlantic climate variability revealed by sea-level observations
Decadal variability is a notable feature of the Atlantic Ocean and the climate of the regions it influences. Prominently, this is manifested in the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO) in sea surface temperatures. Positive (negative) phases of the AMO coincide with warmer (colder) North Atlantic sea surface temperatures. The AMO is linked with decadal climate fluctuations, such as Indian and Sahel rainfall¹, European summer precipitation², Atlantic hurricanes³ and variations in global temperatures⁴. It is widely believed that ocean circulation drives the phase changes of the AMO by controlling ocean heat content⁵. However, there are no direct observations of ocean circulation of sufficient length to support this, leading to questions about whether the AMO is controlled from another source⁶. Here we provide observational evidence of the widely hypothesized link between ocean circulation and the AMO. We take a new approach, using sea level along the east coast of the United States to estimate ocean circulation on decadal timescales. We show that ocean circulation responds to the first mode of Atlantic atmospheric forcing, the North Atlantic Oscillation, through circulation changes between the subtropical and subpolar gyres—the intergyre region⁷. These circulation changes affect the decadal evolution of North Atlantic heat content and, consequently, the phases of the AMO. The Atlantic overturning circulation is declining⁸ and the AMO is moving to a negative phase. This may offer a brief respite from the persistent rise of global temperatures⁴, but in the coupled system we describe, there are compensating effects. In this case, the negative AMO is associated with a continued acceleration of sea-level rise along the northeast coast of the United States^{9, 10}.”

Let’s take a look at the current AMO curve from the NOAA:

Fig. 1: The AMO ocean cycle curve. Status: 1 September 2017. Source: NOAA.

When one looks at the previous AMO cycle, a peak in the AMO could last another decade, just as we projected in our “The Neglected Sun” book. However the PDO (Pacific Decadal Oscillation) is already falling, which will mean cooling globally over the coming years.

Climate publicity seeker Mojib Latif is by the way also a co-author of a study by Klöwer et al. from 2014. In the paper the authors projected similarly as we did in our “The Neglected Sun” book, namely that the AMO plateau would continue with a slight downward trend, i.e. slight cooling:

Fig. 2: AMO prognosis by the Latif group (from: Klöwer et al. 2014)

Fig. 3: AMO prognosis from our “The Neglected Sun” (book 2012).

So why doesn’t Latif mention this when speaking before the next industry group? Here’s the paper’s abstract:

Atlantic meridional overturning circulation and the prediction of NorthAtlantic sea surface temperature
The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), a major current system in the Atlantic Ocean, is thought to be an important driver of climate variability, both regionally and globally and on a large range of time scales from decadal to centennial and even longer. Measurements to monitor the AMOC strength have only started in 2004, which is too short to investigate its link to long-term climate variability. Here the surface heat flux-driven part of the AMOC during 1900–2010 is reconstructed from the history of the North Atlantic Oscillation, the most energetic mode of internal atmospheric variability in the Atlantic sector. The decadal variations of the AMOC obtained in that way are shown to precede the observed decadal variations in basin-wide North Atlantic sea surface temperature (SST), known as the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO) which strongly impacts societally important quantities such as Atlantic hurricane activity and Sahel rainfall. The future evolution of the AMO is forecast using the AMOC reconstructed up to 2010. The present warm phase of the AMO is predicted to continue until the end of the next decade, but with a negative tendency.”

The authors write in the paper’s highlights:

North Atlantic sea surface temperature will stay anomalously warm until about 2030.”

But they could have just as well written:

The North Atlantic will cool considerably by 2030.”

Just how the AMO works is a fundamental question, similar to the “hen and the egg”, and remains to be explained. The modelers have not been able to robustly duplicate the cycle. That’s been embarrassing.

In the scientific community a controversial discussion has since broken out. Example: Amy Clement et al in October 2015 in Science:

The Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation without a role for ocean circulation
The Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO) is a major mode of climate variability with important societal impacts. Most previous explanations identify the driver of the AMO as the ocean circulation, specifically the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC). Here we show that the main features of the observed AMO are reproduced in models where the ocean heat transport is prescribed and thus cannot be the driver. Allowing the ocean circulation to interact with the atmosphere does not significantly alter the characteristics of the AMO in the current generation of climate models. These results suggest that the AMO is the response to stochastic forcing from the mid-latitude atmospheric circulation, with thermal coupling playing a role in the tropics. In this view, the AMOC and other ocean circulation changes would be largely a response to, not a cause of, the AMO.

Significance:

Ocean circulation changes not needed
What causes the pattern of sea surface temperature change that is seen in the North Atlantic Ocean? This naturally occurring quasi-cyclical variation, known as the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO), affects weather and climate. Some have suggested that the AMO is a consequence of variable large-scale ocean circulation. Clement et al. suggest otherwise. They find that the pattern of AMO variability can be produced in a model that does not include ocean circulation changes, but only the effects of changes in air temperatures and winds.”

What follows is the corresponding press release from the University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine & Atmospheric Science, dated 15 October 2015:

New Study Questions Long-Held Theories of Climate Variability in the North Atlantic

UM Rosenstiel School researchers suggest atmosphere drives decades-long climate variations.

A University of Miami (UM) Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric-led study challenges the prevailing wisdom by identifying the atmosphere as the driver of a decades-long climate variation known as the Atlantic Multi-decadal Oscillation (AMO). The findings offer new insight on the causes and predictability of natural climate variations, which are known to cause wide-ranging global weather impacts, including increased rainfall, drought, and greater hurricane frequency in many parts of the Atlantic basin.

For decades, research on climate variations in the Atlantic has focused almost exclusively on the role of ocean circulation as the main driver, specifically the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, which carries warm water north in the upper layers of the ocean and cold water south in lower layers like a large conveyor belt. “The idea of the ocean as the driver has been a powerful one.” said UM Rosenstiel School Professor Amy Clement, the lead author on the study. We used computer models in a new way to test this idea, and find that in fact there is a lot that can be explained without the ocean circulation.”

While the overall rise in average temperature of the Atlantic is caused by greenhouse gases, this study examines the fluctuations occurring within this human-related trend. Identifying the main driver of the AMO is critical to help predict the overall warming of the North Atlantic Ocean in coming decades from both natural and man-made climate change. Recent research suggests that an AMO warm phase has been in effect since the mid-1990s, which has caused changes in rainfall in the southeastern US, and resulted in twice as many tropical storms becoming hurricanes than during cool phases.

Using multiple climate models from around the world, Clement’s research team removed the ocean circulation from the analysis to reveal that variations in the Atlantic climate were generally the same. The AMO results in a horseshoe-shaped pattern of ocean surface temperatures in the North Atlantic Ocean that have been naturally occurring for the last 1000 years on timescales of 60-80 years. This new analysis shows that the pattern of the AMO can be accounted for by atmospheric circulation alone, without any role for the ocean circulation.

“These results force us to rethink our ability to predict decade-scale temperature fluctuations in the Atlantic and their associated impacts on land. It may be that many of the changes have limited predictability, which means that we should be prepared for a range of climate outcomes associated with global warming,” said Clement.

The study, titled “The Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation Without a Role for Ocean Circulation,” was published in the Oct 16 issue of the journal Science. The co-authors include Clement, Katinka Bellomo and Lisa N. Murphy from the UM Rosenstiel School; Mark A. Cane of Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University; and Thorsten Mauritsen, Gaby Rädel and Bjorn Stevens from Max Planck Institute for Meteorology in Germany. The work was support by grants from the Department of Energy and the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration.”

Posted in Oceans | 6 Responses

Ph.D. Physicist Uses Empirical Data To Assert CO2 Greenhouse Theory A ‘Phantasm’ To Be ‘Neglected’

By Kenneth Richard on 4. September 2017

New Paper: Experiment Reveals No Detectable

‘Greenhouse’ Difference Between CO2 And Air

Below is a very abridged quoted summary of a new scientific paper published by Dr. Thomas Allmendinger, a physicist (chemistry, quantum mechanics) who uses a real-world experiment to document a glaring lack of empirical support for the position that CO2 is a dominant agent of atmospheric warming.

One-sentence summary: Shortwave radiation heats both CO2 and air only up to a limited temperature threshold, and there is no observed difference between the heat absorption/emission of air vs. CO2.

Dr. Thomas Allmendinger (2017)

Original Greenhouse Theory Not Backed By Experimental Data

The starting point of the here referenced research was the generally accepted greenhouse thesis which assumes that the present climate change is mainly due to the observed growing amount of the so-called greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, particularly of carbon-dioxide in spite of the fact that, unlike a greenhouse, the Earth atmosphere doesn’t exhibit a transparent roof … This [greenhouse effect] idea takes its source in Fourier’s treatise made in 1827, exhibiting no empirical data or physical calculations and experimental data.

The first results were delivered by Tyndall in the sixties of the 19th century, using artificial IR (= infrared) radiation. His photometric [light-measuring] apparatus consisted of metallic tubes as gas vessels and Leslie cubes as heat radiation sources, entailing comparatively low temperatures, namely 100°C and lower. In the [eighteen] nineties, Arrhenius continued such measurements. He established the greenhouse thesis claiming that, unlike air, carbon-dioxide considerably absorbs infrared-radiation. Thereby we distinguish between near IR (λ = 0.8 – 3μm), emitted at high temperatures (> 1000 K), and medium IR (λ = 3 – 50μm) occurring at lower temperatures as usual thermal radiation, while IR-radiation with larger wavelengths (λ = 50 – 1000μm) is defined as far IR.

[O]verall, the greenhouse thesis has been commonly settled even if […] its empiric basis appears poor while several theoretical presumptions are speculative. … there is reason enough to examine the current climate theory, and in particular the greenhouse thesis, regarding fundamental scientific principles and possibly to question the usual assumptions.

The analytic methods applied in climatology were exclusively photometric [light-measuring] ones. … Thermal measurements have never been made, except those by pyranometers comprising the whole spectrum, so that direct coherences between light absorption and warming-up effects at matter have not been detected yet.

The natural laws which were used for constructing the theory were confined to the temperature law of Stefan-Boltzmann (1), Planck’s distribution law (2), both being solely valid for black bodies, and BeerLambert’s absorption law (3), being unequivocally valid solely for visible light, and not compellingly for IR radiation (see below). These laws were often impermissibly generalized and used in an incorrect way leading to wrong conclusions.

Questioning The CO2-IR-Warms-The-Atmosphere Assumption

[A]ccording to this [greenhouse theory] model the assumption is made that any warming-up of the atmosphere is exclusively due to a partial absorption of medium-wave IR-radiation while any short-wave IR-absorption can be excluded since it has never been detected spectrometrically.

Against this, at least the following [5] arguments may be alleged [just the 1st , 4th, and 5th arguments are included here in very condensed form]:

1. As already found within a previous investigation [12], the greater part – namely at least 60% – of the energy being emitted from a warmed plate to the surrounding atmosphere is transferred by heat conduction, and not by heat radiation [i.e., via the greenhouse effect] obeying Stefan-Boltzmann’s law which is only valid in the vacuum. That part is even enhanced when the air convection is enhanced. Moreover, near the ground the molar concentration of water vapour is much higher than that one of carbon dioxide letting assume that its absorbance of heat radiation is much stronger. (e.g. at 20°C and 60% rel. humidity, the molar concentration of water vapour is 36 times larger than that one of carbon-dioxide being 0.038 volume%). Hence it can be assumed that the major part of the heat transfer between Earth surface and atmosphere occurs near the ground while the greenhouse theory neglects that part solely regarding the radiative absorption by CO2 passing the whole atmosphere.

4. Between the energetic absorption of electromagnetic radiation by gases and their resulting warming-up no empirical – and also no
theoretical – coherence is known which would be needed to carry spectroscopic results onto thermodynamic properties. There is no good reason to assume that absorbed IR-radiation will be entirely transformed into heat. Rather it is conceivable that a part of it is re-emitted, to wit in all directions. But the link between the two phenomena is not known.

5. The question of radiation emission by hot gases is related with it since it is obvious that any gas, also air, begins to radiate to such an extent as it is warmed-up. This question arises when the so-called radiative energy transfer is studied. But instead of empiric measurements, complicated theories were developed [15-17] starting from the abstruse assumption that the atmosphere behaves like a black body obeying Stefan-Boltzmann’s emission law, and disregarding the kinetic gas theory.

Overall it must be assessed that the atmospheric theory is on a shaky ground. widely missing empiric key methods to check the principles and their consequences.

Air Vs. CO2 Experiment: ‘The Final Proof That The Climate Theory Cannot Be True’

Beyond, there is an aspect which hitherto has been overlooked, and which delivers the final proof that the climate theory cannot be true. It is the topic of the here reported author’s work [Allmendinger, 2016] concerning thermal measurements instead of spectroscopic ones, and delivering the evidence that any gas absorbs IR-radiation – but in the short wavelength range -, with the consequence that air is warmed up by direct solar insolation – as well as by artificial IR-light – up to a limiting temperature due to radiative emission, and leading to an equilibrium state.

Preliminary tests for the present investigation were made with solar light using square twin-tubes from Styrofoam (3 cm thick, 1 m long, outer diameter 25 cm), each equipped with three thermometers at different positions, and covered above and below by a thin transparent foil (preferably a 0.01 mm thick Saran-wrap). The tubes were pivoted on a frame in such a way that they could be oriented in the direction of the solar light (Figure 3). One tube was filled with air, the other with carbon-dioxide. Incipiently, the tubes were covered on the tops with aluminium-foils being removed at the start of the experiment.

The primary experimental result was quite astonishing in many respects.

Firstly: The content gases warmed within a few minutes by approximately 10°C up to a constant limiting temperature. This was surprising – at least in the case of air – for no warming-up was anticipated since sunlight is colourless and allegedly not able to absorb any IR-radiation. However, the existence of a limiting temperature is conceivable since a growing radiative emission has to be expected as far as the temperature rises.

Secondly: The limiting temperatures were more or less equal at any measuring point. This means that the intensity of the sun beam was virtually not affected by the heat absorption in the gas tube since the latter one was comparatively weak.

And thirdly: Between the two tubes [one filled with air, the other with CO2] no significant difference could be detected. Therefore, thanks to this simple experiment a special effect of carbon dioxide on the direct sunlight absorption could already be excluded.

As evident from Figure 8, any gas absorbs IR-light – even the noble [non-greenhouse] gases argon, neon and helium do so – while there is no significant difference between argon and carbon dioxide, but only a small difference between carbon-dioxide and air.

Conclusion/Summary

Besides a critical discussion of the convenient atmosphere theory profoundly questioning the greenhouse thesis by disclosing several basic errors, the here reported investigation reveals the discovery of direct absorption of shortwave IR-radiation by air. It is part of the incident solar light, but also of artificial light which enables a more exact detection. It is caused by another effect than the one which is responsible for the longer-wave absorption being observed at carbon dioxide, and it is not detectable by IR-spectroscopy since its absorption coefficient is too low. However, it is clearly detectable by means of the here applied apparatus leading to a distinct temperature elevation up to a limiting temperature which depends on the radiative emission. The limiting temperature depends on the gas kind, whereby practically no difference between air and carbon-dioxide could be found.

Nevertheless, that direct absorption effect [shortwave] which was discovered thanks to this method probably contributes significantly to the warming up of the atmosphere while the warming-up due to carbon-dioxide can be neglected.

But since the direct absorption cannot be influenced, the surface albedo must be focused as the governing factor providing the only [anthropogenic] opportunity to mitigate the climate, or at least the microclimate, by changing colour and structure of the surface, particularly in urban areas. However, a prediction seems not feasible since the global climate is too complex. But the greenhouse theory turns out to be a phantasm delivering the wrong diagnosis for the climate change, and a wrong diagnosis cannot enable a healing.

Posted in CO2 and GHG, Scepticism | 292 Responses

German Engine Expert Doesn’t Believe In The Battery, Calls For A “Return To Sobriety”

By P Gosselin on 3. September 2017

Electric car proponents keep insisting that breakthroughs in electric car battery technology are just around the corner, and that soon electric cars will no longer be hampered by limited range and long charging times. Thus we should start banning internal combustion cars soon.

Leading experts, on the other hand, are far less optimistic about the prospects of battery powered vehicles. For example, the online Badische Neueste Nachrichten (BNN) here presents an interview with Prof. Albert Albers, Director for Product Development at the German Karlsruhe Institute for Technology (KIT), where he researches vehicle and machinery drive systems.

Too much green populism

Albers says he is annoyed by media and policymakers who insist electric batteries are feasible, and who cite “phony experts” who do not know the subject material very well. The result he tells the BNN:

For this reason the citizens instead get too few facts and too many populist opinions.”

Battery’s huge ecological fingerprint

On the subject of electric cars and batteries, he notes that the ecological fingerprint of an e-car with battery “is not so good at all“, reminding readers that after everything gets calculated, “the ecological expenditure is 60 percent higher than that of a combustion engine auto.”

According to Albers, the driver first has to run the vehicle 80,000 km before it catches up to the internal combustion engine, a point where the lifetime of the battery is pretty much exhausted, he says.

No manufacture today is ready to guarantee a battery for 200,000 km (10 years) which is what is normal for regular combustion engines.”

Pleads for a return to sobriety

On the future for electric mobility, Albers pleads for a return to sobriety, saying that by 2030 there’s going to be “significantly more internal combustion vehicles on the roads than today”, and that for this reason “it is highly dangerous when policymakers villainize a technology.”

Despite all the anti-diesel rhetoric now being loudly expressed in Germany, Albers thinks the diesel engine still has a future, because there is still room for much improvement in diesel combustion technology.

“Considerable” fire and short circuit risks

The Karlsruhe researcher doesn’t believe there is future for batteries as a widespread solution, citing that the infrastructure challenges are too great and that there’s a “considerable risk” of short circuits involved with the use of lithium cells.

Overall Albers believes that “we have to remain open” to all solutions, for example synthetic fuels, power-to liquid-technology, or hydrogen gas powered engines. He does see a use for battery technology, but in certain niche markets.

Albers says a more rational solutions-oriented discussion needs to take place, and there’s a need to get away from the generation of attention grabbing “populist headlines”.

800,000 German automotive jobs at risk

We must not discuss the issue in a state of daily panic and campaign populism and put the 800,000 jobs of the German automobile industry at risk.”

Posted in Alternative Energy | 18 Responses

Greenland “Embarrassment” To Climate Warmists …Cold Autumn/Frigid Winter Projected For Europe

By P Gosselin on 2. September 2017

Schneefan here reports that the Alps are seeing heavy snowfall down to 1800 meters elevation: live-video.

And if there’s a sure sign that fall is arriving in Europe, it is that the Zugspitze, Germany’s highest peak, is forecasting snow for the next 7 consecutive days:

Source: www.wetteronline.de/wetter/zugspitze

Some may be asking what remains ahead for Europe over the next few months: Can we expect more warm summerlike weather, or should we expect a chilly fall?

Looking at the NOAA CFSv2 weather model for the coming 3 months, signs point to a colder than normal season (click to enlarge).

Meteociel/CFS projection made on August 30th, temperature deviation from the mean at 850 hPa (approx. 1500m) in Europe for fall 2017. Source: www.meteociel.fr/modeles/cfsme_cartes.php.

Frigid winter?

The projection for the coming European 2017/2018 winter for now looks frigid:

Meteociel/CFS made on August 30th, temperature deviation from the mean at 850 hPa (approx. 1500m) in Europe for winter 2017/18. Source: www.meteociel.fr/modeles/cfsme_cartes.php.

What’s behind the frigid forecast? Schneefan explains:

At the end of August in Eastern Siberia there was an unusual snowfall, which led to widespread power outages and the enactment of a state of emergency.

Early snowfall in Siberia often indicates a higher likelihood of harsher European winters. Do keep in mind, however, that seasonal forecasts are fraught with much uncertainty.

Another factor that bodes ill is that solar activity has since entered into a quiet phase. Studies have shown that European winters tend to be harsher during periods of low solar activity.

Arctic sea ice “death spiral” dies

Arctic sea ice area is currently at the mean of the past decade or so. This means that Arctic sea ice has pretty much stabilized at a low level and does not show signs of shrinking further over the mid-term. The once claimed Arctic sea ice “death spiral” has lost its life.

Greenland snow and ice mass “embarrassment”

Joe Bastardi at the latest Weatherbell Analytics Saturday Summary also looks at the situation in Greenland, which has not been getting any mention from the global warming weather-ambulance-chasing alarmists lately.

Top: The total daily contribution to the surface mass balance from the entire ice sheet (blue line, Gt/day). Bottom: The accumulated surface mass balance from September 1st to now (blue line, Gt) and the season 2011-12 (red) which had very high summer melt in Greenland. Source: DMI here.

In his video, the 40-year veteran meteorologist says Greenland snow and ice mass balance is “way, way, way above normal” and that it is the “climate story nobody is talking about it because it’s an embarrassment given what was being said two years ago, really“.

Posted in Arctic, Cooling/Temperature | 28 Responses

Hurricane Expert’s Forecast Spot On…Says “It’s all Cyclical” …”Nothing To Do With Global Warming”

By P Gosselin on 1. September 2017

Way back in February, Global Weather Oscillations (GWO) veteran meteorologist David Dilley predicted that the 2017 Atlantic hurricane season would be “the most dangerous and costliest in 12 years for the United States.”

Photo: David Dilley, GWO

In the wake of Harvey, and with an eye on the now growing threat posed by Irma, that prediction is emerging to be spot on.

Irma takes aim. Chart source (1 Sept 2017 9:00 CET): earth.nullschool.net/.

Dilley, a 40-year veteran and a former NOAA meteorologist, said the season would be influenced by a Climate Pulse Hurricane Enhancement Cycle – which is characterized by the lack of El Niño or La Niña conditions. Recently the El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO) has been hovering near neutral territory.

Ideal oceanic conditions

Dilley based his February prediction on natural cyclic factors, namely on the fact that ocean water temperatures would “continue to run warmer than normal across most of the Atlantic Basin and especially in the Caribbean region and the Atlantic near the United States” this year, which would “make conditions conducive for tropical storms and/or hurricanes forming and/or strengthening close to the United States“.

So far that too has been spot on as well. This scenario has also been supported by Joe Bastardi of Weatherbell Analytics. Bastardi, also a 40-year veteran meteorologist, points to similarities with hurricane patterns of the mid 20th century.

120-year trend clearly downward

Hurricane activity as a whole has been on a downward decline over the past 120 years, according to the NOAA – something that often gets no mention in the media.

Hurricanes trending downward over the past 120 years. Chart source: NOAA

Dilley also predicted that the Bermuda-Azores High Pressure Center would be weaker this summer, and thus would allow “more named storms to maintain strength – or strengthen as they move from east to west across the Atlantic toward the United States” – a pattern that Irma is following to a tee.

In his February forecast he wrote that the United States would have the potential for 6 named storms making landfall, the most most since 2005.

“Global warming has no influence”

In an e-mail response to NoTricksZone on whether hurricane Harvey’s intensity was related to global warming, Dilley wrote:

Global warming has no influence – we have had major impact hurricanes in the past when it was cooler – it is all cyclical.

Dilley also said that Harvey will with very high likelihood not be the last to strike the USA, saying that a number of hurricane zones need to prepare for the worst this season.

Perfect conditions for Irma

Concerning Irma the 40-year veteran meteorologist says that the hurricane “is in an area having perfect conditions” and that he expects “4 major hurricanes in 2017 due to a stronger hurricane cycle year that occurs in conjunction with warm Atlantic Ocean water following a period that did not have a La Niña – less wind shear and good positioning of the Bermuda high“.

Texas hurricane hiatus is over

Dilley had predicted that Texas had a “good shot at coming out of their quiet hurricane cycle” as -there have been 7 quiet periods for Texas during the past 130 years, writing that “the typical quiet period lasts 8 to 10 years and 2017 was year 9 since their last hurricane”.

Florida and New England are due as well

He warns that “other prediction zones such as the peninsula of Florida and New England are likewise on the verge of breaking out of their quiet periods” and that they are “all cyclical based on electromagnetism of the earth-moon-sun gravitational cycles influencing the Bermuda high, ocean temperatures via an El Niño or no El Niño and individual hurricane landfall cycles for each zone.” He sums up:

Bottom line – Irma will be a major United States impact hurricane and not the last land-falling hurricane of the season.”

2018 will be a quieter season?

One bright note: Dilley believes that the 2018 season will be less harsh, in part because of more favorable natural ocean cycle effects in the Pacific and Atlantic.

For Dilley, hurricanes are part of the natural weather and climate cycles and that it is something we’ll have to relearn getting used to. In the early 20th century things were much worse than what we’ve grown accustomed to seeing over the past decade.

Posted in Hurricanes/Tornados | 53 Responses

Scientists Expose Data Manipulation, ‘Hide The Decline’, And The Post-1940s Hockey Stick Temperature Myth

By Kenneth Richard on 31. August 2017

Why ‘Hide The Decline’?

There Has Been No Net NH Warming Since The 1940s

In the press release for a newly published and controversial peer-reviewed scientific paper, Australian scientist Dr. Jennifer Marohasy unveiled one of climate science’s better-kept secrets.

She and her colleagues are well aware that the post-1940s Northern Hemisphere (NH) proxy evidence from tree-rings, bore holes, pollen, etc., consistently fails to affirm sharply rising temperatures from the late 20th century onwards.

In fact, Marohasy points out that a lack of rising temperatures for recent decades is so common in paleoclimate reconstructions that tendentious climate scientists have necessarily added heavily adjusted, hockey-stick-shaped instrumental records (e.g., from NASA GISS, HadCRUT) on to the end of the trend so as to maintain the visualization of an ongoing dangerous warming.

The lack of recently rising temperatures in proxy evidence is somewhat furtively referred to as the “divergence problem”, and the “trick” of adding instrumental records is utilized to “hide the decline”.

Dr. Jennifer Marohasy, The Spectator (Australia):

Marohasy’s conclusions about proxy temperatures are routinely verified in the scientific literature.

Last year, for example, Dr. Pei Xing and co-authors unveiled a new method (MVDM) for calibrating low-frequency NH tree-ring data for the last 1,200 years in The Extratropical Northern Hemisphere Temperature Reconstruction during the Last Millennium Based on a Novel Method. Using a large volume of 126 proxy temperature records from the Northern Hemisphere, they found (1) a clearly discernible Medieval Warm Period (MWP) (950-1150) and Little Ice Age (LIA) (1450-1850), (2) “likely unprecedented” modern temperatures (relative to the last 1,000 years), as well as a (3) “significant” link between the high temperatures of the MWP and recent times and the high solar activity that characterized both periods (the Medieval Maximum and the Modern Grand Maximum).

“The smoothed MDVM reconstruction exhibited a general agreement with the variation of the reconstructed total solar irradiance (TSI), and the correlation between the two series during the common period 849–2000 AD was significant (r = 0.498). Specially, the records shared high correlation coefficients in the epochs of the solar maximum (i.e. during the Medieval and Modern age)“

Interestingly, when examining the Xing et al. (2016) reconstruction of the Northern Hemisphere from Figure 7, the lack of sustained proxy temperature warming for the more recent decades is clearly detectable. There is a very noticeable temperature decline after 1980. The Xing et al. (2016) reconstruction also documents a lack of any net NH warming for the 60 years following the 1930s and 1940s peak.

Now consider the instrumental record and its conducivity to hiding the post-1980s decline. Notice the amplitude of the HadCRUT data not only raises the 1980s temperatures well above the tree-ring data, it reduces the 1960s cooling by a few tenths of a degree too. A similar divergence can be found in Briffa et al., 2002, who used 387 NH proxy records in showing that temperatures cooled as instrumental temperatures showed abrupt warming after the 1960s. It’s the illustrated version of “Mike’s Nature Trick”.

Flashback: The leaked Hide the Decline conversations with temperature data overseers…

“…you really ought to replace the values from 1961 onwards with observed [instrumental] temperatures due to the decline.”

“I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) amd from 1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline.”

“Also we have applied a completely artificial adjustment to the data after 1960, so they look closer to observed temperatures than the tree-ring data actually were” …. “Also, we set all post-1960 values to missing in the MXD data set (due to decline), and the method will infill these, estimating them from the real temperatures – another way of ‘correcting’ for the decline, though may be not defensible!”

Climategate ‘hide the decline’ explained by Berkeley professor Richard A. Muller

The D’Arrigo et al. (2006) Northern Hemisphere reconstruction derived from “66 high elevation and latitudinal treeline North American and Eurasian sites” also reveals a NH temperature decline after the 1940s and again after the 1980s.

Christiansen and Lungqvist (2012) utilize proxies from 91 locations across the extra-tropical Northern Hemisphere to reveal no net warming since the 1940s.

Schneider et al., 2015 use proxy evidence from 15 IPCC-referenced locations in the Northern Hemisphere to document no net warming since the 1940s and a flattening after the 1980s.

Wilson et al., 2016

Stoffel et al., 2015 used proxy data from 22 Northern Hemisphere locations to illustrate there has been no net warming since the 1940s.

Of note, consider how closely the Stoffel et al. (2015) NH reconstruction resembles the trends in total solar irradiance since the 18th century, including almost identical timings and amplitudes for the 20th century.

Below are selections from a much larger collection of graphs taken from recently published papers that also document a lack of any net warming since the mid-20th century…from both hemispheres.

With the large and growing discrepancy between the instrumental record that hides the decline and the proxy evidence from tree-rings and ice cores that doesn’t, one wonders how much longer the illusion of a linearly warming Earth may continue to be promulgated.

Balanzategui et al., 2017

Büntgen et al., 2017

Turney et al., 2017

“Occupying about 14% of the world’s surface, the Southern Ocean […] … a cooling trend since 1979.”

Zywiec et al., 2017

Fuentes et al., 2017

Parker and Ollier, 2017

Wilson et al., 2017

Tejedor et al., 2017

De Jong et al., 2016

“[T]he reconstruction…shows that recent warming (until AD 2009) is not exceptional in the context of the past century. For example, the periods around AD 1940 and from AD 1950–1955 were warmer..”

Zafar et al., 2016

Zhao et al., 2016

Sunkara and Tiwari, 2016

Turner et al., 2016

“Absence of 21st century warming on Antarctic Peninsula consistent with natural variability”

Chandler et al., 2016

Zhu et al., 2016

Hasholt et al., 2016

de Jong and de Steur, 2016

O’Donnell et al., 2016

Christy and McNider, 2016

Thapa et al., 2015

“[T]emperature in Central Asia and northern Hemisphere revert back towards cooling trends in the late twentieth century.”

Yan et al., 2015

Wei et al., 2015

Posted in Paleo-climatology, Solar Sciences, Temperature Bias/Urbanization | 76 Responses

German Wind Energy Market “Threatening To Implode”…”Things Have Never Been This Bad”!

By P Gosselin on 30. August 2017

While Germany likes to fancy itself as being among the “global leaders” in tackling climate change by expanding green energies, the country has in fact taken very little action recently to back up the appearances.

If anything, Germany is more in the green energy retreat mode. There are good reasons for this.

German flagship business daily “Handelsblatt” reported here yesterday how Germany’s wind energy market is now “threatening to implode” and as a result “thousands of jobs are at risk“.

José Luis Blanco, CEO of German wind energy giant Nordex, blames the market chaos on “policymakers changing the rules“. Subsidies have been getting cut back substantially.

The problem, Blanco says, is that worldwide green energy subsidies are being capped and wind parks as a result are no longer looking profitable to investors. The Handelsblatt writes that “things have never been this bad“.

50% drop in new German parks

The online Hasepost here reports that while in 2016 some 4600 megawatts of new German wind power capacity were installed onshore, the figure will fall almost 50% to 2450 megawatts of new power by 2019. The fall could even be greater.

Blanco told Handelsblatt:

In the next two years we will see a substantial collapse in the installation of new wind parks in Germany – we will have to react to this.“

Recently Germany moved to scale back subsidies for new wind parks because the power transmission grid has not kept par with the rapid wind park installation, and as a result the grid has become riddled with inefficiencies and has become increasingly prone to grid collapses from unstable power feed in. Also consumer electricity prices had been skyrocketing.

Citizens groups increasing their protests.

There has also been growing protests against wind parks by citizens groups. Angela Merkel’s campaign stops are increasingly being met in part by wind energy protesters. Yesterday in Brandenburg Merkel was met again by wind energy protesters, who however were over-shadowed by a raucous 1500-strong crowd of right-wing protesters shouting “Merkel must go!”

Despite the loud protests, Merkel’s party remains poised to win the coming late-September national election handily, as she and her party lead the rival SPD socialist party, led by Martin Schulz, by double digits.

Wind energy, once greeted with open-arms a decade ago, is now increasingly unwelcome and getting the door slammed in its face.

Comeback coal

Yesterday at the East German Energy Forum in Leipzig, both the centrist CDU and the SPD socialists were in agreement: brown coal (lignite) must remain a part of Germany’s energy mix, the online Lausitzer Rundschau writes. Speaking before 400 industry representatives, Brandenburg’s Minister President Dietmar Woidke (SPD) complained that green energies are foremost “unreliable energy sources“.

“More realism”

Saxony Anhalt Minister President Reiner Haseloff (CDU) called for more realism, saying that “brown coal belonged to east Germany until 2050″.

Saxony Minister President Stanislaw Tillich (CDU) called the European Commissions limit values for CO2 emissions “as going beyond the technical possibilities“.

What does this all tell us? Despite all the hype over green energies in Germany, the general sentiment and movement in the country show a very different picture.

Posted in Alternative Energy | 44 Responses

New Study Confirms Medieval Warm Period Was Indeed Global, And As Warm As Today

By P Gosselin on 29. August 2017

Here’s another blow to the global warming alarmist scientists, who have been claiming that the Medieval Warm Period was a local, North Atlantic phenomenon, and did not really exist globally. What follows is a report on yet another paper contradicting this now worn out claim.
===================================

China: Warm phase of the 20th century was not unusual in context of the last 2000 years

By Dr. Sebastian Lüning and Prof. Fritz Vahrenholt
(German text translated by P. Gosselin)

New research papers on China’s climate past are appearing almost weekly. From them it is becoming obvious that the climate of the last centuries and millennia was governed by natural fluctuations.

On 8 August 2017 the Chinese Academy of Science published a remarkable press release. The most important news was already given by the sub-heading: The warm climate of the the past decades was nothing unusual in the context of the last 2000 years in China. Already in the pre-industrial years scientists were able to make out similarly warm periods:

Warm Periods in the 20th Century Not Unprecedented during the Last 2000 Years

A great deal of evidence relating to ancient climate variation is preserved in proxy data such as tree rings, lake sediments, ice cores, stalagmites, corals and historical documents, and these sources carry great significance in evaluating the 20th century warming in the context of the last two millennia.

Prof. GE Quansheng and his group from the Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, collected a large number of proxies and reconstructed a 2000-year temperature series in China with a 10-year resolution, enabling them to quantitatively reveal the characteristics of temperature change in China over a common era.

‘We found four warm epochs, which were AD 1 to AD 200, AD 550 to AD 760, AD 950 to AD 1300, and the 20th century. Cold periods occurred between AD 210 and AD 350, AD 420 and AD 530, AD 780 and AD 940, and AD 1320 and AD 1900. The temperature amplitude between the warmest and coldest decades was 1.3°C,’ said Prof. GE.

The team found that the most rapid warming in China occurred over AD 1870–2000, at a rate of 0.56 ± 0.42°C (100 yr)−1; however, temperatures recorded in the 20th century may not be unprecedented in the last 2000 years, as reconstruction showed records for the period from 981 to 1100, and again from 1201 to 1270, were comparable to those of the present warm period, but with an uncertainty of ±0.28°C to ±0.42°C at the 95% confidence interval. Since 1000 CE—the period covering the Medieval Climate Anomaly, Little Ice Age, and the present warm period—temperature variations over China have typically been in phase with those of the Northern Hemisphere as a whole.

They also detected some interactions between temperature variation and precipitation change. The ensemble means of dryness/wetness spatial patterns in eastern China across all centennial warm periods illustrate a tripole pattern: dry south of 25°N; wet from 25°–30°N; and dry to the north of 30°N. For all cold periods, the ensemble mean drought/flood spatial patterns showed an east to west distribution, with flooding east of 115°E and drought dominant west of 115°E, with the exception of flooding between approximately110°E and 105°E.

The general characteristics of the impacts of climatic change historically were negative in the cold periods and positive in the warm periods. For example, 25 of the 31 most prosperous periods in imperial China during the past 2000 years occurred during periods of warmth or warming. A cooling trend at the centennial scale and social economic decline run hand-in-hand. The rapid development supported by better resources and a better environment in warm periods could lead to an increase in social vulnerability when the climate turns once more to being relatively colder.

‘Throughout China’s history,’ Prof. GE added, ‘both rulers and the ruled have adopted strategies and policies to cope with climate change, as permitted by the prevailing geography and circumstances of the time.'”

Figure: 2000-year temperature reconstruction in China (Image by GE Quansheng)

Posted in Paleo-climatology | 24 Responses

New Paper: At Least 80% Of The Warming Over The Last Century Due To ‘Natural Phenomena’

By Kenneth Richard on 28. August 2017

“[E]ven if there had been no industrial revolution and burning of fossil fuels, there would have still been warming through the twentieth century – to at least 1980, and of almost 1°C.” – Abbot and Marohasy, 2017

For those who ascribe to the position that humans are dangerously altering the Earth’s climate, it has become almost axiomatic to frame today’s climate changes as highly unusual, unprecedented, and falling well outside the range of natural variability. In this way, proponents of the dangerous anthropogenic global warming (DAGW) narrative can connect human activities (i.e., fossil fuel burning) to these “unnatural” climate changes.

The deepening problem for DAGW advocates, though, is there is nothing unusual, unprecedented, or remarkable about modern temperatures or rates of climatic change. Not only is there extensive scientific evidence available in the peer-reviewed scientific literature affirming today’s temperatures are no warmer than they have been for most of the last 10,000 years, but the paleoclimate evidence suggests centennial-scale fluctuations in the Earth’s surface (and subsurface ocean) temperatures can naturally reach rates and amplitudes that far exceed the modern values.

For example, Bova et al. (2016) found that ocean temperatures in the 0-1000 meter layer naturally (no human influence) rise and fall by more than 2°C in a span of 200 years, or 1°C per century. In contrast, the oceanographers found that the 0-1000 meter warming in the last 200 years of presumed anthropogenic influence has been so modest that it falls “below the detection limit“.

Rosenthal et al., (2013) indicated that Pacific Ocean temperatures in the 0-700 meter layer have risen by just 0.25°C from 1600-1800 C.E. to 2000-2010, which is a rate of about 0.1°C per century, or one-tenth of the rate of warming (cooling) that has occurred without human influence during the Holocene.

New Paper: Natural Variability Explains Most Of the Modern Warming

In a new paper published in GeoResJ, Abbot and Marohasy (2017) statistically document the extent to which regional or hemispheric temperatures have risen and fallen naturally over the past few thousand years. They then compare these documented natural amplitudes to the observed/measured record of centennial-scale temperature changes. They found that there is, at most, just a 0.2°C difference between the naturally-occurring temperature change amplitudes (no human influence) and the modern era’s temperature changes (with assumed human influence). So if there has been a 1°C increase in global temperature since the 1800s, at most 0.2°C could have possibly fallen outside the range of natural variation and thus ascribed to human activity. The rest (0.8°C and up) of the contribution would therefore be of natural origin. So, as the authors conclude, “the increase in temperature over the last 100 years can be largely attributed to natural phenomena.”

Abbot and Marohasy, 2017

The proxy measurements suggest New Zealand’s climate has fluctuated within a band of approximately 2°C since at least 900 AD, as shown in Figure 2. The warming of nearly 1°C since 1940 falls within this band. The discrepancy between the orange and blue lines in recent decades as shown in Figure 3, suggests that the anthropogenic contribution to this warming could be in the order of approximately 0.2°C. [80% of the warming since 1940 may be due natural factors].

The largest deviation between the ANN [artificial neural network, which identifies amplitudes of natural variability in the paleoclimate record] Earth projections and measured temperatures for six geographically distinct regions was approximately 0.2 °C, and from this an Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity (ECS) of approximately 0.6 °C [for a doubling of CO2 from 280 ppm to 560 ppm plus feedbacks] was estimated. This is considerably less than estimates from the General Circulation Models (GCMs) used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and similar to estimates from spectroscopic methods.

To summarize, Figures 3, 5, 7, 9, 11 and 13 [New Zealand, Southern South America, Tasmania, Canadian Rockies, Sweden and the Northern Hemisphere] indicate that the period from 1880 to the end of the proxy records shows general correspondence between the projections generated by ANN output (which is based on input using extrapolation of natural oscillations from the pre-industrial era), and the actual proxy temperature measurements. Importantly, an upward trend is generally apparent for both the proxy measurements and the ANN model projection for the 20th century. This would suggest that the increase in temperature over the last 100 years can be largely attributed to natural phenomena.

(press release)

[A]fter applying the latest big data technique to six 2,000 year-long proxy-temperature series we cannot confirm that recent warming is anything but natural – what might have occurred anyway, even if there was no industrial revolution.

[E]ven if there had been no industrial revolution and burning of fossil fuels, there would have still been warming through the twentieth century – to at least 1980, and of almost 1°C.

What Are These ‘Natural Phenomena’ Driving Temperature Fluctuations?

Abbot and Marohasy, 2017 (continued)

There is an extensive literature examining the occurrence of periodic cycles within proxy temperature reconstructions, through application of spectral analysis (Raspopov et al., 2008; Swingedouw et al., 2011; Galloway et al., 2013). Many of these studies also discuss possible relationships between these cyclic patterns in temperature profiles and natural phenomena that may affect causation, particularly those associated with solar cycles (Luckman, 2005; Nordeman et al., 2005; Wilson et al., 2007; Hunt, 2006; Beer et al., 2000; Scafetta, 2013; Scafetta 2016; Dergachev and Raspopov, 2010). For example:

(a) [I]n the southern hemisphere, Nordemann et al. (2005) undertook spectral analysis using tree ring data from Brazil and Chile, providing evidence for associations with solar cycles, particularly the Suess (~200 year), Gleissberg (~90 years), Hale (~ 22 years) and Schwabe (11 years) cycles.

(b) Rigozoa et al. (2007) examined tree ring widths in Chile, and found an association with solar activity with 11 and 80 year periodicities.

(c) In the northern hemisphere, Raspopov et al. (2008) performed spectral analysis of long-term dendrochronological data from Central Asia and demonstrated an approximate 200-year climatic periodicity, showing a high correlation with solar periodicity for the de Vries period (~210 years).

(d) Ogurtsov et al. (2013) reported spectral analysis of tree periodicity and discussed the association with the modulation of regional climate in Northern Fennoscandia by the Gleissberg solar cycle (~90 years).

(e) Moffa-Sánchez et al. (2014) examined marine sediments for isotopic signals in the shells of the planktonic foraminifera over the past 1000 years. Spectral analysis showed a 200-year periodicity, identified with de Vries solar cycle (~210 years).

(f) Galloway et al. (2013) generated a late Holocene temperature record based on diatoms from a sediment obtained from British Columbia, Canada. Spectral analysis shows significant periodicities at 42–60, 70–89, 241 243, and 380 years, and inferred relationships to sunspot number variation.

(g) Tan and Liu (2003) produced a 2650-year temperature reconstruction from annual layers of a stalagmite from China, with spectral analysis indicating significant periodicities at 206 and 325 years.

(h) Cyclic variations have also been associated with large-scale internal climate oscillatory modes (Bengtsson and Schwartz, 2013) that may themselves in turn be influenced by solar activity (Zhang et al., 2014, Yamin et al., 2016; Li et al., 2013; Trouet and Taylor, 2010; Tei et al., 2010). For example, Wilson et al. (2007) examined tree ring widths to enable a reconstruction over 1,300 years for the Gulf of Alaska: identifying oscillatory modes at 90, 38, 24, 50.4 and 18.7 years related to changes in sea surface temperature pattern. In addition to the decadal and centennial cyclic periodicities referred to above, there is evidence of cycles on millennial time scales, for example the Bond and DansgaardOeschger (DO) cycles (Mullins et al., 2011; Yi et al., 2016).

Supporting Evidence: Large (1-2°C/100 Years) Natural Climate Fluctuations

Moore et al., 2001

Summer temperatures at Donard Lake [Canadian Arctic] over the past 1250 yrs averaged 2.9 °C. At the beginning of the 13th century, Donard Lake experienced one of the largest climatic transitions in over a millennium. Average summer temperatures rose rapidly by nearly 2 °C from 1195–1220 AD [+0.80 C per decade], ending in the warmest decade in the record (~4.3 °C).

Elbert et al., 2013

Aagaard-Sørensen, 2014

The sSST_Mg/Ca [sea surface temperature] values [Fram Strait, Arctic Ocean] increase and vary between 2.1°C and 5.8°C [+/-3.7°C] from ~2.7 kyr BP [2,700 years ago] to the present.

Gennaretti et al., 2014

Thapa et al., 2015

Rydval et al., 2017

[T]he recent summer-time warming in Scotland is likely not unique when compared to multi-decadal warm periods observed in the 1300s, 1500s, and 1730s

Tamura et al., 2016

Jansen et al., 2016

We suggest that deviations in ELA fluctuations between Scandinavian maritime and continental glaciers around 7150, 6560, 6000, 5150, 3200 and 2200 cal. yr BP reflect the different response of continental and maritime glaciers to drops in total solar irradiance (TSI).

Sun et al., 2017

Our findings are generally consistent with other records from the ISM [Indian Summer Monsoon] region, and suggest that the monsoon intensity is primarily controlled by solar irradiance on a centennial time scale. This external forcing may have been amplified by cooling events in the North Atlantic and by ENSO activity in the eastern tropical Pacific, which shifted the ITCZ further southwards.

Chang et al., 2017

The chironomid-based record from Heihai Lake shows a summer temperature fluctuation within 2.4°C in the last c. 5000 years from the south-east margin of the QTP [Qinghai–Tibetan Plateau]. … The summer temperature changes in this region respond primarily to the variation in the Asian Summer Monsoon. The variability of solar activity is likely an important driver of summer temperatures

Posted in Natural Variability, Paleo-climatology | 91 Responses

Major Hurricane US Strikes Over Past 57 Years Plummet, Far Below That Of 60 To 120 Years Ago!

By P Gosselin on 27. August 2017

At Twitter here hurricane expert Philip Klotzbach has posted some interesting historical data on hurricanes amid all the new hype surrounding Category 4 hurricane Harvey.

Category 4 hurricane Harvey ends the USA’s record-long major hurricane drought. Image: NOAA

The following is a table of all the Category 4 or 5 hurricanes that have hit the US, 25 in all, since records began.

Note: Hurricane Katrina in 2005 was only a Category 3 hurricane when it hit land, and so is not on the above list, which lists only Category 4 and 5 hurricanes.

Not surprisingly some global warming alarmists have been insisting that major hurricanes have gotten more intense and more frequent in response to man warming the globe.

Yet, after distributing the above data as done below, we find the opposite is in fact true: many more hurricanes struck decades ago when atmospheric CO2 concentrations were much lower and the planet cooler:

1880 – 1900: * * * *
1901 – 1920: * * *
1921 – 1940: * * * *
1941 – 1960: * * * * * * * *
1961 – 1980: * *
1981 – 2000: * *
2001 – now: * *

The first 60 years of the 20th century (1901 – 1960) saw a total of 15 major hurricanes strikes. The next 57 years, until today, have seen only 6! That behavior contradicts the global warming/increased major hurricanes claim. Im any hypothesis can be drawn, it is that higher CO2 and global warming lead to less major hurricane strike. But that’s not what the alarmists want you to believe.

Veteran meteorologist Joe Bastardi tweeted:

Those blaming AGW for Harvey either ignorant of past, or deceptive cause they know and say it anyway.”

Nothing to do with CO2

And on Harvey’s “rapid intensification”, Joe tweeted that this has happened with many storms. “THEY stall all the time, HARVEY just got caught in Tex NOTHING TO DO WITH CO2.”

At his Saturday Summary here, Bastardi shows a number of examples of past storms behaving peculiarly, reminding viewers it’s all natural and happened before with CO2 below 350 ppm – level some claim will bring back calmer weather.

The Category 4 Harvey hurricane striking Texas ended the USA’s record long major (Category 3+) hurricane landfall drought of 4323 days.

Posted in Hurricanes/Tornados | 19 Responses

If You Want To Live, Then Run Like Hell From Sugar!

By P Gosselin on 25. August 2017

10 Reasons to drastically reduce sugar

The latest research not only shows that sugar is addictive, but that it is behind the global epidemic of diabetes and heart disease. It also causes cancer, obesity, violent behavior, and hyperactivity in children.

For years there existed a consensus among medical and nutritional experts that saturated fat was the culprit behind obesity and heart disease, and that we should take in the lion’s share of our daily calories in the form of carbohydrates. The “low fat, high carb diet” was the recommended diet beginning in the 1970s.

But there was a problem: without fat food tasted bland. Thus to keep the foods palatable after removing the fat, food manufacturers switched to sugar in a variety of processed forms. Today tens of thousands of food products found in supermarkets and restaurants are spiked with sugar. Depending on the data source, the average American now consumes some 50 kilograms of sugar in the form of sucrose and high fructose corn syrup annually.

Fig. 1 (right): A mountain of zero-nutrient sugar. Average American consumes up to 50 kilograms of the harmful sweetener annually.

Although the figure is much less in Europe at 35 kilograms annually, it is still much higher than it should be when one considers how a couple of centuries ago the average amount was just a few kilograms per year. The reality is that the human body was never built for today’s quantities of sugar. Prehistorically, processed sugar did not exist.

Unfathomable epidemic

Now that sugar consumption has skyrocketed, we are finding out that the sucrose sweetener and others like high fructose corn syrup are causing a public health disaster of monstrous proportions.

According to Dr. Robert Lustig, Endocrinology Division, University Of California San Francisco, there will be up to 165 million obese people in USA by 203o — 130 million of whom will be diabetic.

1 billion obese by 2050

Globally in 2011 there were an estimated 366 million diabetic persons, and according to the World Health Organization (WHO) there were 422 million diabetic persons in 2014. Moreover, Lustig claims there were 640 million obese people globally and that the figure will approach 1 billion by 2050.

Welcome to ground-zero of the great medical/nutritional disaster of the 20th century – all thanks to sugar.

Collapsing healthcare system

Funding healthcare systems to treat all of it will not be possible. Lustig believes that the bottom will fall out of the healthcare system within 10 years. Once played down just years ago, the hazards of household sugar and high fructose corn syrup are now becoming clear. They are extremely dangerous and highly destructive poisons to human health.

Here with the term “sugar” we are talking about table sugar (sucrose) and high fructose corn syrup (HFCS). What follows are 10 reasons why you need to run like hell from them.

10 Reasons

Reason 1: High blood sugar levels

Table sugar, which is 50% glucose and 50% fructose, causes blood sugar (glucose) levels to spike. High blood sugar is bad for the organs and blood vessels and causes severe damage over time.

Fig. 1: Blood sugar impacts from simple carbohydrates (red) and complex carbohydrates (blue).

For example after eating a candy bar or consuming a sugary beverage, the sugar you ingest is quickly broken down into simple glucose and fructose molecules which rapidly get absorbed into the bloodstream. The result: your blood sugar (glucose) spikes to dangerously high levels and this triggers the secretion of insulin by the pancreas. The insulin acts to remove the excessive levels of glucose from the blood and store excess it as fat in your cells.

Insulin is the so-called fat making hormone, and so blood sugar spikes lead to the creation of fat.

To the contrary, complex carbohydrates, which are chains of sugar molecules that need more time to be broken down by your digestive system, lead to only moderate blood sugar rises and are thus far better. Complex carbs have great amounts of fiber and are the type we typically find in whole grain meal, many vegetables and plants.

Generally one should avoid the regular consumption of foods with a glycemic index of over 60. Glycemic index tells you how strongly a food makes blood sugar rise. The lower the better.

Reason 2: Metabolic syndrome, diabetes mellitus 2

Over time, after years of being on the blood sugar roller coaster, there’s a high risk cells will become insulin resistant, meaning they will no longer stop taking in glucose from the blood to convert into fat. Blood sugar thus remains high (hyperglycemia) and is very harmful to the body.

There’s a high chance that the pancreas gives up producing insulin. The result: diabetes mellitus 2. This is an awful disease, that in many cases could otherwise be avoided simply by eating properly. At this point the organism has become poisoned by sugar.

Reason 3: Sugar causes belly fat

Calories are not equal. Calories from sugar are metabolized by the human body far differently than those from meat, cheese or butter, for example.

Some calories fuel the cells of our bodies, which is good, while others cannot be used and end up going straight to the gut and fattening the belly. The two most notorious here are calories from alcohol and fructose. Fructose is the sugar molecule that makes everything taste sweet. Unfortunately that sweetness comes with a very high price: dangerous visceral fat.

Table sugar is 50% fructose which cannot be used by the body, and thus gets converted into visceral fat by the liver. This fat gets stored in the inside and everywhere between the organs. It’s natural to have some amount of visceral fat, but not great amounts.

The following image shows a comparison of a healthy set of organs to a diseased one which is fully clogged with visceral fat:

The fatty organs (right) were extracted from a deceased 350-lb man. According to renowned plastinator Gunther von Hagens, the fatty set of organs weighed three times more than the healthy set (left). Image cropped from: Visceral Fat Explained.

Just how bad visceral fat can get is poignantly illustrated by this short video here (Warning: not for sensitive stomachs).

Recall how the average American eats close to 50,000 grams of sugar annaully. That converts into over 200,000 calories. It’s easy to calculate the potential fructose-induced visceral fat production from this. Now add regular doses of alcohol. Note, however, that “beer bellies” are not caused by beer, but by the alcohol and all the snack eating that comes with the appetite-enhancement associated with drinking alcohol.

Some will say that fruit contains fructose, and so it can’t be that bad. That’s true. But the fructose in fruit is present in relatively low concentrations and bound in fiber, so it is not a problem for the organism to handle it.

Reason 4: Powerful cravings, more eating!

When your body goes on a sweets consumption-induced blood-sugar roller-coaster, the insulin overshoots and ends up removing too much glucose from the blood. The result: low blood sugar, known as hypoglycemia (3). The brain sets off the alarms and tells you to get the sugar level back up. The body cannot live without the blood sugar needed to keep the cells going:

Figure 3: After eating very sugary food, blood sugar skyrockets (1), insulin is secreted by the pancreas to bring blood sugar back down (2), but overshoots and can result in blood sugar that is too low (3), and lead to powerful cravings and unruly behavior.

Eating more sweets to satiate your craving will only lead to the next high blood sugar roller-coaster cycle. Remember: excess blood sugar gets stored as fat every time.

Compounding the problems, obesity itself wreaks havoc with hormones and adds impetus to the development of metabolic syndrome.

Reason 5: Sugar is addictive

If table sugar in itself wasn’t bad enough already, it’s also addictive!

Over the recent years, researches have found that sugar has an addictive effect on the body much in the same way as alcohol or nicotine. It does this in two ways. First, fat cells produce leptin, the appetite modulator, which signals the brain you have had enough to eat. But over time with too much exposure to sugar, leptin gets disrupted and the person no longer feels satiated.

Secondly, when one eats sugar neuro-transmitter dopamine gives you a feeling of pleasure. According to Dr. Robert Lustig, over time dopamine-tolerance develops within the pleasure zone of the brain and so greater quantities are needed to produce the same pleasure effect – very much in the same manner as alcohol or nicotine. Result: Tolerance + withdrawal = addiction.

Reason 6: Accelerated aging

Blood sugar leads to the natural process known as glycation. Sugar in your bloodstream attaches to proteins and fat to form harmful new molecules called advanced glycation end products (AGEs). When there are too many, as is the case with high sugar consumption, your body cannot get rid of them and thus lead to oxidative stress and inflammation in the body.

According to Doris J. Day, M.D., clinical associate professor of dermatology at New York University Langone Medical Center, glycation attacks the skin protein’s collagen and elastin (the ones that make you look young). When bonded with glucose, the skin becomes stiff and inflexible, more lines and wrinkles form. Moreover, AGEs hinder production of new collagen and elastin and so skin repair is difficult.

Reason 7: Significantly greater risk of Alzheimers

Free radicals in your brain stemming from the consumption of sugar have been found to be linked to dementia and Alzheimers. Free radicals cause damage to cells and make them age faster, especially brain cells. According Dr. Russell Blaylock, a former clinical assistant professor of neurosurgery at the University of Mississippi Medical Center:

Big consumers of sugar have 6 times higher incidence of Alzheimers.”

Reason 8: Sugar causes cells to become cancerous

If accelerated aging wasn’t bad enough, sugar consumption is also strongly linked to cancer. It turns out that cancer cells thrive on glucose. But this is not something recently discovered. It was known already in the 1930s by Otto Warburg, who won the Nobel Prize.

In fact cancer cells consumer glucose 19 times faster than normal cells, reports Dr. Murray Susser, MD.

New research shows that sugar may even create cancer cells. According to a 2013 study published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation (JCI): “Increased sugar uptake promotes oncogenesis via EPAC/RAP1 and O-GlcNAc pathways”. The study summarizes: “These results may provide additional evidence for how hyperglycemia in diseases such as obesity and diabetes could provide a microenvironment that results in higher risk of some cancers (69, 70).”

Reason 9: Hypoglycemia triggers violent behavior

There are numerous studies showing how violent behavior is linked to hypoglycemia (low blood sugar), according to Dr. Russel Blaylock. Hypoglycemia significantly increases “excitability”. When the brain is in a state of hypoglycemia, neurotransmitter glutamate is released. It is the “primary thing that turns the brain into high gear“.

According to Blaylock (7:30), convicted criminals become far less violent when they are put on a healthy, low blood sugar inducing diet. But as soon as they return to sugary diets, violent behavior increases. There’s a clear link between crime and nutrition, says Blaylock.

A group of researchers led by psychologist Simon Moore from Cardiff University in the United Kingdom have also shown in a study that boys who ate sweets daily at age 10 are far more likely to commit violent crimes in adulthood.

And according to Blaylock, school children on sugary diets are found to be significantly more hyperactive and perform more poorly scholastically than those on low-sugar diets.

Reason 10: nutrient deficiency, chronic disease

The human body needs a steady supply of some 90 essential vitamins, minerals, trace elements, amino acids and fatty acids to stay in good health. Everyone knows that a deficiency in just a single nutrient can wreak havoc on the body’s health and lead to chronic disease.

Unfortunately sugar, high fructose corn syrup, highly refined flours and starches provide only so-called empty calories, i.e. they deliver near zero essential nutrients. Should the calorie intake by children or adults come in large part from nutrient-void source like sugar, white flour, processed starches, meaning nutrient-rich foods get booted off the table, then over the years nutrient deficiencies invariably result and can lead to a host of chronic diseases over the long run.

Nowadays it’s not uncommon to see some children get 30 – 40% of their calories from near-zero nutrient junk food.

Time to tax sugar (heftily)

Of course no one is calling for a sugar ban. However it is imperative that action be taken QUICKLY to get sugar and junk food consumption down drastically to the much lower levels that nature intended for our bodies.

Junk and sugary foods need to be seen as treats given out from time to time, and not something that is to be served daily at the table as part of the normal diet.

Today, a hefty sugar tax would make great sense and is probably the only way to avert the coming human health collapse.

Posted in Nutrition | 32 Responses

Attribution Shift: Scientists Increasingly Link Climate Change To Solar Forcing In Scientific Journals

By Kenneth Richard on 24. August 2017

Scientists: It’s The Sun

“The emerging causal effects from SS [solar activity] to GT [global temperatures], especially for recent decades, are overwhelmingly proved” – Huang et al., 2017

“Climate … follows SA [solar activity] fluctuations on multidecadal to centennial time scales” – Moreno et al., 2017

“The solar ‘activity’ increase is the chief driver of the global temperature increase since the LIA [Little Ice Age]” – Page, 2017

“A large proportion of climate variations can be explained by the mechanism of action of TSI [total solar irradiance] and cosmic rays (CRs) on the state of the lower atmosphere and other meteorological parameters” – Biktash, 2017

“The activity level of the Modern Maximum (1940–2000) is a relatively rare event, with the previous similarly high levels of solar activity observed 4 and 8 millennia ago” – Yndestad and Solheim, 2017

“The main driver of the large-scale character of the warm and cold episodes may be changes in the solar activity. Four warm periods – 1626–1637, 1800–1809, 1845– 1859, and 1986–2012 – have been identified to correspond to increased solar activity” – Tejedor et al., 2017

Solar Forcing As Significant Temperature/Climate Driver

Li et al., 2017 It has been widely suggested from both climate modeling and observation data that solar activity plays a key role in driving late Holocene climatic fluctuations by triggering global temperature variability and atmospheric dynamical circulation … The strengthened solar activity could be significantly amplified by the variations in ultraviolet radiation as well as clouds, resulting in the marked variability in global surface temperature. … … [O]verall solar-dominated long-term control.

Huang et al., 2017 (full) Various scientific studies have investigated the causal link between solar activity (SS) and the earth’s temperature (GT). [T]he corresponding CCM [Convergent Cross Mapping] results indicate increasing significance of causal effect from SS [solar activity] to GT [global temperature] since 1880 to recent years, which provide solid evidences that may contribute on explaining the escalating global tendency of warming up recent decades. … The connection between solar activity and global warming has been well established in the scientific literature. For example, see references [1–10]. … Among which, the SSA [Singular Spectrum Analysis] trend extraction is identified as the most reliable method for data preprocessing, while CCM [Convergent Cross Mapping] shows outstanding performance among all causality tests adopted. The emerging causal effects from SS [solar activity] to GT [global temperatures], especially for recent decades, are overwhelmingly proved, which reflects the better understanding of the tendency of global warming.

Blaauw, 2017 This paper demonstrates that global warming can be explained without recourse to the greenhouse theory. This explanation is based on a simple model of the Earth’s climate system consisting of three layers: the surface, a lower and an upper atmospheric layer. The distinction between the atmospheric layers rests on the assumption that the latent heat from the surface is set free in the lower atmospheric layer only. The varying solar irradiation constitutes the sole input driving the changes in the system’s energy transfers.

Wen et al., 2017 A warmer and wetter climate prevailed since ∼4800 a BP and was interrupted by a sharp cold reversal at approximately 3300 a BP that was likely caused by solar irradiance forcing, which resulted in a global cold climatic change and glacier advance.

Xiao et al., 2017 Solar wind and electric-microphysical process is the key mechanism that affects climate … [T]he wintertime Iceland Low in the North Atlantic was very sensitive to solar wind variations and played an important role in the process of solar wind and electric-microphysical effects on climate. Tinsley and Zhou (2015) improved the collision and parameterization scheme that varied with electric quantity in a cloud microphysics process and quantitatively evaluated the effects of high-energetic particle flux on cloud charge. This achievement not only supports the marked association of solar activity with weather and climate change on various time scales, but also but also avails the quantitative accession of solar impacts on climate.

Allan et al., 2017 A deeper analysis reveals several periods of significant rapid climate change during the Holocene (at 10.7-9.2 ka, 8.2-7.9 ka, 7.2-6.2 ka, 4.8-4.5 ka, and 3-2.4 ka BP), which are similar to the cold events detected from different natural paleoclimate archivers. A comparison between the geochemical analysis of Père Noël speleothem and solar activity (sunspot number) reveals a significant correlation. Spectral analysis methods reveal common solar periodicities (Gleissberg cycle, de Vries cycle, unnamed 500 year, Eddy cycles, and Hallstatt cycle). The geochemical analyses have the potential to prove that PN speleothem is sensitive to changes in solar activity on centennial and millennial timescales during the Holocene.

Lihua, 2017 The modulation action from solar activity plays an important role in the temperature change, and there is a possible association existing in the global land-ocean temperature and solar activity on decade time scales. … About 11-year period, a remarkable oscillation of solar activity, continually exists in wavelet transform of solar variation. According to the cross wavelet transform, solar activity influences global land-ocean temperature change on ~11-year time scales during 1935-1995 with above the 5 % significance level.

Park, 2017 Late Holocene climate change in coastal East Asia was likely driven by ENSO variation. Our tree pollen index of warmness (TPIW) shows important late Holocene cold events associated with low sunspot periods such as Oort, Wolf, Spörer, and Maunder Minimum. Comparisons among standard Z-scores of filtered TPIW, ΔTSI, and other paleoclimate records from central and northeastern China, off the coast of northern Japan, southern Philippines, and Peru all demonstrate significant relationships [between solar activity and climate]. This suggests that solar activity drove Holocene variations in both East Asian Monsoon (EAM) and El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO). In particular, the latter seems to have predominantly controlled the coastal climate of East Asia to the extent that the influence of precession was nearly muted during the late Holocene.

Ogurtsov et al., 2017 Significant correlation was found between SST [sea surface temperatures] in NA [the North Atlantic] and solar activity (both instrumental data and proxies) during AD 1716–1986. … Thus, the connection between Northern Fennoscandian climate and solar activity, which has been previously established at century-scale (Ogurtsov et al., 2001, 2002, 2013) and millennial-scale (Helama et al., 2010), is confirmed for AD 1716–1986 over the entire frequency range using unfiltered records (with the exception for AMO reconstruction after Mann et al. (2009)). … Changes in solar ultra-violet (UV) radiation might provide a solar-climatic link over Northern Europe. Actually, modeling work by (Ineson et al., 2011) showed that that solar UV (200-320 nm) decadal variability drives appreciable temperature changes in mesosphere and upper stratosphere largely through absorption of UV by ozone. This variation results in a corresponding change in the pattern of stratospheric winds, which propagates downwards and appreciably influences atmospheric circulation over the North Atlantic basin. Studies using an atmosphere–ocean coupled climate model have shown that solar-induced changes in atmospheric circulation also influence changes of heat storage in North Atlantic Ocean that can integrate and amplify solar effect (Ineson et al., 2011; Scaife et al., 2013).

Moreno et al., 2017 Understanding the Sun-Earth’s climate coupling system is both an essential and an urgent issue, with great progress achieved over the last decades (e.g., Haigh, 2007; Soon et al., 2014 for a review). Recently, Brugnara et al. (2013) referred that the Euro–Atlantic sector, in which Portugal is located, seems to be a region with a particularly strong solar influence on the troposphere, finding a significant change in the mean late winter circulation over Europe, which culminates in detectable impacts on the near-surface climate. Jiang et al. (2015) suggested that (i) climate in the northern North Atlantic regions follows SA [solar activity] fluctuations on multidecadal to centennial time scales, and (ii) it is more susceptible to the influence of those fluctuations throughout cool periods with, for instance, less vigorous ocean circulation. Similar results were found by Gómez-Navarro et al. (2012) in the context of climate simulations for the second millennium over the Iberian Peninsula, recognizing that temperature and precipitation variability is significantly affected at centennial time scales by variations in the SA [solar activity]. … Grand Minima and Dalton-type Minimum scenarios are broadly characterized by (i) lower TSI (i.e., lower available PAR) (Lean, 1991, and references therein), (ii) development of cloudiness (e.g., Usoskin and Kovaltsov, 2008), and (iii) decreased global/regional air surface temperatures (e.g., Neukom et al., 2014) in tandem with greater regional precipitation variability.

Matveev et al., 2017 An increase in atmospheric moisture for the warm period of the year (May–September) since 1890s, and mean annual temperatures since the 1950s was identified. During the same time period, there was a marked increase in amplitude of the annual variations for temperature and precipitation. … These fluctuations are consistent with 10–12-years Schwabe–Wolf, 22-years Hale, and the 32–36-years Bruckner Solar Cycles. There was an additional relationship found between high-frequency (short-period) climate fluctuations, lasting for about three years, and 70–90-years fluctuations of the moisture regime in the study region corresponding to longer cycles.

Schwander et al., 2017 Influence of solar variability on the occurrence of Central European weather types from 1763 to 2009 … Weather types and reanalysis data show that the 11-year solar cycle influences the late winter atmospheric circulation over Central Europe with colder (warmer) conditions under low (high) solar activity. Model simulations used for a comparison do not reproduce the imprint of the 11-year solar cycle found in the reanalyses data. … Atmospheric circulation over Europe is strongly correlated to the NAO and hence solar activity is thought to have an influence on weather conditions in Europe in winter. Studies show a preference of cold winters in Europe to be associated with minima in the 11-year solar cycle (e.g., Lockwood et al., 2010; Sirocko et al., 2012). … The 247-year long analysis [1763-2009] of the 11-year solar cycle impact on late winter European weather patterns suggest a reduction in the occurrence of westerly flow types linked to a reduced mean zonal flow under low solar activity. Following these observation, we estimate the probability to have cold conditions in winter over Europe to be higher under low solar activity than under high activity. Also similar [cold] conditions can occur during periods of prolonged reduced total solar irradiance. … Solar activity can have effects on the atmospheric circulation through three different mechanisms. These effects may arise from direct changes in total solar irradiance (TSI), from changes in stratospheric ozone induced by changes in solar UV, or from changes in stratospheric ozone induced by energetic particles, whose flux is modulated by solar activity. The ~1 Wm-2 variation in TSI over an 11-yr sunspot cycle corresponds to a change in the radiation forcing of about ~0.17 Wm-2.

Wang et al., 2017 The identification of causal effects is a fundamental problem in climate change research. Here, a new perspective on climate change causality is presented using the central England temperature (CET) dataset, the longest instrumental temperature record, and a combination of slow feature analysis and wavelet analysis. The driving forces of climate change were investigated and the results showed two independent degrees of freedom —a 3.36-year cycle and a 22.6-year cycle, which seem to be connected to the El Niño–Southern Oscillation cycle and the Hale sunspot cycle, respectively.

Page, 2017 Earth’s climate is the result of resonances and beats between various quasi-cyclic processes of varying wavelengths. … Data related to the solar climate driver are discussed and the solar cycle 22 low in the neutron count (high solar activity) in 1991 is identified as a solar activity millennial peak and correlated with the millennial peak – inversion point – in the RSS temperature trend in about 2004. The cyclic trends are projected forward and predict a probable general temperature decline in the coming decades and centuries. … Unless the range and causes of natural variation, as seen in the natural temperature quasi-periodicities, are known within reasonably narrow limits, it is simply not possible to even begin to estimate the effect of anthropogenic CO2 on climate. Given the lack of any empirical CO2-climate connection reviewed earlier and the inverse relationship between CO2 and temperature [during the Holocene, when CO2 rose as temperatures declined] seen in Figure 2, and for the years 2003.6–2015.2 in Figure 4, during which CO2 rose 20 ppm, the simplest and most rational working hypothesis is that the solar ‘activity’ increase is the chief driver of the global temperature increase since the LIA.

Biktash, 2017 The effects of total solar irradiance (TSI) and volcanic activity on long-term global temperature variations during solar cycles 19–23 [1954-2008] were studied. It was shown that a large proportion of climate variations can be explained by the mechanism of action of TSI [total solar irradiance] and cosmic rays (CRs) on the state of the lower atmosphere and other meteorological parameters. … Recent studies by Pudovkin and Raspopov, Tinsley, and Swensmark have shown that the Earth’s cloud coverage is strongly influenced by cosmic ray intensity. Conditions in interplanetary space, which can influence GCRs and climate change, have been studied in numerous works. As has been demonstrated by Biktash, the long-term CR count rate and global temperature variations in 20–23 solar cycles [1960s-2000s] are modulated by solar activity and by the IMF (interplanetary magnetic field). A possible geophysical factor which is able to affect the influence of solar activity on the Earth’s climate is volcanism. The effects of volcanism can lead to serious consequences in the atmosphere and the climate.

Schmutz, 2017 For the first time, model calculations show a plausible way that fluctuations in solar activity could have a tangible impact on the climate. Studies funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation expect human-induced global warming to tail off slightly over the next few decades. A weaker sun could reduce temperatures by half a degree.

Kitaba et al., 2017 The weakening of the geomagnetic field causes an increase in galactic cosmic ray (GCR) flux. Some researchers argue that enhanced GCR flux might lead to a climatic cooling by increasing low cloud formation, which enhances albedo (umbrella effect). Recent studies have reported geological evidence for a link between weakened geomagnetic field and climatic cooling. … Greater terrestrial cooling indicates that a reduction of insolation [solar radiation reaching the surface] is playing a key role in the link between the weakening of the geomagnetic field and climatic cooling. The most likely candidate for the mechanism seems to be the increased albedo of the umbrella effect.

Lu et al., 2017 Ozone absorption of solar radiation in the ultraviolet (UV) band is known to affect upper atmospheric chemistry and temperature, and thus its circulation via photochemical, radiative and dynamical interactions (Brasseur and Solomon 2005). The enhanced UV forcing during high solar (HS) activity years leads to a 2-4% increase of annual mean stratospheric ozone and ~1 K increase of annual mean temperature in the equatorial upper stratosphere and lower mesosphere (e.g. Haigh 1994; Scaife et al. 2000; Hood 2004; Frame and Gray 2010; Chiodo et al. 2012; Hood and Soukharev 2012; Remsberg 2014; Mitchell et al. 2014, Hood et al. 2015). … Studies show that a regional circulation pattern in the Northern Hemispheric (NH) winter that resembles the positive phase of the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) occur during HS [high solar activity] winters (e.g. Ruzmaikin and Feynman 2002; Kodera 2002; Woollings et al. 2010a; Lockwood et al. 2010; Ineson et al. 2011; Gray et al. 2013; 2016). A number of different mechanisms have been proposed to explain the solar-NAO connection.

Du et al., 2017 Although the global warming has been successfully attributed to the elevated atmospheric greenhouses gases, the reasons for spatiotemporal patterns the warming rates are still under debate. In this paper, we report surface and air warming based on observations collected at 1,977 stations in China from 1960 to 2003. Our results show that the warming of daily maximum surface (T_s-max) and air (T_a-max) temperatures showed a significant spatial pattern, stronger in the northwest China and weaker in South China and the North China Plain. These warming spatial patterns are attributed to surface shortwave solar radiation (SSR) and precipitation, the key parameters of surface energy budget.

Ogurtsov et al., 2017 It is widely accepted also that this global warming is caused primarily by anthropogenic increase of greenhouse gases concentration . However debates on this question still continues. Some experts maintain that current warming does not exceed the natural fluctuations of climate. Evidence of appreciable contribution to global warming of non-greenhouse factors has been obtained by many authors. Soon et al., 2015 noted that if the urbanization effect is properly taken into account, one can conclude that solar variability is the dominant factor of Northern Hemisphere long-term temperature changes since at least 1881. Zhao and Feng, 2014 reported that variations in solar activity play an important role in changes of climate over global scale during the last more than 100 years. According to Harde (2014), the Sun is the main contributor to global warming of the last century. … [I]t is reasonable to regard the global warming as a phenomenon exceptional from the point of view of intrinsic climatic oscillations, which need an additional external forcing factor for explanation. On the other hand, the statistical experiments showed that an appreciable part of the global warming might be a result of natural fluctuations of climatic system. … [O]ur results show that the contribution of these external factors (including greenhouse effect) to the global warming could be less than is often believed. … Changes in the solar radiation at the Earth’s surface (global brightening) might be important source of the warming of the last decades (Ogurtsov et al., 2012).

Chen et al., 2017 The 11-year cycle suggests the influence of sunspot activity (Hale, 1924) on streamflow variations in the Tien Shan. The impact of variations in solar activity on streamflow series and other climate phenomena have been reported from North America and Europe, based on instrumental records (Zanchettin et al., 2008; Perry, 2006 ; Prokoph et al., 2012). A strong positive correlation was also found between solar activity and streamflow in South American rivers (Mauas et al., 2011). … To further investigate the links between the solar activity and streamflow of the Tien Shan, we examined the relationship between PC1 and the number of sunspots, using correlation and wavelet coherency analyses. A significant linkage was found at the quasi-11-year scale from the 1700–2000s.

Orme et al., 2017 The north-south index shows that storm tracks moved from a southern position to higher latitudes over the past 4000 yr, likely driven by a change from meridional to zonal atmospheric circulation, associated with a negative to positive North Atlantic Oscillation shift. We suggest that gradual polar cooling (caused by decreasing solar insolation in summer and amplified by sea-ice feedbacks) and mid-latitude warming (caused by increasing winter insolation) drove a steepening of the winter latitudinal temperature gradient through the late Holocene, resulting in the observed change to a more northern winter storm track.

Woodson et al., 2017 Variations in the East Asian Monsoon (EAM) and solar activity are considered as potential drivers of SST trends. However, hydrology changes related to the El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) variability, ~ shifts of the Western Pacific Warm Pool and migration of the Intertropical Convergence Zone are more likely to have impacted our SST temporal trend. … The SA [solar activity] trends (Steinhilber et al., 2012) are in general agreement with the regional cooling of SST (Linsley et al., 2010) and the SA [solar activity] oscillations are roughly coincident with the major excursions in our SST data.

Gray et al., 2017 There are several proposed mechanisms through which the 11-year solar cycle (SC) could influence the Earth’s climate, as summarised by Figure 1. These include: (a) the direct impact of solar irradiance variability on temperatures at the Earth’s surface, characterised by variation in the total incoming solar irradiance (TSI); (b) the indirect impact of variations through the absorption of Ultra-Violet (UV) radiation in the upper stratosphere associated with the presence of ozone, with accompanying dynamical responses that extend the impact to the Earth’s surface; (c) the indirect impact of variations in energetic particle fluxes into the thermosphere, mesosphere and upper stratosphere at high geomagnetic latitudes; and (d) the impact of variations in the generation of ions by galactic cosmic ray (GCR) penetration into the troposphere. Although different in their nature, these four pathways may not work in isolation but their influence could be synergetic.

Li et al., 2017 The main driving forces behind the Holocene climatic changes in the LYR [Lower Yangtze Region, East China] area are likely summer solar insolation associated with tropical or subtropical macro-scale climatic circulations such as the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ), Western Pacific Subtropical High (WPSH), and El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO).

Li et al., 2017 Correlations between paleotemperature records from the North Atlantic and solar activity suggest that changes in solar output may cause significant shifts in the climate of the North Atlantic region. The model results show a strong positive correlation between SST and solar irradiance in the pathway of the IC, indicating that a reduced frequency of Atlantic blocking events during periods of high solar irradiance promotes warmer and saltier conditions in the pathway of the IC due to stronger circulation of the subpolar gyre. … Spectral analyses indicate that significant centennial-scale variations are superimposed on the long-term orbital trend. The dominant periodicities are 529, 410, and 191 years, which may be linked to the well-known 512- and 206-year solar cycles. Cross-correlation analyses between the summer SSTs and total solar irradiance through the last 5000 years indicate that the records are in phase, providing evidence that variations in solar activity impacted regional summer SST variability. Overall, the strong linkage between solar variability and summer SSTs is not only of regional significance, but is also consistent over the entire North Atlantic region.

Chang et al., 2017 The variability of solar activity is likely an important driver of summer temperatures, either directly or by modifying the strength and intensity of the Indian Ocean Summer Monsoon. … We observed a relatively long-lasting summer cooling episode (c. 0.8°C lower than the 5000-year average) between c. 270 cal. BP and AD c. 1956. … The record shows cooling episodes occurred at c. 3100, 2600, 2100 and 1600 cal. BP. This is likely related to the period defined as the Northern Hemisphere Little Ice Age (LIA; c. AD 1350–1850, equivalent to 600–100 cal. BP). These possibly relate to the 500-year quasi-periodic solar cycle. Cooling stages between c. 270 and 100 cal. BP were also recorded and these are possibly linked to the LIA suggesting a hemisphere-wide forcing mechanism for this event.

Harde, 2017 The IPCC denies any noticeable solar influence on the actual climate, although strong evidence of an increasing solar activity over the last century exists (see, e.g., Hoyt & Schatten [8]; Willson & Mordvinov [9]; Shapiro et al. [10]; Ziskin & Shaviv [11]; Scafetta & Willson [12]; Usoskin et al. [13]; Zhao & Feng [14]; Soon et al. [15]). … From these studies we conclude that the measured temperature increase of 0.74∘ C over the time 1880–2000 and the observed cloud changes of −4% over the period 1983– 2000 can best be explained by a cloud feedback mechanism, which is dominated by the solar influence.

Huo and Xiao, 2017 In Misios and Schmidt (2012), the ensemble simulations from an AOGCM showed that the tropical SST oscillates almost in-phase with the 11-year solar cycle. White and Liu (2008) also found the fluctuation of the upper ocean warming to be in-phase with TSI on the decadal scale during the twentieth century, governed by a resonant excitation of the tropical delay action oscillator and solar forcing, and the warming stage lagged the solar peak year by one to three years. … [P]atterns of OHC and potential temperature anomalies in the tropical Pacific are quite spatially symmetric in the ascending and declining phases, which seems phase-locked with the phases of the TSI cycle. The most significant regions of the OHC anomaly are locate just in the high correlation areas (beyond the 95% confidence level), which are ‘solar-sensitive’ regions with a clear quasi-11-year period.

Yukimoto et al., 2017 For the Pacific internal mode (Pacific Decadal Oscillation), the power is largest for the longer periods of the 15−25 year band (Minobe 1999). As the NAO has some power near the 11-year cycle, resonance may take place more easily. In fact, the numerical simulation of Thiéblemont et al. (2015) suggested a phase locking of the NAO with the 11-year solar cycle. The present result confirms the previous hypothesis reported by Kodera et al. (2016), which stated that the major solar influence on the Earth’s surface can be produced through changes in stratospheric circulation, and the spatial structure of the solar signal at the Earth’s surface is largely conditioned by atmosphere’s interaction with the ocean.

Fischel et al., 2017 On a Holocene timescale, we conclude that the northeastern Caribbean SST [sea surface temperatures] and circulation regime have been mainly dependent on the position of the ITCZ [inter-tropical convergence zone], which, in turn, is controlled by changes in hemispheric solar insolation. Caribbean climate is directly controlled by the position of the inter-tropical convergence zone (ITCZ), where converging NE and SE trade winds creates a lowpressure convection zone with high precipitation rates (Philader et al., 1996; Schmidt et al., 2006). In addition to the seasonal variations in the position of the ITCZ, the long-term N–S migration of the ITCZ is largely determined by decadal to millennial changes in solar forcing (Haug et al., 2001; Schneider et al., 2014).

Allan et al., 2017 The occurrence of significant solar periodicities (i.e., cycles of Gleissberg, de Vries, unnamed 500 years, Eddy and Hallstat) supports for an impact of solar forcing on PN speleothem trace elements contents. Moreover, several intervals of significant rapid climate change were detected during the Holocene at 10.3, 9.3-9.5, around 8.2, 6.4-6.2, 4.7-4.5, and around 2.7 ka BP. Those intervals are similar to the cold events evidenced in different natural paleoclimate archivers, suggesting common climate forcing mechanisms related to changes in solar irradiance.

Nan et al., 2017 Furthermore, our temperature records, within age uncertainty, coincides with the changes of the solar irradiance changes, suggesting a possible link between solar forcing and climate variability. … The relationship between the solar irradiance and climate change has been demonstrated by lots of studies (He et al., 2013; Kroonenberg et al., 2007; Sagawa et al., 2014; Soon et al., 2014). It was suggested that the solar activity was a primary driving force of climatic variations in the Holocene (Bond et al., 2001; Wang et al., 2005). Small solar perturbations can be magnified by different feedback mechanisms and may ultimately lead to climatic oscillations on several time scales, such as annual to decadal and/or centennial scales, as well as millennial scales (Haigh, 1996; Bond et al., 2001).

Zhang et al., 2017 The record suggests the summer temperature varies by ~2.5 °C across the entire period. A generally warmer period occurred between c.8500 and c.6000 cal yr BP and a cooling trend was initiated from c.5500 cal yr BP. The overall pattern broadly matches the summer insolation at 30N and the Asian Summer Monsoon records from the surrounding regions suggesting that summer temperatures from the southeast margin of the QTP respond to insolation forcing and monsoon driven variability on a multi-millennial time scale. Modifications of this overall trend are observed on the finer temporal resolution and we suggest that solar activity could be an important mechanism driving the centennial-scale variability.

Low Solar Activity –> Cold Periods, High Solar Activity –> Warm Periods

Usoskin, 2017 Another aspect is the link between solar-activity variations and the Earth’s climate … [I]t should be noted that the modern epoch was characterized, until the earlier 2000s by high solar activity dominated by an 11-year cyclicity … contrary to some predictions, a Grand minimum of activity has not started. Thus, we may experience, in the near future, the interplanetary conditions quite different with respect to those we got used to during the last decades. … The longest direct series of solar activity is the 400-year-long sunspot-number series, which depicts the dramatic contrast between the (almost spotless) Maunder minimum and the modern period of very high activity.

Yndestad and Solheim, 2017 Periods with few sunspots are associated with low solar activity and cold climate periods. Periods with many sunspots are associated with high solar activity and warm climate periods. … Deterministic models based on the stationary periods confirm the results through a close relation to known long solar minima since 1000 A.D. and suggest a modern maximum period from 1940 to 2015. The conclusion is that the activity level of the Modern Maximum (1940–2000) is a relatively rare event, with the previous similarly high levels of solar activity observed 4 and 8 millennia ago (Usoskin et al., 2003). Nineteen grand maxima have been identified by Usoskin et al. (2007) in an 11,000-yr series. The Maunder and the Dalton minima are associated with less solar activity and colder climate periods. The model computes a new Dalton-type sunspot minimum from approximately 2025 to 2050 and a new Dalton-type period TSI minimum from approximately 2040 to 2065.

Lüdecke and Weiss, 2017 The Sun as climate driver is repeatedly discussed in the literature but proofs are often weak. In order to elucidate the solar influence, we have used a large number of temperature proxies worldwide to construct a global temperature mean G7 over the last 2000 years. The Fourier spectrum of G7 shows the strongest components as ~1000-, ~460-, and ~190 – year periods whereas other cycles of the individual proxies are considerably weaker. The G7 temperature extrema coincide with the Roman, medieval, and present optima as well as the well-known minimum of AD 1450 during the Little Ice Age. We have constructed by reverse Fourier transform a representation of G7 using only these three sine functions, which shows a remarkable Pearson correlation of 0.84 with the 31-year running average of G7 [global temperature over the last 2000 years]. The three cycles are also found dominant in the production rates of the solar-induced cosmogenic nuclides 14C and 10Be, most strongly in the ~190 – year period being known as the De Vries/Suess cycle. By wavelet analysis, a new proof has been provided that at least the ~190-year climate cycle has a solar origin. … G7 [global temperature over the last 2000 years], and likewise the sine representations have maxima of comparable size at AD 0, 1000, and 2000. We note that the temperature increase of the late 19^th and 20^th century is represented by the harmonic temperature representation, and thus is of pure multiperiodic nature [it is of natural solar origin]. It can be expected that the periodicity of G7, lasting 2000 years so far, will persist also for the foreseeable future. It predicts a temperature drop from present to AD 2050, a slight rise from 2050 to 2130, and a further drop from AD 2130 to 2200, upper panel, green and red curves).

Zharkova et al., 2017 Using a summary curve of two eigen vectors of solar magnetic field oscillations derived with Principal Components Analysis (PCA) from synoptic maps for solar cycles 21-24 as a proxy of solar activity, we extrapolate this curve backwards three millennia revealing 9 grand cycles lasting 350-400 years each. The summary curve shows a remarkable resemblance to the past sunspot and terrestrial activity: grand minima – Maunder Minimum (1645-1715 AD), Wolf minimum (1280-1350 AD), Oort minimum (1010-1050 AD) and Homer minimum (800 900 BC); grand maxima – modern warm period (1990-2015), medieval warm period (900-1200 AD), Roman warm period (400-10 BC) and others. … We confirm the occurrence of upcoming Modern grand minimum in 2020-2053, which will have a shorter duration (3 cycles) and, thus, higher solar activity compared to MM. … One of the examples of fitting incorrectly the oscillating function with a linear regression approach is shown by Akasofu (2010) (see her Fig. 9), when explaining the modern era recovery of the Earth from the little ice period and the incorrect use of a linear part of the temperature variations for the extremely incorrect prediction of the terrestrial temperature growth in the next century.

Tejedor et al., 2017 Reconstructed long-term temperature variations match reasonably well with solar irradiance changes since warm and cold phases correspond with high and low solar activity, respectively. … The main driver of the large-scale character of the warm and cold episodes may be changes in the solar activity. Four warm periods – 1626–1637, 1800–1809, 1845– 1859, and 1986–2012 – have been identified to correspond to increased solar activity.

Arppe et al., 2017 These negative shifts overlap with the latter part of a cooling known as the Dark Ages Cold Period (DACP, ca. 1500–1000 cal. yr BP; Bianchi and McCave, 1999; McDermott et al., 2001). The event is directly preceded by a minimum in total solar irradiation (Renssen et al., 2006; Steinhilber et al., 2009) … A wealth of proxy evidence testifies to the LIA [Little Ice Age] cooling, thought to have been triggered by reduced solar irradiance, extended volcanism, and internal characteristics of the ocean–atmosphere system (Miller et al., 2010, 2012; Wanner et al., 2011). … Factoring in respective age-model uncertainties, it appears that all major negative shifts, that is, ‘cold’ periods, in the δ18Olw record are roughly synchronous with periods of major negative anomalies in total solar irradiation and high modeled probabilities for extremely cold years in the Nordic Seas (Renssen et al., 2006), and widespread evidence of North Atlantic ‘cold spells’ (Bond et al., 2001; Sarnthein et al., 2003; Solomina et al., 2015; Wanner et al., 2008) linked to solar forcing.

Nan et al., 2017 The SST variation shows a millennial period of ~ 1500-yr and centennial periods of 131-yr and 113-yr. … Centennial periods dominated almost all of cold periods recorded in core BY14, implying the signature of solar irradiance cycles

Le Mouël et al., 2017 [S]olar activity contains an important component that has undergone clear oscillations of ≈90 years over the past three centuries, with some small but systematic longer-term evolution of “instantaneous” period and amplitude. Half of the variance of solar activity on these time scales can be satisfactorily reproduced as the sum of a monotonous multi-secular increase, a ≈90 -year Gleissberg cycle, and a double-peaked (≈10.0 and 11.0 years) Schwabe cycle (the sum amounts to 46% of the total variance of the signal). The Gleissberg-cycle component definitely needs to be addressed when attempting to build dynamo models of solar activity. The first SSA component offers evidence of an increasing long-term trend in sunspot numbers, which is compatible with the existence of the modern grand maximum.

Zawiska et al., 2017 The three minor cooling periods were reconstructed in the first half of the Millennium: 1050–1150, 1270–1370, 1440–1470 CE, that coincide with solar activity minima: Oort, Wulf, and Spörer respectively. … At 1050–1150 CE the first of the short-term cooling periods of the last Millennium began and the mean July temperature in the Lake Atnsjøen region dropped to 9.2 °C. The beginning of this cooling coincided with the Oort solar activity minimum. The beginning of the 1270–1370 CE cooling coincide with Wulf solar activity minimum suggesting that the climate was responding to Sun activity. The climate cooling synchronous to this solar minimum had almost global range and it has been recorded from Europe, Arctic, North America and Antarctica (Osborn and Briffa, 2006; PAGES 2k Consortium, 2013) … The temperature reconstruction from Lake Atnsjøen indicates that recent and ongoing climate warming began already in 1800 CE following the LIA. Temperatures increased very fast, from 8.5 to 12.8 °C during the first 75 years [1800-1875], but in the 20th century the increase became less pronounced. … The warming at the beginning of 19th century […] correlates with the positive NAO index and increased solar activity.

Koutsodendris et al., 2017 The Little Ice Age (LIA) is marked by a multicentennial-long cooling (14^th-19^th centuries AD) that preceded the recent ‘global warming’ of the 20th century. The cooling has been predominantly attributed to reduced solar activity and was particularly pronounced during the 1645-1715 AD and 1790-1830 AD solar minima, which are known as Maunder and Dalton Minima, respectively.

Deng et al., 2017 The results indicate that the climate of the Medieval Climate Anomaly (MCA, AD 900–1300) was similar to that of the Current Warm Period (CWP, AD 1850-present), which contradicts previous studies. … The cold LIA period agrees with the timing of the Maunder sunspot minimum and is therefore associated with low solar activity.

Luoto and Nevalainen, 2017 Here, we use completely synchronized paleolimnological proxy-based records of air temperature and effective precipitation from two Scandinavian lakes with ∼2000-year sediment profiles. We show that the relationship between air temperature and precipitation (T/P ratio) is synchronous in both study sites throughout the records suggesting warm and dry conditions at ∼300–1100 CE and cold and wet conditions at ∼1200–1900 CE. Owing to the significantly increased air temperatures, the most recent T/P ratio has again turned positive. During the first millennium of the Common Era, the T/P mimics patterns in Southern Oscillation index, whereas the second millennium shows response to the NAO index but is also concurrent with solar irradiance shifts. [T]he causes for the LIA [Little Ice Age [1200-1900 CE], are not well defined owing to its highly variable nature (Wanner et al. 2011; Luoto and Nevalainen 2016; Zawiska et al. 2017). Yet, in addition to a persistent strongly negative NAO index phase during the LIA, it was most likely forced by decreased solar irradiance (including Spörer, Maunder and Dalton solar minima), increased volcanic activity (aerosols), and changes in Atlantic Ocean circulation patterns (Grove 2001; Goosse et al. 2005; Wanner et al. 2011).

Ge et al., 2017 This paper presents new high-resolution proxies and paleoclimatic reconstructions for studying climate changes in China for the past 2000 years. Multi-proxy synthesized reconstructions show that temperature variation in China has exhibited significant 50–70-yr, 100–120-yr, and 200–250-yr cycles. Results also show that the amplitudes of decadal and centennial temperature variation were 1.3◦C and 0.7◦C, respectively, with the latter significantly correlated with long-term changes in solar radiation, especially cold periods, which correspond approximately to sunspot minima. The most rapid warming in China occurred over AD 1870–2000, at a rate of 0.56◦ ± 0.42◦C (100 yr)−1; however, temperatures recorded in the 20th century may not be unprecedented for the last 2000 years, as data show records for the periods AD 981–1100 and AD 1201–70 are comparable to the present.

Helama et al., 2017 (full) Solar proxy data (Steinhilber et al., 2009) consistently illustrate low activity between AD 400 and 700, with a notable seventh-century solar minimum, the millennial-scale solar changes culminating over these centuries and thus during the DACP [Dark Ages Cold Period] (Scafetta, 2012). Interestingly, there is multiple proxy evidence showing that reduced solar activity may modulate the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) towards its negative phase (Gray et al., 2010). Since the NAO is a leading pattern of climate variability in the global atmosphere, and the negative NAO phase is generally associated with cooler temperatures particularly over western Europe and eastern North-America for both the winter (Wanner et al., 2001; Hurrell and Deser, 2010) and summer seasons (Folland et al., 2009), a prolonged negative NAO phase could thus result in cold temperatures at least over some parts of the Northern Hemisphere continents.

Rydval et al., 2017 [T]he recent summer-time warming in Scotland is likely not unique when compared to multi-decadal warm periods observed in the 1300s, 1500s, and 1730s … All six [Northern Hemisphere] records show a warmer interval in the period leading up to the 1950s, although it is less distinct in the CEU reconstruction. [E]xtreme cold (and warm) years observed in NCAIRN appear more related to internal forcing of the summer North Atlantic Oscillation. … There is reasonable agreement in general between the records regarding protracted cold periods which occur during the LIA and specifically around the Maunder solar minimum centred on the second half of the seventeenth century and to some extent also around the latter part of the fifteenth century coinciding with part of the Spörer minimum (Usoskin et al. 2007).

Abrantes et al., 2017 Reconstructed cold conditions in Iberia, with an average 0.5 ºC colder SST in the northern sites and 1.2ºC in the southern sites, characterize most of the 15th to 18th centuries. The transition from warm to colder climatic conditions occurs around 1300 CE associated with the Wolf solar minimum. The coldest SSTs are detected between 1350 and 1850 CE, on Iberia during the well-known Little Ice Age (LIA) (Bradley and Jones, 1993), with the most intense cooling episodes related with other solar minima events, and major volcanic forcing and separated by intervals of relative warmth (e.g. (Crowley and Unterman, 2013; Solanki et al., 2004; Steinhilber et al., 2012; Turner et al., 2016; Usoskin et al., 2011). During the 20th century, the southern records show unusually large decadal scale SST oscillations in the context of the last 2 millennia, in particular after the mid 1970’s, within the Great Solar Maximum (1940 – 2000 (Usoskin et al., 2011)) and the “greater salinity anomaly” event in the northern Atlantic (Dickson et al., 1988)

Williams et al., 2017 Reconstructed SSTs significantly warmed 1.1 ± 0.30°C … from 1660s to 1800 (rate of change: 0.008 ± 0.002°C/year), followed by a significant cooling of 0.8 ± 0.04°C … until 1840 (rate of change: 0.02 ± 0.001°C/year), then a significant warming of 0.8 ± 0.16°C from 1860 until the end of reconstruction in 2007 (rate of change: 0.005 ± 0.001°C/year). …, [T]he reconstructed SSTs were cool during the period of lower than usual solar irradiance called the Maunder minimum (1645–1715) but then warmed and cooled during the Dalton minimum (1795–1830), a second period of reduced solar irradiance. … The Dalton solar minimum and increased volcanic activity in the early 1800s could explain the decreasing SSTs from 1800 to 1850 … [T]hese data suggest a complex combination of solar irradiance, volcanic activity, internal ocean dynamics and external anthropogenic forcing explain the variability in Aleutian SSTs for the past 342 years.

Pandey and Dubey, 2017 The Maunder minimum (1645-1715) refers to a period when very few sunspots were observed. During this period, the Earth climate was cooler than normal. This period mimics the solar cycle climate change connections. The particles and electromagnetic radiations flowing from solar activity outbursts are important for long-term climate variations. There is an abrupt and drastic cooling in the climate can be possible in near future due to large scale melting of global ice by global warming, and prolonged sunspot minima. There is a close correlation between variations in the 11-year sunspot cycle and Earth’s climate. Solar activity varies on shorter-time scales, including the 11- year sunspot cycle and longer-term as Milankovitch cycle.

Cosentino et al., 2017 [T]he most recent cold phase was the Little Ice Age (LIA), which caused the expansion of glaciers in the alpine regions at lower latitudes. Several authors have linked this cooler climatic condition to a period of reduced solar activity (Mauquoy et al., 2002), which caused a decrease in summer insolation (Wanner et al., 2011). … [T]he cooling event known as Little Ice Age (LIA)… persisted more or less from the 13th to the 19th century (Perry and Hsu, 2000). … Furthermore, the fluctuations occurring in the frequency curve of H. balthica could be related to several brief cooling events which characterize the LIA, namely Wolf, Sporer, Maunder and Dalton [solar minimum periods] (Lamb, 1984; Mauquoy et al., 2002).

Luthardt and Rößler The 11 yr solar cycle, also known as Schwabe cycle, represents the smallest-scaled solar cyclicity and is traced back to sunspot activity (Douglass, 1928; Lean, 2000), which has a measurable effect on the Earth’s climate, as indicated by the Maunder minimum (Usoskin et al., 2015). Global climate feedback reactions to solar irradiance variations caused by sunspots are complex and hypothesized to be triggered by (1) variation in total energy input (Cubasch and Voss, 2000), (2) the influence of ultraviolet light intensity variation on composition of the stratosphere (Lean and Rind, 2001), (3) the effect of cosmic rays on cloud formation (Marsh and Svensmark, 2000; Sun and Bradley, 2002), and/or (4) the effect of high-energy particles on the strato- and mesosphere (Jackman et al., 2005). … [L]ike today, sunspot activity caused fluctuations of cosmic radiation input to the atmosphere, affecting cloud formation and annual rates of precipitation.

Serykh and Sonechkin, 2017 The global climate is a quasi-periodically forced dynamic system [1, 2]. In addition to the annual cycle of the heat transport from the Sun and the diurnal cycle of the Earth’s rotation, other external periodical forces exist, which are potentially able to cause climate fluctuations. [C]alculations indicate that an approximately 180-year cycle exists in the rotation of the Sun around the center of mass of the Solar system. The authors of [3] suggest that it is related to the sequence of significant decreases in the solar activity in the last millennium known as the Oort, Wolf, Spörer, Maunder, and Dalton periods. Paleoclimatic evidence of climate cooling during these periods exists.

Solar Activity Drives Precipitation Change

Lei et al., 2017 The precipitation variability on decadal to multi-centurial generally always reflects changes in solar activity and large-scale circulation, e.g., the ENSO and the EASM [East Asian Summer Monsoon] (Chen et al., 2011; Vleeschouwer et al., 2012; Feng et al., 2014). [D]uring the MWP [Medieval Warm Period], the wetter climate in this region was consistent with more frequent ENSO events, stronger EASM and higher solar activity, whereas the opposite was found for the LIA. In particular, d13Cac fluctuations on multi-decadal to centennial scales is consistent with the changes in solar activity, with fewer dry intervals corresponding to periods of minimum solar activity within dating errors, which are referred to as the Oort Minimum (AD 1010-1050), Wolf Minimum (AD 1280-1340), Sporer Minimum (AD 1420-1530), Maunder Minimum (AD 1645-1715) and Dalton Minimum (AD 1795-1820). These results suggest that climate change in southeastern China is sensitive to ENSO and the EASM, which may be driven by solar activity.

Yan et al., 2017 Morpho- and hydrodynamic variations seem to coincide with northern hemispheric solar forcing. Seasonal freezing periods in excess of the average time of frozen water bodies also occurred in periods of the well-known grand solar minima and indicate stronger seasonality, possibly independent from variations in summer monsoon strength but with links to global northern hemispheric climate.

Cui e thal, 2017 [G]enerally weak monsoons [occurred] from the 14th to the 19th centuries punctuated by four severe droughts during 1476-1502, 1509-1537, 1577-1590 and 1604-1653. These drought events are evident in all three time series, indicating that the climatic trends were regional rather than local. These dry periods are correlated with reduced summer insolation [solar minima] in the Northern Hemisphere, a southward displacement of the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) and a weak EASM [East Asian Summer Monsoon].

Ramos-Román et al., 2017 In turn, this record shows centennial-scale climate oscillations in temperature that correlate with well-known climatic events during the Late Holocene in the western Mediterranean region, synchronous with variability in solar and atmospheric dynamics. … Enhanced arid conditions, co-occurring with overall positive NAO conditions and increasing solar activity, are observed between ~ 1550 to ~ 450 cal yr BP (~ 400 to ~ 1400 CE) and colder and warmer conditions happened during the Dark Ages and Medieval Climate Anomaly, respectively. Slightly wetter conditions took place during the end of the MCA and the first part of the Little Ice Age, which could be related to a change towards negative NAO conditions and minima in solar activity.

Munz et al., 2017 Decadal resolution record of Oman upwelling indicates solar forcing of the Indian summer monsoon (9–6 ka) … We use geochemical parameters, transfer functions of planktic foraminiferal assemblages and Mg /  Ca palaeothermometry, and find evidence corroborating previous studies showing that upwelling intensity varies significantly in coherence with solar sunspot cycles. The dominant ∼  80–90-year Gleissberg cycle apparently also affected bottom-water oxygen conditions.

Warrier et al., 2017 Climatic periodicities recorded in lake sediment magnetic susceptibility data: Further evidence for solar forcing on Indian summer monsoon … The results obtained from this study show that solar variations are the main controlling factor of the southwest monsoon and, like other archives from different regions in India, the TK [Thimmannanayakanakere –a small lake in southern India] sediments have also recorded these solar signatures.

Shi et al., 2017 Meanwhile, the stronger (weaker) EASM/ASM during the MCA (LIA) was associated with expansion (retreat) of the local Intertropical Convergence Zone and an enhanced (reduced) zonal temperature gradient over the equatorial Pacific. Our results imply that the synchronous change in the Asian–Australian monsoon may be caused by inherent solar variations, further strengthening previous findings.

Zielhofer et al., 2017 The Late Holocene climate variability in the Middle Atlas features a multi-centennial-scale NAO-type pattern, with Atlantic cooling and Western Mediterranean winter rain maxima generally associated with solar minima.

Sun et al., 2017 [A]t least six centennial droughts occurred at about 7300, 6300, 5500, 3400, 2500 and 500 cal yr BP. Our findings are generally consistent with other records from the ISM [Indian Summer Monsoon] region, and suggest that the monsoon intensity is primarily controlled by solar irradiance on a centennial time scale. This external forcing may have been amplified by cooling events in the North Atlantic and by ENSO activity in the eastern tropical Pacific, which shifted the ITCZ further southwards. The inconsistency between local rainfall amount in the southeastern margin of the QTP and ISM intensity may also have been the result of the effect of solar activity on the local hydrological cycle on the periphery of the plateau.

Zhang et al., 2017 The frequencies represent the influence of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) and solar activity on the precipitation from the southwestern United States. In addition, solar activity has exerted a greater effect than PDO on the precipitation in the southwestern United States over the past 120 years. By comparing the trend of droughts with the two fundamental frequencies, we find that both the droughts in the 1900s and in the 21st century were affected by the PDO and solar activity, whereas the droughts from the 1950s to the 1970s were mainly affected by solar activity.

Malik et al., 2017 [W]e investigate the impact of internal climate variability and external climate forcings on ISMR on decadal to multi-decadal timescales over the past 400 years. The results show that AMO, PDO, and Total Solar Irradiance (TSI) play a considerable role in controlling the wet and dry decades of ISMR [Indian summer monsoon rainfall]. Resembling observational findings most of the dry decades of ISMR occur during a negative phase of AMO and a simultaneous positive phase of PDO.

Xiao et al., 2017 Spectral analysis of Tsuga and evergreen oak pollen percentages shows statistically significant periodicities of ~1500 and ~200 years at the ≥95% confidence level, which suggests that insolation and feedback interactions on millennial to centennial scales are the primary forcing mechanisms of the southwest monsoon and past climatic change during the Holocene in northwestern Yunnan Province, southwestern China.

Crop Yields, Sea Ice, Ozone, Cloud Cover, Hurricanes…Driven By Solar Activity

Crop Yields

Huhtamaa and Helama, 2017 The rapid mid-15th century cooling, which followed a major atmospheric circulation change over the North Atlantic (Dawson et al., 2007; Meeker and Mayewski, 2002) and coincided with the culmination of the Spörer solar minimum (Miyahara et al., 2006), has been evidenced in various summer and winter season reconstructions of the region (Haltia-Hovi et al., 2007; Helama et al., 2009b; Klimenko and Solomina, 2010; Luoto and Helama, 2010; Zhang et al., 2015). … The culmination of the ‘LIA’ in Finland has been commonly dated to the late 17th and early 18th centuries ad (Luoto, 2013; Luoto and Helama, 2010; Tiljander et al., 2003), which is synchronous with the onset of the phase of the lowest yield ratios in our reconstruction. The Maunder solar minima (c. 1645–1715) and several volcanic eruptions preceded the culmination (Shindell et al., 2003).

Sea Ice

Stein et al., 2017 The increase in sea ice may have resulted from the continuing cooling trend due to decreased solar insolation and reduced heat flow from the Pacific. … The increase in sea ice extent during the late Holocene seems to be a circum-Arctic phenomenon as PIP25-based sea ice records from the Fram Strait, Laptev Sea, East Siberian Sea and Chukchi Sea display a generally quite similar evolution, all coinciding with the decrease in solar radiation … The main factors controlling the millennial variability in sea ice and surface-water productivity are probably changes in surface water and heat flow from the Pacific into the Arctic Ocean as well as the long-term decrease in summer insolation, whereas short-term centennial variability observed in the high-resolution middle Holocene record was possibly triggered by solar forcing.

Sha et al., 2017 The reconstruction indicates warm conditions with reduced sea-ice cover, associated with the Holocene Thermal Maximum, from ca. 6700 to 5000 cal. yr BP. … A distinct increase in sea-ice cover began at 1750 cal. yr BP, with absolute maximum values during the last millennium. … In order to assess the contribution of different potential forcing factors to sea-ice conditions off West Greenland, we evaluated the relationship between our sea-ice reconstruction and solar activity, as well as with the strength of ocean circulation. The observed agreement between the sea-ice record and solar activity suggests that solar forcing may have been an important trigger for sea-ice variability off West Greenland during the last 5000 yr.

Ozone

Pande et al., 2017 Angell and Korshover (1976) concluded that there is nearly in–phase relationship between sunspot number and total ozone. … Ozone is a highly reactive, naturally occurring ingredient of the stratosphere that is produced from oxygen by sunlight. It is one of the most important chemicals in both the stratosphere and troposphere. Apart from absorbing the harmful ultaviolet radiation from the sun, it [ozone] also plays an important role in determining earth’s climate. Solar variability affects ozone through radiative heating in atmosphere. Solar UV radiation is absorbed by atmospheric ozone. It is responsible for both the creation and destruction of ozone. … The total ozone was found to be enhanced during magnetically disturbed conditions which are associated with peak solar activity periods.

Clouds

Utomo, 2017 A similar result was also found for the relationship between solar activity and cosmic ray flux with a negative correlation, i.e. 0.69/year. When solar activities decrease, the clouds cover rate increase due-0.61/month and – to secondary ions produced by cosmic rays. The increase in the cloud cover rate causes the decrease in solar constant value and solar radiation on the earth’s surface. … The increase in the formation rate of cloud would affect the decrease in the intensity of solar radiation reaching the Earth’s surface. The relationship between cosmic rays and solar constant is an “opposite” relationship because of the negative correlation type (r < 0). The phenomenon of “opposite” is in a good agreement with the result by Svensmark (1997) who found a correlation between temperature and global cloud coverage with the cosmic rays… [T]he climate also depends on variations in the flux of solar energy received by the earth’s surface. Variation in the solar energy flux is caused by variations in solar activity cycle. Thus the climate is a manifestation of how solar radiation is absorbed, redistributed by the atmosphere, land and oceans, and ultimately radiated back into space. Every variation of solar energy received at the earth’s surface and reradiated by the earth into space will have a direct impact on climate change on Earth.

Hurricanes, Storms

Katsuki et al., 2017 Typhoon frequency in East Asia is synchronous with the solar irradiance. … Several studies documented typhoon pattern changes in response to the El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO). … The fluctuation of the solar activity plays a key role in regulating the westerly jet movement. The multi-centennial scale of the typhoon frequency in mid-latitude East Asia is therefore caused by changes in the solar activity and ENSO conditions.

Vyklyuk et al., 2017 Hurricane genesis modelling based on the relationship between solar activity and hurricanes … There are a number of works concerning the Sun–Earth connections and their influence on atmospheric motions. There are a number of observations which show that within a few days after energetic solar eruptions (flares, coronal mass ejections and eruptive prominences), there are diverse meteorological responses of considerable strength (Gomes et al. 2012). … Conclusion: [T]here are several indications which are in favor that the beginning of violent cyclonic motions in Earth’s atmosphere may be caused by charged particles from the solar wind.

Zhu et al., 2017 Abrupt enhancements in the flux of pedogenic magnetite in the stalagmite agree well with the timing of known regional paleofloods and with equatorial El Niño−Southern Oscillation (ENSO) patterns, documenting the occurrence of ENSO-related storms in the Holocene. Spectral power analyses reveal that the storms occur on a significant 500-y cycle, coincident with periodic solar activity and ENSO variance, showing that reinforced (subdued) storms in central China correspond to reduced (increased) solar activity and amplified (damped) ENSO. Thus, the magnetic minerals in speleothem HS4 preserve a record of the cyclic storms controlled by the coupled atmosphere−oceanic circulation driven by solar activity.

Posted in Solar Sciences | 51 Responses

Solar Cycle Continues To Be The Weakest In 2 Centuries

By P Gosselin on 23. August 2017

The sun in July 2017

By Frank Bosse and Fritz Vahrenholt
(Translated/edited by P Gosselin)

Our source of energy and life at the center of our solar system was significantly below normal with respect to activity last month.

The measured sunspot number (SSN) was 18.3. That was only 36% of what is typical (51) this far into the solar cycle – calculated from the previous 23 solar cycles recorded.

The sun was completely free of spots on 11 days in July. Notable: while during last month the sun’s northern hemisphere was more active (in June all sunspots were in the northern hemisphere), last month the southern hemisphere was the most active part with 60% of the sunspots appearing there. The following diagram shows the course of solar cycle 24 thus far:

The current solar cycle 24 (red) compared to another similar solar cycle 5 (black) and the mean of the previous 23 cycles (blue).

The following chart is a comparison of all the solar cycles, 104 months in:

Comparison of sunspot activity of all cycles since 1755, accumulated deviation from the mean.

The outlook for solar activity that is coming after the current cycle is somewhat uncertain. The error in the polar field data that has been known since May, 2017, still has yet to be corrected. Thus it is not possible to make any reliable forecasts for the strength of the upcoming cycle.

One thing is certain however: the cycle will be again below normal strength. The field experiment surrounding a long inactive sun thus continues.

=======================
The first chart above shows that the current cycle is the weakest since solar cycle 6, which occurred close to 200 years ago.

Posted in Solar | 25 Responses

German DWD Weather Service Misleads Public Into Thinking May Mean Temperatures Are Rising

By P Gosselin on 22. August 2017

Obviously it’s become necessary to focus more attention on shenanigans from Germany’s DWD National Weather Service.

Lately they have developed a seemingly activist habit of blaming everything on “global warming” and using dubious tactics in doing so. These tactics include putting out deceptive and misleading press releases for the media to spread to the public.

The latest episode is described by Dr. Sebastian Lüning and Prof. Fritz Vahrenholt at the Die kalte Sonne site here.

A couple of months ago the Deutsche Wetterdienst (DWD) worried that frosts seemed to be occurring less often in mid May, hinting that their seemingly lower frequency of the recent past was due to global climate warming. They wrote that over the recent years that “they often have not occured at all“. They added:

Recent studies by the Deutsche Wetterdienst show that the frequency of cold snaps in mid May foremost in the southern region was significantly under 50%. […] Many experts trace the changes to climate change, among other things, because the ongoing warming of the global atmosphere is leading to less and less frosty May cold snaps. The earlier and possible future changes in mean temperature for May, the number annual frost days, and many other figures are shown at a glance at the Deutsche Klimaatlas.”

Read entire article at the DWD here.

No warming

However, Lüning and Vahrenholt point out that the DWD fails to provide any charts illustrating this. But looking at the Deutsche Klimaatlas we find a chart of May mean temperature for Germany. The following chart shows Germany’s mean May temperature for the past 130 years:

Chart for Germany mean May temperature. Source: DWD, Deutscher Klimaatlas.

Suddenly it becomes clear why the DWD did not present any chart in its press release: May has not warmed at all in 100 years!

What one does see is a cyclic pattern with warm phases 1915-1950 and since 1985. The curve in fact follows almost precisely NAO ocean cycle. Lüning and Vahrenholt write that it is “peculiar” that the DWD would assign the May frosts as being a victim of climate change: “We’d like to see a little more realism and transparency from the DWD.”

German climate enthusiast Josef Kowatsch then provided a temperature curve for May for all of Germany going back to 1915. The chart is based on the DWD’s own data.

Clearly one sees the distinct oceanic cycles in the chart:

May mean temperature for Germany. has been declining for the past 15 years. Chart: Josef Kowatsch.

Note how in fact Germany temperature trended downward from 1915 to about 1985, despite rising CO2 emissions during the period. The hottest May took place early in the 20th century.

Strangely, although Europe’s climate is directly coupled to North Atlantic oscillations, one never hears of this in the German media. The problem for this has to do in part with the DWD press releases of the sort we’ve been seeing lately. With such misleading press releases, it should not be of any wonder that Europeans are now accustomed to having everything blamed on “man-made climate change”.

At Europe’s climate institutes like the DWD, oceans and the sun do not exist.

Posted in Activism, Cooling/Temperature, Media / Bias | 24 Responses

"Not here to worship what is known, but to question it" - Jacob Bronowski. Climate and energy news from Germany in English - by Pierre L. Gosselin