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Solar Cycle 24 passes maximum? Low sunspot numbers and climate cooling indicated for next two cycles

February 11, 2015

It is not completely certain but it does look like Solar Cycle 24 has just passed its maximum. The maximum was initially expected to be reached in late 2012 and gradually drifted to late 2013. Now it would seem that this may not have occurred till late 2014.  While the minima at the beginnings of SC 23 and 24 seem to have been c. 12 years apart, the maxima are closer to 14 years apart.

SC24 2015 January From NASA Hathaway

SC24 2015 January From NASA Hathaway

The length of Solar Cycles is thought to be linked to the solar activity to be expected in the following 2 cycles. Periods much longer than the average of 11.2 years seem to lead to decreased subsequent activity, lower sunspot numbers and also lower global temperatures.

Solheim et al predicted lower sunspot activity and cooler times during SC 24. Now it would seem this will also be the prevailing paradigm through SC25 and perhaps even SC26. Another two decades of reduced sunspot activity and a global cooling carried by the ocean cycles would seem to be on the cards.

Abstract

Relations between the length of a sunspot cycle and the average temperature in the same and the next cycle are calculated for a number of meteorological stations in Norway and in the North Atlantic region. No significant trend is found between the length of a cycle and the average temperature in the same cycle, but a significant negative trend is found between the length of a cycle and the temperature in the next cycle. This provides a tool to predict an average temperature decrease of at least 1.0ºC from solar cycle 23 to solar cycle 24 for the stations and areas analyzed. We find for the Norwegian local stations investigated that 25–56% of the temperature increase the last 150 years may be attributed to the Sun. For 3 North Atlantic stations we get 63–72% solar contribution. This points to the Atlantic currents as reinforcing a solar signal.

They write:

The length of a solar cycle is determined as the time from the appearance of the first spot in a cycle at high solar latitude, to the disappearance of the last spot in the same cycle near the solar equator. However, before the last spot in a cycle disappears, the first spot in the next cycle appears at high latitude, and there is normally a two years overlap. The time of the minimum is defined as the central time of overlap between the two cycles (Waldmeier, 1939), and the length of a cycle can be measured between successive minima or maxima. A recent description of how the time of minimum is calculated is given by NGDC (2011): “When observations permit, a date selected as either a cycle minimum or maximum is based in part on an average of the times extremes are reached in the monthly mean sunspot number, in the smoothed monthly mean sunspot number, and in the monthly mean number of spot groups alone. Two more measures are used at time of sunspot minimum: the number of spotless days and the frequency of occurrence of old and new cycle spot groups.”

It was for a long time thought that the appearance of a solar cycle was a random event, which means that each cycle length and amplitude were independent of the previous. However, Dicke (1978) showed that an internal chronometer has to exist inside the Sun, which after a number of short cycles, reset the cycle length so the average length of 11.2 years is kept. Richards et al. (2009) analyzed the length of cycles 1610–2000 using median trace analyses of the cycle lengths and power spectrum analyses of the O–C residuals of the dates of sunspot maxima and minima. They identified a period of 188±38 years. They also found a correspondence between long cycles and minima of number of spots. Their study suggests that the length of sunspot cycles should increase gradually over the next ~75 years. accompanied by a gradual decrease in the number of sunspots.

An autocorrelation study by Solanki et al. (2002) showed that the length of a solar cycle is a good predictor for the maximum sunspot number in the next cycle, in the sense that short cycles predict high Rmax  and long cycles predict small Rmax. They explain this with the solar dynamo having a memory of the previous cycle’s length.

Assuming a relation between the sunspot number and global temperature, the secular periodic change of SCL may then correlate with the global temperature, and as long as we are on the ascending (or descending) branches of the 188 year period, we may predict a warmer (or cooler) climate.

It was also demonstrated (Friis-Christensen and Lassen, 1992, Hoyt and Schatten, 1993 and Lassen and Friis-Christensen, 1995) that the correlation between SCL and climate probably has been in operation for centuries. A statistical study of 69 tree rings sets, covering more than 594 years, and SCL demonstrated that wider tree-rings (better growth conditions) were associated with shorter sunspot cycles (Zhou and Butler, 1998).

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Whither global warming? Not Harvard

February 10, 2015

Climate is an integral of local weather over time and space . If climate change (specifically global warming) does not show up as weather then it does not exist. From The Harvard Crimson:

Snow on Plympton

A student walks down Plympton St. on Monday evening, flanked by growing piles of snow. – Harvard Crimson

 As many Harvard schools cancel classes Tuesday for the third time in as many weeks — only its fourth snow day since one in 1978—administrators have begun to consider ways to compensate for lost instructional time. ……. 

……. Harvard has had only five snow days in the last four decades; before this semester, the only other two were in 2013 and 1978. …..

 …….. Between 2013 and 2015, Harvard has seen four of its five snow days in four decades. In 1977, before a snow day in 1978, former Dean of Students Archie C. Epps III joked that, “Harvard University will close only for an act of God, such as the end of the world.”

It wasn’t a joke.

Clearly snow days are to be taken as an Act of God where I take “God” to represent the natural variations in weather (and climate) which are beyond the wit of man to influence. But it does take some imagination for a winter snow storm to be equated to the “end of the world”. A summer snow storm might better qualify!

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Lima Climate conference agreement contains no commitments by anybody

December 16, 2014

The UN Conference of the Parties, Twentieth session, held in Lima Peru from 1st to 13th December 2014 is now over. The conference agreement is well worth reading as an  example of how an exercise with 9,000 delegates from 196 participating countries, could spend some $ 50 million over 2 weeks to accomplish – by their own expectations – absolutely nothing. The only decision of any significance to be taken by the parties is to meet again.

COP20 Lima Agreement (pdf)

But all 9,000 had a great time.

(In my judgement, the lack of accomplishment was a great success).

The agreement contains 22 clauses:

  • one clause “confirms”
  • three clauses “decide”
  • three clauses “agree”

All the remaining clauses are merely wishes and hopes with no commitments or obligations. Just waffle.

  • one clause “underscores”
  • one clause “urges”
  • one clause “acknowledges”
  • one clause “invites”
  • one clause “encourages”
  • one clause “welcomes”
  • two clauses “note”
  • three clauses “request”
  • four clauses “reiterate”

Looking just at the clauses which “confirm”, “decide” or “agree”:

The only “confirmation” comes first in the agreement and it is to meet again for COP 21 and adopt another agreement! Just a self-serving clause perpetuating the meetings.

The three “decides” also commit to nothing very much. The first “decides that any protocol which is legally binding shall be balanced. (This is a wonderful loophole. Any country which believes the protocol to be unbalanced can then ignore it). The next “decide” is that the working group will make a draft text. (The purpose of this is to make sure that all those working on this text can get paid). The third rather long “decide” only says that a technical examination will continue. Wow! But note that it establishes a framework – and thereby the funding – for “a series of in-session technical expert meetings”. Meetings galore – and the delegates shall have a great time.

There are also three “agree” clauses. The first says that all parties agree that each party will do better in the future. The second merely says that all developing countries and small island states may make special pleadings. The third says that each party may provide quantifiable information on how they intend to contribute. Not a commitment or obligation in sight.

It really is time that these meetings ceased and the IPCC was disbanded.

The clauses (my bold)

Confirms:

  1. Confirms that the Ad Hoc Working Group on the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action shall complete the work referred to in decision 1/CP.17, paragraph 2, as early as possible in order for the Conference of the Parties at its twenty-first session to adopt a protocol, another legal instrument or an agreed outcome with legal force under the Convention applicable to all Parties;

Decides:

  1. Decides that the protocol, another legal instrument or agreed outcome with egal force under the Convention applicable to all Parties shall address in a balanced manner, inter alia, mitigation, adaptation, finance, technology development and transfer, and capacity-building, and transparency of action and support;
  2. Decides that the Ad Hoc Working Group on the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action will intensify its work, with a view to making available a negotiating text for a protocol, another legal instrument or an agreed outcome with legal force under the Convention applicable to all Parties before May 2015;
  3. Decides to continue the technical examination of opportunities with high mitigation potential, including those with adaptation, health and sustainable development co-benefits, in the period 2015–2020, by requesting the secretariat to:
    (a) Organize a series of in-session technical expert meetings which:
    (i) Facilitate Parties in the identification of policy options, practices and technologies and in planning for their implementation in accordance with nationally defined development priorities;
    (ii) Build on and utilize the related activities of, and further enhance collaboration and synergies among, the Technology Executive Committee, the Climate Technology Centre and Network, the Durban Forum on capacity-building, the Executive Board of the clean development mechanism and the operating entities of the Financial Mechanism;
    (iii) Build on previous technical expert meetings in order to hone and focus on actionable policy options;
    (iv) Provide meaningful and regular opportunities for the effective engagement of experts from Parties, relevant international organizations, civil society, indigenous peoples, women, youth, academic institutions, the private sector, and subnational authorities nominated by their respective countries;
    (v) Support the accelerated implementation of policy options and enhanced mitigation action, including through international cooperation;
    (vi) Facilitate the enhanced engagement of all Parties through the announcement of topics to be addressed, agendas and related materials at least two months in advance of technical expert meetings;
    (b) Update, following the technical expert meetings referred to in paragraph 19(a) above, the technical paper on the mitigation benefits of actions, and on initiatives and options to enhance mitigation ambition, compiling information provided in submissions from Parties and observer organizations and the discussions held at the technical expert meetings and drawing on other relevant information on the implementation of policy options at all levels, including through multilateral cooperation;
    (c) Disseminate the information referred to in paragraph 19(b) above, including
    by publishing a summary for policymakers;

Agrees:

  1. Agrees that each Party’s intended nationally determined contribution towards achieving the objective of the Convention as set out in its Article 2 will represent a progression beyond the current undertaking of that Party;
  2. Also agrees that the least developed countries and small island developing States
    may communicate information on strategies, plans and actions for low greenhouse gas emission development reflecting their special circumstances in the context of intended nationally determined contributions;
  3. Agrees that the information to be provided by Parties communicating their intended nationally determined contributions, in order to facilitate clarity, transparency and understanding, may include, as appropriate, inter alia, quantifiable information on the reference point (including, as appropriate, a base year), time frames and/or periods for implementation, scope and coverage, planning processes, assumptions and methodological approaches including those for estimating and accounting for anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions and, as appropriate, removals, and how the Party considers that its intended nationally determined contribution is fair and ambitious, in light of its national circumstances, and how it contributes towards achieving the objective of the Convention as set out in its Article 2;

What a waste for a pointless exercise where the key action item (carbon dioxide) has no significant impact on the parameter ostensibly to be controlled. No targets, no tools but a great deal of arrogance.

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Even BBC admits that Arctic ice shows “modest growth”

December 15, 2014

I rely on the BBC for factual news and even consider their opinion pieces as being of high quality except when politically correct subjects are involved. Then the BBC always abides by the “politically correct” view. This actually is what the BBC’s alleged bias consists of; politically correct views which – by and large – tend to be left-leaning, “do-gooding”, self-righteous, sanctimonius views. They do sometimes ignore reports which do not support their “politically correct” memes. But if one makes allowance for the opinion bias, I find the BBC to be one of the most reliable disseminators of news.

The BBC is a strong adherent of the global warming orthodoxy. In the last two weeks they have published their share of alarmist reports in support of the Lima conference. Now that the Lima agreement is virtually devoid of any obligations they have joined the “politically correct” chorus that the Lima agreement is a good step towards Paris! So it is of significance when they start reporting observations – which have been reported for a long time elsewhere – that Arctic sea ice cover is increasing and is now at the same levels as the average for the last 3 decades.

Of course Antarctic sea ice cover is at the highest levels ever recorded (which gets little space at the BBC).

There is just no evidence that the poles are melting (any more than the variations seen normally).

BBC: Arctic sea ice may be more resilient than many observers recognise.

While global warming seems to have set the polar north on a path to floe-free summers, the latest data from Europe’s Cryosat mission suggests it may take a while yet to reach those conditions. The spacecraft observed 7,500 cu km of ice cover in October when the Arctic traditionally starts its post-summer freeze-up. This was only slightly down on 2013 when 8,800 cu km were recorded.

Two cool summers in a row have now allowed the pack to increase and then hold on to a good deal of its volume. And while the ice is still much reduced compared with the 20,000 cu km that used to stick around in the Octobers of the early 1980s, there is no evidence to indicate a collapse is imminent. …….

……… Indeed, Cryosat’s five-year October average now shows pretty stable volume – even modest growth (2014 is 12% above the five year-average).

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20th Climate games over! They all agree to meet again

December 14, 2014

The global warming community is nothing if not self-serving. We have had 2 weeks of relentless publicity. New alarmist articles have appeared every day. Thousands have flown in and out of Lima. They have had a good time. They have reached agreement to continue having a good time.

THEY WILL MEET AGAIN.

And now, in accordance with tradition, we declare the Climate Games of the 20th COP closed, and I call upon the parasites and wastrels of the world to assemble one year from now in Paris to celebrate the Climate Games of the 21st COP.

The international climate conference will be held at the Le Bourget site from 30 November to 11 December 2015. This will be the 21st yearly session of the Conference of the Parties (COP 21) to the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the 11th session of the Meeting of the Parties (CMP 11) to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol.

One wonders why.

BBC:

United Nations members have reached an agreement to tackle climate change after negotiations ran into the weekend in the Peruvian capital Lima. The president of the meeting said delegates had approved a framework for setting national pledges.

The deal puts off many critical details until a summit in Paris next year. Environmental groups criticised the deal as a weak and ineffectual compromise, saying it weakened international climate rules. The talks proved tough because of divisions between rich and poor countries over the scale and scope of plans to tackle global warming.

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UN climate conference in Lima collapses and defers all contentious issues to next meeting

December 13, 2014

The UN climate conferences are an exercise in futility for something quite unnecessary. But they provide an annual jamboree for the “global warming community” of do-gooders, pseudo-scientists, advocacy groups, bureaucrats and politicians. They have been meeting for over 2 decades and have achieved nothing. The ostensible goal is to get the world to reduce carbon dioxide emissions so as to limit global temperature rise. But during the life of these nonsensical meetings, the world’s emissions of carbon dioxide has increased by over 70%. Carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere has risen by about 15% and it is uncertain how much of that is due to man-made emissions. But while all this has been going on, global temperature has remained stagnant and may even have decreased slightly.

So one wonders why the UN keeps hosting these incredibly wasteful and pointless meetings. But of course this is because the meetings are not really pointless – they have a hidden agenda. And this agenda is all about the getting of funds and the redistribution of money. And that automatically divides the participant countries into those who will pay and those who will get. The largely parasitic “global warming community” is always on the receiving end and has a vested interest in keeping these meetings and their funding alive indefinitely. Never mind that nothing significant is achieved as long as their funding continues.

The conference in Lima has been no different. It has all been about rich countries putting money (which countries and how much?) into a pot which other so-called developing countries can dip into (who, when and how much?). It is inevitable that the fringe elements supporting the redistribution of wealth, from the creators of wealth to the consumers of wealth (and these fringes are always consumers), are well represented at these conferences. Listening to some lobby groups it sounded like “a conference for the promotion of socialist ideals”. Greenpeace made an utter fool of itself again by their cheap publicity stunt causing damage, pollution and desecration of the Nazca Lines site. John Kerry showed up for a day and made his alarmist speech. Al Gore made a speech on the sidelines noticeable for the number of empty seats.

In any event the Lima conference is now winding down. No major agreements were reached (thank goodness) and a final draft being circulated pushes all contentious issues to the next conference (which at least achieves the purpose of continuing the meetings). One positive is that for the first time since 1992, the favourite – and critical – expression of the countries which seek to get money of “common but differentiated responsibility” is not referred to. Without an agreement on these differentiated responsibilities all talk about who will donate and how much and who will receive and how much becomes entirely meaningless. The latest draft effectively mouths platitudes and leaves each country to set its targets and its own levels of action. This is also a good thing.

Another positive is that countries making pledges of funding for the Global climate fund (target $100 billion and about $10 billion pledges received) are now just transferring or allocating money from their normal Foreign Aid budgets – which therefore cost nothing extra. I was pleased to hear that the pledges have been “ridiculously low”.

“We are disappointed,” said India’s Prakash Javadekar. “It is ridiculous. It is ridiculously low.” Javadekar said the pledges to the green climate fund amounted to backsliding. “We are upset that 2011, 2012, 2013 – three consecutive years – the developed world provided $10bn each year for climate action support to the developing world, but now they have reduced it. Now they are saying $10bn is for four years, so it is $2.5bn,” he said.

If this reluctance to pay for something pointless and ineffective is real and continues, then it could be the return of a much -needed realism and a very good thing for the world.

Reuters:

United Nations climate talks, which ran on into a an extra day on Saturday, are heading for a watered-down deal on limiting global warming, leaving many of the toughest issues for next year’s Paris summit.

Peruvian Environment Minister Manuel Pulgar-Vidal, hosting the talks, told delegates that a new text on Saturday morning to try to break impasses was not perfect, but reflected common ground.

Rich and poor nations were at odds after two weeks of talks in Peru over how to share the burden of curbing rising world emissions and how to raise a promised $100 billion a year by 2020 to help the poor cope with a warmer world.

Latin American and other oil producers are desperately trying to increase oil sales and curb the revenue losses as the oil price has collapsed. They have no great interest in curbing fossil fuel use. Most countries are phasing out subsidies for renewable energy especially as these subsidies will have to increase to keep renewable energy flowing when oil prices are so low.

Senior country representative are now leaving Lima and are leaving their bureaucrats to complete the final communique which will effectively say nothing and defer everything till the Paris meeting next year.

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Climate mumbo jumbo lacks scientific temper

December 9, 2014

The Constitution of India actually requires that all citizens develop “scientific temper”. It is a term that is in common usage in India but not often referred to elsewhere. The concept is not new and similar ideas were expressed by Darwin but the term “scientific temper” seems to have been established mainly by Jawaharlal Nehru in his 1946 Discovery of India.

“… the scientific approach, the adventurous and yet critical temper of science, the search for truth and new knowledge, the refusal to accept anything without testing and trial, the capacity to change previous conclusions in the face of new evidence, the reliance on observed fact and not on pre-conceived theory, the hard discipline of the mind—all this is necessary, not merely for the application of science but for life itself and the solution of its many problems.” — Jawaharlal Nehru (1946) The Discovery of India

The questing, skeptical mind that Nehru admired is not so very different from that of Kipling’s narrator

I keep six honest serving-men
  (They taught me all I knew);
Their names are What and Why and When
  And How and Where and Who.
I send them over land and sea,
  I send them east and west;
But after they have worked for me,
  I give them all a rest.

Rudyard Kipling (1902) – Just So Stories

The new Indian government has refocused on promoting scientific temper among children as part of marking the 125th anniversary of Nehru’s birth. But this has also led to a debate about scientific temper and how in India it must coexist with superstition, quackery and pseudo-science (astrology, homeopathy ….).

Scientific temper is thus not a private matter. Article 51A(h) places on all citizens the duty to develop a scientific temper and therefore we cannot be “chalta hai” about these events since social behaviour is impacted by it and a culture of fatalism created by it. We must rally behind the Prime Minister’s call to spread scientific temper. We must revive the debate of the 1980s on the nature of scientific temper. The Prime Minister must give us his views on the relation between scientific temper and astrology. …….

…… It is reported that when Mangalyaan was launched — the satellite which India was able to place in Mars’ orbit in the first attempt, the only country to be able to do so — the Chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), Dr. Radhakrishnan, went, the day before the launch, to pray at Tirupati for its success. When asked, he is reported to have said that he did not want to leave anything to “chance.” The Mars mission was successful. ………….  Was it the puja at Tirupati or the science at ISRO that worked?

And I observe as the UN meets for its annual climate jamboree in Lima that they still continue to believe in models which are contradicted by data. The global warming acolytes could do well to abandon the mumbo-jumbo and to return to basics with Kipling’s “What and Why and When, And How and Where and Who” and start displaying some scientific temper It is high time for the so-called climate scientists to exhibit 

the refusal to accept anything without testing and trial, the capacity to change previous conclusions in the face of new evidence, the reliance on observed fact and not on pre-conceived theory,

That man-made carbon dioxide has any significant impact on global warming or on climate is a pre-conceived theory and real data contradicts the model predictions based on these pre-conceived theories. There has now been no global warming for over 18 years while man made carbon dioxide emissions have increased by  over 70%.

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Antarctic sea ice much thicker than expected

November 25, 2014

The British Antarctic Survey has issued a press release regarding the use of a robot submarine which has been measuring the thickness of Antarctic sea ice. The submarine can operate at upto 30m depth and maps the sea ice from underneath. They found that, on average, the thickness of the ice beneath sea level was much greater than previously thought at 1.4 to 5.5m, with the thickest sea ice measured at 16m. They also encountered a lot of highly deformed ice, where one block had ridden over another, increasing the overall draft.

“We suggest that thick ice in the near-coastal and interior pack may be under-represented in existing in situ assessments of Antarctic sea ice and hence, on average, Antarctic sea ice may be thicker than previously thought.”

No doubt some will contort their theories and themselves to show how increased sea ice thickness and greatly increased ice cover in the Antarctic are perfectly consistent with global warming. I am inclined to the much more parsimonious explanation that increased freezing is always a sign of cooling.

The first detailed, high-resolution 3-D maps of Antarctic sea ice have been developed using an underwater robot. Scientists from the UK, USA and Australia say the new technology provides accurate ice thickness measurements from areas that were previously too difficult to access. …

Now, with the Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) known as SeaBED, scientists have an invaluable new tool to fill this gap.

While most oceanographic survey instruments look down at the seafloor, SeaBED was fitted with an upward-looking sonar in order to measure and map the underside of sea ice floes. The AUV operated at a depth of 20 to 30 meters and was driven in a lawnmower pattern. These lines of data were merged to form high-resolution 3D bathymetric surveys of the underside of the ice.

Photo

SeaBed vehicle recovery Photo P. Kimball / Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution

 

The yellow SeaBED robot, which is approximately two meters long and weighs nearly 200 kilograms, has a twin-hull design that gives the robot enhanced stability for low-speed photographic surveys. …….. 
The research was carried out by scientists at the Institute of Antarctic and Marine Science (Australia), Antarctic Climate and Ecosystem Cooperative Research Centre (Australia), Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (USA) and British Antarctic Survey (UK).

Live Science:

Not only is the amount of sea ice increasing each year, but an underwater robot now shows the ice is also much thicker than was previously thought, a new study reports.

The discovery adds to the ongoing mystery of Antarctica’s expanding sea ice. According to climate models, the region’s sea ice should be shrinking each year because of global warming. Instead, satellite observations show the ice is expanding, and the continent’s sea ice has set new records for the past three winters. At the same time, Antarctica’s ice sheet (the glacial ice on land) is melting and retreating. …….

The findings were published today (Nov. 24) in the journal Nature Geoscience. ….. 

The sea ice growth around Antarctica has averaged about 1.2 percent to 1.8 percent per decade between 1979 and 2012, according to the 2013 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Fifth Assessment Report. The increases are concentrated primarily in the Ross Sea in western Antarctica. Sea ice in the nearby Bellingshausen and Amundsen seas has significantly decreased. Researchers suspect these regional differences could result from stronger winds or increased meltwater from the Antarctic ice sheet, or a combination of both factors.

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The Little Ice Age was real and it was global

November 22, 2014

Global warmists like to pretend sometimes that the Little Ice Age and the Medieval Warm Period were not real or that they were just some local phenomena. The usually point to the lack of data from the southern hemisphere to support their claims. They certainly don’t like to admit that global cooling or warming events could have been caused by solar effects which were perhaps connected to the level of solar activity (as indicated by sunspots). New work at the University of Gloucestershire shows that not only was the Little Ice Age real but that it was present in both hemispheres. And that it was probably due to solar effects

AlphaGalileo reports:

UK researchers show Little Ice Age was global, wit.h implications for current Global Warming

Under embargo until 20 November 2014 00:01 GMT

A team of UK researchers has shed new light on the climate of the Little Ice Age, and rekindled debate over the role of the sun in climate change. The new study, which involved detailed scientific examination of a peat bog in southern South America, indicates that the most extreme climate episodes of the Little Ice Age were felt not just in Europe and North America, which is well known, but apparently globally. The research has implications for current concerns over ‘Global Warming’.

Climate sceptics and believers of Global Warming have long argued about whether the Little Ice Age (from c. early 15th to 19th Centuries) was global, its causes, and how much influence the sun has had on global climate, both during the Little Ice Age and in recent decades. This new study helps clarify those debates.

The team of researchers, from the Universities of Gloucestershire, Aberdeen and Plymouth, conducted studies on past climate through detailed laboratory examination of peat from a bog near Ushuaia, Tierra del Fuego. They used exactly the same laboratory methods as have been developed for peat bogs in Europe. Two principal techniques were used to reconstruct past climates over the past 3000 years: at close intervals throughout a vertical column of peat, the researchers investigated the degree of peat decomposition, which is directly related to climate, and also examined the peat matrix to reveal the changing amounts of different plants that previously grew on the bog.

The data show that the most extreme cold phases of the Little Ice Age—in the mid-15th and then again in the early 18th centuries—were synchronous in Europe and South America. There is one stark difference: while in continental north-west Europe, bogs became wetter, in Tierra del Fuego, the bog became drier—in both cases probably a result of a dramatic equator-ward shift of moisture-bearing winds.

These extreme times coincide with periods when it is known that the sun was unusually quiet. In the late 17th to mid-18th centuries it had very few sunspots—fewer even than during the run of recent cold winters in Europe, which other UK scientists have linked to a relatively quiet sun.

Professor Frank Chambers, Head of the University of Gloucestershire’s Centre for Environmental Change and Quaternary Research, who led the writing of the Fast-Track Research Report, said:

“Both sceptics and adherents of Global Warming might draw succour from this work. Our study is significant because, while there are various different estimates for the start and end of the Little Ice Age in different regions of the world, our data show that the most extreme phases occurred at the same time in both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. These extreme episodes were abrupt global events. They were probably related to sudden, equator-ward shifts of the Westerlies in the Southern Hemisphere, and the Atlantic depression tracks in the Northern Hemisphere. The same shifts seem to have happened abruptly before, such as c. 2800 years ago, when the same synchronous but opposite response is shown in bogs in Northwest Europe compared with southern South America.

“It seems that the sun’s quiescence was responsible for the most extreme phases of the Little Ice Age, implying that solar variability sometimes plays a significant role in climate change. A change in solar activity may also, for example, have contributed to the post Little Ice Age rise in global temperatures in the first half of the 20th Century. However, solar variability alone cannot explain the post-1970 global temperature trends, especially the global temperature rise in the last three decades of the 20th Century, which has been attributed by the Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to increased concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.”

Professor Chambers concluded: “I must stress that our research findings are only interpretable for the period from 3000 years ago to the end of the Little Ice Age. That is the period upon which our research is focused. However, in light of our substantiation of the effects of ‘grand solar minima’ upon past global climates, it could be speculated that the current pausing of ‘Global Warming’, which is frequently referenced by those sceptical of climate projections by the IPCC, might relate at least in part to a countervailing effect of reduced solar activity, as shown in the recent sunspot cycle.”

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Climate can only be observed as weather

November 19, 2014

One weather event is not climate but climate can only be observed – ultimately – as weather. Climate is an integration of local weather over space and time. Supposed climate change which does not show up as changes to local weather to give conditions which lie outside the range of normal variability of that local weather, is no change.

Anthropogenic global warming when it is a conclusion which can only be based on “adjusting” raw data or is only that predicted by a model, but which cannot be actually observed, is of little relevance and of no importance. It is certainly a rather stupid basis for policy.

There has been no global warming of any kind (anthropogenic or otherwise) – even with adjusted data – for over 18 years. The anthropogenic component – supposed to be due to on man-made emissions of carbon dioxide – is not discernible, even though carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel combustion have increased by some 70% in that time.

The politically correct “policy” of reducing fossil fuel combustion would seem to be of no significance and of little relevance. This particular weather event in North America only adds to the body of evidence that is not consistent with global warming.

Reuters: All 50 U.S. states feeling freezing temperatures

Temperatures in all 50 U.S. states dipped to freezing or below on Tuesday as an unseasonably cold blast of weather moved across the country, while heavy snow prompted a state of emergency in western New York.

In the U.S. South, states were bracing for a record chill from the Arctic-born cold that swept the Rocky Mountains last week.

Every U.S. state, including Hawaii, was bitten by temperatures at the freezing point of 32 degrees F (0 C) or below, the National Weather Service (NWS) said.

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Posted in Alarmism, Climate, Weather | 1 Comment »

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