Global warming discussion III

[Red Baron Farms]

Pretty sure? Say it isn't so!

Is this also a lie? (I learnt the word "maul" with that, 6 years ago)

We can no longer trust The Onion!

I think I'll switch to Fox News. You can't cut corners to acquire good truthfully impartial information.

[No emoticons were hurt during the writing of this post]

The Onion's satires are a bit more than just the pure slant found at Fox. Often you can find more than just a grain of truth in them. In fact, good humor usually does.

 

[aleCcowaN]

The Onion's satires are a bit more than just the pure slant found at Fox. Often you can find more than just a grain of truth in them. In fact, good humor usually does.

That's why I linked that page here (and got the unnecessary clarification).

 

[Trakar]

interesting times!

Well I see you all have wasted the time spent in my absence maintaining the mutual stroking in a circular social fashion! And I'm Jelly!

Seriously, I did manage to get a little reading done, though the cocktail of muscle relaxers and pain medication made the integration of that information a bit spotty here and there I'll run one of the articles I spent some time with during the last week and would appreciate some help from any who care to help me to a more clear understanding of the material.

Thermohaline circulation crisis and impacts during the mid-Pleistocene transition
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/345/6194/318.full

he mid-Pleistocene transition (MPT) marked a fundamental change in glacial-interglacial periodicity, when it increased from ~41-thousand-year to 100-thousand-year cycles and developed higher-amplitude climate variability without substantial changes in the Milankovitch forcing. Here, we document, by using Nd isotopes, a major disruption of the ocean thermohaline circulation (THC) system during the MPT between marine isotope stages (MISs) 25 and 21 at ~950 to 860 thousand years ago, which effectively marks the first 100-thousand-year cycle, including an exceptional weakening through a critical interglacial (MIS 23) at ~900 thousand years ago. Its recovery into the post-MPT 100-thousand-year world is characterized by continued weak glacial THC. The MPT ocean circulation crisis facilitated the coeval drawdown of atmospheric CO2 and high-latitude ice sheet growth, generating the conditions that stabilized 100-thousand-year cycles.

Science 18 July 2014:
Vol. 345 no. 6194 pp. 318-322
DOI:10.1126/science.1249770

From my reading and some limited e-mail contact with a couple of the researchers involved with the study (in direct and ancillary roles), it seems that paleoclimatologists studying the most recent Ice Age (an epoch of time when polar icecaps and mountain ices have accumulated and persisted through expansions toward and retractions from the equator, year-round, for the last million, or two, years, have noticed that the expansions signaling what is more commonly termed an "ice age" have been increasing and becoming more intense over the last 900,000 years or so. The question is why? especially since whatever is causing this seems to be continuing to impact glaciations even after the Milankovitch cycle forcings have reversed, for much longer than can be attributed to simple climate momentum effects.

This paper looks at an important climate energy transport system, the thermohaline circulation systems of the oceans and how they may be generating some unexpected climate effects and impacts.

In short these researchers (Pena and Goldstein) are proposing and presenting evidences in support of a transition in the way the oceans' thermohaline circulations function roughly 900kya resulting in longer and more effective CO2 absorption and retention by the oceans. one of the effects of this change has been a generally slower (occasionally stopped) circulation that has resulted in fewer but more intense glaciation episodes.

Most of the circulation data is based upon the study of neodymium isotopes contained in the shells of various fauna in sediment core samples taken from the ocean seafloors from around the world. Throughout the current ice age (roughly the last few million years) as the average surface temperature of our planet has warmed the thermohaline circulation (THC) rates have increased reducing the amount of time that Atmospheric CO2 is pulled out of the atmosphere by the oceans. Likewise as the surface temperatures decreased, the THC rates have slowed increasing the time that absorbed CO2 is kept out of atmospheric circulation. Some 950kya, however, something peculiar seems to have happened, when the THC slowed so much that it virtually shut down and stayed very slow or absent for more than 100ky. This not only signaled/resulted in a phase shift (glaciations shifted from a 41ky cycle to a 100ky cycle and completely skipped a due interglacial warming period in the process). Academically referred to as the MPT (Mid-Pleistocene Transition) this paper addresses a current attempt to understand the details of this rather unusual (to modern history) climate state transition.

How does this tie into modern climate issues? I'm not sure, but it is very interesting that there are such apparent phase shifts that appear to be inherent features of global climate patterns. What would happen if the current THC rate shifted to dramatically different current rates in accord with a much warmer climate? With the THC seemingly near historic low rates this doesn't seem likely, or an immediate issue to worry about, but, how would this impact atmospheric CO2 absorption and short-term sequestration?

I've enjoyed having the opportunity to read more, even if the pain and discomfort were a definite offset!

Carry on!

 

[Haig]

what you would consider a significant deviation. I'm still waiting.

A return to the warming trend of the period from 1970 to 1995 ie a significant deviation from the statistical stasis of 1995 to 2014.

So if in 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018 or 2019 the warming since 1998 is statistically significant that will falsify your point 1?

Yes, a return to a warming trend would falsify my point #1 imo. But, just as the cooling period from 1942 to 1970 (28 yrs) didn’t falsify the warming trend of the last century then warm periods in this century won’t falsify the cooling trend of the 21st century.

So that's statistically significant cooling over a 10 year period? A 15 year period? 20?

Once the statistically significant cooling trend starts it will go on for many decades (how long did the last Little Ice Age last?). “Now we witness the transitional period from warming to deep cooling characterized by unstable climate changes when the global temperature will oscillate (approximately until 2014) around the maximum achieved in 1998-005.” Habibullo Abdussamatov

So, a reverse of the warming trend of the 20th century down into the deep cooling of a new little ice age.

CO2 is a greenhouse gas, so AGW is a fact. The only debatable point is what is the climate sensitivity, estimates for which vary between less than 2C to more than 4C. If there is ever a period of at least 20 years with no statistically significant warming (assuming no gamechangers like exceptional volcanic activity) then that would indicate the climate sensitivity is at the lower end of the estimates, which would be good news of course.

I would be prepared to wager a small sum on a new average global temperature record being set at least twice in the next 15 years, by which time your cooling graph will be looking very silly indeed.

I don’t bet but I would donate a small sum to a charity of your choice if that were the case by a statistically significant amount +/- 0.1 C confirmed by satellite data. If you are wrong and agree to do the same donation for a charity of my choice then we do have a deal.

"At the start of 2014 meteorologists warned of a possible El Nino event this year. The portents were persuasive – a warming of the central Pacific much like that which preceded the powerful El Nino event of 1997."

So what happened to the 2014 El Nino?

Looks like the weak Sun pulled the plug.

It’s just past the second peak of Solar Cycle 24 maximum and there has been days of NO sunspots already! So the prediction in the Livingston and Penn paper “Sunspots may vanish by 2015” looks right on the money.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/06/02/livingston-and-penn-paper-sunspots-may-vanish-by-2015/

 

[Reality Check]

Haig: Habibullo Abdussamatov's 2009 paper is very bad

...Habibullo Abdussamatov
...snipped parroting of Habibullo Abdussamatov's fantasy...

Oh dear, Haig, citing a rather ignorant climate change denier yet again!
Before it was the ignorance displayed in Habibullo Abdussamatov's paper.

Now it is the ignorance displayed on this blog. The URL alone ("hockeyschtick") tells you that this author is ignorant of climate science. The Hockey Stick graph has been shown to be valid many times - What evidence is there for the hockey stick?

http://www.skepticalscience.com/broken-hockey-stick.htm

Show that you are smarter than Habibullo Abdussamatov and can learn some climate science: Haig (24 July 2014): It is not the Sun, Maunder Minimum will not stop GW!

Show that you can understand how bad Habibullo Abdussamatov's paper that you cited was: THE SUN DEFINES THE CLIMATE published 2009 (PDF)

1. The Sun drives the climate - unless it is dominated by other effects e.g. those that create Ice Ages.
2. The simple fact that Habibullo Abdussamatov is ignorant of is that solar TSI has been constant for the last 35 years and global surface temperatures have increased during that period.
3. The climate science that Habibullo Abdussamatov is ignorant of is that even if we had a Maunder Minimum that would not stop global warming.
4. The fact that you remain ignorant of, Haig, is the origin of Figure 8 ! Actually everyone who reads that paper is ignorant of that fact because there is no description of how that figure was generated. It looks like a hand drawn line. There is no mention of the climate model that generated it.
5. What is worse is that no climate models are mentioned at all as being used in the paper. This leads to the totally ignorant implication that Habibullo Abdussamatov thinks that climate is only driven by the Sun.
6. The sunspot numbers predicted in the paper are wrong by a factor of 5 at least.
   

   The author has ~10 as the maximum.
   Long-term variations in the north-south asymmetry of solar activity and solar cycle prediction, III: Prediction for the amplitude of solar cycle 25 (01/2015)
   "50±10 for the amplitude of solar cycle 25"
   Prediction of the amplitude of solar cycle 25 (12/2013)
   "108.8×14.8 as the maximum SSN of cycle 25"
   A Neuro-Fuzzy modeling for prediction of solar cycles 24 and 25 (03/2013)
   "According to the model prediction the maximum amplitudes of the cycles 24 and 25 will occur in the year 2013 and year 2022 with peaks of 101±8 and 90.7±8, respectively."
   Difference between even and odd cycles in the predictability of the amplitude of the around 11-year-period solar activity and prediction of the amplitude of cycle 25 (12/2012)
   "we predict as of August 2012 that the maximum value of SSN of cycle 25 to be 112.0±15.1."
   Prediction of sunspot number amplitude and solar cycle length for cycles 24 and 25 (07/2011)
   "The sunspot number maximum in cycle 25 is predicted to occur in April 2023 with a sunspot number 132.1"

 

[Reality Check]

Habibullo Abdussamatov

The "paper" that this climate science denier is citing is GRAND MINIMUM OF THE TOTAL SOLAR IRRADIANCE LEADS TO THE LITTLE ICE AGE (PDF)
This is just Habibullo Abdussamatov repeating once again his ignorance of climate science. The primary bit of ignorance is that he still does not know that factors other than the Sun drive the climate. It is not a scientific paper - it is a summary for policy makers written for the SPPI.

So we now have three sources of climate science denial in one post from you Haig!
* hockeyschtick
* wattsupwiththat
* and the Science and Public Policy Institute whose chief policy adviser is Christopher Monckton ! The science advisors are basically a collection of climate science deniers, e.g. "God will not allow it" 'Aleo, "it has not warmed since 1998" Carter, "CO2 is plant food" Idso, "its natural" Kininmonth and "God will not allow it" Legates .

 

[Trakar]

Snakes, Snails, and Puppy dog tails

Climate Change Snippets – July 28,2014

“How ignoring climate change could sink the US economy” - http://www.delawareonline.com/story...ring-climate-change-sink-us-economy/13158103/

Good economic decisions require good data. And to get good data, we must account for all relevant variables. But we’re not doing this when it comes to climate change – and that means we’re making decisions based on a flawed picture of future risks. While we can’t define future climate-change risks with precision, they should be included in economic policy, fiscal and business decisions because of their potential magnitude…

“Climate Change Rules Could Bring Health Benefits” - http://www.publicnewsservice.org/20...ge-rules-could-bring-health-benefits/a40777-1

The Environmental Protection Agency is taking public comments on rules designed to cut carbon pollution from power plants by nearly one-third from 2005 levels.
Supporters say the new regulations also would save thousands of lives a year - and critics say the carbon pollution limits would have a devastating economic impact. But former EPA administrator Carol Browner said a healthy environment actually makes the economy healthier. She cited one study that found clean-air rules saved the United States about $1.3 trillion in 2010…

“The Collapse of Western Civilization: A View from the Future” - http://cup.columbia.edu/book/978-0-231-16954-7/the-collapse-of-western-civilization

The year is 2393, and the world is almost unrecognizable. Clear warnings of climate catastrophe went ignored for decades, leading to soaring temperatures, rising sea levels, widespread drought and—finally—the disaster now known as the Great Collapse of 2093, when the disintegration of the West Antarctica Ice Sheet led to mass migration and a complete reshuffling of the global order. Writing from the Second People's Republic of China on the 300th anniversary of the Great Collapse, a senior scholar presents a gripping and deeply disturbing account of how the children of the Enlightenment—the political and economic elites of the so-called advanced industrial societies—failed to act, and so brought about the collapse of Western civilization.
In this haunting, provocative work of science-based fiction, Naomi Oreskes and Eric M. Conway imagine a world devastated by climate change. Dramatizing the science in ways traditional nonfiction cannot, the book reasserts the importance of scientists and the work they do and reveals the self-serving interests of the so called “carbon combustion complex” that have turned the practice of science into political fodder. Based on sound scholarship and yet unafraid to speak boldly, this book provides a welcome moment of clarity amid the cacophony of climate change literature.

Something to put on your shelf to read and help you appreciate the long cool winter nights this coming fall!

Charlie Crist: “I’m not a scientist either but I can use my brain and I can talk to one” - http://www.saintpetersblog.com/archives/153880

Charlie Crist knows how to work a storyline.
The Democratic gubernatorial candidate, who as a Republican governor in 2007 said global warming was “one of the most important issues that we will face this is century,” was handed an opportunity to highlight a difference between himself and Gov. Rick Scott when Scott said, “I’m not a scientist,” in response to a question about climate change. Friday, Crist met with one of the scientists who has offered to meet with Scott and discuss the issue.
“I’m not a scientist either but I can use my brain and I can talk to one,” said Crist, arriving for a 25-minute presentation by Professor Jeff Chanton of the Florida State University Earth and Atmospheric Science Department…

Crist is an interesting fellow, but he nails this response with the exact way that this should be handled going forward. I believe Barry hisself handled it similarly recently (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OIIAvMnDovA )

“Risky Business: A Climate Risk Assessment for the United States” - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YRTwGMICflc#t=10

Published on Jun 23, 2014
http://riskybusiness.org
The American economy could face significant and widespread disruptions from climate change unless U.S. businesses and policymakers take immediate action to reduce climate risk, according to a new report, "Risky Business: The Economic Risks of Climate Change in the United States."

Risky business $30+B/year in many and increasing numbers of states in direct property damages alone. An important economic assessment.

“NPR: Risky Business Project Quantifies Climate Change Costs” - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m6-n6Y8zRj0

Published on Jun 25, 2014
If you are an American investor, the risks of climate change should matter to you. That's the message from the Risky Business Project, led by former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, billionaire financier Tom Steyer and former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson. These business and political leaders have come together to quantify the economic costs. Judy Woodruff talks to Paulson about the project…

 

[Reality Check]

It’s just past the second peak of Solar Cycle 24 maximum ...

and it would be quite ignorant to think that a 2009 prediction using data up to 2005 of no sunspots by 2015 is supported by "there has been days of NO sunspots already", Haig. The current predictions since then for a minimum after 2019: Solar cycle 24.
The sunspot number for 2015 is predicted to be ~70 .

ETA: You have to back up your assertion of "there has been days of NO sunspots already", Haig.
No days (note the plural) without sunspots this year according to the World Data Center for the production, preservation and dissemination of the international sunspot number up to 30 June 2014.
SpaceWeather

Spotless Days
Current Stretch: 0 days
2014 total: 1 day (<1%)
2013 total: 0 days (0%)
2012 total: 0 days (0%)
2011 total: 2 days (<1%)
2010 total: 51 days (14%)
2009 total: 260 days (71%)
Update 28 Jul 2014

 

[Pixel42]

I don’t bet but I would donate a small sum to a charity of your choice if that were the case by a statistically significant amount +/- 0.1 C confirmed by satellite data. If you are wrong and agree to do the same donation for a charity of my choice then we do have a deal.

The difference between the warmest and 10th warmest year in the instrumental record is 0.086C, so your criterion that any new record should exceed the previous one by 0.1C is clearly unreasonable. Typically a new record exceeds the previous one by around 0.01C. Just consider that if every year for the next 15 years were to be warmer than the previous one by the amount the current record was warmer than the 10th warmest year, resulting in a massive 1.29C rise over that 15 years, your criterion would still not have been met. Also why pick the least direct, least transparent and historically least reliable temperature record? Any of the three surface temperature records is preferable.

I said I would be prepared to make a small wager that the global average temperature record would be broken at least twice in the next 15 years, and that's what I meant. I suggest we use the NCDC State of the Climate annual report, which can be found here:

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/

So the bet is that if a new annual global average temperature record, as measured by NCDC, is not set at least twice in the next 15 years I will make a small (say £50) donation to the charity of your choice. If the annual global average temperature record is broken at least twice before 2029 you will make a £50 donation to the charity of my choice.

Deal?

 

[Pixel42]

"At the start of 2014 meteorologists warned of a possible El Nino event this year. The portents were persuasive – a warming of the central Pacific much like that which preceded the powerful El Nino event of 1997."

So what happened to the 2014 El Nino?

Thank you for that link, which I just listened to. Very interesting. It is not, however, news to me that El Nino events are difficult to predict. But one thing is certain: another El Nino will eventually arrive. That is the nature of cyclical events.

 

[Haig]

and it would be quite ignorant to think that a 2009 prediction using data up to 2005 of no sunspots by 2015 is supported by "there has been days of NO sunspots already", Haig. The current predictions since then for a minimum after 2019: Solar cycle 24.
The sunspot number for 2015 is predicted to be ~70 .

ETA: You have to back up your assertion of "there has been days of NO sunspots already", Haig.
No days (note the plural) without sunspots this year according to the World Data Center for the production, preservation and dissemination of the international sunspot number up to 30 June 2014.
SpaceWeather

Come on RC ... your just nit-picking, you know fine well the point is days of no sunspots (even one) just after solar maximum is highly unusual and an indication of how inactive the sun will be at solar minimum.

Just look at the record of sunspots for this July for the Suns disc on the 15th (1), 16th (0), 17th (I would argue for 0), 18th (1 and a hint of one) and 21st (1) It's a mean person that would say that the plural is wrong.

The difference between the warmest and 10th warmest year in the instrumental record is 0.086C, so your criterion that any new record should exceed the previous one by 0.1C is clearly unreasonable. Typically a new record exceeds the previous one by around 0.01C. Just consider that if every year for the next 15 years were to be warmer than the previous one by the amount the current record was warmer than the 10th warmest year, resulting in a massive 1.29C rise over that 15 years, your criterion would still not have been met. Also why pick the least direct, least transparent and historically least reliable temperature record? Any of the three surface temperature records is preferable.

I said I would be prepared to make a small wager that the global average temperature record would be broken at least twice in the next 15 years, and that's what I meant. I suggest we use the NCDC State of the Climate annual report, which can be found here:

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/

If every year for the next 15 years were to be warmer than the previous one that would be a clear trend and I obviously would be wrong as you would be if there were a cooling trend over the same period. Regardless of any two record warming spikes in those years.

So the bet is that if a new annual global average temperature record, as measured by NCDC, is not set at least twice in the next 15 years I will make a small (say £50) donation to the charity of your choice. If the annual global average temperature record is broken at least twice before 2029 you will make a £50 donation to the charity of my choice.

Deal?

Deal if your expected new annual global average temperature record for each of the two years is statistically significant. otherwise what's the point?

Half the diff to 0.05 C ? Agreed?

Thank you for that link, which I just listened to. Very interesting. It is not, however, news to me that El Nino events are difficult to predict. But one thing is certain: another El Nino will eventually arrive. That is the nature of cyclical events.

Your welcome.

But if natural forcing can easily overcome the AGW of the 20th century as it clearly has done (almost 20 years now) then the "A" bit in the warming isn't very significant then it (natural forcing) can also explain the failed 2014 El Nino.

btw Whatever happened to CAGW? you don't seem to hear much about the catastrophic events coming as predicted, do you?

Although Global Cooling during a Grand Solar Minimum will not be easy to cope with as a warming it's a common natural cycle humans have been through before ... most recently in the LIA

 

[Pixel42]

If every year for the next 15 years were to be warmer than the previous one that would be a clear trend and I obviously would be wrong as you would be if there were a cooling trend over the same period. Regardless of any two record warming spikes in those years.

Nothing can reliably be concluded from any climate trend over a period as short as 15 years. If warming continues for the next 15 years that will be statistically significant warming over more than 50 years, which is meaningful. Shorter periods during which natural variations drown out that underlying trend are to be expected.

Deal if your expected new annual global average temperature record for each of the two years is statistically significant. otherwise what's the point?

Either a new annual average temperature record has been set or it hasn't. There is no such thing as statistically significant in this context.

Half the diff to 0.05 C ? Agreed?

Of course not. New records are rarely that much higher than the previous record, and there is no reason to expect that to change over the next 15 years. Not unless we get another El Nino as powerful as the one of 1997, anyway, and that was a once in a lifetime event. New record highs would certainly be evidence that your predicted cooling trend was failing to materialise, however.

But if natural forcing can easily overcome the AGW of the 20th century as it clearly has done (almost 20 years now) then the "A" bit in the warming isn't very significant then it (natural forcing) can also explain the failed 2014 El Nino.

Natural variability causes fluctuations in both directions, but an underlying trend is cumulative. Over short periods the former can drown out the latter, but over longer periods the latter always wins out. That's why climate trends need to be statistically significant over periods of at least 30 years to be considered meaningful.

 

[Reality Check]

Come on RC ...

Come on, Haig, you need to learn:
* One day of no sunspots in 2014 does not mean does not mean that 2015 will have 365 days of no sunspots !
* Look at the facts rather than making things up: There has only been one spotless day in 2014.
It would be a deluded and ignorant person that would say that there have been days (note the plural) of no sunspots in 2014.
* It would be an totally ignorant person who relies on a 2008 paper based on 2005 data when there is more recent science.
* It would be an totally ignorant person who relies on a cherry picked 2008 paper based on 2005 data that seems to only exist as a PDF in a climate denier web site run by a weatherman ! Actually the paper probably has been published somewhere quite obscure - another argument not to cite it.

You are still laboring under the delusion that Fig 8 in Habibullo Abdussamatov's 2009 paper is in any way based on science: Haig: (29 July 2014) Habibullo Abdussamatov's 2009 paper is very bad!

You are still laboring under the delusion that a change in sunspot numbers will stop global warming (the climate science denier idiocy of Global Cooling!).
Haig (24 July 2014): It is not the Sun, Maunder Minimum will not stop GW!

 

[Haig]

New paper confirms that solar cycle variations causing nucleation is still too small to explain variations in climate change...

http://environmentalresearchweb.org/cws/article/news/57929
http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/9/4/045004/article

What they've actually done is model the interactions, the rate of generation of CCN is found to be under-estimated in other models (approx. 2/3 of what it should be), but the variation is not enough to considered a significant driver.

Interesting to note their comment at the end of this paper suggesting areas requiring further research.

During a solar cycle, changes of other parameters such as UV and TSI flux may also impact chemistry and microphysics, which may influence the magnitude of the solar indirect forcing. Further research is needed to better quantify the impact of solar activities on Earth's climate.

Both UV and TSI flux can vary 10x times or more than the 0.1% of TSI

NASA hint in that direction too ... Solar Variability and Terrestrial Climate

Much has been made of the probable connection between the Maunder Minimum, a 70-year deficit of sunspots in the late 17th-early 18th century, and the coldest part of the Little Ice Age, during which Europe and North America were subjected to bitterly cold winters. The mechanism for that regional cooling could have been a drop in the sun’s EUV output; this is, however, speculative.

Indeed, the sun could be on the threshold of a mini-Maunder event right now. Ongoing Solar Cycle 24 is the weakest in more than 50 years. Moreover, there is (controversial) evidence of a long-term weakening trend in the magnetic field strength of sunspots. Matt Penn and William Livingston of the National Solar Observatory predict that by the time Solar Cycle 25 arrives, magnetic fields on the sun will be so weak that few if any sunspots will be formed. Independent lines of research involving helioseismology and surface polar fields tend to support their conclusion.

 

[Haig]

I missed this bit of regurgitation of climate science denial from you Haig.
If you are determined to remain in denial of climate science then you should not state invalid assertions about climate science: The models are reliable and do predict the observations.

You should not demand the impossible feat of climate models predicting the current hiatus in global surface temperatures.
There is a thing called internal variability that cannot be predicted in advance. Climate scientists thus run multiple simulations with different natural variability cycles (ensembles). So somewhere out there probably are runs that predict the current hiatus exactly! But no one would expect the ensemble to match the observations exactly - just that the observations will lie within the ensemble limits.

There has been no pause in global temperatures.
There has been a pause in global surface temperature. This is thought to be because the ocean has sucked up more heat then usual through moderate La Nina conditions, and solar and volcanic activity. IMO this is bad because I suspect that when the inevitable El Nino comes along there will be more heat available to be released to the atmosphere. Thus a period of more rapid warming which will be harder to cope with.

I missed this bit of regurgitation of climate science warmist guff from you Reality Check.

Let me check if it's on the growing list of reasons for the Pause ... Mmmm yip, it's there

List of excuses for ‘the pause’ now up to 29

 

[lomiller]

Let me check if it's on the growing list of reasons for the Pause

Putting aside for now the fact that there is no statistically significant pause...


So far all you have done is numerology. What is your physical explanation underlying your assertions about sunspots impact the Earth’s climate?

 

[Haig]

Putting aside for now the fact that there is no statistically significant pause...

You can say that but the Pause is a highly significant reminder to us all that nature is in charge of our climate. The longer it continues the more the warmists squirm, as they should.

So far all you have done is numerology. What is your physical explanation underlying your assertions about sunspots impact the Earth’s climate?

Fair question and I’ll attempt as fair an answer as I can and try to explain the points as I understand them. Obviously I’m not an expert and you need to look at the source material and form your own opinion.

First the SSN (Sun Spot Number) is only a partial guide to the Sun–Earth connection and its effect on climate. Just as the TSI is with it’s 0.1% variability.

Both are measures of our variable star in it’s active or inactive states.

The 11 year SSN cycle is actually only half a cycle. The FULL cycle is the 22 year Hale Magnetic cycle when the poles flip at the half way stage. The polarity of the Sun (compared to the Earths) makes a huge difference to the effect on our climate and weather.

CORRELATION BETWEEN THE 22-YEAR SOLAR MAGNETIC CYCLE AND THE 22-YEAR QUASICYCLE IN THE EARTH'S ATMOSPHERIC TEMPERATURE http://iopscience.iop.org/1538-3881/144/1/6

A good explanation is also given here by vukcevic …

1. vukcevic says:
July 27, 2014 at 1:03 pm
Chasing dimensionless sunspot number is a waste of time. Sunspot cycles have a distinct magnetic polarity (opposite) on each of two solar hemispheres.
Dr. S will say that they cancel each other, but that is not the case for the open solar magnetic flux impacting the Earth. .
Two magnetic polarities are separated by the heliospheric current sheet (HCS), thus the Earth sees only one at any time.
How much time the earth spends in each polarity is determined by the tilt angle of the HCS, which is considerably different between even and odd cycles.
http://wso.stanford.edu/gifs/Tilts.gif

All Earth’s electrically conducting (from wires to ocean currents) and electrically charged (from clouds to ionosphere) systems differentiate between two solar magnetic polarities.
For example when the Earth is swept by the HCS all geomagnetic stations record sharp magnetic spike of one or the other polarity depending on the direction of crossing.

As a consequence, the 22 year cycle is present in both land and ocean temperatures. Here is the NOAA’s L&O temperature anomaly and its spec with the 22 year component the most prominent one.

How does it work? That is much harder to answer; for a test we cannot turn it off, but according to (my) extrapolation there is a remote possibility that the sun just may do us a favour and switch it off for ~ 10-11 years (starting about 2020)
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/NOAAspec.htm

 

[Trakar]

You can say that but the Pause is a highly significant reminder to us all that nature is in charge of our climate. The longer it continues the more the warmists squirm, as they should.

Please precisely define what you mean by a "Pause," I have seen no indication of any pause in the increasing energy retention of our planet's biosphere, and see no compelling scientific evidence in support of any type of global "pause."

 

[Haig]

Please precisely define what you mean by a "Pause," I have seen no indication of any pause in the increasing energy retention of our planet's biosphere, and see no compelling scientific evidence in support of any type of global "pause."

A statistical stasis from 1995 to 2014 (19 yrs) is being described as a Pause (or Hiatus if you prefer)

Prof Philip Jones (UEA – CRU) was reported as saying this about the Pause, "there has been no statistically significant warming since 1995" despite a 7% increase in CO2 concentrations in that period.

There are many papers on the Pause / Hiatus ... here is one that defines it this way ...

the annual-mean global temperature has not risen in the twenty-first century

 

[Haig]

SOLAR ACTIVITY - NOT CO2 - COULD CAUSE GLOBAL WARMING, NEW PAPER SAYS

The impact of carbon dioxide on climate change may have been overstated, with solar activity giving a better explanation of changes in the Earth's temperature, according to Chinese scientists.
A new paper published in the Chinese Science Bulletin has found a "high correlation between solar activity and the Earth's averaged surface temperature over centuries," suggesting that climate change is intimately linked with solar cycles rather than human activity.

The paper, written in Chinese, says that there is also a "significant correlation" between solar activity over the past century and an increase in Earth's surface temperatures over the same period. The correlation between solar activity and water temperature is even higher than the correlation between solar activity and land temperature.

Paper Here (need to translate)