Solar weather watch: Cycle 24

DT made a very good comment about the possible effects, if the Maunder Min was responsible for global cooling, about the agriculture production of the planet and the future.

Many of us forget the underlying cause of the revolution in Eygpt began in 2008 with wheat shortages. Living in the US we don't think about food being unavailable, some people go hungry but not because there is no food.

We live in a world today that could explode into revolution if there was a multi-year crop failure across a good portion of the northern hemisphere.

While there would be a point where warming would significantly impact agriculture, but only then if it were accompanied by drought, cooler temperatures would play havoc across much of the most fertile land in the world. If you look at Canada, the US, eastern Europe and other places in the north, I believe there is little doubt cooler global temperatures could cause massive problems.

Historical records are clear arctic sea ice increased during the period of the little ice age, at least on the atlantic side.

I would like to continue talking about this, but let's get one thing crystal clear here. My responses in this thread have absolutely nothing to do with belief or opinion. They are of little to no use in scientific discourse. I feel I've backed up (and will continue to back up) everything I've said here with actual data sources and solid analysis (or at least links to solid analysis). Please do not seek to turn this into a personal message. For the record, I don't want global warming to be true, but my wants and wishes are irrelevant when it comes to science.


Now back to the matter at hand:

Again, it's not even Northern Hemispheric temperature, it's Northern Hemispheric extra-tropical temperature (north of 22N). There's still a big difference there (about 20% of the globe). The tropics are big. We're also talking about 1 paper, in which the authors admit right in the abstract, that it contradicted numerous other reconstructions that argued for a lesser amount (around -0.6C) AND listed the strengths and weaknesses of the method they used. So to lean on this paper alone and ignore the other reconstructions is probably not a great idea. Interesting paper? Yes, quite. But maybe not in the way you thought:

Reconstructions of Arctic Sea Ice



This really brings up another point. Was the change coincident across the globe? Arctic data suggests it wasn't. In fact, we see a fairly reliable signal of decrease in ice coverage at this time, especially over the regions where the Atlantic meets the Arctic or feeds it via warmer water currents. This suggests heat displacement, not just removal.

Thing is, it's not just across the Arctic. There are cooler periods in other parts of the world, but they are, for the most part, not synchronous, indicating changes in heat transport via ocean current changes and atmospheric circulation changes were also important. Yes, there is evidence that the Sporer, Maunder and Dalton minimums helped reduce global temperature, but not by huge amounts.

Again, even if you argue that this is wrong, and that these changes in the LIA are large, then you are also arguing for a very high climate sensitivity. This means climate will also be very sensitive to CO2, CH4, etc. This point is not something you can successfully argue your way out of. We know how Tyndall gasses behave.

We do not see this apparent pattern between solar activity and temperature in recent (last 50 year) temperature records. Solar activity has declined since its mid-20th century peak, but temperature firmly rose 0.5-0.6C since the late 70s. This was even predicted ahead of time, even though Wally Broeker didn't fully guess the full extent of SO2 emissions on the lower atmosphere: www.sciencemag.org/content/189/4201/460.abstract

Here is one of the best graphs to get a grasp on what the modern Maximum was like. Sure it had a peak, but the sustained output for over 60 years (1940-2000) was greater than any seen before. The earth pretty much had no choice about warming.

So if the output goes down the temp just drops like a rock to whatever it is going to reach?   I mean if one cycle is low you are gonna be as cold as if you strung 3 together?

Yoo hoo, what happened to that little thing called feedback, among other things?

Italics: What we saw with Pinatubo should give you a good general idea as to what screening the sun does. They're both short-lived forcings. The difference being Pinatubo's radiative forcing change was much bigger and more abrupt. Solar forcing's amplitude is generally pretty small. This is the reason effective equilibrium is reached fairly quickly (~15yr, though in practice never more than 11 yr due to the cycle essentially interrupting that process). Even a cycle with twice that amplitude wouldn't have an equilibrium time much over 50 yr (provided it wasn't near a critical point of glaciation/deglaciation/hothouse).

Bold: You could see a number of slight feedbacks working on much longer timescales, but they will essentially be unmeasurable in the temperature record, namely because the triggering mechanism wasn't strong. The stronger the trigger, the more likely non-linearity will come to the fore with these feedbacks and change the equation, and vice versa. As a result, stringing together 3 cycles of equal strength doesn't really change solar forcing any appreciable amount. Now, if these cycles were growing significantly in amplitude each time, you'd have a point (and this is why we are pretty sure solar was a significant component of early 20th century warming).

Luckily, feedbacks are inherently self-limiting processes. They are generally proportional to the size of the trigger both in amplitude and on the temporal scale as well. Even with CO2, the bulk of the temperature response typically occurs in 10 years (around 65%), with the remainder occurring over much longer timescales due to the persistence of the gas in the atmosphere. As a result, we are pretty well in equilibrium with where CO2 concentrations were 30 years ago. Again, as I mentioned earlier, the ocean flywheel tends to muddy things up by causing heat exchange with the atmosphere to fluctuate unpredictably on short-medium timescales.

OMG, now an article blaming the warming hiatus on volcanism. Last week and the week before they said it was still warming, but hiding out in Africa or the oceans. What rational will we hear next? Of course none of this is actually provable.

It would definitely have to do with effecting the patterns versus some sort of specialized cooling. 



Overall temps in the arctic the last 65 years have risen about 4C on average.