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Post by guyfromhecker on Feb 3, 2014 9:42:41 GMT -6
I'm particularly interested in the Permian solar values
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Post by guyfromhecker on Feb 3, 2014 9:00:42 GMT -6
Can you give me a reliable source for where you get the ancient solar values?
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Post by guyfromhecker on Feb 2, 2014 14:28:30 GMT -6
Here are the liner notes for The Long Summer, by Brian Fagan.
Humanity evolved in an Ice Age in which glaciers covered much of the world. But starting about 15,000 years ago, temperatures began to climb. Civilization and all of recorded history occurred in this warm period, the era known as the Holocene-the long summer of the human species. In The Long Summer, Brian Fagan brings us the first detailed record of climate change during these 15,000 years of warming, and shows how this climate change gave rise to civilization. A thousand-year chill led people in the Near East to take up the cultivation of plant foods; a catastrophic flood drove settlers to inhabit Europe; the drying of the Sahara forced its inhabitants to live along the banks of the Nile; and increased rainfall in East Africa provoked the bubonic plague. The Long Summer illuminates for the first time the centuries-long pattern of human adaptation to the demands and challenges of an ever-changing climate-challenges that are still with us today.
Really a very good for someone who is interested in climate and history.
Stop it. You cannot have that much variation with just solar variation. Blasphemy!
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Post by guyfromhecker on Feb 2, 2014 13:33:47 GMT -6
OK, I'll cut to the chase and spare you some time. This is all about how I read the solar data. Like I said I am using the data from hereIf the above did not work citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.393.1008&rep=rep1&type=pdfCheck it out and follow the flow. From the mid 1600s to the early 1700s solar forcing was as weak as we have seen it. It was cold. The values were in the sub 1364 range. They rebounded to above 1365 and all was a getting better, for a bit. They dipped in the early 1800s and the little ice age continued. Finally the sun woke up and jumped up to about a 1365 average again during the last half of the 19th century into the 20th and we escaped the little ice age. It seems all would have been well then, I mean this 1365 was adequate to bring us out of the freezer and make things nice. One problem. The sun decides to crank up to 1366 for a century. Oh boy, look what that did. All this climate change from about a 0.2% total variation. This is really why we need a steady sun, relatively speaking. If it dipped below 1363 for any period of time we would be screwed with a capital S. If it stayed below 1364 for more than two cycles it would hurt a lot. If it jumped up to 1367, God knows what would happen. We live in a place that is incredibility unique. We are just the right distance from just the right power source. Of course it isn't always pretty, but the last 10,000 years or so have been liveable. There are no guarantees that comfort will always be there since the optimum is about impossible to hold with the little variation that is natural. My best guess with where we are in the Milankovitch stuff is that an optimum now would be somewhere around 1365. I would imagine that optimum varies in diffent times. Using our earlier equation to solve for the radiative forcing gives us an almost even 0.5 W/m2. Clearly significant, and as you've pointed out, it does make a difference in temperature. How does this 0.5 compare to other forcings? (Note that the timeframe on this chart is from 1750-2010, and 2010 when the sun was just coming off a deep min, hence the low value of solar forcing over the period). Wait, what? 2.29 W/m2 increase from CO2 forcing and other gasses alone? Yeowch. Well, let's convert that back into an equivalent of solar irradiance, then compare. ((2.29)*4)/0.7 (to get rid of spherical geometry and take the albedo adjustment back out of the equation) = 13.08 W/m2. That's over 5 times the change from the bottom of the Maunder Minimum to today. Even if you're an extreme optimist and take the lower 5% level, we're still talking over twice the effect. If you're more of a pessimist and take the upper 5% confidence bound, it's 9 times as much. This is why scientists who work on the subject are worried. The reason I was saying to "be careful" is that there's an inevitable conclusion that if you argue for very high sensitivity from solar irradiance changes (solar radiative forcing). This means the climate is also very sensitive to other sources of radiative forcing. The earth "doesn't care" where the forcing is coming from, relatively speaking. It may provoke a different regional pattern, but the globe as a whole will heat up regardless of the source. Wait, what? 2.29 W/m2 increase from CO2 forcing and other gasses alone? Yeowch. Well, let's convert that back into an equivalent of solar irradiance, then compare. ((2.29)*4)/0.7 (to get rid of spherical geometry and take the albedo adjustment back out of the equation) = 13.08 W/m2. That's over 5 times the change from the bottom of the Maunder Minimum to today. Please, do you really think that is like the same effect as the sun shooting up to almost 1380? I mean come on, we would be boiling by now. Isn't that enough to make you scratch your head? God, I would be worried too, but these guys have not a clue.
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Post by guyfromhecker on Feb 2, 2014 8:30:01 GMT -6
Let's back to those sunspots and other proxies, which do correlate decently with solar output. According to data, we were just in the strongest solar maxima in the last 10,000 years during the 20th century. In fact, it was so far above the ones most recent, those over the last 8,500 years, that you could hardly put any of them in the same class.
What was going on the last time the sun was this active? We were busting out of an ice age. Of course this kind of solar forcing couldn't do that, could it?
Fact is there were several maximas back then that finally pulled us out. Only one of them appeared to be equal or greater then the one we just experienced.
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Post by guyfromhecker on Feb 1, 2014 22:25:46 GMT -6
Let me pull out my razor. Thank you for all the theoretic stuff. Thank you Mr. Occum for letting me borrow your razor. OK here we go.
Solar output was below 1364 from 1620 til about 1720. It was dreadfully cold. Things got a little better then it dipped back into that sub 1364 range again early in the 19th century. Bad luck then a stupid volcano blew up. Ouch! Still cold. Solar forcing recovers and it stays comfortably, on average above that nasty 1364 line and that little jump was enough to propel us out of the little ice age. WOW, without any big jump in CO2? A measly 1.3-1.5 watt jump did all that! Crazy. Low and behold the solar forcing goes up another 1.3-1.5 over the 20th century. Oh, that's not supposed to do much. Really?
The only way to break the fallacy of many bogus theories is time. We know so little about the whole process sometimes that time really tells. We still do not fully understand what a one watt change from the sun does. We have been too busy trying to figure everything else out first. Ya gotta know #1 before you figure out #2.
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Post by guyfromhecker on Feb 1, 2014 15:41:53 GMT -6
OK, I'll cut to the chase and spare you some time. This is all about how I read the solar data. Like I said I am using the data from hereIf the above did not work citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.393.1008&rep=rep1&type=pdfCheck it out and follow the flow. From the mid 1600s to the early 1700s solar forcing was as weak as we have seen it. It was cold. The values were in the sub 1364 range. They rebounded to above 1365 and all was a getting better, for a bit. They dipped in the early 1800s and the little ice age continued. Finally the sun woke up and jumped up to about a 1365 average again during the last half of the 19th century into the 20th and we escaped the little ice age. It seems all would have been well then, I mean this 1365 was adequate to bring us out of the freezer and make things nice. One problem. The sun decides to crank up to 1366 for a century. Oh boy, look what that did. All this climate change from about a 0.2% total variation. This is really why we need a steady sun, relatively speaking. If it dipped below 1363 for any period of time we would be screwed with a capital S. If it stayed below 1364 for more than two cycles it would hurt a lot. If it jumped up to 1367, God knows what would happen. We live in a place that is incredibility unique. We are just the right distance from just the right power source. Of course it isn't always pretty, but the last 10,000 years or so have been liveable. There are no guarantees that comfort will always be there since the optimum is about impossible to hold with the little variation that is natural. My best guess with where we are in the Milankovitch stuff is that an optimum now would be somewhere around 1365. I would imagine that optimum varies in diffent times.
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Post by guyfromhecker on Feb 1, 2014 13:23:25 GMT -6
Now on the serious stuff. Would you agree that, on average, solar output was around 1366/239 for the period 1975-2005? For solar irradiance, as an average for that 30 year period, yes. (Careful with that Socratic Method!) OK, then with the best collection of data to date we would go with a range of maybe 1363.4, back in Muander minumum, when it was easy to average since there were no peaks to speak of, to the 30 year average of 1366. This was probably also pretty much the average from about 1940-2000 or so. I got my figures from hereBTW, don't worry. The Socratic method won't hurt if you are sound in your science. Don't be afraid. Real logic is seldom fatal, LOL Right now your only escape is to disagree with data I show you. That is all I am doing here. He he he
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Post by guyfromhecker on Feb 1, 2014 11:37:07 GMT -6
Now on the serious stuff. Would you agree that, on average, solar output was around 1366/239 for the period 1975-2005?
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Post by guyfromhecker on Jan 31, 2014 19:55:25 GMT -6
Oh crap. bad math again. OK, the lowest is -204C add that to 20c. OK that kicks the 0.7c+ to a whopping 0.31%. DONE Anyway, that is slight in my book. Using a percentage for temperature change isn't really a valid way to do comparisons. The reason is due to the Stefan-Boltzmann law, which states that the amount of energy being emitted by a blackbody (of which the Earth is a reasonably close approximate) is proportional to its temperature to the fourth power. In other words, it doesn't take much energy to get from microwave background temperatures (~3K) to say... 50K. It takes a heck of a lot more to get from 200K to 250K (Kelvin = Celsius + 273). Using percentages to do comparisons in this case simply does not work (at all). Using the Stefan-Boltzmann law (the wikipedia link there actually lays out the entire calculation from start to finish) and an albedo adjustment because the earth isn't a perfect blackbody (again the .7, but this time to the fourth root), it gets you an effective temperature of 255K for Earth (or -18C). This would be the equilibrium temperature of Earth if it had no atmosphere. Tyndall gasses (such as water vapor, carbon dioxide and methane) partially re-radiate outgoing longwave radiation, this keeps the Earth warmer than it otherwise would be (at around 15C or 288K). Aye, but as you said once you get an atmosphere.......things get to the point that they magnify the effect of the sun. In other words it does not take as much energy as it would have without it. BTW, my using the whole scale was about as silly as pointing out the solar output varies by 0.25WPM and calling it slight. That is using 0-240WPM to get that figure. I can tell you those first 238-239 or so wouldn't do well for man. At least not comfy. Now a question. Can you get me graphic stuff of the 0.25WPM swings captured since the satellites went up?
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Post by guyfromhecker on Jan 31, 2014 5:40:20 GMT -6
Oh crap. bad math again. OK, the lowest is -204C add that to 20c. OK that kicks the 0.7c+ to a whopping 0.31%. DONE Anyway, that is slight in my book. That's the thing I don't get. We have seen temps increase .7 degrees C in 100 years. We know there have been much larger swings in shorter periods. And we were coming out of a much cooler period. I think we are way to focused on our on ability to change climate. What should send chills down peoples spines is the prospect we don't understand the way our climate system works and that we could go the opposite direction. Yes, we were coming out of the little ice age. A big bump was not totally unexpected. The thing about it is swings tend go go in spurts, not smooth lines. Of course the AGW folks like to point that out as an excuse why the warming has leveled off, but they don't accept that is nature's way also.
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Post by guyfromhecker on Jan 30, 2014 20:04:16 GMT -6
Bad on me. Earth temperature is about 14.5 Celsius. Add that to the possible low-temperature without a sun of -252. Well a 1 degree Celsius change in that would still be there in the .4 percent range. Slight indeed. Now to the good stuff. The possible range we know from science is -255C to about 20C perhaps for earth. The change over the last century has been 0.7C+. Let's get out the calculator. That is a whopping 0.25% increase in temperature. We humans are way too sensitive. That must be why God made the sun so consistent, but it still isn't rock solid enough to keep us all happy all of the time.
Oh crap. bad math again. OK, the lowest is -204C add that to 20c. OK that kicks the 0.7c+ to a whopping 0.31%. DONE Anyway, that is slight in my book.
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Post by guyfromhecker on Jan 30, 2014 19:57:46 GMT -6
Bad on me. Earth temperature is about 14.5 Celsius. Add that to the possible low-temperature without a sun of -252. Well a 1 degree Celsius change in that would still be there in the .4 percent range. Slight indeed. Now to the good stuff. The possible range we know from science is -255C to about 20C perhaps for earth. The change over the last century has been 0.7C+. Let's get out the calculator. That is a whopping 0.25% increase in temperature. We humans are way too sensitive. That must be why God made the sun so consistent, but it still isn't rock solid enough to keep us all happy all of the time.
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Post by guyfromhecker on Jan 30, 2014 19:12:17 GMT -6
Here is an interesting overlay. Could we be moving to another minimum? It really takes more than one cycle to be there. We'll see.
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Here we go
Jan 30, 2014 10:50:08 GMT -6
via mobile
Post by guyfromhecker on Jan 30, 2014 10:50:08 GMT -6
Honestly I don't even think the NAO has to go down. I think a strong pdo can take care of this.
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Here we go
Jan 30, 2014 10:32:54 GMT -6
via mobile
Post by guyfromhecker on Jan 30, 2014 10:32:54 GMT -6
The numbers are in. Solar cycle 24 appears to be the weakest since Cycle 14. We are now on the downswing an activity and in the second half of the cycle. Hold onto your hats because the second half of these weaker cycles tend to have wicked winters in them. My suspicion is that in the second half of the cycles the oceans turn more cooperative. Look for the North Atlantic Oscillation to go down
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Post by guyfromhecker on Jan 30, 2014 9:42:27 GMT -6
Bad on me. Earth temperature is about 14.5 Celsius. Add that to the possible low-temperature without a sun of -252. Well a 1 degree Celsius change in that would still be there in the .4 percent range. Slight indeed.
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Post by guyfromhecker on Jan 30, 2014 8:18:13 GMT -6
Don't shoot me for using 30 I know that's a bit high. I am guessing the current earth temperature is probably 20 something. It won't change the percentage thing much.
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Post by guyfromhecker on Jan 30, 2014 8:15:48 GMT -6
My use the back of the kelvin was kinda made to poke a little fun of all this. But really if we are limiting range of climate to like maybe 30 degrees Farenheit to 60 degrees Fahrenheit will missing the point of what the sun does. Without it the average earth temperature would be ridiculously low. Too close to it and it would be absurdly high.. So to get serious let's say at 0 wattage from the Sun we would be at minus 200 Celsius. Now let's say at the current level of the sun we're around 30 or so. That is the range of 230 Celsius.. 1 degree of that is less than one half of one percent. Go realistically the temperature change on earth has been slightly also. Kinda matches the change in solar output actually.
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Post by guyfromhecker on Jan 30, 2014 5:15:21 GMT -6
Explain the net effect thing. It looks like a watering down of the WPM to about 250WPM total. Is that about right? 1366W/m2 is the top-of-atmosphere measurement with incoming light perpendicular. If I were to use your figure of a 6W change, to get the net effect of change (or the radiative forcing -- essentially the imbalance of energy hitting the earth through shortwave light and leaving via longwave radiation), we need to take into account: 1) Albedo (for the earth, this is about 70% or .7). 2) The spherical geometry of the earth (we'll need to divide by 4 here). The equation is: Radiative Forcing (net effect from above) = Albedo * Change in (TSI)/(Factor for spherical geometry) or 1.05 W/m2 = .7 * (6/4) Significant to be sure, assuming 6 W/m2 worth of change at TOA (top of atmosphere). Since we've had our satellites measuring up there though, we've measured about 1.5W/m2 of change from the highest peaks in the 80s-late 90s to the lowest trough (recently -- in 2009). Plugging that in yields 0.26W/m2 worth of radiative forcing -- not all that much. There is a valid argument that the first half of the 20th century (1900-1940 especially) that the sun significantly contributed to warming in that period. In that era, we have decent evidence that suggests forcing from the sun was probably around half of the total. If you want to head back further (to say, the Maunder Minimum), radiative forcing changes approaching 1W/m2 probably occurred. Some further reading on TSI back to the 1700s can be had here: sun.stanford.edu/LWS_Dynamo_2009/61797.web.pdf (It's a bit dense -- be warned). Well, you can say not much, but using your figures the total variation for modern times is only 1.05 WPM, maybe only .7. OK, you say that the sun has played no part in ANY cooling or heating in that period. You would almost have to because that was slight.....right? BTW, stick the highest troughs and lowest stuff where is belongs. We use averaging for a reason. If someone is fiddling with a burner. turning it up and down all the time, the net effect is going to be some average of the cycle. How much has the average cycle dropped in the last round compared to average of the last three? Of course we probably are going to have to wait on that one. Really, if you at the only data we have on the sun we see only about a slightly different number for average weak solar cycle than the bottoms of swings. Here is the reason why. The quiet solar times were essentially cycles without peaks. So it could be the average cycle was only around 0.25 W weaker than the strongest over the last 500 years. We are lucky this sun is soooo constant. Also, if it warmed in the first half, why not the second. The cycles, 21 and 22, were essentially as strong as the ones in the early part of the century. Even 20 was what I would considered slightly above neutral to neutral. BTW, even a 1C change aint much. that's only 0.26% (using the kelvin scale, absolute zero to boiling point).
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Post by guyfromhecker on Jan 29, 2014 21:02:38 GMT -6
Actually, I don't know of any scientists who say it has no effect, only that the effect is not significant at this time. There's a big difference in those two statements. When you hear a scientist say "It isn't the sun.", that doesn't equate to "It has no effect.", it means that the sun isn't the dominant factor in driving the changes we see. From peak to trough, the total amount of luminosity change we see from the sun is <0.1% (we measure this directly with satellites and have proxies going back centuries for the effect). The net effect is equivalent to, at most, plus or minus 0.25W/m2 (or the equivalent of putting 1 small Christmas light over the earth every 4 square meters). All alone, by itself, this might be significant. But, when you swamp the atmosphere with excess Tyndall gases like CO2, CH4 and H2O, it is easily dwarfed, as the net effect of those gases are 5-10 times that. I'll go over this subject more in depth when I start the climate history series. Explain the net effect thing. It looks like a watering down of the WPM to about 250WPM total. Is that about right? If so then I crank my liveable variance range down to 0.75 - 1.08WPM TOTAL variance. Meaning the 1364 uncomfort zone would be only .36 watts less then 250. It's all relative. Thank God the sun is consistent.
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Post by guyfromhecker on Jan 29, 2014 20:20:04 GMT -6
Don't you think it is a little bit crazy for some people to claim there is very little or no effect from the sun on climate? I don't know the answer as whether it does or not. I would make the over simplified observation that if something stops working I always check the power source first, since the sun is our power source I would think you would check it first. My whole problem with anyone who makes absolute statements, especially when it comes to something as complicated as climate, is that we don't understand the atmosphere enough to make forecasts about what it is doing. We need to invest much more money into the science, unfortunately we are in a time when science funding is being slashed by people who are to stupid to understand the importance of science. Actually, I don't know of any scientists who say it has no effect, only that the effect is not significant at this time. There's a big difference in those two statements. When you hear a scientist say "It isn't the sun.", that doesn't equate to "It has no effect.", it means that the sun isn't the dominant factor in driving the changes we see. From peak to trough, the total amount of luminosity change we see from the sun is <0.1% (we measure this directly with satellites and have proxies going back centuries for the effect). The net effect is equivalent to, at most, plus or minus 0.25W/m2 (or the equivalent of putting 1 small Christmas light over the earth every 4 square meters). All alone, by itself, this might be significant. But, when you swamp the atmosphere with excess Tyndall gases like CO2, CH4 and H2O, it is easily dwarfed, as the net effect of those gases are 5-10 times that. I'll go over this subject more in depth when I start the climate history series. Explain the net effect thing. It looks like a watering down of the WPM to about 250WPM total. Is that about right?
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Post by guyfromhecker on Jan 29, 2014 19:59:00 GMT -6
Don't you think it is a little bit crazy for some people to claim there is very little or no effect from the sun on climate? I don't know the answer as whether it does or not. I would make the over simplified observation that if something stops working I always check the power source first, since the sun is our power source I would think you would check it first. My whole problem with anyone who makes absolute statements, especially when it comes to something as complicated as climate, is that we don't understand the atmosphere enough to make forecasts about what it is doing. We need to invest much more money into the science, unfortunately we are in a time when science funding is being slashed by people who are to stupid to understand the importance of science. Actually, I don't know of any scientists who say it has no effect, only that the effect is not significant at this time. There's a big difference in those two statements. When you hear a scientist say "It isn't the sun.", that doesn't equate to "It has no effect.", it means that the sun isn't the dominant factor in driving the changes we see. From peak to trough, the total amount of luminosity change we see from the sun is <0.1% (we measure this directly with satellites and have proxies going back centuries for the effect). The net effect is equivalent to, at most, plus or minus 0.25W/m2 (or the equivalent of putting 1 small Christmas light over the earth every 4 square meters). All alone, by itself, this might be significant. But, when you swamp the atmosphere with excess Tyndall gases like CO2, CH4 and H2O, it is easily dwarfed, as the net effect of those gases are 5-10 times that. I'll go over this subject more in depth when I start the climate history series. OK, so with all those other forces increasing why has warming essentially stooped as solar output waned? I'm sure you have a very complicated answer. All of the GW answers are wordy and complex.
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Post by guyfromhecker on Jan 29, 2014 19:50:49 GMT -6
Of course we get into this "slight variation" talk again when talking about solar variation. Folks, we here on earth are blessed with a painfully consistent sun. I mean really blessed. If it varied much more than the 0.5%, or whatever the figure folks use, we would be up a creek without a paddle. Take stats like that with a grain of salt. The "liveable" WPM range for this earth isn't 1366WPM. It's probably more like 4-6WPM.And that is just the liveable. I hazard to say if we went through an extended period of only 1364WPM average output folks would be begging for global warming again. Using that 1366 as the figure to derive variation is ok if you understand the math of it. Most folks don't.
Proxies and everything else say the last century was easily the most active sun we have seen in the last 500 years. The climate knew it.
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Post by guyfromhecker on Jan 28, 2014 16:49:45 GMT -6
Watching each cycle and trying to relate it to climate is kind of fruitless. Taking the cycles and the average of them is more worthwhile and then seeing what the trend is it is very important. Maybe, there wasn't anywhere else this fit. Individual solar cycles are hard to tie to climate not doubt, but the behavior of the current cycle and the cycle 23 are both interesting and will likely have an impact on the climate. Herschel was the first to tie sunspots to wheat charts, wheat prices go up when there are few sunspots, at least that is what he found. So if that were the case, there must be some effect more immediately on terresterial weather. Interesting, don't let the AGW folks know this. The sun is pretty much benign to them. On a more serious not I think I'm gonna find that report and peruse it.
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Post by guyfromhecker on Jan 28, 2014 11:53:00 GMT -6
Watching each cycle and trying to relate it to climate is kind of fruitless. Taking the cycles and the average of them is more worthwhile and then seeing what the trend is it is very important.
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Post by guyfromhecker on Jan 28, 2014 5:45:36 GMT -6
Found the strongest scientific proof yet! LOL
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Post by guyfromhecker on Jan 26, 2014 19:50:59 GMT -6
OK, since even bringing up to 70s on the other board gets everyone in a frenzy I'll say it here. Now read slowly folks. I do not think this is a 70s winter. That does not mean it does not remind me of one. The repeated sharp cold fronts and the real chance at 3 months of winter are what I remember as a youth. I can't recall anything like that in the last 35 years, at least.
When this winter is over they are gonna have a hell of a time trying to compare it to any winter in the last 40 and maybe 50. Lord knows 2013-14 has not had the favorable ocean setup the doozies of the 70s had, but something was really lined up this winter. I would hazard they are going to have to go back into the early to mid 50s perhaps, to find a close match to this one. It's just that different.
That all said, I think that trend towards colder is well in place now. Time will tell. If these next couple of solar cycles are down hold onto your hats. We are gonna see more of these types of winters and eventually the NAO may trip to the type of stuff we saw in the late mid century. It may do that fairly soon. We'll see.
have fun
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