Heliogenic Climate Change

“New NASA measurements of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, part of the global ocean conveyor belt that helps regulate climate around the North Atlantic, show no significant slowing over the past 15 years. The data suggest the circulation may have even sped up slightly in the recent past.

The findings are the result of a new monitoring technique, developed by oceanographer Josh Willis of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., using measurements from ocean-observing satellites and profiling floats. The findings are reported in the March 25 issue of Geophysical Research Letters.

The Atlantic overturning circulation is a system of currents, including the Gulf Stream, that bring warm surface waters from the tropics northward into the North Atlantic. There, in the seas surrounding Greenland, the water cools, sinks to great depths and changes direction. What was once warm surface water heading north turns into cold deep water going south. This overturning is one part of the vast conveyor belt of ocean currents that move heat around the globe.  …

Willis found evidence that the circulation had sped up about 20 percent from 1993 to 2009. This is the longest direct record of variability in the Atlantic overturning to date and the only one at high latitudes.

The latest climate models predict the overturning circulation will slow down as greenhouse gases warm the planet and melting ice adds freshwater to the ocean.”  “NASA Study Finds Atlantic ‘Conveyor Belt’ Not Slowing“

Nicola Scafetta has a new paper out, “Climate change and its causes — a discussion about some key issues” (13MB pdf).  It is well worth a read.  One “key issue” is “a large 60 year cycle in the temperature record” (p. 19).  Says Scafetta:

“It has been observed that several multi-secular climatic and oceanic records present large cycles with periods of about 50-70 years with an average of 60 years [18].17 Figure 10 [below] shows the global temperature record detrended of its quadratic upward trend [19] depicted in Figure 1. This sequence has been filtered of its fast fluctuations (by applying a six year moving average smooth algorithm) and it has been plotted against itself with a time-lag of about 60 years. The figure clearly suggests the existence of an almost perfect cyclical correspondence between the periods 1880-1940 and 1940-2000. The peak in 1880 repeats in 1940 and again in 2000. The smaller peak in 1900 repeats in 1960. This 60-odd year oscillation cannot be associated with any known anthropogenic phenomenon [19]. (See also Appendixes Q and R).”

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What causes this 60-year cycle?  Scafetta goes on (p. 22):

“If the temperature is characterized by natural periodic cycles the only reasonable explanation is that the climate system is modulated by astronomical oscillations.20 Natural cycles known with certainty are the 11 (Schwabe) and 22 (Hale) year solar cycles, the cycles of the planets and luni-solar nodal cycles [19,24]. Jupiter has an orbital period of 11.87 years while Saturn has an orbital period of 29.4 years. These periods predict three other major cycles which are associated with Jupiter and Saturn: about 10 years, the opposition of [the] two planets; about 20 years, their synodic cycle; and about 60 years, the repetition of the combined orbits of the two planets. The major lunar cycles are about 18.6 and 8.85 years.

Figure 12 shows a spectral analysis of the global surface temperature and of a record that depends on the orbits of planets (the speed of the sun relative to the center of mass of the solar system [19]). The two records have almost the same cycles. The temperature record contains the cycles of the planets combined with the two solar cycles of 11 and 22 years and a lunar cycle at about 9.1 years.21 (See also Appendixes Q-V).  …

The physical mechanisms involved in the process are likely numerous. The gravitational forces of the planets can partially modulate the solar activity. For example, it was noted that the alignment of Venus, Earth and Jupiter presents cycles of approximately 11 years that are in phase with the 11-year solar cycles [21] and multi secular reconstructions of solar activity reveal 60-year cycles associated with the combined orbit of Jupiter and Saturn and other longer cycles [22]. Solar changes could modulate climate change through various physical and chemical processes as explained in Section 6, which are currently not included in the models, as explained in Section 6.

There is also the possibility that the Earth’s orbital parameters are directly modulated by the gravitational forces of Jupiter, Saturn and the Moon, and the Sun’s magnetic force in such a way that the length of day is modulated and/or other planetary parameters are altered.  For example, the rotation of the Earth on its axis shows 60-year cycles that anticipate those of the temperature by a few years [18, 23]. Variations in the Earth’s rotation and tides caused by the lunar cycles can drive ocean oscillations, which in turn may alter the climate [19]. For example, the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO) and the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) present clear 60-year cycles and other faster cycles, see Figures 14 and 15. None of these mechanisms are included in the models adopted by the IPCC.”

Prior posts on the Jovian planets’ tidal influence on the Sun here.  Anthony Watts covers the paper here.

Anthony Watts had a post awhile ago (while I was on the Colorado River) discussing the new paper “CONTIGUOUS U. S. TEMPERATURE TRENDS USING NCDC RAW AND ADJUSTED DATA FOR ONE-PER-STATE RURAL AND URBAN STATION SETS” by Edward R. Long, Ph.D., illustrating both the urban heat island (UHI) effect and the faulty adjusting of urban and rural raw data in the U.S.  The two graphs here are from the paper (extracted by Anthony).

The first graph shows rural versus urban raw data.  What is striking is that (1) the raw rural data show that the 1930s were warmer than today and (2) the UHI effect is evident and large.

The second graph shows the same data after NCDC adjusts it.  One would expect that the rural raw data would not be adjusted and that the urban raw data would be adjusted downward to take into account the UHI effect.  But instead NCDC adjusts the rural raw data upward until it nearly matches the urban data!  The NCDC adjusted temperature record is clearly urban biased.

“And this is the “Temperaturegate” aspect: The NCDC’s massaging — they call it “adjusting” — has resulted in an increase in the rural values, from a raw value of 0.11^oC/century to an adjusted value of 0.58^oC/century, and no change in the urban values. That is, the NCDC’s treatment has forced the rural value to look more like that of the urban. This is the exact opposite of any rational consideration, given the growth of the sizes of and activities within urban locations, unless deception is the goal.”  “A Pending American Temperaturegate“  h/t Hide the decline

“Say what? What could possibly justify that kind of adjustment, seven tenths of a degree? The early part of the record is adjusted to show less warming. Then from 1973 to 1989, Matanuska is adjusted to warm at a feverish rate of 4.4 degrees per century … but Matanuska is a RURAL station. Since GISS says that the homogenization effort is designed to change the ”long term trend of any non-rural station to match the long term trend of their rural neighbors”, why is Matanuska  being adjusted at all?“  “Fudged fevers in the frozen north“

Image from:  “Global sea level decrease 2004-2009“

“Czechgate: Climate scientists dump world’s second oldest ‘cold’ climate record“

“Using the fact that the galactic cosmic ray flux incident on the heliosphere boundary is known to have remained close to constant over the last 200 kyr, and that there exist independent records of geomagnetic variations over this period, Sharma25 was able to use a functional relation reflecting the existing data to give a good estimate of solar activity over this 200 kyr period.  …

Sharma was able to calculate the normalized solar modulation factor over the last 200 kyr. The result is shown in Fig. 8.

The 100 kyr periodicity is readily apparent in Fig. 8. It is also seen that the d18O record and solar modulation are coherent and in phase. Sharma concludes from this that “. . . variations in solar surface magnetic activity cause changes in the Earth’s climate on a 100-ka timescale”.  …

Summary

It has been shown above that low altitude cloud cover closely follows cosmic ray flux; that the galactic cosmic ray flux has the periodicities of the glacial/interglacial cycles; that a decrease in galactic cosmic ray flux was coincident with Termination II [the warming that initiated the Eemian, the last interglacial] ; and that the most likely initiator for Termination II was a consequent decrease in Earth’s albedo.

The temperature of past interglacials was higher than today most likely as a consequence of a lower global albedo due to a decrease in galactic cosmic ray flux reaching the Earth’s atmosphere. In addition, the galactic cosmic ray intensity exhibits a 100 kyr periodicity over the last 200 kyr that is in phase with the glacial terminations of this period. Carbon dioxide appears to play a very limited role in setting interglacial temperature.”  “INTERGLACIALS, MILANKOVITCH CYCLES, AND CARBON DIOXIDE“  h/t Niche Modeling

“Public’s Priorities for 2010: Economy, Jobs, Terrorism“

“What this shows is that on average the adjustment process more than quadrupled the trend in raw temperatures, increasing the trend of the mean from 0.0113 for raw data to 0.0536.” “Long record GHCN analysis”

From “Climategate: Leaked Emails Inspired Data Analyses Show Claimed Warming Greatly Exaggerated and NOAA not CRU is Ground Zero“  h/t Hockey Schtick

“Mike McMillan (17:28:30) :

I’ve completed USHCN vs USHCN version 2 blink comparison charts for Wisconsin. As with the Illinois charts, the majority of stations had their raw data adjusted to show more warming by lowering the temperatures in the first half of the 20th century.

That brings the raw data more in line with the GISS homogenized versions. I haven’t blinked the original GISS with the new homogenized charts yet, but I’d bet a nickle they’ll show even more warming.

Wisconsin original USHCN raw / revised raw data -
http://www.rockyhigh66.org/stuff/USHCN_revisions_wisconsin.htm

Illinois original raw / revised raw -
http://www.rockyhigh66.org/stuff/USHCN_revisions.htm”

From:  “USHCN – U.S. Historic Cimate Network“

“It seems the temperature readings were adjusted six times after analysis in July 1999 indicated that the temperature anomaly for 1934 was nearly 60%  [0.5 C] higher than for 1998. See the above graphic for how GISS adjusted 1934 down and 1998 up until 1998 was warmer than 1934 (the January 2007 analysis) or at least virtually indistinguishable (the March and August 2007 analyses).”  “US version of Climategate coming?“  h/t The Air Vent

“Joseph [D'Aleo] did the leg work to find the real raw data and compare it to the NOAA / NCDC GHCN “UN-adjusted” data. What he finds are that the “UN-adjusted” data are very much adjusted (and some of us would say very much “maladjusted” ;-)

Just look at that. Up to 3 whole degrees of F (over 3 in a couple of places) of added “warming trend” via the NOAA / NCDC “unadjusted” adjustments. Heck, even the language you must use to describe what is going on is painful to the ear. But what else to call it? The lable NCDC applies is “unadjusted” so that has to be used to know which data set I’m talking about. The data are clearly changed, so it is adjusted. And we are left with lumpy terms in quotations like – “Unadjusted” adjusted data.

It looks to me like we will need to go all the way back to “first sources” to have any hope of finding out what is really going on in the temperature history of the planet. GHCN “Unadjusted” clearly is too adjusted to be suitable to the task.”  “GHCN – Does “unadjusted” mean cooked?”

Update:  Joe may be mistaken (see comment by Gene Zeien).

“[Antarctica is] not melting anything like as much as expected [by alarmists]. In fact, during the continent’s summer this time last year, there was less melting than at any time in the 30 years that we have had reliable satellite measurements of the region.  …

John King of the British Antarctic Survey, based in Cambridge, warned against misinterpreting the lack of summer warming.

“Climate change denialists will use this work as evidence that Antarctica is not warming, despite the authors saying their works show no such thing,” he said.”  “Why Antarctica Isn’t Melting Much — Yet“

“Clean Energy Sources: Sun, Wind and Subsidies“

h/t Chiefio

““While sea ice melts away and the oceans warm, the Obama administration is frozen in inaction. Instead of protecting penguins and taking meaningful steps to address global warming,” said Shaye Wolf, a biologist with the Center for Biological Diversity, “our government is dragging its feet while penguins are marching toward extinction.“”  “Suit to Be Filed Over Delay in Protection for Penguins Hurt by Climate Change and Industrial Fisheries“

“Annual Greenland temperatures were higher in 1930 than today. The rate of warming in the past was much greater than the current rate of warming. Greenland warmed fastest before the concentration of greenhouse gases increased substantially. Greenland cooled substantially from 1930 to 1980 … during a period of greenhouse gas concentration increase. Box et al. note in their abstract that “The annual whole ice sheet 1919–32 warming trend is 33% greater in magnitude than the 1994–2007 warming.”” “A Christmas story: some facts about Greenland“
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