Climate & Climate Change

For the first time a globally coherent solar cycle response to the surface temperature has been established. Charles Camp and Ka Kit Tung report in Geophysical Research Letters (DOI: 10.1029/2007GL030207) that global temperatures oscillated by 0.2C during the high and low points of the cycle. The research uses satellite solar radiation and surface temperature gridded data from the last 50 years over four and a half solar cycles.

The authors’ analysis also shows greater warming in the polar regions in common with climate model predictions.

In a yet unpublished but submitted paper, Tung and Camp undertake another analysis, without resorting to climate models, that give a climate sensitivity for doubling CO2 between 2.3 and 4.1C as a 95% confidence interval.

The authors add that due to ocean lag effects these numbers are likely to be underestimates.

The work, bound to be controversial, puts more complexity back into the game coming hot on the heels of the Smith et al internal variability paper.

But reader beware, these papers are serious science not rambling quasi-political anecdotes.

A recent paper by IPCC lead author Kevin Trenberth and Aiguo Dai:
Effects of Mount Pinatubo volcanic eruption on the hydrological cycle as an analog of geoengineering

suggests that there would be adverse effects, including drought, as a result of the use of geoengineering in order to offset greenhouse warming:

Abstract
The problem of global warming arises from the buildup of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide from burning of fossil fuels and other human activities that change the composition of the atmosphere and alter outgoing longwave radiation (OLR). One geoengineering solution being proposed is to reduce the incoming sunshine by emulating a volcanic eruption. In between the incoming solar radiation and the OLR is the entire weather and climate system and the hydrological cycle. The precipitation and streamflow records from 1950 to 2004 are examined for the effects of volcanic eruptions from El Chichón in March 1982 and Pinatubo in June 1991, taking into account changes from El Niño-Southern Oscillation. Following the eruption of Mount Pinatubo in June 1991 there was a substantial decrease in precipitation over land and a record decrease in runoff and river discharge into the ocean from October 1991–September 1992. The results suggest that major adverse effects, including drought, could arise from geoengineering solutions.

As Hurricane Dean works its way through Mexico, we are reminded of the debate between those who link Hurricanes with global warming, and those who don’t. Scientists Chris Landsea of NOAA and Greg Holland of UCAR find themselves on opposite sides of the debate. Holland has recently claimed that tropical storms have doubled due to global warming in a new paper with Peter Webster. Landsea has also published a recent paper entitled Counting Atlantic Tropical Cyclones Back to 1900. Holland is quoted as saying, “….my sense is that we shall see a stabilization in frequencies for a while, followed by potentially another upward swing if global warming continues unabated.” Landsea’s response was to call Holland’s research “sloppy science.”

Roger Pileke Jr, who has several publications on Hurricanes co-authored with Chris Landsea, waded into the debate by asking Webster for his data. Webster told him in no uncertain terms to recreate it himself, so he did.

The storm data set used is divided into halves, each 51 years long:

1905-1955 (51 years) and 1956-2006 (51 years).

The official HURDAT data looks like this:

1905-1955 = 366
1956-2006 = 458

Holland/Webster 2007 looks like this using their storm-count underestimate correction:

1905-1955 = 417
1956-2006 = 458

Landsea also uses a storm-count underestimate correction:

1905-1955 = 529
1956-2006 = 527

It all comes down to which correction is correct.

William Gray has his say here.

“Many have criticised the scientific debate [on climate change] for becoming politicised – whether that be in terms of underplaying or overplaying the dangers presented by climate change – and this is an important issue to explore. But what has really been lacking in recent years is any substantive political debate about how we should view and respond to climate change. This has led to a situation where the IPCC, an unelected body, holds an unprecedented influence on the lives of everyone on the planet – and any attempt to question this body’s legitimacy or actions is shouted down as ‘denial’ of the scientific facts. In discussing the origins of the climate change issue and the IPCC, this essay raises the following questions:

1. How much of the global warming issue is shaped by new scientific discoveries, and how much by broader cultural and political trends?

2. How has the interaction between scientists, international institutions, governments, media and activists influenced the development of climate change policy?

3. Was the establishment of the IPCC a visionary act or an expression of political implosion in the West?

This essay does not attempt to provide a comprehensive history of the global warming issue; rather its aim is to contribute to the start of a critique. For whatever the facts about climate change can tell us, they do not tell us that the debate is over…

To keep reading this essay by Tony Gilland click here: http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/article/3540/

The 2006 hurricane season ended on 30th November with the number of hurricanes that qualified as “major” – category 3 or above – 50 percent below NOAA forecasts and not a single hurricane made landfall.

Hurricane Dean is the first for this 2007 season and according to Jeff Master’s Wunder blog:

“Hurricane Dean has intensified into the first Category 5 storm in the Atlantic since Hurricane Wilma of 2005. The latest Hurricane Hunter fix at 8:34pm EDT found 185 mph winds at their flight level of 10,000 feet, which corresponds to surface winds of 160 mph. The pressure had dropped to 914 mb, and I expect Dean will strengthen right up until landfall. Landfall is expected near Chetumal, Mexico, just after midnight local time…

Keep reading here: http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/show.html

Hello Jennifer,

My paper, “Rhodes Fairbridge and the idea that the solar system regulates the earth’s climate”** has now been published.

Here is the link:
http://www.griffith.edu.au/conference/ics2007/pdf/ICS176.pdf

I would be most grateful if you would post it on your website. I am sure it will be of interest to your readers.

As is usual for a high quality international scientific journal, my article was subject to a vigorous peer review process, to which I had to respond before the reviewers and the editors would agree to publish it. This having been done, the paper has now been published.

Yours sincerely
Richard Mackey
—————————————

Here is the abstract:

Rhodes Fairbridge died on 8th November, 2006. He was one of Australia’s most accomplished scientists and has
a special connection with Australia. In July, 1912 his father Kingsley established Fairbridge Village near Perth.
It contains a chapel of elegant simplicity designed by one of the world’s most famous architects of the time, Sir
Herbert Baker, as a labour of love to commemorate Kingsley. Rhodes is one of the few scientists to research the
sun/climate relationship in terms of the totality of the sun’s impact on the earth (i.e. gravity, the electromagnetic
force and output and their interaction). When the totality of the sun’s impact is considered, having regard to the
relevant research published over the last two decades, the influence of solar variability on the earth’s climate is
very strongly non-linear and stochastic. Rhodes also researched the idea that the planets might have a role in
producing the sun’s variable activity. If they do and if the sun’s variable activity regulates climate, then ultimately the planets may regulate it. Recent research about the sun/climate relationship and the solar inertial motion (sim) hypothesis shows a large body of circumstantial evidence and several working hypotheses but no satisfactory account of a physical sim process. In 2007 Ulysses will send information about the solar poles. This could be decisive regarding the predictions about emergent Sunspot Cycle No 24, including the sim hypothesis.

According to the sim hypothesis, this cycle should be like Sunspot Cycle No 14, and be followed by two that will
create a brief ice age. During the 1920s and ‘30s Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology published research about
the sun/climate relationship, especially Sunspot Cycle No 14, showing that it probably caused the worst drought
then on record.

And an extract from the paper:

“The earth’s atmosphere contains several major oscillating wind currents that have a key role in the regulation of the earth’s weather and climate. These wind currents include the El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO); Quasi-Biennial Oscillation (QBO); the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO); the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation (IPO); the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO); the Atlantic Multdecadal Oscillation (AMO); the Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD); and the Arctic Oscillation (AO); and the northern and southern polar vortices, which are two permanent cyclones at the poles. FAGAN (1999), (2000) and (2004) has shown how the climate changes rendered by these global atmospheric systems have resulted in major historic changes to cultures and societies throughout the world since the dawn of history.

LABITZKE et al. (2005), COUGHLIN and KUNG (2004) and CORDERO and NATHAN (2005) report that the sunspot cycle drives these large-scale oscillating wind currents. For example, strength of the QBO circulation and the length of the QBO period varies directly with the sunspot cycle. COUGHLIN and KUNG (2004) also conclude that at a range of atmospheric heights and at all latitudes over the planet, the atmosphere warms appreciably during the maximum of the sunspot cycle, and cools during the minimum of the cycle.xix VAN LOON, MEEHL AND ARBLASTER (2004) established that in the northern summer (July to August), the major climatological tropical precipation maxima are intensified in solar maxima compared with solar minima during the period 1979 to 2002.

NUGROHO and YATINI 2006 report that the sun strongly influences the IOD during wet season in the monsoons climate pattern; that is, the December to February period. CAMP and TUNG (2006) found that a significant relationship exists between polar warming and the sunspot cycle. ZAITSEVA et al. (2003) found that the intensity of the NAO depends on solar activity. ABARCA DEL RIO et al. (2003) have found that the patterns of variation between indices of solar activity, the Atmospheric Angular Momentum index and Length of Day show that variations in solar activity are a key driver of atmospheric dynamics. The United States Geological Survey agency found that changes in total solar radiant output cause changes in regional precipitation, including floods and droughts in the Mississippi River basin.xx The tropical oceans absorb varying amounts of solar radiant output, creating ocean temperature variations.

These are transported by major ocean currents to locations where the stored energy is released into the atmosphere. As a result, atmospheric pressure is altered and moisture patterns are formed that can ultimately affect regional precipitation.

SCAFETTA et al.(2004) and SCAFETTA and WEST (2005) have found that the earth’s temperature periodicities, particularly those of the oceans, inherit the structure of the periodicity of solar activity. WHITE et al. (1997) and REID (1991) have found that the sunspot cycle produces periodicities in the oceans’ temmperatures. This research shows that sea surface temperatures in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic Oceans, whether taken separately or combined, follow measures of solar radiant output derived from satellite observations and the sunspot record.

The sun’s separate impacts on the atmosphere and the ocean, and the complex non-linear interaction between the atmosphere and the ocean, is another process that amplifies the non-linear impact of the sun on our climate. Given that solar activity is a key determinant of ocean temperature, the decline on solar activity measured over the last decade should give rise in due course to a cooling of the oceans.

Read the full paper here: http://www.griffith.edu.au/conference/ics2007/pdf/ICS176.pdf

** MACKEY, R., 2007. Rhodes Fairbridge and the idea that the solar system regulates the Earth’s climate. Journal
of Coastal Research, SI 50 (Proceedings of the 9th International Coastal Symposium), 955 – 968. Gold Coast,
Australia, ISSN 0749.0208