Arguments
David Archibald Exaggerates the Solar Influence on Future Climate Change
Posted on 29 January 2012 by dana1981
David Archibald is a climate "skeptic" who has been CEO of multiple oil and mineral exploration companies operating in Australia, and currently is part of the scientific advisory panel for the Australian Climate Science Coalition (ACSC) - a group of Australian fake skeptics which also includes Bob Carter, John McLean, David Evans, and Ian Plimer. Archibald is a major proponent of the "it's the sun" myth, and from time to time will publish a paper in Energy&Environment (the controversial journal which publishes "skeptic" research which is too erroneous to meet the standards in standard peer-reviewed journals), claiming that a decline in solar activity will lead to substantial cooling over the next few decades.
In this post we'll examine one such paper, Archibald (2009), in which Archibald claims that certain regions of the planet will cool 2.2°C over solar cycle 24, which began in December 2008, and is expected to be a relatively weak cycle (Figure 1).
Figure 1: Smoothed monthly sunspot number over the second half of solar cycle 23 and beginning of cycle 24 (blue) and the predicted values over the rest of cycle 24 (red) (NOAA).
However, as fellow ACSC member John McLean did with the influence of La Niña, David Archibald has grossly overestimated the solar influence on global temperature.
The Claim
As we at SkS have previously noted, Archibald has a history of focusing on data from individual surface temperature stations such as Perth, Australia or Bridgeport, Washington. In his 2009 paper, Archibald similarly focused on temperature data from a single temperature station in Hanover, New Hampshire:
"If the month of minimum for the Solar Cycle 23 to 24 transition is July 2009, this would make Solar Cycle 23 over thirteen years long. This in turn would mean that it would be 3.2 years longer than Solar Cycle 22, and imply that the annual average temperature of Hanover, New Hampshire will be 2.2° C cooler during Solar Cycle 24 than it had been on average over Solar Cycle 23."
In this quote, Archibald repeats the myth that solar cycle length determines global temperatures - a quite unphysical argument which is based on correlation rather than causation - and specifically focuses on the temperature data from a single station.
Hanover, New Hampshire
The temperature data for Hanover are available via NASA GISS. The average temperature in Hanover over solar cycle 23, which began in May 1996 and ended in December 2008, was 7.9°C. Thus if Archibald is correct, over solar cycle 24, the temperature in Hanover should cool to 5.7°C. In fact, Archibald's prediction is based on the average temperature over the entire solar cycle, so his prediction is actually that the average temperature in Hanover from approximately 2009 through 2020 will be 5.7°C.
Thus far we are more than a quarter of the way into cycle 24, and Archibald's prediction is not looking good (Figure 2). And remember that we're currently headed upwards toward the solar cycle maximum (expected in 2013 or 2014), so any dramatic solar-caused cooling will have to happen in the second half of the solar cycle.
Figure 2: GISS temperature record for Hanover, New Hampshire (1895 through 2008, black), GISS Hanover data for solar cycle 24 (2009 through 2011, green), and an example of how Hanover temperatures would have to change for Archibald's prediction to be accurate (blue).
As with John McLean's failed temperature prediction, a simple cursory glance at the data is all that's necessary to conclude that Archibald's prediction has no basis in reality. However, we haven't yet seen the worst of Archibald's predictions.
Mid-Latitude Temperatures
In the abstract of his paper, Archibald extends the claim much further yet:
"As at late 2008, the progression of the current 23/24 solar minimum indicates that a severe cool period is now inevitable, similar to that of the Dalton Minimum. A decline in average annual temperature of 2.2° C is here predicted for the mid-latitude regions over Solar Cycle 24."
"Mid-latitude regions" refers to the area betwen latitudes of approximately 24° and 64° in both the northern and southern hemispheres, which accounts for nearly half of the Earth's surface. Such a large area exhibits much less temperature variability, on average, than a single station like Hanover, New Hampshire. Thus Archibald's prediction in this case becomes even worse yet (Figure 3).
Figure 3: Mid-latitude (24 to 64°S and 24 to 64°N) GISS land-ocean temperature (black) vs. Archibald's prediction (blue).
The middle latitudes warmed approximately 0.77°C over the past 115 years, and Archibald has predicted that they will cool 2.2°C over the next 10 years. This prediction clearly has no basis in reality.
Manufacturing Controversy
A prediction of 2.2°C cooling for Hanover, New Hampshire may be unrealistic, but it also is of little consequence. However, 2.2°C cooling for nearly half the planet, or even the entire planet, would be quite noteworthy, to say the least. Towards the end of the paper, Archibald fuels speculation about such a possibility:
"Based on our understanding of the interaction of solar and terrestrial processes, the following projections are made for a number of climate-related physical processes:"
[...]
"Temperature Decline Solar Cycle 24: 2.2° C"
In this case, Archibald does not specify the geographic region to which his prediction applies, and it can easily be construed (or misconstrued) as referring to the planet as a whole. In fact, when the prediction inevitably fails, Archibald will undoubtedly claim that his assertion of 2.2°C cooling for "mid-latitude regions" was only intended to apply to very isolated regions like Hanover, New Hampshire.
However, imprecise assertions like "mid-latitude regions" and the unspecified "Temperature Decline" will allow fake skeptics to add David Archibald to the list of "scientists" who are "predicting global cooling," even though his research does not support this claim. In fact, 2.2°C is nearly half the average global temperature change during the transition between glacial and interglacial periods. If Archibald were predicting such a massive temperature change over a period on the order of a decade, he would deserve to be laughed out of the room.
Realistic Solar Influence
In reality, solar activity is generally quite stable. On a global scale, the sun has only contributed to less than 40% (0.3°C) of the observed global warming over the past century, and less than 15% (0.1°C) over the past 50 years, according to peer-reviewed global warming attribution research (Figure 4).
Figure 4: Solar contribution to global warming according to Meehl et al. 2004 (M04, blue), Stone et al. 2007 (S07, red), Lean and Rind 2008 (LR08, green), and Huber and Knutti 2011 (HK11, purple).
According to Fuelner and Rahmstorf (2010), even a grand solar minimum would cause no more than a 0.3°C cooling of average global surface temperatures. A recent study by Jones et al. (2012) concluded that similar to Archibald's assumption, solar activity will fall to levels similar to the Dalton Minimum during the 21st century, but unlike Archibald, found that this would only result in a minimal cooling effect of approximately 0.08°C on the average global surface temperature.
"...the likely reduction in the warming by 2100 is found to be between 0.06 and 0.1K, a very small fraction of the projected anthropogenic warming."
Bear in mind that according to various solar reconstructions (summarized in Jones et al. 2012), total solar irradiance (TSI) today is only between 1 and 2.5 Watts per square meter (W/m2) higher than during the Maunder Minimum, which was the period with the lowest solar activity in the past several centuries. The change since the Dalton Minimum is even smaller. The solar radiative forcing is estimated by multiplying the change in TSI by 0.25 and 0.7, to account for the sphericity and albdeo (reflectivity) of the Earth.
Thus a change in TSI from today's levels to Maunder Minimum levels would only cause a radiative forcing of 0.17 to 0.44 W/m2. This is the equivalent forcing to an increase of atmospheric CO2 from today's level of 390 parts per million (ppm) to between and 400 and 420 ppm - between 5 and 15 years of CO2 emissions at today's rates. A Dalton Minimum would correspond to just a few years of human CO2 emissions, and at most a couple tenths of a degree cooling of the average global surface temperature - a factor of 10 less than Archibald's claimed 2.2°C.
In short, Archibald has either dramatically overestimated the solar influence on global temperatures, or has worded his paper so poorly that his discussion of Hanover, New Hampshire temperatures can be misconstrued as referring to mid-latitude or global average temperatures. This sort of shoddy work is undoubtedly why Archibald was forced to settle for publication in Energy&Environment. The sun is simply not going to save us from the rapid global warming we have in store on our current emissions path.
It's a shame there isn't a way of forcing newspapers to print a retraction, or at least an update, when observations don't match their predictions.
BTW: The link to "John McLean's failed temperature prediction" doesn't work.
The same question occurs to me now. Why would you make such a prediction?
From elsewhere:
'That adds up to a whopping 4.9°C fall in temperate latitudes over the next 20 years. We can only hope he’s wrong. As David says ” The center of the Corn Belt, now in Iowa, will move south to Kansas.”'
4.9 C over the next 20 years! What is he smoking?
The interesting thing about solar influence is that we may be in the process of the experiment, if in fact cycle 25 represents a quiescent period.
http://www.warwickhughes.com/blog/?p=197
http://online.wsj.com/video/opinion-the-global-warming-hoax/B951E1BE-01A3-4F92-B871-A4AB9B171419.html?mod=opinion_video_newsreel
A video from the Marshall Institute is not interesting in any way. And it is also off-topic. Further off-topic references will be deleted.
I wish it became clear for the public, or at least the mainstream media, what kind of "alternative view" E&E provides. Or Spencer, Christy, Lindzen and their fellows, for that matter.
The media for denying global warming is very powerful, and I don't know how it is done, but http://www.skepticalscience.com needs to be referenced more so people without science backgrounds will know that scientists are NOT deeply divided over the facts and predictions.
Thank you for fighting the good and great fight.
If the politicians believe that there is serious debate about whether it is going to warm or cool, then the only rational (to a politician) solution is to wait another, oh 10 or 20 years before doing anything radical like reducing emissions.
The fake sceptics know perfectly well that it is not going to cool, but their only goal is to prevent action for a few more years until it is obvious to absolutely everyone that it is going to keep warming. A cynical, and IMHO utterly evil, ploy.
You're referring to David Rose's junk science in the 29 January Daily Mail Online.
How's this for an opening inaccuracy:
Analysis by experts at NASA and the University of Arizona – derived from magnetic-field measurements 120,000 miles beneath the sun’s surface – suggest that Cycle 25, whose peak is due in 2022, will be a great deal weaker still. --emphasis added
A quick look up at the figure in this post shows cycle 25 will peak in 2013-14. Oops.
I'll bet this Peter Stott quote doesn't get a mention in fake-sceptic land:
‘Our findings suggest a reduction of solar activity to levels not seen in hundreds of years would be insufficient to offset the dominant influence of greenhouse gases.’
The SSN graph (labeled as 'Solar cycle amplitude') shown in Rose's post is already incorrect. Another oops. This is junk.
"Here, Figure 5 shows another similar correlation for the Central England Temperature record, this time of 0.6° C cooling per year of extra cycle length."
Eyeballing the figure is looks unlikely but nevertheless I digitized the data. I found that the slope of his best fit line is not -0.6 °C/yr but -0.2 °C/yr. It's not even the true best fit line to the data shown in the figure, which has a slope of -0.1 °C/yr. Six times lower than what he claims.
tomcj - i wish i didnt know how its done - just give me money
CTG - " They are only meant to influence politicians, though, which is why they don't need to be realistic" oh, i so wish that was an exaggeration! so much for 'reality based decision making".
dana - go geezer! getting better with each post!
That's not to say the Mail isn't full of tripe - it is.
The first thing to notice about this is the obvious cherry picking. The press release also shows the NOAA NCDC figures, the NASA GISS figures, and the WMO figures, all of which show significant positive trends. So, the Met Office did not release figures showing no increase in temperature. On the contrary, they released a set of figures which together show an increase in temperature, although one particular index did not.
Of greater interest is the fact that version 4 of the Hadley CRU temperature series is about to be released. The significant difference between version 3 and verion 4, from our perspective, is that version 4 has more Russian, and more Arctic stations, thus filling in some of the gaps in coverage of HadCRUT3. The effect of filling in those gaps over recent years is shown below:
As can be seen, HadCRUT4 (red line) is significantly warmer than HadCRUT3 (blue line) after about 2003, resulting in 2005 and 2010 both being warmer than 1998, and a net positive trend. GISSTEMP (NASA) and the GHCN (NOAA) already use mathematical techniques to avoid the lack of coverage that plagues HadCRUT3, so unsurprisingly, increasing the overage of HadCRUT brings it closer into line with the other two indices. This clearly demonstrates that the lack of warming in HadCRUT3 is an artifact of gaps in coverage of that index. Preferring it to either GISTEMP or GHCN is to prefer an index which is known to be less accurate just because it suites your prejudices.
The third point is, as I believe you have alluded to, is that this is just another example of deniers trying to go down the up elevator.
Finally, I have located and read the Mail article to which you refer, and the press release regarding solar activity which they focus on. As is typical of press releases from many research institutions, they report the research, but do not cite the paper. (IMO, that shows such a fundamental lack of awareness of the nature of science as to render the composer of the press release unfit for their duties.) Consequently I am guessing as to which paper the press release refers to. The two best candidates are this on a future grand solar minimum, this on climate impacts of solar minimums, or this (which is behind a paywall, so I cannot give you a summary). I notice the Mail continues the standard practice of "balance" in main stream media. That is, if you report on the consensus of climate science, two thirds of the article must be given over to the opinions of (largely) unqualified deniers for balance; but when you report on the opinions of climate change deniers, no opinions of climate scientists need be reported for balance.
The article is, in other words, not journalism but propaganda!
http://www.solarham.com/
(from page 8):
7. Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Level: Relatively flat 2010 - 2030
"He very funny man."
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/
[DB] Actually, that was Mauna Loa. Global is here (December not yet finalized): http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/global.html#global
Mauna Loa works for me.
met office news is worth getting email updates from
http://metofficenews.wordpress.com/2012/01/29/met-office-in-the-media-29-january-2012/
'They weren't seeing warming so they kept picking which stations they used till the warming appeared, they're hiding the decline!'
It'll be further evidence of 'warmist' deception. You know, precisely how they reacted to the ARGO edits.
Unfortunately there is zero way to avoid this reaction. Most of the big names will carry their opinions with them to their graves.
"This worse that Newt's Videos...."
No it ain't ... Archibald is interchangeable with other Easterbrooks and they will not control research budgets or congressional hearings.
(I am assuming you are not talking ethics ánd Newt ánd David in one breath ... naturally)
Thanks for the link. The Met Office are not pleased by Rose's distortions and misrepresentations:
"Today the Mail on Sunday published a story written by David Rose entitled “Forget global warming – it’s Cycle 25 we need to worry about”.
This article includes numerous errors in the reporting of published peer reviewed science undertaken by the Met Office Hadley Centre and for Mr. Rose to suggest that the latest global temperatures available show no warming in the last 15 years is entirely misleading.
Despite the Met Office having spoken to David Rose ahead of the publication of the story, he has chosen to not fully include the answers we gave him to questions around decadal projections produced by the Met Office or his belief that we have seen no warming since 1997."
And
"Furthermore despite criticism of a paper published by the Met Office he chose not to ask us to respond to his misconceptions."
Rose has a long history or misrepresenting scientists' research, distorting and cherry picking. He is a a poor excuse for a journalist. See here and here.
Their misinformation is certainly despicable, irresponsible, and dangerous. I'm not sure I'd say they're committing "crimes against humanity," but it's definitely an affront to honesty, definitely destroys their credibility, and it's a shame that anybody listens to them at this point.
I came across the Daily Mail post yesterday and immediately went to Woodfortrees to see just how much of a cherry pick 1997 was. As I suspected, you can extend the record back by a single year and the trend is dramatically different. The same is true for any of the previous five years. 1997 is the absolute earliest year in which you can get an almost-flat trend line. It's hard to avoid concluding that Rose knew exactly what he was doing. It's possible he saw that 1997 and 2011 were almost identical and didn't think any further than this, but "he didn't think much before writing a story about it" is not exactly an excuse.
When will it start cooling?
Suggestive title. I also ask that question...
Reminds me of the immortal words of John Wayne: