Figure 1
How well do radionuclides 10BE and 14C agree as a proxy for solar activity?
Figure 1 implies reasonably but also not particularly accurately, r2 between the two proxy is 0.5 to 0.6, dependent on exactly what and how.
I find the timing mismatch worrying, inconsistent. (I have done my best to acheive strict accuracy)
Horiuchi (Dome Fuji ice)
This dataset has been criticised on methology.
10BE data is from an ice core, which for practical purposes is at a single geographic location. Geomagnetics are important and vary with time.
In this case (nicely) four data are provided,
Two timescales, the second bent to 14C and is used here. The difference is small.
Data as measured and data after compensating for precipitation. In may option this is a dubious correction because weather is unknown and might be related to flux. A worse problem seem to exist with Greenland ice data where weather is far more variable.
This paper may be of interest, there is also work on deVries cycles (don’t have a reference to hand)
An Antarctic view of Beryllium-10 and solar activity for the past
millennium
Gilles Delaygue, Edouard Bard
www.springerlink.com/index/46p26027m2876201.pdf
Solanki (tree carbon)
I have little information. The data is from many individual trees, locations not stated and geomagnetics unknown.
Datasets are
Solanki, S.K., et al. 2005.
11,000 Year Sunspot Number Reconstruction.
IGBP PAGES/World Data Center for Paleoclimatology
Data Contribution Series #2005-015.
NOAA/NGDC Paleoclimatology Program, Boulder CO, USA.
ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/climate_forcing/solar_variability/solanki2004-ssn.txt
and
Horiuchi, K., et al. 2009.
Dome Fuji, Antarctica Ice Core 10Be Data 700–1900 CE.
IGBP PAGES/World Data Center for Paleoclimatology
Data Contribution Series # 2009-048.
NOAA/NCDC Paleoclimatology Program, Boulder CO, USA.
ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/icecore/antarctica/domefuji/domefuji-10be2008.txt
Data processing
These datasets are broadly comparable on sample rate, Solanki regular, Horiuchi, irregular at about the same rate.
I resampled (oversampled) to annual and applied an end compensated low pass at about 30 years, which given the larges sample time gap of 15 years will meet Nyquist.
Annual SSN data from SIDC was treated as Solanki says the 14C data is treated, is a mean over 10 years as a sample value. I used 11 years for convenience and then filtered as the foregoing.
All non Solanki data was then normalised to the Solanki data. In the case of SSN was normalised based on the overlap period only.
Tallbloke's Talkshop 
“I find the timing mismatch worrying, inconsistent.”
Thanks for your analysis of this vexatious issue, Tim. I too think that both Be10 and c14 dating methodologies have their problems. Inconsistencies have been found in timing for both sets of data and the accuracy of both Be10 and C14 dating depend on the assumptions made. For example if the production rate of 14C was less in the past, dates given using the carbon-14 method would incorrectly assume that more 14C had decayed out of a specimen than what has actually occurred. This would result in giving older dates than the true age.
I’m sure Vuk can explain better than me the problems involved with timing in these proxy estimates.
Hi Tenuc
Comparing Solanki 14C with Steinhilber10Be over the last 9300 years shows that the 14C and 10Be dates may not be all that far off. Over most of this time interval I only had to shift 14C a few tens of years to get a peak-trough match with 10Be (the longest lead/lag was 50 years). Between 5500 and 6000 yrs BP the two reconstructions in fact correlate with zero lag and R^2 = 0.7. I guess this could be a result of compensating errors, but it doesn’t seem likely.
Hi Tenuc
Any proxy by definition is to be used with qualifications. 10Be is only good proxy for 10Be nucleation only, which is dependant on too many factors to be relied on. There are numerous papers using the 10Be as a proxy, but once I found for myself that is unreliable, I just ignore anything where the claim is reliant on the 10Be data.
For climate matters I seldom look into anything before 1660 re. CET, and 1850 for the rest of the globe. Just a matter of the personal preference.
Thanks for doing this comparison Tim. It would be interesting to compare these datasets a bit further back if they were available, to see if a ~970 year cycle is evident in both 10Be and 14C.
@Roger Andrews
Hi Roger, it is the inconsistencies in the matching of data sets which I find worrying – sometimes matching well, other times not. To me this indicates that neither measure is consistent and other factors to the intended are changing the result. I’m with Vuk on this one and don’t place much trust in paleo proxy reconstructions. Like the actual temperature record, it is to easy when making assumptions to cherry pick the ones that confirm your own belief system of how things should work. We really are having to peer through some very muddy water to even get back in time 1000y and it is easy to draw out what you want to see.
Hi Tenuc:
“it is the inconsistencies in the matching of data sets which I find worrying – sometimes matching well, other times not”. Well, yes, it worries me too. But just about every climate-related data set in existence has inconsistencies of one sort or another, so if we insist that a data set be free of inconsistencies before we do anything with it we will soon finish up with no data to work with.
The problem also isn’t limited to paleoreconstructions. The inconsistencies in observational “surface temperature” data sets, such as HadCRUT3 and GISS LOTI, are arguably as bad as any, but everyone uses them when they want to make a point for or against AGW.
Hi TB:
“It would be interesting to compare these datasets a bit further back if they were available, to see if a ~970 year cycle is evident in both 10Be and 14C.” The Steinhilber 10Be data set (ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/climate_forcing/solar_variability/steinhilber2009tsi.txt) goes back 9,300 years. Maybe Tim C could work his magic on it.
Hi Rodger
NOAA data is based on the GRIP’s 10Be cosmogenic radionuclide. Analysing those data in parallel with other parameters available convinced me of the problems.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/CET&10Be.htm
Hi Vuk:
A few threads ago someone posted a plot of 10Be against SSN over the period of the sunspot record. Here’s it is again: http://s3.amazonaws.com/readers/2011/06/15/solaractivityproxies_1.png. 10Be isn’t an exact match to SSN, but it’s not miles off either.
At the top of this thread Tim C plots 10Be against 14C. Again the two aren’t an exact match, but neither are they all that different (and we don’t know that 14C is right anyway).
Recently I plotted Solanki 14C against Steinhilber 10Be back to 9300 BP. The two generally track each other quite closely.
Now I look at your plot of 10Be against CET since 1660. I find another good match.
Based on this empirical evidence I frankly can’t see how one can object to using 10Be as a solar proxy. It may not be an exact proxy, but it sure beats the hell out of tree rings, and people use tree rings to reconstruct paleotemperatures all the time.
Rodger, your reasoning is correct, but then if 10Be has a good correlation with the CET, and a good correlation with the SSN, than follows that the CET is a good proxy for sunspot record, or the CET is a direct function of SSN. Neither solar or climate scientists would agree, and both records go back to 1650.
I tend to ignore accepted science and do my own correlation:
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/CET-SSN.htm
My other concern is good match between my NAP dataset and 10Be. NAP is non-climate and non-solar dependant; NAP can control the CET and independently can also control the 10Be deposition.
However, it is up to any researcher to decide for him/her-self on the matter.
“However, it is up to any researcher to decide for him/her-self on the matter.”
Vuk, as soon as you finish your paper and let me post it, we will give it full consideration.
As to the similarity, difference between 10Be, C14, SSN, CET, SSB, NAP, and other indices, it seems to be a reasonable assumption that they are all a function of solar system dynamics.
Does that assumption get us any further forward?
Well, it restates the problem, once we accept there is feedback between various phenomena. The issue becomes one of realising that we are not dealing with neat chains of cause and effect, but with interacting phenomena which amplify and diminish various feedback effects, depending on phase relations which are constantly altering due to hysterisis, increasingly non-linear relationships near boundary conditions, and chaotic anomalies due to bipolar oscillation.
So, it’s complicated. But we shouldn’t be daunted, because the correlations we have found enable us to make some general headway, even if particular indices match at one epoch and not at another.
Vuk:
If CET follows solar, and if we think there’s a cause-and-effect relationship, which we do, then I can’t see any reason why we shouldn’t use CET as a solar proxy. But there wouldn’t be any point because we already have an observational sunspot record covering this period.
A couple of O/T comments on the CET record. First, I have a temperature series I put together from 30 long-term European records that goes back to 1752. It tracks CET quite closely. Second, I have a series for Greenland (where your 10Be data come from) that goes back to 1866. It tracks CET before 1920 but not after. Between 1920 and 1990 Greenland in fact seems to have suffered a mini D-O warming event that didn’t occur in Europe, but there’s nothing in the 10Be record that correlates with it.
Vuk, what is your NAP data set? I asked you about it some time ago and you wouldn’t tell me what it was. Any chance of revealing the secret?
TB
You are right, many unknowns out there. I am not in a hurry to publish because Damnant quod non intelligunt!
Roger
It suspect that when the NAO is predominantly positive or negative for long time, then the CET + Europe and Greenland have opposite trends, when the NAO is hovering around the middle then the trends are similar. From about ~1740 to ~1920 the CETs are relatively flat, so I assume that the NAO was also moderate. I did short article on the NAO for anyone interested:
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/NAO-.htm
NAP – N. Atlantic precursor dataset took me some time to work out, and since then I became a bit of ‘solar sceptic’, or at least as the current science stands.
Svalgaard tried hard to find out the NAP’s meaning, Judith Curry was exasperated by my obstinacy, Bob Tisdale was recently a bit rude called it smoke and mirrors. My reply: ‘smoke is very subtle, mirrors very polished, my posts are neither of two, but my dataset is very true’.
It got even through Tamino’s
and Gavin’s Real climate
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2011/07/unforced-variations-july-2011/
Judith Curry tries to talk to sceptics, in my modest way I am doing the opposite, trying to communicate my ideas to the AGW people, as TB occasionally does too.
Not much is achieved by mocking each other.
Vuk
Not being in a hurry to publish because damnant quod non intelligunt is fine, but don’t forget that qui haesitat perditus est.
Ceteris paribus, of course.
Carpe diem!
Nil illigitimi carborundum!
Hi Rog & Roger
Perhaps I should quote in some more obscure language.
I detect ‘climate change’ among the AGWs regarding natural causes; J. Curry (AG lukewarm) has expressed serious interest some time ago. Soon after ‘Climate etc’. I tried to post at Tamino and Real Climate, it was binned strait away, but the recent posts containing references and graphs to the NAP and PDO driver have not been rejected.
Even Mike Lockwood is looking for an alternative in his own field, but the solar has some serious inconsistencies.
More indirect planetary effects from Scaffeta, Wilson, certain Roger Tattersall and others show that some beef may be there, but the stier is still running free.
I have a feeling there is a bit of a hunger developing for something more tangible, so testing the attitude of two best known AGW blogers, towards the more down to earth ‘alternative’, is part of the process of establishing a base throughout wider (not just sceptic) blogosphere.
Hi Vuk,
I predicted a while ago that when we on this blog reach the point where we can provide reasonable predictions of changes in Earth’s surface T from our heuristics and simple models, interest in the Sun and Geomag as big players in the climate would suddenly increase. We are getting there.
New post on Geomag coming up…
Anaother relevant paper comparing 10Be and 14C results:
Click to access WagnerBeeretal01-205yrCycin10Be.pdf
Particularly with reference to the de Vries cycle (205 years)
noted. TBD.