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I haven’t time to edit this properly, so I hope Roger Andrews will forgive me for just pasting his email into this guest post and lobbing in the images. Somewhere in the archives there’s a post From RA in which he used my cumulative solar technique to get some good fits too. I’ll link it if anyone finds it. You’ve all seen data before, and know what to do…
Here are the results of the empirical models I ran five or so year ago, plotted on the three sets of figures linked to below and accompanied by a writeup, sort of. The first set of figures allows for both anthropogenic and natural forcings. Results are presented for the 60-90N, 30-60N, 0-30N, 0-30S and 30-60S latitude bands and for the area-weighted global average of these bands. (There weren’t enough data to put together a comparison for 60-90S.)
Input parameters were:
* My surface air temperature series, constructed from ~1,000 selected records (and very similar to the GISS meteorological station only series).
* The GISS CO2 and solar forcings in watts/sq m. I got the best fit to observations using 1 watt/sq m = 0.39C, which represents a climate sensitivity of 3.7 x 0.39 = 1.4C, not too far off recent estimates. I applied this factor to the GISS solar forcings but they were too low to have much impact. CO2 and solar forcings were held constant at all latitudes.
* The AMO, PDO, Arctic Oscillation, North Atlantic Oscillation and the Southern Oscillation Indices, to which I applied different multipliers in each latitude band to achieve the best fits to observations. (I would have liked to have added the Antarctic Oscillation Index but it didn’t go back far enough.)
I ran these models to see if I could fit observed temperatures at different latitudes as well as globally, partly because I’d never seen anyone else do it (and still haven’t) but mostly because I had doubts as to whether a model match to a global temperature record that’s an average of very different regional trends meant very much. I was pleasantly surprised to find that I was able to get reasonably good fits everywhere except in the 60-90N band before 1920, but I’m still not sure that I didn’t just succeed in getting the elephant to wiggle his trunk.
The second set of figures shows my yet more ambitious attempt to match observed temperatures in each latitude band using only natural forcings. Input constraints were the same as for the first set of models except that I set the GISS CO2 forcings to zero and replaced the GISS solar forcings with the Scafetta/ACRIM TSI values. I again held the solar contribution constant at all latitudes but needed a much higher multiplier to get the best fit. As a result solar in the “natural” case accounted for 0.49C of the total warming compared to only 0.08C in the “anthropogenic” case.
However, I was pleasantly surprised to find that I got pretty good matches in this case too, although this may have been just more trunk-wiggling.
The third set of figures, which show the temperature contributions from the AMO, PDO, AO and NAO (the SOI doesn’t have much impact) in the different latitude bands is more interesting.
I made no effort to adjust these contributions – that’s just the way they came out – and I knew nothing of Stadium Waves because the Wyatt & Curry paper hadn’t been written. But the regularity with which the impacts of the four cycles decrease going south, sometimes turning negative in the SH, strongly suggests that they, or whatever caused them, began in the Arctic and spread out southwards from there.
Tallbloke's Talkshop 
The contribution of “citizen scientists”, meaning not-IPCC scientists, is such a thorn in the side of the warmists.
Is the problem that there is a large group who wish the world to be nailed to the floor on all matters, that take refuge emotionally in the authority of others when they can’t decide for themselves? That the emotional security of this group of people is threatened by the idea that common sense and moderate knowledge are all that are really needed to understand this world (in principle) – both of which they lack, and deep down know it?
Socrates, surprisingly, is credited with believing that the opinion of “experts” should be valued more than the ordinary, especially by if ordinary people came to believe through a consensus. He, however, considered himself to be an expert in philosophy – because he asked pointed questions and ferreted out information not considered by the Others. Whereby he showed the common opinion to be balderdash.
But the point of questioning, surely would have applied to himself. So I wonder what he would have considered an “expert”, to whom you defer.
Socrates: I wonder what side he would be on in this climate war of ours – that of “experts” who have a profession investigating certain climate parts, i.e. the mainstream, corporate, UN IPCC types,or of the questioning, “socratic”, citizen-fellows who ask pointed questions and identify falsehoods and holes in the “common” reasoning.
It is an interesting thing these days that we have come this far by questioning what was supposedly always known (religiously or by authority of ancient sages), but still the drive is to ascribe infallibility to some special ones, to give them a Get-out-of-jail-free card when it comes to being required to justify their claims.
The Arctic’s response to the sun drives global climate? Innerestin’.
Arctic & N. Atlantic are just higher amplitude since small ocean basins are surrounded by a lot of land. Doesn’t mean Arctic’s a leader. That’s a misinterpretation toyed with on the stadium wave thread at Climate Etc. People are quick to forget the role of continentality (winter ice expanse is a solid too) in the high amplitude swings. Still not sure why this falls off radars.
It may be cold in November in Europe. Lock the air will flow from the north.
TB:
Did you ever try running your model
using natural forcings only? Seems to me you might still get a pretty good match if you threw out the CO2 and replaced the SOI with the PDO
Ren: Thanks for the forecast. Please write an article with some data graphs and analysis. I will help edit it for a new post on the blog.
Roger A: I could probably relabel the co2 curve as ‘adjustments to temperature data’ and get around the same result. 🙂
I wasn’t able to find a monthly PDO dataset that went back to 1880. You got one?
This may be a dumb layman question but I have to ask because I see no mention in the carbon cycle charts. With regard to Thermohaline Circulation or Meridional Overturning Circulation, I understand a parcel of sea water can spend nearly a thousand years moving along the sea bed before it eventually reaches the surface again. During this time that water will pass over ocean ridges which have many ‘black smokers’. Given the temperature at those depths won’t that water absorb some of that CO2 vented from the smokers? And when it eventually surfaces, release some of that CO2 into the atmosphere? The reason I ask is because the current increase of earthquakes and volcanic activity made me wonder about black smokers. Has there been any increase in activity down there? I understand that the CO2 won’t reappear any time soon, but I wonder if a current burst of under sea volcanic activity doesn’t give rise to an unexplained increase in the level of CO2 some time in the future?
Richard: There’s a lot of unknown unknowns. The logic of your idea is that an increase in seabed volcanic activity 1000 years ago might be underlying an increase in airborne co2 now…
That’s the idea. 🙂
To tallbloke: I can present my observations and I’d ask you for your emendation at your discretion. Currently, over the northern Pacific Ocean is perpetuated the area of higher temperature. This can be seen in the chart of stratosphere at an altitude of about 23 km.
The atmospheric pressure at an altitude of about 17 km shows good the flow jet stream, which have a direct impact on the current circulation.
It can be seen that the blockade leads the jet stream over the Pacific Ocean to the north. Next, the air from the north is going to the North America, where blizzards can occur in the coming days. Cyclones from Japan provide moisture to precipitation and pulls it over the Alaska jet stream. The stratospheric temperature forecasts show that for about 8 days there will be created an area of higher temperature over the north Atlantic Ocean.
If that happens, it will run down over Europe polar air.
Of course this is only a forecast, which may change because little is known about the reasons lokanych changes in the stratosphere in winter over the polar circle.
Perhaps it depends also on the stroke of cosmic rays.
http://cosmicrays.oulu.fi/webform/query.cgi?startday=21&startmonth=09&startyear=2013&starttime=00%3A00&endday=24&endmonth=10&endyear=2013&endtime=00%3A00&resolution=Automatic+choice&picture=on
In my view, research that I quoted are very important. They show that since 2010 we have 30 years of weak polar vortex. This effect will be amplified by cosmic rays at low solar activity.
Click to access Veretenenko_%20et_all_Geocosmos2012proceedings.pdf
Ren: Thank you! I will try to make your comment into a new post for the blog after work today.
TB: KNMI Climate Explorer has a monthly ERSST-based PDO Index that goes back to 1880.
I like simple explanations.
Geographic effects, more of a top view ought to make sense so this is good.
Now, if there are multiple same answers from different lower level pieces where I have in mind a inclusive wider context than what RA is describing, it is not science, there cannot be two causes or two explanations.
Paul Vaughan says:
“Arctic & N. Atlantic are just higher amplitude since small ocean basins are surrounded by a lot of land. Doesn’t mean Arctic’s a leader. That’s a misinterpretation toyed with on the stadium wave thread at Climate Etc. People are quick to forget the role of continentality (winter ice expanse is a solid too) in the high amplitude swings. Still not sure why this falls off radars.”
A few years ago I looked at the “which came first” question with the idea of demonstrating that Arctic temperatures led temperatures farther south, which I think would have settled the argument. Nothing conclusive came of it, but the graph below does show Arctic air temperatures leading the AMO by ~5 years. (Wyatt and Curry’s Figure 3 plots the AMO upside down to make it look as if Arctic air temperatures lag the AMO by ~20 years. Maybe more about this later.)
I don’t think “continentality” explains the high cycle amplitudes in the Arctic. The cyclicity in fact generally disappears in NH continental interiors. We see it in temperature records from Western Europe but not in temperature records for Eastern Europe and over much of Central Asia and Central Canada there’s no visible cyclicity at all.
RA, it’s the steep winter western ocean boundary gradients (contrasting the frigid air going inland from continental east coasts) that concentrate the equator-pole flows. Indeed it’s a coupled whole, driven by the sun. N. Atlantic is an attention-attracting amplifier, not a driver. I recommend Jean Dickey’s work for background reading.
Tallbloke is also seen that in November over Europe arctic air will flow.
Stephen Wilde will love Joanne Nova’s latest:
http://joannenova.com.au/2013/10/solar-effects-seem-to-shift-wind-and-rainfall-patterns-over-last-3000-years-in-chile/
TB. In support of my comment above:
http://carbon-budget.geologist-1011.net/
He has a lot to say.
This seems to be turning into an open thread, so Richard III, here’s one for you.
The article you link to states: “We may conclude that volcanic CO2 emissions are much higher than previously estimated.” But according to the data the net effect of the June 1991 Pinatubo eruption was to REMOVE 18 billion tonnes of CO2 from the atmosphere:
Apologies Roger, but this thread does discus CO2 forcings. As a layman I wonder about that as it appears that not all sources of CO2 have been accounted for.
As to how a volcanic eruption can REMOVE CO2 from the atmosphere is completely beyond my understanding. Is there a paper to this effect?
In the article I linked, at this heading; “2.0 Calculated Estimates: Glorified Guesswork”, there is mention of amounts of CO2 released into the atmosphere. Pinatubo is mentioned.
As in all things on the net I have to accept the author’s word supported by his qualifications.
Paul Vaughan:
I took your advice and looked at some of Jean Dickey’s stuff, starting with the 2011 Dickey et al paper “Air Temperature and Anthropogenic Forcing: Insights from the Solid Earth”. The text was behind a paywall, but this turned out not to matter because I lost interest in Dr. Dickey when I read in her abstract that her work on length-of-day and core angular momentum variations “underscores the reality of anthropogenic temperature change”.
You theorize that “it’s the steep winter western ocean boundary gradients (contrasting the frigid air going inland from continental east coasts) that concentrate the equator-pole flows. Indeed it’s a coupled whole, driven by the sun. N. Atlantic is an attention-attracting amplifier, not a driver.” Do you have any observational data to back these statements up?
Richard III
“As to how a volcanic eruption can REMOVE CO2 from the atmosphere is completely beyond my understanding. Is there a paper to this effect?”
Yes – Jones & Cox 2001; “Modeling the volcanic signal in the atmospheric CO2 record”.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2000GB001281/abstract?deniedAccessCustomisedMessage=&userIsAuthenticated=false
The paper is paywalled but here’s the abstract:
“There is significant interannual variability in the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide even when the effect of anthropogenic sources has been accounted for. It has been shown that this variability is correlated with the El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO) cycle [Bacastow, 1976; Keeling et al., 1995]. However, there are periods during the atmospheric CO2 record when this correlation does not hold and CO2 levels are much lower than can be explained by the correlation with ENSO. These periods coincide with major volcanic eruptions. It has been well documented that a major eruption has a cooling effect on the surface and lower troposphere [McCormick, 1992; Hansen, et al., 1996]. Here we show that it is likely that this cooling has a significant and measurable effect on the carbon cycle. We use a coupled general circulation climate-carbon cycle model to study the mechanisms involved. The model simulates the observed temperature and CO2 response of the climate to the 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo. The surface cooling due to the eruption leads to reduced soil and plant respiration globally and increased gross primary productivity in the tropics. The result is significant uptake of carbon (1-2 GtC yr−1) by the terrestrial biosphere for several years after the eruption. There is no significant variation in uptake or release of carbon by the oceans.”
RA (no offense intended on a personal level but) if you’re (deliberately) ignoring Jean Dickey’s earlier *seminal work because of something she wrote 2 years ago (that offends you), it’s not worth my time (which is much better spent hiking & sea-kayaking) discussing anything with you. all the best…
No. I’m not deliberately ignoring Dickey’s earlier seminal work. In fact I’d be more than happy to look at it if you told me what it was. All the best to you too 🙂
I always link to it in the informal articles I share here and elsewhere (e.g. Solar-Terrestrial Volatility Weaves & Solar-Terrestrial-Climate 101). I stopped repeatedly posting the links as it adds nothing new to the conversation when people just repeat what they’ve already said. Regards.
Thank you RA. I must go and think about that. I can understand the GLOBAL cooling effect after a large volcanic eruption. But the continued uptake of CO2 by the terrestrial biosphere for several years after the eruption is a completely new concept for me. I must try and find an explanation for how this is possible. Initial layman thoughts suggest tropical plants go in to panic mode at the unexpected ‘winter’ and then build up their reserves in case there is a repeat event.
The blizzard that was coming, come down from the Rocky Mountains to South Dakota. It will be dangerous.
Tallbloke, due to an increase in solar activity will accelerate the jet stream.
It will move higher up from the UK to the north.
Thanks Ren: I’ll put your forecast together with that observation in mind.
Richard111:
You say: “the continued uptake of CO2 by the terrestrial biosphere for several years after the eruption is a completely new concept for me. I must try and find an explanation for how this is possible.”
I have problems with it too. The Normalized Difference Vegetation Index shows the terrestrial carbon sink shrinking after Pinatubo and presumably sequestering less carbon as a result. So I would have expected atmospheric CO2 to go up, not down, after the eruption.
This would actually make an interesting little post. “The Curious Case of the Missing 18 Billion Tons of CO2”, or something like that. 🙂
Presumably the cooling which occurred after the eruption (not necessarily all caused by Pinatubo!) would mean more co2 going into the cooler sea surface wouldn’t it?
TB:
I’ve been spending some time looking at the carbon cycle – even to the point of downloading gridded models – and so far have only managed to confirm my original conclusion that understanding how it works is like trying to shovel a cloud into a bucket.
But the more I look at it the more I become convinced that the terrestrial biosphere is the dominant carbon source/sink and that the ocean is a bit player. Based on work completed so far my preliminary conclusion is that well over 100 GtC/year gets exchanged between the atmosphere and the terrestrial biosphere but less than 5 GtC/year between the atmosphere and the oceans. However, I’m still some way from finalizing my ideas on this.
Presumably if trees can drive the biotic pump by cooling the atmosphere, then sudden cooling can have the same effect (volcanic atmosphere pump). After all, vapor and co2 appear side-by-side (atmospheric wash, for example see the picture here).
Tallbloke this forecast is in line with my own.
http://theweathercentre.blogspot.com/
Lock 10 hPa also shows in this chart. It shows the increase in temperature.
LOD / length of day / earth rotation / solar cycle length / Sidorenkov / Antarctic Ice
Link to my top Jean Dickey (NASA JPL) article pick here and links to my top 3 Jean Dickey (NASA JPL) article picks there.
Paul Vaughan
Thanks for the links, and apologies for the delay in reponding.
I’ve now reviewed your “top pick” Jean DIckey paper but I’m afraid I don’t find it any more convincing than the one I read earlier. Do you want the details, or shall we just agree to disagree on DIckey and move on to other and better things, like kayaking? 🙂
My perspective:
It’s the most important climate article we have.