New paper finds strong evidence the Sun has controlled climate over the past 11,000 years, not CO2

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

THE HOCKEY SCHTICK
If you can’t explain the ‘pause’, you can’t explain the cause…

A paper pub­lished today (Decem­ber, 2014) in Jour­nal of Atmos­pher­ic and Solar-Ter­res­tri­al Physics finds a “strong and sta­ble cor­re­la­tion” between the mil­len­ni­al vari­a­tions in sunspots and the tem­per­a­ture in Antarc­ti­ca over the past 11,000 years. In stark con­trast, the authors find no strong or sta­ble cor­re­la­tion between tem­per­a­ture and CO2 over that same period.

The authors cor­re­lat­ed recon­struct­ed CO2 lev­els, sunspots, and tem­per­a­tures from ice-core data from Vos­tok Antarc­ti­ca and find

We find that the vari­a­tions of SSN [sunspot num­ber] and T [tem­per­a­ture] have some com­mon peri­od­ic­i­ties, such as the 208 year (yr), 521 yr, and ~1000 yr cycles. The cor­re­la­tions between SSN and T are strong for some inter­mit­tent peri­od­ic­i­ties. How­ev­er, the wavelet analy­sis demon­strates that the rel­a­tive phase rela­tions between them usu­al­ly do not hold sta­ble except for the mil­len­ni­um-cycle com­po­nent. The mil­len­ni­al vari­a­tion of SSN leads that of T by 30–40 years, and the anti-phase rela­tion between them keeps sta­ble near­ly over the whole 11,000 years of the past. As a con­trast, the cor­re­la­tions between CO2 and T are nei­ther strong nor sta­ble.

Thus, the well known ~1000 year cli­mate cycle respon­si­ble for the Holocene Cli­mate Opti­mum 6000 to 4000 years ago, the Egypt­ian warm peri­od ~4000 years ago, the Minoan warm peri­od ~3000 years ago, the Roman warm peri­od ~2000 years ago, the Medieval warm peri­od ~1000 years ago, and the cur­rent warm peri­od at present all rough­ly fall in this same 1000 year sequence of increased solar activ­i­ty asso­ci­at­ed with warm periods.

a) sunspots, b) temperature, c) CO2, d-i show the amplitudes of the strongest cycle lengths (period in years) shown in the data for sunspots, temperature, and CO2

a) sunspots, b) tem­per­a­ture, c) CO2, d‑i show the ampli­tudes of the strongest cycle lengths (peri­od in years) shown in the data for sunspots, tem­per­a­ture, and CO2

Wavelet analysis in graph a shows the most prominent solar periods in red and graph b for temperature. The most stable period for both is at ~1024 years, shown by the horizontal region in red/yellow/light blue.

Wavelet analy­sis in graph a shows the most promi­nent solar peri­ods in red and graph b for tem­per­a­ture. The most sta­ble peri­od for both is at ~1024 years, shown by the hor­i­zon­tal region in red/yellow/light blue.

The authors find a lag of 30-40 years between changes in solar activity driving temperature, likely due to the huge thermal capacity and inertia of the oceans. Lead time shown in bottom graph of 40 years shows the temperature response following an increase or decrease of solar activity lags by about 40 years. Top graph shows "the anti-phase relation between [solar activity and temperature] keeps them stable nearly over the whole 11,000 years of the past."

The authors find a lag of 30–40 years between changes in solar activ­i­ty dri­ving tem­per­a­ture, like­ly due to the huge ther­mal capac­i­ty and iner­tia of the oceans. Lead time shown in bot­tom graph of 40 years shows the tem­per­a­ture response fol­low­ing an increase or decrease of solar activ­i­ty lags by about 40 years. Top graph shows “the anti-phase rela­tion between [solar activ­i­ty and tem­per­a­ture] keeps them sta­ble near­ly over the whole 11,000 years of the past.”

The authors find tem­per­a­ture changes lag solar activ­i­ty changes by ~40 years, which is like­ly due to the huge heat capac­i­ty and iner­tia of the oceans. Warm­ing pro­po­nents attempt to dis­miss the Sun’s role in cli­mate change by claim­ing 20th cen­tu­ry solar activ­i­ty peaked at around 1960 and some­what declined from 1960 lev­els to the end of the 20th cen­tu­ry (and have con­tin­ued to decline in the 21st cen­tu­ry right along with the 18+ year “pause” of glob­al warming).

bflyFirst­ly, the assump­tion that solar activ­i­ty peaked in 1960 and declined since is false, since it is nec­es­sary to deter­mine the accu­mu­lat­ed solar ener­gy over mul­ti­ple solar cycles, which is the accu­mu­lat­ed depar­ture from the aver­age num­ber of sunspots over the entire peri­od, which I call the “sunspot inte­gral.” The sunspot inte­gral is plot­ted in blue and shows remark­able cor­rec­tion with glob­al tem­per­a­tures plot­ted in red below. Cor­re­lat­ing sunspot and tem­per­a­ture data with and with­out CO2, we find the sunspot inte­gral explains 95% of tem­per­a­ture change over the past 400 years, and that CO2 had no sig­nif­i­cant influ­ence (also here).

Sec­ond­ly, this paper finds strong evi­dence of a 30–40 year lag between solar activ­i­ty and tem­per­a­ture response. So what hap­pened ~40 years after the 1960 peak in sunspot activ­i­ty? Why that just so hap­pens to be when satel­lite mea­sure­ments of glob­al tem­per­a­ture peaked with the 1998 El Nino [which is also dri­ven by solar activ­i­ty], fol­lowed by the “pause” and cool­ing since.

We have thus shown

  • Strong cor­re­la­tion between solar activ­i­ty and cli­mate over the past 11,000 years of the Holocene
  • Strong lack of cor­re­la­tion between CO2 and cli­mate over the past 11,000 years of the Holocene
  • Solar activ­i­ty explains all 6 well-known warm­ing peri­ods that have occurred dur­ing the Holocene, includ­ing the cur­rent warm period
  • The 20th cen­tu­ry peak in sunspot activ­i­ty is asso­ci­at­ed with a 40 year lag in the peak glob­al temperature

What more proof do you need that it’s the Sun!

But wait, there’s more. Please see the two pre­vi­ous posts demon­strat­ing that the alter­nate 33C green­house effect is due to atmos­pher­ic mass/gravity/pressure, not CO2 or water vapor, phys­i­cal proof & obser­va­tions that water vapor is a strong neg­a­tive-feed­back cool­ing agent, and phys­i­cal proof that CO2 can­not cause any sig­nif­i­cant glob­al warm­ing. All of the above also strong­ly sug­gests the increase in CO2 lev­els is pri­mar­i­ly due to ocean out­gassing from warm­ing oceans from the Sun, not from CO2 radia­tive forc­ing warm­ing the oceans, and not pri­mar­i­ly from man-made CO2 emissions.

Correlation between solar activity and the local temperature of Antarctica during the past 11,000 years

X.H. Zhao, X.S. Feng

• SSN [Sunspot Num­ber] and Vos­tok tem­per­a­ture (T) had com­mon peri­od­ic­i­ties in past 11,000 years.
• The mil­len­ni­al vari­a­tions of SSN and T had a strong and sta­ble correlation.
• The mil­len­ni­al vari­a­tion of SSN led that of T by 30–40 years.
• Cor­re­la­tions between CO2 and T were nei­ther strong nor stable.

Abstract
The solar impact on the Earth­’s cli­mate change is a long top­ic with intense debates. Based on the recon­struct­ed data of solar sunspot num­ber (SSN), the local tem­per­a­ture in Vos­tok (T), and the atmos­pher­ic CO2 con­cen­tra­tion data of Dome Con­cor­dia, we inves­ti­gate the peri­od­ic­i­ties of solar activ­i­ty, the atmos­pher­ic CO2 and local tem­per­a­ture in the inland Antarc­ti­ca as well as their cor­re­la­tions dur­ing the past 11,000 years before AD 1895. We find that the vari­a­tions of SSN and T have some com­mon peri­od­ic­i­ties, such as the 208 year (yr), 521 yr, and ~1000 yr cycles. The cor­re­la­tions between SSN and T are strong for some inter­mit­tent peri­od­ic­i­ties. How­ev­er, the wavelet analy­sis demon­strates that the rel­a­tive phase rela­tions between them usu­al­ly do not hold sta­ble except for the mil­len­ni­um-cycle com­po­nent. The mil­len­ni­al vari­a­tion of SSN leads that of T by 30–40 years, and the anti-phase rela­tion between them keeps sta­ble near­ly over the whole 11,000 years of the past. As a con­trast, the cor­re­la­tions between CO2 and T are nei­ther strong nor sta­ble. These results indi­cate that solar activ­i­ty might have poten­tial influ­ences on the long-term change of Vos­tok’s local cli­mate dur­ing the past 11,000 years before mod­ern industry.