In the debate about climate change, the influence of the changing energy from the sun has among others brought the Maunder minimum that marks the little ice age. Are we possibly going back to such a pattern in a near future?
Sunspots are themselves cooling part of the surface of the sun. Then it does not look logical for sunspots to have a role on global warming on earth.
Dear Francis,
We must begin from more general question: Do the Sun/Moon magnetic-gravity variations influence to Earth's atmosphere and various geodynamic phenomena? I propose that yes, and sometimes this influence is high essential.
For instance, you can find in RG two my papers:
Eppelbaum, L.V., 2013. Non-stochastic long-term prediction model for US tornado level. Natural Hazards, 69, No. 3, 2269-2278.
Eppelbaum, L. and Isakov, A., 2015. Implementation of the geo-correlation methodology for predictability of catastrophic weather events: long-term US tornado season and short-term hurricanes. Environmental Earth Sciences, 74, 3371-3383.
Best
Lev
Kenneth, Ijaz and Lev, thank you very much for your reply. I think that before ratification of the Paris accords (See yesterday's OBS and Le Monde alarm by Laurent Fabius), responsible authorities should pay attention to phenomena related to our Sun.
There is perhaps cooling effect - the Maunder minimum dimishing the numer of sunspots.
Few years back I have read an article regarding this (could not mention exactly) regarding this where it was mentioned that perhaps sunspots have a cooling effect!!
The encyclopedia of Climate Change should be consulted before you make statements like "responsible authorities should pay attention to phenomena related to our Sun"
instead of a question you already have apparently your intuitive answer
You should study the phenomenon starting with the said encyclopedia from where you find the relevant references showing the very low impact of sunspots in the last century on temperature
you can start here with your study
https://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch1s1-4-3.html
Ken
Hadn't seen your reference; did not know it and will read it
As for sun: some 20 years ago the most famous Dutch astronomer argued that it was the sun and not CO2 responsible for recent warming. 2 close colleagues of mine at KNMI got the task (special funds) to sort this out. After quite a debate with the said astronomer he more or less agreed that the sun was only of minor importance. From that study as well as from the later studies summarized in IPCC-AR4 and AR5 it is concluded that indeed variations in solar energy and nr of sunspots are very a minor parameters.
Ken
Just read your link
WHERE does he get his information from on a change in the gulf stream and retardation of the earth rotation? Do YOU believe such bogus?
IPCC does not investigate into global warming, but into climate change. The expression global warming is out since many years as it is acknowldeged that it is much more than around temperature change. Global cooling, if it exists is also climate change. In Germany we can have temperatures in winter of minus 20 degrees Celsius. That is winter and we call this winter weather. Some years winters are mild, other years very harsh, long and very cold. Weather and climate are different things, and the weather is never the same. It changes and also if the sun energy received on January 1 at a particular place would be the same every year (which is not the case as the sender (sun) sends not always the same amount of energy) it still would result in different weather as the energy received is only one from many, many factors that makes the weather. I think that the cooling effect due to reduced sun activity (if it exists) moderates anthropogenic warming impacts, the same other natural impacts on the climate would such as volcanic eruptions etc. We should realise that something as complex as climate has many contributing factors that lead to change. To assume that everything is caused by humans or everything by natural causes is far too simplistic. For that reason it is rather difficult to make any precise predictions of the future. So both (processes that contribute to warming and such contributing to cooling) not only can happen, but they do, and they always did. What now is sold as new ideas and change to previous scientific knowledge is actually nothing really new other than that one aspect from an extremely complex process is taken out and displayed as the whole truth.
Ijaz Ahmad:
Re: "Sunspots are themselves cooling part of the surface of the sun. Then it does not look logical for sunspots to have a role on global warming on earth".
You got it all wrong there... Sun spots are just the effect of a solar geomagnetic phenomenon observable on Earth...
In lay-man terms, the immense energy that wells out and escapes from the sun cools the sun's surface, but the question is: where does this escapee energy go? does it just disappear into space or... does it go to influence weather phenomena in the entire solar system?
Now the reason why the number of sunspots is evidence of solar activity or inactivity is simple. During periods of very active solar activity, more energy is released from the suns interior to the surface where it escapes, to maintain thermo-nuclear equilibrium, as the solar machinery attempts to cool itself down.... Hence more sunspots were observed, at a dominant frequency of 11 years, as well as at lower frequencies of 53 years, 79 years, 159 years (especially from 1910-2002), which has largely contributed in warming the planet, and spurring industrial revolution, after the last big freeze, known today as the Little Ice Age (LIA).
If this ventilation process in the sun which we call sun-spots, were to fail to happen during active solar activity, our thermo-nuclear reactor, the sun might just as well burn itself out of fuel (helium) in little time; more sunspot activity on the other-hand means more solar material is ejected towards Earth and the other planets causing climatic changes and other geo-magnetic phenomena.
In contrast, when the sun is less active, we see less sunspots because the sun has no need to cool down..; prolonged solar inactivity is a recipe for great freezes or ice ages..
But the relationship between the sun and Earth, as well as the mechanisms by which the sun influences our climate systems is however very complex, and very little is yet known of it.
I hope that makes sense to you Ijaz.
Cheers
I made a model of gas consumption in relationship with temperature, number of consumers, and time. And later some other factors.
Time frame was set to one month, which is easy for collecting all kinds of information - a month is the most common good information you may rely upon. I tried annual information, but it was too crude for the task, and at first suggested that IPCC nonsense has some merit. But then I broken down the calculation to monthly data, and the story was entirely different.
The dominant factor that modulates consumption is passing of time, which means people gradually buy new and more efficient boilers, put building insulation etc. and consumption is a falling trend. Let's call this trend an user trend.
Secondary trend is a temperature related one, and it is dwarfed by the user trend, a good order of magnitude lower, and nicely aligned to UHI features of the town temperatures. Therefore, for any meaningful consumption model, you need an UHI infested data set. Temperatures from the sticks do not work for energy consumption in cities.
Tertiary trend I introduced later is the influence of weekends and holidays. In a given month one observes nearly equal number of such days year after year on monthly basis, but the slight difference is notable, and improves deviation.
I tried also the fourth factor, the sunspots. And they work. The influence is not as pronounced as temperature, but my idea was to test the cloud cover modulating influence of sunspots which becomes noticeable against the monthly data. And it works. With sunspots included in calculation the deviation was lower.
It is interesting to note that data converges nicely over a nearly 20 years data set, and trends are easily separated. I'm not at liberty to share data, as those belong to the company I work for, but in case someone else tries this "at home" - be sure to go with monthly data.
Sadly, I can't share gas consumption data, those are not mine to share.
Temperature data is from HADCRUT4. There you seek your local station, and funny part is that it surely is there, and all the data in it. Even if you can't supply data locally. The secrecy baffles me.
Sunspot data comes from 2 sources, and it is good to familiarise with their slightly different methodology. The first is: http://www.sidc.be/silso/DATA/SN_m_tot_V2.0.txt
The other is: https://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/greenwch/SN_m_tot_V2.0.txt and there is also a table with a preview of predicted data shortly into future: https://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/images/ssn_predict.txt
Prediction? Predicting more than that is a bit tricky, because although there are some predictors based on correlation with previous minima, the correlation is not causation. Based on what we know, the next sunspot cycle is expected not be stronger than the previous one, and you may simply copy/paste the current cycle, and hope it will be so.
About falling consumption trend, it is gradual, but noticeable on annual basis. I have no idea how much longer the trend will need to settle, but it must be related to a lifecycle of a typical boiler. I expect it to level in 10 years or so. Gas is quite efficient the way it is right now, and there is not much more room for improvement.
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