30 years, solar variation
OK, they don’t blame it ALL on the sun, but they do find a solar pattern in the data.
PDF is here:
http://www.pensee-unique.fr/courtillot3.pdf
It says “Article in press” and “available at ScienceDirect” that usually means a “pay wall”, but I was able to read the whole article.
They basically find a solar signature to the temperature changes on the planet:
(English first, then French abstract)
External Geophysics, Climate and Environment
Evidence for a solar signature in 20th-century temperature
data from the USA and Europe
Jean-Louis Le Mouël, Vincent Courtillot *, Elena Blanter, Mikhail Shnirman
Geomagnetism and Palaeomagnetism, institut de physique du Globe de Paris, BP 89, 4, place Jussieu, 75252 Paris cedex 05, France
Received 24 October 2007; accepted after revision 2 June 2008
Presented by Claude JaupartAbstract
We analyze temperature data from meteorological stations in the USA (six climatic regions, 153 stations), Europe (44 stations, considered as one climatic region) and Australia (preliminary, five stations). We select stations with long, homogeneous series of daily minimum temperatures (covering most of the 20th century, with few or no gaps).We find that station data are well correlated over distances in the order of a thousand kilometres. When an average is calculated for each climatic region, we find well characterized mean curves with strong variability in the 3–15-year period range and a superimposed decadal to centennial (or ‘secular’) trend consisting of a small number of linear segments separated by rather sharp changes in slope. Our overall curve for the USA rises sharply from 1910 to 1940, then decreases until 1980 and rises sharply again since then. The minima around 1920 and 1980 have similar values, and so do the maxima around 1935 and 2000; the range between minima and maxima is 1.3 8C. The European mean curve is quite different, and can be described as a step-like function with zero slope and a 1 8C jump occurring in less than two years around 1987. Also notable is a strong (cold) minimum in 1940. Both the USA and the European mean curves are rather different from the corresponding curves illustrated in the 2007 IPCC report.We then estimate the long-term behaviour of the higher frequencies (disturbances) of the temperature series by calculating the mean-squared interannual variations or the ‘lifetime’ (i.e. the mean duration of temperature disturbances) of the data series.We find that the resulting curves correlate remarkably well at the longer periods, within and between regions. The secular trend of all of these curves is similar (an S-shaped pattern), with a rise from 1900 to 1950, a decrease from 1950 to 1975, and a subsequent (small) increase. This trend is the same as that found for a number of solar indices, such as sunspot number or magnetic field components in any observatory. We conclude that significant solar forcing is present in temperature disturbances in the areas we analyzed and conjecture that this should be a global feature. To cite this article: J.-L. Le Mouël et al., C. R. Geoscience xxx (2008).
# 2008 Académie des sciences. Published by Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.
French:
Résumé
Sur une signature solaire dans les données de température recueillies au XXe siècle en Europe et aux États-Unis. Des
données de température en provenance de stations météorologiques des États-Unis (six zones climatiques, 153 stations), d’Europe (44 stations considérées comme appartenant à une unique zone climatique) et d’Australie (étude préliminaire, cinq stations) ont été analysées. Les stations disposant de longues séries de températures journalières (recouvrant la plus grande partie du XXe siècle, avec peu ou pas d’interruptions) ont été sélectionnées. Il a été trouvé que les données de stations sont bien corrélées sur des distances de l’ordre du millier de kilomètres. Quand une moyenne est calculée pour chaque région climatique, on observe des courbes moyennes bien caractérisées, avec une variabilité prononcée dans la fourchette 3–15 ans, et une tendance superposée avec des constantes de temps de l’ordre de la décennie au siècle, qui consiste en un petit nombre de segments linéaires séparés par des changements de pente assez aigus. La courbe d’ensemble pour les États-Unis croît nettement de 1910 à 1940, puis décroît jusqu’en 1980, et ensuite croît à nouveau nettement. Les minima autour de 1920 et 1980 présentent des valeurs similaires, de même que les maxima autour de 1935 et 2000 ; l’écart entre minima et maxima est de 1,3 8C. La courbe moyenne pour l’Europe est très différente, et peut être décrite comme une fonction en escalier, avec une pente nulle et un saut d’environ 1 8C en moins de deux ans autour de 1987. Un minimum (froid) prononcé est aussi observable en 1940. Les courbes moyennes pour les États-Unis et l’Europe sont assez différentes des courbes correspondantes fournies par le rapport GIEC de 2007. Nous estimons alors le comportement à long terme des fréquences plus hautes (perturbations) des séries de température, en calculant les variations quadratiques moyennes interannuelles ou « durée de vie » (c’est-à-dire la durée moyenne des perturbations de température) des séries de données. Les courbes résultantes sont remarquablement bien corrélées sur de longues périodes entre régions et à l’intérieur des regions et entre régions. La tendance séculaire de toutes ces courbes est similaire (allure en S), avec une croissance de 1900 à 1950, une décroissance de 1950 à 1975 et une augmentation (faible) ensuite. Cette tendance est la même que celle trouvée pour différents indices solaires, tels que le nombre de taches solaires ou les composantes du champ magnétique dans un observatoire. Nous concluons à un forçage solaire significatif dans les perturbations de température pour les zones analysées ici et avançons que cette situation pourrait avoir un caractère global.Pour citer cet article : J.-L. Le Mouël et al., C. R. Geoscience xxx (2008).
# 2008 Académie des sciences. Published by Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.
Keywords: 20th-century temperature data (USA, Europe, Australia); Disturbances; Mean-squared interannual variations; Solar indices; Solar forcing; Geomagnetic field
Mots clés : Données de température pour le XXe siècle (États-Unis, Europe, Australie) ; Perturbations ; Variations quadratiques moyennes interannuelles ; Indices solaires ; Forçage solaire ; Champ géomagnétique
There is a lot in this paper. Trends that are significantly different by country and continent (that kind of puts in doubt the whole notion of any consistent global action going on). What ‘trend’ there is having a pretty good match to various solar indicators. The 1930s being about as warm as now. A few example extreme events like the winter of 1940 being very cold, as indications that you must be very careful about what and when and how you measure.
IMHO, it’s a bit of a gold mine.
h/t to David Middleton who posted the link in a comment on WUWT:
Musings from the Chiefio 
Good find. I’ve bookmarked it.
When you have time; would you please write a little more detail on what you think this research means? I do so enjoy your “musings”.
Thanks for all you do — I should write and say that more often; but this is the right time of the year to say so.
Happy New Year!
I think this proves beyond a doubt that all temperatures are local. And look, it’s in French so everybody who’s anybody is going to say, “Eit mus be true, nes pah?” Now this is BIG!
@Joseph:
OK, having morning coffee now, so “in a bit” when I’m more warmed up ;-)
@Pascvaks:
I have a love / hate relationship with the French, much like all of the UK has had over pretty much all of time ;-)
I’ve also got a tiny bit of French ancestry. Something like 1/8 as the typical American Mutt bookkeeping goes 8-) And I love the language (though it’s been a while since I was immersed in it and my spelling has gone to hell…)
What I like most is the same ornery cussedness you get from any Celtic peoples. (Folks often forget that a large part of France was Celtic. It’s a strange blend of Celtic with some Germanic (Franks anyone?) and a Latin overlay via the Romans wandering through. In many ways the same kind of melange that makes up America.
That is also what most often irritates some folks.
The French will simply do what they want to do and find a decent way to enjoy life while they are at it. What you do is up to you and what you think of them is irrelevant. I like that and can find no fault in it ;-) That it really pisses off the “authority mongers” and “guilt mongers” when they try to guilt trip the French into “going along” is all just gravy …
So, with luck, yes. Folks will say: Well, if The French are leaving Global Warming behind, it simply MUST be passé..
One can only hope. Vive La France!
I have no French ancestry so I have no problem mocking the French and holding in general contempt.
BUT !!!
Kudos to the French for finding the sun.
It’s almost laughable that there is a struggle to prove (to some folk) that the sun has a tremendous influence on our planet. (not some trace amount of a negligible gas)
FYI:
This paper was reported by WUWT last year and incurred much discussion:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/07/01/another-paper-showing-evidence-of-a-solar-signature-in-temperature-records/
The French group has published a new paper this year on a journal with larger influence (Geophysical Research Letters):
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2010/2010GL043185.shtml
Are you aware of Jeffery Glassman’s paper at
http://rocketscientistsjournal.com/2010/03/sgw.html#more
which also demonstrates a “solar signature” in the temperature data? Do you agree that the presence of the signature implies the existence of some, heretofore uncharacterized, amplification mechanism, or do you think it possible that there is a significant solar energy flux which is going unnoticed and unmeasured?
@Joseph:
Sorry to have taken so long. Here is my interpretation of the paper (that is written in English, but it’s that jargon thing ;-)
They start off with an abstract that says they conclude the sun has the main roll in driving things. This is largely as they find a strong correlation between solar output indicia and weather trends. There are several segments where the solar activity indicators and the temperatures move together. Little to none where the move in opposition, and inflections are reasonably coincident. So they conclude “It’s the sun”… I also have to note that the do give a h/t to the fact that temperatures are not really the right way to measure heat gain / loss. A BIG clue that these folks have clue.
The paper starts with an admiration of how crappy the data available really are and that the globe is mostly ocean and the data mostly land.
They also note that the bulk of researchers are playing with GCMs (Global Climate Models) not temperature data series and they are pretty much stuck with what everyone is stuck with. CRU or GISS.
The authors have a gift for “daming with faint praise” IMHO. This discussion of the fact that the data available are more holes than bucket is a nice example:
You just KNOW they have seen a sea surface map and how ENSO alone kicks things around…
At any rate, they admire the crappy data, then figure they can do better if they get their own:
So they do an end run around the Guardians Of The One True Adjusted Homogenzied Data Food Product and get different better data. Who knew?
They then go on to use a traditional filter and a novel one (oh, the horrors, they are not using The One True Grid / Box Anomaly Reference Station Method either. Already I’m liking these folks a lot…)
They look at specific areas and find a solar driven pattern. Pretty straight forward.
Of particular interest to the Electric Universe folks is the solar proxy they chose to use. A magnetic field element. The vertical Z field:
There are then a nice set of graphs showing a darned close match of the Z field and temperature data. (Though there are some non-matches in the lead in segments around 1920 for some locations. But that could be some kind of time delay or related to local weather patterns such as the Canada Express impacts on the Great Lakes – my speculation.).
The section on European temperatures finds a large cold spike in 1940 AND a large hot spike in 1987 but one that tends to stay high. They then deliciously note that this is not what one would expect from CO2 as the IPCC
predictedprojected. (Something I’ve found as well)In other words: It sure is not the gradual accumulation of heat from a gradual accumulation of CO2.
And I love what they say about Alaska where the find the same kind of step function. IMHO, it’s just a cycle flip, like the PDO, and in an indirect way they are saying “It’s all just natural state changes, driven by a solar trigger”.
As I’ve regularly said folks were “over averaging”, and regularly had Warmistas assert: That’s a bogus charge and there is nothing wrong with averaging everything together and fitting a trend line… I’m personally thrilled to have someone else saying the same thing.
Too much averaging hides the reality of natural cycles flipping and flopping in step functions. It ain’t CO2.
They show the European curve fits, also nice, and some regional fits for North America and Australia. I like what they say about Australia too:
And they predict that this means the match is a global one.
In the discussion section they return to the idea that it’s really daft and stupid to average the whole world together as that is just not how things work. Things are regional, but nature. Averaging it all together is just hiding the interesting bits. (Something I’ve said often, and taken rocks for saying. But it’s still true…)
So I think you can see how this would warm my heart 8-)
If the regions are all going their own ways, it’s not a global thing at all. If there are step functions out of step with CO2, it’s not CO2 driven. Over averaging is just hiding all the interesting bits. I’m in heaven!
They then go on to admire many of the disconnects between regions and that large parts of the planet do not have a warming, it’s only the result of averaging a couple of regions where there is a warming. Just wrong from a well distributed warming of the planet thesis, fine from a natural cycles with a solar trigger. The way they say it is a bit long winded, but such is the stuff of science papers:
You can almost see the author, cigarette in one hand, espresso on the table, toying with a letter opener dagger, slowly twisting the point into the table… Pensée… just how much to twist zee knife, and how much to thrust… and perhaps when to offer a small puff of smoke in the general direction of zee IPCC face…
You just don’t get that kind of subtile work in the stuff from the Warmistas… and the French are masters at it…
At any rate, hope this isn’t too late to give you some benefit.
I’m off to open a bottle of red wine, put some cheese slices on a plate, butter a couple of bits of bread (with real butter), and make a demi-tass of espresso… I feel a French Moment come over me… (I’ve got to find the original written in French somewhere, it must be even more subtily delicious… 8-)
To E.M. Smith a great summary of this French paper. Also quite knowledgeable on the French character.
I live in France and there are a lot of independent thinking French people who just shrug off the government and media line. When it comes to the French food and drink is king and woe-betide anyone that disturbs that fact.
E.M.,
Thanks ever so much for that explanation. I really appreciate it.
I would ask one additional favor if you don’t mind. Can you explain the basic reasons that measuring temperature is not the same as measuring heat? I remember that from college science, but I don’t think I could explain it to anyone — especially an average citizen who believes the warmist line of BS.
By the way, thanks for all you do.
@Joseph:
Glad to help. It’s also worth noting that I benefit from this too. After being “immersed” too long I lose track of what’s clear to “normal folks” and what’s dense Technobabble….
So questions like “please carify FOO” remind me when I’m assuming too much jargon or physics …
Per heat:
There are two simple ways to “get it”. One is a physical example we all are familar with. The other is an analogy that’s similar but not quite right, from which you can generalize. I like the first more than the second, but some folks benefit more from the second…
OK, first up is the physical example. This one is a “participation experiment” so you are expected to do this yourself.
Take a 10 ounce glass. Fill it 1/2 way with Bourbon (no sense wasting good Irish or Scotch on this one, but you can if you don’t mind being a philistine…
Fill the rest of the way to the top with ice. Not all the way so it spills, one or two ice cubes ought to be enough ;-)
Now, first off, notice that very rapidly some of the ice melts.
The whiskey is now more dilute. The whiskey is also now colder. Yet no energy (other than a negligible amount that we’re going to neglect ;-) has been put into the glass nor taken out of it.
(In an ideal world, you would do this first part in a thermos that was pre-cooled to 32 F / 0 C as a calorimetry rig. The ice would still melt and the scotch would still cool. Also, for perfection, you would let the ice sit on the counter until it was getting a puddle around it to assure it was not BELOW 32 F / 0 C at the start as it was freshly pulled from the freezer)
So far, so good.
What happened? WHY did the ice melt?
It was frozen at 0 C / 32 F and some of it is still frozen at 0 C / 32 F. The whiskey is now 32 F / 0 C as well. (From here on out, I’m just gong to use “0 C” for the freezing point… I’m also going to ignore the fact that the alcohol in the Whiskey will actually melt some more ice and drop the temperature below 0 C. Properly, this ought to be done with water and ice, but I like the Whiskey version better ;-)
It melted because some of the energy in the Whiskey moved into the ice and made the molecules more energetic. Energetic enough that some of them broke off of the ice and became a liquid. BUT still at the same TEMPERATURE. The added energy went into breaking a molecular bond between the water molecules. The “hydrogen bond” is very important to water and that is where the energy from the Whiskey went.
As that energy left the Whiskey, the molecules in it slowed down. Their ‘energy of motion’ got turned into hydrogen bond energy between water molecules in the ice. That movement of energy is called “heat”. In one of the “species” here (the Whiskey) the loss of heat made its temperature change. It became colder. In the other species, ice, it changed a bond but did not change the temperature.
So sometimes temperature can tell you about energy gained, or lost (the Whiskey) but sometimes it does not (the ice). As we care about net heat flows (energy gain / loss) that means temperature is not a very good or reliable way to detect it. And the world is full of snow and ice (more than usual right now too…)
OK, drink that one and make another one.
This one you take with you out out on the patio on a warm humid day. If you don’t have a warm humid day, take it into the bathroom with you. Lock the door. You don’t want folks thinking you are an alcoholic because they found you in the bathroom staring at a tumbler of Whiskey…
Turn on the shower, on hot, until there is a nice warm moist air in the room (make sure the vent fan is off…).
Sit on the “pot” and set the tumbler on the counter (or if outside, set it on the table and you in the lounge chair). Now just watch it.
(This is why you drank the first one, so you could leave this one alone and just watch it for a while… If you can’t do that, mix a second one for you…)
First some ice melts (as above) and the whole thing goes to 0 C. Now, in the humidity and as time passes, you will see condensation form on the glass. It gets that wonderful ‘frosty’ look. Soon water is running down the side in little rivulets… Take a sip. (ONLY a sip!) It’s still 0 C. Keep watching. The ice continues to melt. We know it’s sucking in energy from somewhere (heat flow) to break those crystaline bonds … we can see it melt. BUT, the temperature stays the same.
If we stuck a thermometer into the drink we would see the temperature holding constant. (Best done with water and ice, as the dilution of the alcohol causes a slight change in stablity temperature… but that’s the lead-in to the ‘advanced case’ ) Take another sip. Still cold…
OK, about that condensation. That’s water leaving the air to become a liquid. If you want to boil water and turn it from a liquid into vapor it takes a LOT of energy. You can see this with a pot of water and a thermometer on the stove. Burner on high, water sucking up that HEAT, but the temperature stays a constant 212 F or 100 C as the water changes from a liquid into a gas. The “heat of vaporazation”. No temperature change, but a lot of heat flowing…. Now it’s going the other way. that “heat of vaporization” is coming BACK as the vapor turns to liquid. That heat flows into the glass, through the Whiskey, into the ice, and melts it. Yet the Whiskey is STILL 0 C.
We are pulling heat out of the air like crazy. But the temperature tells you nothing. We are pushing heat into the ice like crazy, but the temperature tells you nothing. (The melting ice is called the “heat of fusion” FWIW.)
All around us we can see artifacts of HEAT (energy flows) that happen with no TEMPERATURE change. Water evaporates from the ocean, rises into the sky, condenses to make clouds, some of them make hail, that falls to the earth and melts. Heat of vaporization, heat of fusion.
Even an effect where as the compression of something changes the temperature even when the energy in it does not: called adiabatic expansion. We use that in our refrigerators when we compress a working gas to make it hot, then let that heat leave to the air in the ‘condenser coils’. Later that working fluid is allowed to expand again, and become cold. Most refrigerators use a substance that has a heat of vaporization as part of the cycle, but simply using any gas will work. Yes, the motor diving it all has to do work to move things around, but it is the movement of heat that makes it work. The motor is just there to make up for mechanical losses.
In a Diesel engine something similar happens. A cyclender full of air is squashed very fast. The air gets very hot (hot enough to ignite fuel oil when it is injected) but the rise in temperature is not because we added a lot of energy to speak of, it’s because we squashed the air and compressed it. If we just let the cylender of air expand again, it would end up about where it was to start with in terms of temperature. (There are some friction and mechanical losses that do show up as a little higher temperature). So again, the temperature change did not tell us much about the energy flow, or heat. We do some work squashing the air, that adds to the heat in the air, but that work comes back out on the expansion stroke.
Drink the whiskey as soon as you’ve ‘got it’ on the heat FLOW vs the temperature. If the ice all melts before that time, repeat the experiment as needed….
OK, the analogy:
Get a garden hose. Turn it on just enough to get a small drink (i.e. not blasting away like crazy). That quantity of water flowing is like HEAT. It’s an “amount of something”. In the case of heat, it’s an amount of thermal energy flowing by. Now put your thumb 1/2 way over the hose end. The flow out is about the same AMOUNT but the pressure in the hose has gone up. For an object being heated we would say: The heat is the same, but the TEMPERATURE has gone up. Now completely block the end of the hose with your thumb so no water comes out. Feel that pressure behind your thumb?
OK, in the case of the water, there is now no VOLUME. Plenty of pressure, but nothing flowing.
It’s like a very red hot chunk of metal. It has a lot of energy “pressure” trying to push the energy out of it and into something else, but put that in a dewar flask and that energy is not moving much. No “heat” energy moving, but a lot of “temperature” pressure trying…
Hopefully that makes it clear. If it doesn’t, repeat the Whiskey experiment 3 more times and let me know the day after tomorrow ;-)
Thank you very, very much for the refresher course. It was well done and I think, perhaps, you should do a main post on that topic again someday when things are slow and you are looking for a topic.
(if that ever happens!)
Warmest Regards, Joseph
This experiment also seems to work with brandy! 8-)
Happy and prosperous New Year to you. pg
the hockey stick argument, that the MWP/LIA was a local European event, and thus not significant globally argues against the value of a global temperature average.
What does the global average mean to anyone in Europe if their climate does not follow the global average? What possible value does it have as a predicting tool?
What does the global average mean to anyone in Europe if their climate does not follow the global average? — ge0050
What a great comment. I had not looked at that in that manner before. Thanks.