Solar and Atmospheric Effects

Note: solar researchers tend to forget that oceans can store and move heat for hundreds, even thousands of years. Also, for those interested in sunspots and “Grand Solar Minima,” read Javier Vinos’ blog post on the connection between sunspots and temperature.

Number of papers here: 24

The changing nature of Earth's reflected sunlight — Proceedings of the Royal Society, 2022; Stephens et al.

This paper claims that recent warming is from slightly reduced albedo, not greenhouse forcing: “As in other recent studies, we find that by far the largest contribution to the increasing rate of change of earth’s energy imbalance is from an increase in net absorption of solar energy by the planet that has occurred over the past two decades due to reductions in the amount of solar radiation reflected to space by Earth. We cannot say if these changes in reflected sunlight are unprecedented given they are small within the context of the historical changes that must have occurred over Earth's history. Although small in that context, the changes are both statistically significant at the 95% confidence level and profound.”

Empirical assessment of the role of the Sun in climate change using balanced multi-proxy solar records — Geoscience Frontiers, 2023; Nicola Scafetta

Results of his studies: 1) Lower CO2 ECS than the IPCC gives, 2) much greater sensitivity to incoming solar radiation, 3) explanation of why GCM model outputs have been too hot. “This result explains why empirical studies often found that the solar contribution to climate changes throughout the Holocene has been significant, whereas GCM-based studies, which only adopt radiative forcings, suggest that the Sun plays a relatively modest role.”

The effects of solar variability on the Earth's climate — Proceedings of the Royal Society, 2003; Joanna Haigh

"Observational data suggest that the Sun has influenced tem-peratures on decadal, centennial and millennial time-scales, but radiative forcingconsiderations and the results of energy-balance models and general circulation models suggest that the warming during the latter part of the 20th century cannot beascribed entirely to solar effects. However, chemical and dynamical processes in the middle atmosphere may act to amplify the solar impact.”

The Detection and Attribution of Northern Hemisphere Land Surface Warming (1850–2018) in Terms of Human and Natural Factors: Challenges of Inadequate Data — Climate, 2023; Soon, Connolly, et al.

“A statistical analysis was applied to Northern Hemisphere land surface temperatures (1850–2018) to try to identify the main drivers of the observed warming since the mid-19th century. Two different temperature estimates were considered — a rural and urban blend (that matches almost exactly with most current estimates) and a rural-only estimate. The rural and urban blend indicates a long-term warming of 0.89 °C/century since 1850, while the rural-only indicates 0.55 °C/century.”

How much has the Sun influenced Northern Hemisphere temperature trends? An ongoing debate — Research in Astronomy and Astrophysics, 2021; Soon, Connolly, et al

The authors show that the commonly used datasets for land-based temperatures are highly warm biased by urban influence on thermometers. The IPCC uses a combination of methods that results in dramatic human-influenced warming that is not seen in other data.

Empirical evidence for a celestial origin of the climate oscillations and its implications — Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics, 2010; Nicola Scafetta

Provides evidence and a model to show that the various solar cycles on many different time scales could be responsible for most or all of the observed warming of the last 150 years. Gives Jupiter and Saturn credit for doing some of the work.

Overview of the Spectral Coherence between Planetary Resonances and Solar and Climate Oscillations — Climate, 2023: Scafetta & Bianchini

This technical paper shows that sunspots are pulled around the sun by the gravity of various planets, especially Jupiter, Earth, and Venus, giving an orbital-mechanical cause to the 11-year solar cycle.

Re-evaluating the role of solar variability on Northern Hemisphere temperature trends since the 19th century — Earth Science Reviews, 2015; Soon & Connolly

This landmark 2015 paper constructs a realistic time series of land-based temperatures by removing biased urban data. They then show that solar influence, not atmospheric, is the dominant factor in driving temperature.

The Iris Effect: A Review — Asia-Pacific Journal of Atmospheric Sciences, 2022; Lindzen & Choi

The authors show that cirrus clouds shrink in response to warming, validating the original 2001 prediction that the oceans naturally produce negative feedback that maintains stable temperatures. They show how climate models assume wrongly that the feedback will be positive.

Radiative Energy Flux Variation from 2001–2020 — Atmosphere, 2021; Dubal and Varenholt

Using CERES data, they find that cloudiness has decreased and water vapor increased since 2005, for a total radiative imbalance of 0.15 Watts/meter — a very small increase driven mostly by the sun. “The radiative data indicate more variability in the North and higher stability in the South,” which means “expect warmer Arctic temperatures, but nothing serious, not caused by humans.”

Satellite and Ocean Data Reveal Marked Increase in Earth’s Heating Rate — Geophysical Research Letters, 2021; Loeb et al (commentary by Roy Spencer)

Using quality data from the Argo floats, this NASA team shows that since 2005, there has been more incoming solar energy reaching earth as a result of fewer clouds and more water vapor (not so much CO2). In his commentary, Roy explains that their “energy imbalance” calculation is the difference of two large numbers and that the press incorrectly assumed the rate of warming was “unprecedented.” It is not. It is likely to be roughly in line with the previous 150 years of warming, for which we have only poor data.

Atmospheric ionization and cloud radiative forcing — Nature, 2021; Svensmark, Shaviv, et al.

The authors show that stronger incoming cosmic rays significantly influence the formation of clouds, which cool the earth. This is foundational to their theory of sunspots.

A Comparison of Different Metrics for Analyzing the Troposphere/Stratosphere Transitions Using High-Resolution Ozonesondes — Environmental Sciences Proceedings, 2022; Dingeley, Connolly, Connolly, & Soon

This important 2022 paper shows that most thinking about how the climate works is based on outdated models of atmospheric circulation — Hadley cells, mid-lattitude cells, polar cells. If that theory doesn’t fit the data, then all climate models are based on incorrect assumptions. Michael Connolly explains to Tom Nelson.

Is the Solar System’s Galactic Motion Imprinted in the Phanerozoic Climate? — Nature, 2014; Shaviv et al.

The authors show that the sun’s motion through the galaxy brings different levels of cosmic rays, which correspond to various climatic conditions, probably through the nucleation of clouds. They show a 32 million-year oscillation that is seen in the paleoclimate record.

Termination of Solar Cycles and Correlated Tropospheric Variability — JGR Space Physics, 2014; Leamon et al.

This paper uses sunspots and solar-wind effects to predict a strong la Nina effect in 2020/21, which happened.

The long sunspot cycle 23 predicts a significant temperature decrease in cycle 24 — Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics, 2012; Solheim et al.

“Relations between the length of a sunspot cycle and the average temperature in the same and the next cycle are calculated for a number of meteorological stations in Norway and in the North Atlantic region. No significant trend is found between the length of a cycle and the average temperature in the same cycle, but a significant negative trend is found between the length of a cycle and the temperature in the next cycle. This provides a tool to predict an average temperature decrease of at least 1.0°C from solar cycle 23 to solar cycle 24 for the stations and areas analyzed.”

The response of clouds and aerosols to cosmic ray decreases — JGR Space Physics, 2016; Svensmark, Shaviv, et al.

This paper builds the foundation of the theory that sunspots cause cooling by decreasing the solar wind, allowing more cosmic rays to reach earth and nucleate cloud formation.

Global climatology and trends in convective environments from ERA5 and rawinsonde data — NPJ Climate and Atmospheric Science, 2021; Taszarek et al.

The authors find a negative trend in convective energy leading to more extreme storms. A negative trend means fewer extreme storms.

Analyzing changes in the complexity of climate in the last four decades using MERRA-2 radiation data — Nature Scientific Reports, 2020; Delgado-Bonal et al.

This extremely technical NASA paper looks at 4 decades of cloud data, suggesting that clouds are a key driver of climate, because a tiny increase in cloud cover can have a huge cooling effect. “Our research supports the idea that clouds and albedo, which ultimately determine the SW radiation, are variables of the utmost importance for current climate change, in agreement with previous research about the changes in stratocumulus or energy imbalance in the last four decades for example. An increase in cloud coverage of 0.1 would, on average, lead to a 7% increase in spectrally integrated global average reflectance of shortwave radiation.”

Solar and Anthropogenic Influences on Climate: Regression Analysis and Tentative Predictions— Climate, 2021; Stefani

Interesting and readable: “The paper aims to quantify solar and anthropogenic influences on climate change, and to make some tentative predictions for the next hundred years. By means of double regression, we evaluate linear combinations of the logarithm of the carbon dioxide concentration and the geomagnetic index as a proxy for solar activity. Thereby, we reproduce the sea surface temperature (HadSST) since the middle of the 19th century with an adjusted R2 value of around 87 percent for a climate sensitivity (of TCR type) in the range of 0.6 K until 1.6 K per doubling of CO2.” The authors add that if you throw out particularly warm El Nino decades, the sensitivity is closer to 0.6K.

Asymmetry in the seasonal cycle of Antarctic sea ice driven by insolation — Nature Geoscience, 2022; Roach et al.

“The mean seasonal cycle of Antarctic sea-ice extent is asymmetric, with the period of ice retreat being approximately two months shorter than the period of ice advance. ... Using a range of idealized climate models of varying complexity, we show that the seasonal cycle in top-of-atmosphere incident solar radiation drives the asymmetry.”

Quantification of the Diminishing Earth’s Magnetic Dipole Intensity and Geomagnetic Activity as the Causal Source for Global Warming within the Oceans and Atmosphere — International Journal of Geosciences, 2016; Vares et al.

“Here we present quantitative evidence that although global warming has been occurring recently, the primary source may not be caused by release of CO2 from human activities but from physical processes strongly coupled to the diminishing magnetic dipole of the earth as well as enhanced geomagnetic activity due to shifting parameters within the movement of the solar system.”

A regional (land–ocean) comparison of the seasonal to decadal variability of the Northern Hemisphere jet stream 1871–2011 — Climate Dynamics, 2022; Hallam, et al.

The IPCC and other experts keep saying that human-emitted CO2 will cause the Jet stream to slow down. Here is what actual scientists have to say: “Jet speed shows significant increases evident in winter (up to 4.7 ms−1), spring and autumn over the North Atlantic, Eurasia and North America however, over the North Pacific no increase is observed. Long term trends are generally overlaid by multidecadal variability, particularly evident in the North Pacific, where 20-year variability in jet latitude and jet speed are seen, associated with the Pacific Decadal Oscillation which explains 50% of the winter variance in jet latitude since 1940. The results highlight that northern hemisphere jet variability and trends differ on a regional basis (North Atlantic, North Pacific, Eurasia and North America) on seasonal to decadal timescales, suggesting that different mechanisms are influencing the jet latitude and speed.

Harmonic Analysis of Worldwide Temperature Proxies for 2000 Years — the Open Atmospheric Science Journal, 2017; Lüdecke & Weiss

Using a Fourrier technique, the authors have broken temperature data into subsignals and found solar variation to be the driver.

Next: Milankovitch cycles