Satellites Show -1.2° C Temperature Drop Since Early 2016 As Scientists Project Low Solar Activity, Cooling In Coming Decades

The most recent Super El Niño natural warming event exerted its maximum effect on surface temperature anomalies during the last few months of 2015 and the first few months of 2016.  Since then, surface temperatures over land have dramatically declined by about 1.2° C according to the RSS satellite dataset.

WoodForTrees graph:

2016-temp-decline-land-rss-copy

Since September, the Greenland Ice Sheet surface mass balance has risen +100 Gt above the 1990-2013 average:

DMI graph source:

2016-smb-greenland-ice-sheet-sept-nov-16-copy

According to an increasing body of scientific evidence, short-term cooling and ice sheet growth trends like the ones shown above may soon become long-term trends in the coming decades.  As shown recently, there have already been 18 scientific papers published in 2016 indicating that periods with high solar activity (i.e., the 20th/21st century Modern Maximum, the 11th century Medieval Maximum) are associated with centennial-scale warming trends, and periods with low solar activity (the 13th to 19th century Little Ice Age) are associated with centennial-scale cooling trends.

18 New Papers Link High Solar Activity To Medieval And Modern Warmth, Low Solar Activity To Little Ice Age Cooling

Within the last year and a half, there have also been many other papers published in scientific journals indicating that the Earth’s Modern Grand Maximum of high solar activity (which lasted from the early- to mid-20th century to the early 21st century) has recently come to an end, and will soon be replaced by several decades of low solar activity and the concomitant decline in temperatures reaching levels not seen since the Little Ice Age.

Listed below are 10 recently-published scientific papers projecting solar activity minimums and “deep cooling” in the coming decades, especially beginning by about 2030.  These papers would appear to run counter to the viewpoint that the coming decades will be characterized by unprecedented global warming that is dangerous and irreversible unless humans reduce or eliminate their consumption of fossil-fuel energies.

Abdussamatov, 2016

“The quasi-centennial epoch of the new Little Ice Age has started at the end 2015 after the maximum phase of solar cycle 24. The start of a solar grand minimum is anticipated in solar cycle 27 ± 1 in 2043 ± 11 and the beginning of phase of deep cooling in the new Little Ice Age in 2060 ± 11. The gradual weakening of the Gulf Stream leads to stronger cooling in the zone of its action in western Europe and the eastern parts of the United States and Canada. Quasi-bicentennial cyclic variations of TSI together with successive very important influences of the causal feedback effects are the main fundamental causes of corresponding alternations in climate variation from warming to the Little Ice Age.”

Yndestad and Solheim, 2016

“In 1890´s G. Spörer and E. W. Maunder (1890) reported that the solar activity stopped in a period of 70 years from 1645 to 1715. Later a reconstruction of the solar activity confirms the grand minima Maunder (1640-1720), Spörer (1390-1550), Wolf (1270-1340), and the minima Oort (1010-1070) and Dalton (1785-1810) since the year 1000 A.D. (Usoskin et al. 2007). These minimum periods have been associated with less irradiation from the Sun and cold climate periods on Earth. An identification of a three grand Maunder type periods and two Dalton type periods in a period thousand years, indicates that sooner or later there will be a colder climate on Earth from a new Maunder- or Dalton- type period. …. The result shows that the TSI variability and the sunspots variability have deterministic oscillations, controlled by the large planets Jupiter, Uranus and Neptune, as the first cause. A deterministic model of TSI [total solar irradiance] variability and sunspot variability confirms the known minimum and grand minimum periods since 1000. From this deterministic model we may expect a new Maunder type sunspot minimum period from about 2018 to 2055. The deterministic model of a TSI ACRIM data series from 1700 computes a new Maunder type grand minimum period from 2015 to 2071. A model of the longer TSI ACRIM data series from 1000 computes a new Dalton to Maunder type minimum irradiation period from 2047 to 2068.”

Torres and Guzmán, 2016

“Conclusions Based on our results, we propose the use of the Wolf’s Number Oscillation Index (WNOI) – as a more uniform alternative to the ONI – in the range over 30 and below -30. The analysis of the material presented and the arguments discussed allows us to define a possible relationship between phenomena related to Solar Cycle, the ENSO, climatic conditions, as well as some criteria for the establishment of public policies for preservation and remediation of the environment in the long run. We can conclude that solar activity oscillations impact the earth climatic conditions to such a extent that they become measurable only in the long run. The magnitude of the Solar Cycle – from 7 to 17 and a mean of 11.2 years – seems to support this statement. Based on the similarities of the Solar Cycles 5 and 24 we can expect a longer period of cold weather for the years 2022 y/o 2034, corresponding to the Solar Cycles 24 and 25.”

Chiodo et al., 2016

“Solar variability represents a source of uncertainty in the future forcings used in climate model simulations. Current knowledge indicates that a descent of solar activity into an extended minimum state is a possible scenario. With aid of experiments from a state-of-the-art Earth system model, we investigate the impact of a future solar minimum on Northern Hemisphere climate change projections. This scenario is constructed from recent 11 year solar-cycle minima of the solar spectral irradiance, and is therefore more conservative than the ‘grand’ minima employed in some previous modeling studies. Despite the small reduction in total solar irradiance (0.36 W m−2), relatively large responses emerge in the winter Northern Hemisphere, with a reduction in regional-scale projected warming by up to 40%. To identify the origin of the enhanced regional signals, we assess the role of the different mechanisms by performing additional experiments forced only by irradiance changes at different wavelengths of the solar spectrum. We find that a reduction in visible irradiance drives changes in the stationary wave pattern of the North Pacific and sea–ice cover. A decrease in UV irradiance leads to smaller surface signals, although its regional effects are not negligible. These results point to a distinct but additive role of UV and visible irradiance in the Earth’s climate, and stress the need to account for solar forcing as a source of uncertainty in regional scale projections.”

Sanchez-Sesma, 2016

“This empirical modeling of solar recurrent patterns has also provided a consequent multi-millennial-scale experimental forecast, suggesting a solar decreasing trend toward grand (super) minimum conditions for the upcoming period, AD 2050–2250 (AD 3750–4450). … Solar activity (SA) has non-linear characteristics that influence multiple scales in solar processes (Vlahos and Georgoulis, 2004). For instance, millennia-scale solar oscillations have been recently detected, like those of about 6000 and 2400 years, by Xapsos and Burke (2009) and Charvátová (2000), respectively, with important and interesting influences in the near, past and future climate. These millennialscale patterns of reconstructed SA variability could justify epochs of low activity, such as the Maunder minimum, as well as epochs of enhanced activity, such as the current Modern Maximum, and the Medieval maximum in the 12th century.  … We can conclude that the evidence provided is sufficient to justify a complete updating and reviewing of present climate models to better consider these detected natural recurrences and lags in solar processes.

Mörner, 2015

By about 2030-2040, the Sun will experience a new grand solar minimum. This is evident from multiple studies of quite different characteristics: the phasing of sunspot cycles, the cyclic observations of North Atlantic behaviour over the past millennium, the cyclic pattern of cosmogenic radionuclides in natural terrestrial archives, the motions of the Sun with respect to the centre of mass, the planetary spin-orbit coupling, the planetary conjunction history and the general planetary-solar-terrestrial interaction. During the previous grand solar minima—i.e. the Sporer Minimum (ca 1440-1460), the Maunder Minimum (ca 1687-1703) and the Dalton Minimum (ca 1809-1821)—the climatic conditions deteriorated into Little Ice Age periods.”

Sánchez-Sesma, 2015

“Solar activity (SA) has non-linear characteristics that influence multiple scales in solar processes (Vlahos and Georgoulis, 2004). For instance, millennia-scale solar oscillations have been recently detected, like those of about 6000 and 2400 years, by Xapsos and Burke (2009) and Charvátová (2000), respectively, with important and interesting influences in the near past and future climate. These millennial-scale patterns of reconstructed solar activity variability could justify epochs of low activity, such as the Maunder Minimum, as well as epochs of enhanced activity, such as the current Modern Maximum, and the Medieval Maximum in the 12th century. Although the reason for these solar activity oscillations is unclear, it has been proposed that they are due to chaotic behavior of non-linear dynamo equations (Ruzmaikin, 1983), or stochastic instabilities forcing the solar dynamo, leading to on-off intermittency (Schmittet al., 1996), or planetary gravitational forcing with recurrent multi-decadal, multi-centennial and longer patterns (Fairbridge and Sanders, 1987; Fairbridge and Shirley,1987; Charvátová, 2000; Duhau and Jager, 2010; Perry and Hsu, 2000). It should be noted that all proponents of planetary forcing have forecasted a solar Grand Minimum for the upcoming decades, but one of them has also forecasted a Super Minimum for the next centuries (Perry and Hsu, 2000). In addition, during recent decades, statistical forecasts (with physically-based spectral information of reconstructed records) of solar magnetic activity predict a clear decrease in solar activity, reaching a minimum around AD 2100 (Steinhilber et al., 2013; S13, hereafter, Velasco et al., 2015).”

Zharkova, 2015

A new model of the Sun’s solar cycle is producing unprecedentedly accurate predictions of irregularities within the Sun’s 11-year heartbeat. The model draws on dynamo effects in two layers of the Sun, one close to the surface and one deep within its convection zone. Predictions from the model suggest that solar activity will fall by 60 per cent during the 2030s to conditions last seen during the ‘mini ice age’ that began in 1645.

Results will be presented today by Prof Valentina Zharkova at the National Astronomy Meeting in Llandudno. … Zharkova and her colleagues derived their model using a technique called ‘principal component analysis’ of the magnetic field observations from the Wilcox Solar Observatory in California. They examined three solar cycles-worth of magnetic field activity, covering the period from 1976-2008. In addition, they compared their predictions to average sunspot numbers, another strong marker of solar activity. All the predictions and observations were closely matched. “Combining both waves together and comparing to real data for the current solar cycle, we found that our predictions showed an accuracy of 97%,” said Zharkova.

“Effectively, when the waves are approximately in phase, they can show strong interaction, or resonance, and we have strong solar activity. When they are out of phase, we have solar minimums. When there is full phase separation, we have the conditions last seen during the Maunder minimum, 370 years ago.”

Lüdecke et al., 2015

“The Earth’s climate shows a rather regular oscillation of ∼ 200 year period during the last millennia. However, frequency, phase, and strength of the oscillation are found to vary in different time series of temperatures and for different times (see Figs. 4–6, and 5 8). Nonetheless, the relative historic stability of the cycle suggests that the periodic nature of the climate will persist also for the foreseeable future. Disregarding other conceivable forcings e.g. anthropogenic influences, an approximate prediction of the climate for the next 100 years suggests itself. Figure 9 shows the Tsine representation from AD 1800 to AD 2100 derived from the ∆Tsine representation by a π/2 phase shift. 10 It gives correctly the 1850–1900 temperature minimum and shows a temperature drop from present to AD 2080, the latter comparable with the minimum of 1870, as already predicted in the studies (Steinhilber and Beer, 2013; Liu et al., 2011) on the grounds of solar activity data alone.”

Velasco et al., 2015

“The estimation of solar activity for the next hundred years is one of the current problems in solar physics because the possible occurrence of a future grand solar minimum will probably have an impact on the Earth’s climate. … Depending on the composite used, PMOD (or ACRIM), we found a grand minimum for the 21st century, starting in 2004 (or 2002) and ending in 2075 (or 2063), with an average irradiance of 1365.5 (or 1360.5) Wm-2±1σ=0.3 (or 0.9) Wm-2. Moreover, we calculated an average radiative forcing between the present and the 21st century minima of -0.1 (or −0.2) Wm-2, with an uncertainty range of-0.04 to -0.14 (or -0.12 to -0.33) Wm-2.”

74 responses to “Satellites Show -1.2° C Temperature Drop Since Early 2016 As Scientists Project Low Solar Activity, Cooling In Coming Decades”

  1. Green Sand

    Hathaway – 14 November 2016

    “….We find that the average strength of the polar fields near the end of Cycle 24 will be similar to that measured near the end of Cycle 23, indicating that Cycle 25 will be similar in strength to the current cycle…..”

    ‘Predicting the Amplitude and Hemispheric Asymmetry of Solar Cycle 25 with Surface Flux Transport’

    David H Hathaway, Lisa A Upton

    Accepted manuscript online: 14 November 2016

    http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2016JA023190/full

    1. tom0mason

      Looks like an interesting paper that is currently unavailable as it is —

      “This article has been accepted for publication and undergone full peer review but has not been through the copyediting, typesetting, pagination and proofreading process, which may lead to differences between this version and the Version of Record. Please cite this article as doi: 10.1002/2016JA023190”

      Trying to access the PDF give just an error message.

  2. Sunsettommy

    Darn!

    CO2 is taking another vacation to allow those thermal critters to leave the planets surface easily.

    The mystery is WHY does awesomely powerful CO2 molecules know when to do that…..

  3. AndyG55

    “The most recent Super El Niño natural warming event”

    umm Kenneth, an El Niño is actually an ocean COOLING event.

  4. AndyG55

    OT, is anyone else getting a server dialog asking for a name and password?

    No idea what my password would be as I don’t remember ever using one.

    1. Stephen Wilde

      Yes, I’ve been getting that. Irritating.
      I just ignored it by pressing ‘cancel’.

      1. Green Sand

        Ditto

  5. tom0mason

    Interesting that they are all picking 2030-2040, that is a similar time-frame for both coal and oil to peak in demand.
    https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2016/11/16/oil-demand-wont-peak-before-2040-despite-paris-deal-iea/#comment-80137

    I have a suspicion that the 2040 peak will be a new ongoing demand level for a couple of decades or so.
    Western governments have you all got your long term options to fuel your country sorted yet?

  6. Charles Higley

    “The gradual weakening of the Gulf Stream leads to stronger cooling in the zone of its action in western Europe and the eastern parts of the United States and Canada”

    When the Gulf Stream cools, it does not actually slow down but it gets higher viscosity which makes it flow more slowly. It speeds up when warmer as it is less viscous. This is the opposite of what the alarmists say will happen.

    The above paper has it right but does not indicate the mechanism of the flow’s slow down.

  7. Alfred (Melbourne)

    Charles Higley,

    I would have thought that “slowing down” is another way of saying “flows more slowly”. Silly me. 🙂

  8. MikeR
  9. mikeR

    Kenneth

    I note that you have studiously avoided a response to my request for a physically plausible mechanism by which el-Nino can cause a long term increase in tropospheric temperatures by going off on tangents, first of all plumbing the depths of the oceans ( I seem to recall the discussion was about RSS satellite data!) and now invoking the sun and ocean

    Kenneth do you actually read these papers that you link to or it just a cut and paste from a compendium that you have diligently accumulated?

    The paper you link to by Douglass and Knox is “interesting” in a bizarre way. Firstly Douglass does not go the well worn route of making claims regarding the influence of sunspot numbers and T.S.I. etc. He ignores he eleven year cycle and claims that there is a 1 year cycle which is not unreasonable due to changes in solar irradiance which result from the eccentricity of the earth’s orbit. He also claims that there are longer sub-harmonic periods due to the phase delays of the ocean’s response.

    However with regard to trends, the paper massively overreaches and has major problems. The only reference to trends is a small section before the conclusion.

    It is clear even after a very cursory read of this paper that there are at least 5 major flaws in this section .

    They are as follows
    1. Equation 3 has an obvious typo (it should read dt in the denominator).

    2. Equation 3 also does not appear to be dimensionally correct (with or without the correction).

    3. The values quoted in Table 1 are not consistent with Equation 3 for the same data set. For example T700 the value of D (depth)required to give the appropriate number for the derivative of the Ocean Heat Content is about 8 m for the first set and D=0.5 m for the second set.

    4. They do not give the confidence levels for their estimate of uncertainties in the slope of Delta T.

    5. They also do not state how they obtained these uncertainties . Did they use an unbiased OLS estimate or did they also include the uncertainties due to serial correlation? If the latter, what model did they use for the serial correlation? The briefness of periods that phase locking is assumed to occur are major issue, as the trends will have enormous uncertainties for estimates of the trend in temperature over a relatively small interval of time.

    Another aspect that is questionable is that the authors could only use this analysis for limited numbers of years where they could detect phase locking. For instance from the period from 2008 to 2013 was not included which is a pity because the temperature trend was high for this period.

    It is clear that the journal reviewers of this paper had fallen asleep at the wheel by the time they got to this latter section. It is the only conceivable explanation for letting this paper pass review. As it stands the only place this work should have been published is in the Daily Mirror .

    Finally I have things better to do than follow Kenneth down the deep ocean rabbit hole at full gallop. I will just link to http://ipcc-wg2.gov/AR5/images/uploads/WGIIAR5-Chap30_FINAL.pdf (see Section 30.3) .

    By the way the November RSS data for land has come out and the figure is up by almost a factor of 3, see http://data.remss.com/msu/monthly_time_series/RSS_Monthly_MSU_AMSU_Channel_TLT_Anomalies_Land_v03_3.txt. Kenneth, I think if you desire any residual credibility you should update the figure at the top.

    1. sod

      “Kenneth do you actually read these papers that you link to or it just a cut and paste from a compendium that you have diligently accumulated?”

      i seriously doubt that Kenneth is reading any papers, definitely not in any critical way. Basically he is compiling lists of papers that mention certain key words (cycle, deep ocean, solar, …) or acceptable trends (basically everything going down) or historic data that fits his believes.

      This “method” (accept everything that supports your thesis, ignore every problem in those papers, ignore all papers that contradict them) can proof absolutely everything.

      1. David Appell

        I agree with you sod — Kenneth certainly does not take the time to read these papers in a critical fashion.

  10. David Appell

    Blind people: 2016 will be the warmest year on record.

    Can’t disprove that with a statistically insignificant small-month, cherry picked trend.

    You deniers are getting every more desperate and pathetic.

    1. AndyG55

      Rotten Appell still doesn’t comprehend “El Nino”

      And probably never will.

      Just more desperate low-level propaganda from him,

      He is also ignoring the first 3/4 of the Holocene, the RWP, the MWP, all of which were warmer than now.

      The planet’s temperature is still only a tiny amount above the coldest period in the last 10,000 years.

      That’s the real state of the climate and only an ignorant fool would deny that.

  11. David Appell

    Kenneth: E&E has been known to be a junk journal since 2003, when I exposed the editor’s biases.

    It’s only gone downhill from there.

    Go learn, sonny.

    1. AndyG55

      ““E&E has been known to be a junk journal since 2003”

      I didn’t know you wrote for E&E, appell-worm.

      Or is one that wouldn’t print your sci-fantasy claptrap.

      1. AndyG55

        “when I exposed the editor’s biases.”

        So I was right.. David is all upset because a reputable magazine wouldn’t print his juvenile, biased, anti-science claptrap.

        JILTED, hey rotten-appell.

  12. mikeR

    Yonasan – “While MikeR doesn’t seem to like it, Roger Pielke Sr refers to it as “…the scientifically sound paper by Knox and Douglas.””

    Roger Pielke was referring to earlier papers such as,
    https://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/2011/01/10/my-comments-on-robert-s-knox-and-david-h-douglass-kevin-trenberth-on-missing-heat/) and not the current paper.

    I personally would be fascinated to see Roger Pielke’s comments about this latest paper especially with regard to the latter part of the paper.

    Yonasan – “ I don’t see the first two of MikeR’s objections as anything but silly.”

    Yes they are relatively minor compared to the other more egregious faults but clearly Yonasan has not reviewed a scientific publication. This presence of these types of typo normally flags other more serious issues and this turned out to be, indeed the case, once you scratched the surface.

    Yonasan – “I don’t want to address the others without reading a bit more of the background on this and related matters.”

    Sounds like a very wise idea. Get back to us when you have finished your reading.

    Yonasan – “If I’m understanding Douglass, he seems to be claiming (legitimately, I think) that if there’s neither excess nor deficiency in energy input, then the system becomes “locked.” It gets interesting when there is excess or deficiency, and when we’re able to quantify that (or at least approximate it by his methods), then we’ll have a good handle on the earth’s actual, as opposed to imagined, heat budget.

    In any case, I would say he’s onto something, or the hounds (Cook, Trenberth, and the rest of the Warmunistas wouldn’t be attacking him so violently)”

    Has Cook (which one? John maybe?) and Trenberth attacked any of his work since the early part of this decade? I am not aware of these attacks, but I will stand corrected, if this is the case.

    Finally I must make some additional comments about the latest Douglass and Knox papers.

    These papers are based on the earlier 2011 paper by Douglass see http://www.pas.rochester.edu/~douglass/papers/5-2800127.pdf)

    This work has been cited twice since 2011. The two citations are by guess who? For the answer, click here – https://scholar.google.com.au/scholar?cites=14206794797946881168&as_sdt=2005&sciodt=0,5&hl=en .

    This absence of citations by other is usually a strong indication of the significance of this publication, which clearly sank without a trace.

    Similarly , if you look at most of the more recent work of the authors on climate change , the same pattern is evident. Very few citations other than by the authors.

    To paraphrase an old adage- ” The only thing worse than being criticized is being ignored”.

    My major concern is however, is not so much with the authors, who are now well into their 80,s but the obvious lack of peer review by the journal Physics Letter A that allowed this paper to be published without the necessary oversight. What a pity for the journal.

  13. mikeR

    Kenneth,

    I did explicitly refer above to “the 6 publications that appeared in the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) (2014)”. It took several hours to download the report but, if needed, I can download the 2001 and 2007 reports and see how many survived the cull and appeared in the final reports and whether the hit rate was better(or worse) than 2 in 10,000.

    With regards to your reference to ocean surfaces and the green house effect, I reluctantly, and against my better instincts, follow you down your rabbit hole. I am not a climate scientist or an oceanographer and I prefer to leave much o this material , like open heart surgery , to the experts.

    I refer to your statements above” show varying CO2 over a body of water in volumes of parts per million (+ or – 0.000001) cause heat changes in water, as the heat from greenhouse gases does not penetrate into the ocean itself (as acknowledged by RC, SkS)?

    Real climate has covered this here – http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006/09/why-greenhouse-gases-heat-the-ocean/ and Skeptikal Science also has many articles debunking your claims see for instance http://www.skepticalscience.com/How-Increasing-Carbon-Dioxide-Heats-The-Ocean.html .

    Two other references that you should look at are https://judithcurry.com/2014/05/21/mechanisms-for-warming-of-the-oceans/ and http://www.drroyspencer.com/2014/04/can-infrared-radiation-warm-a-water-body/ .

    After reading the above, it is clear that you are out on a limb. I think it is time to reverse the onus of proof and ask a similar question, what, scientific evidence do you have from the vast trove of publications that rule out heating of a body of water via the green house effect at CO2 levels of 400 ppm?

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