This post is a reblog of the Manhattan Contrarian Quiz — Climate Tipping Points Edition
October 11, 2018/ by Francis Menton. Text in italics with my bolds.

On Monday the UN IPCC came out with its latest Special Report, this one supposedly addressed specifically to the allegedly dire consequences of allowing world temperatures to increase by more than an arbitrarily-selected threshold. Here is a copy of the “Summary for Policymakers,” and here is a copy of the accompanying press release. But I urge you not to peek at those until you have taken today’s very important Manhattan Contrarian Climate Tipping Points Quiz.

Many have noted that this latest Report seems to step up the level of hysteria and shrieking about the threat of climate change to a whole new level. The gist is, we are doomed, doomed, doomed unless mankind takes immediate drastic action to reduce and then eliminate carbon emissions, because otherwise we will shortly cross the dreaded climate “tipping point.” Crossing the tipping point means that climate change will thereafter accelerate out of control, there will be no further chance of saving the planet, and all hope must be abandoned. You can see that this is very serious, at least if you give any credence to this stuff. And yet, despite the hyperbole, this report seems to be getting much less attention than prior similar predictions of the impending climate apocalypse, even if no one in the mainstream press will apply the slightest amount of critical thinking as to whether any of this makes any sense at all. As an example, the big New York Times article on the Report did not appear until Tuesday, and in the print edition ran on page A8. I guess there were plenty of things more important than the approaching end of the world to fill up the front page.

So it’s time to take the Manhattan Contrarian Climate Tipping Points Quiz. The quiz consists of nine predictions of the impending climate “tipping point,” made at various points over the past few decades. For each prediction, I have deleted the name of the predictor, the year made and the year or years that were identified as the dreaded tipping point, but have included in brackets the number of years in the future that the tipping point was said to be at the time of the prediction in question. Your task is to identify which of the predictions is the one found in the current UN materials. For extra credit, see if you can identify any of the other predictions as to the person or organization uttering the prediction, the year made, and the year said to be the date of the tipping point.

Answers below the fold.

Prediction Number 1:

[Predictor] said that without “coherent financial incentives and disincentives” we have just 96 months to avert “irretrievable climate and ecosystem collapse, and all that goes with it.” . . . He confided last night: “We face the dual challenges of a world view and an economic system that seem to have enormous shortcomings, together with an environmental crisis – including that of climate change – which threatens to engulf us all.”

Prediction Number 2:

[U]nless drastic measures to reduce greenhouse gases are taken within the next 10 years, the world will reach a point of no return, [predictor] said. He sees the situation as “a true planetary emergency.” “If you accept the truth of that, then nothing else really matters that much,” [predictor] said in an interview with The Associated Press. “We have to organize quickly to come up with a coherent and really strong response, and that’s what I’m devoting myself to.”

Prediction Number 3:

[Predictor] . . . told author Bob Reiss in [year of prediction] that New York City would be underwater in 20 years. “The West Side Highway [which runs along the Hudson River] will be under water,” [predictor] said. “And there will be tape across the windows across the street because of high winds. And the same birds won’t be there. The trees in the median strip will change.”

Prediction Number 4:

The year: [46 years after prediction]. Massive dikes around New Orleans, Miami, and New York are holding back rising sea water. Phoenix is baking in its third straight week of temperatures above 115 degrees. Decades of drought have laid waste to the once-fertile Midwestern farm belt. Hurricanes batter the Gulf Coast, and forest fires continue to black thousands of acres across the country. Science fiction? Hardly. These are the sobering global warming or “greenhouse effect” scenarios that many scientists believe may happen if we continue to pollute our environment. . . . [N]othing short of an immediate worldwide effort by governments, corporations and especially individual citizens will be needed to reverse the environmental crisis that now threatens the entire planet.

Prediction Number 5:

In [year of prediction], [predictor] told [publication] that [4 years after prediction] was “the last window of opportunity” to impose policies to restrict fossil fuel use. [Predictor] said it’s “the last chance we have to get anything approaching [numeric] degrees Centigrade,” adding that if “we don’t do it now, we are committing the world to a drastically different place.”

Prediction Number 6:

[W]arming of [numeric] deg C or higher increases the risk associated with long-lasting or irreversible changes, such as the loss of some ecosystems,” said [predictor]. . . . [L]imiting global warming to [numeric]°C would require “rapid and far-reaching” transitions in land, energy, industry, buildings, transport, and cities. Global net human-caused emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) would need to fall by about 45 percent from [year] levels by [12 years from prediction], reaching ‘net zero’ around [32 years from prediction].

Prediction Number 7:

[Predictor] said in [year of prediction] that if “there’s no action before [5 years after prediction], that’s too late.” “What we do in the next two to three years will determine our future. This is the defining moment,” he said.

Prediction Number 8:

[Predictor] wrote in [publication] that within “as little as 10 years, the world will be faced with a choice: arable farming either continues to feed the world’s animals or it continues to feed the world’s people. It cannot do both.”

Prediction Number 9:

[Publication] reported in [year] that [predictor] says entire nations could be wiped off the face of the earth by rising sea levels if global warming is not reversed by the [year].”

Answers to Quiz:

Answer for Prediction Number 1: This famous prediction was made by the great climate scientist Prince Charles in July 2009. The 96 month (8 year) period of the prediction expired in July 2017. Does that mean that for a year plus we have already been in the state of “irretrievable climate and ecosystem collapse”?

Answer for Prediction Number 2: Again, this is a quite famous prediction, made by Al Gore at the January 2006 premier of his climate apocalypse movie “An Inconvenient Truth,” as reported at the time by CBS News. Thus, the period of the prediction expired in January 2016. I guess then that we have already reached the “point of no return” and the “true planetary emergency.” How does it feel?

Answer for Prediction Number 3: Another famous prediction, this one made in 1988 by James Hansen, then head of the branch of NASA known as GISS that collects (and fraudulently alters) world temperature data. This time the 20 year prediction period expired in 2008. Meanwhile, I went down the West Side Highway just a few days ago, and the water didn’t appear any closer to swamping it than it was back in 1988.

Answer for Prediction Number 4: This one comes from self-described all-around genius Jeremy Rifkin (“author of 20 bestselling books about the impact of scientific and technological changes on the economy, the workforce, society, and the environment.” and “advisor to the leadership of the European Union since 2000” — really, does that tell you all you need to know about what idiots the Europeans are?), and is found in an article in none other than the Poughkeepsie Journal (my hometown newspaper!) in 1989. OK, the date for the prediction (2035) hasn’t arrived yet. But, if we were going to need “massive dikes” to protect New York City by 2035, shouldn’t there be by now some evidence of the sea level going up?

Answer for Prediction Number 5: The predictor was then-head of the United Nations Foundation Timothy Wirth, and the year of prediction was 2012. That means that the date for the prediction was 2016 — or actually, in the phrasing of the prediction, the end of President Obama’s second term. The prediction appeared in ClimateWire. I guess we missed our “last chance” to save the world. Wirth is the same guy who, as a Congressman back in 1988, promoted the hearings featuring Hansen that many credit as the official launch of the global warming scare.

Answer for Prediction Number 6: Yes, this quote comes from the just-issued press release announcing the new UN Report. There were enough extraneous clues in there that probably many of you readers got it right. The number of degrees C that is said in this Report to be the brink of disaster is 1.5.

Answer for Prediction Number 7: The predictor is former UN IPCC head Rajendra Pachauri, and the year of prediction was 2007. That means that after 2012 it was “too late” to stop armageddon. Oh, well. Somehow we struggle on.

Answer for Prediction Number 8: This one comes from noted UK environmental writer George Monbiot, and appeared in the Guardian in 2002. So once again the year for the prediction was 2012. Do you recall the world making the choice somewhere 6 or so years ago between “feeding the world’s animals” and “feeding the world’s people.” I’m struggling to remember that. Perhaps I should go home and have a hamburger for dinner while I think it over.

Answer for Prediction Number 9: The prediction comes from 1989, and the year for the prediction (“entire nations . . . wiped off the face of the earth”) was 2000 — 18 years ago. The publication was the San Jose Mercury News, which attributed the prediction to UN “senior environmental official” Noel Brown. Somehow, even the Maldives seem to be doing fine here in 2018.

Here’s the incredible thing: Wouldn’t you think that making apocalyptic predictions like these that failed so completely would undermine the predictors’ reputations somehow — like maybe, they’d be considered laughingstocks? Not at all! All of these guys are still out there and going strong. OK, Pachauri was forced out of the IPCC, but over sexual harassment allegations, not failed climate predictions. He left the IPCC in 2015, which means that three years after his prediction above bombed, he was still there. Meanwhile, the IPCC had won the Nobel Peace Prize! Monbiot still writes climate doom articles for the Guardian. And you haven’t heard of Noel Brown? He retired from the UNDP, but has gone on to be President of the Friends of the United Nations.

Yes, ridiculous failed climate apocalypse predictions are the route to assured career success. The world is a funny place.

Update October 13, 2018

An interesting essay by Sean Gabb (H/T Greenie Watch) provides some additional predictions justifying our skepticism about environmentalists’ doomsday narrative.  The Environmental Scam: One Quick and Easy Response Excerpt in italics:  The entire article is informative.

Sean Gabb writes:

I now turn to the claims about global warming. I will not discuss the intricacies of how much carbon dioxide we are releasing, or what effect this may have on temperatures. I leave aside the persistent claims of scientific fraud and other corruption. As said, I am not qualified to comment on these or other matters. What I do note is that, in 2006, Al Gore

[p]atiently, and surely for the 10,000th time, [explained to The Guardian] what’s going wrong. The atmosphere is like a coat of varnish around the globe, he says. When it’s thin, as it should be, heat naturally escapes. But when it gets thicker, thanks to carbon dioxide emitted by us, it traps in the heat and the world gets warmer. “It’s cooking and wilting the most vulnerable parts of the eco-system, melting all the mountain glaciers, the north polar ice cap, parts of Antarctica, parts of Greenland.” That molten ice-water will raise sea-levels, flooding food-producing areas that all of us rely on. Eventually it will submerge whole cities, from San Francisco to Shanghai. The site of the Twin Towers will not be a memorial garden: it will be underwater.

… He agrees with the scientists who say we have 10 years to act, before we cross a point of no return.

In 2009, the Prince of Wales – advised by the “leading environmentalists Jonathon Porritt and Tony Juniper” – said we had 96 months to change our ways. After that, we faced “irretrievable climate and ecosystem collapse, and all that goes with it.”

In 2005, George Monbiot wrote in The Guardian:

Winter is no longer the great grey longing of my childhood. The freezes this country suffered in 1982 and 1963 are – unless the Gulf Stream stops – unlikely to recur. Our summers will be long and warm. Across most of the upper northern hemisphere, climate change, so far, has been kind to us.

Ten years took us to 2016. Assuming my arithmetic is correct, 96 months take us to about now. If we have really reached the “point of no return,” why have these people not yet switched to telling us “I warned you: now it’s too late”? Instead, the apocalyptic warnings continue at top volume. Oh – and English weather remains as unpredictable today as it was in 2005. In March this year, there was an inch of snow in Deal.

The point of repeating these claims is that they were not random assertions, but appear to have been made on scientific advice – scientific advice that turned out to be wrong. Whether the scientists in question were lying, or whether they advised in good faith, is less important than that they were wrong. You do not need a degree in the natural sciences to notice when predictions are falsified. It is with this in mind that I take the present claims of plastic waste in the sea, and reject them out of hand. It may be that, this time, the claims are true. But the whole burden of proof is on those making them. The burden of proof comes with the barely-rebuttable presumption that we are being fed yet another diet of alarmist falsehoods.

 

 

A new paper by Dr. Indrani Roy is Abrupt Global Warming, Warming Trend Slowdown and Related Features in Recent Decades. The thrust of her conclusions is reported in this Science Daily article Role of ‘natural factors’ on recent climate change underestimated, research shows  Excerpts in italics with my bolds.

Pioneering new research has given a new perspective on the crucial role that ‘natural factors’ play in global warming.

The study, by Dr Indrani Roy at the University of Exeter, suggests that the natural phenomena such as solar eleven-year cycles and strong volcanic explosions play important roles in recent climate change which has been ‘underestimated’.

All existing studies focus on the rise in CO2 in the atmosphere as being the main driver of global temperature rises.

However, Dr Roy suggests that the role natural factors plays in climate change should be given more prominence. This study explores various possible areas where models miss important contributions due to these natural drivers.

The research is published in leading journal Frontiers.

Although CO2 has risen significantly since 1998, global temperature did not show any significant increase. Models however suggested a significant rise.

Dr Roy said: “So what factors are missing? It is a puzzle of recent slowdown of global warming trend or Hiatus and this study addresses that issue.”

For the study, Dr Roy looked specifically at data between 1976-96, which not only covered two full strong solar cycles and two explosive volcanic eruptions during active phases of those cycles, but which also matched a period of abrupt global warming. These data were compared with other periods.

The research highlighted the important role that a dominant Central Pacific (CP) El Nino, and its associated water vapour feedback, played in global warming within the chosen period.

Dr Roy suggests that the explosive volcanoes seen during this phase, which changed the sea level pressure around the North Atlantic, kick-started a ‘chain mechanism’ that played a crucial role.

Dr Roy added that the change in Indian Summer Monsoons and El Nino connection during that abrupt warming period, and a subsequent recovery thereafter, can also be explained by this ‘chain mechanism’.

Discussion of Chain Mechanism from Frontiers paper

The puzzle of global warming hiatus is discussed in many recent studies, though the underlying cause is still unexplained. Many climate features, in atmosphere and ocean including global temperature trend, suffered deviations during later two decades of the last century, so as some known teleconnection patterns. This study addresses those areas segregating the role of natural factors (the sun and volcano) to that from CO2 led linear anthropogenic influences. To analyse the combined influence of the sun and volcano (including the phasing), it separated out a period 1976–1996 that captured two full solar cycles, (number 21 and 22), where two explosive volcanos erupted (1991 and 1982) during active periods of strong solar cycles.

The possible mechanism could be initiated via a preferential alignment of NAO phase, generated by explosive volcanos. During that particular period, it identified certain deviations on various climate features, those include temperature around Niño 3.4 region (warming), North Atlantic region (cooling), AL (warming) and Eurasian snow cover (warming). The robustness of detected signal is established by analyzing different observational and reanalyses datasets. Consistent with temperature, a dominance of atmospheric water vapor content is also noticed. Interestingly, CMIP5 model ensemble (and also arbitrarily chosen individual models) fails to comply with such findings. It is also true for other models. This study indicates that water vapor being the most important GHG has major contributions for an observed abrupt rise in global temperature during that period. Overall the analysis suggests a change in CP ENSO and associated water vapor feedback plays a very important role in regulating global temperature behavior since 1976 that also includes ‘Hiatus’ period. It identified the signal of natural origin is different to that from CO2 led anthropogenic linear influence. Interestingly, models suggest a failure to detect such signals, which provides explanations for the long-standing puzzle of global warming hiatus.

My Summary:  Warmists are picking on the wrong molecule.  CO2 is plant food, H2O makes the climate.

Background from Previous post: On Solar and Climate Variability

One of the great disputes in climate research is between those (IPCC) who dismiss solar cycles as a factor in climate change and those who see correlations in the past and keep seeking to understand the mechanisms. To be clear, there is considerable agreement that earth’s atmosphere can and does reduce or increase the amount of incoming solar energy (albedo effect), thereby contributing to surface warming or cooling. The science and research into the “global dimming and brightening” is discussed in the post Nature’s Sunscreen.

The above image of the eclipse is intended to remind us that humans down through history have been terrified of the sun going dark because they knew intuitively that no sun means no life. A more modern and sophisticated concern is that even slightly falling energy from the sun brings cooling, ice and death.  Quite apart from the sunscreen, this post is focused a different matter, namely that changes in the sun’s output radiation cause changes in earth climate parameters. One theory of such a mechanism is espoused by Henrik Svensmark and concerns solar particles effect upon albedo. That line of research is discussed in the post The Cosmoclimatology theory

A different investigation has been advanced by Dr.Indrani Roy, her most recent publication this month being a book Climate Variability and Sunspot Activity Analysis of the Solar Influence on Climate (H/T NoTricksZone).

The book is behind a paywall, but the abstract and chapter headings indicate a comprehensive approach.

Overview Climate Variability and Sunspot Activity (2018)

This book promotes a better understanding of the role of the sun on natural climate variability. It is a comprehensive reference book that appeals to an academic audience at the graduate, post-graduate and PhD level and can be used for lectures in climatology, environmental studies and geography.

This work is the collection of lecture notes as well as synthesized analyses of published papers on the described subjects. It comprises 18 chapters and is divided into three parts: Part I discusses general circulation, climate variability, stratosphere-troposphere coupling and various teleconnections. Part II mainly explores the area of different solar influences on climate. It also discusses various oceanic features and describes ocean-atmosphere coupling. But, without prior knowledge of other important influences on the earth’s climate, the understanding of the actual role of the sun remains incomplete. Hence, Part III covers burning issues such as greenhouse gas warming, volcanic influences, ozone depletion in the stratosphere, Arctic and Antarctic sea ice, etc. At the end of the book, there are few questions and exercises for students. This book is based on the lecture series that was delivered at the University of Oulu, Finland as part of M.Sc./ PhD module.

Chapter Titles

• Climatology and General Circulation
• Major Modes of Variability
• Stratosphere-Troposphere Coupling
• Teleconnection Among Various Modes
• Solar Influence Around Various Places: Robust Solar Signal on Climate
• Total Solar Irradiance (TSI): Measurements and Reconstructions
• Atmosphere-Ocean Coupling and Solar Variability
• Ocean Coupling
• The Sun and ENSO Connection–Contradictions and Reconciliations
• A Debate: The Sun and the QBO
• Solar Influence: ‘Top Down’ vs. ‘Bottom Up’
• An Overview of Solar Influence on Climate
• Other Major Influences on Climate
• Sun: Atmosphere-Ocean Coupling – Possible Limitations
• The Arctic and Antarctic Sea Ice
• CMIP5 Project and Some Results
• Green House Gas Warming
• Volcanic Influences
• Ozone Depletion in the Stratosphere
• Influence of Various Other Solar Outputs

To better appreciate Roy’s viewpoint, two of her previous publications provide the evidence and analytical thought behind her conclusions.  Published in 2010 with J.D. Haigh was Solar cycle signals in sea level pressure and sea surface temperature  Excerpts in italics with my bolds.

Summary of SLP and SST signals

We identify solar cycle signals in the North Pacific in 155 years of sea level pressure and sea surface temperature data. In SLP we find in the North Pacific a weakening of the Aleutian Low and a northward shift of the Hawaiian High in response to higher solar activity, confirming the results of previous authors using different techniques. We also find a broad reduction in pressure across the equatorial region but not the negative anomaly in the sub-tropics detected by vL07. In SST we identify the warmer and cooler regions in the North Pacific found by vL07 but instead of the strong Cold Event-like signal in tropical SSTs we detect a weak WE-like pattern in the 155 year dataset.

We find that the peak SSN years of the solar cycles have often coincided with the negative phase of ENSO so that analyses, such as that of vL07, based on composites of peak SSN years find a La Nina response. As the date of peak annual SSN generally falls a year or more in advance of the broader maximum of the 11-year solar cycle it follows that the peak of the DSO is likely to be associated with an El Nino-like pattern, as seen by White et al. (1997). An El Nino pattern is clearly portrayed in our regression analysis using only data from second half of the last century, but inclusion of ENSO as an independent regression index results in a significant diminution of the solar signal in tropical SST, showing further how an ENSO signal might be interpreted as due to the Sun.

Any mechanisms proposed to explain a solar influence should be consistent with the full length of the dataset, unless there are reasons to think otherwise, and analyses which incorporate data from all years, rather than selecting only those of peak SSN, represent more coherently the difference between periods of high and low solar activity on these timescales.

The SLP signal in mid-latitudes varies in phase with solar activity, and does not show the same modulation by ENSO phase as tropical SST, suggesting that the solar influence here is not driven by coupled-atmosphere-ocean effects but possibly by the impact of changes in the stratosphere resulting in expansion of the Hadley cell and poleward shift of the subtropical jets (Haigh et al., 2005). Given that climate model results in terms of tropical Pacific SST can be dependent on different ENSO variability within the models, our analysis indicates that the robustness of any proposed mechanism of the response to variations in solar irradiance needs to be analyzed in the context of ENSO variability where timing plays a crucial role.

Comment on Dr. Roy’s Methodology

It is challenging to grasp this approach and results because she respects the complexity of solar and climate dynamics.  For starters, she is not mining climate data in search of 11 year periodicities as others have done.  Dr. Roy takes the dates of observed SSN maxima and minima and compares with repeated effects in climate measurements.  Many readers will know that solar cycles are only quasi-11 years long; there is considerable irregularity.

Even more importantly, SSN do not peak midway in the cycle, but can appear early on and show additional peak(s) afterward. She defines minima and maxima in terms of SSN significantly lower or higher than the mean.  So Roy’s analysis is not simplistic, but correlates all years in the datasets comparing SSN with climate measures.

Dr. Roy also diligently analyzes confounding factors such as oceanic circulations and the influence of previous years upon succeeding years (system momentum).  For example, the above study discussed solar influence on Pacific SST and SLP.  This is presented in the following image:

Importantly, the analysis shows little to no solar influence upon the ENSO 3.4 ocean sector, but as the graph above shows the effect is much broader. Roy concludes that ENSO operates mostly independently of solar influence. Even more striking is the result for NH winter, showing solar minima associated with generally warmer SST and maxima generally cooler. Dr. Roy explains the solar influence in terms of two separate processes.  Bottom up is fluctuations in SSTs while top-down is UV effects upon the stratosphere extending downward expressed in SLP differentials.

For a discussion of the solar/climate mechanism there is  Solar cyclic variability can modulate winter Arctic climate by Indrani Roy  Scientific Reportsvolume 8, Article number: 4864 (2018). Excerpts in italics with my bolds.

Abstract

This study investigates the role of the eleven-year solar cycle on the Arctic climate during 1979–2016. It reveals that during those years, when the winter solar sunspot number (SSN) falls below 1.35 standard deviations (or mean value), the Arctic warming extends from the lower troposphere to high up in the upper stratosphere and vice versa when SSN is above. The warming in the atmospheric column reflects an easterly zonal wind anomaly consistent with warm air and positive geopotential height anomalies for years with minimum SSN and vice versa for the maximum. Despite the inherent limitations of statistical techniques, three different methods – Compositing, Multiple Linear Regression and Correlation – all point to a similar modulating influence of the sun on winter Arctic climate via the pathway of Arctic Oscillation. Presenting schematics, it discusses the mechanisms of how solar cycle variability influences the Arctic climate involving the stratospheric route. Compositing also detects an opposite solar signature on Eurasian snow-cover, which is a cooling during Minimum years, while warming in maximum. It is hypothesized that the reduction of ice in the Arctic and a growth in Eurasia, in recent winters, may in part, be a result of the current weaker solar cycle.

Results

In summary, for solar Min years, the warm air column is associated with positive geopotential height anomalies and an easterly wind, which reverses during Max years. Such NAM feature is clearly evident supporting the hypothesis of communicating a solar signal to Arctic via winter NAM (North Annular Mode).

Above: Mechanism to describe the stratospheric pathway for solar cycle variability to influence the Arctic climate. Mechanisms for (a) discuss a route where perturbation in the upper stratospheric polar vortex is transported downwards and impacts the Arctic on a seasonal scale via the winter NAM (flowchart is presented on the right). Mechanisms for (b) discusses the route that involves upper stratospheric polar vortex, tropical lower stratosphere, Brewer-Dobson circulation and Ferrel cell (flowchart is presented to the left). It is created using images or clip art available from Powerpoint.

During DJF, Arctic sea ice extent suggests a strong correlation with SSN (99% significant) and even with AOD (95% significant) (Table 3a). SSN is also found to be strongly correlated with AO (95% significant). Figure 8a shows that significant correlation between Arctic sea ice extent and SSN is still present in other seasons as well. However, the correlation between SSN and AO is only significant in DJF, confirming that the possible route of solar influence on winter Arctic sea ice is via the AO. On the other hand, the influence of AO on Arctic sea ice extent is not present during winter. It is strongest during JJA, though fails to exceed a significant threshold of 95% level.

In terms of oceanic longer-term variability, here we particularly focus on the AMO and find a strong connection between sea ice and AMO in winter, agreeing with previous studies45,46. Earlier discussions suggested that there are few differences in region A and B relating to trend (Figs S6 and S7), but correlation technique indicated a very strong anti-correlation between the winter AMO index and sea ice in all regions of our considerations (Fig. 8b)). Even using two different data sources (HadSST and ERSST) we arrive at similar results, and it is also true for overall sea ice extent. It could also be possible that, in region B, due to a strong presence of AO influence of the sun, it may mask some of the influence of the longer-term trend (seen in Fig. 2) to suggest a lesser trend, as also noted in Figs S6 and S7.

This Matters As We Reach Solar Minimum for Cycle 24

The latest observations show this solar cycle is over, perhaps the next one beginning.  With no sunspots seen since June, this is unusually quiet.

The solar surface at the moment is “Spotless” and has been for a month.

Summary

The sun is the primary source of energy in the earth/atmosphere system, but the actual role of the sun and related mechanisms to support varied regional climate responses and its seasonality around the world, are still poorly understood. Solar energy output varies in cycles, of which the 11-year cyclic variability is one of the most crucial ones. It causes differences in the amount of solar energy absorbed in the UV part of the spectrum within the upper stratosphere, varying from 6 to 8%. Such variation is believed to be one of the most important solar energy outputs to influence the climate of the earth and that knowledge of cyclic behaviour can also be used for future prediction purposes. Apart from solar UV related effects on earth’s climate, studies also identified effects related to solar particle precipitation.

Various studies have also detected an influence of the El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO)22 and the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) on Arctic sea ice. An association between the sun and ENSO are discussed in various research. Because of related complexities along with various linear and nonlinear couplings among major modes of variability, the role of the sun on Arctic air temperatures and sea ice extent and related mechanisms remains poorly understood/explored.

While many studies point to anthropogenic influences on the long-term sea ice decline, this study is motivated by the potential links between the sun and the surface climate through stratospheric processes. Alongside warming in the Arctic, a cooling is noticed around Eurasian sector despite continuing rise of greenhouse gas concentrations. Various modelling groups, however, made unsuccessful efforts to detect an association between Eurasian cooling and Arctic sea-ice decline. In this work, we evaluate the impact of the solar 11-year cycle, measured in terms of solar sunspot number (SSN), as a driving factor to modulate Arctic and surrounding climate. The influences of SSN on various surface parameters, such as Sea Level Pressure (SLP), Sea Surface Temperature (SST), and the polar stratosphere are well recognised. If there is indeed a link between the solar cycle and Arctic climate, it is possible that the 11-year solar cycle can be used to improve seasonal and decadal predictions of sea ice.  In the present study, we use a combination of observational and reanalysis datasets to uncover relationships between the sun’s variability and Arctic surface climate, via the modulation of NAM and downward propagation of anomaly from upper stratospheric winter polar vortex.

Our result suggests the latest rapid decline of sea ice around the Arctic in the recent winter decade/season could also have contributions from the current weaker solar cycle. The last 14 years are dominated by solar Min years and have only one Max. This is unlike other previous years, where the number of Max and Min years were evenly distributed (five each). The cumulative effect from the past 13 solar Min years could have played a role in the current record decline of the last winter, 2017. The current weaker solar cycle may also have contributions on increase in winter snow cover around the Eurasian sector.

Presenting schematics and flowcharts, we discussed mechanisms of how solar cycle variability influences Arctic climate. In the first route, perturbation in the upper stratospheric polar vortex is transported downwards and modulates the Arctic in a seasonal scale via the winter NAM. Another route was shown, which could involve upper stratospheric polar vortex, tropical lower stratosphere, Brewer-Dobson circulation and Ferrel cell. It could also reinforce the findings of the ‘Solar Max (Min) – cold (warm) Arctic’ scenario.

 

 

Earth’s “Big Freeze” Looms As Sun Remains Devoid Of Sunspots For Most Of 2018 is an article from Zero Hedge. Excerpts in italics.

 

Scientists are reporting that the sun has been free of sunspots for a total of 133 days this year, according to The Express UK. With only 241 days of 2018 passing, that means the sun has been blank for the majority of the year. Experts continue to warn that this is a sign that the solar minimum is on its way.

“The sun is spotless again. For the 133rd day this year, the face of the sun is blank,” wrote the website Space Weather.

“Solar minimum has returned, bringing extra cosmic rays, long-lasting holes in the sun’s atmosphere, and strangely pink auroras,” the website continued.

The sun follows a cycle of roughly 11 years where it reaches a solar maximum and then a solar minimum.

During a solar maximum, the sun gives off more heat and solar particles and is littered with sunspots. Less heat in a solar minimum is due to a decrease in the sun’s magnetic waves. Our sun was not expected to head into a solar minimum until around 2020, but it appears to be heading in that direction a little early which could prove to be bad news for warm weather lovers.

 

But a prolonged solar minimum could mean a “mini ice age.” The last time there was a prolonged solar minimum, it did, in fact, lead to a mini ice-age which was scientifically known as the Maunder minimum. That little cold snap lasted for 70 years between the years 1645 and 1715. During this period, temperatures dropped globally by 1.3 degrees Celsius leading to shorter seasons and ultimately food shortages.

“Low solar activity is known to have consequences on Earth’s weather and climate and it also is well correlated with an increase in cosmic rays that reach the upper part of the atmosphere. The blank sun is a sign that the next solar minimum is approaching and there will be an increasing number of spotless days over the next few years,” wrote a meteorological website called Vencore Weather.

Hot, Hot, Hot.  You will have noticed that the term “climate change” is now synonymous with “summer”.  Since the northern hemisphere is where most of the world’s land, people and media are located, two typical summer months (June was not so hot) have been depicted as the fires of hell awaiting any and all who benefit from fossil fuels. If you were wondering what the media would do in the absence of hurricanes to heap upon our heads, you are getting the answer.

Fortunately, Autumn is on the way and already bringing cooler evenings in Montreal where I live. Once again open windows provide fresh air for sleeping, and mornings are starting to show condensation. This year’s period of “climate change” is winding down.  Unless of course, we get some hurricanes the next two months.  Below is a repost of seasonal changes in temperature and climate for those who may have been misled by the media reports of a forever hotter future.

Autumnal Climate Change

Seeing a lot more of this lately, along with hearing the geese  honking. And in the next month or so, we expect that trees around here will lose their leaves. It definitely is climate change of the seasonal variety.

Interestingly, the science on this is settled: It is all due to reduction of solar energy because of the shorter length of days (LOD). The trees drop their leaves and go dormant because of less sunlight, not because of lower temperatures. The latter is an effect, not the cause.

Of course, the farther north you go, the more remarkable the seasonal climate change. St. Petersburg, Russia has their balmy “White Nights” in June when twilight is as dark as it gets, followed by the cold, dark winter and a chance to see the Northern Lights.

And as we have been monitoring, the Arctic ice has been melting from sunlight in recent months, but will soon begin to build again in the darkness to its maximum in March.

We can also expect in January and February for another migration of millions of Canadians (nicknamed “snowbirds”) to fly south in search of a summer-like climate to renew their memories and hopes. As was said to me by one man in Saskatchewan (part of the Canadian wheat breadbasket region): “Around here we have Triple-A farmers: April to August, and then Arizona.” Here’s what he was talking about: Quartzsite Arizona annually hosts 1.5M visitors, mostly between November and March.

Of course, this is just North America. Similar migrations occur in Europe, and in the Southern Hemisphere, the climates are changing in the opposite direction, Springtime currently. Since it is so obviously the sun causing this seasonal change, the question arises: Does the sunlight vary on longer than annual timescales?

The Solar-Climate Debate

And therein lies a great, enduring controversy between those (like the IPCC) who dismiss the sun as a driver of multi-Decadal climate change, and those who see a connection between solar cycles and Earth’s climate history. One side can be accused of ignoring the sun because of a prior commitment to CO2 as the climate “control knob”.

The other side is repeatedly denounced as “cyclomaniacs” in search of curve-fitting patterns to prove one or another thesis. It is also argued that a claim of 60-year cycles can not be validated with only 150 years or so of reliable data. That point has weight, but it is usually made by those on the CO2 bandwagon despite temperature and CO2 trends correlating for only 2 decades during the last century.

One scientist in this field is Nicola Scafetta, who presents the basic concept this way:

“The theory is very simple in words. The solar system is characterized by a set of specific gravitational oscillations due to the fact that the planets are moving around the sun. Everything in the solar system tends to synchronize to these frequencies beginning with the sun itself. The oscillating sun then causes equivalent cycles in the climate system. Also the moon acts on the climate system with its own harmonics. In conclusion we have a climate system that is mostly made of a set of complex cycles that mirror astronomical cycles. Consequently it is possible to use these harmonics to both approximately hindcast and forecast the harmonic component of the climate, at least on a global scale. This theory is supported by strong empirical evidences using the available solar and climatic data.”

He goes on to say:

“The global surface temperature record appears to be made of natural specific oscillations with a likely solar/astronomical origin plus a noncyclical anthropogenic contribution during the last decades. Indeed, because the boundary condition of the climate system is regulated also by astronomical harmonic forcings, the astronomical frequencies need to be part of the climate signal in the same way the tidal oscillations are regulated by soli-lunar harmonics.”

He has concluded that “at least 60% of the warming of the Earth observed since 1970 appears to be induced by natural cycles which are present in the solar system.” For the near future he predicts a stabilization of global temperature and cooling until 2030-2040.

For more see Scafetta vs. IPCC: Dueling Climate Theories

A Deeper, but Accessible Presentation of Solar-Climate Theory

I have found this presentation by Ian Wilson to be persuasive while honestly considering all of the complexities involved.

The author raises the question: What if there is a third factor that not only drives the variations in solar activity that we see on the Sun but also drives the changes that we see in climate here on the Earth?

The linked article is quite readable by a general audience, and comes to a similar conclusion as Scafetta above: There is a connection, but it is not simple cause and effect. And yes, length of day (LOD) is a factor beyond the annual cycle.

Click to access IanwilsonForum2008.pdf

It is fair to say that we are still at the theorizing stage of understanding a solar connection to earth’s climate. And at this stage, investigators look for correlations in the data and propose theories (explanations) for what mechanisms are at work. Interestingly, despite the lack of interest from the IPCC, solar and climate variability is a very active research field these days.

For example Svensmark has now a Cosmosclimatology theory supported by empirical studies described in more detail in the red link.

A summary of recent studies is provided at NoTricksZone: Since 2014, 400 Scientific Papers Affirm A Strong Sun-Climate Link

Ian Wilson has much more to say at his blog: http://astroclimateconnection.blogspot.com.au/

Once again, it appears that the world is more complicated than a simple cause and effect model suggests.

Fluctuations in observed global temperatures can be explained by a combination of oceanic and solar cycles.  See engineering analysis from first principles Quantifying Natural Climate Change.

For everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven.

What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun.
(Ecclesiastes 3:1 and 1:9)

Footnote:

 

 

An insightful straight-forward interview with Dr. John Christy published today at yellowhammernews  Alabama’s state climatologist John Christy rebuts claims of recent fires, heat waves being caused by human activity (H/T Climate Depot) Excerpts in italics with my bolds.

There is one particular word that Dr. John Christy turns to frequently for describing climate science: murky.

It’s a point of view foundational to his own research, and a message underpinning each of his twenty appearances before various congressional committees.

“It’s encouraging because they wouldn’t invite you back unless your message was compelling and not only compelling, but accurate,” Christy, Alabama’s state climatologist, told Yellowhammer News in an interview.

Christy, whose day job involves doing research and teaching as the Distinguished Professor of Atmospheric Science at the University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH), has gained notoriety over the years for dissenting from mainstream climate scientists and policymakers who argue that climate change is anthropogenic, or man-made, and that something must be done to stop it.

A “working-stiff” scientist

Dissent has gained for Christy the characterization as a “climate change skeptic” or “denier,” as critics refer to him, but he himself rejects those terms.

“I’m a working-stiff atmospheric scientist,” he said, “as opposed to those who support modeling efforts, those who use data sets that other people create and analyze them, but they don’t build them themselves.”

According to Christy, the result of fewer “working-stiff” scientists contributing to the prevailing climate debate is more frequent misuses of data.

“They’re not aware of what goes into it,” Christy said, referring to the data.

“Here we have a science that’s so dominated by personalities that claim the science is settled, yet when you walk up to them and say prove it, they can’t,” he said.

Christy spoke at length about what can be proven and what cannot in his self-described “murky” field, referring often to principles of the scientific method.

“You cannot prove extra greenhouse gases have done anything to the weather,” he said, responding to claims made by many scientists that more greenhouse gases have caused extreme weather patterns to intensify.

“We do not have an experiment that we can repeat and do,” he said.

Christy outlined another problem with attempts to implicate greenhouse gases: a failure to account for things countering trapping effects.

“We know that the extra greenhouse gases should warm the planet,” he said. “The weak part of that theory though is that when you add more greenhouse gases that trap heat, things happen that let it escape as well, and so not as much is trapped as climate models show.”

Economics of climate policy

Though his scientific arguments are primary, Christy also frequently discusses in interviews and testimonies the economic consequences of proposed climate change mitigation policy via carbon reduction.

“Every single person uses energy, carbon energy, and relies on carbon-based energy,” Christy said. “None of our medical advances, none of our technological advances, none of our progress would have happened in the last hundred years without energy derived from carbon.”

Christy contrasts that reality within the modern, developed world with the world he saw working as a missionary teacher in impoverished Africa during the 1970s.

“The energy source was wood chopped from the forest, the energy transmission system was the backs of women and girls hauling wood an average of three miles each day, the energy use system was burning the wood in an open fire indoors for heat and light,” Christy told members of the House Committee on Energy in 2006.

Broad availability to affordable energy enriches countries, Christy said, praising carbon.

“It is not evil. It is the stuff of life. It is plant food,” he said.

What about the fires and heat waves?

According to the National Interagency Fire Center, fires were burning in fifteen states as of Tuesday, August 14.

Alaska reported seventeen fires, Arizona reported eleven, both Oregon and Colorado reported ten, and California reported nine.

Much of the news media’s discussion about these fires over the past few weeks has established a correlation between the many fires and anthropogenic climate change, a correlation that Dr. Christy rejects.

Christy argues that exacerbating fires out west, particularly in California, results from human mismanagement. Such states have enacted strict management practices that disallow low-level fires from burning, he said.

“If you don’t let the low-intensity fires burn, that fuel builds up year after year,” Christy said. “Now once a fire gets going and it gets going enough, it has so much fuel that we can’t put it out.”

“In that sense, you could say that fires today are more intense, but it’s because of human management practices, not because mother nature has done something,” Christy said.

Data from the Fire Center indicates that the number of wildfires have been decreasing since the 1970s overall, though acreage burned has increased significantly.

As for the heat, Christy said there’s nothing abnormal going on in the United States.

“Heat waves have always happened,” he said. “Our most serious heatwaves were in the 1930’s. We have not matched those at all.”

Christy continued, “It is only a perception that is being built by the media that these are dramatic worst-ever heat wave kind of things but when we look at the numbers, and all science is numbers, we find that there were periods that were hotter, hotter for longer periods in the past, so it’s very hard to say that this was influenced by human effects when you go back before there could have been human effects and there’s the same or worse kind of events.”

Though Christy didn’t deny that the last three years have been the hottest ever recorded globally, he doesn’t concede that the changes are attributable to anything other than climate’s usual and historical erraticism.

@jeremywbeaman is a contributing writer for Yellowhammer News

Iowa trivia: Refrain from Iowa Corn Song: “We’re from I-o-way, I-o-way, That’s where the tall corn grows.” Athletic teams that represent Iowa State University are called the “Cyclones,” after the devastating 1895 storms, the most extreme weather in state history. My mother was born and raised near Cedar Rapids, IA.

Today a website in Iowa reblogged my post Who to Blame for Rising CO2?  Returning the favor I draw your attention to a concise, comprehensive and reasonable statement of their climate perspective.  The website is Iowa Climate Science Education (Red title is link).  Excerpts below from their position statement in italics with my bolds.

Scientists disagree about the causes and consequences of climate for several reasons. Climate is an interdisciplinary subject requiring insights from many fields. Very few scholars have mastery of more than one or two of these disciplines. Fundamental uncertainties arise from insufficient observational evidence and disagreements over how to interpret data and how to set the parameters of models. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), created to find and disseminate research finding a human impact on global climate, is not a credible source. It is agenda-driven, a political rather than scientific body, and some allege it is corrupt. Finally, climate scientists, like all humans, can be biased. Origins of bias include careerism, grant-seeking, political views, and confirmation bias.

Probably the only “consensus” among climate scientists is that human activities can have an effect on local climate and that the sum of such local effects could hypothetically rise to the level of an observable global signal. The key questions to be answered, however, are whether the human global signal is large enough to be measured and if it is, does it represent, or is it likely to become, a dangerous change outside the range of natural variability? On these questions, an energetic scientific debate is taking place on the pages of peer-reviewed science journals.

In contradiction of the scientific method, IPCC assumes its implicit hypothesis – that dangerous global warming is resulting, or will result, from human-related greenhouse gas emissions – is correct and that its only duty is to collect evidence and make plausible arguments in the hypothesis’s favor. It simply ignores the alternative and null hypothesis, amply supported by empirical research, that currently observed changes in global climate indices and the physical environment are the result of natural variability.

The results of the global climate models (GCMs) relied on by IPCC are only as reliable as the data and theories “fed” into them. Most climate scientists agree those data are seriously deficient and IPCC’s estimate for climate sensitivity to CO2 is too high. We estimate a doubling of CO2 from pre-industrial levels (from 280 to 560 ppm) would likely produce a temperature forcing of 3.7 Wm-2 in the lower atmosphere, for about ~1°C of prima facie warming. The recently quiet Sun and extrapolation of solar cycle patterns into the future suggest a planetary cooling may occur over the next few decades.

In a similar fashion, all five of IPCC’s postulates, or assumptions, are readily refuted by real-world observations, and all five of IPCC’s claims relying on circumstantial evidence are refutable. For example, in contrast to IPCC’s alarmism, we find neither the rate nor the magnitude of the reported late twentieth century surface warming (1979–2000) lay outside normal natural variability, nor was it in any way unusual compared to earlier episodes in Earth’s climatic history. In any case, such evidence cannot be invoked to “prove” a hypothesis, but only to disprove one. IPCC has failed to refute the null hypothesis that currently observed changes in global climate indices and the physical environment are the result of natural variability.

Rather than rely exclusively on IPCC for scientific advice, policymakers should seek out advice from independent, nongovernment organizations and scientists who are free of financial and political conflicts of interest. Our conclusion, drawn from its extensive review of the scientific evidence, is that any human global climate impact is within the background variability of the natural climate system and is not dangerous. In the face of such facts, the most prudent climate policy is to prepare for and adapt to extreme climate events and changes regardless of their origin. Adaptive planning for future hazardous climate events and change should be tailored to provide responses to the known rates, magnitudes, and risks of natural change. Once in place, these same plans will provide an adequate response to any human-caused change that may or may not
emerge.

Policymakers should resist pressure from lobby groups to silence scientists who question the authority of IPCC to claim to speak for “climate science.” The distinguished British biologist Conrad Waddington wrote in 1941,

“It is important that scientists must be ready for their pet theories to turn out to be wrong. Science as a whole certainly cannot allow its judgment about facts to be distorted by ideas of what ought to be true, or what one may hope to be true.” (Waddington, 1941).

This prescient statement merits careful examination by those who continue to assert the fashionable belief, in the face of strong empirical evidence to the contrary, that human CO2 emissions are going to cause dangerous global warming.

Reference
Waddington, C.H. 1941. The Scientific Attitude. London, UK: Penguin Books.

 

 

National Geographic Coldest Place on Earth Found—Here’s How
“It’s a place where Earth is so close to its limit, it’s almost like another planet.”

Just how cold can it get on Earth’s surface? About minus 144°F, according to recent satellite measurements of the coldest known place on the planet.

Scientists recorded this extreme temperature on the ice sheet deep in the middle of Antarctica during the long, dark polar winter. As they report this week in Geophysical Research Letters, the team thinks this is about as cold as it can possibly get in our corner of the solar system.

“It’s a place where Earth is so close to its limit, it’s almost like another planet,” says study leader Ted Scambos, a researcher at the National Snow and Ice Data Center at the University of Colorado, Boulder.

The measurement smashes the previous record for the coldest known air temperature in the natural world: a frigid minus 128.6°F felt in 1983 at the Russian Vostok Station, not far from the South Pole. Humans can’t inhale air that cold for more than a few breaths—it would cause our lungs to hemorrhage. Russian scientists ducking out to check on the weather station would wear masks that warmed the air before they breathed it in.

DEATHLY HOLLOWS
While the East Antarctic ice sheet looks flat at the surface, it actually domes ever so slightly from center to edge like a vast, icy turtle shell. Vostok is perched near the top of the dome, on about 2.2 miles of ice, but it’s not quite at the apex. Scambos’s team suspected that it could get even colder at the very highest parts of the ice sheet.

There aren’t any weather stations perched at the peak of the ice sheet, and there isn’t anyone there to check on them in the dead of Antarctic winter. But satellites can sense the temperature at the surface of the ice as they pass overhead. So Scambos and his colleagues sifted through several years of satellite data, mapping out when and where temperatures dipped low.

Sure enough, they found about a hundred little pockets of exceptional cold scattered across the highest parts of the ice sheet. The coldest spots were in shallow depressions in the ice, little hollows where the surface isn’t perfectly smooth. That’s probably because cold air sinks into these depressions like it sinks into a river valley or a canyon, says John Turner, a polar scientist with the British Antarctic Survey who was not involved in the study.

“They’re such shallow dips, you probably couldn’t even see them with your eyes,” he says.

The air warms up by a few degrees right above the surface, which is where the scientists at Vostok had recorded the previous coldest temperature. By comparing the satellite measurements to data from the nearest weather stations, Scambos and his team figured out that the air temperatures in this region would be a little warmer near human-head height, about minus 137°F. But right at the surface, where your feet would touch the snow, they saw temperatures of minus 144°F.

“But you hope your feet wouldn’t ever touch the snow,” Scambos says. “That would not be fun at all.”

OBSCURING THE VIEW
Only very special conditions lead to such extreme cold. First, it has to be the dead of winter, long after the midnight sun sets for the season. Then, the air needs to be still for a few days, and the sky needs to be perfectly clear, without a wisp of a cloud or a shimmer of diamond dust above the ice sheet.

As cold as it may be, ice radiates a tiny amount of heat. Normally, most of that heat is captured by water vapor in the atmosphere and gets beamed back down to Earth’s surface, trapping warmth in the lower atmosphere.

But during dry spells in Antarctica, when most of the water vapor has been wrung out of the atmosphere, “it starts to open a window that isn’t usually open anywhere else on Earth,” Scambos says. Then, faint heat emitted by the ice sheet can escape all the way to space, leaving the ice surface even colder.

The ultra-clear conditions that enable these chilly events are also ideal for looking out into space, which is why scientists placed a telescope just a few miles from the extreme cold spots Scambos’ team pinpointed.

“Water vapor is our nemesis,” says Craig Kulesa, an astronomer from the University of Arizona who runs the High Elevation Antarctic Terahertz Telescope, or, somewhat satirically, HEAT. “We put our telescope at this superbly dry site, but if we put it 10 miles away, would it be any better?”

It may be a question worth considering as the climate changes around the globe, though there’s nowhere else on this planet they could go where conditions would be better. Water vapor concentrations in the atmosphere are increasing, which in turn means more of the ice-emitted heat gets trapped near the surface—keeping it warmer. So, the perfectly clear conditions that are ideal for looking into space will become less frequent—and any scientists hoping to break the record for sensing extreme cold on Earth may be running out of time.

“As we see increases in greenhouse gas and water vapor concentrations, we’re expecting warming across the Antarctic of about 3 to 4°C,” says Turner. “Seeing any new temperature lows will be more and more unlikely. The odds are just getting smaller.”

 

Fundamental questions and unknowns concerning natural climate change are presented in this 2007 essay Challenges to Our Understanding of the General Circulation: Abrupt Climate Change by Richard Seager and David S. Battisti. Excerpts in italics with my bolds.

The abrupt climate changes that occurred during the last glaciation and deglaciation are mind boggling both in terms of rapidity and magnitude. That winters in the British Isles could switch between mild, wet ones very similar to today and ones in which winter temperatures dropped to as much as 20◦C below freezing, and do so in years to decades, is simply astounding. No state-of-the-art climate model, of the kind used to project future climate change within the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change process, has ever produced a climate change like this.

The problem for dynamicists working in this area is that the period of instrumental observations, and model simulations of that period, do not provide even a hint that drastic climate reorganizations can occur.  Our understanding of the general circulation is based fundamentally on this period or, more correctly, on the last 50 years of it, a time of gradual climate change or, at best, more rapid changes of modest amplitude. So it is not surprising that our encyclopedia of knowledge of the general circulations contains many ideas of negative feedbacks between circulation features that may help explain climate variability but also stabilize the climate (Bjerknes 1964; Hazeleger et al. 2005; Shaffrey and Sutton 2004). The modern period has not been propitious for studying how the climate can run away to a new state. Because of this, our understanding has to be limited

The normal explanation of how such changes occurred is that deepwater formation in the Nordic Seas abruptly ceased or resumed forcing a change in ocean heat flux convergence and changes in sea ice. However, coupled GCMs only produce such rapid cessations in response to unrealistically large freshwater forcing and have not so far produced a rapid resumption.

The discussions of the spatial extent of abrupt climate changes in glacial times and during the last deglaciation should make it clear that the causes must be found in changes in the general circulations of the global, as opposed to regional, atmosphere and ocean circulation. The idea that the THC changes and directly impacts a small area of the globe, and that somehow most of the rest of the world piggy-backs along in a rather systematic and reliable way seems dubious.

Thus the problems posed by abrupt change in the North Atlantic region are:
1. How could sea ice extend so far south in winter during the stadials?
2. How, during the spring and summer of stadials, can there be such an enormous influx of heat as to melt the ice and warm the water below by close to 10◦C? If 50 m of water needs to be warmed up by this much in four months, it would take an average net surface heat flux of 150 Wm−2, more than twice the current average between early spring and midsummer and more than can be accounted for by any increase in summer solar irradiance (as during the Younger Dryas).
3. How can this stadial state of drastic seasonality abruptly shift into one similar to that of today with a highly maritime climate in western Europe? Remember that both states can exist in the presence of large ice sheets over North America and Scandinavia.

In thinking of ways to reduce the winter convergence of heat into the mid and high-latitude North Atlantic, we might begin with the storm tracks and mean atmosphere circulation. The Atlantic storm track and jet stream have a clear southwest-to-northeast trajectory, whereas the Pacific ones are more zonal over most of their longitudinal reach (Hoskins and Valdes 1990). If the Atlantic storm track and jet could be induced to take a more zonal track, akin to its Pacific cousin, the North Atlantic would cool.

Here we have argued that the abrupt changes must involve more than changes in the North Atlantic Ocean circulation. In particular it is argued that the degree of winter cooling around the North Atlantic must be caused by a substantial change in the atmospheric circulation involving a great reduction of atmospheric heat transport into the region. Such a change could, possibly, be due to a switch to a regime of nearly zonal wind flow across the Atlantic, denying western Europe the warm advection within stationary waves that is the fundamental reason for why Europe’s winters are currently so mild. Such a change in wind regime would, presumably, also cause a change in the North Atlantic Ocean circulation as the poleward flow of warm, salty waters from the tropics into the Nordic Seas is diverted south by the change in wind stress curl. This would impact the location and strength of deep water formation and allow sea ice to expand south.

Recent Wind Research

A decade later we have further insight into the role of winds in climate change by means  of a paper discussed in this Futurity article Wind shifts may explain Europe’s ‘weird’ winters  Excerpts in italics with my bolds.

In the mid-1990s, scientists assembled the first century-long record of North Atlantic sea surface temperatures and quickly discovered a cycle of heating and cooling at the surface of the ocean. Each of these phases lasted for decades, even as temperatures warmed overall during the course of the century. Since this discovery, these fluctuations in ocean temperature have been linked to all manner of Northern Hemisphere climate disturbances, from Sahel drought to North Atlantic hurricanes.

Research also linked European climate variability to the temperature swings of its neighboring ocean in the spring, summer, and fall. Surprisingly, however, no imprint of the ocean’s variability could be found in Western Europe’s wintertime temperature record. This absence was especially puzzling in light of the fact that Europe’s mild winters are a direct consequence of its enviable location downwind of the North Atlantic.

Now, a study by researchers at McGill University and the University of Rhode Island suggests the answer to this puzzle lies in the winds themselves. The fluctuations in ocean temperature are accompanied by shifts in the winds. These wind shifts mean that air arrives in Western Europe via very different pathways in decades when the surface of the North Atlantic is warm, compared to decades when it is cool.

The researchers studied the winds and their interaction with the ocean in a recently developed reconstruction of 20th-century climate. Their main approach was to launch virtual particles into the winds, and trace their journey for ten key days leading up to their arrival in Western Europe. They repeated this procedure using the wind field for each winter of the last 72 years, a period for which the winds of the North Atlantic have already been carefully documented and validated.

The new research reveals that in decades in which North Atlantic sea surface temperatures are elevated, winds deliver air to Europe disproportionately from the north.

In contrast, in decades of coolest sea surface temperature, swifter winds extract more heat from the western and central Atlantic before arriving in Europe. The researchers suggest the distinct atmospheric pathways hide the ocean oscillation from Europe in winter.

“It is often presumed that the cooler North Atlantic will quickly lead to cooling in Europe, or at least a slowdown in its rate of warming,” says Ayako Yamamoto, a PhD student at McGill University and lead author of the study. “But our research suggests that the dynamics of the atmosphere might stop this relative cooling from showing up in Europe in winter in the decades following an Atlantic cooling.”

The complete paper is The absence of an Atlantic imprint on the multidecadal variability of wintertime European temperature by Ayako Yamamoto & Jaime B. Palter Nature Communications (2016). Excerpts in italics with my bolds.

The large-scale atmospheric flow varies with the AMO index (Fig. 2b). The difference in the 500-hPa geopotential height (Z500) field, which is analogous to streamlines, shows that the direction of winds arriving in western Europe changes between the two AMO phases: winds are more northerly during the anomalous AMO-positive years, whereas they are more zonal during the AMO-negative years (Fig. 2b). The more tightly spaced isohypses during the AMO-negative years indicate a swifter flow relative to the AMO-positive years. Accordingly, the AMO-negative years see an elongated and more zonal January storm track (Supplementary Fig. 1), which is consistent with results from a free-running climate model7. Composite Z500 maps constructed with more complete sampling of the longer decadal periods associated with the AMO show similar, albeit weaker, anomaly patterns (Supplementary Fig. 2a).

In winter in the North Atlantic, SST is almost always warmer than the surface air temperature (SAT), so the ocean loses heat rapidly to the atmosphere over the entirety of the basin (that is, positive fluxes in our convention; Fig. 3b and Supplementary Fig. 3b). The fluxes over the warm Gulf Stream and its North Atlantic Current extension are generally a factor of five higher than found elsewhere. However, a view of the fluxes weighted by the fraction of time the particles spend in each location on their journey to western Europe (Fig. 3c and Supplementary Fig. 3c) suggests a reduced role of these strong flux regions in establishing western European wintertime temperature.

The difference in the number density of the particle positions between the composite AMO periods (Fig. 3d) shows a significant distinction in the preferred pathways, with the statistical significance increasing when results are separated by particles launched from northern and southern sub-regions of western Europe (Supplementary Fig. 3d). In the AMO-positive years, particles spend more of their 10-day trajectory recirculating locally to the southwest of Iceland. During the AMO-negative years, the pathways are anomalously long, and a greater number of trajectories originate from North America and the Arctic, before transiting over the Labrador Sea and mid-latitude North Atlantic.

The strengthening and lengthening of the storm track in sync with anomalously cooler North Atlantic SSTs has important implications for future climate. Given that decadal variability in North Atlantic SSTs may be driven partly by fluctuations in the strength of the AMOC10,11,12, our result suggests the possibility of a stabilizing feedback for ocean circulation: Cooler SSTs associated with a sluggish AMOC is linked with an atmospheric adjustment that enhances turbulent heat fluxes over oceanic convective regions in winter. These larger fluxes could possibly reinvigorate convection, deep water formation and the AMOC. Moreover, the observed link of the atmospheric circulation with the cool SST anomalies of the late 1970s to early 1990s is much like the predicted change of the storm track in response to a decline of the AMOC under global warming36. A weakened AMOC has long been thought to cause anomalous cooling in western Europe via a decline in oceanic heat transport and associated atmospheric feedbacks21. However, the changes we describe here in atmospheric Lagrangian trajectories and the heat fluxes along them could provide a mechanism that reduces the magnitude of European wintertime cooling on decadal time scales, even as they might stabilize the oceanic circulation.

The answer is blowin’ in the wind.  Bob Dylan