Church of Sol: The Solar Cycle's Potential Impact on Weather and Climate

wunderground.com ^ | 1/20/19 | Bob Henson

[Pontiac]

In our last post, we looked at seasonal forecasts that have long been calling for a cold late winter in the central and eastern United States based on various signals, including stratospheric warming and the El Niño/Southern Oscillation. A winter storm dubbed Harper is the first salvo in this transition. This weekend, Harper will bring very heavy snows and widespread ice across large parts of the Northeast. See weather.com for frequent updates on Harper.

There’s another player in the seasonal prediction game, and it’s one that many forecasters have long derided or dismissed: the 11-year cycle of solar activity. In recent months, sunspots have been nearly absent from the sun’s surface, indicating that a solar minimum—the end of one solar cycle and the start of the next one—is nearly at hand. We'll delve into the noteworthy weakness of the last two solar cycles (the one now ending was the weakest in a century) in a future post.

Scientists have spent centuries trying to tease out connections between the solar cycle and earthly weather. Any such links aren’t at all obvious, and with good reason. For one thing, the sun’s total energy varies by only 0.1% from solar peak to solar minimum.

“I was a complete skeptic regarding any tangible impacts of the solar cycle, from when I started here in 2000 through about 2008 or 2009,” said Todd Crawford (@tcrawf_nh), who leads The Weather Company’s seasonal prediction activities. Eventually, Crawford found himself intrigued by the fact that ultraviolet radiation varies a great deal more across the solar cycle—by as much as 10%—and that some of this UV radiation is absorbed by ozone, thus heating up the equatorial stratosphere.

At that point, said Crawford, “Things became a little more interesting to me. Then I dug into the observations, and that's when I became a true believer in the ‘Church of Sol’.”

Crawford reasoned, the north-south temperature contrasts in the stratosphere ought to be lessened because of less heating of ozone at lower latitudes. That, he reckoned, ought to favor a more variable polar vortex and a negative North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO).

A simple test helped convince Crawford: “If you pull the NAO values for the three winters centered on each of the last six solar minima (18 total values), and you compare them to the other winters, you find a statistically significant tendency for more negative NAO values during solar minimum.”

A negative NAO tends to increase the odds of cold, stormy weather over the eastern U.S. Another contributor is a strong upper-level ridge toward the west and a trough toward the east. Dubbed the positive Pacific North American (PNA) pattern, this setup is more frequent during El Niño, and also quite common overall during the last few years. “When you combine the negative NAO with the positive PNA, you get the sort of expectations that winter weather lovers in the East dream of,” Crawford said.

Only a handful of weather and climate scientists are bringing the solar cycle into their work, although that may be just starting to change. When Crawford attended a conference in September on seasonal and subseasonal prediction, “there was no in-depth discussion of the impact of the solar cycle at all, outside of my own slide deck.”

At the December meeting of the American Geophysical Union, a poster led by Robert Tomas (National Center for Atmospheric Research, or NCAR) discussed a model simulation of the last 1000 years of climate that incorporated the 11-year solar cycle. The researchers found small but statistically significant effects of the solar cycle on near-surface air temperature, precipitation, and pressure.

At the same meeting, solar physicists Robert Leamon (NASA/University of Maryland) and Scott McIntosh (NCAR) gave a poster on their ongoing work involving the termination of solar cycles, which occurs as oppositely polarized bands of magnetism work their way toward the solar equator from opposite directions. Their findings, now in publication review, suggest that a major El Niño event becomes more likely around the transition from one cycle to another (i.e., at solar minimum).

“Forecasting the Sun's global behavior places the next solar termination in early 2020,” their poster noted. “Should a major oceanic swing follow, our challenge becomes: when does correlation become causation and how does the process work?”

Acknowledging the rocky history of attempts to link the solar cycle with earthly weather, Leamon and McIntosh have warned that “searching for the connection between the variability of the solar atmosphere and that of our troposphere has become ‘third-rail science’—not to be touched at any cost."

However, NCAR climate scientist Jerry Meehl is on a similar page. “I'm familiar with [Leamon’s] work, and it complements work that Harry van Loon, Julie Arblaster, and I did a few years ago,” Meehl told me. That paper was published in Science in 2009. “Namely, at peaks in the 11-year solar cycle, there tends to be a weak La Niña signal, followed a couple of years later by a weak El Niño. There's evidence for this connection in the observations, though the record is short, and from model simulations.”

As for the “third rail” concerns voiced by McIntosh and Leamon, “That was definitely the case until about seven or eight years ago,” Meehl said. “Since then, tangible mechanisms have been established in observations and models that connect solar variability to Earth's climate.”

[Pontiac]

I was gob smacked when I read this on the “Weather Underground”

This guy is actually considering that the Sun might cause climate variability!

I have never read anything on the site but conventional Anthropogenic Global Warming dogma.

Still absent though is any consideration of the variability of the solar wind with the solar cycle which impacts Earth’s climate but this is a positive step.

Hope this guy does not lose his standing in the scientific community over this.

He lives in Boulder, Colorado so he may end up with a statue of Gia burned on his lawn.

[Pontiac]

AGW ping

[SunkenCiv]

“I was a complete skeptic regarding any tangible impacts of the solar cycle, from when I started here in 2000 through about 2008 or 2009,” said Todd Crawford (@tcrawf_nh), who leads The Weather Company’s seasonal prediction activities. Eventually, Crawford found himself intrigued by the fact that ultraviolet radiation varies a great deal more across the solar cycle—by as much as 10%—and that some of this UV radiation is absorbed by ozone, thus heating up the equatorial stratosphere.

He was a complete skeptic about reality, that sounds about right. Thanks Pontiac.

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[Deaf Smith]

Maybe he started following the Old Farmer’s Almanac.

[raybbr]

I’m surprised that little dweeb that runs wunderground hasn’t banned him.

[mosesdapoet]

This is from a story I posted in my website in 2007

EARTH TO COOL DOWN WARNS GEO SCIENTIST
Scientific reports from Canada and Greenland has indicated that the the shrinking arctic ice sheets have begun to replace themselves rapidly. Strongly suggesting the earth instead of warming, is beginning to cool down. It is still not known (or proven) if this is the result because of the reduced rate of sun spot activity.

Canadian geo scientist Professor R. Timothy Patterson of Carelton University is urging a go-slow on the rush for governments to “Play God” with global warming legislative blaming this on CO2 (carbon dioxide) discharges. Legislating corrections attempting to control a natural cyclic occurrence caused by; sun spots, the magnetic solar wind, and cyclic earth magnetic polarity reversal, among other natural occurrences including volcanism, meteors etc. Probably plays a very significant role in climate change. Yet ignorantly blaming man made CO2 emissions for climatic change. which is becoming a rapidly discredited and minuscule cause of global warming in his article published by Canada’s Financial Post. 6/20/07

Patterson was selected by the Canadian government to study the fluctuations in certain types of fish populations.
While doing so the Canadian Geo-Scientist found a correlation when certain species of fish had high population and then drastic drop offs. He discovered these fluctuations corresponded with sun spot activity and solar radiation vs cosmic activity. When earth cooling occurred.

Studying deep fjords along the Western Canadian coast where deep pools of low oxidation water exist. The Patterson study reached deep into the earths recent past of 4000 years of undisturbed sediments. Patterson found that when aquatic activity was highest and lowest in those collected sediments having high aquatic content had matched known solar protection when the magnetic wind was highest, and dropped off when earth magnetic fields activities were lowest.Thus causing cosmic radiation to intensify.

Then because the earth became unprotected by its magnetic fields from galactic cosmic activity. Patterson cites several accepted theories which concludes this then created cloud activity during such periods which increased drastically. Thus cooling earth and bringing in its ice ages.

In his presentation here is a professor urging more scientific study (like Pope Benedict)is needed. That politicians including Al Gore, of The Earth Is Flat Society, don’t know what the hell they’re talking about. Strongly suggesting that the global warming may be caused by exhaling politicos rather than serious scientific examination.

Patterson seems to be saying before Canadians start investing in palm trees they should be considering better parkas because what goes up must come down and the Mexicans better move over for a reverse population flow. The story was featured in The Drudge Report, and World Net Daily, which were linked in The US Mat’s last page. But lost due to source link changes . http://www.theusmat.com/index.htm

[Pontiac]

He was a complete skeptic about reality, that sounds about right.

A hallmark of the AGW crowd. Don’t let reality get in the way of a good internationalist communist plot to rule the world.

[Pontiac]

I’m surprised that little dweeb that runs wunderground hasn’t banned him.

It’s just published today. He may not have read it yet.

Give him a day or so.

[Pontiac]

That is some good research. Thanks

But, of course, it was ignored because it doesn’t fit with the socialist agenda.

[PlateOfShrimp]

Fascinating.

I had heard about a possible mechanism for the correlation between sunspot activity and terrestrial weather being the flux of ionizing radiation affecting cloud formation in the upper atmosphere. It sounds like this paper suggests another possibility.

[Pontiac]

This is the first I have read about a UV and ozone link as well.

[mosesdapoet]

That story first appeared in the Canadian National Financial Post when it was sold by a reformed Canadian Post group they pulled the story and spiked the credit to Patterson.

[TigersEye]

I was gob smacked when I read this on the “Weather Underground”

That is odd. I know just what you mean.

[Pontiac]

You’re from Colorado, how about the Boulder part?

[TigersEye]

lol

Yeah, you might be right. But they would spell it Gaia. :)

The left is so insane now anything is possible from them.
Not just in Boulder either. Stay safe!

[abclily]

OK!! Everybody pay attention!
Lesson for today:
1. The sun is 1,300,000 times as big as the earth.
2. The sun is a giant nuclear furnace that controls the climates of all its planets.
3. The earth is one of the sun’s planets.
4. The earth is a speck in comparison to the size of the sun.
5. Inhabitants of the earth are less than specks.
Study Question: How do less-than-specks in congress plan to control the sun?

[I want the USA back]

What do you mean “potential” impact? The Sun is the source of most of the energy hitting the surface of the Earth. During the day the Sun warms the surface, and at night most of the heat energy is radiated off into space. Happens every 24 hours without fail. No exceptions.

So tell me how any manmade energy that is added to the air is NOT radiated off into space at night!