CLIMATE CYCLES

[Ulric Lyons]

The warmers, despite them being convinced of runaway GW catastrophe, want it to get warmer, just to save face. The sceptics, fully aware of the real perils of global cooling, still want it get cold, just to disprove the warmers.
So what is the outlook like, in terms of natural solar cycles? Lets look at the long ones first, Bond events at 1500yr +/- 500yr have too much latitude, and nothing climatically shows up regularly at 1500yrs. 2225yr and 2403yr claimed cycles are derived from Jovian planet cycles, and are rather speculative, and do not follow climatic records well, unless they are added together, resulting in a 4627/8yr cycle that works well as a climatic `look-back`.
What we can definitely see is a cycle of around 1150yrs from the Modern warming to the MWP, to the Roman WP, the Bronze age WP, and further back still. At the half cycle are all the `Little Ice Age` events, the Dark Ages, the Greek and Homer cold periods etc. On this basis, it seems we are only a third of the way through the Modern WP, and the best is yet to come, and that the next series of LIA like deep minimums are due to start from around 2450AD.
This 1150yr cycle is likely to be modulated by the longer 4628yr cycle, which could indicate a return to Bronze age optimum conditions over the next 3 centuries. Bicentennial type cycles such as De Vries, 210yr, 206yr, 179yr and 187yr and 166yr, can follow deep minimums through the LIA, even down to an individual cold winter, but these cycles change phase over the 1150yr cycle, so forecasting a return of events of the Dalton minimum could easily result in the likes of a UK Met Office type seasonal prediction, which typically has to be reversed to follow real events.
For the next century, we are on the negative phase of a bicentennial cycle, but on the rise on the two longer cycles, which should result in some cooler periods/seasons than last century, but some warmer too, rather a mixed bag really. No great minimums on the horizon that I can see, the next 4-5 years will see a warming episode, 2015-20 looks colder all the way and is one of two extended cold periods this century, and will be a great test of what extent current oceanic heat can mitigate cooling.

[Mike Davis]

Urlic:
At least you are not afraid to make predictions or admit doubts. Interesting comments!

[Ulric Lyons]

Correction; the next cold period will be starting at least by 2014, my forecasts are determined by monthly changes in solar activity, rather than yearly. There are some weaker drops in temperature starting form mid 2012, (very wet N.H. summer!) but the first severe one is centered at Jan 2014, which will give a very cold winter 2013/14. From then, a series of negative features run all the way to the recovery at July 2020. If this period (Eddy minimum?) is as cold as the Dalton then prepare for the first London Frost Fair since 1814, I think current oceanic heat reserves will not let it get that cold, although I would expect a certain amount of major river ice (N.Hemisphere) and UK coastal sea ice in the colder winters during this period, but not the 1-2 meters of ice on the Thames that often occurred during the LIA.

[Co2sceptic]

Ulric this looks good enough to post as a news blog, drop me a line

[tallbloke]

Hi Ulric,
to what extent does your prediction of a warmish couple of years ahead rest on solar cycle 24 getting it's act together? I remember a while back we discussed amplitude for SS24. What's your current thinking on the size and length of the cycle?

[Ulric Lyons]

Hi Ulric,
to what extent does your prediction of a warmish couple of years ahead rest on solar cycle 24 getting it's act together? I remember a while back we discussed amplitude for SS24. What's your current thinking on the size and length of the cycle?

Not a lot, a good analogue is around 1830 (179yrs back), lower than average sunspot numbers, but higher than average temperatures. I still think we will see a rapid rise in SSN from next year, with a possibility of equal to, or higher values than C23, but this will short lived, 2014 onwards should see lower levels of sunspots, as in the start of this cycle. Length at around 13 years.

[tallbloke]

Not a lot, a good analogue is around 1830 (179yrs back), lower than average sunspot numbers, but higher than average temperatures. I still think we will see a rapid rise in SSN from next year, with a possibility of equal to, or higher values than C23, but this will short lived, 2014 onwards should see lower levels of sunspots, as in the start of this cycle. Length at around 13 years.

Interesting. My prognosis is for a low cycle, about Rmax 55 in late 2014, and as you say, a long cycle dragging on past 2020.

On the question of loss of ocean heat, I ran my model for a rerun of Dalton and coupled with a slight lift from a shortening length of day, temperatures would I think decline slowly to 2030 by around 0.2-0.3C

This is a projection for a scenario, not a prediction!

[adinnhall]

A related aspect is the 41,000-year cycle in the tilt of Earth's axis. It is known that Earth's orbit around the sun changes shape every 100,000 years. The orbit becomes either more round or more elliptical at these intervals. The shape of the orbit is known as its eccentricity. A related aspect is the 41,000-year cycle in the tilt of Earth's axis.

[Stephen Wilde]

A lot that I agree with here.

Once one removes that pesky CO2 climate driver idea then one can get back to unravelling how the complex variables interact.

It looks like we are not getting the rapid burst of solar activity that Ulric expected this year.

Does that make much difference to your expectations Ulric ?

Also. Ulric you do accept that the oceans can mitigate solar induced cold but you differ from me in giving solar variability prominence. How do you rank the scales of the respective solar and oceanic influences ? I see the oceanic influences as being far larger but obviously they modulate solar input rather than creating any energy for themselves so their dominance is greater the shorter the time scale involved.

Then there's my recent proposal that counterintuitively a more active sun accelerates energy to space so that the overall cooling effect from that acceleration is greater than the warming from the tiny increase in solar power output. That's still a contentious viewpoint but it seems to fit observations quite well over long timescales.

[Mike Davis]

Stephan:
That last proposal is observed each year as the Earth is nearest the sun during the Northern Hemisphere winter/ Southern Hemisphere summer which is traditionally the coldest time for the entire globe. If additional warmth was realized by additional energy from the sun then the globe would be warmest during January and February Rather than June and July. There would be conditions where the incoming energy would overcome the restrictive nature of the ocean atmosphere interface such as in arid regions such as our own Death Valley which does experience over a one hundred degree temperature variation yearly. There are also those locations that are to cold to retain a reasonable moisture content and they would be subject to extremes in temperature also.