Arguments
Human fingerprints on climate change rule out natural cycles
What the science says...
| Select a level... |
Basic
|
Intermediate
| |||
|
Natural cycles cannot be the cause of observed global warming because they don't fit the observed fingerprints of global warming. Only increasing greenhouse gas concentrations due to human activities fit the observed fingerprints and explain the observed energy imbalance. |
|||||
Climate Myth...
It's a natural cycle
"Global warming (i.e, the warming since 1977) is over. The minute increase of anthropogenic CO2 in the atmosphere (0.008%) was not the cause of the warming—it was a continuation of natural cycles that occurred over the past 500 years." (Don Easterbrook)
Global warming refers to the long-term warming of global temperature since the 1850s. The cause of global warming has been investigated by many scientists, who have summarized their finding in multiple assessment reports by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The only plausible mechanism of global warming is a planetary energy imbalance, with our climate system building up heat. This and the observed fingerprints left on global warming confirm the dominant role of human activities.
Fossil fuel burning is causing recent global warming
Scientists have identified two factors that drive global climate change: internal variability and external forcings. Internal variability refers to the internal processes moving heat around within the climate system. External forcings cause an energy imbalance - with the planet either building up or losing heat - and can be both natural and human caused. The only plausible mechanism accounting for the long-term temperature increase of global warming is through a buildup of heat in the climate system (Li et al., 2007).
Among the various external forcings that can cause the climate system’s energy imbalance, scientists have concluded the main cause of recent global warming is the increase of atmospheric CO2 due to fossil fuel burning.
In order to understand how scientists came to the above conclusion, it is important to understand the various drivers of climate changes.
Internal variability moves heat around the climate system
Climate change is like the motion of water in a kitchen sink with an inflow from the faucet and an outflow through the drain. The motion consists of both the water sloshing around and the rising and falling of water level. The random sloshing around is what scientists call "internal variability," while the rising and falling of water level is what scientists call "forced variability". Internal variability (e.g., ocean cycles such as El Niño South Oscillation, Pacific Decadal Oscillation, and Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation) moves heat around to give rise to regional climate change on timescales ranging from annual to millennial timescales. Like the water sloshing around, internal variability doesn't build up or dissipate the total amount of heat in the climate system. In contrast, external forcings (e.g., 11-year solar cycle and changes in the Earth’s orbit) change the climate by causing a buildup or loss of heat, similar to the change in water level being determined by the difference between the inflow and outflow.
The single cause fallacy committed by the natural cycle myth
One climate myth argues that recent global warming is caused by natural cycles rather than human activity. The so-called “natural cycles” in the myth may include climate variation due to internal variability or external forcings. Natural external forcings, such as the 11-year solar cycle and changes in the Earth’s orbit, are part of nature and not influenced by human activities. Other external forcings like greenhouse gases and aerosol concentrations in the atmosphere are significantly influenced by human activities, and thus are excluded from natural cycles.
The argument that global warming is due to natural cycle commits single cause fallacy, by assuming there is only one driver of climate change (e.g., natural factors) when there may be others (e.g., human activity). In this case, the myth argues that the same factors, namely internal variability and natural external forcings, that drove past natural cycles must also be the same factors causing current global warming. But the fact is that humans have emitted large amounts of CO2 into atmosphere by burning fossil fuel since the industrial revolution, and it is the main cause of recent global warming.
One version of this myth is that the natural cycles may cause cyclic climate change with timescales ranging up to millennial timescales, and therefore recent global warming is just the rising phase of such a cycle. However, this argument is ruled out by the observed fingerprints on global warming (seen in Figure 1) since no natural cycles fit all these fingerprints. For example, natural cycles cannot explain why the satellites measures less heat escaping to space at the precise wavelengths which CO2 absorbs (Philipona 2004, Wang 2009).
The observed fingerprints on global warming and the fact that only external forcings can cause a buildup in heat in the climate system work together to not only rule out natural cycles, but also confirm that the anthropogenic CO2 increase in the atmosphere is the main cause of modern global warming.
Figure 1: Schematic of the fingerprints on global warming (Skeptical Science).
Internal variability does NOT build up heat
Internal variability changes the global mean surface temperature by moving heat around inside the climate system without changing the total amount of heat for any sustained period in time. Some internal variabilities, such as the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, can transfer heat from the ocean’s upper layers to the deep ocean. As a result, more heat is moved to the deep ocean and the global mean surface temperature decreases (Douville et al., 2015). Burying all this heat in the deep ocean led to a stagnation of global warming from 2000 to 2015, known as the so-called global warming hiatus (shown in Figure 2).
However, the heat hadn't left the climate system. When ocean cycles shifted to a different phase, the buried heat in the deep ocean was released to the ocean upper layers, causing an increase in the global mean surface temperature. We saw this rebound in warming with 2014, 2015, and 2016 being the hottest years on record. Natural cycles from internal variability only results in cyclical fluctuations and are not the driver of long-term global warming.
Figure 2: This temporary plateau in temperatures has been referred to as a hiatus. Adapted from NASA Earth Observatory.
Since internal variability does not change the climate system’s energy balance and long-term warming requires a buildup in heat, the cause of the global warming can only be changes in external forcings. But which exact external forcing?
Fingerprints confirm fossil fuel burning is the main cause
The main external forcing driving global warming has to explain the observed “fingerprints”. One of these fingerprints is the troposphere (the lowest part of the atmosphere) warming with the stratosphere (the upper levels of the atmosphere) cooling. Greenhouse gases build up heat by trapping the outgoing radiation on Earth without changing the incoming energy. As most of the greenhouse gases occupy the lower troposphere, they act like a blanket covering the surface. As a result, warming caused by increasing greenhouse gases starts from the lower atmosphere, namely troposphere (Liou 2002). This fingerprint also rules out the sun as a possible cause of warming as increased solar energy would heat the whole atmosphere.
The amount of received solar radiation also varies with changes in the Earth's orbit. These are referred as Milankovitch cycles. They occur on very long-time scales (10,000+ years) and cannot explain the warming over the past 100 years. In addition, direct measurements show an increased greenhouse effect. The only explanation that fits the observed evidence is the increase in greenhouse gases.
The increase in greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is caused by human activities rather than natural processes. For example, CO2 emission from volcanoes is small compared to anthropogenic emissions. Although the ocean emits large amount of CO2, it actually absorbs more CO2 than it emits, including anthropogenic CO2 (Falkowski and Wilson 1992). So, the net effect of CO2 natural cycles are quite small. In addition, CO2 from fossil fuels has its own fingerprints. Fossil fuels contain less of the carbon-13 isotope, which explains why the atmospheric ratio of carbon-12 to carbon-13 has been increasing as more anthropogenic carbon dioxide gets added to the atmosphere. Additionally, atmospheric oxygen (O2) is decreasing at the same rate that CO2 is increasing, because oxygen is consumed when fossil fuels burn.
Therefore, the only cause of global warming that both makes sense from a physics point of view and fits the observed global warming “fingerprints” is increase in CO2 from fossil fuel burning.
The climate myth viewing global warming as a natural cycle distorts the fact with a single cause fallacy. Before the 1850s when human influence on climate was almost negligible, natural cycles were the dominant drivers of the global temperature changes. But currently, with large amounts of fossil fuel burned since the industrial revolution, the global mean surface temperature is showing an obvious increasing trend apart from what can be explained by natural cycles. The natural cycles can still explain these fluctuations superimposed over the trend but fails to explain the continuously increasing trend itself. The main cause of recent global warming is the increasing anthropogenic CO2 in atmosphere.
Last updated on 14 November 2020 by Kai Huang. View Archives
[DB] Upgraded image quality.
[DB] Try here.
Biliev said elsewhere:
As with the chart mentioned above, the chart below shows the GISS LOTI, but adds two sets of trend patterns. The first (trend pattern a) is that described by you above, while the second shows a continuous trend from 1910 to 1964, and a continous trend from 1965 to 2014. The inflexion point was chosen based on the location of the inflexion point in the radiative forcing record. That is, it was not chosen simply to get a best fit in the temperature record:
Despite that, it gives a very good fit. Ignoring the excursion in the early 1940s, they both have an r squared of 0.92, showing that on the basis of correlation there is no reason to preffer one over the other. Even including the early 40s, the cherry picked 5 trend pattern only improves squarred correlation from 0.9 to 0.92.
Against that, to gain that 0.02 lift in correlation, you need to add in 7 extra parameters. That is, you gain a minimally improved fit only by greatly increasing the ad hoc complexity of your model.
Actually, that understates it. That assumes you use an error function on th quarter wavelenght of your wave pattern (ie, the time between inflexion points). Doing so greatly decreases the likelihood of the function but means you only have on extra function. In fact, the inflection points are cherry picked to match known temperature inflexion points, not derived from a model. Ergo you require one parameter per inflexion point, or an additional three parameters.
All this means that any scientific test of the goodness of fit that also measures complexity (such as the Akaike Information Criterion) will pick the three trend pattern over the five trend pattern every time. They will also pick the pure forcing plus ENSO model (which gives an even better fit with no ad hoc parameters) over the three trend model as well, but that is beside the point.
What is important is that you only see the pattern you mention because, either, you have had it imprinted by excess familiarity from denier propaganda; or because you do not properly discount patterns for cherry picked elements. If you let the data speak for itself, and eschew cherry picking - it is obvious that there is a relatively constant rise in temperature from about 1910 to 1965, with a large aberration approximately coinciding with WW2.
Sorry, Tom. I still see a pause in warming from about the mid 1940's until the mid 1970's regardless of the addition of a yellow trend line from GISS. I assume that a chart of the type of the NOAA and GISS charts is designed to give the viewer information in an easy to understand format. That format shows me the break in warming I just mentioned.
billev @12, what you "still see" has little bearing on what the data shows. It is fairly plain that you are applying a double standard. Elsewhere, you said the GISS data "... also could be indicating another pause beginning about 2000 ...". If we look at that data using the Skeptical Science trend calculator we find the following trends:
1970- 0.174 +/- 0.029 C/decade
2000- 0.132 +/- 0.124 C/decade
If we take the difference, and add the uncertainties in quadrature, we find the difference in the trend, and the uncertainty of that difference:
Difference: 0.042 +/- 0.127 C/decade (0.66 σ)
As you can see, the difference in the trend is much smaller than uncertainty, meaning there is minimal evidence supporting your view that the data "could be indicating" another pause. However poor the evidence, however, it sets a benchmark of what you consider sufficient evidence to entertain that possibility.
In the same post, you also said the data "shows me a pause in temperature rise from ... from the mid 1940's until about the mid 1970's". Again, we find the trends and uncertainties for the relevant periods:
1910-1945 0.136 +/- 0.045 C/decade
1910-1970 0.06 +/- 0.022 C/decade
1945-1970 0.008 +/- 0.07 C/decade
Again, taking the difference and summing uncertainties in quadrature, we find:
Difference ('10-'45): 0.128 +/- 0.083 C/decade (3.08 σ)
Difference ('10-'70): 0.052 +/- 0.073 C/decade (0.84 σ)
The 3.08 standard deviation difference in trend is certainly sufficient to infer a change in trend, given that we accept those trends as being the underlying trends. That, however, is in dispute, and it is dubious that the 0.84 standard deviation difference between the 1910-1970 trend and the 1945-1970 trend is sufficient to infer a difference in trend. The important point here, however, is that you do infer a change in trend. Ergo, you consider that 0.84 standard deviation difference to be sufficient to infer that there is a change in trend. You certainly consider the 3.08 standard deviation differenc to be sufficient to make that inference.
Being fair, you may think that difference between the 1910-1945 and the 1910-1970 trends is sufficient to infer a different slope for the shorter period. So, again checking the trends, taking the difference and adding uncertainties in quadrature we get:
1910-1945 0.136 +/- 0.045 C/decade
1910-1970 0.06 +/- 0.022 C/decade
Difference: 0.076 +/- 0.05 C/decade (3.03 σ)
So, a 3.03 standard deviation difference, which we again can use as a benchmark for justifying your argument. Note, however, that if you use this reasoning, you have to accept that just one leg exceeding 2 standard deviations is sufficient to break a longer trend into two shorter trends in your analysis.
So, what then of the argument that the trend from 1910-1945 should be broken into two shorter periods, the first with a flatter and the second with a steeper trend. Again, data and differences are calculated:
1910-1945 0.136 +/- 0.045 C/decade
1933-1945 0.421 +/- 0.165 C/decade
Difference ('10-'45): 0.285 +/- 0.171 (3.33 σ)
Difference ('10-'33): 0.329 +/- 0.185 (3.56 σ)
Quite clearly, the trend from 1933-1945 is statistically significant. More importantly, the difference in trend between 1933-1945 and either 1910-1945 or 1910-1933 is larger than any other difference considered above. Further, it is larger, measured in standard deviations, than any of the trends considered above. Ergo, for you to consider there to be pause from 1945-1970 but not insist that the period from 1910-1945 to be composed of two shorter periods having two different trends applies a double standard. Specifically, you consider evidence stronger than that which convinces you of the 1945-1970 pause to be insufficient to convince you that the period 1910-1945 should not be modelled as one continuous trend.
The case for a downward trend from 1945 is not as strong, primarilly due to the short period (1945-1950). Despite that, the trend verges on statistical significance (see below), and the trend difference is the largest yet examined. Somebody who considers that the post 2000 data "could indicate another pause" has no basis on which to consistently reject that downward plunge. Nor can anybody insisting on a distinct 1945-1970 trend consistently insist on a requirement of statistical significance for both the upward and downward trends for the 1940s spike. The data shows that the 1945-1970 and the 1950-1970 trends are stastically indistinguishable from the 1910-1970 trend; and that the 1933-1945 trend is statistically distinguishable from all preceding and following trends. The most economic way to parse that data is to assume a persistent background trend over the first three quarters of the twentieth century interupted by a sharp upward trend from the mid 30s to mid 4s, after which temperatures relaxed back to the background trend value.
1945-1970 0.008 +/- 0.07 C/decade
1950-1970 0.031 +/- 0.099 C/decade
1945-1950 -0.514 +/- 0.559 C/decade
Difference ('45-'70): -0.522 +/- 0.563 C/decade (1.85 σ)
Difference ('50-'70): -0.545 +/- 0.568 C/decade (1.92 σ)
From Time Magazine, June 24, 1974: " As they review the bizarre and unpredictable weather pattern of the past several years, a growing number of scientists are beginning to suspect that many seemingly contradictory meteorological fluctuations are actually part of a global climatic upheaval. However widely the weather varies from place to place and time to time, when meteorologists take an average of temperatures around the globe they find that the atmosphere has been growing gradually cooler for the past three decades. The trend shows no indication of reversing. Climatological Cassandras are becoming increasingly apprehensive, for the weather aberrations they are studying may well be the harbinger of another ice age.
Telltale signs are everywhere - from the unexpected persistence and thickness of pack ice in the waters around Iceland to the southward migration of a warmth-loving creature like the armadillo from the Midwest. Since the 1940's the mean global temperature has dropped about 2.7 degrees F. Although that figure is an estimate, it is supported by other convincing data." And to think, all these people had to do is talk to a "numbers guy" and he would have convinced them that what they were experiencing wasn't really what they were experiencing.
[PS] Please see "ice age predicted in 1970s" and comment there if you wish to dispute the article. No follow up responses to this particular comment on this thread please.
With respect to the moderator, I do not believe billev has quoted that article to argue that the majority of climatologists in the 1970s predicted global cooling, but rather to argue that they understood global temperaures to have declined since the mid-1940s. That is, he intends it as a distraction from the fact of his clear double standard with regard to evidence, as shown @13. Rhetorically, unable to rebut the statistics @13, he wishes both to distract from the 1910-1945 period, to dismiss the relevance of statistics in favour of popular reports and ancedotes (hence the dismissive comment about the "numbers guy"), and (apparently) to assert that the period from 1945 to 1974 consituted not just a pause, as he has previously argued, but an actual decline in global mean surface temperature. Given this, I will address those points here, leaving out any discussion of climatologists predictions in the 1970s as off topic.
What I will note is that the Time Magazine article no more accurately reflected climatologists understanding of then trends than it reflected their predictions as to future trends. In particular, it claims that "Since the 1940's the mean global temperature has dropped about 2.7 degrees F" (my emphasis). 2.7 F is 1.5 C, an astonishing reduction. Indeed, it is 60% greater than the trend increase from 1880-2014 (Gistemp). The Time Magazine in effect claimed that by 1974, Global Means Surface Temperature (GMST) had dropped substantially below the temperature found in 1880.
Nor can I find any justification for such a claim in the scientific literature. Moran (1974) stated,
Lamb (1974) shows a graph illustrating a similar decline:
Schneider and Kellog (1973), appearing as Chapter 5 in Rasool, Chemistry of the Lower Atmosphere, show a graph with temperature change by latitude band which supports a similar trend (also being based on Mitchell's work).
In short, Time Magazine exagerated the then understood trend by a factor of five.
Since then, significant improvements in methodology, a vast increase in the available stations, and the inclusion of marine data have greatly improved estimates of global temperatures. As a result, only 1 out of 7 Global or Land/Ocean (ie, global less polar regions) temperature indices shows a negative trend over that period (HadCRUT4 -0.002 +/- 0.059 C/decade).
With regard to the anecdotal data, the sea ice claim by Time Magazine, in particular, is deceptive. This is not because there was not thicker winter sea ice near Iceland (there was), but because that was more than compensated by sea ice losses in less accessible areas so that overall sea ice extent declined in that period (albeit, slowly):
So, not only is billev rhetorical distraction beside the point - he finds himself rellying on an extremely inaccurate report of out of date science to make it.
[PS] My point was that the accuracy of the Time article is discussed on that topic, as well as what was the reasoning behind the source. If billev wishes to discuss the accuracy the Time article or the degree to which the article represented scientific opinion at the time, it should be on that topic.
I read it the same way, Tom.
Additionally, one can also look at the warming of the Arctic over the past century+, too:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/arctic-was-warmer-in-1940.htm
We've been down that road countless times before. The claim that "scientists predicted an ice age" has no basis in the scientific litterature. Billev tried to exploit the miserably inaccurate Time article to show that "scientists" showed a decrease in temperature and increase in sea ice in the 70's and such conclusions were completely absent from the scientific litterature, once again. Mass media wildly speculative and sensationalistic pieces pass as "scientists said" for the convenience of scoring rethorical points. Yawn.
Tom, I want to thank you for your responses to my comments. We apparently do not agree but at least you showed enough interest to reply. I made the same comments on the site Watts Up With That and got no response. I was the man who wasn't there. My purpose in making the comments was to see if there was any acknowledgement of what I see as a possible pattern of stepped warming caused by more or less regular pauses in the overall warming trend. I think the current emphasis on man- made warming may be akin to the worry over an impending ice age that was propounded during the period of the Time magazine article I quoted. And there were more of that type of article at the time. I get the feeling we are getting a politically based bums rush about man-made climate change and too many scientists are being carried along. If there is, in fact, a pattern to the warming then I think it will be obvious by the end of the current century. Maybe we will then begin wondering why such a pattern should occur. I shudder to think of the money that will have been wasted before then on uneeded or ineffective measures to control the climate. I am 83 years old so it won't be my worry.
[TD] billev, I'm going to take a chance by assuming you are sincere. You are blind to how rude you have been to everyone who has taken the (sometimes considerable) time to respond to you. "Rude" because you have ignored the content of every single response. The most recent example is your failure to even acknowledge any of the content of the "Ice Age was Predicted in the 70s" post that you have been pointed to multiple times. Instead, in your most recent comment you merely repeated your initial, incorrect, assertion. If you want to continue commenting on the Skeptical Science site, you'll need to respond substantively to the original posts and to other commenters' responses to you. In other words, you must engage in conversation. Otherwise you are merely sloganeering, which is prohibited by this site's comments policy.
Regardless of all of the mind reading about my intentions, my original post only pointed out what I observed in the NOAA mean temperature record from 1880 until around 2000. I pointed out that I perceived two periods of warming and two periods of pause in warming during that period. The replies to my original post have been an attempt to explain away the pauses using several explanations none of which satisfy me as being realistic. What I do note is a desperate need to hide the pauses or avoid any involvment of nature in the pauses so plainly shown in the NOAA graphs.
[Rob P] - The warming from 1910-1940, a time of weak anthropogenic (human-caused) forcing, matches the warm (positive) phase of the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation (IPO) - the largest natural multidecadal oscillation in the climate system. This is the dominant 'natural factor' that other replies in this comment thread have alluded to. The cooling mid 20th century occurred during the cool (negative) phase of the IPO.
So the cooling back then wasn't only down to increased industrial aerosol pollution blocking/scattering some of the incoming sunlight, the IPO also played a part. Perhaps the most notable aspect of the IPO is that its influence on global temperature has diminished over time - it's being overpowered by the greenhouse gas forcing.
Some useful reading here:
1. Early twentieth-century warming linked to tropical Pacific wind strength - Thompson et al (2014).
2. Drivers of decadal hiatus periods in the 20th and 21st centuries - Maher et al (2014).
3. The influence of anthropogenic aerosol on multi-decadal variations of historical global climate - Wilcox et al (2013).
[JH] You are now skating on the thin ice of excessive repetition which is prohibited by the SkS Comments Policy.
Please note that posting comments here at SkS is a privilege, not a right. This privilege can be rescinded if the posting individual treats adherence to the Comments Policy as optional, rather than the mandatory condition of participating in this online forum.
Please take the time to review the policy and ensure future comments are in full compliance with it. Thanks for your understanding and compliance in this matter.
billev... No one has any obligation to satisfy you with their explanations. The explanations merely need to be correct, which they are. Previous commenters have given you very clear and accurate explations as to each of the various time periods. No one is trying to hide anything.
I believe I stated this before: Warming doesn't just happen for no reason. It is a response to a radiative forcing of one sort or another. Prior to 1940, warming was a combination of increasing human emissions of CO2 and other natural factors. Post 1940 was likely due to increasing aerosol emissions due to rapid industrialization. Post 1970 was when we cleaned up much of those aerosol emissions which unmasked the underlying CO2 forcing.
Just because you can't understand or manage to accept these explanations does not in any way reflect on their accuracy.
I would reinforce what Rob said. You will find it very hard to get people to accept the idea of a natural cycle that violates conservation of energy. Temperatures change for a reason.
However, on an unevenly heated planet that is mostly covered in water, there are natural variations in surface temperature from the ocean. You dont need much heat loss from the ocean upper layer to heat the air quite a lot. Rather than look at surface temperature, try looking at ocean heat content. eg see here Changes to incoming solar (eg volcanoes) are reflected in the wobbles. The steady upward trend however is a diagnosis of long term energy imbalance - the increase in GHG.
So to claim "its a natural cycle", then you need to be pointing to either an externality (eg change in volcano screening or change in solar input), or an internal variation - ocean-atmosphere heat exchange. You can see latest OHC here. Externalities cant explain post-1970 heat rise, so must be internal? Nope. Claiming heat is from oceans while ocean heat is rising is voodoo climatology.
That said, if your "skepticism" about AGW is based on political values or group identity, then I doubt anything posted here will change your mind.
billev
There are other factors to think about when evaluating what the temperature record may or may not mean
The take-away from this is we can't make a judgement about what was going on back then without putting all the pieces of data we have together like a jig-saw puzzle rather than focusing on just one type of data set. And recognising that when we look back to the mid 20th century and earlier many of these datasets are significantly missing/sparse - ocean heat content for example.
What we have now is that all measures of what is happening - ocean heat, sea level, ice sheet melt, land temperatures and atmospheric temperatures are all pointing to warming.
To be a natural cycle the data would need to show different masurements indicating opposite trends as energy cycles between different internal parts of the system. If air temperatures were rising as ocean heat was falling (and the size of the changs was comparable) then we might suspect a natural cylical flow between the two.
The basic conservation Laws - Conservation of energy, mass etc. - require that any natural internal cycle between components of the system produce opposite cycles in the different parts. If all parts of the system are moving in the same direction then internal cycles can't explain it.
This doesn't rule out external cycles such as changes in the Sun's heat output - separate evidence mitigate against them - but all factors moving in the same direction does mitigate against internal cycles.
Basic premise, as pointed out by others. Cycles don't just happen, they always have causes. And those causes must satisfy the conservation laws.
To paraphrase 'S#!t doesn't just Happen! It is Caused'.
The climate It is created by an overlap of natural cycles, mainly the 65-year “Atlantic/Pacific oscillation” (AMO/PDO) and the 208 year “de Vries cycle”.
CO2 is irrelevant for the climate. The temperature will go down in the next years because the solar de Vries cycle just had its maximum.
Here more details: http://notrickszone.com/2013/12/03/german-scientists-show-climate-driven-by-natural-cycles-global-temperature-to-drop-to-1870-levels-by-2100/#sthash.4x551NDK.dpbs
[RH] Fixed image size. Please limit your images to 500px in width.
morken @23 and 24:
1) Here is the Berkeley Earth index of European temperatures from 1750 to 2013:
As can be seen, the very sharp fall in temperatures from 1770-1900 shown in your graph does not exist. Evidently Luedecke has adjusted the data to fit his theory.
2) Your graph clearly predicts a fall in temperature from 2002 to present, which has not occured in the data. Indeed, in the global data there has been an increase in temperature over that period. This looks very like a failed prediction to me.
3) Luedecke et al compare their, purportedly solar driven forcings to European temperatures only. He had good reason to do so as global temperatures fit his curve less well than do his (idiosyncratic) European temperatures:
Note in particular the flatter, near zero trend prior to 1900, the delayed minimum around 1900 (ie, 191--20 rather than 1900 as in his model and the European data), the early (1940) mid twentieth century peak relative to European and Luedecke's model, and the continuing increase rather than the predicted decrease in temperatures post 2000 (not perfectly obvious as the graph lacks the new record setting years of 2014 and 2015).
Not only has Luedecke cherry picked a data set to better fit his theory, but the poorer fit of global data means he is compelled to claim that European, but not global, temperatures are driven by the (global) solar forcing. At least he would if he were not so practised at simply sweeping contrary evidence under the carpet.
4) I note that you so uncritically swallow Luedecke's nonsense that you don't even note the time of peak temperatures on his graph, and therefore don't even note the persistent lack of his predicted decline over the last decade.