In my opinion the researchers in climatology should put aside their work for a moment and focus their attention on the central and decisive subject of climatology. This is the extremely close correlation between the changes in the mean surface temperature and the small changes in the rotational velocity of the Earth in the past 150 years (see Fig. 2.2 of http://www.fao.org/DOCREP/005/Y2787E/y2787e03.htm), which has been ignored by the mainstream climatologists.

Since temperature cannot influence rotation to the observed degree and vice verca, a third agent must be driving the two. The solution is given in http://www.icecap.us/images/up.....on_CO2.pdf .

El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is the most important coupled ocean-atmosphere phenomenon to cause global climate variability on interannual time scales. Here we attempt to monitor ENSO by basing the Multivariate ENSO Index (MEI) on the six main observed variables over the tropical Pacific. These six variables are: sea-level pressure (P), zonal (U) and meridional (V) components of the surface wind, sea surface temperature (S), surface air temperature (A), and total cloudiness fraction of the sky (C). These observations have been collected and published in COADS for many years.

http://www.cdc.noaa.gov/people/klaus.wolter/MEI/

There is an issue of some overlap. I think, in particular the temperature they call (A) would be the problem. The air temperature over sea surface temperature over the tropical Pacific does contribute to the global mean surface temperature. However, it’s contribution to MEI would appear to be 1/6th and the contribution to the GMST is also small. (But it is there!)

I liked beta. beta make experimental budgets big.

Second, I no longer have technical questions about the straightforward (out of the regression summary statistics) hypothesis testing conclusions. (Note: I disagree with Lucia that one can reject the null hypothesis of a 0.02 degree C linear trend in for the sample 2001:01 – 2008:02, but this is not because she is not approaching the question correctly. It is only that I have a somewhat more powerful estimating routine and have made some Monte Carlo studies of the standard errors or the estimators for temperature like series. So I believe it was still necessary to adjust the standard errors. Not in the manner of Lee and Lund or Nychka, but based on better estimating procedures and experimental results. But even if applied here, there would be significance.)

Third, is not the MEI a bimonthly variable and partly composed on temperature indices? As such part of MEI is a two month average of temperature itself, which has obvious regression problems in an equation which already has a lagged variable. Further, if you take a look at the correlogram of the series composed of temp(t)+temp(t-1), you will see it closely resembles that of the MEI, i.e. a roughly 95% first order autocorrelation with a something like negative 30% second order autocorrelation (while temperature itself has a positive second order autocorrelation). I suspect this is where you got rid of the second order serial correlation effects. (Note: those effects were not so great that they would cause one to reject, at least on first blush, the Cochrane-Orcutt estimation. Rather, they appear in the estimation of the AR2 term in an AR(2) estimation procedure.)

That is enough for now, but let me warn all that the fundamental problem that Lucia posed early on – that of testing the consistency of a linear trend with the post 2000 experience – is something that might be better addressed in a multi-equation model. The effect of the MEI variable should give a hint as to why I believe so.

But, I do read what people suggest, and if I can do it quickly, I often do.

I also find some of the things Basil and Anthony are doing fascinating. However, unfortunately, I don’t yet know how to do some of those things. So, I won’t be trying anytime soon!

Thanks for your offer on Anthony’s blog of an Excel macro to reformat the MEI data. I only have Open Office and minimal skill with it. At one time I had access to and great skill with SAS. My access disappeared 10+ years ago with the mainframe. My brute force cut and paste was adequate for a one time project.

Yours was the only response to my suggestion of further study of the MEI behavior. Suggesting assignments to busy people often gets that kind of reception. I was fascinated by the technique demostrated by Basil and Anthony of using the H-P Filter and study of the residuals. The cumsum plot really highlighted what I interpret as a negative PDO switching to positive PDO.

Using the average of RSS and HadCRUT data, I chose a start time that would capture the full 1998 El Nino and simultaneously give an OLS slope of zero. This defined a base case starting point for subsequent analysis. A start time of July 1997 filled the bill. The computed 95% confidence range for the OLS fit was from -0.8 C/century to +0.8 degree/century. The AR(1) correlations were very high at 0.78. After controlling for ENSO via the MEI as Lucia did and after applying Cochrane-Orcutt, the best estimate for the underlying climate trend over this 10 year-8 month period is m = + 0.3 C/century, with a 95% confidence range from
-0.8 C/century to + 1.4 C/century. AR(1)correlations were 0.05 and longer period correlations were also small.

Thus, taking ENSO effects into account and dealing with correlations retains the lower end of the range obtained with the OLS fit but extends the upper end of the range to higher values. The small upward trend compensates for a small net cooling effect of ENSO over this period. So the critics are right in that ENSO effects have biased the raw temperature trend. However, the effect is small, and obviously a hypothesis of null underlying global temperature change cannot be rejected. The probability that there was any warming at all during this period is 0.69. One can certainly reject an underlying trend of 2.0 C/century once again, as in the case of Lucia’s 2001+ analysis.

So has the earth’s temperature flat lined over the last 10 years? It depends on what you mean by ‘flat.’ I’ll go with ’statistically flat.’

I need to write a more complete post on this, and explain why, if the IPCC projections are too high, but AGW, what we are going to see, over time will likely go like this:

A period of “fail to falsify”…. A short period of “falsify”…. A short period of “fail to falsify”…. A period of “falsify”…. A shorter periods of “fail to falsify”…. Finally, a long period of “falsify”.

So, the “falsify” findings are significant.

I am going to be writing up more on β error so people understand this better. The difficulty is that some other bloggers are confusing the issue about what can and can’t be shown in short times.

Dr. Gerhard Löbert, Otterweg 48, 85598 Baldham, Germany. April 4, 2008.
Physicist. Recipient of The Needle of Honor of German Aeronautics.
Conveyor of a super-Einsteinian theory of gravitation that explains, among many other post-Einstein-effects, the Sun-Earth-Connection and the true cause of the global climate changes.

Abstract: In a previous Note it was shown that climate change is driven by solar activity which in turn is caused by the action of galactic vacuum density waves on the core of the Sun. Irrefutable proof of the existence of these super-Einsteinian waves is given by the extremely close correlation between the changes in the mean global surface temperature and the small changes in the rotational velocity of the Earth – two physically unrelated geophysical quantities – in the past 150 years (see Fig. 2.2 of http://www.fao.org/DOCREP/005/Y2787E/y2787e03.htm). In the present Note it is shown that the orbital periods of the large planets Jupiter, Saturn, and Uranus provide further evidence.

In an excellent paper by the late Dr. Theodor Landscheidt (see http://www.schulphysik.de/klim.....iceage.htm) it was shown that the Sun’s Gleissberg activity cycles are closely correlated with the oscillations of the Sun around the center of mass of the solar system. The first and second space derivatives of the gravitational potential of the planets in the vicinity of the Sun are, however, so minute that it cannot be envisaged how the extremely slow motion of the Sun about the center of mass of the solar system could physically influence the processes within the Sun. It is much more likely that a common external agent is driving both the Gleissberg cycle and the related oscillatory barocentric motion of the Sun.

The small motion of the Sun is, of course, determined, almost entirely, by the motion of the large planets Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune that revolve around the Sun with periods of 11.87, 29.63, 84.67, and 165.49 years respectively. Note that the sunspot cycle has a mean period of 11.07 years (see T. Niroma in http://www.personal.inet.fi/ti.....spot4.html) and in my previous Note “A Compilation of the Arguments that Irrefutably Prove that Climate Change is driven by Solar Activity and not by CO2 Emission” of March 6, 2008 I pointed out that the mean surface temperature of the Earth is changing in a quasi-periodic manner with a mean period of 70 years, approximately. If we stipulate for the moment that there exists – in addition to the 70-years wave – a galactic vacuum density wave of 11.07 years period that is driving the sunspot cycle, then the addition of both waves leads to a periodic amplitude modulation with a period of 2/(1/11.07 – 1/70) = 26.3 years.

If two galactic gravitational wave trains of 11.07 and 70 years period were to pass through the solar system, the gravitational action of these waves on the revolving planets would slowly relocate these celestial bodies until the orbital periods were close to 11.07, 26.3, and 70 years, the periods given by the combined wave train. The orbital periods of Jupiter, Saturn, and Uranus are 7%, 13%, and 20% higher than these values. A cose lock-in cannot be expected because of the gravitational actions of the neighboring planets and because of the large variability of the periods of the vacuum density wave trains (see the large variability of the sunspot and surface temperature cycles).

If one considers all of the documented sunspot cycles, the mean Gleissberg cycle length increases to about 78.5 years (see T. Niroma) which is 7% smaller than the orbital period of Uranus. Note also that the orbital period of Neptune is 5% larger than 2 times the mean Gleissberg period and that of Pluto is 7% larger than 3 times 78.5 years. Finally, it is of interest that the orbital period of Mars is only 2% less than one-sixth of the mean sunspot cycle length.

Thus the barycentric oscillations of the Sun that Landscheidt envisaged to be the cause of the Gleissberg activity cycle is the mirror image of the trains of galactic vacuum density waves acting on the solar system.

In my opinion, the orbital periods of the large planets Jupiter, Saturn and Uranus provide — in addition to the extremely close temperature-rotation-correlation — further evidence for the existence of galactic vacuum density waves with mean periods of 11 and 70 – 80 years.

———————————————————

A Compilation of the Arguments that Irrefutably Prove that Climate Change is driven by Solar Activity and not by CO2 Emission

Dr. Gerhard Löbert, Otterweg 48, 85598 Baldham, Germany. March 6, 2008.
Physicist. Recipient of The Needle of Honor of German Aeronautics.
Program Manager “CCV, F 104G” (see Internet).
Program Manager “Lampyridae, MRMF” (see Internet)
Conveyor of a super-Einsteinian theory of gravitation that explains, among many other post-Einstein-effects, the Sun-Earth-Connection and the true cause of the global climate changes.

I. Climatological facts

As the glaciological and tree ring evidence shows, climate change is a natural phenomenon that has occurred many times in the past, both with the magnitude as well as with the time rate of temperature change that have occurred in the recent decades. The following facts prove that the recent global warming is not man-made but is a natural phenomenon.

1. In the temperature trace of the past 10 000 years based on glaciological evidence, the recent decades have not displayed any anomalous behaviour. In two-thirds of these 10 000 years, the mean temperature was even higher than today. Shortly before the last ice age the temperature in Greenland even increased by 15 degrees C in only 20 years. All of this without any man-made CO2 emission!

2. There is no direct connection between CO2 emission and climate warming. This is shown by the fact that these two physical quantities have displayed an entirely different temporal behaviour in the past 150 years. Whereas the mean global temperature varied in a quasi-periodic manner, with a mean period of 70 years, the CO2 concentration has been increasing exponentially since the 1950’s. The sea level has been rising and the glaciers have been shortening practically linearly from 1850 onwards. Neither time trace showed any reaction to the sudden increase of hydrocarbon burning from the 1950’s onwards.

3. The hypothesis that the global warming of the past decades is man-made is based on the results of calculations with climate models in which the main influence on climate is not included. The most important climate driver (besides solar luminosity) comes from the interplay of solar activity, interplanetary magnetic field strength, cosmic radiation intensity, and cloud cover of the Earth atmosphere. As is shown in Section II, this phenomenon is generated by the action of galactic vacuum density waves on the core of the Sun.

4. The extremely close correlation between the changes in the mean global temperature and the small changes in the rotational velocity of the Earth in the past 150 years (see Fig. 2.2 of http://www.fao.org/DOCREP/005/Y2787E/y2787e03.htm), which has been ignored by the mainstream climatologists, leaves little room for a human influence on climate. This close correlation results from the action of galactic vacuum density waves on the Sun and on the Earth (see Section II). Note that temperature lags rotation by 6 years.

5. From the steady decrease of the rotational velocity of the Earth that set in in Dec. 2003, it can reliably be concluded that the mean Earth temperature will decrease again in 2010 for the duration of three decades as it did from 1872 to 1913 and from 1942 to 1972.

6. The RSS AMSU satellite measurements show that the global temperature has not increased since 2001 despite the enormous worldwide CO2 emissions. Since 2006 it has been decreasing again.

II. Physical explanation for the strong correlation between fluctuations of the rotational velocity and changes of the mean surface temperature of the Earth

Despite its great successes, the gravitational theory of the great physicist Albert Einstein, General Relativity, (which is of a purely geometric nature and is totally incompatible with the highly successful quantum theory) must be discarded because this theory is completely irreconcilable with the extremely large energy density of the vacuum that has been accurately measured in the Casimir experiment.

Seaon Theory, a new theory of gravitation based on quantum mechanics that was developed eight decades after General Relativity, not only covers the well-known Einstein-effects but also shows up half a dozen post-Einstein effects that occur in nature. From a humanitarian standpoint, the most important super-Einsteinian physical phenomenon is the generation of small-amplitude longitudinal gravitational waves by the motion of the supermassive bodies located at the center of our galaxy, their transmission throughout the Galaxy, and the action of these waves on the Sun, the Earth and the other celestial bodies through which they pass. These vacuum density waves, which carry with them small changes in the electromagnetic properties of the vacuum, occur in an extremely large period range from minutes to millennia.

On the Sun, these vacuum waves modulate the intensity of the thermonuclear energy conversion process within the core, and this has its effect on all physical quantities of the Sun (this is called solar activity). This in turn has its influences on the Earth and the other planets. In particular, the solar wind and the solar magnetic field strength are modulated which results in large changes in the intensity of the cosmic radiation reaching the Earth. Cosmic rays produce condensation nuclei so that the cloud cover of the atmosphere and the Earth albedo also change.

On the Earth, the steady stream of vacuum density waves produces parts-per-billion changes in a large number of geophysical quantities. The most important quantities are the radius, circumference, rotational velocity, gravitational acceleration, VLBI baseline lengths, and axis orientation angles of the Earth, as well as the orbital elements of all low-earth-orbit satellites. All of these fluctuations have been measured.

Irrefutable evidence for the existence of this new, super-Einsteinian wave type is provided by the extremely close correlation between changes of the mean temperature and fluctuations of the mean rotational velocity of the Earth. (see the figure referred to in Section I.4). Einsteinian theory cannot explain this amazing correlation between two physical quantities that seem to be completely unrelated.

While the rotational velocity of the Earth and the thermonuclear energy conversion process on the Sun react simultaneously to the passage of a vacuum density wave, a time span of 6 years is needed for the energy to be transported from the core of the Sun to the Earth’s atmosphere and for the latter’s reaction time.

As can be seen, super-Einsteinian gravitation reveals the true cause of climate change.

In your analysis posted above, do you include the January and February 2008 data. If so, to play the devil’s advocate, if you remove these data points (which might be considered outliers) would the IPCC AR4 fall into the 95% confidence limits?

Thanks
gdfernan

Nice work! Been following your comments at Anthony’s house.

This is good to see. From your numbers, it appears that the t-statistic when you include the MEI is actually slightly larger than without it, as I thought it would be. The decrease in the range of uncertainty evidently more than compensates for the upward shift in the estimate of the underlying climate trend. By my reckoning, the likelihood of the underlying climate trend being as large as 2.0 deg C is reduced by about a factor of 2 when you control for the ENSO with the MEI.

I hadn’t learned it as an undergrad (or even a grad student) because in my specialty, we usually learn to know enough statistics to avoid doing experiments that result in messy data of this sort. So, in some sense, if I did a lab experiment and needed to do Cochrane Orcutt instead of ordinary least squares, it would mean I designed my experiment badly! In contrast, people in climatology, econometrics of other areas have to use the data available. It’s often messy in different ways. This techniques takes care of a specific type of messiness.

(I’m learning other techniques because later analyses will almost certainly involve data that are messy in different ways!)