It has been a while since I posted something on climate. This article is too good to let it pass without notice. It shows that the complexity of solar irradiance and the earth's temperature variation match. Each non-Gaussian series matches the other and the power law index of each is approximately equal. Thus, there is a transfer of information (and energy) from the Sun to the Earth that links their variation together. The complexities of the respective variations match, indicating that the information of the solar series is repeated in the Earth's series.
The IPCC report concludes the contribution of solar variability is only noise; this is based on the models that attempt to incorporate all the mechanisms responsible for climate variability in order to recreate the variability in the Earth's average temperature. But, then the remaining, unexplained variations ought to be Gaussian distributed. They are not Normal (Gaussian) and are distributed as a power law.
The authors conclude: "Thus the average global temperature record presents secular patterns of 22- and 11-year cycles and a short time- scale fluctuation signature (with apparent inverse power-law statistics), both of which appear to be induced by solar dynamics. The same patterns are poorly reproduced by present-day GCMs and are dismissively interpreted as internal variability (noise) of climate. The non-equilibrium thermodynamic models we used suggest that the Sun is influencing climate significantly more than the IPCC report claims. If climate is as sensitive to solar changes as the above phenomenological findings suggest, the current anthropogenic contribution to global warming is significantly over-estimated. We estimate that the Sun could account for as much as 69% of the increase in Earth’s average temperature, depending on the TSI reconstruction used. Furthermore, if the Sun does cool off, as some solar forecasts predict will happen over the next few decades, that cooling could stabilize Earth’s climate and avoid the catastrophic consequences predicted in the IPCC report."
Nicola Scafetta and Bruce West, Is Climate sensitive to solar variability? In the opinion section of Physics Today, March 2008.
The last time we saw the Gaussian or Normal model used was to tell us that Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac were perfectly safe. You know how that turned out. Now, we are being alarmed about climate warming by modellers who toss out the variation that is caused by the information transfer from the Sun to the Earth. They downplay this transfer of complexity and information by ignoring its non-Gaussian behavior. Then they can call it noise, and go back to their scary message that the "unexplained" portion of the variation is manmade warming.
