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Solving the Climate Puzzle: The Sun's Surprising Role
Climate change is the most important scientific issue of our time, catalyzing a profound societal shift based on our perceived understanding of it. While many books explain what we already know about climate change, this book explores what we admit we do not understand about it (the known unknowns). In doing so, it reveals a previously overlooked mechanism of climate change, one that operates in the background and eludes the scrutiny of prevailing climate theories and models. Astonishingly, this phenomenon is clearly evident in numerous climate studies, casting a new light on climate change that warrants a critical reevaluation of many of the conclusions presented in the IPCC Assessment Reports.Regardless of your position on climate change or your familiarity with the underlying science, this book offers a wealth of knowledge and a profound shift in your understanding of the dynamics that govern climate variability. With 134 illustrations (black and white in the paperback edition), this book aims to make climate science accessible to a broad audience, and only you, the reader, can ultimately determine the extent to which it succeeds in this goal.
413 pages, Hardcover
Published November 1, 2023
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January 31, 2025
Vinos presents a theory of climate which concentrates on the role of heat transport and various factors that influence it. The book is very interesting to read as each chapter introduces new mechanisms that are poorly covered in the literature. The author discusses each issue concisely, building toward his Winter Gatekeeper hypothesis.
While the book is 52 chapters in length, each chapter is reasonably short and includes a summary at the end. Moreover the chapters are arranged into 16 sections, each of which has a summary. The material can be ready reviewed by reading the section summaries, with further detail in the chapter summaries.
Beyond the summaries, Vinos makes many interesting observations:
In chapter 26, he notes that "It is troubling that we claim to be able to predict the climate of future centuries, yet we cannot accurately explain the climate of 300 years ago."
In 1987 Karin Labitzke identified the changes in the winter tropospheric circulation that occur as a result of the solar cycle. Her discovery marked the end of a 185-year quest for definitive evidence of a solar effect on climate.
It is clear from the available evidence that the primary climate risk in our distant future is a return to glacial conditions. No interglacial period has lasted long after obliquity (the tilt of the Earth's axis) drops below 23°, which will happen in 3,400 years.
The major El Niño event of 2015-16 marked the end of the global warming pause observed from 1998-2014. Subsequently, changes were made to several temperature datasets, transforming the pause into a period of continued global warming in surface temperature data. While some scientists argued in 2016 that the pause was real, it is no longer mentioned in publications. As a result, the concept of a global warming pause is no longer recognized in mainstream climate science.
A hundred years ago, the Arctic experienced a period of intense warming. A similar phenomenon has occurred since 1997, but was ignored by scientists due to the focus on CO2 effects.
We can expect the next climate shift to occur within the three years following the projected end of cycle 25, which gives us a date between 2031 and 2035. This shift could reduce poleward transport and cause Arctic cooling, contrary to our current expectations.
Climate is affected by a number of multi-year oscillations. As they are not synchronized, the climate changes depending on the state of any oscillation, often with a significant lag. Chapter 40 details the EL Nin0 - Southern Oscillation, the Quasi-Biennial Oscillation, the Pacific Decadal Oscillation and the the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation.
Over the next few thousand years, the sun's tilt change will gradually increase heat and moisture transport, leading to more summer snowfall at high latitudes. The planet will be colder than it is now, and the greater winter transport will increase energy loss and cooling. The onset of these irreversible trends is called glacial inception. Reaching full glacial conditions is a very long process, usually taking about 15,000 years (longer than the Holocene), during which the long-term cooling is sometimes interrupted by periods of warming. This process has always occurred over the past 2.5 million years, regardless of CO2 levels. The belief of many scientists that this time will be different is not based on evidence.
In 1991, marine ecologists identified an abrupt change in the North Pacific ecosystem that had occurred 15 years earlier, caused by a sudden climate shift. Surprisingly, this change had escaped the attention of climatologists, who were primarily focused on identifying a discernible human impact on the climate. In essence, this shift represented a transition between stable states, which have since come to be known as climate regimes.
The inherent fragility of climate models is highlighted by the fact that attempts to improve the realism of cloud simulations have increased their sensitivity to rising CO2 levels. Correcting this problem is a complex task, leading to proposals to exclude models that predict higher levels of warming when calculating multi-model averages. While there may be valid reasons behind such proposals, it can be likened to selectively choosing a preconceived answer, known as cherry-picking.
The inclusion of nonlinear mathematical formulas in climate models, coupled with their iterative nature, makes them chaotic and highly sensitive to initial conditions. This phenomenon is commonly referred to as the butterfly effect. In a fascinating experiment, the Community Earth System Model was subjected to 30 simulations of North American climate over 50 years, starting in 1963. Remarkably, despite initial conditions differing by only an infinitesimal fraction of a degree, the results in 2012 showed large divergences.
In the penultimate chapter, Vinos presents his forecast of solar activity and climate drivers inherent in the Winter Gatekeeper hypothesis, for the coming years. It emphasizes two natural climate drivers on a multi-decadal time frame: solar activity and multi-decadal ocean oscillations. Solar activity is projected to increase and the ocean oscillations are expected to enter a cold phase within the next 15 years.
According to the Winter Gatekeeper hypothesis, a projected phase shift in the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation, coinciding with below-average solar activity, is expected to lead to a moderate cooling effect until 2040. However, as solar activity is expected to continue to increase thereafter, the warming trend is likely to resume.
While the book is 52 chapters in length, each chapter is reasonably short and includes a summary at the end. Moreover the chapters are arranged into 16 sections, each of which has a summary. The material can be ready reviewed by reading the section summaries, with further detail in the chapter summaries.
Beyond the summaries, Vinos makes many interesting observations:
In chapter 26, he notes that "It is troubling that we claim to be able to predict the climate of future centuries, yet we cannot accurately explain the climate of 300 years ago."
In 1987 Karin Labitzke identified the changes in the winter tropospheric circulation that occur as a result of the solar cycle. Her discovery marked the end of a 185-year quest for definitive evidence of a solar effect on climate.
It is clear from the available evidence that the primary climate risk in our distant future is a return to glacial conditions. No interglacial period has lasted long after obliquity (the tilt of the Earth's axis) drops below 23°, which will happen in 3,400 years.
The major El Niño event of 2015-16 marked the end of the global warming pause observed from 1998-2014. Subsequently, changes were made to several temperature datasets, transforming the pause into a period of continued global warming in surface temperature data. While some scientists argued in 2016 that the pause was real, it is no longer mentioned in publications. As a result, the concept of a global warming pause is no longer recognized in mainstream climate science.
A hundred years ago, the Arctic experienced a period of intense warming. A similar phenomenon has occurred since 1997, but was ignored by scientists due to the focus on CO2 effects.
We can expect the next climate shift to occur within the three years following the projected end of cycle 25, which gives us a date between 2031 and 2035. This shift could reduce poleward transport and cause Arctic cooling, contrary to our current expectations.
Climate is affected by a number of multi-year oscillations. As they are not synchronized, the climate changes depending on the state of any oscillation, often with a significant lag. Chapter 40 details the EL Nin0 - Southern Oscillation, the Quasi-Biennial Oscillation, the Pacific Decadal Oscillation and the the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation.
Over the next few thousand years, the sun's tilt change will gradually increase heat and moisture transport, leading to more summer snowfall at high latitudes. The planet will be colder than it is now, and the greater winter transport will increase energy loss and cooling. The onset of these irreversible trends is called glacial inception. Reaching full glacial conditions is a very long process, usually taking about 15,000 years (longer than the Holocene), during which the long-term cooling is sometimes interrupted by periods of warming. This process has always occurred over the past 2.5 million years, regardless of CO2 levels. The belief of many scientists that this time will be different is not based on evidence.
In 1991, marine ecologists identified an abrupt change in the North Pacific ecosystem that had occurred 15 years earlier, caused by a sudden climate shift. Surprisingly, this change had escaped the attention of climatologists, who were primarily focused on identifying a discernible human impact on the climate. In essence, this shift represented a transition between stable states, which have since come to be known as climate regimes.
The inherent fragility of climate models is highlighted by the fact that attempts to improve the realism of cloud simulations have increased their sensitivity to rising CO2 levels. Correcting this problem is a complex task, leading to proposals to exclude models that predict higher levels of warming when calculating multi-model averages. While there may be valid reasons behind such proposals, it can be likened to selectively choosing a preconceived answer, known as cherry-picking.
The inclusion of nonlinear mathematical formulas in climate models, coupled with their iterative nature, makes them chaotic and highly sensitive to initial conditions. This phenomenon is commonly referred to as the butterfly effect. In a fascinating experiment, the Community Earth System Model was subjected to 30 simulations of North American climate over 50 years, starting in 1963. Remarkably, despite initial conditions differing by only an infinitesimal fraction of a degree, the results in 2012 showed large divergences.
In the penultimate chapter, Vinos presents his forecast of solar activity and climate drivers inherent in the Winter Gatekeeper hypothesis, for the coming years. It emphasizes two natural climate drivers on a multi-decadal time frame: solar activity and multi-decadal ocean oscillations. Solar activity is projected to increase and the ocean oscillations are expected to enter a cold phase within the next 15 years.
According to the Winter Gatekeeper hypothesis, a projected phase shift in the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation, coinciding with below-average solar activity, is expected to lead to a moderate cooling effect until 2040. However, as solar activity is expected to continue to increase thereafter, the warming trend is likely to resume.
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