NT Tech talk - Synchronous natural climate cycles of the Common Era, for Europe, China and globally – existence and implications for future temperature trends

The talk can also be streamed to other members, if interested please contact one of the NT Division committee members.

Title: Synchronous natural climate cycles of the Common Era, for Europe, China and globally – existence and implications for future temperature trends

Author: Professor Michael Asten, School of Earth Atmosphere and Environment, Monash University. The talk summarises a joint effort with Kuan-Hui Elaine Lin (Univ of Taiwan) Carl Otto Weiss (PTB Braunschweig, Germany) Nicola Scafetta (Univ of Naples, Italy) and Alison Kelsey (U Qld), developed over three years at EGU 2017, 2018 and 2019.

Bio: Michael Asten is a Professor (retired) and ongoing Adjunct Senior Research Fellow in the School of Earth Atmosphere and Environment, Monash University, Melbourne.  He is a past-President of the ASEG, and served a recent three-year term as the AGC representative on the Australian Academy of Sciences UNCOVER Committee.  He has published 190 scientific papers.  He has developed passive seismic (microtremor) methods for 15 years, developing applications for earthquake hazard, and regolith characterization.   In the past six years he has applied signal processing methods to paleoclimate data sets with a view to quantifying past climate cycles and equilibrium climate sensitivity

Abstract:

We compare proxy temperature cycles contained in   data sets from European glaciation, China agricultural records, and two global proxy constructions.  A high correlation between European and China data sets, especially for 800-2000 CE, demonstrates a level of synchronicity beyond possible regional phenomena.  Spectral analysis shows a series of spectral peaks in all data sets consistent with those detected globally in cosmic ray flux, which supports the theory of natural climate cycles being partially under astronomical control. An interesting sidelight from the European and China data is observed temporal coincidence of social phenomena such as population decrease, starvation, disease and wars during phases of cooling, compared with human advancement during historical warmer phases. When the observed natural cycles are built into climate models, part of the global temperature increase of the past 170 years may be accounted for by natural cycles; we explore how this may influence estimates of climate sensitivity (the warming attributable to CO₂ forcing for a doubling of atmospheric CO₂).

Please don't hesitate to contact one of the NT Division committee members should you have any questions or wish to remote in for either presentation.