From Watts Up With That?

Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach

Well, the endless curiosity of my monkey-mind led me to some interesting datasets over at KNMI. They’re a variety of meteorological measurements made in Holland since 1964. I noticed that they have global solar radiation data, so I plotted that up to see the variations. I overlaid it with the CEEMD residual, which is what is left after the various cyclical variations have been removed. The CEEMD residual shows the overall trend of the data. (For more information on CEEMD analysis see my post “Noise-Assisted Data Analysis.)

Figure 1. Monthly Dutch solar radiation, January 1964 – January 2023

This was interesting. Solar ran about level for about five years, decreased for some twenty years or so, and then increased after that.

Next, I looked at the Dutch surface temperature, in the same manner.

Figure 2. Monthly Dutch surface temperature, January 1964 – January 2023

Fig. 2 shows a general slow rise in temperature over the period in question.

Now, my choice of these two datasets was not random. Remember that the central paradigm of modern climate science is the very simplistic view that changes in temperature are a linear function of changes in downwelling radiation.

Me, I think that’s nonsense. I know of no other complex chaotic system with that kind of simple input/output relationship … but that’s what mainstream climate science claims. I discuss this idea in my post entitled “The Cold Equations“.

So … here’s the relationship between solar radiation and temperature in Holland. In both cases, I’ve used the CEEMD residuals.

Figure 3. Monthly Dutch surface temperature, January 1964 – January 2023

Hmmm … not exactly a linear relationship. It starts with solar radiation dropping and temperature rising … and then that relationship reverses.

Hmmm indeed.

Now, this is just solar radiation. Unfortunately, the KNMI data doesn’t include downwelling longwave radiation. However, we have that data from the CERES dataset for the period from March 2000 to February 2022. Over that time the downwelling longwave radiation in Holland decreased by -5.0 W/m2.

And this in turn gives an overall (longwave + shortwave) sensitivity for that shorter time period of … 0.1°C per W/m2 … go figure.

Can we draw any overarching global conclusions from this analysis? No way. It’s just one small country … however, it does show that over the last ~60 years, there are many more things that affect the temperature of Holland than just downwelling radiation.

My best to all.

w.

My Usual Request: When you comment, please quote the exact words that you are discussing. This avoids endless misunderstandings.