Dr David Evans is an electrical engineer and mathematician, who earned six university degrees over ten years, including a PhD from Stanford University in electrical engineering (digital signal processing): PhD. (E.E), M.S. (E.E.), M.S. (Stats) [at Stanford], B.E. (Hons, University Medal), M.A. (Applied Math), B.Sc.[University of Sydney]. His specialty is in Fourier analysis and signal processing. He trained with Professor Ronald Bracewell late of Stanford University.
David has worked in the climate industry, consulting full-time for the Australian Greenhouse Office from 1999 to 2005, and part-time for the Department of Climate Change from 2008 to 2010. He was the lead modeler analyzing the carbon in Australia’s biosphere for Kyoto accounting purposes, and developed the world-leading carbon accounting model FullCAM that Australia uses in the land use change and forestry sector.
In June of 2014 he published his "Notch-Delay Solar Theory", and in the intervening 18 months he has successfully defended the theory in the peer review process. The very briefest summary would be that Earth surface temperatures track solar activity but with a delay imposed by (are you ready for this?) the sunspot cycle, which although variable has over history averaged eleven and a fraction years, but is currently almost exactly 13 years long. To further his goal of a more accurate climate model, he has invented a new mathematical tool called "Optimal Fourier Transforms", which has been a real godsend to those of his fellow EE's here in Silicon Valley who work on cellphone tech, including both phones and cell tower transceivers. The application of Fourier Transforms to climate modelling has but one justification: accurate results. It seems that there is a 13-year-long "notch filter" in global temperatures!
Here's a link to the model (including formulae, datasets, and spreadsheet): http://sciencespeak.com/climate-nd-solar.html
Those of you who wish to download and use the model are welcome to do so, you will need only a reasonably recent version of Excel.
Dr. Evan's model is unique in one aspect: When used in "hindcasting", his model very closely predicts future temperatures and trends, with an incredible accuracy (+/- 3%) versus the IPCC and GISS climate models (+/- 20%). The dataset includes data from 1749 onwards, which is the period where we have recorded observations of both sunspots and surface temperatures. Indeed (although this is a separate topic) Dr. Evans has in the peer review process poked many holes in the egos of the Paleo-Climate crowd who use "derived temperatures" in their models.
Why have I bothered to make this long-winded explanation? Because when used to forecast current temperatures, two controversial things happen:
1) The Evans model says that the forcing effect of carbon dioxide, although real, is 10% or less than that predicted by the IPCC and GISS models. This appears to be correct, because we are in fact not warming as rapidly as the other models predict.
2) The 13-year sunspot "notch filter" says that the peak global temperature will be reached in 2017, which is 13 years after the TSI (Total Solar Insolation) peak in 2004. Then the model predicts actual solar cooling which will accelerate during the 2020's, until a new "Mini Ice Age" begins around 2030. This is not without consequence, the land will be cooler and wetter than today, and much of Canada and Alaska will again be covered in ice, and sea levels will subside below current levels.
=====> The implications are that we could continue to burn oil and coal until we run out, with noticeable but by no means serious climate impacts, somewhere around a maximum of 15% of the current warming predicted by the IPCC and GISS modelers. For however many decades the new "Mini Ice Age" lasts, we are likely to burn FF's at a rate greater than today, simply for space heating needs that will increase beyond today's.