I’m writing this after doing an exhaustive search to see what sort of solar activity has occurred lately, and I find there is little to report. With the exception of the briefly increased solar wind from a coronal hole, there is almost no significant solar activity.
The sun has gone quiet. Really quiet.
It is normal for our sun to have quiet periods between solar cycles, but we’ve seen months and months of next to nothing, and the start of Solar cycle 24 seems to have materialized (as first reported here) then abruptly disappeared. The reverse polarity sunspot that signaled the start of cycle 24 on January 4th, dissolved within two days after that.
Of course we’ve known that the sunspot cycle has gone low, which is also to be expected for this period of the cycle. Note that NOAA still has two undecided scenarios for cycle 24 Lower that normal, or higher than normal, as indicated on the graph below:
But the real news is just how quiet the suns magnetic field has been in the past couple of years. From the data provided by NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) you can see just how little magnetic field activity there has been. I’ve graphed it below:
click for a larger image
What is most interesting about the Geomagnetic Average Planetary Index graph above is what happened around October 2005. Notice the sharp drop in the magnetic index and the continuance at low levels.
This looks much like a “step function” that I see on GISS surface temperature graphs when a station has been relocated to a cooler measurement environment. In the case of the sun, it appears this indicates that something abruptly “switched off” in the inner workings of the solar dynamo. Note that in the prior months, the magnetic index was ramping up a bit with more activity, then it simply dropped and stayed mostly flat.
We saw a single reversed polarity high latitude sunspot on January 4th, 2008, which would signal the start of a new cycle 24, which was originally predicted to have started last March and expected to peak in 2012. So far the sun doesn’t seem to have restarted its normal upwards climb.
If you have ever studied how the magnetic dynamo of the sun is so incredibly full of entropy, yet has cycles, you’ll understand how it can change states. The sun’s magnetic field is a like a series of twisted and looped rubber bands, mostly because the sun is a fluid gas, which rotates at different rates between the poles and the equator. Since the suns magnetic field is pulled along with the gas, all these twists, bumps, and burps occur in the process as the magnetic field lines get twisted like taffy. You can see more about it in the Babcock model.
I’ve alway’s likened a sunspot to what happens with a rubber band on a toy balsa wood plane. You keep twisting the propeller beyond the normal tightness to get that extra second of thrust and you see the rubber band start to pop out knots. Those knots are like sunspots bursting out of twisted magnetic field lines.
The Babcock model says that the differential rotation of the Sun winds up the magnetic fields of it’s layers during a solar cycle. The magnetic fields will then eventually tangle up to such a degree that they will eventually cause a magnetic break down and the fields will have to struggle to reorganize themselves by bursting up from the surface layers of the Sun. This will cause magnetic North-South pair boundaries (spots) in the photosphere trapping gaseous material that will cool slightly. Thus, when we see sunspots, we are seeing these areas of magnetic field breakdown.
Sunspots are cross connected eruptions of the magnetic field lines, shown in red above. Sometimes they break, spewing tremendous amounts of gas and particles into space. Solar flares and coronal mass ejections (CME’s) are some examples of this process. Sometimes they snap back like rubber bands. The number of sunspots at solar max is a direct indicator of the activity level of the solar dynamo.
Given the current quietness of the sun and it’s magnetic field, combined with the late start to cycle 24 with even possibly a false start, it appears that the sun has slowed it’s internal dynamo to a similar level such as was seen during the Dalton Minimum. One of the things about the Dalton Minimum was that it started with a skipped solar cycle, which also coincided with a very long solar cycle 4 from 1784-1799. The longer our current cycle 23 lasts before we see a true ramp up of cycle 24, the greater chance it seems then that cycle 24 will be a low one.
No wonder there is so much talk recently about global cooling. I certainly hope that’s wrong, because a Dalton type solar minimum would be very bad for our world economy and agriculture. NASA GISS published a release back in 2003 that agrees with the commonly accepted idea that long period trends in solar activity do affect our climate by changing the Total Solar Irradiance (TSI).
Some say it is no coincidence that 2008 has seen a drop in global temperature as indicated by several respected temperature indexes compared to 2007, and that our sun is also quiet and still not kick starting its internal magentic dynamo.
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Could all that CO2 that AL and others speak of have such an effect on the sun? WOW.
Anthony:
The first false start to cycle 24 was back in 2006. I do not have the citation at hand, but a ‘reversed’ field spot appeared for a short time back then, predating the Jan. 4 spot by 18 months or so. As you might imagine, the discussion of the sunspot cycles is just as hot (pardon the pun) a topic in Amateur Radio discussions as it is on the GW blogs. Mentions of the Maunder Minimum crop up often, as do occasional mentions of Dalton, and the question of where have our spots gone? dominates the topics.
REPLY: Yes I recall that now, but the consensus was that one was a fluke. But the one on Jan 4th may be a fluke also. My awareness of the situation is helped by the fact that I’m a Amatuer Radio Operator myself. 73’s
Wow, that’s decisive isnt it. I could have made that prediction, and I cost a lot less than NOAA.
Hi Anthony, great write up. I am convinced that we are looking at the return of a Dalton Minimum pattern and started blog it over a year ago at The Dalton Minimum Returns. I was unaware of the sudden drop in the GAPI in October 2005, and will investigate some more. It was my interest in amateur radio that sparked my interest in sun spots and their rise and fall indicating a connection to climate change. 73’s KF6TAR
REPLY: Russ’ site is worth a visit, I recommend it.
The 2006 occurance was not a Sunspot. Only the magnetograph caught the reverse polarity event. This means that the surface presence of the magnetic disturbance was not strong enough to cause a sunspot. All those who deemed and predicted that cycle 24 would be very active were hoping for this to be the beginning. Regardless the Sun has a mind of its own. Our solar heater shines down on the Earth and laughs at all those who call themselves wise and all those who are ultimately stupid. This means Al Gore, John McCain, Joe Leiberman, Kyoto et. al.
Our political hacks are so caught up with warming that they are going to be the cause of famine, disease and death in the forthcoming Dalton-Maunder-Sporer minimum. If the solar physicists and other intellegent people who look at the Sun as the source and moderator of climate on Earth are correct then we should be preparing for failed crops, no heating oil, little rain, bitterly cold winters and rampant disease from unhealthy people.
Oh my! Can we do anything? Could we use more solar powered cars? Or maybe fewer solar cells? Maybe we could stop burning oil and coal! That’ll spark the sun right up.
Maybe we should start a Solar Trading scheme, were there are a certain number of credits available and people or industries that use more than their fair share can simply buy someone else’s share. Yeah. That’ll change everything.
Maybe we need to start dropping nuclear waste into the sun. Would that help? Or hurt? Maybe we could start dropping AGW alarmists in! Even if that doesn’t spark things up, it would still be a lot of fun 🙂
I forgot where I read it recently, but the statement towards understanding what influences our climate was simply put as, the Earth is within the climate zone of our Sun. I find that quite powerful but amazing how many overlook this.
Also I read back more than a decade ago, that there is a thermal lag affect here on Earth based on solar activity which affects our weather, no different than the temperature lag affect we see when daily high temperature occurs a few hours after the Sun peaks in the sky, or a few weeks each winter and summer after the Sun is closest or fartherst from us in our hemisphere.
Is this correct? If so, should we expect a general cool-down to continue so long as solar activity continues on the trend?
Great reading here – glad I found this the other day.
Great post, Anthony. You are on fire! Like Russ I’d not seen the Geomagnetic Average Planetary Index graph with the step before, fabulous. Another radio aficionado, Jan Alvestad, has a great blog for following the data, dxlc. There will certainly be a lot of blood on the floor at NASA over the AWOL cycle 24.
Excellent entry Anthony. It continues to mystify me how so many people refuse to belive the sun is in charge of our planet’s climate system. I believe they will be proven very wrong in the next decade or so.
It’s been a year since NASA released their predictions on #24. Is there any updated predictions based on how quiet the sun has been up to this point? What is the predicted final length of #23? Correct me if I’m wrong, but I do not believe there have been any high latitude sunspots associated with #24 since the one small reversed one last month. Yes/no?
I too think we’re looking as a Dalton Minimum scenario. With a negative PDO phase….oh my. Add a major volcanic eruption (which, BTW, we haven’t had one for a while, so we’re due) and, well, I think it may be very very difficult to feed 7 billion people.
As you say, we live in very interesting times….
BTW, the genius of (now deceased) Theodore Landscheidt continues to amaze me. He flat out nailed, decades ago, the decline in solar activity after 1990, a less intense #23, and a steep decline into a Dalton-type minimum activity. Genius…
I found an interesting site about a possible explanation of the solar cycles. A prediction that we are facing a Dalton min is also made with 89 % probablity. True or not, but nonetheless interesting reading.
http://personal.inet.fi/tiede/tilmari/sunspots.html#intro
I live in Western Europe. So far we’ve had a warm winter. We’ve been saved by the warm Golf Stream. But I believe that will not last long very long.
What I understand and believe is that we have to wait 2 more years before we enter Cycle 24. That will make 4 years with low solar activity compared to the normal 1 year of low activity. There is a 3 year lag time before we start to feel the full affect here on Earth.
This should lower the Earth’s temperature by 1.5 Centigrade, by 2015-2020. During the last hundred years it have been risen by 0.6-0.7 Centigrade.
The only good thing about this cold snap is all the pseudo scientists that will get fired.
Hi,
Leif Svalgaard thinks it will start this summer (2008) and have a Rmax of 75. He also states that it could also be what he calls a Grand Minimum, but he just doesn’t know. I think it will start next summer (2009) and have 60 to 65 spots. Here is his link, everything you wanted to know but afraid to ask
http://www.leif.org/research/
His thread on CA
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=2679#comments
Golf Stream. Is *that* where all my golf balls end up? 🙂
It is hard for me to fathom how the Global Warming Alarmists ignore the obvious. I am far from being well knowledged on the scientific aspects of global temperatures, but it has always been obvious to me that the sun is our primary source of ‘heat’, duh.
What scares me most are the seemingly educated scientists (government funded IPCC types) and supposedly thoughtful politicians who so easily accept the Kyoto Protocol precepts. My take on this is a way to tax and spend on a global basis under any pretext necessary to accomplish this.
This type of reporting when combined with other writings on this subjects are quite educational for the layman, such as myself. It is unfortunate that this type of forum is not broadcast to the general public via the mainstream media. Then those citizens that get their knowledge between Oprah Winfrey and Survivor episodes may start activating areas of their gray matter previously unused.
Thank you for your excellent article. And the excellent comments as well.
Unfortunately Per, the Warmists will merely change tact. They already have been largely successful in changing the lexicon from global warming to climate change. They’ve already been blaming this year’s cold weather extremes on climate change, again due to human CO2.
Besides, when they are called on the decline in temperatures likely to follow, they will not miss a beat in saying that no credible scientists ever said temperatures would continue to rise. There is neither any shame, nor honor, among this crowd. All they want is their political outcomes no matter how they are obtained.
Anthony,
If we believe Svensmark the Sun’s magnetic field has doubled since 1900 so, it’d be really interesting to see the graph on the Sun’s magnetic field strength stretched out to include the full historical data, back to mid-1800’s? If Svensmark is right, the strength and extension of the solar magnetic umbrella is one of the main drivers in warming cycles but, given that the solar flaring activity is decreasing but, the solar magnet field is particularly strong relative to 1900, there may easily be a confluence of multiple factors driving the earth to be slightly out of sync with the historical minimums you’re showing.
It’d give true perspective to the current situation and it wouldn’t be too hard to get and use the rest of the data since they’ve been collected by the British for 150 years and should be available to the public.
I’d hate to think that thoughtful commentary like yours fails to show the full time-series associated with this phenomena, it’s not necessary and like Edward Tufte exhorts, let the evidence speak for itself, something that I feel confident that it will support your viewpoint.
They have already gone on record as saying the cooling in Antarctica not only was predicted, but does not in any way contradict their models.
Seriously: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/02/antarctica-is-cold
I’ve never understood why, when asked what might have an impact on global temperatures, a) evil Western capitalism or b) a gigantic ball of fire hundreds of times larger than our planet itself, people choose “a”. Hasn’t anyone noticed the simple fact that when the sun goes down at night, the temperature drops 30+ degrees immediately? Is that just from all those mean CO2 plants shutting down for the evening?
REPLY to: Joe in San Diego
The only reason this plot goes back to 1991 is that it comes from satellite data, so no prior data from this data set exists. However, there is a surface based magnetic measurement done by (I think) the UK Royal Naval Observatory, with a parallel measurement done in Australia, which I recall goes back to the 1850’s as compass/navigation aid.
I’ll see if this 2005 drop shows up in that if I can find the raw data to plot. If anyone knows where to find it, please advise.
[…] II: Beside supporting the theory of the Nobel Peace Prize curse, this is actually something to be concerned about. No wonder there is so much talk recently about global cooling. I certainly hope that’s wrong, […]
Keep up the good work. It is refreshing to see someone else promoting
facts and the truth. Don’t let up!
The main premise of the magnetic field theory is that it controls cosmic rays which in turn affect cloud nucleation. Low magnetic field = more cosmic rays = more cloud cover = lower global temperature.
Since we have gone well over a year now with low solar activity and, according to the graph above, lower magnetic field, is that any global cloud cover data that we can correlate with?
MattN: Could not agree more on Dr. Landscheidt. Even though he may have been a largely self-taught Heliophysicist he had phenomenal instincts unlike some academicians, e.g, Leif Svalgaard, who are his steadfast detractors.
Ran across a paper by Tsagas(2006) that might point to the second derivative zeroes in solar angular momentum due to barycentric orbit causing a relativistic perturbration by means of the Lorentz force. The transit through the gravitaional well would induce a repulsive force at right angles to the field, i.e., the polar axis, suffcient to stop the gravitational collapse of a black hole.
The field’s hystereisis would rigidly oppose the imposed deformation due to the transit. DeJager, Versteegh(2004) criticised Landscheidt’s proposal believing it to imply a tidal force as the cause (a change in direction of the angular momentum), but the Dr. did not specifiy the source. I believe the Dr. will be found correct and has more surprises in store.
Golf Stream. Is *that* where all my golf balls end up?
LOL, Matt. The ones in the stream are pretty easy to retrieve; the ones in the pond and the woods, not so much.
Great post, Anthony.