brrrrrr

rjb

http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/stp/SOLAR/ftpcosmicrays.html

By eyeballing the tables, it is clear that from one monitor to the next, there are cycles measured by each (which is to be expected). It is also interesting that measurements are different depending on location (like why are Bejing’s numbers so much smaller?), but the cycles are still there. We know that when minimum occurs, we get blasted with cosmic rays, which in theory, can create the process needed for water droplets and clouds to occur. Right now, the sun is deeply asleep with a magnetic number of 66. The length of the minimum is getting quite long, extending the amount of time we are not being protected by the magnetic shield of the sun.

Here is the one-two punch:

If cold ocean water kicks up moisture into the air (and for those readers who are warmers, also slows the increase of CO2 into the atmosphere), AND cosmic rays hit the atmosphere, in essence seeding it, and cloud cover cools the planet…?

I’m not claiming any cooking of books. My understanding is that the missing data simply doesn’t exist. But regardless of WHY it’s missing, the fact that it IS missing, introduces a known warm bias.

Another concern I have is the difference between temperature, and heat content. Tropical air contains considerably more water, and therefore more energy per degree, than polar air. It seems to me that joules/cubic meter, or something similar, would be a much more useful metric than temperature. I sincerely have no idea how that would alter the global “averages.” But at least the numbers would be more meaningful.

REPLY: See this previous post I made on the subject

http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/2008/03/08/putting-a-myth-about-uah-and-rss-satellite-data-to-rest/

“Some Norwegian reader here made the comment somewhere that these small sunspots would have been impossible to detect with the primitive instruments available during the Maunnder Minimum. Of course he’s right. The puny spots we’ve been seeing occasionally are insignificant. It’s like seeing one tiny bubble in a pot you’re waiting to see start boil. Cycle 24 has not started in my view.”

Definition of solar minimum
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_minimum
“The date of the minimum is described by a smoothed average over 12 months of sunspot activity, so identifying the date of the solar minimum usually can only happen 6 months after the minimum takes place.”

If we apply a “Maunder minimum technology sunspot count adjustment” to the present Cycle 24 spot, to make the current counts consistent with that time, then most likely the total SC24 sunspot count so far would be zero.

I think it is quite likely that solar minimum is still months into the future.

Are you the Jean Meeus I think you are?
http://www.willbell.com/math/mc1.HTM
Fantastic work!

I used the theories in your book to simulate the solar orbit, which really has an interesting and very complex behaviour. I wonder if the cyclic behaviour could explain solar activity….

Screenshots of computed orbits
http://arnholm.org/astro/sun/sc24/sim1

The former two spellings would be, ahem, anomalous.

ba-dump bump!

I’ll be here all week.

http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/2008/03/10/feb-2008-rss-global-temperature-anomaly-near-zero-and-in-good-agreement-with-uah/

I used the 0.080 since that was in the same column that Anthony used. I was going for consistency. I just checked the other 3 and they don’t have April yet.

About Sunspots, did Galileo or Wolf have teams of people checking the instruments at least hourly to make sure no sunspots would get missed?

John M Reynolds

@Andrew Blackburn
Good link, real interesting. Tells me these teeny tiny Tims we’ve been seeing are just really a continuation of the sun’s current big nap. If this keeps up, we’ll soon have to say the sun is in a coma.

Concerning solar activity and “natural” factors, I found some comments from Dr. Latif, already posted at NC Media Watch, from Ernst-Georg Beck from EIKE (European Institute for Climate and Energy) at:
http://www.eike-klima-energie.eu/?WCMSGroup_4_3=6&WCMSGroup_6_3=1247&WCMSArticle_3_1247=353

2002 Prof. Latif in Stern Magazine:
“Based on our analysis, we can say that solar fluctuations are responsible for only 1/3 of the global warming. The dominant factor is man“.
“There is no credible evidence that would lead someone to doubt the scientifically supported statements of the IPCC Report that global warming is caused by man.”

2003 Prof. Latif:
“It is clear that since about 1980, total solar irradiance, the sun’s UV radiation, and also cosmic rays have fluctuated with the 11-year solar cycle, but have not increased significantly overall. To the contrary, the Earth has warmed up greatly during this period. This therefore eliminates the sun as a cause of the current global warming.“

2004 Prof. Latif:
“At 0.17 degrees C per decade, the temperature increase over the last 30 years has been especially profound. This increase cannot be explained by natural factors. Possible natural influences – like solar activity, volcanoes, cosmic rays and earth orbits – have shown NO TRENDS since the middle of the 20th century.“

I suspect Dr. Latif could soon be looking at a solar trend that he will not be able to overlook.

Hooray, someone who can spell anomaly.
Finoly!