This is what passes for a sunspot these days

wattsupwiththat (09:47:07) :
Leif, What’s to stop you from going through the record and coming up with a procedure to correct this mess and publishing it?
I am working on this, but lack of funding for this project forces me to give priority to other things that put bread on the table. In addition, this is painstaking work that cannot be speeded up, so it takes time.
How long does a sunspeck (or sunspot) have to be present before it ranks as countable? What standards are in place to ensure that observers use the same type of equipment and techniques to count spots? Is there any such standard?
Both SIDC and NOAA claim that they follow ‘standards’ that they have set for themselves. These standards are different which is not necessarily bad in itself as one can calibrate one against the other. Part of the problem lies in the very definition of the sunspot number: R = 10*G + S. Wolf devised this formula from the observation that an average group [G] contained about 10 spots [S]. This clearly is not the case for the Tiny Tims, where even the tiniest pore results in a minimum sunspot number of 11. Wolf counteracted this by not counting the smallest spots. In a certain sense the NOAA active region count is a better measure, because the collection of spots will have to have a certain size, life time, and meet some other criteria as well. This work fine, until NOAA panics and deviate from their standard [if they actually did so this time, which we don’t know for sure]. I have said this so many times, but let me say it again: “solar astronomers are well aware of all these issues and they do their best [subject to human vagaries] to compensate for differences in instruments and techniques”. What we don’t need is that solar science becomes polarized like climate science.
REPLY: Leif can you point me to the published standards? – Anthony

Glenn (10:31:54) :
Not sure where you heard the “all-time high” bit
A simple google search will find you many references:
Here are some of those:
http://www.globalwarminghysteria.com/blog/2007/7/12/solar-activity-at-an-all-time-high-bbc-report-just-3-years-a.html
http://spiritofmaat.com/archive/jan4/prns/sunspots.htm
http://www.mpg.de/english/illustrationsDocumentation/documentation/pressReleases/2004/pressRelease20041028/
but you are aware that we are not in what is known as the “Modern Maximum”?
“The Modern Maximum refers to the ongoing period of relatively high solar activity that began circa 1950.
And the problem with your posts is that you often contradict yourself [as the above snippets from your recent post show] while at the same time use condescending language “but you are aware…” and the like. Not very useful in a serious discussion.
I suggest that you continue this exchange in the ‘sunspecks’ thread that has already been burdened with this.

Glenn (11:23:31) :
Leif, Thanks for the “all-time high” report, based on C14 data and not sunspot count
You only see one side of things [the side you like]. The Solanki et al. paper is effectively rebutted here:
Nature 436, E3-E4 (28 July 2005) | doi:10.1038/nature04045; Published online 27 July 2005
How unusual is today’s solar activity?
Raimund Muscheler, Fortunat Joos, Simon A. Müller & Ian Snowball
“To put global warming into context requires knowledge about past changes in solar activity and the role of the Sun in climate change. Solanki et al. propose that solar activity during recent decades was exceptionally high compared with that over the preceding 8,000 years. However, our extended analysis of the radiocarbon record reveals several periods during past centuries in which the strength of the magnetic field in the solar wind was similar to, or even higher than, that of today.”
I show one of their Figures at http://www.leif.org/14C.png so you don’t have to pay $30. Panel a shows [dark blue] solar activity deduced from 14C. It was around 1600 and 1780 as high or higher than today.
This is also shown well by the 10Be data of Beer et al. [that I have referred to]. What you are missing is that this is an active research area and the various papers are ‘claims’ and ‘proposals’ and ‘suggestions’. But, please, this will be my last exchange with you here. Continue over in ‘sunspecks’ if you must.

Kim Mackey (11:43:56) :
Given that your estimate for solar cycle 24 maximum is in the mid-70’s, how would that compare to a revised solar sunspot record? A cursory look at the record seems to indicate to me that a cycle 24 max of 75 would be the lowest since the Dalton minimum.
Our solar cycle prediction paper http://www.leif.org/research/Cycle%2024%20Smallest%20100%20years.pdf notes that SC24 may be the smallest in the past 100 years. The sunspot number during the Dalton minimum is very uncertain, and could be off by a factor of two, so who is to say?
See slide 6 of Wolf’s adjustements.
Note the very large changes in the Wolf number between 1800-1825 as Wolf struggled to interpret the [very few[ observations back then. The even tried to use counts of aurorae as a proxy.

Brian in AK (12:28:57) :
It’s interesting how so much of what is assumed to be hard science turns out to be greatly influenced by human whims, bias and manipulation.
It has always been like that when it comes to what you could call “the frontier” of science. There is ‘hard science’ of which there is no discussion [general relativity, quantum mechanics, evolution, plate tectonics, stellar structure, orbital mechanics, material sciences, etc] , but at the fringe [or frontier] where science advances, you will see the usual bickering. Scientists are people too.

Rob (13:31:42) :
how long have they been counting specks for spots, 10, 20, 50 years
Since 1893.
I am sure there are enough dedicated amateur observers that have good observational records using low tech equipment which can be fairly compared with all historical observations.
There are, in fact, very active amateur groups that do this [and well].
http://www.vds-sonne.de/gem/res/dia.html#renetz
http://users.telenet.be/j.janssens/Engwelcome.html
http://www.britastro.org/solar/newsletters/May2008.pdf
and many more.

Robert Bateman (14:26:46) :
Does the Catania Observatory calibrate thier images with darks or check for random changes in the noise (like you will find in certain Kodak imagers)?
As far as I know Catania follows the established rule that sunspot count must be visual and not derived from photographic or CCD images. The drawings are made by hand on a piece of white paper onto which the solar image is projected.
The f10.7 flux is integrated over the total solar disk and will not show such a small spot that covered only 1/100,000 of the solar surface unless you observe f10.7 100,000 times more accurately than we actually can.

The last article of the three near the end distorts my view. The journalist asked what would happen IF the solar influence was strong. My answer was that SHOULD it turn out that the sun is a major player [which I doubt, but we don’t know for sure] AND solar activity goes down, THEN …
The ‘no room for complacency’ was totally her own invention. Here is the quote:
“There is no room for complacency, Svalgaard warns: “If the Earth does cool during the next sunspot crash and we do nothing, when the sun’s magnetic activity returns, global warming will return with a vengeance.”
It is very hard to counter such distortions.

Carsten Arnholm, Norway (16:31:27) :
Another thing is that the photosphere image appears to be a not-so-professional mosaic. The top right part is darker and is divided from the rest with a straight line (this appears to be the border between two frames).
How many times must I repeat that the sunspot count is not done on the photograph or CCD image, but by vsiual inspection of the projected solar image on a white piece of paper, on whhich the drawing is made.

Glenn (20:33:01) :
More than a thousand year high:
“The level of solar activity during the past 70 years is exceptional — the last period of similar magnitude occurred over 8,000 years ago.
They get this erroneous result because the reconstruction of the sunspot number from the 14C flux is based on the systematically too low past sunspot numbers.
The cosmic ray flux gives a better picture. The best data comes from Juerg Beer and his group. Here is what they [K.G. McCracken, J. Beer & F.B. McDonald] say [page 89-90] in:
http://www.eawag.ch/organisation/abteilungen/surf/publikationen/2005_the_long
“Since 850 AD the 22-year average cosmic-ray intensity (as measured by the 10Be concentration) has returned repeatedly to low values [meaning high solar activity] that are similar to those of
the present epoch (i.e. since 1950). Thus the 10Be concentration at the South Pole in Figure 4 exhibits minima within ±2% of 3.00 × 104 atoms/g for the 22-year averages centred on 940, 1132, 1220, 1360, 1740, and 1958 AD. This remarkable result indicates that the modulation process, and by inference, the properties
of the heliospheric magnetic field, were similar during many of the periods of high solar activity between 850 and 1958. This may indicate that the interplanetary magnetic field near Earth is presently near an asymptotic value that it has approached on five previous occasions in the past 1150 years.”
The problem is that it is easy to cite articles in support of this or that [and you can always find some that will support any point of view you choose]. but if you don’t know the details of the calculations and are not intimately familiar with the issues, it is easy to be led astray by selecting articles supporting your own view, without due regard for the wider issues and the full breadth of the evidence.
I have already referred to the rebuttal of the ‘all-time-high’ by Mueschler et al., See, e.g. Nature 436, E3-E4 (28 July 2005) | doi:10.1038/nature04045;
Climate: How unusual is today’s solar activity?
Raimund Muescheler, Fortunat Joos, Simon A. Mueller & Ian Snowball.
or Muescheler et all [Quaternary Science Reviews vol 26, p.82, 2007]:
The tree-ring 14C record and 10Be from Antarctica indicate that recent solar activity is high but not exceptional with respect to the last 1000 yr.

Roger Carr (21:00:02) :
http://www.sillybooks.net/books/beetle_spots/beetle_spots.htmlApproved by my Granddaughter no 3.
Robert Bateman (21:02:33) :
Shouldn’t Cataina be also using a bad pixel or defect map?
How many more times must I say this: the sunspot drawings are made visually, not from photographs of CCD pixel maps.
I’m beginning to think that the ‘sapiens’ bit in our species designation: home sapiens is perhaps overstated.

Terry Ward (03:43:17) :
If you do what you propose will it not result in some years’ count being negative?
Not if the correction is a multiplier, as in new = 1.5 * old.

on 44Ti: some more falls have been ‘unearthed’ and the record may now extend back some 240 years, still not the 1000 years in question. The further back the 44Ti record goes, the greater influence has the uncertain value of the half-life of 44Ti. The discussion is not whether solar activity in the middle 20th century was high [it was], but whether that activity is unprecedented in the last few millennia [it is not].

DR (10:08:56) :
Still no comment on this article?
http://climaterealist.blogspot.com/2008/09/new-paper-us-hurricane-counts-are.html
I haven’t read the paper yet [not published yet], so can’t comment. But I seem to recall that in the past people have claimed no such relationship, so we shall see.

Glenn (10:43:09) :
When there are no cycles or they are very small with few sunspots, TSI will be low. Large cycles, with high sunspot count, high TSI
The issue is not low/high, but how much. For a small cycle, the cycle average TSI is 1365.8 W/m2, for a large cycle TSI is 1366.2, for a difference of 0.4 or less than 0.03%. That is not a lot of heat. In fact it is easy to calculate how much that will increase the temperature since dS/S = 4 dT/T, so a dS/S of 0.03% is a change of T, i.e. dT/T of 0.03/4 = 0.0075%= 100*0.0075*300(degrees Kelvin) = 0.02 degrees.
There is a strong correlation with sunspot/cycle intensity pattern and global temperature pattern in the last hundred years.
Since solar activity 1840-188 was comparable to that of 1980-present, temperatures should be comparable too. Cherry-picking just the last 100 years is not a compelling strategy.
The claim that the increase in TSI (which I haven’t seen to be denied by anyone) is not significant enough to account for even a substantial percentage of the increasing temperatures is just speculation.
I just calculated for you what the temperature change should be. It is your choice to consider 0.02 degrees to be significant. I wouldn’t base public policy and tax-dollars on that.
Back when Jack Eddy [1976 or so] called attention to the Maunder Minimum and noted that it coincided with the LIA, it was thought [based on Abbot’s measurements 1913-1956] that the change in ‘the solar constant’ between the Maunder Minimum and now was of the order of 1.5% or 50 times larger than we now know that is, so by the same calculation we get dT/T of 50*0.03/4 = 50*0.02 degrees = 1 degree, which is about what it is. Eddy later recognized that his suggestion [MM -> LIA] had been observationally refuted, e.g. as he acknowledged in his Dinner talk “Tales of the Sun and Climate” at the SORCE 2003 meeting http://lasp.colorado.edu/sorce/news/2003ScienceMeeting/Dec03ScienceMeeting.html
Unfortunately, the [now unsupported] MM and LIA link has caught the public’s eye [and yours, it seems] and like a zombie cannot be beaten down and put to rest.

Glenn (11:55:46) :
It appears your preference is to choose from a few articles that for one reason or another, deny any warming connection to anything other than greenhouse gasses, placating the IPCC.
And this is where you go wrong in the most serious way as it colors your whole view of things. I do not think [and has never said] that the recent warming is due mostly to greenhouse gases. Undoubtedly a small part is [as CO2 is a greenhouse gas], but with an Earth covered 71% with a 3,700 meter deep ocean holding perhaps 300 times as much heat as the Atmosphere, any simpleminded AGW or Solar connection is equal folly. The IPCC report is just politics and should not be taken seriously.
.4 is a lot of heat, Leif. It is about half a W/m2 increase for many years of increasing solar activity
Yes, assuming that the heat stays, except it doesn’t. During the few minutes of a total solar eclipse, the temperature falls several degrees. In the desert at night, the temperature falls 30 degrees K. That great greenhouse gas Water Vapor raises the temperature 30 degrees.
Your simple equation that appears to calculate the increase in temperature is hogwash. The Earth doesn’t work that way to be able to calculate global temperatures by such simple means.
Oh yes, when it comes to small changes, then it is pretty good. After all, when comes in, must go out eventually, and the formula equates the two quantities. The formula says nothing about the effect of greenhouse gases [mainly Water Vapor], so assumes that the amount of greenhouse gases has not changed [something some people would violently oppose, but i have no qualms with that assumption, since most of it is Water Vapor anyway]
Glenn, try to get off the stifling fixation on what you wrongly acsribe to people, especially me, and start the learning process, as I suggested.

Leif Svalgaard (12:39:47) :
The formula says nothing about the effect of greenhouse gases [mainly Water Vapor], so assumes that the amount of greenhouse gases has not changed
To clarify, I mean, of course, the amount of change due to… or if you prefer, the effect of. the formulat assumes that that change is small. If you, Glenn, want to argue that I should take into effect the warming effect of man-made emissions, then that will have to be added to the 0.02 degree change caused by TSI. I’ll let you add what you think is appropriate and tell us the result.

Glenn (11:55:46) :
“Unfortunately, the [now unsupported] MM and LIA link has caught the public’s eye [and yours, it seems] and like a zombie cannot be beaten down and put to rest.”
And absolutely tons of scientific articles, official agency reports, college syllabus, Wiki…
Especially the IPCC reports, I presume.

Glenn (13:03:58) :
The scientific record is literally swamped with references to such things as the MWP, LIA, cold Sporer Minimum and other subjects you deny, that provide the basis of my understanding and opinion.
For the umpteenth time: the MWP and the LIA are real. they are there, no doubt. The Spoerer Minimum temperature is discussed in the ‘Sunspec’ thread, so I’ll keep it there. Perhaps only show this temperature anomaly reconstruction: http://www.climateaudit.org/wp-images/brif2034.gif
Compare the SM with the MWP that shows similar warming.
It is from http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=3608
I also do not happen to accept that the sunspot record is “seriously flawed”. Reconstructions of past cycles match early recorded cycles pretty well, and one or two specks counted will not matter much. If there is any hard evidence of the past recording being sporatic or incomplete, you should provide it.
And this is the crux of the matter. I have repeatedly provided such evidence, but you have evidently not studied it sufficiently, if at all. The way to deal with this is to treat it as a scientific peer-review. The process works like this: the reviewer goes through the paper and for every point where he thinks that the argument is weak or the data non-convincing he/she notes why he thinks so and asks for clarification or elaboration. That he/she merely disagrees is not a valid objection. Then the author responds to each point and the referee evaluates if the response addresses his/hers concerns.
And you have completely missed the whole point of this thread and several others, by talking about ‘past recording being sporatic or incomplete’. For the umpteenth time, again, the recordings are what they are and are the best we have, but they are not calibrated correctly to be comparable to the modern records, or conversely, the modern recordings are too high. We are not talking about the old observers ‘missing’ spots, but about how we compare their records with ours.

Glenn (13:13:10) :
Sheesh, Leif, even your own “adjusted” graph shows that the period of 1960-2000 was more intense than that of 1840-1880.
But now I see why you compared 1980-present to 1840-1880. 30 year span compared to 40 year span with one more cycle in the earlier range. Good tactic.
I don’t do tactic. But I’ll be happy to lop of the first of the earlier cycles to make both periods the same length. Or to add a cycle to the modern span. If I do, here are the average corrected sunspot numbers for each span:
3 early cycles 63.8 3 modern cycles 68.5, difference 7%
4 early cycles 62.1 4 modern cycles 65.5, difference 5%
Of course, the numbers to not match exactly, but are within a few percent of each other [average 6%], so are very comparable. We can translate that difference into a TSI difference. It comes to 4/100 = 0.04 W/m2, as the TSI change from solar min to max for cycles with a sunspot number of 150 has been 1.5 W/m2, so one W/m2 per 100 spots. The 0.04 W/m2 results in a temperature increase of 0.002 degrees.

Glenn (13:13:10) :
Sheesh, Leif, even your own “adjusted” graph shows that the period of 1960-2000 was more intense than that of 1840-1880.
But now I see why you compared 1980-present to 1840-1880. 30 year span compared to 40 year span with one more cycle in the earlier range.
Grrrr, I was even misled by your sloppiness or worse [tactic?]. I should have known better and checked. The two periods both had three cycles in them, that was how I chose them in the first place, trying to make them as comparable as possible. So, no extra cycle. In the end, as my later post showed, it doesn’t make any difference. If uses the absolute worst case [for me], namely the Group Sunspot Number, the early interval had GSN = 42.5, and the modern had GSN = 68.0. The difference, 15.5 spots, translates into 0.16 W/m2 of TSI resulting in 0.008 degrees. This is the temperature increase considering solar activity just as extra heat. I think most people realize that that won’t do, hence the scramble for other mechanisms: UV on ozone, cosmic rays, magnetic ‘energy’, you name it. There is no shortage of mechanisms, maybe they all work together. But such plethora does not convince me, perhaps you. Your problem or joy, as the case may be, then.

Robert Bateman (15:07:22) :
Um, no, the period BEFORE that, 1790-1835, that is where the hard winters were. The Dalton, and that is where I believe we are currently headed.
And yet you were referring to:
People have forgotten the very hard & bitter winters that existed from the time of Lewis & Clark Exp. through the 1840’s.
But ok, in this game everybody seems to thrive on being just a little bit off here and there if it fits better 🙂
There were also at that time significant volcanic activity: 1809 (see Dai JGR 96, 1991), 1814 (Mayon), and 1815 (Tambora), resulting in significant cooling. As I said before, wanting to ascribe all change to just one cause is folly.
On top of that [which I also touched upon earlier] our knowledge of the sunspot number during the Dalton minimum is very shake. We could be off by a factor two [either way].

A number of things come to my addled mind:
1. As this sun speck was only really visible in the magnetogram, it appears that sunspots are created by the magnetic anomoly, as these anomolies precede the visual sunspot.
2. Are we now going to measure sunspots with magnetic images? This makes the sunspot record discontinuous. To be valid, we must employ a standard for sunspots that is equivalent to the method of recording sunspots over the historical record. Calibration, guys!
3. Is there not some time duration required to count as a sunspot, such as a solar rotation, or two observations within a 48 hour period?
4. Aren’t these people really clutching at straws? And it was a cycle 23 speck to boot. Ha!
5. Following on from (2) above: If we calibrated our observations with those from the 17th and 18th century (a not impossible task) then we could make a guesstimate (engineering term for SWAG) of the unseen sun-specks during that period.

Leif Svalgaard,
Rather than adjust past numbers, we can calibrate present numbers by employing the techniques used in the past. The past instruments and their capabilites are known; we can employ them, or modern day analogues, to observe over a period of time, and then use those numbers to correlate current, more sensitive counts, to the older counts. This way, we do not do the Hann trick of “adjusting” past data and do not throw away the advantage of modern sensitivty. We will be able to produce an homogenous historical record, though.
This can be done for technologies available at different periods. It is a simple, yet elegant, experiment.
As to funding, do like Yon and Totten do for their funding in independant journalism of war in the mid-East: Get a Paypal account and ask for donations. 5000 donations of $20 goes a long way. I will donate a hundred.

Alec Rawls (16:56:07) :
Now turning to some of the science instead of the silly NewScientist discussion of who assumed what.
No, it does not have to be the result of greenhouse gases. It seems to be the result of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation. Svensmark has it nailed. His graphic near the end of my post here.
I am sympathetic to the PDO, but not to the notion that it caused by the GCRs [or their purported influence on clouds].
It is GCR that can be measured directly in the geologic record
First, please don’t refer to it as the geological record, maybe glaciologic record or biological record [for 14C]. No Geology there.
Second, the GCRs are NOT measured directly. They create 10Be which is washed out by weather and rain and transported to the poles by wind, so the deposition of 10Be in the ice depends not only on the GCRs, but also on the weather and especially on the sulphuric acid aerosols, so volcanic eruptions have a heavy influence on the 10Be record. So, no ‘direct’ link there. Important to get little facts correct. We have temperature and PDO records and GCR records [or their proxies 10BE and 14C] going much further back than what Svensmark shows for his plot. The PDO [e.g. Steve Hare’s that you show] back to 1900 does not vary as the GCRs did back to then, hence my reluctance to attach weight to the notion that the PDO is GCR-controlled.

Glenn (18:11:15) :
Colder than the dickens from 1800 to 1820, then a short warming 10 year or so reprieve and a couple warm summers, followed by a drop to frigid temps from 1830 to 1840. The warm spell could be explained by ocean circulation patterns, etc.
And the cold spells not? This works both ways.

Robert Wood (17:15:27) :
Sorry, I didn’t see this one for the fluff:
1. As this sun speck was only really visible in the magnetogram, it appears that sunspots are created by the magnetic anomaly, as these anomalies precede the visual sunspot.
Sunspots are the visual manifestation of a magnetic field stronger than 1500 Gauss [the Earth’s field is 0.5 Gauss]. If the magnetic field is weaker than 1500 G it shows up brighter than the surrounding atmosphere.
2. Are we now going to measure sunspots with magnetic images? This makes the sunspot record discontinuous. To be valid, we must employ a standard for sunspots that is equivalent to the method of recording sunspots over the historical record. Calibration, guys!
We should measure sunspots the way they have always been measured. Unfortunately that is a void statement, because the method changed in 1893 when Wolf died. So we have to ‘splice’ the two pieces together by appropriate calibration.
3. Is there not some time duration required to count as a sunspot, such as a solar rotation, or two observations within a 48 hour period?
No, although NOAA has a 12-hour lifetime requirement for counted it as an ‘active region’. Historically, Wolf and his successors only observed once a day, and Wolf had a subjective
judgment call based on the size of the spot. His successor didn’t like that and counted all spots he could, which is not much better, because different people in different locations with different seeing, see different things.
4. Aren’t these people really clutching at straws? And it was a cycle 23 speck to boot. Ha!
No, they are trying to the best they can [and it is not easy]. Of course, as government employees [or maybe all employees] they try to CYA and hate to admit errors and hide behind bureaucracy [‘this is an official product and cannot be changed’].
5. Following on from (2) above: If we calibrated our observations with those from the 17th and 18th century (a not impossible task) then we could make a guesstimate (engineering term for SWAG) of the unseen sun-specks during that period.
yes, but we have to include the 19th and 20th centuries as well, because they need to be re-calibrated as well. And it is possible to do the re-calibration [I’m working on it 🙂 ]. A major obstacle is that many folks don’t want a correctly calibrated series because of possible conflicts with their ideas derived from or supported by the flawed series.

evanjones (20:01:22) :
Well, I agree with Wikipedia: That IS what the IPPC [sic] says!
Anybody reading that Wiki entry comes away with the impression that IPCC’s is an objective assessment of the situation as it “has been endorsed by at least 30 scientific societies and academies of science,[4] including all of the national academies of science of the major industrialized countries.[5][6][7] While individual scientists have voiced disagreement with some findings of the IPCC,[8] the overwhelming majority of scientists working on climate change agree with the IPCC’s main conclusions.”
The individual scientists [and by extension all AGW skeptics] are almost represented as some loonies on the fringe.
I’ll be specific and not split hairs: “That Wiki entry is one-sided”.

nonein2008 (20:44:33) :
Anthropogenic Solar Chaos – ASC. Man is causing an upset in the sun. […]There is a proven correlation between the increased number of negative thoughts over the last 5 years and the decreasing number of sun spots.
Hurry, hurry, write a Wikipedia entry. We need all those good and strong correlations documented where the unwashed masses can find them.

Glenn (21:13:23) :
It’s called paraphrasing, Leif.
You evaded answering if you agree with the paraphrased:
“Natural phenomena such as solar variation combined with volcanoes probably had a small warming effect from pre-industrial times to 1950 and a small cooling effect from 1950 onward.”

Robert Bateman (21:27:31) :
All I care to see is consistency, and a reported margin of error in the work.
If you give both the orginal data and the corrected data, the record is preserved for those needing to examine or refine the correction.
since the intrinsic [i.e. not calibration] error in the original data is unknown, the error in the corrected data will also be unknown.
And since the original data is and has always been and will continue to be available, a re-calibration is always possible, as it should be.
Robert Bateman (21:31:52) :
Right now I would greatly appreciate some links to other observatories that keep records of sunspot drawings and white light images. I cannot at this time find a single image that confirms any of the SC24 spots reported.
I have searched Catania, Calgoora and UCCLE.
There has to be more.
Mt. Wilson: ftp://howard.astro.ucla.edu/pub/obs/drawings/

Robert Bateman (21:31:52) :
Right now I would greatly appreciate some links to other observatories that keep records of sunspot drawings and white light images.
http://mlso.hao.ucar.edu/cgi-bin/mlso_data.cgi

mark wagner (05:57:53) :
I’m confused. The magnetogram clearly shows the magnetic disturbance on the left side. The Catania drawing indicates the “spot” is on the right side.
The Catania drawing is done from a projection of the Sun. The telescope forms an image of the Sun in the focal plane. You can look at that image from two sides: the front or the back. Left and right are reversed between the front and back views. If I hold out my right hand to you, that hand will be to the left of me seen by you..
If you look through the telescope you see the image from the back. If you place a piece of cardboard in the focal plane and look at the image falling on the cardboard you look at it from the front, hence the reversal of left and right. The image formed in an astronomical telescope is also upside down, but that you compensate for by simply turning the drawing 180 degrees.

Gary Gulrud (08:09:11) :
The 24 max will be 3 sigma or more outside any statistical prediction based on the past 150 years.
Which is why we don’t use statistical predictions anymore. The current prediction(s) are not based on statistical correlations or extrapolations, but on [what is believed to be] solid physics. The discrepancies between the predictions are caused by poorly known boundary conditions. Cycle 24 will help us constrain those.

I started my foray into this question [and my blogging ‘career’ (after having been banned by Tamino because I was not enough pro-AGW for his site, plus that I was foolish, ignorant, a lier, and worse] with this entry at Steve McIntyre’s blog:
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=2470
If you don’t want to go there [for your own personal reasons] I repeat here [slightly edited – correction of typos, etc] my very first posting [warning: it is long], setting forth several lines of inquiry and evidence:
Line 1:
The Total solar Irradiance (TSI) has several sources. The first and most important is simply the temperature in the photosphere. The hotter the sun, the higher the TSI. Some spectral lines are VERY sensitive to even minute changes in temperature. Livingston et al. has very carefully measured the line depth of such temperature-sensitive lines over more than 30 years spanning three solar cycles [Sun-as-a-Star Spectrum Variations 1974-2006, W. Livingston, L. Wallace, O. R. White, M. S. Giampapa, The Astrophysical Journal, Volume 657, Issue 2, pp. 1137-1149, 2007, DOI; 10.1086/511127]. They report [and I apologize for the somewhat technical turn my argument is taking, but if you really want to know, there is no avoiding this], “that both Ca II K and C I 5380A intensities are constant, indicating that the basal quiet atmosphere is unaffected by cycle magnetism within our observational error. A lower limit to the Ca II K central intensity atmosphere is 0.040. This possibly represents conditions as they were during the Maunder Minimum [their words, remember]. Within our capability to measure it using the C I 5380A line the global (Full Disk) and basal (Center Disk) photospheric temperature is constant over the activity cycles 21, 22, and 23″. I have known Bill Livingston [and White] for over 35 years and he is a very careful and competent observer.
Line 2:
Since the 1960 we have known that the sun’s surface oscillates up and down [with typical periods of ~5 minutes]. These oscillations are waves very much like seismic waves in the Earth [from earthquakes] and just as earthquake seismic waves can be used to probe the interior of the Earth, they can be used to probe the solar interior. There are millions of such solar waves at any given time and there are different kinds (called ‘modes’) of waves. The solar p-modes are acoustic [sound waves] normal modes. You can imagine a frequency increase with an increasing magnetic field, due to the increase in magnetic pressure raising the local speed of sound near the surface where it is cooler and where the p-modes spend most of their time. Of course one can also imagine higher frequencies may result from an induced shrinking of the sound cavity and/or an isobaric warming of the cavity. Another kind is the solar f-modes that are the eigenmodes of the sun having no radial null points [i.e. asymptotically surface waves; again I apologize for the technical mumbo-jumbo]. From the solar cycle variations of p- and f-modes [and we have now enough data from the SOHO spacecraft to make such a study] we now have an internally consistent picture of the origin of these frequency changes that implies a sun that is coolest at activity maximum when it is most irradiant. Now, how can that be? How can a cooler [overall, including the cooler sunspots, for instance, as the temperature of the non-magnetic areas of the sun didn’t change {see line 1 above}] sun radiate more? It can do that, if it is bigger!. Goode and Dziembowski (Sunshine, Earthshine and Climate Change I. Origin of, and Limits on Solar Variability, by Goode, Philip R. & Dziembowski, W. A., Journal of the Korean Astronomical Society, vol. 36, S1, pp. S75-S81, 2003) used the helioseismic data to determine the shape changes in the Sun with rising activity. They calculated the so-called shape asymmetries from the seismic data and found each coefficient was essentially zero at activity minimum and rose in precise spatial correlation with rising surface activity, as measured using Ca II K data from Big Bear Solar Observatory. From this one can conclude that there is a rising ‘corrugation’ of the solar surface due to rising activity, implying a sun, whose increased irradiance is totally due to activity induced corrugation. This interpretation has been recently observationally verified by Berger et al. (Berger, T.E., van der Voort, L., Rouppe, Loefdahl, M., Contrast analysis of Solar faculae and magnetic bright points. Astrophysical Journal, vol. 661, p.1272, 2007) using the new Swedish Solar Telescope. They have directly observed these corrugations. Goode & Dziembowski conclude that the Sun cannot have been any dimmer, on the time steps of solar evolution, than it is now at activity minimum.
Line 3:
Foukal et al. (Foukal, P., North, G., Wigley, T., A stellar view on solar variations and climate. Science, vol. 306, p. 68, 2004) point out the Sun’s web-like chromospheric magnetic network (an easily visible solar structure seen through a Ca II K filter) would have looked very different a century ago, if there had been a significant change in the magnetic field of the sun supposedly increasing TSI. However, there is a century of Mt. Wilson Solar Observatory Ca II K data which reveal that the early 20th century network is indistinguishable from that of today.
Line 4:
Svalgaard & Cliver have recently (A Floor in the Solar Wind Magnetic Field, by L. Svalgaard and E. W. Cliver, The Astrophysical Journal, vol. 661, L203�L206, 2007 June 1, 2007) shown that long-term (∼130 years) reconstruction of the interplanetary magnetic field (IMF) based on geomagnetic indices indicates that the solar wind magnetic field strength [and thus that of the sun itself, from which the IMF originates] has a ‘floor’, a baseline value in annual averages that it approaches at each 11 yr solar minimum. In the ecliptic plane at 1 AU [at the Earth], the IMF floor is ∼4.0 nT, a value substantiated by direct solar wind measurements and cosmogenic nuclei data. We identify the floor with a constant (over centuries) baseline open magnetic flux at 1 AU of 4×10^14 Weber. Solar cycle variations of the IMF strength ride on top of the floor. They point out that such a floor has implications for (1) the solar wind during grand minima: we are given a glimpse of Maunder minimum conditions at every 11 yr minimum; (2) current models of the solar wind: both source surface and MHD models are based on the assumption, invalidated by Ulysses, that the largest scale fields determine the magnitude of the IMF; consequently, these models are unable to reproduce the high-latitude observations; and (3) the use of geomagnetic input data for precursor-type predictions of the coming sunspot maximum; this common practice is rendered doubtful by the observed disconnect between solar polar field strength and heliospheric field strength [the wrong prediction by the NASA panel for cycle 23 was based on this, and the prediction {of a high cycle} by one half of panel for cycle 24 is also partly based on this]. The constancy of the IMF also has implications for the interpretation of the Galactic Cosmic Ray flux.
Line 5:
But maybe it is the Ultraviolet flux that varies and affects the stratospheric ozone concentration and thereby influences the climate. I have earlier in (Calibrating the Sunspot Number using the “Magnetic Needle”, L. Svalgaard; CAWSES News, 4(1), 6.5, 2007] pointed out that the amplitude of the diurnal variation of the geomagnetic Y-component is an excellent proxy for the F10.7 radio flux and thus also for the EUV flux (more precisely, the FUV, as the Sq current flows in the E layer). There is a weak trend in the amplitude of 10% since the 1840s that can be understood as being due to an increase of ionospheric conductance resulting from the 10% decrease of the Earth’s main field. Correcting for and removing this trend then leads to the conclusion that (as for the IMF) there seems to be a ‘floor’ in rY and hence in F10.7 and hence in the FUV flux, thus the geomagnetic evidence is that there has been no secular change in the background solar minimum EUV (FUV) flux in the past 165 years.
Line 6:
Careful analysis of the amplitude of the solar diurnal variation of the East-component of the geomagnetic field [we have accurate measurements back to the 1820s] allows us the obtain an independent measure of the FUV flux (and hence the sunspot number) back to then. The result is that the Wolf number before ~1945 should be increased by 20% and before ~1895 by another 20%. The Group Sunspot number in the 1840s is 40% too low compared to the official Wolf number. When all these adjustments are made we find that solar activity for cycles 11 and 10 were as high as for cycle 22 and 23. Thus there has been no secular increase in solar activity in the last ~165 years [a bit more precise than the 150 years I quoted earlier]. Of course, there has still been small and large cycles, but we are talking about the long-term trend here [or lack thereof].
Line 7:
Direct measurements (although beset by calibration problems) of the Total Solar Irradiance (TSI) from satellites have only been available for 30 years and indicate that solar irradiance increases with solar activity. Correlating mean annual TSI and sunspot numbers allows one to estimate the part of TSI that varies with the sunspot number. If TSI only depends linearly on the sunspot number then irradiance levels during the Maunder Minimum would be similar to the levels of current solar minima. But TSI is a delicate balance between sunspot darkening and facular brightening, and although both of these increase (in opposite directions) with increasing solar activity, it is not a given that there could not be secular variations in the relative importance of these competing effects. Several earlier reconstructions of TSI, reviewed in Froehlich, C. & J. Lean (Solar Radiative Output and its Variability; Evidence and Mechanisms, Astron..& Astrophys. Rev., 12(4), 273, 2004, Doi;10.1007/s00159-004-0024-1.[6] all postulate a source of long-term irradiance variability on centennial time scales. Each group of researchers have their own preferred additional source of changes of the ‘background’ TSI, such as evidence from geomagnetic activity, open magnetic flux, ephemeral region occurrence, umbral/penumbral ratios, and the like. The existence of ‘floors’ in IMF and FUV over ~1.6 centuries argues for a lack of secular variations of these parameters on that time scale. The six other lines of evidence discussed above suggest that the lack of such secular variation undermines the circumstantial evidence for a ‘hidden’ source of irradiance variability and that there therefore also might be a floor in TSI, such that TSI during Grand Minima would simply be that observed at current solar minima.
Now, this is a BIG subject and you are in a sense watching science in the making, but the picture is becoming clearer and there is enough NEW evidence that simply quoting old papers [even rather recent ones] is old hat. If you look carefully at the various reconstructions they all rely on some combination of the [too low] Group Sunspot numbers and/or the [too low aa-index] and/or the now discredited ‘doubling of open magnetic flux in the last 100 years’ [not even Lockwood thinks so anymore]. With these things out of the way there is little support anymore for the ‘all-time high solar activity’. But as I said, this whole thing will probably take some time to play out – let’s say about a solar cycle’s worth. Each of the issues mentioned above is complicated and requires a lengthy analysis and much convincing before they sink in. But at least you are now forewarned. All the lines are connected, you cannot easily accept some and reject the others [with possible exception of #1]. So accept all or reject all. I’m very willing to discuss any and all of them in detail, but it has to be done with civility [windandsea: nobody is ‘flinging nonsense’. People are either ignorant (which is no shame) or have other hidden motives (which is no shame either)]. I have learned that civility is a precious commodity in the GW debate, but we can all do our part.
I concluded that “So, if there is ‘solar activity’ or TSI forcing, the sensitivity of the climate system to this must be much greater than generally assumed and understood. A simpler hypothesis is that there is no solar effects on the timescale of decades or centuries.”
And I asked the blogger community at ClimateAudit for help in trying to understand if there was such hypersensitivity. After 4000 posts and after enduring a significant amount of abuse [similar to what I get from you {e.g. not being honest}, or worse: you ain’t seen nothin’ yet] we are no closer to the answer to that. I discovered there that many were not interested in rocking the boat, the ‘science was settled’ [that is: the strong correlation between solar activity and temperature], and any change to that would impact too much their personal beliefs. Since human nature is universal it is no surprise to encounter the same attitude here. As a counterweight to the abuse it is, however, encouraging also to see all the comments from people that feel that I have given them something valuable and interesting, and <i<that is what keeps me here, in spite of a few bad apples or banana peels to slip on.
Signing off on this thread. I’ll be back in new threads, should Anthony post more on the Sun.

Glen, Leif, Kim, arguing about 10-20 years as indicative of global climate change is wrongheaded. Perhaps at those timescales, the oceanic oscillations may have impact (that certainly appears so to me); but I reckon a step change in solar output would take at least 60 years to change then temperature of the oceans; remember the Oceans are an enormous thermal mass.
So, to argue about decadal changes is not very useful. We must be using at 60 smoothing year filters.

Glenn (16:46:45) :
Here’s the Bond article, Leif, although I imagine you are familiar with it
Yes, I have discussed this one with him several times. The trouble with this one is that there is power at very many frequencies and by filtering out everything with power at periods longer that 1800 years, you pick out power in a band just below it.
A careful analysis by your ‘heroes’ Usoskin and company comes to this result [no filtering] http://cc.oulu.fi/~usoskin/personal/aa7704-07.pdf:
Grand minima and maxima of solar activity: new observational
constraints.
Usoskin, S. K. Solanki, and G. A. Kovaltsov
Accepted 25 May 2007
Results. The occurrence of grand minima/maxima is driven not by long-term cyclic variability, but by a stochastic/chaotic process[…]

Jim Powell (17:03:50) :
Here is a graph of historical sunspots with Bond dates and Encke’s orbit inserted. I used the historical sunspots as a timeline to see if comet impacts caused the major dips in the sunspot record.
Ans as you can see, the Bond events and the 1460-year marks are in phase back to 6000 BT (Before Tunguska], then they drift out of phase and don’t line up anymore as well as the Bond events not matching the sunspot curve anyway.
It is all just too flimsy and shaky to base anything serious on. That is why I as a solar scientist if asked for example at a Congressional Hearing if the solar connection was solid enough to base policy on, would have to [honestly] NO. This does not mean that I’m closed to the idea. On the contrary [it would make my expertise all that much more valuable], I eagerly [as I have done for 40 years] read every scrap of paper announcing yet another solar link, to see if, indeed, ‘this is it’. Alas, I haven’t seen it yet. Often I serve as reviewer of such papers. I reject some [that are just bad], I give the authors a hard time [on the ones that need more work], and I accept some [because the speculation has some merit and might lead to progress in the future].