By Joseph D’Aleo, CCM
The sun remains in a deep slumber.
Today we are 15 days into April without a sunspot and with 603 sunspotless day this cycle minimum, 92 already this year. 2009 at this rate, is likely to enter the top 10 years the last century along with 2007 (9th) and 2008 (2nd) this summer.
If it stays quiet the rest of this month, the minimum can be no earlier than November 2008, at least a 12.5 year cycle length. I believe January 2009 is a better shot to be the solar minimum as sunspot number would have to be below 0.5 in June 2008 to prevent the running mean (13 month) from blipping up then. April needs only to stay below 3.2 and May 3.4 to get us to January. This would be very like cycles 1 to 4 in the late 1700s and early 1800s, preceding the Dalton Minimum. That was a cold era, the age of Dickens and the children playing in the snow in London, much like this past winter.
THE ARCTIC AND ANTARCTIC ICE STORY
As for the ice, we hear in the media the hype about the arctic and Antarctic ice. The arctic ice we are told is more first and second year ice and very vulnerable to a summer melt.
Actually the arctic ice is very 3rd highest level since 2002, very close to 2003, in a virtual tie to last winter and the highest year according to IARC-JAXA. The anomaly is a relatively small 300,000 square km according to The Cryosphere Today.
There was much attention paid in the media to the crack in the Wilkins Ice sheet bridge. It was not even reflected as a blip on the Southern Hemisphere ice extent, which has grown rapidly as the southern hemisphere winter set in to 1,150,000 square kms above the normal for this date and rising rapidly.
The net GLOBAL sea ice anomaly is also positive, 850,000 square km above the normal. See full PDF here.
An article warning that the planned Geo-Engineering during a period of cooling will cause cooling much more severe than it would otherwise be
http://www.iceagenow.com/Playing_God_with_the_Weather.htm
Man may not be causing the world to warm, but the next little ice-age being worse than the last could be man-made if this really gets going.
According to another article the Sun apparently affects Earth’s climate via the oceans, and the oceans have been cooling since not long after Sun activity started winding down to the current extreme quiet.
Get rich . . . . go long on Long Underwear futures and wheel in the dough.
Personally, I’d be fascinated to see this minimum continue and watch cooling come crashing down on Earth. That’s my scientific interest.
Realistically, I don’t want to see this. I’ve grown addicted to, you know, EATING, and crop failures for several years in a row would be very bad for that particular addiction. Also, the increased weather volatility that accompanies cooling (contrary to the popular myth of “warming causes bad weather”) would be particularly harmful in my area, where the coolest years historically have the most catastrophic hail events.
Can we do a pool for sunspotless days for 2009? I would like to reserve 307.
It doesn’t get richer than this!
http://newsminer.com/news/2009/apr/15/rural-alaska-villages-face-messy-breakup-year/
The article is summed up with the following:
Why all the chatter about warming and melting in Alaska? Well, reading the beginning of the article might clue us in.
Yes, that’s right. 40% thicker ice and 3-5 degrees below normal temperat…ohhh…hmmmm…
I guess we couldn’t just report on ice being 40% thicker and temperatures that are waaay below normal without having to insert global warming into the topic of conversation.
Basing the ice on only 6 years of data is a little short-sighted, especially with the many variables that are involved. The recent trend is for loss of ice over the past 30 years.
And no refutation of the loss of multi-year ice? Why even bother mentioning it?
So what are we supposed to make of these facts?
What is the actual change in solar irradience that goes along with the sunspot decrease? How much of a temperature effect should it have? The years 2007 and 2008 were low sunspot number year, ranking ninth and second in number of sunspotless days. Yet both were among the top 10 years in global temperature average in the last century.
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/2008/
Calendar year 2008 was the coolest year since 2000, according to the Goddard Institute for Space Studies analysis [see ref. 1] of surface air temperature measurements. In our analysis, 2008 is the ninth warmest year in the period of instrumental measurements, which extends back to 1880 (left panel of Fig. 1). The ten warmest years all occur within the 12-year period 1997-2008. The two-standard-deviation (95% confidence) uncertainty in comparing recent years is estimated as 0.05°C [ref. 2], so we can only conclude with confidence that 2008 was somewhere within the range from 7th to 10th warmest year in the record.
Based on recent history, this will be a natural fluctuation in radiative forcing that will have a modest cooling effect even if it persists.
Let’s hope it’s only a Dalton Minimum and not a Maunder Minimum arriving. The latter will really be disastrous for our planet as many will perish from starvation due to the lack of temperate land in the northern hemisphere to grow food and raise cattle.
There is an interesting article on spaceweather.com:
CMEs are so weak (240km/s) that they are actually been pushed away from the sun by solar wind gusting at 300km/s!
Taken from the site with an attached video clip of a slow 11 April CME:
“The most powerful solar explosions are now moving in slow motion. “Lately, coronal mass ejections (CMEs) have become very slow, so slow that they have to be dragged away from the sun by the solar wind,” says researcher Angelos Vourlidas of the Naval Research Lab. Here is an example from April 11th:”
[ see video on http://www.spaceweather.com/ ]
“Each second in the SOHO animation corresponds to an hour or more of real time. “The speed of the CME was only 240 km/s,” says Vourlidas. “The solar wind speed is about 300 km/s, so the CME is actually being dragged.”
Vourlidas has examined thousands of CMEs recorded by SOHO over the past 13 years, and he’s rarely seen such plodding explosions. In active times, CMEs can blast away from the sun faster than 1000 km/s. Even during the solar minimum of 1996, CMEs often revved up to 500 or 600 km/s. “Almost all the CMEs we’ve seen since the end of April 2008, however, are very slow, less than 300 km/s.”
Is this just another way of saying “the sun is very quiet?” Or do slow-motion CMEs represent a new and interesting phenomena? The jury is still out. One thing is clear: solar minimum is more interesting than we thought.
It seems that the author has some confusion about the Wilkins ice shelf, or is engaging in a straw man argument.
There is no expectation by anyone that I have read that the Wilkins ice shelf will impact the Antarctic Sea Ice Extent. The crack in the ice shelf will have no effect whatsover in sea ice area.
The idea is that such events result in a mechanical speedup of the rate of travel of land glaciers toward the ocean and ultimately cause an increase in the rate of rise of sea level In the particular case of the Wilkins ice shelf itself, this is not expected to happen, but it has had that effect on other Antarctic land glaciers.
sp *being not been
end quotation…….”
Anthony
Did you note the plage of last month which was not given a sunspot number but has now been counted as the last sunspot to appear. Ie they reset the count of days at spaceweather.com.
Do you know what that was all about?
I’ve seen a lot here about the arctic and antarctic, but nothing about the situation in Greenland. This past Sunday on PBS there was a program centering on Greenland (plus some other areas), showing a large quantity of melted water going down a very deep hole in the ice. Of course, it was full of the usual AGW pessimism. But is the ice mantle on Greenland any different from other areas in that part of the world?
Are the years right in the opening statement?
Or am i reading it wrong?
Quote:
If it stays quiet the rest of this month, the minimum can be no earlier than November 2008, at least a 12.5 year cycle length. I believe January 2009 is a better shot to be the solar minimum as sunspot number would have to be below 0.5 in June 2008 to prevent the running mean (13 month) from blipping up then. April needs only to stay below 3.2 and May 3.4 to get us to January.
This is all in the past
Steve Kopits,
You beat me to it. I, however pick 304 spotless days for 2009. This is the number that jumped out at me as I reviewed historical data a few days ago. No hard analysis, just a strong feeling, really.
You’re watching the same thing I have been. I keep wondering when the solar quiet will manifest itself in something obvious/measurable like the polar ice. Since the media is focusing on arctic ice, that seems as good a canary as anything. Since the sunspots are, more or less, the second derivative of temperatures, and temperatures directly drive the first derivative of sea ice, some serious lag might be in order. However, the clouds/albedo would have a direct first derivative effect (giving the sunspots a second derivative term in the diff. eq.)
Anyway, this is worth a lot of attention. Also check the weather forecast for Barrow, AK, for a view into how cloudy things are (in one spot). This had been consistently very cloudy (over the whole 10 day forecast) until very recently. This summer’s ice melt will have more to do with this than the temp.
http://www.weather.com/outlook/tenday/USAK0025
Our italian friend posted the following yesterday.:
ice2020 (08:43:43) :
http://209.85.129.132/translate_c?hl=it&sl=it&tl=en&u=http://daltonsminima.wordpress.com/2009/04/14/buchi-coronali-e-ciclo-solare-ce-qualcosa-di-molto-strano-proprio-come-durante-il-minimo-di-maunder/&prev=hp&usg=ALkJrhh-V-HHHW2heXunnqAZ_ngfc0ervQ
I find it quite interesting and it can raise many questions.
There have been very few solar cycle 24 sunspots since the first one appeared in January 2008. The last few sunspots have been from solar cycle 23. So solar cycle 23 will be thirteen years long in May, and solar cycle 24 is almost non existant.
Looks like we are headed into a long solar minimum. Explains why global temperatures and the seas are cooling. Expect less Arctic sea ice melting this Summer, contrary to what the global warming alarmists say and want to believe.
eric (12:12:19) :
Would you like to name the Antarctic glaciers that have been shown to speed up their rate of travel due to the loss of sea ice? Who did the study?
If you want to learn more about the sun and the climate, read the sun-earth publications by Prof dr C de Jager:
http://www.cdejager.com/sun-earth-publications/
It was mostly warmer than today the last 10,000 years and Greenland’s ice didnt melt then, so it won’t melt now either.
While it could melt around the edges some it is building up snow in the center.
Just wait till they blame the lack of sunspots on human caused CO2 …
@Tom Woods
There’s an awful lot of ‘could’s in that quote. I counted 4, plus one ‘might’.
Are you referring to this video?
That sort of surface drainage of melt water is a well known and common feature of large glaciers and is nothing new. Very dramatic so it plays easily into the AGW scare tactics but artifacts of such drainage are found all over the world as the surface melt water drains to the bottom of the glacier and eventually forms streams under the glacier to carry that surface melt water off the glacier.
They form Eskers which are the signature of these under glacier streams.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esker
Larry
It’s pretty optimistic to think the minimum would be Jan 2009. We may already have seen the last true solar cycle of our lives, and this minimum will stretch out virtually unchanged until 2080 or so. Total spotless days this year considering how microspots are counted 340. A Maunder type minimum is due and the extreme and deepening solar quiet suggests it is here.
@grayuk
Solar minima are like economic recessions : you don’t know when it was until after it’s past. We can’t know when the minimum was until the sunspots start ramping up again.
I pick 290 spotless days for 2009.
Frightening things are already beginning to happen. These are the warning waves. The worst is still to come.
Hope not the sun is turning into a white dwarf 🙂
Another warming-based (-biased?) story about Alaska:
“Though rapidly retreating sea ice makes it easier and more cost-effective to drill in the Chukchi Sea, it also means the area is more fragile. Just about every marine mammal and seabird in the Chukchi Sea is already endangered or a candidate for listing.
…
In 2007, there was no ice at all near the shelf.
“As a result of [ice shelf melting] we saw upwards of 6,000 walruses hauling out along the shore of northwest Alaska, which is the first ever,” Jay says. “It means that a greater number of animals are using a smaller space to forage in and to haul out on — probably not a good thing.”
But the very thing that is cause for concern with regard to walrus and other species in the Arctic is what’s made drilling in these waters more attractive to industry: less sea ice.”
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=103119177
Less sea ice the only, or even most important, factor? I think probably not.
Solarcycle24.com has an interesting graphic showing spotless days averaged over 100 days. The correlation between our current minimum and the minimum of cycle 6-7 is uncanny.
go to:
http://www.solarcycle24.com/
Re: Alex and Adolfo
I thought there was a paper or two out there about a unipolar field. Tallbloke, et al., have discussed hemispheric asymmetry(wasn’t attending closely).
We do know the earth’s field (from models, sorry) tries and fails to reconfigure and flip far more often than sucessfully accomplished. Perhaps we are seeing the sun struggling in this now.
Can someone please explain what this fascination with the age of the ice is, apart from it being a media scare-mongering talking point?
AFAIK, ice does not “age”, it does not anneal over time as might be expected from metals. “Old” ice does not have a fundamentally different crystalline structure from “new” ice. Doesn’t it all come down to thickness? “New” ice is assumed to be thinner, and hence there is less of it (volume).
REPLY: Pick a new name please (SPAM is not acceptable) and provide a working email address for continued access. – Anthony
‘January 2009 is a better shot to be the solar minimum’
Lately there’s been a rash of predictions\suggestions of early solar min!
WHY…??? Can’t help feel it’s a concious but unspoken community effort to let Svalgaard down gradually and gracefully from his wild prediction of August 2008.
Summer 2009 is the min, you know it! The top guys were saying so in 2007 and before that even.
They say leif has modded his solar min assertion forward abit recently in light of current spotless rampage.
eric (12:02:25)
The oceans have significant thermal mass, the temperatures do not turn on a dime.
@ Tom Woods (11:58:04) :
So Alaska will experience snow pack melt earlier than ‘normal’ but the rivers and streams will melt on a different schedule? Now that’s climate change you can believe in!
AKD (13:10:20),
That NPR link is filled with anecdotal “evidence.” NPR has a major credibility gap. So let’s look at some real facts: click
Fourteen up years; sixteen down years. And the most recent trend is down. Like the rest of the planet, Alaska is cooling.
““Old” ice does not have a fundamentally different crystalline structure from “new” ice. Doesn’t it all come down to thickness? “New” ice is assumed to be thinner, and hence there is less of it (volume).”
Old ice has a considerably lower salt content and therefore it melts at a higher temperature than “new” ice. Old ice is also more dense. As ice ages … and it is the exposure to sunlight that really does it … the salt works its way out and it becomes fresher so new ice that might melt at -3C will stay solid at that temperature when the salt has worked out of it.
Martin Atkins. Here is something that light interest you:
“One warning sign that a dangerous warming is beginning in Antarctica, will be a breakup of ice shelves in the Antarctic Peninsula just south of the January 0C isotherm; the ice shelf in the Prince Gustav Channel, and the Wordie Ice Shelf; the ice shelf in George VI Sound, and the ice shelf in Wilkins Sound.”
Mercer, Nature, 1978, v271 pp.321-325
Guess what happened to all the mentioned shelves?
REPLY: These couldn’t possibly be anything else but AGW, you are 100% sure?
Flanagan:
Those ice shelves have “collapsed” and regrown countless numbers of times during the 12 million years that Antarctica has been glaciated. The ice grows until it breaks off … then it grows again and breaks off, then again and again and again.
Temperatures were MUCH higher down there during the last interglacial and for 10 of those 12 million years, global temperatures were MUCH higher than now and there was no ice at all at the North pole.
put this another way, Flanagan. For something like 248 of the last 250 million years the North Pole has been ice-free. Having any ice at all there is abnormal.
meemoe_uk (13:23:07) :
‘January 2009 is a better shot to be the solar minimum’
The real issue is that there is no one definition of ‘minimum’ and you can get answers that can easily differ by six months or more.
If you chose F10.7 radio flux as minimum, see http://www.leif.org/research/TSI-SORCE-2008-now.png
a good number would be September 1st, 2008. If you use SSN, it may be later, depending on when the new cycle takes off [if ever 🙂 ]. Here is a Science Nugget on the minimum
Well gee… if the sun really is settling in for a long nap, we’ll just have to fix it. After all, we are Mankind! We destroy Ozone layers and recklessly heat our planet!
Since we don’t have any nuclear devices of sufficient size to even be noticed by the sun, we’ll have to throw something in to it. Mercury? Nah, too small. Jupiter! Yeah, we can do that. All we have to do is swing a few asteroids past it to slow its orbit down enough, and that sucker will just fall inward to the sun. It might even make a splash! Heh, and we thought Shoemaker-Levy was cool to watch!
Hmm… there is absolutely no possibility of unintended consequences, right? I mean, after all, it’s a simple slam dunk. Sun slows down, sun gets gas giant. No problem!
(a note for the humor challenged: yes, it was intended as humor… mostly)
Adolfo Giurfa (13:05:45) :
“Hope not the sun is turning into a white dwarf :)”
Or even worst….., a Blue Smurf
Leif: Hope you will tell us when to panic 🙂
I have been watching the magnetograms closely for a while and I have noticed, a flurry of cycle 23 plages.
Is it possible that cycle 24 maximum was reached in October 08 and cycle 25 may be starting? Is it possible that the sun has decided to “scrap” the 11 year cycle system??
The Italian blog linked above did raise an interesting point…. look at the current coronal holes, they are often occuring on the equator which is a typical of a solar maximum.
We only have solar cycle data for 300 years whilst the sun has been burning for 4.57 billion years! So perhaps this is just a blip? 11 year cycles could just be a random event.
What was the sun like during glaciations and ice ages???
Is there any way to determine this?
“Hope not the sun is turning into a white dwarf”
It is, but it’s gonna take a looong time.
Leif has a good pdf for solar observations
http://www.leif.org/research/Most%20Recent%20IMF,%20SW,%20and%20Solar%20Data.pdf
The interesting thing about this cycle is that usually the new SC exceeds the old cycle when the decay of the previous cycle gets to about ssn=10. For some reason this did not happen in SC24. It’s as if there is insufficient MF strength to generate the new cycle sunspots.
If August 2008 was the minimum why is there still no ramp-up for sc24 ?
MartinGAtkins (12:44:07) :
eric (12:12:19) :
“The idea is that such events result in a mechanical speedup of the rate of travel of land glaciers toward the ocean and ultimately cause an increase in the rate of rise of sea level In the particular case of the Wilkins ice shelf itself, this is not expected to happen, but it has had that effect on other Antarctic land glaciers.”
Would you like to name the Antarctic glaciers that have been shown to speed up their rate of travel due to the loss of sea ice? Who did the study?
Here is one example:
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/WilkinsIceSheet/
An ice shelf collapsing does not by itself raise sea level because the ice shelf was already floating on the ocean surface and displacing its own weight.However, the loss of an ice shelf can “release the brake” on the flow of glaciers that feed the shelf. Increased glacier flow can raise sea level by introducing the weight of the glacier onto the ocean surface, just like adding enough ice cubes can raise the level of your drink. In the wake of the Larsen B Ice Shelf Collapse in 2002, a research team led by Scambos found that the glaciers feeding the shelf accelerated up to six times their original flow speed.
eric (12:02:25) :
So what are we supposed to make of these facts?
What is the actual change in solar irradience that goes along with the sunspot decrease? How much of a temperature effect should it have? The years 2007 and 2008 were low sunspot number year, ranking ninth and second in number of sunspotless days. Yet both were among the top 10 years in global temperature average in the last century.
If you walk to the top of a mountain and then down the other side. As you come down you are still near the top.
The current cooling is being measured against a recent peak. Hence we will be 10th warmest year, 11th warmest, etc…
Have a think about it.
Leif:
“If you chose F10.7 radio flux as minimum, see http://www.leif.org/research/TSI-SORCE-2008-now.png
a good number would be September 1st, 2008.”
In years prior to satellite technology, past minimums were computed based on ground-telescope (counted) sunspot data, thus surely sunspot data from earth observatories should be used for the determination of this minimum instead of radio flux. It would only be fair.
I think we will have to wait for cycle 24 (25?) to ramp up and then decide what the minimum date is. As was seen with 23 max, there was a double peak, and perhaps there could be a double minimum, which could be interpreted as a dwarfed “pseudo-cycle”. Who knows..
With only 300 years of ss data (out of 4.57bil) anything could happen.
TerryBixler (13:28:19) :
eric (12:02:25) :
“So what are we supposed to make of these facts?
What is the actual change in solar irradience that goes along with the sunspot decrease? How much of a temperature effect should it have? The years 2007 and 2008 were low sunspot number year, ranking ninth and second in number of sunspotless days. Yet both were among the top 10 years in global temperature average in the last century.
Based on recent history, this will be a natural fluctuation in radiative forcing that will have a modest cooling effect even if it persists.”
The oceans have significant thermal mass, the temperatures do not turn on a dime.
Look at the following page:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/2
which has a graph of solar irradience:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/2008/Fig4_s.gif
The graphs shows that irradience has been on the low side of maximum since 2003. The lag in surface temperature response is said to be 2-3 years.
However, let’s assume that the solar irradiance does not recover. In that case, the negative forcing, relative to the mean solar irradiance is equivalent to seven years of CO2 increase at current growth rates. So do not look for a new “Little Ice Age” in any case. Assuming that the solar irradiance begins to recover this year, as expected, there is still some effect on the likelihood of a near-term global temperature record due to the unusually prolonged solar minimum. Because of the large thermal inertia of the ocean, the surface temperature response to the 10-12 year solar cycle lags the irradiance variation by 1-2 years. Thus, relative to the mean, i.e, the hypothetical case in which the sun had a constant average irradiance, actual solar irradiance will continue to provide a negative anomaly for the next 2-3 years.
Graeme Rodaughan (14:32:42) :
eric (12:02:25) :
“So what are we supposed to make of these facts?
What is the actual change in solar irradience that goes along with the sunspot decrease? How much of a temperature effect should it have? The years 2007 and 2008 were low sunspot number year, ranking ninth and second in number of sunspotless days. Yet both were among the top 10 years in global temperature average in the last century.”
If you walk to the top of a mountain and then down the other side. As you come down you are still near the top.
The current cooling is being measured against a recent peak. Hence we will be 10th warmest year, 11th warmest, etc…
Have a think about it.
I already have. Solar irradiance has been cyclical with sunspots over the past 50 years, and the average actually has been declining slightly. It has not been the dominant driver of global warming which has just reached a peak.
As a result a drop in solar irradience will not likely create a new “little ice age”, (assuming there was such a thing globally) but will likely create a slight temperature drop.
Looks like Anthony’s influence on the Sun is waning. I do not see any sunspots on the SOHO image. Of course since it was a guest post maybe it does not count.
All you grand minima fans, i would not get too exited for a couple of more years, even if the minimum is Aug 2009, my pick, that is only a 13.3 year cycle which would less than two standard deviations above normal.
grayuk (12:21:34) :
Are the years right in the opening statement?
Or am i reading it wrong?
Quote:
If it stays quiet the rest of this month, the minimum can be no earlier than November 2008, at least a 12.5 year cycle length. I believe January 2009 is a better shot to be the solar minimum as sunspot number would have to be below 0.5 in June 2008 to prevent the running mean (13 month) from blipping up then. April needs only to stay below 3.2 and May 3.4 to get us to January.
This is all in the past
Minimum is (I believe after Jean Meuus) computed based on a 13 month average. It will happen at the earliest some 6 months in the past, for any given time. April and May in the last sentence would be 2009.
I know such precision is unwarranted but my spreadsheet shows today’s 2009 arctic ice extent is less than 2003 by only about 32 hours. Since 2003 was rapidly loosing ice in the Okhotsk at this stage, and 2009 has nothing to loose there, looks like 09 will go ahead in a few days.
crosspatch (14:00:07) re: ice free arctic is normal, I agree, but it has been 40 some years since I read about it. Do you have any modern references I can catch up on? Thank you.
If, as Bill Livingston’s measurement of the sunspots’ magnetism suggests, that they will become invisible by 2015, are we seeing some of that effect already? In other words, are there more sunspots there than we can see? I suspect not, because the radio flux is not rising, but even if Solar Cycle 24 spots start increasing in frequency might not they just get fainter and fainter, and thus less easily visible, thus, not counted, in full?
====================================
In the meantime there was an article today which conveyed what I call irresponsible comments by a scientists.
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.72971d0d0ab6d933e237108c5a05b3c8.421&show_article=1
And of course the actual study will be published in Nature tomorrow.
kim (15:24:27) :
If, as Bill Livingston’s measurement of the sunspots’ magnetism suggests, that they will become invisible by 2015, are we seeing some of that effect already? In other words, are there more sunspots there than we can see? I suspect not, because the radio flux is not rising,
But it is: http://www.leif.org/research/TSI-SORCE-2008-now.png
and there have been ‘plages’ that did not produce spots. This is unusual in recent memory.
eric,
I think you will find that most of us here find all of them manipulation of the GISS temperature data, along with the loss of stations and lack of true global (they estimate the poles) coverage to make that a less then preferred resource. Please show that the years you mention follow a similar pattern in either the UAH or RSS temperature logs – obviously if these years are near the top of the GISS charts they should also be near the top of the RSS and UAH data (hint – less data but they aren’t near the top)
Perhaps if you compared the GISS solar irradiance graph to the satelite temperature readings you might find more of a common pattern that might look like solar irradiance was in fact impacting temperature.
one update on my previous, instead of “most of us”, I should have said “SOME of us” – not fair of me to generalize that which I don’t know to be true – I know others share my opinion but not how many.
Hi Leif,
I’m looking at your F10.7 graph, and it seems to me that you’ve simply taken the data and used Excel to generate a parabolic trend curve.
My problem with believing that there is actually an uptick in activity is that a parabolic trend will always show an uptick, given the initial data conditions you have here. For example, what would a curve fitted to startpoint 2008.0 and endpoint 2008.82 yield? I’m guessing a much steeper uptick.
I don’t have the source data here to play with, but I wonder what a linear trend would show? Eyeballing the data, it seems to be converging to around 74.
Neil
Eric,
Solar Irradiance is not the only factor concerning the sun that is taken into consideration, Changes in the sun’s magnetism are also important; likely more important.
From solarcycle24.com:
“The sun continues to be blank of sunspots and the spotless streak is now at 39 days. Keep in mind there was some tiny sunspots in March which is being counted by some sources.”
This is obviously referring to the mini-micro tiny tims that lasted barely 12 hours which were ‘magically numbered’ (not by NOAA), around 9 days after they had disappeared. Clearly there were folks not too happy with a low March ss count and even less happy with the notion of a *gasp* spotless streak greater than 30 days. Clear bias in my opinion. http://www.solen.info/solar/ does not show these tiny excuses-for-spots (which were not even official).
@ BillS
I mostly share your opinion. Does that help?
Did anything happen in 1912 connected with ice?
Neil O’Rourke (16:07:45) :
I’m looking at your F10.7 graph, and it seems to me that you’ve simply taken the data and used Excel to generate a parabolic trend curve.
Taking the data is in itself the right thing to do.
The trend is a third order curve fitted to the minima of the F10.7 curve, The important reason for this is that F10.7 is really the sum of two different physical effects: free-free emission [giving the slowly varying background which I’m fitting] and gyro-resonance emission from active regions [giving the rotationally modulated signal – the vertical lines are 27 days apart]. The background depends on the density and temperature of the lower corona and we think those are related to the ‘general level’ of emerging magnetic flux. I, personally, think that is an indicator of the ‘building material’ of solar activity. You are welcome to have a different opinion.
I don’t have the source data here to play with, but I wonder what a linear trend would show? Eyeballing the data, it seems to be converging to around 74.
For the next few hours the graph will have a linear trend superposed.
You can get the source data for F10.7 here: ftp://ftp.geolab.nrcan.gc.ca/data/solar_flux/daily_flux_values/current.txt
Be sure to use the ‘adjusted’ flux.
eric (14:44:56) :
GCRs, think Svensmark.
Snow this morning on Mt. Diablo in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Where is that global warming? Did they lose it in the couch cushions?
Maybe it ran away with sun spots.
Just Want Truth said:
Where? Damn it felt cold last night, so I can believe it!
I work in Santa Clara, so where is the Devil?
“TerryBixler (16:29:04) : GCRs, think Svensmark.”
See video here :
I agree, it’s complete rubbish. What is interesting to me, however, is the number of negative comments – 52 out of 52. It seems the public tide is turning fast against AGW alarmism.
My favourite comment was made by “Funnyman”:
It’s a never ending cycle of
-1- peer reviewed paper making wild apocalyptic claim
-2- get more funding from government to research said claim
-3- make even more outlandish claim!
I am bored of this crisis. Can we have a new one yet ?
Does someone have a chart more recent than this one, that shows expansion of sea ice?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:2007_Arctic_Sea_Ice.jpg
“If August 2008 was the minimum why is there still no ramp-up for sc24 ?”
The TSI does show a minima and I gather other things do too.
(said that about TSI months ago)
If all we know is true, KISS principle, maybe the sun carries on with cycles at low activity therefore no sunspots. They might be the optional sunroof.
Richard Sharpe (16:52:55) :
It’s in the East Bay, near Clayton. You might have been seeing the top of Mt. Diablo all the time, and didn’t know it, when you look Northeast of Santa Clara on a clear day. I saw the snow this morning when I was driving past Alamo on 680. I had to look close because I couldn’t believe my eyes to see it this late in the year.
in Wiki :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Diablo
“Lee Kington (15:24:49) :
And of course the actual study will be published in Nature tomorrow.”
Funny! Made me laugh!
Neil O’Rourke (16:07:45) :
Hi Leif,
I’m looking at your F10.7 graph, and it seems to me that you’ve simply taken the data and used Excel to generate a parabolic trend curve.
Dear Neil,
Leif is right… Quadratic and cubic trends give a similar parabolic trend curve. Parabolic trend is also shown by quadratic and cubic trends on 1900-2000 Svalgaard’s database.
Argh! It should have said: “Quadratic and cubic polynomial trends…” Sorry 🙂
Here the data for 11 Jan 2008 to 12 Dec 2008:
http://lasp.colorado.edu/cgi-bin/ion-p?ION__E1=PLOT%3Aplot_tsi_data.ion&ION__E2=PRINT%3Aprint_tsi_data.ion&ION__E3=BOTH%3Aplot_and_print_tsi_data.ion&START_DATE=2008%2F011-00%3A00%3A00&STOP_DATE=2008%2F3112+00%3A00%3A00&TIME_SPAN=24&PRINT=Output+Data+as+Text
The parabolic line changes at Quintic and Hexic Polynomial Trends. The line is interesting at quartic polynomial trend.
Snow also on the Hamilton Range this AM. Every peak from Mt. Day on south had it.
Just Want Truth… (16:59:13) :
nice link hopefully eric will follow.
Okay. I fricken give up. It is the Sun and the fact that I get up every morning at 5:30 AM (some kind of damned internal clock I cannot shut off) every single morning since I was 4 years old. Given this correlation, I cause the Sun to rise. Therefore I cause the Sun to cycle between cold Earth and warm Earth. I will be setting up a website for sacrifices. My suggestion is that you donate once per month. Or else the Sun will stay asleep and you will all die. Do not think it is Mother Earth. Do not study the oceans. Look only at the Sun and lack of sunspots. If you do not donate enough, I will not bring sunspots back, and the Earth will not warm.
” I will be setting up a website for sacrifices.”
Goats or virgins?
Pamela Gray (17:46:18):
Um… Accept credit cards? 🙂
We live in Sunnyvale for years–I remember snow (or ice, actually) being a problem on Umunum and north to Montebello Ridge, maybe as far as SLAC once.
I only remember the other side (Diablo to Hamilton) a few time–Hamilton more that Diablo.
I’m not sure I see the warming tend here.
Anyone know why the images of the sun we see are coloured orange?
The sun is not orange. It is not yellow. It is white. Sunlight is the very definition of white.
REPLY: I’ve wondered that myself, and I have two possible answers:
1) It was an arbitrary choice, as colors often are, that looked “nice”. For example:
http://extras.mnginteractive.com/live/media/weather/icons/1.GIF
2) The Florida Orange Growers Association lobbied NASA heavily to make it this way to promote their brand.
Maybe Leif has a third option.
– Anthony
Oh mighty Goddess Pamela, would a few Aussie politicians be an adequate sacrifice? They only have one eye each and that one is biased but I’m sure they’ll be happy to make the sacrifice for Gaia 😉
braddles (18:37:27) :
Anyone know why the images of the sun we see are coloured orange?
The sun is not orange. It is not yellow. It is white. Sunlight is the very definition of white.
I don’t know why the images of the Sun were colored orange. I remember from my Elementary School books the Sun was colored light hay yellow and sunbeams were slightly orange.
We can see suns in red at NASA website.
SteveSadlov (17:39:04) :
Larry Sheldon (18:28:06) :
I saw the snow on top of the Hamilton Range this morning too as I was on 680 near Pleasanton.
Reference for WUWT readers—Lick Observatory is in the Hamilton Range.
Leif at 15:32:00.
Thanks for the info about the plages not becoming spots. I was not precise in my language about the radio flux not rising. It seems to me that it is rising slightly in line with the slight rise in spots, but what I’d expect if the sunspots are becoming invisible is for the flux to rise but the number of spots to not rise.
Soon, though, we may be able to directly test the hypothesis that the dearth of spots during the the previous Grand Minima contributed to the cold then, or whether it was volcanoes that cooled the earth. Heh, unless we get no spots AND volcanoes.
========================================
“Pamela Gray (17:46:18) :
Okay. I fricken give up. It is the Sun and the fact that I get up every morning at 5:30 AM (some kind of damned internal clock I cannot shut off) ”
Try melatonin. hehe 😉
TerryBixler (16:29:04) :
eric (14:44:56) :
GCRs, think Svensmark.
Terry,
If you are referring to the hypothesis that cosmic rays influence cloud formation, there is little evidence to back it up. There has been no systematic trend in cosmic rays observed, only a cyclical one. In addition satellite observations of cosmic rays and cloud formation has not found any correlation.
It was a creative idea that has not panned out.
Joe, changes in Antarctic sea ice and ice sheet extent are pretty much unconnected and operate over different scales.
Sea ice extent reflects current climate and perhaps 3 or 4 prior years.
Ice sheet extent reflects the climate over a century to a few millenia.
<Pamela Gray wrote: “Do not study the oceans. Look only at the Sun and lack of sunspots.”
WRONG answer. Look at BOTH.
As in many cases, the answer is NOT just one or the other, it is somewhere in between…or both.
The oceans are the primary driver, the sun the second.
No need to mutually exclude the one from another when they both “force” Earth’s climate to behave to their wishes.
And no need to give up. Just look at the big BIG picture.
Chris
Norfolk, VA
Anyone out there know of an institution that has measured solar white-light faculae from 2007 to present? I might have a way to try and predict ramp, but I would need the facular measurements, if they exist.
Just when you think something is useless, up pops a need.
showing a large quantity of melted water going down a very deep hole in the ice.
Showing conclusively that snow melts in summer.
But is the ice mantle on Greenland any different from other areas in that part of the world?
Greenland is a mini Antarctica in the NH. I’d expect more glacier retreat than Antarctica because of the NH warming and air born particles (soot) over the last few decades. Whereas the SH hasn’t warmed.
Otherwise, as I mentioned for Antarctica, we don’t have enough data to tell us whether Greenland glaciers have advanced or retreated over the last century or two.
BTW, the paleo studies say the Greenland climate over the last 1,000 years to few K years has been characterised by ‘extreme’ variability probably due to ocean currents being the main determinant of North Atlantic climate.
So even if we did have a clear picture of Greenland ice sheet changes, which we don’t, they may have been caused by the ‘global’ climate or effects local to the North Atlantic.
http://hol.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/13/3/381
The scientific studies and discussions about all the different measurements of the direct and indirect indexes of the sun is very educational; however, the seemingly chaotic/stochastic behavior of the sun is such that the sun may never replicate its behavior to such a degree to make accurate predictions of its future activity and associated climatologically effects on earth though such attempts are admirable and at times may provide planning for a range of possible future climate changes.
So now we’ve gone from an Earth-centric model
to a helio-centric model
to a Pamela-centric model.
🙂
Comment on savethesharks (19:51:51)
Chris, I think you may have ‘misinterpreted’ Pamela’s post.
[Hint: research funding politics]
eric (19:30:04) where can we get longterm cloud coverage data?
The real reason for the Orange color:
http://pixdaus.com/single.php?id=146287
eric (15:00:47) :
…
I already have. Solar irradiance has been cyclical with sunspots over the past 50 years, and the average actually has been declining slightly. It has not been the dominant driver of global warming which has just reached a peak.
As a result a drop in solar irradience will not likely create a new “little ice age”, (assuming there was such a thing globally) but will likely create a slight temperature drop.
Eric – I hear where you are coming from – however are we sure that “solar irradience” (as heat and light) are the only solar emissions that impact on the Earth’s climate.
I’m fairly sure of the following two points.
[1] The jury is still out on cosmic ray effects on Earth’s climate, and
[2] We don’t understand the Sun, and are unable to predict it’s behaviour.
Given that – then ruling out the Sun as a major climate influence is premature .
The +ve upshot is that we are currently well placed to examine all this over the next decade or two.
Pamela Gray (17:46:18) :
Okay. I fricken give up. It is the Sun and the fact that I get up every morning at 5:30 AM (some kind of damned internal clock I cannot shut off) every single morning since I was 4 years old. Given this correlation, I cause the Sun to rise. Therefore I cause the Sun to cycle between cold Earth and warm Earth. I will be setting up a website for sacrifices. My suggestion is that you donate once per month. Or else the Sun will stay asleep and you will all die. Do not think it is Mother Earth. Do not study the oceans. Look only at the Sun and lack of sunspots. If you do not donate enough, I will not bring sunspots back, and the Earth will not warm.
WOW – Can you predict the future too!
I could care less about educational opportunities, all I want to see is the white-light facular measurements from 2007 to present. If only the largest ones, that would be great also. The count of magnetic pixels in plages might be also be a substitute.
It works for all the SC’s I’ve tried so far (12-21).
Help me out here.
I’m fairly sure of the following two points.
[1] The jury is still out on cosmic ray effects on Earth’s climate, and
Not from what I saw last summer as the cosmic rays held the smoke on the ground for weeks at a time and sent it all the way down to Sacramento, choking half the state. The Fire Information Officer was well aware of it, and said in no uncertain terms “We were briefed by NASA on this effect”.
Firefighting aircraft were mostly grounded. They prayed for wind.
Lee Kington (15:24:49) :
In the meantime there was an article today which conveyed what I call irresponsible comments by a scientists.
Catastrophic sea levels ‘distinct possibility’
…
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.72971d0d0ab6d933e237108c5a05b3c8.421&show_article=1
And of course the actual study will be published in Nature tomorrow.
Just anyone – If someone says “if X happens, then Calamitous Y will happen in Z years from now”.
Why are we as a culture besotted by such statements? I just don’t get it – it seems to be no better than getting your palm read at a travelling carnival – pure superstition.
Can all those people who can reliably predict the future please come forward…. gahhhhh.
If X happens, then Calamitous Y will be predicted to happen in Z years from now. When Calamitous -X happens instead, the predictors of X will be thrown under the bus by the politicians who just last week did photo-ops with the X-fanatics. That’s what happens when one drives the wrong way on the freeway.
It’s thrilling, it’s heady and it’s downright deadly.
Graeme Rodaughan (20:34:06) :
Given that – then ruling out the Sun as a major climate influence is premature .
[2] We don’t understand the Sun, and are unable to predict it’s behaviour.
We normally do this the other way around. We only ‘rule something in’ if there is good evidence for it. And ignorance is a poor reason for not ruling something out.
John Egan (16:26:23) :
Did anything happen in 1912 connected with ice?
Well, Robert Falcon Scott and his team froze to death on an Antarctica ice shelf in 1912…that’s something.
Leif Svalgaard (21:07:15) :
Graeme Rodaughan (20:34:06) :
Given that – then ruling out the Sun as a major climate influence is premature .
[2] We don’t understand the Sun, and are unable to predict it’s behaviour.
We normally do this the other way around. We only ‘rule something in’ if there is good evidence for it. And ignorance is a poor reason for not ruling something out.
Leif – Thanks, So… Just reason from the evidence, and don’t draw conclusions in the absence of evidence. – is that it? If it is, I get it.
We certainly live in interesting times – given your profession, it must be a very exciting time?
savethesharks (19:51:51) :
Pamela Gray wrote: “Do not study the oceans. Look only at the Sun and lack of sunspots.”
“WRONG answer. Look at BOTH.”
Did you somehow miss the humor? It’s Goddess Pamela that causes climate change!
Don’t you just love how the Sun is displaying behaviour we haven’t seen in almost a century, and scientists are falling all over themselves to tell us that ‘everything is normal, the Sun has done this many times before’, which, of course, is true.
But if we have a WEATHER event that hasn’t happened in almost a hundred years, why that’s incontrovertible evidence of climate change and anyone who disagrees has their head stuck in a bubble of denial.
With my “gut feel”, whenever I look at the sunspot cycle and climate patterns, it seems that there is a three-five year time lag with the sunspot peak and temperature peak. Assuming that the sunspot cycle is directly/indirectly related to the suns heat output, my thoughts are that the time lag is the time that it takes time to heat up the huge heat sink earth. The mass of earth so grossly dwarfs the thin film mass of where humans live that it seems to be the dominate factor. (It seems Global Warming is should be called thin film warming?)
Conversely, assuming the recent unusually long days without sunspots is an indication of lower sun heat output, it should be interesting what three plus years on my assumed “earth’s temperature lag”.
JLKreuger:
97 years and one day ago in 1912, Ice bergs were seen floating un-usually far down in the Atlantic, cosequently hitting the Titanic and killing 1513 people.
In 1911 Niagra Falls completely froze over (I found a nice picture of a group ladies in some rather heavy Victorian clothes inspecting the top of the frozen falls, on a site which has “photos that changed the world”.
In response to the colouration of the sun : A coincidence; When viewing through the black glasses (filters) used in viewing an eclipse, the sun appears orange as in the images on the solar websites.
JLKrueger:
Yes, Scott and his men did die then due to extreme cold:
“No one in the world would have expected the temperatures and surfaces which we have encountered at this time of the year…”
– Robert Falcon Scott, March 1912
Alarmist Susan Solomon’s 2001 book “The Coldest March” essentially uses the unusually cold weather that year for the demise of Scott and his team. No mention that he was largely unprepared and Amundsen was.
That would also make 1912 a great year to show how warm it is today. Hmm…
“eric (19:30:04) : If you are referring to the hypothesis that cosmic rays influence cloud formation,… ”
It has proof. Can you call it a hypothesis? You need to study it more so you can speak with knowledge. You have to see that the people you are trying to debate here are not novices.
Does the hypothesis that co2 controls climate have proof? No it doesn’t. All evidence shows that it doesn’t. So you must discard that hypothesis.
If you would have watched the video I linked before you would see that clouds and cosmic rays are linked, has evidence :
Perhaps and I stress perhaps, perhaps ‘the powers that be’ the ones who are pushing the AGW theory so hard, actually have known for some time that we are in fact heading into a maunder minimum?
It seems very strange to me that we are in fact as a world preparing for and expecting the very opposite of what is actually going to happen, why would this be?
Our civilisation is supposed to be the most enlightened,brightest and scientifically skilled in history and yet there does seem to be a deep seated ignorance and highly selective amnesia at play within the highest circles of govenment and academia, what on earth is going on?
Evidence ignored, scientists ignored,reality ignored,common sense ignored combined with a type of hysterical fear of the future and our place within that future, do we strike out with confidence and self belief to construct an industrial based modern society reaching out to the stars OR do we revert to a pastoral and pre industrial society where the iron hard laws of fear and ignorance reign? Do we as a species run toward the light of progress or cower back toward the comforting darkness of our past?
We seem to be at a crossroads/fork in the road of our evolution and there seems to be a collective uncertainty affecting us, a fear of what the future holds, a crisis of self confidence, rather as though we are experiencing the growing pains of a child, concurrent phases of fear/depression/anger/over confidence/pride/guilt.
I hope and pray we choose to shed our collective fear of growing and evolving, we have much to look forward to!
No mention that he [Scott] was largely unprepared and Amundsen was.
Margins of error are perilously slim for human survival in polar regions and the poles are rather unforgiving toward the unprepared.
We humans tend to base our decisions on what we have observed in our lifetimes, often forgetting that Earth’s “memory” is far longer and includes extremes beyond our imaginings. Scott’s quote is a perfect example.
braddles (18:37:27) :
Anyone know why the images of the sun we see are coloured orange?
The sun is not orange. It is not yellow. It is white. Sunlight is the very definition of white.
REPLY: I’ve wondered that myself, and I have two possible answers:
1) It was an arbitrary choice, as colors often are, that looked “nice”. For example:
http://extras.mnginteractive.com/live/media/weather/icons/1.GIF
2) The Florida Orange Growers Association lobbied NASA heavily to make it this way to promote their brand.
Maybe Leif has a third option.
– Anthony
Ah, there is a better explanation if you live in Greece. The sun at sunset is orange , if it is not red, before dipping in the sea, probably due to all that Sahara dust that honors us when the winds are right. Probably this is true in many other places.
Sunset is when you can observe the sun with naked eye and see the sunspots if they are huge enough. I remember once returning from Crete seeing the setting sun in the Aegean and puzzling how a seagull could keep such a steady course towards the sun, until I realized I was watching a huge sunspot. Must have been around 1981.
The literature tells of times where folks were not so lucky. Like England after the Medieval Warm Period ended. Greenland turned blue.
Graeme Rodaughan (20:34:06) :
eric (15:00:47) :
…
I already have. Solar irradiance has been cyclical with sunspots over the past 50 years, and the average actually has been declining slightly. It has not been the dominant driver of global warming which has just reached a peak.
As a result a drop in solar irradience will not likely create a new “little ice age”, (assuming there was such a thing globally) but will likely create a slight temperature drop.
Eric – I hear where you are coming from – however are we sure that “solar irradience” (as heat and light) are the only solar emissions that impact on the Earth’s climate.
I’m fairly sure of the following two points.
[1] The jury is still out on cosmic ray effects on Earth’s climate, and
[2] We don’t understand the Sun, and are unable to predict it’s behaviour.
Given that – then ruling out the Sun as a major climate influence is premature .
I want to add to the soup the UV sun cycle effect possibility in affecting albedo. There was a recent article that connected plankton and UV, the plankton generating dust to reduce UV and thus raising albedo; it was discussed a few threads ago.
In contrast to the 0.1% solar irradiance change from minimum to maximum, UV changes a whopping 6%.
http://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/environment/0702_planktoncloud.html
I agree that the jury is out and that
The +ve upshot is that we are currently well placed to examine all this over the next decade or two.
Lee (12:59:17) :
It’s pretty optimistic to think the minimum would be Jan 2009. We may already have seen the last true solar cycle of our lives, and this minimum will stretch out virtually unchanged until 2080 or so. Total spotless days this year considering how microspots are counted 340. A Maunder type minimum is due and the extreme and deepening solar quiet suggests it is here.
Actually we are not due for a Maunder type minimum. This type of grand minimum is quite rare although recently we had 3 in a row (Wolf, Sporer and Maunder) but if we look over the past 11000 years the Dalton type grand minima is far more prolific.
http://users.beagle.com.au/geoffsharp/c14nujs1.jpg
The Jose Minimum we are entering now will be Dalton like, although some parts of science do not recognize the Dalton as a grand minimum because it gets in the way of their “random number generator” hypothesis….if so we shouldnt notice any changes of significance with the upcoming grand minimum, if we can call it that?
From the original blog entry:-
“That was a cold era, the age of Dickens and the children playing in the snow in London, much like this past winter.”
That’s a bit of a stretch isn’t it? Only last year children were playing in the Kent snow at … Easter !! This year we spent it on the beach paddling and eating icecreams, even though no sunspots….. it’s called Englands changeable weather !
Regards
Andy
Craig Mooe (17:54:25) :
We’ll have to cancel on the virgins. One of them is too sick and the other refuses to go it alone.
Goats it is.
Leif Svalgaard
Leif, three questions if I may:
1). Adolfo Giurfa (12:35:33) : posted a link to an interesting analysis about the sun – do you have any thoughts or comments on this?
2). Also as, P. Hager (13:13:03) : posted that the folks at http://www.solarcycle24.com had an interesting analysis suggesting things were shaping up much like cycles 6&7. Do you think this could be shaping up like 6&7?
3). Do you think there is anything unusual about this cycle change at the moment?
Sorry to bombard you again! But this looks pretty unusual to me and I was wondering whether you were feeling the same way? Thanks as ever.
Easter does not occur during Winter.
That season is called Spring.
You can get snow on Easter in a lot of places.
You can also get warm days on Easter.
That’s not what the concern is.
It’s the general conditon of the Earth’s climate and where it is headed.
Hi Leif,
Thanks for taking the time to add a linear trend to the graph.
Also, when I saw that, I realised that I was looking at the wrong graph… I was looking at TSI thinking it was the F10.7. Of course, when I look at the right graph I can eyeball the uptick.
me = not paying enough attention.
The discussion of trends (multi order polinomial) leave me so far behind it’s not funny. I just hate trend curves for prediction and view them with suspicion.
A question for Leif… if the 10.7 flux says one thing, and the sunspot count says another, then when and how do we decide what the “real solar cycle” is? This reminds me of the Pluto controversy, but it’s even more important. The Pluto controversy was merely about labelling. The solar cycle ( spots or flux ) is about ongoing physical processes that can affect satellites in orbit, and temperatures on earth. If Livingston and Penn were right, that argument would be solved, because there will be no sunspot count to argue against the 10.7 flux in another 5 or 6 years.
.
>>OR do we revert to a pastoral and pre industrial society where
>>the iron hard laws of fear and ignorance reign?
And just as importantly, do we allow fundamentalist religion to raise its oppressive head once more, and stifle scientific research and technical progress?
It is of no coincidence that science and technology flourished after the Reformation and Renaissance eras, when religion was put back into its pastoral (rather than political) box.
.
Adam from Kansas said:
“An article warning that the planned Geo-Engineering during a period of cooling will cause cooling much more severe than it would otherwise be
http://www.iceagenow.com/Playing_God_with_the_Weather.htm”
“Man may not be causing the world to warm, but the next little ice-age being worse than the last could be man-made if this really gets going.”
“According to another article the Sun apparently affects Earth’s climate via the oceans, and the oceans have been cooling since not long after Sun activity started winding down to the current extreme quiet.”
I am too very concerned about the impact such geo-engineering would have on an already cooling world and the push to divert a substancial portion of our agriculture to biofuels. But I suspect part of the “urgency” to do something like this is that the AGW propheteers (profiteers) see that the globe is cooling, and in order to preserve their AGW profits, must come up with a “solution” immediately. They are trying to do this so that they can falsely take credit for the cooling and rontinue to push their Carbon credits and green global domination, etc., rather than accept that climate change, or global warming and cooling, is all part of the natural cycles.
eric (15:00:47) :
“I already have. Solar irradiance has been cyclical with sunspots over the past 50 years, and the average actually has been declining slightly. It has not been the dominant driver of global warming which has just reached a peak.”
“As a result a drop in solar irradience will not likely create a new “little ice age”, (assuming there was such a thing globally) but will likely create a slight temperature drop.”
The one solar cycle factor that seems to lack much research is that of solar ion radiation (solar winds, etc). This fluctuates significantly with the solar cycle. This type of radiation is what causes the Aurora and major changes in Earth’s Atmosphere. see:
http://dutchpatriot.wordpress.com/2008/12/23/nasa-atmosphere-smaller-than-ever/
Also the solar minimum, and lack of this solar ion radiation is wreaking havoc on HAM radio communications because their radio signals, which during high solar activity, bounce off of the upper atmosphere back to earth.
My question, that seems to be somewhat unanswered thus far by science, is what impact these documented changes in the atmosphere due to the solar minumum have on climate.
Many scientists theorize that the Maunder and Dalton minimums led to cooling, but the missing factor is by what mechanism did it do that.
I could see how in theory, an atmosphere that has shruck significantly, would not absorb and/or not trap as much heat, or the same effect causing HAM radio signals to bounce back to Earth could trap other frequencies of radiation as well.
But Lief, or any other of the scientists who frequent this blog, what research if any, has been done in these subjects? And what are the possibilities that this could be the missing link?
Just Want Truth… (16:33:01) :
“Snow this morning on Mt. Diablo in the San Francisco Bay Area.”
Yesterday snow showers were reported in the Las Vegas valley.
I realize there are no sunspots, but, even if true that the sun is cooler then usual doesnt that sort of explain why the temps are so low at present but doesnt really prove or disprove global warming, I dont understand the logic.
sukiho (05:42:01) – The logic is that if the fairly small solar variation results in a larger than predicted variation in temperature, then the fitting process used by the models must under-estimate the solar contribution, and presumably over-estimate some other effect. Current theories predict the solar variation which is estimated to have occured will account for a very small (<10%) proportion of the observed change in the last 100 years. In order to have a more significant effect, the solar influence would need to be something other than just the change in heat received from the sun.
I took this from an article on the NASA site and it has me confused. Could someone please explain, in laymen’s terms, what ‘negative forcing’ and ‘negative anomaly’ mean?
“However, let’s assume that the solar irradiance does not recover. In that case, the negative forcing, relative to the mean solar irradiance is equivalent to seven years of CO2 increase at current growth rates. So do not look for a new “Little Ice Age” in any case. Assuming that the solar irradiance begins to recover this year, as expected, there is still some effect on the likelihood of a near-term global temperature record due to the unusually prolonged solar minimum. Because of the large thermal inertia of the ocean, the surface temperature response to the 10-12 year solar cycle lags the irradiance variation by 1-2 years. Thus, relative to the mean, i.e, the hypothetical case in which the sun had a constant average irradiance, actual solar irradiance will continue to provide a negative anomaly for the next 2-3 years.”
from: http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/2008/
Chris said: “And no need to give up. Just look at the big BIG picture.”
But Chris, I tried that, and the big BIG picture was of . . . Pamela!
“Soon, though, we may be able to directly test the hypothesis that the dearth of spots during the the previous Grand Minima contributed to the cold then, or whether it was volcanoes that cooled the earth. Heh, unless we get no spots AND volcanoes.”
On a recent thread (accompanying D’Aleo’s last article?) Adolfo G. and I noticed(undoubtedly not the first to do so) that of potentially climate changing volcanoes, VEI 6 and 7 eruptions, beginning with Laki in 1783, only a very few, e.g., Pinatubo, did not occur during solar cycles of greater than average length, i.e., weak cycles. For that matter, the Maunder began with the largest SA volcanic eruption in historical times.
This association might suggest solar and volcanic activity levels are not independent.
“Pamela Gray (17:46:18) :
Okay. I fricken give up. It is the Sun and the fact that I get up every morning at 5:30 AM (some kind of damned internal clock I cannot shut off) every single morning since I was 4 years old. ”
I’ve been that way since about the same time.For me it’s a NE Oregon thing.Ranch life and all that. “Day’s half shot-It’s 7:00 and the Tractor’s not greased yet?!”-My Cowboy Pop…
Instead of worrying about oppressive fundamentalist religion, how about we keep ALL religion out of politics, especially what passes for “science” lately. That should be the last word on the subject.
“do we allow fundamentalist religion to raise its oppressive head once more”
Dread those incendiary Bhuddists?
“I dont understand the logic.”
It doesn’t disprove global warming, what it does is put a box around it. If a small change in solar output can swamp CO2 warming, then maybe CO2 warming is not the primary climate driver that the alarmists claim. Additionally, it means that some of the warming in recent decades must be attributed to increases in solar output, even if they were small.
If you can’t understand that argument, I can’t help you.
gary gulrud (06:56:35) :
“This association might suggest solar and volcanic activity levels are not independent.”
Interesting isn’t it, as there are some theories that the Solar Cycle is driven by the gravitational pull of the planets, particularly Jupiter and Saturn.
If that were the case, could that same gravitational pull have an effect on Earth’s molten core and therefore Earth’s volcanic activity??????
“In contrast to the 0.1% solar irradiance change from minimum to maximum, UV changes a whopping 6%.”
And direct satellite measurements give albedo due to cloud cover up 2%. As you have commented before, this effect amplifies that of reduced solar energy inputs, and again, there is reason to suppose solar activity and terrestrial albedo are not independent.
If Livingston and Penn are correct, do they get the Nobel Prize?
Just curious.
anna v (23:29:53)
Of course the Sun looks yellow/orangish. People, get outside and do stuff every now and then! I thought it very strange that some wondered why the Sun was pictured as yellow or orange when all you have to do is go outside and see what it looks like when it’s not shining too bright. Perhaps you wanted to know “why” the Sun and sunbeams have a yelowish cast? If that’s the case, I can’t help you. Maybe the albedo anna v mentioned? But at any rate, it makes perfect sense to picture the Sun that way since that’s what it looks like to the naked eye!
It always seemed to me that the “C02 content” in limestone geologic formations dwarfs the “C02 content” in fossil fuels. There are lot a limestone mountain ranges in Utah. As part of the geologic process, some limestone formations could be subducted deeper into the earth’s crust (higher temperature) perhaps there is a slow reaction from CaC03 to C02 + CaO. Slowly this C02 from lime reaction eventually makes it to earth’s surface and to the atmosphere as the earth “breathes”. This thought leads to a question?
What if the assumption that the increasing C02 atmosphere concentration is not man-made from fossil burning? What if this this “CO2 lime reaction” is such a low rate that it can’t be detected locally, but on global perpective it cummulates to be a major contributor to CO2 concentration trend?
hareynolds (07:32:33) :
If Livingston and Penn are correct, do they get the Nobel Prize?
They will deserve it. But, as far as we know, this prize is for those who show an evident levogyre diffraction.
Geoff Sharp (23:42:03) :
The Jose Minimum we are entering now will be Dalton like
The forecast is for cycle 24 to have a max sunspot number of 72, so now Dalton type minimum is in the offing. More likely, we’ll have a repeat of cycle 14. One can call such a minimum a Grand minimum if one is so inclined, but perhaps a ‘Baby Grand’ is more appropriate.
PaulHClark (02:30:42) :
1). Adolfo Giurfa (12:35:33) : posted a link to an interesting analysis about the sun – do you have any thoughts or comments on this?
Coronal holes can occur at al phases of the cycle. The ones [there are two] we see now were ‘born’ back in 2004, and have little to do with the polar fields [the general field].
2). Do you think this could be shaping up like 6&7?
no, more like cycle 14, but the data on 6&7 is poor, so hard to be certain either way.
3). Do you think there is anything unusual about this cycle change at the moment?
Perhaps if seen with a human experience. No one alive have observed a similar transition. From the Sun’s perspective, it is business as usual, such transitions have happened millions of times, last time a little more than a century ago.
Neil O’Rourke (03:24:51) :
I just hate trend curves for prediction and view them with suspicion.
Eyeballing works fine for this and shows a clear upturn. The trend curve [‘lower envelope’] just connects the minima.
Walter Dnes (03:45:24) :
A question for Leif… if the 10.7 flux says one thing, and the sunspot count says another, then when and how do we decide what the “real solar cycle” is?
The ‘real cycle’ is that of magnetic plage regions, spots or no spots. But it’ll be an interesting exercise to hash out how we define solar activity should the discrepancy continue.
ralph ellis (03:56:27) :
My question, that seems to be somewhat unanswered thus far by science, is what impact these documented changes in the atmosphere due to the solar minumum have on climate.
These changes take place in the upper atmosphere where the pressure is a million to a billion times lower than at the surface, so it is highly unlikely that they will any effect on near-surface climate.
sukiho (05:42:01) :
I dont understand the logic.
perhaps there isn’t any…
hareynolds (07:32:33) :
If Livingston and Penn are correct, do they get the Nobel Prize?
probably not on that, but the guy(s) that explains what is going on might.
Leif Svalgaard (08:32:05) :
Geoff Sharp (23:42:03) :
“The Jose Minimum we are entering now will be Dalton like”
The forecast is for cycle 24 to have a max sunspot number of 72, so no Dalton type minimum is in the offing.
eric (19:30:04) Here is a paper with some nice correlations between cloud cover and cosmic rays from 2000
http://xxx.lanl.gov/PS_cache/physics/pdf/0104/0104048v1.pdf
Many scientists theorize that the Maunder and Dalton minimums led to cooling, but the missing factor is by what mechanism did it do that.
Eddy already tried to disprove Sporer’s finding. Spent a lot of time trying. Didn’t work out the way he planned it. Consult the literary works to find out who wrote what about when cooling occured. There is no need for theory. You only need to know who wrote what, when they wrote it, and what they described.
A full year ago, there was no talk of even a baby Grand Minimum, there was talk of a repeat of 1954.
Today, there is talk of a baby Grand Minimum, and a repeat of 1913.
Next year, what will they be talking about?
Follow the Yellow Brick Road, and watch out for intersections that have had thier signs altered.
“The forecast is for cycle 24 to have a max sunspot number of 72, so no Dalton type minimum is in the offing.”
Move over Nostradamus and Edgar Caycee there’s a new sheriff in town.
Signs:
It’s April 16th now and Denver Colorado is buried by snow.
http://www.accuweather.com/news-story.asp?partner=rss&article=2
At the same time farmers in the Mid West are forced to delay crop planting due to wet and cold weather conditions
http://www.accuweather.com/news-story.asp?partner=rss&traveler=0&article=7
“”I dont understand the logic.” – poster
“perhaps there isn’t any…” – Lief [snip–no personal attacks please]
More volcanic activity:
http://volcanism.wordpress.com/2009/04/16/siusgs-weekly-volcanic-activity-report-8-april-2009-14-april-2009/
“Leif Svalgaard (08:32:05) :
Geoff Sharp (23:42:03) :
“The Jose Minimum we are entering now will be Dalton like”
The forecast is for cycle 24 to have a max sunspot number of 72, so no Dalton type minimum is in the offing.”
But, if Livingston and Penn are right then those 72 will be invisible!! 🙂
Robert Bateman (09:40:54) :
Consult the literary works to find out who wrote what about when cooling occured. There is no need for theory.
There is no doubt that those were cold times [partly because of large volcanic activity…], but there is no evidence [other than the coincident association] that the cooling was caused by the Sun.
Ron de Haan (10:02:51) :
It’s April 16th now and Denver Colorado is buried by snow.
Wait till you see what we got coming – in CO Springs I’m expecting to have the snow blower in use this weekend (well, my wife, actually, because that’s her thing). On the plus side, Wolf Creek is re-opening this weekend and has thus been updating their snowfall totals. 24″ in the last two days and another 8-10″ coming. Should put them almost right on average for the year! 🙂
Mark
Hi Leif,
Thanks for the insightful notes. But one question seems to be hanging. When do we start worrying? Suppose we have say 10 sunspots over the next year and the sun looks just as blank or if possible even blanker – would that be the time? What would have to happen for you to think grand minima? Sort of a hypothesis if you will. Would it take 1, 2, 3, or just what number of years before one would change a prediction to no solar cycle (this time at least)? Grand minima do happen; can we see them only after the fact?
gary at 09:55:24
Perhaps you know this, and perhaps I’m mistaken, but Leif Svalgaard and David Hathaway used different theories to come up with their competing predictions for Solar Cycle 24, and so far, David is the one who’s had to adjust. I’d go with Leif on this one.
I’m curious, if Bill Livingston’s measurements are projecting the coming invisibility of spots, what other measures of sun’s activity are going to fail predictions. If spots are invisible, but plage activity continues, what happens to radio flux, and TSI and any number of other measures?
=======================================
Absolutely nothing new. I imagine those same sentiments appear in more than a few writings going back as far as you care to go.
I had an idea today for naming the current era in Science – The Early Macroscopic.
The time when mankind finally got a to see the “big picture” and just as in the Early Microscopic everything observed was anomalous.
(Early Macroscopic era (1980-20XX) – 3×2 – 2009 – for future historians)
During the so called Dalton minimum there was not a marked difference in temperatures here in Lima (12° south latitude) as you can see in this old graph:
http://www.giurfa.com/lima.jpg
So there won’ t be problems around the equator, but the higher latitudes and much more those in the NH are the ones to be affected.
There are more questions about minimums, but, which goes first the chicken or the egg?, the solar minimum or the volcanoes?
Comment on 3×2 (10:49:35)
“[…] everything observed was anomalous.”
Thanks for the laugh.
This phrase summarizes a lot.
“I’d go with Leif on this one.”
I trust in your native abilities but note you’ve been absent some months and appear to be picking up where you left off.
Just for jollies, accept if you don’t already, that the planetary measures like aa and ap collapsing Oct. 2005 and the sun spots, collapsing Feb. 2007 or so are different effects of a common cause.
Now entertain the thought that the heliomagnetic field generates both but, in fact, is an intermediate cause. Suppose also that the Livingston-Penn effect entails a modulation of the SS sinusoid by another, let’s call it a curve of flux tube ‘bouyancy’, now entering its own trough.
If sigma for the prediction of 72 is 8 and the result is 47 what do we say about the forecast?
Have a gander at the contortions required to make cycle 13 resemble cycle 23 and tell me that’s science, or even sensible.
http://www.globalweathercycles.com/
Free book download “Global Warming Global Cooling”.
The author states that the current cooling process will take a period of at least 180 years. Around 2023 the cooling will be severe.
More info on “Global Warming Global Cooling” here: http://climaterealists.com/index.php?id=3259&linkbox=true
Since suitable virgins of an age acceptable to sacrifice (have to be more than 16 years old, otherwise it would be child abuse) are in rather short supply, politicians, being well in excess for our needs, would be a fine substitute, however many eyes they might have. Excellent idea, and without question, the most cost effective.
Cosmic rays and clouds,
Does a more active sun really block cosmic rays? I have read that the cosmic ray flux is very nearly uniform in all directions (with maybe a few hot spots). If the solar wind blocks cosmic rays: do noticably less cosmic rays hit the earth from the direction of the sun. The solar wind must be denser in the direction of the sun and there is the part heading towrds us as well as that headed away on the other side to block cosmic rays. If there aren’t more cosmic rays at night than in the daytime, I wonder why – my meager understanding suggests the sun itself should not contribute much to cosmic rays which appear to be extragalactic in origin.
Next: If there are more cosmic rays during grand minima, do cosmic rays cause clouds? There is anecdotal evidence from paintings that it was colder during the Maunder minimum (frozen Thames, frozen canal in Holland). However, would a much more extensive survey of landscape paintings show that there were more LOW clouds of the type cosmic rays are supposed to generate during the Maunder minimum as opposed to other time frames. Is it even possible to detect cloud types in paintings? Perhaps the actual colors might give a clue: the cloudier it is the less blue from the sky would light the scenes. Do contemporary reports from the late 1600’s refer to low overcast skies more than at other times?
Lee (12:27:28) :
See it for yourself:
http://www.giurfa.com/venice.jpg
http://www.giurfa.com/london.jpg
Adolfo Giurfa (10:18:14) :
But, if Livingston and Penn are right then those 72 will be invisible!! 🙂
It doesn’t really matter, because what is predicted is not sunspots per se, but magnetic active regions, which we can count on a magnetogram. Multiply by 12 and you get a reasonably accurate ‘equivalent’ sunspot number. But I do also predict a lot of confusion about this.
Lee (10:34:03) :
When do we start worrying?
http://sprg.ssl.berkeley.edu/~tohban/wiki/index.php/Cycle_24_-_don%27t_panic_yet%21
kim (10:45:36) :
If spots are invisible, but plage activity continues, what happens to radio flux, and TSI and any number of other measures?
They will be there and show the activitivy, see above…
gary gulrud (11:53:04) :
If sigma for the prediction of 72 is 8 and the result is 47 what do we say about the forecast?
See above. We are not predicting sunspots per se, but magnetic regions. The SSN is just a proxy for those and may not be meaningful if L&P are correct. This is something the SIDC and NOAA will have to agonize over.
Leif Svalgaard
“Eyeballing works fine for this and shows a clear upturn. The trend curve [‘lower envelope’] just connects the minima.”
What arguments are there for using the minima vs the mean or the maxima to form your trend curves?
It would appear that other trends could be configured through the maxima or the mean that show a continued downturn or leveling off.
Ron de Haan (12:05:53) : More info on “Global Warming Global Cooling” here: http://climaterealists.com/index.php?id=3259&linkbox=true
Ron, about 6 months ago, there was a “discussion” on SC24.com concerning this “free” $40 book. What was free were excerpts. Dilley joined the conversion and eventually released a section of one of his graphs. The “It’s the Moon Stupid” theory was debunked in that thread.
Tom in Texas (13:57:24) :
“Ron de Haan (12:05:53) : More info on “Global Warming Global Cooling” here: http://climaterealists.com/index.php?id=3259&linkbox=true
Ron, about 6 months ago, there was a “discussion” on SC24.com concerning this “free” $40 book. What was free were excerpts. Dilley joined the conversion and eventually released a section of one of his graphs. The “It’s the Moon Stupid” theory was debunked in that thread”.
Tom,
Thanks for the info.
I downloaded the book but could not open it (I use Mac OS) so I did not read it.
The posting at climaterealists was from today so I assumed this was new stuff.
( posted this on the earlier …Calorimeter… thread, but unsure if anyone is still participagting there)
Why Celsius and not Kelvin?
Can anyone explain to me what good reason AGW advocating climate scientists use Celsius rather than Kelvin when employing statistics to variations in solar irradiance and global temperature change? Irradiance is measured up from zero, a dead sun. Kelvin’s 0 K is absolute zero, a good match to say the least. Celsius and Kelvin share the same intervals, but Celsius’ adjusts 0 °C to a human artefact, an interest in the freezing point of water at sea level, at one standard atmospheric pressure. Solar irrandiance measurements are not adjusted in any manner to the freezing of water on Earth at any elevation.
Mr. Shaviv notes above that solar irradiance varies about 0.1 % over the eleven year solar cycle. Assume a global mean surface temperature of 14 0 °C, the 20th century mean suggested by the US Government . If we apply “Celsius”: [+]14 0 °C x .001 = .014 [+]°C. .014 0 °C is a small amount, much less than recent temperature change, and on its face would seem to preclude solar irradiance as the primary driver of global temperature change.
However, let’s use the Kelvin scale. Assume a global mean surface temperature of 287.15 K (14 + 273.15). 287.15 K x .001 = .287 K. Tell me why a nearly .3 degree Kelvin (and Celsius) temperature change caused by solar irradiance variation does not support solar irradiance variation as the primary driver of recent global termperature change? Employing Celsius here rather than Kelvin can understate the effect of solar irradiance variation by a factor around 20. Or use IPCC AR4 Scientific Assessment’s .08 %. 287.15 K x .0008 = .23 K. Still, a significant number.
Above it is stated global temperatures during the Maunder Minimum were 1.0 °C cooler than today. I am not a heliophysicist, but I do not find it implausible that the longer term variation could be about triple the recent, .3 %. If the IPCC AR4’s discussion of recent irradiance levels at solar minimums in the past two or three solar cycles were almost identical, and this is implicitly argued to extrapolate that irradiance centuries ago could not be a tiny bit more different, I am not convinced.
So, does my argument absolve solar irradiance variation as a major, or the primary, driver of global temperature change without amplifications? (Not saying amplifications do not have some effect).
Why Celsius and not Kelvin? Feel free to criticize my post in whole or in part.
David L. Hagen (13:47:45) :
What arguments are there for using the minima vs the mean or the maxima to form your trend curves?
Both F10.7 and TSI are really the sum of contributions with different physical causes. To be specific for F10.7: free-free emission and gyro-resonance emission. Free-free you get from electrons being deflected by other charges, and gyro you get by electrons having their direction of movement changed [i.e. being accelerated and hence radiating] by spiraling around magnetic field lines. Free-free gives you the background [‘minima’] emission presumably from emerging flux and network. Gyro gives you the rotationally modulated part, coming from active regions. See http://www.leif.org/research/Synoptic-Radio-Observations.pdf for more on this, especially section 2.
RE: EASTER
No brainer. Easter is linked to the moon, and this year Easter was late – IIRC, last year’s was early. So you can base NOTHING on the weather on Easter.
Now, the Spring Equinox is within a day every year – you can contrast the weather there from year to year.
(hoping I did the blockquote thingy right)
Another volcano, this time Pagan in the Marianas erupts:
http://scienceblogs.com/eruptions/2009/04/if_a_volcano_erupts_in_the_woo.php
Jeff at UCLA (14:51:25) :
However, let’s use the Kelvin scale. Assume a global mean surface temperature of 287.15 K (14 + 273.15). 287.15 K x .001 = .287 K.
Because radiation, S, and temperature, T, are related by Stefan-Boltzmann’s law S = a T^4, changes are related thus: dS/S = 4 dT/T or the temperature change is one 1/4 of the radiation change, i.e. 0.1%/4 = 0.025% of 287K = 0.07 K which is small enough to be neglected.
“We are not predicting sunspots per se, but magnetic regions.”
Wow.
Pyrrhic certainly, but gotta give you credit. I thought you were tied, chained, duct-taped and vacuum packed in that box. Rabbit dies you know.
gary gulrud (16:02:29) :
“We are not predicting sunspots per se, but magnetic regions.”
Wow.
Pyrrhic certainly, but gotta give you credit. I thought you were tied, chained, duct-taped and vacuum packed in that box. Rabbit dies you know.
As usual, you make no sense whatsoever. Let me give you a few factoids [or at least what I think is happening]:
The solar dynamo works by coupling plasma bulk movements and magnetic fields. The dynamo amplifies and organizes the magnetic field drawing energy from the motions of the plasma. What comes out is magnetic flux that makes it to the surface where some of it is compacted into active regions that where strong enough cool the surface and appear as dark sunspots. If the field is less than 1500 gauss there is no cooling and instead a brightening is observed [called faculae]. Currently, the magnetic field in the darkest parts of active regions [the few there has been] is low, only ~1900 gauss, while a decade ago the field was typically 3000 gauss. The lower the field, the warmer the region and the lower is the contrast to the surrounding surface; at 1500 gauss the region becomes invisible in ordinary white light and at even lower fields it will appear brighter. So, the relationship between the visible sunspot count and the magnetic field depends in a sense on the regions all having on average the same field strength. If this is not the case the SSN as currently defined will not have the same ‘meaning’ as we traditionally ascribe to it. What we predict is the magnetic flux and not the average field strength, so it is possible, if L&P are correct, that the SSN will come out differently than it would have under the same field strength assumption.
Leif Svalgaard (08:58:58) :
Leif Svalgaard (08:32:05) :
Geoff Sharp (23:42:03) :
“The Jose Minimum we are entering now will be Dalton like”
The forecast is for cycle 24 to have a max sunspot number of 72, so no Dalton type minimum is in the offing.
That is but one forecast of many. I am predicting less than 50SSN for SC24 & SC25, and around 120SSN for SC26… it will be interesting to see who is closest.
But I can see some weaseling starting to appear, no need to invent new ways of measuring sunspots or “baby grands”, the metrics are already in place.
Good posting debunking the Wilkinson Ice Shelf Drama and Alarmist Reporting:
http://www.appinsys.com/GlobalWarming/AntarcticWilkinsIceShelf.htm
Excellent link there, Ron de Haan. Looks like the Guardian and MSNBC are infected with group-think. Or maybe just laziness, since they use the same picture and text from year to year.
Signs:
April 16th and the train of record breaking temperatures still has not stopped:
http://globalfreeze.wordpress.com/2009/04/16/california-temperatures-dipped-to-a-record-low-of-33-degrees/
http://tomnelson.blogspot.com/2009/04/valley-farmers-protect-crops-from-april.html
http://tomnelson.blogspot.com/2009/04/ktuu.html
And about the Caitlins (again!) http://tomnelson.blogspot.com/2009/04/are-catlin-propagandists-now-finding.html
Leif Svalgaard (08:32:05) :
“[…] One can call such a minimum a Grand minimum if one is so inclined, but perhaps a ‘Baby Grand’ is more appropriate.”
–
Leif Svalgaard (13:33:13)
“It doesn’t really matter, because what is predicted is not sunspots per se, but […] ‘equivalent’ sunspot number. But I do also predict a lot of confusion about this.”
–
Geoff Sharp (17:31:19)
“But I can see some weaseling starting to appear, no need to invent new ways of measuring sunspots or “baby grands”, the metrics are already in place.”
– – – –
Now this is getting interesting.
This is part of why WUWT gets traffic.
Leif Svalgaard (10:25:16) :
There is no doubt that those were cold times [partly because of large volcanic activity…], but there is no evidence [other than the coincident association] that the cooling was caused by the Sun.
And which comes first, the chicken or the egg?
It’s like this: You get more volcanic activity in Minimums, and you get more cosmic rays, and it snowballs. There is a lag time for the changes to take effect, but it happens, and that is all one really needs to understand. As for the evidence, it’s in the literary works.
Cassandra King…”Perhaps and I stress perhaps, perhaps ‘the powers that be’ the ones who are pushing the AGW theory so hard, actually have known for some time that we are in fact heading into a maunder minimum?”
“They” have known since 1968. They being David Rockefeller and Maurice Strong, two of the powers behind the thrones of the world.
In 1968 Mikhail Budyko came up with two mathematical models, one predicted an Ice Age, the other Global Warming from the Greenhouse Effect. In 1970, Broecker using new radioactive decay dating methods (oxygen isotopes) identified and dated five full ice age cycles in 1970. He stated his work was in agreement with Milankovitch. In 1971 Gleissberg published “The Probable Behaviour of Sunspot Cycle 21” and “Revision of the probability laws of sunspot variations” in 1973. In 1975 Veerabhadran Ramanathan pointed out that human-made chlorofluorocarbons (or CFCs) are particularly potent greenhouse gases, with as much as 200 times the heat-retaining capacity of carbon dioxide.” http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/GISSTemperature/giss_temperature2.php
Back to Maurice Strong:
In 1970 Maurice Strong lead the UN Conference on the Human Environment and became Executive Director of the Environment Program of the United Nations from 1971 to 1975. He chaired the 1972 Montreal Protocols for reducing Chlorofluorocarbons. He sought to blame increased UV radiation on “holes in the ozone” due to CFCs,and not increased sun spot activity.
Hanne, Strong’s wife, likes to tell the story of how in 1978, a mystic informed the Strong that “the Baca [ranch] would become the center for a new planetary order which would evolve from the economic collapse and environmental catastrophes that would sweep the globe in the years to come.”
Could the “environmental catastrophes” be an “Ice Age” instead of “Global Warming”??? Bacca is sitting in “the San Luis Valley in southern Colorado, known as one of the most productive agricultural areas in the West.” It is also sitting on the largest Aquifers in the USA. Here is a map of the last Ice Age
This is a description of the Baca Ranch area during the last Ice Age “Colder and often drier than present conditions predominated across most of the USA. The eastern deciduous and conifer forests were replaced by more open conifer woodlands with cooler-climate species of pines and a large component of spruce. The open spruce woodland and parkland extended somewhat further west than present, into what is now the prairie zone. As a result of aridity and lowering of sea level (which lowered inland water tables), much of Florida was covered by drifting sand dunes. Notably moister than present conditions occurred across much of the south-west, with open conifer woodlands and scrub common in areas that are now semi-desert.
Since 1968 we have had OSHA, EPA,the anti-Nuclear hysteria, Animal Rights, the loss of the US industrial base and the locking up of US natural resources in the name of environmentalism. Note the Sierra Club and Greenpeace are UN sanctioned NGOs for the “Convention on Biodiversity”. They are also heavily financed by the Rockefeller’s. The Omnibus bill just locked up more US resources including hydro-power from a thousand miles of “wild and scenic rivers” We have several anti farming bills with fines of up to a million dollars a day such as HR 875 and thanks to “Carbon Credits” a shift of US industry to China at the taxpayer’s expense.
I think this says it all:
“Barton Briggs, one of Wall Street’s most legendary investment strategists, is advising the rich and powerful to buy up farms and stock them with “seed, fertilizer, canned food. wine, medicine. clothes etc.” (and the “etc” would seem to mean guns to keep away the rest of us”
And to thin out the population before the climate cools live avian flu virus was placed in vaccines sent to 18 different countries. “Good Manufacturing Practices” if followed would not allow a bio-weapon anywhere near the same property used for human vaccines.
Pamela,
I sacrificed four goats to you so far this year. Two were even young virgin females!
Mike Bryant (07:00:43) :
“Instead of worrying about oppressive fundamentalist religion, how about we keep ALL religion out of politics, especially what passes for “science” lately. That should be the last word on the subject.”
I agree, unless the Church starts to promote the hoax of run away global warming!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7964880.stm
Actually, this was the subject of one of the better “Twilight Zone” episodes. Tell freezing people they are baking, and they won’t notice the truth.
Leif Svalgaard (10:25:16) wrote: “but there is no evidence [other than the coincident association] that the cooling was caused by the Sun.”
There you go AGAIN….all or nothing language: “no evidence.”
Why is it either or? How can you say that with a straight face, Lief?
As a scientist, [and one of the world’s preeminent] how can you make such blanket, broad-brush, sweeping generalizations that there is “no evidence”?
Makes NO logical sense. You of all people should understand nuance and degree. How the heck can you say there is “no evidence”?
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
Steve Keohane (09:35:49) :
eric (19:30:04) Here is a paper with some nice correlations between cloud cover and cosmic rays from 2000
http://xxx.lanl.gov/PS_cache/physics/pdf/0104/0104048v1.pdf
This shows that cosmic rays can nucleate condensation in the lab. It doesn’t show that they will have a significant effect on the real atmosphere.
In fact a recent study shows that they don’t seem to have any effect.
http://www.iop.org/EJ/article/1748-9326/3/2/024001/erl8_2_024001.html
In addition cosmic rays have not systematically decreased and cannot be responsible for the warming since the 1970’s.
That’s it I’m off to the Eclectic Universe people, you’re all too complicated.
It is another it is the sun! post. The sun explains it all! It does not, it is just a tad more complex. The shift in the PDO coupled with its link to la nina conditions coupled with the reduced solar TSI may lead to reduced global temperatures depending on what latitudes the temperature raise or lower. Low latitude temperature variation has little global impact as measured because there is very minor variation. It is the tropics, they are hot. They can’t get much hotter or convection takes over. At high latitudes a few degrees seems humongous because they are friggin’ cold.
So global temperature is basically driven by the Russians and Chinese. No I am not implying a communist plot. But variations that impact northern Eurasia statistically have a more significant impact on global temperature averages than the limited variations practical in the low latitudes.
Natural variation due to oscillation shifts plays a much more significant role than solar variation. Synchronization of natural oscillations including solar variation really make things change. Don’t credit solar without looking at the other effects.
captdallas2 (21:10:26) wrote: Natural variation due to oscillation shifts plays a much more significant role than solar variation. Synchronization of natural oscillations including solar variation really make things change. Don’t credit solar without looking at the other effects.”
Umm…why can’t it be both, bro. Oceanic forcing FIRST. Solar SECOND.
So just because the oceans won the game….doesn’t mean the other team did not put up a good fight.
Don’t throw the oceanic baby out with the solar bathwater.
It is BOTH. Rather…it is ALL.
It is a messy combination of things…including what Svensmark was saying…and all of the volcanic stuff as well.
No need to think inside just one major box when there are many more secondary and tertiary boxes to be considered.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
Here are some interesting observations….for what they are worth:
The sun is blank…no sunspots.
The sun is blank…no sunspots.
The sun is blank…no sunspots.
savethesharks (21:03:01) :
How the heck can you say there is “no evidence”?
Perhaps your bar is MUCH lower than mine….
Coincidental association is not evidence. It rained last week and my car had a flat tire. Is that evidence of rain causing flat tires?
Perhaps in your book it is; in mine it is not.
savethesharks (21:51:40) :
Umm…why can’t it be both, bro. Oceanic forcing FIRST. Solar SECOND.
Or THIRD or FOURTH or ….
There is no doubt that the Sun influences the climate, as there is no doubt that CO2 does. The question is both cases is ‘how much?’, and IMHO the answer in both cases is ‘not by much’. What I’m saying there is no evidence for is that the Sun is a MAJOR driver, or even THE driver. I’m railing against the all or nothing attitude.
Geoff Sharp (17:31:19) :
That is but one forecast of many. I am predicting less than 50SSN for SC24 & SC25
You prediction [like many of the others] is not based on sound physics and can be dismissed out of hand. If mine [72+/-8] turns out not to come to pass, I’ll have to abandon the theory. I assume that you will do the same if yours fail, i.e.should the SSN be greater than 50.
But I can see some weaseling starting to appear, no need to invent new ways of measuring sunspots or “baby grands”, the metrics are already in place.
Only someone who does not know what he is talking about can make such a statement. You seem not to understand what a sunspot is a marker for and what determines the proper interpretation of the SSN proxy.
From lief’s link re: Cycle 24
We do expect activity to pick up fairly suddenly soon
Gotta love the commitment there!
My point is (and will always be): We don’t know! The AGW people don’t know, and the skeptics don’t know. NO ONE FREAKIN’ KNOWS.
Yet we’re making policy based on complete unknowns? Man, I have to get off this train…
eric (21:05:02) :
“Steve Keohane (09:35:49) :
eric (19:30:04) Here is a paper with some nice correlations between cloud cover and cosmic rays from 2000
http://xxx.lanl.gov/PS_cache/physics/pdf/0104/0104048v1.pdf
This shows that cosmic rays can nucleate condensation in the lab. It doesn’t show that they will have a significant effect on the real atmosphere.
In fact a recent study shows that they don’t seem to have any effect.
http://www.iop.org/EJ/article/1748-9326/3/2/024001/erl8_2_024001.html
In addition cosmic rays have not systematically decreased and cannot be responsible for the warming since the 1970’s”.
eric,
There is nothing exceptional with the warming since 1976 and there is absolutely NO proof that CO2 or the so called “Greenhouse effect (which is BS)” has anything to do with it either.
(http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/reprint/markey_barton_letter.html)
There is however good proof that points at the oceans in combination with El Ninjo/La Ninja and cloud cover.
The warming that started in 1976 and ended in 1998 (22 years) causing a rise of 0.6 degree Celsius is well within historic trends, nothing special.
Let’s observe what is happening now with the sun is at a minimum and the earth is cooling for 7 years now on row.
Bruckner8 (22:23:51) :
We do expect activity to pick up fairly suddenly soon
Gotta love the commitment there!
My point is (and will always be): We don’t know!
Always will be? Hello… at some point we’ll know…
Anyway, the F10.7 radio flux is showing clear [and perhaps even accelerating] signs of the new cycle, so has already picked up:
http://www.leif.org/research/TSI-SORCE-2008-now.png
Leif wrote: “Perhaps your bar is MUCH lower than mine….
Coincidental association is not evidence. It rained last week and my car had a flat tire. Is that evidence of rain causing flat tires?”
No…it is not. But the correlations between global cooling and the solar minima are hardly comparable to the spurious rain-flat tire analogy. Come on Leif.
Leif wrote “What I’m saying there is no evidence for is that the Sun is a MAJOR driver, or even THE driver. I’m railing against the all or nothing attitude.”
No evidence?????
The thing that accounts for 99% of the mass in the solar system gets the same status as CO2???
Come on, Leif.
Leif Svalgaard (22:20:36)
“[…] What I’m saying there is no evidence for is that the Sun is a MAJOR driver, or even THE driver. I’m railing against the all or nothing attitude.”
I remember anna v wisely pointing out in another WUWT thread that “indirectly” the sun is the driver.
…nickel & diming climate at so many spatiotemporal scales via so many channels that otherwise sensible people (sometimes) lose their cool?
…Like countless overlapping echoes at many volumes as a whistling train passes through a complex landscape of mountainous islands…
…and the result:
=
Bruckner8 (22:23:51)
“[…] Yet we’re making policy based on complete unknowns? Man, I have to get off this train…”
–
Paul R (21:09:06)
“That’s it I’m off to the Eclectic Universe people, you’re all too complicated.”
=
Keep it simple stupid? Are we in dangerous territory when astrology seems (to many people) to offer more predictive power than economists, climatologists, & astrophysicists?
I can hear the science-funding drums beating – and beating loudly.
(Maybe this is a good sign.)
savethesharks (23:03:34) :
No…it is not. But the correlations between global cooling and the solar minima are hardly comparable to the spurious rain-flat tire analogy. Come on Leif.
They are equally spurious [and not even very good] until we know what causes the correlations, and we don’t. Believing anything else is just settled Goreism, but if that is how low your bar is, then one can understand where you are coming from. So, to follow the advise just giving in another thread:
Dealing with absurdity
When you cannot prove that people are wrong, but only that they are absurd, the best course is to let them alone.
-Science and Hebrew Tradition, “On the Method of Zadig,” p. 13
savethesharks (23:07:22) :
The thing that accounts for 99% of the mass in the solar system gets the same status as CO2???
Explain that to the Venusians…
Paul Vaughan (23:20:44) :
I remember anna v wisely pointing out in another WUWT thread that “indirectly” the sun is the driver.
I don’t…
Lief wrote: “Believing anything else is just settled Goreism, but if that is how low your bar is, then one can understand where you are coming from.”
No Goreism here. LOL How dare you. The ultimate insult. LOL
[snip – and please learn to spell the his name correctly]
Leiff wrote: “When you cannot prove that people are wrong, but only that they are absurd, the best course is to let them alone.”
Then why do you continue to respond, Leif? Over and over again? Why not “let them alone?” What is the source of your anger?
Move on….if you don’t like what I am saying.
Back to topic: The oceans the biggest driver. The sun the second. Thanks Paul for your post.
Common sense should rule…..but it doesn’t always.
Ocean and sun and others shape our lives.
The debate is is the sun? Or is it the ocean? Or is it both….and including more….like Svensmark and then volcanic and other.
CO2 is not likely to be in the short list.
The question is: What are the primary drivers of the Earth’s climate?
A blend of the foregoing seems most likely. “The truth is often somewhere in the middle.”
(Except where AGW is concerned haha…no truth there.)
Chris
Norfolk, VA
savethesharks (00:26:19) :
Then why do you continue to respond, Leif? Over and over again? Why not “let them alone?” What is the source of your anger?
Doesn’t this go both ways? And there is no anger. I’m giving back to society what I owe because of society having funded a lot of my research, so I have sort of an obligation to set things straight.
Back to topic: The oceans the biggest driver. The sun the second.
Oceans 90%, Sun 10% I can live with.
Common sense should rule…..but it doesn’t always.
Well, common sense is not so common…
savethesharks (00:15:59) :
No Goreism here. LOL How dare you. The ultimate insult.
The Goreism is not in the agreement with Gore, but in the acceptance of ‘of course it is the Sun, that is settled by the thousands of claims and by common sense’.
Leif &/or any other solar scientists:
I don’t think it will hurt the thread if there is an effort to include a little more science …
After reading a considerable number of papers on solar north-south asymmetry, I found myself needing to develop a deeper understanding of the migration of preferred flux-emergence regions.
Can you let me know if any of the following merit cautionary notes? – or if there have been major subsequent (perhaps overriding) developments?
1) Pentti J. Pulkkinen, John Brooke, Jaan Pelt, & Ilkka Tuominen (1999). Long-term variation of sunspot latitudes. Astronomy & Astrophysics 341, L43-L46.
2) E. Forgacs-Dajka, B.Major, & T. Borkovits (2004). Long-term variation in distribution of sunspot groups. Astronomy & Astrophysics 424, 311-315.
3) J. Takalo & K. Mursula (2002). Annual and solar rotation periodicities in IMF components: Evidence for phase/frequency modulation. Geophysical Research Letters 29(9), 31-1–31-4.
4) K. Mursula & T. Hiltula (2004). Systematically asymmetric heliospheric magnetic field: evidence for a quadrupole mode and non-axisymmetry with polarity flip-flops. Solar Physics 224, 133-143.
5) S. V. Berdyugina & I. G. Usoskin (2003). Active longitudes in sunspot activity: Century scale persistence. Astronomy & Astrophysics 405, 1121-1128.
6) I.G. Usoskin, S.V. Berdyugina, D. Moss, & D.D. Sokoloff (2007). Long-term persistence of solar active longitudes and its implications for the solar dynamo theory. Advances in Space Research 40, 951–958.
In particular I am very curious to know of any important developments related to Takalo & Mursula’s (2002) Figure 4(c).
Lower priority: I am also curious to know what you think of Usoskin et al’s (2007) seemingly-assumed north-south asymmetry period of 36000 days (which is evident from the chosen latitudinal angular velocity profile parameters B & Omega_0 if you check the N-S beat periods for both).
Thanks very much for any constructive/helpful comments.
“There is no evidence” is a negative negative legalistic argument..
What is really meant is that it cannot be disproved, and because the notion is not proven currently, therefore it cannot be.
The oceans are a heat sink. Now, where do you suppose all that energy came from? Alpha Centauri? M76? Abell 851?
In the scale of time & distance, the output of the Sun, as far as Earth is concerned, is enormous and dwarfs everything else. It literally blows most of the other stuff running around the Galaxy halfway out of the Solar System. That is, until protracted Minimum strikes.
There are plenty of things around that cannot be measured directly, but we most certainly can and do measure thier effects.
Adolfo Giurfa (11:23:56) :
During the so called Dalton minimum there was not a marked difference in temperatures here in Lima (12° south latitude) as you can see in this old graph:
There’s no “marked difference” in any temperature record. The cold Dalton Minimum myth relies almost entirely on anecdotal evidence, e.g. Napoleon’s march on Moscow – while conveniently forgetting that the Germans had a similar problem more than a century later. The 19th century, in general, was ‘cold’ so finding supporting anecdotes is not difficult. And, as Leif says, volcanic activity was high.
Literature quotes observation in far more places than just Moscow that it was cold in the Dalton. But, by the no “Marked Difference” theory, we have no need of a Farmer’s Almanac or weather forecasting. Every year follows the same pattern of a perfect curve, with each passing day seeing temps inch up during Spring & Summer, and inch down during Fall & Winter. All storms follow the same path and drop the same amount of moisture as they did last year on the same day. All solar cycles have the same length & height. The variation in anything Solar or Climate is a tiny fraction of noise to be totally ignored. Volcanoes always come in pre-set time slices, there never being any marked difference to the pattern.
There were no Ice Ages, no Warm Periods, no Mass Extinctions, and every solar system we have discovered around nearby stars has the same # and size of planets.
We can go on indefinately. Soon, we will invent the perfect stock market predictor and it will never suffer a bad day for the rest of eternity.
There are no marked differences to be found.
Nature, therefore, is totally predictable and universally bland with ony a tiny percent of variation in anything found.
Leif at 00:44:29
Well, it’s sweet of you to thank society, but you’re not fooling me for a minute. Your real obligation is to the truth. And society, such of it as is entrained in me anyway, thanks you for that.
===========================================
Solar irradiance has been cyclical with sunspots over the past 50 years, and the average actually has been declining slightly. It has not been the dominant driver of global warming which
not necessarily. if the pot has not yet reached equilibrium, turning down the heat input may not cause immediate cooling. If the heat input is still sufficiently high it will still cause warming, but slower. get the heat input just right and the water holds at temp. just because the heat is “down” does not automatically result in “cooling.”
likewise, even though solar output may have declined, it may have been still high enough to induce warming, but at a lower rate, or hold temps steady. This may be reflected in the 10 years of generally flat temperatures.
As solar output continues to fall, no matter how slightly, the system will fall toward a new equilibrium. and it does take some years for the huge ocean heat sink to reach eq.
Paul Vaughan (00:59:44) :
In particular I am very curious to know of any important developments related to Takalo & Mursula’s (2002) Figure 4(c).
The group of people that authored these articles are living in their own parallel universe [so to speak]. Some of the stuff they peddle are rediscovery of already well known items, others are pure speculation [nothing wrong with that per se] and not generally considered to be of interest. Take for example the T&M paper. There are three well known periods in the IMF: the 1-year period [called the Rosenberg-Coleman effect, see http://www.leif.org/research/Asymmetric%20Rosenberg-Coleman%20Effect.pdf ], and periods around 27 days [26.84 and 27.14 days] and 28.5 days [see: http://www.leif.org/research/Long-term%20Evolution%20of%20Solar%20Sector%20Structure.pdf , especially Figure 5]. And the phenomenon of ‘active longitudes’ has been known for more than a century and has some explanation in dynamo theory [see e.g. the paper just mentioned]. The bottom line is that the periods have distinct [and mostly understood] causes and are not two waves beating against each other.
I’m sure this was not constructive/helpful but such is the science.
Mark Wagner (06:36:14) :
turning down the heat input may not cause immediate cooling.
Tell that to the people that advocate ‘clear, direct [not delayed] correlations with solar cycles’ as per the topic of the this thread, or perhaps there is an 11*n year lag [n integer 0, 1, 2, 3 …].
Robert Bateman (01:20:42) :
What is really meant is that it cannot be disproved, and because the notion is not proven currently, therefore it cannot be.
For true believers evidence is irrelevant anyway….
Leif Svalgaard (22:20:36) :
Geoff Sharp (17:31:19) :
That is but one forecast of many. I am predicting less than 50SSN for SC24 & SC25
You prediction [like many of the others] is not based on sound physics and can be dismissed out of hand. If mine [72+/-8] turns out not to come to pass, I’ll have to abandon the theory. I assume that you will do the same if yours fail, i.e.should the SSN be greater than 50.
Such a bold move….I can only say you are very keen with such a small window. The last grand minimum was 200 years ago and they counted spots just a little different to the sunspecks we count today. My confidence is in two very low cycles (however you measure them) followed by a reasonable recovery. I can predict this because I know what is driving the Sun, its not a crap shoot for me. Your method of reading the inevitable may come unstuck this time around, or perhaps you may fluke it with sunspeck counts, but what is completely obvious is that you have no real understanding of what drives the Sun long term.
Geoff Sharp (17:31:19) :
But I can see some weaseling starting to appear, no need to invent new ways of measuring sunspots or “baby grands”, the metrics are already in place.
At the upcoming Space Weather Workshop at the end of April, there will be a presentation by Ken Tapping [who maintains the F10.7 radio flux measurements]:
Title: The Changing Relationship Between Sunspot Number and F10.7
Abstract: Sunspot Number and the 10.7cm solar radio flux are the most widely-used indices of solar activity. Despite their differing nature and origins at different places in the Sun, these two indices are highly-correlated to the point where one can be used as a proxy for the other. However, during Solar Activity Cycle 23 we started to see a small but definite change in this relationship….
—-
This may be the first signs of the L&P effect that, of course, has had a decade or so to do its thing. Since F10.7 is an absolute measurement [W/m2], the SSN must be slowly changing its calibration.
“As usual, you make no sense whatsoever.”
Indeed, none of us makes any sense. The rabbit is the illusionist’s paradigm.
gary gulrud (08:58:14) :
“As usual, you make no sense whatsoever.”
Indeed, none of us makes any sense. The rabbit is the illusionist’s paradigm.
Whatever you are talking about does not seem to have a justified place in a science blog. But, I’m sure the readership can filter such things out … so what’s the harm…
Leif Svalgaard (08:50:04) :
This may be the first signs of the L&P effect that, of course, has had a decade or so to do its thing. Since F10.7 is an absolute measurement [W/m2], the SSN must be slowly changing its calibration.
First signs?….it been going on for 4 billion years….its called a “grand minimum”
Geoff Sharp (08:35:04) :
“I assume that you will do the same if yours fail, i.e.should the SSN be greater than 50.”
My confidence is in two very low cycles (however you measure them) followed by a reasonable recovery.
Without an error bar such a statement has no real meaning. Perhaps 50+/-25, then you are safe.
Geoff Sharp (09:12:29) :
First signs?….it been going on for 4 billion years….its called a “grand minimum”
I don’t think you understand that what is important is what the magnetic field is doing and not what the sunspot contrast is doing. The magnetic field controls TSI and the cosmic ray modulation which some hold responsible for climate change, but that in any case have consequences for the ionosphere and the geomagnetic environment.
It almost sounds like you are peddling the idea that a Grand Minimum is not a minimum of solar activity but just the result of invisible sunspots.
Is it really a scientist that takes care of spaceweather.com? Lokk at what he wrote today:
“22 DAYS AND COUNTING: The sun has been blank for 22 days in a row. That seems like a long time, but it’s not even close to the 100-year record set in 1913 when the sun was spotless for 92 consecutive days. Can the deep solar minimum of 2009 produce a new record? Check back in 70 days for the answer.”
100 years ago am I quite certain they could not see the microspots that are getting counted today using satellites and specialized telescopes.
Leif Svalgaard (23:27:00) :
to
savethesharks (23:07:22) :
The thing that accounts for 99% of the mass in the solar system gets the same status as CO2???
Explain that to the Venusians…
I think the issue was comparing 99% of the mass in the solar system with 0.03% of the earths tiny atmosphere…
Btw.., the high temperatures in Venus’ atmosphere are not explained mainly by the high CO2 content there, or is it?
Carsten Arnholm, Norway (10:58:55) :
Btw.., the high temperatures in Venus’ atmosphere are not explained mainly by the high CO2 content there, or is it?
Being closer to the Sun also helps [TSI twice as high] although the albedo is very high [twice that of the Earth] so the amount of energy that enters the heat budget is about the same as for the Earth. True deniers will, of course, maintain that CO2 has absolutely nothing to do with it anyway.
“Btw.., the high temperatures in Venus’ atmosphere are not explained mainly by the high CO2 content there, or is it?”
Emissivities of gases(in stark contrast to solids and, less so, liquids,where they are treated as constants, empirically derived by calorimeter) are dependent on Pressure and Temperature.
The emissivity of CO2 at STP is 9*10^-4, at 1Atm and 600 degrees C it rises to 0.07. This where emissivity is a fraction of the emissivity of an ideal black body, emitting energy more efficiently than real materials.
Venus’ atmospheric pressure at the surface is 96 Atm, its temperature something above 400 degrees C and CO2 a dominant component of the atmosphere.
This is very different than on Earth. Rather midway re: the Sun’s case, whose photosphere we treat as a black body owing to the extreme pressure and temperature.
Carsten Arnholm, Norway (10:58:55) :
Btw.., the high temperatures in Venus’ atmosphere are not explained mainly by the high CO2 content there, or is it?
P*V = n*R*T, where R is adjusted for mostly CO2 (since it is not an ideal gas), with a radiative balance, explains the current situation (but does not explain how it got there, of course).
Mark
Mark T (11:48:15) :
Carsten Arnholm, Norway (10:58:55) :
Btw.., the high temperatures in Venus’ atmosphere are not explained mainly by the high CO2 content there, or is it?
There is also the need to explain the ‘faint Sun paradox’. Or are the deniers also denying that problem?
“Whatever you are talking about does not seem to have a justified place in a science blog.”
But Leif, I’m not impersonating a scientist.
REPLY: Careful Gary. I hope that you are not making an implication about Dr. Svalgaard. – Anthony
But the high temperature on Venus IS mainly due to CO2, not like that on the earth. On Venus, the atmospheric pressure only can explain most of the temperture anomaly. The atmosphere of Venus is almost twice as high as that on Earth, so much higher pressure and density at ground level.
The atmosphere of Venus is so think that space probes don’t need a parachute to land. They only need one to slow down at first in the upper atmosphere and then let it go and just, like in water, just slowly fall to the ground.
“I hope that you are not making an implication about Dr. Svalgaard.”
Oh, certainly not. I mean that since I make no representation of myself as a scientist I would hope not to be held to that standard. I only intend to be an honest broker of the information at my disposal, acknowledging the limits of my preparation, of course. And yes, I express my opinions on the way.
There seems to be a feature on the very edge of the sun’s magnetogram at 10 o’clock… but is looks very large.
“eric (12:02:25) :
” The years 2007 and 2008 were low sunspot number year, ranking ninth and second in number of sunspotless days. Yet both were among the top 10 years in global temperature average in the last century.”
First there is a time lag, the Earth has an enormous thermal inertia. Second the entire idea of the top 10 warmest in the last century or 130 years or whatever other claim of this type is based on a temperature record that is known to have a bias.
It is likely the bias is significantly larger than the amount by which current temperatures are the “highest”. In other words if we remove the bias these years are not even the warmest in the last century mererly the top of a slight bumb associated with the end of 50+ years of relatively high solar activity.
Ray (12:54:48) :
On Venus, the atmospheric pressure only can explain most of the temperture anomaly.
and
The atmosphere of Venus is so think that space probes don’t need a parachute to land.
Um, look at the equation PV = nRT. Density (D) is mass / volume, or n/V, so P = DRT after converting moles to kg. It’s a fundamental law of gases that their temperature is directly proportional to PV (which is joules, i.e., energy), and inversely proportional to the mass. And likewise, density is directly proportional to pressure in a gas.
Mark
Leif Svalgaard (12:12:12) :
There is also the need to explain the ‘faint Sun paradox’. Or are the deniers also denying that problem?
Attempt #2.
What exactly does my statement about the ideal gas law have to do with the faint sun paradox?
Also, Dr. Svalgaard, I’d appreciate it if you would not lump me in a category of “deniers” as you have with this comment. My PhD was hard to get, too, and I approach science in as serious a manner as you do.
Mark
Leif Svalgaard (12:12:12) :
Mark T (11:48:15) :
Carsten Arnholm, Norway (10:58:55) :
There is also the need to explain the ‘faint Sun paradox’. Or are the deniers also denying that problem?
DId you include my name simply because you cut the text from my statement, or are you trying to insinuate that I”m some kind of “denier?”
Mark
gary gulrud (12:13:24) :
REPLY: Careful Gary. I hope that you are not making an implication about Dr. Svalgaard. – Anthony
Wouldn’t the same apply to Dr. Svalgaard in the immediately previous post? If he simply included my name because that’s where he got the other poster’s quote, fine, but the implication that I’m some sort of “denier,” is insulting and unjustified.
Mark
Mark T (13:54:43) :
P (surface) = P (h) + dgh
where; d = density, g is gravity, h is height of atmosphere, P (surface) is the surface pressure, P(h) is the pressure at the height h above the surface.
The height of Venus’s atmosphere is about twice of that of the earth but also, the atmosphere of Venus is compressible since it is a gas and so the density changes all the time as you go down the to the ground.
PV=nRT is good for a very small volume of gas, homegenous and free of gravitational effect but also where the temperature is also homegenous.
Ray (14:32:43) :
The height of Venus’s atmosphere is about twice of that of the earth but also, the atmosphere of Venus is compressible since it is a gas and so the density changes all the time as you go down the to the ground.
And so does the temperature. The temperature of the Venus atmosphere at the height in which the pressure is similar to that of the earth’s surface is also similar to the temperature of the earth.
PV=nRT is good for a very small volume of gas, homegenous and free of gravitational effect but also where the temperature is also homegenous.
Yes, which is not contrary to anything I’ve said. You can’t just apply one pressure to the whole of the surface of the planet, nor did I indicate you can.
Mark
Mark T (14:46:55) :
I am just adding some more relationships. Here is another one for the temperature increase when compressing a gas.
Wiki – “Adiabatic – This model assumes that no energy (heat) is transferred to or from the gas during the compression, and all supplied work is added to the internal energy of the gas, resulting in increases of temperature and pressure. Theoretical temperature rise is T2 = T1·Rc(k-1)/k, with T1 and T2 in degrees Rankine or kelvin, and k = ratio of specific heats (approximately 1.4 for air). R is the compression ratio; being the absolute outlet pressure divided by the absolute inlet pressure. The rise in air and temperature ratio means compression does not follow a simple pressure to volume ratio. This is less efficient, but quick. Adiabatic compression or expansion more closely model real life when a compressor has good insulation, a large gas volume, or a short time scale (i.e., a high power level). In practice there will always be a certain amount of heat flow out of the compressed gas. Thus, making a perfect adiabatic compressor would require perfect heat insulation of all parts of the machine. For example, even a bicycle tire pump’s metal tube becomes hot as you compress the air to fill a tire.”
The temperature of the Venus atmosphere at the height in which the pressure is similar to that of the earth’s surface is also similar to the temperature of the earth.
That’s not something you hear mentioned too often – well, that’s my excuse for not knowing it, anyway! Thank you.
Mark T (14:20:18) :
Sorry Mark, I just used your post as a convenient ‘linking element’ to put the issue in context, not to imply anything about your personal stance on this.
and about the ‘faint Sun paradox’: we need a way of accounting for the Earth having liquid water at a time when the Sun’s output was 30-35% lower than today. The ‘traditional’ explanation is a high CO2 concentration. I think the pressure back then was not so much higher that the PV=nRT explanation would do the trick. In any case if one wants to claim that CO2 had nothing to do with it, that someone would have to come up with a plausible mechanism, and don’t know if that has been done [I don’t think so, but …]
Ray (13:38:18) :
There seems to be a feature on the very edge of the sun’s magnetogram at 10 o’clock… but is looks very large.
Yes, there is something there and on the continuum too. It looks like a cycle 24 region forming and it will be interesting to see if it will succeed.
Thanks for clarifying the Stanford vs. OULU context Leif (07:44:08).
Also, thanks for the links.
For those following along (& judging the literature independently), here are the links – which I apologize for not including in my (00:59:44) post:
Active latitude N-S asymmetry:
1) http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-iarticle_query?1999A%26A…341L..43P&data_type=PDF_HIGH&whole_paper=YES&type=PRINTER&filetype=.pdf
2) http://www.aanda.org/index.php?option=article&access=bibcode&bibcode=2004A%2526A…424..311FPDF
~3.2 year HMF pattern:
3) http://spaceweb.oulu.fi/~kalevi/publications/TakaloAndMursula2002.pdf
4) http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/astro-ph/pdf/0411/0411466v1.pdf
Differentially rotating active longitudes:
5) http://www.aanda.org/index.php?option=article&access=bibcode&bibcode=2003A%2526A…405.1121BPDF
6) http://www.astro.phys.ethz.ch/papers/berdyugina/solalon_ASR.pdf
Suggestion:
If you’re in a hurry &/or only have time to glean the most salient points, stick to the odd-numbered ones (1,3,5).
Now:
I’m curious to know if Leif has any issues with the following:
M. Neugebauer, E. J. Smith, A. Ruzmaikin, J. Feynman, & A. H. Vaughan (2000). The solar magnetic field and the solar wind: Existence of preferred longitudes. Journal of Geophysical Research 105(A2), 2315-2324.
http://trs-new.jpl.nasa.gov/dspace/bitstream/2014/18001/1/99-1455.pdf
It seems to me that IF Leif’s projection is correct at 10.7 and implies 72 for SSN, and IF Livingston & Penn are also right and no sunspots appear -> then the L&P theory would seem to jump right to the top as the explanation for the Maunder minimum. Or is there reason to think that both sunspots and 10.7 flux were down in Maunder minimum? It seems to me were are making the assumption that 10.7 flux and sunspots go together nearly lockstep. Now Dr. Svalgaard is saying that no sunspots are not the real definer of a minimum.
So what is the non-sunspot definition of a grand minimum? in case we don’t have any sunspots as a guidepost.
Looking at the very nice picture:
http://www.leif.org/research/TSI-SORCE-2008-now.png
it seems that TSI could have a similar trend drawn tthrough its maxima showing a convergence at around 1360.9. Does that have anything to do with the 10.7 flux whoose maxima also do not show quite as nice an upswing as its minima? At any rate continuing Leif’s trend on 10.7 suggests, to me anyway, that it ought to be at least at 80 by years end. If it is at 80 and sunspots are still missing (invisible or hiding) at around 0 then L&P will be looking really good. If 10.7 flux is still around 72 or 73 it might be time for a little model tweaking.
It does seem fairly unlikely that models based on recent cycles are going to successfully predict something either non-cyclical or at least on a different longer cycle like a grand minimum. One is just going to happen sometime.
Paul Vaughan (15:28:04) :
I’m curious to know if Leif has any issues with the following:
M. Neugebauer, E. J. Smith, A. Ruzmaikin, J. Feynman, & A. H. Vaughan (2000)…
Not really, active longitudes are a fact, and the 27.03 day period is in the middle of my own two periods 26.84 and 27.16 [or whatever the last decimal is], so is not inconsistent with that finding. Whether or not the phase is maintained so well is a different [unresolved question]. The question of a recurrence period of the IMF goes back to Johannes Olsen, Terrest. Magnet. Atmos. Elec., vol 53, p 123 (1948) as reported in J. M. Wilcox and W. Gonzalez, Science, vol 174, no. 4011, p 820 (1971) where they identified the 26 7/8 day period that is present half of the time.
Leif Svalgaard (15:22:05) :
Leif, could that feature be responsible for the big explosion of plasma we have seen?
Also, a similar major magnetic anomaly formed a few week ago showing a”white” spot on the sun. That white spot never became a dark spot. Maybe this one will do this too.
Lee (15:46:03) :
It seems to me that IF Leif’s projection is correct at 10.7 and implies 72 for SSN, and IF Livingston & Penn are also right and no sunspots appear -> then the L&P theory would seem to jump right to the top as the explanation for the Maunder minimum.
This has, of course, not escaped anybody’s attention…
It seems to me were are making the assumption that 10.7 flux and sunspots go together nearly lockstep.
At the upcoming Space Weather Workshop at the end of April, there will be a presentation by Ken Tapping [who maintains the F10.7 radio flux measurements]:
Title: The Changing Relationship Between Sunspot Number and F10.7
Abstract: Sunspot Number and the 10.7cm solar radio flux are the most widely-used indices of solar activity. Despite their differing nature and origins at different places in the Sun, these two indices are highly-correlated to the point where one can be used as a proxy for the other. However, during Solar Activity Cycle 23 we started to see a
small but definite change in this relationship….
————–
So, there is the possibility that the SSN no longer will be a true reflection of solar activity [for some time at least]. Our prediction is, of course, of the ‘effective’ sunspot number, i.e. that sunspot number that would give the F10.7 flux observed in 2014 [or when the maximum is] using the old relationship between F10.7 and SSN.
Ray (16:03:28) :
Leif, could that feature be responsible for the big explosion of plasma we have seen?
Very likely, yes.
Lee at 15:46:03
Yes. I’m curious what phenomena from the sun were being measured during the Maunder Minimum besides sunspots.
=========================================
kim (16:24:30) :
Yes. I’m curious what phenomena from the sun were being measured during the Maunder Minimum besides sunspots.
Comets: The plasma tail is formed by the solar wind, so it was still operating.
Aurorae: Were still reported in Central Europe.
Cosmic Rays: The solar cycle modulation was still operative as per cosmogenic data in tree rings and ice caps
Spicules: [at least at the end of the Maunder minimum] were seen at solar eclipses.
P. Foukal and J. Eddy, Solar Physics, Volume 245, Number 2 / October, 2007, DOI 10.1007/s11207-007-9057-8, Pages 247-249.
Abstract: The presence of the red flash at total solar eclipses requires the existence of an extended chromosphere and therefore of a photospheric magnetic network that gives rise to spicules. We draw attention to the earliest historical reports of a red flash at the 1706 and 1715 eclipses, which therefore imply a substantial, widespread photospheric field during at least the last decade of the Maunder Minimum. Our finding is consistent with reports of a persistent photospheric field throughout the Maunder Minimum from analyses of 10Be radioisotope evidence. We note, however, that the last decade may not be representative of conditions throughout the roughly 1645 – 1715 extent of that prolonged activity minimum.
——
That feature might have been a nice big sunspot if it hadn’t just been blasted out to Venus. Add a few more hot ions to that nice warm atmosphere. The last few times we have seen a large feature like this it has shown up white instead of dark. Does that imply really low magnetism, or something else? Like maybe viewing an open caldera from the top – hot in the middle in any case.
You see, if sunspots go away, and if radio flux, plage formation, and TSI still continue to cycle in the dynamic fashion they have for the last century, and if temperature goes down and if there are no volcanoes, then somebody’s got some ‘splainin’ to do. No ifs and or buts about it.
=============================================
We’re all waiting with bated breaths and beaten breasts.
===================================
What might explain those sparse, large, and exclusively southern hemispheric spots? Surely not the concurrent volcanoes.
===================================
Leif 16:40:51
Every day in every way you keep adding to my store of knowledge. Were those manifestations you mention some evidence that, except for spotlessness, the sun was otherwise acting in its usual fashion?
Also, since we don’t know by what mechanism the sun directs the climate, or even if it does, how can you be sure that such a hypothetical mechanism was still acting during the Maunder Minimum, and thus not responsible for the cooling of the earth at that time. I know you don’t believe in such mechanism, because it hasn’t been shown, but just assume one temporarily for the purposes of my question. I realize I’ve probably exceeded your boundaries for speculation, but I’m trying to explain to myself your skepticism that the spotless sun during the grand minima was responsible for the globe’s cooling.
=================================
This might be a good time to mention the study by Feynman and others showing a correlation between historical mention of aurorae and Nile River levels.
=============================================
kim (17:46:37) :
but I’m trying to explain to myself your skepticism that the spotless sun during the grand minima was responsible for the globe’s cooling.
I’m not skeptical about that, I’m waiting with bated breath for someone to demonstrate to my satisfaction that such a connection exists. And I do know there are thousands of such claims and that I have not examined all of them, but I have looked at several hundred of them and found them all wanting. As I have said so many times, I really do wish it were true, as that would vastly increase the societal importance of my research [and my funding, of course], but alas, if I have to be honest, I cannot point to a single compelling case. And it would be a bit disconcerting if there was only one or a few such among the thousands of bad papers on this. You know, if something is significant at the 99% level, after you have looked at 100 cases you would expect one just by chance…
Lee (16:45:38) :
The last few times we have seen a large feature like this it has shown up white instead of dark. Does that imply really low magnetism, or something else?
Bot really low, as the magnetic field just have to fall to half its usual value for dark areas to turn bright. But every spot has bright stuff around it anyway.
Not really low, just low.
kim (17:46:37) :
Were those manifestations you mention some evidence that, except for spotlessness, the sun was otherwise acting in its usual fashion?
Basically yes, but likely in a slightly subdued way.
Paul Vaughan (23:20:44)
“I remember anna v wisely pointing out in another WUWT thread that “indirectly” the sun is the driver.”
–
Leif Svalgaard (00:07:24)
“I don’t…”
– – –
OK:
Memory-jogging:
1) Google keyword-combo:
watt’s tea leaves and leif’s other weeds
2) Pursue link 1.
3) Find post by:
anna v
Paul Vaughan (23:20:44) :
Leif Svalgaard (22:20:36)
“[…] What I’m saying there is no evidence for is that the Sun is a MAJOR driver, or even THE driver. I’m railing against the all or nothing attitude.”
I remember anna v wisely pointing out in another WUWT thread that “indirectly” the sun is the driver.
I do not know that “wisely” is an adjective descriptive of the contribution you refer to on this board, particularly as I do not remember it. 🙂
We have to define what “driver” means in the context used here. I do not think that anybody rational can dispute that the grand proportion of energy fueling the earth we know comes from the sun ( the internal energy sources are much smaller, as well as gravitational ones).
Driving in the context of climate and sun means that “current changes in the sun are driving current changes in the climate”. A direct cause and effect.
From the data Leif has given over and over again, I am convinced that the changes in TSI, i.e. the energy from the sun impinging on the top of the stratosphere, smaller than 0.1% in the variation of the sun cycle, is not enough to do anything on the order of magnitude we observe of climate changes in the last centuries.
If we accept that the correlations seen are not fortuitous, other mechanisms have to be found, and some have been suggested, like the cosmic ray connection, and recently this plankton cloud formation, both working through the amplifying effect of albedo on the small changes of TSI. The jury is out on these, maybe in ten years we will know more. After all we have very little data on albedo ( http://www.leif.org/research/albedo.png ) which is also affected by the ocean currents on which we also have data for a hundred years or so.
My opinion still is that the climate system being chaotic needs the tools of chaos to be analyzed, as Tsonis and all have started doing.
Leif 21:12:31
Excellent, and thanks. On we ponder.
and 21:44:58 Perhaps lightly nudging the coupled oceanic oscillations.
======================
Leif Svalgaard (15:58:38)
“[…] active longitudes are a fact […] The question of a recurrence period of the IMF goes back to […]”
“[…] Whether or not the phase is maintained so well is a different [unresolved question].”
– – –
The latter is clearly of more interest (at present) than the mere “fact” that solar physicists have long-agreed that active longitudes exist.
Where can I find measured monthly average solar angular velocity data by latitude?
[If it’s available for different depths, that’s fine.]
anna v (00:14:39)
“[…] as I do not remember it.”
See Paul Vaughan (22:22:50).
Paul Vaughan (10:33:47) :
Where can I find measured monthly average solar angular velocity data by latitude?
http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~obs/torsional.html
What is shown is the difference between the measured values and a canonical fixed solar differential rotation curve.
[If it’s available for different depths, that’s fine.]
It is, but first you have to understand it at the surface and get your head around the data and what they mean.
There is a slight semantic difficulty because what we are seeing are ‘winds’ in the solar atmosphere. You have to make up in your mind what you mean by ‘solar angular velocity’.
Ron de Haan wrote:
eric,
There is nothing exceptional with the warming since 1976 and there is absolutely NO proof that CO2 or the so called “Greenhouse effect (which is BS)” has anything to do with it either.
(http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/reprint/markey_barton_letter.html)
There is however good proof that points at the oceans in combination with El Ninjo/La Ninja and cloud cover.
The warming that started in 1976 and ended in 1998 (22 years) causing a rise of 0.6 degree Celsius is well within historic trends, nothing special.
Ron,
There is good proof that the increases in greenhouse gases have been responsible for global warming. The changes in outgoing long wave radiation spectrum have been measured and reflect the changes that were expected based on the GHE.
http://ams.allenpress.com/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10.1175%2F1520-0442(2003)016%3C3820%3AOOTIOS%3E2.0.CO%3B2&ct=1
“In a recent paper, (Harries et al. 2001, hereafter H01), we presented the results of a study in which we carefully intercalibrated and compared IR spectra obtained from the Nimbus-4 spacecraft in 1970, by the Infrared Interferometer Spectrometer (IRIS), with spectra from the Interferometric Monitor of Greenhouse Gases (IMG), flown in 1997 on the Advanced Earth Observing Satellite 1 (ADEOS-1) spacecraft. This work showed that, over large regions of the earth, the clear-sky emission spectrum showed detailed changes, which agreed well with theoretical expectations based on the known changes of greenhouse gases such as CO2, CH4, O3, and chlorofluorocarbons 11 and 12. In this way it has been experimentally confirmed for the first time that the greenhouse forcing of the earth has, indeed, been changed through the growth of greenhouse gases.”
Leif Svalgaard (10:48:18)
“There is a slight semantic difficulty because what we are seeing are ‘winds’ in the solar atmosphere. You have to make up in your mind what you mean by ’solar angular velocity’.”
– – –
After playing around with autocorrelation functions (working out easily obtained improvements to Takalo & Mursula’s (2002) Figure 4(c)), I began to suspect that ‘wind’ ‘must’ be a factor in summaries (in addition to the differential lag rates Berdyugina & Usoskin (2003) investigated).
Thanks for the link to the pictures & research article.
Where do I find the data?
Paul Vaughan (11:48:19) :
I began to suspect that ‘wind’ ‘must’ be a factor in summaries (in addition to the differential lag rates Berdyugina & Usoskin (2003) investigated).
I’m lost as to the meaning of the above statement.
Where do I find the data?
You’ll have to email the observatory. We are talking about several gigabytes of data…
Paul Vaughan (11:48:19) :
“Where do I find the data?”
You’ll have to email the observatory. We are talking about several gigabytes of data…
What would you do with the data if you had it?
eric (11:31:23) :
Did you read the paper you linked to?
There are so many ifs and what then etc and more studies needed, and it was put up in 2003. Poor fellows need the mantra of greenhouse warming to get their grants.
Is that the best evidence you have for greenhouse warming ( over the tropics where H2O is rampant?, they do acknowledge this doubt in their conclusions ) .
This sort of evidence is fair enough in academia.
It is criminal if it is used to plunge the world into an irreversible energy strangulation adventure, an immolation of western society, by blaming CO2 with handwaves.
eric (11:31:23) :
Ron de Haan wrote:
eric,
There is nothing exceptional with the warming since 1976 and there is absolutely NO proof that CO2 or the so called “Greenhouse effect (which is BS)” has anything to do with it either.
(http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/reprint/markey_barton_letter.html)
There is however good proof that points at the oceans in combination with El Ninjo/La Ninja and cloud cover.
The warming that started in 1976 and ended in 1998 (22 years) causing a rise of 0.6 degree Celsius is well within historic trends, nothing special.
Ron,
There is good proof that the increases in greenhouse gases have been responsible for global warming. The changes in outgoing long wave radiation spectrum have been measured and reflect the changes that were expected based on the GHE.
http://ams.allenpress.com/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10.1175%2F1520-0442(2003)016%3C3820%3AOOTIOS%3E2.0.CO%3B2&ct=1
“In a recent paper, (Harries et al. 2001, hereafter H01), we presented the results of a study in which we carefully intercalibrated and compared IR spectra obtained from the Nimbus-4 spacecraft in 1970, by the Infrared Interferometer Spectrometer (IRIS), with spectra from the Interferometric Monitor of Greenhouse Gases (IMG), flown in 1997 on the Advanced Earth Observing Satellite 1 (ADEOS-1) spacecraft. This work showed that, over large regions of the earth, the clear-sky emission spectrum showed detailed changes, which agreed well with theoretical expectations based on the known changes of greenhouse gases such as CO2, CH4, O3, and chlorofluorocarbons 11 and 12. In this way it has been experimentally confirmed for the first time that the greenhouse forcing of the earth has, indeed, been changed through the growth of greenhouse gases.”
Eric,
The world community has spend over 100 billion dollars now to get the scientific proof at the table that CO2 drives atmospheric temperatures.
Scientists were (are) paid to get that evidence and your report is an example of that.
They have compared satellite data from the time before we cleaned up our industrial and automotive emissions with data from the time we have filtered them out.
This RED HARING is so big, I don’t need my glasses to see it.
Despite all the money that went into research the only evidence they have is in the climate models and they are cooked.
THERE IS NO SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE THAT CO2 DRIVES ATMOSPHERIC TEMPERATURES!
Not a single shred.
Even the IPCC admits it as they admit there has been no significant change in Global Temps since 1995 and a cooling trend since 2001. That is why they have postponed their new report:
Read this:
Richard S Courtney Says:
April 17th, 2009 at 3:10 am
“Of course the next IPCC report has to be delayed.
The IPCC is the InterGOVERNMENTal Panel on Climate Change.
Governments are political bodies. And the IPCC’s function is – and always has been – to provide an appearance of scientific justification for political policies.
That appearance becomes progressively more difficult to sustain with each year the globe fails to warm.
The IPCC Reports were originally scheduled for publication at 5-year intervals. But a 5-year period after the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) would have to report cessation of global warming in the period since the AR4. There has been no mathematically significant rise in mean global temperature (MGT) since 1995. MGT has not again achieved the peak it had in the El Nino year of 1998 and has been static or gradually falling since 2001. Furthermore, the ‘fingerprint’ of enhanced greenhouse effect is greatest warming at altitude in the tropics, but independent measurements from weather balloons and from satellites both show slight cooling at altitude in the tropics. Meanwhile, atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration and anthropogenic emissions have continued to rise.
The warming period from ~1970 to ~2000 was sandwiched between the cooling periods of ~1940 to ~1970 and ~2000 to the present. The changes between these warming and cooling periods coincide with phase reversals of the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO) and, therefore, it seems that the present lack of warming is likely to continue for the next two decades.
The governments served by the IPCC can only hope that global warming resumes prior to the next IPCC report. Failing that, the next IPCC Report needs to be delayed until the political objectives – such as those the governments hope to achieve at Copenhagen in December – are obtained”.
In the mean time there is scientific evidence that CO2 is not a Greenhouse Gas:
http://tech-know.eu/uploads/ACCInput.pdf
And there is scientific evidence that the rise in CO2 has Natural Causes:
http://jennifermarohasy.com/blog/2009/04/carbon-dioxide-in-atmosphere-5-15-years-only/
If you are still a believer of AGW, your in a minority situation now:
See latest WUWT posting, Only 43% of US citizens believe in AGW.
Leif Svalgaard (11:59:51)
“I’m lost as to the meaning of the above statement.”
–
As you said:
“There is a slight semantic difficulty […]”
…and a diversion into verbose exposition will not be constructive (at this juncture).
– –
Leif: “We are talking about several gigabytes of data…”
–
As indicated above, my preference is monthly summaries – by latitude.
I realize that – as yet – such a webpage may not exist.
– –
Leif Svalgaard (12:09:09)
“What would you do with the data if you had it?”
Again, I’m not looking (at this juncture) to venture into a verbose exchange.
At this stage I am – firstly – probing the extent of data-access obstacles.
For precursory data exploration (e.g. time/space-integrated cross-correlation, cross-wavelet phase-difference, & cross-recurrence analyses) it would be great if there was a simple webpage with the following columns:
Year Month (-90,-85) (-85,-80) … (-5,0) (0,5) … (85,90)
The units could be nHz – or more intuitively: average instant synodic (with Earth) rotation period in days.
I suspect that narrower latitudinal-bands might be necessary to isolate some of the gradients of most interest.
The spatiotemporal-integration algorithms I employ (generally) alert me (via acoustics) of any (serious) need to work with other resolutions. Monthly resolution is good for preliminary investigations (since it provides ‘just enough’ info on seasonal variation).
It would be speculative to attempt to answer your question more specifically without first being empowered (by the responsible authorities) to perform a precursory examination of a sensible summary of the (preferably well-formatted) data.
But as I say:
I realize that – as yet – such a webpage may not exist.
(And if this is the case, there are other investigative methods that will be sensible choices, given the constraints on the problem.)
– – – – – – –
anna v (13:18:59)
“It is criminal if it is used to plunge the world into an irreversible energy strangulation adventure […]”
–
Worse than that – if one thinks a few moves ahead to where that could lead.
…but: the destabilizing forces are coming into check.
Leif Svalgaard (15:16:00) :
Sorry Mark, I just used your post as a convenient ‘linking element’ to put the issue in context, not to imply anything about your personal stance on this.
Thanks, Leif. That’s what I thought, and I was having issues getting a post through so the same things got said more than once which was not intended.
and about the ‘faint Sun paradox’: we need a way of accounting for the Earth having liquid water at a time when the Sun’s output was 30-35% lower than today. The ‘traditional’ explanation is a high CO2 concentration. I think the pressure back then was not so much higher that the PV=nRT explanation would do the trick. In any case if one wants to claim that CO2 had nothing to do with it, that someone would have to come up with a plausible mechanism, and don’t know if that has been done [I don’t think so, but …]
Well, I’ve never actually assumed PV = nRT as a cause per se, just that the relationship will hold for any homgeneous volume of a gas. In other words, slice out a 1 m^3 volume of our atmosphere, or even Venus’, and you’ll find the relationship holds pretty well. If CO2 is absorbing enough energy, then it will show up in that equation (though I don’t know how to do it with a mixture of gases – partial pressure of each gas, I think). What, however, happens when there’s simply so much of any gas, and enough gravity to condense it as happened on Venus?
Mark
Leif, Thank you for imparting your knowledge in a very calm and informative way – I am truly impressed!
A satellite which holds promise for future measurements of GHGs and their effects:
For interest some preliminary results referenced below
http://www.eorc.jaxa.jp/en/imgdata/topics/2009/tp090319
http://www.eorc.jaxa.jp/en/imgdata/topics/2009/img/tp090319_01e.png
http://www.eorc.jaxa.jp/en/imgdata/topics/2009/img/tp090319_02e.png
http://www.eorc.jaxa.jp/en/imgdata/topics/2009/img/tp090210_03e.jpg
How many climate scientists does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
bill (18:09:32) :
A satellite which holds promise for future measurements of GHGs and their effects:
Yes, it will be most interesting to see what they measure, once they get the systems checked out.
[Ron de Haan (13:31:43)]
Excellent post!
Ron de Haan (13:31:43) :
If you are still a believer of AGW, your in a minority situation now: See latest WUWT posting, Only 43% of US citizens believe in AGW.
that is 34% …
Mike Bryant (19:16:15) :
Incandescent or CFL?
This is a well-organized & succinct paper:
E. Echer & L. Svalgaard (2004). Asymmetry in the Rosenberg-Coleman effect around solar minimum revealed by wavelet analysis of the interplanetary magnetic field polarity data (1927–2002). Geophysical Research Letters 31, L12808.
http://www.leif.org/research/Asymmetric%20Rosenberg-Coleman%20Effect.pdf
Thanks for drawing my attention to this Leif.
If I was teaching a course I would put this on the reading list.
Question:
What was the temporal resolution of the series that was submitted to the Morlet wavelet algorithm?
– – – –
Mike Bryant (19:16:15)
“How many climate scientists does it take to screw in a lightbulb?”
(?) – waiting in suspense for a clever answer…. .. …
How about… two if the light bulb is big enough…
Paul Vaughan (12:50:21) :
What was the temporal resolution of the series that was submitted to the Morlet wavelet algorithm?
One day. The series is here: http://www.leif.org/research/spolar.txt
Paul Vaughan (12:50:21) :
Mike Bryant (19:16:15)
“How many climate scientists does it take to screw in a lightbulb?”
(?) – waiting in suspense for a clever answer…. .. …
Do they even know where to screw it in?
Leif Svalgaard (15:36:26)
“One day. The series is here: […]”
Thanks for the link – I’m always pleased to see data publicly available.
Which HMF sector definition did you use?
(a) plane division
– i.e. T sector defined by: Bx > By
and A sector defined by: Bx 0 & By < 0
and A sector defined by: Bx 0
(c) other
The html-editor garbled Paul Vaughan (16:43:10) due to the “less than” & “greater than” symbols. Restated with words:
Which HMF sector definition did you use?
(a) plane division
– i.e. T sector defined by: Bx greater than By
and A sector defined by: Bx less than By
(b) quadrant division
– i.e. T sector defined by: Bx greater than 0 & By less than 0
and A sector defined by: Bx less than 0 & By greater than 0
(c) other
Paul Vaughan (16:46:21) :
Which HMF sector definition did you use?
The HMF polarity is a large-scale property of the field, and a sector may persist for a week or more even if Bx and By drift a bit back and forth. What is characteristic of the structure is the abrupt polarity change as you can see clearly here http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/ace/MAG_SWEPAM_7d.html in the latter part of the 16th. So, a combination of eyeballing, computer algorithm, and sometimes pure 27-day recurrence are using to ‘gauge’ the polarity, Like the sunspot count this is somewhat subjective, but nevertheless repeatable [and by several people].
Two… one to screw it in and one to screw it up…
How many climate scientists does it take to screw in a lightbulb?”
No one knows because they won’t release the dataset or the software code.
How many climate scientists does it take to screw in a lightbulb?”
6,034, They have to have a meeting in Bali to discuss it first.
How many climate scientists does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
One, if he has a grant.
Svalgaard & Wilcox 1975: “The observation that the westward mode exists during the first half of the sunspot cycle and the eastward mode during the second half should be investigated within the framework of this theory.”
Has there since been a ‘final say’ on this matter? [Related landmark &/or recent-consensus-view paper links will be appreciated.]
How many climate scientists does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
Twenty-five:
One to write the light bulb removal program,
One to write the light bulb insertion program,
One to hide both programs,
Four to peer review the work,
Seventeen to publish articles confirming work, and
One to call anyone who questions the work a snip.
How many climate scientists does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
At the present point in time it is against policy and the best interests of science to divulge information of such a statistical nature. Next question, please.
And finally… drum roll please…
Q: How many believable, competent, “just-right-for-the-job” presidential candidates does it take to change a light bulb?
A: It’s going to be a dark 4 years, isn’t it?
Paul Vaughan (17:47:27) :
as there since been a ‘final say’ on this matter? [Related landmark &/or recent-consensus-view paper links will be appreciated.]
no, this is pretty much speculation.
Leif,
I see the note about 5-day time-integration in Svalgaard & Wilcox (1975) – but I want to verify that the same 1-day-resolution time-series was used (minus a few years, of course).
I see the ~28.5 day signal in a few panels of the Br(-1)^N column of Neugebauer et al’s (2000) Figure 6, but they don’t give it much special mention. I’m wondering if there are any good works on the intermittent 28.5 day pattern?
Paul Vaughan (19:47:46) :
but I want to verify that the same 1-day-resolution time-series was used (minus a few years, of course).
The time resolution is 1 day.
I see the ~28.5 day signal in a few panels of the Br(-1)^N column of Neugebauer et al’s (2000) Figure 6, but they don’t give it much special mention. I’m wondering if there are any good works on the intermittent 28.5 day pattern?
The 28.5 day is the synodic rotation period of the solar interior.
see also: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1990ApJ…360..296A
Paul Vaughan (19:47:46) :
but I want to verify that the same 1-day-resolution time-series was used (minus a few years, of course).
I misunderstood, but, yes it is the same data [with perhaps a few typos corrected here and there].
Leif Svalgaard (20:01:51)
“The 28.5 day is the synodic rotation period of the solar interior.”
Ok, now the whole-picture is starting to make a lot of sense. Thanks for the responses Leif. (I continue to read….)
‘Quiet Sun’ baffling astronomers
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8008473.stm
BBC finally gets around to talking about the quiet sun: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8008473.stm
Interesting point talking about the Maunder and the Little Ice Age, but dismissed by one interviewee by saying that if the quiet Sun was linked to temperature, we would have noticed a global cooling by now.
I was interested to note that there was no link to the earlier ‘Global Warming has paused’ story.
It’s even got on the BBC although with quite a few errors and the global warming spin http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8009492.stm
As Oldjim and Watson point out, BBC1 television news today at lunchtime reports for the first time of the ‘quietest solar activity for 100 years’. This may offset the warming caused by burning fossil fuels. Apparently. Aren’t we lucky people.
It seems the largest effect, so far, has been a drop in UV values of “6% at extreme UV wavelengths since the solar minimum of 1996” (NASA report).
If this number is valid, it would seem to be a huge change in our environment. Can you imagine a 6% change in global temperatures or oxygen conc.?
If one considers the multiple roles of UV on our planet, this seems incredulous. Photochemistry, ionization, sterilization of exposed pathogens, photosynthesis, sea water chemistry and algae/bacterial/fungi populations, must all be affected.
Could an increase in algae “blooms” also be a result, or increased disease epidemics? Insect populations?? Temperatures may not be the major effect, but will certainly be measurable.
Of all the parameters which affect global temperatures, received radiation (light) is the most complicated. This is so, due to the immediate. bio feedback involved.
Sit beside a calm pond, on a partially cloudy day. When the sun is behind a heavy cloud, the pond is inactive, nothing of note occurs. As soon as the sun comes out, instantaneous events begin to occur. Gas bubbles start coming up from the algae and plants, indicating an incredible increase in photosynthesis has been activated. Chemistry explodes in the pond.
The Earth is somewhat like the pond. A slight increase in received light has a tremendous chemical effect on the atmosphere, ambient energy levels (of the ocean’s surface tension layer) and evaporation. Land and vegetation chemistry explodes. All of these reactions feedback into climate.
Maximum effort should now be exercised, to record and analyze this solar minimum effects. Global warming is rapidly becoming the least of our worries. I do not envy the “AGW convinced” position, in the coming decade. Yet, everywhere I look, their alarm bells are ringing louder than ever. We are all going to pay for this misdirection. GK
CO2 is good, not bad. We all benefit from more of it in the atmosphere, especially farmers and foresters. Why?
Plant growth stops at 200 PPM in the atmosphere.
Plant growth is optimized at 1000 PPM; commercial greenhouse owners invest good money in CO2 generators to raise greenhouse concentrations toward the optimum to increase the productivity of their fixed growing area.
In particular, increased levels of CO2 enable plant growth in drought conditions.
150 years ago CO2 concentration in the atmosphere was 285 PPM, now it’s 385 PPM. It’s like free airborne fertilizer in the atmosphere.
Increased levels of CO2 have significantly increased crop and forest yields over the last century. If environmentalists truly wanted a greener planet they would want more, not less, CO2 in the atmosphere.
Warmer temperatures are generally good, not bad. Most of us benefit from warmer temperatures, especially farmers and foresters. Why?
Warmer temperatures increase growing seasons and produce more consistently successful crops from year to year.
Warmer temperatures reduce heating fuel consumption in the winter. This is a very big deal today because world oil production peaked three years ago and will begin a permanent decline in two years. That is why the cost for all fuels is going through the roof. Fuel costs will only decline during economic down turns, like we are experiencing now.
Warmer temperatures two thousand years ago enabled the rise of the Roman Empire. The subsequent cooling period resulted in the fall of the Roman Empire and the social and economic decline into the Dark Ages. The next warm period one thousand year ago ushered in the Renaissance. Today’s warm period enabled the rise of the United States. The Dalton (type) Minimum the sun is now entering will dramatically affect us all by virtue if it’s impact on crop yields in the northern and southern hemispheres.
The cooling we are now experiencing, together with declining availability of carbon based fuels, will dramatically affect our lives and our economy. Taxing the use of carbon based fuels will make matters much worse. Taxing carbon is like leaning into a right hook. It’s a quick way to end the fight.
Warming is caused principally by the sun, not by elevated levels of CO2.
Energy from the sun drives our climate, not CO2. Energy from the sun is modulated by the oceans and the atmosphere to produce our weather. Changes in climate are driven by long-term changes in the sun’s radiative output and magnetic field strength. Google: Fairbridge Solar Inertial Motion (SIM) for a sense of how this works physically.
The principal green house gas is water vapor. It provides 95 percent of our greenhouse warming effect. Without it the earth would be a ball of ice. As a greenhouse gas, CO2 is a distance fourth behind methane and nitrous oxide, which produce most of the remaining 5 percent of greenhouse warming. CO2’s concentration in the atmosphere is four one-hundredths of one percent (.04 %). That’s roughly equivalent to the thickness of the floor wax on your community’s high school basket ball gymnasium, compared to the distance from the floor to the ceiling. The quantity and warming effect of CO2 in the atmosphere is negligible.
The two trends described above have done more to “GREEN” the planet over the last several decades than anything humans have done to motivate that change. Both trends are now headed south, naturally. Solar activity is declining and will continue for the next few decades, cooling the earth about 2 degrees (C) in this quiescence period. The sun has just emerged from several decades of very high activity, which has warmed the earth by about one half degree(C). CO2 levels will naturally decline as carbon fuels production, particularly oil, begin their long decline. World oil production has been flat for three years. We are all going to meet our Kyoto targets whether we plan to or not. The environmentalists should be pleased. The rest of us won’t.
Thank you for this topic