No we aren’t talking pianos, but Grand Solar Minimums. Today a new milestone was reached. As you can see below, we’ve been leading up to it for a few years.
(Update: based on comments, I’ve updated the graph above to show the 2004 solar max by sliding the view window to the left a bit compared to the previous graph. – Anthony)
A typical solar minimum lasts 485 days, based on an average of the last 10 solar minima. As of today we are at 638 spotless days in the current minimum. Also as of today, May 27th, 2009, there were no sunspots on 120 of this year’s (2009) 147 days to date (82%).
Paul Stanko writes:
Our spotless day count just reached 638.
What is so special about 638? We just overtook the original solar cycle, #1, so now the only cycles above this are: cycles of the Maunder minimum, cycles 5 to 7 (Dalton minimum), and cycles 10 + 12 to 15 (unnamed minimum).
Since the last one is unnamed, I’ve nicknamed it the “Baby Grand Minimum”, in much the same way that you can have a baby grand piano. We would now seem to have reached the same stature for this minimum. It will be interesting to see just how much longer deep minimum goes on.
Of course it depends on what data you look at. Solar Influences Data Center and NOAA differ by a few days. As WUWT readers may recall, last year in August, the SIDC reversed an initial count that would have led to the first spotless month since 1913:
NOAA did not count the sunspot, so at the end of the month, one agency said “spotless month” and the other did not.
From Spaceweather.com in an April 1st 2009 article:
The mother of all spotless runs was of course the Maunder Minimum. This was a period from October 15, 1661 to August 2, 1671.
It totaled 3579 consecutive spotless days. That puts our current run at 17.5% of that of the Maunder Minimum.
By the standard of spotless days, the ongoing solar minimum is the deepest in a century: NASA report. In 2008, no sunspots were observed on 266 of the year’s 366 days (73%). To find a year with more blank suns, you have to go all the way back to 1913, which had 311 spotless days (85%):
The lack of sunspots in 2008, made it a century-level year in terms of solar quiet. Remarkably, sunspot counts for 2009 have dropped even lower.
We do indeed live in interesting times.
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Has anyone link to global low cloud cover? The ISCCP shows data only up to mid-2007 http://www.climate4you.com/images/CloudCoverAllLevel%20AndWaterColumnSince1983.gif
I would like to see whether low cloud cover goes up per Svensmark theory. It did replied to few syn cycles quite well, but since 1995 it went gradually down by 4%.
This is only the beginning. Global warming is yesterdays news… they just haven’t realized it yet. Cold is something we should all be concerned about. Cold is here and is certain to cause problems into the future. Global warming should have been welcomed given the alternatives.
Enjoy the defeat of GWing fiction for a minute but keep your eyes on the prize… discovery and knowledge… answers.
I was wondering, if any of the other planets are showing signs of cooling? I know when it was getting hotter here on earth, other planets were showing similar symptoms… so are they changing along with us to cooling as well? Im sorry to ask that here.. but I cannot seem to find any info on this subject that is current.
On topic, while the sun is spotless, is the solar conveyor (i think thats what it is called) still on slow motion? I bet the butterfly graph is looking pretty funky about now as well:) Is anyone but me at least mildly amused that every sun speck is harkened as a sign of the end of the long minimum and hailed as the begining of an upswing in activity. It would seem like folks would get tired of saying it over and over and over. If the other planets are showing cooling trends as well it would definately tell our solar scientists that they are missing something important.. but the question is, would NASA tell us if it were happening?
” We do indeed live in interesting times “.This is the very essence of scientific inquiry, to took forward in anticipation to future scenarios whichever way they eventuate. Not to formulate a limp AGM premise, promulgate it world wide in the popular press and live in fear it being falsified.
It is clear that unless humans stop burning fossil fuels with immediate effect this lack of sun spots will result in a catastrophe for the human race.
I hope this isn’t the first comment on this post, being that it is off-topic. But I do believe the title and subject matter is of great interest to all who frequent this site. I stumbled across the link while casually browsing drudgereport.com:
TIDE TURNING: Sarkozy Appoints Outspoken Climate-Change Skeptic…
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/a2b172ba-4a54-11de-8e7e-00144feabdc0.html?nclick_check=1
Thanks again for all your work Anthony and associates!
JWatt
Off topic:
Was it just me, or do I recall correctly that we have been roundly criticized for thinking that UHI has a strong effect on on temps and temp measurements????? Well, it looks like the Obama Energy Secretary actually agrees with us…. he just doesn’t know it
Score one for our side.
oops!
Reply: I believe in the educational power of embarrassment, but I will now clean up the mess. ~ charles the paternal moderator
I see the red line continues from present on out to 5.5 years in the future. Are we predicting, perhaps?
to charles the “paternal moderator:”
You, sir, are a gentleman, and a scholar!
Reply: Sometimes things get caught in the spam filter and it’s a while before one of us puts on gloves and feels around down there to fish it out. Please be patient. ~ charles the moderator
“Speaking of the solar flux, today it dipped down to 66.7. This is the lowest it has been since March 18th.”
http://www.solarcycle24.com/
How low can it go?
Solar wind seems to be very quiet as well…
What was interesting about the recent sunspeck that lasted about a week, is that it was faint and not very well defined; but the spot that popped up in the southern hemisphere 2 days later was dark and organised but only lasted just over a day.
Today the flux dropped to 66.7 (lowest since March 18th).
I doubt though that this deep minimum is having an impact on the weather right now… there is a lag apparently of between 4 – 8 years, so to test the theory we will have to wait until at least 2012.
There has been much discussion about solar indicators (other than sunspots) which point to the minimum nearing it’s end. Unfortunately, we can only use sunspots to determine minimum to be fair, as 1800s, 1700s only used sunspot data.
The minimum of the late 19th/early 20th centuries does apparently have a name; the “Damon Minimum”. ( http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/index2.php?option=com_content&do_pdf=1&id=58 )
Does a solar min = less powerful sun = less shielding of cosmic rays = more cosmic rays striking the earth = more cloud seeding = more clouds = more reflected sunlight = cooler earth?
At least according to some … or did I get something confused? If not, how much evidence is there for the cosmic ray / cloud seeding theory? Any evidence of more clouds?
I am guessing that commenters pointing out the 66.7 s.flux value will have Leif Svalgaard objecting, as this is the *un-adjusted* value, so the *adjusted* value is around 68! Were flux values adjusted in the 50s/60s??
Pkatt – I think the answer to your question would be the silver bullet to the complete issue of CO2 or Sun driven Global Warming/Cooling. Unfortunately I do not think we are going to get any definitive answer for a very long time. I have been reading this forum for a year or so and have yet to see any reliable consensus about the measurements of temperature here on Earth let alone the Solar System.
Does this mean we will have to paint our cities in Zebra stripes just to be on the safe side?
I’m surprised no over enthusiastic warmist has tried to claim that the lack of sunspots is down to – ahem – AGW…
@ur momisugly 3×2 (01:47:34)
You must have read what the Eminent Chu has nigh-on decreed as reported in the Telegraph.co.uk article titled: “Obama’s green guru calls for white roofs” highly relevant to this particular solar topic. For laughs, read the comment section! Not necessarily sound scientific criticisms as much as sound humor!
JWatt
Very interesting times.
However, entrenched positions, professional reputations, whole departments very existances, are all powerfully supported, & it may be a long time before public acknowledgement occurs. In the UK it will be a string of half-witted politicos saying something along the lines of “oh well I never really supported that position personally…..”, etc. If it looks like the tap might be turned off, you make more washing to keep the flow going.
As to weather affects, deja vu, as Prof Mike Lockwood of Southampton Uni recently said, “if there was going to be any cooling affect then we would have seen it by now!” Talk about both feet & jumping. He hasn’t commented further to my knowledge, it would seem that the BBC has first to announce, an expert is consulted for comment, usually one from the “right” quarter. This 4-5 year malarky is from where precisely? How do we know that, as the Earth has cooled since 2002 a significant amount, by around 0.65°C, especially over the last two years as shown on WUWT & elsewhere, & appears to be continuing, so far, that this is not a direct affect of such an occurence of a low sunspot count? I doubt that anyone has investigated this phenomena in so much detail as now, so perhaps we should watch, listen, measure, record, & then analyse & present a conclusion, & not jump to one to save all in the above paragraph! I’d be interested to see if the Met Office publish another graph like they did a while back showing a warming trend still, although one or two did point out that their best fit line stopped toward the end of 2007, when we were in fact at around the end of 2008, which would have made a huge difference!
Keep up the good work, we in the UK rely on sites like these for reports of weather events around the world, hot or cold, as the BBC is riddled with eco-activist who only allow hot events to be ackonwledged.
I noticed on Number Watch the other day that Dr Vicky Pope was up to her usual tricks, claiming that wagtd in cities due apparently to something called the Urban Heat Island effect by 2100, which is as pointed out contrary to what the Met Office have implied in their previous comments when global surface temps have been questioned, that it is something they are aware of but it is of no significance. I wish they could make up their minds one way or the other. UHI is either significant or it isn’t, it cannot be both. Rather like her remarks about alarmism climate change reporting is not good for the global warming issue, when she & her colleagues have been at the forefront of climate alarmisim! Remember it’s always “worse than first feared!” which is surely against the laws of probability.
What is the basis for the red line on the graphic continuing into the future?
Lief keeps a very nice updated graph on the corrected flux, along with the Solar Magnetic Field, TSI and sunspots. I believe the flux has been corrected for a very long time, it just isn’t being reported by others that way.
The 66.7 measured/68.5 corrected reading @2000UT today was the lowest since March 18.
This can be one of several things going on.
One is that the flux is on a lower rise than has been apparent the last 2 months.
Another is that the flux will trace out a depression and continue back up into an even taller arch
Or that the flux ramped itself into a “Maunder-like” shoulder, only to decend back to baseline for who knows how long.
As for those wimpy spots, that is a factor that is not really corrected for either.
As for statistics, it is true that other cycles have had more spotless days.
It is also true that 1913 had a far superior quality of spots than either 2008 or so far in 2009.
Download the jpegs and flip through them for 1913:
ftp://ftp.ngdc.noaa.gov/STP/SOLAR_DATA/SUNSPOT_REGIONS/DEBRECEN/historical_solar_image_database/1913/
Then examine Cycle 24 Photo Timeline
http://www.solarcycle24.com/sc24.htm
You can flip through any of the other years from 1880 onwards.
Let them count their sunspecks, it’s merely academic.
And dont forget that the all recent spot counts include many Tiny Tims. If you take out the TTs, then the like-for-like comparisson would almost certainly mean that 2008 was way ahead of 1913.
FWIW, the white roofs idea would reduce temperatures. They can be 20 F or more cooler. Old pictures of the Los Angeles area pre AC shows lots of whitewhashed homes white or blue roofs.
I had been planning to paint mine white to reduce AC need this summer. Now that Chu has endorsed it, though, I may not be able to. I have a reputation for accuracy to uphold… and don’t want to send any unplanned messages of ‘conversion’ or political support…
We should respect Dr. Chu’s opinion and all don tinfoil hats to better reflect the suns rays. And wouldn’t tinfoil reflect the sun even better than white paint?
This reminds me of the Chinese government painting a mountain green.
From the “Blankest Years” bar chart. I notice the following:
1. Two of the ‘blankest’ years, i.e. 1913 and 1912, were at the start of the early 20th century warming period.
2. The warmest year in the US (1934) came just one year after 5th ‘blankest’ year (1933). A time when the world, in general, was warming strongly.
3. The least ‘blank’ year in the chart (1944) occurred just at the time the world entered a long term cooling phase.
Do you think we might be reading a bit too much into this SSN/climate correlation.