The sun went spotless yesterday, the first time in quite awhile. It seems like a good time to present this analysis from my friend David Archibald. For those not familiar with the Dalton Minimum, here’s some background info from Wiki:
The Dalton Minimum was a period of low solar activity, named after the English meteorologist John Dalton, lasting from about 1790 to 1830.[1] Like the Maunder Minimum and Spörer Minimum, the Dalton Minimum coincided with a period of lower-than-average global temperatures. The Oberlach Station in Germany, for example, experienced a 2.0°C decline over 20 years.[2] The Year Without a Summer, in 1816, also occurred during the Dalton Minimum. Solar cycles 5 and 6, as shown below, were greatly reduced in amplitude. – Anthony
Guest post by David Archibald
James Marusek emailed me to ask if I could update a particular graph. Now that it is a full two years since the month of solar minimum, this was a good opportunity to update a lot of graphs of solar activity.
Figure 1: Solar Polar Magnetic Field Strength
The Sun’s current low level of activity starts from the low level of solar polar magnetic field strength at the 23/24 minimum. This was half the level at the previous minimum, and Solar Cycle 24 is expected to be just under half the amplitude of Solar Cycle 23.
Figure 2: Heliospheric Current Sheet Tilt Angle
It is said that solar minimum isn’t reached until the heliospheric current sheet tilt angle has flattened. While the month of minimum for the 23/24 transition is considered to be December 2008, the heliospheric current sheet didn’t flatten until June 2009.
Figure 3: Interplanetary Magnetic Field
The Interplanetary Magnetic Field remains very weak. It is almost back to the levels reached in previous solar minima.
Figure 4: Ap Index 1932 – 2010
The Ap Index remains under the levels of previous solar minima.
Figure 5: F10.7 Flux 1948 – 2010
The F10.7 Flux is a more accurate indicator of solar activity than the sunspot number. It remains low.
Figure 6: F10.7 Flux aligned on solar minima
In this figure, the F10.7 flux of the last six solar minima are aligned on the month of minimum, with the two years of decline to the minimum and three years of subsequent rise. The Solar Cycle 24 trajectory is much lower and flatter than the rises of the five previous cycles.
Figure 7: Oulu Neutron Count 1964 – 210
A weaker interplanetary magnetic field means more cosmic rays reach the inner planets of the solar system. The neutron count was higher this minimum than in the previous record. Thanks to the correlation between the F10.7 Flux and the neutron count in Figure 8 following, we now have a target for the Oulu neutron count at Solar Cycle 24 maximum in late 2014 of 6,150.
Figure 8: Oulu Neutron Flux plotted against lagged F10.7 flux
Neutron count tends to peak one year after solar minimum. Figure 8 was created by plotting Oulu neutron count against the F10.7 flux lagged by one year. The relationship demonstrated by this graph indicates that the most likely value for the Oulu neutron count at the Solar Cycle 24 maximum expected to be a F10.7 flux value of 100 in late 2014 will be 6,150.
Figure 9: Solar Cycle 24 compared to Solar Cycle 5
I predicted in a paper published in March 2006 that Solar Cycles 24 and 25 would repeat the experience of the Dalton Minimum. With two years of Solar Cycle 24 data in hand, the trajectory established is repeating the rise of Solar Cycle 5, the first half of the Dalton Minimum. The prediction is confirmed. Like Solar Cycles 5 and 6, Solar Cycle 24 is expected to be 12 years long. Solar maximum will be in late 2014/early 2015.
Figure 10: North America Snow Cover Ex-Greenland
The northern hemisphere is experiencing its fourth consecutive cold winter. The current winter is one of the coldest for a hundred years or more. For cold winters to provide positive feedback, snow cover has to survive from one winter to the next so that snow’s higher albedo relative to bare rock will reflect sunlight into space, causing cooler summers. The month of snow cover minimum is most often August, sometimes July. We have to wait another eight months to find out how this winter went in terms of retained snow cover. The 1970s cooling period had much higher snow cover minima than the last thirty years. Despite the last few cold winters, there was no increase in the snow cover minima. The snow cover minimum may have to get to over two million square kilometres before it starts having a significant effect.
David Archibald
December 2010
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“I predicted in a paper published in March 2006 that Solar Cycles 24 and 25 would repeat the experience of the Dalton Minimum.”
Why do you believe it will last two cycles or be limited to two cycles? What gives you the impression that it will mimic exactly the Dalton minimum? My gut says “past performance does not indicate future results”. We might be in for one or three weak cycles, I don’t think we quite know. We might be in for 1000 years of weaker activity for all we know. Do we have, other than the Dalton, any documented previous two cycle weak periods?
It is quite probably that we’ll be seeing a new Dalton Minimum. A global cooling? I’ll bet the man is responsible for it! lol
The sun has probably been spotless on several occasions recently but those doing the counting have been using a large magnifying glass to count every pixel in a desperate attempt to pump-up the numbers. Some would even like to change the system and use the STEREO Behind / STEREO Ahead satellites to count sunspots out of sight of earth; to bump-up the numbers even more.
Figure 10 is the key. Winter snow is to be expected. The problems begin if it doesn’t melt in the summer, then we are in for trouble.
Well, it is a good article, and your arguments appear sound….
And, at least as far as the repeat of the Dalton Minimum, I agree with your conclusions. However, I sincerely hope that you are wrong about a 2c drop for a few decades, the links between global cooling and grand solar minimums are a bit more tenuous and I am holding out hope that the cooling observed was coincidence or not as severe as what we have in our future. Or maybe CAGW might save us. (That would be funny!)
I believe if there is a 2c drop it could be disaster for humanity especially if the warmies and watermelons get what they want and world governments are blindsided by the cold.
Excellent overview of the status of our warming star. If these relations hold we are in for some “cool”surprises. See various descriptions of winters in the 1790 – 1830 period.
Australia swaps summer for Christmas snow
http://www.france24.com/en/20101220-australia-swaps-summer-christmas-snow
Well we’re having a cold FALL, winter is yet to be determined! Thanks for the update, I was wondering when we’d see a new “prediction” from NASA updating their incorrect one. So far David Archibald’s predictions have been MUCH more accurate than almost everyone else’s. Pretty impressive so far but the jury is still out and it will be many years before we know for sure that he really nailed it.
So 2009 and 2010 should have been half a degree C colder than it was around 1970. But they aren’t. How come?
Regular updated polar fields here:
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/LFC6.htm
The past and future projection:
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/LFC2.htm
After the obligatory nod to AGW, in his last para, Boris says:
“The question is whether anthropogenic global warming is the exclusive or dominant fact that determines our climate, or whether Corbyn is also right to insist on the role of the Sun. Is it possible that everything we do is dwarfed by the moods of the star that gives life to the world? The Sun is incomparably vaster and more powerful than any work of man. We are forged from a few clods of solar dust. The Sun powers every plant and form of life, and one day the Sun will turn into a red giant and engulf us all. Then it will burn out. Then it will get very nippy indeed.”
Methinks that Boris’ true leanings are more accurately conveyed in this para than the one with the nod.
Dalton minimum winters (according to CETs) were not too bad. There was occasionally colder one, last winter was on par or even worse then those of 1805 -1810.
Detailed seasons CETs 1659-2010 (reference 1950) available here:
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/CET-D.htm
Robert M says:
December 20, 2010 at 12:46 am
I believe if there is a 2c drop it could be disaster for humanity especially if the warmies and watermelons get what they want and world governments are blindsided by the cold.
I am of the mind that we need to start seeing a significant drop in temperatures for the sake of humanity. For all the damage this would do (crops would suffer, millions would die of starvation and cold-related deaths) it would pale besides the damage our corrupt leaders and the UN would inflict on us. We have already seen deaths from starvation due to tax-subsidised farmers growing biofuel instead of food (pushing food prices through the roof). We have already seen masses of jobs lost as once-free businesses fail to compete with the tax-funded green industry. We have already seen energy bills sky-rocket. We have already seen an entire section of the population – i.e. those who know that scepticism in science is an essential element – stigmatised by our own political representatives as “climate deniers” (Gordon Brown used the term on many occasions during his short, unelected period in office, as does Obama, as do most of the unelected EU, as do most of the unelected UN). We have already seen Government-produced propaganda targeted towards children, designed to scare them and if necessary to turn them against their sceptical parents. This is showing no signs of stopping, despite the complete failure of alarmists to prove their corrupt hypothesis. If anything, the more evidence that mounts against them (i.e. that the recent warming is part of a natural cycle, and is nothing remotely unusual), the more totalitarian they become.
So again, I say bring on the cold.
RR Kampen says:
December 20, 2010 at 1:08 am
So 2009 and 2010 should have been half a degree C colder than it was around 1970. But they aren’t. How come?
There are two questions to be answered before that one can be: What other effects are in play, and how reliable is the temperature record? The latter has to be answered before we can begin to assess the former. Given that the temperature record has been repeatedly proven unreliable, we can’t answer for sure. We can’t say whether the 70s were colder because we have no reliable record to demonstrate that they were, in fact colder. The implication is that we cannot then ask what is causing now to be warmer, as we have no actual knowledge that it is, in fact, warmer.
If your data is unreliable, any comparisons you make are invalid.
The prediction is not consistent with the Livingston/Penn forecast. Four years from now the sunspotnumber will be around 10 and cycle 25 will be substantially weaker than cycle 24. Looks much different, more like a Maunder minimum.
But in medio 2011 there will be certainty.
So for now, the projection is a Dalton minimum type, not Maundeer minimum, which has a worse and longer cooling than Dalton. David Archibald’s analysis is similar to Svensmark’s right? And which Leif Svalgaard, Willie Soon, others do not really agree with?
“J.Gommers says:
December 20, 2010 at 2:02 am
The prediction is not consistent with the Livingston/Penn forecast. Four years from now the sunspotnumber will be around 10 and cycle 25 will be substantially weaker than cycle 24. Looks much different, more like a Maunder minimum.
But in medio 2011 there will be certainty.”
Got to agree with you. I don’t think we are looking far enough back for comparisons. Even during the Maunder there were periods of a flurry of activity just to soon fall apart and go quiet again. This was in the period ~1640-1695. That’s the signature we should watch for if this is truly a more severe minimum.
I think Anthony needs to make a “Sun Page” rather like the “ice page” and start gathering a bunch of solar graphs and status pages in it.
Somehow I think it’s going to become a very “hot” topic for the next decade or so…
FWIW, here in California, I’ve been getting drenched all day. Common 40 years ago, not very common the last decade or two. There’s something to this cycles stuff.
Along the way, I started playing with StormPredator to look at the clouds, then discovered it has a ‘total rain this storm’ option (and a lot more). The bottom line is that I had a great time playing with it and looking at what was sitting on top of me all day…
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2010/12/19/rain-radar-now/
And if you know anyone interested in weather or the storms from this present cooling cycle (at least if they are in the USA where this covers) it would make a decent stocking stuffer.
Just one guys opinion. But you can look at the pictures of what I was looking at today, and think how much more comfy it is to do that from the warm inside rather than going out into it to figure out just how bad it really is…
I think I’m going to be using that kind of picture, from StormPredator, in several postings to come as “things happen” during this increasingly cold and snowy decade…
This link was just sent to me… it’s from 2009 and related to Copenhagen failure:
http://benjaminfulford.net/2009/12/21/secret-financial-maneuvers-fail-to-save-copenhagen-climate-summit/
We are cooling, folks; for how long even kim doesn’t know.
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E.M.Smith said (December 20, 2010 at 2:31 am): But you can look at the pictures of what I was looking at today, and think how much more comfy it is to do that from the warm inside rather than going out into it to figure out just how bad it really is…
Is this a message, E, M,?
I think one of the things you have to remember is the oceans hold allot of heat and solar cycle 22 & 23 were much higher than were seeing now, it takes time for some of that latent heat to be removed from the oceans. I think it will be the gradual step down over the next 10 or 20 years for the ocean’s to return to temps seen during the Dalton Min. We get to watch the great climate machine work through its natural pace, irrespective of what man’s little influence is to or climate.
Thank you David, that is interesting work and it sounds plausible. But earlier on this blog I got blamed for appealing to authority and was encouraged to think for myself, so let’s try some logic on this. Correct me if I’m wrong.
Given that solar activity has been low in recent years and knowing that this gives a cooling effect, but that high average global temperatures have nonetheless been observed (with each subsequent decade being warmer than the previous for the past several decades), can we conclude that carbon-induced global warming has so far been stronger than the cooling effect of low solar activity?
And assuming that solar activity has inadequately been accounted for in climate models, does this imply that the greenhouse effect of carbon dioxide on world average temperature may have been underestimated?
Global Confidential, eh, JB?
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David Archibald presents the data and makes cautious predictions and I suspect that, like any good scientist, he can’t wait for the next few years to pass to see if his predictions are valid. If not, he’ll change his interpretation . Well done David, as usual.
I agree with DavidUK that our scientifically illiterate politicians and their completely mad fixation with energy policies, which will potentially destroy economies, are far more of a threat than any climate variation.
Check out the windmill electricity contribution at NETA.