From the Marshall Space Flight Center, Dr. Hathaway’s page:
Current prediction for the next sunspot cycle maximum gives a smoothed sunspot number maximum of about 58 in July of 2013. We are currently two years into Cycle 24 and the predicted size continues to fall.
Additionally, the monthly data plots are out, and there’s been little change from last month in the three major solar indexes plotted by the Space Weather Prediction Center:
h/t to WUWT reader harrywr2
I like to follow Geoff Sharpe’s analysis, here:
http://www.landscheidt.info/?q=node/50
I’m not surprised by this news. this is one area of science the Ecotards can’t manipulate the data or model it away, there are to many eyes on the sun.
Quick, somebody get James Hansen involved in counting sunspots. These bozo’s obviously don’t know how to do a revision. /sarc off
I wonder why the sunspot numbers are so different between the “11” on the sidebar Widget, and the current “67” at solarcycle24.com. On the latter page, there has been no such a low as “11” for the past two weeks.
As we have discussed many times the ‘real’ indicator of solar activity is the the F10.7 microwave flux. The flux is predicted to top ~120 in mid 2013 and seems well on its way to that. The sunspot number is falling progressively below the sunspot number corresponding to the microwave flux. This may be an indication of the Livingston & Penn effect at work. If L&P are correct this discrepancy will grow worse [potentially with no visible spots at all], and the sunspot number will be rather useless as a measure of solar activity, so Hathaway will have to continually adjust the predicted SSN down, down, down. Luckily, the sunspot number is rarely used in operational practice [e.g. for calculation of satellite drag]. Instead, the F10.7 flux is used for that, so as long as we stick to the flux there should be no problems.
The Marshall Space Flight Center should just lower their guess to match mine at 47 so it can finally stop falling. Sigh. ☺
Mausumi Dikpati and others boldly and arrogantly predicted in their paper ‘Predicting the strength of solar cycle 24 using a flux-transport dynamo-based tool’ in 2005 stated ‘We predict that cycle 24 will have a 30 – 50% higher peak than cycle 23. Their overconfidence and hubris reeked in this paper. Have they modified or retracted their prediction?
The nature of climate is that significant change takes place over nearly a lifetime, (both natural variations and ostensibly CO2 forcing) making predictions difficult to verify. But the Solar slowdown makes an interesting experiment as to the impact of GCR. But if the theory is correct, we should soon ( within this decade ) see some noticeable effects. If we don’t, I believe the theory is contradicted. But if we do, it means a large part of the warming trend through the twentieth century was likely due to the multi-millenea high in solar magnetic field strength and so the sensitivity to CO2 is reduced.
When daylight increases chickens lay more eggs. When daylight decreases chickens lay fewer eggs. If one didn’t already know this relationship and saw an increase (decrease) in the number of eggs per 1,000 hens one might change the number promised to the local distributor. So as far as NASA’s adjustments in the chart – so what?
See Lief @ 8:50 for common sense and good science.
josel says:
February 9, 2011 at 9:04 pm
Mausumi Dikpati and others boldly and arrogantly predicted in their paper ‘Predicting the strength of solar cycle 24 using a flux-transport dynamo-based tool’ in 2005 stated ‘We predict that cycle 24 will have a 30 – 50% higher peak than cycle 23. Their overconfidence and hubris reeked in this paper. Have they modified or retracted their prediction?
No, they have not. The hubris was more on the part of HAO and NASA than on the part of the scientists. In fact, a bold prediction like that is good science as it allows falsification.
F10.7 flux cannot be used to represent climate changes. It has other good uses, but is inadequate for climate prognostication. We cannot go back 100 years and measure 10.7 and compare what the climate did afterward, but we do have sunspot data for the past 200 years or so that can be compared to today’s count to attempt to validate SSN for climate prediction.
Layman’s count paints a more adequate picture of how today’s counts compare with history. Perhaps in 50 years or so, 10.7 can be used for more than figuring out satellite drag.
This has proven a very interesting time to watch the sun… I have been wondering if cycle 24 is much further along then we think, the original forecast predicted a cycle 24 max between October 2011 and August 2012 and the current prediction is rather outside of that rather wide target.
The third grader in me says that the cycle 24 max will be near April of 2012 with a peak SSN near 45.
The good news is that no matter what, my prediction is at least as good as the experts.
bubbagyro says:
February 9, 2011 at 9:15 pm
We cannot go back 100 years and measure 10.7 and compare what the climate did afterward, but we do have sunspot data for the past 200 years or so that can be compared to today’s count to attempt to validate SSN for climate prediction.
We actually can. Figure 12 of http://www.leif.org/research/Rudolf%20Wolf%20Was%20Right.pdf shows what F10.7 very likely was the past 170 years. It is possible to go back to the 1740s even.
Layman’s count paints a more adequate picture of how today’s counts compare with history. Perhaps in 50 years or so, 10.7 can be used for more than figuring out satellite drag.
The Layman’s count is junk that lacks an adequate calibration and is based on poor understanding of solar activity.
Leif Svalgaard says:
February 9, 2011 at 8:50 pm
F10.7 flux for SC24 is trending lower than the sunspot number thanks to the large proportion of unipolar regions.
This is no time to run away from your sunspot prediction.
Geoff Sharp says:
February 9, 2011 at 9:37 pm
F10.7 flux for SC24 is trending lower than the sunspot number thanks to the large proportion of unipolar regions.
You didn’t man up to the analysis I suggested, so cannot make any such statement. In 2011 there has been 26 unipolar regions versus 70 total, which is the 37% we see in the long-term average.
Leif wrote, “The flux is predicted to top ~120 in mid 2013 and seems well on its way to that.”
I am curious how you arrived at that prediction, Leif. I fitted a 2nd-degree polynomial to the data and come up with a top of about 90 in early 2013. Of course, I’m just causally playing with the data, but I’d still like to know more about how you arrived at that number. Thanks, Stan
Leif Svalgaard says:
February 9, 2011 at 8:50 pm
As we have discussed many times the ‘real’ indicator of solar activity is the the F10.7 microwave flux. The flux is predicted to top ~120 in mid 2013 and seems well on its way to that.
I noticed that the pink dashed flux curve has been changed and is now trending upward http://www.leif.org/research/TSI-SORCE-2008-now.png
Until a few days ago that curve was flat and others have noticed that maximum values for flux have been flat over the last year but minimum values have been trending upward.
Sorry for this OT but still relevant to climate:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110210/ap_on_bi_ge/as_indonesia_chili_fever
Rising Chili prices in Indonesia blamed on unusual heavy rainfall due to global warming!
Isn’t the heavy rain due to the La Nina which also brought heavy rain to Australia?
Sunspots with distinguishable umbra for SC24 is an order of magnitude weaker than any cycle since measurements began in 1874 by Greenwich:
http://www.robertb.darkhorizons.org/TempGr/uSC24vs13_14.GIF
The corresponding butterfly diagrams comparing sunspot groups with distinguishable umbra vs no distinguishable umbra:
http://www.robertb.darkhorizons.org/DeepSolarMin10.htm
specifically: http://www.robertb.darkhorizons.org/TempGr/uvp2324a.PNG
reveals SC24 to be more scattered and weak than any other.
So, Leif, L&P has thus far been proven not wrong by SC24 data.
In contrast to the sunspot #, the sunspot area has increased slightly over the last year, while the F10.7 Flux has perceptibly stood still. In about 2 years time, my best guess, the weak ramp will end and the L&P effect will eat what’s left of the SSN.
It could end later. It could end next week. When the ramp runs out of fuel the ball will drop.
Isn’t that how the Maunder started, a mid-ramp failure?
Leif Svalgaard:
As we have discussed many times the ‘real’ indicator of solar activity is the the F10.7 microwave flux.
What about sunspot counts from the period before 10,7 cm measurements was introduced?
As grains continue their inverse price / sunspot relationship first worked out by Herschel then validated by Jevons in an extensive study of grain prices and production in the English Empire a hundred and 30 pluss years ago…
http://bigcharts.marketwatch.com/charts/big.chart?symb=jjg&compidx=aaaaa%3A0&ma=4&maval=24&uf=0&lf=2&lf2=4&lf3=1024&type=4&size=3&state=15&sid=2913190&style=320&time=8&freq=1&comp=NO%5FSYMBOL%5FCHOSEN&nosettings=1&rand=924&mocktick=1
That’s a live chart so will change over time…
Jevons, William Stanley (Nov. 14, 1878). “Commercial crises and sun-spots”, Nature xix, pp. 33-37.
Dan (Norway) says:
February 9, 2011 at 11:00 pm
What about sunspot counts from the period before 10,7 cm measurements was introduced?
We have those too, of course. The processes that give rise to F10.7 also generate ultraviolet light which creates the ionosphere in which electric currents can flow. These currents have a magnetic effect which can be [and has been since 1722] observed on the ground.
What they don’t show is the overall decline in sunspot activity since 1976. Each cycle was getting smaller.
What is remarkable is the climate time lag. It took nearly two decades to recover the global heat lost and greenhouse gases to have the warmest climate and strongest hurricane seasons from 1995 to 2006.
The winters are cooling down about a half degree F a year since 2000.
I should add that the Sunspot Cycle from 1963 to 1974 was a flat cooler cycle and it took two more cycles to recover the heat lost.
Stan in San Francisco says:
February 9, 2011 at 9:49 pm
Of course, I’m just causally playing with the data, but I’d still like to know more about how you arrived at that number.
We don’t do extrapolation of the data. Section 2.2 of http://solarphysics.livingreviews.org/Articles/lrsp-2010-6/ explains how the prediction is made as does our original prediction paper http://www.leif.org/research/Cycle%2024%20Smallest%20100%20years.pdf
As we really predict the magnetic field that in turn determine F10.7 one can convert the predicted sunspot number into F10.7 using a standard formula.
Mr. Alex says:
February 9, 2011 at 10:07 pm
I noticed that the pink dashed flux curve has been changed and is now trending upward http://www.leif.org/research/TSI-SORCE-2008-now.png
The trend lines are not really physically significant as they are just numerology [curve fitting] and simply adjust to the data.
rbateman says:
February 9, 2011 at 10:12 pm
So, Leif, L&P has thus far been proven not wrong by SC24 data.
That is my assessment too.
Isn’t that how the Maunder started, a mid-ramp failure?
Possibly.
Stan in San Francisco says:
February 9, 2011 at 9:49 pm
http://solarphysics.livingreviews.org/Articles/lrsp-2010-6/ explains how the prediction is made
Click on the ‘discuss’ tab for some historical information.
I just reviewed the present sunspot activity for the last 3 years recorded with great instruments compared to the two solar minimums of 1700 to 1722 and 1798 to 1822. The present cycle is looking cooler than the 1700 cycle, but warmer than the 1800 minimum.
It will be interesting to record the climate time lag from the Peak periods of data in global warming, such as hurricane activity and glacier melt and see how rapidly it changes in the next 28 cold years. We should see a gradual decline in hurricane activity, lost of precipitation, longer colder winters and some glacier and Ice Cap recovery.
There is a down side and that is a thinning of the herd due to cold and lost of crops. We can lay the blame for this at the feet of global warming alarmists who have turned our governing officials in the wrong direction.
By the time they turn around, well, it probably is too late already.
Wish you all well and stay prepared.
rbateman says:
February 9, 2011 at 10:12 pm
In contrast to the sunspot #, the sunspot area has increased slightly over the last year, while the F10.7 Flux has perceptibly stood still.
At low solar activity the various indices are noisy and should be treated with caution. I keep track of several things as you can see here: http://www.leif.org/research/Active-Region-Days.png
I count active regions [from SWPC], plot sunspot numbers [Ri from Brussels], sunspot areas [all of these scaled – as indicated – to match each other] and of the microwave flux from Canada and from Japan. The microwave flux is also noisy and has various systematic errors [not all understood] so show some discrepancies [up to 5 flux units]. The bottom line is that the various indicators largely agree, but that there is enough noise and variation that it does not make any sense to dwell to much on the finer details.
G’day Anthony. I’m looking at a book by your co-presenter on the Australian tour, David Archibald. Page 53 of his book “The Past and Future of Climate” has a graph of his prediction for SC24 which looks very like the NASA prediction except that his was prepared 12 months or more ago. He also predicts that SC25 may be just as weak leading to a repeat of the Dalton Minimum. If that should happen the AGW scam will be so forgotten in the scramble to grow sufficient food in a cooling world. Increased CO2 may help offset the shorter growing season.
This would be a good time to bet on cooling for the coming decade.
Now we are able to see the total area of the sun we can do a proper count and not rely on some fool model.
Leif,
I think the current solar cycle has so far only proven to be a weak cycle. It has not proven yet the L&P effect. This summary can illustrate my opinion.
Decisions of the Solar Cycle Prediction Centre Panel of
– March 2007:
sunspot number of 140 in October 2011; F10.7 = 187 sfu, or
sunspot number of 90 in August 2012; F10.7 = 141 sfu.
– May 2008: idem
– May 2009: sunspot number of 90 in May 2013; F10,7 = 141 sfu.
– February 2011: sunspot number of 58 in July 2013; F10,7 = 120 sfu.
The issue at stake is not the L&P effect but the very low activity of the sun so far. Your argument is that the sunspot number is falling progressively below the sunspot number corresponding to the microwave flux. I see only that both, the sunspot number and 10.7 flux, are low. I think that so far, the standard relation between both is not broken.
Right??
E. M. Smith;
Just a nit pick, but British Empire, not English.
Strong cycles are front-loaded and short, weak cycles are symmetrical and long. This cycle is very weak, so it will be symmetrical and long. If it is twelve years long, then solar maximum will be in 2015. I calculate peak F10.7 flux of 105.
E.M. Smith 11:07:
“….production in the English Empire…..”
Please, please don’t say “English Empire” – it was the British Empire – because you’ll upset all the Scots, Welsh and Northern Irish and it’ll take us ages to get them back in their boxes again. 🙂
Is there any reason why the red lines on the graphs above, showing the predicted values, have not been updated?
I still don’t see how Marshall come up with the maximum in July 2013 for mine keeps coming up March-April of 2015. How can a cycle that was declared to have starting in Sept. 2009 hit the next maximum less than four years later? I always thought the maximums were generally symmetrically centered in the 11 year cycle or 5 ½ years from the beginning.
EM Smith
I can read your chart of wheat prices, plus your indicators (MACD etc).
I don’t see a comparison of wheat vs Sunspots.
Do you have one? – it sounds interesting!
I recall Jevons from economics, but not more than his name (long time ago, I’m afraid).
I presume the idea is that high SS indicates favourable climate for wheat growing, which means low prices. The reverse for low SS >>>> low production >>>> high prices.
I also presume that wheat needs the right heat (temperature???), water, soil, atmospheric CO2 levels, and that timing of each is also important.
In Australia, poor rain is the usual limiting factor and by at least my reckoning, when its hot, its dry and when its cold, its wet.
But I know that timing of rainfall is vital.
I can’t put that all together in my mind.
Can you add any more to the story?
Thanks
I believe there has been work, which may still be underway, to observe other stars that fall into the same classification as the Sun’s in order to determine if they cycle in a similar fashion as the Sun. If so, has this given any indication of confirming or simply confounding theories of why the Sun cycles? I’d guess there are large variations but there is perhaps a sub-class that “fits”.
DaveF says, February 10, 2011 at 1:49 am:
E.M. Smith 11:07:
“….production in the English Empire…..”
Please, please don’t say “English Empire” – it was the British Empire – because you’ll upset all the Scots, Welsh and Northern Irish and it’ll take us ages to get them back in their boxes again. 🙂
****************************
Well, you can’t make me go back into my box, saes!
🙂
(For those not able to speak the language of heaven – ‘saes’ means ‘English person’ in Welsh)
Livingston and Penn, Livingston and Penn
‘there you go again’
I often don’t, but when I do fail
I look for a bail,
Livingston and Penn, Livingston and Penn
Thanks God for the flux F10.
Layman’s count is a ‘bore’
don’t, don’t mention it any more !
Livingston and Penn, Livingston and Penn
my prediction was good now and then
Livingston and Penn, Livingston and Penn
please be true, couldn’t bear to fail again.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/L&P1.htm
Follow the solar action here:
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/LFC6.htm
What is a prediction? And can we get a penalty assessed for making bad predictions like they did in olden times? Say for every bad one, we cut off one digit.
Seems like NASA predictions now just predict what has already happened. How much money do you need to draw a graph?
Paul Pierett writes:@
“We can lay the blame for this at the feet of global warming alarmists who have turned our governing officials in the wrong direction.”
Well said, sir. If we put ourselves in the place of those governing officials, who would be brave enough to reject the scientific advice and claim to know better?
Future generations will look back and ask how on earth did the likes of Maurice Strong manage to pervert the infant science of climatology. In the US you have the noble expression, “I’m from Missouri”; in Britain we say “nullius in verba” (yeah, we speak Latin down the pub ev’ry day).
It’s about time that real science dissacociated itself from the numerological neoapocalyptic (pause for breath…) rantings of this pseudoscience.
As ever, the brilliant cartoonist Josh said it most clearly in one picture worth a thousand words:
http://cartoonsbyjosh.com/page2.html (5th one down)
The “model” is what the eye can see and count, looking through a small telescope. The adjustments made to these observations are done only to harmonize perceived historical biases with current-day counts.
In any case, the two STEREO spacecraft don’t have visible-light imagers, so can’t see the sunspots directly. They are equipped with extreme-ultraviolet (EUV) imagers, which can see a lot more magnetic activity, but can’t quantitatively distinguish which active regions would be visible as visible sunspots.
“David Archibald says:
February 10, 2011 at 1:47 am
If it is twelve years long, then solar maximum will be in 2015.”
Leif, what are your thoughts on the timing of sunspot and flux maximum? Are we rapidly nearing maximum (2012/2013) or is the ascent going to be prolonged to a peak in 2015?
Tis good to see David Archibald himself contributing, cos I can’t find his book ‘The Past and Future of Climate’ on either ABEBOOKS.com or Amazon.co.uk.
I hope he sees this, and puts me wise.
Stan in San Francisco says:
February 9, 2011 at 9:49 pm
Leif wrote, “The flux is predicted to top ~120 in mid 2013 and seems well on its way to that.”
Right, I meant sunspot number in the previous post (4:37 am).
Lief: “The Layman’s count is junk that lacks an adequate calibration and is based on poor understanding of solar activity.”
********************************************************************
“No, they have not. The hubris was more on the part of HAO and NASA than on the part of the scientists. In fact, a bold prediction like that is good science as it allows falsification.”
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
I’m having trouble wrapping my mind around these statements taken in tandem. For better or worse, one of the things that Geoff’s site does is set forth some very falsifiable implicit or explicit predictions about current trends in solar activity, and hence climate. I wonder why it is that he gets assailed as proffering “junk” while whoever is responsible for the botched predictions at NASA is producing “good science” because they got it wrong.
Perhaps one of the things that is so disturbing about Landscheit et al is that they set forth a model in which the sun is not an island unto itself, but is actually being influenced in perceptible ways by the massive objects which it holds in orbit: gravitational influence is multi- not unidirectional. Is it possible we are still living with a hangover from Ptolmaic perceptions that cosmic realities are maps of social life? Now that the earth has been dethroned, do we need to see the sun as primer inter pares, untouched (and untouchable) by mere mortals like Jupiter or Neptune?
If one goes to SIDC, download their Minimum data for the 1700 to 1722 and 1798 to 1822, graph it, the high points are centered in roughly 11 year cycles.
One had a peak and on the others were somewhat different. One looks like a mound. They lack the design of the global warming cycles such as from 1933 to 1963 and from 1975 to 2007.
Sincerely,
Paul Pierett
So because its your theory Leif that makes it absolute? Whats next? Don’t believe your lyin eyes you just cant see the sunspots? Oh wait….
Leif 9:15
“No, they have not. The hubris was more on the part of HAO and NASA than on the part of the scientists. In fact, a bold prediction like that is good science as it allows falsification.”
It may allow falsification. With simple yes or no science, you can get it right with the wrong mechanism – even a guess can be perfectly correct. One of my favourite in soft science where the prognosticator is correct every time is a belief among Hausa (and possibly other peoples) that a pregnant mother who looks upon a chameleon will have a child that is a social misfit and will bring shame upon the family.
I have this completely unscientific gut feeling that we are at or near solar max right now. I guess time will tell.
….the ‘real’ indicator of solar activity is the the F10.7 microwave flux. The flux is predicted to top ~120 in mid 2013 and seems well on its way to that.
It looks like 4-5 solar cycles.
I find it rather amazing that they can predict the value when they can’t even correctly predict the timing!! 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015 pick several and make a regression analysis to each/all of them.
Are we sure that Al Gore isn’t involved in this???
In 1970, the Solar constant was “declared”. Over and over again, “the Sun doesn’t affect the Earth’s Climate. Why do we care about the Sun; if we aren’t concerned about its effects??
According to SpaceWeather.com, we are only concerned about CMEs. That darned Sun is going to affect our communications/power grid again…
microwaves….
Isn´t it that these are produced when we plug our microwave oven to the mains (electricity)?
Leif Svalgaard says:
February 9, 2011 at 8:50 pm
As we have discussed many times the ‘real’ indicator of solar activity is the the F10.7 microwave flux.
A striking feature (at least to me) of the 10.7 plot plot is that since the start of 2008 +/-, there seems to be unusually low variance in the curve. It is clear that variance is somewhat proportional to amplitude (high amplitude = high variance & vice versa) but as the amplitude has been climbing in this solar cycle, the variance is almost non-existent.
Leif, is this a significant observation & if it is, what is it telling us?
Brent Hargreaves says:
February 10, 2011 at 3:51 am
….climate science……hedge funds?
Rik Gheysens says:
February 10, 2011 at 1:42 am
“…The issue at stake is not the L&P effect but the very low activity of the sun so far…”
Other indicators of solar performance level also show this lack of activity – AP index, solar wind strength and amount of UV. I’m more concerned about the impact of these factors on Earth climate, rather than understanding the L&P effect. As most of the population of the world lives in the NH, this is where cooling will have the greatest impact on humanity.
vukcevic says:
February 10, 2011 at 3:40 am
Good poetry!
I thot CMEs were more influential than sunspots.
The CMEs affecting the solar wind and hence cosmic rays, which affect our atmosphere’s clouds etc. and so on …………
Will someone knowledgable please address this point.
Thanks.
Are the previous predictions by NASA archived? I would like to see the graphs of the previous predictions or a comparison of the predictions on one presentation.
Such loose talk shouldn’t be allowed on this blog.
As far as NASA revising their prediction: They’re tasked with keeping a current solar cycle forecast. They must keep revising it to keep it as accurate as possible. Yes, they’ve been wrong by a huge amount for several years now, all on the high side, but since a grand solar minimum seems to be underway, that’s hardly surprising.
As others have pointed out: At least they make concrete predictions.
My advice to Leif:
Please stick to “science” and don’t get involved with “judgements” (i.e. Layman’s Count or HAO/NASA). Allow us to decide what is “junk” or whether NASA practices “good science”.
Rik Gheysens says:
February 10, 2011 at 1:42 am
Your argument is that the sunspot number is falling progressively below the sunspot number corresponding to the microwave flux. I see only that both, the sunspot number and 10.7 flux, are low. I think that so far, the standard relation between both is not broken.
It is not an argument but an observational fact.
http://www.leif.org/research/Solar-Microwaves-at-23-24-Minimum.pdf
http://www.leif.org/research/SHINE-2010-Microwave-Flux.pdf
http://lasp.colorado.edu/sorce/news/2010ScienceMeeting/doc/Session6/6.03_Tapping_F10.7.pdf
cedarhill says:
February 10, 2011 at 3:33 am
I believe there has been work, which may still be underway, to observe other stars that fall into the same classification as the Sun’s in order to determine if they cycle in a similar fashion as the Sun. If so, has this given any indication of confirming or simply confounding theories of why the Sun cycles? I’d guess there are large variations but there is perhaps a sub-class that “fits”.
There is such work. See some of the talks given here:
http://www.lowell.edu/workshops/SolarAnalogsII/
John Day says:
February 10, 2011 at 3:54 am
The “model” is what the eye can see and count, looking through a small telescope. The adjustments made to these observations are done only to harmonize perceived historical biases with current-day counts.
Most of Rudolf Wolf’s sunspot numbers were determined with the telescope in the lower left:
It has an aperture of 4 cm and a magnification of 40 times, and is still in use today.
Mr. Alex says:
February 10, 2011 at 4:37 am
Leif, what are your thoughts on the timing of sunspot and flux maximum? Are we rapidly nearing maximum (2012/2013) or is the ascent going to be prolonged to a peak in 2015?
Weak cycles often have poorly defined maxima. A typical example is cycle 14: http://www.leif.org/research/SC14.png
The solar polar fields reverse near maximum and they have recently decreased significantly in strength signalling that the maximum is not too far off. I’ll guess 2013.5.
psi says:
February 10, 2011 at 4:42 am
Geoff’s site does is set forth some very falsifiable implicit or explicit predictions about current trends in solar activity, and hence climate.
The issue is not the predictions. but simply the Layman’s Sunspot Count. It is supposed to be closer to Wolf’s original method. When Wolfer changed the counting method in 1894 he determined by used 16 years of simultaneous measurements by Wolf that a factor of 0.6 should be applied to the newer method to put in on the Wolf scale. Later observers have followed that. Wolf’s telescopes [see comment above] still exists [I looked through them a couple of weeks ago] and are still being used for counting spots. There are no indications that the current counts are artificially inflated [which seems to be the rationale for the LSC]. The LSC works by postulating that there is a threshold in sunspot size under which the spot should not be counted. This is a valid assumption. What is wrong about the LSC is that we do not know what that threshold is. The value used is picked out of thin air without justification and that is what makes the LSC ‘junk’.
Perhaps one of the things that is so disturbing about Landscheit et al is that they set forth a model in which the sun is not an island unto itself, but is actually being influenced in perceptible ways by the massive objects which it holds in orbit
The influence can be calculated and is extremely small, simply because the outer planets are so far away from the Sun. Were the planets much closer or much larger there would be observable consequences, see e.g. http://arxiv.org/abs/1102.1730
pkatt says:
February 10, 2011 at 5:18 am
So because its your theory Leif that makes it absolute?
Of course not. See http://solarphysics.livingreviews.org/Articles/lrsp-2010-6/ for more on solar cycle prediction [especially section 2.2].
If you would like to see graphs of the 1700 and 1800 Minimums, go to pages 39 and 40 of Lower Sunspot Activity Cools Global Warming, nationalforestlawblog.com. October 2009 Newsletter, under my name.
Paul
As an amateur radio operator, I hope Leif is right in his f10.7 prediction compared to the SSN. I’d rather it were higher, but anything is better than being stuck in the 80’s.
E.M. Smith: thanks for the JJG link. I’ve now got to look and see if I can restructure my IRA investments somewhat.
Gary Pearse says:
February 10, 2011 at 5:36 am
Jeff L says:
February 10, 2011 at 5:48 am
A striking feature (at least to me) of the 10.7 plot plot is that since the start of 2008 +/-, there seems to be unusually low variance in the curve.
It seems to me that the flux varies quite a lot recently: http://www.leif.org/research/TSI-SORCE-2008-now.png
Now, there are various systematic [and not understood] errors in the F10.7 flux as measured in Penticton. Here is a good example: http://www.leif.org/research/F107-Sawteeth.png the jagged ‘teeth’ you see are artificial: the flux is measured three times a day [morning, noon, afternoon] and the values are systematically different. As the Sun doesn’t know about what time it is in Penticton [Canada], the teeth must be in the instrument or the reduction software. If you plot the difference between the afternoon and morning values you see that it is seasonal: http://www.leif.org/research/F107-sawteeth-2.png being largest in local winter. More disturbingly, it changed sign in the middle of 2008 when the software was upgraded [the lager variance around 2001 was of course because it was solar max and the values were much larger]. So, it is also clear that speculations about small variations in F10.7 have to be seen in the light of the systematic errors we see present [at Pentiction, but not at Nobeyama (Japan) where the microwave flux is also measured].
For the last several days, I have been looking at the cue ball Sun pictures at Spaceweather and seeing sunspot numbers of 50+, such as today’s 67. Yes, I know, there’s a formula, etc., but it’s still very funny. Seems to be only weakly connected with reality.
I’m still waiting for NASA to declare the spots ARE there, but the LP effect has rendered them invisible, so we have to count them even though we can’t see them. If we start counting every plage we could get way up into the hundreds.
Hi Anthony,
Title s/b:
NASADr. Hathaway revisesthehis sunspot prediction down againI questioned this in an earlier post and Dr. Svalgaard confirmed that NASA doesn’t make Sun Spot predictions.
Its Dr. Hathaway who is making predictions using his personal NASA website – an unfunded pet project. His website has some great information but if you check the lower right corner of each page you’ll see its he and not NASA who is making the predictions.
REPLY: Thanks – news to me. Will adjust – Anthony
Viv Evans 3:35am:
“Well, you can’t make me go back in my box, saes!
Actually, Viv, although I was born in England, my father was Welsh and my mother Scottish, so I’m entitled to be both gloomy and tight-fisted. 🙂
Sam Glasser says:
February 10, 2011 at 6:32 am
Please stick to “science” and don’t get involved with “judgements” (i.e. Layman’s Count or HAO/NASA). Allow us to decide what is “junk” or whether NASA practices “good science”.
There are judgments in science related to scientific value. Does a claim meet minimum standard in justification? If not, it is ‘junk’. As a practicing scientist I am qualified to judge what is good and bad science. You are, of course, welcome to ignore my judgment; your loss.
Anthony, It is very good to do this update, but for some of us to make comment and analysis we would need short chart in comparison with long charts of sunspots.
For example, one sunspot cycle, last 5 cycles, last 15 cycles, last 30 cycles . . .
The Layman’s count of sunspots is valuable.
We are in a solar minimum. When we are in a solar minimum the historic record shows that it gets cold outside.
Because Layman’s count compares to the last solar minimum during the Little Ice Age, we can test the many theories regarding the sun’s space weather pattern.
We live in the Sun’s atmosphere. The Sun’s weather is our weather.
Even sunspot data is not immune to bias, but it is harder to fudge than temp data.
A good measure is the F10.7, I suppose impossible to monkey with that. F10.7 looks like we are heading into a death spiral, and the -23 degrees this morning in NE Oklahoma reinforces that notion in my mind.
Gosh, a huge gaseous orb energized by fusion is seemingly chaotic. Go figure.
Dr. Svalgaard,
You state that F10.7 flux is the best measure of solar activity; is it the best measure of solar magnetic activity?
One of the reasons I ask, is because Mike Lockwood and other UK and German physicists discovered (rediscovered?) a link between low solar magnetic output and cold winters in the UK and Europe during the past 350 years.
The solar cycle is actually progressing faster than the NASA prediction shows. Check the fourth column (which ends in Avg) of this site. DO NOT use the last column, as the values produce a curve that is too shallow on any time in the last 9.5 months or so (the last column is very similar to a 19-month smoothing of the values, and does not include the future values that are needed to properly compute it for those months). I’m thinking maximum is around March 2012 (+/- 9 months), with a smoothed max around 30 (+/- 10).
We live in interesting times.
Bowen,
Here’s a chart of all the cycles back to 1750
http://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/images/Zurich_Color_Small.jpg
Yes. Your microwave oven generates microwave flux at a frequency of 2.45GHz. The Sun’s 10.7cm microwave flux is a little higher in frequency: 2.8GHz
Of course, the Sun generates RF at virtually every wavelength (from “DC to Daylight” and beyond into x-ray/gamma), but the flux at 2.8GHz has a special significance, because its intensity (“SFI”) correlates very well with overall solar magnetic activity.
Read Arthur Covington’s paper: “Solar Radio Emission at 10.7 cm”. He was the first to classify the different types of solar flux back in the 1940’s
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/full/1969JRASC..63..125C
Don B says:
February 10, 2011 at 7:53 am
You state that F10.7 flux is the best measure of solar activity; is it the best measure of solar magnetic activity?
The F10.7 flux has two parts, one that depends on the density of the corona [which indirectly depends on the magnetic field] and one that depends directly on the magnetic field, so F10.7 is a good measure of the magnetic field in the corona.
Tom Rowan says:
February 10, 2011 at 7:40 am
Because Layman’s count compares to the last solar minimum during the Little Ice Age, we can test the many theories regarding the sun’s space weather pattern.
The LSC has no bearing on the solar minimum around 1800, so has no value for any comparison.
Bad predictions — based on bad theories — from government agencies
perhaps should result in a loss of digit. That is a loss of digit in the
funding. IE from $10 billion to $1 billion. Make mistaken predictions
for a while and the funding drops to zero.
okie333: I bless the graphs with all my heart . . . It soothes the thinking brain . . .
Leif Svalgaard wrote:
There are judgments in science related to scientific value. Does a claim meet minimum standard in justification? If not, it is ‘junk’. As a practicing scientist I am qualified to judge what is good and bad science. You are, of course, welcome to ignore my judgment; your loss.
I’m sorry to have to point this out, sir, but this is the exact same authoritarian claptrap we have been hearing from the climate alarmists for the last decade; “Don’t question my judgments, boy; I’m a SCIENTIST!”
As a practicing scientist, you are qualified to judge what in your personal opinion may be good or bad science. But as a practicing scientist, you should also have to present the evidence upon which you are basing that opinion, if you want your judgment to be taken as anything more than a personal opinion.
You spoke of hubris earlier in this thread; the phrase “As a practicing scientist I am qualified to judge what is good and bad science”, when offered absent proof, in my humble opinion smacks of the same thing.
The argument-from-authority is a logical fallacy, regardless of who makes it.
I’m a practicing engineer; but I don’t try to discount the work of others without having numbers backing me up, regardless of their status as a ‘practicing’ anything.
me: Perhaps one of the things that is so disturbing about Landscheit et al is that they set forth a model in which the sun is not an island unto itself, but is actually being influenced in perceptible ways by the massive objects which it holds in orbit.
LS: The influence can be calculated and is extremely small, simply because the outer planets are so far away from the Sun. Were the planets much closer or much larger there would be observable consequences, see e.g. http://arxiv.org/abs/1102.1730
First, thanks for the detailed responses.
But are you saying, then, that the correlations mapped by Landscheidt et al. between sunspot cycles (since the “real” factor of F10.7 flux doesn’t go back that far) are mere coincidence? I’m afraid that to my untutored ear this would sound a lot like the rejection of the very well established correlation between sunspot cycles and global temps on the basis that the difference in solar radiation is too slight to produce the known effects. This argument of course leaves out of count entirely the possibility that the causal relation is real but the mechanisms of influence are merely poorly understood (as in Svensmark et al). I feel confident in the latter case that the mainstream view is simply, to employ my own wild adjective, preposterous — its tunnel vision to conclude to that, because the mechanisms are misunderstood, the correlation must be a coincidence.
I’m less sure about Landscheidt, but the process by which the alternative to the status quo is rejected seems to be remarkably similar: a compelling pattern is wished out of existence because the understanding of process is deemed to be complete, authoritative, and final. Isn’t it possible that the the mechanisms of influence are misunderstood?
Also I’d really like to hear Geoff’s response to this question.
Sarge says:
February 10, 2011 at 8:55 am
I’m a practicing engineer; but I don’t try to discount the work of others without having numbers backing me up, regardless of their status as a ‘practicing’ anything.
My judgment is based on hard numbers for all to see. All my work is documented and accessible, but you’re welcome to treat it as claptrap [BTW where are your hard numbers backing up that assertion?], if you like.
So now that we can see both sides in stunning 3-D reality, it seems that the sunspot numbers will go down; most likely because they will be paired up, one from side A, and one from side B to make a stereo pair.
Well at least their predictions are headed in the same direction as the actual past recorded facts; whcih would be a change for the better in itself. As for what it all means; I have no idea; but I must say, it does give me something to watch on a longer time scale, that the annual drama of the Arctic ice dancing. I’m sure Leif will explain it all to us, after it has happened. I will say that man is cautious, and doesn’t often predict a lot of things that haven’t happened yet.
Leif Svalgaard says:
. . . .ignore my judgment; your loss. . . .??
Want to know only the difference between Leif Svalgaard and God?
God doesn’t think he is Leif Svalgaard . . .
REPLY: that was uncalled for- take a time out – Anthony
Dr. Svalgaard,
Thanks for the PDF presentation. This is probably a foolish question, if we were to roll back to the 1780 TSI range, is there sufficient evidence to conclude a similar duration of time to return to the present range?
Historic TSI plots — pick your range:
http://lasp.colorado.edu/lisird/tsi/historical_tsi.html
One further thought:
psi says:
February 10, 2011 at 4:42 am
Geoff’s site does is set forth some very falsifiable implicit or explicit predictions about current trends in solar activity, and hence climate.
The issue is not the predictions. but simply the Layman’s Sunspot Count. It is supposed to be closer to Wolf’s original method.
Well, that is the issue to you — and I can see why you want to focus on that. The point of my post was not, however, to defend Geoff’s method as such (I am unqualified at present either to defend or critique it), but to point out that you seemed to be cherry picking your methods of critique and approbation. Personally I think you would be more credible if you admitted that the NOAA got it really wrong, and that therefore this indicates an underlying problem with the causal models used to generate the predictions. One can follow this and claim that its good science anyway, because researchers are resolutely attempting to diagnose the source of the error and are working to think outside the box to arrive at a better model, one that can produce results which don’t require being “falsified” by the evidence of nature. But are they really doing this? It appears to me that they are not, simply because they are operating in a rather hermetic institutional environment which is relatively impervious to correction from within. You do realize those places exist, right – even in Western democracies?
I am afraid that I must therefore reluctantly conclude with Sarge that
“this is the exact same authoritarian [beep] we have been hearing from the climate alarmists for the last decade” and that “the phrase ‘As a practicing scientist I am qualified to judge what is good and bad science’, when offered absent proof, in my humble opinion smacks of the same thing.”
Its just an opinion — but maybe because I am especially alert to how such modes of reasoning have deformed rational discussion in my own field, and come here partly to study the dynamics of reasoned debate on topics in which I have no special qualification beyond an interest in epistemology and method — one that I can’t presently avoid.
To your credit, I will also say, however, that you do often offer solid reasons, and certainly do so with more grace than the average proponent of “standard science,” even when you are responding to folks like myself who lack the particular technical qualifications you bring to the discussion and hence are regarded by some of your more imperious colleagues as tools of big oil who are beneath their notice and contempt. In doing so you are helping to prevent modern science from simply become another institutionalized religion. I just suspect that maybe you have more learn from people like Landscheidt or Svensmark than you’re willing to admit.
Just a thought, from a guy who regularly confuses weather with climate and still hasn’t figured out where one is supposed to end and the other begin…:)
Discussion is never much fun when everyone agrees on everything, is it?
psi says:
February 10, 2011 at 9:05 am
But are you saying, then, that the correlations mapped by Landscheidt et al. between sunspot cycles (since the “real” factor of F10.7 flux doesn’t go back that far) are mere coincidence?
In essence, yes. And the correlations are not all that good [otherwise we would not be discussing this].
I’m afraid that to my untutored ear this would sound a lot like the rejection of the very well established correlation between sunspot cycles and global temps on the basis that the difference in solar radiation is too slight to produce the known effects.
And that correlation is not very good either. For example, solar activity now is down to where it was a century ago, but temperatures are not. Of course, you can always invoke various [even varying] time lags [although Svensmark’s theory does not allow any].
Isn’t it possible that the the mechanisms of influence [Landscheidt] are misunderstood?
Simpler than that: there is no mechanism proposed. Add to that that the there must be another mechanism generating the ordinary solar cycle with its magnetic polarity changes. The planetary hypothesis posits but a modulation of what is generated by internal processes on the Sun. The planetary hypothesis was once considered seriously, but the magnetic field changes [and the generally poor correlations that always failed eventually] was the death knell to that, e.g. http://www.leif.org/research/Rise-and-Fall.pdf
John from CA says:
February 10, 2011 at 9:21 am
if we were to roll back to the 1780 TSI range, is there sufficient evidence to conclude a similar duration of time to return to the present range?
I do not even understand the question …
Historic TSI plots — pick your range:
http://lasp.colorado.edu/lisird/tsi/historical_tsi.html
There is no evidence for the rise from 1900 to 1950. The current ‘trend’ in TSI-reconstructions are converging on there not being any such rise:
http://www.leif.org/research/TSI-recon3.png
http://www.leif.org/research/Does%20The%20Sun%20Vary%20Enough.pdf
Leif says: The trend lines are not really physically significant as they are just numerology [curve fitting] and simply adjust to the data.
So the short answer then is to take them out if they have no value.
The longer question is, I look at your kindly-provided graph daily, and the F10.7 average curve took a radical curve change on the addition of a single data point: from flat, descending towards 80, to up towards 90. It was very curious behavior. I saw the radical jump as I manually refreshed the graph.
It looked like a different (longer) filter period was substituted, because the one in use was starting to provide “nonsense” predictions (the mean intersecting the min). I don’t necessarily disagree with either before/after curve, but I’d like to know why the change (if any).
If you’re going to put the curves in there, can you provide the algorithm, and notify if there are changes to it?
Bowen says:
February 10, 2011 at 9:18 am
Leif Svalgaard says:
. . . .ignore my judgment;
Scientists make value judgments every day, it is called peer review.
An interesting thread with some heavyweight contributors.
Some questions :
i) The Lanscheldt approach seems to have anticipated the current solar quietude. How could that have happened ?
ii) The L&P effect seems to cause the sunspot numbers (SSN) to diverge from the 10.7 flux numbers but currently both SSN and 10.7 flux numbers are equally low so what does it matter ?
iii) The sun is currently behaving like a ‘dead parrot’ as compared to the run of cycles 17 to 23 so does anyone really expect a zero effect on the global energy budget ?
iv) I have proposed elsewhere that the key issue is not radiative physics but atmospheric chemistry responding to a varying mix of wavelengths and particles from the sun as solar activity changes. Can anyone exclude that as a plausible explanation as to how levels of solar activity can influence the Earth’s energy budget ?
John A. Fleming says:
February 10, 2011 at 9:35 am
Leif says: The trend lines are not really physically significant as they are just numerology [curve fitting] and simply adjust to the data.
So the short answer then is to take them out if they have no value.
they have value if you do not over-interpret them and think they represent something the Sun must do.
if you’re going to put the curves in there, can you provide the algorithm, and notify if there are changes to it?
The dashed line is just a second order [used to be third order, that was the change you saw] polynomial fit to all the points. The full line hugging the bottom is a third order fit to the lowest point in each month.
The lines serve my judgment of the short-term ‘trend’, or can be viewed as my guess of where it is going the next few months. If you don’t like them, ignore them.
I have re-analysed the past 300 years of sunspot records. Having corrected for the poor quality of the historic records, pasteurised the results using the latest statistical analysis techniques (which I am not at liberty to divulge), repeatedly run the program on my multi-giga super-computer, I can, with a 95 % confidence level, announce that cycle 24 will be an all-time record. My work has been peer reviewed by both my brother-in-law and Mr Al “could have been President, but wimped out for an easy life in order to save the planet” Gore. I do hope that all you deniers at WUWT will now finally concede that the science on AGW is settled.
Leif Svalgaard said Scientists make value judgments every day, it is called peer review.
Therein lies the rub, sir . . . I can find no record of you anywhere and I have looked . . .
I can find your web sites but no bio. Could you enlighten us/me.
As for me, I am not a scientist, I am a ‘student’ of the sciences. But some of the smartest people I’ve known in my life never had a degree or even a lot of formal education . . .
“February 10, 2011 at 7:53 am
You state that F10.7 flux is the best measure of solar activity”
Doesn’t the solar spectrum change with energy levels? As such, that suggests to me that a measurement at any one frequency could be misleading. The intensity at any one frequency could remain the same, but the energy levels reaching earth could change dramatically due to a frequency shift in the sun’s spectrum.
ttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photoelectric_effect
By assuming that light actually consisted of discrete energy packets, Einstein wrote an equation for the photoelectric effect that fit experiments. It explained why the energy of photoelectrons were dependent only on the frequency of the incident light and not on its intensity:
Stephen Wilde says:
February 10, 2011 at 9:41 am
i) The Lanscheldt approach seems to have anticipated the current solar quietude. How could that have happened ?
Anybody looking at http://sidc.oma.be/images/wolfaml_small.png would come to that conclusion. No model or approach needed.
ii) The L&P effect seems to cause the sunspot numbers (SSN) to diverge from the 10.7 flux numbers but currently both SSN and 10.7 flux numbers are equally low so what does it matter ?
It matters if you want to compare the coming cycle with other cycles.
iii) The sun is currently behaving like a ‘dead parrot’ as compared to the run of cycles 17 to 23 so does anyone really expect a zero effect on the global energy budget ?
dead parrots have but little effect
iv) I have proposed elsewhere that the key issue is not radiative physics but atmospheric chemistry responding to a varying mix of wavelengths and particles from the sun as solar activity changes. Can anyone exclude that as a plausible explanation as to how levels of solar activity can influence the Earth’s energy budget ?
The variations you invoke are minute [e.g. particles contribute less than a millionth of the total output], so on energetic grounds it is implausible that the changes you have in mind have a significant effect.
Leif Svalgaard says:
February 10, 2011 at 9:32 am
John from CA says:
if we were to roll back to the 1780 TSI range, is there sufficient evidence to conclude a similar duration of time to return to the present range?
I do not even understand the question …
Historic TSI plots — pick your range:
http://lasp.colorado.edu/lisird/tsi/historical_tsi.html
There is no evidence for the rise from 1900 to 1950. The current ‘trend’ in TSI-reconstructions are converging on there not being any such rise:
http://www.leif.org/research/TSI-recon3.png
http://www.leif.org/research/Does%20The%20Sun%20Vary%20Enough.pdf
=========
Thanks,
I misinterpreted the meaning.
“Variation in Solar Output is a Factor of Ten too Small to Account for The Little Ice Age:
• Unless the Climate is Extraordinarily Sensitive to Very Small Changes…”
TSI data, as presented in the lasp.colorado.edu link above, was used in the IPCC 2007 AR4 report. I mistakenly concluded IPCC was projecting a TSI minimum as the reason for the GHG effect lag — per AR4, observed GHG effects are due to start about 2060 (Curry).
So, if we take solar input out of the climate equation (because its actually a constant), past climate changes like the MWP or LIA become even more difficult to explain in terms of what we currently know about the climate system?
Thanks for the replies, Leif…I’ll dig into that. Stan
Bowen says:
February 10, 2011 at 9:58 am
I can find your web sites but no bio. Could you enlighten us/me.
Real short:
1963-1968: University of Copenhagen, candidature [Geophysics]
1969-1971: Regnecentralen, Copenhagen {http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RC_4000_Multiprogramming_System}
1972-1978: Stanford University, Senior Research Physicist
1979-1984: Lockheed Electronics Company, Chief Engineer
1985-1993: SEMA Group, Belgium, Ingenieur en Checf
1994-1998: TOSC, Houston, Director of Development
1999-2000: Pentasafe, Houston, Senior Developer
2001-2009: Independent Researcher
2004: Nagoya University, Professor
2009-now: Stanford University, Researcher.
But, this blog is not about me.
ge0050 says:
February 10, 2011 at 10:00 am
Doesn’t the solar spectrum change with energy levels? As such, that suggests to me that a measurement at any one frequency could be misleading.
The microwave flux is not really part of the ‘ordinary’ solar spectrum. The energy is extremely small. Its significance is that the flux is a good measure of the magnetic field in the lower solar corona.
Leif, thanks very much for that explanation. If I may, one more question. You said above that F10.7 flux is predicted to top ~120 in mid 2013 and seems well on its way to that. The third order fit highlighted what to my eyeball also looks like that F10.7 was more or less flat for all of 2010. The 2nd order highlights the increasing levels of the mid-values throughout 2010.
So how much stress does the flatness of 2010 put on the prediction of 2013? It’s not obvious to me that either the 2nd-order or 3rd-order curves are a good predictor of future behavior, they just highlight where the sun has been. So I’m guessing the 2013 prediction is based on the polar field strength data you’re collecting and analyzing elsewhere, and I should pay more attention to that.
Stephen Wilde says:
February 10, 2011 at 9:41 am
iii) The sun is currently behaving like a ‘dead parrot’ as compared to the run of cycles 17 to 23 so does anyone really expect a zero effect on the global energy budget ?
Behavior is the key. The Sun has not changed it’s behavior as regards not doing a traditional ramp, discernable above the noise, for the whole of SC24. So far. I don’t see anything going on which says it’s about to change that behavior.
Wish list item: David Hathaway finally has a breakthru moment, and comes out with predicted curves which actually (gasp) FOLLOW the current data lines, instead of defying them.
Good grief. His smoothed line has the last 6 months of data tucked underneath it.
Leif said:
“it is implausible that the changes you have in mind have a significant effect.”
Do you have any other suggestions as to why ozone quantities above 45km might have increased during the period of less active sun from 2004 to 2007 ?
John from CA says:
February 10, 2011 at 10:19 am
past climate changes like the MWP or LIA become even more difficult to explain in terms of what we currently know about the climate system?
Perhaps not. Every complicated system has natural, random, internal fluctuations [as Roy Spencer pointed out recently].
John A. Fleming says:
February 10, 2011 at 10:32 am
It’s not obvious to me that either the 2nd-order or 3rd-order curves are a good predictor of future behavior, they just highlight where the sun has been.
That’s right and even though they may show what is in store the next few months cannot be extrapolated beyond that.
So I’m guessing the 2013 prediction is based on the polar field strength data you’re collecting and analyzing elsewhere, and I should pay more attention to that.
Yep.
Leif Svalgaard says:
February 10, 2011 at 8:33 am
Tom Rowan says:
February 10, 2011 at 7:40 am
Because Layman’s count compares to the last solar minimum during the Little Ice Age, we can test the many theories regarding the sun’s space weather pattern.
Leif Svalgaard says: The LSC has no bearing on the solar minimum around 1800, so has no value for any comparison.
Tom Rowan replies: I believe there are many well known and universally respected astrophysicists who would argue otherwise. Many have published theories and papers to that effect. Svensmark comes to mind.
I thought the entire point of LSC website was to match the counting method used during the 1800s for comparison! I think I am right about that, but maybe I am wrong.
As an expert sunspot counter yourself Leif, do you find any correlation with solar minimums and colder weather here on earth?
I believe that there is not only a direct correlation with solar minimums and colder weather, but a causal relationship. I join the the thousands of scientists who theorize that perhaps there is such a causal relationship and the Sun wears the pants in the family.
Anyway, for comparison purposes I think their is a correlation with solar minimums and cold weather. And I believe that their exists relatively comparable solar cycle graphs using the older method of counting spots.
For instance: Layman’s has about 10 spotless days this year. Space Weather has counted 1. In 1800, would the telescopes have picked up the sun specks and solar plaques that are counted today?
Maybe I have my history wrong. Set me straight Leif.
Thanks, Tom
BTW- I forget what we finally decided to call this solar minimum.
How many votes did The Algore Solar Minimum get?
“Stephen Wilde says:
February 10, 2011 at 9:41 am
i) The Lanscheldt approach seems to have anticipated the current solar quietude. How could that have happened ?”
Leif said:
“Anybody looking at http://sidc.oma.be/images/wolfaml_small.png would come to that conclusion. No model or approach needed.”
Well no. Cycle 24 could just as well have gone up after cycle 23 just as cycle 21 went up after cycle 20. Indeed Hathaway et al expected just that.
A rather weak reply, Leif.
If the SSN correlates reasonably with the TSI then that is sufficient if one realizes that TSI is only one of many influences upon climate and weather. Low SSN is a warning signal of POTENTIAL lower temperatures if it continues, all other variables held constant, which they never are. We always try to make too much out of one or two variables in a very complex mix which we still do not understand. Personally, though, I am cutting more firewood just in case.
Leif Svalgaard said 2009-now: Stanford University, Researcher.
OK, Sorry about that . . . but now I can find your reports, thank you . . . given the nature of the internet hacking wars, one does not know who to “trust”.
http://www.google.com/search?q=Stanford+University++Leif+Svalgaard&hl=en&prmd=ivns&ei=4zRUTbq-CMG78gaU_rjKCQ&start=10&sa=N
I said:
“ii) The L&P effect seems to cause the sunspot numbers (SSN) to diverge from the 10.7 flux numbers but currently both SSN and 10.7 flux numbers are equally low so what does it matter ?”
Leif said:
“It matters if you want to compare the coming cycle with other cycles.”
But I don’t. I want to compare with past cycles.
The sun is less active and there are less sunspots. AO is more negative, jets are more meridional, ozone has increased above 45 km contrary to expectations, the stratosphere is no longer cooling, the troposphere is no longer warming, ocean heat content is no longer rising, cloudiness and albedo have increased since the late 90s.
What other driving force do you have to offer ?
I said:
“iii) The sun is currently behaving like a ‘dead parrot’ as compared to the run of cycles 17 to 23 so does anyone really expect a zero effect on the global energy budget ?”
Leif said:
“dead parrots have but little effect.”
As compared to live parrots they do..
Leif Svalgaard says:
February 10, 2011 at 10:42 am
John from CA says:
past climate changes like the MWP or LIA become even more difficult to explain in terms of what we currently know about the climate system?
Leif Svalgaard says:
Perhaps not. Every complicated system has natural, random, internal fluctuations [as Roy Spencer pointed out recently].
======
Thanks, I spend some time reading Spencer’s work.
Stephen Wilde says:
February 10, 2011 at 10:41 am
Do you have any other suggestions as to why ozone quantities above 45km might have increased during the period of less active sun from 2004 to 2007 ?
You might learn more here: http://www.leif.org/EOS/2010GL046012.pdf
Tom Rowan says:
February 10, 2011 at 10:43 am
Leif Svalgaard says: The LSC has no bearing on the solar minimum around 1800, so has no value for any comparison.
Tom Rowan replies: I believe there are many well known and universally respected astrophysicists who would argue otherwise.
I know of not a single one, but will defer to you when you produce one.
I thought the entire point of LSC website was to match the counting method used during the 1800s for comparison! I think I am right about that, but maybe I am wrong.
LSC tries to emulate Rudolf Wolf [but in a flawed way], but for no good reason as Wolf was not even born back then, and hence did not make any observations to compare with. In fact, Wolf’s first assessment of cycle 5 had it to be a large cycle based on the scattered reports from earlier observers. Later on [around 1880], when Wolf came across a catalog of aurorae he changed his mind about the cycles during the Dalton minimum and demoted them to small cycles. Truth is that we really don’t know.
As an expert sunspot counter yourself Leif, do you find any correlation with solar minimums and colder weather here on earth?
Not that is strong enough to be believed: http://www.leif.org/research/Does%20The%20Sun%20Vary%20Enough.pdf
For instance: Layman’s has about 10 spotless days this year. Space Weather has counted 1. In 1800, would the telescopes have picked up the sun specks and solar plaques that are counted today?
Yes, as today we use the same old telescopes as back then to keep our counts in line:
http://www.leif.org/research/Wolf-Handhelds.png
Stephen Wilde says:
February 10, 2011 at 10:54 am
A rather weak reply, Leif.
To a weak question.
What other driving force do you have to offer ?
See link above.
Stephen Wilde says:
February 10, 2011 at 11:07 am
As compared to live parrots they do..
The live parrot does have some small effect: 0.1-0.2 C at the most.
vukcevic says:
February 10, 2011 at 3:40 am
Your verse is much appreciated.
I asked Leif:
“Do you have any other suggestions as to why ozone quantities above 45km might have increased during the period of less active sun from 2004 to 2007 ?”
Leif said:
You might learn more here: http://www.leif.org/EOS/2010GL046012.pdf
Which says amongst other speculative stuff:
“Increasing levels of greenhouse gases will ensure that temperatures
continue to decrease in the stratosphere”
But temperatures in the stratosphere are not continuing to decrease:
http://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/sola/5/0/53/_pdf
“The evidence for the cooling trend in the stratosphere may need to be revisited.
This study presents evidence that the stratosphere has been slightly warming
since 1996.”
Then:
“Leif Svalgaard says:
February 10, 2011 at 11:25 am
Stephen Wilde says:
February 10, 2011 at 11:07 am
As compared to live parrots they do..
The live parrot does have some small effect: 0.1-0.2 C at the most.”
But Leif has lapsed back to radiative physics which I do not dispute whereas I have been referring to atmospheric chemistry which is a different issue.
Leif gave a weak reply to this question:
“i) The Lanscheldt approach seems to have anticipated the current solar quietude. How could that have happened ?”
When I pointed out that his reply was weak his best shot was that the question was weak.
Please try again Leif. It was not good enough to suggest that the weakness of cycle 24 could have been predicted from the pattern of earlier cycles. Hathaway failed after all and he is supposaed to be the expert.
From a comment at http://www.freerepublic.com about this graph: And this means: hotter, cooler, or no change in earth’s temperature?
My reply follows: Well, we don’t know. (And anybody who pretends to know, doesn’t know they don’t know.)
The solar cycle 24 predictions were ORIGINALLY (back in 2006-2008 timeframe) predicted to peak in 2011-2012 (Yes, that means right about now!) between 150 – 170. Now, that same solar cycle 24 “might” peak in 2013-2014 at less than 60.
What does it mean for temperatures?
We don’t know. Last time the solar sunspot count and solar flux were this low for this long for three consecutive sunspot cycles – which might be cycles 24-25-26, we experienced extremely low temperatures for almost 70+ years.
For reference about the real value of this revision at this point in time:
It is essential that the “original” predictions for the Solar Cycle 24 maximum point and the date of that maximum point be shown as well. Unless one sees how poorly the first predictions were – and still are – about Solar Cycle 24, you can’t tell how important/how not important/how unreliable/how reliable the latest prediction may be.
Caveat: I cannot make the latest prediction. I didn’t make the initial prediction(s) either. And, I am glad that knowledgeable people do try to make their predictions – and apparently at a a good wage too, gathering wide exposure for their predictions in the world’s fawning press corpse (er, press corps) . But neither am I claiming to be a “predictor” of the sun’s future activity.
Dr. Svalgaard is getting too much of a hard time. I should be the last person to spring to his defence, but if he got one or two things wrong, and can’t bring himself to admit it, at least not as yet, it is not good enough reason to question his absolutely superior knowledge and experience of the matters solar.
Despite his continuous berating, I personally have learned a lot from Dr. S. , for that I am grateful.
Now it is time to give the man a rest.
OK!
The 21st Century – The Portal to Perdition and Barbarism.
Thus spake Zarathrustra and thus began ten thousand years of darkness.
Leif Svalgaard says:
February 10, 2011 at 11:23 am
LSC tries to emulate Rudolf Wolf
Actually, Leif, LSC independently measures a la Greenwich, as carried on by Debrecen today.
ftp://fenyi.solarobs.unideb.hu/pub/DPD/data/dDPD2011.txt
I see 9 days in the 2011 Debrecen measurements that have either no discernible umbra to measure (0) or a pore (1).
This (measuring) is what Rudolf Wolf wanted to do, but had not the means to accomplish.
So, where does LSC (and Geoff Sharp) earn the disdain of junk for the act of independent finding?
That is not fair or objective.
Geoff did what he was capapble of doing (and so did I, though I did not contribute as much work as Geoff did).
Had Rudolf Wolf possessed captured images (photos/digital ccd integrations) he would have done the same as Geoff now does.
Here http://www.astronomie.be/rik.gheysens/fietshoorn/climate/irradiance_temperature.pdf
is shown a graph with a reconstruction of temperature (Moberg) and of solar irradiance (Bard) from the year 800 to 2000. This graph is included in the book “Oog voor het klimaat”, a pdf-file edited by the Royal Meteorological Institute (KMI) of Belgium. (2008)
One can say that the difference in temperature between 1600 and 1900 is about 0.6 degrees C.
Why do solar scientists affirm that the rise of temperature between the LIA and now is only 0.1 degree C?
Do you agree with this graph?
When we look at sunspot cycles and the earths climate there seems to be fairly clear correlation – it is the causation that we are trying to resolve. With Svensmarks theory of low sunspot count causing more cloudiness on earth. As the oceans are the driver of the atmosphere then there is the lag between variation in solar activity and the earth’s climate due to heat storage capacity of the oceans. Then there is the interaction of known natural cycles (AMO, PDO etc) and the interaction of CO2 on plant growth (greening of the sahara etc) so there are lots of feedbacks.
So currently we have low sunspot activity, low solar wind, low F10.7 flux, low planetary A index, more cloudiness. We have a cold PDO with more prevalent and stronger La Ninas which means more cyclones in the Pacific, with the AMO in negative less hurricanes in the Atlantic. As cyclones/hurricanes act to take heat from the ocean into outer space we have a cooling mechanism based on warm ocean temps. As those warm ocean temps are becoming more isolated (as the sst drops) then the current record cold being experienced is not unusual – all things considered. As it looks like we have a prolongation of all these cooling patterns (solar and earth based) for the next 20-30 years at least with increased volcanism as another cooling pattern shouldn’t we be hammering our governments over this whilst in the meantime we still try and resolve the exact mechanisms that are contributing to the deepening cold.
We also need factor in a decreasing magnetic field on earth and the increase in size of storms are their impacts. So we need a multidisciplinary approach as many fields overlap to give us the answer that one field on it’s own may not resolve.
Leif Svalgaard says:
February 9, 2011 at 9:34 pm
“The Layman’s count is junk.”
Well that’s not how the numbers add up Leif. It’s looking more and more like like Layman’s count is correct and you are junk.
Be careful when you insult people with more accurate data than yourself Leif as it makes you look [trimmed]!
Stephen Wilde says:
February 10, 2011 at 11:57 am
Please try again Leif. It was not good enough to suggest that the weakness of cycle 24 could have been predicted from the pattern of earlier cycles. Hathaway failed after all and he is supposaed to be the expert.
Hathaway did not use that graph, but what he thought was a physical argument. The power spectrum of the sunspot activity suggests a ~100 wave, so there you have the prediction. Figure 7 of our IDV paper http://www.leif.org/research/The%20IDV%20index%20-%20its%20derivation%20and%20use.pdf
suggests a 100-yr wave. Everybody and his brother [except the real experts like Hathaway and Dikpati] saw this coming. No physics or models needed.
rbateman says:
February 10, 2011 at 1:24 pm
Actually, Leif, LSC independently measures a la Greenwich, as carried on by Debrecen today. […] This (measuring) is what Rudolf Wolf wanted to do, but had not the means to accomplish.
Not at all. LSC just doctors the Brussels sunspot number by throwing out groups that are too small according to an uncalibrated threshold. This is what makes it junk, plus the silly idea that that would make the count similar to the counts Wolf did not even make during the Dalton Minimum.
Had Rudolf Wolf possessed captured images (photos/digital ccd integrations) he would have done the same as Geoff now does.
Absolutely not. I have read ALL of Wolf’s writings and know how he did it and what he wanted to do. He actually had drawings, namely Staudacher’s and Schwabe’s and others. And, in Zurich they did make drawings all the time from the 1870s until 1995. He and they made the very conscious decision NOT to base the sunspot number on the drawings but on visual observations with the small telescopes.
Wolf’s original rule was to count only spots that would be visible even in bad seeing [‘not depending on good seeing for the count’]. Wolfer and everybody else realized that that was non-reproducible and decided to count everything that they could see at any time. The 0.6 k-factor accounts for the difference with Wolf. The notion that Brussels and NOAA inflate the count in completely off base. If anything Brussels undercounts the spots as I have shown many times.
Rik Gheysens says:
February 10, 2011 at 1:33 pm
Why do solar scientists affirm that the rise of temperature between the LIA and now is only 0.1 degree C?
That is not what they say. They say that only about that can be attributed to solar activity. The rest has other causes.
Want to know only the difference between Leif Svalgaard and God?
God doesn’t think he is Leif Svalgaard . . .
REPLY: that was uncalled for- take a time out – Anthony
I think I’ll take one as well because that was the best post I have seen on your site for ages.
<>
Oh come on, this makes it look like I was being offensive and swearing. Could I just say Doh and get it pat the censorship!
vukcevic says:
February 10, 2011 at 12:46 pm
Now it is time to give the man a rest.
OK!
I am not sure if you have your tongue firmly planted in your cheek Vuk, but while he is wrong there is no rest.
rbateman says:
February 10, 2011 at 1:24 pm
Actually, Leif, LSC independently measures a la Greenwich, as carried on by Debrecen today.
You make it sound like LSC measures the area rather than the count, which is not what it does. Several institutions are measuring the area, e.g. NOAA, so we have what we need there. The real problem with the LSC is that its premise is wrong [apart from it being uncalibrated]. The smallest specks also have magnetic fields and contribute to solar activity so should not be omitted under any circumstances. If Wolf could not or would not measure those, we must find other ways of adding in what he omitted in order to get a true measure of solar activity. As he himself discovered, the geomagnetic response affords such a way of obtaining a truer measure of solar activity. Exploiting that is what we are trying to do today.
Phil M2. says:
February 10, 2011 at 2:35 pm
Oh come on, this makes it look like I was being offensive and swearing.
Perhaps if you could back up your claim with some analysis, and comparisons, and numbers, it would carry more weight.
Geoff Sharp says:
February 10, 2011 at 2:41 pm
but while he is wrong there is no rest.
It would, perhaps, be better if you would stick to specifics.
Bowen says: (February 10, 2011 at 9:18 am)
“Want to know only the difference between Leif Svalgaard and God?
God doesn’t think he is Leif Svalgaard . . .”
Bowen says: (February 10, 2011 at 9:58 am)
“Therein lies the rub, sir . . . I can find no record of you anywhere and I have looked . .
I can find your web sites but no bio. Could you enlighten us/me.”
Bowen, please save these comments to remind yourself, as you will soon learn, how foolish they made you look.
Tom in Florida says:
February 10, 2011 at 2:59 pm
Bowen, please save these comments to remind yourself, as you will soon learn, how foolish they made you look.
Bowen has in email to me apologized, so the matter should be closed. This blog should be about me [although it often seems it is].
Leif Svalgaard says:
Your comment is awaiting moderation.
February 10, 2011 at 3:04 pm
Tom in Florida says:
February 10, 2011 at 2:59 pm
Bowen, please save these comments to remind yourself, as you will soon learn, how foolish they made you look.
Bowen has in email to me apologized, so the matter should be closed. This blog should NOT be about me [although it often seems it is].
[Noted. Thank you for your contributions. Robt]
What is the lag on the effect of the heliopause? How long does it take for the suns surface to change the outer reaches of the heliopause.
Can we determine Svensmarks GCR effect as a time lag of the sunspot activity?
Darren Parker says:
February 10, 2011 at 3:07 pm
What is the lag on the effect of the heliopause? How long does it take for the suns surface to change the outer reaches of the heliopause.
Placing the termination shock at 100 AU and considering that the solar wind travels 1 AU in 5 days, the time would be 100*5=500 days or about 1.5 years.
Can we determine Svensmarks GCR effect as a time lag of the sunspot activity?
“Leif Svalgaard says:
February 9, 2011 at 8:50 pm (Edit)
As we have discussed many times the ‘real’ indicator of solar activity is the the F10.7 microwave flux. The flux is predicted to top ~120 in mid 2013 and seems well on its way to that. ”
Ya think?
81 and level.
A gradual increase to late 2014 maxing at 100 +/- 6
This is the low solar activity Geoff and I predicted independently in 2008.
I predicted ~35-50 SSN at solar max 2.5 years ago.
You predicted ~70SSN using you polar fields technique based on your shallow dynamo theory.
psi says:
February 10, 2011 at 9:05 am
Also I’d really like to hear Geoff’s response to this question.
Since Landscheidt we have learned a lot, and the method I use is actually quite different to his original papers. The new data shows that a solar grand minimum should be happening right now, as in this year, and if SC24 fails to be a grand minimum cycle the theory is falsified. There is now a mechanical link for planetary theory in a new peer reviewed paper by Wollf & Patrone. I will be reviewing this paper in coming weeks.
The threshold size of Wolf’s counting method is based on his telescope and the viewing conditions of the day. It matters little if that threshold is slightly reduced or increased, the fact is the specks and small spots are excluded as per Wolf. Leif fails to mention (as he often does) that the modern system also includes a false 22% increase that was introduced by Waldmeier? who initiated a new counting method very different to Wolf’s. The LSC accounts for this so that we can compare apples. We can nit pick around the edges but the LSC is the closest count to Wolf”s reconstruction of the Dalton Minimum.
L&P is just a prop, ready in case a prediction fails. The scientific method is severely flawed. A debunking HERE. As others have noted the F10.7 flux is not following the L&P predicted outcome.
There is increasing evidence of a solar/climate link. What we are seeing today in the northern hemisphere is the possible effect of a low EUV producing Sun. EUV varies greatly over the solar cycle and also does not have baseline floor. Current EUV measurements are at the same level as the SC22/23 minimum, this is influencing the Arctic Oscillation in a negative manner which in turn influences the shape of the jet stream allowing polar air to flow south. Planetary waves driven in the NH disrupt the NH polar vortex which warms the stratosphere (more ozone) and directly affects the polar pressure patterns (AO but not AAO). A lower thermosphere and modulated planetary waves caused by low EUV is seen as a likely culprit. A very detailed paper by Baldwin et al HERE.
tallbloke says:
February 10, 2011 at 3:20 pm
A gradual increase to late 2014 maxing at 100 +/- 6
To keep the L&P out of it we can stay with F10.7.
You predicted ~70SSN using you polar fields technique based on your shallow dynamo theory.
The 70 SSN corresponds to 120 sfu. Your 100 sfu corresponds to 53 SSN. So you want to contrast 120 with 100. Fair enough, but that is no Grand Minimum. Since our low prediction in 2004, it has become popular to predict a low SC24 [now that everybody can see which way the wind blows], you are just one of dozens.
From the above graphs, how do we (you ?) establish whether (or not) the inflection point for sunspots has already passed?
By my view, it appears that the differential with respect to time of the sunspot count has already reached its maximum/is at its maximum for SC24, and that the maximum count will be substantially under 50, if not under 45.
racookpe1978 says:
February 10, 2011 at 3:38 pm
From the above graphs, how do we (you ?) establish whether (or not) the inflection point for sunspots has already passed?
By my view, it appears that the differential with respect to time of the sunspot count has already reached its maximum
Blind extrapolation ain’t gonna work. When was the ‘inflection point’ in solar cycle 14:
http://www.leif.org/research/SC14.png ?
Thank you. Looking at the “raw data” on a month-to-month basis, up until the 190308 point, you would see a continuing rise, and a rise that itself was increasing. Thus, you would expect a significant continuing increase.
But looking at the full curve with the benefit of 100 years perspective, 190308 is very close to the inflection point, and the final curve swings over to a low maximum point from just afterwords.
Please also note that this is the “low temperature” slump in the period between the 1880-1890 temperature high and the 1935-1945 temperature high as we climb out of the little ice age.
racookpe1978 says:
February 10, 2011 at 4:04 pm
But looking at the full curve with the benefit of 100 years perspective, 190308 is very close to the inflection point, and the final curve swings over to a low maximum point from just afterwards.
The curve was intended to show that the idea of an inflection point without having the whole cycle is rather meaningless.
Please also note that this is the “low temperature” slump in the period between the 1880-1890 temperature high and the 1935-1945 temperature high as we climb out of the little ice age.
since solar activity now is what it was in 1900s would you not expect the temperatures to that too? Are they?
Yes, I would expect that temperatures would behave now (2000 – 2020) as they did then (1900 – 1920): We saw – will see now – are seeing now: A distinct flattening from the (unknown cause!) of the 66-year short term solar/climate cycle combined on top of a long-term rising curve from the low point of the Little Ice Age in 1600- 1650.
That neither the cause of the short 66 year climate cycle nor the long term 450/900 climate cycle are known is as irrelevant as knowing the Maxwell formula was to proving that the Interstellar Aether did not exist and was not needed to allow light to be seen. 8<)
But determining experimentally and without a theorectical basis that the Royal Society's mythical Aether did NOT exist did allow the Maxwell Equations to be derived without prejudice nor "pre-reviewed" malice of fore thought.
Geoff Sharp says:
February 10, 2011 at 3:24 pm
The threshold size of Wolf’s counting method is based on his telescope and the viewing conditions of the day.
There has been no analysis, no numerical comparisons, to basis for this. You have not seen his telescope and don’t know the ‘viewing conditions of the day’. As I said, there is no justification for the size of the threshold. As you say: show us the data.
It matters little if that threshold is slightly reduced or increased, the fact is the specks and small spots are excluded as per Wolf.
The specks and small post are handled by multiplying the modern count by 0.6, so the wolf scale is maintained.
Leif fails to mention (as he often does) that the modern system also includes a false 22% increase that was introduced by Waldmeier? who initiated a new counting method very different to Wolf’s.
I have mentioned this many times. The way to deal with that is to add 22% to all the pre-Waldmeier counts to be able to compare apples with apples.
but the LSC is the closest count to Wolf”s reconstruction of the Dalton Minimum.
Wolf did not observe during the Dalton minimum. Few people did. Wolf’s own reconstruction of cycle 5 was SSN=75 in his 1874 list. When he got a Swedish catalog over aurorae in 1880, he decided on basis of the few aurorae seen to lower that to SSN=48, thus not even based on solar data.
But the biggest flaw with the LSC is that the specks and small spot also have magnetic fields and should not be omitted, even if we knew how to [which we don’t since we have no Wolf around to ask]. So, the whole premise behind LSC is dead wrong.
BTW, the original telescopes used by Wolf are still around and are still being used [by Thomas Friedli] every day to count what Wolf would have seen. With the small handheld telescope there is no question as what to count, you count everything, because you cannot see the pores anyway. I have observed through that small telescope and the image is incredibly sharp.
Again, the whole premise for the LSC is false, as Wolf did not observe during the Dalton minimum and as he used auroral counts to calibrate the observations by others.
racookpe1978 says:
February 10, 2011 at 4:31 pm
Yes, I would expect that temperatures would behave now (2000 – 2020) as they did then (1900 – 1920)
Except that they clearly don’t.
I erred. (Ah, the benefits, the penalties of open peer-review!)
“(Maxwell’s) famous equations, in their modern form of four partial differential equations, first appeared in fully developed form in his textbook A Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism in 1873.”
“The Michelson–Morley experiment was performed in 1887 by Albert Michelson and Edward Morley at what is now Case Western Reserve University.”
Drat! Dagumit! Darn! Shucks! Shoot! Heck!
racookpe1978 says:
February 10, 2011 at 4:55 pm
I erred. (Ah, the benefits, the penalties of open peer-review!)
Doesn’t matter, as it was irrelevant anyway.
Leif Svalgaard says:
February 10, 2011 at 4:50 pm
Any discussion with you is completely pointless. I will leave others to make their own judgment.
Geoff Sharp says:
February 10, 2011 at 5:13 pm
Any discussion with you is completely pointless.
Apparently.
@Leif
since solar activity now is what it was in 1900s would you not expect the temperatures to that too? Are they?
Might be different initial conditions. And, does anybody really know what the temperature was doing back then? Hansen clearly doesn’t think they knew how to read a thermometer back then. If fact, he adjusts how dumb they were back then every time he thinks he needs to show the temperature is another tenth of degree hotter now compared to then.
mike g says:
February 10, 2011 at 6:08 pm
And, does anybody really know what the temperature was doing back then?
This has been discussed before and the conclusion was that the temperature record is fairly good, recent adjustments notwithstanding.
Leif Svalgaard says:
February 9, 2011 at 11:50 pm
We don’t do extrapolation of the data. Section 2.2 of http://solarphysics.livingreviews.org/Articles/lrsp-2010-6/ explains how the prediction is made as does our original prediction paper http://www.leif.org/research/Cycle%2024%20Smallest%20100%20years.pdf
As we really predict the magnetic field that in turn determine F10.7 one can convert the predicted sunspot number into F10.7 using a standard formula.
= = =
Leif,
A little late to this solar party. I see the bouncers (mods) working this party a little. Leif, hang in there.
Thanks for the two references.
I am working my way through “Solar Cycle Prediction” by Kristóf Petrovay. Also, at same time cross reading your “Sunspot cycle 24: Smallest cycle in 100 years?” (Svaalgard et al 2005) which I had read some time ago.
I am still on a stiff learning curve but a delightful one. Thanks.
Questions to follow but maybe they will be in a subsequent solar post since it will take some time to give the papers a good read and reread.
One of my questions will eventually be related to perceived lack of reasonable argument about the attributing 11-year Schwabe solar cycles (actually 22 yr cycles) as the cause of the cooling/cooler earth periods. Having fun with that.
John
As this has turned into the “Leif” thread, this question isn’t too far off topic ……
I noticed in your http://www.leif.org/research/Rudolf%20Wolf%20Was%20Right.pdf on page 14 you show three TSI reconstructions.
Is there any consensus as to which TSI reconstruction is more likely to be closer to reality? Is your relatively flat and constant reconstruction now accepted as mainstream, or is it considered an oddball?
Do you know which reconstruction has been used in the various hindcasts of the Global Circulation Models?
Not everyone is fully up to speed on these things, and a few general comments on this would help put things into perspective for me.
Thanks,
Charlie A
Leif Svalgaard says:
February 10, 2011 at 5:23 pm
Geoff Sharp says:
February 10, 2011 at 5:13 pm
Any discussion with you is completely pointless.
Apparently.
=====
All discussion is good.
There might be more teenagers following your discussion than you think?
Charlie A says:
February 10, 2011 at 6:27 pm
Is there any consensus as to which TSI reconstruction is more likely to be closer to reality? Is your relatively flat and constant reconstruction now accepted as mainstream, or is it considered an oddball?
There is a clue in the years shown on the graph. Also in this one:
http://www.leif.org/research/TSI-recon3.png
As you advance in time, the curves all move towards the ‘flat’ version. So, the idea of a changing [rising] background is losing steam.
Do you know which reconstruction has been used in the various hindcasts of the Global Circulation Models?
Some are using the very old Hoyt&Schatten reconstruction, others the Wang&Lean from 2005 or Lean2000. There is growing acceptance [with as always some holdouts] that TSI does not vary from minimum to minim [and thus also not back to the Maunder ‘super minimum’], see e.g. http://lasp.colorado.edu/sorce/news/2010ScienceMeeting/doc/Session1/1.07_Dewitte_TSI.pdf
This may also be of interest:
http://lasp.colorado.edu/sorce/news/2010ScienceMeeting/doc/Session6/6.01_White_CycleMin.pdf
This presentation discusses the reaction of the models to the two extremes: no secular background change and large background change, so you can see that the ‘no change’ idea is gaining traction.
Not everyone is fully up to speed on these things, and a few general comments on this would help put things into perspective for me.
TFNJ says:
February 10, 2011 at 4:39 am
Email me at david.archibald@westnet.com.au and I will send you the printers proofs of that book.
I am giving a presentation on climate and energy security in Washington on the 22nd.
u.k.(us) says:
February 10, 2011 at 6:39 pm
Geoff Sharp says:
Any discussion with you is completely pointless.
=====
All discussion is good.
I would agree, but it takes two to tango. And apparently Geoff does not have any good answers to the points I raised, so have chosen this way out. Vuk often does the same. Such discussion could be educational, but must, of course, be done in a sober, measured, and scientifically correct way [granted that those things are hard for some]
Charlie A says:
February 10, 2011 at 6:27 pm
This presentation discusses the reaction of the models to the two extremes: no secular background change and large background change, so you can see that the ‘no change’ idea is gaining traction.
I forgot the presentation:
http://www.hao.ucar.edu/EDDY2010/Presentations/Wigley.pdf
Dear Dr Svalgaard,
Thank you for answering all our questions with such rapid responses.
Still, I am wondering; Do you or do you not see any correlation betwixt solar minimums and cold weather? Regardless of what you think about LSC; have you definitively and in you own mind excused the sun’s weather and our own climate —or—-do you see a possibility that the obvious correlations may have some scientific merit?
Hate to be such a bother, but I may not be expressing myself on your correct terminology. Set me straight again!
Thanks,
Tom
Leif Svalgaard says:
February 10, 2011 at 6:59 pm
I would agree, but it takes two to tango. And apparently Geoff does not have any good answers to the points I raised, so have chosen this way out. Vuk often does the same. Such discussion could be educational, but must, of course, be done in a sober, measured, and scientifically correct way [granted that those things are hard for some]
No…the points have been discussed a million times and you refuse to take any advice or data on board, therefore a pointless discussion. I also prefer not to bore Anthony and the rest of the readers with the sad repetition.
If any other readers have any inquiries I am happy to answer.
Leif Svalgaard says:
February 10, 2011 at 3:32 pm
Seeing which way the wind is blowing after 2 long & dreary years of “wait & see, we’ll know more in x months”.
Preloaded brakes applied, discussions squelched. Not saying it’s your fault, just that is the way things unfolded.
Leif Svalgaard says:
February 10, 2011 at 2:48 pm
LSC does indeed measure area, and it has a layman’s version of what goes on in Softeria.
GIMP is used to block out all pixels below a threshold value. Then an SSN is assigned according to # of pixels (or spot area).
Geoff’s method is very adept at grabbing the whole spot area, and is more precise than that used by NOAA. To the nearest 10 x 10E6 is a kludge. Now go and look at http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/ftpdir/latest/DSD.txt and specifically this line:
2011 01 14 79 11 0 0 -999 A9.3 2 0 0 0 0 0 0
where a spot is recorded with zero area.
WUWT? The nearest 10E6 rounds to zero, because somebody decided a long time ago to sacrifice precision for ease.
Now look here: ftp://fenyi.solarobs.unideb.hu/pub/DPD/data/dDPD2011.txt
for this line:
d 2011 01 14 09 52 49 KANZ 0 3 0 1 2455575.91168 -4.22 -4.45
And that is my case for LSC using threshold detection. Nothing arbitrary about it, just that SOHO Continuum makes for much simpler task of finding a workable intensity due to image consistency.
It was you who got us started, as you said it was a good idea.
David Archibald says:
February 10, 2011 at 6:53 pm
I am giving a presentation on climate and energy security in Washington on the 22nd.
Outstanding. Give them your warmest (pun intended) regards.
So, not being a scientist, I read above that UV is not diminished by lack of sunspots, but may be associated with lower flux? Is this partially right?
Tom Rowan says:
February 10, 2011 at 7:35 pm
Do you or do you not see any correlation betwixt solar minimums and cold weather?
I do not see any such correlation.
[…] the obvious correlations may have some scientific merit?
There is no obvious correlation.
Geoff Sharp says:
February 10, 2011 at 7:50 pm
No…the points have been discussed a million times and you refuse to take any advice or data on board
I always listen to valid arguments and take them into consideration, but you have not presented any.
rbateman says:
February 10, 2011 at 8:02 pm
GIMP is used to block out all pixels below a threshold value. Then an SSN is assigned according to # of pixels (or spot area).
Here is where the method fails. There is no assurance or even analysis to to show that that SSN is what Wolf would have assigned, hence the LSC is uncalibrated.
Nothing arbitrary about it, just that SOHO Continuum makes for much simpler task of finding a workable intensity due to image consistency.
None of this matters because you have no idea what SSN wolf would have assigned to that area. In addition you pretend that that is close to what Wolf would have reported for observations he did not make.
Deb says:
February 10, 2011 at 8:24 pm
So, not being a scientist, I read above that UV is not diminished by lack of sunspots, but may be associated with lower flux? Is this partially right?
Sunspots are manifestations of magnetic fields. Magnetic fields are responsible for both UV and solar flux.
Thank you Leif for answering my question on UV.
Not that you want to know, but my question relates to solar oven use. I live at a latitude where UV rays are hard to come by in certain seasons, and wondered what effect, if any, these solar changes could have. Probably minimal- no pun intended, but if it suits…
rbateman says:
February 10, 2011 at 8:02 pm
GIMP is used to block out all pixels below a threshold value. Then an SSN is assigned according to # of pixels (or spot area).
And while you may believe that this is so, that is not how the flawed implementation of the LSC works. From the LSC website:
“Basically we use the same sunspot number as SIDC but replace them with zero on days that don’t make the grade.”.
So no assignment of SSN according to spot area, just butchering of the SIDC number.
This is based on the ISES F10.7 graph… Eyeballing it, I’d say that the rise to date of the smoothed data (blue curve) from its min (70) looks to be about half of what was predicted (red curve). I’ll extrapolate one step further. The max was projected to be 140, which is 70 units above the min of 70. Assuming that the 50% ratio holds, the max should be only 35 units above the base 70 value, i.e. around 105. That’s my prediction.
Deb says:
February 10, 2011 at 9:44 pm
Not that you want to know, but my question relates to solar oven use.
The UV rays that vary a lot with solar activity are absorbed very high in the atmosphere so won’t ever reach your solar oven, so not worry.
Hehe, so it’s worse than we thought? 🙂
Mark
Deb says:
February 10, 2011 at 8:24 pm
So, not being a scientist, I read above that UV is not diminished by lack of sunspots, but may be associated with lower flux? Is this partially right?
Sunspots, F10.7 flux and UV are related but not necessarily hard linked. Plage areas or faculae which are bright regions on the solar surface emit F10.7 flux and EUV (extreme ultra violet) while there is no sunspot occurrence. The current EUV level is at the same point of the SC22/23 min showing it can also move lower than the sunspot count.
Sam Glasser says:
February 10, 2011 at 6:32 am
Please stick to “science” and don’t get involved with “judgements” (i.e. Layman’s Count or HAO/NASA). Allow us to decide what is “junk” or whether NASA practices “good science”.
Dr. Leif Svalgaard says:
There are judgments in science related to scientific value. Does a claim meet minimum standard in justification? If not, it is ‘junk’. As a practicing scientist I am qualified to judge what is good and bad science. You are, of course, welcome to ignore my judgment; your loss.
Ninderthana says:
Dr. Leif Svalgaard deserves to be praised for his long and distinguished career, whose accomplishments speak for themselves. In addition, he should be thanked for his invaluable explanation and incites into solar/terrestrial theory, which continue to help so many on this blog understand difficult concepts and complex theories.
However, having said that I would like to make the following comments:
Dr. Leif Svalgaard is making all the mistakes of a scientist well past his prime.
He has been involved in the field so long, he actually believes that he has the right to decide what is good and what is bad science in his field.
Like most aging scientist in their field, he is so entrenched in the current mind-set, that he is essentially incapable of seeing any new paradigm shifts that may come along.
Hence, his word on what he considers to be good and bad science, can do great damage any new ideas that are put forward by any educated layman or active scientist
who are commenting on this field.
While he is clearly a very intelligent man who is complete control of his (sharp) mental faculties, he has let his ego convince himself that he is the final arbitrator on what is good and what is bad science.
Hopefully, he will get out of this childish trap very soon, otherwise he will permanently taint his solid reputation as a great scientist in his field.
Leif Svalgaard says:
February 10, 2011 at 9:48 pm
rbateman says:
February 10, 2011 at 8:02 pm
GIMP is used to block out all pixels below a threshold value. Then an SSN is assigned according to # of pixels (or spot area).
Here is where the method fails. There is no assurance or even analysis to to show that that SSN is what Wolf would have assigned, hence the LSC is uncalibrated.
Nothing arbitrary about it, just that SOHO Continuum makes for much simpler task of finding a workable intensity due to image consistency.
None of this matters because you have no idea what SSN wolf would have assigned to that area. In addition you pretend that that is close to what Wolf would have reported for observations he did not make.
Actually, none of it matters to what I track because I don’t do SSN.
Geoff does SSN to keep an eye on what amounts to piling on the counts by certain reporters of SSN.
And, if some day I manage to get ahold of images or drawings that Wolf had access to, I’ll measure them and compare that to the counts he did. But I don’t have that access. Neither do I have access to the drawings of Picard, La Hire, Cassini or Huygens for the Maunder. My understanding is that those notes are largely lost.
Let me make that last point clear:
LSC needs only access to drawings or images to calibrate to Wolf/Wolferer.
We did a check against Debrecen, and found it to be accurate to within 10%.
It’s not like we did not try.
So please dispense with the junk status finding.
Ninderthana,
Here is just a limited sampling of some of the words/phrases you chose to direct at Dr. Leif Svalgaard .
– – – – – – – – – –
Ninderthana,
My perception is that Dr. Leif Svalgaard is engaged in relentless discussion and criticism here. There is nothing wrong with strenuous argument; this is a very open venue. (thanks Anthony) I personally learn from it and value it immeasurably.
You are rather inappropriate, to say the very least, in your commentary.
Why don’t you just personally reveal, in your own words, your science that shows Dr. Svalgaard’s science is making “mistakes”?
John
Predicting a single number between 0 and 150, in any large group of people someone is bound to get it right.
Predicting complete sequence is a totally different matter. No one has bettered this one yet:
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/LFC2.htm
the basic equation was writhen in 2003 (http://xxx.lanl.gov/ftp/astro-ph/papers/0401/0401107.pdf ), here compared to the actual solar magnetic field. No L&P or the flux F10 ambiguity, just direct daily measurements.
It tells what the sun is doing and why.
Thanks Leif, I see that you did indeed expect a reduced cycle 24 as compared to previous cycles. This is what your conclusion said:
“We find that solar cycle average B increased
by 25% between the 1900s (cycle 14) and the 1950s
(cycle 19) and is now again becoming smaller. This
behavior stands in contrast to the more than doubling of
B during the 20th century obtained from an analysis of the
aa index by Lockwood et al. [1999]. If the coming cycle
24 is as small as predicted (peak RZ = 75 [Svalgaard et
al., 2005])”
However I don’t thjink you are quite out of the wood with that. Landscheldt theory provides both a mechanism and an expectation that the decline for cycle 24 and subsequent cycles would be severe. Your expectation of decline is derived solely from pattern watching and no proposed mechanism.
So the results so far are:
i) Hathaway et al are way out with no reasonable excuse.
ii) You are right in general terms but weak on reasoning and you failed to see the extent of the cycle 24 collapse. You expected it to get to 75 but NASA has now revised down to 58 and even that looks optimistic.
iii)Landscheldt theory seems to have got it pretty much spot on.
I don’t have a horse in this race. Just a neutral observer.
vuk,
Yes, those charts and equations are looking good.
rbateman says:
February 10, 2011 at 8:02 pm
It was you who got us started, as you said it was a good idea.
Thanks Robert, I am glad you also remember the deleted forum messages from http://www.solarcycle24.com where Leif was full of phrase of the LSC which he later denied.
I see that forum has since died.
Keep up the good fight.
It seems we like too much in America to beat up on those who make an earnest effort to break through these barriers put in place by those who want to believe that less than one percent of our atmosphere is raising the Earth’s Temperature.
It seems to me we are in some type of dark age where we are stuck with religions and governments and blog critics that say science is settled and science might as well be said to be dead.
As pointed out yesterday in this tread, by Brent Hargreaves future generations will look back….
What we have to our benefit is since Copenhagen 2009 UN Conference, the leak of Climate Gate Emails and the slow demise of the US liberal parties there is now more information on the table. In reading Leif Svalgaard commentaries and answers I now see a higher way of looking at sunspot cycles and I would have to add, I would have to read this his comments a few times to fully grasp what he is saying. I use simple sunspot numeric numbers and averages to reach what appears to be the same conclusions.
I watched the hearings nearly A year
ago with Lord M. taking on three other scientists of our nemesis, the IPCC, and I saw that the hearing was stacked against him by the liberal party members. What impressed me was a learned man, boned up on reading and data, stood his ground. Next to him, a lady scientist who studied tree rings testified in the hearing that it was obvious the earth was in a warmer period before the mini-ice age. It went right over everyone’s head. She basically said the Earth can be warmed up without man’s help. No one caught it.
Now, before I close, I have seen enough information out there that if the sciences of tree ring research, the various climate sciences came together, we could create within a reasonable “guess”, just how warm the earth was within a few degrees and how much sunspot activity was present.
For example, the periods of drought tend to fall on the years at the end and start of sunspot cycles. Go find in the history books where all the droughts took place. They are even mentioned in the Old Testament stories.
This period of drought is marked by high heat. For example, 1934 was the most noted year of the Dust Bowl, and had some of the highest heat noted, but fell on a very low sunspot year.
Another observation recently noted by a scientists is Drought Periods are marked by floods and it is blamed on the dust created by the drought. This all surrounds the drop in upper atmosphere humidity due to the drop in sunspot activity.
Concerning temperatures during sunspot cycles. US average temperatures only.
Annual temperatures for the cooler cycles in the past century range from 54 to 54.43. The cycles that had a sharp peak at the start and had a total average for the cycle above 600, had an average temperature above 55.49.
The Glacier in the Fjord of Glacier Bay melted twice as fast in the warmer cycles of the past century as the cooler ones before 1933.
As a thumb measurement, above 55 degrees F the glaciers at the latitude of glacier bay melt twice as fast as the cooler cycles when the Average USA temperatures are below 55.49.
Finally, when the USA average winter temperatures are above 33 degrees F, there are more storms. From 1890 to 2007, hurricane numbers nearly doubled. The average hurricane season in 1890s had about 5 storms a year. By the end of 2007, we had average of 10 storms a year.
Niagara Falls Froze over in 1911.
The numbers are there, we just have to
fined those numbers. We can build the climate matrix, but everything must be on the table. That’s not happening in this climate science dark age.
Most Sincerely,
Paul Pierett,
rbateman says:
February 10, 2011 at 11:48 pm
Actually, none of it matters to what I track because I don’t do SSN.
Then you are not commenting on the LSC at all.
Geoff does SSN to keep an eye on what amounts to piling on the counts by certain reporters of SSN.
The SSN is not inflated, but rather undercounted by SIDC.
The issue is not whether counting pixels on SOHA/SDI is valid. It is. What I point out is that turning them into a SSN the way it is done leads to junk.
And, if some day I manage to get ahold of images or drawings that Wolf had access to, I’ll measure them and compare that to the counts he did.
There are no drawings for the Dalton Minimum. The drawings by Staudacher have been digitized by Arlt.
rbateman says:
February 10, 2011 at 11:54 pm
We did a check against Debrecen, and found it to be accurate to within 10%.
It’s not like we did not try. So please dispense with the junk status finding.
Again, counting pixels will work [and is a strawman]. The way the pixel count is turned into a SSN is junk.
John Whitman says:
February 10, 2011 at 11:55 pm
You are rather inappropriate, to say the very least, in your commentary.
Reveals more about him that about me…
But I resent discussion of my person.
Stephen Wilde says:
February 11, 2011 at 1:22 am
Landscheldt theory provides both a mechanism and an expectation that the decline for cycle 24 and subsequent cycles would be severe. Your expectation of decline is derived solely from pattern watching and no proposed mechanism.
Shows your ignorance about this. My prediction is based on the measured polar fields and the solar dynamo. Landscheidt has no mechanism at all.
Geoff Sharp says:
February 11, 2011 at 2:52 am
Thanks Robert, I am glad you also remember the deleted forum messages from http://www.solarcycle24.com where Leif was full of praise of the LSC which he later denied.
I see you are economical with the truth here. Counting pixels is OK. The way you try to turn it into a SSN is junk, always was, always will be. You can’t run away from that.
I see that forum has since conveniently died.
Geoff Sharp says: February 11, 2011 at 2:52 am
……………………
Hi Geoff, Mr. Bateman
Any web-blog determined to censor views in line with the ‘science is settled’ will eventually pay price.
vukcevic says:
February 11, 2011 at 5:05 am
Any web-blog determined to censor views in line with the ‘science is settled’ will eventually pay price.
Any web-blog that allows pollution by pseudo-science [other than for entertainment] will eventually pay the price.
Leif Svalgaard says: February 10, 2011 at 6:59 pm
……….
Vuk often does the same. Such discussion could be educational, but must, of course, be done in a sober, measured, and scientifically correct way [granted that those things are hard for some]
Hey, what’s that about? Ok, my poetry may be lousy, but I was defending you in my previous post . I did said I learned a lot. I even quote you on ‘the most important theoretical solar science’s discovery of 21st century’ up to date that is, as you can clearly see here :
@rbateman
> Geoff’s method is very adept at grabbing the whole spot area, and is more
> precise than that used by NOAA. To the nearest 10 x 10E6 is a kludge. Now
> go and look at http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/ftpdir/latest/DSD.txt and
> specifically this line:
> 2011 01 14 79 11 0 0 -999 A9.3 2 0 0 0 0 0 0
Is that what this endless arguing is about? Coping with ‘zeros’ in the data?
True, you shouldn’t be using this measure as a substitute for area. Zero is a bad-boy in algebra because there is no practical inverse to multiplication by zero. It’s more like an index, like Kp (geomagnetic planetary K index), which also admits zero as value. [And you shouldn’t be using Kp for averaging or ratios because it’s logarithmic (that’s why they invented Ap).] In effect, this area count denotes area as categorical variable, ordered by size.
> WUWT? The nearest 10E6 rounds to zero, because somebody decided a
> long time ago to sacrifice precision for ease.
[That should be 10E-6 of course]. This measure is equivalent to estimating the unknown area of a solar active region from its pixel count representation on an image, rendered such that the entire solar disk comprises exactly 1 million pixels.
Fixing this problem is not as easy as rescaling to 10 or 100 million pixels, or using a fractional representation, because it would ‘break’ hundreds or thousands of applications and tools around the world, that depend on an exact integer representation. Not all applications are harmed by the zeros, if they’re interpreted as merely the smallest category of area size.
The simplest ‘fix’ (without creating a new metric) would be to apply some kind of ‘additive smoothing’, maybe something as simple as Laplace’s rule of succession which is merely to add 1 to each observation. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudocount
On the issue of calibration, I tend to agree with Leif that the published solar images don’t appear to be calibrated (e.g. energy per pixel), but more like ‘adjusted for best viewing’. Detecting pixels over such uncalibrated thresholds would certainly introduce some uncertainty about the results. There at least needs to be some analysis to quantify that uncertainty.
Geoff Sharp says:
February 11, 2011 at 2:52 am
Thanks Robert, I am glad you also remember the deleted forum messages from http://www.solarcycle24.com where Leif was full of praise of the LSC which he later denied.
Geoff: I stand with you on what we did and why we did it.
We were not the only ones who noticed strange reporting and decided to do sanity checks. Other groups went as far as lodging protests to SIDC over what amounts to selective adjusting and submission times. Apparently, feathers got ruffled in the exchanges. Too bad.
I have no regrets over the honest effort we put forth.
It looks to me like the sunspots that are appearing in the past two weeks are even more faded or washed out, even when they are at the strongest of their appearance. Does L&P effect theory describes this gradual change as Gauss drops? This would place the current grand minimum in the Maunder little ice age category, NOT Dalton, which would cause sunspots to disappear completely, maybe even this year? Zoom in on today’s sunspot 1056, it had a little black yesterday which mostly faded quick, but it still has a core to it: http://spaceweather.com/
vukcevic says:
February 11, 2011 at 6:18 am
Hey, what’s that about?
“Here I end my posts on this thread. Thank you for your cooperation.”
rbateman says:
February 11, 2011 at 8:00 am
I have no regrets over the honest effort we put forth.
The LSC is still junk for the many reasons I have pointed out.
Terry says:
February 11, 2011 at 8:31 am
It looks to me like the sunspots that are appearing in the past two weeks are even more faded or washed out, even when they are at the strongest of their appearance. Does L&P effect theory describes this gradual change as Gauss drops?
Two weeks are too short to mean much, but the appearance of the spots is consistent with L&P.
****
Geoff Sharp says:
February 10, 2011 at 5:13 pm
Any discussion with you is completely pointless. I will leave others to make their own judgment.
****
OK, but you asked for it. 🙂
As someone without a dog in the fight, I find Leif’s work & posts convincing. From his work and my own ideas, the sun (concerning the earth’s climate) is a constant-temp “billiard ball” and earth’s climate variations are internally generated. Obviously that includes effects of orbital parameter/precession changes, but that has nothing to do with intrinsic solar changes.
For me, that pares away alot of junk & allows focusing on the real climate-change causes.
beng said:
“From his (Leif Svalgaard’s) work and my own ideas, the sun (concerning the earth’s climate) is a constant-temp “billiard ball” and earth’s climate variations are internally generated. ”
I’ve considered that possibility. Certainly a lot of short term changes (less than centuries) are internally generated by the oceans but when one gets to 500 to 1000 year timescales I’m having difficulty limiting the changes observed to internal variations alone.
And then there is that correlation between sun and climate from MWP to LIA to date plus many regional climate shifts all around the world as the climate zones shifted poleward and then back equatorward again in tune (on longer timescales but often not on shgort timescales) with changes in levels of solar activity.
Then during the late 20th century with an active sun we saw poleward/zonal jets and a warming world but quite likely the opposite now and possibly equatorward/meridional jets persisting into the future for just so long as the sun remains less active.
Then there is the issue as to how to define ‘internal’.
If as I suspect the climate changes are system responses to changes in the mix of wavelengths and particles from the sun then that would still qualify as ‘internal’ because it is features of the Earth system that respond to small solar changes rather than the solar changes being significant in themselves.
So if the Earth system is highly sensitive to solar input then that is an internal characteristic of the system is it not?
Note however that the Earth system response to ANY forcing is always negative. If any forcing tries to increase temperature then the climate shifts push energy out to space faster. If any forcing tries to reduce temperature then the climate shifts reduce the rate at which energy is allowed out to space.
The reason being that the ocean bulk temperature (for any given level of solar input) is pressure and density dependent so the air always has to respond negatively to any change in the balance between sea surface and surface air temperatures however induced.
The whole issue seems to boil down to the global albedo and the amount of solar energy getting past the clouds and into the oceans.
For whatever reason that does seem to respond to solar activity levels rather than to raw TSI.
If it is a matter of atmospheric chemistry rather than radiative physics then that solves quite a few issues and that, I think, is where the conundrum can be resolved.
Here’s the best reading you can have at the moment. Take a look at the Geissberg’s cycle graphs
http://www.cdejager.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/2010-Variable-solar-dynamo3.pdf
Leif,
Any bold predictions for SC25?
RICH says:
February 11, 2011 at 11:22 am
Any bold predictions for SC25?
Statistically it should be a small cycle. Since the polar fields are not known for SC25 we can’t do any better than that.
Leif Svalgaard says: February 11, 2011 at 1:27 pm
Since the polar fields are not known for SC25 we can’t do any better than that.
Not known, but we have a good idea what they might be, don’t we?
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/LFC2.htm
About 60, which is ½ of the current max.
vukcecic:
February 11m 2011 at 1:44 pm
Not known, but we have a good idea what they might be
That is just speculation [and as I said, statistically, we might expect that], but we don’t know and have no way of knowing yet. The formation of the polar fields is basically a random process working with the magnetic flux we have.
@Vukcevic:
Not sure how you formula works, but can it also predict an stronger cycle if so? And have you tested it against other cycles?
Looks like the spots are showing up with a vengence.
Can we at least stop for a moment and realize that no matter what the relevance of SSN to solar and terrestrial climate, we have been totally off the mark in terms of predictions. Every year since 2006 NASA revised its SSN projections down. Now it is going further toward a recent minimum. Please! Admit that we cannot rely on our current models and stop pretending like we can. The implications for the credibility of our other climate models should be obvious.
GFrazier says:
February 13, 2011 at 4:20 pm
we have been totally off the mark in terms of predictions. Every year since 2006 NASA revised its SSN projections down.
NASA does not make predictions of the SSN. The topic here is David Hathaway’s private projections. And there have been more successful predictions: http://www.leif.org/research/Cycle%2024%20Smallest%20100%20years.pdf
True, we can’t predict the exact strength of a cycle however, Joseph D’Aleo points out that there is roughly a 100 year cycle that he and Farmer’s Almanac uses. I tend to believe D’Aleo is associated with the Almanac.
Anyway, there is a tendency for the first two cycles of a century and of the next 9 cycles to be weak. Two are weak and 7 strong.
They tend to range from 200 to 450 total sunspot average for the cycle. That is, you add the SIDC average for each year of a cycle up for a cycle and it can vary for 200 to over 900 for a cycle over the pass 300 years.
Flux and flares are over my head. That’s a sunspot joke. Over my head! Don’t hear many of those.
What did the one sunspot say to the other sunspot?
“Is that a B Class Flare you’re smoking”?
The list goes on!
Jcarels says: February 13, 2011 at 9:22 am
………….
Here is a guide to the causal relationship SSN to PF
http://www.leif.org/research/AGU%20Fall%202008%20SH51A-1593.pdf
Thanks!