Watch sunspot group 1158 form from nothing

Leif Svalgaard says: February 18, 2011 at 1:18 pm
“This is messy business.”
Yes, still so much to be learned and discovered. That’s what makes it all so interesting. We are playing on the outer bounds of human knowledge. I am particularly curious to see if the CME’s impact on the Magnetosphere has a measurable impact on Atmospheric Circulation and Vorticity. And it just so happens that I recently built an Atmosphere Reference Page to keep an eye on things:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/reference-pages/atmosphere/

Leif Svalgaard says: February 18, 2011 at 4:14 pm
“Unfortunately, as with so many Sun-Weather-Climate relationships the signal seems to have disappeared”
I don’t know about “disappeared”, from what I’ve read thus far I’d call it not effectively measured. I don’t think the Vorticity Area Index as you describe it, “The vorticity area index is a measure of the size and prominence of all the low pressure troughs in the region of the Northern Hemisphere north of 20 ° N.” is an effective measure of the phenomenon I am looking for.
I think that if and when the polar voritices coalesce into a single funnel during the Polar Winter and when in the Spring the coalesced funnel breaks up/down are key measures of the polar vortices. According to this paper on the Final Warming Date of the Antarctic Polar Vortex and Influences on its Interannual Variability;
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_7598/is_20091115/ai_n42654411/
“several studies (including Waugh and Randel 1999; Waugh et al. 1999; Karpetchko et al. 2005; Black and McDaniel 2007) have indicated a trend over the 1980s and 1990s toward a later vortex breakdown.”
This is a good paper exploring the Polar Vortices;
http://www.columbia.edu/~lmp/paps/waugh+polvani-PlumbFestVolume-2010.pdf
and the chart on page 10 shows the vortex break-up dates for the Northern Hemisphere since 1960 and Southern Hemisphere since 1979. Note that there appears to be a bit of disagreement in the literature as to whether the vortices break up or down, but either way, when it occurs, it seems to have a significant impact on Earth’s atmospheric circulation and oscillations. For example, this year the Arctic Polar Vortex does not appear to have coalesced yet;
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/intraseasonal/z500_nh_anim.shtml
and thus the multiple lobes of the uncoalesced Polar Vortex have reached down to lower latitudes this year, similar to what occurred in 1985:
” The January 1985 Arctic outbreak[1] was a meteorological event, the result of the shifting of the polar vortex further south than is normally seen.[1] Blocked from its normal movement, polar air from the north pushed into nearly every section of the eastern half of the United States, shattering record lows in a number of states.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_1985_Arctic_outbreak
This paper summarizes some of the differences between having a coalesced and uncoalesed polar vortex:
http://www.ace.uwaterloo.ca/publications/Manney-ExtremeArcticWinters_ACP.pdf
“The first three Arctic winters of the ACE mission represented two extremes of winter variability: Stratospheric sudden warmings (SSWs) in 2004 and 2006 were among the strongest, most prolonged on record; 2005 was
a record cold winter.”
“Temperature and vortex evolution was very similar in the two years [2004 and 2006], with the vortex breaking down throughout the stratosphere, reforming quickly in the upper stratosphere, while remaining weak in the middle and (especially) lower stratosphere.”
“2005 was the coldest winter on record in the lower stratosphere, but with an early final warming in mid-March.”
“Disparate temperature profile structure and vortex evolution resulted in much lower (higher) temperatures in the upper (lower) stratosphere in 2004 and 2006 than in 2005. Satellite temperatures agree well with lidar data up to 50–60 km, and ACE-FTS, MLS and SABER show good agreement in high-latitude temperatures throughout the winters. Consistent with a strong, cold upper stratospheric vortex and enhanced radiative cooling after the SSWs, MLS and ACE-FTS trace gas measurements show strongly enhanced descent in the upper stratospheric vortex in late January through March 2006 compared to that in 2005.”
This paper from Kniveton and Tinsley discusses the “Daily changes in global cloud cover and Earth transits of the heliospheric current sheet”:
https://www.utdallas.edu/nsm/physics/pdf/tin_dcgcc.pdf
E.M.Smith has had some interesting speculation in the area as well:
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2010/12/22/drakes-passage/
This article states that polar vortices “are caused when an area of low pressure sits at the rotation pole of a planet. This causes air to spiral down from higher in the atmosphere, like water going down a drain.”
http://www.universetoday.com/973/what-venus-and-saturn-have-in-common/I
thus tonight I did a simple test in my kitchen sink. I filled it with water, pulled the plug, turned on the garbage disposal to add some vorticity and then right as the vortex was forming I hit the water to create a wave. The wave broke up the vortex. Rudimentary, but a basic proof of concept. My question is whether a CME, Solar Sector Boundary, a combination thereof, or other solar phenomenon, could sufficiently disturb and disrupt the magnetosphere as to precipitate the break up/down of a polar vortex.
 
“although it still has some supporter [e.g. Brian Tinsley].”
Yes, amusingly, on September 30, 2009 at 2:56 pm I wrote to you:
“Are you familiar with Brian Tinsley?
http://www.utdallas.edu/nsm/physics/faculty/tinsley.html
I feel like you and Brian might be able to sort all this out over a couple beers…”
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/09/29/nasa-cosmic-rays-up-19-since-last-peak-new-record-high/#comment-195980
You responded that;
“Yes, Brian is a good friend of mine. The first paper you referenced is based on early work by Wilcox, myself, and others.
He is still working on an effect that I have abandoned long ago.”
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/09/29/nasa-cosmic-rays-up-19-since-last-peak-new-record-high/#comment-196004
 
Can you forward this thread to Brian and ask him if he might want to comment? I would be most interested to hear his thoughts on the subject and would be happy to buy the beers… 🙂

Leif Svalgaard says: February 18, 2011 at 9:01 pm
“I think that the breakdown of the polar vortex is governed by upwards travelling waves and not by any influence from CMEs, flares, or other assorted solar stuff.”
Can you provide some references to support this statement? I agree that there are a number of terrestrial influences on vortex formation, persistence and breakdown, but to exclude “any influence from CMEs, flares, or other assorted solar stuff.” seems a bit presumptuous given how little we know about the subject.

Leif Svalgaard says: February 18, 2011 at 9:14 pm
“Indeed, but the waves come from below…”
I agree that my kitchen sink vortex modeling system might not be a particularly accurate representation of earth’s climate system, however I do think that it helps to demonstrate that a shock to a nascent or weakening vortex that is near its critical state can result in vortex breakdown. And I also agree that there are certainly are waves from below Seismic waves, Electromagnetic waves and Ocean tides/upwellings/waves come to mind. However, I think Rosby waves and Tropospheric Planetary waves come as much from within as from below, and I don’t see any basis for excluding potential “above” wave sources such as solar and cosmic influences, e.g. Boundary layer waves, Alfvén waves, etc. What makes you think that the waves that influence the formation, persistence and breakdown of polar vortices (only) “come from below”?

Leif Svalgaard says: February 19, 2011 at 8:28 am
“I use the standard meteorological lingo.”
The following quotes are from one of the papers I cited above; Stratospheric Polar Vortices by Darryn W. Waugh Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland, USA and Lorenzo M. Polvani Department of Applied Physics and Applied Mathematics, Columbia University, New York, New York, USA Copyright 2010 by the American Geophysical Union:
“These studies have shown that there are significant trends in the springtime Antarctic vortex and that the vortex has become stronger, colder, and more persistent (i.e., breaks up later) since 1979; see Figure 8. The colder vortex and delay in breakup are attributed to…”
“(e.g., the breakup of the Arctic vortex shown in Figure 4 corresponds to a period when the NAM is around “3).”
http://www.columbia.edu/~lmp/paps/waugh+polvani-PlumbFestVolume-2010.pdf
I haven’t received the new handbook on “standard meteorological lingo”, but it seems that both breakup and breakdown are being used to describe the phenomenon. We might as well put some sense to it…
“Not responsible for your confusion.”
Yes you are. If we cannot effectively describe the phenomenon how are we supposed to effectively discuss and debate its behavior? My lexicon of up, down and apart is logical, why do you think your confusing “standard meteorological lingo” is better?

Leif Svalgaard says: February 19, 2011 at 9:48 am
“In breakup and breakdown, there is really no direction implied.”
What? Clearly there are directions implied in “breakup and breakdown”. You can chose to ignore them, but they’re still there. In the case of my kitchen sink experiment the vortex broke-down. Also, in this very cool tornado video, it also appears that the tornado breaks-down:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZN2_czSBSD0&w=480&h=390]
“Ice breaks up, cars break down.”
And relationships break up, whereas people break down. So what? We aren’t discussing ice or cars or people, we’re discussing vortices.
“A google search on ‘polar vortex breakdown’ yields 151,000 hits. On ‘polar vortex breakup’ has only 13,800 hits.”
Since when is Google an accurate representation of standard meteorological lexicon? And double quotes provide for a much more precise search than do single quotes. I did a Google Scholar search for “polar vortex breakdown” resulting in 84 papers and “polar vortex break-down” resulting in 13 more, for a total 97 papers using breakdown. I did the same search for “polar vortex breakup” and got 111 papers and “polar vortex break-up” resulted in 50 more, for a total 161 papers using breakup. Furthermore the breakup papers seem to be published more recently than the breakdown papers. The top 5 papers using “polar vortex breakdown” were published in 1977, 1986, 1998, 2002, 1986, whereas the top 5 using “polar vortex breakup” were published in 2005, 2005, 2002, 1996 and 2005.
I rest my case.
Yeah, it seems really weak, it must need rest…

Leif Svalgaard says: February 19, 2011 at 5:46 pm
“And how many of those papers show that the causation is flowing down, i.e. that the breakdown is caused by effect from above?”
This is completely irrelevant to the break up versus down lexicon argument. Can I take your redirection as an admission that the “standard meteorological lingo” might not be as standard as you purported it to be?

Here is Magnetosphere Activity for February, 19th 2011, from the National Institute of Information and Communications Technology.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDyNWiZX2xQ&w=480&h=390]
Here’s the link to the high res download avi file:
http://www3.nict.go.jp/y/y223/simulation/realtime/movie/2011/test_6.20110219.avi
What I find particularly interesting in the Feb 19th activity is that Earth’s Magnetic Field (top left box) became splayed out and seemingly very stable as the day progressed. Usually Earth’s Magnetic Field is contorted and highly variable.

Leif Svalgaard says: February 19, 2011 at 7:53 pm
“It was not my ability I was doubting…”
Maybe you should be. Between your CME impact predictions and that Google search survey, I am beginning to doubt your abilities…
“Gravity waves are upwards travelling waves, that derive their energy from below. some of is reflected down. Learn about gravity waves here: http://kingfish.coastal.edu/physics/var/research.html“
That’s good stuff, I am going to have to invest some time getting to know gravity.
“I’ll concede that lingo can change. However in the standard text book by Seinfeld&Pandis “Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics” ISBN 0-471-72018-6 (2006) it says (page 172): “as the sun returns in September [they were discussing southern hemisphere] at the end of the long polar night, the temperature rises and the vortex weakens, eventually breaking down in November”.
Great, and I can show you 161 papers that reference vortexes breaking up. My point is that the lexicon is confused and we should establish clear and logical definitions for our discussion. Speaking of confusion, how about this sentence from the paper “EOS Microwave Limb Sounder observations of the Antarctic polar vortex breakup in 2004”:
“Poleward transport at progressively lower levels, filamentation, and mixing are detailed in MLS HCl, N2O, H2O, and O3 as the 2004 Antarctic vortex brokeup from the top down in early October through late December.”
http://mls.jpl.nasa.gov/joe/ManneyEtAl_2005GL022823.pdf
So it appears that the lexicon is in flux and that sometimes polar vortices do break-down …

Leif Svalgaard says: February 20, 2011 at 3:20 am
In all cases, the papers agree that the cause [upwards travelling gravity waves] of the breakdown, breakup,”
This statement is erroneous, I see no agreement in the literature on traveling gravity waves. For example this paper;
http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/full/10.1175/MWR3086.1
found that “a key to understanding the 2002 SH warming is to determine the source of this large upward flux of planetary wave activity in the upper troposphere/lower stratosphere, which preceded the warming. Observations showed that the 100-hPa poleward eddy heat flux immediately preceding the warming was much larger than that seen in any previous year (Allen et al. 2003; Sinnhuber et al. 2003; Weber et al. 2003; Harnik et al. 2005; Newman and Nash 2005; Scaife et al. 2005).
The source of this wave energy flux may be related to tropospheric blocking. Observational studies have identified a connection between stratospheric warmings and tropospheric blocking events in both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres (e.g., Quiroz 1986; Mechoso et al. 1988). Niishi and Nakamura (2004, hereinafter NN04) argue that the 2002 SH major warming was forced by large planetary wave fluxes emanating from a tropospheric blocking ridge over the South Atlantic. This ridge formed as part of a Rossby wave train, which NN04 argue originated from enhanced deep convection around the South Pacific convergence zone.”
comes from below [the troposphere], not from outer space.
Thus far I have not come across anything the literature that indicates that vortex breaking can be caused or contributed to by forces from outer space, but there is still much research to be done. Too bad Brian’s not around to point me in the right directions…

Leif Svalgaard says: February 20, 2011 at 4:10 am
“So the standard lingo ‘breakdown’ can include break ups [perhaps several].
Yes, that’s my point. Both terms are used, and often used interchangably, thus we might as well give them clear and logical definition.
I’m a bit amazed that the mods have been lenient with you so far [not doing their job?]
That’s funny, because I approved a bunch of our comments… Now I have to go develop low bandwidth versions of the Atmosphere and Ocean Reference pages, and add this rotating animation of “the Sun as it currently appears, formed from a combination of the latest STEREO Ahead and Behind beacon images, along with an SDO/AIA image in between.”;
http://stereo.gsfc.nasa.gov/beacon/euvi_195_rotated.gif
to our Solar Reference page, but I’ll be back later and would really like to try to get past the rhetoric and get down to the business of accessing whether solar and cosmic forces have any significant impacts on Earth’s atmosphere, its circulation and its vortices.

Leif Svalgaard says: February 20, 2011 at 11:38 am
“You get what contains exactly those words in that sequence. This is not ‘correct’ as you’ll miss ‘animation of magnetosphere’ and similar.”
Yes, but with such a broad search you also capture results like these;
“Magnetosphere, revisited (from 2007)
Jan 25, 2010 … Animation Cartoons and animation • palette.png Art Videos related to art … Magnetosphere, revisited (from 2007) … cyriak’s animation mix …
http://www.web420.com/…/104-Magnetosphere,+revisited+(from+2007) – Cached”
“Multiscale Processes in the Earth’s Magnetosphere: From Interball …
Jan 28, 2011 … The advantages of these powerful instruments for magnetospheric … for Rigging and Animation in Maya XP 3 windows panda COOKING THE dan …
binhyen.softarchive.net/multiscale_processes_in_the_earths_magnetosphere_from_interball_to_cluster.505362.html – Cached”
neither of which are particularly relevant… Using double quotes is a much more precise search method and certainly the better method for assessing the commonality of a phrase.

Leif Svalgaard says: February 20, 2011 at 1:09 pm
Based on their merit, no doubt.
Some of them…

Here is Magnetosphere Activity for February, 20th 2011, from the National Institute of Information and Communications Technology:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RoiaYr1sKUc&hl=en&fs=1]
Here’s the link to the high res download avi file:
http://www3.nict.go.jp/y/y223/simulation/realtime/movie/2011/test_6.20110220.avi
It appears that for the first 8 1/2 hours the magnetic field remains splayed out and stable, before slowly returning towards a more active state.

Leif Svalgaard says: February 21, 2011 at 2:22 pm
“It doesn’t take a solar physicist to disagree. For example it states that the variation of TSI is less than 2 W/m2 (1.3% of 1368), yet also claims that solar UV [which is part of TSI] varies 16 W/m2.”
Leif Svalgaard says: February 21, 2011 at 2:32 pm
If the delta is not % but W/m2, then UV variation would be 0.15 W/m2, which is more like it [although a bit high].
So you are saying that the influences noted in the summary appear accurate, and the magnitude of potential variances appear reasonable except for UV, which might be a bit high?
What are your thoughts on the prelim findings from Solar Irradiance Monitor (SIM), i.e.:
“In recent years, SIM has collected data that suggest the sun’s brightness may vary in entirely unexpected ways. If the SIM’s spectral irradiance measurements are validated and proven accurate over time, then certain parts of Earth’s atmosphere may receive surprisingly large doses of solar radiation even during lulls in solar activity.
“We have never had a reason until now to believe that parts of the spectrum may vary out of phase with the solar cycle, but now we have started to model that possibility because of the SIM results,” said Robert Cahalan, the project scientist for SORCE and the head of the climate and radiation branch at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.
Cahalan, as well as groups of scientists from the University of Colorado at Boulder and Johns Hopkins University, presented research at the American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco in December that explored the climate implications of the recent SIM measurements.
Cahalan’s modeling, for example, suggests that the sun may underlie variations in stratospheric temperature more strongly than currently thought. Measurements have shown that stratospheric temperatures vary by about 1 °C (1.8 °F) over the course of a solar cycle, and Cahalan has demonstrated that inputting SIM’s measurements of spectral irradiance into a climate model produces variations of that same magnitude.
Without inclusion of SIM data, the model produces stratospheric temperature variations only about a fifth as strong as would be needed to explain observed stratospheric temperature variations. “We may have a lot more to learn about how solar variability works, and how the sun might influence our climate,” Cahalan said.”
http://www.nasa.gov/topics/solarsystem/features/solarcycle-sorce.html
Some of the arrows go the wrong way., but let’s deal with one thing at a time.
Which arrows?
The chart omits to tell you that there are variations almost a hundred times larger due to the varying distance to the Sun.
The chart does, but on the site where it’s posted it is right next to an eccentricity graphic and “a.)” is “Changes in the Earth’s Orbit”:
http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/stp/SOLAR/solarda3.html

Leif Svalgaard says: February 21, 2011 at 7:40 pm
“Your nastiness doesn’t become a gentleman, but one might have presumed too much…”
You’ll find that I reflect. I am not one to initiate nastiness, but when it’s presented, I certainly don’t shy away…

Leif Svalgaard says: February 21, 2011 at 9:38 pm
“Just reminding you of:”
Just The Facts says:
February 19, 2011 at 6:09 pm
“What is your concern about success? Are you not confident in your ability to elucidate your thoughts”
Yes, that was in response to:
“Leif Svalgaard says: February 19, 2011 at 9:52 am
But I can try to explain [may not succeed].”
You initiated it, I just responded…

Leif Svalgaard says: February 21, 2011 at 9:34 pm
I think so [some might disagree] having provided some of those myself, but it is a big job to put all that together. A reasonable overview [which I do not always agree with, but it is not too bad] is here http://www.leif.org/EOS/2009RG000282.pdf
Now that’s one way to shut me up, it will take a while for me to read through and research that. See, no need for nastiness, you’re better off tossing valuable references at me…

Leif Svalgaard says: February 22, 2011 at 5:08 pm
“I think it has petered out, but you never know…”
There’s no petering out, just doing my homework (and some of my real work).

Leif Svalgaard says: February 21, 2011 at 10:22 pm
“But I was right, I didn’t succeed. So your over the top response was not called for.”
It wasn’t “over the top”, it was funny, and turned out to be reasonably accurate, i.e. what you originally were trying to explain was that, “The energy involved in the upwards travelling waves are many, many orders of magnitude larger than the energy in anything coming down from above.” and I said that a reason you might not succeed was if you could “not provide sufficient references to support your assertions?” This may in fact turn out to be the case, because it is difficult to prove or disprove your statement, given that there is significant disagreement on the amount of incoming extraterrestrial energy, its variability and its impact. With that said, I will still do my best to prove you wrong, for the good science of course…

And this paper by El-Borie and Al-Thoyaib relies on (Landscheidt, 2000) and Lockwood et al. (1999) called “Can we use the aa geomagnetic activity index to predict partially the variability in global mean temperatures?” found that;
“Near-Earth variations in the solar wind, measured by the aa geomagnetic activity index, have displayed good correlations with global temperature (Landscheidt, 2000). Lockwood et al. (1999) found that the total magnetic flux, leaving the Sun and driven by the solar wind, has risen by a factor 2.3 since 1901, leading to the global temperature increased of 0.5º C. In addition, the solar energetic eruptions, which dragged out or/and organized by the observed variations in the solar wind, are closely correlated with the near-Earth environment (El-Borie, 2003a;b). Comparison of the aa geomagnetic with the solar wind, post-1965, showed a fairly good match, indicating that the aa variations were mostly due to similar variations in the solar wind, which must have their origin in solar physical processes (Feynman, 1982; Kane, 1997; El-Borie, 2003a;b).”
http://www.academicjournals.org/IJPS/PDF/Pdf2006/Oct/El-Borie%20and%20Al-Thoyaib.pdf

The following vein of thought is quite interesting, this non-peer-reviewed 2009 article by Václav Bucha: “Geomagnetic Activity and the Global Temperature” states that;
“We are able to establish the key fact that there exist statistically significant relations between the increasing global temperature and geomagnetic activity in the month of October and December”
“As a consequence of geomagnetic storms, indicating the enhancement of the solar wind, energetic particles penetrate from the magnetosphere into the region of the polar vortex. There they take part in perturbing the processes in the polar region and in changing the direction of the flow of the polar air to the lower latitudes.” And “At the time of La Nina and under low values of the AA index, the wind blows from the polar region over North America and from the Atlantic towards the pole via Greenland. Surface temperatures in Eurasia are below normal. Under El Nino and increased values of the AA index, the vortex shifts towards Europe and rotates couterclockwise.”
“This leads to the increase of surface temperatures in Eurasia and increases the global temperature.”
http://www.springerlink.com/content/c071v0t195182757/
And this 2010 paper, “Geomagnetic activity related NOx enhancements and polar surface air temperature variability in a chemistry climate model: modulation of the NAM index” by A. J. G. Baumgaertner1, A. Seppälä2,*, P. Jöckel1,3, and M. A. Clilverd2 states that;
“Statistically significant temperature effects that were observed in previous reanalysis and model results are also obtained from this set of simulations, suggesting that such patterns are indeed related to geomagnetic activity. In the model, strong geomagnetic activity and the associated NOx enhancements lead to polar stratospheric ozone loss. Compared with the simulation with weak geomagnetic activity, the ozone loss causes a decrease in ozone radiative cooling and thus a temperature increase in the polar winter mesosphere. Similar to previous studies, a cooling is found below the stratopause, which other authors have attributed to a decrease in the mean meridional circulation. In the polar stratosphere this leads to a more stable vortex. A strong (weak) Northern Hemisphere vortex is known to be associated with a positive (negative) Northern Annular Mode (NAM) index;
our simulations exhibit a positive NAM index for strong geomagnetic activity, and a negative NAM for weak geomagnetic activity. Such NAM anomalies have been shown to propagate to the surface, and this is also seen in the model simulations. NAM anomalies are known to lead to specific surface temperature anomalies: a positive NAM is associated with warmer than average northern Eurasia and colder than average eastern North Atlantic. This is also the case in our simulation. Our simulations suggest a link between geomagnetic activity, ozone loss, stratospheric cooling, the NAM, and surface temperature variability.”
http://www.atmos-chem-phys-discuss.net/10/30171/2010/acpd-10-30171-2010.pdf

Leif Svalgaard says:
February 22, 2011 at 7:42 pm
“There is no significant disagreements about amount or variability in W/m2.
What? This chart say that TSI is 1368 W/M2 with a variance of +- 1.3:
http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/stp/solar/image/Solarpaper/flowc.gif
The figure on page 2 of this deck shows TSI satellite measurements differences from 1355 – 1375 and the variances that vary, though in a relatively narrow band:
http://lasp.colorado.edu/sorce/news/2010ScienceMeeting/posters/Poster%20Presentations/Poster_Scafetta_TSI%20Composites.pdf
Slide 18 of this deck shows a comparison of the different TSI composites and slide 19 shows the differences between them:
http://www.hao.ucar.edu/EDDY2010/Presentations/Wigley.pdf
The Kopp and Lean paper I pointed out above found that;
“The most accurate value of total solar irradiance during the 2008 solar minimum period is 1360.8 ± 0.5 W m−2 according to measurements from the Total Irradiance Monitor (TIM) on NASA’s Solar Radiation and Climate Experiment (SORCE) and a series of new radiometric laboratory tests. This value is significantly lower than the canonical value of 1365.4 ± 1.3 W m−2 established in the 1990s, which energy balance calculations and climate models currently use.”
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2011/2010GL045777.shtml
Slide 13 this deck shows how SORCE/TIM TSI compares with other TSI measurements:
http://solar.physics.montana.edu/SVECSE2008/pdf/woods_svecse.pdf
I am not arguing that these differences are important from a climatic perspective, rather I am saying that the fact that we are still figuring how to accurately measure TSI is indicative that the study of solar influences on Earth’s climate system is still in its nascent stage.

Leif Svalgaard says: February 22, 2011 at 8:38 pm
There must be hundreds of such non-convincing papers that claim such relationships. Good for funding to claim that one’s work is important for climate.
I agree, but this is not a refutation of references I’ve cited. Do you see any basis to question the validity of their findings?
“The stark fact is that geomagnetic activity in the 20/21th century is not significantly larger than in the 19th. Same with the solar wind magnetic flux. Temperatures are very different between the two periods.
That’s relevant if I were trying to link geomagnetic activity with significant temperature changes from prior centuries, however that is not my goal here. For arguments sake, let’s say that the Little Ice Age was caused primarily by an increase in volcanic activity, elongated by an increase in albedo due to snow and ice accumulation, and slight decrease in TSI due to the Maunder and Dalton minimums. . Furthermore, looking at the 20th and 21st centuries, once we account for Oceanic Oscillations (PDO, AMO, El Nino, etc.), Atmospheric Oscillations (AO, AAO, NAO, NPO, MJO, EQUINOO, SO, etc.), urban heat islands, land use changes, aerosols/particulates, poor measurement practices and a number of other know variables, there probably isn’t very much temperature change that needs to be explained. With that said, I’d be willing to bet my left arm that the sun influences Earth’s climate in ways that we have yet to discover and understand. My goal here is to better understand extraterrestrial influences on Earth’s climate so that I can incorporate them into the list of climatic variables that I am compiling.
If we want to be very technical about it we have to take the weakening of the Earth’s magnetic field into account. This makes the Earth more ‘sensitive’ to the solar wind and thus results in an artificial [small] increase in geomagnetic activity [for a given solar wind].
Interesting, I need to get some sleep, but I will do some research into that tomorrow.

I still need to catch up a several of the previous posts, but back to the recent X class flare, what are your thoughts on this article, which states that;
“The storm was so weak because the flare’s magnetic field happened to be aligned parallel to the Earth’s. When the sun sends a mass of hot plasma hurtling toward the planet in a coronal mass ejection, the plasma is imprinted with its own magnetic field separate from the sun’s. Astronomers can’t predict the direction of the plasma’s magnetic field until the burst hits Earth.
If the plasma’s magnetic field is parallel to the Earth’s, the incoming charged particles are effectively blocked from entering Earth’s magnetosphere. An identical flare with a perpendicular magnetic field would have triggered a much stronger storm.”?
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/02/weak-solar-storm/#more-52010

Leif Svalgaard says: February 22, 2011 at 8:38 pm
“”If we want to be very technical about it we have to take the weakening of the Earth’s magnetic field into account. This makes the Earth more ‘sensitive’ to the solar wind and thus results in an artificial [small] increase in geomagnetic activity [for a given solar wind].”
Leif Svalgaard says: February 23, 2011 at 3:36 pm
“The storm was so weak because the flare’s magnetic field happened to be aligned parallel to the Earth’s.”
“That is the way mother Nature works, as explained in this paper
http://www.leif.org/research/suipr699.pdf
Very interesting and ridiculously complex. The combination of these variables must makes it quite challenging to isolate and assess the potential influences of historical CME impacts on Earth. Correct? How far back do we have data on the direction of the magnetic fields of Earthbound CMEs? At what points during transit was the direction of field measured?
In your paper that you state that;
“Due to everpresent fluctuations of the interplanetary magnetic field – considerably enhanced after passage through the bow-shock – favorable conditions for connection 32 occur often enough within a three-hour interval at so many places on the magnetopause as to give the impression that reconnect ion and hence geomagnetic activity occur for all orientations of the interplanetary magnetic field and varying in efficiency smoothly from a maximum for anti-parallel fields to a non-vanishing minimum for parallel fields.”
Are these fluctuations in the “direction” of the interplanetary magnetic field? Could a CME leave the sun misaligned with Earth’s magnetic field, but fluctuate during transit and passage through the bow-shock as to be aligned upon arrival?
Do you agree with this summary of alignment/connection?
“When Bz is south, that is, opposite Earth’s magnetic field, the two fields link up,” explains Christopher Russell, a Professor of Geophysics and Space Physics at UCLA. “You can then follow a field line from Earth directly into the solar wind” — or from the solar wind to Earth. South-pointing Bz’s open a door through which energy from the solar wind can reach Earth’s atmosphere!”
Do we have reliable records of when this phenomenon, i.e. alignment/connection has occurred previously?
Can you explain this statement from your paper further?
“A plasma particle that has an initial guiding center velocity, carrying it across a boundary between magnetic fields of different direction, will continue its motion when the two fields have a parallel component but will be reflected back when the magnetic fields on either side of the boundary have an anti-parallel component. In loose terms we may say that the solar wind plasma can penetrate deeper into the geomagnetic field at places where the field direction is the same as the direction of the interplanetary magnetic field embedded in the solar wind because it takes longer for the plasma to realize that something is wrong.”
i.e. is the plasma’s “realization” mechanism one of the following?
“1) The plasma is completely diamagnetic and excludes the field from its interior by flowing around the field region, or 2) The plasma remains non-diamagnetic as it encounters the magnetic field and crosses it by means of an electric polarization and corresponding.”

Leif Svalgaard says: February 23, 2011 at 6:39 pm
The links you provided don’t have much of that commodity, but perhaps your bar is much lower than mine.
Now you are tossing food, and the Vortex related references I’ve cited above have yet to be refuted.
Science is always open by definition, and your relentless peddling of low-quality papers does not bode well for a resolution if those are the standard bearers of your position. Better be a tad less open and a tad more critical.
Again food. The word I used was “openendedness” not “openmindedness”, and the only “low-quality papers” I’ve cited (my bike is downstairs right now, no peddling going on here) were Landscheidt’s and, El-Borie and Al-Thoyaib’s, which I caveated with the statement, “For geomagnetism, let’s start with some of the weaker references”
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/02/16/watch-sunspot-group-1158-form-from-nothing/#comment-605212
and I only teed them up so you could put a fork in them for posterity’s sake.
I will be offline for the next 24 hours, so please take your time and see if you can put a fork in the solar influences on vortices front.

Leif Svalgaard says: February 23, 2011 at 8:33 pm
“The blogosphere has a word for a person behaving like that: ‘a troll’ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troll_(Internet)“
I am not really sure what to make of this. It’s kinda like me calling you a dumbass. So off that it is both confusing and somewhat comical. The first thing that I thought of when I read your comment was this:

Don’t watch too much or it will suck out your brain… Anyways, congratulations on calling troll on me, it seems like only a matter of time before you’ll offer another proof of Godwin’s Law… 🙂