Guest post by David Archibald
Figure 1: Ap Index 1932 – 2012
The Ap Index is the weakest of the solar activity indicators and has returned below the floor value of solar minima over the last 80 years – the green line in the chart above.
Figure 2: Solar Cycles 20 and 24 Ap Index and Neutron Count
The last time there was a cooling event in the modern instrument record was during Solar Cycle 20. Aligned on the month of minimum, Figure 2 shows that while the Ap Index and neutron count are co-incident to date in Solar Cycle 24, they were quite divergent over two thirds of Solar Cycle 20.
Figure 3: Neutron Counts over Solar Cycles 20 to 24
One big difference between Solar Cycle 20 and the other solar cycles of the modern instrument record is that just over half way through the cycle, the neutron count returned to levels of solar minima and remained there for the balance of the cycle. That is shown in Figure 3 above which also shows that the neutron count of Solar Cycle 24 is yet to depart from levels associated with previous minima, three years into the solar cycle.
Further to the post on Solar Cycle 24 length based on Altrock’s green corona diagram at:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/01/08/solar-cycle-24-length-and-its-consequences/, Altrock noted the slow progress of Solar Cycle 24 in mid-2011. From Altrock, R.C., 2010, “The Progress of Solar Cycle 24 at High Latitudes”:
“Cycle 24 began its migration at a rate 40% slower than the previous two solar cycles, thus indicating the possibility of a peculiar cycle. However, the onset of the “Rush to the Poles” of polar crown prominences and their associated coronal emission, which has been a precursor to solar maximum in recent cycles (cf. Altrock 2003), has just been identified in the northern hemisphere. Peculiarly, this “rush” is leisurely, at only 50% of the rate in the previous two cycles.”
Altrock’s green corona diagram is available here: http://www.boulder.swri.edu/~deforest/SPD-sunspot-release/6_altrock_rttp.pdf
If Solar Cycle 24 is progressing at 60% of the rate of the previous two cycles, which averaged ten years long, then it is likely to be 16.6 years long. Using that figure of 16.6 years would make Solar Cycle 24 seven years longer than Solar Cycle 22. Using a solar cycle length – temperature relationship for the US – Canadian border of 0.7°C per year of solar cycle length, a total temperature decline of 4.9°C is predicted over a period of about twenty years.
Has a fall of that magnitude happened in that time frame happened in the past? A good place to look is the Dye 3 temperature record from the Greenland Plateau, available here: ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/icecore/greenland/gisp/dye3/dye3-1yr.txt
Figure 4: Dye 3 Temperature Record from Oxygen Isotope Ratios
There is plenty of noise in this record and rapid swings in temperature, for example the 5.2°C fall from 526 to 531 at the beginning of the Dark Ages.
Figure 5: Dye 3 Temperature Record 22 Year Smoothed
Averaging the Dye 3 temperature record using the 22 year length of the Hale Cycle produces a lot of detail. What is evident is that there has been a very disciplined temperature decline over the last four thousand years. The whole temperature record is bounded by two parallel lines with a downslope of 0.3°C per thousand years. The fact that no cooling event took the Dye 3 temperature below the lower bounding green line over nearly four thousand years is quite remarkable. It implies that solar events do not exceed a particular combination of frequency and amplitude. From that it can be derived that this particular combination of frequency and amplitude with be ongoing – that is that cooling events will happen just as frequently as they did during the Dye 3 record.
Figure 6: North – South Transect through the Grain Belt
The relationship between temperature and growing conditions at about the latitude of the US – Canadian border is that one degree C will shift growing conditions by about 140 km. With a total 4.9°C temperature decline in train, that means a shift of about 700 km. Figure 6 shows the result of that temperature decline. Witchita will end up with the climate of Sioux Falls, which in turn will be like Saskatoon now. The growing season loses a month at each end.
Interesting Data…
Alarming Conclusions…
I mean this in the nicest way possible… But, I hope you are wrong.
Wichita only has one “t”.
This is rather confusing.
Is this a claim that reduced neutrons cause or are a proxy for something that causes cooling? If this the case ,from the first graph, we should now infer that global temperatures should be below that of the 1970s. Which they are not.
And of course the neutron idea contradicts the idea that the 1970s cooling was due to the peak in post ww2 industrial aerosol emissions.
And it also contradicts the idea that the 1970s cooling was due to ocean cycles. The AMO I think is popular around here.
So where will it be nice?
David
You cite a 5.2Degree C fall from 526 to 531 and quote figure 5. Is the horizontal axis the year and the left hand axis in degres Centigtrade? If so do you mean a fall of 5.2 degrees F?
tonyb
superficial , ‘nice tries’ are a feature of lazy teenager – watch for him to further attempt to steer this data off into some ‘warmest’ tangent.
From that it can be derived that this particular combination of frequency and amplitude with be ongoing
should that be ‘will be ongoing’ ?
Pay attention LazyTeenager. The climate system is multi-dimensional.
As the BBC would say: how worried should we be?
Extremely worried; very worried; worried; very concerned; concerned; slightly concerned; not worried because we are all going to die due to man-made global warming unless we repent our sins and stop producing CO2.
Every time I see David’s name I am reminded of this quote:
“Our generation has known a warm, giving Sun, but the next generation will suffer a Sun that is less giving, and the world will be less fruitful”. — David Archibald
Solar Cycle 24 (2008)
Right or wrong, it makes me think (of Leif, in particular…).
A neutron walks into a bar.
Barman : ‘Would you like a drink, sir?’
Neutron : ‘Yes please, a pint of lager. How much?’
Barman : ‘No charge.’
Which cooling event was this, David? Solar Cycle 20 ran from 1964 to 1976. I’v e checked the Hadcrut record and there was no cooling during this period. In fact there is a small (insignificant) positive trend over that period. The same goes for GISS.
There was cooling in the mid-1940s but that was 2 decades and at least 2 solar cycles earlier.
David, most interesting.
One historical question:
You cite a 5.2°C fall from 526 to 531. Are these dates absolutely certain? I ask because there is considerable evidence of a supervolcanic eruption by Anak Krakatau, or ‘the child of Krakatau,’ in 535. Events are recorded in the Indonesian Book of Kings, and by scribes around the world.
The result was that at this time (535 A.D) the sky went black and a fine, dark dust descended across the world. It rained constantly, and the rain was described as blood red in color, The dust hid the sun and many people froze to death. A mini ice-age gripped the northern hemisphere, snow fell in the summer time, there was only a few hours of light in the day, and floods occurred in normally dry areas. This lasted for two years and led to drought, famine, and disease which killed untold numbers.
Tree rings from the year 535 A.D. show that the world’s climate was extraordinairily cold. Moreover, high levels of carbon and sulfer can be found in the both the northern and southern polar ice caps.
The sun may have caused the drop, but it’s a remarkable co-incidence that the ‘Dark’ in the ‘Dark Ages’ is also now thought to be supervolcanic in origin, and at almost the same time.
And of course the neutron idea contradicts the idea that the 1970s cooling was due to the peak in post ww2 industrial aerosol emissions.
Lazyteenager
While I think David’s analysis and conclusions are badly flawed, I think it’s qiuite easy to show that industrial aersosol emissions were NOT responsible for 1940-70 cooling.
1. The effect of aerosols is regionally specific (Mann & Jones 2003). In other words the highly industrialised areas should have shown the most cooling. They didn’t. My own city should have cooled as fast as anywhere on earth. The temeprature change was about the global average.
2. The arctic cooled 4 times as much as the northern mid-latitudes (See GISS zonal data). Aerosols in the arctic cause warming not cooling due to a phenomenon known as arctic haze (see wiki entry).
3. The aerosol effect required to stop AND reverse the pre-war warming trend would have to be equivalent to at least one, if not two, major volcano eruptions every year.
“Aerosols caused mid-20th century cooling” is a myth.
Global temperatures oscillation
– in the short term (20 -30) years by slow changes in the configuration of the Arctic magnetic field, may be affected by the strong bursts of solar activity (CMEs, flares etc.) which are not specifically linked to the sunspot count.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/Arctic>.htm
Climate change is driven by solar activity so this report is worrying especially for those who have to grow the crops to feed people and farm animals, that in turn feed us. This parallels the Norwegian research from Svalsbad and an expected 6C temperature drop over the next decade or so.
Re: John Finn: Which cooling event …
Time Magazine Cover: April 8, 1977 “How to survive the coming Ice Age”
Hey, if you can’t trust TIME Magazine…..
@Steptoe Fan Thanks for the warming, er, warning. We’ll also watch for your “nice try” analysis.
Try not to be too superficial
Temps lag the AP index by about 6.5 – 7 years. Look at Mr. Archibald’s first image, and see the AP index spike in 2003, which looks alot like the 2009-10 El Nino. The plummet in temps will occur within the next year, it could be happening now…temps are really cooling off for the time being. The IMF flips N towards the end of this year, which should provide a “disagreeing” relative magnetic field interaction between the earth and sun. This should not only increase cloud cover, but drop the global temp a good deal.
Climate lag is a result of oceanic thermal intertia
Solar cycle 24 appears to be an interruption rather than a slowdown in the solar magnetic cycle. It appears solar cycle 24 will be a lead into a Dansgaard-Oesgher event. The magnetic ropes that rise up through the solar convection zone require a minimum field strength to avoid being torn to pieces by movement of plasma in the convection zone. The fact that the magnetic field strength of newly formed sunspots has been linearly declining indicates that the mechanism that creates the magnetic ropes at the solar tachocline has been interrupted. Solar observational evidence to support this assertion is the recent significant increase the number of solar spores (small short lived sunspots) and complex magnetic sunspots that both occur when the magnetic ropes are distorted and pulled apart before they reach the surface of the sun to form sunspots.
http://arxiv.org/abs/1009.0784v1
“Long-term Evolution of Sunspot Magnetic Fields
Independent of the normal solar cycle, a decrease in the sunspot magnetic field strength has been observed using the Zeeman-split 1564.8nm Fe I spectral line at the NSO Kitt Peak McMath-Pierce telescope. Corresponding changes in sunspot brightness and the strength of molecular absorption lines were also seen. This trend was seen to continue in observations of the first sunspots of the new solar Cycle 24, and extrapolating a linear fit to this trend would lead to only half the number of spots in Cycle 24 compared to Cycle 23, and imply virtually no sunspots in Cycle 25.”
There very regular cycles of warming and cooling in the paleoclimatic record (1500 year cycle with 95% confidence the cycle is maintained to better than 12% over at least the last 23 cycles). As this paper notes the observed cycle periodicity is too regular to be caused by an internal planet based mechanism. As there are cosmogenic isotope changes that are concurrent with the planetary temperature changes it is obvious the driver is solar cycle changes. The unknowns concerning the different mechanisms will be resolved if we have an opportunity to directly observe the next Dansgaard-Oeschger event.
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2003/2003GL017115.shtml
“Timing of abrupt climate change: A precise clock by Stefan Rahmstorf
Many paleoclimatic data reveal a approx. 1,500 year cyclicity of unknown origin. A crucial question is how stable and regular this cycle is. An analysis of the GISP2 ice core record from Greenland reveals that abrupt climate events appear to be paced by a 1,470-year cycle with a period that is probably stable to within a few percent; with 95% confidence the period is maintained to better than 12% over at least 23 cycles. This highly precise clock points to an origin outside the Earth system; oscillatory modes within the Earth system can be expected to be far more irregular in period.”
Svensmark has an interesting paper that analyzes the record of the cyclic climate changes using ice sheet bore hole temperatures comparing the Antarctic to Greenland Ice sheet temperature. As Svensmark notes in the paper, by analyzing recent top of the atmosphere radiation measurement to temperature, the affect on ice sheet temperature due to an increase in planetary cloud is opposite for the Greenland Ice sheet as compared to the Antarctic ice sheet. The albedo of the Antarctic ice sheet is greater than clouds so an increase in clouds over the ice sheet causes an increase in temperature due to the greenhouse effect of greater moisture above the ice sheet.
http://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0612145v1
“The Antarctic climate anomaly and galactic cosmic rays
Borehole temperatures in the ice sheets spanning the past 6000 years show Antarctica repeatedly warming when Greenland cooled, and vice versa (Fig. 1) [13, 14]. North-south oscillations of greater amplitude associated with Dansgaard-Oeschger events are evident in oxygenisotope data from the Wurm-Wisconsin glaciation[15]. The phenomenon has been called the polar see-saw[15, 16], but that implies a north-south symmetry that is absent. Greenland is better coupled to global temperatures than Antarctica is, and the fulcrum of the temperature swings is near the Antarctic Circle. A more apt term for the effect is the Antarctic climate anomaly.
Attempts to account for it have included the hypothesis of a south-flowing warm ocean current crossing the Equator[17] with a built-in time lag supposedly intended to match paleoclimatic data. That there is no significant delay in the Antarctic climate anomaly is already apparent at the high-frequency end of Fig. (1). While mechanisms involving ocean currents might help to intensify or reverse the effects of climate changes, they are too slow to explain the almost instantaneous operation of the Antarctic climate anomaly.”
“Figure (2a) also shows that the polar warming effect of clouds is not symmetrical, being most pronounced beyond 75◦S. In the Arctic it does no more than offset the cooling effect, despite the fact that the Arctic is much cloudier than the Antarctic (Fig. (2b)). The main reason for the difference seems to be the exceptionally high albedo of Antarctica in the absence of clouds.”
neutrons – is that like a burger with the lot ?
actually I’m into small – make mine a mini with neutrinos.
don’t suppose you people know anything about 33 degrees warming ?
I don’t like chilli. “hold the chillies, if I wanna be chilly, I’ll go outside”.
John Finn says:
January 22, 2012 at 1:57 am
The last time there was a cooling event in the modern instrument record was during Solar Cycle 20.
Which cooling event was this, David? Solar Cycle 20 ran from 1964 to 1976. I’v e checked the Hadcrut record and there was no cooling during this period. In fact there is a small (insignificant) positive trend over that period. The same goes for GISS.
There was cooling in the mid-1940s but that was 2 decades and at least 2 solar cycles earlier.
==========================
These history re-writes are becoming sooooo tedious..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_cooling
My bold.
And even the misnomered skeptical scientists discuss the reality of it:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/global-cooling-mid-20th-century.htm
The temperature records have been continually back-adjusted so you’ll need to find originals to make sense of it.
Actually – please show the pages on which specific records you’re referring to .
@ur momisugly Ian E:
Hahaha! /sarc
[i]>Which cooling event was this, David? [/i]
The one anyone over 40 years old remembers and all the media raved about at the time, but has recently been deleted from popular records as part of an effort by AGWers to ‘hide the decline’.
Here on WUWT, Willis Eschenbach has quoted the following Freeman Dyson story:
With respect, David Archibald’s analysis also “has neither”, and thus fails Fermi’s test.
For those interested in the history of climate-change science, the American Institute of Physics (AIP) has a very nice web page titled “Past Climate Cycles: Ice Age Speculations.”
The AIP web page begins with a quote that is relevant to this WUWT guest post:
The lesson-learned is that there have been innumerable theoretical predictions of impending ice-ages in the past. The only such predictions that have stood the test of time have been those that were based upon Fermi-quality theoretical models.
@David Archibald
> The Ap Index is the _weakest_ of the solar activity
> indicators and has returned below the floor value
> of solar minima over the last 80 years …
So are you expecting (as Anthony does) the AP/KP indices to be in ‘lock step’ with sunspot counts and solar radio flux levels?
This weak correlation is no surprise, because these indices are mostly driven by the solar wind, which you haven’t even mentioned, which also modulates the neutron (i.e. ‘cosmic ray’) count.
Also, ap index is measuring the change in the Earth’s magnetic field over a short time window, not the absolute level of magnetism. So it quantifies the tiny ‘tremors’ in the terrestial field caused by geomagnetic storms and such, which are greatly affected by changes in the solar wind, CME’s, coronal holes etc.