Got a bit sidetracked earlier in the month, this is overdue for an update. Earlier we reported that Hathaway had updated his solar cycle prediction saying “…the predicted size makes this the smallest sunspot cycle in about 100 years. “. April solar index numbers seem to support this prediction.
All three main solar indexes tracked by NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center are down in April.
First the sunspot number, down slightly.
Solar radio flux, down slightly, almost unchanged.
The solar geomagnetic field continues to try to get jump started, down 5 units since March.
Related articles
- The sun is still in a funk: sunspot numbers are dropping when they should be rising (wattsupwiththat.com)
- NASA/Hathaway’s updated solar cycle prediction – smallest in 100 years (wattsupwiththat.com)
- Geomagnetic data reveal unusual nature of recent solar minimum (wattsupwiththat.com)
- Solar Update March 2012 (wattsupwiththat.com)
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Can you remind us where the solar experts were predicting we would be by now, when they made their predictions back in 2007 – 2008-ish?
Predictions are just opinions, and since the sun is ‘a messy place’ (L.S) they are more likely to be wrong than correct.
Extrapolation of the past is a different matter, the only numerical extrapolation available is still holding strong
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/SSN.htm
‘The experts’ have for number of years made numerous attempts to discredit it, but the up to date results speak clearly for both ‘the experts’ and the extrapolation.
Looking at those graphs, I’m wondering if the curent cycle may not be very short as well.
Not a good thing in several ways. First, colder weather is harder on most living creatures. Second, it gives an out to global warming fanatics who (if this ends up being very low solar cycle) will be able to point to this to keep their belief in the CO2 dominated GCM models alive. They can still say their predictions were correct, there is still warming in the pipeline and now when the sun gets active again, it will be really, really bad. Fewer people will listen, but it may drag it out another 30 years.
The strong correlation between extended solar minima and cooler temperatures will do more to defeat the AGW hypothesis than the army of skeptics. We don’t really have the causal mechanism nailed down. But as things get colder it will be impossible to rationalize global warming is the reason. The solar minima’s cooling effects are our strongest argument.
I’m not remotely an expert on solar activity, but are monthly/weekly/hourly updates useful? It appears to me that short term variability in solar activity is pretty extreme and no man of woman born is likely to be able to do anything meaningful with short term data. Maybe an annual status plus articles when the theorists come up with something new and profound?
In the meantime, those that get their kicks out of finding trends in noise always have http://www.spaceweather.com (Not disparaging Spaceweather. It’s a great site) to satisfy their needs.
Maybe the Solar Cycle is inversely proportional to the Green movement.
The bigger they get, the colder the sun gets!!
Just to piss `em off !
Plural of index is indices
/pedant
Globe has not been warming for 15 years and with the downturn in solar activity, expect generally cooler temperatures for the next 30 years with some potential for very cold weather overall……
Get your blankets ready……..According to Archibald a 2 deg C drop in temps will wipe out the Canadian grain basket…….
/sarc on
Don’t worry guys, I can bet that this year will be the hottest on record:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/05/10/uah-global-temperature-up-in-april/
/sarc off
If Warmists point to the low solar activity as the reason we havent seen warming over the last 10 years, then they will also have to admit that the higher than average solar activity over the last century is responsible for the increased warming in the recent past.
I disagree Bill, but only as follows
Global cooling will falsify the current CAGW dogma. It will demonstrate that natural solar-driven climate variation is much more significant than the impact of atmospheric CO2. it will demonstrate that climate sensitivity to CO2 is low, not high as alleged in CAGW dogma. We could even see a decline in CO2 similar to that observed for several 12-month intervals in 1974 (etc.).
But then the dogs of CAGW dogma will probably invent another very-scary story, because that is just what they do.
I agree that significant global cooling will not be kind to humankind or the environment.
Geoff says:
“According to Archibald a 2 deg C drop in temps will wipe out the Canadian grain basket…….”
Archibald’s prediction was that temperatures during solar cycle 24 would on average be -2.2C below what they were during SC23. SC23 ran from May 1996 and ended in December 2008. SC24 has been running since January 2009.
Confusion remains as to the spatial extent of Archibald’s prediction. This has variously been interpreted as ‘global”, ‘northern hemisphere land only’ or ‘Hanover in New Hampshire only’.
Taking NH land only and using UAH as a reference, we can say that average monthly temps during SC23 were +0.18C above the anomaly reference value. During SC24 to date average monthly temps in UAH have been +0.33C above the anomaly reference value.
Monthly average temps during SC24 have so far been warmer than they were during SC23, according to UAH – this is the opposite of what Archibald predicted based on solar activity. If Archibald was referring to NH land for his SC24 prediction, then so far he is out by 2.35C.
In the last 100,000 years there have been approx. 4,500 complete solar cycles (~ 22 years peak to peak). We’re still here.
Ken Hall says: May 10, 2012 at 3:33 am
Can you remind us where the solar experts were predicting we would be by now, when they made their predictions back in 2007 – 2008-ish?
I seem to recall that in that time frame, they were predicting the current cycle to start right then, and be a very strong. And that they had to keep pushing their prediction on the timing of the cycle back every few months.
We have a major problem. If the earth is cooling, mankind needs to develop strategies to cope with it. But with scientists and politicians so thoroughly discredited, who can we trust to come up with a plan that we could accept and get behind?
Ken Hall asks- “Can you remind us where the solar experts were predicting we would be by now, when they made their predictions back in 2007 – 2008-ish?”
You betcha. Here are Hathaway’s predictions as time progressed.
The format is:
Date when made- date of minimum, peak activity, date of maximum
01/2004- min 1/07, 160 pk
01/2005- min 1/07, 145 pk 2010
01/2006- min 1/07, 145 pk, 2010
01/2007- min 6/07, 145 pk, 2010
03/2008- min 6/08, 130 pk, 2011.5
01/2009- min 1/09, 105 pk, 2012
04/2009- min 4/09, 104 pk, 2013
05/2009- min 5/09, 90 pk, 2013.5
11/2009- min 5/09, <50 pk, 20??
04/2010- min 12/08, 70 pk, 2013.5
06/2010- min 12/08, 65 pk, 2013.5
10/2010- min 12/08, 64 pk, 2013.5
12/2010- min 12/08, 64 pk, 2013.5
04/2011- min 12/08, 62 pk, 2013.5
12/2011- min 12/08, 99 pk, 2013.2
03/2012- min 12/08, 59 pk, 2013.2
05/2012- min 12/08, 60 pk, 2013.2
Let’s wait and see what temperatures are going to do the coming months/years. Because it is still too hot outside globally.
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2012/05/uah-global-temperature-update-for-april-2012-0-30c/
I’d have to look up the basis of the Archibald prediction, but, in any case, recently cosmic ray flux has been hovering around +4% on the scale at http://cosmicrays.oulu.fi/webform/query.cgi?startdate=1960/01/01&starttime=00:00&enddate=2012/06/09&endtime=00:00&resolution=Automatic%20choice&picture=on .
That is a value at the moment which overlaps well within the range of prior solar cycles in the past several decades, even though this cycle is weaker than them.
For perspective, the coldest time of the Maunder Minimum appears to have occurred during what would be roughly around +50% on that scale, way beyond anything experienced in the past century or since then. If a Maunder Minimum repeat comes, the current cycle would have to peak first, and then there would be on the order of a decade or more ramp-up in GCR flux and cooling before fully reaching that level, judged from cosmogenic isotope record data (although far less than that would start to be noticeable, start to overwhelm the usual El Nino / La Nina fluctuation cycle temperature effect).
Personally, in event of another Grand Minimum, I would expect to see noticeable cooling start around 2014 – 2015, reaching really major cooling by the early 2020s … not yet, though, not right now, as GCR flux isn’t even that unusual at the moment in itself.
>> vukcevic says: May 10, 2012 at 3:57 am
>> http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/SSN.htm
Marvelous stuff, Vuk. You are still the master of the wiggly graph with zero explanation.
If I tied a pen to my cat’s tail, I would probably end up with the same graphs and the same level of explanation.
.
P.S. How does one stop the predictive spelling on this site? – it is driving me crazy.
>> Geoff says: May 10, 2012 at 4:36 am
>>According to Archibald a 2 deg C drop in temps will
>>wipe out the Canadian grain basket…….
Maybe, but perhaps it will simply relocate to Arizona.
The north may become colder, but the ITCZ may well move further south, allowing (say) North Africa to become become once more the great grain growing area it was under Roman rule.
I looked at the Libyan and Tunisian records recently, and they have had much wetter winters than normal. The BBC may wail about drought in the Saheel (south of the Sahara) and moan that ‘Global Climate Warming Change’ is destroying people’s lives there, but what they do not say is that the ITCZ has merely moved south a bit. The Saheel’s loss is North Africa’s gain.
.
DWR54 says:
May 10, 2012 at 5:01 am
You’re not doing much to reduce confusion. New Hampshire has nice lakes and rivers too!
In any post I make that includes New Hampshire I spell out both that and Northern Hemisphere if I mention that too.
Those papers about the temperature record in Hanover, NH (that’s not ambiguous to US residents) tripped me up a few times before I got the jargon.
To William Abbott: ‘The strong correlation between extended solar minima and cooler temperatures will do more to defeat the AGW hypothesis than the army of skeptics’.
Yes I agree but only if and when this happens, the CO2 brigade are asked: ‘why didn’t you see this coming and put it in your models’. The fatuous nature of their current analysis will probably be forgotten, a bit like Nixon’s role in the McCarthy era! (I also expect Al Gore will be deified)
Bill @4.05 am. If the climate cools in line with diminished solar activity , the proponents of CAGW will have to explain why it is occurring in the face of ever increasing CO2 levels as for years their mantra has been warming is due only to CO2.
This won’t matter. Game-set-match according to today’s Doctor James Hansen’s opinion piece in the NYT. The sun can turn into a dead smoldering ball of charred carbon and we will still cook because of our sinful emissions of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.