Guest post by David Archibald
My papers and those of Jan-Erik Solheim et al predict a significant cooling over Solar Cycle 24 relative to Solar Cycle 23. Solheim’s model predicts that Solar Cycle 24, for the northern hemisphere, will be 0.9º C cooler than Solar Cycle 23. It hasn’t cooled yet and we are three and a half years into the current cycle. The longer the temperature stays where it is, the more cooling has to come over the rest of the cycle for the predicted average reduction to occur.
So when will it cool? As Nir Shaviv and others have noted, the biggest calorimeter on the plant is the oceans. My work on sea level response to solar activity (http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/02/03/quantifying-sea-level-fall/) found that the breakover between sea level rise and sea level fall is a sunspot amplitude of 40:
As this graph from SIDC shows, the current solar amplitude is about 60 in the run-up to solar maximum, expected in May 2013:
The two remaining variables in our quest are the timing of the sunspot number fall below 40 and the length of Solar Cycle 24. So far, Solar Cycle 24 is shaping up almost exactly like Solar Cycle 5, the first half of the Dalton Minimum:
The heliospheric current sheet tilt angle has reached the level at which solar maximum occurs. It usually spends a year at this level before heading back down again:
Similarly, the solar polar field strength (from the Wilcox Solar Observatory) suggest that solar maximum may be up to a year away:
Notwithstanding that solar maximum, as predicted from heliocentric current sheet tilt angle and solar polar field strength, is still a little way off, if Solar Cycle 24 continues to shape up like Solar Cycle 5, sunspot amplitude will fall below 40 from mid-2013. Altrock’s green corona emissions diagramme (http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/01/08/solar-cycle-24-length-and-its-consequences/) suggests that Solar Cycle 24 will be 17 years long, ending in 2026. That leaves twelve and a half years of cooling from mid-2013.
From all that, for Solheim’s predicted temperature decline of 0.9º C over the whole of Solar Cycle 24 to be achieved, the decline from mid-2013 will be 1.2º C on average over the then remaining twelve and a half years of the cycle. No doubt the cooling will be back-loaded, making the further decline predicted over Solar Cycle 25 relative to Solar Cycle 24 more readily achievable.
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Thanks for the update David, clear and concise as usual. Gee it will be interesting to see how this pans out, and if it does where the warmist crowd will run.
So you are saying any time now? Does this mean likley weasily seen lower values in 2013 or are we looking at 2015+ before the global averages befgin to drop? Waht are teh oveans doing? Last I heard to total heat content of the Pacific was significantly down and could be linked to the drought conditions in much of North America.
“the decline from mid-2013 will be 1.2º C on average over the then remaining twelve and a half years of the cycle.”
What will be the effect of a 1.2º C drop in temperatures on the ‘grow line’ for food crops? Cold tends to be dry so more drought hitting grain and it looks like the Northern plain states may even get frost before the end of the month after the supposed ‘hottest July on record’ which won’t improve the soy harvest.
Its probably a good time to increase the long term food storage.
The ocean page is showing that the oceans are not hot. The only warm water is gathered around very northern climes, much of it impinging on the arctic.
This is not a good place for warm water to expect a long life. The temperature of the ocean off the West Coast of USA is cool to say the least. Australia is suffering a very cold winter even in tropical and sub tropical areas. I think the cooling has already started and it is only fudged thermometers that is saying different.
Altrock’s green corona emissions diagramme… suggests that Solar Cycle 24 will be 17 years long, ending in 2026.
In his presentation at the SPD meeting in June 2012, Altrock suggests:
“the maximum smoothed sunspot number in the northern hemisphere ALREADY OCCURRED at 2011.6 ± 0.3” making cycle 24 short.
(International Conference on Climate Change – Solar Cycle 24: Implications for the United States)
From the perspective of here in the UK, this year has already been cooling.
So far, Solar Cycle 24 is shaping up almost exactly like Solar Cycle 5
Solar cycle 5 is VERY uncertain http://www.leif.org/research/Solar-Activity-1785-1810.png so ‘almost exactly’ is not really applicable [and SC5 was not 17 years long]. SC24 may look more like cycle 14 http://www.leif.org/research/SC14-and-24.png
It hasn’t cooled yet and we are three and a half years into the current cycle. The longer the temperature stays where it is, the more cooling has to come over the rest of the cycle for the predicted average reduction to occur.
Or rather, that the prediction is already rapidly proving wrong.
Bloke down the pub
According to the Met Office the UK has been cooling since the year 2000. Our temperature anomaly is now the same as during the 1730’s
tonyb
Some 0.9ºC cooling until 2026?
That’s a bold prediction. I wish all the media gives full attention to it and follow the results over that period. That would definetely show who knows the science around here…
The solar polar field strength
http://wso.stanford.edu/gifs/Polar.gif
shows that the last 3 reversals occurred on approx. 1980, 1990 and 2000, with a periodicity of ~ 10 years between them, and the inclination of the curve of the polar field with time pretty much defined the rate at which the field would evolve (up or down) into the next period- it’s a straight line at the point of reversal.
The reversal of cycle-24 has not occurred yet and we are nearly 13 years after the last one and the rate of change of the polar field is decreasing (on the average) with time, while in the previous cycles it showed a tendency to increase when approaching the point of reversal.
This seems to suggest that we could have to wait a lot more for the reversal to occur (if it occurs) and, similarly to what happened in the previous cycles, we would be entering a period when the polar field would stay for a long time close to zero after the reversal.
This sounds like a grand minimum of Maunder type to me, which would also be in agreement with the initial predictions/suggestions of the original Livingston-Penn paper, which put a deadline, so to speak, in 2015 after which the sunspots would not be observed for some time.
The Livingston-Penn paper I was referring to is the “unpublished” one,
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2008/06/livingston-penn_sunspots2.pdf
Thanks, very interesting!
Habibullo Abdussamatov has predicted the temperature fall for around 2014.
I wouldn’t put much money on any individual cycle to cause either warming or cooling. Earth has its own faint magnetic cycles with similar ones found in the N. hemisphere temperature records:
Earth…. 85, 50, 35, 28
Arctic… 82, 54, 32, 25
– AMO…- -, 64, 35, 22-26
– CET…. 90, 55, 35, 28
The assembly of the CET cycles is at the peak, so cooling in near future appears to be inevitable. Here is what the extrapolation (with sunspot cycles superimposed) suggests for the near future:
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/CET-NV.htm
Good timing. I wrote the following yesterday.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/08/10/oxburghs-climate-madness/#comment-1056398
[excerpt]
I (we) also predicted in a separate 2002 article that global cooling would return by about 2020 to 2030.
There has been no net global warming for 10-15 years.
I suggest that natural global cooling is imminent, and is a far greater threat to humanity and the environment than global warming ever was.
I see little evidence that this threat of global cooling is recognized, or that any sensible plans are being developed to adapt to it.
Hope I’m wrong about global cooling, but I like our track record to date.
_________
This earlier post summarizes my serious concerns about imminent global cooling.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/04/15/missing-the-missing-summer/#comment-958620
[excerpts]
… In 2003 I wrote that global cooling would resume by about 2020 to 2030.
…
So what happens if I’m wrong? There is some modest (NOT catastrophic) warming, and the majority of humanity actually benefits. History shows that humanity and the environment benefit during warm periods.
And what happens if I’m right? That depends how much global cooling occurs. If cooling is moderate, more early frosts will reduce the grain harvest locally – not a huge problem. If global cooling is severe, frequent and widespread early frosts will significantly reduce the grain harvest, driving up food prices and having a major negative impact on humanity, and particularly the poor.
All in all, I’d prefer to be wrong. I could live with that – and so could many other people.
In the meantime, our politicians continue to obsess about mythical catastrophic manmade global warming (CAGW), despite the fact that there has been NO net global warming for ~10-15 years.
Should severe global cooling occur, humanity will be woefully unprepared.
Thanks a lot, good to see someone stick his neck out and dare a prediction. So I have some time to get prepared.
Jeff M says:
Last I heard to total heat content of the Pacific was significantly down and could be linked to the drought conditions in much of North America.
see my posts:
hansen-is-just-wrong – 1
and
hansen-is-just-wrong – 2
Answer — right now. Summer is already on decline — mid-fifties this morning for the first time.
@climatereason says:August 13, 2012 at 4:35 am
“According to the Met Office the UK has been cooling since the year 2000. Our temperature anomaly is now the same as during the 1730′s”
The analysis of Artic seaice extent of the Met Office seems more reliable than the NOAA analysis in my opinion:
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadisst/charts/NHEM_extanom.png
It shows a coherent prompt response of the ice extent to solar radiation in the last 30 years, which is also coherent with the increased snowfall in Alaska since 2008. The graph of NOAA simply shows nothing. (or, possibly, some political bias mixed with the data… )
David Archibald says:
It hasn’t cooled yet and we are three and a half years into the current cycle. The longer the temperature stays where it is, the more cooling has to come over the rest of the cycle for the predicted average reduction to occur.
Leif Svalgaard says
Or rather, that the prediction is already rapidly proving wrong.
Henry says
No, rather, it already started cooling, as observed from the drop in energy coming through the atmosphere.
http://www.letterdash.com/henryp/global-cooling-is-here
There is something wrong with the people doing the measuring (“hide the decline – my job depends on it!”) or with the results of the measurements themselves. Old story. 3M’s. It is either the man, the method or the machine.
beng says:
August 13, 2012 at 5:45 am
> Answer — right now. Summer is already on decline — mid-fifties this morning for the first time.
In New England, I look for the first wonderful Canadian air mass around mid August. Hasn’t happened yet. This year and past years aren’t anomalous, and we can still roast on Labor Day.
There has been a spike in the solar radiation since mid 2011, that’s what I think is causing a little delay in the cooling trend. How long the delay will last depends on the exact character of the present grand minimum. If it reveal itself as a Dalton type the delay could last a little longer, if it’s a Maunder-type the cooling should be pronounced and start more quickly. The observation of solar radiation in the next year or so will bring the answer to this definition.
Thanks David, for your very interesting post.
A friend of mine bought a snow blower a year and a half ago, after the brutal winter. I don’t think he got to use it this last winter.
I just bought a new air conditioner for my house, so the cooling should start in 3 … 2 … 1 …
I’ve commented for about the last year, that melting arctic ice would expose more warm waters that originated in the tropics to frigid polar sky’s and would make an effective cooling system, similar in design to an automotive cooling system that’s thermostatically controlled.