Note: the original title Solar Neutrons and the 1970s cooling period was unintentionally misleading as Dr. Svalgaard points out in comments:
What produces Solar Neutrons?
the title of the post is misleading. The cosmic rays are protons, not neutrons, and are not produced by the Sun, but by supernovae in the Galaxy. The ‘neutrons’ are produced in the Earth’s atmosphere when cosmic ray protons collide with air. Neutron Monitors can detect those ‘secondary’ neutrons.
I meant to convey the modulation effect of the sun’s magnetic field on cosmic rays, and hence neutrons. So I’ve truncated the title to: Neutrons and the 1970s cooling period – Anthony
Guest post by David Archibald
The world’s most eminent climatologist was Professor Hubert Lamb, who founded the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia. Professor Lamb was guided by the principle that if a climatologist is to project future climates, he must understand what has happened in the past. In that vein, to understand the cool period coming post solar maximum of Solar Cycle 24, it is apposite to examine the last period of cooling that the Earth experienced. This was the 1970s cooling period. The CIA report on climate written in August, 1974, A Study of Climatological Research as it Pertains to Intelligence Problems, summarised it in these terms:
“Since the late 1960s, a number of foreboding climatic predictions have appeared in various climatic, meteorological and geological periodicals, consistently following one of two themes.
· A global climatic change was underway.
· This climatic change would create worldwide agricultural failures in the 1970s.
Most meteorologists argued that they could not find any justifications for these predictions. The climatologists who argued for the proposition could not provide definitive causal explanations for their hypothesis. Early in the 1970s a series of adverse climatic anomalies occurred:
- The world’s snow and ice cover had increased by at least 10 to 15 percent.
- In the eastern Canadian area of the Arctic Greenland (sic), below normal temperatures were recorded for 19 consecutive months. Nothing like this had happened in the last 100 years.
- The Moscow region suffered its worst drought in three to five hundred years.
- Drought occurred in Central America, the sub-Sahara, South Asia, China and Australia.
- Massive floods took place in the Midwestern United States.
Within a single year, adversity had visited almost every nation on the globe.”
There was a 1970s cooling period – the CIA left a record of it, and by some measures, the 1970s was the coldest decade of the 20th Century. This is one of those measures:
This is Figure 3 from a paper by Suckling and Mitchell in 2000 which examined variation of the C/D climatic boundary under the Koppen climate classification system for the central United States during the 20th Century (courtesy of Gail Combs).
The C/D boundary is the boundary between mild winters and cold winters. For the average of the 1970s, the C/D boundary was 200 km south of where it was for the rest of the century. Given that the Great Pacific Climate Shift of 1976 saw a sudden warming, analysis at a finer time resolution is likely to show a much larger move south for the first half of that decade.
What was the signature of the 1970s cooling period in the instrumental record? In terms of the changes in space weather that might have caused that cooling, what was different about the early 1970s was that the neutron count rose back to near-solar minimum levels relatively early in Solar Cycle 20:
If neutron count is a significant determinant of climate, what is happening now? That is shown in the following graph which inverts the neutron count and plots it against F10.7 flux:
F10.7 flux is preferred to sunspot number because it can’t be adjusted by the “sunspot fiddlers” amongst us. What this graph shows is that:
1. there is about a one year lag in neutron count from the F10.7 flux.
2. the divergence between the F10.7 flux and neutron count in the early 1970s.
It looks like F10.7 flux has peaked for Solar Cycle 24 and therefore the neutron count should start climbing again. The current count is not much higher than the pre-Solar Cycle 23 minima in the record.
The Ap index is currently 3.6 which is lower than the minimum monthly levels for pre-Solar Cycle 23 minima. For the last thirty years, the Ap index has been broadly tracking the F10.7 flux apart from the 1970s cooling period:
In the graph above, the Ap Index is shown as 11 month-smoothed. In the big picture, the Ap index did start rising from the mid-19th Century at about the same time that the glaciers started retreating in 1859. In the early 1970s though, the Ap index had a significant departure from the F10.7 flux and the neutron count. If a higher Ap index is associated with warming, then countervailing effects were much stronger than the high Ap index in the 1970s.
Both the neutron count and Ap Index are now quite close to solar minimum levels in the modern instrumental record, suggesting that they will be particularly weak when the fall of Solar Cycle 24 begins. The question then will be how far south the Koppen C/D boundary will move and what will that do to the Corn Belt growing season? As this figure shows, the Corn Belt is a movable feast:
Meanwhile, the fall of Solar Cycle 24 is upon us. This graph following kindly provided by Mike Williamson show the rise of solar cycles 18 to 24 from the month of minimum. Solar Cycle 24 is the bottom line and appears to be already in a steep decline.
Reference
Suckling, P.W. and Mitchell, M.D. 2000. Variation of the Koppen C/D climate boundary in the central United States during the 20th century. Physical Geography 21: 38-45.
This is an interesting counterpoint to the letter in Nature this week, which is supposedly a definitive paper of climate economics scenario modelling. In their paper, they are apparently able to predict, through modelling, which interventions at which time periods are most likely to limit 21st century warming to 2 degrees Celcius.
Perhaps one of the site’s reviewers would be interested in comparing this article, which seeks to find causal relationships between certain physically measurable parameters and particular cooling periods in the past 40 years, with the devotion to models whose chief characteristics are the assumptions made to underpin them not being able to be verified experimentally.
I wonder which of the two papers will have the most impact on policy makers??
Food for thought. The neutron count is influenced by another parameter – the angle of the solar current sheet. http://wso.stanford.edu/gifs/Tilts.gif. The current sheet and solar wind affect the neutron count.
Seems to me we are seeing a wide variety of evidence from independent investigations all leading to the same conclusion. Its like many different forcings are all lining up to drive temps down. We have the weak solar cycle 24, the NH Summer Energy divergence from temperatures, a colder than usual NH ocean temp anomaly, and we may be due for the next Bond or Dansgaard Oeschger Event. Did I leave anything out? Winters in Alaska, Russia and Europe have been unusually cold, and glaciers everywhere are growing.
In a world of real science instead of post-normal Scientism, we would be discussing the possibility of global cooling, and whether or not we need to do anything to adapt.
It is looking rather worrying. With wamists taxing you cold and reality preparing to freeze the proverbial brass balls off a monkey we’ll have no choice but to…
Stay Cool….
This article makes for an interesting read and complements this post well.
“Global Warming or The “New Ice Age”? Fear of the “Big Freeze””
http://www.globalresearch.ca/global-warming-or-the-new-ice-age-fear-of-the-big-freeze/30336
Interesting…. There was also a lunar tidal high point in the mid-70s as well, so more surface water mixing and cold water brought to the surface.
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2013/01/04/lunar-cycles-more-than-one/
If sun and moon are both in sync from the same orbital resonance timings, we might need to sum the two…
eco-geek says:
“…to freeze the proverbial brass balls off a monkey… ”
A brass monkey was a frame used on warships a couple hundred years ago, which allowed cannonballs to be stacked. When it got too cold, the brass contracting at a different rate from the lead balls caused the setup to fail. This is the origin of “freezing the (cannon)balls off a brass monkey.”
What produces Solar Neutrons?
In an atomic bomb, the neutrons are a result of the fission process, i.e., more fission more neutrons. More fission equates to more energy output. So more energy output equates to more neutrons.
But in the Sun, we are seeing less energy [both in TSI and UV/Flux], but [if I read the graphs correctly] more neutrons. There is a correlation between less Flux and more neutrons, and more Flux and fewer neutrons.
What are Solar Neutrons? What produces them? Does the Solar fusion process operate opposite to the Atomic fission process? Does MORE fusion “use up” more neutrons?
Another comparrison might be looking at cycles 12-16 compared to cycle 24. It appears from the Solar Reference Page that this cooling time is closer to what we’re in for.
“Cycle 24 Sunspot Number Prediction (January 2013)”
http://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/images/ssn_predict_l.gif
Looks like Dec 12 went low?
This piece is in almost complete agreement with my post Global Cooling -Climate and Weather forecasting at
http://climatesense-norpag.blogspot.com
which was also posted on this site on 2012/11/19
I’m not so sure that cycle 24 has peaked yet .I think the jump in the neutron count will more likely come in 2014.
My previous agreement with the piece refers to the correlation with the neutron count trend as a general proxy for solar activity and an indicator of possible coming cooling. These are not solar neutrons however but incoming GCRs which increase as the solar magnetic field strength and solar activity in general weakens
Dr. Lurtz says:
January 4, 2013 at 7:27 am
What produces Solar Neutrons?
the title of the post is misleading. The cosmic rays are protons, not neutrons, and are not produced by the Sun, but by supernovae in the Galaxy. The ‘neutrons’ are produced in the Earth’s atmosphere when cosmic ray protons collide with air. Neutron Monitors can detect those ‘secondary’ neutrons.
seth says:
January 4, 2013 at 5:35 am
Food for thought. The neutron count is influenced by another parameter – the angle of the solar current sheet. http://wso.stanford.edu/gifs/Tilts.gif. The current sheet and solar wind affect the neutron count.
The shape and variation of the current sheet [and related phenomena, such as the co-rotating interaction regions] is the major modulation mechanism of cosmic rays, see http://www.leif.org/EOS/Nature/262766a0-HCS-Cosmic-Rays.pdf
Archibald:
F10.7 flux is preferred to sunspot number because it can’t be adjusted by the “sunspot fiddlers” amongst us.
Just shows Archibald’s ignorance.
Bob Shapiro says:
January 4, 2013 at 7:23 am
Sorry Bob, but Snopes disagrees:
http://www.snopes.com/language/stories/brass.asp
I really liked your explanation, but I had to check it out. I guess that is why they call us skeptics.
For Bob Shapiro – Just a nit. I understand that cannonballs of the 18th Century were iron or steel, not lead. Both iron and steel have a smaller coefficient of thermal expansion than brass hence they would shrink less than the monkey as it got colder and could be “frozen off.” Lead, however, has a much larger coefficient of thermal expansion than brass and therefore would not have been frozen off the monkey.
Did I misunderstand?
I was under the impression that the overall solar flux (all energies) incident on the Earth governed the density of the ions above 60 Km. The ions, in turn, govern the penetration of cosmic rays. So: lots of flux = lots of ions = collisions at a great distance = lessened neutron flux (the neutrons get reabsorbed). Small amount of flux = fewer ions = collisions closer to the surface = greater neutron flux. Of course this is connected to the solar sheet.
What did I miss?
It is much the same story as the cloud formation. Big solar flux = cosmic rays collide at a distance = particle showers reabsorbed = lessened activity. Small solar flux = cosmic rays collide near the surface = particle showers = ion trails = cloud formation. That is why extant models of cloud formation fail so profoundly.
[Millikan’s cloud chamber showed how ions produce clouds over 100 years ago]
In other words, the Sun is a PLAYER in our weather cycle.
Unfortunately, the various solar cycles have not yet been fully explained; there are too many oscillations to keep track of; it is difficult to provide (on a fine scale) how the oscillations govern the transmission of energy from the Solar core to the surface. The Sun rings like a bell. What starts it to oscillate? …crickets
How can you doubt this?
In a few hundred years we will have better long-range neutron and F10.7 records, which can then be correlated with CO2 activity. Cannot do this yet; not enough data.
Dr. Leif
It is interesting to me to try to visualise the anomalous shape of the neutron curve (or other solar related curves such as sunspots) relative to what is “average.” Do you have such curves with the comparison relative to an average calculated on either the 11 or 22 year cycle?
Dr Isvalgaard Since you are following this thread and it is pertinent to the idea of a cooling trend perhaps you can tell us when the next Livingston and Penn measurements may be available?
lsvalgaard says:
The shape and variation of the current sheet [and related phenomena, such as the co-rotating interaction regions] is the major modulation mechanism of cosmic rays, see http://www.leif.org/EOS/Nature/262766a0-HCS-Cosmic-Rays.pdf
Thanks for the link Dr S!
It seems to me -just eyeballing the graphs – that neutron counts are lowest on the trailing edge of the current sheet from maximum to minimum. I always thought that that was due to the lag nature of the Ap with respect to the solar maximum. Any comments Leif?
This is all very interesting. The flux plots show something. What that means is not quite clear. There seems to be correlation. We know that is not causation and I don’t think anyone is suggesting that. How or if this information can be used in some kind of predictive model is not clear either. If we view climate as a more or less wave form when plotted along an arrow of time, that operates within some as yet to be defined ± band width then warm and cool cycles should be expected. Using this kind of thought experiment I suggest, as do others, we are entering a cool cycle. How cool and how long the cycle is anything but clear.
Bob Shapiro says:
January 4, 2013 at 7:23 am
Bob, that’s a bit dubious. For as start, there don’t seem to be any records of such usage, though that’s not really surprising, as bureaucrats were unlikely to use the same terms as the common sailors. Also, cannon balls were usually iron, lead being used for musket balls. Check the coefficients of expansion for iron and brass.
My guess is that the original phrase was “Cold enough to freeze the balls on a brass monkey” which is a bit more likely given the amount of water sloshing about.
@David Archibald
RE:
“Meanwhile, the fall of Solar Cycle 24 is upon us. This graph following kindly provided by Mike Williamson show the rise of solar cycles 18 to 24 from the month of minimum. Solar Cycle 24 is the bottom line and appears to be already in a steep decline.”
Not Exactly true, We should expect a second peak in activity before the fall of Solar Cycle 24, If you look closely at other Solar Cycles you will notice at each Solar maximum there are actually two peaks.
I have studied this in great depth and the data suggests that each of these peaks that make up one whole solar cycle are exactly one half of Jupiter’s orbital distance from Neptune during Jupiter’s perihelion and aphelion of the Sun. There is also a wildcard in the timing of these Solar Cycles and it is the Planet Uranus, it may in fact explain (which I believe it will) the unusual properties of it’s tilt and spin, where Uranus is tilted so far that it essentially orbits the sun on its side and it also spins in reverse, This unusual orientation is assumed to be due to a collision with a large planetary body soon after it was formed, yet there is no evidence for this mysterious phantom planet. Note that Neptune was discovered using mathematics, when astronomers observed that Uranus was not always in the position predicted for it, astronomers at the time came to the conclusion that there appeared to be signs of a more distant planet that was acting upon the the orbit of Uranus. There is well known evidence that other outer planets over billions of years have disturbed the orbit of planet Uranus.
Also hypothetically, if Uranus was to become erratic in regular intervals spanning thousands of years, it may influence prolonged solar minimum which would be the most obvious cause of regular Ice ages, without the need for fanciful catastrophic terrestrial events or to factor in a periodical extrasolar influence of a passing star or even galactic alignments of some-kind.
Dr Norman Page says:
January 4, 2013 at 9:21 am
when the next Livingston and Penn measurements may be available?
Now: http://www.leif.org/research/Livingston%20and%20Penn.png
Unfortunately, the telescope that Bill is using is being decommissioned and in a few weeks no more measurements can be made. We have a proposal for several other observatories to participate in an intense campaign over a month to determine their calibration against Livingston’s data, so that the measurements can be continued elsewhere. Also, we are learning how to get the data from satellites [SDO/HMI]: http://www.leif.org/research/SSN/Watson2.pdf
seth says:
January 4, 2013 at 9:31 am
that neutron counts are lowest on the trailing edge of the current sheet from maximum to minimum. I always thought that that was due to the lag nature of the Ap with respect to the solar maximum. Any comments Leif?
The cosmic rays lag solar activity on average 13-14 months, which is the time it takes the solar wind to reach the edge of the solar system [the Termination Shock]. The lag in Ap has a different cause, namely that large coronal holes [giving rise to high-speed streams and increased Ap] have a hard time to form when sunspots are popping up all over the place [at maximum], but find a friendlier situation on the declining part of the cycle when spots become fewer.
Sparks says:
January 4, 2013 at 9:54 am
I have studied this in great depth and the data suggests that each of these peaks that make up one whole solar cycle are exactly one half of Jupiter’s orbital distance from Neptune during Jupiter’s perihelion and aphelion of the Sun….etc
Please, get real. About the two [or more] peaks, see http://www.leif.org/research/ApJ88587.pdf and its Figure 7.
seth says:
January 4, 2013 at 9:31 am
that neutron counts are lowest on the trailing edge of the current sheet from maximum to minimum. I always thought that that was due to the lag nature of the Ap with respect to the solar maximum.
Continuation from previous comment: so there is no causal relationship between Ap and cosmic rays. [thus Archibald does not really know what he is talking about]. Both phenomena follow the solar cycle [in a sense] but are otherwise not related.
eco-geek…I believe it is more correct to say” Freeze the balls off a brass monkey”. A “brass monkey” being the metalic plate cannon balls were stacked on prior to an engagement. Extreme cold cold cause the plate to contract and force the balls off.
Sparks says:
January 4, 2013 at 9:54 am
hmmmm… this reads very much like astrology.
Perhaps I’m wrong, but I’d have thought the gravitational impact of Neptune on the Sun is very similar to the gravitational effect on me of a 5 ton truck driving past about 16 metres away – i.e. bugger all.
Trusting Snopes is like trusting the alarmists to be scientific. Check out snopes and you will find it is a two person outfit with its own agenda.
I have a number of nautical books, and ships logs, dating back to the early 1800’s and in several of them the term “brass monkey” is used as I noted. The idea stated that freezing them “on” a brass monkey is possible and interesting but not stated in that way in any data I can find
It is looking more and more likely that one way or another the level of solar activity or more specifically the precise mix of particles and wavelengths can alter the vertical temperature profile of the atmosphere by interfering with atmospheric chemistry.
The composition of the various layers in the atmosphere can clearly alter the lapse rate in those layers. The most obvious example is the stratosphere where ozone is present and actually reverses the lapse rate so that temperature increases with height.
That inevitably affects the height of the tropopause and more specifically the gradient of tropopause height between equator and poles so as to allow the climate zones and jet stream tracks to slide latitudinally to and fro in the atmosphere’s attempts to balance the energy budget at top of atmosphere.
More poleward / zonal jets reduce global cloudiness and allow more energy into the oceans as was observed in the late 20th century warming period.
More equatorward / meridional jets increase global cloudiness and reduce energy into the oceans as now, during the 1970s, during the late 1800s, during the Dalton Minimum and during the Maunder Minimum.
Nice to see a reference to Hubert Lamb. He was the last climate expert that I took seriously.
It is now time to ditch the radiative theories and start building on Lamb’s work and there have been others whose work should now be taken more seriously.
The work of Marcel Leroux and Hans Jelbring need more consideration and I am sure there are others who are equally deserving but whose output has been suppressed.
lsvalgaard says:
January 4, 2013 at 10:01 am
“Please, get real. About the two [or more] peaks”
Just two Peaks, You added the “or more” part. I’ll be happy to discuss it further with you, once I read what your reply is about in the link you supplied, either way we shall see if there will be a second peak soon enough.
Re: ‘Brass Monkey’ and 19th century brass cannonball racks. Not so. The US department of the Navy records no such device. There is also no record of such a device used by the British Royal Navy. Wooden shot racks were more often used to keep cannon balls and other shot in readiness.
In the slang lexicon I grew up with, the phrase derives from either the commonplace brass gift shop monkey souvenir, or more frequently the iconic three suspended brass balls of a pawnbrokers sign, derived in turn from the Heraldic symbol of the Italian Lombard banking family. Legend has it that when the weather is really cold, the differing thermal expansion rates lead to the brass balls on these signs literally dropping off the iron fittings to which they are attached.
Sparks says:
January 4, 2013 at 11:02 am
either way we shall see if there will be a second peak soon enough.
there will very likely be a second peak as the southern hemisphere catches up. This has nothing to do with the planets, so no discussion along those lines will be fruitful [and has already been done ad nauseam here on WUWT].
I added the ‘more peaks’, because many cycles have several peaks. Cycle 14 [shown in Figure 7] had about a dozen peaks.
Doug Danhoff:
I am writing to add to your post at January 4, 2013 at 10:22 am because – although I know it is off-topic – the issue of ‘brass monkeys’ is amusing and a serious discussion such as this thread can benefit from some comic relief.
You say
Cold weather in the UK is often said to be,
“Cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey”.
And this is often shortened to become a phrase such as “It’s brass monkeys outside” when describing cold weather.
As this thread shows, the origin of “brass monkeys” is not documented – and so is disputed – but is often said to have a naval history. Many similar phrases do have a naval origin (e.g. ‘show a leg’, ‘swinging the lead’, etc.). And these phrases derive from the British humour of using an innocuous phrase in a manner which could be thought to be rude (i.e. double entendre).
I understand that the full story about “brass monkeys” goes like this.
Warships prepared for battle by – among other things – stacking cannon balls alongside their cannons. The lower layer of balls needed to be constrained or the entire stack would collapse and roll away. Initially, this was achieved by putting the balls in flat trays with low walls around their edges, but lifting balls from the bottom layer of the trays was difficult (fingers could not get under a heavy iron ball). This was solved by replacing each tray with a thick, wooden board which had round depressions in its top surface. The iron balls would key into the depressions which were called ‘moons’ because their appearance resembled the Moon when they were seen in the dim side-lighting within a ship.
The Royal Navy liked to place cannons beside the entrances to its shore installations and to stack pyramids of cannon balls beside the cannons. The wooden moon-keys for the balls soon degraded, so they were replaced by brass ones (and sailors were required to polish them daily).
However, brass has a much higher coefficient of thermal expansion than iron. So, as temperature drops the brass moons contract relative to the iron balls. This squeezes the balls up so they are less well keyed into place. Indeed, on very cold nights it could become cold enough to ‘freeze the balls off a brass moon-key’ and the balls would roll down the street.
Slurred pronunciation changes ‘moon-key’ to ‘monkey’.
Richard
Steveta_uk says:
January 4, 2013 at 10:18 am
“hmmmm… this reads very much like astrology.
Perhaps I’m wrong, but I’d have thought the gravitational impact of Neptune on the Sun is very similar to the gravitational effect on me of a 5 ton truck driving past about 16 metres away – i.e. bugger all.
The Late Sir Patrick Moore used a similar analogy on the BBC program “Sky at night” during the late 1990’s to explain the effect of what the gravitational force would be on the earth during the up coming planetary alignment. He said that there was a gravitational force but that it was small and that it was insignificant to us on earth, I was not discussing a the small direct gravitational force that planets have on earth, I was commenting about the timing of this force that the large outer planets have on suns internal mechanics, which is a fact that it is much greater. If this principle isn’t a fact, then you need to let a lot of astronomers know because it is being used around the world by astronomers to discover new extrasolar planets.
Is this what you call astrology? lol 🙂
I find it amusing that some are arguing that a second peak is going to happen because of past solar cycles behavior but I say that THIS current cycle is not like most of the past solar cycles at all thus a single peak is a possibility.
Recall how often many solar scientists have been downgrading their sunspot counts and even once thought this cycle would be full of sunspots beyond the usual level.
This cycle is very different compared to the last 6 and one that shows lethargic reactions to changes that NONE of the previous 6 shows.
Admit it people this solar cycle is way off the usual track and that is why it is generating unusual interest!
sunsettommy says:
January 4, 2013 at 11:37 am
Admit it people this solar cycle is way off the usual track and that is why it is generating unusual interest!
Actually not, it is very much like several cycles in the past, especially cycle 14. And cycle 24 was predicted to behave just as it does: http://www.leif.org/research/Cycle%2024%20Smallest%20100%20years.pdf
Reduction in the North Atlantic’s geological activity preceded the1970’s drop in the SST by 15 years.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/SST-NAP.htm
Cross-modulation between the Sunspot magnetic cycle and fluctuations of the Earth’s magnetic field also heralded the1970’s temperatures drop by 15 years.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/Sun-Earth.htm
There are two ways of looking at the above:
– Dismiss it; those who arrogantly assume that they know everything worth knowing, the proponents of the status quo of the once for all settled science.
– Accept that the current boundaries of our knowledge are not immovable, that the fundamental laws of nature are not necessarily in conflict with our incomplete understanding of the laws of physics.
Bureaucrats of science will always use all their ‘might’ to suppress anything that could even remotely threaten the carefully cultivated ‘lego brick box’ thinking.
lsvalgaard says:
January 4, 2013 at 11:59 am (replying to)
sunsettommy says:
January 4, 2013 at 11:37 am
I usually understand your statements, but this one is dead wrong:
The “consensus, published, and plotted” predictions about solar cycle 24 in 2004, 2006, 2008, 2010, 2011, and (now 2012) were consistently dead wrong; on the other hand, they were all consistently predicting the peak too high, too soon, and lasting too long. The first predictions of solar cycle 24 were for a peak in 2012 higher than cycles 22 or 23…..
Look at the plots: None predicted a peak last summer (as appears to have occurred, and even the latest “consensus” plot shows Dec 2012 sunspots now crossing the bottom of the low half of the bottom “two std deviations” of minimum value curve – at a time when sunspots should be at the maximum of the re-re-re-revised plots of the peak of the cycle.
You had said before, when this came up before, words to the effect of “We had predicted solar cycle 24 based on old theories, and those theories have been updated, so the predicted sunspot curve was re-drawn.
Politely, and sadly, unless you can show released papers detailing the revised theory that required a revised prediction, I’m more inclined to believe that all the solar community is doing is replotting replotted their graphs every six months to “catch up with the data” ….
I thought that David’s position was it was the length of a sun cycle which dictated the temperature drop or increase in the cycle immediately following. Wasn’t it because that sun cycle 23 was nearly 13 years long that he was predicting 1-2 degrees of declines over the next 15 years, then (potentially) another small (low sunspot), but long sun cycle 24 that would lead to declines for really the next 30 years, which should started maybe what – 4 years ago to 2 years ago, forget the lag he postulated… I’m not poking fun, but we have had 3 of 4 heaviest December snow records for the NH in the last 4 years and this (record) one may be the start of the 3rd heavy snowfall winter in the Northern Hemisphere for the same last 4 years (last year was lower), so he may have had something. But what I’m saying is this: Sun Cycle 24 looks to be very short, with it’s “steep decline”, that peaked maybe last year? Doesn’t that mean, by his original theory, that the lower temperatures will be shorter in duration, maybe not decline as far and that the next Sun Cycle 25 should see higher temps as a result? I am only asking if I got his logic wrong before and why this article – which clearly focuses on a different aspect of the sun, doesn’t re-state and correct that original theory, if this diverges…
I’m all well and good with new theories – they are the stuff of life. But I think you need to say they either fit or contradict with the last one…
vukcevic says:
January 4, 2013 at 12:28 pm
There are two ways of looking at the above
there is only one way: dismiss. Not all pseudo-science is worth even discussing. Of course, the pseudo-scientist(s) get upset, just look at O. Manuel, and yourself, for that matter.
RACookPE1978 says:
January 4, 2013 at 12:36 pm
I usually understand your statements, but this one is dead wrong
I showed you already the peer-reviewed [as some people seem to like] published prediction made in 2004. Here it is again: http://www.leif.org/research/Cycle%2024%20Smallest%20100%20years.pdf
Try to read it. The physics behind it was explained my myself and colleagues back in 1978, and has not changed.
The “consensus, published, and plotted” predictions about solar cycle 24 in 2004, etc
If you refer the Hathaway’s, that is not ‘consensus’ and not even ‘published’.
I’m more inclined to believe that all the solar community is doing is replotting their graphs every six months to “catch up with the data” ….
Hathaway updates his [private] forecast every month as any forecaster must do. Would you believe a weather forecast not based on continuous updates with the latest data?
Now, David Archibald’s published predictions here ( http://www.davidarchibald.info/papers/Solar%20Cycles%2024%20and%2025%20and%20Predicted%20Climate%20Response.pdf ) which do mention that shorter solar cycles coorelate with higher earth temperatures, and longer cycles coorelate to cooler earth temperatures – but he does not offer any reason for the effect – are much more accurate than Hathaway and his NASA cohorts here ( http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2006/21dec_cycle24/ ) on the NASA website.
Hathaway predicts a peak of 160+ in late 2012, and it is Hathaway’s oft-revised plots that I see duplicated most often on the solar cycle websites and references. I have not seen nor heard about Archibald’s 50 sunspot peak prior to this afternoon. (Dr Archibald predicted a peak nearer today’s reality at 50 sunspot count in his 2006 paper, and predicted a net cooling of 1.5 degrees through solar cycle 24, or solar cycles 24 and 25. It is not clear what period he is covering.)
Yes, we crossed posts. Your prediction in the linked paper was for 75 sunspot peak around 2011.
RACookPE1978 says:
January 4, 2013 at 12:53 pm
Now, David Archibald’s published predictions here ( http://www.davidarchibald.info/papers/Solar%20Cycles%…
Is mainly based of my and Schatten’s predictions from 2004:
Hathaway predicts a peak of 160+ in late 2012
Hathaway has long ago seen the light: http://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/images/ssn_predict_l.gif
Dave D says:
January 4, 2013 at 12:40 pm
Solar Cycle 24 is going to have a long, flat tail with the 24/25 minimum in 2025. With respect to the methodology of predicting climate using Friis-Christensen and Lassen’s cycle length-temperature relationship, everything remains on track.
Strange how many outside the climate establishment predicted the current solar inactivity long before the ‘establishment’ did.
Though I was interested to see that Leif and his colleagues anticipated a weak cycle 24 back in 2004.
That viewpoint certainly didn’t percolate to the media which gave us scare stories about accelerating warming and an exceptionally strong cycle 24.
What say Leif if the sun stays quiet and global temperatures do distinctly fall over the next 5 years ?
RACookPE1978 says:
January 4, 2013 at 12:59 pm
Yes, we crossed posts. Your prediction in the linked paper was for 75 sunspot peak around 2011.
Unless you were born yesterday you should have known this…
Dave D says:
January 4, 2013 at 12:40 pm
I am only asking if I got his logic wrong before
when has it ever been right?
Leif: “And cycle 24 was predicted to behave just as it does:”
Actually, it was predicted to behave in every way immaginable if you looked at all the predictions. Somebody was bound to have it right. In fact, some people predicted that it was going to be the biggest solar cycle in 400 years.
http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2006/21dec_cycle24/
Yes, yes, I know – “we have learned so much since 2006 and we don’t make mistakes any more.”
David that graph was originally posted by The Pompous Git here at WUWT, I just took note of it.
All thanks should go to him.
Leif: “Hathaway has long ago seen the light:”
Yes, one must give Hathaway credit for being smart enough not to have his predictions contradict current data.
Tilo Reber says:
January 4, 2013 at 1:14 pm
Yes, yes, I know – “we have learned so much since 2006 and we don’t make mistakes any more.”
No, you obviously don’t know. We figured out back in 1978 how to predict solar cycles and have predicted every single one since correctly.
Stephen Wilde says:
January 4, 2013 at 1:12 pm
What say Leif if the sun stays quiet and global temperatures do distinctly fall over the next 5 years ?
1) I say that solar activity will fall to very low levels [sunspot number ~10] for the next ~50 years [safe to say as I’ll be long dead before proven wrong 🙂 ]
2) Everybody is trying to convince me that the oceans have so large thermal inertia that it takes hundreds of years for the temperature to fall ‘distinctly’ [how much is that? BTW, without numbers how can one discuss anything?]. 5 years does not mean anything. Perhaps 20.
True – For as many thousand images, websites, and I have seen on science and solar cycles as I have found since 2002, your 2004 prediction of 70 sunspots was never publicized nor visible until today. Thank you and Archibald for (at least now) pointing it out to those of us affected by the sun.
Note: Ira Glickstein has a more visible overlay of all of the wrong predictions here:
http://tvpclub.blogspot.com/2010/12/sunspots-prediction-of-new-dalton.html
Tilo Reber says:
January 4, 2013 at 1:19 pm
Yes, one must give Hathaway credit for being smart enough not to have his predictions contradict current data.
You are completely wrong about his ‘predictions’. They are not predictions based on theory or anything like that, but simply a fit of a standard solar cycle to current data, so a ‘forecast’ may be a better word, and will by definition always fit current data. Yes, I know that he labels his plot ‘prediction’, but that does not change what it actually is.
@Lsvalgaard
Thanks for all your comments. I consider you “the expert” here(well anywhere) on solar cycles and the sun in general as I believe most on the board probably do. I don’t post many comments because this is not my area of expertise but do enjoy learning more about the sun, solar cycles and its possible impact on climate. My impression from some of your comments in the past is that you believe GCRs may cause some cooling but you are not thinking it is a major contributor to climate? Is this correct?
David Archibald says:
January 4, 2013 at 1:11 pm
With respect to the methodology of predicting climate using Friis-Christensen and Lassen’s cycle length-temperature relationship, everything remains on track.
The F-L ‘methodology’ is as flawed as they come.
RACookPE1978 says:
January 4, 2013 at 1:37 pm
For as many thousand images, websites, and I have seen on science and solar cycles as I have found since 2002, your 2004 prediction of 70 sunspots was never publicized nor visible until today
You must have frequented a lot of fringe places 🙂
It is hardly conceivable that this is the FIRST you hear of this, but if you say so…
Jim Clarke says:
January 4, 2013 at 8:47 am
Bob Shapiro says:
January 4, 2013 at 7:23 am
Sorry Bob, but Snopes disagrees:
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
More interesting history direct from the navy: http://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq107.htm
And yes we are a curious bunch.
BobG says:
January 4, 2013 at 1:40 pm
My impression from some of your comments in the past is that you believe GCRs may cause some cooling but you are not thinking it is a major contributor to climate? Is this correct?
My thinking is that GCRs are an even smaller contributor than CO2 and friends, thus not major. The Laschamps excursion is one of the reasons for this belief http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2012E%26PSL.351…54N
lsvalgaard says:
January 4, 2013 at 2:05 pm
As wordpress mangles URLs you should copy/paste it into your browser’s address field:
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2012E%26PSL.351…54N
“What was the signature of the 1970s cooling period in the instrumental record? In terms of the changes in space weather that might have caused that cooling, what was different about the early 1970s was that the neutron count rose back to near-solar minimum levels relatively early in Solar Cycle 20 …
Science is to recognise coherence. First in structure, then in mechanism.
http://www.volker-doormann.org/images/ghi_11_vs_solar_neut5.gif
http://www.volker-doormann.org/images/solar_neutrino_rate.gif
It seems there is a coherence between the terrestrial climate and the nuclear process in the inner Sun and the solar tide function. Is there a causality? And if, what follows what?
Who knows?
V.
lsvalgaard says:
January 4, 2013 at 12:51 pm
…………..
Why would you think I am upset? I never had so much fun, while I had to work for living, now I enjoy my hobby, have produced more than 100 unique graphs; my website had 167,731 hits to date, all the way from Petaluma to Port Moresby.
You are far too clever not to understand the ‘destructive’ meaning of what is in the data, the main reason for shadowing my posts; so much for ‘not worth discussing’.
Thanks for all the ‘encouragement’.
.
vukcevic says:
January 4, 2013 at 2:20 pm
Why would you think I am upset? I never had so much fun
You sound rather desperate to me. And pissed to.
lsvalgaard says:
“The Laschamps excursion is one of the reasons for this belief ”
I don’t see it as strong evidence that GCRs are not impactful given it was in a cold period already. The method that GCRs impact climate is given by theory which does not seem to be completely worked out. When solar cycles are small, many believe that it is a combination of GCRs, changes in the spectrum (less ultraviolet) may be the driver. While I’m not convinced the theory is true. I find the Laschamps excursion less persuasive that GCRs have little effect than I do something like the following: http://arxiv.org/pdf/0804.1938.pdf – part of the conclusion reads:
“Numerous palaeoclimatic observations, covering a wide range of time scales, suggest that galactic cosmic ray variability is associated with climate change. The quality and diversity of the observations make it difficult to dismiss them merely as chance associations. But is the GCR flux directly affecting the climate or merely acting as a proxy for variations of the solar irradiance or a spectral component such as UV? Here, there is some palaeoclimatic evidence for associations of the climate with geomagnetic and galactic modulations of the GCR flux, which, if confirmed, point to a direct GCR-climate forcing. Moreover, numerous studies have reported meteorological responses to short-term changes of cosmic rays or the global electrical current, which are unambiguously associated with ionising particle radiation.”
Thanks again for your response.
BobG says:
January 4, 2013 at 3:00 pm
lsvalgaard says:
“The Laschamps excursion is one of the reasons for this belief ”
One of my reasons.
The method that GCRs impact climate is given by theory which does not seem to be completely worked out.
And the empirical evidence seems weak as well:
http://www.leif.org/EOS/swsc120049-GCR-Clouds.pdf
“it is clear that there is no robust evidence of a widespread link between the cosmic ray flux and clouds”
Hugh Hudson’s expression “The data is weak, and the theory is weaker” seems to be applicable.
In general, I find that ‘dueling’ links is not a fruitful way of dealing with the problem.
You asked for my reasons, I gave them. I look at the papers and draw my conclusions. You could call me a ‘fence-sitter’, but I have not found anything that compels me to come off the fence.
“RACookPE1978 says:
January 4, 2013 at 1:37 pm
True – For as many thousand images, websites, and I have seen on science and solar cycles as I have found since 2002, your 2004 prediction of 70 sunspots was never publicized nor visible until today. Thank you and Archibald for (at least now) pointing it out to those of us affected by the sun. ”
I have seen his 70 sunspot prediction around 2-3 years ago and it is definitely a good prediction after making it before S24 even showed up.
But that second peak of this cycle….. hmmm…..
Well, so cosmic Protons (I agree) just come waltzing into earth’s atmosphere and neutrons happen.
Howzat happen ??
Presumably, the proton has to hit something; why not N2, O2, Ar in that order of priority, followed by the junque. well hit as in get within the cross-section of whatever nuclear reaction takes place.
Now the proton could be captured, and the nucleus spit out a neutron. So N would morph into O and similarly for the others.
So this is bass ackwards from the 14N > 14C process.
I suppose the proton could steal an electron from somebody, but why wouldn’t it then become H, instead of N. Mashing the electron into the nucleus, would seem tougher, than just capturing an orbital electron.
So maybe nobody else cares who makes neutrons out of cosmic protons; but I surely do.
And no; I do not doubt that it happens; I just want to know what the hell it is that happens !!
Seems like 14N has to lose a proton and gain a neutron, to become 14C.
lsvalgaard says:
January 4, 2013 at 2:33 pm
You sound rather desperate to me. And pissed to.
… too?
Wouldn’t your current ‘desperate’ (hopeless; critical situation of great distress) diagnosis
contradict your previous often reported ‘Denning-Kruger’ (a cognitive bias in which unskilled individuals suffer from illusory superiority). diagnosis
Did you mean p..ssed as in pi..sed off, or the faculty overpowered by excessive C2H6O consumption, or maybe both ?
Hmmm… you might make more money advising on soul instead of soleil.
It’s my bed time. TTFN.
You sound desperate and pissed all the time, Leif.
Your self-aggrandizement and vituperation in illiterate English destroyed your credibility long ago.
Ah well, every forum has its couple of insufferable bullies. You and Willis meet the case on WUWT.
Becuase of oceanic thermal inertia the time lag between solar activity and global temperatures is about probably about 12 years- see fig 3 in http://adsabs.harvard.edu/full/2005ESASP.560…19U
The effect of 50 years of low SSN (Hlgh GCRs ) is estimated for the NH at about 1 -2 degrees see
http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/2001/2001_Shindell_etal_1.pdf
For a ball park handy dandy GCR/ Temp estimate Spencer says:
(see http://www.drroyspencer.com/2011/05/indirect-solar-forcing-of-climate-by-galactic-cosmic-rays-an-observational-estimate/ )
“What the above three plots show is that for a 1,000 count increase in GCR activity as measured at Moscow (which is somewhat less than the increase between Solar Max and Solar Min), there appears to be:
(1) an increase in reflected sunlight (SW) of 0.64 Watts per sq. meter, probably mostly due to an increase in low cloud cover;
(2) virtually no change in emitted infrared (LW) of +0.02 Watts per sq. meter;
(3) a Net (reflected sunlight plus emitted infrared) effect of 0.55 Watts per sq. meter loss in radiant energy by the global climate system.”
Now its all perfectly clear !!! No need to wait 50 years – sleep easy.
sunsettommy says:
January 4, 2013 at 3:16 pm
…………………..
… Correct, Dr. S quoted 72 about 4 years ago, then he asked for mine prediction. I do not do predictions, but the extrapolation made in 2003 (published in Jan 2004) suggested ~80 for the monthly non-smoothed SIDC number:
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/SSN.htm
it was laughed of by NASA’s Dr. Hathaway some years later.
sunsettommy says:
January 4, 2013 at 3:16 pm
But that second peak of this cycle….. hmmm…..
Solar cycle 14: http://www.solen.info/solar/cycl14.html hmmm… how many peaks? …
Multiple peaks are normal.
george e smith says:
January 4, 2013 at 3:17 pm
And no; I do not doubt that it happens; I just want to know what the hell it is that happens !!
Seems like 14N has to lose a proton and gain a neutron, to become 14C.
When a cosmic ray proton slams into a 14N atom, it may kick out one neutron and 4 protons to become 10Be. The point is that the target atom is shattered ino many pieces. The neutron kicked out may hit another 14N and kick out a proton to become 14C. There are many other ways this can happend invloving 16O as well.
Alexander Feht says:
January 4, 2013 at 3:45 pm
Ah well, every forum has its couple of insufferable bullies. You and Willis meet the case on WUWT.
it seems we have some useful idiots too.
vukcevic says:
January 4, 2013 at 3:37 pm
Wouldn’t your current ‘desperate’ (hopeless; critical situation of great distress) diagnosis
contradict your previous often reported ‘Denning-Kruger’ (a cognitive bias in which unskilled individuals suffer from illusory superiority) diagnosis
that is what happens when the latter discover their illusion.
Let’s not get nasty – Leif is properly skeptical about what he sees as speculation unsupported by data that he is familiar with. On various sites and threads he is unfailingly helpful to the neophytes in this business and a great source of solid information and historical context.
Thanks Leif for all your input – keeps everyone honest and grounded in data.
Can anybody here do and interpret a Fourier analysis (specifically a FFT)? The Pentiction solar flux site has data going back to 1947. I’ve cobbled together the data, approximately 24,000 days’ worth. There were quite a few holes at the beginning of the record (e.g. no obs on weekends). If we only go back to 1968, that’s 16384 daily records. I’ve filled in the few missing obs with strictly linear interpolation.
I can follow instructions on how to generate a FFT output. I simply don’t understand what the numbers mean. My Google searches have returned mostly electrical circuit design and analysis hits.
” lsvalgaard says:
January 4, 2013 at 3:57 pm
sunsettommy says:
January 4, 2013 at 3:16 pm
But that second peak of this cycle….. hmmm…..
Solar cycle 14: http://www.solen.info/solar/cycl14.html hmmm… how many peaks? …
Multiple peaks are normal.”
DR. Svalgaard,
Not once have I disputed PAST multiple peaks but THIS solar cycle is not alike cycle 14 at all and your own link show that.
The cycle 14 cycle had numerous identifiable peaks at fairly regular intervals but cycle 24 does not have it as plainly shown to date.
@Anthony
> So I’ve truncated the title to:
> Neutrons and the 1970s cooling period
Why not “Galactic Cosmic Rays and the 1970s cooling period”? A more apt title because GCR’s are what the discussion is really about. … and neutron counters are not a necessary component of all GCR detectors:
For example, http://www.hardhack.org.au/geiger_muller_detector Here a stack of 3 GM tubes arranged vertically serves as a muon coincidence detector to help discriminate between terrestrial and cosmic radiation.
Walter Dnes says:
January 4, 2013 at 4:19 pm
What you want is an estimate of the Power Spectral Density. The FFT can be used for this, but it requires special manipulations to reduce the variability induced by noise in the measurements. Simply performing an FFT on the data will probably just give you a bunch of uninformative hash, as the FFT is inherently limited in dealing with noisy data.
The best book I know of is the one listed at the top here. I do not know if any of the less expensive ones by the same authors contain the same material or not. You may be able to search for others. A general web search on “estimation of the psd using the fft” brings up lots of hits as well.
There are other methods for PSD estimation which do not rely on the FFT as well, but they are often not as flexible, and generally require some a priori knowledge of what you are expecting to find.
sunsettommy says:
January 4, 2013 at 4:44 pm
The cycle 14 cycle had numerous identifiable peaks at fairly regular intervals but cycle 24 does not have it as plainly shown to date.
You would have said the same about cycle 14 at the beginning of cycle 14.The peaks in cycle 24 is still to come. The cycle already shares a characteristic with cycle 14, namely the asymmetry between north and south.
“””””…..
lsvalgaard says:
January 4, 2013 at 3:57 pm
sunsettommy says:
January 4, 2013 at 3:16 pm
But that second peak of this cycle….. hmmm…..
Solar cycle 14: http://www.solen.info/solar/cycl14.html hmmm… how many peaks? …
Multiple peaks are normal.
george e smith says:
January 4, 2013 at 3:17 pm
Many Thanx Leif; too many years since I studied radio-carbon dating. I knew it was 14N that produced 14C, but couldn’t remember the reaction, other than I recall it was some sort of double event, with something metastable formed in between.
And it doesn’t seem to me that free neutrons are chugging around the universe, burdened with a 12 or 14 minute, or whatever it is these days, half life.
I’m used to high energy neutrons kicking out protons. Well we used to make 14 MEV neutrons, by bombarding heavy ice with deuterons. Didn’t seem to me that protons could make alpha particles out of atmospheric gases; but then I guess some of them (primary protons) have about enough energy for a missing bolt off a space ship.
george e smith says:
January 4, 2013 at 5:02 pm
And it doesn’t seem to me that free neutrons are chugging around the universe, burdened with a 12 or 14 minute, or whatever it is these days, half life.
You get them in the debris by hitting 14N or 16O with protons.
Re FFT isn’t there an excel data analysis app for this ?
@Walter Dnes
> Can anybody here do and interpret a Fourier analysis (specifically a FFT)?
>… My Google searches have returned mostly electrical circuit design and
> analysis hits.
The Wolf sunspots series are a popular example in many texts on time series analysis. Here’s a fairly good one, based on SAS. Look at example 6.2.5 which does a periodogram on the Wolf series (which should also look a lot like your radio flux series):
http://opus.bibliothek.uni-wuerzburg.de/volltexte/2011/5648/pdf/2011_March_01_times.pdf
This same Wolf dataset is included in other stats packages too, e.g. R and MATLAB.
Thanks Dr A… its nice to see some theory and observation in practice.
Leif: “They are not predictions based on theory or anything like that, but simply a fit of a standard solar cycle to current data, so a ‘forecast’ may be a better word, and will by definition always fit current data.”
Then how did he come up with “biggest solar cycle in 400 years” before 23 was over. And why did Dikpati agree with him based on her model that she touted to be 98% accurate?
And shouldn’t you be telling him what to name his curves instead of me?
Leif: “We figured out back in 1978 how to predict solar cycles and have predicted every single one since correctly.”
Who are we? Are you talking about you? By every single one, are you talking about 3?
Now, if you are talking about “we”, as in your profession, this table shows that everything from 185 to 42, as well as every possible value in between, was predicted for 24.
http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/SolarCycle/SC24/May_24_2007_table.pdf
Tilo Reber says:
January 4, 2013 at 7:25 pm
Then how did he come up with “biggest solar cycle in 400 years” before 23 was over. And why did Dikpati agree with him based on her model that she touted to be 98% accurate?
You are confusing two things. Hathaway made his true prediction before the cycle began by looking at a peak in what we call ‘recurrence’. see slides 24-26 of http://www.leif.org/research/Predicting%20the%20Solar%20Cycle%20(SORCE%202010).pdf
Once the cycle gets going, he can adjust the prediction [which now becomes a ‘forecast’] by fitting it to the observed course of the cycle as it unfolds.
Tilo Reber says:
January 4, 2013 at 7:42 pm
Who are we? Are you talking about you? By every single one, are you talking about 3?
From our sunspot prediction paper [the ‘et al.’ is ‘we’]:
“Schatten et al. [1978] pioneered the use of the solar polar magnetic field as a precursor ondicator. Because the poloidal field is an important ingredient in seeding the dynamo mechanism, the polar field precursor method appears to be rooted in solid physics. … As we approach minimum and the new cycle gets underway, the solar polar field precursor method improves markedly (cycle 21: observed 165 vs. predicted 140 ± 20; cycle 22: 159 vs. 170 ± 30 [Schatten and Sofia, 1987]; cycle 23: 121 vs. 138 ± 30 [Schatten et al., 1996]). The improvements also result from the use of actually measured polar fields rather than proxies. It is a strength of the polar field precursor method that the predictions improve in this manner. This paper suggests a novel way of applying the polar field precursor well before sunspot minimum.”
Cycle 24 is a very important cycle for testing our method, as it is so different from the several previous cycles. It seems that cycle 24 is confirming the validity of the procedure.
In response to Leif Svalgaard’s comment:
lsvalgaard says:
January 4, 2013 at 2:05 pm
BobG says:
January 4, 2013 at 1:40 pm
My impression from some of your comments in the past is that you believe GCRs may cause some cooling but you are not thinking it is a major contributor to climate? Is this correct?
My thinking is that GCRs are an even smaller contributor than CO2 and friends, thus not major. The Laschamps excursion is one of the reasons for this belief http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2012E%26PSL.351…54N
William: Paper that indicates the earth’s geomagnetic field abruptly reversed 41 kyears ago.
Dynamics of the Laschamp geomagnetic excursion from Black Sea sediments
Investigated sediment cores from the southeastern Black Sea provide a high-resolution record from mid latitudes of the Laschamp geomagnetic polarity excursion. Age constraints are provided by 16 AMS14C ages, identification of the Campanian Ignimbrite tephra (39.28±0.11 ka), and by detailed tuning of sedimentologic parameters of the Black Sea sediments to the oxygen isotope record from the Greenland NGRIP ice core. According to the derived age model, virtual geomagnetic pole (VGP) positions during the Laschamp excursion persisted in Antarctica for an estimated 440 yr, making the Laschamp excursion a short-lived event with fully reversed polarity directions. The reversed phase, centred at 41.0 ka, is associated with a significant field intensity recovery to 20% of the preceding strong field maximum at˜50 ka. Recorded field reversals of the Laschamp excursion, lasting only an estimated ˜250 yr, are characterized by low relative paleointensities (5% relative to 50 ka). The central, fully reversed phase of the Laschamp excursion is bracketed by VGP excursions to the Sargasso Sea (˜41.9 ka) and to the Labrador Sea (˜39.6 ka). Paleomagnetic results from the Black Sea are in excellent agreement with VGP data from the French type locality which facilitates the chronological ordering of the non-superposed lavas that crop out at Laschamp-Olby. In addition, VGPs between 34 and 35 ka reach low northerly to equatorial latitudes during a clockwise loop, inferred to be the Mono lake excursion.
William: Look at the temperature graph in this paper. Think of the glacial/interglacial cycle. Imagine Canada and the US states covered with a 2 mile thick ice sheet, 22 times.
The 41 kyr world: Milankovitch’s other unsolved mystery by Maureen E. Raymo et al.
http://rsai.geography.ohio-state.edu/courses/G820.01/WI05%20climate%20history/2002PA000791.pdf
[1] For most of the Northern Hemisphere Ice Ages, from approx. 3.0 to 0.8 m.y., global ice volume varied predominantly at the 41,000 year period of Earth’s orbital obliquity. However, summer (or summer caloric half year) insolation at high latitudes, which is widely believed to be the major influence on high-latitude climate and ice volume, is dominated by the 23,000 year precessional period. Thus the geologic record poses a challenge to our understanding of climate dynamics.
You need additional information to form a hypothesis. The geomagnetic field intensity dropped by a factor of five during the Laschamp geomagnetic reversal, 41 k years ago. (Svensmark’s’mechanism saturates. There is negative feedback to resist the oceans freezing, leading to an ice house earth.)
Note the glacial/interglacial cycle periodicity was 41 k years before increasing to 100 k years.
The geomagnetic field intensity increases by a factor of 2 to 3 during the interglacial period, as compared to the cold glacial period. There is a cycle of 100 k years and 41k years in both the geomagnetic field data and planetary temperature data. The geomagnetic field specialists spent roughly 10 years fighting about the cause of that correlation. As they had no cause (change is too fast and is periodic) they arguable about the validity of the observation. They landed more or less on agreement that the observation is correct.
The higher the geomagnetic field intensity during the interglacial period, the warmer the interglacial period. The 100 k year cycles have the strongest intensity geomagnetic field.
You need the missing mechanism to form a hypothesis. Try to picture the mechanism rather than assuming it is not possible. Assume a solar magnetic cycle restart is causing the abrupt changes geomagnetic field changes. Take my word that there are dozens of confirmed mature astronomical observations that confirm the mechanism. If that does not work, pretend, use your imagination. Play a game. Within the parameters of the game try to see how the pretend sun could cause what is observed. This a cyclic phenomena.
If that does not work, Let’s keep watching solar cycle 24 and look for evidence to validate or invalidate the hypothesis.
The tilt of the planet and eccentricity of the earth’s orbit at the time of the solar cycle restart and the timing of perihelion all modulate – or perhaps the word control would be more appropriate- the resultant of the restart.
Leif: “Hathaway made his true prediction”
Got ya. His “prediction” was wrong. His subsequent “forcasts” were simply extended curve fits based on known SC development patterns and available data.
Now, when you say that he “long ago saw the light”, do you mean that he long ago figured out that his “prediction” was wrong; or that he long ago figured out that his prediction method was wrong or that he long ago figured out that Shatten et al were correct?
And by the way, what did Dikpati figure out about her “98 percent accurate” model?
William says:
January 4, 2013 at 8:07 pm
Try to picture the mechanism rather than assuming it is not possible. Assume a solar magnetic cycle restart is causing the abrupt changes geomagnetic field changes.
I have been thinking about this for forty years. And there is no such thing as a ‘solar magnetic cycle restart’. It never stopped to begin with.
Tilo Reber says:
January 4, 2013 at 8:45 pm
Now, when you say that he “long ago saw the light”, do you mean that he long ago figured out that his “prediction” was wrong; or that he long ago figured out that his prediction method was wrong or that he long ago figured out that Shatten et al were correct?
All of the above.
And by the way, what did Dikpati figure out about her “98 percent accurate” model?
She is as unrepentant as ever. But you don’t hear much from her now.
Reblogged this on The Next Grand Minimum and commented:
The most interesting information is the shift in the corn belt as the climate cools.
If the sun has no planetary influence upon it, then the Sun has no planets.
Sparks says:
January 4, 2013 at 9:39 pm
If the sun has no planetary influence upon it, then the Sun has no planets.
Perhaps not worth a comment, but let me make one anyway. A strong test of the hypothesis would be to see if the [many] stars for which we have observed planets show magnetic cycles synchronized with their planets. None have been found.
Proud to be useful, Leif. It seems, though, that you don’t understand the origin and the meaning of the expression you used. If I were you, I’d be concerned about brushing up my English. But I am not you, fortunately.
Brass monkeys
According to Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brass_monkey_%28colloquial_expression%29
Supposed etymology
It is often stated that the phrase originated from the use of a brass tray, called a “monkey”, to hold cannonballs on warships in the 16th to 18th centuries. Supposedly, in very cold temperatures the “monkey” would contract, causing the balls to fall off.[14] However, nearly all historians and etymologists consider this story to be an urban legend. This story has been discredited by the U.S. Department of the Navy,[15] etymologist Michael Quinion, and the Oxford English Dictionary (OED).[16]
They give five main reasons:
The OED does not record the term “monkey” or “brass monkey” being used in this way.
The purported method of storage of cannonballs (“round shot”) is simply false. Shot was not stored on deck continuously on the off-chance that the ship might go into battle. Indeed, decks were kept as clear as possible.
Furthermore, such a method of storage would result in shot rolling around on deck and causing a hazard in high seas. Shot was stored on the gun or spar decks, in shot racks—longitudinal wooden planks with holes bored into them, known as shot garlands in the Royal Navy, into which round shot were inserted for ready use by the gun crew.
Shot was not left exposed to the elements where it could rust. Such rust could lead to the ball not flying true or jamming in the barrel and exploding the gun. Indeed, gunners would attempt to remove as many imperfections as possible from the surfaces of balls.
The physics does not stand up to scrutiny. The contraction of both balls and plate over the range of temperatures involved would not be particularly large. The effect claimed possibly could be reproduced under laboratory conditions with objects engineered to a high precision for this purpose, but it is unlikely it would ever have occurred in real life aboard a warship.
Re: some useful idiots
Welcome to ‘world of useful idiots’.
Two world foremost experts in the science of the Earth’s magnetism are:
Dr. Andrew Jackson of ETH Zurich & Dept Earth Sciences, Leeds University
and
Dr. Jeremy Bloxham of Dept Earth and Planetary Sciences, Harvard University
They published data for historical variability of the Earth’s magnetic flux.
World Data Center for the sunspot index: Solar Influences Data Analysis Center (SIDC)
They publish annual sunspot data.
M. A. Vukcevic currently is not associated with any science institution, researches data as a hobby.
Vukcevic used spectral analysis and noted two major components of the Jackson-Bloxham data.
He also assigned magnetic polarity to SIDC sunspot data (sunspot cycles alternate the magnetic polarity)
By simply putting together two time sequences, and comparing the result to the North Hemisphere temperature anomaly following graphic representation is obtained:
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/Sun-Earth.htm
It is noted as Geo-Solar Oscillation as a reference to the two sets of data used.
useful idiots indeed !
RE:vukcevic says:
January 5, 2013 at 2:59 am
……….
Dr. Svalgaard states:
‘Solar and the Earth’s magnetic fields are not related, do not interact and must not be combined together’.
Human vocal cords and a piece of still wire in a piano, are hardly related, do not interact, but both generate sound vibrations, but when combined in a human ear produce the most pleasing oscillations
Solar and Earth’s magnetic field variability may or may not be related, may or may not interact, but when combined by the ocean it appears that they produce the Atlantic Multidecadal oscillations.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/Sun-Earth.htm
Alexander Feht says:
January 5, 2013 at 1:06 am
But I am not you, fortunately.
And I’m not you, fortunately. If I were, I would be ashamed as you should be.
vukcevic says:
January 5, 2013 at 2:59 am
Solar and Earth’s magnetic field variability may or may not be related, may or may not interact, but when combined by the ocean it appears that they produce the Atlantic Multidecadal oscillations
As we have discussed so many times any such appearance is just that, an appearance. Nothing to do with reality.
I am continuously amazed (and amused) that you guys keep looking at obscure solar data & others and keep arguing about it, whereas if you were to look at maxima you would have a very good proxy for energy coming in.
http://blogs.24.com/henryp/2012/10/02/best-sine-wave-fit-for-the-drop-in-global-maximum-temperatures/
according to this graph we are in a 88 year solar cycle and we will will drop about -0.3K in the next 8 years or so.
Please plant your food accordingly i.e. 140/3 = 45 km more south.
[snip]
As solar cycle 24 progresses, it will be interesting to see what happens to the solar large scale magnetic field, if the magnetic field strength of individual newly formed sun spots continues to decline.
I will have more comments if there is observational evidence of a deeper than expected solar magnetic cycle minimum. I believe based on the geomagnetic paleo record and related analysis that it is possible for the solar magnetic cycle to be interrupted.
This is an interesting summary of the Solar 24 observational anomalies.
http://www.leif.org/research/Disappearance-of-Visible-Spots.pdf
The following are some comments concerning GCR changes and planetary temperature changes.
Svensmark’s mechanism is a charge based mechanism. GCR strike the earth’s upper atmosphere creating MUONs which in turn create multiple ions. There are multiple papers with observational and theoretical analysis to support the assertion that ions affect cloud formation rate, cloud albedo, and cloud lifetime. If GCR was the only phenomena that could affect ions in the atmosphere and Svensmark’s mechanism was correct, low level planetary cloud cover should track GCR.
If GCR was the only mechanism that affected ions in the atmosphere therefore there would be an increase in low level clouds when GCR is high (GCR is high when there is a low solar magnetic cycle and weak solar heliosphere), which results in more sunlight reflected off into space, colder planet.
Planetary cloud cover closely tracks GCR levels from 1978 to 1993. Post 1993, planetary cloud cover is reduced, even when GCR is high. There needs to be a physical explanation as to what is reducing planetary cloud cover, inhibiting the GCR mechanism.
I presented a review paper by Tinsley that discusses all known ion mechanisms. There is a second ion mechanism, elecctroscavenging. Tinsley’s electroscavening mechanism is a variation of Svensmark’s mechanism. Solar wind bursts create a space charge differential in the ionosphere which creates a current which affect cloud formation. The solar wind bursts disturb the geomagnetic field.
There are long term measurements of the geomagnetic field disturbances “AP”. AP is correlated with the solar wind bursts. I presented a paper that noted the late 2000 temperature changes correlated with changes in AP. There is another paper by Enric Palle that notes variation of cloud cover in the latitude region of 40 degree to 60 degree for the period. The 40 to 60 degree latitude region, is where changes would be expected, as that region is most strongly affected by electroscavenging.
As David Archibald’s graph illustrates, Ap was high during the 1970 cooling period, during a period when GCR was high. If Tinsely’s electroscavening mechanism was correct, it would be expected that the solar wind bursts would remove the cloud forming ions, in the 1970s.
As I noted there appears to be a third solar mechanism that affects ions in the atmosphere. The hypothesized third solar mechanism is required to explain the cyclic large scale abrupt changes to the geomagnetic field (intensity of the geomagnetic field abruptly change – excursions, periodicity roughly 6,000, to 8,000 years, however orbital parameters affect the resultant – and tilt of the geomagnetic field axis abruptly changes by 10 to 15 degrees –archeomagnetic jerks, periodic roughly 400 years) and explains why volcanic eruptions increase during solar minimums and explains why very large volcanic eruptions correlate with deep solar magnetic cycle minimums.
If there is planetary cooling or evidence of an interruption to the solar magnetic cycle I will have additional comments concerning the hypothesized third mechanism.
William says:
January 5, 2013 at 5:24 am
it is possible for the solar magnetic cycle to be interrupted
I have asked you before, what do you mean by ‘interrupted’?
Svensmark’s mechanism was correct, low level planetary cloud cover should track GCR.
Except they don’t http://www.leif.org/research/Cloud-Cover-GCR-Disconnect.png
lsvalgaard says: January 4, 2013 at 2:33 pm
You sound rather desperate to me. And pissed to.
________________________________
I see the old Leif is making a return. It was much better, Leif, when you rose above it all.
.
lsvalgaard says:January 5, 2013 at 6:06 am
Svensmark’s mechanism was correct, low level planetary cloud cover should track GCR.
Except they don’t http://www.leif.org/research/Cloud-Cover-GCR-Disconnect.png
Leif I respect you for the time you put in here, but you answered William with the same tangential sort of non-answer we often get from the true believers. William said”Planetary cloud cover closely tracks GCR levels from 1978 to 1993. Post 1993, planetary cloud cover is reduced, even when GCR is high. There needs to be a physical explanation as to what is reducing planetary cloud cover, inhibiting the GCR mechanism.”
William says there is no correlation after the early 90s, but there was prior. Your graph shows they track in direction if not in magnitude until 2004. How does this address the question of a third unknown variable that William presents?
Dr. Svalgaard, are there any good solar physics textbooks available? Thanks.
Interesting, moderators, that you don’t snip Leif when he calls other people “idiots.”
Well, as you say, live with it.
David
Your point is also shown perhaps on the running 11 year average sunspot number [SIDC] graph as shown on the CLIMATE4YOU web page under the Sun subsection, illustration # 5 or fourth graph. Ever dip [5 in total] in the running 11 year average sunspot number, including the 1970’s can be matched with a global temperature drops. Five coincidences in a row ?, possible but doubtful in my mind . Only global SST cycles have a comparable match in pattern except the period 1940-1980 period . I cannot comment on the mechanism that is at work here but there is a link that needs to be further researched. Even with the new DERIVED SUNSPOT NUMBERS the pattern seems to be unchanged. We are at a low level of sunspot numbers like we had 100 years ago, like the 1910’s and 1920’s and record cold winter spells in Russia, eastern Europe, Alaska and even UK speak to this same pattern of temperatures.
http://www.climate4you.com
Meanwhile, consequences of the weak Solar cycle are upon us: look, what is happening in India and China.
David Archibald is on to something. Facing the obvious consistent pattern, the scientist’s task is to investigate it and to find a mechanism that causes it. Endlessly repeating textbook truisms is useless. Personally attacking everybody who dares to think outside the textbook is ugly and stupid.
Steve Keohane says:
January 5, 2013 at 8:44 am
Leif I respect you for the time you put in here, but you answered William with the same tangential sort of non-answer we often get from the true believers….
William says there is no correlation after the early 90s, but there was prior. Your graph shows they track in direction if not in magnitude until 2004. How does this address the question of a third unknown variable that William presents?
It is generally the mark of a spurious correlation that it breaks down when new data becomes available. To invent a new mechanism to deal with the fact that the correlation went away does not seem reasonable. Then what will happen when that new one eventually also fails? Perhaps a fourth unknown variable can be called upon to restore the correlation, and then a fifth, etc.
But to reply with something more specific, I’ll offer this http://www.leif.org/EOS/swsc120049-GCR-Clouds.pdf which has already been mentioned.
Eric Chief Lion says:
January 5, 2013 at 8:47 am
Dr. Svalgaard, are there any good solar physics textbooks available? Thanks.
Yes, much depends on the level you want. Here are three good ones [in increasing difficulty]
Jack Eddy: The Sun, the Earth and Near-Earth Space: A Guide to the Sun-Earth System
http://www.amazon.com/The-Sun-Earth-Near-Earth-Space/dp/0160838088
Kenneth Lang: The Sun from Space
http://www.amazon.com/Sun-Space-Astronomy-Astrophysics-Library/dp/3540769528
Dermott Mullan: Physics of the Sun
http://www.amazon.com/Physics-Sun-Pure-Applied-ebook/dp/B005H6L3NU
Silver Ralph says:
January 5, 2013 at 8:26 am
It was much better, Leif, when you rose above it all.
I am only human…So I slip up once in a while.
Some frosty relations around here, I see.
Cold enough to “freeze the nuts off a steel bridge”?
This solar cycle will not start declining before ~2014/15. The exact timing of the maximum is of course somewhat arbitrary, but one can always take annual values – they only have one peak. The global cooling, associated with the very weak SC 24 (will be much longer than the average, maybe longer than 13 years) will be very rapid. The scene is set.
http://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/images/bfly.gif
http://i1159.photobucket.com/albums/p623/Oefinell/15yrLR.jpg
Zero 30-year linear trend by ~2020.
herkimer says:
January 5, 2013 at 8:52 am
Yes, temperature dips, and sea level falls, during solar minima. The breakover between rising and falling is a F10.7 flux of 102. What we will enter after solar maximum by May 2013 will be like continuous solar minimum in terms of the experience of the last three human generations. The oceans will shed heat until a new equilibrium is reached.
What are the mysteries that are left to us? One is knowledge of the physical basis of the Friis-Christensen and Lassen relationship.
David Archibald says:
January 5, 2013 at 2:32 pm
What are the mysteries that are left to us? One is knowledge of the physical basis of the Friis-Christensen and Lassen relationship.
That ‘relationship’ is spurious and has been debunked too often to count.
lsvalgaard says: To invent a new mechanism to deal with the fact that the correlation went away does not seem reasonable.////// Oh you mean like dark matter .. or my fav, alternate universes where all the stuff that goes through black holes ends up. Do you even pay attention to current theory? LMAO
William says:
January 5, 2013 at 5:24 am
I presented a review paper by Tinsley that discusses all known ion mechanisms. There is a second ion mechanism, elecctroscavenging. Tinsley’s electroscavening mechanism is a variation of Svensmark’s mechanism. Solar wind bursts create a space charge differential in the ionosphere which creates a current which affect cloud formation. The solar wind bursts disturb the geomagnetic field.
Looking into that will be interesting. Not to dismiss such but just to add a note regarding cloud cover data, though:
Planetary cloud cover closely tracks GCR levels from 1978 to 1993. Post 1993, planetary cloud cover is reduced, even when GCR is high.
While there certainly is more than GCR change alone going on as an influence, often cloud cover is reported from ISCCP data, which has problems for recent years, discussed in http://calderup.wordpress.com/2011/10/05/further-attempt-to-falsify-the-svensmark-hypothesis/
There is much more similarity in cosmic ray trends and cloud cover variation in recent years when not using ISCCP data.
Dr. Spencer did an illustration of cosmic ray flux versus shortwave radiation reflected, the latter being largely an indication of low cloud cover, over recent years:
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2011/05/indirect-solar-forcing-of-climate-by-galactic-cosmic-rays-an-observational-estimate/
There is also the general matter of if Hansen’s GISS, the headquarters of the ISCCP, can be counted on to not make severe adjustments to cloud cover trend data like they do with the separate topic of temperature data. (For instance, as a simple illustration, http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/hansen_07/fig1x.gif showed the 5-year mean of U.S. temperature in the high point of the 1980s was 0.4 degrees Celsius cooler than such in the 1930s, but the same is made less than 0.1 degrees apart in http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs_v3/Fig.D.gif in later changes to the data).
Without high reliance on trusting the ISCCP’s data, patterns include those in the following:
http://s13.postimage.org/ka0rmuwgn/gcrclouds.gif
(enlarging upon click)
pkatt says:
January 5, 2013 at 3:02 pm
>i>my fav, alternate universes where all the stuff that goes through black holes ends up.
I think you got that one a wee bit wrong, but go ahead, many people believe weird things, so why not you.
As for the alleged planetary tidal influence on solar flux, I think there is a “put up or shut up” test. How does this sound? The strongest tidal differences should occur when Jupiter and Saturn are aligned, versus when they are 90 degrees out of phase. According to the nineplanets dot org solar system data page http://nineplanets.org/data.html
Jupiter’s orbital period is 4332.71 days
Saturn’s orbital period is 10759.50 days
Jupiter “laps” Saturn every 1/((1/4332.71) – (1/10759.5)) = 7253.66 days
The periodicity should be half of that, i.e. 3626.83 days, because tidal influences can add up when they’re on opposite sides of the sun, as well as on the same side. Does such a periodicity show up in the analysis of the solar flux data… Yes or No?
The effects are very different if Jupiter and Saturn are on opposite sides or the same side.of the sun. A key number is the Jupiter Saturn beat of 19.859 yrs (7253.66 days) Some here may note for example that 3 such beats are about equal to a complete PDO warming and cooling cycle.
For a complete discussion of the sun planetary beats and associated torques see Fairbridge and Sanders. “,The Suns Orbit AD 750-2050 : Basis for New Perspectives on Planetary Dynamics and Earth Moon Linkage.” in Climate – History,Periodicity and Predictability p446 Van Rostrand Reinhold Co. 1987
(See esp table 26-1 p452 )
This table will provide days of endless imaginative speculation and calculation for the inquiring minds posting on this thread.
Oh yes sorry Leif, Oh you’re right.. its dimensions, not universes.. cause that is so much less weird right? String theory anyone????????
Hnery@Walter Dnes
To explain weather cycles, before they started with the carbon dioxide nonsense they did look in the direction of the planets, rightly or wrongly.See here.
http://www.cyclesresearchinstitute.org/cycles-astronomy/arnold_theory_order.pdf
To quote from the above paper:
A Weather Cycle as observed in the Nile Flood cycle, Max rain followed by Min rain, appears discernible with maximums at 1750, 1860, 1950 and minimums at 1670, 1800, 1900 and a minimum at 1990 predicted.
(The 1990 turned out to be 1995 when cooling started!)
Please note: indeed one would expect more clouds/condensation (bigger flooding) at the end of a cooling period and minimum flooding at the end of a warm period. This is because when water vapor cools (more) it condensates (more) to water (i.e. more rain).
Now put my sine wave
http://blogs.24.com/henryp/2012/10/02/best-sine-wave-fit-for-the-drop-in-global-maximum-temperatures/
next to those dates?
1900- minimum flooding : end of warming
1950 – maximum flooding: end of cooling
1995 – minimum flooding: end of warming
So far, I do not exclude a gravitational or electromagnetic swing/switch that changes the UV coming into earth. In turn this seems to change the chemical reactions of certain chemicals reacting to the UV lying on top of the atmosphere. This change in concentration of chemicals lying on top of us, i.e. O3, HxOx and NxOx, in turn causes more back radiation (when there is more), hence we are now cooling whilst ozone & others are increasing.
@Dnes
>As for the alleged planetary tidal influence on solar flux,
> …Jupiter “laps” Saturn every 1/((1/4332.71) – (1/10759.5))
> = 7253.66 days
> The periodicity should be half of that, i.e. 3626.83 days
Interesting proposition. Theoretically, the difference in tidal pull should create some kind of signal. I think even Dr. Svalgaard would agree to that. But there are two problems:
1) The resultant differential pull would be very small and perhaps undetectable.
2) A solar cycle has a period of roughly 11 years or 4015 days, whose spectral peak would probably mask tiny peaks nearby in the spectrum (Yes, I know that the true believers claim the entire 11-year cycle is due to such tidal tugs).
But, in any case, it’s worthy of a small experiment. So I downloaded the Pentiction data here …
ftp://ftp.geolab.nrcan.gc.ca/data/solar_flux/monthly_averages/solflux_monthly_average.txt
… and converted it to comma-separated form, after removing the top title line, (but not the column headings which are useful)
The resulting file, which I called sflux.dat, can then be processed in just 2 lines of R to yield a periodgram showing the spectral peaks.
x=read.csv(‘sflux.dat’, header=T)
p=spec.pgram(x$Adjflux,pad=400,xlim=c(0,.015),tck=1)
Here is the resulting periodgram, with frequencies calibrated in reciprocal months (since the input data is monthly). I used the xlim parameter to zoom into the range 0..0.015 to get a better look at the spread of peaks. The two peaks of interest should show up at the following x values
solar cycle period ~ 1/(11*12) = 0.007575758
TIDAL DIFF PERIOD ~ 1/(3626.83/30)= 0.008271686
http://i45.tinypic.com/rqz14i.png
As you can see the results are indeterminant because the solar cycle peak is very broad and covers 0.007 past 0.008, so any tinier peaks are masked.
Perhaps more selective spectral methods, such as maxent or MUSIC might help resolve any hidden peaks. But they’re hard to manage and are notorious for generating spurious peaks.
😐
lsvalgaard says:
January 4, 2013 at 10:19 pm
“… A strong test of the hypothesis would be to see if the [many] stars for which we have observed planets show magnetic cycles synchronized with their planets. None have been found.”
I would be more surprised if you said that any stars with magnetic cycles had been found and measured to be synchronized with their planets, as the first extrasolar planets to be found were announced in 1992 and the first was orbiting a pulsar, at this early stage the technology has not yet matured enough and with only 21 years of collecting data on other extrasolar planets and the star they orbit, I think it is far to early to be making judgments on what future observations will show. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, You have to observe and collect data first.
You may be interested to know that it’s a learning process for me and many other enthusiasts, recently I’ve become fascinated with the Suns orbital period at it’s equator being equal to the relative mass of Uranus and it’s unusual orientation and spin, add to this the interaction of Jupiter which comes between Uranus and the Sun approximately every 11.87 years and we now a factor of timing involved related to the length of sun spot cycles, I would have thought that this timing is very important in Solar physics, yet some (including yourself) have been very dismissive off the bat, tho appear to accept a process that has led to many failed predictions such as your comments above about Hathaway.
The other recent observation I have made recently, and may only be just rediscovering, is that Neptune may only be orbiting our sun indirectly and may in fact be orbiting our solar system as a whole as the center of it’s orbit, which approximately once every 164.90 years perturbs the orbit of Uranus and as above where I mentioned the timing, this also effects the length of sun spot cycles, The mechanics involved for sun spot intensity is the perturbation of the suns natural magnetic field lines running from the north and south magnetic poles, as the Mass of Uranus holds the sun, Jupiter pulls on these magnetic field lines around it’s orbit until the magnetic poles flip and the process continues but in the opposite direction of the magnetic field lines as the north and south poles have now flipped, which will begin winding the cycle down to solar minimum where the process begins again according to the original timing properties.
Sparks says:
January 7, 2013 at 7:07 am
You have to observe and collect data first.
This have been [and is being] done. See the list of stars on slide 19 of http://www.leif.org/research/AGU%20Fall%202011%20SH34B-08.pdf [and that list is not complete]. Close-in planets have very short oribtal periods, so one does not need decades of observations to detect cycles.
Sparks says:
January 7, 2013 at 7:07 am
Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence
It very often is. If you expect [based on theory or guess] that a certain effect should be there and when you actually look and see nothing [absence of evidence], then that is usually [and rightfully] taken as evidence of absence.
Leif Svalgaard says:
January 7, 2013 at 8:47 am
“It very often is. If you expect [based on theory or guess] that a certain effect should be there and when you actually look and see nothing [absence of evidence], then that is usually [and rightfully] taken as evidence of absence.”
Very True, I’d like to see more evidence of the observation, before we conclude [absence of evidence].
If you consider the factors I’ve mentioned in the above comment and consider how we actually measure the Mass of the sun and the planets, Can you say there is no plausible reason to investigate it further?
Hypothetically, if you were to go about looking for supportive evidence, how would you proceed?
It would be very interesting to hear your thoughts on this.
Sparks says:
January 7, 2013 at 9:48 am
If you consider the factors I’ve mentioned in the above comment and consider how we actually measure the Mass of the sun and the planets, Can you say there is no plausible reason to investigate it further?
We measure the mass of the Sun and planets VERY accurately by their gravitational effects, e.g. on spacecraft that we send out and also simply by the sizes of the orbits of planets and moons. So, what else is needed?
Your ideas about the magnetic field are very likely wrong. The solar wind pushes all magnetic effects out of the solar system much faster than they can propagate inwards.
Supportive evidence from other stars may be the best way to go [if we can find any].
Leif Svalgaard says:
January 7, 2013 at 10:07 am
“Supportive evidence from other stars may be the best way to go [if we can find any].”
Do you mean “Supportive evidence” like this?
“Astronomers studying sound waves on a distant star have discovered that it has a magnetic cycle similar to our sun’s solar cycle.”
“The researchers detected “starspots” on HD49933’s surface, areas of intense magnetic activity analogous to sunspots. And they found that the star’s magnetic activity cycle lasts less than a year. Past surveys of stars have found cycles similar to the sun’s 11-year one.”
“Essentially, the star is ringing like a bell,” says NCAR scientist Travis Metcalfe, a co-author of the new study. “As it moves through its starspot cycle, the tone and volume of the ringing changes in a very specific pattern, moving to higher tones with lower volume at the peak of its magnetic cycle.”
“We’ve discovered a magnetic activity cycle in this star, similar to what we see with the Sun,” says co-author and NCAR scientist Savita Mathur. “This technique of listening to the stars will allow us to examine potentially hundreds of stars.
reference to it here.
http://www2.ucar.edu/atmosnews/news/2380/distant-star-s-sound-waves-reveal-cycle-similar-sun-s
and here.
http://www.space.com/9017-sound-waves-distant-star-reveal-sun-cycle.html
Sparks says:
January 7, 2013 at 10:40 am
Do you mean “Supportive evidence” like this?
“Astronomers studying sound waves on a distant star have discovered that it has a magnetic cycle similar to our sun’s solar cycle.”
Yes and that those cycles have the same period as the [major] planets around such stars. That last bit is missing. There are a few stars with planets so close in that the planets sit within the ‘magnetosphere’ of the star and can cause aurora-like brightenings, like Jupiter’s moon Io does on Jupiter. But those do not count as the planets are not the cause of the intrinsic magnetic cycle.
@Leif
> But those do not count as the planets [and]
> are not the cause of the intrinsic magnetic cycle.
Perhaps not the cause of the cycles, but orbital motion in close binaries is thought by some to be modulated by the stellar magnetic activity cycles. (So the tail is wagging the dog?)
John Day says:
January 7, 2013 at 4:41 pm
Perhaps not the cause of the cycles, but orbital motion in close binaries is thought by some to be modulated by the stellar magnetic activity cycles. (So the tail is wagging the dog?)
when bodies are close enough they can interact, even magnetically. It is also thought that when the Sun was young the solar wind was much stronger [1000 times?] than today and that the tension in the magnetic field between the sun and the protoplanetary disk was strong enough to transfer angular momentum from the Sun to the planets, thus slowing the sun’s rotation down, and explaining why the sun has 98% of the mass, but the planets have 98% of the angular momentum in the solar system. We directly observe that slow-down in stars. But the process has long ago become too inefficient to have impact on the current solar system.
Leif,
Just a thought, does the star HD49933 have a similar configuration to our solar system? No, does it have a solar cycle similar to our earth? Yes.
What is the difference in timing and the physical components involved between our sun and the star HD49933?
Typo. our Sun not our earth lol
Sparks says:
January 7, 2013 at 8:02 pm
does it have a solar cycle similar to our earth? Yes.
You must mean ‘our sun’, in which case the answer is ‘No’:
HD49933 is larger than the Sun [3.5 times more luminous] and rotates much faster [perhaps 8 times] than the Sun. The magnetic cycles are usually related to rotation such that if a star rotates 8 times as fast, it cycle is 8 times shorter, so HD49933 is expected to have a cycle of little more than one year, which is what is observed. So, no Jupiter sized planet close to the star with orbital period of one year is required.
Leif,
If the star HD49933 had a planet exactly like (Dumbbell) Uranus, and the configuration of our solar system, especially Jupiter, why would this stars cycle behavior appear to have less of a planetary influence upon it regarding the timing? less planets maybe?
For example, HD49933 and our sun developed at the same time, HD49933 is larger now and it’s cycle is faster. Compared to our star, what could possibly slow the timing of our suns solar cycle?
Sparks says:
January 7, 2013 at 9:46 pm
If the star HD49933 had a planet exactly like (Dumbbell) Uranus, and the configuration of our solar system, especially Jupiter, why would this stars cycle behavior appear to have less of a planetary influence upon it regarding the timing? less planets maybe?
If it had the same configuration as our solar system, and the big planet were controlling the cycle, then the cycle would be about the same as the Sun’s.
For example, HD49933 and our sun developed at the same time, HD49933 is larger now and it’s cycle is faster. Compared to our star, what could possibly slow the timing of our suns solar cycle?
The cycle time is determined by the rotation period, and the Sun was slowed down when it was young by the formation of its planets [that stole angular momentum from the Sun using the magnetic field of a much stronger solar wind]. All stars the size of the Sun and smaller rotate slower because of that, while stars larger than the Sun rotate much faster [and probably don’t have large planets far away from the star]
Leif,
Did you Say?, the Sun was slowed down when it was young by the formation of its planets.
this is within context of our discussion.
Are you asserting the rest of your comment above or are you insulting me.
just kidding I know your not insulting me. your being funny.
Sparks says:
January 8, 2013 at 12:49 am
Are you asserting the rest of your comment above
Otherwise I would not have made it…
Leif,
That’s called a planetary influence on a star.
Sparks said:
“That’s called a planetary influence … ”
I think Leif understands that. And that it works both ways: at close distance the star’s magnetic field can actually transfer angular momentum to the planets. Which explains how Sol’s planets ended up with 98% of the angular momentum.
Leif said:
“… explaining why the sun has 98% of the mass, but the planets have 98% of the angular momentum in the solar system. We directly observe that slow-down in stars. But the process has long ago become too inefficient to have impact on the current solar system.”
So the laws of physics haven’t changed, this kind of stellar-planetary influence is still taking place. But in our solar system the big planets are now much further away from their star, so any signals (modulations) generated by this kind of process are likely to be too weak to detect.
Of course researchers are free to continue pursuing the detection of these kinds of signals. But Leif apparently has decided this pursuit is not worth the effort involved.
That’s my two cents on the matter, sorry for butting in.