Quasi-annual variations may hold clues to space weather
Credit Image by NASA
BOULDER -The Sun undergoes a type of seasonal variability with its activity waxing and waning over the course of nearly two years, according to a new study by a team of researchers led by the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). This behavior affects the peaks and valleys in the approximately 11-year solar cycle, sometimes amplifying and sometimes weakening the solar storms that can buffet Earth’s atmosphere.
The quasi-annual variations appear to be driven by changes in the bands of strong magnetic fields in each solar hemisphere. These bands also help shape the approximately 11-year solar cycle that is part of a longer cycle that lasts about 22 years.
“What we’re looking at here is a massive driver of solar storms,” said Scott McIntosh, lead author of the new study and director of NCAR’s High Altitude Observatory. “By better understanding how these activity bands form in the Sun and cause seasonal instabilities, there’s the potential to greatly improve forecasts of space weather events.”
The overlapping bands are fueled by the rotation of the Sun’s deep interior, according to observations by the research team. As the bands move within the Sun’s northern and southern hemispheres, activity rises to a peak over a period of about 11 months and then begins to wane.
The quasi-annual variations can be likened to regions on Earth that have two seasons, such as a rainy season and a dry season, McIntosh said.
The study, published this week in Nature Communications, can help lead to better predictions of massive geomagnetic storms in Earth’s outer atmosphere that sometimes disrupt satellite operations, communications, power grids, and other technologies.
The research was funded by NASA and the National Science Foundation, which is NCAR’s sponsor.
A “jet stream” in the Sun
The new study is one of a series of papers by the research team that examines the influence of the magnetic bands on several interrelated cycles of solar magnetism. In a paper last year in Astrophysical Journal, the authors characterized the approximately 11-year sunspot cycle in terms of two overlapping parallel bands of opposite magnetic polarity that slowly migrate over almost 22 years from high solar latitudes toward the equator, where they meet and terminate.
McIntosh and his co-authors detected the twisted, ring-shaped bands by drawing on a host of NASA satellites and ground-based observatories that gather information on the structure of the Sun and the nature of solar flares and coronal mass ejections (CMEs). These observations revealed the bands in the form of fluctuations in the density of magnetic fuel that rose from the solar interior through a transition region known as the tachocline and on to the surface, where they correlated with changes in flares and CMEs.
In the new paper, the authors conclude that the migrating bands produce seasonal variations in solar activity that are as strong as the more familiar 11-year counterpart. These quasi-annual variations take place separately in both the northern and southern hemispheres.
“Much like Earth’s jet stream, whose warps and waves have had severe impact on our regional weather patterns in the past couple of winters, the bands on the Sun have very slow-moving waves that can expand and warp it too,” said co-author Robert Leamon, a scientist at Montana State University. “Sometimes this results in magnetic fields leaking from one band to the other. In other cases, the warp drags magnetic fields from deep in the solar interior, near the tachocline, and pushes them toward the surface.”
The surges of magnetic fuel from the Sun’s interior catastrophically destabilize the corona, the Sun’s outermost atmosphere. They are the driving force behind the most destructive solar storms.
“These surges or ‘whomps’ as we have dubbed them, are responsible for over 95 percent of the large flares and CMEs–the ones that are really devastating,” McIntosh said.
The quasi-annual variability can also help explain a cold-war era puzzle: why do powerful solar flares and CMEs often peak a year or more after the maximum number of sunspots? This lag is known as the Gnevyshev Gap, after the Soviet scientist who first reported it in the 1940s. The answer appears to be that seasonal changes may cause an upswing in solar disturbances long after the peak in the solar cycle.
Researchers can turn to advanced computer simulations and more detailed observations to learn more about the profound influence of the bands on solar activity. McIntosh said this could be assisted by a proposed network of satellites observing the Sun, much as the global networks of satellites around Earth have helped advance terrestrial weather models since the 1960s.
“If you understand what the patterns of solar activity are telling you, you’ll know whether we’re in the stormy phase or the quiet phase in each hemisphere,” McIntosh said. “If we can combine these pieces of information, forecast skill goes through the roof.”
###
About the article
Title: The solar magnetic activity band interaction and instabilities that shape quasi-periodic variability
Authors: Scott W. McIntosh, Robert J. Leamon, Larisza D. Krista, Alan M. Title, Hugh S. Hudson, Pete Riley, Jerald W. Harder, Greg Kopp, Martin Snow, Thomas N. Woods, Justin C. Kasper, Michael L. Stevens, and Roger K. Ulrich
Publication: Nature Communications
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“If we can combine these pieces of information, forecast skill goes through the roof.”
Are any forecasts made or examples provided to demonstrate forecast skill?
Don’t expect a response to your question!
File under “It is the sun stupid”
To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven,
So the quasi-annual variation is the “season”? and the quasi-annual variation is 11 months-ish?
I am simply dumbfounded. All this time I was under the distinct impression that the science was settled and nothing new was ever going to discovered about the sun. What I found most interesting was :”the authors conclude that the migrating bands produce seasonal variations in solar activity that are as strong as the more familiar 11-year counterpart. “. Well, that is something indeed. I wonder. I wonder if this affects us?
Its so far away! How could the sun affect us!
And small too. I can cover it with my thumb.
Nor is there any CO2 on the sun, so how could it possibly influence climate?!
Of course there must be CO2 molecules in the outer atmosphere of the sun, since there are carbon and oxygen atoms as well. And guess what? That must be obviously the reason why the poor sun does suffer under this catastrophic solar warming in its atmosphere !!!!! … 😉
Already, this thread is debunking the ‘Science is settled’ story from some menn (sic) [No names, no pack drill – or CYA].
But there we go – it’s a political project. from the get-go.
Evidence – ha!
Emperor Barmy OBarack plus several Euros – Millipede junior, Ed Nnonentity the departing Energy (&Climate Change [Can you believe?]) Secretary of State, plus – I doubt not – various other Euro-grandees. I note Germany is building coal-fired power stations – so the lights stay on. Excellent.
Auto, apropos of not very much . . . .
I don’t even see the point of publishing this article. What possible connection could there be between the sun and global warming and climate change?
If they could predict an increased probability of cme s hitting the Earth in say six months time, what effect would that have in the way that we handle them? None whatsoever would be my guess.
There doesn’t seem to be very much new here. Dr. Svalgaard can you help me out?
April 6, CME Forecast
These solar storms – are they caused by an excess of CO2?
Duh, and it’s worse then we thought!
I was going to ask that!!
As everyone knows it’s a wonder gas that has many and various effects not all of them obvious to those outside the UN/GOVmagic circle.
Still it was an interesting read with real science.
James Bull
It has been known for a very long time that solar activity comes in random ‘episodes’ of a bit less than a year in length. The classical example is cycle 14: http://www.solen.info/solar/cycl14.gif
The current cycle exhibits the similar pattern, although less distinct. Unfortunately, the episodes are not really periodic so are hard [impossible?] to predict. The paper is an example of the usual hype surrounding such ‘discoveries’
Here is the Figure: http://www.leif.org/research/Solar-Cycle-14.png
WordPress alas won’t show it, so click on the links.
Yeah WordPress doesn’t like .png files for some reason, convert it to a .jpg and it will work.
http://www.leif.org/research/Solar-Cycle-14.jpg
I can track most of those episodes. They occur from when the Earth-Venus bisector is towards Uranus, on either side of the Sun, and from 1907 they switch over to from when the Earth-Venus bisector is towards Saturn. I apply exactly the same principle to deterministic long range weather forecasts.
Could that be part of what forms a grand minimum? Every other Gleissberg cycle turns into a grand minimum from this influence?
No the minima occur roughly every ten solar cycles, I get a long term average of ~108.3 years with my model, which I will put up a video of soon. These short episodes happen through all cycles.
So what the pseudo-science has to say about it:
I wrote an article about 5-6 years ago, anticipating and providing some proof for the quasi-annual variations in the sunspot cycles:
http://www.vukcevic.co.uk/solarsubcycle.pdf
Got severely admonished by the Stanford solar supremo, nothing new about that.
vukcevic, Here is the way it works:
There are no new discoveries. No new science to be done.
When you do new work, you get admonished by the tired old monoliths for being stupid or irrational.
Then time passes….Other people secretly acknowledge the concepts, it is chatted about at high brow physics gatherings…Then somebody essential repeat your work, somebody who is part of the “in crowd”. A little fanfare come with the “new” findings.
People start to talk about it openly and then the self same monoliths declare it old news….
Now you can reach back 20 years.. it doesn’t matter… you were irrational then so the work done now trumps your work then, even though at the same time it is supposedly old news but nobody told you that 20 years ago when they were telling you that you were irrational.
1) Nothing is new
2) Everything was already known, even if it was dismissed at the time before.
3) It is new when “people” decide it is new.
4) you don’t do anything new
5) when you do new things, they are insane, not new.
Does that help?
Mr. Westhaver
Thanks
“Science progresses one death at a time.” – attributed to several famous scientists
Here are two images
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/2Img.jpg
top one as I used in my article in 2007
http://www.vukcevic.co.uk/solarsubcycle.pdf
and bottom one from today’s article
I mentioned my article in WUWT post in 2008 here
The problem is that your ‘explanation’ of a well-known observation [see e.g. the cycle 14 graph just provided] is nonsense [as your other stuff].
Yes sir. Quite so.
lsvalgaard wrote, “The problem is that your ‘explanation’ of a well-known observation [see e.g. the cycle 14 graph just provided] is nonsense [as your other stuff].”
I’m curious about why you believe his explanation is nonsense. Note, the “subcycle” hypothesis was new to me but now seems obvious.
The following observation, from page 2 of the paper seems reasonable: http://www.vukcevic.co.uk/solarsubcycle.pdf “Detected subcycle appears not to be an actual cycle made of sunspot groups, it is a modulating cycle. This means that if there is an ordinary 11 year cycle in its progress then subcycle may modulate its amplitude. When subcycle is ‘negative’ it suppress amplitude of the main cycle, while when subcycle is high it has no effect. It follows that subcycle is most obvious when 11 year cycle is strong while if main cycle is at its minimum then subcycle may not be detectable.”
Second, your claim is:
“It has been known for a very long time that solar activity comes in random ‘episodes’ of a bit less than a year in length. The classical example is cycle 14: http://www.solen.info/solar/cycl14.gif
The current cycle exhibits the similar pattern, although less distinct. Unfortunately, the episodes are not really periodic so are hard [impossible?] to predict. The paper is an example of the usual hype surrounding such ‘discoveries’”
The claim from vukcevic is that the period is, “the Jupiter synodic period (398.88 days = 1.092822 years) “
Leif, why do you always have to be so rude? We don’t need that kind of talk here on WUWT…it’s more suited to the alarmist blogs…let’s try and be a bit more civil here. OK, we all know that you disagree with Vukcevic…that’s fine but try and be polite please. Let’s try and be different from those blogs and maintain a better standard.
Rather that get involved in a ding-dong with Dr. S, I’ll talk to my self.
Do these extra cycles matter to us down on the tera firma?
In a way they do.
Only yesterday I commented @ur momisugly Dr. S.
“recently I came across rather strange phenomenon: the Earth has two kinds of year: astronomic and geomagnetic, and they are of different length !”
What is all that about?
Have you ever wondered why Willis E. couldn’t find solid evidence of 11 year cycle in the climate events ?
It may be because geomagnetic (combined Earth and solar) events are interlaced within astronomic year but since the two ‘years’ are of different length and go in and out of phase, annual signal is lost.
There are climate events that physics says they should be closely related, but comparing annual values, no correlation can be established.
Why?
Some are mostly affected by TSI and run on astronomic year, while some are also sensitive to the geomagnetic influence, thus they will not correlate. When length of one ‘year’ is scaled to the other, high correlation is achieved.
England and Ireland are within direct AMO influence, but their winter temperatures run in out of phase with the AMO, because AMO has strong geomagnetic component as implied in my yesterday’s post here.
Can you think of any? Svensmark’s clouds, Parana or Nile rivers water flow?
For two major events that I have in mind, the AMO and NAO, I may write an article soon.
Perhaps as Mr Westhaver said obove someone will discover it in 10 of 15 years time, when we here in the N. Europe are shivering from freezing and much colder winters.
In 15 years from now, some ole abrupt codger will proclaim it already long since known, and not insane, and give you no credit for postulating it in the first place, because alas, today you are insane. Re… Willis E,’s inability to resolve an 11 year signal in the terrestrial climate noise my have more to do with a S-C-A-F-E-T-T-A related tug of war. But, I am speculating.
Science Subversions by ‘Spurious’ Correlations
is my middle name
It is not just the AMO that influences the climate of England and Ireland. The various atmospheric indexes ranging for the AO,NAO,PNA , etc all play a role. This is but one of many examples.
“These surges or ‘whomps’ as we have dubbed them, are responsible for over 95 percent of the large flares and CMEs–the ones that are really devastating,” McIntosh said.
Devastating to what???
Us! – via the electrical infrastructure on which our civilisation hangs.
“Any society is three square meals away from breaking down.”
Who knows, when the actual paper is unavailable from NCAR, Nature Communications, or the Astrophysical Journal, as of five minutes ago. Why make a press release w/o it?
If anyone can find the paper please provide a link.
Is this what you are looking for?
http://www.nature.com/ncomms/2015/150407/ncomms7491/full/ncomms7491.html
Yes. Thanx Alan.
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Cryptic
Try going direct, missing out the WEB Wally crapola.
http://www.nature.com/ncomms/2015/150407/ncomms7491/pdf/ncomms7491.pdf
Gosh! They mean the sun has something to do with the weather, Maybe even climate. And here, I thought it was CO2.
Yes, Siamiam, the Sun has actually got something to do with weather/climate. Piers Corbyn will be laughing his pants off……..:-)
As an aside, with thirteen authors for the piece that’s not many words to go round per author? ;o))
Yes, that’s something I’ve always wondered about these multi-author (often widely geographically spread) papers. WTF do they all do? Take it in turns to write the next word as in a party game?
Naw, they cut deals to mutually inflate their citation and pubs count. $$
Clearly, you have never participated in a multi-author paper. A variety of contributions may be required for the complete paper – usually (or sometimes) one author (usually the first) does the actual “writing” while other authors contribute other components (data, graphs, software or other components – perhaps even writing some content, or an appendix)
Nature works in cycles. Our limited powers of observation in the spatial and temporal phenomena dimensions blinds us and our evolved powers of survival-related intuition sees linear trends.
“The Sun undergoes a type of seasonal variability with its activity waxing and waning over the course of nearly two years..”
Oh Lord. We are going to have the numerologists coming out of the woodwork like termites again.
You watch, the tidal effects will stir up these storminesses and the storminesses will have such a long lasting and pervasive effect that all earthly climate change can be explained.
=================================
Maybe if they get to credit themselves with these “discoveries” they will also (re)discover that each of the rest of the “myths” they purport on the warmist blogs also has a function in climate mechanics. Then CO2 will be brought into it’s correct perspective and dethroned as the omnipotent driver of mother Gaia’s future.
season on earth is controlled by the sun, and on the sun? what are the seasons of the sun? are there rainy and winter?
From what I understand of the artical the seasons are: strongly twisted magnetic, and not-so strongly twisted magnetic.
This current cycle is the first cycle that is clearly in the prolonged solar minimum cycle which is different from all of the solar cycles since the Dalton Solar Minimum. This cycle unlike others since the Dalton Solar Minimum started when the sun was in the midst of an extreme solar lull (which no one predicted) only to have a very extended weak solar maximum period but resulting in very few geomagnetic events here on the earth , to the way the solar polar fields are now evolving which is different from previous cycles, to at this current point in time seemingly fading away at a quite rapid rate.
so now for quite long,
The models are wrong.
So what caused the pause in the warming?
Look to the sun,
The way oceans run,
And the clouds, in complexity forming!
Co2 is too small
To stop temperature fall
When the sun and oceans together,
Begin to cause cold,
Like the cycles of old.
Which deity only remembers.
So if I do some harm
By just keeping warm,
You’ll have to kindly forgive me.
I see my solution
is carbon pollution!
This world will most likely outlive me.
The cause of the pause was the cause before the pause
Thanks, Anthony.
Nothing about the Sun is boring, research is exiting.
Exit stage left?
I dislike the term “season”. It’s not an appropriate analogy.
Cycle would have been better.
I called it solar subcycle in 2007
Subcycle implies an interdependence between the two cycles. At this point it’s still possible that the two are completely independent.
Indeed you are correct on both counts.
According to my hypothesis sunspot cycles (magnetic field and electric current events, the second one hardly ever mentioned) are caused by electric currents and magnetic fields feedbacks between sun and nearby planets with strong magnetic fields. Those are Earth, Jupiter and Saturn, by far the most influential is Jupiter.. J/S synodic period drives 11 year cycle ( link ), while the less influential J/E synodic period ( link) drives sub-cycle.
If I am correct (that is a giant IF) the main driver has two detractors, one minor inside and one major outside its orbit, and in such a case the sub-cycle would be an appropriate name.
If anyone has a better idea which can be demonstrated I am ready to listen.
The sun is increasingly a variable star.
Unfortunately, I find some things here a bit strange. We have a “band” of magnetic fields to the north and to the south and some times the “magnetic fields leak from one band to the other.” Leaks? And they found these bands by observing changes in the density of the “magnetic fuels?” And some how these bands “warp” magnetic fields from the interior of the Sun and push them to the surface? Is this really science I am reading? It does seem to go hand in hand with calling something “whomps” I would guess, but I can only surmise that all this wondrous information came from deciding what “stuff” does and modeling it on the computer to prove it, one “whomp” at a time, so to speak.
Since magnetic fields are produced by moving electrons, it is the flowing of the plasma that the magnetic field follows, when they say leak that means a quantity of plasma has moved and the magnetic field created by the moving electrons in the plasma follows it….
The plasma science of main stream weather and astronomy leaves a little bit to be desired…
Since magnetic fields are produced by moving electrons, it is the flowing of the plasma
The plasma is electrically neutral: the electrons and the protons move together, thus no electric current to produce the magnetic field. To separate electrons and protons you need a magnetic field: no magnetic field, no currents…
They don’t say! Next experts will be telling us that the Sun affects weather here on Earth, but not climate……..oh wait a minute they already have done!
I clicked on wrong a ‘reply’ it should go here
I think that the QBO is a direct consequence (2x 13 months, subject to variability of + or – 2-3 months) . See my post further above
“To separate electrons and protons you need a magnetic field: no magnetic field, no currents…”
-lsvalgaard
Incorrect, the separation requires a differential in electric potentials.
If streams of plasma are flowing in the presence of magnetic fields (sol has a magnetosphere of course),
then the plasma streams are electric currents. basic physics…
But…but…every peer reviewed article I have read, including one on synthesized plasma streams, demonstrate that a plasma stream is neutral and do not have electrically charged currents. Are you saying that a plasma stream has an electric charge to it? Provide links to such research.
A free volume of plasma is quote “quasi-“, meaning ‘on average’ there are present an approximately equal number of ‘charge carriers’. The same could be said for copper, another very good conductor.
By definition, plasmas are an Ionized fluid, [hence the tremendous charge transfer capacity of lightning bolts].
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/463509/plasma
The important solar difference is that the plasma streams are strongly confined by the solar magnetic fields (plural).
https://books.google.com/books?id=wt2CBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA109&lpg=PA109&dq=conducting+plasma+filaments&source=bl&ots=QK94YdpupT&sig=e_a5ONirno9luuAk6c2-RzZ5MC4&hl=en&sa=X&ei=FF8lVb3tJcXLsAXX4oMQ&ved=0CEgQ6AEwBg#v=onepage&q=conducting%20plasma%20filaments&f=false
That was meant to be “quasi-neutral”
In a neutral plasma there is no differential in electric potentials. If there were any its would short out immediately because the plasma is an excellent ]super] conductor.
Evokes the ENSO cycles here on earth. Now you see them, now you don’t.
I think that the QBO is a direct consequence (2x 13 months, subject to variability of + -2-3 months) . See my post further above above