I’m writing this after doing an exhaustive search to see what sort of solar activity has occurred lately, and I find there is little to report. With the exception of the briefly increased solar wind from a coronal hole, there is almost no significant solar activity.
The sun has gone quiet. Really quiet.
It is normal for our sun to have quiet periods between solar cycles, but we’ve seen months and months of next to nothing, and the start of Solar cycle 24 seems to have materialized (as first reported here) then abruptly disappeared. The reverse polarity sunspot that signaled the start of cycle 24 on January 4th, dissolved within two days after that.
Of course we’ve known that the sunspot cycle has gone low, which is also to be expected for this period of the cycle. Note that NOAA still has two undecided scenarios for cycle 24 Lower that normal, or higher than normal, as indicated on the graph below:
But the real news is just how quiet the suns magnetic field has been in the past couple of years. From the data provided by NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) you can see just how little magnetic field activity there has been. I’ve graphed it below:
click for a larger image
What is most interesting about the Geomagnetic Average Planetary Index graph above is what happened around October 2005. Notice the sharp drop in the magnetic index and the continuance at low levels.
This looks much like a “step function” that I see on GISS surface temperature graphs when a station has been relocated to a cooler measurement environment. In the case of the sun, it appears this indicates that something abruptly “switched off” in the inner workings of the solar dynamo. Note that in the prior months, the magnetic index was ramping up a bit with more activity, then it simply dropped and stayed mostly flat.
We saw a single reversed polarity high latitude sunspot on January 4th, 2008, which would signal the start of a new cycle 24, which was originally predicted to have started last March and expected to peak in 2012. So far the sun doesn’t seem to have restarted its normal upwards climb.
If you have ever studied how the magnetic dynamo of the sun is so incredibly full of entropy, yet has cycles, you’ll understand how it can change states. The sun’s magnetic field is a like a series of twisted and looped rubber bands, mostly because the sun is a fluid gas, which rotates at different rates between the poles and the equator. Since the suns magnetic field is pulled along with the gas, all these twists, bumps, and burps occur in the process as the magnetic field lines get twisted like taffy. You can see more about it in the Babcock model.
I’ve alway’s likened a sunspot to what happens with a rubber band on a toy balsa wood plane. You keep twisting the propeller beyond the normal tightness to get that extra second of thrust and you see the rubber band start to pop out knots. Those knots are like sunspots bursting out of twisted magnetic field lines.
The Babcock model says that the differential rotation of the Sun winds up the magnetic fields of it’s layers during a solar cycle. The magnetic fields will then eventually tangle up to such a degree that they will eventually cause a magnetic break down and the fields will have to struggle to reorganize themselves by bursting up from the surface layers of the Sun. This will cause magnetic North-South pair boundaries (spots) in the photosphere trapping gaseous material that will cool slightly. Thus, when we see sunspots, we are seeing these areas of magnetic field breakdown.
Sunspots are cross connected eruptions of the magnetic field lines, shown in red above. Sometimes they break, spewing tremendous amounts of gas and particles into space. Solar flares and coronal mass ejections (CME’s) are some examples of this process. Sometimes they snap back like rubber bands. The number of sunspots at solar max is a direct indicator of the activity level of the solar dynamo.
Given the current quietness of the sun and it’s magnetic field, combined with the late start to cycle 24 with even possibly a false start, it appears that the sun has slowed it’s internal dynamo to a similar level such as was seen during the Dalton Minimum. One of the things about the Dalton Minimum was that it started with a skipped solar cycle, which also coincided with a very long solar cycle 4 from 1784-1799. The longer our current cycle 23 lasts before we see a true ramp up of cycle 24, the greater chance it seems then that cycle 24 will be a low one.
No wonder there is so much talk recently about global cooling. I certainly hope that’s wrong, because a Dalton type solar minimum would be very bad for our world economy and agriculture. NASA GISS published a release back in 2003 that agrees with the commonly accepted idea that long period trends in solar activity do affect our climate by changing the Total Solar Irradiance (TSI).
Some say it is no coincidence that 2008 has seen a drop in global temperature as indicated by several respected temperature indexes compared to 2007, and that our sun is also quiet and still not kick starting its internal magentic dynamo.
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Randy Washburn, can you explain this post a little. I don’t quite understand it. Particularly the “Sixteen Part” part…..
“If Theodor Landscheidt’ s assertions in 1999, Extrema in Sunspot Cycle Linked to Sun’s Motion, are correct and the next “Sixteenth Part” (SP) of the 178.8 Year Solar Retrograde Motion (RSI) is to happen in 2012.5 then the minima of Cycle 23 should have already happened, however the delay means that the SP looks to be switching to the Solar Minima and that would mean that Cycle 23 should last until 2010.6 at the EARLIEST!. That makes for a (14) year Sunspot cycles. Nothing like that has happened since 1790! According to this paper of the deceased professor, GRHS, we are in for 4 to 5 very weak sunspot cycles. Not like the Dalton minima but like the Maunder Minima!”
Evan:
““It’s true that arguing with a committed AGWer is pointless. For them anyway, the debate really IS over.”
Tell me it has not come to that. Any scientific theory (on either side) must be falsifiable.”
Sadly, I think it has, particularly for the True Believers ™. I’ve had one tell me “Even if we’re wrong, it’s the right thing to do.” How the heck do you counter that?
Now, falsifiability. This is important because THEY KEEP CHANGING THE CRITERIA. For example: http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/science/early-warning-signs-of-global-warming-arctic-and-antarctic-warming.html
“Although there is some variability among models, most projections indicate that increased CO2 concentrations will lead to a polar warming that is greater than the global average, with more warming over land than sea and the maximum warming occurring in winter (Kattenberg et al., 1996). ”
That seems pretty clear to me. The poles (both of them) should be warming greater than the rest of the planet. They are exatly half right. The arctic has warmed, but Antarcica has cooled. Furthermore, Kattenberg claims that there will be more warming over land than sea. There’s plenty of land in Antarctica that is not warming (95% of it actually) but the True Believers only ever point to the 5% that is warming (Penninsula). And then 10 years later claim here: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/02/antarctica-is-cold
that a cooling Antarctica does not go against their models.
They’ve changed the falsification criteria. And they will continue to do so.
How do you counter that?
MattN,
I’ve said it before, people that visit this site and their ilk are playing the wrong game here. We believe that it’s ‘facts and evidence’ data channel that will serve as the conduit to truth and victory yet the GWers use the ‘hysteria and fear’ data channel to drown out your message.
They must be sitting back in their chairs and chuckling and, in the (paraphrased) words of a great politician (whether you like his politics or not) “Its the hysteria and fear, stupid!”
I don’t know how to argue facts into the kind of emotionally changed game condition that has been created and get, well, any rational response. Fact is, they MUST panic in their condition… if you plug on hole with intellectual argument, a student of human nature would EXPECT them to abandon the current delusion and pick up another one. It’s the proverbial seven-headed hydra!
We really need to get THAT or we’ll continue to wonder why things aren’t going right… so, “IT’S THE GAME, STUPID!” (I really hate using those words so, pardon my bluntness.)
We’re playing the wrong GAME and it’d be somewhat funny if it weren’t for the fact that getting IT weren’t so danged important!
Jim Rohn said in one of his talks that we need to stop expecting people to be what they’re not… mockers MUST mock, cheaters MUST cheat, …! It’s OK for them to do what they do the GWers are the ‘hysteria and fear’ people, they’ll do THAT, we’re not going to change what they are and what they do.
We don’t have to agree that what they do is right, just that they are what they are! We can’t expect them to be different than they are, we just need to be good enough to recognize WHAT they are and design effective strategies to combat them. So far, after 15+ plus years and more countries becoming forced into the delusion (Australia is the latest I think) we might suspect our current approach isn’t working.
Maybe we just have to do more and do it better but, insanity has been defined as doing the same thing and expecting different outcomes! So far, I’d say we’re manifesting early (maybe late) signs of that affliction.
This may not be a SATISFYING answer but, I believe it’s a fair assessment of the current game condition.
I’ve had one tell me “Even if we’re wrong, it’s the right thing to do.” How the heck do you counter that?
By bringing up Pascal. Ehrich made the same argument. The answer is that it is NOT the right thing to do. Do a reverse-Pascal on them: Destruction, waste, and noncreation of wealth will kill far more millions than Global Warming at its worst ever could, and will leave us relatively poor and backward, thus incapable of dealing with the proplem if it actually turns out to be real.
“THEY KEEP CHANGING THE CRITERIA. ”
Yes, I’ve noticed that.
“How do you counter that?”
Jocularity. (With an assist from Fischer’s Fallacies.)
Like it or not, this is war. It isn’t one that the skeptics started or wanted. The AGW behemoth uses lies, personal attacks and smears, threats to occupation, censorship, and self-righteousness, among other things to force their beliefs onto humanity. So far, they’ve been extremely successful. Many, for various reasons, be they political, occupational, or monetary have jumped onto that bandwagon, and it is a huge, lumbering one. Woe betide any misfortunate skeptic who jumps in its path.
I believe the key to stopping that bandwagon lies with the public. Climate science continues on, and it is fascinating, and much of it further disproves AGW. But, as far as the public is concerned, it’s just more noise, and too complex. AGW is drummed into them continually by the media (although that appears to be changing somewhat now). They need to hear the truth, and it needs to be kept simple. C02 doesn’t cause climate change. It’s the sun.
Write letters to the editor (that’s what I do), congressmen, talk to people about it (might want to feel them out, first, though). Whatever you can do. Silence is deadly to truth.
And, keep up the good work, Anthony!
“THEY KEEP CHANGING THE CRITERIA. ”
In all fairness, both sides have constantly moved the goal posts. When I first became fascinated with the GW issue back in the late 90’s, Skeptics, for the most part, thought the whole issue was a bunch of hooey (some still do). This fairly quickly evolved into, “OK, we acknowledge that the temperature has risen about a degree in the last century, but that’s still no big deal, and there’s no concrete evidence that man has contributed in any significant way.” The next step for we Skeptics was to trumpet the potential benefits of GW. Finally, a couple years ago, Skeptics began asking Warmists, “OK, let’s assume you’re right — what do you suggest we do to solve the problem?” I get the distinct impression that, when we got to that point, the Warmists decided that, while they weren’t actually losing the debate, their lack of reality-based solutions would be exposed, and the debate itself might just go away, and thus they moved the goal posts to “global climate change”. That’s a oversimplification, but the issue has clearly evolved.
I figure if we can just keep the debate going long enough, nature will settle it. Personally, I think it’s a shame that anyone on either side views it as a win-lose situation. Clearly Anthony doesn’t, and that’s what I love about this forum.
Bob B, why do you think Feb will be warmer than Jan.? My money would be on the same or colder.
Stan, I disagree. It might be true for most about the changing criteria, but I went straight to “not so sure” and “even so, so what” back in the 90s when we had to study this in HS biology.
And, Joe in SanDiego, I’d much rather be wrong than cold. Luckily I don’t expect much opportunity to be wasted. We’ll stick to the feel good, pretty stuff that doesn’t really harm or help. We’ll leave all that carbon offsetting to the experts: Hollywood Celebrities and excentric billionares. One nice thing about those people who don’t change is that they won’t put up with actual costs, not for long.
FYI it should be “people WHO visit this site”.
I am not an ILK!
“Its the hysteria and fear, stupid!” Yes, and the very basis of those emotions is ignorance. Combat the ignorance, however you can.
15 day with no activity. The last sunspot over 2 weeks ago was so small I have difficulty really calling it one. It lasted little more than a day and was a low latitude spot associated with cycle #23. There has been no high latitude activity (cycle #24) since the small reversed one appeared last month. Solar flux has flatlined at ~70.
http://www.solarcycle24.com/
[…] article here. Hat tip: Climate Debate […]
Most of the east coast of Australia is on track to have the coldest February on record. In past summers we have seen temps up to 50d c and this year we barely get around 30 often hovering in mid to low 20s. Often people say oh its la nina but when its hot then why dont they say oh its el nino instead of global warming, global warming. Theres another solar cycle 24 prediction meeting due in March – if we keep going on with this blank sun it will be fascinating to see what they say. We live in interesting times.
my only question is very short term in nature
what will the direction of sun spots be from
MARCH 6 TH 2008 TO AUG 6TH 2008
pretty up front thinking . as for the global warming debate
my thoughts are this , when everyone in the masses believe
something to be true then most likely they ( the masses )
are all wrong , hence global warming is a lie
and global cooling is the next direction .
and from what ive read on the subject the data supports
the same thinking .
so ill go back to my question at the top of the page
WHAT HAPPENS FROM MARCH 6TH TO AUGEST 6TH 2008 ?
joe
“it will be fascinating to see what they say”. Oh, probably something to the effect of, “yeah, we knew that”, and “climate chaos” blah, blah, blah; and of course, we’ll likely get an upward spike in temp., and they’ll say “see, it’s the C02, we told you”. In short, they will continue to lie and spout their C02 pseudo-science, even as the temps continue their downward trend.
They are already away at a gallop, Bruce. (25/02)
Have read: Lack of solar activity for 5 years. This will mask the heating effects of bad-man CO2 for that period, gving us an unexpected opportunity to get ahead so that when the sun becomes active again…
All bases covered. Carbon offset business protected. Moral highground still well above sea level. Let’s party!
And if a large, heavy ash-type volcano eruption occured in concert to the solar inactiviey? The cooling rate would accelerate rapidly.
The brainstorming going on here is absolutely fabulous. What if’s are just the thing we need in our current climate of blinder science.
So here is a what if:
What if we are looking at the wrong side of the peaks? Cosmic rays bombard earth during MINIMUMS (ie cosmic ray peaks are up while ssn peaks are down). Cosmic rays destroy ozone. Ozone is our greenhouse roof. Without the roof, we cool off. hmmmm?
If the sudden drop in 2005 is not an artifact we are being bombarded with cosmic rays and our ozone is likely getting thin if the theory holds true. Could be why I am sleeping under a winter pile of blankets in April because our blanket in the sky is now just a thin sheet.
1. Can we change the geomagnetic data into anomaly data?
2. Then can we do the same thing with cosmic ray measures reaching earth?
3. Finally can we find ozone data and do the same thing to it?
4. Then can we put the temperature anomaly data together with 1, 2, and 3 and show all on the same graph?
The problem is that NASA and the solar physics community do not know what causes the Sun’s “internal magnetic dynamo,” nor the cycle of magnetic storms that appear at the solar surface.
Despite all the fictitious details that they told us about distant stars, NASA and the solar physics community do not understand even the most basic features of the only star close enough for them to study in detail – the Sun.
http://arxiv.org/pdf/astro-ph/0502206
That is why this unholy alliance of federal bureaucrats and “group-think” physicists hope you will believe that Earth’s heat source does not control Earth’s climate.
Mr Watts:
It is now a few more months since this article, and still seems to be very little sunspot activity. I check for them daily and haven’t heard any more about the apparent lull from the media.
I did see a little spot a week or so ago. Now – nothing.
What’s up?
Charlie
REPLY: Try clicking on the main page link “Home” to keep abreast of new articles.
This is an interesting step back :O
U.N. IPCC scales back climate change report
Pete Chagnon – OneNewsNow – 4/8/2008 10:45:00 AM
Marc Morano, a spokesperson from the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee minority staff, says the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is scaling back on its previous dire predictions of catastrophic climate change.
The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee (EPW) says that with each successive report from the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), there is less cause for alarm than previously thought. Morano points out that in the recent 2007 report, man’s alleged impact on “global warming” was scaled back by 25 percent while ocean-level rise was also reduced.
According to Morano, this is the 13th year that rapid warming has been predicted and advertised in the media by Al Gore and the U.N., but it has failed to occur. “So at some point, they’re getting worried — and now you have record winter in the Northern Hemisphere and record winter in the Southern Hemisphere, [as well as] global cooling to the extent from 2007 to 2008 that was rather significant and surprised a lot of scientists,” Morano contends.
He also says the U.N. is realizing and acknowledging that there is continually less cause for alarm on the subject.
“And now you have a cooling …. [But] NASA scientist James Hansen [is] trying to say ‘well, warming will resume soon, but this is just [a] natural factor [with] the ocean circulation,’ but the fact of the matter is the head of the U.N. [IPCC] Rajendra Pachauri came out recently and said we have to investigate this apparent temperature plateau,” Morano notes.
The Senate committee staff member contends Al Gore is currently trying to sidestep the issue.
I recommend reading an article in the March 2005 issue of the Scientific American called “How did humans First Alter Global Climate?”.
Although the ideas in the article have been termed controversial they do give you a good feeling about the unexpected benefits of global warming. Also the article emphasizes the long term cycles related to earth wobble, incident solar radiation changes and variations in CO2 levels. I especially like the graph on page 53, suggesting what might happen to global temperatures when we stop burning fossil fuels (they plummet).
To some extent this article also explains why climatologists thought global cooling was more likely back in the 60s and 70s and then changed to worrying about global warm. I have heard this used to make the argument that climatologists have no idea what they are talking about and thus scientist should not be trusted. Probably unfair but an effective NERF (not easily refutable) comment.
Generally, I think you have to be very tempered when criticizing peer reviewed material. It is very likely that we are causing global warming. However, it is also likely that global cooling can occur and this is at least as concerning.
In a bigger sense, I wonder if we ought consider the possibility that we are actually, albeit accidentally, involved in climate control. That in itself, carries enormous social responsibility, as your ‘good’ weather will someone else’s ‘bad’ weather. However, we might all be able to get behind that idea
Having frozen in the winter in the UK when I was young; I can tell you without reservation that the perfect winter temperatures and the 95% humidity at 95oF for 3 summer months that I experience in Texas, is an enormous improvement.
Yours hoping we will soon return to an age of reason rather than one of belief.
This is largely the fault of scientists themselves, and science programs. They tend to speak in absolutes when they really have only a small percentage of certainty. As I’ve mentioned before, you’ll see scientists on documentaries saying Venus is an example of a runaway greenhouse effect. Sorry, but we know very little about Venus, and absolutely nothing about it’s history. But you’ll hear them say these things with certainty.
So it’s not that they don’t have any idea what they’re talking about, but they need to show some humility when it comes to uncertainty.
I think there is definitely financial / establishment incentive to follow the preferred or current scientific thinking. However, a well trained scientist will always be skeptical and tend toward proving the null hypothesis and experimental reproducibility. But I do understand that even a scientist, at some level, will worry about his or her well being and family, before science.
I also think a problem occurs when a scientist uses the general media to put forward ideas. Whilst this is an improvement for the purposes of general discussion, the normal cyclic process of correction and review is short circuited to some degree. Scientific humility would go a long way to help this process along with the media avoiding sensationalism for profit (unlikely I think).
So, if we are going to discuss complex issues in the general media, (an idea I skeptically support) then we need to ensure that we “the public” have the tools to consider the scientific issues at hand. A healthy skepticism and the ability to consider all sources with some degree of rationality are needed.
I would be very happy to see a course at school titled something like “Logic and Skepticism – ain’t nothing to sniff at!” At the very least this may help people to distinguish propaganda and invective from scientific theory. Another aspect here is to instill the idea that theories do change and that they are not immutable.
Having said all that I am reminded of a comment by Douglas Adams “Man is so amazingly primitive that he still thinks that digital watches are a pretty neat thing”
On a subject more specific to this blog; have you heard if the predictions for cycle 24 are going to be “officially” lowered? I ask because the predictions I have seen said that June was the extreme end for the start of the high count prediction.