The sun on 08/12/2008 just before midnight UTC – spotless
As many of you know, the sun has been very quiet, especially in the last month. In a NASA news release article titled What’s Wrong with the Sun? (Nothing) solar physicist David Hathaway goes on record as saying:
“It does seem like it’s taking a long time,” allows Hathaway, “but I think we’re just forgetting how long a solar minimum can last.”
No argument there. But it does seem to me that the purpose of Hathaway’s July 11th article was to smooth over the missed solar forecasts he’s made. Here is a comparison of early and more recent forecasts from Hathway:
Click for a larger image
He also seems intent on making sure that when compared to a grand minima, such as the Maunder Minimum, this current spotless spell is a mere blip.
The quiet of 2008 is not the second coming of the Maunder Minimum, believes Hathaway. “We have already observed a few sunspots from the next solar cycle,” he says. (See Solar Cycle 24 Begins.) “This suggests the solar cycle is progressing normally.”
What’s next? Hathaway anticipates more spotless days1, maybe even hundreds, followed by a return to Solar Max conditions in the years around 2012.
I would hope that Hathaway’s newest prediction, that this is “not the
second coming of the Maunder Minimum” or even a Dalton Minimum for that matter, holds true.
1Another way to examine the length and depth of a solar minimum is by counting spotless days. A “spotless day” is a day with no sunspots. Spotless days never happen during Solar Max but they are the “meat and potatoes” of solar minima.
Adding up every daily blank sun for the past three years, we find that the current solar minimum has had 362 spotless days (as of June 30, 2008).Compare that value to the total spotless days of the previous ten solar minima: 309, 273, 272, 227, 446, 269, 568, 534, ~1019 and ~931. The current count of 362 spotless days is not even close to the longest.
Though, Livingston and Penn seem to think we are entering into a grand minima via their recent paper.
As mentioned in “What’s next?”, we are now adding to the total of spotless days in this minima, and since the last update in that article, June 30th, 2008 where they mention this, we have added very few days with sunspots, perhaps 3 or 4.
Adding up every daily blank sun for the past three years, we find that the current solar minimum has had 362 spotless days (as of June 30, 2008).
So it would seem, that as of August 12th, 2008, we would likely have reached a total of 400 spotless days. The next milestone for recent solar minimas is 446 spotless days, not far off. It will be interesting to see where this current minima ends up.
h/t to Werner Weber
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The energy of the solar wind seems to be much affected by coronal hole activity. Wouldn’t this also affect the cosmic rays, and thus the formation of low clouds?
Ted, you beat me to it. I was just wondering what coronal holes were doing during these other minimums. The coronal hole is letting loose with cosmic ray particles and the wind stream picks up more from galactic space and literally throws us a fast ball that lands on the batter. When the Sun is geomagnetically strong, there may still be coronal holes but the Sun’s magnetic field protects our Earth from cosmic ray influence and the “fast ball” of particles sails right by us. I wonder if the combination of low magnetic field protection with coronal hole streams could historically tell us something about our climate.
We just got through getting hit with quite a bit of cosmic “stuff” according to monitors. It is quieting down again. The rise coincided with the coronal hole that swings into Earth view as it rotates around. I also noted a large area of ozone that is quite thin over Hawaii and on and off again thin in central to southern California and Nevada. I just checked today and these states seem to be recovering a bit. The area above Hawaii is still very large. Cosmic rays destroy ozone.
In earlier posts there appeared to be some people taken aback by the idea of snow in Australia. Well, as I write this, the weather channel says that 18 inches of snow have fallen over the last few days in parts of the Snowy Mountain ski areas, so come on down folks and enjoy yourselves!
At the superficial level, AGW is the bogeyman. At the level of deep, animal instincts, cooling is the bogeyman. The human tendency is to be in denial of any possibility of the latter. Because, if the latter were to occur, an incredibly sad epoch would commence. Sadder than anything in centuries.
EDT (10:45:38) :
Are these relationships (”may predict”, “are a good predictor”) based upon experimental observations (i.e. correlating prevoius trends) or are there derived physical mechanisms that can account for this?
These two papers discuss the model on which my own [low] prediction is based. You can there find references to other papers:
http://www.leif.org/research/Cycle%2024%20Smallest%20100%20years.pdf
http://www.leif.org/research/Percolation%20and%20the%20Solar%20Dynamo.pdf
Bob B (10:54:47) :
Leif, has this Livingston and Penn graph showing the extrapolation to 2015 been updated anywhere to include data since 2006?
Yes, Livingston’s data now goes up to 14 April 2008, with the trend still intact.
Most folks in the north side of the hemisphere would get that Aussie’s are donning winter clothing since it is winter down under. What is catching our interest is that once again we are hearing the refrain: Damn its colder [insert country name] this winter than in the last [insert amount of time] years. South America is also experiencing its coldest winter in a loooonng time. Snow and cold weather is fun…for a season or two. Then it gets really old and really costly.
Just clipped this from Weatherzone:
Winter far from finished
Tom Saunders, Wednesday August 13, 2008 – 20:14 EST
This August is rapidly turning into one of the coldest on record for Australia with temperatures averaging as much as five degrees below normal.
Some of the more notable extremes on Wednesday included minimums of minus nine at Glen Innes, minus seven at Inverell and minus five in Tamworth.
Frost has even spread to central Queensland with Clermont recording five consecutive mornings below two for the first time in August in over 45 years. Daytime has brought little relief with Orange shivering through six consecutive days below seven degrees for the first time in August in over 30 years.
The prolonged cold spell is the result of a persistent southerly airstream, a pattern likely to continue over most of the country for the next 10 days.
The cold weather is a blessing for ski resorts which are welcoming fresh snowfalls almost daily. Mt Hotham has recorded 38 subzero days in a row.
– Weatherzone
© Weatherzone 2008
Dr Svalgaard,
Per you statement: Yes, Livingston’s data now goes up to 14 April 2008, with the trend still intact.
Is there a link available to the latest updated trendline?
Thank you,
Wyatt A
Regarding Dr. Hathaway: ‘…the sun’s contribution is small compared to volcanoes, El Nino and greenhouse gases, Hathaway notes.
Even if there were another Maunder minimum, he says, we would still suffer the effects of greenhouse gases and the Earth’s climate would remain warm. “It doesn’t overpower them at all,” Hathaway said.’
From here: http://solarscience.auditblogs.com/2008/06/12/hathaway-suns-contribution-is-small-compared-to-volcanoes-el-nino-and-greenhouse-gases/
If there’s a grand minimum underway, I suspect there’ll be egg-facials all around.
I think Dr. Hathaway is doing a fine job so far. Scientists are not infallible; they can be {and have been} wrong before. Should all the forecasts miss the mark, I expect that Dr. Hathaway will give the equivalent response of, “Back to the drawing board.” Should this present trend continue longer than expected with SC24 coming in far weaker than expected, I think the solar scientists will be looking hard and long at their ideas to find what it is that may have fundamentally changed that they may have missed. If this does happen, I think that in the long run the science will come out all that more stronger.
Pamela Gray, I can just see Kevin Rudd, PM of Australia, cursing his bold initiative to ruin the economy to prevent global warming. In fact, on seconds thoughts, he could just claim victory and retire the policy initiative.
Wyatt A (16:14:17) :
Is there a link available to the latest updated trendline?
No, this is a private communication [somewhat confidential], but you can trust Bill L. [I do].
David Corcoran (16:38:11) :
Regarding Dr. Hathaway: ‘…the sun’s contribution is small compared to volcanoes, El Nino and greenhouse gases, Hathaway notes.
I agree with Hathaway. The solar contribution would be of the order of 0.1 degree or smaller [as it was during the last Grand Minimum, when average TSI was 0.5 W/m2 smaller than now]. Archibald’s 2 degrees has no solid justification.
Leon Brozyna (16:41:51) :
Should […] SC24 come in far weaker than expected, I think the solar scientists will be looking hard and long at their ideas to find what it is that may have fundamentally changed that they may have missed.
Not all solar scientists expect a large SC24. Some [incl. me] have long predicted a small cycle [“the smallest in a hundred years”], so we will not have missed anything.
““It doesn’t overpower them at all,” Hathaway said.’”
Based on his own scientific work? I seriously doubt it. My apologies to Lief here, but it really torques me to see a scientist who is recongnized in one field giving pronouncements in another field, and as long as he is pro warmie, it is reported as God’s writ, but if he is skeptical, it contains all kinds of disclaimers. I would like to see a phrase like “Of course Hathaway is not a climatologist and is in no way qualified to comment on this matter.”
Why not quote Lubos Motl? He is a certified scientist. It would of course never happen. Steve Mc is highly qualified in his field, and if you ever read his resume you would be suitably impressed, but he is dismissed as “a blogger” Steve’s comments on this matter should, by rights, carry far more weight than Hathaway’s who is just quoting the IPCC IMHO.
Thing is though that the warmies poll numbers are dropping faster than Obama’s They need to start answering these questions openly and honestly, and they simply won’t.
Leif, you can say that the difference was .5 W/m2 or whatever as a solar scientist and be well within your discipline, and we have to agree that your numbers are the best we have.
What you can’t say that you know is what the effect of that difference will be on the climate. It is outside your field of specialty.
Look at this story for example:
http://dukenews.duke.edu/2005/09/sunwarm.html
or this
Cyclic Variation and Solar Forcing of Holocene Climate in the Alaskan Subarctic
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/301/5641/1890
There are lots of studies that show unexpectedly (if you trust the models completely) large climate responses to small changes in TSI, this has nothing to do with our knowledge of the Sun and everything to do with our knowledge of the climate.
The people who predicted a weak minimum, years ago, are the wavelet people like Clilverd, and possibly the coronal green line people like Badalyan. It therefore follows that there will be a lot of interest in wavelet analysis from here, whole conferences on it, just as at the moment there are whole conferences on the fairy floss of GCMs.
I believe that Clilverd operates out of the British Antarctic Survey, a hotbed of warmer activity. There was a study of Fenno-Scandinavian tree rings which predicted a weak Solar Cycle 25. Generally, the wavelet people are saying weak (not Dr Svalgaard’s weak – I mean properly weak) Solar Cycles 24 and 25 and then back to normal mid-century. But they are also saying a Maunder-type minimum from the end of the century.
There should also be proper modelling of the agricultural impacts. I recently came across a 1971 map of Canada showing the reduction in growing area due to a 1 degree C decline in temperature. It cut it by a third. I am predicting a 2.2 degree decline, with the potential to be larger. It is not only the length of the growing season that is important. Frosts can wipe out your seedlings.
In summary, the solar deniers are discredited elements, to borrow a term from Marxist dialectic. Only the wavelet people have the track record, and perhaps Badalyan if his work can be replicated.
http://www.ucar.edu/news/releases/2006/sunspot.shtml
BOULDER—The next sunspot cycle will be 30-50% stronger than the last one and begin as much as a year late, according to a breakthrough forecast using a computer model of solar dynamics developed by scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR).
The scientists have confidence in the forecast because, in a series of test runs, the newly developed model simulated the strength of the past eight solar cycles with more than 98% accuracy.
“Our model has demonstrated the necessary skill to be used as a forecasting tool,” says NCAR scientist Mausumi Dikpati, the leader of the forecast team at NCAR’s High Altitude Observatory that also includes Peter Gilman and Giuliana de Toma.
============================
Met O says very similar things about their “new and improved” climate models, ex post facto of course.
http://motls.blogspot.com/2008/07/sun-seen-to-repeat-dalton-minimum.html
Check out Luboš Motl he has a great site!
moptop (17:41:32) :
What you can’t say that you know is what the effect of that difference will be on the climate. It is outside your field of specialty.
First, I will object to the ‘outside of my field of specialty’. My specialty is ‘solar-terrestrial relations’. But let that slide. The important issue is ‘that difference’ and the TSI-experts disagree as to whether there was an increase in TSI. Other groups [e.g. Froehlich’s] claim a decrease [continuing to the present day]; still others [e.g. DeWitte] claim no change. And one of the foremost experts in this field, Judith Lean, said in her latest report at the SORCE meeting in 2008 in discussing variations of TSI on various time scales that ‘5-minute oscillations vary 0.003%, 27-day rotation gives a variation of 0.2%, the 11-year solar cycle yields 0.1%, and longer-term variations are not yet detectable‘. See her slide at http://www.leif.org/research/TSI-LEAN2008.png .
So with no longer-term variations detectable, no solar effect from such longer-term variations are detectable either.
The Scafetta result is not generally accepted and is based on using the occurrence of solar flares as a proxy for TSI although we don’t know the details of such a relationship, if any. Just piling on papers with various claims of solar-climate relations is not useful: there are thousands of them, most of poor quality and often mutually contradictory.
There is an emerging notion that perhaps the sun has varied a lot less than we thought, and it is for that reason that I maintain that any climate variation from such a much smaller solar variation is small. One can ‘rescue’ the solar-climate link by postulating hyper-sensitivity of the climate to even the tiniest solar changes. I personally don’t see any evidence for this [we would probably have had a run-away disaster long ago if such hyper-sensitivity existed – but that is outside of my field, so take that as a personal speculation that you can disagree with – if it falls with your specialty 🙂 ].
Leif Svalgaard (17:16:04)
You’re right of course. I should have said that I think some solar scientists will be looking hard and long at their ideas to find what it is that may have fundamentally changed that they may have missed.
I wonder sometimes, which is scarier, being wrong or being right?
David Archibald (17:42:46) :
The people who predicted a weak minimum, years ago, are the wavelet people like Clilverd, and possibly the coronal green line people like Badalyan. It therefore follows that there will be a lot of interest in wavelet analysis from here, whole conferences on it,
As usual, Archibald does not have his fact straight. Here is Clilverd’s paper:
http://users.telenet.be/j.janssens/SC24Clilverd.pdf on SC24. There is no mention of wavelets, neither in Badalyan’s paper: http://helios.izmiran.troitsk.ru/hellab/Obridko/69688393.pdf
but maybe Archibald has an inside line I [and everybody else] don’t know about?
There is enough misinformation about climate etc floating, so at least we should try to be as accurate as we can.
David,
I know that Leif will disagree but I think that CME and possibly X-type flares may have a large effect on the albedo. The CME’s emit protons that do get down to the troposphere (GEBV protons in think that is right will fix tomorrow if not since my data is at work and not at home, sorry). These protons when they impact cloud forming nuclei and prevent them from forming thus reducing the albedo. When at minimum they are not present and then albedo increases. Then also CRF “may” take effect and further increase, not sure since the jury is out. If you look at speed and intensity of CME’s there is a good correlation to temperature. Also the CME’s combined with the solar wind charge the angular momentum of the atmosphere namely the jet streams. This in turn changes the weather systems around the globe. Sorry if this is vauge but it is the best I can do at the moment.
Can someone tell me what day we are up to for spotless days – my reckoning is 25 (tiny tim sunspot on 18 July). The run before that was 26 days.
If we discounted the tiny tim we would be at 51 spotless day which would put us on 4th rank according to Janssens spotless days page
http://users.telenet.be/j.janssens/Spotless/Spotless.html#Period
(btw the page is way out of date and needs to be updated for our last run of 26 days in July)
BTW, here in Adelaide Australia, the temp. anomoly for this time of year is -2.7 degree celsius for the max and -1.4 for the min.
http://www.eldersweather.com.au/dailysummary.jsp?lt=site&lc=23090
Sorry that is change the angular momentum not charge. LOL
Jim Arndt (18:59:23) :
Sorry that is change the angular momentum not charge. LOL
That’s ok, Jim, there are much worse errors than that. Sorry, couldn’t resist 🙂
Well, I have a couple of questions and a comment plus question.
Over what range of wavelengths is TSI measured?
If TSI is constant, how are coronal mass ejections and other events which shut down power lines and disrupt communications and other similar events accounted for?
I have been operating High Frequency radio since 1952. And, the previous solar cycle minima ~1995 was different (poor radio propagation) in terms of radio than any of the previous dating back to 1952, and this one is worse yet. Ionospheric conditions are supposed to be related to sunspot activity and solar flux, which is variable, even though TSI is not. Explain, please? And, what factor which affects the ionosphere is apparently unaccounted for?