After the August 21st sunspot debacle where SIDC reported a spot and initially NOAA didn’t, mostly due to the report from the Catania Observatory in Italy, we have another similar situation. On September 11th, a plage area developed. Here is the SOHO MDI for 1323UTC:
Find the sunspot in this image – Click for a larger image
Here is another from a couple hours later, 1622UTC :
Find the sunspot in this image – Click for a larger image
Note that in the large versions of both the above images, you’ll see a tiny black speck. That’s NOT the “sunspot” but burned out pixels on the SOHO CCD imager.
To help you locate the area of interest, here is the SOHO magnetogram for the period, as close as one is available to the above image time. It shows the disturbance with the classic N-S polarity of solar cycle 23 close to the equator:
Click for a larger image
The Catania Observatory in Italy included it on their daily sketch, as barely visible:
Click for a larger image
By contrast, the Mount Wilson Observatory in California did NOT show this on their daily drawing:
Click for larger image
The Catania photosphere image for that period did not show any disturbance:
Click for larger image
But the Catania chromosphere image did show the disturbance:
Click for a larger image
At the time our resident solar physicist Leif Svaalgard postulated and then retracted:
Leif Svalgaard (17:40:36)
Leif Svalgaard (07:06:37) :
BTW, right now Catania is seeing a pair of tiny spots at 7 degree North latitude (these are old cycle 23 spots): http://www.ct.astro.it/sun/draw.jpg
I don’t think NOAA will assign a region number to these spots unless the region grows in size.
Well, I guessed wrong:
http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/ftpdir/forecasts/SRS/0912SRS.txt:
I. Regions with Sunspots. Locations Valid at 11/2400Z
Nmbr Location Lo Area Z LL NN Mag Type
1001 N06E14 179 0020 Bxo 03 02 Beta
Please welcome cycle 23 region 11001.
And then a few minutes later went on to say:
Leif Svalgaard (18:35:44)
Leif Svalgaard (17:40:36) :
Please welcome cycle 23 region 11001.
REPLY: The MDI hardly shows it at all. – Anthony
http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/data/realtime/mdi_igr/1024/l
I would say not at all, And Mt. Wilson neither:
http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~obs/intro.html
Kitt Peak NSO had it:
The region died sometime between 17h and 20h UT. One may wonder why this Tiny Tim was elevated to an ‘active region’. Perhaps NOAA is getting nervous now after all the brouhaha and don’t want to be accused of ‘missing’ spots…
Anyway, it is now gone.
And Robert Bateman added:
Robert Bateman (21:45:42)
http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/ftpdir/latest/DSD.txt
NOAA gave it a go.
2008 09 11 67 12 20 1 -999 A0.0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
So let’s recap:
We have a disturbance that shows up briefly, then disappears in a couple of hours, some observers call it a spot, others do not, or their time of observation (Mt. Wilson for example) was perhaps past the time of visible activity. The “spot” itself is even less pronounced than the sunspeck that was elevated to sunspot status on August 21st, yet NOAA assigns it a spot status this time, where on August 21st they did not, only doing so AFTER the SIDC came out with their monthly report on September 1st. See my report about that event here and the follow up email I got from SIDC when I questioned the issue.
Now 100 + years ago would we have recorded this as a spot? Doubtful. It is most pronounced on imagery from satellite or specialized telescopes. Would the old methods such as a dark filter or projection used 100 years ago have seen this? As I pointed out before, we now have a non-homogeneous sunspot record mixing old techniques and instrumentation with new and much more sensitive instrumentation, and more coverage. Yet even with this we have disagreement between observatory reports.
How long does a sunspeck (or sunspot) have to be present before it ranks as countable? What standards are in place to ensure that observers use the same type of equipment and techniques to count spots? Is there any such standard? From the perspective of the public and laymen at large, it seems that there’s some randomness to this science process.
In my opinion, science would be better served if these observational questions and the dataset inhomogeneity is addressed.
I’m sure Leif will have some commentary to add.
And as Robert Bateman writes in comments: So, we are still having these SC23 bubbles popping up. Why won’t this cycle give it up? The $64k question.
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Robert Bateman (08:15:48) :
Is there a list for the length of these crossovers previous to SC21/SC22?
No, and the plot you see, is my own work. I’m also working on extending that back to the 1860s, but the day only has 32 hours [that’s including the 8 hours time difference with GMT 🙂 ].
Have patience, there are the Glenns, the Garys, the Alecs, etc that take a big bite out of the available hours.
Robert Bateman (08:15:48) :
“Is there a list for the length of these crossovers previous to SC21/SC22?”
No, and the plot you see, is my own work. I’m also working on extending that back to the 1860s
Shameless Plug: you can help fund my sunspot work via PayPal (leif@leif.org) like Robert Woods did.
Gary Gulrud (07:17:29) :
This has no persuasive import
When Lean & Rind find:
100 yrs: 1905– 2005
0.0028 ± 0.0006 ENSO
-0.0029 ± 0.0004 Volcanic Activity
0.007 ± 0.001 Solar Activity
0.059 ± 0.001 Anthropogenic Forcing
One must, of course, as part of the ‘Anthropogenic Forcing’ count the fact that some of that forcing has been on the data rather than on the atmosphere, e.g. the various ‘adjustments’ that have been made to the data. But I think your knee-jerk reaction missed my point, which was that these strong correlations do not imply causations [in spite of Alec]. Or to put it differently: some people claim strong solar correlation with a strong effect, Lean & Rind claim a very weak solar correlation [or rather a strong correlation with a weak result]. You can’t have it both ways. We are now back to dueling correlations.
I don’t buy your defense of purpose. One would show an example of strong correlation between unrelated variables and another between variables dependent on a third cause not included to blow away the correlation == causation inference.
The example chosen does not serve this purpose.
“One must, of course, as part of the ‘Anthropogenic Forcing’ count the fact that some of that forcing has been on the data rather than on the atmosphere, e.g. the various ‘adjustments’ that have been made to the data.”
Are you implying science may use questionable data in PCA to obtain useful results? Looks ripe for an audit.
@Leif
“Still, you’ve been a good sport, which is very nice. If it seems that I’ve been trying to twist your arm, well, only in a good way.
I’m not a good sport. I’m an old cranky scientist that has studied this thing for 40+ years. You cannot twist my arm if you wanted to.”
Leif…you have no idea how informative and enjoyable your posts are to folks like me. Thank you for taking the time….
If you ever get tired of winter and decide to visit Florida, please let us know as I would drive anywhere in the state to sit down and have a cold one with another old crank….
cdl
Leif:
I stated very clearly several times WHY a high degree of correlation between solar activity and temperature over many thousands of years implies that solar activity is driving temperature: because such a close and extended a correlation cannot be coincidence, and it cannot be the earth’s temperature that is driving solar activity.
You answer by asking if the correlation between recent population growth and solar activity implies causation.
I said flipping a thousand heads in a row cannot be coincidence. You answer in effect: “So flipping one head cannot be coincidence?”
You are just as perverse on the question of counterexamples. I tried several times to get you to answer whether you were challenging Singer’s and Svensmark’s claims about extended close correlation between solar activity and temperature when all you were offering were a few conflicting data points. Now you suggest that your counterexamples are actually time series, and that the vast majority of time series are on your side. Or are you just talking hypothetically? Again, you can’t answer a simple question.
When I suggested that you seemed to be dodging the question of whether you were challenging Singer’s and Svensmarks claims of extended correlation, you answered with a Danish schoolyard sing-song: I’m not dodging but you are.
No, I have been very straightforward. If you are sincere on wanting some documentation on longer term correlations, here a couple citations from Singer. (I am not presenting myself as an expert on this data. I am asking if you are denying what Singer and Svensmark have said about it.)
On ice core data going back 90,000 years, Singer cites Perry and Hsu, 2000: “Geophysical, archaeological, and historical evidence support a solar-output model for climate change.”
For much longer term correlation between GCR and temperature, he cites Shaviv and Veizer, 2003: “Celestial driver of Phanerozoic climate?”
If you want to deny these correlations, fine. Deny it. What I have been criticizing is your seeming to accept that there is an overall strong sun-temperature correlation, but thinking that it can be dismissed by focusing on the points where the two don’t match up, which is patently ridiculous. Of course other things might also be happening to affect temperature and disturb the correlation. What a high degree of correlation over many thousands of years would tell us is that solar activity is the PRIMARY modulator of global temperature. That in turn would imply that high 20th century solar activity had had a warming effect, which has been misattributed to CO2 by the IPCC.
Pretty darned simple, but if the subject doesn’t interest you, so be it.
I think that the Sun and its properties do not change much. But I also think that the Earth’s atmosphere is very sensitive to external forcing, not because of large changes in the Sun but small changes over a long period of sustained time. If a small change is made on the stove, candy will not get to the desired change in hardness. And only small changes make a HUGE difference in how candy turns out. To me the Sun is like that. The longer your pan of candy stays on the stove under the same temperature, the more likely your candy will change, and the changes are sudden. The longer the Earth’s atmosphere stays under the Sun’s current events (high or low magnetic fields, UV light, etc) the more likely the temperature conditions will start to change. And adding ingredients to the Earth’s atmosphere will bring about even more changes. The ingredients would be the stew we call gases and the water circulating on our planet. All of which are likely not well mixed. When these Earth cycles coincide, the temperature changes when the Sun is in a constant state for a long period of time, either active or sleeping. So I don’t think the Sun changes that much, but I think the Earth changes greatly in response to the Sun’s small changes, especially when those changes become stable inbetween shifts from active to quiet, much like the stove top temperature dial and the candy cooking away.
Watch carefully when cooking candy. It can change from chewy caramels to rock hard jaw breakers in seconds. The Earth is like the candy. It can change rapidly from warm to cold, or visa versa, if left on the Sun’s slightly cool or slightly warm stove too long.
I watch the ozone measurements regularly. It never fails that if ozone stays at a minimum level over areas that have lots of water vapor available, pretty soon a matching cloud cover develops over the same area covered by the thin ozone. What has changed? The ozone appears to be changing under a constant bombardment of cosmic rays. What is available to help this happen? Water vapor. So the Sun didn’t suddenly change, but the Earth’s stew did under the Sun’s constant conditions, aided by a special mix of Earth’s stew in a specific area.
Notice the cloud cover in an area of thinned ozone. Wasn’t there at first. But after several days of this thin ozone, the clouds showed up.
http://cimss.ssec.wisc.edu/goes/rt/viewdata.php?product=o3_us
Gary Gulrud (11:15:08) :
I don’t buy your defense of purpose. One would show an example of strong correlation between unrelated variables and another between variables dependent on a third cause not included to blow away the correlation == causation inference.
The example chosen does not serve this purpose.
Are you implying science may use questionable data in PCA to obtain useful results? Looks ripe for an audit.
Please speak English for me and the folks.
Alec Rawls (14:39:05) :
On ice core data going back 90,000 years, Singer cites Perry and Hsu, 2000: “Geophysical, archaeological, and historical evidence support a solar-output model for climate change.”
is one of the best examples of ‘cyclomania’ I have seen in some time: “Reported cycles in various climate-proxy data show a tendency to emulate a fundamental harmonic sequence of a basic solar-cycle length (11 years) multiplied by 2N (where N equals a positive or negative integer)”. c.f. Usoskin’s paper quoted earlier:
Usoskin, S. K. Solanki, and G. A. Kovaltsov
Accepted 25 May 2007
Results. The occurrence of grand minima/maxima is driven not by long-term cyclic variability, but by a stochastic/chaotic process[…]
What a high degree of correlation over many thousands of years would tell us is that solar activity is the PRIMARY modulator of global temperature.
The hundreds of thousands of years is rapidly shrinking, it seems. And a low degree of correlation [as observed] would then tell us that solar activity is not the PRIMARY modulator of global temperature.
What I have been criticizing
I have taken your ‘criticism’ much too seriously [it is my wont to respond to people the best I can]. Maybe it is time for me to stop ‘being perverse’. And about Singer’s book: There are good things in it and there are bad things in it. Among the bad things is the insistence that there are strong 1500-year solar activity cycles that are PRIMARY [that was actually your word] drivers of the 1500-year cycles in temperatures [the latter somewhat observed – with a few misses].
If that were the case the solar and atmospheric quantities should be clearly and visibly correlated and matched up, which they are not.
I will look forward to seeing that. Should be interesting.
Leif Svalgaard (08:33:00) :
Robert Bateman (08:15:48) :
Is there a list for the length of these crossovers previous to SC21/SC22?
No, and the plot you see, is my own work. I’m also working on extending that back to the 1860s, but the day only has 32 hours [that’s including the 8 hours time difference with GMT 🙂 ].
Is Leif saying that all the past warmings and coolings are due to natural causes related to our planet and that this present warming is due to man. Is he saying that the sun plays only a minor role, if so perhaps he can enlighten me as to the cause of these past warmings and coolings.
Rob (10:37:33) :
Is Leif saying that all the past warmings and coolings are due to natural causes related to our planet and that this present warming is due to man.
I don’t know where you get that idea from.
Let me repeat [from 9/15 08:36] how I see it:
“Finally, it is a fallacy to think that the issue is a choice between 0% AGW, 100% solar or 100% AGW, 0% solar. The truth is closer to X% AGW, Y% solar, Z % orbital, and W% other. One can then discuss the relative sizes of X, Y, Z, and W. In my opinion [which you can take or leave] X is small, Y is small, Z is large, and hence W is what is left [W includes a lot of things: volcanoes, ocean circulation, salinity, etc]. Since the time scale of Z is very long, on shorter time scales W becomes the dominant effect.”
Is he saying that the sun plays only a minor role, if so perhaps he can enlighten me as to the cause of these past warmings and coolings.
Regardless of the past warmings and coolings [some are even disputed] direct observations of the Sun shows that it does not vary very much. One of the strongest observations [go look at post on 9/15 16:43] is that the Sun cannot have been any dimmer in the past [excluding the billion year time frame] than it is now at activity minimum. And the 5-year variation from sunspot minimum to maximum is too minute (0.1%) to have any impact. So, the most recent observations show that the Sun is VERY steady and that the various warmings/coolings must be caused by something else as I outlined with the X,Y,Z,W example.
Now, there are various ways one can react to this. I’ll run several by you:
1. You could say that solar scientists don’t know what they are doing, or are lying cheats, or it is one big Government conspiracy to conceal the truth from Joe Sixpack. If you do that, you are home-free and can merrily go on with your life [I’ll refer to that as YAHF].
2. You could say that in spite of our observations, there are so many things we don’t know about the Sun, that it is folly to apply what we have just learned to the past, If you do that YAHF.
3. You could say that, so what if the sun hardly varies, the climate is hypersensitive to even the smallest changes. Against that I will point out that in the course of every year there is a very large change in what we get from the sun, namely 90 W/m2, compared to the measly 1.5 W/m2 change between solar minimum and solar maximum, that if the climate is so hypersensitive we should see a huge effect from the 60 times larger yearly variation, and we don’t. You could say that that is all baloney in which case YAHF.
4. You could say that it doesn’t matter what I say, you have invested so much in your viewpoint that any change is too painful, if you do that YAHF.
5. You could say that 100 years from now [when we finally have figured out how all of this works] you’ll be vindicated after all, if you do that, YAHF.
So there are many ways to stay happy in a steadfast belief.
“Please speak English for me and the folks.”
Nolo contendere?
“If a small change is made on the stove, candy will not get to the desired change in hardness. And only small changes make a HUGE difference in how candy turns out. ”
Lady Gray has the grasp of one consequence of Lorenz’s ‘butterfly effect’; chaotic loops can exit suddenly on small additional inputs. Whether we had such a point of comparative stasis in solar effect, at the turn of the millenium, now disrupted, is open to question, but the sorting out is near at hand.
“we don’t use statistical predictions anymore.”
It’s a beginning.
Gary Gulrud (12:35:30) :
“Please speak English for me and the folks.”
Nolo contendere?
No, it is just what you said didn’t make any sense [at least to me].
YAHF?
So, since we don’t have extreme sensitivity from the primary heat source, why on earth would one think we’d have extreme sensitivity to minor elevantions on trace atmospheric gases?
Jeff Alberts (13:19:20) :
So, since we don’t have extreme sensitivity from the primary heat source, why on earth would one think we’d have extreme sensitivity to minor elevations on trace atmospheric gases?
You tell me, or if at a loss for words, go over to tamino http://tamino.wordpress.com/ or realclimate http://www.realclimate.org/ for a refresher 🙂
In any case, we are not talking about large temperature changes, only of the order of 1%, and a physically complex system with lots of internal couplings and feedbacks could easily sustain a 1% noisy change [including whatever Man is claimed to be doing to it] from time to time, it would seem to me.
From physics.org:
http://www.physorg.com/news140866561.html
The conclusion seems to be [although cautiously not stated explicitly] that the current ‘slowdown of global warming is just the calm before the storm [a tipping point]’. Incredible. The conclusion is based on a correlation involving eight ancient ‘climate shifts’ and the assumption that correlation implies causation. No mechanism is given, except that “Besides climate change, slowing down may also be an early warning sign for other systems, since it is a universal property of systems approaching a tipping point. The scientists suggest that slowing down could precede tipping points in areas such as disease dynamics, physiology, and social and ecological systems.”
“Be aware that this is controversial and is being met with stiff resistance from the ‘all-time high’ crowd.”
And also the “no one has made a plausible case either way” crowd.
Gary Gulrud (14:32:00) :
“Be aware that this is controversial and is being met with stiff resistance from the ‘all-time high’ crowd.”
And also the “no one has made a plausible case either way” crowd.
And who might that be? I don’t know any one [with actual knowledge of the issues] belonging to that crowd on this particular issue.
‘The prolonged solar minimum is also occurring at a time of reports in the northern hemisphere of continued sporadic-E enhancement on both the ten and six metre bands.’
Got that from a link posted on SolarCycle24.com
It sounds like increased long-wave radio waves, source unknown.
Leif, are you aware of anything about this?
I’ll see if I can dig on it in the meantime.
Robert Bateman (16:56:29) :
reports in the northern hemisphere of continued sporadic-E enhancement […] source unknown.
Nothing mysterious. Sporadic E are just patches of a bit higher ionization in the ionosphere. They can occur at any time [although around Christmas is a favorite]. Radio hams can bounce signals off sporadic E and use them as communication links.
Robert, here is a good reference on Sporadic E: http://www.amfmdx.net/propagation/Es.html
They don’t seem to be related to solar activity in any way.
Re: the candy metaphor. If you don’t have a very good dial on your stove, you have to watch the candy thermometer constantly. With the small changes that occur on the stove heat coils as they heat up and cool down to stay within the temp dial, the candy can suddenly jump to hard crack when what you really wanted was soft ball stage. Or maybe the candy never gets to the stage you want because the heat source isn’t quite hot enough. Worse, as the temp of the candy is just beginning to increase, the rate is as slow as a snail so you momentarily look away, then suddenly the temp jumps and you have to start all over again because you don’t want to take your kids to the dentist to fix broken fillings. The ingredients of candy make it a dicey dish to try. Melting chocolate poses the same problem. Your heat source can be relatively constant (even though the coils heat up and cool down to maintain a somewhat constant temp). The chocolate however acts all crazy.
I think the constant stew like mix of our atmosphere are like the various ingredients in candy but even worse, because the ingredients aren’t well mixed and change in amounts from year to year, season to season, month to month, and day to day. That means that in some years, the Earth will react to the influence of the Sun more readily than in other years. Or seasons, or months, or days.
Lets say we have a warm ocean current in the Arctic and a strong wind, but cold weather and an active Sun (as in UV or magnetic field, or, etc). I think the melt will look very different than if we have a cold current, weak wind, warm temps, and a quiet Sun. The mix is very complex which means to me that SOMETIMES the Earth is hypersensitive to the Sun and sometimes it isn’t. I don’t think the Sun drives our temps as much as the conversation between the Earth and Sun does. Sometimes the conversation is heated and sometimes it is not. What may be of use here is to see what kind of cycle we can pick out from each of these variables as stand-alone data. It would then be possible to see whether or not these cycles ever come together in a way that would predict my freezing fanny or sweated brow.
So small changes in the heat source may not affect the candy at all and you end up with goo. Or a small change may give you the perfect melt in your mouth taffy. And maybe the best advice is that whatever you do, go to confession and receive communion before ever trying to cook a batch of candy. Or predict the Earth’s temperature.
‘Nothing mysterious. Sporadic E are just patches of a bit higher ionization in the ionosphere. They can occur at any time [although around Christmas is a favorite]. Radio hams can bounce signals off sporadic E and use them as communication links.’
Ok, I got it, used to be called “skip” I think. My dad was a ham operator.
I do think that thinned ozone combined with abundant water vapor combined with cosmic rays results in clouds. That is different than already formed clouds that swirl through the Pacific on their way towards the US loosely following the jet stream (as an example). I am talking about overlaying same time and place zone looping maps of ozone thinning, water vapor, and cloud formation. My favorite place to watch this event, the Pacific Ocean and western US, has been very consistent over the summer and currently. Water vapor is present. Ozone thins. Cosmic rays beat through the stew into the water vapor, and sure enough, cheesecloth like clouds show up. Then when the ozone thickens up again, the clouds clear away, not move away, they just clear away. I have also noticed that in places where there is less water vapor but the same amount of thinned ozone and cosmic ray bombardment, the cheesecloth clouds do not form. I don’t know if the water vapor turned cheesecloth cloud cover is doing anything to temps. But it sure is interesting to watch.
I wish our planet had bright colors for all its various gases. Then we would look like Saturn as its relatively poorly mixed gases swirl about each other.