Below is a note forwarded to me by John Sumption from Jan Janssens. For those who do not know him, Jan runs a very comphrehensive solar tracking website here.
Jan included the caveat:
This topic’s sure to start another heated discussion on the solar blogs
So I’m happy to oblige by posting it here. Jansen makes some good points about the possible first month that cylce 24 spots exceed cycle 23 spots. But when you are in a deep minimum like this one, it is hard to pinpoint the transition, because next month may bring the reverse condition. He writes:
Prior to August 2008, only 3 SC24-sunspot groups appeared. This was in January, April and May. During these 3 months, SC23-activity was higher than SC24-activity. Based on the NOAA-numbering, there were respectively (SC23 to SC24) 2 to 1, 2 to 1, and 4 to 1 sunspotgroups visible.
In August, there were no sunspotgroups numbered by NOAA. However, on 21-22 August “something” was visible well enough to be seen by several observers and to prompt the SIDC to give a (preliminary) non-zero sunspotnumber for those days.
This group had a SC24-polarity but appeared on a moderate latitude of 15 degrees. Based on previous cycle transits, it is not unusual that some “early” new cycle groups appear this low. If one considers this as a sunspotgroup and belonging to SC24, then August was the month during which SC24-activity outnumbered SC23 activity.
However, if one adheres strictly to the NOAA-numbering, then September ***might*** be that month. I stress “might”, because -unless some group appears tomorrow or tuesday- the score will still be 1 to 1: On September 11th, NOAA did number an even tinier group than the August one, and it was a SC23 group (NOAA 1001). SC24-activity then wins on “points”, because the Wolfnumbers for 22-23 September produced by NOAA 1002 (SC24) were higher than the NOAA 1002 Wolfnumber.
Last but not least, I want to emphasize that SC24-activity will be considered higher than SC23’s when its smoothed group (or Wolf) number exceeds that of the old cycle. This might happen in the coming months (or whenever her Majesty the Sun feels up to it 😉
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Glenn (15:28:50) :
“We don’t know why this works,” says Hathaway. The underlying physics is a mystery. “But it does work.”
Since correlation is not causation, the Sun is very likely to prove him wrong this time. It didn’t work last time either; only by creatively widening the error bar could he get it to fit.
Anthony,
As you suggested, I have struck out on my own to try and find this site an ‘official oceanographer’ in similar capacity to Leif Svalgaard. Not knowing precisely where to start, I contacted Drs. Gray and Klotzbach of Colorado State to see if they could suggest anyone of said expertise that could donate their time and knowledge to help better our understanding and the quality of our debate. They may be able to help themselves, I suppose, but I think their expertise lays more in atmospheric sciences than in oceanic currents; although of course their work does necessarily touch on that since the two are connected. I just sent it tonight, and being that they are busy men I do not expect an answer for some time. But I will let you know if/when they contact me back and what they might say or suggest.
Here’s keeping my fingers crossed.
Neilo:
“nobwainer,
By what mechanism does C-14 become a proxy for sunspots?”
be10 and c14 are the most accepted forms of proxy measurements in regard to sunspot counts, more can be read here http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=1076
The actual mechanism is derived from the chemical reaction occurring in the atmosphere that produces c14 as a product of cosmic rays. Cosmic rays constantly bombard Earth’s atmosphere. Chemical interactions create a fairly constant source of stuff called carbon-14, which falls to Earth and is absorbed and retained by trees. But charged particles hurled at Earth by active sunspots deflect cosmic rays. So when the Sun gets wild, trees record less carbon-14.
In his book;’The Great Famine’, Prof. William Chester Jordan (Prof. of History at Princeton) has collected writings from the early 14th Cent. that tell of cold wet summers that overwhelmed the agricultural practices of the day and caused severe food shortages. The bad summer weather started in Great Britain in 1314. The next seven years so devastated food production in Western Europe that the period was called “The Great Famine’ by writers of the day, who were used to localized famines. By the third or fourth year, most of the draft animals took sick and died. Not a problem now but when the fields are too wet to support the harvesting machines it might produce the same results. Time will tell.
Two items: First, a surprisingly quick response from Dr. Klotzbach declining to speak here because he does not feel he is qualified as an ‘oceanographer.’ I thanked him and asked if he could suggest anyone. A reply to that is pending. No response from Dr. Gray yet, but I expect a similar one. I have sent a similar request to Joe D’Aleo at Icecap via the comment form. Speaking of that site, look what I found here:
A fascinating (if not suprising) paper (h/t: Icecap) calling out supposed non-profit environmentalist groups as basically nothing more than political action committees (PACs) for the Democratic party. The paper is authored by Senator James Inhofe (R-Okla.) and his staff. I haven’t read the whole thing yet, but I expect it to be good.
http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Files.View&FileStore_id=142d595f-411a-4057-b495-029a095fe25f
nobwainer (21:01:01) :
“Chemical interactions create a fairly constant source of stuff called carbon-14, which falls to Earth and is absorbed and retained by trees.”
Actually, C-14 is produced when N-14 absorbs a neutron then emits a proton (hydrogen ion). The new isotope has a half life of 5,730 years. Hate to be a nit picker, but this is a nuclear interaction, not chemical. Love the site, Anthony. I work with a bunch of engineers at a nuke plant and it gives us good coffee conversation in the morning.
Recycle: I request that updated versions of this article be produced monthly. Only a few months until we can ask the same of 2009.
Robert Bateman: I don’t suppose you might happen to be the world-reknowned wildlife painter? This, of course, is somewhat unlikely, given the medium and the commonality of your first name. If so, however, you’re a true genius and I would hesitate to challenge your astute attention to detail as you observe the natural world. However, it is important to point out that local observations in a single year are of little relevance. Where I live, the forecast is also for near record-breaking warmth over the next few days. However, the globe has noticeably cooled over the past few years during a time of increasing CO2 concentrations, with especially cool temperatures in the southern hemisphere. Some of this may be related to oceanic sea surface temperature oscillations, but why discount solar effects when there are correlations between sunspot cycles and climate over the ages. With the reduction in the solar wind of late, we are stuck in the midst of a solar system-scale science experiment that may reveal the answer to whether greenhouse gas-induced global warming is the key driver, or merely a variable that can push the baseline upward a bit. I for one, actually hope for a small SC24, so that we can actually gather some data on whether the increase from the 1940’s onward was really due to greenhouse gases and not due to solar warming. Overall, my personal opinion is that there is indisputable proof that all measures of solar cycle strength affect the Earth’s climate. There is also indisputable proof that greenhouse gases have a small, positive radiative forcing effect on the Earth’s climate. There is also virtually no doubt that sea surface temperature oscillations (see 1998 compared to 1999) and volcanic eruptions (see 1992-1993) add noise to the picture that is almost as large as the overall trend in any given year. In the face of all this, we can argue one way or the other wrt AGW and back it up with a lot of data. Ultimately, I would like to see GCMs that include all of the above. Politics may prevent this from happening, I’m afraid.
Another Update: I never expected this to move so fast, but then again this is my first time doing something like this too. Anyway, Dr. Klotzbach has responded yet again, this time to my request for suggestion on a qualified ‘official oceanographer.’
He says: “Dr. Gray would certainly be qualified. I’m not sure if he has the time to contribute, though. If you don’t hear from him via email in the next couple of days, I would suggest contacting him at [phone number deleted here for privacy]. He can probably point you in the direction of another oceanographer or two.
For my point of view, oceanographers like Wallace Broecker (Columbia University), John Marshall (MIT) or Josh Willis (Jet Propulsion Lab) would be very interesting to have as contributors to your website if Dr. Gray isn’t available.”
I kindly thanked him for the time and advice and congratulated him on his promotion to leading contributor on the Tropical Storms Forecast reports CSU puts out. So I guess we shall await Dr. Gray’s reply to see what else develops and who he would recommend if he is not available for comments or contributions himself. Josh Willis of JPL would be most interesting considering it’s a part of NASA. John Marshall might, however, know Richard Lindzen too – both are from MIT. I don’t know enough about Dr. Broecker to comment. Again, I guess we’ll see what Dr. Gray thinks.
More on C-14 cycle –
When the C-14 decays, basically what happens is that it returns to N-14 when the neutron decays into proton changing the atom back to N-14. The emitted particles are an electron and anti-neutrino.
C-14 is also created in ice by fast neutrinos reacting with oxygen atoms.
Recalling my college physics from the recesses of my brain dredged up this from back in 1982 before Mann disposed of the Little Ice Age.
Banded Corals: Changes in Oceanic Carbon-14 During the Little Ice Age
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/218/4567/13
I remember reading the entire paper in college, but have long lost that issue.
C-14 production is correlated to cosmic ray influx. Cosmic rays increase during solar minimums. LIA was during a solar minimum. C-14 increased during LIA as measured in coral. QED.
Anyone have access to the paper?
Dee,
I can’t find that exact paper, but here is one from Dr. Ellen Druffel from 2002. She does cite some of her older work in there. I’m guessing that Geophysical Research Letters would probably charge you for a copy. But who knows. Anyway, here is what I found.
http://www.tos.org/oceanography/issues/issue_archive/issue_pdfs/15_1/15_1_druffel.pdf
As to my quest for an official oceanographer, Josh Willis makes me uncomfortable due to his close associations with Dr. Hansen. He might still be interesting, but I don’t think he is the one we would want. Dr. Broecker on the other hand says this on a page I found via Google.
“As I sometimes tell my students, the folks in the back room who designed our planet were pretty clever. We have clear evidence that different parts of the earth’s climate system are linked in very subtle yet dramatic ways. The climate system has jumped from one mode of operation to another in the past. We are trying to understand how the earth’s climate system is engineered, so we can understand what it takes to trigger mode switches. Until we do, we cannot make good predictions about future climate change.
My research is directed toward the role of the oceans in climate change. Over the last several hundred thousand years, climate change has come mainly in discrete jumps that appear to be related to changes in the mode of thermohaline circulation. We place strong emphasis on using isotopes as a means to understand physical mixing and chemical cycling in the ocean, and the climate history as recorded in marine sediments.”
And that is very encouraging!
http://webcenter.ldeo.columbia.edu:81/people.nsf/571fc08d39383f1185256efc004fcb7e/85190ba5e1cfe7c685256ef300647df4?OpenDocument
a lot about the influence of the sun on the next
EMS Annual Meeting
European Conference on Applied Climatology (ECAC)
29 September – 03 October 2008
Amsterdam, The Netherlands
http://meetings.copernicus.org/ems2008/index.html
http://www.cosis.net/members/meetings/sessions/oral_programme.php?p_id=330&s_id=5722
This topic’s sure to start another heated discussion on the solar blogs So I’m happy to oblige by posting it here. Jansen makes some good points about the possible first month that cylce 24 spots exceed cycle 23 spots. But when you are in a deep minimum like this one, it is hard to pinpoint the transition, because next month may bring the reverse condition. He writes: Prior to August 2008, only 3 SC24-sunspot groups appeared.
————–
Nikimathew
Buzz marketing
From this site
http://dxlc.com/solar/
“Cycle 6 began in December 1810 with a smoothed sunspot number of 0 and ended in May 1823.”
Could someone enlighten me in regard to how a cycle can be declared to have begun with a sunspot number of 0? ‘Nothing can come of nothing’, as King Lear observed.
Cycle 6 was, of course, the depth of the Dalton Minimum.
Josh knows from his Argos buoys and thermal contraction of the oceans that there is no ‘extra heat’ in the pipeline. Why these mavens work so hard to ignore the great cooling, is a mystery to me.
==========================
‘look outside , what do you see’
Well, in Northern Europe we are enjoying a faboulous Indian summer thanks to the high pressure system, but it’s cold in the morning and evenings. it’s definately Autumn here, the Autumnal colours start to show.
O/T
A few days back on this site
(http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/09/22/new-cycle-24-sunspot/)
we saw a wonderful graph, could we see this graph with ice core data in it from hundreds of thousands of years ago? (http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/pubs/solanki2004/fig3a.jpg) That would be interesting to see. then perhaps we could see the link between ice ages /eruptions/and sunspots.
Dee,
Sorry the paper you refer to never existed.
Ministry of Truth
Reply – Keep it up and off to Room 101 you go! – Dee
@Kim
If you keep track of RPS blog, he’s had much correspondence with Josh Willis on the OHC data being publicly available. It’s like pulling teeth from a wounded bear. You are correct; Josh Willis and others are avoiding the subject of cooling. Keep in mind these “mavens” have put all their eggs in the AGW basket. To admit error will have the consequence of ruining the reputations of many.
Note both OHC and sea level data which Josh Willis is involved in are not being updated in near real time. The sea level data is on hold until end 2008 when it will be updated. It is not cooperating with model predictions, so maybe is due for a “correction” 🙂
In any event it will be interesting when the 2008/2009 data comes in.
http://sealevel.colorado.edu/
Arthur Glass (03:11:04) :
“Cycle 6 began in December 1810 with a smoothed sunspot number of 0 and ended in May 1823.”
Could someone enlighten me in regard to how a cycle can be declared to have begun with a sunspot number of 0? ”
The word “smoothed” is key. From Jan Janssens note above:
“…SC24-activity will be considered higher than SC23’s when its smoothed group (or Wolf) number exceeds that of the old cycle. ”
Have a look at the latest SIDC graph
http://sidc.oma.be/html/wolfjmms.html
and you’ll see the current smoothed sunspot number (red line) is now very close to zero.
OT.
The WSJ ran an editorial this AM (Sept. 29) titled Gore’s Rebellion.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122264832997183967.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
They address Gore’s urging young people to resort to civil disobedience to stop new coal plants that don’t use carbon sequestration.
A new plant in North Carolina would actually replace older boilers and cut emissions of sulfur dioxide by 80% and nitrogen oxide by a half.
The CEO’s home has been vandalized.
They finish their piece with this:
“Meanwhile, China is set to build 800,000 megawatts of new coal generation over the next eight years. That’s 1,000 Cliffsides — or more than two-and-a-half times the size of America’s total installed coal capacity, with none of our environmental guardrails. Even if every U.S. coal plant were razed to the ground tomorrow, it wouldn’t make any difference for global CO2 while China expands.
We look forward to seeing Mr. Gore take his “civil disobedience” against coal to, say, Shanxi province. He’d better bring a lot to read.’
Bobby Lane (23:42:26) :
I’m not sure what Lindzen is up to – his recent paper on the corruption of climate science ought to cut off funding and he may find himself out of work. OTOH, I just noticed in his bio that he got his Phd in 1964, so maybe it’s an experiment with either outcome being acceptable.
He will be the keynote speaker at the 2008 Southern New England Weather Conference on October 25. See http://www.sneweatherconf.org/index.shtml . He’s mostly an atmospheric guy. Joe D’Aleo will be there too, reviewing last winter here and looking at the next.
BTW, you may not get a reply from Joe. Icecap keeps him pretty busy, and while the various circulation patterns are one of his specialties, I don’t think he’d call himself an oceanographer. You might look for students of Henry Stommel, who was a pioneer in the field. A lot of my http://wermenh.com/1816.html came from his book “Volcano Weather.” Dang, my main link to him is broken, perhaps it should be http://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=5859&page=331 .
@Cathy:
I wouldn’t be surprised to read that Mr. Gore got sued over the actions of some disobedient youth who took his call to action too far.
I suspect the Nobel Committee is cringing about now.
In this post, as a rebuttal to claims I unfairly compared AGW indoctrination to Hitler, I review the history of the Hitler Youth.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/09/08/an-inconvenient-youth/#comment-38050
Here is the gist of my comment:
The Hitler Youth was founded in 1922, only one year after Hitler took control of the NAZI party and founded the Sturmabteilung (aka the SA or stormtroopers). It was created to prepare boys 14 or older for future enrollment in the SA and indoctrinated them in the NAZI rhetoric that Jews and other degenerates were a threat to the Fatherland. It taught them that they were the future ‘Aryan supermen’ needed by the German nation. This was a year before Hitler attempted the Beer Hall Putsch (1923) and was imprisoned at Landsberg am Lech where he (and Rudoph Hess) wrote the first draft of Mein Kampf. In 1930, the German Youth for boys from 10 to 14 was created as a subdivison of the Hitler Youth. Three years later, the Reichstag (1933) burned and Hitler was able to seize total power in Germany. By December 1936, Hitler Youth membership (which now stood at 5 million boys) was made mandatory for all boys. And I think we should all know how it ends from there. (Source: Wikipedia Hitler Youth)
From the example of Hitler and NAZI Germany, it would seem that childhood indoctrination precedes the rise of the totalitarian state. So perhaps you are correct and my hind-brain was indeed equating the rise of Hitler with the practice of seemingly innocent indoctrination of children to emotionally believe that AGW, Big Oil and skeptics pose a threat to our homeland.
Once again, that is absolutely disgusting, Dee. Your rhetoric comparing education about AGW to Nazi brainwashing is morally wrong and absolutely absurd.
Of course, telling kids that recycling isn’t hard is just about the same thing as telling them that they belong to a race of genetically superior beings.
Of course, it is mandatory that all youth in America embrace the golden philosophy of the religion of AGW and that they spread it to everyone whenever they can.
Of course, there is no refuge from the AGW-horde; there are no websites or forums where people congregate and discuss opinions counter to the doctrine-of-society-that-is-so-official-that-if-you-question-it-you-are-burned-at-the-stake.
I am offended by your remarks on a personal level. If anyone else had posted similar remarks, Mr. Watts would have deleted them without hesitation. There is no indoctrination of AGW going on; even at the University level, in gatherings of the High Council of AGW Priests, we crack remarks about the shortcomings of AGW all the time. Perhaps you should go back to grade school and see this for yourself. That you can jump from some sort of imaginary happening to a full-blown invocation of Godwin’s Law is quite extraordinary.
Dee Norris (06:35:03) :
I wouldn’t be surprised to read that Mr. Gore got sued over the actions of some disobedient youth who took his call to action too far.
I suspect the Nobel Committee is cringing about now.
I suspect the Nobel Committee is unaware, see them at
http://nobelpeaceprize.org/
@Counters:
I was wondering where you have been. Good to see you are still with us. How is school going?
As you well know, I didn’t originally make a connection between the two but when I was accused of making it and after a review the history of the Hitler Youth, I posted what I learned. BTW, as I pointed out, membership in the Hitler Youth was not mandatory until after Hitler took power.
I leave it to the reader to decide if there is a pattern. If you don’t see it, or feel there is a pattern, why all the fuss?