Animation courtesy Michael Ronayne. Click for larger, slower speed animation
NASA’s David Hathaway just recently updated his solar cycle prediction and has pushed cycle 24 into the future a little more once again. Though to read his latest update on 10/03/08 at his prediction page here, you wouldn’t know it, because the page is mostly tech speak and reviews of semi relevant papers.
However, there is one graphic, the familar one above, that has been updated and tells the story best. Michael Ronayne was kind enough to provide an animation (above) that shows the march of time as far as solar cycle 24 predictions go. With the latest update (static image here) the startup of solar cycle 24 has been pushed into 2009.
This isn’t the first time NASA has moved the goalpost. Back in March I did a story on NASA moving the goal post then, and since then they’ve moved the cycle ahead twice, once in April and again now in October.
NASA isn’t the only one having to update predictions, NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) has also had to make several adjustments to their graphic:
Animation courtesy Michael Ronayne. Click for larger animation
And there is more change in the current thinking on sunspots. As Michael Ronayne writes:
After ignoring sunspots for two and a half years the New York Times finally ran a story and BLOG posting on the current state of the Sun.
Sunspots Are Fewest Since 1954, but Significance Is Unclear
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/03/science/space/03sun.html
Climate and the Spotless Sun
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/03/climate-and-the-spotless-sun/
Details of the recent NASA reports on Ulysses and the Spotless Sun were minimal and the Times failed to mention NASA’s report that the Sun was dimming. The Times reporter speculated on possible connections between solar activity and Earth climate but such speculation was of concern to some Times readers who made their views know in the Dot Earth BLOG. Perhaps the Times should avoid controversial phrases such as “Little Ice Age” in the future. I decided to make a post on the Dot Earth BLOG about some of the graphic records I have been collecting of past SWPC and NASA sunspots predictions. Apparently my input was not fit to print because the moderator did not allow it to be posted to Dot Earth. Attached is the text of my submission to the New York Times. I thought the posting was quite balanced and am not sure what warranted it being rejected.
As you review the SWPC and NASA predictions, note that the outer envelope for the onset of Solar Cycle 24 for the SWPC Low Prediction (http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/SolarCycle/SC24/ssn_predict.gif) is January 2009, while the NASA prediction has been moved out to July 2009. Watch the two animations carefully and note where the changes were made in the NASA predictions.
I am writing a segment on Sunspot Predictions which will be posted in Wikipedia, at the following URL, when it is done:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunspot
It will be interesting to see when solar minimum actually occurs. I suspect that we will be in for a long wait. I will keep the above animations current as SWPC and NASA post their monthly updates.
Lots of scrambling going on to get in tune with the sun these days.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Katherine (08:11:17) :
Wouldn’t the changing barycenter of the solar system induce something akin to tides in the sun?
——————————
From the other forum I gathered that Dr. Svalgaard has moved here so I have to be very careful how to say this; but here it is:
Dr. Svalgaard is correct in his assessment about tidal effect. However there is another aspect of the Sun’s movement about barycentre that should be looked into:
There is possibility of significant and variable (over two loops) orbital solar axis precession. In case of a planet the ratio of the planet’s radius and its orbit radius is extremely small, the resulting gyroscopic effect of the planet’s rotation enables it to keep the rotation axis inclination to its orbit relatively constant. Since the Sun’s radius and its orbit’s radius have values of the same order, the possible result may be certain amount of its axis precession along its orbital path. Also, the planets gravitational forces act on the Sun at variable resultant angle in respect to the solar equatorial plane, adding to its axis precession. ( ? )
As far as the sunspots periodicity is concerned I do not believe that movement around barycentre or tidal effect has any significance, but I would suggest an alternative view as shown at:
http://solarcycle24com.proboards106.com/index.cgi?board=general&action=display&thread=64
and then make your own mind.
Hi Leif Svalgaard
Im new here, having just read your above article are you PRO-AGW?
It’s just that SI must have been part of the warming process and contributed to the warming of the oceans since the last ice age on a gradual scale. [url=http://www.junkscience.com/Greenhouse/irradiance.gif]SI[/url] accelerated the warming even more after 1950 to give the Earth a climate change.
If it was not predominantly SI then what warmed the Earth CO2?
jonk (11:25:38) :
How have the planet induced tides been calculated?
Recycling one of my answerss at ClimateAudit:
“instead of me going through a long explanation, I’ll just refer to a good one at http://mb-soft.com/public/tides.html
Working through the math one gets that the tides by the Moon on the Earth is 367 mm high [mm = millimeter = 1/25.4th of an inch]. Inserting values for the Sun and Jupiter one gets a tide 0.47 mm high. Put all the other planets where you want, their individual times will be less that this. Venus’ is almost as high as Jupiter’s. All together, the tidal effects are of the order of 1 mm. Compare this to the convective overturning of the photosphere in Texas-sized granules moving at 1-2 km/sec [that is 1000,000-2000,000 mm/sec] and you might be able to see that planetary tidal effects can be ignored. Of course, there are always people that have problems with numbers, so, think of a large truck running over an ant at 100 miles/hour. The effect of the ant on the trajectory of the truck is relatively much larger than the tidal influence of the planets on the matter of the Sun. This much was known to Isaac Newton in the 17th Century. BTW, the tides by Jupiter on the Earth is 1/500 of a millimeter [at closest approach]
The Space Weather Prediction Center has updated its plot of the Geomagnetic Planetary Index (Ap) for September – still very low. See “ISES Solar Cycle Ap Progression” chart at the bottom of this web page:
http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/SolarCycle/
CO2Skeptic (12:13:45) :
If it was not predominantly TSI then what warmed the Earth CO2?
The Sun warms the Earth. Most of that heat [300 times as much as in the atmosphere] goes into the oceans which are the heat store of the climate system. Small changes in the circulations of the oceans might have a large climate effect. There are ocean-related weather/climate effects called El Ninos, for example. Just an example of how it is not an either TSI or CO2 question. There are many factors involved, even volcanoes from time to time. [they tend to cool the Earth].
CO2Skeptic, the TSI increase contributed only about 0.15C to the temperature. The rest was from other factors like the ocean cycles. — John M Reynolds
Leif, when are you going to update your research web site? I find it very useful as a good source of data.
NGC masking AGW in Fairbanks, Alaska
http://www.weather.gov/climate/getclimate.php?wfo=pafg
STATION: FAIRBANKS AK
MONTH: OCTOBER
YEAR: 2008
LATITUDE: 64 49 N
LONGITUDE: 147 52 W
DY MAX MIN AVG DEP
1 32 23 28 -7
2 38 24 31 -3
3 32 24 28 -6
4 33 14 24 -9
5 31 20 26 -6
Thank you for that interesting link Leif. Intuitively, Jupiter’s mass didn’t seem like it would have much effect on the sun. It’s nice to have my thoughts backed up with solid calculations.
Is it true that 4 billion years ago the solar constant was 80% of the present value and that it has been increasing linearly since then? (except for small fluctuations)
As long as we are going to mention barycentric and Landscheidt, why not mention Charvatova? He believed in 2000 that the sun would be Dalton-like to 2040.
http://www.ann-geophys.net/18/399/2000/angeo-18-399-2000.pdf
Bob B (13:17:07) :
Leif, when are you going to update your research web site? I find it very useful as a good source of data.
The Sun changes so slowly…
Which data are you most interested in?
Sorry: The energy accumulated in the oceans….Came from????
Dr Leif today has a radiant smile…….
Leif Svalgaard (13:01:27) :
CO2Skeptic (12:13:45) :
If it was not predominantly TSI then what warmed the Earth CO2?
The Sun warms the Earth. Most of that heat [300 times as much as in the atmosphere] goes into the oceans which are the heat store of the climate system. Small changes in the circulations of the oceans might have a large climate effect. There are ocean-related weather/climate effects called El Ninos, for example. Just an example of how it is not an either TSI or CO2 question. There are many factors involved, even volcanoes from time to time. [they tend to cool the Earth].
Well we are certainly agreed on that.
The only doubt in my mind is whether oceanic changes are enough on their own (all other possibilities being relatively minor and tending to cancel each other out most of the time) to cover all observed changes in global temperature trend from from Maunder Minimum to Modern Maximum.
Since the sun needs to replenish the oceanic heat store it must have some relevance but apart from suggesting a link between oceanic and solar changes I cannot personally do any more good here and will just have to await the results of future real world observations.
It would be good enough for my ideas if it turned out that the solar effect was insignificant and that the netting out of all the oceanic oscillations was enough in itself to explain all that we have observed.
The Hot Water Bottle Effect could stand on it’s own without solar if need be but as a lifelong weather observer I believe I do see demonstrable links between solar changes and climate changes. It might not be enough for the hard nosed amongst us but plenty of researchers including Leif are still looking into it and that should be enough to resolve the issue in time.
Pet Rock (14:19:53) :
Is it true that 4 billion years ago the solar constant was 80% of the present value and that it has been increasing linearly since then? (except for small fluctuations)
Basically yes. The standard statement is that the Sun 4.5 billion years ago was at 70% of present. There is very little doubt about that. Our models of the solar interior have been validated by helioseismology and neutrino measurements, so they are very ‘robust’ now. As always, you can find people with weird ideas, like a neutron star residing at the center of the Sun and such, but they are taken seriously.
A small question on this chart:
http://www.leif.org/research/TSI-LEIF.pdf
You have spoken about an average solar cycle variation in TSI from peak to trough of each cycle of 1 W/m2. You have also said that the average change in TSI since the Maunder Minimum to the Modern Maximum was 1 W/m2. Thus every cycle recently has provided about 1 W/m2 more energy than every cycle during the Maunder Minimum (on average) unless I have misunderstood. And the effect is cumulative over time due to the storage ability of the oceans.
The short term spikes clearly cover a wider range so we can ignore those but just compare the Leif 2007 periods of 1950 to 2000 and 1650 to 1700.
Can you really be confident that the hugely different characteristics of TSI during those two periods did not have a significant effect on global temperature given the historical record of cold during the former and warmth during the latter ?
Your chart Leif 2007 shows
And that extra 1 W/m2 over and above the Maunder Minimum value has been fed into the system constantly on a daily basis over a lot of cycles.
like a neutron star residing at the center of the Sun and such, but they are NOT taken seriously.
Pet Rock (14:19:53) : “Is it true that 4 billion years ago the solar constant was 80% of the present value and that it has been increasing linearly since then? (except for small fluctuations)”
[url=http://books.google.com/books?id=Q12AaljGQvYC&pg=PA52&lpg=PA52&dq=4+billion+years+ago+the+solar+constant&source=web&ots=v7vciD3MUK&sig=6oyTYCNIe2thTaSQA_NFvjLeoUg&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=14&ct=result#PPA57,M1]yes.[/url]
[…] NASA moves the goalposts on Solar Cycle 24 again Animation courtesy Michael Ronayne. Click for larger, slower speed animation NASA’s David Hathaway just recently […] […]
The 1W/m2 I don’t accept, but don’t have the abillity to deny, either. This is a variability in Solar Irradiance; wot abowt the magnetik fields and particals, guv?
Also, irradiance is not the same as insolation, which is controlled by albedo, especially cloud cover.
However, I do not expect to sea “global temperatures” to vary within 11 or 22 years; I reckon at minimum 60 years.
Write this one down. I predict that in April of 2009 they will move the “goalposts” of the start up of that MIA cycle yet again. Exactly how many times does it take for some government agency to predict an event and, upon that event not happening over and over, then for people to ignore them. It will happen when it happens. What’s the obsession with prediction? And why isn’t there any mention of all this wonderful research and new data we are supposed to be getting from a ‘quiet sun’? Why don’t we just wait until is actually starts, sans predictions, and then start to talk about it? This is idle chatter from an idle government agency.
Anonymoose,
ModelE, does project an 11 year cycle in its “projections” Somewhere
over at Lucia’s, she, JohnV, and I discussed this. Chapter 10 AR4. table 10.2
ModelE and a couple others include a projected solar forcing. Most others
( coded as C) use solar forcing for 20th century only. At least that is the way,
Lucia, John and I read the table. I believe that gavin confirmed this. When you look at graph “a”, on the page you linked you will see a dotted line for 2000 and beyond and a notes that says 11 year cycle assumed. The models only care about TSI. I leave it to Leif to explain to you the variability of TSI in the past ( on his view) and its impact on cooling and warming.
Anthony, Check your email I just copied an unusual weather statement from the Fairbanks Alaska NWS. I some food for thought.
Bill Derryberry
CME spotted. Cycle 24 getting revved up?