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.
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Leif, It is apparent that a massive jump in both temperature and pressure occurred in 1978 at the start of solar cycle 21. Regardless of the actual dynamic of UV at the time the atmosphere became more penetrable.
This was the origin of the Great Pacific Climate shift.
We have a multivariate relationship in a column of air attached to a sphere by gravity. Its P,V and T.
The strong relationship between aa and 200hpa temperature is indicative of the forces involved. That this is the case can be regarded as surprising given that V and P are also involved.
…….. Find many stations ……..opsss
http://www.surfacestations.org
great Leif
‘As far as I know it is the Night Temperature that has increased globally and not the Day Temperature. This is another interesting piece of the puzzle. Clouds at night?’
Consistent layer or cheescloth with shrinking openings? There could be many means to achieve the same result. A roiled reflectivity during the day ( a dielectric filter that transmits equally in both directions) but at night reverses and lets far less out. It still fails to explain why daytime temps do not show the same increase because of higher retained temps during the night, but a photo activated inward reflectivity due to massive light pollution could be a game breaker. I have always detested the blasted things (overcrowded streetlighting) and the massive waste of precious energy they represent.
Clouds of photonic pressure at specific wavelength, Leif.
What could that do to upset the applecart?
Erl Happ (18:08:50) :
Boyles Law
has nothing to do with it. The mass of the overlying atmosphere is determined solely by the number of molecules in the column. The total integrated weight of that column is the pressure. But what is important is actually just the number of molecules [as long as the gas is tenuous enough [which it is]]. So the pressure should be a strong function of [corrected] aa-index. This is the crucial test. As a sign of scientific integrity, you should declare up front that you drop your theory if there is no correlation [you can specify what level of significance you will consider: 95%, 99%, 99.9%, …]. This is how it is done. During one of the meetings of the NASA/NOAA Sunspot Prediction Panel, I asked Dikpati if her theory could be saved if the sunspot number came out less than the current cycle. As a good scientist she said: “in that case, my model is wrong, and must be abandoned”.
Erl Happ (18:26:22) :
It is apparent that a massive jump in both temperature and pressure occurred in 1978 at the start of solar cycle 21.
The minimum was in 1976. And if the start of a cycle is important there should be many such great climate shift, once every 11 years or so.
Leif Svalgaard (20:22:23) :
The mass of the overlying atmosphere is determined solely by the number of molecules in the column. The total integrated weight of that column is the pressure.
In measuring the cosmic ray flux at the ground one finds that the flux varies with the hour-to-hour variation of pressure. This is because there are more molecules [more mass] for the CR to ‘penetrate’ before being measured when the pressure is higher. The CR flux does not vary with temperature, only with pressure [or equivalently: number of molecules].
Leif and Erl, good heavens, this is interesting, but Leif, surely there is something more recent than Nineteenth Century measurements and comparisons. Surely we are now sensing things about the sun and the solar wind that were not measured back then.
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Leif
Yes, the mass of the overlying atmosphere is determined solely by the number of molecules in the column.
And the number of molecules will be a function of the kinetic energy of each molecule that determines the distance between them.
As the temperature rises, so does the pressure. The molecules exert a force in all directions which results in an increase in the volume occupied. Part of the extra volume occupied will be vertical and part horizontal. So the number of molecules in each cubic meter diminishes in proportion to the horizontal component.
The transition from the weak solar cycle 20 to the strong solar cycle 21 was unusually momentous. It takes a couple of years after solar minimum for the aa index to pick up. An El Nino event is a multi year occurrence. The full shift was not accomplished till the end of the El Nino of 1983, as the aa index peaked, well after sunspot maximum about 1980. In consequence sea surface temperatures in the tropics jumped to a new plateau 0.5 degrees higher.
“In measuring the cosmic ray flux at the ground one finds that the flux varies with the hour-to-hour variation of pressure.”
Pressure and temperature vary together, and the cosmic ray flux varies with the number of molecules in the way. So, you make my point for me.
Why am I hearing a back and forth about nothing in Heaven or on Earth can possibly change the temperature of the Earth? Should I infer that since the Earth accreted and condensed X number of billions of years ago, that the global temperature has remained insignificantly constant?.
The Ice Ages were nothing more than super thick polar caps with scorching deserts between them. Yes, no , mabye?
Kim,
You are being very voluble. Nice to know you take a continuing interest.
Robert Bateman (22:16:32) :
It’s subtle. But powerful nevertheless. The mechanism allows for a wide variation in temperature response depending upon the changing position of the continents and the orbital characteristics. If the sun were closer to the Earth in July rather than January the Earth would chill very considerably, perhaps even setting us up for an ice age.
Erl Happ (21:50:08) :
And the number of molecules will be a function of the kinetic energy of each molecule that determines the distance between them. As the temperature rises, so does the pressure
Nonsense, the number of molecules in the air columns is constant no matter what the temperature is. Why do we have to discuss this? Read up on it, please. E.g. here: http://ww2010.atmos.uiuc.edu/(Gh)/guides/mtr/fw/prs/def.rxml
The only thing that matters is the pressure. Low temperature is often associated with high pressure, if you want to find some association [e.g. Siberia in the winter], but the temperature is irrelevant, only the pressure matters for the number of molecules to absorb UV or whatever.
The transition from the weak solar cycle 20 to the strong solar cycle 21 was unusually momentous. It takes a couple of years after solar minimum for the aa index to pick up. An El Nino event is a multi year occurrence. The full shift was not accomplished till the end of the El Nino of 1983, as the aa index peaked, well after sunspot maximum about 1980.
I don’t know how to handle this. What you say is simply not true. The transition was not momentous. In terms of aa, the transition was lame. Aa came down from a strong high during 1974 in cycle 20 to a rather deep minimum in the solar maximum year 1980 [see page 14 of http://www.leif.org/research/IAGA2008LS.pdf ]
The run of aa during cycle 20 from 1965 to 1970 mimics very much the run of aa during cycle 23 from 1996 to 2002, yet there was a super El Nino in 1998 and aa-maximum in 1974 was followed by the La Ninas 1974-1976.
There was nothing solar or aa-wise to trigger the ‘great climate shift’ of 1978. The run of aa 1955-1965 was as pronounced as that of 1980-1987, yet 1955-1965 were years of cold. It simply does not hang together.
But all of this is incidental. You did not see fit to respond to:
“The mass of the overlying atmosphere is determined solely by the number of molecules in the column. The total integrated weight of that column is the pressure. But what is important is actually just the number of molecules [as long as the gas is tenuous enough [which it is]]. So the pressure should be a strong function of [corrected] aa-index. This is the crucial test. As a sign of scientific integrity, you should declare up front that you drop your theory if there is no correlation [you can specify what level of significance you will consider: 95%, 99%, 99.9%, …]. This is how it is done. During one of the meetings of the NASA/NOAA Sunspot Prediction Panel, I asked Dikpati if her theory could be saved if the sunspot number came out less than the current cycle. As a good scientist she said: “in that case, my model is wrong, and must be abandoned”.”
So I give you now a second chance [if still no response, there will be a third, 4th, 5th, … chance]. So, the test is simple [and Kim, yes there are LOTS of recent data], do it and convince me. Fail to do it and leave your ideas tottering in a lurch.
Robert Bateman (22:16:32) :
Should I infer that since the Earth accreted and condensed X number of billions of years ago, that the global temperature has remained insignificantly constant?.
You are pretty much correct. The Sun’s luminosity has increased by more than 30% over that time, which alone corresponds to a temperature increase of 24K, while the temperature, if anything, has decreased and in any event varied much less than 24K.
Leif
“As the temperature rises, so does the pressure”
And on the annual scale that is exactly what happens as I show here:http://i249.photobucket.com/albums/gg220/erlandlong/Pressureand200hPatemperature.jpg
And that is incontrovertible.
“”Low temperature is often associated with high pressure”. That is also true but in an entirely different different scenario to what we are dealing with when we talk of the atmospheric column.
“I don’t know how to handle this. What you say is simply not true. The transition was not momentous. In terms of aa, the transition was lame.”
Beg to disagree and here is the data: http://i249.photobucket.com/albums/gg220/erlandlong/aaand200hPatemp.jpg
“So the pressure should be a strong function of [corrected] aa-index. This is the crucial test.”
Disagree. The pressure and the temperature are together a strong function of the flux of ultraviolet which depends in part upon the aa index and in part upon other solar phenomena.
Let me remind you that other factors are also involved. Volcanoes and the aerosols that they put into the stratosphere, precipitation events have their own dynamics. Change in specific and relative humidity affects cloud formation potential.
I will not throw out the hypothesis on the basis of a false test. No amount of bullying or repetition will change that.
Leif! I am spending too much time on WUWT — you are very much at fault! 🙂
It appears we understand the gross mechanics required to maintain an environment for our biology.
It seems evident that a similar environment could not exist elsewhere simultaneously.
The possibility for similar biology would be pre-biology earth — time frames that you, Leif, could quantify/qualify.
My initial reaction is, such opportunity never manifested or, if it did, it would have been a brief window.
Leif (23:08:13) & Erl (00:27:17) As you’ve both seemed to have guessed, the mechanism by which the sun exerts its climate regulating effect is not simple, nor is it necessarily single. There are likely several, maybe even many, mechanisms involved. I’d suspect some different manner to be in effect as the geography and the atmosphere changed; even the ocean hasn’t been of constant composition, and the carbon cycle has responded variably, with biological feedbacks not staying constant. There are such a multitude of possibilities; one is that the uniformitarian principle applies only approximately. Sorry if the volubility is too voluminous.
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[…] View original post here: Comment on NASA moves the goalposts on Solar Cycle 24 again by kim […]
In that case, a couple more K here or fewer there are even less significant. No catastrophe.
Erl Happ (00:27:17) :
“As the temperature rises, so does the pressure”
And that is incontrovertible.
Whatever you think the temperature is doing, the number of molecules in the tropics is directly given by the pressure. The pressure is weighing the molecules in the atmosphere. So that is the direct and simple measure.
The transition was not momentous. In terms of aa, the transition was lame.”
Beg to disagree and here is the data:[…]
This graphs shows that there is no correlation. Even the simplest of measures [the average] shows this with average aa 1948-1978 being 23.5 and 1979-2008 being 23.7; the same despite ‘the great climate shift’.
“So the pressure should be a strong function of [corrected] aa-index. This is the crucial test.”
Disagree. The pressure and the temperature are together a strong function of the flux of ultraviolet which depends in part upon the aa index and in part upon other solar phenomena.
The absorption of UV depends only on the number of molecules, i.e. the pressure [how the temperature varies is irrelevant for this]. It was aa that was supposed to regulate the ‘compactness’ of the atmosphere and thereby regulating the absorption of UV, so if the pressure does not correlate strongly with aa, the basic premise of the theory is falsified. And ‘in part upon other solar phenomena’: what other phenomena? Even the source function of UVB varies inversely with solar activity. Let me repeat the central point: absorption depends solely on number of molecules which in turn is given by the pressure [usual caveats: dilute gas, etc].
Let me remind you that other factors are also involved. Volcanoes and the aerosols that they put into the stratosphere, precipitation events have their own dynamics. Change in specific and relative humidity affects cloud formation potential.
Yes all of these other factor are in play plus some others: ocean circulation, CO2 [some would claim], land-use, etc, and all these factors may simply be the whole thing with no help from the more molecules created [or moved into the tropics] by aa.
I will not throw out the hypothesis on the basis of a false test. No amount of bullying or repetition will change that.
A hypothesis is scientific if it can be falsified. I assume that by ‘false test’ you mean a test that did not produce the desired outcome. A ‘test’ in itself is not false unless fraudulent or sloppy. So, you are distancing yourself from the assertion that your theory is scientific. ‘Bullying’ seems to be necessary to elicit any response at all, so has it legitimate uses.
So, I repeat: we have aa index [or equivalents] back to 1844, pressure data for tropical stations back to ~1850, so the crucial test can be performed on ~160 years of data. Expend some effort, collect the data, post the time series for audit, and let’s make the correlation test.
This ENSO discussion is a great illustration of the ‘Tar Baby’ strategy.
kim (06:49:34) :
Yes Kim, more than one variable is involved in determining surface temperature. We do well if we can list the top three and show how they interact.
What is plain is that the Earth is heating variably by latitude and season, the tropics leads the way, ENSO drives tropical temperatures and involves very strong change in oceanic heat reserves.
What is also plain is that the tendency to repeated warming events or repeated cooling events stays with us for 30 or 40 year periods.
It is also plain that changes in cloud albedo relate to increasing upper troposphere temperature driven by UV impact on ozone in a regime of relatively constant specific humidity.
The increase in OLR reveals a loss of reflectivity (albedo). That should tell us to start looking hard at where and why it is happening.
Relatively cloud free areas are a constant feature of the recharge zones for tropical warming events on the East of the major oceans. The size of these cloud free areas expands in mid year and also between years. They expand when 200hPa temperatures rise. The relationship between cirrus density and 200hpa temperature is well documented.
What I am trying to do is suggest the things that might drive upper troposphere temperature. Plainly, the intensity of short wave radiation is a factor. The other factor is a change in the density of the atmosphere over the tropics allowing UV to penetrate further. A third may be ozone content that depends upon humidity and perhaps other things. A fourth may be electromagnetic factors shifting neutral molecules that are entrained with accelerating non neutrals in the stratosphere. The double maximum at 1hPa is strong evidence of a geomagnetic affect. A fifth may be the presence or absence of nucleating particles or electric charge characteristics that affect cloud formation. All these are sun related.
A sixth is the influence of the distribution of land and sea. A drop in cloud cover in mid year is much less influential than if it happens in January when the sun is over the bulk of the ocean.
Throw in volcanic aerosols in the stratosphere and the whole dynamic changes.
At a point where the atmosphere becomes super-humid like it did in 1998 a La Nina has its own cooling dynamic that can impose a cooling cycle for two or three years regardless of what the sun is doing.
So there are three factors that have to do with Earthly stimuli.
So, a call to correlate one single variable with upper troposphere or surface temperature and reject the hypothesis if the correlation is insufficient throws out the baby with the bath water. It’s willfully destructive, pedantic and overbearing and I am not impressed.
Gary Gulrud (08:26:36) :
This ENSO discussion is a great illustration of the ‘Tar Baby’ strategy.
Yeah, I have tar all over my hands [and feet], having met that non-responsive Tar Baby so many times.
Erl Happ (08:44:42) :
What I am trying to do is suggest the things that might drive upper troposphere temperature. Plainly, the intensity of short wave radiation is a factor. The other factor is a change in the density of the atmosphere over the tropics allowing UV to penetrate further.
You suggest a long list of possibilities. The way to make progress is to test the various possibilities, to the extent that they allow test [if they do not, they can be excluded without further ado]. I am suggesting one such test.
So, a call to correlate one single variable with upper troposphere or surface temperature and reject the hypothesis if the correlation is insufficient throws out the baby with the bath water.
What is thrown out is the importance of that one single variable, not the influence of ocean currents, AGW [if you are of that bent], and the multitude of other causes.
It’s willfully destructive
Indeed, as progress relies on destruction of wrong ideas.
pedantic
precision and attention to detail is a hallmark of good science
and overbearing
this untrue ad-hom I’ll let slide [my record and patience speak for itself]
and I am not impressed.
It is for you to impress us when you claim that the case is QED, not the other way around.
Erl Happ (08:44:42) :
You suggest a long list of possibilities. The way to make progress is to test the various possibilities, to the extent that they allow test [if they do not, they can be excluded without further ado]. I am suggesting one such test.
If the Earth has less retained heat but is balanced by an increasingly luminous Sun, then the problem now becomes one of external source. Any negative change in input such as increased Albedo or decreased output from the Sun leads to irrecoverable loss to Earth’s global heat supply, unless the Sun becomes far more active in high times than it becomes inactive during low times. Which way is the balance now flowing in the Long Term and which way does it flow in the Short Term?
Leif, you just made the argument for the Sun as the deciding factor.
Somewhere along the way, we have to eat the cake.
Leif (08:23:47) I took ‘false test’ to mean one which was not correctly designed to falsify the hypothesis, which might apply to your test. Please, all, let me be the intemperate one around here.
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