I found a reference to this article while looking at Leif Svalgaard’s website, and since I missed it the first time around, and because the message is still valid, I thought I’d reprint it here. Also, the artwork they provided a hi-res link to makes a great desktop wallpaper. – Anthony
Published: 2008/05/19 06:00:00 CDT
Many solar scientists expected the new sunspot cycle to be a whopper, a prolonged solar tantrum that could fry satellites and raise hell with earthly communications, the power grid and modern electronics.
But there’s scant proof Sunspot Cycle 24 is even here, let alone the debut of big trouble.
So far there have been just a couple minor zits on the face of the sun to suggest the old cycle is over and the new one is coming.
The roughly 11-year cycle of sunspot activity should have bottomed out last year, the end of Cycle 23 and the beginning of Cycle 24. That would have put the peak in new sunspot activity around 2012.
But a dud sunspot cycle would not necessarily make it a boring period, especially for two solar scientists with the Tucson-based National Solar Observatory.
Two years ago, William Livingston and Matt Penn wrote a paper for the journal Science predicting that this could not only be a dud sunspot cycle, but the start of another extended down period in solar activity. It was based on their analysis of weakening sunspot intensity and said sunspots might vanish by 2015.
And here’s the punch line: That last long-term down period, 1645-1715, coincided with the Little Ice Age, a period of bitter cold winters.
That kind of talk could ruffle some feathers in this time of climate change and global warming, starring man-made carbon dioxide as the devil.
The paper, rejected in peer review, was never published by Science. Livingston said he’s OK with the rejection.
“I accept what the reviewers said,” Livingston said. “‘If you are going to make such statement, you had better have strong evidence.’ ”
Livingston said their projections were based on observations of a trend in decreasingly powerful sunspots but reviewers felt it was merely a statistical argument.
He is aware that some opponents of the prevailing position that climate change and global warming are the result of manmade activity — greenhouse gas, specifically carbon dioxide, buildup — are very much interested in the idea that changes might be related to solar activity.
“But it has not been proven yet,” cautioned Livingston, an astronomer emeritus who still works out of an office at the National Optical Astronomy Observatory headquarters building on the University of Arizona campus.
“We may have to wait. We may be wrong. (But) the sun is going to entertain us one way or another,” he said.
It’s not just a scientific curiosity. There’s a lot at stake in predicting whether sunspot cycles are going to be tame or wild, said Matt Penn of the National Solar Observatory.
The powerful blasts of radiation that come from solar activity can fry electronic equipment on Earth; particularly vulnerable are satellites.
The high-energy radiation produced by solar flares travels at near the speed of light, getting to Earth in just minutes.
But the magnetic effects of a solar flare can take between two and three days to reach Earth, said Penn, a solar scientist.
In the 1800s, magnetic blasts from intense solar activity induced currents in telegraph lines in the U.S. and Italy, starting fires and damaging equipment. Later, it was learned that solar activity affected radio transmission.
It can also affect the electrical-power grid. A solar tantrum in 1989 blew transformers and caused a blackout in Canada. And a number of satellites are thought to have failed from exposure to high-energy blasts from solar activity.
Satellite operators can turn them away or shut down vulnerable equipment aboard, and astronauts can use shielding to avoid those blasts.
If Cycle 24 is the big cycle predicted, Penn said, “it’s likely we’ll have geomagnetic storms with a lot of sunspots, a lot of flares on the sun.”
Penn said even so-called “quiet sun” periods are far from boring because the sun’s “surface consists of Texas-sized hot gas bubbles, which rise upward at a speed of about a mile per second. The gas cools and falls downward in narrower channels at about the same speed. That’s what we call the ‘quiet sun.'”
“As we get more into the space environment with satellites, GPS and communication satellites, it means money. People who are about to launch new communication satellites really want to know how much shielding to put on their satellites.
“But shielding amounts to weight, which is money. If they want them to last through (an intense cycle), they’re going to want to protect them more, and that will cost them more.”
Penn is the telescope scientist on the McMath-Pierce solar telescope, the strange angular white thing amid all the white and silver-domed things atop Kitt Peak. Specifically, Penn works with an instrument that “sees” in the infrared range to provide information about magnetic activity.
Sometimes, sunspot activity is more than theory or data to him.
Several years ago, he was making an early-morning run from Tucson up to Kitt Peak to do some solar observing. He noticed his gas gauge was dangerously low and decided to stop for gas at the convenience store in Three Points.
It was about 5 a.m., and no one was there to take cash, so he tried to use his credit card to gas up. But the pay-at-the-pump system was down.
Crossing his fingers and driving up the mountain, Penn said he hoped he’d have enough gas after work to make it back to the station on the way home.
When he got to work, he learned that “a communications satellite had been damaged by (a solar flare). Lots of communications were dropped that morning, and my credit-card pay-at-the-pump attempt was one of them.”
Though Aimee Norton appreciates the practical benefits of being able to predict the sun’s activity, solving some of the star’s mysteries that relate to the big picture are more compelling. Norton is a program scientist on the solar observatory’s SOLIS (Synoptic Optical Long-term Investigations of the Sun) facility at Kitt Peak.
“Part of what we’re trying to understand is how the magnetic field regulates or moderates the energy that is transported in the atmosphere,” Norton said. “Because one of the mysteries of the sun is, it’s hotter in the upper atmosphere than (at the surface). So there is energy being transported. Some people think the magnetic field is somehow magically getting that energy out there.”
Norton said she’s hoping for a powerful cycle, noting, “It would give us more things to do research with — either that or no cycle at all, which would be similar to the Maunder Minimum.”
She said she figures there’s little chance of a completely dead cycle but added, “Wouldn’t that be fascinating if the solar system managed to offset our contribution?”
Because you can’t go
–Visit Solar Cycle 24: www.solarcycle24.com/
–Mr. Sunspot’s Answer Book: http://eo.nso.edu/MrSunspot/answerbook/polarity.html
–NASA’s Solar Physics: http://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/whysolar.shtml
–Solar storms: www.solarstorms.org
–National Solar Observatory’s Solis solar telescope (Synoptic Optical Long-term Investigations of the Sun): http://solis.nso.edu
–For more information on sunspots: http://spaceweather.com or http://science.nasa.gov
–For a list of sometimes spectacular sunspot-induced problems: http://sw.astron.kharkov.ua/swimpacts.html
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Stephen Wilde (01:40:51) :
So we have, but whether the TSI variation is 4 W/m2 or 1 W/m2 the shape of the graph remains the same as per the selection of overlayed graphs you have also supplied.
Thus it is merely a matter of sensitivity as my article points out.
No, take for instance the values for 1810:
Lean2000: 1363.8
Wang2005: 1365.1
Leif2007: 1365.6
Compared to for 1996, where all values are 1365.6.
You cannot shift the graphs up or down to make them match. the shapes are clearly not the same. another shape-parameter is the slope of the graphs, that chanhes from steep [Lean] to flat [Leif]. So, if you want to maintain the shapes are the same, then you must specify and quantify [as I have just done] what you mean.
TSI level has dropped in a few years from 1367.5 W/m2 to 1365 W/m2 as at present. In the face of a change of that amount in a few years I have doubts about a suggestion that it has been stable to within 1 Wm2 for 400 years.
As the graphs show [all of them] the changes in the last 40 years have been from 1366.6 to 1365.6. On this graph http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Solar-cycle-data.png the changes are the same except for a slight shift of the level [as there is a 5 W/m2 uncertainty of the absolute calibration – SORCE is 4.5 W/m2 lower yet]. In making this comparison we use the yearly mean values as the daily values varies randomly a lot more up and down, e.g. as seen on this graph http://lasp.colorado.edu/sorce/total_solar_irradiance_plots/images/tim_level3_tsi_24hour_640x480.png
I do not accept that solar variation can be ignored as a climate driver in the way it has been.
Be that as it may, but you should not mislead your readers by showing graphs that are not correct, nor by stating changes that are more than two times too large.
Steven (01:49:07) You might find it instructive to peruse Pete’s graph in comment #454 of the Svalgaard #2 thread at climateaudit.org and associated commentary. He integrates much as you suggest.
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Carsten Arnholm, Norway (01:47:58) :
I have a question on TSI adjustments. As I understand it, TSI measurements are calibrated to 1AU due to the elliptical orbit of earth. But since the Sun wobbles around, it will affect the true distance to the earth also, and this effect appears to be of the same order of magnitude as the variation due to the elliptical earth orbit. Is this effect handled in the TSI calibrations to 1AU ? I have been unable to figure that out from the SORCE reference you provided some time ago.
No, it is not the Sun that wobbles, it is that fictive point, the barycenter, that moves around. The TSI that is measured with great precision shows that the Earth’s distance to the Sun is just what it should be from the eccentricity of the orbit. The SORCE data also gives the actual measured TSI without adjustment so you can check for yourself. I have have it easier by plotting it up for you in http://www.leif.org/researh/DavidA10.png and http://www.leif.org/researh/DavidA11.png [using not SORCE but PMOD for the years that were used in the first graph, as the barycenter moves from year to year as well]. The red dots in the second graph shows what TSI should have been according to the wobble people. I take this as a simple observational refutation that you can understand even if you refuse [or are unable] to understand the theory.
You may understand the situation from this example [or you may not – I have found that 90% of the ‘barycenter’ crowd is not swayed]: imagine a double star with two identical stars in circular orbits. The distance between them is constant at all times although they both ‘wobble’ around their barycenter that sits halfway between them.
Yet another way of seeing that the distance shouldn’t vary. Imagine that the Solar System consisted of just the Sun, Jupiter, and the Earth. Since Jupiter is so much larger than the Earth, the barycenter is basically just given by Jupiter and the Sun. Assume you choose to consider a coordinate system where the Sun wobbles around that barycenter, then the Earth will also wobble the same way around the barycenter and the distance between the Sun and Earth [both wobbling in unison] would remain what it is.
Carsten Arnholm, Norway (01:47:58) :
But since the Sun wobbles around, it will affect the true distance to the earth also
Johannes Kepler used Tycho Brahe’s observations of Mars to actually construct its orbit around the Sun in space and to show that the orbit was a clear ellipse with the Sun at one focus. Had the Sun wobbled around as you suggest, Kepler would never have found his nice ellipse and Newton would probably never have found his laws of gravity and where would we be now, then?
Leif,
I know that I seem to irritate you but I don’t think accusing me of misleading readers is justified.
Looking at yout Leif 2007 graph still shows a similar overall (I do not dispute that there are some differences) shape to that of Lean over the period 1600 to date. Even on your chart the recent intensity of activity compared to earlier centuries is well marked.
The averaged change over the pst 40 years (or even 400) years may or may not have been only 1 W/m2 but I am concerned that the level of sensitivity to such changes as did occur could well be sufficient taking into account other aspects of solar influence and oceanic amplification and suppression.
Whilst respecting your vast experience and specialist knowledge and appreciating your willingness to share it I do think you are overly reluctant to accept any particular deficiency in current knowledge in the light of real world events. There is no certainty that ANY of the estimates of past TSI or any other solar parameter are accurate which is why I prefer to keep an eye on current changes as they occur now that we have much better tools for the job.
Discussing possible mechanisms and puzzles raised by the observations should not be discouraged just because there is currently no demonstrable mechanism for what we observe.
We are all looking for the most likely mechanism but it is for the professionals to do the testing and if they are all as negative as you sometimes seem to be then something could be missed.
Stephen Wilde (04:18:19) :
I know that I seem to irritate you but I don’t think accusing me of misleading readers is justified.
No, you do not irritate me at all.
Looking at yout Leif 2007 graph still shows a similar overall (I do not dispute that there are some differences) shape to that of Lean over the period 1600 to date.
See here what similar shapes mean http://www.beaconlearningcenter.com/WebLessons/SamsSimilarShapes/default.htm and tell us if the curves comply with that definition.
The averaged change over the pst 40 years (or even 400) years may or may not have been only 1 W/m2 but I am concerned that the level of sensitivity to such changes as did occur could well be sufficient taking into account other aspects of solar influence and oceanic amplification and suppression.
Irrespective of your concern, the change over the past 40 years is 1 W/m2 and not the 2.5 W/m2 that you quote in your article. Here is a suggestion: replace the figure with TSI with Leif2007 and replace the 1367.5->1365.0 with 1366.5->1365.5 and you can keep the rest.
I prefer to keep an eye on current changes as they occur now that we have much better tools for the job.
The current change is 1 W/m2 not 2.5 W/m2
they are all as negative as you sometimes seem to be then something could be missed.
Insisting on using correct data is not being negative towards the ‘truth’ and what is missed is the misleading aspects.
I’m a little presumptious, here, Stephen, but I think you fool yourself if you don’t think Leif is looking just as hard for the mechanism as anyone; his insistence on rigour is part of the analytic technique. It seems to have sharpened the search by all concerned.
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Pamela Gray,
Your program may have been more structured based on the types of students you taught, or because of your own beliefs. My parents have taught in high schools in both the US and abroad for over thirty-five years, and they can attest to the fact that many teachers insert their own beliefs into the science curriculum, even when it is not mandated. Biology teachers in their current school in Texas have showed Al Gore’s movie during class, and the general curriculum does not state any uncertainty in relation to “climate change” and “minimizing our impact on climate.” In my own state of Michigan, climate change is part of the mandated curriculum: https://www.educationreport.org/pubs/mer/article.aspx?id=9101
The indoctrination goes beyond the text book. Elementary school children are frequently given special projects that are meant to educate (scare) them about human impact on the environment. In fact, few schools would be ashamed of this, as they view it as their civic duty to manufacture mini-enviromentalists.
kim,
I’m sure you are right and not presumptious at all. I just felt that for some reason Leif was being more harsh than called for so I reacted proportionately.
Thanks for the Svalgaard 2 reference to post 454. To my mind it shows a significant variation in total solar energy received from cycle to cycle depending on length. Have I interpreted it correctly ?
That would serve to significantly reduce the need for climate hypersensitivity and my idea about the variability of oceanic involvement might close the gap.
If a group of charts for estimated TSI all show a low section for the Little Ice Age, a rise then a fall to another lesser minimum and then a rise to a lengthy maximum then as far as I am concerned that is enough similarity to link them to each other and to temperature changes over the same period if they roughly match those movements.
Whether the correlation is meaningful or not is a different issue.
I thought the SIDC and other observers just reported a relatively strong increase in solar winds? We have a lot of boreal phenomena just right now.
Does any1 know whether strong flares and coronal holes are the precursors of a new cycle?
I did not refer to a change of 2.5 W/m2 in my article, only in a post here because of a recent report that such a change had been observed. If that report was misleading then so be it.
This was the quote I relied on, not sure of the source but it was requoted from the solar cycle 24 boards :
Total Solar Irradiance (TSI)/IRMB Composite has come down from the 2001/2002 peak of about 1367.5 Watts per m2 to near 1365 Watts or to the lowest value since the satellite measurements began in 1979. The trend at the moment looks still downwards.
@tarpon, Pamela and Tamara:
Where was all this great material when I was getting pillared for my post An Inconvenient Youth?
http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/2008/09/08/an-inconvenient-youth/
Stephen Wilde (05:03:55) :
If a group of charts for estimated TSI all show a low section for the Little Ice Age, a rise then a fall to another lesser minimum and then a rise to a lengthy maximum then as far as I am concerned that is enough similarity to link them to each other and to temperature changes over the same period if they roughly match those movements.
No, this is disingenuous. If one shows a rise of 50% and another one [the latest and greatest] a rise of 0.5%, then showing the first one and claiming that the are show the same, is not right. Size does matter. If I remember correctly, you do refer to a 4 W/m2 change or ‘band’ somewhere, and that is not right either. As I said, replace your figure with Leif2007 and your 4 W/m2 by 1 w/m2 and I would have no objections. Would you do this?
from the solar cycle 24 boards :
Total Solar Irradiance (TSI)/IRMB Composite has come down from the 2001/2002 peak of about 1367.5 Watts per m2 to near 1365 Watts or to the lowest value since the satellite measurements began in 1979. The trend at the moment looks still downwards.
The source is DeWitte’s presentation at SORCE 2008. He was referring to a 121-day running mean. The shorter you make the averaging interval the larger is the variation from isolated spikes. When comparing TSI trends one should use the same averaging interval. Usually a year is employed to filter out those short-period spikes.
It is not difficult to be precise and accurate.
Leif, while the TSI is fairly steady, I wonder about another factor regarding the earth’s orbit, and considering the time of year of the solar maximum spikes (not averaged). If I have the physics right, radient energy diminishes by the square of the distance. The difference in the ellipse of the earth’s orbit would mean about a 6.9% delta in energy available from apogee to perigee. What if the solar maximum coincides with perigee for a few orbits or the converse happens, minimum at apogee. Are we not then considering quite a few percentage points difference in absorbed energy? Even if the maximum is over eighteen months and caught two perigees and one apogee vs. two apogees and one perigee, couldn’t this make a big difference?
Stephen Wilde (04:55:37) :
Thanks for the Svalgaard 2 reference to post 454. To my mind it shows a significant variation in total solar energy received from cycle to cycle depending on length. Have I interpreted it correctly ?
When I integrate TSI over cycles I get this: http://www.leif.org/research/SumTSI.png
How does that fit your ideas?
My article and my posts here clearly point out that what is important is the degree of climate sensitivity. That is what we should concentrate on. All that is missing is a suitable mechanism. Length of solar cycle spreading out the available energy over time plus oceanic enhancement and suppression of solar variations look like suitable candidates when taken together.
I acknowledged the doubt about the size of the historical variation and pointed out that the initial 4 W/m2 estimate is no longer accepted (that was a main reason for issuing my update) but notwithstanding the small amount of variation which you do accept the fact is that even if it was as small as 1 W/m2 there is enough temperature correlation to suggest a link however small the change in TSI actually was.
Pointing out that the temperature correlation is not always and everywhere consistent is accounted for by the lags inherent in the substantial oceanic influence.
What I find hard to understand is your complete dismissal of the obvious link in the climatic record between solar activity, however measured, and changes in global temperature trend.
You start from the belief that the solar changes are too small to matter and all your interpretations of the available evidence are predicated on that to the extent that you are ignoring the obvious and engaging in gymnastics over side issues to maintain consistency.
Your use of words such as ‘misleading’ and ‘disingenuous’ is becoming tiresome. I have been careful to avoid such pejorative wording in my posts.
Leif Svalgaard (06:36:07) :
Stephen Wilde (04:55:37) :
Thanks for the Svalgaard 2 reference to post 454. To my mind it shows a significant variation in total solar energy received from cycle to cycle depending on length. Have I interpreted it correctly ?
When I integrate TSI over cycles I get this: http://www.leif.org/research/SumTSI.png
How does that fit your ideas
I’d need to know why it differs from pete’s chart so much and then assess whether either of you have got it right.
Just because the material you produce fails to account for any link between solar changes and temperature trends does not mean we can just ignore the historical record and the ‘coincidence’ of a rise temperature from 1975 to 2000 when solar activity was high and a fall in temperature now that it is lower.
Steve Keohane (06:35:41) :
What if the solar maximum coincides with perigee for a few orbits or the converse happens, minimum at apogee. Are we not then considering quite a few percentage points difference in absorbed energy? Even if the maximum is over eighteen months and caught two perigees and one apogee vs. two apogees and one perigee, couldn’t this make a big difference?
No, the solar cycle variation of TSI is about 1 W/m2, but the perigee to apogee variation is 90 W/m2 or almost a 100 times larger, so the small solar cycle variation on top of the very large orbital variation is insignificant. If you look at http://www.leif.org/research/DavidA11.png you’ll see the almost perfect sine-wave showing the orbital variation. Now, look really carefully at the curve and you might see some tiny wiggles here and there. Those are caused by solar activity and the solar cycle. This is actually an important graph to keep in mind when people rave about solar activity and its influence on climate.
Leif Svalgaard (03:52:39) :
Johannes Kepler used Tycho Brahe’s observations of Mars to actually construct its orbit around the Sun in space and to show that the orbit was a clear ellipse with the Sun at one focus. Had the Sun wobbled around as you suggest, Kepler would never have found his nice ellipse and Newton would probably never have found his laws of gravity and where would we be now, then?
I have a hard time convincing myself that you are right, but I am trying. As far as I can tell, the logical conclusion from this is that it is theoretically impossible to detect extrasolar planets by observing their host star wobbling?
Can you tell me where this logic fails?
In my understanding, every object gravitationally bound in the solar system orbits the center of mass (barycenter), no exception. Kepler’s law still applies (even to the Sun). The difference between this and the assumption that everything relates to the Sun is small wrt. practical measurements. I don’t know to which precision Tycho Brahe and Johannes Kepler computed their information, but I would not be surprised if the uncertainty in measurements could allow for both.
I may add some furter thoughts on your longer reply above, later. Please understand that what I am looking for is real sources of possible error.
The perigee/apogee variation would be stable over time and so of no effect but small changes in total solar output would have an effect and would be cumulative over time so again we are back to climate sensitivity but on a timescale that is not affected by the perigee/apogee variation.
Since the oceanic cycles take several decades (PDO 30 years in each phase) it can be that the climate response to a tiny but cumulative change in incoming solar energy is spread across 6 solar cycles.
The total range of available temperatures from the cold of space to the surface of the sun is extremely large. A temperature change of just a few degrees Centigrate is extremely tiny in the broad scheme of things and only significant to us and other living creatures.
How do we know that a global temperature change of a few degrees is indeed disproportionate to the tiny changes in solar output that we have observed ?
There is a basic calculation that shows energy coming in, energy going out and accounting for any delay in the system estimating what should remain but there are many factors that are inadequately quantified and processes that are poorly understood.
The sense of disproportionality or of climate hypersensitivity could just be an illusion.
And again, a pejorative comment from Leif about those who ‘rave’ about solar activity.
Leif,
Stephen Wilde (06:45:49) :
Your use of words such as ‘misleading’ and ‘disingenuous’ is becoming tiresome. I have been careful to avoid such pejorative wording in my posts.
I only use such words when you persist in claiming that the shapes of the curves are the same when they are not. And I will maintain it is misleading to start the article with a figure that is no longer considered valid, even if you later on express doubt about it. The visual impact of the Figure is still there, as intended.
So, I ask again: “would you replace the figure with Leif2007?”
What I find hard to understand is your complete dismissal of the obvious link in the climatic record between solar activity, however measured, and changes in global temperature trend.
Maybe the reason is that the link is not obvious. If it were, it would be obvious to me too, and it isn’t. I could mention some other people that also do not think the link is obvious, Lockwood, Froehlich, Lean, Rind come to mind. All respected scientists with a long record of good work. Even Jack Eddy has abandoned his support of the LIA and Maunder Minimum link. So, obvious it ain’t. There is no doubt that solar activity [as well as CO2] has a climate effect at or below the limit of detectability, but that is a far cry from calling it significant.
Leif, Thank you. (there is a magic key that I hit sometimes that posts too early)
With 90watts of variance by orbit, temperature plots of the NH and SH between equinoxes should show the effects of that much energy by the SH getting its summer closest to the sun and winter farthest vs. NH having less seasonal shift between those seasons (summer farthest/winter closest). I can’t find such plots at NASA or UAH. Can anyone show this?