Click for large image
This is the biggest Cycle 24 spot since the first one was seen on January 4th, 2008. This spot looks to have some staying power other than the “specks” we’ve seen winking on and off lately. No squinting to see this one, or wondering if it’s a dead pixel in the SOHO CCD imager or not.
The corresponding magnetogram image, seen here, is also quite pronounced. The polarity is correct, with the white “North” at the top. This spot grew quickly as it came around the rim into visibility. Watch this animation below:
At the same time, to the right of the image, at lower latitude, a new cycle 23 sunspot seems to be emerging, note it has a reveresed polarity from the larger SC24 spot. Solar cycle 23 just won’t give up it seems.
The magentic field, as shown by the Average Planetary index (Ap) remained low in September, see here.
Leif,
Data trumps doctrine every time.
University of Alabama Huntsville satellite derived temperature anomalies in the tropical troposphere vary on an inter-annual basis a great deal more than surface anomalies. This requires an additional source of energy other than that emanating from the surface of the Earth.
Atmospheric moisture above 700hPa varies very little as temperature rises.
When temperatures rise above the 700hPa level, cloud albedo literally evaporates.
The problem is to work out how this variation in mid to upper troposphere temperature occurs.
Upper troposphere anomalies define the ENSO phenomenon better than surface anomalies.
ENSO defines tropical cooling and warming events that are related to changes in cloud cover that are in turn related to swings in temperature that largely manifest as summer warming in the tropics and winter warming at high latitudes.
Bury yourself in doctrine if you wish but the facts are unalterable.
First real day of summer warmth here (S.W. Western Australia) after a very long and miserably cold winter. Winter rainfall was about 20% above average. I have never seen the grass in the vineyard so high. Today the sun seems to have recovered its sting. The snakes are out.
Our inland wheat crops looked like setting a record till the frosts came a day after rainfall.
Dr Svalgaard:
You are a patient and lucid teacher. I still intend to avoid Wikipedia like the avian flu (whatever happened to that bugbear?)
Now I have a question about Rossby waves. My vague impression was that they were major factors in tropospheric dynamics only at middle latitudes. Is that invalid?
Arthur Glass (21:14:26) :
An alternative viewpoint on ‘stratospheric warmings’ that pays more attention to causation than to patterns of atmospheric movement that characterize meteorological (pattern recognition) explanations of the sort offered by Wikipedia:
SORCE meeting February 2008
Mean Circulation
Terrence R. Nathan [trnathan@ucdavis.edu] and John Albers, University of California, Davis; and Eugene C. Cordero, San Jose State University, CA.
An ever-increasing body of evidence shows that changes in solar spectral irradiance (SSI) over the 11-year solar cycle (SC) can produce changes in stratospheric ozone. Changes in stratospheric ozone can in turn produce changes in planetary wave drag (PWD) via longitudinal variations in ozone heating, which was recently expounded upon in a paper by Nathan and Cordero (2007, JGR-Atmospheres). Because SSI-induced changes in PWD may
have potentially far-reaching consequences for the global circulation, including the zonal mean flow, the Brewer-Dobson circulation and stratosphere-troposphere communication, it is important to understand the connection between SSI and PWD. In this study we employ analytical and numerical models of the extratropical atmosphere to examine the connection
between SSI and PWD. The models couple radiation, ozone and dynamics and provide in a relatively simple but self-consistent way the means to explicitly identify the pathways that connect changes in SSI to the wave-driven zonal-mean circulation. The sensitivity of the stratospheric circulation, particularly stratospheric sudden warmings, to changes in SSI associated with the SC is addressed.
The focus on solar spectral irradiance is noteworthy. I hypothesize that the relatively cloud free regions to the west of the major land masses that are the sites for generation of tropical warming and cooling events events exhibit a higher ozone content because of the dryness of the air. This then renders them more reactive to UVB explaining the strong fluctuation in temperature (and cloud cover) in the upper troposphere. Like these researchers I am also interested in ‘longitudinal variations in ozone heating’.
Temperature at 100hPa varies on solar radiation time scales. There is very little atmosphere between 100hPa and 200hpa.
It is no accident that the surface of the ocean is cool in this deep and prolonged solar minimum.
Leif Svalgaard (21:11:30) :
That would be a welcome change. We usually keep talking until long after the poor old spot is dead and buried. Or whatever it is that happens to old spots. 🙂
Erl Happ (04:58:55) :
Mean Circulation, Terrence R. Nathan
You miss the point that it is the upward traveling waves that are the cause of the ozone heating.
Arthur Glass (04:48:32) :
Now I have a question about Rossby waves. My vague impression was that they were major factors in tropospheric dynamics only at middle latitudes. Is that invalid?
The problem is that little word ‘only’. The Coriolis effect [part cause of the Rossby waves, together ] on horizontal flow is maximal at the poles and zero at the equator. The main point is that Rossby waves need shear to originate. Shear is not limited to middle latitudes.
Sometimes Wikipedia is not so bad [when they happen to be correct 🙂 ] you just need to know already what the issue is so that you can filter appropriately.
Erl Happ (04:58:55) :
“It is no accident that the surface of the ocean is cool in this deep and prolonged solar minimum.”
‘Cool’ relative to what? Explain why the SST anomoly is rising rapidly yet we are still in the solar minimum. Evidence suggests your theory needs major rethinking.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadsst2gl/from:1980
‘Temperature at 100hPa varies on solar radiation time scales. There is very little atmosphere between 100hPa and 200hpa.’
Very interesting, insofar as I can follow your argument in technical detail. However, my impression from what little I have read on the subject, is that SSW’s occur way up at the 10mb level. Also, that such events are related to the Quasi-bienniel Oscillation in the tropics.
One of the most dramaic reversals in weather here in northeastern New Jersey occurred in January of 2004. Here is the daily data for Newark airport for that month:
http://proa.accuweather.com/adcbin/professional/historical_index.asp?month=jan&metric=0&record=&location=EWR%7CHILLSIDE%7CNJ&year=2004&btnClimo=Go
In sum, the first six days of January averaged close to 10 degrees above normal, but the entire month averaged almost eight degrees below. According to the Office of the State Climatologist, January 2004 was the coldest month in northern NJ in 22 years, i.e. since the gloriously brutal winters of the late 70’s and early ’80’s, when the AMO was in its depressive phase.
My guru at Accuweather, Joe Bastardi, had predicted this sudden cooling partially on the basis of an SSW occurence ten days or so before
Re your comment at Leif Svalgaard (18:25:33) :
Relating to the coincidence of El Ninos in the rising phase of the cycle with a strong incidence of an annual variation in the orientation of the HCS.
Your comment that : “It is not conceivable that the polarity of the IMF has any effect, per se”
I quote from: INCREASE OF THE MAGNETIC FLUX FROM POLAR ZONES OF THE SUN IN THE LAST 120 YEARS V. I. MAKAROV, A. G. TLATOV, D. K. CALLEBAUT and V. N. OBRIDKO
Near sunspot minimum activity there are two distinct solar wind regimes: slow and medium-speed wind flowing from the coronal streamer belt that encircles the equator, and fast wind from the polar coronal holes. Legrand and Simon (1989) have found that the geomagnetic activity depends on solar wind streams from coronal holes during 90% of the time.
The long-term increase of magnetic flux from the Sun and _aa_ index was caused mainly by growth of the area of polar cap of the Sun occupied by the unipolar magnetic field.
The area of polar zones Apz of the Sun, occupied by unipolar magnetic field at the minimum activity, has risen by a factor of 2 during 1878–1996. This means that the behavior of the index _aa_ and consequently the magnetic flux from the Sun may be explained by an increase of the area of polar caps.
The high-latitude zone boundary (θ2m), average N and S, moved nearer to the equator by about 15° during 12 solar cycles. In the northern hemisphere the latitude (θ2m) shifted from 55° in 1878 down to 36° (shift: 19°) in 1996. A similar process was observed in the S-hemisphere, where the latitude (θ2m) shifted from 51° in 1878 to 39° in 1996 (shift: 12°).
Given the relationships described above might I suggest that the differential between the polar caps in the solar hemispheres should produce an annual (rotational) flux in the strength of the solar wind that will be most observable on the Earth when the HCS is most stable, ie during the rising phase of the solar cycle?
If the relationship between the aa index and terrestrial temperature described by Cliver, Boriakoff, and Bounar (who are referenced in the article cited above) has legs, we then have an explanation for the conjunction of the El Nino in the rising phase and minimum variation in the HCS at that time. Any increase in geomagnetic activity will tend to be more sustained, less episodic when the HCS is more stable. As soon as we have 50 sunspots there is significantly more very short wave radiation (X rays). That should help.
One speculates that if the solar hemisphere generating the greatest geomagnetic activity happens to be proximal between September and April, when the southern hemisphere is best illuminated, the addition to the Earths heat budget will be greater simply because of the absorptive capacity of the ocean by comparison with the land.
And furthermore, that the puzzling swing between La Nina and El Nino dominance across solar cycles, and groups of cycles, could well be related to the size of the area of respective polar caps of the Sun occupied by the unipolar magnetic field and rotational aspects that determine which Earthly hemisphere is exposed to the solar hemisphere that is providing the greatest geomagnetic activity.
“The reason for the greenhouse effect is that the atmosphere contains molecules with more than two atoms [H20 being the most] so that they have more ways of containing energy, rotation, vibration, etc. These molecules absorb and emit at wavelengths corresponding to Earth’s radiation temperature, half of the re-emitted energy is radiated downwards and that is the cause of the greenhouse effect.”
This is badly confused. The emissivity of a gas is directly related to the speed of electromagnetic interaction. Your GHGs rapidly share absorbed radiation (the acquired vibrational energy) via collision with the major components of this low temp, low pressure gas, the atmosphere.
They do not contain the energy absorbed. If the energy absorbed is not instantly re-emitted, it is lost. The molecule returns to its ground state-the average kinetic energy of its surrounding enviorns, raised immeasurably by the IR absorption.
Gary Gulrud (08:14:16) :
They do not contain the energy absorbed. If the energy absorbed is not instantly re-emitted, it is lost.
There is no confusion. At Erl’s level [which is where I tried to be] this suffices. The energy is acquired and the re-emitted very shortly thereafter [there is no ‘immediately’ in quantum physics because of the Uncertainty principle]. One might argue that energy cannot be ‘lost’ as you claimed, since it is conserved. I classify all this as irrelevant [and not even wrong] nit-picking.
Erl Happ (07:45:34) :
As I have said many times, just hunting around for snippets on the Internet is not very fruitful.
I quote from: INCREASE OF THE MAGNETIC FLUX FROM POLAR ZONES OF THE SUN IN THE LAST 120 YEARS
There was kind of a bandwagon effect several years ago because of Lockwood’s ‘doubling’ paper. Now, that it is becoming clear that there was no such doubling [I was the original culprit in suggesting that there was – but I was wrong], all the ‘bandwagon’ papers fall by the wayside.
Legrand and Simon (1989) have found that the geomagnetic activity depends on solar wind streams from coronal holes during 90% of the time.
This is typical of the kind of quotes that you come across [they chose Legrand&Simon because of some other ideas these people had]. But the finding goes back to Snyder et al. in 1963.
The long-term increase of magnetic flux from the Sun and _aa_ index was caused mainly by growth of the area of polar cap of the Sun occupied by the unipolar magnetic field.
The aa-index is wrong before 1957, so the inference is moot, as well as the speculations following.
The size of the polar cap [as measured by the latitude of the filaments] is crudely correlated with sunspot activity itself, so will show a similar time-dependence.
Given the relationships described above might I suggest that the differential between the polar caps in the solar hemispheres should produce an annual (rotational) flux in the strength of the solar wind that will be most observable on the Earth when the HCS is most stable, ie during the rising phase of the solar cycle?
differential?
rotational?
strength?
Don’t know what you mean. In any event, the solar wind has most effect [highest speed and geomagnetic effect goes up with the square of the speed] during the declining phase, e.g. 2003, 1994, 1983, 1974, 1952, 1945, 1930, 1910, etc.
If the relationship between the aa index and terrestrial temperature described by Cliver, Boriakoff, and Bounar (who are referenced in the article cited above) has legs
Ed Cliver now knows that it has not [aa wrong etc]
One speculates that if the solar hemisphere generating the greatest geomagnetic activity happens to be proximal between September and April, when the southern hemisphere is best illuminated, the addition to the Earths heat budget will be greater simply because of the absorptive capacity of the ocean by comparison with the land.
You can speculate, but the premise is wrong [or rather, meaningless]. In June we see equal amount of the solar hemispheres; June 7th we are just over the Sun’s equator. So, this speculation and the next one in your post has no foundation. This often does not deter speculation, of course.
Mary Hinge (07:32:14) :
“Evidence suggests your theory needs major rethinking.”
I would be pleased to hear about that in more detail.
My reference for sea surface temperatures is here: http://www.eldersweather.com.au/climimage.jsp?i=sstag
Looks to me as if most of the Southern Hemisphere oceans have a negative anomaly along with the Arctic and a goodly part of the North Pacific.
The note beneath the map says “Positive SSTAs are usually correlated with increased regions of convection (cloudiness and rainfall) while negative SSTAs are usually correlated to reduced convection.”
That is certainly the case at the moment as you can see if you check the distribution of precipitable moisture at: http://www.coaps.fsu.edu/~maue/extreme/gfs/current/plan_water_000.png
As you can see, the cloud is streaming away from the tropics in warm wet air that tends to keep the skin of the ocean over which it travels warm. By contrast the relatively cool parts of the ocean have little precipitable moisture, which is contained in the main in the lower 2km of the atmosphere.
Iask you: What in your opinion keeps the cool relatively moisture free areas cool? if not upper atmosphere cloud due to the very low upper atmosphere temperatures that prevail at the moment then what?
“I classify all this as irrelevant [and not even wrong] nit-picking”
Think about this for a second, dear Leif.
A m^3 volume of the atmosphere, in thermal equilibrium, receives a radiative flux from below. This means:
1. The flux entering is balanced by that leaving.
2. The temperature in the box does not change.
3. Emission equals absorption.
Now allow the temperature to rise.
1. The flux entering exceeds that leaving.
2. Absorption exceeds emission.
You require assent to so classify, and it is not granted.
As of today 10-15-08, that little dimple is fading fast. In our youthfully exuberant college farting contests, after considerable beer or beans, we referred to such a display as this little spot as a “flirp.” Flirps only get 1 point. Flutter blasts (real sunspots) would rank about 5…ergo, “2 flirps and a flutter-blast, 6 points” would be a far more active solar display. I’m not sure flirps would even count as cycle 24…maybe a flutter-blast later?
Gary Gulrud (16:18:10) :
1. The flux entering exceeds that leaving.
2. Absorption exceeds emission.
As usual, your posts are completely irrelevant. And especially to the greenhouse effect [that was the topic], which is very simply due to half of the radiation emitted downwards.
Leif, I have to say this. Your logic is intoxicating. There is no better thing on this Earth than logic. Because I was baptized a Catholic (and then excommunicated as an adult) I can’t worship logic but if I could be given immunity from persecution, I sure as hell would.
“The energy is acquired and the re-emitted very shortly thereafter… One might argue that energy cannot be ‘lost’ as you claimed, since it is conserved.”
‘Lost’ to the GHG molecule absorbing, read more carefully.
On the one hand, we’ve just seen if OLR is heating the atmosphere, then emission must exceed absorption.
On the other hand, N2 and O2 own the excess of any absorbed energy. Are they emitting IR downward? I thought not.
So, since the emissivity of asphalt, green leaves, snow, etc., is 1000 times greater than CO2 at STP, and 500 times greater than gaseous H20, also at STP, just how, may we ask, can the heat be retained? Won’t convection and condensation just carry it away?
And yet, if it is as you say, H2O and CO2 emit their absorbed IR energy instantly, all of it, then is there heating at all? If so of what?
That’s an especially nasty contradiction you’ve got this time. You really ought to take something for it–derivation from first principles, maybe?
“emission must exceed absorption” should be reversed, my apology.
Leif
Is ‘the size of the polar cap [as measured by the latitude of the filaments]’ related to the strength of the solar wind from that hemisphere, and given that the other hemisphere has a smaller or larger polar cap will the solar wind from that hemisphere vary accordingly?
[…] the sun puts out a new and significant cycle 24 spot, the real news is just how quiet the suns magnetic field has been in the past couple of years, […]
Gary Gulrud (20:08:45) :
derivation from first principles, maybe?
If it helps you, the essential mechanism can be explained thusly:
Consider a system consisting of a bottom slab that is at a temperature Te, and a top slab which is at a temperature of Ta. The absorptivity of the top slab over the spectrum of the emitted radiation of the bottom slab is α. Assume the spectrum averaged α is equal to the spectrum averaged ε. Also assume that the top slab does not reflect radiation from the bottom slab; the reflectivity is 0. The transmissivity is thus 1 minus the absorptivity (1-α, or 1-ε). The top slab is transparent to an incoming source of radiation (S). By conservation of energy, the incoming energy must be balanced by the energy emitted by the bottom slab and transmitted through the top slab plus the radiation emitted by the top slab.
Application of Stefan-Boltzmann gives:
S = σTe^4(1-ε) + εσTa^4
Now apply it to just the top slab:
2εσTa^4 = ασTe^4 = εσTe^4
If we solve these equations for Te^4:
Te^4 = S / σ(1-ε/2) or
Te^4 = 2S / σ(1+τ)
Let’s look at the extremes where τ=0 and τ=1.
For τ=0, Te=303K
For τ=1, Te=255K
In the case where there are no greenhouse gases (τ=1), the temperature of the bottom slab is equal to the radiative effective temperature. If there are greenhouse gases (τ>1), the temperature is always greater than the radiative effective temperature.
[Bohren and Clothiaux, Fundamentals of Atmospheric Radiation, pp 31-33.]
Erl Happ (21:16:53) :
Is ‘the size of the polar cap [as measured by the latitude of the filaments]‘ related to the strength of the solar wind from that hemisphere, and given that the other hemisphere has a smaller or larger polar cap will the solar wind from that hemisphere vary accordingly?
First, the size of the polar cap is only very crudely given by the latitude of the filaments, so any kind of quantitative comparison is suspect from the outset. Second, the ‘strength’ of the solar wind? [here we go again: what do you mean by ‘strength’?]. Here http://swoops.lanl.gov/data.html you can see how several solar wind quantities vary with latitude. In a sense the momentum flux can be said to be the ‘strength’ and it does not vary with latitude.
There are several points to be made: 1) the emission of the solar wind is a local process depending only on conditions at the point of emission. 2) the solar wind does not come from the polar caps per se [c.f. at solar maximum when there are no polar caps]. 3) there is thus no hemispheric asymmetry related to the size of the polar cap.
You can see more here:
http://www.leif.org/research/A%20Floor%20in%20the%20Solar%20Wind%20Magnetic%20Field.pdf
This paper was written before the data from the last polar passes of Ulysses were in. The latest data show a somewhat diminished magnetic field strength and solar momentum flux. What should be taken into account, though, is that the previous polar passes were two years before minimum, so the data do not refer to the same point of the cycle. At http://www.leif.org/research/HMF-Owens.png you can see the open flux measurements from all deep-space spacecraft compared.
Don’t over-interpret the Makarov paper
Arthur Glass (07:37:17) :
Stratospheric sudden warmings are a complex subject. I have been reading Labitzke and Van Loon ‘The stratosphere’. Many things seem to be involved including the southern oscillation, the QBO, the same periodicy appearing in the Southern Oscillation, one notices the recent La Nina fits a pattern starting in 2004, then 2006 and 2008 with El Ninos at 2003, 2005 and 2007. Then there is the influence of the sunspot cycle with a different manifestation of SSW at minimum versus maximum and volcanoes that twist the thing again.
Then there is the fact that it appears in the Arctic and affects temperatures all the way to the surface but does not disturb the troposphere in the Antarctic. One thing stands out for me, and that is the influence of warming in the tropics drives convection that cools the upper troposphere. This is said to increase the thermal gradient between the Equator and the poles. But there is a simpler connection that is overlooked by those who compartmentalize the Troposphere and the Stratosphere and suggest that the Stratosphere is little affected by forces beneath, ie. stable against convection.
Enhanced uplift at the equator is matched by stronger downdraft over Antarctica which has the coldest, densest air on Earth. This effect appears in the temperature data. Some depression of the stratopause might be expected. The Arctic is coldest in winter and I would expect enhanced convection in the Southern Hemisphere to provoke some depression of the stratopause in the Northern Hemisphere.
I first noticed this mirror image effect when comparing temperature data for Central England and Victoria Australia. A warm southern hemisphere summer provokes a cooler northern winter.
Gary Gulrud (20:08:45) :
derivation from first principles, maybe?
A good discussion of the basic physics can be found here:
http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/0802/0802.4324v1.pdf
especially section IV.