Hard lesson about solar realities for NOAA / NASA
Reposted here: October 30th, 2008
by Warwick Hughes
The real world sunspot data remaining quiet month after month are mocking the curved red predictions of NOAA and about to slide underneath. Time for a rethink I reckon NOAA !!
Here is my clearer chart showing the misfit between NOAA / NASA prediction and real-world data.
Regular readers might remember that we started posting articles drawing attention to contrasting predictions for Solar Cycle 24, way back on 16 December 2006. Scroll to the start of my solar threads.
Then in March 2007 I posted David Archibald’s pdf article, “The Past and Future of Climate”. Well worth another read now, I would like to see another version of David’s Fig 12 showing where we are now in the transition from Cycle 23 to Cycle 24.
Solar Cycle 24 Prediction Issued April 2007 from NOAA / NASA
NOTE from Anthony: We now appear to have a new cycle 24 spot, which you can see here:
See the most current MDI and magnetogram here
Interesting. I’m curious if there is a graph that extends the predicted to observed going back to 2001 or so…
Leif,
What does the light blue line represent?
Basil
Stevie B (06:05:33) :
Has any experiment been done to use period tools equivalent to past generations to see what astronomers were actually able to count as sunspots?
The original telescope that Rudolf Wolf used 150 years ago still exists and is being used today by Thomas Friedli in Switzerland to count spots. The issue is not the instrument, the weather, the pollution, etc, but the deliberate decision about what to count. Wolf did deliberately not count the smallest spots and counted the biggest ones twice. His successors have chosen to count every spot, no matter how tiny. A conversion factor between the two methods of 0.6 was determined in the 1880s and 1890s. It is now becoming clear that that number is not quite correct and that it probably should be lowered to 0.4 or thereabouts.
Basil (07:57:05) :
What does the light blue line represent?
As it says on the graph: Ri/0.3, or the International Sunspot Number divided by 0.3. So there is a rough conversion formula between the ‘region count’ C and Ri: C = Ri/0.3 or Ri = 3.3 C.
You can judge for yourself how good the fit is.
Bruce Cobb (06:35:10) :
Leif: It is clear that cycle 24 has finally begun.
Clear to you, maybe.
I do have some experience in this game 🙂
The truth is, it can take months, even years to make an actual determination for when the solar minimum occurs.
News of the death of cycle 23 may be premature.
Cycle 24 begins before the minimum and cycle 23 endures past the minimum. At minimum, spots of both polarities are present.
Stevie B: I suspect light pollution is less of a problem when observing sunspots than when observing the night sky.
C’mon Anthony, fess up!
Which evil corporation are you serving as a front for?
Wiki says global warming skeptics are just fronts.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_relations#Front_groups
(You know I’m just kidding).
Mick (00:26:24) :
Where is all that water come from?
The water on Earth has been brought to us by comets over eons of time.
kim (01:33:04) :
Say, Leif, how about the new paper from Abreu, Beer, Stienhilber, Tobias and Weiss, suggesting that the solar maximum of last century will ameliorate in the next few decades?
They are barking up my tree. Isn’t that what we are predicting [NASA aside]?
It claims the last eight cycles have represented a solar maximum. Is that why the 20th Century got so warm?
I don’t think so [as you know!]. The solar maxima during 1770-1800 and 1835-1875 were just as high, yet it was a lot colder [Ask the rebels that fought the Revolutionary War and crossed the Delaware…]
Lucy Skywalker (01:36:59) :
This is the first one that looks like a spot not a pseudospot
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
Sean Houlihane (02:02:35) :
Why is the graph not using up to date data?
Because NOAA is a bureaucracy and have rules. The graph cannot be changed from day to day, only once a year [I kid you not].
Pierre Gosselin (02:05:01) :
The question now is how active will cycle 24 be?
http://www.leif.org/research/Cycle%2024%20Smallest%20100%20years.pdf
The past has shown that climate seems to correlate with cycle length, and less with cycle activity.
No, it does not. Length and activity are themselves correlated.
Mick: re: “Where is all that water coming from?”
Here’s your answer Mick.
Small watery comets hit the Earth every second
Did you know our planet is bombarded by a 20-to-40 ton watery comet every three seconds?
The reaction to these new and unusual findings between their discovery in 1986 and visual confirmation in 1997 reflects what I see happening with those who oppose the superstition of man-made global warming.
“People tell me I should have dropped the whole subject, but that would have violated my sense of integrity. What has happened, however, is that science has lost its fun for me. The joy of working with the general scientific community is gone. . . I’ve proved the atmospheric holes are there. I’ve shown that these objects have water in them. And I’ve shown that there are 10 million of these things coming in a year. What we have to do now is go up there and meet the small comets at 600 miles out. Polar sees these objects with great resolution but from a great distance. Now we have to get up close and see these objects in detail.”
Entire story and background here.
http://smallcomets.physics.uiowa.edu/wp.html
What is the typical length of time a single sunspot persists?
If you watch the MPEG movie, it appears the new spot is shrinking.
http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/data/LATEST/current_mdi_igr.mpg
Fernando (06:21:52) :
What is this?
“Researchers have discovered ‘magnetic portals’ forming high above Earth that can briefly connect our planet to the Sun. Not only are the portals common, one space physicist contends they form twice as often as anyone had previously imagined”
This is just NASA’s usual hype. They have to justify their existence by announcing ‘discoveries’ and ‘breakthroughs’ [we have seen several examples of this lately – even discussed on this blog].
What they have ‘discovered’ is “We used to think the connection was permanent and that solar wind could trickle into the near-Earth environment anytime the wind was active,” says Sibeck. “We were wrong. The connections are not steady at all. They are often brief, bursty and very dynamic.”
This is old hat. Thirty years ago I wrote [in a chapter paper http://www.leif.org/research/suipr699.pdf (page 32ff) for the
Skylab Workshop that established coronal holes]:
“The implication seems to be that the coupling to the solar wind due to magnetic field connection is very weak unless the geometry is very favorable, i.e. the external field is almost anti-parallel to the dayside geomagnetic field. Due to ever-present fluctuations of the interplanetary magnetic field – considerably enhanced after passage through the bow-shock – favorable conditions for connection occur often enough at so many places on the magnetopause as to give the [false] impression that reconnection and hence geomagnetic activity occur for all orientations of the interplanetary magnetic field and varying in efficiency smoothly from a maximum for anti-parallel fields to a non-vanishing minimum for parallel fields.”
So, nothing new there. Nice though that they have actually been able to observe some of those events.
Leif Svalgaard (08:56:21) : Your comment is awaiting moderation
Fernando (06:21:52) :
What is this?
“Researchers have discovered ‘magnetic portals’ forming high above Earth that can briefly connect our planet to the Sun. Not only are the portals common, one space physicist contends they form twice as often as anyone had previously imagined”
This is just NASA’s usual hype. They have to justify their existence by announcing ‘discoveries’ and ‘breakthroughs’ [we have seen several examples of this lately – even discussed on this blog].
What they have ‘discovered’ is “We used to think the connection was permanent and that solar wind could trickle into the near-Earth environment anytime the wind was active,” says Sibeck. “We were wrong. The connections are not steady at all. They are often brief, bursty and very dynamic.”
This is old hat. Thirty years ago I wrote [in a chapter paper http://www.leif.org/research/suipr699.pdf (page 32ff) for the
Skylab Workshop that established coronal holes]:
“The implication seems to be that the coupling to the solar wind due to magnetic field connection is very weak unless the geometry is very favorable, i.e. the external field is almost anti-parallel to the dayside geomagnetic field. Due to ever-present fluctuations of the interplanetary magnetic field – considerably enhanced after passage through the bow-shock – favorable conditions for connection occur often enough at so many places on the magnetopause as to give the [false] impression that reconnection and hence geomagnetic activity occur for all orientations of the interplanetary magnetic field and varying in efficiency smoothly from a maximum for anti-parallel fields to a non-vanishing minimum for parallel fields.”
So, nothing new there. Nice though that they have actually been able to observe some of those events.
Leif (08:37:29) Oh, heck, I thought I had you for once.
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Dennis,
The reason that only models with human activities correctly match polar temperatures, is that such models heavily weight the affect of human factors and neglect the affects of other factors. With such a model, if you pull out the major driving “cause”, of course it fails to match reality.
If you change the model to weigh solar and PDO forcing effects and neglect human factors, it can still be made to correctly match polar temperatures. With this model, if you pull out its only driving cause (solar and PDO), of course it too fails to match reality. You could then say that “only models that have solar and PDO effects correctly match polar temperatures”.
You can always fiddle with the weighting factors in a model to show whatever you want to show. Pick a “cause” that is trending upward, give it a strong weight, and it will make the output “result” go upwards. Take the “cause” out of such a model and it fails, “proving” that you have found the “true cause”.
Since it doesn’t really matter what the “cause” is, you pick one that advances your agenda, and then make a statement that models that ignore the “cause” (and its weighing factor) do not result in the correct output.
You can fiddle with a few other factors to account for any dips and blips.
It is a classic propaganda ploy that has been used for years.
If people question you in the future about your model not matching the new data, just say you are fine-tuning it. And you can. Add some more forcing factors and fiddle with the weights until it matches again. Your model will then be able to match whatever the future may hold: cooling, warming, absolutely anything.
Unfortunately, it will not be able to truly predict a darn thing.
Scott
PearlandAggie (08:51:12) :
What is the typical length of time a single sunspot persists?
Depends on its size. Really big ones can last for months, small ones only a day or two.
Leif (08:37:29) Has anyone tried to correlate the minima and maxima of Abreu et al with temperatures over the last 10,000 years? I realize their solar data is probably more reliable than temperature data, but that seems like something worth trying to do.
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Leif is overstating the confidence again. I’ll agree that there is a good chance that cycle 24 has started, but it’s 3 or 4 months to early to call it definitively.
Regardless, if this the start of cycle 24, it’s an amazingly weak start. One or two tiny tim spots per month. Not very impressive.
http://smallcomets.physics.uiowa.edu/wp.html
According to the above link, 10 million house sized comets are hitting the earth every year. Is that enough water to have a noticeable affect on the ocean levels?
Wow Leif, it’s like playing speed chess against a room of young ‘uns. So many questions, so little time (I liked the teleconnection-to-H20 synthesis idea, right up there with some of my wackier ideas…).
It’ll be fun when NASA/NOAA starts openly conceding the bottom line might in fact be the magnetic field drop off. The cumulative spotless days reflect the decline in magnetic dynamics currently but until SC24 ramp up they’re hoping it’s still their game. Their concession speech will be delivered …. when … 2010 perhaps?
In keeping with our standards of criticizing the opposing team I shall refrain from congratulating you prematurely. 😉
/leebert
Peter Stott, head of climate monitoring and attribution at the Met Office, which said: “In both polar regions the observed warming can only be reproduced in our models by including human influences – natural forcings alone are not enough.
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Nobody in the reality based community has ever stated that mankind (via CO2 or other mechanisms) has played no part in the current warming. The argument has always been about how much. The models say most. The science says very little.
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“For a long time climate scientists have known that Arctic areas would be expected to warm most strongly because of feedback mechanisms, but the results from this work demonstrate the part man has already played in the significant warming that we’ve observed in both polar regions.”
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Funny thing that. The arctic has warmed much less than other parts of the planet, and the antarctic has actually cooled.
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Last year, the Arctic witnessed record levels of sea ice melt during the summer melting season, prompting scientists at the US National Snow and Ice Data Centre to announce that the effects of climate change were “coming through loud and clear”.
————
Even NASA has been forced to admit that last years melt was due to changes in air and water circulation, not warming.
Another point. The warming in the arctic has not been continuous. There was a big jump in temperature back in the late 70’s. Coincident with the change in the PDO from cold to warm. Prior to that point, temperatures were relatively stable. After that point, temperatures were relatively stable.
Now that the PDO has switched back to cold, we need to wait a few years and see what happens. If the arctic cools off, then the warming was in response to the PDO. If it doesn’t, then other factors dominate.
Leif,
Thanks for the response.
AnonyMoose,
Good call, complete blonde moment on that one. For awhile I was observing the aurora and got used to that always being an issue.
“OT, but saw this linked over at junkscience.com and felt it creepy enough to post here…”
Resurrecting JFK’s skreed is iffy for a religion like the Environmentalism
(thank you Freeman Dyson ) faith, and cognitive dissonance is tol’ble with that presentation. They just realized that they daren’t go back to the Book of Daniel, “Revelation,” or any of those more dynamic threats for the future. Even their most dissonant adherents might rebel.
Mike (09:53:54) Oh, what an excellent link to Freeman Dyson. It’s pretty obvious why he doesn’t need a doctorate to be compelling.
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Leif,
This is sort of on topic – and while you and Kim and anyone else interested are around:
I have reconciled the difference between your integration of TSI and mine (and Pete’s).
In short, I get the same result (ie my and Pete’s graph), using your method if I subtract ~1365 from the TSI data and integrate by adding the differences over each cycle.
If your interested in more details I can e-mail you.