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
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Cycle 24 begins before the minimum and cycle 23 endures past the minimum. At minimum, spots of both polarities are present.
This is scary, even for Halloween. I think I’m beginning to understand some of this.
OT- Could anybody provide an “idiot’s guide” summary of the difference between sea ice “extent” and “area”
MarkW (09:36:59) :
Leif is overstating the confidence again.
The ‘again’ is not called for. I do have some experience with this [what is yours? :-)]. Actually solar cycle 24 started three years ago. The issue is how long solar cycle 23 will live. I’d say at least another year, maybe two. Solar minimum is a completely artificial construct. The Sun doesn’t know about solar minimum and how we choose to define it.
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.
Well, I’ve been predicting that SC24 would be the smallest cycle in a century, so it is no surprise that it starts out weak and anemic.
Mark (09:37:25) :
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?
No [and the 10 million small cometlets are likely not real. Lou Frank has caught a lot of heat on this, and is a bit pissed that nobody is buying it]. Anyway, the bombardment by comets was a lot higher during the first billion years of Earth’s ‘life’ and that was when the oceans basically formed. A smaller amount has been added since.
leebert (09:39:42) :
Their concession speech will be delivered …. when … 2010 perhaps?
More like 2014 🙂
As late as 1998 [well into cycle 23] Hathaway was still predicting Rmax(23) = 171.0 +/- 17.6 [a monster cycle just short of the all-time high cycle 19 at 190], so they will hang on way past the ‘sell-by-date’.
But, really, we don’t KNOW. We have opposing models and we’ve have to let Sun tell us which is the better [if any – it would be a blow if SC24 comes out average].
Steve Hempell (10:12:35) :
In short, I get the same result (ie my and Pete’s graph), using your method
As long as you get the same result as I, am I to complain 🙂
Good that you have cleared that up.
Steve Hempell (10:12:35) and
Leif Svalgaard (10:37:31)
Please clarify for a blog reading nobody. I read Steve’s post to mean that he still disagrees with your graph, Leif, and agrees with Pete’s, from comment #454 of the Svalgaard #2 thread at climateaudit.org
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Bill P (10:14:43) I’m an idiot, so I can fulfill your request. Ice extent counts all the pixels with at least 15% ice in them and ice area does not, so ice extent is always greater than ice area. Ice extent includes a lot of open water, and ice area does not. Stand by for corrections from Phil. who is at least expert, though a hopeless true believer in CO2=AGW.
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Leif Svalgaard (00:00:20) :
Great links, thanks
This bit about Pete’s graph is important, folks, because it shows a correlation between the integrated length and strength of the solar cycles with historical temperatures.
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Leif:
Did you misunderstand me?
Your graph of the integration of TSI over the cycles was different than mine (and Pete’s). As I recall, you rejected our results because of this difference and therefore negated your statement “that is a very telling graph” on Svalgaard #2.
Now, I have repeated my (and Pete’s) graph using your method of integration by subtracting 1365.56 (my TSI graph’s baseline) from your data. Now are we not integrating over the cycles alone? Why does this not reinstate the “this is a very telling graph” statement?
If not, why not? I am very far from being the brightest bulb in the box when it comes to mathematics, but what is the explanation for this difference? Sorry if I am trying your patience!! 🙂
O.T., but the Arctic ice extent seems to have caught up with that of the previous six years excepting only 2005. The Antarctic ice is also back to having a positive anomaly of almost 0.5 million km2.
http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/en/home/seaice_extent.htm
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/current.365.south.jpg
Steve (11:24:32) I thought so. You and Lief ought to be emailing each other over this. Telling and chilling, yessiree, Bob, er, I mean Steve.
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Mike Sivertsen (08:40:44) :
“Did you know our planet is bombarded by a 20-to-40 ton watery comet every three seconds?”
Aha! At last an explanation for the catastrophic rise in sea-level. How long before NYC and Miami, Florida, will be under-water?
kim (11:11:24) :
Steve Hempell (11:24:32) :
Now, I have repeated my (and Pete’s) graph using your method of integration by subtracting 1365.56 (my TSI graph’s baseline) from your data. Now are we not integrating over the cycles alone? Why does this not reinstate the “this is a very telling graph” statement?
Too many ‘negations’ here. To integrate a series you sum. Here is an example:
1 10 10
2 20 30
3 30 60
4 50 110
5 60 170
6 45 215
7 30 245
8 20 265
9 10 275
10 0 275
The 3rd column is the running sum. For the whole cycle the integral is the last number in the 3rd column, i.e. 275.
Consider another cycle [a very long one]
1 10 10
2 20 20
3 30 50
4 40 90
5 42 132
6 45 177
7 42 219
8 40 259
9 35 294
10 30 324
11 25 349
12 20 369
13 15 384
14 10 394
15 0 394
Even though the second cycle has lower max (45 vs. 60) it has a larger integral (394 vs. 275) [provided I did the arithmetic correctly 🙂 ].
The above process is what I did, and what you should have done [and what I thought you eventually did]. You should not divide by the cycle length. If you do [IIRC], you just end up with the mean.
Here is a question for y’all:
Right now on the Sun there is a tiny sunspot group. Suppose you removed all the rest of the Sun so that only that group were left in the sky, like the grin of the Cheshire cat. The region would still radiate [after all it has a temperature of 4500K or so]. How bright would it look in the sky? Like Sirius? like the ISS? like the full moon?
Leif (12:45:12) Bet ya’ couldn’t see it. But what is its Bill Livingston measured magnetism?
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It is claimed that the main reason for few reports of sunspots from 1650 to 1715 was that people were not observing the Sun, or at any rate not systematically. Eddy (1976) set out to show that this had not in fact been the case. After setting the scene by describing Rosa Ursina (Scheiner 1626-30), in which methods of observing sunspots and their accompanying bright “faculae” were painstakingly described, he describes the best known solar observers of the Sun during the 17th century, and briefly outlines their work. Among the most important was Hevelius of Dantzig, who published a major study in 1679 describing observations of the solar surface made continually between 1652 and 1685, Picard in Paris made systematic observations of the Sun every clear day from 1653 to his death in 1685, succeeded by La Hire, who if anything was even more assiduous, continuing Picard’s work until his own death in 1718. Flamsteed was also a persistent solar observer between 1676 and 1699. It was largely based on the work of these observers, supplemented by others in Italy, that Spörer (1887) constructed a table of all the sunspots noted between 1672 and 1699. He found less than 50.
I ask why the observations from these very dedicated early scientist are mistrusted,
if it is not the lack of activity of the sun that caused the past cooling what was it.
‘Human activities/influences’ is code for ‘not (primarily) GHGs and CO2’.
If were CO2 they would be shouting it from the rooftops.
Rob (13:03:42) :
I ask why the observations from these very dedicated early scientist are mistrusted
Nobody mistrusts the early observers, their result is accepted. There are a few quibbles like when an observer in London in 1666 says: “I didn’t see a single spot all year”. In the Hoyt/Schatten tabulation of their group numbers, that figures as 365 observations [one every day] of zero spots, which is clearly wrong as there has never been a year in London where you could observe the Sun on every day. You know, clouds, fog, etc., especially during the bad weather during the LIA.
So, the fraction of days with observations per year is misstated and makes it look better observed than it actually was. But these are details, nobody doubts the reality of the Maunder Minimum anymore.
Leif,
Like ISS. It is black in color because it is dimmer than the surrounding star. Therefore it would still shine at slightly less luminosity than a same size portion of the star at standard luminosity. In perspective it would be approximately the size of the Earth at the distance of the Sun.
Jim Arndt (13:34:31) :
Like ISS.
any other takers?
“In perspective it would be approximately the size of the Earth at the distance of the Sun.”
Using these speculations for my own WAG, I’d put it about the size of a large star, so the size of Sirius. As for luminosity… don’t know.
Leif
10,000 planet Mercury.
How stupid I am.
But, you always answered my questions.
Bill P (14:18:28) :
I’d put it about the size of a large star, so the size of Sirius.
Any more?
Leif,
for your challenge: I don’t think humans can see anything without instruments. The 4500K of the sunspot is near infrared, so the radiated colour temperature is invisible to human eye me think.
Mick I believe day light bulbs in the store are 4100K color temp so it would be very visible. Me thinks it could be at the opposite end and be as bright as the full moon. I’ve just have never actually calculated it that way. But it is very bright.
the sunspeck alone [without the rest of the Sun] will be seven times brighter than the full moon…