We are now at 21 days with no sunspots, it will be interesting to see if we reach a spotless 30 day period and then perhaps a spotless month of December.
From the data provided by NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) you can see just how little magnetic field activity there has been. I’ve included it below with the latest available update from December 6th, 2008:
click for a larger image
What I find most interesting about the Geomagnetic Average Planetary Index graph above is what happened around October 2005. Notice the sharp drop in the magnetic index and the continuance at low levels. Read on for more.
This looks much like a “step function” that I see on GISS surface temperature graphs when a station has been relocated to a cooler measurement environment. In the case of the sun, it appears this indicates that something abruptly “switched off” in the inner workings of the solar dynamo. Note that in the prior months, the magnetic index was ramping up a bit with more activity, then it simply dropped and stayed mostly flat.
Currently the Ap magnetic index continues at a low level, and while the “smoothed” data from SWPC is not made available for 2008, I’ve added it with a dashed blue line, and the trend appears to be going down.
As many regular readers know, I’ve always pointed out the sharp drop in 2005 with the following extended period of low activity as an odd occurance. Our resident solar astronomer Leif Svalgaard disagrees with this. But I’d also like to point out that this was the time when global sea level as measured by the JASON satellite and reported by the University of Colorado began to lose its upward trend.
Source: University of Colorado, Boulder
Coincidence? Perhaps. But I think investigation is needed to determine if there is any mechanism that would explain or exclude this correlation.
(h/t Joe D’aleo
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Bill Marsh (05:20:38) :
same time that the Sun’s magnetic field did that ’step function’ thing). The site is titled ‘Cosmic Ray Monitor’ but, if it is only tracking neutrons it isn’t tracking all the particles that are Cosmic Rays. Interesting none the less.
(1) there is no particular step thing in October 2005.
http://www.leif.org/research/IHV1882-2007.png
(2) the neutrons are generated in the atmosphere by incoming cosmic rays, so the neutron monitors do track the cosmic rays.
The project was initially proposed in 2000, but for some reason got accepted in 2006. There could be many reasons to that, so let’s not get paranoid about it. Actually, the CERN webpage published a dedicated press release about it when it got accepted.
But it’s true that the first results were expected in 2007. Those preliminary studies were supposed to prove/disprove the existence of the supposed mechanism of aerosol formation. I’ve heard nothing about it, but I don’t know whether it’s because they did not get any results or if they go “in the wrong direction”.
Basil (07:09:04) :
Right, it is respectable now, and a second one is developing. When I first saw it it was iffy.
JimB:-)
We’d love to have g’d ol Jimbo Hansen over here, we have a real soft spot for him -it’s a bog on Dartmoor!
After his last little outing I am eagerly awaiting his return to tesify in support of some eco-protestors after they kill or maim some poor innocent bystander with their crazy antics, they can now legally damage property in the name of “saving the planet”, so what’s next?
AtB
If we were to get the 348 spotless days in 2009 to tie the total number between 1911-1913, that would exceed the all-time record number of spotless days set in 1913. It is interesting to note that the winter of 1912-1913 is the second coldest on record since statistics have been kept.
JimB (06:10:15) :
“Some half-wit professor @ur momisugly Oxford has decided that it is time to prosecute power companies for crimes against humanity & the environment, some of which have yet to be committed?????? Oh well, must put another nob of coal on the fire to keep out the chilly weather we don’t have any more according to the Met Office.”
The only upside to that is that Hansen will now fly over to the UK to testify…
Maybe he’ll start to really like it over there?
We’d miss him.
Terribly.
Really.
JimB
Hey. Don’t you dump your “alarmists” on us thank you very much. We’ve got enough of our own as it is with “Moonbat.”
davidgmills:
The scientific community still has not changed the “consensus” on global warming.
I hear every day that the scientific “consensus” is that we are facing global warming on a catastrophic scale.
There is no “scientific consensus” on global warming. What you are hearing is simply political hype and propaganda. It all comes down to the herd instinct, unfortunately, and has nothing to do with science. Many scientists who are part of the AGW industry have to “go along to get along”. Grant money is at stake, and so are jobs and careers. Those who dare step out of the fold risk everything to do so, unless they are already retired, but they still become targets for the inevitable backlash. Since AGW is essentially little more than a pseudo-scientific ideology, this battle is necessarily a two-pronged one, both scientific and political. Both are equally important, in order for the AGW behemoth to be brought down.
“” Also, what are you using these days as a Neutron detector; and what is the energy range of these neutrons.
http://ulysses.sr.unh.edu/NeutronMonitor/background.html
I assume that the Neutrons are being generated in the atmosphere from charged particle collisions, rather than coming in from outer space (or solar)
Correct. “”
Thanks Leif for that info. I couldn’t access the Spectral content link, but the neutron Detector artilce was quite interesting, if not particularly specific. Reading between the lines, I gather that the basic detector is a proportional gas counter tube with internal organic materials to give you knock on Protons to detect.
Very first Transistor circuit I ever built, was a detector circuit to go with a Tissue Equivalent Neutron detector tube to use as a safety monitor in an accelerator Lab. (University of Auckland circa 1959-60) We had a 600KV Cockroft Walton accelerator that was used to shoot Deuterons, at heavy ice targets to create neutrons in the 14 MeV range (Protons too). Students were doing double scattering polarisation measurments on the emitted neutron beams, and werer using proportional counters that were somewhat innefficient as Neutron detectors (but had zero gamma detection efficiency, so they didn’t get a lot of background noise. But the count rates were pitiful so it took days of running to get any statistics.
I built a Scintillation Counter Neutron Detector, using a Stilbene crystal, which was about 10,000 times as efficient as the gas tubes; but also responded to gammas. The discrimination method took two signals out of the photomultiplier, from the anoded and the last dynode. The final dynode signal was peak detected with a fast amplifier to collect the pulse height, and the anode signal was integrated to give a total pulse are signal.
The result was I could discriminate pulse shape from the height and area, and heavier particles like alphas had a big long time constant tail, knock-on protons had a smaller tail, and electrons (from gammas) had very little long decay component; so I could selectively count alphas, Neutrons, or gammas by selecting the right area to pulse height ratio. So I eneded up with a much higher neutron count rate, which speeded up the double scattering experiments.
There seems to be a typo in the detector paper you cited, since they talk about neutrons in the hundreds of MeV to 1 GeV range, but then talk about 1-20GeV as being the low energy portion of the spectrum. I suppose that’s possible with cosmic rays. I seem to recall looking at a cosmic ray emulsion track photograph that somebody studied to add up all the components, and came up with something like 10^19 eV total energy for the shower. I think the primary must have been a bolt off an alien spacecraft or something.
I can see that proportional counters would have been a good choice for IGY time frame, so it is interesting to find that you still use the same general things. Presumably with the tube stacks you can also get some telescope effects to look for sources?
I guess at one time or another I have been from the sub audio to the outer limits in the EM spectrum; never worked with X-rays though.
I’ll try again to see if I can get to that Fourier spectrum you cited; the link didn’t work for me.
Thanks again Leif.
davidgmills (07:20:26) :
The claim that there is a “consensus” regarding CO2 and warming is nothing more than good PR. Any survey’s of actual scientists show that there is no consensus.
As to the claim that CO2 is the only theory behind the warming, that too is nothing more than good PR. There is no theory, there are just climate models. The reliability of such models is still to be demonstrated.
Leif,
Thanks for the effort on this thread. I lost some time reading but it was very worthwhile.
The snow in the European Alps is just amazing at the moment. I presume the lack of sunspots is related to this…
Leif Svalgaard (08:16:13) :
Don B (05:51:48) :
Svensmark and Calder’s “The Chilling Stars,” they write “There is usually a delay of a year or two from maximum sunspots to minimum cosmic rays, ..” And so I assumed the maximum level of cosmic rays for this 50+ year period is yet to come.
You confuse max and min, perhaps. Anyway, no need to be confused:
http://www.leif.org/research/CosmicRayFlux.png
http://www.leif.org/research/CosmicRayFlux3.png
Pretty striking, at least to my admittedly not so well trained eye.
This is OT, but the absurd Pachauri interview linked below, requires comments and analysis by real scientists. My BSmeter broke while reading it.
http://www.physorg.com/news148067188.html
Is it possible that current reduction in the size of the heliosphere may well be due to an increase in the strength of the interstellar field as well as corresponding weakness of the solar wind?
Any past references on the matter?
A souther Hemisphere cycle 24 spot has appeared so the long spotless run is over. It is, I think the largest SH cycle 24 spot so far. Pictures on
SOLARCYCLE 24.com
“Grant money is at stake, and so are jobs and careers. Those who dare step out of the fold risk everything to do so, unless they are already retired, but they still become targets for the inevitable backlash.”
Therein lies the problem in a nutshell and why the non-scientific world is disenchanted with the scientific community. The scientific community has no spine, no guts, no moral compass. And that has left the rest of us wondering whether any of the scientific community can be trusted.
Every time a doctor prescribes a prescription for me, I wonder whether the science behind the approval of that drug was legit, or whether someone sold his soul to the drug company just to get a paycheck.
It used to be that the non-scientific community revered the science community and the science community was trusted. Not anymore. We simply don’t know who to trust because science now has a price tag.
Despite what someone posted above that there is no scientific consensus, I disagree because I am told that every single day. And whether it is true or not, it is all about the “framing.” And the frame is that there is a consensus and nobody has seemed to have been successful in destroying this frame.
And that is why I think simply arguing that the global temperature rise of the 20th century was natural rather than anthropogenic will not be sufficient. Arguing generally that the changes were natural will not dislodge the present framing. The only way to dislodge the present framing is to come up with a new frame that has a new picture in it.
“This looks much like a “step function” that I see on GISS surface temperature graphs when a station has been relocated to a cooler measurement environment.”
I think the answer is clear… The sun has been moved to a cooler environment.
Leif Svalgaard (08:11:28) :
The ‘inflow’ comes from new SC24 spots, and is happening. It just about a year for the flux to get up into the polar cap, so you don’t se it there yet, but the flux is on its way as we can see by looking at lower latitudes.
Agree but no effect at the poles of any kind yet, suggesting a very slow flow. This minimum is way more prolonged than the previous 2 cycles.
The changes don’t happen from month to month or from day to day or from minute to minute.
But your data is still too old for my purposes, and I am not sure you could say that a sudden change in the differential rotation rate is not possible, in fact I would think it more likely. i think it would be a great area of study to check if there is indeed a slowdown….someone must be working on it?
I said “we both agree on the solar pole weakness for upcoming activity but i have a causation theory….whats yours?”
http://www.leif.org/research/Cycle%2024%20Smallest%20100%20years.pdf
http://www.leif.org/research/Percolation%20and%20the%20Solar%20Dynamo.pdf
Now, let people compare this with yours…
Your paper unless I missed it doesn’t explain why the solar pole strength is weakening and neither does Schattens….so we don’t have anything to compare with my theory?
I have added quite a bit of new research to my theory and have added some further research into Hung’s and Desmoulins work, I also have one of your MWO graphs looking at SC20. Ian Wilson has also released one of his papers on my blog which some may find interesting.
http://landscheidt.auditblogs.com/
LEIF
Here are just three examples which support the paper posted.
Link Between Solar Cycle And Climate Is Blowin’ In The Wind
ScienceDaily (Apr. 12, 1999) — Researchers have found that the variations in the energy given off from the sun effect the Earth’s wind patterns and thus the climate of the planet, according to results of a new study published in the April 9 issue of Science.
Sun’s Direct Role In Global Warming May Be Underestimated, Duke Physicists Report
ScienceDaily (Oct. 2, 2005) — DURHAM, N.C. — At least 10 to 30 percent of global warming measured during the past two decades may be due to increased solar output rather than factors such as increased heat-absorbing carbon dioxide gas released by various human activities, two Duke University physicists report.
Sun’s Magnetic Field May Impact Weather And Climate: Sun Cycle Can Predict Rainfall Fluctuations
ScienceDaily (Dec. 3, 2008) — The sun’s magnetic field may have a significant impact on weather and climatic parameters in Australia and other countries in the northern and southern hemispheres. According to a study in Geographical Research, the droughts are related to the solar magnetic phases and not the greenhouse effect.
yonsaon (20:24:03) :
“If one is going to ‘convince’ the AGW bought crowd, wouldn’t this be the way to do it?” — R. Bateman
That would be true if they were rational, but by now we know that they are probably not.
Sources say Obama is likely to choose Steven Chu of Lawrence Livermore Lab., a physicist as his energy secretary. Chu runs the lab. I would fully expect him to be rational as well as very scientific. Give that man some Carl Sagan lessons and stand back.
I could easily see the 1 spots today, the leading one looked like an ameoba about to split, and the trailing one a dark dot.
Orion 70mm F/9 25mm Meade Plossl.
Oop… 2 spots . Sorry about that.
davidgmills:
“Despite what someone posted above that there is no scientific consensus, I disagree because I am told that every single day. And whether it is true or not, it is all about the “framing.” And the frame is that there is a consensus and nobody has seemed to have been successful in destroying this frame.”
I agree with you here David. That is why every time I hear this, from whomever I hear it, I challenge it. I call radio talkshows, I email the Oprah show, I challenge friends and associates…anyone who spews the consensus crap. It simply cannot stand, now more than ever. Write your local paper, editorial page, politician…let them know that there are people that are keeping score now. Let them know that not everyone is rolling over on this and giving the press a free ride. Give them pointers to here, Climate Audit…anyplace else that points out the lucicrous claims.
And hey…you folks across the pond?…I wasn’t trying to be mean. I really like you folks. Alot. It’s just that we’ve had enough of him here. There are a lot of things we can be proud of over here…(forget that whole tea thing), but he really isn’t one of them.
Btw…if you take my advice up top?…you’ll be amazed at how open your social calendar becomes :>)
JimB
and ludicrous claims, too.
JimB
Bruce Cobb (09:37:59) :
“…Those who dare step out of the fold risk everything to do so, unless they are already retired, but they still become targets for the inevitable backlash. …”
Perhaps some dissenting scientists are starting to awaken. (http://icecap.us/)