The NOAA Space Weather Prediction center updated their plots of solar indices earlier today, on January 3rd. With the exception of a slight increase in the 107 centimeter radio flux, there appears to be even less signs of solar activity. Sunspots are still not following either of the two predictive curves, and it appears that the solar dynamo continues to slumber, perhaps even winding down further. Of particular note, the last graph below (click the read more link to see it) showing the Average Planetary Index (Ap) is troubling. I thought there would be an uptick by now, due to expectations of some sign of cycle 24 starting up, but instead it continues to drop.
Meanwhile, the Oulu Neutron Monitor shows a significant up trend, reaching levels not seen in over 30 years. According to an email I received from Dr. David Archibald, GCR flux has indeed increased:
Oulu Neutron Monitor Data, plotted by David Archibald with prediction point added. Data source: University of Oulu, Finland
Svensmark is watching this closely I’m sure.
Looking at the SWPC graph below, it appears that we are in uncharted territory now, since the both the high and low cycle 24 predictions (in red) appear to be falsified for the current time frame. No new cycle 24 predictions have been issued by any solar group (that I am aware of ) in the last couple of months. The last time NASA made a change was in October 08. The question now seems to be, are we seeing the beginning of a cycle skip, or a grand minima? Or is this just an extraordinary delay for cycle 24 ?
Solar cycle 24: where are you?
h/t to Russ Steele
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Unfortunately this is not just an intellectual debate but millions of lives are at risk. Unless we factor in the likelihood of coming cold into climate change scenarios regardless of which camp we are in then we are being grossly irresponsible.
“The TSI showed a steady drop until 20080726 at a value of 1360.7601.”
Is this the value at the Earth? We are now at closest approach. Ditto that for radio flux, which is flatlined lately.
Otherwise, I have a similar feeling: The first Tiny Tims appeared July and Sept. 2006! We are near minimum, give or take, but 24 is going to disappoint.
Dr. de Jager, an eminent astrophysicist, is in his late eighties so his forecast does not likely indicate a novel approach.
Anthony, I think predictions from Hathaway were updated 12/8/08
http://sprg.ssl.berkeley.edu/RHESSI/napa2008/talks/MonI_Hathaway.pdf
At this conference:
http://sprg.ssl.berkeley.edu/RHESSI/napa2008/pts.php
REPLY: Well I wonder why he never put it on his public page here:
http://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/predict.shtml
vukcevic,
If you are right then this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Carbon14_with_activity_labels.svg
is wrong.
Some years ago, a witty individual tried to define the science & art of structural engineering ( we sadly do not have the prestige that non UK countries enjoy but that’s another long story), that definition was that “structural engineering was the art & science of trying to analyse forces we do not fully understand, distributing them into materials whose qualities we do not fully appreciate, all dressed up to look as though we know what we’re talking about!” Does that sound familiar to any other branch of the scientific/engineering world?
There are so many cycles involved in solar science, the gleissberg cycle, the Suess Cycle, Schwarbe, with periodicities ranging from 11 years, 22 years, 88 years, 200 years, & even 2300 years, & there are so many correlations with these to global events on earth, that I suspect the same principle applies to the definition of astrophysics & climate science! Every time some “expert” makes a claim to have solved the riddle, nature does her best to humiliate them by doing the complete opposite to what was predicted, they then scurry around to find an excuse as to why their model got it wrong & what will happen next after they tweak it around for a while! I am personally certain that the Sun drives climate change on all scales, that we don’t really understand how & why “climate” changes work, we just think we do, we know that on long term scales orbital mechanics drive ice ages, but we don’t really know for sure what happens, why sometimes cooling is slow, & sometimes it is quite rapid, alarmingly so sometimes, eg evidence that frozen mammoths still had food in their mouths when they froze although that may be a myth but I am open minded. Solar variations play their part, whether to cool or warm us into the bargain to change the cycle from cold to warm to cold again, etc, but we still don’t really know how it all fits together. There are just theories as to how it all works that seem to fit the curve.
The point is that nature is failing to play to the tune of the climate models & solar predictions, etc. There must be a rethink & a small element of honesty & humility brought into the debate (the one that isn’t over) for the sake of the human race. Technology will eventually solve our earthly problems, up to & including energy solutions, Dilithium Crystals or not!
Pierre,
The problem with AGW is not the sun. It is that the AGW promoters have misrepresented the role of CO2 from the start, and have relied on garbage data and subjective algorithms to ‘prove’ their point.
All the signs are pointing to grand minimum….maybe the last for a very long time, It looks like after this grand minimum we will enter a true modern maximum like the medieval warm period, which had no grand minima for over 200 years. IF it does happen I expect many of the solar cycle predictors taking up a new line of work.
Hansen does’nt know what he’s doing. He’s like the King with no cloths on. Everbody knows he’s naked and laughs behind his back but says nothing to him.
So. Is #24 still going “just like they predicted”?
What a laugher that was…
Looking at David Archibalds graph of Oulu Neutron Monioring, are there any records of precipitation that can be correlated to it? After all Cosmic rays are supposed to generate more clouds, hence on average there should be more rain / snow. I keep seeing references to increased precipitation in the Arctic region since the sudden cooling in early 2008 and wondered if this triggered by increasing cosmic rays.
GISS’s ModelE climate model has built in an increase of about 0.1C over time for solar activity increase. My guess is they have dropped this to 0.0C now with the lower activity of today going by what they had built in in the early 1900s.
crosspatch (01:10:10) :
“I also noticed that the neutron count has been on a nearly linear ramp up since July.”
I’m sure Leif will provide a dose of skepticism to Archibald’s prediction of the maximum for CRF. But I’d be more impressed with Leif if he’d acknowledge that CRF has stayed at a plateau longer than he’s expected. In one of our many past discussions, I remember him scoffing at one of Archibald’s predictions, and stating that CRF had begun to decline. Well, shortly thereafter, it began to rise again. Truth be told, it has just meandered up and down for the past few months, though the overall trend has been slightly positive.
I think we’re in uncharted territory, as far as direct observation of these things is concerned. It certainly looks like SC23 is all but dead, and that SC24 is spitting and sputtering in an effort to get started. I don’t really see a basis for how high DA is projected CRF to go, and if there is any pickup in SC24, then CRF probably peaked in November or December. But if SC24 continues to struggle out of the starting gate, all bets are off.
Stan Jones (01:45:54) :
No – that prediction is contingent on there being sunspots. The “fade from view” part is all about the temperature and hence contrast across the sunspot becoming less and less due to weaker magnetic fields interferring less with convection. The magnetic signature will still be there.
If there are no sunspots, the predictions can neither be tracked nor verified.
The main WUWT reference is http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/2008/06/02/livingston-and-penn-paper-sunspots-may-vanish-by-2015/
I am not a scientist, so please forgive my ignorance, but I would like to ask two questions. I hope someone can answer them for me.
Firstly, I saw from some graphs, that artic sea ice was growing rapidly through the end of 2008. And then in December 2008, the charts I saw seemed to show a plateau, they stopped growing.
Can anyone explain this to me? How can sea ice stop growing in the artic in December? Presumably the graphs I saw cover the whole artic, and if the total level stops growing, then on average there must be some places of build up and some where it is melting? But melting in December?
http://www.nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/N_timeseries.png
The other thing I dont understand is that we seem to have a globe where most of the temperatures are steady or falling, with the exception of Siberia, which is a bit of a hot spot. There is controversy about the recording of temperatures on the ground in Siberia, but apparently satellite technology seems to be confirming warming there too.
How is Siberia defying the trend and warming?
Thanks in advance for any answers from a confused layman.
I note that the graphic is updated as of Jan 03 2009, but the last “dot” – that represents the data point for December, I assume – is not on the Jan 01, 2009 axis line, but is positioned at a point corresponding to “Dec 01, 2008”, not Dec 31, 2008.
Until December’s 1.2 sunspot reading, the graphic actually looks like the sun “is trying” to go back up (solar flux levels were “sort of” increasing as well from Aug through Nov) … But then Dec hit and the light switch went to “off”.
The related plot comparing number of sunspots per month for the previous minimum is also instructive: gradually, the number of clear days per month was declining from August through Nov, but then December’s 28 clear days is way back high again. (Literally, December’s plot of “number of clear days” is off the chart – the whole plot comparing red (current cycle 23-24 minimum) to blue (cycle 22-23 minimum) can’t be plotted at the previous scale.)
Plot (from solar cycle 24 web site) comparing cycle 22 – 23 minimum to cycle 34 – 24 minimum:
http://www.solarcycle24.com/graphs/sunspotgraph.gif
Note how poorly even NASA’s (Dr Davis Hathaway) re-re-revised solar cycle 24 graphs looks compared to actual activity:
http://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/images/ssn_predict_l.gif
I wish I knew for sure about this, I’d be selling and moving to Florida if this is the case. Energy costs will bankrupt anyone up north if we have zero temp. and Obama’s / Hansen’s CO2 plan.
[moderator: If the following is useful, feel free to show it directly as an inline graph — timc]
I put a graph together a few days ago, where it might be a useful way of looking at sunspot minima.
http://www.gpsl.net/data/ssn_mins_tnc1a.png
The data is the contiguous daily sunspot record over the past 160 years (days without data before that). It is done by segmenting the record at the approximate solar maximum, then counting zero sunspot days for the whole max through min to max.
This gets around the human artificial count the zeros on earth year, which does not fit well with minima.
Anthony, here’s David Hathaway’s Powerpoint presentation from December 2008. It covers both current conditions and the various prediction methods:
http://sprg.ssl.berkeley.edu/RHESSI/napa2008/talks/MonI_Hathaway.pdf
I was surprised by the total irradiance slide (slide #4 or #5), which shows current total irradiance as the lowest “on record” (which I believe is about 30 years).
I wish we also had the commentary he offered during the presentation, which no doubt offered much more detail.
Dave,
It seems trhat the Arctic ice is being compacted by winds at the same time as it has pretty much covered all the readily available open water.
The limited open water at this stage is what keeps most of the different yearly trends at much the same level of ice cover at this time of year.
Later on there is often a bit of a breakout of ice into less landlocked seas and the strength of that breakout determines the maximum cover for the season.
If ice is currently being compacted then it might cover a slightly smaller area but will be denser and less easy to melt next season.
The Siberian (relative) warmth has been caused by the northerly trend in western europe becoming a southerly trend in Siberia. That is caused by the distribution of weather systems.
Siberia is now becoming cooler.
Warm air being pumped into Siberia for any length of time in winter is not a good thing for total planetary warmth. Effectively it is an acceleration of heat loss as the warm air advected into Siberia loses heat rapidly in the darkness.
Some think that it will encourage the growth of northern high pressure systems which tend to be associated with colder weather once they get established.
Anthony,
Here is the link to the Journal’s site where an abstract can be downloaded for free http://www.njgonline.nl/
Click on: “Solar activity and its influence on climate.”
Prof de jager is a compatriate and one of very high standing in the Netherlands and beyond.
He was director of the Utrecht Observatory, founder and first director of the Utrecht Space Research Laboratory, and founder of the Astrophysical Institute of Brussels Free University and general secretary of IAU (International Astronomical Union), president of COSPAR (Intl. organization for co-operation in Space Research) and president of ICSU (Intl. Council for Science). He founded and was first editor of the journals `Space Science Reviews’ and ‘Solar Physics’.
http://www.cdejager.com/about/
It would appear to me that the AUSTRALIAN SPACE WEATHER AGENCY forecast is closer to reality than the local’s. They don’t see a significant change until July. I tend to agree as I have said the same per past posts
http://www.ips.gov.au/Solar/1/6
Re Chris Schoneveld’s post, the Netherlands Journal of Geosciences can be found online, and seems to have a special edition devoted to climate change. Abstracts are available online, but full text needs a subscription, which my university doesn’t have.
However he seems to have posted a copy at his website.
@Dave 1/4/09 – 6:53:14
The explanation for the sideways motion of the graph is that the graph is showing areas with at least 15% ice and this is partly determined by wind and currents. For a rough example 100 sq mi with 15% ice might have the same amount of ice as 50 sq mi with 30% ice after the wind pushes some ice into a smaller area. Just because the number of square miles decreased doesn’t mean the ice has decreased.
@Dave 1/4/09 – 6:53:14
As regards Siberia, just like there is always a drought somewhere and floods somewhere else, this is weather. It may be tied to the PDO or North Atlantic, or it may be tied to the oscillations that caused the Arctic ice to decrease. I’m not a climatologist, but from my readings on climate and experience with math in other fields I’m convinced we just don’t know enough to tease these kind of details out of the data.