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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tarpon (15:09:02) :
Could it be the sun burns so brightly that it exhausts all it’s easy to consume fuel and needs 100,000 years to recharge the reservoirs? And then uses that accumulated fuel up in the next 10-12,000 years?
Ice ages correlate very nicely with the Milankovitch 100,000 cycle which is basically a change to the earths orbital shape (from round to elliptical) caused by the Neptune, Uranus, Jupiter and Saturn. I have read that the elliptical orbit can vary the Earth’s solar input by upto 30%. We are in the round orbit position now but not far off declining slowly to our next ice age in around 100,000 years.
So there are 2 factors….1 controlling the distance to the Sun and the other controlling the output of the Sun, both by the same source in my opinion.
Leif,
my first climate paper, in Figure 2 – on my website – “Solar Cycles 24 and 25 and Predicted Climate Response” dating from 2006.
“Was that the one that was dubbed “The Worst Climate Paper of All Time”? or is one of the later ones a stronger candidate? http://n3xus6.blogspot.com/2007/02/dd.html”
Can’t get that url to load, can you find another?
I found this one, but doubt it is what you had in mind.
http://jennifermarohasy.com/blog/2008/09/ten-of-the-worst-climate-research-papers-a-note-from-cohenite/
davidgmills (15:30:57) :
It is possible to look at individual sites – the raw data from Ireland and England (CET) show that there was a slight warming during the period, contrary to what might be expected. I reckon the strong influence of the Altantic (and prevailing Westerlies) is a good reason, although increased cloud could also play a role.
http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dgxfh8sf_0fgg6rjqz
At least one of the sites (Armagh) is well sited and generally well regarded, although there are some months missing in 1828-1830.
I think many posters have made good points on the correlation between grand solar minima & colder climates. I also think Leif makes some good points of why the solar physics doesn’t necessarily support a physical mechanism for this correlation – and at the very least poking some holes in Svenmark’s hypothesis (both in this discussion & others). BUT, what I don’t see is many posters taking the other sides comments seriously – many are just clinging to their pet hypothesis (…. not unlike clinging to CO2 hypothesis because it fits ones political views … that is not good science.) Both sides are making some valid observations – what is needed is a hypothesis that works with all observations – such as some sort of link between solar cycle & ocean cycles (I am just throwing that out there – I don’t that there is) & that the ocean cycles – with ocean’s huge heat content – is driving climate cycles.
Just food for thought, anyone care to take it to the next level ??? Any good hypothesis for testing amongst the posters???
I may have had access to those astronomical events, but obviously I hadn’t needed to. I do find myself HIGHLY amused by the clue-clubbing involved here. My theory has always been, since the beginning of this Gorebot scam, that it was indeed only a scam. How, pray tell, could sending money to algore possibly do anything anyway? Hype it up, con the public, make a freaking fortune off a scare tactic. Which is then proven false, and we had BOTH POTUS candidates spouting the drivel.
“Could it be the sun burns so brightly that it exhausts all it’s easy to consume fuel and needs 100,000 years to recharge the reservoirs? And then uses that accumulated fuel up in the next 10-12,000 years?”
I doubt it but one thing that could happen might be something along the following. Our sun is a variable star. The rate at which it fuses hydrogen may not be constant over time. It might burn a little hotter causing the sun to expand a little which also increases radiative pressure against gravitational collapse and might then act as negative feedback to moderate the fusion which then slows down until the sun cools (it takes anywhere from 10K to 100K years for energy from the core to reach the surface in the form of photons depending on various people’s estimates) and contracts enough to ramp up the fusion again.
In other words, the reactions in the sun might not be perfectly steady but might oscillate around an average. As it takes so long for the sun to shed energy once it is created, an increase in fusion would take tens of thousands of years to reach the surface. Some estimate it can take a million years for photons to get from core to surface.
Imagine there is some amount of hydrogen fusion going on. Heat builds up in the radiative zone. As the radiation increases, it acts against gravitational collapse and as more energy is added to the radiative zone the sun would expand a little and the result would be a cooling (dimming) of the surface. Also pushing against gravitational collapse might act to moderate the reaction in the core which would then slow. This would result in less energy being added to the radiative zone and the sun gradually shrinking a little and the surface brightening.
There is evidence that the sun increased in apparent diameter during the Maunder minimum. There is also evidence that the sun contracts slightly during solar maximum and expands slightly during minimum. So maybe what we see on the surface is the opposite of what is going on inside the sun. Increased fusion increases radiation pressure increasing the diameter of the sun resulting in less energy per unit of area on the solar surface since that fresh energy doesn’t get to the surface for some many (tens?) thousands of years, there can be significant variation between what is apparent and the surface and what is going on inside and might be quite opposite.
Leif said (11:28:18) :
We don’t have good temperature records for the ‘Dalton minimum’, but what we have [Central England, Ireland, Central Europe] shows that the time of the Dalton minimum was a time with generally higher temperatures than the 30 years on either side of the ‘minimum
With large numbers of his troops tied down in Spain, Napoleon decide to invade Russia in 1812 with an Army of 500,000 men and although he defeated the Russians at the battle of Borodino in 1812 and took Moscow he was forced to retreat due to weather, costing him most of his army and marking the beginning of the end.
Napoleon’s retreat from Moscow is a legendary military disaster. While historians and military buffs note the toll the Russian winter took on La Grande Army, few if any appreciate the role solar activity, or the lack of it, played in one of the great military reversals in history.
Geophysicist Phil Chapman, the first Australian to become a NASA astronaut, and who served as mission specialist on the Apollo 14 lunar mission, writes in the Down Under newspaper the Australian that “the rout of Napoleon’s Grand Army from Moscow was at least partly due to the lack of sunspots.
The Dalton Minimum was a period of low solar activity, lasting from about 1790 to 1830, history tells us it was extremely cold. Tambora erupted in 1815, Mayon erupted in 1814. I believe the effects of these eruptions lasted for about 2 or 3 years. It appears the eruptions played a minor part in the cooling which began approximately 25 years prior.
Leif Svalgaard: ” shows that the time of the Dalton minimum was a time with generally higher temperatures than the 30 years on either side of the ‘minimum’”
Except the 5 or so deep troughs which were significantly lower than any troughs in the 30 years before.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/72/CET_Full_Temperature_Yearly.PNG
The coldest ever month in the CET was January 1795 with a mean temperature of -3.1°C
Dalton Minimum was 1790 – 1830
So Leif, I disagree with your claim.
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/hadleycentre/CR_data/Daily/HadCET_act.txt
There were 3 7.xx years in the Dalton Minimum. The closest 7.xx before and after the DM were 1698 and never.
Oops. 1860 was a 7.89. Still, the point stands. No 7.xx years in the CET for 90 years before and 30 years after.
Dave (12:14:21), there could also be effects from solid particles from real human made pollution such as the Chinese brown cloud:
http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/earthandsun/brown_cloud.html
There have been studies that show a similar cloud for the USA affects Arctic Ice albedo and one from Industrial Europe could affect Siberia.
Perhaps an analysis of Siberian winter v summer surface temperature anomaly trends might show something.
If true, it also means that humans indeed are influencing global climate and renewable energy might be the go – unless of course all present power stations and other soot producers are fitted with scrubbers that prevent solid emissions.
Typo alert:
Isn’t that the 10.point.7 cm flux, or is there also and important 107 cm fluz?
Now I will ocntinue readint the psot and commetns.
Hi there again. I haven;t finished reading the post, but have read to the query about the start of cycle 24.
Unless I am mistaken, … Leif (?), cycle 24 has started, by definition. The number of cycle 24 sunspots are outnumbering the number of cycle 23 susnpots. We have seen teh occasional cycle 24 spot since August, but no cycle 23 spots.
So, does this mean a weak cycle 24?
Just a couple picky points:
The data that’s been plotted by SWPC is only through November; while they’ve updated the database to include December values, this information hasn’t yet been included in their graphs. Raw data for the graphs shown at –
http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/ftpdir/weekly/RecentIndices.txt
It appears, from looking at that first graph, that the predictions for the start of SC24 seem to be based on an assumption that the period for single digit values would only last a single year, as happened in 1996. So far single digit values have appeared for two years now, with December’s values dropping again after rising slightly for two months, well below predictions. [I could have some fun here and say that 2009 has been a spotless year but then I’d sound like a bad scientist trying to line up research monies.]
The predictions for the 10.7cm values seem to be bearing up well, with December’s values again up slightly and remaining within the predicted range.
What’s most interesting about the Ap plot doesn’t show on the graph since it only starts from Jan 00. The value for December of 2 is the lowest monthly value in the database since its start in Jan 91.
This year should be really interesting for the solar scientists. Who knows, they may make some new discoveries if the sun continues acting in this manner.
Fred @ur momisugly 23:43:51:
These sunspecks and spot are not “obver the past few days. Rather, the past few months. Check out spaceweather.com.
They also display a holograph which shows the far-side of the Sun. There was potentially a sunspot a few days ago on the far side, but if it was, it didn’t endure the traverse.
Leif Svalgaard (14:19:44) :
Mark (13:56:03) :
One question for those of us not to informed…if this cycle doesn’t kick up again and soon, what implications will that have on Mother Earth?
Not much, except homing pigeons and other birds will have somewhat improved navigation.
Leif:
I rarely disagree with you, but there is a much larger community outside the climate/solar which depends on knowledge of the state of the ionosphere, which in turn depends on accurate sunspot prediction and data, and more importantly, their dependable presence. They are the high frequency radio users, who range from Ham Radio operators to Voice of America broadcasters. Also, the military maintains a large HF radio system for the event of loss of satellite channels due to whatever cause. Lately, all have been experiencing a lot of trouble trying to maintain worldwide radio circuits during the unusually low and long minimum.
OK Finished the article and read half the comments.
I assert that we are in cycle 24, which, so far, is a very weak cycle. The Sun is quiescent; not a lot of internal turbulance, which would create sun-spots. It may be a weak, long cyle.
If we have a couple more of these, then we will notice a “global temperature” drop of not 0-.5 – 1.0 Centigrade, but 1 – 2 Centigrade.
Leif Svalgaard (11:28:18) :
We don’t have good temperature records for the ‘Dalton minimum’, but what we have [Central England, Ireland, Central Europe] shows that the time of the Dalton minimum was a time with generally higher temperatures than the 30 years on either side of the ‘minimum’. Even if about a decade was hit with cold due to large volcanic activity [Mayon, Tambora, …].
With respect, I must disagree. 15 years either side of the Dalton were warmer than any time during the Dalton itself. Tambora (1815) did not erupt until the Dalton was almost at its depth. Prior to that there had been a steady and continuous decline in temperatures for about eight years. There is a 1.2 -1.3 degree difference between temperatures just prior to Tambora and those ten year later (outside of the Dalton).
The CET data does not appear to mean much as far as the Dalton minimum. Using the link (http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/hadleycentre/CR_data/Daily/HadCET_act.txt) for the data. The average temperature for all the CET data (monthly) is 9.22, for the 40 years before the Dalton minimum (1750 to 1789) it was 9.05, during the minimum (1790-1830) it was 9.09 and for the 40 years after (1831-1870) 9.19. The trend shows a slight warming in temperature over the time period involved, but no minimum due to the Dalton minimum.
Werner Weber (02:37:26) :
to Fred:
‘flurry of sunspots over the last few days’
“The sunspots indicated in http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/sunspots/
seem to be a summary over the last year or so, the last sunspot number given was 1009, and that spot disappeared”
I’m not an astronomer, but why would an image labeled “4 Jan 09” be anything but an image of the Sun on 4 Jan 09? That is, why would it be a summary? Although I can’t make out any number higher than 1009.
3 of the coldest 13 CET years were in the DM.
5 of the coldest 25 CET years were in the DM.
Year Temp
1740 6.84
1695 7.25
1879 7.42
1698 7.63
1694 7.67
1692 7.71
1814 7.75 DM
1784 7.83
1688 7.83
1675 7.83
1816 7.87 DM
1860 7.89
1799 7.89 DM
1684 7.92
1697 8
1782 8.01
1855 8.02
1838 8.05
1674 8.08
1691 8.13
1829 8.16
1892 8.17
1812 8.2 DM
1888 8.22
1665 8.25
1786 8.25
1845 8.26
1887 8.27
1673 8.33
1742 8.36
1853 8.37
1823 8.38 DM
The 15 years before and after the Dalton minimum based on the averaged CET monthly records were the same to 0.1 C. There are bigger differenced using the yearly data, but whether the time is 40 years before and after or 15 years, the Dalton minimum is not a minimum in the CET temperatures.
Volcanoes, MWP and Little Ice Age
‘Until recently, global temperatures were more than a degree Fahrenheit warmer when compared to the overall 20th Century mean. From August of 2007 through February of 2008, the Earth’s mean reading dropped to near the 200-year average temperature of 57 degrees. (See Long-Term Chart Below.)’
Besides the text’s prediction (?) the graph tells a story.
http://www.longrangeweather.com/global_temperatures.htm
According to this gentlemen volcanoes and solar radiation (lower left corner of graph) cause the Little Ice Age, but if you look a the graph you will notice temperature started dropping some x year before the volcano activities. Then at the bottom of Little Ice Age there were some more volcanoes activities as well as when temperatures were rising to our present day.
What does this all mean? Some volcanoes cause cooling, while others cause warming? Your guest is as good as mine.
But one item jumps out. No volcano activities at the top of MWP.
Darn … I missed marking 1829 as a DM above.
Bruce, I would wondering what they were using to measure temperature in 1659 to any degree of accuracy since Daniel Fahrenheit didn’t invent the modern thermometer until 1709 and didn’t invent his temperature scale until 1724. The Centigrade scale wasn’t invented until 1742. So exactly what were they measuring temperature with 50 years before the invention of the thermometer (thermoscope at that time).
The two coldest Julys 1816, 1802 were DM (1695 tied 1802 but it was MM).
The coldest September 1807 (tied with 3 other years in the MM)
2nd coldest October
3rd coldest November
Tied for 3rd coldest December
Coldest January
etc etc