As many regular readers know, I’ve pointed out several times the incident of the abrupt and sustained lowering of the Ap Index which occurred in October 2005. The abrupt step change seemed (to me) to be out of place with the data, and the fact that the sun seems so have reestablished at a lower plateau of the Ap index after that event and has not recovered is an anomaly worth investigating.
From the data provided by NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) you can see just how little Ap magnetic activity there has been since. Here’s a graph from October 2008 showing the step in october 2005:
click for a larger image
However, some have suggested that this event doesn’t merit attention, and that it is not particularly unusual. I beg to differ. Here’s why.
In mid December I started working with Paul Stanko, who has an active interest in the solar data and saw what I saw in the Ap Index. He did some research and found Ap data that goes back further, all the way to 1932. His source for the data is the SPIDR (Space Physics Interactive Data Resource) which is a division of NOAA’s National Geophysical Data Center (NGDC). He did some data import and put it all into a mult-page Excel spreadsheet which you can access here.
I had planned to do more study of it, but you know how holidays are, lot’s of things to do with that free time. I didn’t get back to looking at it until today, especially after SWPC updated their solar datasets on January 3rd, including the Ap Index. Looking at the data to 1932, it was clear to me that what we are seeing today for levels doesn’t exist in the record.
About the same time, I got an email from David Archibald, showing his graph of the Ap Index, graphed back to 1932. Having two independent sources of confirmation, I’ve decided to post this then. The solar average geomagnetic planetary index, Ap is at its lowest level in 75 years, for the entirety of the record:
Click for a larger image – I’ve added some annotation to the graph provided by Archibald to point out areas of interest and to clarify some aspects of it for the novice reader.
The last time the Ap index was this low was 1933. The December 2008 Ap value of 2, released by SWPC yesterday, has never been this low. (Note: Leif Svalgaard contends this value is erroneous, and that 4.2 is the correct value – either way, it is still lower than 1933) Further, the trend from October 2005 continues to decline after being on a fairly level plateau for two years. It has started a decline again in the last year.
This Ap index is a proxy that tells us that the sun is now quite inactive, and the other indices of sunspot index and 10.7 radio flux also confirm this. The sun is in a full blown funk, and your guess is as good as mine as to when it might pull out of it. So far, predictions by NOAA’s SWPC and NASA’s Hathway have not been near the reality that is being measured.
The starting gate for solar cycle 24 opened ayear ago today, when I announced the first ever cycle 24 sunspot. However in the year since, it has become increasingly clear that the horse hasn’t left the gate, and may very well be lame.
Good 2009 for all:
Personally, I agree with Jeez.
The confusion is caused by James & Jones Enterprises Climate.
Sir Anthony….Which dataset is real?
Once again big question.
I’m afraid the answer is J&J Enterprises Climate.
FM
Ben Kellet says:
I see you are not unfamiliar with hyperbole.
Latest SSTs: http://www.osdpd.noaa.gov/PSB/EPS/SST/data/anomnight.1.5.2009.gif
A bit cooler that last week. La Ninas coming…..
Pierre Gosselin (07:03:48) :
Tom Woods,
You can add 0.2°C to your estimates.
It wasn’t that cold!
January will be colder though.
You actually think it was as warm as October and November, globally??
Check out the ESRL reanalysis
http://www.cdc.noaa.gov/map/images/rnl/sfctmpmer_30b.rnl.gif
We’re now a couple days past the period in question but this still gives a good enough sampling of December.
That’s the reason why I’m subtracting about 0.2°C from the global average from October and November. Recall those months (Oct, Nov) ended with ~0.2°C positive anomalies in the satellites and ~0.5°C in the ‘Big three’ surface temp agencies.
“If the data is put out for public consumption, its is assumed to be correct.”
Ahem!
With all the corrupt data out there in the field of climate science, this is a rather naive statement. Just think of Hansen and GISS! The field is indeed frustrating.
I beat you to it Matt.
See above ,)
Climate change policies failing, Nasa scientist warns Obama
Award-winning researcher James Hansen says new president’s rhetoric must be backed by action
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/jan/01/scentist-letter-hansen-barack-obama
————————————————————-
Here is the link to the letter:
http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/20081229_DearMichelleAndBarack.pdf
Here is the link to the letter:
http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/20081229_DearMichelleAndBarack.pdf
Are there any theories out there which would explain why the sun goes through cycles?
Speaking of sea ice… is Cryosphere Today down?
Jeez,
Another way of looking at North American temperature is to consider it all of the land area of one quarter of the area of the globe. Basically, North America will be most of the land area of the Northern half of the Western Hemisphere. You can pretty much slice the world into 4 parts … North America, South America, Eurasia, and Africa. Of those areas, the North American quarter is probably most representative of global temperatures because it contains the best balance between sea/land and contains areas of both warm and cold ocean currents (Gulf of Alaska offsetting Gulf of Mexico).
So I agree that North American overall temperatures should be a good analog for global temperatures. Though having said that, a couple of months of polar “spillage” into the upper plains and into the Mississippi valley can skew things as can a couple of months of an unusual Bermuda High.
Leif Svalgaard (07:30:59) :
“This is because the SWPC values are not correct.
[…] They lie to you.”
REPLY: Great, just great. Who to trust these days? Which dataset is real? Which dataset is current? Which dataset is “adjusted”? The answers to these questions should NOT be known only to insiders. If the data is put out for public consumption, its is assumed to be correct. So much for data integrity. – Anthony
We have the same issues with the sunspot number, remember, and with the temperature records, with TSI, with aa-calibration, etc. This is partly a result of Nature just being messy and we are trying to compress all that messiness into a single number, an index, a proxy. Different people and groups and instruments do this slightly differently, simply because it is messy and we don’t have a point measurement every millimeter or millisecond. The remedy for all this is to look at the bigger picture, i.e. not get hung up on this or that year being the ‘warmest’, this or that value being the lowest ever, this or that count being an all-time high, and on and on. Scientists are [somewhat] trained to do this. It is called error bars, confidence intervals, statistical significance. The public [and many posters on this and any other blog] don’t really understand this and endless [and fruitless] discussions ensue over things that are below the ‘messiness index’ limits. Does this or that wiggle match up with this or that other wiggle? is 1934 warmer than 1998? etc…
There is, of course, a remedy: just use my aa-values, TSI-values, Sunspot Numbers, Solar Open Flux, etc. 🙂
Kidding aside, we have made some progress in cross-checking the indices and getting closer to a workable set. You see, it all has to make sense: the Sun’s magnetic field, the solar wind, geomagnetic activity, the ionosphere, and all the rest are interrelated and we understand the physics connecting them and in many cases can directly calculate one effect from the others [f.ex. from the Sun’s magnetic field we can calculate the solar wind, from the solar wind we can calculate geomagnetic activity, from geomagnetic activity we can calculate satellite drag, etc – it is called modeling]. Some scientists are trying to model the climate the same way [and many claim great success – the science is settled]. Now, every model has shortcomings because of insufficient data and insufficient computing power, but incremental progress is made on all fronts. I have been involved in forecasting the weather back in the 1960s using the meager data and computers we had then and when I compare our skill then with now, I can see great progress.
The problem is that the public [and the politicians and other forces leading and misleading them] wants ‘instant’ success or doom [either way seems to attract] and have no patience for a disciplined approach [we’ll give you the answer in 50 years…]. Many scientists [most are people too] bask in and seek attention [and funding – the latter not a bad thing] and their organizations {NASA, etc] hype every little thing as a gigantic breakthrough [solar winds lowest ever, magnetic portals, elves, doozy solar cycles, you name it]. The public duel among themselves with references and links to dubious ‘information’ found on the internet. and everybody gets hot under the collar [humans are a combative lot] and the science often takes second place to the satisfaction of ad-hom attacks. On the other hand, an informed public is vital to our civilization and some good stuff sticks. It has become harder to pull wool over their eyes [although some do a good job deluding themselves].
So, carry on, we’ll get there.
Nitpick: Doctor Who has mentioned global warming in Episode 2 of Season 1 (or season 27, or story #162, or Episode #706 depending on your method of counting Doctor Who.)
Doctor: “You lot… you spend all your time thinking about dying. Like you’re going to get killed by eggs or beef or global warming or asteroids. But you never take time to imagine the impossible, that maybe you survive.”
Can Dr. Pachauri be far behind? Pun intended.
—————————————————————
A Carbon Tax For Animal Emissions – More Unintended Consequences Of Carbon Policy In The Guise Of Climate Policy
http://climatesci.org/2009/01/05/a-carbon-tax-for-animal-emissions-more-unintended-consequences-of-carbon-policy-in-the-guise-of-climate-policy/
I can’t get any fresh sea ice data from any of the sea ice centers.
Are those folks there still sleeping off their New Year’s hangovers?
What’s going on over there?
And…
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2009/01/documenting_the_global_warming_1.html
Joseph (07:56:56) :
Then what does a graph of the 1932-2008 Ap index using the correct numbers look like? Does the same relationship still hold? Is the “Ap is at its lowest level in 75 years, for the entirety of the record”?
Ap is just one of several indices that describe geomagnetic activity [and is not one of the better ones]. There are several others [aa, am, IHV, …] that are either better or go much further back in time [to the 1840s]. You can get more info from:
http://www.leif.org/research/IAGA2008LS.pdf and
http://www.leif.org/research/Seminar-UCLA-ESS288.pdf
In short, solar cycle 23 is very much like cycle 13, and the values of these indices and of the solar wind during the drawn-out minimum of 1901 and 1902 were very much the same as during 2008 and 2009 [expected], so nothing new.
Joseph (07:56:56) :
Then what does a graph of the 1932-2008 Ap index using the correct numbers look like? Does the same relationship still hold? Is the “Ap is at its lowest level in 75 years, for the entirety of the record”?
Ap is just one of several indices that describe geomagnetic activity [and is not one of the better ones]. There are several others [aa, am, IHV, …] that are either better or go much further back in time [to the 1840s]. You can get more info from:
http://www.leif.org/research/IAGA2008LS.pdf and
http://www.leif.org/research/Seminar-UCLA-ESS288.pdf
In short, solar cycle 23 is very much like cycle 13, and the values of these indices and of the solar wind during the drawn-out minimum of 1901 and 1902 were very much the same as during 2008 and 2009 [expected], so nothing new.
Stephen (Wilde),
I know I might appear a bit confused but I don’t really agree that there has been deliberate fudging going on. Yes I agree that it is possible we’re at the beginning of a cooling trend, but the recent cooling will have be sustained for at least the next 5 years before I’ll see it as anything other than a blip within an overall warming trend. Even a 5 -10 year plateau of early 21st century temps might still be consistent with an overall warming trend given the deviation from the 20th century average.
Richard (Sharpe),
While you obviously believe I have over stated the case, please show where the main message I am trying to get across falls down.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1850/mean:132/plot/sidc-ssn/from:1850/mean:132/scale:0.01/offset:-0.8
If you click on the above link and take a close look at the recent time scale, I’m sure you’ll agree that there is a distinct and what looks like an “unprecedented” (am I allowed to use that term tentatively?!!) major deviation between red & green lines!
Now, if I were an alarmist, I might find it really quite disturbing that there remains a very high temp profile over the last decade despite lower solar activity. It might almost be described as an over ride or swamping of a natural forcing, but I’ll not go that far…yet. Whether this is down to AGW or not is in my opinion another issue.
You’ll be pleased to know that I am not an alarmist nor a “denier” and I accept the possibility of the “lag” effect described by Stephen Wilde among others. As I have already stated though, this turn around had better continue happening on a fairly sustained basis for my concern with the possibility of AGW to go away.
So in essence, please do not assume that I am concluding that all the raised late 20th and 21st Century temp profile (despite recent solar inactivity) is all down to AGW, but it would be foolish indeed to dismiss the possibility.
Ben
Crosspatch
I think you are spot on. The US is a good representation for the world. Even Hadley CET is said to be representative of the Northern hemisphere and we in the UK cover a much smaller area.
This is Hadley set against Zurich Switzerland-
http://cadenzapress.co.uk/download/beck_mencken_zurich.jpg
the mirroring is uncanny until very recent years, which we identfied as a severe case of UHI and coreected with a total of 0.4C over the last 4 decades to produce the following;
http://cadenzapress.co.uk/download/beck_mencken_zurich_uhi.jpg
(Both graphs available in excel if anyone else wants to use the data points)
It seems reasonable to me that a large country like the US spreading almost from the arctic to the tropics and bordering both the Pacific and Atlantic is going to have pretty representative temperatures of the world .
Has anyone graphed the US against other temperature data sets like Hadley/Zurich?
Also can I make a plea for links to national (or regional) temperature records as I want to collect them all together in one place for use as a general resource. The longer the better. I know there are good ones for Armagh (Ellie where are you) Germany and Holland amongst other places. If anyone knows if this has already been done please let me know.
TonyB
From all the graphs and indices posting in this forum the last couple of days, it sure looks like SC24 has crashed through the guard rail and is to be found plunging down a steep embankment.
It will take probably as long as it took descending into the abyss to climb back out of it. Once again, the data coming in show no signs of imminent reversal. It just sinks deeper.
“MattN (08:14:47) :
Latest SSTs: http://www.osdpd.noaa.gov/PSB/EPS/SST/data/anomnight.1.5.2009.gif
A bit cooler that last week. La Ninas coming…..”
La Nina has found me. Supposed to be 5-6000′ snow level here, woke up to 2000′ snow level and white stuff. The cold is winning.
We should not be paying any attention to ground-based temperatures really. The only two places that appear to be of worth would be the troposphere and the oceans. Even then you have to make a decision whether it’s ocean surface or deep. It would appear that only the troposphere is really worthy. What I find truly bizarre is that we should pay any attention at all to past-proxy temperatures. Thinking that you could possibly get a recording to a tenth of a degree from a bristle cone pine or whatever from a thousand years ago is Alice In Wonderland stuff, surely? shouldn’t we start a campaign to ignore ground-based temperatures altogether? Let’s concentrate on what comes out of UAH – whether it agrees with our viewpoint or not. realclimate will love it!
“I beat you to it Matt.
See above ,)”
Dang it. This blog is so popular with so many people, I’m not first with info anymore….
Alan the Brit (02:38:13) :
“Was the Chaitén eruption in Chille sufficient to assist in aerosol cooling anyone? It certainly looked to be a significant eruption to me”.
Alan,
No significant aerosols from Chaiten. Low SO2 output (insignificant) Low CO2 primaraly water vapor and
Anyhow, not yet.
The status of Chaitén is still code RED and the dome building process has filled up the old caldera which was in fact a hole in the ground.
A huge amount of silica could be blasted into the troposphere of Chaitén explodes.
But other volcano’s have been busy: Sheviluch (biggest SO2 output since 1991), Kamchatka, Souffre Hills and recently Kiuchevskoy
By the way, volcanic activity emits 20 times more CO2 than human industrial activity.
For continuing info about Chaitén Volcano:
1. http://www.seablogger.com/?page_id=11086 (also a link to the North Camara
for real time Chaitén observation.
2.http://volcanism.wordpress.com/