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.
So all that stuff about Hydrogen bombs is fine then Charles (moderator) and the insults to America???? That makes me sick but of course I’m right and this site is acting like another excuse for truth. Ed
Reply: I must have missed that. I’m not the only moderator, going back and looking now. The hazards of team work ~ charles the moderator
Reply 2: After much rereading, while I saw stuff I would disagree with and some politics, of the kind that I constantly remind people should be left off this site, all in all the previous comments were not as out bounds in use of language as you were. Even Steve Berry who apparently started it all has made it clear he was being tongue in cheeky (see, I can do it to). I’m a major supporter of the US, and if this were not a moderator reply I would give examples, but as it is a moderator reply I would remind everyone that we accept a plethora of opinions here, as long as users stick to polite and respectful manner of discourse. BTW for those interested in a very in depth story about the relationship between the US and Britain in technological cooperation in winning WWII and how it was a war won by advances in technology, I would strongly recommend this book. ~ charles the moderator
Leif Svalgaard (11:44:07)
Thank you – herewith the link
http://www.biokurs.de/treibhaus/literatur/sonstige/solard.pdf
I profess to not understanding the finer points of their TP (Transition Point) analysis and I note that you have concerns over the aa index but I was taken by the general thrust of their thesis. Certainly looking at this chart:
http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/stp/GEOMAG/image/aastar07.jpg
I could see a marked change from the end of the last Gleissberg and my interest is tweaked by the resonance with this longer term cycle. There does seem to be something about it that I cannot quite either dismiss nor get to a point where I would enthuse about it – I am merely curiously exploring.
Most importantly I value your thoughts and comments on such things enormously especially given the amount of time you devote to educating people like me.
Here’s the deal – their analysis seemed to suggest to me that the last 80 years was akin to a very active solar oscillation (I hope I have reflected their words accurately) but I know, from having ploughed through the extensive thread on CA and having read your comments here, that you would suggest solar activity has been rather more constant.
I very much hope you can find the time to read and comment on the paper.
Thank You.
Stephen Wilde (07:07:08) :
Adolfo,
The PDO went positive around 1975 which combined with a very active sun and caused the observed warming which continued up to the 1998 peak.
I dont think most people realize that that particular period was infact bonus time for the Earth, not since the MWP have we had that extra heat in the system. If you look at the patterns back to 1280, SC21, 22 & 23 would normally be in the grand minima phase….it tried hard in SC20 but didnt get there, the tipping point wasnt reached, so hence we have endured a short pseudo modern maximum.
But its time to pay the ferryman.
To apostrophe or not to apostrophe. That’s the question.
Stephen Wilde said……..
“AGW proponents are just trying to gain time by expressing the issue in the way that has confused you”.
I’m back to this one Stephen! Maybe I am confused, but I dont think so. The way the last couple of decades of global temps appears to me is fairly simple:
For the 10 years up to and including 1998, there were 8 of the hottest years on record. For the following 10 years up to the present, we have again seen 8 of the hottest years on record – only for the second set of 10 years, there has been a bigger leap up the way!
Now let’s assume 2008 falls suddenly below the average of the 1989 – 1998 period. That would be a fairly sizeable drop, but on its own, it would be meaningless if in following years temps were to rebound straight back up.
If we were again in the next 10 years witness another 8 of the hottest years on record (which is kind of what the IPCC is predicting) then the upward trend continues. This could happen with 1998 still remaining the hottest year on record. Would we still be trying to suggest that because of this, Global Warming stopped in 1998? I think not -the trend, while a smaller step up and a flatter plateau, would still be upward. Of course the IPCC is predicting that the 1998 record will fall in the next 10 years together with another raised plateau of global temps, in which case the impressive upward trend would be very clear.
It could well be however, that we have indeed entered a cooling period, but for me, it will take 8 years in the next 10 of significantly cooler global temps to suggest a downward trend.
While it now appears likely that we have indeed seen 2 consecutive years of cooling, by themselves they do not even constitute a blip. To illustrate the point, following the record breaking year of 1990 there were 4 years in a row of lower global temps than those recorded in 1990. Looking back at the record now, we can see clearly that even that 4 year period represents a mere blip within a definate warming trend.
We are therefore exciting times – a time within the next few years of some reckoning, because if you are indeed correct about the changing phase of the PDO together with less solar activity, we should see a sustained lowering of global temps. If however, this fails to happen, should we begin to accept there might be a problem?
Ben
Jon (00:25:35) :
One should add that the 1930-50’s atmosphere, according DVI Dust Veil Index, was very clean of volcanic particles, and that the 1960-70’s was not.
The Dust Bowl was generally 1930-36 in the American and Canadian plains, in some regions until 1940, according to Wiki. I wonder how far and high it carried.
Watt’s Up With That in second trailing “Pharyngula” (a blog that apparently openly celebrates the election of Al Franken to a seat in the US Senate and calls Climate Audit “faux science”) with Climate Audit in third. *Sigh*
I have recently discovered this web site and have found it very interesting reading, and a good source to find info that places some useful limits on the prevailing assumption that the “science” of global warming is all settled.
In regard to the suns impact on the earths climate I have a question about it that keeps nagging at me. Everyone seems to be focusing on the suns energy output primarily in the visible light spectrum (and near visible ie ultraviolet), but there seems to be a total lack of discussion of other energy inputs to the earth/atmospheric system that are driven by the sun but are not in that spectrum.
Specifically we have an electromagnetic coupling between the suns magnetic field and the earths that generates very large electrical currents in the atmosphere, and the earth (the Canadian power grid can attest to their potential).
I would assume that these magnetic interactions would be of considerable power and could rival the small changes in the visible electromagnetic spectrum that appear as the sun goes through its sunspot cycles from high activity to low activity.
I have seen no discussion at all regarding how much energy is dissipated in the earth/atmosphere by electrical currents and capture of ionizing radiation such as xrays, solar wind, ions that drive the northern lights etc. Is it realistic to assume these energy inputs are negligible or are they some how included as a hidden factor in the general solar energy output numbers?
Larry
Edward Morgan (15:01:00) :
Leif your words sounded good. A less active sun means a drop in input to the earth
Glad you liked them. And you are quite right. A 0.1% drop in solar input does indeed lower the temperature by 0.025%=0.07K. Hooray!
Re; Tom Woods (02:07:17) :
Here’s my 1.6 cents worth for December 2008…
Hadley 0.417
GISS 0.61
UAH 0.215
RSS 0.218
And last month my linear regression was 0.1 *TOO LOW*.
“Watt’s Up With That in second trailing “Pharyngula” (a blog that apparently openly celebrates the election of Al Franken to a seat in the US Senate and calls Climate Audit “faux science”) with Climate Audit in third. *Sigh*”
Carefull with the politics…..I sent money to Climate Audit, and WUWT, Obama and the DNC….and would have given some to Franken if I were in Minnesota. One thing I like about both websites is that we stick to the science, more or less.
Except of course where Al Gore is concerned……
Try looking beyond an incredibly small snapshot in time….
I hung out at Pharynx for a while. I didn’t see much science going on, but a great deal of anti-religion (which I don’t have a problem with).
I’m not sure PZ knows statistics, so not sure if he’d know if CA was faux or not. But I’m sure he didn’t offer any substance to his claim.
“One thing I like about both websites is that we stick to the science, more or less. Except of course where Al Gore is concerned….”
A fair point made.
However, political science tells us that Obama, the DNC and Franken are in full support of Al Gore, the IPCC, their sceince and their agenda.
“Would one expect CO2 released from deep ocean ridge volcanose to actually make it to the surface ?”
Of course, but not in an obvious way such as directly by bubbles. It would increase the CO2 content of the water. At some point the water would release that CO2 into the air. And the warmer the water gets, the less CO2 it can hold and it will release more of it. So lets say you have a deep current picking up CO2 that then circulates down to the equatorial region, wells up and is warmed and the water becomes a shallow warm current headed poleward. As that water warms, it will release CO2.
Also you have surf and wind-whipped storm seas. You have energy stirring up the ocean and mixing it with the atmosphere. There is gas exchange going on at the surface between the ocean and the atmosphere. I believe most of the exchange of CO2 goes from ocean to atmosphere and not the other way around. This is because the ocean would hold a lot more decaying organic matter, CO2 created by animal life (fish flatulence) and volcanic input. The ocean covers 70% of the surface of the planet.
But hey, the USGS says total global volcanic emissions are only 1% of human emissions so I have no idea who to believe. I can’t trust what I read from any source and I don’t have the resources to find every CO2 emitting vent and inventory the emissions over the entire surface of the planet. I certainly don’t believe the USGS claim and they give no data to back it up.
USGS says “Our studies show that globally, volcanoes on land and under the sea release a total of about 200 million tonnes of CO2 annually. ” on one page and “Volcanoes release more than 130 million tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere every year.” on another page. UCSB says “Volcanoes contribute about 110 million tons of carbon dioxide per year” all these place say how much CO2 the ocean sinks in “billions” of tons per year and that makes me wonder how Earth kept itself alive before we started driving cars. If volcanoes were adding only 100 million tons and the oceans were sinking something like 10 BILLION tons a year, where was all that carbon going? Subducting sea crust should be giving that CO2 back up through volcanoes.
I haven’t seen any numbers that make any sense so I am talking through my pants to some degree. But it I sincerely believe people such as those at USGS greatly underestimate the amount of CO2 from oceanic volcanoes.
Leif Svalgaard 16:25:07:
A 0.1% drop in solar input does indeed lower the temperature by 0.025%=0.07K.
Assuming a spherical horse!
OK Let me explain. There’s an accountant, a statistican and a physicist having a beer at a horse race.
They all brag about being able to pick the winner.
The accountant talks of the track conditions, handicap and jockey. He reckons he migfht be able to make it all add up.
The statistician talks of form, of the betting odds and maybe he can get it right.
The physicist states outright that he can precisely calculate which horse will win, assuming a spherical horse.
Leif Svalgaard (16:25:07) :
Edward Morgan (15:01:00) :
Leif your words sounded good. A less active sun means a drop in input to the earth
Glad you liked them. And you are quite right. A 0.1% drop in solar input does indeed lower the temperature by 0.025%=0.07K. Hooray!
Even if there are no other consequences to reduced solar output that still equates to roughly 3.5K over 50 years the oceans didnt get? (Sporer, Maunder etc)
http://landscheidt.auditblogs.com/files/2008/12/newc141.jpg
BTW Leif,
I’ve been enjoying the article on the time constant of the oceans you pointed me too. I will respond at rankexploits when I have digested it; it certainly was what I had in mind, but, of course, I disagree 🙂
Ben Kellett @ur momisugly 15:45:12
Let me tell it to you this way. The terrestrial data is contaminated and corrupted. The satellite data only goes back to 1979.
We don’t actually know whether it has gotten hotter or colder historically; the best attempts show that there are cycles in “global temperature” {google co2science and Joe d’aleo icecap) and 1000 years ago, it was lot warmer than today.
Also, the actual reliable record shows that there has been no warming this century, in fact it is cooling.
The U.S.A was sold out to the Federal reserve by the British Empire. The British Empire has caused more problems in the world than any other country. I wish people weren’t so proud of this fact and could see where they are heading. In fact we are all slaves, literally owned because of the debt system. War is an atrocity and is needless.
[Evan the RoboMod says “SNIP”]
If every opinion has a voice without humanitarian change then there will be an endless war. I personally came on this site to find out about global warming as it was highly recommended not to hear (and this was where I came in) comments on Britain how great it is and war plus jibes at America being late and hydrogen bombs as a good thing. This is where the thread should have been moderated. I will not apologise for being angry about those things I find disgusting and if more people stood up we wouldn’t get pushed around so easily. Hope this gets past RoboMod who I suppose wouldn’t be angry if he was being ripped off. Ed
Micajah @ur momisugly 10:52:26
I wonder if the probable lag time for “global” temperatures is known.
This is a subject I enjoy.
From my scuba diving experience, I can say that the time constant of the oceans, to a depth of 30 meters, or 100 feet, is 2 months. This is the section of the ocean that interacts directly with the atmosphere.
However, the oceans are deeper than that; the next level is the 100 meter, 300 foot, level, where approximately the major thermocline is found. The time constant here is under discussion.
Why am I interested in the “time constant” of the oceans?
It is the oceans that regulate the climate; they have the largest thermal inertia on the planet.
After the effects of Earth orbit, solar output, the oceans are the next most important factor in the “global temperature”.
Now, before everyone jumps upon me, remember that the oceans are the source and sink of water vapour and CO2.
Hmm… that makes sense. Yeah, why don’t we take data from 1.7% of the globe when we have data for (much) more than half
At most a surface station measures the temp over a few hundred square meters, which would make the 5 to 10,000 stations used in GISS/HadCRU about 0.00000001% of the Earth’s surface area.
Avoiding a long digression into statistical sampling, if we are measuring a global effect, one location should be pretty much as good as any other for measuring temperature changes, assuming local effects are avoided.
And,
The absence of rural stations in the rest of the world is a valid point. Australia has the second best network over the last 100 years and it has less than 20, and perhaps less than 10, true rural stations with daily records since 1900.
1933 wasnt a cooling because it was not an extended minimum like the 70’s was.
However, be that as it may, I would recommend that you guys take the data for that chart and redo it as an 11 year moving average of the monthly mean. This thus counts each solar cycle as a heat “charging” event and smooths it enough that you can see some obvious trends.
I did that with the sunspot records going back to the 1740’s and it clearly shows a very clear climate trend in the 20th that correlates with anybodys hockey stick, compared to the previous 150 years.
Robert Wood (17:17:39) :
“A 0.1% drop in solar input does indeed lower the temperature by 0.025%=0.07K.”
Assuming a spherical horse!
No, assuming that S = aT^4 (Stefan-Boltzmann law). This would be the same even if the Earth was flat.
nobwainer (Geoff Sharp) (17:19:37) :
Even if there are no other consequences to reduced solar output that still equates to roughly 3.5K over 50 years the oceans didnt get? (Sporer, Maunder etc)
Let the Sun be like that for 500 years, the reduced solar output would equate to roughly 35K, and the oceans would be frozen solid. Or for 5000 years and the oceans wouldn’t get 350K and would cool to below absolute zero, or for 50,000 years, etc…
If ‘the oceans didn’t get’ means that. But you may want to tell us that ‘didn’t get’ means.
jeez (13:16:09)
When you’re hot, you’re hot!
Edward Morgan…
From reading your other posts, you’re on the right track, your heart is in the right place, and for the most part I agree with you.
And if it doesn’t violate your principles, another vote for WUWT certainly wouldn’t hurt. It’s only for bragging rights, but we need everyone’s help. Bragging rights matter!
“We’re Number One! We’re Number One!
& Etc.
Aww shucks, thanks, Smokey. At least I have an audience of one. My funniest post ever on WUWT went unnoticed a few months ago.