A guest post by Jeff Id
Well John Christy gave me a lot to think about in satellite temp trends as far as an improved correction over my last post. Steve McIntyre pitched in some comments as well. It is going to take a bit to work out the details of that for me but I think I can produce an improved accuracy slope over my last posts. In the meantime, I downloaded sunspot numbers from the NASA.
Cycles are interesting things. There are endless cycles in nature, orbits, ocean temp shifts, solar cycles, magnetic cycles the examples are everywhere. What makes a cycle unusual is also an interesting topic. Some solar scientists have claimed that our current solar cycle is not unusual by the record. They are certainly the experts but recently the experts have been forced to update their predictions for the next solar cycle.
Well, I’m no expert on the sun but I do find the data regarding sunspots interesting, particularly in the fact that we are again in at least a short term cooling at the same time sunspots and solar magnetic level have plunged.
Here’s an article from our all understanding US government.
What’s Wrong with the Sun? (Nothing)
And a few beginning lines.
July 11, 2008: Stop the presses! The sun is behaving normally.
So says NASA solar physicist David Hathaway. “There have been some reports lately that Solar Minimum is lasting longer than it should. That’s not true. The ongoing lull in sunspot number is well within historic norms for the solar cycle.”
Cool picture …….
See where the tiny little 2009 tick is. We should be increasing now and well on our way by 2010. By the way, this is an updated graph from the original predition.
Hathaway said, well within historic norms. Forecasting is the most dangerous sport, but I am as curious about this claim as any —he is the expert after all. Here’s a plot of the sunspot data from NASA NOAA numbers.
I did a sliding slope fit to the data to find when the slopes shifted from negative to positive in each cycle. I placed a red line above each point identified. These points are not intended to mean the beginning of a cycle( that is for the experts) but rather to be a consistent software identified point between each cycle.
The red lines represent solar minima. The only line which may not be a minima is the most recent in Jan 09 which we need to reference how unusual solar activity is.
Below is a list of the years the red lines are centered on.
1755.667, 1766.250. 1775.583, 1784.500, 1798.167, 1810.583, 1823.167, 1833.833, 1843.833, 1856.167, 1867.167, 1878.750
1889.500, 1901.750, 1913.167, 1923.417, 1933.750, 1944.167, 1954.250, 1964.833, 1976.250, 1986.250, 1996.417, 2009.041
The years between each minima are currently
10.583, 9.333, 8.916, 13.666, 12.416, 12.583, 10.666, 10.000, 12.333, 11.000, 11.583, 10.750, 12.250, 11.416, 10.250, 10.333,
10.416, 10.083, 10.583, 11.416, 10.000, 10.166, 12.625
So far there has been only one solar cycle which has exceeded the length of the current one. The cycle extended extra long (13.66 years) from 1784 – 1798 and was the last cycle leading into the Dalton Minimum.
A histogram of the distribution of the time between solar cycles looks like this.
The standard deviation of the total record is 1.18 years the mean is 11.01. Well there’s the eleven year solar cycle we hear about.
Two sigma (two standard deviation) difference from the mean corresponds to a 95% certainty of something unusual in our current situation. The numbers this year at mid Jan correspond to about 1.37 sigma of all time records, which is getting close. But that’s not the end of the story, after all I just included the dalton minimum cycles in the data right after we identified the solar cycle prior to the dalton minimum as the one with the longest time span on record. That means, I treated it as though it were a normal event. —– Well I do believe (on faith in nature) this length is normal, the sun isn’t doing anything different from before but there is only one of these long events on record and were we to look for a similar event it would be stupid to include it in the standard deviation dataset. We should only look at data which is not related to another potential dalton minimum from Figure 2 this would be after the dalton minimum and before present day (from 1833 – 1996).
The standard deviation of the cycle start after the dalton minimum 1833 and before 2009 was only 0.79 years. The average Jeff Id solar cycle in the same period is 10.83 years. This puts the two sigma limits of the solar cycle at 9.26 years on the short side and 12.42 years on the long side.
Of course this puts my reasonable analysis of solar cycle outside of the last 176 year normal to a two sigma 95% interval 12.6 years has crossed the limit. With little sign of the next cycle beginning yet, this might get worse. I tell you what, I prefer the taxes from global warming to the cost of glaciers in my yard, it seems like a balance of evils to me. I hope this solar cycle changes soon but we can no more effect the sun with a dance than we can effect global warming with a tax so what choice do we have.
In Dr. David Hathaway’s defense, he made his statement above in July which put the current minimum at 2008.583 which comes to 12.166 years and just inside the 95% two sigma certainty of 12.42.
Now that we’re at 12.6, I wonder if they’ll extend the predictions for the beginning of the next cycle again.
Looks like SC23 just keeps on going and going…
Just saw that small spot on SOHO just south of the equator. Wonder how long it’ll last.
Time for an updated prediction?
matt v. (17:34:48) :
see SECULAR TREND SLIDE
The trend is mostly due to the changing calibration of the sunspot number series. http://www.leif.org/research/Napa%20Solar%20Cycle%2024.pdf
Leon Brozyna (19:20:43) :
Time for an updated prediction?
No, what SC23 does at this point will not have any influence on SC24.
Archibald is spot on…..
Solar Cycle 23 is now 19 years old, and only a couple of solar cycles have produced sunspots 19 years after the peak of the previous cycle.
I hope it lasts long enough for me to get a good look at it. I’m curious to see if it is as wispy as 11010.
Spotted regions not numbered by NOAA/SWPC.
[S737] This region emerged in the southwest quadrant on January 18 and has developed slowly.
Indeed, it may be one of those you cannot see until the sun is near the zenith.
STAR has it numbered.
kim (15:11:42) :
I believe the sun is dominant in the cycling climate, and believe that unknown cycles from the sun cause that dominance, but can’t solve the hypersensitivity problem. I can smell a solution, but can’t see it. Not very scientific, at least not very productive of mechanism.
My best guess so far is a composite of the Svalgaard GCR thesis with a UV/O3 ‘kicker’. The sun backs off on output, the UV reduces such that O3 production is cut back out of proportion (I posted a link to an O3 anomaly chart some time ago seeming to show this; down 40% at N.Pole.). The solar magnetosphere contracts. The GCR increase both makes more clouds in the middle of the planet (after Svalgaard) and helps erode the O3 at the poles in particular.
I’ve seen a graph showing that the only GHG blocking the 9-10 micron range is O3. If true, as it reduces poleward, you get a nice big 9-10 micron window radiating IR into space at the same time mid latitude clouds cut down on heat input. That ought to give what we have now (cold pole with warm tropical air battling for control as the ‘lava lamp’ blobs of hot & cold wobble about.) As the poles drop to OhMyGod cold -50 to -80 the H2O window ought to open and all that cold precipitation might scrub a fair amount of CO2 out at the poles.
Issues: It’s all highly speculative on my part and poorly backed. We need to see the Svalgaard mechanism show it’s face better. I have not incorporated any understanding of temperature changes with altitude (i.e. it’s a 2d talking points model, not a 3d conceptual model). I have only seen one reference to the O3 being the sole blocker of 9-10 microns and I don’t know if a very cold pole can radiate effectively in that window.
So if that is helpful in finding a mechanism, great. If it’s just bunk and rubbish, tell me in about a week so I can enjoy the bliss of ignorance a bit longer 😉
Congrats to WUWT on the very well deserved win.
Many thanks also to all the excellent posters here. Informative. Thoughtful. Challenging.
E.M.Smith (23:56:48) : “Who measures clouds?”
See my last post Mike J (03:20:52). The 3 organisations that I know of are NASA’s CERES, ISCCP FD (only a name to me, I haven’t looked them up), and BBSO’s Earthshine . They show albedo increasing until around 2000, then decreasing sharply over 1-2 years, then either flattening out or increasing a bit more. It all tallies quite well with ocean temperature measurements showing ocean warming slowing dramatically up to about 2003, and the oceans now having cooled since about 2006. [see links in my last post].
Leif Svalgaard (23:29:07) : “The short answer (to why the sun is not the climate driver) is two-fold…..”
My feeling is that we have failed to show that the sun is the driver, not that we have shown that the sun is not the driver. It is possible that there are many other ways of looking at it, which we have not tried yet. LS refers to a 130yr study, but much longer-term studies do look very convincing. eg. in http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/0804/0804.1938v1.pdf
Walter Cronanty (07:23:36) :
My answer to your question is : no, the AP article is not correct, and in any case it is pretty irrelevant. If temperatures have started to turn down, or do ever turn down, then the hottest year of all occurs just before that . What matters now is what happens next, and there are plenty of indications are that we could be in for some cooling.
matt v. (15:16:04) : good post, I think you are on the right track.
Leif Svalgaard (11:14:19) : “It is not me that is hypersensitive, but the climate that must be if the tiny solar variations have any effect.”
Maybe it is. I don’t think the possibility has in any way been eliminated. It’s just proving hard to find anything concrete one way or the other. (Now I see kim (15:11:42) has said it rather well). I don’t think we’ve heard the last of solar activity, sunspot cycles, cosmic rays, and albedo. Not by a long chalk.
nobwainer (Geoff Sharp) (21:03:56) :
Archibald is spot on…..
“Solar Cycle 23 is now 19 years old”
The first clear region of cycle 23 was 7923 on May 10th, 1996, only 12.6 years ago. Region 7855 in March 1995 may have been SC24. The torsional oscillation for cycle 23 started in 1994, 15 years ago.
Cycles do not start at the peak of the previous cycle.
E.M.Smith (02:00:30) :
My best guess so far is a composite of the Svalgaard GCR thesis
Svensmark, not me, please/
Leif Svalgaard (04:58:40) :
Cycles do not start at the peak of the previous cycle.
Archibald’s point is the start of the Hale cycle…something no one else has picked up on.
only 12.6 years ago
And still going, not exactly common.
kim (15:11:42) :
I believe the sun is dominant in the cycling climate, and believe that unknown cycles from the sun cause that dominance, but can’t solve the hypersensitivity problem. I can smell a solution, but can’t see it. Not very scientific, at least not very productive of mechanism.
You are spot on kim…I can smell it too, look at the C14 records over 11000 yrs, it follows a trend…the information is there, we just need to drag it out. I will have something concrete very soon. The cycles are not unknown.
I know its hard..but we need more moderators on this award winning blog….I am putting my hand up…who else can help, lets get a list up so Anthony can choose if he so desires.
nobwainer (Geoff Sharp) (06:17:09) :
“Cycles do not start at the peak of the previous cycle.”
Archibald’s point is the start of the Hale cycle…something no one else has picked up on.
Nonsense. What is the Hale cycle in your opinion?
Leif Svalgaard (08:00:33) :
Nonsense
You just love that word….the Hale cycle is 2 Schwabe cycles, and whether it starts at maximum or minimum is beside the the point. Archibald through creative thinking has a found a statistic that is interesting. It might be time for the more creative amongst us.
Mike.j,
Based on the analysis of 5 major past climate periods consisting of 3 solar cycles each and an analysis of the associated PDO, AMO,ENSO and the solar cycles between 1843 AND 2008 , I came to the following tentative and summary conclusion.
2008 -2030
PDO WENT NEGATIVE IN 2007 AND IS DECLINING. THE POSITIVE AMO IS ALMOST SPENT. AMO HAS BEEN DECLINING SINCE MID 2008. ENSO IS IN LA NINA PHASE .
SOLAR CYCLE # 24 IS SLOW TO START AND IS EXPECTED TO BE OF LOW ACTIVITY ACCORDING TO SOME .PERSONALLY I DON’T THINK IT WILL PICK UP UNTIL MID YEAR. ALSO SOLAR CYCLE # 25 MAY BE OF LOW ACTIVITY. THE TREND OF THE PDO, AMO AND ENSO PERIOD IS SIMILAR TO THE 1943-1976 PERIOD EXCEPT THERE WAS MUCH HIGHER SOLAR ACTIVITY IN 1943 -1976 WHEN THE YEARLY SUNSPOT NUMBER AVERAGE FOR 30 YEARS WAS 75. NOW WE ARE PREDICTING A PEAK OF 75. THE 1943-1976 LEVEL OF SOLAR ACTIVITY WHICH WAS ONE OF THE PAST HIGHEST MAY NOT BE PRESENT IN 2008-2040. HENCE THE PERIOD IS LIKELY TO BE A COOL PERIOD.
HOWEVER THERE IS STILL SOME SERIOUS DEBATE ABOUT FUTURE SOLAR ACTIVITY AS OTHERS ARE PREDICTING HIGHER SOLAR ACTIVITY [100 -130 RANGE.] THE RANGE OF PREDICTIONS IS 75-165 MAXIMUM SUNSPOT NUMBER.
IN MY OPINION THE WEATHER MAY BE SIMILAR TO 1950 ‘S, 1960’S AND 1970’S IF NOT COOLER IF THE SUN STAYS AT LOW ACTIVITY LEVEL.
IN MY OPINION IT IS NOT THE SUN ALONE OR THE OCEANS ALONE THAT DRIVE THE WEATHER. IT IS THEIR INTERACTION TOGETHER.
HENCE I PREDICT A NET COOL PERIOD AND NOT GLOBAL WARMING.
That was a quickie sunspot. Seems to be nearly gone already.
Looks like this is going to be a “one day wonder.” I am wondering whether there is some designated time a sunspot must exist before “it counts.”
Oh, no david, that was a late-night stand that ran out the door at 3am.
I seriously doubt it ever got to drawing visibility before fading into the wee hours of the morning.
Now, if some nice boffins will devise a scale of visibility between the SOHO satellite visibility and the Solar Projection visibility thresholds, and number it from -1 to say -25, they can start adding them onto the regular graphs as spots below zero.
Then we can see a little more of what is going on under that smoke screen the Sun is using to hide what it’s doing.
nobwainer (Geoff Sharp) (08:24:20) :
“Nonsense”
You just love that word….the Hale cycle is 2 Schwabe cycles, and whether it starts at maximum or minimum is beside the the point.
The difference between ‘wrong’ and ‘nonsense’ is that the former is just being factual incorrect, the latter is being conceptually incorrect.
So, the currently fading SC23 spot belongs to the ‘Hale’ cycle that started in 1990 at the maximum of cycle 22 according to ‘creative’ thinking. Schwabe and Hale cycles start near minimum according to established nomenclature. Mixing min and max is what is nonsense.
Even if we count from previous maximum, SC22 produced spots 19 years later, SC21 produced spots 20 years later, SC20 produced spots 20 years later, SC19 produced spots 20 years later, etc. Being factually correct beats creative thinking every time. The butterfly diagram http://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/images/bfly.gif is good for this.
A strange sunspot has emerged:
“A new sunspot is emerging inside the circle region–and it is a strange one. The low latitude of the spot suggests it is a member of old Solar Cycle 23, yet the magnetic polarity of the spot is ambiguous, identifying it with neither old Solar Cycle 23 nor new Solar Cycle 24. Stay tuned for updates as the sunspot grows. Credit: SOHO/MDI”
From Space Weather
Another response to the new sunspot:
http://ncwatch.typepad.com/dalton_minimum_returns/2009/01/solar-cycle-23-not-done-yet-stay-tuned.html
To: Robert Bateman:
Do you have a hydrogen alpha filter? I have a 0.56 angstrom daystar (University) which I havn’t used for 2 years due to solar inactivity. It looks like another year to wait.
“” Henry Galt (19:09:14) :
Jeff Id (13:32:54) :
“Ed Scott,
My money job is in optics. I am interested in getting the absorption spectra for gaseous CO2 for the full range of solar wavelengths, yet so far I can’t find it. It has to be out there.
If anyone knows where I can find the data I have seen plotted so many times, it would be appreciated. I’d like to try and reproduce those greenhouse calculations for my own understanding.”
I don’t agree that “It has to be out there”. In fact I think that, broadly, it was one of the very first things that was disappeared when this scam was thought up.
I have some questions.
All-
Why are we constantly told that the science is settled on this matter? Along with all the “this was explained in 1896″ stuff.
Where is the location of all the(/any) new, revealing, authoritative evidence that CO2 “does” anything that the billions of dollars per year thrown at this settled science has purchased on behalf of the tax paying public?
George- In the spirit of your post at (11:54:45) : (and in some hope that your copy of The Infrared Handbook is a book you keep to hand)
What is the real IR fingerprint of CO2?
Why are there still no numbers on the comparison of the fingerprint absorption of CO2 compared to the quantity of its black body absorption? I may have this completely arse-about-face but I am frustrated that we are told “someone knows” and maybe it’s you 😉 “”
Henry,
A big part of the problem is that while the “fingerprint” of CO2 is actually quite well known, that is only a part of the problem. For what happens in our atmosphere, CO2 is but a small impurity in a sea of nitrogen and oxygen; with about a 1% each of H2O and Ar (average H2O content).
The Infrared part of the CO2 “fingerprint” is reasonably well understood; and incidently the best overall curve of that I actually received from Jim Peden; who is an occasional poster here, and is very knoweldgeable on spectra. Both of us happen to be on a short list from around the, world, who routinely correspond amongst ourselves. That list is a subset of the originally 400, and recently revised at 650, but now over 700 scientists from all over the world who are on public record, as not being part of the concensus that the science is settled. Those lists and the short bios of all on the list are a part of the Senate record; particularly the Senate EPW Committee , chaired by CA Senator Barbara Boxer, with Senator Inhofe of Oklahoma, being the minority leader on that committee.
(our host here, Anthony, is also on the short list of that secret society).
But back to CO2, which looks like this:- O=C-O ;
It is a linear molecule with a double chemical bond between Oxygen and Carbon; and as depicted here, the right hand double bond is seen edge on, since the two bond pairs are in two planes, perpendicular to each other. They are actually the vertices of a regular tetrahedron, and if you have such a thing you will easily see that each edge of a regular tetrahedron has an edge opposite it which is perpendicular to it.
So imagine those bonds to be like little thin springs, which can stretch or bend. The pairs can stretch in unison, so the carbon atom stays stationary, and the Oxygens oscillate in opposite directions along the axis of the molecule. That’s the symmetrical stretch mode. The two Oxygens can vibrate in the same direction, with the Carbon moving back and forth between them. All three are moving, but the CM stays stationary; this is the assymmetrical stretch mode, and occurs at about4.2 microns. The symmetrical stretch mode is not supposed to be IR active, since the center of the electric charge is stationary, so no dipole moment shows up.
The interesting mode occurs when the O on the right moves up and down, with the two springs on the right bending vertically, so the molecule bends.
The situation on the left is much stiffer as to bending in that vertical plane; but it is obvious that it is no different from the situation on the right; except it is at rightangles; so the left oxygen can vibrate in and out of the paper, at exactly the same frequency as the right one. The two modes of bending vibration are identical and indistinguishable, so it is a degenerate situation, commonly referred to as simply the bending mode or the degenerate bending mode. This takes place at a 14.77 micron wavelength and is the one responsible for CO2 infamy, since the peak of the earth’s thermal emissions is around 10.1 microns at a mean 15C temperature.
The trouble is that we don’t have a pure CO2 atmosphere; we only have 385 ppm which is one molecule in 2597. Any one CO2 molecule has to look through a surrounding cloud of 14 layers of air molecules before it sees another CO2 molecule anywhere.
So they do not act in concert; each CO2 moelcule is an orphan, and they interract in energy exchanges with the nirtogen and oxygen molecules; so the IR photons captured by CO2 to excite this bending vibration result in mechanical energy being transmitted to the regular air molecules in collisions, which heats up the air.
Well if I go on, I am going to die of starvation; so I’ll have to think more about this after lunch.
Jack:
No, I don’t have a filter except for a LPR for 1-1/4″ and 2″ that I used when I was in San Jose some 5 years back. The rest are CRGB on an SBIG CFW8 used for astro-imaging.
I have a friend here who has a Coronodo Solar Scope, and he’s just as disgusted with the poor showing the last 2 years due to the lackadaisacal Sun. We were asked to help out at the Solstice showing this past June, but it was cancelled due to nothing to show the public.
From out point of view, the Sun is a crashing bore these days.
Poor old S737 died out before I could project it.
RIP.
re: Hale Cycle
Despite a strong disagreement on the matter with Dr. Svalgaard (argued elsewhere some six months ago) I believe that Hale cycle is only a surface (top layers) effect only. If it was not, than polar field would not be able to change so swiftly, for such a large body. I believe that even Dr. Hathaway unintentionally said so.
Dr. H explains: “The poles end up flipping because these flows transport south-pointing magnetic flux to the north magnetic pole, and north-pointing flux to the south magnetic pole.” The dipole field steadily weakens as oppositely-directed flux accumulates at the Sun’s poles until, at the height of solar maximum, the magnetic poles change polarity and begin to grow in a new direction.
Elsewhere his colegues from NASA give ‘explanation’ if this context:
The Sun’s basic magnetic field, like Earth’s, resembles that of a bar magnet.
Either this is a nonsense or the Hale cycle is just a surface effect, and the Sun has an internal “long term steady” source of magnetic field (as the other magnetic bodies of the solar system do). Such source, if it does exist, would have low intensity field, and it is easily overridden by the fluctuating surface changes.
It is enough to take one look at polar field of Dr. H’s up to date magnetic butterfly diagram
http://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/images/magbfly.jpg
to realise that this is not a field generated by an internal magnetic dynamo, although such may exists somewhere dip down and does not do a flip every 11 years .
” ‘minimum’ is not a compromise. The discussion was about what the symptoms of minimum were.”
Perhaps ‘gridlock’ is a more accurate characterization. Our luminary so effectively argued his case April 2007 for Rmax of 70 in 2013 that he was pleased to join the reactionaries at 95 in 2012, the conservatives went for Rmax of 145 and the June 2007 minimum was abandoned by all.
So much for refusing to accomodate compromise.