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.
H.R. (12:50:00) :
I hate to pick a fight with you but clearly that hypothesis is rubbish. Magnetic Vortex Theory provides the most plausible explanation. […] The observed data strongly supports this theory.
Do not let Leif see this! He will use it endlessly to prove that the correlation of planets to sunspots is not causality!
Loved it … but…
We MUST do it for the children, kittens, baby ducks, and the survival of human race.
You forgot the fuzzy bunny rabbits!
Looking at the distribution, it appears that you have two “populations”, so taking the standard deviation of the entire mess doesn’t have any real meaning. It is like plotting the height of NBA players along with midgets, finding an average of 5′-8″, with a standard deviation of 8″. It really doesn’t give you any useful information.
The two peaks of the distribution suggests that we have two populations, as if the sun operates in two different “states”. When it is operating in state A, the periods tend to be shorter with an average around 10.5. When it is operating in state B, the periods tend to be longer with an average around 12.5.
But until a mechanism is discovered to support this, it is pointless to guess whether the current cycle is a 2-sigma state A or a typical state B.
Leif,
Could you explain the mechanism for the Solar Conveyor belt and if it s still abnormally slow now, 2 years after Hathaway’s observation?
Thanks.
Also could some one direct me to a link with a summary of Leif’s argument that the sun is not the climate driver?
And finally I apologize if this has been discussed before but there are lots of possibilities for the sun to add warming energy to our climate.
Does anyone know of calculations measuring the currents induced by space weather. Like an electrical generator, increasing a magnetic field proportionally increases the current. And over the last 100 years the solar magnetic field has reportedly doubled. Energy generation increases by the square of the current. Induced electric fields just need to start electrons and ions moving a very short distance, then where ever there are random collisions,it will create heat like any heating coil. This is energy not accounted for when just looking at TSI.
Increased sunspot activity is associated with increased UV which will affect the ionosphere and thus induced currents. This could amplify portions of the TSI spectrum’s impact on climate.
There is an observed increase in short duration disturbances with increased susnpot activity. Short duration solar flares and CMEs have resulted in induced currents of 100 amps in pipelines. Other induced currents knocked out electric grids in Qubec and Sweden. In 1859-ish there was reports of telegraphs not only getting disrupted but telegraph papers catching fire during a solar flare.
So we know there are powerful currents generated. In the late 1800’s people had patents for earth batteries. Big names like Lord Kelvin were looking at these currents. But except for protecting pipelines and grids I m not aware of much discussion on induced earth currents.
The intensity of induced currents seems to increase toward the poles as well as an increased night time effect which is in keeping with warming data.
My impression is that sun rejected as a driver only because recent satellite data observes too little change in TSI in the past 25 years. But that is the same time period that sunspot activity was plateau-ing. The doubling of the sun’s magnetic field over the pas 100 years suggests that the sun’s out put may well have increased as well. And absorption of heat by the oceans would cause lag effects. Also the height of solar flares and CME’s seem to lag a few years after sunspot max.
Throw in Svensmark’s cosmic rays and cloud creation there is a lot of room for solar impact that has not yet been measured.
kim (06:37:57) :
Jack Eddy liked words and enjoyed the alliteration of Maunder Minimum, which he named, and chose that name over others perhaps more apt.
Then perhaps we ought to call the diminishing magnetosphere, lower solar wind, and the greater GCR flux complex as The Eddy Current ? …
PUT DOWN THOSE PITCHFORKS! It wasn’t that bad!! Back, back…
Jeff
Interesting analysis.
Your histogram suggests that there may be some asymmetry in the distribution.
May I recommend rank ordering the data and then fitting that ordered list to cumulative distribution functions that have have asymmetric distributions, or which have at least three parameters that can provide for asymmetric distributions.
e.g. suggest looking at the Poisson distribution.
Another option might be the Weibull distribution with asymmetry shown by the measure of kurtosis.
When you have good fits to the cumulative distribution, then see where the current cycle fits along that cumulative distribution.
George E. Smith (11:54:45) :
as far as I have been able to determine; that roughly 24 hour daily cycle is not even a part of the global climate models, or even the GCMs.
The models use a time step of ~15 minutes, so, yes the daily cycle is part of the models.
George E. Smith
“Couldn’t find “forcings” listed in any of my handbooks of Physics, or Chemistry, or Optics, or Infrared Technology etc. Nor could I determine the SI unit of “forcings”, nor where the standards are maintained.”
Ditto.
I suspect that “forcings” means predominant effects, or something like that. As opposed to negligible effects. E.g, Coriolis effect is negligible in short-range ballistics, but has a larger effect on long-range shots.
However, I am only an egg, and do not yet grok the fullness.
— (R.A. Heinlein, the standard against whom all others are measured, IMHO).
crosspatch (08:00:29) :
His plotting of these intervals and how they correspond with events is, however, uncanny.
The observation that washing hands between patients reduced deaths came before the correct understanding of why. It was still a valuable contribution…
Andrew (07:38:59) :
If we are entering a new solar minimum, shall we call it the Hansen Minimum or the Gore Minimum? Or perhaps the Hansen/Gore Minimum.
Neither. Naming something like that is intended to give credit for discovery, not cause.
We must get this suggested 10 times a week….but I agree it needs to be named after someone truly famous for a big discovery in the Grand Minima area. Not Landscheiht or Eddy but Paul Jose who in 1965 discovered the recurring 179 yr pattern that is present in every grand minimum so far and will be present in the one we are most likely entering now.
vukcevic (09:11:11) :
I agree. If one method doesn’t work maybe we should consider something new.
And the current method is not working is it vukcevic. But everyone keeps their head in the sand. You might enjoy this bit I wrote in another thread on this website that is near dead. Its related to Jose’s work.
Edward Morgan asked Svalgaard
I mean do you not agree that Jupiter and the planets when aligned move the sun at all and that the sun moves around the centre of the mass of the solar system? Ed
This is another area not covered in Jagers so called paper, its something explained away by others as having no effect because we are free falling through space or use “flat eather” type ridicule as we see from Svalgaard on a constant basis. But its interesting that the Sun follows 2 distinct paths, 1 wide loop of around 2 solar radius formed by J+S together and 2 a much smaller loop that crosses back over itself formed by J+S opposed where the Sun is much closer to the centre of the solar system. When you look at the pattern the Sun is pulled all over the place. The Sun spends approx 10 yrs in each loop which could be a rhythm or resonance setting up the solar cycles and polarity changes. Outside of grand minima period this is exactly the type of solar cyclic motion and timing involved. But of course N+U come along approx every 179 yrs to spoil the party, creating max and min momentum that completely changes the ordered path the Sun was following. This also coincides EXACTLY with grand minima….everytime.
Science cant deny these facts, but instead the majority hide behind ridicule and arguments that it “cant be real” because they dont have a scientific argument right now and the facts go against all the work they have done so far…its akin to the AGW crowd and the IPCC trying to pull the wool over our eyes.
The Dutch canals have frozen over. Something that has not occured in over a dozen years. This was partly due to temperatures but also due to pollution in the water. Nothing stopped the freezing this year. See link below.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2009/01/16/europe/skaters.php
Off topic:
http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=82436
crosspatch (08:00:29) :
“Perhaps it’s time to re-visit the ideas of Dr. Theodor Landscheidt”
Probably not. For example. While the 11 year cycle is somewhat analogous to the orbit of Jupiter, I don’t believe a solar scientist would say that the orbit of Jupiter is responsible for the cycles. And while Landscheidt might have noticed something happening at particular intervals, what he proposes as the cause is probably not it. His plotting of these intervals and how they correspond with events is, however, uncanny.
Not sure that Landscheidt was all that big on linking Jupiter to the 11 yr sunspot cycles, and solar scientists really are still in the dark even though they will profess otherwise. Landscheidt followed on from Jose, and its more than “uncanny”. There has been lots of new work done since Landscheidt, you should check it out and get upto speed.
http://landscheidt.auditblogs.com/
OK from http://gltrs.grc.nasa.gov/reports/2007/TM-2007-214817.pdf
we have
In the following section of this report, instead of maximum tide potential, analysis of alignment and near-alignment of all planets was conducted. It is thought that such alignment would most likely have significant tidal effect because it ensures a single tide that, although not necessarily having the highest tide peak, is a broad global tide that, in one solar rotation, will have a significant variation in tide potential. In addition, the converging, and then diverging, of all tides caused by the individual planets being examined may provide the pressure differences needed to change the movement of plasma in the magnetic field in solar corona, resulting in moving, reshaping, merging, or dispersing the magnetic fields
in the solar atmosphere, leading to increased solar activity. Furthermore, when the planets are perfectly aligned, the tide is high and narrow; the rotating solar atmosphere would experience large tide force for a relatively short time. When the planets are only nearly aligned, the tide was not as high but broad; the solar atmosphere would continuously experience moderate tidal force for a relatively long time. The tidal effects would be significant in both cases.
Which seems to say that the planets, via tides, can have a significant effect on the sun. Well? (Hey, it’s from NASA, it has to right doesn’t it? 😉
If not the Gore or Hansen Minimum, surely the cap and trade tax could be named after them, or perhaps a electrical brown out like they had in Calif a few years ago….
The Gore Dark Era. The years we had to burn the furnature in the oven to stay warm.
“Suppose Something IS Wrong with the Sun (something like entering a Grand/Great Minimum). Suppose such a change in solar activity might have profound implications on climate, ecosystems and our civilization. What would be the response of the government if it knows or suspects the situation?”
Congress would pass the “Save the Sun Emergency Protection Act,” which would authorize the ramming of spaceships packed with hundred dollar bills into the sun in an effort to re-start its fusion reaction. After all, it’s for the children.
“” Leif Svalgaard (14:51:01) :
George E. Smith (11:54:45) :
as far as I have been able to determine; that roughly 24 hour daily cycle is not even a part of the global climate models, or even the GCMs.
The models use a time step of ~15 minutes, so, yes the daily cycle is part of the models. “”
I stand corrected. That is good to know, that short time intervals like that are used in the models.
Are any of these models available in a form where one could actually use them.
I think about all the computer time and power that is being wasted listening to cosmic random noise and trying to find e-mail messages from ET in there.
It would be much more useful, trying to run physical models of the earth system, than messing with whether there is anybody out ther in the universe who gives a hoot about us.
I can just see it; sneding out a question into the void, asking for a cure for cancer; to a “civilisation” 50 light years away form us. A hundred years from now, somebody is going to get an answer from “out there”, and then ask; “what idiot sent this dumb question out; we’ve known how to cure cancer for over 80 years now!”
Yeah really useful talking with ET.
Well it’s too bad that Hansen doesn’t make data measurements on a scale similar to those used by the models; maybe the models and the measurements would agree if they were modelling what they are measuring, instead of two totally different things.
I would expect that a climate model would be able to replicate Hansen’s GISStemp raw data form each of Anthony’s observation posts, since the models have more detail than the measurments.
Of course If they are unable to replicate the past which is known; what chance is there for them to predict the future ?
crosspatch (13:47:06) :
Now air is very dry at the poles so CO2 will make the most difference there but not so much in causing additional heating, as in preventing additional cooling. CO2 greenhouse warming should cause a great increase in winter low temperatures in the Arctic.
Um, when the sun goes quiet and the UV drops, the polar O3 drops a great deal (at least per the ozone anomaly charts I’ve seen). That opens a 9-10 micron IR window not plugged by CO2 … so maybe the poles don’t get ‘warmed’ by CO2 after all during solar minima, and that’s why we are not seeing it. And why we are having very cold arctic blasts freezing us (alternating with residual tropical warm air when the jet stream wobbles…)
GISS can not be relied on because Arctic temperatures used for that are not observations, Hansen plugs in the temperatures for the Arctic that his model says it should be.
Please say this isn’t so… please… How can you use a data series where the data are simply made up, imaginings… Does he then use these made up numbers to ‘adjust’ the trends and averages and via them the past? GAK!
Anthony? Does this sound like an article just waiting to be written? An audit of the surface station that doesn’t exist…
Well, at least now we know why “The north pole is experiencing unprecedented warming” while Alaska is freezing its tush off…
Jeff Id (13:32:54) :
I don’t know if this answers your question or not, but it looks like CO2 has a negligible absorption outside of the infrared band…maybe i’m misinterpreting the data…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Solar_Spectrum.png
Given our political class’s disinclination to allow any potential crisis to pass without their being seen to have done something, no matter how counterproductive, to solve it, I believe we have only a short time to act before they turn their destructive intentions on our “malfunctioning” sun. I propose a crash program to build a brand new, double wide, double long version of the space shuttle. The old Lockheed “Skunkworks” used to be pretty good at turning out exotic craft on short order, so they might be good candidates for the job. As soon as the shuttle is ready, we load the full membership of the House and the Senate aboard and launch them on a detailed fact finding mission to the Sun. But, you say, the Sun is to hostile an environment for such a mission, but it’s ok, we’ll send them at night.
With apologies to polish jokesters everywhere.
“The Gore Dark Era”
I believe we can date it as beginning next Tuesday.
Has everyone else seen all the crap in the detailed Stimulus Bill?
@crosspatch (13:47:06) :
““Well of course with the cessation of the spinning of magnetic tapes, the solar magnetic conveyor began to slow down, sunspots declined, and subsequently temperatures have begun to fall to this day.”
We reviewed that scenario and came to the conclusion that it “didn’t matter” because the decrease in spinning magnetic tape was greatly offset by the increase in spinning magnetic disks. We all agree that the science is settled. The cause is obviously an increase in the number of pirates globally.”
Oh, I knew you’d say that. Everyone knows you’re on the payroll of “Big Pirates”. I suppose if we all send you a huge sum of money you can get the pirates to back off? Oh. And I categorically deny that I get $.07 royalty for every disco cassette tape sold.
@E.M. Smith
Actually, I was hoping to slip that one in under Leif’s radar. Offhand, my guess is he doesn’t wholeheartedly support that theory. I think it’s the disco music part of the theory that he has problems with… OK. Maybe some of the other parts of it, too… OK. Maybe all of it.
Also, I think adding fuzzy bunny rabbits is an excellent suggestion and I thank you for it. It should help me get an increase in next year’s funding from “Big Disco.”
Lief,
Ok, that’s what I thought you meant about filtering causing a shift. The effect in the graphs you show where the minimum of the first falls at 16.4 the crossing point of the two lines falls at about 13.9 so the delta is 2.5 units. In the second graph with what looks like much different slope in terms of sunspots the minimum is 15 but the cross point is about 13.2 units for a delta of 1.8. The net change in the cross point is 2.5-1.8 or 0.7 which doesn’t seem like a huge effect for the type of analysis I did. Especially considering the second part of the analysis used the more recent data which has limited variation.
“You might agree with me that if no new cycle 23 spots appear, the minimum was in ~August 2008, no matter what cycle 24 does.”
It wouldn’t really be a good definition for this calculation since I can’t see the magnetic field of the historic sunspots and therefore can’t compare the whole trend (I don’t know if this data even exists for the same timeframe). By locating a consistent point in the trend for each cycle I only showed that we have extended to an unusually long time before the next upshift — comparing like to like.
I do these things to learn though, not to prove a point. The entire analysis took only a couple of hours and so far from what I can tell, it seems reasonably valid in terms of pointing out a less typical effect in solar cycles. I realized before I made the post that the histogram may not be normal distribution but it is enough for me to see where we currently are. I fully expected a very boring result but found that we had drifted outside the typical range for the last 175 years.
—-
One question though if you don’t mind.
Do you recommend using the timeseries with crossed slope matching to identify the minima? I could do the analysis that way as well.
Leif,
Sorry I was rushing a bit.
Do you recommend using the timeseries with crossed slopes as in the graphs you gave as examples to identify the minima? I could do the analysis that way as well and use a best fit of Hathaway’s prediction (slide it into place) for an estimate of the next cycle.
Ever notice that the current short term temperature trending (in geologic terms) has been touted as being unprecedented, even though in historical terms it is not unusual, but when you get a potentially unusual event that could affect the ‘consensus’ argument, they go back to the long term trending to ‘disprove’ any argument against their consensus?
Kind of a double standard in their arguments…
Leif Svalgaard (14:51:01) :
The models use a time step of ~15 minutes, so, yes the daily cycle is part of the models.
Maybe, maybe not. They could have a model with 15m steps but modeling a world that is twilight all the time everywhere. The time step issue is disjoint from the ‘do they have day and night’ issue. It does say they have the ability to have modeled daily changes, but does not evidence that they did so.