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.
One more thing about the data distribution. Of course it affects the 95% confidence number but remember that 95% is an entirely arbitrary number anyway and my analysis has us well past the 95% level. The histogram which has the bimodal nature is of the entire dataset. After the maunder minimum there are only 16 cycles of data from 175 years to work with.
This leaves only15 delta t’s. From that small set, I don’t know what distribution the data on that few points really has, but it doesn’t look bimodal. What I do believe is that the current minimum to minimum trend is unusually long for that 175 years.
I had some suggestions to use other distributions and things, I don’t know if this bit of data is interesting enough or lengthly enough for that kind of detail.
I’d say it began in 1992.
Solar Cycle 24 has most probably started simply because Solar Cycle 23 has run out. Solar cycles have their inception at the magnetic reversal at the peak of the previous cycle. On that basis, 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.
Solar cycles are discrete events, so the story from here is the weakness of Solar Cycle 24. Sunspots are second order derivative things, being the magnetic flux tubes that floated to the Sun’s surface, so the visible sunspot cycles are second order derivative. The big story is the solar coronal magnetic field strength, which modulates climate via GCR flux and UV flux, and most likely other mechanisms. The Earthly manifestation of solar coronal magnetic field strength is the ap (and aa) index.
Warmers avert your eyes from Icecap today, because you will end up frothing at the mouth. I have made a prediction of -0.4 degrees for May UAH MSU. El Ninos and La Ninas are additive, and it looks like we are in for a 1970s-style run of La Ninas.
Any word from Livingston on the Gauss strength of 11010?
David Archibald (17:57:51) :
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.
Interesting observation, and I bet if we had enough sunspot data we would probably see that type of incident recurring on a cyclic basis.
The notion that changes in solar radiation don’t make a difference has always bothered me. This is because we keep hearing about how relatively tiny changes caused by things like power plant output can cause such a large change in temperatures but a change in the input from the sun apparently don’t.
For example, it has been stated that one contributor of “global warming” would be the reduction of pollutants from coal power plants over the years causing an increase in the solar radiation reaching the ground while not changing the amount of IR radiated into space. It changes the balance and by changing that balance you might not have an impact that you notice at that moment, but if that change over a long period of time, where each day you put a little more energy into the oceans or a little less, but don’t change anything that changes the amount radiated into space, you either warm or cool the oceans (Earth’s heatsink) over time.
So if the amount of sunlight is reduced a little, I believe it plausible that there could be a degree of temperature change over a period of, say, 36525 days.
[Reply: my mistake. Sorry, ~dbstealey, mod.]
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 😉
I am thinking of making book on the eventual findings relating to the “doubling” problem, it’s just that I just cannot figure the odds based on current theory or lack thereof.
So far I have, estimates dismissed; (for various reasons, from “guy is unknown/out of their field/mad” to “paper contains spelling mistakes”)
22ppmv (a CO2 laser guy)
100ppmv (a disenchanted chemist?)
388ppmv (our current window)
And, of course, the alarmists series that will cause our orbit to degrade and plunge us all into fiery hell;
488ppmv (today, plus a purely arbitrary 100 to add some flavor – an, if they can do it so can I, type of thing)
560ppmv (the supposedly deadly doubling from pre-industrial levels)
776ppmv (the supposedly deadly doubling from current levels)
above 776ppmv (a theoretical limit, possibly based on burning all the combustible material available to us, and where the problem becomes moot as we are all dead)
Any takers? I am in the UK, so it’s off to bed for me, but, in the words of the current Governor of California…,
I’ll be back.
i’d put some money on that bright plage area at 10 o’clock becoming a spot…
http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/data/realtime/mdi_igr/1024/latest.html
crosspatch: If I get a pinhole leak in my tire, eventually I find myself at the side of the road.
If the sun’s output is less, and the “R” value of the ionosphere has shrunken, I’m sure that over time it’s going to get a lot colder than it is now.
In my neck of the woods, during the solar minimums we get the record high-pressure in January and the record temps, while the rest of the country gets blasted with Arctic Air Mass. And right now, we had a week of breaking the previous records. Seems to be right on track.
edward (15:18:01) :
“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”
Edward’
What pollution in the water?
Dutch waters are NOT polluted.
Warmers avert your eyes from Icecap today, because you will end up frothing at the mouth. I have made a prediction of -0.4 degrees for May UAH MSU. El Ninos and La Ninas are additive, and it looks like we are in for a 1970s-style run of La Ninas.
I saw that, and it certainly caught my eye. It is certainly a bold prediction.
GISS model prediction for May: +0.4F +/- !.6F
Been browsing the daily sunspot records and although July/August 2008 seems a reasonable minimum it could also still be in the future. My prediction is July 2009. This would be a 13.2 year cycle which would be the 5th longest in the last 36 cycles so not to noteworthy. Note: prediction is not based on any science at all just trending and if trending worked I would be a very rich man today.
A confessed newbie here.
But, I was intrigued by the link posted earlier (but apparently not on this post, now I cannot locate it) on the monthly/annual temperatures for Central England dating back to 1659.
I downloaded and did some simple analyses, and found some fascinating things (at least to me).
First, for the 150 year period of 1750 to 1900, the annual temperature showed no perceptible trend at all, just wandered a bit up and down around 9 degrees C. (I used a 10-year moving average). This stable period of temperature occurred during the Industrial Revolution, when coal or wood was the predominant fuel world-wide. OIl and gas were not in widespread use until after 1900.
Seems amazing to me, if CO2 and CH4 (methane) are such powerful greenhouse gases, that the amount of GHG emitted during the Industrial Revolution over 150 years did not appreciably increase the temperatures in Central England.
I understand the temperature record for one country does not represent the entire globe. Still, over 150 years? No increase? I would have thought the urban heat island effect might have shown up, or time of day error, or errors due to switching over to a new thermometer every few years.
Fascinating stuff, Anthony and all of you guest posters and commenters. I learn at least one new thing here every day.
Roger E. Sowell
Marina del Rey, California
Anthony:
If you are still in wonderment about winning the Blog Award, look back at this thread. Just about the time a reader feels like they are drowning in science/technology, along comes Fred to break the spell:
“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.”
When the postings in one thread can cover the gamut from PhD dissertation level discussions to statements which make it difficult to remain firmly seated, how could you lose?
Interesting, my comment above says:
But I am sure I meant to say 36525 days (100 years).
George M,
Nobody’s in ‘wonderment.’ You’re just cherry picking one post that uses hyperbole to make its point.
This site has agenda driven sites like RealClimate beat hands down, as the “Best Science” vote demonstrates.
Exactly how does pollution cause freezing?
Never mind, my mistake, I mis-read what was being said.
looks like NH ice is going back up quickly to 2004 levels
http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/seaice/extent/AMSRE_Sea_Ice_Extent.png
i’d put some money on that bright plage area at 10 o’clock becoming a spot…
I’d put money on it being the death of a spot from the back side of the sun
Meanwhile it looks like January 2009 is MUCH warmer than Jan 2008
From ASU UAH
motd1=The temperature on 01/15/2009
motd2=is 0.79 deg F warmer than
motd3=this day last year.
“If I get a pinhole leak in my tire, eventually I find myself at the side of the road.”
That is sort of where I was headed. If you consider the air in the tire as the energy stored at Earth (mostly in the oceans) and adding air represents day (absorbs energy from the sun) and letting out air represents night (radiates energy into space) then if I slightly reduce the amount I add every day but let out the same amount every night, eventually the pressure in the tire will be measurably less. And while the amount varies over time due to clouds and the like, if there is less available to add, the overall amount added over time will have to decrease somewhat.
Global warming should work by retarding the amount let out at night. Looking at the long term satellite temperature observations since 1979, I don’t see any trends that look anything like the IPCC projected trends.
Ice cap (I think) put out this graph: http://icecap.us/images/uploads/Stationdropout.jpg
What would it take to run the temperature history with only the sites from about 1990 to see what the temperature history would be?
Henry Galt wrote:
above 776ppmv (a theoretical limit, possibly based on burning all the combustible material available to us, and where the problem becomes moot as we are all dead)
Why would we be dead at above 776ppm?
First, CO2 is close to max absorption of thermal radiation. See: A Window on Water Vapor and Planetary Temperature – Part 2. Doubling CO2 will not double its effect, only close the gap to max absorption.
If you’re worried about toxicity levels, you can take heart from Toxicity of Carbon Dioxide Gas Exposure, CO2 Poisoning Symptoms, Carbon Dioxide Exposure Limits, and Links to Toxic Gas Testing Procedures:
So: CO2 levels have to be 50,000ppm to be directly toxic. But according to the geologic record, atmospheric CO2 has never exceeded 8,000ppm: image
Again, from Toxicity of Carbon Dioxide Gas Exposure, CO2 Poisoning Symptoms, Carbon Dioxide Exposure Limits, and Links to Toxic Gas Testing Procedures:
If tomorrow we suddenly woke in a Jurassic environment in terms of CO2 levels and temperatures, we would still be “safe.”