Guest post by David Archibald
With respect to the month of minimum, it is very likely that Solar Cycle 24 has started simply because Solar Cycle 23 has run out. Most solar cycles stop producing spots at about nineteen years after solar maximum of the previous cycle. Solar Cycle 23 had its genesis with the magnetic reversal at the Solar Cycle 22 maximum. As the graph above shows, Solar Cycle 23 is now 19 years old. Only 9% of the named solar cycles produced spots after this.
The graph also shows the position of Solar Cycle 24 relative to its month of genesis. Solar Cycle 24 is now the second latest of the 24 named solar cycles. January is 105 months after the Solar Cycle 23 maximum. Only Solar Cycle 5, the first half of the Dalton Minimum, is later. This lateness points to Solar Cycle 24 being very weak.
This graph shows the initial ramp ups of six solar cycles that were preceded by a vey low minimum. The ultimate trajectory of Solar Cycle 24 should be apparent by late 2009. If Solar Cycle 24 is going to be as weak as expected, the monthly sunspot number should remain under 10 by the end of 2009.
Carsten Arnholm, Norway (14:39:03) :
So have you changed your mind? Is SC23 dead or alive?
It is dead, but can still produce the occasional spot. What I mean is that there will probably not be a flareup as we had in the Spring of 2008, so the cycle has run its course, no more contribution to the polar fields, no more big flares or CMEs. I assume that you could figure that out. My statements were not ‘interesting’ as far as the Sun is concerned. Perhaps we can say it this way: “dead, but refuses to lie down” 🙂
Carsten Arnholm, Norway (14:39:03) :
“The long duration of cycle 23 really says very little about cycle 23, but a lot about cycle 24. Imagine that there were no spots at all for the next three years. Cycle 23 is definitely dead.
And perhaps your are looking too hard for something ‘interesting’. I said “image there were no spots at all for the next three years”. Then if that would signify a truly dead cycle 23. And THAT was the meaning of that statement.
E.M.Smith (12:20:30) :
I’m pondering the reaction kinetics. As angular momentum and tides move mass about, their ought to be changes of pressure. Increased pressures lead to increased reaction rates, sometimes spectacularly (think cap in a cap gun…) While it’s rampant speculation, that would imply to me that there is a possible modulation of solar behaviour by pressure waves modulating reaction kinetics. Is it enough? Only a lot of math and physics will answer that…
Because we havent got any hard evidence of what is the causation link, planetary influence is treated like pseudo science. I believe that link will come and at present I am not overly concerned about the underlying cause. Once it becomes known that this influence is completely controlling the 11000 yr C14 record and also shows the non existence of the so called solar floor, science will treat it differently and dig a lot further.
I have posted an article showing some of my preliminary work on this massive project to keep people up to date….feel free to ask any questions as the document is not overly intuitive but will improve as I go.
http://landscheidt.auditblogs.com/
Oh no, it’s global warming!
Right, it’s the coldest here since I remember.
The climate may be Changing, but I don’t think it’s getting warmer.
Jordan.
http://www.theriverjordan.net
nobwainer (Geoff Sharp) (16:16:36) :
Because we havent got any hard evidence of what is the causation link, planetary influence is treated like pseudo science.
No, that is not the reason.
The reason is that people advocating planetary influence do not follow the scientific method [or even know what it is – like believing that falsifiability is ‘weird’] and elementary standards of scientific discourse.
Leif Svalgaard (16:52:14) :
No, that is not the reason.
The reason is that people advocating planetary influence do not follow the scientific method [or even know what it is – like believing that falsifiability is ‘weird’] and elementary standards of scientific discourse.
Nonsense.
slightly OT, but related, with a sunspot reference – another indication of the turning tides:
today’s ENN Daily Newsletter from ENN, the Environmental News Network (which usually toes AGW party line) listed this headline (among others):
“What happened to the climate consensus?”
with a link to a column by Paul Schneidereit in our local paper, The Chronicle Herald (one of Canada’s last independent newspapers). This is particularly relevant for our region since Nova Scotia’s Climate Change plan was just tabled (affirming that we must “combat” climate change before it’s too late…).
Here are the links:
http://www.enn.com/makepage/template5.html
http://thechronicleherald.ca/Columnists/1101704.html
nobwainer (Geoff Sharp) (17:40:18) :
“The reason is that people advocating planetary influence do not follow the scientific method [or even know what it is”
Nonsense.
Illustrates precisely what I mean
Palin goes green and renewable but I have a hard time imagining how Alaska can go for such a large percentage of renewables …
lulo —
Your post is not irrelevant at all. Its a brilliant analysis of what is wrong with the climate debate, and the way those inside of the academic AGW paradigm rationalize their own unscientific intolerance. It is imperative, imo, that those of us who do not consider ourselves as belonging to “the right,” and may well hold traditional liberal values in many regards, begin to detach from the cultish atmospehere than has been created by AGW “scientists” around this issue, even if — God forbid — it means finding common cause with those from a traditionally different political perspective.
In my own primary area of study in the humanities, I have watched similar abberations for two decades now. Many academicians, when it comes to issues of their “professional identity,” might as well still be in Jr. High School. Humility just doesn’t seem to be part of their psychological makeup; Led on by Ego, they enter into the tangled web of Mannian data fudging until nature, if the world is lucky enough, proves them definitively wrong before their theories do further damage. Based on what I have read, and my preference for simplicity and elegance in causal models, I have a hunch Svensmark might have got it right. At any rate, as you so aptly put it,
“Which is more likely… that a factor with poor correlation over the past 500 million years is the control, or that a factor with moderately strong correlation is the control?”
And although I don’t look forward to global cooling — which if it comes in a major way could be at least as bad as some of the more apocalyptic AGW scenarios — I will allow myself a bemused smile when and if some of these pompous experts are brought to feel a little public shame for their gratutiously unscientific mistreatment of skeptics and shortage of self-critical consciousness.
Anyway, thanks for the insightful post. Those of us (like myself) with only limited technical knowledge but some experience with the history of ideas need to have our minds fed also. One tip, from a writing instructor: please post shorter paragraphs. The value of what you wrote was somewhat diminished by the difficulty finding a path throught the those giant paragraphs…..
Thanks again, and congratulations to Anthony for an incredible website, with lwell informed and civil discussion from all comers.
The solar-planetary influence science on earth climate is only in it’s infancy. There is way too little known for anyone to state emphatically that they know what is right and that they know how it all works. There is so so so much still to be learnt. Better to leave the options open and not to have a closed mind on this topic especially, otherwise you are just fooling yourself and need a bit of a reality check. We are all just a tiny tiny tiny speck in the big universe and I’m afraid all our knowledge put together is still a speck. Lets’ not fool ourselves that we know it all and be open to new research and new science that we have not even thought of, and new solar-planetry-magnetic-particle-whatever effects on earth’s climate that we now do not know. One thing is for certain we will all discover and change our way of thinking on many many subjects in the coming years ahead. To think that one knows it all and is a top scientist of renown and a leading brain of any subject, leaves one liable to a big fall in the future. We should all be humble and learn from each other, that is how we go forward, someone else may have answers that we have not thought on the science topic. Some one may have no qualifications but be experienced and well-read and see things that we have not. Let’s work all together and take in all ideas, not discard them without even a though, or because it does not fit our pet theories, that may well turn out to be wrong in the long term. Let’s all be good listeners and be able to be flexible in our thinking. We won’t all agree, but maybe if we listened a bit more, maybe we may learn something we did not know, and maybe an opportunity to discover new exciting science awaits us.
lulo and Mike D. said a mouthful.
Strip away the hype and wrangling, and it’s pretty incredible to sit back (after all, we’re really only along for the ride), at a time when industrious people create such amazing sensors of ice, stars, oceans, and ephemera, and be a spectator of the rythms of nature’s goings on.
Ian Holton (20:33:40) :
The solar-planetary influence science on earth climate is only in it’s infancy.
It is at least 150 years old.
There is way too little known for anyone to state emphatically that they know what is right and that they know how it all works.
I think the shoe is on the other foot. Here is how a planetary enthusiast puts it: “Basically every decent peak and trough on the 11000 yr C14 and 10Be graph is accounted for by two solar system line ups…..this will change the face of solar science”.
Ian Holton (20:33:40) :
Well said Ian, and your thought process is happening, the ground is moving beneath our feet. My latest work indisputably links the planets to solar output for 11000 years.
http://landscheidt.auditblogs.com/
Leif Svalgaard (15:25:09) :
Perhaps we can say it this way: “dead, but refuses to lie down” 🙂
Like that Hitchcock peace, “The Trouble With Harry” we are having “The Trouble with Cycle 23” ? 😉
Make that “piece” dang it…
The solar-planetary influence science on earth climate is only in it’s infancy. (Ian)
“It is at least 150 years old.” (Lief)
Well, as I said Lief, it is in it’s infancy…150 years old vs millions of years old earth and vs “mankind age” well its a long long time also since Adam & Eve began us all.
150years of this investigation for mankind is “infancy”… And we have so much more to learn & discover about it all…….That is exciting to me anyway!
If we knew it all now (and we most certainly don’t!) how boring would it all be……. But we don’t and there is so much more to learn and discover. The earth, sun, climate, weather, oceans, clouds, gases, nature, interactions of all sorts, etc, etc, etc.
As I said, and I repeat with pride, “we are only in our infancy of learning and discovery”, and the day we decide we know all about it, is the day we lose our excitement and wonder of life on the wonderful planet earth!
Leif Svalgaard (21:05:14) :
I think the shoe is on the other foot. Here is how a planetary enthusiast puts it: “Basically every decent peak and trough on the 11000 yr C14 and 10Be graph is accounted for by two solar system line ups…..this will change the face of solar science”.
If you think I am wrong, show me. The report is not complete but enough data is there to check. I suspect you are defending another agenda and refuse to see the facts. You need to listen to Ian Holton.
To my simple mind it’s more then obvious how the sun’s relative place to the centre of our galaxy can’t a be inflexible orbit.
Also that tidal forces, created as much by the inertia of the solar surface layer as by it’s passage through diverse gravitational fields account for the most part of the variation in all fluxes traversing it’s body.
Accepting that, the movement of the sun through the universe makes it endure all the kinds of forces the universe can throw at it. Occam’s razor applied it seems most likely to assume those forces will cooincide/contradict or cancel each other out at any given point of it’s lifecycle.
Thus varying the shape of it’s fluid mass. Thus varying the flux, thus making solar prediction more like astrology then science.
The ‘cycles’ we observe at present may well be the effect of it’s present relative position, since it’s postion is sure to change these ‘cycles’ are sure to change.
Try waiting a couple of millenia and see what it does then 🙂
Richard Sharpe (19:30:55) :
Palin goes green and renewable but I have a hard time imagining how Alaska can go for such a large percentage of renewables …
Because the population is very small (686,293 per wiki) with many places running on a diesel generator set. Don’t think 1,000 MW nuke scale, think ‘big thing behind a truck’ scale…
Faribanks is “large and inland” by Alaskan standards, but the city is about 35,000 and even if you include the environs it’s only about 82,000. All the other “large” cities (Anchorage at about 360,000, Juneau 30,000) are close to water power of some kind.
We are not talking a whole lot of power here…
Also from the wiki:
Alaska also offers some of the highest hydroelectric power potential in the country from its numerous rivers. Large swaths of the Alaskan coastline offer wind and geothermal energy potential as well.
There also is just a little under one square mile of land for each person, with lots of trees. They have lots of hydroelectric, tidal, & wave locations near most of the people. Oh, and it’s geologically hot place. Lots and lots of geothermal potential. So yes, it can be done.
Just don’t expect to see solar panels popping up. Maybe some extreme cold tolerant wind turbines though… (And maybe a ‘biomass’ powered alternative to coal plants… they do have rather a lot of trees…)
Heck, one good hydro dam would power most of the state with lots left over. A few ‘powerbuoys’ would do it too.
fred (07:01:07) quoted: “Every cloud has an invisible halo. Unseen particles may confuse climate models.”
Sounded very interesting, Fred; but I have not been able to find any other stories. Hope someone can.
What the current ramp up of SC24 looks like and what it should be looking like are 2 different animals if the Situation Was Normal.
It is anything but normal.
This is what we have been waiting for “just a few more months and we’ll know more”:
We know the SC24 ramp is a resounding thud so far.
We know the SC24 spots are anemic on a good day, and nowhere to be found in between.
We know the solar wind has backed off mightily.
We know the upper atmosphere has thinned substantially.
We know the shields went down unexpectedly.
We know the amplitude of the F10.7 has not responded to sickly spots.
We know we can find more spots now than ever before thanks to satellite-aided gnat straining capability
Some of us even suspect that the Sun acts more like an outgassing epoxy ball than a nuclear-magnetic wound dynamo these days.
Somebody here even pointed out 6 months ago the uncanny resemblance of SC23-24 progression to SC4-5, though a child was found to pick up on it at first glance.
If you don’t now know this is not normal, you have sucessfully joined a class of people known as “them that don’t suspect”.
This is the time to be highly observant and pay attention.
Ian Holton (23:51:46) :
I like your style Ian….in my experience here I have certainly learned how bad some sections of science can be, but I guess that is nothing new. What is more important, the search for knowledge is put aside and replaced with the knowledge “they want to see” and wont look at anything outside their agenda. I think I have stumbled on to something big, perhaps that will upset a few who have worked their whole lives going in the opposite direction….but its not going to stop me.
For all truthseekers, just watched Dave Archibald’s short videos found them difficult to fault despite Leif’s running commentrary.
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=VDX2ExKYyqw&feature=channel
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=iP4mYcrd_18
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=oAUdDLTLXGU&feature=channel
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=SDiJyr0TK6E