First this news: The Ap Index continues to fall. While the January 2009 data is not out yet, the December 2008 data is and is an Ap value of 2 according to SWPC. While this number may be lower than other sources (Leif will fill us in I’m sure), I’m plotting it for consistency since I’ve been following the SWPC data set for well over a year now.
I’ve pointed out several times the incident of the abrupt and sustained lowering of the Ap Index which occurred in October 2005. The sun has been running at a lower plateau of the Ap index after that event and has not recovered. It 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 December 2008 showing the step in October 2005:
Additionally David Archibald writes with a new idea on how to use the Ap Index to predict the maximum amplitude. See below.
In late January, I contributed a post predicting that the Ap Index would have a minimum of 3 in late 2009. There is a good correlation between the aa Index at minimum and the amplitude of the following solar cycle. This also holds for the Ap Index:
The Ap prediction results in a prediction of maximum amplitude for Solar Cycle 24 of 25. This would be the lowest result since the late 17th century.
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The Administration’s dream green team: Chu, Salazar, Holdren, Browner and Jackson.
————————————————————-
Obama’s ‘Extreme Team’ On Energy
http://www.climatechangefraud.com/content/view/3302/218/
Holdren’s favorite policy prescriptions, including the “limitation of material consumption,” “redistribution of the wealth,” and even “movement toward some kind of world government.”
DJ
Please reference the studies you quote. The peer reviewed ones.
Thank you
On Social Workers and Arsonists
by Bill Muehlenberg
February 12, 2009
https://www.quadrant.org.au/blogs/muehlenberg/2009/02/on-social-workers-and-arsonists
Thus this eye-opening letter was as expected as it was incredible. It was written by a social worker who urged us to be a whole lot more sympathetic with the arsonists responsible for many of the bush fires now raging in Victoria. In true liberal fashion, the writer asks us to try to understand the arsonists, and not be so harsh on them.
mr watts,
as a geologist, i have been trained to appreciate earth’s varied and colorful paleoclimate history…your professionalism in the face of AGW alarmism is most commendable…i thoroughly enjoy the debates about the cause of climate variability…mr svalgaard’s solar insight has caused me to pause about what i once thought was an obvious correlation between sunspots and temperature…i still find myself not wanting to eliminate a possible correlation, however, together with the discussions between magnetic fields, svensmark’s clouds, volcanoes, and oceanic circulation by the many learned commentor’s is really fun as the search continues for the elusive climatic smoking gun…earth’s history tells us that gun does not shoot co2 cartridges!!!…the passion to understand in the face of those with an agenda is inspiring and uplifting…i guess i just wanted to say thanks to all and please carryon in making this truly one of the best science blogs!!!
Leif,
Thanks for the information — in particular the pdf. Your 2004 prediction and method seems all the more credible today.
Let´s get back to the Sun issue. Are we approaching a Dalton or a Maunder type minimum?
tallbloke (06:53:36) :
to
vukcevic (03:08:36) :
over the last 40 years, strength of the polar fields has been steadily declining;
Since the correlation appears to be so strong, and it is directly referring to J & S orbital properties,
http://www.vukcevic.co.uk/PolarField.gif
I assume it could be only one of the following two:
a) Direct response to the rotating vector sum of the J & S magnetic fields. The resultant vector changes its orientation according to the combined heliocentric longitude of two planets (due to the Sun’s and J & S equatorial planes inclinations).
Hi Vukcevic, good to see you’ve picked up on this idea of Ray Tomes which I resurrected on SC24.com
No idea who Ray Tomes is , but I’ll look him up (if he is on the web).
How can it be ‘utter rubbish’ to say that the correct conditions have to be in place. The fires would not have been so tragic if the drought, high temperatures and winds did not occur! How can you deny those simple facts? To say that I am using other peoples misery is a downright lie and if you hadactually read what I had written you should be thoroughly ashamed of yourself for saying that.
RE: Flanigan 6:00:13
I went to the 2006 study you linked regarding sea level rise. You may have missed this on page 21:
“Figure 4 shows how the trend estimate has varied over time. In the early years, the trend appeared to indicate an enormous sea level rise. Later, due to the 1997/1998 El Nino when sea level fell 25 cm below average, the trend actually went negative and remained so for the next three years. Given the sea level record is still relatively short, (since 1993!) it is still too early to deduce a long term trend.”
Were you somehow capable of deducing a long term sea level rise trend from the same data that the authors of the study missed for the 18 years worth of data they used?
Allan M R MacRae (05:59:08) :
Is there any specific reason, why you did not mention that this survey was about peer review in fund allocation, rather than peer review in journals?
Here is the page on books.google.com and the quote in full:
Most of the records where from Hobart and Launceston, summeries etc below from BOM and a news story.
http://www.weatherzone.com.au/news/record-breaking-cold-morning-in-tasmania/9154
Record heat
http://www.bom.gov.au/announcements/media_releases/tas/20090129.shtml
Record drought
http://www.bom.gov.au/announcements/media_releases/tas/20070103.shtml
Extraordinary January 2009- record low and high temperatures for January
http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/current/month/tas/summary.shtml
Record cold April2006
http://www.bom.gov.au/announcements/media_releases/tas/20060501.shtml
bluegrue (09:00:55) :
Well done for exposing yet another ‘selective quote’ from a typical sceptic argument.
Mary Hinge 6:47:28
You state: “(even though temperatures are know rising dispite a prolonged solar minimum!)”
One way to insure a measureable temperature rise trend would be to place your measuring instruments so that they can receive the benefit of the exhaust from a nearby air conditioner or place your thermometer on the roof of a building or just build an airport or sewage treatment plant around it. I’m amazed that there has been no increase in temperatures over the last 10 years. Can you imagine what the temperature record would have shown over the last decade if you had some accurate measurements from well sited instrements? We probably would not be having a discussion about warming. Let me know if you would prefer spring a day or two early or a mile or two of ice above your head.
“Excuse me if I have difficulty taking his work seriously.”
I’ve followed DA’s predictive models since the winter/spring of 2007. He always has a reasoning from data in the public domain for his prognostications.
IMHO, his arguments demonstrate a certain creativity and thrust to the manifest relations of physical phenomena befitting a layman, which self-characterization he has always maintained.
To the degree that my focus has been on a issue taken up in his predictions, he has routinely braver than I. I gather this follows from courage of conviction, not the moonbattery which some here prefer.
Mary Hinge (07:10:44) :
“The tragic bushfires cannot be seen as proof of AGW but they can be seen to be part of an increasingly strong case for AGW”.
Mary Hinge,
I do not understand how you can make this remark.
1. Bush fires are as common on this planet since there are woods.
2. Australia is called the continent of droughts, floods and fires.
3. There is absolutely NO STRONG CASE for AGW let alone AN INCREASINGLY strong case. As the current facts published at this web site indicate AGW science is dead.
Neither your unscientific remarks nor the 400 million dollar for research as part of the Obama stimulus package will make it alive.
Bluegrue
Do you think that peer review works better for an insular “team” of scientists vying for billions of dollars of government research money to preserve their world view? Do you think there is any chance that they are working to protect their own vested interests and do everything they could to prop up each others tenuous conclusions? Is there any chance that their reluctance to use accepted statistical methods and reluctance to share data and code has anything to do with good science or is just an exercise in self preservation? How would it look if the arguments and studies you have based your life on for the last 20-40 years turned out to be completely bogus?
You need to understand something more about the fundamental nature of people to truly understand why the concensus is trying to drub any skeptic into silence. It threatens their livlihood and reputation.
I’m no scientist just another observer. It’s funny how these alarmist make statements about extreme highs and lows particularly when summer fully sets in then go on to blame it on AGW. The W at the end stands for WARMING, so how would that apply to the below average temps which seem to happening more and more often.
What happened in the bush fires last week that killed all those innocent people and what a horrible death they all must have suffered, can be laid squarely at the feet of the so called environmentalists. I, like so many others enjoy the environment of a green earth but would never’ put bugs above humans ‘ ( 2gb’s Brian Wilshere ). The debris on the forest floors was so great that estimates place the heat generated to 500 hiroshima bombs. Eucalypst were exploding like bombs. This failure to allow hazzard reduction must be considered a criminal act. But how to bring to justice invisible criminals.
Mary Hinge
You state: “How can it be ‘utter rubbish’ to say that the correct conditions have to be in place. The fires would not have been so tragic if the drought, high temperatures and winds did not occur! How can you deny those simple facts? ”
You are being too simple in your thinking. Fires in Australia are natural, ask the aborigines. The expectation that there would not be fires and firestorms reflects a lack of understanding. Prohibiting land owners from clearing brush along roads and near their houses reflects ignorance. Allowing the vast majority of the fires in recent years to originate on State owned property where there has been neglect in managing the build up brush with selective and controlled burning reflects incompetence.
Don’t insult us by arguing that a questionable .6cm increase in temperature over the last 150 years since the conclusion of a mini ice age is somehow the causal link to these fires. It’s arguable whether .6cm increase is even accurate given the tendency to measure temperatures near the exhaust of an air conditioner!
I asked Mary Hinge (regarding record weather conditions)
“Can you please confirm which stations in Tasmania you are referring to and the years involved?”
To which Mary replied with links. (09 08 58)
“Most of the records where from Hobart and Launceston, summeries etc below from BOM and a news story.”
I have read and counter checked the links.
Link 1 Record breaking cold morning were respectively a 46, 22, and 10 year old record
link 2 Record heat one was back to 1986 and another to 1972, another didn’t break the record set in 1943
link 3 Record drought 20 year records and they caution against their accuracy because of the split of the rainfall betwen high and low land
link 4 Record high The station started recording in 1976
Link 5 Record cold Generally 20/30 year records-but I’m not going to argue about record cold 🙂
I had a chat some months ago with someone from the Australian weather service as I was trying to graph their temperatures as I have done for Hadley to 1660. She apologised that so many stations had moved, been swamped by urban development, were known to have been inaccurate in the past, or were just to recent to be of much use. All in all, Australia is not the country to attempt to draw any conclusions on regarding its historic climate patterns
TonyB
Whilst on the subject of Australia, we have a mistaken impression that it has a benign climate. This poem shows its potential savagery-the first verse refers to the authors childhood in England. To believe that Australia has dramatically changed its character is to fail to understand its history.
My Country By Dorothea Mackellar. (Circa 1904)
The love of field and coppice, of green and shaded lanes,
Of ordered woods and gardens is running in your veins.
Strong love of grey-blue distance, brown streams and soft, dim skies-
I know but cannot share it, my love is otherwise.
I love a sunburnt country, a land of sweeping plains,
Of ragged mountain ranges, of droughts and flooding rains.
I love her far horizons, I love her jewel-sea,
Her beauty and her terror- the wide brown land for me!
The stark white ring-barked forests, all tragic to the moon,
The sapphire-misted mountains, the hot gold hush of noon,
Green tangle of the brushes where lithe lianas coil,
And orchids deck the tree-tops, and ferns the warm dark soil.
Core of my heart, my country! Her pitiless blue sky,
When, sick at heart, around us we see the cattle die –
But then the grey clouds gather, and we can bless again
The drumming of an army, the steady soaking rain.
Core of my heart, my country! Land of the rainbow gold,
For flood and fire and famine she pays us back threefold.
Over the thirsty paddocks, watch, after many days,
The filmy veil of greenness that thickens as we gaze.
An opal-hearted country, a wilful, lavish land –
All you who have not loved her, you will not understand –
Though earth holds many splendours, wherever I may die,
I know to what brown country my homing thoughts will fly.
TonyB
Sidebar:
Perhaps we should distinguish between:
o Those “Greens” / “Environmentalists” who honestly believe that humans are stewards of the earth, and
o Those “Greens” who dance on the graves of the dead, for which they are at least partly to blame.
The Greeks had a word for the latter: misanthropos. I.e., Misanthropes.
I’d like to know how the AP index was determined (or what proxy was used) for the 1800’s.
I would like to thank Dr. Svalgaard for his immense patience and tact. Many of the topics discussed relative to global warming/cooling and solar influence on such are repeats. Over at Solarcycle24 Dr. Svalgaard has pointed up the contradictions we face with solar influence on climate. Most recent evidence on solar cycles indicates that TSI did not drop significantly during the little ice age. Current data on TSI shows that during this minimum it is staying pretty stable within a range of 2-3 tenths of a watt per square meter.
http://lasp.colorado.edu/sorce/total_solar_irradiance_plots/images/tim_level3_tsi_24hour_640x480.png
So if TSI isn’t dropping enough to cool the earth, what can cause global cooling? Perhaps the feedback loop between TSI and the earth’s climate requires a series of alignments with such things as TSI, ocean currents, volcanic eruptions, increased albedo, etc.
Right now, satellite temperatures give no indication that we are experiencing either global cooling or global warming. Regional impacts are being felt, of course. So perhaps an emphasis on “global” whatever masks the more important regional effects that actually have the major impact on human society.
http://discover.itsc.uah.edu/amsutemps/execute.csh?amsutemps+001
I personally hope that solar cycle 24 has a low sunspot maximum in the range of 50-75. We’ll learn a lot and hopefully gain more insight into the impact of the sun on Earth’s climate.
nobwainer (Geoff Sharp) (04:38:01) :
to
vukcevic (03:18:45) :
It is interesting that Cliverd et al and now yourself use mathematical models to come a very similar outcome……
I have looked at Cliverd et al article some time ago. It is an interesting assemblage of already well known periods. What is missing there, in my view, is lack of any attempt to explain why those periods are there. It is a bit of ‘disassembly’ into components and then put together again, but it does not get us any closer to the source of the origin.
Wolfgang K. (02:18:55) :
I like simple modeling approaches. ………..
My formula would suggest SC24 to be around 80 (or lower if SC24max is beyond 2013).
Mark (10:27:30) :
I’d like to know how the AP index was determined (or what proxy was used) for the 1800’s.
A starting place is: http://www.leif.org/research/IAGA2008LS-writeup.pdf
Many papers and presentation at http://www.leif.org/research/ can give you more details. A more technical [and heavy-going] account is here: http://www.leif.org/research/2007JA012437.pdf
We have data to be able to do this back to the 1830s.