By Joseph D’Aleo, CCM
The sun remains in a deep slumber.
Today we are 15 days into April without a sunspot and with 603 sunspotless day this cycle minimum, 92 already this year. 2009 at this rate, is likely to enter the top 10 years the last century along with 2007 (9th) and 2008 (2nd) this summer.
If it stays quiet the rest of this month, the minimum can be no earlier than November 2008, at least a 12.5 year cycle length. I believe January 2009 is a better shot to be the solar minimum as sunspot number would have to be below 0.5 in June 2008 to prevent the running mean (13 month) from blipping up then. April needs only to stay below 3.2 and May 3.4 to get us to January. This would be very like cycles 1 to 4 in the late 1700s and early 1800s, preceding the Dalton Minimum. That was a cold era, the age of Dickens and the children playing in the snow in London, much like this past winter.
THE ARCTIC AND ANTARCTIC ICE STORY
As for the ice, we hear in the media the hype about the arctic and Antarctic ice. The arctic ice we are told is more first and second year ice and very vulnerable to a summer melt.
Actually the arctic ice is very 3rd highest level since 2002, very close to 2003, in a virtual tie to last winter and the highest year according to IARC-JAXA. The anomaly is a relatively small 300,000 square km according to The Cryosphere Today.
There was much attention paid in the media to the crack in the Wilkins Ice sheet bridge. It was not even reflected as a blip on the Southern Hemisphere ice extent, which has grown rapidly as the southern hemisphere winter set in to 1,150,000 square kms above the normal for this date and rising rapidly.
The net GLOBAL sea ice anomaly is also positive, 850,000 square km above the normal. See full PDF here.
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Easter does not occur during Winter.
That season is called Spring.
You can get snow on Easter in a lot of places.
You can also get warm days on Easter.
That’s not what the concern is.
It’s the general conditon of the Earth’s climate and where it is headed.
Hi Leif,
Thanks for taking the time to add a linear trend to the graph.
Also, when I saw that, I realised that I was looking at the wrong graph… I was looking at TSI thinking it was the F10.7. Of course, when I look at the right graph I can eyeball the uptick.
me = not paying enough attention.
The discussion of trends (multi order polinomial) leave me so far behind it’s not funny. I just hate trend curves for prediction and view them with suspicion.
A question for Leif… if the 10.7 flux says one thing, and the sunspot count says another, then when and how do we decide what the “real solar cycle” is? This reminds me of the Pluto controversy, but it’s even more important. The Pluto controversy was merely about labelling. The solar cycle ( spots or flux ) is about ongoing physical processes that can affect satellites in orbit, and temperatures on earth. If Livingston and Penn were right, that argument would be solved, because there will be no sunspot count to argue against the 10.7 flux in another 5 or 6 years.
.
>>OR do we revert to a pastoral and pre industrial society where
>>the iron hard laws of fear and ignorance reign?
And just as importantly, do we allow fundamentalist religion to raise its oppressive head once more, and stifle scientific research and technical progress?
It is of no coincidence that science and technology flourished after the Reformation and Renaissance eras, when religion was put back into its pastoral (rather than political) box.
.
Adam from Kansas said:
“An article warning that the planned Geo-Engineering during a period of cooling will cause cooling much more severe than it would otherwise be
http://www.iceagenow.com/Playing_God_with_the_Weather.htm”
“Man may not be causing the world to warm, but the next little ice-age being worse than the last could be man-made if this really gets going.”
“According to another article the Sun apparently affects Earth’s climate via the oceans, and the oceans have been cooling since not long after Sun activity started winding down to the current extreme quiet.”
I am too very concerned about the impact such geo-engineering would have on an already cooling world and the push to divert a substancial portion of our agriculture to biofuels. But I suspect part of the “urgency” to do something like this is that the AGW propheteers (profiteers) see that the globe is cooling, and in order to preserve their AGW profits, must come up with a “solution” immediately. They are trying to do this so that they can falsely take credit for the cooling and rontinue to push their Carbon credits and green global domination, etc., rather than accept that climate change, or global warming and cooling, is all part of the natural cycles.
eric (15:00:47) :
“I already have. Solar irradiance has been cyclical with sunspots over the past 50 years, and the average actually has been declining slightly. It has not been the dominant driver of global warming which has just reached a peak.”
“As a result a drop in solar irradience will not likely create a new “little ice age”, (assuming there was such a thing globally) but will likely create a slight temperature drop.”
The one solar cycle factor that seems to lack much research is that of solar ion radiation (solar winds, etc). This fluctuates significantly with the solar cycle. This type of radiation is what causes the Aurora and major changes in Earth’s Atmosphere. see:
http://dutchpatriot.wordpress.com/2008/12/23/nasa-atmosphere-smaller-than-ever/
Also the solar minimum, and lack of this solar ion radiation is wreaking havoc on HAM radio communications because their radio signals, which during high solar activity, bounce off of the upper atmosphere back to earth.
My question, that seems to be somewhat unanswered thus far by science, is what impact these documented changes in the atmosphere due to the solar minumum have on climate.
Many scientists theorize that the Maunder and Dalton minimums led to cooling, but the missing factor is by what mechanism did it do that.
I could see how in theory, an atmosphere that has shruck significantly, would not absorb and/or not trap as much heat, or the same effect causing HAM radio signals to bounce back to Earth could trap other frequencies of radiation as well.
But Lief, or any other of the scientists who frequent this blog, what research if any, has been done in these subjects? And what are the possibilities that this could be the missing link?
Just Want Truth… (16:33:01) :
“Snow this morning on Mt. Diablo in the San Francisco Bay Area.”
Yesterday snow showers were reported in the Las Vegas valley.
I realize there are no sunspots, but, even if true that the sun is cooler then usual doesnt that sort of explain why the temps are so low at present but doesnt really prove or disprove global warming, I dont understand the logic.
sukiho (05:42:01) – The logic is that if the fairly small solar variation results in a larger than predicted variation in temperature, then the fitting process used by the models must under-estimate the solar contribution, and presumably over-estimate some other effect. Current theories predict the solar variation which is estimated to have occured will account for a very small (<10%) proportion of the observed change in the last 100 years. In order to have a more significant effect, the solar influence would need to be something other than just the change in heat received from the sun.
I took this from an article on the NASA site and it has me confused. Could someone please explain, in laymen’s terms, what ‘negative forcing’ and ‘negative anomaly’ mean?
“However, let’s assume that the solar irradiance does not recover. In that case, the negative forcing, relative to the mean solar irradiance is equivalent to seven years of CO2 increase at current growth rates. So do not look for a new “Little Ice Age” in any case. Assuming that the solar irradiance begins to recover this year, as expected, there is still some effect on the likelihood of a near-term global temperature record due to the unusually prolonged solar minimum. Because of the large thermal inertia of the ocean, the surface temperature response to the 10-12 year solar cycle lags the irradiance variation by 1-2 years. Thus, relative to the mean, i.e, the hypothetical case in which the sun had a constant average irradiance, actual solar irradiance will continue to provide a negative anomaly for the next 2-3 years.”
from: http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/2008/
Chris said: “And no need to give up. Just look at the big BIG picture.”
But Chris, I tried that, and the big BIG picture was of . . . Pamela!
“Soon, though, we may be able to directly test the hypothesis that the dearth of spots during the the previous Grand Minima contributed to the cold then, or whether it was volcanoes that cooled the earth. Heh, unless we get no spots AND volcanoes.”
On a recent thread (accompanying D’Aleo’s last article?) Adolfo G. and I noticed(undoubtedly not the first to do so) that of potentially climate changing volcanoes, VEI 6 and 7 eruptions, beginning with Laki in 1783, only a very few, e.g., Pinatubo, did not occur during solar cycles of greater than average length, i.e., weak cycles. For that matter, the Maunder began with the largest SA volcanic eruption in historical times.
This association might suggest solar and volcanic activity levels are not independent.
“Pamela Gray (17:46:18) :
Okay. I fricken give up. It is the Sun and the fact that I get up every morning at 5:30 AM (some kind of damned internal clock I cannot shut off) every single morning since I was 4 years old. ”
I’ve been that way since about the same time.For me it’s a NE Oregon thing.Ranch life and all that. “Day’s half shot-It’s 7:00 and the Tractor’s not greased yet?!”-My Cowboy Pop…
Instead of worrying about oppressive fundamentalist religion, how about we keep ALL religion out of politics, especially what passes for “science” lately. That should be the last word on the subject.
“do we allow fundamentalist religion to raise its oppressive head once more”
Dread those incendiary Bhuddists?
“I dont understand the logic.”
It doesn’t disprove global warming, what it does is put a box around it. If a small change in solar output can swamp CO2 warming, then maybe CO2 warming is not the primary climate driver that the alarmists claim. Additionally, it means that some of the warming in recent decades must be attributed to increases in solar output, even if they were small.
If you can’t understand that argument, I can’t help you.
gary gulrud (06:56:35) :
“This association might suggest solar and volcanic activity levels are not independent.”
Interesting isn’t it, as there are some theories that the Solar Cycle is driven by the gravitational pull of the planets, particularly Jupiter and Saturn.
If that were the case, could that same gravitational pull have an effect on Earth’s molten core and therefore Earth’s volcanic activity??????
“In contrast to the 0.1% solar irradiance change from minimum to maximum, UV changes a whopping 6%.”
And direct satellite measurements give albedo due to cloud cover up 2%. As you have commented before, this effect amplifies that of reduced solar energy inputs, and again, there is reason to suppose solar activity and terrestrial albedo are not independent.
If Livingston and Penn are correct, do they get the Nobel Prize?
Just curious.
anna v (23:29:53)
Of course the Sun looks yellow/orangish. People, get outside and do stuff every now and then! I thought it very strange that some wondered why the Sun was pictured as yellow or orange when all you have to do is go outside and see what it looks like when it’s not shining too bright. Perhaps you wanted to know “why” the Sun and sunbeams have a yelowish cast? If that’s the case, I can’t help you. Maybe the albedo anna v mentioned? But at any rate, it makes perfect sense to picture the Sun that way since that’s what it looks like to the naked eye!
It always seemed to me that the “C02 content” in limestone geologic formations dwarfs the “C02 content” in fossil fuels. There are lot a limestone mountain ranges in Utah. As part of the geologic process, some limestone formations could be subducted deeper into the earth’s crust (higher temperature) perhaps there is a slow reaction from CaC03 to C02 + CaO. Slowly this C02 from lime reaction eventually makes it to earth’s surface and to the atmosphere as the earth “breathes”. This thought leads to a question?
What if the assumption that the increasing C02 atmosphere concentration is not man-made from fossil burning? What if this this “CO2 lime reaction” is such a low rate that it can’t be detected locally, but on global perpective it cummulates to be a major contributor to CO2 concentration trend?
hareynolds (07:32:33) :
If Livingston and Penn are correct, do they get the Nobel Prize?
They will deserve it. But, as far as we know, this prize is for those who show an evident levogyre diffraction.
Geoff Sharp (23:42:03) :
The Jose Minimum we are entering now will be Dalton like
The forecast is for cycle 24 to have a max sunspot number of 72, so now Dalton type minimum is in the offing. More likely, we’ll have a repeat of cycle 14. One can call such a minimum a Grand minimum if one is so inclined, but perhaps a ‘Baby Grand’ is more appropriate.
PaulHClark (02:30:42) :
1). Adolfo Giurfa (12:35:33) : posted a link to an interesting analysis about the sun – do you have any thoughts or comments on this?
Coronal holes can occur at al phases of the cycle. The ones [there are two] we see now were ‘born’ back in 2004, and have little to do with the polar fields [the general field].
2). Do you think this could be shaping up like 6&7?
no, more like cycle 14, but the data on 6&7 is poor, so hard to be certain either way.
3). Do you think there is anything unusual about this cycle change at the moment?
Perhaps if seen with a human experience. No one alive have observed a similar transition. From the Sun’s perspective, it is business as usual, such transitions have happened millions of times, last time a little more than a century ago.
Neil O’Rourke (03:24:51) :
I just hate trend curves for prediction and view them with suspicion.
Eyeballing works fine for this and shows a clear upturn. The trend curve [‘lower envelope’] just connects the minima.
Walter Dnes (03:45:24) :
A question for Leif… if the 10.7 flux says one thing, and the sunspot count says another, then when and how do we decide what the “real solar cycle” is?
The ‘real cycle’ is that of magnetic plage regions, spots or no spots. But it’ll be an interesting exercise to hash out how we define solar activity should the discrepancy continue.
ralph ellis (03:56:27) :
My question, that seems to be somewhat unanswered thus far by science, is what impact these documented changes in the atmosphere due to the solar minumum have on climate.
These changes take place in the upper atmosphere where the pressure is a million to a billion times lower than at the surface, so it is highly unlikely that they will any effect on near-surface climate.
sukiho (05:42:01) :
I dont understand the logic.
perhaps there isn’t any…
hareynolds (07:32:33) :
If Livingston and Penn are correct, do they get the Nobel Prize?
probably not on that, but the guy(s) that explains what is going on might.
Leif Svalgaard (08:32:05) :
Geoff Sharp (23:42:03) :
“The Jose Minimum we are entering now will be Dalton like”
The forecast is for cycle 24 to have a max sunspot number of 72, so no Dalton type minimum is in the offing.
eric (19:30:04) Here is a paper with some nice correlations between cloud cover and cosmic rays from 2000
http://xxx.lanl.gov/PS_cache/physics/pdf/0104/0104048v1.pdf