While the sun still struggles to form cycle 24 spots like seen in this weak plage area (upper right) in today’s SOHO MDI and Magnetograms (shown below) Paul Stanko of NOAA writes to tell me of an interesting development in his tracking of the International Sunspot Number (ISN).
Paul writes:
My running mean of the International Sunspot Number for 2009 just dipped below 1.00. For anything comparable you now need to go back before 1913 (which scored a 1.43) which could mean we’re now competing directly with the Dalton Minimum.
Just in case you’d like another tidbit, here is something that puts our 20 to 30 day spotless runs in perspective… the mother of all spotless runs (in the heart of the Maunder Minimum, of course!) was from October 15, 1661 to August 2, 1671. It totaled 3579 consecutive spotless days, all of which had obs.
Errant counting of sunspecks from Catainia aside, it appears that we haven’t seen anything like this in modern history.
We live in interesting times.
The BBC mentioned the long solar minimum this morning. Also mentioned was Total Solar Irradiance, which according to the BBC has been decreasing since 1985, which may or may not be true, depending on what is measured.
The point about the solar minimum is not the TSI but the sun’s weakened magnetic field. The weakened magnetic filed allows more cosmic rays to penetrate the Earth’s atmosphere, which leads to increased cloud cover , which leads to lower temperatures.
A couple of other calcultions that are interesting:
I have been doing a running average of 395 days (13 months) and 182 days (6 months) on the SDIC sunspot data (starting with Jan. 1999) . The current results are:
395 day average 3.89 centered on Oct. 6, 2008
182 day average 2.48 centered on Jan. 18, 2009
The latest value for both averages are the lowest since 1999 (an arbitrary date near solar max)
The minimum on the 6 month average recently jumped from August 08 to January 09. This data tends to support the idea that, based on sunspots, solar minima will be no earlier than October.
SteveSadlov (09:41:29) :
We should be preparing for something really bad. It would be practical and a moral imperative to specifically plan for a Maunder scenario while at least having a solid contingency plan for the end of the interglacial.
We’ve got one: tax everyone into poverty then blame the sun for their plight once it is obvious. /sarcasm
Mark
Bob : “Can I ask where you found that number?”
Sorry I meant the values of the last 3 days are hovering around 6, not the last month ; the 30 Day moving SOI : http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/enso/
Yes, perhaps not a very accurate description of where the general trend is heading, but the index has not dipped below -5 since 2007 (the last El Nino).
Have we had enough lapse since the last thread to start speculating again? On your mark, Leif, get set, let’s go!
I think I’ve never heard so loud
The quiet message in a cloud.
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The NOAA us back and account for 11 wolf today …
http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/alerts/solar_indices.html
sin, we stop to 45 days in a row spotless
Simon
excuse me, 44 days spotless in a row, not 45…
If circulations in our oceans can cause significant changes to our surface temperatures over periods that cycle up to 30 years, then is it not unreasonable to conjecture that circulations within the Sun, a body that is 109 times wider and 330,000 times heavier than planet Earth, could also cause significant temperature changes and would likely include cycles of much greater duration and intensity than those created within our oceans?
Since global temperatures are again correlating with the current short-term sunspot cycle, would it not also be reasonable to invest more scientific funding into the circulations and cycles of the Sun before we conclude decisively that CO2 is the primary causative factor?
If someone could translate the above arguments into simple English, it seems compelling IMO.
We are modeling what happens when you add another Nat into the room and forgetting about the Elephant in the corner.
Bob Tisdale:
30 day average SOI to 21st April is +8.30
http://www.longpaddock.qld.gov.au/SeasonalClimateOutlook/SouthernOscillationIndex/30DaySOIValues/
“John W. (10:06:04) :
Peter (09:31:20) :
I asked this question once before, no one who knows answered, does anyone know if UV or lack therof has a thermal effect on oceans?
Liquid water absorbs UV, which raises its temperature.”
Water will heat up much quickly with infrared radiation though. Liquid water is somewhat transparent to UV radiation.
http://www.lsbu.ac.uk/water/vibrat.html
Hello.
My name is Jim, and I’m fat. I cause global warming.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,517264,00.html
JimB
I had to stop and really read that story, that first time I read it, my mind read “School of Hysterics”.
…Seems that I was right the first time
Check out the continuum, the spot is already fading and will be a plaque soon.
Ray (10:46:36) :
“John W. (10:06:04) :
Peter (09:31:20) :
I asked this question once before, no one who knows answered, does anyone know if UV or lack therof has a thermal effect on oceans?
Liquid water absorbs UV, which raises its temperature.”
Water will heat up much quickly with infrared radiation though. Liquid water is somewhat transparent to UV radiation.
http://www.lsbu.ac.uk/water/vibrat.html
Which means that infrared heats the top milimeters of ocean whereas UV can go down to 100 meters distributing the heat in depth. In addition, the UV part of the energy spectrum varies by 6% from minimum to maximum, in contrast to the 0.1% of TSI.
p.s. http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/UVB/uvb_radiation3.php
Maunder Minimum — 3579 consecutive spotless days.
How about them apples!! But, human nature being what it is, even the truest of true believers might take a day off from time to time. After all, if everytime you look at the sun you see that there’s nothing to see, it won’t take much to dissuade you from looking at nothing and skipping a day or two … or three.
Now switching from apples to oranges, these days there’s almost continuous coverage of the sun, from SOHO to observers on the ground. And the observations aren’t just about sunspots, but include solar magnetism and solar wind; bet these weren’t high on anyone’s list of things to watch for back in the 1660’s. With today’s aggressive peering at the sun, it’s no wonder that SIDC caught and counted that brief short-lived speck on 26 March; heck, even SOHO caught it but it was never counted by NOAA.
So today we have another sunspeck and this time it’s been noted by SWPC. It’s been a couple months since there was a real sunspot. In that time there’ve been a couple of intermittent sunspecks. Keep this up, with a brief sunspeck every month or so over the course of the next few years and things could get mighty chilly.
I wonder — how many ‘specks’ were missed in the 1660’s?
John in NZ (10:29:13) : “How do you tell the difference between a late 23 spot and an early 25 spot?”
Latitude, maybe?
Peter (09:31:20) : “I asked this question once before, no one who knows answered, does anyone know if UV or lack therof has a thermal effect on oceans?”
As near as I can see, the major effect of UV variability is on the ionosphere, where the temperature varies from about 500°C to 1500°C. The altitude of the ionosphere is also affected significantly. (There are on-going night and day variations occurring, as well.) The density of the ionosphere is extremely low, but it’s my opinion that there is a lot we don’t understand about it, relative to global temperatures.
anna v (11:18:03) :
Yes, uv radiation can penetrate water at greater depth. However, the amount of dissolved or floating “impurities” or live organisms will absorb much more uv than the water will… c=c are really good at uv absorbtion in the pi electrons.
Phillip Bratby (09:21:29) : “The BBC mentioned the quiet sun today and linked it to pictures of the frozen Thames in the Little Ice Age. But of course the BBC added that ’scientists’ said the quiet sun wouldn’t stop climate change (global warming)!!
Of course, if they claim a quieting Sun yet insist global warming continues they can then claim the Sun has no effect on global warming and conclude it proves the CO2 link.
Again, this spot would not have been counted in the 18th century and probably not in 1913 either.
Ray (11:32:37) :
Have a look at the link I gave in sequence. There is a world map in the third figure.
Even if impurities absorb UV, they are still in the water, raising the ocena temperature?
“The latest value for both averages are the lowest [of this minimum]”
As the last D’Aleo article pointed out the monthly average will have to jump to near 4 for May and remain so thereafter to prevent the 13 month minimum moving into 2009.
At the end of last July Janssens and Svalgaard argued similarly if it jumped above 5 and remained in August, March 2008 would be minimum. It won’t happen now either.
hareynolds linked to solarcycle24 a few days back for a comparison of spotless day progressions with earlier cycle transitions. This one is mimicing the Dalton progression not the 14/15 transition as Janssens has it at his solaemon site.
Trying to reconstruct earlier activity via statistics thru a plausible heliomagnetic field strength is kaput, dead, muerta, thanatos.
Read more bull and fight the power
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8008473.stm
JimB (07:42:12) :
Hello.
My name is Jim, and I’m fat. I cause global warming.
Don’t be silly, Jim. Fat people have big shadows. You loveable, fat tubs of lard keep the planet cooler one quarter-pounder at a time.
Now go on with your fat self.
—————————–
So that’s why Al Gore has been getting so fat. Next step in his scam is to reward people with a bigger shadow.
Leon Brozyna (11:28:12) :
I wonder — how many ’specks’ were missed in the 1660’s?
It seems like I read some comments on this here in another thread, though I do not recall the conclusions.
Mark
G.R. Mead (09:18:42) : (pinhole optics were roughly known from Aristotle) and Roger Bacon observed a solar eclipse with camera obscura a century or so later.
I suspect pinhole optics were known to some folks long before that. In about 1980 something I watched an eclipse of the sun. The most striking memory of it is noticing that under a tree, there were thousands of images of a crescent sun, formed by the little gaps between the leaves… Given millions of people over hundreds of thousands of years, I’m sure I’m not the first to have noticed this… We know the first recorded knowing of things, not the first actual knowing…