Guest post by Guillermo Gonzalez
I recently happened upon the SORCE/TIM website and decided to look up the plot of the full total solar irradiance (TSI) dataset (http://lasp.colorado.edu/sorce/data/tsi_data.htm#plots)
The SORCE mission began collecting TSI data in February 2003.
I was curious to see if the variations in the TSI had begun to rise yet, perhaps indicating a start to cycle 24. Visual inspection of the SORCE TSI plot showed just the opposite – variations continue to decline in amplitude. If cycle 24 has started, there are no signs of it in these data.
We can be a bit more quantitative if we examine, instead, a plot of TSI variance with time. I produced such a plot using the daily average TSI data provided on the SORCE web site.
The red data are variance values calculated at two-week intervals. The blue curve is the smoothed data calculated in the same way as smoothed sunspot numbers (basically a 12-month running average). Note, the vertical axis is plotted on a logarithmic scale.
To compare the recent TSI variance trend with the previous sunspot minimum, I looked up the ACRIM2 daily average TSI data at: http://www.acrim.com/Data%20Products.htm
These data are plotted on the same scale as the SORCE data. The smoothed data show a minimum TSI variance near the beginning of 1996, some months before sunspot minimum (October 1996). Notice that the minimum value for the variance during the 1996 minimum was about an order of magnitude larger than the present TSI variance.
The SORCE web site quotes long-term 1-sigma precision (relative accuracy) of their TSI measurements to be 0.001%/yr. This corresponds to a variance of 2 ´ 10-4 W2 m-4. However, the precision should be considerably better than this on the 2-week timescale that I selected for calculating the variance. Unfortunately, I have not been able to locate a quote for the estimated precision of the ACRIM2 measurements. It would be worthwhile to know if the minimum TSI variance of the previous sunspot minimum measured by ACRIM2needs to be corrected for the instrumental precision.
Guillermo Gonzalez writes on his background:
I’m an astronomer, though my present title is associate professor of physics at Grove City College, PA. I wrote a paper (in Solar Physics) with Ken Schatten back in 1987 on predicting the next solar maximum with geomagnetic indices. That was my only contribution on anything having to do with the Sun-Earth connection, but I also got a letter published in Physics Today in 1997 wherein I urged readers to takethe Sun-Earth climate connection more seriously.
These days most of my research is on extrasolar planets.
UPDATE: I received a suggestion for an overlay via email from Terry Dunleavy and I’ve worked one up below. This was done graphically. I took great care to get the two lined up correctly. Note however that the datasets span different lengths of time, as you can note on the two timescales I’ve included on the combined graph. The vertical scale matches exactly between graphs though. – Anthony
UPDATE2: Here is another graphical comparison of the two TSI variance graphs, scaled to have a matching X-axis and appropriately aligned side by side. – Anthony
John Flinn,
Are you familiar with the phrase “the area under the curve.”
Right now there is much less area under the curve compared to the previous several cycles and it is continuing.
http://www.wageningenuniversiteit.nl/NL/nieuwsagenda/nieuws/zon090423.htm
this is a link to a dutch site, it claims that since 1928 the solar input on the surface has steadily increased by 2% a year and they receive 18 W more
p/M2 now then 80 years ago.
They are however quite balanced by adding that this is a probably local caused by less cloud cover.
I’m new to watching the Sun so I have a little question:
Plages appear to be associated with the formation of sunspots. We are also getting small sun spot specks appear in these plage regions. Is it possible to have a rising cycle towards a weak maximum dominated by an increasing number of plages and low contrast (invisible?) sunspot specks?
I came accross this yesterday
http://www.ipp.phys.ethz.ch/research/experiments/tandem/Annual/2000/16.pdf
It suggests that solar cycles lasted an average of 205 years during part of the last Ice Age. Don’t know its validity.
“A cycle of 205 years has been found in the 10Be record from the GRIP ice core (Greenland) for the glacial period 25’000 to 50’000 years before present. There are clear indications that this cycle is due to solar
modulation of the galactic cosmic radiation.”
Hey Leif,
You mentioned the 27 day solar rotation a few times in this topic. What’s the significance of the solar rotation? Isn’t the Sun relatively homogenous?
Record heat in California long gone now. Back to cold in the San Francisco Area with icy winds.
Anthony,
This might make a wonderful thread!
http://motls.blogspot.com/2009/04/polish-nas-joined-climate-skeptics.html
Robert Bateman (17:19:44) :
Watts = Volts x Amps.
Robert Bateman (19:36:38) :
The flux is the voltage. The gauss of the spots & faculae are the amperage.
The April 23, 2009 UC Berkeley report titled “THEMIS mission tracks electrical tornadoes in space”, states:
“Earth-bound tornadoes are puny compared to “space tornadoes,” which span a volume as large as Earth and produce electrical currents exceeding 100,000 amperes, according to new observations by a suite of five NASA space probes.”
http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2009/04/23_keiling.shtml
How many watts is this 100,000 amperes current from Sun to Earth?
How many volts?
How many hours a year does a 100,000 amperes current flow into Earth from the Sun?
Does the 100,000 amperes current cause global warming or global cooling?
(“While these intense currents do not cause any direct harm to humans, on the ground they can damage man-made structures, such as power transformers.”)
Could the 100,000 amperes current sporadically increase by orders of magnitude?
What is the return circuit from the Earth to the Sun?
TSI variation tends to 0. Is this something new? F10.7 flux is increasing, but very slowly.
I can’t see how the 11 year solar cycle has a direct influence on Earth’s climate by direct solar radiation. The variation +/- 0.1% is just to small.
The solar magnetic field is the key. This also follows the 11 year cycle. When the sun is at solar minimum activity , like now, more cosmic rays penetrate the Earth’s atmosphere and act as seeds for cloud formation. More clouds = higher albedo = lower temperature. Vice versa at solar maximum.
Having said that, the buffering effect of the oceans would tend to smooth out these variations. No obvious 11 year cycle of temp exists. There are variations on decadal scales, this is where the magnetic,cloud albedo effect comes in. The moving average (decades long) causes this variation.
If the sun is quiet for a long time, this pattern is broken. I would expect the earth’s cloudiness to increase quite quickly now. Is there anyway of testing this?
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This is a letter I have sent to the BBC (and variations of it to newspapers). It might be worth reminding readers that posting on this board, while informative fun, does not spread the message. Only writing to the media will do that.
Helen Boaden,
BBC Complaints Executive
BBC London
Dear Madam,
Why is the BBC ignoring the fact of Global Cooling?
Contrary to standard BBC propaganda, there has been no global warming over the last 10 years (in fact, there was a slight cooling).
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1998/offset:-0.1/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1998/trend
(In fact, a slight cooling)
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2008/03/rss_1998-2008.png
Also, why is the BBC ignoring Lord Monckton, who has just been banned from giving evidence in US Congress AGAINST Global Warming?
News item:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/04/23/monckton-not-allowed-to-debate-with-gore-today/
Lord Monckton details:
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/papers/reprint/markey_and_barton_letter.pdf
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/
This is surely a newsworthy item – a ‘eccentric’ British aristocrat being banned from speaking in Congress – and yet you ignore it?
Why?
We all know why of course, because none of this fits the BBC’s Green agenda and propaganda. The BBC is the most biased media organisation in the world at present, and needs to be closed down.
Sincerely,
Ralph Ellis
BTW, did you know that:
There has been no global warming over the last 10 years (in fact, there was a slight cooling)
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2008/03/rss_1998-2008.png
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1998/offset:-0.1
That Antarctica is cooling
http://www.scienceagogo.com/news/20020015034521data_trunc_sys.shtml
That polar bear numbers are increasing
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1545036/Polar-bears-thriving-as-the-Arctic-warms-up.html
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/north/story/2007/04/25/arviat-bears.html
http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=1ea8233f-14da-4a44-b839-b71a9e5df868
Antarctic sea ice is growing, and at the greatest extent ever recorded
http://www.skepticalscience.com/Why-is-Antarctic-sea-ice-increasing.html
http://www.globalwarminghoax.com/comment.php?comment.news.97.1
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=2734
No Sunspots recently
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2009/01apr_deepsolarminimum.htm?list53494
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1172399/Has-sun-gone-Earths-closest-star-dimmest-century.html
(Note the media lies here. A lack of sunspot activity caused the 17th century mini Ice Age, however our latest minimum has nothing to do with climate, and it is all manmade CO2. I have never seen such global deceit in my entire life.)
The theory of Sunspot activity driving ALL climate change.
http://bourabai.narod.ru/landscheidt/new-e.htm
Global Temperature vs Sunspot activity
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1978/offset:-0.1/plot/pmod/from:1978/offset:-1365.25/scale:0.2
(red plot is temperature, green in sunspot)
Note that the world has been cooling since 1998.
Letter from Lord Monckton: (enclosure)
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Late to post but.
“The N.Pole isn’t responding.”
Doesn’t the ice core record (that we trust for temperature values?) show the N. Pole responding to climate change later than the S. Pole?
In addition to the excellent information given here, I suspect zeroed solar storms and reduced proton emission events permitting ozone recovery that reduces UV warming plays a (large?) part in the recent cooling.
The reducing volume of stratospheric cloud (offset by jet trails) may be significant to ozone recovery too.
Changing air currents must play a big role in the volume of ozone conveyed from high to low latitudes.
I’m looking, but any more info/opinion would sure be appreciated.
Reply: Read this post again and rethink your questions. ~ charles the moderator
Ralph, you will get no joy from the BBC. Winning the lottery is more likely than an unbiased view from the taxpayer funded BBC.
Phillip Bratby (00:21:51) :
I think I must be missing something too.
You are.
The CO2 content of the atmosphere has gone up by about 100ppm, which by my reckoning is about 0.01% (I may have the math wrong).
Is this relevant? The CO2 concentration has gone up by ~30% and since it’s well accepted by pretty much all scientists (including Richard Lindzen, Roy Spencer, Jack Barrett etc) that CO2 is a ‘greenhouse gas’ which is responsible for the earth being warmer than it would be without it, this is possibly a more relevant figure. However, it is the climate forcing effect which is of real interest. The 100 ppm (~30%) increase in the past ~150 years results in an increased forcing of ~1.6 w/m2 – compared to the change in TSI forcing of around 0.2 w/m2 (averaged over the the earth’s surface).
But, to all those who responded with comments about CO2, please note that I never mentioned CO2.
And how exactly is that supposed to warm the climate enough to need to spend trillions to cure it?
Recent attempts to question veracity of SSN during Maunder minimum period 1645-1700 may be out of place. From the graph
http://www.geocities.com/vukcevicu/SSNM.gif
it is more than clear there were lot of readings in the previous period 1615-1645 covering 3 distinctly visible cycles with high numbers.
There is no reason that the observers would suddenly fail to see sunspots if they were present. It is also unlikely that London was continuously cloudy for over 50 years. Simply sunspots may not have been visible to record. It is possible that Livingston-Penn type phenomenon was active.
I trust that there are no political motives involved to undermine Maunder period, in order to get in line with thinking of the AGW lobby.
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>>Actually, the Mayan calendar does not end in 2012, as
>>much as it simply cycles and starts over again
Most ancient calendars did this, and the primary basis of the cycle was the Precession of the Equinox, which makes all the constellations cycle every 26,000 years – or one constellation ever 2,000 years or so.
In the West the last precessional change was from Aries to Pisces in AD 10, which is why Christianity adopted the symbol of the fish as their logo, while we now stand ‘At the Dawn of the Age of Aquarius’, as they say.
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Terry Jackson (18:06:37) :
Last summer Alaska was quite cool. Here are two articles from the Anchorage paper………..With the sun going quieter and the PDO cooler, I expect an even cooler summer this year.
OK it’s anecdotal and only one place, but it does offer a glimpse of the effects in the area they should be most pronounced.
I actually think it’s reasonable to look at Alaska for signs of change. After all, it was in Alaska that the most pronounced (and immediate) warming was seen in the mid-1970s, it’s seems logical that a shift to cooling might also show up first here. See below for temperature plots of 3 Alaskan stations
Nome:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/gistemp_station.py?id=425702000000&data_set=1&num_neighbors=1
Anchorage:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/gistemp_station.py?id=425702730000&data_set=1&num_neighbors=1
Fairbanks:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/gistemp_station.py?id=425702610000&data_set=1&num_neighbors=1
PS ignore last paragraph on my previous post (2:44:29)
Just read in a local paper that codfish population increases; this could correlate with the lower seawatertemperatures in their living areas. Therefore I would suggest to consider codfish , a temperature sensitive fish, as an indicator for de/in creasing seawatertemperatures comparable with the ARGOS seawatertemperature measurement system. Al this of course in relation with decreasing solar activity.
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>>Whether or not the sun has enough of an effect on climate that
>>climate varies detectably with the solar cycle does not really address
>>the fundamental question of what has caused the general warming
>>over the last 30+ years.
“Whether the Sun has an effect on climate”??
What is up with these people? The Sun IS THE CLIMATE. Without the Sun there is no climate, just a celestial blob hovering around absolute zero, plus the odd rise to 3 degrees Kelvin when a volcano belches.
The Sun has to be the primary driver of climate. Active Sun equals hotter planet. Quiet Sun equals cooler planet. Its not rocket science, you know.
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So, given that the oceans have a vastly greater heat capacity than the atmosphere, does anyone know what the “damping” effect (lag) may be on temperature/climate? I’m assuming there must be one; perhaps a few years, perhaps a decade or so.
Leif, I stand corrected !! Thanks.
As someone else asked, what is the significance of the 27 day rotational period?
Are you saying TSI has variation from differnt sides of the Sun ? Surely not ?
Is this due to variation in different areas of the sun, or tidal/wobble thing, or something else ? Or have I totally missed the point !!
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>>TSI appears to be about 0.05% lower than it was 5
>>years ago – and this is supposed to cool the climate. How exactly?
Correct me if I am wrong, but TSI does not include magnetic flux, and it is the latter that has reduced considerably recently, along with TSI.
Take a look at the second of these graphs;
http://a52.g.akamaitech.net/f/52/827/1d/www.space.com/images/060306_sun_model_02.jpg
Magnetic flux is strongly linked to Sunspot activity, which is why the latter is a predictive tool to climate temperature.
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>>t suggests that solar cycles lasted an average of 205 years
>>during part of the last Ice Age. Don’t know its validity.
Yes, but this could be an extension of the 166-year Gleissberg cycle, which is superimposed upon the usual 11-year cycle.
The Sun has many cycles.
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I noticed the post from ‘anna v’ highlighting the albedo data on Leif’s site.
http://www.leif.org/research/albedo.png
What really stands out is the big dip in albedo which seems to coincide with the big El Nino event of 98, and subsequent warming. If this data is accurate then it would certainly seem to indicate a very significant driver in the earth’s climate. ie-ENSO phases.
It would be nice to see recent data post 2005.
anna v (22:32:17) : “I still think that we are dealing with a chaotic system…”
Have anyone ever opposed that?
“In such systems it is possible for small changes to induce large effects”
And that means that we must prepare for that the butterfly CO2 can induce large effects, and don’t bother that much about the elephants in the room?
Stark graphs. Furthemore my eyes detect, if anything, an element of accelerated decline in the current minimum.