Guest Post by David Archibald
This is a plot of three year windows on the Maunder and Dalton Minimum and the current minimum:
What it is showing is how the start of the current minimum compares with the starts of the Maunder and Dalton Minima. The solar cycle minimum at the start of the Dalton was a lot more active than the current one. If you consider that very small spots are being counted now, the activities are very similar. This is how they look without the Dalton:
If you consider the [current sunspot] counting problem, they are actually a pretty good match.
David Archibald
Just Want Truth… (10:22:30) : We´ll see if Mrs.Baillunas “weather cooking”, through her withchcraft art produces the next “Super Solar Maximum” she has predicted. 🙂
Nowadays sorcerers and witches will be punished because of their “weather cooking” through taxation, ordered by the church of global warming, and their black pope Al.
Ron de Haan (10:55:32) : (About that Sanchez)..That is why, in the las 50 years we have been conveniently exporting all these people to you. 🙂
For the benefit of a non science type, if we end up between a Dalton or a Maunder minimum and the earth actually cools are we talking about .5 degrees C or 5 degrees C? Should I start buying desert land in southern California or land in Guatamala? Don’t worry, I’m not really going to buy land. (yet… 😉 , I understand these are just predictions at this point, but if someone could contribute a translation for me, and probably others (this website receives a lot of hits), it would be helpful. I have reviewed many of the links on this website with more detailed descriptions, but it can be difficult to convert to layman’s terms. Thanks in advance.
I cannot understand what this post is about. Care to elaborate more?
Calling this minimum Maunder-esque is possibly a bit of an overreach. That would require forecasting several cycles hence. “Past performance doesn’t guarantee future returns”. We might have a relatively “normal” cycle in historical terms albeit weaker than recent cycles which have been unusually strong. It is just too early, in my opinion, to be calling for either a Dalton or Maunder kind of minimum.
@ur momisugly Leif Svalgaard (01:36:06) :
Interesting paper, thanks.
“As David points out, one cannot fiddle with the 10Be data”
As for the “discontinuity” around the middle of the 20th century in McCracken and Beer’s data, it actually appears as an uptrend from around 1950 to 1962 (following a downtrend from 1935 which I’m conveniently ignoring ATM 🙂
This is the period when a lot of atmospheric nuclear weapon testing was done.
(As as interesting and possibly relevant aside, Starfish Prime on 9 July 1962 dramatically loaded the Van Allen belts and rendered seven satellites inoperable, including Telstar. The effects on the belts took five years to dissipate. There is some good detail in the May 1963 Scientific American.)
Could the testing have affected the Be10 record? Or affected the ionosphere in a way which would have confounded the record?
Have the possible effects of these thousands of atmospheric nuclear explosions been taken into account by the scientific community when analyzing the ice cores?
As I recollect, there is also a warming period in the temperature records over that time period, and temperatures regressed to the secular trends after testing stopped. Hypotheses non fingo.
@ur momisugly Bob Montle (09:56:02) :
The climatic effects in 1816 are generally ascribed to Mount Tambora. 1816 was the “year without a summer” due to atmospheric obscuration. Check Wikipedia.
There is, of course, the hypothetical correlation of volcanic activity with the Dalton minimum.
Piers Corbyn uses the sun to make his forecasts. He is more accurate than others. (If someone knows a more accurate forecaster than him please post their record) His success shows that the sun drives weather and climate.
This point alone shows you can’t reject solar influence.
Sorry to those who disagree—I’m not trying to be abrasive.
———————
“None of the major climate changes in the last 1000 years can be explained by co2….. The sun is driving climate change. Co2 is irrelevant.”
–Piers Corbyn
from, The Great Global Warming Swindle
“We know that the sun was responsible for climate change in the past, and so is clearly going to play the lead role in present and future climate change. And interestingly… solar activity has recently begun a downward cycle. Average global temperatures have dropped slightly over the past seven (now 8) years.”
–Ian Clark
-hydrogeologist and professor
-arctic specialist
-Department of Earth Sciences
-University of Ottawa
Bob Montle (9:56), the winter in summer you describe in 1816 was due to the very large volcano eruption in 1815 of Tambora, Indonesia, I think. Its Volcanic Explosive Index (VEI) was 7, higher than all other major eruptions of the last 250 years through 1991. Its Dust Veil Index (DVI/Emax) was 3000, pretty high. Only Cosiguina, Nicaragua in 1835 was higher. And its IVI (Ice Core Volcanic Index) is greater than all others. Climate and weather sure are complex. Makes one want to look very seriously at E.M. Smith’s advice at chiefio.com on food storage.
Catchpole and Hanuta (1989), Severe summer ice in Hudson Strait and Hudson Bay following major volcanic eruptions 1751 to 1889. And Alan Robcock (2000), Volcanic eruptions and climate.
“1. The climate of the Earth depends on the interaction between the surface and the atmosphere, both of which are heated by solar radiation characterized by a cyclical, variable intensity. The climate is influenced by the Earth’s yearly revolution around the Sun, thermics, changes in ocean waters flow, air mass movement, mountain massif position, their uplift and erosion in time perspective as well as changes in the continents’ position as a result of their permanent wandering…. ”
~Geologic Science Committee – Polish Academy of Sciences
http://www.staff.livjm.ac.uk/spsbpeis/PAS.htm
(h/t Benny Peiser, and Lubos Motl)
“The PAN Committee of Geological Sciences believes it necessary to start an interdisciplinary research based on comprehensive monitoring and modelling of the impact of other factors – not just the level of CO2 – on the climate. Only this kind of approach will bring us closer to identifying the causes of climate change.”
~Geologic Science Committee – Polish Academy of Sciences
Wroclaw-Warsaw, 12 February 2009
http://www.staff.livjm.ac.uk/spsbpeis/PAS.htm
BlogForTech : “I cannot understand what this post is about. Care to elaborate more?”
I agree, perhaps we need a little bit more information/explanation. I don’t really think that these two graphs are convincing enough on their own…
With regards to the new PLAGE (plague!) on the sun, is there a record keeping of plages? Were plagues like this visible during the Dalton/Maunder minima? Looking at the images of the sun, it sure looks as if it is stirring, but there are no spots, so technically the sun would have been viewed as quiet back then right?… were these CMES common during the minima? Is there a way to tell?
Perr-reviewed (for those who feel peer-review is a prerequisite, tough I do believe E=mc2 was never peer reviewed before publication 😉 )
“…..a supercenturial solar minimum will be occurring during the next few decades…. It will be similar in magnitude to the Dalton minimum, but probably longer as the last one.”
–Boris Komitov, Institute of Astronomy, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences
&
–Vladimir Kaftan, Central Research Institute of Geodesy, Aerial Surveying and Cartography, Federal Agency of Geodesy and Cartography, Moscow, Russia
http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=288314
and
http://www.astro.bas.bg/AIJ/issues/n9/BKomitov.pdf
According to ICECAP, the alarmists didn’t say anything when Alaska was experiencing temperatures much cooler than normal, yet when it gets above normal for a change they beat the AGW drum.
Also, the Southern Hemisphere seems to be cooling rapidly as a prelude to their winter here (maybe a prelude to a solar-induced severe Winter?)
http://www.intellicast.com/Global/Temperature/Maximum.aspx?location=ARSE0041
And here
http://www.intellicast.com/Global/Temperature/Maximum.aspx?location=ASXX0206
Other charts show the Middle East heating up like it does every summer, Siberia and northern North America staying on the cool side, the U.S. is seeing a mix of above and below normal temps, here in Wichita the week’s forecast should come to about average or maybe a little below.
KBK (12:28:16) :
As for the “discontinuity” around the middle of the 20th century in McCracken and Beer’s data, it actually appears as an uptrend from around 1950 to 1962 (following a downtrend from 1935 which I’m conveniently ignoring ATM 🙂
I didn’t point it out, but there is an arrow that points to the discontinuity. On the top panel there are even annotations: ‘muon’ and ‘neutron’. This refers to the fact that the modern instrument to measure cosmic rays, the neutron monitor, was only invented ~1951. Before that, cosmic rays were measured with ‘ionization chambers’ that rely on muons instead of neutrons. The neutron monitors are ‘absolute’ counters that doesn’t require calibration, but the muon detectors will have to be calibrated to know what the count means. There were a handful of balloon flights in the 1930s that were used for the calibration and it is that calibration that is in doubt. So, the 10Be record converted to cosmic ray count [which is what is of interest when discussing solar activity, because it is though the modulation of cosmic rays that solar activity leaves a trace in the 10Be record] is encumbered by having to be spliced together from two different instruments.
This is the period when a lot of atmospheric nuclear weapon testing was done.
We basically don’t use ice cores/tree rings after 1950 for that reason. We also don’t have to because we know from the neutron monitors what the real cosmic ray flux is, so why use contaminated proxies…
Just read a book on the famous E=mc^2. Einstien’s 1905 “Special Relativity” paper was NOT peer reviewed. Merely reviewed by the editors of the journal it was presented in. It also had NO references or citations. (Although in following years various exchanges of letters and manuscripts left a fairly clear trail to point to the 10 contemporary physics “giants” on whose shoulders Albert was standing.)
It does give one pause about the current “fetish” with peer review.
MH
Russian astronomer Khabibulo Abdusamatov in his work LONG-TERM VARIATIONS OF THE INTEGRAL RADIATION FLUX AND POSSIBLE TEMPERATURE CHANGES IN THE SOLAR CORE
Abstract:
We show that the cyclic 11-year variations observed in the solar integral radiation flux are due to some fundamental global processes which occur deeply in the Sun and which cause the corresponding changes in the radius and effective temperature of the photosphere. The 11-year variations of the “solar constant” are determined almost entirely by the changes of the area of the radiating photosphere surface at a constant effective temperature. So, an 11-year heliocycle is a simultaneous phase- and amplitude-correlated oscillation of the solar activity, radius, and radiation flux. The secular variations of the “solar constant” were detected directly for the first time. We suppose that the observed identical long-term variations of the activity, radius, and radiation flux are caused by some common processes which occur deeply in the Sun. They correlate with the global oscillations of the whole Sun. Such oscillations are caused by cyclic changes of the temperature in the solar core, and they can trigger the generation of the solar cycles. We expect that the next relatively deep minimum of the solar activity, radius, and radiation flux in the 200-year quasi-cycle will be close to the Maunder minimum level and will occur in the year 2040 ±10.
http://www.giurfa.com/abdusamatov2.pdf
When I was young, a 3 day forecast was a big deal.
Now, we get 10 day and 2 week outlooks.
Just because we cannot now predict cycles into the future does not mean we will never get there.
Without a goal, there is no effort.
Of course, we could go back to the ancient ways of praying and offering sacrifice for bountiful harvest, and when it doens’t come we can all feel guilty, or get invaded & wiped out by those nations that did have enough to eat.
We could do that.
We could dump science as predictively useless and go back to idol worship.
I hope not.
Only one month to go until we verify David’s prediction made last year of a massive global cooling. On current numbers it will be – perhaps – the worst forecast in climate history.
PS we aren’t vetting are we?
Richard Henry Lee (23:32:38) :
IMHO Henrik Svensmark´s theory states that GCR will increase cloud formation through seed formation of drops, but the trouble is that when in a minimum seas are colder then there is less evaporation hence less humidity and less stuff for the GCR to work properly.
Adolfo Giurfa (13:43:56) :
Russian astronomer Khabibulo Abdusamatov[…]
fundamental global processes which occur deeply in the Sun and which cause the corresponding changes in the radius and effective temperature of the photosphere. […]
The 11-year variations of the “solar constant” are determined almost entirely by the changes of the area of the radiating photosphere surface at a constant effective temperature.[…]
The main problem with that idea is that we see changes in TSI that correspond to magnetic activity we see at the surface and follow solar rotation, as easily seen here [blue curve]:
http://www.leif.org/research/TSI-SORCE-2008-now.png
which, BTW is up-to-date [updated every day]
The problem with nothing ever changing is that it does.
It takes energy to sort and classify, and to establish order.
All that it takes is for a lack of energy for things to decay into lesser states.
So my question is: Are the times of Grand Minimum or Grand Maximum the times of greater order?
Just Want Truth… (13:02:31) :
Piers Corbyn uses the sun to make his forecasts. He is more accurate than others. (If someone knows a more accurate forecaster than him please post their record) His success shows that the sun drives weather and climate.
This point alone shows you can’t reject solar influence.
Sorry to those who disagree—I’m not trying to be abrasive.
Just Want Truth, what particular types of forecasts are you referring to. The El Nino or other type of things ?
There have been some others besides Pier’s who have been forecasting many different things over the years and these forecasts have been on record also. And they were partially space weather based.
BTW tell Piers I said hello if you know him. I talked to him on a couple of occassions back in the 1996-98 time frame but most of my minor interactions were with an associate of his at Action Weather, Kourosh Bamsi-Yazdi.
Koroush was interested in my research involving the planetary effect upon the solar cycle as well as the latter’s effect upon the ENSO.
Alex (13:20:28) :
BlogForTech : “I cannot understand what this post is about. Care to elaborate more?”
To put this post into context, I was highly impressed by Guillermo Gonzalez’s post on a log plot of TSI variance. Looking at his graphic, the Sun is very much dead, an order of magnitude quiter than at the month of minimum for the 22/23 transition. It is also still in downtrend and may get quieter still yet. It may be that the best indication of the month of minimum of the 23/24 transition is when that downtrend is broken.
When was the last time that the Sun went really dead? It was at the beginning of the Maunder. There have been other long quiet periods such as the year long spotless transition between Solar Cycles 5 and 6, but what does it look like going into a sudden switch off? So I tracked down the data and plotted it up. And yes, there is a good match between what is happening at the moment and the beginning of the Maunder. Not too much emphasis should be put into reading sunspots though. They are a second order derivative phenomenon from whatever processes drive the whole thing. As far as sunspots go, the convection zone of the Sun is like a big lava lamp, and we only see the spots that reach the surface. The F 10.7 flux is good but that tends to bottom some time after solar minimum.
That TSI log variance plot looks like it could be the most accurate early indicator of month of minimum. Why is month of minimum important? Because every day’s delay in the transition to the new cycle makes that cycle 0.002 degrees C cooler for the mid-latitudes. The days add up.
When I started out in this field in 2005, the range of Solar Cycle 24 predictions was from 45 to 190 in amplitude. There is a 2 degree C difference in climate from the low to the high. The whole climate science community was oblivious to this. It is not as if the people making the predictions were all crackpots. They all thought they had good science. But some were going to be right and some wrong, and the difference is 2 degrees C, with big real world consequences. That is what got me started down this whole path.
Thankfully there is more interest in the solar – climate connection now, even to the extent of having solar physicists mounting a rearguard action of pre-emptive denial. My big breakthrough was finding that obscure paper from the Armagh Obersvatory which plotted up their 300 year temperature history in terms of Friis-Christianson and Lassen theory (solar cycle length is more important than amplitude). I thought “Let’s plot up all the other long term temperature records.”, and sure enough, some of them have good correlations, including the big ones – CET, de Bilt. It works in the northeast of the US also. The New England states have embraced global warming alarmism with self-flagellating taxes, and they are going to get the cooling really bad.