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
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Pamela Gray (09:43:15) :
I am still amazed at how few here focus on what our own highly variable atmosphere is capable of producing regarding long term trends. Here we sit on a globe that has far greater potential in terms of mechanisms for global cooling and warming that are completely natural, cyclic, solidly based in physics, and defendable. Yet we continue to focus on the minutia of “unknown” solar and barycenter mechanisms just waiting to be discovered and explained. It is the age old argument between “the first encountered pathology” and “absence of evidence is not evidence of absence” found in medical dialogue.
Pamela Gray,
I’m still amazed at the resistance to certain things. Especially when certain governmental organizations within the USA have had a subpar record at forecastings things from well out. And I’m not referring to the solar cycle.
It’s well known amongst those that long range forecast for a living, like those within the energy field, that the CPC and CDC, are behind the curve when it comes to cutting edge techniques and this is why they are always the last one to get on board. Especially with the ENSO.
And their long range seasonal outlooks are always tilted toward decadal climo and they seem to always have a tough time forecasting our upcoming winter pattern when there is no La Nina or El Nino around.
So I would hope that we would all agree that it is very important to accurately forecast things and an indivduals past record, or even a group – company, should be considered when people try to dismiss possible relationships over the lack of us currently understanding things at this point and time.
REPLY:(08:14:26) Great, locusts from the sun. One more of the plages of Pharaoh to worry about 😉 – Anthony
Pharaonic plages.
Going from Gilbert and Sullivan to Verdi, all on one thread. Match that, Gavin.
Well, yeah, but the editor who “merely” reviewed it was Max Planck …
Let me expand on my previous comment a bit. Max Planck was (and is) one of the giants of physics. Einstein’s first paper, on the photoelectric effect, built on ideas earlier put forward by Planck. Einstein knew who edited the journal. Planck (nor any leading physicist of the day) wouldn’t *need* references or citations. Physics was very small at the time (a couple of hundred practitioners worldwide, perhaps? Robert Rhodes put forward a figure on that order in his Making of the Atomic Bomb).
So, true, peer review wasn’t formalized as it is today. That doesn’t mean that there was no peer review, it’s hard to imagine a tougher jury than Max Planck.
An analogy: small companies have internal review and decision making processes that typically are far more informal than you find in large companies. As they grow, processes tend to become formalized. That doesn’t mean that the company had no review process when it was small.
Likewise, the review process in physics was more informal when physics was being conducted by a small number of physicists who were, for the most part, personally acquainted with each other. If a paper appeared in Annalen der Physik, they knew it had been scrutinized by one or more leading German physicists, even if the process wasn’t formalized. Working physicists at the leading edge were intimately familiar with *all* of the important papers, thus the need for cites and references wasn’t strictly enforced.
Today, physics and other fields of science are so huge that it’s really impossible for any one person to become expert in all of the interesting research questions and areas, much less the literature. You don’t need a library index if your library only has a few dozen books, likewise physicists didn’t need explicit pointers to published work when the number of relevant papers in a particular specialty numbered in the dozens rather than the thousands.
To imagine that Annalen der Physik – leading physics journal of the day – would randomly publish papers without critical peer review, just because it was done informally back then – is simply wrong.
On the subject of the associated article we can see simply by looking at the rise and fall of the sequence of sunspot cycles that we are in for a few weak cycles.
The heliomagnetic field is lower now than anytime in the last 50 years of modern measurement and the geomagnetic field is lower than measured in a couple of centuries or since the Dalton. This means the general rise in albedo to a level elevated above last century is likely to continue thru cycle 26.
Beside the correlation of large volcanic eruptions (the Dalton saw Laki, Soufriere, Mayon and Tambora) the New Madrid earthquake of 1812 tossed the water from the Ohio River bed.
David,
“The New England states have embraced global warming alarmism with self-flagellating taxes, and they are going to get the cooling really bad.”
On the bright side, when everybody here is freezing their butts off, we can get the state to use the taxes raised to buy us cheap Venezuelan oil from Uncle Hugo to show what a great guy he is. Joe Kennedy will have a job again.
David Archibald (15:46:12) :
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).
David
The “obscure paper” you refer to is the Butler & Johnson paper, and I’m fairly sure they never intended the ‘casual’ correlation (Cycle Length v Temp) demonstrated in the paper to be used quite as literally as you have done. The next data point on the B&J plot would be the mean temperatures for the SC23/SC24 minimum. Assuming 2008 is the year of the minimum, the temperature value will be the mean annual temperature for the period 2003-2013 (i.e. 11-year mean centred on minimum). Now we already know the temperatures for the first 6 years of that period and unless there is an unprecedented cooling in Armagh, the cycle length/temperature relationship is going to break down in spectacular fashion.
gary gulrud (16:41:54) :
the geomagnetic field is lower than measured in a couple of centuries or since the Dalton.
You have to be a wee bit more precise. The geomagnetic field itself has been decreasing for two thousand years [e.g. http://www.leif.org/research/CosmicRays-GeoDipole.jpg ]. This graph could actually give food for thought for the cosmic-ray/climate crowd, because the main reason for long-term changes of cosmic rays is not the Sun, but the Earth’s main dipole field.
Geomagnetic activity is caused by the solar wind and is now down to where it was around 1901-02 [e.g. http://www.leif.org/research/IHV-1844-2008.png ] telling us that the solar wind is also down to the same level.
OT of sorts
After reading a number of threads and articles on the role of the sun on climate change, I have personally concluded that that role is entirely too speculative. Moreover, it isn’t necessary to define an alternate source of climate change to demonstrate that CO2 ain’t it.
Such alternatives do need MUCH more research.
I would very much prefer to see threads that demonstrate the fallacies associated with AGW. One that comes immediately to mind is the “Revelle Factor”, the unsubstantiated proposition of a buffer factor causing CO2 to remain in the atmosphere for 50+ years.
Ref: http://www.co2web.info/ESEF3VO2.htm
John Finn (17:01:36) :
unless there is an unprecedented cooling in Armagh, the cycle length/temperature relationship is going to break down in spectacular fashion.
It never was any good to begin with:
http://www.leif.org/research/Cycle%20Lengths%20and%20Temperatures.png
http://www.leif.org/research/Cycle%20Length%20Temperature%20Correlation.pdf
Any correlation [not significant R^2=0.0324] would be in the opposite sense, i.e. positive, anyway.
John Peter–
“It is clear that the 2009 line is moving ever so slowly closer to the 1979-2000 average. If the ice is really so thin as they infer why is it so slow to thaw? Just a question from a layman.”
Because they are measuring “extent”, or area, which tells you nothing about ice depth. So when it starts to melt extent is a trailing indicator. . . there’s a lot, and then suddenly it falls off a cliff as all that 2″ ice becomes open water. Take a look at the link below, noting the progression of the 2008 line, which was famous for the “first year ice” (i.e. thinner ice) phenmenon. Note how for much of April and May that 2008 was significantly above everything but 2003, and then in early June it started “falling off the cliff”. That’s ice that was thinner (but in greater area) than those previous years suddenly turning to open water.
This is why both during a multi-year warming trend and a multi-year cooling tend there are effects in the current year from at least 2-3 (and maybe more) years previous impacting the current year extent in spring-summer.
Personally, I expect to still see some some impact in June-Sep 2009 from 2007-2008. I think 2009 won’t “fall off the cliff” as severely as 2008 in June-Sept, but it will to a degree. I’m hoping for a 2009 minimum around the 2005 line, and anything higher than that is all gravy in my book. Now, if that comes true, and 2010 is another cool year, I think that’s when the AGWers will really be in a pickle trying to keep the Arctic Ice alarmism going as the minimum is likely to be well above the long-term trend, and the highest we’ve seen in many years as the impact of the recent low in 2007 will be even further minimized.
Right! It would help to actually provide the link: http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/en/home/seaice_extent.htm
Gilbert (17:41:23) :
Are you kidding?. All that CO2 cr… has been invented just to control society, it is just one of the tools used to that purpose. It has nothing to do with anything real whatsoever. Summarizing: In the short term your pockets will realize it even before you, then, with time, if they succeed, (wich I hope this time they won´t, as before, in the french revolution) you will begin to notice around you a kind of resemblance with a bee hive or an ant´s hill; then you´ll know you are by then in that “Brave New World” those “superior minds” thought for you and your descendants.
Abstract
—The problem of the use of such cosmogenic nuclides as14C and 10Be in natural archives for reconstruction of both the solar activity and the cosmic-ray intensity is discussed. The climate-dependent processes of the formation, transport, and deposition of these nuclides to Earth’s archives must be taken into account for
adequate processing of information derived from such archives.
“A comparison of the data series on the 10Be and 14C concentrations in Greenland and Antarctic ice and in tree rings, respectively, led to the conclusion that
these radionuclides are useless for retrieving the time histories of galactic-cosmic-ray and solar-activity parameters. This conclusion is analyzed below.
http://www.springerlink.com/content/9j5p5k4130014184/fulltext.pdf?page=1
And almost on cue, the MSM, in the form of the Associated Press, puts out a “warning” that the “Sunspot cycle [is] beginning to rise.”
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090509/ap_on_sc/us_sci_space_weather_1
“It’s time for the sun to move into a busier period for sunspots, and while forecasters expect a relatively mild outbreak by historical standards, one major solar storm can cause havoc with satellites and electrical systems here.”
And the best part:
“A preliminary forecast issued in 2007 was split over the outlook for the upcoming cycle, [Doug] Biesecker [of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration] said the researchers have now reached consensus. ”
Whew, THAT’s a relief.
Very nice, I like it …but do you suppose Gilbert is rolling over in his grave?
F. Ross: “do you suppose Gilbert is rolling over in his grave?”
As he replied when asked if Sullivan was still composing: “No, Madam, he’s decomposing.”
But I’m sure Gilbert could write a lovely satire on the AGW empire if he were still alive.
Just Want Truth… (13:22:39) :
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
Thanks for the referenced paper, it looks to support Usoskin & Solanki’s work and uses the “Schove Series” of solar reconstructions from approx AD300 – AD2000. The papers outcome supports a 200 year cycle of solar downturns.
How is the “Schove Series” sunspot reconstruction viewed by popular science?
“Mark Hugoson (13:39:06) : Just read a book on the famous E=mc^2. Einstien’s 1905 “Special Relativity” paper was NOT peer reviewed.”
What’s the name of the book?
Most scientists who could have been assigned review to Albert Einstein’s work before approval for publication would not have understood it. In fact some thought he was insane. There was even one scientist who said Einstein should literally be killed. Conferences were held to make sure the scientists who thought his work was bizarre could make their opinions very public. Einstein actually attended some of these conferences and sat in the audience.
Who would ever think that his awesome ideas would be greeted like that!
You can read Michio Kaku’s book “Einstein’s Cosmos” for one reference to what I am saying.
That would be poetry to my nearly deaf ears!
“Geoff Sharp (20:43:19) : Thanks for the referenced paper”
I always try to put references to everything. I wish everyone would put links to everything they talk about—when applicable.
One thought I’ve had about the sun and it’s influence on weather/climate is that the Russians seem to have it as a priority — they don’t have co2 as the priority. They beat us in to space with Sputnik and they’re beating us now in climate study.
Leif Svalgaard (09:08:34) :
kim (05:35:07) :
In one thread I speculated that if the sunspots go away, and if there aren’t any other changes in the known manifestations of the solar dynamic, then …
Perhaps the problem lies in ‘go away’. If the magnetic field of the spot is 1510 Gauss the spot is visible and all the ‘other manifestations’ have a certain set of values. If the magnetic field is 1490 Gauss, all the ‘other manifestations’ have a certain set of values that are just slightly smaller [or for your hypothetical case not even smaller] than for the 1510 Gauss case, but the sunspot is no longer visible [has ‘gone away’].
That is fine with the exposition between visible and non visible. The truth is that during this year that I have been checking SOHO there are very few manifestations in any of the plots,not only the ones that should be seen as visible too. The sun is really quiet with an occasional blip, on the back burner, on all plots.
What limits does the quietness put on the magnetic field of the unseen by all , according to your above exposition, disturbances?
In a boiling pot if the temperature is lowered to no big bubbles there are the tiny tiny ones trying to coalesce and become big. Could there be such a discontinuity in the magnetic manifestations?
Or does your statement mean that the magnetic fields are like a structural backbone irrespective of temperatures of the plasma we depend on to measure with our instruments?
“….increased solar irradiance warms Earth’s oceans, which then triggers emission large amounts carbon dioxide into atmosphere. So common view man’s industrial activity deciding factor global warming has emerged misinterpretation cause effect relations….. Ascribing ‘greenhouse’ effect properties to the Earth’s atmosphere is not scientifically substantiated. Heated greenhouse gases, which become lighter as a result of expansion, ascend to the atmosphere only to give the absorbed heat away.”
–Habibullo Abdussamatov
-Head, space research laboratory, Russian Academies of Sciences’ Pulkovo Observatory
-Project head, astrometry project, being conducted on the Russian 1/2 of the International Space Station
http://urban-renaissance.org/urbanren/index.cfm?DSP=content&ContentID=16967
“Carbon dioxide is not to blame for global climate change. Solar activity is many times more powerful than the energy produced by the whole of humankind. Man\rquote s influence on nature is a drop in the ocean.”
–Dr. Oleg Sorokhtin
-Merited Scientist of Russia
-fellow of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences
-staff researcher of the Oceanology Institute
“If industrial pollution with carbon dioxide keeps at its present-day 5-7 billion metric tons a year, it will not change global temperatures up to the year 2100. The change will be too small for humans to feel even if the concentration of greenhouse gas emissions doubles.”
–Dr. Oleg Sorokhtin