Ken Tapping: One year on into the minimum
From John A’s solarscience.auditblogs.com
I’ve just been in e-mail correspondance with Dr Kenneth Tapping, asking him to comment on the progress of the solar minimum and his opinion on the likely size of SC24 when it does deign to appear.
Dear Dr Tapping
After you published your rebuke to Investor’s Business Daily, I put your entire reply onto my blog (see http://solarscience.auditblogs.com/2008/04/22/ken-tapping-the-current-solar-minimum/ ) which I notice is the second listing when anyone googles your name. I hope you didn’t mind.
Since that reply the Sun has appeared to have gone into an even deeper slumber than it was when you wrote your article, more than a year ago. You ended that article with a statement
AT THE MOMENT IT IS UNJUSTIFIED TO ASSUME THE SUN IS UNDERGOING A SIGNIFICANT CHANGE IN BEHAVIOUR. ON THE BASIS OF SUNSPOT NUMBER DATA, WE CANNOT ASSUME ANYTHING ODD IS HAPPENING UNLESS THE NEXT CYCLE DELAYS ITS START INTO 2009 OR 2010
Well it’s now nearly mid-2009 and the only spots to be seen very very occasionally are SC23 polarity.
Do you have any further comment on the Sun’s (lack of) activity? Are we close to unusual times in solar activity? Is the sun undergoing a significant change in behaviour?
Best regards
John
He replied [with my emphasis]
Hi John,
I’ve just got back here from the Space Weather Workshop, which was held in Boulder, Colorado. The opinion there is that the next cycle is coming, although forecasts are for a low cycle with a late start.
Our radio telescopes have detected no sign of the new cycle yet. However a statistical study of indices that I have been doing suggests the Sun did show a significant change in behaviour over the last few years, but that things are starting to slip back towards the normal situation, which could suggest the Sun is at least showing signs of waking up again. It’s deciding to take an additional lie-in cannot be ruled out.
Activity is certainly very low.
Regards,
Ken
When I asked for that “statistical study of indices”, Dr Tapping replied that it was being submitted to a journal and he’d let me know when its in pre-print – which is fine by me.
I think it’s fair to say that all solar scientists have been caught out by the length of the solar minimum and the delay to SC24. In subsequent posts I’ll be reviewing the prognostications of solar models, in an effort to understand what exactly goes into predictions of solar cycles.
In other news, as reported on Watts Up With That:
NOAA/SWPC will be releasing an update to the Solar Cycle 24 Prediction on Friday, May 8, 2009 at noon Eastern Daylight Time (1600 UT) at a joint ESA/NASA/NOAA press conference
I can hardly wait.
[The wait is over, and the announcement was made Friday, which you can read here – Anthony]
Paul Vaughan (15:07:02) :
“interesting” is the right word 🙂
Mark T (15:46:26) regarding bill (14:25:26)
“Your scatter plot, as I stated above, is still meaningless.”
Even if a scatterplot does not tell a whole story, it does convey a worthwhile part of a story.
Basil (09:04:41) :
… do your spectrum analysis (fft) on HadCRUT3 and tell us what you find…
As requested here are HADCRUT 3 Land-sea/NH/SH GIS SSN CET and an average.
http://img162.imageshack.us/img162/84/hadcrutnhshlsgiscetssna.jpg
I thought I had done this before, but cannot find the plot! So apologies!
Again no 11 year signal above noise level in NH and LS – possibly a snipsy bit in SH
There may be a 22year signal (actually 21.3) in a number of plots
There seems to be a peak aroiund 62 years in most (22y and 62 y suffer with lack of resolution)
Leif,
I think that this is actually a very good time to observe the sun and see many of the processes in slow motion. We will actual be able to observe things that where difficult to see and measure due to the sun spot cycle. Do you think this will help understand the 10.7 cm much better having a very slow transition?
Mike Lorrey (11:54:28) :
During the Maunder era, solar telescopes were not developed enough to see these brighter faculae areas.
Not true. I can see them with a 70mm refractor projecting a circle of about 4-6″.
My wife was sitting 10 feet away doing her gardening, and she could see them quite clearly Saturday, as I projected them onto a white piece of paper.
What may be true is that they either weren’t there in the Maunder or they didn’t record them.
The L&P scatter plot has now advanced to the point where if a spot is at the lower point of thier photo intensity spread, then the spot may be photographed but remain invisible to the eye upon projection. Or, if they are visible/photo objects, they fade from detection in short order, being so close to the lower limits.
http://www.robertb.darkhorizons.org/DeepSolarMin.htm
specifically this jpeg: http://www.robertb.darkhorizons.org/LandP2.JPG
Jim Arndt (17:25:27) :
Do you think this will help understand the 10.7 cm much better having a very slow transition?
Yes, and many other things, too. The ideal would be a Maunder Minimum or worse [Spoerer], but that is not in the cards [yet].
rbateman (18:01:41) :
What may be true is that they either weren’t there in the Maunder or they didn’t record them. the latter I think
Leif,
What is curious to me is that is the AGW theory holds true shouldn’t we see a big increase in temperature in the NH since we are closer (90W/M2). But we see only a small difference. 90 W/M2 is huge compared to the AGW signal and we should see much more warming in the NH compared to the SH. We only see 1C at the most and not much more, we should see 3 or 4C. What is your speculation about this uncertainty.
Jim Arndt (19:29:05) :
90 W/M2 is huge compared to the AGW signal
I don’t know what the AGW ‘signal’ refers to.
The 90 W/m2 difference is 7%, so should give 7/4%= 1.75% of 287K = 5C difference, all else equal, but not everything else is equal. The SH is mostly water which has an albedo only only a quarter of that of land, so say that the SH was only half the albedo of the NH, then in southern summer when we are closest to the Sun, the SH gets and absorbs more solar input. This will reduce the difference substantially. One can make this quantitative and show that the observed difference is close to the expected difference.
Meanwhile, scientists (who don’t understand clouds) have had a computer (which understands clouds) simulate the effect of cosmic rays on the atmosphere. I understand that they’ve proven that changes in the Sun can’t cause Global Warming, although I don’t understand how they’ve proven that.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/05/090511122425.htm
They tested it with a computer model.
I’m quite sure that if computer models were allowed to supplant scientific test, then CERN has wasted a lot of money.
Likewise, sending up more & better satellites to study our quiet Sun is for naught as it’s far cheaper to run a computer simulation.
It’s my understanding that a computer model is what you feed the observed data into to try and understand why something is happening, not to actually disprove the occurence.
I’m quite certain that the world + dog understands that the Sun warms the Earth.
That our star is in a minimum and it’s measured output has fallen somewhat should directly imply less warming, even if it is disputed by how much.
For GCR’s causing increased reflectance (albedo) NASA has undertaken more than one study on like areas and come up with a conclusion that if you refect back more incoming less heat reaches the ground.
bill (14:25:26) :
anna v (08:45:00) :
“And clearly in all indices, long range ( Ice core records) and short range, trends of CO2 versus trends of temperature, CO2 lags temperature, which is evident when we see CO2 rising merrily and temperature in stasis the past ten years.”
I’m pleased you brought this up. Most anti AGW will point at ice cores and say “this is absolute evidence that CO2 follows temperature” . They will then point out that the lag is of the order of 700 years. Now this is interesting for CO2 to be reacting to the temp rise since the 60’s is therefore not possible. The CO2 should be reacting to temperatures of 1300’s. So which is it to be – Ice Cores 700 years or a new theory of near instant CO2 response to Temp?
http://icecap.us/index.php/go/joes-blog/co2_and_temperature_relationship_shown_questions_flat_ice_core_co2_graph_du/
There is long term and short temr eactions. The long term are ocean upoheavals most probably, the short term include also biosphere reactions, again most probably.
The reference you gave does a scatter plot of 2 variable of the type youo complain about in my posting!!!
I am not talking of scatter plots. I am talking of the histograms of the two variables used to promote AGW, temperature and CO@ur momisugly rise, as rates of change the first figure.
http://icecap.us/index.php/go/joes-blog/co2_and_temperature_relationship_shown_questions_flat_ice_core_co2_graph_du/
There CO2changes lags by a few months.
Leif Svalgaard (19:57:38) :
Jim Arndt (19:29:05) :
“90 W/M2 is huge compared to the AGW signal”
I don’t know what the AGW ’signal’ refers to.
The 90 W/m2 difference is 7%, so should give 7/4%= 1.75% of 287K = 5C difference, all else equal … This will reduce the difference substantially…
I’m not sure my logic here is correct. It is late here and time for bed… But I recall having seen good arguments for why the difference is what it should be. Think about the difference in albedo…
I have several times asked the modelers [e.g. Gavin Schmidt] to ‘crank up’ the 90 W/m2 to, say, double or triple that, to see if their models handle that correctly, but they have been reluctant to do so…
rbateman (21:47:11) :
They tested it with a computer model.
In defense of ‘models’: almost everything we do today goes ‘through’ a computer model, and the models are usually extremely good. If you build a bridge, you model the underground foundation, the expected load, the stress due to hurricane-force wind and sea currents, etc., and work out the necessary specs and requirements. We model chemical compounds, plasma experiments, traffic flow, the economy [well, not all models work all the time 🙂 ], you name it. We construct models of solar and stellar structure, and they work with exquisite precision [as we know from helioseismolgy and neutrino measurement], our models simulate supernova explosions, the evolution of the galaxies, nuclear weapons, collisions of asteroids, geomagnetic storms, atmospheric drag on satellites, and even [with some success] the weather.
What they do in the paper is to calculate the number and composition of aerosol particles as a function of particle size and time throughout the lower atmosphere (troposphere and lower stratosphere). Additionally, we simulate the gas-phase DMS, SO2, H2SO4 and secondary organic aerosol (SOA) precursor concentrations relevant, allowing us to calculate the aerosol nucleation rates and growth of these new particles to CCN sizes.
Then they find that there are not enough cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) to do the job. This is a rather straightforward ‘engineering’-type calculation [like calculating how much steel goes into a bridge], and should not be dismissed as ‘just a computer model’. Almost everything we do today is based on computer models and they generally work very well.
Now, 100-yr runs of climate models may be pushing model beyond their breaking point [although some modelers will argue, rightly or wrongly, that the model should work], but it seems to me after a careful reading of their paper that they don’t have that problem.
Leif Svalgaard (23:00:30) :
I agree that models are very useful, the are another tool in our arsenal, but, as with integrals, they are as good as the boundary conditions a we set them.
What they do in the paper is to calculate the number and composition of aerosol particles as a function of particle size and time throughout the lower atmosphere (troposphere and lower stratosphere). Additionally, we simulate the gas-phase DMS, SO2, H2SO4 and secondary organic aerosol (SOA) precursor concentrations relevant, allowing us to calculate the aerosol nucleation rates and growth of these new particles to CCN sizes.
This is a long list of data inputs of trace elements that I would be really surprised were known within a factor of two accuracy for the globe.
The trouble with models that have to do with climate is that they ignore the errors coming in from their data inputs, imo. Are you convinced they have escaped this trap?
anna v (23:31:43) :
The trouble with models that have to do with climate is that they ignore the errors coming in from their data inputs, imo. Are you convinced they have escaped this trap?
It is hard to be sure, but the discussion in the paper does cover variability of the parameters and I don’t see any obvious things to trip over. I think that it is up to people dismissing the paper to be specific about what traps the authors have fallen into.
You should know from high-energy physics that modeling of an instrument’s response is often the only way of calibrating it. What I’m against is the simpleton notion that ALL models [and COMPUTER models to boot] by definition are suspect. We could not do science at all today without a lot of modeling. Models are essential. Now, on the other hand there are some fields that have descended into model-hell where people study their models rather than nature. The present paper does not seem to this reader to be of that category.
Leif Svalgaard said:
I notice you slipped into first person plural there. Was that a Freudian slip?
rbateman (18:01:41) “What may be true is that they either weren’t there in the Maunder or they didn’t record them.”
Leif Svalgaard (18:42:07) commented: “the latter I think”
Interesting. My understanding is that voluminous MM-sun writings exist. Perhaps someone with a lot of patience will go back through them in light of new – & possibly forthcoming – insight.
“Then they find that there are not enough cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) to do the job.”
As a glider pilot I can tell you a thermal makes a cloud. Hot air rises, cooling adiabatically until it reaches its dewpoint and a nice flat-based cumulus forms.
The idea that the cloud won’t form till it has enough CCN is silly.
anna v (22:05:33) :
There is long term and short temr eactions. The long term are ocean upoheavals most probably, the short term include also biosphere reactions, again most probably.
I am not talking of scatter plots. I am talking of the histograms of the two variables used to promote AGW, temperature and CO@ur momisugly rise, as rates of change the first figure.
There CO2changes lags by a few months.
If I understand you correctly then there are two (or more?) temperature effects on CO2 concentrations? and for some reason the do not exist together.
One is of the order of months and the other is of the order of 1000 years.
I think you are suggesting that currently we are under the influence of the monthly version (although presumably there may be a millenial effect that has not yet shown?)
What I find difficult to understand is why this effect (monthly) is totally absent from the ice core records. Why didn’t the CO2 level leap up by a few hundred ppm when the temperatures changed by a few deg C ? The younger Dryas is similarly not included in this monthly response. What has changed so drastically?
Various ice core records/dust/co2/ch4/temp over last 40kyears:
http://img11.imageshack.us/img11/6826/iceage040kkq1.jpg
Please note that I am not pushing CO2 as the only climate driver. There are many other anthropomorphic GHGs/atmospheric modifiers that have to be considered. I referenced a paper in another post that suggested the other AGHGs made over 50% of the temp changes (and some of these are only present in PPTs).
the document:
http://www-ramanathan.ucsd.edu/publications/Ram%20JGR%2090%20D3%205547-5566%201985.pdf
Leif Svalgaard (19:57:38) :
Jim Arndt (19:29:05) :
90 W/M2 is huge compared to the AGW signal
I don’t know what the AGW ’signal’ refers to.
The 90 W/m2 difference is 7%, so should give 7/4%= 1.75% of 287K = 5C difference, all else equal, but not everything else is equal. The SH is mostly water which has an albedo only only a quarter of that of land, so say that the SH was only half the albedo of the NH, then in southern summer when we are closest to the Sun, the SH gets and absorbs more solar input. This will reduce the difference substantially.
Leif (or anyone)
This issue keeps bugging me and I can’t decide if it’s significant or not.
Accepting everything in Leif’s post regarding NH/SH land/ocean ratios and albedo etc, would we not still expect land-based stations located on or near the equator to show some temperature change between January and July. And if there isn’t a change – does this tell us anything about the earth’s response to an increase in forcing?
Paul Vaughan (00:20:23) :
I do not know of any MM writings.
I do know that Sunspots and White Light Faculae exist independent and coincident of each other.
http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/stp/SOLAR/ftpsunspotregions.html#greenwich
Download the 1913 data:
2c. Daily summary sunspot area data–apparent and corrected umbral and total areas of sunspots and faculae (in yearly files)
Download 1913 data:
3c. Historical Solar Image Database (HSID) — Daily white light full disk images from Kalocsa, Hungary 1880-1919
Check out the February data in the text file and flip through the images.
You will see indepent spots, independent faculae, coincidence, and a run of spots that lost it’s faculae during transit across the solar disk, then regained it.
Some of Galileo’s drawings suggest the presence of faculae, but there are no labels.
Hard to tell without a text record what is a smudge and what was a faculae.
Some ice core data:
http://img15.imageshack.us/img15/4554/iceageco2ch4100150gt7.jpg
http://img18.imageshack.us/img18/4103/iceageco2ch4360450lh8.jpg
To me it appears that a warming trend is initiated by CO2 rise and sustained by CH4.
A re-entry to iceage is not initiated by CO2 but controlled by CH4 reducing.
Or perhaps more generally –
temperature and CO2 change at about the same time when exiting an ice age, CH4 rises after a delay
Temperature and CH4 change at about the same time when entering an ice age, CO2 falls after a delay.
The most intriguing part of Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth was his insistence that temp anomalies were recorded during the grounding of US aircraft on the 3 days following 9/11 attack.
You can’t have it both ways, but I am sure that I could program a model to reject any daytime reflectance of sunlight, but include the nightime trapping. That would force the results.
I do know that from living on planet Earth that a cloudy summer day is generally cooler than a sunny summer day, and a cloudy night during the winter is warmer than the corresponding clear night.
Albedo works both ways.
GCR’s I believe are swept up, occuring from midnight to noon.
Do the models refect (pun intended) this?