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]
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The second mechanism displayes itself in rates of change. The time scale is too short to show these changes. It responds to a change in temperature not to the absolute magnitude.
this graph http://icecap.us/images/uploads/FlaticecoreCO2.jpg
would be a wiggle on the CO2 and temperature curves seen in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Vostok-ice-core-petit.png too tiny to see. It is a transient response, to changes in temperature. In general one would expect the eco system to recover slowly from the ice age bottoms and the absolute scale of this transient effect would be much smaller than now that we are at a very warm and bio friendly age. Having most of the ocean covered by ice would also lead to this.
So you are saying that the rate of change of temperature controls the CO2 level.
I can see that if the CO2 level increases it will take a time for vegetation to grow sufficiently to utilise this and reduce/stabilise the level. So a fast rise in CO2 production will overload plants initially leading to an increase in CO2ppm, but will this then start reducing as plants grow faster – So a transient effect.
But what produces the CO2 if it is not from the oceans (800year lag) that is tied into temperature, which has a delay of 6 months from the temperature?
I can then see that the slow climb out of an ice age would not produce a noticable CO2 increase on this time scale I this theory is assumed correct
OK. So now there is the killer of a problem. For the last decade or so the temperature has been falling and according to your theory the CO2 levels should have been reducing over the last 10 years (the rate of change of temperature is now negative)
So two problems
1. What is the rate of change of temperature doing to produce Co2?
2. Why has this theory been broken by the last decade?
Leif,
“It is the use of a model [possibly outside of its confidence domain] that gets us in trouble.”
EXACTLY! The problem is GCMs and economic models are trying to model much more complex interactions than a bridge model (although that is still complex). The “confidence domain” of a GCM is probably very close to a null set.
So two problems
1. What is the rate of change of temperature doing to produce Co2?
2. Why has this theory been broken by the last decade?
The plot I linked to shows recent changes, where the rate of change does follow temperature. Now I agree that we should also see a flattening of the CO2 curve at some point, certainly not by the mechanism of the deep ocean, but by the absorption from the surface cooling oceans. We have to wait and see what the time scales are for this.
All these are handwaving models, they are just arguments to state that we do not know enough, do not have enough data or correct modeling to really know what we are doing.
There is a greek proverb “hurry slowly”. No rush decisions should be made bases on precarious handwaving arguments on either side. Wait and gather data.
Svensmark’s theories laid to rest “again.”
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/05/090511122425.htm
1
Leif Svalgaard (20:31:23) “It is the use of a model [possibly outside of its confidence domain] that gets us in trouble.”
Richard M (09:23:12) “EXACTLY! The problem is GCMs and economic models are trying to model much more complex interactions than a bridge model (although that is still complex). The “confidence domain” of a GCM is probably very close to a null set.”
…And, perhaps more fundamentally, folks are not only willing to pay other folks to do low-confidence modeling – they additionally provide BIG theatres, BRIGHT spotlights, and PROJECTION. Behold: cultures are born.
– – –
anna v (11:15:02) “There is a greek proverb “hurry slowly”.”
A similar saying: “The hurrier I go, the behinder I get.”
– – –
anna v (05:19:11) “3) the other lags six months which is the plots I linked to above somewhere and is probably mostly of biologic origin together with surface currents turnover of hot and cold waters”
I’ve not spent much time studying CO2 data & literature, but this discussion and the one at …
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/05/12/spencer-on-an-alternate-view-of-co2-increases
… have started to catch my interest. My question for anna v is:
When you say, “probably mostly of biologic origin together with surface currents turnover of hot and cold waters”, is this based on speculation? – on info which you have encountered? – (or something else?)
davidgmills (17:45:44) “Svensmark’s theories laid to rest “again.” http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/05/090511122425.htm “
Let’s keep in mind that this does not eliminate serious deficiencies in understanding of water/clouds/albedo (although some may now view the field of candidates as narrowed).
Paul Vaughan (18:38:29) :
>i>”anna v (11:15:02) “There is a greek proverb “hurry slowly”.””
A similar saying: “The hurrier I go, the behinder I get.”
A programmer that once worked for me said when I was complaining he was falling behind: “the sooner I fall behind, the more time I have to catch up”… I kid you not.
Paul Vaughan (18:38:29) :
When you say, “probably mostly of biologic origin together with surface currents turnover of hot and cold waters”, is this based on speculation? – on info which you have encountered? – (or something else?)
From reading a lot on links and following links in them. From observation of data ( AIRS, Beck,ice core).
Lucy’s site has a number of threads with lots of links
http://www.greenworldtrust.org.uk/Forum/phpBB2/viewforum.php?f=22
Take the AIRS animation: it shows clearly the biological input, a breathing out when things are burgeoning . Not when we burn most either winter or summer, but in April/May in the north. The bands are localized and stay in the hemispheres keeping their latitude. http://airs.jpl.nasa.gov/story_archive/CO2_Increase_Sep2002-Jul2008/
To summarize my understanding:
There are at least three mechanisms in the oceans , for two of which there is data:
1) the long term turn over of deep water rich in CO2, very slow and with a 700+ lag (Ice core)
2) a surface waters turn over whose CO2 behavior I have seen no data for, I would expect the time constants to be similar to PDO etc turns, but am waiting to see when and if the Mauna Loa goes into stasis. If it is not corrected out of it; there is great need of independent data, independent from the people who have based their reputation on CO2 corrections. Keeling is in all publications. That is why the Japanese data will be very valuable.
3) a seasonal and longer term response by the biological cycle, seen in AIRS and in the Mauna Loa and the trends plot.
So it is a hypothesis, that gives noise value to anthropogenic CO2, which will be falsified if temperatures keep cooling for 30 years and CO2 keeps rising.
As with everything I have discovered in climate data, possibly all mechanisms are at work, and the disentangling and percentages is where the crux is.
anna v (11:15:02) :
So two problems
1. What is the rate of change of temperature doing to produce Co2?
2. Why has this theory been broken by the last decade?
The plot I linked to shows recent changes, where the rate of change does follow temperature. Now I agree that we should also see a flattening of the CO2 curve at some point, certainly not by the mechanism of the deep ocean, but by the absorption from the surface cooling oceans. We have to wait and see what the time scales are for this.
All these are handwaving models, they are just arguments to state that we do not know enough, do not have enough data or correct modeling to really know what we are doing.
But you still have not explained the source of the current CO2
and the question is do we have time to wait for the models/actuality to tell us what is happening? I agree that data is severely limited. but I thought that the CO2 record showed seasonal variation and so therefore should by now have shown the downturn in temperature.
Still not convinced by your arguments!!
Meanwhile, back at the Double Plage Solar Ranch, one of them spawned a microdot, after which the gathered magnetics started in with their ‘run for the hills’ spinoff act. Stay tuned for more fascinating pictograms on the MDI Magnetogram. Absolutely the best show in the Solar System.
bill (21:20:19) “but I thought that the CO2 record showed seasonal variation and so therefore should by now have shown the downturn in temperature.”
Keep in mind that the seasonal variation in dCO2/dt is not necessarily responding only to global temperature.
There’s a new sunsport out there, and Radio Flux 10.7 is at 74, which is low but still it is the highest value we have had for several months. Signs of a change?
Nylo (01:48:37) :
There’s a new sunsport out there, and Radio Flux 10.7 is at 74, which is low but still it is the highest value we have had for several months. Signs of a change?
It was 75.5, not 74. The 74 is the ‘observed’ value, the ‘adjusted’ value is 75.5, and is the one to use, as the observed value is influenced by the varying distance to the Sun.
Nylo (01:48:37) :
There’s a new sunsport out there, and Radio Flux 10.7 is at 74, which is low but still it is the highest value we have had for several months. Signs of a change?
Yes it is a sign. Like I’ve previously mentioned around here, and even elsewhere. We’re headed for the highest level of activity since March 2008. But my forecast was for June. So this is just a precursor.
No, those are not sunspots…This astronomer would likely have never been able distinguish the shuttle and Hubble in these photos with the backdrop of an active sun…
http://gizmodo.com/5255723/amateur-astronomer-captures-stunning-image-of-atlantis-hubble-in-the-face-of-the-sun