No we aren’t talking pianos, but Grand Solar Minimums. Today a new milestone was reached. As you can see below, we’ve been leading up to it for a few years.
(Update: based on comments, I’ve updated the graph above to show the 2004 solar max by sliding the view window to the left a bit compared to the previous graph. – Anthony)
A typical solar minimum lasts 485 days, based on an average of the last 10 solar minima. As of today we are at 638 spotless days in the current minimum. Also as of today, May 27th, 2009, there were no sunspots on 120 of this year’s (2009) 147 days to date (82%).
Paul Stanko writes:
Our spotless day count just reached 638.
What is so special about 638? We just overtook the original solar cycle, #1, so now the only cycles above this are: cycles of the Maunder minimum, cycles 5 to 7 (Dalton minimum), and cycles 10 + 12 to 15 (unnamed minimum).
Since the last one is unnamed, I’ve nicknamed it the “Baby Grand Minimum”, in much the same way that you can have a baby grand piano. We would now seem to have reached the same stature for this minimum. It will be interesting to see just how much longer deep minimum goes on.
Of course it depends on what data you look at. Solar Influences Data Center and NOAA differ by a few days. As WUWT readers may recall, last year in August, the SIDC reversed an initial count that would have led to the first spotless month since 1913:
NOAA did not count the sunspot, so at the end of the month, one agency said “spotless month” and the other did not.
From Spaceweather.com in an April 1st 2009 article:
The mother of all spotless runs was of course the Maunder Minimum. This was a period from October 15, 1661 to August 2, 1671.
It totaled 3579 consecutive spotless days. That puts our current run at 17.5% of that of the Maunder Minimum.
By the standard of spotless days, the ongoing solar minimum is the deepest in a century: NASA report. In 2008, no sunspots were observed on 266 of the year’s 366 days (73%). To find a year with more blank suns, you have to go all the way back to 1913, which had 311 spotless days (85%):
The lack of sunspots in 2008, made it a century-level year in terms of solar quiet. Remarkably, sunspot counts for 2009 have dropped even lower.
We do indeed live in interesting times.
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rbateman (22:01:09) :
Elizabeth (21:11:31) :
I came across this when searching for the deVries event
Perhaps no coincidence that ‘vries’ is the Afrikaans [derived from Dutch] word for ‘to freeze’. 🙂
The New Solar Cycle Prediction from the NASA is rather funny, they predict the cycle will be mild or weak, but at the same time, they warn us for potential huge disasters:
“Even a below-average cycle is capable of producing severe space weather,” points out Biesecker. “The great geomagnetic storm of 1859, for instance, occurred during a solar cycle of about the same size we’re predicting for 2013.”
The 1859 storm–known as the “Carrington Event” after astronomer Richard Carrington who witnessed the instigating solar flare–electrified transmission cables, set fires in telegraph offices, and produced Northern Lights so bright that people could read newspapers by their red and green glow. A recent report by the National Academy of Sciences found that if a similar storm occurred today, it could cause $1 to 2 trillion in damages to society’s high-tech infrastructure and require four to ten years for complete recovery. For comparison, Hurricane Katrina caused “only” $80 to 125 billion in damage.”
I guess nowadays you need to spread doom and gloom if you want to keep your budget.
Just Want Truth… (19:45:46) :
Loved the article you liked to. I think we ignore many indigenous peoples’ oral history at our peril.
rbateman (21:04:54) :
The literary record says that things were quite horrid.
The literary record says that “thing were quite horrid” at othere times – not just during the Dalton Minimum.
You have access to the records, glad to hear it. So, put on your muck boots, get in there, and find out why.
Let me get this right. You’re asking me to find out why the temperature record doesn’t match with your theories about the effect of the Dalton solar minimum on climate? Well, well – and there’s me thinking it was just the AGWers who questioned the data when it didn’t fit with their theories.
Face it – there was nothing remarkable about the Dalton Minimum. There were some cold winters and probably some miserable summers. But there have always been cold winters and miserable summers in the UK – believe me. Apparently Napoleon discovered the Russian winter could be brutally cold during the Dalton Minimum. But the Germans discovered the same thing ~130 years later.
Rereke Whakaaro (21:39:45) :
Yet another Kiwi posting on WUWT? Te na koe.
If you are in NZ, Rereke, you will know that it’s a bit nippy. We’re beginning to think that the Goracle has made a sneak visit.
It’s still a day off formal winter and we are bracing for our fourth snow event of the year this weekend (which is Queen’s Birthday holiday). Some ski fields are opening a fortnight early with mega snow. Only the availability of staff made the opening so late.
Even NIWA – the Voice of IPCC Global Warming in Aotearoa (supposedly our dispassionate met and climate service) – has forecast a cold start to winter. Of course, later warm spells will make it an ‘average’ season.
I can’t remember so much sustained rain and I certainly cannot recall four snowfalls, albeit brief, even before winter began. Four for a winter would be a lot. My Maori neighbours have a lot of ancestral knowledge and they are piling up the firewood. So am I!
Anthony, the personally signed Report arrived during the week; thank you very much indeed. Not hard to ‘stay cool’ at the moment.
Kia kaha.
Afrikaans is ‘n pragtige taal! , and a very proudly S.African language!
Speaking of southern hemisphere,,Here in SA there was snow in the Free State side of the Drakensberg in the beginning of April which is very unusual, and snow has once again returned to the Ceres valley in the Cape, it was actually on the tv news last night. “Hundreds flock from Cape Town to Ceres to see the snow”
No global warming mentioned though…
The La Nina of last year was most definately felt here, with record snow and cold and now even the weaker La Nina is showing up in the weather.
It appears though that a weak El Nino is forming which could bring some warmth and dry weather here.
Purakanui (03:52:55) :
Careful – the Maori may have decided to stock up because the long range weather forecasts are calling for a cold winter. The Weather service may be calling for that because they note the Maori are piling up the firewood. 🙂
Real-life incarnation of that Aussie joke?
John Finn says:
“Face it – there was nothing remarkable about the Dalton Minimum. There were some cold winters and probably some miserable summers. But there have always been cold winters and miserable summers in the UK – believe me. Apparently Napoleon discovered the Russian winter could be brutally cold during the Dalton Minimum. But the Germans discovered the same thing ~130 years later.”
Thank you John. By your inestimable logic, we can now ignore whatever warming and ice melt there may have been between 1979 and 1998 because there are always miserable winters and summers and decades and centuries, and epochs…
Glad to see you joining the denier side!!
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
“”Elizabeth (21:11:31) :
I can’t help but wonder if this quiet sun has anything to do with the colder than average spring temperatures we have been experiencing in Canada.
No, that would be too obvious.
There must be something more sinister at work.””
That’s cute Elizabeth. 😉
I liked it.
Let me get this right. You’re asking me to find out why the temperature record doesn’t match with your theories
Not even. The literary record of the years I gave are not a theory. They are recorded history and published.
Face it – there was nothing remarkable about the Dalton Minimum.
Prove your assertion. Quote your data that says the Dalton was unremarkable in that crops did not fail. Prove that grain did not get imported into Europe to counter the shortages.
If, as you say, the Dalton was unremarkable and the same as 1941, this should be a cakewalk for you.
Your source(s) on this:
Do you have one or more you would like to share here that everyone can see?
and there’s me thinking it was just the AGWers who questioned the data when it didn’t fit with their theories.
Again, John, the literary record is not a theory. AGW certainly is. Causation has not yet been proved mechanism-wise as to Grand Minimum -> Climate Awry. Netiher has it been disproved. The Dalton is likewise not a theory.
The people who recorded both records had no agenda that is known today.
They were writing down what they observed.
Two things were observed: Crop failures/unusually adverse weather, and a long drought of sunspots/low cycles.
Ellie in Belfast (02:33:42) :
I agree Ellie. Clearly, to me, there is high value in these histories. One I find interesting is about Lief Erikson, his brother, Ming Dynasty soldiers, and their travels during what we now call The Medieval Warming Period. It is thought that Lief Erikson’s brother was killed in a skirmish in Canada near the Atlantic Coast with ‘Canadian Indians’. But after seeing drawings of the ‘Canadian Indians’ in a documentary on The History Channel I could see the Indians looked very much like they were dressed in clothes from the Ming Dynasty. It could be that soldiers and explorers from the Ming Dynasty traveled along Canada’s Northern Coast and met Vikings on the East side of Canada.
If these ‘Canadian Indians’ really were from the Ming Dynasty then it would be more evidence that it was warmer than now during the Medieval Warming Period and not colder—which is what the Mann Hockey Stick (the graph that even Steven Chu uses) shows.
Wallace (12:11:46) :
No Wallace and Gromit impersonators here!! I think that’s in the rules!! 😉 I love Aardman claymation (save for the listless 2001-2006 DreamWorks years) !!
Haha! Nicely said kuhnkat!
Here is a strange Wikifact about the Dalton minimum with regards to a poet’s inspiration for his poem “Darkness” (by Lord Byron):
“1816, the year in which the poem was written, was called “the year without summer”, as strange weather and an inexplicable darkness caused record-cold temperatures across Europe, especially in Geneva[3] where Byron claimed to have received his inspiration for the poem, saying he “wrote it… at Geneva, when there was a celebrated dark day, on which the fowls went to roost at noon, and the candles were lighted as at midnight”.[4] The darkness was (unknown to those of the time) caused by the volcanic ash spewing from the eruption of Mount Tambora in Indonesia (Vail 184). The search for a cause of the strange changes in the light of day only grew as scientists discovered sunspots on the sun so large that they could be seen with the naked eye.[5] Newspapers such as the London Chronicle reported on the panic:
“ The large spots which may now be seen upon the sun’s disk have given rise to ridiculous apprehensions and absurd predictions. These spots are said to be the cause of the remarkable and wet weather we have had this Summer; and the increase of these spots is represented to announce a general removal of heat from the globe, the extinction of nature, and the end of the world.[6] ”
A scientist in Italy even predicted that the sun would go out on July 18″
– taken from Wikipedia : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darkness_(poem)
Strange,,, even back then the idea that the sun had an influence on the weather was ridiculed by the media…
John Finn (03:18:18) :
There is no correlation between immediate temperature change and solar activity. It may of course be a leading indicator but that has yet to be shown.
http://i599.photobucket.com/albums/tt74/MartinGAtkins/SSN-HAD.jpg
Purakanui mentioned getting in his firewood. I already have over a cord in stock…I blew through about 4 cord last winter, far more than previous winters. I had my fire going steadily for 7 straight months. I live in Colville, WA, about 49 degrees north, and the snow is still present on our peaks above about 5000 feet. The reason I mention that is David Archibald’s “infamous” (marvelous) paper last year where he asserted that the crop line will fall south 100 or so KM over the NA continent. I happen to see that already. Our area has fruit trees, winter wheat, and the likes, and the farmers are very concerned (anecdotal) about how late this “break up” arrived. True, drought conditions seem to be prevalent, but people forget that the 3 Gorges Dam, as a HUGE strange attractor, has massively altered the jet streams all about the planet… masking a lot of changes.
Purakanui
G’Day Bro
Purakanui:
Mike Pickett:
I have just this minute looked out of my window in Wellington, New Zealand, and it is snowing.
This is only the second time I have seen snow in Wellington (the last was about 15 years ago), and it does not settle. But seeing that it is not yet officially winter here, I would consider this to be a moderately significant event.
Better get a few more chords of wood cut, you guys …
Just Want Truth… (10:42:16) :
In my rush to get my car to the shop I wrote that comment ( Just Want Truth… (10:42:16) : ) poorly. But the basic idea is there—there is evidence that shows it was warmer on earth during the Medieval Warming Period than now.
Interesting video showing what magnetic fields look like: click
kia ora from another Kiwi…
Rereke Whakaaro (14:37:05) :
“Better get a few more chords of wood cut, you guys …”
(Robt waits for the melody and harmony of music from those falling chords of wood down south ….)
…
Just Want Truth:
“But the basic idea is there—there is evidence that shows it was warmer on earth during the Medieval Warming Period than now.”
If you look at even the most rapid AGW sites who are still trying to prop up the hockey graph, you will see that their “temperature graph” – particularly when it included many different sources – ALL come together (the error bars are shortened) during the MWP. They (typically) spread out the temperatures GREATLY across the period of the little ice age – then “average” their final temperature plot as “flat” by using only the highest of all extrapolated temperature proxies during the LIA.
But the extremist’s MWP is ALWAYS almost at, near, or only slightly above today’s temperatures with very, very little error margins and no differences between all the different proxies. Somehow, nobody – not even the most prejudiced observers – can find ANY evidence that the MWP did NOT occur by “finding” low temperatures ANYTIME during the period.
“Rereke Whakaaro (14:37:05) :
Purakanui:
Mike Pickett:
I have just this minute looked out of my window in Wellington, New Zealand, and it is snowing.
This is only the second time I have seen snow in Wellington (the last was about 15 years ago), and it does not settle. But seeing that it is not yet officially winter here, I would consider this to be a moderately significant event.
Better get a few more chords of wood cut, you guys …”
I lived in Wellington for 9 years, never saw snow as it was, and is, usually too windy and too near the coast. Saw frost in still areas up the Hutt valley, Wairarapa and snow on summit of the Rimutaka Hill road (At the top there was a wind genny supplying some power for the cafe there, had to be pulled down because…wait for it…it was TOO windy, which is fairly normal for that region).
Coldest winter in the UK in 30 years, heavy snow and record lows in Canada and the US, snow in China, Saudi Arabia and first snow in 100 years in Iran. And now, Australia and New Zealand bypassing autumn, not collecting $200, and going straight to winter (It’s winter, officially, June 1st) before winter starts. Hummm…..
“2008 We elect Obama to office. What now?”
Reap the whirlwind.
Our outstanding debt owned by investors stood, at the end of 2008, at $6.4 trillion. This year, one of deep recession, we will add $3.25 trillion, four times last years total and a good deal less than next year’s lump.
China began the year owning $2 trillion but now owns $800 billion, replacing its 30 year notes with 2 year notes, i.e., they expect inflation. Our Federal Reserve had planned to buy only $300 billion, having purchased $700 billion in troubled mortgage-backed securities.
The rising interest rates required will raise mortgage rates and soak up all the capital available frustrating business expansion. Oil is headed up another 15% or so, together killing any hope of recovery near term. Foreclosures and bankruptcies will follow unemployment further skyward.
Tax revenues have crashed, 40% off 2008. A Federal sales tax is now entertained.
The AMO has followed the PDO negative in near synchrony last seen in the late 1920’s which ushered in cornbelt drought. Just in time for the bailout of ethanol producers!
Now add national healthcare and hefty energy taxes to curb consumption.
We are in the very best of hands.
Rereke, Ayrdale: Kia ora from a snowy Dunedin.
Ric – if the local guys believed the earlier forecast, they would know that this was going to be a warm winter. But they didn’t and we all have heaps of wood (just as well – the snow came as advertised). Now we have a new forecast and I think we know who is following the lead of whom.
Prove your assertion. Quote your data that says the Dalton was unremarkable in that crops did not fail. Prove that grain did not get imported into Europe to counter the shortages.
I don’t need to I just need to show there were crop failures during other periods. The Irish potato famine in the 1840s, for example, which caused mass starvation and forced large scale migration. You’re surely not suggesting that food shortages only happenened during the 30 year period of the Dalton Minimum??