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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Mrs Whatsit (09:36:28) :
Does anyone know what percentage of the earth’s surface is actually covered by roofs, of whatever color? I understand Anthony’s point that UHI distortions in temperature in heavily-populated places might be reduced by white roofs in those areas, but that’s not quite the same thing. Is there really enough roof surface on the planet that increasing their reflectivity could significantly affect global temperatures?
It is simple to answer that. First 70% of the earths surface is water. For the rest, simply fly any path between the pacific ocean and the atlantic ocean in the US and look down (day or night). For that matter fly anywhere on the planet. You will see a very tiny fraction of the land on this planet is actually inhabited.
Regarding number of rooves and the area they occupy as a measure of improvement in albedo. I once calculated for my children and surprised myself that 90 billion people could fit into Lake Superior, each with a square metre to tread water in. Amazing what a small bundle of life on this earth can do!
Now what square meterage of shelter and workplace and other buildings do we need per capita? 10 square metres? That would be 6.5 exp 10 m squared. Earth is 500 exp 12 m squared. Rooves cover about 0.01%. Streets, highways, pathways, parking lots that could be lightened, what? Five times as much? Say to light grey so effectively albedo (equivalent white) would be area of 0.03%? How much cooler? A degree or two? It would be considerably less effective over the earth than the the solar irradiation variations. However it for life in the city it might be worth it, especially if we had a way to turn it black in winter.
For those that were asking, the date at the center od the red line graph is 1/1/2005, so no, the graph is not (yet) extending into the future.
to Willem de Rode (05:01:30) :
Re: my post of the article about the white roofs
You will notice that my post does not comment on whether the idea of painting roofs white was good or bad. I just wanted to bring it to attention. It sounds to me that it may very well reduce a household’s AC costs. But, in the context of it being said by someone of Chu’s belief system is worth critical analysis. Also: would we really want to redirect more heat into space if we really aren’t warming anymore?
Sorry for having a very similar name to you Mr. Watts. Won’t happen again!
Mark (12:27:09) :
Your link:
http://cosmicrays.oulu.fi/webform/query.cgi?startdate=1964/04/28&starttime=00:00&enddate=2009/05/28&endtime=22:05&resolution=Automatic%20choice&picture=on
It is just astonishing. But do these cosmic rays affect human brains?…If so it would explain many things….
Related to increased CR radiation in solar minimums:
http://74.125.93.132/search?q=cache:tGilnYP2lVAJ:mearim.cu.edu.eg/new/Babayev.pdf+cosmic+rays+human+brain&cd=8&hl=es&ct=clnk&gl=pe
5. Conclusions :Weak and severe geomagnetic storms affect the functional state (bioelectrical activity)of the human brain in a different way.Geomagnetic storms amplify the negative emotional background of an individual and can affect, for example, the brain of a driving person, thus increasing the risk of an accident. Parameters reflecting a state of vegetative sphere of a human being significantly differ and are dependent on the strength of geomagnetic disturbances. Heart rate dynamics (variations) of a human can be affected by space weather changes like variations in geomagnetic activity and cosmic ray intensity.Different types of geomagnetic storms (i.e., magnetic-cloud origin or caused by high-speed solar wind streams) affect cardio-vascular system in different ways.
“”” John Galt (12:23:45) :
We seem to be back in the white roofs topic again.
I think it could be helpful, but it depends upon your local climate. How can we calculate the cooling in the summer v. the increased need for heating in the winter?
One poster asserted that the winter sun is too for a dark roof to make much difference. Yet I recall an experiment where Mr. Watts poured ashes on white snow and the snow melted in the sunshine, so perhaps the winter sun is not too weak. “””
Well I don’t know where you live; most people live in the northern hemisphere, where actually the Winter sun is stronger than the Summer sun, since the earth is closer to perihelion in the Winter. That is one reason Antarctica is colder than the Arctic; because the sun is further away in Southern Winters.
And I would venture that in winter, the atmospheric water vapor is less than in summer, so the ground level solar irradiance would be higher than in summer (normal to the beam).
Of course flat roofs (rooves) would be less effective in the winter; but then I would think that one would want sloping roofs so that snows don’t stay on the roof, so with south facing sloped roofs, you could make white paint effective in winter, or summer.
Then you could use solar cells instead or thermal absorbers, and make use of the solar energy.
When I look at the earth with Google Earth all I see is blue (water) and green (land). It’s only when I zoom in to about 3 km that I can start seeing buildings but they are still specs compared to all the vegetation around.
That is easy to answer.
Roughly in the temperate zones people could survive on about 10 sq. meters of cultivation per head.
Taking a population of 100 billion people, about ten times the forecast maximum, they could, more or less, survive on ten times the area of Lake Superior.
Why not try the old calculation of three acres and a cow, per family of course.
This would feed them well and occupy perhaps10% of the land area in the temperate zones.
The only shortage of land, production and capital is that produced by corrupt politicians: the world can easily support a far vaster population tha we have now. And at a living standard better than that we, in the Western world, already enjoy.
Kindest Regards
“”” Adolfo Giurfa (13:07:43) :
Mark (12:27:09) :
Your link:
http://cosmicrays.oulu.fi/webform/query.cgi?startdate=1964/04/28&starttime=00:00&enddate=2009/05/28&endtime=22:05&resolution=Automatic%20choice&picture=on
It is just astonishing. But do these cosmic rays affect human brains?…If so it would explain many things…. “””
Well the neutrons plotted in that graph are probably high energy (MeV+) so they would go right through you without hitting much, most of the time.
But if they get thermalized, and slowed down to a few eV or less, then they could just wander round inside your brain for about 14 minutes; and then they would go POOoof !, and that wouldn’t be good; because now you would have a high energy proton crashing around in your brain boring a big hole.
Free neutrons are unstable and decay with a half life of about 14 minutes; it was only 12 minutes when I went to school.
George
gee, skeptic, so you agree, Aprils are getting cooler, not warmer !
stick around and expose yourself to some current climate science !
Mark:
http://tinyurl.com/mroryf
If Svensmark is right, I would expect to see low altitude cloud levels at there highest since satellite records began
It’s La Nina’s umbrella! She won’t sun tan this SH WINTER as NOAA predicts!
Rather than coincidences; I think they are indications that some convolution of multiple cycles is needed.
The Milankovitch Cycle is a convolution of several different cycles. The convolution of those cycles seems to fit the Pleistocene glacial-interglacial cycle fairly well.
Correlation doesn’t equal causation; but it gives you a good reason to look for a relationship. If I take the time interval between the Schwabe (11-yr) cycle minima and plot the inverse of the length of those intervals against the HadCRUT3 temperature data, I can get a fairly good correlation between those two curves. It appears that when the 11-year cycle “speeds up” we have warming…When it “slows down” we have cooling…to Schwabe Length vs. Temp,
I wouldn’t be surprised if some convolution of the Schwabe length with Albedo, TSI and SSN provided an even better fit to the temperature data.
Mark (05:02:53) :
I checked the SCORE page yesterday and TSI has definitely started to trend up.
Possibly because there are some active regions on the solar limb, causing the radiating area to increase slightly?
It seems to me TSI could come down again soon
http://www.leif.org/research/TSI-SORCE-2008-now.png
The 10.7 flux is interesting to watch these days.
John Finn (11:41:04) :
I’m sure – but has anyone yet found a relationship that doesn’t break down after about 5 cycles. Don’t you think it’s possible that the apparent short-term correlations between various solar parameters and climate are just coincidences.
Don’t you think it’s possible that the apparent short-term correlations between CO2 concentration and climate are just coincidences.
There, fixed it for you.
Carsten Arnholm, Norway (13:39:05) :
It seems to me TSI could come down again soon
http://www.leif.org/research/TSI-SORCE-2008-now.png
The 10.7 flux is interesting to watch these days.
Note that on my graph, TSI lags behind about a week, because of the way they do their quality control.
Carsten Arnholm, Norway (13:39:05) :
It seems to me TSI could come down again soon
Also note that when we have actual spots, TSI will have a local minimum when the spot is visible with enhancements on either side of that time. See 2008.25, 2008.38, 2009.36
It is well know and clear why this happens: the spot is dark and there are bright faculae on either side.
skeptic, actually this April is only the ninth warmest according to HadCRUT3 global, http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/hadcrut3gl.txt . And April 1878 was almost as warm, just 0.079 degrees cooler. February of 1878 was actually WARMER than February this year. And I am sure you know that both December 2008 and December 2007 were cooler than December 1939? And that December 2007 was just 0.04 degrees warmer than December 1877?
The whole year of 2008 was 0.301 degrees warmer than the whole year of 1878. You want to quarrel over a difference of 0.3 degrees Celsius, when the uncertainty in temperature measurements is at least 0.2? So maybe 1878 actually was warmer than 2008, and what this year will turn out to be.
Temperatures vary in a quite normal way over the centuries, nothing so far indicates that this century will be much different from the last, temperaturewise. If anything, it will probably be cooler.
@ur momisugly Steven Hill
I noticed that in the article to which you provided a link at 06:47:50, the journalist mentioned “the Atlantic has a dense, compact layer of deep, cold water… ”
Has anyone here ever tried ‘compacting’ any fluid?
Re John Finn
<>
I merged them in 1809, when temps were roughly equal.
<>
One wonders why it was called Dalton minimum then? 😉 Armagh starts at 1796 right in the Dalton, 2,5deg C colder than in 2000.
http://www.junkscience.com/MSU_Temps/CETvsArmagh_long.html
<>
2 deg C change within 20 years is quite a lot, me thinks. AGWers are whining because of global +0.6 per century.
<>
After I will win the “arctic ice-free in 2013” bet.
My apologies if this has already been covered, but the on-going experiments at CERN, particularly the CLOUD experiment seems to be aimed at solving some significant unknowns…
“We therefore propose to test experimentally the link between cosmic rays and cloudsand, if confirmed, to uncover the microphysical mechanism. We propose to make the measurements under controlled laboratory conditions in a beam at the CERN Proton Synchrotron (PS), which provides an adjustable source of “cosmic rays”. The experiment, which is named CLOUD (Cosmics LeavingOUtdo or Droplets), is based on a cloud chamber that is designed to duplicate the conditions prevailing in the atmosphere. To our knowledge, cloud chamber data under these conditions have never been previously obtained.”
http://cloud.web.cern.ch/cloud/documents_cloud/cloud_proposal.pdf
I guess the green jobs are for the folks that will be painting roofs the correct color for each season…
Mark_0454 (09:06:31) :
white roofs
My roof is white for several months every year.
From Chu,
“If you look at all the buildings, and if you make the roofs white, and if you make the pavement more of a concrete type of color rather than a black type of color, if you do that uniformly, that would be the equivalent of . . . reducing the carbon emissions due to all the cars in the world by 11 years — just taking them off the road for 11 years,” he told a Nobel symposium in London.”
I not saying that Chu’s proposal is directionally wrong, I picked a white roof for my house many years ago believing that it would help keep the house cooler in the summer. What escapes me is that the benefits of his claim seems to be grossely exaggerated. If in fact he is correct, we could scrap Obama’s cap and trade and Obama’s other proposals to stop global warming. Since building my house, trees have grown to prevent the sun from hitting the roof in the summer, and I have increased attic venting so I don’t see how the color of the roof matters a hill of beans. Similarly all homes I have seen in the Northeast have vented attics, some use power vents and I can’t see how the roof color would have much effect. Are homes in California, Arizona, New Mexico, etc without vents and attics?
It appears to me that Chu’s claim is on the same order as Obama’s earlier claim that just keeping our tires inflated would save as much fuel as could be harvested for drilling offshore and ANWR. Of course that was either a lie or from a badly informed politician. It was never challenged by the MSM.
I would be interest in having some reference or calculation that would support Chu’s claim. Or is this more drivel from a former scientist now a politician that will say anything to please his boss.
Can anyone back up the claim the painting the roofs white will
“be the equivalent of . . . reducing the carbon emissions due to all the cars in the world by 11 years — just taking them off the road for 11 years,”
Chu should not get away with this comment without proof. I guess I’m a skeptic yet again on government claims.
I had a dream last night. In it, there was snow cover in coastal California, down to about 400 feet. That may be a bit overly dramatic versus what may actually be possible, even if the interglacial ends. Nonetheless, I increasingly suspect we are at the Beginning of Sorrows.