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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Looking back at these past solar minimum the globe should be 1-2C colder than present and cooling.
Sea level should be dropping fast.
Snow and glacial ice should be on the increase.
Instead we have one of the warmest starts to a year on record, April northern hemisphere snow cover at near record lows, sea level on the rise again (after a pause for La Nina), Arctic Sea ice at near record lows (and melting very rapidly ATM).
Anthony perhaps you might tell us….
Do you agree that it is most odd that we have such a significant solar minimum and yet the planet’s climate is so warm?
REPLY: “DJ” Do tell us, have you ever heard of lagged effects? Do tell us, does the ocean warm up or cool down immediately? When will you be coming out of the closet and put the full force of BoM behind your opinions? Until then, your opinion and questions are without much merit, except as troll food. – Anthony
Carsten Arnholm, Norway (14:24:28) : This not yet named solar minimum will paint all roofs white and some will collapse on some green heads.
DJ Do you agree that it is most odd that we have such a significant solar minimum and yet the planet’s climate is so warm?
That’s because you drank kool-aid! 🙂
There are entrpreneurs with courage to express their opinion in front of their establishment: I admire those kinf of people.
And how right they are.
The article sucks but the pictures are OK.
http://www.memphisflyer.com/SingAllKinds/archives/2009/05/27/burger-king-calls-global-warming-baloney
DJ,
You have no idea, and no proof at all of what you claim about solar minima vs. anticipated temps. Show us that in the last solar minima that temps were much lower. You actually do not know- and neither does anyone else- where in fact we are irt to this sort of solar event.
As to an allegedly warm starts of the year, you are pulling that off of AGW promotion sites and out of your…..head.
Arctic ice is up, snow in the NH for the past year is up, and if AGW believers are the first to point out that a particular weather event is never evidence of AGW being wrong, then so is one event or season proof that AGW is correct, either.
Leif Svalgaard (13:52:16) :
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.
Thanks for that, a good point, I see what you mean. With the tiny specks we have seen lately, I guess the effect should be very small or even not detectable.
Looks like NH ice is WAY OVER previous
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/NEWIMAGES/arctic.seaice.color.000.png
that is of course if we can rely on this data
You want dark streets and roofs if you live in a climate where you get snow. For example in Colorado (Denver), the snow melts very quickly on the streets and it is relatively rare to see roofs caving in from too much snow. Driving in snow is dangerous, and having it melt off quickly is a big plus.
Roger Sowell’s ideas work in both a non-snow and a snowy location – I too recommend them. Painting roofs in California, where I beleive Chu is from, wouldn’t hurt but it is not a pancea for everywhere. Lightening roads everywhere would be disastrous in icy/snowy areas. We get enough highway deaths, let’s not add to them with a half-baked AGW solution.
Politically, I do find Chu’s remarks to be curious in that they can be interpreted to mean that he is saying that there are other things that can cause warming besides AGW. Are we seeing the beginning of a change in public policy direction? I hope so.
Carsten Arnholm, Norway (15:03:49) :
Thanks for that, a good point, I see what you mean. With the tiny specks we have seen lately, I guess the effect should be very small or even not detectable.
You can see the little dip at 2009.36, so the effect is there, even if small. Back in 2008.25 the spots were much larger.
Violent Weather Hits Bordeaux !!!!!
Any chance this is related to the Baby Grand ?
This happened on May 19th around the same time so many cold records were broken in the USA>
Oops, here is the link !
http://www.winespectator.com/Wine/Features/0,1197,5083,00.html
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.
In water 2 MeV neutrons thermalize in about 5 cm (2 inches) with 19 collisions. So 3 or 4 inches in a body that is mostly water should do the job for neutrons in the 10 to 20 MeV range.
To keep that from happening to your brain may I suggest sleeping on your head with your feet in the air or sleeping under a water bed filled with borated water. Of course you then need to worry about the x-rays released when the neutrons are absorbed by B10.
Looking back at these past solar minimum the globe should be 1-2C colder than present and cooling.
—-
Based on What? That is pure conjecture and makes an assumption of warming that just does not exist based on the data.
—-
Sea level should be dropping fast.
—-
Sea level has been rising since the start of this Interglacial, why would it be dropping?
—
Snow and glacial ice should be on the increase.
—
Why? glaciers have been receding since the last Ice Age when they formed, so again why would they grow unless of course this is the start of a new Ice Age?
—
Instead we have one of the warmest starts to a year on record, April northern hemisphere snow cover at near record lows, sea level on the rise again (after a pause for La Nina), Arctic Sea ice at near record lows (and melting very rapidly ATM).
—
On what data are you basing the claim “one of the warmest starts to a year on record”, “April northern hemisphere snow cover at near record lows”,” Arctic Sea ice at near record lows (and melting very rapidly ATM)”?
—
Anthony perhaps you might tell us….
Do you agree that it is most odd that we have such a significant solar minimum and yet the planet’s climate is so warm?
—
see Anthony’s Response
M. Simon (15:53:35) : I was just wondering if those CR were causing some alterations in people so as to make them believe the world is warming, or even make some believe they are the chosen prophets of a “new age” era, or others to think changing the world into a “Brave New one”.
Who said astrology (cosmic rays´ version) was not real? 🙂
And going O/T —
Looks like the National Hurrican Center is all over this year’s first Tiny Tim.
Tropical Depression One is being monitored and NHC is saying: “The depression could become a tropical storm tonight or Friday…” If this happens it will be named Ana. This is the storm that developed off the coast of the Carolinas. They just can’t wait to begin handing out names. So there you have it. Get ready for Tiny Tim Ana.
@ur momisugly Leif
To me, the most remarkable thing is the decreasing variance in the magnetic field on your updating plot. What do you make of it? Is it unprecedented?
Not exactly true. There have been periods of significant and rapid sea level change during the Holocene and sea levels today are about 2.2 meters lower than they were at their maximum height about 7000 years ago.
Also, as for temperature change, *if* this is some kind of grand minimum, it will take a considerable time for any changes in temperature to manifest. Remember how long the Maunder lasted and how long it took temperatures to change. The oceans store a lot of heat. Overall, the land temperatures will change gradually as the ocean does barring any drastic changes in jet stream that can cause any reality … including rising land temperatures when you have a global cooling. If the jet pushes southern air up over a continental land mass, you can record warmer temperatures using only land-based measurements when a large portion of the surface over the ocean is actually colder.
Give it a few decades.
Juraj V. (14:18:14) :
Re John Finn
I merged them in 1809, when temps were roughly equal.
They weren’t equal, but even if they were that doesn’t justify the merge. In the following decade Armagh temperatures were ~0.6 deg below CET, so you’ve actually created the dip. If you’d stuck with the CET record there wouldn’t have been one.
One wonders why it was called Dalton minimum then? 😉
Because it was a grand solar minimum, perhaps?
Armagh starts at 1796 right in the Dalton, 2,5deg C colder than in 2000.
I can only imagine you’ve arrived at this figure by selecting the ‘cold’ temperature in 1796 and comparing it with the ‘warm’ temperature in 2000. To show why this is not valid, compare the annual temperature in 1986 (8.58) with the annual temperature in 2002 (10.18). Using your logic, Armagh has warmed 1.6 degrees in 16 years.
2 deg C change within 20 years is quite a lot, me thinks. AGWers are whining because of global +0.6 per century.
There wasn’t a 2 deg C change in 20 years. There was hardly any change at all. As you point out, we haven’t got data before 1796, so it’s difficult to compare with earlier periods, but we have got earlier data for CET. These are the decadal averages for the 40 year period between 1780 and 1820:
So 2 of the Dalton decades were warmer than the 1780s and the final decade was ~0.1 cooler, though this decade did include the massive Tombura eruption in 1815.
John Finn:
You do realize you’re posting temperatures from the 18th Century and early 19th with .01 degree precision?
Don’t you cringe at the thought? No matter how much those numbers have been massaged and corrected you’d be lucky if those numbers were accurate plus or minus several degrees. This does not constitute evidence of anything except spurious accuracy.
Several years ago I had a new roof put on my house. I had the contractor put on the lightest color shingle he had in order to try to lower summertime temperatures in the attic of the house.
The change from black to light gray made a significant difference in attic temperatures. I wish I had made some temp measurements before and after, but I didn’t think of it at the time.
The Colorado sun can be intense, especially in August when we go dawn to dusk without any cloud cover.
Jim Papsdorf (15:43:25) :
Violent Weather Hits Bordeaux !!!!!
Any chance this is related to the Baby Grand ?
This happened on May 19th around the same time so many cold records were broken in the USA>
Jim,
No, this was a small but active low pressure area and a cold front that colided with a relative warm air mass, a perfectly normal event that happens once in while.
The big hail is caused by Cumulonimbus clouds that develop at the boundery of the cool and the warm air. Cumulonimbus clouds generate strong vertical air currents, up drafts and down drafts, in a relative small area.
A small hail corn can be transported up and downwards several times and when it collides with undercooled water droplets it grows and grows.
In the end it get’s to heavy and it falls to the ground.
This perticular front caused a lot of damage over a relative large area from France, Germany, Belgium and The Netherlands due to lightning strikes, heavy wind gusts, strong hail and rain.
There is no link however with any grand or baby grand minimum.
Carsten Arnholm, Norway (14:24:28) :
> My roof is white for several months every year.
Let me guess, white roof -> cold month, dark roof -> warm month. Chu was right!
Was the Little Ice Age of the Maunder Minimum also so warm? Or maybe they don’t make ice ages like they used to.
Consult your literary record….all of it.
Then re-ask the question.
Did more areas warm or cool?
If agriculture in an area is designed for X, and it gets Y, it usually fails.
Cooler crops in a warmer climate will wilt, and warmer crops in a cooler climate will fail to ripen properly.
Choose your poison.
Which way is the climate now shifting, for the globe and for any given region?
As for this topic, we do have a Baby Grand Minimum, and we don’t know how big or small it will grow to.
Would it be good advice to measure your current posts against on the possible future debate between solar scare mongering and the more reasonable trade wind, oceanic oscillation, weather pattern variation crowd?
I just checked in with Physorg.com and it’s annoying. Why don’t they just admit they don’t know [snip] is going on with the sun. Instead, they say the consensus prediction is….. blah blah blah. I suppose admitting they don’t know [snip] is going on means their stupid and may jeopardize their ability to obtain grants from the government.
Oops…. meant to write “they’re” not “their.”