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.
Those of us that are “true” deniers call it the Gore-Hansen Minimum.
I’m curious about the Greenland ice melting. Apparently Greenland was once warmer than now and there was a Northwest Passage which says Arctic ice was somewhat melted. How much did the ocean level rise when that happened? Is there data on this? It seems at least one of the coastal cities of that time would have noticed a major increase in sea levels. Does that make sense?
Ric, I get it! Global Warming damage can actually mask itself as Global Cooling damage. The amount of snow I had in my backyard eventually killed the lawn. Looks just like it was killed by heat and drought. Turns out that mold can kill a lawn under long lasting snow. And we had very long lasting snow in Pendleton.
I have said before and caution again that whilst the CET record is valuable because it is consistent to itself and goes back a long way it cannot be relied on because the area is small, and it had by the standards of the time large coal burning conurbations around its periphery and the then greatest industrial coal burning iron making heart in the world at its centre in the Black Country. By the late 1700’s they were burning about 10 million tons of coal a year for iron making alone and probably as much again for the secondary casting and finishing trades not to mention other domestic and commercial use. within the area of the CET: which quite literally turned the country black: and it did not recover from this pollution for over one hundred years.
This figure might seem puny today given our modern energy needs but but it was concentrated in a tiny area by modern standards and without even the simplest means of dispersing either the waste heat or the pollution such as the tall chimneys: which became the hallmark of the coal fired age in Britain.
The CET is perfectly reliable, it simply cannot be used as being representative of general temperatures in the UK from about 1750 on, although the proportionally the concentration of coal burning became dispersed the increase to about 150 million tons year by around 1880 this does not begin to compare with the sheer concentration of fuel use in the Black Country of one hundred years earlier.
Until modern Japan and the City of Tokyo nowhere on earth has ever consumed such enormous amounts of chemical energy in such a small area. Or had the resulting temperatures so carefully recorded.
Kindest Regards
DJ (14:38:12) :
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).
?? Did you really mean to use the word “lows”?
http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/en/home/seaice_extent.htm
Regarding the solar heating of our syste’s planets and moons v Uranus cooling
Robert van der Veeke
“Axial tilt perhaps?”
If so, could heating of the other planets and moons likewise be a result of their respective dynamics, rather than the sun?
Robert A Cook
“and only two “measurements” (both from about the 1998 time frame!) in this study”
The other planets and moons have similar sparsity of data points and specific, uncorrelated time periods. And yet we’re prepared to make blanket statements about solar system warming for these. Seems to be an inconsistent application of rigour here.
“So, are two measurements taken ten years ago – that confirm essentially no change from 1979 through 1998 (an extremely hot year on earth!) – really valid way to claim that Uranus is NOT cooling NOW (2008 – 2009) compared to a 1995-1998 timeframe?”
Seeing as the period referenced is one that shows a very strong warming signal in the earth system (sunlight takes 2 hours to get to Uranus), with 1998 being the ‘hottest year on record’, that would seem to invalidate the hypothesis that the sun is the dominant case of temperature change in the solar system.
I’ve found little discussion on the possible causes of warming of celestial bodies in our solar system on truth-seeking climate blogs, apart from a blanket assumption that the sun did it. The studies examining each espouse in-system changes being the cause (for Uranus, too). And I think we’d be going to far too suggest these scientists have fallen prey to Earth climate warming group think. If the skeptic community looked at this in more detail, I’m reasonably confident we’d come to the same conclusion you did – not enough information. And until we do that work, I don’t think this is a good argument for us to promote.
@jeez
John Finn will kick a dead horse until it rises from the dead. Rather than research for evidence around the world during the Dalton Minimum, it is much more self gratifying to cherry pick one station in Europe and ignoring others. A search engine and library helps.
http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=dalton+minimum&hl=en&lr=&btnG=Search
It is not unlike those claiming the MWP wasn’t real and the Vikings didn’t actually “settle” in Greenland because it was all that warm.
Greenland Ice – Never mind. I think I found what I was wondering about.
http://cei.org/pdf/ait/chXIV.pdf
KBK (16:27:09) :
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?
The solar Mean Field [MF on the plot] is a measure of low-latitude coronal holes near the center of the disk. These usually disappear at of just after minimum as the active regions that keep them alive die out and instead begin to form at higher latitudes. So, this happened in the past as well, their magnitude perhaps a tad smaller, but that is in concert with the generally lower sunspot number this time around. When the MF begins to increase we know FOR SURE that the old cycle is dead, and that is why I have it on the plot. Solar minimum happens at different times for different measures of activity.
Have you seen this paper from Archibald?
http://www.nzclimatescience.org/images/PDFs/archibald2007.pdf
In reality, he knows the world has warmed and he even believes in the warming effect of CO2, the only problem posed to the IPCC is that the greatest warming effect is from the first 20 PPM and at current levels 1 additional PPM of CO2 only warms the Earth by about 0.001 degrees, he even overlays the warming effect of CO2 increase over the predicted temperature curve and it looks to be small to me and natural variations will easily overtake it.
Oh dear god…
http://cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com/up/player/popup/?rn=3906861&cl=13707821&ch=4226721&src=news
“New psychological territory for all of us.” So many interpretations to that statement.
Don Shaw (14:31:3): I share your interest in somebody doing the math on Chu’s claim about painting roofs white (and roads gray?) being equal to 11 years of automotive CO2 emissions. Here goes a rough guess. Factoid #1 (from google “CO2 auto emissions”) is that cars in Europe emit about 160 g/km of CO2. Conservatively let’s guess there are 100 million cars in Europe and they each go about 20,000 km/year. That’s 160 g/km x 20K km x 10exp8 = 3.2 x 10exp12 kg. Suppose the US is about the same, and Rest of World is the same again. Unclear if Chu’s proposal is to fix the whole planet right away? But on the high side (global) we need to offset about 10 x 10exp12 kg of CO2 through this roof-and-road business. Even if we take the target as only 10% of this (because my guesses are so bad) you still need to hope the Chu Treatment can offset 1 x 10exp12 kg of CO2 auto emissions. Oh, wait: I forgot. He said it would equate to 11 years of such emissions. So even on the low side we’re back to 10 x 10exp12 kg. Well, how much IS that? Wikipedia says the total tonnage of CO2 in the Earth’s atmosphere is about 3 x 10exp15 kg. …So Chu is claiming that 11 years’ worth of car emissions is about equal to 1/10 of 1% of atmospheric CO2. Possible, I suppose.
What doesn’t seem possible is that painting roofs white is going to make an equivalent dent in the “problem.” …I hope others with better data and math will improve on this guess. And make a start on how much, realistically, could be saved with paint etc. I would think, nothing close.
At last someone who can be believed (apart form D Archibald) predicted in 2006
http://icecap.us/index.php/go/new-and-cool/next_solar_cycle_late_and_likely_to_be_a_dud_the_implications/
crosspatch (16:35:20) :
Sea level has been rising since the start of this Interglacial, why would it be dropping?
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.
—–
I stand corrected. Thank you sir!
I am ashamed because I even knew this but in my haste to condemn I contracted foot in mouth disease. Thank you for your tact in pointing out I was a “wild eyed denier” ranting away!
There is a lesson in there somewhere.
Colder oceans cause rapid temperature extremes. This could be why cold decades and centuries do not have correlative data on a global scale. If the jet streams reacted back then the way they do now when oceans are cold, your neighbor across the valley could be soaking in the nearby mountain stream trying to stay cool (if indeed there was any water in the stream) while you are stoking the fire trying to stay warm.
The 1995-96 extremes were brought on by an El Nino followed by a rapid La Nina. http://www.cpc.noaa.gov/products/special_summaries/96_1/. Both events were strong and resulted in record rains and then record snows, followed by record freeze and then record thaws. The jet stream started in its Southern track, went North where it did its loop de loop, and then ended up South again in a Pineapple belt. SST’s demonstrate rapid changes in front of jet stream meandering. Everything fit. If any one day (or two, or ten) was used to cherry pick temps across the globe in 1995-96, you would definitely find it difficult to assign anything on a global scale.
The fascinating thing about that year was that global warmers were loud and proud about it all being caused by fossil fuel consumption. And that was before 1998. By then, many AGW’s were embarrassed enough by their stupidity regarding 1996 that they were not as loud and proud of the spike we experienced during the El Nino of 98. It was at that time that they began to realize that the PDO can fry our brains or freeze our butts within 24 hrs as well as in 20 to 30 year time spans. It is the die hards that keep telling us the sky is falling. Maybe that is why it is so hard to get them to do their homework. We are dealing with a rather dull class after all the smart ones moved on.
Argghhhh….
Wattspot will be due, it isn’t a Guest Spot article.
Here we go
“PRESTO FROM SIDC – RWC BELGIUM Thu May 28 2009, 1201 UT
Solar activity is very low and it is expected to remain so in the coming days. Geomagnetic activity is expected to be quiet with possible unsettled periods due to, what seems to be, the arrival of a fast solar wind stream from the southern extreme of a coronal hole situated at high northern latitudes. A shock was detected by ACE and SOHO at 04:21 UT followed by a compression region, the solar wind speed is close to 450 km/s.”
— http://www.sidc.be/
Crisis of the Revolutionary Era
Harvest Fluctuations and Grain Prices in England
1799-1800 Famine Years
1808-1812 Bad Years
1816 Year without a summer
Source: Henry Phillips-Brown and Sheila V. Hopkins, A Perspective of Wages & Prices (London, 1981) 59.
The years 1814 to 1818 were extremely harsh winter and cold wet summers.
In the northern US in 1816, it was the year without the summer.
Killing frost occured in every month, and Ohioans referred to it as 18 hundred and froze to death. New Englanders called it the Mackerel Year.
Only grain imported from Ukraine, Turkey, Egypt and America saved Europe from starvation.
Source: The Great Wave, David Hackett Fischer pg 155
All this in the mild-mannered Dalton.
3×2 (01:47:34) :
Does this mean we will have to paint our cities in Zebra stripes just to be on the safe side?
Ohhh – that’s good – an impertinent and timely wit. :-).
Stephen Brown (14:09:48) :
@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?
Just before I reported to my submarine, they performed exactly this experiment. Seems that when you try to compress water in a diesel engine, you get minimal compacting of the water and three broken pistons, two broken connecting rods and two bent ones, a bent crankshaft, and a warped block. I saw the pictures of the tear down. It was impressive. These are about 8 inch pistons and the face was snapped right off of the skirt.
I’m sure we can all rest assured that those little pimple sun specks that we need to circle in photos from SOHO to direct people’s attention to them would have been seen in 1913 telescopes–even on cloudy days.
“”gerrym (00:15:47) :
It is clear that unless humans stop burning fossil fuels with immediate effect this lack of sun spots will result in a catastrophe for the human race.””
If we would only just paint all our roofs white and wear white clothes we could avoid all of it!!
http://motls.blogspot.com/2009/05/steven-chu-will-paint-world-white.html
Can I take bets on if Steven Chu would buy ocean front property in Nebraska?
Gary Crough (01:27:06) :
Here’s some evidence :
Owen Hughes (19:31:58) :
Don Shaw (14:31:3):
See http://www.drroyspencer.com/
for his take on this.
“” King of Cool (01:42:32) : Pkatt – I think the answer to your question would be the silver bullet to the complete issue of CO2 or Sun driven Global Warming/Cooling. “‘
Nope! No silver bullet for the alarmist, politicians, and that whole farrago! That werewolf doesn’t die from the silver bullet. As Roy Spencer has said, paraphrase, maybe the only thing that will stop global warming is a long cold streak.
“”Putting him in charge of scientific research would be tantamount to “giving the finger to scientists”, said Nicolas Hulot, France’s best-known environmental activist.””
Ok, I don’t have a problem with it.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/a2b172ba-4a54-11de-8e7e-00144feabdc0.html?nclick_check=1
(h/t von Stauffenberg (02:53:07) : , 😉 )