Guest Post by David Archibald
NASA’s David Hathaway has adjusted his expectations of Solar Cycle 24 downwards. He is quoted in the New York Times here Specifically, he said:
” Still, something like the Dalton Minimum — two solar cycles in the early 1800s that peaked at about an average of 50 sunspots — lies in the realm of the possible.”
NASA has caught up with my prediction in early 2006 of a Dalton Minimum repeat, so for a brief, shining moment of three years, I have had a better track record in predicting solar activity than NASA.
The graphic above is modified from a paper I published in March, 2006. Even based on our understanding of solar – climate relationship at the time, it was evident the range of Solar Cycle 24 amplitude predictions would result in a 2°C range in temperature. The climate science community was oblivious to this, despite billions being spent. To borrow a term from the leftist lexicon, the predictions above Badalyan are now discredited elements.
Let’s now examine another successful prediction of mine. In March, 2008 at the first Heartland climate conference in New York, I predicted that Solar Cycle 24 would mean that it would not be a good time to be a Canadian wheat farmer. Lo and behold, the Canadian wheat crop is down 20% this year due to a cold spring and dry fields. Story here.
The oceans are losing heat, so the Canadian wheat belt will just get colder and drier as Solar Cycle 24 progresses. As Mark Steyn recently said, anyone under the age of 29 has not experienced global warming. A Dalton Minimum repeat will mean that they will have to wait to the age of 54 odd to experience a warming trend.
Where to now? The F 10.7 flux continues to flatline. All the volatility has gone out of it. In terms of picking the month of minimum for the Solar Cycle 23/24 transition, I think the solar community will put it in the middle of the F 10.7 quiet period due to the lack of sunspots. We won’t know how long that quiet period is until solar activity ramps up again. So picking the month of minimum at the moment may just be guessing.
Dr Hathaway says that we are not in for a Maunder Minimum, and I agree with him. I have been contacted by a gentleman from the lower 48 who has a very good solar activity model. It hindcasts the 20th century almost perfectly, so I have a lot of faith in what it is predicting for the 21st century, which is a couple of very weak cycles and then back to normal as we have known it. I consider his model to be a major advance in solar science.
What I am now examining is the possibility that there will not be a solar magnetic reversal at the Solar Cycle 24 maximum.
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Retired Engineer John:
You ask me:
“Richard S. Courtney (06:29:12)
“The Earth warms almost 4 deg.C from January to July each year and has equivalent cooling from July to January each year”
Do the published temperatures (UAH,etc.) have a bias that corrects for orbital mechanics or should I be able to see this temperature variation directly?”
No. The published monthly and annual data (HadCRUT, GISS, UAH, RSS) are not temperature values. They are temperature anomalies from a 30-year mean. The different data sets use different periods for their 30 years.
An anomally is the difference from the 30-year mean in each case. A January datum is the anomally from the average of the 30 Januarys in the standard period, and similarly for each other month.
So, an anomally for a month or for a year removes the +/- 4 deg.C variation within each year.
I hope this is a sufficiently clear explanation but I suspect you will have to read it more than once to understand it. Sorry.
Richard
Ben mentioned the 1911-1913 minimum, above, which the current solar minimum is beginning to resemble. I just found these really amazing photographs from 1911
http://www.seanbuckley.ca/blog/2006/08/28/niagara-falls-was-frozen-in-1911/
Please note there is some opinion that the photos are not genuine, but also a number of anecdotes in various blogs that this did indeed happen.
Richard S Courtney (06:29:12) :
Several discussants here have suggested that the Earth is in radiative balance: i.e. radiation received by the Earth equals radiation emitted by the Earth. But the Earth is never in radiative balance on a global scale and it cannot be
Your4 comment is good!
The balance is over a 365.25(+) cycle (with longer cycles imposed as you suggest)
The incoming radiation is fixed (within reason) Temperatures can only be modulated by what radiation leaves the planet.
The energy sloshing around the earth will cause high and low temperatures but there should be no real long term rise unless the radiation exiting changes.
High temps will radiate more and so tend to cool and vice versa. So perhaps one could expect the sloshing causing high will be followed by a low when the sloshing reverts. But what causes a 50 year increase? (albeit with sloshing induced ups and downs)
One point is that I do not think AGW predicts Catastophy. My view is that an extinction event is ver unlikely. But agriculture/humans will have to migrate north or south. Will this be an easy event? Even if spread over a century?
The flooding of florida london NY netherlands do not matter in the scheme of things – its only money and a few million people!
Leif Svalgaard (10:12:00) :
“Instead of indulging in self-congratulation, put on your graph the years from 1890-1920 and the recent data you omitted and the blue actual measurements.”
No problem, I will go much further, say 260 years
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/PF-strength.gif
What about :
IS SOLAR MERIDIONAL FLOW CONTROLLED BY JUPITER – SATURN AZIMUTHAL OSCILLATIONS IN RELATION TO THE SOLAR EQUATORIAL PLANE ?
tallbloke (10:06:42) :
“Vukevic, would you mind if I applied your formula to my model solar cycle oscillation function?”
You are more than welcome, it is in the public domain, so it is public property. An acknowledgment would be nice.
Vukevic:
What about :
IS SOLAR MERIDIONAL FLOW CONTROLLED BY JUPITER – SATURN AZIMUTHAL OSCILLATIONS IN RELATION TO THE SOLAR EQUATORIAL PLANE ?
Sounds feasible to me. How do you fancy having a go at an equation to describe this curve?
http://s630.photobucket.com/albums/uu21/stroller-2009/?action=view¤t=lod-ssb.gif
Tricky huh? 🙂
Leif Svalgaard (10:06:31) :
1 W/m2 decrease = 0.07%. A quarter of that is 0.018%, of 288K is 0.05K.
Two points.
1) As you stated the other day, calibrating TSI is a tricky business, and two scientific teams are in dispute about the data. The team you have an affinity with says 1W/m^2, the other says 2W/m^2.
2) You also stated the other day that incoming insolation varies 30W/m^2 over the year. When the earth is near perihelion, a lot more heat is going into the part of the Pacific which store, retain, and release heat later. The transport of this heat and the terrestrial natural systems which conduct it make for a larger net difference than you get by treating the earth as a homogenous lump of black body.
I think David Archibald’s claim is misleading.
NASA has caught up with my prediction in early 2006 of a Dalton Minimum repeat, so for a brief, shining moment of three years, I have had a better track record in predicting solar activity than NASA.
Hathaway does not rule out a phenomenon like the Maunder Minimum, but that is not his prediction.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/21/science/space/21sunspot.html?_r=2
A panel of 12 scientists assembled by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration now predicts that the May 2013 peak will average 90 sunspots during that month. That would make it the weakest solar maximum since 1928, which peaked at 78 sunspots. During an average solar maximum, the Sun is covered with an average of 120 sunspots.
But the panel’s consensus “was not a unanimous decision,” said Douglas A. Biesecker, chairman of the panel. One member still believed the cycle would roar to life while others thought the maximum would peter out at only 70.
Among some global warming skeptics, there is speculation that the Sun may be on the verge of falling into an extended slumber similar to the so-called Maunder Minimum, several sunspot-scarce decades during the 17th and 18th centuries that coincided with an extended chilly period.
Most solar physicists do not think anything that odd is going on with the Sun. With the recent burst of sunspots, “I don’t see we’re going into that,” Dr. Hathaway said last week.
Still, something like the Dalton Minimum — two solar cycles in the early 1800s that peaked at about an average of 50 sunspots — lies in the realm of the possible, Dr. Hathaway said. (The minimums are named after scientists who helped identify them: Edward W. Maunder and John Dalton.)
Oops,
I read Archibald’s claim as Maunder instead of Dalton minimum.
My apologies.
eric (11:10:28)
“But the panel’s consensus ”
Don’t you just love consensus science?
I think the report of the ocean temps being the warmest on record is laughable. It is so far from the truth. Has anyone noticed that the only ones making the claim has ties to NOAA? That would be Hansen’s team featuring NOAA and GISS (Goddard Institute for Space Studies). Have you looked at Unisys’ sea surface temperature anomaly maps? They don’t support the claims. See the RSS data? Doesn’t support the claim either. In fact you’d see that sea surface temps are pretty close to normal globally.
NOAA and organizations surrounding that group continue to post results so far out there that they lack credibility. If you want to find the problem with the organization look no further than Hansen. The guy has a reputation to try and protect and unfortunately is doing some pretty bad work as a result. This is what happens when as a scientist you start trying to play politics and put scientific method aside to promote agendas.
David Archibald
My formula suggests (bound to infuriate Dr. Svalgaard)
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/PF-strength.gif
suggests that forthcoming minimum may be just a shade above Dalton.
tallbloke (10:54:28) :
“How do you fancy having a go at an equation to describe this curve?”
That would be a numerology, as Dr. S. tends to call anything else he may not take liking to. Once you know what the data describes, you go to the physical source you assume is responsible for the effect (planet rotation, revolution, precession or whatever) use its natural period of oscilation, if there are more than one than you look at phase relationship etc.
You really have to understand oscillations and the response of resonant systems to cross modulation by sub harmonics of a multiple order.
Once I was ladled by Dr. Svalgaard as a cyclomanic supreme. Some 65 years ago Dr. S might given the same attribute to my compatriot Milutin Milankovic, but I suppose it would be withdrawn by now.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/53/MilankovitchCyclesOrbitandCores.png
Interesting point, the effects of ENSO events are certainly global and do cause changes in wind/cloud cover beyond their immediate influence. Off course after the evaporation there will be condensation and the resulting transfer of heat energy.
vukcevic (12:15:43) :
That would be a numerology, as Dr. S. tends to call anything else he may not take liking to. Once you know what the data describes, you go to the physical source you assume is responsible for the effect (planet rotation, revolution, precession or whatever)
I can describe the issue, but my maths isn’t good enough to solve it. There is clearly a passing resemblance between the LOD and SSBz curves, and I have a couple of good candidates for physical mechanism too, but the z axis motion of the solar equator relative to the solar system centre of mass is describing the sum total of planetary effects at the centre of the system. The earth will be differentially affected by the closer and larger planets it is orbiting nearer to at the time. I’m not sure if I can get the JPL ephemeris to spit out useful numbers for that.
Anyway, refinement like that can wait. I have bigger fish to fry. I have built a model which uses another correlation I have found between the sunspot cycle amplitudes and the solar equator/ solar system centre of mass, as well as the LOD/SSBz correlation. Which means I can approximate earth temperature as far back or forward as I want. Still a work in progress, but here’s the interim result. The green curve is the model using solar/SSB parameters only, plus an ocean equilibrium constant I have estimated. The yellow curve uses real sunspot number and the LOD proxy from the SSB z axis, and the dark curve is real sunspot plus real LOD data.
http://s630.photobucket.com/albums/uu21/stroller-2009/?action=view¤t=planetary_temperature-12.gif
I’m going to try your equations to see if I can get them to help my oscillation modulator to mimic solar grand minima. If you have anything else which damps down on the 179 year cycle, let me know.
Mary Hinge (12:25:05) :
Off course after the evaporation there will be condensation and the resulting transfer of heat energy.
Which is mostly a cooling effect isn’t it? The latent heat heads spacewards from the cloudtops and the rain cools the water it falls into.
Jim (09:23:35) :
John Finn (08:37:52) :
**********************
Jim (05:59:34) :
John Finn (03:49:27) : I wouldn’t use the CET data from the Had Met Office until we know for sure how they processes the data. If they used a method similar to the one used for Mann’s hockey stick chart, then it cannot be used for anything but virtual toilet paper.
What?? The CET is a record of thermometer measurements. Mann’s hockey-stick was a reconstruction based on proxy data. I don’t understand what you mean. The H-S is garbage. The CET record is what it is – plain and simple. There are plenty of independent observers who track the CET and I’m not aware of any discrepancies to date.
***********************
John – This is from the Hadley Met web site. Notice the sentence beginning with “The data are then adjusted …” Why is there any need for adjustment if all the numbers are just readings from thermometers????
“The HadCET data series consist of daily, monthly and seasonal temperatures. Anomalies are also calculated with respect to 1961-1990 climatology. The stations used to compile CET are chosen from the UK surface station network to be consistent as possible with those used historically. The data are then adjusted to ensure consistency with the historical series.”
Ok – adjustments are made to account for urbanisation and station replacement, but these are relatively minor. Read the Parker paper here:
http://hadobs.metoffice.com/hadcet/Parker_etalIJOC1992_dailyCET.pdf
I’m not sure if this is all that relevant anyway as I was the using the CET as evidence to show non-cooling during the late 18th and early 19th century which will come from Manley 1953 (The mean temperature of Central England, 1698 to 1952) which was updated by Manley 1974 (The mean temperature of Central England, 1659 to 1973).
But the CET is nothing like the hockey-stick or any other proxy reconstruction.
A SOLAR CYCLE LOST IN 1793-1800: EARLY SUNSPOT OBSERVATIONS RESOLVE THE OLD MYSTERY
Analysis suggests a new, weak solar cycle began around 1793 – the sunspots in Staudecher’s drawings started appearing about 20 ° from the equator that year, and one of Hamilton’s 1795 drawings shows a sunspot at 15 °. This suggests that in place of one unusually long solar cycle, there were actually two, lasting about nine and seven years, respectively.
(Astrophysical Journal Letters, DOI: 10.1088/0004-637x/700/2/l154).
http://www.iop.org/EJ/abstract/1538-4357/700/2/L154/
Has my formula been proved correct or Astrophysical Journal got it wrong again ?
More here:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20327194.400-centuriesold-sketches-solve-sunspot-mystery.html
In his, up to date unsuccessful effort, to discredit my polar field formula Dr. Svalgaard produced following chart
http://www.leif.org/research/SolarCycleLengths.png
Cycle 4 is the jump in pink line, while my formula accurately identifies extra cycle 4a (dip in blue line).
Comments reproduced from elswhere:
Dr. Svalgaard “… your polar field curve is pure numerology. …etc. etc.”
My response: “Dr. Svalgaard I like your chart. It revels major ambiguity, the SC4’s extraordinary length of 17 years which has puzzled solar scientists for years, and my equation resolves so neatly. Most solar scientists are coming to believe that there was a major anomaly in SC4….The latest research concludes that indeed there were two cycles buried within SC4, which my formula identifies so accurately.”
Dr. Svalgaard: “No, only a very small band thinks so. And the evidence is simply not there. A recent analysis of Staudacher’s drawings 1749-1796 http://www.leif.org/research/Staudacher-1.pdf concludes “the sunspot areas measured do not support the proposition of a weak “lost” cycle between cycles 4 and 5″. Similarly, analysis of geomagnetic variations do not show any such cycle.
Tomorrow’s publication of
Astrophysical Journal Letters, DOI: 10.1088/0004-637x/700/2/l154). Print publication: Issue 2 (2009 August 1)
http://www.iop.org/EJ/abstract/1538-4357/700/2/L154/
gives me confidence that my formula is on the right track!
I should have written:
Hathaway does not rule out a phenomenon like the Dalton Minimum, but that is not his prediction.
and wrote Maunder instead of Dalton.
tallbloke (13:02:37) :
I have looked at temperatures, but I am not convinced.
This is my result:
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net\Temp1300-2000.gif
It fails dismally before 1300, but then gets in sync again around 900AD.
For long term, since there is 107 year cycle; sub harmonic cross modulation, (for more than 50 or so years) use amplitude envelope formula as shown here:
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/PF-strength.gif
tallbloke
the link got mangled, I shall try again:
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/Temp1300-2000.gif
else copy it by hand
RW (03:35:03) : So you don’t dispute the actual facts, you just dismiss their significance? Okay. So then, what magical length of time is okay for looking at climate trends?
Vukevic,
Thanks for the pointers, and I had a wry smile as I read the ‘lost cycle’ article earlier today. My model also produced an ‘extra cycle’ at the start of the 1800’s.
Cheers
tallbloke
timetochooseagain: do you know what “statistical significance” means?
John Finn (13:23:18) : “Ok – adjustments are made to account for urbanisation and station replacement, but these are relatively minor.”
This is what they say for the data I downloaded: “Allowances have been made for topographic, coastal and urban effects where relationships are found to exist.”
The Dalton Minimum does not seem to be particularly cold in the times that it was in, at least in the CET records.
The Hadley data would be viewed as suspect if they do not reveal exactly what they have done and refuse to do so when requested.
On the other hand even in the Hadley records there is a marked cooling after 2002. Whether this will continue and for how long remains to be seen.
The Hadley trend is mirrored in the UAH and RSS data. The only one that flies against this trend is Hansen’s GISS and hence I totally distrust that.
PS I have plotted the slopes of the temperature curves of UAH, RSS, Hadley CRU and GISS from 1979 (start of the Satellite records) to 2007
Between the satellite data’s UAH and RSS there is a pretty good match all the way through.
GISS starts diverging from 1992 (is there anything significant about this date re: Hansen?) and Hadley starts diverging from 2002.
IF hadley records were fiddled, they could have been even before 2002 and the trend not noticed, if they had raised the temperatures uniformly. The same with GISS.
However after those dates not only are the temperatures elevated but the trends upwards increase in the case of GISS from 1992 and trends downwards decrease in the case of Hadley from 2002.
In the case of GISS the downward trend of the slope levels off from 2002 to 2005. Then if appears to precipitously play “catch-up”. It looks extremely “fiddly” and artificial after that. Quite jerky and unnatural.
John Finn (13:23:18) : John … that paper was written in 1991. Statistics have really “advanced” since then. The data may be OK for you point, but ever since Mann, Steig, etc. got busted for bad stat methods, it is always a valid question to ask how the data is “adjusted.” That’s my only point. I wouldn’t use HADCET data for anything until I knew for sure how it is being adjusted.