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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Leif Svalgaard (23:50:02) :
The best TSI data we have right now is SORCE http://lasp.colorado.edu/sorce/data/tsi_data.htm
PMOD has been drifting lower with respect to SORCE which is the basis for making the statement I made.
They both seem to have dropped about 0.8W/m^2 since mid 2003. Unless it’s SORCE data being used on woodfortrees PMOD graph?
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/pmod/from:1998/mean:1
http://lasp.colorado.edu/sorce/total_solar_irradiance_plots/images/tim_level3_tsi_24hour_640x480.png
tallbloke (23:52:33) :
Therefore, there is a close link between the solar magnetic flux, sunspot numbers, the geomagnetic flux, changes in the earth’s length of day.
There is really no such chain. Both the solar magnetic field and the Earth’s magnetic field are generated by a dynamo process due to conducting material moving around in the interior. These movements are not related to each other and don’t influence each other.
If you watch a compass needle closely, you’ll find that its direction is completely constant, it varies slightly over time. There are basically three variations:
1) a slow change over decades. This is due to the internal field of the Earth itself changing slowly, and will not be discussed further for now.
2) a regular change every day. The needle moves a fraction of a degree [typically 1/6] towards the East [in the Northern Hemisphere] in the morning, then back and continuing the same amount to the West in the afternoon. This was discovered by Graham in 1722.
3) at irregular intervals, larger seemingly random variations occur, often accompanied by aurorae, as discovered by Celsius around 1740.
The causes of 2) and 3) are quite different. The Sun’s magnetic field gets compacted into sunspots and is there [and around and just above] twisted and contorted by the roiling solar atmosphere] giving rise to heating and emission of ultraviolet light, which after a journey of 8 minutes to the Earth splits apart the molecules of th air and generates the conducting ionosphere. Heating of the conducting air by the daylight Sun causes winds that move the conducting air across the field lines of the Earth’s magnetic field.
This movement drives a dynamo that generates an electrical current on the day side flowing about 100 km overhead. Since the current is driven by a) the conductivity produced by sunlight and b) the thermal winds produced by solar heating, the current is confined to the day side and stays fixed with respect to the Sun.
Since the Earth upon which our compass needle is placed is rotating under this electric current, from the view point of the observer, the current will rise [with the Sun] in the morning and set in the evening. An electric current has an associated magnetic field [strength of about 1/1000 of the Earth’s field, so not very large] which deflects the compass needle as observed. So, many sunspots => more UV => more ions => stronger current => larger deflection.
This chain is what allows us to deduce the sunspot count from the compass needle movements, but the current and its magnetic field is small compared to the Earth’s field that there are no further measurable effects. A small complication is that this diurnal change of the magnetic field in turn induces an electric current in the upper crust and the oceans, both of which are slightly conducting]. The magnetic field from this current modifies the force on the a compass needle a bit, and generates a very, very small [unmeasurable] amount of heating on its own.
Keeping a sunspot neatly compacted against the random buffeting from the roiling solar atmosphere is hard and the spot eventually [after some days or – rarely – weeks] frays apart and its magnetic field disperses back into the surrounding from whence it came, forming large areas of [weaker] magnetic field. The field lines reach great heights [as high as they are broad] in the solar atmosphere [the corona] and are still being twisted and knocked about so help generate the local heating of the atmosphere eventually making it so hot that solar gravity is unable to retain the gas. The corona simply gets so hot that it evaporates into space, dragging the magnetic field with it, creating the magnetized solar wind.
In this way the magnetic field of the Sun eventually is transported to and past the Earth [and through the entire solar system]. The conducting solar wind plasma hits the Earth’s magnetic field and as always when a conductor is moved in a magnetic field an electric current is generated. This current [and its magnetic field] confines the Earth’s magnetic field to a small region [otherwise it would extend to infinity] near the Earth called the Magnetosphere. At the boundary between the two fields [Sun’s and Earth’s], they can connect where [and when] their directions are suitable for that [point in opposite directions]. Since the solar end of the connected field lines are being dragged further out by the outflowing solar wind and the Earth-end is fixed in the Earth, the magnetic field is dragged out into a long ‘tail’ downwind behind the Earth.
Stretching a magnetic field like that requires energy [taken from the kinetic energy of the solar wind] which goes into [‘stored’ if you like] the magnetic field. In the tail, field lines from the terrestrial Northern polar cap [directed towards the Earth] occupy the Northern half of the tail, while field lines from the Southern polar cap [directed away from the Earth] occupy the Southern half of the tail. As always, when you have oppositely directed fields and a plasma around a current sheet develops separating the two tail ‘lobes’.
This whole stretched and stressed configuration is unstable and from time to time relaxes [releasing explosively the stored energy] and tries to return to it original configuration. As always, when a magnetic configuration changes, electric fields and currents are generated, which in turn accelerate any charged particles, some towards the Earth where they crash into the ionosphere and/or get trapped in the Van Allen Belts. Those currents, in turn, generate irregular and impulsive magnetic fields which make the compass needle wiggle with some vigor [the third kind of changes we observe in the direction of the needle]. So, here the chain is sunspots => magnetic areas [coronal holes] => magnetized solar wind => compressed terrestrial magnetosphere => stressed magnetic tail => reconnection and release => currents into ionosphere => aurorae => magnetic disturbance of the needle. And as before, we can invert the chain by calculation and derive the solar wind conditions and the solar magnetic field from the movements of the needle.
The energy input to the Earth’s atmosphere [and the solid Earth] from all that is, however, minuscule [one in 100,000] compared to the enormous energy input from ordinary sunlight. This, of course, does not prevent [some, often very determined, but misguided] people from claiming that the tiny tail wags this very large dog.
tallbloke (05:20:41) :
They both seem to have dropped about 0.8W/m^2 since mid 2003. Unless it’s SORCE data being used on woodfortrees PMOD graph?
You’ll make it a lot easier on yourself to just take my word for it 🙂
Here (click) is the difference between PMOD and SORCE for 2003-2008 (before Froehlich prompted by me began to tinker with the calibration). As you can see there is a drift of an additional 0.1 W/m2. Here http://www.leif.org/research/Diff-PMOD-SORCE.png is what the difference looked like in March [after some PMOD adjustments] and here is the latest http://www.leif.org/research/PMOD-SORCE-2008-2009.png
As you can see, PMOD is in flux [no pun intended] and Froehlich does not have the calibration well in hand, so drawing any sweeping conclusions is silly at this point. [Not that people still won’t do this, so go ahead].
Leif Svalgaard (07:19:41) :
Correction:
If you watch a compass needle closely, you’ll find that its direction is NOT completely constant, …
tallbloke (05:20:41) :
1/08/2009 Leif Svalgaard (16:58:49) :
A year ago, I pointed out to Claus Froehlich that the difference between PMOD and SORCE was decreasing by 0.2 W/m2/decade.
Go back and check that comment for details.
Thanks for the extensive reply Leif. I think the miniscule input might have a large gain associated with it through the changing motion of the sub-crust currents of molten material, but we can leave that for now. I need to look at Brian Tinsley’s paper on the global electrical circuit again. I wonder how the thousands of miles wandering of the magnetic poles of the earth fit in, as they surely must. And of course the semi periodic reversals of the earth’s magnetic polarity. And the curious wiggle match I found between variations in length of day and the motion of the sun with respect tot he centre of mass of the solar system which seems to fit with the changes in the magnetic field as well.
Hmmm. It’s a good puzzle. I love enigmas.
tallbloke (07:48:25) :
I need to look at Brian Tinsley’s paper on the global electrical circuit again.
The global electrical circuit has little if anything to do with the Sun, it is generated and maintained by thunderstorms in the troposphere.
tallbloke (07:48:25) :
I wonder how the thousands of miles wandering of the magnetic poles of the earth fit in, as they surely must.
why must they?
tallbloke (07:48:25) :
I wonder how the thousands of miles wandering of the magnetic poles of the earth fit in, as they surely must.
Leif Svalgaard (08:00:35) :
why must they?
I did some investigations into possible connection between the North Atlantic temperature anomaly and the movements of Magnetic North Pole, and found some interesting results. Recently I updated some of information, preliminary results of my efforts now can be seen here:
http://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/docs/00/40/88/74/PDF/NATA.pdf
vukcevic (11:14:54) :
Link should be
http://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/docs/00/40/88/76/PDF/NATA-MP.pdf
Leif Svalgaard (23:50:02) :
“The best TSI data we have right now is SORCE http://lasp.colorado.edu/sorce/data/tsi_data.htm
PMOD has been drifting lower with respect to SORCE which is the basis for making the statement I made.”
PMOD may have been drifting lower with respect to SORCE, but SORCE data you have pointed me to has itself has been going lower since 2002. Couple this with Satellite temperatures trending down since 2002 and you have an interesting coincidence.
Tall Bloke and Leif I will read your posts again in detail later.
Vukevic,
fascinating. A very worthwhile study, and a good demonstration of why it is unwise to regard the earth as a homogenous black body. It will take me a while to digest the info and think about the movement of sub-crust magnetically active material in relation to the movement of the magnetic poles.
Is there a good proxy for the strength of the earth’s magnetic field covering the period?
Leif Svalgaard (07:30:23) :
tallbloke (05:20:41) :
They both seem to have dropped about 0.8W/m^2 since mid 2003. Unless it’s SORCE data being used on woodfortrees PMOD graph?
You’ll make it a lot easier on yourself to just take my word for it 🙂
Forgive me Leif. With all the data shenanigens going on I try to double check everything. 🙂
It’s hard for outsiders to know what’s happening, but your endless patience with us and your willingness to provide pointers helps tremendously.
I know you don’t have any truck with it, but I think the answers are in the data, if understood in relation to harmonics and resonance being the agents of amplification through loop feedback. The problem is, small data errors and error ranges get amplified too. Thus it becomes possible to hypothesise almost anything, and sorting the wheat from the chaff becomes problematic. That doesn’t mean that’s not where the truth is hiding though. It just makes the task of teasing it out of the haystack harder.
Vuk, your first links seems to work better than the second.
tallbloke (13:10:08) :
Is there a good proxy for the strength of the earth’s magnetic field covering the period?
There are good measurements the past several hundred years. Once complication is that every single point on the surface of the Earth has its own field strength, so which one do you want? The usual way of dealing with this problem was devised by C. F. Gauss in the 1830s and consists of calculating the [many] coefficients of what is called a Spherical Harmonic Expansion. This is a big subject, but try to google GUFM1
tallbloke (00:33:58) :
“.. I believe that the changes in TSI, though small, can have a large enough effect, when coupled with the changing heat storage/release modes of the oceans and changing cloud cover driven by and feeding back to sea surface temperatures, can explain most of the changes in earth’s temperature over the last century.”
I also believe that changes in TSI, even though small, must have a large effect on our climate simply because there is no other explanation for the large temperature increases that end glaciations. This must be coupled with its effect on cloudiness and also the presence or absense of interstellar and solar system dust that Earth periodically passes through.
I think the earth’s interior heat is a factor but I would be surprised if it accounted for any sustained heating over several decades. This is because its effect, on the average, would already have been accounted for in the Earth’s radiative balance.
However any major underground explosions, like Mt Pinatubo overland, would definitely have an effect on ocean temperatures and thus a delayed effect on atmospheric temperatures.
The earth’s length of day combined with the sunspot number maybe correlating with temperatures in ways unconnected with any relationship it may or may not have with the warmth released from the interior.
Leif Svalgaard (07:19:41) :
“The energy input to the Earth’s atmosphere [and the solid Earth] from all that” (more UV, magnetized solar wind) “is, however, minuscule [one in 100,000] compared to the enormous energy input from ordinary sunlight. This, of course, does not prevent [some, often very determined, but misguided] people from claiming that the tiny tail wags this very large dog.”
If the very large dog is the Sun then certainly this tiny tail is not its defining warmth. But we are not talking about a very large dog but really a very small flea – The Earth’s atmosphere and surface land and water – compared to the very large dog – the Sun. We are already blessed with the the warmth of this very large dog, which is a warm blooded creature with fairly constant temperature. This temperature fluctuates to very small degrees but affects the very small flea in a much larger way.
It also occasionally flicks its very small tail, or not, and its occasional flicks sometimes hit us and sometimes dont. When it flicks this tail often we catch more of its whiplashes then when it flicks only occasionally. These several whiplashes combined with its “eternal” warmth could possibly sometimes give us a slight temperature or chill. Minuscule again compared to the constancy of the very large dog.
I would like to see the a combination of TSI and solar wind data and see how well that relates to SST’s and Satellite air temperatures.
tallbloke (13:10:08) :
Is there a good proxy for the strength of the earth’s magnetic field covering the period?
Here is a nice movie showing 400 years of data:
http://www.epm.geophys.ethz.ch/~cfinlay/gufm1/BfS.gif
Richard (22:10:25) :
I also believe that changes in TSI, even though small, must have a large effect on our climate simply because there is no other explanation for the large temperature increases that end glaciations.
The TSI is not involved in ending glaciations. You are conflating solar irradiance and solar insolation. Consider Earth and Mars at a given point in time. Solar irradiance [the energy the Sun gives out] is the same because at any given time there is precisely one number that gives the total energy. But solar insolation [the energy the planet receives] depends on the orbit of the planet: Mars is further away from the Sun than the Earth is, so receives only about half the energy per square meter. It is therefore colder on Mars than on Earth, even though they both see the same Sun putting out the same energy.
If the very large dog is the Sun then certainly this tiny tail is not its defining warmth.
The very large dog is the Energy pouring into the Earth system as ordinary sunlight. The very small tail is whatever else the Earth receives.
I would like to see the a combination of TSI and solar wind data and see how well that relates to SST’s and Satellite air temperatures.
People have done that numerous times, and there is not much to see. The solar wind has no significant effect and the variation of TSI is so small that the effect is less than a tenth of a degree and therefore hard to see in the naturally noisy temperature record.
Fascinating ani-gif Leif. What are the units? I hope Vukevic checks it out and tells us how it plugs together with his ocean current hypothesis. Very interesting to see the shifting of the field sweeping up across Britain in the late 1600’s/ early 1700’s. That coincides with hitherto unexplained rapid rise in temp. Also the shift of the field from Africa to South America coinciding wih Andean melt, Patagonian ozone loss and a greening Sahara. Also, a warming Antarctic peninsula and a possible confirmation of Vukevic’ idea about the southern ocean circulation moving closer to the continent and allowing warmer indian ocean water further south.
Nice article here on some experimental physics which confirms a theory about potassium in the earth’s core supplying lots of heat and keeping the geomagnetic field going.
http://www.innovations-report.com/html/reports/earth_sciences/report-24205.html
Richard (22:10:25) :
I think the earth’s interior heat is a factor but I would be surprised if it accounted for any sustained heating over several decades. This is because its effect, on the average, would already have been accounted for in the Earth’s radiative balance.
Not sure I understand what you mean. In a centrifuge, heavier material get’s flung further outwards as it speeds up.
http://www.pac.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/sci/sa-mfpd/downloads/indices/LOD.jpg
The earth spun faster from 1910-1930 and 1970-now. Perhaps this action forces mobile radioactive elements closer together nearer the surface, producing more heat and it’s more rapid transfer through the crust. Due to the conservation of angular momentum, more mass further out will slow rotation down again, hence the oscillation. If this is in a nice balance, quite small input from the changes in solar wind speed acting on geomagnetism might produce quite large effects. Hence my comment to Leif about small input being a controlling influence in a high gain feedback system.
All very speculative until the calcs are done, but may be worth investigating.
Thanks Dr Svalgaard, tallbloke et al for a fascinating and informative debate. The implications of a declining magnetosphere interest me professionally working in transmission design, and also in light of Dr Svensmark’s research. The science around climate appears anything but settled, which is good because I can keep learning stuff.
Leif Svalgaard (23:00:22) :
the variation of TSI is so small that the effect is less than a tenth of a degree and therefore hard to see in the naturally noisy temperature record.
Disputable, but a least you are using an expression with a wider set of error bars on it now. 😉
The graph I showed Richard has a ~0.15C variation in SST between solar max and min.
This equates to about 0.3C in air temperature and doesn’t account for the tendency for solar heat stored in the oceans coming out at solar min, and the slow solar wind and cold winters at solar max which further masks the true energy difference.
The overall difference is therefore larger still, and this shows that the relatively small overall increase in TSI over the C20th can account for much more of the temp rise than is supposed and wrongly promulgated by you, among others, e.g. Gavin Schmidt and Tamino.
In short, if you won’t take proper account of terrestrial climatic factors, you shouldn’t convert your TSI to Celcius because it is misleading and incorrect.
Leif Svalgaard (23:00:22) :
Richard (22:10:25) :
I also believe that changes in TSI, even though small, must have a large effect on our climate simply because there is no other explanation for the large temperature increases that end glaciations.
“The TSI is not involved in ending glaciations. You are conflating solar irradiance and solar insolation.”
Is it not true that solar insolation changes, due to changes the Earth’s orbit, are also very small? And that the energy changes that the Earth receives due to this are comparable to the cyclical or other observed changes in Solar irradiance?
If this be so then my statement holds true. Small changes in the Suns “received energy”, (whether due to changes in orbit or irradiance), account for comparatively large changes in the Earth’s temperatures.
Leif before you contradict me let me explain what I mean:
“It has been observed that ice ages deepen by progressive steps, but the recovery to interglacial conditions occurs in one big step.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orbital_forcing
Explain to me what huge change of insolation takes place in that short period, due to any change in the Earth’s orbit, to pull the Earth out of a glaciation and cause those huge increases of temperatures?
Richard (02:49:58) :
Is it not true that solar insolation changes, due to changes the Earth’s orbit, are also very small? And that the energy changes that the Earth receives due to this are comparable to the cyclical or other observed changes in Solar irradiance?
The Earth’s orbit is always changing due to perturbations mainly from the big 4. Our orbit is close to round at present but will slowly elongate to a more elliptical orbit in about 90000 years. When this happens the aphelion point (furthest distance from Sun) the Earth will receive about 30% less TSI than we currently experience.
This is the insolation factor Leif is talking about.