Leif Svalgaard writes to inform me that Livingston and Penn have published their article recently in EOS, TRANSACTIONS, AMERICAN GEOPHYSICAL UNION.
As WUWT readers may recall, we had a preview of that EOS article here.
L&P write in the EOS article:
For hundreds of years, humans have observed that the Sun has displayed activity where the number of sunspots increases and then decreases at approximately 11- year intervals. Sunspots are dark regions on the solar disk with magnetic field strengths greater than 1500 gauss (see Figure 1), and the 11- year sunspot cycle is actually a 22- year cycle in the solar magnetic field, with sunspots showing the same hemispheric magnetic polarity on alternate 11- year cycles.
The last solar maximum occurred in 2001, and the magnetically active sunspots at that time produced powerful flares causing large geomagnetic disturbances and disrupting some space- based technology. But something is unusual about the current sunspot cycle. The current solar minimum has been unusually long, and with more than 670 days without sunspots through June 2009, the number of spotless days has not been equaled since 1933 (see http://users.telenet.be/j.janssens/Spotless/Spotless.html).
The solar wind is reported to be in a uniquely low energy state since space measurements began nearly 40 years ago [Fisk and Zhao, 2009].
The full article as a PDF is available here
Leif also provides his version of their Figure 3 (showing umbral intensity -vs- total magnetic field which I’m sure he’ll want to discuss here.
http://www.leif.org/research/Livingston%20and%20Penn.png
Dennis,
People also argue that rather than sun spot number (solar activity) it is length of the cycle that holds the effect. Then there are those who argue for the effect of energy outside the visible spectrum, and so on. I’m not a solar physicist, so I haven’t any way to discuss what else may be associated with events like the Dalton and Maunder minima. My suspicion is that we are looking at only two solar events and two periods of abnormal cooling so there might easily be confounding factors in each case. Perhaps Leif can tell us briefly if there are other mechanisms afoot in these events that make them unlike a typical minimum, or the possibility of unknown mechanisms in solar behavior.
“Do we have a spectrogram of the sun across many wavelengths to look at to compare the sun’s radiant output across a wide spectrum so that we could compare the output during a solar max, to this solar minimum?”
This same thing occurred to me a few days ago. I wondered if the proportion of total solar radiation, while not varying much in the aggregate, might vary considerably in proportion to different wavelengths. Might there be less IR but more UV or more UV but less visible or with the IR, maybe less at a some range of wavelengths but more at another.
If the radiation changes across different wavelengths, how the climate responds to a given amount of aggregate solar radiation might be different. I don’t have access to these data so I can’t hypothesize, but am simply expressing a curiosity as in “gee, I wonder how solar radiation is currently spread across the spectrum and if that is different than when the sun was behaving in a way we had become accustomed to”. The idea being maybe we could have cooling but that might not be related to TSI or sunspots per se so much as another change that happens at the same time sunspot counts drop such as a shift in the amount of energy at various wavelengths.
The way I understand it, about 50% of the radiation is IR. If for some reason this was shifted somewhat with less IR radiation but more visible or UV, the TSI might remain the same but the impact on climate might be different.
So, I am to take it that either one must believe in some solar variation as explanation of climatic variation, OR, one must believe that CO2 inspired greenhouse effect does it, but nothing in addition or in between?
Highlander is right to point out that all sorts of climate variations occur when it is impossible for human beings to be the cause. But he is wrong to to label persons as being in one camp or the other, or any camp at all, because they point out discrepancies with favored theories.
Speaking of Napoleon and graphical depictions of information, I believe that people ( including scientists and statisticians ) could learn a great deal from Edward Tufte.
Here’s one of the most famous graphical depictions of information ever created ( by Charles Joseph Minard ), which contains a wealth of information regarding Napoleons march to Moscow. It’s worth studying in detail, as there are many lessons to be absorbed. I have a framed copy of it in my den. http://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/posters . It’s a shame that so many have forgotten that the goal of science and statistics is to inform, rather than obscure.
Two years of extremely low sunspot activity and temperatures are, according to satellite measurements, still above the last 30 years average (which includes 1998). Surely some mistake? Clearly the sun-worshippers will now have to look for a new God.
“the number of spotless days has not been equaled since 1933”. And this would also be around the time when the USA had temperatures higher than in 1998? Oh dear.
“Robinson (13:11:43) :
Here is the obvious question, and I’m open to the fact there may be a logical answer. If we can’t find any coorelation between low and high periods of sun spots and earth climate, then how come there is a coorelation between the temperature minimums like Dalton and Maunder and low sun spot activity?
Presumably if there is an effect it’s somewhat diminished by the enormous thermal intertia of the Oceans.”
And what supplies the oceans with heat energy? How long does the ocean store heat energy?
Anthony,
I understand that you were instrumental in installing the ‘weather station’ at the Forest Ranch School. I am coordinating the After School Program at the After School Program at the charter school and would love to get the program up and running again. Is there any way you would be able to help or put me in touch with someone who could help?
Thank you.
Beth Wattenberg (tel: 342-9552)
P.S. I could not activiate the comment ‘section’ by clicking below the banner, thus I had to send it this circuitous way.
[REPLY – I sent this along to Anthony, direct. ~ Evan]
“dennis ward (14:30:48) :
Two years of extremely low sunspot activity and temperatures are, according to satellite measurements, still above the last 30 years average (which includes 1998). Surely some mistake? Clearly the sun-worshippers will now have to look for a new God.”
Folks have have repeatedly said this on other threads and it will be repeated once again: Have Patience!
It’s not worship, its common sense.
Getting back on topic, I know of the association of sun spot cycle length with earth temperature, but I wish someone could provide a mechanism, a theory, of why this should be so.
Let’s assume for a moment that the global temperature data are not manipulated, but rather are pointing to a true tend–even if the trend is perhaps not exactly the correct magnitude.
When I first read that the last such solar sunspot number minimum occurred in 1933 I immediately recalled that the 1930s in the U.S. were warm, and I was surprised to see the global temperature as simply on the rise to a peak in the early 1940s. On the other hand, despite the 1940s peak, many Europeans recall cold years, and we all know about the exceptionally awful weather around D-Day and the Battle of the Bulge. The old timers in the western U.S. still talk about the winter of 1948-1949, which on the global temperature chart is warmer than the 1930s and so forth.
This emphasizes a point I often make to my students, and which I see Pielke, Sr. also talks about. Regional variations matter more than global ones because they are more extreme. In fact I would add that it is actually regional drought and regional cold temperature that are more worrisome than global warmth, because these have huge impact on food supplies. People will no doubt try to claim that global warming will lead to regional cooling and drought; but from where I sit right now, a little more CO2 (which makes plants somewhat more drought tolerant) and a bit more warmth seems desireable compared to alternatives.
Hi Leif,
I noticed in the paper it said the sun’s magnetic field had reversed. Is this normal, when did it happen, how long does it take to flip, and has this happened before?
Sorry for the questions, to me (an average Joe) this sounds like a pretty amazing event.
Kevin,
you are right, of course. Too many cycles within cycles. Too many wheels within wheels. Too much “business” goin on. If you married the daughter of Rube Goldberg to the son of Archimedes they couldn’t produce a more complicated mess than is “Climate.”
I remember reading at Climate Science (I think it was) of an area of China that went through a 400 year drought, while an area a few hundred miles away was going through “wet, and cold.” Then, the whole thing reversed, for another 400 years.
We’ve come through 30 years of “short, sweet” solar cycles, a positive PDO, and accelerated CO2 accumulation. Now, the PDO is positive, we have, at least, one long solar cycle, and CO2 is still increasing (although, only 1.43 ppm in the last 12 months.)
So, we shall see, eh?
Speaking about winters in WW2. There is an argument, that the significant cooling experienced during WW2, was man made. It is hypothesized that human generated naval warfare on a global scale was the cause. Specifically it was aided by the effect of setting off thousands of depth charges, and underwater mines, there by mixing a large quantity of surface area with explosives. The effect of cycling or moving a large mass of primarily cold water to the surface in grid fashion is the action that is argued to have changed the near term global temps. It may or may not be the reason for the rapid cooling during the war, but it is interesting to consider the effect of mixing large quantity’s of ocean surface area with water temps significantly cooler just below.
Oops, that was CO2 Science, not Climate Science.
There were also volcanoes during the Dalton Minimum to raise the albedo and lower the temperature, and I believe there were some during the Maunder Minimum, too.
However, I also suspect that this pending period of Cheshire Cat sunspots will lower the temperature, but as a disciple, heh, of Leif, I must remark that the mechanism is unknown.
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Kevin Kilty (14:48:37) :
You may not have sen the video “The Cloud Mystery”. It shows the work of Henrik Svensmark and what he has found about the sun and clouds.
5 part YouTube series starting with this :
I think I’d, really, like to see an 11 yr moving average (monthly would be OK) of Sunspot Numbers.
For instance, what has been the average SSN over the last 11 years? From July 98′ to July 09′?
Then, for comparison, maybe July 94′ to July 05′?
And, to top it off, from July 87′ to July 98′?
Jack Barnes (14:55:08) :
“Speaking about winters in WW2. There is an argument, that the significant cooling experienced during WW2,”
As I recall during WW II, most people were burning coal in their furnaces and in the winter time the snow was covered with soot. These carbon emissions apparently were not significant enough to affect the temperature.
Gene Nemetz (15:23:40) :
Kevin Kilty (14:48:37) :
You may not have sen the video “The Cloud Mystery”. It shows the work of Henrik Svensmark and what he has found about the sun and clouds.
I got an introduction to this idea here on WUWT. Thanks for the link to the video. It is nicely done. The hypothesis is intriguing. It links solar magnetic field to clouds through cosmic rays. What I didn’t see explained immediately is whether the magnetic field varies according to length of cycle. I’ll look further.
Dennis Wingo (13:17:20) :
We know from a USAF mission designed to measure this, that the Earth’s atmosphere has contracted more than at any time in the space age. This is interesting and possibly significant. It would be interesting to see what the average global lightning energy is at this time versus what it was during the last solar max. I think that there is a mission measuring this flying today.
This sounds quite interesting. I know that expansion of the upper atmosphere leads to abnormal decay of satellite orbits. Can you supply any link to a description of the mission or its results? Thanks.
Dennis Wingo (13:17:20)
TSI varies by only a little. I am not sure what range of the spectrum is measured in TSI. However, UV and IR vary differently, and I feel sure they have different impacts upon the atmosphere.
To me, the contraction of the atmosphere equals cooling – less energy in the atmosphere
Mark (14:48:40) :
Leif can provide a more detailed answer, but yes, the solar magnetic field reverses every cycle In one mode, it causes cosmic rays to drift to the Poles, in the other, as we have now, it causes them to drift to the equatorial plane..
Cloud formed at the equator will have more impact on temperature via albedo increase, than those form,ed at the poles.
Dear me.
I don’t know who advanced the idea that naval munitions in WW2 could have caused excess water mixing in the oceans but either he/she was woefully ill informed or was, as we say over here, extracting the Michael.
Ocean mixing to great depths is caused by water wave action which is why the thermocline does not begin until depths of the order of several hundred metres.
I know there is a popular idea that somehow there is a warm and very thin skin of water at the surface where it is irradiated which might be true in a glass of water but is not true in the open ocean where very fast wave driven mixing occurs at the surface. In open ocean wave mixing action also occurs both by day and night.
The waves are of course driven by the winds which themselves are driven by the convection currents in the atmosphere and displaced by the Coriolis force due to the rotation of the earth
These forces are enormous as anyone who has been in the way of a hurricane knows, and on a global sale a hurricane is just a tiny local disturbance, yet people grossly underestimate the sheer scale of them.
I calculate, admittedly on the back of an envelope using some heroic assumptions , that if you exploded all the munitions navy, army and air, exploded in WW2, including the two atomic bombs, and detonated them underwater simultaneously, they might release in an instant about one thousandth of the work done in one hour by the wave mixing action around the open oceans of the globe.
The precision of the calculation is very poor, probably by at least three magnitudes either way, and possibly considerably more, but hey what’s a few magnitudes between friends?
It is however sufficient to say that the effect of the munitions would be negligible. So I do not propose to pursue it any further.
But does that put the scale of natural forces compared to manmade ones in proportion for you?
Kindest Regards
Tonyb, Kevin.
My simple (leisure activity) global temperature vs Sunspots model was based on physics and made few assumptions. It reproduced temperature anomalies from around 1850 to the present with a small error at the end of about -0.2C (too low).
The 1930s and 40s fit OK. To understand, one could think of the sunspot net effect as a “gas flame” on a stove top heating a pot of water (note, I do not say sunspots give off energy). If one “pulses” the flame in say 11 year cycles — from a lower level to steadily increasing levels — and one has a lot of water (oceans for example) — it takes time for the water to heat enough to reach equilibrium. Many cycles pass.
So, net heating can occur during decades that happen to have some low sunspot numbers at the low end of the 11 year cycles.
Disclaimer: I am not suggesting that the Sun’s heat output varies enough to cause this. I do not assume a mechanism — though others have proposed some possible mechanisms.
A “for what its worth” from an “armchair” perspective.
That’s a good question and it’s one that I think is ok to answer with, “I don’t know”. I can only go on gut instinct here, because I’m not familiar enough with the science. Given the biosphere, atmosphere, oceans, sun, solar-system and extra solar influences all play a part (perhaps) in regulating Earth’s heat balance, I find it hard to see where any one particular effect dominates. Perhaps the fact of the matter will be found in a different century – probably the next.