Many commenters have mentioned “The Watts Effect”, whereby within a short period of time after I do a post about the sun on WUWT mentioning the lack of sunspots, one appears.
I figured it was time to settle the issue with a test, a big one. The sun is blank, here is my post. We are about to break the monthly calendar record (again) for a calendar month without sunspots. Ironically this last occurred in August 2008. Depending on whether you believe NOAA or SIDC in Belgium about whether a sunspeck noted by one observatory (Catainia in Italy) was a valid sunspot or not determines if August 2008 was a sunspotless calender month or not. Let’s hope neither Catainia, SIDC, or my nefarious and dubious spot producing solar powers spoil this run.
But wait, there’s more.
This was in Spaceweather.com today:
Inspect the image below. It is a photo of the sun taken by the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO). Can you guess what day it was taken? Scroll down for the answer.
August 28th, today. But it could have been taken on any day of the past seven weeks. For all that time, the face of the sun has looked exactly the same–utterly blank.
According to NOAA sunspot counts, the longest string of blank suns during the current solar minimum was 52 days back in July, Aug. and Sept. of 2008. If the current trend continues for only four more days, the record will shift to 2009. It’s likely to happen; the sun remains eerily quiet and there are no sunspots in the offing. Solar minimum is shaping up to be a big event indeed.
=========
Here’s the count as of August 30th:
Spotless Days
Current Stretch: 51 days
2009 total: 193 days (80%)
Since 2004: 704 days
Typical Solar Min: 485 days
“Never make predictions, especially about the future.”
~Casey Stengel
I don’t think that there will be a sunspot in the near future. With solar flux at a steady 68 and A-Index around 2 – 4, we’ll see some more weeks (or months of a lazy sun).
Besides, that’s what my Tarot card reader told me… and she never misses.
We should buy a Tarot card set and send it to Hathaway and CRU. Much cheaper and much more accurate! 😉
It is; but our warmist friends will simply say that, by great good luck, thermal Armageddon has been averted by a few years.
If trillions of dollars were not riding on rather bad science all this would be hilarious; but, as it stands, we are going to be forced into measures, based on highly contestable science which will have real, negative effects in the real world.
An important corollary of Murhpy’s Law is that you cannot count on Murphy’s Law to be effective. So if you’re “expecting anything to go wrong” it won’t.
The same may hold with the Watt’s Effect – if you’re expecting to cause a sunspot, it won’t happen. Of course, if you’re expecting the Watt’s Effect to fail in this case, then we might get that ill-timed spot.
Only time will tell, and it won’t tell us much!
Oh dang, I misspelled Murphy. Completely unintentionally….
You see what you want to see……(Julius Caesar, 100-44 BC)
Just a joke.
Pardon my ignorance.
Can somebody please point me to a good read about what the impact of a spotless sun is?
So what if the sun has no spots?
If it’s one of those pesky single pixel spots, it will no doubt stir another controversy.
Kirk- keep looking Mr. Sulu. That Romulan ship is out there, I can feel it. But where?
Sulu: Captain, I’m picking up something on the screen.
A Romulan ship?
Sulu: A sunspot, Captain.
Now, we all know Spock would correct us and say “Not a spot, it has an area of 0.69730963 x10E6 hemispherical @ .25 radius from the Stellar center, Captain. A pore”.
Kirk – .69730963 ?
Spock “Precisely, Captain”.
O – kay.
Watt an interesting minimum this is turning out to be. A brief uptick in July and now this period of inactivity. Let’s try for September and really make things interesting.
“Can somebody please point me to a good read about what the impact of a spotless sun is?”
‘Spotless’ is itself a symptom.
This might shed some light – so to speak
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2009/01apr_deepsolarminimum.htm
The page http://daltonsminima.wordpress.com/dati-sole-in-diretta/ keeps a running update to the sunspotless-days count at http://users.telenet.be/j.janssens/Spotless/Spotless.html#Evolution The running update is in Italian, but with the help of Google, it’s simple. There are 2 counts, using NOAA and SIDC numbers, respectively…
GIORNI SPOTLESS NOAA: AGGIORNATI AL 28/8/2009
Updated NOAA spotless numbers as of 2009/08/28
GIORNI SPOTLESS DA INIZIO ANNO (2009): 193
Number of spotless days so far in 2009: 193
GIORNI SPOTLESS DA INIZIO MINIMO: 706
Number of spotless days since the start of the minimum: 706
GIORNI SPOTLESS DI FILA: 49
Number of consecutive spotless days as of this day: 49
GIORNI RIMANENTI AL RAGGIUNGIMENTO DEL CICLO 13: -30 (PREVISTO PER 27/9/2009)
Number of additional spotless days required to match cycle 13: 30
The corresponding SIDC numbers are 192, 701, 29, and 35
If the “dearth of sunspots” continues, the next 12 months will break a number of milestones in the cycle 10..15 group. The remaining lineup in cycles 10..15 is…
13 => 736 days which we should hit early October 2009
14 => 938 days (early May 2010?)
15 => 1019 days (early August 2010?)
12 => 1028 days (late August 2010? a year from now)
Then what?
This depressing note from Fox :
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/08/28/hold-breath-epa-expected-declare-carbon-dioxide-pollutant/
one, two or even three specs/spots every month or so is going to make any difference ??
“Radio has no future. Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible. X-rays will prove to be a hoax.”
~William Thomson, Lord Kelvin English scientist, 1899
Ah but you are now observing the effect of the observation – a different experiment than before.
All those photons in the sun, they know you’re looking you know, quantum mechanics ‘n’ all that, simple.
Remember, as Neils Bohr once said, “We are all agreed that your theory is crazy. The question which divides us is whether it is crazy enough to have a chance of being correct. My own feeling is that it is not crazy enough”
Cheers
Mark
Might even spell “Niels” correctly next time – doh!
Uh oh… a cycle 24 magnetic signature may be stirring on the northern hemisphere,,,
Gene Nemetz (22:23:37) :
“Never make predictions, especially about the future.”
~Casey Stengel
this prediction is ok., like a weather forecast for 5 days and they work usually quiet good…
You will be very lucky to get a spot right now Anthony….but you never know your luck.
* It’s simple. When the Sun has more spots, it is more active and a little warmer.
* It’s complicated. Our planet seems to warm more than the increased visible light during an active period.
* Search for “Solar cycle” for descriptions of what happens to the Sun during these periods.
Although the Sun is blank, there has been a subtle shift. New SC24 magnetic flux has arrived, and the F10.7 flux has gone up. For the first 28 days of August 2008, the flux was 67.96, for the first 28 days of August 2009, the flux is now 69.01. For July the numbers were: 2008 67.78, 2009 70.43.
“fred (22:48:23) :
Pardon my ignorance.
Can somebody please point me to a good read about what the impact of a spotless sun is?
So what if the sun has no spots?”
Given the fact that the Sun is the energy provider for the Earth, anything that might affect solar activity, and one idicator of low activity, is sun spots, may, and very likely will, affect climate.
Szerintem a SIDC valamelyik napra ebben a hónapban úgyis be fogja írni, hogy volt napfolt, nehogy 0,0 legyen 2009. augusztus.
Augusztus 28-ig: 191:240=79,58%
>>> amennyiben ez az érték megmarad év végéig, akkor a 2009-es várható napfoltmentes napok száma: 0,7958*365=290 nap
Így a TOP 5 év (1849-2009):
1. 1913. >>> 311 nap
2. 2009. >>> 290 nap
3. 1901. >>> 284 nap
4. 1878. >>> 278 nap
5. 2008. >>> 266 nap
Reply: The first line translates from Hungarian as:
so I approved the post. ~ ctm
Way OT – but there are interesting things happening on the DMI Arctic Ice curve over the last few days
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/icecover.uk.php
Note that DMI plots sea ice concentation of >30% (IARC-JAXA and NSIDC use >15%). The same phenomenon occurred last year for DMI – but could we have already reached the melt minimum? Wait and see…
It’ll remain blank a few more days according to STEREO behind. Of course, on might emerge before our very eyes as I type.
I thought I saw where Anna spotted a spot yesterday with the correct polarity?
JimB
I often wonder whether Leif and his colleagues go around with big grins.
This solar activity, or lack of it, is happening on their watch and just when the level of equipment has improved enough to study what is going on. No doubt they get to play the Name That Phenomenon game and achieve an immortality of a sort. If the sun had waited a few more cycles before becoming quiescent…
BTW Anthony, please could you test your powers by posting “Forty-seven years and still no big cash win on Andrew Harrison’s Premium Bonds”.
fred writes “Can somebody please point me to a good read about what the impact of a spotless sun is?
So what if the sun has no spots?”
Two classics by John Eddy
The Maunder Minimum 1976 Science 192 no 4245 1189
The Case of the Missing Sunspots 1977 Scientific American May p 80
Mike McMillan (23:58:08) : I find the story in this link you point to, Mike, particularly depressing in that it shows just how many of us still believe in signs and portents; and still fear things that go bump in the night.
It is not news that maturity is still missing in some of us in this 21st century; but the percentage should surely not be so high in this age of information? …52 percent to 43 percent of Americans back a system that would set a ceiling for greenhouse gas emissions. That probably means even the girl next door is spooked, and she has a college education…
I feel like Burl Ives, It’s Just My Funny Way Of Laughing, else I might be in tears. Our time will be held up to ridicule in the future. May there also be an honour roll of those who scoffed which will bear my name.
Solipsism is a terrible thing.
JimB (03:17:19) :
I thought I saw where Anna spotted a spot yesterday with the correct polarity?
It disappeared within a few hours so should not be counted, though Leif is counting it, as well as another short and tiny that I missed subsequently.
http://www.leif.org/research/TSI-SORCE-2008-now.png
AndrewWH (03:38:32) :
This solar activity, or lack of it, is happening on their watch
But is not unexpected. We predicted a small cycle to come and such a cycle is always slow in starting. We even held out the possibility of a Maunder type minimum: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2003SPD….34.0603S
Personally I don’t think it’ll get that low, unless Livingston & Penn are correct and sunspots will become invisible soon.
“Roger Carr (04:16:25) :
I feel like Burl Ives, It’s Just My Funny Way Of Laughing, else I might be in tears. Our time will be held up to ridicule in the future. May there also be an honour roll of those who scoffed which will bear my name.”
If the alarmists and politicians have their way, and it looks all the more possible with each passing day as we approach the Copenhagen “talk fest”, they will rewrite history to conform. It will be 1984, soon.
I noted that short lived sunspot when it occurred around the 30th of July and wondered whether or not it would be counted. (at Solarcycle24.com).
I am still of the opinion until we see something different from cycle 15 – 1911, 1912, 1913 there is some sort of pattern yet to be defined but yet nothing out of the historical ordinary.
Give another year of little activity and then make some more ESWAG projections.
I’m personally not yet ready to buy a heavy winter coat until at least another couple of years of low sunspot activity.
fred, and maybe others. I forgot another classic. The Sun Kings by Stuart Clark. ISBN -13 978-0-691-12600-9. This is a history of the science and scientists who studied the sun. One of the few good books that I have found on the history of scientific endeavour.
Questions: Back in the time of Solar Cycle 10 through 15 could they see a “pore” or “spec” like we can now? And if not what meaning do those records have versus the current solar minimum? And even if we do have some spots on occasion, while having an obvious solar minimum otherwise, what will be the comparative impact on the climate of *this* solar minimum versus the documented impact of previous solar minimums? Then there is the question of the arithmetical (or is it geometric) result of a combination of “cap and trade” (of known bad consequences) and a solar minimum (of unknown, but probably bad, consequences) on the economy.
Dave The Engineer (04:48:40) :
Back in the time of Solar Cycle 10 through 15 could they see a “pore” or “spec” like we can now?
Yes they could. Rudolf Wolf who invented the sunspot number counting method, did not count pores, but his successors decided to do so. Since Wolf died in 1893, the ‘raw’ count has been multiplied by 0.60 to compensated for counting of pores.
Saturday 29 th August 2009 14.08 CET
Just thought I let you know – Hail storm here in Copenhagen. Not often you see that in august.
Leif Svalgaard (04:24:33) :
We even held out the possibility of a Maunder type minimum: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2003SPD….34.0603S
Personally I don’t think it’ll get that low, unless Livingston & Penn are correct and sunspots will become invisible soon.
Leif, if I recall some of your writings, you are now tending to lean the way of L&P and their work. Does that mean you view a MM type event as a still improbable, but growing possibility??
Tom
The Sun is too cold for sunspots.
For info.
O’Toole’s Corolloray to Murphy’s Law states that the Chances of the toast landing marmalade side down is directly correlated to the cost of the carpet.
So given that AGW is going to cst trillions….
Gene, you may farly blame the great Lord Kelvin for his errors, but not for being English.
Spot watching is great fun.
For a truly exhaustive parsing of ‘Spotless Days’, try Solemon’s http://users.telenet.be/j.janssens/Spotless/Spotless.html.
Personally I prefer monitoring the “Indian Sumac” of my ancestral home in No. Minn. Which was already changing color on July 28, 09.
Also, local reliable prognosticator for the winter is the size of the Norwegians wood pile in September.
Swedish proverb: “If you kick mother natures dog, prepare to be frost bitten”.
Politicians take note.
Advice for the rest of us: Lighten up folks, we have a ringside seat for one of the great adventures of the human race. We will not be able to change the consequence of processes physical or political, but we can appreciate and enjoy the experience. Burl Ives knew how to laugh.
Don’t let it go to your head Anthony!
Personally, I wouldn’t be converting food to fuel at the rate we are….
Forces of Nature…
First there was Mosus, who with the power of his thoughts (and possibly some external help), parted water. Effective radius of action: a few thousand meters
There there were our North American indians, with their rain dance. Effective radius of action: a a few hundreds of kilometers.
And now we have Anthony Watts and sunspots. Radius of action: at least 1.5E11 meters.
I can’t wait to hear about the guy who will have Andromeda galaxy do backflips…
🙂
If “The Watts Effect” doesn’t work right away I suggest that you repeat the following 4 times while standing outside at midnight:
Ooo eee, ooo ah ah ting tang
Walla walla, bing bang
re Leif Svalgaard (01:33:06)
“Although the Sun is blank, there has been a subtle shift. New SC24 magnetic flux has arrived, and the F10.7 flux has gone up. For the first 28 days of August 2008, the flux was 67.96, for the first 28 days of August 2009, the flux is now 69.01. For July the numbers were: 2008 67.78, 2009 70.43.”
Aug 2008 67.96 Aug 2009 69.01 + 1.05 (1 year)
July 2009 70.43 Aug 2009 69.01 – 1.42 (1 month)
??
The sunspot records we humans so carefully have kept over time have an Achilles Heel.
They were compiled with an understanding that there once was a definition of a sunspot. And there once was a time when everything that resembled the cutting edge of sunspot/ not the sunspot was not guarnateed to be observed.
So, here we are, wondering if SIDC or someone else will rob from us the excitement of observation, or worse yet, throw the opportunity to warn the Earth about what is happening to the Sun into utter chaos, should the need to warn manifest itself.
You see, a spotless Sun streak is not a computer model.
And that is why it has a target painted on it.
Right now, I wish to take the opportunity to thank all of you who have taken the time to express skepticism over the practice of comparing modern technology enabled records to historical records without coming to terms with the definitions.
And thank you, Anthony Watts, for bringing about such a forum where examination of the record is possible.
The lack of sunspots is caused by man. Over the last 10 years, there is a direct inverse correlation between the number of cell phones (usage time) and the number of sunspots. The more cell phone usage the fewer sunspots. Man has electromagnetically disrupted the sun. It maybe too late, we may have already killed the sunspots. We need immediate action on a cap and trade in all electromagnetic emissions.
The Solar Flux appears to be in a decline since May of 2009.
Summary of Adjusted Flux Density Values for the year 2009
Space Weather Canada
http://www.spaceweather.ca/sx-11-eng.php
ftp://ftp.geolab.nrcan.gc.ca/data/solar_flux/daily_flux_values/current.txt
Month Count Mean Median Min Max
Jan 93 67.4817 67.60 64.9 70.3
Feb 84 68.1655 68.25 65.8 70.1
Mar 93 68.4161 68.20 65.7 71.9
Apr 90 70.1133 70.10 68.6 71.9
May 93 71.9118 71.80 68.4 75.8
Jun 90 70.7400 70.30 68.8 74.8
Jul 93 70.4118 70.10 67.9 74.2
Aug 84 69.0202 68.90 67.2 71.3
Dominion Radio Astrophysical Observatory, Penticton, British Columbia,
http://www.spaceweather.ca/sx-3-eng.php
The database available here comprises two components: measurements of the 10.7cm Flux and daily records of flux monitor output. Each measurement of the 10.7cm Solar Flux is expressed in three values: the “observed”, “adjusted” and “URSI Series D.” values.
When the Sun is being studied, the annual modulation of the 10.7cm Solar Flux by the changing distance between the Earth and Sun is undesirable. However, one byproduct of the ephemeris calculations needed for the solar flux monitors to properly acquire and track the Sun is the distance between the Sun and the Earth. We therefore produce an additional quantity, corrected for variations in the Earth-Sun distance, and given for the average distance. This is called the “Adjusted” value.
Mike McMillan (23:58:08) :
Most depressing, but more expected from Aliens wishing to sterilize Earth, prior to colonizing it, of dangerous Carbon-based lifeforms.
Someone should gently break the news to the EPA that life on Earth is primarily carbon-based.
Who let the dogs out of Area 51? It was supposed to be secure.
Anthony
On “The Watts Effect”, what is the projected probability distribution of sunspots with time after posting? How many measurements will be needed to achieve statistically significant evidence thereof?
fred (22:48:23) :
Pardon my ignorance.
Can somebody please point me to a good read about what the impact of a spotless sun is?
So what if the sun has no spots?
I would recomend this paper as a primer :
http://www.scribd.com/doc/338170/svensmark-2007cosmoclimatology
and if you find that interesting the theory is expanded in the book “The Chilling Stars” and there was recently a paper that was posted on this site with some newer evidence.
I think we are due for a solar update from the luminaries at NASA. I went back through their archives for the last 6 years and put together a reasonably comprehensive summary of the observations and predictions that they’ve bestowed upon us over the last six years:
Nov 12, 2003: “The Sun Goes Haywire – Solar maximum is years past, yet the sun has been remarkably active lately. Is the sunspot cycle broken?”
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2003/12nov_haywire.htm
Oct 18, 2004: “Something strange happened on the sun last week: all the sunspots vanished. This is a sign, say scientists, that solar minimum is coming sooner than expected.”
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2004/18oct_solarminimum.htm
May 5, 2005: “Solar Myth – With solar minimum near, the sun continues to be surprisingly active.”
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2005/05may_solarmyth.htm
Sept 15, 2005: “Solar Minimum Explodes – Solar minimum is looking strangely like Solar Max.”
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2005/15sep_solarminexplodes.htm
Aug 15th, 2006: “Backward Sunspot – A strange little sunspot may herald the coming of one of the stormiest solar cycles in decades.”
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2006/15aug_backwards.htm
Dec 21, 2006 “Scientists Predict Big Solar Cycle – Evidence is mounting: the next solar cycle is going to be a big one.”
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2006/21dec_cycle24.htm
Dec 14, 2007 “Is a New Solar Cycle Beginning? – The solar physics community is abuzz this week. ”
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2007/14dec_excitement.htm
Jan 10, 2008: “Solar Cycle 24 – Hang on to your cell phone, a new solar cycle has just begun.
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2008/10jan_solarcycle24.htm
March 28, 2008: “Old Solar Cycle Returns – Barely three months after forecasters announced the beginning of new Solar Cycle 24, old Solar Cycle 23 has returned.”
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2008/28mar_oldcycle.htm
July 11, 2008: “What’s Wrong with the Sun? (Nothing) – Stop the presses! The sun is behaving normally.”
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2008/11jul_solarcycleupdate.htm
Sept. 30, 2008: “Spotless Sun: Blankest Year of the Space Age
– Sunspot counts are at a 50-year low – We’re experiencing a deep minimum of the solar cycle.”
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2008/30sep_blankyear.htm
Nov. 7, 2008: The Sun Shows Signs of Life – I think solar minimum is behind us”
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2008
/07nov_signsoflife.htm
April 1, 2009: Deep Solar Minimum – We’re experiencing a very deep solar minimum – This is the quietest sun we’ve seen in almost a century”
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2009/01apr_deepsolarminimum.htm
May 29, 2009: “If our prediction is correct, Solar Cycle 24 will have a peak sunspot number of 90, the lowest of any cycle since 1928 when Solar Cycle 16 peaked at 78,”
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2009/29may_noaaprediction.htm
June 17, 2009: “Mystery of the Missing Sunspots, Solved? The sun is in the pits of a century-class solar minimum, and sunspots have been puzzlingly scarce for more than two years.”
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2009/17jun_jetstream.htm
What a joke. I can’t believe that I’m paying for this crap…
All right Anthony!!!
The sun needs a nudge to wake up
As long as you are going to flex your Watts affect muscles could I put in a request for an itsy bitsy solar flare. Nothing big, maybe a baby X1. It has been awhile since the last X class flare.
So is it Catainia…or perhaps Catania?
Why are the current SOHO images almost 20 hours old. Does it take off for the weekend or what?
Leif Svalgaard (04:24:33) :
AndrewWH (03:38:32) :
This solar activity, or lack of it, is happening on their watch
———
But is not unexpected. We predicted a small cycle to come and such a cycle is always slow in starting. We even held out the possibility of a Maunder type minimum: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2003SPD….34.0603S
Personally I don’t think it’ll get that low, unless Livingston & Penn are correct and sunspots will become invisible soon.
You said only a few weeks ago we were not heading for a grand minimum….you have predicted a medium SC24 cycle of 72. Talk about having your cake and eating it too. It may be time to get off the L&P bandwagon as they have nothing except good observations of the start of a grand minimum, that you did NOT predict.
Plea for help. A while back Dr Svalgaard posted some information about an idea that sunspots could be there but we cannot see them due one part of the background energy reaching 15. I know it’s not much, but that’s all I recall. I failed to note it and have searched the archieves but cannot find it. Dr?
@Leif,
where are the current 7,000 km deep lying jet streams currently at. Are they anywhere near the 22nd to push more spots up?
thanks
“May you live in interesting times” might be a curse instead of a proverb.
i believe this streak is happening is because cycle 23 has completly finished so there will be no more sunspecks form that old cycle interupting. now its all cycle 24. Im suprised that since this new cycle is behaving like cycles 10-15 that solar predictiors are using the last 10 cycles to predict how this new one will turn out. it doesnt make since to me.
It is probably coincidental but the number of spotless days for the past two years has occurred with much lower temperatures occurring in the northern latitudes this summer in the states. As I recall, I don’t believe the summer after the eruption of Mt. Pinatubo was as cool. Could the shift in the PDO along with a spotless sun and a rather low solar wind be responsible for this abrupt change?
From U2: “There’s a little blackspot on the sun today… the same little blackspot as yesterday…” Oh! wait… it’s a burnt pixel!
Whjat every happened to that deep solar conveyor that showed the sun picking up activity and was supposed to produce tonnes of sunspots?
Why do you think no sunspots is a good thing? Having another ice age doesn’t appeal to me?
Do you think the greenhouse theory is accurate, and we need the sun to tamp down warming?
“What a joke. I can’t believe that I’m paying for this crap…”
Here’s the Bsubz you just sold me. It’s dead, I want my money back.
Well, it most certainly is dead. It’s not breathing for God’s sake.
Its in rigor! There, see?
I demand you return the money I paid you!! It was likely dead when you sold it to me!
What? You heard it? Just now?
But that’s ridiculous, it’s DEAD!
Dead, Dead, DEAD!!!
Aiiyyeee!!!
dearieme (06:03:03) :
Gene, you may farly blame the great Lord Kelvin for his errors, but not for being English.
It’s his title. What can I do?
If the sun continues its less-active state and the period begins to look like a minimum of sorts, would it be incorrect to imply the climate will behave exactly as it did during previous minimums? Don’t other things — Milankovitch kinds of things — come into play, such as obliquity, eccentricity, and precession? Has sufficient time passed that the difference in these relative conditions, though small, will be meaningful in comparing the Maunder Minimum to what might be expected now? Just wonderin’.
If they declare CO2 a pollutant, I wonder what new regulations there will be on sports…football, soccer, basketball, and especially running…these all cause a huge increase in respiration.
On a happy note for our children, schools will have to ban Phys Ed to reduce these harmful emissions.
@Tom
It should be here as that is discussing the reduction in contrast http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/08/15/livingston-and-penn-in-eos-are-sunspots-different-during-this-solar-minimum/
David L. Hagen (07:17:31) :
Anthony
On “The Watts Effect”, what is the projected probability distribution of sunspots with time after posting? How many measurements will be needed to achieve statistically significant evidence thereof?
Dear David,
The data is quite robust, so you needn’t worry.
The current solar minimum is real and the tiny specs detected represent nothing more but irrelevant statistics.
We now have the opportunity to observe the current phase of our sun with modern observation technology and the current knowledge, not available to humanity during the previous comparable solar minimum 200 to 400 years ago.
All direct observations from that time, reports of meteorological events and records
from Europe and the USA and modern studies and climate reconstructions confirm a clear relation between deep solar minimum conditions and extreme cold weather events, droughts, extreme rain and hail storms, a decline of the treeline, an advance of glaciers, frequent crop failures, famine and disease.
But also with increased seismic and volcanic activity, the wild card in our climate system.
Therefore it is more than worrying that our current scientific and political establishment continues to push for the political hoax of Anthropogenic Global Warming.
This despite the fact that the first signs of a cooling climate, a World Wide reduction in crop yields and record breaking cold weather events during the NH summer, which followed an extreme winter that covered the entire Northern part of the US Continent in snow from the East Coast to the West Coast and froze all the Big Lakes.
The time has come for the “Warmists” to wake up to the reality of the current state of our sun and drop all the political plans aimed at a reduction of CO2 emissions.
Instead we should prepare for a long period of extreme weather events that have the potential to endanger the world’s agricultural output, which inevitably will result in mass starvation caused by famine and disease.
It simply does not make any sense for any political establishment to make an effort to gain control over that what can not be controlled by humans.
This is true for our climate as well as for angry masses marching towards the centers of Government, because they are starving from hunger or simply raving mad because they no longer take the political abuse and deceit.
That’s what history teaches us.
Unfortunately our history also tells us that greed, lust for power, plain stupidity and deceitful and evil minds have a tendency to repeat the mistakes made in the past as if they never happened.
I must often think about that when people make a big deal out of a tiny sunspot and tell us “It’s not the sun stupid” or when I hear the current President of the USA repeat the deceitful arguments about the coming Climate Armageddon which were presented by Al Gore, who will become the World’s first Carbon Billionaire if the Cap & Trade bill is accepted by the US Senate.
All this despite the fact that all those arguments have been debunked by peer reviewed scientific research.
People like Obama and Gore represent a bigger danger to humanity than a Maunder Minimum because they deceive the people with the promise of “Hope and Change”, but suck your blood to achieve their objectives.
One time in history the promise of “Change” resulted in World War II and the first industrialized genocide.
When that War ended, the entire population of Germany denied the horrible facts.
“Wir haben es nicht gewüsst!” We did not know what was happening!”.
Well, thanks a.o of this blog and the people involved, we know exactly what is happening and hopefully we find the courage to act and stop the current Administration in it’s pursuit for Madness.
Madness, because they intend to cut and tax our energy in times we need more.
Madness, because they intend to derail our economy so they gain more.
madness because they aim for unlimited power and Global Governance at the costs of our legal rights, our existence and our personal freedom.
Madness, because they make us believe they are able to control our climate.
We can confront them based on the same arguments we engaged in WW II and the Cold War and we will.
Why?
Because History tells us we will.
re: climate and Sun
I wonder what the outcome would be if solar/climate enthusiasts were to go head to head with that MET computer. As a control, I would use some old cranky seaman from Alaska who has spent his entire life in search of Pacific Salmon.
Pictorial essay on the Evolution of SC23-24 by Color-compositing EIT images from SOHO:
http://www.robertb.darkhorizons.org/DeepSolarMin8.htm
Please be patient, there are 59 images in the sequence roughly 2 weeks apart
2007/03/12 to 2009/08/25
Murphy’s Law aplies to everything, including Murphy’s Law. The sun will do whatever it will, we can but watch. And some will say “See? Told ya.”
No matter what happens, it will prove the need for more research grants, and large tax increases. Perhaps a few more supercomputers as well.
I’m hoping for a CME that wipes out the MSM satellite network.
Geoff Sharp (07:39:50) :
You said only a few weeks ago we were not heading for a grand minimum….you have predicted a medium SC24 cycle of 72. Talk about having your cake and eating it too. It may be time to get off the L&P bandwagon as they have nothing except good observations of the start of a grand minimum, that you did NOT predict.”
So true! I completely agree, as even last year Dr S. was adamant that there was not going to be a grand minimum because the solar flux was rising at the time.
Landscheidt’s prediction was mocked as numerology and astrology but it is now becoming clear that Landscheidt was right.
Tom in Florida (07:45:34) :
Plea for help. A while back Dr Svalgaard posted some information about an idea that sunspots could be there but we cannot see them due one part of the background energy reaching 15. I know it’s not much, but that’s all I recall. I failed to note it and have searched the archieves but cannot find it. Dr?
it is the Livingston and Penn paper.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/06/02/livingston-and-penn-paper-sunspots-may-vanish-by-2015/
Anthony:
Minor issue: there’s something funny in your transcription of the data from spaceweather.com – they show it as 80% spotless for the year, not 79%.
REPLY: Edited, thanks. I may have grabbed it in mid edit there late last night. – A
If this post causes the sun to go as dark as sack cloth I’m going to be somewhat put out.
Leif Svalgaard (05:04:52)
Thanks. But you only answered the easy question. 🙂
Ray : (08:08:00) : Wasn’t that the Police ? I haven’t heard the song in a long time , but in playing it in my head I hear Sting , not Bono .
Anthony —
I don’t remember the source of this little ditty but, if the shoe fits …
“You remind me of a man.
What man?
The man with the power.
What power?
The power of who-doo.
Who do?
You do.
Do what?
Remind me of a man.
…”
“It’s simple. When the Sun has more spots, it is more active and a little warmer.”
That’s wrong. Sunspots block radiation, thats why they appear darker, and reduce the amount of radiation reaching the earth. It’s a pretty small variations though. It’s less than ~1WM^2 from a total of ~1400wm^2 reaching the Earth. About a 0.1% change in output from peak to trough in a solar cycle.
Ron de Haan (08:50:49) :
Word.
Ron de Haan (08:50:49)
“Madness, because they intend to cut and tax our energy in times we need more.
Madness, because they intend to derail our economy so they gain more.
madness because they aim for unlimited power and Global Governance at the costs of our legal rights, our existence and our personal freedom.
Madness, because they make us believe they are able to control our climate.”
It’s difficult for many to believe that it may not be “unintended consequences” when political policies go wrong. They (the policies and consequences) may be going exactly right for those who enacted them.
I have long understood that there are more of us (free people) than there are of them (those who wish to control us) and I also understand that ‘they’ know it too. Their only way to gain the power they lust after is to have a smaller and more manageable population.
If those in power were able to take all of our food and throw it into the folly of turning it into fuel, but not enough fuel to keep the masses from freezing to death in a particularly harsh winter then that alone would make a smaller and more manageable population. Cold and starving. “Do as we say and we’ll feed you and let you turn on your furnace today.”
It is a difficult thing to recognize another human being as being evil but sometimes you have to consider that it is the only option left once insanity, stupidity, incompetence and youthful inexperience are all ruled out.
Tucker (05:37:16) :
Leif, if I recall some of your writings, you are now tending to lean the way of L&P and their work. Does that mean you view a MM type event as a still improbable, but growing possibility??
See below
Syl (07:01:43) :
Aug 2008 67.96 Aug 2009 69.01 + 1.05 (1 year)
July 2009 70.43 Aug 2009 69.01 – 1.42 (1 month)
So? You are missing the point: In July 2009 there were sunspots. In the two augusts there were none, so the +1.05 change is the ‘real’ change of the background.
Geoff Sharp (07:39:50) :
You said only a few weeks ago we were not heading for a grand minimum….you have predicted a medium SC24 cycle of 72.
Some people [for their own reasons] pretend to conflate things.
Solar activity [and what flows from that, e.g. TSI] is a magnetic phenomenon, so what matters is the magnetic field. The solar magnetic field consists of millions of thin [perhaps 50 km across] ‘strands’ of such fields. All strands have about the same field strength within a factor of two or so. A typical value is 1500 Gauss.
When many such strands get together [the exact mechanism is poorly known] a sunspot is formed. After its formation, the spot frays apart again and the strands return to the surroundings. When together in a spot, the fields are compacted somewhat and the combined field strength can be more than two times higher [3500 Gauss] in rare cases. A strong magnetic field tends to inhibit the solar convection that brings heat up from the interior so the temperature in a spot is lower than just outside the spot. Therefore the spot looks darker. If the field strength is somewhat lower, the temperature will be higher as the inhibition will be weaker. A warmer spot is harder to see as its contrast with the surroundings is smaller. At a certain field strength [1500 Gauss] the temperature difference with the surroundings is so small that the contrast is not enough to make the spot visible, but is, of course, still there. This is the L&P effect.
During Grand Minima [Maunder and Spoerer before that – and even at lesser ones like the Dalton or the current one] the solar magnetic field is still present. We know that because the modulation of cosmic rays is still present even at such times. So, solar activity [and TSI] has not gone away. This has been a puzzle that may be resolved [but this is speculation] by the L&P effect, i.e. the activity is there [modulating cosmic rays], but the compaction mechanism may operate less effectively and the spots are less visible, and we are fooled into believing that solar activity has died away.
The prediction of the sunspot cycle uses the polar magnetic field and thus predicts the magnetic regions of the next cycle. Typically there is a conversion factor of about 12 between number of regions and sunspot number SSN, so that SSN of 72 corresponds to 72/12 = 6 regions. This does not depend on the visibility of the spots. So we could, in principle have no spots at all [if L&P are correct], but still have 6 regions and the solar magnetic field would not be much different. A different measure of solar activity is the F10.7 radio flux. The flux depends on the magnetic field [but not on visibility of the spots], so if L&P are correct, we could have SSN = 0, but the F10.7 flux would still be about 130 [as is predicted for SC24].
So a Grand Minimum in terms of real solar activity is not such a big deal, even if it looks bad in terms of sunspots. Our prediction of a F10.7 flux of 130 would mean an equivalent SSN of 72 at times when the L&P effect would not operate strongly.
I’m sure that there will be people that will try to make much of this. What should should remember is that it is the magnetic field that is the true measure of solar activity.
Sekerob (07:48:09) :
where are the current 7,000 km deep lying jet streams currently at. Are they anywhere near the 22nd to push more spots up?
Not enough time has elapsed to determine any real change. The ’22 degrees’ is not a magic number. Just because that was a marker at the last minimum does not mean that it is the same this time around. We’ll have so wait some decades to see how it plays out.
Couldn’t agree more. Even in agriculturally prosperous times, growing fuel is a losing proposition as it is currently way too inefficient. Growing fuel does more harm than good. Try telling that to the Greenies though…
Probably should be for ” who-do” read “hoo-do”
Still not right! Engage brain before typing/posting.
For the FIRST “who-do” read “hoo-do”
Sorry Moderator
@ Ron de Haan (08:50:49) :
You are sooooo right !!!
It is time for “The People” to take charge again! … we need to get back to “By the People, For the People”, and as quickly as possible.
There might be a problem updating the Mt. Wilson SOHO image.
There are wildfires on both sides of the SOHO.
Take a look at the other SOHO images, the ones looking down.
http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~obs/towercam.htm
So as a non-scientist I enjoy reading your posts especially Leif, Rbateman, Anna V, M Alex to name a few. But no one is addressing the issue of past and present. You have a definition of a sunspot, but it has to include parameters of what was able to be witnessed in the past. If you aren’t counting apples to apples then you must establish a time frame when they are apples to apples, sort of a BC & AD type of count.
I don’t care how smart some of you people are but as a lay person there is now way you can convince me that some of the 6-12 Hour specs where counted in the past, absolutely no way.
And if the lack of sunspots is nothing but interesting why on earth are you bothering unless they have a direct relationship to something measurable other than pure speculation.
Am I wrong?
Sorry let me try that again 🙂
“It’s simple. When the Sun has more spots, it is more active and a little warmer.”
That’s not quite right. During this period on average more radiation from the sun reaches the Earth but when large sunspots are present the radiation is actually slightly less. Sunspots block radiation, thats why they appear darker, and reduce the amount of radiation reaching the earth. It’s a pretty small variations though ….
Wow. Still a bit of snow left up there at Wilson. I visited there in spring 2007 and it was all gone already….
Stop wasting time on sunspots. Use your magic for finding Osama bin Laden or my missing luggage at Regan International.
Hi Leif,
Thanks for the nice graph with 10. 7, sunspots, TSI and MF.
Since F10.7 seems the most interesting right now:
I am curious to know if the trend lines are recalculated every time a point is added. Also, is the trend calculated only from the points on the screen, or are points to the left used as well. At this particular time, near a minimum, I wonder if the rapid fall before minimum leads to a fitted curve like you show to have an upward bias to the right.
I asked a few months ago if that last big sunspot might not be a fake out, and you said unlikely. Suppose F10.7 peaks at 90 or 100, would that mean something special or bad?
Can’t wait till global data for August is released. Should put the final nail (well ok, the final nail has already been hammered a long while back) into the solar induced warming hypothesis (fair to call it a hypothesis? it wasn’t even an educated guess).
No doubt they’ll be pointing their fingers to El Nino and short-circuiting logic and facts with their mantra of “UHI!”
The Engineer (05:09:31) : Saturday 29th August 2009…Hail storm here in Copenhagen. Not often you see that in august.
Is that a precursor Gore/ Chu effect?
True. Growing food to provide for draught animals in Britain took over a third of production until the steam hauled raiway. But at the advent of the motor car it still took up a quarter of agriultural production: hence the famous forecast that if London kept growing the production of horse dung was going to be almost impossible to clear.
And the gentleman didn’t even have a computer model, he did it with pencil and paper.
Add to that fact that until coal burning for heat took over from wood the amount of woodland needed to supply the fuel occupied about one fifth of the area of tilled land. This figure increased dramatically as the Little Ice Age set in and despite the reduced population, caused by the Black Death, forced Parliament to limit woodutting and allow the burning of coal, then called sea coal since it came down in colliers from the North East.
It is also why the great rebuilding began because if you burn a lot of fuel you need a chimney of brick or stone rather than hole in the roof, and by putting a second storey on your building the chimney heats the upper storey for free as it were. In the classic English timber framed hovel this was done simply by building the upper storey on the original frame so it actually extends out slightly over the ground floor, a technique called jetting, and many fine examples can still be seen today.
It is also also why London became the city of smokes, and is still called the Big Smoke, today. And Edinburgh of course became Auld Reekie.
Kindest Regards
Dave The Engineer (04:48:40) :
Jay Currie (22:25:52) :
Mike McMillan (23:58:08) :
Roger Carr (04:16:25) :
Patrick Davis (04:40:16) :
Dave The Engineer (04:48:40) :
The Engineer (05:09:31) :
40 Shades of Green (06:00:12)
SSSailor (06:16:04) :
Anthropogenic Solar Chaos (07:11:35) :
Ron de Haan (08:50:49) :
Deborah (10:40:03) :
Squidly (10:57:46) :
And anyone else who brought up Cap N Trade / politics :
Swedish proverb: “If you kick mother natures dog, prepare to be frost bitten”.
Politicians take note.
There’s going to be a Obamacare protest in Washington on September 12. Cap N Trade is on the agenda too.
Apparently much of America is concerned about the direction of the country : 100,000+ are projected to be there. We’ll have to wait and see if that size crowd pans out.
fred (22:48:23) : So what if the sun has no spots?
I have put this video up maybe 6 times in the past 5 to 6 months when a post about the sun came up. I thought that everyone had a chance to see it. But maybe some didn’t.
It’s a documentary about the sun and it’s potential effect on climate/ weather on earth. It also talks about the effect of the Milky Way’s spiral arm’s on earth’s climate/ weather.
YouTube video in 5 parts :
Just The Facts (07:29:14) :
Good post! The lesson: one should always wait until an event has happened before predicting it.
The Engineer (05:09:31) : “Saturday 29 th August 2009 14.08 CET. Just thought I let you know – Hail storm here in Copenhagen. Not often you see that in august.”
It’s worse than they thought!
Eric (11:54:30),
Was that meant to be satire?
Slightly off topic but maybe tied up with lack of sunspots.
“Ken Ring, a long-term forecaster with unorthodox methods but a surprisingly accurate track record, has predicted next year’s weather (New Zealand) to be “disappointing”, with wet and cooler summer months, followed by a winter that lasts a month longer than this year, with record-breaking cold snaps.”
“Ring’s methods of using the moon and tides to forecast well beyond the timelines of MetService or NIWA have raised eyebrows in the scientific community for years, but the Kiwi weather watcher has been largely on the mark in New Zealand and overseas.”
“In 2008, he predicted the Shotover River in Queenstown would freeze over in July and that we would experience colder than average winter months – both predictions rang true.
Even the Irish are applauding him for accurately predicting the country’s mini-heatwave in June and the wettest July on record, completely contradicting the UK Met Office which said it would be a “barbecue summer”.
His weather predictions are laid out in the latest Ken Ring’s Predict Weather Almanac 2010, to be released this Friday.”
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10593960
“It is also also why London became the city of smokes, and is still called the Big Smoke, today. And Edinburgh of course became Auld Reekie.”
Your post reminds me of the famous glass paintings done for Disney’s rednition of Mary Poppins (http://www.alexross.com/practically%20perfect.html). Alex Ross did the cityscapes on glass in order to add realism.
John (11:25:28) — Yes, that’s why I did not say that spots are hotter nor cooler. The spots are an indicator of the increased heat.
Don’t tempt Mother Nature, Anthony! 😉
Some excerpts from Ken Ring’s “METEOROLOGY’S WRONG TURNING”
“…Meteorologists are trained only to study the properties of the atmosphere. In doing so they believe they can detect changes which will culminate in weather events..
If you studied the properties of seawater could you predict tides? A basic point of logic is at stake, so simple a point it is missed. The atmosphere cannot create weather – weather is the atmosphere just as tides are not produced by the sea – the tides are the sea. One simply means the other….
Putting seawater under a microscope cannot detect coming tidal action, and there is nothing about the properties of air that can possibly generate a weather event,…
..over recent decades how it has been politically advantageous for weather scientists to build a case for climate-change by describing how weather does come from air. They can then claim that something put into air, like CO2, can upset air-composition balance which would thereby change weather patterns now, as in more severe cyclones, and later, as in climate, hence ‘climate change’…”
Sorry here’s the link
https://www.predictweather.co.nz/assets/articles/article_home.php?id=73
edcon (08:03:59) :
‘It is probably coincidental but the number of spotless days for the past two years has occurred with much lower temperatures occurring in the northern latitudes this summer in the states. As I recall, I don’t believe the summer after the eruption of Mt. Pinatubo was as cool. Could the shift in the PDO along with a spotless sun and a rather low solar wind be responsible for this abrupt change?’
edcon,
Joseph D’Aleo from icecap.us has written several articles and he refers to the cold US summer as a “volcanic summer”, as they occurred frequently during the LIA.
Besides Redoubt we had three other “medium sized” volcano’s erupting during this summer (Kamchatka) and last year we had the eruption of Shiveluch, releasing a considerable amount of SO2.
You find the relevant links here:
http://icecap.us/index.php/go/joes-blog/big_apples_cold_summer/
http://icecap.us/index.php/go/joes-blog/sarychev_peak_volcano_eruption_earlier_this_month_affecting_sunsets/
http://icecap.us/index.php/go/joes-blog/how_volcanism_affects_climate/
Scientist are investigating the possibility of a link between a deep solar minimum and increased seismic and volcanic activity.
One possible explanation could be that due to reduced solar wind flow pressure (solar wind causes drag on satellites, forcing them into a lower orbit more quickly) Reduced solar wind pressures could slightly increase the speed of the earth’s rotation resulting in higher stress at the eart’s surface. Increased surface stress could promote the occurrence and frequency of seismic events and volcanic eruptions.
During the LIA the Earth experienced an average of five VEI 5 volcanic eruptions per Century.
http://blog.chess.com/Rickj/volcanoesearthquakesmagnetic-fields-and-climatric-impacts
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Ice_Age#Volcanic_activity
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/06/09/solar-wind-flow-pressure-another-indication-of-solar-downtrend/
SC24 is in a rut. It’s going to stay in that rut until the day comes when something happens to get it out of that deep rut.
That day is NOT yet today, and the link below is the SOHO EIT that says it ain’t so.
http://www.robertb.darkhorizons.org/DeepSolarMin9.htm
In the meantime, the sunspot records of the past are piling up like DNF’s on a bad day at the NASCAR track.
Gene Nemetz (12:23:14) : “100,000+ are projected to be there.”
I recently read that they expect 10,000+ in Ft. Worth on 9/12.
Thanks for the links Anna V and Oldjim. Thanks to Dr Svalgaard for reposting the info on the 1500 gauss level.
If the Watts effect works, that´s OK, but who can tell us what cycle that Watt´s spot will be, 23rd, 24th or 25th. cycle?.
Hope the consequences will freez that cap & trade you are so scare of.
The reason for all the worldwide globalwarming/climate change propaganda is the following:
Carbon Credits offer to SA natives for 01 hectare of amazon forest/year: 1.30 Euros
Price carbon share per ton of CO2:15.50 Euros
Tons of CO2 capture per hectare:5500
Carbon share per hectare, to be paid by the 1st. world polluter/buyer:5500 x 15.50=85250 Euros.
Gross Profit=85250-1.3=85248.7 Euros. per forest hectare/year
It will be VERY, but very difficult, to stop that propaganda.
Lee (11:40:09) :
I am curious to know if the trend lines are recalculated every time a point is added.
There are two lines – the dashed lines is recalculated every time a point is added [every day – and no data is omitted]. The full line is calculated on fitting to only the lowest point each month as it is meant to show the ‘bottom’ activity. In any case, the lines have no real significance. They are only indicative [and poor ones, at that].
Suppose F10.7 peaks at 90 or 100, would that mean something special or bad?
Not quite sure what you mean,. F10.7 can go as high as 350.
Gene Nemetz (12:23:14) :
I hope “we the people” show up in the hundreds of thousands. The more the better.
Obama is planning marches as well (at least 500) in support of the Bills he can’t get through the Senate by vote.
It doesn’t appear to matter what happens to sun-spots as global temperatures are still breaking records – as June and July ocean surface temperatures, as measured by satellites, have shown.
http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2009/20090717_juneglobalstats.html
Separately, the global ocean surface temperature for June 2009 was the warmest on record, 1.06 degrees F (0.59 degree C) above the 20th century average of 61.5 degrees F (16.4 degrees C).
http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2009/20090814_julyglobalstats.html
The global ocean surface temperature for July 2009 was the warmest on record, 1.06 degrees F (0.59 degree C) above the 20th century average of 61.5 degrees F (16.4 degrees C). This broke the previous July record set in 1998. The July ocean surface temperature departure of 1.06 degrees F from the long-term average equals last month’s value, which was also a record.
The weather business is good business to be in nowadays
“Despite the recent dodgy prediction of a barbecue summer, the Met Office is paying bonuses to staff for the accuracy of their forecasts. More than 1,700 staff are getting a “forecast accuracy” bonus of about £650 each — after a series of bungled predictions..”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article6788803.ece
Ian (09:36:13) :
Anthony:
Minor issue: there’s something funny in your transcription of the data from spaceweather.com – they show it as 80% spotless for the year, not 79%.
REPLY: Edited, thanks. I may have grabbed it in mid edit there late last night. – A
Funny, two weeks ago I was complaining here that Space Weather was rounding their percents up as soon as they exceeded a full percent and I opined that rounding at .5 would be more acceptable. This week, that’s just what they did. Do you suppose someone is paying attention…..?
Patrick (08:46:27) :
Re David L. Hagen (07:17:31) :
“On “The Watts Effect”, what is the projected probability distribution of sunspots with time after posting? How many measurements will be needed to achieve statistically significant evidence thereof?”
“Dear David,
The data is quite robust, so you needn’t worry.”
That must settle it. We have an acknowledged authority on the subject!
We also need only 26 more spotless days to exceed Spaceweather’s typical solar minimum by a full 50%. That could happen around Sept 23…. uhhh, Dr. Svalgaard, does this stretch mean that we will be moving the actual minimum forward again? This spotless period is on track to be the longest of this minimum.
Nogw (13:51:10) :
“If the Watts effect works, that´s OK, but who can tell us what cycle that Watt´s spot will be, 23rd, 24th or 25th. cycle?.
Hope the consequences will freez that cap & trade you are so scare of.
The reason for all the worldwide globalwarming/climate change propaganda is the following:
Carbon Credits offer to SA natives for 01 hectare of amazon forest/year: 1.30 Euros
Price carbon share per ton of CO2:15.50 Euros
Tons of CO2 capture per hectare:5500
Carbon share per hectare, to be paid by the 1st. world polluter/buyer:5500 x 15.50=85250 Euros.
Gross Profit=85250-1.3=85248.7 Euros. per forest hectare/year
It will be VERY, but very difficult, to stop that propaganda”.
Nogw,
It looks like a waterproof plan but it won’t work. Why?
You need a strong enough economy to bear those costs.
This scheme will destroy our economies and put millions out of a job.
It’s “Madness”.
http://www.reuters.com/article/GCA-GreenBusiness/idUSTRE57R4JJ20090828?sp=true
Leif Svalgaard (01:33:06) : Although the Sun is blank, there has been a subtle shift. New SC24 magnetic flux has arrived, and the F10.7 flux has gone up. For the first 28 days of August 2008, the flux was 67.96, for the first 28 days of August 2009, the flux is now 69.01. For July the numbers were: 2008 67.78, 2009 70.43.
As I understand Henrik Svensmark, Magnetic ‘Activity’ (Flux?), correlates extremely well with temperature. When the activity goes up temperature goes up and when it goes down the temperature goes down. The mechanism he has offered (cosmic rays) are the explanation of the connection.
Where can I get the magnetic flux data from?
Also regarding TSI – this does not seem to vary very much, but there is a discrepancy between my graphs and those of SORCE’s though I have got the data from them. Mine is a perfect sinusoidal curve whereas theirs is quite different
Here is where I got their data from:
http://lasp.colorado.edu/sorce/tsi_data/daily/sorce_tsi_L3_c24h_m29_v09_20030225_20090818.txt
and this is their graph
http://lasp.colorado.edu/sorce/total_solar_irradiance_plots/images/tim_level3_tsi_24hour_3month_640x480.png
How do they get that graph?
rephelan (14:58:25) :
does this stretch mean that we will be moving the actual minimum forward again?
There is no such thing as ‘the actual minimum’.
dennis ward (14:37:06) :
Dennis, you need to keep up:
Spencer: NOAA’s official sea surface temperature product ERSST has spurious warming error, July 2009 SST likely not a record after all.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/08/27/spencer-noaa%e2%80%99s-official-sea-surface-temperature-product-ersst-has-spurous-warming/#more-10343
Moderator , Could you please provide a link to Roy Spencer ‘s article for Dennis Ward ? No need to post this . Thanks in advance ,
P Walker
Some points:
(a) While I was once a True Believer in the Watts Effect, I now believe that Anthony has LOST HIS MOJO, ala Austin Powers, and the Watts Effect is kaput.
(b) L&P are correct, and we are going to get something akin to a Grand Minimum
(c) Leif is INCORRECT that a Mimimum is not such a big deal.
The reason that a Minimum would be a big deal right about now is that some high fraction of the population of Developed Countries have been convinced by their Malthusian and Collectivist leadership (doubt it? read Hayek) that Global Warming has occurred, that anthropogenic sources of CO2 caused it, and we are all going to a secular hell unless we spend our children’s inheritance (plus some money borrewed form the Chinese) to “fix” it.
If we get a sustained drop in global temps while CO2 is flat or still rising, maybe folks will see that GW and CO2 are NOT coupled.
THAT is why it’s a big deal.
Hi Leif,
What I mean by the question about the F10.7 peak is this: It apparently can’t go much lower than it is now, but would it mean anything really unusual was going on if it didn’t go above say 100 for the next 10 years. You seem be saying that pretty much all is well even if no sunspots occur because other solar activity will continue on schedule. My question is how low would you expect the peak F10.7 to be in a grand minimum or a Dalton minimum, or do you expect it continue to cycle as it always does?
Do you feel sort of like a weatherman with a real tough call of rain or shine?
I guess I am dubious as to whether we can actually imply F10.7 activity with 50 to 100 year granularity out of billions of years of rocks or tens of thousands of years of ice cores or 40 or 50 years of actual measurement. Since it has been cyclical for a while, then most cycles are pretty easy to predict, we just don’t have a method to predict when the cycles will change or fail – though we have some evidence that it has happened before.
Many commenters have mentioned “The Watts Effect”…
[The “Joules/second Effect”… Heh!] 🙂
I’m not completely sure but, if this minimum prolongs for three or more years ahead, the density of the photon stream from the oceans to the outer space would reinforce beyond the density that it has presented during the last 30 years and the surface would get colder each day, so the possibility of another icy period would increase concomitantly with the absence of “The Watts Effect”.
I would like to know how many years the oceans would be releasing the extent of energy derived from the weakening of the solar photon stream. The average of TSI in 2009, until July 30th, is 1360.86 W/m^2
Before someone here says it is pseudoscience because that someone doesn’t understand it, I recommend him to read Einstein’s works on these issues.
Dennis Ward,
and one or 2 months is a TREND????
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Eric (11:54:30) :
That must be satire as someone above said.
I have lived in the UK longer than I care to remember & have many friends much older, (between 80 & 100). We all seem to think that the last 30 years or so are pretty much like the start of the last century! The last 10 being similar to the late 30s early 40s!
We’re looking forward to another 1947! Which UK are you living in?
(I’m guessing UK from previous posts)
DaveE.
kuhnkat (16:18:16) :
Dennis Ward,
and one or 2 months is a TREND????
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Not only that but in the days before the Malthusian molecules scientific dogma this little blip might have been of interest to an intelligent person interested in thermodynamics.
Now It’s twisted into some damned propaganda sound byte.
The Sun does not like James Hansen or Al Gore. The last time those two held rallies to preach their message, it refused to shine on them, and instead Old Man Winter pelted them severely.
At the same time frame, when Anthony spoke of the Sun, it shone for him, and it did so more than once.
A-bee, a-bbeeee, a-beeet, that’s all follks.
F. Ross (12:38:28) :
“The lesson: one should always wait until an event has happened before predicting it.”
The lessons I was going for were more like:
When making predictions in areas of immense uncertainty, take care to qualify and caveat your predictions with counter arguments, alternative points of view and additional potential outcomes.
We don’t understand how the sun works, we don’t understand how the clouds work, our understanding of Earth’s climate system is rudimentary,
Have some humility and don’t pretend that you understand what you do not.
Don’t lead press releases with sensational highly speculative predictions.
Do not let the politics and biases associated with the Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming narrative hijack your objectivity and malign your reputation.
At present, any predictions about the sun, clouds and future trajectory of Earth’s climate are, at best, educated guesses and should be presented and treated as such.
d (07:55:03) :
i believe this streak is happening is because cycle 23 has completly finished so there will be no more sunspecks form that old cycle interupting. now its all cycle 24.
Check the facts as we know them. The sunspecks that will likely lead to a similar situation as last august are found on Leif’s graph (bottom right).
http://www.leif.org/research/TSI-SORCE-2008-now.png
Observe the blue circles. They are cycle 23. So you might as well say that for the last 50 days, the sunspots have been completely dominated by cycle 23 activity. It would perhaps be a somewhat biased statement, but to say that “cycle 23 has completly finished” is at least premature.
Mr. Alex (09:19:26) :
Landscheidt’s prediction was mocked as numerology and astrology but it is now becoming clear that Landscheidt was right.
Show us some proof, please.
No more discussion of Landscheidt on this thread please, it always devolves into a war of words and I’m sorry but I’m just not interested in moderating it. Any further mention of Landscheidt goes straight to the bit bucket. – Anthony
Carsten Arnholm, Norway (17:29:14) :
The flux is pretty much in the same place, as it was last August, as well.
Leif,
I am curious about the decrease in polar magnetic fields that has plagued the sun lately. As I understand what your saying on magnetics being the primary driver of heat output through Solar Wind. This also has a dampening effect on cosmic ray penetration of the earths atmosphere and cloud formation.
With both Solar wind being low, 10.7 being low, and cloud cover increasing this seems to be a set up for major cooling of the earth..
Everything I am seeing in sub bands of the suns radio output indicates a calm and decreasing output. In fact some of the lower bands are below noise thresholds and can not be assessed.
What is your assessment on the length of this minimum and potential effects world wide? Everything NOAA has put out has been revised multiple times. it appears they do not want to go lower in there assessments, yet we are going to be lucky to top 55 this year.
OT – I put out hummingbird feeders every year. The hummingbirds were very very late getting in this spring, and we did indeed have a very slow start to spring and summer. Now, the hummingbirds are emptying out their feeding bottles as if there is no tomorrow, which usually means they are getting ready to head south. This is at least a month early for them to do that, which means an early fall. My location is in the mountains of northern New Mexico, at an altitude of 7300 feet.
We have also had a wet summer, which is rather odd for this area.
The “typical” number of 485 spotless days that is published at Spaceweather is based on the previous 10. Although it is supposed to be typical, there is not one of the last six cycles that reached 485, not one of the preceding four the were as low as 485. You get a different value if you use 12 or 8, and since I don’t know of any reason why the solar system prefers base 10 arithmetic, it seems pretty arbitrary to assign any particular importance to the 485 number.
Leif re your 10:43:32 comment. If I can interpret your charts well enough, I noticed in your 2007 reconstruction of TSI (where you compare yours with that of Wang2005 and Lean2000) that the TSI, W/m^2, remains low for almost 50 years during the Maunder Minimum, whereas during the Dalton minimum the TSI remains low for a much shorter time, although the highs for about 50 years remain below 1366.
I have two questions: 1) was the magnetic field strength also low for almost 50 years in the 17th c and do we have proxies that can corroborate that fact? and 2) since there seems to be many volcanoes spouting off then, could they have much influence on readings of sunspots/magnetic field strength? Regarding the second, could volcanic activity have screened out some of the sunspot count, TSI measurement? (Salzer and Hughes (2005) note 1641-47, 1672-81, 1702-05 as significant periods of decreased tree growth and increased volcanic evidence. Few other centuries have so many dates.)
Vinny (11:23:31) :
So as a non-scientist I enjoy reading your posts especially Leif, Rbateman, Anna V, M Alex to name a few. But no one is addressing the issue of past and present. You have a definition of a sunspot, but it has to include parameters of what was able to be witnessed in the past. If you aren’t counting apples to apples then you must establish a time frame when they are apples to apples, sort of a BC & AD type of count.
I don’t care how smart some of you people are but as a lay person there is now way you can convince me that some of the 6-12 Hour specs where counted in the past, absolutely no way.
And if the lack of sunspots is nothing but interesting why on earth are you bothering unless they have a direct relationship to something measurable other than pure speculation.
Am I wrong?
There is a new standard to measure sunspots that rbateman and myself are working on. Its called the Layman’s Sunspot Count and aims to set a standard measure of counting and replicate how sunspots were counted in Wolf’s day so we can compare grand minima more correctly.
Check this link for monthly updates, graphs and article:
http://www.landscheidt.info/?q=node/51
TO: dennis ward
The lack of sunspots now does not equate to falling temperatures now. There is a lag of a number of years.
The commentators here are simply stating the obvious: as global temperatures start to fall sometime in the future, the hypothesis that human-emitted CO2 is an almighty driver of climate will begin to look sillier and sillier.
Leif Svalgaard (15:47:48) :
rephelan (14:58:25) :
does this stretch mean that we will be moving the actual minimum forward again?
There is no such thing as ‘the actual minimum’.
Dr. Leif:
My apologies. I’m a sociologist, not a “real scientist” (I’ll save THAT rant for another day)… but my point was that the cycles are constantly represented as waves with troughs and peaks, and poor Dr. Hathaway had to keep moving his trough to the right until he gave up entirely about six months ago. I understand that talk about a cycle “winding down” or “ramping up” is inaccurate, but when YOU produce a graph sometime in 2011 of the transition from cycle 23 to cycle 24, will the bottom of that wave be in late 2008 or late 2009? I think you’ve been on record here as stating that Cycle 24 is now well underway (correct me if I’m wrong!) and I was wondering if that is still your position.
And please, I don’t mean to be argumentative or obtuse… a WUWT without your contributions would almost be unbearable, and the reactions I get from some “hard science” colleagues to “… well, I mentioned to Dr. Svalgaard… and his response was…” … refer to the American Express commercial.
Eric (11:54:30) :
Can’t wait till global data for August is released. Should put the final nail (well ok, the final nail has already been hammered a long while back) into the solar induced warming hypothesis.
This brings up an intriguing topic. Dare I resort to a primitive discussion of differential equations?
There has been confusing and contradictory data about the relationship between sunspots and temperature but, when you sit back and think about it, it’s all plausible. First some basics assumptions:
1) If the sunspot count (solar flux, really) matters, that’s just one of many factors. So don’t expect a high R-squared, even if you completely nail it down. There will be lots of “noise” from other factors.
2) If the sunspot count matters, it doesn’t drive T, it drives dT/dt (the first derivative of temperature with respect to time).
These two things help make sense out of a lot of things. It takes a long time for the impact of a weak solar cycle to accumulate to the point where it overwhelms everything else. The Maunder Minimum did that in spades, but it took a while. The Dalton Minimum wasn’t long enough to produce a big chill. So, it’s WAY too early to expect significant global temp effects from the current minimum.
Here’s a WAG on what’s going on. Shouldn’t the influence of sunspots be highly non-linear? Suppose the deflection of cosmic rays is proportional to 1/S where S is the average sunspot count (this is a huge simplification but stay with me here). Furthermore, the deflection is limited to 100% so we need a logarithm in the function. Put this all together and the cosmic rays getting in might look low for any sunspot count greater than, say, 10 but get significantly greater only for the low numbers.
So, the average sunspot count over the whole cycle wouldn’t be what matters, it’d be the amount of time it’s low. This could explain why some say it’s the LENGTH of the cycle, not the overall average that matters.
Ray-
U2(?) or The Police?
Janice (18:40:51) :
You are wise to pay attention to what the plants and animals are doing. Last week I saw birds flocking in the N. Sacramento Valley, as they do in preparation for the flight south. In August, that is quite something different from the October usual..
This spring, a number of Canadian Geese did not migrate north, but stayed on the Trinity River.
Doh. I should have said exponential, not logarithm. Try exp(-1/S) or something like that.
Frederick Michael (19:38:36) :
I would say there is a further factor in a hysteresis level.
A middle ground where there isn’t enough change to force the system into a higher or lower state, but one in which whatever has been going on (warming/cooling) is predominant.
Once a very sharp change occurs beyond the middle ground, the system is then excited into change.
The problem I see is that there is too little data on the lower end of action, whereas there is plenty of data on the higer end.
Complicatiions arise over solar wind levels vs the concentration of GCR’s currently abounding. It would be a bad assumption to think that GCR levels vary strictly with the level of solar wind. Obscuration by levels of dust & gas present in the interstellar medium of which we travel likewise is subject to change.
i.e. – two Grand Minimum of equal stature may be a poor guarantee of equal effect.
Far as I can tell there is a good association between Solar Activity and Climate direction.
I applaud your efforts to quantify. We need that.
P Walker (10:02:35) :
“…playing it in my head I hear Sting , not Bono .”
Poor you. Were either of these two playing in my head I would consider it pure hell.
I like to keep Ella singing in my head.
Frederick Michael (19:38:36) :
So, the average sunspot count over the whole cycle wouldn’t be what matters, it’d be the amount of time it’s low. This could explain why some say it’s the LENGTH of the cycle, not the overall average that matters.
Frederick,
Intensity is the name of the game…
I tend to think fluidly… When skipping rocks across a pond, still water allows the rock to skip and moving water deflects and absorbs the rock.. The sun is fluid and therefore if the pond is still (spotless, low wind generation, and magnetism in a low phase) this calm allows stray ions to be skipped into earths atmosphere. This of course allows low level cloud formation to increase and temperature fall.
On the Other hand if the Solar output is creating wind and magnetic flux then those same ions are absorbed and directed in the flow away from the earth. The ripples created bring heat into the atmosphere and keep ionization from happening on a large scale. (temp rise and decreased cloud cover.)
and then you have to factor in the Oceanic heat reserve…(lag time to show cooling or heating)
However, there will always be some that get through. as your post indicates it is the factoring that is the problem. Again using the water analogy, skipping rocks becomes harder the faster the flow.
Just trying to evaluate the shear number of influencing factors and how they affect each other is more fun than should be allowed.
The more I think through Leif’s position the more I can agree with… that pesky length and intensity…. how to quantify them……hmmmmm…
rephelan (19:10:05) :
“poor Dr. Hathaway had to keep moving his trough to the right until he gave up entirely about six months ago.”
I wish you where right, but David Hathaway just trotted out another of his perma-sliding solar cycle prediction charts:
http://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/images/ssn_predict_l.gif
This site holds the secrets behind Hathaway’s perpetually wrong solar predictive methodology:
http://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/predict.shtml
Hopefully Hathaway will have the self-respect to stop continually adjusting his predictions and admit that he, like every other solar scientist, has no idea what the sun is going to do next. However, given his track record, in about 4 months we can expect Hathaway to trot out the same stupid chart, shift the start of Cycle 24 forward by 6 months and hope that no one notices.
Hopefully we won’t have a Maunder Minimum. I don’t believe in a higher power but maybe I’m wrong and that maybe, just maybe, something somewhere is turning down the sun a bit just in time to save us from the insanity that is AGW. Copenhagen can be very very cold in December…
I love Copenhagen. I spent many a long summer evening strolling down by Newhavn and sampling the odd beer.
Yes, sorry, my mistake… it is The Police!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K4_7fe0VZdQ
I’ve started a new feature on my blog called “Failed Predictions of SC24” and I’ve started with this: http://solarscience.auditblogs.com/2009/08/29/failed-predictions-of-solar-cycle-24-1-dikpati-and-hathaway-2006/
Any more gratefully received johna.sci AT googlemail.com
I gotta chime in…
Someone mentioned that the solar output changes by .1% with regards to sunspot activity. Working under some simplistic assumptions:
World’s temp in K: ~288K
World’s temp change assuming linear relationship: .288C
Aren’t we all up in arms over a few tenths of a degree warming over a couple of decades? It seems to me, that solar variance could have as large an impact as other factors in temperature.
Feel free to punch holes, as I said, just a simple SWAG. When you’re talking about the single largest driver in our climate, any change in solar input can have a huge affect on our climate.
Thanks for the links and book referrals to the impact of sunspots. It’ll take me a little while to read them.
rbateman (19:51:00) :
Yeah we have an annoying gaggle of Canada Geese who have made your east coast latitude equivalent their home [Norfolk, VA].
Not sure if it just because some bleeding heart is feeding the environmental hazard critters or if there are larger issues at play.
Goose guano is bad….BAD for the Chesapeake Bay.
Honk honk honk. They flew over my house this AM.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
Ron de Haan
08:50:49 29/08
“We now have the opportunity to observe the current phase of our sun with modern observation technology and the current knowledge, not available to humanity during the previous comparable solar minimum 200 to 400 years ago. … That’s what history teaches us.”
History will not repeat itself – do not underestimate the soporific effect of modern mass media, “OMG nobody told me that the climate varies, thank goodness that somebody had the foresight to invent the IPCC to worry about it for me.”
F Ross
10:10:46 29/08
Definitely OT and probably more detail than you wanted, but …
The song is called “Dance Magic Dance” from the movie “Labyrinth”
It is sung by David Bowie in the role of Jareth – King of the Goblins
The actual lyrics are:
“You remind me of a babe.
What babe?
The babe with the power.
What power?
The power of voodoo.
Who do?
You do.
Do what?
Remind me of the babe.
…”
For those looking for light relief, a clip can be found at:
and yes, Jim Henson was involved …
Richard (15:32:55) :
Where can I get the magnetic flux data from?
How do they get that graph?
One graph plots a value every 6 hours, the other once a day only. On their website you can find data for both .
hareynolds (15:51:54) :
(c) Leif is INCORRECT that a Mimimum is not such a big deal.
If L&P are correct the Maunder minimum was no big deal because solar activity then wasn’t really low. If L&P are wrong, the the Maunder minimum was indeed a real low in solar activity.
Lee (16:07:20) :
Hi Leif,
My question is how low would you expect the peak F10.7 to be in a grand minimum or a Dalton minimum, or do you expect it continue to cycle as it always does?
If L&P are correct, F10.7 would not go really low. Perhaps 100 at maxima.
rbateman (18:01:48) :
The flux is pretty much in the same place, as it was last August, as well.
It is up 1 flux unit.
Bill H (18:23:22) :
it appears they do not want to go lower in there assessments, yet we are going to be lucky to top 55 this year.
55 what?
pyromancer76 (18:51:47) :
I noticed in your 2007 reconstruction of TSI (where you compare yours with that of Wang2005 and Lean2000) that the TSI, W/m^2, remains low for almost 50 years during the Maunder Minimum
In 2007 it was assumed that the sunspot number was a relatively good proxy for the solar magnetic field. With the advent of L&P their is the possibility that that may not accurate; in that case, there would have to be bumps upwards at solar maxima on the 2007 TSI-reconstruction although the minima would stay where they are.
I have two questions: 1) was the magnetic field strength also low for almost 50 years in the 17th c and do we have proxies that can corroborate that fact? and 2) since there seems to be many volcanoes spouting off then, could they have much influence on readings of sunspots/magnetic field strength? Regarding the second, could volcanic activity have screened out some of the sunspot count, TSI measurement? (Salzer and Hughes (2005) note 1641-47, 1672-81, 1702-05 as significant periods of decreased tree growth and increased volcanic evidence. Few other centuries have so many dates.)
My thoughts on that are here: http://www.leif.org/research/TSI%20From%20McCracken%20HMF.pdf
and more on the calibration here: http://www.leif.org/research/Comment%20on%20McCracken.pdf
Volcanoes do upset the 10Be deposition and makes for spurious ‘spikes’ in the record, that shouldn’t be confused with solar activity.
rephelan (19:10:05) :
will the bottom of that wave be in late 2008 or late 2009? I think you’ve been on record here as stating that Cycle 24 is now well underway (correct me if I’m wrong!) and I was wondering if that is still your position.
This is what the plot looks like up to now:
http://www.leif.org/research/Active-Region-Count.png
Just The Facts (20:43:29) :
Hopefully Hathaway will have the self-respect to stop continually adjusting his predictions
I would like to have the weather forecast updated continually so it is always based on the most recent data. Wouldn’t you? From your comment, perhaps not…
John Richert (21:41:34) :
Someone mentioned that the solar output changes by .1% with regards to sunspot activity. Working under some simplistic assumptions:
World’s temp in K: ~288K
World’s temp change assuming linear relationship: .288C
Einstein said: “make it as simple as possible, but no simpler”.
The relation is such that the temperature response to a change of solar radiation is 1/4. So a 0.1% solar change is 0.025% temperature change or 0.072C.
Leif,
that would be sunspots 55 for the year
The sun’s effect on the earth has been reducing since around 1945.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/06/27/new-paper-global-dimming-and-brightening-a-review/#more-8950
Is that a long enough ‘trend’?. Exactly how many years does low solar activity ‘lag’ behind? Or can that figure only be determined when the cherries ripen?
As is often argued here correlation is not causation. But when solar activity has fallen as global temperatures have risen for the last 65 years, then surely there is far more correlation between temperatures and the price of oil?
Bill H (22:49:34) :
that would be sunspots 55 for the year
Yeah, that will take another 3 to 4 years into the cycle.
The lack of correlation between the solar activity and the atmosphere is due to particles that cannot radiate energy because they are not electrically charged and are traveling so slow that they don’t interact with the Earth’s surface; also, photons don’t interact with particles so the Earth is almost isolated against solar radiation. On the other hand, there are rumors on the existence of a black hole in the solar corona which would prevent the flux of electromagnetic energy to the outer space and cannot reach the Earth. So, do not expect a climatic response to solar radiation changes above 0.025% … Heh! 😉
Nasif Nahle (23:24:39) :
The lack of correlation between the solar activity and the atmosphere is due to particles that cannot radiate energy because they are not electrically charged and are traveling so slow that they don’t interact with the Earth’s surface
I don’t think you’ll find many takers for that idea.
REPLY: Ditto that. – A
Leif Svalgaard (22:28:08) :
rbateman (18:01:48) :
The flux is pretty much in the same place, as it was last August, as well.
It is up 1 flux unit.
Precisely.
And tiny spot or two measuring 0.7 millionths of the Solar Hemishere would be in much the same statistically very low Solar Activity boat as a zero.
We need ~78 points of flux monthly avearage / 25 SSN count or more to be relevant, since that is the when ramp becomes visibly recognizable for cycles 1-23.
Statistical non-base level flux is noted. (+1 net change)
Statistical near-zero level SSN Activity is noted (.00x)
We should do the same for the neutron monitor count and every other indicator we have.
Quantify and let the numbers land where they will.
1 year span.
Leif Svalgaard (22:28:08) :
“..will the bottom of that wave be in late 2008 or late 2009? I think you’ve been on record here as stating that Cycle 24 is now well underway (correct me if I’m wrong!) and I was wondering if that is still your position.
This is what the plot looks like up to now:
http://www.leif.org/research/Active-Region-Count.png”
===
Thank you for the graph.
Have you ever plotted the integral of that activity over time? That is, if the sun spot activity is an indication of the changes in solar activity over time, then higher, more rapid sunspot cycles (above the baseline of 0.0 sunspots per solar “day” (rotation) as we have now) might indicate more intense activity over the decades that is more important, more revealing than just the sunspot count itself. After all, solar activity doesn’t go to nothing when the spots go out.
Robert A Cook PE (23:45:49) :
Have you ever plotted the integral of that activity over time?
Yes, it does not look too interesting.
Chris R.
19:07:21 29/08
TO: dennis ward
“The lack of sunspots now does not equate to falling temperatures now. There is a lag of a number of years.
The commentators here are simply stating the obvious: as global temperatures start to fall sometime in the future, the hypothesis that human-emitted CO2 is an almighty driver of climate will begin to look sillier and sillier.”
Or perhaps not.
We are currently facing the threat of legislation to reduce or restrict the emission of certain gasses, CO2 being the current target. That legislation may start to take effect at about the same time as global temperatures start to fall. The AGW brigade will not be slow to take all the credit, and use the implied cause and effect as “proof” that the sun has no affect on climate.
I would rank that as my worst-case scenario.
>>>“May you live in interesting times” might be a curse
>>>instead of a proverb.
It always was a curse.
.
>>>It doesn’t appear to matter what happens to sun-spots
>>>as global temperatures are still breaking records
It is estimated that there is at least a 7-year lag between sunspot activity and terrestrial temperatures.
.
>>>I wish you where right, but David Hathaway just trotted
>>>out another of his perma-sliding solar cycle prediction charts:
>>> http://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/images/ssn_predict_l.gif
Do you have an animated series of these predictions? It would be fun to look at.
I note he still has an unrealisticly steep upslope, as before, to try and mitigate his cycle-length predictions. Surely the upslope will mirror the downslope.
.
>>>This is what the plot looks like up to now:
>>> http://www.leif.org/research/Active-Region-Count.png
Leif – you are the master of the graph with no key, and the acronym with no translation. I presume this graph is of Sunspot numbers, counting high and low latitude spots to differentiate cycles.
Correct?
.
Carsten, Observe how the sun has been acting like for the last 3 years and you will find your answer.
ralph ellis (01:21:22) :
Leif – you are the master of the graph with no key, and the acronym with no translation. I presume this graph is of Sunspot numbers, counting high and low latitude spots to differentiate cycles.
Nobody reads a long explanation, anyway. The whole thing is on pages 4 and 5 of http://www.leif.org/research/Most%20Recent%20IMF,%20SW,%20and%20Solar%20Data.pdf
It is an art to make a graph that [as you figured out] is self-explaining.
The text referred to above is [for the lazy ones, who don’t wanna go look]:
“Count of active regions with spots for the past few cycles. The count is really a count of days in each full month the region was visible [and no more than 70 degrees from central meridian] and then summed for every region. Yearly smoothed values are also shown as the smoother curves. Different cycles are coded with a different color. The detailed figures show the transitions between cycles. Note that cycle 24 has just barely begun.”
The magnetic polarity and not just the latitude is used for the differentiation between cycles. Each region has been carefully examined.
John (11:25:28) :
“That’s not quite right. During this period on average more radiation from the sun reaches the Earth but when large sunspots are present the radiation is actually slightly less. Sunspots block radiation, thats why they appear darker, and reduce the amount of radiation reaching the earth. It’s a pretty small variations though ….”
Actually this is still not quite right. While the darker areas of the sun dont emit as much visible light, the umbral regions around them are actually brighter than normal, which creates the significant contrast with the cooler dark area. The umbral area is larger in total area than the spot, so in total the sun emits more radiation.
Rereke Whakaaro (00:18:35) :
“Or perhaps not.
We are currently facing the threat of legislation to reduce or restrict the emission of certain gasses, CO2 being the current target. That legislation may start to take effect at about the same time as global temperatures start to fall. The AGW brigade will not be slow to take all the credit, and use the implied cause and effect as “proof” that the sun has no affect on climate”.
I would rank that as my worst-case scenario.
Rereke,
Human induced CO2 emissions will continue to rise in the future.
Population growth, further industrialization and an increase in the number of cars, especially in Asia will cause an estimated increase of emissions by 30% until 2030.
Cooling oceans will be able to absorb more CO2 but I don’t think we will see any reduction until 2030.
Reality:
http://www.accuweather.com/news-story.asp?partner=accuweather&traveler=0&article=9
Mike Lorrey (02:09:32) :
The result of high Solar Activity is the warming of Earth/brightening of the output of the Sun.
The opposite effect is the cooling of the Earth/brightening of the albedo through spectral shift of the output of the Sun. THere is no need to have a large TSI shift when the spectrum change is far more effective.
Still no sunspot… I think Anthony’s power morphed to coronal holes instead… the sun is covered with coronal holes since this was posted or is it the new “invisible” sunspots?
Leif, do you think the slow takeoff of 24 by the sunspot numbers is a reflection of the L&P effect? In other words, is the dynamo taking off normally, but the spots are just being cheshire ones? But then, the takeoff of 10.7 is pretty flat, too. If the flatness is from the growing invisibility of the spots, then wouldn’t that effect be seen in the downstroke of 23? And I don’t see it.
==========================
The ratio of Umbra (dark sunspots) to penumbra (greyish) to visible faculae/network (bright regions) is not constant over time. 102 years of painstaking measurement at Greenwich under the strict control of the Astronomers there, double-blind confirmation checks and 3 separate measuring teams confirm the results.
Those findings bear heavily on the lag-time of response at the Terrestrial Climate level. The implication is that the lag time may be subject to acceleration/de-acceleration.
As a Ham, my interest in sunspots is always piqued by news there aren’t any. As an older ham waiting for the next cycle to get in gear, visions of mortality keep getting into the picture…
Admittedly, my understanding of the relationship between “solar wind”, e-layer ionization, F10.7 and sunspots is superficial, but Leif has confused me a bit: I’ve always positively correlated sunspot activity with ionization, but also with F10.7 number. If rising F10.7 numbers, even in the absence of sunspots), means greater flux, can I also expect increased layer ionization, or do I still don’t get it?
Leif Svalgaard (22:28:08) :
“I would like to have the weather forecast updated continually so it is always based on the most recent data. Wouldn’t you? From your comment, perhaps not…”
Weather forecasts updated continually, certainly, meteorologists are able to make reasonably accurate forecasts. Furthermore, the accuracy of weather forecasts tends to improve as the prediction draws nearer, thus updating these predictions continually is quite logical.
Solar predictions on the other hand, from what I’ve seen thus far, are awful. Looking back through the NASA archives, one struggles to find any solar forecasts that one can consider accurate. On this basis, Hathaway putting out an updated forecast with single curve is misleading, because it misrepresents to the public that NASA/NOAA might know what the sun is going to do next, when they don’t.
As I said before, when making predictions in areas of immense uncertainty, take care to qualify and caveat your predictions with counter arguments, alternative points of view and additional potential outcomes. Perhaps solar scientists can take a lesson from hurricane forecasting and start presenting an array of potential outcomes, instead of a single “consensus” prediction:
http://media2.tbo.com/weathermanager/2009_NT_2_z2_models.fullsize.jpg
http://i.flhurricane.com/images/2009/clark6latest.png
I fly a lot over Europe, gliders and small aircraft.
Observed:
Lower cloud bases, even during warm summer days.
Observed: many days with low altitude Cirrus Clouds, base starting at 3000 m MSL, 10.000 ft MSL, especially this summer.
This is an indication for a cooling atmosphere.
The last three years most of my flights take place above the clouds.
On average the cloud base is much lower this summer, between 500 and 1000 m MSL, 1800 and 3300 ft. MSL
lets go green the whole world
Aug 30, 2009
Sun Run of 51 Days Without a Spot Now Among the Top 5 Longest
By Joseph D’Aleo
Read the entire story and download a pdf file here: http://www.iccap.us
Leif Svalgaard (00:17:30) :
Robert A Cook PE (23:45:49) :
Have you ever plotted the integral of that activity over time?
Yes, it does not look too interesting.
How about a 30 year moving average — or an exponential smoothing that’s about as long? I’d think something like this that behaves like an integral would be closer to the “impulse response” of the earth to the sun’s variations.
It is interesting to note the Albedo has increased due to ionization of the atmosphere. Approximately a 2.8% increase of lower cloud formation globally. Quantify that with a solar output reduction of .6-1 % (primarily due to lower solar magnatisim) and you have the recipe for major earth cooling.
Then those nasty little quirks about nonconducting particle matter in space, stray ion radiation, and the Oceanic heat reserve including warming and cooling oscillations… which all equal Lag time before solar change is noted in earths atmosphere.
Most Ice age events occur with in 10-100 years of a solar cool down event. This minima is looking strange from all recorded perspectives. and if we remain 65% below recorded minima, I would expect that the depth of cooling would be relatively equal to the reduction in TSI reaching the earths surface.
And that has the potential to be very cold. How are earths EverReady-batteries in the ocean? This will determine onset of cooling and length before warm up….
kim (08:46:21) :
do you think the slow takeoff of 24 by the sunspot numbers is a reflection of the L&P effect?
No, it is the normal behavior of a small cycle. E.g. http://www.solen.info/solar/cycl14.html
Paul (09:35:33) :
If rising F10.7 numbers, even in the absence of sunspots), means greater flux, can I also expect increased layer ionization,
Yes, what is important is the UV flux and the F10.7 is a good proxy for that even if sunspots should turn out to be harder to see because of L&P.
Just The Facts (10:11:11) :
In http://www.leif.org/research/Cycle%2024%20Smallest%20100%20years.pdf
we “predict SC24 will have a peak smoothed monthly sunspot number of 75 ± 8, making it potentially the smallest cycle in the last 100 years. […]
As we approach minimum and the new cycle gets underway, the solar polar field precursor method improves markedly (cycle 22: 159 vs. 170 ± 30 [Schatten and Sofia, 1987]; cycle 23: 121 vs. 138 ± 30 [Schatten et al., 1996]). The improvements also result from the use of actually measured polar fields rather than proxies. It is a strength of the polar field precursor method that the predictions improve in this manner.”
One detail that we did not get right [the reviewer wouldn’t let us] was the timing. We wanted to say that a small cycle would start slow, but he pointed out that that was not really a specific prediction flowing from our method but just a statistical tendency [he was correct, of course] so we had to resort to using the average cycle length. This was not really an important point at the time as we were concerned with the size only.
Robert A Cook PE (23:45:49) :
How about a 30 year moving average
Lots of people have tried things like that [apart from the Dow Stock Index] the sunspot series is the most studied time series in the world. No firm conclusions have come from integrating. Others may disagree.
Bill H (12:49:09) :
Quantify that with a solar output reduction of .6-1 % (primarily due to lower solar magnetism) and you have the recipe for major earth cooling.
Except that the actual reduction is ten times smaller than you state. If it indeed were 1% we would be in real trouble.
Leif Svalgaard (13:04:10) :
Bill H (12:49:09) :
Quantify that with a solar output reduction of .6-1 % (primarily due to lower solar magnetism) and you have the recipe for major earth cooling.
Except that the actual reduction is ten times smaller than you state. If it indeed were 1% we would be in real trouble.
Some days it doesn’t pay to wake up…. 0.06-0.1 Reduction in output.
That being said. TSI reaching the earths surface is -.6 to -1
I wonder if there’s not something in this idea of deep solar minimum and seismic activity? New Zealand gets a lot of earthquakes, usually small to almost undetectable.
However, in the last few months, we have had a run of quite big ones. A month or so ago, we had the biggest for over 80 years, in a remote part of Fiordland, felt throughout the South Island; significant aftershocks keep on coming. There was a swarm of unsettling quakes around Rotorua in the North Island and now Wellington has just had a big quake that residents describe as ‘the worst in 35 years’.
This is probably just coincidence, but it does seem that there have been quakes in the news much more than is usual. Nothing from the volcanoes, yet, though.
Bill H (13:16:49) :
Some days it doesn’t pay to wake up…. 0.06-0.1 Reduction in output.
That being said. TSI reaching the earths surface is -.6 to -1
No it is still 0.06-0.1%. Maybe you should have that cup of strong coffee now 🙂
Leif Svalgaard (13:32:42) :
Bill H (13:16:49) :
Some days it doesn’t pay to wake up…. 0.06-0.1 Reduction in output.
That being said. TSI reaching the earths surface is -.6 to -1
No it is still 0.06-0.1%. Maybe you should have that cup of strong coffee now 🙂
Maybe I should qualify my statement as TSI as measured by satellite vs TSI measured at the earths surface…is a total reduction of .6-1% (average atmospheric reduction was 0.286 over 2000-2005 time period)
Increased Albedo? Co2 wont cause this reduction and only a pretty good eruption could, so it must be something global Water Vapor is my guess..
Leif Svalgaard (12:51:57) :
So why if you, Cliver and Kamide 2005; Schatten and Tobiska 2003, Duhau 2003, Wang 2002 and Badalyan 2001, were all predicting lower solar activity for the coming cycle(s), were NASA/MSFC/Hathaway only pushing the predictions of Tsirulnik 1997, and Hathaway and Wilson 2004 for a highly active solar cycle 24?
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2008/images/solarcycleupdate/ssn_predict_l.gif
Why have NASA, the Marshall Space Flight Center and David Hathaway failed to provide the public with an accurate representation of the uncertainty and differing predictions associated with the forthcoming solar cycle?
We are currently having a .8 to 1.1 total reduction Sat vs Earth measurement. (uncorrected-actual)
Use that magical talent to find the bones of Judge Crater or gaydar for the RNC.
“Observed:
Lower cloud bases, even during warm summer days.”
Thanks for the note on cloud heights. This morning we had freeze/frost warnings a couple of hours north with a High dropping in. Now, with the declining sun, the sky is almost white with a nearly solid cirrus cover. Unusual for an August high.
The last clear blue skies I recall were those of a very hot June 2007. By Sept. PDO had flipped and even frigid, dead-still Jan. mornings have had a whitish haze to them here in the absence of cirrus.
Add to that Bateman’s drop in solar faculae by an order of magnitude with regard to other minimums and I’d say we have some cold years in the pipeline.
[snip OT should be in the tip and notes]
“Purakanui (13:20:42) :
I wonder if there’s not something in this idea of deep solar minimum and seismic activity? New Zealand gets a lot of earthquakes, usually small to almost undetectable.
However, in the last few months, we have had a run of quite big ones. A month or so ago, we had the biggest for over 80 years, in a remote part of Fiordland, felt throughout the South Island; significant aftershocks keep on coming. There was a swarm of unsettling quakes around Rotorua in the North Island and now Wellington has just had a big quake that residents describe as ‘the worst in 35 years’.
This is probably just coincidence, but it does seem that there have been quakes in the news much more than is usual. Nothing from the volcanoes, yet, though.”
And that region is now about 1 metre closer to Australia. The Earth is wonderful, and we are insignificant.
I meant to add too, Wellington suffers quakes all the time. A few years back there was a quake swam, a good few each day, over some weeks. A poster in a blog was trying to convince people that this, in a quake prone zone, was “unusual” and climate change was responsible.
I had to laugh…
I can just imagine that it takes a while after crustal contraction weakening due to whatever is going on (cooling, etc.) because of Deep Solar Minima for the Magma to wend it’s way to the surface.
If indeed that is the correct way to look at it.
Maybe someday someone will get inspired to post a study about it.
Bill H (14:14:34) :
Maybe I should qualify my statement as TSI as measured by satellite vs TSI measured at the earths surface…is a total reduction of .6-1% (average atmospheric reduction was 0.286 over 2000-2005 time period)
You need to define what you mean by ‘reduction’ [I may have misunderstood you].
Just The Facts (14:15:32) :
Why have NASA, the Marshall Space Flight Center and David Hathaway failed to provide the public with an accurate representation of the uncertainty and differing predictions associated with the forthcoming solar cycle?
NASA had become a victim of their own overhyped press releases. Check Dikpati and Gilman and Flux Transport.
Internally NASA is relying on our prediction, e.g. in their decision to not de-orbit the Hubble.
The polar and toroidal fields shown at lmsal/latest_events are currently in the sun’s “thrusting down her uplifted skirt” fashion, characteristic of the remotest plumb of ‘solar minimum’.
Leif Svalgaard (19:35:04) :
“NASA had become a victim of their own overhyped press releases.”
There does seem to have been an improvement recently, e.g. in the May 29, 2009 press release:
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2009/29may_noaaprediction.htm
“New Solar Cycle Prediction” seems like an appropriate title and “If our prediction is correct” seems like a reasonable way to caveat the forecast. It would be nice if the NOAA/SWPC forecast chart offered several additional cycle predictions in order to help demonstrate uncertainty and a range of potential outcomes. However, I much prefer the NOAA/SWPC forecast chart to the one that NASA/MSFC/Hathaway use, with the big, dopey, distracting, really active sun in the background.
http://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/images/ssn_predict_l.gif
Leif Svalgaard (19:35:04) :
Bill H (14:14:34) :
Maybe I should qualify my statement as TSI as measured by satellite vs TSI measured at the earths surface…is a total reduction of .6-1% (average atmospheric reduction was 0.286 over 2000-2005 time period)
You need to define what you mean by ‘reduction’ [I may have misunderstood you].
Reduction = Total sum loss of energy when passing through a defined space. in this case the earths atmosphere.
When you look at TSI at the outer edge of the atmosphere and calculate the loss that occurs between that point and the earths surface you will get a factor (percentage) of the whole. Some of this energy is absorbed by particulate matter in the atmosphere and some is reflected back into space. The calculation of energy reflected back into space is the one were after because that is heat loss increase for the planet.
I look at it like this…
The Sun is fairly static because of its reaction. there are things that can cause it to fluctuate by 0+-2% but most of those would be catastrophic for the earth and its inhabitants. With the sun operating at about 1385 w/m^2 there must be some other function that drives the earths systems. Solar Gravity Fields (solar wind) is what controls the amount of Ion radiation (cosmic rays) that the earth is bombarded with. the higher the stream flow the lower the ion reactions in earths atmosphere.
SO the sun controls the flow of Ions which increase or decrease lower cloud formation and albedo (reflection of energy). we must quantify WHAT THE TOTAL LOSS THROUGH THE ATMOSPHERE IS GIVEN EACH SOLAR PHASE.
In 2000 through 2005 the average was .286% loss. Since 2007 that loss has steadily increased in relation to increased cloud formation.. Roughly .22% Cloud increase to .1%TSI reduction at the earths surface. SO our 2.6% increase of lower cloud formation has resulted in a .6-1% TSI reduction at the earths surface…
We want to document what the effects of differing states of solar activity cause within the earths atmosphere. By determining solar levels at the atmospheres edge and surface of the earth simultaneously.
This minima is rather interesting. It has allowed us to investigate cosmic ray interference and its total effect on the earths atmosphere. It has also shown that CO2 is not the driver many think it is. As it continues i expect to get many answers to questions about how and why certain actions on the sun create changes on the earth…
Has everyone got their winter clothing together.? Geese flying south already… Deer have shed their Velvet 2 weeks ago, and heavy fur on the puppy’s….
Bill H (21:27:09) :
In 2000 through 2005 the average was .286% loss. Since 2007 that loss has steadily increased in relation to increased cloud formation.. Roughly .22% Cloud increase to .1%TSI reduction at the earths surface. SO our 2.6% increase of lower cloud formation has resulted in a .6-1% TSI reduction at the earths surface…
Thanks Bill, do you have a link or resource showing how these measurements are taken?
“The Watts Effect” has failed to live up to its reputation. Stereo behind is looking very still with nothing on the horizon showing any potential.
Instead maybe we could build a huge bon fire, drink too much and dance naked trying to appeal to the Sun god. Somehow I think we might be doing a lot of dancing over the next 20 years, but the fire will come in handy.
(More) typo’s? Bill H, where is
“With the sun operating at about 1385 w/m^2”
coming from?. Depending on whom is quoted, PMOD, TIM (SORCE), VIRGO etc, I get about ~1361 to ~1366 w/m^2.
Bill H (21:44:00) :
What general part of the continent are you in that you see geese flying south?
Coming up to 52 spotless days according to spaceweather.com.
Bill H (21:27:09) :
In 2000 through 2005 the average was .286% loss. Since 2007 that loss has steadily increased in relation to increased cloud formation.. Roughly .22% Cloud increase to .1%TSI reduction at the earths surface. SO our 2.6% increase of lower cloud formation has resulted in a .6-1% TSI reduction at the earths surface…
This still does not make sense. Try again.
To think that other info suggests reduced cloud forming [with the same or increased vapor] thus increased insolation to include with damaged ozone layer, more UV penetration. Cooler stratosphere also suggests more heat retention. And HadCRUT giving the JJA quarter a prelim 3rd warmest on record. Yes it must be cooling, but I’ve not found where and how global.
denial from liberals won’t change reality…
Sekerob (07:18:15) :
You are suggesting that the atmosphere is a one-way valve headed for the heat of Venus??
Bill H (21:27:09) : “TSI reduction at the earths surface…”
Do you mean insolation? If so it would be less confusing if you said it that way. If not, could you explain the difference.
Geoff Sharp (23:17:43) :
“The Watts Effect” has failed to live up to its reputation. Stereo behind is looking very still with nothing on the horizon showing any potential.
Instead maybe we could build a huge bon fire, drink too much and dance naked trying to appeal to the Sun god. Somehow I think we might be doing a lot of dancing over the next 20 years, but the fire will come in handy.
=============================================
I suspect many of the readers here will be long dead before we see sc24 maximum…that’s why leif acts a bit nervous trying to hold his upward trend in his graph with ghost spots…
Sekerob (07:18:15)
more heat retention…where?, because, as you know, the atmosphere has a volumetric heat capacity of 0.001297 J cm-3 K-1 and water 4.186 (3227 times more than the atmosphere). The atmosphere hardly keeps any warm.
Within two days sun will reach spotless days period record of cycle 12, 54 days.
the_Butcher (08:50:37) :
I suspect many of the readers here will be long dead before we see sc24 maximum…that’s why leif acts a bit nervous trying to hold his upward trend in his graph with ghost spots
What if that maximum was already reached?, that would be great!: Another lost cycle.
http://solarcycle24.com/
Dear dear, a cycle 24 spot is forming as we speak. It is in the Gong plots which are more current.
What I love is that the warmies stated as fact that the sun cycle has no impact on weather. Now, without publishing any correction etc. they are just using it as common knowledge. Statments like, “due to the current weak sun, we are saved for a couple of years, but we must act now to prevent future disaster”. Same thing with the lack of warming in the last 10ish years, and the little ice age etc.
Behold! The Watts Effect in action. Took three days to kick in but still spooky.
New Sunspot 8/31/09 16:00
http://www.solarcycle24.com/
Small spot forming.
Is it too late to be a result of the Watts Effect?
Damn you people got so excited like you saw jebus or somth…
Too small and too close to the equator…
Anthony –
Sunspot, northern hemisphere has started to form today(8/31), source: solarcycle24.com
Your linkage isn’t quite done yet…
Nothing in Catania:
http://sidc.oma.be/html/Solarmap.html
in SOHO one dead pixel in northern hemisphere another near equator.
I see it, projected in a 70mm F/10 refractor at 27x.
Tiny little thing.
1st outing took a few minutes to find, difficult to find and to hold.
2nd outing took much longer, only held onto sighting for couple seconds twice.
3rd outing a little better, but disappeared for several minutes.
Clouds are coming so I’m out of commission.
Can’t tell you if it’s growing, standing still or fading. Sorry.
SOHO is not updating very well. Problems at Mt. Wilson (fire).
I repeat my earlier exhortations for all of you to get your hands on a small refractor at the very least, get out there and have at it. There’s no telling when the next spot may be the last spot in your lifetime. It’s been 51 days since I was last able to successfully project a spot.
Don’t get left behind and don’t depend on technology to always be there.
You owe it to the next generation, the very same way we owe the witnesses to the Maunder.
rbateman (14:09:26) :
You owe it to the next generation, the very same way we owe the witnesses to the Maunder
And what is much more important: Real data. Just imagine the data the future generations will get if from those “scientists/gaia priests” we all know.
18 x 10E6 hemispherical rough calc corrected for foreshortening from GONG Big Bear 2009 08 31 16:04UT image.
rbateman (02:21:53) :
Bill H (21:44:00) :
What general part of the continent are you in that you see geese flying south?
central Wyoming….
and Mr spot is gone…..again… all excited and all for not….
Anthony, you may or may not want to put up something on Mt. Wilson.
The USFS has ordered ground crews off the hill. Aerial firefighting only.
Tom in Florida (08:46:27) :
Bill H (21:27:09) : “TSI reduction at the earths surface…”
Do you mean insolation? If so it would be less confusing if you said it that way. If not, could you explain the difference.
I don’t know if that is the proper term or not. the energy metered at the outer edge of the atmosphere and then again at the earths surface. there are several components to insolation and we are measuring loss/reflection through a changing medium. Ion counts, TSI at the edge of the atmosphere, and at the surface… along with meteorological measurements as well..
Water vapor has much more impact than GHG’s in total..
Leif Svalgaard (05:58:25) :
Bill H (21:27:09) :
In 2000 through 2005 the average was .286% loss. Since 2007 that loss has steadily increased in relation to increased cloud formation.. Roughly .22% Cloud increase to .1%TSI reduction at the earths surface. SO our 2.6% increase of lower cloud formation has resulted in a .6-1% TSI reduction at the earths surface…
This still does not make sense. Try again.
Try… energy through a resistor.. By changing the resistors value you can change the received power. Sun is a constant.. The earths atmosphere is a variable.. The surface is the receptor… Anything that can change the variable affects the total received.
The sun may not be wavering in its total output.. However, its magnetic fields drive (or appear to drive) cosmic ray counts which enter the earths atmosphere (solar wind speed). This is the variable factor while not a direct result of the suns output is driven by solar activity. By knowing what is coming into the atmosphere we isolate the area of interest.
measurements at orbit are slightly higher than measurements at the surface… but knowing what is being lost/reflected is what we are after knowing why is just a bonus…!:).
Nicely put, Bill.
If you drop the TSI slightly AND increase the rate of rejection at min ,raise the TSI slightly AND drop the rate of rejection at max, you end up with more net change.
Here is a tid bit…. Just what we are correlating…..
“Charbonneau said the mean average temperature for the month of August has been 17.27 C — more than a full degree cooler than the average of 18.5 C for this month.”
9 month trend…..
ttp://www.winnipegfreepress.com/breakingnews/Weather-record-leaves-us-cold-56349932.html
rbateman (18:03:19) :
Nicely put, Bill.
If you drop the TSI slightly AND increase the rate of rejection at min ,raise the TSI slightly AND drop the rate of rejection at max, you end up with more net change.
BINGO!
now if we could just predict solar wind and rates of heat transfer we might get close to being able to predict the weather… and possibly global temp..
http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/breakingnews/Weather-record-leaves-us-cold-56349932.html
Woops…messed up the link..
rbateman (18:03:19) :
I would also add the ADO, PDO and other oscillations that would enhance or dampen the change.. The ADO and PDO are cold….With the rejection happening we have SIGNIFICANT net LOSS in upper latitudes.. as i posted above…
Bill H (21:27:09) :
In 2000 through 2005 the average was .286% loss. Since 2007 that loss has steadily increased in relation to increased cloud formation.. Roughly .22% Cloud increase to .1%TSI reduction at the earths surface. SO our 2.6% increase of lower cloud formation has resulted in a .6-1% TSI reduction at the earths surface…
Thanks Bill, do you have a link or resource showing how these measurements are taken? If so and its reliable then we have something strong to follow.
Look what you have done now. SpaceWeather.com Aug 31
NEW SUNSPOT: A new sunspot is emerging about 15o north of the sun’s equator: map. Pete Lawrence sends this picture from his backyard observatory in Selsey, UK:
“It is small, but a welcome sight, especially after the current long run of no surface activity,” he says.
Indeed, if this active region consolidates into a true dark-cored sunspot, it will break a string of nearly 52 spotless days, one of the longest quiet spells of the current solar minimum.
The spot was gone before it could be counted…
The continuing Saga of boredom…
Bill H (17:10:56) : “we are measuring loss/reflection through a changing medium. Ion counts, TSI at the edge of the atmosphere, and at the surface… along with meteorological measurements as well..”
I understand you to be saying that TSI at the edge of the atmosphere measurements take into account obliquity and that they are different at different latitudes. Then the TSI difference at the surface measured at the same latitude would be the result of the loss/reflection properties of the atmosphere at that point and have nothing to do with position of the Earth in relation to the Sun. Am I correct?
OK its is about 3 hours past ooGMT Sept1, 2009 I’ve checked all my sources.
Catainia drawing shows nothing for the 31st, other observatories, Uccle in Beligium, Locarno in Germany both show nothing on sketches.
This animation from SIDC of the past 30+ days shows nothing for August but DOES show group 1025 popup on 9/1/2009
http://sidc.oma.be/html/cmap_animator.html
I also checked SIDC’s sunspot report data, nothing.
It looks like the spot today, group 1025, squeaked by and was not observed until after August 31st game clock ran out at 00 GMT 91/2009
Then I checked NOAA SWPC….
http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/ftpdir/latest/DSD.txt
And wouldn’t you know it, they have something whereas last year it was the other way around…NOAA had nothing, SIDC (via Catainia) did…so where does that leave us?
Leif said last year that SIDC had the last word…so unless they change their report, we may indeed have a spotless calendar month.
We’ll have to see what happens when their report comes out tomorrow.
http://sidc.oma.be/products/ri_hemispheric/
Tom in Florida (19:50:37) :
I understand you to be saying that TSI at the edge of the atmosphere measurements take into account obliquity and that they are different at different latitudes. Then the TSI difference at the surface measured at the same latitude would be the result of the loss/reflection properties of the atmosphere at that point and have nothing to do with position of the Earth in relation to the Sun. Am I correct?
If i understand you , yes..
Point A the Sun,
Point B the satellite,
Point C the point on the earth if you were to draw a straight line.
Note that the Satellite will have to move to accommodate for tilt of the earth during phases so that the point on the earth does not change. The elliptical orbit must maintain the same distance at each measurement. Polar orbits are best due to speed and flatness of orbit at mid lats.
Measurement of TSI at pass for two minuets and average.
Average-Average=Loss
Measure cloud cover and density..
then plot…smooth overlaying global cloud coverage.
This is brief but you get the drift..
I’m excited for you Anthony; after 52 days it seems the Watts effect is as reliable as the Gore effect. Even though it only produced a photo finish this time.
================================
wattsupwiththat (20:10:26) :
Lots of controversy….and to top it off we havent got any decent images to measure it against so far. We might have to convert GONG images to test if it makes the Layman’s Count.
It has been a few days since you posted the article, but seeing how long this stretch has been, maybe I have to concede the “The Watts Effect” is still good?
Anthony,
The “Watts effect” seems to be as powerful as the “Gore Effect”. Now we have 12 sunspots since a couple of hours back. How big and will they be and how long will last?
SIDC reports 0.0 for August 2009
SOHO is updated. Two nice spots.
Does not look as if there as much umph there as in the 1024 round.
Anthony.
Do you think you could have waited until after the record was broken to demonstrate you powers?
Are perhaps you are just really sensitive the the minute changes in the suns magenetic field that tells you….
There’s a spot a comin’!
Nevertheless…this little exercise was pretty darn funny!
SOHO is updated. Two nice spots.
Does not look as if there as much umph there as in the 1024 round.
After 1024, they look a little anemic to me. One is about the size of a burnt pixel, and the other just a little bigger. I guess we wait and see how long it hangs around.
It might have been my imagination, but the magnetogram seems to be showing the magnetic signature from 1024 now to the soutwest corner. If it is, is it normal to be able to see it 90-some days later?
A 2012 iceage would be a bummer, best pack my thermals.