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.
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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
>>>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.
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>>>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.
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>>>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?
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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.
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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..