It has been awhile since I’ve looked at the Ap Index. The last time was April of 2009.
From the data provided by NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) you can see just how little Ap magnetic activity there has been since. Here’s my graph from September 2009 SWPC Ap data:
For a longer perspective, David Archibald, has a graph of the Ap Index back to 1932. The solar average geomagnetic planetary index, in Dec 2008, Ap was at its lowest level in 75 years:
Click for a larger image – I’ve added some annotation to the graph provided by Archibald to point out areas of interest and to clarify some aspects of it for the novice reader.
The last time the Ap index was this low was 1933. The December 2008 Ap value of 2,, has never been this low. (Note: Leif Svalgaard contends this value is erroneous, and that 4.2 is the correct value – either way, it is still lower than 1933) Further, the trend from October 2005 continues to remain low, though some signs of a slight rebound are showing.
This Ap index is a proxy that tells us that the sun is now quite inactive, and the other indices of sunspot index and 10.7 radio flux also confirm this. The sun is in a full blown funk, and your guess is as good as mine as to when it might pull out of it. So far, predictions by NOAA’s SWPC and NASA’s Hathaway have not been near the reality that is being measured.
As Leif Svalgaard points out, Ap is just one of several indices that describe geomagnetic activity. There are several others [aa, am, IHV, …] that go much further back in time [to the 1840s]. You can get more info from:
http://www.leif.org/research/IAGA2008LS.pdf and
http://www.leif.org/research/Seminar-UCLA-ESS288.pdf
For those that follow the sunspot number (SSN) I’ve graphed the Ap and SSN together. As you can see, we’ve been in a reduced state of solar activity now for quite some time. It has been almost 4 years since the prominent drop in Ap in October 2005. SSN mirrors the decline of the Ap index since then.
As many regular readers know, I’ve pointed out several times the incident of the abrupt and sustained lowering of the Ap Index which occurred in October 2005. The abrupt step change seemed (to me) to be out of place with the data, and since then the data seems less “active”, with reduced amplitudes. And then we have the fact that the sun seems to have reestablished at a lower plateau of the Ap index after that October 2005 step change and has not recovered now in almost 4 years. It seems to me to be a noteworthy event.
UPDATE: Thanks to Leif Svalgaard, we have a more extensive and “official” Ap dataset (NOAA’s SWPC has issues, see comments) that I’ve plotted below. The step change in October 2005 is still visible and the value of 3.9 that occurred in April of this year is the lowest for the entire dataset.
And I’ve also plotted the 1991 to present data from BGS/Svalgaard to compare against the NOAA SWPC data:
Being a simple red neck proletarian, I have a question.
As I understand Dr. Svalgaard’s theory, a reduced solar/earth magnetic field will result in increased cosmic rays. The increased cosmic rays results in increased clouds. The increased clouds increases the albedo of the earth, more energy from the sun is reflected into space and the earth cools.
We can measure in one way or another, the various magnetic fields, the cosmic rays, the albedo, and the earth’s temperature. We are seeing a reduction in solar activity which has happened in the past, but for the first time we can measure the changes taking place.
Dr. Svalgaard’s theory sounds reasonable to me and I am curious to know what values “we” are looking for to “prove” or “disprove” the theory.
Regards,
Steamboat Jack
Pamela Gray (11:05:37) :
Always like to start off these things with the latest weather happenings.
I am 50 air miles from the Pacific Coast, and today, almost noon, a front (dry) from the North Pacific is blowing across here, it’s almost noon, early September, and I have my sweater on. It ain’t warm out there, ocean or my door.
When Science admits it “doesn’t understand” and then has an open-mind to various theories, and actually investigates “all comers” that have a modicum of scientific evidence supporting them, only then does Science advance.
And laymen can feel secure that the scientific establishment is healthy.
When scientists say, “investigation is unnecessary, our ideas are correct,” and in turn disparage competing ideas, the laymen should know there is “rot” in our scientific establishment.
Which is it at this point in time?
David Kitchen (10:27:30) :
I read this review of one of Archibald’s publications, checked on some of the issues raised and the complaints seem substantive. http://n3xus6.blogspot.com/2007/02/dd.html
David, your “reviewer” has an obvious agenda in trashing Archibald, as shown by his final comment:
“Anyway, onwards and upwards……..some real science is on its way; IPCC AR4 part I.”
Some folks just seem to froth at the mouth whenever Archibald’s name is mentioned. Wonder why.
Mark Wagner (11:40:18) :
but something like 400x the heat content of air)
Actually 3227 times more than air. This is why it is impossible to have that “piggy heat bank” which was supposed to appear over the tropics, as expected by J.Hansen et al….It was but a “night summertime dream”
Leif Svalgaard (10:27:27) :
Any way to have those graphs updated with the corrected values? No sense in plowing down the road with the map wrong.
Now, how did SWPC end up with a value so far out of whack with the corrected value?
jon Jewett (11:55:11) :
The increased cosmic rays results in increased clouds. The increased clouds increases the albedo of the earth, more energy from the sun is reflected into space and the earth cools.
The Sun’s magnetic field modulates the cosmic rays [GCR], and the Earth’s magnetic field does as well. The latter modulation is much larger than the former. From 5000 BC to 500 AD, the Earth’s field was increasing and GCRs were therefore decreasing, and temperatures should have increased, but they decreased instead. That change of the GCR flux was ten times larger than that the Sun causes.
In order to enhance the “Watts Effect”, for the welfare of humanity, there must be a daily post on solar issues in WUWT, otherwise, considering a time lag of 6-8 years we´ll be in troubles around 2013. 🙂
BTW these posts are the ones which congregate more bloggers.
Can’t question the gods, eh?
Wattsupwiththat? How bout anyone answering the questions I posed?
Wattsthepointwiththiswebsite?
I will post anywhere I please. Your editorial comment told me and many others to take it or leave it. Be respectfull as our civilization is being destroyed.
Mad Dogs & Englishmen I dare say. And your scientific response is to tell me I am uncivilized. Tell me Leif, or anyone else, what does our prospects as a civilization look like through the eyes of your telescopes?
If this were not so serious it would be laughable. Scientific observation is being ignored for what purpose again? Excuse me.
Post elsewhere indeed….how bout you cancel your own damned subscription?
REPLY: Mr. Lama, you made a comment that called a respected scientist a fraud, but offered nothing to back it up but additional ad homs. Thats why you were snipped. I’ve left this post up to demonstrate to others how emotional you are.
See the “about” and “policy” pages under the masthead.
Um, actually no. In all blogs that are moderated, comments are passed at the discretion of the moderators. Yours didn’t, get over it. You won’t change any attitudes with your current approach. You are welcome to ask questions, just lose the snark.- Anthony
David Kitchen, you even have to be careful with “Peer Reviewed” papers for it depends on who critiques them. A proper review is such that all Scientists in pertained fields such participate. This does not happen.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/05/peer_review_needs_improvement_1.html
James F. Evans (12:02:55) :
Which is it at this point in time?
Clearly healthy!
rbateman (12:13:57) :
Any way to have those graphs updated with the corrected values?
Yes, how far back would you like it? I can go back to 1844.
Now, how did SWPC end up with a value so far out of whack with the corrected value?
They have their own ‘preliminary values’ because Potsdam does not issue real-time values. And SWPC never bother to go back and replace them with the official values. SWPC is short on funding and people and expertise, remember 🙂
Leif Svalgaard (12:22:29) :
From 5000 BC to 500 AD, the Earth’s field was increasing and GCRs were therefore decreasing, and temperatures should have increased, but they decreased instead.
Which might also imply that the background level of the GCR’s was higher, since the temperature did not increase, according to that line of reasoning.
We are just assuming here, for sake of simplicity, that GCR levels pre-filtered from interstellar space remain constant over millenia. I propose a lander with an ice-core drill on a TNO such as Sedna (free from the magnetic-rejection fields of Sun & Earth) to hopefully find accretion evidence to map out long-term GCR data.
That change of the GCR flux was ten times larger than that the Sun causes.
???? You were thinking of something here, but I’m unable to determine what.
If the Ap index indicates a cooler sun, AND if a cooler sun translates to a cooler climate on earth (as implied in the second figure in the ” 70s cooling period” caption), I’m a bit confused about the low reading of the Ap index in 1933. Weren’t the 1930s a warm time period — the Arctic warmer, warmer HADCRUT surface temperatures, the dust bowl? If memory serves, weren’t sunspot numbers reasonably high in the 1930s? If this is so, then wouldn’t sunspot numbers have a better correlation with temperatures on earth than the Ap index?
The sun will remain quiet for at least another year – that is, if you believe the theory of the planets influencing the sun’s activity. I know dr Svalgaard does not believe this…
Fine Anthony,
restrict free speech as you wish. Delete then my first assertion. Nowhere did I say Leif Svalgaard is a fraud. I called him a phony.
But have the courage to answer the basic questions. Websites like these are meant to enlighten. Tell me if I a rube. Tell me I am wrong.
But don’t tell me I am being uncivil when our own government tells us it is warming when it is cooling. Don’t tell me I am being uncivil when I dare say that scientists cook the climate books. We have all seen to much of it with our own eyes to know better.
“Speaking the Truth in times of universal deceit is a revolutionary act.”
George Orwell
“Extremism in the defence of liberty is no vice. Moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.’
Barry Goldwater
And posting on Wattsupwiththat is up to caring men who no better than thou.
REPLY: I stand behind Charles The Moderator’s decision to snip you. We try our best to catch and restrict cases of libelous/slanderous speech, just as a newspaper, magazine, TV or radio station does, and that’s the sort of thing you wrote initially. Try writing a letter to the editor of your local newspaper calling a locally well respected person a “phony” (or a fraud) without having anything to back it up. It will see the same fate. Be upset about it all you want, but you are the one in the wrong here and quoting Orwell and Goldwater won’t change that fact. You simply violated the site policy.
Just suck it up and move on. I’m not going to waste any more time on the issue with you. Be civil or be snipped, your choice. – Anthony
Leif Svalgaard (12:35:44) :
Just the part from 2005 onwards. I would like to see Anthony’s step function as well as where we currently sit, properly corrected.
SWPC is not the only underfunded or non-funded entity here.
When one takes the pay to do a job, one assumes responsibility for any follow-up.
Nobody gives a lot of us a penny for what we work on, and I am quite sure that you yourself have done much work in your lifetime that nobody paid you a dime for. You did it because there’s more important things in life than simple profit.
As for pre-1957 corrections, that year was marked by a fundamental shift in visible Solar Phenomenon. White-Light Faculae fell underneath both Whole-Spot and Penumbral Area.
It then proceeded to leave outstrip the Whole-Spot/Penumbra in SC20. That would make the time-frame a wildly fluctuating one.
1937: the year that the highest recorded WLF monthly means occured. It is on par with the late 1950’s Sunspot Area measurements as taking the proverbial cake.
How those things affect the AP Solar Magnetic Index I am unable to say.
David Kitchen (10:27:30) :
Avoid the specious, otherwise it gives the informed justified reason to question anything and everything you publish.
Being informed means reading things that don’t support our views as well as those that do. We are quite capable of making up our own minds of what we think is valid and what is not.
as for the uninformed, don’t we all have an obligation to direct them to the best and most credible research?
Who decides who is uninformed and what is credible research. Of course there are many fruit cake ideas out there such as the garbage that comes out of the The U.K.’s National Academy of Sciences but we have to learn to sort the wheat from the chaff.
with Archibald you can not accept anything without checking everything he does.
Where ever possible I always check everything I read regardless of who is posting. I’m sure plenty of others do as well. Anthony acts as a gate keeper. He selects things he thinks we might find interesting or funny.
He has no “obligation” to direct us to the best and most credible research in anything. We are not sheep and he is not the shepherd. I find his blog entertaining, informative and open to a diverse range of opinions.
There are many credible scientists out here whose research is soundly based, fully peer reviewed,
And there a lot of scientists out there who are shysters whose research passes peer review by lazy or ethically bankrupt peer reviewers. We are left to our own resources to weed them out.
David Archibalds contribution to this thread is a graph of the long term AP index. I know It’s accurate because I checked it. You can find the data here.
ftp://ftp.ngdc.noaa.gov/STP/GEOMAGNETIC_DATA/INDICES/KP_AP/
rbateman (13:00:08) :
Leif:
That change of the GCR flux was ten times larger than that the Sun causes.
???? You were thinking of something here, but I’m unable to determine what.
I think Leif is saying that the Earth’s geomagnetic variability has 10 x more effect on the level of the GCR flux at Earth’s surface Than the sun’s cyclic variability does.
BIMBW
Denny, thanks for your “right on” comment. Peer review is like Churchill’s view of democracy. To twist his famous quote, “Peer review is the worst form of review except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.” Like democracy, we need to be careful to undermine the imperfect for want of a better system.
This does not take away from my criticism of this posting. And sure, the review I posted was by a AGW advocate. No apologies, as most scientists are advocates (yes I know, for sure, not all!) if you do not listen to, or decide to disregard, one side in this argument, we are all at risk of missing what we all say we want… the truth? I know Chis Horner (Red Hot Lies) would have us all believe the academic community in the USA and across the world is part of some great socialist conspiracy , but really, I had hoped that fear of the intelligentsia died with the Cultural Revolution…..
Leif Svalgaard (10:44:47) :
David Kitchen (10:27:30) :
with Archibald you can not accept anything without checking everything he does.
That is true with most things on the internet, and as you point out, in particular with Archibald’s stuff.
Leif,
I regard this a bias remark, consididering all the warmist climate crap that is produced by NASA.
The current magnetogram’s as dull as a sheet of grey linoleum. Sun’s obviously transitioning into the helium burning phase.
And yet no anwers. Were the questions just too hard or just too obvious?
I take back any personal opinions of the personal opinions of Leif.
Now can he be questioned or is my persistence just an uncivil nuisance?
I admitted my foul. I understand the measures you took. And yet no answers.
Remember, I am just an unwashed heathen. So when I question authority I may come across as a brute. I took it on the chin in print by this site’s host himself.
But in all fairness, where is the beef?
Clara Peller ~ American Patriot
REPLY: OK now that you’ve admitted your error, phrase the questions minus the snark in a civil manner, and then they’ll be worthy of attention. – A
Anthony, thank you for keeping before us information about important aspects of our funky Ol’ Sol. (I continue to think that some of the significant cold temperatures around the years of the Maunder Minimum also involved the large number of volcanic explosions in the 17thc. I was going to list a number of them, but the list became too large. Later.)
My respectful question is why isn’t WUWT using the official values for Ap for its charts? It seeems this would be more helpful in educating your readers. Also, sometimes David Archibald seems intent in producing a hockey stick in reverse with “low” solar activity as “the one and only cause”, more hopefully than with clear evidence.
REPLY: Actually there’s a method to my madness. Pointing out regularly that NOAA isn’t using updated information has merit in the overall scheme of NOAA data presentation. Plus there’s an operational issue (an maybe NOAA has the same problem) Leif gave me a link to the “official” data:
http://www.geomag.bgs.ac.uk/gifs/apindex.html
But it was designed to be as annoying as possible. To get Ap for any month you have to submit a form AND your email address each time…they don’t appear to have the whole data set in the open. The time I would have to spend to get it all would be enormous.
If I’m in error, and a complete downloadable Ap dataset file exists somewhere from these folks, feel free to point it out and I’ll plot it. – Anthony
rbateman (13:00:08) :
We are just assuming here, for sake of simplicity, that GCR levels pre-filtered from interstellar space remain constant over millenia.
The inverse relationship between the dipole moment and the 14C ‘concentration’ is consistent with no great change of the interstellar flux:
http://www.leif.org/research/CosmicRays-GeoDipole.jpg
John (13:17:02) :
(as implied in the second figure in the ” 70s cooling period” caption),
That is just Archibald jumping to conclusions.
If this is so, then wouldn’t sunspot numbers have a better correlation with temperatures on earth than the Ap index?
possibly, but more likely neither of them correlates with temperature.
rbateman (13:23:05) :
Just the part from 2005 onwards. I would like to see Anthony’s step function as well as where we currently sit, properly corrected.
MartinGAtkins (13:25:58) :
David Archibalds contribution to this thread is a graph of the long term AP index. I know It’s accurate because I checked it.
There are some inaccuracies. E.g. it mentions a ‘1933 low’. The low was in 1934 and [a deeper one] in 1936. It claims to be 5-month smoothed, but the last few points, where is really dips are not smoothed…
tallbloke (13:27:22) :
I think Leif is saying that the Earth’s geomagnetic variability has 10 x more effect on the level of the GCR flux at Earth’s surface Than the sun’s cyclic variability does.
yep
Ron de Haan (13:38:47) :
I regard this a bias remark, consididering all the warmist climate crap that is produced by NASA.
Should we accept other crap, just because NASA produces some?
Crap is crap.
David Kitchen, 13:29. If the fear of the intelligentsia is not alive and well in the U.S.A. and elsewhere, then you, we, are not keeping our eyes open. Earth does not have a Greenhouse, it has an atmosphere with water vapor the most important gas. What is the physics of CO2 in the atmosphere? Who are those elites on the IPCC who pick and choose their evidence to support their purpose of imposing debilitating regulations on the developed world, with malice aforethought? Who are those scientists burying their heads in the sand in order to continue to receive their funding and who are those who have simply sold their scientific souls to the intelligentsia devils. I not only think we should be very afraid, but I think we should be naming names, in large part so that we can honor those who have remained true to their scientific professions.