Solar Cycle Driven by More than Sunspots; Sun Also Bombards Earth with High-Speed Streams of Wind
From an NCAR press release September 17, 2009
BOULDER—Challenging conventional wisdom, new research finds that the number of sunspots provides an incomplete measure of changes in the Sun’s impact on Earth over the course of the 11-year solar cycle. The study, led by scientists at the High Altitude Observatory of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and the University of Michigan, finds that Earth was bombarded last year with high levels of solar energy at a time when the Sun was in an unusually quiet phase and sunspots had virtually disappeared.
“The Sun continues to surprise us,” says NCAR scientist Sarah Gibson, the lead author. “The solar wind can hit Earth like a fire hose even when there are virtually no sunspots.”
The study, also written by scientists at NOAA and NASA, is being published today in the Journal of Geophysical Research – Space Physics. It was funded by NASA and by the National Science Foundation, NCAR’s sponsor.
Scientists for centuries have used sunspots, which are areas of concentrated magnetic fields that appear as dark patches on the solar surface, to determine the approximately 11-year solar cycle. At solar maximum, the number of sunspots peaks. During this time, intense solar flares occur daily and geomagnetic storms frequently buffet Earth, knocking out satellites and disrupting communications networks.
(Illustration by Janet Kozyra with images from NASA, courtesy Journal of Geophysical Research – Space Physics.) click for larger image”]
Gibson and her colleagues focused instead on another process by which the Sun discharges energy. The team analyzed high-speed streams within the solar wind that carry turbulent magnetic fields out into the solar system.
When those streams blow by Earth, they intensify the energy of the planet’s outer radiation belt. This can create serious hazards for weather, navigation, and communications satellites that travel at high altitudes within the outer radiation belts, while also threatening astronauts in the International Space Station. Auroral storms light up the night sky repeatedly at high latitudes as the streams move past, driving mega-ampere electrical currents about 75 miles above Earth’s surface. All that energy heats and expands the upper atmosphere. This expansion pushes denser air higher, slowing down satellites and causing them to drop to lower altitudes.
Scientists previously thought that the streams largely disappeared as the solar cycle approached minimum. But when the study team compared measurements within the current solar minimum interval, taken in 2008, with measurements of the last solar minimum in 1996, they found that Earth in 2008 was continuing to resonate with the effects of the streams. Although the current solar minimum has fewer sunspots than any minimum in 75 years, the Sun’s effect on Earth’s outer radiation belt, as measured by electron fluxes, was more than three times greater last year than in 1996.
Gibson said that observations this year show that the winds have finally slowed, almost two years after sunspots reached the levels of last cycle’s minimum.
The authors note that more research is needed to understand the impacts of these high-speed streams on the planet. The study raises questions about how the streams might have affected Earth in the past when the Sun went through extended periods of low sunspot activity, such as a period known as the Maunder minimum that lasted from about 1645 to 1715.
“The fact that Earth can continue to ring with solar energy has implications for satellites and sensitive technological systems,” Gibson says. “This will keep scientists busy bringing all the pieces together.”
Buffeting Earth with streams of energy
 Sarah Gibson [ENLARGE](©UCAR, photo by Carlye Calvin.) News media terms of use* |
For the new study, the scientists analyzed information gathered from an array of space- and ground-based instruments during two international scientific projects: the Whole Sun Month in the late summer of 1996 and the Whole Heliosphere Interval in the early spring of 2008. The solar cycle was at a minimal stage during both the study periods, with few sunspots in 1996 and even fewer in 2008.
The team found that strong, long, and recurring high-speed streams of charged particles buffeted Earth in 2008. In contrast, Earth encountered weaker and more sporadic streams in 1996. As a result, the planet was more affected by the Sun in 2008 than in 1996, as measured by such variables as the strength of electron fluxes in the outer radiation belt, the velocity of the solar wind in the vicinity of Earth, and the periodic behavior of auroras (the Northern and Southern Lights) as they responded to repeated high-speed streams.
The prevalence of high-speed streams during this solar minimum appears to be related to the current structure of the Sun. As sunspots became less common over the last few years, large coronal holes lingered in the surface of the Sun near its equator. The high-speed streams that blow out of those holes engulfed Earth during 55 percent of the study period in 2008, compared to 31 percent of the study period in 1996. A single stream of charged particles can last for as long as 7 to 10 days. At their peak, the accumulated impact of the streams during one year can inject as much energy into Earth’s environment as massive eruptions from the Sun’s surface can during a year at the peak of a solar cycle, says co-author Janet Kozyra of the University of Michigan.
The streams strike Earth periodically, spraying out in full force like water from a fire hose as the Sun revolves. When the magnetic fields in the solar winds point in a direction opposite to the magnetic lines in Earth’s magnetosphere, they have their strongest effect. The strength and speed of the magnetic fields in the high-speed streams can also affect Earth’s response.
The authors speculate that the high number of low-latitude coronal holes during this solar minimum may be related to a weakness in the Sun’s overall magnetic field. The Sun in 2008 had smaller polar coronal holes than in 1996, but high-speed streams that escape from the Sun’s poles do not travel in the direction of Earth.
“The Sun-Earth interaction is complex, and we haven’t yet discovered all the consequences for the Earth’s environment of the unusual solar winds this cycle,” Kozyra says. “The intensity of magnetic activity at Earth in this extremely quiet solar minimum surprised us all. The new observations from last year are changing our understanding of how solar quiet intervals affect the Earth and how and why this might change from cycle to cycle.”
About the article
Title: “If the Sun is so quiet, why is the Earth ringing? A comparison of two solar minimum intervals”
Authors: Sarah Gibson, Janet Kozyra, Giuliana de Toma, Barbara Emory, Terry Onsager, and Barbara Thompson
Publication: Journal of Geophysical Research – Space Physics
Related sites on the World Wide Web
Whole Heliosphere Interval (2008)
h/t to Leif Svalgaard
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Leif adds some perspective to this press release:
IMHO this is just another PR stunt, ‘never seen before’, ‘overturns what we thought before’, etc.
It has been known for a long time [decades] that there are strong recurrent solar wind streams leading up to solar minimum [EVERY solar minimum]. Attached are plots of the solar wind speed prior to minimum for many minima in the past. The blue curve show the speed derived from geomagnetic measurement and the pink curve shows that directly measured by spacecraft, some of the differences between the curves is due to missing data from the spacecraft [at times they only measured a small percentage of the time]. The smooth curves are 13 rotation running means.Also attached is the Recurrence Index, a measure for the recurrence tendency of the flow. High values = a solar rotation is very much like the previous one [the cross correlation between the two]
Especially the minimum in 1944 is very much like the current one in the sense that there was high-speed solar wind close to the minimum, even closer, fact. It is amazing that each new generation of scientists will have to rediscover and relearn what was already known. But such is human nature, every generation has to do this.
rbateman (20:23:28) :
I can see you have little to no interest in climate.
Oh, but I do, otherwise I wouldn’t be here. I have even published real peer-reviewed papers on the subject.
But the science has to be done right, and there is just too much hand waving and wishful thinking going on.
Leif,
I truly hope your 75% + estimate is correct, I’m counting on my friends and neighbors here in Texas to keep the federal government from shoving the Cap and Trade idiocy down our throats, and any other scientific claptrap that the new scientific elite think might be good for us. As I said Lysenko is alive in Washington.
Mike
rbateman (20:23:28) :
needs separating, like noise from signal, or multiple overlain signals.
I know it is a lot to read [because things are not simple], but http://www.leif.org/research/suipr699.pdf is an excellent example of how one separates multiple overlain signals and teases out the physics and the causation. It is a good read.
Another post on the sun that has become all about Lief.
Mike Bryant (20:30:30) :
As I said Lysenko is alive in Washington.
As I recall, Lysenko was not exactly ‘scientific elite’ rather the opposite… The kind you might find in Texas 🙂
Johnny Honda (06:59:56) :
@Kevin
“Sarah Gibson is cute. Therefore, I believe her analysis. Sorry scientists.”
Now if we could only get Megan Fox to host a documentary that features Richard Lindzen, Roy Spencer, Nir Shaviv, Anthony Watts, etc., a sort of second edition of Great Global Warming Swindle, then global warming is dead meat! 😉
kim (07:11:19) : “Leif, there is a bitterness in tone in my comment about your’s to Frank, that I do not personally feel toward you. It is among the most hackneyed of the alarmists’ criticisms to equate climate skepticism with evolution skepticism. It is a fallacious charge, particularly since the CO2 true believers are becoming the new deniers, the new flat earthers. I’m just trying to keep you off that thin ice.”
Spot on, Kim. In the book, Unscientific America which I am currently reading, more than one time [actually over and over] are “global warming deniers” rounded up in the SAME blankety-blank sentence with “anti-evolutionists.”
And interesting to note as well [Anthony you will like this] the co-author of the book, Sheril Kirshenbaum, was recently interviewed on NPR’s Science Friday.
On that program, she looked down her nose at “blogs not really being any good source of scientific information” and then she used as her example and I quote:
“I mean…look at the science blog that was recently voted the most popular Wattsupwiththat.com….a climate change denialist blog.”
Climate change denialist blog??? Huh?? Wha??
Who in this forum is denying that climate is changing??
No one. Climate changes. THAT IS WHAT IT DOES.
Her rhetoric in that statement above [and she is a scientist] is JUST AS BAD as the rhetoric of any religious fundamentalist that believes the world is 6000 years old.
So the book Unscientific America examines the disconnect in American society today, a VALID premise.
Yet, curiously, the book’s authors…peppering the book with their AGW rhetoric…are JUST AS DOGMA-CONTROLLED as the fundamentalists of the other side.
Interesting dilemma…isn’t it??
No wonder the world of science today is a cluster**** of fear and mistrust. Bright and talented and world-saving scientists….in fear of losing grants or research support…in the event they dare dissent the predominant “church creed” of the day, whatever that may be.
Currently it is the Worldwide Church of the Great AGW.
Sheril and Chris…looking at the contents of your book….just WHO is being “unscientific” here??
[This author’s note: I have emailed both of them….giving them a short chapter by chapter review and critique.]
They have not replied to me…even once.
Typical.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
Leif Svalgaard (20:00:27) :
Geoff Sharp (18:20:29) :
There may be proxy records (in some places) that the solar cycle (magnetic field) persisted through grand minima
——————————
Here is the 10Be record through the 17th century:
http://www.leif.org/research/Cycle-10Be-Maunder-Min.png
At the left is the power spectrum with a peak at 12.5 years. It is likely that the depth of the rightmost dip starting in 1693 is influenced by the eruption of Hekla that year (it was one of Hekla’s most destructive in the last 1000 years)
There is by now no doubt that the solar cycle persisted through all of the Grand Minima we have observed.
I beg to differ, it may have persisted but surely severely reduced levels at maximum when comparing Grand Minima cycles with those non affected. It also depends on what study you look at, if I remember correctly the evidence you support comes from one small group of trees or similar. The graphs that you present do not support your argument or affect mine. Any FFT study of solar cycles will show a 12 yr approx peak, what we are looking for is a change in those peaks which cant be seen in FFT. You other graph only shows the record for the Maunder, we need to see those records compared to high cycles before we can say there is no difference in the cycles.
Leif,
Thank you for your reply above. I’m having trouble understanding some of the concepts bandied about in this area and hope you can put me straight. You answered Peter Taylor’s excellent follow-up question to mine like this:
Q: I heard that the Earth’s magnetosphere has recently developed a large ‘hole’ – does this mean that plasma can come in?
A: Pure PR stunt. There are no holes. The solar wind magnetic field connects with the Earth’s every few hours [or even minutes at times] as it has done for billions of years. This allows the two regimes to interact.
I assume you mean that magnetic reconnection has always happened and this concept of ‘a hole’ is just ill conceived or a bad analogy. But you answered my direct question like this:
Q: Also, can you shed any light on what happens when a regular proton stream comes in …
A: They do not ‘come in’, as they cannot cross the Earth’s magnetic field …
Now I’m confused 🙂 … probably by these NASA PR newsletters:
1. Sun Often Tears Out A Wall In Earth’s Solar Storm Shield.
2. A Giant Breach in Earth’s Magnetic Field.
3. Magnetic Portals Connect Sun and Earth.
There are others concerning ‘flux ropes’ being discovered/confirmed recently by the THEMIS project I haven’t listed. And then there’s this paper describing the effects on the ozone layer of large SPEs during cycle 23, which seems to suggest ions [and I guess free electrons] get into the atmosphere directly.
Are you saying that the connection is purely electromagnetic and no ions actually get inside the magnetosphere i.e. the flux involved causes knock-on ionization of matter already on the inside?
This paper is focused on the marked ozone depletion, NO2 production, etc. but there must be substantial knock on climate effects. This is why I asked about heavier ions [which I’ve read elsewhere can be as large as nickel]. It seems to me there may be a lot more going on here than ozone depletion.
Peter also asked if there was anything unusual about the sun when the Carrington event occurred. Not the sun perhaps, but there are several papers estimating the ozone implications, the latest freely available I know of is here.
I’d also like your thoughts on noctilucent clouds, but I appreciate your time is limited. I know the official ice crystal theory but they just scream plasma to my simple mind (e.g. lattice formations that have apparently been observed).
We live in extremely fascinating times. With the number of satellites now buzzing about and a quiet sun the pace of discovery is leaving Joe Plumbers like me behind big time. Having guys like you around willing to answer the odd dumb question is fantastic. You’re doing a great job and it’s much appreciated!
Geoff Sharp (21:16:09) :
I beg to differ, it may have persisted but surely severely reduced levels at maximum when comparing Grand Minima cycles with those non affected.
The graph I showed http://www.leif.org/research/Cycle-10Be-Maunder-Min.png is McCracken’s reconstruction of the Heliospheric Magnetic File d [HMF] based on the latest 10Be data. As you can see the values during the Maunder minimum reached 4 to 5 nT much as they do today, so were not severely reduced.
It also depends on what study you look at, if I remember correctly the evidence you support comes from one small group of trees or similar.
It is true that it depends on the study, that is why I concentrate on the newest data, and the 10Be data shown does not come from trees [which some of the 14C data does] but from ice cores.
Any FFT study of solar cycles will show a 12 yr approx peak, what we are looking for is a change in those peaks which cant be seen in FFT.
The FFT is calculated for the 17th century and shows that there is a clear 12.5 period during the MM.
You other graph only shows the record for the Maunder, we need to see those records compared to high cycles before we can say there is no difference in the cycles.
The values vary in almost the same range as today. I have shown many times the full record http://www.leif.org/research/TSI%20From%20McCracken%20HMF.pdf
You have to disregard the data after 1945 [he has a calibration problem splicing together muon and neutron data] or add 1.7 nT to all his values before 1945. But even if you don’t want to do this you can compare 1600-1690 with 1750-1800 and 1830-1880 and 1900-1945 and verify that there are very small differences.
Aligner (21:23:11) :
I assume you mean that magnetic reconnection has always happened and this concept of ‘a hole’ is just ill conceived or a bad analogy.
Yes, that is correct
Are you saying that the connection is purely electromagnetic and no ions actually get inside the magnetosphere
Almost; the ions and the field are swept into the ‘tail’ of the magnetosphere. Once there, a further reconnection occurs and electrons are accelerated [because they are the lightest] towards to Earth and into the upper atmosphere near the poles causing aurora.
This paper is focused on the marked ozone depletion
The electrons are dumped at about 100 km height, and ozone is sitting at 30 km.
I’d also like your thoughts on noctilucent clouds, but I appreciate your time is limited. I know the official ice crystal theory
I think that is about right, but there are still unresolved issues, the clouds might even be a result of climate change.
We live in extremely fascinating times.
Indeed,
Leif Svalgaard (21:52:38) :
Geoff Sharp (21:16:09) :
It also depends on what study you look at, if I remember correctly the evidence you support comes from one small group of trees or similar.
It is true that it depends on the study, that is why I concentrate on the newest data, and the 10Be data shown does not come from trees [which some of the 14C data does] but from ice cores.
Geoff Sharp (21:16:09) :
But even if you don’t want to do this you can compare 1600-1690 with 1750-1800 and 1830-1880 and 1900-1945 and verify that there are very small differences.
Here I have overlain those interval on the Maunder Minimum starting in 1645: http://www.leif.org/research/HMF-Maunder-Comparisons.png
Granted that the MM points are a tad lower [after all it is a Grand Minimum], but it is clear that they are not ‘severely reduced’. In fact they are in the region where the HMF is today, right now.
Leif Svalgaard (22:16:57) :
Amazing how you can talk yourself into a result. All of your data suggests higher levels of 10Be than what was recorded during the Maunder (in reverse of course). Plus we only have records of 10Be to 1945, there is still quite a peak of activity to come if it were able to be measured. What you suggesting is that the proxy records (both 14C & 10Be) do not fluctuate in amplitude altho the graphs clearly show it. I think I would rather rely on Solanki and Steinhilber.
A bit off topic…maybe. But where are the Atlantic tropical storms this year? Only six named storms so far and three of them were suspect. Warmest oceans ever and no storms of the century? Will this be enough to show that the warmist’s are frauds? Or will we keep muddling forward with the “CO2 is pollution” newspeak?
Age of Mankind debate:
>>>So, its about science literacy, not religion.
Indeed, Leif, but it is religion that promotes the young age of man concept (based upon some rather flimsy evidence, even by biblical standards).
In order to attach your belief-banner to a particular mast, someone must have erected that mast in the first place.
.
>>>It may be an emotional issue for some people that
>>>there are young earth creationists out there. But it
>>>may be beneficial to set one’s emotions aside, as it
>>>really is a legal issue.
No. It is a political, social, technological and economic issue. The UK (and then the rest of Europe) only became industrial and technical once we had unshackled ourselves from from the primitive idea that one tattered old book contained the font of all knowledge (and if you disagreed with that notion, you had a nice warm fire prepared for you).
However, in our PC attempt to be nice and accommodating to all races, beliefs and creeds, we are actually allowing ourselves to drift back to the former Dark Age situation – and we do so at our peril.
.
Phil. (15:58:21) :
tallbloke (14:36:13) :
25 years ago I attended a lecture by the Astronomer Royale who told us that he and his fellow astronomers were well on the way to proving irrefutably that the big bang theory was correct, that new discoveries were just around the corner, and within a few years, all the loose ends would be tied up.
I got a fit of the giggles then, and I’m still waiting.
Well he was right and you apparently have been asleep since.
Heh, caulk and spackle doesn’t cut it for me.
@ur momisugly gtrip (23:37:11) :
No. A link between the frequency of storms and AGW has not been shown with any certainty. However, there may be a connection between greater intensity and AGW. Jury is still out on this.
A good article if you have access is:
Vecchi, G.A., Swanson, K.L., & Soden, B.J. (2008). Whither hurricane activity?. Science. 322, 687-689.
tallbloke 2:39:48
Of course not; you must sand and paint also.
Scott 4:22:25
See Ryan Maue’s chart of Accumulated Cyclone Energy, now at a thirty year low. The jury hasn’t even been picked yet.
======================================
I’m persistently amused that we are facing another opportunity to observe whether or not Solar Grand Minimums are correlated with cold spells and even observe well enough to help determine causation, and that such a grand experiment might be clouded, get it, by an outbreak of Vulcanism. Yet further amused that there might be something causal between the Sun and the Vulcanism.
=========================================
Leif 9:09:37 et suite
Ah, skated safely away. Be sure to give us the error bars on any future analysis of the ‘personal observation’. ::grin::
============================
gtrip (23:37:11) : “A bit off topic…maybe. But where are the Atlantic tropical storms this year? Only six named storms so far and three of them were suspect. Warmest oceans ever and no storms of the century? Will this be enough to show that the warmist’s are frauds? ”
I was thinking this myself this morning. Warmer waters are the fuel for the storms but not the igniter.
I was also wondering about what could look like a link between the number of Atlantic storms and Arctic sea ice melt with a 3 year time delay. Most probably a coincidence but we had lots of Atlantic activity in 2004 and 2005 with lots of Arctic sea ice melt in 2007 and 2008. Both were less before and since. (how’s that for cherry pickin’ data).
>>>I’m persistently amused that we are facing another
>>>opportunity to observe whether or not Solar Grand
>>>Minimums are correlated with cold spells
You should have continued … … … and we are doing nothing observationally or experimentally to determine if this is true or not.
There is no point noticing that it (perhaps) got cooler, without understanding why.
.
OT, Good view Chaitén Volcano eruption today:
http://www.aipchile.cl/camara/location.php?locationID=34
Geoff Sharp (23:06:13) :
What you suggesting is that the proxy records (both 14C & 10Be) do not fluctuate in amplitude altho the graphs clearly show it. I think I would rather rely on Solanki and Steinhilber.
What the record shows is that 10Be during 1600-1690 was not much different from 1750-1800 and 1830-1880 and 1900-1945 http://www.leif.org/research/HMF-Maunder-Comparisons.png
If we correct McCracken’s calibration error [in 1945], the levels are even comparable to the modern spacecraft based values.
There was a clear solar cycle during the MM [and BTW this is also the case for the Spoerer Minimum and the Dalton Minimum and the current minimum].