After an exciting encounter last week with some genuine sunspots that weren’t arguable as specks, pores, or pixels, the sun resumes its quiet state this week.
People send me things. Here’s the latest email from Paul Stanko, who has been following the solar cycle progression in comparison to previous ones.
Hi Anthony,
Out of the numbered solar cycles, #24 is now in 7th place. Only 5, 6, and 7 of the Dalton Minimum and cycles 12, 14, and 15 of the Baby Grand Minimum had more spotless days. Since we’ve now beaten cycle #13, we are clearly now competitive with the Baby Grand minimum.
Here’s a table of how the NOAA panel’s new SC#24 prediction is doing:
November 2008: predicted = 1.80, actual = 1.67 (predicted peak of 90 suggests an actual peak of 83.7)
December 2008: predicted = 1.80, actual = 1.69 (predicted peak of 90 suggests an actual peak of 84.7)
January 2009: predicted = 2.10, actual = 1.71 (predicted peak of 90 suggests an actual peak of 73.2)
February 2009: predicted = 2.70, actual = 1.67 (predicted peak of 90 suggests an actual peak of 55.6)
March 2009: predicted = 3.30, actual = 1.97 (predicted peak of 90 suggests an actual peak of 53.8)
April would require the October data which is still very incomplete. If this analysis intrigues you, I’d be happy to keep you updated on it. Please also find a couple of interesting graphs attached as images.
Paul Stanko
Here’s the graphs, the current cycle 24 and years of interest are marked with a red arrow:
And how 2008/2009 fit in:
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Vukcevic (14:07:56) :
“It is indeed easy, if the subject makes sense. If not, it is VERY hard”
To give you an example. The paper starts out with the usual boilerplate stuff that every paper on solar cycle would have, that is not problematic, but then suddenly says this:
“produces a remarkably similar result as it is demonstrated in the diagram shown in Fig.1.”
And right here is the problem, because the sunspot curve and the mathematical curve bear very little relationship to each other. Now, there are ways of quantifying if one time series looks like another. So, you should use standard statistical methods to show this or use inspiration to discover a brand new statistical method of comparison that gives the desired result. Now, I’m writing as a referee of your paper [and I and David H] might actually be such if you submit it. As a referee, I’ll say that there is no remarkable similarity and stop right there and not bother with the rest. So, your first job is to prove that they are similar. Not just say it. Scientists have a lot of on-the-job training in judging wiggle similarity and a so-trained neural network will instantly tell if there is something worth pursuing. And your diagram 1 fails that test [at least for my neural network]. So, first item of work: quantify the similarity using [preferably] a standard technique.
If you can do that and the result is that there is a remarkable similarity, then, perversely, the rest of the paper doesn’t matter either, because diagram 1 alone would be enough to prove your case.
Leif Svalgaard (14:48:07) :
Vukcevic (14:07:56) :
If you read German [as you might] the following little tale by Rudolf Wolf might be of interest: http://www.leif.org/EOS/Wolf-LXXV.pdf
It describes his comments of an idea by W. Sellmeier about the influence of the planets on solar activity.
rbateman (13:40:42) :
The bottom line for the Dalton is that the Literary works and the news of the day is the observation.
The weight of evidence is pointing towards the Dalton being a cooler period, most of the proxy records and literature suggest a cooling at 1800. But as we are finding out temperature proxies are less than reliable.
Geoff Sharp (15:07:20) :
the proxy records and literature suggest a cooling at 1800. But as we are finding out temperature proxies are less than reliable.
So the literature reports the results of volcanic cooling, as it must because the WAS volcanic cooling.
Geoff Sharp (15:07:20) :
The proxies are somewhat vague and noisy.
The record of observation are the historical accounts here.
It was getting colder as much as 20 years in the US prior to the big volcano going off.
In the case of the Dalton it was to a reference point of global temperature that Tambora added it’s effect.
While Volcanoes can occur at any time, they show a distribution that has more occuring during times of minimum. Nothing new, just that many have noticed the tendency, and not much more than speculation as to why this happens. This much is obvious: Minimums are not seen to be the cause of volcanoes, but the occurence of Minimum and elevated volcanism are the norm.
Leif Svalgaard (14:30:02) :
The bottom line for the Dalton is that the Literary works
——————————–
Of cold brought about by volcanoes. Or just of blind fate.
That statement seems to accept that you do think it was cold during the Dalton. Blaming it solely on volcanoes is a bit of a long stretch as we have previously discussed. Its hard to see any downtrend in temps in the GISS record during the Pinatubo and Krakatoa eruptions and ice core records during the Dalton show the SO3 levels are washed out very quickly, lasting 2 or 3 yrs in the atmosphere. While acknowledging there must be some climate affects from volcanic eruptions, the degree is questionable.
Geoff Sharp (16:56:38) :
While acknowledging there must be some climate affects from volcanic eruptions, the degree is questionable.
Noisy as the proxies are, they do show the effect of the volcanoes, most famously “the year without a summer” 1816. Apart from that we have no good evidence it was generally colder. Regional anecdotal evidence is all over the map. Here is the famous CET series [which are measurements actually]: http://www.leif.org/research/CET%20and%2010Be.png
Also shown is the 10Be record [converted to HMF B] There is nothing special about the Dalton temperature-wise. 16 other European records show the same. You may argue, that we don’t know what the temperature was, in which case you cannot claim it was cold.
Geoff Sharp (16:56:38) :
While acknowledging there must be some climate affects from volcanic eruptions, the degree is questionable.
People that model these things:
http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=17047898
“Results indicate that on global and hemispheric scales, the volcanic forcing is largely responsible for the temperature drop in this period, especially during its second half, whereas changes in solar forcing and the increasing atmospheric CO2 concentrations were of minor importance”
Now, the usual response [snip] so you can always take that route too.
Reply: c’mon Leif, you know better. ~ ctm
Dr. S:
I can find no paper showing wheat being as sensitive to temp change as you suggest, although in honesty I can find no studies involving the cultivar of wheat used during the subject time period. BUT I DID find this study:
“INFLUENCE OF SOLAR ACTIVITY ON THE STATE OF THE WHEAT
MARKET IN MEDIEVAL ENGLAND” LEV A. PUSTIL’NIK1,2 and GREGORY YOM DIN3
1Israel Cosmic Ray Center, Tel Aviv University and Israel Space Agency, P.O. Box 2217, Katzrin,
12900, Israel (e-mail: levpust@post.tau.ac.il)
2Sea of Galilee Astrophysical Observatory, Jordan Valley College, 15132, Israel
(e-mail: lev@yarden.ac.il)
3Golan Research Institute, Katzrin, 12900, Israel (e-mail: rres102@research.haifa.ac.il)
Solar Physics 223: 335–356, 2004.
From their conclusion:
“We show that for all 10 time moments of the solar activity minima the observed prices were higher than prices for the corresponding time moments of maximal solar activity (100% sign correlation, on a significance level <0.2%). We consider these results a direct evidence of the causal connection between wheat prices bursts and solar activity."
So do you think that wheat IS that sensitive to a vanishingly small temp. change; that the causal connection described in the above paper is really just a long string of coincidences; that both Herschel and the research paper are just flat-out wrong about wheat prices and solar activity; or that there may be something we don't completely understand going on? I think that covers all the possibilities.
Oh, and Newton believed all sorts of strange things (and dismissed experimental data that didn't fit his theories), but I wouldn't consider him a hack scientist, either.
Leif Svalgaard (17:38:11) :
Now, the usual response [snip] so you can always take that route too.
Reply: c’mon Leif, you know better. ~ ctm
But he might not.
Leif Svalgaard (17:31:46) :
There is nothing special about the Dalton temperature-wise. 16 other European records show the same. You may argue, that we don’t know what the temperature was, in which case you cannot claim it was cold.
Archibald’s graph shows 3 European stations displaying a downtrend. US stations also show a downturn during the Dalton. I think you are struggling here and perhaps trying to fit some of the data to your agenda instead of accepting the data is questionable. I will sit on the fence right now.
jtom (17:50:35) :
So do you think that wheat IS that sensitive to a vanishingly small temp. change; that the causal connection described in the above paper is really just a long string of coincidences; that both Herschel and the research paper are just flat-out wrong about wheat prices and solar activity; or that there may be something we don’t completely understand going on? I think that covers all the possibilities.
At the COSPAR meeting last year the authors of the paper you cite have come to a more nuanced view of this issue. Here is what they said:
“Space Weather Influence on the Earth wheat markets: past, present, and future:
We consider problem of a possible influence of unfavorable states of the space weather on agriculture market through chain of connections: “space weather”-“earth weather”-“agriculture crops”-“price reaction”. We show that new manifestations of “space weather”-“earth weather” relations discovered in the last time allow to revise wide field of expected solar-terrestrial connections. In the previous works we proposed possible mechanisms of wheat market reaction in the form of price bursts on the specific unfavorable states of space weather. We show that implementation of considered “price reaction scenarios” is possible only for condition of simultaneous realization of several necessary conditions: high sensitivity of local earth weather in selected region to space weather; state of “high risk agriculture” in selected agriculture zone; high sensitivity of agricultural market to possible deficit of supply. Results of previous works (I, II) included application of this approach to wheat market in Medieval England and to modern USA durum market showed that real connection between wheat price bursts and space weather state is observed with high confidence level. The aim of present work is answer on the question, why wheat markets in one region are sensitive to space weather factor, while another regional wheat markets demonstrate absolute indifferent reaction on this factor. For this aim we consider distribution of sensitivity of wheat markets in Europe to space weather as function of localization in different climatic zones. We analyze giant database of 95 European wheat markets from 14 countries during about 600-year period (1260-1912). We show that observed sensitivity of wheat market to space weather effects controlled, first of all, by type of predominant climate in different zones of agriculture. Wheat markets in the North and part of Central Europe (England, Iceland, Holland) shows reliable sensitivity to space weather in minimum states of solar activity with low solar wind, high cosmic ray flux and North Atlantic cloudiness, caused by CR excess, with negative sequences for wheat agriculture in this humid zone. In the same time wheat markets in the South Europe (Spain, Italy) show reliable sensitivity to space weather state in the opposite (maximum) phase of solar activity with strong solar wind, low cosmic ray flux and deficit of CR input in cloudiness in North Atlantic with next deficit of precipitations in the arid zones of the South Europe. In the same time the large part of markets in the Central Europe zone, functioned far from “high risk agriculture state” show the absence of any effects-responses on space weather. This asymmetry is in accordance with model expectation in the frame of proposed approach. For extremely case of the Iceland agriculture we show that drop of agriculture production in unfavorable states of space weather leads to mass mortality from famines correlated with phase of solar activity with high confi- dence level. We discuss possible increasing of sensitivity of wheat markets to space weather effects in condition of drastic and fast change of modern climate, caused by global warming of the Earth atmosphere with fast and unexpected shift of numerous agriculture regions in the world to state of “high risk agriculture zone”. ”
I think this might fit in any one of the possibilities you suggest.
Gene Nemetz (06:05:57) : Ummm… maybe because he’s a troll in sheep’s clothing…but that couldn’t be…. could it?
I suspect he is not a troll, just a curmudgeonly professor who has had to deal with far too many clueless but enthusiastic students over the years all attracted to the same “shiny things”… (BTW, some of my favorite folks have been curmudgeonly sorts, they usually have much “clue” and that can be wearing in the world so devoid of it. I hope to “grow up” to be a surly curmudgeon some day myself, but I have a ways to go. I’m still too nice and hopeful that this time the clueless will be different… )
Oh, and I think you will find him in cotton and cotton polyester blends, not wool. Stanford isn’t really cold enough for wool… 😉 Though I can picture a fine old Wool School Tie… and maybe even a wool sports coat on those wintery days that deserve one.
Leif Svalgaard (06:10:16) : I care about the folks getting the science right, not about what you agree on or not.
Strangely enough, I’m having this same problem over on my blog. There is a fellow who seems to think I give a tinkers darn about what he thinks and what my reputation might be in his eyes. Somehow folks who are largely driven by what others think of them simply can not grasp the fact that it isn’t about them and it isn’t about me. It is all about data, process, analysis, understanding, results. There is no ego in data, nor in method. There is no ego in a formula nor in how physics works.
If you ever figure out how to give clue to folks that “It doesn’t matter what you think of me, all that matters is where the truth leads” I’d sure like to know how to get it into their heads without sounding like a surly curmudgeon…
Or maybe that’s my answer in both cases…
Invité (06:24:56) : Voici un site qui parle d’un refroidissement climatique en France et qui vous suit de très pret. Nous sommes totalement en accord avec ce que vous dites. Bravo continuez comme ça.
Je vous remercie pour cela. Nous avons un groupe de gens français participant ici:
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2009/09/14/gistemp-pas-dun-coup/
Peut-être que vous aimeriez mettre la même note, là-bas?
Grant (07:07:26) : To put it another way, the correllation that they found in 1991 – one that had held true for hundreds of year – is also evidence suggesting that the recent temperature history put out in line with the IPCC info has a strong warming error.
I can pretty much confirm that GIStemp has a built in warming bias. It’s at about 1/2 C through the first 2 STEPs, Haven’t measured it in the later steps yet (need to make a binary to ascii conversion program to use my benchmark after STEP2). Inspection of individual records shows a warming bias in the code, but I can not yet characterize it as to magnitude.
Do you know if they used GIStemp or Hadley (The Dogs Lunch) data? If so, they ought to redo the analysis with GHCN Adjusted data without the GIStemp “lift”…
Geoff Sharp (08:34:32) : The Earth uses those positive feedbacks (cloud cover and ocean cycles) to further regulate the solar TSI, everything is solar related and I believe I have the answer for solar output.
FWIW, I suspect that very long term there will still be some truth to the notion of Sun as Driver through some sort of amplification (be if from changing length of day / rotation rate of the earth changing currents or from clouds, or…) but the warming in the GIStemp temperature series is not compatible with the solar thesis.
You will want to demonstrate a correlation with GHCN data pre-GIStemp to have something solid as a measurement. I’m contemplating making a “cleaned up” version of the GIStemp code where I take out all the cherry picked parameters and shorten the distances over which it applies the Reference Station Method and producing my own temperature series.
If you have any interest in “SmithTemp” 😉 data, let me know at my blog and I’ll make the series. It would not take long. I would most likely just rip out all of their UHI “correction” and take the GHCN “Adjusted” data for UHI correction. Then it would just be a matter of shrinking the RSM parameter from 1000, 1200, 1500 (it varies…) km to something more reasonable like 100 km and running the code. Oh, and I’d want to toss out any thermometers with less than a dozen or two years of lifetime. They just clutter up the thing with unjustified perturbations.
Geoff Sharp (18:28:52) :
I think you are struggling here and perhaps trying to fit some of the data to your agenda instead of accepting the data is questionable. I will sit on the fence right now.
What nonsense. What I am saying is that there is no good evidence for it being abnormally cold globally [below what the volcanoes obviously wrought – 1816]. There is also no good evidence that it was abnormally warm. That accords with your fence sitting, I reckon.
Guess we are all ready for a new topic eh?
Someone come up with something interesting! Please!
E.M.Smith (18:41:03) :
surly curmudgeon…
“An ill-tempered person full of resentment and stubborn notions”
and surly to boot, eh?
E.M. (love your work) Maybe you could clear this up.
I was reading the climate alarmism the other day
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,944914-1,00.html
And this caught my eye.
“Since the 1940s the mean global temperature has dropped about 2.7° F.”
Is this an accurate Gisstemp number for 1940 – 1972?
E.M.Smith (19:05:03) :
Thanks, your idea for a project sounds interesting, especially the reconstruction of GISS data. Trying to match the temp record with solar movements with the positive feedbacks is a daunting task at this stage, the feedback mechanisms in my opinion are not clearly quantified and understood yet. But the framework I think is very promising.
John Finn (17:43:35) :
2. There might have been a “70s cooling scare” but there was no cooling in the 1970s. In fact the climate shifted to warming during the 1970s. The weak solar cycle, i.e. SC20, ran from 1964 til 1976 during which time global temperatures were essentially flat.
In who’s temperature series? If it is from GIStemp, you are using a broken ruler.
BTW, I lived through that time period and it WAS colder. There were snows in that time period that were not seen for 40 years prior nor for 40 years after. (I asked the old folks who told me about ‘the last time’).
I think you are looking at “cooked books” for your temperatures.
Hey, don’t call me surly.
Were you to know how it all worked out think of the yet more complex and difficult to know things you could be working on with your new found knowledge.
=================================
Ed (19:29:41) :
Someone come up with something interesting! Please!
This is even on topic:
We plan to submit tomorrow to JGR the following:
http://www.leif.org/research/IDV09.pdf
showing the run of the heliospheric magnetic field since 1835 [not a typo]. I plan to discuss the whole peer-review process here on WUWT, complete with nasty comments by the reviewers and our responses. This will be an illustration of the peer-review process as it unfolds. Should be interesting.
If Vuk ever gets his act in gear, he could do the same. Or even nobrainer and Co.
Geoff:
“Solanki’s raw data (geomagnetic leveled) plus some of my own is available from here: http://www.landscheidt.info/images/solanki_sharp.xls”
Has the dating shifted from the original dataset for the 10-be? Funny, because I actually had shifted it myself once for comparison to GISP2 as it seemed the timing was in error, i.e. there are three very large peaks in the 10BE data (~9000yrs ad or so), which match up suspiciously well with the GISP2 temp data for the same time period if one decreases the time span for the dataset linearly.
Do you or Leif have the Steinhilber TSI data in .txt or .xls?
Thanks,
Ed
kim (18:10:08) : I think Erl Happ will find the ultraviolet contributions to the whole climate regulating mechanisms or stimulate its explication. Many of his ideas fit right in with others like Tisdale, Spencer, and van Loon.
The sun is very sultry and we must avoid its ultry-violet rays.
Oddly enough, as someone with “The Redhead Gene” I’m a very sensitive UV sensor. I can say with absolute certainty that the UV this summer was “wrong” and low. I was out in the sun for periods of time that ought to have given me a sunburn and got nothing. (Yes, I’ve “calibrated” myself. 20 minutes high noon California in summer is a 1st degree burn. 1 hour is second degree… and yes, I’ve had blistering from a sunburn.)
FWIW, the higher energy bands drop a heck of a lot more than the TSI and, IMHO, that delta between what frequencies are carrying the TSI is important. No, I have no mechanism, but I can say that it matters a great deal to certain living things… especially red ones…
kim (18:17:26) : If indeed an Eddy Minimum is dawning then let us hope there will be few enough confounding factors, such as vulcanism
And what if vulcanism is the solar influence? What if the delta in angular momentum changes the loading on the plates such that the “accidental” correlation of solar changes with cold is not so accidental but is a direct consequence? This, IMHO, is the most likely answer to this Gordian Knot. The delta AM leads to the flexure of the planet surface at the same time that it slops the ocean around and gives a PDO et.al. flip. BINGO! we have the “accidental” “coincidence” of volcanoes and the cold time with the planetary positions (that modulate the solar AM / earth AM process).
I suspect that trying to separate the vulcanism from the AM from the clouds from the … is a fools errand. One is trying to separate cause from effect.
I’m also fairly certain that the present temperature series have little relation to this since GIStemp is “cooked” and the thermometer record patterns do not support it as a short term driver. I still hold out hope that the hundreds of years cycles are driven by the sun, but the 1880 to present in GIStemp is not solar nor CO2 related. It is thermometer count and location driven (the code can not compensate for a factor of 10 increase in thermometers in warm southern locations).
But really, send shysters, gats, and loot.
I really hope you are of the female persuasion because I really like the way you…, er, are… (and I have a delicate ego structure 😉
Leif Svalgaard (20:07:47) : There probably is [and should be] a solar cycle variation in temperature of the order of 0.1K. To explain the correlation with the price of wheat, you would have to assume that wheat can sense this small difference and react to it by yielding more when it is 0.1K warmer.
Um, not so fast… UV levels influence plants. Water influences plants. Cloud cover influences plants. TSI is not everything. The specifics matter a great deal when it comes to plants. Jevons did the early work on this and he was a fairly careful worker. There IS a correlation between yields, prices, and the sunspot levels. Why is still somewhat unclear, but the pattern is something you can bank on. Literally.
The link has weakened a bit lately, probably due to the genetic manipulation we are doing to plants, irrigation, and the wide availability of fertilizers; but the pattern in the early work was fairly clear.
Plants can be very sensitive to minor marginal changes. Most tomatoes will not set fruit if night temperatures are below 50 F. 51 to 55F+ are fine. 49 is not. My runner beans have beautiful red flowers in mid summer, but will not set seed when the temps are above about 90 ish F. I’ve not calibrated it exactly, but they set seed well when it is 80 something and have flower drop at 90 something. (I think the cut off is about 92 to 95 F, but have not exactly measured it). So you can have a 100% change in yield from a couple of degree change in limit temperatures (NOT average…).
Now we moved the problem from the Sun and the climate to the wheat. Do you have an explanation for this extreme sensitivity of wheat to temperature?
While I’ve not grown wheat in quantity personally, I think the above examples are informative of the issues. Tomato pollen generally will not grow the needed tubule into the ova inside the 3 day pollen life if the temperatures are below 50F. Similarly, the Runner Bean fertilization fails at about 92F on the hot side.
Each plant as a ‘growing season length’. If you have a 120 day crop and have 121 days, you are fine. 100 days, not so much… This is frequently frost mediated, so the “last frost” and “first frost” days are critical. If these are 121 days apart, you get a crop. 110?… This is dramatically seen in places like England were you can get tomatoes briefly one year and nothing but “green tomatoes” the next if the degree days are short or the frost early. And some crop land is always “at the margin”. So a marginal change in a price inelastic commodity can have a magnified effect on the price of what crop there is.
This is part of why agriculture gets special treatment in price support and market stabilization programs. The price can vary widely with modest changes of yield from trivial changes in temperature, rainfall, and frost dates.
So I could easily see a change in UV, for example, having a marginal change in plant growth rate and rainfall that turns a 110 day crop into a 130 day crop and at the same time turns a 120 day season into a 110 day one, and have a crop failure. From bumper crop to zero in one step.
This kind of stuff is why trading ag commodities is the hardest thing to do, IMHO. Ranks right up there with gold trading (often driven by news, panic, government pronouncements, and other non-quantifiable nor predictable stuff.) Stocks and bonds are trivial by comparison.
As for not being a hack, Herschel believed the Sun was inhabited.
And Einstein believed in an invisible man in the sky with a fixation for counting hairs on heads but not so much interested in dice.
Do not judge a work by the author’s belief in other things. Judge it only on the merits of the work.
John Finn (01:17:31) : As a matter of fact, I don’t agree that temperatures in the 1796-1820 period were significantly lower than the periods preceding and following the Dalton Minimum. …
This show the average temperatures at 17 stations between 1770 and 1850. There is a dip in ~1815 but this was around the time of the huge Tombura eruption and, in any case, this was no greater in magnitude than the dips in the mid-1780s and in ~1840.
Take a look at:
http://www.smhi.se/content/1/c6/02/50/31/attatchments/upps_www.pdf
The thin moving average line shows a nice dip between 1790 to 1820. It is layered onto a longer cycle droop from 1710 to 1880 (gee… just the cherry picked bottom when GIStemp chooses to begin history…) so an ill informed statistical analysis might miss the pattern. Oh, and both the 1780s and 1840s have as similar depth, but the width (and integrated area) are less.
And to reiterate a point I raised above: What make you so sure that the same thing driving the sun spot drop is not the exact same thing driving the increased vulcanism? We are presently having a drop of solar activity AND an increase in vulcanism. It seems to happen in each minima. How often must a coincidence happen before you start to suspect mutual causality? It is quite high for vulcanism and sunspots and cold, oh my!