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:
Interesting that 1976 shows up in the most spotless days in 100 years graph considering the 1976 summer was a heatwave summer in the UK (And too 1986 I think).
I propose that this may be in error. It may be the “whipsaw point” rather than the actual “setting”. We are not sure how solar variation affects temperatures in so narrow a range. (I also note that a 0.1% decrease in earth’s temperature would be around 0.29K.) Just how sure are we about that thermostat setting?
Also, there were a lot of prolonged ups and downs during the LIA. The LIA is (normally) said to have ended c. 1840, and there certainly were some very warm periods between then and 1910.
Of course multidecadal oceanic-atmospheric cycles would be part of the mix. It’s very hard to measure.
Out of curiosity, to what do you ascribe the LIA? (“I don’t know,” is an acceptable and perhaps very wise answer.)
Also, once the temps get down to that 65 level, the “whipsaw point” changes, and things go up and down at a cooler level until some long, strong 75 settings occur. That would explain the LIA duration (and how it ended).
evanmjones (22:14:43) :
(I also note that a 0.1% decrease in earth’s temperature would be around 0.29K.) Just how sure are we about that thermostat setting?
A 0.1% decrease in solar output causes a 0.1%/4 percent decrease in temperature because radiation goes with the fourth power of the temperature, so 0.07K
Out of curiosity, to what do you ascribe the LIA? (”I don’t know,” is an acceptable and perhaps very wise answer.)
Nobody knows. One could guess internally driven oscillations e.g. involving the oceans.
Also, once the temps get down to that 65 level, the “whipsaw point” changes, and things go up and down at a cooler level until some long, strong 75 settings occur.
Solar activity in cycles 3 and 4 was very high, cycle 3 around 1780 on par with cycle 19. Cycle 8, 9 and 11 were very high too on par with 21 and 22.
You left out unicorns…
I’ll let you supply implausible ones… [there is an inexhaustible supply]
No thanks, I’ll pass.
PD
Found these graphs on the ‘great climate shift’ of 1976.
http://www.appinsys.com/GlobalWarming/The1976-78ClimateShift.htm
A 0.1% decrease in solar output causes a 0.1%/4 percent decrease in temperature because radiation goes with the fourth power of the temperature, so 0.07K
I have heard this but I wonder if all TSI is “created equal”. Since it comes in in short waves which are converted to longwave (heat) “on the bounce”, might something variable in the incoming SW, itself, affect this?
One could guess internally driven oscillations e.g. involving the oceans.
Pretty intense, although possible. It’s one heck of a swing.
Solar activity in cycles 3 and 4 was very high, cycle 3 around 1780 on par with cycle 19. Cycle 8, 9 and 11 were very high too on par with 21 and 22.
8 was right around when the Dalton Minimum ended, though, and by cycle 11 (just before 1880) things had gotten pretty warm. And Cycle 4 ended around 1798, just before the Dalton Minimum began and the temps dropped.
I am going to do a graph of spots vs. temps to see how good or bad the correlation is. (Of course temps are proxy prior to 1880.)
evanmjones (22:14:43) :Out of curiosity, to what do you ascribe the LIA? (”I don’t know,” is an acceptable and perhaps very wise answer.)
Leif Svalgaard (22:40:41) : Nobody knows. One could guess internally driven oscillations e.g. involving the oceans.
Or a COMBINATION of internally driven oceanic oscillations (and volcanic)… AND perhaps some externally driven as well.
The Earth and its solar system is rotating around the Milky Way about once every 250 MM years. Previous Ice Ages have occured when we pass through more dense arms.
We are coursing through variable interstellar space at 500K MPH.
Notwithstanding the Earth has its own cycles….varying on weeks to thousands of years….Earth is not a “clean” closed system…somehow immune from the rest of the universe.
Whether or not the LIA has any relation to extra-terrestrially driven systems or not remains to be seen.
Certainly the longer period waves/oscillations (even beyond Milankovitch) seem to show that REAL ice ages are driven , at least partially, externally.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
evanmjones (23:01:30) :
I have heard this but I wonder if all TSI is “created equal”.
The fourth power law holds for all. But I realize that all these arguments are of little value as they are ad-hoc to save the big picture…
The warmers are making some big money off AGW right now and when there is more proof of cooling, will they switch and start yelling ice age and make money off that. Reminds me of when I was in Rome a couple of years ago and all the souvenir sellers where hawking their wares on a nice day and not an umbrella in sight. Well then it rained the next day and they all had umbrellas to sell. I am waiting for the switch. Wonder if Gore is working on that power point right now.
savethesharks (23:07:36) :
The Earth and its solar system is rotating around the Milky Way about once every 250 MM years. Previous Ice Ages have occured when we pass through more dense arms.
Not given, as it presupposes that the arms and the solar orbit stay fixed, and BTW upthread I posted a link to a recent paper showing that the latest map of the arms do not fit the Shaviv scheme.
Certainly the longer period waves/oscillations (even beyond Milankovitch) seem to show that REAL ice ages are driven , at least partially, externally.
More likely by the changing configuration of the continents [plates] and the distribution of land and sea, and the resulting changing ocean currents. But, perhaps the movements of the plates are also externally driven? Unicorns, perhaps…
If you want to talk about external drivers, picture this asteroid ….
Unicorns…and most certainly asteroids (haha I caught that) aside, my point is… that Earth is not an entirely closed system.
Most of its drivers are internally driven, without a doubt.
However…the universe is WAY to big and old a place, though, to rule out, external influences on little old Earth.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
savethesharks (23:44:00) :
However…the universe is WAY to big and old a place, though, to rule out, external influences on little old Earth.
Absolutely, the Sun will become a red giant in 4 billion years and the Earth will fry to a crisp. [unless we have learned by then to move ourselves out of harms way].
Ron de Haan, Save the Sharks and Leif
“The universe is WAY to big and old a place, though, to rule out, external influences on little old Earth”.
I agree.
I think it is time for Leif to show us how he can turn on a sixpence.
There is a new post at: http://climatechange1.wordpress.com
Absolutely, the Sun will become a red giant in 4 billion years and the Earth will fry to a crisp. [unless we have learned by then to move ourselves out of harms way].
We don’t have to wait 4 billion years. There are plenty of others.
One day 1859 will repeat, and it will be a BIG disaster.
If a new Maunder Minimum occurs…who knows what its effect will be….or not.
Asteroids, GRBs, the LIC Cloud, and the mere Milankovitch cycles are all causes for at least observation, not necessarily concern.
Point is….Earth is not a closed system…
Leif,
I take your point from your thermostat analogy so that turning it to 69F would allow the temperarure to drop to 69F but no further.
However I’m not sure that the analogy really works for the sun.
If one assumes that the amount of energy emitted by the sun over each cycle is much the same (you can tell me whether it is or not) then the longer a cycle the greater the length of time over which roughly the same package of energy is delivered.
Consequently the longer the cycle the more the thermostat is turned down and the cooler the Earth system becomes over time.
A different view of ENSO and systematic climate change
Posted By Erl Happ, October 4
“The end point of this essay is a realization that ENSO is not a tropical phenomenon at all. It is a driven by conditions at the poles, particularly Antarctica, and ultimately by the interaction between the mesosphere and the stratosphere”.
“Sea surface temperature depends upon the stratosphere”
“There is no other force than the sun that will warm the oceans in such an expansive fashion on this relatively rhythmic schedule. There is no chaos in this system. There is order and regulation. The largest sea surface temperature responses are at higher latitudes and the smallest responses are at low latitudes. This mirrors the pattern of temperature variation in the stratosphere”.
For the entire post:
http://climatechange1.wordpress.com/2009/10/04/a-different-view-of-enso-and-systematic-climate-change/
I note the comments above about SSWs (Sudden Stratospheric Warmings).
I have tried to accommodate those in my general climate description by pointing out that climate is governed by independent variability at two levels i.e. at the sea/air interface and at the air/space interface.
It is the interplay between variations at both interfaces which ensures the resolution of two conflicting parameters namely that the sea surface and surface air temperatures need to stay in equilibrium whilst at the same time the energy into the system has to match the energy leaving the system. If either parameter were capable of being disturbed for long then soon we would lose our liquid oceans.
That implies that from time to time the variations in energy flow from sea to air and from solar effects (not just TSI but also solar wind and magnetosphere variations) to the top of the atmosphere will both seek to disrupt the balance between energy in and energy out and it is leftto the air circulation systems to resolve those attempts at disruption.
Just as changes in the air circulation systems change in the troposphere to regulate the speed of energy flow from troposphere to stratosphere I propose that the air circulation systems in the stratosphere change to regulate the speed of energy flow from air to space.
Both processes can work in tandem or in opposition to regulate the system and keep the climate roughly stable over billions of years despite even asteroid strikes and severe volcanic outbreaks.
One of the side effects would be apparently anomalous stratospheric warming and cooling events as the energy flow to space is accelerated or decelerated to maintain equilibrium.
Thus the energy flow from sea to air is variable in exactly the same way as the energy flow from air to space and climate is the product of the continuously varying interplay between both types of internally generated variability with the sun being merely an enabler by providing the background energy flow in only very slightly varying quantities (except when orbital changes cause ice ages).
Wherefore art thou Niño?
posted by Erl Happ, August 22
“Figure 9 plots the moving 12 month average of 20hPa temperature at 10°north to 10°south and also the departure of each month’s mean from the period average for that month. This is a very important graph. It shows the dramatic change in the forces driving sea surface temperature over the period of record. And indeed, what changes there have been! Here is a list of the patterns that emerge.
* There are four, five or six warming cycles in stratospheric temperature per solar cycle. The nature of these warming cycles has changed over time.
* Cycle 18 produced relatively stable temperatures in the stratosphere.
* Strong peaks in stratospheric temperature occurred in 1963, 1971, 1983, 1992 and 2007.
* The strongest advances in stratospheric temperature occurred in the early stages of odd numbered cycles 19, 21 and 23.
* Much enhanced variability in temperature from month to month is seen to develop in solar cycles 22 and 23.
* Stratospheric temperatures are again on the increase in the last half of cycle 23.
* Cycle 20, when the globe cooled, was marked by declining temperatures in the stratosphere after solar maximum as was cycle 22.
It is abundantly evident that the basic parameter driving the warming of the tropical sea has changed dramatically over the period of record. Conventional climate science and the UNIPCC knows nothing of this.
CONCLUDING REMARKS
It is apparent that cycles of warming in the tropics contributed strongly to the increase in global temperatures between 1978 and 1998. The forces that control the temperature of the stratosphere influence the flux in ice cloud cover in the subtropics and thereby the frequency and intensity of warming events in the tropics. The role of cirrus cloud in determining the flux of temperature at the surface is currently misunderstood. This misunderstanding is a product of reliance on greenhouse theory in complete defiance of the evidence that other factors overwhelm and negate the response to the increase in trace gas content. As the upper atmosphere warms in subtropical latitudes cirrus evaporates and the surface manifestly warms. It does not cool. The IPCC has it the other way round. It maintains that cirrus cloud traps heat and warms the surface. This theory is completely at odds with observation. It should be consigned to the scrapheap of intellectual thought along with Lysenkoism. It is Junk Science”.
To read the entire posting:
http://climatechange1.wordpress.com/2009/08/22/wherefor-art-thou-nino/
evanmjones (20:45:04) :
It is believed so. It is called the Seuss (or DeVries) cycle.
And, yes, we’re about due.
Wheels within wheels. But it’s very complicated and there’s no way to tell for sure. Also, severity is impossible to predict.
Its never impossible to predict. I can tell you this current grand minimum will be short and sweet, the one after will be on a par with the Dalton and then out to 3000 its all milk and honey. There are strong correlations and good data that allow this prediction, that is being tested as we speak.
The Younger Dryas may have been caused by an asteroid air burst, simply on the basis that there are six North American sites with 12,900 year old Nano-diamond rich soil.
In the NH glacial conditions returned in the following 2,600 years, but in the SH it got 2C degrees warmer according to this paper.
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/318/5847/86
ET or not ET? That is the question. And how was the SH spared?
NC (23:10:58) :
Gore… Power Points…. insufficient ladders to reach the hockey stick terminus…
Faster than you can imagine.
Where there’s a Gore, there an Agenda Door.
Leif Svalgaard (21:34:11) :
But we don’t know how many of those days were cloudy.
Suffice to say we lack sufficent data.
Leif Svalgaard (19:47:32) :
Geoff Sharp (19:11:48) :
They should still show on the magnetogram if “invisible” sunspots are in production.
————————
And they do, as there have been several examples of recently.
The only other activity on the magnetogram has been whats associated with the specks that have been coming through, no convenient missing spots to speak off.
There is not enough data yet to make any conclusions.
————————
sounds a lot better than: “There are signs of a small recovery in the1026 and 1027 readings”.
I am talking about the whole L&P statement, Hathaway is dubious also and for good reason I believe. The data collection process also has to be questioned, L&P do not have full time access to the telescope, so the process is a bit hit and miss. To do a proper analysis, every day of every spot needs to be recorded.
1027 had a high reading of 2237 Guass, 1024 had a high reading of 2332, 1027 had a pixel reading of 153, 1024 had a pixel reading of 300 and lasted days longer. 1027 also shared time on the disk with 1026 which some might say drains the battery more. Looking at these factors I can see “signs of a small recovery” in the Guass measurements.
SC24 pixel timeline here: http://www.landscheidt.info/images/sssn.png
Leif will never discover anything – he has no scientific curiosity. A good peer reviewer, perhaps, but not such a good scientist.
.
evanmjones (22:14:43) :
“Out of curiosity, to what do you ascribe the LIA?”
Leif Svalgaard (22:40:41) :
“Nobody knows. One could guess internally driven oscillations e.g. involving the oceans.”
There is a strong possibility of a critical area of the ocean currents circulation being affected by ‘geo-mechanics’, resulting in a climatic response via number of intermediary factors.