Guest post by David Archibald
In a presentation dated 22nd September, 2009, Dr Svalgaard produced a graphic which can be interpreted to predict the timing of the Solar Cycle 24 maximum.
That presentation is available here: http://www.leif.org/research/Predicting%20the%20Solar%20Cycle.ppt
That graphic is reproduced with my annotation:
Dr Svalgaard annotated Altrock’s orgininal figure with the red and aqua arrows. What is significant is that the Solar Cycle 24 arrow is 15 years after the Solar Cycle 23 arrow. With the maximum of Solar Cycle 23 in March 2000, that line suggests that the Solar Cycle 24 maximum will be in 2015.
With the timing of the next maximum established, we can compare the progression of the current minimum with the minimum that saw the beginning of the Maunder Minimum. Makarov and Tlatov in 2000 included a figure from Kocharov 1995. That figure follows, with my annotation:
Tree rings from the Urals have more uses than just making hockey sticks. Due to the paucity of sunspots in the Maunder Minimum (1645 – 1710), C14 data provides the evidence for the presence of solar cycles and their length. According to Makarov and Tlatov, solar cycles averaged 20 years long in the Maunder. In Figure 2 above, solar minima are associated with higher C14 content and are on the top side of the graphic. I have marked the solar minima with vertical blue lines. The blue figures along the x axis are the length of the solar cycles from minimum to minimum in years.
To compare the start of the Maunder Minimum to our current day minimum, I have marked where the maximum of Solar Cycle 24 would be in 2015 as 15 years after the peak of the preceding cycle. There is also a parallel in the way that the C14 count (reflecting the neutron flux and in turn the GCR flux) is climbing above the peaks of previous minima, as it is today with the Oulu neutron count. Neutron count tends to peak a year after solar maximum, so a neutron peak in 2010 is consistent with solar minimum in 2009.
From Figure 2, it can be expected that in a repeat of the Maunder Minimum, the neutron flux will remain well above the levels reached in the minima of the second half of the 20th century.
The Maunder Minimum was not completely devoid of sunspots, as shown by the following graphic using data from SIDC:
Lastly, the Heliospheric Current Sheet has flattened, one of the conditions for the solar minimum:
A ramp up in Solar Cycle 24 activity might not be expected though until the downtrend line in tilt angle from the peak in 2000 is broken, and that might be a year away.
Summary
Activity and timing of the current minimum, as well as the timing of the Solar Cycle 24 maximum in 2015, is paralleling the start of the Maunder Minimum. There is no data to date which diverges from the pattern of the start of the Maunder Minimum.
Nice work. Will this be submitted for publication?
Shall we start investing in Amsterdam ice skate shops?
2015, eh? As in, the year the L&P effect removes sunspots completly?
We live in interesting times.
mod… “Neutron count tends to peak a year after solar maximum” should read “minimun”?
Ric
“minimum”! Sorry, where are those glasses……!
If I read this correctly, this implies a solar cycle length of the order of 15 years.
David Archibald’s “Past and Future Climate” presentaions suggested that this cycle length would result in about a 2.5 degree C drop in average planetary temperatures. [well into Maunder Minimum range].
This could have unfortunate consequences if he is correct.
Great work – lots of implications here for humanity. Can we expect editorial opinion of this on the front pages of the media outlets around the world!
The problem is that we have so little experience watching the Sun (only several hundred years) that we can’t really say. While this might look a lot like Maunder, maybe the Maunder type minimum was a fluke and doesn’t happen often. Or maybe it happens more and more often and lasts longer and longer as you reach the end of the interglacial. Or maybe we are in for a type of minimum we have never seen before. We will just have to wait and see.
Trying to predict what the Sun is going to do seems less important to me than simply watching what it IS doing.
Interesting. Maybe I’m missing something, but it seems rather low in predictive power once we get beyond 2015.
If the temperatures drop, we’ll probably see a significant drop in CO2, after massaging by the IPCC, who will then claim they have solved the problem.
BTW, has anyone noticed the AMSR-E Ice extent is at the lowest level since the chart began? What’s going on here, especially if we’re headed into another Maunder minimum and temperatures have been dropping since 1998.
“What’s going on here, especially if we’re headed into another Maunder minimum and temperatures have been dropping since 1998.”
Could be changes in ocean currents, wind directions, just about anything.
We have only been watching the arctic with satellites since 79. We don’t really know what “normal” is yet.
I’m not a scientist but if there is a long term repeat of a maunder type event, is there any indication in proxy data that suggests that this is a tightly cyclical occurance? The presentation of the data just looks so creepily similar between the Maunder and present. In any event, I think we’re in for some cold decades to come. Brrrrrr!
As much fun as this sort of speculation is note the following from Dr. Svalgaard’s slide presentation (from slide#44): “We begin by illustrating the lack of our understanding.”
The quote is only about what is understood (or not) about the behavior of the Sun. Now to jump from there to what will happen to temperatures here on Earth is extrapolation beyond the data and our understanding. Or in web-speak a WAG.
Norm in Calgary (22:42:39) : ice extent
Someone has called this section of the chart “the knot” which I take to mean all the lines come close together at this time and the year-to-year differences are not of great importance. I try to not place much meaning on things like this when simply looking at data without having any notion of what is actually going on – in this case with winds, currents, sensor issues and whatever else I don’t know about (a lot).
“is there any indication in proxy data that suggests that this is a tightly cyclical occurance?”
The Little Ice Age was, as far as I know, the coldest period of this interglacial since the Younger Dryas, about 12,000 years ago. Climate seems to have been fairly stable until about 2000 years ago and it looks like we might be in a general cooling trend since. If it is cyclical, which it might be, it seems like it might be a rather new cycle as so far I have not read anything to indicate cool periods of the extent of the LIA. Now whether or not the Maunder is a cause of the LIA is an issue of some debate as the timing overlaps but isn’t exact between the two events. The LIA lasted through several solar grand minima, not just the one. While most put the start of the LIA in the 15th century, I would not argue with someone who says it really started in the 14th century.
Excelent with a strong theory that makes predictions in such a near time that most now living scientists can check it. (or so we hope)
Dr Svalgaard risks falsification already 2015, if he is wrong. The late Karl R. Popper would have liked it.
We need more data access.
Not only about the sun and and Global Weather and Climate data but also about volcanic activity.
It is nice to have sea surface temperature data for a certain moment in time in a certain grid, but that temperature data becomes more prominent if we also have real time information about the wind, the cloud cover, air pressure, precipitation, cosmic ray flux and solar radiation, the moment the temperature measurement was taken.
The Little Ice Age coincided with a chain of volcanic eruption events that influenced Global Temperatures.
Real time data about volcanic emissions, even today, is insufficient and incomplete.
especially in those area’s that host the world’s biggest volcano’s.
If we want to move forward we really need to sync more parameters so we have the opportunity to observe the “total” picture.
http://volcanism.wordpress.com/2009/11/12/siusgs-weekly-volcanic-activity-report-4-10-november-2009/
So D Archibald was right after all…..
Norm I think the ice data since Oct 1 is unreliable.. check dmi ice. The AMSR jaxa graph looks quite similar after smoothing.
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/icecover.uk.php note disclaimer
\
“Due to repeting data fall-out since 1st of October, the sea ice extent calculation can be unreliable. We are working on solving the problem!”
L&P = Livingston & Penn
http://www.landscheidt.info/?q=node/65
OT
“UK government plans to make carbon emission cuts of 80% by 2050 are physically impossible to achieve, according to a new analysis.
According to the analysis, even if the UK managed to cut the demand for energy by 50%, it would still require an extra 16 nuclear power stations and 27,000 wind turbines by 2030 to be sure of hitting the target. ”
Institution of Mechanical Engineers
Dr Tim Fox is head of environment and climate change at the Institution
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/science/nature/8358077.stm
In this instance, it’s called a “SWAG” — a *Scientific* WAG…
Lets hope the sun gets back into gear soon, with the current world recession the last thing we need is a drop of 2-3 degrees in temperature.
Although there are obvious similarities between today’s Solar activity and the start of the Maunder Minimum, until we know the causal mechanism(s) behind what we observe and can measure their progress, predicting future activity is just guesswork. The sun is a messy place and perhaps more lateral thinking needs to be done by scientists to understand what’s going on. As with Earth’s climate, our understanding of fundamental Solar processes is still in it’s infancy.
Norm in Calgary (22:42:39) :
BTW, has anyone noticed the AMSR-E Ice extent is at the lowest level since the chart began? What’s going on here, especially if we’re headed into another Maunder minimum and temperatures have been dropping since 1998.
I have been following it.
It must be winds piling up the ice and thus reducing the extent.
I do not think there is much meaning at these temperatures at this time of the year where all curves follow each other except how much compactification is induced by winds. Extent is I think how much is covered by at least 15% ice. That leaves a lot of space for compacting it and measuring a lower extent.
“BTW, has anyone noticed the AMSR-E Ice extent is at the lowest level since the chart began?”
DMI’s Arctic ice extent page shows similar lows, but also warns that the recent data are contaminated: “Due to repeting data fall-out since 1st of October, the sea ice extent calculation can be unreliable. We are working on solving the problem!”
Scroll down to below the chart.
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/icecover.uk.php
“According to Makarov and Tlatov, solar cycles averaged 20 years long in the Maunder.”
This may not be entirely accurate interpretation and can’t be considered as reliable pointer to future. Number of sources suggest that SC during Maunder were not of exceptional duration.
Heliospheric modulation of cosmic rays and solar activity during the Maunder minimum Author USOSKIN Ilya G. et al.
“In the present paper we compare the variations of cosmic ray intensity with solar and auroral activity during the Maunder minimum (1645-1715) when the Sun was extremely quiet. We use the newly presented group sunspot number series as a measure of early solar activity and the radiocarbon data as a proxy of cosmic ray intensity. We find that both cosmic ray intensity follows the dominant 22-year cyclicity with sunspot activity during the Maunder minimum. Moreover, the strict antiphase between the 22-year variation of cosmic ray intensity and sunspot activity suggests that the 22-year variation in cosmic ray intensity can be explained by the diffusion-dominated terms of cosmic ray modulation without significant drift effects.” http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=1124791
Variation of the cosmic ray intensity during the Maunder Minimum deduced from carbon-14
29th International Cosmic Ray Conference Pune (2005) Presenter: K. Masuda
“We investigate the features of the eleven-year and the twenty-two year variation of the carbon-14 content. The carbon-14 records show remarkable twenty-two year structure which may be due to cyclic magnetic reversal of the Sun. The variation of carbon-14 content suggests that the polarity of the Sun was negative when the Maunder Minimum occurred. It is evident from the carbon-14 records in Figure 2 that the GCRs had retained cyclic variation through the Maunder Minimum with almost constant amplitude, even though such significant variation is not seen in the sunspot record.”
http://dpnc.unige.ch/ams/ICRC-05/PAPERS/SH34/jap-masuda-K-abs1-sh34-oral.pdf
http://www.vukcevic.co.uk/1600-1700.gif
Who knows?
Maybe in our lifetime we will have the privelage of actually finding out if the solar minimum theory (Svensmark) really does drive climate and whether or not CO2 has the effect it is claimed to have.
Can we say we will know in 5 or 10 years who the real culprit is in climate change? We ought to see falling temps soon.
Now wouldn’t it be shocking if the culprit turned out to be the sun? Who could have ever imagined that!
Good thread!
I like such threads. This is how science is supposed to advance. Float out theories, and test them without clinging desparately to a foregone conclusion. If the glove fits…
And if it doesn’t, discard the theory.
Chris Thorne (00:41:50) :
“BTW, has anyone noticed the AMSR-E Ice extent is at the lowest level since the chart began?”
DMI’s Arctic ice extent page shows similar lows, but also warns that the recent data are contaminated: “Due to repeting data fall-out since 1st of October, the sea ice extent calculation can be unreliable. We are working on solving the problem!”
Scroll down to below the chart.
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/icecover.uk.php”
It’s hard to make the right connections, especially if sensor problems screw up the data, but the record cold October month in the USA, Eastern Europe, China and Canada was fed by huge amounts of cold Arctic Air.
This weekend this process will continue.
crosspatch (23:24:25) :
“is there any indication in proxy data that suggests that this is a tightly cyclical occurance?”
The Little Ice Age was, as far as I know, the coldest period of this interglacial since the Younger Dryas, about 12,000 years ago. Climate seems to have been fairly stable until about 2000 years ago and it looks like we might be in a general cooling trend since. If it is cyclical, which it might be, it seems like it might be a rather new cycle as so far I have not read anything to indicate cool periods of the extent of the LIA. Now whether or not the Maunder is a cause of the LIA is an issue of some debate as the timing overlaps but isn’t exact between the two events. The LIA lasted through several solar grand minima, not just the one. While most put the start of the LIA in the 15th century, I would not argue with someone who says it really started in the 14th century.
I agree with the latter.
The drop in land temperatures at the beginning of the 14th century and the warm oceans caused an increase of precipitation.
It has been reported that intense rains and storms destroyed the crops leading to The Great Famine of 1315 – 1317.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Famine_of_1315%E2%80%931317
Another parallel with the Maunder Minimum.
David’s conclusion and predicted time scale lines up well with the conclusions of Jan Janssen: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/11/08/jan-janssens-presentation-on-solar-cycle-24-hints-at-dalton-or-maunder-type-minimum-ahead/
And the cooling scenario made by Don Easterbrook
http://wattsupwiththat.com/?s=Don+easterbrook
And Erl Happ’s “The Climate Engine”:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/11/09/the-climate-engine/#more-12655
Doug Lavers (22:00:11) :
If I read this correctly, this implies a solar cycle length of the order of 15 years.
David Archibald’s “Past and Future Climate” presentaions suggested that this cycle length would result in about a 2.5 degree C drop in average planetary temperatures. [well into Maunder Minimum range].
This could have unfortunate consequences if he is correct.
Doug
If David Archibald is correct it would be evident in gobal temperature readings now . David’s predictions use Solar Cycle Length and are based on the 11-year average of temperatures centred on the year of solar minimum. If we assume that 2009 is the year of solar minimum then the predicted temperature corresponding to that minimum is the mean temperature for the period 2004-2014. For some time David has talked about a 2 deg decline by which I assume he means that the mean temperature for 2004-2014 will be ~2 deg lower than the mean temperature for 1991-2001 (11 years centred on SC22 solar min).
The 2004-2009 UAH mean temperature is currently ~0.16 deg higher than the 1991-2001 mean temperature, so I’ll leave you to decide how likely it is that 2004-2014 will end up ~2 deg lower.
Please take any of the solar/climate predictions with a large pinch of salt.
Norm in Calgary (22:42:39) :
If you look at the “DMI Polar temperature” in the “Live Weather Roll” on the right margin, you’ll notice the cold air isn’t bottled up over the north pole this year. It heads south, which I assume is what gave North America such a cold October.
Everything is reletive. If the polar vortex stays real tight, all the cold air just goes around and around at the pole, so that data looks colder than normal while its warmer down here.
It would be interesting to hear what sort of energy it takes to bottle the cold up there, in a tight vortex. Perhaps less energy from the sun or seas allows the cold air to escape and flood south.
No matter what, even if the cold goes all the way to Florida, you can expect the news to be about “the warm north pole.” You can’t win.
Well, shoot. Wasn’t the original prediction for solar max supposed to be Dec 21, 2012? 😉 This just isn’t working out at all.
Tenuc (00:30:10) :
Have a look at this site:
http://landscheidt.auditblogs.com/2008/11/
The link will take you to the November 2008 archive for the Landscheit Cycles Research site. The first time I saw Carl Smith’s Sun-SSB Angular Momentum chart it absolutely blew me away.
If you do then go on to the main site ( http://landscheidt.auditblogs.com/)
I would work your way forward through the other archives before looking at the current site otherwise it will be pretty meaningless. It is really exciting stuff.
I don’t know what to do or what to think about these kind of publications but it’s also about our sun so here you have it:
Atypical Solar Maxima Common in M67!
http://heliogenic.blogspot.com/2009/11/atypical-solar-maxima-minima-common-in.html
Maunder Minimum? That would be rather exceptional, but it sounds too perfect to believe… It would be the ultimate experiment which just looks too good to be true.
It’s likely that 24 will be like the Damon Minimum cycles, but even a Dalton type event would be interesting.
Today, however, the sun is blank and the sunspot number is 11, *sigh*…
Notice a SC 24 magnetic region in the SH, currently blank: Another victim of the L&P effect?
Another(!) reversed spot region has appeared, this time in the SH.
A tiny group with two spots… see tdbqa091113t1004.jpg on GONG before it disappears
One has to be careful about direct link between the global temperatures and the Maunder minimum.
Coldest part of the Little Ice Age is usually linked with the Maunder minimum 1645 – 1715 and the temperature charts associated with American scientist J. Eddy.
In Europe, the temperature graph produced by climatologist H. Lamb shows that coldest period was nearly over as the solar Maunder minimum is starting.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/LIA.gif
Both scientists show that excessive cooling has already occurring around 1600 when it was known that sunspot activity was high, in Europe the coolest period was already on way out by1650 (just as the Maunder was starting), and there was progressive warming during actual Maunder minimum. I am not sure if H. Lamb was aware of the Maunder minimum when he produced his graph, it was first published in 1965 and had minor updates since.
J. Eddy is credited with discovering the Maunder minimum; his chart was used in the IPCC Assessment, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1990. American side of the temperatures variation during this period is not as clear, but still second burst of cooling started around 1660, and the warming was already in progress around 1690 well before the end of the Maunder minimum.
There is a little correlation between two graphs for the period 1600 – 1870, but it could be speculated that both are correct in their own way, since the graphs should be considered as regional rather than global.
As someone has (elsewhere) pointed out, this is a science blog, stating that LIA being direct consequence of the Maunder minimum may be overdone, since it appears that the longest and coldest part of LIA preceded the Maunder minimum. AGW are currently doing it with CO2, and may soon be proved wrong.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/LIA.gif
Can’t that be done only after it has occurred?
That we know of.
Jimbo (00:22:07) :
“OT
“UK government plans to make carbon emission cuts of 80% by 2050 are physically impossible to achieve, according to a new analysis.
According to the analysis, even if the UK managed to cut the demand for energy by 50%, it would still require an extra 16 nuclear power stations and 27,000 wind turbines by 2030 to be sure of hitting the target. ”
Institution of Mechanical Engineers
Dr Tim Fox is head of environment and climate change at the Institution
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/science/nature/8358077.stm”
Well Jimbo, they can, but only with a much smaller population
Environmentalism, the polished up version of Communism is going to take care of that. No doubt about it.
Tenuc (00:30:10):
We’ll be better off with the 2-3 degree drop in temps. The consequences of global environmental worship could be much worse:
http://www.newswithviews.com/Coffman/mike4.htm
The process of the fields getting wound up never got going for SC24.
http://www.robertb.darkhorizons.org/DeepSolarMin8.htm
Differential rotation is evident by 1997 for SC23.
It stopped in 2006/2007 and has only faintly begun.
The Solar Minimum in the EUV looks like a Zylotone paint job. We have had 3 years of that paint job.
Since the work that Leif is into shows that the flux was ‘normal’ during the Maunder, there is nothing going on right now (with a slowly rising flux that is walking away from solar activity) that would indicate we are not currently on a Maunder path. I have to admit he really threw me when he rolled out that flux cycle proxy. But the decoupling of the flux from Solar Activity is exactly what’s going on right now.
As for how this links/does not link to climate…we have no instrument data on.
We have a literary record, and an observational record , and that’s all we have. A proxy is not an observational account unless it links to a written account, and a proxy is not an instrumental readout conducted at the time it represents. It is better than nothing, but at the same time, it’s not everything.
The path to a Maunder-strength minimum is open.
Ron de Haan (02:00:00) :
It wasn’t the winter that got them into so much trouble, it was the unseasonable rains that rotted the crops in the fields. Plus the growing season shortened up to the extent that marginal lands would not yield.
They also, take heed, overreached thier energy supply. Coal and firewood were hard to come by. Trade broke down as economies and currency collapsed. Invading armies from areas not afflicted brought disease with them.
Cap & Trade has a deadly parallel. It’s called the 14th Century and the Wolfe Minimum, the first Grand Minimum beyond the MWP.
Interesting. It would seem our prospects for continued increase to albedo are good to brilliant.
Anna V. had the temperature decline(via some site with a calculator) following a 3% increase at 0.6 C.
O/T. Old sunspot 1029 is about to roll back into view and still looks pretty angry.
Norm in Calgary (22:42:39) wrote:
“BTW, has anyone noticed the AMSR-E Ice extent is at the lowest level since the chart began? What’s going on here, especially if we’re headed into another Maunder minimum and temperatures have been dropping since 1998.”
I note that the DMI polar temperature is considerably above normal (though still about minus 20°C). Do we know anythng about the temperature of the water? (The suggestion of wind-caused piling up of ice is also worth considering).
IanM
Two points that are clear. During solar grand minima we do not get the same output from the Sun. SC20 and proxy records clearly show that. There is no argument.
With due respect to David, the Maunder minimum like the Sporer are GIANTS in grand minima terms, we have been privileged to have them in our close history. There is far too much activity right now, and if you understand the drivers…another Maunder is not possible.
A weak Dalton is far more likely.
“BTW, has anyone noticed the AMSR-E Ice extent is at the lowest level since the chart began?”
I’ve been watching the maps and it looks like aggressive ocean currents, the Gulf Stream has repeatedly melted incipient ice around Svalbard, and there’s been strong current through the Bering Strait keeping ice at bay. These areas plus the sea behind Nova Zemlya should freeze up in the next week, making for a big catchup in the ice curve.
Tenuc (00:30:10) :
“…with the current world recession the last thing we need is a drop of 2-3 degrees in temperature.”
I would argue that a drop of 2-3 degrees is what actually what we need right now. Eco-deism is a far greater threat to our society than any change in temperature.
correct repetition
gary gulrud (04:39:52) :
Anna V. had the temperature decline(via some site with a calculator) following a 3% increase at 0.6 C.
That was using the very rudimentary model in
http://www.junkscience.com/Greenhouse/Earth_temp.html
and the albedo data of
http://bbso.njit.edu/Research/EarthShine/literature/Palle_etal_2006_EOS.pdf .
a 3% change is about 0.01 in the albedo value accepted as 0.31.
So from 15C for albedo 0.31 one gets ~14C for albedo 0.32, a 1C change.
Sometime later in a discussion with Joel Shore I was enlightened that the albedo does not enter as a parameter in the GCMs but comes out as an output. A funny state of affairs since the albedo is crucial to the amount of insolation reaching the surface of the lands and ocean, but there it is. I have not seen an albedo plot from GMs btw.
Can somebody enlighten me about the relevance of fig 2?
I see no current data but there are arrows at 2010 and 2015. Do the he C14 data before those arrows show the same shape as the maunder data with the data before the cycle 24 arrow. I must be rather dense but I am not seeing the relevance of this plot at all.
What I see in the Oulu neutron monitor when I ask to see the data from 1965 is nothing in size like the plot of fig 2. Are we to conclude that we are exitting a maunder minimum and going to a heating?
John Finn,
“The 2004-2009 UAH mean temperature is currently ~0.16 deg higher than the 1991-2001 mean temperature, so I’ll leave you to decide how likely it is that 2004-2014 will end up ~2 deg lower.
Please take any of the solar/climate predictions with a large pinch of salt.”
The first thing you have to take with a pinch of salt is the temperature measurements.
It would have been useful to have flipped the vertical scale on Figure 2, so that visually low values of C14 correspond to solar minima.
Jasper Kirkby of CERN did that in the paper describing the rationale behind CLOUD. The graphs on page 3 of this pdf show the rough correlation between C14 and Be10, and temperature proxies during the LIA, and glacier movement.
http://aps.arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/0804/0804.1938v1.pdf
I appreciate Dr Svalgaard’s commitment to pure science. He call’s balls and strikes according to the data. He also takes the time to engage those like myself here that have no scientific credentials.
Research, freely share, engage, call it fair. Go Doc!
Ron de Haan (02:00:00) :
Winter 2009 in the NH is predicted to be colder than recent years. History offers some guidance as to what might be expected. The Great Storm of 1287 AD was something no one would want to see repeated.
http://www.villagenet.co.uk/history/1287-storms.html
http://home.clara.net/heureka/sussex/winchelsea.htm
The parallel with New Orleans is not lost on Celia Craske.
http://www.helium.com/items/79189-the-long-term-effect-of-storms-and-hurricanes
I don’t ever look at extent and area without first checking wind conditions in the Arctic. Right now there is a hard wind moving ice towards Siberia. Nearly all areas of ice are at normal levels except for the Atlantic edge. Which makes sense. That edge is being blown in towards the pole as soon as it forms. I would have to say that if this keeps up, ice thickness will be phenomenal throughout the area.
“Can somebody enlighten me about the relevance of fig 2?”
I would guess the Schwabe cycles of the Maunder are not well characterized. The 14C curve, as a means of relative dating, is suggestive of 1.) the Rmax-Rmin points and 2.) of a comparative maximal CRF.
Re: 2015 wiggle match. My own observation, reported ad nauseum, is that for cycles 5 and 6, the usual proportion, rise to Rmax of 0.382, fall to Rmin of 0.618, is reversed for those lowest cycles of the Dalton.
The Waldemeier relation is already accepted, that slower rising Schwabe cycles are weaker generally, and weaker cycles are longer, DA implies approaching the Hale cycle length.
Plainly if, and only if, we have entered ca. 2005, a ‘Grand Minimum’, and that these are features of a recurrent phenomenon, are these observations potentially meaningful.
That being said we use words like ‘knowing’ and ‘understanding’ of all sorts of phenomena, with all manner of predictive value in mind, often exhibiting capacity for one at the expense of the other.
Geoff Sharp (06:16:22) :
“A weak Dalton is far more likely.”
Absolutely agree, I expect Dalton type too.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/GrandMinima.gif
I feel that this Winter-Siberia’s the place to watch.Along with the Gulf of Alaska.
Ol’man North Pacific’s the Lead Engineer for the Siberian Express,I fear.
Thank,s Dr. Svalgaard ..
A drop of 2 to 3 Celsius degrees would mean that billions of people all over the world would simply die of starvation or famine induced diseases. This much change could decimate the numbers of humans on the planet.
Increased temperature at the high end of a couple of Celsius degrees would have little consequence for the majority of people on the planet. But reducing the temperature at the low end by that amount would result in massive failure of crops world wide, and yes, even here in the US.
Not only would killer frosts happen much later in the spring and earlier in fall, soil has to rise to certain temperatures before seeds will even germinate in the spring. This minimum germination temperature varies depending on the type of plant, but colder soil temperatures on average means later germination of the seed after the seed is planted after the last killer frost. Shorter growing seasons indeed.
What are the physical units of the y-axis of the last two plots? Would it be possible to redo the plots to include units?
I am just curious.
With solar cycle 24 holding off its start, the magnetic field decreasing and both the Mayan and the Egyptian Calendar ending in 2012 because we are crossing the Milky Way plane, what are the chances we are seeing a magnetic field reversal in 2013 – 2015? If that happens we are in for a few cold years.
Dr. Svalgaard’s PP is very good. Is he a teacher at Stanford?
Leif’s concluding quote was an apt eulogy for climatology models:
“In all these theories (explaining the cause of sunspot cycles), however, the course of transition is arbitrarily arranged to suit a period, which imposes itself as a fact peremptorily claiming admittance, while obstinately defying explanation.”
Agnes Clerke, 1902
Re: “Altrock’s orginal figure with the red and aqua arrows…” (Fig. 2):
Could someone explain what the red arrows indicate, exactly?
kuhnkat (06:43:39) :
………
The first thing you have to take with a pinch of salt is the temperature measurements.
What even the UAH satellite temepratures?
Lennart Bilén (10:24:26) :
“Mayan and the Egyptian Calendar ending in 2012 because we are crossing the Milky Way plane, what are the chances we are seeing a magnetic field reversal in 2013 – 2015? “
To quote the Pythia, the high priestess of Oracle of Apollo at Delphi:
“Mayan Calendar notwithstanding, none of us may live to witness magnetic reversal.”
I feel that the present state of knowledge was nicely summarized by Dr. Jannssens with his conclusions about the current minimum
(http://users.telenet.be/j.janssens/SC24UraniaWEBEng.pdf)
“Long and deep minimum
– Not seen in 100 years
• Predictions for maximum SC24
– Consensus at this moment
• Maximum certainly not as high as SC21/22
– Probably rather moderate (Max SSN: 90 +/- 20)
• If inactivity persists (e.g. mid-2010)
– Dalton-like minimum similar to early 19th century possible (Max SSN: 50)
• If inactivity persists for a few more years
– New Maunder minimum?
» Livingston&Penn, Schatten”
Mr. Alex (03:45:00) :
Yes, it’s now on SOHO MDI Continuum 11/13/2009 16:00UT
Too many reversed polarity spots all coming in short order.
Add this flip/flopping extraoardinaire to L&P.
As for the 12th of Nov., there wasn’t a darn thing on SOHO or GONG all day.
Perhaps the computer that records spots locked up.
Pamela Gray (07:57:25) :
Check out
http://igloo.atmos.uiuc.edu/cgi-bin/test/print.sh?fm=11&fd=12&fy=1980&sm=11&sd=12&sy=2009
The 100% ice is really piling up, if the sensor is to be believed.
With the winds shoving it towards the pole from the Atlantic, that would make sense.
John F. Hultquist (22:53:07) :
Thanks John. I really grow tired of these kind of posts and people’s uncritical acceptance of anything that confirms their world view. One side has a hockey stick and the other a rollercoaster. When someone has a theory, a physical model,with laws of physics that can accurately hindcast and forecast sunspots, then you have a post worth reading, everything else is just meaningless speculation at best and deluded cyclemania at worst.
It would be nice to compare present (cycle 23 & 24) to the beginning of the Dalton Minimum instead. Or even to cycle 20 (nearly 22 years long), which it seems to resemble a whole lot. Although
“Too many reversed polarity spots all coming in short order.”
Didn’t Leif state that (only) 1/30 were reversed? Something new going on?
Who let that near-solid chunk of deep purple appear? CO2 is supposed to cause less ice to form, not thicker ice due to piling up!? /sarc
On Intellicast it shows there’s a nice chunk of cold air over Siberia nearly extending as far south as Beijing, forecast calls for Siberia to continue getting colder.
Mini Ice Age took hold of Europe in Months:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20427344.800-mini-ice-age-took-hold-of-europe-in-months.html
I watch the ice extent as well for an indication of accumulated cold. After reading up on the recent history, especially from Jeff ID, I realized that it really is a poor indicator. One thing no one has mentioned is that contrary to the “positive feedback” albedo theory, most of the year, the ice cover actually reduces the longwave radiation losses versus a freezing ocean. So if the wind and currents keep more of the ocean surface at 270K instead of 230K, that is a lot more heat being radiated out to space and a lot of much colder water driving the thermohaline circulation. Or just a lot thicker ice to reflect the sun for the next season.
Tom in Texas (13:20:15) :
On a statistical basis, 1/30 (or something like that) is the norm.
It’s getting difficult to reason away.
In fact, I’d say it’s turning out to be more of a behavior pattern than statistical happenstance.
So, what do we make of it?
A trait of a bum cycle, or an indication of yet more surprises in store?
” John F. Hultquist (22:53:07) :
As much fun as this sort of speculation is note the following from Dr. Svalgaard’s slide presentation (from slide#44): “We begin by illustrating the lack of our understanding.”
The quote is only about what is understood (or not) about the behavior of the Sun. Now to jump from there to what will happen to temperatures here on Earth is extrapolation beyond the data and our understanding. Or in web-speak a WAG.”
I look at all this and I think if we torture the some more it will tell us what ever we want it to.
The LIA spanned four minima: Wolf, Spörer, Maunder, Dalton. No single one of them would have been “the cause” of the LIA. It is interesting, however, that each one of the first three were “deeper” than the one previous. There was first the Oort which in the 11th century was fairly mild compared to the others. After the Oort came the Medieval maxium and then the Wolf, Spörer, and Maunder minima, each one deeper than the previous (in terms of 14C) at roughly 200 year intervals. After Maunder, there is the weaker Dalton as 14C levels are on the road to recovery to the Modern Maximum.
If there is something to the 200 year interval, we would be “due” for another significant minimum soon, if it has not already begun.
http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/data/realtime/mdi_mag/512/
Reverse polarity spot showing up…check out this match of location below.
“We’ve been waiting for this,” says David Hathaway, a solar physicist at the Marshall Space Flight in Huntsville, Alabama. “A backward sunspot is a sign that the next solar cycle is beginning.”
Read the rest at
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2006/15aug_backwards.htm
fuelmaker (14:46:16) :
That’s interesting. Along the same lines as tallbloke’s oceanic heat-release mode. When the reserves are gone, the big icy plunge will take place.
Eruptions at Mayon, Philippines:
Evacuation underway at Mayon Volcano.
Bigger eruption expected.
http://volcanism.wordpress.com/2009/11/11/eruptions-at-mayon/
History: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayon_Volcano
Jim Arndt (15:24:19) :
You don’t have long to wait for the answer as to what’s behind door #3.
3 years, no windup on the solar cycle.
”
Jim Arndt (15:24:19) :
You don’t have long to wait for the answer as to what’s behind door #3.
3 years, no windup on the solar cycle.”
Oh that Mayan thing 2012 – unfortunately it wont happen. The calender just starts a new period and not the end of anything, just like that Y2K thing start a new period and nothing different.
As for the temperatures dropping is a forgone conclusion since both AMO and PDO and either negative or turning negative. About the only thing that correlates to the solar cycle is the AMO and PDO but this simply may be because both are decadal and simply be in sequence. Since we only have good data for 1.5 complete PDO cycles. Now look at the solar cycle which we have 23 complete cycles but only shows 100 to 108 year cycle, sort of. Not that I agree or do not agree with with another tree ring paper but we could wiggle match all day and something will fit.
I have been looking in more depth at the global temperatures [or sst ] that existed during the Maunder Minimum. I found a tree -ring based reconstruction of the AMO since 1567 technical paper[Gray et al]. The interesting part is that they showed a rising NORTH ATALANTIC SST from a dip in1600 to about 1690. If the sun was inactive during the Maunder minimum[ 1645-1710] , how could the Atlantic ocean warm during this period.[ all due to AMO?] Also the only dips in ocean temperatures were around 1600 and again a few dips 1710-1720. I know 1709 winter was cold . Central England was cooler 1670-1710 but I wonder how much cold there really was in the rest of the world if Atlantic sst was warming .Greenland Oxygen isotope record[per Prof. Easterbrook paper] shows three cool periods between 1640 and 1740 but this may apply to Greenland mostly. Has anyone else examined all the proxies for this period?
See fig #2 below
http://wwwpaztcn.wr.usgs.gov/julio_pdf/Gray_ea_AMO.pdf
“how could the Atlantic ocean warm during this period”
A change in wind direction/speed blowing more warm water from Southerly locations to the North.
Generally caused by a more regional pressure gradient changed as happens when pressure systems appear in different locations or of different polarity (e.g. and area that had a persistent high pressure area during some time of the year now has a persistent low pressure area causing a reversal of predominant wind directions).
Dr Svalgaard risks falsification already 2015, if he is wrong. The late Karl R. Popper would have liked it.
I can’t let this kind of attributing to Karl Popper go by without challenge.
I like David Archibald’s stuff. It’s interesting. However, I wouldn’t consider it science, because there is no theory in the sense of causative mechanism to explain the phenomena.
I suspect Karl Popper would have a similar view.
John Finn (02:18:50) :
Friis-Christensen and Lassen theory has the temperature effect from the length of a solar cycle over the next cycle. Solar Cycle 23 may have ended in 2009, so there is plenty of time yet for the consequent temperature drop, possibly right out to 2029 if it is a Maunder-type length.
Geoff Sharp (06:16:22) :
We are at least due for a de Vries cycle event, which come along every 210 years or so. The last one of those was the Dalton Minimum which started 212 years ago. The Medieval Maximum missed a de Vries event, but otherwise they have been very reliable for the last 2,000 years. We are also due for a Bond Event, which has a 1,470 year odd period. The last one of those was in the Dark Ages. In the second half of the 20th century, the Sun was more active than it had been for the previous 8,000 years. So we have lived in a special time as far as high solar activity is concerned. Are you ruling out a Maunder-type experience because it requires belief that we could experience departure from the normal? Significant departure from the normal has already been experienced in our lifetime.
anna v (06:42:36) :
Re the relevance of Figure 2. To that into context, when I started out in this field in 2005, it was a case of saying if the predictions of Clilverd and Badalyan are borne out, then we will have a Dalton Minimum repeat. Solar behaviour since then suggests that a Dalton Minimum repeat is the minimum expectation from here. Three levels of outcome remain on the table: Dalton, Maunder and Bond Event. What is very good about the Altrock/Svalgaard figure is that it is pretty definite about the timing of solar maximum. My curiosity is about the future, so I got that one piece of data (2015 for solar max) and I see if it fits in with how the Maunder started. It fits. That does not mean that we will have a Maunder outcome. I know it is not much better than reading entrails, but it is all we have at the moment. It is better than whining that it is all too difficult.
On Oulu, the Ap Index is still dropping. So far for November it is 2.2. Oulu can be expected to continue to rise for a year after solar minimum. At the trajectory it has established, I expect it to be 7,200 late next year. That would look very similar to the rise in C14 at the beginning of the Maunder in Figure 2. Once again it is a bit of pattern matching that does not preclude a Maunder outcome.
Figure 2 serves another purpose. It shows us what continuous solar minimum will look like. Even the warmers concede a 0.1 degree change from solar maximum to solar minimum. Well that 0.1 degrees will become cumulative annually.
Further to the Dalton/Maunder outcome, the late ramp up of Solar Cycle 24 is now just as late as the start of Solar Cycle 5 (relative to its inception at Solar Cycle 4 maximum). It is also a lot weaker in terms of sunspot activity.
Philip_B (17:56:43)
Not science? I am only able to do what I do because the professionals on government salaries have left a void to be filled. It is bizarre. The climate science field is getting billions of dollars of research funding, and I am able to make original observations because the full timers are too slack, or have no natural curiosity, or imagination. As for a lack of a mechanism, there is a very good model but I can not mention it because it is awaiting publication. It hindcasts beautifully. It is based on the force that dare not speak its name (not homosexuality, it is the force that can’t be mentioned on WUWT).
Ref: crosspatch (22:29:52) :
—
The problem is that we have so little experience watching the Sun (only several hundred years) that we can’t really say. While this might look a lot like Maunder, maybe the Maunder type minimum was a fluke and doesn’t happen often. Or maybe it happens more and more often and lasts longer and longer as you reach the end of the interglacial.
—
I.G. Usoskin, S.K. Solanki, G.A. Kovaltsov have a rather good reconstruction of the the Grand Minima and Maxima events during the Holocene in their paper located at http://cc.oulu.fi/~usoskin/personal/7704.pdf
Based on their count, we have had about 27 Grand Minima in the last 11174 years. In their definition, a Grand Minima is “(smoothed) SN level is less than 15 during at least two consecutive decades.” The Dalton was not a Grand, but the Maunder was.
David Archibald (18:01:13) :
Geoff Sharp (06:16:22) :
We are at least due for a de Vries cycle event, which come along every 210 years or so. The last one of those was the Dalton Minimum which started 212 years ago. The Medieval Maximum missed a de Vries event, but otherwise they have been very reliable for the last 2,000 years. We are also due for a Bond Event, which has a 1,470 year odd period. The last one of those was in the Dark Ages. In the second half of the 20th century, the Sun was more active than it had been for the previous 8,000 years. So we have lived in a special time as far as high solar activity is concerned. Are you ruling out a Maunder-type experience because it requires belief that we could experience departure from the normal? Significant departure from the normal has already been experienced in our lifetime.
Yes I agree, the 14c Holocene record clearly shows solar downturns occurring approx every 200 years. The MWP is a rare time where the cycle is broken, but there is a good reason. I have developed a method with quantifies the regular solar downturns and allows us to predict the future with some certainty. Using this method the next grand minimum looks to be weak and after that we have it very easy for the next 1000 years. If you want to know more I would be most happy to explain, I am also in Oz.
http://www.landscheidt.info/images/Future.png
Yeah, that isn’t enough time. We really can’t tell, for example, what was going on at the end of the last interglacial and during the last glaciation. At least not as far as I have been able to locate.
There have been some studies using 10Be (e.g. Solar Activity Induced Pronounced Temperature Oscillations During the Late Pleistocene to the Early Holocene in the Northeastern North America Huang et al 2008) going back to the late Pleistocene but nothing much else beyond the late Pleistocene / early Holocene. We just don’t know what the sun does over a a complete climate cycle of interglacial through glacial and back. Maybe the Maunder is “nothing” compared to deep minima experienced in glacial periods or maybe it oscillates wildly during glacial periods, who knows? And glacial period is the period we spend the most amount of time in (about 90% of the time over at least the past 2 million years and maybe longer).
We (humanity) will have much more authority on the subject in about 100,000 years from now when we have observed one complete climate cycle. At that point we should have pretty good documentation of how the sun does or does not relate to climate and what is “normal” and what is abnormal. Basically, all of the solar activity of the Holocene might be considered “abnormal” if it turns out that the sun acts quite differently during glacial periods and what we would consider to be “abnormal” might turn out to be quite normal.
David,
I meant science in the Popperian sense (predictive theory). Climate models aren’t science in the Popperian sense either (IMO).
As I said, I find your stuff interesting and often thought provoking.
Model … is based on the force that dare not speak its name
Baryocentric?
David Archibald (18:01:13) :
Excellent point, David. It is far better to try than to throw our hands up in the air proclaiming it’s too difficult.
SSam (18:48:57) :
The Maunder started up a cycle, turned on the ramp, and promtly nose-dived into a 60-80 yr. hiatus of very isolated spots. Not just months, years. What do we know about the cycles before the Maunder? One good one, one bum one, and then poof.
crosspatch (19:20:03) :
Basically, all of the solar activity of the Holocene might be considered “abnormal” if it turns out that the sun acts quite differently during glacial periods and what we would consider to be “abnormal” might turn out to be quite normal.
It is very likely that the Sun’s patterns of grand minima do not change across the interglacial/glacial periods. The output is probably not different to what we see in the proxy records, but the shape of Earths orbit and tilt etc are the main influence on the glacial periods. Two factors, one modulates solar output on a small scale, the other changes the way we receive that output.
Someone with real expertise help me out on this. I keep watching the climate data, looking for something that might be a signature of the “Svensmark effect” — that is seeing this solar minimum starting to cool things off. I’m looking for a cooling “effect” just over the last few years when the sunspots (and flux, etc.) have been low.
I don’t see it here:
http://discover.itsc.uah.edu/amsutemps/
I don’t see it here:
http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/en/home/seaice_extent.htm
or at any of the other sea ice sites.
Wait. Maybe I do. Intuitively, more clouds would mean less ice melting in the summer (as the sun’s rays are blocked) but also somewhat less ice forming in the winter (as clear nights are the ones that get super cold). There are other effects such as arctic winds and currents, which act as “noise” on the effect I’m looking for. Plus, there is the “inertia” of the ice thickness, which makes summer melting “easy,” plus affects the albedo, plus (and this is important) leaves the ice broken up and more easily swept into the gulf stream by the currents.
But (accepting all those confounding effects) increased clouds would tend to yield, more or less, pretty much what we have been seeing now for a couple of years. The low sea ice of 2007 could have easily “tipped” the situation — as Gore predicted. The low Arctic Sea ice was almost to an endangered species which didn’t have enough “population” to sustain itself. But, that progression was halted and has now somewhat reversed. Next year’s summer melt will be VERY interesting though it doesn’t look like we’ll still be in a solar minimum by then.
What I’m hinting at is that the way big solar minimums lead to little ice ages is via growth in the Arctic sea ice. Eventually, we get to a point where the sea ice is really big all summer and the albedo effects are significant. Then everything is affected. This effect would make any change in global temp greatly lag behind solar cycles and be too slow to respond to anything less than a long term shift.
I’m not a climatologist and this all seems a bit convoluted but it does fit the current observation. Someone straighten me out on this.
Jim Arndt (16:33:22) :
I wasn’t referring to 2012 or Planet Niburu. Those are fear-driven what-ifs.
As for a correlation of Solar Cycle activity to Climate, they are associated, not correlated. There’s too much noise of other cycles mixed in with the signal for it to be that easy. A chain of events starting at the Sun and you get a chain of events on the Earth that looks suspiciously similar, yet muddled. It’s an overall appreciation. It will take a lot of hard work to disentangle, but already necessity is driving the studies and findings forward. We surely will not get any such knowledge out of polyscientific AGW/IPCC fearmongering or grandstanding.
Frederick Michael (19:58:41) :
If you have a very warm planet with plenty of heat stored in the ocean, and then along comes Solar Minimum and cooling, the first thing that is going to happen is that the energy stored in the oceans is going to seek the coldest place it can find to get transported away.
Look at Cyrosphere today, and the comparison images:
http://igloo.atmos.uiuc.edu/cgi-bin/test/print.sh?fm=11&fd=12&fy=2007&sm=11&sd=12&sy=2009
You’ll see 2 things here:
1.) The 100% ice extent is much greater right now.
2.) The finger of warm water coming up the Atlantic has the Ice melted much further than previous years. On the opposite side of the path of that warmer water, you have lots of snow & ice on the sea & landmasses. That make sense to you? Warm water meet excruciating cold and the heat escapes into space.
This may not be the best explanation for what’s going on. None of this is easy or straightforward, unlike the simplistic model of AGW where everything is easy as 1,2,3. Nature is messy.
Finite. The energy stored in the oceans in a cooling world has a limit, wherein once exhausted, the situation changes rapidly, and there’s nothing anybody can do except try to be prepared.
No treaty, no tax, no bill or law will make one iota of difference.
Good luck on your quest to discover for yourself what is going on.
That is the best way.
” rbateman (19:59:01) :
Jim Arndt (16:33:22) :
I wasn’t referring to 2012 or Planet Niburu. Those are fear-driven what-ifs.”
Uhh no I did not say any thing about that I was referring to a minority thinking that this is what it is. There are no what if’s about that!!!
Look this is WAG at its best. I can say for 99.99999% that we will not be hit by a 3km asteroid in 10 days but that does not mean that it will not be.
All I say is what will cause this. What is the Physics behind it nobody has put any reason other than some graphs, where is the data. It is pseudoscience in my opinion.
“the shape of Earths orbit and tilt etc are the main influence on the glacial periods. ”
That is the part that I don’t fully buy. The reason is that at the end of this past ice age, we went from maximum glaciation to maximum warmth in an extremely short period of time (a decade or two). Prior to that near the very end of the Pleistocene, there was a very unstable period where weather patterns apparently changed wildly on a century scale. It would go from the coldest of the age to modern day temperatures, stay there for 20 to 50 years and then swing back suddenly to brutal cold for another 50 years. It wasn’t a gradual change as one would expect if orbital mechanics were the main driver. I believe orbital mechanics are an enabling factor, but not the trigger. Something else goes on as we come out of an ice age that is extremely abrupt.
Even during the Holocene, there have been many abrupt and quite dramatic climate changes the causes of which are still not understood.
Those are just two examples. The research record is full of records of extremely abrupt climate changes. There are records of major shifts in trade winds, ocean circulation, movement of the ITCZ, changes in monsoons, etc. We don’t know why these happen because we haven’t experienced one of these abrupt changes yet during recoded history.
These events are extremely disruptive to the environment. They will be extremely disruptive to our culture and possibly our very lives when they happen again … and they will. Paleoclimatology shows us that these events are fairly frequent over geological time.
And these events are so far between in human years that it doesn’t make sense to invest a lot of resources in attempting to put any mitigation measures in place sort of possibly having a plan on the shelf just in case. But even then we don’t know what kind of change we will get. It might be a lot of rain in the Great Basin that floods Salt Lake, it might be extreme cold that makes Canada practically uninhabitable, we just don’t know.
But the one part I don’t buy is that it orbital mechanics completely explains why. Why are ice ages global? Why don’t they oscillate between Northern and Southern Hemisphere? When NH insolation is lowest, SH insolation is greatest. Why doesn’t the SH go into glaciation when the NH comes out?
There is more going on than simply orbital mechanics.
Jim Arndt (21:39:36) :
If we knew nothing at all, we would be making WAGS. And I really don’t believe that is what we are doing here. It’s not Sci-Fi, it’s an attempt to make sense of a very complicated mechanism, and it’s a necessary endeavor.
The worst thing we can do is to remain silent while polyscience runs amok and plays God with our Climate and existence. They really do mean to alter the Earth’s Climate by brute force, and they don’t care if they get it wrong or what the consequences might be.
I’m not afraid of adapting to the Climate as we have always done.
I’m not afraid to try and understand the Climate.
I am very worried about people who want to run global experiments on Earth who sport a mess of failed prediction based on what they claim to know.
Climatologists should catch up with chaotic dynamics and complexity issues .
Deterministic chaos is when there are definite deterministic equations and solutions, but too many of them in conflicting paths. Tsonis et al made a start in applying this type of analysis to climate, but we are a long way off, so we end up with hand wavings and cookings, a cup of this, so many teaspoons of that etc. You can always tell there is flour in the cake, a clear correlation flour/cake, but the way/equations it has mixed with is opaque to logic.
David Archibald (18:43:26) :
As for a lack of a mechanism, there is a very good model but I can not mention it because it is awaiting publication. It hindcasts beautifully. It is based on the force that dare not speak its name (not homosexuality, it is the force that can’t be mentioned on WUWT).
Hindcasts with no parameters to twiddle? Von Neumann had said : “give me four parmeters and I can fit any curve, give me five and I can fit an elephant”.
Unmentionable force? I am sure if it is a real force, i.e. enters or comes out of the equations of motion of a dynamic system it will be mentionable.
If it is a virtual force as the effect of barycentric motion, for which not only theoretical but also experimental proof exists, then maybe you are right.
“rbateman (12:29:57) :
Mr. Alex (03:45:00) :
Yes, it’s now on SOHO MDI Continuum 11/13/2009 16:00UT
Too many reversed polarity spots all coming in short order.
Add this flip/flopping extraoardinaire to L&P.
As for the 12th of Nov., there wasn’t a darn thing on SOHO or GONG all day.
Perhaps the computer that records spots locked up.”
That is why one can never trust a computer.
A new, tiny SC 24 spot has popped up in the northern hemisphere ,see: tdbqa091114t0854.jpg ON GONG.
Meanwhile 1029 is coming into view, appears to currently be a blank corpse…
crosspatch (15:41:15) :
“If there is something to the 200 year interval, we would be “due” for another significant minimum soon, if it has not already begun.”
Yes there is, between 215-230 years.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/GrandMinima.gif
In one of the previous tracks on the solar activity, one of the bloggers pointed out that the temperature anomalies started to decline well before some of the solar minimums and he questioned whether the low solar activity was the real cause. I looked into the Maunder minimum and there is something to what he said. If the Maunder minimum really was 1645 -1710 and if tree-ring proxies [Esper et al 2002] are correct[ there has been a lot of debate about some tree-ring proxies recently] then the temperature decline actually started some 100 years[1550] before and actually bottomed around 1600, well before the Maunder Minimum started in 1645. The temperatures started to recover from 1600 to about 1780 just before the Dalton Minimum. The rise in positive or warm AMO from 1600 to1700 during the Maunder minimum also confirms this. There seems to be disconnect somewhere here. Was the low solar activity really the cause of the cooler weather during Maunder Minimum or were previous climate changes the real casue ?
http://www.heartland.org/bin/media/newyork09/PowerPoint/Syun_Akasofu.ppt#306,65,Slide 65
http://www.heartland.org/bin/media/newyork09/PowerPoint/Syun_Akasofu.ppt#475,87,Slide 87
In the case of Dalton Minimum, the dip of the negative or cool North Atlantic SST anoamly does match the dip to cooler temperatures per tree-ring temperature proxies and lower solar activity of cycles 5,6,7 and they seem to move more in step,although the North Atlantic SST does seem to start its decline earlier perhaps 1775, about the same time cycle # 3 started to decline. Generally It had been declining somewhat since about 1675. So you could argue both ways.
matt v. (06:39:31) :
“In one of the previous tracks on the solar activity, one of the bloggers pointed out that the temperature anomalies started to decline well before some of the solar minimums and he questioned whether the low solar activity was the real cause. I looked into the Maunder minimum and there is something to what he said.”
In my post vukcevic (03:50:05) : I made a similar if not the same point.
It is not good enough replacing AGW’s CO2 misconception with another one aka the Maunder minimum, unless there is solid basis for it, it is fact that currently there is no a knock-out scientific theory to justify it.
Two points worth making:
– Producing a global temperature anomaly graph is fraught with danger, for simple reason that while in one place temps are going up elsewhere may go down, neutralizing each other (ocean gyres may take 30-50 years or even longer to close the loop). Even wide regions like North Atlantic can not be easily standardized; the European and American sides have shown widely different trends.
– In the last 15-20 years there has been proliferation of proxies, each having its ‘agenda’. For that reason I would consider as most reliable two regional studies produced before the current political agenda took over, from scientists of great repute and of no political axe to grind. For the East Atlantic coast, representing the West European trends data from British climatologist H. Lamb, and for the American side by J. Eddy, actual discoverer of the Maunder minimum
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/LIA.gif
vukevic
I notice that the H.LAMB and J. Eddy graphs give basically the same message with perhaps the H.LAMB curve more clearly. Global Temperatures seemed to be declining before the Maunder Minimum and were perhaps rising during the Maunder Minimum, so the solar decline of 1645 -1715 was perhaps not the prime or only cause of the cooling . Other factors may have played a role also.The Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation which can have variable cycle lengths[up to 60+years in either positive or negative mode ] is a strong possibilty as it was in the cool or negative mode 1590-to -1640 and again during the Dalton Minimum .
http://wwwpaztcn.wr.usgs.gov/julio_pdf/Gray_ea_AMO.pdf
see fig 2
Thanks for the additional references and your additional insight.Sorry that I missed your earlier post
Vukevic
Here are two more graphs that Dr Syun Akasofu used in his Heartland presentation earlier in the year. They basically show the same start of temperature declines prior to the Maunder Minimum.
http://www.heartland.org/bin/media/newyork09/PowerPoint/Syun_Akasofu.ppt#382,93,Slide 93
http://www.heartland.org/bin/media/newyork09/PowerPoint/Syun_Akasofu.ppt#443,27,Slide 27
rbateman,
“If you have a very warm planet with plenty of heat stored in the ocean, and then along comes Solar Minimum and cooling, the first thing that is going to happen is that the energy stored in the oceans is going to seek the coldest place it can find to get transported away.”
I’ve often wondered this myself. The PDO flip in 1945 was rather extreme (almost violent) in the presence of a warming sun (canceled 15years of subsequent warming, or stored it IMO). The latest flip towards cold seems much weaker (certainly didn’t slam negative and stay there, much more neutral this time around, like there is less energy in the system. I’ve always wondered if the oceans would start releasing their heat, providing a buffering and counteracting mechanism with a weaking sun. Seems like they certainly did the opposite in 1945.
And if the L&P effect is part & parcel of the Maunder, the solar decline would start well before the actual onset of the Maunder Minimum.
Is that the ‘missing link’?
crosspatch (22:02:31) :
Thoughtful post. I think you are right that there is more to ice ages than orbital elements but you should bear in mind the differing distribution of land and ocean in the hemispheres.
The start of the Maunder minimum is still a contentious issue. The 14c proxy record shows a steep downturn at 1600. My data suggests a slow start to the Maunder around 1610.
Geoff Sharp (15:29:58) :
“The start of the Maunder minimum is still a contentious issue. The 14c proxy record shows a steep downturn at 1600. My data suggests a slow start to the Maunder around 1610.”
Then why did the little ice age start in 1644? No correlation.
Geoff Sharp (15:29:58) :
Then what we need are actual sunspot drawings from the period.
The drawings of Picard and LaHire are reported to be very detailed, just what the doctor ordered. Of course, the devil is in the details, and that would be getting them digitized for measurement. How many survive? Is Paris Observatory willing?
Jim Arndt (19:14:43) :
Geoff Sharp (15:29:58) :
“The start of the Maunder minimum is still a contentious issue. The 14c proxy record shows a steep downturn at 1600. My data suggests a slow start to the Maunder around 1610.”
Then why did the little ice age start in 1644? No correlation.
The LIA seems to have many dates, I prefer to think it starting when the Wolf minimum began which led onto one of the greatest combined downturns of solar activity of the Holocene. The Maunder was deep but not as prolonged as the Sporer.
rbateman (20:24:09) :
Geoff Sharp (15:29:58) :
Keep pushing Robert…if the records exist, its hard to believe this hasnt been done already. I have some sunspot records pre 1650 that Gerry sent me from something Leif put together, its showed a lack of activity (perhaps not a grand minimum, but more like SC20) around 1610 which coincides again with Carl’s graph.
Ed (14:31:43) :
The PDO flip in 1945 was rather extreme (almost violent) in the presence of a warming sun (canceled 15years of subsequent warming, or stored it IMO). The latest flip towards cold seems much weaker (certainly didn’t slam negative and stay there, much more neutral this time around, like there is less energy in the system. I’ve always wondered if the oceans would start releasing their heat, providing a buffering and counteracting mechanism with a weaking sun. Seems like they certainly did the opposite in 1945.
Read up on climate audit’s saga on SST measurement around the WWII years. Also, from my studies, it looks like the PDO positive phase ended with a huge el nino, whereas in the modern warm period, the big el nino came some years before the peak of the oceanic phases. (Unless we are gatting a nother big one soon, but I doubt it).
Geoff Sharp (21:31:11) :
Not everything is an open book to the world. There’s plenty of examples of proprietary records, that upon examination, did not survive due to the lack of being copied to other places. The willingness to share data is not universal, and in that time there was astronomer headhunting going on. Keep away was a game they played.
I only post this to illustrate further that what caused the cooling of global climate around Maunder Minimum may have had its start well before 1600 as the graph below shows. This graph is arrived at from non-tree ring proxies. There was a steady series of declines in global temperatures from the MWP or about 900 AD . I am not implying that the sun had nothing to do with this decline but that the low solar activity of 1645-1715 was perhaps not the real initiator of the decline.
See fig #2 of paper called Corrections TO – A 2000-Year Global Temperature Reconstruction Based on Non-Tree Ring Proxies posted in the brand new track called
Reference 450 Skeptical Peer Reviewed Papers
http://www.freesundayschoollessons.org/pdfs/climate-history.pdf
matt v. (06:30:21) :
At the bottom of the .pdf is this gem:
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Thanks to all authors who posted or provided climate time series data. Thanks in
particular to Eric Swanson, Gavin Schmidt, Steve McIntyre and the visitors to Climate Audit (climateaudit.org) who helped uncover errors in data handling.
It’s nice to see Gavin and Steve working together. 🙂
Ric Werme
I totally agree with you. To find all these papers in one spot and sorted by topic is a researcher’s gold mine . Many thanks to those involved .
matt v. (06:30:21) :
Reference 450 Skeptical Peer Reviewed Papers
http://www.freesundayschoollessons.org/pdfs/climate-history.pdf
Useful paper with some reservations. Some 4-5 months ago I made a comment (WUWT) on the update section (second part)
‘correction to: a 2000-year global temperature reconstruction based on non-tree ring proxies’
regarding proxy locations . Out of 15 worldwide locations 8-9 are related to the North Atlantic area. Only 3 are in the Southern Hemisphere, and none in the Western Pacific area. Hardly representative of the world trends. It would be far more useful if Loehle and McCulloch gave data individually for each of 15 locations, then we would have at least a dissent representation of the regional trends.
It just shows that producing a global temperature anomaly graph is fraught with danger [vukcevic (10:09:10)].
Vukcevic
I hear your reservations . The graph based on non-tree proxies paper nevertheless reminded me of another paper.
Possible forcing of global temperature by the oceanic tides by C.D.Keeling and T.P.Whorf
Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA.
I quote a part
“Although records of weather before the late Middle Ages
appear to be too sketchy to test convincingly for a millennial
tidal influence on climate, we point out that the 1,800-year
tidal cycle, outlined above, implies that the climactic tides of
the millennium before A.D. 1200 were weaker than those of
recent centuries and should have promoted a warmer climate.
The ‘‘medieval warm period,’’ between about A.D. 800 and
1000, followed by a decline in weather in the 1200s (ref. 13, pp.
177–187), conforms to this expectation, especially when considered
together with the severe weather of the succeeding
Little Ice Age”
http://www.pnas.org/content/94/16/8321.full.pdf?ijkey=YjbRA3bMQaGic
Do you not see an 1800 year tidal cycle? 0-200 AD was the previous trough, the MWP [900AD] was the last temperature peak and 1600 AD was the latest trough and happens to coincide with the Maunder Minimum? Just speculating? The gradual warming since 1600 is part of the upswing of the 1800 year tidal cycle which may peak several hundred years from now.
Tallbloke:
“Read up on climate audit’s saga on SST measurement around the WWII years. Also, from my studies, it looks like the PDO positive phase ended with a huge el nino, whereas in the modern warm period, the big el nino came some years before the peak of the oceanic phases. (Unless we are gatting a nother big one soon, but I doubt it).”
You’re referring to the post bucket adjustment then? I saw a graph on CA once where it kind of filled in the low portion of the PDO phase after someone’s attempt at correction. Point taken. Interesting comment on the El Nino, makes the peak appear more pronounced in the last positive cycle.
Meanwhile, a sunspeck gets a minimum count of 11 (11031), and is of a wee size that it would take 200 of them to rival 11029. But, here’s the kicker, the Flux continues to rise, and the Active Regions continue to close toward the equator.
It says to me that the apparent spotted maximum of SC24 will be a shadow of the Active Region/flux maximum of SC24.
The Sun is in a state of disconnect.
There is only a finite amount of time for the facets to rise in unsion.
And that is what will decide what type of a Minimum goes down.
As long as the two don’t rise in unison, the deciding moment has not arrived.
All types of Minimum are still on the table.
It may be of some interest to the late-comers to this thread:
Dr. Svalgaard appears to have abandoned his prediction for SC24max:
Q:
Dr. Svalgaard, What is your prediction for the solar maximum and when?
A:
F10.7 = 123
Late 2013
SSN ? because of L&P
vukcevic (01:01:41) :
Not too many have predicted a grand minimum…if it comes to pass many will have to admit the science is far from settled.
matt v. (06:30:21) :
The graphs referenced correlate very closely with the 14c and 10Be records. The period from the MWP to recent times showing a cooling as a result of reduced solar output. Its a pity they didnt have thermometers back then, because if they did and the pattern was the same we would have no argument.
But it shows the Maunder was only one part of the cooling.
“Further to the Dalton/Maunder outcome, the late ramp up of Solar Cycle 24 is now just as late as the start of Solar Cycle 5 (relative to its inception at Solar Cycle 4 maximum). It is also a lot weaker in terms of sunspot activity.”
Continuing the thought: The perturbation of the solar dynamo dropped out on or about Oct. 2005(Anthony’s AP posts) when cycle 23 was nearly complete.
The dropout seems to have occurred much early during cycle 4’s progress.
Additionally, the Schwabe cycle this time around was in a bimodal state, as it was during cycle 11 during the immediately prior ‘minimum of significance’, i.e., 12-14, say. Tallbloke, I think, sometime back, noted these two modes as discretely hemispheric.
While the strength of the perturbing influence and its secular collapse may be an important ingredient of ‘Grand Minima’, the state of the solar dynamo itself needs further elucidation.
gary gulrud (05:01:22) :
The dropout that you keep bringing up, Anthony, is haunting.
Let’s see if we can tell why:
http://www.robertb.darkhorizons.org/EITNov1996_Nov2009.JPG
See anything on a yearly basis that says “Eureka, I have found it” ?
rbateman (10:36:04) :
Verry cool. No, can’t say I know what to look for. False color red absent, green virtually gone, polar corornal holes tiny, … The appearance benign, note spots irrelevant to whole.
Another hint?
gary gulrud (03:43:09) :
Try looking for the ‘windup’ of differential rotation (or lack thereof).
The ‘red’ is the EIT 284, and you are not seeing much of it because of the lack of large active regions.
Try also this page:http://www.robertb.darkhorizons.org/DeepSolarMin9.htm
At the bottom, you will find an image with sunspots superimposed at Solar Max (SC23) 10/28/03
and another one of SN11029 (SC24) 10/28/09.
Unfortunately, as of late, the SOHO EIT images have become very erratic in both quality and matched sets.
Likely on it’s last legs.
“or lack thereof”
Got it, thanks. I will plod thru.
rbateman (10:36:04) :
“The dropout that you keep bringing up, Anthony, is haunting.
Let’s see if we can tell why:
http://www.robertb.darkhorizons.org/EITNov1996_Nov2009.JPG
See anything on a yearly basis that says “Eureka, I have found it” ?
Thanks for some excellent composites of our sleepy neighbour.
I wonder if it’s the low magnetic field and lack of coronal holes which is more significant than the lack of sunspots?
Would be good to have better knowledge of how the sun really works – perhaps we’ll get some more clues as this, and the next cycle, unfold.
From all the things Leif has been telling us, the magnetic is the key element. It’s decidedly weak/absent for the greater part. There are a lot of very small active regions (small yellowish spots) that blink in and out, sometimes with sunspecks. Why is the magnetic so weak? I think it’s the lack of windup or differential rotation, but I cannot be sure of this.
What is apparent to me is that the Active Regions are progressing faster towards the equator than they are multiplying/growing. Is that a fair assessment?
A long, long rough road down into the Valley of Sorrows. Throw in a global nuclear war, a few major volcanic explosions … would make some of these disaster flicks seem sort of lame. Of course, the slow burn, less dramatic nature of the death dealing cooling would not be a woo wow as the visage of Christ toppling in Rio De Janiero.
“Is that a fair assessment?”
And well-distributed between hemispheres?
gary gulrud (09:35:37) :
And a ton of tiny AR specks, like freckles, along the equator.
Today we are treated to a SunSpeck O’rama.
1 year into SC23 shows Sunspot Areas exceeding 1,000 x 10E6 regularly.
Today, we are lucky to make 70 by SWPC/NOAA roughstimate, and about 25 x 10E6 by actual measurements.