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.
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.