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.
“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