With Climategate sucking all the oxygen out of the blogosphere, we’ve neglected some of our regular reporting duties here at WUWT.
Thanks to Paul Stanko, who has been tracking sunspots for WUWT for awhile now who writes in with this update. It looks like we’ll soon surpass 2008 for the number of spotless days. – Anthony
Guest post by Paul Stanko
With November now in the past, I’ve got a fresh set of statistics, and it looks like this cycle is falling ever further into an even deeper funk. The attached graphics are revamped according to Leif’s impromptu peer review and I believe are
much improved. They are a few days old, though.
The 2009 spotless days are now 262 and the cycle 24 spotless days are now 774. On the cycle graph, I now calculated three different sets of spotless days per cycle. Minimum just counted the actual observed and reported days of zero sunspots. Maximum assumed that all missing obs were zero sunspot days. Likely assigned spotless days to the missing obs in the same ratio as the reported obs for that year.
The graphs were reporting what I now call Minimum. They now report Likely, hence the increase in values for some of the older cycles. There is a second number now too, a % confidence. I calculated this by the following formula: 100% * (1 -((Maximum – Minimum) / Likely)). When all obs are reported, Maximum = Minimum = Likely so this becomes 100%.
Any cycle where the confidence is 0% means I gave it my level best estimate, but anybody else’s estimate is more than likely just as good.
Comparing the actual months to the updated prediction gives some interesting insights once again… all numbers are SIDC 13 month smoothed… the predicted peak is 90, which I use to estimate suggested peak…
Jan 2009 had 2.1 for a prediction, 1.71 actual. Suggested peak = 73.16
(18.71% low)
Feb 2009 had 2.7 for a prediction, 1.67 actual. Suggested peak = 55.62
(38.20% low)
Mar 2009 had 3.3 for a prediction, 1.97 actual. Suggested peak = 53.83
(40.19% low)
Apr 2009 had 3.9 for a prediction, 2.24 actual. Suggested peak = 51.79
(42.46% low)
May 2009 had 4.6 for a prediction, 2.36 actual. Suggested peak = 46.16
(48.71% low)
Jun 2009 had 5.5 for a prediction, but requires December data for actual
numbers.
To put these into context, I looked at the 13 month smoothed peaks of all the numbered cycles. 80, as well as 90, would be the weakest cycle since 1933.
66 to 75, which includes Leif’s prediction of 72, would be the weakest cycle since 1913. 50 to 65, which includes my prediction of 60, would be the weakest cycle
since 1823. 49 would be the weakest cycle since 1810. 48 or less, which includes Dr. Archibald’s prediction of 42 (and my May 2009 update) would be the weakest cycle since the Maunder Minimum.
Also, keeping in mind the current cycle has 774 spotless days racked up
already…
The mean number of spotless days excluding both Dalton and Maunder
minima is 557, with a standard deviation of 258. We are almost 1 sigma above the mean. The mean number of spotless days including the Dalton but excluding the
Maunder is 777, which we have the potential to reach in just a few days, with a
sigma of 578.
Listing the weakest numbered cycles by month is also interesting…
The values for the first 4 months of cycle 6 were 0.00, 0.00, 0.00 and
0.00. (Dalton minimum)
The values for the first 4 months of cycle 7 were 0.08, 1.65, 3.32 and 4.15
The values for the first 4 months of cycle 12 were 2.41, 2.58, 2.50 and 2.58
The values for the first 4 months of cycle 15 were 1.55, 1.57, 1.58 and 2.88
and the values for the first 4 months of cycle 24 were 1.67, 1.97, 2.24
and 2.36.
So, it seems the only solar cycle which rose even slower than this one was cycle 6.
Hope you and your readers find this interesting,
RE: Ray (16:03:30) :
A possible third condition – thermonuclear world war.
Update on last post Here is the latest f10.7 plot
http://img249.imageshack.us/img249/9093/f107flux1209.png
Still shows an increasing value
I was wondering, if carbon dioxide does not create a “greenhouse” effect and warm the Earth somewhat, what is the factor that allows a cloudy night to remain much warmer than a clear night?
I have been logging temps in Omaha Nebraska. On a clear day and night the temp can vary between 20-30 F. Cloudy days or nights has a much smaller difference.
What are the clouds doing that makes the night stay considerably warmer than a cloudless night? Do they reflect infrared back to Earth and rewarm the ground? Do they stop convection cells from depositing warmed air to cooler regions above? If clouds can prevent or slow heat from leaving the air below, couldn’t carbon dioxide also cause this effect to some degree?
Does anyone have a good explanation of why clouds keep the night realatively warm?
There has been no warming since about 1998. And yet the sun went through a very active cycle, with a peak around 2000 and with outbreaks of large spots into 2003. I remember hearing that the sun was more active than in the last 1000 years. Seems odd.
Landscheidt (landscheidt.auditblogs.com), et al., predict that we are entering a grand solar minimum that will rival the Dalton, if not the Maunder. Others agree we shouldn’t see warming and ought to see cooling for the next 20 years. Solar wind, solar flux irradiance all are down. NOAA is advocating a moderate ENSO through May, although it’s just as likely to be weak and resolve itself sooner. So, if I don’t see a global temperature decline reflected in official records by 2012, I’m bringing my own qui tam action for fraud.
Monthly Mean Sunspot Data:
ftp://ftp.ngdc.noaa.gov/STP/SOLAR_DATA/SUNSPOT_NUMBERS/MONTHLY
Sun Data
http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/stp/SOLAR/ftpsunspotnumber.html
I think this chart is likely of very great importance. note it runs right to left.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Carbon14_with_activity_labels.svg
Good Wikipedia Article
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_variation
The Ap geomagnetic index is not yet out for Nov. For Oct 98-Oct 99 monthly values are:
7 4 4 4 5 5 4 4 4 4 5 4 3 max of 44 in June 91 from:
http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/ftpdir/weekly/RecentIndices.txt
Cosmic rays
I did look at Lief’s links and there is no decline in several neutron monitors.
My favorite cosmic ray monitor, http://cosmicrays.oulu.fi/
is showing a new peak. Lief will claim this one site is not significant for showing a new peak, but there certainly is no decline in the cosmic rays.
“Phil (16:38:28) :
The fellows over at RC recently posted ‘The CO2 Problem in Six Easy Steps’:”
Who goes to RC anymore? They’ll tell you the graph goes up when it goes down and then they’ll just spin you around.
Norman, you are probably right. Remember that clouds cover >50% of the surface and absorb/”reflect” all IR coming from the earth, not like thin veil of GHG which absorb here and there and have big IR window where they do not absorb at all. Clouds aka water simply rulezz.
You should probably copyright this Mr. Stanko ‘cos Hathaway and his buds will need another revision come the New Year if things don’t kick off.
Piers Corbyn’s research is supposed to show that
a double eleven year cycle, ie the hale cycle or 22 year cycle, shows a strong correlation between solar activity and temperature as opposed to the 11 year cycle.
“Corbyn identifies bursts of solar particle and electromagnetic activity he calls SWIPS. These can be predicted deterministically, he claims, although he won’t disclose his method. The key is not the 11 year cycle, or even fluctuations in total solar irradiance (TSI), but the 22 year Hale Cycle in magnetic sunspot activity, which indicates changes in activity in solar wind.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/10/29/corbyn/
Dave the Engineer: You really should stick to engineering, as politics is obviously not your field. Last night Obama gave a warmongering speech that should make even the most arch conservatives swell with pride. Or did you miss it?
The liberal blogosphere thinks Obama is George Bush II. So much for HOPE and CHANGE.
Norman (17:23:22) :
My personal preference is clouds forming a boundary layer preventing convection but I’m not a ‘climate scientist’
DaveE.
bill (16:27:22) :
Leif’s plot unfortunately has unfortunately not been updated since mid november
It is, and has been, updated twice a day…
[REPLY – Hello, Leif, we have missed you. Please stick around. I have always considered your contributions to be most valuable. I think I speak for us all when I say we would be very interested to hear your reaction concerning the latest flap. ~ Evan]
A very interesting relationship seems to exist between the length of the last 23 solar cycles and global temperatures:
http://www.john-daly.com/danetemp.gif
The general trend is the longer the solar cycle, then the colder the global temperatures. If this relationship is true, then the sunspot theory would predict a very cold situation for our upcoming years. I do know that 2008 was the largest single Jan to Jan drop in global temperatures in 125 years. Does anyone know what the global temperature situation is for 2009?
http://www.sciencebits.com/ice-ages
Even though the concentrations of atmospheric aerosols that are ionized into existence by galactic rays increase as the rays increase, I find no evidence that they are an active component of cloud formation beyond the changes induced within the sun as they flood to flatten for access the heliospheric current sheet and thereby stimulate the sun’s nuclear fusion dynamo …making its core heavier. A heavier core to the sun means that it’s gravity retains more energy (less solar wind means more Water Vapor remains in the atmosphere and near the atmosphere (i wonder if this will make the moon into an iceball….the solar wind normally spreads our water rich atmosphere throughout the solar system (it is why we can see planetary rings); (it is why traces of life on asteroids likely were born on Earth)
I don’t understand this too well, but it appears there is a recent increase in neutrons(cosmic rays), watts up with that?
http://cosmicrays.oulu.fi/webform/query.cgi?startdate=1964/01/01&starttime=00:00&enddate=2009/12/02&endtime=05:05&resolution=Automatic%20choice&picture=on
chart showing historical inverse relationship btn ray and sunspotsF
http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/stp/SOLAR/COSMIC_RAYS/cosmic.html
do yourself a big favor and get The Little Ice Age by Fagan ($10 delivered on Amazon). It is a fascinating historical account of the time of very low sunspots. It is a perfect example of “climate change” and where might be possibly heading. Of great interest is the chapter on the glaciers growing, destroying villages etc during those times. And of course the terrific toll of human suffering that occurs during a cold climate. And even more fascinating, the author, esteemed Brian Fagan, author of many archeological books, states in his forward he accepts the IPCC models w/o question. But I am not sure if he realizes that almost every page of The LIA and The Great Warming strongly call into questions AGW because every page proves the enormous natural variability our planet has always had. This is one science lesson that seems to have been skipped lately.
This spotless count also includes the tiny tims, the sunspecks that there is much dispute over whether they should have been counted. Roberts laymens sunspot count looks at this. If we compared apples to apples we would be above 2008 already in spotless days.
It’s interesting that 1953 and 1954 are among the top 20 spotless years, yet 1959 was the peak year of the 20th c for spots.
Maybe we shouldn’t discount the possibility of another “sunspot tsunami”?
Just thinking… 😉
JohnV (16:11:14) :
“It will be interesting what happens if 2010 is very warm despite the deep solar minimum. What would that say about the influence of GHG-induced warming relative to the influence of a solar cycle?”
Indeed, if the Alarmists were to admit the sun was a significant influence, then they could say that the reason global temperature indicators have not DOWN significantly during the solar minimum is because of the CO2 effect.
Also note Hansen’s 3 year old prediction that we will have another global temp record by the end of next year. In January 09 he said that this could still happen with a 2010 el nino.
Is ENSO weakening or strengthening?
Meamwhile I await Roy Spencer’s Nov report but the daily satellite records suggests a pretty hot month:
http://discover.itsc.uah.edu/amsutemps/execute.csh?amsutemps
I would be interested if this topic could be addressed – guessing the big unknown is the delay in release of ocean heat – 2-4 years or 10-12 years?
Norman –Well if CO2 were the ONLY effect on climate, then rising CO2 would cause a wamer surface. That is not hocus pocus. The AGW alarmism comes when climate models are set to predict that this bump in warming causes more water vapor to be pumped into the atmosphere from the oceans -reasonable AND that this water will stay as a vapor form causing additional surface warming to reach equilibrium of energy in from the sun vs the IR radiation out. –not reasonable assumption to make.
IMO they don’t have any sound basis to assume that water stays as vapor and if it condenses/crystallizes into icy high clouds that will counteract the CO2 warming effect by increasing the albedo.
Now add in the PDO oscillations, polar ice caps may increase from greater water falling on them, SO2 cooling (volcanoes, chinese and indian industry sources that do not scrub) and whether or not solar activity seeds clouds or not and a hosts of other factors that drive earths climate. The science is most definitely NOT settled.
I live in northern Minnesota, and as totally anecdotal evidence, I believe the climate has already begun to shift into a colder state here. Perhaps I’m just “seeing things” as it were… because we had an unprecedented run of warmth from 1998-2006… but the weather has been as cold since early 2007 as it was warm during the 1998-2006 “warm episode”. It seems that the La Niña of 2007/08 did something to our climate here and sucked all the warmth out of it. All of the trends have completely reversed from where they were going. It is getting colder and drier and less humid. Minimum temperatures are cooling faster than maximum temperatures whereas before the opposite was occurring. 2008 was hte first year in our recorded history that no 90˚F+ day was recorded, and 2009 only saw one such day.. which has only happened a handful of times. We had both unusually late and early frosts in 2009 contributing to one of our shortest growing seasons ever, behind only a few cold summers in the 1910s and, more recently, 2004. In fact, our summers have been cooling at a rate of 0.64˚F/decade since 1970. 3 of the coldest summers on record have all occurred since 2004. In April 2008 we had a record 51 inches of snow.. more than any other calendar month ever recorded, let alone breaking the April record which led to delayed ice out dates on the region’s lakes. Winterkill was observed in many lakes in 2008/09 for the first time in at least 20 years (where the ice gets so thick that the water below gets de-oxygenated to a point that kills massive numbers of fish)… it’s not so much one big flashy record we’ve seen.. but a series of indicators that the climate has begun to get colder and has reset itself to a colder state not seen in quite some time. And this time we can’t blame Mt. Pinatubo either!
As a first order approx. the layman’s count seems to be about 20% higher than the SIDC. Apples to apples then we might be at 306 already compared to 311 in 1913. Interesting.
OT: The latest UAH anomaly for Nov. is out. It is .50. It appears the El Nino is having a strong impact as many have predicted.
twawki (17:57:13) :
I have been remiss on this lately. What I intend to do is take the area measurement for 2007-2009 and compare them directly to SC cycle transitions 13/14 and 14/15.
And just let the apples compete with the apples.