I’ve mentioned this solar data on WUWT several times, it bears repeating again. Yesterday, NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center released their latest data and graph of the interplanetary geomagnetic index (Ap) which is a proxy for the activity of the solar dynamo. Here is the data provided by SWPC. Note the graph, which I’ve annotated below.
At a time when many predicted a ramp up in solar activity, the sun remains in a funk, spotless and quiet. The Ap value, for the second straight month, is “3”. The blue line showing the smoothed value, suggests the trend continues downward. To get an idea of how significant this is in our history, take a look at this data (graph produced by me) from Dr. Leif Svalgaard back to the 1930’s.
The step change in October 2005 is still visible and the value of 3.9 that occurred in April of this year is the lowest for the entire dataset at that time. I’m hoping Dr. Svalgaard will have updated data for us soon.
Click for a larger image
Why is this important? Well, if Svensmark is right, and Galactic Cosmic Rays modulated by the sun’s magnetic field make a change in cloud cover on Earth, increasing it during low solar magnetic activity, we are in for some colder times.
There’s a presentation by Jasper Kirkby, CLOUD Spokesperson, CERN, which shows what we currently know about the correlations between Galactic Cosmic Rays (GCR’s) and variations in the climate.
The CLOUD experiment uses a cloud chamber to study the theorized link between GCR’s and cloud formation in Earth’s atmosphere. Kirkby talks about the results from the first CLOUD experiment and the new CLOUD experiment and what it will deliver on the intrinsic connection between GCR’s and cloud formation. This is from the Cern, one of Europe’s most highly respected centers for scientific research.
Kirkby’s one hour video presentation is hosted here. It is well worth your time to view it.
h/t to Russ Steele
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Ray (10:53:30) :
“Could it be possible that this reduced magnetic interaction be responsible for the increased tectonic activity during solar minimum?”
Could you provide a link to a publication / data on the hypothesis of increased tectonic activity during solar minimum. I have heard that claim before but never seen any data to substantiate,
…. call me a skeptic, but I would like to see the data & let it do the talking
The ionosphere is quiet with little magnetic disturbance.
Are any other physical properties within the ionosphere effected?
Does the height or thickness of the ionosphere change relative to the Earth’s surface?
The lack of solar activity has a number of effects on the earth including on the earth’s ionosphere. High frequency (15 MHz and up) radio activity has been very low or impossible in recent years due to the ionosphere. Thomas F. Giella, I believe he used to work for NASA, has been predicting an extended period of low solar activity for some time. He’s got some interesting stuff, if you can dig it out here http://www.wcflunatall.com/nz4o1.htm
Dr. Svalgaard’s position makes a lot of sense to me. A lot more than poorly kept temperature records that have to be cooked to show warming.
But didn’t the UN just announce that this decade, right now, is the warmest decade evah in the history of the world? I’m so confused!
If the facts don’t fit, just fix the facts?
Amir Nitz writes “What is the expected lag between this reduced sun activity and until we actually get lower temps?”
I dont know the answer. During the Maunder minimum sunspots disappeared around 1645. The coldest temperatures were recorded in England in the mid 1680’s. L&P suggest sunspots may disappear around, but before 2020.
Copenhagen attendees are climategate conspiracy deniers.
I know our Sun is going to give them and the alarmists everything they deserve.
Doug (11:18:26) : I don’t really see any correlation with temperature.
Well, if we assume that HMF B influence cloud cover, it follows from the first law of thermodynamics that it is the time integral of HMF B that should correlate with temperature. So, if we integrate HMF B over time and compare with global temperature, we see the following curve (two parameter fit):
http://i25.tinypic.com/fb97ph.jpg
We note that the cooling has started. This model may be modified to also include radiation, but I am uncertain whether this is a good idea.
adamskirving (11:00:13) :
“let’s not lapse into warmist type hyperbole and confirmation bias.”
I second that sentiment.
“The ranking Republican on the House Select Committee for Energy Independence and Global Warming said Tuesday he is going to attend the Copenhagen conference on climate change to inform world leaders that despite any promises made by President Obama, no new laws will be passed in the United States until the “scientific fascism” ends.”
Sensenbrenner to Tell Copenhagen: No Climate Laws Until ‘Scientific Fascism’ Ends
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/12/09/sensenbrenner-climate-fascism/
Peter Taylor (11:09:03) :
“GCR are not the only relevant factor related to a low AP – during the Little Ice Age/Maunder Minimum, there is evidence that the jetstream shifted southward, and Drew Shindell at NASA was working on correlations of the solar wind and UV-induced chemistry in the upper atmosphere to changes in the polar vortex which then affected the jetstream.”
For long time Accuwx pro subscribers, you might recall the busted winter forecast of 2001, when there was a 2nd unexpected spike in solar activity, which Joe Bastardi correlated with a strong zonal & northward shifted jet, which prevent much of any cold air getting into the core of North America. I remember at the time thinking that Joe made some very good points along the same line as quoted above.
Similarly, this year we are seeing a very blocky / non-zonal flow with what appears to me as an abundance of cutoff upper level lows – basically breaking off from the main flow. Much more than average it appears to me (although I have not tried to quantify). Anyway -this would also be consistent with the quoted hypothesis, I believe.
For those who say it will get colder, oh it will probably get colder alright.
NOAA will have to extend the chart space downward if we’re going to see how low the AO index is now forecast to go
http://www.cpc.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/daily_ao_index/ao_index_ensm.shtml
The NAO looks to be forecast to go through a similar nosedive downwards as well
http://www.cpc.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/pna/nao.sprd2.gif
Meanwhile the AAO index is forecast to go positive, a far cry from when it collapsed as seen in this link
http://www.cpc.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/daily_ao_index/aao/aao.sprd2.gif
Good Lord! This CO2 thing is worse than ever! Now the sun, too!
This post is relevant to one of my articles which I’ve referred to a couple of times already so I won’t link to it again at this stage.
Suffice it to say that according to the SABER satellite it seems that a more turbulent solar energy flow actually increases energy loss from the stratosphere to space whereas a more stable energy flow seems to decrease energy loss from the stratosphere to space.
One has to set against that effect the fact that during a period of active sun there is a very slight increase in the power of the solar energy flow.
Consequently the current solar quietness would seem to be allowing the stratosphere and higher levels to settle down with a REDUCED flow of energy to space. Thus the change in the late 90’s when the stratosphere started to warm again following the cooling of the stratosphere during the previous period of active sun.
In contrast the more lively the sun the more energy gets into the oceans even if the change in solar power is only small.
Then the issue is as to when that solar energy is released back to the air by ocean SST variability.
The tropospheric temperature therefore depends on the balance between the rate at which solar energy is released from ocean to air (much more variable than was ever anticipated when the CO2 theory was proposed), the rate at which the hydrological cycle pumps energy from surface to stratosphere and then finally the rate at which energy is lost to space from the stratosphere.
The troposphere has warmed up a bit this year because the oceans are releasing energy a little faster due to the ongoing moderate El Nino event and the rate of energy transfer by the hydrological cycle is being slowed down a little by the quiet sun allowing the stratosphere to accumulate energy a little.
In the meantime the past strong La Nina is still working through to the polar oceans so the poleward air masses have cooled in both hemispheres allowing a greater contrast between equatorial and polar air masses, hence the large movements of air recently between the poles and the mid latitudes as exemplified by the cold air plunges over the US and so far relative mildness in parts of Russia.
I think the implications of the SABER findings for an analysis of the net global energy flow at any given time needs urgent investigation.
As I have suggested in my article at Climaterealists.com the implications appear to solve several longstanding observational puzzles.
Secret Draft Leak Proves More Damaging Than ‘Climategate’ As Climate Talks Are Suspended
http://cleantechnica.com/2009/12/09/secret-draft-leak-proves-more-damaging-than-climategate-as-climate-talks-are-suspended/
Maybe if Obama only taxes us on warm days we’ll be OK.
Wow, our firewall/proxy at work classifies that site as hate speech.
and from the Sydney Morning Herald:
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/climate-emails-a-dirty-war-swirls-around-swindle-20091209-kk69.html
“The computer models used to predict future climate change scenarios take these simple concepts and some other variables, such as solar activity, into account. ”
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAAHHAHA!
The elephant in the room is that at least solar physicists acknowledge somethjing is wrong with our understanding of the Sun.
Re: James F. Evans (11:26:50)
Yes. I saw a story in the last couple of days that under the current deep solar minimum that the earth’s atmosphere has shrunk down to about 260mi from a normal(?) range of about 400mi. Thus, much space junk that normally runs into the outer atmosphere and slowly crashes back to earth is suspended in place till the outer atmosphere again expands back out to its more normal distance.
Unfortunately I don’t recall right now where I saw the story. Might have been ScienceDaily.com, msnbc.com, maybe even Nasa’s site.
OT in a way, but if the likely result is an increase in cloud cover and so a cooling effect, then what about the massive increase in aircraft contrails since the ‘sixties?
Do contrails have a warming, or a cooling effect? Can anybody point to work on their effects?
“Citizen-researchers—some of whom are, indeed, skeptics—have been after some of this information for years. CRU’s apparent obstruction of freedom-of-information requests, as revealed by the leaks, is only the tip of the iceberg. ”
The Tip of the Climategate Iceberg
The global-warming scandal is bigger than one email leak.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704342404574576683216723794.html?mod=rss_Today's_Most_Popular
I understand now, they see us as the big bad wolf.
Green Jello “Little Pig, Little Pig”
Is it just me, or do temperatures seem to lag the spikes in activity by about 5-7 years?
I’m just wondering if there is any correlation there. To my mind it looks as though we are due to have at least 3 more years of cooling after the step-down that occured in 2005.
Joanne (11:27:39)
You are correct about the effect on radio communications above 15MHz.
The HF band starts at about 2MHz and goes to about 50 MHz. The low solar activity is great for the 80M (3.75MHz) band and the 40M (7.00MHz) amateur radio bands because of reduced solar noise and less absorption in the ionosphere. It stinks on the higher end of the HF band in particular the 10M (28MHz) band because propogation is very poor.
For those brave souls that like to do long distance communications on VHF the lack of solar activity is a real problem.
Anthony has very kindly provided a widget on WUWT that shows the effect on HF radio propagation.
Why is this sunspot scarcity so hard to undrstand? It’s clearly a CO2 forcing.
It seems to me from the second graph that in 1998 when we had relatively low Ap. That same year we had large El Nino event. As a predictor of global temperature, a record low Ap would not necessarily be a slam dunk indicator. Its not the only driver, but it would be hard to imagine it not being a contributing force.
ashes to ashes, funk to funky,
we know Major Tom’s a junkie,
strung out on heaven’s high,
and hitting an all time low.
– David Bowie