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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Michael (11:39:36) : Your link gives ERROR 404 (Censored)
Man has killed the Sun with runaway CO2!
CURRENTLY 16 DAYS WITH NO SUNSPOTS
http://spaceweather.com/
ASIDE – note that blurb on STRANGE LIGHTS OVER NORWAY: just for an interesting diversion.
“What is the expected lag between this reduced sun activity and until we actually get lower temps?”
Several years, most likely. The majority of the heat stored in the Earth’s climate system is in the oceans. It takes considerable time for that heat to decline. Think if it like a tire with a varying amount of air coming in (solar radiation changes, cloud cover changes, etc) and a varying amount leaking out (radiation into space modulated by cloud cover depending on type and altitude of clouds). As you put more air in and increase the pressure, you get more volume/unit of time leaking out (as you increase the temperature of the planet, it radiates more heat into space) so the tire will inflate some but at some point reach equilibrium at a larger size as Earth would reach equilibrium at a higher temperature and then settle. Now if you increase the cloud cover, you reduce the radiation into the system, that is like slightly decreasing the amount of air being pumped into the tire but increased clouds can also reduce the amount radiated into space at night, too.
Other things are at work, too. If the ocean cools a little, then the amount of evaporation reduces a little. This reduces the absolute humidity (though probably not the relative humidity) of the air. Less water vapor means less greenhouse warming from Earth’s most powerful greenhouse gas. So the colder it gets, the colder it CAN get still because as the oceans cool, the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere drops. But less water vapor would mean less cloud cover so that balances. But increased GCRs might result in a higher cloud cover for a given humidity than in a period of lower GCRs. See? It is a complicated system but it appears to me that the “system” is inclined to cool more easily than warm because warming causes increased evaporation which increases cloud cover and heat transport to the upper troposhere which tends to cool the surface. There doesn’t seem to be any such limitation on cooling. The colder it gets the dryer the air becomes allowing more heat to radiate out at night (and in polar winter) than the decrease allows in due to less cloud cover. When it gets cold the net albedo might remain the same because while you have decreased clouds, you have increased ice which acts to reflect much of the heat back into space.
I believe that is why glaciation is the “normal” state. We have 100K years of glaciation punctuated by 10K years of interglacial warmth. I believe “cold” is the more stable state over the long term. Also, I haven’t seen any data on GCR rates prior to the Holocene but I suspect there are some because there are some papers behind pay walls that appear to have such information. We tend to come out of glaciation only when insolation is most favorable but there is something else at work.
We come out of glaciation to interglacial temperatures in less than 100 years. Now consider that Chicago was under 5000 feet of ice. Imagine a block of ice that is, say, 500 square miles in surface area and a mile thick sitting someplace at about the latitude of Chicago in North America today. How long do you think it would take to melt that ice? It won’t melt much in winter. In fact, will will probably accumulate in mass in winter. And the ice itself will affect surface temperature so it would still be fairly cold in the middle of that 500 square mile area at night as breezes blow across that ice even in summer. And there won’t be a lot of thermal updrafts over it to get storms started. The weather would be more stable over the ice than over land surrounding it.
Something else acts to melt all that ice in such a short period of time and I believe that something else is rain and quite a lot of it. You can melt back quite a lot of ice if you have rain practically every day for a month in the middle of summer. A very gradual increase in solar insolation is not going to cause a very fast collapse of the ice sheet in only a few decades time without some other trigger.
Hypothetically speaking…
What would it mean if Ap stays low but 2010 sets a record for warmth?
The decline in solar intensity since the max in 2000-2001 is undoubtedly part of the reason for the relatively flat temperatures since that time. What’s going to happen as the sun’s intensity stays constant or ramps up again? It should be interesting.
Re:
Jeff L (11:24:52) :
Ray (10:53:30) :
“Could it be possible that this reduced magnetic interaction be responsible for the increased tectonic activity during solar minimum?”
http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-iarticle_query?2003ESASP.535..393S&data_type=PDF_HIGH&whole_paper=YES&type=PRINTER&filetype=.pdf
It looks like we are one eruption away from a new (gore?) minimum
As the Copenhagen gravy train rolls on (Cost over $300 million dollars) a Siberian blast is about to hit Europe, with Copenhagen about to drop to minus 15. In the USA a monster storm stretching across the country is causing significant cold and snow. In Australia record cold is being experienced. Meanwhile solar geomagnetic activity hits an all time low meaning an increase in precipitation and cold, and the inconvenient truth is clouds dominate everything. Meanwhile UK group proposes carbon tax to stop the poor from breeding!
http://www.twawki.com
Jeff L (11:24:52) :
It’s more complicated than what I said earlier but apparently there is a strong connection.
Maybe those could be a start:
http://www.khalilov.biz/pdf/About%20possible%20influence%20of%20solar%20activity%20upon%20seismic%20and%20volcanic%20activities%203.pdf
Oops, you guys just made a b-class flare by talking about a lack of sunspots:
http://i45.tinypic.com/28hlls5.gif
I have some property in Canada to sell you; “ski-hills” nearby 🙂
But this is all just weather, not climate, right?
Remember, if the weather supports the models, then it’s climate, but if the climate doesn’t support the models, then it’s just weather.
I want to put together a simple sequence for posting to internet forums, but I’m still fairly new to all this. Can someone knowledgeable advise on the following:
Increased solar activity (sunspots etc)
==> increased solar wind
==> reduced cosmic rays reaching earth
==> reduced ionized particles in atmosphere
==> reduced cloud formation
==> reduced albedo effect
==> increased solar energy reaching earth’s surface
==> increased global temperatures
OR
Reduced solar activity (sunspots etc)
==> reduced solar wind
==> increased cosmic rays reaching earth
==> increased ionized particles in atmosphere
==> increased cloud formation
==> increased albedo effect
==> reduced solar energy reaching earth’s surface
==> reduced global temperatures
The SUN, not AGW, is the thing
http://www.examiner.com/x-30215-LA-Conservative-Examiner~y2009m12d1-The-SUN-Not-AGW-Is-The-Thing
This from July 09. Solar minimum is much deeper now.
Sun Spots
Now we need a really good volcanic eruption (away from civilization, of coarse) to put the ice-ing on the cake.
Just imagine how cold it would be if not for a moderate El Nino!
Or just imagine how cold it WILL be when the El Nino fades and a La Nina blossoms!
BRRRRRR
RT @Not_Evil
NASA TOO !!!
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/dec/03/researcher-says-nasa-hiding-climate-data/
From Spaceweather.com
Spotless Days
Current Stretch: 16 days
2009 total: 259 days (76%)
Since 2004: 770 days
Typical Solar Min: 485 days
Note: Last years total spotless days was 265. We are 6 days from that now.
Also in yearly spotless days, 2008 was ranked #4 since 1849. So the odds are very high that 2009 will be at least #4 since 1849. It is unlikely, but possible it will reach #3 (1878). It would take zero days this month to do it, and there is a possible sunspeck rotating into view on the eastern limb right now, but #3 is not impossible.
2009 is already at #5, so no matter what happens, there will be two years in a row within the top 5 spotless days count since 1849, and 2007 is #20.
Coooool
And just remember, some of the sun specks they count today would never have been counted by Galelao.
A couple of weeks ago Science daily reported on a study using lake sediments in the tropics which showed a perfect correlation of climate change with orbital dynamics affecting solar radiation reaching the earth. It would seem that any factor that affects the amount of radiation reaching the earth, including changes in solar activity, would have the same potential to affect climate. I would be interested in some informed reaction to that study and what it says about the perspective I have seen at times on this and other sites, that the changes in solar output or other solar radiation reaching the earth dynamics don’t have a significant effect on climate. If it affects climate in the tropics shouldn’t it also affect it elsewhere on earth, either directly on mediated through the effects on the tropics.
Forgot to mention, some interesting information comparing previous cycle records can be found at
http://users.telenet.be/j.janssens/Spotless/Spotless.html
“Chilly today, hot tamale” – Standard weather forecast from Met Office
You will probably find there is no serious information on tectonic, geologic or volcanalogic before Krakatau. Even the tectonic plate movements were not an accepted theory until relatively recently.
I want to stress again a previous comment I made and which agrees with Peter Taylor’s comment.
The increase in GCR wouldn’t increase the could cover, but it will change the distribution and maybe in the long run it will decrease it and this is why.
Normally, when the GCR are low, where the sun blasts most, the water gets warm and it evaporates. A natural consequence of the evaporation would be an increase in the pressure and all the humidity will travel to less sunny areas (away from the equator and it would condense and form clouds there). As the GCR increase, the clouds would form closer to the evaporation points increasing the albedo in the regions where the sun blasts most. Conversely, there won’t be much humidity left to reach regions far away from the equator, so the subpolar regions would start to experience a decrease in the cloud cover and at these regions the radiation of the heat away from earth dominates anyway, so the lack of clouds would enhance the cooling.
In conclusion the combination of these effects would cause the earth to go into a cooling mode at all the latitudes.
In the long run, a new equilibrium point would be reached. The cooling trend caused by the GCRs would cause the oceans temperature to go down. Cooler oceans mean less evaporation, so in general there would be less water in the atmosphere to form clouds, at all the latitudes.
Hey all, Ive notices its been pretty gray in the sky these last couple of months. Lots of rain not as much blue sky here in the tropics. We’ve been sleeping with the ac off most evenings also.
It would be interesting to see the cloud density figures.
From Google search;
“Secret Draft Leak Proves More Damaging Than ‘Climategate’ As …Dec 9, 2009 … No one had expected that the talks would be suspended. Every month, for the last few months the climate negotiators of various countries had …
cleantechnica.com/…/secret-draft-leak-proves-more-damaging-than-climategate-as-climate-talks-are-suspended/ – 2 hours ago”
So thats how the squelch any decenting opinions within their own organizations.
How do I find the article in my cache for a screen shot?