Back on December 12th 2009 I posted an article titled:
Solar geomagnetic activity is at an all time low – what does this mean for climate?
We then had a string of sunspots in December that marked what many saw as a rejuvenation of solar cycle 24 after a long period of inactivity. See December sunspots on the rise
It even prompted people like Joe Romm to claim:
But what Joe doesn’t understand is that sunspots are just one proxy, the simplest and most easily observed, for magnetic activity of the sun. It is the magnetic activity of the sun which is central to Svensmark’s theory of galactic cosmic ray modulation, which may affect cloud cover formation on earth, thus affecting global temperatures. As the theory goes, lower magnetic activity of the sun lets more GCR’s into our solar system, which produce microscopic cloud seed trails (like in a Wilson cloud chamber) in our atmosphere, resulting in more cloud cover, resulting in a cooler planet. Ric Werme has a nice pictorial here.
When I saw the SWPC Ap geomagnetic index for Dec 2009 posted yesterday, my heart sank. With the sunspot activity in December, I thought surely the Ap index would go up. Instead, it crashed.
Annotated version above – Source: http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/ftpdir/weekly/Ap.gif
Source data: http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/ftpdir/weekly/RecentIndices.txt
When you look at the Ap index on a larger scale, all the way back to 1844 when measurements first started, the significance of this value of “1” becomes evident. This graph from Dr. Leif Svalgaard shows where we are today in relation to the past 165 years.
Source: http://www.leif.org/research/Ap-Monthly-Averages-1844-Now.png
With apologies to Dr. Svalgaard, I’ve added the “1” line and the most current SWPC value of “1” for Dec 2009.
As you can see, we’ve never had such a low value before, and the only place lower to go is “zero”.
But this is only part of the story. With the Ap index dwindling to a wisp of magnetism, it bolsters the argument made by Livingston and Penn that sunspots may disappear altogether by 2015. See Livingston and Penn – Sunspots may vanish by 2015
Above: Sunspot magnetic fields measured by Livingston and Penn from 1992 – Feb. 2009 using an infrared Zeeman splitting technique. [more] from the WUWT article: NASA: Are Sunspots Disappearing?
The theory goes that once the magnetic strength falls below 1500 gauss, sunspots will become invisible to us.
Note where we are on this curve that Dr. Svalgaard also keeps of LP’s measurements:
Source: http://www.leif.org/research/Livingston%20and%20Penn.png
It appears that we are on track, and that’s a chilling thought.
NOTE TO COMMENTERS AND MODERATORS: No off-topic discussions of Landscheidt, “electric universe”, or “iron sun” will be permitted on this thread. All will be snipped. Stay on topic. – Anthony
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Stephen Brown (12:03:20) Remarkable picture…that’s the snow’s way of showing the truth to Catlin’s expedition members. Now they can use their radar to measure ice depth in their own backyard..☺
If you click on Adderw’s link:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article6978849.ece
then click on the photogallery link in the 4:31pm listing you’ll find the coolest, neatest snowman evuh!
So Romm knows that a continued quiet sun would cause cooling, which means he knows that the “grand maximum” levels of solar activity since 1920 were a major cause of 20th century warming, which means he knows that CO2 was a minor cause, yet he exults at the prospect of being able to continue to pretend that CO2 is a great threat, and at the opportunity to continue trying to unplug the energy consumption that is the life-blood of modernity.
Not just wrong, but evil.
Mike O’Kelly (11:32:46) :
“But doesn’t that same CO2 material also absorb incoming solar irradiance in the exact same infrared spectrum and then radiate it when possible towards a cooler area, (usually outerspace), long before that heat/energy can reach the surface of the earth?”
No, the atmosphere is mostly transparent to incoming sunlight, which is high energy shortwave radiation (SW) and contains very little longwave (LW) in the infrared bandwidths. On the other hand, the surface radiates infrared, most of which is absorbed by the water vapor in the atmosphere and re-radiated back toward the surface. This is the “Greenhouse Effect”.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7c/Atmospheric_Transmission.png
The spectrum for sunlight is on the left of the diagram, and the spectrum for surface radiation is on the right, at much longer, lower energy wavelengths.
Re: Gary (10:45:50)
That was the “L” word we must not mention. Another one of his articles which includes some of the aa data in the article you mentioned…
http://bourabai.narod.ru/landscheidt/new-e.htm
“Gumby (12:02:30) :
Since the atmosphere is currently less ‘inflated’ due to lower Solar UV output as compared to what a more active sun would do, does the atmosphere shed heat at a different rate?
My assumption is that the mean free path for radiative cooling is shorter when the solar UV output is lower and that should cause heat to remain trapped longer before radiating into space.”
I would think it’s the same because while the atmosphere might be smaller, it is also denser, in other words, the same mass and the same amount of obstacles for a ray to leave it.
Stephen:
Britain today.
Has anyone thought of building a few large snow polar bears in downtown London?
Joe Bastardi:
“I debunked yesterday on our video the idea this is global warming, which has to be coming up since anything that happens with this pack of agenda-based people is global warming. I showed the last time it was this cold, back in 1977, with the almost identical pattern we see now, and at that time the U.S. chief science commissar (or is it czar, I keep getting those two mixed up) John Holdren, along with Jim Hansen of Nasa global-warming fame, was on the polar express for the ice age train. Amazing”.
http://www.accuweather.com/ukie/bastardi-europe-blog.asp?partner=rss
Am I the only WUWT regular that struggles with the idea of a direct link between climate and Sun activity? I’ve seen charts that seemingly look like an excellent correlation, only to see the two diverge. Also, short hot and cold periods don’t match up with Sun activity. For example, it was El Nino that caused the 1998 global warmth, with no blip on the graph above. Similarly, the Solar Geomagnetic Index may be zero, but the southern hemisphere is having a very decent summer. I think some on here (not mentioning names) forget that the cold northern hemisphere isn’t the world. Let’s keep our feet on the ground and not fall into the same traps that warmists do whenever there’s a warm spell of weather. If you look at the tropospheric temperatures over the past few years you’ll see that there is no downward trend yet. Personally I think there will be, but we’re not there yet. http://junkscience.com/MSU_Temps/MSUvsRSS.html It’s only when the UAH decadel trend goes into minus that we can truly say the warmists are licked, but since 1992 it’s been on the up.
Joe Bastardi who predicted the current cold wave on the NH:
I selected certain cities to show this, and the combination of Beijing, Seoul, Chicago, New York, London and Berlin stand after six days at an amazing 8.8 below normal.
http://www.accuweather.com/ukie/bastardi-europe-blog.asp?partner=rss
The very low Ap values are an artifact. There are two problems. The first [and glaring] is that Ap sunk to 1.9, but because SWPC truncates their values, it is plotted as 1 which is only about half of what it should be. The second problem has to do with the definition of Ap [and similar indices Aa and Am]. They simply cannot be measured when the values falls below about 3 [for Ap] and 5 [for Aa and Am]:
http://www.leif.org/research/Ap%20and%20Aa%20relation.pdf
The physical meaning of Ap and similar and how to calculate them from interplanetary parameters can be found here.
http://www.leif.org/research/suipr699.pdf
Long term reconstruction of Ap back to 19844
http://www.leif.org/research/Ap-1844-2008.png
Wishful thinking from NASA and Yale:
Global Warming Likely to be Amplified by Slow Changes to Earth Systems
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/view.php?id=42183&src=eorss-manews
141 sceptical scientists
http://www.globalwarminghoax.com/print.php?news.123
How is it going with those windfarms in England?, are they working providing green energy to the rather phlematic englishmen or in these interesting times they are becoming choleric instead?
Has anyone heard anything out of Big Bear Observatory regarding Earthshine Project? I would think we should be seeing some significant changes in albedo readings shortly , if not already , due do this GCR modulation effect ? There has been no update from them since 2008 that I’m aware of [unless the link I have is the wrong one to be looking at].
It’s a ‘reverse’ hockey stick!!
I saw this too… well, I shall go spend time via John Daly’s Guest Papers page where he hosts both L and a paper criticizing L. It is a shame that we cannot discuss these things here without fireworks. Therefore, the understanding of Scientific Method itself needs deepening, to reach those “fobidden” areas with a bit more humility and openness to data from all sources.
In a comment to Anthony’s December 12, 2009 article on the Ap index, Leif Svalgaard explained why the Ap index would not go below ~3. More precisely, he said:
“Vo cannot drop below 2.5 and B seems to have a floor about 4 nT [both should be taken over a solar rotation] so Aa cannot go below ~4, corresponding to Ap = 1.6. In practice, Vo would not go as low as 2.5 for a whole rotation, so Ap won’t drop below ~3. I think the important point is that we are now down to where we were in 1901 and 1879. BTW, at so low numbers, Aa and Ap are very difficult to even measure and the uncertainty of the numbers is large, so it may not make much sense to distinguish between Ap = 2 and 3 or even 4. Ap is defined as the deviation from the ‘regular’ variation that occurs every day, but which varies slightly from day to day and is really impossible to pin down to an accuracy of a few nanoTesla as would be required to determine an Ap of, say, 3.”
This stuff is mostly over my head, but I will look forward to Leif’s reaction to the SWPC’s report of an Ap index of 1.
DR (10:44:19) “Is it plausible that even with a moderate El Nino, there is a connection between the Ap index and clouds and possibly influencing the AO to go negative thereby limiting global temperature effects of El Nino in the NH? I wonder.”
Winter annular mode (SAM/AAO, NAM/AO/NAO) indices correlate with geomagnetic indices when conditioned on QBO phase according to some authors. (However, I don’t think it is wise to make assumptions about what is causing what at this stage. I’ve looked at some of the phase-relations – what I can say is that they are categorically not random.)
Stephen Brown (12:03:20) :
Britain today. Snow, snow and more snow!
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/topics/weather/6947586/Snow-covers-Britain-from-head-to-toe.html
—
That’s an amazing satellite picture of the snow-covered UK!
“Leif Svalgaard (12:28:05) :
The very low Ap values are an artifact. There are two problems. The first [and glaring] is that Ap sunk to 1.9”
Where did http://www.solen.info/solar/ get an average value of 1.41 for december 2009?
Surely Ap of 2 is still a low value…
George h
C14 should correlate with low sun magnetic field ie more cosmic rays, temps from O18. Read Svensmark’s The Chilling Stars.
BBC still sticking to AGW view on the news but, for the first time acknowledged a lot of people are sceptical.
This could be worse than Y2K.
Am I the only WUWT regular that struggles with the idea of a direct link between climate and Sun activity? I’ve seen charts that seemingly look like an excellent correlation, only to see the two diverge. Also, short hot and cold periods don’t match up with Sun activity. For example, it was El Nino that caused the 1998 global warmth, with no blip on the graph above. Similarly, the Solar Geomagnetic Index may be zero, but the southern hemisphere is having a very decent summer.
The link is between solar activity and clouds, and then between clouds and temperatures. From what I’ve seen and been able to reconstruct myself, that link exits right up to today.
But at no time is the link perfect. The clouds/temperature link has an R² value of about 0.5 in the reconstructions I’ve done over the last several decades. That’s significant, but it’s not a perfect match (1.0 would be perfect).
That means there’s things other than clouds affecting the temperature. El Nino, land use, and greenhouse gasses are the likely suspects for those “other things”.
But the overall trend in temperatures seems to be from clouds, and those “other things” seem to be modifiers to this main trend.
Or, graphically:
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_1NlR71q69vA/Sz2wiWo5zRI/AAAAAAAAAI0/cRqnskrkX9Y/s1600-h/chart.png
Great links everyone, thanks !
So my mind’s eye is picturing heliophysicists running around like chickens with their heads cut off in excitement and glee… this is the stuff their dreams must be made of !
“The times, they are a changin”