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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Is it possible that the sunspots and the magnitude of the suns direct emissions have nothing really to do with the climate, as long as they stay relatively constant? And the real effect is the magnetic field (Ap) shielding for the solar system from galactic cosmic rays that directly effect weather by cloud formation? After all, when you have an effect on the parameter that has 95% driving effect, water vapor, it is much more likely effecting that will drive climate change, than some much smaller part of the whole.
This often happens as your measuring equipment gets better in engineering, what was first thought as a driving indicator of a failure, say, is not the primary driver, but just a loosely connected parameter much more easily observed with older technology measuring equipment.
We are now faced with a huge dilemma, was the truth hiding. For the first time in human history we can see the Ap index with precision, and sun spots as well, only to have the mystery turn out to be sunspots are a loosely connected indicator of Ap … And as luck would have it the sun turned down the wick in this time period.
The next years are really going to be great years for sun science, real science.
Ckn Litl (10:31:11) :
I look at the correlation and causations of widespread human death and note that cold is one of the most significant factors…It makes me shudder… when I consider the human cost …
The other factor is shortened growing seasons which the world is already experiencing. Food shortages are a big problem for poorer countries. The modernized world won’t feel it as much.
But there will be consequeses for all this worry over carbon when in fact cold and food shortages are the real problem in the world right now.
Worries over global warming? The foolishness of man!!!
I think this is probably what the Mayans were predicting for 2012, we just botched up correlating their calendar to ours.
But really I need to get into this more, I am a geophysicist, but an honest one I don’t work for the government, I also don’t work for an oil company.
“”” Curiousgeorge (10:29:06) :
Forgive my ignorance, but what would cause the decrease in solar magnetic activity? Is it similar to the way the earth’s field works – spinning iron core, etc. ? “””
Well we were specifically warned not to mention Ferris wheel cores.
And the answere anyway is no.
The sun surface is largely a “plasma” (Hell not cosmic rays) which is charged particles; atoms that have lost one or more outer electrons; of which hydrogen only has one anyway. And since they move around like a boiling cauldron, a moving electric charge comprises an electric current, and electric currents are surrounded by magnetic fields just like a wire carrying a current is.
Now I am sure that the sun is about a million times more complicated than what I just said; but that is enough to give you a general idea. Most magnetic fields in the universe seem to be related to moving charged particles; and not to iron cores. In any case, ferromagnetic materials like iron, lose there ferro-magnetism above the “Curie” temperature.
Some of this is exactly why Anthony admonished us to stay off the iron horse; so nyet; nothing to do with rusty metal.
“George E. Smith (15:12:28) :
[…]
So the sun surface at about 6000 K radiates much more LWIR at 10-15 microns, than does the earth surface at about 300K. But then you have to apply the inverse square law from solar surface to earth orbit, to find the amount of 10-15 micron radiation falling on earth from the sun; and yes CO2 and H2O and any other GHG will snap that up, just as quickly as it does the earth surface emissions. But by the time it gets to earth it is much weaker than the earth emissions.”
Ok – i’ll buy all that, we can probably settle on “LWIR from the sun is negligible”. But – this is a serious question – as you seem to know more about this than me: Do you have a figure about how much LWIR from the sun we get per m^2 ? I guess the upward LWIR is about 300 W/m^2. Do you have a guess as to how big the suns radiative flux in the CO2 + H2O absorptive spectrum actually is when it enters the atmosphere?
Kevin (12:12:28) :
Good video! Interesting the correlation of the solar systems passage through the galactic arms. In my post above (at wayne (13:34:18)) the curves show this correlation over last three hundred years. I have been waiting for some real explanation to how the curves in my graph so tightly correlate to the anomaly temps. Thanks!
Do you know, is Henrik involved in the CLOUD experiment at CERN? Is that his project without me digging for the info?
by the way curious,
Ignorance is NOT a disease; we are all born with it. But stupidity has to be taught, and there are plenty willing to teach it.
The only stupid questions are those that are never asked
Re: DirkH (14:31:43) :
And may i add: Yes Brits. This is what awaits you.
—
Very cool pic of the UK here-
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/8447023.stm
Think my electric blanket awaits me 🙂
Barry, one of the problems you may be having is that Total Solar Activity is frequently represented using a single indicator or proxy like sun spot numbers. Prior civilizations couldn’t do direct measurements of irradiance or luminosity but their astronomers could and did observe and record sun spots. The numbers of sun spots are indeed a pretty reliable indicator of overall solar activity but they’re not the total story. As this story indicates, Ap is another factor to consider.
I am quite interested in this story on Ap because I remember a pretty nasty solar storm back in Mar 89 that quite literally and measurably expanded the atmosphere. If I remember right, we first started seeing the effects about a day after the X-class solar flares were observed and the effects lasted a good 3-4 days (maybe more).
Jones II
As always in the UK we KEEP CALM AND CARRY ON. Tomorrow will be my third day of working from home (hooray for the VPN) and with any luck I’ll get my car out 300 metres to the major road before the next snow dump at the weekend.
Any more of this and we will start a husky-breeding programme. What we actually need is those neat little bolt-on snow ploughs they have in the US. somebody should export some over here. They would clean up (haha).
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
There is also lower activity in the earth’s own magnetic field. A band going over Brazil and out over the Atlantic toward Africa of earth’s magnetic field is weak, and weakening. Some scietist are saying it is caused by the shifting of earth’s magnetic poles, which happens over 100’s of years (they say) and has happened several times in earth’s history.
Weaker magnetic field from the earth itself added to the weaker magnetic field from the sun could make the earth additionally vulnerable to more cloud cover and more cooling than projected.
Apologies if this is considered “common knowledge”, what is the time lag before the Earth’s cloud cover starts showing signs of increasing?
I assume there must be a time lag but, ( because we have spent money hunting the wrong fox ), I can’t find any useful information.
My Google search for “ap index solar wikipedia” turned up this Jan 4 2009 post from here as the first result, with this Sep 9 2009 post as a sub-result. Out of about 297,000 results.
Truly the power that is Watts cannot be denied, for Watts is power.
Dandra (10:45:55) :
You added a “1′ to clarify for your readers and you feel a need to apologize. Yikes….some people must be overly sensitive
It does seem that one in particular is.
“Atomic Hairdryer (15:27:34) :
[…]
Very cool pic of the UK here-
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/8447023.stm
Think my electric blanket awaits me :)”
You surely have a high albedo over there. Nice picture!
Jeremy (15:15:25) :
Couldn’t agree more.
DaveE.
Douglas DC (10:55:59) :
I wish she had been more aware of her setting. It seems she should have set her politics aside for that day.
Gerry (13:33:42) :
Total Solar Irradiance (TSI) is in a nosedive not seen since 2008.23:
http://leif.org/research/TSI-SORCE-2008-now.png
No answer on this one?
Perhaps an equipment malfunction?
JMANON (11:03:03) :
Er, was Joe Romm being ironic or does he concede a link between climate and sunspot activity?
It seems common to me for warmers to unwittingly do that sort of thing.
“wayne (15:24:03) :
[…]
Do you know, is Henrik involved in the CLOUD experiment at CERN? Is that his project without me digging for the info?”
CLOUD-9 is Jasper Kirkby’s project. i read that he wanted to do this in 1998 or so already but as he needs a particle beam he had to wait to get it approved until they were done with the LHR. At least that is the official version for the delay. I don’t think that Svensmark himself is involved.
Its all a pretty good sign that solar minimum was in 2009 instead of Dec 2008, or at least a possible double minimum.
The Ap Index bottoms out up to a year after the month of solar minimum, so we may have a few more months of low numbers before it trends up again.
We know that Solar Cycle 24 year of maximum will be 2015, and since the downramp of the cycle won’t be any shorter than the upramp, Solar Cycle 24 will be at least 12 years long.
We are still on track for a Dalton Minimum repeat. The Earth’s climate started cooling from 2003 when solar activity (not sunspot number which was 2000) peaked. It looks like the standard 210 year de Vries cycle.
Methow Ken (10:41:26) :
“….And unlike many other factors that affect climate, any significant increase in cloud cover should I would think have an almost immediate effect on world-wide temperature data. So if Svensmark is right, we won’t have to wait 100 years for empirical data to confirm the correctness of his theory:
There will be hard data ‘’soon” (unless of course diehard AGW acolytes can again get away with applying large ”correction factors” to the raw temp data, ala UEA-CRU).”
The temperature data was fairly easy to rig but a change in cloud cover resulting in lots of white fluffy “global warming” every winter where we do not normally see it can not be hidden. The 2008-2009 had some “freak snow falls like snow in Saudi Arabia, No one in the EU or the USA or China will forget this winter and if we have another bad winter in the EU, USA, China and India not to mention OZ and NZ, then AGW is dead just in time for a massive house cleaning in the US Congress and elsewhere. I am praying for a massive snow storm to hit the USA in October 2010, It happened on the 15-16th of October in Pennsylvania in 2009.
Lucy Skywalker (12:39:38) :
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.
Interesting way to put it. It seems that fireworks has come from one main source.
But I think Mr. Watts has some good reason in mind to limit things. Who knows, that reason may evolve with time.
But it is his blog. I am happy to agree with his request.
We seem to have hit a string of many factors which are coincident and these push our climate back into cool mode again. Here’s the list, although how these are connected I’ve no idea!
Low Ap index.
Weak NH polar vortex.
Less UV hitting Earth’s atmosphere.
Low density/speed solar wind.
Reduced depth of Earth atmosphere.
Increase in cosmic rays.
PDO turning negative.
El Nino conditions weak.
Weak Gulf Stream.
Please add to this ‘top of the head’ list.
Perhaps all we need is a couple of big volcanic eruptions and a La Nina to complete our NH winter misery?