Guest post by David Archibald
Solar Cycle 24 is now over a year old, so it is appropriate to see how it is ramping up.
Solar Cycle 24 was a late starter, about three and a half years later than the average of the strong cycles in the late 20th century and almost three year later than the weak cycles of the late 19th century. It was almost as late as Solar Cycle 5, the first half of the Dalton Minimum. The last few months have seen it ramp up relatively rapidly.
[Note: Solar Cycle 22 and 23 are overlaid on solar cycle 3 and 4 above to show similarity]
Plotting up the last three solar cycles relative to the Dalton Minimum, another solar minimum is not precluded by the data to date.
With Solar Cycle 23 ending up at twelve and a half years long, applying Friis-Christenson and Lassen theory to the temperature record of Hanover, New Hampshire results in a two degree centigrade decline in the annual average temperature at this location over the expected twelve years of Solar Cycle 24, from December 2009 to late 2021. Given some record low monthly averages in the northeast US in the recent summer, and the current cold winter, this cooling is well under way.
Oliver K. Manuel (13:07:55) :
May you not be the last one on the sinking ship!
So from the safety of your floating boat, you can demonstrate your superior understanding by doing a little calculation for us:
1) we know [and hopefully that includes you] what the total luminosity of the Sun is.
2) you know [so you say] the exact reaction rate of your neutron generator [since you say that it matches exactly the observed output].
3) by dividing 1) by 2) you can calculate for us [right here – in your next posting] how many neutrons there are.
4) by multiplying that by the mass [which Ill presume you also know] of a neutron, you can calculate [right here – your next posting] the total mass of that neutron star. So, ‘prove to us that you’re no fool, walk across our swimming pool’ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cb_9uH-ELJE
Leif Svalgaard (07:21:13) :
A very nice paper. Thanks.
If you know of any study that has managed to calcualte the amount of nighttime light escaping from Earth (due to outdoor lighting) I’d be most interested in it. Others have noted the increased ability to detect Earthshine on the Moon past 1st quarter/prior to last quarter. If it’s not outdoor lighting, something else is going on.
Actually, Leif, wouldn’t it be better to send some sensors to the Moon, and measure the Earth from there?
(Shameless plug for a NASA Mission).
Only 250,000 mi., a hop, skip & a jump away.
Quote: Leif Svalgaard (15:51:56) :
“So from the safety of your floating boat, you can demonstrate your superior understanding by doing a little calculation for us.”
I have done already that in several papers, Leif:
1. “Earth’s heat source – The Sun”, Energy & Environment 20 (2009) 131-144 http://arxiv.org/pdf/0905.0704
2. “”The Sun is a plasma diffuser that sorts atoms by mass”, Physics of Atomic Nuclei 69 (2006) 1847-1856
http://arxiv.org/pdf/astro-ph/0609509
3. “Isotopes tell origin and operation of the Sun”, AIP Conference Proceedings 822 (2006) 206-225
http://xxx.lanl.gov/pdf/astro-ph/0510001
Or you are welcome to join the discussion group that Kirt Griffin formed and moderates, “”Neutron Repulsion: An Alternative Energy,” neutron_repulsion@yahoogroups.com
Subscribe: http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/neutron_repulsion/join
http://tinyurl.com/y8gr422
Or e-mail: mailto:neutron_repulsion-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
With kind regards,
Oliver K. Manuel
Former NASA PI for Apollo
Oliver K. Manuel (18:33:16) :
“So from the safety of your floating boat, you can demonstrate your superior understanding by doing a little calculation for us.”
I have done already that in several papers
They are unintelligible, so do it here, please, where we can the Master for clarifications as he lays it out for us.
rbateman (17:07:19) :
Actually, Leif, wouldn’t it be better to send some sensors to the Moon, and measure the Earth from there?
The best is to place a sensor at L1 to ‘stare’ at the Sun, the Earth, and a constant star [there are those], at the same time.
Quote: Leif Svalgaard (19:11:16) :
“They are unintelligible, so do it here, please, where we can the Master for clarifications as he lays it out for us.”
Leif, everything beyond your old dogma is unintelligible to you.
Fortunately others associated with NASA are learning.
Perhaps those quoted in the NASA news report can help you grasp that you are clinging to a sinking ship:
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2010/05feb_sdo.htm?list1073366
“For some years now, an unorthodox idea has been gaining favor among astronomers. It contradicts old teachings and unsettles thoughtful observers, especially climatologists.”
“The sun,” explains Lika Guhathakurta of NASA headquarters in Washington DC, “is a variable star.”
“The depth of the solar minimum in 2008-2009 really took us by surprise,” says sunspot expert David Hathaway of the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. “It highlights how far we still have to go to successfully forecast solar activity.”
I wish you well, Leif, but you may be “too full” to learn.
With kind regards,
Oliver K. Manuel
Former NASA PI for Apollo
Constant stars…do they have planets?
Oliver K. Manuel (19:55:04) :
Leif, everything beyond your old dogma is unintelligible to you.
So, in this way you cover up the deficiencies of your ‘papers’. You had your chance and you just blew it, big time.
ET (19:59:36) :
Constant stars…do they have planets?
Probably not. As a vigorous stellar wind [i.e. stellar activity, i.e. variability] seems to be necessary in planet formation.
Bob,
All my works including most of my posts in this thread refer to the whole range of climate variability from ENSO events, through PDO phase shifts (or whatever you prefer to call them) to multicentury shifts from MWP to LIA et al and even the differences between ice ages and interglacials.
I have pointed out that any lack of correlation is mainly in the shorter time scales where chaotic variability has a larger effect proportionately.
The historic temperature record is grossly inadequate for understanding the entirety of the system. At the very least oone has to involve proxy records and preferably also verbal historical records from past civilisations.
As I say, my scenario if even only partly correct would explain a great deal.
Your expert analysis of short term ENSO phenomena does not entitle you to be so dismissive of my work.
I am puzzled by your determination to dismiss what I say because I do not see it as derogating significantly from your findings.
Stephen Wilde: “The historic temperature record is grossly inadequate for understanding the entirety of the system.”
If claims cannot be verified by the historic instrument record, they are speculation. Also, as stated above, you repeatedly make statements that contradict the record.
You wrote, “I have pointed out that any lack of correlation is mainly in the shorter time scales where chaotic variability has a larger effect proportionately.”
Hmm. You suggest that the instrument record is too short to show the correlations. Then how do you know the correlations exist? Please provide links to papers that discuss this lack of correlation during the instrument record and that show longer-term correlations in reconstructions.
You wrote, “Your expert analysis of short term ENSO phenomena does not entitle you to be so dismissive of my work.”
I comment here at WUWT when you make comments that contradict the instrument record. Or if it’s your other work, please feel free to link the posts at Climate Realists that you feel I’m contradicting or attacking.
Recall, Stephen, on this thread, this conversation started with my response to your comment in which I wrote…
XXXXXXXXXXXX
Stephen Wilde (03:40:14): You wrote, “…e.g. currently the ocean surfaces tend to be positive (warming) at the same time as the sun is more active…”
Really? Please show this on the following graph. Don’t forget to account for the El Chichon and Mount Pinatubo eruptions:
http://i50.tinypic.com/30vyigy.png
Would you like me to remove the effects of the volcanic eruptions and the linear effects of ENSO to see if that helps?
XXXXXXXXXXXXX
You still have offered nothing to back that claim and it’s approaching a week since you made it.
Bob Tisdale
I said this previously
“Well we have the Maunder Minimum, Dalton Minimum et al with lower levels of solar activity and colder temperatures and according to ships logs the mid latitude storm tracks were nearer the equator at those times which in my view is a ‘fingerprint’ of cooler ocean surfaces.
Then there is that source which said the ITCZ was nearer the equator during the LIA:
http://www.heliogenic.net/2009/07/06/itcz-moved-southward-from-the-medieval-warm-period-to-the-little-ice-age/
and now it has moved northward again:
It is well established that a warmer world is associated with more poleward tracks of weather systems so a cooler world would have more equatorward tracks.
Now if you could show me a period of time when the ocean surfaces warmed yet the jets moved equatorward then I might concede that you have a point.
Can you do that ?
The fact is that during the current interglacial all the evidence available is that cooler temperatures, cooler ocean surfaces and lower levels of solar activity all occur at the same time.
That gives us the question as to whether or not that is circumnstantial or evidence of a direct causative correlation between all three variables or any two of them.
On the basis of what Leif says about the smallness of solar variability I suspect circumnstantial at the moment.
Perhaps your detailed knowledge is causing you to dismiss broader perspectives unwisely ?
Stephen Wilde (10:00:40) :
The fact is that during the current interglacial all the evidence available is that cooler temperatures, cooler ocean surfaces and lower levels of solar activity all occur at the same time.
This is not a fact, e.g. smack in the middle of the MWP we find the Oort Grand Minimum in solar activity.
Leif,
OK, I should say that on average for most of the time cooler temperatures, cooler ocean surfaces and lower levels of solar activity coincide.
As I have said before what matters is the interaction whereby there is a constantly shifting balance between the separate solar and oceanic cyclical influences and that does not preclude occasions where the pattern breaks for a while.
The Oort minimum is just a period when the solar cycle was out of phase with the oceanic cycles. Part of my submission is that the solar and oceanic cycles may well change their periodicities independently so the Oort minimum during a warm period would just be an example of that.
Perhaps one of the reasons that we are not getting a coherent climate overview is the failure to appreciate that in such a complex system there are countercyclical events that do not disprove the underlying relationships.
It’s like the PDO positive phase enhancing El Nino and suppressing La Nina on average over time. It’s still possible to get a whopping La Nina in a positive phase and vice versa. That would not disprove the otherwise clear 30 / 60 year phase shifts.
Stephen Wilde (11:49:45) :
Perhaps one of the reasons that we are not getting a coherent climate overview is the failure to appreciate that in such a complex system there are countercyclical events that do not disprove the underlying relationships.
The reason is that the correlations are spurious and we don’t make progress as long as we cling to them. If we from a correlation between A and B, predict the behavior of B from A, and the prediction fails, you advocate that instead of falsifying the correlation, the phase just changed. That would make the theory non-falsifiable and hence hardly science.
Leif Svalgaard (12:23:08)
No.
You just have to appreciate that in a complex system there will always be occasions when longer term correlations that are truly suggestive of the underlying relationships will fail to hold.
The answer is to take longer period averages. My suggestions would be falsified if certain events were seen to occur such as :
i) movement of air circulation systems equatorward at a time of warming ocean surfaces and an absence of a powerful Arctic Oscillation.
ii) warming of the troposphere at a time of cooling ocean surfaces and an active sun
iii) cooling of the troposphere at a time of warming ocean surfaces and a quiet sun.
iv) a failure of the upper atmosphere to respond to increased solar activity by ejecting more energy to space as per recent SABER observations
v) the interglacial climate swings becoming as severe as ice age climate swings without a change in the phasing of solar and oceanic cycles
There would be other ways to falsify my suggestions if one were to work through all the possibilities.
If you wish to do so please see if you can come up with such real world observations that do not fit the broader long term picture at all rather than just pointing to short term lack of correlation.
Just as spurious correlations are to be avoided so must one avoid being misled when a failure to see a correlation serves only to hide the underlying truth.
Stephen Wilde (14:40:27) :
You just have to appreciate that in a complex system there will always be occasions when longer term correlations that are truly suggestive of the underlying relationships will fail to hold.
‘Truly suggestive’ is not science unless you can put a [quantitative] theory behind it. Anyone of your points could be due to yet other unknown causes, so do not qualify as real tests.
long term picture at all rather than just pointing to short term lack of correlation.
The point is that the lack of correlation is precisely with the long-term variations. There is no shortage of short-term correlations: just today it rained a bit, and sure enough there is a significant spot on the Sun. I’ll keep track of that correlation over the next few days and report when it breaks down.
All this fighting seems rather pointless.The truth of the matter is it’s probably far too early to make any real statements about solar cycle 24, and comments are probably best left until September 2010 at the earliest. This post by Archibald seems lightweight and hollow, not up to scratch. Archibald is paid to find oil afaik, so it’s probably in his interest to claim against AGW.
All the people with their pet theory (and they are all pet theories until someone really understands what’s going on with the Sun and I’ve yet to be convinced they do) are starting to wear me down. “It’s the planets and their alignments’ ‘it’s orbit’ ‘it’s the sun spot cycle’
Solar cycle 24 may well be a slow starter and we may well be on the verge (or not) of a super minimum. Science just seems to have fallen to the level of mud slinging and insults, rather than solid arguments which can be demonstrated. Science is a testament to what we can know even though we are fallible.
We’ve forgotten that if we are wrong, that shows something as well, and that we progress. There is no fault in being wrong. We often are. Just learn from it.
“The point is that the lack of correlation is precisely with the long-term variations”
Leif, you have previously conceded that there is some correlation between lower solar activity on multicentury time scales such as on average a less active sun during the LIA and on average a more active sun during the recent Modern Maximum.
It must be implied that you accepted the point because you then asserted that such correlation as there might be was simply coincidence.
I accepted your suggestion that it might merely be coincidence as a reasonable proposition and have suggested that if it was just a coincidence then the solar and oceanic cycles must be independently variable and I have explored the implications of that.
As it happens such independent variability has the potential to explain a number of puzzling observations.
You cannot now row back and assert, as you do, that there is no correlation at all.
There is a fault in your general logic. You pick and choose as it suits you.
You say that correlations are spurious but deny that a lack of correlation can also be spurious. You can’t have it both ways.
You cannot say that a correlation means nothing but that a lack of correlation is conclusive which is what you habitually do.
In a complex system both correlation and lack of correlation have the ability to be equally spurious.
Correlation is not a particularly useful tool in a complex system.
Instead I have proposed an actual mechanism which has some predictive value. To rebut my proposals it is not enough to bleat that correlations or lack of them do not support me. I have given a few of many ways that my proposals can be falsified but you have chosen not to pursue them.
Stephen Wilde (01:48:19) :
Leif, you have previously conceded that there is some correlation between lower solar activity on multicentury time scales such as on average a less active sun during the LIA and on average a more active sun during the recent Modern Maximum.
I cannot make sense of that statement. Correlation between what? The last part looks like a tautology: the Modern Maximum is the more active Sun. What do you mean precisely?
If you mean that the Sun was less active during the LIA than during the recent global warming period, then I have accepted that a dT of less than 0.1C would be expected. This is not a correlation but simple physics based on radiation balance [in = out].
Leif Svalgaard (04:58:33)
The Modern Maximum is also being used as a term for the apparent temperature peak of the late 20th Century. There appears to be a correlation between the warmer troposphere and the more active sun just as there appears to have been a broad correlation between the LIA and the less active sun.
The sun produced less energy during the LIA which was a cooler time.
The sun seems to have been more lively during the MWP (apart from the Oort Minimum) which was a warmer time.
I have accepted your proposition that the difference in solar intensity was too small to make the observed difference. Therefore I have accepted your point that any correlation there might have been was most likely coincidental.
However there is a correlation (even if only coincidental) despite the imperfections caused by chaotic variability and the interaction of many other second order variables other than the primary forcings of sun and oceans.
Stephen Wilde (06:47:52) :
Therefore I have accepted your point that any correlation there might have been was most likely coincidental.
However there is a correlation (even if only coincidental)
And what shows it is coincidental is that the ‘correlation’ breaks down for the Oort minimum in the middle of the MWP. What you seem to be saying is that that breakdown confirms that the later ‘correlation’ is significant.That a lack of correlation at some times, confirms the correlation at other times. I say it shows that the correlation is spurious. I guess we can’t resolve this in any way.
Leif,
You and those in the federal agencies supporting pseudo-science [NASA and NAS] “cannot make sense” of any statement or any experimental data [http://arxiv.org/pdf/0905.0704] that contradicts the absurd notion that Earth’s heat source is a giant Hydrogen-fusion reactor composed of element # 1 (H) and element #2 (He) – the two lightweight elements that cover the top of the Sun’s atmosphere – 91% H and 9% He.
Astronomy and astrophysics at NASA and NAS have remained frozen in the time period of the early 1950s – a half century ago – when the Hydrogen-bomb first exploded.
Recently NASA acknowledged that “For some years now, an unorthodox idea has been gaining favor among astronomers. It contradicts old teachings and unsettles thoughtful observers, especially climatologists.”
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2010/05feb_sdo.htm
A spokesperson from NASA Headquarters even admitted that “The sun is a variable star” and Judith Lean of the Naval Research Laboratory noted the ” ‘Solar constant’ is an oxymoron” !
Unfortunately scientists associated with the Solar Dynamics Laboratory will probably also be unable to “make sense” of any observations unless DOE (Department of Energy) scientists are first forced to admit that:
a.) They were wrong to report that solar neutrinos from H-fusion oscillate away, and
b.) Neutron repulsion is a greater source of nuclear energy than H-fusion or U-fission [http://www.omatumr.com/abstracts2003/jfe-neutronrep.pdf] .
With kind regards,
Oliver K. Manuel
Emeritus Professor of
Nuclear & Space Science
Former NASA PI for Apollo
Oliver K. Manuel (07:41:56) :
Recently NASA acknowledged that “For some years now, an unorthodox idea has been gaining favor among astronomers. It contradicts old teachings and unsettles thoughtful observers, especially climatologists.”
This has nothing to do with Ball of Hydrogen or Neutron Stars, but is about the variability of the Sun [mostly at the surface where we observe it]. And is not a new and unorthodox idea [that is just the usual NASA hype]. Here is what Abbot said about that in 1913: http://www.leif.org/EOS/Abbot-Variation-Sun.pdf
I’m amazed at your ability to twist and misunderstand things so badly [unless it is just tactics]. And you still didn’t rise to answer my questions here [on this blog] with other than just blather.
The DOE don’t give a hoot about your pseudo-science. Nor should they.
Leif,
I think it is now just a matter of terminology. We each seem to mean something slightly different by the term ‘correlation’. Your usage is more specific than mine, probably because of your more scientific background.
The Oort minimum and other failures in the general appearance of correlation are supportive of any such correlation being coincidental with both solar and oceanic cycles varying independently, sometimes supplementing each other’s effects and at other times offsetting each other but the oceanic effect being far more powerful.
Both the smallness of solar variability and the occasions when the correlation fails point towards independent solar and oceanic cycle variability.
However I haven’t yet given up on the idea that some aspect of solar variability other than raw power output does disproportionately affect climate and lots of sceptics continue to seek such a phenomenon.
Stephen Wilde (08:14:04) :
However I haven’t yet given up on the idea
This is somewhat backwards. If the data does not support the idea, it is not science to cling to it. I grant you that 98% of the human population don’t adhere to that…