Solar Science Bipolar Disorder
Guest post by Steven Goddard
About once every 11 years, the sun’s magnetic poles reverse. However some high profile solar scientists reverse their own polarity more frequently.
The BBC reported Wednesday that Mike Lockwood at the University of Reading has established a statistical link between cold weather and low solar activity.
The UK and continental Europe could be gripped by more frequent cold winters in the future as a result of low solar activity, say researchers.
“By recent standards, we have just had what could be called a very cold winter and I wanted to see if this was just another coincidence or statistically robust,” said lead author Mike Lockwood, professor of space environment physics at the University of Reading, UK.
To examine whether there was a link, Professor Lockwood and his co-authors compared past levels of solar activity with the Central England Temperature (CET) record, which is the world’s longest continuous instrumental record of such data.
The researchers used the 351-year CET record because it provided data that went back to the beginning of the Maunder Minimum, a prolonged period of very low activity on the Sun that lasted about half a century.
“Frost fayres” were held on the Thames during the Maunder Minimum
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The Maunder Minimum occurred in the latter half of the 17th Century – a period when Europe experienced a series of harsh winters, which has been dubbed by some as the Little Ice Age. Following this, there was a gradual increase in solar activity that lasted 300 years.
Professor Lockwood explained that studies of activity on the Sun, which provides data stretching back over 9,000 years, showed that it tended to “ramp up quite slowly over about a 300-year period, then drop quite quickly over about a 100-year period”.
He said the present decline started in 1985 and was currently about “half way back to a Maunder Minimum condition”. More at the BBC
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His study was basically a rehash of what many others have done previously over the past few centuries, but he has the BBC’s ear – because in 2007 he prominently claimed just the opposite.
No Sun link’ to climate change
Tuesday, 10 July 2007
“This should settle the debate,” said Mike Lockwood
Similarly, in 2006 David Hathaway at NASA reported that the Sun’s conveyor belt had “slowed to a record low.”
May 10, 2006: The Sun’s Great Conveyor Belt has slowed to a record-low crawl, according to research by NASA solar physicist David Hathaway. “It’s off the bottom of the charts,” he says. “This has important repercussions for future solar activity.”
Then on March 12, 2010 he reported the exact opposite:
March 12, 2010: In today’s issue of Science, NASA solar physicist David Hathaway reports that the top of the sun’s Great Conveyor Belt has been running at record-high speeds for the past five years.
In 1810, the great English astronomer William Herschel established a link between sunspot activity and the price of grain in Europe – a proxy for climate. As far as we know, he never reversed polarity on that belief. Modern solar science is just coming around to what Herschel hypothesized 200 years ago.
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UPDATE: Full Lockwood et al paper at Environmental Research Letters here
Abstract. Solar activity during the current sunspot minimum has fallen to levels unknown since the start of the 20th century. The Maunder minimum (about 1650–1700) was a prolonged episode of low solar activity which coincided with more severe winters in the United Kingdom and continental Europe. Motivated by recent relatively cold winters in the UK, we investigate the possible connection with solar activity. We identify regionally anomalous cold winters by detrending the Central England temperature (CET) record using reconstructions of the northern hemisphere mean temperature. We show that cold winter excursions from the hemispheric trend occur more commonly in the UK during low solar activity, consistent with the solar influence on the occurrence of persistent blocking events in the eastern Atlantic. We stress that this is a regional and seasonal effect relating to European winters and not a global effect. Average solar activity has declined rapidly since 1985 and cosmogenic isotopes suggest an 8% chance of a return to Maunder minimum conditions within the next 50 years (Lockwood 2010 Proc. R. Soc. A 466 303–29): the results presented here indicate that, despite hemispheric warming, the UK and Europe could experience more cold winters than during recent decades.
Figure 2 from the paper:
- Figure 2. Variations since the mid-17th century of the following. (a) The mean northern hemisphere temperature anomaly, ΔTN: black shows the HadCRUT3v compilation of observations [17, mauve shows the median of an ensemble of 11 reconstructions (individually intercalibrated with the HadCRUT3v NH data over the interval 1850–1950) based on tree ring and other proxy data [18–23]. The decile range is given by the area shaded grey (between upper and lower decile values of ΔTU and ΔTL). (b) Average winter Central England Temperatures (CET) [5, 6] for December, January and February, TDJF. (c) The open solar flux, FS, corrected for longitudinal solar wind structure: dots are annual means of interplanetary satellite data; the black line after 1905 is derived from ground-based geomagnetic data [1]; and the mauve line is a model based on observed sunspot numbers [14]. Both curves show 1 year means. (d) Detrended winter CET, δTDJF, obtained by subtracting the best-fit variation of ΔTN, derived using the regressions shown in figure 3(b): the width of the line shows the difference resulting from the use of ΔTN = ΔTU and ΔTN = ΔTL prior to 1850. In all panels, dots are for years with δTDJF < 1 °C (the dashed horizontal line in (d)), colour-coded by year using the scale in figure 3(a). Data for the winter 2009/10 are provisional.”]
Clive E Burkland (21:36:46) :
The current value looks lower than 1900 and closer to 1800.
The Figure is tiny. Look at the date on a larger scale:
http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1002/1002.2934.pdf
The 1900 and 2009 values are identical with the errors [which are about 1/4 nT]
it is far more likely this cycle and the next will be more like SC5 & SC6.
“Likely”? has to be based on something, not just wishful thinking or gut-feeling. Comparing with #5 and 6 is very uncertain because the sunspot number was very poorly determined for those cycles. The geomagnetic data that is used to compare 1900 with 2009 are well-determined.
Leif Svalgaard (21:59:07) :
Clive E Burkland (21:36:46) :
The current value looks lower than 1900 and closer to 1800.
The Figure is tiny. Look at the date on a larger scale:
http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1002/1002.2934.pdf
Especially Figure 11.
Leif Svalgaard (21:59:07) :
“Likely”? has to be based on something, not just wishful thinking or gut-feeling.
As mentioned history gives us all the data required. The previous 4 grand minima are all spaced at the same interval, a grand minimum now will further complete that pattern. The big difference being 1900 was not during a grand minimum.
None of this academic hair splitting really matters. Shut up and pay your skyrocketing utility bills with devalued dollars. My power company just jacked the rates up 30% to cover bogus Green initiatives. They’ve got us by the shorties.
Leif Svalgaard (22:00:31) :
Clive E Burkland (21:36:46) :
The current value looks lower than 1900 and closer to 1800.
http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1002/1002.2934.pdf
The HMF B value for 1901 was 4.06 nT, for 2009 4.05 nT
Leif Svalgaard (12:53:49) :
I don’t see any quantitative ‘features’ or models or even handwaving ‘explanations’ that list or take into effect any ‘different’ conditions. Show me some.
Stenchikov et al 2009
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2009/2008JD011673.shtml
In the summary.
Radiative forcing produced by explosive volcanic events that have occurred in the historic period lasts for about 3 years. The volcanically-induced tropospheric temperature anomalies reduce below noise after approximately 7 years. The sea ice responds on the decadal time scale. Deep ocean temperature, sea level, salinity, and AMOC have relaxation time of several decades to a century. This suggests that the Tambora subsurface temperature and sea level perturbations could last well into the 20th century, interfering with the effects of the devastating Krakatau, Santa Maria, and Katmai eruptions which occurred respectively in 1883, 1902, and 1912, producing a cumulative impact on the deep ocean thermal structure in the 20th century.
Leif, 06:26:33.
With enough different solar phenomena, of varying orders, impacting enough different earthly processes, then there may always be enough different ‘lags’ to make it very difficult to find the correlations and the causations. I know, not very convincing, but perhaps partially explanatory.
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Leif Svalgaard (22:46:41) :
Looks like a classic case of Bait & Switch.
Leif Svalgaard (22:46:41) :
Clive E Burkland (21:36:46) :
The current value looks lower than 1900 and closer to 1800.
Lets go back to the bait, I have drawn a red line under the 2009 value.
http://i40.tinypic.com/s2y5n7.png
There is mountains of references re the 200 year period. Here is a few.
http://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&sl=it&tl=en&u=http://www.spaceandscience.net/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderfiles/researcherswhopreviouslydiscoveredthebicentennialcycle.doc&prev=_t&rurl=translate.google.com&usg=ALkJrhj174S4ghC7rYR0X3GrSGx9qTnVEA
kim (02:21:47) :
then there may always be enough different ‘lags’ to make it very difficult to find the correlations
On the contrary, the more it wanders all over the place, the easier it is to find something, somewhere that looks like support for your favorite pet idea.
Clive E Burkland (07:15:07) :
Lets go back to the bait, I have drawn a red line under the 2009 value.
And it is higher than the 1800s. And matches the 1912-13 values 4.18 nT] . Lockwood’s values for before that are not very concordant. He actually doesn’t even have a 1901 value. See Figure 11 of http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1002/1002.2934.pdf
There is mountains of references re the 200 year period.
Of course, there is. Just as there is a mountain of evidence for an 90-100 year ‘period’, and both periods are but approximate anyway. We have long suspected that cycle 24-26 would be small. ‘Grand Minimum’ is a different matter. The Dalton does not even qualify in my opinion. It is at the same level as 1900s, significant, but not Grand.
Irrespective of what we dredge up, the observational fact is that activity now is back to where it was 109 years ago. That simple. Whether the next cycle after 24, will be much smaller than 24, we don’t know, but usually several small cycles come together [as several large ones do]. The interesting question is what makes the difference, i.e. what makes the next one small [or large], if the current one was large or small].
Steinhilber gave a talk last week at http://www.issibern.ch/workshops/cosmicrays/
Click on ‘Talks’. the click on Thursday and find Steinhilber.
There were many talks of interest to the readership here. Check them out. Almost every one is very good.
To focus on something relevant to the topic, Steinhilber shows a Figure of TSI reconstructions since 1600:
http://www.leif.org/research/Steinhilber-TSI-vs-Others.png
Note how with time [from 1995 to 2010 – red curve is Steinhilber 25 year mean] the curves get flatter and flatter and the Solar Radiative Forcing [right-hand scale] gets smaller and smaller.
The 2001-2010 decade is not on the plot. but is down from the previous decade.
Leif Svalgaard (09:36:35) :
red curve is Steinhilber 25 year mean
Or 11-year or 22-year ‘cycle’ averages. The talk was a bit unclear on that.
Leif, if you get a chance, can you take a look at the stuff I’ve been adding here? http://www.sfu.ca/~plv/VolcanoStratosphereSLAM.htm
If so, thank you.
Regards,
Paul.
Leif Svalgaard (09:07:23) :
There is mountains of references re the 200 year period.
Of course, there is. Just as there is a mountain of evidence for an 90-100 year ‘period’, and both periods are but approximate anyway. We have long suspected that cycle 24-26 would be small. ‘Grand Minimum’ is a different matter. The Dalton does not even qualify in my opinion. It is at the same level as 1900s, significant, but not Grand.
Don’t get your periods mixed up, no one is proposing grand minima on a 100 year cycle. There is a reduction of solar activity between every 200 year grand minima but that reduction is quite different. The reduction is not as severe and does not come in cycle pairs, SC12, 14 & 16 are a good example of this each having stronger cycles each side of them. Excluding the Dalton is your way of ignoring the regular solar grand minima cycle, you should listen to the mountains of research suggesting otherwise.
Clive E Burkland (18:08:17) :
Don’t get your periods mixed up, no one is proposing grand minima on a 100 year cycle. There is a reduction of solar activity between every 200 year grand minima
No there isn’t. Don’t believe everything you pick up on the Internet. Grand minima occur at random, e.g. http://www.springerlink.com/content/x78q151618615613/
“We demonstrate that such ability to reproduce the Grand Minima phenomenology is not a general feature of the dynamo models but requires some specific assumption, such as random fluctuations in dynamo governing parameters”. or
http://arxiv.org/abs/0706.0385
“The occurrence of grand minima/maxima is driven not by long-term cyclic variability, but by a stochastic/chaotic process”
Paul Vaughan (18:04:25) :
Leif, if you get a chance, can you take a look at the stuff I’ve been adding here? http://www.sfu.ca/~plv/VolcanoStratosphereSLAM.htm
One would think it obvious and going almost without saying that the extent and severity of optical extinction due to volcanic dust depends on the circulation of the atmosphere, no?
Leif Svalgaard (18:24:46) “One would think it obvious and going almost without saying that the extent and severity of optical extinction due to volcanic dust depends on the circulation of the atmosphere, no?”
I certainly would – but I haven’t seen these results involving SOI+L90 anywhere.
The results suggest that critical information can be gained by understanding how the ~1940 El Nino differs from those nearer to 1885 & 1975 due to decadal SOI phase relations with volcanic activity.
If you see something in the more recent additions that warrants cautioning, I’m listening.
Leif, perhaps I can ask a more pointed question:
Can physicists predict when the next nutation obliquity phase reversal will occur?
Paul Vaughan (14:31:34) :
Can physicists predict when the next nutation obliquity phase reversal will occur?
I don’t know what that is or that there was one.
Paul Vaughan (14:31:34) :
Can physicists predict when the next nutation obliquity phase reversal will occur?
In general we can predict orbital elements hundreds of thousands of years before and after the present.
Leif Svalgaard (20:17:12) “I don’t know what that is or that there was one.”
Nutation obliquity shows a roughly bidecadal pattern in recent decades, but you will note (International Earth Rotation Service (IERS) data) that there was a three-decade-long wave earlier in the 20th century.
Leif Svalgaard (20:21:16) “In general we can predict orbital elements hundreds of thousands of years before and after the present.”
Can you enlighten us by sharing the date of the next terrestrial nutation obliquity phase reversal? (If there is superior terminology, I welcome enlightenment.)
Paul Vaughan (21:40:33) :
Nutation obliquity shows a roughly bidecadal pattern in recent decades,
The NU is not a simple periodic function and has no well-defined ‘phase’, so no ‘reversal’ either. For your purposes, the following formula may be used:
http://www.neoprogrammics.com/nutations/Nutation_In_Obliquity.php
A visualization is here:
http://www.pietro.org/Astro_Util_StaticDemo/MethodsNutationVisualized.htm
The nutations in longitude and in obliquity are the two component of the nutation [a single physical phenomenon] along and perpendicular to the ecliptic. The two components show circular movement in opposite directions with different amplitude, but with the same frequency
A better terminology is: ‘nutation in obliquity’, because it is a small wiggle on the obliquity.
Leif Svalgaard (05:48:57) “[…] ‘nutation in obliquity’ […]” / “The NU is not a simple periodic function and has no well-defined ‘phase’ […] The two components show circular movement in opposite directions with different amplitude, but with the same frequency”
So am I to understand the apparent change in phase ~1930 more properly as resulting from a change in amplitude?
http://www.sfu.ca/~plv/NutationObliquity__.png
I need to make sure I am communicating properly, so thanks for steering me towards more conventional expression.
Also, I can only find records back to 1900. Is that the limit of observations? If so, can I trust estimates based on the algorithms? Seeing a much longer record would probably answer several of my questions in one quick shot, so if estimates are sufficiently precise to substitute for observation, this will be valuable.
Paul Vaughan (12:21:28) :
So am I to understand the apparent change in phase ~1930 more properly as resulting from a change in amplitude?
http://www.sfu.ca/~plv/NutationObliquity__.png>/i>
I don’t know where you get the graph from. As far as I know, the nutation in obliquity is much more regular [albeit with a smaller wiggle superposed]. But set up a program based on th algorithm and check for yourself. But why the nutation in obliquity? that is only one component of the total nutation, and the smaller, to boot.
Also, I can only find records back to 1900. Is that the limit of observations?
No, the observations go back hundreds of years. Was discovered in 1728.
can I trust estimates based on the algorithms?
Yes, for your purposes. There are some dispute and improvements when the accuracy is driven up into thousandths of arc seconds [milli arc seconds]. But you can ignore those.
Leif Svalgaard (13:00:11) :
Paul Vaughan (12:21:28) :
So am I to understand the apparent change in phase ~1930 more properly as resulting from a change in amplitude?
http://www.sfu.ca/~plv/NutationObliquity__.png
I don’t know where you get the graph from. As far as I know, the nutation in obliquity is much more regular [albeit with a smaller wiggle superposed]. But set up a program based on the algorithm and check for yourself. But why the nutation in obliquity? that is only one component of the total nutation, and the smaller, to boot.
Here is what I get:
http://www.leif.org/research/Nutation-in-Obliquity.png
The small wiggles are mostly due to a semiannual variation.