When I last looked at the Ap geomagnetic index back in January, it looked pretty grim.
Now with the release yesterday of the new Ap data from NOAA, we see the largest jump in 2 years.
We’ve had a rash of sunspots lately, and it appears sol is awakening from its magnetic slumber. The question is: “dead cat bounce” or start of an upwards trend?
Hey, a little hockey stick action there. Take the low point and the freshest high point and you can draw a very steep slope.
Pure layman here…
How does this compare to previous quiet periods of the sun? Dalton etc? Same length? Less?
The 10.7 flux has been in the 70s for a long time. Its up at 80 today with the 3 spots, but the cosmic ray flux seems to be remaining more or less the same. Slight downturn, but nothing major. It took a big dip when that CME went past the earth on 4/5 but has climbed back to where it was prior, more or less. This is one quiet sun.
I wouldn’t call the latest sunspots significant, more like sputtering. and I doubt whether they could have been observed during the Dalton
Could you tell us, all the “correlations” that you find with other “meteorological” phenomena?. As Ap refers to “planetary” what your “hunches” are for these interesting times we are living in?.
As I understand it, the low has lasted longer than normal. It’s supposed to be an eleven year cycle and we’re well beyond that.
This is the type of post that generates questions.
We know that the sun is becoming more active (about time), but how does that relate to other cycles considering that we have just come through a long minimum?
Thank you
Sean Peake says:
May 5, 2010 at 11:53 am
I wouldn’t call the latest sunspots significant, more like sputtering. and I doubt whether they could have been observed during the Dalton
That is what we could call POST-NORMAL-ASTRONOMY-SUNSPOTS-COUNT, because it really follows PNS principles.
It’s going to be interesting to try and figure out is the spots or the magnets driving earth’s climate. Now that we have some instruments that can measure … fun times ahead.
“The question is: “dead cat bounce” or start of an upwards trend?”
I call “dead cat bounce” but that’s only a guess, of course. I’ve hung out here long enough to know that “we don’t know.” Minima like this don’t come along every 23 years or so ;o)
It’s just fantastic that we live in a time where we have the technology to make high quality observations of the sun and the technology to make those observations highly accessible. So we wait and watch and just maybe the younger people amongst us will have quite a story to tell their grandchildren.
I like to call the latest rash of spots ‘blinkers’, because that’s mostly what is going on. And, SWPC just has to count them all.
There is a wide discrepancy between the actual number of spotted regions and what SWPC is reporting. The only thing I can see that make sense is Catania’s Active Region Summary on solarcycle24.com. Someone is counting every region that has been active or inactive each day that is still on the visible side of the Sun.
Here is a comparison (active region latitude-wise by eyeball method) with 1998:
http://www.robertb.darkhorizons.org/DeepSolarMin9.htm
First 2 images:
1.) The sun in SOHO EIT color with MDI Continuum Luminance overlay 05/04/2010
2.) The same SOHO images from 05/04/1998.
There is a very noticable difference between the Sun in 1998(SC23) and 2010(SC24).
It’s not just the sunpots that are weak.
If Leif will weigh in, maybe he can tell us how much weaker the Magnetics on the Sun are comparing SC23 and SC24 to date.
From the graph above, I’d say that SC24 has finally revved up to the low point of SC23.
What I wonder now is just how much ramp does SC24 have left in it.
Wake up, Sol sister… Rise, awaken from your slumber…
Here comes the Sun, and I say, it’s all right…
Music aside, here’s hoping for a belated but active Solar cycle. Active. Like hugely active. Let’s give the new cameras something spectacular to record. Please.
And I’d agree about a “rash” of sunspots… as long as you define a rash as a few tiny spots of very little significance.
has this been attributed to global warming 🙂
The current sun spots are just specks so despite the spike in the Ap index, not much going on.
Good chart on solar terrestrial activity, courtesy of Solen, available here:-
http://www.solen.info/solar/images/solar.gif
Until we understand what’s going on with the sun, predicting future activity levels is is difficult – perhaps the SDO will give us some clues when the real-time data goes live?
Not to worry. There is a large lag time between when the Sun heats up again and the Earth accumulates the Sun’s additional output. Winter 2011 will still be another one of our worst in history just like last year.
Any idea why the minimums for both charts are different. First one was down to 1, revised and latest chart goes down to 2.
Jason Bair,
The second chart extends one more day on the x-axis.
So where will that take us with blue line?
Hey Anthony,
The latest temperature set for April 2010 came out- it’s down to .5 degrees Celcius above normal. Just wanted to let you know.
-Snowlover123
I gather that we are currently going through a change in the planetary magnetic field. Fluctuations since several decades with an eventual reversal in the next century.
What is the relationship (danger) that an (in)active sun would have during such a planetary situation?
Better for it to be quiet (more cosmic rays and clouds) or active (more aurora and perhaps irradiation due to less magnetic protection)?
Tarpon:
Nobody, except for Piers Corbyn, would dare to make such a “correlation”, the Pope , Arch-bishops and bishops of the Climate Change Creed forbids it. It doesn’t matter if on the earth fall 30 million lightnings a day, someone in the high spheres of this church separated magnetism from electricity, solar wind is just a poetical “summer breeze”, the Sun a ball of fire and the earth a big round stone. It all seems a Hanna Barbera flitstones’ cartoon. Cosmic rays, bah!, little pebbles falling from above….and so on.
OT
Good Glenn Beck videos from last Friday on Cap and Trade at the bottom of this article. I do recommend watching it.
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$10,000,000,000,000
Ten trillion dollars. That’s the conservative estimate of the amount of money Barack Obama, Albert Gore Jr., and a whole cast of criminals stand to make (gross) off of the greatest scam in human history: “global warming.”
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http://www.thecypresstimes.com/article/Columnists/A_Time_For_Choosing/BARACK_OBAMA_AL_GORE_GOLDMAN_SACHS_AND_THE_GREATEST_SWINDLE_IN_HUMAN_HISTORY/29819
the official sunspot counts coming out of noaa, sidc, etc are a joke.
a casual glance at the widget shows a blank sun with sunspot ‘numbers’. you don’t have to be a skeptic to wonder what’s up with that.
so i have been taking a look – most have been ephemeral specks, and one (1068?) turned out to look pretty much blank no matter how you looked at it. this ‘science’ has been clearly politicized, for whatever reasons.
and i guarantee they were not counting invisible, ephemeral specks 24hr a day during the dalton or maunder grand minima. how are we supposed to compare what is happening now in any consistent way?
After a (unexplained) sudden drop in 2005, there is a sudden rise in 2010…
Could it be a digit problem? A mathematical glitch? A sensor problem?
We are becoming a permanently wireless society, with people addicted to high-speed error-free digital wireless communications (they love their videos on their iPhones).
Do we really want an active sun, even if that keeps global cooling away? Put on a sweater or give up on videos on demand on their cellphone, which would today’s young people choose? 😉
“Now with the release yesterday of the new Ap data from NOAA, we see the largest jump in 2 years.”?
It looks to me like the largest jump in over 3 years: Nov. 06 – Jan. 10.
Policyguy says:
May 5, 2010 at 12:02 pm
We know that the sun is becoming more active (about time), but how does that relate to other cycles considering that we have just come through a long minimum?
Here is the ‘ramp up’ for the the last three minima: http://www.leif.org/research/Active%20Region%20Count.png
It seems the sun is on track to the predicted low maximum. BTW, the dashed line is Hathaway’s latest prediction [it has now come down to match mine].
Here is Ap since the 1840s: http://www.leif.org/research/Ap-Monthly-Averages-1844-Now.png
It is not unusual that after the low values at minimum there is a jump up, e.g. 1902 and 1880.
In recent weeks they have been counting every little mark they could including what they described as a microspot and another that was forming but had no sunspot no. because it wasn’t a sunspot but they still counted at 12.
You’ve done it at last – you’ve made contact with your inner hockey-stick! I demand that Al Gore now call for a stop to all carbon-creating activities on the Sun. You know it makes sense…
Don’t be fastidious, they are specs, but visible. This cycle may be your last chance for couple of decades to come.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/LFC14.htm
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/GandF.htm
I too wonder if we are comparing apples with oranges like we are doing both with surface temperature readings and hurricaine strengths where changes in methodology, technology or siting issues give readings that reinforce AGW myths but may be really not occuring.
For an apples to apples sunspot comparision I like this site
http://www.landscheidt.info/?q=node/50
Why is the layman sunspot count not mentioned here ? What would be the reaction of the guys operating the landscheidt heritage site on this statement from american government institution(s) apparently biassed by the agw proponents as a consequence of their huge financial interests in a taxation of combustion products ?
Please do not blame the burocrats or mr mann , being puppets in the hands of large manipulators or financials interests like goldman sachs . A little clearer picture here would be appreciated . The truth and not the devil is in the details .
Leif,
I would love to hear your thoughts/predictions.
Mr Peake raises a point that has been nagging at my mind for some time: are the spots we’re counting really comparable to spots seen at the time of Maunder and Dalton? These tiny pimples we’re getting on the solar images are surely only seen because of our instrumentation — how many spots would an astronomer 100 or 200 years ago have identified on the sun during the recent activity? We’ve seen the sunspot number go as high as 70 lately. Would this even register on primitive instruments?
Are the graphs of sunspot counts going back to the Maunder minimum normalized to remove this “instrumentation bias”? If not then we should regard all numbers in the 20th century to be progressively inflated relative to earlier numbers.
If you look at prior spikes similar to the current one, you’ll see that they tend to be shortlived. Seems old Sol is prone to giving brief magnetic bursts that register, but are followed by reduced activity. Expect the smoothed curve to gradually follow the usual pattern.
One last note: NOAA’s sunspot count was down for April due to a 13-day period with no spots, so the solar cycle 24 may be under way, but sputteringly so, and below even their modest prediction curve.
Were back to counting specks
Henry Chance is right about the hockey stick action. If this trend continues, then the sun could be completely covered in spots in less than a decade. If we truly love our planet, we must make whatever sacrifice necessary to stop this from happening. Perhaps we could ship all that hidden heat off to the sun. That may not actually stop the sunspots from forming, but whether it works or not isn’t the point: the point is to do something, and fast. And preferably something which involves lots and lots of money.
Perhaps the time has come to bring back the sale of Indulgences?
vukcevic says:
May 5, 2010 at 1:31 pm
Don’t be fastidious, they are specs, but visible. This cycle may be your last chance for couple of decades to come.
I tried about an hour ago. All I can see are the 4 spots of the high latitude group. Even they are a mid-grayish tone, not dark at all. Your advice to get out there and see some spots while you can is good, though. L&P is wreaking havoc despite the confusion on the part of SWPC/NOAA and others.
btw… I came across a reference that Rudolf Wolf would have preferred to base the Sunspot Index on area, not depending on group or spot counts. Anybody know anything more about that?
Frank L M, indulgences are already on sale. Its called cap & trade, but no doubt you knew that already.
From Frank Lee MeiDere on May 5, 2010 at 2:51 pm:
These days they are called political campaign contributions. Pay enough to the right people and you can even get a Presidential pardon.
Ref – Frank Lee MeiDere says:
May 5, 2010 at 2:51 pm
“..If this trend continues, then the sun could be completely covered in spots in less than a decade. If we truly love our planet, we must make whatever sacrifice necessary to stop this from happening…”
_______________________________
As I recall the Aztec’s had a wonderful ceremony to appease the Sun. We need a pure heart. Will Fat Albert’s do? I understand he has a very, very big heart; and he says he’s pure. I understand too, that he is much in favor with the Sun; that he only hates people who make things hot. If his family is permitted to retain his Nobel Prize, I’ll bet they’d agree too. Do you think we could get the Pope to bypass all the rigamarole about miracles and just make him a saint when he blasts off like Tonny Lee Jones and slams into the Sun? “Saint Albert The Great”, why just the sound of it sounds so cooling.
PS: On “Ap” spikes, watching the Sun is a lot like watching paint dry. That said, my money is on quirky behavior and gradual cooling for Planet Earth; ups and downs, cool years, hot years, wet years, dry years, rising polar ice, falling polar ice, rising seas, fallings seas, but longterm down, cool, wet, rising polar ice, falling seas, less people.
Of course you realise, this makes Anthony “Martin Luther,” and WUWT “The 95 Thesis,” right?
Leif, can you please tell me what the date numbers on the bottom of your TSI, etc graph are (likely something quite simple), ie. it ends 2010.54 what does the 54 mean?
Thanks Lief.
fynney says:
May 5, 2010 at 1:56 pm
Leif, I would love to hear your thoughts/predictions.
http://www.leif.org/research/Predicting%20the%20Solar%20Cycle.pdf
R. Craigen says:
May 5, 2010 at 1:57 pm
how many spots would an astronomer 100 or 200 years ago have identified on the sun during the recent activity?
http://www.leif.org/research/Rudolf%20Wolf%20Was%20Right.pdf
rbateman says:
May 5, 2010 at 3:01 pm
btw… I came across a reference that Rudolf Wolf would have preferred to base the Sunspot Index on area, not depending on group or spot counts. Anybody know anything more about that?
It is correct. Wolf wanted to use areas, but found that the older data was not amenable to determine the areas, so came up with the next-best thing: the Wold number.
Leif Svalgaard says:
Your comment is awaiting moderation.
May 5, 2010 at 4:01 pm
the Wolf number.
As an amateur (ham) radio operator, I can only hope that the sunspots are finally on the rise. It’s been really boring on the air for the past few years & I was looking forward to cycle 24 coming on strong. Been very disappointing indeed so far. For anyone interested in the solar cycle regarding communication, this guy does an excellent job.
http://www.arrl.org/news/the-k7ra-solar-update-109
Ian Holton says:
May 5, 2010 at 3:58 pm
it ends 2010.54 what does the 54 mean?
It means that the fraction of the year is 0.54, i.e. that the number of days into the year is 0.54 x 365.2422 = 197 days. 2010.5 means halfway through 2010. 2005.3333 means a third of the way through 2010, etc.
This ought to be of considerable interest here.
A team from UCLA have discovered a previously unknown basic mode of energy transfer from the solar wind to the Earth’s magnetosphere.
http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/scientists-discover-surprise-in-101025.aspx
Anthony/Mods: Perhaps this important discovery merits a thread of its own?
REPLY: Sure, here it is: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/09/10/solar-wind-suprise-this-discovery-is-like-finding-it-got-hotter-when-the-sun-went-down/
Going by the method NOAA use to count sunspots, can we trust their accuracy with the Ap values?
For some unknown reason, everytime I try to post the Layman’s Spot Count site, my post evaporates.
Yesterday it was 10.
jinki says:
May 5, 2010 at 4:28 pm
Going by the method NOAA use to count sunspots, can we trust their accuracy with the Ap values?
No, because they round down, so that 2.99 is reported as 2, not three. The official Ap number comes from here: http://www-app3.gfz-potsdam.de/kp_index/kptab.html
A: Sunspots are an effect, not a cause.
B: At some level, the Sun is a variable star.
C: I look at the sunspot count as an overly general quantification; all sunspots are not equal.
D: I look at the smoothed curve and see it does not represent the reality very well, since the SD is REALLY high over great swaths of time. (e.g., from JAN01-SEP05, out of 57 data points, only 19 are above the curve, 4 are on the curve and 32 are below it), and the higher counts REALLY tend to be WAY high. When 19 + counts balance 23 – counts, that of course makes sense, but it also says that without those 19 being SO high, the curve would have been very low indeed, for a maxima. Looking at the overall history at AP Monthly averages, that qualitatively appears true for most of the entire history of sunspots.
E: Solar output in 2003 and 2004 was immense, if anybody recalls. The X28 coronal mass ejection of OCT-NOV 2003 was the biggest on record. It was a very interesting time. As I said, all sunspots are not equal. I don’t know if CMEs are considered officially to be sunspots, but if not I would be shocked.
Just out of curiosity (not what killed the dead cat when it bounced), how do the latest sunspots fit with Livingston & Penn?
A ‘solar tornado’ seen by SDO (upper right)
http://www.lmsal.com/solarsoft/gev_20100505_2030/ssw_cutout_20100505_203006_aia_171_S31W70_20100505_203005_m.mpg
R. Craigen says:
May 5, 2010 at 1:57 pm
“….Are the graphs of sunspot counts going back to the Maunder minimum normalized to remove this “instrumentation bias”? If not then we should regard all numbers in the 20th century to be progressively inflated relative to earlier numbers….”
As someone else mentioned The Layman’s Sunspot Count addresses that issue. Two guys tried to determine the size of the spot visible historically.
“…Robert Bateman a very motivated amateur solar enthusiast and myself [Geoff Sharp] started a thread at http://www.solarcycle24.com (which has unfortunately developed into an anti Landscheidt, Pro AGW forum) and soon devised a plan to come up with a reliable standard. We would use the existing SOHO 1024 x 1024 Continuum images and measure the pixels involved in a Sunspot. Initially it had to be determined what a standard sunspot should represent in size and density, to try and represent a minimum counter like Wolf may have done 200 years ago. After some deliberation and advise from Robert who also dabbles in Astronomy with his own equipment, we came up with a minimum standard.
To be counted, a sunspot or group must have 23 pixels which have a reading in the green channel of 0-70 for at least 24 hours.
All pixels in a digital image have a RGB reading which split out into separate Red, Blue, Green channels and can be easily measured and counted in one action using a freeware graphics program called GIMP.
So the standard was set, which now enabled us to go back over the records and weed out the offending specks and blank days.”
http://www.landscheidt.info/?q=node/50
Bob H. says:
May 5, 2010 at 6:20 pm
Just out of curiosity (not what killed the dead cat when it bounced), how do the latest sunspots fit with Livingston & Penn?
I haven’t got his latest numbers, but the fact that the spots are small and weak [except the one at 42 degrees North] fits in with the general decline of sunspot intensity.
Thanks Lief. Your graphs are very handy for following trends.
Something is flaky about this cycle. I’ve watched the last 3 cycles as ham radio operator and I don’t remember seeing such a small increase in the solar flux with sunspots. The flux can’t seem to get over 90 no matter what. The sunspot count is 77 today and the 2300Z flux is only 82? Watts Up With That?
In a typical cycle we should be seeing a steady rise in the solar flux by now. We’re not. Also some of the rise in the Ap is due to recurring coronal holes that appeared in early April and have repeated in just the last week.
Chuck says:
May 5, 2010 at 7:59 pm
The sunspot count is 77 today and the 2300Z flux is only 82? Watts Up With That?
The sunspot count is not ‘correct’. The usual formula is SSN = 10Groups + Spots and was devised during periods of higher activity where each group contained about 10 spots, hence the factor of 10. With the weak groups with only one or a few spots that we have seen lately, the formula breaks down. Other observers also repost lower counts, between 25 and 60, so there you have it. An F10.7 flux of 85 should give you a SSN of 33.
Leif Svalgaard says:
May 5, 2010 at 7:09 pm
The brightness profile of the far Northern spots is very steep, lacking penumbra. Nearly vertical sides (80+ degrees) which compares to a ‘normal’ profile that thas has a ledge step 1/3 to 1/2 way down the sunspot hole. As for contrast, the hole bottom was 180/40, where 180 is the solar background and 40 is the bottom. Compare that to 180/20 for a similar spot in 1998.
255 is white, 0 is black.
rbateman says:
the hole bottom was 180/40, where 180 is the solar background and 40 is the bottom. Compare that to 180/20 for a similar spot in 1998.
Looks like the kind of stuff L&P would give you..
Leif, I bet Hathaway had to eat that new prediction of his with plenty of ketchup to drown the bitter taste. Did you offer to pour the ketchup? I would have. I know you two are friends, as you have said, and rivalries between friends can be the best kind.
The main reason for the high April 2010 Ap value was a strong high speed coronal hole stream that caused a significant geomagnetic storm on April 5-7. Little, if any, of the increase in Ap can be attributed to sunspot activity.
Leif Svalgaard says:
May 5, 2010 at 8:32 pm
I wasn’t entirely sure, I have seen spots get a lot worse than that. It will be interesting to see where on L&P contrast that group ends up (if they get the chance).
Gotta get the PST out there tomorrow. These may be the last spots I see for a long time.
SSN 77 Today. Such nonsense.
Sunspots seen in January-March of 2010 were far larger, generated M class flares and fetched lower numbers.
The only count which makes sense and can be used to compare SC 24 with SC 5 is the Layman’s count:
http://www.landscheidt.info/?q=node/50
It ignores the recent flurry of pores and shows that to date (May 2010) the sun is following a Dalton Minimum pattern. The northern hemisphere is the dominant one.
It seems as though SC 24 is the start of grand minimum, contrary to what the “experts” would like us to believe that all is normal.
>>Leif Svalgaard says: September 10, 2009 at 11:59 pm
>>> (Solar wind) is more than a thousand times smaller (than TSI) …
Yes, but can it influence the latitude of the high latitude jetstreams? Our recent cold winter was caused by southerly jetstreams over southern Europe (instead of over northern Europe) not by any lack of TSI.
It is not hard to imagine a few decades of southerly jetstreams leading to a mini-ice-age in the higher latitudes, as snow and ice builds up at the poles – and yet the TSI remains exactly the same.
.
Ralph says:
May 6, 2010 at 1:10 am
It is not hard to imagine a few decades of southerly jetstreams leading to a mini-ice-age in the higher latitudes, as snow and ice builds up at the poles – and yet the TSI remains exactly the same.
But it is hard to explain that the weak solar wind could induce decades of southerly jet streams.
Pamela Gray says:
May 5, 2010 at 9:34 pm
Did you offer to pour the ketchup?
The deepest believer is a reformed sinner.
RE: Sunspot Numbers
I wonder if anyone has ever seriously proposed the use of signed sunspot numbers. I have been experimenting (playing) with the use of a multi-term cosine series approximation of the complete sun spot record, as best as I can guess from online data, since 1650. I have been using up to 16 cosine terms, each similar to those cosine terms used by Dr. Vukcevic except I am letting the Excel Solver utility pick controlled arbitrary values for the period, the center date, and amplitude of each term to force a close match with a one year moving average table of signed square-root sunspot numbers.
The numbers I use are roughly equivalent to the square root (of the north-south sunspot number) minus the square root (of the south-north sunspot number) for each day. The square root of the sunspot number yields a more sinusoidal waveform and need only be squared, as with Dr. Vukcevic’s equations, to approximate a standard sunspot number.
The range of tonal periods is usually from about 12.5 years to just over 100 years and the peak tonal is usually around 22.6 years. I limit the RMS amplitude of the terms to not greatly exceed the RMS amplitude of the data. I do not know if these tonals represent actual physical processes affecting the sun or if they are just data approximation artifacts.
Any possibility that sunspots are a thing of the past? Do we have to have sunspots to have a viable Sun?
Ref – Ralph says:
May 6, 2010 at 1:10 am
>>Leif Svalgaard says: September 10, 2009 at 11:59 pm
>>> (Solar wind) is more than a thousand times smaller (than TSI) …
“..It is not hard to imagine a few decades of southerly jetstreams leading to a mini-ice-age in the higher latitudes, as snow and ice builds up at the poles – and yet the TSI remains exactly the same.”
____________________________
It is not hard to imagine a several thousand years when the current jet configuration is ‘missing’ altogether, leading to a long period of ice buildup — and yet the TSI looks exactly the same.
Ralph says: May 6, 2010 at 1:10 am
“It is not hard to imagine a few decades of southerly jetstreams leading to a mini-ice-age in the higher latitudes, as snow and ice builds up at the poles – and yet the TSI remains exactly the same.”
Other factors may be at work. During the last 400 years there was a notable change in the Earth’s magnetic field intensity affecting the impact of cosmic rays, but also it may be a small but important effect on the ocean currents circulation.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/LFC23.htm
Spector says: May 6, 2010 at 3:25 am
“The square root of the sunspot number yields a more sinusoidal waveform and need only be squared, as with Dr. Vukcevic’s equations, to approximate a standard sunspot number.”
Vukcevic isn’t Dr. just plain Mr. The real Dr. (in this case Dr.Svalgaard) of this blog, will not give you much of a credit for your efforts, but good luck.
Leif Svalgaard says:
May 6, 2010 at 2:32 am
“But it is hard to explain that the weak solar wind could induce decades of southerly jet streams.”
It is not hard to correlate short term change in the solar wind velocity to changes in surface temperatures and lattitude and shape of the jets streams. Explaining how it works is hard. But if you are really keen, keep an open mind and sleep on it, you never know, you may wake up with a eureka moment.
RE vukcevic: (May 6, 2010 at 4:58 am) “Vukcevic isn’t Dr. just plain Mr. The real Dr. (in this case Dr.Svalgaard) of this blog, will not give you much of a credit for your efforts, but good luck.”
I apologize for the misidentification. At this point I am not sure I have anything worthy of any credit, but it has been interesting. My current plot is extrapolating a signed square root peak of -9 for cycle 24, but this can vary with my solution forcing conditions.
Lief,
R. Craigen says:
May 5, 2010 at 1:57 pm
how many spots would an astronomer 100 or 200 years ago have identified on the sun during the recent activity?
http://www.leif.org/research/Rudolf%20Wolf%20Was%20Right.pdf
We pretty much monitor the sun 24/7 now, so we can catch these specs that last just a few hours. So you think the Wolf number is still valid with the very short lived spots?
Spector says:
May 6, 2010 at 3:25 am
I do not know if these tonals represent actual physical processes affecting the sun or if they are just data approximation artifacts.
In mathematics there are series of functions called “complete functions”. Example: the Fourier transforms, another , the Bessel functions.
“Complete” means that any function can be approximated with a sum of some of the set, with an appropriate constant in front. This can be accomplished with a fit and usually any function will only need two or three free parameters to be fitted adequately for the eye or a statistical measure. Particularly if a correct choice is made of the complete set functions. Fourier is wiser for something looking periodic.
So any fit to data is a sort of shorthand description of data but tells nothing about dynamics ( cause and effect) . Only if one can discover dynamics to which this shorthand is meaningful can one talk of “actual representation”.
All the numerology might become quite useful if the dynamics is postulated and fits the numerological shorthand. Otherwise one is back to classification efforts.
Of course, well classified data might give an inspiration to somebody looking for the dynamics.
Moderator, do you have to retrieve all my posts from the junk classification?
I no longer get, since the change, a “waiting for moderation” tag with the post displayed, as I see from a repeat by Leif that he did get a “waiting for moderation”.
I think people are far too focused on sunspots, and imagine the implications without enough evidence. Out of the longer spotless minimums that we data for, more are warmer than average, for very good reason. That is the time when coronal holes are at their strongest within the sunspot cycle. Individual long spotless day periods also are on average warmer. At solar maximum, the solar wind is stormy and sporadic, and the heliospheric current sheet is all twisted up. This results in some very warm episodes, and some very cool. This is evident with the occurance of more colder N.H. winters around solar maximum than minimum. At the end of the day, what we need to know is when a cold winter is on, when a flood and more importantly a drought going to happen, and this can be done partly by understanding the relationship of the solar signal to temperature and precipitation, seasonally, or weekly is better, in each hemisphere. The following step is to forecast these changes. Smoothing out all the data results in a complete loss of the ability to see these relationships in the first place.
Spector says:
May 6, 2010 at 3:25 am
I do not know if these tonals represent actual physical processes affecting the sun or if they are just data approximation artifacts.
With enough ‘cosine terms’ you can approximate anything to arbitrarily high precession http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourier_analysis
Suranda says:
May 6, 2010 at 4:19 am
Any possibility that sunspots are a thing of the past? Do we have to have sunspots to have a viable Sun?
You have to have a magnetic field [whether or not it contains visible spots] to have a chromosphere, corona, and solar wind. A ‘viable’ sun may be possible without any of these, but would be uninteresting.
Pascvaks says:
May 6, 2010 at 4:49 am
It is not hard to imagine a several thousand years when the current jet configuration is ‘missing’ altogether, leading to a long period of ice buildup — and yet the TSI looks exactly the same.
You can imagine many things, but they would be just your imagination.
vukcevic says:
May 6, 2010 at 4:58 am
During the last 400 years there was a notable change in the Earth’s magnetic field intensity affecting the impact of cosmic rays, but also it may be a small but important effect on the ocean currents circulation.
There is no evidence of that and in any event the word ‘important’ is misplaced.
Steve M. from TN says:
May 6, 2010 at 7:03 am
We pretty much monitor the sun 24/7 now, so we can catch these specs that last just a few hours. So you think the Wolf number is still valid with the very short lived spots?
Wolf deliberately did not count those. His assistant, Wolfer, insisted that one should and won the argument by outliving Wolf. To compensate for the overcount, it is customary to multiply the count by 0.6 to reduce it to what ‘Wolf would have counted’. Some observers do not do that [eg. SWPC/NOAA], so one has to be careful comparing counts.
RE: anna v says: (May 6, 2010 at 7:09 am) “In mathematics there are series of functions called ‘complete functions.’ Example: the Fourier transforms, another, the Bessel functions.”
In this case, I usually start with an FFT of the time series, pick off the 16 highest tonals (with some limitations) and then let the Microsoft Excel Solver utility diddle with the period, center date, and amplitude parameters, trying to find the best fit possible. If this data were the result of a discrete set of tonals, I thought this process might find them. I make no claim that it has.
Enneagram says:
May 5, 2010 at 12:49 pm
Why every authority in the world has failed to take his cyclone and flood forecasts is beyond me, just check his track records. Piers`s is one of the only people who understands the solar triggers that cause these events, and has a very clever system for determining location and circulation patterns.
Oh great, more doom and gloom. We already have glaciers melting, polar bears drowning, insects invading, permafrost melting, deserts drying, birds migrating, women shrinking, hurricanes increasing, oceans rising, wet seasons rainier, corral reefs dying, dead zones expanding, volcanoes erupting, trees wilting, earthquakes increasing, oil spilling and the worst threat of all; cattle farting. Now we have to deal with the Sun waking. Is there no end to the destruction caused by C02?
the Sun today vs 12 years ago:
first two images
http://www.robertb.darkhorizons.org/DeepSolarMin9.htm
SSN of today will be 77?
SSN of 05/06/98 was 111.
The difference betweent the two levels of activity is marked.
>>>Ralph says: May 6, 2010 at 1:10 am
>>“It is not hard to imagine a few decades of southerly jetstreams
>>leading to a mini-ice-age in the higher latitudes, as snow and ice
>>builds up at the poles – and yet the TSI remains exactly the same.”
>>>Leif Svalgaard says: May 6, 2010 at 2:32 am
>>“But it is hard to explain that the weak solar wind could induce
>>decades of southerly jet streams.”
>>>Ulric Lyons says: May 6, 2010 at 6:28 am
>>>Explaining how it works is hard. But if you are really keen,
>>>keep an open mind and sleep on it, you never know, you may
>>>wake up with a eureka moment.
My thoughts entirely. I know from my own work, that my inspiration comes from reading obscure and often unrelated articles, and going ‘Ahaaa’.
I am familiar with weather and jetstreams and their normal formation, in my normal profession, but how geo-magnetism or solar-magnetism can affect upper winds is down to you, Lief.
But I will add that the force that forms and orders jetstreams, the coriolis force, is fairly weak, and no doubt open to influence.
.
There are obviously some very smart people writing on this blog. But what really worried me was Michael with his prediction of another bad Winter. Please stop the blog and bring on global warming – I’m too old to do another bad Winter! I’m doing ny bit and pushing out as much CO2 as I can manage. (If this helps).
Ralph says:
May 6, 2010 at 9:48 am
But I will add that the force that forms and orders jetstreams, the coriolis force, is fairly weak, and no doubt open to influence.
How weak? To make that statement you must have a number. And weak compared to what? Give a number for that too. No numbers, no comparison, no reason to claim influence.
.
Ralph says:
May 6, 2010 at 9:48 am
How can geomagnetic changes force a temperature change? this is just like a Svensmark cloud formation scenario mix-up, ie, the solar wind signal having the effect, rather than its proxy, cosmic rays. How about exploring direct heating from the solar wind?
has there been a discussion on this paper:
http://www.landscheidt.info/images/sharp2010_a.pdf
Ulric Lyons says:
May 6, 2010 at 10:53 am
How about exploring direct heating from the solar wind?
Since the total energy content of the solar wind is a million times smaller than that of ordinary sunlight, you don’t get much heating out of that, especially since the Earth catches but a small fraction of the solar wind energy.
tom says:
May 5, 2010 at 4:06 pm
This ought to be of considerable interest here.
A team from UCLA have discovered a previously unknown basic mode of energy transfer from the solar wind to the Earth’s magnetosphere.
http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/scientists-discover-surprise-in-101025.aspx
Anthony/Mods: Perhaps this important discovery merits a thread of its own?
REPLY: Sure, here it is: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/09/10/solar-wind-suprise-this-discovery-is-like-finding-it-got-hotter-when-the-sun-went-down/
———
hmmmm….could this be a possible solution to the “Faint Sun Paradox”? The sun might have been dimmer in visible spectrum EM, but I wonder about the other energy output from a young star?
Leif?
Leif Svalgaard says:
May 6, 2010 at 11:00 am
http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/AGU-SABER.html
Consider the augmented connection around the Equinoxes, exactly where the greatest observed warming can be seen in seen in individual monthly trends over say the last 100yrs in a series such as CET.
http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2002/23sep_auroraseason/
Maybe consider the bowshock where plasma temperatures can vary wildly, millions of degrees within the plasma bubbles apparently.
http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/space/06/20/space.bubbles/index.html
http://space.newscientist.com/article/mg19125584.700-superhot-solar-bubbles-burst-over-the-earth.html
CRS, Dr.P.H. says:
May 6, 2010 at 11:23 am
Thanks, that`s just the link I was missing, my name sake too!
Ulric Lyons says:
May 6, 2010 at 11:36 am
http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/AGU-SABER.html
Consider the augmented connection around the Equinoxes, exactly where the greatest observed warming can be seen in seen in individual monthly trends over say the last 100yrs in a series such as CET.
Your links describe the situation in the thermosphere 100 miles and more up, where the density of the air in less than a trillionth of that at the surface. The temperature up there is indeed higher [hundreds to thousands of degrees] and it mostly caused by solar UV, and Xrays, with a small influence from the solar wind. The temperatures up there have nothing to do with that at the surface. It is important to have a sense of proportion here. Suppose I have a long mile-long whip with a handle 100 feet thick and tapering off to the thickness of a hair at the tip. A fly landing on the hair-thin tip can move that, but it will have no influence on the handle.
Ulric Lyons says:
May 6, 2010 at 11:36 am
Consider the augmented connection around the Equinoxes, exactly where the greatest observed warming […]
It is important to have a sense of proportion here. Perhaps that is the greatest failing of the general education in science [the little that there is]: students do not learn the importance of relative amounts of energy, mass, work, etc. Do not achieve the ability to make ‘back-of-the-envelope’ calculations to within orders of magnitude to see if something makes sense. They hear that the Sun has an exploding Hydrogen bomb in its core. This is not true: the energy generation is extremely gentle; it would take a month to bring a kettle of water to a boil. They hear about billions of tons of CMEs hurled from the Sun ‘impacting’ the Earth. The pressure of such things is less that that under the foot of a tiny spider crawling up the wall. And on and on. The sense of proportions is completely lacking. One only needs to see at the posts here [and elsewhere] to see that this lack ‘is worse than we thought’.
Leif Svalgaard says:
May 6, 2010 at 11:54 am
The pressure of such things is less that that under the foot of a tiny spider crawling up the wall.
And I have to be precise: crawling across my table. Question for bonus point: why does that make a difference?
Leif Svalgaard says:
May 6, 2010 at 11:54 am
Ulric Lyons says:
May 6, 2010 at 11:36 am
Consider the augmented connection around the Equinoxes, exactly where the greatest observed warming […]
Well this bit of knowledge is not in general education, but is a fact, there are fairly warming trends in Dec/Jan too, but not as strong as the Equinoxes. Feb and May are as flat as a pancake, the summer months show very little warming in the last 100yrs.
June over 351yrs of CET is flat as roadkill. We are seeing monthly warming trends that are seasonally similar to the Arctic, but of less magnitude. Check for youself
Leif Svalgaard says:
May 6, 2010 at 11:45 am
I would like to call to the witness stand, Mr Kepler, guiltly of 2 decades of practising heliocentric weather astrology, made famous by his prediction of the winter of 1595, all before he produced his orbital equations. And also, a Dr. King-Hele, a member of the Guided Weapons team at Farnbrough,( led by my Father, Dennis J. Lyons C.B.), also famous for orbital equations for satellites, and another cyclomaniac into revving up an orrery or two to predict climate of all things!
Ulric Lyons says:
May 6, 2010 at 12:21 pm
June over 351yrs of CET is flat as roadkill. We are seeing monthly warming trends that are seasonally similar to the Arctic, but of less magnitude. Check for yourself
That may well be, but it has nothing to do with the solar wind.
Ulric Lyons says:
May 6, 2010 at 12:47 pm
I would like to call to the witness stand, Mr Kepler, guiltly of 2 decades of practising heliocentric weather astrology, […] And also, a Dr. King-Hele, a member of the Guided Weapons team at Farnborough
We are ready to hear their testimony. Bring them on.
Leif Svalgaard says:
May 6, 2010 at 11:54 am
Now look Dr Svengali, proving a correlation between the solar wind changes and temperature change is not hard, Stephan Wilde got the idea quick enough, Piers has no problem with it at all, I`m sure many others havn`t either. I have essential findings into what is causing the +ve and -ve movements of the solar signal, the missing piece is how the increased solar wind velocity actually causes the warming. But you do not seem to able to help in this matter.
Ulric Lyons says:
May 6, 2010 at 1:13 pm
the missing piece is how the increased solar wind velocity actually causes the warming.
And that is the important piece, isn’t it?
Without that, there is nothing.
But you do not seem to able to help in this matter.
As it doesn’t, it is hard to help.
Hi Ulric
Be gentle to our kind doc. I pursued my ideas too vigorously elsewhere and got banned. Now I have to be careful how to ‘market’ my ideas WUWT, or as a good friend of mine with a wired sense of humour put it (not forgetting good old doc too):
“I absolutely concur; Dr. Leif is a great guy and scientist of the greatest repute, the 21st century ‘guardian of the heliosphere’s pearly gates’ with subtlety of Erik the Viking.
The ‘rascal’ you enquire about (that’s me, Vuk) was run out of town by somewhat overzealous sheriff. I believe he is now ‘peddling snake oil’ and his latest invention geo-‘magnetic charms and bracelets’ in a nearby parish. Come to think about it, he does have a snake-like design imbedded in his website ?! http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/GandF.htm “
Who needs friends like that?
Leif Svalgaard says:
May 6, 2010 at 1:25 pm
“the missing piece is how the increased solar wind velocity actually causes the warming.
And that is the important piece, isn’t it?
Without that, there is nothing.”
Not true.
I showed my Father my findings, he thinks I have a very good case without proving the exact mechanism. I can take you through a tour of the all the coldest winters in the last 1500yrs at some point, and tell you which months were colder, and when there was an early thaw ect. from the point of view of what is actually causing it. With such power of hindcasting, I am very pleased with the forecasting success I am acheiving.
Leif Svalgaard (1:25pm) :
And that is the important piece, isn’t it?
Without that, there is nothing.
There are correlations, so that’s something as opposed to “nothing”.
Persistent correlation hints at a possible linkage – something to investigate. A lack of correlation is less interesting, of course – that would be “nothing”.
Leif Svalgaard says:
May 6, 2010 at 12:50 pm
So if you don`t think changes in the solar wind is causing surface temperature anomalies, do I assume you think it is the geomagnetic disturbances that are the cause, and if so, how? I`m sure between us we can stack up enough data on short term changes in solar wind velocity/density, correlating to short term changes in surface temperatures. Pick a mechanism…….
Ulric Lyons says:
May 6, 2010 at 4:00 pm
do I assume you think it is the geomagnetic disturbances that are the cause, and if so, how? I`m sure between us we can stack up enough data on short term changes in solar wind velocity/density, correlating to short term changes in surface temperatures. Pick a mechanism…….
Geomagnetic activity and solar UV cause heating in the thermosphere, but that heat does not propagate downwards, and if ir did, would be global, so correlations with winters at a specific location are spurious. There are no known mechanisms to pick from.
The correlations have in the past always ended up being coincidences that eventually broke down. Here is a reference to some of my own work on this: http://www.leif.org/EOS/Nature/255539a0.pdf that didn’t pan out eventually. It was credited for ‘re-invigorating’ sun-weather relations in the 1970s. There are hundreds of such correlations out there going back centuries and none of them have shown themselves to hold up.
If the correlation is REALLY good, one can live with an as yet undiscovered mechanism, but there are VERY few such correlations in the natural sciences.
It is wrong to assume that the ‘establishment’ are fighting a rearguard action to keep such correlations out and down [as is often claimed by starry-eyed enthusiasts]. On the contrary, should one turn out to be valid, our field would instantly draw much new funding and fame. And we all want that, it is just that there is nothing there. We all want to prove ‘Einstein’ or whomever else famous [Hansen. Mann, Gavin, Fat Al, Sagan, Milankovic, etc] wrong, but it turns out to be really hard to do.
Leif Svalgaard says:
“Geomagnetic activity and solar UV cause heating in the thermosphere, but that heat does not propagate downwards”
Wouldnt UV also have a significant effect on stratospheric temperatures? I realize at the moment there are several competing theories as to the stratospheric cooling(and very possibly competing mechanisms effecting stratospheric temperatures). But surly UV would have a very direct effect. And looking at it extremely simply also have an effect on tropospheric temperatures(just through a greater differential in radiation exchange) As you say, it would be global… unless O3 production/ UV absorption is effected enough hemispherically just through scattering/greater UV saturation on the winter hemisphere… Im not going to pretend to know(i dont)… just musings.
Mike Ewing says:
May 6, 2010 at 6:21 pm
Wouldnt UV also have a significant effect on stratospheric temperatures?
Yes it does, and much more because the air is a million times denser in the stratosphere than in the thermosphere.
And looking at it extremely simply also have an effect on tropospheric temperatures (just through a greater differential in radiation exchange)
No, because the level where the vast bulk of the radiation escapes to space in still in the troposphere [only 6 km up].
Leif Svalgaard says:
May 6, 2010 at 5:37 pm
Geomagnetic activity and solar UV cause heating in the thermosphere
Any specific wavelength range of UV where such effects predominate?
rbateman says:
May 6, 2010 at 6:50 pm
Any specific wavelength range of UV where such effects predominate?
Yes, extreme UV in the range 10-100 nm ionizes atomic Oxygen in the F-layer and far UV [190-250 nm] ionizes molecular Oxygen in the E-layer.
Leif Svalgaard says:
May 6, 2010 at 7:23 pm
That’s something. The weak sunspots are also relatively weak on 171 band of SOHO and STEREO, but are quite good on the faculae when near the rim.
Does the 171 band do anything to the atmosphere worth noting?
rbateman says:
May 6, 2010 at 8:12 pm
Does the 171 band do anything to the atmosphere worth noting?
The 171 is in Angstrom, not in nanometer, so 171 A is 17.1 nm which is absorbed by atomic oxygen in the F-layer, way up there at 200-400 km So is important for low orbit satellites, but not for our weather or climate.
Leif, does it have to do with the sharp little hooks that pad the spider’s feet, thus applying much more pressure up the wall than when crawling on a flat surface? So if the pressure underfoot going up the wall is calculated to scale, you would over-shoot the comparison you used by quite some magnitude. Thus your correction to the flat surface.
Pamela Gray says:
May 6, 2010 at 9:28 pm
Leif, does it have to do with the sharp little hooks that pad the spider’s feet
No, when the spider is crawling on a horizontal surface it is pressed towards the surface by its weight and that determines the pressure under its feet [actually only one foot enters the calculation 🙂 ], but on a wall there is no weight pressing it towards the wall so no pressure due to its weight. The spider uses little hooks or whatever to stay on the wall.
The point is that the pressure of the billion tons CME is minute. The Earth is not ‘slammed’ with enormous impact, causing earthquakes and other mayhem.
Leif Svalgaard says: May 6, 2010 at 5:37 pm
“If the correlation is REALLY good, one can live with an as yet undiscovered mechanism, but there are VERY few such correlations in the natural sciences.”
You mean something like this.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/LFC24.htm
Finally! I shall treasure those words.
Thank you Leif, i did find this paper on the effects o variable UV. Which is interesting for anyone interested. But basically says what you said… but longer winded (but has modeling in it for the modeling opposed;-)
https://www8.imperial.ac.uk/content/dav/ad/workspaces/physics/spat/Jo/The%20effect%20of%20solar%20UV%20irradiance%20variations%20on%20the%20Earth%27%27s%20atmosphere.pdf
Leif Svalgaard says:
May 6, 2010 at 5:37 pm
“Geomagnetic activity and solar UV cause heating in the thermosphere, but that heat does not propagate downwards, and if ir did, would be global, so correlations with winters at a specific location are spurious.”
Yes global of course, for example, I predicted a very sharp drop in surface temperature from July 7th 2009 (solar forced), the drop caused a small drop in N.H temp`s and a large drop in S.H. temp`s as you would expect at this time of the year. The N.H, experienced widespread flooding while 100`s of folk died from the sudden temp` drop in the S.H. Its when the drop is relative to the seasons that matters, I would have thought you would have realised that.
“If the correlation is REALLY good, one can live with an as yet undiscovered mechanism, but there are VERY few such correlations in the natural sciences.”
They say that there is nothing new under the Sun. My field of study goes back some way. From what I read, Kepler was on an identical track, and highly successful in determining short term or seasonal changes in the solar signal that would produce a cold winter (and as we now know, the simultaneous flooding in the opposite hemisphere in its summer, due to the temperature drop) The Ancients even carved some important observations into rock surfaces all round the world in the form of the 7 circuit labyrinth.
My correlations are stunning, I really can show you the cause of EVERY one of the coldest winters in the last 1500`s beyond any doubt, you can have a look after I have shown everyone else. For now, just watch my forecasts. Thanks for your help!, and good bye please.
Leif. In the advancement of science, a keen interest and a well developed power of scrutiny is ideal. A measure of scepticism may have its place in ” not taking anyones word for it” but maybe at the expense of coming up with any original ideas oneself. Cynicism and mockery only serves as a potential distraction to those doing pioneering work, you learn to ignore this after a while and it goes away. Did I notice it was the good folk that came up with all the good discoveries?
vukcevic says:
May 6, 2010 at 11:43 pm
You mean something like this.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/LFC24.htm
No, that is not a good correlation, so isn’t in the category to be taken seriously.
Ulric Lyons says:
May 7, 2010 at 3:03 am
My correlations are stunning
Pseudo-science always is in the eyes of the believer. They often stun the author first and prevents him from exercising sound judgement.
Here is an analysis of the power spectrum of CET: http://www.leif.org/research/FFT-Power-CET.pdf
Leif Svalgaard says:May 6, 2010 at 5:37 pm
“If the correlation is REALLY good, one can live with an as yet undiscovered mechanism, but there are VERY few such correlations in the natural sciences.”
Leif Svalgaard says: May 7, 2010 at 6:27 am
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/LFC24.htm
No, that is not a good correlation, so isn’t in the category to be taken seriously.
I hope you are not backtracking on your statement. Perhaps you would be so kind to show me a good correlation number (preferably from your extensive work), so I can have an idea what you have in mind for R-square.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/LFC24.htm
I think anyone would consider R-square of 0.93 an excellent correlation especially for an event not well understood.
Leif Svalgaard says: May 7, 2010 at 6:27 am
“Here is an analysis of the power spectrum of CET: http://www.leif.org/research/FFT-Power-CET.pdf”
Dr. Svalgaard that is a very important analysis, particularly your CET FFT power spectrum graph. It has a significant power dip at ~50 years.
It should be noted that Vukcevic Solar Anomaly formula has the half-period at 52 years.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/CETs.htm
>>>Leif Svalgaard says: May 6, 2010 at 10:04 am
>>>Coriolis force is fairly weak.
>>How weak? To make that statement you must have a number.
Sorry Leif, it is too long since I have had to deal with forces. Here is the formula for coriolis:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coriolis_effect#Applied_to_Earth
But what I do know is that a cannon-shell will only be deviated by a few feet by coriolis, and a jet aircraft does not have to fly one wing down to compensate.
So the force that results in hurricane formation, is but a flap of a butterfly wing in comparison to its eventual results.
.
Vuk etc. says:
May 7, 2010 at 9:13 am
I think anyone would consider R-square of 0.93 an excellent correlation especially for an event not well understood.
No, just anyone who does not know what he is talking about. The important number is the ‘number of degrees of freedom’. Suppose I have just two data points, then R-square is 1.0000000, but there is no significance to this ‘correlation’. Since a careful explanation and tutorial on this is not likely to make any difference to you, I’m a bit loath to waste my time on making one. But we can make a small start. If there is a good correlation, then it should survive the ‘difference test’. That is: for each timeseries compute a new series as the differences between successive data points, then correlate the two resulting difference series, and tell us R-squared.
Ralph says:
May 7, 2010 at 10:58 am
But what I do know is that a cannon-shell will only be deviated by a few feet by coriolis, and a jet aircraft does not have to fly one wing down to compensate.[…]
Yet, it is the Coriolis force that is responsible for the Westerlies and Tradewinds on Earth, and for solar differential rotation and thus ultimately for solar activity.
P.S. I have forgotten what the original problem was.
Leif, where do I find a simple text-format list of daily solar wind speed going back many decades?
Leif Svalgaard says:
May 7, 2010 at 6:27 am
Ulric Lyons says:
May 7, 2010 at 3:03 am
My correlations are stunning
Pseudo-science always is in the eyes of the believer. They often stun the author first and prevents him from exercising sound judgement.
Here is an analysis of the power spectrum of CET: http://www.leif.org/research/FFT-Power-CET.pdf…………………………………………………………………………………
Oh dear, it was such a simple task, I`ll say it again. Take the monthly values for each month on CET individually from 1900-1999, and do a linear trend plot for each month individually. And then compare them. See the stronger rise around the Equinox months. You already agreed with that anyway;
“May 6, 2010 at 12:50 pm: “That may well be, but it has nothing to do with the solar wind.”
You have not seen my correlations, so make no comment until you do.
You also are incompetant at following a line of enquiry, just as you have displayed here, by mixing the subject of CET monthly anomalies, with my claimed yet undisclosed correlations between global temp` change, and my observations as to their cause.
What you are suggesting is not valid for oscillating systems involving periodic functions. Flux and its corresponding emf have for the two delta series R^2 =0, despite the fact that one is derived from the other.
Paul Vaughan says:
May 7, 2010 at 1:38 pm
where do I find a simple text-format list of daily solar wind speed going back many decades?
http://omniweb.gsfc.nasa.gov/
vukcevic says:
May 7, 2010 at 2:03 pm
What you are suggesting is not valid for oscillating systems involving periodic functions. Flux and its corresponding emf have for the two delta series R^2 =0, despite the fact that one is derived from the other.
Then your R^2=0.93 is invalid as well 🙂
By adding your arbitrary constant you make the phases the same and then you can compare. As you did by computing an R^2.
Ulric Lyons says:
May 7, 2010 at 1:44 pm
You also are incompetant
Nice to know from such a knowing source…
Leif Svalgaard says: May 7, 2010 at 12:47 pm
“If there is a good correlation, then it should survive the ‘difference test’. That is: for each timeseries compute a new series as the differences between successive data points, then correlate the two resulting difference series, and tell us R-squared.”
To satisfy your curiosity I have done so. R^2 = 0.9053. Is that good enough for you? It is time you took my formula more seriously!
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/PF-Vukdiff.htm
vukcevic says:
May 7, 2010 at 3:17 pm
To satisfy your curiosity I have done so. R^2 = 0.9053. Is that good enough for you? It is time you took my formula more seriously!
You have numbers of the order of 300 and 400. These cannot be differences. Here is how to calculate differences:
Day PF diff
1 200 —
2 210 10
3 190 -20
4 200 10
etc
Re: Leif Svalgaard 3:02pm May 7
Thank you.
Can you be more specific (e.g. by pointing me straight to a plain-text-format webpage that lists decades-worth of daily solar wind velocity data)?
http://omniweb.gsfc.nasa.gov/cgi/nx1.cgi
That is handy, cheers Leif, bookmarked.
Leif, on the seperate monthly linear trends on CET from 1900-1999, why are Jan+Feb+May so flat, and such a strong rise in March over this century? any other ideas?
Further to Paul Vaughan 3:58pm May 7 Re: Leif Svalgaard 3:02pm May 7
Leif, cancel that request, but please see new question (& request) below in this post – thank you.
Accessing daily & 27 day Bartels rotation solar wind speed averages:
The hub:
http://omniweb.gsfc.nasa.gov/
From there “OMNI data (spacecraft-interspersed, near-Earth solar wind data)” “Low resolution OMNIWeb (1-hour, 1 and 27 days, 1963 – current)” leads to:
http://omniweb.gsfc.nasa.gov/ow.html
Then links under the heading “Access Data by FTP” lead to this directory:
ftp://nssdcftp.gsfc.nasa.gov/spacecraft_data/omni/
Relevant files there are:
1) daily averages: omni_01_av.dat
ftp://nssdcftp.gsfc.nasa.gov/spacecraft_data/omni/omni_01_av.dat
(solar wind speed in column 25)
2) 27-day Bartels rotation averages: omni_27_av.dat
ftp://nssdcftp.gsfc.nasa.gov/spacecraft_data/omni/omni_27_av.dat
(solar wind speed in column 25)
3) info: 00readme.txt
ftp://nssdcftp.gsfc.nasa.gov/spacecraft_data/omni/00readme.txt
4) more detailed info: omni2.text
ftp://nssdcftp.gsfc.nasa.gov/spacecraft_data/omni/omni2.text
(This is where one learns that solar wind speed is in column 25.)
Leif, has used column#25 of file#2 in this file http://www.leif.org/research/IDV,%20B%20analysis%20-%20rotations.xls .
Leif, does your SW speed reconstruction back to the 1880s work adequately at daily resolution? (If so, can you provide a link to your estimates?)
Leif Svalgaard says:
May 6, 2010 at 5:37 pm
Ulric Lyons says:
May 6, 2010 at 4:00 pm
do I assume you think it is the geomagnetic disturbances that are the cause, and if so, how? I`m sure between us we can stack up enough data on short term changes in solar wind velocity/density, correlating to short term changes in surface temperatures. Pick a mechanism…….
Geomagnetic activity and solar UV cause heating in the thermosphere, but that heat does not propagate downwards, and if ir did, would be global, so correlations with winters at a specific location are spurious. There are no known mechanisms to pick from.
May 7, 2010 at 3:03 am; Yes global of course, for example….
****************************************
At least that is a known unknown.
Ulric Lyons says:
May 7, 2010 at 6:40 pm
strong rise in March over this century? any other ideas?
Climate/weather is messy. If you find something you think is valid since 1900 it should also be valid since 1659, unless caused by CO2.
Paul Vaughan says:
May 7, 2010 at 6:41 pm
Further to Paul Vaughan 3:58pm May 7 Re: Leif Svalgaard 3:02pm May 7
From there “OMNI data (spacecraft-interspersed, near-Earth solar wind data)” “Low resolution OMNIWeb (1-hour, 1 and 27 days, 1963 – current)” leads to:
http://omniweb.gsfc.nasa.gov/ow.html […]
You make it really hard on yourself. I just use their handy web interface:
http://omniweb.gsfc.nasa.gov/form/dx1.html
Leif, does your SW speed reconstruction back to the 1880s work adequately at daily resolution? (If so, can you provide a link to your estimates?)
No, not really, although I have 3-hourly ap back to the 1840s. Now: ap = k B V^2, so is a decent proxy for SW speed. I don’t know why you focus on the speed [which in itself doesn’t have much meaning. What is important are the merging electric field BV and the dynamic pressure on the magnetosphere nV^2 [B= mag field, n = density].
Ulric Lyons says:
May 7, 2010 at 7:09 pm
At least that is a known unknown.
Too many unknowns for my taste. I go with what we [think we] know.
Looks like the Sun’s ready for another nap.
>>>Leif Svalgaard says: May 7, 2010 at 1:25 pm
>>Yet, it is the Coriolis force that is responsible for the Westerlies and
>>Tradewinds on Earth, and for solar differential rotation and thus
>>ultimately for solar activity.
>>P.S. I have forgotten what the original problem was.
[snip]
There is prima face evidence for a link between sunspot activity and climate, but no obvious mechanism for this. A proposed vehicle for a mechanism is the latitude of the jetstreams (which are created by the coriolis force**) being affected by solar wind/solar magnetic flux.
You may mock, Leif, but it is not beyond the realms of possibility that the sun can affect the delacate balance of our weather systems, and force the jestreams towards the equator (and give us cold N Hem winters, like this winter).
** Yes, I know that coriolis is more of an effect than a real force – rather like a cousin of ‘centrifugal force’.
Leif Svalgaard says: May 7, 2010 at 3:24 pm
“You have numbers of the order of 300 and 400. These cannot be differences. ”
Nonsense. It just shows you do not understand what is going on. Since solar signal is very noisy (using WSO from 1976.439) you have to take larger step for delta T but you move it along time axes one sample at the time, eg correlate columns.
A1– A144 ; B1– B144
A2 – A145 ; B2 – B145
A3 – A146 ; B3 – B146
etc., the above is used in case of a noisy signal to find embedded periodic oscillation related to a known one. Here delta T=144 (one cycle about ~430 samples, so use for delta T ~1/3).
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/PF-Vukdiff.htm
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/LFC24.htm
Leif Svalgaard 10:16pm May 7 “I just use their handy web interface: http://omniweb.gsfc.nasa.gov/form/dx1.html […] What is important are the merging electric field BV and the dynamic pressure on the magnetosphere nV^2 [B= mag field, n = density].”
What names do those variables & their components go by on the “handy web interface”? (Do we do the calculations independently? Or has Dr. Papitashvili canned them for us?)
“Leif Svalgaard says:
May 7, 2010 at 10:16 pm
Ulric Lyons says:
May 7, 2010 at 6:40 pm
strong rise in March over this century? any other ideas?
Climate/weather is messy. If you find something you think is valid since 1900 it should also be valid since 1659, unless caused by CO2.”
Yes from 1659, or any 40-50yr section of CET wher the yearly trend is upwards.
Does CO2 have a prefference for March???
“Ulric Lyons says:
May 7, 2010 at 7:09 pm
At least that is a known unknown.
Too many unknowns for my taste. I go with what we [I] know.”
Which is nothing about natural climate variation, and nothing on Sun and its true infuence on climate/weather. As you prefer to dodge the questions, and be of no help [snip]
Hale.
Even numbered sunspot cycles (22, 20, 18 etc.) through Maunder and Dalton are stronger than the odd numbered cycles. From around 1820/30, till recently, odd numbered cycles have been stronger than the even nunbered cycles. C22 to C23 shows signs of that balance changing again, leading to the coming even cycles being stronger than the odd cycles.
J.P.Desmoulins was plotting for a strong cycle 24.
I`ll stick to the facts from now Anthony, excuse me.
The Sun is years late on this “solar cycle”. The 10.7 cm flux would be at 130 to 150 by now; not 80. The flux is my “honest” view of the Sun’s activity.
The SO2 and ash from the Iceland volcano will reduce solar input to Europe/Asia (Russia). Ignored by Global Warming Religionists.
The Pacific heat is running out (El Nino is about done).
Unless the Sun “turns on” we are in for a interesting cold future!!!!!
Music is such a wonderful metaphor, hardly anybody knows who the best guitar player in the world is. Seems to me thats the same for weather/climate/solar cycles.
Just a little solar magnetics diversion for a moment ~ have the Sun and Venus copulated and given birth to a new planet?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YngPEMGhfXc
Seriously, what is that? Have you guys been watching this with your fancy SDO equipment? Fess up Leif ~ what is that baby?
Paul Vaughan says:
May 8, 2010 at 2:19 am
What names do those variables & their components go by on the “handy web interface”?
Flow Pressure, nPa
Ey – Electric Field, mV/m
But you can also compute them yourself from B, V, and n.
Ralph says:
May 8, 2010 at 12:21 am
There is prima face evidence for a link between sunspot activity and climate
It is the ‘evidence’ that I question. I don’t think there is.
but it is not beyond the realms of possibility that the sun can affect the delicate balance of our weather systems, and force the jet streams towards the equator (and give us cold N Hem winters, like this winter).
I think it is beyond the realm of possibility, from energy considerations. The Sun does not move the jet streams. The Sun may change the radiation balance, which then moves the air around. But there is no need to look for mechanisms as long as there is no good evidence for a significant Sun-climate link
Ulric Lyons says:
May 8, 2010 at 5:15 am
“Leif Svalgaard says:
May 7, 2010 at 10:16 pm
Ulric Lyons says:
May 7, 2010 at 6:40 pm
or any 40-50yr section of CET where the yearly trend is upwards.
Then you have already selected your result. If you select according to the desired result, you’ll find that result.
Does CO2 have a preference for March???
CO2 does have an annual variation, but that is not what is usually thought to be important by the AGW crowd, rather the long-term increase.
As you prefer to dodge the questions
I’m waiting for you to produce some evidence, until such time there is little basis for ‘help’.
vukcevic says:
May 8, 2010 at 12:56 am
you have to take larger step for delta T but you move it along time axes one sample at the time, eg correlate columns. A1– A144 ; B1– B144
The issue is one of ‘number of degrees of freedom’ that describes the ‘signal’ and that number is very low [about three per cycle; there are not hundreds of independent points as is assumed in your calculation of R^2]. If you are concerned about the noise, then the proper way to deal with that is to average the data over a suitable interval. If you average over a year, the R^2 of the differences falls to below 0.6 which is nothing to write home about with so few degrees of freedom. But even ‘good’ correlations can be spurious. A typical example is the R^2 = 0.9283 between the global temperature anomalies and the cost of a US postage stamp since 1975. A spurious correlation shows itself by not holding up as we go before [or after] the time over which we noted the coincidence. And so it is with your formula. There are only three [better 2 and a half – because one is shared with the next cycle] independent data points: the minimum and maximum times and the size of the maximum. With those three, any cycle is well determined. Your fit to those few independent points is determined by three free parameters [your 1943.5 and pi/3 for the first COS, and no pi/3 for the second COS]. But fails outside of the 1970-2008 interval on which it was based. From observations and theory we find that the polar fields reverse about one year after solar maximum and are largest in magnitude at or just before solar minimum [before the cancellation by new cycle flux begins]. So we can check the phase from observations. As you can see here http://www.leif.org/research/Vuk-polar-fields-6.png the observed phase begins to drift away from the phase given by your fit. The red squares are times of polar field reversals [determined from the sunspot number]. The cyan circles are times of solar minimum. Once we get back to ~1900 your fit is now out of phase with the observations. The circles are placed at +/-100 according to the sign of the PF.
Now, I know, of course, that your cop-out is that the Sun is what has changed in the sense that around 1895 the polar fields didn’t reverse and therefore the phase relationship rather than having failed shows a new and exciting solar phenomenon that is also predicted for the coming cycles. Unfortunately, there are observations that show that this is false. The PFs did change and there has been no ‘phase-catastrophe’. How do we know that? There is a 22-yr cycle in geomagnetic activity [explained here: http://www.leif.org/research/suipr699.pdf sections 8-9 pages 50-56] that depends on the polarity of the PF [equation 17], so we can use the 22-yr variation to show us the polarity of the PFs. We find that there was no phase change.
Ulric Lyons says:
May 8, 2010 at 5:47 am
Hale. […] leading to the coming even cycles being stronger than the odd cycles.
J.P.Desmoulins was plotting for a strong cycle 24.
So you are already looking falsification in the eye. There are strong signs that cycle 24 will be a very weak cycle.
Suranda says:
May 8, 2010 at 8:49 am
Seriously, what is that?
There are lots of artifacts in those raw data.
Mr. Alex says:
May 6, 2010 at 1:02 am
——–
Thanks for the comment and link! This was nice to find:
http://www.landscheidt.info/?q=node/50
Robert Bateman a very motivated amateur solar enthusiast and myself started a thread at http://www.solarcycle24.com (which has unfortunately developed into an anti Landscheidt, Pro AGW forum) and soon devised a plan to come up with a reliable standard. We would use the existing SOHO 1024 x 1024 Continuum images and measure the pixels involved in a Sunspot.
Initially it had to be determined what a standard sunspot should represent in size and density, to try and represent a minimum counter like Wolf may have done 200 years ago. After some deliberation and advise from Robert who also dabbles in Astronomy with his own equipment, we came up with a minimum standard.
—–
OK, so THAT’S who Robert Bateman is! Outstanding!
Leif Svalgaard says:
May 8, 2010 at 11:14 am
What ever you think about C24, the point I made about the phase change in the Hale cycle still stands.
“Hale.
Even numbered sunspot cycles (22, 20, 18 etc.) through Maunder and Dalton are stronger than the odd numbered cycles. From around 1820/30, till recently, odd numbered cycles have been stronger than the even nunbered cycles. C22 to C23 shows signs of that balance changing again,”
My investigation of the cause the solar cycle came up with a result. I checked to see if I had re-invented the wheel, and I had, I agree with Mr. J.P.Des. It says so much about the solar magnetic reversal at every maximum. And I would still stick roughly to my original forecast for C24;
http://landscheidt.auditblogs.com/2008/06/03/the-sunspot-cycle-and-c24/
Leif Svalgaard 11:11am May 8 “[…] But you can also compute them yourself from B, V, and n.”
Which B?
This is not clear:
” 9 F6.1 999.9 Field Magnitude Average |B| 1/N SUM |B|, nT
10 F6.1 999.9 Magnitude of Average Field Vector sqrt(Bx^2+By^2+Bz^2) ”
ftp://nssdcftp.gsfc.nasa.gov/spacecraft_data/omni/omni2.text
And on this page http://omniweb.gsfc.nasa.gov/html/ow_data.html different symbols are used (e.g. F for “Field Magnitude Avg” & there are angled-brackets on F & B).
Also, there is no plain “B” here: http://omniweb.gsfc.nasa.gov/form/dx1.html .
I’m also not sure which use of | | in |B| is being used. I would guess its a norm, not an absolute value – (additionally I’m not sure if that’s the B to which you are refering). “SUM” is also ambiguous – sum over what?
I need clarification.
By n do you mean “Proton Density, n/cc” ( http://omniweb.gsfc.nasa.gov/form/dx1.html ), which also seems to be represented as N …
“24 F6.1 999.9 Proton Density N/cm^3 ”
…and as Np …
“28 F6.3 9.999 Na/Np Alpha/Proton ratio
29 F6.2 99.99 Flow Pressure
P (nPa) = (1.67/10**6) * Np*V**2 * (1+ 4*Na/Np)
for hours with non-fill Na/Np ratios and
P (nPa) = (2.0/10**6) * Np*V**2
for hours with fill values for Na/Np”?
ftp://nssdcftp.gsfc.nasa.gov/spacecraft_data/omni/omni2.text
Hey Doc
Thanks for the detailed analysis. It must have taken some time. Averaging data, is OK for graphs, but it is reducing amount of information contained in the data (as you are well aware), so no surprise diff R^2 is reduced. You should have used the WSO raw data, as I did, than slide your selected time interval (1/3 of SS cycle) along time axes, taking as many samples as possible, in my case over 1000, which produced R^2 ~ = 0.9. That is proper way of analysing noisy signal.
If the two critical period numbers are anything else but very accurate astronomical constants, I would indeed agree with your assertions. The phase constants agree, are chosen for best fit, but that is not here or there, since we do not understand, or even know what is the transfer mechanism between PF and SSmax (B-L is only a hypothesis, Max-Plank’s Solanki has other ideas).
Thanks for the effort, but again NOT GOOD ENOUGH. I am looking forward to yet another more critical go, more severe the better. If true, it should withstand anything you throw at it, if ‘numerology’ then it deserves to be knocked out. No decisive blow as yet! It is going to take more than ‘US postage stamp correlation’ to bring the Vukcevic’s formula down. Get some of the young brains from Stanford to have a go; it should be a good challenge. I am not a believer, just enjoying the ride.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/LFC24.htm
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/LFC25.htm
See you next time, dovidjenja, dosvidaniya, au revior, auf weidersehen, (Danish?) !
This catches my instinct: “IMF Magnitude Avg, nT” ( http://omniweb.gsfc.nasa.gov/form/dx1.html ) — but I need clarification, particularly about the variation in terms & symbols.
Ulric Lyons says:
May 8, 2010 at 12:14 pm
the point I made about the phase change in the Hale cycle still stands.
Not at all. Most of the even-odd-ness and the phase shift comes simply from the cycles being part of a longer pseudo-‘cycle’. Here is a simple example: http://www.leif.org/research/Odd-Even-Artifact.png
For the first half of the long cycle ALL even cycles are larger, for the last half ALL odd cycles are larger. There is no real asymmetry ever discovered as far as Odd-Even is concerned [lots of silly claims though]. In addition, our knowledge of the sunspot number before ~1825 is not good enough to detect ay difference, if it existed.
And I would still stick roughly to my original forecast for C24
Sticking to it does not make it right. All signs are for a very small cycle; and not at all very strong in 2010 as you predicted. So, Nature likely has already proven you wrong on this one.
Paul Vaughan says:
May 8, 2010 at 12:29 pm
Which B? This is not clear
It depends on the time scale and what you want to do. The merging electric field is BV times q(a,f) where q(a,f) is a function of the angle, a, B is making with the Earth’s field and the fractional variance f = sigma(B)/B. The function q is on average [day or more] of order unity.
So you want to use the field magnitude, and |B| is abs B. Sum over all measurements within the averaging interval. The magnitude of the average vector tends to zero as the averaging interval gets larger, because the field varies randomly over long-enough time intervals.
By n do you mean “Proton Density, n/cc”
Almost. ‘n’ is the effective average of Np and Na in
29 F6.2 99.99 Flow Pressure P (nPa) = (1.67/10**6) * Np*V**2 * (1+ 4*Na/Np)
It would help to know what you want to do to give a meaningful answer.
vukcevic says:
May 8, 2010 at 12:31 pm
Averaging data, is OK for graphs, but it is reducing amount of information
No, reduces the noise in your case [because of the autocorrelation].
many samples as possible, in my case over 1000, which produced R^2 ~ = 0.9. That is proper way of analysing noisy signal.
It seems you don’t have much experience in ‘proper’ analysis.
Calculation of R^2 assumes that the data points are independent from one to the next. This is not the case as the autocorrelation function http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autoregressive_model see http://www.leif.org/research/Vuk-polar-fields-7.png shows that a solar cycle in PF and your formula as well only contains about three or less independent points, not hundreds.
If the two critical period numbers are anything else but very accurate astronomical constants
It doesn’t matter how accurate the constants are if the formula does not fit the data [as I showed]
(B-L is only a hypothesis, Max-Plank’s Solanki has other ideas).
The transfer function is the solar dynamo, and Solanki does have other ideas about that.
Thanks for the effort, but again NOT GOOD ENOUGH. I am looking forward to yet another more critical go, more severe the better.
Nothing will be good enough in face on unshakable ignorance. My analysis would satisfy any scientist worth his salt. There is no failure of the polar fields to reverse [at least back to the 184os where we have data]. Your formula predicts such a failure, and is thus directly and simply falsified. Apart from its shaky statistical foundation.
Paul Vaughan says:
May 8, 2010 at 12:38 pm
but I need clarification, particularly about the variation in terms & symbols.
There is no agreed upon unity in terms and symbols. Most people would interpret the various things from the context. Again, if I knew what you want to do, it would help the clarification [give me a context].
Leif Svalgaard says:
May 8, 2010 at 4:10 pm
“There is no real asymmetry ever discovered as far as Odd-Even is concerned”
There has been now. But that is minor compared to showing exactly why the Nile froze in 829 and 1010AD. You would be surprised how many very cold winters in the last 1500yrs are close to 179yrs apart. (1963/1784) These things just don`t get noticed by many.
Ulric Lyons says:
May 8, 2010 at 6:41 pm
“Nile froze in 829 and 1010AD. You would be surprised how many very cold winters in the last 1500yrs are close to 179yrs apart. (1963/1784)”
Spot the difference, Dec 828, Jan 1010, Feb 1784, Dec 1962;
http://www.fourmilab.ch/cgi-bin/Solar
Leif Svalgaard says:
May 8, 2010 at 4:10 pm
Ulric Lyons says:
May 8, 2010 at 12:14 pm
And I would still stick roughly to my original forecast for C24
http://landscheidt.auditblogs.com/2008/06/03/the-sunspot-cycle-and-c24/
Leif
“Sticking to it does not make it right. All signs are for a very small cycle; and not at all very strong in 2010 as you predicted. So, Nature likely has already proven you wrong on this one”
I would say I am doing fine. I specified the cycle would start diminished, and would become augmented from 2010 to 2013. We are some 3 years from maximum, and twice this year have had SSN 70+. It is still early 2010. So far, I rest my case.
Ulric Lyons says:
May 8, 2010 at 7:00 pm
Severe cold spell set in from roughly mid-December 1767 and lasted until beginning of the second week of January, 1768. Gilbert White (Selborne) writes: .. “the most severe known for many years – much damage to ever-greens”. [This latter comment perhaps implies that as well as very low temperatures, there was a considerable ‘wind-burn’ effect.]
During last few days of December 1767, ‘considerable’ falls of snow at Selborne (NE Hampshire). Bitterly cold spell second half of December 1767. Further snowfall in the opening days of January 1768. Some very low temperatures – daytime maxima no higher than 18 or 19 degF (circa -7degC) in some places.
Severe frost and deep snow (London/South).
+179 years = 1947.
Ulric Lyons says:
May 8, 2010 at 6:41 pm
Note the period between 1010AD and 1963 is 953yrs.
This is three times the best return of Uranus, Saturn and Jupiter (3*317.666yrs).
Stelliums of these three return in periods of around 40yr, 139yr, 179yr and 317.66yrs.
This is one of the periods Dr King-Hele was studying, that can be found in storm/climate patterns in The Hudson Bay staircase;
http://www.crawfordperspectives.com/Fairbridge-ClimateandKeplerianPlanetaryDynamics.htm
Ulric Lyons says:
May 8, 2010 at 7:34 pm
I would say I am doing fine. I specified the cycle would start diminished, and would become augmented from 2010 to 2013.
note how close your language is to a ‘real’ fortune teller: all cycles start diminished [from nothing] and ‘augment’ as maximum is approached. You may not see the vacuousness of what you are saying.
But, if the cycle turns out to be very small [as I think it will], then you will completely abandon your ideas, having been shown false by Mother Nature herself. right?
Leif, you’ve asked for context on what I’m trying to do. I can clarify that my interest in these quantities stems from your comment that I should be looking at the merging electric field and the dynamic pressure on the magnetosphere. My aim was to casually investigate specific claims I’ve heard during the past week about solar wind speed affecting weather during certain seasons at daily-to-weekly timescales, so I was first simply looking for daily solar wind speed data (accomplished). Perhaps I should ask why you suggested that it is not solar wind speed but rather these other parameters that are “important” – important for what? for weather/climate?
The 40yr, 139yr and 179yr Jovian returns are evident in weather event series, as they harmonise well with the Earth/Venus synodic. The 317.66yr period will only do so after three steps, so will only show in monthly/seasonal anomalies that would say produce a very cold N.H. winter, every 953yrs. Hence the period between 1010AD and 1963. There are no severe winters recorded for the UK for 1963-317.66yr(-317.66yr);
http://booty.org.uk/booty.weather/climate/histclimat.htm
So long barycenter boys.
Leif Svalgaard says:
May 8, 2010 at 8:53 pm
“a ‘real’ fortune teller”
Why thank you very much!
“having been shown false by Mother Nature herself. right?”
Quite the opposite actually. As for abandoning my ideas, you told me that before on the “Open Mind” blog where in Dec 2007, I predicted the El Nino starting in July 2009. I am very happy with my progress Leif, especially my hindcasting through history. It is trully fascinating.
“all cycles start diminished”
Diminished? yes, lack of spots, low solar wind velocity (lower than average yes?), cool summers and winters, and now it`s sprung to life. Augmented stage…. lets see how it does this year.
Paul Vaughan says:
May 8, 2010 at 8:54 pm
Perhaps I should ask why you suggested that it is not solar wind speed but rather these other parameters that are “important” – important for what? for weather/climate?
The solar wind can have short-term impact only via forces. The forces that act on the magnetosphere are given by the electric field seen by the magnetosphere [ E = -V x B ] and by the gas pressure confining the Earth’s magnetic field. So those are the physical reasons things [currents, heating, particle precipitation, …]. It therefore makes sense to consider those a drivers and to investigate possible effects. There are some important effects on the upper atmosphere where the density is billions to quadrillions smaller than in the troposphere [and therefore the amounts of air, heat, etc are equally minute]. It seems hardly credible that such a tiny tail can wag such a mighty dog, but the believers and ‘seekers’ are legion.
Ulric Lyons says:
May 8, 2010 at 9:27 pm
As for abandoning my ideas
I was specific about the magnitude of the cycle. But you evaded that. so I ask again: if cycle 24 turns out to be much smaller than cycle 23, then you abandon your ideas about what drives the cycle leading to a failed prediction.
“all cycles start diminished” Diminished? yes
Is vacuous, because they all start from nothing, and they augment from there. This is tautological. There is no information content in this. BTW, you are not a ‘real’ fortune teller. The difference is that they know they are faking it, while you, presumably, don’t. Or do you?
Leif Svalgaard says:
May 8, 2010 at 9:40 pm
It looks to me from the graph above, that we have had the biggest upturn in solar activity in 4 yrs. I suppose long range weather forecasting is fortune telling, fortunate for those that have the forecast, and maybe I`ll make a fortune too! I am sticking completely firm with J.P.Desmoulin on the main bodies that cause the solar cycle, though our ideas about mechanisms may differ. If C24 does not meet my expectations of reaching as high as C23, then I will have to investigate why, thats science.
Leif Svalgaard : May 8, 2010 at 4:10 pm
……
Your arguments have failed, since you have not shown or proven (or even attempted to do so), that the records of the PF available to date, do not follow or correlate the mathematical form I presented.
I have proved that they do, conclusively !
It is up to those with abounding of knowledge and experience to ponder why.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/LFC24.htm
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/LFC25.htm
Ulric Lyons says:
May 8, 2010 at 10:30 pm
If C24 does not meet my expectations of reaching as high as C23, then I will have to investigate why, thats science.
Then your theory is falsified. Here is how SC24 has been doing:
http://www.leif.org/research/Active%20Region%20Count.png
Leif Svalgaard : May 8, 2010 at 11:11 am
…….
Your interpretation of my Sunspot formula
http://www.leif.org/research/Vuk-polar-fields-6.png
is wrong and gives a false result and impression.
Correct chart can be seen here:
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/LFC1.htm
as you can see it does follow the Hale cycle as expected.
We do not have any data for the PF prior to mid 1960’s, any speculation from that angle to invalidate the vukcevic’s formula is irrelevant !
For follow up see:
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/LFC-CETfiles.htm
Ulric Lyons says: May 8, 2010 at 8:35 pm
“…..This is one of the periods Dr King-Hele was studying, that can be found in storm/climate patterns in The Hudson Bay staircase;”
Hi Ulric
Some time ago I wrote an article describing possible relationship between North Atlantic temperature anomaly and the geological/geomagnetic events of the Hudson Bay area.
http://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/docs/00/41/83/04/PDF/NATA.pdf
I shall read with interest the Fairbridge’s article.
Leif Svalgaard says:
May 9, 2010 at 2:34 am
You don`t know how fast it will climb. You will know by 2013 if my forecast is way out or not. But hey, its just an academic issue, interesting but with no purpose really, apart from predicting damaging solar flares. Most people want to know the weather, and you cannot tell that by SSN, especially at solar minimum! If coronal holes dissapeared, then I would be worried.
vukcevic says:
May 9, 2010 at 4:49 am
Hi Vuk,
Notice the mean periodicity of about 45 years in the Hudson staircase. I mentioned this figure to Paul Vaughn, but its a new one to him. I had the “components” of this cycle plotted some while back, its 179/4 years. Maybe we should exchange e-mails to discuss some matters away from the distraction of the Minotaur?
vukcevic says:
May 9, 2010 at 4:38 am
Your interpretation of my Sunspot formula
http://www.leif.org/research/Vuk-polar-fields-6.png
Is not your sunspot formula, but is [as the title says so clearly] the polar field formula.
We do not have any data for the PF prior to mid 1960’s, any speculation from that angle to invalidate the vukcevic’s formula is irrelevant !
The polar fields have been measured since 1952. Here are a few examples of early magnetograms: http://www.leif.org/research/Solar-Polar-Fields-Early-Obs.pdf
and some of Baback’s papers:
http://www.leif.org/EOS/Babcock1955.pdf
http://www.leif.org/EOS/Babcock1959.pdf
The observations showed a very strong polar fields at the 1954 minimum. A reversal around 1958, and a weakening of the polar fields up to the 1965 minimum, where they were barely measurable [with the sensitivity of the day]. You formula shows a stronger 1964 field that in 1954, so is in conflict with observations.
The sign of the polar fields can be determined from geomagnetic data back to 1844, see e.g. http://www.leif.org/EOS/95GL03086.pdf and shows no phase reversal around 1895 as predicted by your polar field formula, so a second falsification.
There are thus good reasons not to bother with your formula.
Ulric Lyons says:
May 9, 2010 at 6:03 am
You don`t know how fast it will climb. You will know by 2013 if my forecast is way out or not.
I have a prediction of how fast it will climb and the Sun is right on track.
But hey, its just an academic issue, interesting but with no purpose really
There is one obvious purpose: falsification of your ideas and prediction. But since they are are not supported too well, I can see why you wish to downplay this.
Most people want to know the weather, and you cannot tell that by SSN, especially at solar minimum
Some people claim that really cold winters are related to the SSN…
But there is enormous practical implications of correct predictions of solar activity. Satellite operators gamble billions on that, and care VERY much.
Ulric Lyons : May 9, 2010 at 6:21 am
…………
The Hudson Bay area is multifaceted puzzle. In my article, I have in some detail covered certain geological and geomagnetic aspects, with the related maps.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/LFC-CETfiles.htm follow NATA link.
Currently science cannot account for some of the events. Even NASA scientists have looked into it and given up.
My email is at:
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/GandF.htm top right-hand side.
Leif Svalgaard May 9, 2010 at 9:01 am
…………
The PF formula in essence, is the same as the sunspot formula with 3-4 year advance, to account for delay of magnetic polarity change between SS and PF .
I can understand your vehement opposition to it being publicised or god forbid accepted, since Vukcevic formula overtakes the Svalgaard / Cliver “Rmax” prediction method, by a mile.
It is only mathematical tool available for the long range SS cycle prediction.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/LFC14.htm
the Hale Cycle polarity reversals are shown clearly here
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/LFC1.htm
vukcevic says:
May 9, 2010 at 9:12 am
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/LFC-CETfiles.htm follow NATA link.
Currently science cannot account for some of the events.
Current science doesn’t investigate your spurious ‘events’. Your various attempts of physical explanation [iron masses, induced currents in the oceans] are off by many orders of magnitude as I have shown you repeatedly [but you have a learning disability, it seems]. The non-dipolar excess magnetic fields are generated by non-uniform circulation within the Earth’s core. Nobody looks at your stuff and ‘gives up’, rather they reject it out of hand.
Leif Svalgaard says:
May 9, 2010 at 9:01 am
“Some people claim that really cold winters are related to the SSN…”
To the position within the solar cycle yes, it is easy to see more cold N. H. winters around solar maximum = less coronal holes, but not every year within each maximum, and not relative to SSN, as you could have one January at -3C, 2yrs away from another January at +6C within the same maximum (ref.CET 1684, and there were not many spots then). Maximums can be very “spikey” Leif.
“But there is enormous practical implications of correct predictions of solar activity. Satellite operators gamble billions on that, and care VERY much.”
Yes I made it clear above this is an issue (May 9, 2010 at 6:03 am) and have some interesting findings on the subject. 250+ billion a year I should imagine.
vukcevic says:
May 9, 2010 at 9:48 am
The PF formula in essence, is the same as the sunspot formula with 3-4 year advance, to account for delay of magnetic polarity change between SS and PF .
Not true, as the sunspot formula has a 2pi/3 phase in the first cosine term, while the polar field formula has a pi/3 phase. So you get the sign of the PF wrong in the 19th century. That is what my graph shows. The usual way pseudo-scientists deal with this is to add an anomaly correction that [for this case] changes the sign every century. So we may look forwards to such a correction. Or is it just that you made a clerical error and the pi/3 should really be 2pi/3?
I can understand your vehement opposition to it being publicised or god forbid accepted
You can understand nothing of the sort. Good scientists don’t oppose anything vehemently [except falsehoods] but look at the data and follow where they lead guided by physical understanding.
since Vukcevic formula overtakes the Svalgaard / Cliver “Rmax” prediction method, by a mile.
Your sunspot formula is useless as prediction tool. You have cycle 20 to be larger than cycle 19, while in fact 19 is almost twice as high as cycle 20. cycle 14 is wrong in phase and amplitude [three times over]. Etc., etc., etc. so you are indeed a mile off.
the Hale Cycle polarity reversals are shown clearly here
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/LFC1.htm
But are fake, because you plot the sunspot number assuming the law. And the polar fields are still of the wrong sign in the 19th century. It is part of the solar cycle that the polar fields result from ‘follower’ polarity moving to the poles; this is directly observed e.g. http://www.leif.org/research/Vuk7.png .
Ulric Lyons says:
May 9, 2010 at 10:12 am
Yes I made it clear above this is an issue
Yeah, you claimed: “But hey, its just an academic issue”
Leif Svalgaard says: May 9, 2010 at 10:00 am
“Current science doesn’t investigate your spurious ‘events’. ”
You never read things properly; here it is again: ‘The Hudson Bay area is multifaceted puzzle…… Even NASA scientists have looked into it and given up.’
Well you are wrong again. Google ‘ Nastapoka Arc NASA ‘ you may come across a reference.
Nothing to do with my article, which you could attempt to read,
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/LFC-CETfiles.htm follow NATA link.
rather than make inaccurate summary statements. Nasa’s investigations were related to coincidence of a large meteorite impact and positive magnetic anomaly. Similar situation is the coincidence of very strong negative magnetic anomaly and possible huge meteorite impact in an area of Central African Republic (during Gondwana, before the Atlantic ocean was created), and then the adjoining Brazil Bahia area (google ‘Dr. Stephen Haggerty carbonado’).
whatsupwiththatthen?
http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/ftpdir/latest/DSD.txt
http://space-env.esa.int/Data_Plots/noaa/ssn_plot.html
SSN77 May 5th, SSN71 8th Feb, the next graph tho` has only just topped SS50
http://www.leif.org/research/Active%20Region%20Count.png
Ulric Lyons says: “Notice the mean periodicity of about 45 years in the Hudson staircase. I mentioned this figure to Paul Vaughn”
Some misunderstanding here.
Leif, as always, thanks for the valuable notes.
Leif Svalgaard : May 9, 2010 at 11:12 am
……..
That is a ‘much ado about nothing’ ; in some older files there is typo error of pi/3 instead of 2pi/3. The rest is as I said, vehement attack to discredit Vukcevic formula which happens to produce superior results to the Svalgaard / Cliver “Rmax”.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/LFC24.htm
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/LFC14.htm
AGW’s ‘kill opposition at birth’?
vukcevic says:
May 9, 2010 at 11:22 am
Nasa’s investigations were related to coincidence of a large meteorite impact and positive magnetic anomaly.
These anomalies have nothing to do with the large-scale magnetic structure computed from the multipole expansion of the main field related to circulation in the core. I do read your stuff, that is how I know you are wrong. How would I otherwise? Do you read mine? If so, explain, in your own words, how the 22-yr cycle in geomagnetic activity [from with we infer the solar polar field polarity] works. I just gave you a link to the explanation.
Ulric Lyons says:
May 9, 2010 at 11:23 am
SSN77 May 5th, SSN71 8th Feb, the next graph tho` has only just topped SS50
http://www.leif.org/research/Active%20Region%20Count.png
First, SWPC/NOAA numbers are about twice as high as the official sunspot number. Second, my graph does not show sunspot number, but ‘active region count’, ARC, and shows monthly values. My website explains:
“The count is a count of days in each full month the region was visible [and no more than 70 degrees from central meridian] and then summed for every region. Yearly smoothed values are also shown as the smoother curves. Different cycles are coded with a different color. The detailed figures show the transitions between cycles.”
An approximate translation formula would be ARC = 2.25 SSN[official].
The ARC is similar to the Group Sunspot Number in concept, being insensitive to how different observers count the [often] many small spots in each region [group]. At solar max there can be up to a hundred small spots in a large group.
Leif Svalgaard says:
vukcevic says:
May 9, 2010 at 11:22 am
Nasa’s investigations were related to coincidence of a large meteorite impact and positive magnetic anomaly.
BTW, the term ‘anomaly’ is used to mean the small-scale structure that remains AFTER the main field that you showed in your maps have been subtracted.
Leif Svalgaard says:
May 9, 2010 at 11:15 am
But hey, its just an academic issue, interesting but with no purpose really, apart from predicting damaging solar flares. If enough power grids go down in the USA, millions could die, unless these events can be predicted well, then the power transformers can be unhooked in advance. I`m sure not too many people can suffer badly (health-wise) if there is widescale satellite damage. What is far more serious though, is a sharp shift in climate. All major civilisations in the past, have prospered in warm/wet periods, and collapsed in cold/dry times. Thats life Leif, and the Sun does it.
vukcevic says:
May 9, 2010 at 11:39 am
That is a ‘much ado about nothing’ ; in some older files there is typo error of pi/3 instead of 2pi/3.
Your polar field formula had pi/3. This is what I used.
Perhaps you have just corrected the pi/3 to 2pi/3? If you do so, you must also recompute the curve, which you have not done. Such revisionist dishonesty is in the category of Climategate. Perhaps we have a VukGate here…
Which one is it [blue or green]?
http://www.leif.org/research/Vuk-polar-fields-8.png
I added a trivial missing parenthesis.
Also, revisit your sunspot formula. Correct the errors, recalculate the curve.
Leif Svalgaard May 9, 2010 at 11:47 am
……..
Your comment about magnetic anomaly, again is a bit of the target, but lets don’t waste time on that.
If we assume that the circulation causes GMF, then we have electric currents, which then are the real source of GMF. If for the Earth why not for the sun too?
Your question is a bit ambiguous, but since Vukcevic formula correlates better to the PF than the SS cycle, then I would assume in this ‘chicken and egg’, the PF is the egg from which SS are hatched, laying another egg, but that would be the flawed Babcock-Leighton solar dynamo.
– Babcock-Leighton dynamo replaced in 1960s by mean-field dynamo theory
– mean-field dynamo theory has fundamental problems
– revival of Babcock-Leighton-type models in early 1990s
– Babcock-Leighton model produces excessively strong polar surface magnetic fields
– physical mechanism responsible for the regeneration of the poloidal component of the solar magnetic field has not yet been identified with confidence (Charbonneau 2005)
– strong cycles last shorter than weak cycles, but diffusion time should be proportional to cycle strength.
Hey, that sounds like a real muddle. I take a simple view of it, it based on what we know. The 90 degree phase between PF and SS cycle is just a bidirectional flux-emf relationship, the whole thing is modulated by the two big magnetic bullies of the solar system.
See end graph on : http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/LFC5.htm
I need a glass of vine.
Leif Svalgaard says:
May 9, 2010 at 11:47 am
The Boulder number (reported daily on SpaceWeather.com) is usually about 25% higher than the second official index, the “International Sunspot Number,” published daily by the Solar Influences Data Center in Belgium. Both the Boulder and the International numbers are calculated from the same basic formula, but they incorporate data from different observatories. http://www.spaceweather.com/glossary/sunspotnumber.html
Howzat?
Ulric Lyons says:
May 9, 2010 at 12:01 pm
But hey, its just an academic issue, interesting but with no purpose really, apart from predicting damaging solar flares.
This has immense practical importance. Prediction of the sunspot number [even a yearly average] is very useful, because the SSN level determines the heating of the thermosphere, and thereby atmospheric density there and atmospheric drag on satellites determining their lifetimes. NASA used our prediction [not the wrong official one] during the previous cycle to decide not to de-orbit the Hubble telescope, with the result that we got a lot more science out of it.
But you are evading the issue which is the impending falsification of your prediction and the ensuing abandonment of your ideas.
vukcevic says:
May 9, 2010 at 12:30 pm
Your comment about magnetic anomaly, again is a bit of the target, but lets don’t waste time on that.
Correction of your wrong ideas is not a waste of time.
If we assume that the circulation causes GMF, then we have electric currents, which then are the real source of GMF. If for the Earth why not for the sun too?
As I said, you have a learning deficiency. How many times have I not said that movement of a conductor across an existing magnetic field induces electrical currents that can reverse/amplify the magnetic field. This is the case for both the Sun the Earth ans almost all cosmical magnetic fields.
Your question is a bit ambiguous ???
I said: If so, explain, in your own words, how the 22-yr cycle in geomagnetic activity [from with we infer the solar polar field polarity] works. I just gave you a link to the explanation.
I’m waiting.
the flawed Babcock-Leighton solar dynamo.
The B-L dynamo is the basis for all dynamo theories. The details differ, because we learn over time.
Hey, that sounds like a real muddle. I take a simple view of it, it based on what we know.
‘We know’? As far as I can see, you don’t shoe evidence of knowing much.
The 90 degree phase between PF and SS cycle is just a bidirectional flux-emf relationship, the whole thing is modulated by the two big magnetic bullies of the solar system.
And this may be ‘simple’, but it is more like ‘simplistic’ or from a ‘simpleton’, especially since the correlation doesn’t work and is useless as predictor.
Ulric Lyons says:
May 9, 2010 at 12:51 pm
http://www.spaceweather.com/glossary/sunspotnumber.html
Howzat?
What’s your question?
The link explains how it is done.
comments for Dr.L.S.
After glass of two of Californian Merlot, not easy to tell which one is which. I’ll go for a better fit for the available data, the rest is adaptable as required. No need for recalculation, it is the labelling which needs to be adapted. Perhaps a grant for resolving pi/3 & 2pi/3 quandary?
Green looks pretty good to me, far better then anything Svalgaard, Hathaway & co. can come up with.
Anyway why are you bothered so much ?
I see you looked at :
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/CET3.htm among your choice selection.
Generally good agreement there, either summer or winter (frequently both), except for one or two volcanoes and 1950’s (probably atmospheric nuclear probes). Perhaps the integrated SSN would do a better fit.
vukcevic says:
May 9, 2010 at 3:01 pm
No need for recalculation, it is the labelling which needs to be adapted. Perhaps a grant for resolving pi/3 & 2pi/3 quandary?
Just being a bit less sloppy will do. So what is the correct labelling on both plots?
Anyway why are you bothered so much ?
I was also correcting my children when they misbehaved [to same meager effect as here]. Not bothered. Just want you to get it straight. You have still not deigned to respond to my query: “If so, explain, in your own words, how the 22-yr cycle in geomagnetic activity [from with we infer the solar polar field polarity] works. I just gave you a link to the explanation.”
Leif Svalgaard says:
May 9, 2010 at 1:29 pm
“ensuing abandonment of your ideas”
Visa versa.
Leif Svalgaard says:
May 9, 2010 at 1:58 pm
0.75 x 77 = 57.75 I thought your graph looked a bit dodgy.
I hope some of you here have read my posts on “very cold winters in the last 1500 yrs” and have begun to realise that these events are astronomically forced, and many can be mapped out with uncanny ease. The examples I have given (829, 1010, 1784, 1963) share virtually the same heliocentric Jovian configuration. There are other Jovian configurations with distibution of the bodies in also in well defined magnetic angles, that also produce very cold winters, such as 1740. The interaction of the Inferior Planets (inner), against the Superior Planets, results in wide swings of solar activity, so visible just months after most cold winters, incuding the last two. The timing of these solar changes relative to the seasons, is pivotal as to whether or not the N.H. gets a cold winter. Which is why configurational repeats need to be in a whole number of Earth years to produce the same result. The solar signal changes fast.
I am only showing the tip of the iceberg of what I have discovered about these relationships, but I am assured I have an overwelming volume of highly repeatable correlations, that map Holocene tempertaure history very well, year by year. In a way that has been done many times in the past, Galileo, Kepler, Tycho Brae, Newton, Copernicus and several Greeks of some some antiquity, and probably the Babylonians, all understood the Sun is very sensitive to where the Planets are, and that has an immediate effect on our weather and hence climate, week by week. Once these insights are fully apreciated, it will be apparent that we will have a truly scientific forecast system, and a new way of looking at the Sun
Ulric Lyons says:
May 9, 2010 at 3:24 pm
0.75 x 77 = 57.75 I thought your graph looked a bit dodgy.
I plot what they report…
The 25% in your link is obviously not correct…
Ulric Lyons says:
May 9, 2010 at 3:24 pm
0.75 x 77 = 57.75 I thought your graph looked a bit dodgy.
I plot what they report…
The 25% in your link is obviously not correct…
Here are the mean values for the last three years
SIDC SWPC
mean SSN mean SNN ratio
2008 2.852 4.648 1.62973352 63%
2009 3.219 5.129 1.593351973 59%
2010 13.426 23.233 1.730448384 73%
A better number would be around 65% higher for how much higher SWPC currently are than SIDC.
Leif Svalgaard says:
Ulric Lyons says:
May 9, 2010 at 3:24 pm
0.75 x 77 = 57.75 I thought your graph looked a bit dodgy.
The solution to the puzzle is the constant ‘k’ in wolf’s formula. SIDC uses 0.600, while SWPC [lately, at least] uses 1.000. and 1/0.6 is 1.667, so 67% more.
Your ‘dodgy’ comment is unbecoming for a gentleman.
vukcevic says:
May 9, 2010 at 11:39 am
That is a ‘much ado about nothing’ ; in some older files there is typo error of pi/3 instead of 2pi/3.
VukGate continues:
So, the sunspot curve has 2pi/3, while the polar field curve uses pi/3 [at latest count]. And since only one of the cosine terms has this offset, there will be a continuously changing phase between the two, belying your claim:
And
Well, taking your word for it, we get:
http://www.leif.org/research/Vuk-polar-fields-9.png
Hmmm, it is worse than we thought…
Because:
It seems that some handy touch-up work was done with a reversal of the sign in 1921, to make it look like matching the Hale polarities. This shall henceforth be known as “Vuk’s trick”
I would like you to read and understand [and prove that you understood by stating it here in your own words] the 22-year cycle in geomagnetic activity, and how it tells you the polarity of the polar fields to convince yourself that there was no phase reversal of the polar fields at least since the 1840s.
If you refuse to do that, you have just shown yourself to use ostrich-science [“don’t want to know”].
Ulric Lyons says:
May 9, 2010 at 4:39 pm
I hope some of you here have read my posts on “very cold winters in the last 1500 yrs”
Are they Northern Hemisphere winters? The Southern not being forced, or does it work on summers down under?
Leif Svalgaard says:
May 9, 2010 at 5:24 pm
Wow, that has jumped up some, its almost at 75%!
Leif Svalgaard says:
May 9, 2010 at 5:35 pm
When in Rome……………………………
pseudo-scientists
[but you have a learning disability, it seems].
the impending falsification of your prediction and the ensuing abandonment of your ideas.
Ulric Lyons says:
May 9, 2010 at 7:08 pm
[but you have a learning disability, it seems].
the impending falsification of your prediction and the ensuing abandonment of your ideas.
Well, I would immediately abandon my theory if my prediction comes out wrong [and not trying to ‘investigate’ where the data or Sun have gone wrong]. However the Sun is well on track for my low prediction…
vukcevic says:
May 9, 2010 at 3:01 pm
Green looks pretty good to me, far better then anything Svalgaard, Hathaway & co. can come up with.
In my previous post your sloppiness was contagious and I wrongly stated that there would be a varying phase shift. This is not the case, the difference between 2pi/3 and pi/3 is a slight amplitude modulation and only a phase problem for a minor part of the curve. I think that in all your 2pi/3 to pi/3 machinations you got the sunspot curve offset wrong. It should also be pi/3 [then you have one less free parameter] and then you should do the phase difference between SSN and PF on the time offset 194x.x. Anyway, taking your SSN formula [removing the spurious sign reversal in 1921], your SSN curve [shifted earlier as precursor] and PF curve match very well http://www.leif.org/research/Vuk-polar-fields-10.png . In fact, SSN = 0.6444 PF [or DM as I call it]. This is the Svalgaard/Cliver/Kamide relationship you say is so bad. From our paper http://www.leif.org/research/Cycle%2024%20Smallest%20100%20years.pdf :
“Assuming that Rmax = 0 when DM = 0, we fit a straight line through the origin to the two data points for cycle 22 and cycle 23: Rmax = 0.6286 DM (in mTesla) and compute Rmax from this regression line for cycles 22, 23 and 24″ This ‘fit’ is just for calibration and not for statistical testing, as a relationship is taken as given from theory [meaning, that if the theory is right, then this would be the calibration, which we cannot otherwise compute because the sunspot number is arbitrarily defined].
This is, of course, not a surprise, because the same data [cycles 22 and 23] go into both correlations [yours and ours]. It is not difficult to curve fit over a short interval. One can fit almost anything [US postage cost, e.g.]. The issue comes when the fit is used to forecast [or hindcast] outside of the domain where it is defined. That is where the physics comes in. Your fit fails completely on cycle 20, for example, and requires a sign reversal neat year 1900, which we know from geomagnetism did not happen.
Now, you can recover a bit from the wrong sign disaster, by saying: “OK forget about the sign and use only the absolute value” [as you once claimed one had to do to avoid negative sunspot numbers]. After all, in our paper we only use the magnitude and not the sign. That results in this correlation http://www.leif.org/research/Vuk-polar-fields-11.png with an R^2 below 0.6 [as I found for the differences correlation]. And then the correlation is not REALLY good by any measure.
Leif Svalgaard : May 9, 2010 at 9:17 pm
……….
Vuk-Gate, I like that, there is a ring to it. Notoriety or obscurity, hey no contest there. I should have checked the Hale cycle graph, it must have been an experiment, done and forgotten, sloppy again. It is removed now.
I am encouraged by your http://www.leif.org/research/Vuk-polar-fields-10.png and 7 year shift effect (phase 2pi/3, pi/3 ?), have to look into it.
Following the B-L theory everything is fine, until the sun hits SC1, 10 & 20. It has also well recognised problem with diffusion for the weak and strong cycles.
My formula follows pretty well the SS period, amplitude and longer term undulations, but fails at same time as the B-L (SC1,10 & 20), this may not be a coincidence.
Now let’s consider a compromise, as I speculate:
The standard solar theory is fine but it is not complete.
Lets assume that there is a external feedback as a part of the process.
External input (as per the formula) is building up to its peaks 1860 &1970 (~110year), the sun follows this build up (amplitude and period), however as the peak approaches there is a sudden collapse in the output; solar magnetic resources are depleted by the previous highs) (?!), the output fails to match. As the external peak passes there is a recovery (nudged by strong external input – BL fails here, vuk Ok). From there the sun can easily follow on the down and up slope again for the next ~100+ years.
You could say, B-L, does OK, it doesn’t need vukcevic. Not so, B-L is not good for recovery from 1800, 1900 lows either, relying on probability for the regular 100+ year recoveries is not convincing, that’s where vuk comes in (not to mention good amplitude and frequency agreement).
The weak external input around 1800’s 1910’s 2020’s (~110 year) explains why the low cycles linger for longer, since there is no strong external input to hurry the sun to the next cycle (the BL diffusion time problem is solved by vuk).
If so then SC20 is satisfactorily resolved, B-L is happy, vukcevic is happy and importantly Svalgaard ‘Rmax’ is happy. What a happy day, hip, hip hurray! Just a speculation (no mechanism available!).
I have to come back for more on http://www.leif.org/research/Vuk-polar-fields-10.png
Leif Svalgaard : May 9, 2010 at 9:17 pm
…..
To look at correlation for the rectified values may be wrong.
As I understand formula r = [sum(i =1 to n) of (xi-x mean)(yi-y mean)]/[(n-1)(dev x*dev y)]
since mean values and standard deviation are altered by rectification process.
Therefore one has to stick to signed values.
The unidirectional meridional flow analysis achieves polarity change. Gravity change and possible magnetic feedback from the magnetospheres also would be a positive only (unipolar) value functions, so Hale cycle could be explained in terms of the meridional flow.
Leif Svalgaard says:
May 9, 2010 at 6:33 pm
“Are they Northern Hemisphere winters? The Southern not being forced, or does it work on summers down under?”
I refer you to:
Ulric Lyons says:
May 7, 2010 at 3:03 am
Leif Svalgaard says:
May 9, 2010 at 7:41 pm
After you have examined my findings in detail, It will be apparent to you, as to why I have clearly no intention of abandoning Planetary Ordered Solar Theory, regarding short term Global temperature change, or the cause and nature of the Hale cycle. And good luck with your prediction!
vukcevic says:
May 10, 2010 at 4:32 am
Therefore one has to stick to signed values.
If so, you polar field formula is wrong, because its sign is wrong before 1900. You still did not respond to my request for your understanding of the 22-year cycle in geomagnetic activity and how one can infer the polarity from that. Ostrich science….
Polarity switch can be achieved by adding the third factor to the equation, but it isn’t such a good fit (SS undulation) and it is a bit messy.
Q.
A. I am still looking for my daughter’s old compass.
My Q: What about BL-Vuk hypothesis?
vukcevic says:
May 10, 2010 at 6:23 am
Polarity switch can be achieved by adding the third factor to the equation, but it isn’t such a good fit (SS undulation) and it is a bit messy.
So, you acknowledge that the polarity is wrong, but can be fixed by adding another wheel.
A. I am still looking for my daughter’s old compass.
Ostrich science. You don’t want to know. Now, there is no need to be afraid of this. It is not difficult to understand, even for engineers. Make a stab at it, and show you can reason or at least follow an argument chain. If not, well, perhaps that is not a surprise then.
My Q: What about BL-Vuk hypothesis?
Total nonsense. But, as you say, no mechanism implied, so no need to consider anything.
The return of Murphy`s winter, 1837/8, will be from late January/February 2017, earlier in January will be milder. {+179.05=112 Venus synodic periods}
Seriously folks, with the skills of Piers and myself, there is no need for the MetO.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/time-to-wrap-up-says-murphys-lore-forecasting-too-far-ahead-is-risky-but-bill-burroughs-finds-evidence-that-we-could-be-in-for-a-bleak-midwinter-1477864.html