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?
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.