Guest post by David Archibald
The prognostications based on spotless days are now a distant memory. From here, given that the green corona brightness indicates that solar maximum will in 2015, the big unknown is what the maximum amplitude will be. We are now eighteen months into a six year rise to solar maximum. What is interesting is that in the last few days, the F10.7 flux has fallen to values last seen in late 2009:
The red line is a possible uptrend based on the data to date. That uptrend would result in a maximum F10.7 amplitude in 2015 of about 105. Using the relationship between F10.7 flux and sunspot number, that in turn means a maximum amplitude in terms of sunspot number of 50 – a Dalton Minimum-like result. Dr Svalgaard has kindly provided a graphic of the relationship between sunspot number and F10.7 flux:
Dr Svalgaard has also done the work to show that Solar Cycle 24 is looking less and less like Solar Cycle 19:
The red line is the Solar Cycle 18 to 19 minimum, and the blue is the Solar Cycle 23 to 24 minimum. Dr Svalgaard updates this graphic daily at: http://www.leif.org/research/F107%20at%20Minima%201954%20and%202008.png
Leif Svalgaard says:
May 16, 2010 at 7:37 am
rbateman says:
May 15, 2010 at 10:08 pm
How does the ARC differ from group count?
Not in essence. I simply count regions that have a NOAA number, and let NOAA worry about the details.
If it were me, Leif, I’d be looking to data (like Bill Livingston is taking eg.) to weight those Active Regions. Otherwise, they too can be polluted by flyspecks.
Gail Combs says:
May 16, 2010 at 6:52 am
You will also notice once a cycle gets going it ramps up fairly quickly. and that does not seem to be happening yet.
Thus the topic heading: Dude, where’s my Solar ramp-up?
It rolled back down, which is consistent SC24 behavior: Always pulling up lame.
Reminds me of a car I used to own (or maybe it owned me).
Dear dr Svalgaard !
About your F10.7- SSN graph above, is the discrepancy between 1951-1990 and 1996-2009 points connected with contrast (Livingston & Penn) of sunspots?
And, perhaps there is relation between SSN and IR contrast?
vukcevic says:May 16, 2010 at 12:15 am
Perhaps its time to take a serious look at the alternatives.
Dr. Svalgaard: “If correlation is really good, one can live with an as yet undiscovered mechanism.”
Leif Svalgaard : May 16, 2010 at 7:37 am
“Except that your correlations are poor, so are disqualified simply on that.”
Not so, not so, until we see the SC24 out.
Dr. Svalgaard: “If it is a good correlation, then it should survive the ‘difference test’.”
Apparently it does !
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/LFC25.htm
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/LFC24.htm
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/LFC-CETfiles.htm
Leif Svalgaard says:
May 16, 2010 at 7:42 am
I’m off the the Keystone Meeting http://lasp.colorado.edu/sorce/news/2010ScienceMeeting/
***********************************************************
Planetary Ordered Solar Theory on the agenda then?, they won`t get far without it.
I do hope some of these guys get round to talking about the solar wind instead of continually talking about every thing else.
Leif Svalgaard says:May 15, 2010 at 5:13 pm
What my F10.7/SSN graph shows is that the SSN may not be a good proxy any longer. F10.7 is better, and the prediction is for F10.7max = 120. The SSNmax can be anywhere between 0 and 72. The SSN may not be meaningful if Livingston and Penn are correct. So correlations involving the SSN may be void.
and:
EUV output is strongly effected by sunspots.
As is F10.7. The issue is whether the SSN is ‘correct’ and my argument is that it is not.
and:
The bias is towards too LOW a SSN. We do not think there is a real change in solar activity and F10.7 relationship.
Appropriately timed conference. I was born and raised in CO. Beautiful area you’re going to. I’m sure this trip will be an exhausting effort.
This luxury hotel offers exceptional accommodations, elegant alpine style décor, and friendly service. The Lodge is at the edge of Keystone Lake, a popular spot for summer and winter activity. The property features a wonderful spa and fitness center, WIFI in all guest rooms and public space, and many other nice amenities you won’t want to miss.
As my daughter currently lives in Denver and keeps us informed, I suggest you dress warmly. It snowed last week down to elev. 7,000. It’s that damn global warming. :<O Seriously, I wish I could go to hear your backroom discussions regarding the questions posed by the teasers in the program:
Relative to the past three solar minimum epochs of the space era (1976, 1986, and 1996) the current solar minimum (2008-2009) between solar cycles 23 and 24 is unusually prolonged, with record numbers of sunspot-free days, record low solar polar magnetic fields, and record high levels of cosmic ray flux. Evidence is accumulating for broad ranging terrestrial responses to the current inactivity of the Sun.
The lack of global warming since 2002 can be attributed in part to declining solar irradiance, which, together with La Niña cooling, has cancelled much of recent anthropogenic warming. Reduced solar UV irradiance and corresponding lower ozone levels may be obscuring the recovery from anthropogenic ozone depletion by CFCs. In the upper atmosphere and ionosphere, temperatures are anomalously cool and densities are reduced relative to previous solar minima; but these changes may also be related to accumulated greenhouse gas cooling in the upper atmosphere.
Key questions to be addressed include:
Are spectral and total solar irradiance levels lower now than during past minima, and how much will they increase during solar cycle 24?
Are we entering a new prolonged period of anomalously low activity such as the Dalton Minimum in the early 1800s?
Can we identity anomalous behavior in the solar dynamo and surface flux transport during the current minimum?
How are heliospheric changes altering incident cosmic ray fluxes and the Earth’s near-space environment?
Can we reliably discern the terrestrial signatures of the current solar inactivity – at the surface, in the stratosphere and in space weather?
What does understanding of the present (in the context of the past) infer for the future variability of Earth’s environment?
Perhaps you would be so kind as to exercise an open mind, take good notes, drink with moderation (altitude affects inebriation, defined as “to make somebody excited or exhilarated”) and provide a guest thread upon your return?
Despite the consequences, enjoy yourself!
>>>Ref – Michael Larkin says: May 16, 2010 at 5:54 am
>>“It’s most peculiar. Articles are usually presented in reasonably
>>understandable terms, and what with those and the comments, I
>>can often get 80% or more of their meaning. With this article, I
>>haven’t a clue what it means.”
“Tis a bit obscure, I must admit. Here is my interpretation:
a. Based upon the work of Landscheidt, et al, many people believe that Earth climate is directly related to Sunspot activity.
b. Sunspot activity is directly proportional to geomagnetic flux as presented in these graphs (I presume Archibald is using geomagnetic rather than direct solar flux.)
c. Landscheidt, et al, predicted solar minimums (low sunspot activity) based upon the Sun swinging around the center of the solar system (swung by the planets) – with solar minima supposedly occurring when the Sun was nearest the center of the solar system. http://www.landscheidt.info/?q=node
d. The Landscheidt forecast was for a low Sunspot activity for cycle 24.
e. The small rise and recent fall of geomagnetic flux in these graphs (above) are possible indicators that cycle 24 will indeed be a diminutive cycle (low sunspot numbers).
f. Some might take this as evidence that the various “orbit’ of the Sun vs Sunspot numbers” predictions are correct.
g. This same faction would also point to the Maunder minima also being coincident with the Sun being close to the center of the solar system (low angular momentum), and so we are in a similar scenario to the mid to late 1600s – the Maunder era.
h. The Maunder era was COLD.
i. Make of this what you will.
j. Leif will no agree, of course.
.
I sense I should have added;
and provide a guest thread upon your return…….. including discussion of contrarian viewpoints to your convictions?
kim says:
May 16, 2010 at 5:53 am
Winkin’ and Blinkin’
The Gods are testing us all.
Cheshire Irises.
http://i599.photobucket.com/albums/tt74/MartinGAtkins/1book30.jpg
Yup. This discussion is a good example of a thought-provoking porous boundary between expert and layman (or experts in other areas). Thanks again, Anthony, for this site. And thanks to the many contributors. I personally had to do some deep digging.
” The SSN may not be meaningful if Livingston and Penn are correct.”
Do tell.
RockyRoad says:
May 16, 2010 at 9:26 am
“Yup. This discussion is a good example of a thought-provoking porous boundary between expert and layman (or experts in other areas).”
Could be a semipermeable membrane, could be a diode.
Yes, Ulric… the flow of information was indeed lopsidded.
To solar newcomers, sorry for all the in-house chat, we’ve been at this for a while!
This is a very interesting colloquium presentation to CERN in Europe, given by Dr. Jasper Kirkby, regarding possible relationships between sunspots, solar activity and climate. I recommend it highly:
http://cdsweb.cern.ch/record/1181073/
This is his abstract for his colloquium presentation, “Cosmic Rays and Climate”:
“The current understanding of climate change in the industrial age is that it is predominantly caused by anthropogenic greenhouse gases, with relatively small natural contributions due to solar irradiance and volcanoes. However, palaeoclimatic reconstructions show that the climate has frequently varied on 100-year time scales during the Holocene (last 10 kyr) by amounts comparable to the present warming – and yet the mechanism or mechanisms are not understood. Some of these reconstructions show clear associations with solar variability, which is recorded in the light radio-isotope archives that measure past variations of cosmic ray intensity.
However, despite the increasing evidence of its importance, solar-climate variability is likely to remain controversial until a physical mechanism is established. Estimated changes of solar irradiance on these time scales appear to be too small to account for the climate observations. This raises the question of whether cosmic rays may directly affect the climate, providing an effective indirect solar forcing mechanism. Indeed recent satellite observations – although disputed – suggest that cosmic rays may affect clouds.
This talk presents an overview of the palaeoclimatic evidence for solar/cosmic ray forcing of the climate, and reviews the possible physical mechanisms. These will be investigated in the CLOUD experiment which begins to take data at the CERN PS later this year.”
RockyRoad says:
May 16, 2010 at 10:24 am
“Yes, Ulric… the flow of information was indeed lopsidded.”
Ah a zener diode, that would expaim the “heat”.
CRS, Dr.P.H. says:
May 16, 2010 at 10:25 am
“This raises the question of whether cosmic rays may directly affect the climate, providing an effective indirect solar forcing mechanism.”
Cosmic rays are the inverse proxy of the forcing factor, the solar wind, which correlates so well to short term changes in surface temperature anomalies. The big factor with global climate averages and means, is what happens in the N.Hemisphere, particularly in Winter, as the Winter temperature range is much larger than Summer.
CRS, Dr.P.H. says:
May 16, 2010 at 10:25 am
This talk presents an overview of the palaeoclimatic evidence for solar/cosmic ray forcing of the climate, and reviews the possible physical mechanisms. These will be investigated in the CLOUD experiment which begins to take data at the CERN PS later this year.
Later this year? Oof! Send that man to the front of line, and step on it!!
http://www.warwickhughes.com/blog/?p=177 http://www.davidarchibald.info/papers/Archibald2009E&E.pdf ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Perhaps Dr. Svalgaard would like to acknowledge that Archibald may have been correct much earlier than he was. I do not respect the “Archibald is sloppy” comment. Especially since Svalgaard is coming to the same conclusions just now. Leif, you should have acknowlegded this.
berniel says:
May 15, 2010 at 8:52 pm
This is exactly what academia wants you to believe. That you are incapable of understanding anything that they come up with. This to perpetuate their livelihood. They can just as easliy be wrong as you or I. Don’t need a Phd to see through the thin veil. Transparency is what we want, it is NOT what they want.
Ironically, the publics lack of information is exactly what the proponents of AGW are taking advantage of. We should do the opposite. Explain the complexities in a manner that all can comprehend.
CRS, Dr.P.H. says:
May 16, 2010 at 10:25 am
(Dr. Jasper Kirkby)
“Indeed recent satellite observations – although disputed – suggest that cosmic rays may affect clouds. ”
It takes heat to create water vapour on Earth, that comes from the Sun. Low solar activity through colder climatic periods are dryer. Seasonally, its more complicated because of the temperature/precipitation relationship is the opposite from Summer to Winter. Either way, changes in solar activity determine the amount of water vapour present, how much it will rain (due to short term temperature changes), and when it will rain (highly predictable).
As a lay reader, my interests are practical. I understand the chilling potential of a Maunder/Dalton type minimum but I am interested in the possible compounding effects of increased volcanic activity like is predicted for Iceland. In addition to Katla, there are Grimsvotn, Hekla and Askja — all of which are bigger than Eyjafjallajokull and it sounds like any one of them could add serious ash cooling to the mix. It seems to me that the northern hemisphere could be in for a some nasty cold years. This in addition to the el niño/la niña deal. Were there compounding factors like these in the great minimums?
It is worth noting that in recent weeks, the Sun has had M class x-ray flares of a size that has not been seen for 4yrs, and the solar wind velocity reached its highest level since December 2007, early this May.
Is there any data anywhere as to how the thermal gradients within the atmosphere (both as to heights and temperatures) from surface to space vary in response to changes in the F10.7 Flux ?
rbateman says:
May 16, 2010 at 11:39 am
CRS, Dr.P.H. says:
May 16, 2010 at 10:25 am
“This talk presents an overview of the palaeoclimatic evidence for solar/cosmic ray forcing of the climate, and reviews the possible physical mechanisms. These will be investigated in the CLOUD experiment which begins to take data at the CERN PS later this year. ”
—–
It is a 9 Million € project, tax payers money I guess. So far it doesn’t seem
to produce the results needed to falsify GHG theory. Henrik Svensmark
is involved, the man who refuses to retract graphs on correlation sunspots
/warming even when the calculation errors have been pointed out to him.
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/
sun-sets-on-sceptics-case-against-climate-change-1839875.html
Since WUWT bloggers are very strict on these matter, I expect
indignation & protests? Personally I think it is good that CLOUD is
implemented.
Ric Werme says:
May 15, 2010 at 9:16 pm
I have two huge problems with Leif’s analyses of how Flux, but not SSN are germane:
1) If we give up SSN in favor of flux, then we give up all historic context.
2) Leif’s methods of refutation of historic counting do not use statistics properly.
For 1), the historic methods use projection and readout using primitive scopes, it is true. Yes, the results from different observers differ by as much as a factor of two. But this is perfectly fine and is typical for multiple measurements in any replication methodology. Statistics handles this when applied properly.[see 2)]. We must try to replicate the old methods rather than throw them away. I favor the Landscheidt method for doing this.
For 2) Leif in his PP presentations, shows how each observer is very different. This is not surprising, taking into appreciation the different telescopes and eyes of the beholder! However, the proper method for statistical evaluation is to take each point as a separate measurement at each time point when equivalent time points are available. You don’t recreate each curve and show which seem to be best to the mean! Correlation coefficients and t-tests notwithstanding! After each point is enetered, one should perform a mean and standard deviation of each sampling time, with each observer not identified or value-judged. The more observers you have, even though the total deviation of the worst observer is larger (i.e. we may get more “lousy” observers), the better the final number, and the lower the standard deviation from the mean! (within reason, of course – we cannot introduce someone who has cataracts, or frontal-lobe challenged, like Algore). SO we should take all the observers available that are serious scientists, no matter how many spots they see each time. (I’m seeing extra spots after reading Leif’s slide shows. Only joking! I value his work very highly) Then we may use all the old points for commensurate points, average them, and get an s.d.
Now, we have a decent basis to evaluate other methods that attempt to get a similar method, such as the minimum pixelation method of Landscheidt. We could even get new observers using old telescopes and use the ancient project-and-count method. Then we have another basis to evaluate new methods, by comparing to the old methods or the “new-old” method.
This way we do not throw out the old history. The old history is not perfect, but it is all we have. How else can we evaluate an historic observation, like skating on the Thames, or the robustness of the ancient Viking settlements in Greenland, or when vineyards ceased to be viable in England.
I am NOT saying that new flux, magnetic, wavelengths, proton flux, and all other solar variances methods cannot be evaluated going forward. But we may not ever have suitable grounds to evaluate the new method retrospectively. Which seems to be the whole point of Climatology, actually.
I would love to see comments from Profs. Svalgaard and Landscheidt, et.al.