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
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E Philipp says:
May 16, 2010 at 1:02 pm
“I am interested in the possible compounding effects of increased volcanic activity like is predicted for Iceland.”
Volcanic eruptions occur at an uplift in temperature, especially after a cold spell. Pinatubo for example started early eruptions in March 1991 at a strong temperature uplift, then the major eruption on June 12th also was on a strong uplift. See temp`s in these different locations to appreciate a solar driven simultaneous rise:
http://www.tutiempo.net/en/Climate/Tombouctou/06-1991/612230.htm
http://www.tutiempo.net/en/Climate/LUZERN/06-1991/66500.htm
http://www.tutiempo.net/en/Climate/Odiham/06-1991/37610.htm
http://www.tutiempo.net/en/Climate/Northolt/06-1991/36720.htm
http://www.tutiempo.net/en/Climate/MANILA/06-1991/984250.htm
Signs of cooling after Pinatubo could be partly anthropogic:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6V6N-488Y5H4-8J&_user=10&_coverDate=12%2F31%2F1993&_rdoc=1&_fmt=high&_orig=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_searchStrId=1337101716&_rerunOrigin=google&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=e09e4d08f6e12bba3ed70f2b67a5ff59
Changes in solar forced temperature are far larger than those possible by volcanic forcing, for example the winters of 1814 and 1815, both followed by strong volcanic eruptions. My own studies on 1816 show that April and August should have been slightly warmer, but most of the summer very cool.
E Philipp says:
May 16, 2010 at 1:02 pm
“Were there compounding factors like these in the great minimums?”
Yes, volcanic activity approx. 5 times the average of the past century.
Numerous volcanic eruptions took place a.o.:
1580 Billy Mitchel Volcano
1600: Eruption of Huaynaputina volcano (Peru) caused the most severe short-term cooling event of the past 600 years in the northern hemisphere.
1641 Mount Parker
1660 Long Island (Papua New Guinea)
1785 Laki Eruption
1816 Tambora eruption during the Dalton Minimum
According to Joseph D’Aleo http://www.icecap.us our recent NH winters also have a volcanic link due to the recent Kamchatka eruptions a.o Sarychev Peak Volcano and Mt. Redoubt Alaska.
Ulric Lyons
May 16, 2010 at 10:28 am
Are you saying that laymen like me are dopes?
berniel says:
May 15, 2010 at 8:52 pm
Berniel, you used 273 words to complain about the brevity of my post, which used 201 words. That is quite amusing, and thankyou. Dr Svalgaard has had the opportunity to explain why he provides a daily update of the dissimilarity between the Solar Cycle 19 ramp up and the Solar Cycle 24 one, but has chosen not to do so. For what it is worth, my own theory as to why he does that is because Dr Svalgaard believes that changing solar activity does not affect the Earth’s climate, and he is trying to show that Solar Cycle 24 could be a biggy, just as Solar Cycle 19 was.
The significance of the post is that the groundstate of solar activity has barely moved off what it was at minimum. In fact the F10.7 flux is down to the levels of previous solar minima back to the early 1950s.
Our ability to predit solar activity will improve dramatically when a gentleman from the lower 48 gets his paper published. All the existing solar activity models will then be quickly forgotten.
Leif. f10.7 is a better indicator of what?
It can’t be Solar activity because SSN is Solar activity! Obviously not the only Solar activity but they have diverged.
I ask this knowing that not even you have all the answers.
DaveE.
E Philipp says:
May 16, 2010 at 1:02 pm
“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?”
_________________________________________________________________________
AHHhhh yes – Another controversy. Some think there are solar/magnetic/volcano /earthquake correlations, others do not (Dr Leif)
http://sc25.com/index.php?id=171
“Piers Corbyn, astrophysicist of WeatherAction.com long range weather & climate forecasters today announced important findings connecting solar-lunar effects on earthquakes and volcanoes and warned that the major solar explosion (Coronal Mass Ejection) of 13th April will increase risk of: more earthquakes, renewed eruption of Iceland’s volcano & extreme weather events world-wide as it hits Earth in his predicted Solar-Lunar Impact periods 18-24 April.”
Changes in the Earth’s Magnetic Field
http://news.softpedia.com/news/Planet-039-s-Magnetic-Field-Varies-Much-Faster-Than-Expected-88963.shtml
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/pf/76158139.html
“…..The decline in the magnetic field also is opening Earth’s upper atmosphere to intense charged particle radiation, scientists say.
Satellite data show the geomagnetic field decreasing in the South Atlantic region, Mandea said, adding that an oval-shaped area east of Brazil is significantly weaker than similar latitudes in other parts of the world.
“It is in this region that the shielding effect of the magnetic field is severely reduced, thus allowing high energy particles of the hard radiation belt to penetrate deep into the upper atmosphere to altitudes below a hundred kilometers (62 miles),” Mandea said.”
We live in “interesting times”
mikael pihlström says:
May 16, 2010 at 2:23 pm
Sorry you missed my point, let me spell it out in no uncertain terms:
I want this question answered, as it is directly related to current events.
We ARE in a protracted minimum, and Henrik Svensmark has a theory with some testing behind it.
The Physics are needed. How much, by what mechanism and what’s the relevant contribution?
The computer models are monopolzied by the incumbents, so there’s no dissenting opinion, no review.
I repeat: I want this question answered.
Gail Combs says:
May 16, 2010 at 4:03 pm
AHHhhh yes – Another controversy. Some think there are solar/magnetic/volcano /earthquake correlations, others do not (Dr Leif)
I don’t qualify to investigate the messy details of the mechanism, but:
http://www.robertb.darkhorizons.org/SSNvsVOL.JPG
for the past 200 years, the frequency and magnitude of volcanic activity increases at time of solar minimum. There is also a background level of activity that is pretty much constant. It’s the larger eruptions that follow the solar minimum, preferring the rising and falling edges of the same. And there are exceptions.
Make of the graph whatever you like. Make a better one. I just did it because nobody else had.
DesertYote says:
May 16, 2010 at 3:24 pm
“Are you saying that laymen like me are dopes?”
Not at all, it’s all too common for an onlooker to spot something all the experts are missing.
rbateman says:
May 16, 2010 at 4:19 pm
Try look at monthly temperatures leading up to each event, CET will do;
http://www.volcano.si.edu/world/largeeruptions.cfm
its very striking.
Just a thought here but since it seems to have been mentioned about SSN number bias I will put in my two cents. I personnaly dont see how it could be biased. A person can only draw what they see, how or why in the world would someone draw spots they dont see? Also there are several different observatories drawing these plots. Granted some have better eyesight and may see more and the better the telescope the more spots you can see, but that is taken into consideration. But to get to my original idea which is if there is a divergence that can be defined could it be the increase in water vapor in the atmosphere degrading the visual white light projection.
There is correlative information aplenty out there, but the system is too complex, with uncertain lag times, before the effect of a cause may be known, and a correlation be proven.
Anything is possible, but some causalities may be unknowable, call them hidden.
I have often thought of the crust of the earth’s mantle. The solid part on the very surface is very thin compared to the radius of the earth. I did a rough calculation, and it is an order of magnitude or two thinner than the ratio of an egg shell to an egg’s radius, depending on where you think mantle fluidity ends and hard crust begins.
At the solar maximum, the increased insolation, be it UV or IR or a pulsatile event by CME, flare or protons, or whatever, heats the top of the mantle. The core is unchallenged by this transient sinusoidal peak. The crust expands and opens the fault lines, leading to vulcanism. The delay is seen as a lag of a few years, so it seems to occur during a minimum. Even though the change in total insolation is small, the crust is so thin that it is affected by the differential among solar maxima and minima.
Inflate a balloon. Spray it with a sugar coating (if you could get it to stick). Let it dry to form a crème brulée balloon. Now inflate one puff more. What will happen? Fault lines.
Let’s suppose the opposite. Cooling can cause the mantle to shrink slightly, causing faults to close faster, leading to seismic events. In any of the two cases, flexing causes heat, localized in the upper mantle.
See what I mean? I just made up a plausible scenario that is probably untestable. Therefore not in the realm of science. How could we possibly measure a meter change in the earth’s diameter over 11 years? (22 years if you count the whole sine curve). That is all it would take for the circumference to grow by 2πr. Divide all the weak places (faults) in the circumference, let’s say 6 fault lines are affected? That is a meter more “spread” than normal over the 22 year cycle of expansion and contraction.
Many thanks to Gail Combs and Ralph for filling in some of the much-needed detail for a bozo like me. I now know that I’m not stupid, but that the discussion was at a level at which only those already versed in the matter could readily understand. I’d say I have now understood around 60% of the post. For those who, like me, weren’t acquainted with the meaning of “F10.7”, wiki says:
“Emission from the Sun at centimetric (radio) wavelength is due primarily to coronal plasma trapped in the magnetic fields overlying active regions.[15] The F10.7 index is a measure of the solar radio flux per unit frequency at a wavelength of 10.7 cm, near the peak of the observed solar radio emission. It represents a measure of diffuse, nonradiative heating of the coronal plasma trapped by magnetic fields over active regions, and is an excellent indicator of overall solar activity levels. The solar F10.7 cm record extends back to 1947, and is the longest direct record of solar activity available, other than sunspot-related quantities.”
I was able to look this up because I realised from the replies that “F10.7” was a measure of something. My brain was skipping over it, seeing it as a reference to a figure somewhere.
bubbagyro says:
May 16, 2010 at 2:34 pm
We must try to replicate the old methods rather than throw them away. I favor the Landscheidt method for doing this.
I would love to see comments from Profs. Svalgaard and Landscheidt, et.al.
To clarify a couple of points, there is no “Landscheidt method” of counting spots. You are probably confusing the “Layman’s Sunspot Count” on the “Beyond Landscheidt” website, this counting method was developed by Geoff Sharp and Robert Bateman.
You are unlikely to see comments from Geoff Sharp (Landscheidt, et al) as he was banned from WUWT some time ago.
ani says:
May 16, 2010 at 4:42 pm
The SSN gets biased when using superior optics, or CCD Cameras to do the observing. Even in his day, Wolf cautioned against counting the really small spots. That’s a total of 3 levels of bias. Wolf would have preferred measuring area of spots, not counting them.
Much of this bias is done away with by measuring the areas of sunspots, which was began by Greenwich in 1876 and continued to 1976. After Greenwich, USAF picked up the system in a dumbed-down manner, to the nearest 10E6 (millionths of Sun’s surface area). Debrecen Observatory in Hungary is currently picking up the slack, going back to 1980.
see http://fenyi.sci.klte.hu/DPD/index.html
SWPC/NOAA SSN has done a very poor job lately, I am sorry to say, though SIDC has done it’s best to portral the last run of mini-spots in a reasonable manner.
jinki says:
May 16, 2010 at 8:26 pm
I must have missed Geoff getting banned. It was his idea of measuring, I just helped a bit with working out the details and correlating size/contrast with what Wolf would have seen in his telescope. Leif helped a LOT with formulas.
I’d much rather talk of Sunspot Activity in Area than in count#’s.
Ralph:
On the second graph, why are all the latest decade results on the right side of the plots? – So you apparently need more flux per Sunspot this decade…
Leif:
That is the whole point: there are too few spots compared to the flux.
So magnetic flux is NOT a good proxy for Sunspots! In regard to the Maunder and Dalton minimums, I thought you were arguing the opposite.
.
rbateman: May 16, 2010 at 4:19 pm
“….It’s the larger eruptions that follow the solar minimum, preferring the rising and falling edges of the same. And there are exceptions….”
http://www.robertb.darkhorizons.org/SSNvsVOL.JPG
Hi Bob
That is very useful chart. It would be appreciated if you could post a note for the colour coding. Thanks.
Credit to Geoff and yourself for the work on the LSsC (Layman’s Sunspot Count)
Dalton Maunder ha this is the begining of the end of the holocene.
Dig deep into your gene pool and you might find a way through but dont expect quantitive easing to help out here.
rbateman: May 16, 2010 at 9:19 pm
….Wolf would have preferred measuring area of spots, not counting them. ….
Agree. It also allows good assessment of the hemispherical asymmetry ( N – S )
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/NFC2.htm
David Archibald says:
May 16, 2010 at 3:35 pm
…Dr Svalgaard believes that changing solar activity does not affect the Earth’s climate, and he is trying to show that Solar Cycle 24 could be a biggy, just as Solar Cycle 19 was.
This is just nonsense. LS has predicted a small Solar Cycle 24.
http://www.leif.org/research/Prediction24thCycle.pdf
History shows that larger solar storms occur after long quiet minimums. Peter Taylor has mentioned mid August to me, I am more concerned about late September to early November, which is a critical time of year as well, being near an equinox (more solar storms around equinoxes).
Ulric Lyons says:
May 16, 2010 at 10:19 am
“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.”
At WUWT, at least one doesn’t require their papers to be “reviewed” before they cross the boundary…
As a ‘layman’ and long time blogger, I want to weigh in one the discussions here sometimes assuming a certain level of knowledge.
Personally I am not a fan of carrying the discussion at a level for the lowest expected visitor’s level of understanding. I think that the all-star cast here have a lot going on, and would rather get to the crux of the biscuit so to speak. This would be a long article if it required sub discussions to define F1.7, geomagnetic flux principals, Svensmark’s work, on and on. Eventually both the experts and the audience would water off, as frequently would the point of the discussion.
I also find it quite stimulating intellectually. If don’t know what the F1.7 is, I go and look it up. This interwebby thing is pretty good for that. Most people of my caste don’t know what Melankovitch cycles are, about the Younger Dryas, PDO & ENSO, or what TSI is. I do and I like that. I am very thankful for our host and experts that helped that along.
Also impressive is the really well educated jury of commentators, many of who’s blogs have also been very educational, and the very civil level of discourse. Thank you to all.
Ref – Noel says:
May 17, 2010 at 1:49 am
“Dalton Maunder ha this is the begining of the end of the holocene. Dig deep into your gene pool and you might find a way through but dont expect quantitive easing to help out here.”
____________________
The end of an interglacial is a long slide. It’s the end of a glacial that knocks your socks off.
Scratch a “human” and you’ll find an ice age caveman.
PS: Problem is, there ain’t enough caves on this here planet for 6.8 billion cavemen. About 6 billion are going to have to do that Japanese thing with a knife (or the Arab thing with a sword) (or the Hollywood thing with pills) (or the Wall Street thing with a window) (or the Chinese thing with baby girls). Know what I mean? People really are like cavemen; they sure are. You know what they complain about when the cave gets too many occupants? ACW – Anthroprogenic Cave Warming. (It stinks too.)