Hey dude, where’s my solar ramp up?

Stephen Wilde says:
May 18, 2010 at 6:46 am
Now just reverse the sign so that an active sun cools the stratosphere with a quiet sun warming it and a great deal falls into place.
“[1] The coupling of the ionosphere to processes from below remains an elusive and difficult problem, as rapidly changing external drivers from above mask variations related to lower atmospheric sources. Here we use superposition of unique circumstances, current deep solar minimum and a record‐breaking stratospheric warming event, to gain new insights into causes of ionospheric perturbations. We show large (50–150%) persistent variations in the low‐latitude ionosphere (200–1000 km) that occur several days after a sudden warming event in the high‐latitude winter stratosphere (∼30 km). We rule out solar irradiance and geomagnetic activity as explanations of the observed variation. Using a general circulation model, we interpret these observations in terms of large changes in atmospheric tides from their nonlinear interaction with planetary waves that are strengthened during sudden warmings. We anticipate that further understanding of the coupling processes with planetary waves, accentuated during the stratospheric sudden warming events, has the potential of enabling the forecast of low‐latitude ionospheric weather up to several days in advance. Citation: Goncharenko, L. P., J. L. Chau, H.‐L. Liu, and A. J. Coster (2010), Unexpected connections between the stratosphere and ionosphere, Geophys. Res. Lett., 37, L10101, doi:10.1029/2010GL043125.”
might be of interest.

bubbagyro says:
May 18, 2010 at 8:21 am
Can someone who has raw data from the last 500 years of counting history take all of the diligent SSN counters and do a mean and sd for each cotemporal point?
Of course, people have done that already, but it is of no use as the various observers do not use the same instrument or technique. Assume that we have two observers, one with a very small telescope at a site [e.g. central London in the 17th century] with poor seeing and lots of pollution; the other with a huge telescope at a mountain top with perfect weather 300 days out of the year. These two observers will arrive at very different counts of the number of sunspots they see. Add to this, that one observer deliberately does not count small spots or specks and you have a difference in technique. Statistics will not help you here [furthermore the distributions are not normal and the SD is almost useless]. If the two observers overlap in time you can regress one against the other and ‘scale’ one observers count [provided the regression is decent] to the other ones. If they do not, you might find a third observer that overlaps part of the others, etc, building ‘bridges’ or chains all the way up to modern times. This is highly dubious as errors tend to accumulate along the way [or rather, you don’t know what they are]. The only way to do this unambiguously is to compare with other physical phenomena that depend on solar activity, but does not involve the subjective aspect of sunspot counting. Fortunately, there are such other records. Solar activity creates electric currents in the upper atmosphere of the Earth. These currents have a magnetic field which we can [and have since the 1720s] measure at the surface. Comparing the recorded SSN with the magnitude of these currents we can calibrate the SSN. Assume, for example, that a modern SSN count of 100 gives a deviation of 50 nT of the Earth’s magnetic field and a SSN of 200 gives a deviation of 80 nT [and others in between], then we can assume that if a deviation of 65 nT was measured in 1785 [say], that the SSN would have been about 150. If an observer reports a count for that year of 75, then we may assume that a factor of two should be applied to his counts to put them on the ‘modern’ scale. The various assumptions are justified a posteriori if the relationships for several observers are consistent [as they are]. Measurements of radioactive nuclei in ice cores and tree rings afford a similar check that allows us to assess the old historical records [albeit with less precision].
There are no statistics involved in this, nor should there be, as the different records are drawn form different [and unknown] distributions and are therefore not amenable to statistical discrimination. To see this take my example of the two non-overlapping observers and tell me in detail how statistics will help, using your many years of experience and applying your many patents and papers. Statistics cannot make up for data that isn’t there.

Ulric Lyons says:
May 19, 2010 at 4:24 am
Is there any radio flux data, and solar wind velocity data available for C17 ?
Leif Svalgaard says:
May 19, 2010 at 5:20 am
“On a daily basis, No.
On rotational, monthly, or yearly basis, Yes. I have reconstructed such data.”
So what was going with radio flux, and solar wind proxies from 1933 to 1938?, SSN was not so high for C17, but boy was it warm.

Leif Svalgaard says:
May 19, 2010 at 5:20 am
Carla says:
May 19, 2010 at 5:03 am
This is significant.
“Not at all. Coronal holes [with high solar wind speed] are formed when new activity leaves behind magnetic flux which is not disturbed by further eruption of spots. So this is quite normal, not unusual, not significant as something extraordinary.”
Which is why cycles with higher SSN have colder winters around maximum, and minimums with higher SSN have colder winters, clearly showing that solar wind velocity is what matters as regards surface temperatures, and that the SSN/temperature relationship is actually the opposite of what is widely acknowledged.
As for the recent uplift in solar wind velocity, we find it significant.

To Leif Svalgaard
I would like to suggest that the 10.7 Flux is a good proxy for Total Solar Output (TSO). I haven’t formed the correlations across the energy bands; but I am suggesting the possibility. I am going to assume that thermodynamics is still valid in “Climate Science”, and that high energy eventually becomes low energy (cosmic noise). We have not been able to determine all of the mechanisms and/or relationships, but I would strongly suggest that the Earth’s Climate is caught between TSO and “cosmic noise”.
I agree with you that the Flux is easy to use and less subject to interpretation.
We would have an excellent data point for LOW TSO: now.
My supposition is that there exists a ~400 year Solar cycle that looks like a “sawtooth” where the minimum was in ~1620 and rose to maximum(~linearly) in ~2000. Riding on the “sawtooth” are the 11 year and ~80 year and ~180 year cycles. My simple model had a crude match to Sunspot counts.
From the low TSO, the Climate is gradually warmed over the 400 period, and then the cycle repeats. This would put the 1930s, 300 years into the warming; and “now” 400 years into the warming.
I suspect that the ~400 year cycle is now at its low again. We will now go through decades of cooling.
Again, my suppositions are with poor data; oh, that the Sunspot record went back 4000 years.
Thanks

Ulric Lyons says:
May 19, 2010 at 10:00 am
where can I get the raw sunspot counts from the various individuals over the last few hundred years?

@Stephen Fisher Wilde says:
May 19, 2010 at 9:37 pm
“So your suggestion is that sunspots limit coronal holes which reduces solar wind velocity to result in a tendency for colder winters when there are more sunspots ?”
*Yes that would appear to be the rule, and it makes senese. The last 2 winters though have been low on spots, and low on wind speed from coronal holes, so are an exception to this.
“winter was not cold globally so that confuses me”
*Thats because it only occurs in one hemisphere. Remember last July how cold land temp`s were in the S.H.? and the N.H. land temp`s only dropped a little, but it rained massively all over the N.H. The range of winter temp`s possible, is far greater than summer temp`s. January/February 2010 has had an impact on temp`s everywhere, including ENSO, but obviously would be more severe in the N.H land. A weak polar vortex made it worse for some areas, but warmer for the Arctic, due to exchange of air. Oceans are going to take a month or so to show the rise and fall of the solar signal, they can`t respond as quick as land, so we saw ENSO high in July, after the June heat wave.
“propose that the quiet sun is involved in reducing and not increasing the energy flux to space.”
*Less heat in, less heat out.
“I am a little confused as to how you make it fit your scenario if all you are doing is switching from sunspots to solar wind as a primary warming influence.”
*Sunspot activity gives jets of elavated wind speed, but not as fast as from coronal holes, so its their ratio that is important.
“I think that is why you emphasise short term climate effects. The speed of solar wind changes is far faster than the ocean and albedo changes so I concede that you may be able to derive some short term predictive skill as regards short term weather. Although I am open minded on that issue I am unable to do that myself because I see chaotic variability at least equal to changes induced by solar effects in the short term.”
*Wel I managed to predict the El Nino by adding up the short term factors, seems like like Nature does the same, and all the bits we call weather, do actually add up to make what we refer to as climate. Its just that there are rise and lag times with the sea.