The Beauty of a Near Spotless Sun

Leif Svalgaard: As far as W&H are concerned, I [and most people having studied this carefully over last half century] find their argument compelling. but, hey, there are people out there that think to sun is hollow, that the Universe is 6000 years old, etc, so I guess your opinion might deviate as well from that following from W&P’s careful study..
Leif, unlike Creationists, my comments on W&H, and the possible variability of GCR flux in local interstallar space, are supported in the peer-reviewed literature, which I’ll demonstrate.
Firstly though, please note that the only issue I’ve taken with W&H’s study is that in their calculation of an upper bound for 1000 years ago, they appear to tacitly assume that local GCR LIS hasn’t varied, either by secular variations apparent in time spans of 1000 years, or shorter term perturbations, such as “short spikes probably due to a nearby supernova”, as you said, which actually contradicts this following contention of yours that local supernova activity has no effect on the LIS.
According to you :

The particles ejected by a supernova explosion are not GCRs [yet] because they move way to slowly.During millions of years some of these particles will encounter ‘magnetic mirrors’ [tangled magnetic fields] and some will be accelerated by that, each time a little bit more until the particles move almost at the speed of light. This takes time, so proximate supernovae does not add to the GCR flux that we can observe.

In fact, there seems to be evidence that supernovae can be sources of GCRs near or at the energy knee more or less by themselves. From Warren et al. 2005 (“Cosmic Ray Acceleration at the Forward Shock in Tycho’s Supernova Remnant: Evidence from Chandra X-ray Observations”) :

With the clear detection of non-thermal X-ray synchrotron emission from the rims of the remnant of SN 1006 by Koyama et al. (1995), it was established that the shocks in supernova remnants (SNRs) can accelerate cosmic ray electrons to TeV energies [100 TeV from Koyama et al.]. These energies are close to, but do not quite reach, the “knee” in the cosmic ray spectrum around 300 TeV.

So the top-end accelerated electron energies are below the knee by a factor of three or so. However, we’re really interested in the protons :

For the pressure in relativistic particles to be 50% of the ram pressure [in order to be consistent with observations], the energy density in protons must be >= 50 times the energy density in electrons. This is the most conservative estimate, using our lowest magnetic field value (33 μG) [from an estimated range of 33 to 436 μG] [..]

So the accelerated protons have at least 50 times the energy density of the electrons. Assuming a 1:1 ratio of protons and electrons (I don’t know the actual ratio), we can estimate top accelerated proton energies of 5 x 10^15 eV, which interestingly are more or less at the observed interstellar GCR knee, ~ 10^15 eV.
On Earth, the measured proton-electron ratio of GCRs is ~10 for 10 GeV and ~10^2 for 1 TeV” (Borisov 2009). I’m not sure if a figure is known for the LIS . What is the proton-electron ration of the matter being accelerated at the supernova? I haven’t been able to find this either.
Warren et al. conclude :

For years, astronomers have been estimating explosion energies, ages, and ambient densities for young SNRs based on the observed properties of the forward shock under the assumption of adiabatic dynamics (e.g., Sedov-Taylor, Truelove & McKee 1999). As we have shown here, the dynamics of the forward shock in Tycho are dominated by efficient cosmic ray acceleration. If Tycho is a typical case, then all these previous estimates are based on incorrect assumptions.

A prediction of this is an anisotropic signal from GCRs. You contend that the flux is completely isotropic (“we see no spatial variation [the flux is the same in all directions, expect for the effect[s] that are due to the processes in the solar system.”)
In fact, the prediction is fulfulled. There’s an observed anisotropy, small (~5%) at 10 GeV but becoming more significant once approaching TeV energies (Erlykin & Wolfendale 2006), which suggests that proximate supernovae affect local GCR flux – the higher energy GCRs provide evidence that the’ve arrived directly(ish) from the supernova rather than after galactic round trips. Lower energy particles are more affected by the the heliosphere and lose the directional signal of their origin.
There’s other research supporting the notion that local supernova have an effect on local GCR. From “Anisotropy and Corotation of Galactic Cosmic Rays”, (The Tibet AS Association, 2006) :

The anisotropy of Galactic cosmic rays (GCRs) may result from an uneven distribution of cosmic ray (CR) sources and the process of CR propagation in the Milky Way. CRs with energy below 10^15 eV are accelerated by diffusive magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) shocks (1–4) of supernova remnants (SNRs) and stellar winds.

And Erlykin & Wolfendale 2006 ( “The anisotropy of galactic cosmic rays as a product of stochastic supernova explosions”) :

We conclude that if the bulk of cosmic rays are produced in supernova explosions [which is the conservative hypothesis] the observed small and nearly energy independent amplitude of the anisotropy and its phase are to the large extent determined by the history of these explosions in the vicinity of the solar system, namely by the location and the age of the supernova remnants, within a few kpc, which give the highest contibution to the total intensity at the present epoch. [..] It is shown that the excessive cosmic ray flux from the Outer Galaxy can be due to the location of the Solar System at the inner edge of the Orion Arm which has the enhanced density and rate of supernova explosions.

Another possibility is that our solar system’s movement may have affected the LIS in the past 1000 years (Priscilla C. Frisch 2006, “Short-Term Variations In The Galactic Environment of the Sun”):

The galactic environment of the Sun varies over short timescales as the Sun and interstellar clouds travel through space. Small variations in the dynamics, ionization, density, and magnetic field strength in the interstellar medium (ISM) surrounding the Sun can lead to pronounced changes in the properties of the heliosphere.
..
We test several possibilities for the three-dimensional (3D) shape of the LIC, and conclude that the Sun entered the surrounding cloud sometime within the past 40,000 years, and possibly very recently, in the past ~1000 years.

I take it as a given that Solar Physics is not interested in the climate per se, any more than Astrophysics is interested in biology.
The plates are full.
Do I have that right?

What am I missing? That seems like a mechanism by which sunspots could modify climate. Or that whatever is modifying sunspots could modify earth’s climate.
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Leif Svalgaard: You use examples of GCRs with energies thousands of times larger than the usual GCRs we observe and fluxes millions of times less.
It sounds like you’ve accepted that supernovae with remnants can accelerate particles to CR energies. They will create a spectrum of energies, including cosmic rays at the lower, more ‘normal’ ranges.
This is no more about the GCR flux in the LIS [..]
You’ve somewhat missed the point here. That quotation from “Short-Term Variations In The Galactic Environment of the Sun” was to illustrate that there can be changes taking place in our local neighborhood on time-scales relevant to the discussion.
W&H [especially W] are old hands at this and know and have evaluated the relative importance of the various asymmetries [of the order of 5% in contrast to the claimed 200-300% claimed].
You’ve walked back your earlier assertion that there’s no directional variation. (The 200-300% doesn’t refer to anisotropic asymetries, by the way, but to CR flux changes due to changes in the heliosphere and local environment). The significance of the anisotropy is that it means that cosmic rays don’t have to take round-trips around the galaxy before reaching us. This fits well with the evidence that supernovae and their after-effects can accelerate particles to GCR energies.
If we assume for the sake of the argument that the dominant cause of variation of GCRs at Earth and thus 10Be [if we discount the significant variation with climate] is the variation of the galactic flux, then we can discount solar activity as a significant driver.
The’re evidence that cosmic ray flux may be dominated on multi-million year time-scales by the Earth’s oscillation in and out of the galactic plane (Shaviv and Veizer). I’m not aware of anyone making such a claim for shorter time-scales.

Well there is a music of the spheres with variations, about it. Whatever alters the sunspots could(Hi Leif) change the solar wind and hence the CR to the earth. That ‘whatever’ could(Heh) have fallen into an oscillation with the orbits of the other masses in the solar system, even from a trivial butterfly wing effect acting over immense time. Long term modulation from the plane of the galaxy and from alterations in intergalactic environment could(!) add further unpredictable alterations. There is short term alterations from local supernovae. There’s harmony and rhythm.
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