NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) produced their monthly solar cycle progression update yesterday. The news is not encouraging. We’ve had a drop in solar activity again in December, The sunspot count is lower, but the really worrisome thing is the Ap geomagnetic index. The solar dynamo has now dropped to magnetic activity levels last seen in late 2009. Readers may recall this post from December 23rd: Solar Geomagnetic Ap Index Hits Zero which was a bit unusual this far into cycle 24.
Here’s the Ap Index from SWPC:
The Ap value of 3 was last seen in late 2009 and early 2010, which bracketed the lowest value seen in 10 years (on the SWPC graph) of Ap=2 in December 2009. It was also the lowest value in the record then. SWPC has since revised their data upwards from 1 to 2 for December 2009. Here’s what it looked like then:
And here is the story at that time:
The 10.7 centimeter radio flux is a bit more encouraging, but still rather anemic compared to where to where it should have been in the solar cycle.
Here’s the data: http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/ftpdir/weekly/RecentIndices.txt
The last major update to NOAA’s prediction came in May 2009 when they wrote:
May 8, 2009 — The Solar Cycle 24 Prediction Panel has reached a consensus decision on the prediction of the next solar cycle (Cycle 24). First, the panel has agreed that solar minimum occurred in December, 2008. This still qualifies as a prediction since the smoothed sunspot number is only valid through September, 2008. The panel has decided that the next solar cycle will be below average in intensity, with a maximum sunspot number of 90. Given the predicted date of solar minimum and the predicted maximum intensity, solar maximum is now expected to occur in May, 2013. Note, this is a consensus opinion, not a unanimous decision. A supermajority of the panel did agree to this prediction.
It seems to be time again for an update, since it seems likely that the “consensus prediction” has failed.
The Livingston and Penn data (from Dr. Leif Svalgaard) continues unabated and on track for sunspots to become invisible when the umbral magnetic field reaches ~1500 gauss.
Livingston and Penn paper: “Sunspots may vanish by 2015″.
But the rest of the world is now just getting around to realizing the significance of the work Livingston and Penn are doing related to sunspots. Science ran with a significant story: Say goodbye to sunspots
Here’s a prominent excerpt:
The last solar minimum should have ended last year, but something peculiar has been happening. Although solar minimums normally last about 16 months, the current one has stretched over 26 months—the longest in a century. One reason, according to a paper submitted to the International Astronomical Union Symposium No. 273, an online colloquium, is that the magnetic field strength of sunspots appears to be waning.
…
Scientists studying sunspots for the past 2 decades have concluded that the magnetic field that triggers their formation has been steadily declining. If the current trend continues, by 2016 the sun’s face may become spotless and remain that way for decades—a phenomenon that in the 17th century coincided with a prolonged period of cooling on Earth.
We live in interesting times.
onion says:
January 5, 2011 at 12:15 pm
“It’s the PDO” has also bolted as an explanation. Can anyone tell me what the skeptic argument will be if the world continues warming (I say ‘if’ but I am quite sure it will) despite a negative PDO and a deep solar minimum (well we’ve already had that any look at 2010 temperatures!)?
Do you mean the natural warming green or the man made warming red.
http://i446.photobucket.com/albums/qq187/bobclive/nEWzEALAND1900-2008.jpg
@Onion
The skeptic argument doesn’t lie directly with earth’s temperature so future rising temperatures, while surprising, won’t really change anything. The beef we have is with shoddy science pointing the blame at something that’s scientifically unlikely but politically desirable. If warming continues and someone can prove it’s man made using good science ™ then we’ll all become happy little consensus totting greenies too. If they can’t then we’re back to square 1, politicians getting rich off of bad science, skeptics one failed theory closer to truth.
What would I say if the world continues to warm?
Good – warmth is good.
Next stupid question.
New math:
source Al Gore
Humans = Infinity
I only started paying attention to the subject four years ago, but I seem to recall at that time the projections were calling for sunspot counts to max out above the level of the cycle 23 maximum, with a peak to peak cycle length less than the typical 11 years.
It would be instructive if someone could round up (or point to a collection of) the past projections for comparison.
Coaldust, I also do not like it that NOAA removes a month of the red line forecast each month, so there is a half-year gap between the moving average and what it was predicted to be.
They are Hiding the Incline. Another case of simply deleting inconvenient portions of a graph.
“The argument will be: “it’s little understood natural variability, not the trace gas CO2″.”
Who is going to really buy that though? You guys are quite clearly in the cooling prediction camp now. If the world instead warms over the next 2 decades that will be a massive successful prediction for AGW given how strongly advocating of cooling everyone here seems to be.
Already cooling is failing to happen. 2010 might have had an El Nino, but 1998 did too – and in fact that El Nino was stronger than the 2010 one. So why are UAH satellite temperatures for 1998 and 2010 tied?
Especially as 2010 is in a deep solar minimum and in a negative PDO. 1998 wasn’t in either of those conditions.
So what’s going on?
My suggestion is: Global warming is continuing. The PDO switch and solar minimum have merely slowed it down, not even been able to reverse it’s course. Now the sun and PDO can’t get any lower…expect imminent upward jump in global temperature. By the end of this La Nina I expect we’ll be clearly higher than previous ENSO neutral periods.
Robuk says:
January 5, 2011 at 1:00 pm
http://i446.photobucket.com/albums/qq187/bobclive/Scheinerscope2.jpg
But not this,
http://i446.photobucket.com/albums/qq187/bobclive/Wolf-Telescope.png
You still have not learnt that the telescope does not matter, as scientists correct for any differences and that atmospheric turbulence [“seeing”] sets the limit, no matter how good the telescope.
@Mike Haseler:
I’m sure it won’t be long before we see: “man-made sunspot decrease!”
Typical denier, to refuse to accept the perfectly valid and proven ASS (Anthropogenic Solar Slump) theory. ASS models demonstrate that the recent increase in human electromagnetic activity is causing changes to the sun’s electromagnetic field. Although it may resemble similar changes observed in the past, we know without doubt that it’s different this time, since humans are producing radio waves – something that’s never happened in the past.
The only way to prevent catastrophic ASS is by immediately enacting legislation to curtail electromagnetic emissions – ESPECIALLY during the day, when they can reach the sun. We’re going to have to cut out radio and television broadcasting (except for NPR, since they broadcast on a frequency that doesn’t have any effect), cell phones, microwaves, etc., and start a definitive program for trading of RF Offsets. If we don’t act NOW, the Sun is going to go totally dark within as little as 20 billion years!
Here we are!…in the middle of “interesting times”, and it was all forecasted here in WUWT.
At the brink of an Apocalypse (Greek: Ἀποκάλυψις Apokálypsis; “lifting of the veil” or “revelation”)….
Then we are witnessing the “lifting” of many “veils”, the “revelation” of knowledge, as we see in this same post and commentaries.
NASA now predicts 59 to be the maximum sunspot count, lower than the 64 Ira reported last month here at WUWT. Ira also predicted a lower sunspot prediction, maybe a post-Christmas discount, and Ira was correct.
http://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/predict.shtml
onion says:
January 5, 2011 at 12:15 pm
LOL! Onions makes crying
Curiousgeorge says:
January 5, 2011 at 12:50 pm
Who’s been monkeying around with the Galactic Dimmer Switch? 😉
~
Wasn’t me, I wasn’t the only one in the department at the time. (but usually make a good scapegoat) not laughing.
Heh.
Consensus is a tool for ordering pizza, not devising predictions with important policy effects.
Andrew,
"The sunspot count is lower, but the really worrisome thing is the Ap geomagnetic index. The solar dynamo has now dropped to magnetic activity levels last seen in late 2009. "
Your juxtapositioning of ‘Ap geomagnetic index’ and ‘solar dynamo’ is very misleading, implying that Ap is a measure of solar magnetism.
The Ap index is _not_ a measure of the solar magnetic field. It is a _planetary_ measure of disturbances in the Earth’s magnetic field (along with its logarithmic cousin, Kp, the planetary K index)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K-index
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A-index
Yes, these indices are affected by solar activity, but only via the solar wind, a stream of charged particles from the Sun, which create counter currents which induce changes in geomagnetism.
Furthermore, it is not a measure of the magnetic field _strength_, rather it only measures _changes_ in the Earth’s magnetic field strength. Calling is a ‘solar geomagnetic index’ is a misnomer, because it is measured by magnetometers situated around the Earth, not by instruments measuring the solar magnetic activity.
So, “Ap=zero” does not mean the Earth’s magnetic field has vanished, merely that is “calm”, i.e. not changing. Higher numbers mean more disturbance, which are called “geomagnetic storms”.
Think of geomagnetic storms as magnetic “quakes”, analogous to earthquakes, except the magnetic field is trembling, not the ground. In this sense, the Ap/Kp indices are roughly analogous to the Richter scale used to measure the intensity of kinetic disturbances in the Earth’s crust.
onion says: January 5, 2011 at 12:15 pm
“It’s the PDO” has also bolted as an explanation. Can anyone tell me what the skeptic argument will be if the world continues warming (I say ‘if’ but I am quite sure it will) despite a negative PDO and a deep solar minimum (well we’ve already had that any look at 2010 temperatures!)?”
There are more oscillations than the PDO. I found out thanks to this site that there are more than half a dozen (what a load of reading over Christmas that was!). They interact, overlap, cancel and boost each other in patterns we don’t understand. It may be solar controlled or it could also be volcanic (both land and undersea).
We skeptics don’t know and we admit that we don’t know. We also have a silly thing about requiring a disprovable hypothesis. There is some real science being done and it is very fascinating to say the least.
We skeptics don’t look for the “next excuse”, we look for things that are wrong with theories. That is what we are supposed to do.
After what little SC24 has to say, the solar wind could just stop as it did for two days eleven years ago.
http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/1999/ast13dec99_1/
The earth would quickly become shrouded in clouds and a new ice would start. Could the solar wind vanish for thousands of years; wind speed too low to break through the sun’s gravity. What evidence do we have that this could not happen?
If they can’t tax CO2, then maybe they’ll tax sunlight instead.
“Already cooling is failing to happen. 2010 might have had an El Nino, but 1998 did too – and in fact that El Nino was stronger than the 2010 one. So why are UAH satellite temperatures for 1998 and 2010 tied?”
Typical lightweight Alarmist analysis. It’s not just strength that matters in calculating an annual average, it’s also duration!
1998 2010
Jan 0.58 0.64
Feb 0.76 0.61
Mar 0.53 0.66
Apr 0.76 0.5
May 0.65 0.54
Jun 0.57 0.44
Jul 0.52 0.49
Aug 0.52 0.51
Sep 0.45 0.6
Oct 0.41 0.43
Nov 0.19 0.38
Dec 0.27 0.18
“There has been no statistically significant ‘global warming’ in 20 years.”
Yes there has. That’s why I said the world is warming.
So far the heroes in all this Svensmark and David Archibald, go unrecognized what a travesty. I can verify that cloudiness and precipitation here in Queensland, Australia anyway is increasing quite dramatically the mixture of the La Nina effect plus cosmic rays with of course low pressure troughs. I am predicting that DA’s massive drop in temps forecasted a few months too early will now occur globally or is occurring now…. I notice Leif has not made any comments re cosmic rays or does he still hold on to his objections to it? Look at Oulu graph carefully.
Onion says at 1:16pm
“My suggestion is: Global warming is continuing. The PDO switch and solar minimum have merely slowed it down, not even been able to reverse it’s course. Now the sun and PDO can’t get any lower…expect imminent upward jump in global temperature. By the end of this La Nina I expect we’ll be clearly higher than previous ENSO neutral periods.”
_____________________________________________________________
The PDO switch and solar minimum have only just begun. They don’t need to get any lower, just to persist for the next 20-30 years or so.
If that happens and the Earth continues to warm, then the case for AGW becomes a lot stronger.
If, on the other hand, the Earth cools back to pre-1980 levels or worse, then it has to be acknowledged that most of the observed changes during the 20th. century can be explained by natural variability (which is what I believe.)
The problem, on both sides on the debate, is that everybody is too impatient.They want answers today to questions that will be more clearly resolved when we have better evidence tomorrow.
I expect by the end of La Nina that I will win the Power Ball Lotto.
If not I will be in decline.
My curve data set.
crosspatch says:
January 5, 2011 at 12:58 pm
“I don’t believe anyone shows any warming since 1998. The word “continues” is misleading in this context as it would imply that we are experiencing warming. We aren’t.”
10 years is too short to measure any trend. Has there been a statistically significant lack of warming? Nope. The period is too short.
“Yes, there certainly was warming between 1976 and 1998, but I don’t have any evidence of any warming since that time.”
But there wasn’t any statistically significant warming between 1980 and 1995, so how can that be true?
The answer: 15 years, let alone 10 years is not enough time to conclude warming has stopped. So what we have is the current situation of warming in recent decades with no evidence that trend has stopped.
Andy Newport says:
January 5, 2011 at 1:09 pm
“The skeptic argument doesn’t lie directly with earth’s temperature so future rising temperatures, while surprising, won’t really change anything.”
Well it does. Sites like icecap.us and iceagenow.com only reinforce that skeptics have put their marker on the Earth cooling. There are plenty of advocates for ice ages and that global warming has peaked in 1998 and is now heading down. For good reason – all the natural factors are trending downward (ocean cycles, the sun). But if the Earth does continue warming what is left to explain it?
On one hand there is a good theory – manmade global warming – that expects such a thing. On the otherhand we have…nothing left. With PDO, solar cycle, etc all gone down the tube there really isn’t any fathomable explanation for why the Earth would continue warming. Not to mention the havoc another 0.3C warming will do for promoting an unprecedented level of modern warming vs the MWP.
I would say climate skepticism is quite firmly dependent on warming continuing no more.