I missed this earlier this week from NASA, I got a bit distracted with other things.
Sixty two – that’s the new number from Hathaway on April 4th, have a look:
They write at NASA MSFC
Current prediction for the next sunspot cycle maximum gives a smoothed sunspot number maximum of about 62 in July of 2013. We are currently over two years into Cycle 24. The predicted size would make this the smallest sunspot cycle in nearly 200 years.
It’s quite a climbdown for Dr. Hathaway from his earlier predictions. Let’s give him credit for not trying to “hide the decline”.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Jan Janssens says:
April 10, 2011 at 1:14 am
http://users.telenet.be/j.janssens/Engzonnecyclus.html#Bendel
The v20-method predicts a maximum of 78+/-20.
Jan, there is good evidence that the Wolf sunspots number is too small before 1945. See http://www.leif.org/research/SIDC-Seminar-12Jan.pdf and http://www.leif.org/research/SIDC-Seminar-14Sept.pdf
Try to multiply all sunspot numbers before 1945 by 1.2 and repeat the analysis. Do the R-squares improve?
Janssens site linked above provides a very good insight into the projection methods that currently exist. The reason for keeping up-to-date forecasts is that for some fields (not climate, but space missions, communications etc) use the projections to calculate insurance risk, shielding requirements, fuel requirements, redundancy, etc. The people using the projections presumably realise that is is subject to revisions, and today would be keen to use an up-to-date projection.
Does anyone know if the same standard for SSN’s is used in comparison to records going centuries back? I’m wondering if their is inflation, somewhat like increased numbers of named storms in the Atlantic due to the advantage of satellites.
Point being, are there sun spots counted now that would have never been seen centuries past?
Puckster says:
April 10, 2011 at 2:27 am
Does anyone know if the same standard for SSN’s is used in comparison to records going centuries back?
http://www.leif.org/research/SOHO23.pdf
Leif Svalgaard says:
April 10, 2011 at 1:55 am
Try to multiply all sunspot numbers before 1945 by 1.2 and repeat the analysis. Do the R-squares improve?
In East Europe we use to multiply all achievements since 1945 and the West’s failures by 2. It produced ‘very agreeable’ R^2 correlation between the East’s achievements and the West’s failures.
What about L&P? Haven’t seen any updates lately?
littlepeaks says:
April 9, 2011 at 9:14 pm
According to spaceweather.com, the current sunspot number (not smoothed) for April 8 is 84. But they’re mostly itsy-bitsy sunspots.
If you want to look at the international sunspot numbers for
March 2011, see:
http://sidc.oma.be/products/ri_hemispheric/
When Dave Hathaway and others are talking about the charting of
sunspot numbers they’re referring to the monthly averages.
See Leif Svalgaard says @April 9, 2011 at 9:42 pm, above.
For a graphical comparison of the current cycle with the three previous
ones see:
http://www.solen.info/solar/cyclcomp.html
Vuk etc. says:
April 10, 2011 at 3:01 am
Leif Svalgaard says:
April 10, 2011 at 1:55 am
Try to multiply all sunspot numbers before 1945 by 1.2 and repeat the analysis. Do the R-squares improve?
In East Europe we use to multiply all achievements since 1945 and the West’s failures by 2. It produced ‘very agreeable’ R^2 correlation between the East’s achievements and the West’s failures.
At least Vuk has a sense of humor. This was funny, let alone that it matched my sentiment as I was reading. (“Sure, fudge enough, and the R^2 will improve.”)
Could it be this contributed to the southern Indian ocean cooling a bit?
http://www.letterdash.com/HenryP/marion-island-assessment-of-climate-change-in-the-southern-indian-ocean-due-to-the-increase-in-greenhouse-gases
Bruckner8 says:
April 10, 2011 at 3:36 am
“In East Europe we use to multiply all achievements since 1945 and the West’s failures by 2. It produced ‘very agreeable’ R^2 correlation between the East’s achievements and the West’s failures.”
At least Vuk has a sense of humor. This was funny, let alone that it matched my sentiment as I was reading. (“Sure, fudge enough, and the R^2 will improve.”)
But no sense of science (as we all know). Multiplying everything by 2 does not change the correlation nor R^2.
You gotta love a scientist who changes an opinion on the basis of evidence and reality. Admirable. I wish that more climate scientists did this – but it seems to not matter to them so much…..
LearDog says:
April 10, 2011 at 6:10 am
You gotta love a scientist who changes an opinion on the basis of evidence and reality.
It’s pretty hard to hide sunspots, compared to hiding a few disagreeable tree rings or thermometers.
The lowest 10.7 cm flux value is approximately 65 units. The highest value is about 280 units.
The present Sun’s output is 110 units therefore:
(110-65)/(280-65) = 20.9%
of the normal peak during a regular 11 year solar cycle (minimum at 2005 + 5.5 years = 2010.5). Now, of course, the Sun being a variable star has the length of the solar cycle vary. This level of energy input corresponds to a decrease in Earth temperature of about .08 degree C / 2.5 years (20% x 1.0 degree C/2.5 years).
The oceans are giving up their heat with a result of +0.6C down to -0.1C on the Earth’s Global temp. This will continue until the Sun becomes active. We are at the Global temperature equivalent to the 1970s. In 2.5 years, the Global temperature will be equivalent to the 1900s.
Leif Svalgaard says:
April 10, 2011 at 5:52 am
But no sense of science (as we all know). Multiplying everything by 2 does not change the correlation nor R^2.
Vuk said since 1945, implying to bring the correlation in line with one before 1945, in which case your remark is out of place.
Sorry, math error.
(20% x 0.1 degree C/2.5 years)= 0.08.
Hahahathaway is just a survivor!
Re:Leif Svalgaard says:
April 9, 2011 at 9:42 pm
..“His prediction is based in a published and well-known formula that takes the actual data so far as input, and cannot be monkeyed with.”
Leif
Any significant changes to the “formula” as a result to the 23-24 cycle change and the slow and low progress of 24 to date? Based on the early estimates of Cycle 24 (your’s and some others at the low end of the scale and Hathaway’s et al toward the high end) seems some formulas are more accurate than others.
PS: Wish the world had a lot more Hathaways. We need “scientists” not “psyentists”.
harrywr2 says:
April 10, 2011 at 7:13 am
It’s pretty hard to hide sunspots, compared to hiding a few disagreeable tree rings or thermometers.
The Sun may be hiding the spots at times, e.g. during the Maunder Minimum and recently causing the Livingston&Penn effect…
See slide 14-17 of http://www.leif.org/research/Eddy-Symp-Poster-2.pdf
Bob, observational evidence never trumps mechanism. Else we would still be fearing and providing sacrifice to female cycles as harbingers and prevention of crop destruction. I still remember, in my youth, reading articles that postulated, based on “confirmed” observational evidence, menstrual cycles were tied to lunar stages. I wonder what the score is historically: observation versus theory. My hunch is that in all of scientific history, plausible mechanism destroyed observation many more times than the other way around.
Just one example: Read up on how the periodic table was completed before there was observational evidence of some of the elements now listed.
I have been interested in the sunspot cycle for a number of years now and I suspect some kind of Earth climate effect but still am not convinced that any of the proposed mechanisms explain how it would work.
Solar irradiance measures do not seem to vary enough from low points and high points in cycle or from low cycles to high cycles to have any major effect on climate. Galactic cosmic ray theories haven’t been convincing either. On the other hand, we clearly seem to have periods of high solar activity associated with warming (Medieval Warm Period) and periods of low activity associated with cooling (Little Ice Age). Our current period of high activity and warming, of course, has the complicating issue of being also a time of increasing green house gases and so can’t be used to argue one way or the other as to relative effects of GHGs vs solar influence.
It would seem that this solar cycle and perhaps the next ought to be fairly definitive in providing some idea of relative effects of the two.
Is there some other theory out there that I am missing? What are others thoughts on this?
Piers_Corbyn says:
April 9, 2011 at 5:30 pm
However do bear in mind for ongoing cooling it is the odd cycles which count decisively.
Piers opened my eyes to something that is often overlooked. The true solar cycle is 22 years; for 11 years the earth and sun’s magenetic field are aligned, the other 11 years they are opposite.
The observation that we get different weather patterns when the magnetic fields are aligned as compared to when they are opposite is largely ignored in climate scince.
Strange? The prediction is the same as the current sunspot number (about). How many of the past 23 cycles are like this in year 3? I would expect that the middle would be higher. The sudden spike looks like an anomalous thing. So why would you define the end by the sudden spike? Without the spike we would have gone for a smaller final count. And the spike: is it real or an artefact of how the spots are being counted …
While it has been conclusively proven that solar variance does not drive climate change, even Wikipedia seems to recognize things are not quite as they have been:
“The level of solar activity during the past 70 years is exceptional — the last period of similar magnitude occurred over 8,000 years ago. The Sun was at a similarly high level of magnetic activity for only ~10% of the past 11,400 years, and almost all of the earlier high-activity periods were shorter than the present episode.[27]”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_variation
an interesting graph from wikipedia, demonstrating that there is no connection between solar activity and the earths average temperature:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Carbon14_with_activity_labels.svg
I thought everyone predicted a small 25, so Corbyn is right probably as usual. Also David Archibald predicted a very low 24 I think it was 40-60 so spot on. Its interesting to see that the AGW skeptics have been spot on since predicting things 2 years ago whereas nearly ALL the AGW’ers have been way off except for last years temps, which I concede.. I also have grave reservations they way CT calculates NH ice. The feeling is that the baseline is adjusted to keep below anomalies. Unfortunately the ice is constant and not getting any lower, although NCDC makes a marvelous job of making the ice appear to get lower every year non-stop .