I’ve managed to get a copy of the official press release provided by the Southwest Research Institute Planetary Science Directorate to MSM journalists, for today’s stunning AAS announcement and it is reprinted in full here:
WHAT’S DOWN WITH THE SUN?
MAJOR DROP IN SOLAR ACTIVITY PREDICTED
A missing jet stream, fading spots, and slower activity near the poles say that our Sun is heading for a rest period even as it is acting up for the first time in years, according to scientists at the National Solar Observatory (NSO) and the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL).
As the current sunspot cycle, Cycle 24, begins to ramp up toward maximum, independent studies of the solar interior, visible surface, and the corona indicate that the next 11-year solar sunspot cycle, Cycle 25, will be greatly reduced or may not happen at all.
The results were announced at the annual meeting of the Solar Physics Division of the American Astronomical Society, which is being held this week at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces:
http://astronomy.nmsu.edu/SPD2011/
“This is highly unusual and unexpected,” Dr. Frank Hill, associate director of the NSO’s Solar Synoptic Network, said of the results. “But the fact that three completely different views of the Sun point in the same direction is a powerful indicator that the sunspot cycle may be going into hibernation.”
Spot numbers and other solar activity rise and fall about every 11 years, which is half of the Sun’s 22-year magnetic interval since the Sun’s magnetic poles reverse with each cycle. An immediate question is whether this slowdown presages a second Maunder Minimum, a 70-year period with virtually no sunspots during 1645-1715.
Hill is the lead author on one of three papers on these results being presented this week. Using data from the Global Oscillation Network Group (GONG) of six observing stations around the world, the team translates surface pulsations caused by sound reverberating through the Sun into models of the internal structure. One of their discoveries is an east-west zonal wind flow inside the Sun, called the torsional oscillation, which starts at
mid-latitudes and migrates towards the equator. The latitude of this wind stream matches the new spot formation in each cycle, and successfully predicted the late onset of the current Cycle 24.
“We expected to see the start of the zonal flow for Cycle 25 by now,” Hill explained, “but we see no sign of it. This indicates that the start of Cycle 25 may be delayed to 2021 or 2022, or may not happen at all.”
In the second paper, Matt Penn and William Livingston see a long-term weakening trend in the strength of sunspots, and predict that by Cycle 25 magnetic fields erupting on the Sun will be so weak that few if any sunspots will be formed. Spots are formed when intense magnetic flux tubes erupt from the interior and keep cooled gas from circulating back to the interior. For typical sunspots this magnetism has a strength of 2,500 to 3,500 gauss
(Earth’s magnetic field is less than 1 gauss at the surface); the field must reach at least 1,500 gauss to form a dark spot.
Using more than 13 years of sunspot data collected at the McMath-Pierce Telescope at Kitt Peak in Arizona, Penn and Livingston observed that the average field strength declined about 50 gauss per year during Cycle 23 and now in Cycle 24. They also observed that spot temperatures have risen exactly as expected for such changes in the magnetic field. If the trend continues, the field strength will drop below the 1,500 gauss threshold and
spots will largely disappear as the magnetic field is no longer strong enough to overcome convective forces on the solar surface.
Moving outward, Richard Altrock, manager of the Air Force’s coronal research program at NSO’s Sunspot, NM, facilities has observed a slowing of the “rush to the poles,” the rapid poleward march of magnetic activity observed in the Sun’s faint corona. Altrock used four decades of observations with NSO’s 40-cm (16-inch) coronagraphic telescope at Sunspot.
“A key thing to understand is that those wonderful, delicate coronal features are actually powerful, robust magnetic structures rooted in the interior of the Sun,” Altrock explained. “Changes we see in the corona reflect changes deep inside the Sun.”
Altrock used a photometer to map iron heated to 2 million degrees C (3.6 million F). Stripped of half of its electrons, it is easily concentrated by magnetism rising from the Sun. In a well-known pattern, new solar activity emerges first at about 70 degrees latitude at the start of a cycle, then towards the equator as the cycle ages. At the same time, the new magnetic fields push remnants of the older cycle as far as 85 degrees poleward.
“In cycles 21 through 23, solar maximum occurred when this rush appeared at an average latitude of 76 degrees,” Altrock said. “Cycle 24 started out late and slow and may not be strong enough to create a rush to the poles, indicating we’ll see a very weak solar maximum in 2013, if at all. If the rush to the poles fails to complete, this creates a tremendous dilemma for the theorists, as it would mean that Cycle 23’s magnetic field will not completely disappear from the polar regions (the rush to the poles accomplishes this feat). No one knows what the Sun will do in that case.”
All three of these lines of research to point to the familiar sunspot cycle shutting down for a while.
“If we are right,” Hill concluded, “this could be the last solar maximum we’ll see for a few decades. That would affect everything from space exploration to Earth’s climate.”
# # #
Media teleconference information: This release is the subject of a media
teleconference at the current meeting of the American Astronomical Society’s
Solar Physics Division (AAS/SPD). The telecon will be held at 11 a.m. MDT
(17:00 UTC) on Tuesday, 14 June. Bona fide journalists are invited to attend
the teleconference and should send an e-mail to the AAS/SPD press officer,
Craig DeForest, at deforest@boulder.swri.edu, with the subject heading “SPD:
SOLAR MEDIA TELECON”, before 16:00 UTC. You will receive dial-in information
before the telecon.
These results have been presented at the current meeting of the AAS/SPD.
Citations:
16.10: “Large-Scale Zonal Flows During the Solar Minimum — Where Is Cycle
25?” by Frank Hill, R. Howe, R. Komm, J. Christensen-Dalsgaard, T.P. Larson,
J. Schou & M. J. Thompson.
17.21: “A Decade of Diminishing Sunspot Vigor” by W. C. Livingston, M. Penn
& L. Svalgard.
18.04: “Whither Goes Cycle 24? A View from the Fe XIV Corona” by R. C.
Altrock.
Source:
Southwest Research Institute Planetary Science Directorate
http://www.boulder.swri.edu/~deforest/SPD-sunspot-release/SPD_solar_cycle_release.txt
Supplemental images: http://www.boulder.swri.edu/~deforest/SPD-sunspot-release/
Second that.
Moderate Republican says:
June 15, 2011 at 9:54 am
No it isn’t, that was down to one fairly strong El Nino and only up to 2010, the period is also much longer than a decade. (15-16 years) This year global temperatures have already fallen below the 95 percent threshold.
There is warming since 1995 and the El Nino during 2010 help cook up the data a very little, compared with 2009.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/uah/from:1995/magnitude/plot/rss/from:1995/magnitude/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1995/magnitude/plot/hadsst2gl/from:1995/magnitude/plot/uah/from:1995/trend/plot/rss/from:1995/trend/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1995/trend/plot/hadsst2gl/from:1995/trend
Up to 2009, no noticeble difference in rate of trends.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/uah/from:1995/to:2009/magnitude/plot/rss/from:1995/to:2009/magnitude/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1995/to:2009/magnitude/plot/hadsst2gl/from:1995/to:2009/magnitude/plot/uah/from:1995/to:2009/trend/plot/rss/from:1995/to:2009/trend/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1995/to:2009/trend/plot/hadsst2gl/from:1995/to:2009/trend
There is generally no warming over the past decade, except UAH currently showing a little. If these are combined as one data set this is no warming.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/uah/from:2001/magnitude/plot/rss/from:2001/magnitude/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:2001/magnitude/plot/hadsst2gl/from:2001/magnitude/plot/uah/from:2001/trend/plot/rss/from:2001/trend/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:2001/trend/plot/hadsst2gl/from:2001/trend
Still no warming since when go back to the the El Nino of 1997/98.. (UAH showing little again)
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/uah/from:1998/magnitude/plot/rss/from:1998/magnitude/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1998/magnitude/plot/hadsst2gl/from:1998/magnitude/plot/uah/from:1998/trend/plot/rss/from:1998/trend/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1998/trend/plot/hadsst2gl/from:1998/trend
The 2nd strongest El Nino since the early 1980’s has still made little difference to the overall trend. The only reason why warming is shown a little over recent 13/14 years is down to there has been more El Nino’s than La Nina’s so far.
Search Google News for “sunspots,” I found over 300 articles listed. Rivkin weighs in on NYT’s “Dot Earth”:
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/06/15/would-solar-lull-snuff-climate-action/
Not to worry, ocean acidification is not impacted by solar activity, except that it gets worse with colder temperatures. Watch for it, this may be their last, best hope.
From Moderate Republican on June 15, 2011 at 10:47 am:
Is it really this hard for you to accept and understand the connotation?
Did you ever hear someone be called a “Holocaust alarmist”?
Folks should realize that Moderate Republican is not debating the accuracy of the term, but whether or not it is a “pejorative”, a term used to speak ill of another, which lowers the debate to name-calling.
I think he has a point.
Would probably have to use the Gordo Sutra version. 😉
R. Gates says:
June 15, 2011 at 6:24 am
[JPeden]I’ll still be thinking that China and India have the right idea concerning energy. And that you really don’t.
____
Don’t recall me ever expressing my ideas concerning energy, but perhaps you are a mind reader.
Then, Gates, on what other basis did it seem reasonable to you for China to act as it is acting in producing massively increasing amounts of CO2 in the course of producing the fossil fuel energy, which it has decided with full knowledge of all available science, is necessary to cure its real problem of underdevelopment, therefore as you said, when it has “so many hungry mouths to feed”?
Question: what is the difference between your alleged amnesia and a propaganda tactic?
Gates, snap out of it! Based upon your objective behavior, I certainly don’t need to read minds in order to derive a working hypothesis as to the nature of much of what you claim.
Btw, in our very first interaction, you stated that it was irrelevant whether you were even a scientist or had a scientific background, but that you had some acquaintances who were indeed Climate Scientists. So given your performance from then until now, I’m going to have to agree with you that within the realm of ipcc-style Climate Science both conditions appear to be the same.
Moderate Republican says:
June 15, 2011 at 10:47 am
(still would like to know why “denier” is pejorative but “alarmist” isn’t)
How about leaving the name calling out? Labeling your opponent in an intense, yet interesting argument is simply weak.
The difference between denier and alarmist is simply degree. The first is strictly offensive with no other merit. The second is also offensive, but it is a label that is focused on the topic at hand, not bringing to the table a horrific episode in our history, that simply has nothing in common with climate.
I simply find the report exciting, within my lifetime we will see the effects of the sun on our plannet, in ways that regular solar activity never would.
Moderate Republican, 10:58 am:
“It is impossible that 95% statistical significance could be reach when the prior decade in question is in the data set given the data in the data set..”
Not at all, MR. If you honestly believe that then you’re demonstrating a very poor understanding of statistical trends, especially the fact that they can change for various reasons – which is something that the whole AGW hypothesis relies on because, if nothing can change a trend, then CO2 can’t change the natural trends of climate.
So, given that trends can change, you could have 5 years of fast warming followed by 10 years of cooling which brings the overall 15 year trend below significance, followed by a single (anomalous to the new trend) warmer year that just pushes the 16 year trend back into significance. In fact, that’s more or less what’s happened over the past 10 – 15 years. By claiming significance at that point, you’re basing your claim on that single, final, year of data.
In addition “January 2000 to December 2009 was the warmest decade on record. ”
Another common for AGW strawman!
The “warmest decade on record” has absolutely no meaning whatsoever if it happens to come at the end of a sharp warming period. Of course it will be the warmest on record because it started at the highest temperature so, unless the cooling happens at a catastrophic rate, the average for the decade will be high.
Looks like this solar thread has been successfully derailed then. Everyone’s talking about co2 and models for a change…
The Warmista are *DESPERATE* to prevent serious discussion of the Sun as a major climate driver. Don’t let them get away with their cheap tactics. Ignore their comments which are not on topic.
Ninderthana says:
June 15, 2011 at 6:27 am (Edit)
http://www.publish.csiro.au/?act=view_file&file_id=AS06018.pdf
Please read our paper above to see what we predicted in 2005 [but couldn’t get published until 2008] . If our work is correct, all solar-type stars showing cyclical solar activity will have have multiple Jovian-like planets in near-circular orbits with periods ~ 3 – 15 years. It is the (collective synodic) periods of these orbits that set the stellar magnetic activity cycles.
The real pioneers in this field are Paul Jose, Theodore Landscheidt, W. Fairbridge, J. Shirley, Carl Smith, Geoff Sharp, Tallbloke, Vukcevic, Timo Niroma, David Archibald and others who have dared to think differently.
Great paper and thanks for the props. You forgot to mention Ian WIlson in the pioneers list. 😉
My handy on-line dictionary definition: alarmist n. someone who is considered to be exaggerating a danger and so causing needless worry or panic.
Climate alarmism describes exactly what the IPCC, Algore, realclimate, Mann, climate progress, Trenberth, skeptical pseudo-science, Briffa, Schmidt, etc., are doing: deliberately trying to alarm the public based on evidence-free conjectures.
In U.S. law, truth is an absolute defense. The truth is that the promoters of the catastrophic AGW conjecture are trying to alarm the public. Is there any doubt? Some may even believe the scare stories, despite the lack of evidence and the failure of their alarming predictions. But all of them are, one way or another, climate alarmists. What else would you call them?
No Joe – you are wrong. Several times actually.
1) What Jones is talking about is the temperature trend – you introduced cause in to it. Those are different things, and introducing cause into a discussion of statistical significance constrained to temperature measurements demonstrates you do no understand the concepts here.
2) The trend is either significant or not or a given time period. Joe says “By claiming significance at that point, you’re basing your claim on that single, final, year of data.” which is simply wrong.
3) Joe is wrong again when he states “The “warmest decade on record” has absolutely no meaning whatsoever if it happens to come at the end of a sharp warming period.” That is a non-logical statement – the measurements for a given time period are what they are, and those can be compared to other time period. Year to year variations are included in any time period snapshot.
Thought by those who have performed a fairly straightforward calculation using a well established formula which defines the relationship between energy anfd temperature.
———
In other words they ignore most of the ways in which the sun affects the climate.
Moderate Republican said:
(still would like to know why “denier” is pejorative but “alarmist” isn’t)
You’ve already got the basic picture, but you might also want to consider that if you call someone a “denier”, you leave yourself open to being called an ideological “believer”, which also starts to make the case for psychological projection on your part, where you are potentially actually only talking about yourself, throughout.
[I didn’t realize that dysfunctional psychological mechanisms such as “projection” were so prevalent or uncontrollable until the rise of ideological Liberalism.]
I may be wrong but I do not believe a model has taken data begining in 1900 and successfully forecasted the climate we have experienced over the last 112 years. Not even close even with knowledge of the volcanix eruptions, particulates, sun activity and CO2 levels. The predictions and errors are astounding. That should provide some indication of what the models are capable of predcting 100 years from now.
John Finn says:
June 15, 2011 at 9:54 am
Bruce Cobb says:
June 15, 2011 at 7:36 am
Moderate Republican says:
June 15, 2011 at 5:56 am
Overall, solar minimums and maximums are thought to produce no more than 0.1°C (0.18°F) of cooling or warming.
Thought by whom? And why? Nothing to do with little things like funding, careers, egos?
Thought by those who have performed a fairly straightforward calculation using a well established formula which defines the relationship between energy anfd temperature. I doubt if anyone got any funding for it. If they did – I want my share.
Would this be the famous (yet never seen) “back-of-the-envelope” calculation then? Perhaps you could produce it here? Others have asked for it, but been rebuffed, or simply ignored. It sure would be a relief to all to be able to reduce the sun’s effect on climate to a simple formula.
TonyG says June 15, 2011 at 10:56 am
Pejoratives (or terms of abuse) are words or grammatical forms that connote negativity and express contempt or distaste.
Alarmist as applied here against scientists simply reporting what they are finding clearly fits that description.
Truegold says June 15, 2011 at 11:41 am ” The predictions and errors are astounding. ”
Without specific studies and confirmation that they were wrong outside the boundaries in the model this is an unsupported assertion.
Why would someone want to try and convince people that this new turn of solar events is not a cooling risk. Yes, Moderate So Called Republican, I’m talking to you.
Mark Wilson said on June 15, 2011 at 11:35 am “In other words they ignore most of the ways in which the sun affects the climate.”
That is a factually incorrect statement – the variability of the sun is/has been looked at but it simply has not been enough to offset the climate forcing from GHG.
As supplier of almost all the energy in Earth’s climate, the sun has a strong influence on climate. A comparison of sun and climate over the past 1150 years found temperatures closely match solar activity (Usoskin 2005). However, after 1975, temperatures rose while solar activity showed little to no long-term trend. This led the study to conclude, “…during these last 30 years the solar total irradiance, solar UV irradiance and cosmic ray flux has not shown any significant secular trend, so that at least this most recent warming episode must have another source.”
In fact, a number of independent measurements of solar activity indicate the sun has shown a slight cooling trend since 1960, over the same period that global temperatures have been warming. Over the last 35 years of global warming, sun and climate have been moving in opposite directions. An analysis of solar trends concluded that the sun has actually contributed a slight cooling influence in recent decades (Lockwood 2008).
http://www.skepticalscience.com/solar-activity-sunspots-global-warming-intermediate.htm
Bruce Cobb says June 15, 2011 at 11:44 am “It sure would be a relief to all to be able to reduce the sun’s effect on climate to a simple formula.”
Many people who do not believe the scientific evidence present the complexity of modeling all the variable as a reason why models cannot be trusted and now you as for a simple formula that fully explains the sun’s complete interaction with the earth’s climate?
That is logically inconsistent. Either you are rejecting the validity of other people who do not scientific evidence present the complexity of modeling or are confirming that such modeling is possible.
This is where the warmist policy bias really gets nasty and to a new level of disater. That is where the spending of borrowed money in an unsustainable economy continues to chug along in the wrong dirstction while the science turns back in the other direction. This directional problem of the policy error is doubled when it does not see the next food and economic growth implications coming from the cooling. Ouch!
From tallbloke on June 15, 2011 at 11:18 am:
I concur. “Moderate Republican” has got this twisted around to Phil Jones, models, plus the “alarmists vs deniers” bit, while he’s arguing the same things on the older Phil Jones post! Doesn’t seem like any more effort for him, since his arguments are almost cut-and-paste, but it’s at least twice the aggravation for us.
A straw man is a component of an argument and is an informal fallacy based on misrepresentation of an opponent’s position.
SteveSadlov says: June 15, 2011 at 12:01 pm “Why would someone want to try and convince people that this new turn of solar events is not a cooling risk. Yes, Moderate So Called Republican, I’m talking to you.”
This is a strawman arguement because I have never asserted that there is “not a cooling risk”. I have simply pointed out that – like you – people are making wild leaps based on things that have not been said.