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/
Geoff Sharp says:
June 14, 2011 at 7:44 pm
The SC24/25 grand minimum prediction is now being observed by regular science.
As was predicted by ‘regular science’ , e.g. http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2003SPD….34.0603S
The most interesting data to follow will be the solar pole field strength which has the very real prospect of showing a failure of the Hale cycle if the southern hemisphere fails to reverse.
That is a vacuous statement. A failure of the Hale cycle would result in ANY solar cycle if the polar fields did not reverse. However, the Northern Polar fields are already gone and the Southern are down to half of what it was.
Im just saying I dont see anyone clamoring for IV&V on the solar models. I dont see anyone taking a hard look at the hindcasts or the differences between models. I don’t see any of the RIGOR and DOUBT that one normally sees from a skeptical crowd.
The sun of course is hugely complex, the same fluids problems exist for the modelers of the sun. Yet, where are the guys screaming “chaos”. We cant predict the sun spots 4 weeks from now, what makes you think you can
forecast them years from now.. arguments that that.
There is a funny thing about skeptical arguments. they have specific forms. They can be applied to anything.
watching how and when people choose to apply them is interesting
R. Gates: Indeed, and it would seem that some AGW skeptics are nearly frothing at the mouth with excitement over this…which really amounts to pure speculation of what might happen. Meanwhile, in the real world, arctic sea ice extent is at or near record low levels for this date in June.
Excuse me Mr. Gates, you are the one with the pure speculation of what might happen. Those of us with clear thinking minds that are not poisoned by your AGW bias are cognizant of reality. We are capable of looking out the window and recognize that AGW is actually NOT happening.. Your postings are supported by nothing more than AGW money driven entities.
You are condescending in self high minded cloud of righteousness.
We welcome the warming your agendist claim is so dangerous. We are not ignorant to the consequence of substantial cooling. But your platform is that we are somehow behind the phantom AGW and should therefore succumb to a lessor life style that would falsely protect our future from ourselves. Does arrogant elitist ring any self examination? Please take this personal, as that is how I intend it. As for others who follow such Gore-ism clandestine money driven agenda do your family a favor…find a new agenda.
But Gordon Brown insisted, INSISTED dammit, that the science was settled.
He wasn’t telling fibs, was he?
Astrophysics is in its infancy. There have been some big advances recently but there’s a long way to go.
Sunspot predictions have smacked of dumb numerology until recently. But at least the predictions have been falsifiable (as Karl Popper insisted). Honest scientists acknowledge failures and adapt their theories. (Did somebody say that AGW science was “settled”? What a bizarre concept!) Chaos theory tells us that there will be a limit to solar forecasting (we’ll never be able to predict the emergence of individual sunspots) but they’re sure to gradually unearth the basic mechanisms as the decades pass.
R. Gates says:
June 14, 2011 at 5:00 pm
Looks like no pending “Little Ice Age” just yet…but in a sick sort of way, it seems the AGW skeptics are almost hoping for one and it can’t come too soon.
Not quite. As per our area of agreement concerning the wisdom of China and India’s going whole hog into the construction of coal-fired electricity plants in order to, as you said, ~”feed their people’s hungry mouths”, it looks more certain that China and India should even be considered downright prescient compared to countries falling for the stringent and irrational – “the alleged cure is worse than the alleged disease” – Kyoto Protocols. China and India’s emphasis upon development vs stasis or even regression is what I’m hoping for, for all people..
And whatever comes along the lines of a LIA was going to come anyway. We can’t control it. And we still really know we’re due for a glaciation, regardless.
Funny how mosher fails to differentiate the reasons for skepticism about climate models. Maybe some of the lower brow skeptics distrust the entire process of modeling, just like some lower brow warmists distrust all skepticism as oil funded. Invalid sure, but an easy straw man to beat. You must be proud of yourself for that gem. It is also somewhat ironic you would bring up the lack of doubt modeling the sun to people who accept proxies for the MWP and LIA. Surely skeptics are not allowed to accept proxies either, right? I mean, Mann and Briffa used proxies and they were the anti-Jeebus.
It’s disingenuous to say this, and you know it. The particular proxies people have a problem with are the “hide the decline” style proxies. The problems people have with models are that they do not understand basic weather processes. That is an issue. The thunderstorm thermostat Willis discusses is a good illustration of why ignoring the underlying process to rely solely on the average is unscientific, and if I may add, naive.
Leif: If the flux that has returned to the Northern Solar Pole never received any more, what would that flux then be capable of producing in a SC25 Northern cycle? You could give it in Active Regions and/or SSN.
Thanks.
steven mosher says: June 14, 2011 at 8:47 pm;
[We can’t predict the sun spots 4 weeks from now, what makes you think you can forecast them years from now.. arguments that that.]
Steven may of us have followed the ‘predictions’ about the solar cycle for a while, this last cycle, has been ‘re-predicted’ at least three or four times by the contributors to NOAA (www.swpc.noaa.gov/SolarCycle/) . Although it is not a consensus prediction the many revisions have shown that all they appear to have been doing in the past is ‘predicting’ more of the same. With each re-prediction is became clearer and clearer that the majority opinion does not really have any clue as to how things would unfold.
Now some of the contributors are saying ‘we do not know what comes next’, ‘we have never actually seen this before’. This is skepticism, the people doing the predictions are clearly skeptical of the understanding and knowledge themselves. What I see in the comments on this page is a ‘hope’, not that the predictions of the blank Sun will be correct, but rather if the blank Sun does persist that the outcome will consistent with some past solar minima, cooling.
Based on what has transpired over these last few years I think that most people realize that you can not really predict the Sun over the long term. We can’t predict the sun spots.
When I think of the current situation with people looking at experiments like CLOUD and models of the effect of the Sun the first thing that comes to mind is a scene in the movie Dante’s Peak where all the investigators are watching the effect of the earthquakes and a prediction of a volcanic eruption on their screens using data from seismometers, lasers and GPS units, and then one of them says I’m going outside to see the real thing.
Well, we may be able to go outside and see the real thing without a model, or a thermometer or a satellite. If the blank Sun persists then we will know the effect, one way or another we will know and no one will need scientists to tell them what happened; how maybe but not what.
As much as I would like to know the outcome, and may live to see it; I would rather not, if it means urban famine on a global scale.
Theo Goodwin says:
June 14, 2011 at 5:55 pm
R. Gates,
Don’t you think it is strange that the topic of this forum is the AAS announcement about solar activity and you talk endlessly about sea ice?
=====================================================================
Perhaps declining Arctic sea ice extent is one of the few remaining “proofs” of AGW.
Gary Krause,
Wow. Since you obviously know nothing about me nor my positions on anything, even if you meant your post personally, it can’t be…sorry.
I’d you enjoy science as I do, this is probably the most exciting time to be alive and if you knew me you’d know I could care less about the politics. With a possible new Maunder Minimum coming in the next few decades, what better time to put to the test all sorts of notions of how much influence the sun plays in climate as compared to the 40% increase in GH gases we’ve had since the last Maunder minimum next. Galactic cosmic rays should shoot right of the charts and people will be burning everything they can get their hands on just to stay warm. CO2 levels should skyrocket. But what if, even with a grand solar minimum we don’t cool that much or at all? What if we continue to warm? What will skeptics think then?
steven mosher says:
“funny how skepticism about models and predictions all fly out the window”
I think you make a fair point.
I’d say though, that this prediction, whilst model based, does have some important differences to the AGW predictions.
1: Sunspots measurement is well documented, follows well defined rules and is easily checked by anybody who cares to go to sites like spaceweather.com or http://www.solarham.com/ or the widget on this site. And it also is calibrated against the original instruments used to observe them.
2.. The prediction is made for a fairly short time span, so we should be able to observe and either confirm or falsify the prediction easily.
The other point is, there is a large difference, too, between superficial reaction to something and true level of skepticism. You could test it by asking how much tax they would be willing to pay to alleviate the risk of harm if it comes true. 🙂
D’you reckon Al Gore will go in front of the cameras, all contrite, and weep like a disgraced Japanese businessman?
No, he’ll probably commit Kama Sutra.
We must not forget all the talk of firing, non stop, rockets loaded with sulfates… Of dumping iron into the oceans, of stupendous quantities… Of constructing enormous sun shields to cool the earth… Of painting every surface with whitewash (lime)… Of the immediate decommissioning of every coal power station… Of a tax on everything!!!
Do these things sound prudent during a solar system event that has accompanied cold and famine before?
Where is our world stockpiles of foodstuffs during these present and past times of plenty? Even this obvious, prudent, logical precaution seems beyond, our enlightened intellects. Where are the grain filled, UN silos located? GK
steven mosher says:
June 14, 2011 at 8:47 pm
We cant predict the sun spots 4 weeks from now, what makes you think you can forecast them years from now.. arguments that that.
==============================================
Also, someone earlier compared modeling the sun to counting bubbles in boiling water. Surely that is the kind of ‘skepticism’ you are looking for Mr. Mosher?
Still, permit me to run with that example. Perhaps we will never be able to predict the sunspots emergent points. Even were that the case, I will return to the analogy of the boiling pot. You can model that process. You can give parameters for the amount of heat applied, the surface area it is applied to, the thickness of that surface area, the conductivity of the material it is applied to, the surface are of water that the heat is conducted to (should be greater than the SA receiving heat), the airflow of the room, the temperature of the room, the coverage of the pan doing the boiling, et cetera. You can see how truly complex modeling a pot of boiling water can be if you want to do it correctly.
Modeling climate is much the same. There are a great multitude of factors to consider. continental position, solar input, albedo, energy retention, system efficiency, feedbacks, etc. Yet, somehow, the attribution studies do not include them all. For instance, and comparable to my inclusion of the room’s temperature and air flow in my previous example, the addition of heat from the Earth’s core via volcanic venting in the ocean to the climate system. If deep sea heat is not important, by all means, ignore this source. But in that case, why study deep sea heat with diving buoys?
Maybe we can’t count all the bubbles in the climate system. Maybe we can’t measure some of the relevant factors. The point is, when someone says that the science is settled and then ‘loses’ some of their heat, it really is a travesty they can’t explain the warming. Especially so when they purport that the new null hypothesis should be that man causes warming by releasing CO2, without ever having sufficiently supplanted the null hypothesis that natural processes, both understood and not (csomic rays, anyone?), are causing the changes and that these said changes are outside the bounds of relevant factors. The assertions made at the beginning of this paragraph, as you know, were made by one person. A person with a heavy stake in the modeling. Yet, he can’t explain the travesty of his lost heat. I see solar scientists saying all the time that certain things are known, and certain things are not. I do not hear any talk now of ‘missing sunspots’, do you?
R. Gates says:
June 14, 2011 at 9:41 pm
I’d you enjoy science as I do, this is probably the most exciting time to be alive and if you knew me you’d know I could care less about the politics. With a possible new Maunder Minimum coming in the next few decades, what better time to put to the test all sorts of notions of how much influence the sun plays in climate as compared to the 40% increase in GH gases we’ve had since the last Maunder minimum next. Galactic cosmic rays should shoot right of the charts and people will be burning everything they can get their hands on just to stay warm. CO2 levels should skyrocket. But what if, even with a grand solar minimum we don’t cool that much or at all? What if we continue to warm? What will skeptics think then?
———————————————-
Hmmmmm, ……… being warm is nice ????
Mike says:
June 14, 2011 at 7:41 pm
A study in the March 2010 issue of Geophysical Research Letters explored what effect an extended solar minimum might have, and found no more than a 0.3 Celsius dip by 2100 compared to normal solar fluctuation.[quote]
And Hansen assured us that future glaciations simply would not occur, while we have also been recently appraised by “the physics”/Models of the fact that “irreversible” heating of Summers will strike within 20 – 60 yrs.. Not to mention “tipping points”. Shouldn’t the Modellers do some more “experiments” and crank us out some new “facts” pretty soon?
“apprised”
Well. . . Russian Habibullo Abdusamatov told this in 2005. So what’s the point?
http://www.gao.spb.ru/english/astrometr/index1_eng.html
Steven Mosher said, “funny how skepticism about models and predictions all fly out the window.”
This works the other way, too. i.e. the warmists are the ones who fervently embrace modeling. It’s the lynchpin of their theories. And several of their models now suggest global warming may be the last thing we need to worry about.
So the question is, will THEY address these latest results/predictions — generated by their own research — or with they throw them out the window?
R. Gates:
But what if, even with a grand solar minimum we don’t cool that much or at all? What if we continue to warm? What will skeptics think then?
Especially because I don’t have any problem with new empirical evidence, testable hypotheses, etc., and regardless would rather live in the Tropics than at the South Pole anyway, I’ll still be thinking that China and India have the right idea concerning energy. And that you really don’t.
It’s not even the end of the beginning for the Carbon Dioxide scam as can be seen from this ministry of truth report about the solar news.
“Not enough to offset global warming
The temperature change associated with any reduction in sunspot activity would likely be minimal and may not be enough to offset the impact of greenhouse gases on global warming, according to scientists who have published recent papers on the topic.
“Recent solar 11-year cycles are associated empirically with changes in global surface temperature of 0.1°C,” says Judith Lean, a solar physicist with the US Naval Research Laboratory.
If the cycle were to stop or slow down, the small fluctuation in temperature would do the same, eliminating the slightly cooler effect of a solar minimum compared to the warmer solar maximum. The phenomenon was witnessed during the descending phase of the last solar cycle.
This “cancelled part of the greenhouse gas warming of the period 2000-2008, causing the net global surface temperature to remain approximately flat — and leading to the big debate of why the Earth hadn’t (been) warming in the past decade,” says Lean, who was not involved in the three studies presented.
A study in the March 2010 issue of Geophysical Research Letters explored what effect an extended solar minimum might have, and found no more than a 0.3°C dip by 2100 compared to normal solar fluctuations.
“A new Maunder-type solar activity minimum cannot offset the global warming caused by human greenhouse gas emissions,” wrote authors Georg Feulner and Stefan Rahmstorf, noting that forecasts by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change have found a range of 3.7°C to 4.5°C rise by this century’s end compared to the latter half of the 20th century.
“Moreover, any offset of global warming due to a grand minimum of solar activity would be merely a temporary effect, since the distinct solar minima during the last millennium typically lasted for only several decades or a century at most.” ”
http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2011/06/15/3244234.htm
Steven Mosher says:
funny how skepticism about models and predictions all fly out the window.
Climate “Science” is the problem, not the use of Models per se. The record shows that none of Climate Science’s Model predictions have been correct, but that is of no concern to Climate Science! In practice, the Model predictions are “consistent with” everything, therefore, they say nothing to begin with.
Funny how everyone is making a leap based on pseudoscience.
There is a presumption of cooling to offset warming forcing, but no evidence to support it. No evidence = unsupported assertions.
And how long is a solar cycle in question here? Longer than this?
“This paper shows that the climate change that takes place due to increases in carbon dioxide concentration is largely irreversible for 1,000 years after emissions stop. ” http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2009/01/28/0812721106.abstract