“If we are right, this could be the last solar maximum we’ll see for a few decades,” Hill said. “That would affect everything from space exploration to Earth’s climate.”
Update: see the official press release here – “All three of these lines of research to point to the familiar sunspot cycle shutting down for a while.”
It looks like Livingston and Penn are getting some long deserved recognition. See their graph below:
Graph above from the WUWT solar reference page. Note: when the B gauss reading of sunspots hits 1500, they will no longer have enough contrast to be visible. That may occur at or near the years 2015-2017. WUWT carried a story in 2008 warning of this.
The American Astronomical Society meeting in Los Cruces, NM has just made a major announcement on the state of the sun. Sunspots may be on the way out and an extended solar minimum may be on the horizon.
From Space.com reporting from the conference:
Some unusual solar readings, including fading sunspots and weakening magnetic activity near the poles, could be indications that our sun is preparing to be less active in the coming years.
The results of three separate studies seem to show that even as the current sunspot cycle swells toward the solar maximum, the sun could be heading into a more-dormant period, with activity during the next 11-year sunspot cycle greatly reduced or even eliminated.
The results of the new studies were announced today (June 14) 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.
…
Currently, the sun is in the midst of the period designated as Cycle 24 and is ramping up toward the cycle’s period of maximum activity. However, the recent findings indicate that the activity in the next 11-year solar cycle, Cycle 25, could be greatly reduced. In fact, some scientists are questioning whether this drop in activity could lead to a second Maunder Minimum, which was a 70-year period from 1645 to 1715 when the sun showed virtually no sunspots.
…
“We expected to see the start of the zonal flow for Cycle 25 by now, but we see no sign of it,” Hill said. “This indicates that the start of Cycle 25 may be delayed to 2021 or 2022, or may not happen at all.”
…
If the models prove accurate and the trends continue, the implications could be far-reaching.
“If we are right, this could be the last solar maximum we’ll see for a few decades,” Hill said. “That would affect everything from space exploration to Earth’s climate.”
More on this as it unfolds. This article will be updated as new information becomes available.
See also these previous WUWT posts leading up to this:
Solar activity still driving in the slow lane
Sun’s magnetics remain in a funk: sunspots may be on their way out
The sun is still in a slump – still not conforming to NOAA “consensus” forecasts
Livingston and Penn in EOS: Are Sunspots Different During This Solar Minimum?
Livingston and Penn paper: “Sunspots may vanish by 2015″.
Sunspots Today: A Cheshire Cat – New Essay from Livingston and Penn
=======================================================================
As I have been saying for some time:
The long term Ap (the solar geomagnetic index) has been on a downtrend, ever since there was a step change in October 2005.
Thanks to Leif Svalgaard, we have a more extensive and “official” Ap dataset (NOAA’s SWPC shown above has some small issues) that I’ve plotted below. The step change in October 2005 is still visible and the value of 3.9 that occurred in April of 2009 is the lowest for the entire dataset. The Ap Index was the lowest in 75 years then.
Click for a larger image
And I’ve also plotted the 1991 to 2009 from BGS/Svalgaard to compare against the NOAA SWPC data:
============================================================
Dr. Leif Svalgaard writes:
Here are the abstracts of the three studies referred to in the announcement:
P16.10
Large-scale Zonal Flows During the Solar Minimum — Where Is Cycle 25?13
Frank Hill, R. Howe, R. Komm, J. Christensen-Dalsgaard, T. P. Larson, J. Schou, M. J. Thompson
The so-called torsional oscillation is a pattern of migrating zonal flow bands that move from midlatitudes towards the equator and poles as the magnetic cycle progresses. Helioseismology allows us to probe these flows below the solar surface. The prolonged solar minimum following Cycle 23 was accompanied by a delay of 1.5 to 2 years in the migration of bands of faster rotation towards the equator. During the rising phase of Cycle 24, while the lower-level bands match those seen in the rising phase of Cycle 23, the rotation rate at middle and higher latitudes remains slower than it was at the corresponding phase in earlier cycles, perhaps reflecting the weakness of the polar fields. In addition, there is no evidence of the poleward flow associated with Cycle 25. We will present the latest results based on nearly sixteen years of global helioseismic observations from GONG and MDI, with recent results from HMI, and discuss the implications for the development of Cycle 25.
P17.21
A Decade of Diminishing Sunspot Vigor
W. C. Livingston, M. Penn, L. Svalgaard
s Convention Center
Sunspots are small dark areas on the solar disk where internal magnetism, 1500 to 3500 Gauss, has been
buoyed to the surface. (Spot life times are the order of one day to a couple of weeks or more. They are thought to be dark because convection inhibits the outward transport of energy there). Their “vigor” can be described by spot area, spot brightness intensity, and magnetic field. From 2001 to 2011 we have measured field strength and brightness at the darkest position in umbrae of 1750 spots using the Zeeman splitting of the Fe 1564.8 nm line. Only one observation per spot per day is carried out during our monthly telescope time of 3-4 days average. Over this interval the temporal mean magnetic field has declined about 500 Gauss and mean spot intensity has risen about 20%. We do not understand the physical mechanism behind these changes or the effect, if any, it will have on the Earth environment.
P18.04
Whither goes Cycle 24? A View from the Fe XIV Corona
Richard C. Altrock
Solar Cycle 24 had a historically prolonged and weak start. Observations of the Fe XIV corona from the Sacramento Peak site of the National Solar Observatory showed an abnormal pattern of emission compared to observations of Cycles 21, 22, and 23 from the same instrument. The previous three cycles had a strong, rapid “Rush to the Poles” in Fe XIV. Cycle 24 displays a delayed, weak, intermittent, and slow “Rush” that is mainly apparent in the northern hemisphere. If this Rush persists at its current rate, evidence from previous cycles indicates that solar maximum will occur in approximately early 2013. At lower latitudes, solar maximum previously occurred when the greatest number of Fe XIV emission regions* first reached approximately 20° latitude. Currently, the value of this parameter at 20° is approximately 0.15. Previous behavior of this parameter indicates that solar maximum should occur in approximately two years, or 2013. Thus, both techniques yield an expected time of solar maximum in early 2013.
*annual average number of Fe XIV emission features per day greater than 0.19
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vukcevic says:
June 15, 2011 at 9:39 am
It would have been helpful if there were individual years marked on your original distribution graph
http://www.leif.org/research/Livingston-Penn-Distribution.png
so we could observe distribution transition from one year to the next.
Yes and No. People who attach meaning to noise would make too much out of it. This is somewhat noise data [as you can see]. It would have been better to show the average distribution in each group. But as a compromise, there is a little yellow symbol on the points for the first year in each group, to help bridge the transition from one group to the next.
@Mark Wilson:
Please be specific with respect to numbers and time period. What warming over what time period?
What are you talking about? And where do you get your numbers from? Pre-industrial CO2 was about 280 ppm. 1950 it was about 310 ppm. Now about 390 ppm. So about 25% of the increase happened before 1950. The temperature anomaly 1880 relative to 1950-1980 average is about -0.3 K, where the warming mostly happened between 1920 and 1950. The temperature anomaly today is about 0.6 K, with the increase starting around 1980.
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.A2.gif
What do I claim how much warming CO2 has caused in what time periods, and where do you get the 90% from? The larger fraction of the warming due to greenhouse gases happened after 1980.
vukcevic says:
June 15, 2011 at 2:22 am
I have reproduced Dr. Svalgaard’s distribution diagram
Normally ‘reproduced’ in science means that you have done an independent analysis and come to the same result. What you have done is ‘copied’ my diagram, and in the process mislabeled it. The curve your 2011 with arrow points to is the 2009 data. If you look really carefully, you can see a little purple cross in some of the red symbols. That is for 2011.
Geoff Sharp says:
June 15, 2011 at 8:43 am
“No shame, the L&P research is flawed and should not have passed the peer review process. I challenge Anthony to review the results in a separate story on WUWT where it can be debated.”
You are invited to state your criticisms, all or some, of the paper right here on this very forum. Why don’t you? Do you suffer from shyness? What do you want Anthony to do, interview you and state them for you? Get serious or get the label Troll.
Dr. S.
OK. Copied not reproduced. Lapsus linguae. You often butcher my graphs, so I will take a ‘leif’ from your book too.
I’ve just relabelled the graph
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/L&Pd.htm
the retreat of magnetic field intensity towards higher value looks ‘good’.
‘a bit of a ‘make hay while the sun shines’ since effect may diminish considerably in the intensity, as solar activity picks up during next year or two.’ mv@JCblog
Mark Wilson says:
June 15, 2011 at 5:28 am
If the sun goes quiet but CO2 continues to rise:
1) Warmist theory, temperatures continue to rise, but a tiny bit slower.
2) Sun centered theory, temperatures fall.
I think it will be important to look at things on a decadal timeframe when making such a broad sweeping statement, and also consider all factors that are included in any global climate model. Suppose the sun goes to Maunder level of activity and we get a few Pinatubo type eruptions within the space of a few years. We could certainly see global temps decline during that period. But looking at a decadal time scale, you’d expect to see those shorter term effects average out. This is the same reasoning that goes to why looking at comparing temps between an El Nino year and La Nina year is not a reasonable or accurate thing to do. Over a decade though, you should see a stronger signal from the longer term forcings, such as is stated to be happening from CO2. Also, Global climate models currently are probably in error by not fully accounting for the solar/GCR/cloud activity, but since no one has yet quantified this, it would be hard to do. If we go into a Maunder Minimum and GCR’s do fall greatly, we’ll have the best lab experiment possible to see how that effects climate, and can compare direclty the power lower GCR’s to the 40% greater amount of CO2 in the atmosphere now versus the last Maunder minimum.
Jimbo says:
June 14, 2011 at 5:03 pm
R. Gates says:
June 14, 2011 at 4:15 pm
“………….the highest level of CO2 in the atmosphere could also play a role in altering the climate. …..”
Was that a typo or have I taken it COMPLETELY out of context???
“Parks Canada had been plotting the discovery of the three ships for more than a year, trying to figure out how to get the crews so far north. Once they arrived and got their bearings, the task seemed easier than originally thought. It took little more than 15 minutes to uncover the Investigator, officials told The Globe and Mail last week. “For a long time the area wasn’t open, but now it is because of climate change,” said Marc-André Bernier, chief of the Underwater Archaeology Service at Parks Canada.”
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/150-year-old-naval-vessel-found-underwater-in-arctic/article1661210/
Localized warming in the Arctic? Certainly!
_______
More to the point, how will AGW skeptics react if the arctic warming continues even during a Maunder Minimum type event? To what will they asrcribe the warming to then?
Alan Millar says:
June 14, 2011 at 1:26 pm
. Gates
“. If it makes no difference (i.e. Europe get’s just as cold now as it did then) then we can pretty much throw away any caring about CO2 levels. If however, it doesn’t get as cold, or temps just sort of flat-line for 20 or 30 years, that also will tell us a great deal about the effects of CO2…meaning of course, that CO2 will have turned out to be a blessing in disguise…at least for the next 20 or 30 years.”
What are you on about? Are you putting on your parachute?
The warmanistas insist that there is only 0.1c difference between solar max and solar min. Therefore by the AGW theory, that you adhere to, then instead of increasing temps by 0.1c on top of the CO2 warming as we hit a solar max we will just experience a longstanding reduction of 0.1c which of course is insignificant as against a CO2 driven warming of 0.3c per decade.
So have you stopped believing in the AGW theory and have now moved to a solar driven position?
____
I don’t happen to see things in such black and white terms. The climate is certainly a combination of forcings, from Milankovitch at the extreme long-term end to ENSO and Volcanic activity on the shorter end of the time scale. By “solar driven” I take it you mean a combination of both changing solar output as well as the modulation of GCR’s and cloud relationships. This can’t be discounted and of course, recent research seems to indicate some plausible mechanisms here that will need to be quanitifed before they can be put into any global climate model. But certainly, the state of our climate is driven by many factors or forcings, of which the levels of GHG’s, Milankovitch cycles, volacnic activity, the position of the continents, and solar influences all play a part. It is a matter of quantification of each of these and the the climate’s sensitivity to rapid changes in each that need to be included in any accurate climate model. We’re not there yet, but get closer with each new discovery.
R. Gates says:
June 15, 2011 at 11:26 am
R Gates, this is a solar thread.
Naff off please.
The Warmista are *DESPERATE* to disrupt serious discussion of the Sun as a major climate driver. Ignore their off topic rambling please.
SUGGESTION TO FELLOW MODS. Nip this attempted disruption in the bud.
Leif Svalgaard says:
June 14, 2011 at 4:21 pm
vukcevic says:
June 14, 2011 at 3:46 pm
I just plotted L&P data available from start of 2009 to the latest data in 2011.
I see no change! I see no L&P effect.!
I would not attach any meaning to two years of spotty data. BTW, the ‘latest’ data goes through May, 2011. A fit to magnetic field 2009 Jan. – 2011 May shows a decrease of 57 uT and an increase of intensity of 0.036. But both are too uncertain to be meaningful on their own. Only taken over a decade do the changes become interesting. One way to see this is to draw up the distribution of field strengths as a function of time: http://www.leif.org/research/Livingston-Penn-Distribution.png
Hi Leif, your graph would be a lot more informative if the curves were marked with the year they belong to. Please could you clarify?
Thanks
R. Gates says:
June 15, 2011 at 11:26 am
More to the point, how will AGW skeptics react if the arctic warming continues even during a Maunder Minimum type event? To what will they asrcribe the warming to then?
You are assuming only one cause to Arctic warming!. . . . There are geothermals (volcano’s and the like) because the core of the earth is hot . . or so they say . . . even if the sun “was shut off” today . . . how long do you suppose it would take the earth to cool . . . or the volcano in Hawaii to cease? (for example) and would tectonic plates stop moving or would you postulate that the earth would cease spinning??
vukcevic says:
June 15, 2011 at 11:16 am
the retreat of magnetic field intensity towards higher value looks ‘good’.
The sentence does not make sense as stated. The differences between individual years may not be significant, only the longer term trend [blue to green to red].
A proper analysis would compare years with same sunspot numbers, like in this table:
SSN Median Average Year
_2.9 2217 2191 2008
_3.1 2046 2040 2009
15.2 2180 2215 2006
16.5 2026 2074 2010
29.9 2810 2817 1994
29.8 2199 2230 2005
40.4 2277 2291 2004
40.5 1988 2033 2011
111 2516 2539 2001
104 2447 2482 2002
In every case the later year has lower magnetic field for same sunspot number.
You could benefit from studying http://people.psych.cornell.edu/~dunning/publications/pdf/unskilledandunaware.pdf
tallbloke says:
June 15, 2011 at 11:48 am
Hi Leif, your graph would be a lot more informative if the curves were marked with the year they belong to. Please could you clarify?
Yes and No. People who attach meaning to noise would make too much out of it. This is somewhat noise data [as you can see]. It would have been better to show the average distribution in each group. But as a compromise, there is a little yellow symbol on the points for the first year in each group, to help bridge the transition from one group to the next. [2011 is marked with tiny purple crosses].
= = =
anna v,
Intereseting point you made. My research shows the MM and LIA do not correlate well regarding MM causing LIA.
Back in March this year I made a comment here at WUWT which I reproduce below.
John
aaron says:
June 14, 2011 at 7:04 pm
SteveSadlov, I think you underestimate the benefits of technology and greenhouse gasses.
==============================
You completely misunderstood. I am not talking about warming.
Steeptown says:
June 14, 2011 at 10:46 pm
No mention on the BBC yet
………and finally, a cat stuck up a tree.
To John S. and others who see no apparent pattern in solar ativity and who doubt the ability to predict what the Sun will do – heed this. The Sun is controlled by the planets, the Jovian planets, especially.
Ask any astrophyscist, not feeding out of the public trough, and you will discover how simple it is to predict what the Sun will do. It’s all celestial mechanics, not agw, not CO2, not man; just the planets and Sun interacting to the “music of the spheres”; a dance of predictable patterns and influences.
For starters check ot this paper by Duhau and de Jaeger regarding the Grand Solar Minimum we are now entering.
http://journalofcosmology.com/ClimateChange111.html
“The Maunder Minimum (MM) is taken as occurring between ~1645 AD to ~1715 AD”
Only if one ignores the downslope from the peak of the MWP 500 years before. Thus by 1550 (the LIA) we were in the final 100 years of a 500 year downslope so no surprise that it started to bite then.
And then there is the issue that oceanic responses are in variable relationships with solar activity.
tallbloke says:
June 15, 2011 at 11:48 am
Hi Leif, your graph would be a lot more informative if the curves were marked with the year they belong to. Please could you clarify?
Yes and No. People who attach meaning to noise would make too much out of it. This is somewhat noise data [as you can see].
You’ve presented it in the way which is the most convincing in support of the hypothesis but won’t supply the information which would enable us to get a more accurate view of the L&P effects consistency or otherwise.
Noted.
………and finally, a cat stuck up a tree. Actually it was ITN, good old Reggie, long gone now.
tallbloke says:
June 15, 2011 at 1:49 pm
You’ve presented it in the way which is the most convincing in support of the hypothesis but won’t supply the information which would enable us to get a more accurate view of the L&P effects consistency or otherwise.
If it is convincing it is because the data is convincing. Every single year is plotted. The first year in each group is marked. The spread within each group is either real or noise [I can’t tell which and I don’t think you or anybody else can either – and some people here are addicted to make something out of noise]. The proper thing would have been to show the average curve for each group [with an error bar]. I went a bit further than that and showed every year so you can judge the error yourself. Please note that. In any event, I have posted the raw data somewhere so everybody can do their own analysis.
Leif Svalgaard says:
June 15, 2011 at 1:58 pm
tallbloke says:
June 15, 2011 at 1:49 pm
You’ve presented it in the way which is the most convincing in support of the hypothesis but won’t supply the information which would enable us to get a more accurate view of the L&P effects consistency or otherwise.
If it is convincing it is because the data is convincing. Every single year is plotted. The first year in each group is marked.
I’m going to get a wider variety of colours for your christmas crayon box.
tallbloke says:
June 15, 2011 at 2:29 pm
I’m going to get a wider variety of colours for your christmas crayon box.
You are missing the point. I was dead serious and have given this a great deal of thought.
Put tariffs on imported sunlight.
Theo Goodwin says:
June 15, 2011 at 10:51 am
You are invited to state your criticisms, all or some, of the paper right here on this very forum. Why don’t you? Do you suffer from shyness? What do you want Anthony to do, interview you and state them for you? Get serious or get the label Troll.
I have stated my views many times on here Theo re the L&P effect and have written an article on my blog debunking the process and results. If you think questioning a piece of research in a science blog is trolling I would think you are out of line. This issue should be dealt with properly instead of having meaningless discussions with one person who is baised and involved with the research at the end of a dying thread.