“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
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Nice Ryan
I’m glad I live in Texas. We could use a cool spell.
I just plotted L&P data available from start of 2009 to the latest data in 2011.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/L&P.htm
I see no change!
I see no L&P effect.!
Are we being taken for a ride?
Dr. Svalgaard is there something in the last two year data that is not visible in the above graph ?
REPLY: Vuk, before you start another war of words with Dr. Svalgaard (that we all get really weary of), double check your work. Note the main data points in vertical aggregated columns and the average of those columns. You missed a step. – Anthony
R. Gates says:
On the other hand, IF the said new Maunder Mininum does in fact take place as predicted, it will provide a wonderful chance to compare the climate of the new period with the previous quiet sun period. We’ve now got 40% more CO2 in the atmosphere than we had back then. 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. A lot of IF’s here…exactly why it’s such an exciting time to be alive and watch what happens!
A believer in a ‘global temperature’ are you? Tisk tisk tisk….
If these predictions prove correct, I don’t see it as a good thing for the ‘sceptical’ cause.
As the years have passed, and all other things being equal, the wilder predictions/timescales of the AGW religion have gradually been being discredited, and looked to continue so until the whole phoney hypothesis collapsed.
If we now suddenly enter a cooling period which can definitely be attributed directly to the sun, then the High Priests are off the hook – their models are terribly, terribly accurate but an external influence that they couldn’t reasonably incorporate has invalidated their results.
So they’ll still be in business – ad infinitum – government grants, renewable energy, carbon scams and all.
Just think what would have happened if we hadn’t spent so much money on Kyoto, Bali, Copenhagen, Cancun and IPCC 1-4.
Max Hugoson says:
June 14, 2011 at 2:43 pm
Did I miss it?
Svensmark has been theorizing since 1996. He’s been EXPERIMENTING since 2000 !!! He’s got CERN doing the cloud experiment. CERN has done the work. They are PHYSICISTS not “climate scientists”. (Can we say IMPARTIAL, can we say NO AXES TO GRIND?) CERN’s boys have been VERY VERY quiet about their results because they are writing BONIFIDE papers. And there is a little self respect, and proprietary aspect here. (After all, how many people have a multi billion dollar accelerator to make synthetic (controlled) “cosmic rays”.)
If I were a typical “Warmista” right now, I’d be SHAKING IN FEAR. Because the combination: SOLAR MAUNDER TYPE MINIMUM + Svensmark + CERN could spell a nasty doom for the Warmistas. (Whoops, I didn’t even mention the NEGATIVE FEEDBACK by Dr. Spencer.)
Max
_______
It’s this kind of over-the-top certitude by skeptics using way too many large caps, and phrases like “shaking in fear” that make me glad that I maintain a reasonable and balanced approach to the study of climate. I can well believe that there is a Solar/GCR/cloud/climate connection, and suspect it may play out in phenomenon like Bond events and other long-term solar cycles, but accepting that as a possibility in no way precludes accepting that the highest level of CO2 in the atmosphere could also play a role in altering the climate. The world is not black and white, one thing or the other, but many shades of gray and colors with complex interacting causes.
vukcevic says:
June 14, 2011 at 3:07 pm
2011:05:18 -4N
The error is of the order of 5uT, so all the values are consistent with zero.
Do you still predict SC25 to be considerably higher than SC24, and if so on what basis?
If the polar fields reverse now or shortly [rather than in 2014] it means that further surges of flux to the poles can directly help build up the polar fields, instead of as usual first having to neutralize the existing fields. This could mean that strong polar fields are a possibility and hence a strong SC25. But that is just speculation [in contrast to my prediction once polar fields have been established].
If not so what made you reverse your position?
I have not reversed my position. It has always been that I can only with confidence predict one cycle ahead and only when the new polar fields are known. Statistically, low cycles often occur together [but not always: SC20 was a lone low one between two high ones], so statistically SC25 should be low, but that is not a prediction, just a shaky extrapolation.
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
Has anyone been looking at the latest butterfly diagram of this cycle and comparing it to prior cycles. Cycle 24 appears to be fairly unique. There appear to be fewer pole-ward spots of note and the notable spots appear to be diving rapidly closer to the equator. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if this cycle petered out early as predicted by L&P.
It would be nice if the money that has been wasted on mitigation of AGW research would have been spent on learning how to grow food when parts of the earth are covered by a mile of ice.
Leif, while L&P is certainly numerology solar physics is still in its infancy ie we cant yet explain why the corona is hotter than the sun’s surface, nor explain the mechanisms behind solar flares or sunspots. So any predictions of solar activity and the effect on the Earth could be considered to be numerology at this stage, and will be until we have a consistent solar model that at least explains its main features (despite the protestations of solar scientists, the current model of the sun does not adequately explain the sun’s operation, and the inability to understand the changes it undergoes underline that point).
It’ll be an interesting period for science, and especially solar science, if in fact the sunspot numbers do decline into a longer-term minimum.
To those who are complaining that temperatures have not declined despite the decline in solar activity i have two points to make. Firstly, the Earth’s climate does not respond instantly to changes in the external environment. Think of it as an engine with a heavy flywheel attached, there is a certain amount of inertia in the climate system and the effects of changes in solar activity involve a lag. The effects of solar changes have thus far not been adequately studied; usually TSI is examined, found not to have changed significantly and the sun’s effect on climate is dismissed. There are far more subtle effects going on that the TSI investigations would not pick up, and certainly there are interactions between the sun and earth that we do not understand well enough (Svensmark’s work highlights this clearly, and solar magnetism appears to be far more important than we have allowed for in the past).
Secondly, you are making your claims based on a temperature statistic that bears no reality to what the climate is actually doing. The global ‘temperature’ (and i am loathe to call it that) anomaly is not a physically real quantity, but merely a derived statistic to approximate an average of the world’s climate. Rising ‘global’ temperatures actually dont have physical effects, it is rising local and regional temperatures that we should be keeping an eye on because that tells us how the globe is actually reacting. Basing theory or policy based on a construction global average is poor science and misleading.
My advice to all is not to get hung up about predictions of global warming or cooling, but to settle in and hope that we learn a hell of a lot about our sun and our climate in the next couple of decades. It could be a period of significant scientific enlightenment and that gets me excited.
@Mark Wilson:
Yes, for the issue of the statistical significance of the global warming trend, 15 years are only a few years. Global warming due to increasing greenhouse gases is a process over many decades and even centuries. There has been a statistically significant warming trend over the last century, which even includes a time period of about three decades w/o warming in the middle of last century, even some cooling during this time.
And the globally averaged temperature hasn’t been flat since 1995. It has increased with a trend over this time interval that is just somewhat below or somewhat above 95% statistical confidence. So it is already statistically significant with 94, 93, or at least 90% confidence. I think it is likely that the trend, taking the same start point of the interval, will exceed the 95% confidence threshold more clearly within a few years.
But the warming alarm would be over. Funding of warming alarm would wither. Certain bogus careers would end in shame.
REMEMBER: Co2 forcing is the main driver of the recent warming. ;O)
With regards to an ice-free North Pole and an ice-free Arctic ocean 30 years is just a few years. The further back you go the less surprising anything appears.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2010.08.016
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0033-5894(71)90069-X
North Pole 1962: http://navsource.org/archives/08/0858411.jpg
http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F00F13F7395516738DDDAC0A94DA405B838EF1D3
I can see all the hippies in 20 years sitting around a coal burning wood stove telling there starving grandkids about the good old days when we used to process all our food into green energy to save the planet.
Was that a typo or have I taken it COMPLETELY out of context???
Localized warming in the Arctic? Certainly!
I actually look forward to the long faces of the AGW deniers, who think some news from solar research about a possible decrease in solar activity over the next decades refute the established science on global warming, when the warming due to increases in greenhouse gases continues over the next decades, despite decreasing solar activity, if latter happens. A continuing warming, particularly if it was significantly more than just 1 or 2 Kelvin, perhaps even to values like during the PETM, which has a non-negligible probability, would be bad for humankind, but good for my ego. The deniers probably would resort to even more obscure arguments and conspiracy theories, though.
Otherwise, good for humankind, bad for my ego, if I had to come to the conclusion I was wrong.
Leif: “Everybody and his brother that now come out of the woodwork saying that their pet theory predicted a small SC24 [long ago] can, of course, not declare victory as many others did the same. The trick is to be right when nobody else is.”
I remember the solar prediction chart that came out about 3 years ago. Everything from an extremely powerful 24 to an extremely weak 24 and all the possibilities in between were covered by someone’s prediction. With all that variation it’s hard to tell if the right prediction will be the skilled one or the lucky one. We’ll know that most were not skilled and a few are still in the running. I believe that you fall into the “still in the running” camp.
Best case, only a few million dead. Worst case … billions.
RE: ew-3 says:
June 14, 2011 at 10:25 am
Instead of de-industrializing the west and spending trillions on “global warming”, we should be thinking about how to survive in a world where our growing seasons are shorter by 30 to 60 days.
===============================================================
6 Billion plus on the Earth, bristling with WMD … throw in a food crisis and a bit hit to viable farm land in the middle of Eurasia … yeah, that’s the ticket. A 100 million man army … for real.
A BIG hit to viable farm land …
Not to worry….the cooling caused by Svensmark’s cosmic ray cloud formation and sudden aerosols from exploding volcanoes in Chile and Eritrea will be nicely balanced by all of the methane releases produced during fracking operations for shale natural gas recovery.
Let the boys at RC show you how it’s done:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2011/04/fracking-methane/
Gotta love this blog! Thanks, Anthony!
Might cool the financial meltdown.
SteveSadlov, I think you underestimate the benefits of technology and greenhouse gasses.
Leif, what is your outlook for the future? Warm, cold?
Back and forth like the 1930’s now that we’re getting the same volcanic activity as the Dust Bowl ’30s?