Just published in GRL, a new paper by Lockwood et al that suggests the sun may be headed for a Maunder type minimum.:
The persistence of solar activity indicators and the descent of the Sun into Maunder Minimum conditions
Key Points
- Can we predict the onset of the next grand solar minimum
- Grand minima can be predicted using some solar indices
- The design and operation of systems influenced by space climate can be optimised
Abstract:
The recent low and prolonged minimum of the solar cycle, along with the slow growth in activity of the new cycle, has led to suggestions that the Sun is entering a Grand Solar Minimum (GSMi), potentially as deep as the Maunder Minimum (MM). This raises questions about the persistence and predictability of solar activity. We study the autocorrelation functions and predictability R2L(t) of solar indices, particularly group sunspot number RG and heliospheric modulation potential Φ for which we have data during the descent into the MM. For RG and Φ, R2L(t) > 0.5 for times into the future of t ≈ 4 and ≈ 3 solar cycles, respectively: sufficient to allow prediction of a GSMi onset. The lower predictability of sunspot number RZ is discussed. The current declines in peak and mean RG are the largest since the onset of the MM and exceed those around 1800 which failed to initiate a GSMi.
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DirkH says:
December 2, 2011 at 7:53 am
changes in the Solar magnetic field have an effect on cloudiness, modulating it by a percent or two, you suddenly get the necessary change in energy.
UV varies as much as 15% during the solar cycle. Something Climate Science and Solar Science has not accounted for. The Temperature of the earth is about 300K. A 15% change is about 45C. And we are set to end industrialization and condemn most of the world to poverty over 2C?
If we’re going to have a Maunder like minimum, it will be devastating for every living creature on this earth. Mass starvation, massive die out of our human and animal population as availability of food becomes scarce.
There is my paper on this topic here:
http://www.wbabin.net/Science-Journals/Research%20Papers-Astrophysics/Download/3812
In particular see figure 7 on page 19.
Correction. The aim of CO2 regulation is not to condemn the people of the earth to poverty by ending industrialization. It is to condemn the people of the earth to poverty and mass starvation by ending the industrialization that has made it possible for us to feed 7 billion people.
Look at Zimbabwe as an example of what happens when you replace industrialization with human labor. A net exporter of food becomes an importer. When this happens on a planetary scale, where do you import your food from? Mars? the Moon? Nature has a simpler solution. It eliminates the hungry until the food supply balance is restored.
I think the key word here is ‘prediction’. I am pleased to see that the WUWT crowd is quite aware that our existing theories do not enable us to predict a solar minimum or the effects on Earth of a solar minimum.
What the scientists are doing is extrapolating from old graphs. We can call it “forecasting.”
Note that my paper predicts an Oort-like minimum (1010 to 1050 A.D.) that will last from roughly 2005 to 2045, not a Maunder-like minimum.
Richard deSousa says:
December 2, 2011 at 8:05 am
“If we’re going to have a Maunder like minimum, it will be devastating for every living creature on this earth.”
We’d better give enough money to the IPCC so they can make sure that doesn’t happen.
For anyone who thinks solar variations cant significantly impact temperatures, have a look at these.
http://climaterealists.com/index.php?id=8674
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/meant80n.uk.php
Coincidence?
People seem to think only of Dalton and Maunder. Remember that going into the LIA we had other solar minima nearly back to back. There was the Wolf minimum which was deeper and longer than Dalton but not so deep and long as Maunder. There was also the Spörer and then finally the Maunder. Prior to the MWP there was the Oort Minimum which might have been more like the Dalton.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5c/Carbon14_with_activity_labels.svg
The Spörer lasted for nearly 100 years. Sunspots had not yet been discovered so we have no exact counts to go by.
(possibly a report- not sure what happened to the last try).
Is the sudden dramatic chance in arctic temps a few days ago:
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/meant80n.uk.php
related to this solar event:
http://http://climaterealists.com/index.php?id=8674climaterealists.com/index.php?id=8674
or just coincidence? How does TSI vary during a solar event like that?
jack morrow says:
December 2, 2011 at 6:18 am
Is this the same Lockwood that was mostly wrong on his other predictions? I have no faith any more in the model predictions by these guys.
Is it the same Lockwood that disputes any effect of sun activity on climate, together with a Piers Forster study?
The BBC reported in 2007:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/6290228.stm
Ooopsi… did I say BBC?
I’m a bit confused. The abstract doesn’t appear to make any predictions, but rather says it is exploring whether or not a prediction could be made. Did I miss some subtlety, or does the actual paper (which I don’t ahve access to) go on to make such a prediction and if so, what is it?
So what? According to the Warmists the sun has no effect on weather or climate whatsoever. Didn’t our troll Hugh Pepper(?) say as much only 2 days ago, replete with links?
@Pamela Gray (December 2, 2011 at 7:14 am)
thermal wind (gradients, not averages)
Hi!
I find it more likely that we would have something less than Maunder simply because it seems that less severe cases are more common in the record and therefore seem more likely occur. To predict a “Maunder” would seem to be going to extreme. So predicting an Oort-like minimum would seem like a more reasonable expectation.
Sean Peake says:
December 2, 2011 at 6:24 am
I expect Leif to be here in 3, 2,…
I’m busy right now. And most of the comments are just the same old, tired sycophantic babble by the usual pushers of pseudo-science which we all have heard a million times.
Caution: use of Rg is not a good idea as it is wrong [too low by 50%] before ~1885, and the Rz is too high [by 20%] after 1945. This invalidate any detailed numerical comparisons.
That the Rg agrees better with Fs and Phi is no wonder as these were derived or calibrated against Rg in the first place. Even Ken Schatten [one of the inventors of Rg] now agrees with me that Rg is wrong [too low]. Take a look at the SSN workshop wiki at http://ssnworkshop.wikia.com/wiki/Home
and of the presentations
http://ssnworkshop.wikia.com/wiki/Presentations_1
Total output doesn’t really vary all that much but what DOES vary is the energy distribution in the spectrum. I think we are going to find that energy changes in the UV portion of the spectrum have a larger change than we have previously thought they have but that is speculation on my part. Of particular interest to me are long-term impacts of reduced UV on ocean temperatures. If we were to go 100 years with reduced UV, what impact does that have on the ocean? UV penetrates the deepest of all the wavelengths and is very energetic.
Also, what impact does reduced UV have on biological life on Earth? Sunlight is a natural anti-microbial due to UV. If we have reduced UV, do we see greater microbial abundance in soil and at the surface of the oceans? What would be the impact of that on things such as decay, diseases, food chain, etc?
To my mind there are more interesting things to be known about the distribution of the energy in the spectrum than the total power of the aggregate spectrum which I don’t believe changes all that much.
Richard deSousa says:
December 2, 2011 at 8:05 am
If we’re going to have a Maunder like minimum, it will be devastating for every living creature on this earth. Mass starvation, massive die out of our human and animal population as availability of food becomes scarce.
_____________________________________
DO NOT make the mistake of think our fearless leaders actually believe the crap science they are feeding to the rest of us for political reasons.
Business Insider Jan 6 2010
It seems that George Soros, Al Gore, Lord Rothschild, The World Bank, the Harvard and other University Endowment Funds, China and many others are taking his suggestion to heart.
World Bank warns on ‘farmland grab’: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/62890172-99a8-11df-a852-00144feab49a.html
Hedge funds buying massive tracts of African farmland: http://www.pri.org/stories/world/africa/hedge-funds-buy-massive-tracts-of-farm-land-5343.html
http://farmlandgrab.org/
Whether food is the next big “Investment Bubble” or if it is something much more ominous, the Grab for the World Food Supply that I have been watching for the past six years is increasingly worrying. Especially since the skuttlebutt was “Global Cooling” was on the agenda for the Bilderberg meeting a few years ago.
“The Forthcoming Grand Minimum of Solar Activity” can be found at the following site:
http://journalofcosmology.com/ClimateChange111.html
There are “three types of Grand Episodes that alternated during the last millennium (Duhau and de Jager, 2008). These episodes are the Grand Minimum (M: 1620 – 1724), the Regular Oscillations (R: 1724 – 1924) and the Grand Maximum (H: 1924 – 2009).”
Guess what cycle began in 2009?
I remember watching a TV show once and the guest was the late Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Senator (D-NY). He was asked what investment he thought a person could make that would best prepare them for what he thought might be coming down the pike. He said to buy the very best shotgun you could afford and some property in the countryside. I don’t remember his exact words so I can’t directly quote him, but that is what he said. The host (I can’t remember now which show it was) replied with “A shotgun?” in a rather surprised tone, and Moynihan reiterated “Yes, a shotgun, and do it before it is made illegal to buy one”.
Just looked at Spaceweather.com and noted how the Sun is peppered with little spots. Seems that gone are the days of the large clumps of ugly black we used to enjoy. Now it’s some kind of huge event when a single sizable flare erupts every week or so. Has anyone gotten a handle on the current cycle? I mean, where are we at with it? Waxing? Waning? How long to the next downturn (normal predictable minimum)?
crosspatch says:
December 2, 2011 at 9:34 am
Gail Combs says:
I remember watching a TV show once and the guest was the late Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Senator (D-NY). He was asked what investment he thought a person could make that would best prepare them for what he thought might be coming down the pike…..
________________________
I moved south, bought a hundred acres and followed the rest of the advice….
This is no better then the general circulation models and probably less well understood. I have said many times the GCM and other climate foolishness is akin to a Ouija Board. This is just about a good as that. What is does show however is how much we simply do not know. I think this stuff is great but then I thought the idea of GCM’s was great too. The trick is to uses these things to keep our thinking from getting to far off track and provide some arm waving abilities like the cosmologists. The trick is to not believe in your own mythology.
In politics that is called “breathing your own exhaust” and we see a lot of it these days.
ferd berple says:
December 2, 2011 at 8:12 am
The massive die-off of human population is only possible if every country collapses simultaneously. That is a major reason why a synchronized global market one-world-government is dangerous. Countries go through cycles of growth and collapse. It is virtually inevitable that government will grow too powerful and corrupt. When that happens, it must fall and be replaced. Smaller cooperative and desynchronized economies will avoid worldwide boom and bust (the latter could become a runaway civilization ender). A United States of Europe would only make the problems the Europeans face even more tragic. There would be no strong Germany to help with a bailout of failed partners.
Gary says:
December 2, 2011 at 9:36 am
It’s intersting to see the northern hemisphere may be much farther along in cycle 24 than the southern hemisphere. Double peaks were observed in the solar maxima in the last few cycles. Cycle 23 had a very strong second peak during which the southern hemisphere activity grew while the northern hemisphere activity dwindled. The hemispheres are apparently still out of phase, and it remains to be seen whether that trend is increasing or not. There seems to be no theory yet concerning the cause or possible consequences of unsynchronized progression of each hemisphere through the solar cycle.
http://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/images/bfly.gif
http://www.icsu-fags.org/ps11sidc.htm
Also, there seem to be no indications of any change in solar parameters suggesting the sun is on a path to a strong prolonged minimum.
http://www.boulder.swri.edu/~deforest/SPD-sunspot-release/