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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steveta_uk says:
December 2, 2011 at 8:20 am
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?
Do you think this was caused by electroscavenging?
I disagree. I believe all it would take is one massive killing frost in the upper plains of the US/Canada. One single cold night could trigger it. It would start with a spike in food prices and end with great social upheaval and a lot of people killing each other. If it doesn’t disrupt the entire production/supply infrastructure, it will stabilize when the population has been reduced to where they can all be fed again. In Europe, the situation resulted in a collapse of the normal infrastructure processes and resulted in many years of wars and famine. Many areas of Europe did not return to population levels seen during the MWP until the 20th century.
I bet all of this is predicted with a “model.”
JUST IN: Boy claims to see Wolf, yet again.
Is it getting harsh out or am I just hormonal?
What if Maunder isn’t the grandest minima? I’m guessing it isn’t even close. On the other hand We’ll probably be living on other planets or extinct by the time we see one.
Bring on Maunder II, we have new sattelites, let’s learn something!
crosspatch says (December 2, 2011 at 11:29 am)
Last time Europe had the 30 Years War. This time, with the EU, Europe will probably have….another 30 Years War.
“look at the 10.7 cm Flux. This measures the UV energy which directly effects the heat in the Ozone Layer. This is the thermal blanket that helps us become warm or cold”
I think that is right but the key issue to my mind is that the effects are differential at different levels leading to a cooling of the stratosphere when the sun is active and a warming of the stratosphere when the sun is inactive.
That is the only means whereby we can get poleward climate zone shifts when the sun is active and equatorward shifts when it is inactive.
Standard climatology suggest a warming stratosphere when the sun is active which would give equatorward shifting when the sun is active but in fact the shift is poleward when the sun is active.
The evidence is that sudden stratospheric warming events cause equatorward bursts of polar air as is well recognised.
Standard climatology simply does not fit the observations.
It is those shifts that change global cloudiness and albedo so as to change the amount of solar energy into the oceans which then affect the temperature of thje troposphere.
http://climaterealists.com/index.php?id=8723&linkbox=true&position=6
“CO2 or Sun ?”
I would say you are probably correct. Considering how short of a time we have been observing sunspots, the fact that we had one like the Maunder probably means grand minima of that extent are probably fairly common. They might even be the “norm” during glacial periods (my speculation). About 1/3 of the time of the last 1000 years has been in various grand minima.
I have not seen the new paper (I shall search for it), but Dr. Lockwood put his name to a sunspot projection, which was quoted at the recent Santa Fe Climate conference.
I found it lacking in reason, my comments are here:
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/NFC7a.htm
(scroll down the web page).
The first comment here had be a bit flabbergasted. Australia just got finished with the northern hemispheric equivalent of May. On top of that, it was 4.1˚F above normal for the month of November… quite significant for a “summer” month in Sydney. While it was very wet, all indications are that in fact Sydney has had a very tropical summer so far with very humid, hot weather compared to normal. A few days of predicted cool weather a “cold” summer does not make.
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.
=============================
Add to that thousands upon thousands of nuclear warheads, especially all the ones hidden underground in the PRC (never part of any treaty) and Russia (now treating treaties like pie crusts in classic fashion). As “luck” would have it, the nations most adversely affected by loss of viable growing areas are those in the Shanghai Cooperation Org, meanwhile, the nations where the remaining breadbaskets will be happen to be in the Americas and Western Europe. The next world war will be the worst.
If sun affected major climate changes through the TSI (including UV etc) it would show up in the data, and there has not been a shortage of attempts to find such link.
I used Dr. Svalgaard’s data for the heliosphere’s magnetic field at the Earth’s orbit and compared to the temperature data, and there it was:
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/HMF-T.htm
Details will be soon in the second article I am writing on the North Atlantic Oscillations (the first one is available on line, it deals with the AMO )
ferd berple says:
December 2, 2011 at 8:12 am
Time to learn to grow your own Fred, there is a lot more technology available now to enable small scale production growing and rearing food, and also to protect it. No matter where in the global political spectrum you reside sometime in the near future people will start to realise, we are animals and this is nature.
Alan the Brit says:
December 2, 2011 at 7:38 am
………..
Not surprised by that. Dr Lockwood was indeed dismissing the link. Even Dr. Hathaway is getting around, another ‘Johnny come lately’; if you missed his recent radio interview (10 days ago) I got link here at the top of the web-page:
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/NFC7a.htm
“f 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.”
C’mon, guys – Is this rhetoric really necessary? I’d rather see planning rather than scaremongering for a change. If we’re going to have to get our food grown elsewhere, let’s talk to the folks who will have to grow it. Loan them money to set up irrigation, transportation, whatever. Cooperate with the people who will be short. Heck, China has lots of lunch money.
Landscheidt was predicting the very same thing some time ago, and Smith’s examination of the changes in the Sun’s net angular momentum and their relationship to known Grand Minima fine tuned Landscheidt’s ideas.
http://www.landscheidt.info/
I’m not sure GSM can be predicted, but it’s interesting to see the current trend and imagine if it continues.
Ferd, I always read your comments with interest, but this is a very tired meme. By the time of the Montreal Protocol, the basic patent on Freon had been expired for about 41 years. Please, give it a rest.
GRLs gone wild!! Delinquent teen runaways!!
It’s crying wolf … aka woofin’ … and we’ve heard it before. Many times. Enough already.
Hey, I just noticed that if you flip that graph, it could be substituted for the Tijander sediments in the Mann/Jones paper!
(Sorry couldn’t resist)
We don’t have the data. The only data we have of the UV that I was talking about has only been collected since well after the start of solar cycle 23. The data we DO have show a strong correlation to the change in UV with changes in the AO/NAO and climate models reflect the observation when provided that data.
The UV correlation I am talking about is this paper:
http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v4/n11/full/ngeo1282.html
What I find uncanny about that UV paper are the graphs in figure 7 of 8, particularly the top set of UVER daily irradiance measured in Spain when compared with the NCDC seasonal temperature graphs for 1992 through 2010 (base period set to 1990 to 2010 for the center line). I would expect the UV to be roughly the same for Spain as the CONUS (possibly with the exception of Spring depending on where the “ozone hole” spills from the pole in Spring).
This is the first correlation of data I have seen that matches the pattern of warmer summers and colder winters. Spring has a much “flatter” trend in the CONUS temperature graphs than Summer or Fall. Correlation does not mean causation, I know. But the relationship is still quite uncanny.
Living in northernmost Vermont, I strongly vote for continued warming. I haven’t done any research on what life was like here during the LIA, but I’m betting it was damned cold and difficult.
Still, I do have 40 acres of mixed forest/pasture, a large garden, and several guns.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-15995845
This might have been posted lread. If katla goes up it could be messy. It could be a “get out of jail free” card for the warmists. We know how it will go: “if Katla hadn’t erupted…”
I’m in a Charlie Parker mood so here’s “My Old Flame”.
Bennett says:
December 2, 2011 at 4:23 pm
“Living in northernmost Vermont…”
Here’s some moonlight….