This is strange. Usually we see the geomagnetic Ap Index increase with increasing sunspots and 10.7 cm radio flux. But the Ap index (the third graph below) has crashed to the third lowest level since January 2000, matching what it was a year ago. This is the second month of decline, and the decline is steep.
Maybe Livingston and Penn are right and while sunspots may still occur, they’ll be mostly invisible to observers due to low magnetic flux. This may be what happened during the Maunder Minimum.
Here’s the L&P plots of Umbral Intensity and Magnetic Field. Once the Umbral magnetic field gets below 1500 gauss, sunspots will no longer be visible.
Graphs from Dr. Leif Svalgaard – Click the pic to view at source
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JUST COME ACROSS THIS —– Don’t know if it is related
Shocked Scientists Ask: Is The Sun Is Dying?
http://beforeitsnews.com/story/1452/028/NL/Shocked_Scientists_Ask:_Is_The_Sun_Is_Dying.html?currentSplittedPage=0
Shouldn’t those red lines be following the curve and approaching 1000 sunspots by 2020? Obviously, the data were assembled by sunspot deniers.
The Sun could be at the peak of the sunspot cycle.
From the first comment:
“Shocked Scientists Ask: Is The Sun Is Dying?”
I looked through the link.
It has all the hallmark of sensationalism written all over it.It is a mess of a post.
I am not worried.
Don’t go to the quack site listed in the top post. Small bit of real science mixed with a whole lot of crazy.
Is there an explanation for this? Surely it would be included in the post if there was?
Ah Yes.
PEAK SPOTTING… and then a decline.
Luckily the free market can come to the rescue, we can surround the Earth with giant Electromagnets, about a billion EuroDollarPounds a piece. Then, when it seems the Sun is misbehaving, we can flick a switch.
BAM!
Sunspots!
True we could just falsify the DATA, what we call a ‘b-UEA-ty filter’ in the spin-dustry, but where’s the profit in that.
So if the Nations of the Earth could send contributions to:
Speculative Bubble Investments
1 MudHut Row
The Green Zone
Nigeria
We’d appreciate it.
Other opportunities include Bi-Carbonate Bombing the oceans to reduce its acidity.
Manufacturing Giant Tin Foil Hats for all endangered species.
Rocket booster packs for underperforming wind turbines.
This seems to be filling in another piece of the puzzle. If, during the Maunder Minimum the AP was very low due to the reduced solar wind, but as Leif insists, the 10.7 cm flux was normal, then this means that the Svensmark theory gets a big boost. ie:Reduced size of the heliosphere causes more GCR leading to cloudy earth syndrome.
Of course the IPCC’s model’s will show this extra cloud as more positive feedback, so there is no fear of an ice age 🙂
It would be interesting to plug this in with unadulterated temp data for the same period…
With apologies to T.S. Eliot.
The Sun will do what the Sun will do and there is no doing anything about it.
Kindest Regards
I would think that the waning magnatizim should send shivers down your spine… this means the suns internal motor is stalling… we may be entering an extended cooling phase… despite the Al Gorians and their high priest and sacrifices to the God of AGW..
the next two solar cycles may have just been called off… due to lack of energy…
LIA II anyone?
“While the world was hoodwinked with global warming nonsense, …..
Seemed to be the most intelligent phrase in the story.
“Here’s the L&P plots of Umbral Intensity and Magnetic Field. Once the Umbral magnetic field gets below 1500 gauss, sunspots will no longer be visible.”
Taking that graph & extrapolating the trend line, I don’t see the trend line crossing 1500 until 2026 (I did this digitally – not an eyeball estimate ). Does that make sense? I thought L&P were getting to 1500 or below before 2020.
I think that because the Sun is losing its magnetism, the tides are weaker (there is lots of iron in ocean water so under normal circumstances, a higher magnetic reading on the surface of the Sun helps the tides), therefore the sloshed warm water in the western tropics doesn’t have the strong tides it needs to go back over the cold water underneath, leaving it exposed and cooling us all off. So the Sun has been directly affecting the ocean surface, leading to the cooling trend.
Neutron numbers also suggest we may have peaked early. Numbers have been increasing over the past two months…
http://cosmicrays.oulu.fi/ (create a chart below starting Jan 1 and watch the trend).
I might be mistaken but I’ve just linked here from a new co-mod post at Tallbloke’s, a complementing item, we are close to solar max, with evidence. Need to worry about the shape of the top of cycle.
I think those that have used up their allotment of sunshine should pay a higher tax or purchase sunshine credits so they can subsidize those of us who haven’t used all our sunshine. Of course it will have to be up to some progressive panel of scientists to determine what that allotment level should be, and who will have to pay. Hey – Can I start a sunshine credit exchange on the NASDAQ or Chicago Mercantile? or has Al Gore already beaten me to it???
But the Ap index (the third graph below) has crashed to the third lowest level since January 2000
It is low, BUT
1) it is almost always low in November-December [there is a reason for that – mainly the semiannual variation]
2) If you get Ap from NOAA know that they truncate. For November Ap was 4.9, but NOAA truncates to 4, making it look lower than it was.
The sun is dying. This is due to a lack of combustions emitted from Earth from the burning of fossil fuels and incandescatrons from conventional lightbulbs. Those strange particles that are mutating matter are curly photons. It’s over. We’re done for.
“JUST COME ACROSS THIS —– Don’t know if it is related”
It’s an interesting article but I would take it with more than a grain of salt. Here’s why:
1) “Whatever it is, the evidence suggests it’s affecting matter and the natural established rates of radioactive decay.” That is an interesting recent discovery but it’s quite a stretch to connect it with the sun’s current dyspepsia. This effect may have always existed but was never noticed before. My opinion is it’s a non-sequitur because this discovery has no connection to the thrust of the article.
2) “Now it’s poised to cool much faster as it approaches the Maunder Minimum.” Well, there was a Maunder Minimum in the past and yet we’re still all here. So is the sun.
3) The article gallops off into two opposite directions simultaneously. We are going to freeze to death with the last survivors at the equator or we are all going to broil to death as the sun’s surface envelops Earth. Which is it? My conclusion is the author is hyperventilating.
4) It’s a charming part of human nature to be excited by scary stories. We have ample evidence of that from the proponents of AGW global warming and we have been entertained by them for years. You just feel more alive if you believe there is an alligator under your bed when the lights go off. This article is in the same vein.
My thoughts on this trend towards the import of such circumstance here at the possible end-Holocene. Consider that the Holocene is half a precessional cycle old right now, and that 5 of the last 6 have each lasted about half a precessional cycle. This is all discussed in http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/12/30/the-antithesis/
Which occasioned reflection on the Eemian and Holsteinian interglacials.
Sirocko, et al, 2005 (http://www.particle-analysis.info/LEAP_Nature__Sirocko+Seelos.pdf) in discussing the Late Eemian Aridity Pulse (LEAP) at the end-Eemian opine:
“Investigating the processes that led to the end of the last interglacial period is relevant for understanding how our ongoing interglacial will end, which has been a matter of much debate…..
“The end of the Eemian was associated with a global sea level drop, dated at 118 ^ 1 kyr BP (ref. 7). This was the last glacial inception (LGI), when continental glaciers first started to grow…..
“The onset of the LEAP occurred within less than two decades (see the core photograph in Fig. 4), demonstrating the existence of a sharp threshold, which must be near 416Wm22, which is the 658N July insolation for 118 kyr BP (ref. 9). This value is only slightly below today’s value of 428Wm22. Insolation will remain at this level slightly above the inception for the next 4,000 years before it then increases again.”
Integrating Lisiecki and Raymo 2005 (http://www.mendeley.com/research/a-pliocenepleistocene-stack-of-57-globally-distributed-benthic-d18c-records/):
“Recent research has focused on MIS 11 as a possible analog for the present interglacial [e.g., Loutre and Berger, 2003; EPICA Community Members, 2004] because both occur during times of low eccentricity. The LR04 age model establishes that MIS 11 spans two precession cycles, with d18O values below 3.6% for 20 kyr, from 398–418 ka. In comparison, stages 9 and 5 remained below 3.6% for 13 and 12 kyr, respectively, and the Holocene interglacial has
lasted 11 kyr so far. In the LR04 age model, the average LSR of 29 sites is the same from 398–418 ka as from 250–650 ka; consequently, stage 11 is unlikely to be artificially stretched. However, the 21 June insolation minimum at 65N during MIS 11 is only 489 W/m2, much less pronounced than the present minimum of 474 W/m2. In addition, current insolation values are not predicted to return to the high values of late MIS 11 for another 65 kyr. We propose that this effectively precludes a ‘‘double precession cycle’’ interglacial [e.g., Raymo, 1997] in the Holocene without human influence.”
one wonders if this might be the “Maunder Minimum” or the incipient L”H”AP………
The solar wind is certainly not showing signs of an up ramp just yet.
http://tinyurl.com/2dg9u22/images/wind_2011.png
The opening graph which looks to display the SIDC sunspot number I think is overstated. The SIDC has now over counted NOAA for eight straight months, some part of that from the SIDC method of splitting NOAA regions.
http://tinyurl.com/2dg9u22/images/sidc_noaa.png
We are very hard on AGW partly because we do not find their models are worthy. The preceding discussion is based mostly on models.
Pamela Gray says
I think that because the Sun is losing its magnetism, the tides are weaker
——–
I don’t believe a word of it, but feel free to calculate the magnetic force on the water in the ocean and tell us how it compares to the force of gravity.