By Paul L. Vaughan, M.Sc.
The amplitude of Earth’s zonal winds is modulated by the solar cycle. Here’s a concise visual update based on the latest data:
LOD’ = rate of change of length of day
Data
ftp://ftp.iers.org/products/eop/long-term/c04_08/iau2000/eopc04_08_IAU2000.62-now ftp://ftp.ngdc.noaa.gov/STP/SOLAR_DATA/COSMIC_RAYS/STATION_DATA/Monthly_data/moscow.tab
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By the way Leif, the spinning ice skater slowing her rotation down by the extention of her arms is an elegant analogy. One of your best posts to the reading public in my opinion.
@Paul Vaughan says:
December 26, 2011 at 8:07 pm
“Spatiotemporal pattern.”
So you say “solar excitation can be either CONstructive or DEstructive” on “Spatiotemporal pattern”. In what though ? SST`s ? ENSO ? land temp` anomalies ? can you be more specific please ?
Paul Vaughan says:
December 27, 2011 at 6:42 am
<You keep shifting the focus away from orbital modulations (& Earth’s spatiotemporal filter more generally). You understand orbital modulations relatively well for the geomagnetic field, but you repeatedly deflect attention away from the solar input vector response of other fields. This is a rather curious double-standard.
solar input vector response? more nonsense mumbo-jumbo.
Paul Vaughan says:
December 27, 2011 at 6:29 am
This will enable you to develop awareness of CROSS-SCALE morphology.
ditto
Paul Vaughan says:
December 27, 2011 at 6:29 am
the window extent to something somewhat NEAR the solar cycle length (it doesn’t even have to be exact since the resonance is so strong),
more nonsense mumbo-jumbo
As indicated, one can isolate the semiannual variation any number of ways. The results are ROBUST ACROSS METHODS.
So, show us yours.
First time I have ever spit coffee on my phone screen.
@Carla says:
December 27, 2011 at 6:44 am
“And now the solar wind speed is below my floor..”
See the impact of that on the ENSO, AO and NAO indexes, and less zonal jet stream.
Ulric, mathematically please. Or else u are just throwing stuff out there and hoping some of it will stick.
Paul Vaughan says:
December 27, 2011 at 6:42 am
deflect attention away from the solar input vector response of other fields
Enumerate what other fields. For each field describe the input vector. For each vector describe the response.
Paul,
Check out Big Bang Theory on TV; it’s on at least once per night. You are the Dr. Sheldon Cooper. This is not a snark. It is an example of what happens when intellect overpowers social observation: we don’t understand anything but that we aren’t smart enough to deserve your time or energy.
Like the others, I’m really interested in what you are saying – inside your brain. If you let the words get a little air, we’ll look forward, I’m sure, to what you will be thinking tomorrow.
It’s like Schrödinger’s Cat.
@Pamela Gray says:
December 27, 2011 at 9:06 am
“Ulric, mathematically please. Or else u are just throwing stuff out there and hoping some of it will stick.”
That is not my style at all. If the relationships were not repeatedly observable in the short term, I would not even mention it.
If the mechanism is not mathematically plausible, or is less capable than a currently plausible mechanism is, I wouldn’t mention it. I think this view is a more discernable view u might want to consider.
Ulric Lyons says:
December 27, 2011 at 8:52 am
@Carla says:
December 27, 2011 at 6:44 am
“And now the solar wind speed is below my floor..”
See the impact of that on the ENSO, AO and NAO indexes, and less zonal jet stream.
~
You know Ulric every where I look there seems to be less current available too. Less ionization, more negative junk hanging around.
Pamela, you do know that there is a coupling effect between the ionosphere and the upper atmosphere? A top down coupling to bottoms up effect? Both are windy and have their own currents and charges? They might even charge exchange.
Carla says:
December 27, 2011 at 12:29 pm
Pamela, you do know that there is a coupling effect between the ionosphere and the upper atmosphere? A top down coupling to bottoms up effect? Both are windy and have their own currents and charges? They might even charge exchange.
There are currents in the ionosphere of the order of a million amps. Then there is a ‘leakage current’ down to the lower atmosphere of the order of a 1000 amps, or a thousand times smaller, so you can safely ignore the latter.
Carla says:
December 27, 2011 at 12:29 pm
Then there is a ‘leakage current’ down to the lower atmosphere of the order of a 1000 amps, or a thousand times smaller, so you can safely ignore the latter.
The leakage current is maintained by the approx. 2000 thunderstorms that are going on at any given time, so is basically maintained from below.
@Pamela Gray says:
December 27, 2011 at 10:42 am
“If the mechanism is not mathematically plausible,”
That depends on how effectively you could model it mathematically. A consistent physical response is definitely worth exploring.
“There are currents in the ionosphere of the order of a million amps. Then there is a ‘leakage current’ down to the lower atmosphere of the order of a 1000 amps”
So there is a ‘gradient’ that could vary over time ?
“The leakage current is maintained by the approx. 2000 thunderstorms that are going on at any given time, so is basically maintained from below.”
I seem to recall recent evidence of downward electrical transmission but cannot link to it at the moment.
Then there is the matter of atmospheric chemistry involving the changing particle and wavelength products of solar variability having differential effects at different heights as a result of interactions with ozone so as to change the vertical temperature profile of the atmosphere with a consequent redistribution of surface air pressure patterns (the permanent climate zones).
Lots to be going on with and not wise to discount any of it in light of the observed behaviour of the Arctic and Antarctic Oscillations and Joanna Haigh’s unexpected finding that ozone above 45 Km INCREASED at a time of lower solar activity.
Stephen Wilde says:
December 27, 2011 at 1:34 pm
So there is a ‘gradient’ that could vary over time ?
vary the number of thunderstorms…
Lots to be going on with and not wise to discount any of it
One has to put it in the proper perspective and deal with what is effective. The rest is interesting, but not important.
Stephen Wilde says:
December 27, 2011 at 1:34 pm
ozone above 45 Km INCREASED at a time of lower solar activity.
You have this slightly backwards or with the wrong emphasis. The correct way of stating it is that there is “a reduction in mesospheric ozone at higher solar activity”. The way you say it sort of implies that if you do away with solar activity altogether [so there is no EUV] one would get maximum ozone.
http://heliophysics.nasa.gov/SolarMinimum24/ionoatmos/Merkel.pdf
Carla says:
December 27, 2011 at 5:36 am
Geoff Sharp says:
December 27, 2011 at 4:08 am
~
Geoff, was wondering if you are continuing to see a drop in the solar wind speed averages?
Yes… the values over the past couple of days are the lowest I can remember in the last 4 years although we did have something similar just a little over two years ago. I am not sure the solar wind speed alone has much bearing as it varies so little over the solar cycle. Low readings at cycle max are not uncommon.
http://tinyurl.com/2dg9u22/images/wind_2011.png
http://tinyurl.com/2dg9u22/?q=node/104
“The correct way of stating it is that there is “a reduction in mesospheric ozone at higher solar activity””
I can live with that because all I need is differential variations in ozone quantities at different levels.
A reduction in mesospheric ozone when the sun is more active results in a cooling mesosphere.
A cooling mesosphere increases upward energy flux and appears to cool the stratosphere along with the mesosphere when the sun is more active DESPITE an increase in ozone below 45Km.
The cooling stratosphere when the sun is more active increases the upward energy flux from the troposphere. The height of the tropopause rises especially towards the poles.
A cooler stratosphere having increased the height of the tropopause especially above the poles intensifies the polar vortex and focuses it on the pole so that the jetstreams become more poleward and zonal. In contrast a warmer stratosphere during a period of quiet sun reduces the height of the tropopause at the poles causing the polar vortex to become weak and split into several components around the pole which forces the surface air pressure distribution equatorward for more meridional jetstreams.
When the sun is more active global cloud cover reduces as a result of broader equatorial air masses, more solar energy gets into the oceans to skew ENSO in favour of El Nino but the warming effect is offset by the faster water cycle for little or no change in system energy content whilst mid latitudes at the surface become warmer due to more warm air flowing those regions as it flows faster on the way out to space.
The opposite when the sun is less active.
That is climate change with no significant change in total system energy content.
And all because the ozone quantities in the mesosphere vary oppositely to the ozone quantities in the stratosphere when the level of solar activity changes.
That is what has been confusing everyone.
Geoff Sharp says:
December 27, 2011 at 3:34 pm
Low readings at cycle max are not uncommon.
Are, in fact, the norm: http://www.leif.org/research/Climatological%20Solar%20Wind.png
Shows that the density is lowest near max and that there is a local minimum in solar wind speed.
In fact, exactly as I suggested here:
http://climaterealists.com/index.php?id=6645
“How The Sun Could Control Eath’s Temperature”
I thank you for that link to the update of Joanna’s work which fits my hypothesis perfectly.
It now seems to be accepted that the sign of the ozone response above and below 40/45 Km is different.
That has implications as regards the ozone hole too.
I am not aware of anyone else with a hypothesis that accounts for those findings.
Stephen Wilde says:
December 27, 2011 at 3:54 pm
I am not aware of anyone else with a hypothesis that accounts for those findings.
The link I gave you does a good job “The model and satellite data suggest that the ozone response is due to enhanced photochemical activity associated with larger UV variability”. I don’t think that your model can use that for anything, nor accounts for anything. Just hand waving, no numbers, no quantitative results, no predictive power [because no numbers].
@Geoff Sharp says:
December 27, 2011 at 3:34 pm
“I am not sure the solar wind speed alone has much bearing as it varies so little over the solar cycle.”
Monthly values from 330 to >750Km/s is a considerable range.
Stephen Wilde says:
December 27, 2011 at 1:34 pm
Lots to be going on with and not wise to discount any of it in light of the observed..
~
New observed and modelled additions added regularly. Or more dots to connect..
doi:10.1029/2011JA017126
The ionospheric gravity and diamagnetic current systems
Key Points
•We have developed a model to calculate the gravity and diamagnetic currents
•We show for the first time how the gravity current closes in the ionosphere
•We perform tests of the diamagnetic current against theoretical predictions
P. Alken S. Maus A. D. Richmond A. Maute
Large-scale currents in the ionosphere are driven by a variety of sources, including neutral winds, gravity, and plasma pressure gradients. While the stronger daytime wind-driven currents have been extensively studied, gravity and diamagnetic currents in the ionosphere have received very little attention but can have substantial effects even during the night. With the availability of a new generation of magnetic field models based on high-accuracy satellite magnetic measurements, it becomes increasingly important to account for these smaller current systems. In this work, we use the stand-alone NCAR TIEGCM electrodynamics solver along with empirical density, wind, and temperature inputs to model the global current systems caused by gravity and diamagnetism in the F region ionosphere and calculate their magnetic perturbations. These results allow us for the first time to visualize the global structure of these currents and quantify their magnetic perturbations. We find a significantly higher gravity-driven current during the night than one would expect from the lower conductivity which is primarily due to a Pedersen current driven by.. polarization charges.. in the predawn sector. We find some discrepancies between the diamagnetic perturbation and a theoretical prediction which could be a result of magnetic tension due to the curvature of the geomagnetic field lines. These results will allow geomagnetic field modelers to account for these important current systems and create more accurate models. This work will also be crucial in analyzing ionospheric magnetic field measurements from upcoming satellite missions such as Swarm.
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2011/2011JA017126.shtml
Dr. S. you may find the next interesting as well.
doi:10.1029/2010JA015897
Cluster observations of a cusp diamagnetic cavity: Structure, size, and dynamics
Stephen Wilde says:
December 27, 2011 at 3:45 pm
~
Good job .. starting to ring clearer over hear..more coupling to do..