The NOAA SWPC monthly solar cycle update has been published here, and after a big spike last month, the sunspot count is down again. There’s an even bigger drop though in the Ap geomagnetic index, as seen and discussed below the Continue reading line.
10.7 centimeter radio flux was down slightly too.
But here’s the really interesting part, the Ap geomagnetic index plummeted to a value of 2, equal to the previous 12 year minimum set in November 2009.
Source data: http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/ftpdir/weekly/RecentIndices.txt
Dr. Leif Svalgaard offers these comments via email:
Ap is based on mostly Northern Hemisphere stations [11 North, 2 South] and is somewhat biased [having less activity in northern winter]. This is in addition to a general semiannual variation http://www.leif.org/research/Semiannual-Comment.pdf
with minima at the solstices. The definitive Ap values are determined by Potsdam and can be found here: http://isgi.latmos.ipsl.fr/lesdonne.htm
Real-time values [preliminary the last 15 days] are available here http://www.geomag.bgs.ac.uk/data_service/data/magnetic_indices/apindex.html
SWPC [NOAA] also compute preliminary real-time values. These computed values are truncated, so if, for instance, Ap = 9.99 it is reported [and plotted] as 9.00. SWPC is not very good at updating their graphs with definitive values, so one should not make too strong statements based on their graphs. The value for December, 2011 is a case in point. It is plotted as 2, but the real value is estimated [by BGS] to be 4.1.
The Aa index is based on one northern and one southern station, so does not suffer from some of the problems Ap has. The index can also be calculated from solar wind data: Aa = 1/6 BVo^2, where the solar wind magnetic field B is in nT and the solar wind speed Vo is in units of 100 km/s. Here is computed [blue and green curves] vs. observed [red curve] values since 2005: http://www.leif.org/research/Aa-Since-2005.png
You can see that geomagnetic activity is low, but not as low as at the end of 2009.
The reason for the low activity is that the solar wind speed is low [365 km/s]. This often happens near solar maximum.
UPDATE: David Archibald adds this graph and narrative –
Dr Svalgaard’s comment re solar wind and solar maximum might be misinterpreted to suggest that Ap Index is lowest at solar maximum. The opposite is true as shown by this graph from of the Ap Index from 1932.
The Ap Index is back below the floor established by all the previous solar minima. This is important, and there is a correlation between low Ap Index and cooling.
Joules Verne says:
January 4, 2012 at 10:28 pm
I don’t understand what Svalgaard is saying. It sounds like a lot of double talk to obfuscate a fact he never diputes – this reading is comparable with readings at the same point in past solar cycles.
Like the previous two cycles: http://www.leif.org/research/Active%20Region%20Count.png ?
Few days ago Dr. Hathaway issued a January ‘ prediction’ (done by his aunty and her crystal ball) not actually ‘prediction’ but estimate etc. etc.
Link here: http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/NFC7a.htm
Why do droughts happen when the northern hemisphere gets colder? In one word, Moisture, it gets frozen else where, you may have all that hot global warming locally in the form of drought, further north, plenty of moisture, and with it, Ice which is the frozen form of moisture. 🙂 kinda opposite to all these catastrophic global warming theories.
Leif
Thanks, that is extremely interesting. It looks like when Ap is low the variability around the mean is also low. Another harbinger of at least a Dalton type minimum?
Predictions, predictions …and more predictions
Here I show not a prediction but an extrapolation based on the astronomic data, as known from the time of Ptolemy of Alexandria:
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/NFC7a.htm
Up to date it is holding well, worth the attention, or OTOH you could look for views or opinions of those who are ‘in the know’, which is no more than a guessing game.
‘you pays your money and you takes your choice’.
Steven mosher says:
predictions must be falsifiable in principle. numbers dude
Hi Steven
take a look at the link above.
For the climate change, the Sunspot number is not as important as the coupling of the heliospheric and the Earth’s magnetic fields
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/Tromso.htm
This is very relevant for the events related to the Arctic and the North Atlantic, the home of the AMO, the key to the global natural variability.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/GT-AMO.htm
There is no serious climate science without good understanding of the North Atlantic.
‘The density is also lower at maximum, so the pressure of the solar wind is actually lowest at solar maximum’
NASA talk about the Solar wind being at a 50 year low:
http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2008/23sep_solarwind/
A few questions that this raises for me.
Included in the measurements are that the magnetism, pressure and temperature of the solar wind are reduced. How does this affect Earth’s atmosphere?
Is the atmosphere expanding due to the lower ‘external’ pressure?
Is there less thermal resistance to the release of heat energy to space?
Any takers to educate a non scientist would be appreciated.
Lord Beaverbrook says:
January 5, 2012 at 12:30 am
Is the atmosphere expanding due to the lower ‘external’ pressure?
No, as the interaction with the solar wind takes place 60,000 km up from the surface. No atmosphere there.
Is there less thermal resistance to the release of heat energy to space?
No, not from the solar wind. Try H2O, O3, or CO2.
SC24 will be a long (cold) cycle – longer than 12 years. I also think that it will be a long drawn-out maximum (a plateau or a kind of double-peak). Smoothed, the maximum will be around 2014/15. The SC25 will not start before 2021/22. By then, global temperatures will be significantly lower than now.
Dr Svalgaard, clear and precise, many thanks.
Ed Mertin says:
January 4, 2012 at 10:44 pm
I don’t understand. The AP index was low in the 1930s on your graph. Yet the summers were said to be very hot and the drought was very bad. The 1930s are known as the great Dust Bowl in the plains.
In my previous post I stated:There is no serious climate science without good understanding of the North Atlantic.
It is to do with the North Atlantic Oscillation, the NAO.
Some time ago I assembled a web page to clear-up some of the nonsense written about global (and in particular) N. Hemispheres warming/cooling:
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/NAOn.htm
which will give answer to your question, take a look at the globe’s image with wet and dry areas..
The reason for the low activity is that the solar wind speed is low [365 km/s]. This often happens near solar maximum
No, that is a symptom not the reason.
Stephen Richards says:
January 5, 2012 at 1:34 am
“The reason for the low activity is that the solar wind speed is low [365 km/s]. This often happens near solar maximum”
No, that is a symptom not the reason.
Geomagnetic activity is generated by electric currents that are induced by the interaction of the magnetic field with the moving solar wind. So the speed of the wind is one of the factors causing geomagnetic activity, hence a reason and not a symptom. Perhaps you confuse ‘low activity’ with ‘low solar activity’. By ‘low activity’ I meant ‘low geomagnetic activity’.
Leif, if there are oscillations between the suns activity and our planets temperature, shouldn’t it be explored? just a thought, when you brought up “oscillations” I immediately thought of their interactions and complexities, to me (in hindsight) the interaction of two solar maximum peaks tend to have more activity therefor more energy than one peak. the difference between the apex of these cycles seems to me just as important as the peak it’s self. After-all it’s the sun that regulates the energy input of our planets climate and not the composition of atmospheric gases. 🙂
Sparks says:
January 5, 2012 at 2:02 am
Leif, if there are oscillations between the suns activity and our planets temperature, shouldn’t it be explored? just a thought, when you brought up “oscillations”
Shows one has to be careful with words. I should have said ‘messy, wild swings’, to remove the implication of regulated [or forced] oscillations.
L’attività stromboliana dell’Etna, la prima del 2012, ha dato vita ad una colonna
Etna is activated:
http://corrieredelmezzogiorno.corriere.it/napoli/notizie/cronaca/2012/5-gennaio-2012/etna-erutta-zona-sud-estcriticita-elevatatraffico-aereo-limitato-1902752111946.shtml
Just by ‘visual correlation’ I wouldn’t be inclined to interpret this last drop as heralding a downfall. Previous peak areas included similar local drops and rises; if anything, this type of delta seems to be characteristic of the middle of a peak, not indicating the end of a peak.
M.A.Vukcevic @ur momisugly January 5, 2012 at 2:16 am
Seems to have quietened down again …
http://www.ct.ingv.it//sezioniesterne/segnali_sismici/SegnaliSismici.php?Stazione=ESVO_HHZ_IT&nPos=4
I remember when Anthony posted a comment some time ago about the Ap index going down.
Anthony noted that the Ap seemed to be taking a “step change function” (er something,) downward suggesting a “change of state” of solar activity.
Evidence of a “change of state” of our sun’s activity seems like a pretty big deal to me. It seems that the guys who predicted that sunspots may vanish as geomagnetic indexes fall may be on to something.
Solar change of state to lower activity > lower Ap > higher global cosmic radiation > higher global cloud cover > cooler global temps
Unlike the junk science of globalony, the sun’s lower activity is providing us the opportunity to test an actual scientific hypothesis.
We shall see!
FWIW, I know virtually nothing of how our sun behaves. I have read The Sun Kings, and many other documents, including two originals from Edward Maunder. Detailed observations of the sun started after the invention of the telescope in 1610, and good data has been obtained ever since then. Over the centuries, we have developed new and different instrumentation, and are now getting data which we have never seen before. It would seem that the sun has started to behave in a manner that has not been observed before. As a result, the experts differ as to what is happening, and what it means. Which is the way science ought to behave.
Eventually, and hopefully, we will know precisely what it all means. Until then, let us non-experts sit back and enjoy the ride.
@Tom Rowan
> Evidence of a “change of state” of our sun’s activity seems like a pretty big deal to me.
When using terms like “sun’s activity” be aware that the term “solar activity” is a term frequently used in solar physics to refer the solar magnetic activity cycle, i.e. 11-year sunspot cycle, whose level of solar activity is indicated by relative numbers and sizes of sunspots.
> It seems that the guys who predicted that sunspots may
> vanish as geomagnetic indexes fall may be on to something.
Geomagnetic indexes (e.g. Ap and Kp) are measures of disturbances in terrestrial magnetism. You are confusing Ap with the solar magnetic field strength, which is inferred from observing Zeeman splitting in solar spectra. The solar magnetic field strength is very high in the vicinity of sunspots, which suppresses upwelling lumination and makes the spots look darker than the surrounding photosphere.
The Livingston-Penn effect (“L&P”) is based on a series of solar observations which indicate that the magnetic fields around the sunspots have been slowly decreasing for the last decade or so, independently of the solar activity cycle. This causes the sunspots to appear less dark. When the field intensity goes below 1500 Gauss, the spot becomes invisible because it is no longer darker than the surroundings. (But the sunspot is still there and active electromagnetically. Just invisible to the human eye, which can only see visible light).
The geomagnetic Ap index does not measure solar activity in that sense. But Anthony keeps throwing out suggestions that the Ap index should somehow _closely_ follow the solar activity indexes (SSN and flux).
The Ap index is more closely associated with the solar wind, which is generated by coronal holes, flares and other solar ejecta, and makes the Ap go up when solar wind is able to penetrate and connect inside the our magnetosphere, causing geomagnetic storms.
The Ap index does not measure the solar magnetic field intensity. It doesn’t even measure the the intensity of the Earth’s magnetic field. Rather it is a measure of tiny disturbances or tremors in the geomagnetic field, which are indicators for magnetic storms (on Earth!) and such. So the Ap index will low even if the magnetic field intensity is high, unless there are large disturbances in the field.
Leif, are we in agreement on this?
John Day says:
January 5, 2012 at 6:55 am
Leif, are we in agreement on this?
With one additional fact: the solar wind which drives Ap is the result of solar magnetism and does show the 11-yr solar cycle [albeit in a non-trivial way].
@Leif
> … solar wind … does show the 11-yr solar cycle …
Yes, and that further explains the solar-cosmic ray connection mentioned above. The cosmic ray counts are sensitive to solar wind conditions, in an ‘inverse’ relationship: high solar activity causes cosmic ray counts to drop and low solar causes higher cosmic ray activity. So, the 11-year solar cycle thus “modulates” the cosmic ray activity cycles, via the solar wind, which you can see in this long range plot. (Turn it upside down and you can see the sunspot cycle activity!)
http://helios.izmiran.rssi.ru/cosray/months.htm
John Day says: January 5, 2012 at 8:10 am
……………
Hi John
It would be an easy job if it was as simple as that. Temperatures do respond to the solar oscillations to a minor degree, but the major factor appaers to be the AMO, as you can see here
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/Spc.htm
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/GT-AMO.htm
The AMO has somewhat different period at about 9 years. Two oscillations will periodically get into quasi phase, which will give the impression that only one, i.e. the solar as the better known, is responsible for the temperatures oscillations.
It would suit me just fine if the SSN is the major factor, since my SSN formula has for time being has proven itself to be one of the better forecasting tools of the sunspot activity
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/NFC7a.htm
If the CLOUD experiment doesn’t come up soon with something more definitive, then cosmic ray factor may well be written of as a major factor.
@vuk
> It would be an easy job if it was as simple as that.
> Temperatures do respond to the solar oscillations
> to a minor degree, but the major factor appaers to
> be the AMO, as you can see here …
Vuk, I wasn’t even talking about temps or climate. I was showing how the solar wind modulates the cosmic ray count. Don’t you have a regression chart for that over at talktalk.net?
😐
For those that want to see the solar cycle in perspective, visit here:
http://solarphysics.livingreviews.org/Articles/lrsp-2008-3/
especially figure 17 in section 4 — if I knew how to embed a figure in this interface I’d stick it right on in here. This will give you a much better feel for how serious a sham the CAGW hypothesis is, especially their assertion that there has be nothing special about the state of Mr. Sun in the 20th century.
They tend not to emphasize the fact, but the 20th century was a Grand Maximum in solar activity, one of only three in the entire Holocene to reach such levels, and the second strongest after the double peak around 9000 BCE, eleven thousand years ago, associated with the beginning of the Holocene (end of the last ice age).
From this figure, it is a near certainty that solar activity is plunging and will continue to plunge, at least back closer to the 12,000 year mean. Note well that the proxies of this study probably aren’t a perfect match to the current measures used by NASA, but the point is that if there is any coupling between an anomalously active Sun that produces a warmer global climate, one doesn’t need to invoke CO_2 at all as a proximate explanation. The fact that global temperatures have indeed levelled off with the dropping solar state (after a 30+ year lag that is commonly seen in the record and easy enough to understand given all of the 10, 20, 30, and 60 year cycles that affect cooling rates, given the ocean’s vast store of heat that takes decades to hundreds of years to give up) continues to suggest a serious regression of both solar state and temperature back towards (12,000 year) “normal”.
Time will tell, of course.
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