Guest post by David Archibald
Solar Cycle 24 is now three years old and predictions of the date of solar maximum have settled upon mid-2013. For example, Jan Janssens has produced this graph predicting the month of maximum in mid-2013, which is 54 months after the Solar Cycle 23/24 minimum in December 2008:
For those of us who wish to predict climate, the most important solar cycle attribute is solar cycle length. Most of the curve-fitting exercises such as NASA’s place the next minimum between 2020 and 2022 (eg: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/11/06/nasas-november-solar-prediction/). Solar minimum in December 2022 would make Solar Cycle 24 fourteen years long, which in turn would make the climate of the mid-latitudes over Solar Cycle 25 about 1.0°C colder than the climate over Solar Cycle 24.
Curve-fitting leaves a lot to be desired. Even late in the progression of Solar Cycle 23, the curve fitters in NASA had poor predictive ability.
Examination of Altrock’s green corona emissions plot from mid-2011 suggests that a new predictive tool is available to us. The original is available here:
http://www.boulder.swri.edu/~deforest/SPD-sunspot-release/6_altrock_rttp.pdf
This is my annotated version:
Altrock had observed that solar maximum occurs when the “rush to the poles” reaches 76°. The magnetic poles of the Sun reverse at solar maximum, which is also considered to be the beginning of the new extended solar cycle.
We also observe that solar minimum for the last four minima has occurred when emissions are exhausted at 10°. The latitude of 10° is shown as the red line on the diagramme. Further to that, the last two solar cycles show that the month of minimum can be predicted by drawing a line between solar maximum (the point at which the rush to the poles intersects 76°) and the point of exhaustion at 10°. The bulk of activity is bounded by this line.
Altrock has noted that the “rush to the poles” in Solar Cycle 24 is much weaker and much slower than in previous solar cycles. The line he has drawn intersects 76° in mid-2013, consistent with other predictions of Solar Cycle 24 maximum.
The shape of the emission regions also suggests that Solar Cycle 24 will be quite extended. The blue bounding line from the Solar Cycle 23 maximum intersects 10° latitude in 2026, making Solar Cycle 24 eighteen years long.
That would be an exceptionally long solar cycle. The most recent cycle that neared that length was the seventeen years from the maximum of Solar Cycle 4 to the maximum of Solar Cycle 5. Prior to that, the Maunder Minimum had some very long solar cycles as interpreted from C14 data:
It seems that the first solar cycle of the Maunder Minimum was also eighteen years long.
An eighteen year long Solar Cycle 24 would be very significant in that it would be five and a half years longer that Solar Cycle 23. With the solar cycle length/temperature relationship for the US-Canadian border being 0.7°C for each year of solar cycle length, a further cooling of 3.8°C is in train for next decade. The evolution of Altrock’s green corona emissions diagramme as a predictive tool will be followed with some interest.
Back to the subject of curve-fitting, it may be still too early to call Solar Cycle 24 using that technique. The following graph shows the raw monthly data for sunspot number amplitude for Solar Cycles 5 and 6 (the Dalton Minimum) with Solar Cycle 24 to date aligned on the month of minimum. Solar Cycle 5 took about four years to get going before it had a sudden burst, and then died off over the following ten years. It is still a bit too early to be certain about how Solar Cycle 24 will shape up.
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Here is an interesting post about the current extreme jet stream event causing the recent warm and dry weather over the U.S. There is also a short discussion about solar activity / sunspots possibly being the cause.
http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/article.html
A physicist says:
January 8, 2012 at 2:32 pm
David [Archibald], I’m just pointing out how odd it is that your WUST post never references your own 2008 prediction that the Earth should already be cooling at 0.2 degrees per year …….
———————————————————————————————
Why is it that some fail to see the correlation of weather conditions to changes in heat input on the earth? During a warming phase the majority of energy is pushed from the equator to the poles thus a greater equatorial jet is indicitve of a warming planet.. The reverse is also true in a cooling planet.. The imbalance is now at the poles and heat is being lost rapidly. thus an enlarged polar jet like we have today… in either case mid latitudes will be warmer TEMPORARILY. cooling of equatorial regions is shown with major cooling lie we are seeing today. The mid latitudes will stabilize when planetary heat balance returns. This is the LAG TIME between cause and effect. It also gives the false assumption that warming is being driven by some other source..
Amazing that simple thermal dynamics is not being applied to basic systems.. When earths systems regain some normalcy of balance the cold will set in deep and then its to late to prepare.. some forms of cooling are delayed because of other systems effects…
Burying your head in the sand isn’t doing anyone any good..
In response to my
“Has this not happened recently because of increased humanmade CO2 emissions, or because the world has, until recently, been getting warmer?”
George said:
January 8, 2012 at 6:29 pm
“In 2009 global human CO2 emissions declined but atmospheric CO2 continued to rise. This would indicate that the growth in human-caused CO2 emissions is a negligible factor in accounting for the growth in atmospheric CO2. If human CO2 emissions were significant, a reduction in those emissions would have been reflected in a reduction in atmospheric CO2 or at least a significant reduction in the rate of increase in atmospheric CO2. There was no change. So if human CO2 emissions drop and atmospheric CO2 rise continues unabated, that should be fairly good evidence that maybe the two aren’t connected.
The oceans are probably still warming from the LIA and that will likely continue unless we see temperatures drop to those seen during the LIA causing the oceans to cool again.”
_________________________________________________________________
No bad George,
One more clue is that in the modern data record, dCO2/dt varies almost contemporaneously with T AND CO2 lags T by ~9 months*
(where CO2 is global average atmospheric CO2, t is time, and T is global average Temperature)
AND
From ice core data, CO2 lags Temperature by ~600-800 years on much longer time scales
SO
CO2 lags Temperature at all measured time scales.
AND YET
Most parties still insist that the mainstream climate debate should be “by how much does increasing atmospheric CO2 drive temperature upwards” when perhaps they should be asking themselves why they apparently allege that the future is causing the past.
Maybe atmospheric CO2 is still increasing because of a 600-800 year delay since the Medieval Warm Period.
And there is a much shorter cycle with a ~9 month lag of CO2 after Temperature.
And maybe there are one or more cycles in between with intermediate delays.
I do doubt the warmists claim that “it’s a feedback effect”.
______________________________________________________
• http://icecap.us/images/uploads/CO2vsTMacRae.pdf
A physicist says:
January 8, 2012 at 6:23 pm
(1) If we focus on global temperature averages, and we subtract short-term fluctuations correlated to independent observations of volcanoes, ocean current oscillations, and the solar cycle, then we see very clearly a warming trend.
12-year long flat line in global temperatures is not a “short-term fluctuation”.
James Nansen is a religious fanatic of the worst kind: the one that not only believes because his faith absurd but cannot go on his guilt trip alone.
Most of the other AGW types are in it just for the taxpayers’ money. Many of them are leaving their ship already — all the money in the world cannot keep it from sinking.
Sorry, Instead of “Nansen” please read “Hansen”.
Unlike Jim Hansen, Fridtjof Nansen was a great man. He was on my mind, because I was looking at the set of Norwegian stamps portraying Nansen and issued for his refugee fund.
“As far the the warm NH goes, Dr. Masters seems to have this one right.
Note that he talks about the sun effect on jet streams etc:
http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/article.html”
I’ve been noticing that for a few months now.
The past two years a very negative AO with very low solar activity and now that solar activity has spiked upward a very positive AO.
The trouble is though that solar activity is still lower than usual for this stage of the solar cycle in absolute terms.
Therefore what seems to matter in the short term is relative values rather than absolute values.Large swings in solar activity over a short timescale do seem to affect AO but smaller swings in a generally higher or lower solar cycles seem to get disguised by other factors most likely oceanic variability.
Nonetheless I never expected to see such a close correlation on such short timescales. Although I have based some of my ideas on the solar/AO relationship I had said that the relationship is stronger over multiple cycles rather than from cycle to cycle or as now within a single cycle.
The current change in solar behaviour is turning out to be a very useful diagnostic indicator.
Meanwhile the cold hasn’t gone away, it is just constrained within a smaller geographical area within which it is more intense than usual.
The real issue now is whether we will see significant cold breakouts across the middle latitudes over the next several months leading to cold springs in various northern regions.
Good heavens. Here is the verifiable short answer. For every stretch of warmer summers, for every stretch of warmer nights, for every snowless winter, for every towering snow drift, and for every frozen spring, there have been known intrinsic natural drivers of these weather pattern variations, be they months long, year long, or decades long.. And no need to add either CO2 or the Sun’s angry or sleepy behavior to explain it. Weather patterns are not contrary to the natural oceanic/atmospheric teleconnection conditions that bring them about. It obeys the conditions in every way. That there are those here who can’t see that is a wonder.
“Why is it that some fail to see the correlation of weather conditions to changes in heat input on the earth? During a warming phase the majority of energy is pushed from the equator to the poles thus a greater equatorial jet is indicitve of a warming planet.. The reverse is also true in a cooling planet”
Well I’d say that wider equatorial air masses and more poleward zonal jets are indicative of a warming planet and narrowing equatorial air masses with more equatorward meridinal jets are a sign of a cooling planet.
I think a transition period would show larger swings before things settle down to the new setup and I think that is where we are now.
More detail here:
http://climaterealists.com/index.php?id=6645
“How The Sun Could Control Earth’s Temperature”
i use Ixquick as my search engine and Sourcewatch is the 2nd listing for WUWT and they call Anthony a “non-scientist AGW denier”. :/
sounds like another lefty group on the internet that pretends to be centrist. wonder if they get their funding from Soros.
[MODERATOR’S NOTE: Joe, this comment is Off-Topic for this thread. We have an Open Thread currently running, a Tips and Notes Page, and a number of other threads where this comment would be more appropriate. Please be kind enough to use them next time. -REP]
It’s really too bad for arguments on both sides that there is no such thing as a “global temperature”.
A physicist said “we see very clearly that both in the US and around the world, more local temperature records (by far!) are being broken at the high-end than at the low-end”
Did you adjust for UHIE? If calculating the global average temperature requires adjusting stations for UHIE, then why not the record temperatures (particularly record high and low mins which are notoriously contaminated).
J Martin says:
January 8, 2012 at 3:22 pm
If you allow the Chinese to buy a significant proportion of your farms. What happens when Australia needs the food that those farms produce and declare that the food can no longer be exported to it Chinese owners in China.
The result will be invasion by China to secure it’s property rights and food supply. Australia is going down a very dangerous path.
Couldn’t agree more and so do many others:
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/land-rush/story-fn59niix-1226085165144
http://www.yasstribune.com.au/news/national/national/general/coalition-to-scrutinise-farm-buyups/2411549.aspx
Political changes are happening in this part of the world starting with State Labor losing in WA, Victoria, NSW by a landslide last year and Queensland almost certainly next in March (current odds ALP 5.0 Coalition 1.15).
Gillard still has a very tenuous hold of Federal Power and will probably hold the ACT in October which is dictated by public servants. Not sure about the Northern Territory in August. But all Coalition States will back Abbott’s anti-carbon tax stand. Don’t know about foreign investment as there is a fine line between controlled economic progress and isolationism. China also is not the only investor.
But back to the main issue, some-one told me that the Chinese only worry about two things – money and family. So as to whether they believe Nature or Man is the main driver of climate change could be represented by these two beliefs ie:
Nature is the main driver if they can see money as the means of a better life or CO2 is the main driver if they have been persuaded that their grandchildren’s future is at stake and is more important.
I have read a paper* by Chinese scientists that question the IPCC but I am not sure how many are represented on IPCC committees or have written any peer reviewed papers. But I cannot recall any notable Chinese spokespersons for the CAGW cause. At the present state of the art, therefore, I have a hunch that the former will be more relevant in the Chinese psyche.
* http://climategate.nl/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/fangetal.pdf
Steven M. Allen says:
January 8, 2012 at 5:16 pm
Nice post. That emails shows conspiracy to commit fraud beyond a shadow of a doubt.
To
R Gates, and A physicist :
I’m a laymen. By my own experience, the earth is warmer than when I was young. But I think it just a natural variance. The climate never stable before and will never be stable in the future.
To make me belief on AGW
please explain the following.
1.
At a clear night, the temperature goes down much faster than a cloudy night. That means Clouds keep the night warmer. (a cloudy night is warmer than a clear night)
The concentration of CO2 is the same. This tells me that CO2 has no effect or negligible effect compare to H2O on the night temperature.
Why scientists so emphasize on the negligible CO2 to be the dominate climate factor?
This makes me don’t belief in the AGW.
2.
Earth is not a black body and earth never be in input/output equilibrium at any time.
During the day time, earth temperature increases then decreases. At night, decreases more.
Vary in temperature tells me that the input/output are not the in balance. The temperature records vary year over year. Will using the imaginary “average” (in time series) assumed equilibrium state in computer model generate correct result? For science/engineering we alway have some error bound when making design/ predicting. In this case how big is the error?
Every thing tells me at current human’s knowledge, we have noway to predict climate 100 years later. Even not the next year. (NASA predicted so.California would dry last winter, but we were very wet. This is a climate prediction, not weather!)
When we hear the scary predictions, alway 100% sure. (no one tell me the error bound.)
This also makes me don’t belief the AGW.
3.
Earth is not evenly heated black body. In the computer models, they model each area separately? If so, the model should be able to predict weathers every where at any time in the future if the model is correct. If the model cannot predict weather week later then how to predict climate 100 years later? ( climate just a collection of weather) if the model just omits the minor factors, how big divergence will result 100 years later?
Use the “average” T would make earth radiates less heat than actual heat lose.
Then results in higher temp prediction. Does the model use “average” T to predict the future?
This makes me skeptic about the AGW.
4.
IPCC and some scientists made lots scary predictions in the past.
How many of the predictions are correct? How big are the errors?
How many of the predictions are wrong? Again, How big are the errors?
In science, a theory predicts 1000 times correctly but 1001th prediction is wrong, then the theory is not a correct theory.
How many times wrong predictions made by the computer are needed to prove the computer model/theory is incorrect?
Using unsure predictions to terrifying people is not right thing to do.
wenson
Stephen Wilde says:
January 8, 2012 at 7:58 pm
LOL
Isn’t that what i said in layman’s terms?
1) the solar polar fields reverse at solar maximum
2) the sunspot bipoles reverse at solar minimum
3) it is too early to speculate [and heaven forbid, mindlessly extrapolate] on when maximum will be. The polar fields have practically reversed in the north, but are still only halfway down in the south. Solar max for a weak cycle is often a long drawn-out affair, so the ‘precise’ timing may not be too meaningful.
4) there is really no indication that SC24 will be super-long
5) solar cycle length as such has nothing to do with climate
6) UV varies more but is compensated by opposite variation in visible and near infrared, leaving TSI varying a lot less.
7) TSI, integral of the spectrum, is comprised of spectral regions that have compensating effects.
8) Surface solar forcing is very small, with direct surface response < 0.1 K in 11-year cycle
Tomorrow I’m off to Japan for this: http://www.leif.org/research/Nagoya-Workshop.doc, and won’t have time to respond to insults from the usual suspects 🙂
I’ll report on the workshop in a couple of weeks.
“”””” Doug Cotton says:
January 8, 2012 at 1:57 pm
Ferd. You do indeed seem very certain of your claims that “every time the planet warms CO2 levels increase” – so do they decrease as a result of it cooling – such as just after 1945? (LOL) Maybe you could answer with similar certainty these four questions …
(1) When the refective (mirror-like) internal surface of a vacuum flask reflects radiation back into the coffee the coffee does not get any hotter – true / false ?
(2) If you hold a mirror over a batch of earth (which is radiating) at night so that the mirror reflects that radiation back to the patch it does not get any hotter, just like the coffee – true or false?
(3) When carbon dioxide captures radiation from the surface and then re-emits it back again it is acting rather like a mirror because the radiation going back has no more energy than that which it captured – true or false?
(4) Hence, when such back radiation meets the surface it does not warm the surface – true or false? “””””
Seem simple enough questions Doug; some other questions immediately come to mind:
Re #1 That reflective mirror in the vacuum flask; it slows down the rate of cooling- true/false ?
#1a That’s the entire reason behind having that mirror-like surface – true/false ?
Re #2 If you hold a mirror over a batch of earth (which is radiating) at night so that the mirror reflects that radiation back to the patch, it slows down the rate of cooling – true/false ?
Re #3 When carbon dioxide captures radiation from the surface and then re-emits it back again it is acting rather like a mirror because it slows down the rate of cooling – true/false ?
Re #4 Hence, when such back radiation meets the surface it slows down the cooling of the surface – true or false ?
New question #5 The vacuum flask with its reflective mirror like surface, when filled with hot coffee and sealed receives essentially no extra heat from any outside source, so it does not warm- true/false ?
New question #5a The vacuum flask with its reflective mirror like surface, when filled with hot coffee and sealed receives essentially no extra heat from any outside source, but it cools slower because of the mirror- true/false ?
New question #6 The earth with the mirror above it reflecting some of its radiation back to the surface, is also receiving additional energy input from the sun (during daylight); so it continues to warm up although the cooling rate is reduced by the mirror – true/false ?
So the presence of an energy source input to the earth makes it different from the vaccuum flask which is isolated from external energy inputs – true/false ?
“”””” Leif Svalgaard says:
January 8, 2012 at 8:55 pm
Tomorrow I’m off to Japan for this: http://www.leif.org/research/Nagoya-Workshop.doc, and won’t have time to respond to insults from the usual suspects 🙂
I’ll report on the workshop in a couple of weeks. “””””
Dr Svalgaard; hope you didn’t take MY early post as an insult; or even critical. Just an observation that I hadn’t seen you report on that poitt. I see your post immediately above gives some clarification. Thanks for that.
Eager to read your report on the workshop.
George
“”””” David Archibald says:
January 8, 2012 at 4:19 pm
George E. Smith; says:
January 8, 2012 at 1:11 pm
George, love your work. Here’s a link on magnetic reversal at maximum:
http://www.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~forsyth/reversal/ “””””
Thanks for the thought David; actually, I do very little other than try to help make the hard work of others a bit more understandable for the lay folk, well if I can.
I think Dr Svalgaard thought I was being critical, even insulting; but that is not the case; I was just commenting that I had not seen him post on the timing of the reversals. I see he has a post pointing out that the sun’s polar field, and the sunspot polarity are not the same thing. That’s a lack of understanding on my part.
Ages ago I had this cute picture of a rotating sunspot plasma “worm” generating one polarity at the surface, and of course the opposite polarity inside the sun; and my worm bored into the sun in an 11 year loopy journey, that took it in a short loop and eventually back to the surface. The emerging end, would of course have the opposite rotation for the plasma, so the polarity at the surface would be reversed. Eventually (for some reason) the worm would bore back in to the sun for another trip. I even tried to show that gyroscopic forces would combine the rotation of the sun with the rotation of the plasma worm, which would evenutally lead to it flipping over end for end.
Well like I say, it was a cute picture; and Leif quickly pointed out that it was entirely a fabrication of my imagination;and that sunspots don’t work that way. Well I still think its cute.
Thanks for the link.
George
The U.S. for December 2011 is not anomalously warm compared to the the last 30 years according NCDC.
Neither is the NH according to UAH.
Why all the hype?
Wensen
“Why scientists so emphasize on the negligible CO2 to be the dominate climate factor?
This makes me don’t belief in the AGW.”
Because CO2 is a changing factor, while the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere is relatively constant over the long run (correct me on this if I’m wrong).
“Vary in temperature tells me that the input/output are not the in balance. The temperature records vary year over year. Will using the imaginary “average” (in time series) assumed equilibrium state in computer model generate correct result?
For science/engineering we alway have some error bound when making design/ predicting. In this case how big is the error?”
I think what you are asking is what is the power of the prediction- aka do we reject the null hypothesis with 95% certainity and is the correlation significant. I can’t answer that as it will probably vary depending on the paper and the number of data sets the use. If you want to get what is considered the best evidence for global warming you should probably go to a site like
http://www.skepticalscience.com/human-co2-smaller-than-natural-emissions.htm
and see if they link anything you find helpful.
“Every thing tells me at current human’s knowledge, we have noway to predict climate 100 years later. Even not the next year. (NASA predicted so.California would dry last winter, but we were very wet. This is a climate prediction, not weather!)”
Predicting a year’s weather is weather prediction. Predicting multiple decades weather is climate prediction, which is actually easier because you don’t have to worry about weather extremes and can just generalize about the average. Of course, that relies upon your model being correct in the first place which is what this is about.
“When we hear the scary predictions, alway 100% sure. (no one tell me the error bound.)
This also makes me don’t belief the AGW.”
They do come with error bounds usually. Leaving aside the possibility of conspiracy, the media will always accentuate the most terrifying aspects. Shark attacks are rare compared to almost all other forms of death, but the media is alot more likely to report on a shark attack than someone being killed by their toilet.
“In the computer models, they model each area separately? If so, the model should be able to predict weathers every where at any time in the future if the model is correct. If the model cannot predict weather week later then how to predict climate 100 years later? ( climate just a collection of weather) if the model just omits the minor factors, how big divergence will result 100 years later?”
Economic models can seperate out different sectors, all the way down to different firms and attempt to model them. So far they have failed to make a model that is accurate enough that they can forecase the ecomony (or they have in secret and are now rich). However, they can accurately predict the long run trends of the economy like gdp growth for a several decade period.
“In science, a theory predicts 1000 times correctly but 1001th prediction is wrong, then the theory is not a correct theory.”
That isn’t quite right. It is wrong… if there is another theory that predicts the 1001 things. Otherwise you keep the wrong theory and chalk it up to error (which you’d get if your theory is accurate to 99.9%).
To everybody who says that Canada will have no wheat crops in a cooler NH.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winter_wheat
A physicist – the question is not whether there is a warming trend but how great it is and whether it is accelerating. All the data I have seen indicates it is small and not accelerating.
Wenson says:
January 8, 2012 at 8:22 pm
“I’m a laymen. By my own experience, the earth is warmer than when I was young.”
Without context there isn’t much one can say. When were you young? Where were you? Have you lived there always?
With internet access I can check the weather and the weather data for the area in which I was raised. I do so because I have relatives still living in that area. I haven’t been there in nearly 12 years. The folks there still complain about the weather in about the same way as they did when my mother was a little girl nearly 100 years ago. She would tell us that the snow came “up to here” – as she pointed to her waist. Then she would say “and we had to walk up-hill the whole way to school.” Then “it was up-hill the whole way back, too.” I know the snow still comes up to little girl’s waists. I don’t think anyone walks to school anymore. The point of that is that if folks don’t go outside much – what do the know of the natural world?
Where I live now (central Washington State, USA) we are having almost exactly the same winter weather as we did in 1989-90. I’m able to work outside almost everyday in above freezing temperature. However, a few years after moving here it went to 17 degrees F. at night for 3 weeks in December. Another year we had 5 feet of snow.
The yearly variation is so much greater than any climatic change it seems impossible to note any trend. As we’ve all noted, the temperature data is not a lot of help.