Guest post by David Archibald
Predicting the amplitude of Solar Cycle 24 was a big business. Jan Janssens provides the most complete table of Solar Cycle 24 predictions at: http://users.telenet.be/j.janssens/SC24.html
Prediction activity for Solar Cycle 24 seemed to have peaked in 2007. In year before, Dr David Hathaway of NASA made the first general estimate of Solar Cycle 25 amplitude:
http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2006/10may_longrange/
Based on the slowing of the Sun’s “Great Conveyor Belt”, he predicted that
“The slowdown we see now means that Solar Cycle 25, peaking around the year 2022, could be one of the weakest in centuries.” He is very likely to have got the year wrong in that Solar Cycle 25 is unlikely to start until 2025.
In this paper: http://www.probeinternational.org/Livingston-penn-2010.pdf,
Livingston and Penn provided the first hard estimate of Solar Cycle 25 amplitude based on a physical model. That estimate is 7, which would make it the smallest solar cycle for over 300 years.
This is figure 2 from their paper:
Livingston and Penn have been tracking the decline in sunspot magnetic field, predicting that sunspots will disappear when the umbral magnetic field strength falls below 1,500 gauss, as per this figure from their 2010 paper:
Dr Svalgaard has updated of the progression of that decline on his research page at:
http://www.leif.org/research/Livingston%20and%20Penn.png
With data updated to year end 2011, the line of best fit on Dr Svalgaard’s figure of Umbral Magnetic Field now intersects the 1,500 guass sunspot cutoff in 2030:
Using the Livingston and Penn Solar Cycle 25 amplitude estimate, this is what the solar cycle record is projected to look like:
And, yes, that means the end of the Modern Warm Period.
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Further reading:
Sun Headed Into Hibernation, Solar Studies Predict –Sunspots may disappear altogether in next cycle.
NASA Long Range Solar Forecast – Solar Cycle 25 peaking around 2022 could be one of the weakest in centuries.
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AJB says:
January 25, 2012 at 8:42 pm
Leif, in what time-frame are we likely to see an adjusted international sunspot number series published
Hopefully two years down the road, although I’ll predict that some people will continue to use the old series when and if it matches their pet ideas better.
and are there any plans to flesh out the early cycles with Vaquero’s recently unearthed records?
José Vaquero is a team member and his input will be evaluated and used:
http://ssnworkshop.wikia.com/wiki/Home
THIS confirms the view we and others expressed two years ago (and Timo Niroma years before that) and have since re-expressed, although maybe it is a bit ‘OTT’ (or perhaps one should say UTB – Under The Bottom on this). A Russian associate, Kirill Kuzanyan eg has also (mid-last year) suggested a low solar cycle 25.
It is ODD CYCLES (and odd cycles pretty well only) which control long term world average temperatures (nothing to do with CO2, Cosmic Rays to any extent or as far as we can see to any extent EVEN cycles) so this is an important projection.
Slide 17 in our submission to the UK Parliamentary inquiry into Dec 2010 supercold (which we predicted): suggests a Dalton type rather than this projected Maunder type minimum but I would say the our uncertainties (at this stage) do not rule that out.
See slide 17 on Presentation at
http://www.weatheraction.com/displayarticle.asp?a=318&c=1
I agree the data input to get the result here is probably too small to give this prediction much confidence in terms of Dalton v Maunder levels but I have to ask; whatever happened to error bars? – are they saying 7+/- 1, 7+/-7, 7+10/-5 or what?
This result will probably generate even more ‘CO2 will still make us fry’ drivel which looks like being the main Dogma (in the sense of Papal DogmaS) emanating from the CO2 delusion sect for this and coming months – see also:
http://climaterealists.com/index.php?id=9016
Thanks Piers Corbyn
WeatherAction.com
Leif Svalgaard says @ur momisugly January 25, 2012 at 8:53 pm
Many thanks for the link – seems an enlightened way to do things! Sad if people go [their] own way after all that effort but inevitable I suppose.
Arrg. their own way.
Leif Svalgaard says:
January 25, 2012 at 6:59 pm
“The last of DA’s graphs seems to suggest that we had a Modern Warm Period because there was also a Modern Grand Maximum in sunspots. There is compelling evidence that the latter did not exist casting doubt on the association with the former, see e.g. http://www.leif.org/research/IAUS286-Mendoza-Svalgaard.pdf [Right half of Figure 1] or
http://www.leif.org/research/How%20Well%20Do%20We%20Know%20the%20Sunspot%20Number.pdf and finally http://ssnworkshop.wikia.com/wiki/Home”
It is always a pleasure to have a visit from Dr. Svalgaard. Agree with him or not, he is a genuine scientist. Look what he did in the quotation above. He challenges claims about proxies, sunspots, with compelling evidence. I wonder if Dr. Svalgaard would be willing to present a seminar for Phil Jones, Keith Briffa, Michael Mann, and other members of The Team who just cannot get their minds around the idea of empirically validating claims about proxies.
David Archibald says:
January 25, 2012 at 8:38 pm :
“There is another sign that the end of the Modern Warm Period is at hand”
David, for whatever reason, the temp trend of the past 14 years has been one of cooling in the upper midwest.
I don’t see that changing in the near term future.
Food production is going to be a critical issue. During the past warm period production was consistently rising. Now that it is cooling off, production variables have increased.
R. Gates says:
January 25, 2012 at 8:06 pm
“Indeed, but in pointing this out, you are taking away the last best hope of skeptics who’d like to find something…anything…to pin the late 20th century warming on other than the 40% rise in CO2 since the Industrial Revolution. Now, as we are likely looking at a Dalton or even Maunder Minimum in the next few decades, it will be interesting to see how a very quiet sun counteracts the contined forcing from CO2. I cannot imagine a more exciting time to be studying the sun and the climate in general. We live at a very fortunate juncture in history.
And BTW, thanks for your excellent website”
Mr. Gates:
The rise in co2 is correlated to warmer temperatures. It is however, not documented to be the cause of warmer temperatures.
I do hope you have read some of Dr. Svelgaard’s data and understand that the climate models failure to replicate the early 20th century warming with the now known parameters of solar shows that even when parameters are established they still fail.
I do not write this in jest. I write this as a concerned citizen of the world. I had hoped that the reliability of the models would improve as the knowledge base improved. It hasn’t happened as of yet. One model does NOT prove another model. Emperical measurements validate or null.
At this point and time, the operative word is null.
R. Gates says:
January 25, 2012 at 8:06 pm
Leif Svalgaard says:
1) the sunspot number is artificially too high [inflated] by 20 after 1945.
“Indeed, but in pointing this out, you are taking away the last best hope of skeptics who’d like to find something…anything…to pin the late 20th century warming on other than the 40% rise in CO2 since the Industrial Revolution.”
No, he is contesting claims about proxies with evidence. That is good scientific method. If it had been applied to the Hockey Stick by reviewers, no one would have talked about a so-called “late 20th century warming.” Proxies are the only thing resembling empirical science that warmists have produced. Yet no Warmist proxies were subjected to empirical validation. Warmist climate science is entirely “a priori.”
@Pamela
” But we are not talking about lots of clouds versus none.”
I believe the difference is about 2.5% of cloud cover. I recall that is something like 15 w/m^2 cooling. Anyone confirm these figures? There are a few papers on it.
There are two things at play with respect to GCR’s: the fact of the creation of cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) plus the fact they are longer lived than the usual ones because they are slightly smaller having been formed ‘unnaturally’. By longer lived I mean that it takes more time for them to bump into each other and aggregate. They are slightly charged and to overcome that charge they have to hit each other more head-on to stick. During this time and while growing they react well with very short wavelength radiation (scattering it). There is plenty of cooling. The GCR level and be traced historically by looking for 10Be. It is correlated with what the global temperature was historically, some calculate.
SteveSadlov said…”Not only will the Sahara expand, the SW US, Australia, and other areas at the intersections of Midlatitude arid zones, Mediterranean zones and Subtropical arid zones, will be in dire straits, with megadroughts rife.”
Is there some sources one could look at to find out more about this?
Interesting, Dr. Svalgaard. I wonder why your data vary so from others I have seen.
Leif Svalgaard says:
January 25, 2012 at 8:19 pm
R. Gates says:
January 25, 2012 at 8:06 pm
“4) it is therefore not correct to associate the modern warming with a [non-existent] modern grand solar activity maximum”
Indeed, but in pointing this out, you are taking away the last best hope of skeptics who’d like to find something…anything…to pin the late 20th century warming on other than the 40% rise in CO2 since the Industrial Revolution.
Which explains the hostility towards what I say. but that ‘last best hope’ is just wishful thinking [as you say ‘something….anything’]. One should not let what one wishes to happen control the science [this goes both ways…].
This is a recent invited talk http://www.leif.org/research/The%20long-term%20variation%20of%20solar%20activity.pdf on sun-climate given during a Workshop in Japan for an audience of climate scientists. They didn’t like it either, as the AGW crowd also needs the sun to explain climate variations before SUVs.
————
Dr. Svalgaard,
I am embarrassed to admit I’ve not followed your work in detail, but certainly will hence forth. I would especially be interested to get your viewpoints on the connections between solar activity and climate. Through my readings and study I’ve come to the conclusion that there certainly is a modulation of climate that is correlated with solar activity at different frequencies (up to and including things like Bond events) and is connected to frequencies off the Hale cycle, but so noted by others that correlation is not causation! Also However, I am strongly convinced that the buildup of greenhouse gases over the last few hundred years is finally (perhaps since mid to late 20th century) beginning to dominate over the influence of the solar connection.
I’d be genuinely interested to hear your “big picture” perspective on these issues. Do you have such a broad stroke paper on your website?
David Archibald says:
January 25, 2012 at 8:38 pm
There is another sign that the end of the Modern Warm Period is at hand – the USDA has just updated the US plant hardiness zones map: http://www.usna.usda.gov/Hardzone/ushzmap.html
——-
And do you have a comparison to the previous map? Have the zones shifted to inidicate cooler zones are moving south? Else, what is your point?
crosspatch says:
January 25, 2012 at 9:44 pm
Interesting, Dr. Svalgaard. I wonder why your data vary so from others I have seen.
It is very easy to verify this yourself. Here are the sunspot numbers http://sidc.oma.be/sunspot-data/ from those you can calculate the times from min to min and from max to max for every cycle. The temperatures for each year are also easy to get, e.g. http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/
To compare with cycle lengths I computed the average temperature for each cycle and that is what is plotted. You should get exactly the same curves as I showed. If we both agree on the curves, who cares what others say?
If you do not do the above exercise, what may I assume as the reason?
Tom in Florida says:
January 25, 2012 at 7:13 pm
Not to worry, Tom. When the Ice Age kicks in, you’ll be able to walk from Florida to Cuba. And if it gets REALLY bad, you can walk from Cuba to the Yucatan. (Or take a car–the ice will probably be thick enough).
R. Gates says:
January 25, 2012 at 9:51 pm
I would especially be interested to get your viewpoints on the connections between solar activity and climate.
FWIIW:
http://www.leif.org/research/Does%20The%20Sun%20Vary%20Enough.pdf
http://www.leif.org/research/GC31B-0351-F2007.pdf
R. Gates says:
January 25, 2012 at 7:59 pm
And that’s got to be the LAMEST misdirection I’ve ever heard, R!
Have you read the Climategate I and Climategate II emails? And you’re still willing to excoriate someone who wants pushback on the
CLIMATE FRAUD
you’ve come to know and love?
But I’m getting ahead of myself–for everybody else, this “R.” character is very adept at using Saul Alinsky tactics like any good obfuscator would in an embarrassing situation like this.
(Talk about the pot calling the fire black….LOL)
Our large collection of climate models is going to experience a severe test (as they use the phrase “severe test”, or “stringent test”, etc.) these next few decades. It should be an exciting time for science lovers, sociologists of science, philosophers of science and all.
I liked the table of predictions for solar cycle 24, but is anyone keeping score by some set of metrics? Presumably, the methods that did the best for solar cycle 24 should be given more credence for solar cycle 25.
Personally I don’t believe Solar activity is a major direct cause of natural climate variability.
If, instead, it has more to do with the relative distances, eccentricity and/or alignment of several planets (and perhaps the Sun and Moon) in relation to Earth, then it is understandable that there may be a broad temporal correlation if such planets are also contributing to Solar activity. But their alignment with the Sun will have different timing (though perhaps similar periodicity) to their alignment with Earth. Of course astronomers could clarify all this.
This could explain the apparent lag wherein sunspots hit a maximum around 1950 and yet temperatures did so in 1998. There could easily have been a 50 year lag around the time of the Little Ice Age / Maunder Minimum also without us really noticing due to data uncertainty.
The 60 year cycle gives a better indication of possible cause, I believe, as it does appear to correlate with the Jupiter / Saturn resonance cycle which has periodicity 59.6 years. So, if planets can cause this cycle, they can also cause the ~1000 year cycle and maybe others.
Notice also how the 60 year cycle shows up when gradients of temperatures are plotted, as is done here with running monthly 30 year trends: http://climate-change-theory.com/360month.jpg
I don’t think we will ever detect a clear 60 year cycle in solar activity, so it should only be considered a broad indication of long term (~1,000 year) cycles.
Besides, nothing else in the data suggests that the current ~1,000 year cycle will collapse to a minimum within 100 to 200 years. We would expect the decline to take about 500 years after the maximum has been passed.
This is why I like the near linear trend line (slightly declining) in the above plot of rates of increase. The current rate is about 0.06 deg.C /decade, but it is declining and should start to decline even a little more (being cyclic itself) so I generally feel it is pointing to a maximum within about 100 to 200 years, after which the 500 year decline should start. This would nicely extrapolate the ~1000 year cycle as would be expected: Max in 12th century, Min in 17th century, Max in 22nd century, Min in 27th century.
The prediction of Cycle 25 at 7 looks very strange in its sequence. Sure, if the pattern from the last 10 years is predictive. But a straight-line extension in a world where cycles occur seems inappropriate to me.
If the last 10 years is part of a cycle – which an eyeball might suggest is possible, then even if the cycles are diminishing over the longer term, the death of sunspots in 2030 is unlikely.
I’d guess that data from before 2000 would show cycles and we have just been on the downward part of the last one – even if overall we are heading downward.
Colder, yes. Dalton/Maunder minimum, maybe not.
R. Gates:
Welcome to the world of a skeptic. One who tries to stay current on knowledge and understands the implications of using kowledge.
My wish to you is to share it with others.
[SNIP: This might be of interest to some people, but this is off-topic for THIS thread. Submit it to Tips and Notes. -REP]
Hi, from a big fan of WUWT in the Middle East. I’m up on the Straits of Hormoz where I run a port. While it maybe hotting up politically around here, the temperatures have been freezing of late with snow on the mountain tops – We are only a couple hours north of Dubai…..
http://www.emirates247.com/news/emirates/it-has-snowed-once-again-in-the-uae-exactly-three-years-later-2012-01-25-1.439536
First estimates, a bit late ?
I’ve pointed out to large reduction in the solar activity more than 8 years ago, not estimates but extrapolation of precise equations, there is a difference
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/NFC7a.htm
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/LFC2.htm
Dr. Archibald, I still haven’t seen anything better to date, have you?