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.
Just as I was skeptical of prediction of solar cycle 24 and global warming, I’m skeptical of this. I’ll keep my eye on it, but the only rational response to such an early prediction is skepticism and a request for more data.
Leif
To compare with cycle lengths I computed the average temperature for each cycle and that is what is plotted
Try 11 yr lag.
It’s awful to think that we experienced universal incompetence in our observation of sunspots from 1945 right up until, umm… quite recently.
Fortunately we have people working hard to forge a new historical consensus: a recount.
R Gates said;
“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.”
Having plotted both sun spots and co2 against temperatures neither present a compelling case to explain the temperature fluctuation, although sun spots might be marginally more convincing. I remain to be persuaded that either will have the great effect claimed.
tonyb
Leif is mostly correct about no modern maximum, the Waldmeier factor along with other changes to the modern method have raised cycles since at least 1945. But the L&P predictions and logic is basically wrong. Both their SC24 and SC25 predictions will be found to be incorrect as it is based on bad principle. L&P have only managed to show us there are more specks during this as yet unnamed possible grand minimum. They count every speck with the same weighting as large spots, more specks drive the magnetic value down.
AMP theory which has hindcast correctly grand minima through the Holocene suggests SC24/25 will be around 50SSN each (LSC).
Just in a slightly longer time-scale, instead of of a modern late 1900s solar maximum, the event to discuss and blame might rather be the _overall lack of_, and cumulative ocean-heat effects of, a sizable-enough early 1900s grand minimum.
M.A.Vukcevic says:
January 25, 2012 at 11:24 pm
My advice is to get published.
Well, their prediction of 66 wasn’t right was it?
We don’t know what the final peak will be, but it’ll be closer to 90 than 66.
So my kind of hunch is that 25 will be closer to 40 than 7.
But it’s far, far too soon to see this as anything but wagers.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Solar-cycle-data.png
“This image was created by Robert A. Rohde from the published data listed below and replaces an image created by William M. Connolley. It is part of the Global Warming Art project.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Sunspot_Numbers.png
“This figure was prepared by Robert A. Rohde and is part of the Global Warming Art project.”
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Carbon-14_with_activity_labels.png
“This image is in the public domain because it contains materials that originally came from the United States Geological Survey”
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Carbon14_with_activity_labels.svg
“All data are from publicly available sources.”
(red trace) Carbon 14 record: http://www.radiocarbon.org/IntCal04%20files/intcal04.14c
400 years of sunspot “observations” showing peaks that need to be ironed out after 1945 if carbon dioxide is to be blamed for all the modern “forcing”:
http://www.windows2universe.org/sun/images/sunspot_num_graph_sm.gif
A “forcing” applied to the low number in the current cycle might also be a good idea. Cough.
Call me a cynic.
Solar impact on the Earth’s atmosphere is direct, instant and not long lasting. The long term temperatures variability (at least in the North Atlantic and by inference on the rest of the world’s oceans) is the indirect one and not necessarily synchronised with the effects observed in the solar atmosphere :
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/CET-NVa.htm
Sequence: solar activity – North Atlantic precursor- spectral approximation of the CET, shows the path of progression for the temperatures variability.
It is the exceptions to the rule that are pointing the way to the causes:
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/CETsw.htm
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/CET-Jun.htm
but they are often dismissed by experts and non-experts alike as inconsequential.
Important points in the 350 year long record are:
1. the temperature rise often precedes the rise in the solar activity
2. summer temperatures oscillate but with no upward trend (month of June with highest insolation is as flat as a pancake.
Science has failed to predict with decent accuracy even few years of either the temperature or the solar variability.
@PiersCorbyn
“Dec 2010 supercold (which we predicted)”
I note that you also predicted a Dec 2011 supercold. Win some, lose some, eh?
Have a look at the curve at page 6 here;
http://www.phys.huji.ac.il/~shaviv/Ice-ages/GSAToday.pdf
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”
Gates, here is the BEST example of a fellow warmists of yours, who turned sceptic;
http://joannenova.com.au/2012/01/dr-david-evans-the-skeptics-case/
Enough data for the GHGers to realize that it is the sun not CO2.
PaulR— the Sahara is shrinking it is the Sahal, the semi arid area to the south, that is growing.
I have to disagree with SteveSadlov on the current state of australia at least.
LaNina periods produce much more rainfall in Australia. Most of Australia suffered recurrent drought through most of the ElNino periods culminating in more than 10 years of not quite drought ending in late 2009.
Since the end of the predominant ElNinos and the swing back to LaNina conditions Australia has had heavy rainfalls which lifted dam capacity from less than 15% in many areas to >65% by mid 2010 to >>200% by mid 2011 – remember the widespread flooding and for a third summer in a row heavy rainfall with widespread flooding in January 2012.
Also, the last major flood event in Eastern Australia occurred in a LaNina year – 1974 – with all the flood events I can recall being during LaNina conditions and all droughts during ElNinos.
Australia has no drought conditions to speak of at present – all cities’ dams have better eserves than for years and there is the high likelihood of further flooding – the last 2 weeks have delivered falls of hundreds on millimetres with up to 200 mm in less than 6 hours on the Sunshine Coast on Tuesday Jan 24.
I don’t see further reduced rainfall for Australia for some time unless we get a sharp reversal back to extreme ElNino in the future. I predict this will not happen soon.
Terry Jackson (above) on January 25, 2012 at 7:39 pm
Leif Svalgaard says:
January 25, 2012 at 8:10 pm
Although it appears to some of us that there has been close association in time
between long multi-year, low sunspot counts and lower earth temperatures,
complicated by phases of the Milankovitch Cycle, Dr. Svaalgard hasn’t and
doesn’t believe such an actual relationship exists.
That seems clear.
Geoff Sharp says:
January 26, 2012 at 12:21 am
But the L&P predictions and logic is basically wrong. Both their SC24 and SC25 predictions will be found to be incorrect as it is based on bad principle. L&P have only managed to show us there are more specks during this as yet unnamed possible grand minimum.
Bad principle? L&P are measuring every spot that can be seen. Nothing wrong with that. And what they find is just the opposite of what you think. Their finding is that we are losing the small spots [specks] as they drop below 1500 G.
Now that the usual pseudo-scientists have begun to rear their heads, it is time for me to yield the forum to their nonsense, as no serious discussion can be had. I have made my points for consumption as people see best. Let then the thread deteriorate into the swamp where solar threads always end up.
Which ever way the Solar cycle goes it could make any possible man made effects totally insignificant!
What concerns me about the above discussion is as soon as there is any apparent evidence against man made global warming past data is reviewed ( such as the Modern Grand Maximum ) and modified ,to discount the new predictions!
Having long had a radio amateur’s interest in solar activity, I do hope that estimate is wrong. It’s hard enough hearing any stations as it is, through the ear-battering pollution of the shortwave spectrum by the thousands of switchmode power supplies, digital knickknacks, CFL’s and so on which now surround us, and the signals need every dB of help the sun can give.
Incidentally (and I’m not getting at Leif here, as I have great respect for genuine science), it’s been a long time irritation to me that I was only 8 in 1959, when the peak – corrected down or not – was undoubtedly a humdinger. I’ve been reading stories about impossibly long distances worked with impossibly low powers since before I got my ‘ticket; in ’71, and jealousy is a terrible thing – the worse as I’m a low power enthusiast myself.
Leif, with regard to your graph of http://www.leif.org/research/Cycle%20Length%20Temperature%20Correlation.pdf
Maybe this is a stupid question, I hope it doesn’t sound sarcastic, I’m just interested in how well you who work professionally with the data now trust it. With known data maladjustment and mismanagement, etc- how trustworthy (say, using an error percentage) would you rate the HadCru temperature data?
It seems to me (as one who doesn’t work with it professionally) that all (especially last 30 years) temperature data is now tainted. Do you consider this possibility, do you factor it in to your work or ignore it?
No matter how dedicated the scientist I find it very difficult to trust any current modelling using “global” data that comes from politically agenda driven organisations. Temperature data appears to me to be flawed, and will remain that way until I see some real investigation into the data collection and methodologies of those currently in control of it.
In all honesty I just wonder if such thoughts come in to your calculations.
Leif Svalgaard says:
January 26, 2012 at 2:33 am
Their finding is that we are losing the small spots [specks] as they drop below 1500 G.
On the way out, let me also refer to this paper: http://www.leif.org/research/SSN/Lefevre.pdf
It should be read as ‘[small spot] deficiency’ and not as ‘small [spot deficiency]’.
So, the observations are that we are losing the small spots [that make up the bulk of the sunspot number].
RockyRoad says:
quote
during the Ice Ages the earth was cold and because it was cold it was dusty and because it was dusty, the dust found its way into the oceans and onto the glaciers where it was preserved for us to study.
unquote
1. The dust upped the dissolved silica content of the oceans. Spring blooms of diatoms were greater and lasted longer, crowding out the calcareous phytos which are better at fixing (light) carbon and which produce DMS, a cloud-increasing chemical. So, less cloud, warming, more CO2, more warming. Dust settled on the ice, lowering its albedo. Lower albedo, more warming.
2. The Ice Age ends.
3. Fast forward to the 19th century. Steam ploughs are invented and the vigorous cultures of Europe spread across the New World. Land is brought under the plough, Sediment run-off increases, dust increases, both increasing the dissolved silica load on the oceans. Spring blooms of diatoms are greater and last longer, crowding out the calcareous phytos which are better at fixing (light) carbon and which produce DMS, a cloud-increasing chemical. So, less cloud, warming, more CO2, more warming. Dust settles on the ice, lowering its albedo. Lower albedo, more warming.
4. Modern scientists note the increased light C signal, interpret it as an increase in light isotope output rather than a decrease in pulldown of the heavy isotopes, and panic. Others note that panic is good for grants and go round with a big bucket.
5. My energy bill goes up.
JF
Leif Svalgaard says:
January 26, 2012 at 2:53 am
So, the observations are that we are losing the small spots [that make up the bulk of the sunspot number].
Then what we need is solid empirical evidence that this occurring? A comparison of past cycles with a speck ratio to spots that would have been counted by Wolf and SC24. I very much doubt this exists.
David Archibald says:
M.A.Vukcevic …
My advice is to get published
It is published in Jan 2004 (see links at http://www.vukcevic.com )
I don’t think publishing makes much difference, if the SC24 does follow its recent performance, subsequently few people may take a note, but the SC25 would make or [break] the hypothesis.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/NFC7a.htm
R. Gates says:
January 25, 2012 at 8:06 pm
Take a closed container of air at room temperature and inject into it sufficient CO2 to raise the CO2 concentration to 5,000 PPM. After two weeks time what will be the temperature inside the container? After one month? One year?