Note: See also the 1997 regime change in global climate data by the same method, here
I’m happy to report that something I recognized and reported back in 2008 related to solar data has been independently confirmed by another source, and was a surprise when it showed up in my inbox two days ago.
Readers may recall that for some time I’ve been pointing out a strange anomaly in the Solar Geomagnetic Index that occurred in October 2005. In a story I wrote on Feb 13th, 2008 titled Where have all the sunspots gone? I plotted the Ap data and pointed out the event.
I wrote then:
What is most interesting about the Geomagnetic Average Planetary Index graph above is what happened around October 2005. Notice the sharp drop in the magnetic index and the continuance at low levels.
This looks much like a “step function” that I see on GISS surface temperature graphs when a station has been relocated to a cooler measurement environment. In the case of the sun, it appears this indicates that something abruptly “switched off” in the inner workings of the solar dynamo. Note that in the prior months, the magnetic index was ramping up a bit with more activity, then it simply dropped and stayed mostly flat.
Since then, we’ve seen announcements like this:
BREAKING – major AAS solar announcement: Sun’s Fading Spots Signal Big Drop in Solar Activity
Posted on June 14, 2011 by Anthony Watts
“If we are right, this could be the last solar maximum we’ll see for a few decades,” Hill said. “That would affect everything from space exploration to Earth’s climate.”
See the official press release here – “All three of these lines of research to point to the familiar sunspot cycle shutting down for a while.”
Dr. Sam Outcalt : Emeritus Professor of Physical Geography, University of Michigan sent me this graph two days ago, showing his application of Hurst Rescaling to the Ap Solar Magnetic Index data. Using that method, he has independently identified the “step function switch off” I reported in Feb 2008:
The major regime transition is at the maximum of the integral at 2005.71, which corresponds to October 2005, the same date I identified.
Clearly the sun entered into a magnetic funk then, and has yet to come out of it.
We live in interesting times.
For more on Hurst ReScaling, see this paper: SIO_HurstReScale
UPDATE: As I expected he would, Dr. Leif Svalgaard takes exception to this characterization of the identification of October 2005 being a regime changepoint, saying:
While I agree that the sun is going quiet, the ‘step change’ is spurious. It is mainly due to a sporadic, single magnetic storm in September 2005: http://hirweb.nict.go.jp/sedoss/solact3/do?d=2005%2c09%2c04 and here is the next rotation: http://hirweb.nict.go.jp/sedoss/solact3/do?d=2005%2c10%2c01 You can find many such steps.
Such step changes happens all the time: http://www.leif.org/research/Ap-1844-now.png They are just weather, not climate.
I don’t think his analogy holds promise, because after the step change the “climate” of the solar dynamo stayed low, and then produced the lowest value in the record going back to 1844. See Leif’s graph (click to enlarge) which I’ve annotated:
While this is akin to the sustained drop starting in early 1871, clearly this was something new in the entire record.If we use smoothing to remove what Leif describes as weather noise, and magnify, we can see how this looks to be unique in the last century of data:
While it could be argued that this was a “weather” event, the facts remain that:
- In the 14 months prior to Oct 2005, the Ap index was on the rise
- It was a very sharp drop spanning a little over a month.
- It has not recovered to the average values in the preceding 14 months since then.
- Weather events are usually short term dynamics. The 2 rotation periods of the sun Leif refers to aren’t capable of maintaining the step change for the years following October 2005.
- Following the event, the Sun produced the lowest Ap value in the record in Dec 2008.
- Projections by others, including Livingston, suggest the sun has entered into a quiet magnetic state.
While I defer to Dr. Svalgaard’s overall superior knowledge on the dynamics of sun, and agree there are many sharp transitions in the Ap record, this looks to me to be a step change event of merit based on the factors listed above. I’ve yet to see a fully convincing explanation that this was a spurious event rather than a regime changepoint. But, I remain open to seeing such an explanation.
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vukcevic says:
July 6, 2012 at 11:27 am
“It is often said (by ‘cranks’ and others) that there may be a link between volcanic and solar activity, I couldn’t find any using a volcanic index I constructed some time ago, since this is a thread about Ap, I decided to have another go:
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/Ap-VI.htm
Not much in it, but at least it is an improvement on what I got last time.”
One man’s crank is another man’s prophet. Dr. Iben Browning believed there was a connection between various solar system orbital positions, (not solar activity) and volcanism. He predicted the coming cooling back in the 1980’s due to tidally induced volcanic activity.
Hi Jim
Being a prophet has a big disadvantage, not allowed to be wrong, as Dr. Browning found to his distress, so I should be happy with the alternative lesser status.
Paul Vaughan says:
July 6, 2012 at 10:59 am
You’re attempting to authoritatively direct a narrative based on a step in the data to obfuscate the meaning of a changepoint in the integral.
You might be delighted to learn that it was Anthony that tried to correlate the two: “I’m happy to report that something I recognized and reported back in 2008 related to solar data has been independently confirmed by another source, and was a surprise when it showed up in my inbox two days ago.
Readers may recall that for some time I’ve been pointing out a strange anomaly in the Solar Geomagnetic Index that occurred in October 2005”
undermining of trust from more advanced readers.
I don’t need trust from people proclaiming they are more advanced.
Don’t waste anymore of my time.
nobody twists your arm forcing you to visit WUWT or to respond or to rant.
vukcevic says:
July 6, 2012 at 11:27 am
It is often said (by ‘cranks’ and others) that there may be a link between volcanic and solar activity
and every time that claim is debunked [confirming the crank status], e.g. by using a superposed epoch method that show volcanic activity around heliospheric current sheet crossings [that organize solar activity] or magnetic storms:
http://www.leif.org/research/Earthquake-Activity.png
Jim G says:
July 6, 2012 at 1:31 pm
One man’s crank is another man’s prophet. Dr. Iben Browning believed there was a connection between various solar system orbital positions, (not solar activity) and volcanism.
The celestial body that raises the largest tides of all is the Moon. The tides are largest when the Moon is closest [at perigee], but there is no increase of Earthquakes at or around perigee or decrease at or around apogee: http://www.leif.org/research/Earthquakes-Perigee.png
One way out [to rescue the claim] is to deny that volcanism and earthquakes are related. You want to go there?
It looks like there was a dip, but after it looks like levels were where they’d be if it stuck to trend.
However, the character of the data does change. The variance drops to something like 1/3.
aaron says:
July 7, 2012 at 6:14 am
However, the character of the data does change. The variance drops to something like 1/3.
This is because we were on the way to solar minimum. The variance is always lower at every solar minimum.
From a source quoted by Leif:
“Earthshine and FD analyses show contemporaneous and
climatologically significant increases in the Earth’s reflectance from the out-
set of our earthshine measurements beginning in late 1998 roughly until mid-
2000. After that and to-date, all three show a roughly constant terrestrial
albedo, except for the FD data in the most recent years.”
http://www.leif.org/research/Palle_Earthshine_2008.pdf
Well I’ve been saying for some time that I observed that the jet streams were no longer drifting poleward around 2000 and that seems to ‘coincide’ with that increase in cloudiness.
In fact I think there was a sudden small shift back equatorward at that time and/or an increase in jet stream meridionality.
There may have been some stability in cloudiness after mid 2000 and up to around 2007 but to my mind the most recent data should show a further increase in cloudiness since I note more meridional jets than before over the recent couple of years and it is my contention that more jet meridionality gives more clouds globally.
I see that the paper refers to data which only goes up to 2007 which is already 5 years out of date and does not cover the recent record low solar activity and record negative AO (which produced high meridionality and, I suspect, higher global cloudiness).
So since that initial increase in cloudiness there must have been a reduction in solar energy entering the oceans and I note that the rate of increase in ocean heat content seems to have declined ( or ceased) around 2003 by some accounts.
If we have had a further increase in cloudiness within the past 5 years then the rate of energy input to the oceans will have declined further which would presumably compound the tropospheric cooling effects expected from the now negative phase of the PDO (or rather Pacific Multidecadal Oscillation).
So it appears very simple.
The activity level of the sun somehow alters the zonality/meridionality of the jets and/or their average latitudinal position to change global cloudiness and the amount of energy entering the oceans to fuel the climate system.
The ENSO process and the Pacific Multidecadal Oscillation then modulate the energy leaving the oceans for the troposphere and also (for some 10 years or so) the temperature of the waters entering the Arctic Ocean in the flow that runs past Spitzbergenwhich has an effect on Arctic sea ice quantities.
The level of solar activity alters the amount of energy entering the oceans. The oceans then control the rate at which that energy is released to the air.
I have previously described how the sun could have such a top down effect on the vertical temperature profile of the atmosphere so as to shift the climate zones poleward or equatorward.