“Skaters can only do this race every 10 or 11 years because that’s when the rivers freeze up,” Sirocko said. “I thought to myself, ‘There must be a reason for this,’ and it turns out there is.”
WASHINGTON – Scientists have long suspected that the Sun’s 11-year cycle influences climate of certain regions on Earth. Yet records of average, seasonal temperatures do not date back far enough to confirm any patterns. Now, armed with a unique proxy, an international team of researchers show that unusually cold winters in Central Europe are related to low solar activity – when sunspot numbers are minimal. The freezing of Germany’s largest river, the Rhine, is the key.
Although the Earth’s surface overall continues to warm, the new analysis has revealed a correlation between periods of low activity of the Sun and of some cooling – on a limited, regional scale in Central Europe, along the Rhine.
“The advantage with studying the Rhine is because it’s a very simple measurement,” said Frank Sirocko lead author of a paper on the study and professor of Sedimentology and Paleoclimatology at the Institute of Geosciences of Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz, Germany. “Freezing is special in that it’s like an on-off mode. Either there is ice or there is no ice.”
From the early 19th through mid-20th centuries, riverboat men used the Rhine for cargo transport. And so docks along the river have annual records of when ice clogged the waterway and stymied shipping. The scientists used these easily-accessible documents, as well as additional historical accounts, to determine the number of freezing episodes since 1780.
Sirocko and his colleagues found that between 1780 and 1963, the Rhine froze in multiple places 14 different times. The sheer size of the river means it takes extremely cold temperatures to freeze over making freezing episodes a good proxy for very cold winters in the region, Sirocko said.
Mapping the freezing episodes against the solar activity’s 11-year cycle – a cycle of the Sun’s varying magnetic strength and thus total radiation output – Sirocko and his colleagues determined that ten of the fourteen freezes occurred during years around when the Sun had minimal sunspots. Using statistical methods, the scientists calculated that there is a 99 percent chance that extremely cold Central European winters and low solar activity are inherently linked.
“We provide, for the first time, statistically robust evidence that the succession of cold winters during the last 230 years in Central Europe has a common cause,” Sirocko said.
With the new paper, Sirocko and his colleagues have added to the research linking solar variability with climate, said Thomas Crowley, Director of the Scottish Alliance for Geoscience, Environment, and Society, who was not involved with the study.
“There is some suspension of belief in this link,” Crowley said, “and this study tilts the argument more towards thinking there really is something to this link. If you have more statistical evidence to support this explanation, one is more likely to say it’s true.”
The study, conducted by researchers at Johannes Gutenberg and the Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science in Zurich, Switzerland, is set to be published August 25 in Geophysical Research Letters, a journal of the American Geophysical Union.
When sunspot numbers are down, the Sun emits less ultraviolet radiation. Less radiation means less heating of Earth’s atmosphere, which sparks a change in the circulation patterns of the two lowest atmospheric levels, the troposphere and stratosphere. Such changes lead to climatic phenomena such as the North Atlantic Oscillation, a pattern of atmospheric pressure variations that influences wind patterns in the North Atlantic and weather behavior in regions in and around Europe.
“Due to this indirect effect, the solar cycle does not impact hemispherically averaged temperatures, but only leads to regional temperature anomalies,” said Stephan Pfahl, a co-author of the study who is now at the Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science in Zurich.
The authors show that this change in atmospheric circulation leads to cooling in parts of Central Europe but warming in other European countries, such as Iceland. So, sunspots don’t necessarily cool the entire globe – their cooling effect is more localized, Sirocko said.
In fact, studies have suggested that the extremely cold European winters of 2010 and 2011 were the result of the North Atlantic Oscillation, which Sirocko and his team now link to the low solar activity during that time.
The 2010 and 2011 European winters were so cold that they resulted in record lows for the month of November in certain countries. Some who dispute the occurrence of anthropogenic climate change argue that this two-year period shows that Earth’s climate is not getting any warmer. But climate is a complex system, Sirocko said. And a short-term, localized dip in temperatures only temporarily masks the effects of a warming world.
“Climate is not ruled by one variable,” said Sirocko. “In fact, it has [at least] five or six variables. Carbon dioxide is certainly one, but solar activity is also one.”
Moreover, the researchers also point out that, despite Central Europe’s prospect to suffer colder winters every 11 years or so, the average temperature of those winters is increasing and has been for the past three decades. As one piece of evidence of that warming, the Rhine River has not frozen over since 1963. Sirocko said such warming results, in part, from climate change.
To establish a more complete record of past temperature dips, the researchers are looking to other proxies, such as the spread of disease and migratory habits.
“Disease can be transported by insects and rats, but during a strong freezing year that is not likely,” said Sirocko. “Also, Romans used the Rhine to defend against the Germanics, but as soon as the river froze people could move across it. The freezing of the Rhine is very important on historical timescales.”
It wasn’t, however, the Rhine that first got Sirocko to thinking about the connection between freezing rivers and sunspot activity. In fact, it was a 125-mile ice-skating race he attended over 20 years ago in the Netherlands that sparked the scientist’s idea.
“Skaters can only do this race every 10 or 11 years because that’s when the rivers freeze up,” Sirocko said. “I thought to myself, ‘There must be a reason for this,’ and it turns out there is.”
Title:
“Solar influence on winter severity in central Europe”
Abstract:
The last two winters in central Europe were unusually cold in comparison to the years before. Meteorological data, mainly from the last 50 years, and modelling studies have suggested that both solar activity and El Niño strength may influence such central European winter coldness. To investigate the mechanisms behind this in a statistically robust way and to test which of the two factors was more important during the last 230 years back into the Little Ice Age, we use historical reports of freezing of the river Rhine. The historical data show that 10 of the 14 freeze years occurred close to sunspot minima and only one during a year of moderate El Niño. This solar influence is underpinned by corresponding atmospheric circulation anomalies in reanalysis data covering the
period 1871 to 2008. Accordingly, weak solar activity is empirically related to extremely cold winter conditions in Europe also on such long time scales. This relationship still holds today, however the average winter temperatures have been rising during the last decades.
Authors:
Frank Sirocko and Heiko Brunck: Institute of Geosciences, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz;
Stephan Pfahl: Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science, ETH Zurich, Switzerland.
==============================================================
I hope to have a copy of the paper soon – Anthony
UPDATE: Dr. Leif Svalgaard provides the paper, as did the AGU press agent Kate Ramsayer per my emailed request, along with a copyright admonishment. Thank you both. Figure 6a and 6b are interesting:
From the paper:
In agreement with the 20th Century Reanalysis central European temperature observations from the CRUTEM3 dataset [Brohan et al., 2006] from winters directly following a sunspot minimum are also significantly lower than the average temperature during the remaining winter seasons (Fig. 6a). The relation between cold winter conditions and sunspot activity is thus not specific to rivers alone (which could also be affected by a number of additional factors, for example warm water from the numerous powerplants constructed along the river). The strong variations of the time series in Fig. 6a, which are largely independent of the sunspot cycle, show the important role of internal, stochastic variability of the atmosphere for European winter temperatures. The relation shown above holds true only for central European temperatures. When the CRUTEM3 winter temperature data are averaged over the whole Northern Hemisphere, no relation to the solar minima is found.
This suggests a regional circulation pattern effect, as the authors state connected to figure 5a and 5b:
To identify the atmospheric circulation anomalies in the North Atlantic and European region associated with cold winters during solar minima, Fig. 5a shows the difference in the geopotential height fields at 500 hPa (Z500) between the winters directly following a year with a sunspot minimum and the remainder of the period 1871 to 2008, obtained from the 20th Century Reanalysis dataset [Compo et al., 1996]. A strong, statistically significant positive anomaly occurs over the eastern North Atlantic in the region of Iceland, while negative anomalies are found over the Iberian peninsula and over north-eastern Europe (the latter being not significant). These Z500 anomalies are associated with an enhanced northerly flow and cold air advection from the Arctic and Scandinavia
towards central Europe, leading to significantly negative temperature anomalies over England, France and western Germany (Fig. 5b). The centre of the cooling is in the region of southern England, the Benelux countries and western Germany down to middle Rhine area. Eastern and southern Germany are not effected as much as the above region. Accordingly, it is only the Rhine and possible some Dutch rivers that provide the possibility to reconstruct this specific temperature anomaly pattern, which corresponds to an anomalously negative NAO and a preference for blockings over the eastern North Atlantic.
Leif Svalgaard says:
August 28, 2012 at 8:32 pm
No, SC24 has already matched SC14: http://www.leif.org/research/SC14-and-24-overlap.png
And there is no reason to believe and no evidence for the notion that this will not continue to be the case.
You need to keep believing, the facts are not looking good for you, the current SC24 values are way under SC14.
The Group Sunspot number is flawed and will shortly be abandoned.
All data is flawed that does not suit your theories. You have a habit of this in other areas.
Yet the values you want to use for SC5 was constructed by Wolfer using those wrong factors.
Wolfer did not count during SC5. This is the difference. The GSN is in almost full agreement.
Yet Wolfer strayed and now you advocate using his values. Having a threshold is simply a bad idea as you do not cover the full spectrum of solar variability.
Answered above. What you fail to understand is that Wolf designed the 10 value per group to apply to groups above his threshold. It was not designed to work with single specks. Wolfer tested against Wolf for 15-17 years but did not test during a grand minimum type cycle, this flaw is now apparent. Trying to associate Wolfer’s method with SC5 is rather desperate.
The specks could have been recorded separately, with Wolf’s count maintained for the sunspot record. This would have been a better method.
The issue is not observers, but how to determine the k-values to use for them, and the Group Sunspot Number values are simply incorrect as I show here: http://www.leif.org/research/What-is-Wrong-with-GSN.pdf
Going back in time the error begins already at the transition between Wolfer and Wolf, where observations show that Wolfer observed 65% more groups than Wolf, yet Hoyt and Schatten use k-factors that are almost identical with only a 2% difference. So, right there they force the GSN to by off by ~50%
Your claims need to be published in an official rebuttal to Hoyt & Schatten before I would take them seriously. Wolf and Wolfer did not observe during SC5/6 so your example is not relevant. Your report is also cherry picking observers and needs to include all observers. At the end of the day the differences between counts during SC5/6 are small and any minor adjustments would make little difference. I think you need to accept SC5/6 were very low cycles of a weaker type grand minimum.
Leif Svalgaard says:
August 28, 2012 at 9:30 pm
Again you are economical with the truth. Over the peak of SC5 there was only one observer, ans the average number of observers per year of SC6 was 2.9 and of course that is not enough for almost daily records.
Utter rubbish. You simply have no credible arguments. Your statements are completely wrong as shown by the official GSN record from 1798 on. Show me one table where your statement is correct.
ftp://ftp.ngdc.noaa.gov/STP/SOLAR_DATA/SUNSPOT_NUMBERS/GROUP_SUNSPOT_NUMBERS/dailyrg.dat
Leif Svalgaard says:
August 28, 2012 at 9:30 pm
I see your confusion. You are quoting per day where I am stating the observers per month. That multiple observers over the month show no great deviation is a testament to the record. Your attempts to discredit the record because you wish to slam the TSI record flat are not convincing.
Leif said, quoting wikipaedia:
“ONE reason for major stratospheric warmings to occur ”
Such events can occur either because of warmth from below transferring to the stratosphere and introducing an imbalance or warming from above resulting from ozone quantity changes.
I mentioned sudden stratospheric warming events simply to illustrate that once the stratosphere does warm relative to the troposphere for whatever reason then there is an increase in jetstream meridionality with cold surface flows more equatorward.
One can change the relative temperature from above by altering ozone quantities hence the importance of the relative balance at any one time between net ozone creation and net ozone destruction processes all the way up from the bottom of the stratosphere to the top of the mesosphere.
Measurements appear tob e showing that the net effect of solar variation on ozone quantities through the entire column is the opposite of that previously assumed and that fits in with the sign of net response needed to achieve the observed changes in climate zone positioning.
Your attempts to discredit the record because you wish to slam the TSI record flat are not convincing.
Well said Geoff. Though in reality, there is no TSI record before the 1970’s. Beyond that we have a proxy derived from geomagnetic records, and sunspot numbers. Of these two, the sunspot numbers are a more direct assessment of the Sun’s activity. Since the solar proxy derived from the magnetic record depends also on changes in Earth’s magnetic field, we don’t have a precise enough record beyond about 1850 to be sure we can reconstruct solar activity to a accuracy with which Leif can then gainsay sunspot observers.
Which is why Leif has only reconstructed his geomag index back to around 1880 and then back projected the trend. At least, that was the state of play last I looked. Leif will no doubt let me know if he has done more since.
Leif says:
Ozone absorbs 14 W/m2 of the incoming solar radiation, table 4 of http://www.leif.org/EOS/Atmosphere-Energy-Budget.pdf which is 1% of the total 1361 W/m2
(Leif then corrects himself, realizing it is 14 out of 340 and the value increases to 4% )
Henry says
I notice that table 4 mentions only 67 W/m2 in total for all major absorbing gases on a cloudy day of which ozone makes up for 15.
So the percent contribution of ozone is 15/67 = 22.3
So I was not really far off with my estimate.
But we are not there yet. We know that albedo is running around 30%. 67/340 = 20 % . So what happened to the other 10% on a cloudy day?
(if no one can explain this difference the figure of 22 % for ozone needs to be adjusted up again)
Like I said, I think I have established a reasonable mechamism that explains my results: A decreasing amount of ozone due to solar activity can cause a swing toward warming and increasing amounts towards cooling.
Henry@Stephen Fisher
Thanks for that last contribution, I appreciate. But I still think the ozone does not much in the upper atmosphere. There is no mass there. It can only re-radiate. If there is more of it, it just re-radiates more energy to space, and then, in the end, you get less energy going in the oceans.
I think Leif is right when he argues: but there is little or no change in W/m2 coming from the sun. But, what if there is just a slight change in the distribution of the energy of the solar constant over the wavelengths? And then it looks like that this change affects the production of ozone from oxygen.
Henry@anyone
I am still looking to put my 4 results for the speed of warming on maxima in an a-c wave. I have them in a parabolic curve now but that is not right. Can anyone help me?
My results for the speed of warming/cooling in degrees K / annum for maxima now is 0.036 from 1974 (38 yrs), 0.029 from 1980 (32 yrs), 0.014 from 1990 (22 years) and -0.016 from 2000 (12 years).
Geoff Sharp says:
August 28, 2012 at 9:32 pm
the current SC24 values are way under SC14.
The smmothed sunspot numbers are the values to compare. We are are now four years into SC24 and Rsmooth = 65.5. When SC14 was four years into the cycle, Rsmooth was 52.5. Applying the Waldmeier correction of 1.2, you get 1.2 * 52.5 = 63.0. Even you can see that 65.5 is not ‘way under’ 63.0.
Wolfer did not count during SC5. This is the difference.
Neither did Wolf. The difference is that Wolfer reconstructed based on his method.
Wolf designed the 10 value per group to apply to groups above his threshold. It was not designed to work with single specks.
On the contrary, Wolf expressly said that the appearence of a new small spot in an existing group was much less important than when it signaled the birth of a new group, hence the latter should have much larger weight, thus the facor 10.
Trying to associate Wolfer’s method with SC5 is rather desperate.
And yet you compare with Wolfer’s reconstruction of SC5
with Wolf’s count maintained for the sunspot record.
The sunspot record since 1849 has 27 years made with Wolf’s method and 135 years made with Wolfer’s, which every solar physicist agrees is the better as it covers a wider range of solar activity.
Your claims need to be published in an official rebuttal to Hoyt & Schatten before I would take them seriously.
Theu will, they will, but I doubt you accept them even so. The solar community is working hard to publish a new and agreed upon series. You might find Schatten’s view on this of interest: http://www.leif.org/research/SSN/Schatten.pdf
I think you need to accept SC5/6 were very low cycles of a weaker type grand minimum.
They were cycles just as low as SC14 and SC24. The very notion of a ‘weak’ grand minimum is nonsense.
Show me one table where your statement is correct.
The tables you show do not have a value ‘almost every day’. Oh, yes they have lots of -99s, meaning no data.
Stephen Wilde says:
August 29, 2012 at 12:03 am
I mentioned sudden stratospheric warming events simply to illustrate that once the stratosphere does warm relative to the troposphere for whatever reason then there is an increase in jetstream meridionality with cold surface flows more equatorward.
I have already given you links to papers showing that it shift of the jetstream that control the stratosphere, not the other way around.
tallbloke says:
August 29, 2012 at 2:16 am
Which is why Leif has only reconstructed his geomag index back to around 1880 and then back projected the trend. At least, that was the state of play last I looked. Leif will no doubt let me know if he has done more since.
Geomagnetic activity is now well constructed back to 1835 and the old records are good enough for that purpose. An example of that is slide 5 of http://www.leif.org/research/Geomagnetic%20Calibration%20of%20Sunspot%20Numbers.pdf
HenryP says:
August 29, 2012 at 6:33 am
Leif says:
Ozone absorbs 14 W/m2 of the incoming solar radiation, table 4 of http://www.leif.org/EOS/Atmosphere-Energy-Budget.pdf which is 1% of the total 1361 W/m2
(Leif then corrects himself, realizing it is 14 out of 340 and the value increases to 4% )
Henry says
I notice that table 4 mentions only 67 W/m2 in total for all major absorbing gases on a cloudy day of which ozone makes up for 15.
So the percent contribution of ozone is 15/67 = 22.3
So I was not really far off with my estimate.
You were, as your claim was 20% of incoming solar radiation, not of what is absorbed.
Geoff Sharp says:
August 28, 2012 at 7:45 pm
Wolf did many reconstructions of SC5, he wasn’t around of course so had to use other observers and proxy records.
So, you now admit that your claim that “LSC should compare more favorably to Wolf’s reconstruction of the Dalton Minimum cycles” is wrong.
Leif says:
Geomagnetic activity is now well constructed back to 1835 and the old records are good enough for that purpose.
It;s a shame the Napoleonic wars interrupted the Dalton Minimum period readings. Any further finds from the far corners of Europe? What about Russia or China?
Leif Svalgaard says:
August 29, 2012 at 7:45 am
Most of your answers are not worthy of a reply, but the following stood out.
I think you need to accept SC5/6 were very low cycles of a weaker type grand minimum.
——————————–
They were cycles just as low as SC14 and SC24. The very notion of a ‘weak’ grand minimum is nonsense.
You have no understanding of grand minima and have much to learn as is evident in this statement. The Babcock crew and yourself only seem to recognize grand minimum events when they are at the extreme end as in the Maunder and Sporer minima. But the solar proxy record very clearly shows the Sun goes into a regular mode of downturn every 172 years average, but the severity differs. I have taken you through every such occurrence for the last 2000 years and matched the severity with the amount of angular momentum disturbance each time which you were unable to dismiss. The current downturn has only one disturbance and that disturbance is weaker than the Maunder event so the current grand minimum (if it eventuates) will be a weaker and shorter type event than a Maunder type example. This you will agree on when we all see the results of the phase catastrophe at the coming solar max.
The smmothed sunspot numbers are the values to compare. We are are now four years into SC24 and Rsmooth = 65.5. When SC14 was four years into the cycle, Rsmooth was 52.5. Applying the Waldmeier correction of 1.2, you get 1.2 * 52.5 = 63.0. Even you can see that 65.5 is not ‘way under’ 63.0.
Smoothing means the last 6 months values cannot be used, another attempt at confusion with smoke and mirrors.
The tables you show do not have a value ‘almost every day’. Oh, yes they have lots of -99s, meaning no data.
Rubbish. “almost every day” is a ridiculous statement. Total the amount of -99’s over the middle half of SC5 and the answer will be no where near every day. During SC6 almost every day was recorded in the middle half of the cycle by almost 3 observers each day, this is very solid data.
And it is time you recognized that this cycle needs more than just the Waldmeier factor applied if wanting to compare with SC5/6. The LSC is a very accurate gauge using solid procedures of how the speck ratio has increased, in fact the difference between the LSC and SIDC is the speck ratio. If the maximum size of a spot in a group is under the threshold that group is not counted and removed from the SIDC total, the larger the difference the greater the speck ratio. When I describe “speck ratio” it is the amount of groups that are counted that Wolf would not have counted and is at the core of Wolfer’s 0.6 reduction ratio.
The speck ratio has continued to climb throughout SC24.
http://tinyurl.com/2dg9u22/images/lsc_sidc.png
Geoff Sharp says:
August 28, 2012 at 7:45 pm
Wolf did many reconstructions of SC5, he wasn’t around of course so had to use other observers and proxy records.
So, you now admit that your claim that “LSC should compare more favorably to Wolf’s reconstruction of the Dalton Minimum cycles” is wrong.
Geoff Sharp says:
August 29, 2012 at 5:22 pm
But the solar proxy record very clearly shows the Sun goes into a regular mode of downturn every 172 years average
Every 80-110 years.
I have taken you through every such occurrence for the last 2000 years and matched the severity with the amount of angular momentum disturbance each time which you were unable to dismiss.
As i recall, I dismissed it roundly.
This you will agree on when we all see the results of the phase catastrophe at the coming solar max.
There is no such thing as a phase ‘catastrophe’, but you might mean that the polar fields fail to reverse in ~2013 or that the next cycle will have the same Hale polarities as this cycle. If so, then your theory will be falsified if the polarities change.
Smoothing means the last 6 months values cannot be used
Smoothing means that the last six months are used and contribute half to the value. That applies to both SC14 and SC24, so they are very comparable [with SC14 falling slightly below]
Total the amount of -99′s over the middle half of SC5 and the answer will be no where near every day.
The answer is that because there are so many -99 there is not data ‘almost every day’ as you claimed.
When I describe “speck ratio” it is the amount of groups that are counted that Wolf would not have counted and is at the core of Wolfer’s 0.6 reduction ratio.
You have completely misunderstood their procedure. I’ll describe the two [actually three] methods in a separate comment.
The speck ratio has continued to climb throughout SC24
http://tinyurl.com/2dg9u22/images/lsc_sidc.png
It seems to vary randomly around 0.65 with no trend at all.
Leif Svalgaard says:
August 29, 2012 at 8:46 pm
Geoff Sharp says:
So, you now admit that your claim that “LSC should compare more favorably to Wolf’s reconstruction of the Dalton Minimum cycles” is wrong.
I am talking about the Wolf version as finalized by the SIDC. Not your cherry picked version.
But the solar proxy record very clearly shows the Sun goes into a regular mode of downturn every 172 years average
———————————
Every 80-110 years.
Once again showing your ignorance. The “bottom of the wave” smallish cycles are not grand minimum cycles. The Damon Minimum around 1900 is a wrong example of a grand minimum. This is a time of low angular momentum not disturbed angular momentum. There are two 80-90 year reductions in activity. The first is the always the same and is just low angular momentum but the next that follows roughly 80-90 years later is varying grand minima. The grand minimum type of reduction is generally larger than the low AM version with the MWP being an exception.
I have taken you through every such occurrence for the last 2000 years and matched the severity with the amount of angular momentum disturbance each time which you were unable to dismiss.
————————-
As i recall, I dismissed it roundly.
Your recollection is poor as usual.
There is no such thing as a phase ‘catastrophe’, but you might mean that the polar fields fail to reverse in ~2013 or that the next cycle will have the same Hale polarities as this cycle. If so, then your theory will be falsified if the polarities change.
Not necessarily, if the poles stay around neutral, SC25 will be affected.
Smoothing means the last 6 months values cannot be used
Smoothing means that the last six months are used and contribute half to the value. That applies to both SC14 and SC24, so they are very comparable [with SC14 falling slightly below]
The unsmoothed graph does not lie.
http://tinyurl.com/2dg9u22/images/sc5_sc24_less_wald.png
The answer is that because there are so many -99 there is not data ‘almost every day’ as you claimed.
SC6 has an almost complete record. Show me where I am wrong.
The speck ratio has continued to climb throughout SC24
http://tinyurl.com/2dg9u22/images/lsc_sidc.png
—————————–
It seems to vary randomly around 0.65 with no trend at all.
The trend is moving towards 0.5. This month is looking like another rise in the speck ratio.
The Sunspot Counting Methods:
1) Wolf learned that Schwabe did not count ‘small spots and grey pores’. In order to be compatible with Schwabe [so Wolf could use Schwabe’s counts on days when Wolf did not make an observation], Wolf decided also not to count small spots and grey pores. This was before Wolf realized that a k-factor on the formula R = k (10G+S) was needed, and was the way to ensure compatibility.
2) Wolf did not ‘design’ a threshold in his method. He knew quite well that it was silly to throw away spots just because they were small, especially if they defined a group. But he became victim of the desire to be compatible, and when he realized a threshold was dumb it was too late.
3) Around 1875 Wolf found [from the geomagnetic data supplied by Sciaparelli] that Schwabe after all [even after that Wolf had unfortunately adopted Schwabe’s method] was counting about 25% too, and summarily increased all 1849 values [which he had published in 1861] by those 25%.
4) From the mid 1860s Wolf was traveling so much [he was by then director of the Swiss Geodetic Survey] that he stopped using the 80mm X64 telescope altogether and switched to a much smaller 37mm X20 hand-held telescope that he could take with him on travel. With this small telescope there was no longer any need to omit small spots and grey pores, because they could simply not be seen anyway, so the question of a threshold is now moot. Wolf decided by comparison with his larger [standard] telescope that he got a compatible yearly average relative number by multiplying the one derived from the small telescope by a factor of 1.5. This did not carry over to daily of monthly means, because zero times 1.5 is still zero.
5) Wolfer correctly surmised that valuable information was thrown away by omitting spots, so decided to count everything he could see. Every serious observer since then has accepted the wisdom in this. This, of course, means that a k-factor less than 1 must be applied to be compatible with Wolf’s values [after 1976]. Over a 17-yr period of both low and high solar activity Wolfer [or rather Wolf] adopted a k-factor of 0.6.
6) Later observers have simply adopted that same k-factor [as it can never be measured again].
7) Waldmeier introduced a new classification of groups, using letters A, B, …, J, which was an evolutionary sequence from A, an emerging group of small spots without penumbra and without the typical bi-polar structure, e.g. a single small spot, through B, small spots still without penumbra but with a clear bi-polar structure, to C, etc where the spots grow larger and have penumbra. A and B groups make up almost half of all groups and could not be seen with Wolf’s 37mm telescope [as we can verify today as the telescope still exists] and were presumable the ones he did not count with the 80mm [although we don’t really know what he counted]
8) Wolfer’s k-factor of 0.6 was not made by comparison with Wolf’s count on the 80mm [as it should have been], but by comparing in this way: if Wolf had a sunspot number [using the 37mm] of 100, then that was first multiplied by 1.5, yielding 150 which was then divided by Wolfer’s count of 250 to result in 150/250 = 0.6. If we break it down into groups and spots, then Wolf’s R=100 comes from typically G=8 and S=20, while Wolfer’s R=250 comes from G=15 and S=100. The difference, 7, between 8 and 15 reflects nicely that A and B groups almost half of all groups [seen by Wolfer]. The real difference between Wolf and Wolfer is that Wolfer sees 5 times as many spots as Wolf, commensurate with the fact that the modern sunspot number is made up mostly of small spots.
9) The Waldmeier weighting increases on average the number of spots, S, by 44%.
10) The Waldmeier classification increases on average the number of groups, G, by perhaps 10% [this requires a full and careful – but difficult – analysis].
correcting a few typos:
Leif Svalgaard says:
August 29, 2012 at 10:15 pm
The Sunspot Counting Methods:
“was counting about 25% too low, and summarily increased”
“k-factor less than 1 must be applied to be compatible with Wolf’s values [after 1876].”
“nicely that A and B groups make up almost half of all groups”
Geoff Sharp says:
August 29, 2012 at 10:13 pm
”So, you now admit that your claim that “LSC should compare more favorably to Wolf’s reconstruction of the Dalton Minimum cycles” is wrong.”
I am talking about the Wolf version as finalized by the SIDC. Not your cherry picked version.
SIDC took the Wolfer version from 1902, nothing to do with Wolf, yet you cherry-picked Wolfer’s version. My version is from Wolf’s own publication as I linked to http://www.leif.org/EOS/Wolf-L.pdf
This is a time of low angular momentum not disturbed angular momentum.
The angular momentum ‘theory’ is physically unsound as pointed out long ago by Shirley http://www.leif.org/EOS/Shirley-MNRAS.pdf
”As i recall, I dismissed it roundly.”
Your recollection is poor as usual
Good enough for me.
”If so, then your theory will be falsified if the polarities change.”
Not necessarily, if the poles stay around neutral, SC25 will be affected.
If the poles have zero field, there won’t be a SC25 [the ultimate Maunder Minimum], but if the poles reverse as usual [as they are in the process of doing http://www.leif.org/research/WSO-Polar-Fields-since-2003.png ] your theory is falsified, which is not a surprise
The unsmoothed graph does not lie.
But perhaps you do. The unsmoothed data is sometimes lower, sometimes higher. The meaningful measure that every reasonably person agrees on is the smoothed SSN.
SC6 has an almost complete record. Show me where I am wrong.
H&S interpolated over missing data. And the issue is not really coverage, but the wrong H&S calibration. Even Schatten acknowledges that their calibration of GSN is wrong, and fully endorses my research [he is a co-author of our coming paper on this]
“It seems to vary randomly around 0.65 with no trend at all.”
The trend is moving towards 0.5.
The last 5 months according to your graph it has moved from 0.5 to 0.71
Geoff Sharp says:
August 29, 2012 at 10:13 pm
“It seems to vary randomly around 0.65 with no trend at all.”
The trend is moving towards 0.5.
The last 5 months according to your graph it has moved from 0.5 to 0.71
The usual way to substantiate a trend is to calculate the R-squared value for it. Excel can easily do this. Add the Excel trend line with R-squared and try again. Excel can easily give you the error bar on the trend as well.
Rhys Jaggar says:
August 25, 2012 at 12:11 pm
Does similar data exist for the freezing over of the Great Lakes??
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They do not freeze except along the shore link but the finger lakes in New York state sure do. My boy friend used to “ice dive” and I spend may an hour freezing waiting for him and his dive buddies in the late ’70’s. (I watched the gear top side)
Leif Svalgaard says:
August 29, 2012 at 10:15 pm
Over a 17-yr period of both low and high solar activity Wolfer [or rather Wolf] adopted a k-factor of 0.6.
And herein lies the problem. Wolfer never tested his 0.6 factor during times of solar grand minimum.
I look forward to seeing the results of the actual and full effect of the Waldmeier fiasco.
I dont disagree that all solar sunspot data should be recorded, but the original method should have been maintained for the sake of a homogenous sunspot record that is beyond question, there is no point adding the group value of 10 to a speck.
All the information points to a minimum Wolf threshold of around 333 pixels measured on the SDO 5Mb image. This is also verified on my replica 37mm & 80mm Wolf telescopes.
Schwabe was more interested in finding Vulcan than keeping a thorough sunspot record perhaps.
Henry says
I am open for any proof. We do need to prove this first because what is generally accepted could be wrong. Nobody informed me or anybody about a 100 year weather cycle. That is a lifetime…..
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Actually there is a known 88 year Gleissberg solar cycle.
The CAGW get out of jail (peer-review) free card is bolded.
A study that found evidence of a weather- Gleissberg cycle connection.
Paper: Is solar variability reflected in the Nile River? by Alexander Ruzmaikin, Joan Feynman, Yuk L Yung
Geoff Sharp says:
August 30, 2012 at 12:07 am
And herein lies the problem. Wolfer never tested his 0.6 factor during times of solar grand minimum.
But that is irrelevant, because Wolf did not observe during a grand minimum. The issue is how to convert Wolf’s 27 years of data to the 135-yr sunspot record since.
I dont disagree that all solar sunspot data should be recorded, but the original method should have been maintained for the sake of a homogenous sunspot record that is beyond question
The original method should have been abandoned and corrected long ago.
there is no point adding the group value of 10 to a speck.
This is fundamental and must be done. A new group is marked with emergence of magnetic flux, often before any spot is visible. This is the important event. Wolf did not know about magnetic fields, but fully realized that the birth of a new group, no matter how small was the significant event. He says in http://www.leif.org/EOS/Wolf-VI.pdf : “when a new area on the Sun is attacked by the spot-creating activity, then that is much more important than if an already existing group is changed by the appearance of a new spot”. The group-weight of 10 for any group, no matter how small or large, is the true stroke of genius that has made the sunspot number so useful in solar and solar-terrestrial research.
All the information points to a minimum Wolf threshold of around 333 pixels measured on the SDO 5Mb image. This is also verified on my replica 37mm & 80mm Wolf telescopes.
As a threshold is a dumb idea to begin with, it doesn’t matter what you set it to. Nobody in his right mind would try to duplicate Wolf’s mistake, as Wolfer [and every other solar scientist since] saw so clearly. The goal is to correct it.
Schwabe was more interested in finding Vulcan than keeping a thorough sunspot record perhaps
The sunspot record very quickly became the main thing for him. We are in the process of digitizing all of his drawings: http://www.leif.org/research/SSN/Arlt3.pdf
Gail Combs says
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Actually there is a known 88 year Gleissberg solar cycle.
The CAGW get out of jail (peer-review) free card is bolded.
Henry says
Although my (binominal) plot for deceleration of warming is good enough to calculate exactly when we changed sign from warming to cooling, to calculate the other root (i.e. when warming started) is a bit of a problem. I have it now as 67, meaning warming started somewhere in 2012- 67= 1945. That would make one cycle of 50 year years warming and 50 years cooling. But I know I could have the plot wrong. It could easily be 45 years plus and 45 years minus = 90 which would be closer to the Gleissberg cycle .
I am still looking to put my 4 results for the speed of warming on maxima versus time in an a-c wave plot. That would be something with sinus or co-sinus co-ordinates. Can anyone help me?
My results for the speed of warming/cooling in degrees K / annum for maxima versus time now is 0.036 from 1974 (38 yrs), 0.029 from 1980 (32 yrs), 0.014 from 1990 (22 years) and -0.016 from 2000 (12 years).
If I have the plot right I can use the co-ordinates to find out exactly when we started warming.
Leif says
You were, as your claim was 20% of incoming solar radiation, not of what is absorbed.
Henry says
Yes, sorry about that. I was under the impression that that representation graph I used was correct, seeing that it so widely used. I have learned a lesson there, thanks. But I had seen the paper that you quoted before and from there I remembered that I had calculated the total deflection caused by ozone as being 20-25% of the total. I also remembered that I was surpised that such a small quantity of gas could cause so much deflection. Also, that there is still 10% missing on albedo and I doubt that that could all be due to raleigh scattering.
Otherwise, you and Trenberth keep using the word “absorbing” and absorption , which rather is confusing. I have clarified the use of that term here.
http://www.letterdash.com/HenryP/the-greenhouse-effect-and-the-principle-of-re-radiation-11-Aug-2011
(remember that a gas has little mass and therefore even if there is absorption, it can only absorb until saturation, after which it starts re-radiating. So most of what is measured as being “absorbed”, is actually being back-radiated, = lost to space)
Leif Svalgaard says:
August 29, 2012 at 11:24 pm
The last 5 months according to your graph it has moved from 0.5 to 0.71
Cherry picking again. Last month was out of the box and unusual. There has been many months around 0.5. This month looking to reverse the trend from last month.
The group-weight of 10 for any group, no matter how small or large, is the true stroke of genius that has made the sunspot number so useful in solar and solar-terrestrial research.
Yes and he specifically designed it to work with decent sized eruptions, not pointless specks.
H&S interpolated over missing data. And the issue is not really coverage, but the wrong H&S calibration
So I am right about the data for SC6, almost full coverage by multiple observers, the record is strong disproving your statements. The calibration for SC5/6 if applied would make little difference.
SIDC took the Wolfer version from 1902, nothing to do with Wolf,
Nothing to do with Wolf? Some documentation please?
Leif Svalgaard says:
August 30, 2012 at 12:44 am
And herein lies the problem. Wolfer never tested his 0.6 factor during times of solar grand minimum.
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But that is irrelevant, because Wolf did not observe during a grand minimum. The issue is how to convert Wolf’s 27 years of data to the 135-yr sunspot record since.
The issue is that Wolfer tested his new method against Wolf over a very short time frame in terms of solar activity. As someone who professes to be an expert in this field, you should be questioning if 17 years is enough?
Neither Wolf or Wolfer observed or tested during a grand minimum and their reconstructions need to be tested against those that did. The GSN and proxy records are all we have and the finished result via SIDC is so far unchallenged. You have not provided any evidence that can refute the SIDC values for SC5/6.
customzcar says:
August 30, 2012 at 4:23 am
“The last 5 months according to your graph it has moved from 0.5 to 0.71”
Cherry picking again. Last month was out of the box and unusual. There has been many months around 0.5. This month looking to reverse the trend from last month.
Of the ~20 months shown on the graph, only 3 were around 0.5 or lower.
Yes and he specifically designed it to work with decent sized eruptions, not pointless specks.
No, as he said: “when a new area on the Sun is attacked by the spot-creating activity, then that is much more important than if an already existing group is changed by the appearance of a new spot” so his formula was specifically designed to take that into account, hence the factor 10.
Today we know that even a small single-speck group is just the tip of the iceberg of magnetic fields which we can directly observe. Wolf did the right thing by specifically designing his formula to take into account the importance of emerging activity. His desire to emulate Schwabe was a mistake which Wolfer successfully corrected. The crucial issue is how to extend that insight back in time [and to undo Waldmeier’s ‘improvement’].
The calibration for SC5/6 if applied would make little difference.
Calibration makes all the difference and the SSN workshop is attempting to get things right. So far, with good results.
“SIDC took the Wolfer version from 1902, nothing to do with Wolf”
Nothing to do with Wolf? Some documentation please?
When Wolf died, the sunspot numbers before 1876 was as he left them http://www.leif.org/EOS/Wolf-L.pdf . In 1902 Wolfer changed the series for SC5: http://www.leif.org/EOS/Wolf-XCIII.pdf and those are the values SIDC uses today.