The latest solar cycle update graphs have been released by the NOAA SWPC today, and the anemic cycle 24 continues:
The current count isn’t keeping up with the prediction line in red. Not only is the sunspot count low, so is the 10.7cm radio flux and the Ap magnetic index:
One thing that is getting active though is the solar wind, the Boyle Index took a big jump just a couple of hours ago, values over 200 are rather rare:
ACE RTSW (Estimated) Magnetic Field & Solar Wind
NOAA – Space Weather Prediction Center – Click the pic to view at source
That jump is likely due to this coronal hole CH532, now directly facing Earth:
What I find most interesting (and troubling) though is this image today of the sun from SDO:
The contrast of the sunspots is really low. The Livingston and Penn plot continues its downward slide:
Leif Svalgaard – Click the pic to view at source.
More on the L&P research and the potential for sunspots disappearing soon here: “All three of these lines of research to point to the familiar sunspot cycle shutting down for a while.”
More data at the WUWT Solar reference page
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We have been monitoring conditions on Mars for a few decades now, and even more precisely with the rovers for the last few years. Yet I hear nothing about fluctuations in climate there. If the sun activity, measured by sunspots, UV, magnetism, particle flux, etc., is affecting earth, shouldn’t Mars be affected? Where can we get the bird’s-eye low-down about Martian climate changes? If nothing is changing on Mars, and as NASA seems to be clearly in the warm-earther’s camp (IMO), I would have expected them to trumpet that fact of absence of evidence to minimize the hypothesis that the sun is a primary driver of earth’s climate. Since NASA is quiet, should I be suspicious of that silence?
John F. Hultquist says:
September 3, 2012 at 7:54 am
A sunspot is not the entirety of the sun. The contrast of the sunspot comes about from the intensity of the magnetic field withing the sunspot. The greater the field intensity, the more effectively plasma is pushed from the center of the magnetic that makes up the spot.
As that field strength declines, the brighter the sunspot appears to be, relative to the rest of the sun, yielding a lower contrast.
At some point, (if this continues) it is likely that the field strength will not be enough to make visible sunspots… though the structure that forms them will still be there.
@bubbagyro
I suspect the orbiting spacecraft around Mars and surface rovers are not primarily designed for climate observations, so little data would be available at this time.
Looks like random variation to me. Needs more data to make sensible claims.
@bubbagyro: I seem to recall an article or two a few years ago comparing Martian icecap images indicating that Mars had seen warming very similar to that on Earth. I don’t know how extensive the weather stations on the rovers were as they were mainly a geology experiment package, but after a quick online check it seems the first two rovers had no weather station on board. The current rover does however have a pretty good weather station on board. I haven’t seen any of that data shared yet, but it just started sometime after the landing on 6 August so there isn’t enough data to get a trend anyway.
I’ve always wondered: can we really call it “GEOLOGY” when it is on another planet? After all, isn’t GEO a base word for one of the Greek names of the Earth? Should we be calling it something like Marsology?
Owen:
Then we would have to consider “Gaiology” instead of Geology for the earth, since Mars is a God and Gaia a goddess, no? To be consistent? [The eco-wackos would love that!]
But temperature is the easiest thing to measure remotely through infrared sensing and other forms from a radiating body. The Mars orbiters take all kinds of data in many wavelengths. That’s how we can reckon subsurface environments and conditions on the surface as well. Our earth satellites measure temperature as a proxy of infrared emittance (emissivity), for example.
No, I am sure they have temperature on the surface and temperature proxies up the yin-yang, for at least three decades worth of measurement. As a matter of fact, temperature can be measured on Mars from earth, or from Hubble or other orbiting telescopes.
Also, contraction and expansion of ice and carbon dioxide at the poles of Mars can be measured to a meter resolution or better.
Und so weiter…
They have it in spades, and they ain’t tellin’!
On the L&P effect, our paper has just been published in the Astrophysical Journal:
http://iopscience.iop.org/2041-8205/757/1/L8
W. Livingston et al. 2012 ApJ 757 L8 doi:10.1088/2041-8205/757/1/L8
DECREASING SUNSPOT MAGNETIC FIELDS EXPLAIN UNIQUE 10.7 cm RADIO FLUX
W. Livingston1, M. J. Penn1, and L. Svalgaard2
Abstract:
Infrared spectral observations of sunspots from 1998 to 2011 have shown that on average sunspots changed, the magnetic fields weakened, and the temperatures rose. The data also show that sunspots or dark pores can only form at the solar surface if the magnetic field strength exceeds about 1500 G. Sunspots appear at the solar surface with a variety of field strengths, and during the period from 1998 to 2002 a histogram of the sunspot magnetic fields shows a normal distribution with a mean of 2436 ± 26 G and a width of 323 ± 20 G. During the observing period the mean of the magnetic field distribution decreased by 46 ± 6 G per year, and we assume that as the 1500 G threshold was approached, magnetic fields appeared at the solar surface which could not form dark sunspots or pores. With this assumption we propose a quantity called the sunspot formation fraction and give an analytical form derived from the magnetic field distribution. We show that this fraction can quantitatively explain the changing relationship between sunspot number and solar radio flux measured at 10.7 cm wavelengths.
Carsten Arnholm (Norway) says:
September 3, 2012 at 7:40 am
Thanks for jumping in. I was going to (and am) make a comment that fading contrast of sunspots may not be noticed in many media for a while. If photo editors want to print a photo of a sunspot, I’m sure most will crank up the contrast as needed to get a nice balance between light and dark.
The SDO images would have a much better chance of not being enhanced, but I wouldn’t bet much on it. JPL has been enhancing images from planetary missions for decades, with good reason and effect.
I imagine increased enhancement would show up in the faculae near the sunspot. However, with the revolution in Solar observing tools over the last solar cycle or two, it may be tough finding a couple photos worth comparing.
Carsten – I forget if your observing includes photogrphy in addition drawing. Comments welcome!
I’m glad you post these simple to follow graphs on the sun every now and then. Thank you, Watts.
day by day says:
September 3, 2012 at 10:01 am
thanks Greg Steele for the explanation but it still leaves out the significance of
“solar wind, the Boyle Index ”
“radio flux and the Ap magnetic index”
“ACE RTSW (Estimated) Magnetic Field & Solar Wind”
“SDO”
“Livingston and Penn plot “,
I’m no solar expert (don’t worry, people will be unable to resist setting me straight) but I’ll touch on a few of these.
solar wind
The tenuous stream of protons (I don’t know who counts the electrons) that flows from the Sun, complete with “gusts” due to solar activity, e.g. coronal mass ejections (CMEs).
10.7 cm radio flux
The Sun sends out radio frequency noise, that with a 10.7 cm wavelength in the microwave band is due to something or other, and matches sunspot activity well. In fact, due to the human factors in counting sunspots, the 10.7 cm flux is arguably the better parameter to watch.
Ap magnetic index
I’ve never figured out the importance of this. I’ll say “It has no importance.” There will be half a dozen comments correcting me.
SDO – Solar Dynamics Observatory, see http://sdo.gsfc.nasa.gov/ and click on “view latest images”
This is the latest space based solar observatory and produces absolutely wonderfully detailed images and other data on the Sun. Some of the images are based on different wavelengths of light, others are images of the magnetic fields on the Sun. Sunspots, in way-to-brief, are huge magnets that interfere with convection of solar plasma, so it cools off a little and appears darker than the surroundings.
Livingston and Penn – my all time favorite piece of new science I’ve learned from WUWT.
These folks have data showing sunspot’s magnetic fields are weakening, that the “umbrae,” the darkest area of a sunspot is warming, so the contrast is decreasing and that if things don’t change sunspots will cease to be visible.
We don’t know what it means, but it might be what happened in the Maunder Minimum, a long period of time with few sunspots. Back then we didn’t know how to observe the magnetic influence on light or make accurate measurements of sunspot contrast.
Leif is our main conduit to them, there’s a new paper I see. A couple old posts worth reviewing are http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/06/02/livingston-and-penn-paper-sunspots-may-vanish-by-2015/ and http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/09/18/suns-magnetics-remain-in-a-funk-sunspots-may-be-on-their-way-out/ The first one is pretty technical and describes the measurements in detail.
Leif Svalgaard says:
September 3, 2012 at 6:01 pm
Congratulations for officially joining the team, should we call it the L&P&S effect now?
OTOH, the paper is protected by a pay wall. Sigh. I assume from the Abstract the content is about how to deal with sunspot counts when some of the spots that would have been visible are lost in the poor contrast now. And that the 10.7 cm flux remains a good metric of solar activity.
Leif might have suggested the following link for new readers at WUWT:
http://www.leif.org/research/TSI-SORCE-2008-now.png
. . . and if you are really playing catch-up on this topic, look here:
http://www.leif.org/research/
Leif Svalgaard says:
September 3, 2012 at 6:01 pm
……..
L&P effect as a very rare event or a feature of the centennial low solar activity, we owe our thanks and congratulation to Dr Livingston for his persistence and now the publication, not forgetting those who did collaborate, support and finally did make sure that value of his work is recognized by the solar science.
I regularly look at the little squished ‘cherry markers’ on your website.
Did you go to sunny Hvar, or if you are there I suggest take a sailing trip down the cost to Dubrovnik and Kotor.
Now for a bit of science: As you may suspect I am interested in the solar magnetic cycle which apparently continues regardless. Since I think it is possible to show that down here on the ‘terra firma’ the magnetic cycle intensity and polarity is more important than the plain SSN, I would hope that the happy looking crowd (p24 &p25) would soon come up with some numbers, to have a proper reference rather than ‘guessing’ by inverting alternating SSNs.
@Charles nelson (and perhaps Smokey too):
I think you are aware that climate models are based on known physical interactions, where as homeopathy is based purely on belief.
The total human CO2 output into atmosphere is currently about 30 million metric tons per year. A small calculation gives, that it means adding 10^27 extra CO2 molecules in atmosphere above each square meter of Earth’s surface, per year. Since CO2 has been found to act as greenhouse gas, I find it not so hard to understand that this could have a measurable effect in the long run, such as the physical models and observations suggest.
You implicate that solar activity effects on global temperature lag apparently by decades or more, because you cannot find such relation visible in 1900 data – atleast not in the scale that would back up your views. I was only aware of (proofed) direct causal effects due to the changes of solar radiation flux density and the shape of Sun’s UV-spectra, caused by the different phases of the cycle.
Rhys Jaggar says:
8. Researchers are also wondering whether frequencies of volcanoes/earthquakes/tsunamis etc can be linked to the sunspot cycles. There is certainly no official scientific proof of this, but people are looking at it and having attempts at predicting such events. Time will tell whether they are accurate or not.
???
Magnetic storms on the sun driving tectonics?
Or a desire for funding, perhaps.
WTF at 2:49AM.
“total human CO2 output into atmosphere is currently about 30 million metric tons per year”
Human CO2 output into atmposhere, is a bit more than 30 million metric tons.
However, it is not only how much that is important. CO2 only absorbes infrared at certain, very specific frequencies. you don’t need that much CO2 to do this, you eventually reach saturation and then additional CO2 doesn’t do much. Diminishing returns on more CO2.
No one is disputing that CO2 is a greenhouse gas. The big argument is partly about a feedback effect. If it is significant, positive/negative, or if the climate system is much more complex… Hence the discussion about solar impact, ocean currents, water vapor, etc.
There is a Wikipedia article on climate on Mars which is suggestive of Martian climate change (e.g. solar driven change, presumably).
“There have been changes around the south pole (Planum Australe) over the past few Martian years. In 1999 the Mars Global Surveyor photographed pits in the layer of frozen carbon dioxide at the Martian south pole. Because of their striking shape and orientation these pits have become known as swiss cheese features. In 2001 the craft photographed the same pits again and found that they had grown larger, retreating about 3 meters in one Martian year.[69] These features are caused by the sublimation of the dry ice layer, thereby exposing the inert water ice layer. More recent observations indicate that the ice at Mars’ south pole is continuing to sublime.[70] The pits in the ice continue to grow by about 3 meters per Martian year. Malin states that conditions on Mars are not currently conducive to the formation of new ice. A NASA press release has suggested that this indicates a “climate change in progress”[71] on Mars. In a summary of observations with the Mars Orbiter Camera, researchers speculated that some dry ice may have been deposited between the Mariner 9 and the Mars Global Surveyor mission. Based on the current rate of loss, the deposits of today may be gone in a hundred years.[68]
“Elsewhere on the planet, low latitude areas have more water ice than they should have given current climatic conditions.[72] Mars Odyssey “is giving us indications of recent global climate change in Mars,” said Jeffrey Plaut, project scientist for the mission at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, in non-peer reviewed published work in 2003.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_of_Mars
WTF says:
September 4, 2012 at 2:49 am
Not wishing to alter the thread direction – but perhaps you would like to relate that human CO2 output to the global non human biomass CO2 output/input ? Then perhaps the human output can be ‘seen’ to scale? You might also like to separate the CO2 components out – such as that derived from 7 billion of us actually breathing, as well as that derived from fossil fuel use (cos even if we stop fossil fuel emissions completely, obviously, we can’t have mass genocide or suicide, can we?)
Yes, we produce increased CO2, and this potentially has some effect on the ‘heat retention’ capacity of the actual atmosphere. (Equally, we must not forget that in essence we are simply dealing with time lags – as eventually the warmer surface/atmosphere will emit radiation faster (than currently) to space)
Anyway, one must never forget mother nature in all this, the zillions of tons of CO2 in and out of the atmosphere dwarf our human efforts. A relatively tiny change in biomass in/out will potentially cause a significant change in atmospheric CO2. Now, also take stock of the fact that this biomass relies on photosynthesis as a way of removing CO2. Remind yourself what drives photosynthesis?
So – speculating aloud here – if we have a loss of solar power of say 1% for a year – and let’s just say for arguments sake that photosynthesis removes 100GT of CO2 – would we now not see CO2 rising by an additional 1GT per year? Remember all the biomass ‘carbon’ budget figures are essentially guesses too, so the scale may actually be even bigger than quoted in the ‘carbon budget’! Ah, but, the extra warmth and extra CO2 increases rate of photosynthesis – so maybe that counters the solar loss? but then as it cools, the photosynthesis slows, etc, etc…
No doubt the ‘models’ will show us exactly how this will all work out, eh? Somehow, I think not….
davidq said:
“Human CO2 output into atmposhere, is a bit more than 30 million metric tons.
However, it is not only how much that is important. CO2 only absorbes infrared at certain, very specific frequencies. you don’t need that much CO2 to do this, you eventually reach saturation and then additional CO2 doesn’t do much. ”
Undoubtly so, since the number I used was from UN’s estimation for year 2008.
It’s funny if on Earth saturation happens with so little amount of CO2 in atmosphere, whereas we know that in Venus its dense CO2 atmosphere causes a greenhouse effect equalling up to 450 degrees Celsius. Afterall – it is the exactly same radiation spectra shape that heats up it’s atmosphere (Venus is ~1/3 AU closer to the Sun and therefore gains ~ 9/4 times more flux).
I certainly agree that it is not CO2 alone that defines Earths surface temperature, but then again climate scientists do include everything they can into their models – whereas you refuse to consider even the most obvious one.
http://www.zubeworld.com/crumbmuseum/nat2.gif
Homoepathy? Well, who knows?
http://goodscience.wordpress.com/2009/06/16/pharmacologist-madeleine-ennis-admits-homeopathy-there-is-something-going-on-there/
Pharmacologist Madeleine Ennis Admits; “Homeopathy, There Is Something Going On There”
MADELEINE Ennis, a pharmacologist at Queen’s University, Belfast, was the scourge of homeopathy. She railed against its claims that a chemical remedy could be diluted to the point where a sample was unlikely to contain a single molecule of anything but water, and yet still have a healing effect. Until, that is, she set out to prove once and for all that homeopathy was bunkum.
In her most recent paper, Ennis describes how her team looked at the effects of ultra-dilute solutions of histamine on human white blood cells involved in inflammation. These “basophils” release histamine when the cells are under attack. Once released, the histamine stops them releasing any more. The study, replicated in four different labs, found that homeopathic solutions – so dilute that they probably didn’t contain a single histamine molecule – worked just like histamine. Ennis might not be happy with the homeopaths’ claims, but she admits that an effect cannot be ruled out
WTF says: September 4, 2012 at 6:26 am
….but then again climate scientists do include everything they can into their models – whereas you refuse to consider even the most obvious one.
O, no they not! Not even the most obvious one.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/GSC1.htm
WTF,
Human CO2 emissions are in the region of +30 gigatonnes (Gt) per year. A Gt is 10^9. So that’s 30,000,000,000 Gt per year, or thirty *billion* Gt; not 30 million (10^6).
I think the UN tend to quote their data in ‘thousand of metric tonnes’ per year. So when they say global emissions of CO2 in 2008 were “29,888,121” this is “thousands of metric tonnes”; i.e. 29,888,121,000 tonnes in total ( 29.8 billion tonnes, or 29.8 x 10^9).
Question for the experts:
Given the [apparent] wealth of circumstantial evidence correlating a dearth of sunspots with periods of cold climate on earth (e.g., Dalton and Maunder Minima), isn’t it odd that the NOAA site on Solar E-M activity makes no reference to the same? It would appear that most (if not all) of the effects on earth of solar events / non-events are assumed to be short-lived; is there evidence pointing to longer-term effects?
Is there any research going on in this area? Should there be?
Kurt in Switzerland
Re my above. I’ve confused myself now.
30 Gt is 30,000,000,000 tonnes, not Gt!
But the point remains: human CO2 emissions annually are in the region of 30 billion tonnes, not 30 million.