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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Thanks, mcashman!
The beauty of knowing the MArtian climatology, is that we can:
1) Establish the intrinsic solar influence. Mars is 50% further from the sun, a convenient amount to compare insolation.
2) Establish the lag time for solar influences Mars has no enormous heat sink, as does the earth, so it must be possible to establish some of these mysterious lag times that really confound the climate predictions and cycles.
@ur momisugly Rhys Jaggar:
Thank you very much indeed for your excellent summary of this highly technical subject which has clarified so much for me as a layman. I intend to post it in full over at my blog (“An ill-favoured thing, sir, but mine own”) with due linkage to yourself and this blog.
WTF on September 4, 2012 at 6:26 am
said “whereas we know that in Venus its dense CO2 atmosphere causes a greenhouse effect equalling up to 450 degrees Celsius. ”
Fraid not. The high surface temperature of Venus is due to it’s vastly larger atmosphere and consequent surface pressure and density. It has nothing to do with it’s 96.5% co2. Plenty of probes have been to Venus and so we know that as the probe descends into the Venusian atmosphere, at the point where it reads the same atmospheric pressure as seen at the Earth’s surface, the temperature allowing for the difference in distance to the sun, is the same, despite Venus having an atmosphere of some 96.5% of co2. see;
http://theendofthemystery.blogspot.co.uk/2010/11/venus-no-greenhouse-effect.html
This would suggest that if co2 has a warming effect, then we have largely had all we are likely to get and that there is very little more to come if any, no matter how much co2 goes into the atmosphere.
If so, then this is bad news for mankind come the next glaciation, we’ll have to find another way to create / increase global warming.
On Earth, the only significant concentration of co2 (above the pacific), is in fact colder, not warmer as the climate models wrongly predicted. But then, climate models are always wrong about everything.
Kurt in Switzerland said on September 4, 2012 at 8:56 am
“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?”
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Apologies for being a non expert. But NOAA is a politically correct co2 animal, and so they cannot possibly (under the current regime) admit that there may be factors driving temperature other than co2.
After seeing this;
http://www.c3headlines.com/2011/12/science-by-lubchencos-noaa-fake-global-warming-by-changing-historical-temperature-data.html
I don’t think I’d ever again trust any data NOAA produce or anything NOAA said.
Can this at least put to a rest the oft-repeated claim that the sun is the cause of recent warming?!??
Buzz B said on September 4, 2012 at 12:03 pm ” Can this at least put to a rest the oft-repeated claim that the sun is the cause of recent warming?!?? ”
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No. The Sun is the cause of recent warming and will also be the cause of expected cooling.
The Earth has a number of temperature buffers, mostly water, if it didn’t then night time temperatures would drop far far more than seen, witness temperature drops from day to night in desert regions where there is very little atmospheric water vapour in the atmosphere. Likewise there are longer term temperature buffers in play such as the oceans.
Previous solar cycles have been high and we are likely still benefiting from those, however temperatures have been gently declining for nearly 15 years now. That the current solar cycle has been quiet is not yet fully reflected in today’s temperatures, and we might perhaps expect temperatures to decline a little more sharply over the coming years, as the solar cycle peaks and slides to it’s next low, and also as we come to the end of one our warm buffer periods. One of those may be the expected switch of the Atlantic’s 60 ish year cycle from warm to cold in a few years time.
There’s a vast amount of work involved to fully answer your question. You have a lot of reading ahead of you. Perhaps someone here can find a good link or two which will more fully answer your question.
WTF says:
“I think you are aware that climate models are based on known physical interactions, where as homeopathy is based purely on belief.”
I would have to disagree on the “known” part of your statement. Surmised perhaps but not known. The thing that raises a huge red flag for me is that the climate scientists are not willing to release methods and data. The fact that they are trying to hide them tells me that they are probably false. It would be like buying a car from a used car lot when the salesman refuses to let you look under the hood. People who have nothing to hide don’t hide things. It would be foolhardy to buy off on that. Not releasing data and methods is considered bad science or BS. I think many of us here have had enough BS for now and would just like to see some honesty for a change.
Cheers,
Bill Mason
Every time Anthony shows the Ap graph something happens….it is called the “Watts-effect”. We´ll see what happens now…..
Interesting and peculiar video:
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOn1aXZgo38&w=420&h=315%5D
J Martin (and whoever else is paying attention):
NOAA is the source of the first three graphs which Andy put up on this blog post. Certainly there are SOME SCIENTISTS working at the NOAA who are inquisitive about a scientific basis in correlating low sunspot numbers and a cooling earth!
Svalgaard, Hultqvist, Vukcevic, …: know anyone there?
Kurt in Switzerland
Hi Kurt
Number of people posting here think or believe that the Earth cooling is directly related to low sunspot numbers, but I am not one of them, apparently there is no convincing evidence. I think, for what is worth, that solar input is via geomagnetic link, but even then it is not simple, it also depends on the changes in the Earth’s magnetic field intensity, so even strong cycle (SC19, 1960) resulted in cooling rather than warming.
Here is an analogy:
http://www.kingswearcastle.co.uk/Unterwalden%201.jpg
If paddle steamer had no rudder, when paddle wheels (= sun’s and Earth’s magnetic fields) turn at same velocity than steamer travels in the strait line (= temperature rise) else it would swerve to one side or the other (= cooling).
Hello Milivoje A. Vukcevic –
Thank you for the response — and for the picture of the Unterwalden Steamer (from Vierwaldstättersee – Lake Luzern): Classic Lake Steamer, now > 100 y old and back in business!
http://www.luzernerdampfschiff.ch/portal2/de-ch/newsarchiv.aspx
So you’re saying there could well be a relationship, but it might be far more complex than just sunspot activity (i.e., the earth’s and the sun’s e-m fields; perhaps also effects from other planets, cosmic rays, …). Right?
Shouldn’t this logically be an area of considerable interest for NOAA or NASA (or CRU, PIK, …)?
Has it ever been addressed in IPCC reports?
Kurt in Switzerland
@vukcevic
RE: “Number of people posting here think or believe that the Earth cooling is directly related to low sunspot numbers”.
Is that true? I haven’t noticed anyone who has said they think or believe sun spots are directly the cause of Earths warming or cooling, if that’s what you meant? Gravity and Mass to Energy and the various configuration of this complex process are the main players, sun spots are one of many Indicators of the underlining mechanics of the sun, I would have thought when people discuss sun spots they are usually referring to the suns current, past or future activity as a reference frame in regards to Earths temperature or the influence on climes on a longer timescale from the overall solar activity.
But well… I guess people have different educational time-lines. 🙂
Anthony, thanks for these posts, I really enjoy reading these discussions here.