Solar cycle 24 continues weakly, perhaps weakest of the space-age

Ray Tomes says:
November 7, 2012 at 9:14 pm
Leif Svalgaard, on page 15 of your PDF quoted above you state that large variations of TSI are doubtful, 11 year cycle has 0.1% variation, and longer periods not yet detectable. However I note that long cycles of 208 years and others show up very clearly in solar proxies such as C14 and Be10 as well as in climate. Is it possible that these changes are not due to TSI but rather to small amounts of high energy events which we do know vary by very large percentages….
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You might want to look at Dr. Feyman’s work on the correlation of Nile River records and Aurora records.
http://www.agu.org/journals/abs/2006/2006JD007462.shtml
and the pdf:
http://trs-new.jpl.nasa.gov/dspace/bitstream/2014/lookingatearth/1/06-1989.pdf
And here is another paper.
Late Holocene forcing of the Asian winter and summer monsoon as evidenced
by proxy records from the northern Qinghai–Tibetan Plateau
[you will have to search for the title since the link contains chinese charaters]

a b s t r a c t
Little is known about decadal- to centennial-scale climate variability and its associated forcing mechanisms on the Qinghai–Tibetan Plateau. A decadal-resolution record of total organic carbon (TOC) and grainsize retrieved from a composite piston core from Kusai Lake, NW China, provides solid evidence for decadal- to centennial-scale Asian monsoon variability for the Northern Qinghai–Tibetan Plateau during the last 3770 yr.
Intensified winter and summer monsoons are well correlated with respective reductions and increases in solar irradiance. A number of intensified Asian winter monsoon phases are potentially correlated with North Atlantic climatic variations including Bond events 0 to 2 and more recent subtle climate changes from the Medieval Warm Period to the Little Ice Age. Our findings indicate that Asian monsoon changes during the late Holocene are forced by changes in both solar output and oceanic–atmospheric circulation patterns. Our results demonstrate that these forcing mechanisms operate not only in low latitudes but also in mid-latitude regions (the Northern Qinghai–Tibetan Plateau).

And the U.S. Geological Survey paper: Variations of Solar Activity Affect Regional Hydro-climate So there are your correlations of climate rainfall patterns to solar irradiance.

…The historic records of the geomagnetic index aa and 36 month moving averages of Mississippi River streamflow are compared in the following graph….
The mechanism responsible for the linkage is thought to involve five important processes:
* Variable solar activity causes variation in total solar irradiance (energy) that reaches the top of the Earth’s atmosphere.
* Variable solar activity controls the flux of galactic cosmic rays which may affect the formation of low-level clouds that control atmospheric albedo (reflectance).
* Variations in total solar energy reaching the Earth’s surface are amplified by changes in atmospheric albedo;
* The variable solar energy is absorbed by tropical oceans creating large pools with different amounts of stored energy;
* Pools of ocean water with varying amounts of stored energy are transported by major ocean currents (Ocean Conveyor Belt) to other global locations where;
* Differential evaporation rates from oceanic areas alter global atmospheric pressure patterns (i.e., jetstream position and associated atmospheric vorticity);
These patterns dictate regional precipitation and temperature distribution and, consequently, the regional hydrology.
This mechanism is outlined in two papers (Perry, 2006) and (Perry, 2007)….

And yes Dr. S I know correlation does not mean causation. However we also know the ocean, which is 70% of the surface area of the earth, is penetrated by and absorbs the higher wavelengths of the sun’s spectrum. Graph 1 and Graph 2 Water is also the main absorber of the sunlight in the atmosphere Graph 3 (Allegedly water in the atmosphere is responsible for about 70% of all atmospheric absorption of radiation.) Also data shows the global relative humidity from 1948 to 2008 has decreased Graph 4 as has the Albedo.
We know that TSI over the short term does not vary much Graph 5. However that is TOTAL solar insolation and NASA has discovered that the mix of wavelengths that makes up that total does vary a lot more than the total. NASA link 1 and link 2 An article in Nature link and a paper in the Journal of Geophysical Research, Space Physics
Oh, and the Central Astronomical Observatory of the Russian Academy of Sciences at Pulkovo has this graph of TSI link
As far as I can tell the jury is still out and the sun/earth’s climate links are complicated so the correlations are murky and not straight forward.

Leif Svalgaard says:
November 6, 2012 at 1:30 pm
Jim G says:
November 6, 2012 at 1:11 pm
Perhaps it is digesting (or puking up) some of that Dark Matter that you indicated is theorized to be hiding inside the sun since none can be found anywhere in our local vicinity?
“Dark Matter is not black or ‘dark’, but rather ‘invisible’, i.e. does not interact with electromagnetic radiation [i.e. light].”
I know the theory, but unlike some, only accept it as that, a theory, which is, by the way, much too convenient an answer as to why observations do not fit the present theory of relativity. Now that a great deal of new information is coming re type 1A supernova light, the cosmological constant, etc. and is causing respected cosmologists and astromomers to believe that the universe may well be infinite in size (see Berman’s Universe, Astronomy Magazine last month’s issue) there will be more questioning of the Big Bang, Dark Matter, the microwave background source, and consensus science in general. Theories can, after all, be improved upon, if one thinks outside of the box, and does not worry so much about consensus.

Jim G says:
November 8, 2012 at 9:25 am
a theory, which is, by the way, much too convenient an answer as to why observations do not fit the present theory of relativity
Observations fit very well. There are no known exceptions to General Relativity. It is, in fact, precisely GR that shows us that DM exists, by gravitational lensing.

Leif Svalgaard says (November 7, 2012 at 9:31 pm):
(Regarding clear 208 year period suggested by Tomes)
Leif: Longer periods show up intermittently, e.g. http://www.leif.org/research/Production-of-14C.png The ‘very clearly’ is not so clear.
Ray: Perhaps I should not have put “very”, but the 208 year cycle is significant. You can see the spectrum and the 208 year cycle filtered from Be10 and C14 records on my pages at http://cyclesresearchinstitute.wordpress.com/2011/07/13/analysis-of-be10-records-as-a-solar-irradiance-proxy/ and http://cyclesresearchinstitute.wordpress.com/2010/06/27/cycles-in-sunspot-number-reconstruction-for-11000-years/ and the result is somewhat similar to your graph at the 208 year level.
Is it possible that these changes are not due to TSI but rather to small amounts of high energy events which we do know vary by very large percentages.
Leif: The variations in TSI [before 1978] are really determined from cosmic ray proxies, so TSI as such is not the issue. These ‘small amounts of high energy events’ should then also not show up in cosmic ray proxies.
Ray: I don’t quite understand what you are saying here. I don’t see why high energy events should not show up in cosmic ray proxies. I am suggesting that TSI is perhaps the wrong place to look for changes in Earth’s climate as it has rather small variations. But in other energy ranges the solar fluctuations have huge percentage ranges, even multiple orders of magnitude on time scales of minutes. These look to me like potential solutions to how the Sun can affect the Earth. Do you agree that this is better possibility than FSI?
Ray: We know that high energy particles affect cloud cover
Leif: No, we don’t KNOW that. We know that they produce ionization [which Wilson got the Nobel prize for in 1927], but we don’t know if that is efficient enough to actually produce clouds. Careful modeling suggests that it is not.
Ray: This is at least an open debate isn’t it?

So, being a comon person and after having reading all the above. The sunspot count is uncertian as compared to the distant past and also it has nothing to do with the temp. of the earth. Is this correct?

From Ray Tomes on November 8, 2012 at 1:28 pm:
Ray: Perhaps I should not have put “very”, but the 208 year cycle is significant. You can see the spectrum and the 208 year cycle filtered from Be10 and C14 records on my pages at…
Heh. I Googled for Be-10 data and found a 2009 WUWT post by David Archibald arising from an argument with Leif.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/03/17/beryllium-10-and-climate/
Leif Svalgaard said then:

It is a common human frailty that when one believes strongly in a cause [AGW or more rabidly Anti-AGW] a certain blindness or perhaps expressed better – selective vision, sets in and drives people to less than candid use of Figures and Data. So it is with this post.
The use of 10Be and 14C proxies is fraught with pitfalls. The production rate may be set by solar activity [the current paradigm says the Heliomagnetic Field. HMF], but the deposition rate in the ice and wood depends on terrestrial factors, climate, geomagnetic field, and volcanic eruptions [as 10Be attaches to aerosols]. Beer and McCracken have in two recent papers [see references in links below] attempted to reconstruct the ‘equivalent’ Climax Neutron Monitor count from the 10Be data and from that the driving HMF.
We have looked carefully at their reconstruction and are in the process of submitting a paper addressing serious issues we see with their result. a preliminary report was presented at last year’s SORCE meeting in Santa Fe: http://www.leif.org/research/TSI%20From%20McCracken%20HMF.pdf with some background information in http://www.leif.org/research/Consensus-I.pdf
(…)

Perhaps you should review the old argument about Be-10 and C-14 records there before launching a new one here.
Perhaps Leif has an update to the issue as well.

It seems Beer, McCracken AND Steinhilber are in opposition with Leif on two fronts.
1. The solar proxy record and its amplitude.
2. Solar output is governed by planetary influence.
http://tinyurl.com/2dg9u22/?q=node/290

Steven Mosher says (November 8, 2012 at 2:55 pm):
Steven: … That means.
1. Other factors besides the sun are required to explain the wiggles.
2. Other sun factors are required to explain the wiggles.
For option one we have climate science ( and yes GHGs ) decades of research and results. Its clearly not complete but its the best science we have. Best means it explains the most phenomena as well as can be expected. Not perfect, a work in progress with many gaps of knowledge to be explored.
For option 2? well you got graphs of data with unexplained lines drawn on them. You have speculations about correlations between some aspect of the sun and some limited phenomena of the climate. hey look, you give me any signal from any solar characteristic and I will connect it to the climate.. some river, some rainfall, the pile of things you could sort through looking for a correlation is so vast that it would be shocking if you didnt find “correlations”.
Does that mean 2 is wrong? of course not. Its not even well formulated enough to be wrong.
Something in the sun dunnit. ya leprachuans.
Ray: I look at things from a cycles perspective because I find that it exposes new understanding. When very long term data is available, the need for Leprechauns is greatly diminished because statistics give us bounds within which correlation should fall. I would say that as far as 1 goes, there can be natural oscillations of Earth’s climate system including ocean movements etc. Regarding 2, there are heaps of other solar measurements than just TSI. They often have their own peculiar fluctuations, but nearly always cycles are present. Cycles are a great method to work out cause and effect chains because, like fingerprints, they leave their mark as a set of frequencies. Provided of course that you have enough data to measure the frequencies accurately. then the Leprechauns are not needed.
As a cycles researcher, I am amazed to see how little people notice even really strong cycles in solar data. x-ray data shows changes of several orders of magnitude, often with cycles of 160 minutes. Kotov, a Russian astronomer, has written much on this cycle in the Sun, the solar system, in binary stars and even in other galaxies. Only cycles researchers come to see to what extent certain cycles periods pervade the entire observable universe. Just saying, widening perspective can be a good thing.

From Geoff Sharp on November 8, 2012 at 3:40 pm:
It seems Beer, McCracken AND Steinhilber are in opposition with Leif on two fronts.
“The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.”
– Marcus Aurelius

Leif, how does the sun cool the Earth?
It’s and honest question. You can also explain how the sun warms the planet, that would otherwise be a frozen ball.
Also, another, unrelated question I have. Why is Neptune a cold and windy planet.

From Ray Tomes on November 8, 2012 at 5:40 pm:
kadaka (KD Knoebel) says in a very long-winded innuendo-filled way…
In only 13 words.
I have many volumes of cycles analysis work done by Edward Dewey.
Indeed. When I Googled “edward dewey” your Dewey page on your site was result #3, with #1 being Wikipedia and #2 being the Resident Evil character of that name. Quite an accomplishment.
You do not see the problem. You are enamored with a man who saw cycles everywhere. You want to see cycles everywhere. Cycles are deterministic, they provide order and structure. Predictability.
But reality is chaotic, there is essential randomness. Essential. Reality is not fully predictable. You cannot describe everything with cycles. Dewey was wrong. And as you seek to emulate Dewey, you are also wrong.