Have we hit solar max?
NOAA’s SWPC recently updated their solar metrics graphs, and it seems to me like we may have topped out for solar cycle 24. There doesn’t seem to be any evidence of resurgence in any of the three metrics. Granted one month does not a cycle make, but it has been over a year now since the peak of about 95 SSN in October 2011, and there has been nothing similar since. Unlike the big swings of last solar max around 2000-2001, there’s very little variance in the signals of the present, demonstrating that the volatility expected during solar max just isn’t there.
It has been 7 years since the regime shift was observed in the Solar Geomagnetic Index (Ap) in October 2005, and the sun seems to be in a generally quiet magnetic period since then with no hint of the volatility of the past cycle.
UPDATE: Another indicator that we are at solar max is that the polar magnetic fields are about to flip, as tracked in this graphic from Dr. Leif Svalgaard. Click image to enlarge:
![WSO-Polar-Fields-since-2003[1]](http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/wso-polar-fields-since-20031.png?quality=75)
I do like this graph by Leif
http://www.leif.org/research/Solar-Polar-Fields-1966-now.png
Putting a straight line across the tops of the maxima and minima produces a intersections somewhere just after 2020. One can only speculate as to what happens next. A missing solar cycle perhaps. In other words a Maunder repeat.
Interesting that two of the more significant solar scientists in the world, Leif Svalgaard and Habibullo Abdussamatov are both leaning towards a repeat of the Maunder minimum.
Though I seem to remember that LS is maybe not a fan of HA’s work. But my memory often needs checking.
J Martin says:
December 10, 2012 at 3:06 pm
Interesting that two of the more significant solar scientists in the world, Leif Svalgaard and Habibullo Abdussamatov are both leaning towards a repeat of the Maunder minimum.
HA makes an absurd extrapolation of TSI [and hence temperature]. See last slide of
http://www.leif.org/research/Another-Maunder-Minimum.pdf
Tonyb says:
December 10, 2012 at 1:35 pm
My problems with the posting from the fellow who wants “Mor Electric Heating” were the alarmism and the false sense of urgency. I’ve had that “WE NEED TO ACT NOW” schtick up to here regarding the terrifying predicted future warming, I don’t need to get it about terrifying future cooling as well.
Look, if it were to cool, we don’t know where the problems and issues would be. So how can we do anything about it until it happens? During the last Ice Age some parts of Siberia were ice free, go figure … could anyone have predicted that or prepared for that? Will parts of Siberia be ice free next time? No one knows, so there is no way to plan for it. Once it starts to happen, we will have a much better idea of what is going on.
w.
PS—For people who actually think that “mor” electric heating is a good idea, consider the following two scenarios:
1. Electric Heating
Burn gas ——> Extract heat from burning gas ——> Use heat to make steam, with attendant losses ——> Use steam to make mechanical energy, with attendant losses ——> Use mechanical energy to generate electricity, with attendant losses ——> Transmit electricity from generator to location needing heat, with attendant losses ——> Convert electricity back into heat ——> Use heat to heat house
2. Gas heating
Burn gas ——> Extract heat from burning gas ——> Use heat to heat house
Care to guess which of those is less efficient?
Leif said
Here’s a sort of TSI model that hasn’t been extrapolated through to 2100 unfortunately, perhaps because all models fail sooner or later. This model indicates another Maunder repeat as far as I can extrapolate it by looking at it. Anyhow, for what it’s worth;
http://tallbloke.files.wordpress.com/2011/02/tsi-lean2k.jpg
Care to guess which of those is less efficient?
A point that I have been making for years to government types and only now is it beginning to dawn upon them. For all the efficiency gains made with electric devices from motors to heating, electricity as an energy medium is extremely inefficient. Half of all electricity is lost before it is even used from transmission and distribution. Electricity is very convenient, but very inefficient.
Note this also carries not only for heating applications but also for cooling applications such as chillers. On a system wide basis, gas engine driven chillers are more energy efficient than electric motor driven chillers.
As a policy matter IF you were trying to reduce energy losses as a means to be energy independent or green for the politically correct among us, it is generally better to bypass the use of electricity in a process. That applies to cooking, heating, mechanical movement and also cooling. That is the general answer to plan A or B.
I would like a simple answer…..cycle 24 = cooler weather for the future? Yes or No?
Willis,
One can also produce electricity for heating with nuclear power.
I agree that burning the gas, in-situ, is usually the most efficient means of heating; especially when it gets really cold and the heat pumps stop working.
Jon T says:
December 10, 2012 at 1:10 pm
You’ll be frozen to that fence if you sit there too long.
J Martin says:
December 10, 2012 at 3:49 pm
“With four parameters I can fit an elephant, and with five I can make him wiggle his trunk” John von Neumann
Tim Channon (at your link) used seven parameters.
@Steve,
The only simple answer anyone can give you is Maybe.
@Willis,
Wouldn’t there be some loss in converting the electricity back to heat as well?
@dscott,
As far as chiller’s go an Einstein refrigerator is probably even more efficient that a gas motor driven chiller. It generates cold from burning a gas with no moving parts.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Einstein_refrigerator
“He’s Dead Jim!”
from another genre…
“Dead. Gone Polly. Pushing up daisies”.
“He’s just sleeping, that’s all”…
At least we’re getting good data on what a Grand Minimum looks like…
@mitigatedsceptic:
If the past is any guide, learn a new language and move to the Equator…
(Note that this is invasion INTO the Roman Empire, not BY them… Also note that all the arrows have a southward tilt to them (other than AFTER reaching North Africa, the Vandals did some attack over water north at Rome).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Migration_Period
While it has the usual Wiki-Censorship of the climate aspects, even they could not totally erase that it was a cold period which came just after the Roman Optimum.
“Debated” my posterior… The consequences are clear. “The Dark Ages” with the collapse of many dominant social orders and the retreat of Rome to Byzantium. (Greece does better during cold periods. The Greek golden age was during a cold turn).
History is very clear. During warm periods, folks migrate north and east. Into the vast places being made habitable again. Empires grow and thrive. During the cold periods, empires collapse and decay. Folks move south and west, running for the warmth. (Why do you think the Hungarians are in Hungary today instead of the Asian Steppes where they originated?)
It’s a clear and persistent pattern of history. (We have less data for North America / South America, but there ought to be N/S migrations in the US Plains areas and up/down mountain movement in the Mountain States and S. America. Equatorial Sub-Saharan Africa and Brazil have stable zones so not much happens.)
The only question is “Dalton / L.I.A. type (when a load of folks migrated to America) or Migration Era Pessimum (when Europe went all wonky…)”
Brazil and Australia are likely to be comfortable… Just sayin’…
Or maybe not. Could be all ‘stuff and nonsense’…
Me? No, not planning to move there. It is likely to take until 2030-40 for things to get rolling really bad, and I’m not likely to make it that long. I’ll encourage the kids, though… Besides, I’m in California and we mostly just get a drought, near as I can tell. No real temperature problem. (Besides, I already can speak mediocre Spanish so I’ll be able to talk to the rest of the population of the State… )
@MonktonofOz :
The Maya stuff just says the calendar cycles and that there is a lot of water likely. As we’ve had some fair increase in rains on this warm to cool transition, you are likely seeing it now. (Remember the Queensland and UK floods? And Columbia and the central Americas? And now California? What’s happened before? http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2012/11/29/california-extreme-super-flood/ )
So we’re most likely to get a bit wetter, but inside historical norms. I’d not sell the house to buy a boat…
Per the solar changes: Doesn’t mean much at all. The Grand Solar Funk has meant that I don’t need to use sunscreen any longer since the UV has plunged. At peak I was good for all of 20 minutes at high noon and would burn. Now I don’t use anything and I’ve been out for hours. Other than that, not much to notice. A bit more mildew on some winter crops. The current ‘flip’ won’t do much you can even detect without instruments.
But if you do want to stock up tins of beans ( which I think is a good idea… mostly due to paychecks being unstable and living in earthquake country), here’s some guidelines for a simple DIY system that lived through a 7.x quake and several job outages:
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2009/04/06/food-storage-systems/
Just to stoke the fires of “coincidence isn’t causality but why not panic anyway”:
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2012/08/17/great-famine-of-1315-vs-the-sun/
😉
@jon T;
It is most likely that the process, whatever it is, is coincident with solar changes but not caused by them. I wasted way too many months of my life trying to find a Solar causality. The best I can find is a possible solar / lunar ‘orbital resonance’ coordinated coincidence and a lunar / tidal potential causality.
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2011/11/03/lunar-resonance-and-taurid-storms/
tries to connect all the dots, including a longer term meteor shower density cycle, but most of the ‘meat’ is in:
http://www.pnas.org/content/97/8/3814.full
which basically shows a likely mechanism for tidal ocean stirring in long cycles via lunar orbital changes (natural and expected) causing weather cycles up to 1800 years in length. Has a nice chart of the prediction, too. So if really worried you can compare “now” to other times of horrors. (Hint: It’s not all that bad). Graph here:
http://www.pnas.org/content/97/8/3814/F1.expansion.html
we take a little dip to about 2020, then a flat rounding move to 2050, then more drop to about 2095. IIRC (on a different chart) it isn’t until about 2300 AD that things get LIA cold. Large chart: http://www.pnas.org/content/97/8/3814/F2.large.jpg
Assuming they are right and not just “making stuff up” 😉
So next solar quiet cycle that’s on top of a lunar tidal cycle, not this one…
Notice that we’re talking in hundreds of years spans? The LIA was not just 1/2 of one life time long. It takes a LOoooong time for nature / geologic things to move. So whatever you have now (over the last 100 years) is pretty much what you are likely to have over the next 100 years, even if it IS a L.I.A. in the making. ( In other words: Count me with Willis on the “SHOUTING” bit… Admire the potential? Sure, it’s fun. Worry about it? Only enough to learn how to make Hot Totties and Hot Mulled Rum… and maybe stock up the fixings… )
@TonyB:
Look again at that Migration Era Pessimum map. Notice it covers from 100 AD to 500 AD or so? We’re talking several hundred year spans. There’s plenty of time to make a “Plan B” in about 20 or 30 or 50 years when things are clarified…
It’s not like the coal and oil in the ground is going to run away if we ignore it for a decade or two…
@Willis:
We do have some reasonable histories from prior warm / cold transitions. The big issue I see in those histories is the distribution of water more than the cold. Western Europe gets very wet and has crop loss issues. (In other historical cycles, the Egypt / Mesopotamia area gets 100 year droughts – but I’ve lost track of if those are during warm or cold cycles. I think it is the cold cycle). IIRC, Central / North of South America get heavy rains. Then a Maya Drought…
But what makes this time different, is that we have global food shipment. So if Australia and Brazil are still doing fine, the world need not starve. At most, we cut back on the meat. (It takes about 10 lbs of dry grain to make one pound of wet beef. You can live about 10 days on 10 lbs of dry grain and never have an empty stomach. For pork and chicken it’s about 3:1). Or maybe stop feeding corn to our cars… And as onset is over decades long, there’s plenty of time to react well ‘after the fact’ is shown to be real. Say about 2040?
Thank goodness we have higher CO2 levels so plants are more drought tolerant and growing better! 😉
At any rate, I’m not worried. Geology and History both move at ‘glacial speed’ 😉
But if Katla or Tambora blow up again, or a large asteroid strikes, well, then you have something to be worried about 8-0
😉
MattS says:
@Willis,
Wouldn’t there be some loss in converting the electricity back to heat as well?
===========
Only if it generated light or microwave or something other than infrared. Now light generation, on the other hand, usually releases some heat as well, so is not perfectly efficient. Incandescents (as a general rule) are least efficient.
@Steve:
Cooler, but not enough to be important. My best guess.
@Dscott:
Honda makes a great little home co-generator unit… that they don’t sell in California because they think we don’t need the heat 8-(
So IMHO the BEST answer is to burn the gas for heat, and electricity 😉
From a link here: http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2011/03/08/dear-england-power-to-you/
http://world.honda.com/news/2011/c110203Micro-Combined-Heat-Power-System/index.html
So just get your home plumbed for one of those and when the electricity goes out due to the windmills stopping, you can be warm AND well lit…
@MattS:
You can actually get MORE than 100% back as heat. Put the electricity in an electric resistance heater, you get just about 100% (One of my reasons for thinking curly bulbs mandate daft… if you live somewhere cold like the UK any ‘savings’ from the curly bulb is consumed in higher heating costs…) However, if you run a heat pump, that unit of electricity can give you more than one unit of heat moved into your home.
IMHO still more efficient to make the electricity on site with co-generation and THEN run a heat pump IFF you need more…
It’s amazing to me that we have all these experts that think they know how the universe was created and nobody knows if a simple solar cycle will cause heating, cooling or nothing.
@Steve:
It’s a cycle. It will cause heating, cooling AND nothing, and repeat, and repeat, and…
It seems like Habibullo Abdussamatov is right!
I come on here and when I see these solar cycle threads, I just roll my eyes………nobody really knows, it’s too complex.
Steve, that’s funny!
We can probably expect cooling for about the next 30 years, on the order of about .4C, regardless of what additional cooling effect the lazy sun has: http://notrickszone.com/2011/01/22/signs-of-strengthening-global-cooling/
The cooling should begin in earnest when the AMO flips to negative in a couple of years. No need to panic, unless you’re a Warmist. But, cheap, readily-available energy will be even more important in a cooling world.
Well the weather is going to be nasty in 2020. I’m buying land near the equator.
My eyeball software still says a 10.5 year cycle.
Steve says:
December 10, 2012 at 4:02 pm
I would like a simple answer…..cycle 24 = cooler weather for the future? Yes or No?
Colder.
I would suggest that you view the hour long video:
More WUWT.TV: Interview and presentation with Dr. Sebastian Lüning
He wrote “Die Kalte Sonne” (The cold sun) with Dr. Franz Vahrenholt
It should be noted that El Ninos can overshadow the effects of the sun. However it looks like the ENSO meter just dropped from 0.30 to 0.0 so for a few months at least, that will not be a factor. I do not foresee 2013 setting a new record.
MattS says:
December 10, 2012 at 4:29 pm
That’s an excellent question, Matt. Generally, the losses when we convert energy from one form to another (say electrical to mechanical) are in the form of heat. For example, electrical motors get hot, and that heat is an efficiency loss.
But when we are converting to heat, unless we are losing energy as say light, it all gets converted to heat. And since heat is what we are looking for, something like electrical heating can be very near 100% efficient.
People play that “near 100% efficiency!!!” up, of course, as if that were the important figure instead of all of the losses further upstream in the full electrical system.
w.
For good times I have electric heat, that is subsidized by my power co-op in order to maintain adequate load for operating the generators at night, and electric lights. When the electric power is off, we have a propane convection heater, a propane cook stove/oven and diesel powered Welsbach mantel lamps that provide good light and some heat with no soot or odor. The only utility absolutely dependent on electric power is the 250′ deep well and in the winter the snow is pristine, in the summer the lake water is adequately pure.