The December data from NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center is in, and it looks more and more like the peak of solar cycle 24 has been reached, and that we are now past it. Even with documented problems like “sunspot count inflation” the sunspot count for December is quite low:
![sunspot[1]](http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/sunspot1.gif)
Note the large difference between the prediction line in red, and the counts. There are other indications that our sun remains in a slump.
The 10.7cm solar radio flux seems to have peaked also.
![f10[1]](http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/f101.gif)
And, the Ap solar geomagnetic index has dropped to its observed second lowest value again (for recent years), which last happened in November 2011:
![Ap[1]](http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/ap1.gif)
Dr. David Hathaway updated his forecast recently. Here is the plot:
![ssn_predict_l[1]](http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/ssn_predict_l1.gif)
He thinks it will be the fall of 2013 though before the peak is reached
The current prediction for Sunspot Cycle 24 gives a smoothed sunspot number maximum of about 69 in the Fall of 2013. The smoothed sunspot number has already reached 67 (in February 2012)due to the strong peak in late 2011 so the official maximum will be at least this high and this late. We are currently over four years into Cycle 24. The current predicted and observed size makes this the smallest sunspot cycle since Cycle 14 which had a maximum of 64.2 in February of 1906.
The prediction method has been slightly revised. The previous method found a fit for both the amplitude and the starting time of the cycle along with a weighted estimate of the amplitude from precursor predictions (polar fields and geomagnetic activity near cycle minimum). Recent work [see Hathaway Solar Physics; 273, 221 (2011)] indicates that the equatorward drift of the sunspot latitudes as seen in the Butterfly Diagram follows a standard path for all cycles provided the dates are taken relative to a starting time determined by fitting the full cycle. Using data for the current sunspot cycle indicates a starting date of May of 2008. Fixing this date and then finding the cycle amplitude that best fits the sunspot number data yields the current (revised) prediction.
Perhaps, the sun right now seems to be having a spot resurgence:
![latest_512_4500[2]](http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/latest_512_45002.jpg?quality=83)
In other news, Dr. Svalgaard’s plot:
Solar Polar Fields – Mt. Wilson and Wilcox Combined -1966 to Present
…looks like it is getting ready to flip, suggesting the peak of Cycle 24 is imminent if not already past.
His predictions for cycle 24 are looking better and better.
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It appears that the sun had two peaks every cycle and January is the start of the second peak. I am wondering if that dicrotic notch in the graph has a theory to explain it? Can we say yet that last month was the mid point of the cycle?
In the last 6 years, the Ap index distinct minima in December.
Is this coincidence, or had the solar magnetic field recently a directional pattern with a distinct minimum in direction of the earth’s December position ?
Henry Clark:
British tomato growers already use computer-controlled heating systems in glasshouses to allow a 9 month growing season in a climate which is marginal for domestic tomato growing and totally uncompetitive commercially in the outdoors. They collect rainwater from their roofs to water their plants. They either use organic waste in an anaerobic digester to become energy sufficient or, if they are owned by British Sugar and are located next to a heat source, draw heating through water pipes from the cooling towers to heat the glasshouses.
It’s already happening in many places.
The interesting question is what year-round production of vegetables means in terms of our global needs for grain crops (maize, wheat and rye).
Predicting the future is hard.
David Archibald’s own October 2010 attempt (http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/10/06/archibald-on-dr-hathaway%E2%80%99s-most-recent-solar-cycle-24-prediction/) is not holding up well:
Max SSN: 48
Year of maximum: 2015
No reversal of the Sun’s magnetic poles at Solar Cycle 24 maximum.
Leif’s 2005 prediction still looks better:
Max SSN: 75 +/- 2.8 (“arbitrarily” adjusted to +/- 8)
Year of maximum: ~2011
For your further entertainment, the NOAA site links to this: http://solarphysics.livingreviews.org/Articles/lrsp-2010-6/fulltext.html which lists a series of papers predicting SC24 SSN(max).
I see the “Solar Polar Fields” levels have been getting smaller since the 70’s. I wonder if they will be looked into at some point in the near future and ‘adjusted’ in such a way that they are close to the same level through all cycles?
Henry Clark says: “The CAGW movement won’t be able to execute a switch to getting the cooling blamed on mankind this time, so they won’t be able to turn mankind against itself as much.”
Dave says, “Want to bet?” I think the whole move to the verbiage of Climate Change was due to some of the least sincere, but most educated people – with the most to lose, knew this Warming would not continue ad infinitum, even though their models said so. You will here new caveats – people will say, the damage we did through Ozone loss or some such crap, is responsible for the abrupt change in direction. Rather than saying, after 0.8 degree drop, should it occur in 5 years, that we are now neutral after 125 years of thermometer records, they will be blasting about how bad the climate will get. It will be our fault, trust me. There’s too much money to be made with calls for disaster. Not knocking you Henry, at all, I just know human nature, greed and guilt.
Of course, just in the last few days, the sun has had it’s biggest spike in the NOAA sunspot number in over a year. See link:
http://www.solen.info/solar/
I would say it’s a little too early to call the peak just yet
Otter says:
January 9, 2013 at 3:34 am
Leif, if I may: You have been extremely conservative concerning papers which point to solar influences. Have you seen any papers, over the past few decades, which in your opinion, have a real chance of being accurate, re: solar climate change / cooling?
No. Recent papers just continue the endless stream of such claims going back to Riccioli [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giovanni_Battista_Riccioli ]. In his Almagestrum Novum, he stated that colder temperatures are associated with more sunspots ‘basing his comments on observations’.
General comment: when discussing when maximum is it is humbling to consider cycle 14: http://www.solen.info/solar/cycl14.html
Manfred says:
January 9, 2013 at 5:17 am
In the last 6 years, the Ap index distinct minima in December.
Is this coincidence, or had the solar magnetic field recently a directional pattern with a distinct minimum in direction of the earth’s December position ?
Geomagnetic activity is generally [normally] lower at the solstices, and Ap based mainly on northern hemisphere stations tend to be lower in winter than in summer. That said, the solar wind has also been less active in December the last several years. This is a coincidence.
@Bill itis, measured pan evaporation rates have been declining for decades.
Roderick, Michael L. and Graham D. Farquhar (2002). “The cause of decreased pan evaporation over the past 50 years”. Science 298 (5597): pp. 1410–1411 http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/298/5597/1410. Bibcode 2002Sci…298.1407D. doi:10.1126/science.1075390. PMID 12434057.
I think the warmers will only be put on the defensive when the Arctic Sea ice extent moves into above normal territory. They say the Atlantic will return to its cool phase within five years. Certainly, they will mutate as before, but this change will really challenge their entire position.
It would be nice if SC24 did the same as SC9. http://www.carels.be/sc9.jpg
We’re alsmost there :). Not sure how good SC9 was observed, but it would be nice to see such explosion of activity.
Doug Huffman says:
January 9, 2013 at 6:34 am
Link not working.
A new report issued by the National Research Council (NRC), Posted 1/8/2012 on their site
Link was posted by some one else but they said something that was interesting.
Indeed, the sun could be on the threshold of a mini-Maunder event right now. Ongoing Solar Cycle 24 is the weakest in more than 50 years. Moreover, there is (controversial) evidence of a long-term weakening trend in the magnetic field strength of sunspots. Matt Penn and William Livingston of the National Solar Observatory predict that by the time Solar Cycle 25 arrives, magnetic fields on the sun will be so weak that few if any sunspots will be formed. Independent lines of research involving helioseismology and surface polar fields tend to support their conclusion. (Note: Penn and Livingston were not participants at the NRC workshop.)
Good read
http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2013/08jan_sunclimate/
I tell you one thing, that COULD word is used alot when ever CLIMATE is mentioned.
Dave D says:
January 9, 2013 at 5:57 am
Henry Clark says: “The CAGW movement won’t be able to execute a switch to getting the cooling blamed on mankind this time, so they won’t be able to turn mankind against itself as much.”
Dave says, “Want to bet?” …. Not knocking you Henry, at all, I just know human nature, greed and guilt.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Unfortunately they already did the flip from NEW ICE AGE – Global Cooling to CAGW, Global Warming to the all inclusive Climate Change, Extreme Weather.
I already had a very nice Church lady explaining to me how CO2 causes Global Warming And Global Cooling And Extreme Weather. (Eye Roll)
The sheer stupidity of the sheeple is amazing. The fact the US Federal Reserve and similar fraudulent banking practices have run for a century or more bankrupting countries only proves it.
In the USA it is 95% and we pay ‘interest’ to the bankers on all of it. Yet the sheeple continue to pay their taxes to service the federal debt, pay their mortgages, pay their credit card bills, student loans, car loans… all fairy dust ‘money’ pulled out of thin air and paid back with the sweat of their labor.
If the sheeple can not understand something as simple as the fractional reserve scam and DEMAND their ‘representatives’ abolish the system, then do not expect them to do anything about a more complex scam like CAGW.
The Russians have it figured out. The Central Bank of Russia issues gold and silver bullion pieces that ‘must be accepted’ as legal tender and as E.M Smith shows The Russian federation has a flat income tax rate of 13%. so their economy is doing quite well. The Russians also think Man Made Global Warming is a Myth
Pretty lowering when the Russians are leading the way towards a more rational economy isn’t it?
Normative and prescriptive assertions, statements characterized by WOULD, SHOULD, COULD, have no inherent truth value. They moot culpable error and falsifiability. They signal adhockery.
Leif,
Given that SSN has been over-counted in recent years, I understand why you are not a supporter of the GCR-cloud link between solar activity and global temperatures. However, even removing the recent (50 years or so) correlation now considered to be spurious, there are other correlations between SSN and global temperatures. Do you place any confidence in the historical SSN numbers, such that these older correlations still hold? And, following on from this, how much do think this represents a causal link?
I would love to hear if you have thoughts on a mechanism for any possible causality, but I realize that you are not one to go beyond the data and I appreciate your caution in this regard.
The sunspot peak was in the northern autumn of 2012. Forget the fcsts, nobody can forecast the sun’s variation with any accuracy.
Doug Huffman says:
January 9, 2013 at 6:34 am
@Bill itis, measured pan evaporation rates have been declining for decades…..
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
working link
I wonder if it might have something to do with this although I doubt it is that sensitive to such a long slow process.
It is certainly interesting considering the global relative humidity has decreased so all things being equal pan evaporation rates should have increased.
China is on ice, along with much else of the Northern Hemisphere. Its cold (as measured by ground stations) is unprecedented in the satellite era:
http://news.yahoo.com/chinas-extreme-cold-snaps-records-141522805.html
PS: Not surprisingly, climate “scientists” blame the extreme cold on global warming, to which cause without evidence (indeed in the face of all actual evidence) they attribute last year’s Arctic ice melt.
I am a scientist but have not looked deeply into the sunspot cycle or the PDO and effect on temperature. I think the next ten years or so will be a very interesting test of natural variability versus CO2. From about 1900-1920 or 1925 (from GISS) the temp. cooled and/or rose slowly (depending on land vs. land/ocean) and the PDO was in a slightly warm phase. With a small sunspot cycle and PDO apparently moving to cool, may give us some good information.
Rob Potter says:
January 9, 2013 at 7:17 am
Do you place any confidence in the historical SSN numbers, such that these older correlations still hold? And, following on from this, how much do think this represents a causal link?
I think the [corrected] Wolf SSNs back to 1700 are close to the truth, and if so, many of the older correlations don’t hold up anymore.
I would love to hear if you have thoughts on a mechanism for any possible causality
There should be [and people claim they find it] an 11-yr temperature variation of the order of 0.1 degrees simply due to the solar cycle variation of TSI. Beyond that, I don’t think any mechanisms or variations have been established.
Not to worry. Genetically-modified wheat has shown an increase in yields of 30%. That will probably compensate for cooling’s effect on agriculture, if we can stop the eco-fascists like Greenpeace from derailing progress. See here on one scientist’s conversion to rationality:
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2013/01/08/environmental-scientist-bashed-for-rediscovering-science/#.UOymMFedbg0.email
Apparently this Mark Lynas has been active in the Climatist cult, too. Wonder if he’ll return to science there, too.
/Mr Lynn
Doug Huffman says:
January 9, 2013 at 6:34 am
“@Bill itis, measured pan evaporation rates have been declining for decades…..”
Gale Combs says:
“It is certainly interesting considering the global relative humidity has decreased so all things being equal pan evaporation rates should have increased.”
Increased cosmic rays causing accelerated water cycle, dessication of the atmosphere?
This would have no relationship to the earth’s energy balance, but might it affect regional precipitation patterns, especially continental interiors?