The NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center has updated their monthly graph set and it appears as if the slow downside from what looks like the solar max for cycle 24. Though, it is still possible we could see a second small peak like is visible at the upper left in cycle 23.
The 10.7cm radio flux continues downward:
The Ap geomagnetic index remains low, being at the same value as it was in November 2006. We’ve had over 6 years now of a lower than expected (for solar max) Ap index.
From the WUWT Solar reference page, Dr Leif Svalgaard has this plot comparing the current cycle 24 with recent solar cycles:
Another indicator, Solar Polar Fields from Mt. Wilson and Wilcox Combined -1966 to Present show that the fields have flipped (crossed the zero line) indicating solar max has happened.
Image from Dr. Leif Svalgaard – Click the pic to view at source.
More at the WUWT Solar reference page.
In other news, Hathaway has updated his prediction page on 4/1/13. Perhaps he thinks a double peak might be in the cards:
The current prediction for Sunspot Cycle 24 gives a smoothed sunspot number maximum of about 66 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.
========================================================
UPDATE: From: http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=80572
Given the tepid state of solar activity now, a maximum in May seems unlikely. “We may be seeing what happens when you predict a single amplitude and the Sun responds with a double peak,” says Pesnell. He notes a similarity between Solar Cycle 24 and Solar Cycle 14, which had a double-peak during the first decade of the 20th century. If the two cycles are twins, “it would mean one peak in late 2013 and another in 2015.”
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geran says:
April 9, 2013 at 6:53 pm
How many years would you say, before we know if you’re correct or not (assuming we do find ourselves in a Maunder or Dalton type minimum)?
another solar cycle, i.e. 10 years. Cycle 25 should be really low [how low is hard to say – anywhere from 7 to 25 sunspot number – but even that is speculation].
For those of you that would like a detailed look on how events on the sun effect the Earth, there is a good book that is available on line “Solar Influences on Global Changes” at http://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=4778&page=24
The book includes the results of different spacecraft experiments. Page 24 gives a chart of TSI variation during the solar cycle. Page 26 has an interesting comment “Sun’s radiative energy – precise determination – exists only at wavelengths shorter than about 250 nm.” Page 51 has comments about solar-induced varations. Only x-ray events have sufficient energy to penetrate into the lower atmosphere and enter the Hadley circulation. M-class and X-class flares are x-ray flares that have sufficient energy. You may remember that January 2013 had 6 M-Class flares and showed a temporary heating of the atmosphere. As you would expect, the book blames CO2 for the Earth’s major climate changes.
Everyone is missing the solar elephant in the room, UV!
UV does change significantly during the solar cycle and is one of the main drivers of stratospheric weather via the UV/ozone cycle. Along with volcanic SO2/water vapour drivers, the stratosphere markedly affects our weather via jet streams and provides a physical explanation for heating and cooling of the earth due to heat transfer rates from the tropical engine to the polar radiators!
The increased atmospheric mixing during meridional dominant phases also produces cooling from increased cloud cover and matches the pattern of increased storms in europe during the little Ice age. Zonal/Meridional energy transport also applies to oceanic cycles and may be important in longer term cycles such as the PDO or even ice ages.
Great News!!! Planetary temperature is closely correlated to the Solar Magnetic Cycle, 1986 to 2000 (Hint sunspot count is only a proxy. The parameter to analyze is Ak (3 hour average geomagnetic field disturbance which is correlated to solar wind bursts. Note Ap is a 24 hour average geomagnetic field disturbance which is not the same.)
http://sait.oat.ts.astro.it/MSAIt760405/PDF/2005MmSAI..76..969G.pdf
PS to see paper you must copy the link and paste into the internet browser.
Once again about global warming and solar activity by K. Georgieva, C. Bianchi and B. Kirov
Solar activity, together with human activity, is considered a possible factor for the global warming observed in the last century. However, in the last decades solar activity has remained more or less constant while surface air temperature has continued to increase, which is interpreted as an evidence that in this period human activity is the main factor for
global warming. We show that the index commonly used for quantifying long-term changes in solar activity, the sunspot number, accounts for only one part of solar activity and using this index leads to the underestimation of the role of solar activity in the global warming in the recent decades. A more suitable index is the geomagnetic activity which reflects all solar activity, and it is highly correlated to global temperature variations in the whole period for which we have data.
Fig. 6. Global temperature anomalies T (solid line) and ak index of geomagnetic activity (broken line) for the period 1856-2000; climatic normals. (William: Great news!!! There is correlation of Planetary temperature changes to changes in AK 1856 to 2000. See paper for details.)
How well does the sunspot number reflect the variations in solar irradiance and solar wind? Sunspots themselves are not geoeffective. Geoffective are the solar active regions in which sunspots are embedded. These are regions of strong magnetic field with closed field lines geometry (magnetic flux tubes). The brightness of the flux tubes (and hence the solar irradiance) depend on the magnetic field strength which also determines the number of sunspots, so there is a linear relationship between sunspot number and irradiance (Fligge and Solanki 2000). When flux tubes become unstable, they erupt and give rise to solar flares and/or coronal mass ejections (CMEs). The most intense geomagnetic disturbances in both sunspot minimum and sunspot maximum are generated by CMEs (Richardson et al. 2001), and their number and the velocity of the solar wind associated with them follow the sunspot cycle (Gopalswamy et al. 2003), so the sunspot number can be considered a good measure of the solar wind originating from closed magnetic field regions. Especially geoeffective are magnetic clouds (MCs) – a subclass of CMEs
distinguished by the high magnetic field magnitude and the smooth magnetic field rotation inside the structure (Georgieva and Kirov 2005). CMEs, however, are not the only source of high speed solar wind. Early in the 20th century it was noticed that many geomagnetic storms occur without any visible solar disturbance. Such storms tend to recur every 27 days – the period of solar rotation, therefore they originate from long-living regions on the Sun which come back into geoeffective position rotation after rotation. Only when X-rays telescopes were flown above the atmosphere it was found out that are large regions of open magnetic field geometry, and sources of high speed solar wind. They are now known as Coronal Holes (CHs) because, due to their lower density and temperature compared to the surrounding corona, they look darker in X-rays.
3. CMEs, MCs and CHs
We will now compare the properties and geoeffectiveness of the two types of solar drivers – High Speed Streams (HSSs) from coronal holes, and CMEs, additionally dividing the CMEs into two types – MCs and non-MC CMEs (which we will further denote as simply CMEs). Our study covers 11 years, from 1992 to 2002. In this period we have 92 MCs (Georgieva et al. 2005) and 128 CMEs from the list of Cane and Richardson (2003) from which all events identified as MCs have been removed and 126 CHs identified in the OMNI database (http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/ omniweb). Figure 2 presents a comparison of the mean solar wind speed for the three types of solar drivers while Figure 3 shows the solar cycle variation of their speed.
Retired Engineer John says:
April 9, 2013 at 7:10 pm
For those of you that would like a detailed look on how events on the sun effect the Earth, there is a good book that is available on line “Solar Influences on Global Changes”
It is 20 years old so cannot be expected to give a modern view. A lot has happened in those 20 years.
All I know is we are getting dangerously close to the gaus rate of 1500 where sun spots will not do anything even if they form. The sun spots even if they are big are not acting normally now. We are on the down trend and will continue for the forseable future.
Rob JM says:
April 9, 2013 at 7:22 pm
And you wouldn’t even need that to produce an agricultural/commerce disaster. All that is necessary to do it to transfer a lot of cold from the Poles to the Mid-Latitudes, as in a zero-sum game. Whatever global loss of heat energy is inflicted by changes in Solar Activity is salt rubbed in the wounds.
The Little Ice Age didn’t happen just because and no other reason. It had drivers and inputs. Same with other cooling periods and Ice Ages themselves. The trick is to identify and understand the causes BEFORE the onset, not after the fact.
Hey, you don’t want to be a Sunspot short and a cycle late, right?
To think we can use a few thousand years of surveillance of the sun to predict our future is simply fantasy. How old is this place anyhow?
Remember who and where you are,,,,, watch, learn, and adapt.
That is what we do, no?
William Astley says:
April 9, 2013 at 7:33 pm
Great News!!! Planetary temperature is closely correlated to the Solar Magnetic Cycle, 1986 to 2000 (Hint sunspot count is only a proxy. The parameter to analyze is Ak (3 hour average geomagnetic field disturbance which is correlated to solar wind bursts. Note Ap is a 24 hour average geomagnetic field disturbance which is not the same.)
Nonsense. First you are confused about Ap and Ak. They both are designed and meant to show the same phenomenon. The convention is that Ak and Ap are the daily mean of ak and ap. Ak is less reliable as it is derived from a single station only. The ‘solar wind bursts’ is a misnomer. The wind blows all the time and ak and ap measure the effect at all times. When the interplanetary magnetic field turns southward and/or the solar wind speed is high, both ak and ap go up. You can learn more here http://www.leif.org/research/IAGA2008LS-final.pdf
Second there has been no secular increase in geomagnetic disturbances since at least 1844. The early ak-values derived by Nevanlinna were systematically too low.
As for charts, there is a nice one in Through Space and Time by Sir James Jeans. Sir Gregory shows a direct correlation between lake levels of Lake Victoria and sunspot activity in the early 1900s. Also, in the 1878 Jan. Popular Science, early scientists and Observers, like us, point to fewer hurricanes during low sunspot activity. Lloyds of London points to an increase of lost shipping disasters by 17% during high sunspot activity over lower sunspot activity. In other words, more storms at see not seen my the eyes in the sky. Rain increased 26% due to sunspot activity.
Then, if we take a look at this in historical numbers, during low sunspot activity, there are droughts, higher food prices, selling of live stock, etc. Both Russia and the USA have slaughtered off thousands of head of cattle due to present drought conditions that began before 2008.
President Putin, ordered the Russia Grid squared away back in 2009. Let’s go back to another major decline, though not a minimum, about 1300 A.D. Mound Builders and Cave Dwellers left their long time homes for other places. At the same time, England was hit with a lot of rain and lost crops. What is happening now? Same thing.
I think the Good Dr. has done his homework.
The point is the cycle is in decline through maybe 2019. Then, add 11 more years of a small cycle, roughly. Throw in some climate lag. All those greenhouse gases have to catch up. So, around 2035, we will start up again for the next century. All that we lost in temperatures, rain, snow, and food will start up again.
Everglades should be cleared of pythons, the south of African Bees and all those Miami, Florida pets from downunder will be upside down in the city parks with little x’s in their eyes.
I saw some of this back in 1960 through 1979. Snow in an Ohio summer. What a memory.
Paul Pierett
Isvalgaard 7:34 “Solar Influences on Global Changes”
It is 20 years old so cannot be expected to give a modern view. A lot has happened in those 20 years.
Where can I find an updated book? Did the book make untrue claims?
William Astley says:
April 9, 2013 at 5:09 pm
What caused the D-O cycles?
They don’t exist. The ‘cycles’ are just artifacts of smoothing of ‘bimodal’ climate fluctuations.
I forgot a reference link, here is one: http://www.leif.org/EOS/Obrochta2012.pdf
“Our new results suggest that the “1500-year cycle” may be a transient phenomenon whose origin could be due, for example, to ice sheet boundary conditions for the interval in which it is observed. We therefore question whether it is necessary to invoke such exotic explanations as heterodyne frequencies or combination tones to explain a phenomenon of such fleeting occurrence that is potentially an artifact of arithmetic averaging.”
Leif, You are breath of fresh air around here. JP
“Jupiter [with some smaller help from the other planets] changes the orbit of the Earth which in turn changes the climate [and bring glaciations].”
Dr. S: Do you have a link handy, or do I start with wiki or google?
Yes, it does appear cyclic solar changes did in the past cause planetary temperature changes. The temperature changes are strongest in the Northern Hemisphere and are recorded in the proxy sea floor sediment analysis as well as the Greenland ice sheet. As the D-O cycle (warming followed by cooling) is regular that rules out earth based mechanisms as they are chaotic. The past planetary temperature changes match the 20th century warming in terms of magnitude and the location where the warming occurred.
Your comments concerning Ak and Ap are not correct. The solar wind most certainly changes in speed. Yes it always blows. Ak is a three hour average and Ap is 24 hour average. There are technical reasons why a single station is used. The point is to measure how fast the solar wind speed is changing. The derivative. You appear to not understand the difference between a steady wind and a changing wind. A three hour average and 24 hour average entire planet. The solar wind bursts create a space charge differential in the ionosphere which removes cloud forming ions, by a mechanism called electroscavenging. You appear to not understand why a fast change to the solar wind would create a space charge differential in the ionosphere.
Comment:
As noted above the 20th century warming is not in the location predicted by the AGW theory. As noted above the AGW theory tropical troposphere hot spot is not observed. These two facts are relevant to this discussion, as many people just assume if there is warming that proves the warming is AGW. That is not correct. If a significant portion of the 20th century warming was due to solar cycle changes, the planet will now cool, based on what has happened in the past.
The following is the Greenland Ice sheet data that shows the D-O cycle from Richard Alley’s paper.
As one can see the Greenland Ice sheet records the Minoan warm period, the Roman warm period, the Medieval warm period, the Little Ice Age, and the Modern warm period. I do not know why anyone would suggest ice sheet boundary conditions are causing what is observed. It is the sun. There are cosmogenic isotope changes at each climate change cycle.
This is my last comment on this subject.
http://www.climate4you.com/images/GISP2%20TemperatureSince10700%20BP%20with%20CO2%20from%20EPICA%20DomeC.gif
The fact that cosmogenic isotope changes correlate with cyclic significant planetary temperature change has been known for roughly 15 years. Great progress has been made to work out the mechanisms by which the sun affects planetary temperature. One item that is holding that research back is difficult to measure planetary cloud cover. The second hold back is be a difficult getting funding and papers published as this work directly changes the extreme AGW theory.
https://ams.confex.com/ams/pdfpapers/74103.pdf
The Sun-Climate Connection by John A. Eddy, National Solar Observatory
Solar Influence on North Atlantic Climate during the Holocene
A more recent oceanographic study, based on reconstructions of the North Atlantic climate during the Holocene epoch, has found what may be the most compelling link between climate and the changing Sun: in this case an apparent regional climatic response to a series of prolonged episodes of suppressed solar activity, like the Maunder Minimum, each lasting from 50 to 150 years8.
The paleoclimatic data, covering the full span of the present interglacial epoch, are a record of the concentration of identifiable mineral tracers in layered sediments on the sea floor of the northern North Atlantic Ocean. The tracers originate on the land and are carried out to sea in drift ice. Their presence in seafloor samples at different locations in the surrounding ocean reflects the
southward expansion of cooler, ice-bearing water: thus serving as indicators of changing climatic conditions at high Northern latitudes. The study demonstrates that the sub-polar North Atlantic Ocean has experienced nine distinctive expansions of cooler water in the past 11,000 years, occurring roughly every 1000 to 2000 years, with a mean spacing of about 1350 years.
Each of these cooling events coincides in time with strong, distinctive minima in solar activity, based on contemporaneous records of the production of 14C from tree-ring records and 10Be from deep-sea cores. For reasons cited above, these features, found in both 14C and 10Be records, are of likely solar origin, since the two records are subject to quite different non-solar internal sources of variability. The North Atlantic finding suggests that solar variability exerts a strong effect on
climate on centennial to millennial time scales, perhaps through changes in ocean thermohaline circulation that in turn amplify the direct effects of smaller variations in solar irradiance.
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2003/2003GL017115.shtml
Timing of abrupt climate change: A precise clock by Stefan Rahmstorf
Many paleoclimatic data reveal a approx. 1,500 year cyclicity of unknown origin. A crucial question is how stable and regular this cycle is. An analysis of the GISP2 ice core record from Greenland reveals that abrupt climate events appear to be paced by a 1,470-year cycle with a period that is probably stable to within a few percent; with 95% confidence the period is maintained to better than 12% over at least 23 cycles. This highly precise clock points to an origin outside the Earth system; oscillatory modes within the Earth system can be expected to be far more irregular in period.
Svensmark finds the D-O temperature cycle in Greenland and Antarctic using direct temperature measurement in the ice sheet. Svensmark notes as the temperature change is simultaneous in Greenland and Antarctic that requires a mechanism that affect both poles simultaneously.
http://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0612145v1
The Antarctic climate anomaly and galactic cosmic rays
Borehole temperatures in the ice sheets spanning the past 6000 years show Antarctica repeatedly warming when Greenland cooled, and vice versa (Fig. 1) [13, 14]. North-south oscillations of greater amplitude associated with Dansgaard-Oeschger events are evident in oxygenisotope data from the Wurm-Wisconsin glaciation[15]. The phenomenon has been called the polar see-saw[15, 16], but that implies a north-south symmetry that is absent. Greenland is better coupled to global temperatures than Antarctica is, and the fulcrum of the temperature swings is near the Antarctic Circle. A more apt term for the effect is the Antarctic climate anomaly.
This paper notes it is difficult to measure planetary cloud cover.
http://www.leif.org/EOS/swsc120049-GCR-Climate.pdf
Retired Engineer John says:
April 9, 2013 at 8:03 pm
Where can I find an updated book? Did the book make untrue claims?
Perhaps premature claims would be closer to the mark. A newer and updated book is hard to come by as new good evidence has not been forthcoming.
There is a couple of advocacy books out there, but there are really no good, e.g. ‘the chilling stars’
Tom in Texas says:
April 9, 2013 at 8:21 pm
“Jupiter [with some smaller help from the other planets] changes the orbit of the Earth which in turn changes the climate [and bring glaciations].”
Dr. S: Do you have a link handy, or do I start with wiki or google?
Wiki is good enough http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milankovitch_cycles
This paper http://www.leif.org/EOS/2006GL027817-Milankovitch.pdf deals with and resolves some of the problems mentioned in the Wiki.
Clouds, cosmic rays, the magnetosphere … I still like Brian Cox’s Death Valley experiment and the efficacy of Milankovitch cycles. There is one thing that is certain, CO2 is mitigating this spring by fertilizing the late planting on the Northern Plains and Steppe. That would be one reason to vent a misused salt cavern 😉
William Astley says:
April 9, 2013 at 8:48 pm
Your comments concerning Ak and Ap are not correct.
http://www.sci.fi/~fmbb/astro/indices.htm
“ak index. A 3-hourly “equivalent amplitude” index of geomagnetic activity for a specific station or network of stations (represented generically here by k) expressing the range of disturbance in the horizontal magnetic field. ”
Ak index. A daily index of geomagnetic activity for a specific station or network of stations (represented generically here by k) derived as the average of the eight 3-hourly ak indexes in a Universal Time day
ap index. A mean, 3-hourly “equivalent amplitude” of magnetic activity based on K index data from a planetary network of 11 Northern and 2 Southern Hemisphere magnetic observatories between the geomagnetic latitudes of 46 degrees and 63 degrees
Ap index. Formally the daily Ak index, determined from the eight daily ap indexes.”
P.S. I happen to be one of the foremost experts on this topic
You know not whereof you speak.
The rest of your comment is just a collection of the usual, outdated, old references.
William Astley says:
April 9, 2013 at 8:48 pm
This paper notes it is difficult to measure planetary cloud cover.
http://www.leif.org/EOS/swsc120049-GCR-Climate.pdf
Yet you claim that “Satellite data shows that there is 99.5% correlation of GCR level and low level cloud cover 1974 to 1993”.
So it must have been easy back then. You are not being consistent.
So far this solar cycle, I have seen actuality be mostly below the forecast
of the red curve – but sometimes spiking to meet or slightly surpass it.
Also, is not solar weakening along cycles around 200-1,000 years
supposed to lengthen the ~11 year cycle?
Therefore, I consider it reasonable to consider that a 2nd peak comparable
to or even exceeding the one of late 2011 is at least somewhat likely.
Donald L. Klipstein says:
April 9, 2013 at 9:35 pm
Therefore, I consider it reasonable to consider that a 2nd peak comparable
to or even exceeding the one of late 2011 is at least somewhat likely.
There might be several such peaks if cycle 24 will be resembling its ‘twin’ cycle 14:
http://www.solen.info/solar/cycl14.html
To talk of just a double-peak is silly or perhaps an attempt to ‘dumb-down’ reality.
henry@richard verwey
the appearance of my a-c wave has been confirmed
It seems to me this 88 year solar/weather cycle was already calculated from COSMOGENIC ISOTOPES as related in this study:
Persistence of the Gleissberg 88-year solar cycle over the last ˜12,000 years: Evidence from cosmogenic isotopes
Peristykh, Alexei N.; Damon, Paul E.
Journal of Geophysical Research (Space Physics), Volume 108, Issue A1, pp. SSH 1-1, CiteID 1003, DOI 10.1029/2002JA009390
and according to my various calculations by the time we get to 2038 we will be back to where we were in 1950.
So, in total, I think we will see a -0.5K anomaly from 1998 – 2040.
I think it does mean more snow and ice and cold in the NH and far northern regions but England and Holland should not cool that much in total (if you look over the whole year). Don’t need any GCR theory: if the earth cools naturally you get a bigger differential between the equator and the poles so there is a general shift of more clouds from a larger portion of latitude to a smaller portion of latitude between the north (south) of the equator. More cloud formation on and around the equator means less energy in the oceans….etc.so the cooling cycle amplifies.
Before they started with the carbon dioxide nonsense, people looked at the planets to explain weather cycles, rightly or wrongly.
see here
http://www.cyclesresearchinstitute.org/cycles-astronomy/arnold_theory_order.pdf
to quote from the above paper:
“A Weather Cycle as observed in the Nile Flood cycle, Max rain followed by Min rain, appears discernible with
maximums at 1750, 1860, 1950 and minimums at 1670, 1800, 1900 and a minimum at 1990 predicted.
The range in meters between a plentiful flood and a drought flood seems minor in the numbers but real in consequence….
end quote
Acording to my table for maxima, I calculate the date where the sun decided to take a nap, as being around 1995.
and not 1990 as William Arnold predicted.
This is looking at energy-in. I think earth reached its maximum output (means) a few years later, around 1998.
Anyway, look again at my best sine wave plot for my data
now see:
1900 minimum flooding – end of the warming
1950 maximum flooding – end of cooling
1995 minimum flooding – end of warming.
predicted 2035-2040 – maximum flooding – end of cooling.
Do you see the pertinent correlation with my sine wave?
SC 24 is not past the maximum, there are always multiple peaks (depending on smoothing). Although the exact dating of the maximum is somewhat arbitrary, I still predict ~2014 for the maximum. The decline will not really start before 2015.
Thank you Dr. Svalgaard.
lsvalgaard says:
April 9, 2013 at 10:39 am
lsvalgaard says:
April 9, 2013 at 10:24 am
Pesnell is dead wrong.
REPLY: Care to explain why? – Anthony
The correct statement he should have made is “solar cycles (especially low ones) often have several peaks”.
When one peak is due to spot counts reaching a maximum in the northern hemisphere and the second peak is due to spot counts in the southern hemisphere reaching their maximum at a different time, then the double peak observation is clearly not due to a smoothing artifact.
And why are people so pissy when this topic comes up? Also, some commenters should consider this fact: writing more doesn’t mean you know more.