It is looking more and more like a double sunspot peak for solar cycle 24.
Sunspot count is down again:
A similar drop occurred in radio flux.
The Ap magnetic index remains low, but is up 3 units from last month:
On July 1st, solar scientist David Hathaway has updated his prediction page:
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The current prediction for Sunspot Cycle 24 gives a smoothed sunspot number maximum of about 67 in the Summer 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. The smoothed sunspot number has been rising again over the last four months. 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. |
Sparks says:
July 12, 2013 at 10:32 pm
I think the solar system has a integral relationship with the sun.
I think not as the solar system is accidental. Another star otherwise just like the Sun somewhere in the Universe would in all likelihood have a very different ‘solar’ system. Now, IMO, the Sun ‘runs’ the planets, but the planets do not ‘run’ the Sun. Resolving this is not possible at present, but when we finally find a star very sun-like with a planetary system very different from ours, then we can test if the planets control solar [stellar] activity. Image that that other sun also has a solar cycle [otherwise it would not be like the Sun] of length near 11 years, but that its ‘Jupiter’ has a period of 15 years [say – or 7 years or some such] then we would know that the planets do not control solar activity. So it will be possible to find out. Up to now, no such system has been found where the main planet’s orbital period is near the length of the activity cycle.
J Martin said:
“Another factor may be EUV and it is thought by NASA that the current reduction in EUV has had an effect on dropping the height of our atmosphere. Does a thinner layer of insulation allow more heat out ? And does the difference in height of the atmosphere between the tropics and the poles emphasise any effect ?”
There are a number of processes that can affect atmospheric chemistry so EUV variations alone may not be sufficient. Hence my suggestion that one should consider the changing overall mix of both wavelengths and particles when the level of solar activity changes.
When such solar changes occur the atmosphere as a whole does indeed expand and contract which is where the Ideal Gas Laws come in.
A lower atmosphere is a denser atmosphere so energy flows through it more slowly.
A higher atmosphere is less dense so energy flows through it more quickly.
When the atmosphere expands or contracts the gradient of tropopause height also changes between equator and poles so that allows the climate zones and jets beneath it to shift latitudinally.
It is that latitudinal shifting which is the physical sign that the rate of passage of energy through the atmosphere has changed.
So we can tell from jet stream behaviour what the trend is during a specific period of time.
Thus:
i) An active sun expands the atmosphere and in doing so steepens the tropopause height gradient between equator and poles. The climate zones push poleward and the jets become more zonal. This is associated with less clouds because the lines of air mass mixing are shorter and more solar energy gets into the oceans to warm the system. At the same time the expanded and less dense atmosphere, reduced cloudiness and faster zonal circulation allow energy out to space faster but the system still warms slowly until the oceanic time lag has been worked through and then stabilises if the sun stays at the same level of activity.
ii) A quiet sun contracts the atmosphere and in doing so causes a shallower tropopause height gradient between equator and poles. The climate zones fall back towards the equator and the jets become more meridional. This is associated with more clouds because the lines of air mass mixing become longer and less solar energy gets into the oceans.
At the same time the contracted and more dense atmosphere, more cloudiness and slower meridional circulation allow energy out to space less quickly so the system cools slowly as the oceanic time lag is worked through then stabilises if the sun stays at the same level of activity.
In practice the sun varies on a 1000 year or so time scale so there is a sine wave curve from one warm or cool period to the next.
Hence Roman Warm Period, Dark Ages, Mediaeval Warm Period, Little Ice Age and the Current Warm Period.
Interestingly the successive peaks have been getting lower by some accounts so the scale of millennial solar variation may be declining at present.
Tom in Florida says: July 12, 2013 at 3:20 pm
…………….
Hi Tom
May I start by saying that here in the UK, we are currently enjoy glorious summer weather not seen for some decades, contrary to the Met Office forecast of only a month ago.
Re John Day’s request:
Thanks Tom, I do not mind being put down by Dr.S, who I assume for the most of the time knows his stuff., but demands, even from someone called John Day, may not be responded to.
However 7 to 8 year delays in the N. Atlantic’s Sub-Polar Gyre are well known, which obviously Mr. Day is not aware of, but if he has desire to put people down, perhaps should read stuff related to the matter, for a start I would suggest the SPG feedback papers : Treguier et al 2004, Levermann et al 2007 and Born et al 2011.
Leif Svalgaard says:
July 12, 2013 at 9:30 pm
Wow, this is Svaaaaaaal at his best!
Mods. There are times when I feel you are a smidgen over tolerant. Geran being a case in point. I was beginning to wonder if might develop Repetitive Strain Syndrome just using the keyboard to get past Geran’s pointless verbiage.
He seems to have stopped for the time being, but if he re-appears with more, then please give him a time-out.
Leif. Thanks for the Gerard Roe pdf. I have read it before and will now re-read it. I think that Roe’s contribution could be regarded as a potentially seminal work. However, he missed a golden opportunity by not using the work he had done to make a projection as to when and at what pace the next glaciation might occur. Something that is arguably of crucial importance to mankind.
If a projection of some sort can be made from Roe’s work then not doing so is a tragedy.
Gerard Roe states in his paper that “variations in atmospheric CO2 appear to lag the rate of
change of global ice volume. This implies only a secondary role for CO2”
Good job he doesn’t work for one of those Australian universities, Whacky or James Cook, otherwise he would no longer have a job. Mind you there are also some US universities that abuse procedure to get rid of professors and lecturers who’s views they consider to be politically incorrect.
Further on, Roe does add this, presumably to be on the safe side “This certainly does not rule out CO2 as a primary cause of tropical or other climate variations, or of the apparent synchronization of the ice-age signal between hemispheres
Roe also admits that a number of the Milankovitch problems remain;
“The Milankovitch hypothesis as formulated here does not explain the large rapid deglaciations that occurred at the end of some of the ice age cycles. ~ Nor do the results explain the mid-Pleistocene transition between an earlier interval characterized by40 kyr dura-tions of ice ages and a later interval with 80 kyr to 120 kyr durations:
One day someone will use Roe’s work to project forward in time and steal his thunder. It will be that person who will then be recorded in history as more associated with the work rather than Roe.
If you think its been fun watching the AGW ants twist and squirm under the magnifying glass of “the Pause” in recent years , just wait for the downside of Cycle 24 folks. Its only gonna get better! And the Cycle 25 …….. the noncycle to finally sweep away the nonsense of CO2 dominated AGW? Be patient meine liebchen.
Leif Svalgaard says:
“Now, IMO, the Sun ‘runs’ the planets, but the planets do not ‘run’ the Sun. Resolving this is not possible at present, but when we finally find a star very sun-like with a planetary system very different from ours, then we can test if the planets control solar [stellar] activity.”
We can find out what we need to know by analysis of the relative positions of bodies within our own solar system. Looking only at the period of the major Jovian body of a system is fruitless.
geran says:
July 13, 2013 at 1:20 am
Wow, this is Svaaaaaaal at his best!
You ain’t seen nothing yet.
Slump or not, there’s a fairly impressive sunspot group now:
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap130710.html
Is it impressive ?
http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/data/realtime/hmi_igr/1024/latest.jpg
***
Leif Svalgaard says:
July 12, 2013 at 3:43 am
Heinrich events are not caused by the Sun: http://www.leif.org/EOS/palo20005-D-O-Explanation.pdf
***
Thanks for the link. That’s the best explanation I’ve seen for D/O events.
***
J Martin says:
July 13, 2013 at 8:31 am
Is it impressive ?
***
Well, it was. Sun rotation can cause that. 🙂
@vuk
>… but demands, even from someone
> called John Day, may not be responded to …
Vuk, I don’t think I ‘demanded’ anythiing, I said ‘please’, didn’t I? :-]
But the Scientific Method is very demanding, and requires you to make your research reproducible by others.
Yes, your wiggle-grams are ‘annotated pictures’ and we’ve been told that that pictures are worth a thousand words. So they’re useful for summarizing observations and results, and illustrating other facets of a theory. But research represented that way is incomplete without futher explanation.
Put yourself in our position: Vuk says he has some ‘proof’ of something, and gives us a ‘talktalk’ link to click on. Invariably it is only a wiggle-gram, showing all kinds of extrapolations, sinuoidal fittings and correlations. Very “busy-looking”, but not including any written explanations to explain how the chart proves anything, or solves some problem.
So, I wasn’t trying to put you down, but just make you aware of how your presentations appear to your audience. It really is like talking to the Texas Sharpshooter. Did he paint the bullseye before or after shooting at the barn? Can’t tell by just looking at wiggle-gram.
Now in your last response you did provide a few references. So, as you suggested, I googled “spg feedback treguier”. Surprisingly, the very first paper returned on this search was a paper title “North Atlantic Oscillations – I An overview of the AMO (SST)–NAO data embedded relationship”. The author is M.A. Vucevic.
So at least Google thinks you’re a world-class expert on this subject (ahead of Treguier).
But in this paper you shift the data by 11 years, so still don’t understand your 7-year shift. And most importantly, I’m still sure if this is not some ‘accidental’ correlation. Please explain why the 7-year lag.
Why didn’t you include a link to this paper in your original posting?
😐
Sunspot Data Analysis
If we consider the published NOAA sunspot data without regard to the data type or source and simply apply rigorous digital data analysis techniques we can obtain a clearer view of the trends.
First, the magnitude of the scatter in these data follows an expected decline in amplitude as the mean of the data approaches 0.0. In fact, since the data cannot be negative, there is a floor on the scatter. This need be considered in any statistical analysis. But, I digress…
Second, we consider the smoothing used by NOAA. The use of a running 13-month smoother is a non-rigorous way (read “poor”) to remove high-frequency content. In fact, some high-frequency content is enhanced. (It does do a decent job removing some stochastic content.) You can see this clearly in the high-frequency content in the smoothed plot shown above in the article. One can obtain the desired result by filtering the data with a stable, non-recursive low-pass filter in which the filter is set to a frequency of 0.923 yr^-1 (13 months). (The plot is publicly available at “https://www.icloud.com/photostream/#A15oqs3qGcal2A”.) This filter is NOT smoothed using only “past” data. It uses a large fraction of sunspot data set to filter each point in a mathematically rigorous fashion. The bigger the data set the better! The FORTRAN code is available upon request. (Other rigorous approaches are possible, say using Wavelet decomposition techniques.)
The issue of double peaks in the present sunspot cycle (given the data to date) is laid to rest. I look forward to the upcoming data.
Enjoy.
John Day says:
July 13, 2013 at 8:51 am
But in this paper you shift the data by 11 years, so still don’t understand your 7-year shift.
John
Since you did not even bother to read properly let me say:
the shift of 11 years is between sub-arctic atmospheric pressure (11yr ma) and the AMO (3yr ma), which is a distinctly different variable!
That paper also gives extracts and links to Treguier, Levermann and Born papers, if you are interested to know then you can read the experts in the field.
so still don’t understand your 7-year shift.
John
It is simple, and I am sure you knew it long before you even wrote first post, but here it is:
In this link
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/SSN_NAP.htm
the second graph contains note about 7 year shift, forcing formula and regression diagram quoting correlation R^2=0.682 which is not spectacularly high, but it is a good number.
7 years shift gives highest correlation. Simple!
I research for my own enjoyment and a hobby and post or publish what I think may not be generally known.
However, I do understand that it may not be the kind of science that you and many others like to follow, but since my name and link to the server a relatively distinct, it is easy to avoid. I am not in here to win debating contest with you, Svalgaard or anyone else.
Leif Svalgaard says:
July 12, 2013 at 11:20 pm
Sparks says:
July 12, 2013 at 10:32 pm
I think the solar system has a integral relationship with the sun.
I think not as the solar system is accidental. Another star otherwise just like the Sun somewhere in the Universe would in all likelihood have a very different ‘solar’ system. Now, IMO, the Sun ‘runs’ the planets, but the planets do not ‘run’ the Sun.
If you have the opinion that the sun “runs” the planets, then you also think the sun has an integral relationship with the solar system, (its not a trick question) I also agree with the rest of your comment, the solar systems relationship with the sun or vise-versa is what I mean by an “integral relationship” when you say you think the solar system is accidental, these timing features must then also be accidental and a product of the formation of the solar system itself, but it would also be fantastic to have the ability to study a distant star and its solar system, recently I have been plotting “fantasy” planets and measuring the resonance, perturbations etc… Its an interesting exercise that helps me understand planetary orbits better, but I wouldn’t use it to prove a point (regarding models etc…).
Dr. Rick B. Spielman says:
July 13, 2013 at 9:10 am
One can obtain the desired result by filtering the data with a stable, non-recursive low-pass filter in which the filter is set to a frequency of 0.923 yr^-1 (13 months).
I did some research few years back, results are I found rather interesting:
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/SC17.htm
13 months is Earth-Jupiter synodic period.The Earth’s proximity to sun gives it strong magnetic interactions (reconnections), Jupiter is 5 times further away but it has 20 times stronger field.
This led me to think that the sunspot cycles are result of electromagnetic feedback, but that is long and debatable story, best left well alone.
The post of the old 3 stooges bit by WWS is worth all the angst the climate fight causes
Great stuff
Stephen Wilde says:
July 12, 2013 at 6:07 am
“A quiet sun contracts the atmosphere and in doing so causes a shallower tropopause height gradient between equator and poles. The climate zones fall back towards the equator and the jets become more meridional. This is associated with more clouds because the lines of air mass mixing become longer and less solar energy gets into the oceans.”
Weaker solar cycles or a “quiet sun” coincide with less clouds. when you say more clouds are associated with weaker solar activity are you discussing a solar minimum between two strong solar maximums or a weak solar maximum?
vukcevic says:
July 13, 2013 at 10:00 am
I do understand that it may not be the kind of science that you and many others like to follow
It is simpler than that: it is not science at all.
Leif Svalgaard @ur momisugly vukcevic
It is simpler than that: it is not science at all.
you mean It is not science results of which should be known.
In 2009 you declared: ‘vukcevic is a danger to society’.
Get a cartload of fire wood, burn the heretic!