Solar Cycle 24 Update

David,
“The relationship between F10.7 flux and sea level rise indicates that a flux of 100 is the break-over between climate warming and cooling. The flux level has been at about that value for the last three years.”
Is this F10.7 relationship based on raw values or values adjusted for earth’s orbital position? Thanks.

In 2006 Mr. Hathaway said SC 24 was going to be the biggest in 400 years. As far as I am concerned he has a large credibility gap.

Gee, it’s lucky that the Sun doesn’t have any effect on the global climate, or we could be in deep cooling-induced doo-doo in years to come /sarc

Verity Jones says:
July 28, 2013 at 6:47 am
Hathaway constantly revises his predictions, fitting his projections to the evidence. He has little other choice – it would be obvious if he had his head in the sand.
As he must do to give a forecast that is useful in real time. You don’t fault your local weatherman to constantly revise his predictions based on the latest data.

I have not paid attention to the sunspot argument, so collection of charts could use more words. Solar cycle amplitude is measured in what? The amplitude looks to be inverse to neutron count? Maybe a blurb about what current sheet tilt angle is?
All of these answers are readily available on Google, but it would be user friendly to add just a few more paragraphs here.

KevinM says:
July 28, 2013 at 7:25 am
Maybe a blurb about what current sheet tilt angle is?
Although sparse on text this talk [giving for Japanese school chilkdren] at least has nice images:
http://www.leif.org/research/On-Becoming-a-Scientist.pdf
If you have the appropriate software, this version shows some movies
http://www.leif.org/research/On-Becoming-a-Scientist.ppt

David Thomson says:
July 28, 2013 at 7:49 am
Yes, we do. The statistical methods are grossly misleading and do not qualify as physical science.
A successful [and scientifically correct] statistical method predicts that next summer will be warmer than the coming winter. Farmers rely very much on this prediction.
Oliver Manuel has shown physical evidence from real measurements of the Sun and observations of the planets that the Sun has a solid core and composes from elements much heavier than just hydrogen and helium.
Oliver is a crank and his ideas are baloney. You believing his nonsense makes you a crank too.

Dr. Lurtz says:
July 28, 2013 at 7:33 am
Some time ago I tried to get Lief to understand the burn cycle. I was discounted pretty abruptly but this did not stop me from considering what is known fact. As a fire consumes its fuel it leaves inhibitors in the remaining burning fuel (especially important with fission reactions). While this may happen at the suns core it still happens and can not be attenuated out by the distance traveled to the surface.
Of another concern with a fission reaction is magnetic pull to remove those burned particles from the burning area. If the reaction is slowed by garbage in your process and it cools suspending that garbage for long periods of time where the burning should take place the sun could very well get very cool for a very long time before those particles leave the normal burning area.
Using your 360 year model and amount of dead material created in the fission burning area of the core, reduced output could be held at a low rate for 90,000+ years if it cools slightly and the expended material is slow to migrate to the center of the core. Low magnetic pull due to a decreased solar dynamo could very well be what sends us into a glaciation phase on earth.
12,000 years would create a substantial amount garbage in the burning chamber. It would also explain the gradual cooling after a rapid start up and then a sudden cool down when the reaction becomes overloaded.
In layman’s terms, this would equate with dirty injectors and no way to clean them out, making the motor run rough and the power robbed.. The suns magnetism is the injector cleaner. If it is low or non-existent the low output remains for a very long time.

And to think of all the wasted time I’ve spent over the years seeking shade on a hot day !

The Russians are building new ice-breakers…hint hint! Why build ice-breakers? hint hint!
http://english.pravda.ru/news/science/24-08-2012/121976-russia_new_icebreaker-0/

highflight56433 says:
July 28, 2013 at 9:23 am
The Russians are building new ice-breakers…hint hint! Why build ice-breakers? hint hint!
So that they can exploit the Arctic sea routes opened up by global warming…

lf the less active sun does cause cooling, then am beginning to understand how it could do it and that the cooling could be sudden. Because during summer we have been getting a Polar jet that has been splitting in two. Where you get these splits you often have areas of high pressure sitting in the middle of them. What would be a real worry is that this pattern lasts into the winter. As these highs will set up large pools of cold air, due to drawing cold air down from the north and heat loss by clearer sky’s.
But because you got the jet running to the north and south of them. Then you will have areas of low pressure running to the north and south of them as well, along with the weather fronts they bring.
This sort of set up would bring cold and snowy winters to large areas of the northern half of the NH. lf this sort of pattern sets in for a dozen years or more, then you could be looking at the process of what causes ice ages to form.

Coming soon to your neighborhood?
https://www.google.com/search?q=cold+europe+winters&client=ubuntu&hs=IeV&channel=cs&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=Xkv1UZi6B6KDiwL9zoE4&ved=0CFEQsAQ
http://www.agu.org/news/press/pr_archives/2012/2012-39.shtml

Bill H says:
July 28, 2013 at 8:53 am
You are speaking of fission reactors, perhaps I am wrong but is not the Sun a fusion reactor?
What are the “burned particles” left over from fusion? Does fusion actually “burn” anything?

Dr. Lurtz says:
July 28, 2013 at 8:59 am
The status quo is changing, therefore, using history to try to predict the future is not only wrong but scientifically a travesty.
Whatever is changing is changing slowly enough that using the historical shape of the cycle adjusted to match the cycle so far is good science [and the only thing we have that is not just based on wild, non-quantified dreams]

Eric Barnes says:
July 28, 2013 at 10:10 am
Most weathermen don’t have the gall to make forecasts more than a few days out.
The Sun is so big that it does not change from one day to the next.

vukcevic says:
July 28, 2013 at 10:15 am
Only reasonable conclusion is that the Earth reacts differently to sunspot polarity.
Not reasonable as in every solar cycle there are sunspots of both polarities [Hales’s law], so there is nothing to react differently to.

“Dr. Svalgaard kindly provided data for Danish Aurora observations.”
My father, lived as a young boy in Mo I Rana Norway in the 30s, and told me that the auroras then was spectacular and that felt that he could hear the cracking noise from it. Never felt the same since.

vukcevic says:
July 28, 2013 at 10:46 am
So 11 year sunspot cycle is 9th harmonic of 100 year fundamental ?!
Hmmm…. that is a news to me, but I will buy it if reluctantly, you insist.
Peaks at ~50, ~33, and ~20 years are harmonics of the longer cycle. As the harmonics have decreasing amplitude you can hardly see their contribution to the ~10-yr peak. No need for you to pretend [?] to be stupid…
And what happened to Miss Feynman’s
Her analysis also shows the harmonics of the long cycle, so take that to heart.

> Leif said: The Sun is very large and can only change slowly.
> We don’t need to understand something completely in order to make reasoned predictions based on what we know.
———————————————–
Sounds reasonable but any one solar area can change quickly (like sunspots) and the whole is simply the sum of the parts couched in a theorized ‘system’. A ‘local’ solar flare of adequate size lasting hours can destroy some of earth’s human infrastructure. Integrating over the entire sun simply increases the sample size and standard deviation, in a manner of speaking. The same can be said for earth’s ‘climate’ as well. We can conjecture about the nature of global processes of the sun or earth but any scientist must admit that empirical observation of any system’s changes is based on the length or effort expended. Likewise, theories based on those observations can change on the same basis as ‘new’ behaviors are observed. Nothing wrong with this but it is important to understand our limitations and the limitations of prediction of inherently chaotic systems.

BioBob says:
July 28, 2013 at 11:12 am
Integrating over the entire sun simply increases the sample size and standard deviation
Integration decreases the error in the estimate [roughly error = standard deviation / sqrt(number of elements over which you integrate].
Nothing wrong with this but it is important to understand our limitations and the limitations of prediction of inherently chaotic systems.
and you assume that solar physicists are morons who does not know that and fully consider this.

vukcevic says:
July 28, 2013 at 11:28 am
there also 8.3 (12th) and 6.7 (15th)
Once you are on that side of 11, the harmonics of the long cycle have dwindled to nothing, but now there will be [and are] harmonics from the 11-yr cycle. People suffering from cyclomania do not accept harmonics and think every peak is its own independent, physically important peak.

Dr. Deanster says:
July 28, 2013 at 11:38 am
Yes Leif … I know this. But really, if you are going to tell me that the methodology for counting sun spots has not changed since the 1500′s, I’ll have so say that I would find that amusing.
The methodology was introduced in the 1850s and was applied to all records [one could find] back to the telescopic discovery of sunspots 400 years ago. Nothing amusing about that.
Now, unfortunately the method was changed slightly in 1890s and in the 1940s which have led to some in-homogeneities in the record. This was recognized recently and efforts are under way to correct that: http://ssnworkshop.wikia.com/wiki/Home and http://www.leif.org/research/swsc130003p.pdf

Leif Svalgaard says:
July 28, 2013 at 9:28 am
“So that they can exploit the Arctic sea routes opened up by global warming…”
======
Getting the jump on things, by breaking the ice that is gonna melt anyway ?
They must have done a cost/benefit analysis.
They are still done, aren’t they ?, or is it just a race to spend taxpayers money faster than the other competitors in the race.

Bill_W says:
July 28, 2013 at 1:42 pm
Leif, what time frame is this over? And is it +/- 0.05 C or +/- 0.1 C?
It is 0.1C from solar min to solar max [subject to a somewhat varying solar cycle maximum]. The point is that it is too small to worry about.

Steele says:
July 28, 2013 at 1:01 pm:
I like the Low Sunspot Number = More Cosmic Radiation = More Cloud Formation = Lower Global Temps idea better
The data we do have suggest that even if you like that chain of inference better, it is not solidly supported by the data: http://www.leif.org/EOS/swsc120049-Cosmic-Rays-Climate.pdf

Dear Prof Svalgaard
I note your FFT of the solar cycle with interest. I too plotted that spectrum and got similar results. I also plotted the FFT of just the 19th Century vs the 20th Century and noted that the 19th Century had solar cycles generally a year longer than those in the 20th.
Could you confirm this?

nuwurld says:
July 28, 2013 at 1:49 pm
Therefore a reduction in the solar surface for light production (active Sun) in favour of a lower temperature which peaks in short wave infra red could possibly result in a spectral redistribution that is more directly ‘thermal’ and less prone to being electronically scattered and not thermalised.
If light or ‘heat’ is absorbed by the ground [not always by water] it will result in a higher temperature no matter by which mechanism and no matter what wavelength.
As an interesting aside there is no physical mechanism whereby visible light interacts with water. It does not vibrate its nuclear core nor interact with its electrons.
If the temperature of the radiating body [sunspot] is lower, then the amount of infrared emitted is also lower, hence it ‘heats’ less. And if visible light does not interact with water, it should penetrate all the way to the bottom of the ocean, but it [as should be well-known?] does not penetrate that far as it is pitch dark down there: http://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/light_travel.html
John A says:
July 28, 2013 at 1:50 pm
I note your FFT of the solar cycle with interest. I too plotted that spectrum and got similar results. I also plotted the FFT of just the 19th Century vs the 20th Century and noted that the 19th Century had solar cycles generally a year longer than those in the 20th. Could you confirm this?
Yes: http://www.leif.org/research/FFT-Daily-Sunspot-Numbers-1st-2nd-halves.png
That sort of kills the idea that sunspots are due to [or strongly modulated by] planetary tides [or other more exotic causes]

Eric Barnes says:
July 28, 2013 at 2:01 pm
The above makes perfect sense given previous predictions about the solar cycle…
There’s a pattern here and it’s not hard to see.
good to see that you agree with me that we have a very good track record predicting the solar cycle.
jcarels says:
July 28, 2013 at 2:03 pm
“But Penn acknowledges that magnetic field measurements from other studies don’t always see the same trend he sees. Some observations show that sunspots’ magnetic field strength varies with the solar cycle, and others (including de Toma’s) show that sunspots’ magnetic fields aren’t changing with time. De Toma was even able to reproduce Penn’s results by excluding small sunspots, suggesting Penn’s trend might result from the way his team selects the sunspots they measure. “
Livingston amd Penn observes in the infrared [where nobody else has extensive measurements] with one of the best telescopes in the world by the most experienced observer [Bill L.]. deToma et al.. are the ones with a selection effect because they have a threshold below which they don’t observe, As to Livingston’s selection: since 2000 Bill observes ALL spots within his observing time with no selection at all.
Here is the magnetic field measured [using an objective computer algorithm http://www.leif.org/research/SSN/Watson3.pdf ] from space by Fraser Watson: http://www.leif.org/research/Watson-Umbral-Data.png make up your own mind. The reaction from some other solar physicists smacks of ‘rearguard’ action, IMHO.

Leif Svalgaard says:
July 28, 2013 at 1:40 pm
“Are you being dense on purpose [or is it for real] ?. ”
==========
It seems to vary…
Just like the weather:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/02/business/energy-environment/shell-oil-rig-runs-aground-in-alaska.html?_r=0
“An enormous Shell Oil offshore drilling rig ran aground on an island in the Gulf of Alaska on Monday night after it broke free from tow ships in rough seas, officials said. ”
===
lessons being learned in the soon to be ice-free arctic ocean.
With that said, I’ll stop digging now 🙂

Leif, thanks, point taken about the lower energy Plank distribution. This does of course depend upon black body ideology.
When the solar spectrum was measured by SORCE, the emittance was found to be unexpected, with spectral divergence at the surface due to process.
My wording was,
” the emphasis there being the proportion thermalised”
Light is more likely to be scattered despite its higher energy. Activity at the surface does not obey black body physics 100%, however thermodynamic stability requires energy radiation to approximately equal core production.
Light energy within the ocean does not penetrate to the bottom, due to sea water not being 100% pure water. I thought that was common knowledge. Life, for instance absorbs a deal of this ‘non thermally’ that results in oil deposits being available millions of years later in ocean sediment. Thought that was common knowledge.

Jtom says:
July 28, 2013 at 3:11 pm
I would put my money on Dr. Svalgaard’s approach from this snapshot we have seen, but I suspect even he would be surprised if he has indeed ‘nailed down’ a theory that would yield accurate predictions of solar cycles in the future
The problem is not to have understood ‘all the possible processes and variability’, but to have isolated the critical parameter [if one exists] that controls the cycle. Long time ago I and colleagues suggested on basis of the then understanding of the so-called Babcock-Leighton dynamo model that the magnitude of the polar fields of the Sun at the end of a cycle [before significant spots from the new cycle appear] would be that critical parameter and as such could serve as a precursor for the magnitude of the next cycle. The idea being that the polar fields would be dragged into the Sun and there be the ‘raw material’ for creating the next cycle. Model calculations seem to support the idea [even though they are primitive]. Ever since, the polar field precursor method has worked well for all cycles 20-24, so our confidence is strong that it will continue to do so. If not, we’ll learn something new [I almost wish the method would fail – as I’m always interested in learning something new]. For example, would it still work if we enter a Maunder Minimum? But so far, it does seem that we have a method that works.

Along with MC and Proctor I also would like to thank Mr. Archibald for this and prior contributions.
I would note in passing that our nearby 3000 acre lake is 4 degrees cooler this year than last.

vukcevic says:
July 28, 2013 at 3:35 pm
Yep, but Eugene Parker left us a beautiful legacy
that explains it all.
No, that is complete nonsense. No electric or magnetic influence can travel upstream in the 11 times supersonic solar wind, apart from the fact that the magnetospheres of Jupiter and Saturn are much too tiny to have any effect. They take up about a millionth of the sky seen from the Sun. If they had significant influence on the Sun, we would sense that when the Earth is on the ‘line of influence’. Nobody has observed that.

Vukcevic: one hundred billion tonnes or more of oil in the Arctic…..that’s three years or more world supply at current rates of consumption….just a perspective on risks versus benefits.

This is a great thread and is a debate that must be brought out to the public in general. I have been telling colleagues and environmental industry professionals for several years to look at the sun (with dark glasses of course) and have written articles published in my industry newsletter in regard to the predictions of Abdussamatov about the decline in solar activity. But please why did Archibald use as his first graph the one from the Mail on Sunday with all its inaccuracies? Apart from the ridiculously low prediction of Cycle 25, the most glaring error is the labeling of “End of Little Ice Age’ in 1899. This was the Little “Victorian” Ice Age – rather than the Little Ice Age which correlated with the Maunder Minimum not 1899, and the perpetuation of this labeling by those who know better does not help the general public to understand the arguments.

David Archibald, nasty and brutish maybe (just like all the previous ones then) but why will the 21st Century be short? Is the coming collapse in solar activity going to cause a time distortion?

Leif,
Referring to the observation that El Nino seemed to coincide with quick rise in the Current Sheet Tilt Angle, e.g.
Richard M says:
July 28, 2013 at 7:11 am
It does seem on quick examination that there may be correlation between El Nino occurrence and Current Sheet Tilt Angles in the Middle of the Tilt Angle range. Has this been investigated?
If there were such a relationship, increased frequency of El Nino would correspond to cycles which (for whatever reasons cause this) had a preponderance of fluctuations of tilt angle in the mid range. And shorter cycles would necessarily lead to increased frequency due to quick rise and fall of the angle.
And If there is such a relationship, it suggests periods of warming are not related to length of cycle per se, but the preponderance of fluctuations in the mid range.
(greater frequency of el Nino – tendency to warming)
If longer cycles were less likely to produce this range of tilt angle -might this mean greater frequency of La Nina, period of cooling?
Have you looked at this?

David Archibald says:
July 28, 2013 at 5:29 pm
PJF says:
July 28, 2013 at 5:13 pm
Well said. The publisher has been alerted to the fact that the full title they have chosen suggests that a century can be a lesser interval than 100 years.

David, the title of your book is an allusion to the famous quote by Thomas Hobbes, describing the ‘natural state of mankind’ (if there were no governments to rule mankind).
“And the life of man, solitary, poore, nasty, brutish, and short.” -Leviathan, Thomas Hobbes, 1651, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Hobbes

Cycle 24 is closest to cycles 12 & 14 when I plotted them recently, Too high for 5.
So no Dalton Min yet…Why does cycle 25 appear so low on Davids diagram prediction. What are the reasons behind that very low cycle 25 prediction, Lief nof anyone?

The Russians build icebreakers because they have a lot of waterways where ice is an issue.
They don’t necessarily need any assumptions about global temperature change.

Leif Svalgaard, thank you for your many posts today. I have a question about this: And if visible light does not interact with water, it should penetrate all the way to the bottom of the ocean, but it [as should be well-known?] does not penetrate that far as it is pitch dark down there: http://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/light_travel.html
I thought that the interaction was with stuff dissolved and suspended in the water. Clean water such as that found in swimming pools (and swimming pool reactors) hardly intercepts visible light at all, Right?

Matthew R Marler
Clean water such as that found in swimming pools (and swimming pool reactors) hardly intercepts visible light at all, Right?
====
Even pure water absorbs red light, hence it’s blue appearance:
http://www.dartmouth.edu/~etrnsfer/water.htm

Brent Walker said:
“I have been getting my head around upper atmospheric chemistry. It is very short wave-length photons (in the EUV, high energy range) that cause oxygen atoms to split and hence precipitate the creation of ozone and provide the heat that causes the stratosphere to rise in temperature with height. But because the ozone layer is relatively thick (due presumably to dynamic processes in relative equilibrium) short term changes in EUV emissions don’t change the level of ozone or the temperature very much. But long term changes in EUV emissions must change both ozone levels and stratospheric temperatures.”
I think this is the nub of the issue but there is a problem.
We see more EUV when the sun is active, EUV splits oxygen to create ozone and more ozone warms the stratosphere.
The trouble is that the mesosphere and stratosphere cooled when the sun was active (more EUV) and may now be warming with the quieter sun (less EUV).
A recent finding was that unexpectedly, between 2004 and 2007 ozone actually increased above 45 km (around the stratosphere / mesosphere boundary) despite less EUV from the quieter sun.
I am led to think that there is something wrong with current assumptions about the ozone creation / destruction balance above 45km and that it is what goes on up there that ultimately controls the ozone content of the entire stratosphere.
My interim solution is to propose that it is not EUV alone that controls stratosphere temperatures but rather the overall mix of particles and wavelengths. Someone else will have to sort out the relative dominance of all the processes involved in upper atmosphere chemistry.
The significance of all that is the potential effect on the tropopause height gradient between equator and poles.
It is the slope of that gradient which controls latitudinal climate zone positioning, jet stream behaviour, cloudiness and ultimately the amount of solar energy able to get into the oceans to fuel the climate system.

Having a life,so we went to the City [San Francisco] with some children and grandchildren.Now, as Arnold said “I`m baaaack”.
———–
u.k.(us) says:
July 28, 2013 at 4:18 pm
“Actually there are many billions of dollars riding on this”
On what ?, the predictions ?
Yes, just to take one [real] example. A satellite operator wants to sent up a 500 million dollar bird. His bank wants the bird insured for the duration of its life [like your home has to insured if you have a bank loan on it]. The premium is set according to the risk of the satellite becoming non-functional because of a solar storm. The risk of a storm depends on the sunspot number, thus the premium depends on what somebody [usually the government] says that the sunspot number will be in the future, hence on prediction.
The guesses are all over the board, some better than others admittedly, why throw the billions back in our faces ?
Some are better than others and the insurers know which. From a scientific point of view a failed prediction has value too in that we will know what doesn’t work.
Melbourne Resident says:
July 28, 2013 at 4:23 pm
But please why did Archibald use as his first graph the one from the Mail on Sunday with all its inaccuracies?
Archibald is well-known for his inaccuracy, so don’t be surprised.
Richard M says:
July 28, 2013 at 4:36 pm
A series of strong volcanic eruptions cools the Earth leading to a cool period like the LIA and then as the dust settles so to speak, the Earth warms back up to its equilibrium temperature.
Volcanoes certainly have an effect, but it has been hard to determine precisely how much going back in time.
David Archibald says:
Thank you for your kind words. Hathaway’s mistake was to presume that 24 would be strong simply because the previous two cycles were strong.
Not true. He had [what he thought was] a good reason for his prediction.
He guessed a number just under Dikpati.
Also not true.
In fact, given that Dikpati was NASA’s golden child at the time, he wouldn’t have been allowed to have a prediction that diverged too much from hers or otherwise it would have lessened the credibility of Dikpati’s forecast.
Not true. Presumption on your part.
Schatten makes a living from predicting solar activity and in 2006 said that solar activity looked like falling to Maunder levels. Anyone in this field should have asked themselves what was the basis for Schatten’s prediction.
Schatten explains painstakingly what the basis was. Pay attention to what he says.
My advice to anyone who wants to predict solar activity is to go to Ed Fix’s model and continue its development.
Ed’s model is not ready for prime time and is very likely pseudo-science.
It is fabulous that we can predict the year of Solar Cycle 25 maximum.
We cannot; we can only guess.
That prediction is derived from Altrock’s green corona emissions diagram, now over two years old.
And later data disagrees.
Solar maximum has occurred 15 months after “the rush to the poles” is completed.
Has already happened [last week for the South, last year for the North].
If there is no or very little activity evident from the plot, that means that Solar Cycle 25 will be next to non-existent.
You cannot use his plot to determine the size of the next cycle.
But Altrock can’t release his diagram again while there is a war on coal underway.
Baloney. And his plot can be constructed from other coronal data, e.g. http://www.leif.org/research/ApJ88587.pdf
Luther Wu says:
July 28, 2013 at 5:12 pm
but where is the data to support your conjecture that the sun (operating within observed parameters) does affect our climate in any meaningful way?
Yes, where?
David Archibald says:
July 28, 2013 at 5:25 pm
The Solar Cycle 25 forecast of 7 is from Livingstone and Penn. No one else has made a prediction of the amplitude of that cycle yet.
That number is highly uncertain. All we can say is that the sunspot number will be very low. This does not mean that solar activity or its magnetic field will disappear. The cosmic ray modulation during the Maunder and Spoerer minima was as strong as it has been the past several cycles. What we predict is a disconnect between sunspot number and solar ‘activity’. But even that is speculation.
milodonharlani says:
July 28, 2013 at 5:54 pm
“Climate scientists” tried to get rid of the Medieval Warm Period. Can you understand how skeptics might be suspicious of an attempt now by solar scientists to get rid of the Modern Solar Grand Maximum?
That is because they are lazy or worse [a Modern Grand Maximum is what they want]. The laziness becomes in this way: all the data we relay on, all the analysis we do, all the conclusions we draw can be duplicated by simply reading the material [I hate to sound like Scafetta: “read my papers”], but all our stuff is out in the open and the findings can be duplicated [or at least followed] by anybody without undue effort.
proposals for enforcing among solar scientists uniform acceptance of whatever new orthodox system emerges sounds troubling.
We do not try to ‘enforce’ but to convince and agree.
This effort also comes after discovery in the past decade from the SORCE program …
This has very little to do with re-assessing solar activity and, in any event’ at most will have an effect of the order of 0.1C, so is a straw man.
Stanford Linear Accelerator Web site has taken down the IMO good material it had on solar magnetic field modulation of cosmic rays & the possible effect such fluxes could have on cloud formation.
Lack of funding is always a problem, but there are about a hundred other instruments in the world producing good data.
I hope you can forgive some cynicism as to scientists’ motives.
Cynicism has no place in this. The thing to do is to study the material, check the derivation, then make up your mind.
I hope that you too feel that at times you’ve gained something from participating in discussions here.
Every time one prepares a lecture, one learns something. If nothing else, at least during the lecture where people have difficulties understanding your message.
Richard M says:
July 28, 2013 at 7:11 am
(greater frequency of el Nino – tendency to warming)
If longer cycles were less likely to produce this range of tilt angle -might this mean greater frequency of La Nina, period of cooling? Have you looked at this?
One generally looks into something that seems to have some chance of yielding a publishable result, so: no.
GeoLurking says:
July 28, 2013 at 6:36 pm
Then I switch to the weather guy in the next city since he seems to be more pragmatic and less stuck on himself.
Then go with what he says…
Ian H Australia says:
July 28, 2013 at 7:00 pm
Cycle 24 is closest to cycles 12 & 14 when I plotted them recently, Too high for 5.
So no Dalton Min yet…Why does cycle 25 appear so low on Davids diagram prediction. What are the reasons behind that very low cycle 25 prediction, Leif or anyone?
David’s prediction is hardly science, so not really worth discussing at length. Our own prediction of a low sunspot number [but not necessarily low solar activity] is slightly more scientific, but is also just speculation [albeit well founded].
Brent Walker says:
July 28, 2013 at 7:46 pm
This shows that EUV emissions to this point in cycle 24 are almost 40% down on cycle 23. By extrapolation using F10.7 data (which is often used as a proxy for EUV) it seems that EUV emissions so far in cycle 24 are only about 40% of those emissions in cycle 22. The changes in the suns output in this spectrum also change the temperature and thickness of the thermosphere and above.
Very true for the thermosphere and above, but that does not translate to similar changes at the surface.
The 6-7 fold increase in category 8+ earthquakes since 2004 suggests that the forces which cause the sun to change its orbit of the SSB
The sun is in free fall, as is the Earth, and neither feel any such forces.
Matthew R Marler says:
July 28, 2013 at 8:01 pm
I thought that the interaction was with stuff dissolved and suspended in the water. Clean water such as that found in swimming pools (and swimming pool reactors) hardly intercepts visible light at all
In the free ocean far from land the water is very clear and very clean, and pure water does attenuate the light, especially when you have lots of water, like five kilometer’s worth.
Ed Mertin says:
July 28, 2013 at 8:09 pm

Leif, I’ve never seen you comment much on this. Is there anything to more volcanic activity lower solar cycles and solar cycle minima? There are a few papers on the subject, as you probably know.
I have commented on this and there are papers debunking that idea. A good way to see that, is to see if there is more tectonic or seismic activity near solar events, and there are not.

I am predicting cooling but not anything spectacular.
As Leif says the sun is big and changes slowly. The earth is also big relative to our imaginations. It has taken 300 years to rise a degree and a half from the Maunder Minimum and it appears it took at least 400 years to dive down into that minimum via several of those major minimums occurring after 1200ad.
Plus we probably have ocean momentum still from that recovery that is going to take perhaps one or two hundred years of cooling to play out. That should dampen cooling progress over the first century of cooling. I suspect cooling a degree might take a hundred years even with some the variable ocean states lining up to temporarily rush it along. Sure something faster could occur like one of those Bond events but I am not sure how anyone might surmise when something like that occurs. Climate changes, always has. People have more intense experiences from normal year over year local weather changes (not to even speak of seasonal change) than they are likely to experience in their lifetime as general climate change.

vukcevic says:
July 29, 2013 at 12:40 am
You are not making distinction (on purpose or otherwise) between solar wind and CMEs flux ropes
On purpose, of course [everything I say is always on purpose]. Because it it completely irrelevant. First, most CMEs travel at or only slightly above solar wind speed [actually mostly dragged out by the solar wind]. A few travel faster, but are rare so don’t matter.
Second, The CME drapes itself around the blunt nose of a magnetosphere which, in a way, simply ‘bores’ a whole in the CME. So, the tiny part of the CME that encounters the magnetosphere simply becomes part of the pencil stretching away from Jupiter among the million others that are not attached to Jupiter. Therefore, any influence by Jupiter is of the order of 1/millionth of the energy and particles in all of the pencils stretching away from the Sun.

@ Leif: thanks for your response. Do you know if deToma has a website where I can see his work?

vukcevic says:
July 29, 2013 at 2:19 am
“Most CMEs travel at or only slightly above solar wind speed”
“you pays your money and you takes your choice”
http://www.leif.org/EOS/CME-Speeds.pdf :
“CMEs propagating in the interplanetary space, asymptotically approach the wind velocity due to the viscous drag high in the corona” They study 4315 CMEs, The most common projected speed [see their Figure 1] is 350 km/s. Corrected for projection the distribution peaks at 430 km/s.
I making tour choices it helps to know what you are talking about. You are a wee bit weak in that department.
jcarels says:
July 29, 2013 at 2:35 am
Do you know if deToma has a website where I can see his work?
No, she does not. I have her paper, but cannot release it as it was given to me in confidence.
meemoe_uk says:
July 29, 2013 at 2:00 am
(a) That SC25 will be about the same size as SC24. (b) tiny SC25
It is all guess work. Now that the polar fields have finally reversed, we should be able to follow their build-up. After a few years the new polar fields should stabilize and we can make a prediction, not before.

If the heliosphere has shrunk considerably during this lower activity cycle, (due to lower polar field strength?) have we seen ‘temperature changes,’ within the solar corona, extended corona or at the solar surface?
If the there are changes in pressure around the bubble, wouldn’t that be reflected in something getting hotter nearer the solar surface or coronal heating? If pressure is applied something heats up because of resistance? The differential in heat causing shears, preventing the spots from forming?

milodonharlani , Walker and Wilde on EUV.
This portion of the spectrum comprises 20% of the energy reaching the Earth. That portion reaching the surface penetrates to 300 meters in the oceans.
Mr. Wilde’s observation that ‘something is amiss’ is astute, beginning with TSI varying 0.1% over the SC.

Leif Svalgaard says:
July 28, 2013 at 8:05 am
Oliver is a crank and his ideas are baloney.
==============
Iron is the stable by product of both fission and fusion. It should be found in abundance in nth generation solar systems, as our own planet’s core demonstrates. It seem inconceivable that similar mass fractionation did not take place on the sun.
The sun should have a core of heavy elements overlaid by lighter elements such as helium and hydrogen, unless the gravitational force/pressure is sufficient to overpower the nuclear forces, causing the core elements to break down into neutrons. These neutrons would decay into hydrogen as they circulate away from the core and the nuclear force once again comes to dominate. From there the hydrogen would fuse into heavier elements. Either way, the sun ends up with a core that is not hydrogen with hydrogen fusion occurring at the boundary between the core and the outer hydrogen shell.

The suggestion that the Sun’s core is made of heavier elements than helium is intriguing. Does anyone have a quick precis (or a url) that provides proper physical evidence to back up this suggestion, or that refutes it?

Keith says:
The suggestion that the Sun’s core is made of heavier elements than helium is intriguing.
The entire Solar system comes from the same original material. So the Sun most likely contains more heavy elements than the rest of the Solar system. (Possibly including transuranics.)
The issue is more how these could end up as solids inside a star!

Bill Hunter says: July 29, 2013 at 12:36 am. “I am predicting cooling but not anything spectacular.
As Leif says the sun is big and changes slowly. The earth is also big relative to our imaginations. It has taken 300 years to rise a degree and a half from the Maunder Minimum and it appears it took at least 400 years to dive down into that minimum…”
I don’t know if you are correct or not; but, eyewitness accounts of the little ice age in Europe say that it came on suddenly – it started snowing one day and it didn’t stop.

Thresholds,secondary solar effects, the beginning state of the climate concepts are not appreciated by Leif, therefore it is hard for him to get his hands around the solar /climate connection. Also the climate is non linear(Lief deos not seem to appreciate that fact either) meaning the same forcings can give a different climatic result.
As I have said many times this prolonged solar minimum is going to be long enough in duration and quiet enough in degree of magnitude to change the climate. Will actual thresholds be met ?
Based on where we are at with solar cycle 24 thus far,and what I mentioned above it is much to premature to reach any conclusions about how much of an effect the sun will have on the climate,however the sun is going to have an effect ,in my opinion.
The solar irradiance changes versus temperature changes is but on tiny part of the solar /climate connection.

“Stephen Wilde says: July 28, 2013 at 11:26 pm
Brent Walker said: “I have been getting my head around upper atmospheric chemistry. It is very short wave-length photons (in the EUV, high energy range) that cause oxygen atoms to split and hence precipitate the creation of ozone and provide the heat that causes the stratosphere to rise in temperature with height. But because the ozone layer is relatively thick (due presumably to dynamic processes in relative equilibrium) short term changes in EUV emissions don’t change the level of ozone or the temperature very much. But long term changes in EUV emissions must change both ozone levels and stratospheric temperatures.”
I think this is the nub of the issue but there is a problem.
We see more EUV when the sun is active, EUV splits oxygen to create ozone and more ozone warms the stratosphere.
The trouble is that the mesosphere and stratosphere cooled when the sun was active (more EUV) and may now be warming with the quieter sun (less EUV).
A recent finding was that unexpectedly, between 2004 and 2007 ozone actually increased above 45 km (around the stratosphere / mesosphere boundary) despite less EUV from the quieter sun.”
Perhaps the chemistry is changing. Have you noticed the Noctilucent clouds that are being seen father South in greater amounts this year. Also a Nacreous cloud was photographed recently. These clouds are formed at very high altitudes by ice crystals and cold temperatures. They had not been seen until recent years. The photos are on Spaceweather.com.

CO2 emssions and temperatures have very weak to no correlations. In addition co2 follows the temperature change does not lead it, meaning co2 is a RESULT of the temperature change, not the cause of it.
The data shows this to be CLEARLY the case.
The AGW theory is asinine.

Keith,
The idea that the core of the sun is made of Iron is “explained” here. Take it for what you think it is worth. Leif would probably tell you (as he has others already) “Oliver is a crank”.
Of course, a lot of people thought that Einstein was a “crank” as well, so I guess you never really know….
http://archives.cnn.com/2002/TECH/space/07/23/sun.iron/

Spelling correction, “collation should be correlation as in the statistical relationship between two random variables or two sets of data. 🙂

Leif Svalgaard says:
Jim G says:
July 29, 2013 at 7:33 am
The sun and the earth are both traveling in straight lines through curved space/time and both “feel” the curvature, that is why they do what they do.
“If they did, they would not be moving in ‘straight lines’.”
But they are, check your General Relativity, it is space which is curved in a gravitational well and objects travel in straight lines within this curved space which appears to us as if they are traveling on a curved orbit or deflected line. For one who speaks so knowledgeably about physics I am surprised that you ‘forget’ this..

Leif Svalgaard says:
“So if the Sun thinks it is going straight then clearly it doesn’t feel the curvature.”
The sun does not think, the sun does. It must travel within the space/time in which it exists. You are thinking in Newtonian terms in which there is a “gravitational force” acting upon something rather than curvatures of space/time for all obects with mass. The sun like all massive bodies does obey the curvature, feel it or not, thinking or not, there is a relationship that exists.

Leif Svalgaard says:
July 29, 2013 at 11:53 am
“There is no such observations. Claims galore, but none convincing. The polarity of the core? No such thing.”
Astronomical Ephemeris Data show The planets in our solar system interact with each-other.
http://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/TYPE/ephemeris.html
And this is what the Data looks like plotted in relation to the Suns Activity (notice this is all based on observations and not statistics).
sunspot_area_1875-2040- ephemerides-de-102- Jupiter and earth
http://thetempestspark.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/sunspot_area_1875-2040-ephemerides-de-102-ej-dist-low.jpg
Sunspot Number 1749 – 2040 ephemerides-de-102 N= N1-N2 resonance Uranus, Jupiter and Neptune
http://thetempestspark.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/ssn-monthly-average-1749-2040-n-n1-n2.jpg
Planetary Resonance of Neptune, Uranus, Jupiter and Saturn derived from ephemerides de-102
http://thetempestspark.files.wordpress.com/2013/07/resonance.gif
And here is a model test I have been working on, which is unfinished, but matches sunspot numbers almost exactly. Worth looking at!!
Sunspot number estimate derived from ephemerides de-102 (Unfinished Model)
http://thetempestspark.files.wordpress.com/2013/07/unfinished-ssn.gif
The polarity of the core?
It’s an Idea, it’s not a claim, the Idea is basically described best as large magnetic planetary polarities interacting as we would expect them to interact under physics i.e. opposites poles attract and like poles repel each-other and looking for this process in the elliptical orbits of planetary bodies around the sun, the sun has a core, this core must have a north and south / negative and positive polarity and it must also be that any interactions should be clearly evident in planetary bodies as is the case with Uranus and Jupiters orbits, the timing of these planets are an exact match to the suns magnetic cycle including higher activity and greater sun spot development as well as solar minimum length.
The timing of the Jupiter-Uranus coupled system matches the distorted magnetic activity on the sun and is further highlighted by the evidence that; when Uranus is perturbed by the orbit of Neptune a remarkable change takes place on the sun. We have empirical observational evidence of this, and it is well noted by the astronomical community. as I’ve attempted to show in this image 1650-2012 http://thetempestspark.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/gravitation-perturbation-of-neptune-on-the-orbit-of-uranus1.jpg?w=900
You can view an orbital animation of the timing of the Jupiter-Uranus coupled system which matches solar activity here: http://thetempestspark.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/3-0.gif

Retired engineer John said:
“Perhaps the chemistry is changing. Have you noticed the Noctilucent clouds that are being seen father South in greater amounts this year. Also a Nacreous cloud was photographed recently. These clouds are formed at very high altitudes by ice crystals and cold temperatures. They had not been seen until recent years”
I think the chemistry of the upper atmosphere is indeed changing.
Solar variations appear to have different effects at different heights and noctilucent clouds are between 80km and 100km up whereas the observed increase in ozone since the sun became quieter appears to be around 45km..
I would think that the weak sun is making it colder at the height of noctilucent clouds but warmer at lower levels by producing more ozone at 45km especially above the poles so that the tropopause height above the poles has fallen relative to the height at the equator thus forcing the jets and climate zones more equatorward.
The resulting increase in global cloudiness is reducing solar energy getting into the oceans to fuel the climate system but it is a very slow process due to oceanic thermal inertia.
All we see at present is weaker El Ninos relative to La Ninas and cessation of the earlier warming.

l’ve got lucky with the weather and in the next few days we will get the a split in the Polar jet like what l’ve been talking about. lf you click onto the Stormsurf global jet stream map and go to the +150hr forecast. You will see just the sort of pattern am talking about. Now what l would like to see is this jet pattern turning up during the winter and seeing what we end up getting.
Cold and snowy weather over large areas of the NH is my guess.

“Stephen Wilde says: July 29, 2013 at 2:31 pm
…so that the tropopause height above the poles has fallen relative to the height at the equator thus forcing the jets and climate zones more equatorward.”
I have wondered what the lowering of the atmosphere is doing to the jet stream. As the Earth turns the atmosphere is heated and increases in height; when the Earth turns away from the Sun, the atmosphere shrinks and this causes the air to rush downhill. This adds rotational energy to the atmosphere and helps power the jet stream. When the height of the atmosphere decreases and the energy heating the upper atmosphere decreases, less rotational energy is going to cause changes in the jet stream. With time we will see how much effect this will have.

Leif,
You wrote: It is all guess work. Now that the polar fields have finally reversed, we should be able to follow their build-up. After a few years the new polar fields should stabilize and we can make a prediction, not before.
According to wso.stanford.edu, the reversal of the fields of the north pole region took place around June 1, 2012, but the reversal of the fields of the south pole region has not yet happened. On the contrary, it seems the reversal of the south will take some time. How can you say that both polar fields have finally reversed?

Thanks Leif and Peter B 🙂
Some of Manuel’s ideas may indeed be elegant. However, if the physical basis of it is bunkum, then it’s back to the drawing board.
Seems that there’s plenty still to learn about our solar system and its visitors, and there’s nothing wrong with making observations, looking for patterns and hypothesising on a physical mechanism or mechanisms. Continuing down the same path when that physical mechanism is plain wrong, though, seems to be the sign of somebody seeking validation of a pet idea rather than someone seeking enlightenment.
Livingston and Penn don’t have everything mapped out yet, but at least there’s a posited physical mechanism behind their work which hasn’t been disproved thus far. Like many observed factors in the solar system, it seems likely to me that the observed values of umbral intensity and magnetic field will follow a curve of some description rather than a straight line. Time will tell where the next inflection point will be, and therefore what the visible average sunspot number for cycle 25 may turn out to be, but at the moment they seem to have identified an important driver of the process.

Leif Svalgaard says:
“In another thread a commenter said that there are certain complications in GR for ‘extended bodies’ and that solar activity was an effect of GR. You want to go down that road?”
Not sure but can you cite me a source, I did not see that one? Could be interesting though it sounds more than a little out of the box.
Thanks,
Jim G
PS: You should never accuse others of cheap shots, I know, I know, as you told me once before, “no need to stoop to your level”, one of your best comments, ever.

Thanks Leif!
However I prefer the filtered graph of http://daltonsminima.altervista.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Mfield-aggiornato-ciclo-24.bmp. Here, it can clearly be seen that the reversal of the fields of the north pole region took place around the June 1, 2012 and that the value of the fields of the south pole region is still positive (latest value: + 12). So, the reversal of the south pole did not take place yet.
Looking to the graphs of http://www.leif.org/research/WSO-Polar-Fields-since-2003.png, I can only deduce:
– that the unfiltered graph of the northern hemisphere has definitely crossed the zero line;
– that the unfiltered graph of the southern hemisphere has crossed the zero line, but not definitely.
I don’t know which information can be taken from the N + S line. The N – S line has crossed the zero line for the second time, but it gives no information about the fields of the south pole region seperate from the northern fields. That’s why I prefer the filtered graph which gives clear information about the reversal of both hemispheres separately. Do you agree with this view? I have not much expertise in this matter.

rikgheysens says:
July 30, 2013 at 7:17 am
I don’t know which information can be taken from the N + S line.
It is very important because we can use that information to say something about the distribution of the field around the pole, see http://www.leif.org/research/The%20Strength%20of%20the%20Sun's%20Polar%20Fields.pdf

Sparks says:
July 30, 2013 at 12:24 pm
Leif, Just one more point. Just what exactly would you expect to line up?
It is your graph, you tell me what is special about it and what I’m supposed to see. I don’t see anything as it is.

Leif Svalgaard says:
July 29, 2013 at 9:49 am
Carla says:
July 29, 2013 at 5:36 am
If the heliosphere has shrunk considerably …
What the heliosphere does has no effect on what the Sun does. So, the answers to your quest are all ‘no’
what about changes in length of rotation time(s) for the sun in this low activity period.
Generally, magnetic fields on the Sun slow down the differential rotation ever so slightly: http://www.leif.org/research/ast10867.pdf “the more magnetic the Sun is, the more rigid is its rotation.”
—
Well you know me Dr. S., had to go search alittle and check back with you.
INTERNAL-CYCLE VARIATION OF SOLAR DIFFERENTIAL
ROTATION
http://arxiv.org/pdf/1305.3970.pdf
K. J. LI1,2, J. L. XIE1,3, X. J. SHI1,3
1National Astronomical Observatories/Yunnan Observatory, CAS, Kunming
650011, China
2Key Laboratory of Solar Activity, National Astronomical Observatories,
CAS, Beijing 100012, China
3Graduate School of CAS, Beijing 100863, China
17 May 2013
Abstrct. The latitudinal distributions of the yearly mean rotation rates
measured respectively by Suzuki in 1998 and 2012 and Pulkkinen & Tuominen
in 1998 are utilized to investigate internal-cycle variation of solar differential
rotation. The rotation rate at the solar Equator seems to decrease
since cycle 10 onwards…
Contrasting the solar rotation rate of cycles 23 and 24
http://iopscience.iop.org/1742-6596/440/1/012018/pdf/1742-6596_440_1_012018.pdf
H. M. Antia1 and Sarbani Basu2
1 Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Homi Bhabha Road, Mumbai 400005, India
2 Department of Astronomy, Yale University, P. O. Box 20801, New Haven CT 06520-8101,
U. S. A.
Journal of Physics: Conference Series 440 (2013) 012018
2. Results
In Fig. 1 we show the change in the latitude-independent part of the solar rotation rate at three
different depths. The latitude-independent part of the rotation rate was obtained by inverting
the splitting coefficient a1. The changes were obtained by subtracting the average rotation rate
from the rotation rate at each epoch. Note that there appears to be a solar-cycle related change,
with the fastest rotation at the cycle 23 solar maximum and the slowest during the two minima.
Also note that the rotation rate is slower during cycle 24 than it was in cycle 23, in particular
the solar rotation rate as shown by the latest data point which is close to the cycle 24 maximum
is lower than the rate at cycle 23 maximum, at least in the outer layers in the Sun. The data
are too noisy in deeper layers to determine whether or not the rotation rate in the deeper layers
changed too. The results with GONG data show some large variations at the cycle 23 maximum
which the MDI data do not, that could be due to some systematic differences introduced during
the upgrade of GONG instruments. Although, is comparable to errorbars at individual
points, if we take average over neighbouring points the value will be significant. Further, the
changes in the latitude-independent part of the solar rotation rate correlate well with the 10.7
cm flux, which is a proxy for solar activity. This can be seen in Fig. 2…

Leif Svalgaard says:
July 29, 2013 at 9:49 am
Carla says:
July 29, 2013 at 5:36 am
If the heliosphere has shrunk considerably …
What the heliosphere does has no effect on what the Sun does. So, the answers to your quest are all ‘no’
—
Not so fast Dr. S.
The galaxy is big. Bigger than the sun and its solar system. The spiral arm we reside in rotates, has magnetic field lines of unbeliveaable proportions. This just might create the scenario for waves..
How about if a magneto WAVE roles through the Local solar neighborhood, oooh let’s say every 8 to 14 years and just lifts that whole heliocurrent sheet up or down.
The heliosphere just doesn’t have a southern hemisphere offset in the up wind direction (dent in the nose) but also discovered by IBEX an offset in the helio tail as well… That inward, outward IMF may have an opening.
IBEX spacecraft images the heliotail — the last region of solar system’s boundary to be seen — revealing an unexpected structure
San Antonio — July 10, 2013
http://www.swri.org/9what/releases/2013/ibex-heliotail.htm#.Ufhel04o6Uk
…”We’re seeing a heliotail that’s much flatter and broader than expected, with a slight tilt,” says McComas. “Imagine sitting on a beach ball. The ball gets flattened by the external forces and its cross section is oval instead of circular. That’s the effect the external magnetic field appears to be having on the heliotail.”…

Carla says:
July 30, 2013 at 5:55 pm
Not so fast Dr. S.
It seems that a true believer cannot be shaken from her tree.

Carla says:
July 30, 2013 at 6:23 pm
Around here we might call it ‘rocking the boat.’
Most of the time you just get wet.