Guest essay by David Archibald
Recently, a number of newspaper articles spoke of the potential of cycle 25 to be “Weakest Solar Cycle In Almost 200 Years”. “We’re in a new age of solar physics,” said David Hathaway of NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.
Here is a collection of solar measurements that illustrate the current state of cycle 24, as well as provide insight into cycle 25.
Figure 1: Oulu Neutron Count 1964 – 2013
This graph suggests that it may be a further six months or more to solar cycle maximum. Neutron count tends to follow the solar cycle with up to a one year lag so it may be another 18 months before we get to the minimum neutron count for Solar Cycle 24.
Figure 2: Oulu Neutron Count for Solar Cycles 20 to 24 aligned on month of minimum
In terms of neutron count, Solar Cycle 24 isn’t much weaker than the previous four cycles at a similar stage of development.
Figure 3: Ap Index 1932 – 2013
The Ap Planetary Magnetic Index has now spent the last couple of years below the levels of previous solar cycle minima, including an all-time record low for the data set.
Figure 4: Heliospheric Current Sheet Tilt Angle
Solar minimum is marked by the flattening of the heliospheric current sheet tilt angle. This tends to be quite sharp. Solar maxima are a lot broader with the current maximum the broadest of the instrument record. There is no indication yet from this measure that solar maximum is over.
Figure 5: Monthly F10.7 Flux 1948 – 2013
The F10.7 flux shows that Solar Cycle 24 is quite a weak cycle relative to the ones that have preceded it in the instrumental record.
Figure 6: F10.7 Flux of Solar Cycles 19 to 24 aligned on month of minimum
In terms of F10.7 flux, Solar Cycle 24 peaked two years ago. 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.
Figure 7: Interplanetary Magnetic Field 1966 – 2013
The 1970s cooling period had a weak and flat interplanetary magnetic field over Solar Cycle 20. Solar Cycle 24 could produce a similar result with a slightly lower average value over the cycle.
Figure 8: Solar Cycle 24 sunspot count relative to the Dalton Minimum
All things considered, the current solar cycle is tracking Solar Cycle 5, the first half of the Dalton Minimum, fairly closely.
Figure 9: Predicting the year of maximum of Solar Cycle 25
Just over two years ago, Richard Altrock of the National Solar Observatory at Sacramento Peak published the latest version of his green corona emissions diagram.
He stated at the time that the progression of the Solar Cycle 24 was 40% slower than the average of the previous two cycles. That would make it 15.5 years long. Given that the cycle started in December 2008 and solar maximum is in 2013, that makes the Solar Cycle 24 fall time 11.5 years.
Figure 9 shows the strong relationship between fall time and the time from maximum to maximum. Based on that relationship, the Solar Cycle 24 fall time derives a period of 17 years from the Solar Cycle 24 maximum to the Solar Cycle 25 maximum – putting it in 2030.
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.
Leif Svalgaard says: to
Brent Walker says:
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.”
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. But then that is only Einstein’s opinion, you know General Relativity.
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?
Leif Svalgaard says:
July 28, 2013 at 11:44 pm
Hope your family enjoyed the City.
I did read your Nagoya 2012 ppt presentation, “The Long-Term Variation of Solar Activity”. Thanks.
This is what made me choose the word “enforce”. Maybe not the best choice.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/09/13/paper-demonstrates-solar-activity-was-at-a-grand-maxima-in-the-late-20th-century/
Leif Svalgaard says:
September 16, 2012 at 7:16 pm
Crispin in Waterloo says:
September 16, 2012 at 6:43 pm
The politics is then reduced to managing the self-promoters or trouble makers.
Good luck with your quest.
——
Luckily, everybody in the sunspot community is on-board for this re-assessment and we are making good progress. There are only a few trouble makers. The biggest problem is our ‘users’, the people that use the sunspot numbers and solar activity indices. They do not want any improvements if these upset their pet theories and correlations. They talk about ‘ironing boards’ and other assorted nonsense. Our solution to that is to for all sunspot-counters and index-producers to stand together, then after a while the recalcitrant users will begin to look silly [some are already in that boat – to wit some of the hand-wringers on this very blog]] and quietly be converted. We can also use the ‘name and shame’ mechanism which can be quite effective.
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!
Dr S, I’m sure many here appreciate your patience answering questions. I wouldn’t have the patience…
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.
Leif Svalgaard says:
July 28, 2013 at 1:40 pm
“We are not completely in the dark…”
No argument here. My point is, simply, we don’t see the whole picture, yet. We won’t live long enough to see it either. But, we’re still making the best evidence-based guesses we can. And those guesses are ever evolving as new evidence appears. Solar physics is very exciting right now, because the sun is behaving in a new way (to us) and we have much better ways of studying it since the last Minimum.
Leif Svalgaard says:
July 28, 2013 at 1:40 pm
“The data we do have suggest that even if you like that chain of inference better, it is not solidly supported by the data…”
True enough. I wasn’t asserting that was the whole picture or even the correct one, but it was certainly a better inference chain than man-made CO2 emissions are the only significant forcing in global temperature change. Thanks for the links. I do need to catch up on the newest evidence.
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.
Also climate can change very abruptly when thresholds are reached ,it is not a slow gradual change, when the climate goes from climatic regime to another one. Although it is slow when the climate is in the same climatic regime.
Ice core data shows this to be clearly the case.
In addition the atmosphere is INTERCONNECTED, meaning a change in one part will have an effect on all of the other parts.
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This situation we presently have gives all of us a great opportunity to express are views and see which ones will prove to be correct. I think it is going to become pretty clear before this decade is out which of us are correct and which of us are wrong.
As long as the sun cooperates and stays in a deep prolonged solar minimum, which I expect it will.
“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.
“Steele says:
July 29, 2013 at 9:13 am
No argument here. My point is, simply, we don’t see the whole picture, yet. We won’t live long enough to see it either.”
Well said. And as to that 0.1% TSI (Leif) change from max to min “variability” having no “effect” on temperatures and climate? Rediculous.
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.
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.”
ferd berple says:
July 29, 2013 at 7:17 am
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 fusion takes place throughout the core, but mostly near the center where the temperature and density are highest; the result of the fusion is helium.
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’.
Keith says:
July 29, 2013 at 7:58 am
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?
We can measure the ‘molecular weight’ and hence the composition of the material within the Sun because it determines the speed of sound which we can measure accurately using seismic method [just as we can do on the Earth while prospecting for oil]. A short note on this:
http://www.leif.org/research/Helioseismology%20and%20the%20Helium%20Abundance.pdf
milodonharlani says:
July 29, 2013 at 8:18 am
“Luckily, everybody in the sunspot community is on-board for this re-assessment and we are making good progress. There are only a few trouble makers. The biggest problem is our ‘users’, the people that use the sunspot numbers and solar activity indices. They do not want any improvements if these upset their pet theories and correlations. They talk about ‘ironing boards’ and other assorted nonsense. Our solution to that is to for all sunspot-counters and index-producers to stand together, then after a while the recalcitrant users will begin to look silly [some are already in that boat – to wit some of the hand-wringers on this very blog]] and quietly be converted. We can also use the ‘name and shame’ mechanism which can be quite effective.”
The problem is not the producers of the record, but the users who because of their agenda refuse to drop the flawed older records.
Steele says:
July 29, 2013 at 9:13 am
but it was certainly a better inference chain than man-made CO2 emissions are the only significant forcing in global temperature change.
One does not contradict one false claim by pushing another false claim.
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/
Donald L. Klipstein
Weather this jet stream pattern is new or not is not what will be important.
lts how often it will turn up and last is what will be important.
Get a blocking high sitting around for a week or two and you end up with a cold spell of weather. But if it hangs around for years on end then you are on you’re way to a ice age.
PeterB in Indianapolis says:
July 29, 2013 at 10:24 am
Surely if such a core existed, it would be in plasma state rather than solid, as hypothesized here.
milodonharlani says:
July 29, 2013 at 10:47 am
Surely if such a core existed, it would be in plasma state rather than solid, as hypothesized here.
It is simpler than that. We can calculate how many neutrinos would be released by fusion of Hydrogen and the calculated number closely matches what is observed [we can now observe all three flavors].
Leif Svalgaard says:
July 29, 2013 at 10:56 am
To paraphrase a late, great physicist, observations & rational inferences therefrom trump hypotheses, no matter how elegant.
I was looking over the Greenwich Sun spot Area numbers, it seems to me that solar cycle 24 has the lowest sun spot area on record so far, As sunspots become smaller it is being well represented in the sun spot record by area.
Leif Svalgaard says:
July 28, 2013 at 2:04 pm
“That sort of kills the idea that sunspots are due to [or strongly modulated by] planetary tides [or other more exotic causes]”
I’m interested to know, do solar physicists in general believe that there is NO interaction between the Sun and the planetary system?.
The planets in our solar system interact with each-other, and the solar system in its entirety interacts with the sun, personally I like the Idea of the polarity of the suns core interacting with Jupiter and Uranus with Neptune perturbing Uranus’ orbit strengthening and weakening the suns dynamo as direct empirical observations suggest. There are clear differences between using observations to confirm an idea to that of the use of statistical models by adding or removing harmonics to prove or disprove a collation.
I would also step away from any statistical work that claims to rebut an astronomical fact that the Sun and the planets have an ‘integral relationship’.
Spelling correction, “collation should be correlation as in the statistical relationship between two random variables or two sets of data. 🙂
Sparks says:
July 29, 2013 at 11:38 am
I’m interested to know, do solar physicists in general believe that there is NO interaction between the Sun and the planetary system?.
Generally, yes. But you have to be specific: the Sun does have some influence on the planets [e.g. creates magnetic storms and aurorae], but not the other way around.
The planets in our solar system interact with each-other, and the solar system in its entirety interacts with the sun, personally I like the Idea of the polarity of the suns core interacting with Jupiter and Uranus with Neptune perturbing Uranus’ orbit strengthening and weakening the suns dynamo as direct empirical observations suggest.
There is no such observations. Claims galore, but none convincing. The polarity of the core? No such thing.
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..
Jim G says:
July 29, 2013 at 12:50 pm
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.
So if the Sun thinks it is going straight then clearly it doesn’t feel the curvature.
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.