Sunspot count is virtually unchanged from last month :
It seems possible that we’ve seen the double peak, and it will be downhill after this.
A similar status quo in radio flux – little change from last month.
The Ap magnetic index dropped 4 units from last month, suggesting a slowing in the solar dynamo.
On August 1st, solar scientist David Hathaway updated his prediction page but the text is identical to last month – no change in the forecast.
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.
About the only significant even in the last month is that the solar polar fields have begun their reversal, indicating we are at “solar max”, which seems like a misnomer given the low activity observed at the moment. That’s why I think we may have seen the “double peak” and it is downhill from here.
Solar Polar Fields – Mt. Wilson and Wilcox Combined -1966 to Present
Leif Svalgaard – Click the pic to view at sourceWatch the progress on the WUWT solar reference page
vukcevic says:
August 13, 2013 at 12:04 pm
You may not observe any sunspots at location at the time of observations of Dalton Minimum, and even if were some, they will be obscured by frequent cloud cover
So now you are suggesting that the cause of Grand Minima is frequent cloud cover. So, climate is controlling the Sun [or at least our record of it]. More ‘fertile imagination’ it seems.
Leif Svalgaard says:
August 13, 2013 at 11:56 am
But back to the issue. You predict that the maximum of cycle 26 will occur only two years after the maximum of cycle 25. so when will the minimum be? halfway between the two maxima? in 2024? that gives SC25 only one year to descend from maximum to minimum. You are stretching things a bit too much here. But such is the lot of a pseudo-scientist.
I am not scientist, just an ordinary Joe Blog, looking at the data, I don’t predict anything, I am not in such business, I am just reporting to what my equation extrapolates to.
It is exactly what happened at the time of the Dalton Minimum if transposed to the Polar Fields few years earlier as anyone can see here, by comparing two
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/PF.htm
You may not observe any sunspots at location at the time of observations of Dalton Minimum, and even if were some, they will be obscured by frequent cloud cover (Svensmark effect)
I do not know what might happen or not, I think neither you.
Let me say it again:
In 2003 (published January 2004) I devised a formula, extrapolating to the unusually low solar activity in the late 2020s, which is now widely accepted as a likely scenario, but then ridiculed by the most eminent solar scientists (from NASA to Stanford) with lone exception of a British academic also a winner of the Hale Prize, awarded by the Solar Physics Division of the American Astronomical Society.
And that is as the current state is, you may not like it, you may wriggle back and fourth to get out of the hole you fell in (further up the thread).
vukcevic says:
August 13, 2013 at 12:33 pm
In 2003 (published January 2004) I devised a formula, extrapolating to the unusually low solar activity in the late 2020s, which is now widely accepted as a likely scenario
Repeating stuff does not make it true. The result of the formula [e.g. sign of the field and timing of reversals and its behavior back in time] is not accepted by anybody. That cycle 24 would be small was predicted by my little grandson [then five years old] when he saw [an earlier version of] http://sidc.be/sunspot-index-graphics/wolfaml.php
You went [predictably] quiet on this:
Why not ask Ilya Usoskin or Kalevi Mursula? Cycle 4a lasted only 3 years
A bit of honesty would do you good. If you would care to check, they say 7 years. And their 4a cycle has already been discredited and gone the way of the Dodo, e.g. http://www.mps.mpg.de/homes/natalie/PAPERS/cycle4.pdf “Taken together, the evidence from these various tests strongly suggests that no cycle was missed and that the official sunspot cycle numbering and parameters are correct”
But back to the issue. You predict that the maximum of cycle 26 will occur only two years after the maximum of cycle 25. so when will the minimum be? halfway between the two maxima? in 2024? that gives SC25 only one year to descend from maximum to minimum. You are stretching things a bit too much here. But such is the lot of a pseudo-scientist. Sooner or later, reality catches up with him. Most of the time he will ignore that and invent some excuse. What will be yours?
Leif Svalgaard says:
August 13, 2013 at 12:23 pm
“You may not observe any sunspots at location at the time of observations of Dalton Minimum, and even if were some, they will be obscured by frequent cloud cover”
So now you are suggesting that the cause of Grand Minima is frequent cloud cover. So, climate is controlling the Sun [or at least our record of it]. More ‘fertile imagination’ it seems.
Now, now, doc, you do not want readers to get wrong impression of your ways, do you now?
What happened to reference to the Svensmark effect?
Correct quote is:
“You may not observe any sunspots at location at the time of observations of Dalton Minimum, and even if were some, they will be obscured by frequent cloud cover (Svensmark effect)”
and here is the relevant graph:
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/PF.htm
a good case study.
I think it is best if I decline any further conversation until you mend your ways.
vukcevic says:
August 13, 2013 at 12:33 pm
I am not scientist, just an ordinary Joe Blog, looking at the data, I don’t predict anything, I am not in such business, I am just reporting to what my equation extrapolates to.
It is exactly what happened at the time of the Dalton Minimum if transposed to the Polar Fields few years earlier as anyone can see here, by comparing two
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/PF.htm
You may not observe any sunspots at location at the time of observations of Dalton Minimum, and even if were some, they will be obscured by frequent cloud cover
So Joe Blog suggests that there were two solar maxima [during the Dalton Minimum], one in 1809 and one in 1811, but the spots were not seen because of clouds…
A much more likely explanation is simply that the formula is wrong and it is all hogwash, right?
I am still happy with Willis and his Thermostat Hypothesis. What Sun and CO2 worshippers seem to miss is that neither, within current bounds of variability, can do much to change the LT temps.
So long as the equatorial timing Willis identified is not taken, by CO2/TSI/Unicorn Farts, beyond the 6am to 6pm limit then arguing about 10ths of a degree is just that. 15C +/- 0.3 over 30 years. Jeez people, get a life, if I could design a system that would control the ST of a planet to those tolerances then I might want my Nobel Prize at some point. Now!
vukcevic says:
August 13, 2013 at 12:49 pm
Now, now, doc, you do not want readers to get wrong impression of your ways, do you now?
Have you no shame?
Correct quote is:
“You may not observe any sunspots at location at the time of observations of Dalton Minimum, and even if were some, they will be obscured by frequent cloud cover (Svensmark effect)”
Hoyt&Schatten retrieved all sunspot observations from back then and record the number of spots on each day [as seen by the combined effort of 5-7 observers]. Here is what they found http://www.leif.org/research/GSN-Daily-1809-1811.png As you can see of the 730 days there were no observations on only 17 days [and all in 1809]. You are suggesting that the solar maximum in 1809 fall on those 17 days [like the British saying that ‘summer fell last Tuesday’].
I think it is best if I decline any further conversation until you mend your ways
I wish that would come to pass. As you are wasting everybody’s time here.
I remember that as a child I was fascinated by the planets and stars, but after hearing the lessons, they always seem so distant and cold to me. I never thought that they could hold a key to our life here on earth. The 2 graphs here
http://blogs.24.com/henryp/2012/10/02/best-sine-wave-fit-for-the-drop-in-global-maximum-temperatures/
represent almost all of my data on maximum temps. Note that an a-c curve consists of 4 quadrants, for each full wave. In my best fit, I saw that each quadrant has a time span of about 22 years, on average. In the paper from that I quoted frequently from William Arnold, he suggests that it is mainly the position of the two planets Saturn and Uranus that can be directly linked to the 22 year solar cycle. I looked at this again. At first the dates did not make sense.
Observe from my a-c curves:
1) change of sign: (from warming to cooling and vice versa)
1904, 1950, 1995, 2039
2) maximum speed of cooling or warming = turning points
1927, 1972, 2016
Then I put the dates of the various positions of Uranus and Saturn next to it:
1) we had/have Saturn synodical with Uranus (i.e. in line with each other)
1897, 1942, 1988, 2032
2) we had complete 180 degrees opposition between Saturn and Uranus
1919, 1965, 2009,
In all 7 of my own results & projections, there is an exact 7 or 8 years delay, before “the push/pull ” occurs, that switches the dynamo inside the sun, changing the sign….!!!! Conceivably the gravitational pull of these two planets has some special lob sided character, causing the actual switch. Perhaps Uranus’ apparent side ward motion (inclination of equator by 98 degrees) works like a push-pull trigger. Either way, there is a clear correlation. Other synodical cycles of planets probably have some interference as well either delaying or extending the normal cycle time a little bit. So it appears William Arnold report was right after all….(“On the Special Theory of Order”, 1985).
Leif , this cycle is going to be as weak or weaker then solar cycle 5, and then you will see how solar climatic relationships really do correlate, if the duration of time and the degree of magnitude of solar variation reaches certain critical sustainable parameters..
Then again I don’t think you subscribe to thresholds or that the climate can change abruptly or that the climate system is non linear. In addition I think you under estimate solar variability.
Salvatore Del Prete says:
August 13, 2013 at 1:14 pm
Then again I don’t think you subscribe to thresholds or that the climate can change abruptly or that the climate system is non linear. In addition I think you under estimate solar variability.
You ‘think’ this and you ‘think’ that. You are allowed to have your own opinion, but without anything to back it up, it is just opinion, and I ‘think’ we have seen enough of your opinion to know now what it is.
Leif, why do you want to surpress opinions?
Why do you take offense to those of us who see it differently then yourself?
I named some highly regarded scientist the other day that do not see it your way. Not that they are smarter then you but they do disagree with you, like I do.
How you can say our thinking is not valid to try to balance out your opinion, I fail to understand.
I welcome your opinion and all of the opinions.
I can’t understand why you want to have everyone agree with you, and you keep repeating your thoughts over and over and over again. It is not just me.
I would find it very boring if everyone agreed with me.
You , or for that matter no one in the field of climatalogy can back up their opinions. It is all spin and if one spins it hard enough you can make it appear to be correct.
I can make any theory seem correct if I spin it, even the AGW theory.
What I am trying to say is we may have the once in a lifetime oportunity (this decade)to sort much of this out given the prolonged solar minimum versus co2 increases, and the resulting climate as a consequence of all of this.
My thoughts if anything can be backed up more then the AGW theory which is failing on all cylinders as this decade proceeds. They can not or I should say have failed so far to back up any claims they have made thus far.
Leif is also tryng to say the forecast made by these charts is not the real froecast that had been made, yet the charts show the same to high projections month after month for solar cycle 24.
My conclusion the projections have been to high.
Leif Svalgaard says:
August 13, 2013 at 1:13 pm
vukcevic says:
August 13, 2013 at 12:49 pm
Now, now, doc, you do not want readers to get wrong impression of your ways, do you now?
Have you no shame?
…………..
That is good for a laugh. You shouldn’t be making up things
“So, climate is controlling the Sun.”
in defence of your failure
and then you have a cheek to say: “Have you no shame?”
I don’t really care what Hoyt & Schatten retrieved or not, in the bottom graph
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/PF.htm
is monthly data from SIDC.
Further more I have no idea what Hoyt & Schatten were doing during Napoleonic wars in Europe, but many contemporary records talk of incessant rain and muddy battlefields.
http://www.elke-rehder.de/images/Antiquariat-DGMS/DGMS0146.JPG
Vukcevic has shown: His equation is good, polar fields reverse, repeat of Dalton minimum (214 =2x 107 years, yet another Vukcevic equation )
Dr. Svalgaard badly failed to prove any of his assertions and resorts to. “So, climate is controlling the Sun.” selective and trncated quote in defence of his failure, followed by impertinent “Have you no shame?”
I make that
Vukcevic 3 (three) : Dr. Svalgaard -1 (minus one)
Off you go to a battle where you have some chance of winning, you lost this one rather badly!
Salvatore Del Prete says:
August 13, 2013 at 1:32 pm
Leif, why do you want to suppress opinions?
I object to opinions about my opinion and my person, like “Leif, you do not understand…”, “Leif, you have no clue”, “Leif, you know nothing about climate…”, “Leif is not being honest…”, “Leif is also trying to say …”, etc, etc.
I named some highly regarded scientist the other day that do not see it your way.
Some of those people are not scientists and some are not ‘highly regarded’.
I opine on things I know something about and correct flim-flam [Vuk is a sterling example, Geoff would be another, and you know the rest of the list] in those areas. And, as they say, I ‘do not suffer fools gladly’.
vukcevic says:
August 13, 2013 at 2:05 pm
I don’t really care what Hoyt & Schatten retrieved or not
Typical of a pseudo-scientist to not care about data that doesn’t fit. The fact is that out of the 730 days in 1809 and 1811 there were observations by FLAUGERGUES, HERSCHEL, HEINRICH, FRITSCH, BUGGE, GRUITHUISEN, ENDE, BODE, and LINDENER, covering all these 730 days except 17. That is the solar data we have. I consider that disproof of your formula and of your claim that the two solar maxima you predicted [1809, 1811] could not be observed because of clouds. The Svensmark ‘effect’ would actually not explain anything as that should operate at solar minimum [most cosmic rays] rather than at maximum.
Leif Svalgaard says: August 13, 2013 at 1:13 pm
As you can see of the 730 days there were no observations on only 17 days [and all in 1809].
Only 17 days ?! presumably due to cloudy sky, were this observations made from the Atakama desert, or Europe was at the time of the Dalton minimum and the Napoleonic wars a land of ever lasting sunshine ?
vukcevic says:
August 13, 2013 at 2:20 pm
Only 17 days ?! presumably due to cloudy sky, were this observations made from the Atakama desert, or Europe was at the time of the Dalton minimum and the Napoleonic wars a land of ever lasting sunshine ?
From the muddy locations at Viviers, France; London, England; Munich, Germany; Copenhagen, Denmark; Celle, Germany; Berlin, Germany; Glatz, Poland.
Leif Svalgaard says:
August 13, 2013 at 2:19 pm
…………….
You are resorting to a nonsensical logic again:
Svalgaard hypothesis: Rmax =0.7x PFmax.
PF estimated at [abs (-2.2)] (see bottom graph http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/PF.htm )
According to Svalgaard hypothesis Rmax =0.7 x 2.2 = 1.54
Or SC max =1.5 (one point five !)
And you call that Solar cycle’s Max !?
Another dismal failure on your part, ignoring to account for your own (admittedly up to now good) hypothesis.
Vukcevic 4 : Svalgaard -2 (minus two)
Man stop digging, …..quicksand !!! I am going, leave you to it, don’t whish to be responsible for ruination of your reputation.
vukcevic says:
August 13, 2013 at 2:39 pm
Or SC max =1.5 (one point five !)
And you call that Solar cycle’s Max !?
Perhaps your PFs are just wrong.
Now you have gone quiet on what matters:
Why not ask Ilya Usoskin or Kalevi Mursula? Cycle 4a lasted only 3 years
A bit of honesty would do you good. If you would care to check, they say 7 years. And their 4a cycle has already been discredited and gone the way of the Dodo, e.g. http://www.mps.mpg.de/homes/natalie/PAPERS/cycle4.pdf “Taken together, the evidence from these various tests strongly suggests that no cycle was missed and that the official sunspot cycle numbering and parameters are correct”
But back to the issue. You predict that the maximum of cycle 26 will occur only two years after the maximum of cycle 25. so when will the minimum be? halfway between the two maxima? in 2024? that gives SC25 only one year to descend from maximum to minimum. You are stretching things a bit too much here. But such is the lot of a pseudo-scientist. Sooner or later, reality catches up with him. Most of the time he will ignore that and invent some excuse. What will be yours?
I have studied this problem have failed in one way or other, perhaps you can show me one that have worked having error bars and significance [and sound analysis – e.g. no cherry picking] that is compelling.
Then look at the height and density in the exosphere. Known to vary quite a bit from solar cycle to solar cycle. The smallest extent of the exosphere in the space era was the 23/24 minimum. That is direct experimental evidence of some influence from the variance in short wavelength radiation.
denniswingo says:
August 13, 2013 at 2:58 pm
Then look at the height and density in the exosphere. Known to vary quite a bit from solar cycle to solar cycle. The smallest extent of the exosphere in the space era was the 23/24 minimum. That is direct experimental evidence of some influence from the variance in short wavelength radiation.
And of the ionosphere even below the exosphere. But those are not involved in climate apart from possibly being influenced a bit by upward travelling waves from the troposphere.
Leif
I don’t think that there is one single element that is compelling, one way or another in this equation. The solar/terrestrial interface has dozens of variables and if you look through geologic history it is clear that those that many think are dominant, whether it is milankovitch, CO2, solar radiation, all have counter examples of when they did not dominate.
Usually in the engineering world that means that there are several lesser influences that interact in unexpected ways against each other. This is why Hansen’s empirical relationship between CO2 and air temperature doesn’t work. It is also why solar variation at 40k years worked for a while and then did not and 100k year took over. This is why your focus on the one parameter, TSI is also not compelling as the faint Earth paradox shows. Thus it is incumbent upon all of us who study these things to integrate what is happening and keep an open mind. Using computer models of CO2, no matter how fancy, is nothing more today than an advanced appeal to an authority, one that is also flawed.
vukcevic says:
August 13, 2013 at 2:39 pm
PF estimated at [abs (-2.2)] (see bottom graph http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/PF.htm )
As usual you become economical with the truth at some point. The red curve you show [including the formula you presumably used to calculate it] does not match what the formula actually returns, as you can see here: http://www.leif.org/research/Vuk-Failing-16.png
Furthermore the reversal [indicated by vertical bars] bear no relationship with solar maximum nor with the size of the sunspot cycle following each.
@ur momisuglyEd Mertin –
Among other errors, you conflate today’s reactionary left with those radical Republicans of the Civil War era.
Today’s true liberals are, for the most part, the people called conservative: they are the ones who support civil liberties against government encroachment and wish people to keep the largest possible share of what they earn. In 1961 these would be the supporters of the Kennedy tax cut and in 1964 the Civil Rights Act (for which considerably more Republicans than Democrats voted)
Today’s “liberals,” and the Kleptocrat Party generally, are anything but liberal in the true sense of the word. They proceed from authoritarian impulses and have as their model the failed genocidal models of socialism. They seek to control every detail of our lives and take the bread we earn for their frivolous, entirely personal purposes. AGW is the centerpiece of their rationale for doing this, and its objective is to enrich a small elite (der Fuehrer’s crony capitalist buddies, and people like BloodyMess) while reducing the rest of us to dependence and poverty. It is also to commit genocide, with regard to which their intent is clear from their unquestionable knowledge of the deaths and suffering caused by measures to control carbon dioxide.
@ur momisuglychris Wright –
There is an alternative to waiting for the new LIA to set in – it is to get the message out to low-income people what AGW, and der Fuehrer’s programs, will mean for them – and for their grandchildren. Lateesha Thomas and Yolanda Perez, 40-something grandmothers living in dangerous neighborhoods, trying to scrape by on the income of a grocery clerk and a hospital housekeeper, can be shown quite plainly what $10 gasoline and 40 cent electricity will do to them and the grandkids they are trying to raise and care for and feed and clothe and keep warm in winter – and they can be told exactly how their beloved Fuehrer’s policies are doing that to them. Dr. Spencer’s comment about poor people’s hardships at Gauleiter Boxer’s Senate committee meeting was a start, but the Kleptocrat party members of the committee, all being super-rich, won’t pay any attention to such details – heck, if you’re worth $100 mill, why would you care if gas is $10 a gallon? It won’t be easy, but the word has to be gotten to these people who got suckered into voting for a bounder like der Fuehrer.
One of the most offensive things about every dimension of AGW and its religionists is the utter callousness, even the willingness to commit mass murder, that they exhibit at every turn – while whining about “saving the planet for our grandchildren.” What about those grandchildren here, now, today, being raised by the Ms. Thomases and Ms. Perezes of this world? What kind of world will be left for them, if we are taken back into the Stone Age? Don’t they deserve better than that?
The whole AGW meme is so obscene, so filthy, so ugly that there is no word in any language foul enough to capture the evil of it – or of the @ur momisugly#$%&*!!’s who are pushing it. I am not a religious believer but often I find myself wishing for a Hell that these people can be cast into.