The NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center has updated their monthly graph set and it is becoming even more clear that we are past solar max, and that solar max has been a dud. “The slump” continues not only in sunspot activity, but also other metrics. And, tellingly, Dr. David Hathaway has now aligned his once way too high solar prediction with that of WUWT’s resident solar expert, Dr. Leif Svalgaard. Of course, at this point, I’m not sure “prediction” is the right word for Hathaway’s update.
The SSN count remains low:
Note the divergence between the model prediction in red, and the actual values.
The 10.7cm radio flux continues slumpy:
The Ap geomagnetic index remains low, unchanged, and indicates a tepid solar magnetic dynamo. We’ve had well over 6 years now (and about to be seven) of a lower than expected Ap index.
From the WUWT Solar reference page, Dr Leif Svalgaard has this plot comparing the current cycle 24 with recent solar cycles. The prediction is that solar max via sunspot count will peak in late 2013/early 2014:
But, another important indicator, Solar Polar Fields from Mt. Wilson and Wilcox Combined -1966 to Present show that the fields have flipped (crossed the zero line) indicating solar max has indeed happened.
Image from Dr. Leif Svalgaard – Click the pic to view at source.
In other news, Dr. David Hathaway has updated his prediction page on 9/5/13, and suggests solar max may have already occurred. He says:
The current prediction for Sunspot Cycle 24 gives a smoothed sunspot number maximum of about 66 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 flat 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.
![ssn_predict_l[1]](http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2013/09/ssn_predict_l1.gif)
You can watch this video that shows 5 years of cycle 24 predictions from Hathaway, as they shrink from 2005 to 2010. Solar cycle 24 predictions were higher then, and exceeded the SSN max for cycle 23.
Dr. Svalgaard’s prediction in 2005 (with Lund) was for a solar cycle 24 max SSN of 75, and was totally against the consensus for solar cycle 24 predictions of the time. It looks like that might not even be reached. From his briefing then:
Source: http://www.leif.org/research/Cycle%2024%20Prediction%20Lund.pdf
We live in interesting times.
More at the WUWT Solar reference page.
Ulric Lyons says:
September 18, 2013 at 2:01 pm
“..but they must also be independently replicated.”
Independently applied, by weather forecasters.
so, show all your predictions and how they all have been independently replicated by weather forecasters using your method(s). We are waiting.
Ulric, let me type your response.
“I said ‘applied’ not replicated. They take my forecast and use it in their business. There is no need to replicate my methods to check if they work. They must be working fine because people continue to pay for my forecasts. That’s proof enough that they work.”
Have I got it about right?
Now, on to the next topic:
“Many people are gullible”
richardscourtney says:
September 18, 2013 at 4:20 am
Thanks for that, Richard. Here’s the hilarious part. Note that Ulric says he predicted that the Arctic Oscillation and the North Atlantic Oscillation “would be more positive through July-August [2013]”.
Why is that funny? Well, here’s the AO for that time period …
And here’s the NAO for the same time …
That Ulric, his forecasts of the AO and the NAO are stupendous … positive in July-August?
Not …
w.
I am very late to this Ulric-bashing party, and so I may well repeat this posting in a future solar thread. I feel rather sorry for Ulric, though he has brought some things on his own head. Still, it seemed as though some critics didn’t even bother to notice when he did give them specific information, such as that his predictions were for the UK.
There are, I think, two issues: first should he reveal his prediction methods/algorithms, and second how skilful are his methods? I would say that Pamela Gray is much too dismissive if the method isn’t revealed, and Willis Eschenbach has also followed that line in several comments. But personally, if I had a black box which predicted the exact temperature months or years in advance, I would be intrigued as to what was in it, but absent that I would use it anyway. And just because I didn’t know what was in it would not lead me to dismiss its correctness or validity.
So Ulric doesn’t need to show his workings, but if he doesn’t he needs to pass an assessment of skill. Whereas, if the Met Office are not completely accurate in their forecasts 3 days ahead, we do at least get a warm fuzzy feeling that they are doing their best to number-crunch known physics.
I didn’t think it was quite fair of Willis to get het up about Ulric’s definition of a heat wave, when Ulric was able to respond “it’s simply the WMO version which says at least 5 consecutive days of maxima at least 5K above the prevailing (30-year, climatological) mean”. Still, Ulric did make some rather vague statements such as “deep cold in spring 2016”. But in order to become more accepted, perhaps he would accept some challenges regarding the measurement of his skill?
I do not have any professional knowledge on the estimation of skill, but I do know about Bayes and Turing, so that is where I would start in order to frame something testable. Suppose Ulric were to forecast that there will be a heat wave in June 2014, and let us call that event E. We can estimate the prior probability of E by counting how many Junes from 1984 to 2013 had such an event. If the number is n, we might think of the probability p as being n/30, but we should probably flatten this number, say to p=(n+1)/31, because we would not want to set p to 0 for a rare event where n was 0. (Or, if n was 0 we should double the number of years under consideration, iteratively, until we get something non-zero.)
So now we have p, what are we going to do with it? Well, we need Ulric to choose some other number q as his probability that E will occur. Clearly, we expect q to exceed p, otherwise it isn’t a very interesting forecast. But Ulric must take care not to set q to 1, because if he does then E had better happen since otherwise, we shall see, he loses credibility for ever! Given p and q, work by Turing implies that Ulric should be given a reward of log(q/p) quatloos if E occurs, which is positive as q>p, and q/p is known as a Bayes factor. But if E does not occur then Ulric receives log((1-q)/(1-p)), or in other words he gives us the positive quantity log((1-p)/(1-q)) quatloos; if q were 1 then that would be infinity, or in other words Ulric could never recoup his losses from the occurrence (not E) of something that he said could not happen.
The reason for using log(q/p) as the “skill” reward is that if 2 independent events E1 and E2 are bet upon, then log(q1/p1)+log(q2/p2) = log((q1*q2)/(p1*p2)) correctly uses the probability of the joint event E1&E2, under the two hypotheses that either climatology is correct or Ulric is correct.
To take an example, suppose that recent climate said that the probability of a heat wave in June 2014 was 0.1 and Ulric said it was 0.8. Then if it occurred Ulric would get log(8) = 0.903 quatloos (assuming base 10 logs) and if it didn’t he would lose log(4.5) = 0.653 quatloos.
Neither of these outcomes on its own is going to give us much confidence in whether to trust Ulric or not, but after many such trials and Ulric has amassed x quatloos, we can assess the odds in favour of him being correct as 10^x. Ulric will try to make x as large as possible, but if he has no skill it will wander to ever more negative numbers.
Ulric, are you ready to play? What is the earliest temperature event that you predict? Can you provide one or two predictions from your “Watch my winter 2013/14 forecast roll out”? I hope you see that I am trying to help you out here, and I don’t require you to publish past forecasts, nor to publish all future forecasts, but to publish some specific forecasts from which we can line up some quatloos for you.
Regards,
Rich.
Ulric Lyons says:
September 18, 2013 at 11:50 am
Promises, promises … so far nothing has rolled out. Come back when it’s actually available, because until then, it’s just your big mouth and nothing else.
w.
Go with 5 years. What do you think the chances are?
See – owe to Rich says:
September 18, 2013 at 2:28 pm
first should he reveal his prediction methods/algorithms, and second how skilful are his methods?
For my part, I have not asked for his method [a black box is fine with me if it works], all I want is the skill table. Strangely enough Ulric has volunteered to demonstrate his method, but not to reveal [or even calculate] his skill-score. Just the opposite of what is required.
Ulric Lyons says:
September 18, 2013 at 1:05 pm
Oh, diddums, is that mean Mr. Svalgaard bullying you again? That cyberbullying, it’s a terrifying thing. You should file a complaint with the authorities, everyone is so krool to you …
In any case, I suspect that you are constitutionally incapable of shutting up about your refusal to post your forecasts as you have just said that you will do.
We’ll see. You’ve said you won’t discuss your forecasts again. If you post again about any of your forecasts, then your statement above is a lie. Keep in mind that answering this comment will be discussing your lack of forecasts, and will make you a liar …
w.
Salvatore Del Prete says:
September 18, 2013 at 2:30 pm
Go with 5 years. What do you think the chances are?
Next question: must the average for every one of those five years be ‘below’ the numbers in your table? or is it enough that the averages of all five years are? And must that hold for every single one of your parameters?
Henry Galt says:
September 18, 2013 at 1:12 pm
You already said above that you were leaving. I said “Please do.”
That statement of yours seems to have been a complete fabrication. Now you say you won’t discuss Ulric’s cowardly refusal to post his forecasts.
We’ll see if that is a lie as well. If you answer this comment, of course, you’re once again discussing the lack of forecasts …
w.
PAM ,your last post surprises me, in that I am trying to find out what may or may not happen and I am using as many sources as I can. I happen to think Leif is a valuable source, hence the questions.
When one comes to the point where she/he thinks they know it all, they are but a fool. I don’t know it all, and yet I feel I know enough to come up with a solar/climate connection theory.
That is more then what you have done PAM, all you do is try to falsify everything that is said if it does not agree with the way you THINK.
Even worse you have yet to express your opinion as to why and how the climate changes. I feel until you express your thoughts you should hold off knocking others down. Further you are the type of person ,that should my theory prove correct you would still say it it wrong.
You must be a very closed minded individual.
Ulric Lyons says:
September 18, 2013 at 1:05 pm
Ulric Lyons says:
September 18, 2013 at 1:30 pm
Good lord, you said above you weren’t going to discuss this any further … and that lasted all of twenty-five minutes, from 1:05 PM to 1:30 PM.
Dang, I need popcorn and a beer, this is great entertainment …
w.
PS—The scientific method doesn’t mean that you let “some Gentlemen” try to poke holes in your claims. It requires that you let every fool, idiot, and jerkwagon like me poke holes in it. It’s not a Gentlemen’s game, Ulric, and you don’t get to decide who is qualified to judge your work. If you want to cease being a charlatan, you need to let any and everyone see your work and try to falsify it … and here’s the bad news:
If the janitor’s idiot nephew can falsify your work … it’s still falsified, even if he’s not a “Gentleman” …
I want to know the chances of all of the averages over the next 5 years to average at or below the values I said?
I want to know if you think we are in a solar grand minimum?
Lastly do you think past solar grand minimums featured solar parameters as extreme as I have suggested for periods of 5 years?
thanks
I should have said the chances of any 5 year consecutive period of having the average values I came up with during this time of solar quiet.
Ulric Lyons says:
September 18, 2013 at 1:33 pm
Leif didn’t say that he represents the World, Ulric.
He’s just describing the scientific method. You seem unacquainted with it. Here’s how it works.
One scientist makes a claim. To back it up he puts all of the information, ideas, logic, math, and forecasts out on the table. And then he calls in everyone, enemies and friends, hands around the hammers, and invites them to try to destroy his work.
If they can falsify his work, then it is discarded or modified … and he’s still a scientist. If they can’t, then his work is tentatively accepted as fact … and he’s still a scientist.
The other option is that someone makes a claim, and then refuses to provide the details, forecasts, etc. etc. Since no one can falsify that, it’s not science, and the man is a charlatan.
Look around you. When Einstein made his claim, the reaction was hostile. When the Australians announced that ulcers were caused by micro-organisms, the reaction was hostile. As Leif said, any new scientific discovery is met with hostility … AS IT SHOULD BE, because that’s the essence of the scientific method. You think we should greet your claims by rubbing your tummy and blowing in your ear and telling you how brilliant you are … that’s not the scientific method.
w.
Again all the solar parameters I mentioned all of the time having values at or below the average value I suggested over a 5 year consecutive period.
In addition do you think it has happened in past solar grand minimums?
I hope I made it clear.
Salvatore Del Prete says:
September 18, 2013 at 2:46 pm
I want to know the chances of all of the averages over the next 5 years to average at or below the values I said?
To be clear: for each of your parameters there are five averages: one for 2014, one for 2015, one for 2016, one for 2017, and one for 2018. You want all those five numbers to not exceed the limit you have set for that parameter?
I want to know if you think we are in a solar grand minimum?
Not yet, another 10 years.
Lastly do you think past solar grand minimums featured solar parameters as extreme as I have suggested for periods of 5 years?
No, because the cosmic ray modulation was not any less.
See – owe to Rich says:
September 18, 2013 at 2:28 pm
That’s a very, very bad start, RIch, given that Ulric said this:
See where it says the UK and Europe? See where it says the US? Still want to claim that his predictions were only for the UK? I thought not …
When you start out with such an egregious error, I fear that I read no further. Clearly, you’re not following the bouncing ball …
w.
Salvatore Del Prete says:
September 18, 2013 at 2:50 pm
I should have said the chances of any 5 year consecutive period of having the average values I came up with during this time of solar quiet.
Any or all?
PAM, why don’t you contribute an opinion as to why you think the climate changes or does not change very much? Since you want to falsify so many other opinions.
I wil give you some help. I think Pam thinks right or wrong that all climatic changes on the planet earth are random chaotic terrestrial events , with no external source needed. She also believes, I think that AGW theory is ridiculous.
Pam is this correct or not? If it is , I can see why you may think that way.
Salvatore Del Prete says:
September 18, 2013 at 2:50 pm
I should have said the chances of any 5 year consecutive period of having the average values I came up with during this time of solar quiet?
Which period? What years?
Allof them.
Salvatore Del Prete says:
September 18, 2013 at 3:04 pm
All of them.
You have a great talent for being obscure. For which years?
Any period but I think you answered my question when you said past solar grand minimums in your opinion did not feature solar parameters as extreme as I have suggested for any 5 year consecutive period, due to cosmic ray modulation.
You also say grand minimum 10 years out.
I hope this will all be verified one way or the other over the coming years.
I wish we really had clear hard fact data for the Maunder Minimum , but we don’t . I would love to have seen what those solar parameters were and for how long, during that period of time. I would like to see how close or far they may have been to what I suggested or even if they exceeded what I have suggested.
Salvatore
You are correct about me regarding your thesis. Without mechanism a thesis can still be wrong, even when correlation is there. Which is why I say that a solar/climate correlation is not enough to prove your thesis to be right. So yes, until you can come up with a plausible and falsifiable mechanism, I will consider your thesis, even if you show a future correlation, to be wrong against the hypothesis of natural intrinsic variation.
It is the same measuring stick I hold for AGW, though they have well-defined plausible mechanisms with several falsifiable entry points. How many mechanisms do you have and what are the objectively stated parameters you have published that allows for the all important falsifiable process?
To answer your other question, I cannot accept extrinsic or anthropogenic CO2 factors due to the fact that the intrinsic oceanic/atmospheric cloud teleconnection process is poorly sampled and poorly modeled (therefore poorly described let alone understood). However, two things are well-noted throughout the literature, 1) Oceans release and hold onto heat in a much more powerful way than the atmosphere, and 2) clouds serve as a very strong gatekeeper to a relatively stable solar input mechanism. As a result of that current state of understanding, as far as I am concerned any non-intrinsic or anthropogenic CO2 driver cannot be given precedence.