While many science related government agencies are shut down (NASA GISS is deemed ‘non-essential’ for example) some remain open due to statements like this:
Due to the Federal Government shutdown, NOAA.gov and most associated web sites are unavailable. However, because the information this site provides is necessary to protect life and property, it will be updated and maintained during the Federal Government shutdown.
The NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center remains open, and they’ve updated their solar cycle progression graph set. Today, as we watch the sun we find only two small sunspot groups, both rather anemic.
![latest_512_4500[1]](http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/latest_512_45001.jpg?quality=83)
The latest data is not encouraging for Solar Cycle 24 as the SSN numbers have taken a pretty big hit. In fact, all the solar metrics have taken a hit at a time near the peak when their should be many more sunspots and indications of an active solar dynamo.
The SSN numbers for September dropped to about 37:
Radio flux is also down:
And the Ap Index, an indicator of solar magnetic activity is still bumping along the bottom. Compare it to the peaks seen in Solar Cycle 23 in 2004:
Clearly, we’ve passed solar max, as this magnetic field chart showing the magnetic filed has reversed (a signature of solar max) shows:
Solar Polar Fields – Mt. Wilson and Wilcox Combined -1966 to Present
From Dr. Leif Svalgaard – Click the pic to view at source
It seems that even though the solar magnetic field has flipped, predictions of associated climate doom have not come to pass.
Date: 07/10/13
Sun’s magnetic field about to flip, could affect Earth’s climate
The Sun’s magnetic field is soon going to flip by 180-degrees which could lead to changes in climate, storms and even disrupt satellites, scientists have warned. The Sun’s magnetic field changes polarity approximately every 11 years. It happens at the peak of each solar cycle as the Sun’s inner magnetic dynamo re-organises itself.
http://www.thegwpf.org/suns-magnetic-field-flip-affect-earths-climate/
Rather than an active flip, it’s more like the sun is rolling over and playing dead.
More at the WUWT Solar reference page
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Tom in Florida says:
October 7, 2013 at 8:04 pmMy “Apparently you cannot read” was a svalgaardian reply to your remarks
And there is way too much of that in the solar threads of late and it serves no useful purpose.
Guess who responds to much of the comments in the solar threads and you called your own comment a ‘svalgaardian reply”. Maybe that explains how those threads get that way. Justifying someone else because of a Dr. in front of their name and research they do is bogus. On this blog we’ve learned that even us lesser educated schmucks can still sometimes spot bogus information even if we can’t follow all of the scientific debate or do our own research. Of course we can look pretty stupid at times too, but then so do the best of scientists and doctors.
Tim Walker says:
October 7, 2013 at 8:16 pm
“We had only one satellite, SOURCE, measuring TSI. It wasn’t measuring the TSI over a sphere with a radius of 1 AU. It was measuring and I quote from the above site…”
All that is irrelevant. The issue is and was solar activity. As far a the Sun is concerned that is a global measure. TSI as measured [over an area 0.5 square cm] from our vantage point can be a useful measure of solar activity when integrated over the whole 4pi surface of a sphere surrounding the Sun and reduced to a fixed distance of 1 AU. Since we only observe half of the Sun at any given time we must average over one full solar rotation [27 days] to get a meaningful result, with the uncertainty caused by a variation with time of the ‘real’ TSI built in. The large ‘swings’ we observe are mainly due to solar activity being unevenly distributed over the surface in an ever-changing pattern.
If you were right the that the up-down cycles are simply caused by the Suns rotation, then the peaks and valleys would be the same. Also there is not one side of the Sun that is continuously radiating more TSI than the other side.
The peaks and the valleys vary because the distribution of activity over the surface varies a bit with time. And nobody said that one side continuously radiates more that the other side. That is your own bogus interpretation. The fact is that the activity is continuously changing but a lot less than the apparent changes due to solar rotation. I expressed that by saying “To first approximation one side of the Sun has most of the activity [for the moment]”. You can see this clearly here http://www.leif.org/research/TSI-and-Rotation.png which shows [blue curve] daily values of TSI and [pink curve] the rotational means. An example is shown in the green box that contain data for five rotations. Note the large swings of the blue curve and the almost steady pink curve. From time to time the are changes also in the pink curve as solar activity obviously does vary with time.
even us lesser educated schmucks can still sometimes spot bogus information
You can rest assured that the information you get from me is not bogus, but in general you do poorly in spotting the actual bogus ‘information’ our habitual self-aggrandizing pseudo-scientists spouts here on WUWT. That stuff you seemingly lap up unquestioningly. You mentioned that you laugh of clowns and comedians, are you suggesting that you are a clown or a comedian so its is OK to laugh at you?
Tim Walker says:
October 7, 2013 at 8:16 pm
“We had only one satellite, SOURCE, measuring TSI. It wasn’t measuring the TSI over a sphere with a radius of 1 AU. It was measuring and I quote from the above site…”
All that is irrelevant. The issue is and was solar activity. As far a the Sun is concerned that is a global measure. TSI as measured [over an area 0.5 square cm] from our vantage point can be a useful measure of solar activity when integrated over the whole 4pi surface of a sphere surrounding the Sun and reduced to a fixed distance of 1 AU. Since we only observe half of the Sun at any given time we must average over one full solar rotation [27 days] to get a meaningful result, with the uncertainty caused by a variation with time of the ‘real’ TSI built in. The large ‘swings’ we observe are mainly due to solar activity being unevenly distributed over the surface in an ever-changing pattern.
If you were right the that the up-down cycles are simply caused by the Suns rotation, then the peaks and valleys would be the same. Also there is not one side of the Sun that is continuously radiating more TSI than the other side.
The peaks and the valleys vary because the distribution of activity over the surface varies a bit with time. And nobody said that one side continuously radiates more that the other side. That is your own bogus interpretation. The fact is that the activity is continuously changing but a lot less than the apparent changes due to solar rotation. I expressed that by saying “To first approximation one side of the Sun has most of the activity [for the moment]“. You can see this clearly here http://www.leif.org/research/TSI-and-Rotation.png which shows [blue curve] daily values of TSI and [pink curve] the rotational means. An example is shown in the green box that contain data for five rotations. Note the large swings of the blue curve and the almost steady pink curve. From time to time the are changes also in the pink curve as solar activity obviously does vary with time.
even us lesser educated schmucks can still sometimes spot bogus information
You can rest assured that the information you get from me is not bogus, but in general you do poorly in spotting the actual bogus ‘information’ our habitual self-aggrandizing pseudo-scientists spout here on WUWT. That stuff you seemingly lap up unquestioningly. You mentioned that you laugh of clowns and comedians, are you suggesting that you are a clown or a comedian so it is OK to laugh at you?
lsvalgaard says:
October 7, 2013 at 7:02 pm
Hello,
I hope you are fine. Thanks for the links to your paper and for the link to a paper that proposes a different model.
http://iopscience.iop.org/2041-8205/757/1/L8/pdf/2041-8205_757_1_L8.pdf
http://iopscience.iop.org/0067-0049/169/1/137
The solar observations appear to support the assertion that the flux tubes form at the base of the convection zone. (Magnetic field strength of newly formed sunspots are decaying linearly. Pores are no longer forming on the sun. Extrapolating current observations it appears the sun spot count for solar cycle 24 will end abruptly as the magnetic field strength of the flux tubes is no longer sufficient to survive the turbulent forces in the convection zone.)
The solar magnetic cycle can be interrupted if the large solar scale magnetic field is only a result of the residue from the sunspots with a completely independent mechanism to create the sunspots, as Charbonneau proposes in this review paper. With that hypothesized model the sunspot creation mechanism can stop and restart.
http://solarphysics.livingreviews.org/Articles/lrsp-2010-3/
Dynamo Models of the Solar Cycle
Current models of solar dynamo action posit that differential rotation drives the process of converting poloidal to toroidal flux. This would result in a continuous loss of energy from the differentially rotating convective envelope and Reynolds’ stresses have long been thought of as a means to replenish and sustain the angular velocity gradient. …. …. The inferred weakness of Reynolds stresses poses a problem to theories of meridional circulation, which rely on the former to effect angular momentum transport in order to sustain the latter. Very weak turbulent stresses would imply a correspondingly weak meridional circulation (e.g., [29]).
Serious trouble soon appeared on the horizon, however, and from no less than four distinct directions. First, it was realized that because of buoyancy effects, magnetic fields strong enough to produce sunspots could not be stored in the solar convection zone for sufficient lengths of time to ensure adequate amplification. Second, numerical simulations of turbulent thermally driven convection in a thick rotating spherical shell produced magnetic field migration patterns that looked nothing like what is observed on the Sun. Third, and perhaps most decisive, the nascent field of helioseismology succeeded in providing the first determinations of the solar internal differential rotation, which turned out markedly different from those needed to produce solar-like dynamo solutions in the context of mean-field electrodynamics. Fourth, the ability of the α -effect and magnetic diffusivity to operate as assumed in mean-field electrodynamics was also called into question by theoretical calculations and numerical simulations.
It is fair to say that solar dynamo modelling has not yet recovered from this four-way punch, in that nothing remotely resembling concensus currently exists as to the mode of operation of the solar dynamo. As with all major scientific crises, this situation provided impetus not only to drastically redesign existing models based on mean-field electrodynamics, but also to explore new physical mechanisms for magnetic field generation, and resuscitate older potential mechanisms that had fallen by the wayside in the wake of the α -effect – perhaps most notably the so-called Babcock–Leighton mechanism, dating back to the early 1960’s (see Figure 2). These post-helioseismic developments, beginning in the mid to late 1980’s, are the primary focus of this review.
William: Observational evidence that the solar magnetic cycle has been interrupted, would confirm the above dynamo mechanisms are no longer viable. The current dynamo model assumes the differential motion in the plasma creates the sunspots from the solar large scale field. That model requires there be a large scale field. That model cannot restart if the large scale field is lost.
6.3 Flux tubes versus diffuse fields
An alternate viewpoint is to assume that the solar magnetic field is a fibril state from beginning to end, throughout the convection zone and tachocline, and that whatever large-scale field there may be in the photosphere is a mere by-product of the decay of sunspots and other flux tube-like small-scale magnetic structures. The challenge is then to devise a dynamo process that operates entirely on flux tubes, rather than on a diffuse mean field. Some exploratory calculations have been made (e.g., DeLuca et al., 1993), but this intriguing question has received far less attention than it deserves.
William Astley says:
October 7, 2013 at 10:05 pm
The solar observations appear to support the assertion that the flux tubes form at the base of the convection zone.
No, they do not support that assertion. On the contrary there is evidence that they form much closer to the surface.
Pores are no longer forming on the sun.
Pores are forming galore. Today is a good example: ftp://inaf-node-83.oact.inaf.it/2013/Draw2013/OAC_D_20131007_083000.jpg
Extrapolating current observations it appears the sunspot count for solar cycle 24 will end abruptly as the magnetic field strength of the flux tubes is no longer sufficient to survive the turbulent forces in the convection zone.)
As per the above, it does not appear that your assertion here is correct.
The solar magnetic cycle can be interrupted
Since you have never defined what you mean by ‘interrupted’ [it appears to be some kind of mantra] your considerations do not connect.
That model requires there be a large scale field. That model cannot restart if the large scale field is lost.
The large-scale field is never lost; even during the Maunder Minimum, the large-scale field was merrily modulation cosmic rays [even more as today].
The challenge is then to devise a dynamo process that operates entirely on flux tubes, rather than on a diffuse mean field.
The large-scale field also exists as fibrils. There is no diffuse mean field, never was any. This has been clear for many decades, see e.g. http://www.leif.org/research/The%20Strength%20of%20the%20Sun's%20Polar%20Fields.pdf
lsvalgaard says:
October 7, 2013 at 9:48 pm
Tim says:
Thank you for the detailed explanation of how you are looking at the topic of TSI changes. This is a better explanation than your first one. Of course how you explained it the first time:
Lief said:
“Actually, the up-down ‘cycles’ you see are not really due to changes in [real] TSI, but are simply due to the fact that the Sun is rotating and that activity is not evenly distributed in longitude.”
Tim says:
Didn’t show that the TSI rotational means still fluctuates all of the time. I’m glad that you admit the TSI fluctuates. And yes TSI isn’t fluctuating by a great percentage, but the fluctuation isn’t all simply due to the fact that the Sun is rotating and the activity is not evenly distributed. That was your error in the original post. I’m glad that you’ve corrected the impression you left.
Lief says:
You can rest assured that the information you get from me is not bogus, but in general you do poorly in spotting the actual bogus ‘information’ our habitual self-aggrandizing pseudo-scientists spouts here on WUWT. That stuff you seemingly lap up unquestioningly.
Tim says:
You bring up a good thought about the possibility of your stuff being bogus or not. Much of your stuff I don’t know enough to comment on one way or the other, but I do feel how you twist and attack what others say is at times bogus. Of course you could be right in all of your understanding of all that you comment on. I just doubt it. No one is right all the time. Just some think they are or feel they have to come across that way.
About me lapping up unquestionably stuff, bogus ‘information’ as you put it. How in the world do you know what I believe of the theories presented on here? Much less whether or not I believe any of it unquestionably. Some of the theories presented on here I have posted doubts and outright denial of believe about. Sometimes even you are wrong. You really don’t know everything.
Lief said:
You mentioned that you laugh of clowns and comedians, are you suggesting that you are a clown or a comedian so its is OK to laugh at you?
Tim says:
You had to stretch for that ‘svalgaardian reply’. I’m sorry to say, not only was I not making any suggestion of the type you twisted my words to say, but one doesn’t have to work in the honorable professions of clowns or comedians for it to be alright to laugh at them. You obviously don’t understand that. That’s okay. And by the way it’s okay to laugh at me. I laugh at myself sometimes, try it. I would say that the best of people can laugh at themselves and are comfortable with being laughed at. To be honest there are also times when the best of us have a hard time seeing the humour and could allow themselves to be irritated by being laughed at. Someone last night threw an egg at my windshield as I drove my car. I expect they laughed. I didn’t.
LS and Mosher will disappear into the background with the lukewarmers over time as most of their assertions seems to come to nothing (re SSN, temperatures based on fraud GISS etc( which Mosher used BEST Project, “MUller a Skeptic” PLEZZEEE LOL. David Archibald has made a much better job at every prediction LS fail…However LS has made some useful HT contributions here re OTHER stories LOL
Mosher should stick to investigative journalism Gleick affair excellent …..Just joking
lsvalgaard says:
October 7, 2013 at 10:09 am
“TSI has not gone down as cycle 24 has done, neither has the number of CMEs”
I can confirm departure of TIM TSI from following SSN and F10.7:
http://tumetuestumefaisdubien1.sweb.cz/TIM-F107-SSN.png
However ACRIM3 data show opposite departure:
http://tumetuestumefaisdubien1.sweb.cz/ACRIM3-F107-SSN.png
and in the PMOD data the difference is ambiguous and almost completely missing:
http://tumetuestumefaisdubien1.sweb.cz/PMOD-F107-SSN.png
Which again suggests there are major problems with the TSI datasets.
However both ACRIM3 and PMOD show the cycle 24 peak period TSI level is very likely significantly lower (at least ~0.3 W/m^2) than in peak period of cycle 23 – as also suggest both SSN and F10.7 data. The TIM data can’t much contest the fact, consistently suggested by multiple available datasets, because they don’t cover cycle 23 peak period in the first place.
Tim Walker says:
October 7, 2013 at 10:30 pm
Didn’t show that the TSI rotational means still fluctuates all of the time. I’m glad that you admit the TSI fluctuates. … That was your error in the original post.
No error, I carefully said: “To first approximation one side of the Sun has most of the activity [for the moment]”. This means that the main reason for the observed swings is rotation, not that all of the variation was. So your attempt to recover from your misplaced rant fails.
No one is right all the time.
I only comment on what I’m pretty sure that I’m right on. And I do not ‘blow smoke’ etc. Nor twist your words [they don’t need to be twisted].
You obviously don’t understand that. That’s okay. And by the way it’s okay to laugh at me.
I don’t understand that that it is OK to laugh at an honest attempt to explain something. And I would not stoop to laughing at you. Crying perhaps.
tumetuestumefaisdubien1 says:
October 7, 2013 at 11:28 pm
Which again suggests there are major problems with the TSI datasets.
There are indeed major problems with PMOD and ACRIM. Not with TIM/SORCE. As Kopp & Lean explains in http://www.leif.org/EOS/2010GL045777.pdf “Uncorrected scattering and diffraction
are shown to cause erroneously high readings in non‐TIM instruments”
tumetuestumefaisdubien1 says:
October 7, 2013 at 11:28 pm
However both ACRIM3 and PMOD show the cycle 24 peak period TSI level is very likely significantly lower (at least ~0.3 W/m^2) than in peak period of cycle 23
I have shown in several places that PMOD has a systematic degradation error of 0.2 W/m2, at least since 2003 and probably more going back to 2000: e.g. http://www.leif.org/research/TSI-diff-PMOD-SORCE.png
I once saw a caricature, mother plant bends over to what seems to be her daugther and says: “Humans are pretty useless but at least they give off CO₂”. Some comments are … at least they increase the counter.
lsvalgaard says:
October 7, 2013 at 11:54 pm
“Uncorrected scattering and diffraction are shown to cause erroneously high readings in non‐TIM instruments”.
But to me from this graph:
http://tumetuestumefaisdubien1.sweb.cz/ACRIM3-F107-SSN.png
when I compare it to simmilar for TIM:
http://tumetuestumefaisdubien1.sweb.cz/TIM-F107-SSN.png
which shows opposite departure of TSI from both SSN and F10.7
(I would intuitively think what measures TIM is right, because I looked into how is it constructed and what improvements it brings, but that’s just my feeling).
it looks like the ACRIM3 dataset not overestimates but underestimates the TSI change – has erroneously low, not high, relative readings in SC24, even lower than PMOD – both basically measure less TSI change from minimum (ACRIM3 ~+0.5W/m^2, PMOD ~+0.6W/m^2) than TIM (~+0.7W/m^2) in SC24 (minimum-to-peak) – and so it looks like the TSI departure up from closely following SSN and F10.7 is oposite (in ACRIM3) or virtually none or ambiguous (in PMOD).
I suspect the citation talks about the problems with generally too high TSI level measured due to the scattering and diffraction, not about relative magnitude of TSI change readings.
In any case the TSI level relative change from the SC23 peak level (significantly higher) to SC24 peak level (significantly lower), showed by both ACRIM3 and PMOD datasets, looks to me being unequivocal and consistent with SSN and F10.7 data, only the magnitude of it can be maybe disputed, but anyway not much using the TIM data, because it was simply not there to measure the SC23 peak.
Science should not be just proving something is right or wrong, Occasionally odd things pop-out of the data, which may be no more than coincidence, but still worth taking note of.
Number of comments (not only mine) mentioned the solar and geo magnetic fields.
During last three years I collated the data for the maximum daily value of the Ap index (related to strength of geomagnetic storms) and the geomagnetic Bz component as measured in Tromso (Norway):
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/Tromso.htm
The bottom graph is the one I would like to draw your attention to. It shows an apparent annual cycle, but it is not 12 months, it is more like 13 months (min on the geomagnetic red curve is 01/Jan/2012 and 03/Feb/2013, making it 399 days.
Now for a bit of controversy:
Astronomers (science) and Astrologers (pseudoscience) will readily recognise this number of days,: it is number of days between consecutive sun-Earth-Jupiter alignment.
Now for more controversy:
Ahaaa, you might say ‘gravitation tidal effect’.
I don’t think so, since the heliocentric angular displacement between two planets at the above dates is about 69 (or more accurately 360-69= 291) degrees.
If this effect is real (and there is no evidence that it is) it must be magnetic, not gravitational.
Hi doc, just ‘sayin’, can’t we have some fun?
I’d be very interested to know what catastrophists would say if Glowbull warming got underway again when the Sun “wakes up” from its slumber.
Would they still blame CO2 for Glowbull warming?
lsvalgaard says:
October 8, 2013 at 12:02 am
“I have shown in several places that PMOD has a systematic degradation error of 0.2 W/m2, at least since 2003 and probably more going back to 2000: e.g. http://www.leif.org/research/TSI-diff-PMOD-SORCE.png
Yeah, we already discussed it. Actually PMOD shows 0.53W/m^2 change between SC23 and SC24 peaks – without your 0.2W/m^2 it would be 0.33W/m^2. Both nevertheless look underestimate relative TSI change when compared with TIM, so I think the 0.3W/m^2 difference between SC23 and SC24 peaks TSI level could be rather a conservative estimate.
I mean both PMOD and ACRIM – which indeed could be a degradation issue.
lsvalgaard says:
October 7, 2013 at 10:23 pm
Pores are forming galore. Today is a good example: ftp://inaf-node-83.oact.inaf.it/2013/Draw2013/OAC_D_20131007_083000.jpg
While this illustrates your point, the Catania interpretation is interesting as there should have been one group less. Groups 9 and 10 are magnetically one group.
“Last week, the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, reported it was 95 percent certain that climate change was the result of human activity, specifically the burning of fossil fuels that emit “greenhouse gases.”
Of course, as Lord Monckton points out, they used a statistical ‘sleight of hand’ (that being not using ANY statistical analysis at all) to arrive at that increase in ‘certainty’. You have to watch for the pea being whisked into the hand of the guy running the shell game. The 95% is a figure that the politicos wanted and reflects a nonsense finding intended to strengthen the policy wonks hand.
Jan Alvestad says:
October 8, 2013 at 2:46 am
While this illustrates your point, the Catania interpretation is interesting as there should have been one group less. Groups 9 and 10 are magnetically one group.
In order to be compatible with the past counting method we cannot use the magnetic field to discriminate between groups, so 9 and 10 must be counted as two groups as Wolf and Wolfer would have counted them as two groups also [based on the distance between them].
***
Salvatore Del Prete says:
October 7, 2013 at 2:33 pm
He is smart, but won’t give anyone else much of any credit that has a different view from his view.
***
Maybe you’ve never had a disciplinarian instructor or supervisor. When said instructor/supervisor doesn’t cut you to shreds, assume you did good. Not satisfying perhaps, but that’s life.
https://www.google.com/#q=2+dynamics+of+climate+and+geophysical+indices
The above article shows a definite correlation between the ACI index,LOD, and temperature. change dT.
It shows during prolong minimum solar periods the length of day decreases(EARTH ROTATES FASTER) which gives rise to a more meridional atmospheric circulation index(ACI) and thus lower surface temperatures in response to this type of[ atmospheric] circulation pattern.
Look at erh graohs, when adjusted for a lag time of 4-6 years the correlation is quite strong. A lag time between an ACI change and [temperature] is to be expected.
This is more further evidence of a solar/climate relationship.
[“Look at erh graohs” is “look at the graphs” ? Mod]
http://www.fao.org/docrep/005/y2787e/y2787e03.htm
This time the article will post correctly ,sorry about the previous post.
I strongly suggest looking at this latest link(above post) that shows a clear solar/climate relationship.
Leif ,keeps thinking it is all about TSI, which is but a small part of the solar/climate connection.
Salvatore Del Prete says:
October 8, 2013 at 8:52 am
“Leif keeps thinking it is all about TSI, which is but a small part of the solar/climate connection.”
I don’t know what really Leif thinks, but what he says it sometimes certainly could look like you say. 🙂