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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lsvalgaard says:
October 8, 2013 at 9:00 pm
“There is no such thing as the TOA. What is meant is so far away from the surface that the influence from the air is gone. Some measurements [e.g. PMOD] is not even made near the Earth, but a million miles away [towards the Sun]. To use TSI for climate research, it is reduced to the center of the Earth. To use TSI for solar research it is reduced to 1 AU. ”
OK, I correct myself, center of the Earth, you’re right. -That 7000km (once minus, mostly something between and never plus when SORCE is in shadow of Earth) out of 147-152 million is HUUGE difference (something like less than 0.00005), especially for rotating Earth completing revolution once a day and satelite completing orbit x times a day, I know Leif…
TOA TSI definition and center of the Earth definition are interchangeable, there is in principle no significant difference between them whatsoever, neither for climatology, nor for solar physics.
And now for the real stuff Leif, this page is about climate, not solar physics and slight, purely technical nuances in definitions customs.
So when we talk about differences between Earth distance TSI and 1AU normalized TSI (which I find completely useles, superfluous and often quite confusing in climate research), then instead of pedanteries, please explain to the readers the relatively big difference of all epoch averages in SORCE-TIM TSI data (- which you often vocally deem much better than other TSI data – which I usually tend to agree):
0.76537 W/m2 – in 6h record – and 0.75065 W/m2 – in daily TSI record respectively between Earth distance TSI and calculated 1 AU TSI (yes, calculated, from just couple of hundred km above TOA raw measurements – the SORCE is at 645km orbit around Earth, not in center of Earth, neither in L1 like SOHO).
What such a relatively big discrepance results from? Somebody confused nmi with kilometers in NASA as with the mission to Mars or something like??
I would think, that before you, or somebody else explains the discrepance then clearly a debate about TSI use for climate research hasn’t any sense whatsoever, because the difference just BTW means also difference of 2.28×10^22 Joules for the Earth heat budget just in SORCE-TIM era (since february 2003) and Mr. Trenberth could search for his missing heat whole his life, never realizing it could very well never have arrived in the first place.
Im with you Anthony. The bean counters are trying to salvage their jobs with erroneous sun spot counts. David H., who is in charge of managing the prediction chart, predicted this cycle would be even higher than the previous one.
All anyone has to do is go to spaceweather and look for the differences in sun spot counts between the years 2004 and 2010, and see for themselves.
I did blog about it some time ago if anyone is interested.
I don’t see what advantage there is to either changing how we count spots are arbitrarily give a higher count than before, but I rank this right up there with the quality and change of surface stations.
Its pure madness.
Pamela Gray says:
October 8, 2013 at 5:41 pm
“Salvatore gives the impression (done either mistakenly or with forethought) that energetically, TSI is a small part of what is available from the Sun. Anything else he says could not be further wrong then that.
Isn’t this a strawman? Wasn’t Salvatore talking about climate/solar connection and that TSI changes must not be necessarily the major factor from the changes brought about by changes of solar activity? What about Svensmark – his solar activity-GCR-climate connection is certainly estimated by him to have much higher effect than TSI changes?
Vukcevic: Sun isn’t an isolated electromagnetic entity, it is the primary component of the wider electromagnetic system .
Dr. Svalgaard: Nonsense, the solar wind keeps all [electric and] magnetic influences away.
Doc you are overcooking your denial.
The main difference between solar wind and the CME loop properties is that Solar Wind -SW magnetic field lines are open, while Interplanetary Coronal Mass Ejections -ICME field lines are dominantly closed and still connected to the Sun.
It is opposite to what you claim, i.e. CMEs sweep solar wind out of the way, and solar wind doesn’t penetrate CME electromagnetic loop.
http://ase.tufts.edu/cosmos/pictures/Sept09/Fig8_7.MagCloud.gif
When a coronal mass ejection travels into interplanetary space, it creates a huge magnetic cloud containing bidirectional, or counter-streaming, beams of electrons that flow in opposite directions within the magnetic loops that are rooted at both ends in the Sun. The CME also drives an upstream shock ahead of it sweeping much weaker solar wind out of the way .
The above is correct interpretation of the SW-CME relationship and not one which you insist on; while you continue to do so any further discussion is pointless.
@tumetuestumefaisdubien1 (‘You’re killing me, you make me feel good’ – Hiroshima Mon Amour):
“The 1AU TSI data is in principle not good representation of Earth insolation for any imaginable purposes, it is a column of numbers …”
That’s why I said the unnormalized value would be a more accurate representation for actual insolation. Nevertheless, the normalized values are the ones most often quoted in scientific research and are very useful for climate studies, precisely because they’re calibrated to remove variations not caused by changes in the Sun itself.
In other words, it helps to answer the question “Is it hotter on Earth now just because the Sun got hotter, or for some other reason(s)?”
The folks at the Boulder Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) who maintain the SORCE TSI data, have reconstructed the normalized TSI back to the 17th century (1610), which shows that TSI (formerly “The Solar Constant”) is increasing, very slowly:
http://lasp.colorado.edu/lisird/tsi/historical_tsi.html
(data here: http://lasp.colorado.edu/data/sorce/tsi_data/TSI_TIM_Reconstruction.txt)
I would like to ask Leif if he accepts this reconstruction of historical TSI.
John Day says: October 9, 2013 at 5:33 am
I would like to ask Leif if he accepts this reconstruction of historical TSI.
I would be pleasantly surprised if he does ( Dr. S’s TSI graph two in here )
Jan Alvestad says:
October 9, 2013 at 12:25 am
After the initial observations AR 11861 is helping us towards an interpretation most observers would agree with as more spots have developed. In this case it is obvious that those that made the initial split made an interpretational error (that can be corrected), in other cases such a region might continue to decay and no agreement would be reached in the absence of knowledge of polarities.
Consider three methods of determining groups:
1) only the configuration (tilt, size in longitude)
2) taking into account the temporal evolution
3) looking at magnetic polarities
In general, the three methods will result in a different group count. If we want to maintain a homogeneous group count over time, it is not good to have the count change by ‘improving’ the method [unless we compensate for that by putting a special time-varying k-factor on the groups]. I would argue that only 1) should be used. Unfortunately, the observers started to use Waldmeier’s classification around 1947 so the group count is about 5% ‘too high’ since then. This can be corrected.
tumetuestumefaisdubien1 says:
October 9, 2013 at 12:28 am
And now for the real stuff Leif, this page is about climate, not solar physics
The title says ‘solar slump’, not ‘climate something…’
please explain to the readers the relatively big difference of all epoch averages in SORCE-TIM TSI data 0.76537 W/m2 – in 6h record – and 0.75065 W/m2 – in daily TSI record respectively between Earth distance TSI and calculated 1 AU TSI What such a relatively big discrepancy results from?
While the average distance over a year is 1 (AU), that is not the case of the average value of the inverse square of the distance..
ClimateForAll says:
October 9, 2013 at 12:33 am
The bean counters are trying to salvage their jobs with erroneous sun spot counts
Nonsense. One cannot fake the spot count as the number of spots regulate the geomagnetic effects [and the microwave flux] so there are two independent checks on the count.
tumetuestumefaisdubien1 says:
October 9, 2013 at 1:17 am
What about Svensmark – his solar activity-GCR-climate connection is certainly estimated by him to have much higher effect than TSI changes?
Except that the data does not support Svensmark, so it doesn’t matter what he estimates.
vukcevic says:
October 9, 2013 at 3:08 am
creates a huge magnetic cloud containing bidirectional, or counter-streaming, beams of electrons that flow in opposite directions within the magnetic loops that are rooted at both ends in the Sun
Those electrons are particles much more energetic than the rest of the particles in the cloud and are only a very minute population. Like cosmic rays that can ignore the solar wind because of their high energy, the energetic electrons can as well. As they stream both ways they do not constitute an electric current and have no magnetic effects. Furthermore they ‘mirror’ back before reaching the Sun and therefore have no influence on the Sun.
while you continue to do so any further discussion is pointless.
This is not a discussion, but an attempt to educate you, and if you refuse to learn, the attempt is perhaps pointless.
lsvalgaard says:
October 9, 2013 at 6:27 am
“While the average distance over a year is 1 (AU), that is not the case of the average value of the inverse square of the distance..
…Which only well further confirms the 1AU TSI data are unsuitable for implications in climatology.
Bur moreover there’s a substantial discrepancy between 1AU TSI SORCE-TIM era averages of the 6h and 1 day SORCE-TIM record of 0.27375 W/m2 and substantial difference between Earth-distance TSI era averages in the 6h and 1 day record respectively of 0.28848 W/m2.
In other words the 1AU TSI era average coming from 6h record is 1360,83224 W/m2 (while from 1 day record it is 1361.10599 W/m2) and Earth-distance TSI era average coming from 6h record is 1360.06686 W/m2 (while from 1 day record it is 1360.35534 W/m2).
Which, whatever explanation you come up with now, further underlines the unsuitability of the 1AU TSI record for implications in climatology, and I would think that if anything could be used in this regard from the SORCE-TIM data then clearly the 6h Earth-distance TSI data (because they very likely better record the Earth actual insolance) and definitely not the normalized 1AU 1 day TSI data.
Their era averages differ 1361.10599 – 1360.06686 = 1.03913 W/m2 !, which is clearly substantially more than what actual TSI level change during the era could possibly really contribute to the global heat budget change.
I note, that the equivalent of the difference in global absolute heat resulting from solar irradiation absorbtion in the era would be ~3.1×10^22 Joules and again Mr. Trenberth could search for his “missing heat” whole his life, but the SORCE-TIM Earth-distance TSI data (both 6h and 1 day cadence) quite very strongly suggest it never arrived in the first place.
So I would suggest abandoning of the game with the 1AU TSI, which is for very obvious reasons impossible to win and get back to the more or less hopefully real numbers in the SORCE-TIM 6h Earth-distance TSI record.
(SORCE-TIM looks dead now since August, which is very unfortunate in cycle peak period, and I really hope it will get restored at least for overlap calibration with TCTE, otherwise simmilar problems as with ACRIM gap will arise again)
John Day says:
October 9, 2013 at 5:33 am
I would like to ask Leif if he accepts this reconstruction of historical TSI.
No, I do not, as it is based on the Group Sunspot Number which we now know is incorrect , see e.g. http://www.leif.org/research/CEAB-Cliver-et-al-2013.pdf
John Day says:
October 9, 2013 at 5:33 am
I would like to ask Leif if he accepts this reconstruction of historical TSI.
See also slide 18 of http://www.leif.org/research/Solar-Petaluma–How%20Well%20Do%20We%20Know%20the%20SSN.pdf
@Leif>No, I do not, as it is based on the Group Sunspot Number which we now know is incorrect
So, if reconstructed ‘correctly’, what would the historical TSI plot look like? Would it still show an overall slight but steady increase since 1610?
John Day says:
October 9, 2013 at 6:58 am
So, if reconstructed ‘correctly’, what would the historical TSI plot look like? Would it still show an overall slight but steady increase since 1610?
I don’t think so, but we have a potential problem before 1700 [because of the Livingston & Penn effect], but after 1700 we are in pretty good shape. My best guess would be the bottom panel of http://www.leif.org/research/TSI-GSN-SSN-Background.png
lsvalgaard says:
October 9, 2013 at 7:03 am
My best guess would be the bottom panel of http://www.leif.org/research/TSI-GSN-SSN-Background.png
One caveat: this reconstruction is based on the same method as used by LASP [TSI riding on top of a background given by the solar cycle average of the sunspot number]. I personally think that this is not a good way of reconstructing TSI, but I wanted to compare apples with apples.
@Leif> I personally think that this is not a good way of reconstructing TSI, but I wanted to compare apples with apples.
What is a better way to reconstruct TSI? Perhaps using proxies? Has anyone done this?
John Day says:
October 9, 2013 at 7:23 am
What is a better way to reconstruct TSI? Perhaps using proxies? Has anyone done this?
Here is one attempt: http://www.leif.org/EOS/2011GL946658.pdf and my own: http://www.leif.org/research/TSI-LEIF.png
attempt: http://www.leif.org/EOS/2011GL046658.pdf
This is an illustration of a magnetic flux rope: http://ase.tufts.edu/cosmos/pictures/Sept09/Fig8_7.MagCloud.gif
Dr. Svalgaard: ( referring to electrons in a flux rope) …..as they stream both ways they do not constitute an electric current and have no magnetic effects.
Vukcevic quotes other solar scientists:
A flux rope requires a large electric current to maintain its magnetic field….the flux rope is maintained only by the electron current.
This is because the proton current alone cannot make a structure smaller than the proton cyclotron radius and protons are assumed to have no bulk drift except for thermal motion…..In the initial equilibrium, the electrons move along the magnetic field lines, and this electric current generates the magnetic field of the flux rope.
The extremely high conductivity of plasma implies that the electric currents can be maintained for a very long period of time, an average flux rope electric current is estimated to be about a billion Amps, with energy of order 10^24 – 10^30 Joules.
Implication of the above is that electric current / magnetic field are still connected to the Sun, even if mass ejection has stopped some time before, and ejected mass of heavier particles may have moved large distance
While mass ejection lasts (for few hours) the current will start and close at the CME’s origin, but as mass ejection ends the current loop becomes independent from its initial location, and as long there are enough electrons in corona (to propagate electric field around the loop) the electric current will flow within force-free flux rope structure.
vukcevic says:
October 9, 2013 at 11:15 am
Dr. Svalgaard: ( referring to electrons in a flux rope) …..as they stream both ways they do not constitute an electric current and have no magnetic effects.
Vukcevic quotes other solar scientists:
A flux rope requires a large electric current to maintain its magnetic field….the flux rope is maintained only by the electron current.
These electrons are not the counter streaming electrons. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.
Doc, I am always ready to modify volume of my knowledge (not necessarily in the positive direction), perhaps you could elaborate what you have in mind, since I am ignorant of any other electrons presence within the flux loop.
I suggest the stars rolling up like a scroll is a clear image of a black hole sucking in stars in sight of the earth, just a thought.
The predictions are running hot. Quelle surprise! Not.
Edit: “when their should be” there
vukcevic says:
October 9, 2013 at 1:25 pm
since I am ignorant of any other electrons presence within the flux loop
The solar wind is basically radially expanding thermal plasma with the same number of electrons as protons [5 per cubic centimeter at 1 AU] thus is electrically neutral. The wind expands because it is hot. It evaporates into space dragging the magnetic field with it. A coronal mass ejection [which may develop into a magnetic cloud] is basically a large blob of extra hot thermal neutral plasma expanding away from the sun. Various energetic processes near the sun [flares, magnetic reconnection, shocks] can accelerate some of the electrons to much higher energy, we call those suprathermal electrons moving much faster [at about 1/10 of the speed of light – a hundred times faster than the solar wind itself] than the expanding wind and trapped on the spiral magnetic field lines [much like particles in the Earth’s radiation belts] moving along the field lines [i.e. not radially] until the electrons come to the other end of the field line near the sun. Because the field is increasing in strength when the electrons approach the sun, the electrons will ‘mirror’ back [like in the Earth’s radiation belts] and bounce back and forth from one end to the other end where there will bounce again going back where they came from, thus creating a population of ‘counterstreaming’ electrons [which, of course, is not an electric current as the particles stream both ways]. Not all magnetic clouds are so lucky as to have energetic, suprathermal [meaning very hot, not in thermal equilibrium] electrons injected into them, so only a fraction [perhaps 25%] of MCs have the counterstreaming particles, which in any case are just a very small fraction of the electrons actually present. Because of the near infinite conductivity of the plasma, any magnetic configuration [that is not potential] will have associated electric currents carried by the ordinary thermal electrons [because they are the most abundant and are easier to move around]. The Heliospheric Current Sheet is the prime example of this. The currents prevents the magnetic field from changing: any imposed change will generate a current opposing the change [so you have frozen-in fields]. These currents have nothing to do with the suprathermal counterstreaming electrons.
Thanks doc for clear and detailed explanation. Could counterstreaming balance be altered by encounter with a magnetosphere having in mind polarity of two fields ?
http://www.solen.info/solar/
http://sdo.gsfc.nasa.gov/assets/img/latest/latest_4096_HMIB.jpg
Oh heavens. There are no sunspot groups in the solar northern hemisphere. It appears they have disappeared. Also there appears to be little or no residue from the shredded magnetic flux tubes in the northern hemisphere.
The so called dual peak in the sunspot count was caused by the solar northern hemisphere leading the solar southern hemisphere.
Could what is happening in solar northern hemisphere be an indication as to what is going to happen to the solar southern hemisphere?
This is a peculiar solar cycle.
tumetuestumefaisdubien1 says:
October 9, 2013 at 11:40 pm
…Which only well further confirms the 1AU TSI data are unsuitable for implications in climatology.
The models use the Earth-distance values as their time-step is of the order of 5 minutes, but over a year there is no difference so for correlative studies for CLIMATE [30-yr average weather] the 1AU data is very appropriate. And for the SUN the Earth-distance TSI is meaningless.
Bur moreover there’s a substantial discrepancy between 1AU TSI SORCE-TIM era averages of the 6h and 1 day SORCE-TIM record of 0.27375 W/m2 and
You have to calculate correctly. If you do that you would get for 2013 Jan.1 -July 15 1361.2838 [6h] and 1361.2836 [1d], thus no difference. How to do it correctly: there are missing data in the record. if a 6-h value is missing, you most omit the other three 6-h values for that day and that whole day for the 1-d values when calculating the averages.
vukcevic says:
October 10, 2013 at 12:29 am
Thanks doc for clear and detailed explanation. Could counterstreaming balance be altered by encounter with a magnetosphere having in mind polarity of two fields ?
Since a magnetosphere is such a small object compared to the magnetic cloud any changes would be negligible. There are other much more important processes that influence the counterstreaming, e.g. reconnection within the cloud. The balance is really not an issue as the suprathermal electrons bounce back and forth between the two ends of the field lines many times [the bounce time at 1 AU of the order of a few hours].
William Astley says:
October 10, 2013 at 1:49 am
Could what is happening in solar northern hemisphere be an indication as to what is going to happen to the solar southern hemisphere? This is a peculiar solar cycle.
Not really, all cycles are asymmetric. Cycle 14 [which the current cycle look very much like] had the North leading, followed by the South catching up later in the cycle: http://www.leif.org/research/N-S-Asymm-SC14-month-Groups.png
Leif Svalgaard says:
October 10, 2013 at 6:41 am
The models use the Earth-distance values as their time-step is of the order of 5 minutes, but over a year there is no difference so for correlative studies for CLIMATE [30-yr average weather] the 1AU data is very appropriate. And for the SUN the Earth-distance TSI is meaningless.
You’re right, I agree, for the 30 years correlations is meaningless to use Earth-distance data – at least if the 1AU data agree with the Earth distance data.
“You have to calculate correctly. If you do that you would get for 2013 Jan.1 -July 15 1361.2838 [6h] and 1361.2836 [1d], thus no difference. How to do it correctly: there are missing data in the record. if a 6-h value is missing, you most omit the other three 6-h values for that day and that whole day for the 1-d values when calculating the averages.”
You’re right. The period and missing data are critical.
I did as you said and the differences virtually dissapeared, except one: the 0.28 W/m2 between 6h and 1d record. So I was intrigued by it and so I again visited the SORCE page to check the data – what was my surprise that they are completely different than the data I downloaded back in May – I checked with another copy from April I had in the computer – here a comparison of the three sets – and it looks it was not me who changed the data and that a 1984memory hole occurence subtracted ~0.277 from all the values – possibly to get the record agree with the 6h record. (but it is my falt – I should have checked before)
So I checked the new data and the result was no differences except one:
the era solar constant level seemed to come out 1360.8, consistently from all averages I did (with leaving holes and values out ) -which would be good news for Mr. Trenberth that he can spare some time for searching something else -e.g. excess heat.
But I checked with my statistician and confirmed my suspicion that to leave out the valid values from record dominated with known wave is definitely not correct way to obtain valid averages – it is already better to fill in properly the wave fit -if done correctly with only “risk” that the slight bit of modulation which is anyway not there will keep not be there, instead of leaving out data and introduce even more bias. -So I did with the Earth distance data and it came out that the averages of all periods I checked then closely hower around 1361.0 W/m^2.
Indeed one needs to calculate correctly – it will save the time.
Only thing I’m now puzzled with is the differences between the averages of the 6h values – I mean where all 4 values are present -and the 1 day values. For instance:
6h record:
date—————-1AU————Earth-distance
20030305,13 1361,3160 1384,0894
20030305,38 1361,3280 1383,9118
20030305,63 1361,3180 1383,7617
20030305,88 1361,3463 1383,5839
Averages: 1AU 1361,3271 Earth-distance 1383,8367
while in 1d record:
20030305,5 , 1AU 1361,3227 , Earth-distance 1383,9695
I know I’m carper, why is it?
Leif Svalgaard:
In your post at October 10, 2013 at 6:41 am you say
I know almost nothing about solar matters and bow to your vastly superior knowledge of them. And I agree with your stated point concerning “correlative studies for CLIMATE [30-yr average weather]”. However, but on one related point I beg to differ with your view.
It is true that “for the SUN the Earth-distance TSI is meaningless”, but it does not follow that it is meaningless for the Earth’s climate. I argue that the “Earth-distance TSI” probably has significant effect on the Earth’s climate: I explain this as follows.
Global temperature varies throughout the year. This results from two effects;
(a) The inclination of the Earth combines with the Earth’s orbit around the Sun to provide the seasons.
And
(b) the greater coverage by oceans of the Southern Hemisphere (SH) than the Northern Hemisphere (NH) combines with the greater thermal capacity of water than of land to vary global temperature (i.e. the average of SH and NH temperatures).
Hence, during each year the global temperature rises by 3.8°C from January to June and falls by 3.8°C from June to January.
Such an oscillating system could be expected to provide harmonics with much longer time frequencies than a single year. Therefore, climate variations may be induced by the seasonal variation of global temperature.
The Earth’s orbit is elliptical and the Earth is closer to the Sun in January (when global temperature is lowest) than in June (when global temperature is highest). This reduces the variation of global temperature during each year because total solar energy falling on the Earth (TSI) varies with the square of distance from the Sun.
If the Earth were furthest from the Sun in January and closest in June then “the Earth-distance TSI” would enhance the seasonal variation in global temperature so it would be greater than 3.8°C. This could be expected to increase any harmonic effects of the seasonal oscillation in global temperature.
Hence, I argue that “the Earth-distance TSI” probably does have an effect on global climate because it alters the magnitude of any harmonic effects resulting from seasonal variation in global temperature. But such harmonic effects cannot be quantified unless and until they are identified.
What can be said with certainty is that the strong probability of such harmonic effects adds complexity to “correlative studies for CLIMATE [30-yr average weather]”.
Richard