Method uses the Ap geomagnetic index, which has been in a slump since October 2005:
The Hockey Schtick tips us to a paper published today in Advances in Space Research predicts that if the current lull in solar activity “endures in the 21st century the Sun shall enter a Dalton-like grand minimum. It was a period of global cooling.”
The graph they produced with the paper:
The author uses a new “empirical technique invoking three-cycle quasi-periodicity (TCQP) in Ap index” of solar geomagnetic activity to predict sunspot activity several years in advance.
The author notes solar activity has been at a higher level in the 20th century saying”
“the Sun has emerged from a Grand Maximum, which includes solar cycle 19, the most active solar cycle in the last 400 years. Earth was cooler in Grand Minima. The trend line indicates we have entered a period of low solar activity.”
Note the red horizontal line on the graph show 50-year mean solar activity was at the highest levels of the past 300 years during the latter half of the 20th century.
The author also has a slide show that has some interesting elements. For example, here is their TCQP of the Ap Index:
They summarize:
The paper:
An empirical approach to predicting the key parameters for a sunspot number cycle
H.S. Ahluwalia University of New Mexico, Department of Physics & Astronomy
Abstract
The common methodologies used to predict the smooth sunspot number (SSN) at peak (Rmax) and the rise time (Tr) for a cycle are noted. The estimates based on geomagnetic precursors give the best prediction of Rmax for five SSN cycles (20-24). In particular, an empirical technique invoking three-cycle quasi-periodicity (TCQP) in Ap index has made accurate predictions of Rmax and Tr for two consecutive SSN cycles (23 and 24). The dynamo theories are unable to account for TCQP. If it endures in the 21st century the Sun shall enter a Dalton-like grand minimum. It was a period of global cooling. The current status of the ascending phase of cycle 24 is described and the delayed reversal of the solar polar field reversal in the southern hemisphere in September 2013 is noted.
Open access here: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0273117713007473
Annual Mean Sunspot Numbers
It is quite surprising to read this heated discussion before, a couple of days before, the SSN SC-24 progression data is due out. I expect this heat about a week after.
@- SAMURAI
“In the not too distant future, CAGW won’t be able pass the giggle test with 20+ years of no warming and falling tempertures since 2001.”
2001 was the tenth hottest year on record
Every year in the decade since 2001 has been hotter except 2008.
2010 was the hottest year on record.
The last decade, 2003-2013 has been warmer than the preceding, 1993-2003 decade.
Difficult to reconcile the facts with your claim of falling temperatures.
https://na.unep.net/geas/getUNEPPageWithArticleIDScript.php?article_id=53
What is definitive and worrisome is the highly significant increase in Antarctic ice extent probably due to the solar effect kicking in?.
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seaice.recent.antarctic.png
It is my belief/guess that this is beginning to affect the weather here currently.
http://www.eldoradocountyweather.com/satellite/misc/s.america-ir-sat.html
The difference in colder air versus normal warm air is creating some pretty massive storms: when the conditions are right (humidity etc) Emphasis: its the cooler air from the south, NOT the warmer air from the north aka due to AGW drivel etc……
Glad to see this place got cleaned up!
A friendly reminder.
Izen made a comment regarding the small effect on warming from changes in the suns activity vs co2. Does that statement hold true if doubling co2 is not amplified and has to stand on its own? What if there are negative cloud feedbacks as an example.
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Richard M says:
December 2, 2013 at 5:34 pm
I still find it difficult to believe this will have a major impact.
***
It won’t.
Internal climatic dynamics can & prb’ly will, tho, just like it always has.
“Frankly, I don’t see the TCQP-pattern, so cannot take the paper seriously.”
What did it look like during the Dalton or Maunder minimum? I would think that is what we need to compare to. By 1844, we’re beginning the “Grand Maximum”.
Dr Norman Page says:
December 2, 2013 at 6:44 pm
It is important to note that it in order to make transparent and likely skillful forecasts it is not necessary to understand or quantify the interactions of the large number of interacting and quasi- independent physical processes and variables which produce the state of the climate system as a whole as represented by the temperature metric.
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Agreed. Throughout history successful prediction has always preceded understanding. Successful prediction confirms we are on the right track, and from this we develop understanding of the process.
Climate models are trying to reverse this process and failing in the attempt. This is because they fail to grasp that the unknown is at work, both in their models and in the word around us. And it is the action of the unknown that makes a mockery of their approach.
lsvalgaard says:
December 2, 2013 at 7:15 pm
Can’t I go out to eat?
We can reconstruct the Ap-index back to at least 1844. Here is what it looks like: http://www.leif.org/research/Ap-1844-now.png.
Frankly, I don’t see the TCQP-pattern, so cannot take the paper seriously
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There is allways other reconstructions of past activities. Dont blindfold yourself to believe that only you know, what is good science. If you see mistake or misiterpretion say it, but if it is only against your pet theory, it does not make it bad science. Competition in field of science is hell of a race, but only goal is find new knowledge.
Without the slightest understanding of what created the seasons, early humans learned to predict them. Without the slightest understanding of what creates gravity, later date humans learned to predicts the results of gravity. Without the slightest understanding of what causes time dilation, modern humans learned to predict its effect and correct for it in their navigation systems.
All of this makes a mockery of the notion that you must understand the mechanism to make successful prediction. Prediction follows from observation. From successful prediction we develop understanding.
ferdberple Thanks for the support – for cooling forecasts based on the principles you reiterate – a reminder -y’all check
http://climatesense-norpag.blogspot.com
@- william
“Izen made a comment regarding the small effect on warming from changes in the suns activity vs co2. Does that statement hold true if doubling co2 is not amplified and has to stand on its own? What if there are negative cloud feedbacks as an example.”
The feedbacks, including negative cloud feedbacks would also affect the solar changes, energy is energy at the tropopause.
Olavi says:
December 3, 2013 at 7:06 am
There is always other reconstructions of past activities.
Actually, there aren’t any other reconstructions of the Ap-index.
“A Dalton or even a Maunder minima would reduce the energy the Earth recieves by a small amount. The energy change from the rising CO2 is arounf five times greater.”
If a change in a trace gas concentration can trigger a cascade of positive feedbacks, what’s to say a drop in input energy does not have negative ones?
How much energy is released by a PDO shift in comparison to the effects of CO2?
Plotting trend lines through any set of data is not just a question of the stats used (and there are a LOT of different ways to do this) – there has to be some reason for their being a long-term trend as well as an equivalent level of accuracy in the the data over the range of the graph. Sun spot numbers have been (rightly) criticized because of the changes in methods for counting them (and reasonable people can argue over the methods used to correct for this).
Proxies (isn’t an isotope of Be used for this?) suffer because we have to make assumptions based on other factors that we may or may not have adequately allowed for (an argument against almost all of the paleo work, I must say)
The Ap-index is quoted from 1844 – looks better than SSN, but are we confident that the methodology for measuring this is consistent?
What I am saying, really, is that we are all busy arguing about trends over data which is really not suitable for this over the time period we are using. The last 50 or so years are probably good consistent data, but this is not the length of time people want to see, given the major climate changes took place over longer periods.
I am very happy to consider trends in solar factors as being valid – let’s face it, there are some pretty regular cycles going on in there and internal solar mechanisms are likely to have some longer term changes – but if you are going to do wiggle-matching then you have got to know whether the data you are using can support it. The statistical methodology is irrelevant if you don’t have the data.
On a related topic, here are two published papers you might want to consider:
Wilson, I.R.G.: The Venus–Earth–Jupiter spin–orbit coupling
model, Pattern Recogn. Phys., 1, 147-158
http://www.pattern-recogn-phys.net/1/147/2013/prp-1-147-2013.html
and
Salvador, R.J.: A mathematical model of the sunspot cycle for the past 1000 yr
http://www.pattern-recogn-phys.net/1/117/2013/prp-1-117-2013.html
Rob Potter says:
December 3, 2013 at 8:14 am
The Ap-index is quoted from 1844 – looks better than SSN, but are we confident that the methodology for measuring this is consistent?
Yes, it is based on direct measurements of variations of the geomagnetic field which we have been able to make accurately since Gauss showed us back in the 1830s.
Superb comment BioBob. I’d give it +1000000 if I could.
The universe is a chaotic place, and we have next to no knowledge about most of it. But that is what makes science great – there will always be so much more to discover.
However, CAGW isn’t about scientific discovery, it’s just about dogma and Mikey Mann making a fool of himself (whoops, he’ll probably want to sue me now).
PS Izen, wild-ass claims don’t hold much water here at WUWT
Sorry mods, my email was wrong and might come back as fake. The real one is attached to this comment
Ian Wilson says:
December 3, 2013 at 8:18 am
Salvador, R.J.: A mathematical model of the sunspot cycle for the past 1000 yr
Unfortunately, the model is a fit to sunspot numbers which very likely are not correct: http://www.leif.org/research/CEAB-Cliver-et-al-2013.pdf
Anthony,
Thanks for that.
Since 2007 when he first “held court” at climate audit I have admired the patience and wit of Dr. S. Commenters here have the all too rare opportunity to interact with a working scientist, one who shares his work in progress and answers questions.
Dr. S, and those in his task force, are re examining one the critical pieces of data used to understand our climate. From my perspective he and Anthony share that in common.
Dr. S, has gone back to the “raw” data. The observations of many different men over hundreds of years and is untangling the various adjustments made and deriving a record that is defensible on several grounds.
The challenge for his opponents is simple: go back to the same documents. Go back to the same records and drawings and show, actually show, where Dr. S gets it wrong.
Dr. S is goring some people’s oxen, on all sides. And so you’ll see them attack him personally.
Of course he gets to respond in kind. But one thing I have never seen. I have never seen a critic
of his actually do the tough work of going back to the actual data, actual records, and show or demonstrate where he is wrong.
Here is how science works, in this case observational science. A man takes records. he makes sense of those records to show a picture of the past. He checks that picture against other independent bits of data. If that picture holds up that is our best estimate of the historical record.
period. If you want to challenge that, your job is to create a better record. because its history we cannot “test” this reconstruction via experiment. We cant go back in time to recount spots.
we cant wait to see how the experiment comes out because there is no experiment. Skepticism
therefore is limited. Its not enough to merely raise issues, you actually need to go out and do a better job if you want to be taken seriously.
izen says:
December 3, 2013 at 5:01 am
Every year in the decade since 2001 has been hotter except 2008.
2010 was the hottest year on record.
That may be true for HadCRUT4, but not for RSS. See:
http://motls.blogspot.ca/2013/01/rss-amsu-2012-was-11th-warmest-year.html#more
IZEN-san:
The CAGW argument that the last decade was the warmest since “fill in the blank” is like a 37 year old boasting that for the last 10 years, he’s at his tallest height of his life, with the implication that he’s still growing…. Not so much….
The fact is that he stopped growing when he hit 20 and has stopped growing for the past 17 years, just as the RSS warming trend has stopped since October 1996 (-0.001C/decade) and the trend for HADCRUT4 has been FALLING since January 2001 at -0.02C/decade.
The reality is that the global warming trend has stopped for 17 years. Not “paused”, but stopped and it’s driving the IPCC insane and is in complete disagreement with CAGW projections. As of now, 73 out of 73 CMIP5 model projections for the lower tropical troposphere are ALL (every single of them) above observed temperatures and it only gets worse from here.
Warmunists may catch a “break” if there is an El Niño event next year, which they’ll erroneously blame on rising CO2 levels, when in reality the brief spike in temperatures will merely be the effect of a natural El Niño event. The subsequent La Niña will be simply extend the overall flat/falling trend since October 1996.
CAGW is a complete bust. It’s just a matter of time when 17 years of no warming trend becomes 20+ years, at which time it mercifully be put out of is misery and thrown on the trash heap of failed hypotheses.
Izen The paper you quote to support your claim that chages due to CO2 are 5 times that due to solar change concludes
“I haven’t demonstrated that the surface will warm by 3°C for a doubling of CO2. But I hope I have demonstrated the complexity of the processes involved and why a simplistic calculation of how the surface responds immediately to the surface forcing is not the complete answer. It is nowhere near the complete answer.
The surface temperature change as a result of doubling of CO2 is, of course, a massively important question to answer. GCM’s are necessarily involved despite their limitations.
Re-iterating what Ramanathan said in his 1998 paper in case anyone thinks I am making a case for a 3°C surface temperature increase:
As a caveat, the system we considered up to this point to elucidate the principles of warming is a highly simplified linear system. Its use is primarily educational and cannot be used to predict actual changes.”
Note the last sentence.
The key factor in making CO2 emission control policy is the climate sensitivity to CO2 . By AR5 – WG1 the IPCC is saying: (Section 9.7.3.3)
“The assessed literature suggests that the range of climate sensitivities and transient responses covered by CMIP3/5 cannot be narrowed significantly by constraining the models with observations of the mean climate and variability, consistent with the difficulty of constraining the cloud feedbacks from observations ”
In plain English this means that they have no idea what the climate sensitivity is and that therefore that the politicians have no empirical scientific basis for their economically destructive climate and energy policies.
In summary the projections of the IPCC – Met office models and all the impact studies which derive from them are based on specifically structurally flawed and inherently useless models. They deserve no place in any serious discussion of future climate trends and represent an enormous waste of time and money. As a basis for public policy their forecasts are grossly in error and therefore worse than useless.
izen says:
December 3, 2013 at 3:56 am
@- Jack Simmons
” I’m sure there are lots of people feeding at the CAGW trough who wouldn’t be able to feed themselves otherwise. ”
The same goes for the fossil fuel trough, the biggest money making business in the world.
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Without the fossil fuel industry humanity as we know it wouldn’t exist. Can’t say the same for 97% of Climate Scientists with their snouts firmly in the tax trough.