New paper: Clouds blown by the solar wind

I think there are many parameters in the solar “system”. The solar wind is actually a carpet of flux tubes, more dense at the current sheet. Flux tubes could be considered electrical wires back to the source. Voyager has found signs of such structures all the way out to the heliosphere boundary. The Earth has a large one connecting it to the sun.
“Flux tube texture of the solar wind: Strands of the magnetic carpet at 1 AU?”
Borovsky, Joseph E.
Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics, Volume 113, Issue A8, CiteID A08110
It is argued here that the inner heliosphere is filled with a network of entangled magnetic flux tubes and that the flux tubes are fossil structures that originate at the solar surface. 65,860 flux tubes are collected from seven years of measurements with the ACE spacecraft at 1 AU by spotting the flux tube walls with large changes in the magnetic field direction and the vector flow velocity
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2008JGRA..113.8110B
This would lead to planetary position modulating electrical activity on the solar surface which would modulate solar wind speed…. Which interacts with the IMF.
“Orbital resonance and Solar cycles”
by P.A.Semi
Abstract
We show resonance cycles between most planets in Solar System, of differing quality. The most precise
resonance – between Earth and Venus, which not only stabilizes orbits of both planets, locks planet Venus rotation in tidal locking, but also affects the Sun:
This resonance group (E+V) also influences Sunspot cycles – the position of syzygy between Earth and
Venus, when the barycenter of the resonance group most closely approaches the Sun and stops for some time, relative to Jupiter planet, well matches the Sunspot cycle of 11 years, not only for the last 400 years of measured Sunspot cycles, but also in 1000 years of historical record of “severe winters”. ”
http://semi.gurroa.cz/Astro/Orbital_Resonance_and_Solar_Cycles.pdf

from the video: “..it wouldn’t be called basic research if we knew what the outcome would be”
So real science is back? – nice!

And how many other forces are there, that affect the climate? I suggest that we still are not even close to figuring that question out, about such a complex system as our planet’s climate. Surely this is another nail into the simplistic theory of AGW.

Could IEF mean a kind of lightning going up? This could result in cause and effect being reversed, i.e. clouds affecting IEF. There is a much higher concentration of electrons in the earth’s atmosphere than in surrounding space. In general my thoughts on EU follow those of Leif Svalgaard.

And now the UK Met Office will forecast ‘space weather’!
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2529312/And-weather-space-Updates-warn-solar-flares-storms-forecast-Met-Office-actually-correct.html
“For instance, key satellites, including those that beam TV programmes could be temporarily switched off, to prevent them burning out.”
How thoughtful. /sarc

To be honest, I almost didn’t watch the rest of the clip, once I spotted those three “Jeff Forbes Principle Investigator” bastardisations of English.
The difference between principles and principals should be obvious to anyone who finished year 10, and surely shouldn’t be a mystery to someone (author? editor?) at the University level.
I am sure sound princiPLEs were used to choose the princiPAL investigator, and he, in turn, will apply time proven scientific princiPLEs in his research – he will surely be princiLED princiPAL. One day we may indeed have “Forbes PrinciPLE” of something or other, but at this point in time, this is just bad English that makes me think: how are these people going to master those as yet unknown, enormously complex rules of nature, when well known and relatively simple rules of English grammar are beyond them? And this piece is “freely reproducible for *education* purposes” ?!
The language of Science was, is, and always will be precise and exact. And so it should. Scientists, the real ones, are very careful with the words and language they use, as they should be. Any “Close enough is good enough” attitude towards it, would inevitably spell the end of Science.

The science is settled………………………………………again.
The climate scientists still don’t have a good working model due to co2 contamination and the confusion caused by clouds. 🙂
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/08/20/spencers-cloud-hypothesis-confirmed/

Brant Ra says:
December 26, 2013 at 1:06 am
“Orbital resonance and Solar cycles”
by P.A.Semi
Abstract
” …
Venus, when the barycenter of the resonance group most closely approaches the Sun and stops for some time, relative to Jupiter planet, well matches the Sunspot cycle of 11 years, not only for the last 400 years of measured Sunspot cycles, but also in 1000 years of historical record of “severe winters”. ”

Not only that but

The damping arround 1650 (little ice age) and unexpectedly large values arround 1990 are due to another influences (matches cycle of overall angular momentum change, see relevant chapter)

Ever since Herschel it has been evident that there was some kind of relationship between sunspots and climate. Attempts to use this to predict the climate have proved futile. Both the Voiculescu paper and the Semi paper point us to a better understanding of this. We have cosmic rays, IEF and orbital dynamics all of which have some correlation with sunspots and all of which appear to have some correlation with the climate. It’s complicated folks. LOL
(can we say that they all correlate better than CO2?)

Bob K. says:
December 26, 2013 at 4:42 am
To be honest, I almost didn’t watch the rest of the clip, once I spotted those three “Jeff Forbes Principle Investigator” bastardisations of English.
The difference between principles and principals should be obvious to anyone who finished year 10, and surely shouldn’t be a mystery to someone (author? editor?) at the University level.
———————————————————————————————————
While I broadly agree with your comments about precision in language, the fact is that usage changes all the time and at all levels. In the year that the OED has decided to include knobhead, smeg and hand shandy, dismissing something because of a possible spelling mistake seems a little inflexible.
You may wonder why I say a “possible” mistake, in which case I’d ask you to read the caption again. It’s entirely possible that the intent was to identify Mr Forbes as an “investigator of the principles involved”, in which case the caption is correct 😉

Bob Weber says:
December 26, 2013 at 4:42 am
We can’t say there’s electric currents flowing in space and then turn around and say the universe and the solar system is not electrical in nature. We can’t have it both ways.
Yes we can. The paper gives the misleading impression that there is an intrinsic electric field in the solar wind, pointing in a certain direction. This is not the case. There is no such field. The so-called ‘interplanetary electric field [IEF]’ is generated by the interaction between the magnetised, neutral, fast moving, strongly conducting solar wind plasma streaming past the [nearly] stationary magnetic field of the earth. A short description of the process can be found here: http://www.leif.org/research/suipr699.pdf If the Earth’s magnetic field were to point in the opposite direction [it does as times], the IEF would also point in the opposite direction. The IEF seen in the reference frame of the Earth is different from the IEF that would be seen in another frame, it is not a property of the solar wind and is not present in a frame moving with the solar wind.

At least more people are now looking at the solar / cloud cover relationship.
I still think that my suggestion of bottom up oceanic (from the equator) and top down solar induced UV effects (from the poles) interacting to alter the degree of zonality or merifdonality of the jet stream tracks is the best solution.
More meridionality gives longer lines of air mass mixing and thus more clouds than a zonal arrangement.
The net effect is to alter the amount of solar radiation able to enter the oceans to drive the climate system.

Old’ un’ “climate change”, and Luke Warmist’s typo, “cmimate change” led me to a new
portmanteau word to describe deliberate, unethical manipulation of date to get the climate change results you want” “crimate change”

(I think I like yours better)

The electric weather I’m talking about happens here on earth as result of that interaction. Why do we call it the global electric circuit in the first place? Just so I’m clear on this, please explain if you haven’t already, how those solar particles accelerate from the sun to the edge of heliosphere and beyond. What forces are at play there? Why don’t they slow down and stop somewhere sooner?

To quote from the paper:
“ISCCP remains the only provider of continuous database for the last almost 30 years”
This paper used ISCCP cloud cover data. Headquartered at Hansen’s GISS, which not once but repeatedly rewrote 20th century temperature history away from a double peak and towards a hockey stick (illustrated with references in subsequent link), ISCCP-reported data has issues if cross-checked. Without naively auto-trusting activist Hansen’s guys and with usage of combining other data, correlations (including global) are better between cloud cover and solar activity, as illustrated in http://img250.imagevenue.com/img.php?image=45311_expanded_overview2_122_15lo.jpg

One indirect mechanism relates to the fact that the solar spectral irradiance varies significantly in the UV band, whose effect is limited to the stratosphere, thus a stratosphere–troposphere–ocean coupling, ‘top-down’ effect, is required
If UV’s effect is limited to the stratosphere, why the need for “UV protection sunscreen” and how does anyone get a sunburn? Someone please clarify this sentence.

Leif what solar structure(s) comprise the deLaval rocket nozzle analog you mentioned? Is the sun positively or negatively charged wrt the heliosphere?

@Brant Ra
That was a very interesting contribution. Thanks.

Thank you Leif for that, I’ll be thinking about that. My main focus is what the authors of this article featured today are saying about here on “home world”, where we live and are on the receiving end of that solar activity. Until someone disproves the existence of the GEC, for all practical purposes its still electric weather to me, and from what I see from extreme weather events that follow earth-directed solar storms, its a major overlooked factor in climate science.
At this time in history, we are faced with being forced to pay through the nose with carbon taxes that won’t change the weather or the climate ever, in my opinion. I think no one person has all the answers, and in time, a lot of scientists today are going to be proven wrong about one thing or another, just like its always been, so its silly to say the science is settled in such topics as climate science and cosmology. Appreciate your answers. I’m not convinced yet that gravity is as all-powerful as many have said, and that’s no knock on you.

Bruce Cobb says:
December 26, 2013 at 9:47 am
“”DirkH says:
December 26, 2013 at 6:19 am
Electric forces are electric forces. Physicists don’t subscribe to Newspeak.”
Circular logic is always so refreshing. They are some kind of force, perhaps similar to electricity, but that is all.”
So you claim there is an as yet undiscovered force that you call the cosmic force? Well, I put that in the same bin I put Dark Matter and Dark Energy in – conjecture. I didn’t use any kind of circular logic; I told you what it’s called.
By L. Svalgaards argument BTW there cannot be charge separation in space. That’s funny; Earth must be a very special place then because we observe charge separation all the time.

lsvalgaard says:
December 26, 2013 at 10:33 am
“In the end, gravity is the root cause of everything, even electric and magnetic fields. ”
Gravity even causes the protective hypothesis of Dark Matter, because it needs it to keep the Gravity-only cosmology alive for the time being.

I am baffled. This stuff seems complex and hard to reduce to a simple graph –like a hockey stick, say. None of this appears to be built into The Models that form The Consensus and I do not understand how this relates to anthropogenic atmospheric carbon so how can it be climate science and get published? I thought clouds were an effect not a cause: AGW is reducing cloud cover at the same time flood-causing rainfall increases. Everybody knows that so what has the sun got to do with it?

Piers Corbyn, Weather Action, London,
said this years ago, and expounded his
method in 2011, in Germany, at the 4th
EIKE meeting of scientists.
A link to the 27 mins video is attached to
the name above. Note that although this is
a recent video, Corbyn has been saying
these things for decades.

Old Hoya says: @ December 26, 2013 at 11:43 am
………..? I thought clouds were an effect not a cause: AGW is reducing cloud cover at the same time flood-causing rainfall increases. Everybody knows that so what has the sun got to do with it?
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
No sun ====> no evaporation of water =====> no clouds. Actually no sun ===> no atmosphere and no life on earth.
(That is for those who didn’t understand the sarcasm. After the troll invasion recently I thought a simple explanation best. )

Re: “The difference between science and pseudo-science is how you blaze a trail into the unknown. About the skepticism and caution with which you proceed and how you integrate a new path into existing knowledge and build on it.”
Okay, but the problem for this argument is that IEEE never stopped publishing peer review on this topic of electrical cosmology.
Even the discipline of physics education research (like Eric Mazur of Harvard) has for a couple of decades now struggled to get through to university physics professors sufficient to explain to them that their teaching techniques are failing to have much impact upon students’ Aristotelian preconceptions. If the academic physicists won’t even listen to THAT, then I think it’s safe to say that they are simply not in the business of listening at all to anybody they’d prefer to ignore.
And on this point … “and how you integrate a new path into existing knowledge and build on it.” …
From Don Scott’s The Electric Sky, page 12:
“When mathematicians (and geometry students) `derive a proof,’ they are developing a sequence of logical steps that leads to a final statement that is consistent with the first statement in the derivation. As an example, if we accept the basic definitions, axioms and postulates of Euclid’s geometry, we can `prove’ that `lines parallel with another line are parallel to each other.’ But this is not a proof of the existence of any real-world physical mechanism — it is an exercise in the logical manipulation of a set of basic mathematical axioms. Such manipulations are completely internal to mathematics and remain disassociated from the real world unless and until such an association is demonstrated by observation and experiment.
“In the deductive method, one starts with a presumed law of nature — an obviously correct (accepted) generalization about the way things work — and deduces (works out, derives) its logical consequences.
“A hypothesis arrived at via this deductive method is promoted to the status of being a theory when and if a large enough body of experts accepts it. This is an application of the Socratic method, also sometimes called the `dialectic method.’ Socrates (469-399 B.C.) believed that truth was discovered through intense conversations with other informed people. In this method, a vote of the experts determines when and if a theory is correct. Once such a theory has been accepted, it is not easily rejected in light of conflicting evidence. It is, however, often modified — made more complicated. When over time a theory becomes officially accepted, the essence of the matter has been settled and fixed. Modifications to the fine points of the theory can then be proposed and debated, but the backbone structure of the theory is set. That framework has already been firmly established.
“An inherent flaw lurking in this method is: What if your `obviously correct,’ basic, starting-point presumption is wrong?”

There are other things to add to this post to help create a clearer picture. Things like the Fair weather electric field (high pressure system) and the foul weather electric field(low pressure system) The fair weather electric field is driven by the sun and the foul weather electric field is driven by point charges created by earths 6000k core. There’s a good example of how point charge words, look up Atlant Australia.
Temperature = Electric potential at work

R. de Haan says:
December 26, 2013 at 10:00 am
“We need models to establish credibility”, that’s sick.
—————————————————————————————————
Only if you take “model” in the IPCC sense of “something that matters more than reality”
In a strict sense, every equation in science is a “model” and science consists of finding models to fit observations. Observations on their own aren’t science – they become science when we find a consistent and reliable model to explain them.
The sick part is that climate science appears to put the models ahead of the observations they’re supposed to explain, to the point where observations that don’t fit the models are “wrong”.

lsvalgaard wrote:
“Dark Matter is an observational fact, not yet understood theoretical, but observations trump theory, don’t you think?”
???
Certain measured interactions in the cosmos are observational facts. “Dark Matter” is a theoretical explanation of those observations.
Goodness me. I have observed an unusual event and I theorise a “seasonal / festive” explanation with volatile liquid indicators.
.

Ok Leif, if we could fill boxes with just electrons or protons, how big would the boxes be at 3 million tons?

vukcevic says
“As a sign of respect I shall for now, retreat from the further ‘contest’.”
Very gentlemanly and, if I may say, humble of you to so do.
Well, while I cannot remotely pretend to understand the subtleties of the ongoing debate you have with Professor Doctor PhD Svalgaard in these pages, I feel I learn a little from you about the subject with every posting you make.
Unlike, I must say, from the Good Doctor, whose postings make me feel completely inadequate to penetrate, on any level of lay understandings, the scientific realm wherein he has long since established his worldwide reputation.
I cannot fathom his didactic method, but perhaps it is not that, in that perhaps he does not come here to teach, but rather as …. a Gatekeeper, so-to-speak.
Given the often evidenced vicious evisceration (effective or otherwise) of those he deigns to engage in debate or whom ask what I perceive (to the degree one can parse written language for underlying intent) genuinely sincere, however naive, questions, I’m certainly not inclined to directly pose queries to him to develop my understandings.
Rather, I explore writings and sites online that seem to be ‘fair and balanced’, presenting comparative interpretations with forthright and transparent admission of bias. I suppose that would make me easy victim of those he presents as being “purveyors of….a deplorable shadowy disservice”
All that said, kudos also to PJF, who writes “Goodness me. I have observed an unusual event and I theorise a “seasonal / festive” explanation with volatile liquid indicators.”
I’m certainly no scientist, but reckon myself average in ability to detect intellectual ‘sleight-of-hand’, and the deft transmutation of observations of phenomena into (“not yet understood theoretical”!!!!!!!! :-O) fact (exemplia gratia – “Dark Matter”), did not pass my notice, either.
And since I’m in a chatty mood, I’ll add my own ‘nonsense’ and a toast to all this Festive Season, in best of spirits (to make a little play-on-words), and posit that, since our cerebrums are certainly generating electric fields (yes! measured! goodness!), it will eventually be discovered that Our Thoughts, individually and collectively, are ‘influencing the weather’, both terrestrial and extra-so {leastways in terms of what we can, in ever-expanding macro and microscopic dimensions, See…and so, with which, interact).
Of course this puts me somewhat out of the realm of ‘science-as-we-know-it’ (save, perhaps, cosmology), and definitely beyond Deism, and well into Theism (as I do so choose to ‘go there’).
Been reading earlier (online, that hotbed of pseudo-science) this evening, yet again, about the wondrous (sorry. “IMHO”, that is) E-Coli flagellum, which with stator, rotor and all 42 neatly constructed proteins uncannily analogous to an electric motor, emerged from Deep Time, by Chance.
😀
I like the EU Stuff. It appeals to my limbic love of patterns in things.

Sorry Leif, but all this is food for thought, and the thoughts keep coming… once the electrons and protons, which travel together, reach the interstellar medium, what becomes of them?

Bob Weber says:
“…couldn’t that be a basis for an interstellar space drive?”
I suggest that practically speaking, Dr Eric Lerner’s work with Focus Fusion folks might be the faster way to achieve, at least, interplanetary space drives, if not an “interstellar” drive per se.

Mars in 4 weeks, and that’s only because you have to, y’know, slow down, too. 😉

Oh…just a small additional comment. I was a bit of a ‘smarty-pants’ among my classmates in the small prairie town of my youth. And by 11 years old I was drawn to the RAS here in Canada, drinking in all I could about the Main Sequence.
I’m pushing 60 now, and opening my mind when I look up at noon to what was, my entire life, ‘that big nuclear furnace in the sky’, and considering it possibly and rather, an Anode to the Cathode of the Heliosphere (and Beyond?) is not ‘easy’. I could ignore that possibility, ‘ignorance being bliss’ it’s been said.
But hollow or metallic hydrogen, or something else, it is not my nature to ignore uncomfortable facts (except, possibly, in my own character ;-)), and I WANT TO KNOW.
I was ‘poisoned’ by my teachers in University in the few science courses I took…the Club of Rome “Limits to Growth” was all the rage at that time, and I was such a firebrand for The Cause.
I also made personal life-decisions based on that so-called “knowledge”. But apparently we’re not yet short of Tungsten, which among many other things ‘running out’ were to be gone long before the Millennium. Who knew? We were the ‘illuminated’, and I was quite willing to social engineer other people to conform, and voted thus for years.
Argument from Authority doesn’t get too far with me, these days, and as I get even older, I’m starting (maybe) to appreciate how much a heavy dose of humility goes a long way towards understanding.

Re: “I would also sit with rapt attention if EU had any explanations for anything, but they do not”
“Professionals generally avoid the risk inherent in real critical thinking and cannot properly be called critical thinkers. They are simply ideologically disciplined thinkers. Real critical thinking means uncovering and questioning social, political and moral assumptions; applying and refining a personally developed worldview; and calling for action that advances a personally created agenda. An approach that backs away from any of these three components lacks the critical spirit … Ideologically disciplined thinkers, especially the more gung-ho ones, often give the appearance of being critical thinkers as they go around deftly applying the official ideology and confidently reporting their judgments. The fact that professionals are usually more well-informed than nonprofessionals contributes to the illusion that they are critical thinkers.” (p41, Disciplined Minds, Jeff Schmidt)
“Because they internalize both the paradigms and their employers’ priorities and values, scientists, at least in their own eyes, are completely nonpartisan in their work: They don’t “get political.” They don’t think about, let alone challenge, the ideology built into their techniques. Contrary to popular images of scientists as challengers of established beliefs (like Galileo or Einstein), the vast majority of scientists never seek to test their paradigms and do not participate in paradigm disputes. They don’t waste their employers’ coin by getting caught up in efforts to overthrow existing worldviews or to establish new ones. Instead, they tend to treat the accepted models of reality as reality itself.” (p82)
From a Jeff Schmidt interview at http://www.julesnyquist.com/articles/article/1430100/16489.htm …
“MR: When you first thought of writing this book, you were in graduate school, right?
JS: Yes, that’s right. I got interested [in the] topic when I was going to professional training myself, getting a PhD in physics at the University of California, Irvine. It seemed like the best of my fellow graduate students were either dropping out or being kicked out. And by ‘best,’ those were the most concerned about other people and seemed less self-centered, less narrowly-focused, most friendly people … they seemed to be handicapped in the competition. They seemed to be at a disadvantage not only because their attention was divided, but because their concerns about big picture issues like justice and the social role of the profession and so on, caused them to stop and think and question, whereas their unquestioning gung-ho classmates just plowed right through with nothing to hold them back. As I mentioned, there’s about a 50% drop-out rate for students entering University programs in all fields; and what I found was that this weeding out is not politically neutral. To put it bluntly, the programs favor ass-kissers.”
Does any of this sound familiar?
“At the end of the week the entire physics faculty gathers in a closed meeting to decide the fate of the students. Strange as it may seem, in most physics departments a student’s score on the test is only one factor in the faculty’s decision as to whether or not that student has passed the test. Students are not usually told their scores: this gives faculty members the option of deciding that a student has failed the test even if that student has outscored someone they are going to pass. In arriving at their personal opinions on whether to pass or fail a student, individual faculty members consider anything and everything carried away from informal discussions with the student and with others around the department.
A faculty member who talks informally with a student in the hallway or at the weekly after-colloquium reception inevitably comes away with a feeling about whether or not that student ‘thinks like a physicist.’ The student’s political outlook can easily make a difference in the faculty member’s assessment. For example, in the usual informal discussion of an issue in the news, the student who rails against technical incompetence and confines his thoughts to the search for technical solutions within the given political framework builds a much more credible image as a professional physicist than does the student who emphasizes the need to alter the political framework as part of the solution. Indeed, the latter approach falls outside the work assignments given to professional physicists in industry and academe and so represents thinking unlike a physicist’s.” (p134)
The question which the public never seems to quite ask is what the meaning of scientific consensus is when students who might disagree with it are simply purged from the programs?

lsvalgaard says: –
Thank you, Dr Svalgaard
1) yes, I’ve come to ‘understand’ that a central issue between EU and conventional astrophysics circles around the relationship between magnetic fields and electrical currents, and whether the former can exist in absence of the latter, sort of ‘cart vs horse’ issue…
I appreciate your clear explanation of the ‘conventional position’ regards acceleration of particles from the sun, as it potentially forms a basis whereby I can examine the postulates of the EU writings I come across: – Do they actually directly address this element and bring forward ‘falsifiable’ theory to offer cogent alternative explanations!? (albeit that as I understand it, the EU folk are still in process of designing scalable laboratory experiments to address this. Funding such, is another hurdle for them, though should they achieve funding doesn’t indicate anything regards ‘results’, of course. I suppose we’ll see, eventually, either way – many of the leading proponents seem very sober and serious about tackling these basic solar physics questions)
2) I saw after your kind and direct answers to Bob Weber preceding my earlier comment and somewhat regretted my comments about your ‘attitude’ in your responses to some others, in my posting. – I realize that there are longstanding debates around solar issues here, as it impacts our earthly weather most specifically, and that there must be a lot of ‘history’ between those of strong opinions with some degree of scientific background and yourself. Unfortunately I couldn’t ‘map’ the positions of the various posters here, and also see that some folk are very confrontational with you without bringing forward much of substance.
I’ve experienced the same in the past in other forums, politics, history, and ID most specifically. It can be very frustrating, dealing with the committed and vociferous ‘misinformed’…
All the Best to you in the New Year
David S.
ps: – If you’ve not come across the work of Professor Gerald Pollack at U of Washington with water as a dipole factoring into cloud and thunderstorm formation, I believe you might find it intriguing – it certainly seems to add a significant possible element to our understanding of what drives weather, with possibly many implications for electrical energy circulation throughout the atmosphere. And there seems to be some exciting data coming to the table regards solar hydrogen in the ‘wind’ possibly interacting with O2 erupting off the ionosphere at the thermopause – Starwater, if you will, and a partial explanation of the seemingly ubiquitous presence of H2O where never before expected in our solar system, and well beyond. Exciting times of discovery, IMHO.

lsvalgaard says:
December 26, 2013 at 11:03 pm
Chris Reeve says:
December 26, 2013 at 10:59 pm
Real critical thinking means uncovering and questioning social, political and moral assumptions;
None of which are relevant for science.
– – – – – –
Dr. Svalgaard: – I must demure. My nephew is now out of Stanford and other post-grad work at MIT, and working (at very impressive pay) for the Defence Industry, sharing (w/o details) that some of the breakthroughs with which he is involved have major implications for social control by the Establishment. How can he divorce his career and research decisions, as a scientist, from the social, political and moral assumptions. Not judging, just asking?
Doesn’t your statement imply that simply by achieving a certain level of peer acceptance ‘as a scientist’ one is exempt from the strictures that maintain the social compact? {And here I must agree with Chris Reeve in regards the often utter lack of education and training in the Humanities among many scientists} I don’t buy it, if so – because it sounds all-too-much like that hackneyed quote: – “I was only following orders”…etc. (not invoking ‘Godwin’s Law’, mark you 😉 )
My post- studies were interdisciplinary – and I’ve certainly come to believe that compartmentalization in science has potential to lead to presently unimaginable horrors, not for ‘others’, but for ourselves, our families and loved ones. Science is not ‘an end unto itself’ – in my opinion. It is an exploration of the mystery of our existence wherein the ‘scientist’ has responsibility to represent, via his talent and skill in the ‘scientific method’, the interests and curiosity of collective humanity. To me, this cannot proceed without the individual scientist integrating his social, political and moral assumptions within the course of his research, especially as we advance in our abilities to self-immolate. These aspects of ‘humanity’ are integral to what it means to be a scientist, the responsibility unavoidable.
In the alternative, the rest of society would have the full right to deny access to tools to those scientists who do not feel this representative responsibility. Would you feel comfortable being so examined before being funded or let near work in your discipline?
I’m quite certain you would not. Nor do I believe for an instant that you do not fully engage your perspective over social, political and moral assumptions each and every day in your work. Those scientists who do not are in my opinion like reckless children who have broken into their parents’ gun cabinet (and likely insane; socio or psychopathic) – they need to be disarmed.
As to those scientists, and we see them all too evident and frequently within the CAGW community, whose temperament and immature and untrained thinking processes allow them to project their social, political, and moral assumptions on to others, compromising their scientific integrity to achieve those ends in the process? They can battle it out with those scientists with clearer balance and recognition of their own inherent biases who do not deviate from their principal mandate to honestly present data and research postulates: – While scientific debate is still allowed, they’ll be sorted out soon enough, or sooner or later.

The book The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich describes “social morality and scientific pursuit” becoming dangerously entwined.
Social morality should learn from scientific pursuit, but should never be its master. The consequences are often devastating when it does.

Please excuse my poor typing.

Dr. Svalgaard, if you don’t mind a few more questions…
Why is the escape velocity temperature for “lighter” electrons so much higher than the “heavier” protons? Are there any times when temperatures are lower than 1.5 million K when protons would leave the sun in higher proportions than electrons (if the temperature isn’t high enough for electrons to escape)? Do the satellites measure electron speeds, proton speeds, and relative proportions separately?
Moving on, from wikipedia:
“A Van Allen radiation belt is one of at least two layers of energetic charged particles (plasma) that is held in place around the planet Earth by the planet’s magnetic field. The belts extend from an altitude of about 1,000 to 60,000 kilometers above the surface in which region radiation levels vary. Most of the particles that form the belts are thought to come from solar wind and other particles by cosmic rays.[1] The belts are named after their discoverer, James Van Allen, and are located in the inner region of the Earth’s magnetosphere. The belts contain energetic electrons that form the outer belt and a combination of protons and electrons that form the inner belt.”
Question: Why do the Van Allen belts exist and persist? What are the mechanisms? Isn’t there charge separation between the negative electrons in the outer belt and the positive protons in the inner belt, and if so, why isn’t that considered a type of “double layer”? Wouldn’t the ever-present solar wind continually load-up the belts with electrons and protons into ever higher densities? What do these electrons and protons do, and where do they go as the layer densities build-up?
Further, you said:
“Once the solar wind has escaped it doesn’t really slow down until it meets the interstellar medium [some 110 times the distance from the Sun to the Earth] at which point the velocity indeed will slow to 0 km/sec.”
If the electrons and protons slow down to 0 km/sec, wouldn’t they build-up at the heliospheric boundary, in a similar fashion as they apparently do in the Van Allen belts, along with neutral hydrogen atoms? If so, how do they behave when they build-up at the heliospheric boundary?
As you were saying here,
“The IEF is purely a local effect created when the solar wind hits the Earth’s magnetic field: positive charges are deflected one way around the Earth, and negative charges are deflected the other way. The resulting electric current neutralizes/closes by flowing through the ionosphere giving rise to aurorae and associated magnetic disturbances.”
Is it not conceivable that there exists a heliospheric magnetosphere like the earth’s magnetosphere? If so, wouldn’t the electrons and protons deflect into opposite directions around the heliosphere like they do around the earth, and wouldn’t that result in an electric current around the heliosphere, and if so, wouldn’t it neutralize/close at the sun’s poles? If not, where and how?

Re: “The only real judge in science is whether observations agree with theory [and especially with predictions made with such]. Science is the embodiment of the utmost critical thinking and progress depends on creative thinking [constrained by the reality of observations].”
Ah, so what you’re saying is that you view the scientific method as just one single process with just one set of values. And yet, in making that determination, you’ve ignored the fact that asking questions and developing models exhibit two competing sets of values. When we ask questions — if our interest is to ask good ones — then we must go out of our way to value creative and critical thinking, and we must relax our immediate need for accuracy in order to come up with new promising ideas. Your approach to science tends to value the process of elaborating models, which values a fit between observations and theory (accuracy). But what you’re still struggling to grasp is that your decision to view the scientific method as just one single process is biasing your entire approach to science towards the elaboration of existing models. You perceive that a choice must be made — between being “scientific” and not — and this perception that there is only one process at play in the scientific methodology then undermines your ability to to ask good questions. By mistaking these two very different processes — one fundamentally intended to diverge and the other to converge — as if they should exhibit the same set of values, you’ve created the very problem which you then must solve: A lack of innovation and creative solutions.
If you had simply spent some time away from your intense focus upon science itself, you might read about the process of innovation. Talk to a designer you might run into about how they do innovation. What they will tell you is that they switch between these two distinct processes of divergence and convergence. This cycling back and forth between these two very different states of thinking is absolutely fundamental to the process of originating and elaborating new ideas. Science is not somehow unique in this regard. It follows the same patterns of innovation we see everywhere else.
Here’s a thought: Have you considered that ALL models go through a stage of infancy where they are vulnerable to arguments that they have not been elaborated? What makes the Electric Universe model unique? Are you picking on it simply because it’s a new idea?
Re: “Where you go wrong is to assume that “our most cherished ideas will inevitably fail to lead anywhere”. On the contrary, we proceed to the deeper layers from the bedrock of the current ones.”
But, then you seem to be simply ignoring the instances which don’t make your case — like aether, spontaneous generation, and a very lengthy list of ideas which have simply been abandoned over time.
Are you aware that parallax only works to 1% the diameter of the Milky Way? All distances beyond that are inferred based upon the theory itself. Does it really make any sense to ascribe the same level of certainty to cosmology as it does to our more terrestrial endeavors? Have you ever, for instance, contemplated how exactly a person might disprove the notion of a black hole? Each time that new features are observed, they are simply integrated into the theory. Do such problems ever invite you to question the underlying science itself?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogma

Chris Reeve says: – …
Chris: – An epistemological tour de force, pretty well everything you’ve written here at the thread’s end. I admire your elegant description of the ‘cycling’ of scientific research between divergence and convergence to advance theoretical understandings, much akin to Thomas Kuhn’s thought in this area. And no, one does NOT need to be an ‘expert knower’ of any particular science to participate in this process; it is in fact often the very obstacle that prevents such advance, the history of science being rife with examples.
Sorry Dr Svalgaard – I’ll appoint myself an ‘independent arbiter’ and pronounce that it’s clear Chris has a background and rigour of thought that outclasses your self-analysis of what constitutes the process of scientific advancement. This is in no way any comment on your skills in your own discipline, elucidating and refining existing paradigm.
There’s an old expression, “does the fish know it is in water?” The very arguments you bring forward to support your position clearly evidence, to the neutral observer, the very thought processes and bias towards status quo of which Chris tries to warn against, as being little conducive to scientific breakthrough.
Bob Weber says,
… “I’ll be back”
Thank you for bringing forward many of the questions that trouble me, in regards conventional astrophysics response to the reality of the burgeoning EU worldview’s emergence on to the scientific stage {well, more properly, RE-emergence – as much of the ‘bedrock’ has been laid down well over a century ago}. And kudos to Dr Svalgaard for engaging very competently in presenting that conventional position, of course.
I look forward to your future postings, focusing more on the reality and implications of electrical interactions between near-space and our terrestrial sphere.
vukcevic says, …
Thank you for clarifying the ‘backstory’ of the longstanding debate between you and Dr Svalgaard, and what you endeavour to bring forward here. I’m not sure I can quite appreciate your standing aside from the whole EU thing, but do respect your right to do so. That it is ‘pseudo science’ it clearly is most certainly not; more like a huge Question Mark smack in the middle of our path to knowledge and understanding of ‘how it all works’.
To All – Don’t know if someone has brought this to this forum’s attention already: –
I’ve been following the ‘non-scientist’ (what’s that?) fellow who produces the 3min daily ‘world and space weather reports’ on Youtube and who’s audience has grown to the hundreds of thousands in but a couple of years. (158,000 subscribers) (not the only solar weather clearing site I follow, that said)
Ben is very respectful and measured in his opinions while he attempts to offer pathways to tools for self-education to his audience. He obviously follows and respects Professor Svalgaard’s work, having recently linked to the Doctor’s recent appearance at the AGU discussing the “weak sun”, though I suppose the respect might not be ‘reciprocal’ (would be interested in hearing Dr Svalgaard’s thoughts on his diligent work). I would do him a tremendous disservice to attempt to describe his developing predictive theory of tectonic disturbance as influenced by changes in activity of Our Sun [namely by coronal holes, CME’s and planetary alignments, mostly] – go look if you are interested – but statistically he is surpassing 80% accuracy in predicting +6.0 Earthquakes. Pretty Impressive. http://www.youtube.com/user/Suspicious0bservers
Eyes Open. No Fear.

DR SVALGAARD!!!!
That last little youtube ditty was meant as Friday Fun! I’m a trained musician and happen to like “Two Steps From Hell” and the piece of vid was elegantly staged, given likely done on a laptop. There’s some interesting ‘food for thought’ in it, too (what? the Sun DOESN’T move through the local Galaxy??) – but can you distinguish between the serious, and a joke? Geeeeeze!

“I know that most men, including those at ease with problems of the greatest complexity, can seldom accept even the simplest and most obvious truth if it be such as would oblige them to admit the falsity of conclusions which they have delighted in explaining to colleagues, which they have proudly taught to others, and which they have woven, thread by thread, into the fabric of their lives.” – Tolstoy

Tiburon, I appreciate your supportive comments. Please remember how gracious and open Dr. Svalgaard was here in giving of his knowledge and opinions.

Tiburon says:
December 27, 2013 at 6:58 pm
…My take-away – we never come back to the same place twice…and apparently, we’re definitely ‘on the way to….somewhere’…
——–
My que..
From the article above:
“”However, the GEC is affected by the solar activity in a different way, via the interplanetary electric field (IEF), so that only positive IEF plays a role, while negative IEF does not. Positive IEF corresponds to a interplanetary magnetic field (IMF) with a southward component, or negative z-component, which favors a direct energy transfer from solar wind to the magnetosphere and to ionosphere. For negative IEF (positive z-component of the IMF) the transfer is much less efficient and only a very small percentage of the solar wind energy is transferred to the magnetosphere (e.g. Dungey 1961, Papitashvili and Rich 2002, Siingh et al 2005). “”
If the earths north pole were positive would the above be reversed?
Why do we say that earth’s magnetosphere is stationary? If the Earth is rotating and orbiting its field will twist and turn and blow back from headwind. If the earths north pole were positive would the above be reversed?
Back at Tiburon, The Moody Blues, from “On the Threshold of a Dream.”
Have you heard (1), The Voyage and Have you heard (2)
And Dr. S., pretty cool space images and time lapse set to some classical/rock. Note on Jupiter spot, you can see it break and spin off the EEJ (equatorial electro jet) of Jupiter. Might see a few things.

I found this very interesting. http://electric-cosmos.org/SolarElecFlux2013.pdf
In light of new data from the Voyager spacecraft, it posits that the Heliopause is a “virtual” Cathode and the Sun is an Anode…. The whole system as a cell imbedded within the electrically charged plasma of the galaxy and thus potentially powering the sun externally.
[….Therefore the question arises why did Juergens only consider electron flow when he calculated the constituents of the total current in the solar plasma? It seems he was fixated on the electric circuit analogy wherein only electron flow is important. In the cosmos, there are no prohibitions against long distance travel of +ions. There are no signs that say, “No ions allowed beyond this point” as there are (figuratively) placed in front of cathodes in every lab discharge.
Therefore, if we make the estimate that there are as many +ions moving near and through the Sun as there are electrons (the ‘quasi-neutral’ assumption), the requisite number of electrons can be cut in half. The required number of electrons to power the Sun electrically is thus one out of every 40,000 that the Sun takes in from its environment near the heliopause.
Juergens’ Electric Sun hypothesis seems to be increasingly supported by every new bit of data NASA releases.
D.E. Scott (June 2013)]
For the full rundown on the EU hypothesis…. http://electric-cosmos.org/indexOLD.htm

lsvalgaard says:
December 28, 2013 at 9:00 am
Carla says:
December 28, 2013 at 8:55 am
If the earths north pole were positive would the above be reversed?
Yes, because the IEF is not a property of the solar wind or the sun, but rather results from interaction with the Earth.
Why do we say that earth’s magnetosphere is stationary?
Because both orbital and rotational speeds are so much smaller than that of the solar wind
——
So then does Earth’s magnetic field also have a negative inward, positive outward component?

Well I have been playing with the South Atlantic Magnetic Anomaly (SAMA).
They are suggesting that there is an anticyclonic sub surface flow producing the corresponding increase in monopole field strength in that region, at the same time the axial dipole strength weakens.
Its (SAMA) increase in motion corresponds with the increase in motion in the magnetic north pole 1990-2000. The latter slowing down latitudinally around 2005 and started moving more longitudinally.
Something creepy about the magnetic fields in the Solar System, starting early in 1990’s till now.
Vuks hoping you have already seen this, if not check the sine wave in Figure 7.
Equivalent monopole source of the geomagnetic South Atlantic Anomaly
http://www.earth-prints.org/bitstream/2122/5557/1/SAA_Monopole_Pageoph_rev3_in%20press.pdf
Angelo De Santis1,2 and Enkelejda Qamili 1,3
Some excerpts..
…The fluid motions that produce the SAA in the deep
outer core form an anticyclonic (i.e. counterclockwise) system underneath the Southern Hemisphere
(Olson and Amit, 2006), analogous to typical persistent features emerging from turbulent, possibly
chaotic flows (e.g., McWilliams, 1984). To our knowledge, SAA persistence is as long as the Great
Red Spot on Jupiter’s atmosphere, an anticyclonic vortex that has been persistent for 300-400 years
(e.g. Beebe, 1997)….
Figure 5 shows a comparison between monopole and axial dipole geomagnetic fields at Earth
surface from 1600 to 2000 (at steps of 50 years) from GUFM1 and IGRF at the centre of the
obtained “monopolar” anomaly. We notice that changes of the axial field are counterbalanced by
opposite changes of the monopole field: to the almost general decrease of the axial field
corresponds a general increase of the monopolar field over all the period of study.
Figure 6 shows the horizontal (latitude-longitude) path of the equivalent monopole for both
GUFM1 and IGRF models at 25-year steps (exception the addition of 1990 for GUFM1). An
apparent anticyclonic rotation of around 800 years of main period (half rotation in around 400
years) is evident. This kind of anticyclonic (anticlockwise) regime is typical of the Southern
Hemisphere as confirmed by previous results when analysed the corresponding generating flows at
the CMB (e.g. Olson and Amit, 2006). Horizontal and vertical bars represent estimates of the errors
of centre determination of the monopolar anomaly, decreasing from older epochs (±4o in latitude
and longitude) to most recent ones (± 2o in latitude and longitude). It is worth noting as well a
recent acceleration of the motion from 1990 to 2000: we do not know if this is just a mere
coincidence or if this acceleration can be associated to recent accelerations of other features of the
geomagnetic field, such as the geomagnetic poles (De Santis et al., 2007, 2008) and magnetic dip
poles (Newitt et al., 2002 )…

Just a couple of simple observations between Earths South Atlantic Anomaly and Jupiters red spot.
Great Red Spot
The Great Red Spot (GRS) is a persistent anticyclonic storm, 22° south of Jupiter’s equator; Earth observations establish a minimum storm lifetime of, variously, 183 years to possibly 348 years.[67][68] The storm is large enough to be visible through Earth-based telescopes, first being observed by Samuel Heinrich Schwabe in 1831 as a drawing of the gap formed around it, and possibly even earlier, as a “permanent spot” was described by Gian Domenico Cassini between 1665 and 1713. The actual spot has been continually described and observed since Carr Walter Pritchett did so in 1878.[69]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmosphere_of_Jupiter
“””…The Tupi experiment is at sea level and
is located at 22S and 43W, which is close to the SAA center 26S and 53W….”””
…”””This kind of anticyclonic (anticlockwise) regime is typical of the Southern
Hemisphere as confirmed by previous results when analysed the corresponding generating flows at
the CMB (e.g. Olson and Amit, 2006). …”””
And the relationship with their EEJ Equatorial Electro Jet and solar activity. Or if you prefer solar wind variation effect..
Movie Description
A movie of the variation of the geomagnetic field at the surface of the Earth due to the ionsopheric current systems. The equatorial intensification of the magnetic field is due to the Equatorial Electrojet (EEJ). UT = universal time. The unit is nT (nano-Tesla). The movie was generated using a geomagnetic field model (CM4) . This was presented in a meeting in Potsdam, Germany in 2006.

Sure hope you watched the movie of the EEJ and saw the dip in the dip equator, cus it sure looks like one helluva wave to me..

lsvalgaard says:
December 28, 2013 at 3:12 pm
Carla says:
December 28, 2013 at 3:10 pm
Try and tie this up.. lol .. ok
Auroral jets connected to the Equatorial jets hmm via the Interplanetary Electric Field IEF hmm
All these jets are in the ionosphere, not part of the climate or weather systems. No ‘hmm’s needed.
————————————
What drives the Equatorial Electro Jet EEJ? Why the Equatorial Electric Field EEF. What drives the EEF?
“”” ..Due to its importance, there is much interest in accurately measuring and modeling the EEF for both climatological and near real-time studies. The Swarm satellite mission ..”””
You did notice the word ‘climatological’ Dr. S.?
Swarm SCARF equatorial electric field inversion chain
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2013EP%26S…65.1309A
Alken, P.; Maus, S.; Vigneron, P.; Sirol, O.; Hulot, G.
Earth, Planets and Space, Volume 65, Issue 11, p. 1309-1317.
The day-time eastward equatorial electric field (EEF) in the ionospheric E-region plays a crucial role in equatorial ionospheric dynamics. It is responsible for driving the equatorial electrojet (EEJ) current system, equatorial vertical ion drifts, and the equatorial ionization anomaly (EIA). Due to its importance, there is much interest in accurately measuring and modeling the EEF for both climatological and near real-time studies. The Swarm satellite mission offers a unique opportunity to estimate the equatorial electric field from measurements of the geomagnetic field. Due to the near-polar orbits of each satellite, the on-board magnetometers record a full profile in latitude of the ionospheric current signatures at satellite altitude. These latitudinal magnetic profiles are then modeled using a first principles approach with empirical climatological inputs specifying the state of the ionosphere. Since the EEF is the primary driver of the low-latitude ionospheric current system, the observed magnetic measurements can then be inverted for the EEF. This paper details the algorithm for recovering the EEF from Swarm geomagnetic field measurements. The equatorial electric field estimates are an official Swarm level-2 product developed within the Swarm SCARF (Satellite Constellation Application Research Facility). They will be made freely available by ESA after the commissioning phase.
DOI: 10.5047/eps.2013.09.008

Thanks Carla for continuing this discussion about electric/magnetic weather effects. Clearly we’re still learning about how it all really happens. The volume of papers on these topics is exploding, and even non-experts are noticing. As a degreed electrical engineer in circuits and systems, it’s been a fascinating intellectual journey thus far learning how much the weather and climate are modulated by the interaction of the solar wind and the GEC. I’m glad to see your fervor in seeking new ways of looking at things. Just think where we’d be today if we all took James Hansen’s and Steven Schnieder’s word on carbon dioxide weather-climate control uncritically. Look how long it’s taken to get to this point where we can be confident they were wrong.

Dr. Svalgaard, what I have said has nothing to do with any IEF, and I don’t know how long it will take for you to realize that.

Dr. Svalgaard, let’s start with a clean slate right now. I understand why there is confusion about what constitutes “solar forcing” beyond TSI measurements. To understand the electric/magnetic weather effect concepts that I have talked about, we don’t have to look at this particular paper featured on this blog today (despite its usefulness) or any other papers to see how it works.
We don’t have to buy into any EU ideas to understand electric weather. Electric weather ideas are independent of the Thunderbolts project. Perhaps earlier you may have thought I was here to prove EU concepts for them – that’s their job, and if they didn’t make the grade, that’s on them. What EU is or isn’t – is irrelevant to the electric weather paradigm shift that is happening as we speak, a paradigm shift that I and others bring to the table is based on, for me, 10 years of observations, conceptual thinking, and fact-checking.
As I told you before in our previous mental exercises, I am trying to insure that I understand solar wind dynamics and implications – well enough to explain it to both Phds and the man on the street.
Here we go… to understand electric weather and how it changes the weather, open minds will find evidence of solar forcing by space weather today (Dec 29), on the following websites
http://solarimg.org/artis/
http://www.solarham.net/
http://www.spaceweather.com/
From spaceweather:
MINOR RADIATION STORM IN PROGRESS: Energetic protons are swarming around Earth on Dec. 29th following a magnetic eruption near the western limb of the sun: movie. The ongoing radiation storm ranks S1 on NOAA storm scales, which means it is a relatively minor storm with little effect on spacecraft and high-altitude aviation.
From solarham:
A number of coronal mass ejections (CMEs) were observed during the past 24 hours, however all appear to be directed away from our planet. The most energetic of these events was an eruption beyond the northwest limb, resulting in a bright, fast moving, westerly directed CME. This event looks to be directly responsible for the rise in low energy proton levels streaming past Earth. Particles began to saturate the SOHO/LASCO sensor soon after the CME became visible. This resulted in a brief, minor S1 level radiation storm. Proton levels are slowly dropping off this morning.
From solarimg:
GOES xray & proton plots, ACE LE/HE protons and LE electron plots registered an uptick in solar activity from the photons, protons, and electrons emitted from above mentioned CMEs. Also see Jet Stream and US Pressure Index provided by solarimg from today (links here): http://images.intellicast.com/WxImages/JetStream/conus.jpg and
http://weather.unisys.com/images/sat_sfc_map.gif
Cause: solar uptick in photons, protons, and electrons. Effect: auroras and the jet stream pushed southward, bringing frigid artic air and more snow.
This particular example is just the latest in a large number solar event-driven weather events here on Earth that I’ve seen in ten years. My research into past extreme weather events reveals this type of repeating pattern throughout SC24. Accumulated cyclone enegy charts for 2013 show a clear correspondence between SSN, flux, and tornadic and hurricane activity, a point also brought out here at WUWT by another commenter named Paul Pierett in his similar research here: http://sunspotshurricanesandglaciers.com/files/74034647.pdf
To top it off, check out “What does the dearth of large SEP events in Solar Cycle 24 tell us about the physics of particle acceleration?” here at http://arxiv.org/pdf/1206.4889.pdf
This month’s US and UK weather was extremely well-predicted by someone who does understand solar-driven electric and magnetic weather effects, someone who has refined his skill through the years to now be at the cutting-edge of understanding applied sciences in long-range weather forecasting, Piers Corbyn. Open minds may inquire at weatheraction.com.
I hope Dr. Svalgaard that you will take ten minutes in about ten days (will announce) when my debut video is posted on my upcoming The Electric Weather Channel (youtube), where you can see for yourself first-hand how solar forcing works beyond TSI, backed up by science, not conjecture. In the meantime keep a keen eye on those active regions… Thank you for being here. I’ll be back.