The solar data from the NOAA Space Weather prediction center has been posted, and like the global temperature, there isn’t much change. Sunspot numbers are down slightly, but still up from most of 2012/2013. The double peak looks more prominent.
Solar radio flux shows a similar double peak pattern.
And the Ap Magnetic index is down 6 units, and continues to bump along the bottom compared to the last solar cycle. The solar dynamo continues to be sluggish.
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If historical of Zurich are understated, this does not mean that the 24 cycle may be weaker than we think ?
ren says:
April 9, 2014 at 10:05 pm
If historical of Zurich are understated, this does not mean that the 24 cycle may be weaker than we think ?
If anything, a bit stronger, or rather the cycles before 1947 were reported too weak, by some 20%.
lsvalgaard says: April 9, 2014 at 9:34 pm
“I have no such theory.”
You stated”there has been no trend over the past 260 years, e.g. see Figure xx12 of this draft: http://www.leif.org/research/ISSI-Book-Section-4.pdf.”
That is a theory, or hypothesis if you will. It does not agree with the Zürich Sunspot Numbers. It is only true if your Figure xx12 of your draft paper is true.
lsvalgaard says:
April 9, 2014 at 9:39 pm
The ‘double peak’ is a dumbing down expression. There will be several peaks, we have already had three.
The “double peak” is an important observation, I know it’s origin… there will be spikes no doubt! will there be a “double peak” predicted for cycle 25? have you got a solar cycle 23 and 22 “phase shift” comparison btw.
Let’s see what happens in the stratosphere above the equator.
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/intraseasonal/temp10anim.gif
Richard says:
April 9, 2014 at 10:09 pm
That is a theory, or hypothesis if you will. It does not agree with the Zürich Sunspot Numbers
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_theory “A scientific theory is a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world that is acquired through the scientific method, and repeatedly confirmed through observation and experimentation”.
And indeed xx12 is based on the extensive analysis of the observational data, more details here:
http://www.leif.org/research/SSN/Svalgaard11.pdf
It is only true if your Figure xx12 of your draft paper is true.
So xx12 is based on the data we have, and we must accept it as true or nearly true [there is always some – small – uncertainty]
it does not agree with the Zürich Sunspot Numbers
It agrees very well with the revised Zürich Sunspot Numbers. The whole point of the exercise is to re-conciliate the Group Sunspot Number and the Zürich Sunspot Numbers and as Ed Cliver points out, we have succeeded in doing so, http://www.leif.org/research/Reconciliation%20of%20Group%20&%20International%20SSNs%20-%20Croatia.pdf
Sparks says:
April 9, 2014 at 10:10 pm
have you got a solar cycle 23 and 22 “phase shift” comparison btw.
I have linked to it several times. Here is one more time: http://www.leif.org/research/ApJ88587.pdf
See Figure 3 where all cycles show a shift between reversals. This is not a surprise as the dynamos in the two hemispheres are only loosely coupled, sometimes the North reverses first [as for the past 5 cycles], sometimes the South comes first, e.g. for cycles 18 and 19.
Leif,
That’s only sun spot activity in general in relation to a geographical north and south on the solar disk.
Sparks says:
April 9, 2014 at 11:16 pm
That’s only sun spot activity in general in relation to a geographical north and south on the solar disk.
sigh. The ovals show the polar field reversals…
Yep there’s a fundamental difference between geographical north/south and magnetic north/south.. just thought I should mention that.
Sparks says:
April 10, 2014 at 12:03 am
Yep there’s a fundamental difference between geographical north/south and magnetic north/south.. just thought I should mention that.
You don’t make sense [on the sun]. ‘Geographical’ refers to the Earth.
And on the sun there is no difference. The equator is the dividing line between polarities (cf. Hale’s law). There really isn’t any hemispherical ‘magnetic poles’ on the Sun. Just a collection of much smaller poles spread all over the surface and sometimes collecting near the rotational poles.
lsvalgaard says:
April 10, 2014 at 12:08 am
“You don’t make sense [on the sun]. ‘Geographical’ refers to the Earth.
And on the sun there is no difference…”
The solar disk is “Geographical” passing off geographical north/south sunspot activity as magnetic positive/negative activity is a good one.
What impact does mileage Jetstreamu for cooling of the Earth?
http://earth.nullschool.net/#2014/03/01/1200Z/wind/isobaric/250hPa/equirectangular=-122.55,0,160
Sparks says:
April 10, 2014 at 12:24 am
The solar disk is “Geographical”
Use ‘rotational’ instead of ‘geographical’. Or even better: ‘heliographical’
Leif, I am gobbling down popcorn and diet pepsi like crazy! Wicked good discussion. And you even came out of stoic land to say “…f***ing…”. Spilled pepsi all over the puter screen on that one. I need to be reading up on administrative issues (am heading for an administrative interview next week). So please, give me a break and stop! I have other articles I should be reading right now!
Note to the wise and unwise, belief trumps data. The biases we all have can overcome any and all data and mechanisms that are contrary to our pet theory. Guard against it if you wish to have any hope of accurate debate and a path forward towards plausible paradigms.
Richard says:
April 8, 2014 at 3:30 pm
“Scientists now believe that the intensity of sunspot cycles is an indicator of the overall brightness of the sun, which changes on cycles of a century and does have an influence on climate. Research by Dr. Judith Lean, a solar physicist at U.S. Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, D.C. and colleagues noted a strong correlation between solar output and temperatures since 1610. ..a period during the “Little Ice Age”,…
Lean’s study found that “solar forcing may have contributed about half of the observed 0.55°C surface warming since 1860 and one third of the warming since 1970″. ”
Not according to Michael Mann though. According to his study 100% of the warming was caused by the hot air coming out from his mouth and a further 100% recorded on his graph from the methane proceeding from his backside.
Well said — — in the case of Mann and Algore — we have the Blind leading the Dumkopf
ren says:
April 9, 2014 at 10:29 am
Is it gives food for thought?
New NOAA research has revealed unprecedented changes in ocean carbon dioxide in the tropical Pacific Ocean over the last 14 years, influencing the role the oceans play in current and projected global warming and ocean acidification. Natural variability has dominated patterns in ocean CO2 in this region, but observations now show human activity contributes to increasing CO2 levels.
“Carbon dioxide in tropical Pacific waters has been increasing up to 65 percent faster than atmospheric CO2 since 1998,” says Adrienne Sutton, a research scientist with the NOAA Joint Institute for the Study of the Atmosphere and Ocean at the University of Washington and lead author of the paper in the journal Global Biogeochemical Cycles. “Natural cycles and human-caused change appear to be combining to cause more rapid change than our models predict.”
And the connection — we are directly injecting CO2 into the tropical Pacific from all the exhaust of the Jet Ski’s ??
Where is the CO2 coming from that it can increase faster in the Tropical Pacific water — the presumed sink — than it does in the air above the Tropical Pacific — the presumed transport medium from the ultimate source — Mid Town Beijing?
Possibly an alternative explanation is needed — lots of eruptive release of CO2 by submarine volcanoes which eventually reaches the surface
Note to those who say — ah we can fingerprint the CO2 to be fossil in origin — well the CO2 from the volcanoes will also be “fossil” as after a few hundred k years of the crust subducting through the magma the C-14 is all gone
Richard says: April 9, 2014 at 2:53 pm
“The fact is though we do not know enough about the Sun’s radiation to dismiss it so glibly as a force on our climate, we do know enough about the Sun’s radiation to accept it as a force on our climate.”
I really have to wonder what force other that the Sun could supply enough energy to the Earth to drive our climate. I can go outside and feel the effects of the sun on a daily basis. I can’t say the same about CO2, or any of the other trace gases in our atmosphere. That isn’t to say that they might not also be factors in climate, but to dismiss the main source of energy into our climate as a factor in climatic variation seems beyond foolhardy.
svalgaard says: April 9, 2014 at 9:06 pm
“this shows your bias. No amount of data can rock your conviction.”
This was in response to “The reason why I asked if you had extended the proxy back to the Maunder minimum and found the suns radiation to be the same was it would test your hypothesis for me. If you do find it to be the same it would be even more suspect to me than it is now.”
I have no problem with data. Its when data is manipulated to fit into someone else’s bias is when I have a problem.
If you recollect, I reported that according to NASA’s earthobservatory the 11-year running average of sunspot numbers, which shows only the long-term variation, shows a rise in total sunspot numbers from 1700 until today. You stepped in and claimed that a recent assessment of solar activity .. shows there has been no trend over the past 260 years, and referred me to a draft paper you have prepared.
In this draft paper you have taken the raw Zürich Sunspot Numbers, which clearly shows a rising trend, and said the earlier observations (by Wolf?) were 65% less than the later ones (by Wolfer?), so we homogenise (harmonise) Wolf’s observations by increasing them by 65% and voila there is no trend.
Now I readily admit that I am not as clever as you but any hypothesis needs to be tested in addition to being very clever. We know that for the period from 1650 to 1715 AD astronomers observed no sunspots on the Sun’s surface. This lack of solar activity, also coincided with the Little Ice Age in Europe. So if your analysis shows that the Maunder minimum also had the Sun’s radiation as constant, your hypothesis would be highly suspect in my opinion.
Now you have said that, in your opinion, “The Maunder Minimum was not a serious deficit of magnetic flux, but A lessening of the efficiency of the process that compacts magnetic fields into visible spots” and also that “.. the best estimate of magnetic activity, and presumably TSI, (me: and cosmic rays) for the least‐active Maunder Minimum phases appears to be provided by direct measurement in 2008–2009″. I presume then you are leaning towards no appreciable difference in the TSI during the Maunder Minimum. You have even said “..there is [maybe] new solar physics to be learned, let us not shy away from that!” I presume that is not any indication of bias.
lsvalgaard says: April 9, 2014 at 9:34 pm
Convince me with evidence. What I have seen is too flimsy for me, but evidently you have a lower bar for gullibility. I guess it takes all kinds….
Evidence is often subtle, such as a small change in solar radiation, or maybe an apple falling on one’s head. Scoffers seldom are the authors of great discoveries.
PS – I took NASA’s data from their site for Sun Spot numbers. These are from 1749 onwards. Unfortunately Excel doesnt allow me to handle dates before 1900, but the SSN graph from 1900 onwards till March 2014 shows a clear upward trend. As I said I have no problem with the data.
Richard says:
April 10, 2014 at 4:44 pm
PS – I took NASA’s data from their site for Sun Spot numbers. These are from 1749 onwards. Unfortunately Excel doesnt allow me to handle dates before 1900, but the SSN graph from 1900 onwards till March 2014 shows a clear upward trend. As I said I have no problem with the data.
————————————————-
The upward trend started exhibiting lowering dipolar strength in the 1990’s, culminating in a very low dipolar magnetic field for solar cycle 24. Even looks squashed in the graphs, just like the heliospheric bubble, looks squashed..
Presumably an even lower dipolar field for solar cycle 25.
strange thought like ratio of sunspots to dipolar strength?
ren, I think Earth needs more energetic particles from CME’s to help lift that heavy cold air up to higher altitudes, seems low. Just like more CME’s clear out the heliosphere bubble and inflate it. Lots to be said about inflation by energetic particles..
http://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/isobaric/700hPa/overlay=temp/equirectangular=-75.00,0.00,308
Carla says: April 10, 2014 at 5:36 pm
“The upward trend started exhibiting lowering dipolar strength in the 1990′s, culminating in a very low dipolar magnetic field for solar cycle 24. Even looks squashed in the graphs, just like the heliospheric bubble, looks squashed.. Presumably an even lower dipolar field for solar cycle 25.
strange thought like ratio of sunspots to dipolar strength?”
I further split the graphs into 2.
Jan 1900 to Dec 1987 – strong upward trend
Jan 1988 to March 2014 – strong downward trend
If this trend continues and if lower Sunspot numbers eventually mean lower temperatures and the effect could be slow and delayed, then we are in for cooler times ahead.
Richard says:
April 10, 2014 at 4:44 pm
I have no problem with data. Its when data is manipulated to fit into someone else’s bias is when I have a problem.
You have a problem when the data does not fit your
In this draft paper you have taken the raw Zürich Sunspot Numbers, which clearly shows a rising trend, and said the earlier observations (by Wolf?) were 65% less than the later ones (by Wolfer?), so we homogenise (harmonise) Wolf’s observations by increasing them by 65% and voila there is no trend.
This is very simple and non-controversial. For many years we have observations both by Wolfer using a big telescope and by Wolf using a much smaller telescope. We simply compare what they observe and discover [as anybody, even you, could] that Wolfer counts 65% more spots on average than Wolf, as he should using a bigger telescope. No magic, no cleverness, no ‘manipulation’. On slide 5 of http://www.leif.org/research/Reconstruction%20of%20Sunspot%20Number.pdf you can see the two telescopes they used. They still exist and when we look through them we can very that with the big telescope we count as many more spots as Wolfer did compared to Wolf with the small telescope. Now go down to slide 41 and see how Wolfer and Wolf compare. On slide 42 I show the comparison for days in August 1883; again you can see for yourself what the numbers are. To put it differently, the two observers observe on a different scale. Just like two maps with different scale showing different amount of detail, so if two observers were counting, say, number of streets visible will also be on a different scale and to compare their data we must harmonize [convert] the observers data to each other. Now, don’t you feel a wee bit stupid pretending that you don’t understand this? I would.
“also that “.. the best estimate of magnetic activity, and presumably TSI, (me: and cosmic rays) for the least‐active Maunder Minimum phases appears to be provided by direct measurement in 2008–2009″.
That is not my opinion, but the finding of some of the best solar physicists in the world. Check the authors of the paper: http://www.leif.org/EOS/2011GL046658.pdf Better, yet, read their paper.
lsvalgaard says:
April 10, 2014 at 7:08 pm
To put it differently, the two observers observe on a different scale. Just like two maps with different scale showing different amount of detail, so if two observers were counting, say, number of streets visible will also be on a different scale and to compare their data we must harmonize [convert] the observers data to each other. Now, don’t you feel a wee bit stupid pretending that you don’t understand this? I would.
To, perhaps, make this clear to you, compare these two maps to different scales and ponder how you see more detail on the map with the larger scale [telescope]: http://www.leif.org/research/map-scales.png
lsvalgaard says:
April 10, 2014 at 7:30 am
Use ‘rotational’ instead of ‘geographical’. Or even better: ‘heliographical’
I wrote a program for studying heliographic images like http://thetempestspark.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/test51.jpg
You can have a copy of the program, but you’ll have to manually crop the latest images until I write a safe way of cropping and converting images like http://stereo-ssc.nascom.nasa.gov/beacon/beacon_secchi.shtml (I’ve completed a format conversion function, the size and cropping is straightforward, but there are other options I’m considering)
this is what it looks like in the program: http://thetempestspark.files.wordpress.com/2014/03/001015.jpg
Have a look!
I’ve also added excellent functionality for viewing daily on line images and data!
http://thetempestspark.files.wordpress.com/2014/03/001014.jpeg
http://thetempestspark.files.wordpress.com/2014/03/001013.jpeg
Any constructive suggestions would be welcome!
Also criticism is always welcome!
Leif,
The program is a casual educational project and it’s based on my own preferences and developed in my own spare time, so be kind. 😉