Guest essay by David Archibald
The following is a series of graphs that depict the current and past state of the sun.
Figure 1: Solar Cycle 24 relative to the Dalton Minimum
Solar Cycle 24 had almost the same shape as Solar Cycle 5, the first half of the Dalton Minimum, up to about six months ago and is now a lot stronger.
Figure 2: Monthly F10.7 Flux 1948 to 2014
The strength of the current solar cycle is confirmed by the F10.7 which is not subject to observer bias. Solar Cycle 24 is now five and a half years long.
Figure 3: Ap Index 1932 to 2014
The biggest change in solar activity for the current cycle is in magnetic activity which is now at the floor of activity for the period 1932 to 2007.
Figure 4: Heliospheric Tilt Angle 1976 to 2014
Peak of the solar cycle has occurred when heliospheric tilt angle reaches 73°. For Solar Cycle 24, this was in February 2013. It is now heading down to the 24/25 minimum.
Figure 5: Interplanetary Magnetic Field 1966 to 2014
This looks like a more muted version of the Ap Index. The main difference between them is that the IMF was a lot flatter over Solar Cycle 20 than the Ap Index.
Figure 6: Sum of Solar Polar Field Strengths 1976 to 2014
This is one of the more important graphs in the set in that it can have predictive ability. The SODA index pioneered by Schatten is based on the sum of the poloidal fields and the F10.7 flux. This methodology starts getting accurate for the next cycle a few years before solar minimum. If Solar Cycle 24 proves to be twelve years long, as Solar Cycle 5 was, then the SODA index may start being accurate from about 2016. In terms of solar cycle length, the only estimate in the public domain is from extrapolating Hathaway’s diagram off his image. Hathaway’s curve-fitting suggests that the Solar Cyce 24/25 minimum will be in late 2022. If so, Solar Cycle 24 will be thirteen years long, a little longer than Solar Cycle 23.
It seems that Livingstone and Penn’s estimate of Solar Cycle 25 amplitude of 7 remains the only one in the public domain. The reputational risk for solar physicists in making a prediction remains too great.
David Archibald, a Visiting Fellow at the Institute of World Politics in Washington, D.C., is the author of Twilight of Abundance: Why Life in the 21st Century Will Be Nasty, Brutish, and Short (Regnery, 2014).
Carla, you have completely lost me. I was hoping for your speculation on all the parameters you have brought up, this current solar cycle, and your speculations on connections to Earth’s long term weather pattern variations.
My speculation is that there is no observable connection. Temperature trend observations locally, regionally, and globally are quite noisy with intrinsic natural sourced variability on long and short term time scales.
lsvalgaard says:
June 22, 2014 at 9:59 am
Ulric Lyons says:
June 22, 2014 at 9:57 am
It seems that the biggest temperature spikes
Things are not always what they ‘seem’.
======================================
You can hardly deny that the big temperature spikes coincide with the big Ap drop from ~1yr after minimum.
http://woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4tr/from:1980/to:2014/normalise/plot/sidc-ssn/from:1980/to/normalise
Carla may you will find something here.
http://www.science.gov/topicpages/h/heliospheric+termination+shock.html#
Ulric Lyons says:
June 22, 2014 at 1:32 pm
You can hardly deny that the big temperature spikes coincide with the big Ap drop from ~1yr after minimum.
Yes I can, because this does not happen all the time [the past 150 years], so what you are claiming are just coincidental [and furthermore lacks a mechanism: Ap to ENSO?]
lsvalgaard says:
“Yes I can, because this does not happen all the time [the past 150 years], so what you are claiming are just coincidental [and furthermore lacks a mechanism: Ap to ENSO?]”
That’s because big Ap index drops just after sunspot minimum don’t happen all the time, stronger El Nino are only going to occur where the drop is big enough. Same with the Ap drop at sunspot maximum. The mechanism could be the solar wind speed effecting polar pressure and jet stream latitude, modulating the trade winds.
Ulric, then measure solar wind speed against polar pressure against jet stream latitude, against trade winds. If you find less than significant correlation between and across a long enough time span to reduce degrees of freedom you should be able to determine the observational voracity of your speculation.
Ulric Lyons says:
June 22, 2014 at 2:17 pm
That’s because big Ap index drops just after sunspot minimum don’t happen all the time, stronger El Nino are only going to occur where the drop is big enough.
All that is just hand-waving. To make a verifiable statement, you need to quantify things: measure the size of the drops, the size of the temperature rises, measure the closeness of their occurrence, etc and then show statistically that there is plausibility of your claim. Eye-balling doesn’t cut it.
Ulric Lyons says:
June 22, 2014 at 2:17 pm
The mechanism could be the solar wind speed effecting polar pressure
And how would it do that? The solar wind dynamic pressure is many trillions of times smaller than the polar pressure.
lsvalgaard says:because this does not happen all the time
In the past, once or twice you referred to your car and a flat tyre.
Motorcar velocity doesn’t always correlate to the same degree to the constant pressure you may exert on the gas pedal. It only does when you are on flat even surface, but not on the bend, not on up slope, not on down slope, and even could roll backwards at a 15 degree incline with a pedal pressure that on flat surface would propel it at 15 to 20 mph forward. Not to mention volcanic eruptions, i.e. occasional flat tyre.
TSIs constant pressure ‘gas pedal’ and the atmosphere-ocean thermodynamic systems are far more complex and variable than the robust design of a motor vehicle.
lsvalgaard says:
“And how would it do that? The solar wind dynamic pressure is many trillions of times smaller than the polar pressure.”
Maybe it is effected by the rate of Joule heating of the upper polar atmosphere.
vuk says:
June 22, 2014 at 2:59 pm
the atmosphere-ocean thermodynamic systems are far more complex and variable than the robust design of a motor vehicle.
Which is why Ulric’s and your simplistic eye-balling is rather worthless. Good that you finally recognize that.
Ulric Lyons says:
June 22, 2014 at 3:21 pm
Maybe it is effected by the rate of Joule heating of the upper polar atmosphere.
‘Maybe’ this, maybe that. Not mechanisms. Hot air moves up, not down. The Joule heating for a large substorm is of the order of 0.01 W/m2 over the polar cap, not much to speak of.
From vukcevic on June 22, 2014 at 2:59 pm:
Good Lord man, get that clutch fixed! The engine should stall out and the car be held in place rather than roll backwards. How are you supposed to park in gear on a hill with a clutch that bad? Do it now for your family!
lsvalgaard says:
“Hot air moves up, not down.”
You don’t say, circulation pattern changes could penetrate down through the atmosphere.
“The Joule heating for a large substorm is of the order of 0.01 W/m2 over the polar cap, not much to speak of.”
While; “For the three day period, March 8th through 10th, the thermosphere absorbed 26 billion kWh”
http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2012/22mar_saber/
Solar Storm Dumps Gigawatts into Earth’s Upper Atmosphere
March 22, 2012: A recent flurry of eruptions on the sun did more than spark pretty auroras around the poles. NASA-funded researchers say the solar storms of March 8th through 10th dumped enough energy in Earth’s upper atmosphere to power every residence in New York City for two years.
“This was the biggest dose of heat we’ve received from a solar storm since 2005,” says Martin Mlynczak of NASA Langley Research Center. “It was a big event, and shows how solar activity can directly affect our planet.”
…
For the three day period, March 8th through 10th, the thermosphere absorbed 26 billion kWh of energy. Infrared radiation from CO2 and NO, the two most efficient coolants in the thermosphere, re-radiated 95% of that total back into space.
Ulric Lyons says:
June 22, 2014 at 4:39 pm
You don’t say, circulation pattern changes could penetrate down through the atmosphere.
The stratosphere does not circulate.
While; “For the three day period, March 8th through 10th, the thermosphere absorbed 26 billion kWh”
To show how much you understand, please convert that into Watt/m2. If you cannot, then you have nothing.
Thats what I would do.
26E9 kWh = 2.6E13 Wh.
Three days, use 72 hours.
Just says the Earth, use over all the Earth, surface area is 510.1E6 km^2 = 5.101E8 km^2 = 5.101E11 m^2.
2.6E13 kWh / 72h / 5.101E11m^2 = 0.71 W/m^2 on average.
However 95% was sent right back out.
[previous unrounded result] * 0.05 = 0.035 W/m^2 on average.
Did I do that right?
kadaka (KD Knoebel) says:
June 22, 2014 at 7:09 pm
Did I do that right?
I wanted Ulric to do it! Now you spoiled that 🙂
The point is that his huge number 26 billion kWh is really of the same puny magnitude as the 0.01 W/m2 I gave, thus not much and negligible in the energy budget of the Earth.
Ah, I did make a mistake!
While I had converted to Wh from kWh, in the equation I still wrote kWh for the units. Result unchanged.
Circulation in the stratosphere. Height of about 17 km.
http://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/isobaric/70hPa/equirectangular=-75.00,0.00,198
Ren, at 17,500 m you are in the lower layer of the stratosphere unless you are at the poles. At the equator you are actually below the stratosphere at 17,500 m. That’s probably why, at 17,000 m you see wind circulation at the poles more than you do on other places of the globe at the earth.nullschool site.
From wikipedia: At moderate latitudes the stratosphere is situated between about 10–13 km (33,000–43,000 ft; 6.2–8.1 mi) and 50 km (160,000 ft; 31 mi) altitude above the surface, while at the poles it starts at about 8 km (26,000 ft; 5.0 mi) altitude, and near the equator it may start at altitudes as high as 18 km (59,000 ft; 11 mi).
Waves zonal on the northern hemisphere.
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/stratosphere/strat-trop/gif_files/time_pres_WAVE1_MEAN_AMJ_SH_2014.gif
Sorry, on northern hemisphere it was so.
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/stratosphere/strat-trop/gif_files/time_pres_WAVE1_MEAN_ALL_NH_2014.gif
kadaka (KD Knoebel) says:
“Did I do that right?”
The global mean is irrelevant as the solar wind coupling at the polar regions is far greater, and it is the region that I am referring to:
http://www.sienageospace.dreamhosters.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/polar_science_v3_032614_optimized.pdf
lsvalgaard says:
“The stratosphere does not circulate.”
I understand that circulation in the polar thermosphere is rather dynamic:
http://rsta.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/328/1598/139.abstract
lsvalgaard says:
“The stratosphere does not circulate.”
Polar vortex, QBO etc:
http://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/isobaric/10hPa/orthographic=279.21,-30.29,303