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 says:
June 18, 2014 at 5:54 pm
Heliosphere done shrinking yet?
A shrinking heliosphere has no influence on solar activity. Causality flows the other way.
William Astley says:
June 18, 2014 at 7:12 am
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Thanks for the reminder bout something I saw recently and wanted to share on a thread such as this.
This solar image in the link below, was taken with a 9″ telescope. When you look at the image zoomed it appears the magnetic loops around the sunspot are lying on the solar surface unable to stand up.
From Spaceweather.com
J. P. Brahic sends this picture of activity in the exit zone from Uzès, France:
http://spaceweathergallery.com/full_image.php?image_name=jp-brahic-2014-06-14_T_09-56-44-A_1402827002.jpg&PHPSESSID=sbi7jbbioln7kp8d2chtkthv86
Brahic took the picture through cirrus clouds using a 9 inch solar telescope, and he inserted an image of Earth for scale. The dark cores of the departing sunspots are about the size of our planet, and the surrounding tangle of magnetic filaments could swallow Earth with room to spare.
Carla says:
June 18, 2014 at 6:08 pm
When you look at the image zoomed it appears the magnetic loops around the sunspot are lying on the solar surface unable to stand up.
It has been known for many decades that the magnetic field in the penumbra surrounding the spot is mainly horizontal [i.e. ‘unable to stand up’].
Leif, everyone, I just read a GREAT one I feel greatly obliged to share. My apologies in advance if you think they are needed.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/06/16/dual-tornadoes-on-the-ground-in-nebraska/#comment-1665206 (bold added)
I’m already laughed out. Hope you enjoy, YMMV.
kadaka (KD Knoebel) says:
June 18, 2014 at 6:21 pm
The one law that explains all the other law’s and accepted as doing so is Coulumbs Law
If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail…
It’s a stone mason’s hammer. They pound boulders and declare they have made sculptures and monuments.
lsvalgaard says:
June 18, 2014 at 6:13 pm
Carla says:
June 18, 2014 at 6:08 pm
When you look at the image zoomed it appears the magnetic loops around the sunspot are lying on the solar surface unable to stand up.
It has been known for many decades that the magnetic field in the penumbra surrounding the spot is mainly horizontal [i.e. ‘unable to stand up’].
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Yes, I know you know that. But it still looks like it can’t get up. Are the spots reaching a certain mid/high latitude and fizzles out?
Perhaps the reasons why this is, lies in the declining/declined solar magnetic field, its dipole, quadruple and octupoles, (the poles).
http://wso.stanford.edu/gifs/Multipole.gif
Accretion onto Stars with Octupole Magnetic Fields: Matter Flow, Hot Spots and
“” Phase Shifts “”
Min Longa, Marina M. Romanovab, Frederick K. Lambc,d
http://arxiv.org/pdf/0911.5455.pdf?origin=publication_detail
Nov. 2011
Page 3
Another type of phase-shift can be connected with variation of the accretion rate,
and it operates even in cases when the magnetic field is fixed. Namely, if the
accretion rate varies, then the accretion disk interacts with different multipoles:
at low accretion rates it will interact with the dipole component, which dominates
at large distances;
at higher accretion rates, the disc will come closer to the star
and it will interact with the higher-order multipole of the complex field.
The magnetic axes of multipoles can have different tilts and phases relative to one another,
and hence the set of hot spots and the light-curves will be different at different accretion rates.
We can expect variation in both the phases and the shape of the light-curves. We use our
present stellar model with a superposition of the dipole and octupole fields to demonstrate
both of the above models of phase-shifts…….
Maybe, we can get William Astley to say Phase Shift, instead of “interruption,” to the solar cycle.
Carla says:
June 18, 2014 at 7:21 pm
Yes, I know you know that. But it still looks like it can’t get up. Are the spots reaching a certain mid/high latitude and fizzles out?
No, the penumbrae are and have always been nearly horizontal [‘not standing up’]
Perhaps the reasons why this is, lies in the declining/declined solar magnetic field, its dipole, quadruple and octupoles, (the poles).
No, this has nothing to do with the declining magnetic field, nor with accretion, etc. And William’s idea are overblown specualtion bordeing on nonsense [i.e. no evidence].
lsvalgaard says:
June 18, 2014 at 7:25 pm
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You did know that Ne (neon) was found in the previously known as “helium focusing cone.” (gravitationally accreted helium from interstellar space)
We might have to rename the downwind focusing cone, that lies in Earth’s orbit, the Helium and Neon focusing cone.
Ya know on the upwind side of the heliosphere, like where we are orbiting at this time of year, the noctilucent clouds seemed late this year. Could it be that the upwind “crescents” of these gravitationally focused Ne H O etc.. shift, making them appear early or late..?
good night
vukcevic says:
June 18, 2014 at 5:34 am
No, I don’t have a number for Solar Cycle 25. I don’t have a model. Hathaway’s initial estimate of 170 for Solar Cycle 24 was trendology – if the previous cycles were strong then he thought this one would be also. Livingstone and Penn are likely to be in the ballpark. Guesses don’t count in this business.
lsvalgaard says:
June 18, 2014 at 5:49 am
People who complain about the stuff I do could displace me by doing better work. Nobody does. Perhaps I mixed up data sets. To quote one the Clintons: What difference, at this point, does it make?” She was referring to four dead Americans, I am referring to a graph that apparently needed a trigger warning. Perhaps I did it deliberately just to get certain people upset. One of life’s little pleasures is aggravating lefties. The appropriate quote from G.W.Bush is: Mission accomplished!
geoff says:
June 18, 2014 at 6:03 am
It is with some sadness that I report that I no longer use a length of 17 years for Solar Cycle 24. That was based on an observation by Altrock in April 2011 that Solar Cycle 24 was 40% slower, in green corona emissions, than the average of the previous two cycles. That means 40% longer. He recanted the following year and hasn’t published since. God knows what is going on.
DavidR says:
June 18, 2014 at 7:07 am
You raise some very good points but that is old news. It has been covered on WUWT before:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/08/13/when-will-it-start-cooling/
We are going to have to have some big cooling soon if Solar Cycle 24 isn’t going to end up as a big outlier in Friss-Christensen and Lassen analysis. If Solar Cycle 24 ends up being ultra-long then we might have time, but there may be only seven or so years left. Not much that NASA says can be believed at face value. Solar Cycle 24 started in December 2008, not January. It seems that nobody is happy with a stable climate. All 50 of the IPCC climate models have been proved wrong and mine remains in doubt, all due to a non-changing climate. But I could yet be in the ballpark, and thus have a win. David Evans’ notch filter model (a honking 20 megs in Excel) has an eleven year lag between TSI and climate. After the big proton pulse from the Sun in 2003, solar activity dropped off sharply in 2004 with the Ap Index following in 2005. Eleven years later, we are just about due for a big temperature drop off.
I have yet to be proved right re temperature but the effects I predicted are already here:
http://www.farmscape.com/f2ShowScript.aspx?i=24632&q=Delayed+Spring+Planting+Raises+Concerns+Over+Potential+for+Frost+Damage+this+Fall
Late spring resulted in two million acres remaining unplanted for wheat this season in Canada. The average Canadian wheat yield last year was 1.1 tonnes/acre so the reduction will be about 10% of the Canadian wheat crop. And because what was planted could run into early frosts, the harvest has the potential for a further reduction. I have been saying for some time that Canadian agriculture will revert to trapping beavers, as they did in the 17th century. It shall come to pass.
JJM Gommers says:
June 18, 2014 at 8:55 am
Unfortunately we don’t have F10.7 flux data for the Dalton. The F10.7 flux level is currently 110. Below 100 (equating to a sunspot number of 40) is cooling and sea level falls.
Leif In the coming days is expected to snowfall in the whole of Scandinavia.
Greetings
J Martin says:
June 18, 2014 at 1:16 pm
Be aware that measurement of the Ap Index began in January 1932. So a chart that shows it back to 1844 or any other date prior to 1932 is a creation of the author of that chart. The author may have biases that influenced the construction of his chart, he may have a track record of hammering the solar record flat. But yes, the Ap Index looks pretty dead.
David A, how did you determine the cooling threshold via F10.7 flux to be 100? How do you calculate a SSN of 40 that equates to F10.7 at 100?
Leif, do you agree in principle or in fact that there is a level of solar activity that causes cooling here? Is so, what low level of solar activity do you ascribe to terrestrial cooling? What level to warming?
David A and Leif, do you agree with NOAA/NASA that SC24 has peaked or is peaking now?
I remain interested in what David E is currently saying, as long as I can agree to the mechanism he still has yet to divulge as of today. So far he has triggered both my curiousity and skepticism…
Bob Weber says:
June 18, 2014 at 9:36 pm
The Sun controls climate. So above a particular level of solar activity, temperature will rise and below it temperature will fall. Same for sea level. All explained by the fifth graph on this post:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/02/03/quantifying-sea-level-fall/
Carla says:
June 18, 2014 at 8:03 pm
Could it be that the upwind “crescents” of these gravitationally focused Ne H O etc.. shift, making them appear early or late..?
No, what the heliosphere does have no bearing on anything like that.
David Archibald says:
June 18, 2014 at 8:24 pm
Perhaps I did it deliberately just to get certain people upset.
What a shameless, small-minded little nasty creature you are.
David Archibald says:
June 18, 2014 at 9:20 pm
Be aware that measurement of the Ap Index began in January 1932. So a chart that shows it back to 1844 or any other date prior to 1932 is a creation of the author of that chart.
Created from the same kind of data that goes into Ap and therefore just as valid. It all depends on the data and not on the person. Here you can learn how to construct Ap: http://www.leif.org/research/2007JA012437.pdf
Bob Weber says:
June 18, 2014 at 9:36 pm
Leif, do you agree in principle or in fact that there is a level of solar activity that causes cooling here? Is so, what low level of solar activity do you ascribe to terrestrial cooling? What level to warming?
The Sun always causes warming. The Earth looses heat to space by radiation. Over time there is a balance between warming and cooling. One has to do the calculation right and not just the simplistic magical ‘level’-business
that SC24 has peaked or is peaking now?
Weak cycles have many peaks. How many you see, depends on what smoothing you perform. The Sun does not know which one.
ren says:
June 18, 2014 at 9:18 pm
Leif In the coming days is expected to snowfall in the whole of Scandinavia.
Except that I live in sunny California…
ren, bet it turns out to be just northern Norway. It would be a wonderful country in which to live if it weren’t for the cold weather. http://www.weathercast.co.uk/world-weather/scandinavia.html
David, I have seen some of your more recent reports showing the green corona data that indicates solar cycle 24 will be much longer than average, I am somewhat confused by your statement that you are no longer sure about the longer than average length for the cycle, why is it you still show the green corona data when your statement in this article shows your newest thinking, that the cycle “might” be longer than cycle 23?
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Steven Mosher says:
June 18, 2014 at 9:51 am
So yes, this is an appeal to authority. But its a pragmatic appeal and not an epistemic appeal.
its not right because Leif says so, But rather, if I am unwilling to do the work myself, and I want the best chance of improving my understanding, then its a pragmatically wise move to believe Leif.
Every time I have checked him, he was right. Every time. So I have a choice: Do the work myself
or trust Leif. you are free to do either. Both are rational. After a while you understand that you only advance by actually trusting another scientist.
***
Trust but verify, as the Gipper said.
I am late to this discussion but reading through I wonder if anybody has a view on the following simple monthly chart of sea surface temps anomalies 60 to 70 deg south – source NOAA Reynolds SST.
http://nomad1.ncep.noaa.gov/cgi-bin/pdisp_sst.sh?ctlfile=monoiv2.ctl&ptype=ts&var=ssta&level=1&op1=none&op2=none&month=nov&year=2000&fmonth=may&fyear=2014&lat0=-70&lat1=-60&lon0=-180&lon1=180&plotsize=800×600&title=&dir=
The puzzle I have is the apparent “step change” into negative in mid 2000s. it could of course just be an artifact. Also are the cooler SSTs contributing to the increase in southern hemisphere sea ice?