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).
As an aside, I intend on turning up the heat on buck deer this fall. I drew my 3rd buck tag in as many years for controlled hunt season in the same VERY productive area. Look out Bambi. Here I come.
Pamela I am not working the CO2 angle – it’s not workable, others have proved it’s not workable, and as I said before, why go there? My findings are based solely on solar variability. The Modern Solar Maximum is responsible for the entire warming we have experienced since the 1970s (the period people are so worked up about).
Someone somewhere decided the Sun doesn’t vary enough to cause temperature changes like we’ve seen – I don’t agree with that whatsoever. The energy budget cited in the Earth Observatory article in previous comments is based on “CO2 science” and as far as I’m concerned it doesn’t work because the “CO2 warming” theory doesn’t work. All skeptics agree the CO2 paradigm is deeply flawed, so why are we supposed to then use the CO2-based energy budget to work out whether the Sun varies enough to raise or lower temperatures? Scrap that “budget” – it’s junk.
If David A isn’t going to pick it up on 10.7 flux, I will, in due time. I’ve spent a lifetime figuring out things and this was no different – it’s not that hard.
Doubts? How did the USA have the most number of hot temp records at the highest readings in the 1930s, long before the CO2 concentration went up in more recent times? Why haven’t we returned to those high temps and stayed there or gone even higher? That should cause rational people to wonder out loud “why isn’t it hotter now than it was in the 1930’s when CO2 was less?”
Per your aside, in Jan 2012 I was working out in the deep hard maple forest in Northern Michigan and saw a large herd of mature elk come into the property next to my worksite. Incredible how large and beautiful those animals are!
Pamela Gray says
June 19, 2014, 2:01
As an aside, I intend on turning up the heat on buck deer this fall. I drew my 3rd buck tag in as many years for controlled hunt season in the same VERY productive area. Look out Bambi. Here I come.
—-
I still have two venison loin roasts from last year in the freezer. (gifts in return for my cooking them dinner). My fav is it pan seared with a black current reduction, sides of celeriac/onion/garlic/white turnip/potato puree and sauteed haricot vert with a fine Barolo or two. Bliss.
Bob, your arguments do not conform to scientific standards. You state a belief, not a hypothesis which you then try to disprove (that is the way it is done). You not only do not have a plausible solar mechanism, you fail in additional areas:
1. to discount the affect CO2 has on LWIR on air directly above land surfaces. The physics of that molecule clearly demonstrates the ability to re-radiate LWIR in all directions, thus warming the air over land surfaces beyond water vapor’s major role. Are you in disagreement with that property of CO2? Granted, it has a limit to how much re-radiated LWIR it can absorb and it probably interacts differently over water surfaces. And the upper tropospheric hotspot and increased atmospheric water vapor it is supposed to trigger have failed to materialize.
2. to discount the known VARIABLE short and long term lag that is part and parcel to ocean heat absorption and its rate of discharge.
3. to discount the null hypothesis, which is natural intrinsic variation, as the primary source of temperature trends.
Please note: I am not adhering to the hypothesis that increased anthropogenic CO2 is responsible for the lion’s share of anomalous warming since the 70’s. However, all CO2 isotopes share this: they are perfectly able to absorb and re-emit LWIR. That is a fact.
So stop stating beliefs. Respond with your thesis based on at least introductory facts and known properties of what is at the end of your nose before flying off into space looking for another cause.
Bob Weber says: June 19, 2014 at 2:56 pm
… How did the USA have the most number of hot temp records at the highest readings in the 1930s…
One of the contributors to the natural temperature variability went haywire in 1920s, ocean currents responded in an unhurried but appropriate manner
http://www.geomag.bgs.ac.uk/images/image018.jpg
as they always did and do.
.
.
Sean, gonna BBQ mine sans anything but salt and pepper. Might saute onions and mushrooms to make a wilted spinach salad if I can catch some of the venison drippings and I think there is left over stuffed potato salad in the frig. Plain old beer to wash it all down.
As in climate science, simple is better.
To be clearer, the carbon part of CO2 has several isotopes. They are equally capable, in a CO2 molecule, to absorb and re-emit LWIR in all directions.
Vuk, you always jump WAAAAYYY over mechanism.
Pamela can you tell me where I stated a belief? For one thing, I haven’t said all there is to say about this here at WUWT or anywhere else. What is the problem with my stating examples where the warmists’ arguments regarding CO2 do not explain various events and or conditions here? That part is a critique, not a belief.
Why is it OK for you to say “Please note: I am not adhering to the hypothesis that increased anthropogenic CO2 is responsible for the lion’s share of anomalous warming since the 70′s.” but it’s not OK for me to say that or something close to that? Is your use of the phrase “loin’s share” part of the scientific standards you speak of? What does that mean?
This conversation today was pretty short, didn’t include much, and I am still waiting patiently for David Archibald to come back and say more on his post. Today was not the day you were going to hear everything from me. I hope you’re not expecting me to go along with CO2 groupthink. The CO2 people think they have scientific standards on their side. Do you agree with them? Do you agree that there are literally hundreds of peer-reviewed science papers that meet scientific standards whereafter reality demonstrates that the papers authors were ultimately wrong?
You can criticize me for not explaining enough to you, just like my criticism of David A for so far not explaining himself better. Maybe he’ll be right back with that explanation – I’m patient. .
You couldn’t this know since I haven’t told you, but rest assured, my analysis involves the variable ocean heat charging and discharging phenomenon driven by variable solar activity. The “all-powerful” null hypothesis doesn’t explain anything – it’s used when you can’t prove anything else.
You appeared to me to fly off the handle a bit – still many notchs below petulant – THAT is my belief! So, calm down, and realize you haven’t really heard much of anything from me yet, and as such, please reserve judgment until you do, OK?
Bob Weber says: June 19, 2014 at 2:56 pm
“Pamela I am not working the CO2 angle – it’s not workable, others have proved it’s not workable, and as I said before, why go there? My findings are based solely on solar variability. The Modern Solar Maximum is responsible for the entire warming we have experienced since the 1970s (the period people are so worked up about).”
The above comment by you is stated as a belief. Because you have no plausible mechanism, you have no choice but to state your speculation as a rather strongly held position. Which to me, and I am guessing to most here, is a belief. You are looking for what you believe to be true in your mind. That is not part of the scientific method. Any climate investigator worth a damn should still be focused on intrinsic factors first. They are not well understood nor properly modeled. You appear to jump over them a leap too far which turns your hypothesis into a belief.
You probably have this on your computer but in case you don’t, here are links to well thought out articles on solar influences on climate. Granted, some parts of the first paper may need to be understood with the caveat related to the current work on sunspot number indices.
The second paper undergirds my contention that the null hypothesis, IE internal variability, is at work driving temperature trends up and down throughout the historical temperature record extended back two centuries. I will try to find the third paper of interest to this topic related to attribution to solar variability.
http://www.google.com/url?url=http://scholar.google.com/scholar_url%3Fhl%3Den%26q%3Dhttp://eprints.ifm-geomar.de/14952/1/2009RG000282.pdf%26sa%3DX%26scisig%3DAAGBfm29Vbt8OfO1Nmxn1N6FT-fu6zKkXw%26oi%3Dscholarr&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&sa=X&ei=GHSjU6HMNdOMyATY4YLwBA&ved=0CBwQgAMoADAA&usg=AFQjCNFoiAYbuSxjrLjsOGT2xbPjOSDN8g
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3568361/
For the life of me, I can’t find that article (woman author?) which was a landmark calculation on the strength of each separate factor involved in a warming trend. Leif first brought my attention to it. Maybe he can put the link to it in this thread if he knows which one I am talking about.
By the way, regarding that second paper I linked to, I consider Bob Tisdale’s work as key to understanding the one area the authors did not consider in terms of the warming trend of the past 50 years: the ENSO step function. It alone may make up the remainder of the warming trend attribution (intrinsic factors were tagged at 40% of the warming trend by the authors), ridding the remaining 60% of its assumed anthropogenic CO2 driver, or at least squeezing it into a corner. Of the two, the ENSO step function speculation, and the addition of anthropogenic CO2 to the atmosphere, back of the envelope calculations would indicate that ENSO processes are the stronger of the two in terms of having sufficient energy to drive warming.
Pamela Gray says:
June 19, 2014 at 4:48 pm
Your statements here are your unfounded beliefs: “Because you have no plausible mechanism, you have no choice but to state your speculation as a rather strongly held position. Which to me, and I am guessing to most here, is a belief. You are looking for what you believe to be true in your mind.” and “You appear to jump over them a leap too far which turns your hypothesis into a belief.”
You have done nothing but assume. I’ve forgive you. You’re obviously not a mind reader.
From your second link abstract opening: “The observed global-warming rate has been nonuniform, and the cause of each episode of slowing in the expected warming rate is the subject of intense debate. …. [last abstract statement] Quantitatively, the recurrent multidecadal internal variability, often underestimated in attribution studies, accounts for 40% of the observed recent 50-y warming trend.”
What accounts for the other 60%, provided the 40% attribution to IE is accurate? Where does the ocean get the heat that gets released into the atmosphere? The Sun! What constantly replenishes the ocean with heat as it continually releases heat into the atmosphere? The Sun! What happened to ocean and air temperatures during the periods of history when solar activity was low? How did they get colder from IE then get warmer again if the Sun’s heat supposedly varies so little? Why are the warmists looking for the “missing heat” at the bottom of the ocean?
The first paper by Gray et al: related are you? I guess another copy of that one in my hard drive won’t hurt – in addition to the other fifty or so solar climate papers. Lockwood’s name is on that – are you sure Leif would approve?
Pamela I realize you’re trying to be helpful. Appreciate the thought. Happy hunting.
Bob Weber says:
June 19, 2014 at 4:21 pm
Look at the graph I referred you to. Above a sunspot number of 40, sealevel rises. Below 40, it falls. Simple as can be. If you can understand that, we can go on to the next step which is converting that sunspot number to F10.7 flux, which is 100. I will now refer you to a reivew of my book:
http://takimag.com/article/a_fate_of_ice_and_fire_john_derbyshire#axzz356JdHGPO
By the way, the average sunspot number over the last 8,000 years was 30. So climate and sealevel equilibrated on that level of activity. The Sun has been more active for the last 150 years so the climate and sealevel has equilibrated on a sunspot number of 40.
Regarding Bob Tisdale: one wonders how he can hold a job and still crank out so many great jam-packed posts! I’ve certainly learned from Mr. Tisdale’s works. My short answer to the title of his book “Who Turned Up the Heat?” is …. the SUN!
Good heavens.
Bob, if you google Pamela Gray you will find 10’s of thousands of people who share my name. Even my middle name. Gray is my married name though I am no longer married. So no relation. However I have done lab research and have published.
OK
David Archibald says:
June 19, 2014 at 5:56 pm
Appreciate the response. Time will tell who’s right about sea-level and solar activity. How did you determine the average SSN to be 30 over the past 8,000 years? Just to help you avoid the troubles earlier alluded to on this post, is the SSN you refer to during the last 150 years the new-fangled number or old-fangled number? Does the current SSN reconstruction efforts led by Leif change in any way your calculations or conclusions?
Bob, I don’t think Leif will mind if Lockwood is on the list. Lockwood’s recent papers are in agreement with Leif regarding calibration problems with the Zurich sunspot number. “We analyse the widely-used international/ Zürich sunspot number record, R, with a view to quantifying a suspected calibration discontinuity around 1945 (which has been termed the “Waldmeier discontinuity” [Svalgaard, 2011])…and that R is indeed too low before 1945.”
http://centaur.reading.ac.uk/36853/
Good questions Bob.
So this is what’s been happening on the solar threads. Long arguments that the Earth is warming, due to tiny solar output variations that are incapable of overriding the mechanisms of Willis Eschenbach’s Thunderstorm Thermostat Hypothesis, among others.
So how much longer will these solar enthusiasts be treating the Earth like a block of aluminum on a digitally-controlled hot plate? Feed in another tenth of a watt, then calculate how much the temperature of the monolithic homogeneous planet MUST rise?
Pamela Gray says:
June 19, 2014 at 7:03 pm
Thanks.
kadaka (KD Knoebel) says:
June 19, 2014 at 7:40 pm
AS if the idea that the Earth cools to space is somehow an idea that one man owns – is ludicrous.
From Bob Weber on June 19, 2014 at 7:52 pm:
Such a quick reply, showing how little consideration you gave to my words.
If the solar output is increased leading to more solar energy being absorbed on the surface, then the tropical thunderstorms happen earlier in the day, the excess heat is still dumped to space. Little solar additions mean earlier storms, that’s it.
What might make a difference is if the solar output dropped so low the thunderstorms were no longer triggered, which would result in greater heat retention as the thunderstorm mechanism naturally overshoots, thus there would be a natural floor where temperatures are maintained with occasional thunderstorms. It would take quite a sustained drop to make a noticeable difference as the system drifted cooler, over many decades as perhaps happened with the Spörer Minimum.
The solar variations debated here, are too minuscule for too short a time frame to matter.
Sometimes I think the posters on this board would think Attila the Hun was a liberal. Dwight D Eisenhower and Richard Nixon would be left wingers today. It amazes me how far right this country has come since I was a boy in the fifties and nobody who is younger than forty seems to understand that at all. A liberal media? What a joke! Fox News vs. Walter Cronkite and Eric Severeid. Like comparing Venus and Mars.
@davidgmills
Right wing? There was no Obamacare in the 50s. The biggest liberal of the age, JFK, also enacted the second biggest tax cut in history. There were no seat belt laws (you may or may not agree with them, however they are not right wing). Welfare? See you local church. Food stamps? S&H Green only.
YOu did not live then if you think the country is “right wing” now.