“AZleader” writes at “Inform the pundits”.
Austin, August 16, 2014 – A rare spotless day on the sun on July 17-18, 2014 triggered public speculation that an already stunted Cycle 24 was nearly over. Such is not the case. Defying the odds for so late in a sunspot cycle, another solar sunspot maximum was set last month. Another one is coming this month.
In other major news, a long needed revision to the 400-year sunspot record was proposed. It’ll be the first change made to the sunspot record since it was first established by Rudolf Wolf back in 1849. The changes will affect long-term climate and other dependent scientific studies.
One effect of the proposal will be to reduce modern sunspot totals. That will wipe out the so-called “Modern Maximum” and make the current sunspot cycle, Cycle 24, the weakest in 200 years.
Cycle 24 solar sunspot progression
After four straight months of steep declines in monthly sunspot counts, July reversed the trend and increased slightly.
The Royal Observatory of Belgium released July’s average monthly sunspot count on August 1, 2014. Despite the mid-month spotless day, the sunspot number increased and it grew solar maximum again for the sixth straight month.
…
Extended periods of inactivity – like the Spörer, Maunder and Dalton minimums – were all accompanied by cooler earth temperatures. Conditions today mimic Cycles 3, 4 and 5 which marked the beginning of the Dalton Minimum.
Revising the 400-year sunspot record
The 400-year sunspot record is the longest continuously recorded daily measurement made in science. It’s used in many scientific disciplines, including climate science studies. It hasn’t been adjusted since Rudolf Wolf created it over 160 years ago.
Over the centuries errors have crept into the record, degrading its value for long-term studies. New data and discoveries now allow scientists to detect and correct errors. The first serious look back at the long-term record since Wolf in 1849 came without even a press release last month. It’s a modestly titled new paper called “Revising the Sunspot Number” by Frédéric Clette, et al., submitted for publication to the journal Solar and Stellar Astrophysics on July 11, 2014.
Some outcomes of the new paper include:
- The so-called “Modern Maximum” disappears
- Sunspot activity is steady over the last 250 years
- Three detected “inhomogeneities” since 1880 are corrected
- Cycle 24 will become the weakest in 200 years
The new paper describes the current state of understanding of the long term record. It isn’t a complete revision of the entire record, but a first level recalibration going back to 1749. The Royal Observatory of Belgium plans to release this and other revisions incrementally over time.
Solar physicist, Dr. Leif Svalgaard of Stanford University, organized a series of four workshops beginning in 2011 designed to review and revise the long term record. This new paper is the first fruit of that labor. Primarily, it removes “inhomogeneities” and brings the International Sunspot Number and newer Group Count record and solar magnetic history in sync.
Full story here: http://informthepundits.wordpress.com/2014/08/17/sunspots-2014-two-big-surprises/
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From jonesingforozone on August 20, 2014 at 8:23 pm:
Math. Particle and anti-particle pairs are routinely popping into existence. When it all sums to zero, any number of things may be created.
Unicorns are an old sideshow and farmshow attraction, made by relocating the horn buds of a goat, I have heard of taking half of each one so the curling is in opposition to make it grow straight. With genetic engineering we’ll be able to make unicorns from horses.
Do you remember the example showing the curvature of space, that if you head outward in any direction you will eventually end up back where you started?
As something heads outward from the center of the universe’s mass, it is also heading towards the center of the universe’s mass. As it is equally heading towards and away from the same thing, the gravitational potential energy remains the same, and from both directions it sums to zero. Likewise kinetic energy sums to zero. Thus no loss of energy.
Don’t forget the time difference with the effect of the curvature. The edge of the universe we see is heading towards the more compact universe of its time. As when comparing a spacecraft in freefall approaching a planet versus it entering an asteroid cloud of the same mass, acceleration by gravity towards the ancient compact universe center is greater than we would see today traveling through this more-dispersed universe. Thus by our temporal and spatial perspective the visible edge of the universe is accelerating away from us.
Of course from me that is just largely speculation, but unlike some here I will freely admit that. Except for the unicorns, as those are real.
The pair of anti-particles creates energy according to the equation E=mc², which could only explain nothingness now.
What would appear as outward acceleration of the universe for the last 5 billion years, according to the ΛCDM, was actually due to a slight inward spiral.
This hypothesis does not depend upon “dark energy” and does not result in closed timelike curves.
See Tommy Gold Revisited: Why Does Not The Universe Rotate?.
Another discussion of gravity masquerading as “dark energy” may be found in the paper Could Dark Energy be a Manifestation of Gravity?
“Cosmologists only know how to use `unknowns’ to explain `unknowns’,” writes Dr. Richard Leiu, Department of Physics, University of Alabama, Huntsville, AL, in his 2007 paperΛCDM cosmology: how much suppression of credible evidence, and does the model really lead its competitors, using all evidence?
He then compares the ΛCMD model to others according to 16 observational verdicts, such as “Age of stars” and “CMB SZ Effect (WMAP).”
He concludes, in part, “The irony of today’s times is that while dark matter is still unidentified despite half a century of search, taxpayers are asked to invest in yet another potential fiasco.”
When observations can be verified, we get the Mann hockey stick scandal.
When they are not, we get the “big bang.”
Pseudoscience, regressing the data to a subset.
Wow, winter is still some months off and Jack Frost is already showing up as a bit nippy. Prepare for a cold winter.
Of course not! The weather today will be a lot like the weather yesterday! The weather tomorrow, too! That’s good for a 60-70% hit rate right there, in most locations. Even better, I can always make possibly skillful forecasts by looking at trends and periodicities of the past.
The problem is that if you do this properly, with systems like the stock market or the climate, you find yourself on Koutsoyiannis’ standard picture of an ever rescaling trend. What looks like a linear trend turns out to be quadratic. What looks like a quadratic trend turns over and suddenly it is interpreted as being cubic. It turns again, and not it is periodic. The scale expands yet again and suddenly it turns out that the entire set of twists and turns at larger and larger scale are all just noise on a still larger scale variation of undetermined character.
And the “character” of that longer scale variation itself could be — chaotic noise!
That’s why if you Fourier transform the stock market or any parameter or stock price therein, over any sufficiently long data segment, you will get nonzero fourier components. And, if you want to impoverish yourself, you are welcome to build a model based on the most important components and extrapolate it and invest on that basis.
Before you do, you might read The Black Swan — because quite aside from the non-extrapolability of periodicities inferred from only a few cycles (of the supposed periodicity) with no strong theoretical foundation in a nonlinear chaotic system which is known to probably not be periodic — that’s the chaotic bit — systems like the stock market and climate very likely have non-normal “catastrophes” inherent in their accessible phase space — places where the market drops by 1/3 in a single day, places where there simply isn’t a proper summer or where there isn’t a proper winter. These “black swan events” can occur on all time scales in systems of this sort, and are by their nature unpredictable and so large that they completely destroy/reset any secular trends even when there are some meaningful trends to be reset.
Numerology is fine, but it is only the first step in physics, and should never be accompanied by a statement of significance until the physics of the numerology is known, cut and dried, and a working model implementing the physics works to substantially, not trivially, predict the future. HenryP makes this error all of the time. One cannot even correct him — his belief that a well-fit curve must extrapolate exceeds all religion. Only the future deviation of the predicted result from the measured one will eventually show him that quadratic fits, no matter how perfect, to short segments of climate data do not extrapolate. Periodic fits, too.
Or at least, they never have in the past.
rgb
http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2014/07/analysis-solar-activity-ocean-cycles.html
This is in reference to the request made to me by Matthew Marler for a statistical relationship between the climate and items which may exert an influence on the climate.
Curiousity has lead me to make a comparison of the new group sunspot numbers http://www.leif.org/research/Revised-Group-Numbers.xls to the established international sunspot number, Ri {http://sidc.oma.be/silso/datafiles using ‘Yearly mean total sunspot number [1700 – now]’}.
Using the same method that I had used earlier for the same years on both data sets, I compared the total numbers of sunspots in post-1975 years to the 200 years pre-1975, and discovered a surprising result, given all the hype: the GSN reconstruction makes no discernable difference over the SIDC number post-1975 as pertaining to the solar cause of global warming. The results:
The fraction of the sum of sunspots 1975-now to the sum of sunspots from 1775-1974 from both datasets yields the exact same proportion for each, amazingly, 25.8%.
The fraction of the sum of sunspots 1975-now to the sum of sunspots from 1775-now from both datasets yields the exact same proportion for each, amazingly, 20.5%.
The average annual GSN 1975-now is 29.2% higher than the average annual GSN 1775-1974, and the average annual SIDC SSN (Ri) 1975-now is 29.6% higher than the average annual Ri 1775-1874, a minor difference of 0.4%. (The Ri value for 2014.5 was estimated at 64.)
The GSN makes no real difference to any solar influence determinations wrt global warming 1975-now. None. We’ve seen some grandstanding here lately that somehow the modern maximum has been wiped away by the new GSN. Nope. The new GSN does not disprove one iota the solar cause of global warming.
The new GSN perfectly reinforces the evidence from the SIDC numbers that the sun was significantly more active during the global warming years post-1975 than the preceding 200 years all the way back to the founding of the USA.
Thank you, Leif! That is an excellent answer (and I’m a bit red-faced that I didn’t study the slide-set further! An old feeling when a student doesn’t do his studies completely!!)
I agree that the SSN is a good proxy, and that we should certainly keep this record going. However, perhaps it could be augmented with other methodologies that you mention? I seem to recall discussions on WUWT that many legitimate sunspot areas are not terribly visible, although the magnetic field fluctuation is there nonetheless. We do this type of “syndromic surveillance” all the time in epidemiology (my field) to monitor illness in a population. Very best wishes, Charles
Bob Weber says:
August 21, 2014 at 9:31 am
the GSN reconstruction makes no discernable difference over the SIDC number
The whole point of our reconstruction was to show [among other things] that it has been possible to reconcile the GSN and the SSN,
see e.g.
http://www.leif.org/research/Reconciling-Group-and-Wolf-Sunspot-Numbers.pdf conclusion on slide 13:
(1) Using the ‘Backbone’ technique it is possible to reconstruct a Group Sunspot Number 1825-1945 that does not exhibit any systematic difference from the standard Wolf [Zürich, Intnl.] Sunspot Number
(2) This removes the strong secular variation found in the Hoyt & Schatten GSN
(3) And also removes the notion of a Modern Grand Maximum
and
http://www.leif.org/research/Reconciliation%20of%20Group%20&%20International%20SSNs%20-%20Croatia.pdf
(1) Two corrections reconcile the International and Group numbers back to 1825
(2) Original Group SSN is flawed before 1885
(30 No evidence for Grand Maximum from ~1945-1995
Finally, we carried the revision all the way back to 1749 showing that the 18th century was not more active than the 20th.
The comparison you made is invalid because the SIDC numbers on their website are inflated by 20% since 1947.
And, as usual, you are cherry picking. Picking other intervals gives different results. The whole series clearly shows where you go off the rail http://www.leif.org/research/Solar-Activity-Temperature-Anomalies.png
Leif, I used the time interval you recommended. Average solar activity as measured by sunspot number yearly averages was 29% higher since 1975 than the previous 200-year average, per the new GSN. I’m sure no one is saying the new GSN is invalid. 29% higher solar activity since 1975!
Bob Weber says:
August 21, 2014 at 12:55 pm
29% higher solar activity since 1975
You can find other intervals where activity is higher than in that 200-yr average [for example: 1749-1794 avg=70.9, 1975-2014 avg=68.2]. The cherry picking game can go on forever.
The simplest and most non-objectionable is the long term trend from the first half of the data to the 2nd half: 55.3 vs. 57.1, no significant difference http://www.leif.org/research/Solar-Activity-Temperature-Anomalies.png . And that is without including the two high cycles that preceded 1749 http://www.sidc.be/silso/yearlyssnplot
Bob Weber says:
August 21, 2014 at 12:55 pm
29% higher solar activity since 1975
You can find other intervals where activity is higher than in that 200-yr average, e.g.
http://www.leif.org/research/Solar-Activity-Temperature-Anomalies-3.png
Leif Svalgaard says:
August 21, 2014 at 2:02 pm
BEST is a bust.
sturgishooper says:
August 21, 2014 at 2:16 pm
BEST is a bust.
which other one would you suggest?
If they are all bad, no further discussion is needed as we then can’t tell.
Bob Weber says:
August 21, 2014 at 12:55 pm
29% higher solar activity since 1975
If you like the official SIDC numbers so much, you may enjoy this ‘unofficial’ use of them, where I simply scaled the SIDC values before 1848 to match the new Group Sunspot Numbers since 1749 and plotted to so re-scaled values before 1749 in blue:
http://www.leif.org/research/Unofficial-New-GSN-Caution.png
You can then cherry pick other intervals
Not that I complain, but how wonderful that I can now show a graph or a plot in-line:
http://www.leif.org/research/Frustration.gif
Leif Svalgaard says:
August 21, 2014 at 2:42 pm
All official surface station “data” sets are bad. They’ve all been cooked to a crisp. The only procedure with any hope for remotely valid results is to take the global record as it was c. 1979 (before the worst “adjustments”), then tack satellite observations onto it. Since the ideologically motivated invention of alleged human responsibility for climate change, the surface station data have been “adjusted” out of any semblance to reality by the charlatans of Hadley, GISS, et al.
sturgishooper says:
August 21, 2014 at 2:49 pm
All official surface station “data” sets are bad.
Make one for me, that you consider usable [for 1750-2014] and I’ll gladly use that one instead.
Leif Svalgaard says:
August 21, 2014 at 2:53 pm
How about grafting the first IPCC historical graph (starting well before AD 1750), after Lamb, onto Dr. Roy’s latest update?
http://climateaudit.files.wordpress.com/2008/05/lambh23.jpg
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2014/08/uah-global-temperature-update-for-july-2014-0-31-deg-c/
From sturgishooper on August 21, 2014 at 3:24 pm:
The Medieval Warm Anomaly was only 0.3°C above current temperatures? Do you have something with a better-defined Y-axis?
Of course before you can splice on the UAH global record, you have to show the Medieval Warm Anomaly was more than regional.
Why don’t you just point us to the dataset of points used for the IPCC graph, so it can be checked how well the new sunspot number matches up with that?
kadaka (KD Knoebel) says:
August 21, 2014 at 3:40 pm
The evidence for the global extent of the MWP & LIA is overwhelming and grows more so every year. Same for the Dark Ages Cold Period, Roman WP, Greek Dark Ages CP, Minoan WP & Holocene Optimum. Ditto for comparable cyclic swings during prior interglacials, & for that matter in glacials.
The data sets for the graph after Lamb have repeatedly been posted in comments to posts in this blog. How did you miss it? Or the extensions to Manley’s work on the CET, which Lamb used, among other sources. Here are the CET data again:
TABLE II
PREVAILING TEMPERATURES (°C) IN CENTRAL ENGLAND AND RAINFALLS ( ~oo OF 1916–1950 AVERAGES)
IN ENGLAND AND WALES
Period Temperatures 1
Winter Winter (DJF) High summer High summer Year,
(DJF) adjusted for (JA) (JA) based on the
probable Adjusted to adjusted
under- meet certain values given
reporting of botanical for winter
mild winters considerations and summer
in medieval (see text)
times (see
text, see also
notes above)
800-1000 3.5 3.5 15.9 15.9 9.2
1000-1 I00 3.7 3.7 (16.2) 16.2 9.4
1100-1150 3.5 3.5 (16.2) 16.5 9.6
1150-1200 3.9 4.2 (16.3) 16.7 10.2
1200-1250 3.8 4.1 (16.3) 16.7 10.1
1250-1300 3.9 4.2 (16.3) 16.7 10.2
1300-1350 3.6 3.8 15.9 16.2 9.8
1350-1400 3.6 3.8 15.7 15.9 9.5
1400-1450 3.4 3.4 15.8 15.8 9.1
1450-1500 3.5 3.5 15.6 15.6 9.0
1500-1550~ 3.8 3.8 15.9 15.9 9.3
1550-1600 3.2 3.2 (15.3) 15.3 8.8
1600-1650 3.2 3.2 (15.4) 15.4 8.8
1650-1700 a 3.1 3.1 (15.3) 15.3 8.7
1700-17508 3.7 3.7 15.9 15.9 9.24
1750-1800 3.4 3.4 15.9 15.9 9.06
1800-1850 3.5 3.5 15.6 15.6 9.12
1850-1900 3.8 3.8 15.7 15.7 9.12
1900-1950 4.2 4.2 15.8 15.8 9.41
x Temperatures from 1680 averages taken from MANLEY’S (1958, 1961) homogenized records.
Temperatures before 1680 averages derived from decade values of the winter mildness/severity
index and the summer wetness/dryness index (p.20) using regression equations based on comparisons
with observed values since 1680-1740 (see text). Bracketed values have been adjusted for
systematic departures from the regression line indicated by wind circulation characteristics. A
separate column gives winter values adjusted on other meteorological considerations explained in
the text, so that the mildest decades between 1150 and 1300 have temperatures equalling those of
the 1920-1940 period. The balance of all the evidence meteorological and non-meteorological
appears, however, to favour the still higher values indicated by the thin line in Fig.4. Summer
temperatures adjusted to fit certain botanical indications are given in a separate column.
2 Rainfalls from 1740 averages taken from NICHOLAS and GLASSPOOLE (1931) and Meteorological
Office records. Rainfalls before 1740 averages derived from decade values of the summer wetness/
dryness index and from the adjusted average values of annual mean and winter temperature, as
explained in the text, using regression equations.
a Values given for the temperatures 1650-1700 and rainfalls 1700-1750 incorporate instrument
measurements for part of the period and the margins of error (as indicated in Fig.4 and 5) are
reduced in consequence.
Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatol., PalaeoecoL, 1 (1965) 13-37
As you can see, even with a warmer second half of the 20th century (cooked book data available from the Met Office), the CET (good proxy for NH & world) still is far off the MWP highs. Data from other parts of the world show the same thing, as has been commented upon here over and over, in study after study.
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=5&ved=0CEwQFjAE&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblog.lib.umn.edu%2Fstgeorge%2Fgeog5426%2FLamb%2520Palaeogeography%2520Palaeoclimatology%2520Palaeoecology%25201965.pdf&ei=fHr2U7vRI8q3ogTzt4GQCA&usg=AFQjCNFPHOxxn92twRKBWD1qwDJz9W7GTg&sig2=-Cub13xzBzP9lMwJ-azzpg&bvm=bv.73612305,d.cGU
MWP in the Southern Hemisphere warmer than present:
http://www.nipccreport.org/articles/2013/aug/7aug2013a3.html
MWP in Eastern Hemisphere warmer than present:
http://www.climatedepot.com/2013/08/15/new-review-paper-finds-medieval-warming-period-in-china-was-warmer-than-modern-times/
Western Hemisphere:
http://www.co2science.org/subject/m/summaries/mwpnortham.php
Southern and Eastern Hemispheres:
http://www.co2science.org/articles/V3/N34/C2.php
Oceans:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/10/31/new-paper-shows-medieval-warm-period-was-global-in-scope/
To cite but a mere handful of the abundant studies reaching the same conclusion. Why do the Team and its cheerleaders still try to beat the regionalist dead horse?
The 1975-now portion of the new GSN record had a yearly average of 68.2, 26.2% higher on average compared to 54.1 for the 226 years from 1749 to 1975. Compared to the entire 266-year new GSN series average, the 1975-now annual average, which is 56.2, is 21.3% higher than the whole record annual average (21.3% higher annual average SSN for 40 years).
If we’re really serious about understanding if and when sunspot activity had anything to do with global warming, we ought to start evaluating from the time when the running average annual SSN is the highest (going back from now), which is 68.9, 1936-now. The previous 187 years to 1936, 1749-1935, had an average of 50.8, a difference of 18.1, making the 1936-now annual average 35.6% higher.
If we’re really, really serious, we have to acknowledge that solar cycle #24 played no part in the modern maximum and certainly not global warming, as warming ended at least over a decade ago. We should just as easily write off solar cycle #23 after it’s peak in 2002 from having much influence over global warming either.
That brings us to view a 68-year period from 1936 to 2003 as defining the Modern Maximum, when the average annual sunspot number (GSN) was 73.5, 22.7 higher, or 44.7% higher, than the prior 187-year average of 50.8.
A 44.7% higher sunspot count for 68 years! That’s pretty “grand” in my book!
Bob Weber says:
August 21, 2014 at 5:27 pm
That brings us to view a 68-year period from 1936 to 2003 as defining the Modern Maximum, when the average annual sunspot number (GSN) was 73.5
As compared to the average of 68.6 for 1726-1791, so not so grand in anybody’s book.
sturgishooper says:
August 21, 2014 at 4:25 pm
To cite but a mere handful of the abundant studies reaching the same conclusion. Why do the Team and its cheerleaders still try to beat the regionalist dead horse?
No matter what dataset selected, there will always be someone who will complain.
Leif Svalgaard says:
August 21, 2014 at 6:25 pm
That’s even more true for reconstructed temperature sets than for sunspot numbers. There is really no satisfactory GASTA even for the past century, let alone previous ones.
Although maybe one could be constructed starting in the mid-19th century, if the Team were willing to practice science rather than advocacy.