“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/
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Stephen Wilde says:
August 19, 2014 at 7:37 pm
Bob Weber pointed out:…>/i>
You see, it all depends on clever cherry picking. For the 100 year 1776-1875 the sunspot number was 55.9, for the next 100 years until 1975 the SSN was 50.0…
Open http://www.leif.org/research/Revised-Group-Numbers.xls and select all 266 years, cells F7 through F272. The 266 year average is 56.2. The average for SC17-now is 67.1, 19% higher than the 266-year average; and the average for SC18-now is 68.6, 22% higher than the 266-year average. The average for SC24 is 53.8, 4% less than the 266-year average.
If you want to see something interesting, also look at http://www.leif.org/research/Solar-Activity-Temperature-Anomalies.png at both the upper graph, “New Group Sunspot Numbers”, and see the concurrent solar min in 1810 with SSN=0 matched by a deep extended decline in temperatures that starts after the SSN maximum in 1803, and from the lower graph, “Global Temperature Anamoly”, where temperatures dropped by -1.5C and didn’t recover for 22 years, a period with negative temperature anamolies in every year (1805-1826), and a SSN average per year of 21.2, 62% off the 266-year average.
Stephen Wilde says:
August 19, 2014 at 7:37 pm
Bob Weber pointed out:…
There is nothing magical about 100 years. Let us take 3 solar cycles, corresponding to the ~30 years the WMO thinks it takes to define climate. For 1975-2008 [thus excluding SC24, as seemed important to you] the average SSN was 72.4, and for 1765-1798 [about two centuries before] the average SSN was almost the same, namely 72.7, yet the temperature anomaly for the modern period was +0.44C, while for the earlier period the anomaly was negative: -0.21, for a warming over the 2 centuries of 0.65C in spite of no difference in solar activity.
Stephen Wilde says:
August 19, 2014 at 7:49 pm
with a period of 100 years centred on the peak of the current warm period
Cannot be done for another half century, so not relevant.
Bob Weber says:
August 19, 2014 at 8:24 pm
look at http://www.leif.org/research/Solar-Activity-Temperature-Anomalies.png
That, to me, is the clearest indication that the Sun is not a primary driver of climate.
But, to true believers the data does not seem to carry much weight…
kadaka (KD Knoebel) says:
August 19, 2014 at 7:47 pm
Leif, is there an official list of solar cycle minimums, that is the start/end dates finer than a year?
Yes, http://users.telenet.be/j.janssens/Engzonnecyclus.html
but such finery is really meaningless as solar cycles overlap by more than a year and some people insists that the cycle really lasts 17 years with several years of overlaps at both ends.
Were the sunspots hemispherically asymmetric during the Dalton Minimum?
================
kadaka (KD Knoebel) says:
August 19, 2014 at 7:47 pm
Leif, is there an official list of solar cycle minimums
Actually No [regardless of my earlier comment]. There is no ‘official’ list as officially it is recognized that such a list is somewhat meaningless.
kim says:
August 19, 2014 at 8:43 pm
Were the sunspots hemispherically asymmetric during the Dalton Minimum?
As far as we know there is always asymmetry. There is some speculation on slide 33 of http://www.leif.org/research/Asymmetric-Solar-Polar-Field-Reversals-talk.pdf
Thanks, Leif. I bring it up because you’ve taught me that the Maunder spots were ‘large, sparse, and primarily southern hemispheric’. It seems that the effect previously known as the Livingston-Penn one might explain ‘large’ and ‘sparse’, but not the ‘primarily southern hemispheric’. The asymmetry looms large for me as a correlate of the cooling.
Was the Dalton asymmetry peculiar in any way that you know of?
========================
Bob and Stephen, calculate it in terms of W/m2 (of whatever wavelength you propose), not sunspot number % of increase, or the % of change in whatever else you want to focus on needed to change something here on Earth. Otherwise you surely see that it is handwaving. 19% higher is indeed higher, but what does that translate into in terms of energy? Or cosmic particles? Or whatever in face of a huge volume of leaky/evaporating air/water it must interact with.
Bob Weber says:
August 19, 2014 at 8:24 pm
The 266 year average is 56.2. The average for SC17-now is 67.1, 19% higher than the 266-year average; and the average for SC18-now is 68.6, 22% higher than the 266-year average.
The average for SC-02 was 68.1, for SC-03 it was 88.5, for SC-04 67.2, for SC-08 67.3, etc. Do you see how silly you are. Something like half of the cycles would be larger than average, the other half smaller than average.
You are trying to divert attention away from the finding that the Modern Grand Maximum is dead and buried. R.I.P.
Heh, I think you’ve tried to show me that 8:46 link before. I remember the Xtended Cycle.
===============
Leif, if there was 300+ years of SSNs in your dataset, I’d go back that far comparing centuries; if there was 400 years…, 500, … 1,000 years… The SSN average for your preferred cherry-picked range of 1776-1975 is 52.8. Since 1975, the SSN average has been 68.2, 21% over the 266-year average, and 29% over the average of your most excellently chosen date range of 1776-1975.
Like kadaka, I also want to know why the solar daily data is smoothed to get the single yearly values at mid-year, and then smoothed again with your 21-year running mean – where it yields a smaller variation, much like the oft-quoted 0.1% change in mean TSI, also built upon averages of daily data.
kim says:
August 19, 2014 at 8:50 pm
Was the Dalton asymmetry peculiar in any way that you know of?
the most peculiar thing we know is that we know almost nothing about the Dalton Minimum as there were very few reliable observations. When Wolf died in 1893, his values for that period were rather high and we would not today call it a Grand Minimum. It was Wolfer in 1902 who from scant and shaky data reconstructed what we today call the Dalton Minimum.
Cool 400 year GSN @ur momisugly slide #33.
===============
Bob Weber says:
August 19, 2014 at 8:58 pm
Like kadaka, I also want to know why the solar daily data is smoothed to get the single yearly values at mid-year, and then smoothed again with your 21-year running mean –
Because one of the principal pushers of the Grand Maximum notion, Ilia Usoskin, bases his ideas on the 14C data, that has poor time-resolution because of the long residence time of 14C in the atmosphere. So I need to compare apples with apples. And furthermore there is no 11-yr period in the temperature data, so a finer division does not seem reasonable, but since both the 1-yr and the 21-yr curves are shown you can make up your own guesses.
kim says:
August 19, 2014 at 9:03 pm
Cool 400 year GSN @ur momisugly slide #33.
Perhaps, except is is wrong. But some people ‘who are lagging behind the curve’ like wrong data as long as the data support their ideas…
So, speculating, some asymmetry during the Dalton, undetected by SSN may be correlated with the cooling. I worry this like a dog a bone. There is a marrow of knowledge there behind the nearly impenetrable barrier of ignorance. I can smell it.
=====================
“You are trying to divert attention away from the finding that the Modern Grand Maximum is dead and buried. R.I.P.”
– The Modern Grand Maximum is dead and buried. You are right. And so is Global Warming.
Now with the low cycle #24, we’re on to cooler things. The Modern Grand Maximum, oops, the Modern Maximum is over, and coincidently, so is Global Warming. What a ride! At least we all had a front row seat.
Seriously, the use of the word grand is the silly thing. It doesn’t matter to me.
Very interesting paper Leif. I really appreciate everything that went into it that I’ve read so far.
I learned from your reconstruction Leif that the average yearly SSN from 1975 to now was 29% higher than the previous 200 years, since the founding of our country, and no one should be thanked more than you for all your work in arriving at that decisive determination.
Thanks very much for this repeated, and better learned lesson, Leif. Asymmetry or not, surely you’d agree that if the sunspot numbers are low for the next few cycles, and the Earth cools, then the correlation compels greater searching for causation among the phenomena.
Speaking of curves, lemme tell you about a ’57 Thunderbird Convertible and a 270 degree onramp loop. Some moments last forever.
=============================
kim says:
August 19, 2014 at 8:50 pm
Was the Dalton asymmetry peculiar in any way that you know of?
In Wolf’s very first report on solar activity gleaned from original sources, he said [me translating on the fly from the German]:
“Already in 1802 and 1802 Arago, Herschel, Fritsch, Flaugergues, etc, saw a lot of sunspot groups; and in 1804 and 1804 this richness was extraordinary: Flaugergues could nor recall to have seen the Sun spotless in 1802 and 1803, but well with many and large spots. Fritsch saw in the same years often more than 50 small and large spot umbrae at any one time. Eimbeke says that he has never seen so persistent and frequent spots as in 1803. Huth says that he had never seen so many and so large spots as in February and March, 1804, and so on. Even in 1805 Huth, Bode, Flaugergues, etc were talking about large spots”
All this was during the Dalton Minimum…
However, in the next cycle from 1811 on activity was generally lower, although Bode in 1815 saw the Sun covered with more spots than he had ever seem. Fritsch counted in 1817 often more than 100 spots, of which some were visible with the naked eye.
So, the reality of the Dalton Grand Minimum seems a bit shaky. The data is poor though.
Bob Weber says:
August 19, 2014 at 9:20 pm
I learned from your reconstruction Leif that the average yearly SSN from 1975 to now was 29% higher than the previous 200 years, since the founding of our country, and no one should be thanked more than you for all your work in arriving at that decisive determination.
But you draw the wrong [and misleading] conclusion therefrom. Since 1975 the sunspot number has been 68.2, while during a similar period 1768-1794 during the formative years of the US, the average sunspot number was 80.3, or 18% higher. It seems the climate back then was considerably colder than lately http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Washington's_crossing_of_the_Delaware_River#mediaviewer/File:Washington_Crossing_the_Delaware_by_Emanuel_Leutze,_MMA-NYC,_1851.jpg
kim says:
August 19, 2014 at 9:26 pm
Speaking of curves, lemme tell you about a ’57 Thunderbird Convertible and a 270 degree onramp loop. Some moments last forever.
The curves I remember from way back were leaning onto me as we were taking the loop in my pink Chrysler New Yorker, 1957. http://images.classiccars.com/preview/396792_14700115_1957_Chrysler_New%2bYorker.jpg as you say some moments last forever…
[8<) …..]
“Already in 1801 and 1802 Arago, Herschel, Fritsch, Flaugergues, etc, saw a lot of sunspot groups; and in 1803 and 1804 this richness was extraordinary…”
Thanks all.
———————-
“You have to look at how long it took to eliminate holdouts among scientists [the grim reaper does a good job at that] . . . [Leif @9:38]
My favorite episode of a man outliving his tormenters is Bretz’s notion of catastrophic flood water needed to explain the channeled scablands of eastern Washington State. Those settled on gradualism could not accept the explanation even though year after year the evidence for it accumulated. Search for J Harlen Bretz to learn more about this, or for a start with focus on the landscape, go here:
http://hugefloods.com/Scablands.html