From the new paper by McComas et al.
The last solar minimum, which extended into 2009, was especially deep and prolonged. Since then, sunspot activity has gone through a very small peak while the heliospheric current sheet achieved large tilt angles similar to prior solar maxima.
The solar wind fluid properties and interplanetary magnetic field (IMF) have declined through the prolonged solar minimum and continued to be low through the current mini solar maximum.
Compared to values typically observed from the mid-1970s through the mid-1990s, the following proton parameters are lower on average from 2009 through day 79 of 2013: solar wind speed and beta (~11%), temperature (~40%), thermal pressure (~55%), mass flux (~34%), momentum flux or dynamic pressure (~41%), energy flux (~48%), IMF magnitude (~31%), and radial component of the IMF (~38%).
These results have important implications for the solar wind’s interaction with planetary magnetospheres and the heliosphere’s interaction with the local interstellar medium, with the proton dynamic pressure remaining near the lowest values observed in the space age: ~1.4 nPa, compared to ~2.4 nPa typically observed from the mid-1970s through the mid-1990s. The combination of lower magnetic flux emergence from the Sun (carried out in the solar wind as the IMF) and associated low power in the solar wind points to the causal relationship between them.
Our results indicate that the low solar wind output is driven by an internal trend in the Sun that is longer than the ~11 yr solar cycle, and they suggest that this current weak solar maximum is driven by the same trend.
Source of paper abstract:
Weakest Solar Wind of the Space Age and the Current “Mini” Solar Maximum
D. J. McComas et al. 2013 ApJ 779 2
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O boy, do I wish it was only a “cottage industry”. Far to much resource being used on model generated unprecedented maybes.
Change in the length of the Earth’s day, known as the LOD, (in this case as inferred from the geomagnetic data) follows changes in the polar magnetic field orientation.
Solar magnetic field cannot penetrate to the depths of the Earth’s core, and yet the solar magnetic field (22 year cycle) and a much larger magnetic ripple superimposed on the Earth’s field (orders of magnitude greater than the heliospheric field at the Earth’s orbit) have same frequency and are in phase.
The Earth’s rotation acceleration is coincidental with decay of the even and continues during rise of the odd cycles. The rotation de-acceleration is coincidental with decay of the odd and continues during rise of the even cycles, in other words change in the rate of rotation is synchronized with solar magnetic (Hale) cycle.
This is very unlikely to be caused by the solar output directly, it is more likely the direct cause is the atmospheric circulation and possibly monsoons and enso.
Why any of these terrestrial events should be synchronised with solar magnetic field oscillations is question yet to be answered.
As far as climate is concerned I would think that the energy, more or less in the equal measure across the centuries, comes from ‘the above’, but its distribution is more likely regulated from ‘the below’.
I don’t think we know much about the interactions between our atmosphere and the solar wind, or with GCRs when the solar wind is low.
It would be surprising if hydrogen and helium nuclei, electrons and high energy photons fail to achieve anything as they pass through. At the very least, I would expect some effect on cloud formation as Svensmark proposes. As well as chemical reactions I would expect electrostatic induced flocculation of particles (e.g. dust) or more dispersion of particles depending on the nature of the particles and the ions involved. The alternating magnetic field may add another dimension to all of this. It suggests that the electrical properties of our atmosphere are complex and ever changing.
I have an open mind about whether these things can change our climate, but they deserve investigation. Even a small change in average global cloud cover would be important.
MAK says:
August 21, 2014 at 11:31 pm
Leif: You pretty well know that no-one is able to do such a calculation. The effects are extremely complex, but clear at the same time.
There are hundreds of such claims, none of them compelling. Every solar thread coaxes claimants out of the woodwork peddling their own pet theories. I am not impressed. Seems you are.
Both the solar wind and changes in the magnetic field on Earth such as the Ap-index based on my Artificial Neural Network research have big impact as ENSO drivers. However I can not find any connection between GCR to variations in global temperature or to ENSO. None.
My thinking now based on my finding is that ENSO in part is driven by electromagnetic changes of the Sun which in part is responsible of the circa 60 year sinus like change in the global temperature anomaly.
I never found the grand maximum warming argument compelling even when it appeared to be a real series of higher maximums.
As Anthony has repeatedly showed the warming is mostly heat-islands structures and bad thermometer placements, punctuated with ENSO cycles and concerted biased temp record corruption.
So is a minimum proposition any more compelling or necessary to explain cooling than the alleged maximum was for explaining warming? At least the minimums are real measured features, even if not in any way ‘grand’.
At least there is something there to question.
Leif: “There are hundreds of such claims, none of them compelling. Every solar thread coaxes claimants out of the woodwork peddling their own pet theories. I am not impressed. Seems you are.”
My point here is that the solar-climate connection requires a lot of more studies and those studies needs financing. Money spend on those is money spend much wiser than on 20 new multiproxy studies utilizing Mann’s methods.
But at the same time there is so much evidence on solar influence (even without Svensmark’s pet theories) that it is hardly compelling to argue that there is no significant influence. Ignoring those influences is also a pet theory for some.
vukcevic,
Changes in LOD can be used to predict changes in temperature, 7 years in advance, with cooling and warming trends correlating with the dominance of zonal and meridional patterns:
http://www.fao.org/docrep/005/y2787e/y2787e03.htm
That is why I am wondering if you can substantiate this rather interesting claim in your post at 12.34am:
“Change in the length of the Earth’s day, known as the LOD, (in this case as inferred from the geomagnetic data) follows changes in the polar magnetic field orientation.”
That is very interesting reading. I learn more from following the links here than anywhere else.
vukcevic says:
August 22, 2014 at 12:34 am
Why any of these terrestrial events should be synchronised with solar magnetic field oscillations is question yet to be answered.
—
95.8% of earth interior energy release goes into deforming its interior rock crystals in geodynamic processes (the mantle and crust are crystalline with very minor liquids and gas).
When you bend crystals out pop electrons.
This is known as the Piezoelectric effect. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piezoelectricity
So earth is continually emitting and reabsorbing electrons.
A neat feature of electrons is that if you put polarize them and flow electrons through a conductor it heats the conductors, just as an electric stove becomes element conductor becomes incandescent.
The Earth is insulated by rock, which is a poor thermal conductor, but it does conduct electrons, some minerals much more than others. Which means elections flowing in earth can heat it over time and melt it, as the earth is insulated by the crust. And do so sans any radio decay, all it has to do is bend the crystals.
More to the point, almost all radio decay occurs in the crust, and almost not at all within the ~2,900 km thick mantle due to the geochemical differentiation of radionuclides in the crust, i.e. the mantle is not radioactive, but the continental crust very much is. But oceanic crust also has no radionuclides … gee … well then, why does mid ocean ridge crust and mantle keep on melting, as in Iceland right now?
/crickets
So why does the upper mantle melt, and not the crust if the mantle has no heating source?
May it be that electrons are doing it, and not radionuclides?
And electrons respond to remote external fields, particularly if they are polarized.
If they are not polarized they don’t do much and but can become partially induced to polarize.
If they are polarized they will become extremely responsive to global electromagnetic field variation.
Heck, it could even lead to resistive flows in rock, and partially melt them.
And the Sun’s behavior would of course matter as well in that case, as Earth’s crystalline interior would then have similar responses, as do in the outer atmosphere layers in polar regions.
The mechanism is quite logical.
Now work out what crystalline physical petrological structures polarise, store, conduct and transmit the electrons within earth and the correlation mystery is sorted.
Pretty straight forward, people have only to abandon the old rusted-on rubbish theories about radio decay heating and look at what earth is obviously doing to itself and the influence the sun would have on that sort of mechanism.
Earth bats last, stop ignoring it, because eventually it will make you pay attention.
Actually, I’ve become rather fond ot Svalgaard’s use of the term “nonsense”. It’s usual usage is a longer, perhaps a politie academic, word substitute for “gibberish”.
It’s also possible he’s using the Ludwig Wittgenstein term where even tautologies are nonsense. Others have argued that nonsense should be reserved for statements that have absolutely no meaning.
Or his usage could be from using the null hypothesis.
I’d bet on “gibberish”.
Because
1. Most scientists don’t delve into philosophy (logic) until they’ve mostly retired (ala Whitehead, Russell, Hawking).
2. The null hypothesis is simply nonsense in that it doesn’t work with solar nor climate (CERN’s CLOUD notwithstanding). Not to mention consensus the “climate”, even the temperature records, range from inaccurate to manipulation.
That leaves only gibberish. A fitting choice since it describes the IPCC and all of “climate science” doesn’t it?
Coolista alarmists must be rubbing their tiny hands with glee. Less solar wind = more GCR’s hitting the atmosphere = more clouds = cooling, cooling and more cooling (I thought we’d been having a lot of cloudy weather lately). We all know cooling means doooom (more people die of cold..blah..crop failure little ice age..blah..Dutch paintings..blah..blah)
Problem: The climate won’t dance to the music. And Svensmark has been so quiet recently
MAK says
But at the same time there is so much evidence on solar influence (even without Svensmark’s pet theories) that it is hardly compelling to argue that there is no significant influence. Ignoring those influences is also a pet theory for some.
henry says
good point. Note the tables 2 and 3 here:
http://virtualacademia.com/pdf/cli267_293.pdf
which is exactly what Leif and their ilk want us to ignore.
Does anyone have an idea about that up and down movement of the SSNc around 1927?
(2nd graph) quoted by Dr.No
Nature is giving us a nice empirical test. Will be very interesting to see what, if any, effects are observed due to having several very low solar cycles in a row. I hope there are not any large volcanic eruptions the next ten years as that will be a confounding factor that will make any conclusions less certain.
Pamela Gray says:
August 21, 2014 at 7:54 pm
I suppose your response to Dr. Deanster has to do with teachers teaching what we know, and conversely, scientists challenging what we think we know. The latter can be very unsettling for a teacher and explains the use of ritalin – to suppress excessive inquisitiveness particularly in young boys.
Thanks Leif …
Just wanted to hear what you had to say about it all! I totally agree that everyone is out to claim “unprecedented” these days. Of course, we has conscious beings always want to know “what does this have to do with us”! [what does it mean] If discovering that the solar wind means zilch, then as a very fiscal conservative kinda person, that would impact my position with regards to future funding of research on the topic. …. kinda like studying a two inch square of the hind quarter of a platypus.
😉
Unmentionable says: August 22, 2014 at 3:27 am
………………
Hi, Thanks you for your comment.
Some of the suppositions you presented, theoretically make sense, but not everything that make sense is incontestable.
Those who insist on verification might readily refer such matters as nonsense.
A good example could be relationship between solar activity and tectonics along northern leg of the middle Atlantic ridge as shown HERE
As an author of number of similar pseudo-discoveries (including the aforementioned LOD behaviour} I am no stranger to such epithets.
***
Leif Svalgaard says:
August 21, 2014 at 11:11 pm
Calculate for me how large you think that effect is and we can discuss the matter.
***
Yup. All the suppositions on varying “UV”, on and on endlessly, never have any hard numbers. Ever. Until numbers are shown, none of the suppositions can be taken seriously because there’s nothing to discuss.
Most scientists don’t delve into philosophy
===========
as soon as you ask “why”, you have gone over to the dark side. you are delving into philosophy.
why is the sky blue?
1. it reflects blue light
2. god made it blue
3. it had to be some color; it happened to be blue.
vukcevic says:
August 22, 2014 at 5:15 am
You’re welcome. Just to clarify, I just say there’s a viable mechanism, and it’s not even hard to identify, its simple, logical and a viable mechanism that can be tested to the nth degree. It’s also not out of whack with observations, whereas the standard version mantle heating and melting mechanism is in fact very, very out of whack with observation. So I’m fairly clearly not the one out of step with the geophysical and geochemical observations, the ‘consensus’ very much is though. 😉
But in frankness to your link, the fit is not that compelling in several areas. One or both of the curves is not representative of the phenomena they depict, or else they’re not too closely correlated. In fact the match would be closer with no grand-maximum.
cheers
everyone is out to claim “unprecedented” these days
=======
unprecedented – never seen before. young people find a lot of things are unprecedented. old folks call these events history.
if you are old, you lump global warming in with global cooling, and call it no big deal. if you are young, you call global warming unprecedented, and call global cooling a myth; a bedtime story from long ago.
Beng…oh yeh. There seems to be unending interest in the tiniest of solar parameters being the trigger to temperature trends here on Earth. Meanwhile all the giant players are happily ignored. IE the room is filled with manure and there are a herd of elephants wandering about, yet some people insist that with all this manure here, there must be a mouse.
If I were to build a climate scientist, he/she would have a solid bedrock in old fashioned meteorology, a masters in planetary fluid/gas mechanics, and then would go on to weld that knowledge with a PhD in a field titled oceanic/atmospheric climate dynamics. These scientists study the elephants producing all that manure in the room.
MAK says:
August 21, 2014 at 11:31 pm
“”Thus, the long solar minimum (which I suppose is coming) will return arctic sea ice to it’s previous glory.””
Please don’t be surprised if the opposite happens. Maybe Arctic ice loss is feedback. Global cooling can do that.
But then, I have been persuaded by evidence that solar wind has a direct influence on our weather, so what do I know?
A curious scientific investigator might:
1) Speculate about the [solar] wind and envision a few ways it may interact with the world.
2) Express his thoughts to other curious scientific people, while enduring heckling from unimaginative people
3) Through discussion and the sharing of ideas, think of something “new.”
5) Consider the “NEW” idea and develop a hypothetical model.
6) Design an experiment and test the model.
7) Reconsider the model in light of the data.
A Procrustean pseudo scientist might:
1) Declare that the science is settled.
2) Erect a seemingly insurmountable “Catch 22” obstacle to advancing discussion amongst the curious, while promoting his own social status
3) Mock and brow beat the curious people for sport
4) publish a paper based on science he did in his 20s, take a dog for a walk,
There are 4 obstacles to advancing the truth according to Roger Bacon, the first scientist ~1267 AD:
1) the example of weak and unworthy authority,
2)longstanding custom,
3)the feeling of the ignorant crowd, and
4) the hiding of our own ignorance while making an ostentatious display of apparent knowledge.
I suggest:
Let the curious people amongst us first dream, speculate, talk, think, model, test and revisit their ideas.
beng says
Yup. All the suppositions on varying “UV”, on and on endlessly, never have any hard numbers. Ever. Until numbers are shown, none of the suppositions can be taken seriously because there’s nothing to discuss.
henry says
it is because you are all too lazy to work it our for yourself.
We know from my tables
http://blogs.24.com/henryp/files/2013/02/henryspooltableNEWc.pdf
that it warmed at an average of 0.012K/annum for the last 40 years.
(Means table)
I am sure this 0.012K/annum is about the same value that Dr. Roy also gets (0.12K/decade).
So, from 1972 until now is 42 x 0.012 = +0.5K
However, most major data sets show that it is cooling since 2002
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1987/to:2015/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:2002/to:2015/trend/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1987/to:2015/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:2002/to:2015/trend/plot/rss/from:1987/to:2015/plot/rss/from:2002/to:2015/trend/plot/hadsst2gl/from:1987/to:2015/plot/hadsst2gl/from:2002/to:2015/trend/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1987/to:2002/trend/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1987/to:2002/trend/plot/hadsst2gl/from:1987/to:2002/trend/plot/rss/from:1987/to:2002/trend
According to my own data set (which is more properly balanced NH/SH) we are now cooling at a rate of -0.015K/annum since 2000
So basically that means from 1972-2000: up 0.7K
From 2000 we are already down -0.2K
(the balance is the +0.5K average up now from 1972)
However, we can assume mirrored cooling from 2000-2040: 40 x -0.012= -0.5K
If you note Leif’s graphs you can see that funny things are happening on the sun around 1927, 1972 and now (2016).
So basically where we are now in relation to what is happening on the sun is 1925. We have at least another two half and decades of cooling ahead of us. It will be a mirror of the warming that was past. By around 2040 we will be back to where we were in 2000, exactly, more less….
beng, I hope that helps you.
I can’t help but think that TSI by spectral component is affecting atmosphere. TSI overall is a very small change. Radiant power in the UV wavelengths that drive Ozone vary by 10%. It also seems that weak solar cycles have more drawn out flips. I’m not sure that radiance would be driven by sunspots but I suspect extended periods of reduced magnetic field would affect specific components. How much has the spectral change during extended weak magnetic fields affected the isotope ratios of carbon or ozone generation or any of the other complex chemistries. I’m reminded of a certain experiment by a well-known physicist that demonstrated the photoelectric effect and how spectrum, and not just energy were needed. Nobel prize for that. And we know that not all wavelengths are treated equally through the solar cycle.