Earlier this week I to reported on some of the poster sessions at the American Geophysical Meeting but was told the next day that I’m not allowed to photograph such posters to report on them. However, when the authors send me the original, for which they own the copyright, there’s nothing AGU can complain about related to me violating their photography policy.
This poster from Pat Michaels and Chip Knappenberger builds on their previous work in examining climate sensitivity differences between models and reality.
Recent climate change literature has been dominated by studies which show that the equilibrium climate sensitivity is better constrained than the latest estimates from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the U.S. National Climate Assessment (NCA) and that the best estimate of the climate sensitivity is considerably lower than the climate model ensemble average.
From the recent literature, the central estimate of the equilibrium climate sensitivity is ~2°C, while the climate model average is ~3.2°C, or an equilibrium climate sensitivity that is some 40% lower than the model average.
To the extent that the recent literature produces a more accurate estimate of the equilibrium climate sensitivity than does the climate model average, it means that the projections of future climate change given by both the IPCC and NCA are, by default, some 40% too large (too rapid) and the associated (and described) impacts are gross overestimates.
A quantitative test of climate model performance can be made by comparing the range of model projections against observations of the evolution of the global average surface temperature since the mid-20th century.
Here, we perform such a comparison on a collection of 108 model runs comprising the ensemble used in the IPCC’s 5th Scientific assessment and find that the observed global average temperature evolution for trend lengths (with a few exceptions) since 1980 is less than 97.5% of the model distribution, meaning that the observed trends are significantly different from the average trend simulated by climate models.
For periods approaching 40 years in length, the observed trend lies outside of (below) the range that includes 95% of all climate model simulations.
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Obviously we can’t begin to estimate from the empirical data what the climate sensitivity is until we have a reasonable understanding of the natural variation, see
http://climatesense-norpag.blogspot.com/2014/07/climate-forecasting-methods-and-cooling.html
“Obviously we can’t begin to estimate from the empirical data what the climate sensitivity is until we have a reasonable understanding of the natural variation.”
I agree with Dr. Page’s above statement.
I further suggest that we can hypothesize that current ECS (to atmospheric CO2 on Earth) is so low as to pose no threat to humanity or the environment (I say ECS is less than ~1C), and observed warming and cooling in the 20th Century was almost entirely caused by natural variation.
I suggest this hypo enables better prediction of actual climate performance to date (late 2014) and into the future than all assumptions that ECS is ~2C or greater.
Is there ANY credible observational data that disproves this hypo? If so, let’s hear it here and now.
As a test of this hypo, I suggest that despite increasing atmospheric CO2, Earth will cool measurably in the next decades, due primarily to natural causes.
The post at http://climatesense-norpag.blogspot.com/2014/10/comment-on-mcleans-paper-late-twentieth.html
provides estimates of the timing and amplitude of the likely coming cooling. The main control is the 1000 year quasi-periodicity in the temperature data. Forecasts which ignore this obvious periodicity are really worthless and can be safely ignored.
Hello Dr Norman Page.
“Obviously we can’t begin to estimate from the empirical data what the climate sensitivity is until we have a reasonable understanding of the natural variation, see.”
——————
You may be right yes, but my take and the understanding of the relation of RF and CO2 emissions with the climate change while the CS considered, is that the lack of exactly knowing the value or the range of the CS is not the problem anymore.
The problem is the hiatus, which simply means that whatever the CS the effect of the man in climate is unmeasurable, and in that regard bigger the considered range of CS, more certain that man is not effecting climate, strange I know, BUT THAT IS WHAT CALLED A TRAVESTY.
The reality of the hiatus is very confusing.
Does not allow for a consideration of man effect in climate… and a hiatus at 14 years long in a only 100+ years of GW is really significant and beyond the possibility for it to be ignored, ……that is why not ignored anymore and accepted even from IPCC..
So if CS considered as too low (as anything below 0.5C for a doubling) the effect of the CO2 emissions is too little and not even really measurable in climate terms while the 0.8C global warming up to the present considered and therefor by default the man can not clame any measurable effect it could have on the climate.
In the other hand, if CS considered as above 0.7C for a doubling, then, higher the value of CS, more certain it becomes that man is not having an effect in the climate, because the expected measurable warming is higher and easier to detect, a warming that actually is missing and remains undetectable for the last 14 years……..and that is the problem.
That is the problem… the missing finger-print of man in climate regardless of what CS.
That is what called a travesty.
Either the hiatus very soon ends and a warming starts or otherwise these AGW climatologists may better start pulling off their hairs, because starting to argue what exactly the value of CS or that of what they call ECS is (are), wont really help, while facing a stubborn hiatus.
cheers
There is a much more serious and way deeper problem with the current computational climate modelling paradigm than failure to replicate observed temperature trends.
As long as the solar constant is constant indeed, annual cumulative insolation of the two hemispheres matches exactly. That’s because of a peculiar geometric property of Keplerian orbits, which cancels variations along a tropical year.
Now, physical properties of the two hemispheres are very different, because most land masses are located North of the equator. Water being much darker than land, clear-sky albedo of the Northern hemisphere is some 1.8% higher. In spite of this fact all-sky albedo of the two hemispheres matches within observational error (the difference is less than 0.03%, that is, almost two orders of magnitude lower).
That’s because of higher abundance and/or reflectivity of clouds in the Southern hemisphere.
The upshot is that energy input to the climate system is symmetric with respect to the equator on an annual scale.
This symmetry is not replicated by computational climate models, which in itself is sufficient to falsify the underlying paradigm.
Q.E.D.
Journal of Climate, Volume 26, Issue 2 (January 2013)
doi: 10.1175/JCLI-D-12-00132.1
The Observed Hemispheric Symmetry in Reflected Shortwave Irradiance
Aiko Voigt, Bjorn Stevens, Jürgen Bader and Thorsten Mauritsen
Hi Berényi,
OK, so this makes something else that is commonly said even harder to understand. The Earth is closest to the Sun in January, farthest in July. Yet global average temperature is lowest in January and highest in July. The variation in TOA insolation is substantial — 91 W/m^2, a figure that dwarfs the forcing from CO_2, almost 7% of the average insolation. Usually the claim is made that it is the variation in albedo that is responsible for this, but if albedo is symmetric, then nothing makes sense. How in the world can global temperature countervary with TOA insolation when global albedo does not change?
rgb
Good question. Annual average reflected shortwave radiation is indeed the same for the two hemispheres. That implies absorbed radiation should also be the same.
However, the curious fact is its spatio-temporal distribution is very different between the hemispheres within a year (definitely non-symmetric).
Also, annual average outgoing longwave (thermal IR) radiation is higher in the Northern hemisphere (by some 1.2 W/m²), that is, it’s not symmetric, it is cooling more efficiently.
Yet global average temperature is substantially higher during Northern summer.
The difference is compensated for by trans-equatorial oceanic heat transport from the Southern hemisphere to the Northern one, another minuscule detail which computational climate models fail to capture (besides clouds).
Quoting from the poster:
“From the recent literature, the central estimate of the equilibrium climate sensitivity is ~2°C, while the climate model average is ~3.2°C, or an equilibrium climate sensitivity that is some 40% lower than the model average.
….., it means that the projections of future climate change given by both the IPCC and NCA are, by default, some 40% too large (too rapid) and the associated (and described) impacts are gross overestimates.”
No.
I buy that 2 is about 40% lower than 3.2 degrees, but it does not work in reverse. 3.2 is 60% higher than the appropriate estimate of ECS, not 40%.
Does the AGU publish EOS? If so, have they publicly apologized for their unwarranted attacks in EOS on Baliunas and Soon and Veizer and Shaviv, as described here?
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/11/28/the-team-trying-to-get-direct-action-on-soon-and-baliunas-at-harvard/#comment-811913
If they have not apologized, then I suggest they are unfit for human consumption.
“From the recent literature, the central estimate of the equilibrium climate sensitivity is ~2°C, while the climate model average is ~3.2°C, or an equilibrium climate sensitivity that is some 40% lower than the model average.”
Sorry, but I can find no compelling evidence (much less “proof”) that a doubling in CO2 atmospheric concentration would increase the average temperature (whatever that is) of planet earth by 2°C. In fact, I don’t think we have been able to measure any warming caused by CO2 at all. They say that the question of God is totally outside of science since there is no way to detect or find evidence of said entity. But by the same token, If we can not detect temperature rise caused by CO2 then we don’t have any scientific basis to claim any CO2 cause warming. We are still trying to do science are we not?
~Mark
Jeez we’re just reporting the literature. Got a problem with that?
The mainstream media says it is “just reporting the literature” also.
In this case, we can have the delusion of 2°C or the delusion of 3.2°C — both of which are not supported by the facts and real-world observations. I prefer neither one. I prefer we use measurements that demonstrate the effect of CO2.
Absolutely. The basic physics predicts roughly a one degree warming for a CO2 doubling. But we’re not talking about basic physics, we’re talking about the climate system, where everything is a function of everything else and every constant is a variable.
As far as I’m aware, there is no reliable historical data that shows an increase in CO2 followed by a corresponding increase in temperature, as predicted by AGW. The ice core data shows that it works the other way around: it’s temperature driving the amount of CO2. The ice core data appears to be a complete disproof of AGW. If science were working properly, AGW would long ago have been scrapped, allowing scientists to concentrate on what really drives the climate. Unfortunately, at least for now, a poisonous combination of vested interests and green extremism continues to corrupt the science.
Even in the last century nearly half of the warming occurred before there was sufficient CO2. It is truly remarkable that a theory that is so soundly disproven by all the empirical scientific data still flourishes. But it won’t last forever. I’m confident that science will regain its integrity, but I’m not holding my breath….
Chris
I have no idea why you are asserting this. Attribution of cause is, in all cases, based on observation of coincidence. You let go of a penny, it falls, you attribute the cause of falling to “gravity” because the explanation works to explain the past and has predictive value.
If you look at the figure I posted above, CO_2 concentration is a truly excellent explanation of observed past warming, at least from 1850 to the present. Outside of that range the uncertainties in the data very likely defeat the model (if they aren’t already too great within the range of the model). Time only will tell if this has predictive value.
However, there are some very good reasons — as is also the case with gravitation — to think that CO_2 concentration increases will cause warming. Those good reasons result in the model being fit, which ends up working very well.
So has anybody “proven” that CO_2 has caused warming? No, no more than anybody has “proven” that gravity makes things fall. In the case of gravity, we have little doubt left. In the case of CO_2 the evidence isn’t as strong and you might well have some doubt, but to assert that there is no compelling evidence — well, I disagree. In fact, I think that the curve above that I posted is pretty compelling. The residual standard error of the fit is around 0.1 for 163 degrees of freedom. That’s compelling.
rgb
Rgbatduke
You write
Sorry, but what you have presented is certainly NOT “compelling”.
Having checked this thread, I assume that the ”curve” you mention is supposed to be provided by the link in your post at December 20, 2014 at 3:57 pm where you wrote
Well, no, I cannot “see” anything because when I click on the link I get
However, let us assume the graph does exist and it does show the CO2 and temperature correlate, then so what? Correlation does not indicate causation.
Both the CO2 and the temperature have risen so they will exhibit some correlation.
And changes to CO2 follow the temperature at all time scales. This coherence indicates that if there is a causal relationship between them then the “compelling evidence” is that the temperature changes induce the CO2 changes which is the opposite of what you suggest.
Richard
richardscourtney
December 21, 2014 at 12:49 am
Richard, I’ll go w/RGB’s statement at face value. The Nimbus-satellite graph that shows total upward-radiating IR shows this — a big “gouge” of CO2 radiating upward at a lower temp than the surface. If you increase the “gouge” by increasing CO2, the total IR upward has to stay the same (1st Law), and all else being equal, would increase the surface IR thru the atmospheric window, which translates to higher surface temps.
That said, notice I said “all else being equal”. That’s the $64K question. We don’t know how the earth will react. More/less cloudiness? More/less water vapor? Increase/decrease in convection? Change in air flow patterns? Change in albedo? Change in the tropopause level?
Offhand, pretty much all natural, complicated systems have overall negative feedbacks, and there’s plenty of evidence the earth is no exception. So, IMHO, the “real” temp rise would prb’ly be less than the simplistic CO2-doubling warming equation of 1.2C or so.
beng1
Thankyou for your interest.
Sorry, but your response ignores the coherence evidence. For your argument to stand you need to explain the fact that changes to CO2 are observed to FOLLOW changes to the temperature at all time scales.
Please note that I do not know if the recent rise in atmospheric CO2 concentration (as measured e.g. at Mauna Loa) has an anthropogenic cause, a natural cause, or some combination of anthropogenic and natural causes. But I want to know.
The rise can be modeled as being either anthropogenic or natural
(ref. Rorsch A, Courtney RS & Thoenes D, ‘The Interaction of Climate Change and the Carbon Dioxide Cycle’ E&E v16no2 (2005))
and I have been arguing with both ‘sides’ of the argument for over a decade.
The OCO data may resolve the issue and preliminary data seems to suggest a natural cause
(see Tim Ball’s article)
but that could be misleading.
Richard
AGU has no copyright on any poster. What they are getting at is that posters and presentations occupy a peculiar netherworld in scientific publishing, being often preliminary in nature and unpublished in the dead electron or tree world. Sometimes, the good times, people use posters to provoke discussion, scientific that is. Thus, when someone photographs a poster and puts it up for everyone to see problems can arise.
An amusing, well not at the time, to the authors example of this was an encounter Eli had with Bruce Malamud and Don Turcotte at AGU. Turns out that they had given a seminar at York University, and somebunny put up the powerpoints, which was picked up by Tim Curtin, then Eli. Malamud and Turcotte had, in their own words, no idea that it was out there, and indeed it took then another couple of years to complete the study. Take a look at the link, and the links at the link to Marohasy and Curtin and the comments at both places.
With respect to the idea that humans are causing harmful changes to the climate at this very moment, I am waiting for some peer-reviewed papers that propose what the optimum climate is for our biosphere. The first question that would naturally flow would be where is our current climate and trend in relation to this finding.
Strangely, nobody seems interested in this vital comparison. Not so strangely, the solutions that are frequently demanded in the most urgent voice, all converge on a socialist worldview: statism, bigger government, higher taxes, less personal liberty. That bigger picture tells me all that I need to know about “climate science”.
May I add that Bill Gail, the new Prexy of the AMS came by to chat for about twenty minutes. Given that this poster is a speck in a sea of 3000 others at the time, it obviously commanded some serious attention! Gail also appeared to understand there are some systematic problems in science, and not just climate science. Perhaps we are making progress.
Pat,
The scientific method is supposed to be self-correcting of bias as the process moves upward to ever higher levels. Thus, whereas all scientists (and I am one) are biased, and the reviewers of our papers (and sometimes the editors) have biases, the free debate of ideas among the many levels of science, and the interactions of many points-of-view, are supposed to winnow out such biases and permit us to arrive at the “truth”. This seems to have worked relatively well so far.
But I have concerns over that process being corrupted by biases coming from above, including professional societies, politicians, the press, etc., and especially those biases being driven by financial or political agendas toward specific goals. How does the scientific method handle such influences?
I see some evidence of this in other agencies. For example, when NASA sent spacecraft to Saturn, it did not show a preference for what “facts’ were discovered or what scientific “conclusions” were drawn. With Mars it is a different story. Former administrator Dan Goldin recognized that public interest and support of the public was important to an agency like NASA. And the public was interested in the origin of life and life outside Earth. So these themes, along with the supporting theme of finding past or present water on Mars, have driven NASA’s sizeable effort at Mars exploration. Never think that NASA focus has not influenced funding for research and conclusions reached by especially young scientists trying to stay in the research system.
Such efforts to bias their own science cannot become a common theme at science support agencies and their political and public supporters, or all science will be the lesser for it.
Science is no where near as simple as may think. Having been in top tier academia for thirty years, perhaps I can summarize a promotion-and-tenure exam:
1. How much money did he bring in and was it government money (a more virtuous type)?
2. What did he publish and was it any good?
3. How much more money can he bring in?
Thx.
Don’t forget:
4. How many undergraduates did he molest? (Ignore if under 3.)
5. How many classes was he forced to stop teaching in mid-semester because students rioted outside of class? (Ignore if under 2.)
6. How many connections does he have to top-rank Universities so that he can place his postdocs well?
The person cannot be an active liability to the department. Well, unless the answers to 1 and 3 are very large numbers.
In fact, really it boils down to 3, doesn’t it?
rgb
Never had an inkling academia as so rough. Glad I was a longshoreman.
It is never considered the liability that the administration is to academics … academics, in their minds, are just the pawns on the chessboard.
Graph somehow resembles of a hockey stick
… and a mirrored one
Just a point on the maths.
If the actual forcing is 40% lower than the models assumptions, predicted temperature increase from CO2 rise is likely to be 67% more than will actually be expected
As soon as any attempt is made to prevent access to results be suspicious. Very suspicious.
A few month ago ( 26.th of october) I made a similiar approach: http://kaltesonne.de/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/sensi2.gif . I compared the trends (GISS) to 2004 and to 2014. It’s clear, that the model-tuning from 1975 to 2004 ( brown for obs. and green for CMIP5) produced some kind of good agreement between CMIP5 model-mean and the observations. If one looks at the trends to 2014 ( blue for obs. and purple for CMIP5) the divergence is good visible. The trends of the model-mean is about 30% too high. This could be solved very easy: 30% Reduction of the TCR of the model-mean ( which is now about 1.9), this leads to a TCR of about 1.33. It’s just the value of Lewis/Curry.
The continuing lack of reconciling this difference in timely fashion is evidence, not only of bias but intentions that go beyond authentic climate science.
There can be no other interpretation for it. The climate models with the current physics and math have busted. It would be like a meteorologist that predicted sunny skies on Tuesday, after it was raining half of the day on Tuesday, adjust his forecast to partly sunny and not acknowledging that it’s actually raining.
In climate science, because the “projections” are in decades instead of days, there is no accountability since the majority of the projection time frame is always in the distant future.
Dr Norman Page
December 19, 2014 at 11:47 am
“It is silly to assume that the climate system is chaotic when it clearly isn’t. There are obvious periodicities in the Milankovitch cycles which have been stable for hundreds of millions of years>Similar quasi-periodicities are seen in the solar activity and temperature data.”
Yes, I’ve commented before similarly in response to rgb’s often plaint that its an intractably chaotic system. He’s correct, depending on what scale we are looking at, but understanding climate is, by definition, the integral of details. The gas laws, for example are, at the molecular level, a chaotic system, but our objectives in employing the gas laws are not to locate every molecule in space and time. The statistical integration of this chaotic system is, of course, used unfailingly throughout a wide range of our technology. The climate system is complex because of the number of variables, but in a chaotic system, temperatures would not oscillate merely 2% of K above and below an average.
As an engineer, looking at the grand scale, I would say that the main factor that stands out is the amazing in-built control of the system. Even Milankovic etc., and asteroids that from time to time wipe out 75%+ of species, do not tip anything. Rather they are countered and compensated for, to keep climate in its long term range. A engineer with a geologically long view could build an engine that would run on these oscillations – (the bearings and material fatigue would be a problem!). What we are looking for is the equivalent of the gas laws. Maybe water in its different phases quantitatively provides 75% of the answer.
A powerful support for the ; correctness of the paleoclimatology evidence is life itself. Example: we still have creatures in the sea related to Ordovician nautiloids from half a billion years ago. Scroll down and look at the fossil varieties.
https://www.tonmo.com/community/pages/nautiloids/
Excellent points. Agreed.
Gary
For an empirically based refutation of the CAGW meme see also
http://www.seipub.org/des/paperInfo.aspx?ID=21810
which states
“The planetary radiative balance is maintained by the equilibrium cloud cover which is equal to the theoretical equilibrium clear sky transfer function. The Wien temperature of the all sky emission spectrum is locked closely to the thermodynamic triple point of the water assuring the maximum radiation entropy. The stability and natural fluctuations of the global average surface temperature of the heterogeneous system are ultimately determined by the phase changes of water. Many authors have proposed a greenhouse effect due to anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions. The present analysis shows that such an effect is impossible.”
“The post at
http://climatesense-norpag.blogspot.com/2014/10/comment-on-mcleans-paper-late-twentieth.html
provides estimates of the timing and amplitude of the likely coming cooling. The main emergent phenomena for human time scales of interest is the 1000 year quasi-periodicity in the temperature data. Forecasts which ignore this obvious periodicity are really worthless and can be safely ignored.
On the issue of chaotic climate dynamics, this seems a matter of precise definition. From reading rgbatduke in the past, he means ‘endogenous’ climate (ie without external shocks) has (2?) (bounded) attractor sets within which the dynamics is chaotic. Sometimes called strange attractors, although this probably opens up more issues of definition. One assumes no one really means climate dynamics is literally chaotic over the entire ‘climate space’, whatever that might exactly be. Although a professor of climate models did recently refer to semi-chaotic dynamics somewhere! Who knows what that means? Incidentally, the definition of chaotic dynamics permits periodic dynamics of any length for some (starting) points in the relevant space.
Gary Pearse says:
“Even Milankovic etc., and asteroids that from time to time wipe out 75%+ of species, do not tip anything.”
I would label variation from dense tropical growth to snowball Earth a significant “tip”. However, that said, it is not likely CO2 plays a significant role. I believe it is obvious that the 70% of the Earth that is covered with water, the atmosphere that the panet has so far maintained and the geothermic heat of our planet along with the relative consistency of solar radiation all play a significant role in keeping climate suitable for life of one type or another. The relationships of these major players in climate is not, howerver, well established and does in many ways resemble chaos.
Dr. Norman Page is wrong the climate is random and chaotic but subject to cycles if they are extreme enough in degree of magnitude, duration of time ,and different items phase together, combined with what the initial state of the climate is on earth when these cycles take place.
One will never ever get the same climate result form given cycles, the best one could hope for is a general trend in the climate..
Dr Norman Page
December 19, 2014 at 11:47 am
“It is silly to assume that the climate system is chaotic when it clearly isn’t. There are obvious periodicities in the Milankovitch cycles which have been stable for hundreds of millions of years>Similar quasi-periodicities are seen in the solar activity and temperature data.”
I agree with the statement below to a point but cycles superimpose themselves upon the chaotic climate..
Yes, I’ve commented before similarly in response to rgb’s often plaint that its an intractably chaotic system which causes many of the cyclic effects to get lost in the noise of the climate system unless they are extreme.
For making climate policy the general trend is a good start. Based on the 1000 year cycle it is reasonable to suppose that the general trend for the next 600 years or so will be down once we pass the current peak.It is also reasonable to use as the most obvious first working hypothesis that the trends over shorter time periods may be similar to the 50 year moving average see in Fig 9 at
http://climatesense-norpag.blogspot.com/2014/07/climate-forecasting-methods-and-cooling.html
The drop in solar activity in 2005-6 seen in Fig 13 suggests that we are past the driver peak.
For a test of the general idea that the changing Neutron count is a useful proxy for changing solar activity which shows up in global temperatures with a time lag which varies according to which climate metric we use, we may consider that the sharp drop in the Ap index at about 2005-6 should presage a noticeable temperature drop in the RSS global temperatures in about 2016-17.
The lag between driver and climate has been variously estimated depending on the climate metric used . I think the RSS temps may be the canary in the coal mine with a lag of as little as 12 years.
Sorry- I managed to add 12 incorrectly the drop should be in 2017 -18
This solar cycle is really strange in that the maximum is still going on 7 years into this cycle, and the solar lull from 2008-2010 surprised all in how deep it was.
This could mean this solar cycle could be 14 years in length (the longest or close to it ever)which could have climatic implications if solar activity drops to very low levels and stays at those levels going forward. I think it will.
Salvatore We are not seven years into the cycle. See the neutron data in Fig 14 of my link. The minimum was right at the end of 2009 so we are now only 5 years in- just a couple of months away from the 24 peak using the neutron data,
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/01/04/solar-cycle-24-has-officially-started/
Yes we are. Read article. One of many which confirms this.
ONE MORE SOURCE WIKEDPIA
2008[edit]
On January 4, 2008, a reversed-polarity sunspot appeared, and this signaled the start of Solar Cycle 24. It was high latitude (30º N) and magnetically reversed. NOAA named the spot AR10981, or sunspot 981 for short.[3]
Sunspot 1007 produced the first solar flare above the B-class on November 2, 2008.
Sunspot 1009 produced the first solar flare above the C-class, a C1.4, on December 11, 2008. Only a few sunspots were observed in the surface of the Sun throughout 2008.
If you want to tie yourself in knots about one sunspot – feel free. For practical purposes the neutron data is more useful and the minimum is very clearly at end 2009 . The SSN peak was in Feb 2014 – the neutron peak usually lags that by 10 months to a year, We are now very close.
Your Wiki article says “Only a few sunspots were observed in the surface of the Sun throughout 2008”
Not of great significance in my opinion – more useful especially for climate matters to go with the neutron count.