Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
Well, as often happens I started out in one direction and then I got sidetractored … I wanted to respond to Michele Casati’s claim in the comments of my last post. His claim was that if we include the Maunder Minimum in the 1600’s, it’s clear that volcanoes with a VEI greater or equal to 5 are affected by sunspots. Based on my previous analysis I figured “No way!”, but I thought I should take a look … and as is often the case, I ended up studying something entirely different.
Now, the SIDC monthly sunspot record that I used in my last analysis starts in 1700. Prior to that the only sunspot numbers available are a “reconstruction” by Hoyt and Schatten called the “Group Sunspot Number”, which is the dataset used by Michele. The Hoyt/Schatten Group sunspot data is available here. Now, as Leif Svalgaard has discussed here on WUWT, the SIDC sunspot numbers are in the process of being revised to remove an incorrect offset due to a change in the procedures in 1947. The result will be that the pre-1947 sunspot numbers will be increased by 20%. Figure 1 shows both the unrevised and revised SIDC annual average sunspot numbers, along with the annual average Group Sunspot numbers.
Figure 1. SIDC unrevised (black), revised (dotted blue), and Group (red) annual average sunspot numbers.
Several things are apparent. First, in the Group sunspot numbers (red) you can see what is called the “Maunder Minimum”, the period where there are no or few sunspots from about 1645 to about 1715 or so.
Next, although the Group sunspot numbers are a very good fit to the SIDC unrevised numbers since about 1880, prior to that the Group sunspot numbers are consistently lower, and sometimes much lower, than the SIDC unrevised numbers.
Next, the early sunspot data in the Group number dataset looks … well … odd …
Seeking to understand what made the early part of the Group sunspot number so odd, I decided to look at the most detailed underlying data. These are the individual daily observations of sunspots. When I did so, there were various strange and interesting aspects. Figure 2 shows the daily data, along with an indication of which days have missing data.
Figure 2. Group daily sunspot numbers, 1610-1995. The vertical light blue lines each represent a missing day.
There are some quite bizarre things about this dataset. First, the amount and the location of the missing data. A number of months have no data at all, and many are missing data. Prior to 1643, and also between 1720 and 1800, about two-thirds of the data is missing (65% and 66% missing respectively). During the “Maunder Medium” period between the two light blue areas above, however, only 3% of the data is missing … three percent?
And does anyone but me find it strange that there is very little data prior to 1635 or so, but what data there is shows normal sized sunspot cycles. Then we have a period that exactly coincides with the Maunder Minimum, where we have almost no days of missing data. Finally, from about 1720 on, we again have very little data … but what data there is shows normal sized solar cycles.
Say what? Why is there great data that exactly coincides with the Maunder Minimum? Does anyone find that even vaguely unusual?
Well, I found it very unusual. So I went to take a look at the underlying records. It just kept getting stranger. The numbers of sunspot groups observed is given here on an observer-by-observer basis. Looking through the entries for peculiarosities, I got to 1632, and I found the records of J. Zahn of his observations of sunspot groups made in Nuremberg, Germany. Figure 3 shows the observations of Herr Zahn in 1632:
Figure 3 Individual observer’s record used in the calculation of the Group sunspot number. A day when no observations were made is given the value of -99, and a day with observations made but no sunspots observed is given the value of zero.
I’m sorry, but given the reality of clouds and the fact that Germany is a ways north of the Equator, I’m not believing the idea that in the year 1632 in Germany the sun could possibly be observed in enough detail to count sunspots on every single day of the year. That’s simply not on. Never happened.
And sadly, the 1632 record is far, far from an isolated example. It’s just the first one I came across. Once I looked further I found that there are no less than FORTY-FIVE such observer’s reports claiming valid observations of zero sunspots every single day of the year … and I’m absolutely not buying a single one of them, even if they’re selling at a deep discount.
And when do these bogus records occur? Well, guess what? Forty-four of the forty-five such strange yearly records occur during or just prior to the “Maunder Minimum”, with one final lonesome yearly record of all zeroes in 1810.
I would suspect that what’s happened here is that Herr Zahn used the same symbol for “no observations attempted” and “no sunspots observed”, However, that’s just a guess. More importantly, whatever the reality might be, I’d say that including those impossible records is a major reason for the claims that the Maunder Minimum is so deficient in sunspots.
The next oddity in Figure 1, once I’d wrapped my head around the claim of being able to count sunspots on every day of the year, was the fact that the early data from about 1610 to about 1720 almost all occurs in even intervals of 15 sunspots, at e.g. 15,30, 45 sunspots and so on. Then after that, there is evenly spread data from about 1720-1750.
And then, after 1720, there is a section where once again the data almost all occurs in even intervals … but in that case the intervals appear to be 24 sunspots.
I suspected that this reflected the fact that each group of sunspots is counted as a certain number of individual spots. And upon checking records of the group counts against the Group sunspot number, I find this is the case, and there’s no problem with that … but bizarrely, the number keeps changing. In 1610, each group was counted as 18 sunspots. Then for a number of succeeding years each group was counted as 15 sunspots … until around 1720 when it was changed again, and after that, one sunspot group is counted as 12 individual sunspots. Not 24 sunspots as appears to be the case from Figure 2, but 12 … odd all around.
But wait … there’s more. Here’s the same data in Figure 1, but this time showing the annual Group sunspot numbers (red) and the annual SIDC sunspot numbers.
Figure 4. Daily (gray) and annual (red) Group sunspot numbers, along with the annual SIDC sunspot numbers (blue). Vertical light blue lines mark every day that has no data.
Now, take a look at the first three sunspot cycles just after 1700 … as you can see, the Group sunspot numbers greatly underestimate the apparent size of the actual cycle. How did this happen?
Well, it’s a curious answer that can be understood by an early year of the data, 1614. In 1614, the annual average is given as 121 sunspots. This can be seen in the red line above in Figure 4.
But when you look at the data for 1614, care to guess how many days of data there are for the entire year?
Well … um … er … not to put too fine a point on it, but there is exactly one day of the year [1614] that has data.
One day’s worth of data , and the sunspot count for that day? Well … 121 sunspots.
Now, to me, that’s bull goose loony. Including a yearly average when there is only one day’s data for the whole year? Sorry, but that’s meaningless.
But wait, it gets stranger. According to the daily data, there’s exactly one day’s worth of data in 1610, with a value of 72 sunspots. That day is in December. But according to the monthly data files, there are TWO months with data in 1610. December [1610] has an average of 72 from the one data point, but the monthly data for February also has an average, in this case zero. So the average for the year is the average of two months, which is 36, and which can be seen as the first data point in the red line in Figure 3 above …
That’s not all. In many years, despite there being no daily data of any kind, we still have both monthly and yearly averages. Here’s a graphic that shows the difference.
Figure 5. Annual and average-of-daily Group sunspot numbers.
You can see the data for 1610 I discussed above, one day’s observation of 72 sunspots and the annual average of 36 sunspots. But the hole keeps getting deeper and deeper. Look, for example, at 1636. According to the daily data, there’s not one single observation for the whole year. But according to the monthly data, EVERY SINGLE MONTH has an average of zero sunspots. And the same is true for 1637, 1641, 1744, 1745, and 1747 as well. In each case there are no observations in the daily data, but there are 12 months of zeros in the monthly data. And this is backed up by the raw observer data files. There are no observers at all listed for [1636] and [1637], no observers and no data … but despite that the monthly and yearly averages claim zero.
A final math note. Rather than average all of the days in the year, their “yearly average” is actual an average of the monthly averages. In some cases this leads to strange results. For example, in some years there are a dozen or so observations in a single month, and only one observation during the entire rest of the year. Obviously, an average of the monthly averages will give a very different answer than averaging the individual data.
I gotta say … these numerous shenanigans with the data make me very suspicious about the whole Group Sunspot Number dataset. When I find entire years where there isn’t a single daily observation, but despite a total lack of data the monthly averages for that year are all zero and the yearly average is also zero … well, that makes me wonder about the entire idea that the “Maunder Minimum” is as extreme as is depicted by the Group Sunspot numbers.
In any case, as I said, I started out to look at Michele’s claim about eruptions in the Maunder and I got blind-slided off the path by the oddities of the Group sunspot number. I couldn’t use either the daily or the monthly Group sunspot numbers to compare with the eruptions, because a number of them didn’t have any sunspot data for either the day or the month. So I used the annual average Group sunspot number to compare to the eruptions. I didn’t splice the Group dataset like Michele did, I dislike spliced datasets, so I figured I’d see things as if the Group dataset were real. To start with, Figure 6 shows the dates of the eruptions overlaid by the daily Group sunspot number …
Figure 6. Large eruptions (VEI >= 5) and daily Group sunspot numbers.
Looking at just the vertical red lines showing the eruption dates, you can see the “clumpiness” of nature that I’ve remarked on before. However, there doesn’t seem to be any obvious correlation between sunspots and eruptions. So I turned to the histograms showing the distribution of the annual Group sunspot numbers on the dates of the eruptions, and I compared that eruption distribution to the distribution of all of the Group sunspot numbers over the entire period. Figure 7 shows that relationship:
Figure 7. Comparison of the distributions of the sunspot level during the eruptions (gold) and the distribution of all of the Group sunspot levels. Numbers at the top of the gold bins show the count of eruptions in each bin.
Now, Michele’s claim was that most of the eruptions occurred during periods of low Group sunspot numbers … and he’s right. Of the 37 eruptions, about seventy percent of them occur when Group sunspot number is below forty.
But the part he didn’t take into account was that most of the Group sunspot record is made up of periods of low Group sunspot numbers. And of course, with a small dataset of only 37 eruptions, the 98% confidence intervals are very wide. As a result, none of the results are even slightly significant.
So no, I’m afraid that the Group sunspot number, as terrible as it is, still doesn’t show any relationship between sunspots and big eruptions …
Conclusions? Well … my main conclusion is that whenever you see the word “sunspots” in a scientific study, hold tight to your wallet and check the datasets very, very closely. There may indeed have been a Maunder Minimum … but the Group sunspot number dataset is so bad that we can’t conclude anything from it regarding the Maunder or anything else.
My best wishes to everyone,
w.
AS ALWAYS: If you disagree with someone, please quote the exact words you disagree with, so that we can all understand what you are objecting to.
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Quoted From Piers Corbyn
“The spin rate of the earth is generally being braked slightly by its interaction with the solar wind and as we get to a solar minimum this braking is less. That probably gives a sort of slow ‘jolting effect on oceans and tectonic plates which might exacerbate earthquakes and tremors. We have to think of CHANGES in forces or changes in acceleration rather than simply forces or accelerations.
“Think of a train with its brakes on by a certain fixed amount – constant deceleration. You are sitting in your seat and the braking is thrusting you forward a bit but you have adjustyed for that and feel no discomfort. When the train comes to a stop this braking ends and you feel a jolt and you slump backwards into your seat as the force you provided to not fall forward pushes you back. Similarly when a train (or a plane) changes its acceleration forward you experience
jolts.
Generally speaking in a train or plane plenty of jolts occur when they are hardly moving rather than moving at top speed.
In a similar fashion the oceans pressing against the continents or more precisely against some tectonic plates – experience jolts relative to the earth’s main crust and core as the interaction with the solar wind changes as we get close to (or move away from) solar minimum.”
http://sc25.com/index.php?id=10&linkbox=true&position=3
Willis,
Were you able to find their handwritten notes of the data?
Qouting Eschenbach exactly (last comment first):
“There may indeed have been a Maunder Minimum … but the Group sunspot number dataset is so bad that we can’t conclude anything from it regarding the Maunder or anything else.
My best wishes to everyone,
w.
AS ALWAYS: If you disagree with someone, please quote the exact words you disagree with, so that we can all understand what you are objecting to.”
+++++++++++++++++++++
Qouting Willis Eschenbach exactly (from his first paragraph here):
Now, quoting Casati exactly from the quote Willis links to from here http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/02/09/volcanoes-and-sunspots/#comment-1855604
++++++++++++++++++++
WILLIS: where is your claimed claim of Michele’s that you specifically cited? He didn’t say what you claimed he said, YOU SAID IT:
You said this: “if we include the Maunder Minimum in the 1600’s, it’s clear that volcanoes with a VEI greater or equal to 5 are affected by sunspots. ”
HE DID NOT SAY THAT. Shame on you for putting words in his mouth.
You chide Michele for using obsolete SSNs, you then go ahead and use them anyway yourself – hypocrite! Willis, you have a double standard.
My question to you Willis is, why did you knowingly use obsolete SSNs when you know that the reconstructed numbers are going to be released soon?
Why didn’t you use Leif’s revised GSN? From your own article:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/01/05/the-best-test-of-downscaling/#comment-1829682 , where Leif Svalgaard said in response to my question of how the SSN reconstruction was going:
“Basically unchanged. We shall have a meeting in [of all places] Sunspot NM [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunspot,_New_Mexico ] during the last week of January to iron-out minor details. The new numbers will be presented at a press conference in Brussels, Belgium later in the spring/early summer and submitted to IAU [ http://www.iau.org/ ] in early August for possible adoption as an international standard..”
and
“The GSN will become obsolete and not published as a separate series, but will be incorporated with the regular SSN. There will thus be only ONE SSN series [and it will be called the Wolf number]. We will maintain a separate Group Number [GN] as a means to keep track of the number of groups which is a proxy for somewhat different physics as the ratio SSN/GN is not constant as was earlier surmised. We will discourage using the GN as a proxy for solar activity [as it is not].”
++++++++++++++++++++
Willis, did you catch this part?:
(my bold)
So Willis, why did you use the GN (for the Maunder Minimum) when Leif said it is not a proxy for solar activity? Leif could give you some relief here if he’d post those new revised GSNs sooner than later.
Willis, you never cease to amaze me. How is it possible for you to have so completely missed the boat as to what the Sun did to the Earth prior to high VEI volcanoes (or high mag earthquakes)? Sunspot numbers are not the only thing of importance wrt the Solar-Terrestrial connection.
Bob, several comments.
First, I used the Group Sunspot number because that’s what Michele used. And I explained that in the head post.
Second, rather than quote his entire comment,I gave the link to the exact comment by Michele so people could see for themselves exactly what he said. So I did quote his exact words, by means of my link.
As to my paraphrase of his claim, which was that “if we include the Maunder Minimum in the 1600’s, it’s clear that volcanoes with a VEI greater or equal to 5 are affected by sunspots”, if Michele thinks that paraphrase is inaccurate I’m happy to discuss it with him. Your opinion is meaningless to me. For that kind of question, I’ll only talk to the organ grinder, not to the monkey. He may be perfectly happy with it, so why should I care about your opinion of it?
Regarding your specious asking why I “knowingly use[d] obsolete SSNs when you know that the reconstructed numbers are going to be released soon?” … say what? I showed both the unrevised and revised SIDC numbers in one chart. Other than that I only used the Group Sunspot Numbers … why?
Because neither the revised nor the unrevised SIDC numbers go back before 1700, and Michele specifically asked about the Maunder Minimum. As I explained in the head post.
Finally, you ask …
I didn’t use the Group Number because it has not been published yet, d’oh. I used the Group Sunspot Number for the Maunder because it’s all we have at present, and because that’s what Michele used.
Get off your high horse and lay off the aggro, Bob. I’m doing my best and explaining it as best I can. Your anger and vituperation directed at me is totally inappropriate, and merely damages your own reputation.
w.
PS—If you could avoid being all nasty in your reply, I’m curious about the following:
OK, I give up, Bob. What DID the Sun do to the earth prior to high VEI volcanoes? Please include links to your data, describe your method of analysis, and include error estimates …
That’s a lame attempt at projection Willis. You missed your mark.
You should know better than to chide someone about suspect data and then use it yourself, even if the other did. What conclusions can anyone come to with such suspect data? Any worth talking about? But you talked about it plenty, in spite of knowing it wasn’t good data. What did you accomplish? Did you wipe out the Maunder Minimum?
The Maunder Minimum was not the primary point of discussion anyway. Volcanoes were.
Anger – you bet. I considered this article to be a hit piece by you on Michele Casati, someone simply and innocently trying to interject some new findings in the comment section, who didn’t even get the benefit of being able to explain himself fully about what he was talking about before you jumped on him. You reframed the discussion in a way that “makes him wrong” – w/o his testimony. How would you like it if the shoe was on the other foot?
Vituperation directed at you is totally appropriate when you declare every time you write an article to “quote exact words” – and then you don’t! Yea, I’m seeing red because you exhibited a blatant double standard, period, and no one else called you out on it.
Your attempts to slide out of being held accountable here are not a surprise. You clearly did not quote him exactly, nor did you state that you were paraphrasing him until I said something, so I think your little belated attempt here at minimizing what you did – is – well – true to your character.
Just when I start to think you’re OK, you pull some shit like this, and you set yourself back again. It is Willis’ rep that Willis is ruining by Willis exhibiting Willis’ double standard.
You can quote me on that.
As to your PS:
First of all Willis, what do I owe you? Do I owe you personally an explanation when you show no sign of understanding what the Sun does in any regard – at all. I mean, I might as well be talking to a child. Are sunspots the only manifestation of solar activity? Think!
Why is it Willis, this late in the game, that you don’t appear to know anything else about the Sun beyond sunspot number counts and TSI?
When you show me any sign of getting beyond that very basic level, I’ll let you know.
There is a tremendous amount of data supporting Casati’s thesis that solar impulses of various kinds have the said effects, but first you have to understand what solar impulses are in and of themselves, and then you have to understand what they do in general to the Earth, and then more specifically, what impulses under what conditions can do the kind of damage earthquakes and volcanoes do. Take it one step at a time.
I recommend to Michele that he write up an article and submit it to WUWT, and if he does that, I will provide the data that I have right now in support, and not until then, unless I write that article.
Willis you owe Michele an apology for your shoddy mistreatment on his subject.
Bob Weber February 11, 2015 at 4:56 pm
OK, Bob, I give up. What data should I have used for the study of volcanoes in the Maunder Minimum as requested by Michele? I used what Michele used, the Group sunspot number. Since you think I should use some other dataset, which one would you recommend?
OK, I quoted you on that, but dang, Bob, your high blood pressure isn’t doing you any favors.
I do have to laugh at folks who hang on every word I write, and then want to tell me I’m writing it all wrong … if you feel that way about me, Bob, let me invite you to discuss things with someone who you don’t spout bile at. Conversations go better when you’re not constantly accusing the other person of things they’re not doing … in other words, if you don’t like my style, go somewhere else and stop bothering decent folks with your ugly rants.
No, I don’t “have to understand” any of that to discuss whether volcanoes occur more frequently in times of low sunspots as Michele Casati claims. I’ve shown, using all available data, that they do NOT occur preferentially at times of low sunspots as he said. I even, at Michele’s request, included the Group sunspot numbers from the 1600’s (the very data that you’re now whining about my using) and there’s still no relationship. Another beautiful theory gone aground on a reef of facts … sorry.
If Michele wants an apology, he’ll tell me. You seem to think he’s some kid who can’t speak for himself. In my opinion, he’s a grown man who can speak for himself. I don’t think I’ve said anything about him that requires an apology, but if he thinks so I’m happy to discuss it.
As to your opinion that I owe him an apology, who made you Miss Manners? As I said above, regarding that kind of question I’ll only talk to the organ grinder, not to the monkey. Your opinion on my interaction with Michele is about as important to me as my dog’s opinion on quantum mechanics … and I don’t have a dog.
Finally, I see you’ve petulantly refused to explain whatever it was that you claim “the Sun did to the Earth prior to high VEI volcanoes” … that’s fine by me, one less issue to deal with.
w.
My blood pressure is fine, always is. So is my judgment of character. For someone who studied psychology, your lack of people skills on occasion is glaring.
Michele is being kind and cooperative because this is your turf and he’s not from here, and he wants to expose his ideas to a wider audience, and he’s a younger man dealing with mostly older more experienced people set in their ways (from my perspective).
He has valid points that you’re not even addressing because you don’t demonstrate that you understand what the Sun regularly does, so how could you understand what he says.
Did it ever occur to you that high VEI and high mag EQs events result from solar activity events that occur from different sources during both high or low sunspot number periods, and thus the sunspot number isn’t always the main thing, even though it can be a factor? Did you ever think of that, or that even one sunspot can be enough?
Events rule the day. You’ll won’t figure this out using just statistics Willis.
For you and many others that’s counter-intuitive.
I know you just want the answer, and if you are given the answer without effort on your part, you won’t appreciate it, so I would rather that you figure it out yourself, or at least give it a good effort. If you’re not capable, just admit it, it’s no shame to admit ignorance – very few others have figured it out, if that’s any solace. And I’m not saying you’re stupid.
I’m not refusing to tell you anything either – I don’t answer to you – UNLESS I WANT TO.
You jack people around and then you expect them to want to give to you outright their fruits of their labor just for the asking whenever you demand? It doesn’t work like that.
You established your rules of engagement with your “quote exact words” demand, then you didn’t follow your own rules, and when you were called out on it, you weaseled out.
The very fact that you have such a rule at all makes you ‘Miss Manners’ here, not me.
When you are consistent in following the very rules you establish for others, everything will run smoothly. When you follow a different set of rules for yourself, well, you saw what happened today. Stick to your own rules!
I appreciate your efforts otherwise; and perhaps you do need a dog in your life.
Bob Weber February 11, 2015 at 9:57 pm
Sorry, but that goes nowhere. Which valid points? What does the Sun regularly do? What are you talking about?
What on earth does any of that have to do with this thread? I was discussing one thing, which was Michele’s claim that high VEI eruptions were associated with low sunspot levels.
And if “one sunspot can be enough” … enough to do what? Cause an eruption?
“Events rule the day”? What does that even mean? What kind of “events”? And what is it that the events “rule”? And why is statistics deemed by you to be inapplicable to “events”? My friend, you are not making any sense at all.
Bob, I fear that even if I wanted to make the “effort on my part” I could do little, because you’re not saying anything with all of your words. “Events rule the day”??? “One sunspot is enough”??? “Very few others have figured it out”??? That’s not science, that’s fortune cookie sentiments.
And yes, I did get the hidden message—you’re so much smarter than the “others” who haven’t figured it out, but you’re unwilling to share, and in any case I’m incapable of understanding your hidden deep wisdom …
Did you think that was unclear to me or anyone else? You don’t seem to answer to anything, including reason, logic, or science.
Say what? What on earth are you talking about? Science is about TRANSPARENCY. You want to hide your light under a bushel, that’s up to you.
But when you start channelling Phil Jones with his “We have 25 or so years invested in the work. Why should I make the data available to you, when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it.?”, well, more power to you, but hiding your ideas and results, that’s not science.
I paraphrased what Michele said, which was rather long, and I LINKED TO HIS EXACT WORDS. In my world that’s equivalent to quoting his exact words.You don’t like that? Get your own blog and write your own posts.
Sorry to disappoint you, Bob, but I learned something early on in this game—there’s always some jerk out there who will abuse me no matter how I write or what I write about. Today you’re the lucky one, tomorrow it will be someone else … so what?
It isn’t a rule, Bob. See the word “please” in there? It is a POLITE REQUEST designed to avoid misunderstandings. Learn to read. I put it out there because over time I got very tired of being attacked for things I didn’t say, without the attacker making any effort to quote, cite, link to, or otherwise identify what it was I said that they are discussing.
Which is why I was careful to link to Michele’s exact words …
What I saw happening today was that despite my linking to Michele’s exact words, you appointed yourself the holy arbiter of my interaction with Michele. If you think my actions made you do that, think again. You are an interfering busybody trying to stir up trouble between Michele and me. Like I said, he’s a grown man. If he has issues, or if he wants an apology, or if I’ve mis-paraphrased him, I’ve invited him several times to discuss any of those … but instead of Michele showing up, the only one whining about it is you.
Regards,
w.
So I’m your friend now? That’s great. Who couldn’t use a friend like you! I just like to point out that I can nitpick too, along with you, and yes, that does get old… Don’t dish it out if you can’t take it.
I’m holding back on explaining further until I get through evaluating a longer list of VEI4 and lower events, having already finished finding in the last week exciting and electrifying data for the only four high VEI5+ events on the list.
Since we only have four big VEI5+ in the modern satellite era, it was possible to locate exact data. In addition to getting the data on the VEI4 and under events, there’s a large number of papers out there that correspond to the solar impulse thesis, that I only recently found, and those should be cited too, as they do support the impulse thesis.
I am concerned that revealing partial information now buried here on a blog that’s nearly past it’s expiration date will be missed, misunderstood, and for many, misleading, so I don’t want to give out an incomplete analysis.
At this time it ought to be very apparent that sunspot numbers aren’t going to resolve this issue very well, as high VEI events occur during both high and low SSN conditions.
You appear to not be aware of some of the other solar indices aside from sunspot number, as you haven’t talked about them.
Potential sources of solar impulses:
1. solar sector boundary crossings
2. solar flares
3. coronal mass ejections
4. filament eruptions
5. coronal hole high speed streams
And then add in lunar and planetary influences, if any.
Perhaps even a data junky can appreciate that adding more factors into the analysis compounds the amount of time and effort necessary to collect data for EACH event!
The simple sunspot number method isn’t good enough to draw meaningful conclusions.
Bob Weber February 13, 2015 at 7:16 am
Wouldn’t dream of it …
Let me encourage you to avoid citing any studies with “solar” in the title until you’ve gotten the raw data used in the study and run the numbers for yourself. The amount of ludicrous statistical analyses in the field of solar influences on climate is immense.
Then why on earth are you commenting here? Given that you are unwilling to reveal your data and other scientific information, and that you have been unwilling to do so from your first comment, what is your purpose in commenting here?
However, I certainly encourage you to publish your results once you have them.
My best to you,
w.
The quote below from John Casey of the Space and Science Center. .
Finally, the coincidence of the Centennial and Bi-Centennial cycles of the RC Theory showed unmistakable relationships.
Willis prove to us with your data why the Centennial and Bi-Centennial cycles of the RC theory presented by John Casey do not apply.
rgbatduke- You make my point which is the data we have on past solar activity is not set in stone therefore to draw conclusions about solar variability and future solar variability is not on very solid ground.
That is a double edge sword because it can go one of two ways.
“From Galileo through the Maunder Minimum”
J.M.Vaquero & E.W. Cliver, 4th SSN Workshop, Locarno, 2014
http://www.leif.org/research/SSN/Vaquero6.pdf
One last point I want to make today which may or may not be the case is,
the less in intensity should the Maunder Minimum be or for that matter the Modern Day Solar Maximum ,the argument can then be made the more sensitive the climate may be to the slightest variations in solar activity due to primary and secondary effects. Always the double edge sword.
This would also serve to make this solar minimum stack up better against the Maunder Minimum if true. But it is a big IF, because past solar data as I have said has been ,is and will continue to be on shaky ground going forward despite what the so called experts may try to convey.
I remember that my works are to be evaluated together :
EGU 2012 (The interplanetary magnetic field -IMF-)
EGU 2013 (SSN)
EGU 2013 (Inflation and deflation cycles)
EGU 2014 (Ap-index) – I remember that my works are to be evaluated together
My current conclusion is atypical electrical impulsive phenomena (EM solar-terrestrial interactions) occurred during the solar minimum (transitions), with an enormous amount of energy released during the geophysical event. Phenomena not yet fully understood from a physical point of view.
Michele
Michele, thanks for your notes. If you were to give links to your work it would help, as I’m unwilling to chase things on Google.
In any case, your hypothesis has a couple of problems.
First, as I have shown in this and my previous post, none of your claimed correlations between either earthquakes or volcanoes and sunspots has even the slightest statistical significance. So no matter what your claimed mechanism might be … it ain’t working.
Next, I fear that uttering the mystic words “atypical electrical impulsive phenomena (EM solar-terrestrial interactions)” and noting that they are “not yet fully understood” doesn’t qualify as a hypothesis.
Regards,
w.
Will say : ” mystic words ”
“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science.”
Albert Einstein
Michele February 12, 2015 at 5:19 am Edit
Thanks for that lovely quote, Michele, I was unaware of that. For me, such a sense of awe is one of the most important things a scientist can have.
w.
Sorry,
EGU 2013,2014 and 2015
A long time ago during my library haunting days, I read anything astronomical in a local county library.
One of the books included some history about celestial observations; including several chapters about the history of ‘sunspot watching’.
I never connected the amateur and accidental solar observations to an allegedly detailed sunspot record. i.e. until Willis posted his excursion into sunspot exploration.
That old history percolated back up; it was certainly not sunspot counting or sunspot tracking!
“ca. 800 BC: The first plausible recorded sunspot observation”
“ naked-eye sunspot observations” (PDF download)
“ Historical Occidental Observations ” (same “Naked Eye Observations” PDF download)
Some of the naked eye observations prior to consistent telescope use were made by the shadow box or pinhole projection method.
Pinhole projection is a misnomer or misrepresentation though. we’re taught when young to use an actual pinhole to make shadow projections in order to watch eclipses.
Observers can use a much larger hole though and project the shadow image against a wall in a dark room. The sun’s image substantially larger as are any sunspots and surprisingly clear.
Can these shadow projections highlight pinpricks? Not anywhere near as well as current telescope technology.
The early telescope observers often made their own telescopes and smoked their own shade glass.
“From the good old Britannica dot com”
“Sunspot Drawing Resource Page: The Early Observers, 1128 to 1800 AD.”
Until Mount Wilson Observatory was built circa 1917, sunspot observations were accidental, dilettante, casual, curiosity, occasional, by product and definitely all of the above.
As Willis identified above, sunspot observations are not continuous nor rigorous. All subsequent attempts to torture sunspot records into confessing do not replace detailed records by a competent observer.
Mods, my apologies for screwing up another quote comment.
If it helps and doesn’t cause you any grief; I missed the slash (/) for the closing blockquote in the paragraph just following the linked ‘Britannica dot com’ line.
e.g. currently at the paragraph end:
The Swiss astronomer Rudolf Wolf confirmed Schwabe’s discovery by searching through previous reports of sunspots and established the period as 11 years. Wolf also introduced what is termed the Zurich relative sunspot number, a value equal to the sum of the spots plus 10 times the number of groups, which is still used today. Much of the work at this time was carried out by wealthy amateurs such as Richard Christopher Carrington of Britain, who built a private observatory and discovered the differential rotation and the equatorward drift of activity during a sunspot cycle…”
That blockquote at the end of the paragraph should be a closing blockquote.
Sorry to be a burden. Please delete this request as it doesn’t aid the thread.
I think I fixed it, ATheoK, let me know if it’s still wrong.
w.
http://www.sott.net/article/252523-Scientists-link-magnetic-reversal-climate-change-and-super-volcano-to-same-time-period
Along those lines the evidence is there for a link between the geo magnetic field -climate- geological activity and even extinctions of some species
a the ok
The only point you are making is in the past solar variability is really unknown which really does nothing to prove or disprove solar/geological connections or solar/climate connections.
It proves nothing other then to show solar variability is unknown which is one of my points in my paper -how the climate may change.
You’re in denial Salvatore.
I laid out a short history of sunspot counters, along with their estimated counts and on which years those counts were made. Please note that years without observations outnumber years with observations.
Until the late 1800’s sunspots were not counted! Sunspots were curiosities for discussion, not counting spots. There are what amounts to incidental drawings with sunspots.
Accurate sunspot tracking did not occur until the modern observatory period beginning with Mount Wilson which came into fullness with satellites. Prior so called sunspot counts are casual occasional observations turned into assumed counts by someone else.
Casual observations are not definitive counts.
Third party assumptions of counts are not sunspot counts; they’re, at best, approximations.
Applying modern, satellite observations, standards to sunspot counts in retrospect does not form a basis for correlating sunspots to Earth geological processes!
If you are claiming that “solar variability is unknown”, than by your own admission, Earth geology relationships and responses to solar variability is anecdotal and technically unknown.
Variable ‘Cosmic Ray’ linkage to cloud formation is still in the process of proof
A modern sunspot record of a maximum one hundred years, (Mount Wilson 1917), makes it impossible to validate theory linking solar variability to Earth processes.
Theory remains theory, validation requires proof.
By the way, personally I believe there are a number of solar impacts to Earth; but that is belief without reasonable proof.
“Please note that years without observations outnumber years with observations.”
“Accurate sunspot tracking did not occur until the modern observatory period beginning with Mount Wilson.”
Cobblers. http://www.leif.org/research/SSN/Vaquero6.pdf (Slide 3 in particular).
Please stop your provincial nonsense denigrating not only the work of Rudolf Wolf but modern researchers too, it’s becoming tiresome.
Here is today’s “incidental drawing with sunspots”. Or perhaps you’d prefer that we discarded the international standard one here.
You can learn why it’s important to search out, preserve and align all this “accidental, dilettante, casual, curiosity, occasional, by product” data (including the discontinuity in 1947) here, starting with the first link on the page.
None of it has anything to do with volcanoes of course.
AJB:
Leif slides reinforce a number of the points I made, e.g. slide 40.
No denigration of Wolf or his achievements is intended
Wolf initiated the beginnings of proper observation and recording. Still, he observed when he could, (clear skies), and how he could. Unfortunately, Wolf did not have access to modern technology nor reliably clear skies for making his observations.
Construction of Mount Wilson above the clouds ushered in modern observation of sunspots. Their ability to use a very superior piece of equipment every day to properly observe, chart and record made our current series of sunspot tracking possible and quite complete though sun specks are still argued over.
From Leif’s presentation you provided the link to, page 30.
Leif documents an excellent and high quality reconstruction regarding the observations of sunspots. His warnings above are clear and well stated.
That reconstruction can not reliably turn accidental observation into quality recording.
Accidental; e.g. an astrologist checks the sun’s position and notices spots then records the spots. Only when the astrologist happens to check the sun’s position.
Accidental; e.g. an amateur scientist notices the spots on the sun and tracks the spots believing they are observing a transit of mercury, venus or unknown planetoid. This observation comes when the amateur has free time, not as an occupation.
Even after the sunspots were proved and planet transits disproved, observations were not the results of dedicated scientists whose occupations required regular observations. Until Rudolf Wolf at the Bern Observatory, intrigued by Schwabe’s observation that there was a ten year cycle in sunspots, did he make sunspot observations required science.
From: American Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO)
.
To keep the sunspot series more homogeneous, sunspot counting has always been and still is done with small telescopes, so the availability of modern technology [Mt. Wilson, satellites, etc] is not and has never been an issue: it is simply not used. To repeat: sunspots are deliberately counted with small telescopes of aperture between 8 and 15 cm. Larger telescopes simply amplify the problem of ‘seeing’ so are also for that reason not used. The telescopes used by Wolf still exist and are still being used.
ATheoK. You are confusing the pre-Staudacher era with what came later. Thanks Leif, that is precisely the point.
BTW, I forgot to agree with this in its entirety. The conclusion is completely silly.
Willis, I repeat: If you take the eruption count (say) and divide by the sunspot index (say) you’ll get the probability of having an eruption given the index, the “rate” of eruptions per value of index. This will flatten the curve out. This is basically doing the same thing that one does with epidemiology in general — the raw curve showing the number of eruptions for a given sun activity level is irrelevant without knowing how much time the system spends at that solar activity level. The fundamental question is whether or not eruptions are more probable at some activity level than at some other, not whether or not they are uniformly distributed in time and hence naturally occur most frequently in the most common solar state.
If you normalize in this way, you can do a K-S test on the resulting distribution against uniformity and come up with an actual p-value for the null hypothesis of no correlation. Obviously, as was the case last time, it is going to be around 0.7 or 0.8, nowhere near the <0.05 needed to THINK about rejecting the null hypothesis, and that's before one looks at the error bars which all by themselves make the issue moot.
This (to me) is not surprising. The Earth is large and far away, and I can think of no possible coupling between solar activity — especially LOW solar activity — and major vulcanism. Well, that's not quite true. I can think of exotica — lower solar magnetic activity means less screening from extraplanetary radiation. More incoming radiation means more upper atmospheric pair-producing collisions, including collisions that make pions that make muons. More muons mean more muon catalyzed fusion events. On the surface this is completely unimportant, but more fusion events in the core could release more heat, which could cause more volcanoes. The problem is that I think this is almost absurdly unlikely to be true — it's out there with Olson's dragonslayer stuff, especially given that muons have little penetrating power (charged particles), pions ditto (charged particles), and so I can't see why or how enough muons would penetrate deep enough into the mantle to increase either heat production or movement of magma, especially locally.
So aside from science fantasy explanations, it is a bit difficult to see why there would be any sort of solar magnetic signal in Earthly volcanic eruptions. We're talking enormous amounts of energy. Tambora was arguably the most powerful explosion on the surface of the Earth in recorded history, including the Tsar Bomba superbomb exploded by the Soviets during the cold war. This is caused by a quiet sun? I don’t think so.
rgb
rgbatduke February 11, 2015 at 3:12 pm
Thanks for that push, Robert. I just did a KS test on the data shown in Figure 7, and just as you predicted, the result was a p-value of 0.73, your prediction of “around 0.7 or 0.8” is spot on.
However, I did it a bit differently. I couldn’t understand what you meant by dividing the eruption count by the sunspot index and comparing the resulting distribution against uniformity.
Instead, I did a KS test on the sunspot values at the times of the eruptions versus all of the sunspot values over the same period … is this incorrect?
Much appreciated, always more for me to learn,
w.
Thanks for that link, AGB.
Sorry, meant to write AJB.
Some places in Germany are very sunny. Freiburg averages ~3 hours per day throughout the year so a dedicated observer could fill in a lot of entries…
rgb- the data says otherwise.
rgb – here is the data why don’t you refute it..
http://spaceandscience.net/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderfiles/ssrcresearchreport1-2010geophysicalevents.pdf
From the conclusion of the link: “It is expected beginning at any time and during the next twenty years of the solar hibernation, that potentially historic volcanic eruptions are likely globally and similarly record setting new earthquakes are likely within the continental United States.”
It is now 5 years since this was published, how many historic volcanic eruptions and record setting new earthquakes have been recorded so far?
My final comment is the ones that are in denial of solar/climate connections are going to remain so no matter how much data is thrown at them, and will go to any lengths to prove their absurd assertions.
The test is likely coming soon as this prolonged solar minimum kicks in and then we shall see. I plan on being correct on every single point I have made.
I agree with you, Salvatore!
Speaking of volcanoes, here is a shot of an erupting volcano at McMurdo base in Antarctica. How many ice cubes lost their little lives from this terrible act of nature?
..http://earthquake-report.com/2013/05/27/wordwide-volcano-activity-copahue-volcano-chile-alert-raised-to-red/
Willis,
The Thirty Years War (1618 – 1648). With ragtag armies rampaging around central Europe, raping, pillaging and burning, counting sunspots might not have been at the top of the list of things to do today.
Maybe there’s a correlation between wars and low sunspot count.
Your tenacity in digging through data is amazing, thanks very much.
Rob Beckett
Oh yes there is a correlation, generals who learn to adapt to change win (M.M)Those who do not have have their armies reduced to rage-tag mobs that freeze and perish in the winter as the mercenary general Mansfield http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernst_von_Mansfeld
Wallenstein is the other side of the coin.
http://biography.yourdictionary.com/albrecht-wenzel-eusebius-von-wallenstein
I can’t state it as fact, but this Willis statement I need to respond to. From what I’ve read when near the end of the Maunder Minimum they started spotting sunspots (no pun intended), what I’ve [read] is that the other observers were skeptical about the reports, because it had been so long without sunspots at all. I don’t recall the exact numbers but there were approximately a dozen sunspots observed over a period of 70 years or so. I make no pretense that those numbers are exact, but in principle, that is what I’d read.
I’ve moved and the source of that is a book that I’ve lost track of, but the subject of the entire book was the history of sunspots.
Steve Garcia February 11, 2015 at 8:36 pm
Which statement of mine are you responding to? I never said there was no Maunder Minimum. I just said that the Group sunspot number contains a host of oddities, curiosities, and errors that make it less than believable.
w.
The lack of credible consecutive daily sunspot records, IMHO, has relatively little impact on proving the existence of the Maunder Minimum (1645-1715) because the Sun rotates on its axis once every 27 days or so. So roughly 95% of the spots that were there yesterday will be there today. Sampling even once a week would be enough to get a fair estimate of the overall activity level. Hard to imagine that even if sampled sporadically, over a period of 75 years, that any ‘normal’ episodic activity would be missed.
It is remarkable that the MM coincided very closely to the life span of Isaac Newton (1643-1727), who built the first reflecting telescope in 1688 and also showed that sunlight can be split into a spectrum using a glass prism.
So it is curious that Newton did not study sunspots to follow up on the recorded sunspot observations of Galileo (who died the year Newton was born). I think that lends support to the existence of the MM.
… hmm, it seems I have ‘misremembered’ that Galileo died on 8 January, 1642 and Newton was born on 4 January, 1643
Curious, can we measure the gravity that is affecting the earth from the mass of the sun and the planets? Does any of that change? I was wondering if something could pull on the earth, like the moon on the oceans, affecting the magma deep within the earth.
The proximate cause of volcanic activity on earth is shallow lineations of molten rock that appear to act as spreading centers.
These lineations are not convincingly supported from below. At even 100km the “ridges” are only marginally distinguishable from the “trenches”. At the 600km discontinuity only tiny possible venturi from below remain and the more so at 1000km. Near the CM boundary at 2800km all that remain are these two massive extrusions from the core called LLSVP’s.
These dudes look like this and I call them the doughboys. There is one under Africa and another in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. They flatten out at the 660km discontinuity like thunderheads hitting the stratosphere.
The point of all this in this context is that any magnetic or quantum response in the core or mantle would seemingly take far to long to filter through a maze of offset venturi in a substantially stratified mantle to respond to sunspot cycles. It is not even clear that deep earth energy is feeding the ridge system.
A further point is that we really have no idea what IS energizing these shallow lineations of molten rock and if we are going to look at sunspots, electromagnetic storms or whatever music of the spheres in relation to volcanic activity, these guys are the modulators. they may hold the key to a LOT of other stuff too.
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/full/2003ESASP.535..393S
Another study which shows a linkage between solar /volcanic activity.
One thing to remember , the plates are unstable to begin with as well as the structure of the earth in volcanic/earthquake fault areas in that any added catalyst or force no matter how slight might be enough to push existing unstable conditions over the edge more often then not resulting in greater geological activity. force or catalyst is not present.
I can see how MUONS can accomplish this especially when the geo magnetic field of the earth is weak and or subject to shocks via strong solar activity in an otherwise prolonged solar minimum period. A recent HONG KONG solar research paper recently investigated this and concluded that MUONS could excite the calderas of certain volcanos especially in the higher latitudes at times of prolonged solar weakness. I might add perhaps exasperated by geomagnetic conditions.
I for one go with the data and always try to make my explanations conform to what the data presents, rather then try to make the data conform to my explanations. The data shows a correlation as to why I gave it my best estimate in the above.
corrected text below
One thing to remember , the plates are unstable to begin with as well as the structure of the earth in volcanic/earthquake fault areas in that any added catalyst or force no matter how slight might be enough to push existing unstable conditions over the edge more often then not resulting in greater geological activity.
I can see how MUONS can accomplish this especially when the geo magnetic field of the earth is weak and or subject to shocks via strong solar activity in an otherwise prolonged solar minimum period. A recent HONG KONG solar research paper recently investigated this and concluded that MUONS could excite the calderas of certain volcanos especially in the higher latitudes at times of prolonged solar weakness. I might add perhaps exasperated by geomagnetic conditions.
I for one go with the data and always try to make my explanations conform to what the data presents, rather then try to make the data conform to my explanations. The data shows a correlation as to why I gave it my best estimate in the above.