Solar cycle 24 contines to be lower than the vast majority of predictions that came out during the waning years of solar cycle 23. David Archibald gives an update on the current progress of solar cycle 24, showing that it remains quite low, and under-performs almost all of the “official”predictions based on models and other forecasting tools, some of which claimed as late as 2006 that cycle 24 would be 30-50% stronger that cycle 23. So far, solar Cycle 24 has been most like Solar Cycles 10 to 15 which started in 1855 and ended in 1923. It is noteworthy that solar cycle 10 produced the famed Carrington event, which if it occurred today, would likely wreak havoc with our sensitive electric grid and electronics.
Guest essay by David Archibald.
Figure 1: Sunspot Number
Source: SILSO data/image, Royal Observatory of Belgium, Brussels
Solar Cycle 24 has been stronger for longer for about a year now. This plot of sunspot number that decline from the second peak is underway.
Figure 2: AP Index 1932 – 2015
The Ap Index, a geomagnetic index driven by the Sun’s magnetism and the solar wind, remains at levels of previous solar cycle minima.
Figure 3: Sunspot Area versus Ap Index 1932 – 2105
From Jan Janssens’ website Solaemon, this graph plots the Ap Index with sunspot area from 1932. Absolute lows in the Ap Index correspond to solar cycle minima but the peak in the Ap Index can be much later than peaks in the solar cycle. Note that the Ap Index was quite strong during the 1970s cooling period up to the Solar Cycles 20/21 minimum.
Figure 4: Monthly F10.7 Flux 1948 – 2015
The F10.7 flux is not subject to observer bias and thus many prefer it to the sunspot number. This chart confirms a second peak in Solar Cycle 24 over the last year. A F10.7 flux above 100 is warming, below 100 is cooling. So the last few years have put a little pulse of warming into the climate system.
Figure 5: Heliospheric Current Sheet Tilt Angle 1976 – 2015
The heliospheric current sheet tilt angle flattens at solar minimum. For the Solar Cycle 23/24 minimum, that occurred in October 2009. From that minimum, the tilt angle had the fastest ascent of the instrument record which happens to be only three and a half cycles. The peak in the tilt angle this cycle is also the broadest in the instrument record. If that means anything, it possibly means that there is not much drive behind it.
Figure 6: Solar Wind Flow Pressure 1967 – 2015
This graph shows a rise from the low in the late 1960s to the peak at Solar Cycle 22 maximum and then the 23 year decline from that peak. It is this flow that modulates the flow of galactic cosmic rays in the inner planets of the solar system.
Figure 7: Oulu Neutron Count 1964 – 2015
Galactic cosmic rays produce a continuous shower of neutrons in the lower atmosphere. The climatic significance of these neutrons is that they provide nucleation sites for cloud droplets. Clouds in turn reflect more sunlight than land or open ocean, cooling the planet. The neutron count follows solar activity with a lag of about a year, reflecting the time the solar wind takes to get to the outer parts of the solar system.
Figure 8: Sum of Solar Polar Field Strengths 1976 – 2015
This data is from the Wilson Solar Observatory and thanks to Dr Hoeksma for updating the data. As with the broad top in the heliospheric current sheet tilt angle, there appears to be a broad top and not much energy in the system.
Figure 9: Smoothed Sunpost Number in months from minimum
Also from Jan Janssens, this figure shows Solar Cycle 24 (green line) compared to the averages of Solar Cycles 10 to 15 (solid blue line) and Solar Cycles 16 to 23 (solid red line). In terms of analogue cycles, Solar Cycle 24 has been most like Solar Cycles 10 to 15.
Figure 10: Sunspot Latitude
Yet again from Jan Janssens, this figure shows the sunspot latitude of Solar Cycle 24 (green line) compared to the average of Solar Cycles 19 to 23. Note for the purpose of this graph, a different month of minimum is used. In this case it is August 2007. This graph is important in that it shows that Solar Cycle 24 is no faster or slower than the previous five cycles. That does not preclude Solar Cycle 24 from becoming a very long cycle if the tail includes a period of no sunspots.
David Archibald is a visiting fellow at the Institute of World Politics in Washington.
His most recent book is Twilight of Abundance (Regnery, 2014).
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“Launched in November 2013, Swarm is providing unprecedented insights into the complex workings of Earth’s magnetic field, which safeguards us from the bombarding cosmic radiation and charged particles.
June 2014 magnetic field
Measurements made over the past six months confirm the general trend of the field’s weakening, with the most dramatic declines over the Western Hemisphere.”
http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Observing_the_Earth/Swarm/Swarm_reveals_Earth_s_changing_magnetism
Polar vortex pattern.
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/stratosphere/strat_a_f/gif_files/gfs_z05_nh_f00.gif
Newest model Earth’s magnetic field.
http://oi61.tinypic.com/339j1qg.jpg
In reply to:
William:
Disingenuous Comment (definition): A comment lacking in candor; also : giving a false appearance of simple frankness : calculating (A person making a series of disingenuous comments might have an hidden agenda.)
Leif,
Your above comment is misleading and appears to be disingenuous. It is a fact that solar wind bursts create a space charge differential in the atmosphere which through the process of electroscavenging changes the amount of high latitude clouds and changes the properties and duration of tropical clouds which in turn affects planetary temperature.
Comment: There are multiple peer reviewed papers which I have quoted multiple times in this forum which falsifies your above comment and supports the assertion that I have just made.
http://sait.oat.ts.astro.it/MmSAI/76/PDF/969.pdf
Solar wind bursts create a space charge differential in the ionosphere which removes ions from high latitude regions and adds ions to the tropical region, with the return current moving through the ocean. This phenomena is called electroscavenging.
See section 5a) Modulation of the global electrical circuit in this review paper, by solar wind bursts and the process electroscavenging. Solar wind bursts create a space charge differential in the ionosphere which removes cloud forming ions. As the electroscavenging mechanism removes ions even when GCR is high, electroscavenging can make it appear that GCR does not modulate planetary cloud if the electroscavenging mechanism is not taken into account.
http://www.utdallas.edu/physics/pdf/Atmos_060302.pdf
The graph below shows the number of days with a geomagnetic storm per year and how strong those storms were. This will give you an idea in which years there were a lot of geomagnetic storms.
http://oi57.tinypic.com/2ai1ztg.jpg
Ren, is there anything going back to the previous two or three solar maxima like this?
http://www.climate4you.com/images/Ap-Index%20Since199001.gif
One last comment I would like to make which is the following:
The sun has changed from an active mode (1850-2005) to an inactive mode post 2005, therefore making future solar predictions and even comparisons based on the active period 1850-2005 in my mind is very dicey.
Dr. Archibald
?w=624&h=412
Your Fig. 8 for Solar Polar Field
deprives Polar Fields of the magnetic polarity, thus creates an inappropriate impression of 11 year periodicity, solar oscillations are closely correlated to the planetary feedback
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/Back1.gif
(not as yet noticed by Dr.S, but that shouldn’t stop you and others observing the close correlation between two)
During Dansgaard-Oeschger or Heinrich cooling events, the jet stream speed increases which increases the amount of dust that is deposited on the Greenland ice sheet (the dust is coming from China). During a Heinrich event there is a hundred fold increase in dust deposited on the Greenland ice sheet.
The recent observed changes: 1) Highest sea ice in recorded history in the Antarctic (starting in 2012), recovery of sea ice in the Arctic, and increased jet stream speed (starting in 2013) supports the assertion that what was inhibiting the solar magnetic cycle modulation of planetary cloud cover is now starting to abate.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-01-13/surging-jet-stream-winds-hinder-u-s-bound-flights-from-europe
http://iopscience.iop.org/1742-6596/440/1/012001
Yesterday I noticed this weird thing. I looked on:
http://www.nnvl.noaa.gov/view/#TRUE
Date 13th February 2015
Daily posted true color view of entire Earth. Visible dust spreading from China eastward is just scary. It covers substantial percentage of Earth area. There are additional dust sources in India, Indonesia and Arabian peninsula.
Simply Jet stream is blowing…
Like many articles here this one lacks both an initial abstract / summary and the final conclusions.
Unfortunate since with these things the message would be communicated more quickly and effectively to more people.
Here is how you write a scientific article:
Say what you are going to say
Say it
Say what you have said.
WUWT should encourage posters to include an abstract and conclusions paragraph.
This is less an article than a presentation/update of the latest data. As is evident from the discussion, there are many ways to interpret. I admire WUWT for not always telling me what to think and letting me think for myself.
A summary does not have to force an interpretation.
It just means that more people will read it – and understand the author’s point in writing it.
Many simply don’t have time for all the minutiae.
From the many disparate responses in this thread from (apparent) experts, it amazes me that there is so much reliance on ‘The science is settled’ from the pro-CAGW crowd and that politicians/academic societies can make such certain statements regarding this issue.
I have a polite, well-meaning question for Leif. I mean it when I say it that this is not a ‘gotchya.’ I’m just trying to understand Leif’s position:
Are you confident there exists no solar mechanism that could possibly have any meaningful effect on ~cyclical changes in temperature on Earth? To put it another way: are you confident you understand both solar activity and Earth’s climate dynamics well enough that if such a mechanism existed you (or the world) would already have discovered, understood and explained it by now?
I understand, by the way, you don’t see such a mechanism and this leaves you doubtful of one’s existence. I’m wondering how foolish you deem it to for others to feel that the case is actually far from closed.
You obviously know a lot, but I always have difficulty getting a grip on what your fundamental position is with respect to climate-change-related solar-Earth interaction.
Thanks in advance if you take the time to respond.
Brad Crawford (provoter)
There is [should be] a solar effect of the order of 0.1K over the cycle. Anything larger than that is not obersved.
Thanks ever so much for the thoughtful response, Leif. I can feel my enlightenment rising as I speak.
Well now. A thought has just entered my silly little mind;
“If the dark spots on the surface of the Sun are dark because they are colder than the rest (spotless part) of the Sun’s surface, then why should the Earth warm when there is plenty of “Sunspots”?
Is that just because we say that a Sun that is full of spots; “Active””
Is it not more likely that a “Spotless Sun” will send out more energy than will a “Spotty Sun”, thus warming the Earth more?
[The solar specialists tell us that the “darker” sunspots do measurably reduce the solar energy received at top of atmosphere (compared to normal for that day of year), but the effect is very, very small. Measureable, proportional to the area of the sun covered, but small. .mod]
Sunspots are cooler, but faculae more than make up the difference during active phases of the cycle.
David forgot to update us on how his prediction for a 2 degree temperature decline over the duration of Solar Cycle 24 is shaping up.
Thanks for asking. Of course it is going very well but the result has been a bit more intense and regional than many had thought possible. Specifically it is giving Boston a walloping with a temperature of -2 degrees F as I write this. Boston is now headed for its greatest ever winter snowfall amount. This a result consistent with what is predicted from global cooling. Don’t lose your faith.
Do you mean some place have cooled but quite a lot have warmed.
I take this to mean that Boston is currently a couple of degrees below normal. This is not a trend, David, it’s simply short term weather. You now seem to be claiming success because some locations (or one at least) are a bit cooler than normal.
In response to
Phlogiston
February 15, 2015 at 12:54 pm
Like many articles here this one lacks both an initial abstract / summary and the final conclusions.
William,
Abstract:
There has been a sudden and significant slowdown in the solar magnetic cycle. There are in the paleo climatic record cycles of warming and cooling that correlate with solar magnetic cycle changes (both hemispheres). The regions of the planet that warmed and cooled in the past were high latitude regions. High latitude regions warmed in the last 70 years. AGW predicted warming was in the tropics not in high latitude regions.
See Greenland Ice temperature, last 11,000 years from Richard Alley’s paper, Bond’s paper persistent solar influence on North Atlantic Climate during the Holecene, and Does the Current Global warming reflect a natural cycle. Based on an analysis of cosmogenic isotopes, solar activity in the late half of the 20th century was the highest in 12,000 years. The high period of solar activity correlates with the period when the planet warmed.
Shiva analyzes past climate cycles that correlate with solar magnetic cycle changes and calculates that 0.47C +/- 0.19C of the recent warming can be attributed to the grand solar maximum.
Unexpectedly there is now the highest amount of sea ice (all months of the year) in the Antarctic in recorded history and there is now recovery of sea ice in the Arctic.
Conclusions: It appears a significant portion of the warming in the last 70 years was due to solar magnetic cycle changes rather than AGW. It that assertion is correct the planet will now cool (up to 0.6C of cooling based on Shiva’s calculation), due to the sudden slowdown in the solar magnetic cycle.
Greenland ice temperature, last 11,000 years determined from ice core analysis, Richard Alley’s paper.
http://www.climate4you.com/images/GISP2%20TemperatureSince10700%20BP%20with%20CO2%20from%20EPICA%20DomeC.gif
http://www.climate4you.com
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/09/05/is-the-current-global-warming-a-natural-cycle/
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/davis-and-taylor-wuwt-submission.pdf
http://www.essc.psu.edu/essc_web/seminars/spring2006/Mar1/Bond%20et%20al%202001.pdf
Persistent Solar Influence on North Atlantic Climate During the Holocene (William: Holocene is the name for this interglacial period)
http://arxiv.org/pdf/physics/0409123.pdf
http://arxiv.org/abs/0706.0385
William: This paper notes the observed warming is at high latitudes which is not agreement with the general circulation models. If AGW was the cause of the warming the majority of the warming should have occurred in the tropics.
http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/0809/0809.0581.pdf
Limits on CO2 Climate Forcing from Recent Temperature Data of Earth
The skeptic in me thinks of the following after reading the update and comments-
“There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact.”
― Mark Twain
But Vulcevic may turn out to be right-
Sometimes it takes a crackpot to shout “the emperor has no clothes”.
Penn and Livingston, in their September 2010 IAU publication “Long-Term Evolution Of Sunspot Magnetic Fields” predicted that Solar Cycle 24 would peak at an International Sunspot number of 66 and Solar Cycle 25 at 7!! Any update? Amy others who have made predictions for cycle 25?
except in this case the emperor does have clothes. The solar cycle is progressing as predicted. The rest of Vuk’s missives are just pseudo science and self-delusions. Someone who compares himself to Bruno, Einstein, and other luminaries deserves no consideration.
“Emperor” in Washington must have very thick clothing.
Hi Mr. Allen
Vukcevic equally may turn out to be not right, but if he is right, it will be still dismissed.
Dr. Livingston’s was an interesting short term experiment, magnetic events go up and down, as the SC24 picked up so did magnetic field.
On SC25:
According to well known Svalgaard algorithm there is a relationship between polar field max and SSN Rmax, it works well as far as it can be assessed from the available data.. If the current polar fields peak at around 50-60 micro Tesla, the SC25 Rmax should be in region of 35-40 which is in line with SC5 & SC6 . Dr Livingston has underestimated SC24, not by much, perhaps it was done using the Svalgaard’s formula, but the. formula can’t be used for SC25 for at least 2 years. I think SC25=7 is well bellow anything outside the Maunder Minimum, and may be a gross underestimation.
The SSN smoothed number has hit 80, (may go even a bit higher, provisionally 82)
http://sidc.oma.be/silso/DATA/monthssn.dat
In the comment by William Astley, his graph shows a temperature cycle which averages 1150 years and is not due to peak for about 150 years yet. That cycle is related to other commonly reported 2300 and 4600 year cycles.
Dalton Minimum, here we come…..
If we’re lucky……
What does this mean?
“This plot of sunspot number that decline from the second peak is underway.”
Looks like we will be cooling down any day now.
any day now. . .
SH–> summer to fall to winter…. no doubt.
Looks like we will be heating up any day now.
any day now. . .
NH spring into summer…. no doubt.
Don’t forget we’re still waiting for el Ninot.
Has anyone done the math, just curious, as to how much warmer the earth should be from 1998. The rate of retained heat was stated as 240w/m^2. Multiply that by the surface of the earth, I am assuming every hour every day since 1998. So about 515 x 10^6 sq. m.. x 240 is about 1.23 x 10 ^11 x 365 is about 4.5 x 10^13 w/m^2 x 24 hrs .. would up it to 1.08 x 10^15 and then the years lets say 15.. 1.62 x 10^16 w/m^2.. .. Using just that number from the IPCC of 240w/m^2 retained, does anybody think it should be a heck of a lot warmer? Now remember that since the rate of co2 in the atmosphere is still increasing, then the rate at which the level of retention should also be increasing. Either the air or the oceans should be a lot warmer… just not hiding. The dire predictions the IPCC made back in the early 2000’s would already be true according to the math. I think that if CAGW were true and the predictions based on the numbers were true, most if not all of us would accept that. Skeptics would be very few in number, and the debate would really be over. It didn’t happen, it doesn’t look like it is going to happen either.
And some people think that the relationship between solar activity and climate is a crackpot idea
No. 240 w/m2 is the average solar insolation across the earth’s surface. It’s nothing to do with retained heat. The current imbalance (incoming-outgoing) is reckoned to be between 0.5 w/m2 and 1 w/m2. Because of difficulties obtaining direct measurements, the imbalance is currently estimated from ocean heating.
A Tip: Before labelling any idea as “crackpot” it might be best if you improved your understanding of the issue first. While mainstream climate scientists have probably over-estimated climate sensitivity to rising CO2 concentrations don’t make the mistake of thinking they are complete idiots.
No you are wrong. Retained is the exact wording. This is the insanity of trying to talk to CAGW people. I have the exact numbers here from the IPCC and the math. 343 w/m^2 incoming. 240 w/m^2 retained and 103 w/m^2 out going. If these numbers aren’t right, explain to me how the IPCC could make such dire predictions without them? That is the only way that the IPCC could even begin to say that the temp would increase by 2 C by now. Or that the north and south poles would melt. I’m saying yes, with that amount of heat, those things would surely happen. Without out that math and numbers, the IPCC cannot say that co2 has attributed 0.5 C of temperature increase. I didn’t make the hockey stick chart with the temps being flat across the LIA or the MWP to correlate with co2 levels. I do understand the issues. Additionally, since new research has stated that half of the observed warming was due to the release of heat from the oceans, Then how do they justify those statements? Basically, if your saying that those numbers aren’t right, then we really don’t have a problem with co2 and 97% of climate scientist are wrong. There is no way to get to CAGW without it. You can’t downgrade this argument and still claim that co2 is causing global warming. I have extensive amount of data and information from the IPCC and Associates, none of it makes any sense. Much like your reply.
If solar activity nosedives over the next couple of decades, what’s the story if global temperature holds steady? Either that solar activity does not matter for global temperature, or that CO2 does?
Dr Isvalgaard;
Could you show the error bands for the pre-1860 to present global air temperature?
I’m thinking that -.4C falls within a very wide margin of error.
As the temperature data is not mine, I can’t really do that. You can probably find such information elsewhere.
Good question, however I am the original Jim G so would request that you change your sign on to Jim G1 or something else or I will. Let me know.
Thanks,
The Original Jim G.
I haven’t posted in awhile, however, I have been visiting these boards since about 2008.
Claiming originality to a common name is rather dubious.
I apologize for not calling you on it back then.
Won’t argue the point since you consider it “dubious”. I am now Jim G1.
And clearly, a gentleman as well.
I tip my hat to you sir.
I’m guessing that I’m a bit late for this to matter to anyone, but this graph does show the HadCRUT4 error bars all the way back to 1850.
C. In 2014, it was around 
C.
C is right at the asserted level of 95% confidence for HadCRUT4 as of earlier this year when I downloaded their dataset and description. In my fairly well-founded opinion, this error estimate is absurdly low for 1850, simply because in 1850 some 2/3 of the planet was Terra Incognita as far as any sort of systematic measurement of temperature with reliable instrumentation and methodology is concerned. The “hot spot” in the Pacific, for example, that de facto boosted the planetary anomaly this year would not have been observed at all. El Nino’s and La Nina events would not have been observed — they were not observed and officially recorded or studied until 1893, and our knowledge of them prior to the 20th century is almost entirely inferential.
C, over the entire 19th century and is only very slowly decreasing in the 20th century until the advent of satellite measurements and ARGO. Post-1980, I think our knowledge is pretty good. Post 1950 it isn’t terrible — WWII and the subsequent cold war brought about military measurements, at least, of the entire globe from roughly this period on. Before that it blurs, then blurs some more, to the point where we might as well use tree rings as thermometers by the middle of the 19th century, where neither one of them has any global precision worth mentioning.
http://www.phy.duke.edu/~rgb/Toft-CO2-PDO.jpg
The bounds are, according to Met-Hadley, 95% confidence bounds from all sources of error — model, bias, and measurement. I am deeply skeptical, of course, that these error bars are at all reasonable. According to Met-Hadley, the error in the global temperature anomaly in 1850 was around
Really?
To put this in simple terms, if we assume nothing but the expected error from averaging over N measurements, not taking geographic coverage, systematic bias, missing data, the UHI effect and model errors into account, to halve a normal error require 4x as much data. They are, therefore, effectively asserting that there are only 4x as many independent samples contributing to the 2013 average compared to the 1850 average, and this is truly absurd.
Note that the contributions from vast undersampled portions of the globe — like most of the Arctic and Antarctic and Australia and Africa and the Americas and even much of Asia — ooo, and let’s not forget the oceans — back in 1850 that have to be infilled and kriged and smooted and interpolated strictly and nonlinearly add to the expected error relative to pure gaussian scaling from presumably independent samples. Then there is the obvious fact that the samples they have are not independent — they are highly clustered and located predominantly where humans live, meaning that they are hardly random samples drawn from a hat containing all of the surface points on Earth, uniformly distributed. This too increases expected error relative to a normal. And this is before accounting for bias and model error. HadCRUT4 includes separate line entries for three categories of error — bias, measurement and uncertainty, and model error. In 1850 their measurement error alone is given as ~0.038 C. In 2014 it is given as ~0.036 C. Both of these numbers are utterly absurd. We couldn’t measure the average temperature of my back yard to 0.038/288*100 = 0.0125% relative accuracy over the course of a year.
Then there is the treatment of systematic bias — oh, wait, HadCRUT4 doesn’t correct for UHI, I forgot. Then there is the utter neglect of the probability of systematic shifts in recording procedure like those that Lief has tediously corrected for in the sunspot record. Lief has the advantage here — he has access to superbly correlated proxies of solar activity that were measured to very high precision and consistently back over the period where sunspot observation methods were discretely changing along with the observers, and he had to correct for only a comparatively few observers. The thermometric record is essentially uncorrectable, as any proxy used to correct it is going to have even worse resolution than thermometers, and thermometers are already susceptible to numerous sources of potential systematic error that, at this point, we could not possibly correct for. All of this increases the uncertainty at best, and the neglect of UHI correction simply makes the numbers nearly meaningless as they could be precise at the levels indicated and still be significantly in error due to UHI.
It is telling that HadCRUT4 considers errors from bias and model uncertainty to be greater than pure measurement error, the precision of the basis for their model computation of the rest. Yes, they explain what their errors are based on in their documentation, but that doesn’t make them actually representative of probable error in the numbers themselves, or reasonable.
To conclude,
All of this is further evident in our inability to produce the actual global average surface temperature to a precision greater than 1 C now. Different models produce that large a spread, and the likely error is larger than the spread itself given the relatively small number and lack of independence of the models. One then has to rely on a complete lack of drift in methods that compute an “anomaly” relative to a modern baseline, and all such methods inherit at least the error in the baseline temperature, and are further confused by the fact that the baseline is not the baseline average of a stationary process. A single metaphor to illustrate — if one infers flood or drought by measuring the depth of a river relative to a “normal depth” baseline, one gets reasonable numbers as long as the river stays in between its normal, comparatively steep, banks. However, once the river rises to where it spills out of those banks, the water spreads out over vast plains and stops rising proportional to the flood. Similarly, once the river shrinks to where it leaves the steep sides, the assumptions of linearity no longer hold. Computing flood anomalies now compared to flood anomalies in the 19th century require a fair knowledge of how the entire topology of the river basin has changed in the meantime, because these things are not stationary. Similar things affect e.g. tidal gauge records — in the Outer Banks where I live in the summer, violent weather periodically reshapes the entire coast and sound depth, which in turn have a nearly unpredictable effect on the tides measured even at sites where the gauge has sat for a century.
Many other things have an effect as well. No matter how pristine the data, one cannot reliably compare the anomaly of even a single, unaltered tide gauge now to the anomaly measured 100 to 200 years ago as being truly representative of the alteration of the mean depth of the ocean. One can try to correct for some of this, but in honest statistics the corrections come at such a high price in assumptions that they don’t really alter the error bars much. Information theory — ignorance is ignorance — information entropy — and one cannot reduce entropy by wishful thinking or a guess.
Consequently, I do not have much confidence at all in the global surface temperature anomaly estimates. I think that they understate their probable error (which is already rather large compared to the total change “observed” by the models that produce them) by at least a factor of 2. I do not think that our knowledge of the anomaly is any better than our knowledge of the mean temperature itself, order of
rgb
[Thank you. Have you considered asking this detailed of a reply be promoted to its own thread? .mod]
Dr, Svalgaard says:
The solar cycle is progressing as predicted.
Thanks doc. No doubt, up to this moment indeed it does, future is uncertain as ever.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/Back1.gif
‘vukcevic’ is just as surprised as anyone else that his formula works so well!
The rest of Vuk’s missives are just pseudo science and self-delusions.
The ‘delusions’ dates back to the time when the Nasa’s top scientists and various other solar experts were predicting ‘highest solar cycle ever’, and even precedes well known Svalgaard’s prediction by a year or two (an unforgivable ‘transgression’ by vukcevic and ever since the bone of contention)
As years go by, failing to overturn the formula’s accuracy (and there were number of unsuccessful attempts) by now only ammunition left is just few papier-mâché blanks, ‘pseudo science’ and ‘self-delusions’, ‘man of superior ignorance’, ‘danger to society’, notable ‘D&K syndrome’ exponent and whatever else is left in the arsenal of feeble insults. Man come up with something stronger.
This type of commentary indeed may sway a few, it is a method, admittedly employed with some success by the AGW promoters with their ‘think-lite’ beverage recipe.
Someone who compares himself to Bruno, Einstein, and other luminaries deserves no consideration.
Evidently ‘vukcevic’ is not Giordano Bruno, fortunately neither Dr. Svalgaard is the pope Clement VIII. When in Rome visit Campo de’ Fiori. We all know about Galileo, who at the last moment denounced himself, but Bruno did not.
Do not expect Vuk to give up in face of few paltry and worthless little ad hominem. Of course burning at the stake would be another matter; there I think following the Florentine would be vastly preferable.
‘Einstein’ is your mistaken embellishment. Not my hero. His Nobel prize was nothing to do with the theory of relativity, it was based on the work of his ex-wife, a brilliant mathematician Mileva Maric (Einstein failed his exam), he apparently gave her half of the Nobel money to keep her quiet.
And finally, there is a small matter of crackpot, if you unable to disprove something, fling an insult or two, it is an easy way out, it may work with some, but there is always the ‘boomerang effect’ to consider.
Now to the really important matter. Intensity of the solar cycles (as may have or may not been predicted by illustrious Dr. Hathaway, Dr. Dicpaty, Dr. Svalgaad or other partially eclipsed solar luminaries, or even ‘vukcevic’ the noisy minnow,) has little relevance beyond + or – 0.1C on the temperatures. What is more important it is the phase relationship of the magnetic oscillations, which is accentuated by long cycles, see comment above
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/02/15/solar-cycle-24-update-for-february-2015/#comment-1860218
Science is fun, if you can’t enjoy it go and do something else.
vukcevic’ is just as surprised as anyone else that his formula works so well!
As you well know it doesn’t work at all. A ‘prediction’ of the formula is that there will be no polar field reversal in the next cycle and also not around 1900. But we know that the polar fields did reverse a century ago. To expose pseudo science for what it is is a duty of every scientist [as it is indeed a danger to society] and you will not escape exposure. Science is fun, pseudo science is a cancer.
But we know that the polar fields did reverse a century ago.
Now scientist is talking science, instead throwing paper darts, with childish discourteous comments.
– No, we don’t know that, we are guessing that could have been the case. Polar fields measurements started in 1960s, Russians done some a few years earlier, but that was long after 1900s.
– You might say, the magnetic needle (better known as compass) deflections shows that it did. No chance !!!
Polar fields at their strongest as measured around 1975 were estimated to be around 300 microTesla. Magnetic field of the sun as any other falls off with the square of distance. Sun is 149,600,000 km away, no magnetic needle located on the earth can tell us what is the sun’s polar field doing.
– What magnetic needle measures is the ionospheric current induction variability, which in the morning is of one polarity and the afternoon of opposite, but that is if the solar wind never changes and the Earth never crosses the heliospheric current sheet. Magnetic needle reacts to all geomagnetic disturbances of both polarity which may change many times during 24 hours, see HERE (
– Horizontal geomagnetic component (to which you would inclined to refer to), has another more important use, it is in determining cause of natural temperature variability as I have shown here:
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net//GMEC-AMO.gif
and it is to your CREDIT (I fully acknowledge that) to bring the horizontal geomagnetic component to the science’s attention, you should have done more there, the climate link in the N. Hemisphere is strong.
– And finally, it is not true that formula doesn’t show polarity reversal (if extrapolated back to pre 1900), the reversal is there, but it lasted just about a year, as it may happen around 2024-25, see you then.
No, we don’t know that, we are guessing that could have been the case.
No, we KNOW this, because the 22-year cycle in geomagnetic activity [which we can follow back into the 1840s] depends on the sign of the polar fields. Section 9 of http://www.leif.org/research/suipr699.pdf
And here is how your formula [which was missing a minus sign] fails:
http://www.leif.org/research/Vuk-Failing-21.png
Zoom in on 1900 (enlarge the graph) and you can see folly of your claim !
The polar fields determine the size of next 11-yr solar cycle[which in turn determine the next polar fields] and the sign of the Hale polarity law and no 1-yr cycle can result [it takes time to make a cycle]. A 1-yr cycle is a good example of pseudo science [and of science illiteracy].
Since you are not going to do it, here you can see there was a reversal in the early 1900s !
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net//PF-1900s.gif
Quoting yourself to support yourself is fine, if you have valid data for 1900s. As I said above the East component of the geomagnetic horizontal field, derived from compass readings is by no means a measure of what solar polar field is doing.
Nevertheless, the equation shows a brief reversal
The daily variation of the East component has indeed nothing to do with the polar fields, but geomagnetic activity as measured by the aa-index or ap-index [or similar] does depend on the polar fields. Your confusion about this just shows how little you know about this topic. So, pay attention and learn.
A 1-yr cycle is a good example of pseudo science [and of science illiteracy]
Hey, wait a minute I didn’t say there was a one year cycle.
It more smells of ‘pseudo science [and of science illiteracy]’ to extend the what is happening currently into the past for which we have no data.
Sun does strange thing every 100 or so years.
You claimed on numerous occasions that you and no one else knows why, it is best to stick to what you claim as you know to be it, else tell us why SSN dips once a century.
If you accept my hypothesis that it is planetary feedback, I am more than happy to discuss merits of it or otherwise, else you are just squandering your valuable time.
The polar fields reverse at or near solar maximum for well-known reasons, so you are advocating a short solar cycle from 1903 to 1904…
But in any case you get the polarity wrong. We know that the polarity in the 19th century has followed the same pattern as during the 20th, so no mini-cycle in 1903. As I said, your formula does not hold up [which is not a surprise].
extend the what is happening currently into the past for which we have no data.
But we do have data that shows that your polar fields signs are wrong before 1900.
Can we have it ? or at least link to a data file, not some fuzzy -wuzzy assumptions. Data is the King ! No data no contest.
Earth, in case you did not know generates its own geomagnetic 22 year oscillation, another element in the ‘sun-planetary feedback’ hypothesis
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/Comp-Spec.gif
Eart’s magnetic field data: Jackson, Bloxham & Gubbins
Can we have it ?
E.g. Can we have it ?
But you can convince yourself by simply using the aa-index which shows the 22-yr cycle. No ‘new’ data is needed.
A big mistake is to try to predict future solar activity based on past solar activity from 1845-2005 when the sun was in an active overall mode in contrast to an inactive overall mode post late 2005- present. As evidence for this is the change in the AP INDEX VALUES, post late 2005 in contrast to the period 1845-2005.
The AP INDEX during that long period of time (1845-2005) comes in at an average value of approximately 14 , in contrast to the AP INDEX smoothed monthly average value of around 7 from late 2005-present.
That is approximately a 100% decline!
If this were not significant enough the data below supplied by William Astley , is even more telling. It is telling us which I have maintained all along that sunspot numbers do not tell the whole story of how variable or not the sun may be. In addition one can see the correlation between solar geo- magnetic activity and sunspots is not holding up very well.
I believe solar geomagnetic activity has a threshold value that if attained (AP INDEX 5 OR LOWER ) will have a significant impact on the climate for it will be able to over come much of the noise inherent in the climatic system. Threshold values are vital and once crossed that is when correlations are seen whereas if not crossed correlations from a particular force can be obscured by noise and other forces in the climatic system which can cause counter trends in the climatic system to what that particular force is exerting. Which for some reason does not seem to register with some that keep posting to show solar/climatic correlations do not exist. They just do not understand the complexity of the climatic system.
DATA FROM WILLIAM ASTLEY BELOW
The geomagnetic activity reflects the impact of solar activity originating from both closed and open magnetic field regions, so it is a better indicator of solar activity than the sunspot number which is related to only closed magnetic field regions. It has been noted that in the last century the correlation between sunspot number and geomagnetic activity has been steadily decreasing from – 0.76 in the period 1868- 1890, to 0.35 in the period 1960-1982, while the lag has increased from 0 to 3 years (Vieira
et al. 2001).
” The AP INDEX during that long period of time (1845-2005) comes in at an average value of approximately 14 , in contrast to the AP INDEX smoothed monthly average value of around 7 from late 2005-present.
That is approximately a 100% decline!”
Are you sure it’s not a 50% decline?
http://www.solen.info/solar/polarfields/polar.html
Salvatore, filtering the data introduces distortions, so it is best to plot the raw data as obtained by the actual measurements see: http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net//PF.htm
The data from above shows a significant decrease in the spread and variation in degree of magnitude of the solar polar fields post 2000 (and especially post 2005 ) versus the period prior to that time.
Another indication that solar activity post 2005 versus the period before is not the same. The data is telling me this. I am not making it up out of the thin air.