UPDATE: Some commenters got the wrong idea about this article, see the footnote.
Our resident solar physicist Dr. Leif Svalgaard is one of the scientists involved in the effort
Dear SILSO user,
Mon, Jun 22, 2015 11:42 am
Over the past 4 years a community effort has been carried out to revise entirely the historical Sunspot Number series. A good overview of the analyses and identified corrections is provided in the recent review paper:
Clette, F., Svalgaard, L., Vaquero, J.M., Cliver, E. W.,“Revisiting the Sunspot Number. A 400-Year Perspective on the Solar Cycle”, Space Science Reviews, Volume 186, Issue 1-4, pp. 35-103.
Now that the new data series has been finalized, we are about to replace the original version of our sunspot data
by an entirely new data set on July 1st. On this occasion, we decided to simultaneously introduce changes in several conventions in the data themselves and also in the distributed data files.
There are so many diverse changes that we cannot guarantee that everything will work perfectly on the first try.Our team is too small to make full prior simulations. Therefore, multiple careful consistency checks will be done on July 1st itself, which will slow down the processing. So, please anticipate some delays compared to an ordinary month.
The most prominent change in the Sunspot Number will be the choice of a new reference observer, A.Wolfer (pilot observer from 1876 to 1928) instead of R. Wolf himself. This means dropping the conventional 0.6 Zürich scale factor, thus raising the scale of the entire Sunspot Number time series to the level of modern sunspot counts. This major scale change may thus strongly affect some user applications. Be prepared!
Regarding data files, various files will be replaced by new ones, with new more homogeneous names and new internal column formats. The included information will sometimes change: combining data (e.g. hemispheric numbers together with total numbers), separating data (monthly smoothed numbers in a separate file) or adding new values that were not provided previously (standard errors).
All those changes will be explained in the information accompanying our data, on the web site of the World Data Center SILSO. While the primary files will all be replaced in early July, some other changes will still occur in the next two or three months. During this transitory phase, we thus invite you to visit the SILSO Web site to keep track of the changes, as we are preparing this major transition now scheduled for July 1st, 2015.
An important remark for our faithful observers: the current transition in the sunspot number processing does not change anything to the way you enter your data. So, just proceed as usual on July 1st. Your past k personal
coefficients will simply be recomputed relative to the new re-calibrated sunspot number. We are working on this right now. By the way, the new processing software will open the way towards a better determination of the evolution of each station and so, a better feedback to our observers will become possible in the future.
In the coming weeks, please visit our SILSO Web site:
____________________
Dr.Laure Lefevre
Royal Observatory of Belgium WDC-SILSO
UPDATE: A number of commenters got the wrong idea about this article, conflating the process with the sort of questionable adjustment techniques For example, Dr. Svalgaard comments:
As the text says all observers should continue the way they have always done. There is no such as ‘the traditional count’ for observers. That concept is completely local to the SIDC [now SILSO]
Frederick Colbourne adds:
These adjustments (at the very least) compensate for the faulty decision by one important observer to use an instrument that did not have sufficient resolving power to count the sunspots properly.
Willis Eschenbach sums it up:
Dear heavens, this resistance to correcting the mistakes of the past is most peculiar. Mosh is quite correct. The sunspot count of the past was differently calculated, due to changes in counting methods which are both well known and well explained.
What they have now done is to use the same methodology from start to finish.
Look, there have been some bogus “adjustments” to climate records by various miscreants. But that doesn’t mean we can just use what we have in front of us in any field. Sunspots are a good example. We know where we changed methodology in the past. We know the dates that calculation method changed, and how the method changed. As a result of the change we have two incompatible sets of numbers.
So should we just continue to use the existing sunspot dataset, which consists of two sets of DIFFERENT NUMBERS which were calculated in DIFFERENT WAYS and then just spliced together? That would be nuts, no?
Instead what we need to do, and what Leif and the others did, was to go back to the underlying observations, and to use a single unified clearly-defined method of counting sunspots from the start of the record to the end of the record. This single internally coherent dataset replaces the SPLICED DATASET of the past.
Anyone who thinks that using the same counting method from start to finish is somehow bad and wrong, well, they’re free to use the old spliced dataset … and if you do, I’m free to laugh at your adherence to past mistakes.
Note well that this says nothing about the endless adjustments to the temperature record, which may or may not be justified in any particular case, and which are nowhere near as clear-cut and clean as the sunspot count.
My viewpoint is that this adjustment corrects a clear mistake, and therefore should be welcomed. – Anthony Watts
Climategate should be further searched for “solar activity” and “sunspots,” because as this email shows, solar activity is a discussion that draws so many people to look at the theory of manmade gw from a different poise in the first place. This conversation was discouraged and limited from the beginning. I think the adjustments to the solar data is a bad development.
I personally wish I had solar and gm data that wasn’t filtered through Stanford.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/climategate/#comment-249580
Katya Georgieva December 6, 2009 at 6:46 am
However, though all the presentations were on planetary influences on
> solar activity, all the questions and discussions following them were on
> solar influences on global climate change, and most of the numerous public
> had come exclusively for this discussion. Unfortunately, no real debate on
> this subject happened last April because this was not the topic of the
> session, and because the panelists who were present were not prepared to
> speak about this. Therefore, we have never had a real debate on
> attributions of climate change in EGU, while there is much interest in
> such a debate both in the scientific community and in general public. I am
> sure a debate explicitly devoted to this topic is inevitable, whether as a
> part of an EGU General Assembly or not, so I felt such a great debate in
> EGU 2010 would answer the scientific and public interest.
Katya goes on to say,
As you know, Kyoto protocol is soon expiring, and negotiations are about
> to start for the new treaty following it. The obligations undertaken by
> the countries which will sign this treaty will mean enormous resources
> spent on reducing greenhouse emissions at the expense of economical
> growth, overcoming starvation, fatal epidemic diseases, illiteracy. Maybe
> this sacrifice is vital for the survival of the civilization because human
> activity is what is causing global climate change, or maybe these are
> futile efforts because climate change is due to natural factors beyond our
> control. As scientists, we have the moral duty to give a clear answer to
> the question whether global climate change is due to human activity or to
> natural factors, and consequently, what measures can and must be taken to
> reduce it or to mitigate it, respectively. Or, if we do not have a clear
> answer yet, we must honestly state this instead of hiding behind the
> nonexistent “scientific consensus”, and postpone the practical measures
> until we reach a higher level of understanding.
>
> Unfortunately, this problem is strongly politicized, and severely
> censured. There are many examples when purely scientific discussions like
> the proposed EGU 2010 great debate have not been allowed, and the chance
> has not been given for alternative views to be presented.
Well they can’t adjust it too much since what we’ve got agrees with proxy cosmic ray data.
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-GVoICgC3wYw/U814VbROIgI/AAAAAAAAATc/oU8xcjSpCnQ/s1600/steinfig3.gif
“1) Does solar system dynamics significantly affect solar and planetary
dynamos? If it did, could this affect the Earth’s climate dynamics?
2) Does solar activity result in geomagnetic field variations? Does it
change the Earth’s rate of rotation? Do variations in the Earth’s
geomagnetic field and/or variations in the Earth’s rate of rotation
affect the planet’s climate dynamics.”
The adjustments to data could potentially erase important relationships in the earth-sun connection. There are also scientists who worked with daily, regional temperatures in order to look for possible connections to daily solar activity. Brian Tinsley is one.
Adjusting the past is no biggy. I file several form 1040X’s every year for past years and my taxable income always goes in the same direction. Never once has the IRS asked why.
And that leaves CO2.
Let them count Sunspots; “Use the Flux, Luke” for all comparisons from 1949 into the future.
Maybe they should run an adjustment check on early telescope records of sunspots against Beryllium 10 and Carbon 14 from ice core samples, then connect up for a longer combined record, yet latter proxies available, seems Medieval Warm Period likely had record sunspots like we just had in cycle 22.
http://sites.gsu.edu/geog1112/files/2014/07/SolarEvents_small-29h97e9.png
I, for one, welcome our new Maunder Maximum!
We haven’t left 1984 yet. The past continues to be what the “more equal” members of the farm want it to be.
Well as Leif says over and over again, the sun has no impact on the earth’s climate, so this is all very interesting but irrelevant.
How this all plays out in reality cannot be changed. The public’s perception of reality is what is variable. If a star is the ultimate controller of it’s heliosphere will be much more evident in a couple of decades, as the future unfolds. The biggest problem humanity faces, meanwhile, is impatience!
Many comments here demonstrate a lack of proper due diligence in following the process, both the reasons for the reconstruction to clear calculation calibration differences (due to previous weighting of sun spot numbers/groups), and the process used to re-calibrate the various data sets. Complain all you want, but if your comment reveals such a decided lack of self-education, your complaints will look more like a spoiled child’s tantrum. The process has been very open, transparent, and well-presented in this blog and in other websites with lots of links to studies you can read for yourself. So do your fricken homework instead of talking out of your arse.
She said sweetly.
Thanks Leif!
~~~~~~~~~~~~
There must be a dozen or so posts on WUWT regarding this issue. I sense from the comments so far that many people have not read the background on the topic. The name Zoë Schlanger comes to mind.
http://eoimages.gsfc.nasa.gov/images/imagerecords/42000/42067/europelsta_tmo_2009345_lrg.jpg
Deadly Cold Across Russia, 2009
Ukraine is the breadbasket of Europe, so maybe the Russians aren’t as convinced as everyone else that low solar activity will not mean more wobbles in the polar vortex.
Just checked Dr. S.’s web site and he has been busy. My reading list just grew again..
Congratulations to Dr. Svalgaard, I know he has worked long and hard on the sunspot number series.. Hope you had a good time with it Dr. S.
Skeptics have no need to worry so much about the Cha Cha Cha Changes..
Over the last is it 10,000 years the cycle has exhibited a Ceiling in solar cycle high activity and a Floor in low solar cycle activity.
But wait..solar cycle 24 hit the FLOOR in low solar activity. And next cycle, solar cycle 25, is expected to be even lower (by approx. third) than solar cycle 24.
Instead of watching sunspots we’ll be watching the helmut streamers, pseudo streamers and the streamer belt during cycle 25, (not many sunspots)
I was wondering what the “streamer belt’s” relationship was with the Hale Sector Boundary?
Activity like Dr. Janet Luhmann spoke about at the AGU2012 Parker Lecture which she had the honor of giving.
I think Dr. Luhmann will see the Astro physical community get there heads wrapped around the idea that the sun is not a simple dipole..
One of my favorite lines from the lecture..
“Where does the ah.. solar dipole anchor?” said Dr. Luhmann
Well now, where does the solar dipole anchor? Is the anchor location in a state of perpetual change due to?
This adjustment better be right.
I’m tired of history being re-written just to serve someone’s personal viewpoint.
There should be a point where criminal consequences are used for people who adjust history just because their personal opinion goes a certain way without proving it beyond a shadow of a doubt.
All of these adjustments to history are now costing the human race $100 billion at a time which rises to the level that adjustments better be f’ing right or there needs to be very very serious consequences.
Well this is interesting, however like a lot of folks have already said, not very useful. The past is the past, with the exception of reading someone’s observation book and adjusting based on someone else’s misread. But if there was no observation the only way to infil that is using some rules and thoughts based on what we think of as normal (todays observations). But normal may not be. Anything created out of nothing is a reflection of the authors bias. Leif is obviously biased, anyone who has ever had an exchange with him knows that. The problem is that Leif doesn’t think he is biased, just like a great many other climate scientists. Even Dr. Mann does not think of himself as biased or wrong. That is just human behavior which is why things like a new data set going back into history isn’t data! its an opinion, calling it a data set is a travesty as bad as karl et al 2015.
The paper is a good read. But I like the data as is, since that is what I have been looking at for so long. So, maybe include the “old” with new methods of building data for period of time as to reflect the changes. Not just pull a Hansen where the old simply is gone. The word change has become ugly. Cheers!
Adjustments to the sunspot series do little to explain the Anomalously low solar extreme-ultraviolet irradiance and thermospheric density during solar minimum or the failure of Ionospheric total electron contents (TECs) as indicators of solar EUV changes during the last two solar minima.
The authors of these papers point to the degradation of the satellite EUV detectors and the increased cooling from increased CO2 concentrations as potential sources of the anomaly, however, they show that these are only secondary contributors.
Decline of the f0f2 critical frequency during the 2008-2009 minimum confirms the EUV flux anomaly, according to Does the F10.7 index correctly describe solar EUV flux during the deep solar minimum of 2007–2009? and The ionosphere under extremely prolonged low solar activity.
It is this F region of the ionosphere (and not the E region) that is significant when measuring ionization by EUV rays, according to Magnetoseismology, Ground-based remote sensing of Earth’s magnetosphere, noting in section 2.6 Formation and Properties of the Ionosphere:
“The most heavily absorbed part of the spectrum, and hence peak electron and ion production, occurs in the F1 region, including the He II Lyman α (30.4 nm, 130 km), He I (58.4 nm, 164 km), and H Lyman continuum (91.1–84.0 nm, 105–120 km).”
Also see slide 3 of Variability of the Solar XUV Irradiance from the SORCE XPS. At EUV wave lengths, peak absorption is at F region altitudes.
In contrast, sunspot numbers are highly correlated with E region conductivity measured by the various TEC, F 10.7, and solar quiet indices for this 13 year study from 1989 to 2001: Contribution of wind, conductivity, and geomagnetic main field to the variation in the geomagnetic Sq field.
In the F region, measurable electrical field strength is very high and conductivity is low, while in the E region, the opposite is true. Additionally, field strength and conductivity peak at different times. See The relationship between electric fields, conductances and currents in the high-latitude ionosphere: a statistical study using EISCAT data.
The source of the resonant 500HZ A/C hum in the ionospheric current, as noted in Ionospheric Irregularities, must depended upon a substantial dielectric charge, in addition to the induced current flow, and is subject to nonlinear impedance due to thermal turbulence.
Thus, the solar quiet variation, the basis for Dr. Svalgaard’s multi-century EUV reconstruction, is merely an induced alternating current phenomenon, and not a direct consequence of EUV flux.
Let’s try an analogy. The chickens remain in the barnyard and they haven’t changed. We’re just changing what we call “a really fluffy one”.
Coauthor Vaquero is quote as saying, “A proper estimate of the past and present activity of the Sun, … is crucial in understanding numerous phenomena that occur on Earth, especially to rule out the role of the Sun in global warming,” Was that a purpose of the corrections? To rule out the role of the sun in warming? That seems unscientific and biased to me.
http://phys.org/news/2015-02-sun-18th-century-similar.html
Nevertheless, looking at the graph in the link—which presumably shows the after-corrections data—there does seem to be a rough correlation of sun spot number and global temperature over the past 115 years.
Dr. Leif, could you provide graphs of the data before the corrections and after the corrections?
So will they now homogenize the sun?
So Leif and friends are trying to show the Little Ice Age had little to do with a weaker sun and that modern temps MUST BE DUE TO CO2!!
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
A fools errand for fools set by fools.
For all those freaked out by the new reconstruction popping your Solar balloon, there are excellent papers regarding Earth’s natural intrinsic climate variability but you have to weed out the chaff from the solid research. If you have hung your hat on ol’Sol being the reason for recent warming, you have failed to rule out the first encountered pathology: Earth’s own intrinsic variability. So if you are among those who find this reconstruction very unsettling, you are no better than AGW catastrophists who also dismiss intrinsic variables in favor of minute amounts of anthropogenic CO2 being added to the gases in the atmosphere.
Oh, come on, Pamela! Donkey toot is better than “the AGW catastrophists”!