Solar cycle 24 has seen very low solar activity thus far, likely the lowest in 100 years.
Guest essay by David Archibald
Figure 1: F10.7 Flux 2014 – 2017
The F10.7 flux shows that over the last three and a half years the Sun has gone from solar maximum through a bounded decline to the current stage of the trail to minimum. Solar minimum is likely to be still three years away.
Figure 2: F10.7 Flux of Solar Cycles 19 to 24 aligned on month of minimum
Solar Cycle 24 is sitting at the lower bound of activity for solar cycles back to 1964, the start of Solar Cycle 19. From here to minimum though, it looks like Solar Cycle 24 will have much lower volatility than the solar cycles that preceded it.
Figure 3: Oulu Neutron Count 1964 – 2017
According to Svensmark’s theory, the neutron flux, with its effect on cloud cover and thus the Earth’s albedo, is one of the bigger climate drivers. For Solar Cycle 24, the neutron flux duly turned around and starting rising again in 2015, one year after solar maximum. It is a safe bet that the neutron flux is heading for a record high at solar minimum (+ one year) relative to the instrumental record.
Figure 4: Oulu Neutron Count aligned on month of solar minimum
The last weak solar cycle was Solar Cycle 20 which caused the 1970s Cooling Period. From the same stage in that cycle the neutron count flattened out to minimum. That could happen for Solar Cycle 24 but it is more likely to keep rising to minimum as 23 did and thus we can expect a count, at the end, of over 7,000.
Figure 5: F10.7 Flux and Oulu Neutron Count 1964 – 2017
If we conflate the F10.7 flux and the Oulu neutron count inverted, that shows they tracked each other closely up to 2004. Something changed in 2004 and since then the neutron count has been higher relative to its previously established correlation with the F10.7 flux.
Figure 6: Ap Index 1932 – 2017
Figure 6 shows that what changed in 2004 was the magnetic output of the Sun, shown in this instance by the Ap Index. Prior to that, there seemed to be a floor of activity at solar minima, just as the floor of activity for the F10.7 flux is 64. Three years to minimum and the Sun is now back to that level.
Figure 7: Solar Polar Field Strength 1976 – 2017
The best predictor of the amplitude of the next solar cycle is the strength of the solar polar magnetic fields at solar minimum. Figure 7, from the Wilcox Solar Observatory, shows that the solar polar magnetic fields at minimum have been weakening with each successive cycle.
Figure 8: Solar Polar Field Strength aligned on minimum strength at solar maximum
Solar Cycle 25 started from the blocks looking like it was going to be very weak and fulfill the prophecies of those predicting a Maunder-like experience for the 2020s. Then after a couple of years it caught up with Solar Cycle 24. Looking back over the previous three cycles, the solar polar field strength at this stage, three years before minimum, has been close to the value at minimum. On that assumption, Solar Cycle 25’s amplitude is likely to be two thirds of that of Solar Cycle 24, and thus 60. Further climatic cooling is therefore in store.
Figure 9: Sunspot Area 1985 – 2016
NASA has deigned to give us another nine months of sunspot area data by hemisphere, up to September 2016. The strong asymmetry between the northern and southern hemispheres continues. The fact that the hemispheric peaks of the last three cycles align indicate that there is a multi-decadal force operating in the vertical dimension. The chance that two sets of three points line up exactly by themselves is infinitesimal.
Figure 10: Hemispheric Sunspot Area and F10.7 Flux
As shown by Figure 10, total sunspot area tracks the F10.7 flux closely.
David Archibald is the author of American Gripen: The Solution to the F-35 Nightmare
hmmm dusty lenses, is there more “Dust in the Wind?” in our solar neighborhood?
Tuesday, Jun. 6, 2017
http://www.spaceweather.com/archive.php?day=06&month=06&year=2017&view=view
“””DAYTIME METEOR SHOWER: This week, Earth is passing through a stream of debris from an unknown source, and the encounter is causing a meteor shower in broad daylight. The shooting stars are mostly invisible to the human eye. Astronomers know the shower is underway because the meteors reflect radio waves. According to data from Canada’s Meteor Orbit Radar (CMOR), there is a hot spot of activity right now ihttp://www.spaceweather.com/images2017/05jun17/skymap-activity2_strip.pngn the constellation Aries not far from the sun:….””””
http://www.spaceweather.com/images2017/05jun17/skymap-activity2_strip.png
has nothing to do with solar activity.
Would there also be an asymmetry in the arrival direction of some of the Debris that exist and passing thru our solar system?
Of course not. The arrival direction is set by conditions outside the system
How to solve the problem of deflecting asteroids from hitting our planet.
N. Koreans need jobs other than their military industrial complex. Other countries should employ them to do our planets, “Asteroid Missile Deflection System.” Now his people are happier they have jobs and he can give them back some human rights.
Are you talking about human shields?
No….
Wouldn’t that privilege be honorable, to the people of N. Korea. Planetary preservation at the Astro level.
Leif,
Why would you expect any increase in the solar large scale magnetic field?
I predicted that the solar large scale polar field will drop to levels not believed possible, for the following reasons:
The solar large scale magnetic field origin’s is residue magnet flux from sunspots.
It is a fact that sunspots have been gradually disappearing (this is an observation that requires an explanation not a theory) as the magnetic strength of the magnetic flux tube that rise up to the surface of the sun to form a sunspot group decrease in strength. There is a tipping point. When the magnetic flux tube strength of the flux tube falls below a critical value the flux tube are torn apart.
As the process continues and magnetic flux strength of the sunspot group declines, the lifetime of a sunspot group (of the few sunspot groups that do form) has decreased to where we are now at the point that a sunspot group’s lifetime is for a number of cases only a few days. In past cycles the lifetime of sunspot group has a couple of weeks and the odd sunspot group lifetime was sufficient that it re-immerged.
http://wso.stanford.edu/gifs/Polar.gif
P.S.
As I stated 6 months ago. The super large solar coronal holes are disappearing. The solar wind bursts from coronal holes is one of the reasons why the planet has not cooled.
Coronal holes produce a recurring solar wind burst which in turn (for low latitude coronal holes) creates a space charge differential in the earth’s ionosphere which in turn causes an electric current to flow from high latitude regions to the earth’s equator.
The global electric current causes changes in cloud properties and precipitation which in turn causes warming in both locations. This the explanation for the linked changes temperature in geographically separate regions of the earth.
The solar wind bursts cause a warming of about 7 watts/m^2 as compared to the incorrect estimated warming for a doubling of atmospheric CO2 of 3.7 watts/m^2.
http://sait.oat.ts.astro.it/MmSAI/76/PDF/969.pdf
See section 5a) Modulation of the global electrical circuit in this review paper, by solar wind bursts and the process electroscavenging.
http://gacc.nifc.gov/sacc/predictive/SOLAR_WEATHER-CLIMATE_STUDIES/GEC-Solar%20Effects%20on%20Global%20Electric%20Circuit%20on%20clouds%20and%20climate%20Tinsley%202007.pdf
There is now obvious evidence of high latitude cooling which is not surprising as the planet cyclically warms and cool.
http://www.ospo.noaa.gov/data/sst/anomaly/2017/anomnight.6.8.2017.gif
Why would you expect any increase in the solar large scale magnetic field?
Because we know how this works.
http://www.leif.org/research/HMI-Polar-Fields-North-Growing.png
This plot shows the solar fields measured by our HMI instrument on the SDO satellite.
The polar fields reverse due to a flow of magnetic flux from the sunspot zones to the poles. I have marked some with arrows: Blue in the North (positive polarity) and red in the South (negative polarity). At the right-hand edge you can see a black oval containing a lot of positive (blue) flux that still has to make it up into the polar caps. We know how much flux that is and how fast it moves, so we can estimate that when it finally gets to the North pole in about 2 years time the North Polar field will double. The south polar fields are now steady and will stay so [experience shows], so we can calculate that the total dipole moment will be larger than it was before the previous minimum, hence that SC25 will be stronger than SC24. All this is not controversial and is well-understood. As I mentioned, the WSO instrument has given wrong data the past six month, so the apparent decrease you see in the WSO polar fields is not real, but due to a dirty lens. The lens has now been cleaned and the WSO data should be OK again.
The rest of your comment is just unsubstantiated speculation that no-one should attach any significance to.
In reply to:
“The rest of your comment is just unsubstantiated speculation that no-one should attach any significance to.’
Duh. Did you notice the ocean cooling?
Lief,
I have kept a copy of your comment.
I will respond to your prediction for a doubling of the solar northern magnetic field and a total large scale field greater than the last minimum. when there is more data.
Duh. Did you notice the ocean cooling?
Weather, not climate, and coming down from an el Nino is no surprise.
I have kept a copy of your comment.
Then remember to study it again when the time comes and bow your head in shame.
My prediction of your reaction will be that you will quietly ignore it and not learn anything.
Keep a copy of that too.
But there is really no need to save a copy, as my predictions are on my website and in many comments all over the place. This is not controversial. We actually do know what is going on, so the successful prediction.will be yet another wonderful verification of the method, just as the prediction of SC24 was.
BillH
Actually, by my own analysis of the daily data from 54 terrestrial stations, balanced to zero latitude, specifically looking at maxima and minima, and more specifically at the rate of change in the speed of warming/cooling,
I must conclude global temperature has significantly declined.
So Archibald was correct [in 2006]. Global cooling has already started.
If I were you I would not trust the sat. data too much. They have specific faults that [I think] are actually related to what is currently spewed by the ‘quiet’ sun. Neither rely too much on BEST, NOAA, BOM etc, as there are specific interests at work [at the top] not wanting to show you the few tenths of a degrees that earth already cooled down.
As always in science, trust no one but yourself.
Basic rule.
Always start looking at the T in your own backyard.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/BC1l4geSTP8
Here is a 3 minute video I just received………………………
Look at the piles of rice vs man-made CO2!
William Sturm
Anthony why do you let Leif get away with all his BS? C
RAZY
[You are the one with the anger management and BS issues, and as you may recall, you’ve been banned for it. Yet you persist. I only allow this comment to respond to you, all further comments from you go straight to the digital bit bucket – Anthony]
I guess I killed the game……………And, not all my comments were permitted by the moderators. I attempted to provide a bit of levity to a confused scientific (?) battle……. I believe the reference to ‘The Christian Counselor’s Manual’ by Jay E. Adams was too heavy for the average reader………
William Sturm
William Sturm it’s not you that soured the discussion for the believers, it’s someone mentioning the repeated violations of laws of physics that has them all shriveled up and angry.
The last solar minimum did not cause the cooling period in the 1970s, that was well underway off the flip of the PDO and AMO from the 50s, the 2 became cold in Tandem for the 60s and 70s before what was labeled the great Pacific climatic shift, when the PDO flipped to warm. I fear you are going to be sorely disappointed in what low solar is going to accomplish in the coming decades. One can argue reduced incoming radiation over the tropical waters will lead to weaker trades, and more tendency for what is a warm ocean, and guys like me believe its driven by the MOC which is multi century in the making ( and there is a reason to believe the high solar has had a warming impact on the ocean in storage), and more warm enso events will be the result, countering the LIA idea that seem to be getting pushed, It should bother people that the drop in the global temperature in the wake of the super nino, in spite of the lower solar, has been anything like what we saw post 97-98 super nino. In addition a close look at the last little ice revealed TWO CENTURIES of low solar ,
but that is not 2 decades in the wake of what has been a very high period. Just where is all that stored energy from the high solar? It doesn’t magically disappear and chances are it is part of what we are seeing in the oceans. While solar is the conductor of the orchestra, the warming tune driven by nature may be reaching a peak and the song is not over yet. I think it remains to be seen if the speculation here happens or a case of wishcasting. I have grown rather disillusioned at some statements being made about this cold outbreak or that cold outbreak being part of a coming little ice age. It is a sign the atmosphere is fighting back , but it remains warmer than normal, just cooler than how warm it was and unless we see a return to levels in 2012 in the coming years,
http://models.weatherbell.com/climate/cfsr_t2m_2005.png
we may be seeing a new pause being established, but higher than the last pause.
Per the Book The Little Ice Age by Mr. Brian Fagan, 2000. That age lasted from about 1300 to 1850. That Ice age wasn’t all caused by lack of solar flare activity. In that period, the earth had three major super volcanic eruptions that discharged enough ash globally to reduce the temperatures of the earth. However the coldest period, the Maunder Minimum from 1645 -1710, was solely cause by lack of solar flares. Back then they observed what they thought was just a reduced amount of clouds on the SUN, which was also considered of no scientific consequence. (nobody “observed” 200 years of low solar activity in the last little ice age, also because we did not find 200 years of c14 in tree rings – see below) Also climatic response does has a regional character, Just ask the folks of South Korean who experience yellow snow due to China’s coal power plants, So, back then, heating with coal in London, all that soot in the air perhaps blocked out some sun light (also reducing Sun Spot observations). Point is…..less solar flares = lowers temps (in some places). The important thing is that The Maunder Minimum 33-66 year cold snaps are a cycle of the Sun that has been going on for Millenniums! Enter Paleoclimatology! Look at http://www.sciencedirect.com “The Influence of the de Vries (approx. 200 year) solar cycle on climate variations: Results from the Central Asian Mountains and their Global link” published 2008. Abstract…. less solar flares = more cosmic radiation in the atmosphere = more carbon 14 in the atmosphere = more C14 in tree rings. Measured in tree rings going back 800 years! “Analysis has shown climatic response has a regional character. Delay in the climatic response to the solar signal can occur (up to 150 years). In addition climatic response to long-term solar activity variations (10s – 1000s years) manifests itself in different climatic parameters, such as temperature, precipitation and atmospheric and oceanic circulation. ….The climate response to the de Vries Cycle has been found to occur in earlier epochs, up to hundreds of millions years ago.” My take on all this is … any perceived global warming heat energy will be dissipated by hurricanes, ice melt and a lower initial impact of Low solar = Global cooling. However, since 1 hour of sun on the earth = ALL the energy produced by mankind in one year (per USA Solar Power Institute). Its not going to take long for reduced solar activity to overcome human global warming and chill us out.
Living in Oulu, Finland I can honestly say this is the coldest “Spring” I have experienced in 15 years living in Finland. It has been regularly snowing up until end of May. Mother’s day (14th May) it snowed all day! The ice only disappeared from the sea around middle of May and leaves have only just started to appear on the trees during 1st week of June. I would estimate that it is about 3 to 4 weeks behind “normal”. You could say that 2017 is the year that Spring never happened since we seem to have gone directly to Summer and 24C now!
Ferdinand, Javier & others
I would urge you again to look in your own backyard and see how the temperature changed over the past 40 years. We know that the theory of AGW dictates that you should find minimum T rising pushing up the mean T and this is what you must look at. But you must also evaluate reasons for the change in minimum T in your area.
For example, me looking at Las Vegas, USA, – where they turned a desert into an oasis – I find minima rising at 0.11K per annum since 1973. Looking at Tandil, ARG, where they cut all the trees, I find minima falling at -0.06K per year since 1974.
That is + 4.5K in Las Vegas and – 2.5K in Tandil. That is a big difference?
You see that you cannot argue this difference solely with the increase in CO2, i.e. AGW?
What we can see is that more vegetation [apparently stimulated by the presence of more CO2], as is evident all over earth over the past 40 years, does trap some heat. So, indirectly, more CO2 maybe a cause, but it is what it is because that is what we want it to be: we want more lawns, trees and crops…..and that does trap some heat.
When I looked at a global sample of 54 weather stations it does not look to me like there is a net increase in global minimum T. I reported that earlier in this thread.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/06/06/solar-update-june-2017-the-sun-is-slumping-and-headed-even-lower/#comment-2523072
So, either way, henry’s law dictates
more CO2 => more vegetation => more entrapment of heat => more global warming
Don’t worry about it. Be happy.
Henryp,
I don’t worry at all for the consequences of more CO2. At minimum that gives more vegetation and a small increase in temperature, which did return grape growing – and good wine – in my country, which completely froze out during the Little Ice Age and the grape growing border moved some 300 km soutward (except for shielded valleys like the German Mozel). Now the grapes are back as they were in Medieval periods and during the Roman era (which brought grapes in my country with the Romans…).
As far as I can see, the direct influence of CO2 on temperature is small and mostly positive. So let’s bring more CO2 (in a clean way) into the atmosphere…
Where I do worry is that skeptics are shooting in their own foot by not accepting that humans are responsible for the CO2 increase in the first place, while all evidence points in that direction…
One of the problems here is that, this year, late frosts destroyed 70% of the UK grape harvest. Extended southward loop in the atmosphere early spring seriously damaged the food crops in Spain. To understand the variations in atmospheric behaviour we need to assess factors other than just percentage increases in the constituent parts. They just don’t vary that rapidly. Over a hundred years, yes – year to year, no.
The data is there, relating the data to the activity at the surface is the challenge. It can be done but not by accepting pre-conceived concepts.
Actually, I am on your side there. I also believe that the odd 90 ppms of CO2 that have been added to the atmosphere since 1950 are manmade. But it represents a change of less than 0.01% in the composition of the total atmosphere, That is not much. This is what made me wonder in the first place, if such a small change could have an effect on overall global T.
Like I showed you, it seems to me that the continuing greening of earth, despite some deforestation, is a greater factor. How that mechanism actually works? I am not yet sure. Maybe Dan is right. Must be something to do with the entrapment of water vapor?
Henryp,
I think it is a combination: more CO2 gives less water vapor loss, as less stomata are needed by the plant to get its CO2. That makes that more plants can grow in dryer environments. At one side that increases local temperatures, but also gives a better water management and extra vegetation also attracts more local rain…
The fact that WV has increased is in the data measured by satellite and presented by NASA/RSS The 1.5% trend increase per decade is from a graph of the data through April, 2017 in Fig 3 of my blog/analysis.
WV from the oceans, etc. made the planet warm enough for life as we know it. WV is increasing about 3 times as fast as expected from feedback (water temperature increase). Most likely cause is increased irrigation, especially spray irrigation, which has dramatically increased since about 1960.
The still rising trend of the ghg water vapor is the main factor countering temperature decline (1.5%/decade, about 3X what is expected due to feedback caused by temperature rise). The added warmth is welcome (and some will cling to the fallacy that CO2 did it) but the added WV increases the risk of catastrophe from precipitation related flooding.
Dan
do you have a balanced representative sample of weather stations showing us that water vapor is increasing globally?
show me what you have?
The global average WV (TPW) measurements are made by NASA/RSS satellite and reported monthly. The data are graphed as Fig 3 in the analysis at http://globalclimatedrivers2.blogspot.com Link to the data changes monthly but process for getting to the data is described in the analysis. The link thru April 2017 is/was http://data.remss.com/vapor/monthly_1deg/tpw_v07r01_198801_201704.time_series.txt . The May report should be out soon and should be reachable with this same link except change the 4 to a 5.
The separate posts did not make it, through ”moderation.” Why on earth description of the law of physics governing the atmosphere needs to be ”moderated” is anybody’s guess.
In any case, those who have wondered why people who know the laws and principles under which the atmosphere operates, have no respect for green house gas warming, have seen what happens when believers in green house gas warming start being challenged about their quack claim that CO2 can warm air.
1sky1:
That’s very far from the actual case! In yearly-average data, the emissions overwhelm the natural variations of CO2 at Mauna Loa and do vary appreciably year-to-year; they’re not simply a straight-line trend. Consequently the time series of yearly differences (what you inaccurately call derivatives) not only has a non-zero mean, but significant spectral content throughout the entire baseband range of frequencies (zero to half-cycle per annum).
I think you are mistaken: human emissions smoothly increase, at least since we have better inventories and as the increase per year is quite smoothly, that leads to a slightly quadratic increase of total emissions over time and at the same time, we see a slightly quadratic increase of CO2 in the atmosphere.
In the time series of the yearly differences, that gives a near-straight line with a very small year by year variability. Over the past near 60 years, that wasn’t more than 0.1 ppmv/year between any succeeding years, with only a few exceptions.
The accuracy of Mauna Loa (and other stations) measurements is better than 0.2 ppmv/year, thus while there is no problem to measure the year by year increase (as mass about half human emissions, whatever the cause), the data are not accurate enough to show the result of the year by year variability of human emissions and all variability one can see in the data series is natural variability:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/dco2_em2.jpg
The “frequency” of the emissions/CO2 increase itself is over 600 years, if one assumes that the current slowdown of the CO2 increase in the atmosphere is a sign of reaching a quarter of the total cycle. Not much to learn from frequency analysis here…
Ferdinand:
Your own graph contradicts you! It clearly shows yearly rates (i.e., first differences) of estimated emissions and changes of atmospheric content of CO2 rising throughout the record, both exhibiting ROCs of more than 1.0ppmv/annum–nearly an order of magnitude greater than the claimed accuracy of the Mauna Loa measurements. You seem to be mislead by the patently smaller year-to year variability of the ROC of emissions, i.e., the SECOND differences of the anthropogenic contribution to atmospheric concentration.
Their magnitude does not affect the estimation of cross-spectral coherence nor phase at any frequency. Meanwhile the rising CO2 atmospheric concentrations are retained as a non-zero mean in the series of their first differences. They alone are involved in cross-spectrum analyzing the relationship with GAST.
When there’s fundamental confusion over what constitutes the independent variable called “frequency” in spectrum analysis, the prospect of meaningful further discussion evaporates totally. Have a good week!
1sky1,
I haven’t done anything in spectral analysis, but if there is only a near straight slope in the first derivative of human emissions and the net result of these emissions can be expected to be a staight slope at about half the emissions, I don’t see how any spectral analysis will help you determine the leads and lags between emissions and increase in the atmosphere.
Have a look at the effect of the measured increase in the atmosphere on the net sink rate:
If we may assume that the net sink rate is a linear function of the extra CO2 pressure in the atmosphere above steady state for the average ocean surface temperature, according to Henry’s law, then the remaining CO2 in the atmosphere (as mass) is the difference between the extra (human) input and the net sink rate (*) before any influence of natural variability:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/dco2_em6.jpg
In the past near 60 years the net sink / extra CO2 pressure above steady state ratio is surprisingly linear, even with a fourfold increase of emissions, increase in the atmosphere and net sink rate over that period.
The small effect of the variability in human emissions on the resulting variability of the net increase in the atmosphere is completely drowned by the huge variability caused by temperature on (tropical) vegetation.
Anyway, that huge variability in the derivative in reality is only +/- 1.5 ppmv around a slightly quadratic slope of 90 ppmv in the observations (and 170 ppmv of human emissions in the same period)…
Thus can you explain to me how one can deduce the human contribution out of all the natural noise with spectral analysis, if there is hardly any variability in the human signal, only a strong slope?
(*) The net sink rate doesn’t depend on the emissions of one year, it only depends on the total pressure of CO2 above steady state. No matter what caused the increase in the first place. There is no law which says that the net sink rate should be around 50% of the yearly human emissions. It can be higher than human emissions (a drop in CO2 levels) or negative (more increase than from human emissions alone) in any period, just depending of natural variability (Pinatubo, El Niño,…).
Nowhere do I make any such claim! All I have done is ACKNOWLEDGED that emissions are largely responsible for the monotonic rise of yearly average CO2 concentrations measured at Mauna Loa. To reiterate an earlier statement