In reply to George's comment:

Hi George,

Thanks for the link to Livingston & Penn’s paper. It appears that analysis of new spectral data to determine sunspot magnetic field strength (2006 to present) continues to support Livingston and Penn’s finding that the sunspot magnetic field is falling linearly at 77 gauss per year. (The last data point may be some what lower than the trend line. I hope the authors update their paper and get it published.)

L. Svalgaard (A physicist/solar researcher.) had this comment concerning Livingston's data and analysis 2006 to present.

This again is a copy of the graph from Livingston and Penn's paper. (Copied to show how the new data falls exactly the trend line.)



The following is a further quote from Livingston and Penn's paper.

Solar cycle 23/24 has reached the fifteenth spot for the longest period of solar spotless days.

38 continual spotless days, August 28, 2008, is the 15th longest period of continual spotless days on record for the period 1849 to present.

50 continual spotless days is required to make the top 4 for the 160 year period, which was set in 1902 and 1855.

Greater than 92 continual spotless days, is required to break the 160 year record, which was set in 1913.

http://users.telenet.be/j.janssens/S.../Spotless.html

http://www.dxlc.com/solar/

TSI changes due to recent changes in the Solar Magnetic cycle

Based on the most recent data it looks like the Total Solar Irradiance (TSI) has dropped from cycle 23’s peak of 1367 w/m^2 to 1365 w/m^2 which is a drop of 2 watts/m^2 over the surface of the planet. (Comparison GHG warming is estimated to be 2.5 watts/m^2).

ftp://ftp.pmodwrc.ch/pub/data/irradi...61_0808_vg.pdf

If cycle 24 is the start of a deep solar minimum (i.e. there is no longer a solar magnetic cycle) will the TSI remain at 1365 w/m^2?

I recall that a 1% variation is normal, but this seems to be slightly greater. Any idea where this energy is reduced within the spectrum?

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Lighten up! This is a stellar board!

Try 0.1% and it’s pretty much across the entire spectrum, but of course since most solar energy arrives as visible light it’s most noticeable in the visible spectrum.

This small variation is why “solar cycles effect on the earths climate” are basically exercises in numerology. The Sun is remarkably stable; variation in the actual energy output of the sun is far too small to overcome the thermal inertia of the earths oceans.

People like William try to counter with “well maybe there is some effect we can’t observe directly that has nothing to do with the suns energy output” But if it doesn’t show up in direct observation and is unrelated to the suns major function in the earths climate (providing all the incoming energy) how big a role could it play?

There are two ways an open system like the earths climate can heat up/cool down. Either you can change the energy getting in or you can change the energy that gets out, and the two have distinctly different characteristics. Changes in Solar energy output, and changes in the earths albedo both fall into the former category, they change the amount of solar energy making it into the system. Greenhouse effects like CO2 restrict the energy that gets out.

If you change the amount of energy getting in you would feel the effects where sunlight is the strongest, in day, in lower latitudes, and in summer. In the case of increased energy in you would also see warming in the stratosphere. On the other hand changes in the amount of energy trapped mean you see warming in high latitudes, at night and in the winter. In the case where more energy is trapped you would see cooling in the Stratosphere. All of the latter effects have been observed in 20th century warming.

In addition you can also measure the sunlight making it to the ground, which is effectively the amount of energy making it into the earth’s atmosphere. This is something people have been measuring for decades. In large part due to human produced aerosols the amount of solar radiation making it to the ground and becoming heat has been decreasing for decades, at the very same time as the actual temperature is warming’s.

The only thing that could cause the earth to warm when less heat energy is entering the system is a greenhouse effect that is even stronger then the solar dimming. The fact that dimming has been observed at ground level also excludes any albedo effect from causing the warming.

I believe this is true only of the visible portion of the specturm and not of the entire spectrum. I vaguely recall some variations within the spectrum to be as much as 30%. [I'll look this up later when time allows.]

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Lighten up! This is a stellar board!

I seem to recall some claim that changes in the UV part of the spectrum where greater, which may be possible. The sun basically emits its energy as a blackbody, so more energy should results in slightly higher frequency, but 0.1% is so small it shouldn’t change very much.

In reply to lomiller1,

The change to TSI, 2 w/m^2 is 2/1365 or .15% which should have a relatively small effect on planetary temperature. Expected changes to the total solar irradiation (TSI) will have a minor affect on planetary temperature changes, if they continue to stay +/- 0.15%. That is not how the solar change are hypothesized to effect planetary temperature, however. The sun has a first order effect on planetary temperature by direct and indirect modulation of planetary cloud cover not TSI changes. Based on the data and analysis I have seen, it seems that assertion is correct.

See these links for paleo evidence, satellite data, earthshine data, and a set of associated published papers that support the assertion that changes to the solar magnetic cycle, modulate planetary clouds which warm or cool the planet.

Solar cycle #24

Solar cycle #24

Solar cycle #24

Did you see the Livingston and Penn's paper and graph above? The solar magnetic cycle has been interrupted (See Livingston and Penn’s graph and paper above), this winter and over the next few years the cloud modulation hypothesis will either be proved correct or incorrect.

Comments:
It appears based on paleo data (different sources) that there is a deeper solar minimum where the solar magnetic cycle is completely interrupted. Based on Parker’s mechanism where the sunspot magnetic ropes are created in the tachocline, without a magnetic seed, the magnetic rope cannot form and there is no sunspot. The evidence points to a violent restart of that type of interruption. It is not clear at this time, whether the cycle 23/24 solar event is a Maunder minimum or an extreme complete interruption.

I this a calm before the storm? Was this magnetic calm predicted given that a more intense maximum has been predicted?

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Lighten up! This is a stellar board!

That’s speculative and currently untestable due to the large uncertainty in even measuring cloud formation. What we do know is that the major climate shifts of the last 5 million years, the onset and end of glaciations have nothing whatsoever to do with changes in the sun.

Also, stop and think a bit on what you are saying. Effectively you are claiming that the Sun is a massive energy source and therefore must have some effect that is too small for use to measure. The whole claim is inherently self-contradictory.

lomiller,
I provided links to multiple papers (See my comment above.) that showed past sever cooling periods correlate with solar magnetic cycle changes. I provided links to papers that explain in detail how the mechanisms by which solar magnetic cycle changes are hypothesized to modulate planetary cloud cover, function. I provided links to Palle's satellite paper and earthshine paper both of which support the mechanism. I believe the solar magnetic cycle modulation of planetary cloud is not speculative. (i.e. There is data and logic to support the hypothesis.)

Could the authors of those papers be incorrect? Yes possibly, however, as noted the recent finding by Kaplan et al. that there was in the past, multiple periods of synchronous cooling of both northern and southern hemispheres, provides additional support for the solar cloud modulation mechanism. (Kaplan specifically notes that his group's finding falsifies the Milankovitch theory for what causes ice ages.)

What is odd (surreal?) is the sun appears as we are discussing this subject to be quickly moving into a deep minimum. We will over the next year or so be able to witness, if the cloud modulation hypothesis is correct, the start of an abrupt cooling period.

Let's wait until there is more data. The oceans have stopped warming. If the cloud modulation hypothesis is correct the oceans will start cooling by this time next year. There is uncertainty as to how much of the 20th century warming was due to GHG and how much was due to solar magnetic cycle changes. That issue will not be settled until there is more data.

If the data does not support the solar magnetic cycle modulation of planetary clouds, there will certainly be papers written documenting that finding. Regardless, of the outcome, I will appropriately update this thread with the findings and attempt to be neutral.

In reply to George's comment:
Yes possibly. There is evidence of past extreme solar flares.

This paper presents an analysis of Apollo data, that the author believes indicates that there have been solar flares roughly 50 times greater than the typical maximum, in the last 10 kyr.

http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1977Icar...32..106Z

http://authors.aps.org/eprint/files/...004/Models.htm

And other authors have tried to explain anomalous variations in the geomagnetic field due to very energy solar flares.

During the Younger Dryas period (12900 years ago. Named after a tundra flower that is suddenly found in Europe as the interglacial period is abruptly interrupted and the planet returned to the glacial period for roughly a 1000 years.) there is evidence from geological studies of widespread high energy flash burns in different parts of the US (Around the Great lakes region and also in Germany.) It is known that the sun was in a very deep magnetic minimum at the time of the Younger Dryas.

There are two theories to explain the widespread evidence of flashing (Very large areas are burnt with all vegetation burnt. i.e. Not a forest fire. Flashing, like multiple nuclear bombs exploding at very high altitude.):

1) Giant solar flares or 2) an impact of an extra-terrestrial object. There is no impact crater however and the finding of burnt regions in Germany in addition to North America is difficult to explain from the standpoint of an extra-terrestrial object. (Those advocating the impact theory hypothesize that there were multiple objects that hit a glancing blow to the earth.) The fact that the sun was in a deep solar magnetic minimum at the time would then only be coincidence, however, there is the Apollo data which supports the assertion that the sun does have from time to time super flares.

http://authors.aps.org/eprint/files/...004/Models.htm

The following is an additional excerpt from the super flare summary:

This is the paper that discusses the impact theory and presents some of the geological data.

http://www.pnas.org/content/104/41/16016.full.pdf+html

I recently watched a program that made a pretty plausible case that the impact happened on the multiple-mile-thick ice sheet and the crater disappeared with the ice.

__________________
"I'm as accurate as any psychic. And I'm a cartoon!" -- Squidward

"Arrrgh, the laws of physics be a harsh mistress!" -- Bender

What “sever cooling events”? Ice ages? Nope those are caused by Milankovitch cycles. Youger Dryas? Nope, we already have 2 theories that are a much better fit for that then your solar cycles. At best these papers show minor climate effects that are dwarfed by those caused by Milankovitch cycles + CO2 feedback. At worst they are artifacts of data and don’t represent anything physical at all.

But that hypothesis isn’t currently testable due to the large error range in measuring cloud formation. It also isn’t required to explain large climate changes.

Hypothesis that are not needed to explain the data and are not testable don’t hold much weight. There is a reason papers are published every day based on papers regarding the effects of greenhouse gasses and Milankovitch cycles while there is virtually no practical follow up work based on your solar cycles.


Indeed, lets wait for more data. One or two years of relatively flat ocean heat content doesn’t alter the century long trend of the oceans warming up. There is after all a certain amount of natural year to year variation. You should also consider the possibility of still more measurement error, given that the so called “ocean cooling” has been adjusted upwards once already and is still in disagreement with rising sea levels, whose primary cause remains thermal expansion.

BTW, a dramatic increase in ice sheet movement could explain both sets of data. The ice causes the continued sea level rise, while the energy required to melt it explains the flat trend in ocean temperatures. Not much has been done with this yet because there is still no statistically significant change in ocean trends, but if the flat ocean temperatures are part of a trend ask yourself what’s melting that ice…


Even if there really are such solar cycles occurring, we know that they are minuscule otherwise Milankovitch cycles would not be the dominant climate driver over the last 5 million years. So, no there is no debate over how much effect solar cycles had on climate over the last 100 years. Some warming between 1900-1930 has been attributed to increases in the suns energy output, but no one has found anything beyond that.

Originally from Meehl et al. 2004:

Younger dryas effects are not thought to be global. Comet impact or solar flairs or comet impact certainly would be global in nature. This is why current thinking is that it was caused by a massive meltwater pulse into the artic ocean. This would cause warm water from the gulf stream that warms much of north America and Europe to sink further south for a time and cause significant regional cooling for a thousand years or so.

In reply to aurora's comment:

Hi Aurora,

Check figure 9 from the paper that shows where in the US that the flashing occurred. There are magnetic microspherules found in Carolina Bay, along the east coast of the US (in the State of Carolina) in addition to magnetic microspherules in the Lake Michigan region. As shown in figure 9 of the paper the flash burn areas are hundreds and in the case of the Carolina Bay site (In the State of Carolina) thousands of miles below the extent of the ice sheet at that time.

http://www.pnas.org/content/104/41/16016/suppl/DC1#F7

The authors of this paper do hypothesize that the continental US flash burning was due to multiple extra-terrestrial air burst events, to explain flash burning at Lake Michigan and in addition along the eastern coast of the US, in the state of Carolina. While that hypothesis is possible it requires multi extra-terrestrial impacts that burst in the atmosphere without leaving an impact crater.

I note there is independent evidence in the Apollo moon rocks of solar flares 50 times current maximum in the last 10 kyrs which leaves open the possibility of the Younger Dryas being caused by a solar event. There is also evidence of cyclic external forcing of the geomagnetic field. To explain the geomagnetic field changes there would need to be periodic flashing which would depending on the tilt of the planet at the time of the flashing event and the last configuration of the geomagnetic field, constructively or de-constructively alter the geomagnetic field.

To provide support for the Solar flare hypothesis, C14 data shows the sun at the time of the Younger Dryas cooling event was in a very deep magnetic cycle minimum.

The following is an excerpt from the Younger Dryas paper that proposes the multiple extra-terrestrial air burst events as an explanation to the 12,900 years ago flashing events.

In reply to Aurora,

There is additional data in the paper which I did see. As the paper notes, there is evidence of approximately 1/2 million flash burning sites along the US coast from New Jersey to Alabama.

This is a significant event and I do not see how it could possibly have been caused by extra-terrestrial air bursts. Look at figure 7 (which is a close up of one the flash burning sites.) The spacing is far too close between flashing sites, there are far too many flashing sites, for the cause of this event to be extra-terrestrial air bursts.

Could someone else from the forum have a look at this data?

I had no idea that there was this type of evidence associated with the Younger Dryas flash event.

http://www.pnas.org/content/104/41/16016/suppl/DC1#F7

I was looking through the appendix of the Younger Dryas paper and was surprised that in addition to the ½ million flash residues, highly elliptically, 50m to 10 km in length, with axises that point in the North west direction, that are located in the region of eastern US, from New Jersey to Alabama, there is flash residue outside of the Canadian cities of Calgary and Edmonton, there is flash residue in the Great Lakes region in Michigan, in Arizona, there is flash residue in Great Britain, Netherlands, Germany, France, Demark, and Poland. The flashing evidence 12,900 years ago appears to be throughout the Northern Hemisphere.

I do not see how extra-terrestrial objects that burst in the atmosphere could possible explain these observations. An extra-terrestrial burst could only effect one region of North America. An extra-terrestrial burst could not possibly have left flash residue at 1/2 million sites from New Jersey to North Carolina. An extra-terrestrial burst could not have affect both North America and Europe. It seems that the evidence of overlapping residue indicates that was time delay between flashing events.

http://www.pnas.org/content/104/41/16016/suppl/DC1#F7

Where site can I go to check each day for spots?

I like SOHO. [It has an extremely rare image -- an accurate color depiction of the Sun (it is probably just a b & w, but I still like it! ).]

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Lighten up! This is a stellar board!

These two sites provide a summary of the sunspot data.

http://www.dxlc.com/solar/

There is some controversy for cycle 24. The summary below shows cycle 24 starting in Aug. 2006 (There was one reversed sunspot Aug, 2006) other sources show it starting in Jan. 2008 (next reversed sunspot was in Jan. 2008.)


http://users.telenet.be/j.janssens/S.../Spotless.html

The sunspot count per day is 10 times # of sunspot groups observed + number of sunspots in the group.

The solar wind is at a 50 year low. There is a planned news conference Tuesday, September 23rd to discuss the implications.

http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2008...conference.txt

Thanks for the info William.

Jim

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Orionjim, William,

Thank you gentlemen for your insightful discussions. I am a newby to the forum. Astronomy is an avocation for me and since the peak of cycle 23 I have been keenly interested in solar science. I was contemplating purchasing a solar telescope for cycle 24 but it appears it may be far less spectacular than 23 in its viewing at least. I read today that a new cycle 24 sunspot is emerging. My question is: if the sun is trending to a minimum do you believe that the effects will be dampened by climate warming? Is this an opportunity for house cleaning ie decreasing our CO2 impact while in a natural cooling cycle? Would the two events occuring simultaneously cancel each other or amplify their effects?

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"A little learning is a dangerous thing; drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring: there shallow draughts intoxicate the brain, and drinking largely sobers us again."

Alexander Pope, 1709

It would not outweigh the greenhouse warming. There's a good article about it here.

dmr81,
Thanks for the link. All things being equall it appears it would have a short term effect, however as noted above by others there may be a hitch. Barry Brooks article addresses TSI influences to global temp, but does not address the hypothesis of GCR. Another problem is that the referenced charts cover only recent solar cycles and not those during a extended minimum. If albedo is influenced by GCR variations as speculated one could assume this might be more adverse than the small decrease in TSI would imply.

The best part is, that if we are heading into an extended solar minimum, we will have opportunity to verify the influence of GCR's on cloud cover first hand and thus put this one to rest.

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"A little learning is a dangerous thing; drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring: there shallow draughts intoxicate the brain, and drinking largely sobers us again."

Alexander Pope, 1709

Hello Jack,

If you have followed the dialog between me and William you will see we differ on the start of a new minimum. William is fairly convinced it is starting now on cycle #24 and I believe the minimum will start at cycle #25. Although to be truthful I am getting a little worried that it might be starting now.

I base my belief on cycle #25 being the start on: calculations I’ve done that fall into the ATM section and on predictions of two of the top solar scientists; NCAR’s Mausumi Dikpati and NASA’s David Hathaway. See: http://www.earthfiles.com/news.php?I...tegory=Science .

David Hathaway is saying cycle #25 will be off the charts to the low side, the start of a minimum.

That’s a great question. One needs to remember that cooling tied to a solar minimum is a theory and while the data shows a strong correlation of temperature to the sunspot cycles, long minimums like the Maunder Minimum are rare. This means you can’t say the correlations apply to these minimums. I personally believe they do and I have read some of David Hathaway’s work and he believes there will be a cooling. The exciting thing to me is we may soon know if the correlation applies to these minimums. It may only take 5 years if William is right or at most 10 to 15 years if Hathaway is correct.

If the cooling happens and the minimum is similar to the Maunder Minimum, I think it will be greater than the warming we’ve seen by several degrees. And if the minimum is similar to the Maunder Minimum the cooler temperatures will last for 50 to 70 years. (This is a guess on my part because nobody knows for sure). Any average temperatures you see for the Maunder Minimum is nothing more than a guess. If you have followed the “Hockey Stick” debate you will know exactly what I mean. Lining up the average data is the problem and the same goes with The Medieval Warming period.

Two things to remember is these types of changes happen frequently over the course of time and it won’t be the end of the human race and if co2 forcing is real it will help for the time the minimum lasts and then the climate will warm back to whatever normal was plus the effect of the co2 warming. (In other words co2 warming will help a little during the minimum but will be a problem when the minimum is over).

From what I understand CO2 stays in our atmosphere for ~1000 years and if the solar minimum lasts 50 years when it is over the problem will return.

From what I think I know about the Greenhouse Effect they would tend to cancel each other out. It has to do with the long length of the infrared light wave coming in versus the much shorter wave bouncing off the earth back into our atmosphere and bouncing off the co2 back to earth.

There is a 2 hour video series by Dr. Richard A. Muller on Youtube on global warming that is worth watching. It is actually broken up into 12 ten minute videos.
This is the first: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vyuKOtIryis
(You will have to search for the others).

As far as buying a solar telescope I would wait and see if cycle #24 starts to fire up, if it does I would buy it, knowing that after cycle #24 it will pretty much be useless. Of course your kids or grandkids may use it someday.

Jim

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Yes it does.
The GCR hypothesis is a wildly ATM idea. The proposed mechanism has several problems and it is falsified by the real world data, which shows no correlation.

In the article to which you linked he did not say anything about cycle 25 and he stated that an extended minimum would not cause cooling:
Provide any evidence you have that it isn't real.

But you know very little about the greenhouse effect as evidenced by the following hogwash...

1) It is nothing to do with "bouncing off" in either direction. 2) Anything "bouncing off" would be at the same wavelength. 3) The energy re-radiated from the earth is at a longer wavelength than the incoming solar energy.

A decent explanation of the greenhouse effect is available here.