That article was to show NCAR’s Mausumi Dikpati and NASA’s David Hathaway predictions for cycle 24. If you want to see Hathaway’s prediction for cycle #25 check here:
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2..._longrange.htm

Note Hathaway’s comment in the 6th paragraph:
Yes that makes all the sense in the world. He's saying the sun acts as a furnace not an air conditioning unit. But if I turn my furnace back in the winter I bet my house will get cooler! My furnace isn’t cooling the house; it just can’t warm it up as much. Therefore my house will get cooler.
Also he is talking about Cycle 24 not Cycle 25. If Cycle 25 has very few or no sunspots we will be in an extended Minimum similar to the Maunder Minimum. And like I said there is very little data linked to temperature, only the accounts of the Maunder Minimum and the reference to it as The Little Ice Age. Will it get cooler? The small amount of data suggests yes it will. And like I said – we will know within 10 or 12 years.

Easy; read the 2001 IPCC report. They say: "it is very likely that man made co2 causes warming"; and they go on to say that "Very Likely" means greater than 90 percent probability of occurrence". That means that there is up to a 10 percent chance that it doesn't cause warming (or not real).

You are right about that, but I do think it is important and respect the fact that we as humans need to reduce the co2 we pump into the atmosphere.

But you need to remember that this thread is about solar cycles, not climate change. There was not a portion in your post regarding solar cycles and while I responded to your questions this time I refuse to be drug into an argument on climate.

Jim

__________________

Orionjim,
Thanks for the links. As a daily viewer of Spaceweather.com its been a little boring seeing the sun so blank. Of course the site does provide great pics of atmospheric phenomenon, some that I get to see frequently as a pilot. Back on topic, my understanding is that at the begining of a new solar cycle sunspots of new and old polarities may occurr, how is the starting point then actually defined, especially with such low activity? In other words, are we solidly in cycle 24 or the extended end of 23?

__________________
"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

A site that you might like is http://www.solarcycle24.com
Also keep an eye on the Lasco C2 and C3 images and videos. These indirectly measure our solar systems “current sheet”. If you google “current sheet” +”pete riley” you will find links that explain what you are looking at. This current sheet is the largest thing in our solar system and flows out from the sun encompassing all of the planets. Pete is the main “Current Sheet” person.

To understand how they can tell the start of a new solar cycle you need to understand Hales Polarity Law. This can be seen on this page: http://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/images/haleslaw.jpg

The starting point of a new cycle is when a switch in polarity of the leading spots swap position.

There can be an overlap of several months to a year. But once the sunspots begin to ramp up you can safely say we are into the new cycle.
Also you may find this page interesting; it explains what we don’t know about the Solar Dynamo:
http://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/dynamo.shtml

Also if you google Ulysses mission you will see the knowledge we’ve gained about the sun in the past 18 years; it is truly astounding.

The most exciting thing happening is in the next few years man may begin to really understand how the sun works. For that to happen the sun will need to go into an extended minimum and from the looks of things it will be during cycle 24 or cycle 25.

Jim

__________________

Just read that the solar wind pressure is at a record low since the beginning of the space age. Is there any way from fossil evidence, tree rings, or lunar samples that we can get a handle of what the solar wind may have been like in the past?

__________________
I'm not a scientist, but I play one on the internet.
http://www.rrac.org

I listened to the NASA broadcast that William mentioned here:
What amazed me was that Ulysses measured a 25 percent drop in the solar wind since the last solar cycle. I don’t think anybody would have thought that there would be that big of a drop in only one cycle.
The problem as I understand it is the galactic cosmic rays would increase because of the reduced solar wind; however the earth is protected by its magnetosphere. I wouldn’t even begin to guess what proxy data someone would use to detect long term changes in the solar wind. But a 25 percent change in wind in 11 years is totally mind boggling. I wonder what the long term changes would be?

Jim

__________________

As noted in this comment Solar cycle #24 , data in a paper by Livingston and Penn shows the magnetic field strength of individual sunspots has been linearly decaying at 77 gauss per year. Specifically what is causing the reduction in magnetic field strength of individual sunspots is not known.

This is a link to the press release from the NASA September 23, 2008 teleconference conference that discussed Ulysses space craft data that indicates the solar wind has dropped to a 50 year low.

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2008-178

I wonder what the net effect could be from a decreasing earth magnetic field simultaneously with the decreased protection from the solar wind? As I understand it and I need to recheck sources but the earths field has been decreasing. Earths field changes over much longer periods of time, but we are geologicaly speaking overdue for a reversal. The simulations indicate that Earths field drops to very low values prior to a swap. I hope Im not flying in the clouds that day.

Here's a quote from a quick google search:

Even scarier: The Earth's magnetic field has weakened by ten percent over the last 160 years. Does that mean we're due for a flip? Dan Lathrop, a geophysicist at University of Maryland, will try to find out when he spins up his mega steel ball and recreates (on a small scale) the magnetic conditions on Earth.

No one has a solid theory for the Earths magnetic flips, but one has to wonder if there are similarities to the mechanisms behind solar and Earth fields.

This seems a little off. If the solar wind is at an all-time low, then the heliopause would also now be at its closest distance to us (~ 100AU), right? [At 1 million mph, it only takes one year to reach 100AU.]

As the Sun begins to crank-up, isn't it likely the heliopause distance will increase instead of decrease in the near future?

Further, I assume that the heliopause distance would only drop to about 70 AU if the solar wind is reduced by another 50% (inverse sq. law).

__________________
Lighten up! This is a stellar board!

Thank ya. Just created a short cut to solarcycle24. Very cool.

__________________
We'll have to outwit the fiend with our superior intelligence.
Yukon Cornelius

When looking at the old records of sunspots I began wondering how they were recorded and to what resolution they were cabable of seeing spots. Would the smaller short lived spots seen today have been recorded then? What methods were used back in the 1600's-1700's. I would assume they projected the images, but with what resolution? What if any adjustments have been made to account for any differences in the technology?

__________________
"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

Well....once upon a time....and a good while after Galileo argued that the spots seen were actual on the Sun and not transits of planets...

Heinrich Schwabe announced that the sunspot cycle had a period of about 10 years. Along came Rudolf Wolf (Swiss astronomer) and found a more acurate value of 11.2 years. In an effort to start quantifying sunspot activity, in 1848 he introduced the sunspot equation -- the Wolf relative sunspot number, R:

R = k(10g + f)

f is the total number of visible sunspots.
g is the total number of groups of sunspots.
k is the personnel reduction coefficient.

At the Zurich observatory, Wolf used an 80mm refractor (1100mm focal length) with 64 magnification for his observations and used k =1.

The counting method changed in 1882 and the k value was changed to k = 0.6 allowing it to convert to the old scale. This k value has been used ever since.

Wolf also sought an obtained international collaboration in filling in the sunspot record gaps that took this estimated data back to 1749 (some show 1745).

Other sunspot number systems exist that are used for various purposes, as I understand.

__________________
Lighten up! This is a stellar board!

The following is more detailed concerning the recent change in the sun. The solar wind has become 13% cooler, 20% less dense, and its speed has dropped by 3%. This is a long term change that started in the mid 1990’s.

As a result of the reduction in the solar wind cosmic rays have increased by about 20%.

Also interesting is the solar large scale magnetic field has dropped by 30%.

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2...htm?list826300

In reply to George's comment: It is not clear the solar magnetic cycle will restart, at least in the near future. The Maunder minimum lasted for around 70 years. For 30 years of the 70 year low cycle Maunder minimum period, there were only 50 sunspots observed as opposed to the typical 40,000 to 50,000 sunspots.

In reply to Superluminal's comment. The satellite solar wind data starts from the mid 1960's, which is the limit of direct measurement. There cosmogenic produced isotopes that can be analyzed to determine changes in the solar heliosphere. Studies of the cosmogenic isotopes show there has been in the past been semi-periodic sudden reduction in the magnetic effectiveness of the solar heliosphere. There is correlation in time of past sudden planetary cooling with the increase in cosmogenic isotopes.

An increase or decrease in the magnetic effectiveness of the solar wind cause an decrease or increase in GCR. The high galactic cosmic rays (mostly protons) creates cosmogenic isotopes.

Comment:
The increase in cosmic rays will in accordance with the GCR ion cloud nuclide hypothesis result in an increase in planetary cloud. For this case that did not happen due to the electroscavening mechanism.

Starting in the mid-1990’s there were strong solar wind bursts produced by coronal holes that moved down to the solar equator. The solar wind bursts are hypothesized to create a space charge in the earth’s ionosphere which creates a charge differential that removes cloud forming ions by a process is that is called electroscavenging.

Palle’s satellite data and analysis and Palle’s earthshine data and analysis shows there was a reduction in planetary cloud cover at the latitudes where the electroscavenging mechanism is strongest from the period 1994 to 2002.

The solar coronal holes are now gradually starting to dissipate. If the GCR/cloud hypothesis is correct, there should now be an increase in planetary cloud cover.

It was Antonio Castelli, working with Galileo, who developed the method of projecting the Sun's image through the telescope onto paper then tracing the spots, a technique that made it possible to study the Sun in detail even when it was high in the sky.
If you look at the images recorded you will see they don’t lack in detail.
See:
http://www.orbit.zkm.de/?q=node/194
http://galileo.rice.edu/sci/observations/sunspots.html

I read somewhere that they set up a standard on size (I don’t remember if duration was included) so the recorded sunspots of today would correlate with the ones recorded starting in Zurich Observatory starting in 1749. These recorded sunspots in Zurich became the standard with cycle 0 actually starting half way through the cycle. The cycles weren’t numbered until 1843 when Samuel Heinrich Schwabe noticed the appearance of the cycles.

Jim

__________________

That article does not support your claim that he predicted "cycle #25 will be off the charts to the low side, the start of a minimum".

It also does not support your claim that "he believes there will be a cooling".

If you have anything to substantiate those claims, please provide it.

More hogwash. The current IPCC report was published in 2007, and neither it nor the 2001 report contains the quote you have posted.

Here is what the current report says:

Dmr81, Those people who post at the sites you provided a link to appear to not understand the solar modulation of cloud mechanisms (note there are two solar cloud modulation mechanisms: Solar cycle #24 ) and appear to have not seen the data that supports the solar modulation of clouds. Planetary cloud cover follows GCR changes with a 99.5% confidence level if the second solar cloud modulation is taken into account post-1994.

Is it possible Palle, Svensmark, Marsh, Tinsley, Yu, and Shiva are incorrect? Yes. But they have data and analysis in published papers to support their assertions. Mechanisms that are supported by data and analysis in published papers are not ATM. I have investigated this subject in some detail. (Paleoclimatic data. Cosmogenic isotope data that correlates with past rapid planetary temperature changes. Earth Orbital Insolation Changes. Competing theories as to what causes Ice Ages. Competing theories as to what has caused past rapid planetary temperatures changes. And so on.) Everything I have found supports the solar modulation of cloud mechanism.

As I have stated, data and analysis indicates solar wind bursts are removing cloud forming ions via the electroscavenging process. (The blue spikes in the solar flux/planetary index A. http://www.dxlc.com/solar/ ) As noted in my last comment GCR has increased by 20% the solar wind pressure has decreased by 20%. When the solar wind bursts cease there will, if the GCR cloud modulation mechanism is real, be a step increase in planetary cloud cover. (i.e. It will be possible over the next year or so to determine which hypothesis is correct.)

http://solar.njit.edu/preprints/palle1264.pdf

The possible connection between ionization in the atmosphere by cosmic rays and low level clouds by E. Palle´ et al.

The Earthshine Project: update on photometric and spectroscopic measurements by E. Palle et al.

http://solar.njit.edu/preprints/palle1266.pdf

Hi dmr81,

First a comment to everyone who is posting to this thread. Let’s move the discussion of the science of GHG, recent planetary temperature changes, and future planetary temperature changes, to the science section of this forum. GHG science is an interesting subject that deserves its own thread.

The subject of this thread is the solar cycle and solar cycle 24. There appears based on the data to be a significant solar change underway.

It is suggested that we wait for more actual solar data concerning solar cycle 24 rather than just post speculations as to whether cycle 24 will or will not be a Maunder minimum. There will be solar data in the next few months to discuss and I would expect there will be papers published that discuss what is happening.

As noted early in this thread there were three papers published in the last 10 years that predicted an imminent Dalton or Maunder solar magnetic cycle minimum.

1) One paper made their prediction based on the analysis of current solar data, using a physical based solar model.
2) A second paper made their prediction of an imminent solar magnetic cycle minimum, based on the analysis of the paleo record of cosmogenic isotope changes which show a cyclic pattern of solar magnetic minimums.
3) A third paper analyzed the periodicity of the sun’s motion about its barycentre which also correlates with past solar magnetic cycle minimums.

The solar magnetic cycle minimum appear to occur when there is a change in direction of the sun, as it moves about its barycentre. The solar barycentre change in direction is cyclic as the sun’s motion is controlled by the relative positions of the large planets and the sun’s current position and velocity.

The following is the 2004 paper that predicts the sun is heading towards a Maunder minimum based on an analysis of the paleo record of solar activity.

http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2004ApJ...605L..81B


This is the 2003 paper that predicts a solar cycle minimum based on a physical model.

http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2003SPD....34.0603S

This is the 1987 Solar barycentre motion paper: Prolonged minima and the 179-yr cycle of the solar inertial motion by R.Fairbridge and J. Shirley

http://www.springerlink.com/content/w57236105034h657/

Comment:
The solar barycentre motion theory hypothesizes that specific motions of the sun about its barycentre, interrupts the formation of the magnetic ropes at the solar tacholine (Tacholine is the interface to solar radiative zone and convection zone.) With the barycentre hypothesis a Maunder minimum is an interruption to the solar magnetic cycle as opposed to a slow down.)

It doesn't matter what mechanism you are proposing, the alleged effect is not visible in the temperature data. The only signal visible related to solar activity is the small amount that would be expected from the variation in TSI.

There is nothing stopping ATM proponents having their papers published. They would only cease to be ATM if they were accepted by mainstream opinion in the relevant field. If you wish to assert that your cosmic ray idea is not ATM, provide a citation from the IPCC endorsing it.

No, you have simply clung desperately to your ATM idea despite all evidence to the contrary, even in the papers you are citing here...

Here's what that paper actually says:

orionjim's claims, for which I asked for supporting evidence, were specifically about Dr Hathaway. I may have a look later at the papers you've linked to if I get time.

I'm sure you were listening to the conference call on Tuesday so you will know that the NASA scientists on that call were not willing to make a prediction for cycle 24, let alone further in the future.

Furthermore, whilst the current conditions are interesting for them because they have not occurred in the short time that satellites have been available, they stated that it is not unusual in the context of the last 200 years. I'm not aware of any extended minimum in that time period.

This paper by Livingston and Penn shows the magnetic field strength of all sun spots formed at particular moment in time on the sun, has been decreasing at 77 gauss per year. The sunspots which have formed recently are being torn apart by motion in the solar convection zone as they rise up from the tachocline through the solar convection zone. The few sunspots that do survive the journey through the solar convection zone are soon torn apart by motion of the plasma on the sun's surface.

Solar cycle #24

The current set of solar observations is not expected and indicates the solar cycle has been interrupted. The solar conveyor speeds on the surface of the sun have dropped by a factor of three. The solar wind pressure has dropped by 20%. There were sudden x-ray emissions at the end of solar cycle 23 which is not expected if the solar cycle was progressing normally.

Hathway's solar prediction method does not work for a solar cycle interruption. His method uses the observations at the end of the last solar cycle to predicted the next solar cycle.

Congratulations, you just proved I was correct in what I stated from memory.

While you scanned the 2007 IPCC report looking for something to match your beliefs you totally missed what we were talking about; and that was UNCERTAINTY. Go back to your link to the 2007 IPCC report and bring up the Full Report. Then go to page 5 of the .PDF file (this is page 27 of the report). The header says Treatment of Uncertainty. Go to paragraph 5 and your will see this:

Now go back and read the portion of the sentence you posted and you will see the term “very likely”, this means they have up to a 10% level of uncertainty, and if I remember right you just called this HOGWASH!

You should really read the total report rather than just scanning it looking for things that support you personal ideas. Remember this report is a consensus of the scientists that put it together, and when it comes to “Certainty” they are really not all that certain.

Oh and while you’re at it, you should also read the rules about posting on this site. I find your comments very rude.

__________________

No, you are totally misrepresenting the meaning.
The "very likely" clearly applies only to whether the rate of increase is "unprecedented in more than 10,000 years".

http://scienceblogs.com/illconsidere...-even-sure.php

You are the one who is being rude. You have lied about Dr Hathaway's views and you have lied about what the IPCC say.

If you think my posts are inappropriate, you should inform a moderator rather than whining about it on the thread, as you would know if you had read the rules yourself.

I did that with the IPCC definition of “Very Likely”; 10 years, 100 years or 10 million years doesn’t change the fact their definition of uncertainty is about 10%. If it was higher they would have used either "virtually certain >99%"; or "extremely likely >95%" and they didn’t do that.

The thing to remember is there was uncertainty in what they said and there was my uncertainty in my statement. I am a retired statistician, I know there is no such thing as 100% certainty; therefore I used the word "if" in was I said.


As far as Hathaways statement; I read an interview on EarthFiles and posted a link here:
When I posted the link there was no charge to read the article. Unfortunately a person needs to subscribe to read archived articles and if you click on the link you will see it is now archived.

Like I said in the post, I was surprised he made a comment about cooling. The reason being: the lack of data to tie an extended minimum to cooling. I believe it does, he said he thought it would cool; but the data is pretty weak. I think a person’s belief comes from how they believe the sun or more specific how the solar dynamo works. And nobody knows.

You made a comment to William about all the scientists on the NASA Ulysses conference were not willing to comment on future weather predictions and that was true. The reason I think is because they are all solar scientists and they shouldn’t be talking about weather predictions. I commend all of them for not saying anything. The reason is they would only be giving you their personal beliefs and that was not what the conference about.

__________________

As I have already demonstrated, the report did not, as you claimed, express any uncertainty about the fact that there is a climate forcing from CO2.

And as I showed, your claim that he was predicting cooling was absolutely false.

Here it is again:
I have also posted a link to the opinion of an expert in climate science who also says it would not cause cooling even if your ATM idea was correct and we did go into an extended minimum.

No it is not.
http://www.earthfiles.com/news.php?I...tegory=Science

No he did not, as I have demonstrated.

dmr81,

Incredible! Simply Incredible...

__________________

Orionjim, I'm with you. A 10 percent uncertainty is better odds than you'll get in Vegas on many games. I also agree that Dsrm81's arguments are rudely presented. Some folks just cant maintain objective reasoning in the face of conflicting information.

__________________
"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

The Solar specialist Livingston is still gathering sunspot magnetic field data for his paper. (See link below for a copy of his paper.)

The magnetic field strength of the September, 2008 very, short lived sunspot 'specks' are following the trend line of his graph.

This again is a copy of the graph from Livingston and Penn's paper.



Solar cycle #24

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2..._blankyear.htm

Hello'
I've been reading about this for the last month or so. I've been on the fence on the global warming theory, but after a summer of rain wetter than the average winter, I was beginning to wonder. Now we have had snow before Halloween. I'm in Ireland and am 51 years old, I've never seen that before. Hard frost ok, particularly 20+ years ago. Is this far too early, or could the extra cloud cover theory be having an effect?

You can't tell anything about global climate change from short term local weather. And there's no mystery about the cause of this weather...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/oct/28/weather