may have started yesterday

http://www.sec.noaa.gov/forecast.html

Also a nifty -real time updated- site:

http://www.solarcycle24.com

__________________
Quid est ergo tempus.
Augustinus

And how about the predictions of the start of cycle 24?

http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/SolarCycle/...ssRelease.html

But now:

http://www.spaceandscience.net/

Certainly interesting times ahead.

__________________
Quid est ergo tempus.
Augustinus

The following is some data that provides a historical comparison of 20th century solar activity to past solar activity.

This paper by Usoskin et al. provides an 11 kyr record of solar activity. See figure 3, which is a graph that shows inferred solar activity for the last 11 kyr.

Grand minima and maxima of solar activity: new observational constraints
http://cc.oulu.fi/~usoskin/personal/aa7704-07.pdf

As noted by Usoskin, the solar magnetic activity in the 20th century was the highest in 8,000 years in terms of maximum reached in each cycle and highest in terms of the number of high magnitude cycles. It was also noted that the solar large scale magnetic field increased by 2.3 times in the 20th century, as compared to the 19th century.

Unusual activity of the Sun during recent decades compared to the previous 11,000 years
http://cc.oulu.fi/~usoskin/personal/nature02995.pdf

This link shows the number of magnetic storms at the end of solar cycle significantly increased in the 20th century, as compared to the 19th century. (See figure 12.)

http://www.geomag.bgs.ac.uk/earthmag.html#_Toc2075558

Based a simple comparison of past solar activity, it would be expected that there would be a saw tooth return from the 20th century grand maximum solar activity to historic normal solar activity.

There are a couple of papers that predict a move to a solar minimum for solar cycle 24; One prediction based on historical solar activity and the second based on a solar model. In the past, however, it looks as if there was a reduced cycle before the solar minimum.

Japan’s Hinode solar observing spacecraft has discovered that the sun is emitting as many as 240 small x-ray flares per day. Based on mass calculations these small flares are estimated to contribute as much as 10% to 25% of the solar wind. They appear at all latitudes and have roughly 1000 times less energy than an m class normal x-ray flare.

This discovery has announced Dec. 6, 2007. Perhaps there will be a paper written to discuss the implications of this discovery.

See this link for details.

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

See these links to see a movie image of the flares.

Three jets in low resolution

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2.../threejets.mov

Many jets in low resolution

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2...HDV720_sm.mov;

These miniature solar x-ray flares had been missed before, as they are short term events. The Hinode solar observing spacecraft includes instrumentation that can record x-ray events.

Who is SSRC, cited in the second post? They sound a bit like one of those single-issue think tanks, whose leader, Mr. Casey, does not have the qualifications you might expect: http://www.spaceandscience.net/id1.html

They seem to be pushing a theory that all climate change is due to sun cycles. I'll start a separate thread on them in General Science.

Moderator note: This post was moved from Who is SSRC? And what is Relational Cycle Theory?

Before we discuss further let me remind you that it's job of the laywer to proof his client innocent, not to identify the real offender. If he has done both, but the other suspect turns out to be innoncent too that still means that his client remains innocent.

The Popperian sciencific philosophy works that way. You can proof a theory false but you cannot proof a theory to be true. Consider the 2.5-4.5 degrees of IPCC for 2xCO2 falsified. That doesn't change whether or not Svensmark is right. For instance, we also see it happen right now that both the ENSO (El Nina Southern Oscilation) and the North Atlantic Oscillation have a distinct impact on climate.

Anyway, conversion of incoming radiation energy to temperature is basically ruled by the Stefan Boltzman law for Black bodies.

E=sigma*T⁴

Eath however is more grey body, reflecting part of the energy depending on the reflectivity or "albedo" (A), so perhaps take note of the link to see that the basic energy to temperature conversion is governed by (step 4):

T_e=fourth root of (S*(1-A)/4*sigma))

So variation in albedo (i.g. more or less clouds) is also a considerable factor for the global temperature. Now let's look at Pallé et al 2006, who wonder if Earth temperature and albedo can increase together.

So look at fig 2, the reconstruction of Earth's albedo from cloud cover compared with the Earth shine on the dark side of the moon. We see a steady decrease of albedo to from 1985 to 1998 and then a slight increase again. That last trend trend seems puzzling to them, according to the question in the title. But they did not realize that the Earth temperature also stopped rising in 1998 and if they had bothered to correlate the albedo graph with some global temperature graph they could have got the uploaded graph to see instead that the temperature correlate nicely with the albedo (r2 = 57.5%).

Now if you put the 10% albedo (around a basic 0.3) variation of that period in that Stefan Bolzman derative, you will see that this results in a basic temperature variation of ~2.7 degrees while the actual fluctuation was more like 0.6 degrees. It's likely the light absorption of the ocean, that has acted as the negative feedback here but that also resulted in the infamous ocean warming.

So we just showed that the temperature - albedo - solar energy variation nicely correlate with it's governing Stefan Boltzman law and that the ocean seem to act as a valuable feedback to moderate the variation effects. That doesn't mean that we understand why the albedo has fluctuated that much but it also shows that we do not need any greenhouse gas to explain what has happened in the last few decades.

Attached Images

albedo-temp.GIF (19.0 KB, 15 views)

__________________
Quid est ergo tempus.
Augustinus

There is evidence in the paleoclimatic record that significant climatic climate changes have occurred at the same times as solar magnetic field changes. (The solar magnetic field changes affect the amount of isotopes produced in the earth’s atmosphere. The high amount of these isotopes provides a tracer to identify the solar changes.)

The paper “The role of solar forcing upon climate change” by Van Geel, linked below provides a summary.

The last significant solar/climatic event occurred 1400 years ago. There is some evidence of a 1470 year and 2400 year strong cycle in solar magnetic field. There is also some evidence of a 180 year cycle. Some of the weak cycle solar predictions for cycle 24/25 are based on the isotopic data.

I became interested in solar physics and solar mechanisms which could modulate climate after reading Mayewski’s Ice Chronicles which summaries the evidence for abrupt climate change from an analysis of the Greenland Ice core data.

I am not aware of any single mainstream theory as to why the solar magnetic field would be cyclically varying. There are, however, some interesting speculative papers and recent solar data.

http://www.gg.rhbnc.ac.uk/elias/teaching/VanGeel.pdf

Comment:
When the paleoclimatic data was discovered that showed evidence of cyclic abrupt climate changes, cyclic changes in ocean currents were hypothesized to cause the changes. Recent paleo data, however, shows the climatic changes occurred simultaneously in both hemispheres which supports a planetary modulating mechanism such as solar modulation of clouds, rather than ocean current changes which primarily affect a single region.

Hello William,
I just read Van Geel’s paper and found it very interesting. His approach of looking for a method of amplification of solar irradiance seems to me to be right on target.

You mentioned in your post the solar magnetic field changes related to the amount of isotopes produced in the earth’s atmosphere and their connection to a 1470 and 2400 year cycle and I’m not sure I understand since the sun goes through a magnetic pole flip every 11 years or so. The 11 year flip would just be noise in any long term data.

Is someone suggesting another source of magnetic field variations? I saw in Van Geel’s paper where the 2400 year cycle was “believed” to be of heliomagnetic origin and I have not read Mayewski’s Ice Chronicles. If there were paleorecords that show long term changes in the suns magnetic field would be very interesting; especially if they were tied to climate change.

Jim

__________________
When you don't know that you don't know, it's a lot different than when you do know that you don't know.
He knows now that he doesn't know. Last year, he didn't know that.
--Bill Parcells

There are a number of paleoclimatic papers that note there is a correlation with C14 and other cosmogenic isotopes changes and abrupt climatic change. For example Gerald Bond’s, "Persistent Solar Influence on North Atlantic Climate During the Holocene."

http://www.essc.psu.edu/essc_web/sem...0al%202001.pdf

Another example is this paper which discusses the cause of the 11,200 year ago abrupt climatic change (The 11,200 year ago climate change is called the Younger Dryas. Named after a tundra flower, "Younger Dryas" that suddenly appears in the Northern Hemisphere in regions that are currently covered by forests). The YD climatic event interrupted the current Holocene interglacial returning the planet back to the glacial phase. The Greenland Ice sheet data shows the YD change occurred in less than a decade.

“Reduced solar activity as a trigger for the start of the Younger Dryas?”

http://www.geo.vu.nl/~renh/pdf/Renssen-etal-QI-2000.pdf

From the paper:

As to what could possibly be causing a semi periodic solar magnetic field change, a number of papers have been written concerning an observed correlation of solar inertial motion and the solar magnetic changes.

For example:

Prolonged minima and the 179-yr cycle of the solar inertial motion by R.Fairbridge and J. Shirley

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


This paper, “Can origin of the 2400-year cycle of solar activity be caused by solar inertial motion?” provides a full explanation of the solar mechanisms and a summary of previous papers concerning solar inertial motion and solar magnetic cycle changes.


http://www.ann-geophys.net/20/115/20...0-115-2002.pdf

Thanks for the information William. It’s going to take me some time to go through it all, but at a quick glance it looks very interesting. I’m sure I’ll have some questions. Again, thank you very much.

Jim

__________________
When you don't know that you don't know, it's a lot different than when you do know that you don't know.
He knows now that he doesn't know. Last year, he didn't know that.
--Bill Parcells

I'm sorry, so in a nutshell, what does this mean?

Solar Cycle 24 is going to be a Solar Minimum?

Ahh confusion, sorry, i do not understand these Astronomy jargon. =\

There are conflicting predictions as to whether solar cycle 24 will be high or low. I believe there is agreement that cycle 25 will be very low based on the current solar magnetic field model. The following is a summary of this issue.

The NASA solar cycle prediction panel was split: Half of the panel predicted solar cycle 24 will be a high cycle and the other half predicted a low cycle. The NASA solar panel’s predictions are based on solar models that use recent (last 30 years) solar observations, not long term solar behaviour (last 15000 years), to make their predictions.

Based on the long term historical solar cycle record, there is a rump cycle before a Maunder like minimum. Based on analysis of the long term solar activity proxy data there was a prediction that cycle 23 should be a low cycle. It was not, however, there is now observational evidence of a step change in the solar cycle.

The following is more information concerning current solar observations, other researcher’s predictions, and past solar behaviour.

Observation:
This press release in May 2006 was issued to note an observed step change in the solar conveyor speed. The timing of this change coincides with the prediction of the solar inertial hypothesis. (There is a 180 year cycle in the solar barycentre motion. Those researchers who support the solar inertial hypothesis believe that specific solar barycentre motional changes, triggers a change in the solar cycle.)

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

Based on the current theory for the solar magnetic field a slowing of the solar conveyor in 2006 should result in a very low cycle for cycle 25.

Proxy Data:
Based on an examination of proxy data that is used to determine solar activity levels, this paper predicts cycle 24 should be low. A solar cycle prediction based solely on an analysis of proxy data, is some what suspect, however, as there is no mechanism, to explain why there would be semi-periodic changes to the solar magnetic field. The solar inertial hypothesis might be the missing mechanism to explain what could be causing the solar magnetic field changes, in the proxy long term record.

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

Just a general comment. There is a lot of "fringe physics" in this thread, by which I mean speculative theories that are taken seriously enough to appear in real journals, but not seriously enough to stimulate a lot of attention in mainstream climatology. In my view, that lack of attention stems from a fundamental logical disconnect in the argument: much of the physical explanations (which are always hard to come by when complex systems are involved) presented in this thread attempt to take a tiny variation in some forcing parameter, say solar activity, and cook up some way that it could have a large impact on Earth's climate. This is done to try and assert why something as insignificant as the solar magnetic cycle could have enough of an impact on Earth to explain climate periodicities. I find three red flags in the above arguments, though none make them necessarily (just probably) wrong:

1) If the Earth's climate is so sensitive to insignificant solar drivers, why is it not also oversensitive to any number of other potential drivers, like human CO2 emissions? In other words, if the driving impetus behind many of these climate-change apologetics is that "it's all the Sun, even though the Sun isn't really doing anything dramatic, so we don't need to worry about human influences", then it is rather illogical to argue on the basis of climate super-sensitivity that human intervention is not important. Super-sensitivity in general would tend to make rising CO2 levels a worse problem-- so what is so special about the solar magnetic cycle that the climate is supersensitive to that driver, but insensitive to all the other potential drivers they ignore? That is the big flaw in all this.

2) It gives me the general sensation of mistaking correlation for causation. This is nothing new-- we see it all the time, whenever analysts feel they need to boil down to pleasantries the stock market, the voting results, or any number of vastly complex systems that we would like to believe we understand but we really don't. This doesn't mean past periodicities will not repeat in the future, nor does it mean they will-- it only means the efforts to explain stochastic or quasi-periodic variations are generally pretty dubious. It is much easier to try and explain a consistent and continuous change in the presence of a consistent and continuous driver, as the argument only gets clearer and clearer with time.

3) Dubious explanations, when they emanate from questionable sources, are even less reliable. The questionable nature of the so-called "SSRC" was explored on another thread, so here I'll just note that the spaceandscience.net citation above, which claims that the SSRC has an "innovative theory" that makes an "important prediction", is from the website of the SSRC! Surprise, surprise, those are self-characterizations, they couldn't even find someone else to say that. That's like a movie review being written by the movie's own director ("the innovative directorial style had me riveted to my seat..." etc. etc.). It is also interesting to note that the website includes a photo of a shiny glass building that is claimed to be a photo of the "SSRC location", but in fact the "SSRC location" is just one suite in that building-- a building with two corporate labels that (coincidentally) cannot be read in the photograph. Hard to take any argument seriously under these kinds of conditions.

Hello Ken G. in reply to your comment.

Are you interested in solar atmosphere physics or paleoclimatology?

1) How could solar magnetic field changes affect planetary temperature?

The solar magnetic field changes are hypothesized to affect planetary temperature by modulating planetary cloud. (More clouds, cooler planet and less clouds, warmer planet.) Satellite observations by Palle and observation of changes of the earth’s albedo by observing earthshine reflected off of the moon also by Palle, supports the hypothesis.

There are two mechanisms in which solar magnetic field changes could modulate planetary cloud cover.

The effect of cloud modulation is greatest over the oceans where there is less dust to form clouds and there is a shortage of cloud forming ions. (Rain removes the ions, so they must be replenished.) As the oceans act as a heat sink and the area of ocean cloud cover is large, a long term change in low level clouds over the ocean has a significant effect on planetary temperature.

The following are the two cloud modulating mechanisms:
1) "Electroscavenging" which is the name for the mechanism where sudden solar wind bursts are hypothesized to increase currents in the ionosphere which remove cloud forming ions.

2) Modulation of Galactic Cosmic Rays (GCR) by changes in the solar heliosphere. Svensmark has done some detailed research in this area. The high speed GCR (mostly protons) strike the earth’s upper atmosphere and create muons. The muons travel on to lower regions of the atmosphere where they create cloud forming ions. (More GCR more clouds and less GCR less clouds.)

This is Palle’s satellite paper.

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

http://www.arm.ac.uk/preprints/433.pdf


In addition to relatively short term modulation of Galactic Cosmic Rays due to changes in the solar heliosphere, there are astronomical reasons for long term changes in GCR magnitude.

The Israel physicist Shaviv has shown that the magnitude of GCR changes depending on the position of the solar system in the Milky Way. When the solar system passes through the galactic arms there is an increase in GCR. Shaviv has presented data that shows there is an increase in GCR (the increase in GCR causes isotope changes in asteroid fragments. Shaviv studied meteoroids. See paper below for details.) and that the periods of increased GCR, correlate with ice epochs, including the current ice epoch.

“Celestial driver of Phanerozoic climate?’ By Nirva Shaviv & Ján Veizer

http://www.phys.huji.ac.il/~shaviv/I...s/GSAToday.pdf

In response to your question: What is the relative magnitude of solar and GCR cloud modulation Vs other climate forcing functions, the following paper also by Shaviv estimates the different forcing function.

“On climate response to changes in the cosmic ray flux and radiative budget” by Nirva Shaviv.

http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/physics/pd.../0409123v1.pdf

This paper by Shiva provides an explanation for the early faint sun paradox.

Towards a Solution to the Early Faint Sun Paradox: A Lower Cosmic Ray Flux from a stronger Solar Wind

http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/astro-ph/p.../0306477v2.pdf

But this is just my point. I do not say there's no way the Sun can affect the Earth, I say that any mechanism coming from the Sun that the Earth is highly sensitive to will also generate similar mechanisms that the Earth is sensitive to from sources other than the Sun! Are solar magnetic fields the only things that can "modulate planetary cloud?" How about the hundred other mechanisms that can do that, where is the evidence that the minimal solar effects should be more important? I don't say they cannot, I say the arguments are leaving out this rather crucial piece. It is never enough to "brainstorm" ways that some particular process might conceivably matter, the issue is to make an argument that it is the dominant factor. To do that, one cannot simply say "the Sun could do it if I adopt the following assumptions", you maust also say "these same assumptions do not lead to any number of other things having that same, or greater, effect". A good argument needs that, badly.
Again, that is correlation in search of causation. The above challenge is still unmet-- if I can find a dozen other things that also correlate with clouding, including the stock market, why should I think it's the Sun that's doing it?
"Could", so what? I'm not saying it's impossible, I'm asking why I should think that's the dominant mechanism.
Sounds like complete hooey. But easy enough to test-- we do have satellites that will know when there are solar wind bursts-- so why is the data used more often indirect things like solar activity measures? When indirect data shows better correlations than direct data, it's a red flag, to say the least.
Again, we measure cosmic ray fluxes! The only way to establish this mechanism that would make any sense is the direct correlation, not the use of solar activity data.
Even the title shows the paper is not attempting to explain anything, so interpreting it that way is inappropriate. It is merely assessing plausibility, so it is just the first 1% or so of a real argument.

No problem there.
Oops, back to correlation in search of causation. 99% more to go to get a real argument here as well.


Well, one person believes it. That should count for something.
And there are 100 ways to extinct the dinosaurs too. So what? This is so far from a real argument that we should base our global warming strategies on, it's not even funny.