Chance of a new Maunder Minimum/cooling

[justmeanu]

HI Guys, Just a little info please for a dummy. The one thing that worries me is mega solar flare. I have little faith in my politicians making a decision to isolate the transmission lines in this event, so I will have to islolate myself from it. Question, in the event of mega flare how much time do I have? I am hoping about 3 days but not sure. Thanks in advance.

[icefisher]

Ah the good ole days Except for projects like trbixler's exquisite Scout however, I would not trade today's vehicles for those made in the 60's and 70's. The only thing I miss is the simplicity.

Simplicity can be nice. . . .those are the days you could keep a car going with a few basic tools and a few simple patch aids. . . .today if you try it the car most likely will at most make a few more miles before expiring from more serious problems.

[trbixler]

Jan 6, 2012 0:28:30 GMT icefisher said:

Ah the good ole days Except for projects like trbixler's exquisite Scout however, I would not trade today's vehicles for those made in the 60's and 70's. The only thing I miss is the simplicity.

Simplicity can be nice. . . .those are the days you could keep a car going with a few basic tools and a few simple patch aids. . . .today if you try it the car most likely will at most make a few more miles before expiring from more serious problems.

I put in a 1991 Jeep 4.0L motor (superior head flow casting) which was a direct bolt up replacement for the original AMC 258. With the exception of the machine work on the block my wife and I did the mechanicals. I specifically went with a Weber as opposed to the FI so that I could work on it. I am a computer guy but having a box doing the fuel mix was not something I was willing to take on. I get 20mpg on the road with a 4x4 aerodynamic brick and I can service it myself.
Back on topic?
If it does get colder and more snow the Scout will serve me well.

[trbixler]

Maybe I will need Scout.

From comments

"Solar cycle update: sunspots down, Ap index way down"





wattsupwiththat.com/2012/01/04/solar-cycle-update-sunspots-down-ap-index-way-down/#more-54231

[trbixler]

Some interesting charts



The shape of the emission regions also suggests that Solar Cycle 24 will be quite extended. The blue bounding line from the Solar Cycle 23 maximum intersects 10° latitude in 2026, making Solar Cycle 24 eighteen years long.



It seems that the first solar cycle of the Maunder Minimum was also eighteen years long.

An eighteen year long Solar Cycle 24 would be very significant in that it would be five and a half years longer that Solar Cycle 23. With the solar cycle length/temperature relationship for the US-Canadian border being 0.7°C for each year of solar cycle length, a further cooling of 3.8°C is in train for next decade. The evolution of Altrock’s green corona emissions diagramme as a predictive tool will be followed with some interest.

wattsupwiththat.com/2012/01/08/solar-cycle-24-length-and-its-consequences/#more-54426

[magellan]

Jan 9, 2012 1:37:18 GMT trbixler said:

Some interesting charts



The shape of the emission regions also suggests that Solar Cycle 24 will be quite extended. The blue bounding line from the Solar Cycle 23 maximum intersects 10° latitude in 2026, making Solar Cycle 24 eighteen years long.



It seems that the first solar cycle of the Maunder Minimum was also eighteen years long.

An eighteen year long Solar Cycle 24 would be very significant in that it would be five and a half years longer that Solar Cycle 23. With the solar cycle length/temperature relationship for the US-Canadian border being 0.7°C for each year of solar cycle length, a further cooling of 3.8°C is in train for next decade. The evolution of Altrock’s green corona emissions diagramme as a predictive tool will be followed with some interest.

wattsupwiththat.com/2012/01/08/solar-cycle-24-length-and-its-consequences/#more-54426

That's interesting trbixler, but I've had it up to my eyeballs with predictions, both warming and cooling. Archibald pulled a real boner in 2009, and since then I take his stuff with a grain of salt.

Tsonis' 'Synchronized Chaos' makes more sense than anything I've read thus far, so basically until the ocean indices are in sync for cooling, using solar cycles alone doesn't jive with me. However, I do think they are all connected and if predictions of low solar activity (which includes length and amplitude of its indices, not just TSI) come true and the various ocean indices move into position, I'll be more inclined to buy into major cooling in the coming 10+ years.

A major climate shift took place in 1976, aka 'The Great Pacific Climate Shift'. It stayed pretty much elevated until 2009 and now appears to be diving back down. That to me is evidence we may be seeing 'synchronized chaos' in process. The AMO looks to be the last piece of the puzzle to move negative and based on the last few years has or will peak and begin its descent to the cool phase.

Only hardcore AGW zealots try to tease out "unabated" warming of the previous 10 years. There is no way one can look at the data honestly and come away claiming warming hasn't at least slowed. The same ones defending HadCRUT 5 years ago are now abandoning it in favor of Hansen's make-believe phony nonsense.

It is still funny seeing Climascientologists explain away the missing hotspot and stratospheric "cooling"

Look at the U.S. How can any honest person who knows what was predicted for the past 20 years by Hansen et al defend those predictions? It's enough to make one squint with tears of laughter.

We'll just have to endure a few more years before we know where things are heading with reasonable certainty, unless of course Ben Santer extends his arbitrary requirement of 17 years to 20.

[sigurdur]

magellan:
There will be a corrected paper by Ben in a few years.....you can count on that.

Too much was made of models by folks who didn't actually read the literature and understand their shortcomings.

I think the majority of climate scientists understand this, it is the press that has had a field day exaggerating things. Their business is to sell papers...and ya got to have something to fill the pages with.

[trbixler]

sig
I agree with you. It has been interesting that there has been no significant warming in the last 10 years or so. I will note that the oceans have not warmed and if the AMO goes negative it will be a further indication that CO2 is not in charge. I think Archibald is more concerned about the empty effort, stolen money (misused tax dollars) and regulations that have poured from the cup of AGW. He seems genuinely concerned about crop production and making sure that there is an accurate temperature record available. I personally think that Svensmark is more on the proper track. GCRs are not part of the TSI.

[icefisher]

I personally think that Svensmark is more on the proper track. GCRs are not part of the TSI.

I am sort of in the category of "all of the above". The greenhouse effect explains primarily why we are warmer, though they have misapplied a zero to common atmospheric gases where a zero is inappropriate due to proportions of gases in the atmosphere (it would be a practical zero of gases in the atmosphere were evenly proportioned). This is the classic "mil" fraud seen frequently in the financial world. (mil being tenths of a cent in this case). It can be a huge fraud by repeating it millions of times. . . .you don't even need a super computer to get that to add up! . . . .only when you are after trillions!

People keep talking about completely 100% transparent atmospheres as if there was any such thing. IMHO, beyond being a mental construct it has no more existence in the world than the concept of the Present King of France.

After that variation is probably accomplished through several natural variations. GCRs, TSI, magnetism, aerosols, gravity (if different from magnetism), greenhouse gas concentrations and who knows what else. Big variation is probably when everybody on board chaotically rushes to one rail! It may well have a constantly changing harmonic leaving patterns in its wake but patterns that have slow changes to the pattern.

And of course people, myself included, lack patience for this kind of stuff to play out. I have to keep disciplining myself to be patient and not jump to conclusions. . . .not always successfully.

p.s. love those old exploring vehicles. The wife and I have many thousands of miles of unpaved road and track exploring in all the western mountain ranges, coastal ranges, and Baja. I have had 4wheelers and an old Dodge 2 wheel that virtually went everywhere. I couldn't count all the times I was getting pulled out or was pulling somebody else out. . . .that, my wife, and being on the water has been the passions of my life.

[trbixler]

More interesting thoughts. Hope Archibald is wrong.

"Ap Index, Neutrons and Climate"




"If Solar Cycle 24 is progressing at 60% of the rate of the previous two cycles, which averaged ten years long, then it is likely to be 16.6 years long. Using that figure of 16.6 years would make Solar Cycle 24 seven years longer than Solar Cycle 22. Using a solar cycle length – temperature relationship for the US – Canadian border of 0.7°C per year of solar cycle length, a total temperature decline of 4.9°C is predicted over a period of about twenty years."

Here is a graph that is interesting.



wattsupwiththat.com/2012/01/21/ap-index-neutrons-and-climate/#more-55165

[trbixler]

wattsupwiththat.com/2012/01/25/first-estimate-of-solar-cycle-25-amplitudesmallest-in-over-300-years/#more-55458

[william]

There are cycles of warming and cooling the paleorecord. See this link, tab big picture, figure 3.

www.climate4you.com/images/GISP2%20TemperatureSince10700%20BP%20with%20CO2%20from%20EPICA%20DomeC.gif

www.climate4you.com/

Fig.3. The upper panel shows the air temperature at the summit of the Greenland Ice Sheet, reconstructed by Alley (2000) from GISP2 ice core data. The time scale shows years before modern time, which is shown at the right hand side of the diagram. The rapid temperature rise to the left indicate the final part of the even more pronounced temperature increase following the last ice age. The temperature scale at the right hand side of the upper panel suggests a very approximate comparison with the global average temperature (see comment below). The GISP2 record ends around 1855, and the red dotted line indicate the approximate temperature increase since then. The small reddish bar in the lower right indicate the extension of the longest global temperature record (since 1850), based on meteorological observations (HadCRUT3). The lower panel shows the past atmospheric CO2 content, as found from the EPICA Dome C Ice Core in the Antarctic (Monnin et al. 2004). The Dome C atmospheric CO2 record ends in the year 1777.

There are a number of unanswered questions concerning the mechanisms.

Why is there a delay of 12 years from the start of the Grand minimum and planetary cooling?

Why is there significant cooling at high latitudes?

Why is the geomagnetic field changing at the same time there are abrupt changes to solar magnetic cycle?

High GCR levels have been shown to increase planetary cloud cover for the latitudes 40 to 60 degrees.

The affect is greatest at the latitude 40 to 60 degrees due to geomagnetic field. The geomagnetic field has been shown to abruptly cyclically (some how connected with the solar cycle) abruptly change tilt by 10 to 15 degrees every 400 years. (called archeomagnetic jerks as they were found by studying fired sundials and tiles which capture the orientation and strength of the geomagnetic field when the fired components cool) The change in the tilt of the geomagnetic field changes which latitudes the increase in GCR creates clouds at thereby amplifying the mechanism.

The strength of the geomagnetic field also affects the strength of GCR cloud forcing. Roughly 30% of the time the geomagnetic field intensity drops by a factor of the 3 to 5. (These abrupt drops in the geomagnetic field are called geomagnetic excursions at which time there are multiple weak poles formed in the geomagnetic field. i.e. the field becomes non-dipole.) The geomagnetic excursions correlate with the Heinrich abrupt climate change events and also correlate with a solar cycle change. The last Heinrich event was the Younger Dryas abrupt cooling event which occurred 12800 years ago.

The geomagnetic excursions also correlate with the abrupt termination of past interglacial periods.

There is a second mechanism by which solar cycle changes modulate planetary climate. Solar wind bursts have been shown to create a space charge differential in the ionosphere which in turn removes cloud forming ions by a mechanism that is called electroscavenging. It is the second mechanism (there was an increase in solar wind bursts during the end of solar cycle 22 and 23) that appears to have caused a significant portion of the late 20th century warming.

There is a third mechanism by which GCR is hypothesized to modulate planetary temperature. High levels of GCR created ions are hypothesized to reduce the life time and formation of cirrus clouds. The wispy high altitude cirrus clouds warm the planet by the greenhouse effect.

Paleo climatic data shows cycles of warming and cooling in the Arctic. Perhaps modulation of cirrus clouds is the mechanism that is causing the cyclic climate change.

A reduction in cirrus clouds would have the greatest affect in the winter when there is a continuous net loss of heat to space.

www.climate4you.com/images/GISP2%20TemperatureSince10700%20BP%20with%20CO2%20from%20EPICA%20DomeC.gif



arxiv.org/abs/1112.3256

Solar activity and Svalbard temperatures
The long temperature series at Svalbard (Longyearbyen) show large variations, and a positive trend since its start in 1912. During this period solar activity has increased, as indicated by shorter solar cycles. The temperature at Svalbard is negatively correlated with the length of the solar cycle. The strongest negative correlation is found with lags 10-12 years.

The relations between the length of a solar cycle and the mean temperature in the following cycle, is used to model Svalbard annual mean temperature, and seasonal temperature variations. Residuals from the annual and winter models show no autocorrelations on the 5 per cent level, which indicates that no additional parameters are needed to explain the temperature variations with 95 per cent significance. These models show that 60 per cent of the annual and winter temperature variations are explained by solar activity. For the spring, summer and fall temperatures autocorrelations in the residuals exists, and additional variables may contribute to the variations.

These models can be applied as forecasting models. We predict an annual mean temperature decrease for Svalbard of 3.5\pm2 oC from solar cycle 23 to solar cycle 24 (2009-20) and a decrease in the winter temperature of \approx6 oC.

[william]

The following is my attempt to explain what is observed.

There are cycles of warming and cooling in the paleorecord. See this link, tab big picture, figure 3.

www.climate4you.com/images/GISP2%20TemperatureSince10700%20BP%20with%20CO2%20from%20EPICA%20DomeC.gif

www.climate4you.com/

Fig.3. The upper panel shows the air temperature at the summit of the Greenland Ice Sheet, reconstructed by Alley (2000) from GISP2 ice core data. The time scale shows years before modern time, which is shown at the right hand side of the diagram. The rapid temperature rise to the left indicate the final part of the even more pronounced temperature increase following the last ice age. The temperature scale at the right hand side of the upper panel suggests a very approximate comparison with the global average temperature (see comment below). The GISP2 record ends around 1855, and the red dotted line indicate the approximate temperature increase since then. The small reddish bar in the lower right indicate the extension of the longest global temperature record (since 1850), based on meteorological observations (HadCRUT3). The lower panel shows the past atmospheric CO2 content, as found from the EPICA Dome C Ice Core in the Antarctic (Monnin et al. 2004). The Dome C atmospheric CO2 record ends in the year 1777.

There are a number of unanswered questions concerning the mechanisms.

Why is there a delay of 12 years from the start of the Grand minimum and planetary cooling?

It appears solar wind burst are the explanation of the cyclic warming. (See link climate4you above which is a link to Richard Alley’s Greenland Ice Sheet paper that shows there is evidence of cyclic warming and cooling record in the Greenland ice sheet core data analysis.

This is the asserted mechanism why there was late 20th century warming and previous cyclic warming. Note solar wind bursts are continuing to remove ions from the atmosphere which hides the increase in GCR due to the weakest solar heliosphere since space age measurements have been taken.

The abrupt cooling will begin when the solar wind bursts end. I would expect that will be sometime in 2012.

www.utdallas.edu/physics/pdf/Atmos_060302.pdf

The current flow in the global electric circuit is generated mainly by charge separation in deep convective clouds in the tropics, and maintains the global ionosphere at a potential of about 250 kV. Variations above and below this value occur in the high latitude regions due to solar wind - magnetosphere - ionosphere coupling processes. The current density Jz varies horizontally due to variations in the local vertical column resistance (this is affected by the GCR and MeV electron fluxes) and by variations in the local ionospheric potential (especially to those in the high latitude regions). Because Jz flowing through clouds in the troposphere responds to conductivity and potential changes occurring all the way up to 120 km altitude, it is a very effective coupling agent for linking inputs in the stratosphere and ionosphere with cloud levels.

Strong conductivity gradients covering a significant horizontal extent are found for example, at the upper and lower boundaries of stratus, stratocumulus, and cirrus clouds, stratified dust and aerosol layers, and at the top of the mixing layer [Sagalyn and Burke, 1985]. The space charge density variations, along with the ion production variations, are modulated by solar activity influencing the space particle fluxes on the day-to-day and decadal timescales with relative amplitude 3-20%, as discussed below. The amplitude variations increase to a factor of two or more on the century timescale. They are ubiquitous throughout the troposphere, with greater amplitude at high latitudes. They constitute the solar forcing agent with the largest relative amplitude of any that might affect climate.

www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2009/2009JA014342.shtml

If the Sun is so quiet, why is the Earth ringing? A comparison of two solar minimum intervals.

Observations from the recent Whole Heliosphere Interval (WHI) solar minimum campaign are compared to last cycle's Whole Sun Month (WSM) to demonstrate that sunspot numbers, while providing a good measure of solar activity, do not provide sufficient information to gauge solar and heliospheric magnetic complexity and its effect at the Earth. The present solar minimum is exceptionally quiet, with sunspot numbers at their lowest in 75 years and solar wind magnetic field strength lower than ever observed. Despite, or perhaps because of, a global weakness in the heliospheric magnetic field, large near-equatorial coronal holes lingered even as the sunspots disappeared. Consequently, for the months surrounding the WHI campaign, strong, long, and recurring high-speed streams in the solar wind intercepted the Earth in contrast to the weaker and more sporadic streams that occurred around the time of last cycle's WSM campaign.

sait.oat.ts.astro.it/MSAIt760405/PDF/2005MmSAI..76..969G.pdf

Once again about global warming and solar activity K. Georgieva, C. Bianchi, and B. Kirov

We show that the index commonly used for quantifying long-term changes in solar activity, the sunspot number, accounts for only one part of solar activity and using this index leads to the underestimation of the role of solar activity in the global warming in the recent decades. A more suitable index is the geomagnetic activity which reflects all solar activity, and it is highly correlated to global temperature variations in the whole period for which we have data. In Figure 6 the long-term variations in global temperature are compared to the long-term variations in geomagnetic activity as expressed by the ak-index (Nevanlinna and Kataja 2003). The correlation between the two quantities is 0.85 with p<0.01 for the whole period studied.It could therefore be concluded that both the decreasing correlation between sunspot number and geomagnetic activity, and the deviation of the global temperature long-term trend from solar activity as expressed by sunspot index are due to the increased number of high-speed streams of solar wind on the declining phase and in the minimum of sunspot cycle in the last decades.

[trbixler]

"Bicentennial Decrease of the Total Solar Irradiance Leads to Unbalanced Thermal Budget of the Earth"



"Applied Physics Research Vol. 4, No. 1; February 2012

Abstract

Temporal changes in the power of the longwave radiation of the system Earth-atmosphere emitted to space always lag behind changes in the power of absorbed solar radiation due to slow change of its enthalpy. That is why the debit and credit parts of the average annual energy budget of the terrestrial globe with its air and water envelope are practically always in an unbalanced state.

Average annual balance of the thermal budget of the system Earth-atmosphere during long time period will reliably determine the course and value of both an energy excess accumulated by the Earth or the energy deficit in the thermal budget which, with account for data of the TSI forecast, can define and predict well in advance the direction and amplitude of the forthcoming climate changes.

From the early 1990s we observe bicentennial decrease in both the TSI and the portion of its energy absorbed by the Earth. The Earth as a planet will henceforward have negative balance in the energy budget which will result in the temperature drop in approximately 2014. Due to increase of albedo and decrease of the greenhouse gases atmospheric concentration the absorbed portion of solar energy and the influence of the greenhouse effect It will additionally decline. "

For quick calculations

Е = (S+ΔS)/4 – (А+A)(S+ΔS)/4 – εσ(Тр+Тр)4; E=CdTp/dt

icecap.us/index.php/go/joes-blog/bicentennial_decrease_of_the_total_solar_irradiance_leads_to_unbalanced_the/

[icefisher]

Lets just hope its a LITTLE ice age.