The sun went spotless yesterday, the first time in quite awhile. It seems like a good time to present this analysis from my friend David Archibald. For those not familiar with the Dalton Minimum, here’s some background info from Wiki:Posted on 12/20/2010 3:05:33 PM PST by Ernest_at_the_Beach
The sun went spotless yesterday, the first time in quite awhile. It seems like a good time to present this analysis from my friend David Archibald. For those not familiar with the Dalton Minimum, here’s some background info from Wiki:
The Dalton Minimum was a period of low solar activity, named after the English meteorologist John Dalton, lasting from about 1790 to 1830.[1] Like the Maunder Minimum and Spörer Minimum, the Dalton Minimum coincided with a period of lower-than-average global temperatures. The Oberlach Station in Germany, for example, experienced a 2.0°C decline over 20 years.[2] The Year Without a Summer, in 1816, also occurred during the Dalton Minimum. Solar cycles 5 and 6, as shown below, were greatly reduced in amplitude. – Anthony
The Dalton minimum in the 400 year history of sunspot numbers
Guest post by David Archibald
James Marusek emailed me to ask if I could update a particular graph. Now that it is a full two years since the month of solar minimum, this was a good opportunity to update a lot of graphs of solar activity.
Figure 1: Solar Polar Magnetic Field Strength
The Sun’s current low level of activity starts from the low level of solar polar magnetic field strength at the 23/24 minimum. This was half the level at the previous minimum, and Solar Cycle 24 is expected to be just under half the amplitude of Solar Cycle 23.
Figure 2: Heliospheric Current Sheet Tilt Angle
It is said that solar minimum isn’t reached until the heliospheric current sheet tilt angle has flattened. While the month of minimum for the 23/24 transition is considered to be December 2008, the heliospheric current sheet didn’t flatten until June 2009.
Figure 3: Interplanetary Magnetic Field
The Interplanetary Magnetic Field remains very weak. It is almost back to the levels reached in previous solar minima.
Figure 4: Ap Index 1932 – 2010
The Ap Index remains under the levels of previous solar minima.
Figure 5: F10.7 Flux 1948 – 2010
The F10.7 Flux is a more accurate indicator of solar activity than the sunspot number. It remains low.
Figure 6: F10.7 Flux aligned on solar minima
In this figure, the F10.7 flux of the last six solar minima are aligned on the month of minimum, with the two years of decline to the minimum and three years of subsequent rise. The Solar Cycle 24 trajectory is much lower and flatter than the rises of the five previous cycles.
Figure 7: Oulu Neutron Count 1964 – 210
A weaker interplanetary magnetic field means more cosmic rays reach the inner planets of the solar system. The neutron count was higher this minimum than in the previous record. Thanks to the correlation between the F10.7 Flux and the neutron count in Figure 8 following, we now have a target for the Oulu neutron count at Solar Cycle 24 maximum in late 2014 of 6,150.
Figure 8: Oulu Neutron Flux plotted against lagged F10.7 flux
Neutron count tends to peak one year after solar minimum. Figure 8 was created by plotting Oulu neutron count against the F10.7 flux lagged by one year. The relationship demonstrated by this graph indicates that the most likely value for the Oulu neutron count at the Solar Cycle 24 maximum expected to be a F10.7 flux value of 100 in late 2014 will be 6,150.
Figure 9: Solar Cycle 24 compared to Solar Cycle 5
I predicted in a paper published in March 2006 that Solar Cycles 24 and 25 would repeat the experience of the Dalton Minimum. With two years of Solar Cycle 24 data in hand, the trajectory established is repeating the rise of Solar Cycle 5, the first half of the Dalton Minimum. The prediction is confirmed. Like Solar Cycles 5 and 6, Solar Cycle 24 is expected to be 12 years long. Solar maximum will be in late 2014/early 2015.
Figure 10: North America Snow Cover Ex-Greenland
The northern hemisphere is experiencing its fourth consecutive cold winter. The current winter is one of the coldest for a hundred years or more. For cold winters to provide positive feedback, snow cover has to survive from one winter to the next so that snow’s higher albedo relative to bare rock will reflect sunlight into space, causing cooler summers. The month of snow cover minimum is most often August, sometimes July. We have to wait another eight months to find out how this winter went in terms of retained snow cover. The 1970s cooling period had much higher snow cover minima than the last thirty years. Despite the last few cold winters, there was no increase in the snow cover minima. The snow cover minimum may have to get to over two million square kilometres before it starts having a significant effect.
David Archibald
December 2010
fyi
BTTT
BOHICA
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Bill Jamison says:
Well we’re having a cold FALL, winter is yet to be determined! Thanks for the update, I was wondering when we’d see a new “prediction” from NASA updating their incorrect one. So far David Archibald’s predictions have been MUCH more accurate than almost everyone else’s. Pretty impressive so far but the jury is still out and it will be many years before we know for sure that he really nailed it.
We need to begin drillng immediately to get more energy. If it is a Dalton Minimum it is going to get cold.
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vukcevic says:
Dalton minimum winters (according to CETs) were not too bad. There was occasionally colder one, last winter was on par or even worse then those of 1805 -1810.
Detailed seasons CETs 1659-2010 (reference 1950) available here:
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/CET-D.htm
A Brrrrrrr Ping!
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David, UK says:
Robert M says:
December 20, 2010 at 12:46 am
I believe if there is a 2c drop it could be disaster for humanity especially if the warmies and watermelons get what they want and world governments are blindsided by the cold.
I am of the mind that we need to start seeing a significant drop in temperatures for the sake of humanity. For all the damage this would do (crops would suffer, millions would die of starvation and cold-related deaths) it would pale besides the damage our corrupt leaders and the UN would inflict on us. We have already seen deaths from starvation due to tax-subsidised farmers growing biofuel instead of food (pushing food prices through the roof). We have already seen masses of jobs lost as once-free businesses fail to compete with the tax-funded green industry. We have already seen energy bills sky-rocket. We have already seen an entire section of the population – i.e. those who know that scepticism in science is an essential element – stigmatised by our own political representatives as “climate deniers” (Gordon Brown used the term on many occasions during his short, unelected period in office, as does Obama, as do most of the unelected EU, as do most of the unelected UN). We have already seen Government-produced propaganda targeted towards children, designed to scare them and if necessary to turn them against their sceptical parents. This is showing no signs of stopping, despite the complete failure of alarmists to prove their corrupt hypothesis. If anything, the more evidence that mounts against them (i.e. that the recent warming is part of a natural cycle, and is nothing remotely unusual), the more totalitarian they become.
So again, I say bring on the cold.
Worst
movie
ever.
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J.Gommers says:
The prediction is not consistent with the Livingston/Penn forecast. Four years from now the sunspotnumber will be around 10 and cycle 25 will be substantially weaker than cycle 24. Looks much different, more like a Maunder minimum.
But in medio 2011 there will be certainty.
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Bryan Farmer says:
I think one of the things you have to remember is the oceans hold allot of heat and solar cycle 22 & 23 were much higher than were seeing now, it takes time for some of that latent heat to be removed from the oceans. I think it will be the gradual step down over the next 10 or 20 years for the ocean’s to return to temps seen during the Dalton Min. We get to watch the great climate machine work through its natural pace, irrespective of what man’s little influence is to or climate.
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AusieDan says:
Sense Seeker
It’s been raining all over Australia, when it should be summertime dry.
And it’s been cold in Sydney when it should be hot, but there a chill in the air and snow in the hills.
I can’t remember this type of weather since the late 1940′s, which led to an extended period of cooler, wetter conditions, following the long drought of the 1930′s and early 1940′s.
At best, the 60 year cycle has turned and we’re in for 30 years of cooler weather.
At worst, the whole series of cycles is ending and we’re in for a much bleaker time. That will take a few years more before we can see which pattern prevails.
You speak of the influence of CO2.
Once you remove the true influence of UHI from the global indexes you will find no evidence of CO2 heating in the past 150 years of measured temperatures.
Watch and learn – either the temperature is about to accelerate according to the IPCC 4th report, or it is about to decline.
time will tell.
We live in interesting times.
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Frosty says:
vukcevic says:
December 20, 2010 at 1:41 am
Dalton minimum winters (according to CETs) were not too bad.”
I just picked a few examples starting at 1850, from this fascinating document….
A Chronological Listing of Early Weather Events – James A. Marusek
http://www.breadandbutterscience.com/Weather.pdf
1850 A.D. In Ireland in April, there were great floods in County Kerry
1851 A.D. In Ireland, there were great and destructive floods alike in spring and autumn
The summer of 1852 was remarkably hot in Russia, England, Holland, Belgium and France (two farmers died of heat in Netherlands)
1853 A.D. In the United States in 1853, the Mississippi River froze solid enough to walk 200 miles from St Louis, Missouri to La Claire, Iowa – Floods is Wales and Ireland
Winter of 1853 / 1854 A.D. severe France & Germany many rivers frozen, mild in UK.
The winter of 1854-55 was quite severe in southern Russia, in Denmark, England, France, Spain and Italy.
In 1857 there were three distinct periods of summer heat
1860 A.D. In India during the years 1860-61, there was a severe drought in parts of the Punjaub and northwest provinces
In England, the frost of December 1860 and January 1861 were remarkable. Christmas eve was extremely cold. In the valley of the Rea, the temperature dropped to -5.0° to -7.0° F (-20.6° to -21.7° C).70
In Buenos Aires, Argentina, a drought occurred in 1863 and 1864.
Winter of 1863 / 1864 A.D. The meteorological condition in the northern hemisphere during December 1863 and January 1864 were remarkable. A cold polar current flowed southward dramatically dropping temperatures in the middle of the United States (this was confined to a narrow band), and at the same time warm equatorial currents flowed northward over contiguous spaces, and thus restoring the general equilibrium of temperature and of pressure by opposite and parallel streams. At the same time an unbroken sheet of cold air, swept down through Eastern Europe, on the one side, to at least the Sandwich Islands on the other, flowed southward. Everywhere in this wide band severe temperatures were experienced
The United States experienced severe cold and extensive snowstorm in the end of December 1863 and beginning of January 1864
Winter of 1864 / 1865 A.D. The winter lasted from December to the end of March. The Seine River was frozen over at Paris, France
Winter of 1866 / 1867 A.D. The Baltic Sea froze
Winter of 1870 / 1871 A.D. The Baltic Sea froze
1876 – 1879 A.D. This period produced many great droughts covering the globe
Winter of 1876 / 1877 A.D. During the winter of 1876-77, the Baltic Sea was completely covered with ice.
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even tho the record is incomplete, it should be possible to graph frozen rivers, maybe droughts/famine and flood events too.
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David W says:
The more the climate scientists talk up the heat given the past few winters, the more they totally shred their credibility with the public who have to wear the consequences of a government unprepared for these severe cold snaps.
Its tough to believe in “global warming” when your constantly freezing your ass off.
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Ian W says:
HR says:
December 20, 2010 at 3:17 am
So any lags in global temperature associated with this?
Because where ever you think 2010 global temp is going to finish it’s going to take a stretch to describe it as cool no matter how many personnel reports of it being cold outside. Certainly the UAH satellite data doesn’t seem to have it cool.
‘Cool’ and ‘hot’ are measures of temperature.
Temperature does not equal heat content
A dry airmass (see http://www.ssd.noaa.gov/goes/east/natl/flash-wv.html ) holds far less heat than a humid airmass. So all that dry air you can see near the tropics is really hot but holds far less heat than the humid airmass.
Everyone is using the incorrect metric.
After all the ‘green house gas’ theory is that ‘heat’ is trapped in the atmosphere. The amount of temperature rise in air depends on its enthalpy which is driven largely by its water vapor content.
So scientists should stop measuring temperature and doing temperature comparisons ! They are meaningless.
A bit warmer than normal here in Colorado, but my folks in Florida are getting record lows. Looks like europe is getting a good dose of “glo-bull” warming.
This global warming foolery combined with daft economic policies may turn independents against the rats for a long time to come.
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