Dalton Minimum Returns

New Sun-Watching Instrument to Monitor Sunlight Fluctuations

Russ Steele

This Physorg.com article mentions the Maunder Minimum, when sun spots were rare on the face of the sun. I do not know about you, but I have not seen many spot lately. 

During periods of peak activity (front three images) sunspots, solar flares and coronal mass ejections are more common, and the sun emits slightly more energy than during periods of low activity (back images). The amount of energy that strikes Earth’s atmosphere -- called total solar irradiance (TSI) -- fluctuates by about 0.1 percent over the course of the sun's 11-year cycle . . .

(PhysOrg.com) -- During the Maunder Minimum, a period of diminished solar activity between 1645 and 1715, sunspots were rare on the face of the sun, sometimes disappearing entirely for months to years. At the same time, Earth experienced a bitter cold period known as the "Little Ice Age."

Were the events connected? Scientists cannot say for sure, but it’s quite likely. Slowdowns in solar activity—evidenced by reductions in sunspot numbers—are known to coincide with decreases in the amount of energy discharged by the sun. During the Little Ice Age, though, few would have thought to track total solar irradiance (TSI), the amount of solar energy striking Earth’s upper atmosphere. In fact, the scientific instrument needed to make such measurements—a spaceborne radiometer—was still three centuries into the future.

Modern scientists have several tools for studying TSI. Since the 1970s, scientists have relied upon a collection of radiometers on American and European spacecraft to keep a close eye on solar fluctuations from above the atmosphere, which intercepts much of the sun’s radiation. When NASA launches the Glory satellite this fall (no earlier than October 2009), researchers will have a more accurate instrument for measuring TSI than they’ve ever had before.

You can read the rest here.

Space Climate Symposium

Russ Steele

Space Climate Symposium, Day 2 - Irradiance and Grand Minima  Jeff writes at the Sun Blog:

We covered quite a bit of ground in the second day of the Space Climate Symposium here in Saariselkä, Finland. I’ll focus this report on two topics: the evolution of solar irradiance over the past 400 years and the occurrence of grand maxima and minima of solar activity.

Read the the details here.

Quiet Sun = Global cooling

Russ Steele

George Taylor retired as State Climatologist and owner of Applied Climate Services of Corvallis Oregon,  writes in the Democrat Herald:

The sun continues in its “solar minimum.” There is an 11-year cycle (about) in sunspots. When spots are plentiful, the sun’s energy is stronger, and there is a tendency for Earth’s temperatures to increase. During the low point there are few sunspots, and temperatures are more likely to drop. We have been in a solar minimum for more than a year. NASA and other agencies predicted that sunspot numbers would be increasing by now, but they are not. According to NASA, we are seeing:

• The lowest sustained solar radio flux since the F10.7 proxy was created in 1947;

• Solar wind is the lowest observed since the beginning of the space age;

• The solar wind magnetic field 36 percent weaker than during the minimum of Solar Cycle 23;

• Effectively no sunspots;

• Cosmic rays at near record-high levels.

These might make sense, but here’s what it means: The sun is quiet, and has been for an unusually long period.

Looking back over the last several hundred years, we see that solar output has been high for the last 60 years; this coincided with a general increase in temperatures. There have been some periods with low sunspot counts for many years. The early 1700s and 1800s saw lengthy solar minima, accompanied by cold temperatures.

Some solar physicists are suggesting the minimum is a harbinger of lower sunspot numbers for the next several decades. That would mean lower air temperatures, in general — global cooling!

A Dalton Minimum story

Russ Steele

I came across this story surfing the net this morning at the Green County Daily World.  200 years ago, the climate was quite different.  In Canada they are already breaking the 200 year cold records, story at Watts Up With That. Will it continue to move south as the sun remains quiet?

Our future winters may be colder

To the Editor:

It was the year 1799, during the "Dalton Minimum" when the sun was quiet that George Frederick Bollinger led a group of early pioneers from North Carolina to establish early settlements in Missouri. They hoped to cross their largest obstacle, the Mississippi River, on the ice, frozen solid in mid-winter.

The pioneers and their wagon train moved westward a few miles each day, making and breaking camp each night, fording the small streams and floating across the larger ones on rafts which they made from the nearby trees, following roads that were barely trails through forests and valleys.

They arrived on the east bank of the Mississippi River opposite St. Genevieve in late December, pitched camp and explored potential river crossings. St. Genevieve is located about a 100 miles downstream from St. Louis. Winter had come early and the Mississippi river was already covered with ice. It was bitterly cold. They determined the ice was not yet thick enough to support a crossing of ox-carts and covered wagons. Daily the thickness of the ice was measured and then on Dec. 31, a chopped hole in the ice indicated thickness well over two feet. They tested the ice by making a few trips across on foot and horseback. The believed the ice was thick enough to support a loaded wagon.

Cosmic ray primer at WUWT

Russ Steele

With the sun quiet, and the detection of galactic cosmic rays increasing, we have not reached minimum yet according to some of the comments in Anthony's post on Watts Up With That.

Cosmic Ray Flux and Neutron monitors suggest we may not have hit solar minimum yet

There’s some interesting information of the six month trend of neutrons being detected globally that I want to bring to discussion, but first I thought that a primer on cosmic rays, neutrons, and their interaction with the atmosphere might be helpful to the many layman readers here. Anthony.

The primer is interesting, but do not miss the discussion in the comments.

If high energy galactic cosmic ray produce highly reflective lose clouds, and an quiet sun lets more GCRs reach the earth, then humans have no control over the resulting climate change. 

Controlling all the CO2 is the world will not stop the GCRs.  What now Al? 

Sun influence under estimated

Russ Steele

A new paper has been published in GRL by Scafetta and Willson entitled: ‘ACRIM-gap and TSI trend issue resolved using a surface magnetic flux TSI proxy model’
The Abstract states:

“The ACRIM-gap (1989.5-1991.75) continuity dilemma for satellite TSI observations is resolved by bridging the satellite TSI monitoring gap between ACRIM1 and ACRIM2 results with TSI derived from Krivova et al.’s (2007) proxy model based on variations of the surface distribution of solar magnetic flux. ‘Mixed’ versions of ACRIM and PMOD TSI composites are constructed with their composites’ original values except for the ACRIM gap, where Krivova modeled TSI is used to connect ACRIM1 and ACRIM2 results. Both ‘mixed’ composites demonstrate a significant TSI increase of 0.033%/decade between the solar activity minima of 1986 and 1996, comparable to the 0.037% found in the ACRIM composite. The finding supports the contention of Willson (1997) that the ERBS/ERBE results are flawed by uncorrected degradation during the ACRIM gap and refutes the Nimbus7/ERB ACRIM gap adjustment Fröhlich and Lean (1998) employed in constructing the PMOD.”

The authors state in their conclusions that:

“This finding has evident repercussions for climate change and solar physics. Increasing TSI between 1980 and 2000 could have contributed significantly to global warming during the last three decades [Scafetta and West, 2007, 2008]. Current climate models [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2007] have assumed that the TSI did not vary significantly during the last 30 years and have therefore underestimated the solar contribution and overestimated the anthropogenic contribution to global warming.”

From Climate Research News

Sun Continues Hibernation

Russ Steele

Joe D'Aleo writing at Intellicast.com the Sun Continues Hibernation.  This is long and thoughtful analysis, including comments by Archibald on projected Dalton like minimum. 

The sun continues in hibernation mode. NASA and others thought in late 2006 it had bottomed out but it has continued to slide. Since it can’t go negative, it has leveled off scraping the bottom of the chart. The NASA team projections for the next cycle continue to slip further into the future and periodically adjusted down. They present two scenarios one for a more active cycle (24) with a peak at the start of 2012 and the second a weaker one peaking around the end of 2012 or start of 2013.
 

NASA Revising sunspot cycle - again

Russ Steele

Watts Up With That has a interesting GIF animation of the NASA changes over time.

It’s the Sun, stupid!

Russ Steele

Willie Soon, a solar and climate scientist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics,  thinks there is "new direct evidence demonstrate that changes in solar activity influence climate"

The theory that climate change is chiefly caused by solar influences “is no longer tenable,” says US National Academy of Sciences president Ralph Cicerone. Carbon dioxide, he argues, is the key driver of recent climate change. I beg to differ.

The amount and distribution of solar energy that we receive varies as the Earth revolves around the Sun and also in response to changes in the Sun’s activity. Scientists have now been studying solar influences on climate for 5000 years.

Chinese imperial astronomers kept detailed sunspot records. They noticed that more sunspots meant warmer weather on Earth. In 1801, the celebrated astronomer William Herschel noticed that when there were few spots, the price of wheat soared – because, he surmised, less “light and heat” from the Sun resulted in reduced harvests.

Is it true then that solar radiation, which supplies Earth with the energy that drives our climate, and caused so many climate shifts over the ages, is no longer the principal influence on climate change? The UN’s climate panel claims there is scientific “consensus” that man-made CO2 emissions are causing “dangerous” climate change.

However, its 2007 Climate Assessment is fraught with serious scientific shortcomings in its discussion of the Sun’s influence on Earth’s climate. The UN said direct measurements of solar radiation since 1979 show little increase.

However, this conclusion depends upon disparate and adjusted measurements that were combined from several satellites and may be incorrect. Between 1645 and 1715, sunspots were very rare and temperatures were low. Then sunspot frequency grew until, between 1930 and 2000, the Sun was more active than at almost any time in the last 10,000 years. The oceans can cause up to several decades of delay before air temperatures respond fully to this solar “Grand Maximum.” Now that the Sun is becoming less active again, global temperatures have fallen for seven years.

Read the rest here.

h/t to ICECAP