Category Archives: Solar Activity

REDUX: What?  Downwelling IR Radiation   Why?  Condensation Nuclei and/or Cloud?   How?  Tyndall Scattering and/or Downwelling IR Emission?

Posted on September 10, 2017 | 2 comments

The posting (with the same title on September 7)  was taken removed for further review at Jerry L Krause’s request while he reexamine one of his premises.  He has brought it back with comments, changes and dialogue which I think you will find most interesting.  So,  be enlightened, entertained and take his challenge.

cbdakota

Guest Posting by Jerry L Krause   2017

Author’s Note:  A fact is that CB posted my previous essay with a very similar title which contained a gross error.  He offered to take down this essay but I consider even a greater error is to hide one’s errors.  Buckminster Fuller considered we can only learn from our errors.  For just because an idea worked when tested in a given situation, it might have worked for a different reason (idea) than that being considered.  So, he concluded it is very important for humans to share with others that which they clearly have found does not work.  Because of the gross blunder I had recognized, I began to ponder what other errors I might have made.  And I have concluded there were.  So while the title is similar, it needed to be modified a bit.  So, I concluded that the beginning of my essay needs to be totally different.

At some early time I believe prehistoric people observed clouds to frequently form and dissolve again, without any precipitation occurring, just as we do today.  And from the beginning I believe all human babies began to drink their mother’s milk in order to survive.  And later in these babies’ lives many began to drink the milk produced by other animals as I have.  So what these early humans, and many since, likely have observed, if they noticed things, applies to the natural phenomenon we term Tyndall scattering or the Tyndall effect or colloidal scattering

But it is an all too common observation that we don’t notice common everyday observations (things).  To support this idea, I ask a few questions which only each individual reader can answer.  First, do you know what the phenomenon we term the Tyndall scattering (etc.) is?  If your answer is: no, you cannot know what these prehistoric people could have seen that could have been related to Tyndall scattering.  If yes, the second question is: do you know how, what these prehistoric people could have seen, applies to the natural phenomenon of Tyndall scattering?  And if your answer is no, you cannot know how this natural phenomenon applies to the observation of the invisible (to our eyes) downwelling longwave infrared (IR) measured by an instrument of the SURFRAD project at seven locations in the USA.  And if your answer is yes, do you know how this natural phenomenon applies to the observation of the invisible (to our eyes) downwelling longwave infrared (IR) measured by an instrument of the SURFRAD project (https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/grad/surfrad/dataplot.html) at seven locations in the USA?  And if your answer is yes, you can read what follows and help me discover any errors which still exist by making comments.

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Posted in AGW, CO2, Greenhouse Gas Effect, IR Radiation, R C Sutcliffe, Soil Climate Analysis, Solar Activity, SURFRAD, Upwelling Radiation, Water vapor

“Solar Minimum Is Coming” Video

Posted on July 8, 2017 | 1 comment

Solar Cycle 24 is on its way to a “minimum” .  That Minimum will probably be in late 2019 or early 2020.  The video  illustrates several issues that are newsworthy.

  • Global Temperature measurements made by satellites are often consider the “gold standard”.  Two organizations make and report their interpretation of these measurements.  The UAH and RSS organizations have typically reported very nearly the same temperatures but separation of the values occurred with RSS now giving higher readings.  A major part of the separation is based how to  correct for the drag that these satellites encounter as the circle above the Earth.
  • And a small point. When the narrator says that Cycle 24 Sunspots were “relatively high”  he is comparing the Sunspot  level now.  However, it might cause some people to think that he means as opposed to other Solar Cycles–which by and large is not true.

 

cbdakota

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Posted in cosmic rays, Earth Magnetic Poles, Solar Activity, Solar Cycle 25, Sun, Sunspots, UAH Satellite Temps

CYCLE 24 Status– June 2017

Posted on July 7, 2017 | Leave a comment

Solar Cycle 24 continues to become less active. The June 2017  International Sunspot 30 day average number was 19.4. The maximum for Solar Cycle 24 occurred April 2014 at 116.4. The following chart illustrates how the solar cycle activity has dropped off. Solar Cycle 21 was larger than 22 which was larger than 23 which was larger than the current Solar Cycle 24.

The three charts above were posted on WUWT website titled “Trends in the Revised Sunspot Number Dataset“.  From that posting comes the following analysis:

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Posted in AGW, Environment, Global Temperatures, Solar Activity, Solar Cycle 24, Solar Cycle 25, Sun, sun and climate, Sunspots

Sun And Global Temperature Change

Posted on June 16, 2017 | Leave a comment

In an earlier posting, the case for CO2 controlling global temperature change was discussed. Several cases were examined that suggest that CO2 probably is a minor factor.  Yes, I do have a bias that the Sun is most likely the main driver of global climate. But I believe that bias is well founded.

As I began to prepare a posting on this topic, on 10 June a new posting on WattsUpWithThat by Mike Jonas appeared.   It covers, most of what I had planned to say.  He says it very well, albeit in a lot of words.  His Figure 7, “Correlation of sunspot cycle length with temperature” is thought by some to have been disproven, so you may want to tread lightly on that. I also think that he should have used an article from December 2016 CERN publication that strengthened his case for the Svensmark theory of galactic cosmic rays/cloud formation/cooling.  See my comment on that by clicking here.

My thoughts on this topic would be less informative than those by Mike Jonas.  Thus I am reblogging his posting:

WattsUpWithThat

Indirect Effects of the Sun on Earth’s Climate

By Mike Jonas  10 June 2017

For a long time, I have been bitterly disappointed at the blinkered lopsided attitude of the IPCC and of many climate scientists, by which they readily accepted spurious indirect effects from CO2-driven global warming (the “feedbacks”), yet found a range of excuses for ignoring the possibility that there might be any indirect effects from the sun. For example, in AR4 2.7.1 they say “empirical results since the TAR have strengthened the evidence for solar forcing of climate change” but there is nothing in the models for this, because there is “ongoing debate“, or it “remains ambiguous“, etc, etc.

In this article, I explore the scientific literature on possible solar indirect effects on climate, and suggest a reasonable way of looking at them. This should also answer Leif Svalgaard’s question, though it seems rather unlikely that he would be unaware of any of the material cited here. Certainly just about everything in this article has already appeared on WUWT; the aim here is to present it in a single article (sorry it’s so long). I provide some links to the works of people like Jasper Kirkby, Nir Shaviv and Nigel Calder. For those who have time, those works are worth reading in their entirety.

Table of Contents:

1. Henrik Svensmark

2. Correlation

3. Galactic Cosmic Rays

4. Ultra-Violet

5. The Non-Linear System

6. A Final Quirk

Abbreviations

References

 

To read the entire posting click here

 cbdakota

 

 

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Posted in AGW, Climate Alarmism, Climate Models, CO2, cosmic rays, Earth Orbit, IPCC, Solar Activity, Solar Cycle 24, Solar Flux, Solar System, Sun, sun and climate, Sunspots

A Forecast Of Global Cooing For The Remainder Of The Century

Posted on April 25, 2017 | Leave a comment

Dr. Norman Page believes that natural cycles of 60 and 1,000 years are the principle drivers of Global climate.  He has recently published a study relating his beliefs.  From that study  “The coming cooling: usefully accurate forecasting for policy makers” I will begin with one of his charts:

Here Dr. Page compares forecasts by the IPCC, another forecaster S. Akasofu and his own.  The IPCC  forecast which you have probably seen many time predicts a global temperature rise of 4C by 2100.  Akasofu is much below the IPCC forecast at about 1C by 2100.  Page’s forecast is for a reduction in global temperature by the year 2100.

Dr Page’s Abstract to this paper lays out the big picture:

“ABSTRACT

This paper argues that the methods used by the establishment climate science community are not fit for purpose and that a new forecasting paradigm should be adopted. Earth’s climate is the result of resonances and beats between various quasi-cyclic processes of varying wavelengths. It is not possible to forecast the future unless we have a good understanding of where the earth is in time in relation to the current phases of those different interacting natural quasi periodicities. Evidence is presented specifying the timing and amplitude of the natural 60+/- year and, more importantly, 1,000 year periodicities (observed emergent behaviors) that are so obvious in the temperature record. Data related to the solar climate driver is discussed and the solar cycle 22 low in the neutron count (high solar activity) in 1991 is identified as a solar activity millennial peak and  correlated with the millennial peak -inversion point – in the RSS temperature trend in about 2004. The cyclic trends are projected forward and predict a probable general temperature decline in the coming decades and centuries. Estimates of the timing and amplitude of the coming cooling are made. If the real climate outcomes follow a trend which approaches the near term forecasts of this working hypothesis, the divergence between the IPCC forecasts and those projected by this paper will be so large by 2021 as to make the current, supposedly actionable, level of confidence in the IPCC forecasts untenable.”

The four basic trends in play here according to Page:

“To summarize, the forecasts which follow rely on four basic working hypotheses. First, the solar millennial activity cycle peaked in 1991+/- as seen in Fig 10 in the Oulu neutron count. Second, the corresponding millennial temperature cycle peaked in the RSS data at about 2004-Fig. 4.Third, the 60 year temperature cycle peaked at about the same time and fourth, Ockham’s razor would suggest that the simplest working hypothesis currently available, based on the weight of all the data, is that the trends from the 990 Millennial peak to the 2004 Millennial cycle peak seen in Figs 3 and 4 will, in general, repeat from 2004 to 3004.”

Those charts are as follows:

Figure 10 has had some enhancements so I am showing you that chart.  Note how the cosmic ray theory/clouds cooling are illustrated.

 

Fig 4. RSS trends showing the millennial cycle temperature peak at about 2003.6 (14)

Figure 4 illustrates the working hypothesis that for this RSS time series the peak of the Millennial cycle, a very important “golden spike”, can be designated at 2003.6.

 

Fig.3 Reconstruction of the extra-tropical NH mean temperature Christiansen and Ljungqvist 2012. (9) (The red line is the 50 year moving average.)

Good view of the 1000 year cycle that Page refers to.

Dr. Page also predicts the next Little Ice Age  will likely occur about 2640+/-

Page’s  study is about 15 pages long but is definitely  worth your time to read it.

cbdakota

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Posted in AGW, Climate Alarmism, Climate Models, CO2, cosmic rays, Global Temperatures, Interglacial periods, IPCC, Milankovitch Cycles, Solar Activity, Sun, sun and climate

Russian Scientists Suggest Global Temperatures Will Drop

Posted on April 21, 2017 | Leave a comment

There are two recent papers indicating that global cooling will begin soon.    Both studies believe that more cosmic rays in the Earth’s atmosphere will be responsible for reduced global temperatures. The cosmic rays produce lower level clouds which reduce temperatures by reflecting incoming solar radiation back into space.

 

“Cosmic Rays, Solar Activity, and Changes in the Earth’ Climate is by a group of Russian scientists led by Y.I. Stozhkov.  The Paper considers Milankovich theory on global temperatures but dismiss it for this study saying that “…… (Milankovitch) changes happen on a long -term scales and are unlikely to be related to the contemporary process of global warming.”  The three orbital factors in this theory are:

  • the Earth’s orbital eccentricity which changes or 100,000 to 400,000 years
  • the tilt angle of the Earth’s rotational axis which has about a 41,000-year cycle
  • the precession angle changes with periods of 19,000 to 26,000 years

They considered solar luminosity but feel that the changes in total solar irradiation (TSI) are too small to alter average global temperature by no more than 0.05C.

The study also looked at the cosmic  rays.  The team compiled  monthly Δ T* data for the period from 1880 to early 2016.  Using that data, they made a spectral analysis for the same period.  The result is shown on the chart below:     (*Δ T often called the “temperature anomaly”.)

The team looked at cosmic rays versus Δ T and found a relationship.  Cloud formation is a function of cosmic ray presence in the Earth’s atmosphere. That is illustrated from the team’s chart shown below:

The team interestingly does not attribute cosmic ray intensity in the Earth’s atmosphere to solar activity.  The study reports:

“Another influence on the Earth’s climate is solar activity; the main period of its variations is ≅11 years. Despite numerous attempts to find a connection between different solar activity indices and temporal variations in delta T values, no such link has been firmly established.”

Their contribution is —-an increase in cosmic rays in the Earth’s atmosphere will lower global temperature. Thus, leaving the reason the cosmic rays increase or decrease as an unknown. Their Figure 1 seems to suggest they see a drop in global temperature beginning soon and lasting until at least 2060.

 

The second study will be posted next.

cbdakota

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Posted in AGW, Climate Alarmism, Climate Models, CO2, cosmic rays, gamma rays, Global Temperatures, Interglacial periods, Milankovitch Cycles, Solar Activity, Sun, sun and climate

Solar Cycle 24 February Update And Some Thoughts On Cycle 25.

Posted on March 13, 2017 | Leave a comment

There were no visible Sunspots on 11 March 2017.  There was but one Sunspot cluster showing on 12 March.  This will become more common as Solar Cycle continues on its way to its demise and the beginning of Cycle 25.  From Wiki, we get the record of The “Spotless days at the end of the cycle”.   These numbers have been recorded since Cycle 9 that ended in March 1855.  The recent “grand maximum” beginning with Cycle 18 thru Cycle 22 provides us with these numbers:

Cycle Start/Finish Max sunspots Sunspotless days-end of cycle
18 Jan44/Feb54 151.8 446
19 Feb54/Oct64 201.3 227
20 Oct64/May76 110.6 272
21 May76/Mar86 164.5 273
22 Mar86/Jun96 158.5 309
23 Jun96/Jan08 120.8 817
24 Jan08/   ?   81.9 (Apr14) ?

 

Cycle 24 has been much less active than its recent predecessors. It was ushered in following 817 spotless days.  This appears to be significant but we probably need to see how this plays out at the end of Cycle 24 and its effect on Cycle 25.

The current, seemingly, most used way to predict the size of Cycle 25 is examining the Solar Polar Field Strength of Cycle 24.  As noted in previous postings the technique is to examine the average field strength after the Maximum occurs.  Typically, it levels out.  The average field strength is computed by adding North and South field strengths and dividing by 2.  Below is a plot of the field strength for Cycles 21,22,23 and 24. Looking at the left

plot, so far the Cycle 24 average is about 50. The high point for Cycle 23 looks to have been about 70. This suggests that Cycle25 will be smaller than 24.  But Cycle 24 average field strength of  nominally about 50, could become larger over the next year. So again, we will have to wait and see.

(Unfortunately, the expanded left chart is unavailable.An  expanded left chart was put in this posting but it was too large to show the period of the Cycle 23 and 24.)

 

Below is the February 2017 Cycle 24 chart comparing it to Cycle 23.

cbdakota

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Posted in Solar Activity, Solar Cycle 24, Solar Cycle 25, Sun, sun and climate, Sunspots

CO2 And Climate Change Science–Part 2: A Summary Of The Science

Posted on March 10, 2017 | Leave a comment

The website CO2 Coalition has a post titled “Climate Change: A summary of the Science”.  It one of the best summaries I have come across lately.  It is fairly long, so I could do my usual and summarize it, but there is virtually nothing in it that I would want to skip over.  So, I will not deprive the reader. I will put it in, in its entirety.  I hope that my posting yesterday will fill in any blanks you may have otherwise had.

cbdakota

==========================================================

News 26 Feb, 2017

Climate Change: A Summary of the Science

The climate change science is settled, but not how the climate alarmists want you to think.

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Posted in AGW, chemistry, China, Climate Alarmism, Climate Models, CO2, crop yields, Environment, fossil fuels, Global Temperatures, Media Bias, Ocean Acidification, photosynthesis, Sea Level, Solar Activity, Storms/hurricanes, Sun, sun and climate, The Pause

CO2 And Climate Change Science–Part 1 Carbon Cycle

Posted on March 9, 2017 | 2 comments

This posting sets out a preliminary understanding of the “carbon cycle” that you may not be aware of. The next posting will build off of this to lay out the science of climate change.

The Sun is the Earth’s source of energy. The energy is transported in the form of waves (radiant energy) known as electromagnetic energy. The Sun’s enormous surface temperatures generates these waves. The waves have a wide range of frequencies. In general, the waves are known familiarly as x rays, ultraviolet, sunlight, short wave infrared, radio waves, and microwaves. These waves heat the Earth.  Not all of the waves get through to the Earth’s surface.  Some are absorbed like Ultraviolet by ozone;  some are reflected back into space by clouds; and some are scattered by encountering mater in the atmosphere.

Much of the  Suns energy is reemitted from the Earth as longwave infrared. Some of the reemitted energy is delayed on its way back out into space by the so called greenhouse gases and water vapor. This slowdown is the reason the Earth has a habitable temperature. The primary greenhouse gas is carbon dioxide (CO2).  However, water vapor is the largest factor, by far, in the greenhouse effect.

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Posted in AGW, Climate Alarmism, CO2, Global Temperatures, photosynthesis, Radiation, Sea Level, Solar Activity, Storms/hurricanes, Sun, sun and climate

CERN CLOUD Study Says IPCC Climate Sensitivity Is Too High.  Svensmark Vindicated Some What.

Posted on March 2, 2017 | 1 comment

Water vapor is acknowledged to be the primary “greenhouse gas”.  In the warmer’s theory, any increase of global temperature due to atmospheric CO2, results in a corresponding increase of water vapor.  The impact on temperature is a tripling of that which would occur from CO2 alone. This feedback loop is called Climate Sensitivity.

Climate Sensitivity

clouds-reflecting-sun-rays

Actual temperature records show that this is not happening.  There has been only a slight rise in global temperatures over the past 20 years and that rise may have been from natural causes rather than CO2. See this argument in this posting. The most recent IPCC global warming report was ambiguous on this issue, apparently recognizing that their long held standard 3X increase was in trouble. Studies by many groups have demonstrated the multiplier is not 3X and at least 2X at best.  See the following chart:

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Posted in AGW, Climate Alarmism, Climate Models, CO2 positive feedback, Global Temperatures, IPCC, Solar Activity, sun and climate, Sunspots