Category Archives: sun and climate

Svalgaard Discusses How He Forecasts Solar Cycle Activity–Cycle 25 Will Be Up Soon

Posted on October 9, 2016 | 2 comments

Before Solar Cycle 24 began, estimates of how active it would be were made by many experts. Because the Sunspot counting system has changed, the estimates have to be translated from the predictions made before the change. NASA’s top Expert using Sunspot as a proxy for activity, estimated it would be in the well over 160 (new system number ca. 265). Most of the estimates at the time were like NASAs. However, Cycle 24 has been much less active than most of the experts expected. The count using the new numbering system for Cycle 24 peak Sunspots at the Solar Maximum is 117. On the other hand, Leif Svalgaard and his partners estimated about 70 (new system ca. 117) which turns out to be as good as it gets. Estimating what Solar Cycle 25 will look like is already underway with many expecting Cycle 25 to be less active that has been the case with Cycle 24.

Because Svalgaard had forecast that Cycle 24 would be much less active and the forecast came reasonably close to the actual number count, it makes me curious about how he did it and what is he is predicting about Cycle 25 now. Well, I have already given that away in my 22 March 2016 blog titled “Dr Svalgaard makes a preliminary prediction of Cycle 25 size.” He thinks it will be close to the size of Cycle 24 and prehaps a little bit bigger. Once again he seems to be the contrarian.

So, how does he make these predictions. This blog will let you see the method he uses.

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Posted in AGW, Climate Alarmism, Climate Models, Global Temperatures, Solar Cycle 24, Solar Cycle 25, Solar Flux, Sun, sun and climate, Sunspots

Solar Cycle 24 Update—-October 2016

Posted on October 5, 2016 | Leave a comment

Solar Cycle 24 continues on its way to a Sunspot minimum. The thirty day average Sunspot number for September (Ri) was 44.7, a little less than the August number of 50. The black line of the chart Ri is the sum of the north and south solar magnetic fields. While a year or so ago, the southern magnetic field (Rsouth) was creating the majority of the Sunspots, the north magnetic field (Rnorth) is dominate now. In April the Sun had a period of low activity with a thirty day average of 20.9.

Looking at a comparison of Solar Cycles 23 and 24 shows that the Cycle 24 has been much less active than 23. This, of course, has prompted many to declare we are on our way to another minimum with corresponding cooling of global temperatures. But first a few comments on the difference one of the ways that Sunspots numbers are reported.

Looking at the far right of the chart, the black line is the monthly average Sunspot number and it is 44.7 as noted above. The red line is the official Sunspot number. It is a thirteen month lagging calculation. It is always 6 months behind the current date. It is the means by which the number is smoothed. The green line is a forecast of what it will probably be when the official smoothed number arrives at September 2016 . The green lines forecasts the September Sunspot number at 34.5. It will probably not be exactly 34.5 at that time but the difference will likely be small..

A comment on my blog by azleader@yahoo.com provided a concise summary of the official number calculation methodology. It can be seen at the at the end of this blog.

Lastly as a reminder of how Cycle 24 looks in comparison to the preceding Cycles, the chart below gives the needed perspective:

This chart illustrates how much more active recent Solar Cycles have been in comparison to Cycle 24. Cycle 21 began in March of 1976. The peak International Smoothed Sunspot number for Cycle 21 was 232, Cycle 22 was211,Cycle 23 was 180 and Cycle 24 was 117.

A look at a Solar Cycle 25 projection is on my list of topics to post—hopefully soon.

All Charts a courtesy of Soleninfo/solar

cbdakota

International Smoothed Sunspot Number calculation.

The smoothed count is a 13-month averaged sunspot count using this Belgium’s formula:
Rs= (0.5 Rm-6 + Rm-5 + Rm-4 + Rm-3 + Rm-2 + Rm-1 + Rm + Rm+1 + Rm+2 + Rm+3 + Rm+4 + Rm+5 + 0.5 Rm+6 ) / 12

Rs = smoothed monthly sunspot count
Rm = One month’s actual sunspot count

The “-6” through “+6” appended to each Rm is the number of months before or after the month whose smoothed count is being calculated. The beginning and ending months in the formula are only given half the value of the others.

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

Back In The Saddle Again. (Thanks Gene Autry)

Posted on September 25, 2016 | 1 comment

My postings since May are nearly zero. I have been catching up on things that needed doing more than any need to be writing about the faulty catastrophic global warming theories. The family has to come first. In addition, to many honey dos weren’t getting done.

I suppose you are wondering what so difficult about writing a blog, if anything. Mainly the issue is trying not to make mistakes. Blovating is pretty easy. But checking out what is being blovated needs to be reasonably well supported. —A for instance.—- I just finished a posting on how small the sales of EVs really are. I had planed to use as one of my references a posting by a man for whom I have a great deal of respect. When I tried to confirm his numbers I could not do it. In this case, I think he made some mistakes, or at least I can’t confirm his numbers. So I used mine.

I like doing this so, I hope that I am back in the saddle again, —time will tell.

cbdakota

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Posted in Climate Alarmism, CO2, Environment, Skeptic resources, skeptic science knowledge, sun and climate

Indian, Japanese and Chinese Scientists Publish Research That Predicts Little Ice Age or Maunder Minimum Coming Soon.

Posted on May 13, 2016 | 1 comment

The Times of India posted “Sunspots point to looming “little ice age” quoting scientists and astronomers from Physical Research Laboratory in India and their counterparts in China and Japan have fresh evidence that Earth may be heading for another “little ice age” or maybe even another Maunder Mimimum.

Their findings are very similar to those of our scientists. They report that:

“….our blazing sun has been eerily turning quiet and growing less active over the last two decades.”

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Posted in AGW, Climate Alarmism, CO2, Global Temperatures, IPCC, Solar Activity, Solar Cycle 24, Solar Flux, Sun, sun and climate, Sunspots

Solar Cycle 24 Activity Report- Mid-May 2016

Posted on May 12, 2016 | Leave a comment

Solar Cycle 24 activity has peaked and it is on its way to a minimum. Of course the exact date of the minimum and the start of Solar Cycle 25 is not known. Because normal Cycle life is nominally 11 years, start of Cycle 25 should be in 2019, The Sunspot number (Wolf number 30 day average) for April was 38!! The chart below shows the rather sharp drop from March’s 54.9.

The black line (Ri) is the 30 day average—if you look carefully you will see it is the sum of the green line (Rsouth) and the red line (Rnorth). The dashed blue line is the “official Sun Spot number. It is the smoothed count of a 13 month average monthly Sunspot count divided by 12. The oldest and newest monthly count are reduced to half and the other numbers are given their full count. And is always 6 months behind the most recent month. This is the way it has been done for many years; hence it has a history record to use for comparing Solar Cycles.

May is showing an up-tick in the Sunspot count. This up and down, mostly down, will countinue for several years.

Activity chart Note the change in the 30 Day Wolf Sunspot number–its about 50 now.

The final chart is a comparison of Solar Cycle 23 and Solar Cycle 24:

Solar irradiance was said to have dropped more than usual. It will have to fall off for months before it is likely to an event of consider “very interesting”.

cbdakota

All charts by Solen.info/solar

The smoothed count is a 13-month averaged sunspot count using this Belgium’s formula:
Rs= (0.5 Rm-6 + Rm-5 + Rm-4 + Rm-3 + Rm-2 + Rm-1 + Rm + Rm+1 + Rm+2 + Rm+3 + Rm+4 + Rm+5 + 0.5 Rm+6 ) / 12

Rs = smoothed monthly sunspot count
Rm = One month’s actual sunspot count

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

Dr Svalgaard Makes Preliminary Prediction Of Solar Cycle 25 Size

Posted on March 22, 2016 | 6 comments

Solar science expert Leif Svalgaard of Stanford University, makes a prediction of Solar Cycle 25 size: “Preliminarily it looks like a repeat of Cycle 24, or at least not any smaller.”

Svalgaard uses a technique that is based upon the dipole moment when the preceding Solar Cycle reaches the minimum. He used this technique for his prediction of Solar Cycle 24 sunspot number that turned out to be very close to what actually took place. He predicted Cycle 24 Sunspot numbers would be much smaller than Cycle 23 when at the same time most of the other forecasters were predicting a rerun of Cycle 23.

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

El Nino–Walker Circulation

Posted on January 15, 2016 | Leave a comment

The prior posting, “Some Background Regarding An El Nino” began like this: “Currently, the weather is being strongly affected by an El Nino. El Nino is but one part of a weather/climate system known as the El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO). There are three phases of ENSO — El Nino, La Nina and Neutral. ENSO is important because of its ability to change the global atmospheric circulation, which in turn, influences temperature and precipitation across the globe. The global atmospheric circulation is called the Walker ~~Cycle~~ Circulation“.

This posting examines the Walker Circulation.(I have seen both cycle and circulation used but much of my sourcing for this posting uses Circulation.)

First lets talk about high and low pressure centers. Fair weather generally accompanies a high-pressure center while clouds and precipitation generally accompany a low-pressure center. Low-pressure centers are formed by a hot surface. For example, the hot Pacific Ocean water that is driven to the Maritime Continent by the trade winds along the equator. The air is hot and moisture laden and as it rises, it cools and the moisture becomes rain. It reaches high-level winds that drive it to the west or east. This air is now dry and cool. It begins to fall forming a high-pressure center. The air in the high-pressure center begins to flow toward the low pressure center residing above the hot seawater located in the Maritime Continent. Along the way it begins to warm and pick up moisture and then rise. This completes the circulation.

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Posted in AGW, ENSO, Environment, Global Temperatures, Ocean heat content, Sea Level, sun and climate, Tectonic activity, United Nations

Some Background Regarding An El Nino

Posted on January 13, 2016 | 1 comment

Currently the weather is being strongly affected by an El Nino. El Nino is but one part of a weather/climate system known as the El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO). There are three phases of ENSO — El Nino, La Nina and neutral. ENSO is important because of its ability to change the global atmospheric circulation, which in turn, influences temperature and precipitation across the globe. The global atmospheric circulation is called the Walker Cycle and we will look at that in the next posting.

Many of you already are fully informed about the ENSO but my guess is that some of you are not. I thought it might be helpful to provide some background information. (1)

First of all, we are talking about the Pacific Ocean. The Pacific Ocean from South America to the Maritime Continent(2), a distance of about 10k miles along the equator. Usually the trade winds blow along the equator toward the west. This moves the hot surface water to the Western Pacific. The sea surface is about ½ meter higher in Indonesian than it is in Ecuador.  Usually, sea-surface temperatures off South America’s west coast range from the 60°s to 70°s F, while they exceed 80°F in the “warm pool.” This description is essentially that of the neutral phase.

On occasions the easterly winds weaken and the hot water begins to flow eastward toward South America. This is the beginning of an El Nino. It typically starts in the May-June timeframe as the water flows eastward. It reaches it peak strength about December. January through March/April typically are the months that the El Nino begins to lose it strength. Some El Ninos maintain strength longer such as the 1998/1999 El Nino, which is considered one of the strongest ever.

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Posted in AGW, Drought, ENSO, Environment, Global Temperatures, Ocean heat content, Sea Level, sun and climate

12 Reasons To Be A Skeptic

Posted on January 4, 2016 | 1 comment

James Delingpole is a Brit that writes for Brietbart.com. He has a sharp mind that he uses to take the obvious and throw it back at the pretenders often with good humor. Somewhat like Mark Steyn. They are a formidable pair and I am glad they are on our side.

The Delingpole posting that I want to discuss was written before the COP21 Paris meeting of the massive group of hanger-ons that go to these conferences on stopping global warming. But, the points he makes in this posting “Twelve Reasons Why The Paris Climate Talks Are A Total Waste” are essentially timeless within the current discussion of the catastrophic man-made global warming theory.

I may summarize the discussion in some of the twelve reasons. So I do recommend that you link to his original posting to read the reasons in their entirety. Don’t ignore the links that are included in this listing.

1 There has been no ‘global warming’ since 1997.

So, of all the children round the world currently being taught in schools about the perils of man-made global warming, not a single one has lived through a period in which the planet was actually warming

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Posted in AGW, China, Climate Alarmism, ClimateGate, CO2, Coal, Drought, Global Temperatures, Hurricanes, Ice Melt, IPCC, Ocean Acidification, Sea Ice, Sea Level, Solar Cycle 24, sun and climate

Climate Change Reconsidered II: Physical Science–An Unbiased Report

Posted on December 30, 2015 | Leave a comment

The International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issues a report every three or four years about global warming. This UN agency’s charter is not to examine the science of global warming but rather to show that man produced greenhouse gases will result in catastrophic damage to the globe. IPCC does as directed by giving little consideration to data, science or reports that would contradict the charter.

A relatively new report, compiled by the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC) has been written to answer the IPCC’ reports. The first installment is Climate Change Reconsidered II: Physical Science (CCR-II). This installment is an independent, comprehensive, and authoritative report on the current state of climate science. It is the fourth in a series of scholarly reports produced by the (NIPCC), an international network of climate scientists sponsored by three nonprofit organizations: Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change, Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP), and The Heartland Institute. Real data and unbiased studies were used in the preparation of this installment.