Global cooling? a.k.a. Where have all the sunspots gone?
The Sun is late. We're meant to be entering a phase of big activity - flares, sunspots and general heliocentric carryings-on - but instead we're getting sullen, ominous non-participation: fifty-year lows in solar wind pressure and radio emissions, and the quietest patch for sunspots in 100-years.
Quite why remains a mystery. As you might expect, a million-kilometre-wide ball of superheated gas measuring 6000°C on the surface isn't the easiest thing in the universe to study, but it's always been accommodating enough to run to a fairly regular 11 year cycle of activity. Until now.
Academic speculation is rife. Will normal service resume soon? Or are we entering an unexpected cold patch? If this goes on much longer, expect to hear people talking about something called the Maunder Minimum - a period from the late 17th to early 18th century also known as the 'Little Ice Age' - when sunspot activity and temperatures plummeted.
The jury is still out on whether increased sunspot activity makes temperatures on Earth hotter. But should we get excited about the idea that less sunspot activity might make us cooler and offset man-made global warming?
No, says Professor Mike Lockwood of Southampton University, who knows a thing or two about the subject. He was one of the first scientists to identify that the Sun's activity has actually been decreasing since 1985.
'It's pretty clear that the underlying level of the Sun peaked at about 1985 and what we are seeing is a continuation of a downward trend that's been going on for a couple of decades. If the Sun's dimming were to have a cooling effect, we'd have seen it by now.'
Talk of global cooling is considered heresy by many global warming advocates. But then we know that science isn't about orthodoxy, it's about 'observable, empirical and measurable evidence subject to specific principles of reasoning'. It will be interesting to see what happens next.
(P.S. The image on this entry actually shows the Transit of Venus in 2004, rather than a sunspot.)
© 2012~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~49~RS~)
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I notice you have decided to quote Mike Lockwood
You could have quoted many other researches in this field
Dr. Oleg Sorokhtin, is a fellow of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences. Sorokhtin calls man's contribution to climate change "a drop in the bucket". He predicts a solar minimum will occur, with icy weather lasting till 2040 or beyond. Sorokhtin’s advise? "Stock up on fur coats - just in case”
No doubt others might find more quotes
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"We're meant to be entering a phase of big [solar] activity". I'm interested to in knowing where your information is coming from Blog of Bloom?
NASA thinks we're in a solar minimum and have been for well over a year. In 2008 there were no sunspots observed on 266 of the year's 366 days. In 2009, as of March 31st, there were no sunspots on 78 of the year's 90 days. Source NASA.
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2009/01apr_deepsolarminimum.htm
NASA also believes that there will be a below average solar maximum by around 2012 or 2013.
The Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics believes that this current solar minimum may cause a drop in global temperatures of just 0.2 degrees Celsius. I'm not rushing out for a fur coat just yet; it was tee-shirt weather where I was in the UK today; those expecting an imminent plunge in temperatures are likely to be disappointed.
The Sun of course has been intensively studied in recent decades to determine any possible role in global warming; and also its influence on cooling. One study by the National Centre for Atmospheric Research et al (Sept. 06): "Scientists have examined various proxies of solar energy output over the past 1,000 years and have found no evidence that they are correlated with today’s rising temperatures. Satellite observations over the past 30 years have also turned up nothing."
http://www.ucar.edu/news/releases/2004/wigley.shtml
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/09/060914095559.htm
The other is by Heliophysics and the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics (Sept. 2006) that concluded: "Sunspot-driven changes to the sun's power are simply too small to account for the climatic changes observed in historical data from the 17th century to the present."
http://www.mpa-garching.mpg.de/mpa/research/current_research/hl2006-9b/hl2006-9b-en.html
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/09/060913-sunspots.html
As for the 'Little Ice Age'. (Which was nothing like a true ice-age, temperatures dropped by around 1 degree C at a few points over the centuries – it wasn't a period of constant cooling – whereas during a real Ice Age temperatures dropped by a full 10 degrees C for thousands of years.)
In quite a few proxy temperature studies the Maunder minimum (1645 to 1715) the Sporer Minimum (1450-1540) and Wolf Minimum (1290 to 1350) do show up, as do periods of major volcanic activity which can also cool earth's atmosphere for a few years, by even more than solar minima. e.g. The eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines in 1991 lowered the world's average temperature by about one degree for two years.
The 'Little Ice Age' was a period of remarkable volcanic activity: an average of five major eruptions per century that equalled the intensity of the Krakatoa eruption in 1883. The first major eruption was in 1259. Following the massive 1815 eruption of Mount Tambora in Indonesia the following year, 1816, has gone down in folklore as 'the year without summer'. Up to 15cm of snow fell in New England in June; crops failed across Europe resulting in major food shortages and famine again struck Europe between 1816-1820. This period saw the coldest summer temperatures the Low Countries in Europe would experience between 800 and 2000 AD.
There have been periods where volcanic activity and solar minima coincided, but they still didn't drop temperatures levels down anywhere near those of a true ice age.
Ice ages, of course, are caused by Milankovitch (orbital) cycles. Changes to earth's Precession (changes in when earth is closest to the sun), Obliquity (tilt) and Eccentricity (or ellipticity); these result in changes to the distribution (not amount) of solar energy the northern hemisphere receives. There's a lot on the web on these if you do a Google.
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I perhaps could have been a bit clearer. By writing 'entering a phase of big activity', I meant we're at the start of a period when you would expect - based on the Sun's 11 year sunspot cycle - to see an upswing in activity from the minimum we've been in. This hasn't happened yet and that's newsworthy.
I think it's also fair to say this is consistent with Nasa's view:
Nasa's Marshall Space Flight Centre (2003): 'The Sun is now in the declining phase of the current sunspot cycle that peaked in 2000 and 2001. Because the circulation flow was fast during the previous cycle, the astronomers believe the next cycle will be a strong one, peaking in the years 2010 and 2011.' (http://www.nasa.gov/centers/marshall/news/news/releases/2003/03-097.html))
And from the same source, a graph of sunspot number prediction for April 2009: [Unsuitable/Broken URL removed by Moderator]
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Sorry - that last link doesn't work! Should be: http://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/images/ssn_predict_l.gif
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Why has nobody dared included Piers Corbyn's research?
Lockwood is wrong because a double eleven year cycle ie the hale cycle or 22 year cycle shows a strong correlation between solar activity and temperature as opposed to his preferred 11 year cycles.
I suggest you go to weatheraction.com or lowefo.com or phone Piers Corbyn there to enlighten yourselves on the other side of the debate.
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@Richard,
Hope you are doing well - we haven't seem much from you for a couple of weeks, Shanta mentioned you have been ill - I hope nothing serious.
My concern is "peaked" as it appears your "latest piece" is a four month old piece published in April. I really hope you are doing well and look forward to your next "new" piece. Please get better soon, you are missed. Cheers.
On a side note - still no sunspots - whats up with that?
Kindest Regards.
-Kealey
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"Why has nobody dared included Piers Corbyn's research?"
Because it's wrong.
Please, show your working.
Prove how a CYCLE of solar flares on a 22 year period leads to a 150+year trend? The statistical mathematics should be a good read...
Prove how a 0.1% maximum variation from solar causes all the change, reacts in less than 11 years to warming but fails to react to its cooling at that rate.
The current decadal average of temperature (a decade that many have said is cooling) shows a 0.17C/decade warming. Compared with a model projection from the 90's (hence a prediction) of around 0.2C/decade, this seems to be a pretty good guess.
So how come models that do not show sunspots being a big factor could predict a 0.2C/decade rise and observation sees 0.17C/decade, if solar sunspot cycles explain the entire change?
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maatieb, Piers Corbyn isn't a meteorologist even.
And he's not all that confident of his works:
http://julesandjames.blogspot.com/2005/09/will-real-piers-corbyn-please-stand-up.html
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"On a side note - still no sunspots - whats up with that?"
Nothing.
Sunspots are caused by the twisting of the solar magnetic field lines, magnetism being locked into a fixed line by the properties of a plasma and those lines being twisted by the differential motion of the fluid motion of a plasma in a rotating system.
And when the lines of magnetic flux break the surface, you get prominences and sunspots.
If the magnetic fluxes are not breaking the surface, you don't.
It's all available a short google search away...
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http://tamino.wordpress.com/2008/04/05/stalking-the-elusive-solar-cycletemperature-connection/
For another analysis of the 22-year cycle.
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Just noticed, this statement:
"Talk of global cooling is considered heresy by many global warming advocates. "
Links to an AGW denialist blog where someone who is anti-AGW exists says that pro-AGW people consider talk of global cooling as heresy.
If global cooling was considered heresy by global warming advocates, surely there would exist some proof from a global warming advocate for that statement?
Or would you go to the Ayatollah and ask what George Bush thinks of Iran and then state that this is what George Bush thinks of Iran?
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