Sunspots – A 22 year colder world? (From 2004 - 2010?)
Spotless Days Nov 02, 2020
Current Stretch: 0 days
2020 total 204 days (67%)
2019 total 281 days (77%)
2018 total 221 days (61%)
2017 total 104 days (28%)
2016 total 32 days (9%)
2015 total 0
2014 total 1
2013 total: 0
2012 total: 0
2011 total: 2 ( less than 1%)
2010 total: 51 days (14%)
2009 total: 260 days (71%)
http://www.spaceweather.com/
Reduced energy from the sun might occur by mid-century: Now scientists know by how much
Date: February
6, 2018
Source: UC
San Diego
Summary: The
Sun might emit less radiation by mid-century, giving planet Earth a chance to
warm a bit more slowly but not halt the trend of human-induced climate change.
The Sun might emit less radiation by mid-century, giving planet Earth
a chance to warm a bit more slowly but not halt the trend of human-induced
climate change.
The cooldown would be the result of what scientists call a grand minimum, a periodic event during which the Sun's magnetism diminishes, sunspots form infrequently, and less ultraviolet radiation makes it to the surface of the planet. Scientists believe that the event is triggered at irregular intervals by random fluctuations related to the Sun's magnetic field.
Scientists have used reconstructions based on geological and historical data to attribute a cold period in Europe in the mid-17th Century to such an event, named the "Maunder Minimum." Temperatures were low enough to freeze the Thames River on a regular basis and freeze the Baltic Sea to such an extent that a Swedish army was able to invade Denmark in 1658 on foot by marching across the sea ice.
More
Arctic Oscillation and Polar Vortex Analysis and Forecasts
October 16, 2017
Dr. Judah Cohen from Atmospheric and
Environmental Research (AER) recently embarked on an experimental process
of regular research, review, and analysis of the Arctic Oscillation (AO).
This analysis is intended to provide researchers and practitioners
real-time insights on one of North America’s and Europe’s leading drivers
for extreme and persistent temperature patterns.
---- The three main predictors for winter weather that I
follow are atmospheric blocking at high latitudes, Siberian snow cover and
Arctic sea ice. Atmospheric blocking is currently low and overall the
amount of blocking this month looks to be less than last October. However
based on the polar cap height forecast I expect atmospheric blocking to
increase towards month’s end and will be relatively high compared to
climatology. Increased atmospheric blocking favors an increase in
poleward heat transport and a relatively weak polar vortex (PV)
in winter.
Siberian snow cover has advanced at a relatively rapid pace
so far this fall, which has been the recent trend. However snow cover extent
this October is so far lagging the pace of last October. My, along with
my colleagues and others, research have shown that extensive Siberian snow
cover in the fall favors a trough across East Asia with a ridge to the west
near the Urals. This atmospheric circulation pattern favors more active
poleward heat flux, a weaker PV and cold temperatures across the NH. I do
believe that entire cycle was accelerated last year with the cycle peaking in
the fall rather than the winter, which contributed to milder weather in the
winter. So far there are no signs of an accelerated cycle this year and
if there is the expected atmospheric response to snow cover this year the timing
may be more typical.
Arctic sea ice extent remains historically low and will
likely remain so throughout the winter months. I believe that low Arctic sea
ice favors increased severe winter weather across the mid-latitude continents
of the NH. It is likely that the impact of sea ice loss on temperatures
is regionally dependent. Currently the largest negative anomalies in sea
ice extent are in the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas but that will change over the
next month or so during the critical months of November-February. In my opinion
low Arctic sea ice favors a more severe winter but not necessarily
hemisphere-wide and depends on the regions of the strongest anomalies.
Strong negative departures in the Barents-Kara Seas favors cold temperatures in
Asia while strong negative departures near Greenland and/or the Beaufort Sea
favor cold temperatures in eastern North America. However sea ice is
currently more extensive in the Barents-Kara-Laptev Seas than last year at this
time and even more than two years ago. I believe that low sea ice in the
Barents Kara sea the past two winters helped anchor blocking in the region that
favored cold temperatures in Eurasia relative to North America. That same
forcing may not be as strong for the upcoming winter.
I would conclude that the three factors that I consider
favorable for severe winter weather increased atmospheric blocking in the fall,
more extensive Siberian snow cover and low Arctic sea ice have become the norm
more than the exception over the past decade. I do believe that the lack
of variability in these three factors, likely reduces their utility in winter
predictions.
More
Solar Update June 2017–the sun is slumping and headed even lower
Solar
cycle 24 has seen very low solar activity thus far, likely the lowest in 100
years.
Guest essay by David
Archibald
The F10.7 flux shows that over the last three and a half years the Sun has gone from solar maximum through a bounded decline to the current stage of the trail to minimum. Solar minimum is likely to be still three years away.
Figure 2: F10.7 Flux of Solar Cycles 19 to 24 aligned on month of minimum
Solar Cycle 24 is sitting at the lower bound of activity for solar cycles back to 1964, the start of Solar Cycle 19. From here to minimum though, it looks like Solar Cycle 24 will have much lower volatility than the solar cycles that preceded it.
Figure 3: Oulu Neutron Count 1964 – 2017
According to Svensmark’s theory, the neutron flux, with its effect on cloud cover and thus the Earth’s albedo, is one of the bigger climate drivers. For Solar Cycle 24, the neutron flux duly turned around and starting rising again in 2015, one year after solar maximum. It is a safe bet that the neutron flux is heading for a record high at solar minimum (+ one year) relative to the instrumental record.
Figure 4: Oulu Neutron Count aligned on month of solar minimum
The last weak solar cycle was Solar Cycle 20 which caused the 1970s Cooling Period. From the same stage in that cycle the neutron count flattened out to minimum. That could happen for Solar Cycle 24 but it is more likely to keep rising to minimum as 23 did and thus we can expect a count, at the end, of over 7,000.
Figure 5: F10.7 Flux and Oulu Neutron Count 1964 – 2017
If we conflate the F10.7 flux and the Oulu neutron count inverted, that shows they tracked each other closely up to 2004. Something changed in 2004 and since then the neutron count has been higher relative to its previously established correlation with the F10.7 flux.
---- Figure 8: Solar Polar Field Strength aligned on minimum strength at solar maximum
Solar Cycle 25 started from the blocks looking like it was going to be very weak and fulfill the prophecies of those predicting a Maunder-like experience for the 2020s. Then after a couple of years it caught up with Solar Cycle 24. Looking back over the previous three cycles, the solar polar field strength at this stage, three years before minimum, has been close to the value at minimum. On that assumption, Solar Cycle 25’s amplitude is likely to be two thirds of that of Solar Cycle 24, and thus 60. Further climatic cooling is therefore in store.
More
Solar Cycle 25 Amplitude Prediction
Guest essay by David Archibald
One of
the most accurate ways of predicting the amplitude of the next solar cycle is
to derive it from the strength of the solar polar fields at solar minimum. And
you don’t have to wait for solar minimum. An accurate assessment can be made
four years before minimum, which is where we are at the moment. This graphic
shows the last 40 years of solar polar field strength data:
Figure 1: Solar Polar Field Strength 1976 – 2016 (source Wilcox Solar
Observatory)And this graph shows that data averaged and all converted to a positive sign:
Figure 2: Solar Minima relative to Solar Polar Field Strength 1976 – 2016
It is evident from Figure 2 that solar polar field strength has an early peak and then relaxes by an average of 12 units to solar minimum before falling away. The recent peak value was 53 in 2016. Therefore the field strength is likely to be 40 at the 24/25 solar minimum. How that value translates to peak amplitude of Solar Cycle 25 is shown in the following graphic:
Figure 3: Deriving peak amplitude of the following cycle
A monthly smoothed maximum sunspot number of 62 is derived for Solar Cycle 25. This would probably be around 2025. This is almost down to Dalton Minimum levels.
More plus graphics.
A chill in Siberia is a bad sign for the US winter ahead
Siberian snow could has knock-on effects on the weather in the US.
By Martha Henriques October 31, 2016 18:06 GMT
Heavy snowfall in Siberia in October means the US is in for a harsher winter
in the north-east than government forecasts are predicting, says Judah Cohen, a
climatologist at Atmospheric and Environmental Research, a Verisk Analytics
business.This winter is due to be a harsh one in the north of the country, he says, going against the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's recent forecast. The NOAA's Climate Prediction Center says that the natural cooling of the oceans around the US, known as La Niña, will bring a warm, dry winter to the south and even chances of a cold or mild winter in the north.
Cohen, however, argues that AER's forecast is more accurate because it accounts for the effects of snowfall in Siberia, a vast stretch eastern Russia that is larger than the US as a whole.
Heavy snowfall in Siberia means that there's more bright white snow to reflect heat from the sun back into space. This lowers air temperatures in Siberia, but it also means lower temperatures elsewhere, Cohen says.
More
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/chill-siberia-bad-sign-us-winter-ahead-1589190
Eurasian Snow cover. (How bad will
winter be?)
Solar Cycle Update – spotless
Guest
Blogger / June 4 2016
----This is the first spotless day of the 24-25
solar minimum. Not a great deal can be read from that. According to Wilson,
for cycles 9-14, sunspot minimum followed the first spotless day by about 72
months, having a range of 62-82 months; for cycles 15-21, sunspot minimum
followed the first spotless day by about 35 months, having a range of 27-40
months. So we could still be six years from minimum making Solar Cycle 24 about
13 years long. Longer is weaker in the following cycle, and colder.
More
THE SUN IS
FLATLINING: For
the 6th day in a row, solar activity remains very low. No sunspots are flaring,
and the sun's X-ray output has flatlined.
NOAA forecasters estimate a scant 1% chance of significant solar flares on Feb.
18th. [2015]
http://spaceweather.com/
----“I’ve been a solar physicist for 30 years. I’ve never seen anything quite like this,” Richard Harrison, head of space physics at the Rutherford-Appleton laboratory in Oxfordshire told BBC two years ago. Harrison states that the rate at which solar activity is falling mirrors the Maunder Minimum period of “really cold winters in the northern hemisphere, where you had a kind of a mini-ice age.” According to professor Mike Lockwood of the University of Reading, we’ve been seeing the fastest decline in solar activity in 10,000 years. In an interview with the BBC’s science editor, he stated that he views the risk of a new Maunder Minimum at 25 to 30 per cent, up from 10 per cent just a few years earlier.
Lockwood’s estimate was independently buttressed last year by a team of European researchers in a presentation to 500 astronomers and space scientists at the Royal Astronomical Society’s National Astronomy Meeting in Wales. Their well-received scientific model indicates that reduced solar activity will lead to a mini ice age from 2030 to 2040. Another study of sunspots last year by Indian, Chinese and Japanese astronomers, published in the Journal of Geophysical Research, indicates that a new ice age could start as soon as 2020 and reach its depths by 2030 to 2040.
El Nino did trump the Siberian snow, in 2015-2016.
Before the match starts with El Nino, here’s a recap of how the whole winter outlook thing works: It all starts when a large expanse of Eurasia is covered by snow by the end of October, said Judah Cohen, the theory’s author and director of seasonal forecasting at Atmospheric and Environmental Research in Lexington, Massachusetts.
That creates a pool of cold air and strong high pressure over Siberia. The result is a chain reaction that eventually ends up with a shift in the Arctic Oscillation, a difference in pressures over the polar region, and people in Manhattan risking frostbite if they leave their faces uncovered. At least, that’s the theory.
Last year, it didn’t exactly work out. Despite the second-largest Siberian snowcover on record for the end of October, the AO didn’t shift.
“The snow did a great job predicting the temperature but it didn’t do a good job with the AO,” Cohen said.
Todd Crawford, principal scientist at WSI in Andover, Massachusetts, thinks the theory is good, “grounded in theoretical, observational, and modeling research.”
Theoretical details of how sunspots are actually produced continue to be debated. But one popular idea is that they are generated as the result of concentrated and twisted solar magnetic fields blocking internal convection in the outer third of the sun’s interior. This, in turn, gives the sunspots their dark appearance, since on average they are 2000 degrees cooler than the surrounding solar plasma.
----“At the end of a sunspot cycle about all you have left are magnetic fields at the solar poles,” said Hathaway. “We’re at the sunspot maximum of Cycle 24. It’s the smallest sunspot cycle in 100 years and the third in a trend of diminishing sunspot cycles. So, Cycle 25 could likely be smaller than Cycle 24.”
Lawrence Solomon: Why it looks like ‘game over’ for global warming
Lawrence
Solomon Friday, Apr. 15, 2016
The next
ice age may have already begun, its beginnings temporarily masked by El Niño
“Earth’s
2015 surface temperatures were the warmest since modern record keeping began in
1880,” according to an analysis released by NASA earlier this year.
“Globally-averaged temperatures in 2015 shattered the previous mark set in 2014
by 0.23 degrees Fahrenheit (0.13 Celsius). Only once before, in 1998, has the
new record been greater than the old record by this much.”
Other
agencies, ones that measure temperatures in the atmosphere rather than on
Earth’s surface, also found 2015 to be a warm year, although not a
record-breaker. Either way, 2015 could have historical significance, according to
findings by many scientists. It could mark the year that global temperatures
started hurtling downward, setting Earth on a prolonged period of global
cooling.
----“I’ve been a solar physicist for 30 years. I’ve never seen anything quite like this,” Richard Harrison, head of space physics at the Rutherford-Appleton laboratory in Oxfordshire told BBC two years ago. Harrison states that the rate at which solar activity is falling mirrors the Maunder Minimum period of “really cold winters in the northern hemisphere, where you had a kind of a mini-ice age.” According to professor Mike Lockwood of the University of Reading, we’ve been seeing the fastest decline in solar activity in 10,000 years. In an interview with the BBC’s science editor, he stated that he views the risk of a new Maunder Minimum at 25 to 30 per cent, up from 10 per cent just a few years earlier.
Lockwood’s estimate was independently buttressed last year by a team of European researchers in a presentation to 500 astronomers and space scientists at the Royal Astronomical Society’s National Astronomy Meeting in Wales. Their well-received scientific model indicates that reduced solar activity will lead to a mini ice age from 2030 to 2040. Another study of sunspots last year by Indian, Chinese and Japanese astronomers, published in the Journal of Geophysical Research, indicates that a new ice age could start as soon as 2020 and reach its depths by 2030 to 2040.
More
El Nino did trump the Siberian snow, in 2015-2016.
El Nino Might Not Save Us From Another Miserable Winter
Updated
on November 13, 2015 — 2:22 PM GMT
The snow in Siberia has piled up again, and according to one theory this
means cold and ice are on the way for New York and other parts of the eastern
U.S. That is, if the snow can wrestle El Nino into submission.Before the match starts with El Nino, here’s a recap of how the whole winter outlook thing works: It all starts when a large expanse of Eurasia is covered by snow by the end of October, said Judah Cohen, the theory’s author and director of seasonal forecasting at Atmospheric and Environmental Research in Lexington, Massachusetts.
That creates a pool of cold air and strong high pressure over Siberia. The result is a chain reaction that eventually ends up with a shift in the Arctic Oscillation, a difference in pressures over the polar region, and people in Manhattan risking frostbite if they leave their faces uncovered. At least, that’s the theory.
Last year, it didn’t exactly work out. Despite the second-largest Siberian snowcover on record for the end of October, the AO didn’t shift.
“The snow did a great job predicting the temperature but it didn’t do a good job with the AO,” Cohen said.
Todd Crawford, principal scientist at WSI in Andover, Massachusetts, thinks the theory is good, “grounded in theoretical, observational, and modeling research.”
More
Below more on our developing Dalton Minimum in sunspots.
It’s more likely to be a much more severe Maunder Minimum suggests Forbes. Not to worry though, despite the coming “little ice age,” Forbes still
manages to stay on message with the New Age religion of man-made global
warming, since rebranded and relaunched as the much more sellable “climate
change.” Forbes wouldn't like anyone to lose their public trough funding or worse perhaps their jobs.
Earth heading for 'mini ice
age' within 15 years
The earth is 15 years from a "mini ice-age" that will cause bitterly cold winters during which rivers such as the Thames freeze over, scientists have predicted.
Solar researchers at the University of Northumbria have created a new model of the sun's activity which they claim produces "unprecedentedly accurate predictions".
They said fluid movements within the sun, which are thought to create 11-year cycles in the weather, will converge in such a way that temperatures will fall dramatically in the 2030s.
Solar activity will fall by 60 per cent as two waves of fluid "effectively cancel each other out", according to Prof Valentina Zharkova.
In a presentation to the National Astronomy Meeting in Llandudno, she said the result would be similar to freezing conditions of the late 17th century.
More http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/11733369/Earth-heading-for-mini-ice-age-within-15-years.html
River Thames could freeze over in 2030s when Northern Hemisphere faces bitterly cold winters, scientists say
The earth is 15 years from a "mini ice-age" that will cause bitterly cold winters during which rivers such as the Thames freeze over, scientists have predicted.
Solar researchers at the University of Northumbria have created a new model of the sun's activity which they claim produces "unprecedentedly accurate predictions".
They said fluid movements within the sun, which are thought to create 11-year cycles in the weather, will converge in such a way that temperatures will fall dramatically in the 2030s.
Solar activity will fall by 60 per cent as two waves of fluid "effectively cancel each other out", according to Prof Valentina Zharkova.
In a presentation to the National Astronomy Meeting in Llandudno, she said the result would be similar to freezing conditions of the late 17th century.
More http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/11733369/Earth-heading-for-mini-ice-age-within-15-years.html
Sun Flatlining Into Grand Minimum, Says Solar Physicist
6/20/2014 @ 1:32AM
----Weather isn’t climate, but circumstantial evidence indicates our sun may be entering a grand minimum of sunspot activity, not unlike the Maunder Minimum that some climatologists think caused record low winter temperatures in Northern Europe during the latter half of the 17th century.
“My
opinion is that we are heading into a Maunder Minimum,” said Mark
Giampapa, a solar physicist at the National Solar Observatory (NSO) in Tucson,
Arizona. “I’m seeing a continuation in the decline of the sunspots’ mean
magnetic field strengths and a weakening of the polar magnetic fields and
subsurface flows.”
Theoretical details of how sunspots are actually produced continue to be debated. But one popular idea is that they are generated as the result of concentrated and twisted solar magnetic fields blocking internal convection in the outer third of the sun’s interior. This, in turn, gives the sunspots their dark appearance, since on average they are 2000 degrees cooler than the surrounding solar plasma.
----“At the end of a sunspot cycle about all you have left are magnetic fields at the solar poles,” said Hathaway. “We’re at the sunspot maximum of Cycle 24. It’s the smallest sunspot cycle in 100 years and the third in a trend of diminishing sunspot cycles. So, Cycle 25 could likely be smaller than Cycle 24.”
More
Consequences of a weak solar cycle
First, the weak solar cycle has resulted in rather benign “space weather” in recent times with generally weaker-than-normal geomagnetic storms. By all Earth-based measures of geomagnetic and geoeffective solar activity, this cycle has been extremely quiet. However, while a weak solar cycle does suggest strong solar storms will occur less often than during stronger and more active cycles, it does not rule them out entirely. In fact, the famous Carrington Event of 1859 occurred during a weak solar cycle (#10) [http://thesiweather.com/2014/09/02/300-pm-the-carrington-event-of-1859-a-solar-superstorm-that-took-places-155-years-ago/]. In addition, there is some evidence that most large events such as strong solar flares and significant geomagnetic storms tend to occur in the declining phase of the solar cycle. In other words, there is still a chance for significant solar activity in the months and years ahead.
Second, it is pretty well understood that solar activity has a direct impact on temperatures at very high altitudes in a part of the Earth’s atmosphere called the thermosphere. This is the biggest layer of the Earth’s atmosphere which lies directly above the mesosphere and below the exosphere. Thermospheric temperatures increase with altitude due to absorption of highly energetic solar radiation and are highly dependent on solar activity.
Finally, if history is a guide, it is safe to say that weak solar activity for a prolonged period of time can have a negative impact on global temperatures in the troposphere which is the bottom-most layer of Earth’s atmosphere - and where we all live. There have been two notable historical periods with decades-long episodes of low solar activity. The first period is known as the “Maunder Minimum”, named after the solar astronomer Edward Maunder, and it lasted from around 1645 to 1715. The second one is referred to as the “Dalton Minimum”, named for the English meteorologist John Dalton, and it lasted from about 1790 to 1830. Both of these historical periods coincided with below-normal global temperatures in an era now referred to by many as the “Little Ice Age”. In addition, research studies in just the past couple of decades have found a complicated relationship between solar activity, cosmic rays, and clouds on Earth. This research suggests that in times of low solar activity where solar winds are typically weak; more cosmic rays reach the Earth’s atmosphere which, in turn, has been found to lead to an increase in certain types of clouds that can act to cool the Earth.
More
June 2015 sunspot number 68.3 Note: SIDC recalculated the data on July 1, 2015.
The new historic data series is availabe here.
http://sidc.oma.be/silso/datafiles
Sep 2020 sunspot number 00.7
Aug 2020 sunspot number 07.6
July 2020 sunspot number 06.3
June 2020 sunspot number 05.8
May 22020 sunspot number 00.2
Apr 2020 sunspot number 05.4
Mar 2020 sunspot number 01.5
Feb 2020 sunspot number 00.4
Jan 2020 sunspot number 06.4
Dec 2019 sunspot number 01.6
Nov 2019 sunspot number 00.5
Oct 2019 sunspot number 00.4
Sep 2019 sunspot number 01.1
Aug 2019 sunspot number 00.7
July 2019 sunspot number 00.9
June 2019 sunspot number 01.2
May 2019 sunspot number 10.1
Apr 2019 sunspot number 9.1
Mar 2019 sunspot number 9.5
Feb. 2019 sunspot number 0.8
Jan. 2019 sunspot number 07.8
Dec 2018 sunspot number 03.1
Nov 2018 sunspot number 05.9
Oct 2018 sunspot number 04.9
Sep 2018 sunspot number 03.3
Aug 2018 sunspot number 08.8
July 2018 sunspot number 01.6
June 2018 sunspot number 15.9
May 2018 sunspot number 13.2
Apr 2018 sunspot number 8.9
Mar 2018 sunspot number 02.5
Feb 2018 sunspot number 10.6
Jan 2018 sunspot number 06.7
Dec 2017 sunspot number 08.2
Nov 2017 sunspot number 05.7
Oct 2017 sunspot number 13.2
Sep 2017 sunspot number 43.6
Aug 2017 sunspot number 33.1
July 2017 sunspot number 18.3
June 2017 sunspot number 19.4
May 2017 sunspot number 18.8
Apr 2017 sunspot number 32.6
Mar 2017 sunspot number 17.7
Feb 2017 sunspot number 26.1
Jan 2017 sunspot number 25.8
Dec 2016 sunspot number 18.9
Nov 2016 sunspot number 21.4
Oct 2016 sunspot number 33.6
Sep 2016 sunspot number 44.7
Aug 2016 sunspot number 50.7
July 2016 sunspot number 32.5
June 2016 sunspot number 20.9
May 2016 sunspot number 52.1
Apr 2016 sunspot number 38.0
Mar 2016 sunspot number 54.9
Feb 2016 sunspot number 57.2
Jan 2016 sunspot number 56.6
Dec 2015 sunspot number 57.7
Nov 2015 sunspot number 63.2
Oct 2015 sunspot number 61.7
Sep 2015 sunspot number 78.1
Aug 2015 sunspot number 64.6
July 2015 sunspot number 66.4
June 2015 sunspot number 68.3
May 2015 sunspot number 90.0
Apr 2015 sunspot number 54.4
Mar 2015 sunspot number 38.4
Feb 2015 sunspot number 44.8
Jan 2015 sunspot number 67.0
Dec 2014 sunspot number 78.0
Nov 2014 sunspot number 70.1
Oct 2014 sunspot number 60.6
Sep 2014 sunspot number 87.6
Aug 2014 sunspot number 74.7
July 2014 sunspot number 72.5
June 2014 sunspot number 71.0
May 2014 sunspot number 75.2
Apr 2014 sunspot number 84.7
Mar 2014 sunspot number 92.2
Feb 2014 sunspot number 102.8
Jan 2014 sunspot number 82.0
Dec 2013 sunspot number 90.3
Nov 2013 sunspot number 77.6
Oct 2013 sunspot number 85.6
Sep 2013 sunspot number 36.9
Aug 2013 sunsot number 66.0
July 2013 sunspot number 57.0Dec 2014 sunspot number 78.0
Nov 2014 sunspot number 70.1
Oct 2014 sunspot number 60.6
Sep 2014 sunspot number 87.6
Aug 2014 sunspot number 74.7
July 2014 sunspot number 72.5
June 2014 sunspot number 71.0
May 2014 sunspot number 75.2
Apr 2014 sunspot number 84.7
Mar 2014 sunspot number 92.2
Feb 2014 sunspot number 102.8
Jan 2014 sunspot number 82.0
Dec 2013 sunspot number 90.3
Nov 2013 sunspot number 77.6
Oct 2013 sunspot number 85.6
Sep 2013 sunspot number 36.9
Aug 2013 sunsot number 66.0
June 2013 sunspot number 52.5
May 2013 sunspot number 78.7
April 2013 sunspot number 72.4
March 2013 sunspot number 57.9
February 2013 sunspot number 38.0
January 2013 sunspot number 62.9
December 2012 sunspot number 40.8
November 2012 sunspot number 61.4
October 2012 sunspot number 53.3
September 2012 sunspot number 61.5
August 2012 sunspot number 63.1
July 2012 sunspot number 66.5
June 2012 sunspot number 64.5
May 2012 sunspot number 69.0
April 2012 sunspot number 55.2
Mar 2012 sunspot number 64.2
Feb 2012 sunspot number 33.1
Jan 2012 sunspot number 58.3
Sunspot cycle 24: Together with sunspot cycle 25, the next two global cooling cycles. The new “Dalton Minimum?”
The long, long minimum has ended. We are in the climb out to the cycle high of 2013/14, but how high will this expected low high be? Now our sun seems to be turning active again with a sudden rise in CMEs. Keep checking back for updates.
Next, a discredited man-made global warming update,
now rebranded and re-launched as “Climate Change,” by the looney left and their
anti-west fellow travellers. The world’s weather doesn’t seem to have read the
UN and New Labour BBC script.
It's About to Get So Cold That You Could Get Frostbite in 30 Minutes
10:00 AM WET February 13, 2015
(Bloomberg) -- As another
possible blizzard takes aim at Boston, the rest of the eastern U.S. is
threatened with some brutal winter weather of its own this weekend.
That will come from temperatures
so low and winds so high that exposed skin could become frostbitten in about 30
minutes.
More
The fiddling with temperature data is the biggest science scandal ever
New data shows that the “vanishing” of polar ice is not the result of runaway global warming
When future generations look back on the global-warming scare of the past 30 years, nothing will shock them more than the extent to which the official temperature records – on which the entire panic ultimately rested – were systematically “adjusted” to show the Earth as having warmed much more than the actual data justified.
Two weeks ago, under the headline “How we are being tricked by flawed data on global warming”, I wrote about Paul Homewood, who, on his Notalotofpeopleknowthat blog, had checked the published temperature graphs for three weather stations in Paraguay against the temperatures that had originally been recorded. In each instance, the actual trend of 60 years of data had been dramatically reversed, so that a cooling trend was changed to one that showed a marked warming.
This was only the latest of many examples of a practice long recognised by expert observers around the world – one that raises an ever larger question mark over the entire official surface-temperature record.
Following
my last article, Homewood checked a swathe of other South American weather
stations around the original three. In each case he found the same suspicious
one-way “adjustments”. First these were made by the US government’s Global
Historical Climate Network (GHCN). They were then amplified by two of the main
official surface records, the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (Giss) and
the National Climate Data Center (NCDC), which use the warming trends to
estimate temperatures across the vast regions of the Earth where no
measurements are taken. Yet these are the very records on which scientists and
politicians rely for their belief in “global warming”.
Homewood
has now turned his attention to the weather stations across much of the Arctic,
between Canada (51 degrees W) and the heart of Siberia (87 degrees E). Again,
in nearly every case, the same one-way adjustments have been made, to show
warming up to 1 degree C or more higher than was indicated by the data that was
actually recorded. This has surprised no one more than Traust Jonsson, who was
long in charge of climate research for the Iceland met office (and with whom
Homewood has been in touch). Jonsson was amazed to see how the new version
completely “disappears” Iceland’s “sea ice years” around 1970, when a period of
extreme cooling almost devastated his country’s economy.
More
New York Gets Frigid Winter Warning From Siberia Snowfall
Oct 15, 2014 4:09 PM GMT
The snow in Siberia is piling up, and if it
keeps coming, people in New York may have to bundle up this winter. There’s a theory that the amount of snow covering Eurasia in October is an indication of how much icy air will sweep down from the Arctic in December and January, pouring over parts of North America, Europe and East Asia.
Last year, the snow level across Eurasia was the fourth highest for the month in records going back to 1967. In January, frigid temperatures dubbed “the polar vortex” slid out of the Arctic to freeze large portions of the U.S.
It was a pattern that repeated itself during the Northern Hemisphere winter and helped make the first three months of this year the coldest in the 48 contiguous states since 1985, according to the National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, North Carolina.
With the snow now piling up across Eurasia, will this winter be a grim reminder of last year’s?
----As of Oct. 13, Cohen calculated, 12.2 million square kilometers of Eurasia were covered by snow, compared with 10.8 million square kilometers on the same day last year.
More
Putting a Siberian Snow Connection to the Test
By Andrew C. RevkinWhatever Happened to Global Warming?
Now come climate scientists' implausible explanations for why the 'hiatus' has passed the 15-year mark.
By Matt
Ridley Sept. 4, 2014 7:20 p.m. ET
On Sept. 23 the United Nations will host a
party for world leaders in New York to pledge urgent action against climate
change. Yet leaders from China, India and Germany have already announced that
they won't attend the summit and others are likely to follow, leaving President
Obama looking a bit lonely. Could it be that they no longer regard it as an
urgent threat that some time later in this century the air may get a bit
warmer?In effect, this is all that's left of the global-warming emergency the U.N. declared in its first report on the subject in 1990. The U.N. no longer claims that there will be dangerous or rapid climate change in the next two decades. Last September, between the second and final draft of its fifth assessment report, the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change quietly downgraded the warming it expected in the 30 years following 1995, to about 0.5 degrees Celsius from 0.7 (or, in Fahrenheit, to about 0.9 degrees, from 1.3).
Even that is likely to be too high. The climate-research establishment has finally admitted openly what skeptic scientists have been saying for nearly a decade: Global warming has stopped since shortly before this century began.
First the climate-research establishment denied that a pause existed, noting that if there was a pause, it would invalidate their theories. Now they say there is a pause (or "hiatus"), but that it doesn't after all invalidate their theories.
Alas, their explanations have made their predicament worse by implying that man-made climate change is so slow and tentative that it can be easily overwhelmed by natural variation in temperature—a possibility that they had previously all but ruled out.
----Well, the pause has now lasted for 16, 19 or 26 years—depending on whether you choose the surface temperature record or one of two satellite records of the lower atmosphere. That's according to a new statistical calculation by Ross McKitrick, a professor of economics at the University of Guelph in Canada.
It has been roughly two decades since there was a trend in temperature significantly different from zero. The burst of warming that preceded the millennium lasted about 20 years and was preceded by 30 years of slight cooling after 1940.
Much more
The sun has gone quiet…solar cycle 24 continues to rank as one of the weakest cycles more than a century
'If history is a guide, it is safe to say that weak solar activity for a prolonged period of time can have a negative impact on global temperatures in the troposphere which is the bottom-most layer of Earth’s atmosphere - and where we all live.'
Overview
Ten days ago, the sun was quite active and peppered with several large spots.
Now the sun has gone quiet and it is nearly completely blank. It appears that
the solar maximum phase for solar cycle 24 may have been reached and it is not
very impressive. It looks as if this solar cycle is “double-peaked” (see below)
which is not all that uncommon; however, it is somewhat rare that the second
peak in sunspot number during the solar max phase is larger than the first. In
fact, this solar cycle continues to rank among the weakest on record which
continues the recent trend for increasingly weaker cycles. The current
predicted and observed size makes this the smallest sunspot cycle since Cycle
14 which had a maximum of 64.2 in February of 1906. Going back to 1755, there
have been only a few solar cycles in the previous 23 that have had a lower
number of sunspots during its maximum phase. For this reason, many solar
researchers are calling this current solar maximum a “mini-max”. Solar cycle 24
began after an unusually deep solar minimum that lasted from 2007 to 2009. In
fact, in 2008 and 2009, there were almost no sunspots, a very unusual situation
during a solar minimum phase that had not happened for almost a century.
Second, it is pretty well understood that solar activity has a direct impact on temperatures at very high altitudes in a part of the Earth’s atmosphere called the thermosphere. This is the biggest layer of the Earth’s atmosphere which lies directly above the mesosphere and below the exosphere. Thermospheric temperatures increase with altitude due to absorption of highly energetic solar radiation and are highly dependent on solar activity.
More
Coldest Antarctic June Ever Recorded
Antarctica continues to defy the global warming script, with a report from Meteo France, that June this year was the coldest Antarctic June ever recorded, at the French Antarctic Dumont d’Urville Station.
According to the press release, during June this year, the average temperature was -22.4c (-8.3F), 6.6c (11.9F) lower than normal. This is the coldest June ever recorded at the station, and almost the coldest monthly average ever – only September 1953 was colder, with a recorded average temperature of -23.5c (-10.3F).
June this year also broke the June daily minimum temperature record, with a new record low of -34.9c (-30.8F).
Other unusual features of the June temperature record are an unusual excess of sunlight hours (11.8 hours rather than the normal 7.4 hours), and unusually light wind conditions.
Dumont d’Urville Station has experienced ongoing activity since 1956. According to the Meteo France record, there is no other weather station for 1000km in any direction.
http://www.meteofrance.fr/web/comprendre-la-meteo/actualites?articleId=8990197
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/07/12/coldest-antarctic-june-ever-recorded/
Brisbane hits coldest temperature in 103 years
If you are lucky enough to be reading this from the comfort of your blankets, it might be best to stay there, as Brisbane has hit its coldest temperatures in 103 years.
Not since July 28 1911 has Brisbane felt this cold, getting down to a brisk 2.6C at 6.41am.
At 7am, it inched up to 3.3C.
Matt Bass, meteorologist from BOM, said the region was well below our average temperatures.
“If it felt cold, that’s because it was, breaking that record is pretty phenomenal for Brisbane,” Bass said.
“The average for this time of year is 12C, so Brisbane was about 9C below average, it is pretty impressive really, to have the coldest morning in 103 years is a big record.”
The coldest place across the state was Oakey which got down to -6.1C, which was the coldest temperature for the town since 2011.
More
By Kristina Pydynowski, Senior Meteorologist January 26, 2014; 9:05 PM
The next blast of brutal cold will grip most of the eastern two-thirds of the United States early this week and could yield the lowest temperatures so far this winter in many communities.While harsh cold is returning to the Midwest and Northeast this weekend, it will pale in comparison to what will follow for Monday through Wednesday.
The impending polar plunge will rival the frigid days from earlier this January for the coldest daytime highs and nighttime lows so far this winter. This does not include South Florida.
The arctic air is first plunging into the Upper Midwest, northern Plains and northern Rockies this Sunday, then will continue pressing to the south and east through Tuesday.
More
Chicago Colder Than South Pole as Frigid Air Clamps Down
Jan 7, 2014 11:59 PM GMT
Frigid air clamped down on much of the U.S., giving Chicago a morning
temperature lower than the South Pole and breaking records across the country amid
disruptions to road, rail and air transport. Chicago, which yesterday reached a new low for the date of minus 16 (minus 27 Celsius), hovered at 3 degrees at 4:51 p.m. local time, according to the National Weather Service. It was 9 degrees in New York, where temperatures earlier broke a record for Jan. 7 set in 1896, the agency said.
----“It’s amazing, the only part of the U.S. east of the Mississippi that’s above freezing is the southern two-thirds of Florida,” said Bruce Terry, a meteorologist with the center. “Today is the coldest day for a large chunk of the U.S.”
----PJM Interconnection LLC, the largest U.S. electric grid, said demand across its 13 states surged to a winter record of 138,600 megawatts early today and would reach 140,000 megawatts. Voltage on the grid was reduced by 5 percent today to cut use, while more than 61 million consumers from Washington to Chicago were asked to conserve.
More
Global-warming ‘proof’ is evaporating
By Michael
Fumento December 5, 2013 | 12:14am
The 2013 hurricane season just
ended as one of the five quietest years since 1960. But don’t expect anyone who
pointed to last year’s hurricanes as “proof” of the need to act against global
warming to apologize; the warmists don’t work that way.
Warmist claims of a severe
increase in hurricane activity go back to 2005 and Hurricane Katrina. The cover
of Al Gore’s 2009 book, “Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis,” even
features a satellite image of the globe with four major hurricanes
superimposed.
Yet the evidence to the contrary
was there all along. Back in 2005 I and others reviewed the entire hurricane
record, which goes back over a century, and found no increase of any kind. Yes,
we sometimes get bad storms — but no more frequently now than in the past. The
advocates simply ignored that evidence — then repeated their false claims after
Hurricane Sandy last year.
And the media play along. For
example, it somehow wasn’t front-page news that committed believers in man-made
global warming recently admitted there’s been no surface global warming for
well over a decade and maybe none for decades more. Nor did we see warmists
conceding that their explanation is essentially a confession that the previous
warming may not have been man-made at all.
That admission came in a new
paper by prominent warmists in the peer-reviewed journal Climate Dynamics.
They
not only conceded that average global surface temperatures stopped warming a
full 15 years ago, but that this “pause” could extend into the 2030s.
moreLawrence Solomon: A global cooling consensus
Thursday, Oct. 31, 2013
Solar activity is now falling more rapidly than at any time in the last 10,000 years
In the 1960s and 1970s, a growing scientific consensus held that the Earth was entering a period of global cooling. The CIA announced that the “Western world’s leading climatologists have confirmed recent reports of detrimental global climatic change” akin to the Little Ice Age of the 17th and 18th centuries, “an era of drought, famine and political unrest in the western world.” President Jimmy Carter signed the National Climate Program Act to deal with the coming global cooling crisis. Newsweek magazine published a chilling article entitled “The Cooling World.”
In the decades that followed, as temperatures rose, climate skeptics mocked the global cooling hypothesis and a new theory emerged — that Earth was in fact entering a period of global warming.
Now an increasing number of scientists are swinging back to the thinking of the 1960s and 1970s. The global cooling hypothesis may have been right after all, they say. Earth may be entering a new Little Ice Age.
“Real risk of a Maunder Minimum ‘Little Ice Age,’” announced the BBC this week, in reporting startling findings by Professor Mike Lockwood of Reading University. “Professor Lockwood believes solar activity is now falling more rapidly than at any time in the last 10,000 years [raising the risk of a new Little Ice Age] from less than 10% just a few years ago to 25-30%,” explained Paul Hudson, the BBC’s climate correspondent. If Earth is spared a new Little Ice Age, a severe cooling as “occurred in the early 1800s, which also had its fair share of cold winters and poor summers, is, according to him, ‘more likely than not’ to happen.”
more
http://www.financialpost.com/m/search/blog.html?b=opinion.financialpost.com/2013/10/31/lawrence-solomon-a-global-cooling-consensus&q=Lawrence%20Solomon%20global%20cooling
“Most Severe Start Of Winter In 200 Years!” + European Municipalities Now Ignoring Foolish Predictions Of Warm Winters
Last Thursday evening and yesterday
winter made its (BIG) debut in Southern Germany and Austria – and how! Read
more here.
German RTL television last night here (starting at 4:30) called it the “most severe start of winter in 200 years!“, saying many meteorologists were caught by surprise. Up to half a meter of snow fell at some locations.
Gone are the mild winters of the sort Europe seen in the 1990s and early 2000s. Indeed for central Europe the last 5 consecutive winters have all been colder than normal – a record!
Then beginning in 2009 came one harsh winter after another. Road maintenance crews and commissioners were caught red-faced
More
Solar activity drops to 100-year low, puzzling scientists
Reuters | Sep 18, 2013, 10.51 PM IST
LONDON: Predictions that 2013 would see an upsurge in solar activity and geomagnetic storms disrupting power
grids and communications systems have proved to be a false alarm. Instead, the
current peak in the solar cycle is the weakest for a
century.
Subdued solar activity has prompted controversial comparisons with the Maunder Minimum, which occurred between 1645 and 1715, when a prolonged absence of sunspots and other indicators of solar activity coincided with the coldest period in the last millennium.
The comparisons have sparked a furious exchange of views between observers who believe the planet could be on the brink of another period of cooling, and scientists who insist there is no evidence that temperatures are about to fall.
Subdued solar activity has prompted controversial comparisons with the Maunder Minimum, which occurred between 1645 and 1715, when a prolonged absence of sunspots and other indicators of solar activity coincided with the coldest period in the last millennium.
The comparisons have sparked a furious exchange of views between observers who believe the planet could be on the brink of another period of cooling, and scientists who insist there is no evidence that temperatures are about to fall.
----The unusually low number of sunspots in recent years "is not an indication that we are going into a Maunder Minimum" according to Giuliana DeToma, a solar scientist at the High Altitude Observatory in Colorado.
But DeToma admitted "we will do not know how or why the Maunder Minimum started, so we cannot predict the next one."
More
Unprecedented July Cold – Arctic Sees Shortest Summer On Record
By On August 2, 2013“Normally the high Arctic has about 90 days above freezing. This year there was less than half that,” says Steven Goddard website.
Graph courtesy of COI | Centre for Ocean and Ice | Danmarks Meteorologiske Institut
Thanks to F. Guimaraes for this link
“The Arctic ice extent is showing a remarkable recovery from the great oscillations of 2012,” says Guimaraes. “Compare with the previous years listed there, you’ll see that 2004 is the year that is closest to 2013 in terms of average temps during the summer.”more
(You can compare by looking at the Archives (Arkiv) on the left side of the page.)
http://iceagenow.info/2013/08/unprecedented-july-cold-arctic-sees-shortest-summer-record/
Russia’s Pulkovo Observatory: ‘We could be in for a cooling period that lasts 200-250 years’
Sunday, 28 April 2013Russia’s Pulkovo Observatory: “we could be in for a cooling period that lasts 200-250 years”
Scientists at Russia’s famous Pulkovo Observatory are convinced that the world is in for a period of global cooling.
Global warming which has been the subject of so many discussions in recent years, may give way to global cooling. According to scientists from the Pulkovo Observatory in St.Petersburg, solar activity is waning, so the average yearly temperature will begin to decline as well. Scientists from Britain and the US chime in saying that forecasts for global cooling are far from groundless.
Some experts warn that a change in the climate may affect the ambitious projects for the exploration of the Arctic that have been launched by many countries.
Just recently, experts said that the Arctic ice cover was becoming thinner while journalists warned that the oncoming global warming would make it possible to grow oranges in the north of Siberia. Now, they say a cold spell will set in. Apparently, this will not occur overnight, Yuri Nagovitsyn of the Pulkovo Observatory, says.
”Journalists say the entire process is very simple: once solar activity declines, the temperature drops. But besides solar activity, the climate is influenced by other factors, including the lithosphere, the atmosphere, the ocean, the glaciers. The share of solar activity in climate change is only 20%. This means that sun’s activity could trigger certain changes whereas the actual climate changing process takes place on the Earth”.
Solar activity follows different cycles, including an 11-year cycle, a 90-year cycle and a 200-year cycle. Yuri Nagovitsyn comments.
More
Down to -50C: Russians freeze to death as strongest-in-decades winter hits
19 December, 2012, 19:00
Russia is
enduring its harshest winter in over 70 years, with temperatures plunging as
low as -50 degrees Celsius. Dozens of people have already died, and almost 150
have been hospitalized.
The
country has not witnessed such a long cold spell since 1938, meteorologists
said, with temperatures 10 to 15 degrees lower than the seasonal norm all over
Russia.
Across
the country, 45 people have died due to the cold, and 266 have been taken to
hospitals. In total, 542 people were injured due to the freezing temperatures,
RIA Novosti reported.
The
Moscow region saw temperatures of -17 to -18 degrees Celsius on Wednesday, and
the record cold temperatures are expected to linger for at least three more
days. Thermometers in Siberia touched -50 degrees Celsius, which is also
abnormal for December.
The
Emergency Ministry has issued warnings in 15 regions, which have been put on
high alert over possible disruptions of communication and power.
More
Solar influence on winter severity in central Europe
Key Points
- Freezing of the Rhine occurred from 1780-1963 regularly during sunspot minima
- Coldest winter continue to occur during sunspot minima even today
- This cooling is a regional phenomenon, but not a hemispheric signal
- The last two winters in central Europe were unusually cold in comparison to the years before. Meteorological data, mainly from the last 50 years, and modelling studies have suggested that both solar activity and El Niño strength may influence such central European winter coldness. To investigate the mechanisms behind this in a statistically robust way and to test which of the two factors was more important during the last 230 years back into the Little Ice Age, we use historical reports of freezing of the river Rhine. The historical data show that 10 of the 14 freeze years occurred close to sunspot minima and only one during a year of moderate El Niño. This solar influence is underpinned by corresponding atmospheric circulation anomalies in reanalysis data covering the period 1871 to 2008. Accordingly, weak solar activity is empirically related to extremely cold winter conditions in Europe also on such long time scales. This relationship still holds today, however the average winter temperatures have been rising during the last decades.
- http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2012/2012GL052412.shtml
Forget global warming - it's Cycle 25 we need to worry about (and if NASA scientists are right the Thames will be freezing over again)
Met Office releases new figures which show no warming in 15 years
By David Rose Last updated at 5:38 AM on 29th January 2012
The supposed ‘consensus’ on man-made global warming is facing an inconvenient challenge after the release of new temperature data showing the planet has not warmed for the past 15 years.
The figures suggest that we could even be heading for a mini ice age to rival the 70-year temperature drop that saw frost fairs held on the Thames in the 17th Century.
Based on readings from more than 30,000 measuring stations, the data was issued last week without fanfare by the Met Office and the University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit. It confirms that the rising trend in world temperatures ended in 1997.
Meanwhile, leading climate scientists yesterday told The Mail on Sunday that, after emitting unusually high levels of energy throughout the 20th Century, the sun is now heading towards a ‘grand minimum’ in its output, threatening cold summers, bitter winters and a shortening of the season available for growing food.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2093264/Forget-global-warming--Cycle-25-need-worry-NASA-scientists-right-Thames-freezing-again.html#ixzz1kwHpxhJ1
Bigger Solar Flares Could Cause Year-Long Blackouts, Nuclear Crisis
August 10, 2011
A massive X-Class solar flare that erupted on Tuesday could only be a harbinger of more threatening solar explosions and resultant magnetic storms to come.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has predicted Earth could be hit by at least four gigantic solar storms in the next couple of years, which could cause global disruptions in GPS systems, power grids, satellite communications, and airline communications.
The NOAA predicted four “extreme” solar emissions which could threaten the planet this decade, while NASA has warned that a peak in the sun's magnetic energy cycle and the number of sun spots or flares around 2013 could cause extremely high radiation levels.
The solar flare on Tuesday, which began at 3.48 am EDT had recorded an X6.9 class on the three class scale used to measure the strength of solar flares. It was three times larger than the previous flare of this solar cycle -- the X2.2 that occurred on Feb. 15, 2011.
----With solar activity expected to peak around 2013, the Sun is entering a particularly active period and big flares like the recent one will likely be common during the next few years.
More
http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/195939/20110810/bigger-solar-flares-to-cause-year-long-blackouts-nuclear-crisis-sun-spots-coronal-mass-ejection-cme.htm
Speculation Alert: “New Little Ice Age Cannot Be Ruled Out”
Wednesday, 15 December 2010 09:16 Rickmer Flor, wetter.info
Everybody is talking about global warming – but in Germany and also in many other countries around the world people are currently fighting with the adversities of extreme cold. And indeed: “The year 2010 will be the coldest for ten years in Germany,” said Thomas Globig from the weather service Meteo Media talking to wetter.info . And it might even get worse: “It is quite possible that we are at the beginning of a Little Ice Age,” the meteorologist said. Even the Arctic ice could spread further to the south.
---- In Berlin, there was an absolute cold record in early December, “For 100 years it had not been as cold as in the first decade of December,” said Globig. This also applied to other regions.
--- Globig sees two main causes for the significant cooling: First, the cyclical changes in the big air currents over the Atlantic, and second, the variations in solar activity.
More
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/12/18/how-germanys-weather-team-views-the-hottest-year-ever/#more-29647
Weather forecasters record coldest May night since 1996
Page last updated at 11:13 GMT, Wednesday, 12 May 2010 12:13 UK
The coldest May night since 1996 was felt in many parts of the UK on Tuesday, some of which have seen snowfall, said BBC forecasters.
The night time UK average is normally 4-7C in late May.
But -6C was recorded in the Highlands of Scotland, -3.1C in Oxfordshire, -4.3C in Wales, -5.3C in Cumbria -3.9C in East Anglia and 0C in London.
Forecasters said it was unusually late in May to see frosts, and that daytime temperatures had peaked at just 13C. Daytime temperatures would normally be expected to reach 16C at this time of year.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8677263.stm
http://www.sott.net/articles/show/166265-New-Cycle-24-Sunspot-and-SSN-wavelet-analysis
Why NASA Keeps A Close Eye On Sun's Irradiance
by Adam Voiland Washington DC (SPX) May 27, 2010
For more than two centuries, scientists have wondered how much heat and light the sun expels, and whether this energy varies enough to change Earth's climate. In the absence of a good method for measuring the sun's output, the scientific conversation was often heavy with speculation.
By 1976, that began to change when Jack Eddy, a solar astronomer from Boulder, Colo., examined historical records of sunspots and published a seminal paper that showed some century-long variations in solar activity are connected with major climatic shifts.
Eddy helped show that an extended lull in solar activity during the 17th Century --called the Maunder Minimum - was likely connected to a decades-long cold period on Earth called the "Little Ice Age."
Two years after Eddy published his paper, NASA launched the first in a series of satellite instruments called radiometers, which measure the amount of sunlight striking the top of Earth's atmosphere, or total solar irradiance. Radiometers have provided unparalleled details about how the sun's irradiance has varied in the decades since. Such measurements have helped validate and expand upon Eddy's findings. And they've led to a number of other discoveries-and questions-about the sun.
---- It's well known today that the sun's irradiance fluctuates constantly in conjunction with sunspots, which become more and less abundant every 11 years due to turbulent magnetic fields that course through the sun's interior and erupt onto its surface.
But as recently as the 1970s, scientists assumed that the sun's irradiance was unchanging; the amount of energy it expels was even called the "solar constant."
----- How can increases in dark, cool sunspots yield increases in irradiance? "It didn't make much sense until we were able to show that sunspots are just half of the story," said Lean.
more
http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Why_NASA_Keeps_A_Close_Eye_On_Sun_Irradiance_999.html
Below, what LIR readers have been aware of for the last 5 years. Better late than never, though the Global warming nonsense promoting BBC does its best to minimise and trivialise this set back to their socialist carbon taxes, new world order agenda.
Sun activity link to cold winters
By Mark Kinver Science and environment reporter, BBC News
The UK and continental Europe could be gripped by more frequent cold winters in the future as a result of low solar activity, say researchers.
They identified a link between fewer sunspots and atmospheric conditions that "block" warm, westerly winds reaching Europe during winter months.
But they added that the phenomenon only affected a limited region and would not alter the overall global warming trend.
The findings appear in the journal Environmental Research Letters.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8615789.stm
New Solar Cycle Prediction
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2009/29may_noaaprediction.htm
Is the Sun Missing Its Spots?
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/21/science/space/21sunspot.html?8dpc
Are Sunspots Different During This Solar Minimum?
-----But something is unusual about the current sunspot cycle. The current solar minimum has been unusually long, and with more than 670 days without sunspots through June 2009, the number of spotless days has not been equaled since 1933.
----During the period from 1645 to 1715, the Sun entered a period of low activity now known as the Maunder Minimum, when through several 11- year periods the Sun displayed few if any sunspots. Models of the Sun's irradiance suggest that the solar energy input to the Earth decreased during that time and that this change in solar activity could explain the low temperatures recorded in Europe during the Little Ice Age.
----The same data were later published [Penn and Livingston, 2006], and the observations showed that the magnetic field strength in sunspots were decreasing with time, independent of the sunspot cycle. A simple linear extrapolation of those data suggested that sunspots might completely vanish by 2015.These observations caused researchers to wonder whether the characteristics of sunspots are different now than in other solar cycles.
http://www.leif.org/EOS/2009EO300001.pdf
Sunspot cycle 24: Together with sunspot cycle 25, the next two global cooling cycles. The new “Dalton Minimum?” Thirty three months now with low sunspots numbers, and counting. Aug. was the 34th month of yet another low number of 19.6. Our cut off point is 20. September came in at 25.2 passing our cut-off point. To some extent we are back to a normal sun although we still expect a far from normal low sunspot cycle peak about two years ahead. (Did we already peak in March-April 2011? If so, things can get brutal from here.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dalton_Minimum
Sunspots. http://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/SunspotCycle.shtml
The count. http://sidc.oma.be/products/ri_hemispheric/
Why a New Minimum. http://sesfoundation.org/dalton_minimum.pdf
The “Carrington Event,” September 1, 1859.
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2008/06may_carringtonflare.htm
Current Space Weather.
http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/
What happened to global warming?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8299079.st
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