Solar Cycle 24 appears to be ptering out early? If so, what are the consequences?
Solar Cycle 24 is decaying about a year ahead of schedule. In fact the Northern Pole of the sun has already reversed polarity and is out of sync with the southern pole. (not entirely unprecedented but not entirely common either)
If you review the last 8 months of sunspot data it appears that the cycle is starting to decay. See Graph from NASA here.
What do you believe the implications of the early decay of this solar cycle will be?
i.e. from their paper (paraphrase) EM flux strength will be unable to form ANY sunspots after 2015 if trend does not reverse.
2012-11-05T20:33:01Z
@ Hey Dook
You are truely arrogant in your ignorance. This is my main source and they recently commented on the same thing I did. I am a professional and I actually trend this stuff...
http://www.spaceweather.com/
As of 2130 EDT They have the same graph linked that my post does. where I able to link excel documents I could flood you with data...
Ottawa Mike2012-11-05T06:29:58Z
Favorite Answer
If predictions of weak solar activity for a lengthy period come to be correct, then we'll have a good set of data to examine to compare the relative effects of solar activity vs. CO2 emissions and perhaps get a much better understanding of climate forcings.
For example, the scientists at realclimate.org have effectively stated that the Sun entering a Grand Minimum wouldn't mean much and warming would still follow CO2 emissions. So a period of extended low solar activity and no warming or cooling would falsify that hypothesis. How long would that take? Well if you ask those who agree with that hypothesis I think their answers would add up to: As long as possible.
Ahh, more predictions of an impending Maunder minimum, deniers do seem to love this one, I note their claims that science and models can't predict the future seem to go out the window when they try to reference this one, it must be nice to have such selective memory. I seem to recall similar claims, even up to a possible LIA, two years ago towards the end of the extended solar minimum, but sunspot numbers have claimed slowly ever since. Of course the main problem with this is how does a change in the Sun in anyway alter the concept of Co2 as greenhouse gas increasing temperature, the Sun is an outside influence. As has already been mentioned even if such an event took place, we have already warmed the planet as much as the LIA is supposed to have cooled it and at the current rate we will very soon have warmed the planet well in excess of an LIA type event, so frankly what is your point. In what way would an LIA event disprove AGW, how would such an event be anything but a short reprieve at the end of which temperates would rise again and probably in a quick short period. If the planet were struck by a meteor next Thursday that would also cause cooling, but would have not one iota of difference in Co2 potential to cause warming.
As for your quoted paper, sadly these seem to follow a pretty standard formula, some one who once had a good reputation but has long since retired, publishing something in yet another online journal. In this particular case the scientist is in fact almost 30 years retired and 91 years old. The man himself http://www.cdejager.com/genealogie/
In the paper you link to, DeJager and Duhau predict the effect of an "upcoming" Maunder-type minimum of 0.3 - 0.4 degrees. They also found that in their study period of 1610 - 1970, the effect of solar activity was less than the effect of non-solar factors. This is much in line with other solar researchers. The effect of CO2 after their study period has been far greater.
Their predictions are in line with other researchers: if solar activity falls to the extreme of a Maunder-type minimum, it might help to temporarily offset perhaps 10% of the warming from greenhouse gases.
We don't really know if the asymmetric decay is abnormal as this is the first time we've had space probes in the appropriate locations to detect it so we don't really know if it's an early decay. It's just the first cycle we've observed in such detail. As the orbits required to observe these changes are very large, it's doubtful if we will get a chance to observe the next cycle in such detail.