Confirming the “rabbit ears” shape for Solar Cycle 24. Interesting that the SWO minus RI difference is now 46.8 whereas at the peak of the first “rabbit ear” in Nov 2011 SWO minus RI was only 36.4.
4 thoughts on “RI sunspot numbers just out for May – NASA/NOAA SWO number has been increasing more than Belgian RI count over April May”
Here is a chart including the SWO minus RI difference to make it plainer that while May 2013 has a lower SWO number than the peak at Nov 2011 – the RI number for May 2013 is much lower relatively than Nov 2011.
I was wondering if the counts for April 2012 where RI decreased and SWO increased – an uncommon event – marked a time when SWO changed their count methodology.
There’s more to climate than just sun-spots. But I’m the first to agree that it is all about natural (often cyclic) forcing, not radiative forcing, and certainly not carbon dioxide.
Nearly everyone, (including myself until a year ago) is still sucked into the line of thinking first thrust upon the world by the AGW crowd, namely that it is all to do with radiative forcing. Yes, this includes virtually all other PSI members..
I have been thinking this through for a long time and am now firmly of the opinion that all these energy budgets are incomplete, mainly because they don’t show the missing link. On Venus and Uranus that missing link is a huge amount of energy which must flow downwards in the atmosphere. It’s quite a lot on Earth too. Over the life of these planets there has been a build up of thermal energy from the Sun which can’t escape.
So these planets (Uranus, Venus, Earth) are not still cooling off. It’s cold out there where Uranus is because it only receives about 3W/m^2 in the very top of its atmosphere. It could easily have cooled off, but for the one thing that stops it. And that one thing is the gravitationally induced thermal gradient which forms by diffusion at the molecular level,, because molecules in free flight between collisions interchange kinetic energy and gravitational potential energy. In just two lines of calculations, you can derive the -g/Cp value by equating PE and -KE. Kinetic energy will tend towards being homogeneous during collisions, but only at each altitude. Inter-molecular radiation reduces the gradient by up to about a third, but by less than 5% on Uranus where there is just a little methane causing that.
The Clausius (hot to cold) statement of the Second Law is not comprehensive and for conduction and diffusion it only applies in a horizontal plane. The process described in the Second Law means that thermodynamic equilibrium evolves spontaneously, and, in the process of maintaining such equilibrium there must evolve a temperature gradient. Most importantly, extra energy absorbed at higher altitudes can actually flow up this gradient because that will help restore the equilibrium.
The primary determinants of atmospheric and surface temperatures are then based on the autonomous thermal gradient and the overall level of the plot of temperature against altitude. This level is set by the need for radiative balance and, in general, radiative balance cannot be disturbed by internal processes, such as back radiation.
A planet’s surface temperature just depends on where the plot of temperature against altitude intersects the surface. On Uranus the temperature at the base of the theoretical troposphere is about 320K. This is all in line with calculations, and, if there were a surface there, then it too would be 320K – hotter than Earth’s surface, even though no direct solar radiation even reaches down there through 350Km of atmosphere that’s mostly hydrogen and helium. There is thought to be a solid core with about half the mass of Earth, but that’s roughly 20,000Km further down and it may be about 5000K.
So, as on Venus also, where it’s about 730K at the surface, the temperature of a surface is all to do with the height of the atmosphere through which the temperature plot reaches hotter and hotter temperatures the closer it gets towards the surface. It has nothing to do with radiative forcing. It has nothing to do with any greenhouse effect. It has nothing to do with carbon dioxide.
Here is a chart including the SWO minus RI difference to make it plainer that while May 2013 has a lower SWO number than the peak at Nov 2011 – the RI number for May 2013 is much lower relatively than Nov 2011.
I was wondering if the counts for April 2012 where RI decreased and SWO increased – an uncommon event – marked a time when SWO changed their count methodology.
There’s more to climate than just sun-spots. But I’m the first to agree that it is all about natural (often cyclic) forcing, not radiative forcing, and certainly not carbon dioxide.
Nearly everyone, (including myself until a year ago) is still sucked into the line of thinking first thrust upon the world by the AGW crowd, namely that it is all to do with radiative forcing. Yes, this includes virtually all other PSI members..
I have been thinking this through for a long time and am now firmly of the opinion that all these energy budgets are incomplete, mainly because they don’t show the missing link. On Venus and Uranus that missing link is a huge amount of energy which must flow downwards in the atmosphere. It’s quite a lot on Earth too. Over the life of these planets there has been a build up of thermal energy from the Sun which can’t escape.
So these planets (Uranus, Venus, Earth) are not still cooling off. It’s cold out there where Uranus is because it only receives about 3W/m^2 in the very top of its atmosphere. It could easily have cooled off, but for the one thing that stops it. And that one thing is the gravitationally induced thermal gradient which forms by diffusion at the molecular level,, because molecules in free flight between collisions interchange kinetic energy and gravitational potential energy. In just two lines of calculations, you can derive the -g/Cp value by equating PE and -KE. Kinetic energy will tend towards being homogeneous during collisions, but only at each altitude. Inter-molecular radiation reduces the gradient by up to about a third, but by less than 5% on Uranus where there is just a little methane causing that.
The Clausius (hot to cold) statement of the Second Law is not comprehensive and for conduction and diffusion it only applies in a horizontal plane. The process described in the Second Law means that thermodynamic equilibrium evolves spontaneously, and, in the process of maintaining such equilibrium there must evolve a temperature gradient. Most importantly, extra energy absorbed at higher altitudes can actually flow up this gradient because that will help restore the equilibrium.
The primary determinants of atmospheric and surface temperatures are then based on the autonomous thermal gradient and the overall level of the plot of temperature against altitude. This level is set by the need for radiative balance and, in general, radiative balance cannot be disturbed by internal processes, such as back radiation.
A planet’s surface temperature just depends on where the plot of temperature against altitude intersects the surface. On Uranus the temperature at the base of the theoretical troposphere is about 320K. This is all in line with calculations, and, if there were a surface there, then it too would be 320K – hotter than Earth’s surface, even though no direct solar radiation even reaches down there through 350Km of atmosphere that’s mostly hydrogen and helium. There is thought to be a solid core with about half the mass of Earth, but that’s roughly 20,000Km further down and it may be about 5000K.
So, as on Venus also, where it’s about 730K at the surface, the temperature of a surface is all to do with the height of the atmosphere through which the temperature plot reaches hotter and hotter temperatures the closer it gets towards the surface. It has nothing to do with radiative forcing. It has nothing to do with any greenhouse effect. It has nothing to do with carbon dioxide.