Many scientists are believing a Dalton like solar minimum appears a real possibility given the recent solar behavior. Even David Hathaway of NASA has recently conceded that 'possibility' to the New York Times here.

I received this email from Dr. Richard Mackey of Australia, a solar statistician expert and peer-reviewed author on solar climate factors. I thought you might find his comments and insight interesting. In it he discusses the extreme scenario that the current solar cycle, the longest in at least 150 years and with more sunspotless days (689 days as of today - more than double the number in the cycles the last half century) during this transition could be telegraphing.

Astronomer Emeritus Dr. William Livingston and Associate Astronomer Dr Matthew Penn have for many years been measuring the magnetic field strength of the Sun's magnetic fields. See for example this post. WUWT in June this year published a report by them concluding that, broadly speaking, over the last 15 years the magnetic field strengths of sunspots were decreasing with time independently of the sunspot cycle. A simple linear extrapolation of the magnetic data collected by their special observatory (the McMath-Pierce telescope) suggests that sunspots might largely vanish in five years time. In addition, other scientists report that the solar wind (a large proportion of the Sun's output of matter in the plasma form) is in a lower energy state than found since space measurements began nearly 40 years ago.

In answer to the question: Why is a lack of sunspot activity interesting?, Livingston and Penn answer: "During a period from 1645 to 1715 the Sun entered an extended period of low activity known as the Maunder Minimum. For a time equivalent to several sunspot cycles the Sun displayed few sunspots. Models of the Sun's irradiance suggest that the solar energy input to the Earth decreased during that epoch, and that this lull in solar activity may explain the low temperatures recorded in Europe during the Little Ice Age".

Leif Svalgaard writes to inform me that Livingston and Penn have published their article recently in EOS, Transactions, American Geophysical Union.

As WattsUpWithThat readers may recall, we had a preview of that EOS article here.

Livingston & Penn write in the EOS article:

For hundreds of years, humans have observed that the Sun has displayed activity where the number of sunspots increases and then decreases at approximately 11- year intervals. Sunspots are dark regions on the solar disk with magnetic field strengths greater than 1500 gauss (see Figure 1), and the 11- year sunspot cycle is actually a 22- year cycle in the solar magnetic field, with sunspots showing the same hemispheric magnetic polarity on alternate 11- year cycles.

The last solar maximum occurred in 2001, and the magnetically active sunspots at that time produced powerful flares causing large geomagnetic disturbances and disrupting some space- based technology. 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 (see here).

Fairbanks - An early frost hopscotched across the Tanana Valley destroying unprotected garden produce and flowers wherever it touched down Wednesday morning.

The helter skelter pattern left Linda Dolney at Ann's Greenhouses scratching her head.

"It was really weird," she said. "We had nine flats of marigolds out, and just a few flowers in the middle got it."

The cole crops in Dolney's garden, such as broccoli, cabbage and cauliflower, are OK, she said. "But the tender crops like squash, cucumbers, peppers and eggplants that were not covered were mostly zapped," Dolney said.

Her neighbor wasn't so lucky. The temperature at his place dipped to 28 degrees, and everything in the garden was devastated.

"Even the potato plants were nipped," Dolney said.

Although Wednesday night's forecast was for warmer temps, Dolney wasn't taking any chances and left the protective plant covers on.

Gretchen Kerndt of Basically Basil, off Herried Road, said Wednesday morning's frost is the earliest she has ever seen.

The world's source for global temperature record admits it's lost or destroyed all the original data that would allow a third party to construct a global temperature record. The destruction (or loss) of the data comes at a convenient time for the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) in East Anglia - permitting it to snub FoIA requests to see the data.

The CRU has refused to release the raw weather station data and its processing methods for inspection - except to hand-picked academics - for several years. Instead, it releases a processed version, in gridded form. NASA maintains its own (GISSTEMP), but the CRU Global Climate Dataset, is the most cited surface temperature record by the UN IPCC. So any errors in CRU cascade around the world, and become part of "the science".

Professor Phil Jones, the activist-scientist who maintains the data set, has cited various reasons for refusing to release the raw data. Most famously, Jones told an Australian climate scientist in 2004:

Even if WMO agrees, I will still not pass on the data. We have 25 or so years invested in the work. Why should I make the data available to you, when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it.

On Feb. 26, I wrote a post on Climate Audit, "Steig 2009's Non-Correction for Serial Correlation", commenting on the Jan. 22 letter in Nature by Eric Steig et al. On Feb. 28, I sent Steig and his 5 co-authors an e-mail alerting them to my post and its content.

On Aug. 6, Steig and co-authors published a Corrigendum in Nature replicating my findings, but without mentioning my prior post. I wrote the editors of Nature a letter complaining that if the Corrigendum was received after Feb. 28, it would constitute plagiarism under Nature's definition as "when an author attempts to pass off someone else's work as his or her own." My letter to Nature, together with my e-mail to Steig and co-authors, is in Comment 60 of the Climate Audit thread on the Steig Corrigendum.

On Aug. 10, Steig wrote Nature Associate Editor Michael White the following letter, with a copy to myself:

Real Climate has defended Steig against a plagiarism complaint from Hu McCulloch, covered by Pielke Jr here and Jeff Id here. Hu's original post is here and the most recent Climate Audit discussion here. Hu's complaint is here.

Note: Hu's email to the Steig coauthors is here. Steig was not the only recipient. All Steig authors were copied - Stieg, D Schneider, Rutherford, Mann, Comiso and Shindell.

US. federal policy defines plagiarism as follows:

Plagiarism is the appropriation of another person's ideas, processes, results, or words without giving appropriate credit.

Here is a discussion of the topic from Penn State, where Michael Mann of Steig et al has an appointment.

In an entirely unrelated development, Steig et al have issued a corrigendum in which they reproduce (without attribution) results previously reported at Climate Audit by Hu McCulloch (and drawn to Steig's attention by email) - see comments below and Hu McCulloch's post here.

They also make an incomplete report of problems with the Harry station - reporting the incorrect location in their Supplementary Information, but failing to report that the "Harry" data used in Steig et al was a bizarre splice of totally unrelated stations (see When Harry Met Gill). The identification of this problem was of course previously credited by the British Antarctic Survey to Gavin the Mystery Man.

Gallatin National Forest - Just before midnight under the moon's gray light, the world tilted and tore off a Montana mountainside. Sliding rock buried 19 campers alive, their bodies never found, and 80 million tons of rock and trees tumbled into Madison River Canyon, leaving rubble piled more than 200 feet deep.

The Aug. 17, 1959 earthquake that caused the slide in southwestern Montana remains the largest ever recorded in the Rocky Mountains.

Five more campers drowned when displaced air whooshed down the canyon and swept them into the Madison River. Survivors reported the wind generated by the slide was so strong it ripped off their clothes.

Ten miles away, 15-year-old Martin Stryker was shaken awake in his tent. Woozy with vertigo, he told his two younger brothers to stay put and then went outside. The first thing he saw was a tree fallen on the family's car.

A magnitude-6.8 earthquake hit off Japan's southern coast Monday, prompting the Meteorological Agency to issue a tsunami warning.

The quake struck off the coast of Ishigaki island, near Japan's southern island of Okinawa, around 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers) south of Tokyo. It struck at a depth of about six miles (10 kilometers), the agency said.

Naoto Ohtake, a police official on Ishigaki, said there were no immediate reports of damage or casualties on the island, a popular resort destination with a population of 40,000.

"Nothing fell off during the quake. Electricity, water and gas are all working," Ohtake said.

The first shipments of foreign aid arrived Sunday as Taiwan struggled to reach more than 1,000 people still stranded a week after its deadliest typhoon in half a century.

As plastic sheeting for makeshift housing arrived from the U.S. and water purification tablets came from Australia, taxi drivers in the capital, Taipei, pitched in, driving rice and instant noodles to the island's hard-hit rural south.

President Ma Ying-jeou, who says the death toll from Morakot is likely to exceed 500, offered another apology for his government's response to the disaster after families said more lives could have been saved.

"Sorry we were late," he told people in Pingtung County. "As the president, I will take full responsibility in getting the remaining work done well."

The head of Taiwan's relief operation, Mao Chi-kuo, denied mounting criticism that authorities had failed to evacuate villagers soon enough, blaming the record rainfall instead.