Click for magnified view of the sun showing the most recent spot.
Sunspot 987, 988, and now newly emerging 989 are shown above.
With all being near the equator, they are still a cycle 23 spots. A cycle 24 spot would be at a much higher latitude.
The most recent magnetogram shows them to have the magnetic polarity of cycle 23 spots, in addition to being near the equator.
Cycle 24 remains late. There was one sunspot of high latitude and reversed magnetic polarity on January 4th, 2008, but none have been seen since:
Click for a larger image
UPDATE 2: The solar holographic image shows a potentially large spot on the far side of the sun, we’ll have to wait until it comes around to see what it is. The method is not always perfect.
Darker area is the far side of the sun.
Seismic waves propagating through the sun are used to image potential spots on the far side. Here is a description of how it is done.
UPDATE 3:
It looks as if the spot seen yesterday on the far side of the sun via the holographic technique has disappeared. As I said “The method is not always perfect.”
The two spots above are earthward, 987, and 988.
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Interestingly I looked at German Wikipedia and it states that cycle 24 already started in January!
Do they know something we don’t?
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonnenfleck
” Anfang Januar 2008 begann ein neuer Zyklus, der mit nur 3 Monaten Ungenauigkeit vorhergesagt werden konnte [1]. ”
(A new cycle started at the start of january 2008, one that could be forecast with an inaccuracy of 3 months.)
REPLY: The wa sa single reversed polarity high latitude sunspot in January, which I announced here, but nothing seen since, as if cycle 24 has false started.
http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/2008/01/04/solar-cycle-24-has-officially-started/
NASA reported the start of solar cycle 24 in January
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2008/10jan_solarcycle24.htm
why the difference in opinion?
Very small, and probably won’t last much more than a day.
This is one weird cycle…..
The latest prediction from Hathaway at NASA would have cycle 24 starting pretty quickly in April and ramping in May:
http://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/images/ssn_predict_l.gif
I don’t think it will happen that way
Am I wrong, or did NASA proclaim that Sun Cycle 24 arrived on January 4th, 2008? I’m not familiar with Sun science too much, but I know contradictory statements when I see one.
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2008/10jan_solarcycle24.htm
The photo posted on this web site clearly shows no existing reversed polarity Sun Sport in the high latitudes, which is a tell tale sign of a new cycle. However, the images and statements in the link I provided state regarding an area of solar activity very recently:
“It was high latitude (30 degrees N) and magnetically reversed. NOAA named the spot AR10981, or “sunspot 981” for short.
However, you state, “the cycle remains late”. So which is it?
REPLY: here is the first cycle 24 spot, none since:
http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/2008/01/04/solar-cycle-24-has-officially-started/
Cycle 23 spots continue to be produced, and it is normal to have an overlap during the transition from one cycle to the other. It’s just that more cycle23 spots have been occuring and no cycle 24 spots.
Very intresting. Another spot has appeared. It’s also a cycle 23 spot. Solarcycle24.com is reporting the possability of a third spot emerging on the eastern limb soon also on the equator.
Man, this is a weird cycle.
And yes, there is overlap between cycles. Usually 12-18 months, IIRC. But we’re quickly approaching 3 months since the last Cycle 24 spot. And remember there was one that appeared in 2006 (June?). So did the new cycle start in June 2006, January 2008, or has it still not started yet?
Yeah, weird…..
I guess in April the prediction will be for a quick start in May?
For an excellent paper on this by David Archibald: Solar Cycle 24: Implications for the United States This is very readable and easily understood for the layman.
The overlap in cycle length is usually 12 to 20 months, meaning the actual start of the cycle would be towards the end of this year, to as late as mid-’09.
Another LIA type climate seems to be bearing down on us. And we’re worried about C02, which not only is NOT the enemy, but which we have benefited greatly from, and will benefit even more from predicted future rises. We’ll need all the growing power we can get!
Yes, cycles overlap. Perhaps the best demarcation of the border is flatlining of solar flux, and it has been flat around 70, lately. 72, yesterday, though.
=============================================
Cycle 24 does not officially start until there are more Cycle 24 sunpots than there are Cycle 23 spots.
From the time a sunspot of a new Cycle appears, it can take anywhere from 6 months to 2 years before we are officially in a new cycle.
So far there has only been 1 Cycle 24 sunspot and the most recent butterfly pattern of sunspots shows it will be at least 6 months before the the new cycle starts.
http://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/images/bfly_recent.gif
It is good to see the Sun ramping up again though because we certainly do not want any Maunder Minimums with the crop failures and poor golf seasons that one would bring. A nice normal Sun is a good thing.
I don’t believe he even mentions coronal holes, which aren’t connected to sunspots, but which also seem to have a large effect on the amount of solar wind streams effecting Earth. My rather limited understanding is that taking CH’s into effect means that the cooling will indeed be significant, and more similat to what occurred during the Maunder rather than the Dalton Minimum.
On Warwick Hugh’s blog, David Archibald is reporting current revised prediction of sunspot maximum being ~45.
“Things are pointing to a Solar Cycle 24 amplitude of about 45. That number is within Schatten’s error bar on his estimate of 72. A number of wavelet people have numbers in the 40s. ”
http://www.warwickhughes.com/blog/?p=150
Bill Illis
We all know a cold spell would be bad news. But a warm spell would only confirm the AGW kooks, and they would lead us to an even greater disaster.
I’m hoping it cools. I crave the opportunity to rub it in their smug faces. Besides don’t worry – we all know how to heat the planet now, don’t we? 🙂
REPLY: Yes but no amount of heating we could conjure up will affect an approaching global glaciation. Let’s not wish for such things.
Yeah. (Shhhh! quiet! You’ll wake it!)
I usually just lurk out here, this site is fantastic.
Bruce – Thanks for the link to David Archibald’s paper. Easy read and very understandable. I’m curious if there are any further papers on the same line. Also, it seems the AGW proponents at other web sites sure don’t like this guy. Have there been any followup papers to David’s by anyone else as David himself suggests people should do?
Let’s not wish for such things.
Anthony, as much as many skeptics want desperately to, as AGWscoffer notes; “rub it in their smug faces”, I can’t imagine anyone who lived through the harsh winters of the 50’s, 60’s, 70’s and early 80’s wanting a repeat of that era. Throughout the 70’s and early 80’s I had a vegetable garden in my back yard. I followed the general rule of thumb in northern Indiana and didn’t plant until after May 15th. And, even then, there were a number of years when I had to replant 2 or 3 times, sometimes as late as Memorial Day, due to late frosts and even hard freezes. And the mid-20th Century cooling was mild compared to a Dalton or Maunder minimum.
NASA has been announcing Solar minimum since March 2006, two full years ago, as this March 6, 2006 news release demonstrates.
Solar Minimum has Arrived
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2006/06mar_solarminimum.htm
To confirm the long anticipated arrival of Solar Cycle 24, NASA announced a Backward Sunspot on August 15, 2006, which was observed on July 31, 2006.
Backward Sunspot
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2006/15aug_backwards.htm
By NASA’s own admission this Backward Sunspot was atypical and they were not sure it heralded the arrival of Cycle 24.
Then in a January 10, 2008 press release NASA announced that a Backward or Reverse Polarity Sunspot appeared on January 4, 2008 and lasted for 3 short days.
Solar Cycle 24 Begins
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2008/10jan_solarcycle24.htm
In the press release the following statement was made:
“We predicted that Solar Cycle 24 would begin around March 2008 and it looks like we weren’t far off,” he says.
There is one small problem with the above statement, NASA has been predicting the start of Solar Cycle 24 for two years now and they have been consistently wrong! As Anthony has correctly pointed out in another post, NASA/NOAA has been moving the goalpost. What is really interesting is that the predicted start data for Solar Cycle 24 has been moved not once but multiple times. The number of such predictions is the subject for another post.
Mike
““We predicted that Solar Cycle 24 would begin around March 2008 and it looks like we weren’t far off,” he says.”
THAT is comedy GOLD, Jerry!!!!
Interesting.
Stan: While I agree, it’s getting to the point where I am looking forward to the day when they dig me out of the ice.
Frozen stiff, with a big grin on my face.
NAZA: Not this evening. Perhaps tomorrow.
VLADIMIR: We’ve nothing more to do here, Didi.
ESTRAGON: Ah, Gogo, don’t go on like that. Tomorrow everything will be better.
NAZA: Let’s say no more about it.
“I can’t imagine anyone who lived through the harsh winters of the 50’s, 60’s, 70’s and early 80’s wanting a repeat of that era. ”
Being born in 48, I thought harsh winter was what George Washington, Ben Franklin and John Adams lived through.
Nope we really don’t want a LIA. That would be terrible. The only problem is that if the warmers get their way fuel will be so expensive in another year that it will be nearly impossible to produce food crops and then when we do to move it to market. It isn’t hard to imagine food riots in the not to distant future if the carbon limits and cost are placed in effect and then we have serious cooling for several years. Here In Alabama we are feeling the crunch with the drought since 2005 and late freezes meaning late crops that last year produced less than 50% of normal production state wide.
Yep I can see things being rough if we have some serious cooling if the warmers gain the upper hand.
Bill
re: sun spots. This is like waiting for your pre-adolescent son to get his first case of acne. Two pimples does not an adolescent make.
” Could someone tell please me how one knows these are Cycle 23 spots?”
QUESTION IS NOW ANSWERED! So it does look as if Cycle 24 is gonna be really late…c’mon global cooling!!
STAN, with all due respect…
We’re left with choosing the lesser of two evils. Of course, in a normal world, cooling is worse news than warming. But we don’t live in normal times, do we? The world and climate science have been hijecked by kook-scientists who have some very scary ideas on how to solve this “global warming problem” and run things in general. These ideas are far more dangerous (i.e. bio-fuel fiasco, government intervention, high taxes, regulation, etc.) than a degree or two C of cooling, which I pray is in the pipeline.
So what do you choose? Kooks or kooling?
I choose cooling because, when this hoax is finally exposed and the masses wake up and realise how they’ve been duped, it’ll serve to put science back into proper hands, and remind the public of the importance of being skeptical of science and MSM, and that the person who screams the loudest is not necessarilly right. No – consensus does not make the science.
In USA you have a healthy degree of skepticism – not here in Europe. Here only politically correct thought is acceptable, and anything else, no matter what science and data you present, is wrong. I’ve had it with these pseudo-intelllectuals, who have not even bothered to read up a little about the science, lecturing me on “social responsibilities”. For all I care they can shove those responsibilities where the don’t sunspots appear.
These glittering jewels of arrogance have to be brought back down to earth.
If that doesn’t happen, then we’re in a heap of trouble.
Haven’t you read about these guys?
Please allow me to suggest the following link:
http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/2008/03/20/the-sloppy-science-of-global-warming/
SOME EXCERPTS.:
” While it takes only one scientific paper to disprove a theory, I fear that no amount of evidence will be able to counter what everyone now considers true.”
” About the only thing that might cause global warming hysteria to end will be a prolonged period of cooling…”
” It is unfortunate that our next generation of researchers and teachers is being taught to trust emotions over empirical evidence.”
” Social and political ends increasingly trump all other considerations. Science that is not politically correct is becoming increasingly difficult to publish.”
“…the extreme reluctance for most scientists to even entertain the possibility that some of it might be natural suggests to me that climate research has become corrupted.”
Sound familiar?
The danger is neither the warming nor the cooling. Humanity is technically equipped to deal with both. The danger is the POLITICS.