NASA moves the goalposts on Solar Cycle 24 again

5 10 2008


Animation courtesy Michael Ronayne. Click for larger, slower speed animation

NASA’s David Hathaway just recently updated his solar cycle prediction and has pushed cycle 24 into the future a little more once again. Though to read his latest update on 10/03/08 at his prediction page here, you wouldn’t know it, because the page is mostly tech speak and reviews of semi relevant papers.

However, there is one graphic, the familar one above, that has been updated and tells the story best. Michael Ronayne was kind enough to provide an animation (above) that shows the march of time as far as solar cycle 24 predictions go. With the latest update (static image here) the startup of solar cycle 24 has been pushed into 2009.

This isn’t the first time NASA has moved the goalpost. Back in March I did a story on NASA moving the goal post then, and since then they’ve moved the cycle ahead twice, once in April and again now in October.

NASA isn’t the only one having to update predictions, NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) has also had to make several adjustments to their graphic: Read the rest of this entry »


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Categories : Science, solar

New Solar Cycle Not Packing Much Punch

5 10 2008

I found a reference to this article while looking at Leif Svalgaard’s website, and since I missed it the first time around, and because the message is still valid, I thought I’d reprint it here. Also, the artwork they provided a hi-res link to makes a great desktop wallpaper. – Anthony

New Solar Cycle Not Packing Much Punch

Story from REDORBIT NEWS:

Published: 2008/05/19 06:00:00 CDT

Many solar scientists expected the new sunspot cycle to be a whopper, a prolonged solar tantrum that could fry satellites and raise hell with earthly communications, the power grid and modern electronics.

But there’s scant proof Sunspot Cycle 24 is even here, let alone the debut of big trouble.

So far there have been just a couple minor zits on the face of the sun to suggest the old cycle is over and the new one is coming.

The roughly 11-year cycle of sunspot activity should have bottomed out last year, the end of Cycle 23 and the beginning of Cycle 24. That would have put the peak in new sunspot activity around 2012.

But a dud sunspot cycle would not necessarily make it a boring period, especially for two solar scientists with the Tucson-based National Solar Observatory.

Two years ago, William Livingston and Matt Penn wrote a paper for the journal Science predicting that this could not only be a dud sunspot cycle, but the start of another extended down period in solar activity. It was based on their analysis of weakening sunspot intensity and said sunspots might vanish by 2015. Read the rest of this entry »


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Categories : Science, solar

Gore demonstrates he doesn’t understand basic meteorology, much less climate

5 10 2008

Gore links Iowa floods and tornadoes to climate change, but makes a basic error on global temperature to evaporation linkage, plus he misses the real reason behind imagined tornado increases.

photo

Former Vice President Al Gore, right, gives hearty greetings to John Davis, left, of Hamburg at the Iowa Democratic Party's Jefferson Jackson Dinner, the state party's annual fundraiser, at Hy-Vee Hall in Des Moines on Saturday night. Gore was guest speaker.

[Excerpt: In a recent article in the Des Moines Register, Al ] Gore attributed the historic floods that devastated Iowa in June to man-made emissions causing more water to evaporate from oceans, increasing average humidity worldwide. “In 66 of your 99 counties, the flood damage was truly historic.” Gore told the crowd of 1,000 Democratic donors. “No one has ever seen a flood like this.” Gore also blamed climate change for increased tornadoes, including the one that leveled much of Parkersburg earlier this year. “Yes, we’ve always had tornadoes in Iowa and in Tennessee,” he said. “But they’re coming more frequently and they’re stronger.”

In my opinion, the biggest error Gore makes is that water vapor in the atmosphere (and water cycle) has a much shorter residence time than his worrisome CO2; days to weeks from evaporation to precipitation, and thus would not be linked to “warming” now, since warming has subsided globally. Read the rest of this entry »

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Categories : climate_change, politics, ridiculae