Click for large image
This is the biggest Cycle 24 spot since the first one was seen on January 4th, 2008. This spot looks to have some staying power other than the “specks” we’ve seen winking on and off lately. No squinting to see this one, or wondering if it’s a dead pixel in the SOHO CCD imager or not.
The corresponding magnetogram image, seen here, is also quite pronounced. The polarity is correct, with the white “North” at the top. This spot grew quickly as it came around the rim into visibility. Watch this animation below:
At the same time, to the right of the image, at lower latitude, a new cycle 23 sunspot seems to be emerging, note it has a reveresed polarity from the larger SC24 spot. Solar cycle 23 just won’t give up it seems.
The magentic field, as shown by the Average Planetary index (Ap) remained low in September, see here.
Leif reminded me that the solar magnetic field is still at its lowest. Could you plot that chart again with current data? It would be interesting to see if this activity mirrors that of the magnetic field strength. It should go up.
At last. A real sun spot.
From the EIT imagery from SOHO, there seems to be a hint that there may be another storm waiting to emerge. Now, perhaps, we’ll start seeing how the predictions hold up.
Pamela Gray (10:03:15) :
Leif reminded me that the solar magnetic field is still at its lowest. Could you plot that chart again with current data? It would be interesting to see if this activity mirrors that of the magnetic field strength. It should go up.
You have to make a distinction between the magnetic field of the sunspot and that of the solar wind hitting the Earth. As we speak, there is a [moderate] geomagnetic storm in progress, sparked by the passage of a ‘sector boundary’ [the HCS sweeping over the Earth]. Within the new sector there is a high-speed solar wind stream, that has compressed the field [thus amplifying it]. This, combined with the field having a southward component, is what causes the geomagnetic storm, not the new SC24 spot in any way. As I remarked in another thread, this sector boundary has been with us for a long time [since June 2004]. The occurrence of new cycle spots will tend to destroy the magnetic sector and when those long-lived streams finally disappear, we can really say that we are in the new cycle. The new activity will also help screen out GCRs, so their flux will decrease. Since you check Oulu, you might have noticed that the last year or so there has been a persistent 27-day variation that by now seems to be diminishing. This is due to the demise of another high-speed stream on the other side of the Sun than the one we are getting into today. The disappearance of that stream is another sign that the end of SC23 is nigh. When the streams are dead, the HCS will flatten and the Earth will stay above or below the sheet for an extended time [back in 1954 for 12 months]. You can already see that beginning to happen for the current minimum [e.g. http://www.leif.org/research/spolarr.txt where X is ‘towards’ the Sun polarity and ‘.’ is ‘away’ from the Sun polarity. Note that the last couple of rotations are almost all Xs. If you scroll down you can see that this also happened in 1996 [March], 1986 [Sept.], 1977 [March], 1965 [Sept.], 1954, 1945, …
There are, of course, a corresponding dominance of ‘away’ polarity [‘.’] adjacent to the ‘toward’ polarity asymmetry. Note, the systematic alternations between March, Sept, March, Sept, … This comes from the fact that at those time we are at our highest above the HCS. For more on this Rosenberg-Coleman effect, as it is called, see http://www.leif.org/research/Asymmetric%20Rosenberg-Coleman%20Effect.pdf
More to come very soon.
Working backwards from a general NH, UK focussed weather forecast;
October – warmer than average, and dry.
November – colder than recent Novembers and mostly dry.
December – very cold (very) and wet.
January – ^as above
February – ^as above
March – colder than recent Marches and dry.
A massive amount of atmospheric (especially NH) water vapour has precipitated out during the recent rapid drop in temperatures but there is some more to come. The SC24 spots can only increase in size and frequency now. I would be amazed to see more than a very few, very small SC23’s. Just before, and sometimes just after, planetary alignments. Not just the gas giants and Venus BTW. Mid June 2008 will be pegged as minimum in my not so humble opinion 😉
[…] magnetic field still in a funk during September 11 10 2008 While the sun puts out a new and significant cycle 24 spot, the real news is just how quiet the suns magnetic field has been in the past couple of years, […]
There is also a recurring coronal hole coming around that always gets things stirred up a bit. Like the last one, these spots may also spit out a CME but I doubt it will be strong enough or fast enough to do anything but make a pretty cool video.
J Ward (10:43:31) :
I would be amazed to see more than a very few, very small SC23’s. Just before, and sometimes just after, planetary alignments. Not just the gas giants and Venus BTW.
Do you read you daily horoscope too? 🙂
This is the quickest I have seen for the planetary alignments to crop up in a thread, so far. I’ll refer you to the extensive discussion in just about any and all previous ‘solar’ threads and pray that we can keep this thread clean.
Leif, that artist’s drawing of the magnetic “sheet” field is stunning. Does it come in a poster?
Pamela Gray (11:25:05) :
Leif, that artist’s drawing of the magnetic “sheet” field is stunning. Does it come in a poster?
I agree that it is a stunner. When I made the first [hand-] drawing of what the HCS should look like back in 1975-1976 I remember being awed by it, even as crude as my drawing was. My co-worker [John Wilcox] was also impressed. He knew a Werner Heil [artist at NASA’s Ames Research Center] and asked him to make an ‘artists impression’ with the stunning result you see. I don’t know if there is a poster of that [don’t think so] but you should be able to capture the image and ask e.g. Kinko’s or similar outfit to make a poster. I use the image as Desktop Background for my computer(s), so have it in constant view.
http://wso.stanford.edu/gifs/helio.gif
I posted this in another thread also, but here is my own image of this group as seen from Norway today (garden telescope image)
http://arnholm.org/astro/sun/sc24/sun_20081011_1100ut_rot.jpg
Leif (12:07:43) Is your first hand-drawing on your website?
=====================================
kim (12:23:04) :
Is your first hand-drawing on your website?
yes at
http://www.leif.org/research/A%20View%20of%20Solar%20Magnetic%20Fields,%20the%20Solar%20Corona,%20and%20the%20Solar%20Wind%20in%20Three%20Dimensions.pdf
or just go to the site and look at paper #70.
Werner Heil put in some planets, stars, and the milkyway [look really carefully]. Many people have published later images, but none matches Werner’s.
Leif Svalgaard (11:17:08) :
“Do you read you daily horoscope too? :-)”
No actually. That would be Astrology as opposed to celestial mechanics (or the harmony of the spheres).
Just because a very few people have done their homework (precisely, meticulously and diligently) and discovered a system that they choose to keep close to their chests for whatever reason(s), does not preclude anyone else from doing the same and reaching the same conclusions.
A human may spend so long staring into the abyss that they become blind to the “nature” of the universe and the fact that everything is cyclical, spherical, spiral or circular and that the only straight lines are in the mind of man.
Similar, in fact, to someone who studies the Sun but does not notice the current strength of the solar wind on the back of their hand when out walking, which leads them to claim that the Sun has no climactic effect upon the Earth.
Much egg on many faces I see in the future.
Pamela Gray
http://wso.stanford.edu/gifs/helio.tiff
[…] http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/10/11/significant-cycle-24-sunspot-group-emerges […]
Sorry, Leif, Pamela, I’m playing catch-up in solar phyusics here.
What is “HCS”?
J Ward (10:43:31) :
Is the moon in the 2nd house, or Jupiter aligned with Mars?
Nuttier than squirrel excrement!
Should we also be keeping a metric upon the duration of a sunspot/sunspeck. That might resolve the issue of the significance of a spot or speck.
Basically, we would just be integrating over time; a completely normal procedure. It would be something like “size.hours” or “B-field.hours”
The lesser spot seems to have done the expand and fade trick today. It’s still there, but the magnitude has not faded just spread itself out. Didn’t we just see a carbon-copy of this scene (double spot fade out) a couple of weeks ago, like Sept. 22nd & 23rd?
That would make it 18 days not counting the twinkle of 10/04/08.
Robert Wood (15:30:43) :
What is “HCS”?
In space the magnetic field from the Sun is pointing away from the Sun in parts of the Heliosphere [“The extended solar system”] and towards the Sun in the other parts. The parts with different polarities are separated by a thin sheet of electric current, called the Heliospheric Current Sheet, HCS. Solar rotation curves the current sheet into spiral shape as shown here http://wso.stanford.edu/gifs/helio.gif The ‘undulations’ in the current sheet are caused by variations over the solar surface of its magnetic field. At solar minimum when the polar fields dominate, the HCS can be very flat [almost planar]. At solar maximum when the polar fields are gone, the undulations warp all the way to the poles. A movie of the how the HCS’s inner edge projected into the corona varies since 1976 is here http://www.leif.org/research/WSO-SS.gif
Robert Wood (15:55:34) :
Should we also be keeping a metric upon the duration of a sunspot/sunspeck.
On my website at http://www.leif.org/research/Most%20Recent%20IMF,%20SW,%20and%20Solar%20Data.pdf
on page 4, I plot what I call ‘region days’. That number is a monthly count [better would be a 27-day count] constructed like this: if on a given day there are x SC23 numbered regions on the Sun within +/-70 degrees longitude of the Central Meridian, then I enter x for ‘old’ cycle. If on the same day there are y SC24 numbered regions on the Sun within +/-70 degrees longitude of the Central Meridian, then I enter y for ‘new’ cycle.
As example, here are my counts for May 2008
2008 2008
5 5
old new
0 0
0 0
0 0
0 1
0 1
0 0
0 0
0 0
0 0
0 0
0 0
0 0
0 0
0 0
0 0
3 0
2 0
2 0
2 0
2 0
0 0
0 0
0 0
0 0
1 0
0 0
0 0
0 0
0 0
0 0
0 0
—–
12 2
The sum, 12, of ‘old’ gives the metric for old. The sum, 2, of ‘new’ gives the metric for new. The grand total, RD = 12+2 = 14, is the ‘region day count’ for the month. This number is very closely [but not exactly, R2=0.9245] related to the SIDC sunspot number: SIDC = 0.3 RD.
On page 4 of the link above, you can see the time variation of this metric.
Mary Hinge (15:43:50) :
J Ward (10:43:31) :
Nuttier than squirrel excrement!
Nevertheless, that was once established wisdom. Today the theory has been relegated to a historical curiosity.
Paul Charbonneau has written a wonderful review of the “Rise and Fall” of this theory: http://www.leif.org/research/Rise-and-Fall.pdf
Robert Wood (15:30:43) :
HCS = heliospheric current sheet
http://www.spaceweather.com/
says
“Sunspot 1005 is a member of new Solar Cycle 24. Credit: SOHO/MDI
Correction: In yesterday’s caption, this sunspot was mis-labeled “1004.”
I thought I must have missed 1004, and found this:
http://www.cloudynights.com/ubbthreads/showflat.php/Cat/0/Number/2694123/Main/2693961
What going on? Or should I say Watts up with that?
Dr Svalgaard
Is there a ‘Solar Physics for Dummies’ book that the fascinated layman with limited math abilities might profit from? I am thinking of something along the lines of Brian Greene’s books on string theory.