We are now at 21 days with no sunspots, it will be interesting to see if we reach a spotless 30 day period and then perhaps a spotless month of December.
From the data provided by NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) you can see just how little magnetic field activity there has been. I’ve included it below with the latest available update from December 6th, 2008:
click for a larger image
What I find most interesting about the Geomagnetic Average Planetary Index graph above is what happened around October 2005. Notice the sharp drop in the magnetic index and the continuance at low levels. Read on for more.
This looks much like a “step function” that I see on GISS surface temperature graphs when a station has been relocated to a cooler measurement environment. In the case of the sun, it appears this indicates that something abruptly “switched off” in the inner workings of the solar dynamo. Note that in the prior months, the magnetic index was ramping up a bit with more activity, then it simply dropped and stayed mostly flat.
Currently the Ap magnetic index continues at a low level, and while the “smoothed” data from SWPC is not made available for 2008, I’ve added it with a dashed blue line, and the trend appears to be going down.
As many regular readers know, I’ve always pointed out the sharp drop in 2005 with the following extended period of low activity as an odd occurance. Our resident solar astronomer Leif Svalgaard disagrees with this. But I’d also like to point out that this was the time when global sea level as measured by the JASON satellite and reported by the University of Colorado began to lose its upward trend.
Source: University of Colorado, Boulder
Coincidence? Perhaps. But I think investigation is needed to determine if there is any mechanism that would explain or exclude this correlation.
(h/t Joe D’aleo
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
While the spate of SC 24 spots (as opposed to specks) last month surprised me the current spotlessness in light of the ap graph is restoring my expectation that the smoothed 13-month sum may yet have a new low ahead.
I was just doing research on this just before you put up this article. Actually if we count Nov 18 and today (Dec 9th, 2008) it is 22 consecutive spotless days. For a solar activity that is supposidly picking up… I think it is more of a grinding stop!!!
P.S. I like the snow on the site… maybe with an Artic blue background and icicles would make picture-perfect.
When the IPCC first presented its projections for sea level rise in the early 90s, the y-axis scale was in decimal meters (predicting a 0.64 m rise in 100 years). Subsequent presentations of the information was in cm. The graph above is in mm. On my screen at least, 10mm on the y-axis is longer than 10mm.
Does the general pubic (in the US) know what a mm really is, or are they more impressed by the steepness of the rise? Imagine a graph that is expressed in exact millimeters with the time scale moved out so that a decade gives a more reasonable impression of a ten years of time.
BTW: great snow effect — subtle, but meaningful.
Love the snowflakes!
Spaceweather says there might be a spot group appearing on the far side of the Sun.
Are there any data that go back beyond 2000 so we might be able to see if there were any previous “steps” of this sort? What I am particularly curious about is if there was a corresponding step up sometime in the 1970’s.
I have taken to looking at the video of the sun, linked at right, several times a week. It makes me cold just watching it.
The snow flakes I find a bit distracting.
Looking at that magnetic plot with its monthly data and then “smoothed” monthly data, it appears that the “smoothing is simply a data throwaway process.
Does anybody ever do a Fourier Transform on this raw data, to see what its frequency spectrum looks like.
Maybe it is the information that is being thrown away, and the “noise” is being kept.
George
I think we all are in the barrel on this one,and the Warmists will have no option.
However proving them wrong is not going to be fun…
I’ve always wondered how CO2 is supposed to warm the oceans, when it’s absorbed in the top1-2mm of water. Sunlight penetrates 100m into water so small variances in the sun should have more to do with cooling or heating the oceans than any change in CO2. IMO CO2 should have no heating effect on 70% of the planet.
Considering the huge difference in mass between the atmosphere and the oceans. The atmosphere has only 0.384% of the mass of the oceans (if memory serves me correct). The short term effect on the oceans should be negliable. Yet, oceans have warmed and temperature has increased. It should be a no-brainer which caused what.
[SARC]Of course it is increasing the amount of CO2 in mass A from 0.028% to 0.038% which weighs 0.384% of mass B. [/SARC]
The difference in mass between CO2 in the atmosphere and the oceans is so enormous that claiming the increase in CO2 has anything to do with the increase in ocean temperature is ridiculous
Perhaps an occasional Santa & Reindeer?
If GCR’s cause more clouds, and less magnetic fields allow more GCR’s, should we not see more of those white fluffy things? Some satellite has to record this. Has cloud cover changed at all in the last couple of years?
I see a couple of black spots on the sun, one at the equator near the east, another in the north east. Dead pixels, I assume?
OT: You don’t hate Windows Vista anymore?
Were I to adopt the writing style of the MSM alarmists, I might say that the latest value of the Ap index is the lowest in the current millennium!
As for spotless days, we’ve now reached 246 for the year, compared to 253 for 1912 and 311 for 1913. Won’t take much to exceed the level set in 1912. The sun’s just not getting with the program.
Month-to-month variation in the solar cycle seems to have damped down after Oct 2005 too. Not only are the values low, they’re lethargic.
so we are at 270 days for the year? and total 560 since the switch?
Tx Anthony
If Leif is reading this, does the linked graph of cosmic ray flux automatically update, and if not, how current is this graph? NASA recently announced the solar wind to be the weakest in 50+ years, and one would expect the cosmic ray count to go to record levels for the last 50+ years as well.
http://www.leif.org/research/CosmicRayFlux3.png
Doesn’t look like an upward trend yet. We’ll see what happens in the next few months.
For anyone who could use some holiday joy, here are the first few verses of a Christmas carol by Bethany Cole, with her kind permission, which I have posted on my site:
On the first day of Global Warming,
my true love sent to me
Al Gore’s cap and trade policy.
On the second day of Global Warming,
my true love sent to me
Two Clinton thugs,
And Al Gore’s cap and trade policy.
On the third day of Global Warming,
my true love sent to me
No warming trend,
Two Clinton thugs,
And Al Gore’s cap and trade policy.
On the fourth day of Global Warming,
my true love sent to me
More falling temps,
No warming trend,
Two Clinton thugs,
And Al Gore’s cap and trade policy.
It only gets better:
http://talkingabouttheweather.com
OT, but the Surface Stations Gallery is down.
It certainly deserves more attention. Even the noise level in the graph dropped. It’s not like the AGW guys should mind more study because it gives an excuse for some of the less convenient trends.
Still they can always apply a correction to the Jason signal if it gets too far out of line.
I know WUWT stays away from politics most of the time but if you haven’t heard–
The US government is considering legislation which gives the government control over the types of cars that can be produced in exchange for the bailout. Of course the key is so that they are environmentally friendly.
http://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2008/12/09/auto-industry-takeover/
So how many more spotless days before 2008 is the most spotless since 1913?
Have we passed 1912 yet?
It’s been hard for me to keep up with the exact number of spotless days.
I don’t see my earlier comment in the awaiting moderation queue, so forgive me if this is a repeat…
The Ap trend does not yet appear to be upward. It will be interesting to see where we are in a few months.
Anyone needing a holiday laugh:
On the first day of Global Warming,
my true love sent to me
Al Gore’s cap and trade policy.
On the second day of Global Warming,
my true love sent to me
Two Clinton thugs,
And Al Gore’s cap and trade policy.
On the third day of Global Warming,
my true love sent to me
No warming trend,
Two Clinton thugs,
And Al Gore’s cap and trade policy.
On the fourth day of Global Warming,
my true love sent to me
More falling temps,
No warming trend,
Two Clinton thugs,
And Al Gore’s cap and trade policy.
For the rest of Bethany Cole’s brilliant carol, feel free to visit http://talkingabouttheweather.com
All the best,
Harold
Anthony, I think the planetary index graph drop is interesting too. You say “This looks much like a “step function” that I see on GISS surface temperature graphs when a station has been relocated to a cooler measurement environment.”
Just to eliminate other possibilities: Has an instrument issue been ruled out for the AP graph?
P.S. -8C here, old fashioned winter.
OT, but I am just watching a live press conference where President-elect Obama is meeting with Al Gore, and the talk is about climate change. He said that “the time for delay is over” and “the time for denial is over.” He also said that all three (not clear who else is involved – Biden maybe?) are in agreement over the “what the scientists have been telling us FOR YEARS.” His plan is to re-energize America by creating ‘green’ jobs in all 50 states. He sees it not only as a problem, but also as an opportunity. More importantly, however, it is a matter of urgency and national security says our soon to be president. This does not look good at all.
Just 7 more days!!! 7 more days and 2008 will be in second place!
Magnetic field is going down, spotless days are going on and…what about solar flux? And solar wind?
I think is so far starting cycle.
I think about the only thing concrete that can be said at this point, is the sun “did something” and we for once in our existence had the instrumentation in place that could actually measure what happened. Past there, we know little about the why — But fortunately the instruments are still observing.
Oh yeah, we do know it’s getting quit cold on our little speck of a planet. What caused what is still conjecture.
Maybe if we forgot focusing on proving the hoax and got back to doing real science, mankind may actually discover some new science from all this. Ice ages have come and gone for millions of years, and we still don’t know why. Is a clue staring us in the face?
i know the number of spotless days per year is the metric, but it strikes me as an inconvenient metric in that, just like the scale on a graph, it can give the wrong impression. when i first saw that 1912 had 311 spotless days, i thought at first, “wow, this minimum has a LONG way to go before it’s anything like 1912.” then, it dawned on me that the timing of the onset of the minimum during the calendar year has a large impact on the number of spotless days observed in a year. for instance, if a minimum happens to coincide with the beginning of a calendar year (or even at the end of the previous calendar year), then that year will obviously have more observed spotless days than a year where the minimum begins midyear.
just my two cents….