Solar Cycle 24 has ended according to NASA. Yes you read that right. Somebody at NASA can’t even figure out which solar cycle they are talking about. Or, as commenters to the thread have pointed out, perhaps they see that cycle 24 has been skipped. We’ll be watching this one to see the outcome. – Anthony
Michael Ronanye writes in comments:
NASA has just changed the name of the project from Solar Cycle 23 to Solar Cycle 24. I would love to have attended that meeting.
B.9 CAUSES AND CONSEQUENCES OF THE MINIMUM OF SOLAR CYCLE 24
Clarified March 10, 2009: All references to “Solar Cycle 23″ have been updated to “Solar Cycle 24.” Reference in Section 1 to “Solar Cycle 22″ has been updated to “Solar Cycle 23.”
See the changed text here:
Causes and Consequences of the Minimum of Solar Cycle 24
Talk about Freudian Slips, what Solar Cycle is it anyway? No wonder they can’t make predications!
But it gets even better. NASA has just declared that Solar Cycle 24 is over. Read the first paragraph in the above PDF:
1. Scope of Program
In 2009, we are in the midst of the minimum of solar activity that marks the end of Solar Cycle 24. As this cycle comes to an end we are recognizing, in retrospect, that the Sun has been extraordinarily quiet during this particular Solar Cycle minimum. This is evidenced in records of both solar activity and the response to it of the terrestrial space environment.
Obviously someone made an error when editing the text of the original document and did not catch their mistake. Quick, make your own backup copy of this “Great Moment in Science”.
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They must have contracted out to Treasury for clerical help.
Also looks like Nicola Scafetta has just released a new paper that says TSI for the 1980s and 1990s is much more than previously thought. We will how is stands up to review.
http://climatesci.org/2009/03/11/a-new-paper-on-solar-climate-forcing-acrim-gap-and-tsi-trend-issue-resolved-using-a-surface-magnetic-flux-tsi-proxy-model-by-scafetta-et-al-2009/
Extending the pattern of updating specified in the pdf suggests that all references to Solar Cycle 24 should be updated to Solar Cycle 25, so it is Solar Cycle 25 that they say is coming to an end. LOL.
O_o shocked to the core!!
These are the days when pigs do fly…
The amazing thing is that this is a change of over 3 years from the minimum “predicted” in March 2006 to today.
I don’t blame them for getting it wrong. But their model, obviously, has nothing to do with reality (I could go OT here, but won’t).
What I’m interested in now is how closely we are following the cycle 10-15 plots. Any links?
Don’t be too hasty here. Maybe they know what they’re talking about.
They might have determined that the weak Cycle 24 spots we’ve seen were all that 24 could muster, and that the ‘Cycle 23’ spots we’re occasionally spotting are really cycle 25.
I await Leif’s comments with interest.
(And yes, I’m joking.)
Definitely Freudian, but bless ’em! Anybody can make mistakes.
It does seem they’re genuinely excited about studying the sun in its current state – and that’s a good thing, IMHO.
Peer review process at it’s finest!
This has something to do with daylight savings time, I think. Someone told them they were supposed to set your clocks forward and they heard set your “cycles” forward. So we lose a cycle, what the heck, we will get it back when we fall back in the fall.
Has it ended or they just end it by a decree?
Backed up. I back up every document on science and politics as PDF files for my own reference and in case any media outlet or org thinks they can conveniently erase something they once said. 😉
Looks like Hathaway & co way off the mark as continuously asserted by all and sundry here. David Archibald was after all right….
NASA grew increasingly embarrassed at it’s inability to forecast so they simply decided to end SC 23… LOL I’d bet another sunspot from SC 23 will pop up to confound them… 🙂
A new LOST CYCLE like 4th to 5th ?
I guess we all have our senior moments 😉
It is sure embarrassing when they happen in public or in publication.
From the Space and Science Research Center, press release dated March 02:
“Here we are rapidly moving into the worst cold climate era our planet has seen in over 200…….
http://www.spaceandscience.net/id16.html
Hmmm… How many Cycle 23 and how many Cycle 24 spots have we had in the past month or two? Cycle 23: “The Sunspot Cycle That Would Not Die”
☺☺☺
1984 George Orwell, Part 1, Chapter 4.
Substitute “Solar Cycle 23” for “Withers”
[Start quote.] “The reporting of Big Brother’s Order for the Day in The Times of December 3rd 1983 is extremely unsatisfactory and makes references to non-existent persons. Rewrite it in full and submit your draft to higher authority before filing.”
Winston read through the offending article. Big Brother’s Order for the Day, it seemed, had been chiefly devoted to praising the work of an organization known as FFCC, … Three months later FFCC had suddenly been dissolved with no reasons given. One could assume that Withers and his associates were now in disgrace, … Winston did not know why Withers had been disgraced. Perhaps it was for corruption or incompetence. Perhaps Big Brother was merely getting rid of a too-popular subordinate. Perhaps Withers or someone close to him had been suspected of heretical tendencies. Or perhaps — what was likeliest of all — the thing had simply happened because purges and vaporizations were a necessary part of the mechanics of government. The only real clue lay in the words ‘refs unpersons’, which indicated that Withers was already dead. Withers, however, was already an unperson. He did not exist: he had never existed.. [End quote.]
☺
Usokin on the last LOST CYCLE:
http://spaceweb.oulu.fi/~kalevi/publications/non-refereed2/ESA_SP477_lostcycle.pdf
I’m aware that the cycles overlap and that the exact point of transition is often determined with hindsight after the event.
What surprises me is that up to now the suggestions have been that cycle 23 (not 24) ended a few months ago when we started getting a few weak cycle 24 spots yet that meeting seems to have decided that the actual point of transition is around now.
How do they know ? Why the change ?
Others are sure that the point of transition cannot yet be determined.
LOL, how embarassing. But NASA folks must be getting used to being embarassed, and they don’t have to worry about any consequences, so what the hey?
Call Jack Bauer. He knows a lot about “24” cycles.
For those interested, Scafetta and Willson have published a new paper on TSI in direct conflict with those claiming changes in TSI cannot account for late 20th century warming, i.e. the sun is basically an incandescent light bulb in the sky.
See:
http://climatesci.org/2009/03/11/a-new-paper-on-solar-climate-forcing-acrim-gap-and-tsi-trend-issue-resolved-using-a-surface-magnetic-flux-tsi-proxy-model-by-scafetta-et-al-2009/
I definitely don’t think that NASA can be good at everything. In fact, what are they really good at? Their probe and rocket launch stats are not that great. Their understanding of nature, desastrous, what else? The solar prediction is all screwed up… we are still seeing more spots from SC23 than SC24, or at least as many in the best case. How much money are they getting to develop and support bad science?
“Obviously someone made an error “when edition the text” of the original document and did not catch their mistake. Quick, make your own backup copy of this “Great Moment in Science”.”
How about “when editing the text”… never try to catch a falling mistake… LOL