After an exciting encounter last week with some genuine sunspots that weren’t arguable as specks, pores, or pixels, the sun resumes its quiet state this week.
People send me things. Here’s the latest email from Paul Stanko, who has been following the solar cycle progression in comparison to previous ones.
Hi Anthony,
Out of the numbered solar cycles, #24 is now in 7th place. Only 5, 6, and 7 of the Dalton Minimum and cycles 12, 14, and 15 of the Baby Grand Minimum had more spotless days. Since we’ve now beaten cycle #13, we are clearly now competitive with the Baby Grand minimum.
Here’s a table of how the NOAA panel’s new SC#24 prediction is doing:
November 2008: predicted = 1.80, actual = 1.67 (predicted peak of 90 suggests an actual peak of 83.7)
December 2008: predicted = 1.80, actual = 1.69 (predicted peak of 90 suggests an actual peak of 84.7)
January 2009: predicted = 2.10, actual = 1.71 (predicted peak of 90 suggests an actual peak of 73.2)
February 2009: predicted = 2.70, actual = 1.67 (predicted peak of 90 suggests an actual peak of 55.6)
March 2009: predicted = 3.30, actual = 1.97 (predicted peak of 90 suggests an actual peak of 53.8)
April would require the October data which is still very incomplete. If this analysis intrigues you, I’d be happy to keep you updated on it. Please also find a couple of interesting graphs attached as images.
Paul Stanko
Here’s the graphs, the current cycle 24 and years of interest are marked with a red arrow:
And how 2008/2009 fit in:
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Paul,
If our host is willing, I know that many readers would be very interested in keeping up with this.
Regards,
hunter
Buy long underwear.
We are going to need all the help we can to stay warm.
How do we factor in the 1912-13 data to reflect the fact that we have, today, far better observations upon which to rely?
I’m sorry Mr. Watts, but there’s a fundamental inaccuracy in this post. That is clearly the 5-ball in the picture, not a cue ball.
How DARE someone who is not a qualified pool player comment on cue balls!!! /Gavin Schmidt
Meanwhile the UK merrily destroys its energy security and continues to tilt billions at wind turbines…
And I ask again.
If Sunspot activity is linked to climate, as appears to be so (and even the disputed tree record appears to record the Dalton minimum) – then what is the causal factor??
If it is not TSI, solar wind, magnetic flux or cosmic rays, then what could be the causal factor? Anything we have missed?
.
Looks like over 200 more spotless days needed to move up to the next place in the spotless total days.
Based on progression of the cycle so far (for those of you who chart such things), what are your predictions for how many more spotless days could be expected in this cycle?
After an exciting encounter last week with some genuine sunspots that weren’t arguable as specks, pores, or pixels
Something gravitational from planets in the solar system rustled the surface of the sun. 😉
BTW, whatever happened to solar flares??
I haven’t been in a location where the Northern Lights, aurora borealis, are viewable. Can anyone give an update on how active that has been?
Besides cooling the earth is a quiet sun making for quiet Northern Lights?
———————————–
NASA | The Mystery of the Aurora :
Just look at the big beautiful sleepy orange ball!
Gerard Harbison (11:11:35) :
That is clearly the 5-ball in the picture
The sun is actually white. 😉
You can see it when you’re on a plane and see the tops of clouds; they would be colored orange instead of white if the sun was orange.
But maybe you already knew that and were just joking. 😉
The most important issue is to try and separate any solar influence on air temperatures from oceanic influences.
That would in turn help us to ascertain how much of the observed climate variation could still be regarded as unexplained by natural forces and thus still available to AGW proponents to support their theory.
I am currently of the view that a variable combination of solar and oceanic variations cover all observed climate changes with the CO2 effect just an assumption programmed into the models to cover up an underestimate of the significance of the solar and oceanic combination.
After 50 years experience and reading I think it likely that any extra energy in the air from more GHGs is just accelerated to space faster by a slightly more energised hydrological cycle with no efect on equilibrium temperature as I have explained elsewhere.
Leif Svalgaard is pretty sure that solar variation is insignificant on any timescale relevant to human activity. I’m fairly sure that on century timescales solar changes provide an upward or downward temperature trend but from historical data I also suspect a solar influence on timescales of a couple of decades.
A period of a relatively quiescent sun is very helpful at present even if it does turn out to cause humanity some discomfort.
In any event the global temperature behaviour ovr the past 10 to 15years is hardly helpful to the AGW heory.
Scientists have been given godlike powers and hold sway over all our lives.
How many people on the entire planet do those scientists they speak of are enumerated at? Lets just agree that number would be .001% of the entire population. So you are telling me that .001% of the population hold sway over my life without a debate?
I want the names of these people. They have been given too much power to ruin our lives.
I want a complete and thorough dissertation done on this subject.
Thank You.
ralph (11:17:55) :
then what is the causal factor?? Anything we have missed?
You may want to look in to the work of Henrik Svensmark, Willie Soon, and Piers Corbyn (et al). On October 28 Piers Corbyn has said he’s going to make public some of the key ingredients of his method. That’s just 25 days away now.
I am anxious to learn about myself. How about everyone else?
It’s ok to say, “we don’t know”. It’s a shame so much research cash is being thrown at CO2 when we know so little about big yellow firey thing in the sky.
One question, are we gearing up for the big one in 2012??
Now, from my forays on the world wide web, the common belief seems to be we are heading for turbulent times ahead during our transit across the plane of the ecliptic of the milky way when we will be experiencing the full force of the black hole at the centre and the gravity field, associated with it. I believe we are entering the constellation of ophiucus are we not?
I am happy to be corrected and informed on all of this by those more versed with this subject. My point is this. the belief is whilst the sun is quiescent now and may be for a year or two, the fear is it may burst into life during the year 2012 or shortly afterward. Are we now in the quite period before the storm?
My interest is in the UFO phenomena, and I have read Dan Shermans testimony how he was in a programme called Project Preserve Destiny. He was trained specifically to communicate on higher mental level than most if us normally do, but his preparation was for a time when the electromagnetic communications we have now, no longer function.
The first things this implies is solar storm of massive proportions. Now, tieing all this together as best I can, I wonder if indeed the sun is entering an area of great perturbation of gravity, cosmic rays, and magnetism, as we enter this part of the galaxy, and wonder if there is some correlation as yet unknown with the quitenss if the sun as it is now.
Is there a mechanism inside the sun that may cause it to explode, flare up, and are these external factors of the earths transit through the galactic plane, about to have dramatic effect upon the sun???.
I wonder if NASA and NOAA and a few others either know or suspect something is about to happen that is not not in the public field of knowledge. Just a suspicion, based on a few disparate witnesses such as Dan Sherman, and others.
Has anyone out there reading this blog, come across any rumours to back up some of these things I refer to? What is said in the scientific establishment, about all this????
I notice how this subject is definitely not on the mainstream media, are they being warned off it I wonder? Just some thoughts,
What are your thoughts on this then??
[Please, folks, no UFO speculations on this blog. They got LOTS of other blogs for that! ~ Evan]
Does anyone know how the two latest sunspots 1026 and 1027 scored on magnetic field strength? According to Livingston and Penn they should be 2000 Gs or less to fit in their prognosis of dissappearing.
This is also a game of psychology. Are you smart enough to play?
We have to change the word Denial to the word Agreement. Most people when surveyed are in Agreement that global warming aka climate change is not a problem, is not occurring, and agree we have global cooling now, confirmed by the satellite data, ocean data, and solar activity which has been nill for over 2 years.
Fred from Canuckistan . . . (10:52:41) :
“Buy long underwear”.
Log store full, oil tank full, food store full. Anything else we should do?
Stephen Wilde (11:28:23) :
After 50 years experience and reading I think it likely that any extra energy in the air from more GHGs is just accelerated to space faster by a slightly more energised hydrological cycle with no efect on equilibrium temperature as I have explained elsewhere.
A very prominent Russian scientist would roughly seem to agree with you :
“Ascribing ‘greenhouse’ effect properties to the Earth’s atmosphere is not scientifically substantiated. Heated greenhouse gases, which become lighter as a result of expansion, ascend to the atmosphere only to give the absorbed heat away.”…..”Instead of professed global warming, the Earth will be facing a slow decrease in temperatures in 2012-2015. The gradually falling amounts of solar energy, expected to reach their bottom level by 2040, will inevitably lead to a deep freeze around 2055-2060,”
–Habibullo Abdussamatov
-Head, space research laboratory, Russian Academies of Sciences’ Pulkovo Observatory
-Head, Astrometry project, being conducted on the Russian 1/2 of the International Space Station
link :
http://en.rian.ru/russia/20070115/59078992.html
>nick-ynysmon (11:36:07) : One question, are we gearing up for the big one in 2012??
The one term wonder loses his job? Just asking. 🙂
It’s worse than we thought isn’t it?
There’s too any hockey sticks in your graphs there AW, you’re going to be getting some people worried on their sickbed.
Philip T. Downman (11:43:17) :
Does anyone know how the two latest sunspots 1026 and 1027 scored on magnetic field strength? According to Livingston and Penn they should be 2000 Gs or less to fit in their prognosis of dissappearing.
Right on the curve. Leif gave a link to a plot:
http://www.leif.org/research/Livingston%20and%20Penn.png
The first of Paul’s plots shows cycle 24 to have had 738 spotless days. This is quite remarkable considering that cycle 24 is less than a year old….
Philip T. Downman (11:43:17) :
Does anyone know how the two latest sunspots 1026 and 1027 scored on magnetic field strength? According to Livingston and Penn they should be 2000 Gs or less to fit in their prognosis of dissappearing.
Their average was 1917 G, so right on track
I did some checking of previous solar cycles and there just doesn’t seem to be any correlation between rising monthly sunspot numbers and a relative count of spotless days. Other than they become less frequent. Now there does seem to be a threshold for spotless days right around a monthly sunspot number of 45. Based upon predictions that the Sun might be at or near solar minimum, with maximum predicted to be in the range of 75 around spring of 2013, spotless days total should come in right under 1000 for SC23. I think that would be the low end. If the Sun takes longer to ramp up, solar maximum is delayed and the monthly sunspot count only reaches, say 50, the sun could break the record for total spotless days of any solar cycle. Fascinating stuff.