SWPC updated their solar cycle progression page…looks like the levels have held since the big uptick in March.
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SWPC updated their solar cycle progression page…looks like the levels have held since the big uptick in March.
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My eyeball pattern recognition software says the curve is too high by 25 units. If you trend the SWPC behavior over time , they routinely have been overestimating the flux.
I don’t think they are doing a good job with their predictions, having to lower them over and over and over again. This uptick represented here is contingent on what appears, to me, to be an outlier. Based on averaged data, I bet the curve drops in actuality over the next 2 years.
If this is to be a Dalton minimum, the next few months must see a return to 25 numbers. Agree?
Nov 2008 to June 2011: 2 1/2 years, getting to the “certainty” of a 3-year prediction?
The uptick was very short and the sun has returned to its almost slumber.
I follow it everyday, and it seems it is not going to wake up any time soon.
It’s actually quite worrying – considering the Dalton Minimum consequences and the connection some see in its activity (or more accurately inactivity) now.
Hmmm…does this mean that the solar minimum marches on?
Overall solar activity remains very low. The blip in activity could just be that, a blip. AP index remains very low. We will soon know (if we are not already getting clues) how much impact solar activity has on the climate, just by observing what is happening around us.
Was that the 4th corrected prediction or will it be the 5th prediction made 6 months after the “real” data is in?
I am not particularly surprised to see that their current prediction (top graph) is more or less where my extrapolation was in 2003 (published Jan 2004)
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/NFC7.htm
No adjustments here, as frequently practiced by some renown solar scientists.
The Oulu Cosmic ray station seems to be getting neutron counts at about the rate of the previous solar minimum in 1997. We may live in interesting times.
FWIW, I think the Solar Max. will be a long and messy one, bumping along at its’ current level for the next 3 years or so, with occasional bursts of increased activity.
Time to throw that neat-looking smoothed curve out the window. Even when all the data is in sometime around 2018-19. solar scientists will be quibbling for years over exactly when the Solar Maximum of Cycle 24 actually occurred.
Just my two cents……
Sorry to be slightly OT but I keep hearing on the radio news that last month was the hottest April on record. This would appear to be about the UK only as they were interviewing some local farmers. The farmers’ comments appeared to be more concerned with lack of rain so I wondered if it was the driest on record and that this had been changed to hottest to fit in with some GW narrative. I am a gardener so I spent quite a bit of time outdoors last month and it seemed pretty typically April to me, we had to take some plants indoors to avoid a late frost. I would have expected a hottest April on record to be more like June.
Looks like, by looking at past cycles, the longer the numbers do not crash in the near term, the better the chances of going higher.
In the Pacific Northwest of the U.S. it has been the coolest April since 1955.
Wasn’t Bob Tisdale saying something about us having already reached Solar max because the Northern magnetic field has reversed? If so, this was a really short cycle.
The solar minimum has been quite strong here in the Northeast… we’ve hardly seen the sun for months! However, if you look real hard between the all too frequent raindrops, you can sometimes catch a glimpse.
Sorry… couldn’t resist
Watching to see what happens over the next couple months…
Stonyground says:
May 10, 2011 at 11:37 am
Sorry to be slightly OT […]
They are talking about the CET (Central England Temperature) dataset.
Main page is here: http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcet/
Downloads here:
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcet/data/download.html
The ranked monthly datasets are here:
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcet/mly_cet_min_sort.txt (Minimum)
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcet/mly_cet_mean_sort.txt (Mean)
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcet/mly_cet_max_sort.txt (Maximum)
It appears that April 2011 was indeed the hottest ever April in the CET record by a little over half a degree Celsius.
High today of 42 deg F, snow last night (7″-10″ at higher elevations), cold rain today, winds 15-20mph and winter is still upon us. Latitude 44.34°N and Longitude 106.72°W (Elevation 4650′) 5/10/11. Mountain snow pack at 150% of “normal”. We could use some global warming around here. The absolutes of this are not that unusual for this time of year but the duration and lack of any significant number of intermittent warmer days is. Have not seen this extensive a duration of winter weather with such little let up since 1994-1995.
You say the sun has something to do with temperature? I thought with all the additional CO2 we need not worry about such a minor variable?
This graph clearly shows a cool spring here in the bay area.
This graph is probably the most informative from NOAA that I’ve seen.
Stonyground says:
May 10, 2011 at 11:37 am
…radio news that last month was the hottest April on record.
Yes it was UK. I was puzzled by the same info, so I produced this graph:
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/April.htm
make of it whatever you whish.
The UK has been warmer & drier than usual, has had 150% more sunshine than the norm for April. The reduction in cloud is the cause of our pleasant warmth, nights have been quite chilly.
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate/uk/2011/april.html
Persisant high pressure and the “Spanish Plume” syphoning warm air up over the country, as we’ve been snadwiched between low pressure over the Atlantic and high over Europe.
Mind you, to balance things out, it’s been snowing in Poland!
Bill Marsh says:
May 10, 2011 at 11:51 am
……………..
Here is what the resultant polar field is at the moment, some time to go to reversal.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/LFC6.htm
What’s ironic is that the present (of this writing) sunspot count is 93, yet looking at the solar images there are around 20 specks. I know there is a formula for calculating the official sunspot number, but I question the justification for it. The other thing is that for a count of 93 shouldn’t we be seeing at least moderate to high levels of activity ? After all, the SPWC is forecasting very low to low activity.
I’m wondering if at solar max, when it eventually arrives, if we’re going to see monthly sunspot numbers around 100, like some of the earlier higher forecasts, but of the smallest and most feeble spots possible, coupled with other weak activity. Meanwhile there will be those that say “see, we had a very active cycle after all, i.e. no new Dalton-like minimum.”
Where in the past has it even spiked that high, and stayed there?
Their predicted values are going to be way off.
Thank you for those concise responses. Now best get back to the Sun, I don’t want to derail the thread.
GW says:
May 10, 2011 at 12:54 pm
“What’s ironic is that the present (of this writing) sunspot count is 93, yet looking at the solar images there are around 20 specks. I know there is a formula for calculating the official sunspot number, but I question the justification for it. The other thing is that for a count of 93 shouldn’t we be seeing at least moderate to high levels of activity ? After all, the SPWC is forecasting very low to low activity.”
Can anyone tell us if the “formula” has been changed and if so how and when, as this has been brought up before but I do not recall any specifics being trotted out?