By David Archibald
Joe D’Aleo asked for my comments on NASA’s James Hathaway’s latest solar prediction, available here: http://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/predict.shtml
When I read May 2013 for solar cycle maximum, I thought “That is my prediction”.
But then at the bottom of the page, they provide text files of their sunspot number prediction and F10.7 flux prediction. So I downloaded the data and plotted it up, and I found that NASA is providing a number of predictions re the month of solar cycle maximum:
The F10.7 flux data plotted is less the magnetic floor of 64.
Firstly, their actual peak by the numbers is February and March 2013. Secondly, their forecast peak of F10.7 flux is September 2013. Sunspot number and F10.7 flux should be in lockstep.
So it total, NASA have provided three estimates of the timing of Solar Cycle 24 maximum in the one release.
What I find more interesting is what their F10.7 flux profile implies if it is correct. It suggests that Solar Cycle 24 will be a very long cycle with the 24/25 minimum in 2021 or even 2022, making it 13 to 14 years long – possibly up to 18 months longer than Solar Cycle 23.
With the solar cycle length/temperature relationship of 0.7°C for the US – Canadian border, the NASA profile implies a further cooling of perhaps 1.0°C in Solar Cycle 25.
In terms of neutron count, things aren’t all that different from previous cycles:
This figure shows the first four years of average Oulu monthly neutron count for the last five solar cycles, aligned on the month of solar minimum. While Solar Cycle 24 is currently providing 17% more neutrons than the super-hot Solar Cycle 22 at the same stage, it isn’t all that different from the other three cycles to date.
By comparison, the Ap Index has just recovered to the levels of previous solar minima, three years into Solar Cycle 24:
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Looks like you miscoded the insertion of the Ap Index graph at the end of the article. I don’t see it. (you may delete this reply when the article is repaired)
it is all a guessing game..just like so called agw…
NASA’s latest solar prediction
As we have discussed so many times, this is not NASA’s prediction, just David Hathaway’s private opinion.
I always did hate the Soprano’s ending.
What is the longest cycle seen to date?
What was the temperature response during and immediately afterwards?
It is often shown that Cycle 24 will be relatively long as will the one immediately after it. Is this a typical scenario for a De Vries Cycle? Is it a De Vries Double-Dip?
Thanks
Crispin
LOL Leif…. do you say the same thing about Hanson’s predictions?
Also, David, I can’t see how you could say the neutron count isn’t all that different over previous cycles. it looks to me as if its been running steadily 6-8% higher for a several years now…
Leif Svalgaard says:
November 6, 2011 at 8:26 pm
NASA’s latest solar prediction
As we have discussed so many times, this is not NASA’s prediction, just David Hathaway’s private opinion.
The press will quote Hathaway as if NASA were predicting it, so that the average person reading it won’t know the difference. Might as well be, Leif, because Hathaway does effective markteing through judiciously constructed eye-candy. Got to give him credit: He’s good at it.
When you’re in a hole, stop digging.
When you can’t predict, stop predicting!
I lost track of the many revisions to Cycle 24’s peak monthly sunspot count.
Please, Hathaway, stop making a fool of yourself and just admit that you are clueless and just report the “number” when Cycle 25 begins!
“Oh, the ,humanity!”
Crispin in Waterloo says:
November 6, 2011 at 8:44 pm
Solar Cycle 4 was 13.6 years. They were a bit longer again in the Maunder Minimum.
Crispin in Waterloo says:
November 6, 2011 at 8:44 pm
The De Vries cycle looks very reliable in the record. The only period that seems to have missed one is the Medieval Warm Period. But good sunspot data only goes back 300 years so only one De Vries cycle in the sunspot record. The important thing is that solar activity is much weaker, as predicted. One of NASA’s November predictions will end up being more correct than the other two. If that is the F10.7 flux prediction, then prepare for major multi-decadal cooling. If Solar Cycle 25 is longer than 24, then the first chance for a reversal of the cooling trend will be over Solar Cycle 27, assuming that 26 is shorter than 25. Solar Cycle 27 might start in the early 2040s – thirty years away.
Jgfox says:
November 6, 2011 at 9:08 pm
Please, Hathaway, stop making a fool of yourself and just admit that you are clueless
Hathaway’s forecast is a fit to the cycle so far, it is updated as the cycle progresses, the same way a weather forecast is updated in real time.
I lost track of the many revisions to Cycle 24′s peak monthly sunspot count.
I presume you have also lost track of how many times your local weather man has changed his forecast.
David Archibald says:
November 6, 2011 at 9:40 pm
One of NASA’s November predictions
You have been told so many times that this is not NASA’s prediction but Hathaway’s personal opinion that one might presume you would have gotten the message and stop referring to ‘NASA’s’ prediction.
The thing about Marshall Space Flight Center’s flux prediction is that NASA actually uses it for atmospheric drag predictions for the International Space Station. This, among other things, determines how much propellant will be required to maintain a proper altitude over the coming years, and is constantly measured against actual results. The NASA engineers who depend on this data for ISS projections would complain loudly (internally, of course) if political inclinations rendered the flux predictions unreliable. They may not be perfect, but they are generally quite reliable.
Leit, take your “doesn’t speak for NASA” directly to NASA and leave the rest of out of it.
Whoever is making the prediction is doing it under the masthead of
http://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/predict.shtml
…. Sounds pretty official to me, whether or not Hathaway has highjacked it for his own personal ego trip.
Leif Svalgaard says:
November 6, 2011 at 8:26 pm
As we have discussed so many times, this is not NASA’s prediction, just David Hathaway’s private opinion.
Are you denying this is NASA’s prediction? A prediction made by a government employee on a government computer? Paid for by the public?
“plausible deniability”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plausible_deniability
The term most often refers to the denial of blame in (formal or informal) chains of command, where upper rungs quarantine the blame to the lower rungs, and the lower rungs are often inaccessible, meaning confirming responsibility for the action is nearly impossible.
Leif Svalgaard says:
November 6, 2011 at 9:49 pm
Ah, Dr Svalgaard. I love it when I push a button and get the desired response. With respect to your assertion that Dr Hathaway’s work is his private opinion, I note that he is an employee of NASA and his work is published on a NASA website. A casual observer might quite reasonably come to the conclusion that he might be employed to produce predictions of solar activity for NASA, in which case NASA owns the predictions so produced. Please explain how this is not so, how Dr Hathaway makes these predictions in his own time and how NASA, through the kindness of its heart, makes one of its websites available for the dissemination of these private predictions, but without any caveats or indication that the opinions are those of a private individual. If you can explain that to us, you might provide a very illuminating insight into the whole global warming alarmism construct.
From http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/SolarCycle/SC24/index.html
“April 25, 2008 The official,/i> NOAA, NASA, and ISES Solar Cycle 24 prediction was released by the Solar Cycle 24 Prediction Panel on April 25, 2007. The Prediction Panel included members from NOAA, NASA, ISES and other US and International representatives.”
From http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/SolarCycle/SC24/index.html :
Why NASA Needs a Prediction of the Solar Cycle (PPT) – W. Dean Pesnell, NASA GSFC
http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/SolarCycle/SC24/Pesnell.ppt
I try not to make predictions about things I have limited knowledge about. I have been following sunspots since I was in high school (a goodly number of cycles ago). I still don’t make predictions about them except in the most general or terms. I see no harm in anyone making predictions about anything. Any rational person would simply ignore the foolishness anyway.
Leif Svalgaard says:
November 6, 2011 at 10:31 pm
From http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/SolarCycle/SC24/index.html
“April 25, 2008 The official,/i> NOAA, NASA, and ISES Solar Cycle 24 prediction was released by the Solar Cycle 24 Prediction Panel on April 25, 2007. The Prediction Panel included members from NOAA, NASA, ISES and other US and International representatives.”
====================================================
Using that as an argument that the NASA prediction is just Hathaway’s private opinion is like saying:
that because there are Federal Laws then State laws are not official – they are just the personal opinion of the State’s governor
Sorry, doesn’t wash. If is published as Solar Cycle Prediction (Updated 2011/11/02) under the masthead “Solar Physics” on the official NASA website – that’s good enough for me..
Someone e-mail NASA and ask whether or not the agency is publishing Hathaway’s information as official an NASA prediction or forecast.
Leif, this argument of yours is unbecoming. First of all, NASA is not NOAA. Second, NASA does have a team that issues predictions. Hathaway is one member of that group. Your attempts fail to show that this prediction originates with one man and that it is not an official NASA prediction. You also fail to show that the NASA participants agreed with the NOAA prediction.
It also serves to disparage efforts to provide timely predictions, since the NOAA panel’s last prediction was over two years ago in 2009, only about a year into the cycle. It is now over two years later.
This one from 8 years ago has done it .
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/NFC7a.htm
There is more to the solar act than the sunspot count:
Take a good look at this :
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/CET-NV.htm
– Orange line is sunspot number
– Red line is an independent process, pertinent to the high latitudes of the North Atlantic
Red & orange lines have a good correlation since 1880s (good records available on both)
– Blue line (bold) is directly derived from the CE temperatures (light blue)
Blue and Red have good correlation going back to 1650s.
Some may dismiss the CET as a purely regional affair, that may be so, but CET is a near carbon copy of the N. Atlantic SST, which defines (when de-trended) the AMO.
One of rare useful things that came out from the BEST team was their finding (actually backed-up by a proper analysis):
We find that the strongest cross-correlation of the decadal fluctuations in (global) land surface temperature is not with ENSO but with the AMO.
http://berkeleyearth.org/Resources/Berkeley_Earth_Decadal_Variations (pages 4&5).
It is left to reader to decide on the bases of the above is there possibility of a climate change link associated with the solar activity.
I do no not think it is the TSI, UV or CR, but that that is not all to the sun-earth link.