The sun today. There appears to be an emerging Cycle 23 spot
at the left, but still no new Cycle 24 spots. Click for large image
That’s never a good sign. Below is an excerpt from an article in Science Daily that ponders the question:
Excerpt: The sun has been laying low for the past couple of years, producing no sunspots and giving a break to satellites. That’s good news for people who scramble when space weather interferes with their technology, but it became a point of discussion for the scientists who attended an international solar conference at Montana State University. Approximately 100 scientists from Europe, Asia, Latin America, Africa and North America gathered June 1-6 to talk about “Solar Variability, Earth’s Climate and the Space Environment.”
The scientists said periods of inactivity are normal for the sun, but this period has gone on longer than usual. “It continues to be dead,” said Saku Tsuneta with the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, program manager for the Hinode solar mission. […] The last cycle reached its peak in 2001 and is believed to be just ending now, Longcope said. The next cycle is just beginning and is expected to reach its peak sometime around 2012. Today’s sun, however, is as inactive as it was two years ago, and scientists aren’t sure why. “It’s a dead face,” Tsuneta said of the sun’s appearance.
Tsuneta said solar physicists aren’t like weather forecasters; They can’t predict the future. They do have the ability to observe, however, and they have observed a longer-than-normal period of solar inactivity. In the past, they observed that the sun once went 50 years without producing sunspots. That period, from approximately 1650 to 1700, occurred during the middle of a little ice age on Earth that lasted from as early as the mid-15th century to as late as the mid-19th century.
I’m never encouraged when a solar scientist describes the face of the sun as “dead”.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
There’s a new Tiny Tim spot today. Looks from its latitude that it might be an “old cycle” spot but I didn’t check the polarity.
Indeed, that was a rather startling way to phrase it.
“The sun today, no spots”
Actually, there are a couple of sunspots in the active region that has just appeared on the eastern limb… They are however, “old” cycle.
REPLY: You are correct. The first photo I looked at was spotless, and now there are, so I amended the caption
I just glanced at it, crosspatch, and assumed (yeah, I know what that means) that it was old cycle, too, because of its position.
It appears to be losing strength tho as time goes on, not sure it will survive too long.
I’m sure the AGW crowd will model it and proclaim the science to be ‘settled’ in short order.
Using the words dead and sun in the same sentence, with one referring to the other, along with “Scientists not sure why” doesn’t sound like a happy thing, Anthony. Yet it should be a good thing. Less solar irradiance means less oceanic and atmospheric heating, which should allow temperatures to drop. Temperatures are dropping? How’s that for coincidence? It’ll be interesting to see if oceanic lag keeps the global temperature on a decreasing trend when the new solar cycle finally kicks in and TSI starts to rise again.
Rush Limbaugh leads show with Aspen skiing story and the “dead” sun surface story. Hummmm, wonder Watt site he’s reading from?
Bob,
I believe the current theory is roughly a two year lag in solar activity to ocean heat response. This fits very nicely with Dr Svensmark’s Cloud Theory in that he proposes the changes to the suns magnetic field take about 2 years to reach the edge of the solar atmosphere and start to change the number of GCR’s that control cloud formation. Lower activity permits more GCR, creates more CCN, creates more clouds, creates oceanic cooling, etc. Since solar activity seems to have dropped off a cliff (in a very nice step function) in late 2005, that seems to make his theory more promising.
We know so little about the sun and how it works, who’s to say that it isn’t just feeling bloated and will soon belch out the largest CME this side of the milky way on Dec 21, 2012 decimating the earth . . . Maybe I should win a Nobel prize for ‘spreading disinformation and panicking the public on non-issues’; wouldn’t be the first one.
ROTFL! Weather forecasters can’t predict the future either. It’s a best guess, and is often (mostly) wrong, especially the farther out you go.
Total Solar Irradiance has declined to levels well below those reached at the bottom of the last two solar cycles.
TSI is currently 0.3 w/m2 lower than the bottom of the last two cycles compared to the total change of 1.0 w/m2 over the entire cycle so the Sun is definitely cooling off. 0.3 w/m2 isn’t alot but is enough to influence earth’s temperature somewhat.
Up-to-date smoothed TSI data from PMOD at the link – Note: the SORCE solar irradiance instrument doesn’t show this additional decline at the current time.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/pmod/mean:12
Traciatim,
Don’t worry about panicking anyone with your big CME from the sun alarm. There is little if any way for politicians to rationalize controlling the collective behavior of us little people to change solar cycle progression. Unless, of course, they can come up with a consensus.
Is anyone else having problems getting on Nasa’a site? I just keep getting a timed out error?
“Scientists not sure why Sun ‘continues to be dead”
Those scientists who subscribe to the religious tenets espoused by the IPCC would probably say that the cause is anthropomorphic. A computer model – including an appropriately placed hockey stick curve – to “prove” this is being developed as we speak. The solution to the problem of too few sunspots has been proposed by a Mr Albert Gore from Tennessee and involves the reduction of the West to abject pre-industrial poverty.
“That period, from approximately 1650 to 1700, occurred during the middle of a little ice age on Earth that lasted from as early as the mid-15th century to as late as the mid-19th century”
I think here they are suggesting that the inactive sun during this period was not the cause of the LIA.
Given the recent turn of weather, we could use a bit of this mini ice age ha.
Sorry, costumesupercenter, I personally am tired of getting March weather in June.
Weather tis nobler and not.
Some like it cold.
Some like it hot.
Is anyone else having problems getting on Nasa’a site? I just keep getting a timed out error?
It’s dead, Jim.
(sorry, I just couldn’t resist :D)
I’m not having any issues, myself.
REPLY: Which URL? – Anthony
The difference between cycle 23 and 24 spots is detectable in their magnetic polarity, as sunspot polarity reverses every cycle. There have been a few, but very few, cycle 24 spots to date, leading experts to decide that we actually are in the initial part of cycle 24. At this point NOAA forecasts are for either a relatively rapid increase in sunspots to a peak in late 2011, or a slower increase to a significantly lower peak in mid-2012. It will be interesting to see how it goes.
As for the Little Ice Age, coincidence with low sunspot numbers is not proof. Weren’t there some earthly events such as volcano activity that could account for the LIA?
“Tsuneta said solar physicists aren’t like weather forecasters; They can’t predict the future.”
The climatologists can’t either, but that has not stopped them!
“Weren’t there some earthly events such as volcano activity that could account for the LIA?”
There is some speculation that volcanic activity during the LIA was fairly high. However, the LIA began around 1320-1350 and lasted until 1850. The beginning of the LIA preceeded the Maunder and Sporer Minimums, and there just wasn’t enough volcanic activity to cause such a long term cooling.
There is a 400 year Gliessberg Cycle (200 years per 1/2 cycle). The last negative Gleissberg Cycle ended around 1820. The Maunder and Dalton Minimums occured during the last negative Gleissberg Cycle.
It appears that solar variation definitely enchanced the strength if not the length of time of the LIA, but it probably wasn’t the cause.
Been watching with rapt fascination as this latest SC23 spot emerged from the sun’s far side, just as the previous SC23 spot faded away. The way this cycle keeps on hanging on {it just keeps on going and going and going…}, it may portend a cooling climate and lend credence to the theory that the planets affect the sun’s activity which in turn affects the earth’s climate, a truly inconvenient truth. Personally, I’d prefer it if it would keep on warming. A shorter, milder Winter would be most welcome.
Which URL? – Anthony
I poked around the main URL and tried a few clicks, all worked. Then grabbed this one from your resources page & no issues there, either.
http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/data/realtime/mdi_igr/512/
Unless there’s a specific one Jim couldn’t access, it appears to be up & running.
REPLY: Works for me, probably a net routing issue for his location.