NRC Canada’s FTP site which logs the daily 10.7 centimeter (2800 megahertz) radio flux from the sun just reported what appears to be a new record low in the observed data.
64.2 at 1700 UTC
Source data is here
The Solar Radio Monitoring Program is operated jointly by the National Research Council and the Canadian Space Agency, the web page for their monitoring program is here.
The 10.7cm solar radio flux is an indicator of the sun’s activity. Here is a brief description of it from the National Geophysical Data Center:
The sun emits radio energy with a slowly varying intensity. This radio flux, which originates from atmospheric layers high in the sun’s chromosphere and low in its corona, changes gradually from day-to-day, in response to the number of spot groups on the disk. Radio intensity levels consist of emission from three sources: from the undisturbed solar surface, from developing active regions, and from short-lived enhancements above the daily level. Solar flux density at 2800 megaHertz has been recorded routinely by radio telescopes near Ottawa (February 14, 1947-May 31, 1991) and Penticton, British Columbia, since the first of June, 1991. Each day, levels are determined at local noon (1700 GMT at Ottawa and 2000 GMT at Penticton) and then corrected to within a few percent for factors such as antenna gain, atmospheric absorption, bursts in progress, and background sky temperature.
Part of this has to due with the earth’s orbit and position relative to the sun in July, this from Australia’s IPS Radio and Space Services:
On July 18 1996, the observed value of the 10 cm solar flux dropped to a low of 64.9. In many books it is stated that the 10 cm solar flux can not go below a value of 67. For example, the formulae given in the June 1996 edition of the IPS Solar Geophysical Summary show 67.0 as the minimum value. So how can we get a value of 64.9?
The answer is quite interesting – it depends on the orbit of the earth! The earth’s orbit is not perfectly circular but is slightly elliptical. In July of each year we are a little further than average from the sun and so solar radiation, including the 10 cm flux, is very slightly weaker than average.
So the 10cm flux will tend to be lower in July than, for example, December when the earth is closer to the sun than its average value. The combination of the extra distance to the sun and the solar minimum conditions have acted to produce this very low flux value.
It is easy to correct for the earth-sun distance and, when this is done, a value of 67.0 is obtained. This is the text book value!
Values of the 10 cm flux are often given in two forms – first as directly observed values and secondly as values corrected for the earth-sun distance variation.
The last time that the observed 10cm flux was at a lower value was on July 26, 1964 when it stood at 64.8. The lowest value ever recored was on July 02, 1954 with a value of 64.4.
As we’ve seen from visiual cues and lack of sunpots recently, it is obvious that the sun is in a deep minimum. Expert forecasts that have called for the sun to be regularly active by now have been falsified by nature, and the question of the day is: how long before the sun becomes active again?
(h/t Basil)
Were this an Associated Press article, it might headline
SUN DIMS TO RECORD LOW LEVEL. EXPERTS SAY END MAY BE NEAR.
Lowest recorded in over 50 years. Interesting.
SORCE total solar irradiance at 1 AU is also continuing to decline in this cycle.
http://lasp.colorado.edu/cgi-bin/ion-p?ION__E1=PLOT%3Aplot_tsi_data.ion&ION__E2=PRINT%3Aprint_tsi_data.ion&ION__E3=BOTH%3Aplot_and_print_tsi_data.ion&START_DATE=1640&STOP_DATE=2050&TIME_SPAN=6&PLOT=Plot+Data
More like this
Man Caused Global warming of earth has caused Sun to change to deep slumber.
I do look frequently look on:
http://www.dxlc.com/solar/
and:
http://www.dxlc.com/solar/indices.html
yep, looks weak, but not unexpected. I’m waiting for
something between 62 and 64 within the next three month.
Somehow, all of it reminds me of Eric Burdon’s song –
“When I was young” – with “The Animals”
… “it was so much colder then … when I was young”
… and it will happen again … unfortunately
2003, I paid about 1400 Euros for 5200 liters of heating oil,
… hmm, this year, I fear, I shall feel lucky to get same for 4700 Euros.
The trend to cooler continues as indicated by the weather station in Enterprise, Oregon. It is 9 degrees cooler than last year. When we should be baking in the hot afternoon Sun, it is only 79 degrees, with scattered clouds but mostly clear, and windy. The wind is cooler, leaving one with the impression that it is actually closer to 72 or so. The ozone layer is trending down over the western part of the US from a couple months ago. Hawaii has been under a thin ozone layer compared to the rest of the US. I have been watching the ozone slowly thin over that area, with the thin area getting larger and larger, almost hole-like.
Oh the terribly quiet Sun.
Only de Shadow know.
So I’m confused now. The solar flux, according to theory, cannot fall below 67. According to the textbook, you can get a value of 64.9 because the Earth is at it furtherest from the sun.
Yet, we have a value of 64.2. Dies this mean that the earth is further away from the Sun than ever before, or is the theory now shown to be wrong? If the theory of how low the solar flux can go is wrong, what are the implications of this?
Alternatively, what is the possibility that this reading was incorrect?
I believe 67 is the minimum value you can have at a distance of exactly 1AU. Someone needs to publish what that translates to when Earth is at its maximum distance. We reached maximum distance from the sun on July 4th, I believe.
David: Actually, the AP headline will read:
“END OF WORLD NIGH. WOMEN, MINORITIES HARDEST HIT.”
crosspatch: The difference is 2.2 flux units, so 67-2.2 = 64.8, but the ‘theoretical minimum’ [67] is uncertain by about half a unit anyway, so one shouldn’t get hung up on the last decimal. For January, add 2.2.
The corrected value is 66.7 at 1AU.
See http://www.drao-ofr.hia-iha.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca/icarus/www/current_flux.shtml
This comment is from Solar Cycle 24 (www.solarcycle24.com):
Today the solar flux has dipped to a new low of 64.2. Just so you do not worry too much, on July 2, 1954 a value of 64.4 was observed. What followed was one of the strongest Cycles ever recorded (Solar Cycle 19).
So, should we put much confidence in this reading as a harbinger of a weak solar cycle?
Interesting. I’ll take a wait and see approach on this to see how many years it’ll be before Hathaway adjusts the forecast for cycle 24. Just as long as the flux doesn’t stay this low for a decade or so. Things could start to get chilly…. Hmmmmm…low flux lasting longer than expected. Give it to the environmental movement to solve — they’ve already given us a consensus on AGW. It’s all those solar arrays damaging the desert environment and reflecting the sun’s power back at it. Give up electricity and live as one in harmony with nature.
On a serious note, given all the complexities of all the elements that impact the earth, how can anyone take serious anything Mr. Gore has to say.
WWS.:
That is a perfect headline. How about this?:
SUN HITS ROCK BOTTOM!!!
Gore: “Like I have said all along, the Ice Age is coming, and man’s use of fossil fuels are to blame.”
By Heidi Cullen
The plot shown in the post had a couple of deficiencies:
1) it should use the ‘adjusted for distance’ values [to show what the Sun is doing] and not the ‘observed’ values.
2) monthly means are not good for solar parameters as one month is close to the 27-day synodic rotation period of the Sun, but not equal, so that ‘beats’ will show up in the monthly means, giving the appearance of solar changes and ‘heaves’ that simply aren’t there. Better to average over 27 days.
“As we’ve seen from visiual cues and lack of sunpots recently, it is obvious that the sun is in a deep minima.”
I don’t think this article supports your position. Similar values have been recorded this century. Of course maybe you mean something else by “deep minima.”
REPLY: Your criticism is premature, of course your MO has always been to play “gotcha”. I meant only that it’s as “low as it can go” nothing else was implied. The currently believed flux lower limit is 67, the observed current value (after adjustment) is close to that.
The last 2 years were fun. Theories about the solar cycle, pause in global warming, tons of charts and stats about UAH, RSS, blablabla.
And now La Nina is over and the party is over too. Sorry folks.
Its strange the silence here about the massive ice cover lost in south hemisphere in the last weeks. And it’s winter in South hemisphere.
If we get an El Nino next year I expect skeptics and deniers quickly forget monthly data from the RSS and UAH 😉
Boris: I’ll second that. At every minimum the Sun returns to almost the same state [with only small variations from minimum to minimum] and this minimum is not exceptional. What is of interest is that cycle 24 has not yet begun in earnest, somewhat to the surprise of people predicting a very large cycle.
REPLY: Leif, you may want to reconsider that. agreeing with Boris is to agree with a premature conclusion. See my response to him. Note that I made no claims other than the observed value is a new record low, and that forecasts (particularly Hathaway’s) have been missed, leaving us all to wonder when the sun will ramp up again.
OK .. solar cycle 19 was one of the strongest on record. But from what I’ve read, and what I see on the records, solar cycle 18 was somewhat unremarkable. A typical looking cycle. It wasn’t a long stretched out minimal solar cycle like cycle 23 is shaping up to be.
So .. I don’t think the low solar flux of today is any indication of what cycle 24 will be like.
Looking at the historical record provided on Hathaway’s Article, it seems that the sunspot cycles follow a fairly smoothed curve, with some 9-10 cycles making up a cycle curve. Cycle 23 is the ninth and comming down from the peak of 1950 (cycle 19 was the fifth cycle in the curve). Also, I think the higher values for the cycles recorded over the last century is likely due to recording bias that has occurred due to advancing technology and changing definitions. I seriously doubt there were no “sun specks” during the Maunder minimum that would have qualified as sun spots today. I think Anthony has brought this up before as well.
I think this observation underlies the confusion regarding what the next cycle will be. Cycle 24 is at the trouph of the curve. It could be the end of this cycle, the dead bottom of the curve, or the beginning of the next curve. It could be smaller, equal to, or slightly larger than cycle 23. We’ll just have to wait and see.
I doubt the radio flux can affect earths climate in any way. It is as far as I can see just an indicator of the suns activity, which currently is low.
What is more interesting is, what will solar cycle 24 be like? There seems to be predictions all the way from weak up to strong.
Some even say the sun may head into a new Dalton Minimum or worse.
Now, do we have enough knowledge of the sun to be able to predict a new Dalton or Maunder minimum?
If we do not have enough data to be able to predict a DM or MM, how do we know it is or it is not heading into one?
By the way, have NASA released a new prediction for when SC24 should start? I haven’t seen any yet.
The last 3 predictions failed with the last one saying SC24 would start in may.
SS24: Link to data for southern hemisphere ice cover, please?
SS24: I just don’t see what you mean: http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/s_plot.html
Where’s the massive loss?
SS24 …
I don’t think I’d crow too fast. If you look at the cryosphere data, you’ll notice that there was a further melt off after this point in 2007, only to have the ice rise to record levels within a few more months.
Plus … couldn’t help but notice that you left out the NH data, where according to the “Tale of the Tape”, NH ice is still running a good 750K sq kms above this time last year.
Another thing you need to consider, La Nina doesn’t strengthen until the later months (August-Sept). While La Nina is gone now, it could very well re-emerge in the comming months. Most La Ninas are multi year events. The La Nina of 74 fell out of La Nina status for one month only to come back strong and last for almost another 2 years. The La Nina of 2000 also fell back from -1.5 to -.08, only to rise again stronger than the previous year.
As I’ve said on another site, we live in extraordinary times. A lot can be learned if people would take their colored glasses off and the MP3 players out their ears and observe!!
Leif,
I agree not that special the sun has a lower limit, “we hope”. Some are very nervous due to that they predict a large cycle. My bet is around 60 to 65 not at the 40 some say. Your I believe is 75, correct. Chance of a large cycle is closer to a “Hail-Mary”, not impossible just not very likely.
I assume SS24 is referring to the continued break-up of the Wilkins Ice Shelf. You can see the daily sea ice status at
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/daily.html
With regards to ENSO state – most predictions are for a neutral ENSO state for a few months yet. After that it is not clear: it could return to La Nina or develop into El Nino. We usually cannot make sensible forecast until August SSTs are available.
[…] compared to putting the Sun to sleep! Anthony Watts has the story, Sun in deep slumber: 10.7 solar flux hits record low value. Maybe this CO2 stuff is just as dangerous as Al Gore and James Hansen swear it must […]
Jerker Andersson
Hathaway seems to be sticking with his moveable forecast for SC24. Here’s the compare-and-contrast graphic:
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/SOLAR_HATHAWAY.jpg
…there has been a small but statistically-significant increase in the overall extent of Antarctic sea ice. However, there are strong geographical variations at a regional scale. Sea ice cover has declined substantially in the seas to the west of the Antarctic Peninsula while it has increased in other parts of the Antarctic.
From,
http://www.antarctica.ac.uk//bas_research/our_views/climate_change.php – (an interesting read)
I am guessing the silence here about the “massive ice loss” is due to absence of said “ice loss”.
SS24
Please read this from Icecap especially note the piece from Richard Courtney who chaired the plenary session in Bonn in 1997 for the IPCC.
Wilkins Back in the News
By Joseph D’Aleo, CCM, Fellow, AMS
In another in an endless series of half the story articles, Livescience staff reported on the further fracturing of the Wilkins Ice sheet. “A vast shelf of ice in Antarctica is hanging on to the continent by a thread and is not expected to survive, scientists announced today. The entire Wilkins shelf, before the recent breakups, covered about 6,180 square miles (16,000 square kilometers – about the size of Northern Ireland).” (It should be noted the current total Antarctic ice extent is 13,000,000 square kilometers making Wilkins merely 0.1% of the total) and the ice is at a record extent for this time of year and appears headed to challenge or exceed last year’s record. It is mid-winter there now with 2 months more of ice growth.
See larger image
“Wilkins Ice Shelf is the most recent in a long, and growing, list of ice shelves on the Antarctic Peninsula that are responding to the rapid warming that has occurred in this area over the last fifty years,” said David Vaughan of the British Antarctic Survey. “Current events are showing that we were being too conservative when we made the prediction in the early 1990s that Wilkins Ice Shelf would be lost within thirty years – the truth is it is going more quickly than we guessed.” This latest stage of the breakup occurred during the Southern Hemisphere’s winter, when atmospheric temperatures are at their lowest. One idea is that warmer water from the Southern Ocean is reaching the underside of the ice shelf and thinning it rapidly from underneath.
Richard Courtney, an expert peer reviewer for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change who in November 1997 chaired the Plenary Session of the Climate Conference in Bonn responded “The suggested “idea” really is clutching at straws. Melting is induced by heat and fracture is induced by stress. The fractures are happening in winter. And winter is the season when temperatures are at their lowest and when ice growth is greatest. Unless there is direct evidence of the ice thinning then there is no reason to introduce any suggestion that the fracture of the ice bridge is related to higher temperatures. Indeed, the fact that the fractures are happening in the winter implies that the reverse is true: i.e. the most probable explanation is that large ice growth is providing stress to the ice bridge with resulting stress fractures of the bridge.”
By the way, UAH MSU showed among the past 30 Junes, June 2008 was the third coldest south of the Antarctic Circle. The Antarctic continent saw its third coldest June in 30 years, with temperatures averaging -1.53C cooler than the seasonal norm. Portions of Anarctica south of Australia were as much as 5.5 C (9.9 degrees Fahrenheit) colder than seasonal norms for the first month of winter. The low yesterday at the South Pole Amundsen Scott AFB was -95F.
JimA: mine is sitting at 71 today. As Hathaway, I change mine all the time
🙂 depending on what the average polar field is for the last several years.
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/s_plot.html
Another graph with the base period of 1979-2000. Will someone PLEEEEEASE
explain the facination with this time period? I understand 1979 as a starting point due to satellites but what happened after 2000? Did they fall out of orbit? Did NASA defund the project? Did the science teams all die? I do not understand why, at this point in time, the average is taken from 1979 – 2007.
[…] We’ve killed the Sun! The Sun is in a deep slumber […]
[…] wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com Tags: cooler, northern hemisphere, Sun Related Posts […]
NH
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/current.365.jpg
SH
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/current.365.south.jpg
Global
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/global.daily.ice.area.withtrend.jpg
By the way the global warmers are glorifying the Wilkin’s ice shelf break-up, you’d think there has never been an iceberg (broken-off pieces of ice shelves of course) in the southern oceans ever before.
SS24, Google Earth is an awesome thing. You can get plug-ins for it that will show you real time ice cover, clouds, local temperature and SSTs. Really awesome and amazing stuff from a wide variety of scientific organizations. I highly recommend that you download Google Earth and a variety of Weather plug ins before you make sweeping statements of Ice Cap loss. It’s free and in the future you can be more certain about the accuracy of your statements, that and you can monitor global warming in real time. Enjoy!
Positive Anomalies in Surface Temperature in South Pole, sometimes around +20ºC in the last weeks:
http://www.cdc.noaa.gov/map/images/fnl/sfctmpmer_01a_30frames.fnl.anim.html
Anything that deviates from the norm and has Solar scientists scratching their heads makes precition re: the next solar Cycle pointless. I think we should be watching and learning instead of predicting at this point.
“And now La Nina is over and the party is over too. Sorry folks.
Its strange the silence here about the massive ice cover lost in south hemisphere in the last weeks”
Yeah, ENSO has pretty much returned to “neutral” but there is a more important change. When the PDO is in “warm phase”, the equatorial pacific tends to alternate between el nino and neutral with few la nina phases. When PDO is cold (like now), the equatorial Pacific tends tends to alternate between la nina and neutral. So looking at the current PDO … it seems more likely that we will return to another la nina than go into an el nino.
And yeah, Southern Hemisphere has returned to about average after having been +100,000 km. So in other words … there is no “massive loss of ice” so much as a loss of the substantially above normal ice and a return to average conditions. In yet other words … no massive reason to fear any significant reduction of Southern Hemisphere ice.
I wonder if there are bets on solar cycle 24 in Las Vegas?
SS24 (16:58:55) :
“Its strange the silence here about the massive ice cover lost in south hemisphere in the last weeks. And it’s winter in South hemisphere.”
I noticed it only yesterday when I was putting together a list of interesting links.
Ice cover hasn’t been lost – it is increasing, see http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/daily.html What has been lost is the big anomaly, so ice has been forming more slowly than it has on average. I’m not sure what it all means, my first guess is that storminess has broken up some of the ice cover, but I don’t pay too much attention to it.
Frankly, I’m not too inclined to hunt down further information since you haven’t even bothered to check the standard sources.
“If we get an El Nino next year I expect skeptics and deniers quickly forget monthly data from the RSS and UAH”
Some will, some will use the data to look for new correlations or look for what’s behind the data. An El Nino would be nice, it would be interesting to see how they differ from El Ninos in positive PDO phases.
GLOBAL WARMING SAID TO CAUSE CHANGES IN EARTH ORBIT!
DONT TOUCH THAT DIAL! NEWS AT 11!
Found some cool graphs here today:
http://reallyrealclimate.blogspot.com/
Still my favorite:
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/N_timeseries.png
CO2 Rises, Arctic Ice Extent Grows………………..
This question is for Leif – I just re-read Hathaway’s 2006 prediction of a very low solar cycle 25 due to the slow down of the solar conveyor belt. (I’m sure you’re familiar with it) I of course know that we will just have to wait and see and take all predictions with a pound of salt (the ever changing start date to SS 24 being a good case in point) but I was wondering – from your work, do you think it is possible (not probable, simply possible) that Hathaway’s 2006 explanation was correct but that his timing was wrong? In other words, that the extremely low cycle he expected may be beginning now?
I know that Hathaway himself does not believe this is the case, but it looks to me like a possibility.
SS24, if you compare the SH anomaly from July 2007 to July 2008, there is slightly more ice than last year at the same time.
[…] Sun in deep slumber: 10.7 solar flux hits record low value […]
And I could see all I had done
Just chasing dreams across the fields
In the shadow of the sun
And the sun is gone
Forever out of this game
And the sun is gone
Her eyes will never be the same
She lost her soul
Caught in the demon’s eyes
She lost her soul
And there are no ears to hear her cries
The sun is gone
Hathaway and other NASA solar physicists are painting themselves into a tight corner. Clearly they do not know what they are doing, but cannot help but pretend that they do.
I wonder if there are bets on solar cycle 24 in Las Vegas?
24 Black
ESTRAGON: He should be here.
VLADIMIR: He didn’t say for sure he’d come.
ESTRAGON: And if he doesn’t come?
VLADIMIR: We’ll come back tomorrow.
ESTRAGON And then the day after tomorrow.
VLADIMIR: Possibly.
Yes, we’re all waiting for Mr. G… to tell us the end is nigh.
Tom in Florida (18:12:29) :
“Another graph with the base period of 1979-2000. Will someone PLEEEEEASE
explain the facination with this time period? I understand 1979 as a starting point due to satellites but what happened after 2000? Did they fall out of orbit? Did NASA defund the project? Did the science teams all die? I do not understand why, at this point in time, the average is taken from 1979 – 2007.”
I think the reason for not changing the base year from which you calculate the average values is that you would get different anomalies every year since the average would change each time you do so. It also would be confusing if the anomalies for the past changes every year, you would also have to keep track of which base anomaly that is used when discussing it.
WWS: The conveyor belt idea is used in dynamo models that rely on motions ‘deep’ into the convection zone. Those motions are slow and the dynamo therefore operates on a 20-30 year time scale. A few years of slow motion are not going to be serious compared to the 20-30 year full circulation. I and my colleagues think the dynamo is ‘shallow’, operating on a 5-10 year scale and the conveyor belt speed is not relevant for this. So, what to say? In my case, the conveyor belt doesn’t matter. What matters is the strength of the polar field which is now the lowest ever observed, leading us to predict a small cycle.
Al Fin: About the NASA solar physicists in the tight corner: The prediction panel is split with more than half predicting a low cycle, so at least some of us are on the right track, it seems.
ss24 antartic ice yes falling to NORMAL levels, exactly same as this time last year
see it yourself from one of your own AGW sites.
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/current.365.south.jpg
NOTE the pretty massive continuous high anomaly over the past 9 months which finally is ending (as one would expect). would not be surprised that high anomaly will continue as ice melts there though
Pedantry gone mad I know, but you wrote “in a deep minima”. That should be “in a deep minimum”. Minima is plural.
REPLY: Fixed thanks for pointing out the typo.
jerker anderson,
Thanks for your reply. BTW my last sentence should have read “why isn’t the average taken from 1979-2007”. I still do not understand what is so special about the period of 1979-2000. It seems to me that this is just a random period chosen as a base and therefore anything plus or minus from that base is really meaningless. If you continue to average the data right through the current year I’ll bet any anomoly gets smoothed and looks less dramatic over time. Or has algorean science determined the period 1979-2000 to be the alltime optimal period when everything is “correct” and we should therefore strive to return to those numbers in whatever we do?
@SS24
Thanks for the link. What are you maintaining? It is hot in Antarctica? Global warming goes on stronger than ever? Isn’t it that climate consist of a compilation of global temperature during a period of 30 years, not just the weather over weeks over one spot in Antarctica?
Did you notice that it is the first time for 30 years that temperature is going down significantly worldwide without there being a major vulcanic eruption? Did you notice that temperature does not follow IPCC projections? See <a href=”http://climatepatrol.net/2008/07/09/global-temperature-about-to-fall-below-ipcc-scenarios/”global-temperature-about-to-fall-below-ipcc-scenarios.
See
Yes, there was a low flux reading prior to SC19, but what of the other indicators? How long was SC18, was the sun spot number as low, for as long as it has been currently.
One of my problems with Leif is his insistnce on focusing on one factor, to the exclusion of all others.
Tom wrote: “Or has algorean science determined the period 1979-2000 to be the alltime optimal period when everything is “correct” and we should therefore strive to return to those numbers in whatever we do?”
That period was more limited, occurring only from 1993 – 2000. Heaven on Earth, don’t you remember?
Did you notice that it is the first time for 30 years that temperature is going down significantly worldwide without there being a major vulcanic eruption?
But the problem is that, I don’t see the temperatures falling significantly as you mentioned, I see the temperatures stabilized, even with La Nina and a prolonged solar minimum. Believing in any relationship with the solar cycles, temperatures should then have fallen more expressively. With La Nina ending and a start of cycle 24, I suspect that an expressive rising trend come again in the next years.
But as someone here has say, times are interesting. Yes they are. I believe in a correlation between Enso/pdo and solar cycles, correlation not visible because of oceanic dynamics and lag. So if we don’t get any strong El Nino before the maximum from solar cycle 24, that surely is interesting to me. If we get a strong one, I think that everybody here need to forget the solar relation and maybe need to accept an antopogenic cause.
Sorry for my bad english, I’m not an native english speaker.
————————-
Disclaimer: For me, skepticism is good in science and everything in society. I really appreciate the Anthony Watts work about surface stations, for me that is a good and valuable work. And Steve McIntyre, for me, he deserve an nobel prize for his amazing work, a science nobel, not a political one as the peace nobel that Gore received. I don’t like Hansen and their algorithms and I hate Mr.Gore as everybody here.
But sometimes Anthony and many others here fall a bit in denialism. The same errors and the pseudoscience and the same propaganda as the worst of warming alarmists. The same kind of news, it’s hot in Spain, global warming, it’s snowing in Baghdad, global cooling, blablabla, that kind of things.
I admit that my first comment was a little troll poorly educated . I apologize.
But what I mean is that here many of you talk about cold in China or anywhere else, and no one talk for example about the current heat wave in Argentina winter. That is the same biased information that warming alarmists always do too.
Climate Patrol (04:34:20) :
I don’t quite follow the graph you refer to.
According to the WG1 AR4 projections the global average temperature in 2000 matches the models (presumably because they have been run from that point in time).
This isn’t what your graph shows. Is this because the base point of the model is 1980 – 1999 or that you haven’t updated the model data to the AR4 numbers
This is a picture from the report with the A2 projection on the right
http://www.holtlane.plus.com/images/wg1ar4projection.jpg
Jeez, OT but as we seem to be veering between the sun, the Arctic and the Antarctic some relevance.
A few weeks back we had the news of a massive underwater volcanic explosion in 1999 on the Gakkel Ridge in the Arctic. Scientists had never come across this phenomenon before and believed it could’t happen.
At roughly the same time Hwang et al published a paper in GRL:-
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2008/2008GL034271.shtml
Today Nature publishes a small article on the Hwang paper in its research highlights section, entitled ‘Geoscience Carbon Sinks’:-
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v454/n7202/#rhighlts
The interesting thing is the last part of the Nature report which says
“This sets the Canada Basin apart from other ocean basins studied and means that models generally used to describe ocean carbon cycling do not apply in the Arctic.
Now that aspect was not mentioned in the GRL abstract, but together with the Gakkel Ridge discovery leads one to ask how many other things are there that are unknown in this supposedly ‘settled science’?
SS24, one anomoly doesn’t make a summer! Check out the June anomoly map from NASA GISS http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/do_nmap.py?year_last=2008&month_last=6&sat=4&sst=0&type=anoms&mean_gen=06&year1=2008&year2=2008&base1=1951&base2=1980&radius=1200&pol=reg.
Gives a different story
To add to the solar intrigue,there are a couple of Cycle 24 patterns on both hemispheres developing, not yet even tiny tims but worth watching
To add to the solar intrigue,there are a couple of Cycle 24 patterns on both hemispheres developing, not yet even tiny tims but worth watchinghttp://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/data/realtime/mdi_mag/512/
The low value of solar flux is obviously related to a lack of sunspot activity which, as proven by the Maunder Minimum, has an important influence on the climate of the Earth. Sunspots go hand-in-hand with Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs) – waves of charged particles, some of which hit the Earth system and effect the climate as they spiral into the magnetic poles.
Actually sunspots are the result of millions of asteroids, which were ejected from an impact crater now manifested as Jupiter’s Great Red Spot, in the last 6000 years, into highly eccentric orbits around the Sun. (Sorry, Jupiter is a solid methane gas hydrate planet (mostly water), not a hydrogen gas balloon.) This is why sunspot cycles have a periodicity similar to the period of Jupiter. As their orbits decay they crash into the solar surface and splash out the material that comprises the CMEs. Corroboration of this hypothesis comes from the measurement of massive amounts of water within sunspots and from the downward velocity of the material in them measured at 3,000 mph. See: “The Origin of Sunspots” and other papers at http://firmament-chaos.com/recent_papers.html. Also see: acksblog.firmament-chaos.com.
The issue is not global warming…it’s easy to get distracted from the real problem…we’re abusing the Earth. And the question is…what are we going to do about it? As other cultures catch on to the democratic/capitalistic iconic ways that are near and dear to us consumption is bound to increase…as this happens, how will the Earth bear it? However, the Earth seems to have another agenda and seems to be able to lash out and take care of her self… Elohina, as the Cherokee’s used to call her, is alive and well, and if not respected, will force respect…
I recommend the book Ishmael…about an ape that educates a man… we THINK we’re the most enlighted, intelligent being on the planet. Well, left to care for it, we seem to have done a marvelous job with her, 😉 Could it be that all the other species have accepted their place, and know more than we? Dunno, is that a possibility in your minds?
Peace…
Experts say ‘end may be near’? Oh please, how stupid are some of the people who read this blog?
http://webescape.wordpress.com/
I have been to that observatory. If you are ever in the area, it is a very interesting place.
The fact that we are seeing the lowest recorded level is not what I am concerned about; it is just slightly below normal minimums. What concernes me is that the graph does not look to be bottoming out. looks to me like it has a nother couple of years before it reaches bottom, and turns around.
Re: Ackerman:
I have a real hard time believing that an asteroid can cause a sunspot. Heck, the thing would vaporize long before hitting the sun surface, and would be minuscule compared to the size of a sunspot.
@SS24 I appreciate your honesty. I just wasn’t quite sure on which side you are. You have a point there but then, Anthony Watts is a meteorologist, not a statistician. He is good at spotting errors where data is collected. That is in the realm of weather. Lot’s of weather makes a summer, etc. etc. So I talked to another meteorogist. The effect of the lingering solar minium has not really manifested in global temperature as much. There is a time lag. Interesting times, I agree.
@Oldjim
I see. I failed to give links. I got it from Wiki. But I think this one may be of better help: http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/figspm-5.htm . The base period both for temperature and emission scanarios started in 1990 (average of 1961-1990) and not 2000 (average of 1981-2000). 30 years is the standard definition of WMO for a base period for climate. Anything shorter term is still weather if I am not mistaken. The reference period ends in 2071-2100. So what I did is to shift the average temperature from 1961-1990 until June 2008. That’s a period of 210 months so far with an average trend of just +0,1°C per decade. But in order to reach the target by 2100, another +0,3°C per decade is needed. Why should we trust this kind of woodoo scinece, no matter what the sun will do in the coming decades?? Sorry, this was now a little denialist jargon:-)
[…] There is some conjecture that this will lead to a cooling trend on Earth. The latest news is that the solar flux is at a near record low. I have no idea what that means, but I liked this observation: Expert forecasts that have called […]
There is a notable probability that cold fronts will start to come further and further to the south, starting next week, in the upper 30N latitudes of the NOAM Pacific coast.
This summer has been strange, a real mix of traditional summer and early fall weather. Normally we would oscillate between a strong northwesterly zonal flow, and more stagnant periods. But this summer, instead of the stagnant interludes, we’ve mainly has strong meridional flows, which is classic fall weather. This is not to say there have been zero stagnant interludes, but is to say they have been much rarer than normal.
By the end of the month, climatic fall may have begun.
The same thing happened last year.
SS24…
The bottom line is that global temperatures have been cooler than at any point in the last 10 years this year, and they show no signs of rising yet, despite the Nina having faded to neutral. MSU satellite data for July is running .3C cooler than last year so far. And there is a flat temperature trend for the past 10 years, and declining for the past 8 (except for GISS/NOAA).
A couple good points today at Kevin ‘VE3EN’s excellent website
http://www.solarcycle24.com/
There are indeed two or three areas on the SOHO Magnetogram this morning
http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/data/realtime/mdi_mag/1024/latest.html
that appear to be manifestations of Solar Cycle 24.
We have seen this before of course.
In a similar occurrence just last month, a few “hopeful” magnetic signs of Cycle 24 showed up, but never formed spots, or even “Tiny Tims,” and the magnetic signatures quickly faded away and the sun has remained spotless.
Even if one or more of these do become visible as Cycle 24 spots, Anthony has raised a very good question about this phenomenon recently
http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/2008/05/05/what-spot/
namely, are we witnessing conditions that existed during previous solar Grand Minima, just with better instruments?
Anthony was certainly right in noting that “…solar observers of the past would likely never have seen” the specks and “Tiny Tims” we’ve seen of Cycle 24 so far, and they had no magnetograms with which to observe “sub-spot” areas of activity, such as appear on the sun this morning.
Of course, there is still no proof that present inactivity equals future inactivity. Solar Cycle 24 could still surprise on the high side, or at least become a “normal” cycle. Let’s hope it does.
I now count myself among the “Pray for Sunspots” crowd.
http://lookingup1.blogspot.com/2008/03/sun_06.html
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23583376-7583,00.html
http://www.financialpost.com/story.html?id=552919
among others
The “worse” (i.e., less active) Cycle 24 is, I believe, the worse for humanity. Worst of all would be a “Grand Minimum,” such as Dalton, Maunder, Spoerer, Wolf, etc.
Much has been written already about the Maunder. If the Dalton Minimum was the sort of “grand finale” of the Little Ice Age, the Maunder was certainly the main act, as it coincided with the coldest temperatures of the period.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maunder_minimum
[side note – thank God for Jack Eddy! Prior to his work in 1976, only “deniers” accepted the idea. He knew that period should properly be named for the work of Gustav Spoerer, whereas “Maunder was a kind of a second-tier astronomer at Greenwich…” but Eddy chose the alliteration “Maunder Minimum” to help “sell” the idea].
http://www.agu.org/history/sv/solar/eddy_int.html
European history shows that, although the climate would get worse later on, the end of the “party” of the Medieval Maximum” began in 1280 – and that was the around the start of the decline into the Wolf sunspot minimum.
The next century in Europe included both the Great Famine (see the Wikipedia article to get an idea of how awful this period was – try to imagine something similar happening to today’s population)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Famine_of_1315-1317
as well as the Black Death
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Death
oh, and just because everyone was so cheery and had so much time on their hand’s, the Hundred Year’s War
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hundred_Years'_War
My point, the idea I’m kinda goin’ for here, is that a Grand Minimum would be… um, what’s the word? hhmmmm… let’s say… “bad.”
You don’t need to go back to the 13th & 14th centuries to grasp the concept of “bad.” Look at 1816, or “Eighteen Hundred and Froze to Death.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_Without_a_Summer
Remember at that time, according to the 1810 US Census, “7,239,881 people were living in the United States of which 1,191,362 were slaves.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Census%2C_1810
whereas today, US population is nearly 305,000,000
http://www.census.gov/main/www/popclock.html
I leave it to your own imagination and reason to estimate the effect on humanity today of a descent into a solar cycle Grand Minimum, accompanied by the historically well-correlated global temperature decline and shortened growing seasons.
But do not fail to include in your estimation, your government’s plan to assure you are safe from famine and pestilence:
continue to provide subsidies and legal mandates so farmers will grow fuel crops instead of food crops, so we can meet our glorious (and legally-mandated) National Goal of 7.5 billion gallons of “biofuel” by 2012 (which, by law, you MUST pay for – first with your taxes and again at the pump).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_Policy_Act_of_2005#Provisions
Pray for sunspots.
(or, try to persuade Al Gore to “invent” a Super-Magnetic Particle Beam Gamma X-Ray Fusion Laser we can point at the sun to reset it back to a normal solar cycle).
I think to pray for sun spots is a sign of desperation for those who have been duped into believing in AGW and its political science bases. If a minimum does occur we will need all the CO2 that we can generate for crop production; however, the current planning ignores such a possibility and goes gleefully on its way with programs for carbon taxes that may do more to destroy economies and peoples lives than a cooler climate.
edco (19:00:43) :
I wonder if there are bets on solar cycle 24 in Las Vegas?
“Intrade” is the place to go for this sort of thing.
They’re the people who run a sort of “futures market” allowing people to “speculate” (i.e., bet) on things like the outcome of elections.
http://www.intrade.com/
They already have a section for Climate and Weather speculation, and I just sent them an email suggesting they open up a Solar Cycle 24 market for speculators, so go to their site and tell them you’re ready to “invest.”
Hmmmm… I see the 2008 President Gore futures are up +1.3 this afternoon. Still way too early to sell my 2008 Obama contracts though, and even at 29.8, 2008 President McCain still doesn’t look like a bargain.
legal disclaimer: I am not an investment advisor. Speculating on solar activity, ice ages (“little” or “The Big One”), volcanoes, earthquakes, the apocalypse, or presidential elections is not a recommended investment strategy. Solar and geo-sciences should be used for scientific purposes, political activism, and entertainment purposes only.
” edco (10:26:26) :
I think to pray for sun spots is a sign of desperation for those who have been duped into believing in AGW and its political science bases.”
Agreed on the desperation. I admit it. I have no bloody idea what will happen should the climate become significantly colder. I firmly believe it would be, as I said, “bad.” Bad enough to pray it doesn’t happen.
“AGW” however, in my opinion, has never been serious. It’s been political, not scientific, at least since 1988. The more fraud, intimidation, suppression, persecution, ostracization, and unscientific “adjustments” of data its adherents commit, the more I am disgusted with them, and the more skepticism their arguments (if any) demand.
I do not believe the AGW religion or its Pope Al the first holds the same power it did even one year ago. The failure of the Carbon Tax bill in the US senate weakened them politically, the price at the pump, as well as the general economic weakness have given people actually important things to concern themselves with; the recent G8 non-committal commitment to “reduce GHG by half by 2050” (compared to what value? Today? 1990? 1850? 2050?) was further evidence of their waning power; the APS (American Physical Society) “discovery” today that after exhaustive search, they have found nearly irrefutable proof of the existence of non-wacko skeptics, Yea, even amongst their own membership; and darn it, pesky reality, like the global temperature actually falling, keeps getting in the way of religious dogma.
SS24:
What loss of SH ICE?
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/CT/animate.antarctic.0.html
no loss apparent, it is growing, as expected, where is your evidence to the contrary?
RE: “I leave it to your own imagination and reason to estimate the effect on humanity today of a descent into a solar cycle Grand Minimum, accompanied by the historically well-correlated global temperature decline and shortened growing seasons.”
Global thermonuclear war, 3 billion dead, resulting airborne dust, smoke and other matter sinks us even deeper into global cooling. Neat, eh?
So there is a difference between AGW “the sky is falling” and sunspot activity “the sky is falling”. I see it all now clearly.
ss24, I agree with your last post-not much difference between the 2 camps except politics and whether death is by fire or ice (personally I think it will be by greed)
” Leif Svalgaard (23:15:09) :
… In my case, the conveyor belt doesn’t matter. What matters is the strength of the polar field which is now the lowest ever observed, leading us to predict a small cycle. ”
The Stanford / Wilcox Observatory chart of the strength of the Solar Polar magnetic field was updated yesterday.
http://wso.stanford.edu/gifs/Polar.gif
It continues to show exactly what Leif mentioned – the weakest polar field strength ever in this history of observations. (January 1976, and the minimum between Cycle 20 and 21 are on the left edge of the chart).
The magnetic field strength at the solar poles is strongest at solar minimum.
Compare the polar field strength now, against the three previous minima shown on the chart.
”
Gibsho (13:28:10) :
So there is a difference between AGW “the sky is falling” and sunspot activity “the sky is falling”. I see it all now clearly.
ss24, I agree with your last post-not much difference between the 2 camps except politics and whether death is by fire or ice (personally I think it will be by greed)”
So there is a difference between AGW “the sky is falling” and sunspot activity “the sky is falling,” and EVIL capitalism (greed) will kill us all “the sky is falling.” I see it all now, and clearlyer than thou.
AGW, as I’ve suggested repeatedly, can be taken seriously only as a religious phenomenon, or as a psychological phenomenon, for example what C.G. Jung called a “visionary rumor.” (He was talking about UFOs, and people who became devout believers, without any personal experience of any UFO phenomenon).
As for sunspot activity, 20th century high solar activity coincided with higher global temperature. Earlier in history, periods of low solar activity coincided with lower global temperature. The correlations are real, there are part of a historical record, and not part of political agenda.
What, if anything, is the physical mechanism? WHY are these correlations so persistent across hundreds, even thousands of years?
No one knows.
That means, for one thing, the science is NOT settled, and anyone who tells you otherwise is blowing greenhouse gases up your skirt.
NOTHING that has happened with the sun or is happening now (as far as anyone knows) provides definite evidence of what the sun will do in the future.
There are predictions, including the well publicized NOAA/NASA official “split decision”
http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/SolarCycle/SC24/index.html
and it is to be hoped that the actual evolution of Solar Cycle 24 will at least provide an indication of which models are on the right track and which are not, but even THAT is not guaranteed, because of what Leif Svalgaard recently referred to as a certain perverse tendency of nature when it comes to our models and predictions.
In other words, though Solar Cycle 24 will certainly be the most closely watched in history, it does not necessarily follow that we’re going to get all our questions answered. Confusion and uncertainty may actually INCREASE.
As far as the fate of humanity, there is one point I would emphasize, despite the fact that it is GLARINGLY OBVIOUS:
we are not ready
Our entire industrial, and critically, modern agricultural development has occurred within a generally favorable climate. We _don’t_know_ how to feed 7 or 8 billion or more people
http://www.census.gov/ipc/www/popclockworld.html
in adverse climate conditions because we’ve never had to. Nobody knows if it can be done at all.
The world population will double sometime this century, and our food production will need to double to feed that population. Are you aware of ANY plans for how that is to be done (even assuming continued favorable climate conditions)?
In relation to heat waves in the Southern Hemisphere winter as shown by the animation linked by SS24 – you can access the real-time weather data at NZs Scott Base in Antarctica (across the hill from the US base in McMurdo Sound) via
http://www.antarcticanz.govt.nz/weather/SBweather/sbweather.html
This site underlies the developing 20°C anomaly.
To me, the data do not agree with the winter heat wave shown in the gridded reconstructions. However, there are some very large differences between the daily minimum and maximum temperatures on a few days.
[…] Sun in deep slumber: 10.7 solar flux hits record low value [image]NRC's monitoring station NRC Canada’s FTP site which logs the daily 10.7 centimeter (2800 megahertz) […] […]
Speculation is beneficial until such speculation as AGW becomes dogma like a religion with no room for debate or unbelievers and is broadcast as Gospel by our Pravda like news media and taught as fact in our schools. My bet is 50 red for those who will be embarrassed by their high predictions of solar cycle 24!
Shizzle!
Those two SC24 magnetic regions from this morning look like a FIZZLE!
The one area that hasn’t faded, and may even be strengthening, is in the southern hemisphere with a leading negative polarity – a SC23 signature if it’s anything at all.
For reference, I am looking at the 18 July 01:28 UTC SOHO Magnetogram
http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/data/realtime/mdi_mag/1024/latest.html
and the 17 July 2254 UTC Mauna Loa Magnetogram
http://gong.nso.edu/Daily_Images/
According to the the official international keepers of the sunspot numbers, the SIDC, the last day with an official sunspot was June 23
http://sidc.oma.be/products/ri_hemispheric/
And according to Jan Janssens “Spotless Days” page
http://users.telenet.be/j.janssens/Spotless/Spotless.html#Period
25 consecutive spotless days ranks about #43 – since 1849! And it’s a number that has been exceeded only once in the last 50 years (28 days 09 Oct 2007 to 05 Nov 2007).
When looking at Jan’s table, note the number of spotless day streaks from 1954 – a deep minimum which was followed by a very large solar cycle, in fact the largest on record, #19. Hathaway may yet get the last laugh.
Sorry – June 23 was the first day of this spotless streak. June 22 was the last day with a sunspot.
http://sidc.oma.be/products/ri_hemispheric/
my bad
I now count myself among the “Pray for Sunspots” crowd.
So do I.
However, in my lesser moments an occasional “I hope the bastards freeze” flits across my mind.
But then feel bad about it.
Besides, my favorite scenario is a period of mild cooling attributed to oceanic-atmospheric multidecadal cycles. A major minimum won’t speak directly to CO2 feedback theory. In fact, it might even perpetuate it in a way. I’d like to see the “system” rather than have the solar cops raid the game.
whether death is by fire or ice (personally I think it will be by greed)
Individual greed won’t do it. Only the collective variety can gin up the necessary positive feedback loops.
We _don’t_know_ how to feed 7 or 8 billion or more people
Then I’ll tell you: Easily.
But if I read my demographics right, it won’t even come to that. Birthrates have plunged since 1990. It shows up in “births per thousand”, but it demonstrates the future trend even more dramatically in the shockingly lower children-per-couple measurements.
The foreseeable future of world population has “S-curve” written all over it. I predict world population will stabilize at well under 10 billion. (As-yet unknown technology or “off planetary” considerations may possibly intrude to enable a much greater number.)
China is going to feel a severe pinch–not on account of the one-child policy, per se, but the fact that a great majority of the current generation are male. Modern folks forget this: There is a damn good reason why the women of ancient cultures didn’t fight; they were the only guarantee of future generations. Theoretically, nearly every male could be killed off, but the tribe could still rebound. But if a sizable proportion of the women are wiped out, then the tribe is doomed. Purely a practical matter.
It I’m not mistaken, because of the sun’s quiescence we’ll be experiencing a cooling trend for a while. What’s Al Gore to do (he spoke today and says the Polar ice caps will melt away over the next 5 years…doesn’t he know they’ve been recorded to melt away many times before and it’s not the herald of doom?)?
I long for common sense and ears to hear.
“Mac”
http://antioxexpress.wordpress.com
John Ackerman (07:34:57)
Your paper on Vensus reminded me of Worlds in Collision by Immanuel Velikovsky that I read many many years ago.
Evan Jones (19:30:27) :
“…my favorite scenario is a period of mild cooling attributed to oceanic-atmospheric multidecadal cycles. A major minimum won’t speak directly to CO2 feedback theory. In fact, it might even perpetuate it in a way. I’d like to see the “system” rather than have the solar cops raid the game. ”
You’re right, but we have now and will have in the future, solar cops versus CO2 crooks.
That is, _IF_ any actual science gets done, _IF_ human knowledge gets advanced at all, it will be _in_spite_ of the advocates of pet theories and the political activists.
No matter what happens with the real-world climate, you will still have to sift through tons of B.S. to get to the truth about CO2 feedback theory and sun-climate connections.
As has been suggested here already, the man-made global warming theocracy, including Pope Al himself, will take credit for whatever happens, and YOU will still be the cause of the problem.
John X
Actually 1996 had a longer run in spotless days, 42 in total and was ranked 10th in total.
I think we shouldn’t make too much of this run in spotless days at the moment. I think the threshold should be 92 days which would make this the longest run – then we will really have something to talk about. Only 67 days to go!
However, I am amused by NASAs moving forescast. Though to give Hathaway his dues he does hedge his bets when he makes projections.
Evan Jones says, of China:
Where are you getting your stats from? The last figures I saw said males make up 51% and females 49%. That puts males in the majority, but not by much …
It looks like there will be no new record in spotless days. SOHO shows that there is a spot emerging from a magnetic region with SC23 signature.
Will it last long enough this time to be counted?
http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/data/realtime/mdi_mag/512/
http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/data/realtime/mdi_igr/512/
Heads up!
There’s a new SC23 spot showing this morning. It just keeps going and going and going…
Time to reset the spotless days clock to zero.
“Hathaway may yet get the last laugh.”
Yeah, and natural causes might be eradicated by medical science in our lifetime. Don’t count on it, grasshopper.
“That puts males in the majority, but not by much …”
Hardly important at all, except when its time to marry. China is known for its quality reporting of sensitive stats.
“”loki on the run (22:38:14) :
Evan Jones says, of China:
but the fact that a great majority of the current generation are male ”
Where are you getting your stats from? The last figures I saw said males make up 51% and females 49%. That puts males in the majority, but not by much … ”
2% of 6.68 billion people is a lot of people not having sex… Unlucky, Heh heh! 🙂
Leon Brozyna:
Get the feeling 23 will fade from memory before 24 signs the lease? I’d be studying the Corona or IMF or something besides spots just now for my next grant proposal.
Evan Jones says, of China:
but the fact that a great majority of the current generation are male ”
Paul Shanahan (11:34:16) :
Where are you getting your stats from? The last figures I saw said males make up 51% and females 49%. That puts males in the majority, but not by much … ”
The 51/49% figures are numbers I’ve heard since childhood along with claims that males have a higher mortality which brings things a bit closer. The reason for the difference has been suggested to be that male sperm are smaller (a female geneticist once kidded that the Y chromosome was a horrible little runt) and hence can swim faster and get to the egg sooner. Boys will be boys, even when they’re haploid.
As for Evan’s comment, I’m sure that’s due to the one child policy with parents aborting female fetuses to get a male heir. It will make for some interesting China watching in the coming decades.
Bear in mind I am speaking of the current generation, not the overall population.
Here are a couple of links (the latter with a definite axe to grind, so take w/graino’salt). Both claim that the current birthrate is 120 males to 100 females.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5953508
http://www.euthanasia.com/china-ra.html
There are a bunch of other hits as well, but I don’t have the time to run them down at the moment. One acknowledged the difference but points to hep-B rather than policy. Others concentrate on abortion practices and even suggest a certain (much smaller) degree of infanticide, but one can’t really determine the numbers as the emotions are running too high–much like in the GW debate. There’s a nasty “new word” making the rounds, though: “gendercide”.
Ric Werme (15:38:14) :
Paul Shanahan (11:34:16) :
Where are you getting your stats from? The last figures I saw said males make up 51% and females 49%. That puts males in the majority, but not by much … ”
Ric, I think you will find that I didn’t pen this, so your post is out of context. I was actually referring to this sentance to post this response:
2% of 6.68 billion people is a lot of people not having sex… Unlucky, Heh heh! 🙂
Oh, and yes, I was specifically referring to China.
Whomever pointed out that the gradual bottoming out of SC23 has an eye for the data.
That’s exactly what’s going on, and SC24 is shaping up to look just like the 1st cycle of MM, a low and slow bump instead of a stellar or galactic core psf
Those double-hump maxima of the last couple cycles are the signs of trouble.
SC 23 refuses to end and SC 24 refuses to get out of bed. Handoff cannot occur normally if the sines get closer to opposition. Handoff cannot occur period if they approach and pass through opposition, resulting in deep minima. But who knows how long it takes for as yet undiscovered sines to move trhough thier opposition.
This is what makes all this so darn instersting for observers. Never has it been so rich a time as to postulate. Kudos to all who put thier best foot forward and are not abashed to fling it out there.
RB: Your’s is the first speculation I can remember seeing on the double bump.
Gary: The double bump is certainly there, as is a gaping Coronal Hole. I have thought about why, and I keep coming back to the double bump as sines pulling out of sync, and has something to do, cause/effect or mere symptom, of that Coronal Hole.
I will have to keep an eye on that hole. Is it slowly growing, as the prelude to who knows what, the deep minima? Nothing serious folks, just plucking straws out of thin air over what is right in front of us. Which came first, the double bump or the Coronal Hole, and are they related or coincidental?
RB: In the meantime I did remember seeing a guess at John A.’s SolarScience blog or WarwickHughes, but it approached free association to my feeble understanding.
Your’s, two underlying sinsusoids bifurcating is comprehensible. I look forward to any future insight.
http://wso.stanford.edu/gifs/Polar.gif
Looking at that again, the last 4 swings of the solar field strenth are nearly uniform in amplitude. If you look back in the chart, you see alternating tall swings/short swings.
I don’t understand what drives the individual north/south field swings of 6.6 mos. (almost 3 yrs 5 swings) but they appear regularly even though the main 11 yr swings are stuck (read can’t end SC23 and can’t begin SC24. At least part of the sines are working (non-cancelled).
Too bad we don’t have more data.
I am going to say that it’s more than likely that the cancelled 11 yr sines (22 for a full cycle) are what normally drives the alternating high/low amplitudes of the 6.6 mo sines (11/4 = 2.75 yrs).
I don’t have access to the data to compute the average of the small 6.6 mo sines I see.
Perhaps someone here does. Does it really come out to a nice 11/4 yrs average?
Really too bad we don’t have about 100 yrs of field strength data.
Ok, I messed up that math. Looks more like 3 yrs gets 6 heartbeats. Normally, sort of.
The current 3 yrs will have 5 heartbeats with one Solar Polar field coronary on Dec 05. Looking at the http://www.nwra-az.com/spawx/ssne24.html
for SC23, that’s where the sunspots failed to level out and headed down to zero where we now watch the Sun in a comatose state.
Don’t see anything else like it in the Solar Polar field ekg., that Dec 2005 timeframe spike.
Somebody mentioned elsewhere a late 2005 dropoff in another data chart.
Where would that be?
http://sidc.oma.be/html/wolfaml.html
One more interesting trend for the last 300 yrs: Solar cycles that hang around and refuse to yield to the next cycle tend to suck half the intensity out of the ihneriting cycle. Roughly.
So, Solar Cycle 24 will average out at 70 for it’s peak intensity years.
It’s going to be a decidedly cool one if this trend holds.
IPS is now predicting Oct 2008 to be the minimum for SC23.
http://www.ips.gov.au/Solar/1/6 and a Max SN of 134.7
The target is moving, the solar cycle is not.
http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=2705548
Some relationships of coronal holes and long duration high speed solar winds in declining phases of solar cycles. Right now, that co-rotating Coronal Hole is all we got going on.
It’s not really putting out all that much, is it?
Edco
I would like to think that I’ve gone much deeper into Venus since I utilize a lot of data collected by the NASA Pioneer Venus probe.
As for the solar magnetic spots ‘fizzling’ out – that just corroborates the notion that sunspots are not generated internally by the Suns magnetic field, as currently thought. Magnetic field changes accompany sunspots because the impacting asteroids are magnetized, as are the main belt asteroids. They both were ejected from Jupiter in a hot jet which shot from an enormous impact crater on Jupiter which is now marked by the Great Red Spot. As the hot gases left the planet and cooled, they formed low density, hydrated bodies while in free flight which resemble cinders. There was sufficient iron and nickel in them that caused them to be magnetized by the magnetic field of Jupiter as they coalsced.
The solar corona is heated by numerous smaller bodies that continually fall toward the Sun and burn up. This is obvious when one studies the temperature distribution, which is highly non-uniform (non-thermal).
So what accounts for the lack of sunspots? A lack of bodies falling into the Sun, as in previous cometary debris having already been consumed and a gap in the pipeline?
All that is left to explain with that theory is why the coronal hole that co-rotates. What made that hole?
Very little has been said about the erruption of the the volcano Kasatochi in the Aleutian Islands, on August 8th. To date it has put an enormous amount of sulfur dioxiode in the northern Hemisphere producing dramatic and beautiful sunsets worldwide. This will certainly add to global cooling. Ref; http://volcanism.wordpress.com/2008/09/kasatochi-sunsets/ Also SpaceWeather.com has a collection of images from locations in the United States and Europe. See LiveScience and Flicr and the Alaska Vocano Observatory page. This is the 3rd Volcano in the Alutians which has erupted in the last six month and several other of the 20 plus Alutian Volcanos are show signs that they may errupt.
[…] 14 02 2009 I had written back in July 2008 about the 10.7cm solar radio flux hitting a new record low value. Part of that has to do with the inverse square law and the distance of the earth to the sun, which […]