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)
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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.