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)
“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 […]