Many people that have have an interest in the interaction between the Sun and Earth have been keeping a watchful eye on several metrics of solar activity recently. The most popular of course has been sunspot watching.
The sun has been particularly quiet in the last several months, so quiet in fact that Australia’s space weather agency recently revised their solar cycle 24 forecast, pushing the expected date for a ramping up of cycle 24 sunspots into the future by six months.
On August 31st, at 23:59 UTC, just a little over 24 hours from now, we are very likely to make a bit of history. It looks like we will have gone an entire calendar month without a sunspot. According to data from NOAA’s National Geophysical Data Center, the last time that happened was in June of 1913. May of 1913 was also spotless.
With the current space weather activity level of the Sun being near zero, and the SOHO holographic imaging of the far side of the sun showing no developing spots that would come around the edge in the next 24 hours, it seems a safe bet to conclude that August 2008 will be the first spotless month since June 1913.
Here is the sun today, at 09:14UTC August 30th:
Click for a very large image
Some people who watch the sun regularly might argue that August wasn’t really spotless, because on August 21st, a very tiny plage area looked like it was going to become a countable sunspot. Here is an amateur astronomer’s photo of the event:
August 21st, 2008 spots – Photo: Pavol Rapavy
But according to solar physicist Leif Svalgaard, who regularly frequents this blog:
According to NOAA it was not assigned a number on Aug.21st nor on Aug.22.
So without an official recognition or a number assigned, it should not be counted in August as actual sunspot.
It has also been over a month since a countable sunspot has been observed, the last one being on July 18th. Since then, activity has been flat. Below is a graph of several solar metrics from the amateur radio propagation website dxlc.com for the past two months:
Click image for original source
They have a table of metrics that include sunspots, and their data also points to a spotless August 2008. See it here: http://www.dxlc.com/solar/indices.html
So unless something dramatic happens on the sun in the next 24 hours, it seems a safe bet that August 2008 will be a spotless month.
Update: As commenter Jim Powell points out,
There was a stretch of 42 spotless days from 9/13/1996 to 10/24/1996. Today we have equaled this period. Check out Jan Janssens spotless days page http://users.telenet.be/j.janssens/Spotless/Spotless.html.
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No, the wind blew the smoke clear down to the state Capital, where they choked too and promptly stopped. Now we get a frost warning to go with the stunted crops for labor day.
Did the corona eject sustained winds or erratic winds?
What’s that Solar Wind doing right now?
Nothing.
Dead stop.
Frost Warning.
Observe.
While there is little to be seen from projecting the Sun these days (well over a year now), there sure is a lot of phenomena outside for those of us willing to stick thier head out the window.
Something on the order of a heat wave with high winds on whose heel is followed by a Polar Low with high winds and Frost.
Now where do you suppose that blasted Solar Wind has gotten off to again?
“But, the universe is full of electrons and any small positive charge would soon be shorted out by electrons sucked in from space.” Leif
This leads to another question. Since, as you say, the electrons are lighter than the protons then I would expect them to be deflected more by magnet fields. So, (don’t laugh too hard) could we expect the earth to get more positively charged when the sun’s (or earth’s) magnetic field is stronger? And/or (and I suppose this to be a tiny effect at best) does the earth’s magnetic field cause the high speed electrons and protons to accumulate at the North/South (backwards?) poles respectively?
statePoet1775 (05:37:19) :
This leads to another question. Since, as you say, the electrons are lighter than the protons then I would expect them to be deflected more by magnet fields. So, (don’t laugh too hard) could we expect the earth to get more positively charged when the sun’s (or earth’s) magnetic field is stronger? And/or (and I suppose this to be a tiny effect at best) does the earth’s magnetic field cause the high speed electrons and protons to accumulate at the North/South (backwards?) poles respectively?
The amount of charge involved is so minute that it cannot be measured so there is not much meat on that bone. In general, you may assume that all such [obvious] effects have been explored and if not included in our list of well-known and accepted effects have been duly discarded.
“In general, you may assume that all such [obvious] effects have been explored and if not included in our list of well-known and accepted effects have been duly discarded.” Leif
Yeah, I know. Too bad Tesla died before all his ideas could be tested.
Why does everybody keep focusing on this blasted TSI? It is not synonymous with total solar output, as it only includes the portion of the spectrum traditionally considered “light” (from infrared to UV), or <50% of the traditionally recognized spectrum. The TSI measurement is centered around 1ev, but cosmic ray particles incident on the earth are centered at a photon energy of ~3 Mev, and vary from solar min to max (in number) by approximately an order of magnitude. (from the Handbook of Chemistry and Physics) The most powerful cosmic ray measured to date had a calculated photon energy of ~3x10e23 ev. This does not seem inconsequential, at least to myself, but all I ever hear anybody quoting is TSI.
Comments?
Should one base policy on the unknown? – Lief
My point exactly. Glad you saw it. No, one should base policies on the unknown, nor the dimly known, you know, like the climate as currently understood.
Your argument gives undue authority to the current state of knowledge, when it is clearly inadequate to explain the climate as we are experiencing it.
Yorick (16:15:14) :
Your argument gives undue authority to the current state of knowledge, when it is clearly inadequate to explain the climate as we are experiencing it.
Just because we don’t understand the climate does not give credence to the idea that variations are caused by little green men manipulating it for their own purposes, or any other WAG.
Yorick (16:15:14) :
No, one should base policies on the unknown, nor the dimly known
Perhaps the first comma is a bit misplaced… Sometimes it is hard to discern what the point is, when expressed vaguely enough…
I know I asked this question before, and as I am one of those pesky ones who bugged their teachers relentlessly, here I go again:
When it is spoken that the output of the Sun is diminished during solar minimum (if that’s the accepted way of putting it), are they meaning the visible or the total spectrum? It would be interesting to know if there are specific portions of the spectrum that are diminished as opposed to generally diminished. Or is this merely an effect of diminihed solar wind causing cosmic ray interaction in the lower atmosphere?
Robert Bateman (21:10:08) :
I know I asked this question before, and as I am one of those pesky ones who bugged their teachers relentlessly, here I go again:
When it is spoken that the output of the Sun is diminished during solar minimum (if that’s the accepted way of putting it), are they meaning the visible or the total spectrum? It would be interesting to know if there are specific portions of the spectrum that are diminished as opposed to generally diminished. Or is this merely an effect of diminihed solar wind causing cosmic ray interaction in the lower atmosphere?
The reason you didn’t get an answer is that your question is muddled.
Normally the spectrum means electromagnetic waves like light, heat, radio waves, UV. The solar wind is a stream of particles, not part of the ‘spectrum’. Also what does “diminished as opposed to generally diminished” mean?
Larry A. Shaffer (14:54:53) :
Why does everybody keep focusing on this blasted TSI? It is not synonymous with total solar output, as it only includes the portion of the spectrum traditionally considered “light” (from infrared to UV), or <50% of the traditionally recognized spectrum. The TSI measurement is centered around 1ev, but cosmic ray particles incident on the earth are centered at a photon energy of ~3 Mev, and vary from solar min to max (in number) by approximately an order of magnitude. (from the Handbook of Chemistry and Physics) The most powerful cosmic ray measured to date had a calculated photon energy of ~3×10e23 ev. This does not seem inconsequential, at least to myself, but all I ever hear anybody quoting is TSI.
and Larry suffers from the same kind of confusion as Robert as to what is part of the ‘spectrum’. Cosmic rays [in spite of the misnomer ‘rays’] are not rays and are not part of the same ‘spectrum’ as the photons.
The energy you mentioned is the same as that delivered by solar TSI acting for 50 seconds on a single square meter. These cosmic rays are extremely rare. It is estimated that the total flux of cosmic rays above 10e20 eV is just one (1) per square kilometer [= 1000,000 square meter] per century, That is why they are not considered important for the climate.
‘The reason you didn’t get an answer is that your question is muddled.
Normally the spectrum means electromagnetic waves like light, heat, radio waves, UV. The solar wind is a stream of particles, not part of the ’spectrum’. Also what does “diminished as opposed to generally diminished” mean?’
Electromagnetic spectrum, Gamma Ray (.0001 nanometer) through Long wave Radio (100 meter). Light output. I already have the links to the Solar Wind 3 month running, and I watch it daily.
Now I will repeat the question once more in LIGHT of the above specification:
Is there any specific wavelengths of light emanating from the Sun that are measured during minima that are otherwise not?
And I already know that much of the total spectrum cannot be seen from Earth, it is blocked by the atmosphere. Is there any satellite data collected in daily measurements that would show diminished output?
There is talk of the cosmic rays interacting with lower atmosphere in UV that increases albedo, and if that’s all there is, then satellite measurement outside the atmosphere will show that.
I want to know what is coming from the Sun BEFORE it gets to the Earth’s atmosphere.
What do you got?
CORRECTION:
Is there any specific wavelengths of light emanating from the Sun that are measured during minima and found to be diminished that are otherwise not?
Robert Bateman (23:34:48) :
Is there any specific wavelengths of light emanating from the Sun that are measured during minima that are otherwise not?
Almost all wavelengths show diminished output during minima, and so the sum over all wavelengths [i.e. TSI] does that also.I have a feeling that that is not what you want. Maybe another reader can clarify your question for me?
Joel,
You asked,
“Could you name one of these many…Or were you using major hyperbole here?”
Mmmm…Let’s see. How about you checking the Osbourne and Biffra paleo data, much of this was used by Mann in constructing his hockey sticks. The tree ring data is rounded to the nearest hundreth, and the time period of AD800 to AD1400 (the MWP) is of special concern.
Leif: Actually, that is progress. I had imagined that dimming would involve only a few of the wavelengths. I did not occur to me that a few of the wavelengths would remain normal but the majority dimmed.
Which wavelengths, then, do NOT show dimming during minima?
(even lines would be appropriate here … like HAlpha, etc.)
Also, where do I find a daily recording (or graph) of TSI?
I’m not a meteorologist but I’ve always wondered why the current methods for measuring temperature are so embraced and the resulting data is taken so literally. If temperature readings are taken near the ground and within a housing, albeit white and ventilated, the resulting temperature data will heavily reflect the amount of daily sunshine, rainfall, and of course wind velocity. Surely we need to embrace a new standard using updated techmology that can accurately measure air temperature with being compromised by external infra-red interference. This should be particularly important now with AGW.
Wow, Lief, “little green men”
Isn’t that what they said about continental drift? I am not saying it is proven, I am saying that the climate is not sufficiently understood to rule it out. You seem to think it is. I think you are wrong.
It is as if you can’t see the beam in your own eye, which is that the models are far from perfect, and cannot be used to call anything “coincidence” for the mote in another’s which is that there is not a proven theory of how sunspots could cause temperature changes, when nobody is claiming that it is proven, we are only claiming that we doubt coincidences that happen consistently and there appears to be room in the current state of knowledge to accomodate an effect.
Robert Bateman (06:32:29) :
Leif: Actually, that is progress. I had imagined that dimming would involve only a few of the wavelengths. I did not occur to me that a few of the wavelengths would remain normal but the majority dimmed.
Which wavelengths, then, do NOT show dimming during minima?
(even lines would be appropriate here … like HAlpha, etc.)
Also, where do I find a daily recording (or graph) of TSI?
Actually, some brighten [I’ll have to go and find precisely which ones, so stay tuned]. A good source [plots and data] for TSI is:
http://lasp.colorado.edu/sorce/data/tsi_data.htm
Yorick (07:05:15) :
You seem much too angry for your own good [bad for digestion, etc]: I am saying that the climate is not sufficiently understood to rule it out.
That the climate is not understood does not make it reasonable to embrace any old idea, no matter how wild [like continental drift 🙂 ]. There has to some physical sense behind the idea and it should build on what we think we know so that it can be falsified, without always being countered by: “so, OK, that was not it, but there are many other things it might be, we just don’t know”.
Thank You, Leif, that would be grand. I’ll look for it, and check out the tsi data.
Robert Bateman (18:25:18) :
Thank You, Leif, that would be grand. I’ll look for it, and check out the tsi data.
The spectral irradiance in the band 242-310 nm actually increases as we move towrds minimum. See, e.g.:
http://www.leif.org/research/MgII-and-UV.xls
or, if you don’t believe me [as some of the posters here don’t] then at http://lasp.colorado.edu/cgi-bin/ion-p?ION__E1=PLOT:plot_timeseries_data.ion&ION__E2=PRINT:print_timeseries_data.ion&ION__E3=BOTH:plot_and_print_timeseries_data.ion&MIN_WAVE=242&MAX_WAVE=310&INTEGRATE='INTEGRATE'&START_DATE=25-Feb-2003+00:00:00.00&STOP_DATE=29-Aug-2008+01:26:30.00&IMODE=BEST&PLOT=Plot+Data
http://lasp.colorado.edu/cgi-bin/ion-p?ION__E1=PLOT:plot_timeseries_data.ion&ION__E2=PRINT:print_timeseries_data.ion&ION__E3=BOTH:plot_and_print_timeseries_data.ion&MIN_WAVE=242&MAX_WAVE=310&INTEGRATE='INTEGRATE'&START_DATE=25-Feb-2003+00:00:00.00&STOP_DATE=29-Aug-2008+01:26:30.00&IMODE=BEST&PLOT=Plot+Data
maybe this is better.
“http://lasp.colorado.edu/cgi-bin/ion-p?ION__E1=PLOT:plot_timeseries_data.ion&ION__E2=PRINT:print_timeseries_data.ion&ION__E3=BOTH:plot_and_print_timeseries_data.ion&MIN_WAVE=242&MAX_WAVE=310&INTEGRATE=’INTEGRATE’&START_DATE=25-Feb-2003+00:00:00.00&STOP_DATE=29-Aug-2008+01:26:30.00&IMODE=BEST&PLOT=Plot+Data”
Sorry, no go. WordPress screws up the url. OK, last try [with ‘tinyurl’]: http://tinyurl.com/5usbos