Sunspeck counts after all, debate rages…Sun DOES NOT have first spotless calendar month since June 1913

The sun appears to be blushing in the upper left hand quadrant.
It’s not your fault, sun.

So B.C. above can refer to “the Great Goreacle”, but I get my hands slapped for “McOld” in the previous thread. And I know that I’ve seen lots and LOTS of nicks for Al Gore since I’ve been reading this site.
Nice double standard you have here, guys. Perhaps you need to realize that not all Dems are AGW true believers.
::grumble::
REPLY: Julie you have a point. We have a couple of moderators now, and I didn’t see the one above until just now. Perhaps I’m overly sensitive, but lately I’ve been getting a lot of spam posts calling McCain and Palin all sorts of names, and I delete those since they are part of a political push. So lets all just not call people names please. -Anthony

Al Gore is just the messenger. Human nature is to shoot the messenger and say the messenger is out to make big bucks.

Mr. Jones, you are absolutely correct. Would “Ponzi scheme scam artists” be more accurate?
Alright, I’ve taken up enough of Anthony’s bandwidth for tonight. 🙂

Al Gore is just the messenger. Human nature is to shoot the messenger and say the messenger is out to make big bucks.
He’s a fraud and a liar, and yes, out to make big bucks off of that fraud. But, you can call him a “messenger” if you want, David.
Julie: I think “McOld” is hilarious. BTW, I voted for Gore in 2000. Now, I can’t stand him.
[REPLY: Nonetheless, we will refrain from renaming the current candidates. FWIW, I am a liberal skeptic, myself, for now a “big tent” Republican (for liberal reasons), but theoretically that could change at any time.–Evan]

Heh. This is beginning to sound pretty much like I thought it would when I saw that solar cycle graph from an earlier posting. The actual Year 2020 might give new meaning to the saying that “hindsight is always 20/20.”
Mr. D’Aleo says: “These correspond to the 106 and 213 year cycle minimums. This would suggest that the next cycle minimum around 2020 when both cycles are in phase at a minimum could be especially weak.”
If this proves true, this sounds pretty ominous. Here is what I mean:
The PDO will be in the middle of its Cool Phase, and the AMO is set to switch over to being less active itself at some point. Dr. Gray, in his latest forecast of Atlantic Hurricane seasonal acitivity disabuses his readers of the notion that AGW is to blame for hurricanes (see page 34 here: http://typhoon.atmos.colostate.edu/Forecasts/2008/aug2008/aug2008.pdf). He also, thereby, provides a pretty approximate date for the AMO, although that is certainly not the only factor in hurricane formation. Still, I feel the case is pretty strong. If it follows Dr. Gray’s example of 25 years, and if it began in 1994 as his graphics seem to say, then that puts the switch back to less active (or Cool, if you like) to 2019.
If this is a minimum, even if it is minor in comparison with other historical minima such as Dalton’s or Maunder’s, that still does not bode well for that time frame (circa 2020). It take time to prepare for such things, if first one decides to prepare for such things, and particularly so on a national or global scale. And the way we are going now with AGW worriers dominating our political establishments is not good. Twelve years may seem like a long time; however, particularly if you have kids, you know it isn’t. We are not out of time yet, but we seem to be on the clock.
Uneasily, I shall say…I guess we shall see.

statePoet1775, thanks for your reply. I do get the point – but at the same time, I wish you guys would de-link the whole Republican = AGW skeptic; Democrat = AGW true believer. It does not help our skeptical cause to blast all liberals as sheeple when it comes to AGW… because they are the ones we need to reach. I should know – I’m one of them who was convinced (converted??) by what I read here – and I tell whoever will listen about this site.
That being said, I’m glad you like my (infrequent) comments. 🙂
re: the Sun – personally, I’m looking forward to skiing in the Texas Hill Country in the winter of 2014-15 🙂

Or how about Biden his time since he’s next in line?

David G. Mills
What should we do when the messenger distorts the message?
e.g. by inflating the ocean rise by some 2000%?
Sen. Kerry appears to excel in ad hominem attacks claiming: “Palin as a member of the “flat-earth caucus,” and “He’s chosen somebody who doesn’t believe climate change is man-made.”
Perhaps Sen. Kerry should read Watt’s post above on the sun.
<a href=”http://www.climatechange.alaska.gov/docs/govrpt_jul08.pdf”Governor Palin stated:

Alaska’s climate is warming. . . . We are faced with significant questions: How fast will the climate warm? How warm will it get? What effects will the warming have? Is there anything we can do to slow the increase or the extent of the warming? Realizing that we can’t stop the warming, what can we do to adapt? And, what role should state government play in all of this?
To get the ball rolling, I signed Administrative Order 238 in September 2007, which directs a team of my cabinet members to prepare an Alaska Climate Change Strategy for my consideration. The strategy is to serve as a guide for a thoughtful, practical, timely, state of Alaska response to climate change.

During her Newsmax interview, when asked: “What is your take on global warming and how is it affecting our country?” Palin replied:

A changing environment will affect Alaska more than any other state, because of our location. I’m not one though who would attribute it to being man-made.
Sen. Kerry and critics would do well to ponder the following before criticizing that about which they know so little: e.g., why
* 1) Global climate models cannot explain: Anchorage’s record setting cold summer
* 2) why Lucia states: IPCC Central Tendency of 2C/century: Still rejected., and
* why Keenlyside et al state:

Our results suggest that global surface temperature may not increase over the next decade, as natural climate variations in the North Atlantic and tropical Pacific temporarily offset the projected anthropogenic warming.

* 3) why Koutsoyiannis et al. state:

“Geographically distributed predictions of future climate, obtained through climate models, are widely used in hydrology and many other disciplines, typically without assessing their reliability. Here we compare the output of various models to temperature and precipitation observations from eight stations with long (over 100 years) records from around the globe. The results show that models perform poorly, even at a climatic (30-year) scale. Thus local model projections cannot be credible, whereas a common argument that models can perform better at larger spatial scales is unsupported.”

D. KOUTSOYIANNIS, A. EFSTRATIADIS, N. MAMASSIS & A. CHRISTOFIDES “On the credibility of climate predictions” Hydrological Sciences–Journal–des Sciences Hydrologiques, 53 (2008). See Koutsoyiannis et al 2008: On the credibility of climate predictions

Corrections to links:
D.53 (2008). See
IPCC Central Tendency of 2C/century: Still rejected.
Keenlyside et al.
Governor Palin Climate Change Sub-Cabinet
Koutsoyiannis et al 2008: On the credibility of climate predictions

BC, the main problem your ski resort will face in Florida isn’t lack of snow; it’s lack of mountains, hills, or even bumpy bits.
Robert, those deficiencies don’t stop them from skiing in Terre Haute, IN.

Or until the earth has been warm enough, and the sun quiet enough for long enough that the [snip] realise they have to find a new theory for why AGW is wrong.

“statePoet1775 (19:28:30) :
Or how about Biden his time since he’s next in line?”
Okay, NOW you owe me a keyboard! (actually, you owe me a laptop. So much for drinking and reading this blog at the same time.) ::snort:: ROFL
” Bruce Cobb (19:34:29) :
Julie: I think “McOld” is hilarious. BTW, I voted for Gore in 2000. Now, I can’t stand him.”
Bruce, ME TOO. As late as 8 months ago I was wanting him (Gore) to run for Pres again and save the planet. Then I found WUWT, and that was THAT. Thank God for this blog!

evanjones (19:21:28) :
After all, when the carny sold you snake oil, you actually got the snake oil.
Amazingly apt criticism.

Dr. Svalgaard,
in your post up above you say,
“Hathaway has shown a very poor [that is with low significance] correlation or relationship between observed cycle strength and conveyor belt speed [two cycles back]. The correlation is barely there and fails completely for cycle 19, the biggest of them all. Curiously, David has been an active supporter of the HAO dynamo model by Dikpati et al. This model and several similar models all predict [or actually use] just the opposite relationship, namely that a slow belt means a large cycle coming. The reason is obvious [even for people that are not dynamo experts], namely, that the longer the flux stays down below the tachocline [because of a slow circulation], the longer the dynamo process can operate on [i.e. amplify] the flux and the stronger will the cycle be. So, the dynamo models predicting a high cycle are consistent with the observed slow conveyor belt speed. So, a slowdown of the speed will signal a large cycle ahead according to these much heralded dynamo theories. It is, to me, strange that Hathaway thinks otherwise and yet actively promotes the Dikpati dynamo model. Wonders never cease.”
My question is, if cycle 24 is, as you think, a low activity cycle, will this completely negate the validity of the Dikpati dynamo model, or can it be tweaked somehow?
Kim

We mustn’t worry about the lack of sun spots. The weather in Boston is very fine.
Why do hotels in America only give you one tea bag? That is a much more worrying state of affairs than a lack of sunspots. It’s a good thing I brought over my own supply (tea bags, not sunspots).
A happy Labo(u)r Day to you all.

Above link hat tip to:
http://klimakatastrophe.wordpress.com/

Leif Svalgaard (23:04:02) :
This is because the UV is such a small part of the total. It is like the variation of the amount of loose change in your pocket compared to your net worth [or at least I hope so for you 🙂
Hey isn’t loose change heavier than butterflies ! 🙂
UV may be small but it does have a significant effect in the stratosphere. the hard part is proving a link exists(or series of links).For a small force to have an impact it needs to act at a tipping point (gasp!) By this I’m talking about ball being balanced on a hill, with either side being a positive feedback, like for instance the neutral state of ENSO. Once the system gains inertia then the small forcing becomes irrelevant. Of course this smaller system can be part of a much larger system that undergoes stabilizing negative feedback. Like a hill in between two mountains. so how does the ball get back up the hill after it falls off? easy, all you need is some wobble at the right time, such as a man on a trapeze or a skateboarder in a bowl. Earth has at least two forms of wobble that can provide momentum, seasonal cycles and solar cycle oscillations.
Hey I have idea for a way to model for climate.
put a coin in bowl with an indentation in the middle and shake back and forwards! 🙂

I’m signed up to get email alerts from the SIDC, and that’s where I got the above table of monthly sunspot numbers, issued at 9:45 UTC.
Here’s the web link to the same data
http://sidc.oma.be/products/ri_hemispheric/

Julie, I agree with you that it is a huge mistake to turn a scientific issue into a political war, and I also wish we could get far, far away from that. However, we have to be honest and admit exactly why that has happened. This theme, and I have a link to a transcript to prove this, is being pushed every day by leading democrats, and it is a conscious political decision by them to make this one of their campaign issues.
So – tragically, mistakenly, foolishly – the democrats this year have decided to lash themselves to this issue. There was no good reason for them to have made this mistake – but they have, and that is the group you need to address if this situation is ever going to change.
http://liberalvaluesblog.com/?p=4132
from the interview, John Kerry, this weekend: “With the choice of Governor Palin, it’s now the third term of Bush-Cheney, because what he’s done is he’s chosen somebody who actually doesn’t believe that climate change is manmade.”

“…REPLY: So What gives Leif….? You yourself said these sunspecks weren’t given a number. I trusted your assessment. Hence this article. Given the Brussels folks decided to change their minds later, what is the rationale ? – Anthony”
I am very interested to find this out as well.
I get the daily reports from the SIDC.
Every single one of them for the month of August said “today’s estimated ISN [International Sunspot Number]: 000 ”
Here’s the message from the morning of 21 August
Issued: 2008 Aug 21 1224 UTC
:Product: documentation at http://www.sidc.be/products/xut
#——————————————————————–#
# GEOALERT message from the SIDC (RWC-Belgium) #
#——————————————————————–#
GEOALERT BRU234
UGEOA 30512 80821 1218/ 9930/
10212 20212 30212
99999
PLAIN
NOTE: the above forecasts are valid from 1230UT, 21 Aug 2008 until 23 Aug 2008
PREDICTIONS FOR 21 Aug 2008 10CM FLUX: 066 / AP: 003
PREDICTIONS FOR 22 Aug 2008 10CM FLUX: 067 / AP: 002
PREDICTIONS FOR 23 Aug 2008 10CM FLUX: 066 / AP: 002
COMMENT: The only sunspot group on the solar disk (Catania number 84,
no NOAA number yet) is small and weak, so it is unlikely to produce a
C-flare. The Earth is currently inside the slow (around 400 km/s) solar
wind flow with average (around 4 nT) magnitude of the interplanetary
magnetic field. We expect quiet geomagnetic conditions.
TODAY’S ESTIMATED ISN : 000, BASED ON 10 STATIONS.

Amongst several other locations worldwide, the observer at the Mt. Wilson Observatory (University of California, Los Angeles) takes daily observations of the sun, and produces a drawing of any sunspots seen.
http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~obs/cur_drw.html
When they did their observation yesterday, August 31, at 14:30 UTC, they printed a big “No Spots Seen Today,” followed by the date and time, the “seeing conditions” (4 on a scale of 5 yesterday – very good), the name of the observer, and then a remark at the bottom of the observation:
“43 days without sunspots”
To my knowledge, only the observer at Catania, Italy recorded a spot.
Would SIDC count an official sunspot, based on an observation from only one station?

SORRY: A week! Not a month!

Leif, the last word *is* in; this is not a science based flip flop and anyone who says it is, is suspect, as far as I see it. The emperor has no clothes.

Wait, what?
Anthony, did _NOAA_ change their mind as well?!
I thought it was just Brussels that decided to count it, and NOAA maintained their numbers at zero.
Who’s counting what (and why)?!

This wouldn’t be the first time an ‘adjustment’ was made to get the desired results. And probably not the last.

David Gladstone (07:40:51) :
“These miserable idiots at NOAA are doing this for one reason only- for propaganda. They just don’t want and will not allow the skeptics to have any ammunition. This is a case of science corrupted by politics. I’d like to maroon these fools on an iceberg.”
Well, I’ve worked with one of the space weather forecasters, and I can vouch for him as a damn good guy. The forecasters interact directly with the customers, and that’s their focus – getting the best possible information to the customer.
Of course, if management is “influencing” the official count in a way that is contrary to standard practice and their official policy, that should be a national scandal with congressional investigations.
I still don’t know why NOAA 1) didn’t count it, and 2) didn’t say a WORD about it (as Brussels DID), when some of their daily products include a “comments” section.
I would like to know NOAA/SWPC official policy on spots that are clearly there, but are considered “too small” or otherwise “uncountable,” even if the policy is just, “ignore it, it’ll be gone soon anyway.”

I’m sorry you caved on this, Anthony. This is a clear case of political influence and Leif is dead wrong. He should be held to a higher standard of proof than what he’s offered here.
REPLY: This may yet change. For now I’m being cautious until I get a clear explanation. Yes it smells, but at the same time I’ll wait to hear what the explanation is. I’m as upset about it as you are, but I’d rather cave to caution than to emotion.

I love how Kerry and the democrats seems to make the assertion that Palin’s position on AGW is a negative in this campaign.
It amazes me how a vocal 10% of the US population has the Government firmly believing that 100% of us think it is a problem.
The August sun-blemishes should not have been counted but I think that it was a better safe to count them then get blamed for not counting them later. I think the 29 other ZERO days speak loudly to the issue.
To turn a phrase used in AGW camps a lot, “a single instance does not negate a trend” The trend clearly is lower activity and a spot free calendar month is really a psychological milestone. Keep watching, you are going to get another chance at it.

David G. Mills (20:07:54) : But if you want to abuse the water carrier, it is your prerogative. I still like Al Gore though I now think that solar activity is the most likely cause of the warming of the 1900’s. I don’t think its Al’s fault that he trusted the wrong scientists or accepted the scientific “consensus.”
You only need to look at Al’s record to know differently.
Al has vacillated from statements to the effect that every American has the right to cheap gasoline (it’s in one of his books and I’m too lazy to look up which) to his current stance.
Al has claimed to be American technology’s biggest boon (invented the Internet donchya know) yet was almost solely responsible for the Triana spacecraft (aka GoreSat in some circles now known as DSCOVR). The only spacecraft conceived without a mission — in a Lagrangian orbit no less. Al’s idea essentially: we should have a camera in orbit constantly looking at the Earth. You should have seen the scrambling to find things for it to do. The final mission instrument complement was all after the fact add-on. When it comes to technology I think Al is clueless.
What misleads Al isn’t the “consensus” so much as belief in his own ability to forecast the direction of the wind.
Disclosure: I worked on Triana.

“but I’d rather cave to caution than to emotion.”
One reason we love this site.

Leif and I have had long arguments about basic science by email and I shared his replies with several physicists who could clearly perceive the gaps in his knowledge of Einstein’s gravity theory *and* his sense of absolute certainty in what he doesn’t know. Like all too many other specialists, he doesn’t see the forest for the trees. I give no one a free pass, but indeed, we will see how this plays out in the coming days.

“Spotless month” is just a headline. The fact is that there are hardly any, and it’s been that way for ages. Even if someone _did_ sneak in and write a few 2’s and 3’s where there used to be 0’s, that doesn’t change the big picture. It’s a second-order effect, and not worth worrying about.

One of the problems is that SOHO was down during this period so it is a little difficult to double-check.
There is 1 image from August 21, 2008 which does show a few small spots (although these are sometimes instrument artifacts and you need to animate over multiple images to see if the spots rotate with the Sun. Instrument artifacts stay in one place. Unfortunately with no other images around the time, one cannot use this test.)
http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/data/realtime/javagif/gifs_small/20080821_0102_mdi_igr.gif

Back to the Future
Back to the Future II
Back to the Future III

Folks,
let’s pace down littla bitta. I aggree with Pamela.
As lot of us think, there possibly will come quite a bunch of another spotless days, possible even spotless months.
And if not? We can allways return to the drawing board.

David Gladstone (08:12:48) : John-X, I don’t care if someone’s a good guy- nothing could be more irrelevant! That’s just a waste of words, imo. This is not about persons or friends; this is about scientific truth and politics.
Well, part of being a “good guy” is being honest. Would that count? And as far as whether we had a month with NO sunspots vs. a FEW does it really matter? Exactly how much has this degraded the skeptics point?
If you ask me, Joe D’Aleo’s point about other “months” being spot free is far more damaging to the Daily Tech headline of “First Spotless Month in a Century” than a “flip-flop” on last month’s count. It’s a lot like counting blue moons — an accident of the calender.
Is Pluto a planet? Does it really matter if it’s called one or not? Why would anyone care anyway? Is the “flip-flop” on Pluto’s status indicative of conspiracy? How is it any different than the sun sot thing?
I think seeing conspiracy in some wavering over whether or not a particular solar feature should be called a sunspot is just being a bit knee-jerk. Maybe you’re right but I still don’t see any real gain one way or the other.

Even if the official count for August is 1 sunspot, well, no BFD. It’s still getting colder and we could be in for a long chill. I’d rather see more sunspots and a return of a cool climate via the PDO and AMO turning negative. At least it won’t be a repeat of the Maunder or Dalton Minima. A lot of people will die if those Minima events reappear.

Those Italians must have one serious observatory to count that sunspeck, according to SOHO (NASA) the sun appeared ‘blank’.

“If so, I say, launch the damn thing. I for one think that continuous weather satellite images from the L1 perspective would be useful.” John-X
Yes, it has a radiometer on it so maybe it could measure the energy reflected/radiated away from earth so we determine the long term heating trend on earth. Le Mr. Al G. get the credit for putting the global warming debate to bed.

Leif Svalgaard (09:35:22) :
“A side-issue is why SIDC reported the pore to be present in both hemispheres at the same time. This is clearly wrong as they have admitted. A procedural question is why they chose not to check into this “at that [sic] time”.”
And that in every one of their daily reports for August, they listed the ISN as “000,” then in their monthly report, listed the ISN (Ri) as 7 and 8 for 21 and 22 August respectively.
They MENTIONED the speck in the dailies, NOTED it had a Catania Number (84) but no NOAA number, but offered no commentary on why it would or would not be included in any count.
I had assumed, right up until I got the email of the monthly report first thing this morning, that the SIDC count was going to be zero for the entire month, and likewise with NOAA, which AVOIDED any mention of the speck.
In fact, in NOAA/SWPC’s daily “Analysis of Solar Active Regions and Activity,” issued at 22:00 UTC daily, there is a comment on spotless days, such as this one from yesterday’s report:
“Analysis of Solar Active Regions and Activity from 30/2100Z
to 31/2100Z: Solar activity was very low. The visible solar disk
remained spotless.”
http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/forecast.html
On the days when the speck or pore was present, the “visible disk” comment was simply omitted without explanation.

Now here’s an interesting summary of current climate drivers:
http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=7824&page=0
Hat tip J Marohasy

Many solar scientists are present.
An ignorant question.
The Sun ejects particles, positive and negative, right.
After 4 billion years.
The Sun is positive or negative?
Sorry … a link please

Duane & Lucy: Eight or nine months ago, I too believed in AGW. What changed my mind was reading about sunspots and the Maunder Minimum. Suddenly, there appeared to be an equally good scientific explanation for the global warming of last century. But the vast majority of the population has not heard of it. Most of the people who are messengers for the anti-AGW crowd never mention it either. Governor Palin hasn’t said a thing about it yet. Then we have thoughtful people like Lief who is unconvinced by it.
I am a progressive; not a liberal. Progressives are much more akin to Libertarians on issues like foreign policy, monetary policy and matters of science than they are like liberals. So it surprises me not one iota that Gore and Kerry are still saying the things they say.
But politicians, all politicians, have much the same dilemma as lawyers (my profession) when it comes to matters of science. We do not have the luxury of waiting a hundred years till science resolves an issue. We have to go with the best information at the time or the consensus at the time. Last time I checked, AGW is is still the consensus. And the media is doing nothing to promote solar activity as the cause of global increases in temperature. When the media begins reporting it, I think many liberals will change their tune. After all, global cooling could be more catastrophic than global warming.
And whether its global warming or global cooling, we are going to get taxed to prevent it. That is the New World Order. Better get used to it.

“Here is the NOAA data: ftp://ftp.ngdc.noaa.gov/STP/SOLAR_DATA/SUNSPOT_NUMBERS/MONTHLY”
I still only see data through July on this table. Are you getting August data Anthony?
REPLY: You are correct, July is showing 0.5 not August

mbuel (11:12:20) :
“Just go all the way and vote McCain/Palin in November.”
Going all the way would mean a write-in vote:
Palin/McCain

Anthony, I know this has been a heck of a lot of frustration and hard work over one, apparently miscounted, spot.
I want to thank you, and salute you once again for doing it with excellence, maintaining your high standards of decorum, and probably generating more worldwide interest in this than would otherwise be possible.
Cheers,
J-X

My interpretation [as of now] is that the number that will go into the NOAA/NGDC (National Geophysical Data Center) database is the “official” number, and NOAA/NGDC [it seems to me] define that as the number from the SIDC in Brussels.
So unless SIDC revises their count (which Leif has already said he wouldn’t bet on), then both the SIDC and the NOAA/NGDC monthly number for August will be 0.5, same as July.
If anyone knows otherwise or has a different interpretation, please tell me.
REPLY: There’s a point to be made yet. NOAA is closed for the labor day holiday, they won’t check emails until tommorrow morning. Perhaps some well written emails to NOAA-NGDC would give them pause for revaluation?
Leif, do you have sugegsted contacts?

One spot, half a spot whatever, don’t you think we have more eyes with better equipment looking at the sun today than in any other time in history?
So who’s to say 1913 spot count is to the same standards as today’s? Or how about 1750’s spot count or near lack of one? Maybe they missed a few?
Just a thought

David Gladstone (11:19:22) : DAV- words do make a difference. It does matter. Pluto is a planet despite what planet despite what TV faux physicist Tyson says. It does make a difference if something is or isn’t true. Your approach is sloppy, imho. Mine may be knee-jerk, but I’ve got a lot of fast twitching muscles and I use ‘em to think and respond fast. Our sciences are in a mess because there’s no way to falsify anything anymore
Then you think the definition is everything? I’m curious: what scientific theory has just becomes unfalsified by a small change in someone’s definition?
In re my approach being sloppy: How can something that doesn’t exist have an attribute? My opinion is that since we are discussing statistical events, it really matters little if there are 0, 3 or even 10 sunspots. It will hardly affect any correlation derived from the count. Besides, many of the things we call “sunspots” probably weren’t observable in the 18th century and the numbers we observe now are not the same as then. So effectively, definitions have changed.
In fact, they change frequently in other disciplines as well. Pluto is no longer classified as a planet according to the IAU. Bet you aren’t aware that the official atomic weight of oxygen was changed to be exactly 16 because it was more convenient? A bad day for scientific integrity, eh?
Frankly, I think this current foofarah over conspiracies is embarrassing to witness. I’m sure it will supply endless fodder for pogie look-at-the-silliness pointing.

Leif Svalgaard (13:18:18) : I basically agree with you. But just for the record, it is 12C carbon that is defined as exactly 12.
I stand corrected. I couldn’t remember if it was oxygen or carbon that became the standard. I found the following link and stopped when I read “A number of elements had atomic weights that were nearly whole numbers on the oxygen=16 standard.” Should have been more careful. Guess I am sloppy 🙂 Anyway, thanks for the correction!
http://books.google.com/books?id=3ZGW6wE5JDYC&pg=PA14&lpg=PA14&dq=official+atomic+weight+asimov&source=web&ots=QZP4FDH4Ie&sig=iufIwczvboAlGzaJGCah-R33TFs&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=4&ct=result#PPA14,M1

I think NOAA has left it at 0?

Seems to me that they should also be using 1750`s or earlier equipment to check for sun spots not specks that would not be seen in that era.

OK, I will rephrase it — How do we know the same procedures were used in June 1913 as they are using today– And the spots were viewed the same way ….. For that matter, how did they measure sunspots in 1813? The question is still relevant even if it’s not technology but eyesight that drew the charts.
I see the exact same problem with using 1800s thermometers versus those in use today —- and trying to make sense out of charts down to 0.01 degree.
I see a data measurement integrity strain developing through the whole of the observed climate data, which would not stand up to normal scientific scrutiny. It is simply a guessing game, turned into a political parlor game — to extract more tax money from the unwary.

Ric Werme (10:01:03) wrote: “Come one guys, chill out (yeah, just like the climate). Whether or not different organizations assign a zero the August ISN is not going to influence the climate over the next decade one whit.”
Ric, I’ve always enjoyed your posts as well as info on your website. But I think your remarks on this situation are out of character.
It’s not only the data per se, it’s the INTEGRITY of the dataset. Many datasets, as you know, are used, manipulated, and twisted by the [snip] to support their AGW claims. This seems to just another example.
Jack Koenig, Editor
The Mysterious Climate Project
http://www.climateclinic.com

May 10, 2006: The Sun’s Great Conveyor Belt has slowed to a record-low crawl, according to research by NASA solar physicist David Hathaway. “It’s off the bottom of the charts,” he says. “This has important repercussions for future solar activity.”
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2006/10may_longrange.htm

Bobby: You suspect right, slow the train until they can concoct some other nonsensical theory — try and brush off the obvious.
The speck has political propaganda value. Nothing more, nothing less. Consider the headline “Sun spotless first calender month since June 1913” and the impact it would have on the ordinary ill informed citizen. Heck people might even think the sun has something to do with Earth’s climate. Probably figured that out one day while laying on the beach.
As an engineer, I find the whole climate data and debate something that if this were the quality of data presented to me for an engineering decision, I would immediately fire the engineers. Sure science is supposed to be different, debate and all that, but there is still the issue of individual integrity.
It’s odd all the fudge goes only one way.

I have a suggestion.
Why not set up a dual sunspot record.
1) A Wolf record utilizing only equipment available in 1848 ( this would mean that the “k” factor would be “1” and not a SWAG).
2) A Modern Number based on the best equipment available today.
As it is now, the Wolf fomula seems to do OK near the top of the cycle, but at the minimum there will be more of these controversies about whether a spot is to be counted. Later this year those two satelites will be in position to view the entire sun at once. How will this affect sunspot Numbers listed?
SWAG = Scientific Wild A** Guess as opposed to a WAG that I could give.

God definitely has a sense of humor.
Turning off the Sun, soon after the politicians and the consensus scientists (feeding on public funds) told us that they knew how to control Earth’s climate!
All is well,
Oliver K. Manuel
“Truth is victorious, never untruth.”
http://myprofile.cos.com/manuelo09

That little spot… what ever it was… was really tiny and almost undetected even by the most powerful telescopes. This brings questions on the past black spots-free months. If today with all our technology we were not able to see this spot, imagine 100, 200 or even 300 years ago how they could see those tiny spots. By bet is than they could not and so it was recorded that month without spot were maybe in fact filled with those micro black spots. But that we will never know.

Hi Guys,
Sorry but some of us have families and have to have “fun” over the weekend. Leif is exactly correct and that a few surprises does not mean a birthday party. Let the cycle progress and then we will see. Gustav will make an impact no doubt. That is what is important right now. Wait for Hanna

http://www.glerl.noaa.gov/data/ice/atlas/ice_charts/index.html

Johnny B: “I think that most fat people feel bad about their weight, and certainly have to suffer the physical discomfort and social embarassment of being fat.”
I agree that we should be sensitive about fat people, given their often visible discomfort about their appearance. School-yard taunts such as ‘lard-arse’, ‘blubber-guts’ and ‘Michael Moore’ can be very hurtful, and not only to the younger chubby cheeks but also to the older porker.
My practice on these occasions is to use strictly denotative descriptors such as ‘very large person’, and I find that fatties are often pleasantly surprised and even a little flattered by such neutral and respectful terms.
That said, the hard question must be asked: are very large people pulling their weight in society? Regrettably, I have to say no. There is a good argument that our more solid citizens are free-riding off the svelte and slender, and that this burden is a sizeable one. For example, very large people create disproportionate wear and tear on the public sidewalks, even as their vast bulk prevents the free and unfettered movement of their fellow citizens.
However, while the very large person’s hefty footprint – carbon or otherwise – is a substantial issue, I don’t believe that heavy-handed government regulations or onerous taxation is the answer. I am sure that, given sufficiently generous inducements, there would be ample opportunity for very large people to tackle the weighty issues that confront them every day as a matter of course, or rather, many courses.
My empathy can only carry so much baggage, though. It’s undeniable that the full-bodied are a gross negative externality, although this aspect is probably beyond the purview of government. The only recourse of the normal majority in this case is to grin and bear it.

Prof. Manuel.
Thank you for posting that link! Very interesting stuff indeed.

Someone else agrees with your first assessment of no sunspots: Dailytech.com (see http://tinyurl.com/562srq)

Thank you! Oliver Manuel:
It makes me feel a little ignorant. (Or crazy).
….Efforts to understand unusual weather or abrupt changes in climate have been plagued by deficiencies of the standard solar model (SSM) [1]. While it assumes that our primary source of energy began as a homogeneous ball of hydrogen (H) with a steady, well-behaved H-fusion reactor at its core, observations instead reveal a very heterogeneous, dynamic Sun. As examples,
the upward acceleration and departure of H+ ions from the surface of the quiet Sun and abrupt climatic changes, including geomagnetic reversals and periodic magnetic storms that eject material from the solar surface are not explained by the SSM. The present magnetic fields are probably deep-seated remnants of very ancient origin. These could have been generated from two mechanisms. These are: a) Bose-Einstein condensation [2] of iron-rich, zero-spin material into a rotating, superfluid, superconductor surrounding the solar core and/or b) superfluidity and quantized vortices in nucleon-paired Fermions at the core [3]…..
http://www.omatumr.com/abstracts2003/jfe-superfluidity.pdf

The above comment by Leif Svalgaard about sunspot measurements:
“So it all comes down to if one should count pores. . . . . , it is always a question of judgment.”
Reminds me of Leif’s comment on August 09, 2008 at 18:39:12 pm in the spaceweather discussion of Solar Cycle 24 about the solar neutrino measurements at the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory:
“Remember that nobody has yet been able to tell the difference between neutrinos and antineutrinos.”
http://solarcycle24.forumco.com/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=353&whichpage=8
Actually solar neutrino measurements at the Homestake Mine by Ray Davis counted only electron neutrinos that induced the following nuclear reaction:
v (electron neutrino) + Cl-37 -> Ar-37
That same Homestake Mine might have been used to count electron anti-neutrinos predicted by the Iron Sun:
_
v (electron anti-neutrino) + Cl-35 -> S-35
According to the Iron Sun hypothesis, two anti-neutrinos are produced for each neutrino made in the Sun [O. Manuel, “The need to measure low energy anti-neutrinos (E < 0.782MeV) from the Sun,” Physics of Atomic Nucleus 67 (2004) 1959-1962; Yad. Fiz. 67 (2004) 1983-1986: http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0410168 ]
–
v/v = 2
However, the Homestake Mine was flooded with water, instead of using this expensive solar neutrino counting facility to test the Iron Sun hypothesis.
Yet all is well,
Oliver K. Manuel
“Truth is victorious, never untruth.”
http://myprofile.cos.com/manuelo09

Man is the only creature that uses the earths resources, and that’s not fair! The earth has feelings too. I think humans should cut down on carbohydrates, because Al Gore has already proven that human flatulence has caused ozone depletion. Lets save the mosquitos, the spotted owl, the baby seals, the polar bears, the rain forrest, and return to the primitive. Hell, who cares about mankind anyway? “They told me to say that”

This is a shame! Another blow in what science should be. As someone pointed out, if one counts micro-spots this way, values a century ago are certainly much lower than they were.
I support that someone call this the “Gore minimum”. Mother nature and the Sun will make sure he gets exposed. In some time, taking the Nobel away from him and the IPCC will be the hot way to go.
Ecotretas
http://ecotretas.blogspot.com

Graeme Rodaughan (23:55:57) “its likely that the AGW crowd will just switch to AGCooling without skipping a beat.”
Already happened, see ICECAP today quoting Sydney Herald. “Big Chill a symptom of Climate Change… Forget global warming – the latest problem is global cooling… The freezing temperatures are proof of the urgent need to cut carbon pollution, according to WWF development and sustainability program manager Paul Toni.”

NEWS
“Spotless Month” story quoted by Rush Limbaugh – nationwide, millions of listeners, ~600 radio stations. Stated without mention of SIDC non-zero count or any controversy, just that August was spotless.

Doug,
We dilettantes would also like to see the mathematic threorems behind a correction of data in one domain arising from one non-linear phenomena at the photosphere with data from another domain from a distinct non-linear phenomena arising at the earth where no mapping, transform between or relations for either are proposed.

Is Pluto a planet? Regardless of the latest definition, if you are standing on a solid body with appreciable gravity, and can pick up rocks from its surface, then regardless of what body it is orbiting around, it’s a planet. The Moon is a planet – if you fall on it you will hurt yourself. It is orbiting around the Earth, but it’s also going around the Sun once a year. Maybe Pluto is a planet in my sense, but not a Planet in the classical sense.