After the August 21st sunspot debacle where SIDC reported a spot and initially NOAA didn’t, mostly due to the report from the Catania Observatory in Italy, we have another similar situation. On September 11th, a plage area developed. Here is the SOHO MDI for 1323UTC:
Find the sunspot in this image – Click for a larger image
Here is another from a couple hours later, 1622UTC :
Find the sunspot in this image – Click for a larger image
Note that in the large versions of both the above images, you’ll see a tiny black speck. That’s NOT the “sunspot” but burned out pixels on the SOHO CCD imager.
To help you locate the area of interest, here is the SOHO magnetogram for the period, as close as one is available to the above image time. It shows the disturbance with the classic N-S polarity of solar cycle 23 close to the equator:
Click for a larger image
The Catania Observatory in Italy included it on their daily sketch, as barely visible:
Click for a larger image
By contrast, the Mount Wilson Observatory in California did NOT show this on their daily drawing:
Click for larger image
The Catania photosphere image for that period did not show any disturbance:
Click for larger image
But the Catania chromosphere image did show the disturbance:
Click for a larger image
At the time our resident solar physicist Leif Svaalgard postulated and then retracted:
Leif Svalgaard (17:40:36)
Leif Svalgaard (07:06:37) :
BTW, right now Catania is seeing a pair of tiny spots at 7 degree North latitude (these are old cycle 23 spots): http://www.ct.astro.it/sun/draw.jpg
I don’t think NOAA will assign a region number to these spots unless the region grows in size.
Well, I guessed wrong:
http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/ftpdir/forecasts/SRS/0912SRS.txt:
I. Regions with Sunspots. Locations Valid at 11/2400Z
Nmbr Location Lo Area Z LL NN Mag Type
1001 N06E14 179 0020 Bxo 03 02 Beta
Please welcome cycle 23 region 11001.
And then a few minutes later went on to say:
Leif Svalgaard (18:35:44)
Leif Svalgaard (17:40:36) :
Please welcome cycle 23 region 11001.
REPLY: The MDI hardly shows it at all. – Anthony
http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/data/realtime/mdi_igr/1024/l
I would say not at all, And Mt. Wilson neither:
http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~obs/intro.html
Kitt Peak NSO had it:
The region died sometime between 17h and 20h UT. One may wonder why this Tiny Tim was elevated to an ‘active region’. Perhaps NOAA is getting nervous now after all the brouhaha and don’t want to be accused of ‘missing’ spots…
Anyway, it is now gone.
And Robert Bateman added:
Robert Bateman (21:45:42)
http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/ftpdir/latest/DSD.txt
NOAA gave it a go.
2008 09 11 67 12 20 1 -999 A0.0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
So let’s recap:
We have a disturbance that shows up briefly, then disappears in a couple of hours, some observers call it a spot, others do not, or their time of observation (Mt. Wilson for example) was perhaps past the time of visible activity. The “spot” itself is even less pronounced than the sunspeck that was elevated to sunspot status on August 21st, yet NOAA assigns it a spot status this time, where on August 21st they did not, only doing so AFTER the SIDC came out with their monthly report on September 1st. See my report about that event here and the follow up email I got from SIDC when I questioned the issue.
Now 100 + years ago would we have recorded this as a spot? Doubtful. It is most pronounced on imagery from satellite or specialized telescopes. Would the old methods such as a dark filter or projection used 100 years ago have seen this? As I pointed out before, we now have a non-homogeneous sunspot record mixing old techniques and instrumentation with new and much more sensitive instrumentation, and more coverage. Yet even with this we have disagreement between observatory reports.
How long does a sunspeck (or sunspot) have to be present before it ranks as countable? What standards are in place to ensure that observers use the same type of equipment and techniques to count spots? Is there any such standard? From the perspective of the public and laymen at large, it seems that there’s some randomness to this science process.
In my opinion, science would be better served if these observational questions and the dataset inhomogeneity is addressed.
I’m sure Leif will have some commentary to add.
And as Robert Bateman writes in comments: So, we are still having these SC23 bubbles popping up. Why won’t this cycle give it up? The $64k question.
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Perhaps NOAA is getting nervous now after all the brouhaha and don’t want to be accused of ‘missing’ spots…
Or perhaps they finally figured out that each “official” sunspot translates to a 0.01 percent shift leftward in the Gallup poll? #B^1
So, one could hold the position that the sun has been spotless since July 20, with some standing but limited aplomb?
Just my thoughts for what its worth. I think they will have to lay out some kind of historical standard, so as not to distort the numbers. I think that’s the only fair way
with observations that go back this far in history.
All, what really may affect our climate is the cosmic ray screening due to an active sun. I do not think there are any significant changes in the solar wind, whether or not these tiny points show up.
On the other hand, when they can be located only with the help of a satellite magnetogram, how is the counting procedure modified, which has been agreed upon 250 years ago?
Excellent article!
We can see that some couldn’t give a damn and others are getting desperate!! The mix of the old and new methods of recording is a problem. Perhaps there should be an observatory built, that only uses old methods to make it fair.
With sufficiently precise instruments, adjustments and new protocols… Let solar cycle 24 BEGIN!!!!!
AHHHH SCIENCE!
or science fiction…
I agree with Leif, the reason is simply the scrutiny level because the obvious intense interest. I said that here before. Of course by taking this road they are opening up for more controversy.
Let them count the specks if it makes them feel better, it will not change the cycle or level of activity on the larger scale, as I said before the “sunspot free days” count is a psychological threshold not a scientific one.
Even with that statement IMHO Changes in Methodology is a debate that runs through the entire solar/climate/temperature arena, and it is valid to ask these questions and they should be addressed. Like the SST record and buckets vs inlets as well as the latest Frankenrecord of Mann this is a real problem with combining records over time and across methodology. This will always be a problem for researchers when dealing with large time series data.
Anthony:
we now have a non-homogeneous sunspot record
I have been braying about that for several years now. But this has been an issue for 150 years. When Rudolf Wolf published his first list of sunspot numbers [derived using his famous formula R = 10*G + S] in 1857, it extended back to 1749. Most of the data from the period 1749-1796 came from a single source: J.C. Staudacher. In 1861, Wolf realized that the Staudacher numbers were too low [we can discuss later how he did that] and summarily doubled all the numbers and published the new series in 1861. About 1875, Wolf again realized that all the sunspot numbers before 1849 [that is all numbers not based on his own observations] were still too low [and again we can discuss later the why and the how] so he increased all the pre-1849 numbers by an additional 25%. Wolf knew that the visibility of the smallest spots was iffy and depended too much on the ‘seeing’ and on the observer, so did not counted those small spots [leaving aside for now what constitutes a ‘small’ spot]. When Alfred Wolfer took over in 1893, he started to count ALL spots down to even the smallest he could observe. This, of course, bumped up the sunspot number which Wolfer tried to counteract by multiplying his count by a factor 0.6, but still it seems [and again we can discuss later why and how] that he introduced an upward jump of about 20%. In 1945 when Max Waldmeier took over, his inexperience resulted in a further upwards jump of 20%. When Brussels took over further inhomogeneities were introduced. At all times, people did their best, trying to produce a sunspot number that they thought was a good measure of solar activity. The net result of all these upwards adjustments is that the sunspot numbers have gone up and up and up, giving the false impression that solar activity is [or has recently been] at an all-time high.
So, it is not just in the last few weeks or years that we have an non-homogeneous sunspot record. this has been a problem all along. One factor that makes it difficult to correct the record is that for many the faulty record suits their purposes quite well, cf. the comment from a poster on one of the other threads:
it sure looks like solar activity has played at least a significant if not major part in the temp of the Earth for the last thousand years
A summary of the evidence for the notion that solar activity is not at an all-time high can be found here.
Be aware that this is controversial and is being met with stiff resistance from the ‘all-time high’ crowd.
Sunspots need to be counted using the same methods used 50, 100 and 200 years ago. Failing to do that makes the data gathered useless, when comparing it to historical data. In 1900 we did not have high resolution colour photo’s of anything, never mind the sun.
Mind you, because we do have said photo’s and loads of other info about the sun. We can go back over recent very very small short lives spots and remove them from the count, if its fairly certain they would have been missed 100 years ago.
Brian.
I am positive an area better difined than that was completely ignored last year.
What are they trying to accomplish by assigning numbers to areas that clearly are not suspots?
What are they trying to accomplish
Every time they assign a sunpot a number an angel gets his wings.
Anthony, the following comment from your post really puts the entire issue in the proper context:
Note that in the large versions of both the above images, you’ll see a tiny black speck. That’s NOT the “sunspot” but burned out pixels on the SOHO CCD imager.
ROTFLOL!!
Hullo, Stan.
It had me spit-polishing my screen.
Everybody is wrong. There are 21 spots. I just counted them. I have good eyes.
I’ll go back and look at the last 300 years of pictures if someone can give me a link.
From previous discussions about sunspot observation/counting, it was made clear by Leif that sunspot counts should be performed visually, not photographically. But that is perhaps not a sufficiently clear specification of how it needs to be done in order to stay consistent with observations done hundreds of years ago.
Any direct solar observation with a telescope without an energy reduction filter would immediately and permanently blind the observer (or destroy a digital camera), so a safe filter must always be used. There are different filters for different purposes and they have very different characteristics.
A “white light” filter such as e.g. The Baader Astrosolar film is supposedly neutral, suppressing all visual light frequencies equally.
http://www.baader-planetarium.com/sofifolie/details_e.htm
My understanding is that sunspot observations need to use such a (fairly cheap) neutral filter or alternatively project the solar image on a screen using eyepiece projection. Observers in the 17th or 18th century did not have such filters, so I obviously they used projection techniques (and made drawings). Using these techniques you get images of the photosphere with sunspots if any can be seen.
I assume the photosphere image in this article was made with such a neutral “white light” filter. No sunspot is seen in that image as mentioned by Anthony.
As every solar observer knows, the sun looks much more interesting when using a solar H-alpha (Hydrogen alpha) filter. In addition to reducing the overall energy that reaches the eye or camera, it also suppresses all wavelengths completely, except the H-alpha line (6563 Ångstrøm), with a few nm bandwidth. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H-alpha
The more expensive filter, the narrower the bandwidth. Using such an expensive filter, you see a lot more details than you otherwise can see. What you see is the chromosphere instead of the photosphere.
The Catania chromosphere image shown in the article has all the well known features of an image taken through a solar H-alpha filter.
I assume the Catania sunspots were observed in white light, and not just in Ha?
If the world cools and the sunspot activity remains at roughly the same level as the previous cycle (through counting tiny tims) then claims can be made that the cooling has no relation to solar activity.
Leif, What’s to stop you from going through the record and coming up with a procedure to correct this mess and publishing it?
And I’ll repeat my question from the body of the article:
How long does a sunspeck (or sunspot) have to be present before it ranks as countable? What standards are in place to ensure that observers use the same type of equipment and techniques to count spots? Is there any such standard?
“for many the faulty record suits their purposes quite well, cf. the comment from a poster on one of the other threads:
“it sure looks like solar activity has played at least a significant if not major part in the temp of the Earth for the last thousand years”
I do not have a purpose, Leif. Perhaps you do. And I wasn’t talking about sunspot observation all time high, or any all time high, for that matter.
“Comparisons of observations with simulations from an energy balance climate model indicate that as much as 41 to 64% of preanthropogenic (pre-1850) decadal-scale temperature variations was due to changes in solar irradiance and volcanism.”
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/289/5477/270
I think we should be able to actually see a spot before it is declared a sunspot obviously.
There are two disturbances shown in the Stereo Behind satellite, however, which will be coming around to face Earth in a few days. Both areas are high latitude which might suggest Cycle 24 spots.
Latest Stereo Behind image here.
http://stereo-ssc.nascom.nasa.gov/browse/2008/09/13/behind/euvi/195/1024/20080913_162530_n7euB_195.jpg
This raises questions regarding the large technology gap since the 1700’s. Specifically, what constitutes a visable sunspot: telescopic, chromospheric, photospheric or magnetogramic observations? The former was the only means available to observers in the early years. Are we not moving the goal post around a bit when we rely on a magnetogram to reveal an otherwise hidden spot?
Furthermore, what impact does this have on historical counts? Surely there were many more spots there–they just could not be seen. Do we now go back and adjust past numbers to account for these virtual, but invisible, but real spots? Or do we add another category to the official sunspot number and call it “virtual spots,” or “invisible but real spots” or “almost spots?”
This gets ridiculous. If it can’t be clearly seen through a telescope, it should not be assigned an official number. At least that would be consistent with historical observational records. Otherwise, how does one make a fair comparison of cycles today with cycles of the past?
REPLY: We have the same problem with hurricane and tornado counts, better tools, more eyes on the prize. Both datasets show increases in the 20th century, yet it appears that the increase is artificial. There have been a couple of studies citing this.
Our national NEXRAD Doppler radar network is akin to SOHO, both came into being about the same time. -Anthony
wattsupwiththat (09:47:07) :
Leif, What’s to stop you from going through the record and coming up with a procedure to correct this mess and publishing it?
I am working on this, but lack of funding for this project forces me to give priority to other things that put bread on the table. In addition, this is painstaking work that cannot be speeded up, so it takes time.
How long does a sunspeck (or sunspot) have to be present before it ranks as countable? What standards are in place to ensure that observers use the same type of equipment and techniques to count spots? Is there any such standard?
Both SIDC and NOAA claim that they follow ‘standards’ that they have set for themselves. These standards are different which is not necessarily bad in itself as one can calibrate one against the other. Part of the problem lies in the very definition of the sunspot number: R = 10*G + S. Wolf devised this formula from the observation that an average group [G] contained about 10 spots [S]. This clearly is not the case for the Tiny Tims, where even the tiniest pore results in a minimum sunspot number of 11. Wolf counteracted this by not counting the smallest spots. In a certain sense the NOAA active region count is a better measure, because the collection of spots will have to have a certain size, life time, and meet some other criteria as well. This work fine, until NOAA panics and deviate from their standard [if they actually did so this time, which we don’t know for sure]. I have said this so many times, but let me say it again: “solar astronomers are well aware of all these issues and they do their best [subject to human vagaries] to compensate for differences in instruments and techniques”. What we don’t need is that solar science becomes polarized like climate science.
REPLY: Leif can you point me to the published standards? – Anthony
Glenn (09:50:32) :
“Comparisons of observations with simulations from an energy balance climate model indicate that as much as 41 to 64% of preanthropogenic (pre-1850) decadal-scale temperature variations was due to changes in solar irradiance and volcanism.”
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/289/5477/270
Glenn, it is become tedious to keep reminding you that just hunting around on the Internet for papers that support your beliefs is not very fruitful. The paper you just cited is from 2000 and must therefore be based on either Hoyt/Schatten’s or Lean’s old TSI reconstruction that have a much larger variation than the solar community [incl. Judith Lean, as I have repeatedly pointed out] accepts today. So, enough of this, please.
BTW, the old TSI-recontructions were based in part on two things: First, the flawed sunspot number, and second, on the wish for accounting for the LIA [“what kind of change in TSI would be needed for a temperature change of T assuming a climate sensitivity of S”].
Leif,
Sunspots are of course associated with increased or decreased solar activity,
and the amount of solar irradiance over a period of time will have an effect on Earth. Various methodologies and research into past historical events reveal the Earth cooling and warming, with a correlation to solar activity. This has been noticed for centuries, and is still being inferred from data. Not sure where you heard the “all-time high” bit but you are aware that we are not in what is known as the “Modern Maximum”?
“Modern Maximum”
“The Modern Maximum refers to the ongoing period of relatively high solar activity that began circa 1950. This period is a natural example of solar variation Solar variation (Solar variations are fluctuations in the amount of energy emitted by the Sun), and one of many that are known from proxy records of past solar variability.”
http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Modern_Maximum
“The Medieval and Modern Maximum solar activity imprints in tree ring data…”
“This work presents a study of the relations between solar and climate variations during the last millennia by spectral and multi-resolution analysis for oxygen-18 and tree ring width time series. The spectral and wavelet analysis of tree ring data shows that main solar cycle periodicities are present in our time series at the 0.95 confidence level. This result suggests the possibility of a solar modulation of climate variations detected in accumulated ice oxygen-18. Results of spectral and wavelet analysis have shown that both solar and climate factors are also recorded in the oxygen-18 data.”
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6VHB-4RJYVCG-2&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=6c0fcda8e909e1da80b7252416f9c5f5
I think US Science (Noaa, Nasa) is heading not to a “Maunder Minimum” but to a MORAL MINIMUM. What is the purpose of inventing sunspots?
Glenn (10:31:54) :
Not sure where you heard the “all-time high” bit
A simple google search will find you many references:
Here are some of those:
http://www.globalwarminghysteria.com/blog/2007/7/12/solar-activity-at-an-all-time-high-bbc-report-just-3-years-a.html
http://spiritofmaat.com/archive/jan4/prns/sunspots.htm
http://www.mpg.de/english/illustrationsDocumentation/documentation/pressReleases/2004/pressRelease20041028/
but you are aware that we are not in what is known as the “Modern Maximum”?
“The Modern Maximum refers to the ongoing period of relatively high solar activity that began circa 1950.
And the problem with your posts is that you often contradict yourself [as the above snippets from your recent post show] while at the same time use condescending language “but you are aware…” and the like. Not very useful in a serious discussion.
I suggest that you continue this exchange in the ‘sunspecks’ thread that has already been burdened with this.