Maybe there is some hope for SC24 ramping up this year yet. This appears to be the largest SC24 spot to date. Previous SC24 spots have faded quickly, we’ll see how long this one lasts.
UPDATE: 9/23 It is already fading fast, see this animation that I’ve produced.
In other news, Jan Jansens reports that SC23-24 continues to behave much more like cycles in the late 19th and early 20th century. See this:
Click for the ful sized image
There is also a weaker, but distinct, level of activity at 22 years, the double sunspot of Hale cycle. The last three Hale cycles have been stronger than earlier Hale cycles. There is some indication of a double Hale cycle (~44 years) and at the top of the graph, we’re in Gleissberg cycle territory.
Now, for an interesting observation and speculation, note that at present, which is at the right edge of the chart, from the 11 yr line to the top it is all blue. There is only one other place on the entire chart where we can draw a vertical line from the 11 yr line to the top without it crossing some portion of color other than blue. Can you find it? (It is right at the beginning of Solar Cycle 5, i.e. the Dalton Minimum). Are we watching the beginning of a new 200 year cycle like what began with the Dalton Minimum in the early 1800’s? Obviously, no one knows. But the current transition is certainly unusual, and invites comparison to past transitions.
I think: “we” should only discuss the idea of the oscillation of baricenter only after NASA says: The Voyager is in the wrong place.
If. no measurable gravitational disturbance. The idea seems astrology. Absence of evidence…or Velikovsky: Handbuch der Babylonien Astronomie.
Anything can be written. And then be written as a series of anything.
Someone will do: Morlet wavelet transform of Smoothed barycenter date…
Steve (20:01:32) You should look up Pete’s graph in comment #454 of the Svalgaard #2 thread at climateaudit.org and associated commentary.
============================================
One of the very first things one should look up when using a new method is its limitations. As Svalgaard commented, a wavelet will be distorted towards the edges, increasingly so with decreasing frequency. So to say much about today from that plot is at best guessing, or misleading at worst.
This is what I don’t understand in the presented figure: If there is a persistent 11yrs cycle, why is it not continuously red over the whole time span? The way it looks now, it seems like it’s a cycle that dies and comes to life again over and over. Any mathematicians care to comment?
NASA does seem interested in Planetary tidal theory with regard to flares and sunspots. Here is a link to their site showing a recent NASA paper that is very detailed. They have mostly looked at Mercury, Venus, Earth & Jupiter with surprising results (maybe its not in the pseudo arena any more?) I have just skimmed the document but it looks comprehensive and seems to support the idea.
http://gltrs.grc.nasa.gov/Citations.aspx?id=330
there is a link to the actual paper at the bottom of the page.
Perhaps if they included the other gas planets they may have reached an even better conclusion?
Anthony, how about putting a graph of GISS and Hadcrut temp overlayed on the Morlet Wavelet of the SSN?
For those of you interested in whether a problem with “edge distortion” seriously detracts from the original image, I’ve done a “quick and dirty” analysis as suggested by Damek. In the following image, we have the original wavelet, through the most recent month of 2008, at the bottom. Above it, in the middle, is the wavelet cut off at 2000. And at top, is the wavelet cut off at 1980.
Here’s the link:
http://i33.tinypic.com/qpf0ic.jpg
There are two things to observe here, I think. For evidence of “edge distortion” look at what happens in the top two images where the edge splits an 11 year cycle, revealing only the first part of it. What you see of it is more elongated than in the bottom image. But something else is happening too. The pattern of lower frequency signals is being altered. This isn’t “distortion.” It is the result of the pattern “weak” signals being altered simply because we’ve altered the length of data period used to divine them. For instance, when I do a periodogram on the entire period of data, there is a peak at ~104 years. When I cut off the data at 1980, that peak shifts to 92 years. Now given that we’ve only got a little over 250 years of data, it is not surprising that these low frequency spectra are going to be very sensitive to changes like this. And so we try not to read too much into the lower frequency results.
But personally (here’s where Leif and I may differ) I don’t think that means that we don’t look at them at all, or ignore them completely. Obviously, the 11 year pattern is itself uncontroversial. I think Leif has conceded the existence of ~100 year cycles in solar activity, but would be quick to add that the exact duration of them is highly uncertain, and that would be right. In between, I think, that the wavelet analysis, wherever you end it (and arbitrarily ending it before the most recent available data strikes me as a kind of “cherry picking”) shows some heightened activity on a Hale cycle frequency. And it — the 22 year cycle — is there in the sprectrum/periodogram data as well. It is certainly not as strong as the 11 year cycle, but it is there.
Barely Visible
The new sunspot group seems to be fading fast
http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/data/realtime/mdi_igr/1024/latest.html
Bangshui,
The colors represent the amplitude of the signal. And of course, the amplitude of the 11 year solar cycle does die and come to life every 11 years or so. It is pretty dead right now, and we’re all curious about when it is going to show signs of life. That’s what this discussion is really all about.
Onamyn,
If you will give my words their original intent, you will realize that I simply offered a “speculation” and said as to the reality of it “no one knows.” So yes, at best, it is just a guess. And since it was never offered as any more than that, I think your remark about “misleading at worst” was unjustified.
[…] Watts Up With That has a fascinating analysis of sunspot 1002. Posted at 11:17 AM | […]
I think the sun is absorbing all the magnetic activity and will release it abrubtly
also every measurement that has been made so far suggest that solar cycle 24 will be at least 50 % stronger than the previous one with a lot of x solar flares.
But then on the other side this event is unprecedented so none knows for sure.
One thing is sure society as we know it is coming to an end it has happened before with massive flooddings this time i think it will be with fire. The fire of our own sun who knows. Let’s hope it will not be the case…
Basil (07:26:54) :
But personally (here’s where Leif and I may differ) I don’t think that means that we don’t look at them at all, or ignore them completely.
I’m not sure where the is disagreement. I pointed out that edge-effects always are a concern.
I think Leif has conceded the existence of ~100 year cycles in solar activity
Here the may be disagreement, as I don’t think the ~100 year variations are a ‘cycle’. But rather a random variation of varying length, figures like 88 years have also been advocates, but when that didn’t fit anymore, it became ~100. To fluffy for my taste.
And it — the 22 year cycle — is there in the sprectrum/periodogram data as well. It is certainly not as strong as the 11 year cycle, but it is there.
I think the ’22-year’ cycle is an artifact: since no two 11-year cycles are alike, there will be differences between two cycles and these show up as power at 22-years. Especially because of the existence of the ~100 year wave, which will cause neighboring cycles to show systematic differences: on the upswing, every odd [say] numbered cycle will be larger than its previous [even] numbered one [on the downside, the other way around], this also induces some 22-year power. When people appealed to the 22-year cycle in forecasting cycle 23, they failed miserably, same thing with cycle 22 [which should have been significant smaller than 21, but wasn’t.
Try this experiment: pick a random cycle [or compute the average cycle]. Replicate that 20 or 40 times. Then pick a different random number [between 0.5 and 1.5] for each replicated cycle and multiply the monthly values by those numbers. Then make the plot. In another experiment have those altered cycles put on top of a steady increase over the 1st half of the total time, with a decrease during the 2nd half, and make the plot.
BTW, the wavelet plots are usually made with the long periods [low frequency] at the bottom rather than at the top. This freaked my out when I first saw your plot until I realized that it was upside-down [compared to the usual way].
23
The movie sequence today 23rd September, shows the spots appear and disappear but it is still evident in the magnetic domain.
Basil,
I still don’t get it. Let me use an example.
Take a sinusoidal timeseries, with a frequency of 1/11 yrs^-1. Then apply wavelet analysis to it. At any given time, the result should show the 1/11 yrs^-1 signal equally strong. The wavelet analysis does not care at which phase the signal is in, just it’s spectral components.
I guess that Wattsupwiththat is not the place to post this, but the presented analysis has been looked into elsewhere as well:
http://tinyurl.com/3ooqxj
Looking at Jan Meeus’ butterfly diagrams at Janssens’ at the link in Anthony’s post I get the feeling the qualified 24 spots to date point to an emerging ‘sparse’ pattern for 24, in the early going.
Just eye-balling, but their latitudes in preceding diagrams are heavily populated where the next 24 spot seems to be expected, say December? Jan., May, Sept., Dec. If this is a ramp, most of the members are missing (or invisible as you know who has suggested).
In any case, 23 counts should equal 24 sometime in 2009 and the 13 month SSN minimum no earlier than Dec., Carl Smith’s prediction in July 2007 (we shall speak of the entrails augured).
Basil’s graph is looking good in context.
“Do not despise humble beginnings.”
The latest magnetogram shows that it is dissipating now but they are not putting up the gpeg up to now. They just show up to when it is the strongest.
GONE!
Pierre, not quite, still visible on this image
http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/data/realtime/mdi_igr/1024/latest.html
Their stupid .RAM file does not work!
Leif,
Thanks for the comments. Your explanation of the “22 year cycle” is something to think about.
As for the “upside down” presentation of the wavelet diagram, that’s the way it is presented in the software I use, which anyone can download here and use themselves:
http://folk.uio.no/ohammer/past/
I’ve seen it the way you describe, in one of your own papers, in fact. Is there other software that you would recommend, that doesn’t take a mainframe? OS is not as important (I’m also using the SSA-MTM Toolkit, running under Linux, for some things). But I don’t have access to enterprise or university level resources. I’m just a little guy crunching away on a personal computer.
I’m talking about the audio file of the Live Conference on the State of the Sun (NASA).
The new spot is now a speck. Unless some more appear soon, this will just have been an anomoly.
faded
This sunspot is at the hairy edge of visibility in my 70mm Orion refractor 26mm Meade Plossl. It has faded further since I saw it yesterday late afternoon.
Since yesterday morning, it has faded several mangnitudes. The weaker area is nothing more than a blush.
Hey, that Orion refractor I got is mighty good. I’m doing just about as good as the pros.
Cheap, too.
Just another sunspeck and a wimpspeck that blushed out in the pigment of the Sun at the ebb of the Planetary A Index and Solar Wind speed.
The Big Bang of SC24 is a peeled retread.