Animation courtesy Michael Ronayne. Click for larger, slower speed animation
NASA’s David Hathaway just recently updated his solar cycle prediction and has pushed cycle 24 into the future a little more once again. Though to read his latest update on 10/03/08 at his prediction page here, you wouldn’t know it, because the page is mostly tech speak and reviews of semi relevant papers.
However, there is one graphic, the familar one above, that has been updated and tells the story best. Michael Ronayne was kind enough to provide an animation (above) that shows the march of time as far as solar cycle 24 predictions go. With the latest update (static image here) the startup of solar cycle 24 has been pushed into 2009.
This isn’t the first time NASA has moved the goalpost. Back in March I did a story on NASA moving the goal post then, and since then they’ve moved the cycle ahead twice, once in April and again now in October.
NASA isn’t the only one having to update predictions, NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) has also had to make several adjustments to their graphic:
Animation courtesy Michael Ronayne. Click for larger animation
And there is more change in the current thinking on sunspots. As Michael Ronayne writes:
After ignoring sunspots for two and a half years the New York Times finally ran a story and BLOG posting on the current state of the Sun.
Sunspots Are Fewest Since 1954, but Significance Is Unclear
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/03/science/space/03sun.html
Climate and the Spotless Sun
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/03/climate-and-the-spotless-sun/
Details of the recent NASA reports on Ulysses and the Spotless Sun were minimal and the Times failed to mention NASA’s report that the Sun was dimming. The Times reporter speculated on possible connections between solar activity and Earth climate but such speculation was of concern to some Times readers who made their views know in the Dot Earth BLOG. Perhaps the Times should avoid controversial phrases such as “Little Ice Age” in the future. I decided to make a post on the Dot Earth BLOG about some of the graphic records I have been collecting of past SWPC and NASA sunspots predictions. Apparently my input was not fit to print because the moderator did not allow it to be posted to Dot Earth. Attached is the text of my submission to the New York Times. I thought the posting was quite balanced and am not sure what warranted it being rejected.
As you review the SWPC and NASA predictions, note that the outer envelope for the onset of Solar Cycle 24 for the SWPC Low Prediction (http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/SolarCycle/SC24/ssn_predict.gif) is January 2009, while the NASA prediction has been moved out to July 2009. Watch the two animations carefully and note where the changes were made in the NASA predictions.
I am writing a segment on Sunspot Predictions which will be posted in Wikipedia, at the following URL, when it is done:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunspot
It will be interesting to see when solar minimum actually occurs. I suspect that we will be in for a long wait. I will keep the above animations current as SWPC and NASA post their monthly updates.
Lots of scrambling going on to get in tune with the sun these days.
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Erl Happ (05:04:11) :
Is this pattern of activity typical of solar minimum. What is happening? Where are the poles located?
Let me answer in reverse order:
The North Pole is at the top, The South Pole is at the bottom.
The different magnetic polarities on the Sun [and in the corona and the solar wind] are separated by sheets of plasma supporting an electric current [the magnetic fields on either side of a current point in opposite directions]. This is known as the Heliospheric Current Sheet. Here is an artist’s rendition [from the first drawing of that sheet by me back in the 1970s when we discovered it] of the shape of that current sheet: http://wso.stanford.edu/gifs/helio.gif
The [spiral] curving of the HCS is due to solar rotation. To support the current, the corona and the solar wind has a higher density in the sheet; that is what makes the streamers you see in the LASCO images bright. As the Sun rotates, you see the HCS in projection onto the sky move up and down.
The ‘warping’ [or deviation from flat] of the current sheet is determined by a balance between the magnetic fields in the polar regions [that press the sheet down towards the equator] and the magnetic fields in the equatorial coronal holes [that press the sheet towards the poles]. At solar maximum, the polar fields disappears for a few years while they reverse, so there is nothing to press the sheet towards the equator and the HCS [and the streamers you see] extends all the way to the poles making the corona bright at all latitudes. At solar minimum when the equatorial magnetic fields fade, the strong polar fields press the HCS [and the streamers] all the way to the equator. You can see a nice example of this in Figure 2 of http://www.leif.org/research/A%20View%20of%20Solar%20Magnetic%20Fields,%20the%20Solar%20Corona,%20and%20the%20Solar%20Wind%20in%20Three%20Dimensions.pdf that also explains the process in more detail. All this was figured out 30 years ago and has been confirmed by numerous direct spacecraft, e.g. Ulysses.
At the current minimum, there has still been some SC23 activity up to the present day even, that keep the equatorial magnetic fields alive and well, while the polar fields have weakened to only about half of they have been in the last several previous cycles with the result that the HCS is not so ‘flat’ that it used to be at recent minima [or in the extreme case of 1954 – see Figure 2]. So, the current pattern is well-understood and has undoubtedly occurred many times in the past when similar conditions were found, so is not unusual [expect, perhaps, on a time scale of a single lifetime].
Erl,
That the temperature should vary more aloft than at the surface is well understood and well-modeled by climate models and is not a consequence of more heating from above by whatever means. This link has more on that:
http://www.physorg.com/news142863483.html
In searching for the Sunspot 1004 as reported to have formed within the last 24 hrs (10/10/08) on Solar Cycle 24.com, I could not find a white light image of it. I did read the script on the Mt. Wilson drawing for today, it puts the last 6 mos in perspective:
“2008, Friday the 10th of October, 14:30 ut, Seeing 2.5, J. Boyden
The largest sunspot seen since April 4, 2008 was less than 2mm in size on a 425 mm
image.
That’s about enough to swallow Mars, but the Earth wouldn’t fit. Most of them wouldn’t handle the Moon, let alone Earth-swallowing sizes.
Oh my.
Dr. Svalgaard
Thank you for the link:
http://www.leif.org/research/A%20View%20of%20Solar%20Magnetic%20Fields,%20the%20Solar%20Corona,%20and%20the%20Solar%20Wind%20in%20Three%20Dimensions.pdf
I have had already casual look,I might learn more about some aspects of whole process (up to now relying on logic and intuition).
I wonder is there anything you would be willing to add to:
“Cross correlating sunspot number vs. IHV, they found that the IHV predicts the amplitude of the solar cycle 6-plus years in advance with a 94% correlation coefficient. We don’t know why this works,” says Hathaway. The underlying physics is a mystery. “But it does work”. http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2006/21dec_cycle24.htm
Thanks again
Leif Svalgaard (11:44:55) :
I marvel at your accomplishments in this field. A fantastic body of work. Thanks for taking the trouble to answer so comprehensively.
Leif Svalgaard (12:40:54) :
The article you cite is not relevant.
The argument as to whether the climate models predictions of a warmer mid to upper troposphere over time and whether the data sets will support a conclusion one way or the other is immaterial. The CO2 hypothesis flawed. The notion that heat is dissipated from the surface via radiation is incorrect.
What I see in the data sets is declining specific humidity since 1948 upwards of 700hPa (2.5km). Most of the weather action is below this level and water is the prime agent of heat transfer. At 10° to 20°South and at 1000hPa we have 16gr/kg and at 700hPa we have 4.1gr/kg of specific humidity. Average relative humidity drops from 80% at 1000hPa to 45% at 700hPa.
So above 700hPa we have a pattern of uneven relative humidity across the tropics depending upon rain shadow effects, water temperature and evaporation rates. There are areas that support ice cloud formation and others that do not. The relatively cloud free areas simply expand and contract as the temperature rises and falls. This graph tells a story.
http://i249.photobucket.com/albums/gg220/erlandlong/RH700hPaagainst200hPatemp.jpg
But this is not a one way street as we see here:
http://i249.photobucket.com/albums/gg220/erlandlong/RH700hPaandSH700hPa.jpg
Above 700hPa cloud albedo is largely a function of air temperature.
For the latitude 40°N to 40°S the relationship between surface temperature and that at 200hPa and 100hPa is shown at:
http://i249.photobucket.com/albums/gg220/erlandlong/100200hPaandsurfaceNHSH0-40Lat.jpg
I don’t think anyone looking at the data would support your assertion that the atmosphere is heated solely from the surface.
Erl Happ (05:18:20) :
I don’t think anyone looking at the data would support your assertion that the atmosphere is heated solely from the surface.
The troposphere, not the atmosphere.
vukcevic (02:53:51) :
“Cross correlating sunspot number vs. IHV, they found that the IHV predicts the amplitude of the solar cycle 6-plus years in advance with a 94% correlation coefficient. We don’t know why this works,” says Hathaway. The underlying physics is a mystery. “But it does work”.
Except when it doesn’t. And the coming cycle 24 is predicted from the IHV [or aa-index, doesn’t matter which] peak in 2003 [one of the highest ever] to be of the biggest ever. So far, the Sun has not been very cooperative in that regard, and the correlation may very fail this time around. This is the usual problem with correlations that seem to work, but for which “we don’t know why this works”.
Looks like some new cycle 24 activity at long last but I’m not qualified to say with certainty. Possibly another one on the far side just about to come into view behind this one, also.
I can see both SC24 spots (1004) and one of them is larger than I have seen in 2 years. The F10.7 is risen a bit also. Projecting from an Orion 70mm F/9 w/Meade 26mm Super Plossl.
You don’t have to squint or jostle the paper around to see these spots.
They are being called SC24 activity by SolarCycle24.com
Erl Happ (05:18:20) :
The notion that heat is dissipated from the surface via radiation is incorrect.
But nobody, to my knowledge, says that. Instead, the actual process is that the surface is heated by radiation and the troposphere above it is heated first by conduction and then by convection.
Leif Svalgaard (08:28:45) :
The troposphere acts as a dampener on surface temperature gyrations as can be seen by looking at the annual cycle at each different level. However, between years, the variation at 200hPa is about double that at the surface. This generalization applies to the tropics and is illustrated at http://i249.photobucket.com/albums/gg220/erlandlong/200hPadrivingsurface.jpg
That sort of variation is not possible without the absorbtion of radiation from above or below. The stratosphere absorbs OLR and shows a strong temperature response in mid year. At 100hPa it seems to reflect the rate at which the Earth sheds heat due to the ozone response to OLR. This same response is not evident at 200hPa as, by now, I hope you realize, but just in case you don’t, here is the data.
http://i249.photobucket.com/albums/gg220/erlandlong/100hPaNHFebandJuly.jpg
Leif Svalgaard (10:09:19) :
Greenhouse theory posits the absorption of outgoing long wave ‘radiation’ by carbon dioxide with consequent atmospheric warming amplified by a supposed increase in atmospheric water vapour content.
However, radiation, as a process of cooling begins where cooling via evaporation, by contact and convection slows (because unobstructed radiation becomes possible) and this is at at an elevation where water vapour content is both very small and rather invariable.
Wherever long wave radiation is ‘difficult’, due to atmospheric density and composition, convection is active.
A classic test, and evidence of failure, of greenhouse theory lies in the strong temperature response to OLR at 100hPa and the failure of this energy to propagate downward to 200hPa as can be seen in this data.
http://i249.photobucket.com/albums/gg220/erlandlong/Nopropogationdown.jpg
So, with the sun driving temperature change via albedo modification and the sun settling into a quiescent period there is nothing to worry about on that front.
And the cooling at 100hPa is excellent evidence that the store of warmth in the oceans is running down. We can trust the ozone reaction to OLR to tell us what is happening to the Earths heat budget.
Erl Happ (17:00:51) :
The troposphere acts as a dampener on surface temperature gyrations
I give up. This is hopeless.
Erl, may you keep a fair wind at your back .
[…] the Sun still seems pretty inactive which is why NASA has shifted the beginning of Solar Cycle 24 into the future […]
[…] solar group (that I am aware of ) in the last couple of months. The last time NASA made a change was in October 08. The question now seems to be, are we seeing the beginning of a cycle skip, or a grand minima? Or […]
[…] solar group (that I am aware of ) in the last couple of months. The last time NASA made a change was in October 08. The question now seems to be, are we seeing the beginning of a cycle skip, or a grand minima? Or […]
… we know squat all about the sun and just as much about what drives our climate … how comforting. Given the geological time frames involved it amazes me that we model things based on such small datasets. Who knows whether we are entering an new “Dalton Minimum” or even a new “Cryogenian Period” … its all an educated guess!
NASA is a massive fraud from its inception. There exist two bodies of “knowledge”; one the “powers that be” have foisted upon the unwitting general population which bears no resmblance whatsoever to the true nature of the universe and two; raw reality that only those with a “need to know” have access to. Knowledge is power and therefore those who jealously covet power over the masses will never allow the absolute true body of knowledge to fall into their hands. There is no nuclear fusion taking place in the sun’s core. The basic structure of the sun consists of a massive, dense planetary core surrounded by a vast sea of liquid hydrogen. Above the liquid hydrogen sea is a gaseous hydrogen atmosphere encapsulated by the relatively thin photospheric plasma sheath. If you doubt this, please examine the highest resolution images of sunspots at this website http://www.astro.su.se/groups/solar/solar.html
The posts just moved again posts.