Not much time for a full report, as it is very late for me, but I’ll pass this along from comments. Looks to be cycle 23 due to low latitude. – Anthony
Looks like a sunspot has appeared recently, as of Oct 9, 1600. Magnetogram also shows a spot. Is this the last spot that had blinked in and out?
http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/data/realtime/mdi_igr/1024/latest.html
http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/data/realtime/javagif/gifs_small/20081009_1600_mdi_mag.gif
H/t to Glenn
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Funny with the lack of spots, specks that wouldnt even be noticed during a solar max are being highly publicized. Could this be the one that starts it all.. lol. Seems like some folks at Nasa are getting pretty desperate for a large solar max to start. But if temp lagging activity level is going to show up as predicted their lovely models will still be off and they still wont be able to explain why our world temp has not raised in the drastic way they predicted. One thing I am happy about is that some reputable scientists are learning from the sun during this time of low spot activity. There have been some pretty cool discoveries in the past couple of years, you just have to break through the layer of crap that has come to surround Nasa.
Speaking of weather coolers… this weeks volcano activity report shows new activity on 6 volcanoes. http://www.volcano.si.edu/reports/usgs/ I would sure love to see a paper compairing lower magnetic fields with increases in volcanic activity.. wonder if there would be anything similar. I have been seeing quite a few papers recently including major volcanic activity during a minimum to explain excessively cooler temps or warmth slowers as it were. There has also been a ton of activity in the ring of fire, I have no “normal” to compare that to but if the pick up of large seismic activity is any indicator then our earth is responding to a stimulas we do not yet even know exists.
Interesting : a new sunspeck without ANY other activity.
Planetary K-Index : 0
Ap – Index : 0
X-ray flux : 0
And the solar wind already decreased at very low level.
(www.solarcycle24.com)
TSI reached quite a low level now.
Earth is cooling ? It is not really sure for now : we need 3 or 4 more years to check if the 6 years old recent trend get confirmed. Maybe a mega-niña during the next years (months ?), maybe not. We will see.
BUT : I think ground is cooling now. 0,1 to 0,3 W/m2 less every day doesn’t make a difference for one day. IT DOES make a difference if the trend lasts more than a couple of monthes. It already happened in 2004 (see UAH and RSS : the 2004 dive is ONLY connected to TSI dive and the ground temps evolution).
All the best to this excellent blog.
My august SWAG for 850 kvisitors is already overtaken.
This blog deserves the million.
I might be wrong but, with this weak sun, I think tracking ground temps is really interesting… as we all live on the ground ( at least 99,9 % of us :-).
Southern hemisphere – black leading white – that ought to make it SC23.
SWPC still not listing this event; when {or if} they do, it’ll be the second SC23 event for the month.
SC23 – it just keeps going and going and going…
off-topic: I frequently follow the climate news here and in a few other places, but I in the past couple of weeks I’ve been completely absorbed into the finance world to follow the present crisis. But during that, I found this amazing article, which describes the greenies trying to benefict from the crisis: http://www.thebigmoney.com/articles/mothers-milk/2008/10/08/save-economy-save-planet, with rethorics that go to the point of asking “How does a climate bill become a stimulus package [for the present crisis]?”. How can these people be so disconnected to the real world? And what frightens me is their influence on powerful people that could make many of their proposals be considered. And that won’t help the present situation.
oops, the link I shared above is not linked 😉 it should lead you here. BTW, I suggest the addition of a preview button for the comments in your blog.
pkatt (01:19:01) :
“this weeks volcano activity report shows new activity on 6 volcanoes. http://www.volcano.si.edu/reports/usgs/”
Thanks for the link, now added to my favourites. After the Indian Ocean earthquake in 2004 geologists predicted the adjoining plates would take a number of years to settle and this may well be part of the process.
off-topic from new scientist an area in spain with a lot of green houses experiences a local cooling due to more light being reflected from the roofs. reverse UHI, hope the temperature records will be adjusted up to account for this.
http://environment.newscientist.com/article/mg20026775.000-the-greenhouse-effect-that-may-be-cooling-the-climate.html?DCMP=ILC-hmts&nsref=news1_head_mg20026775.000
It will be very interesting to see if we go into the normal pattern when SC24 finally kicks in, or will we witness what Makarov & Tlatov (2000) talk about here:
According to Ribes et al. (1993) in the Maunder Minimum the active regions were observed only near the equator. This fact of long occurrence of the sunspots near the equator is unique. In the normal solar cycles active regions practically do not emerge in a zone of ±5° around the equator. The occurrence of active regions during a long time near the equator of the Sun may be taken to testify as a case of a “long solar cycle”. This version of a “long solar cycle” is confirmed by the study of the 14 C content variations in the bi-annual rings of the pine-trees from South Urals over AD 1600–1730, Kocharov et al. (1995) (Fig. 2). In fact, 14 C content shows the cycle length to be about 20 yrs in 1640–1715 in accordance with poleward migration
rate.
According to Waldmeier (1957), solar activity on a branch of growth of a century
cycle dominates in the northern hemisphere, and on a branch of decay in the southern hemisphere. Actually, in 1672–1704 practically no sunspots were observed in the northern hemisphere (Ribes & Nesme-Ribes 1993). At such low activity of the Sun in the northern hemisphere polar magnetic field reversal was possible only in the southern hemisphere. In this epoch the structure of the magnetic field of the Sun was of a “monopole” type, i.e: both poles of the Sun had the same polarity. Such state of solar magnetic field was repeatedly observed in 1955–1982 yrs (Makarov 1984).
In 1705 the Wolf number increased and became sufficient for polar magnetic field reversal and hence the structure of a magnetic field was restored.
“I would sure love to see a paper compairing lower magnetic fields with increases in volcanic activity”… even more interesting would be to study the correlation between sunspot number and the Dow Jones index 😉
Twinkle, twinkle little Sun
Your spotlessness puzzles everyone
Though over 95 million miles away
Our eyes are on you every day.
You leave us with little evidence
That your next cycle has commenced
Your calm demeanor causes a fuss
When we see your blank face staring back at us.
What must you think, our solar sovereign
Of all these questions asked so often
The where’s and hows and why’s and whens
Of inquisitive creatures, us little men.
So twinkle, twinkle not-so-little star,
And we will wonder at what you are
Up above our world so high
Like a diamond in our sky.
With global temps expectd to cool over the next decade (Keelyside et al 2008), via yet another “model” to 2015-2018, this volcanic activity more than likely (sorry should that be “likely to very likely) looks set to give the Green lobby more ammunition to claim Mother Nature has come to the rescue of mankind.
Of course, no sunspots will be ignored, despite solar magnetic field, TSI, & temp all apparently in decline & at a 50 year low! BTW, this solar news has actually reached the BBC’s news website, a grudingly small article compared with the plethora of doom & gloom climate articels, but rest assured those in the “know” made damned sure it never surfaced on the tv or radio at all!
Solar Cycle 24 has been shifted back yet again, another “model” has got it wrong, again! Why don’t we just wait, watch, observe & record, then draw a conclusion. Perhaps we are obsessed with trying to predict what clearly is the unpredictable! This is what happens when we think we’re really very clever & we can programme a computer to tell us everything. It’s rather like’t read Hitchikers Guide to the Universe – computer Deep Thought reduced everything to a simple sum to solve the meaning of life, the universe, & well, everything, that resolved itself to 5 x 9 = 42! Nothing changes does it?
This whole thing about “specks” is simply absurd. There’s no way that scientists before the space age could have spotted such a speck, or even bothered to record it.
The Sun is clearly in a deep minimum, and David Hathaway keeps changing his prediction without any explanation as to why previous predictions failed. He’s bound to be right one day, as if that meant anything.
Does anyone know where to find the Martian climate figures? I checked the site of the Mars Climate orbiter, but I couldn’t find any actual figures.
It might be interesting to see if the current lull in solar activity is having any effect on the Mars Climate.
Helvio:
“How can these people be so disconnected to the real world?”
Politicians have been disconnected from what most of us would consider the real world for quite some time.
That’s leading to a revolution…just a question of when :*)
Jim
Off topic but I thought people may like to see a BBC report that was on the news last night
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/video/default.stm
AGW is a “fact” at the BBC (AND THE REST OF THE ESTABLISHMENT). Little things like global cooling chilling the nation will make them look foolish. The part about the algae is interesting though. I think I’ve seen a post on this site about algae before.
Thanks for the volcano link…that could turn out to be very interesting.
Is that another possible speck in the southern hemisphere, just rotating into view? That edge of the magnetogram always seems slightly blurred, but on the MDI continuum shot, it’s showing what appears to be a light colored area just about the lowest stuck pixel.
A reminder – It’s just a frigging sunspeck!!! Thank you, I feel better. 🙂
The magnetogram is remarkably flat, there I’ve remarked on it.
There seems to be some activity in the lower left area, the magnetogram suggests opposite polarity, but it might be just a flare or whatnot. It shows up well in the first three EIT images at http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/data/realtime-images.html
I should learn to read these images better.
Alan the Brit (05:22:34) Hathaway has all the signs of a man who has forgotten his towel.
======================================
I have been waiting for a solar related thread.
Questions:
How do you read the LASCO plots?
How are they generated (Instrumentation, method, repeatability)?
Are the filtered pictures of the sun simply CCD raster shots?
Are there infrared scans available or UV?
How is the magnetogram produced?
Surely there are some people here that are bursting with information on this subject. I have looked for resources on the SOHO site but was dissapointed.
I believe that Deep Thought’s expression should be 6 x 7 = 42.
At least that is what the text of the book references as one of possible question for which the Answer to the question of Life, the Unveverse, and Everything might be.
Ric,
The magnetogram is remarkably flat, there I’ve remarked on it.
It’s remarkable that you’ve remarked on it. I find it interesting the state of the sun, and the increased number of viewing devices we have trained on a blank sun. Would these specks go unnoticed if cycle 24 had started as they (NASA) had expected?
SWPC is now listing this event, which officially makes it the second SC23 event for the month.
If we are witnessing the slow unfolding of a new minimum, it may be months before the magnitude of this fact becomes clearer. In the meantime, all we can do is to continue to experience the slow drip, drip, drip of the quick appearance/disappearance of sunspecks.
As far as the study of the sun goes, we do live in interesting times.