Click for large image
This is the biggest Cycle 24 spot since the first one was seen on January 4th, 2008. This spot looks to have some staying power other than the “specks” we’ve seen winking on and off lately. No squinting to see this one, or wondering if it’s a dead pixel in the SOHO CCD imager or not.
The corresponding magnetogram image, seen here, is also quite pronounced. The polarity is correct, with the white “North” at the top. This spot grew quickly as it came around the rim into visibility. Watch this animation below:
At the same time, to the right of the image, at lower latitude, a new cycle 23 sunspot seems to be emerging, note it has a reveresed polarity from the larger SC24 spot. Solar cycle 23 just won’t give up it seems.
The magentic field, as shown by the Average Planetary index (Ap) remained low in September, see here.
Its really not much bigger than the January sunspot that was supposed to herald the start of cycle 24.. I wouldnt get my hopes up too high.
Leif,
TSI cycles and their causes:
http://virakkraft.com/TSIcycles.jpg
pkatt
It is already dispersing a bit. I wonder whether it will make it to the other side. There should be bets, like Pooh Sticks.
Why are you all hoping in the start of cycle 24? I hope this cycle never starts, so we can see if there is a real correlation between solar minimums and global cooling…
Andrea (04:54:48) :
Even with SC24 running, its lower activity will still provide a good chance to separate the solar effect from GHGs. Though note, the real study may center on the effect of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation and friends vs. GHGs. For now I’d like to see people find a mechanism for solar activity affecting climate. Things like CLOUD can go on independent of solar activity.
Besides, I’d like a fairly healthy crop of spots so we can watch them fade over the next several years.
Finally a sunspot that’s bigger than a couple of pixels.
Andrea,
I wouldn’t mind if this already quite late SC 24 waited another year or so too, for reasons you’ve alluded to. It would be great to see these AGW zealots put a sock in it.
lgl (02:22:01) :
TSI cycles and their causes
Yeah, it would be nice if it was that simple, but it ain’t.
Agreed. We’ve been burned before, haven’t we?
While all the indicators are bumping up, in terms of a massive breakout of SC24 this is not yet the real deal.
We won’t get fooled again.
pkatt (02:10:52) :
Its really not much bigger than the January sunspot that was supposed to herald the start of cycle 24.. I wouldnt get my hopes up too high.
Even if AGW is nothing more than a fancy way to get people’s attention, we still have to deal with dwindling supplies of easy energy (oil) with not much else to replace it in the current pipeline except for dirtier and more expensive hydrocarbons such as coal. We already dump too much toxins into the environment that sustains us. We’ll know eventually just how much forcing AGW accounts for. What’s the rush?
Andrea (04:54:48) Andrea, you have put your finger on a very important dilemma. In order for us to thoroughly expunge the error of CO2=AGW from the consciousness of the public, there will have to be a dramatic or long-term cooling. That will imply many of the world’s poor dying from freezing and starving. Alternatively, for those people not to die, we’d have to have a short or mild cooling, which may not convince people of the folly of this CO2 craze. I get around the ethics of it by understanding that there is nothing we can do to change what the sun and the earth are going to do.
Pretty certainly, the one moral horror we can avoid is to not unnecessarily raise the price of fossil energy by taxing it or encumbering it in any way. If we are cooling, then the small direct forcing effect on temperature that CO2 has and the large effect it has on the fertility of agriculture will warm and feed the teeming billions in the time ahead.
Given the improved curiosity, and analytical techniques lately, I do believe we have the capability of teasing out the various determinants of climate, the sun, the earth’s response, the oceanic oscillations, the biosphere’s response, the GHG’s etc. This might be easier to do with a dramatic cooling than not.
We are, however, at the sun’s mercy. A deep minimum will be catastrophic for the human race, because of its sensitivity to energy. For that reason alone I hope the sun wakes back up and behaves has we’ve grown used to. We should still be able to figure out the true climate modifiers.
But you pose an awful dilemma: Frigid future horror, or suffering from the tragic effects of a magnificent social, scientific, and political error. It will take our wisest to guide us through this mess.
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How many days since the last “visible” sunspot? If we want to compare with “ancient” sunspots…
Another question: We often see sunspots appearing at the same time at different places. How are they related? Is that some sort of swelling of the interior that would push out the magnetic field?
kim (08:22:58) Oops forgot ‘land-use changes’ in there with the list of climate regulators. Somewhere, Pielke Pere is frowning.
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Oops, I also forgot: We are cooling, folks; for how long, even kim doesn’t know
Also:
I think I’ve never heard so loud
The quiet message in a cloud.
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Ray (08:25:21) :
We often see sunspots appearing at the same time at different places. How are they related? Is that some sort of swelling of the interior that would push out the magnetic field?
There is, indeed, a tendency to see spots occurring at the same place. We do not know why that is. It may have something to do with internal structure of the solar dynamo. Other solar phenomena behave the same way, see e.g. http://www.leif.org/research/The%20Hale%20Solar%20Sector%20Boundary.pdf
People that believe in planetary influences go even further and many contend that everything repeats like clockwork, e.g. that activity on Oct 12, 2008 should be the same as on some date ~177 years ago. Wonders never cease.
Leif (09:58:05) Well it is reassuring to believe that the sun is following a script, rather than making it up as it goes along. At least the audience is paying attention, now.
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kim (08:22:58) :
We are, however, at the sun’s mercy. A deep minimum will be catastrophic for the human race…
Alarmism in another guise?
Kim, as we have discussed many a time, the Sun can’t get any dimmer than it is right now [or was in August, actually].
kim (10:11:32) :
Well it is reassuring to believe that the sun is following a script, rather than making it up as it goes along.
Well, it is only a weak tendency. 80% [or some number like that] of what happens is random, so ‘made up’ on the go.
Leif (11:37:12) But dimness hasn’t much to do with the temperature anyway, does it, Leif? Presumably we are at the sun’s mercy for some other reason than the minimal difference between its minimum and maximum output. What that is, we haven’t figured out yet, but I’m still impressed with Pete’s and Hemst’s integrations, and I’m impressed with the correlation between the Little Ice and the Maunder and Dalton Minimums, and, particularly with Spencer’s latest, I’m convinced there is likely something to Svensmark’s idea. There is some reason for cyclic warmings and coolings in the last 2000 years, and it is more likely the sun than CO2. It is hard to get around the fact that predictions for both the sun and the globe’s temperature have been spectacularly wrong, recently.
But my uncertainty is why I won’t claim to know for how long we are cooling.
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The minor spot is getting difficult to see, while the main spot is larger and less darkened than yesterday. The spots this go round are bigger, but are acting in the same manner as the previous ones: Expand & fade.
Is that their normal behavior? I confess I have never really watched them on a daily basis until now.
kim (12:29:38) :
but I’m still impressed with Pete’s and Hemst’s integrations,
When I integrate I get a flat curve: http://www.leif.org/research/SumTSI.png
I’m convinced there is likely something to Svensmark’s idea.
Against convictions not much helps…
There is some reason for cyclic warmings and coolings in the last 2000 years, and it is more likely the sun than CO2.
No need to bring in CO2, that is just a straw man. I’m somewhat amazed that people so readily dismiss the idea that the climate has internal cycles, but happily posit that the Sun has…
It is hard to get around the fact that predictions for both the sun and the globe’s temperature have been spectacularly wrong, recently.
My predictions of solar activity has been right on since 1978, so perhaps what you refer to is not a ‘fact’. That NASA and HAO are wrong is no more difficult to understand than GISS is wrong.
Robert Bateman (12:58:57) :
Expand & fade. Is that their normal behavior?
Yes. One might add this: Assemble, Expand, and Fade.
Leif, are you still sure about the next SC24 maximum of 70 SSN?
I’ve been reading some stuff from Vukcevic about the correlation between geomagnetic activity and cycles maximums that makes me amazed…
danieloni (13:41:49) :
are you still sure about the next SC24 maximum of 70 SSN?
‘Sure’ is a big word. ‘confident’ might be better, yes.
I’ve been reading some stuff from Vukcevic about the correlation between geomagnetic activity and cycles maximums that makes me amazed…
I have looked at his stuff and it amazes me too, but, perhaps not in the same positive way as you. I would, kindly, call it ‘cyclomania’ to use Ken Schatten’s stark characterization of such ideas. As the real world is so immensely complex, people are often drawn [like moths to a flame] towards such simple and comforting ideas, no matter what physical merit they may have or lack.
Leif (13:11:55) I knew your integration is different than theirs. What are you doing differently? We’ll see about Svensmark. It is a plausible mechanism for Lindzen’s iris. Yes, and even you predict a quiet couple of cycles.
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danieloni (13:41:49) :
Leif, are you still sure about the next SC24 maximum of 70 SSN?
Actually the ‘current’ number is 70.9 🙂
Now, for my method to work, the error has to be small. It is no good to predict 71+/-30 as that covers the range from 40 to 100, or more than a range of a factor of two [making it useless]. So, if Rmax is below 60 or above 85, my method in its present form does not work well enough and has to be abandoned, even if the physical principles on which it is based turn out to be sound as there would be too much randomness in the system to produce a useful prediction. It is like predicting that tomorrow’s max temp will be between 40 and 90 degrees. I’m sure it will be correct, but what’s the use?
Leif (13:11:55) I’m happy to posit that both the sun and the earth have internal cycles, but that the sun’s cycles impact the earth’s.
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