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.
“The transmissivity is thus 1 minus the absorptivity (1-α, or 1-ε). The top slab is transparent to an incoming source of radiation (S). By conservation of energy, the incoming energy must be balanced by the energy emitted by the bottom slab and transmitted through the top slab plus the radiation emitted by the top slab.”
Beer’s Law in use: not a modern treatment and one that fails in any way to account for evaporation, convection and condensation on a water planet.
The emperor has no clothes.
As of 13:15 UTC, there isn’t a recent SOHO MDI Continuum Image, but on the GONG Images
http://gong.nso.edu/Daily_Images/
I can’t see anything left of the spot, other than its dwindling magnetic field.
How common is it for early-cycle spots to die after about 1/4 rotation?
The region now coming into view over the eastern limb [probably} produced sunspots (I saw some fading spotlets yesterday), is now just a plage region.
The monthly sunspot count for October is now certainly higher than for September which was higher than August, so solar minimum may have happened or may be happening now.
Steve Hempell (20:44:50) on 10/14
Thank you and Leif and Pete. I guess it’s back to square one, which it seems, I now share with Leif et al. I’m reminded of the picture of the cat sitting on its hind legs, looking down at a Rubik’s Cube held in its paws. The caption was OMG WTF. This may be our relationship with understanding climate regulation. Now, if we just had a roomful of lolcats.
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Has anyone else noticed that Leif has assumed the pedagological personality of his subject? His knowledge beams radiantly, constantly, and steadily.
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Leif Svalgaard (03:04:22) :
Thanks for that information. There is a small difference between the hemispheres, more noticeable perhaps at aphelion, but the diagrams give a static picture at a point in time. Is there a record of the change over time? Am I correct in assuming that any increase in the energy coming from the suns southern hemisphere plays out between January and June tending to reinforce the influence of the March magnetosphere coupling effect?
Listened to Ken McCracken on the radio tonight saying that the next twenty years will bring cooling that may inhibit the political effort to control greenhouse gas emissions. I believe his temperature projection is based on ice core data. I imagine that the mechanism that relates low amplitude solar cycles to reduced terrestrial temperature remains unexplained. Without an understanding of the mechanism and the way it plays out its going to be very hard to quantify the solar variation and work out what proportion of the past temperature increase may be attributable to other causes.
Leif Svalgaard (02:29:15) :
Consider not two slabs but three and let us assume that the energy radiated downwards from the topmost gets only as far as the second topmost from where it is convected away.
Add another slab, and another, in fact add lots of slabs.
Add a slab that is made entirely of greenhouse molecules but at such a density that any intercepted radiation upon re-emission moves freely in the space between the molecules where the downwards radiating portion gets only as far as the next atmospheric molecule from where 50% is radiated away from the Earth and you have something like the stratosphere where strong seasonal heating produces no response whatsoever in the layer immediately below. How many downwards transfers does it take for the energy to become insignificant?
Mathematics is no substitute for common sense. A lousy model is just a lousy model no matter how it is dressed up.
Gary Gulrud (06:01:52) :
Beer’s Law in use: not a modern treatment
Nothing wrong with Beer’s Law:
http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/Beer's_Law
But study carefully this modern treatment:
http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/0802/0802.4324v1.pdf
especially section IV.
and one that fails in any way to account for evaporation, convection and condensation on a water planet.
None of which has anything to do with the greenhouse effect, although, of course, with climate in general [which is why it is such a good straw man to put up].
John-X (06:28:48) :
How common is it for early-cycle spots to die after about 1/4 rotation?
The lifetime does not vary with early/late in the cycle per se, the size of the group is an important factor: the larger the group the longer it lives. A typical lifetime for a group of the size of 1005 is less than a week, so nothing unusual there.
a better link to Beer’s Law: here
I wish there was a preview [Anthony?]. Too much of a struggle against the blog software.
REPLY: I wish there were too. But WordPress.com free hosting doesn’t offer one. – Anthony
see what I mean. Maybe this works http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/Beer%27s_Law
Erl Happ (07:50:36) :
There is a small difference between the hemispheres, more noticeable perhaps at aphelion, but the diagrams give a static picture at a point in time. Is there a record of the change over time?
Once the train has derailed, putting it back on track again seems to be very difficult.
Am I correct in assuming that any increase in the energy coming from the suns southern hemisphere plays out between January and June tending to reinforce the influence of the March magnetosphere coupling effect?
First, there is no generally accepted difference and persistent increase from either hemisphere. There are no shortages of wild claims, of course, here is one of the worst http://spaceweb.oulu.fi/~kalevi/publications/Mursula_ASR_2007.pdf [even using my IMF polarity data]. I’m sure you’ll find in it ample material to further your speculations.
Second, the [small, perhaps 15%] part of the magnetospheric coupling that maximizes in March for one polarity of the IMF will minimize in March for the other polarity [reversed in September]. Since the poles change polarity at cycle max, the result is a [weak] 22-year cycle of geomagnetic activity. This is explained in [too?] great detail in the papers referred to, e.g. http://www.leif.org/research/suipr699.pdf
Ken McCracken on the radio tonight saying that the next twenty years will bring cooling […] I believe his temperature projection is based on ice core data. I imagine that the mechanism that relates low amplitude solar cycles to reduced terrestrial temperature remains unexplained.
Not only that, but also un-demonstrated, so no wonder is it not explained.
Erl Happ (08:23:49) :
the stratosphere where strong seasonal heating produces no response whatsoever in the layer immediately below.
It seems that you have seen the light, good, finally.
The two-slab model is a teaching tool to make you grasp the physics at work [it apparently failed to do so]. A more realistic atmosphere has more than one absorbing layer, which will just further decrease outgoing thermal radiation and increase surface temperatures. You see, the main point is that the downward directed radiation heats the surface, not the atmosphere, but since the atmosphere is heated from below, a higher surface temperature leads to a higher atmospheric temperature the usual way.
Mathematics is no substitute for common sense.
First, common sense is not so common [to wit …]. Second, Mathematics is the most powerful tool we have to understand how the universe works. It is a bit unreasonable [ http://nedwww.ipac.caltech.edu/level5/March02/Wigner/Wigner.html ] that it should be so, but without Mathematics, you cannot really understand [and apply that understanding] the physical world. You can still be awed by its beauty and violence.
“Sunspot 1005 fades as new Cycle 24 Sunspot appears”
10/16/2008 by Kevin VE3EN at 20:45 [UTC]
“Sunspot 1005 has decayed into a plage region.
” Meanwhile a new sunspot formed overnight in the southern hemisphere and also belongs to Cycle 24. For a short period early today, both sunspots were visible at the same time.
“This is the first time two Cycle 24 sunspots were visible at the same time.”
http://www.solarcycle24.com/
I just checked the latest magnetogram at solarcycle.com. Is it just me or is there a cycle 23 area nearer the equator in the southern hemisphere?
Pamela Gray (17:41:14) :
Is it just me or is there a cycle 23 area nearer the equator in the southern hemisphere?
indeed, SC23 strikes again 🙂
Yesterday I saw a sunspot right on that cycle 23 area, which led me to view the magnetogram. They must not be counting tiny tims anymore. It looks like it faded today.
dave bruenner (11:33:59) :
I have heard quite a twitter about a mysterious term 10xcsn
I have no idea…
dave bruenner (11:33:59) :
“I have heard quite a twitter about a mysterious term 10xcsn being batted about in the looney bin chat rooms. It supposably refers to some kind of solar mishap or flare. Does this have ANYTHING to do with the suns variation of magnetic field.”
Could be “clear solar noon”, which appears to be what it sounds like, a clear noon day.
“This model is referred to as the Clear Solar Noon Model”
http://www.osti.gov/energycitations/product.biblio.jsp?osti_id=5901573
“Nontemperature-related errors in the pre-1976 global horizontal data used in the SOLMET/ERSATZ data base were corrected using a technique known as the SYI/CSN procedure. Data for clear solar noons (CSN) were compared with standard year irradiance (SYI) values obtained…”
http://rredc.nrel.gov/solar/pubs/NSRDB/history.html
For Friday October 17, 2008 Mt. Wilson is not reporting any Sunspots. Today’s weather report for Mt. Wilson CA was that the skies were clear. Meanwhile a sunspot number 24 is being reported for today with two sunspot groups. Any idea why there is a discrepancy?
Leif, my remark regarding the “sigificant 24 slar cycle sun pots apearing” was only made to underline “the observation”. I enjoy every part of the discussion and really love the commitment of all particiapants.
I am still stuck with my question about the Landscheidt papers.
He not only made the prediction for a Maunder Minimum in 2030 (still to be proven), he also made predictions for El Ninjo events and big droughts (which were proven).
In order to make such predictions he must have had a profound understanding of the way our sun behaves and interacts with our atmosphere and oceans.
I just would like to have your opinion how to weigh Landscheidt’s work and conclusions in regard to the current discussions.
One of the aspects I remember is an explanation how solar winds bring energy into the statosphere thus influencing air pressure and weather patterns.
The Sun has appeared to hit the snooze button.
Leif:
http://www.lavoisier.com.au/articles/greenhouse-science/solar-cycles/IanwilsonForum2008.pdf
Any comments?
From the SIDC ‘Weekly Bulletin’
“…two small active regions (NOAA11005 & 11006) were seen on the disc from Oct. 13 to 18, as well as several small plages without sunspots.
” Most of those features belonged to the new solar cycle, thus heralding the onset of the rising phase of cycle 24.
“Only AR11006 produced minor A subflares on Oct. 17 and 18. A semi-halo CME was also seen in LASCO images on Oct.17, but it was a backside event directed away from the Earth.
” It may indicate the presence of an active source that could
rotate onto the Earth-facing hemisphere over the coming week. ”
http://www.sidc.be/products/bul/
Leif Svalgaard (12:20:00) :
dave bruenner (11:33:59) :
‘ I have heard quite a twitter about a mysterious term 10xcsn’
” I have no idea…”
One of those “web bot” things – they crawl the web for supposedly significant words & phrases which are then supposed to be important for predicting future trends & world events & such. (For example, in 2001, an increase in online references to Sept 11th as that date approached).
This 10xcsn is now on various conspiracy sites, but few even purport to know its meaning, other than to say its from the ‘new world order,’ secret societies or ufos.
I’m going to make up a weird, Kurt-Vonnegut-style name, and associate it with a secret-project-type title and throw it out on the web, then see how long it takes for web bots to pick it up as a sign of end times, something related to a Nostradamus prediction, or part of an international multi-generational conspiracy.
Any decent web bot will surely scan WUWT, so here goes:
Lucifex Trasmastodedes appointed Dirigent for Operation Empoissoner. Take all normal measures to conceal this information. – Mendacitas de Aleppo
ufo new world order bilderberg assassination cia illuminati mafia da vinci code paris hilton
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