So far, SC24 solar magnetic activity has been in a relative funk. See my post on this very issue from last month.
Leif Svalgaard points out this new paper in AGU from Keating, and kindly placed a copy on his own website for us to examine: Link to Keating-Bz.pdf
The crux of the paper is a forecast, which extends significantly into SC24, even though there is just a small number of observed data points:
There seem to be two schools of thought on the activity level of SC24, those who think it will be very low, and those that think it will be higher than normal.
Dr. Svalgaard goes on record here on this blog in saying:
I’ve been predicting that SC24 would be the smallest cycle in a century, so it is no surprise that it starts out weak and anemic.
While I’m certainly no solar expert, based on what I’ve seen thus far, I’m inclined to agree. I think that Keating’s prediction will not be realized.
This graph of Ap magnetic index will be updated in a few days, with the uptick this month in SC24 spots, perhaps we’ll also see a corresponding uptick in the Ap Index.
From the data provided by NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) you can see just how little magnetic field activity there has been. I’ve graphed it below with the latest available data from October 6th, 2008:
click for a larger image
I wanna know about Bill Livingston’s measurement of the magnetism of the recent spots. Are they still within the range for the decline curve to 2015?
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Basil (06:40:22) I don’t suppose I have to tell you that Leif is very precise with his speech. August may have been the minimum. I’ll be more foolish and agree that it was the minimum. A long time ago, Leif said something about the minimum being characterized by a long flat spell of the sun’s output, and we had that all summer. Now that Cycle 24 spots have started to increase, and the flat spell is over, I find it highly(strike that highly) unlikely that the sun will flat line again. Now it is a question of how spotty it’s going to get.
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Basil (06:40:22) :
trend the past few days has been downward.
Trends based on a few days?
robert bruckerr (06:53:37) :
I bet that in the next few weeks the count continues it trend upward and Archibalds world will be good again.
So, if it doesn’t you’ll drop support for his ideas? I bet that neither you nor Archibald won’t.
leebert (06:46:44) :
I’m amazed by the lack of scope in so many studies regarding the sun. What of the spotless days trend that’s edging toward the 2nd SD of the Dalton Minimum?
There were more spotless days back in 1954, yet cycle 19 was one of the biggest ever recorded. Not that I disagree that solar activity is heading down, just that spotless days is a very weak indicator.
When numbers are fudged due to straining at gnats, it puts ideas in heads and unnecessarily clouds thinking.
Like a thirsty wanderer in the desert seeing mirages.
Solar activity remains pathetic at best, a barren wasteland devoid of life at worst.
Despite some recent minor upswings in solar sunspot activity, the solar minimum will continue in my opinion. I agree with the Australians that it will continue until the middle of 2009 before there is any major upswing. In my opinion, the next solar cycle will not be a minor one but comparable to cycles # 21 or # 22 with maximum sunspot number of around 150. The cycle will be relatively short, namely around 10 years and will probably reach a maximum by late 2012. Past solar patterns are not much help in predicting this cycle as the sun has been changing for some time now as Anthony has noted with the decreasing magnetic fields. The sun will shift into a changed mode during this next cyce. NASA also recently noted the declining solar wind. The solar wind pattern will continue to be a key indicator. We are headed for some exciting cosmic events in the next decades. Jupiter may play a new and more significant future role.
Leif Svalgaard (08:12:30) :
Basil (06:40:22) :
trend the past few days has been downward.
Trends based on a few days?
I did an odd (amateurish) longer term trend line chart
http://www.vukcevic.co.uk/SSt.gif
and it supports either view for SC24 max (SC24 hedge fund).
kim (07:57:27) :
I wanna know about Bill Livingston’s measurement of the magnetism of the recent spots.
Bill still has to reduce the raw data [this means get them into presentable form], I’ll hear from him when he has something and shall report here.
kim (08:04:21) :
August may have been the minimum. I’ll be more foolish and agree that it was the minimum.
Making a definite prediction is not foolish. In fact, if it were not definite, it wouldn’t be science.
matt v. (10:18:38) :
The sun will shift into a changed mode during this next cyce. NASA also recently noted the declining solar wind. The solar wind pattern will continue to be a key indicator. We are headed for some exciting cosmic events in the next decades. Jupiter may play a new and more significant future role.
If this doesn’t happen, I’ll look forward to you renouncing here that those ideas have been falsified and that you no longer honestly and with integrity intact can support them.
There is a very readable paper called “The trouble with solar cycle 24” here:
http://planet-veab.elte.hu/psz3/p5.doc
which lists five kinds of forecast methods. It calls the McNish-Lincoln method the Egyptian method — determine the future on the base of averaging the observations collected in the past.
(look for the reference to WUWT in that paper)
Leif, what were the Bz values for the past five minimums?
I don’t think five cycles are enough to get a good estimate of the mean cycle curve or its variance, and fitting the cycle from a couple points at the minimum goes against my intuition.
Leif Svalgaard (08:12:30) :
“Basil (06:40:22) :
trend the past few days has been downward.
Trends based on a few days?”
Leif, I was conceding your point (against DA) — that the trend has been downward (if only for the past few days). If you want to get snarky, you were the one claiming a trend based on just the past “few days” (your “a while” only goes back about a month). To show that I can take the long view, I linked to a plot that goes back a few months. Again
http://cr0.izmiran.rssi.ru/scripts/nm64queryD.dll/mosc?PD=1&title=Moscow&dt=0&base=9600&Res=1_hour&y1=2008&y2=2008&m1=1&m2=11&d1=1&d2=1&h1=0&h2=23&mn1=0&mn2=59
It shows a peak about a month ago, and trending downward since then. I guess I was just sloppy describing this as a “trend” based on the “past few days.” But must we turn every exchange into an adversarial one?
You wrote:
“No, it is falling: http://cosmicrays.oulu.fi/
and at Moscow it has been falling for a while, too:”
What’s “a while?” A month? The data is what it is. The Moscow data shows it peaking about a month ago, and trending downward since then. But it has been this low, and has cycled back up several times in recent months. So my point was that I think it is too soon to be sure, just from the cosmic ray flux, that we’re past the minimum.
Add that, though, to your analysis of SC24 versus SC23 spots in recent weeks, and I agree that it is looking like we might have finally passed the nadir of transition from SC23 to SC24. But I wouldn’t be dogmatic about it, yet. I think we need to see what happens over the next couple of months before we get too sure of ourselves.
Basil (12:08:41) :
It shows a peak about a month ago, and trending downward since then. I guess I was just sloppy describing this as a “trend” based on the “past few days.” But must we turn every exchange into an adversarial one?
Of course not. Just avoid some sloppiness 🙂
So my point was that I think it is too soon to be sure, just from the cosmic ray flux, that we’re past the minimum.
Again, I don’t just use the cosmic ray flux. The flux is just consistent with us being past the minimum.
I wouldn’t be dogmatic about it, yet. I think we need to see what happens over the next couple of months before we get too sure of ourselves.
Nobody is too sure of himself. I used the appropriate ‘weasel word’: “so we may be past minimum. However, as part of my sunspot prediction panel work, I watch this issue very carefully, and there are several lines of evidence that point towards having passed the minimum: ratio new/old spots, flatness of corona as measured by the Rosenberg-Coleman effect, TSI stopped decreasing, F10.7 showing more life, MgII same thing. Many indicators showing the same thing. And all judged by an experienced observer [me!]. No dogma here, just best assessment of the data. I’ll put my money where my mouth is 🙂 how about this: if M months from now it turns out that I was wrong I pay you M*$25 dollars, if I was right, you pay me the same amount? Anybody else want to join that wager? 🙂
Leif,
I’m not actually doubting you, Leif, so I’d be a fool to bet against you. I understand that the weight of the evidence is pointing in the direction you say it is. But we still have to wait a while, to see if we really have finally reached the minimum. As they say, I don’t have a horse in this race, so I have no reason to put any money on it.
Basil
Dr: Leif
Dst -98 nT
http://swdcwww.kugi.kyoto-u.ac.jp/dst_realtime/presentmonth/index.html
Sorry, you’re right.
no significant event.
at this time. Waiting
the number has changed.
and the graphic also
Pet Rock (11:27:13) :
There is a very readable paper called “The trouble with solar cycle 24″ here:
http://planet-veab.elte.hu/psz3/p5.doc
which lists five kinds of forecast methods.
“Astrological” method: based on tidal theory, mainly of Jupiter, noting the approximate equality of the lengths of the SC and Jupiter’s period of revolution. Two main difficulties: tidal forces are proportional with mass and inverse cube of the distance, so Venus can exert larger influence, than Jupiter, and the planets’motionis also regular, which can not be told about the SC.
I guess this confusion is widespread. It’s the Sun’s changing velocities and accelerations around the barycenter that causes a disruption to the solar cycle leading to a lengthy minimum (I hypothesize). Alignments with Jupiter with Uranus/Neptune (and sometimes Saturn) cause the barycenter to move farthest from the Sun. The Sun must change velocity as a result. It has nothing/little to do with tidal forces…
Alphajuno (15:53:13) :
“Astrological” method”
I guess this confusion is widespread. It’s the Sun’s changing velocities and accelerations around the barycenter that causes a disruption to the solar cycle leading to a lengthy minimum (I hypothesize).
The confusion among the barycenter crowd is just as bad. These changes have absolutely no effect as the Sun is in free fall. The Earth is in free fall around the Sun [more correctly barycenter of Earth+Moon] and the Earth changes direction all the time [to move in a curved orbit rather than a ‘straight line’ and even its speed changes [as it is moving faster in January], yet the atmospheric winds and ocean currents [and our sensitive gauges and instruments] do not react to the changes of direction [=acceleration] and speed [also acceleration]. So why should the Sun?
For the entire downward curve of SC23, I can see nothing that says the bottom has been reached and it’s firing back up like a SC should. To the amazement of all, that slope angle down just keeps getting shallower. I keep looking for it to at least bottom at a noisy flatline.
Watching paint dry.
Leif (18:34:57) The Studebakinoxer.
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Somebody asked what Bz at the other minima was. Here are 27-day averages of all |Bz| measured by spacecraft [near Earth]:
http://www.leif.org/research/BzTrend.png
The heavy curve is the boxcar average.
The pink and green curves are linear and quadratic trend lines. None of them statistically significant.
A bit OT sorry: Per AGU itself, I’m interested in the feelings of the readers of this site about whether it’s a good idea (or not) to be a continued member given their current position regarding “Human Impacts on Climate”. I just received my 25 year pin from AGU and have grown frustrated with the org. based on their AGW policy position and based on what appears to be a one-track fixation on AGW in EOS especially. Reading the employment ads in EOS is entertaining, though. It’s amazing how many adverts for different disciplines can work climate change into the scope of work. I know that the pittance I pay to them for annual dues won’t hurt them if I quit, but if any of you think that there’s a reason to hang on, I would be happy to know it.
Robin W (12:52:43) :
Per AGU itself>/i>
I’m a member too, and would hang on. There are more to AGU than just AGW.
“New-cycle sunspot 1007 is growing again and moreover it is developing a mixed-polarity magnetic field that harbors energy for solar flares.”
Does mixed-polarity make it a 24/23? or does it stay a confused 24?
pkatt (13:40:45) :
Does mixed-polarity make it a 24/23? or does it stay a confused 24?
Once SC24, it stays so.
I have a revealing 2 year pasted together graph from Alvestad’s compilations that shed an interesting light on what the Sun has been up to the last 2 years.
I wonder if the moderator would allow it posted?
What all this ado looks like to me:
http://www.robertb.darkhorizons.org/SolarMin.htm
What I normally look at:
http://robertb.darkhorizons.org/n7497b.htm
through my paltry 16″ Newt in a roll-off observatory.