The new NASA solar goalpost: Cycle 24, maybe not so big

I looked on NOAA’s site and they are still officially counting it as a spot.
Honestly there are at least 3 other areas on the image that could count as a spot if they lower the standards to that level.
http://www.spaceweather.com/images2009/07jan09/jan7sunspot_2.jpg?PHPSESSID=640cbl8muottt2n17h1nu9g6e6

Doesn’t four misses in a row say your science and models may be doggy?

He is not correct in the first place, why would he be right in the last place?

NOAA is currently listing 01/07/09 as a big fat “0” in the SS field. http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/ftpdir/indices/quar_DSD.txt
Also of interest is the flat-line of the 10.7cm radio flux:
69,70,70,69,69,69,69. A line that flat on a cardiac monitor would be a
call for resuscitation. All the “Flares” fields remain zeros, too. Is the
patient sleeping, or comatose?
SIDC Belgium continued the ALL QUIET alert begun on Jan. 02. six days
and counting on that, also.
Question–Does anyone know how long and when the longest ALL QUIET
on record was?
Thnx

I e-mailed spaceweather.com webmaster yesterday. I told them I could not see the sunspot. I also told them they were propogating misleading information and creating animosity among those they serve and who rely on accurate science information.
The significance here is that the more of this kind of misleading data they post then the more difficult and time consuming it will be to correct public policy which is going to be needed to react to the sun’s activity and hence save lives.
The worst scenario arising from thier antics is that advances in genetic bioresearch in crop production will be delayed which could in the end help crop production in changing growing conditions.

TerryBixler,
Sorry, Didn’t mean to step on your toes. You got that one in on me
while I was composing.

The way I read Dr. Hathaway’s forecasts before he seemed to me to be basing his prediction of cycle 24 on solar magnetic properties of cycle 23. The gist of it was something like “historically, when the properties of a cycle have been X, then the strength of the following cycle has been Y”. You will also note that he has also been predicting an extremely weak cycle 25 based on cycle 23 indicators that seem to forecast activity two cycles hence (e.g. the magnetic “conveyor belt”). What has changed is the length of cycle 23. Dr. Hathaway had no way of predicting the length of cycle 23 and so now that the minimum has continued longer than previously predicted, he has a new indicator that apparently takes priority over the other criteria.
I believe from my reading that a cycle after a long cycle is generally weak and a cycle after a short cycle is generally strong. So now that cycle 23 has lasted this long, my guess is that he now has a hard indicator to go with to reliably predict a weaker cycle 24. He couldn’t do that before based on “hunch” or “suspicion” or what he “believed” would happen, he had to wait until he had some solid basis for changing the prediction which he apparently now has. That says two things. First, he doesn’t seem to be playing hunches and is waiting for solid data. Second, he and his colleagues do not appear to have a way of telling what is actually going on (as if anyone does) and must use what amounts to statistical past behavior in order to predict future behavior. Sort of like a technical chart watcher might do with the stock market.
In summary, it appears that his earlier forecasts were based on the information he had at the time. The current forecast is changed due to new information that takes time make itself apparent. It would seem that what has been learned is that cycle length might be an overriding indicator of the magnetic properties he was using previously.
Also note that as far as I know he still hasn’t changed his forecast that cycle 25 will be extremely weak based on certain properties of cycle 23.

The potential July/August minimum is dying on the vine. Meteorologists move over, there’s a new standard in futility for prognostication! Bet you thought this day would never come.
No not the Lions.

I have the greatest confidence in De Jager’s prediction: 2014 @ 65±17 . I saw him explaining his method of prediction during a climate conference last November in Amsterdam.
http://www.cdejager.com/sun-earth-publications/

I saw that recent anemic sunspeck twice. The first time it was so small I suspected it was an SP (stuck pixel); then it disappeared, reappeared briefly before finally disappearing again. Never did see SWPC assign it a number but then I wasn’t watching their site like a hawk.
2009 should be a most interesting time for Dr. Hathaway. If the anemic nature of SC24 persists through the year, I wonder what a revised prediction will then look like.
And then there’s this interesting article from the UK press about the danger to astronauts because of a weakened solar wind which would see greater levels of cosmic rays. Nothing said about possible impacts on the planet itself:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1108983/Astronauts-threatened-cosmic-rays-sun-active.html

TerryBixler (08:39:05) :
” Specs not counted here
http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/ftpdir/indices/DSD.txt ”
Sunspotter (08:45:33) :
” NOAA is currently listing 01/07/09 as a big fat “0″ in the SS field. http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/ftpdir/indices/quar_DSD.txt ”
Shades of the Great Summer Sunspeck Debacle !
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/08/31/sun-has-first-spotless-calendar-month-since-1913/
WAS there a NOAA number or was there NOT ?
Those who get the daily “Ursigram” saw that the “ISN” (International Sunspot Number) was ZERO, yesterday and today.
Will it STILL be zero at the end of the month, AND for the “Definitive” count released by SIDC some months from now ?
Stay tuned to WUWT !

MSM finally reporting on Alaskan cold
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090108/ap_on_re_us/alaska_extreme_cold

With the December number, we are now in the realm of “once in a lifetime” averages for all recent averages up to five year averages. It’s really quite fascinating.
I did a recent post taking a look at how current averages compare to historical and then looked at consecutive cycle lenghts to see how we are stacking up historically.
If interested, you can find it here:
http://digitaldiatribes.wordpress.com/2009/01/06/december-2008-update-on-sunspot-stats/

I just read Landscheidt’s paper published in 2003.
http://bourabai.narod.ru/landscheidt/new-e.htm
Very scary. No wonder Putin is using energy (natural gas) as a “weapon.”
Thanks L. Gardy LaRoche (08:28:09) :

Dr. Hathaway will be more respected if he simply says he doesn’t know what the future portends… there’s nothing wrong with admitting that… to throw up numbers and constantly changing his predictions is not science.

“he still hasn’t changed his forecast that cycle 25 will be extremely weak based on certain properties of cycle 23.”
I think Hathaway’s original 24 and 25 predictions were based on different models and 25 was not based on 23, per se, but current values of Dikpati’s conveyor.

Hathaway wouldn’t be in “tough spot” now had he not oversold his predictions and hyped them with GW craps some years ago.
Wounded by his own sword. Serves him well.

tetris (09:20:44) :
” Repeatedly “adjusting” a “forecast” is not forecasting at all as the predictive value is nil. Looked at with a generous eye, the only glimmer of science left is Hathaway somewhat modifying his “hypothesis” in light of recalcitrant data…”
See Jan Janssens’ discussion of the perils of forecasting Solar Maximum using Solar Minimum parameters.
http://users.telenet.be/j.janssens/SCMinpredMax.pdf
(“Though these relationships seem to exist, the uncertainty in them is very high, making the uncertainty in the predicted amplitude really big and hardly of any practical use.”)
Hathaway’s original forecast was based on the idea that, “According to theory and observation, the speed of the [Sun’s Great Conveyor] belt foretells the intensity of sunspot activity ~20 years in the future…”
http://users.telenet.be/j.janssens/SC24.html
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2006/10may_longrange.htm
Has he now abandoned this idea ? We don’t know.
However, if he is, as tetris suggests, merely adjusting his forecast to better match uncooperative data, then he is in effect simply pulling in Solar Minimum data to predict Solar Maximum, and introducing the errors and uncertainties Janssens identifies (though at this late date, it may seem as though Hathaway has little left to lose either way).
I for one would like to know what the now re-re-re-revised numbers are based on.
I would also like to hear from Dikpati, de Toma and Gilman, whose new model…
“Breakthrough Research to Improve Forecasts of Sunspot Cycle”
http://www.ucar.edu/news/releases/2004/sunspot.shtml
“Scientists Issue Unprecedented Forecast of Next Sunspot Cycle”
http://www.ucar.edu/news/releases/2006/sunspot.shtml
…was going to banish uncertainty forever from the prediction of solar cycles.
Press releases and hype, confident predictions, fun and excitement…
until the real data comes in.
How about a Press Release now, Ms. Dikpati ?

Are these predictions anything more than guessing by someone with a big job title and a big diploma? Is there an objective way to know when the curve is going to start a new uptrend, and at what rate?

Leif Svalgaard (09:58:44) :
“…David [Hathaway]’s method is simple: it has been noted that geomagnetic activity often has a peak some years before solar minimum and the assumption [it is just that, as there is no physical basis for it] is that the size of that peak is related to the next cycle [the ‘evidence’ for this is that it seemed so in the past…”
Here’s that paper:
http://users.telenet.be/j.janssens/HathawayWilson2006.pdf
“Geomagnetic activity near the time of sunspot cycle minimum has been shown to be a good indicator for the level of maximum activity during the following cycle.”
Jan Janssens was able to quickly show that even if that method were correct, Hathaway’s prediction was too high by 7%.
http://users.telenet.be/j.janssens/CommentsHathawayaa.pdf
“More importantly, it is shown that the applied smoothing leaves out
valuable information in the aa-i data, and contributes to an excessive amplitude prediction for SC24.”

Hathaway has been willing to scale back his forecasts, unlike some climate people who simply shift the past data upwards to match their earlier predictions.

ak (10:02:04) :
i don’t believe he’s adjusting a forecast – rather making a new one. might be a nitpicky distinction, but Hathaway doesn’t appear to be saying that his oct 2008 forecast was for 104, rather his jan 2009 forecast is for 137.
Of the “forecasts” are for SC 24 then yes he is adjusting his forecast. If he’s making predictions for specific months then these are each separate forecasts. But it sounds like the former, not the latter.

These guys are ignoring it.
http://www.solen.info/solar/

Hathaway gave a presentation at Napa 2008 on predicting Cycle 24; http://sprg.ssl.berkeley.edu/RHESSI/napa2008/talks/MonI_Hathaway.pdf. The main prediction methods he relied on were; 1) geomagnetic precursors, which indicate an amplitude of 135 +/- 30, 2) polar field strength which indicates an amplitude of 75 +/- 30, 3) Flux Transport Dynamo models dominated by the meridional flow which indicate an amplitude of 165 +/- 15, and 4) Flux Transport Dynamo models dominated by diffusion which indicate an amplitude of 75 +/- 30.

Leif Svalgaard (09:19:30) :
Sunspotter (08:45:33) :
Question–Does anyone know how long and when the longest ALL QUIET on record was?
Some 400 days back in ~1810
and possibly years in the 1650-1700s
But I guess these numbers are based on more primative tech compared to today… On that basis, can we really claim these records are comparable to today? IMHO, I doubt it.

Question:
Now that 2008 is over and done with we have all the temperature data. Was Tamino right? Was 2008 one of the hottest 10 years of the last decade?

ak
I used to be involved in forecasting professionally. Since this was in unforgiving wold of business, the correctness of our forecasts [or lack thereof] had far reaching financial and socio-economic consequences and we were under very considerable pressure to get it right.
The very fact that Hathaway has the need for a “new” or “adjusted” forecast on a regular basis tells us that something in the underlying premises / working hypotheses / theories / model is fatally flawed.

Sorry, the Hadley graph is here-it is in Excel so the data can be obtained by hovering the mouse over any data point
http://cadenzapress.co.uk/download/sunspots_mencken.xls
TonyB

It’s hard to tell from just the graphic, but it looks to me like the peak has been delayed by about 6 months in the new prediction.

See linked article where Hathaway is quoted as follows:
David Hathaway of NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, says the evidence for past lulls is strong, but he is sceptical about the team’s attempt to predict the arrival of the next one. “This is a little like trying to predict when someone’s winning streak will end,” he says. “We know that it will happen, but reliable predictions are virtually impossible.”
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20126903.700-danger-ahead-as-the-sun-goes-quiet.html
????

James Hastings-Trew (11:19:08) : Was 2008 one of the hottest 10 years of the last decade?

LOL!
Good one!
Did Tamino really state that?

Dr. Svalgaard…
The value of Rmax=75 would appear to agree with two of the four choices in Hathaway’s recent presentation (“Solar Activity Cycles Past and Future”). Are you optimistic that Cycle 24 data will confirm any one of those four?
That was a very informative post on TSI and solar activity. If sunspots were over counted for 3-4 recent cycles, would you also apply that to the recent minimum? I wonder if the December sunspot would have been observable, for example, during the Maunder minimum (I bet the Jan 6 “spot” would not have). In other words, our current minimum would have even less spots.
It appears that radio flux can vary by a factor of 3 from solar min to max. I don’t think that wavelength is included in TSI. Are there other forms of radiation that do vary that can contribute to heating (or cooling)? Your post seems to have covered most possibilities. What do you think of Dr. de Jager’s 2006 paper that discusses a 100-fold variation in amplitude in the UV spectrum? I assume that the visible output varies very little – plants are green for good reason.
Regards,
Bob

I guess that’s me banned LOL
DaveE

A complete animated archive of all recovered Hathaway predictions in the current form factor are available here:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:SSN_Predict_NASA.gif
Individual monthly GIF files can be extracted from the animated GIF. Click on the first graphic to expand the animation to full page size.
Mike

Alex, the problem is that making a prediction is a claim of expertise. If Hathaway said “I just don’t know” then I, for one, would not blame him. But putting out predictions that are constantly changing and usually wrong is worse than having no prediction at all.
This should be a salutary lessson to those who have high confidence in global climate prediction for 50-100 years hence, enough confidence to enact trillions of dollars in economic penalties on people right now.

Leif, could you tell me where this is wrong? I know you think Landscheidt is off on one. Its from Percy Seymour an astronomer in Britain. He has a theory of how planets alter the sun here http://www.tmgnow.com/repository/solar/percyseymour1.html see from fig 4 to fig 7 you don’t need to read the whole thing. Please stick to the explanation given and not veer from the point as you usually do its real short.
Anyone else interested in this aspect this is a clear piece. Ed.

Retired Engineer,
Apparently Aliens are subject to the dangers of ‘buzz’ driving.

I use two formulas devised to track periodicity and the amplitude envelope for the sunspot cycles:
http://www.vukcevic.co.uk/combined.gif
they suggest range 79-85 for late 2013. As an overall amplitude assessment, the periodicity graph (blue line) gives a reasonable approximation since 1920
and the amplitude envelope (red line) from 1890 (except for SC 20 in both cases).
See also:
http://www.vukcevic.co.uk/combined1650.gif
http://www.vukcevic.co.uk/GrandMinima.gif
more details:
http://www.vukcevic.co.uk/ links for solar current and subcycle

Edward Morgan (13:18:44) :
http://www.tmgnow.com/repository/solar/percyseymour1.html
Very interesting hypothesis, however, I think that the solar activity most likely would be a continuous process of random or uniform polarisation if it was not for the external factors. Gravitation forces alone could not regulate the Hale’s polarisation cycle. Thus, another factor (with a magnetic polarity property) must be in the play, which has to be related to the planetary orbital periods. That could only be the existence of the planetary magnetospheres, which not only control (or override) solar polarity but trough negative feedback suppress the solar activity, result: solar minima during period of the strongest feedback. The crucial question is how is this feedback achieved; I believe it could be through the heliospheric current’s negative feedback due to disturbances (or interactions) within asymmetric central plane of the helioshheric current sheet, by the magnetospheres orbital paths.
For more see: http://www.vukcevic.co.uk solar current link

Leif Svalgaard (10:15:42) :
But the ‘above graph’ is an obsolete reconstruction of solar irradiance that is not consider valid today. For a more probable reconstruction that reflects what we have learned the past decade see the red curve on: http://www.leif.org/research/TSI-LEIF.png
In your graph it shows that the TSI seems to have a lower level that it can drop to, 1365,6w/m2, and change very little if we have had a grand minimum or a strong cycle.
If you look on the graph in a PDF that Hathaway has made, see page 5/47 in link below, he shows that TSI has droped to a record low of 1365.1W/m2 and it looks like it is still dropping.
Also, we are not in a grand minimum as far as we know now but if the sun would stay all quiet for decades, it looks to me that sun certainly can drop a bit lower than 1365W/m2 in the light of the last years TSI meassurments during a long minimum.
How does this new data fit into your reconstruction? Are you showing the same thing but with different smoothing or is your graph out of date?
Are you using different datasets for TSI so that is what causing the difference?
When was your TSI reconstruction made?
Link to Hathaway PDF( large ~11Mb)
http://sprg.ssl.berkeley.edu/RHESSI/napa2008/talks/MonI_Hathaway.pdf

Leif, How does the parcel become less under pressure? Wouldn’t other material be added to it under pressure and compacted where is the escape route for this material?
If I crushed an egg in a container with increased air pressure the only time the egg or anything else would escape (with a good seal) is when I released the pressure. So there is a need for another lifting force. The planets.
Ed

I expect the next announcement from NASA to say that SC24 has been canceled and we will be moving directly to SC25.

Leif Svalgaard (15:11:59) :
The ‘T’ is TSI means the Total irradiance [i.e. ALL wavelengths].
From http://science.jrank.org/pages/6875/Total-Solar-Irradiance.html
Total solar irradiance is defined as the amount of radiant energy emitted by the Sun over all wavelengths that fall each second on 11 sq ft (1 sq m) outside the earth’s atmosphere.
By way of further definition, irradiance is defined as the amount of electromagnetic energy incident on a surface per unit time per unit area. Solar refers to electromagnetic radiation in the spectral range of approximately 1-9 ft (0.30-3 m), where the shortest wavelengths are in the ultraviolet region of the spectrum, the intermediate wavelengths in the visible region, and the longer wavelengths are in the near infrared. Total means that the solar flux has been integrated over all wavelengths to include the contributions from ultraviolet, visible, and infrared radiation.
OK, the further definition contradicts the initial paragraph. The second paragraph includes “light” but not other electromagnetic energy (ex. radio).
If irradiance implied “light”, the second definition fits TSI. But if TSI means the Total irradiance [i.e. ALL wavelengths], shouldn’t their page be fixed?
Regards,
Bob

I wanted to see a blink comparison and made one of the above three images:
http://i42.tinypic.com/mueet2.jpg
The one Michael Ronayne (12:59:57) links to is too slow, the axes don’t match, etc. I inserted 50% transparencies into mine so they fade into one another, and matched the axes. I will download the complete set of images and make one with all, probably by late tonight (1/8) or early am.

E.M.Smith (13:57:44) :
Um, I think it is science. Make a hypothesis, test it, find it wrong, make a new hypothesis. That his prediction did not work is as valuable to a real scientist as when it does work…
Put me in the group that lauds him for putting it out there for folks to see and for being willing to change his mind when the data change. Very refreshing compared to the “cooling is the new warming” behaviour of others…
As someone who makes a living making forecasts from noisy, underconstrained, non-unique datasets (geology & geophysics , looking for new oil & gas deposits), I second E.M.Smith ! Until you have tried it, do not underestimate how humbling it can be. You can think you the best hypothesis with a lock tite model to explain the observed data to date & mother nature will come along & completely kick your a** !! I respect anyone who is willing to put it out there & adjust as needed. I have no respect for those who will not adjust their ideas as new data comes in,but stick to their hypothesis & ignore the data …. I think we all know the types I am refereing to.

Nature, Not Human Activity, Rules the Climate
http://www.sepp.org/publications/NIPCC_final.pdf
Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC)
When new errors and outright falsehoods were observed in the initial drafts of AR4, SEPP set up a ‘Team B’ to produce an independent evaluation of the available scientific evidence.
We donated our time and best efforts to produce this report out of concern that the IPCC was provoking an irrational fear of anthropogenic global warming based on incomplete and faulty science.
Global warming hype has led to demands for unrealistic efficiency standards for cars, the construction of uneconomic wind and solar energy stations, the establishment of large production facilities for uneconomic biofuels such as ethanol from corn, requirements that electric companies purchase expensive power from so-called ‘renewable’energy sources, and plans to sequester,
at considerable expense, carbon dioxide emitted from power plants. While there is absolutely nothing wrong with initiatives to increase energy efficiency or diversify energy sources, they cannot be justified as a realistic means to control climate. In addition, policies have been developed that try to hide the huge cost of greenhouse gas controls, such as cap and trade, a Clean Development Mechanism, carbon offsets, and similar schemes that enrich a few at the expense of the rest of us.
Seeing science clearly misused to shape public policies that have the potential to inflict severe economic harm, particularly on low-income groups, we choose to speak up for science at a time when too few people outside the scientific community know what is happening, and too few scientists who know the truth have the will or the platforms to speak out against the IPCC.
The correlation between temperature and carbon dioxide levels is weak and inconclusive.
Computer models don’t provide evidence of anthropogenic global warming.
This mismatch of observed and calculated fingerprints clearly falsifies the hypothesis of anthropogenic global warming (AGW). We must conclude therefore that anthropogenic GH gases can contribute only in a minor way to the current warming, which is mainly of natural origin. The IPCC seems to be aware of this contrary evidence but has tried to ignore it or wish it away.
To sum up: This NIPCC report falsifies the principal IPCC conclusion that the reported warming (since 1979) is very likely caused by the human emission of greenhouse gases. In other words, increasing carbon dioxide is not responsible for current warming. Policies adopted and called for in the name of ‘fighting global warming’ are unnecessary.

If we plot Angular Momentum created by the solar system above the sunspot cycles it clearly shows a correlation in solar cycle modulation strength as well as timing of grand minima….we are approaching “phase catastrophe” mode.
http://landscheidt.auditblogs.com/files/2008/12/ultimate_graph2all.jpg
http://landscheidt.auditblogs.com/archives/58

One of the biggest problems today is identifying which data sources can be trusted. That is a very sad comment about today’s scientific research, but that is the environment in which we are forced to live with.
Leif’s data is something that I trust…

“E.M.Smith (13:57:44) :
Richard deSousa (10:07:25) :
Dr. Hathaway will be more respected if he simply says he doesn’t know what the future portends… there’s nothing wrong with admitting that… to throw up numbers and constantly changing his predictions is not science.
Um, I think it is science. Make a hypothesis, test it, find it wrong, make a new hypothesis. That his prediction did not work is as valuable to a real scientist as when it does work…
Put me in the group that lauds him for putting it out there for folks to see and for being willing to change his mind when the data change. Very refreshing compared to the “cooling is the new warming” behaviour of others…”
Fair Go, all he’s doing is guessing, and then guessing again, just like me with Lotto.
If each time he were to provide a clear formula or other objective theoretical construct forecasting the new guess (er prediction), that was then subject to factual testing, then we could say he is doing science. A guess is not an hypothesis.
So far as his refreshing willingness to change his mind when the data changes, unlike the warmaholics, he simply has less freedom of movement than they. When there have been numerous days with no sunspots, and this has been widely observed, he can hardly insist those days were plagued by sunspots.
If he was being honest as a scientist, he would be saying “The theory upon which I had been working is plainly wrong. I have no sensible basis for making forecasts and will cease to do so until there is enough data to allow me to formulate and test another theory.”
Dr Hathaway belongs to an organisation that is rapidly coming to rival the UN for intellectual dishonesty and for destroying real science in favor of politics.

OT, but in terms of the Huffington Post business, I have an e-mail record of my dealings with Arianna Huffington. She knew who I was, and she knew what was in the piece. I had, by that time, sent several other links and articles identifying myself as a lifelong liberal Democrat and a climate skeptic. More than one pitch had skewered Gore. She had already told me she was forwarding my skeptic blog to her Green editor six weeks earlier.
We probably cannot imagine how much flak she received for publishing my article.

Bill Illis (17:02:14) :
To reinforce Leif’s comments (and he is still 10 for 10 on this website), here is TSI from SORCE over the last solar cycle – maybe varying by 0.9 Watts/m2 over the solar cyle (as would be expected with Leif’s theories)
That only shows one quite weak cycle (and shows more than 1 W/m2 movement). How would it look if the reading was taken (if poss) from the top of cycle 19. We will also see in the next couple of years if we can indeed go below the “Svalgaard floor”.

To: Steve Keohane,
Steve,
The purpose of the GIF animations of Dr. Hathaway’s Sunspot predictions was to provide a historical archive of predictions coming out of the NASA astrophysics department for the last several years. As such, I went to great care to not alter the contents in anyway. The images were recovered from several NASA websites, the Wayback Machine and several third party websites, including that of the Cowardly-Blogger-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. The NASA content was uploaded to Wikimedia so that it would be in the public domain and available to people such as yourself with the editing skills to display them to best advantage. I personally like a faster playback speed but every time I post a fast animation I receive complaints that it is too fast.
View my function as that of a computer forensics specialist collecting evidence from the crime scene. Your specialty is putting a face back on the skeleton so that others can appreciate the enormity of what is being done to Science. In the coming years the evidence which is now being collected will be of paramount importance, when it is asked: how did we get to this sorry state?
Given your obvious skills with a graphics editor and animator, you may be interested in the eight recovered images I have from August 2000 to December 2003 which use the same active Sun background image. These images have a form factor of 799×551; the later images have a form factor of 1024×768. If you are interested, I will forward the files to Anthony for relay to you or I could create another upload to Wikimedia if that would be more convenient.
You may be interested in the SWPC Sunspot Prediction animation which are missing the last few months of history. I understand that SWPC will be revising their Sunspot Prediction next month so I need get this file updated ASAP.
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:SSN_Predict_SWPC.gif
Please make sure that backup copies are widely distributed across the Internet and use the recovered content as you see fit. May I inquire as to what software you are using? Your animations are outstanding.
Mike

“crosspatch (09:26:56) :
The ramp up to maximum is generally faster than the tail off to minimum.”
Except for SC5, which is as symmetrical as you will find, and looks like a levee with identical plains on both sides.
If that is the case, expect SC24 to ramp somewhere around March-April 2010.

My prediction is for Hathaway to continue this silly game of goalpost moving, thereby eventually causing great embarassment to NASA. Like they need another black eye.

Harold Ambler (17:58:56) :
OT, but in terms of the Huffington Post business, I have an e-mail record of my dealings with Arianna Huffington. She knew who I was, and she knew what was in the piece. I had, by that time, sent several other links and articles identifying myself as a lifelong liberal Democrat and a climate skeptic. More than one pitch had skewered Gore. She had already told me she was forwarding my skeptic blog to her Green editor six weeks earlier.
—
Thank you for your Courage! Your knowledge. Your effort.

Just a reminder, Leif predicted a low number in 2004!!!!!!
http://www.leif.org/research/Cycle%2024%20Smallest%20100%20years.pdf
Check out the rest of the work on his site:
http://www.leif.org/research/
Reading through this might help with those numerous disagreements. Seeing the research behind his responses can be quite persuasive!!

“Thus, it can be concluded that the observed 15-year trend in radiative imbalance of the tropics is probably a signature of natural rather than
anthropogenic climate variations.” from GISS?

As long was we are on the subject of Dr. Hathaway I wanted to comment on the gaps which appear in the good Doctor’s Sunspot predictions. For period from October 25, 2005 to January 7, 2007 Dr. Hathaway had the following messages on his Sunspot Prediction page:
“Lost our Funding – No more Updates 10/25/05”
“(Lost our funding, no more updates until further notice)”
Starting on January 11, 2007 Dr. Hathaway began making prediction again, apparently without funding, as the following messages would suggest:
“(Updating inspite of our loss of funding! Updated 2007/01/11)”
“(Updating inspite of our loss of funding! Updated 2007/02/06)”
“(Updating inspite of our loss of funding! Updated 2007/03/06)”
Starting about May 3, 2007 Dr. Hathaway resumed normal Sunspot prediction updates without commentary as the following message indicated.
“(Updated 2007/05/03)”
The detailed archived page images can be found at these links in the Wayback Machine.
http://web.archive.org/web/%2a/http%3a//science.nasa.gov/ssl/PAD/SOLAR/sunspots.htm
http://web.archive.org/web/%2a/http%3a//solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/predict.shtml
The current page link is here:
http://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/predict.shtml
The original page link is here, which is no longer functional:
http://science.nasa.gov/ssl/PAD/SOLAR/sunspots.htm
I check news source and found that during the time period when Dr. Hathaway was posting his protest messages and not making Sunspot predictions, there were budget cuts at NASA to fund the manned mission to the moon in 2018.
Scientists, researchers feel pain of NASA budget cuts
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/space/2006-04-03-nasa-budget-programs_x.htm
Mike

The tone Dr. Hathaway’s solar cycle predictions is evolving. Last year, it was a “public service announcement” with the bells/whistles of the arrival of solar cycle 24.
Now, being what it should have been all along, it is only a prediction.
Unfortunately, his model is “fairly reliable once the cycle is well underway (about 3 years after the minimum in sunspot number occurs.)” From that statement, it isn’t much good predicting when it starts.

Does anyone know if the Sun’s ‘Great Conveyor’ has slowed more since this 2006 NASA article? Just curious.
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2006/10may_longrange.htm

Another protospot in latest SOHO Continuum Image 2009/01/09/00:23
this time in the northern hemisphere.
20 miles to the Sunspot by Willy Makeit and Betty Wont.

So, if the cycle has been cancelled, should I expect to pick up the newspaper one day and read about SC24 in the obituaries?
I will hereby submit that the probable cause of termination was drowning.
It sank out of sight in the primordial plasmodic solar ooze.
(Maybe if we get it really ticked off it will jump up and try to bite us, yes?).

Michael Ronayne (19:07:36) Thanks for your positive feedback on my graphic. Here is a 07-2004 to 01-2009 blink comparison from the images on your link. I use Photoshop Elements 2, for pixel work, it was cheap and is simple to use. I started graphics back in ’82, as part of teaching myself programming for data collection so I could display my results. The animation is via MS’s Gif Animator, it’s free. After running a sign shop for eight years, I prefer vector graphics, but had deal with and print a lot of pixel files.
http://i40.tinypic.com/2lj5emh.jpg
Anthony, feel free to pass my email on to Michael, and I can append the earlier dates.

This may be related
Nasa have found to their amazement that the level of the ionosphere has dropped to previously unsuspected levels and that this drop is due to the lack of activity in the sun
http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/outer_atmosphere.html
Solar activity such as magnetic storms heats the ionosphere and this is not happening now
Bet that that isn’t any GCM
Spare some sympathy for Dr Hathaway. He’s only making predictions using models

Late to get to this one folks. Friday morning senior moment!
At the risk of being seen as a little boy allowed to stay up late & listen in to a grown-ups conversation, as I have probably said before, I would love to listen to Lief Svalgaard & David Archibald discussing the current solar situation (crisis/catastrophe/disaster/nothing unusual – delete as appropriate for media release).
As an engineer, I use, & sadly to some extent, rely upon computer technology for my work. However, I used to do stuff by hand using my own skill, knowledge, & judgement, so using a computer I hopefully would know by “feel” if what I got out was right or wrong. However, with Climate & Solar activity, which we have not attempted to study in such detail before 35 years ago, I suspect there were no people expert enough to do such computations by hand. Is it just possible we have reached the limit of our knowledge & technology, & our reliance upon & belief in computers to “predict” events past certain timescales, is slowly coming to light as folly? Perhaps too many Star Trek fans are in the mix! I am well aware that “what the mind of man can conceive, man can achieve”, but we’re not there in that place yet. Surely we must step back & think about what is actually happening, study the past, observe the present, then conclude with modest certainty.
Perhaps we know a lot less than we think we do about our solar system, its Sun, the planets around it, & more importantly, our own planet & how it is affected by the things around it, & certainly how the Sun affects us? I would be interested to see another chart in a years time with perhaps a third or fourth curve predicting a range of timescales for ramping up of Cycle 24, which would suggest that the models can’t cut the mustard, & it becomes a second guessing game. Herschell must be spinning in his grave by now, poor old fella! If keelyside et al’s model were to be put together with Mr Hathaway’s, perhaps Solar Cycle 24’s peak would be around 2015-18 to coincide with the renewed “predicted” Global Warming.
I genuinely have a lot of sympathy for Mr Hathaway, it is very difficult to be brave & come to the fore, make predictions with confidence based upon reasonably sound science about natural events, then see them not happen. One could start to feel rather uncomfortable & lose confidence in one’s own abilities.
PS It’s still cold here!

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,478024,00.html

John M (18:00:37) :
Everyone heed Smokey’s advice!
WUWT and CA together currently add up to 49% of the vote.
Can we get a majority?

I’ve been voting exclusively for CA, since WUWT is getting a lot of support and is several furlongs ahead of the pack.
Reply: This is no time to be complacent, and hubris is always dangerous. Remember that last year thousands of votes were generated at the last minute, forcing a tie. Please continue the daily voting, and we can relax on Tuesday. Thanks. ~ dbstealey, mod.

Greg Smith (23:03:14) :
This may be related
Nasa have found to their amazement that the level of the ionosphere has dropped to previously unsuspected levels and that this drop is due to the lack of activity in the sun
http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/outer_atmosphere.html
Solar activity such as magnetic storms heats the ionosphere and this is not happening now
Would a thinner atmosphere more easily propagate heat?

Edward Morgan
Leif you missed this one,
How does the parcel become less under pressure? Wouldn’t other material be added to it under pressure and compacted where is the escape route for this material?
If I crushed an egg in a container with increased air pressure the only time the egg or anything else would escape (with a good seal) is when I released the pressure. So there is a need for another lifting force (planets) or a slackening of the braids.
By the way I have a picture of the last cycle of solar flares and spots and the difference between minimum and maximum is clear to the eye. Its massive. For these differences to make little or no difference is something you should know better than.
With Jupiter and Saturn their pull in one direction would be the opposite when on the other side of the sun like our tides. The change in flow are opposite/different polarities and many cycles including the German GDP and Lynx catches and the Earth’s magnetic field peak (maximum and minimum) when the centre of mass of the solar system and Jupiter are in line.
Also, interestingly the last phase where the centre of mass of the solar system hovers near the Sun’s surface for an extended period of time significant of a period of instability in solar activity and its terrestrial response began in 2002 just when all the indexes in the science section of this site started to dip. Until then the secular variation of the geomagnetic field was up. These instability periods switch the trend and since then we’ve been down. This is a fact and a correlate. If Leif you disagree people should check this out for themselves because I feel a lot of people are believing you without checking this out properly. Its easy to trust a Dr. people need to think for themselves.
Ed.
Ed

“He has stuck his foot in it”
He has company. One sign of the approaching ‘Dark Age’ is lack of respect ‘science’ garners these days.
The reasons for this are legion, but money grubbing tops the list. When journalists, politicians and scientists are all agreeing and supping together trouble is bound to follow.

Leif Svalgaard (07:20:30) :
vukcevic (00:59:32) :
I think concentrating on the gravity alone is a waste of time. Gravitation forces alone could not regulate the Hale’s polarisation cycle. Thus, another factor (with a magnetic polarity property) must be in the play, which has to be related to the planetary orbital periods.
1) it doesn’t has to be
2) the planets don’t change their magnetic polarities in step with the Sun so magnetic forces are just as ineffective as gravity
3) the solar wind in supersonic and magnetic influences cannot travel upstream. [I think I have pointed that out to you 315 times or so]
1) it doesn’t has to be
Considering the equations and the associated graphs
http://www.vukcevic.co.uk/combined.gif (take a look at the updated version)
http://www.vukcevic.co.uk/GrandMinima.gif
it would be a minor miracle if this is just a coincidence.
2) the planets don’t change their magnetic polarities in step with the Sun so magnetic forces are just as ineffective as gravity.
Correct, but I have not come across a good explanation why Hale cycle for global field should change at max and for the sunspots at min.
One of possible reasons for a flip caused by planets could be: magnetic forces as any other forces should add in a vector type manner. Since J & S move above and below the solar equatorial plane, then their combined fields would at the centre of the solar system have two components (if resolved along solar axes). H component will be always in the solar equatorial plane pointing to the centre with a nearly constant intensity. V component will be aligned with the solar axis of rotation, pointing alternatively either S or N, in the process its intensity falling to zero.
3) the solar wind in supersonic and magnetic influences cannot travel upstream. [I think I have pointed that out to you 315 times or so]
I take your point about solar wind (perhaps sq. root of 324), but there are other possibilities: one follows directly from the above analysis; another lets say a ‘disturbance’ within the asymmetric heliospheric magnetic field, due to the magnetospheres orbital passage.

I have it projected and the secondary very faint spot (leading). A hint of a tertiary more towards the equator. If you aren’t looking right at the spot’s area on projection, you’ll miss it. Took several minutes of sliding paper back & forth to find the area.

JamesG (02:24:03) :
Indeed an extreme oddity in this debate is how climate scientists will continually claim that exceedingly tiny changes in the content of the atmosphere from manmade GHG’s can have huge effects, yet they simultaneously fail to consider the logical counter-argument that therefore tiny changes elsewhere (say Tsi, solar wind, cosmic rays, weakening magnetic fields, Jovian influences, planetary wobbles, etc.) might, by exactly the same argument, also have a disproportionate effect. Leif falls right into this category too. If any tiny change is deemed a priori unimportant then you have to also rule out CO2 as an influence on climate since that is also a tiny change in a trace gas. Conversely if one tiny change is deemed important then we should consider all such tiny changes. Not doing so seems to be more political or dogmatic than scientific. .
I agree that CO2 is tiny, and total solar irradiance, averaged over a year, is also small. BUT the sun radiance has enormous variation within the 24 hours ( from 1200 watts/m**2 at noon where i am ( Greece) to 0 at night. It also changes on average 7 percent between winter and summer, but geographically it also changes for something like 800 to 0 at the poles. So if we go away from the thought process that believes that yearly averages and a black body sphere can describe the mathematics of climate, we get out of the box and can think how these enormous heat inputs and changes hitting the oceans and land and atmosphere at yearly and monthly rhythms surely create all these PDOs and ENSOs and …. what nots that are really what are affecting our climate.

Leif said
“Adding a magnetic field [amplified by braiding] increases the pressure in the parcel. Because pressure is quickly equalized from surrounding parcels, the parcel with the magnetic field loses material, hence becomes lighter, hence rises. More braiding, more rising.”
Where does the parcel lose it to? Surely if it was still under pressure there would need to be a less pressurised area for this sort of shift/escape.
Leif said,
“No, it doesn’t matter which side they are on, the resulting tides would be the same, just like our tides. Our tides at a place, P, go up when the Moon is on the opposite side of the Earth of the place P, because the Moon pulls the Earth away from P.”
The tides wouldn’t be the same because the centre of gravity of the solar system is varying its not a closed system ours vary too due to different alignments (is this really news to you) My point is that the fact that the alignments are opposite is important because of the opposite nature of poles hence the polarity reversal.
Ed.

I think Hathaway is right now about the position of 24’s leading ramp. 23 is months dead and buried. As a couple of others have noted above, the scale of the ramp up is bats.

My apologies for thread-hijacking, but I’ve responded to Pierre Gosselin’s interest in betting over sea level rise in an older thread, here:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/12/28/nasas-twist-on-global-sea-ice-loss/#comments
Again my apologies, just didn’t want the response to be missed in case Pierre’s interested….

Dave L said,
“I just read Landscheidt’s paper published in 2003.
http://bourabai.narod.ru/landscheidt/new-e.htm
Very scary. No wonder Putin is using energy (natural gas) as a “weapon.”
Thanks L. Gardy LaRoche (08:28:09) :”
I’d just like to thank Gardy for those links too. I’ve been having a peruse and I’ve gotta say he’s right about the two minimums coming up one after the other. He’s done his homework and we better get organised. Cheers, Ed.

Here is a n interesting article with um some “surprising” comments from Hathaway.
For how long will the current grand maximum of solar activity persist?
Understanding the Sun’s magnetic activity is important because of its impact on the Earth’s environment. The sunspot record since 1610 shows irregular 11-year cycles of activity; they are modulated on longer timescales and were interrupted by the Maunder minimum in the 17th century. Future behavior cannot easily be predicted – even in the short-term. Recent activity has been abnormally high for at least 8 cycles: is this grand maximum likely to terminate soon or even to be followed by another (Maunder-like) grand minimum? To answer these questions we use, as a measure of the Sun’s open magnetic field, a composite record of the solar modulation function Φ, reconstructed principally from the proxy record of cosmogenic 10Be abundances in the GRIP icecore from Greenland. This Φ record extends back for almost 10,000 years, showing many grand maxima and grand minima (defined as intervals when Φ is within the top or bottom 20% of a Gaussian distribution). We carry out a statistical analysis of this record and calculate the life expectancy of the current grand maximum. We find that it is only expected to last for a further 15–36 years, with the more reliable methods yielding shorter expectancies, and we therefore predict a decline in solar activity within the next two or three cycles. We are not able, however, to predict the level of the ensuing minimum.
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2008/2008GL035442.shtml
David Hathaway of NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, says the evidence for past lulls is strong, but he is sceptical about the team’s attempt to predict the arrival of the next one. “This is a little like trying to predict when someone’s winning streak will end,” he says. “We know that it will happen, but reliable predictions are virtually impossible.”
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20126903.700-danger-ahead-as-the-sun-goes-quiet.html

“I’m able to accept planetary influences since they are physical, though the ‘astrology’ connection sets off my BSometer. ”
The issue I see with the astrological component is the spiritual aspect of it. Astrology means two different things. One is actual science and one is religion. People often hear the word and go bonkers because they only associate it with religion. The astrologers of old were actually the leading scientists of their day. To the extent that they felt signs in the sky portended certain things, they were often drawing correlations to things that had an underlying scientific explanation even if they didn’t understand the science. Astrology evolved as a religion when these ancient observers deviated from correlation of events to a belief that planetary alignments and stars and birthdates and so on all controlled our personal lives. I have no idea if Landscheidt believed that, and if he did I don’t agree with it.
But Astrology, in its initial form, is actually an observation of planetary cycles and positions and correlations of events and so on. Landscheidt relies heavily on this traditional astrological angle, but as any reader of his papers can see, he puts science and mathematics behind the correlations. One does not read his papers and get the feeling that his approach is borne purely out of religiosity. I suggest that people read his papers on their merits.
I’m not here to defend astrology as a religion (I am a Christian), and I can accept that others dispute his premise on the merits. But let’s face it… reading his stuff leaves you with the feeling that he’s on to something.

So according to Landscheidt, 2025 to 2030 should be extremely dry and extremely cold. Both extreme North American drought and extreme cold along the lines of the Little Ice Age.
If so, we are talking major global food shortages within 20 years time. His predictions seem uncanny but there is still that scent of crackpot that lingers in a subtle way in the background. I am, however, loathe to dismiss it because many amazing discoveries have come from people who seemed quite odd. I suppose there is a fine line sometimes between genius and eccentricity. (There’s a pun to be found in there somewhere, I am sure of it.)