A few days ago I wrote in State of the Sun for year end 2008: all’s quiet on the solar front – too quiet that “No new cycle 24 predictions have been issued by any solar group (that I am aware of ) in the last couple of months.” Coincidentally and shortly after that, NASA’s David Hathaway updated his solar prediction page here. He’s made a significant backtrack over previous predictions, and now for the first time he is claiming cycle 24 will be less than cycle 23, not greater.
Kudos to our WUWT resident solar physicist Leif Svalgaard for his foresight. He has been saying for many months that cycle 24 would be significantly reduced, and not greater than 23.
Here is Hathaway’s most familiar graphic, which has an active sun in the background. Perhaps it is time to update that background to something more reflective of the times…..oh wait, read on.
Click for a larger image
Here in this graphic, from Klimadebat.dk we can see how much has changed since Hathaway’s last prediction update in October 2008:
Click for a larger image
Note that Hathaway did indeed change background graphics from October to January. Its just not quite the smooth and nearly featureless ball we see today.
Courtesy of Mike Smith, here is the March 2006 prediction graphic:
Click for larger image
Hathaway’s predicted Cycle 24 maximun in March 2006: 145
Hathaway’s predicted Cycle 24 maximun in October 2008: 137
Hathaway’s predicted Cycle 24 maximun in January 2009: 104
I’d say that represents a sea change in thinking, but the question now is: How low will he go?
I was looking for a substantial quote from Hathaway in his prediction page, but it appears he is being quite conservative in his language, focusing mostly on methodology, not the prediction itself. I don’t blame him, he’s in a tough spot right now.
Meanwhile we’ve had an entertaining episode with the most recent Cycle 24 transient sunspot/sunspeck that appeared briefly yesterday then disappeared almost as fast as it appeared. See the area on the lower right of the sun:
In response to my query asking if he concurred with my assessment of it being an SC24 speck, (he did) Leif wrote to me: “Seems that it has received even a region number 11010. Somewhat ridiculous.”
Then about 12 hours later: “And SWPC has withdrawn the number. No numbered region after all.”
It will be interesting to see which organization counts this event, or not, in the month end tally. Up until this point, we had 25 consecutive spotless days. Now we have more, or not.
h/t to Frank Lansner for the Klimatdebat.dk graphic link and a bunch of other commenters who made note of the Hathaway page
Astrology was/is not a religion, it’s just a misinterpretation of reality, and ascribing forces that simply don’t exist. The observation of planetary movements is Astronomy, not Astrology. You can’t divorce the woo aspect of Astrology and still have Astrology.
anna v (03:48:28) At first thinking the barycenter in a big ball of gas, the sun, might be different than in a rocky mass like earth. On second take, the so-called ball of gas is probably more dense than the rocky mass due to gravity, regardless of how plastic it appears. Then you mention that the lunar/earth barycenter is some 1700km below the surface of the earth. Is there a difference when that center is in the crust vs. mid-depth in the ocean. If there were a significant effect, I would assume when the barycenter is focused in water it would be observable in tidal outcome, would probably be cyclical, and already measured in tidal observations.
Jeff Alberts (10:58:51) :
Astrology was/is not a religion, it’s just a misinterpretation of reality, and ascribing forces that simply don’t exist.
such as the ‘forces’ arising from free fall around a barycenter.
I agree with Leif that it is not tides. If anything it has to do with angular momentum. But I will stop there because there is very little on this subject except speculation. Leif do you have any links on CME rate and intensity? Please let me know.
Jim Arndt (11:08:33) :
Leif do you have any links on CME rate and intensity?
What ‘intensity’. The ‘intensity’ of what?
Leif said,
“The tides will be the same [already Newton knew why]. But perhaps you don’t really mean the tides. Your statement that “opposite alignments are important because of the opposite nature of poles” is nonsense.”
In principle something that’s changing cannot be the same. I’m being exacting. The only time they would be the same is when the centre of gravity is in the centre of the sun exactly, then the forces on both sides of the sun would be equal creating equal tides of course if the sun was perfectly uniform in its matter. When Jupiter and Saturn are on the other side of the sun in conjunction producing a centre of mass of the solar system not in the centre of the sun then the eddy currents they produce will be LARGELY opposite to where THEY were because the centre of gravity would be largely opposite to where it was. This is what causes the change in polarity. The CURRENTS on the sun would be largely reversed. Reversing currents reverses polarity.
Leif said
“Even the largest [and very rare] flares output only 1/10,000 of what the Sun puts out as TSI during the time of the flare, and large flares only occur less than 1/1000 of the time, so the total flare output is less than 1/10,000,000 of the regular solar output as TSI. Indeed a stark contrast.”
No flares like our current minimum versus large numbers of high amplitude flares, TOTAL Sun output including TSI starkly different.
Leif said,
“If you increase the pressure in a parcel, the material will be lost to the surrounding parcels, of course. Like if you prick a balloon and the Helium in it escapes to the surroundings.”
I half agree with you on this one but for me what moves the sun around stirring things, changing pressures maybe stretching braids, lifting canals, will be the centre of gravity of the solar system hence the planets and like our CHANGING tides the sun will have changing tides too.
Cheers, Ed.
Leif Svalgaard (11:25:26) :
Jim Arndt (11:08:33) :
Leif do you have any links on CME rate and intensity?
What ‘intensity’. The ‘intensity’ of what?
Really doesn’t matter what the ‘intensity’ is. The CME rate is what it is. Take a look here:
http://cdaw.gsfc.nasa.gov/CME_list/
anna v said, (hi anna)
“No, it does not. The only effect of planets on the sun are the tides, and those are miniscule.”
What if this effect is amplified by resonance with canals of liquid in between braids in accordance with George Biddell Airy’s theory of a theoretical canal around the sun through the changing centre of mass of the solar system. The main planets involved here (being the most masseous) are Jupiter and Saturn.
Ed
“It would be kind of you to adopt a less patronizing tone.”
Irony escapes me along with Newtonian physics.
gary gulrud (11:52:24) :
“It would be kind of you to adopt a less patronizing tone.”
Irony escapes me along with Newtonian physics.
No irony. Simply a sincerely meant suggestion, from the heart.
This talk about barycenter reminded me of the work of Dr. Rollin Gillespie,
and this link at Viewzone. I will make no arguments pro or con, just adding
a little to the debate. Has anyone in the scientific community heard of
Dr. Gillespie, or reviwed his work?
http://www.viewzone.com/paper03.html
Nutz. “reviewed”
Edward Morgan (11:33:44) :
In principle something that’s changing cannot be the same. I’m being exacting.
A pair of twins growing up will have the same height although it changes all the time. I have two clocks on my wall, their hands move around and around changing position, but they show the same time, etc.
The only time they would be the same is when the centre of gravity is in the centre of the sun exactly, then the forces on both sides of the sun would be equal creating equal tides of course if the sun was perfectly uniform in its matter.
A planet is attracting the mass of the Sun, not the center of mass of the solar system.
This is what causes the change in polarity.
Not even wrong.
No flares like our current minimum versus large numbers of high amplitude flares, TOTAL Sun output including TSI starkly different.
With no flares the TOTAL is 1357.7 W/m2. Add the biggest flare ever and the TOTAL is an incredible 1357.9 W/m2 for a few minutes:
http://sprg.ssl.berkeley.edu/~hhudson/drafts/wroclaw/hudson.pdf
starkly different? Not.
the sun will have changing tides too.
It has, the tide from Jupiter grows from 0 to 0.48 millimeter, from Saturn to 0.02 millimeter. Your thumb is approximately 25 millimeter wide.
Sunspotter (12:06:37) :
Dr. Gillespie, or reviewed his work?
http://www.viewzone.com/paper03.html
delightful nonsense.
“If so you could have the beginning of 2) in my list above.”
Sorry, your post was not up before my ‘entreaty’. The barycentre is another strawman.
On February 1, 2008 I forecasted a maximum SSN of only 105 to occur in October 2012. BTW check out my websites below:
Lakeland, FL Daily Climatological Weather Data Archive: http://www.kn4lf.com/kn4lf22.htm
Harmful Man Induced Climate Change (Global Warming) Refuted: http://www.kn4lf.com/globalwarminglie.htm
KN4LF Daily Solar Space Weather & Geomagnetic Data Archive: http://www.kn4lf.com/kn4lf5.htm
KN4LF Daily LF/MF/HF/6M Frequency Radiowave Propagation Forecast & Archive: http://www.kn4lf.com/kn4lf6.htm
KN4LF 160 Meter Radio Propagation Theory Notes: http://www.kn4lf.com/kn4lf8.htm
Leif,
I’m sorry to say your not understanding what I am saying. So I give this up. Its pretty hard in this format. But heck we gave it a go.
My photograph of the solar cycles tells me a very different story. Why, I have my suspicions. The similarity between the planets noise (as recorded by radio antennae) and the solar cycle shows that we are talking about waves which rise and fall in both cases. In fact everything and everyone has its highs and lows not continual rises, from blood sugar to weather to empires to fame. I’m part of a system and I can see the similarity. Planets can effect the centre of mass of the solar system but not flows on the sun’s moltenish surface is ridiculous. To think they are not connected would be bizarre. We too formed part of these harmonies separation cannot exist in open systems. Everything is open.
Its a shame that obviously great scientists who are open minded enough to study astrology (the founder of our science of today) and test it are sidelined and ridiculed when they embody scientific endeavour and it would be quite an insult to talk of them in the ways this blog has. Alkindi invented alcohol not for the football but for antiseptic and alkaline for your batteries and then he looked up and lost it completely. Yeah right.
Astrology is a holistic science and only mad or confused people would claim we are unconnected. If you read Landscheidt he is all examples and testing and logic so is Percy Seymour we never got to the bottom of their theories. I do know you could make believe if people don’t know what’s really happening. I’m not one of them. We will cool for at least 20-30 years and its connected to a planetary cycle.
Hasta La Vista, Ed.
Landscheidt and the Barycentre “hypothesis” bring problematic and circular arguments that tend to distract from well formulated theory.If there was to be some coincidental interplay with the solar cycle-planetary motion etc say from Jupiter,it would be from the Jovian magnetosphere-heliosphere interaction.
Now moving on to some more simplistic “open problems ”
1) Solar activity and the “solar constant “is not a constant why?
2) The solar cycle is not just a “toroidal-poloidal “magnetic field interplay, what is it?
During recent cycles, when the sunspot cycle maximizes, solar irradiance maximizes, the solar wind increases and the Aa index increases with the solar wind. On the other hand the galactic cosmic ray flux is at a minimum and production of cosmogenic isotopes is reduced. Delta C-14 variations, in addition to the 11 yr cycle , have other significant periods, for example, the Gleissberg cycle ( 88 yr) and the Suess cycle ( 208 yr).
3) Is it not possible that solar irradiance also maximizes when these other longer cycles maximize, is solar irradiance proportional to solar activity for all of these cycles?
Would it not be surprising and even unnatural if the Sun was a perfectly governed “heat engine” with respect to changes in its radius and consequent conversion of potential energy to more or less irradiant energy ?
4) To what extent is the biospheric response to the solar cycle? We see similarities in the solar cycle and biological signatures. Is this chance or a behavioral response?
5) Is there a climatic response to the solar cycle?
Im in agreement with Alan the Brit, we have become technology dependent. Take away our lights for even a short time and watch the riots begin. We are still afraid of the dark. Each new generation throws away the information from the elder generations because they were inept dont ya know?.. We probably have solar records dating back from the times of the Mayans who could build a beautifully designed calendar but they are considered primative? We have electronics. What could be better than that? …. I wonder what one nice EM pulse would do to this planet. Now thats a thought.
I will believe the sun is finally on the upswing when I start seeing spots on both northern and southern hemispheres… it makes me giggle.. every spot (offically there is now a spot) we get the announcement .. OK here it goes… this time for sure. I personally want it to start up and be as normal as whatever normal is. I want the weather to be as normal as whatever normal is. Im getting tired of world ending events. If one was actually happening at this point how the heck would you even know?
But i still want it to snow 8 inches in Washington DC by the 15th:P heheh.
maksimovich (13:18:58) :
3) Is it not possible that solar irradiance also maximizes when these other longer cycles maximize, is solar irradiance proportional to solar activity for all of these cycles?
Current thinking is that solar irradiance is indeed proportional to solar activity, and that therefore at all minima, TSI is the same. On very long time scales that is clearly not the case and the issue is what the time scale is for these longer term variations to become observable. That we don’t know at present. In the absence of other evidence [and especially of theory] the simplest assumption is that the time scale is long [essentially the evolution of the Sun off the main sequence], otherwise we need a mechanism for the change.
Anna V
I basically agree fully with that.
What was giving me the notion that there might be something plausible to what was written was the notion that in the sun you have conductive material (plasma) in a magnetic field and if movements of material is changed slightly there might be some change in how things interact with that magnetic field which I am assuming is not interacted with by gravity the same as the particles of plasma might be. And since it is also my understanding that solar activity is mainly magnetic anomalies, that it would not surprise me if things behaved differently when the center moves.
But again, I tried to temper that with my skepticism of his explanation. While I don’t completely buy his explanation of why things are happening the way they are, it does seem more plausible that he *has* stumbled onto something that is happening though maybe not for the reasons he proposed.
His skill in the forecasting and backcasting seems to be better than random chance results.
Leif Svalgaard (14:48:08) :
. On very long time scales that is clearly not the case and the issue is what the time scale is for these longer term variations to become observable. That we don’t know at present.
Agreed,and this is of course an interesting problem,insofar as what are “suitable proxies” for reconstruction of
a) Say temperature,
b) Solar variance,
and natural variance.
When we move to time scales of say 10^4 or 5 paradoxes become the norm and nor the exception.
crosspatch (15:10:33) :
magnetic field which I am assuming is not interacted with by gravity the same as the particles of plasma might be.
In a conducting plasma of great extent [such as tides], the magnetic field is ‘frozen’ into the material and moves with it. http://farside.ph.utexas.edu/teaching/plasma/lectures/node63.html#s5.3
crosspatch (15:10:33) :
magnetic field which I am assuming is not interacted with by gravity the same as the particles of plasma might be.
In a conducting plasma of great extent [such as tides], the magnetic field is ‘frozen’ into the material and moves with it. http://farside.ph.utexas.edu/teaching/plasma/lectures/node63.html#s5.3
BTW, the other sections [previous/next] of this link are very good and illuminate many of the questions that have been discussed in this blog.
crosspatch (15:10:33) :
His skill in the forecasting and backcasting seems to be better than random chance results.
A system may exhibit “historical behavior” this is not necessarily recurrent or persistent. Historical behavior does happen for random walks in random environments This is well studied eg Yasha Sinai limit behavior of one-dimenional random walks in random environments 1982 ,David Ruelle Historical behavior in dynamical systems 2001