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Then about 12 hours later: “And SWPC has withdrawn the number.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
Leif,
Regarding your “background” signal, I’ve been reading that the sun’s UV impact on earth climate has increased steadily over the past several centuries, specifically its gone up over 3% since the Maunder Minimum.
http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=3546394
Given UV generates ozone and is blocked by it, it stands to reason that your “background” signal is clearly a combination of the long term buildup of ozone since the Maunder era vs recovery of UV radiance also since that era. one is a negative forcing, the other is a positive forcing. They likely have not had an equal amount of forcing.
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.
Edward Morgan (18:40:00) :
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.
I’ve got to say: Thanks for the links. I’d read a couple of these before, but not all of them. Still working my way through it.
At the same time, I have to say: Leif has been spot on in everything he has pointed me to as well.
So this leaves me with cognitive dissonance… Landscheidt clearly has it exactly right in his predictions. A very strong case. Yet the theory and known science from Leif shows nothing to support it. Clearly there is a giant gap to fill… Vukcevik has some interesting ideas and some good correlations as well (and I’m still working through his papers / links).
So I’m left with a quest and a curiosity… Why? Not so bad, I guess.
Though while I’m questing, I’m going to be betting on Landscheidt continuing to have valid predictions even if we can’t show why.
(Why? Don’t ask why, down that path lies insanity and ruin… E.M.Smith)
Exploring why:
So we have tidal, spin-orbit coupling, angular momentum (maybe the same as spin coupling), random cyclical oscillation, magnetic, and ??? as proposed mechanisms. Any others? And I suppose these come in two flavors: causal and modulating of known solar processes.
Sidebar: I’m able to accept planetary influences since they are physical, though the ‘astrology’ connection sets off my BSometer. And I can accept that there may be real things that depend on magnetics, even though “it’s all done by magnets” is one of my BSometer triggers… but I really really really have a very hard time accepting that it could be caused by both astrology and magnets. Parts of me start to shake, my blood pressure rises and I want to shout something just at the thought of it… 😎 I’m going to have to work very hard to suppress that response in order to give the thesis a fair examination.
TWC reporting lots of cold and snow… “Temperatures dropping like a rock at Jackson Hole” but also a heat wave in Australia. My thesis is that we get a ‘battle ground’ at inflection points. We have residual excess ocean heat as the excess cold shows up atmospherically in some locations resulting in a big heat engine shoving air and water around until the temperatures are better equilibrated. I’d expect extreme weather events for a couple of years as we drop into overall very cold climate in The Al Gore Cold Period.
IFF this is right, we’ll be seeing many more stories about extreme weather and many more AGWers pointing at them and clucking tongues…
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 uploaded eight (8) pre 2004 Hathaway Sunspot predictions as an animated GIF file. The dates covered are from August 2000 to December 2003. There were no significant changes in predictions during this interval.
The documentation is here:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:SSN_Predict_NASA_Pre2004.gif
The animated image is here:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/64/SSN_Predict_NASA_Pre2004.gif
This set of images is not as interesting as the latter set but it establishes a useful baseline. The interesting set of predictions can be found here:
The documentation is here:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:SSN_Predict_NASA.gif
The animated image is here:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/af/SSN_Predict_NASA.gif
Mike
“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.
IMHO all this discussion of planetary influences belongs to a metaphysics board.
Do not get me wrong, I am not averse to metaphysics as an “out of the box” thinking tool. It is just that it is futile to try and find a physical connection in our 4D (time and space and general relativity) world with planetary influences ( excepting the tides).
Metaphysics at some point may become physics, in contrast to religious beliefs.
Take black matter, that astrophysicists, or at least some of them, have embraced warmly. Do you think there is none in our solar system because we have not observed it? It might be that all these correlations, if statistically significant, are due to the workings of black matter in our solar system, and thus “prove” its existence. When dark matter is said to be 9/10ths of the total universe it would be foolish to think it is not in our area and affecting the 4D interactions. String theory, the favorite futuristic theory of theoreticians, allows for many forces a la electromagnetism and interactions that are unknown now, for example gravity to electromagnetism directly. Electromagnetism during the Maunder minimum was as magical hocus pocus as what I just stated.
The above is an example of speculation in metaphysics, physics out of the box. We should, though, have a very clear understanding what our current physics and astronomy and etc knowledge is before embarking on such trips.
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.)
For those interesting in Landscheidt’s work I manage a blog that references most his papers http://landscheidt.auditblogs.com/
Landscheidt and others made some important discoveries in the field of Planetary Influence on the Sun. Carl Smith and I have extracted some further information which, on my side, starts to move away from Landscheidt’s prediction of a Grand Minimum in 2030. I think we are there now.
Edward Morgan (12:32:21) :
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.
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.
Leif said,
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.
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.
Edward Morgan (12:52:14) :
“Large Flares release energy equivalent to the explosion of 200 million hydrogen bombs in A FEW MINUTES time sufficient to meet man’s energy demands for 100 million years.” Theodor Landscheidt “Sun-Earth-Man”
A stark contrast here Leif. Like fact from fiction.
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.
E.M.Smith (20:20:58) :
Landscheidt clearly has it exactly right in his predictions. A very strong case.
‘Exactly right’ is perhaps too strong. It doesn’t take much to predict that we are in for some low cycles [As I have mentioned already, my seven-year old grandson made that prediction when he saw http://sidc.oma.be/html/wolfaml.html ]. The PDO also goes in ~60-year ‘cycles’, so we are due for a cooling, again, no particular skill or theory needed.
The Diatribe Guy (21:06:51) :
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.
I have read most of his papers [many are just repetitions of earlier stuff] and have still to see the science and mathematics ‘behind’ the correlations. Perhaps someone could point me to an example [maybe even the best example].
“IMHO all this discussion of planetary influences belongs to a metaphysics board.”
Well, to some extend I would want to agree with that. But there is something to be said for a big ball of gas that spins as an object on its axis and also revolves around a center of mass and what happens when that center of mass moves to a point inside the surface of the spinning object. We don’t understand much about what happens inside the sun. What he seems to have found is a mechanism by which the movement of the solar system center of mass moving inside the mass of the sun itself changes what goes on inside. It seems palusible in a way that I don’t quite understand but a “gut” feeling says that it would cause some sort of twisting of things inside the sun that might make a difference. He doesn’t seem to be talking so much about hokey astrological stuff so much as he seems to have noticed a resonance in the movement of objects that could very well have some impact on how things work inside the sun.
At least that is my take on it. And he is apparently accurate enough to actually be taken seriously. He might be way off in his conclusions as to why, but he seems to have noticed something real.
It looks like there are a few spots on the Sun today.
http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/data/realtime/eit_171/512/latest.jpg
the_Butcher (00:28:04) :
One small spot and two plage regions.
http://www.solarcycle24.com/
crosspatch
“We don’t understand much about what happens inside the sun. What he seems to have found is a mechanism by which the movement of the solar system center of mass moving inside the mass of the sun itself changes what goes on inside.”
No, it does not. The only effect of planets on the sun are the tides, and those are miniscule.
Do you know that the barycenter of the earth-moon system is inside the earth moving around? ( I think something like 1700 km down) If it had the properties you seem to attribute to it, i.e. some gravitational forces centered on it, the mantle would be massaged continuouisly like the dough in a bread maker. Nothing happens. The only gravitational effect, correlated but not caused by the movement of this barycenter are the tides.
It is very tiring that people cannot understand this, and I commiserate with Leif who keeps having to come back on such stuff.
anna v (03:48:28)
The continued confusion is because it is not intuitively obvious. I understand it, but still can’t feel it. How is fall free when the vector is constantly changing? I know, I know. Maybe there is a haiku.
The barycentric sensation
Pulls constantly
And freely.
=================================
What I don’t understand is why that real, but small, ‘tidal effect’ can’t be manifesting itself electromagnetically, in the spots, in the manner of a Van de Graaf generator. It doesn’t take much perturbation to change those effects.
===================================
kim,
A haiku has the form 5-7-5. Five syllables in the first line, seven in the second, five in the third. They don’t have to rhyme. For example:
Smokey (05:03:39)
The excellence of the medium
Redounds
Upon the form.
=====================
Michael Ronayne (21:01:04) Do you have those images, <2004 in a bigger size? The later photos are 768 pixels tall, the early ones are 571tall.
kim (04:23:22) :
What I don’t understand is why that real, but small, ‘tidal effect’ can’t be manifesting itself electromagnetically, in the spots, in the manner of a Van de Graaf generator. It doesn’t take much perturbation to change those effects.
Speculation is free. What is needed is somebody to take the model of the sun up to now and introduce a possible effect of the tides on the magnetic field and show how this can affect the climate on earth. Look at the enormity of the task:
1) learn the current sun model
2) modify it by something plausible to include measurable tidal effects on the plasma
3) show that tides change the magnetic fields of the sun
4) show that magnetic fields affect the weather on earth
5) show that a change in the sun’s magnetic field changes the earth’s magnetic fields enough to change weather and then climate.
Unless 4 and 5 are proved, nobody is going to go through the 1,2,3 tasks, There is trouble enough to show that galactic cosmic rays are changing the weather and then the climate to reach the fine point of planetary motions doing something like that, through many convolutions ( in the mathematical sense).
” The only effect of planets on the sun are the tides”
You’d better think about this some more, dearie. Tsagas(2006) is a start.
gary gulrud (06:24:42) :
” The only effect of planets on the sun are the tides”
You’d better think about this some more, dearie. Tsagas(2006) is a start.
from:
http://www.iop.org/EJ/abstract/0264-9381/23/13/002
“Magnetic tension and gravitational collapse
Christos G Tsagas 2006 Class. Quantum Grav. 23 4323-4331 doi: 10.1088/0264-9381/23/13/002 Help
PDF (115 KB) | References | Articles citing this article
Christos G Tsagas
Section of Astrophysics, Astronomy and Mechanics, Department of Physics Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki 54124, Greece
and
DAMTP, Centre for Mathematical Sciences, University of Cambridge Wilberforce Road, Cambridge CB3 0WA, UK
and
Department of Mathematics and Applied Mathematics, University of Cape Town Rondebosch 7701, South Africa
E-mail: tsagas@Patrick Blasz.auth.gr
Abstract. The gravitational collapse of a magnetized medium is investigated by studying qualitatively the convergence of a timelike family of non-geodesic worldlines in the presence of a magnetic field. Focusing on the field’s tension, we illustrate how the winding of the magnetic forcelines due to the fluid’s rotation assists the collapse, while shear-like distortions in the distribution of the field’s gradients resist contraction. We also show that the relativistic coupling between magnetism and geometry, together with the tension properties of the field, lead to a magneto-curvature stress that opposes the collapse. This tension stress grows stronger with increasing curvature distortion, which means that it could potentially dominate over the gravitational pull of the matter. If this happens, a converging family of non-geodesic worldlines can be prevented from focusing without violating the standard energy conditions.”
So? Is the sun collapsing? Do you know of anybody who is up to using the “relativistic coupling between magnetism and geometry, together with the tension properties of the field, lead to a magneto-curvature stress”? If so you could have the beginning of 2) in my list above.
kim (04:23:22) :
What I don’t understand is why that real, but small, ‘tidal effect’ can’t be manifesting itself electromagnetically, in the spots, in the manner of a Van de Graaf generator. It doesn’t take much perturbation to change those effects.
They can and they do. It is just that these effects are so minuscule as the forces and accelerations are many orders of magnitude smaller than those found all the time in the roiling solar convection zone.
gary gulrud (06:24:42) :
” The only effect of planets on the sun are the tides”
You’d better think about this some more, dearie. Tsagas(2006) is a start.
It would be kind of you to adopt a less patronizing tone. The effects Tsagas speculates on are only important when space-time curvature is very high, conditions not found anywhere in the solar system.
This was my haiku from Freshman English class in high school:
Typewriter Key Stroke
Prints a single letter
Yet leaves its sure mark
Dates me doesn’t it.