I had written back in July 2008 about the 10.7cm solar radio flux hitting a new record low value. Part of that has to do with the inverse square law and the distance of the earth to the sun, which is at a maximum at the summer solstice. As you can see below there has been a very gradual rise since then as we approached the winter solstice. David Archibald provides an update below and compares our current period to other solar cycles. – Anthony
UPDATE: In comments, Leif Svalgaard offers his graph, and also speaks of the flatlining. See below the “read more” – Anthony
The graph above is of two year windows of the F 10.7 radio flux centered on the last five solar minima. They are stacked up so that they are 20 solar flux units apart on the same vertical scale. The original data is from: http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/stp/SOLAR/ftpsolarradio.html#qbsa
That site notes:
“The quiet sun level is the flux density which would be observed in the absence of activity. Extrapolation to zero of plots of the 10.7cm flux against other activity indices such as plage area or total photospheric magnetic flux in active regions suggest a quiet sun flux density of about 64 s.f.u. This is rarely attained.” The lowest daily value in this minimum to date was 64.5 in June 2008.
What is evident is that this minimum is quite different from the previous four in that the intra-monthly amplitude has died from June 2008. The monthly average low was July 2008 and the series has been in uptrend at 0.7 units/month thereafter. This is a very weak but very consistent uptrend, perhaps the first sign of a rising Solar Cycle 24. There is very little noise in this signal, suggesting a very weak Solar Cycle 24.
– David Archibald
UPDATE: Leif Svalgaard writes in comments:
As part of my ‘homework’ for the Sunspot Panel [2 years ago] I produced a short document
http://www.leif.org/research/When%20is%20Minimum.pdf
comparing F10.7 and MgII [another solar index] around minima. I have updated the graph in the document to show the flat-lining of F10.7.
vukcevic (09:32:58) :
from The American Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO)
“There was a solar activity peak in 1801 and not in 1805, so there is no long anomalous cycle of 17 years as reported in the Wolf Sunspot Numbers.”
I’m sure that several folks here with disagree with that [including me, but for other reasons].
“I pay attention to what is going on around me, like William Hershel the observer was want to do.”
Good work, friend. You are undoubtedly on the cusp of a Kuhnian ‘scientific revolution’ via the overturning of a current paradigm, the conveyor recycling.
Robert Bateman (10:16:23) :
I am sorely tempted to use my Image processing skills to demonstrate that 30-45% of the microspots being used to pad todays SSN’s are SOHO only bogeys.
You are very likely correct on this and there is work underway to rectify this [we hope], but it is a hard uphill slug, because of the widespread misconception that solar activity the past 70 years or so is the highest ever [well, the last 11,000 years]. Correcting the malpractice would reduce that level of activity to what it was in the 19th and even late 18th centuries [making cycles 3 and 4 among the highest observed], and that seems to be hard to swallow for all the people whose pet ideas are based on a current exceptional Sun.
erlhapp – on Pacific and clouds –
When the PDO changes into its negative mode, there is a major shift in the jetstream – all I am able to do is follow the clouds tracks from Intelliweather – everything seems to shift south, and the ENSO goes into a neutral mode – my impression from the pattern is that in the southern hemisphere summer, there is a larger band of clear ocean from the equator to the first of the cloud bands in the southern oceans about level with the tip of South America. The southern jetstream seems now to have more cloud (insulating those waters).
I don’t know if you can get better resolution data. I have been concerned that the overall percentage measures of cloud cover from ISCCP don’t tell us about spatial change and this is just as important for heat budgets.
I don’t know what drives what – does the PDO alter the jetstream, or is the PDO set up by the jetstream – but we do know the jetstream is affected by the solar cycle and that that some specialists have found a 22year signal in Pacific Ocean cycles. I need to look in more detail and get you the links to papers.
How about a little working group on ocean cycle links to solar cycles?
I like to use CuSUM to alert me to a change to investigate in a monitored parameter. I will then ask “what things changed” a the levels of first through fifth orders of potential causality. I will use tools such as FMEA and FTA to come up with reasonable lists of the underlying 5 levels of causality. Would make an interesting (but admittedly time consuming) study of this instance. Of course I would imagine most of the causals are unknown and are themselves areas of future exploration and monitoring. Simply going through the preliminary exercise of attempting to sketch out the causals would help to determine worthy areas for future solar and astronomical research.
Leif Svalgaard (08:24:54) :
In your longer write-up you state
each flow will accommodate 2 cycles.
This is incorrect; each flow is for one cycle only. As Rachel points out [and has been known for a long time] the solar cycle is actually eighteen years long [makes playing with the lengths between statistical ‘minima’ rather meaningless].
Maybe we are not comparing apples again. When I talk about a “V” I mean in this > shape and the body of the “V” is the green and blue sections (predominately). SC23 jumps off the old “V” (started off the chart on the left) at cycle max and changes polarity in the process. Once on the new “V” (flow started around 1995) SC23 runs down to minimum with SC24 hopefully taking over up to Rmax before once again jumping ship at polarity change, so we have 2 cycles on one flow (not full cycles of course). The initial flows are starting way before polarity change and the timing and strength of the solar cycles look dependent on the position and strength of the flows (or rotation speed). From what I can see, the “V” flows as a product of differential rotation explain most of the missing links in the dynamo theory, except what produces and modulates them of course, but certainly explains the 11 year avg cycle, it is simply where the 2 V’s overlap. If this is common scientific knowledge it has certainly been hidden from mainstream knowledge.
My graphic demonstrates that the latitude position of the sunspot is not dependent on the sheer position between fast and slow areas, but more on the timing within the cycle (unless they drift very quickly).
Peter Taylor
Count me in to your working group.
“in the southern hemisphere summer, there is a larger band of clear ocean from the equator to the first of the cloud bands in the southern oceans about level with the tip of South America”
Yes, ozone levels increase June to December at 20-40°S Lat. and this causes a temperature response in the upper troposphere that reduces ice cloud levels. If UV intensity increases the Hadley circulation in the southern hemisphere expands variably with a southward shift in the ozone rich area where the high pressure cells travel west to East. The warming seems to begin north of the margins of these high pressure cells and can be seen in current sea surface temperature maps. This movement of the subtropical highs also moves the jets. If you can relate movement in the jets to ENSO you have the solar connection to climate change.
Surface UV intensity between the Equator and 30°S is up strongly 2009 over 2008. See the Temis site. This drives an increase in temperature in the upper troposphere between the equator and 30°S which is several times the increase in temperature a the surface. Hence the change in ice cloud density is extensive.
The increase in sea surface temperature in the tropics is tied in with the occurrence of sudden stratospheric warmings in the Arctic. The interesting thing is that a cooling of the equatorial stratosphere is conjunctional with sudden stratospheric warmings in the Arctic. I suggest that this is related to the solar induced heating of the stratosphere in the northern half of the northern hemisphere and a bulk shift in the atmosphere increasing its depth (absorbing UV at a higher level) over the tropics.
30hPa temperature over the Arctic varies with sea surface temperature in the tropics. 30hPa temperature seems to be a function of ozone content and solar activity. Heating begins at 1hPa and progresses downward. The temperature response to the SSW that began a month ago (both in the Arctic and the tropics) is still progressing downward and extending in time suggesting an extended change in the atmospheric profile that far outlasts the period of activity of the initial solar stimulus. This suggests an enduring change in the plasmasphere.
If Leif has another idea of how or the stratosphere cools over the equator as the Arctic warms perhaps he can help me out here.
Geoff Sharp (14:59:56) :
Maybe we are not comparing apples again.
Having read over the text five times, I give up. I cannot follow you. You leave me in the dust. Perhaps you can make a graph and mark on the graph what goes with what.
Geoff Sharp (17:51:21) :
“Ron de Haan (15:49:29) :
I certainly wouldnt like to see Leif depart this fine Blog, he certainly keeps us in line….but that was not my point”.
Geoff, I ‘ve understood your point.
Thanks for posting the links and pdf files about Solar Differential Rotation, Geoff Sharp (15:15:22) :
.
I spent some time today thinking about how to compensate for the overcounting that is Satellite-aided. Then I got to thinking about the padding that went on filling in the observational gaps and conversion of the old group data.
Seems to me that they cancel each other out. Both are padded.
Why bother?
Leaves only the data in the middle, a big sag. Oh well.
Maybe some poor unemployed solar scientists can get themselves a nice grant awarded.
NSF surely isn’t going to give me a dime, though I am pretty sure I can get the satellite compensation part done.
Leif Svalgaard (15:52:23) :
Having read over the text five times, I give up. I cannot follow you. You leave me in the dust. Perhaps you can make a graph and mark on the graph what goes with what.
We seem to have that problem….hopefully this graphic may help.
http://users.beagle.com.au/geoffsharp/combtext.jpg
Geoff Sharp (19:57:03) :
hopefully this graphic may help.
I can now see why I didn’t understand what you meant. I have indicated on this graphic http://www.leif.org/research/V-flows.png how the flows map to the cycles: SC23 is green, SC24 is pink, and the polar branch of SC23 is blue. The polar branch only lasts half as long as the low-latitude branch [9 yrs vs. 18 yrs according to Rachel]. The polarity change has nothing to do with the zonal flows. The reversal is a near random event: more and more new cycle flux makes it to the poles in a random walk or by the meridional circulation. As it arrives the new flux erodes the old polar fields at at some point the erosion is complete and the new flux accumulates.
One of the most interesting discussions I have had the pleasure of reading.
Keep up the good work, contentious though it may be from time to time.
Leif Svalgaard (20:33:01)
Yes…I forgot about the poles need to reverse in polarity, not the flow. By looking at the butterfly pattern it also shows the step function I was proposing is very unlikely. But the overlay I did still makes me think the slower rotating area’s might induce sunspot activity. I also wonder if there is a lag between the sunspot at the surface and the differential flow beneath ( I think the Doppler measuring is 1000K from the surface)…if so, if I am thinking correctly, that might align the slower moving flows even more with the sunspots?
Ron de Haan (17:01:52)
Thanks for posting the links and pdf files about Solar Differential Rotation
My pleasure Ron….I can smell something in this rotation stuff 🙂
Geoff Sharp (00:56:26) :
But the overlay I did still makes me think the slower rotating area’s might induce sunspot activity.
It’s the other way around: the magnetic field slows down the rotation: http://www.leif.org/research/ast10867.pdf
“in spite of the numerological and astrological musings [“ordinal position in its quintet”]. ”
Neither rocket science nor numerology. The simple recognition that cycles in sequence tend to rise or fall with respect to their predecessor, and that they occur like this in sets of four or five generally, however one groups them–trough to trough or peak to peak.
Apart from Rmax, sun spot numerology, flaring has, for example, tended to peak on the rising or falling cycles not the ‘peak’ cycle, and with flaring UV bursts up to twice the background level.
Cycle 23 sits on the falling margin of a symmetric grouping, cycle 13 is in a non-similar position however one selects its group. This may mean nothing, but we are at issue, simply comparing patterns of effects where the cause is implicitly not understood.
Waxing on at length about the ‘facts’ doesn’t hide this paucity of synthesis.
gary gulrud (08:41:27) :
Neither rocket science nor numerology.
Certainly not science either. There is no physical reasons [unless you can demonstrate otherwise] that any symmetries are involved.
Apart from Rmax, sun spot numerology, flaring has, for example, tended to peak on the rising or falling cycles not the ‘peak’ cycle, and with flaring UV bursts up to twice the background level.
As we have said earlier: “Average space weather might be ‘‘milder’’ with decreased solar activity, but the extreme events that dominate technological effects are not expected to disappear. In fact, they may become more common. Two of the eight strongest storms in the last 150 years occurred during solar cycle 14 (Rmax = 64) [Cliver and Svalgaard, 2004], while three of the five largest 30 MeV solar energetic proton events since 1859 [McCracken et al., 2001] occurred during cycle 13 (Rmax = 88).
Waxing on at length about the ‘facts’ doesn’t hide this paucity of synthesis.
Then why do you wax on then. Facts beats poor speculation every time.
“while three of the five largest 30 MeV solar energetic proton events since 1859 [McCracken et al., 2001] occurred during cycle 13 (Rmax = 88).”
So the similarity exists because the scientist thinks it so, via an incommunicable solipsism.
gary gulrud (12:32:04) :
So the similarity exists because the scientist thinks it so, via an incommunicable solipsism.
No similarity [you just don’t get it – like so many other things – clueless again, it seems], just pointing out that large flares [that you referred to, presumably because cycle 23 had some, otherwise your comment would be just fluff] can occur in smallish cycles and not always during the largest.
Similarity of 23 to 13, spread too thin?
There is one area where cycle 23 and 4 are very similar, both cycles entered the retrograde motion in “chaotic mode”. Normal retrograde motions last approx nine years, both SC23 & SC4 lasting just over 11 years because of the influence from Neptune & Uranus altering the path of the Sun.
http://users.beagle.com.au/geoffsharp/carsten.jpg
SC13 is on a completely different path as can be seen with some imagination.
http://users.beagle.com.au/geoffsharp/carsten1906.jpg
This also has an impact on the torsional oscillations on the Sun as seen by Doppler imaging. Notice the “yellow flows” are much longer in SC23.
http://users.beagle.com.au/geoffsharp/doppler.jpg
I am betting on SC4 to be the closest to SC23 in recent times.
On further review, the “scientific” argument for 13 is ellipitically articulated at:
Leif Svalgaard (21:17:26) :
supplemented by a paper that we’ve discussed before. I retract my crack about solipsism.
The technique rescales the SS cycles(disposing of differences in length and Rmax) and uses a reconstruction of geomagnetic activity to establish the heliomagnetic field strengths that must have induced this activity. This is possible because the correlation is ‘strong’ in data available since 1959.
Two, also regurgitated, thoughts: Hathaway’s original 24 prediction of Rmax 145 relied on geomagnetic storm activity following 23 Rmax of strong correlation.
The more recent post “When you can’t believe the model” centers on the failure of history to repeat itself as the source of failure in statistics-based forecasting.
I’m trying to find a dime’s worth of difference between “science” defined by scientists (versus, e.g., philosophers of science) and mere SWAG pattern matching and finding myself a nickel shy.
Leif Svalgaard (08:19:55) : It is quite amazing that a 100 line program suffices.
The better the programmer, the more compact the code.
(Or, more elaborated: A clear mind leaves out the fluff and junk that a muddled mind leaves strewn about in bad code; cutting straight to the core of the solution.)
The GIStemp code, in contrast, is about 75%+ “fluff” and nonsense.
As an extreme counter example to GIStemp, a programmer friend once was writing ‘diagnostic microcode’. This runs at a level of the machine most folks don’t even know exists. He needed to test the 64 CPU hardware registers (the code is only run when the hardware is thought defective) so every resource you use is another chance to fail (due to using and depending on the ‘failed hardware’ you are looking for…).
He wrote a bit of code that sets the “register increment counter” to either one at the “top” or negative one at the “bottom”. If you enter from the “top” the code increments to the “bottom”, turns around and decrements back to the “top” and is done. If you enter from the bottom, it counts upward to the top, turns around and increments to the bottom and is done.
The net result was 32 lines of code rather than 64, and 1/2 the odds of hitting the bad hardware (registers) on first code loading. Nice side effect was that you could run the code forward or backward with the same outcome and could choose which registers to start with (top or bottom) by entry point.
It took more text to describe here than the length of the code. Now that’s elegance!
Leif Svalgaard (09:07:11) : [minus 1 for the nit pickers].
Someone call for a nit harvester? 😉
You could as well calculate the ‘error margin’ of the standard SIDC yearly number by dividing by the square root of 365.
Would that be sidereal, tropical, equinox or solar year [-1] ? I presume equinox (366 -1 = 365). And what happened to the fractional part of 36x.2xxx….
So many nits, so little time 😉
At the bottom of:
http://www.fourmilab.ch/documents/calendar/
is an interesting example of what folks using MS Excel must put up with due to untidy calendaring…