Many readers are familiar with a number of solar proxies used to gauge the activity of the sun, the most familiar being sunspot counts and type. However they aren’t the only metric you can use to determine when one cycle ends and another begins. The Heliospheric Current Sheet sounds a bit like a “newsletter” and in a sense it is, because it can announce the true end of solar cycle 23.
Here’s what it looks like:
Heliospheric current sheet – click for larger image
From Wikipedia:
The heliospheric current sheet (HCS) is the surface within the Solar System where the polarity of the Sun’s magnetic field changes from north to south. This field extends throughout the Sun’s equatorial plane in the heliosphere.The shape of the current sheet results from the influence of the Sun’s rotating magnetic field on the plasma in the interplanetary medium (Solar Wind). A small electrical current flows within the sheet, about 10−10 A/m². The thickness of the current sheet is about 10,000 km.
The underlying magnetic field is called the interplanetary magnetic field, and the resulting electric current forms part of the heliospheric current circuit.[4] The heliospheric current sheet is also sometimes called the interplanetary current sheet.
What the Heliospheric Current Sheet is telling us.
David Archibald writes:
One of the things that the now disbanded NASA Solar Cycle 24 Prediction Panel told us was that is that solar minimum is marked by a flat heliospheric current sheet. The heliospheric current sheet can be found here: http://wso.stanford.edu/gifs/Tilts.gif
The site provides two data series – the classic and the radial, and notes that the radial may be possibly more accurate. Plotting up the radial data, the following chart is generated:
The heliospheric current sheet, for the last three minima, has got down to 3°. The last reading was 8.7°. It has been declining at an average of 8.6° per annum. If it holds that rate, solar minimum will be in August 2009. If it holds to the orange bounding line, solar minimum could be as late as April 2010. The last reading on the classic series is 22.8° and this series got down to 10° on average in previous solar minima. At its decline rate, solar minimum will be in another 1.9 years, which is late 2010.
To paraphrase a popular aphorism, Solar Cycle 23 isn’t over until the heliospheric current sheet has flattened, and it has a way to go yet.
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Leif Svalgaard (20:46:20) :
A Soviet scientist I once worked with was convinced that the agitation of inmates in insane asylums peaked on the day the HCS sweps over the Earth. [see, I’m even on topic]. Pigeon races are canceled if the Kp-index exceeds 4. [This latter factoid may have some foundation in physiology as it is claimed that pigeons partly use the Earth’s magnetic field for navigation].
Maybe they are just sensing the magnetic fields:
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=49775
http://www.springerlink.com/content/04m2315151120121/
http://www.nwf.org/nationalwildlife/article.cfm?articleId=682&issueId=26
I have a ‘very good sense of direction’. I can point north, more often than not within about 10 degrees, almost all the time. (My dad ‘trained me’ to have a sense of direction when I was about 4 or 5). When I do this, it’s magnetic north that my finger hits, not true north.
I’ve been ‘disoriented’ only a couple of times. (Once after sleeping on a bus for a few hours of night driving through mountains, another after arriving in Australia. Took me about 3 days to ‘get oriented’. The sun was in the ‘wrong place’ and my head ‘felt funny’. ) Most of the time I can just close my eyes, turn my head side to side, and center on north. It’s a subtile ‘balanced’ feeling.
FWIW, my dad claimed that when they first got ‘electric’ in the house, his dad complained that he could hear a soft buzzing in his head and didn’t like it! My dad said he had barely heard it, but then it ‘went away’ and didn’t bother him any more… but he still felt more comfortable away from electric wiring.
Also, FWIW, I’m synchronized with the lunar cycle most of the time. Unless I make special efforts, I’m awake during periods when the moon is overhead (especially if full. If I’m having insomnia, it’s a full moon, 98%+ of the time.)
All anecdotal. But I still navigated a sailboat over a 50 mile distance in San Francisco bay haze and hit the outer channel marker by pointing the boat ‘thataway’ and holding the heading; and when a road clogs up I’ll just head off to other roads and keep returning my heading to goal until I get there with very high success… Yes, I’m pretty sure people have a magnetic sense. I’m also pretty sure it’s subtile and it’s best trained when very young (and maybe in places not so full of mag fields as modern life…) It may also be variable by person. My son has it, a very good friend does not and can not learn it.
Longer term cycles may also be sensed. This could explain the wide spread observation that animal coats get thicker when cold weather is coming. My cats and rabbits have thicker fur this year than prior years. (Heck, I even think my hair is a bit thicker… ). Maybe that magnetite in our heads connects us to the solar mag field as a climate indicator… If Sevensmark is shown correct, it would be a reasonable evolutionary pressure and response. (Yes, all rampant speculation. The seed patch of crazy ideas where science first sprouts before it gets tested via thesis, hypothesis, antithesis, … and the ‘keepers’ kept and the ‘tossers’ tossed. )
It would help explain some of the ‘strange coincidences’ like the Great Depression and the present recession landing on sunspot low points… maybe it’s just that a lot of people get ‘edgy’ when the solar mag field says it’s time to ‘put some acorns away’… and start taking money out of the banks and stocks.
Leif Svalgaard (20:46:20) :
A Soviet scientist I once worked with was convinced that the agitation of inmates in insane asylums peaked on the day the HCS sweps over the Earth. [see, I’m even on topic]. Pigeon races are canceled if the Kp-index exceeds 4. [This latter factoid may have some foundation in physiology as it is claimed that pigeons partly use the Earth’s magnetic field for navigation].
Maybe they are just sensing the magnetic fields:
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=49775
http://www.springerlink.com/content/04m2315151120121/
http://www.nwf.org/nationalwildlife/article.cfm?articleId=682&issueId=26
I have a ‘very good sense of direction’. I can point north, more often than not within about 10 degrees, almost all the time. (My dad ‘trained me’ to have a sense of direction when I was about 4 or 5). When I do this, it’s magnetic north that my finger hits, not true north.
I’ve been ‘disoriented’ only a couple of times. (Once after sleeping on a bus for a few hours of night driving through mountains, another after arriving in Australia. Took me about 3 days to ‘get oriented’. The sun was in the ‘wrong place’ and my head ‘felt funny’. ) Most of the time I can just close my eyes, turn my head side to side, and center on north. It’s a subtile ‘balanced’ feeling.
FWIW, my dad claimed that when they first got ‘electric’ in the house, his dad complained that he could hear a soft buzzing in his head and didn’t like it! My dad said he had barely heard it, but then it ‘went away’ and didn’t bother him any more… but he still felt more comfortable away from electric wiring.
Also, FWIW, I’m synchronized with the lunar cycle most of the time. Unless I make special efforts, I’m awake during periods when the moon is overhead (especially if full. If I’m having insomnia, it’s a full moon, 98%+ of the time.)
All anecdotal. But I still navigated a sailboat over a 50 mile distance in San Francisco bay haze and hit the outer channel marker by pointing the boat ‘thataway’ and holding the heading; and when a road clogs up I’ll just head off to other roads and keep returning my heading to goal until I get there with very high success… Yes, I’m pretty sure people have a magnetic sense. I’m also pretty sure it’s subtile and it’s best trained when very young (and maybe in places not so full of mag fields as modern life…) It may also be variable by person. My son has it, a very good friend does not and can not learn it.
Longer term cycles may also be sensed. This could explain the wide spread observation that animal coats get thicker when cold weather is coming. My cats and rabbits have thicker fur this year than prior years. (Heck, I even think my hair is a bit thicker… ). Maybe that magnetite in our heads connects us to the solar mag field as a climate indicator… If Sevensmark is shown correct, it would be a reasonable evolutionary pressure and response. (Yes, all rampant speculation. The seed patch of crazy ideas where science first sprouts before it gets tested via thesis, hypothesis, antithesis, … and the ‘keepers’ kept and the ‘tossers’ tossed. )
It would help explain some of the ‘strange coincidences’ like the Great Depression and the present recession landing on sunspot low points… maybe it’s just that a lot of people get ‘edgy’ when the solar mag field says it’s time to ‘put some acorns away’…
Sam the Skeptic (15:13:53) : Your statement seems to tie in rather well with the old saw that 68.7% of statistics are made up on the spur of the moment.
And 25.6% are made up after some contemplation 😉
Leif Svalgaard (14:54:55) :The amount of solar wind matter impinging on the Earth every second has the same mass as one BigMac with Fries. Better be afraid and duck!
Crud falls into the sun. Solar wind, CME et. al. come out. What’s the net mass balance? Is the sun gaining or losing mass, net?
Will this change over time as less ‘junk’ is left to fall in? Will it matter on very long time scales, or does it just move a digit way over on the right hand side of the decimal point every few billion years?
E.M.Smith (22:17:37) :
Will this change over time as less ‘junk’ is left to fall in? Will it matter on very long time scales, or does it just move a digit way over on the right hand side of the decimal point every few billion years?
It is losing mass, but very slowly. In th end, the Sun will begin to lose mass more rapidly and ‘puff’ off about 40% of its mass and become a ‘planetary nebula’: http://www.astro.washington.edu/users/balick/WFPC2/
Robert Bateman (23:09:38) : I do wonder about today’s microprocessors that are down to 45 and 32 nm being easier to damage by CR’s.
It’s not just damage… The size of the memory cell in modern memory is so small and the charge on it so few electrons that even at ground level particle events can cause a memory cell to flip states. This is a major factor in the move to error correcting memory in the last decade or two in PC’s. ( I remember when I was first told that we needed to make sure we put ECC chips in machines due to cosmic rays being an issue at the new scales used… it was an interesting discussion 😉 While it doesn’t happen often and ECC (error correction code) can fix it, you don’t want this happening in the middle of your bank transactions nor in your real time flight controls!
Leif Svalgaard (12:27:14) :
“vukcevic (02:51:17) :It should be noted that the synchronising (or a modulating effect) is related to the Hale cycle.”
makes no sense, explain.
As I understand Vukcevic, I would take this to mean that the oscillation of the planetary magnetosphere above and below the plane of the ecliptic (causes / is related to / modulates); the double cycle (magnetic flip) Hale cycle as opposed to the single 11ish year non-magnetic specified half cycle.
At least, that’s how I read his stuff…
Vukcevic
to
Svalgaard
Just a quick note before I depart;
Elsewhere you said, to paraphrase, that solar scientists do not know what sunspots are (where, how and why they are generated, etc). For millennia lack of knowledge has been substitute by a belief, an attribute of very subjective quality, belief of one man cannot be superior to that of the other.
My correlation is good ! ; still stands righteous, despite the relentless assault, while the rest may or may not prove to be a worthless speculation, or as my grandfather would often say:
omnia nihil sunt et reliqua minoris
http://www.vukcevic.co.uk/PolarFields-vf.gif
http://www.geocities.com/vukcevicu/PolarFields-vf.gif
@Leif Svalgaard (21:02:37) :
“HasItBeen4YearsYet? (18:45:52) :
I know personally hundreds of researchers and the attitude you describe is rare [at least in my large sample].”
I’m happy for you that the sun is shining in your neck of the woods.
vukcevic (02:04:15) :
belief of one man cannot be superior to that of the other.
But the ignorance of one man can be ‘superior’ to that of the other.
HasItBeen4YearsYet? (09:18:46) :
I’m happy for you that the sun is shining in your neck of the woods.
My neck of the woods covers a large fraction of solar science, so you should be happy for science at large.
vukcevic (02:04:15) :
My correlation is good !
Through any number of data points one can find a curve that has perfect correlation [e.g. Lagrange polynomials], and fits all the data points exactly. But this curve is usually useless outside of the domain of the data points [or sometimes even between the points] and cannot be used for extrapolation [i.e. prediction]. For that there has to be valid physics behind the curve.
Somebody on another thread gave the following synchronisation demonstration of metronomes:
It is instructive to watch them. What is happening? conservation of momentum and angular momentum is finally synchronizing the two. How? Through the base and some friction.
In the planetary system and the sun, I cannot conceive an analogue of this, with the physics we know. ( science fiction is another story).
People are hand waving planetary magnetic fields. I would like to see numbers, the strength of these fields and the strength of the Sun’s fields. Does anybody have links?
Mr. Leif Svalgaard
I’ve observed Mr. Vuckevic posts, I have no time for his theories, but I do believe that your attitude is very odd. His formula appear, at list to me to be in line with your predictions. It is wrong in this case to state: “Through any number of data points one can find a curve that has perfect correlation.” Mr. Vuckevic claims correlation is good (not perfect) formula parmeters are not some specialy chosen values to fit the data, but the acurate values for Jupiter’s orbit and Jupiter-Saturn orbit linkage.
Radun (11:36:26) :
formula parmeters are not some specialy chosen values to fit the data, but the acurate values for Jupiter’s orbit and Jupiter-Saturn orbit linkage.
Since Jupiter’s period is close to the sunspot cycle length, it is picked for that reason; suppose the cycle was 17 years long. Jupiter would not have been selected. Then one has to pick a phase, and that one is certainly picked to fit. Last, since the amplitude changes over the 40 year period you need to add in a function to do this. Almost any periodic function with power well above 11 years would do with the right [picked] phase.
Radun, this is really unjust. Since two weeks or so Dr. Svalgaard became the patience itself, especially when reacting on V.’s paraphysical way of thinking. Confer to V.’s response on the point, that “a varying electric/magnetic field cannot penetrate a collision-less highly conducting plasma” . The weakness of Svalgaard’s argument lies in the adjective “highly”, which is uncertain to almost any extend. But you certainly would not take a magnet, a coil and a compass to counter this, evading to consider the plasma and thus the core of the argument.
Mr. Hugo, Mr. Svalgaard, Mr. Vuckevic
I have clearly stated :” I have no time for his theories”, but that does not mean that this intriguing formula should not raise serious interest, just because there is no satisfactory explanation. From correlation point of view, the amplitude and phase adjustments can be ignored, only two physically meaningful and accurate numbers are left. Cycles oscillate around 11 years and science has to take it as such. To say “suppose the cycle was 17 years long” introduces a wrong premise, it is not good enough for science.
Mr. Vuckevic, by accounts your science is unsafe, but your formula is an original and notable achievement, for the moment at least. Further data over years to come will decide long term value of your efforts.
Radun (14:15:12) :
I have clearly stated :” I have no time for his theories”, but that does not mean that this intriguing formula should not raise serious interest
The formula is not intriguing at all [not to me, at least]. There have been dozens of similar formulae, going back to Rudolf Wolf himself:
Rz(t) = 50.31 + 3.73 * (1.68 sin (585.26t) + 1.00 sin (360t) + 12.53 sin (30.35t) + 1.12 sin (12.22t))
where Rz is the sunspot number. This formula had a very good correlation with the observed sunspot number during 1834-1858.
The formula was based on the accurate periods of Jupiter, Venus, Earth, and Saturn. Needless to say, the formula stopped working as more data came in.
Hugo M (13:22:11) :
cannot penetrate a collision-less highly conducting plasma” . The weakness of Svalgaard’s argument lies in the adjective “highly”,
I should have said infinitely high. The resistivity of a plasma is determined by collisions between the particles and there are no collisions in the solar wind. The mean-free-path [=distance between collisions] is of the order of the distance to the Sun. The conductivity is for all intents and purposes infinitely high.