The last time we saw would could have been a cycle 24 sunspot, was on January 20th, 2009, but it was an oddball, and not clearly part of cycle 23 or 24. Spaceweather.com wrote that day:
A new sunspot [1011] is emerging inside the circle region–and it is a strange one. The low latitude of the spot suggests it is a member of old Solar Cycle 23, yet the magnetic polarity of the spot is ambiguous, identifying it with neither old Solar Cycle 23 nor new Solar Cycle 24. Stay tuned for updates as the sunspot grows.
The last time we had a true cycle 24 spot was on January 10th thru the 13th, with sunspot 1010, which had both the correct polarity and a high latitude characteristic of a cycle 24 spot. But since then no other cycle 24 spots have emerged.
It has been slow going for cycle 24.
We did have a single cycle 23 spot in February as you can see from the SWPC sunspots data, but it has been dead quiet on all other solar activity indices:
:Product: Daily Solar Data DSD.txt :Issued: 0225 UT 22 Feb 2009 # # Prepared by the U.S. Dept. of Commerce, NOAA, Space Weather Prediction Center # Please send comments and suggestions to SWPC.Webmaster@noaa.gov # # Last 30 Days Daily Solar Data # # Sunspot Stanford GOES10 # Radio SESC Area Solar X-Ray ------ Flares ------ # Flux Sunspot 10E-6 New Mean Bkgd X-Ray Optical # Date 10.7cm Number Hemis. Regions Field Flux C M X S 1 2 3 #--------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2009 01 23 70 0 0 0 -999 A0.0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2009 01 24 69 0 0 0 -999 A0.0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2009 01 25 70 0 0 0 -999 A0.0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2009 01 26 70 0 0 0 -999 A0.0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2009 01 27 70 0 0 0 -999 A0.0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2009 01 28 70 0 0 0 -999 A0.0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2009 01 29 69 0 0 0 -999 A0.0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2009 01 30 69 0 0 0 -999 A0.0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2009 01 31 69 0 0 0 -999 A0.0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2009 02 01 70 0 0 0 -999 A0.0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2009 02 02 69 0 0 0 -999 A0.0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2009 02 03 69 0 0 0 -999 A0.0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2009 02 04 70 0 0 0 -999 A0.0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2009 02 05 70 0 0 0 -999 A0.0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2009 02 06 70 0 0 0 -999 A0.0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2009 02 07 71 0 0 0 -999 A0.0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2009 02 08 71 0 0 0 -999 A0.0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2009 02 09 71 0 0 0 -999 A0.0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2009 02 10 68 0 0 0 -999 A0.0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2009 02 11 70 11 10 1 -999 A0.0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2009 02 12 70 11 10 0 -999 A0.0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2009 02 13 70 11 10 0 -999 A0.0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2009 02 14 70 0 0 0 -999 A0.0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2009 02 15 70 0 0 0 -999 A0.0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2009 02 16 70 0 0 0 -999 A0.0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2009 02 17 71 0 0 0 -999 A0.0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2009 02 18 70 0 0 0 -999 A0.0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2009 02 19 69 0 0 0 -999 A0.0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2009 02 20 69 0 0 0 -999 A0.0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2009 02 21 71 0 0 0 -999 A0.0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Haha….THERE YOU GO AGAIN.
Blogs are a little dispersonal (yes I invented that word). Would rather talk you you in real life.
Your “Illiterate” or “Science Illiterate” allusions are meaningless. There is NO one that I know that believes the world is 6,000 years old.
NO ONE. Not even my Mom.
Again….to sing the same ole’ tune from the beginning:
1) You can only disprove that which you scientifically back with 100% provable data against the disprovable.
2) Your assertion about the scientifically illiterate or just the plain ole’ illiterate has NO BEARING on whatever is true and false. In other words…all of those HICKS can believe what they want to believe…but that does not change the truth.
The TRUTH is what it is and it speaks for itself. Res ipsa loquiter.
3) You really have avoided my original assertion that you should refrain from “against the man” arguments.
You asked me to name one of YOUR against the man arguments:
It is what you have repeated in the foregoing: The “Science Illiterate” and the “Illiterate.”
Again LEIF I would caution you….(and I have not changed my tune from the beginning):
Change your tone and you make your argument stronger!
All of this effort in refuting my assertions. Why all the effort?? If you are 100% right, then why do you feel the need to respond??
The psychologist in me would say that you are projecting something…
SaveTheSharks (00:37:25) :
All of this effort in refuting my assertions. Why all the effort?? If you are 100% right, then why do you feel the need to respond??
Doesn’t this work both ways?
SaveTheSharks (00:37:25) :
There is NO one that I know that believes the world is 6,000 years old. NO ONE. Not even my Mom.
Although this could be technically correct, there are 387,000,000 web pages that refer to the ‘young earth’:
[Google: Results 1 – 10 of about 387,000,000 for ‘young earth’.]
Read some of them, they are actually fun [in a sad way] and they show an astounding level of science illiteracy by all these people with thoughtful intelligence and caring hearts.
SaveTheSharks (23:43:26) :
Can you prove…without 100% shadow of a doubt, that you can DISPROVE Mr. Landscheidt’s theories…or the work of Mr. Sharp? .
I will tell you a story of Hodja:
Hodja is a wisejudge/fool in the anatolian tradition in Turkey, depending on the story.
Hodja is sitting on the limb of a tree and merrily sawing away at it. He is sitting facing the trunk.
A villager passes and says : Hodja, what are you doing? You will fall down and break your neck.
Hodja payed no attention and kept sawing. Sure enough the branch with his weight on broke and he fell fortunately not killing himself. He hurried to find the villager.
” You must be a prophet” he said, ” please tell me, when am I going to die?”
The disproof you seek is based on violating conservation laws, angular momentum and energy off hand. I do not need to be a prophet or a solar scientist to disprove theories that violate conservation laws.
On the other hand I can easily be metaphysical, and think of a number of metaphysical theories to explain spurious correlations. God playing dice, for example, can make saturn what not correlations correlate with sun spots.
This is an extreme metaphysics. I can call on dark matter and postulate what not effects that would conserve the energy and angular momentum missing in the “theories”. But I know very well the limits between known science, speculations and metaphysics.
Dr. Leif Svalgaard
Apologies for addressing you previously as Mr. Svalgaard.
I shall assume that there is no reliable stream of data prior 1966.5, which I was hoping for.
In your paper
http://www.leif.org/research/Polar%20Fields%20and%20Cycle%2024%20(Observations).pdf
page 12, the graph starts at 1967, I take account about of noise and unreliability before 1970. I am not happy about averaging before 1967.5. The SSN in 1970 (110) was reaching the later peak of the cycle (130), fields were expected to be weak, however your conclusion that fields would be low 5 years earlier (1965) seems to me to be not entirely good. This makes me even more surprised about strength of your statement to Mr. Sharp:
“Yes, it was 85 microTesla at each pole, with opposite sign, for a total difference of 170 microTesla. For comparison, today that difference is 113 microTesla.”
This is an estimate not an actual result of a reliable measurements,
Therefore, I reserve my judgment on the matter (as do number of solar scientists, Dr. Hathaway for one)
I had no reply from Mr. Vukcevic, going back through his posts; it appears that he has gone away, so I hope he may eventually put his side of story. I am not convinced at all by his ‘theories’, I do believe that he needs a help of an experienced solar scientist.
That is not say that his formula has no merit, I think it has a great deal, since correlation is so close (very rare for such two different natural events to be a coincidence).
I am a bit surprised that for your work based on 3-4 measurements at solar minima you state:
“This correlation is good, telling us that the time is of the order of 5 years, not 20 years as in Dikpati’s scheme.” but you deride the formula by Mr. Vukcevic, based on a long stream of data, which in anyone’s eyes has far superior correlation.
It is interesting (going through the work of Mr. Vukcevic) that his formula for cycle anomalies
http://www.vukcevic.co.uk/combined.gif
accurately locates all of the odd cycles (including SC20) as well as number of extended minima, based on the multiples of the numbers he uses in his polar fields formula.
I here conclude:
It is far too early to despatch formula
http://www.vukcevic.co.uk/PolarFields-vf.gif
by Mr. Vukcevic to ‘garbage bin’. I do recommend that a more serious attention should be devoted to find exactly what is behind it.
(very rare for such two different natural events to be a coincidence).
Diameters of Sun and Moon as seen from Earth??
“Extreme metaphysics??”
Neither Lief nor Anna can produce smoking gun evidence which 100% dismisses the Landscheidt theories.
And until they find that smoking gun, they are violating the spirit of the scientific method by dismissing that which they can not disprove.
The Landscheit work is a THEORY thats all….a theory with some pretty strong correlations.
I would say….For all of the brilliance in the both of you, don’t let that crowd out the ability to be reasonable. Thanks.
Question: If this current spot falls apart, how long of a period of time will elapse before, do you think, the next one appears?
Radun (03:25:06) :
The SSN in 1970 (110) was reaching the later peak of the cycle (130), fields were expected to be weak, however your conclusion that fields would be low 5 years earlier (1965) seems to me to be not entirely good.The highest yearly average for cycle 20 was 105.9 for 1968. We don’t ordinarily hunt for the highest single daily value [which was over 200 for that cycle], or even monthly value.
“Yes, it was 85 microTesla at each pole”
This is an estimate not an actual result of a reliable measurements
It is a good estimate [based on several measures]. Direct measurements by Severny at the Crimean Astrophysical Observatory shows that the value was less than 100 uT, but not much less. There comes a time to pay attention to the best estimates by solar physicists who have spent their lives studying these things and building instruments to try and measure them.
since correlation is so close (very rare for such two different natural events to be a coincidence).
Neither you nor him seems to understand the concept of data conservation’ or ‘autocorrelation’. The many data points are not independent and the number of degrees of freedom [which determines the statistical significance] is very low [in fact, of the order of four]. What this means is that given almost any one of the data points [e.g. the maximum value, or halfway up the curve, or …] in a cycle essentially allows me to construct the rest of the curve for that cycle, and with only four cycles…
I do recommend that a more serious attention should be devoted to find exactly what is behind it.
I don’t think you will find any takers. This would not prevent anybody from having fun with the numbers, but science it ain’t.
Radun (03:25:06) :
“What this means is that given almost any one of the data points [e.g. the maximum value, or halfway up the curve, or …] in a cycle essentially allows me to construct the rest of the curve for that cycle, and with only four cycles…”
To illustrate this in a simply way, lets take each cycle [from max to max] and divide the individual data points [every ten days] by the single number of sunspots at maximum [Rmax] for the next cycle [which the polar fields are supposed to be a predictor of]. This is what you get:
http://www.leif.org/research/Solar%20Polar%20Fields%20Normalized%20to%20Next%20Cycle.pdf
The thin light blue curve is just the average of all the dark-blue ones. It carries almost no information, just goes up and down. Dividing the actual data by Rmax makes all the cycles very alike, showing that I can construct the whole real curve [to very good approximation] by simply multiplying the average curve by four numbers [one for each cycle]. That is the number of degrees of freedom. Now one might ask, how about the average curve? doesn’t that have extra information that can be extracted from Vuc’s formula? Unfortunately not, as the formula predicts a much more symmetrical curve, while the average curve is markedly asymmetric, rising slower than falling.
savethesharks (08:00:16) :
Question: If this current spot falls apart, how long of a period of time will elapse before, do you think, the next one appears?
Who knows? a couple of weeks would be a reasonable guess. But ask the planetary people. Here is an example of what they confidently predict: http://theweatheroutlook.com/twocommunity/forums/p/7881/607138.aspx#607138
They “don’t let reason crowd out the ability to be reasonable” /s
anna v (01:03:34) : RE:SaveTheSharks (23:43:26) :
“Can you prove…without 100% shadow of a doubt, that you can DISPROVE Mr. Landscheidt’s theories…or the work of Mr. Sharp? .”
The disproof you seek is based on violating conservation laws, … and think of a number of metaphysical theories to explain spurious correlations.
Not that Mr. SaveTheSharks is correct but I am curious: how does one differentiate between spurious and non-spurious correlation without testing? Many seemingly spurious correlations are actually the result of hidden causes. A famous example is the correlation between preacher’s salaries and the price of rum. The hidden cause: inflation. “Spurious” means “no known cause.” Claiming spuriousness without proving spuriousness is hand waving. If the correlation truly IS spurious it will disappear upon expansion of the dataset.
I am also puzzled how any correlation can violate conservation laws. A proffered explanation may but how can the observation itself?
DAV (09:31:04) :
I am also puzzled how any correlation can violate conservation laws. A proffered explanation may but how can the observation itself?
A correlation without causation is useless. If there is nothing that causes the correlation, then it has no predictive power; and a causation can violate physical laws; and as I pointed out, the correlation has only four degrees of freedom so is likely spurious UNLESS it is a confirmation of a physical cause. A case in point is my prediction of the sunspot number based on the idea that the polar field is a seed for and determines the next cycle. IF this is correct, then only ONE data point is needed [for calibration or conversion between field and sunspot number; that number is 0.63 for polar field [abs(North-South)] is microTesla]. So, my prediction is not based on the strength of a correlation but on a physical theory.
If the correlation truly IS spurious it will disappear upon expansion of the dataset.
One problem with this is that the formula on the graph http://www.vukcevic.co.uk/PolarFields-vf.gif is incomplete and does not compute the red curve as shown. I have tried to fix the formula by inserting what I think are the missing parentheses. I interpret it as Y = -152*[ COS(2π/3+2π(t-1937.5)/(2*11.862)) + COS(2π(t-1937.5)/19.859) ]. However this formula does not give the red curve either. Perhaps some reader could suggest what the formula should be. Once we have the correct formula, we can extend it back in time. There are good indications that the polar fields in 1965 were 170 uT and in 1954 300 nT [with some uncertainty, of course, as always in science]
Hey Mary Hinge, what about that La Nina?
===============================
DAV (09:31:04) :
A correlation in science is not spurious if it can be demonstrated with physics arguments, i.e. solutions of differential equations that apply to the problem, that it is a solution.
If you take a time sequence of waves in the atlantic ocean, and one of the pacific ocean, you will easily find correlations in the two series of peaks and troughs, if you look carefully enough. These are spurious because entirely different forces act on the two bodies, and no physics equation can connect them. It is relatively easy to find correlations between time series with a sinusoidal type of expression.
It is self evident that the trajectories of the planets are real time solutions of the complicated systems of many coupled differential equations which control the positions of the planets. These can be seen as peaks and troughs, depending on the coordinate system.
I am also puzzled how any correlation can violate conservation laws. A proffered explanation may but how can the observation itself?
It is the explanation, not the observation that violates conservation laws,
The violation of the conservation laws comes from the models that want a causative correlation between the planetary positions and the behavior of the sun cycles .
There is not enough energy ( gravitational, as this is the only available energy to the solar system with enough strength) transfered to be able to affect the rotational angular momentum of the sun ( rotating about its axis). The tiny tides generated by the planets on the sun are a fly on the back of an elephant. As there is no such demonstrable interaction, any correlation is spurious. If you say it is not spurious you violate energy and angular momentum conservation laws.
It is for the people that propose models to give the physics backing of the model. At the moment the planetary influence models are science fiction as far as known forces go.
A question or two for Leif or the other good scientists out there:
Do you believe there is a link (however small) between the very low solar activity and sunspot dearth as of late, to the relative strength of that monster magnetar pulse that “shockwaved” across Earth’s magnetosphere on 21 January?
I am sure you all have seen this many times from the NASA website, but I w can watch it again and again as it is spectacular!
Switching a little bit to meteorology: At about the same time of that blast, a Sudden Stratospheric Warming event that had begun a few days earlier over the North Pole…all of the sudden seemed to amplify…and became one of the greatest events of its kind since records have been kept.
So the second part of the question is this: Could such a large pulse of energy be (at least partially) the cause of such an epic SSW event?
It is really puzzling, too, when you look at the animation from the CPC site showing the temperature changes at the 10mb level, it shows that SSW event has passed and that indeed significant cooling is occurring.
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/intraseasonal/temp10anim.shtml
But when you look at the vertical cross section of the polar vortex, you get this:
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/daily_ao_index/hgt.shtml
This chart when combined with the 10mb video above, do not jive at all. As a matter of fact….the amount of RED since January 21 from about the 200 mb level on up, is rather unsettling.
Anyone have an answer to that?
And then back to my earlier question, in recap:
Does…current low solar activity >
sun’s defenses down to a degree >
allow magnetar pulses to sweep across the solar system @ur momisugly a stronger rate > affecting the earth’s upper atmosphere to a greater degree >
and perhaps affecting weather on earth (such as this past epic SSW event)??
Thanks.
Chris
Norfolk, Virginia, USA
Dr. Leif Svalgaard
Before I embarked on commenting on formula by Mr. Vukcevic, I have done some plotting of my own. I used data from the Wilcox Solar Observatory
http://wso.stanford.edu/Polar.html
(the last column with Avgf from the first entry in 1976 to the most recent).
Converted dates into decimal values
And used following MS Excel entry
= -76*(COS(2*PI()*(B40-1937.2)/19.859)+COS(PI()/3+2*PI()*(B40-1937.2)/23.724)) (directly copied from the spread sheet).
where B40 is my starting entry for the first date in 1976.
It could be that Mr. Vukcevic quoted p-p amplitude of -152 (instead of the correct value of -76). I have obtained correlation of 0.97, exactly what Mr. Vukcevic quoted from 1980.
This is the point where I decided his formula and the correlation obtained should not be rejected. Further, he may have a lousy theory, but has good astronomical values, which I trust (at this point in time) far more than I am prepared to trust some hypothetical assumptions of random drifting, sinking and re-floating of dead sunspots etc!!.
Dr. Svalgaard, if you are scientist as you are recognized to be, you should look into his correlation with far more open mind, or even try to find a reason behind it, even if you have to question some of yours preconceived ideas.
Leif Svalgaard (10:37:55) : A correlation without causation is useless. If there is nothing that causes the correlation, then it has no predictive power; and a causation can violate physical laws; and as I pointed out, the correlation has only four degrees of freedom so is likely spurious UNLESS it is a confirmation of a physical cause. A case in point is my prediction of the sunspot number based on the idea that the polar field is a seed for and determines the next cycle. …
I disagree. A correlation is an observation. Now, I agree if someone is using the correlation as an assist in corroborating an hypothesis that is a different matter. Beyond that, it is a curious connection that indicates an opportunity for possible research.
What I meant by “If the correlation truly IS spurious it will disappear ” is that a better definition for “spurious” is “coincidental” (I started to say that before but it came out a bit garbled. I need to fire my editor 😉 ). If the cause is coincidence, it will, more often than not, cease to be significant after more data collection and prove false. OTOH, if it continues, it is a head-scratcher begging for explanation (which may still include coincidence).
Radun (12:51:10) :
And used following MS Excel entry
= -76*(COS(2*PI()*(B40-1937.2)/19.859)+COS(PI()/3+2*PI()*(B40-1937.2)/23.724)) (directly copied from the spread sheet).
where B40 is my starting entry for the first date in 1976.
It could be that Mr. Vukcevic quoted p-p amplitude of -152 (instead of the correct value of -76).
I think that your formula as stated above is also not reproducing the red curve. I get some thing closer with = -76*(COS(2*PI()*(B40-1937.2)/19.859)+COS(2*PI()/3+2*PI()*(B40-1937.2)/23.724)). Note the ‘2*’ in 2*PI()/3 that Vuk also has. Can you check this?
DAV (14:06:22) :
If the cause is coincidence, it will, more often than not, cease to be significant after more data collection and prove false. OTOH, if it continues, it is a head-scratcher begging for explanation (which may still include coincidence).
Agree…initially my tests for 172yr match up only went back to around 1200AD. After further research and nearly 6000 yrs of testing the correlation is still there. There is a point in time when the correlation might over rule the need for causation.
DAV (14:06:22) :
“A correlation without causation is useless. If there is nothing that causes the correlation, then it has no predictive power…”
I disagree. A correlation is an observation.
I can construct a Lagrange Polynomial that matches any data set exactly and has perfect correlation. It will have no predictive power [they usually blow up very quickly outside of the given data points]. Only if I assume that there is a physical reality behind the correlation and that reality is also valid outside of the data does the correlation have use, so it all comes down to the cause in the end and to the assumption that the same cause works outside of the time covered by the data. The assumed physical reality behind Vuk’s formula is that Jupiter and Conjunctions of Jupiter and Saturn control the solar cycle.
Now, there is, as you realized, a simple test: does the correlation hold up outside of the interval over which it is defined. We don’t know about the future, but we can extend the correlation into the past, where we do have knowledge. I’m trying to do this, but the formula given by Vuk on the graph is garbled. The formula that Radun posted doesn’t give Vuk’s curve either as far as I can see, so we have to resolve this first, before we go ga-ga over faulty formulae.
Radun (12:51:10) :
than I am prepared to trust some hypothetical assumptions of random drifting, sinking and re-floating of dead sunspots etc!!.
Unfortunately, that is how the Sun works. It is a messy place.
Dr. Svalgaard, if you are scientist as you are recognized to be, you should look into his correlation with far more open mind, or even try to find a reason behind it, even if you have to question some of yours preconceived ideas.
If the correlation was good and significant [like for 10 cycles or more], I might have done that, but since it isn’t, it is not worth a serious effort [the few hours spent on it here is but a minor waste]. And it has nothing to do with open mind and preconceived ideas, but more with the chances of it working, which I judge to be somewhere between negligible and non-existent, because the alleged ‘physics’ is nonsense. If there were even a 1% chance of there being something there, I would jump on with gusto, but alas… This is a choice that a scientist faces every day: what to work on? where to go?
Radun (12:51:10) :
If my prediction of SC24 bears out [and it does look pretty good now], then you can compute the polar fields [PF in uT] from the size [Rmax] of any following cycle like this: abs(2*PF) = Rmax/0.63. That gives very many more cycles against which to test Vuk’s formula. Too bad it is so garbled that I can’t use it. Were you so lucky as to figure out how to fix it? The formula you gave doesn’t work [reproduce the curve] either unless I’m mistaken.
Leif Svalgaard (16:13:57) :
And it has nothing to do with open mind and preconceived ideas, but more with the chances of it working, which I judge to be somewhere between negligible and non-existent, because the alleged ‘physics’ is nonsense. If there were even a 1% chance of there being something there, I would jump on with gusto, but alas… This is a choice that a scientist faces every day: what to work on? where to go?
I second that. I might even put on my thinking cap and start playing with dark matter models. After all it was postulated because of conservations laws in the galaxies trajectories.
If you manage to find a high long time correlation
And I repeat…
Somebody have some answers here? This is related to this thread (or “threadificiation” to use a GW Bush term)
A question or two for Leif or the other good scientists out there:
Do you believe there is a link (however small) between the very low solar activity and sunspot dearth as of late, to the relative strength of that monster magnetar pulse that “shockwaved” across Earth’s magnetosphere on 21 January?
I am sure you all have seen this many times from the NASA website, but I w can watch it again and again as it is spectacular!
Switching a little bit to meteorology: At about the same time of that blast, a Sudden Stratospheric Warming event that had begun a few days earlier over the North Pole…all of the sudden seemed to amplify…and became one of the greatest events of its kind since records have been kept.
So the second part of the question is this: Could such a large pulse of energy be (at least partially) the cause of such an epic SSW event?
It is really puzzling, too, when you look at the animation from the CPC site showing the temperature changes at the 10mb level, it shows that SSW event has passed and that indeed significant cooling is occurring.
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/intraseasonal/temp10anim.shtml
But when you look at the vertical cross section of the polar vortex, you get this:
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/daily_ao_index/hgt.shtml
This chart when combined with the 10mb video above, do not jive at all. As a matter of fact….the amount of RED since January 21 from about the 200 mb level on up, is rather unsettling.
Anyone have an answer to that?
And then back to my earlier question, in recap:
Does…current low solar activity >
sun’s defenses down to a degree >
allow magnetar pulses to sweep across the solar system @ur momisugly a stronger rate > affecting the earth’s upper atmosphere to a greater degree >
and perhaps affecting weather on earth (such as this past epic SSW event)??
Thanks.
Chris
Norfolk, Virginia, USA
savethesharks (22:52:03) :
i>Do you believe there is a link (however small) between the very low solar activity and sunspot dearth as of late, to the relative strength of that monster magnetar pulse that “shockwaved” across Earth’s magnetosphere on 21 January?
No, what would that be? BTW, I have no idea that the shock wave was real. Looks like an artifact to me. But educate me, please.
So the second part of the question is this: Could such a large pulse of energy be (at least partially) the cause of such an epic SSW event?
I don’t think so. “Energy” is much too vague here. Real Energy always has a form [as opposed to Potential Energy]. What form was the energy of the event.
Anyone have an answer to that?
What is the question? apart from a collection of events…
And then back to my earlier question, in recap:
Does…current low solar activity, sun’s defenses down to a degree, allow magnetar pulses to sweep across the solar system @ur momisugly a stronger rate, affecting the earth’s upper atmosphere to a greater degree, and perhaps affecting weather on earth (such as this past epic SSW event)??
Again, what kind of ‘pulse’? If electromagnetic [and what else] then solar activity has nothing to do with it.
I guess that I have not heard about this event before and know nothing of it, so my comments can only be of a general nature. I know of magnetar events in the past that created ionization in the ionosphere, but 21 Jan. ? never heard about it. Tell me.