Above: step by step animation of solar cycle revisions since 2004
Michael Roynane writes:
On March 4, 2009 Dr. David Hathaway issued a new sunspot prediction for March 2009 which includes sunspot data through the end of February 2009. After no changes in the February 2009 prediction, solar maximum for Solar Cycle 24 was pushed back an additional three (3) months from 2012/10-2012/11 to 2013/01-2013/02. The predicted sunspot number at solar maximum was reduced from 104.9 to 104.0.
Cycle 24 Sunspot Number Prediction (February 2009)
Year Mon 95% 50% 5%
2012 07 128.0 104.0 80.0
2012 08 128.5 104.5 80.5
2012 09 128.8 104.8 80.8
2012 10 128.9 104.9 80.9
2012 11 128.9 104.9 80.9
2012 12 128.8 104.8 80.8
2013 01 128.5 104.5 80.5
2013 02 128.1 104.1 80.1
Cycle 24 Sunspot Number Prediction (March 2009)
Year Mon 95% 50% 5%
2012 10 126.9 102.9 78.9
2012 11 127.4 103.4 79.4
2012 12 127.8 103.8 79.8
2013 01 128.0 104.0 80.0
2013 02 128.0 104.0 80.0
2013 03 127.9 103.9 79.9
2013 04 127.7 103.7 79.7
2013 05 127.3 103.3 79.3
What is very strange about the revised March 2009 prediction is that the smoothed value for Solar Cycle 23 was also pushed forward by one (1) month with no change in the sunspot number at solar maximum.
Cycle 24 Sunspot Number Prediction (February 2009)
Year Mon 95% 50% 5%
2000 08 141.6 117.6 93.6
2000 09 142.0 118.0 94.0
2000 10 142.3 118.3 94.3
2000 11 142.4 118.4 94.4
2000 12 142.4 118.4 94.4
2001 01 142.2 118.2 94.2
2001 02 141.9 117.9 93.9
2001 03 141.5 117.5 93.5
Cycle 24 Sunspot Number Prediction (March 2009)
Year Mon 95% 50% 5%
2000 07 141.6 117.6 93.6
2000 08 142.1 118.1 94.1
2000 09 142.3 118.3 94.3
2000 10 142.4 118.4 94.4
2000 11 142.4 118.4 94.4
2000 12 142.2 118.2 94.2
2001 01 141.9 117.9 93.9
2001 02 141.5 117.5 93.5
I have no idea why this change was made but welcome input from the members. The new animation, with viewing instructions, can be found here.
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:SSN_Predict_NASA.gif
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/af/SSN_Predict_NASA.gif
With these changes by NASA, the variance with the high SWPC prediction remains significant. As the new SWPC numbers are now quite impossible, I expect to see more changes from both NASA and SWPC over the coming months. With each NASA revision the predictions more closely resemble those of Dr. Svalgaard who is on the low-end of the SWPC low prediction faction.
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Leif Svalgaard (08:24:25) :
The polar field based prediction have been largely correct since we first used the method [back in 1978] and are based on solid physics, so we are not totally in the dark.
Although if SC24 goes below 50 SSN we can assume the light bulb is blown?
Leif Svalgaard (13:28:06) :
vukcevic (13:16:40) :
SC19 was by far strongest ever recorded. Babcock-Leighton Solar Dynamo Model says polar fields to follow should have been equally among strongest.
Is Babcock-Leighton Solar Dynamo Model wrong?
What happens is that there is a large amount of randomness in this process. Only 1/1000 of the flux makes it to the poles, corresponding to the flux in about 5 active regions, and this flux reaches the poles in about 5 ’surges’, not in 1000 little pieces. with so few surges, you could by chance have 3 or 4 or 5 or 6 or 7 making a factor of two in the flux.
I am not sold on this….its more like a leg out for a major hole in the theory. The pole strength has been a mirror of the angular momentum strength as can been seen below. Either the SC19 pole strength proxies are inaccurate or something at a very late stage reduced the pole strength. The meridional flow theory is just that and it is all not known, its too slow to measure by Doppler images and could easily be a product of differential rotation, changing as the speed of the Sun changes, just as we have seen the pole strength of SC23 dive to a very low level coming off a reasonable base. Currently at the equator there is a speed change, is there any theories that explain this phenomena?
http://users.beagle.com.au/geoffsharp/ssnprediction.jpg
Haha TOUCHE Smokey!
Way to get the ball back in the other court where it absolutely belongs.
Chris
Norfolk, VA
Dr. Svalgaard,
I agree, we are not yet outside the nominal parameters for a solar cycle but we are outside the conditions established by NASA and the SPWC high prediction faction for Solar Cycle 24. Your predictions are still quite solid as I stated in my original post above.
I for one am very happy that NASA is starting to think outside the box. It is my sincere hope that Drs. Livingston & Penn and you take advantaged of this opportunity to advance your respective research which has been consistent with what we are now seeing. If Solar Cycle 24 jumpstarts all well and good, if it doesn’t I would like to know that the best minds are working on the problem. As you observed last year “we will know a lot more about the sun in ten years”. It gives me something to look forward to.
Mike
This minimum dragging on is big news as it is being swept under the rug.
The lid is either going to come off gracefully, or with a huge bang.
Take your pick.
We live in an age of Science being front page news.
When indicators get pegged either high or low, and it’s kept quiet, the consequences for that silence are highly volatile.
So, you have to choose whether to keep the pegged indicators hush-hush,
or tell the world all about it.
Which way do you want this to hit the front page:
Science news or Mud?
Robert Wood (14:08:19) :
Sometimes, Leif can be frustrating when he puts a hole in an anti-AGW argument; but I am glad he posts here.
I’d rather see 1,000 anti-AGW theories shot down here than an imperfect theory put forward and then shot down publicly by the AGW crowd. There’s some pretty smart people on the other side, and they have the advantage of a swooning media.
You know, its been two years now since we starting thinking the minimum was right around the corner. It has been more than two years since the first geniune cycle 24 sunspot arrived.
There really hasn’t been a ramp-up of cycle 24 sunspots.
One has to start thinking we are entering one of those rare deep solar minimum periods – like the early 1900s, the Dalton minimum of the early 1800s, the Maunder Minimum from 1645 to 1715 or the Sporer Minimum or the Wolf Minimum.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Carbon14_with_activity_labels.svg
Although Leif won’t like it, I am proposing we start calling the new minimum, “The Svalgaard Minimum”
I think NASA may also be thinking along the lines of being able to prob the Sun’s heliosphere and some of our own ionosphere without getting zapped by the Sun. Is it possible that some of the instrumentation needed to gather data would be rather sensitive to blasts from exploding sunspots? I wish it were me getting sent up there to study the Sun. I could finally get my own video tape of the boiling fireball images I love so much.
put that on some bread and you’ll have a bologna sandwich
Agreed Robert.
Either those that sweep it under the rug are up to something…
OR (most likely) they are just reacting as they go along…and they lack the REAL acumen to figure out what is going on.
Kudos for all of the scientists out there Svalgaard, Sharp, Vukovic, even Hathaway…..who are at least trying.
Now the rest of us…need to wrest the current long-entrenched bureaucrats out of power and get people in there who understand the times and who know what to do!
Chris
Norfolk, VA
Leif Svalgaard (13:22:56)
Re: the solar cycle as a chaotic process. There is a forecasting technique in nonlinear dynamics first proposed by Lorenz and known as the method of analogs. It’s simple and works just the way it sounds. The is no need to understand the underlying dynamics, but it does assume that all the dynamics are “visible” in the time series. Applying it to the sunspot time series, cycles 22 and 23 when slid along the entire time series best match cycles 3 and 4. This method would then predict that cycle 24 will be approximately like cycle 5, a very weak cycle. The second best match is 8 and 9 with the prediction of a cycle like 10. The average of cycles 5 and 10 would give a peak count of about 80. (These are eyeball numbers off Figure 2 of the paper you reference by Kitiashvili & Kosovichev)
The difficulty of course, is that there is very little data here, only 24 cycles. If we try to improve the forecast by taking 21, 22, and 23 as the template there is no good match with past history.
It’s a very simple method, it only took me two minutes to make the forecast, but very powerful for chaotic time series if there is enough data.
Paul Linsay (18:31:29) :
Applying it to the sunspot time series, cycles 22 and 23 when slid along the entire time series best match cycles 3 and 4.
It does assume that the sunspot numbers for cycles 3 and 4 are correct. What would happen if the real numbers for those were 30% higher?
The shape of cycle 4 does not match that of cycle 23, which is much more like cycle 13. Here are the cycle shapes compared:
http://www.leif.org/research/Sunspot%20Number%20Data%201775-1802.png
Anthony:
These sunspot postings are getting entirely too long. See what happens when you get recognized?
hareynolds at (07:41:00) sez:
Right now I have to send a Note Of Disabuse to Tad Cook, who does the American Radio Relay League (ARRL; ham radio) “propagation newsletter” form(sic) Seattle. As y’all may be aware, higher frequency (shorter than about 80 meters wavelength) radio propagation gets much better with an ionized troposphere (sic), which requires SUNSPOTS. No sunspots, very disappointed Hams (I haven’t been on the radio in two years).
Tad from Seattle is a bit of an AGWer, so he is SHOCKED SHOCKED that radio propagation has sucked for so long, and there appears to be a bit of an “unscheduled solar event” happening. You nght (sic) even say that he’s a bit of a DENIER. Ha!
I figure it’s our job to get to them one at a time, starting with the smart ones.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Hareynolds:
I have also been on Tad’s case for some time, mentioning various minimums whenever we have a spotless week, as I know it gets to him. I made the mistake of also challenging his substitute one week, Carl Luetzelschwab, and he almost blew a gasket when I mentioned Maunder Minimum. Anyway, so far, only Leif has remained on target. But challenging authority has kept me in trouble for over 50 years, and I’m not going to stop now.
A theoretical question for Dr. Svalgaard. A bit outside the box, but hopefully not insane. We know that sunspots (and sunspot numbers) don’t really cause anything per se. They are, at best, considered as co-dependant variables with TSI and global temperatures, and a lot of people disagree even with that. Assuming that Livingston and Penn are correct and sunspots aren’t seen for the next 20 or 30 years, could we still track Solar Cycle 24 (and 25 and 26) via the 10.7 cm flux, or some other metric?
Smokey (16:53:53), beautifully said. The family is nodding in agreement. You’ll be quoted often in the coming months.
Bill Illis (17:39:37) :
Although Leif won’t like it, I am proposing we start calling the new minimum, “The Svalgaard Minimum”
A little off the mark Bill, Svalgaard is not predicting a grand minimum, he says more like SC14. If SC24 does herald a new grand minimum, Jose is the man, he was the one who first saw the 178 yr pattern created by angular momentum.
Walter Dnes (19:09:03) :
Assuming that Livingston and Penn are correct and sunspots aren’t seen for the next 20 or 30 years, could we still track Solar Cycle 24 (and 25 and 26) via the 10.7 cm flux, or some other metric?
What L&P surmise is not that solar activity will disappear, but that sunspots are getting warmer and thus harder to see [invisible]. The magnetic fields will still be there, TSI, F10.7, and cosmic rays will still vary with a cycle [we know the latter because 14C and 10Be from the time of the Maunder Minimum do show the cycle clearly].
Geoff Sharp (19:25:28) :
“Although Leif won’t like it, I am proposing we start calling the new minimum, “The Svalgaard Minimum” “
The Eddy Minimum
If SC24 does herald a new grand minimum, Jose is the man, he was the one who first saw the 178 yr pattern created by angular momentum.
The physics is all wrong [there is no couple between solar rotational and orbital angular momentum] and Grand Minima do not occur with any period [Usokin et al.].
Leif said (regarding Janssens’ SC evolution plots): “…This is partly because one should not use the first spotless day, but something like the 5th, or 10th. If you use the 10th, the scatter is a lot less [top graph], although the blue and red curves are still pretty mixed the first 40 months.”
I see what you mean. Taking the 10th spotless day as the origin compresses the plots and makes them look orderly. They might look even more orderly if, instead of taking the nth spotless day, we took the point at which the main slope reaches, say, 2:1 (dy/dx, spotless days:calendar days).
But isn’t either of these alternate approaches arbitrary? Does the reduced scatter come at the cost of some lost information? And how important is simplifying the plot in the x-direction compared to the fact that the SC24 green line is apparently leaving the region of Population A (SC16–23) and moving into Population B (SC9–15) territory? All the action seems to be in the y-direction.
As one of the few left standing, Leif, your name & face are going to be well known. I’m sure they are going to love you.
They surely won’t know us devil’s advocates, of which I am a habitual offender.
Leif Svalgaard (19:46:56) :
The physics is all wrong [there is no couple between solar rotational and orbital angular momentum] and Grand Minima do not occur with any period [Usokin et al.].
The physics is plainly not wrong, just not fitting in with your theories. The current Doppler images as shown by Dr Howe clearly shows the equatorial rotation rate of the sun is increasing. We are also now experiencing a major disturbance in angular momentum, that centres itself every 172 years (Jose not quite right).
http://users.beagle.com.au/geoffsharp/doppler.jpg
Usoskin et al has it wrong by leaving out grand minima like the Dalton. Sharp et al have revised Usoskin’s graph which now clearly shows a 172 yr recurring pattern.
http://users.beagle.com.au/geoffsharp/c14nujs1.jpg
http://users.beagle.com.au/geoffsharp/solanki_sharp.jpg
Here is my Usokin/Solanki/Sharp spreadsheet with all the data for those who wish to check the detail.
http://users.beagle.com.au/geoffsharp/solanki_sharp.xls
Again the Achilles Heel here of absolutes and assumptions.
In this day and age, NEITHER hold that much weight.
“What L&P surmise is not that solar activity will disappear, but that sunspots are getting warmer and thus harder to see [invisible].”
Sorry Leif, no one understands the sun less than I do, but I find it a little humorous that someone is saying that there really ARE sunspots… you just can’t see them because they are invisible… trust us… Look! there’s one now… oops too bad you didn’t look quick enough…
(just a silly joke, don’t jump on me too hard)
Time to buy another copy of David Bowie’s “The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars”. Opening song: “Five Years”:
“…Pushing through the market square
so many mothers sighing
News had just come over
we had five years left to cry in
News guy wept and told us
earth was really dying
Cried so much his face was wet
then I knew he was not lying…”
http://lyricwiki.org/David_Bowie:Five_Years
Should be the theme song for this AGW passion play.
I think Global Warming/Climate Change is a government sponsored “red herring proxy” for talking about and dealing with the evolving exigencies resulting from the world peak of oil production in 2004. The production plateau we have be operating on since that time is (or has) broken down into a permanent decline in world oil production. You will find no discussion of this operational or economic reality in the public media. You will find plenty of hype concerning “Global Warming/Climate Change” though. Alice in Wonderland would find this environment quite familar and confortable.
Ok, Eddy Minimum is fine by me. He set out to prove Maunder & Sporer wrong, and totally validated both of them.
•
‘The absence of a classical quiescent equatorial streamer belt.’
Can you explain this one? I am thinking it refers to what the corona would look like during a deep minimum. Digging around on the net didn’t get me too far on it.