Solar Cycle 24 has ended according to NASA. Yes you read that right. Somebody at NASA can’t even figure out which solar cycle they are talking about. Or, as commenters to the thread have pointed out, perhaps they see that cycle 24 has been skipped. We’ll be watching this one to see the outcome. – Anthony
Michael Ronanye writes in comments:
NASA has just changed the name of the project from Solar Cycle 23 to Solar Cycle 24. I would love to have attended that meeting.
B.9 CAUSES AND CONSEQUENCES OF THE MINIMUM OF SOLAR CYCLE 24
Clarified March 10, 2009: All references to “Solar Cycle 23″ have been updated to “Solar Cycle 24.” Reference in Section 1 to “Solar Cycle 22″ has been updated to “Solar Cycle 23.”
See the changed text here:
Causes and Consequences of the Minimum of Solar Cycle 24
Talk about Freudian Slips, what Solar Cycle is it anyway? No wonder they can’t make predications!
But it gets even better. NASA has just declared that Solar Cycle 24 is over. Read the first paragraph in the above PDF:
1. Scope of Program
In 2009, we are in the midst of the minimum of solar activity that marks the end of Solar Cycle 24. As this cycle comes to an end we are recognizing, in retrospect, that the Sun has been extraordinarily quiet during this particular Solar Cycle minimum. This is evidenced in records of both solar activity and the response to it of the terrestrial space environment.
Obviously someone made an error when editing the text of the original document and did not catch their mistake. Quick, make your own backup copy of this “Great Moment in Science”.
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Leif says:
While I agree with the moon being much closer, I thought that the TSI has increased over billions of years, but that it amounts to an insignificant increase over decades, centuries and even millenia … was I wrong?
Richard Sharpe (15:12:34) :
While I agree with the moon being much closer, I thought that the TSI has increased over billions of years, but that it amounts to an insignificant increase over decades, centuries and even millenia … was I wrong?
No, but Corbyn was not talking TSI, but solar wind and magnetic fields and they were much stronger.
Leif Svalgaard (13:44:20) :
Ron de Haan (13:20:45) :
“Scafetta and Willson use the KBS07 data the justify their interpretation of the ‘ACRIM-gap’ TSI, then in their conclusion confesses that:
“[23] On a decadal scale, outside the ACRIM-gap period, KBS07 fails to reproduce the satellite data pattern and trend.”
“So, it seems to me that it is does not make much sense to use KBS07 to justify the data during the ACRIM-gap”.
Thanks Leif.
I’ve put the article in the bin and trashed it.
Apart of sun´s “pregnacy, and funny issues, it seems that NASA has adopted the new numbering of cycles after Usokin:
“This cycle,
numbered as #4’, started in 1793, reached its
maximum in 1795 and ended in 1799-1800.”
Then 4´becomes the new 5th. cycle and 23rd. becomes the 24th.
Mike Bryant (05:57:00) :
Speaking of AGW proponents, I would like to nominate Mary Hinge for “WUWT’s Favorite Warmer Award”. She/he definitely helps to keep things interesting here, but his/her pure doggedness and willingness to listen puts her/him over the top in my opinion. Now if she/he would only come out of the closet and reveal her/his true identity, she/he would be perfect in every way.
Mike
I would vote for her too – except that she once referred to me as belonging to “..ilk.” Sniff.. Sniff… I’ve never gotten over it…
Adolfo Giurfa (10:30:40) :
This is what NASA says (in the posted link above):
“Causes – Solar output
Lowest sustained solar radio flux since the F 10.7 proxy was created in 1947;
Solar wind global pressure the lowest observed since the beginning of the Space age;
Unusually high tilt angle of the solar dipole throughout the current solar minimum;
Solar wind magnetic field 36% weaker than during the minimum of Solar Cycle 23;
Effectively no sunspots;
The absence of a classical quiescent equatorial streamer belt; and
Cosmic rays at near record-high levels.
Consequences
With the exception of 1934, 2008 had more instances of 3-hr periods with Kp=0 than any other year since the creation of the index in 1932;
Cold contracted ionosphere and upper atmosphere; and
Remarkably persistent recurrent geomagnetic activity.”
That’s a good summary of where we are at.
I have a new paper at http://climatechange1.wordpress
Implications of low solar activity are as follows:
The strength of the polar vortex depends upon the absolute density of the atmosphere above the pole.
When the sun is quiet the paucity of short wave radiation enables the atmosphere to contract. In this condition it is little affected by the solar wind because the wind needs particles with an unbalanced electrical charge (ions) to work with.
When the atmosphere above the pole is dense and compact the Polar vortex is strong.
The Polar vortex brings compounds of nitrogen from the mesosphere that directly erodes ozone from the stratosphere.
The mixing of mesospheric air with stratospheric air is observed between the pole and 40° latitude.
The fall in the ozone content also occurs in the interaction zone between the stratosphere and the troposphere. The temperature of the air varies directly with its ozone content.
The fall in temperature in the upper troposphere is associated with increased density of ice cloud and greater reflection of the suns rays. Less reaches the surface.
This fall in the ozone content of the upper troposphere is also associated with a strengthening of the mid latitude pressure cells that drive the trade winds and the westerlies.
In other words, persistent La Nina tendencies.
Between 1978 and 2005 we had persistent El Nino tendencies. So, this is a big change.
“Remarkably persistent recurrent geomagnetic activity” is associated with sea surface warming at lower mid latitudes in the southern hemisphere where the high pressure cells traverse from west to east. But at the moment its episodic and it seems to be in phase with that geomagnetic activity.
E.M.Smith: “I have seen no suppression of any politely presented arguments pro or con AGW, so just clean up your act and you’ll be fine…” How, exactly, do you expect to see suppressed arguments unless you’ve tried to present them? My comments have always been civil and on-topic, but have been “moderated” in important ways on occasion.
psi: “this is a gross misrepresentation of the moderating style on this site, unless by “hitting a tender spot,” Mr. Lawson means vulgarity, ad hominems, calls to violence etc.” Plenty of that stuff seems to get through just fine, including ~snip~
erlhapp (18:20:19) or Adolfo Giurfa (10:30:40) “I have a new paper at http://climatechange1.wordpress“
I get only a “Page load error” from this link. I would like to read it.
erlhapp (18:20:19) or Adolfo Giurfa (10:30:40): I should have looked more closely. Got it at:Climate Change
I notice that Ben Lawson is still unable to produce any example of the supposed faulty logic and misleading data. As he also doesn’t yet seem to realize that this was a humor piece his problems may bebeyond anything we can treat.
Wondering Aloud: “…is still unable to produce any example of the supposed faulty logic and misleading data.” I direct you to Steven Goddard’s post “Basic Geology 3”.
[snip]
Perhaps NASA just needs to add error bars:
solar cycle 24 +-2, should do it.
Re Mary Hinge, I wonder if her/his fans have heard of Spooner, that famous shaft of wit.
erlhapp:
It goes far from my grasp but it looks that all pieces are coming together, finally, and what it is more interesting, and again only intuitively, is that we are looking at something like an “earth dynamo” in action. (?)
Leif,
Could you please give me evidence that the sun was much more active billions of years ago and that the moon was much closer billions of years ago.
Thank you in anticipation.
Mark Hobart (15:18:43) :
Moon:
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/solarsystem/moon_making_010815-1.html
Sun:
http://hoku.as.utexas.edu/~gebhardt/a301f08/lect5.html
Well, I’m not quite sure what this is all about over here. Is it about a physical phenomenon or about something else? After all, folks, let’s appreciate the fact that the mighty star we depend on brought us to life.
Have a nice weekend!
Ben Lawson (21:41:36) : How, exactly, do you expect to see suppressed arguments unless you’ve tried to present them?
Well, the moderators insert this little marker “snip” when they take something out or they replace the whole text with a request to rephrase it. It’s really pretty simple to see where they “snipped”. Now I suppose if something was particularly bad they could just delete it silently, but I’ve seen nothing to support that belief. (i.e. no one saying “what happened to foo” or a response to something that did get through, then got deleted or, well, lets just say their isn’t much that a trained computer security forensics guy, me, has seen to show any evidence…)
I have noticed the occasional ‘black hole’ behavior with some of my postings. After starting a wordpress blog I found out why. It’s supplies its own spam filter (with some small ability to add things to the ‘rules’). Those postings go to the SPAM queue that gets looked at separately and so can sit for a while. Sometimes a long while. The one that kept catching me was ‘number of embedded links’ in a posting. So it may just be that you put a half dozen “See THIS” links in and end up with wordpress putting it into the spam queue. Nothing to do with the moderators (other than how often they dump the spam queue…) I think the default limit was 3 when I started my site. More than that takes manual intervention of some sort to allow it or to get a posting out of the SPAM queue.
They can add a word list (I put a few particularly offensive curse words in my filter) and change the link threshold, but not much more than that (at least on the free version I got).
So if you posted something and didn’t even get an “awaiting moderation” notice – just “gone”, it got SPAM queued by wordpress (and may come back from the SPAM queue if the moderator does extra work to go fishing for it). If you did get the “awaiting moderation” banner, then it got snipped, that was moderation.
Who is in charge at NASA? Can’t someone fire these clowns (Hansen and Hathaway)?
Nasa should clean house of these Political “scientists”.
Leif,
Thank you for your reply.
You have not provided any evidence for the questions I asked.
They are just theories.
Is there any evidence you can give me.
Thank you once again.
mark hobart (21:34:20) :
You have not provided any evidence for the questions I asked.
They are just theories. Is there any evidence you can give me.
I don’t think you understand what scientific evidence is, or what a ‘theory’ is. A scientific theory, like the ‘theory of relativity’ or the ‘theory of evolution’, is a synthesis [in words or mathematical symbols] that encompasses a very large body of facts, or explains a large amount of observations. The solar wind and solar rotation is a good example. We can measure the rotation of many stars and their age and find invariably that young stars rotate fast, while old stars [as the Sun] rotate slowly. We can calculate from physical laws verified by laboratory experiments how much the solar wind slows down a star with age and we find that a very strong wind is needed in the youth of the star to explain its slow-down. We also know that solar activity in the end is produced by solar rotation and that therefore a fast rotating Sun will have a strong solar wind. Putting all these things together we get the picture of the formation of the solar system that I referred you to.
Leif,
“a very large body of facts, or explains a large amount of observations”
Yes. Please give evidence that the sun was much more active billions of years ago and that the moon was much closer billions of years ago.
You have not done so.
I do not think that you have any.
I want obsevable facts . Not speculation.
And please, no arguments from authority. Thay are distractions to the free exchange of information.
Thank you
mark hobart (23:48:31) :
I do not think that you have any.
Let’s do this slowly and methodically: The Moon raises tides in the oceans and in the solid surface of the Earth.
Mark Hobart
You should read about Descartes “evil genius” and then try to move forward a little with your philosophy on proof etc.
Do you expect Leif to send you a photograph of the sun and the moon closer to the earth, together with the visible end of a tape measure, and the masthead of the new york times for that day billions of years ago?
Leif Svalgaard (05:38:23) :
mark hobart (23:48:31) :
I do not think that you have any.
Let’s do this slowly and methodically: The Moon raises tides in the oceans and in the solid surface of the Earth.
I am trying to use the Socratic method to make you understand the issue, so please reward my effort with a response: do we agree on the above statement about the Moon?
Leif,
We know the moon is moving away from the Earth at about 4cm per year. This is an observed fact which I do not question. However, as I understand it, we do not know how or when the moon formed or appeared in orbit about earth.
My question again. “Could you please give me evidence that the sun was much more active billions of years ago and that the moon was much closer billions of years ago?”
As you are a solar scientist I would be particularly interested in you answer regarding the sun.
Thank you once again.