NASA solicits new studies on the current solar minimum

savethesharks (13:44:44) :
Is the current climate at NASA such that HELIOPHYSICS have taken a back seat due to the Gore-Hansen rudder?
I don’t think so. I wish it were, as that might reverse soon, but alas, I think just plain incompetence.

Geoff Sharp (15:38:59) :
So orbital accelerations/decelerations of the Sun don’t have an effect on the Sun’s rotation rate?
That is correct. There is no couple between the two strong enough [as DeJager points out] to accomplish that.

Geoff Sharp (19:35:26) :
So now the argument is that angular momentum theory does not violate the laws of physics, but the change in acceleration caused by angular momentum is not enough to change the rotation speed of the Sun?
No, that is a distortion. Without a couple between them, orbital angular momentum cannot change rotational momentum and there is no couple, and even if there were a coupling, it would be too small. Violation comes in by positing that if a body in orbit about another body slows down by changing its distance [e.g. in an eccentric orbit], the other body will rotate faster.

Paul Vaughan (23:13:59) :
Although the model presented in the paper is not physics-based, it seems the authors were quite thorough in piecing together clues about past temporal patterns.
The paper uses sunspot numbers that likely are too low in the 18th and 19th centuries so the cycles come out not quite right. The two dominant periods are 11 and 106 years, all the rest could be noise as they don’t contribute much.
I am also curious to know if anyone thinks the insights from figure 3
The periods reported in the two papers do not all match so some must be spurious. The inference that the HMF varies from 1 nT to 7 nT has not been confirmed, see e.g. http://www.leif.org/research/Comment%20on%20McCracken.pdf
Overall, the two papers are very speculative, but speculation is an honorable thing so there is value in the papers. If not for other reasons, then for bringing forth the issue of long-term changes in the system. The details are most likely wrong, but the issues stand.
The very low SC24 prediction [43+/-34] has a large error bar and actually encompasses our prediction [75] and others as well, so can in itself not be used as a discriminator. There are several predictions in the 50-80 range.
One could write a whole monograph on the issues raised and they touch upon many aspects of solar activity causes, so this short note can’t do justice to the papers.

Paul Vaughan (11:59:50) :
“It is shown that the ionization chamber data published by S. E. Forbush were deliberately detrended to remove long-term changes.”
The ionization chamber data is not an absolute count, but depends on calibration against such a count, in casu, the Neher balloon data. Forbush was correct in removing the drifts, because he had no choice. It all comes down to the Neher data. I know Ken McCracken well [he is in fact a good friend of mine] and Ken is a careful worker and should not be dismissed. The case basically comes down to their Figure 7. There are two issues,
1) the jump in the late 1940s, and
2) the fact that the variation for the minimum 1944 does not show the usual ‘peaked’ structure of every odd-even cycle peak ever since.
If we accept the jump, we can, as Ken did in another paper, calculate the HMF and deduce that there must have been a jump of 1.7 nT at that time. So such jump is seen in HMF based on geomagnetic data [calculated in different ways by different groups], so that weighs against the jump as does the lack of a pointed peak in 1944. All this is spelled out in http://www.leif.org/research/Comment%20on%20McCracken.pdf and in http://www.leif.org/research/Seminar-LMSAL.pdf and in http://www.leif.org/research/TSI%20From%20McCracken%20HMF.pdf
Note that there is a strong suggestion of contamination of the 10Be record by aerosols from volcanoes.
About the wavelets: as it is not clear how much of the 10Be record is really due to the Sun, it is not clear what the significance of the 150-year signal and the 2300-year signal are, so speculation can have an [almost] free reign. I do not, personally, consider these periods established [as the Scottish say: ‘not proven’].
Also, I will appreciate it if you can clarify if you are objecting to the suggestion of a 150 year signal – and the wavelet plot (figure 3) more generally – based on your concerns about HMF floor. Reference:
http://www.eawag.ch/organisation/abteilungen/surf/publikationen/

Paul Vaughan (16:12:24) :
Figure 3 is about 14C (not 10Be)
Ah, you are right. Ken usually works with 10Be so I had a small senior moment there. The Carbon cycle is even more problematic than the 10Be cycle.
but is seems you will have to contend with lines 141-155 in the following
No, not any more because Lockwood in his paper with Roulliard 2007 has seen the light and now knows that the aa-index did have a ‘drift’ as he calls it. There is no longer any disagreement about this. The so-called ‘errors’ he claims to have found were summarily dealt with here http://www.leif.org/research/Reply%20to%20Lockwood%20IDV%20Comment.pdf as we say in that paper: “
we answer the criticisms of Lockwood et al. [2006] (hereinafter referred to as LRFS06) to our paper. In sum, we find their objections without merit.”
I can see other issues related to the asymmetry of distributions
Yes, there such well-known issues [even touched upon by Mayaud himself], e.g. the K=0 bin [for disturbances less than 5 nT] should not be assigned an amplitude of 2.5 [or even worse: 2 for the aa-index], as there are many more cases within that bin where the disturbance is greater than 2.5 than less than 2.5. The ‘effective’ amplitude weighted with the frequency of occurrence is more like 3.75.

Paul Vaughan (19:00:27) :
A final question: Now that we have cleared up the minor misunderstanding about the wavelet plot, can you see any reason to dismiss-out-of-hand the notion of a ~150 year cycle?
There are few things I dismiss out of hand [some might disagree 🙂 ], but for something to be interesting to me I have to put it in context with something else or connect it with another phenomenon. since I don’t know where to place the 150-year cycle [if even real – which I’m not convinced of] I would tend to ignore it until such time that a context becomes apparent.
And, BTW, thanks for taking the trouble of trying to understand some of these very arcane issues with indices. Few people do.

Paul Vaughan (20:03:47) :
If you can somehow find time to write a summary of issues with geomagnetic indices, going all the way back to the beginning, with a play-by-play of all of the classic developments,
I’m giving a talk on just that at the IAGA 2009 [Sopron] meeting in August: H02. History of geomagnetic observations, observatories, & indices IDCH and Divs. I and V
This session of invited talks will trace the history of the study of earth’s magnetism including: Gilbert’s De Magnete, early studies of geomagnetic activity by Graham and Celsius, Gauss and Weber’s Magnetic Union, Sabine’s British Colonial Observatories, establishment of the solar-terrestrial connection, Bartels’ development of geomagnetic indices, and the modern Intermagnet and space borne observation programs. Contributed talks will be given in an associated poster session.