Yesterday I lamented that the sun was blank, not only on the SOHO MDI, but also the magnetogram. Within a couple of hours, one sunspeck appeared. I cited Murphy’s Law. As one commenter put it: ” I think if you check back for the last six months or so whenever you mention the lack of sunspots on here, one shows up.”.
Perhaps if I stop writing about the lack of sunspots, a grand minimum will appear. Such power I wield. 😉
The plage area now has no characteristics of a classic spot as you can see on the MDI, but it did yesterday ever so faintly as you can see in a previous MDI image here.
It is rather faint. It is doubtful that pre 20th century astronomers would see it.
NASA’s Dr. Tony Philips, who runs Spaceweather.com also got sucked in by the spotlessness yesterday and wrote this today:
Where have all the sunspots gone? As of yesterday, March 21st, the sun has been blank on 85% of the days of 2009. If this rate of spotlessness continues, 2009 will match 1913 as the blankest year of the past century. A flurry of new-cycle sunspots in Oct. 2008 prompted some observers to declare that solar minimum was ending, but since then the calm has returned. We are still in the pits of a deep solar minimum.
Coincidences and commentary aside, the plage group that appeared shortly after these two posts yesterday is an oddball to be sure. Have a look at the magentogram:
It has the classic high latitude of an SC24 spot, but reversed polarity.
Jan Janssens writes:
” 22 March 09 – New SC24-group has reversed polarity… – The new sunspotgroup that is visible in today’s SOHO-images, has -according to the corresponding magnetogram- a reversed polarity (SC23/25). Though on itself this is not so peculiar (every solar cycle has about hundred such groups, or about 3% of the total), it is already the second SC24-group showing this “aberration”: NOAA 1003, visible for just one day (04 October 2008) on the southern hemisphere (-23°), had a polarity equal to that of a unpair solar cycle too (see slide 4 of my presentation). That makes 2 out of 13 (15%), if this group gets a NOAA-number. ”
Compare the current magnetogram to one where a true SC24 spot did form on Feb 24th, 2009:
The real question is: how long will it last? Most of the cycle 24 spots (and disturbances that don’t rise to spots) have very short lifetimes. Will this new one grow and be assigned a number? Or will it wink out?
We live in interesting times.
Thanks Anthony.
Hey you wanna comment from a meteorologist standpoint on the above posts that were started vis-a-vis this thread “Oddball Solar Plage” where Lief made a comment linking the sunpots with the most rotation with the ones that produce the strongest flares?
I immediately did a side-by-side in my mind of a rotating, twisting sunspot moving SE along the sun’s surface and I thought of something else it reminded me of….
Chris
Norfolk, VA
Geoff Sharp (23:23:35) :
If you think that 6000 yrs of planetary lineups which correlate with reduced solar activity and their modulation is an example of marginal correlation you have your eyes closed.
I have very carefully looked at every single wiggle of that diagram [including making a version of it myself from scratch] and it is my judgment from the ‘lineups’ that there is no significant correlation of the nature you advocate. The is enough ‘slack’ in the timing that you can line anything up. Artful designations of exceptions and missed lineups as different ‘types’ of agreement seems to be just that, art. I know that you will answer that I don’t understand anything about SSB and how to line up wiggles to make them match. If indeed there weresomething there, I would suggest a collaboration and we would publish this and beat all them knuckleheads with it and be famous and change the face of science. Alas, I don’t think we would succeed based on my careful study of your work.
savethesharks:
We all need to get out, observe nature, not just sit back and take in instrumental readings. Grab your scope, project the spots, take it all in.
If you have to get in your car and drive to find a place to project the next sunspot, do it.
Pay attention to flora, fauna and the feel of the climate.
Note the hues of spring, the crops of acorns, the types of weeds and flowers and how they grow.
Pay attention to the animals, and remember they can sense things we cannot.
Pull a William Herschel or two. Keep your eagle-eye trained on things.
Whatever it is you are contemplating about this Deep Solar Minimum, don’t be the last guy in line to spot what’s going on under your nose.
Don’t be a non-observer.
Well said….
Looks like this plage has reproduced a spot:
http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/data/realtime/mdi_igr/1024/latest.html
It has also changed it’s polarity, by shedding the Red spectral dipole and V-R, and sucking in another one from behind to make a R-V for SC24 spot. Amazing. Didn’t know they could do that.
You’re on, Leif.
Robert Bateman (22:17:33) :
It has also changed it’s polarity, by shedding the Red spectral dipole and V-R, and sucking in another one from behind to make a R-V for SC24 spot. Amazing. Didn’t know they could do that.
You’re on, Leif.
Spots grow by collecting magnetic flux from the neighborhood…
That they do, and this one has literally changed it’s spots. Or al least 50% of them.
Can’t be a leopard.
Must be a chamelion.
Should be projectable if it’s still there at noon.
Are you up for this, Dr. Svalgaard?
Looks like another couple specks have been produced from this area.
Leif you are omitting a few simple bits about plasmas and magnetic fields of which the other readers may not be familiar
So — Here’s a bit of plasma 101:
Plasma is electrically neutral only because of a balance of the density of ions and electrons
However despite neutrality because the particles are free to move as in a gas — plasmas can carry currents very easily — in fact easily created and relatively cold plasmas can be extremely good conductors — ions go left electrons go right
(try a neon sign tube or a florescent light as an example)
Things get more complicated when you introduce magnetic fields then you have ions and electrons “gyrating” around the “magnetic field lines” but currents still flow — however they now flow in a helical fashion
If you look at a solar prominence arcing from one point to another what you are in fact seeing is plasma carrying currents along magnetic field lines (think bar magnet inserted tangent to the sun’s surface with iron filings sprinkled on a piece of paper extending out to the location of the prominence arc) with a big neon sign
If you move the plasma due to thermally driven or density gradients — the field lines are essentially going to mostly go with the plasma due to its conductivity (frozen field lines)
Except that you might have some extra resistivity due to plasma waves and instabilities (outside of this Plasma 101 lecture – see Hans Alfven’s Nobel Lecture for example). The enhanced resisitivity (not predicted by simple thermal models) then allows the field lines to move in such a way as to minimize the total energy of the system (think winding up a rubber band and then cutting it) — this process is known as magnetic reconnection, and the released energy can dramatically locally heats the plasma and even accelerate particles to very high energy– voila a Solar Flare (x-rays are an indication of a lot of particle energy) and then as the released energy propagates outward as a shock-like wave coronal heating and ultimately– a CME
All of the above exists on and just under the “surface” and in the atmosphere of the sun. It also occurs in the earth’s magnetosphere and most unfortunately in the very expensive vacuum chambers, etc., involved in magnetically confined thermonuclear fusion experiments (one of the main reasons that unfortunately we are still decades from having thermonuclear fusion power plants). However all of the above can also be safely and conveniently demonstrated with the equipment in the average high school physics lab – and its very educational and even entertaining!
Westy
WestHighlander (07:49:32) :
If you look at a solar prominence arcing from one point to another what you are in fact seeing is plasma carrying currents along magnetic field lines
Here is where the ‘current’ picture becomes confusing [or even breaks]. It is not the plasma carrying a current that creates the arching magnetic field, rather the magnetic field causes protons and electrons to gyrate around the field giving rise to a current around the field, not along the field. There are other effects that happen when the magnetic field is not uniform [it is stronger near the footpoints of the prominence] and the particles will then bounce up and down the curved field lines, like charges in the radiation belts of the Earth. One has to be VERY careful with the ‘current’ picture and think about what drives what.
Rats, foiled again. No spots. Throws solar lottery ticket in trash. Some fella in the ME got the lucky ticket.
Leif Svalgaard (22:27:36) :
Robert Bateman (22:17:33) :
It has also changed it’s polarity, by shedding the Red spectral dipole and V-R, and sucking in another one from behind to make a R-V for SC24 spot. Amazing. Didn’t know they could do that.
You’re on, Leif.
“Spots grow by collecting magnetic flux from the neighborhood…”
Did you know this last year?
Leif Svalgaard // January 16, 2008 at 8:00 pm
“we don’t even know what a sunspot is and how it forms – we can describe it, but that is not understanding it.”
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2007/10/13/solar-cycle-24/
Glenn (10:53:12) :
“Spots grow by collecting magnetic flux from the neighborhood…”
Did you know this last year?
Leif Svalgaard // January 16, 2008 at 8:00 pm
“we don’t even know what a sunspot is and how it forms – we can describe it, but that is not understanding it.”
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2007/10/13/solar-cycle-24/
‘grow by collecting…’ is a description [and has been known for a century]. We do not, however, understand how that process works. Of course, there are ideas [ http://www.leif.org/research/Percolation%20and%20the%20Solar%20Dynamo.pdf ], but most solar physicists would agree that those do not rise to the level of ‘understanding’.
Leif,
How does the external influence reverse the polar fields, cause the polarity change of toroidal fields between cycles and between hemispheres?
If the core rotates faster than the outer parts for a while and then switch to the opposite, would that explain it?
lgl (12:53:10) :
“How does the external influence reverse the polar fields, cause the polarity change of toroidal fields between cycles and between hemispheres?”
If the core rotates faster than the outer parts for a while and then switch to the opposite, would that explain it?
(1) what would make the core do that?
(2) the polarity changes across the equator, so the core would have to rotate differently in the North compared to the South
(3) we have measured the core’s rotation precisely with helioseismology, and it does not seem to change with time [in fact does rotate slower than the equatorial outer parts]
(4) any change of the core’s rotation would change the oblateness of the Sun, which would change the orbit of Mercury and destroy the agreement of the observed changes due to general relativity, and no such changes have been observed,
So, all in all, the answer seems to be no. But, I’m always willing to listen to a well-reasoned theory. Present one here for our consideration.
Leif,
(3) we have measured the core’s rotation precisely with helioseismology, and it does not seem to change with time [in fact does rotate slower than the equatorial outer parts]
For how long period was it measured (or how long between)? How big is the difference?
lgl (14:35:24) :
For how long period was it measured (or how long between)? How big is the difference?
http://solarphysics.livingreviews.org/Articles/lrsp-2009-1/
Leif Svalgaard (12:03:46) :
Glenn (10:53:12) :
“Spots grow by collecting magnetic flux from the neighborhood…”
Did you know this last year?
Leif Svalgaard // January 16, 2008 at 8:00 pm
“we don’t even know what a sunspot is and how it forms – we can describe it, but that is not understanding it.”
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2007/10/13/solar-cycle-24/
“‘grow by collecting…’ is a description [and has been known for a century]. We do not, however, understand how that process works. Of course, there are ideas [ http://www.leif.org/research/Percolation%20and%20the%20Solar%20Dynamo.pdf ], but most solar physicists would agree that those do not rise to the level of ‘understanding’.”
A statement that includes “by” certainly is an explanation, not a “description”. Sounds like you are saying that it has been known for a century that sunspots themselves have some ability to “collect” magnetic flux. Are you saying that this is a *correlation* of observations of multiple events that describes the process that “grows” sunspots?
If a magnetic can attract from the neighborhood from any direction (like this one did), that makes it hard to determine which cycle it belongs to.
There must be a reason why most of the spots formed would follow the correct polarity, otherwise it would be a statistical draw (pure random).
No official designation of a spot yet.
The poor thing doesn’t know which magnetic to marry up with, comes home empty-handed.
Torn between two magnetics.
Glenn (16:36:06) :
A statement that includes “by” certainly is an explanation, not a “description”.
It seems that you think I understand this better than I would give myself credit for. Thanks for your confidence in me [that is undeserved].
Robert Bateman (16:43:56) :
There must be a reason why most of the spots formed would follow the correct polarity, otherwise it would be a statistical draw (pure random).
There is. Look for “Hale’s law” in
http://www.leif.org/research/Percolation%20and%20the%20Solar%20Dynamo.pdf
Leif Svalgaard (19:29:21) :
Glenn (16:36:06) :
A statement that includes “by” certainly is an explanation, not a “description”.
“It seems that you think I understand this better than I would give myself credit for. Thanks for your confidence in me [that is undeserved].”
Think nothing of it. Your predictions of maximum sunspots you claim is based on physics, rather than on correlations. Yet with respect to sunspots, you say that we don’t know what they are or how they occur, but you also claim “spots grow by collecting magnetic flux from the neighborhood”.
So I will ask again:
Are you saying that this is a *correlation* of observations of multiple events that describes the process that “grows” sunspots?
Glenn (20:15:40) :
Are you saying that this is a *correlation* of observations of multiple events that describes the process that “grows” sunspots?
I have no idea what you are talking about. Perhaps you could explain where you want to go with this question or what information you are seeking. I can refer you to a book by C. A. Young [The Sun; D. Appleton & Co., New York, 1896] where he describes [or is it ‘explains’] what he observed.
Glenn (20:15:40) :
Are you saying that this is a *correlation* of observations of multiple events that describes the process that “grows” sunspots?
I note that you had emphasized *correlation*, so perhaps you are unsure what it means and need clarification. Let me give you an example of a *correlation*: In darkest Africa there is a tribe that claim that beating of tam-tam drums during a solar eclipse will restore the Sun. They claim, also, that the *correlation* has never failed. This is a *correlation* rather than physics.
This link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correlation_(disambiguation) allows you to explore different kinds of *correlation*. Perhaps the one you seek is listed there.