NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center – News Conference Friday

Frederick Michael:- they show in my Firefox!

Leif Svalgaard
Leif, is this the panel upon which you sit or do you have any input to it?

Suggestion: Make comments about the ads in the “A note to WUWT readers; an experiment” article which is about the ads. Maybe the word “ad” should be in that headline so you could figure out that it was not about a scientific experiment.

Maybe they will be honest and admit that they have no clue.

Why did I immediately think of George Carlin’s forecast of “Continued mostly dark tonight turning to widely scattered light in the morning”?

Our Sun is giving us a natural experiment with the late starting solar cycle 24: Is there a correlation between a longer solar cycle and cooler global temperatures? Prior data indicates that this correlation is significant, so let us make our predictions then collect the data. Let us allow the valid data as the driver of science and leave the power, politics and money out of the equation.

Leif Svalgaard (11:14:29) :
Thanks for your answers.

Leif Svalgaard (11:14:29) :
Mr Green Genes (10:46:14) :
what is the protocol for judging when the minimum has been reached?
There isn’t any set protocol.
a low number Cycle (4 or 5 I think) effectively didn’t exist and the two Cycles either side were a) weak and b) far apart.
The so-called ‘lost cycle’ does not seem to be validated by recent work, so IMO there was no cycle lost.
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NASA should have realized way back in 1996 that Solar Cycle 23 is no ordinary solar cycle. The Prediction Panel dealt with the clear early signs in a typically bureaucratic manner, apparently showing no curiousity or rudimentary comprehension of what was happening! Everybody in charge of monitoring the sun was asleep at the switch!
Summary Report of the Second Meeting of the Solar Cycle Prediction Panel, National Solar Observatory/Sacramento Peak, Sunspot, New Mexico, September 8, 1997
http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/info/SumSept.html
“The most problematic point discussed was the time of the cycle minimum. While the traditional numerical prescription as well as other measures of solar irradiance and activity agree that May, 1996, was the minimum smoothed month of the cycle, Karen Harvey noted that there are several factors that argue that this date is misleading as a fiducial for Cycle 23 onset. In particular, no new cycle spots were observed before this month – a situation never before recorded. The date of minimum is expected to represent that time when new cycle activity becomes dominant; that is, the new cycle should have been in progress as the old cycle declined, the minimum then marking the crossover. But for Cycle 23, new cycle regions did not outnumber old cycle regions until December, 1996. The resurgence of activity in the months following May is due to old cycle regions (low latitude spot groups with the appropriate magnetic polarity of old cycle regions). Another factor that indicates May is a misleading date is that the maximum number of spotless days occurred in September and October, 1996. Finally, the Panel noted that the epoch tables specifying cycle maxima and minima included in Waldmeier [1961] are not consistent with a strict determination based on smoothed sunspot number.”
“The Panel then reviewed the published definition of sunspot extrema [McKinnon 1987] which includes 5 criteria:
When observations permit, a date selected as either a cycle minimum or maximum is based in part on an average of the times when extremes are reached (1) in the monthly mean sunspot number, (2) in the smoothed monthly mean sunspot number, and (3) in the monthly mean number of spot groups alone. Two more measures are used at time of sunspot minimum: (4) the number of spotless days and (5) the frequency of occurrence of “old” and “new” cycle spot groups.
Because the smallest monthly mean sunspot numbers were achieved in September (1.6) and October (0.9), 1996, and the most spotless days occurred in October, the Panel agreed that October, 1996, was the effective onset of Cycle 23.”
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When Cycle 23 finally ends, presumably some time this year unless it turns out to have some puzzling characteristics of the Little Ice Age’s ultralong Maunder Minimum, the official end will probably not be declared until about a year afterwards.
Accepting October, 1996 as the official start of solar cycle 23, we are now 12.6 years into the long-spotless cycle. Accepting May, 1996 as the traditional definition of the start, it has been going on for 13 years. A “normal” solar cycle length is ~11 years.

To Shane (12:00:03) :
Idiot’s guide to sunspots:
The number of sunspots naturally varies with an 11.01 year cycle. A typical sun spot cycle is like a bell curve: first year with very few sunspots, year five is the maximum number then dropping back to very few sunspots in year eleven. Science has measured the last 23 sun spot cycles, and waiting for cycle 24 to begin soon. It is starting slower later than expected and recent measurements of solar wind by NASA show a 50 year low!
Sunspots are formed by the Sun’s magnetic field interacting with its surface. The peak energetic years see about 200 sunspots per year whereas the low troughs are less than 50 per year. It should be noted that the very lowest troughs are when the sunspot activity was close to zero for many years at a time and they had a corresponding global freeze that overlapped during the same time period.
Earth’s climate is linked to the Sun. Humans have known about the partnership between Earth’s climate cycles and solar activity for more than 400 years because of sunspot variations. Most dramatically, the Maunder Sunspot Minimum occurred from 1640 to 1710. There were virtually no sunspots at all for about 70 years. That marked the Sun’s weakest recent moment, and it also was globally the very coldest point in the Little Ice Age. In 2009, our Sun is currently in a 100 year low in sunspot activity.
Since 1975, satellite measurements of solar energy output vs. sunspot activity show a direct relationship: As the number of sunspots increase, so does the solar energy output. During 2008/09, the sunspot activity reached near record lows. The total number of zero sun spot days in 2008 numbered 266, which was the second least active year since 1900. Combining the total number of spotless days of this solar minimum is now + 600 days (as of 4/15/09). Generally speaking, long sun spot cycles are associated with colder global temperatures (like 1970’s) while shorter ones (like1980’s & 1990’s) are warm periods.
Since the sun spot activity significantly dropped in 2008, which also extended this solar cycle, was there a corresponding global cooling? Yes, 2008 was an exceptional year for our planet with a significant global cooling. All four major indicators had an average drop of -0.6405˚C during 2008. A decrease of 0.6405˚C degrees globally is the largest January-to-January drop since 1875, and the biggest drop for any 12-month interval since – 0.681 ˚C in February 1974. During 2008: a) the summer ice minimum over the Arctic Ocean grow 9.4% larger than previous summer, b) Anchorage, AK had it’s coldest summer on record c) the entire nation of Canada had it’s first all white Christmas since the 1970’s, d) Britain and Europe had their coldest start to winter in 30 years and e) Chicago, IL had December of 2008 as one of coldest and snowy ever recorded. During 2008, CO2 levels continued to climb to it’s modern highest point to 387 parts per million.

Looks like the sun has stopped turning!!!
It looks like that coronal hole has stayed in the same position for the last 3 days or more…

Will it be issued “EX-CATHEDRA ” ?