The new cycle 24 solar forecast is hot off the press from noon today, published at 12:03 PM from the Space Weather Prediction Center. It looks like a peak of 90 spots/month in May of 2013 now. SWPC has dropped their “high forecast” and have gone only with the “low forecast” as you can see in the before and after graphs that I’ve overlaid below. Place your bets on whether that “low forecast” will be an overshooting forecast or not. It has been a lot of work getting this info out as the SWPC has had trouble with their web page today.
The quote of interest is:
A new active period of Earth-threatening solar storms will be the weakest since 1928 and its peak is still four years away, after a slow start last December, predicts an international panel of experts led by NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center.
After over a year of hedging, it looks like NOAA’s SWPC is finally coming around to the reality of a lower than normal solar cycle. – Anthony
UPDATE2: Minutes later @12:15PM. Dammit, they changed the graphs back! Anybody have cache files? – Anthony
UPDATE3: @12:20 PM And now it’s back.
UPDATE4: @ 12:45PM There are some serious problems with the SWPC page, the sunspot graph content keeps changing and the 10.7 flux graph is just plain wrong. They also have no written press release. What a train wreck.
UPDATE5: @1:00PM I called Doug Biesecker, SWPC’s “media relations” director at both of his numbers, to ask what is going on. No answer. Left a request for a call-back.
UPDATE6: @1:40PM I heard from Doug Biesecker, he said they are having server issues, he and his webmaster were working to fix the problem. He also said the press conference was recorded and he would be sending an audio link. Look for it here soon.
UPDATE7: @2:10PM looks like SWPC has their web page fixed now. Thanks Doug.
UPDATE8: @2:18PM Found the NOAA SWPC press release (linked at spaceweather.com) and it is reprinted below the “read more” line. I also changed the title of this post to reflect the quote in the spaceweather.com feature story/PR from SWPC.
I was able to capture the new sunspot prediction graph, and combined it with the previous prediction as an overlay, which I have presented below:
Leif Svalgaard found this explanation:
If one digs a little deeper, there is some ‘explanation’
http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/ftpdir/weekly/README3
Solar Cycle 24 Prediction Update
May 8, 2009 — The Solar Cycle 24 Prediction Panel has reached a consensus decision on the prediction of the next solar cycle (Cycle 24). First, the panel has agreed that solar minimum occurred in December, 2008. This still qualifies as a prediction since the smoothed sunspot number is only valid through September, 2008. The panel has decided that the next solar cycle will be below average in intensity, with a maximum sunspot number of 90. Given the predicted date of solar minimum and the predicted maximum intensity, solar maximum is now expected to occur in May, 2013. Note, this is a consensus opinion, not a unanimous decision. A supermajority of the panel did agree to this prediction.”
Leif writes:
The ‘90′ was not agreed upon. The only choices the panel members had in the last vote were ‘high’ or ‘low’. I pointed out that the value was important too and that just because 90 was the average number of the ‘low’ group two years does not mean that it a good number now. This was ignored.
This one paragraph below is all we have so far from SWPC web page:
Solar Cycle 24 Prediction Update released May 8, 2009
The charts on this page depict the progression of the Solar Cycle. The charts and tables are updated by the Space Weather Prediction Center monthly using the latest ISES predictions. Observed values are initially the preliminary values which are replaced with the final values as they become available.
Here is the “press release” as feature story from spaceweather.com
http://www.spaceweather.com/headlines/y2009/08may_noaaprediction.htm
May 8, 2009: A new active period of Earth-threatening solar storms will be the weakest since 1928 and its peak is still four years away, after a slow start last December, predicts an international panel of experts led by NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center. Even so, Earth could get hit by a devastating solar storm at any time, with potential damages from the most severe level of storm exceeding $1 trillion. NASA funds the prediction panel.
Solar storms are eruptions of energy and matter that escape from the sun and may head toward Earth, where even a weak storm can damage satellites and power grids, disrupting communications, the electric power supply and GPS. A single strong blast of solar wind can threaten national security, transportation, financial services and other essential functions.
The panel predicts the upcoming Solar Cycle 24 will peak in May 2013 with 90 sunspots per day, averaged over a month. If the prediction proves true, Solar Cycle 24 will be the weakest cycle since number 16, which peaked at 78 daily sunspots in 1928, and ninth weakest since the 1750s, when numbered cycles began.
The most common measure of a solar cycle’s intensity is the number of sunspots—Earth-sized blotches on the sun marking areas of heightened magnetic activity. The more sunspots there are, the more likely it is that solar storms will occur, but a major storm can occur at any time.
“As with hurricanes, whether a cycle is active or weak refers to the number of storms, but everyone needs to remember it only takes one powerful storm to cause expensive problems,” said NOAA scientist Doug Biesecker, who chairs the panel. “The strongest solar storm on record occurred in 1859 during another below-average cycle similar to the one we are predicting.”
The 1859 storm shorted out telegraph wires, causing fires in North America and Europe, sent readings of Earth’s magnetic field soaring, and produced northern lights so bright that people read newspapers by their light.
A recent report by the National Academy of Sciences found that if a storm that severe occurred today, it could cause $1-2 trillion in damages the first year and require four to ten years for recovery, compared to $80-125 billion that resulted from Hurricane Katrina.
The panel also predicted that the lowest sunspot number between
cycles—or solar minimum—occurred in December 2008, marking the end of Cycle 23 and the start of Cycle 24. If the December prediction holds up, at 12 years and seven months Solar Cycle 23 will be the longest since 1823 and the third longest since 1755. Solar cycles span 11 years on average, from minimum to minimum.
An unusually long, deep lull in sunspots led the panel to revise its 2007 prediction that the next cycle of solar storms would start in March 2008 and peak in late 2011 or mid-2012. The persistence of a quiet sun since the last prediction has led the panel to a consensus that the next cycle will be “moderately weak.”
NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) is the nation’s first alert of solar activity and its effects on Earth. The Center’s space weather experts issue outlooks for the next 11-year solar cycle and warn of storms occurring on the Sun that could impact Earth. SWPC is also the world warning agency for the International Space Environment Service, a consortium of 12 member nations.
As the world economy becomes more reliant on satellite-based communications and interlinked power grids, interest in solar activity has grown dramatically. In 2008 alone, SWPC acquired 1,700 new subscription customers for warnings, alerts, reports, and other products. Among the new customers are emergency managers, airlines, state transportation departments, oil companies, and nuclear power stations. SWPC’s customers reside in 150 countries.
“Our customer growth reflects today’s reality that all sectors of society are highly dependent on advanced, space-based technologies,” said SWPC director Tom Bogdan. “Today every hiccup from the sun aimed at Earth has potential consequences.”
Just to add to my last post, read the last phrase of the following text… lots of good scientists won’t get invited to tell the other side of the story that goes against their agenda…
“In addition to government representatives the press, NGOs and IGOs can become accredited and participate in the COP15 conference.
Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark
The sessions (COP 15) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change is open to Parties of the Convention and Observer States (Governments), the United Nations System and observer organizations duly admitted by the Conference of the Parties. In addition, accredited press is allowed to cover the proceedings of the Convention.
Parties:
Governments nominate their respective representatives to participate and negotiate at the sessions of the Convention and the Kyoto Protocol. This may include ministers, negotiators, and those who the Governments consider are necessary to achieve their goals during the sessions.”
Leif – since it seems that they took the average sunspot number of the members in the panel, maybe you should have given them a number between 0 and 1… that would have brought the number down to a more probable number.
All of this stuff is related. The newspapers are dying. Solution (in their minds) make every article sensational. TV news is also in trouble, and uses the same mentality. Not to be outdone, the Internet world then follows. If it isn’t a crisis, no one will pay the slightest attention.
We watch the solar predictions for different reasons. Anthony and I and others on here are waiting for high frequency radio propagation, which depends on a highly ionized ionosphere from the x-ray radiation (related to sunspots), to improve. The SWPC customers are concerned about financial loss due to mechanisms previously described. Others just like to follow the solar activity out of curiosity, and there are likely other categories.
Forecasting any of this is obviously an inexact science. Unfortunately, now it has to be described as an inexact excursion into their version of political correctness, science being long since buried. Fortunately, all my old Physics professors are all dead, but I’ll bet they are spinning in their graves.
F. Ross (15:26:39) :
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I called these people. Got recording: “Office closed cue to unforeseen circumstances…”
Robert Wood (16:01:57) :
Is there any relationship between sunspot cycle and CME magnitudes and frequencies? I don’t recall reading of one, they appear to be different mechanisms.
CMEs are more frequent and more violent at solar max. Not a surprise.
GW (16:05:44) :
How was 12/08 chosen (or proven ?)
See for yourself [pink curve] http://www.leif.org/research/TSI-SORCE-2008-now.png
“Leif Svalgaard (16:28:10) :
F. Ross (15:26:39) :
Live Psychic Readings
Issues with Love, Money, Career? Talk to an Expert Psychic. $1/min!
I called these people. Got recording: “Office closed due to unforeseen circumstances…”
Would never have guessed you gift for comedy Leif…
Mike
Recently I created a solar cycle length pseudo temperature graph. Updated it to use the declared minimum.
Please, THIS IS JUST A DEMONSTRATION OF THE IDEA, not to be taken particularly seriously, a curiosity.
http://www.gpsl.net/climate/data/pseudo-temp-a.png
Leif Svalgaard (15:35:00) :
Here is a scenario: the people that operate satellites [TV channels and such] usually borrow money to put up a satellite. The lender demands insurance. The operator asks insurance company for a premium quote. The insurance company wants to know the risk [in an ideal world] and asks the government [who has teams of scientists] what the sunspot number is going to be [higher number = higher risk]. In real world, insurance company doesn’t care about real risk, just wants high number sanctioned by government so insurance company cannot be sued for asking for too high premium should solar cycle turn out to be dud.
Brain stopped hurting? or did it just get worse?
So, the largest consumers of max SSN data are satellite insurers?
Can one estimate the cost to society if the max SSN is 75 instead of 90? This means that insurance premiums are set too high relative to the actual risk by some amount. How much does this cost?
Can one estimate the cost to society if the max SSN turns out to be 120 instead of 90? This means that more satellites are lost than were planned for, and the insurance company must cover these losses somehow, either by raising premiums on other things they insure or getting a government bailout or whatever. How much does this cost?
I guess I’m thinking that, say, compared to the US GDP ($10trillion?) that these amounts would not be very much, in the grand scheme of things. And if this is the case, then these predictions are mostly a scientific exercise to see how well various theories of solar activity actually work. Am I wrong here?
Leif Svalgaard (15:35:00) :
[Here is a scenario: the people that operate satellites [TV channels and such] usually borrow money to put up a satellite. The lender demands insurance. The operator asks insurance company for a premium quote. The insurance company wants to know the risk [in an ideal world] and asks the government [who has teams of scientists] what the sunspot number is going to be [higher number = higher risk]. In real world, insurance company doesn’t care about real risk, just wants high number sanctioned by government so insurance company cannot be sued for asking for too high premium should solar cycle turn out to be dud.]
This makes me wonder about US military satellites (KH-12’s and others). Do they (read: the American taxpayers) also pay for insurance on their satellites? Greater SSN prediction would then = greater taxpayer expense.
Joseph (17:10:34) :
This makes me wonder about US military satellites (KH-12’s and others). Do they (read: the American taxpayers) also pay for insurance on their satellites? Greater SSN prediction would then = greater taxpayer expense.
Aren’t there redundant GOES weather satellites? In case one breaks down, there is another already in orbit to replace it. Presumably the military also puts up more satellites than are needed to perform whatever task they are designed to do. (Putting up redundant satellites is a form of insurance, of course.)
Based on NASA’s record to date this prediction is worthless. This current minimum has no scientific basis to allow a prediction. NASA should have just said we are in uncharted territory and said we have no ability to predict future sun activity except to say “some day it should increase”.
Adolfo Giurfa said:
“Back in the 1950′ s or 60″ s if someone should have said that a city like Lima , Peru, located on the dry west coast of SA, relatively too cold in winter for parrots to live, was going to be filled with these birds would have been taken as someone crazy.”
Commenting:
Please enlighten me. I was in Lima last (SH) summer and did not notice any abundance of parrots. I did see a lot of really cool hang gliders, though. I talked to dozens – nay hundreds – of people while there (and had a really good time – I recommend Lima to travelers) and nobody even mentioned parrots. And – in case it crosses your mind – I speak Spanish fluently, so it wasn’t a communications problem. I just asked my wife, a native Lime̖ña, who makes several trips there a year, and she didn’t notice either.
OT:
Hey Alan Chappell,
Just an odd coincidence: I once worked with a guy named Chappell Alan.
WestHoustonGeo,
I don’t know about Lima, but I live near San Francisco, which has parrots.
Gee, if I get a PHD can I become such an IDIOT that I can’t decide between
a “fantasy” curve fit and a real one.
Sorry, but my “untrained” eye tells me SOMETHING MORE THAN A DEEP
MINIMUM..
With the Svendmark results regarding cosmic ray cirrus seeding..and the
attendant solar wind/sunspot/cosmic ray connection…as the saying goes,
spookier and spookier.
Can I be so bold as to point out that I found a fellow with a “Phd” who whined
about someone correlating terrestrial neutron counts with cosmic rays?
I found this HILARIOUS as two contract jobs ago, I was working on the “induced radiation” in cardiac pacemakers…caused by ambient neutron flux. The source of said flux? High energy cosmic rays and “cascade” results after collisions with atoms in the atmosphere. OF COURSE the terrestrial neutron flux correlates with cosmic rays!
I guess this explains the “hard sell” on the concept, “The sunspots will return, the sunspots will return..they always have!”.
Really.
Joe Papp
MDR said:
“Just wondering, who uses these predictions?”
Commenting:
Someone (I think it might have been Dr. S.) pointed out that the people who insure satellites use these data to set their rates. There are huge amounts of money involved and thus a great interest. And potential for fraud, I suspect…
Re: MDR (17:17:36) :
[Aren’t there redundant GOES weather satellites? In case one breaks down, there is another already in orbit to replace it. Presumably the military also puts up more satellites than are needed to perform whatever task they are designed to do. (Putting up redundant satellites is a form of insurance, of course.)]
There may be “extra” satellites up there, MDR, but then they would all be put out of commission at once by the same large CME. That’s crummy insurance.
Lief’s comment: “Their curve is just wrong. And they know it, but are not allowed to fix it…”
Previous question : “Do we need a National Climate Service?”
Answer: see above.
Now I look back over the comments, it WAS Dr. Svalgaard and he did it again back at 15:35:00
😉
Mike Abbott (14:29:41) :
wattsupwiththat (11:49:02) :
“WUWT readers:
Please consider submitting this post to Drudge to counter the “warning sunspot cycle to rise” story from AP so that we have some balance.”
I can’t find that story on Drudge. Either he took it down or I’m going blind. It’s not in the recent headlines page, either.
Dear Mike… It’s a small blank square at the end of the page, just at right hand, below two lines for writing your name and E-mail, where you can write your suggestions.
“The politicians will almost surely pay dearly for their fecklessness but scientists are supposed to be allowed to wrong. Open debate works best when being wrong is just part of a healthy process.” – Mike Smith @14:50:38
I’m in agreement with your statement. I co-authored a perinatology study a few years back that taught me an important lesson. We set off with a particular hypothesis that favored prevailing wisdom (you could insert ‘consensus’ here) on treatment of a poorly understood condition. I expected to find evidence in support of the hypothesis but at the conclusion of the study we found there was no evidence to support it at all. Following our publishing the study in the AJOG, our study drew intense review. Fortunately, in my field you don’t get burned at the stake for proving the alternate hypothesis. Subsequent independent studies confirmed our conclusion which ultimately resulted in improving patient care today.
The lesson I learned was sometimes it’s not what you think you will find but what you don’t find that is more important. As scientists jump the sinking AGW ship, we should respect that theirs was an intellectually honest journey in proving their former position wrong. In doing so, they’re being good scientists. Unfortunately, the proponents of AGW hold regular witch burnings, making it difficult for scientists to openly decry the AGW inquisitors.
90 huh?
I’ll take the under….
Just in case no one posted this previously, and you all are wondering why the SOHO image has not been updated: This from Spaceweather.com:
NOTE: SOHO is passing through a telemetry keyhole and this is delaying transmission of Daily Sun images. Updates will be posted as soon as they are available
The latest image is from May 6
Leif 15:35:00
When is a bright insurance company going to figure out that they should hire their own experts in order to truly quantify the risk? They are more likely to prevail in the market the more accurately they ascertain the risk. It sounds almost like negligence to take a ‘government’ finding and to depend upon it simply because it has the stamp of ‘government’ work.
Hint, hire yourself out to the insurance companies, and show them your past work.
===========================================
“It wasn’t Plato’s Hummer, after all.”
…-
“Ancient Greece’s ‘global warming’
American Thinker ^ | May 08, 2009 | Ben-Peter Terpstra
Posted on Friday, May 08, 2009 9:39:00 PM by neverdem
In Heaven + Earth (Global Warming: The Missing Science), Ian Plimer, Professor of Mining Geology at The University of Adelaide, Australia, asks us to embrace big-picture science views; for to recognize our limits is a sign of maturity. “Climate science lacks scientific discipline,” says the pro-amalgamation Professor, and in order to see more clearly we need to adopt an interdisciplinary approach. This requires humbleness.
In Chapter 2: History, Plimer travels back in time, thousands of years, in fact, to debunk Gore’s catastrophic global warming myths. I particularly like his research on the ancient Greeks. For Plato (427-347 BC) advanced the position that global warming occurs at regular intervals in Timaeus, and his famous pupil Aristotle (382-322 BC), referred to climate changes in Meteorologica.
Plimer’s research points are fascinating:
“Theophrastus (374-287 BC), in turn a student of Aristotle, followed the tradition with De ventis and observed that Crete’s mountains had previously produced fruit and grain whereas at the time he wrote, the winters were more severe and had more snow falls. In De causis plantarum, Theophrastus also noted that the Greek city of Larissus once had plentiful olive trees but falling temperatures killed them.”
It wasn’t Plato’s Hummer, after all.
The Holocene Warming a (11,600-8,500bp). The Egyptian Cooling (8,500-8,000bp). The Holocene Warming b (8,000-5,600bp). The Akkadian Cooling (5,600-3,500AD). The Minoan Warming (3,500-3,200bp). The Bronze Age Cooling (3,200-2,500bp). The Roman Warming (500BC-535AD). The Dark Ages (535-900AD). The Medieval Warming (900AD-1300 AD). The Little Ice Age (1300AD-1850AD). Recall that the Greeks survived the warmings without air-conditioners. “History,” writes Plimer, “cannot be rewritten just because it does not fit a computer model with a pre-ordained conclusion.”
We‘re not the “special generation,” and we don’t have special powers to control the earth’s temperature through special one-world government plans and cap-and-trade tax scams. Indeed, the ancients, from the Egyptians to the Greeks, these “enlightened pagans,” as I call them, were far more level-headed than today’s tree-first Democrats.
There are many reasons why civilisations rise and fall, and in my view, thousands of stories to be told. But let’s be real because certain patterns stand out more than others, from droughts and floods, to broken sexual norms and dangerously low-birth rates. ” (more)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2247336/posts
I’ve been tracking the NOAA and NASA press releases for cycle 24. Some history:
NASA May 20, 2003
Hathaway predicts cycle 24 to begin Dec 2006
NASA Oct 2004
“Hathaway and colleague Bob Wilson, both working at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, believe they’ve found a simple way to predict the date of the next solar minimum. “So, using Hathaway and Wilson’s simple rule, solar minimum should arrive in late 2006. That’s about a year earlier than previously thought. It’ll give us a chance to see if our ‘spotless sun’ method for predicting solar minimum really works.””
September 15, 2005
“Actually, solar minimum, the lowest point of the sun’s 11-year activity cycle, isn’t due until 2006….. Hathaway is waiting for 2006 when solar minimum finally arrives.”
NOAA Jan 6, 2006
The next sunspot minimum is forecast to occur in late 2006 through mid 2007.
March 6, 2006
For almost the entire month of February 2006 the sun was utterly blank. What’s going on? NASA solar physicist David Hathaway explains: “Solar minimum has arrived.”
NASA March 10, 2006
March 10, 2006: It’s official: Solar minimum has arrived.
“This week researchers announced that a storm is coming–the most intense solar maximum in fifty years. The prediction comes from a team led by Mausumi Dikpati of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). “The next sunspot cycle will be 30% to 50% stronger than the previous one,” she says. If correct, the years ahead could produce a burst of solar activity second only to the historic Solar Max of 1958.”
“Like most experts in the field, Hathaway has confidence in the conveyor belt model and agrees with Dikpati that the next solar maximum should be a doozy. But he disagrees with one point. Dikpati’s forecast puts Solar Max at 2012. Hathaway believes it will arrive sooner, in 2010 or 2011.”
“he says. “I expect to see the first sunspots of the next cycle appear in late 2006 or 2007—and Solar Max to be underway by 2010 or 2011.””
March 2006
That forecast is what provoked Dr. Hathaway at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center to bet Dr. Gilman that solar cycle 24 was going to come on quickly in 2006 because it was going to be so strong – perhaps the strongest solar cycle on record.
NASA August 15, 2006
“We’ve been waiting for this,” says David Hathaway, a solar physicist at the Marshall Space Flight in Huntsville, Alabama. “A backward sunspot is a sign that the next solar cycle is beginning.” The next cycle, Solar Cycle 24, should begin “any time now,” returning the sun to a stormy state.
NASA Dec 21, 2006
“Dec. 21, 2006: Evidence is mounting: the next solar cycle is going to be a big one.”
“Solar cycle 24, due to peak in 2010 or 2011 “looks like its going to be one of the most intense cycles since record-keeping began almost 400 years ago,” says solar physicist David Hathaway of the Marshall Space Flight Center. He and colleague Robert Wilson presented this conclusion last week at the American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco.”
“According to their analysis, the next Solar Maximum should peak around 2010 with a sunspot number of 160 plus or minus 25. This would make it one of the strongest solar cycles of the past fifty years—which is to say, one of the strongest in recorded history.”
Dec 14, 2007 NASA
It may not look like much, but “this patch of magnetism could be a sign of the next solar cycle,” says solar physicist David Hathaway of the Marshall Space Flight Center. For more than a year, the sun has been experiencing a lull in activity, marking the end of Solar Cycle 23, which peaked with many furious storms in 2000–2003. “Solar minimum is upon us,” he says.
NOAA April 25, 2007
“The next 11-year cycle of solar storms will most likely start next March [2008] and peak in late 2011 or mid-2012 – up to a year later than expected – according to a forecast issued today by NOAA’s Space Environment Center in coordination with an international panel of solar experts”
NOAA April 27, 2007
NEXT SOLAR STORM CYCLE WILL START LATE
“Expected to start last fall [2007], the delayed onset of Solar Cycle 24 stymied the panel and left them evenly split on whether a weak or strong period of solar storms lies ahead, but neither group predicts a record-breaker.”
“The Space Environment Center’s space weather alerts, warnings, and forecasts are a critical component of NOAA’s seamless stewardship of the Earth’s total environment, from the Sun to the sea,” said retired Vice Adm. Conrad C. Lautenbacher, Ph.D., NOAA administrator.”
Jan 2008; First sunspot of Cycle 24 – “Hang on to your cell phone, a new solar cycle has just begun.”
With the appearance of Sunspot 981 — a high-latitude, reversed polarity sunspot — on Friday, January 4, experts at NASA and NOAA said that Cycle 24 is now here. “This sunspot is like the first robin of spring,” said solar physicist Douglas Biesecker of the Space Weather Prediction Center, part of NOAA. “In this case, it’s an early omen of solar storms that will gradually increase over the next few years.”
“NASA’s Hathaway, along with colleague Robert Wilson at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco last month, said that Solar Cycle 24 “looks like it’s going to be one of the most intense cycles since record-keeping began almost 400 years ago.”
NASA March 28, 2008
“Barely three months after forecasters announced the beginning of new Solar Cycle 24, old Solar Cycle 23 has returned.”
NOAA & NASA June 27, 2008
“The panel expects solar minimum to occur in March, 2008. The panel expects the solar cycle to reach a peak sunspot number of 140 in October, 2011 or a peak of 90 in August, 2012.”
NASA July 11, 2008
“The sun is behaving normally. So says NASA solar physicist David Hathaway.”
“There have been some reports lately that Solar Minimum is lasting longer than it should. That’s not true. The ongoing lull in sunspot number is well within historic norms for the solar cycle.”
“some observers are questioning the length of the ongoing minimum, now slogging through its 3rd year.”
“It does seem like it’s taking a long time,” allows Hathaway, “but I think we’re just forgetting how long a solar minimum can last.”
November 7, 2008, NASA
“After two-plus years of few sunspots, even fewer solar flares, and a generally eerie calm, the sun is finally showing signs of life. “I think solar minimum is behind us,” says sunspot forecaster David Hathaway of the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center.”
“From January to September, the sun produced a total of 22 sunspot groups; 82% of them belonged to old Cycle 23. October added five more; but this time 80% belonged to Cycle 24. The tables have turned. Even with its flurry of sunspots,the October sun was mostly blank, with zero sunspots on 20 of the month’s 31 days.”