Ken Tapping: One year on into the minimum
From John A’s solarscience.auditblogs.com
I’ve just been in e-mail correspondance with Dr Kenneth Tapping, asking him to comment on the progress of the solar minimum and his opinion on the likely size of SC24 when it does deign to appear.
Dear Dr Tapping
After you published your rebuke to Investor’s Business Daily, I put your entire reply onto my blog (see http://solarscience.auditblogs.com/2008/04/22/ken-tapping-the-current-solar-minimum/ ) which I notice is the second listing when anyone googles your name. I hope you didn’t mind.
Since that reply the Sun has appeared to have gone into an even deeper slumber than it was when you wrote your article, more than a year ago. You ended that article with a statement
AT THE MOMENT IT IS UNJUSTIFIED TO ASSUME THE SUN IS UNDERGOING A SIGNIFICANT CHANGE IN BEHAVIOUR. ON THE BASIS OF SUNSPOT NUMBER DATA, WE CANNOT ASSUME ANYTHING ODD IS HAPPENING UNLESS THE NEXT CYCLE DELAYS ITS START INTO 2009 OR 2010
Well it’s now nearly mid-2009 and the only spots to be seen very very occasionally are SC23 polarity.
Do you have any further comment on the Sun’s (lack of) activity? Are we close to unusual times in solar activity? Is the sun undergoing a significant change in behaviour?
Best regards
John
He replied [with my emphasis]
Hi John,
I’ve just got back here from the Space Weather Workshop, which was held in Boulder, Colorado. The opinion there is that the next cycle is coming, although forecasts are for a low cycle with a late start.
Our radio telescopes have detected no sign of the new cycle yet. However a statistical study of indices that I have been doing suggests the Sun did show a significant change in behaviour over the last few years, but that things are starting to slip back towards the normal situation, which could suggest the Sun is at least showing signs of waking up again. It’s deciding to take an additional lie-in cannot be ruled out.
Activity is certainly very low.
Regards,
Ken
When I asked for that “statistical study of indices”, Dr Tapping replied that it was being submitted to a journal and he’d let me know when its in pre-print – which is fine by me.
I think it’s fair to say that all solar scientists have been caught out by the length of the solar minimum and the delay to SC24. In subsequent posts I’ll be reviewing the prognostications of solar models, in an effort to understand what exactly goes into predictions of solar cycles.
In other news, as reported on Watts Up With That:
NOAA/SWPC will be releasing an update to the Solar Cycle 24 Prediction on Friday, May 8, 2009 at noon Eastern Daylight Time (1600 UT) at a joint ESA/NASA/NOAA press conference
I can hardly wait.
[The wait is over, and the announcement was made Friday, which you can read here – Anthony]
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Roger Sowell (10:18:31) :
Regarding not knowing all there is to know about a star (our sun), an excellent sci-fi novel comes to mind, Beowulf’s Children by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle.
Douglas DC (12:05:18) :
Another Pournelle and NIven’s “Fallen Angles” is another great novel-and reads like today’s headlines.-except we don’t have quite the space presence….
Well these are both awesome books by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, however, neither of these books can hold a candle to their best and most prescient joint effort about a dwindling Sun…”The Mote in Gore’s Eye”!
Leif Svalgaard (19:26:48) :
rbateman (18:46:05) :
I came up with a formula to fix minima using white-light faculae.
Here are my results:
1878 (1878.157 – 1879.113)(1878.4301 – 1879.3096) = 1878.8695 = 1878 11/13
what do the numbers mean?
1878 11/13 means that SC12 started on November 13, 1878.
1878 157th day converted to decimal year + 1879 113th day converted to decimal year/2 =
1878.8695 or Nov 13 1878.
Last day Corrected facular area in millionths of solar hemisphere >1000 for SC11 and first day Corrected facular area in millionths of solar hemisphere >1000 for SC12 and you are now looking at your new cycle ramp slope.
Since you have pretty much pinpointed by fluxand TSI 2008.8 you can use the Ergrebrisse numbers and come up with the date of SC24 spot ramp using Faculae method.
So now I must ask you, do you mean 2008 8th month or 2008 9.6th month for minimum?
I was just horsing around with this, and it looked awfully close in most cases.
Here is the link to the previous thread on Livingston and Penn paper
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/06/02/livingston-and-penn-paper-sunspots-may-vanish-by-2015/
Leif Svalgaard (18:59:31) :
rbateman (18:34:38) :
I even wrote to Penticon to ask them when was the last time they checked the equipment calibration, and they did.
As far as I know they regularly check the calibration by observing supernova remnants Cassiopeia-A and Cygnus-A that other groups spend a lot of time getting absolute flux values for.
My money is on L&P.
This means that your money is on the diminishing of the magnetic field carried by the spots by 77 Gauss per year. If we start from the maximum in fig3, above, say 2800 Gauss, that is a fall of 2.75% a year in the magnetic field of the bubble that generates a spot.
My question is 🙂
In the theory that generates the bubbles what would these numbers mean for the sun’s magnetic field, 2.75% diminution per year or is there an amplifying factor, or a phase transition type factor?
Next question:
Sunspots will not be visible to the eye. Will we see them in magnetograms as now with the two plage areas? Is there significance that the plage areas in the magnetograms are being sparse too? It seems that if one plotted magnetogram signed dipoles the curve would follow the curve of the optical spots.
So the L&P just follows the rule : problem number one has been reduced to problem number two which we still cannot solve ?
In addition, the curve in fig 3 cannot be linear since we know previous grand minima existed from which the system recovered and we have the usual spots to check. Also it would extrapolate to huge unphysical numbers backwards.
Are there plots of the magnetic fields of the sunspots for the other recent cycles for which there are magnetic data?
I bought a copy of “Sunquakes” (Probing the Interior of the Sun) by J. B. Zirker for $5.98 on Friday and have been unable to put it down. It’s a description of what is known about the sun from observing oscillations / vibrations.
What is amazing to me is how very much is known about the sun but how little is known about the sunspot cycle. The book was written in 2003 and I liked the level it was written to. It’s supposed to be for the general audience, but it doesn’t hesitate to discuss Fourier transforms and wave equations, particularly in the notes. It avoids equations, but it uses the terminology and if you’re a grad student in physics or better you’ll be able to fill in the gaps.
rbateman (21:51:18) :
So now I must ask you, do you mean 2008 8th month or 2008 9.6th month for minimum?
To the extent it makes sense to talk about a minimum, the F10.7 data points to decimal year 2008.82 which is 2008 day 300, or a few days before November 1st, 2008. But you know how meaningless I consider such a precise number to be [on the other hand it is clear in the F10.7, so it may be a useful number, after all – that is the bit we don’t know right now]
Retired Engineer (16:13:04)
“Few scientists will admit they don’t know what is happening. Sure fire way to get your funding cut.”
Regrettably true. Honesty is punished harshly.
Daniel M:-)
It’s not dead, its just resting, pinin’ for the fjords!
I say again, do we, by which I mean our scientists, really know all they think they know about the Sun, the solar system, the earth, how what reacts with what to cause any of a A, B, C, ………through to Z? They seem to speak with such confidence when they make pronouncements of various kinds, only to get it completely wrong! Nothing changes does it? Oh well, time will tell.
anna v (22:10:46) :
My question is 🙂
In the theory that generates the bubbles what would these numbers mean for the sun’s magnetic field, 2.75% diminution per year or is there an amplifying factor, or a phase transition type factor?
My reply will be speculation only [but that is allowed if labeled as such]. The important issue is not the magnetic field, but the magnetic flux. Solar physicists [and other types too, at times] use a sloppy terminology. In Maxwell’s equations you have a H and a B, the former being the magnetic field and the latter the magnetic induction. We always talk about B [not H – and this post would be too long and too technical if I have to explain to the lay reader what is the difference between H and B], but we [incorrectly] call B the magnetic field. Correct would be to use the term magnetic induction density or flux density. The flux density over an area [like a sunspot or a plage] times that areal extent, A, is the magnetic flux, F, in that region, and that is what the models try to predict. The magnetic field B [note the wrong terminology] would conversely be the flux F divided by the area A. What L&P find is a decrease of B, not of F, meaning that A [A=F/B] must be larger, meaning that the active region is less compact. For a process that might explain what ‘compacts’ a region into a spot, see Ken Schatten’s ‘Perculation’ paper http://www.leif.org/research/Percolation%20and%20the%20Solar%20Dynamo.pdf
Next question:
Sunspots will not be visible to the eye. Will we see them in magnetograms as now with the two plage areas? Is there significance that the plage areas in the magnetograms are being sparse too? It seems that if one plotted magnetogram signed dipoles the curve would follow the curve of the optical spots.
See the above. Yes, you would see them in the magnetogram as we do now. They will be a bit more spread out and a bit weaker, but they will be there and the flux would be the same.
In addition, the curve in fig 3 cannot be linear since we know previous grand minima existed from which the system recovered and we have the usual spots to check. Also it would extrapolate to huge unphysical numbers backwards.
The curve has an unknown shape, but any short piece of a curve is approximately linear, so that is a reasonable first cut.
Are there plots of the magnetic fields of the sunspots for the other recent cycles for which there are magnetic data?
Yes back to 1967 for general synoptic maps including spots and everything else. The unique thing about L&P is that they deliberately seek out the darkest point in a spot [presumably the highest field] and measure there. They were the first to do this systematically. Their data goes back to 1990, with a handful of measurements before that back to 1969. Bill L was kind enough to send me his entirely set of measurements. I have not had time to digest them yet… Might make an interesting post, if he would let me….
Hmm, STEREO seems to indicate that something might be coming around the bend at a latitude that would suggest cycle 23 polarity. Looks like a bright spot just south of the equator but just around the bend from where the satellite can see.
Gauss? Gauss?? How out of date can you be. Gauss, Rads, Rems, Curies, etc. were all consigned to the dustbin of history years ago.
Its all SI these days you know.
As ordered by the council of Nine.
Not that it is necessarily a bad thing. To me one horsepower is 330,000 foot pound minutes or 550 foot pound seconds etc. Or indeed 748 watt hours: give or take.
But don’t mock SI it is a wonderful logical system with simple decimal conversions. Truly wonderful really.
No George Orwell or Newspeak there. It is exact and precise: I only wish we had had it in my day. Instead of FPS and CGS.
Still despite the wonders of SI I confess I miss my calories and my dynes and ergs. Not to mention my poundals, tundals and BTU.
It was like that real money we used to have when six and eight was a third of a pound. Sterling that was.
Kindest Regards.
Re: Leif Svalgaard (23:35:50) :
“Yes, you would see them in the magnetogram as we do now. They will be a bit more spread out and a bit weaker, but they will be there and the flux would be the same.”
So if I might make an analogy that others might understand … you could have a lake that is small in area but very deep or one that is large in area but very shallow. Both lakes have the same total volume (flux in this case) but the “depth” is what makes the difference in seeing a spot or not.
But I wonder if that is the only thing going on because we seem to continue to see cycle 23 areas for a period that is longer and as a ratio to cycle 24 spots, still more active than I would expect to see. Or are my expectations set incorrectly? Even if we were seeing an increase in cycle 24 magnetic signatures without spots or with weak spots, I would have expected cycle 23 areas to be be nearly gone by now. This makes me wonder if the system is more complicated than it might appear at first glance. What is making 23 linger so long, if in fact it is?
Is there any compounding effect of this when linked in with Milankovitch Cycles?
Leif Svalgaard (22:27:09) :
2008.82 as an academic number to plug into the equation.
Giving 2010 Dec 24 or 2011 Apr 19 for SC24 spot ramp.
a jones (23:55:25),
Nice exposition on horsepower. But you are wrong. It is 550 ft lbs/second. Or 33,000 ft lbs/minute. Or 1,980,000 ft lbs/hour.
An electric motor hp is 746 watts. Or 746 Joules/second.
I am a certified BMMGW [Believer In Man Made Global Warming], but I DO want to hear what other smart people think. The data and analysis coming from this site are rigorous, professional- and scary.
Now comes all this discussion about sunspots. Sunspots?? Huh?
Maybe someone can tell me the implications of an anomalous sunspot cycle? I know about the radio aspects– I am a licensed amateur radio operator– but what are the implications for weather and climate change? Is there a relationship between low/ late sunspots and weather or climate?
I want a graph! 🙂
So what happens if SC24 is the lowest cycle in 200 years (like I suspect)?
It will mean anyone connected to the Babcock babble will have egg all over them.
a jones (23:55:25) :
And a Mark was 13 shillings and 4 pence. http://encyclopedia.jrank.org/MAL_MAR/MARK.html
I am reminded of the days before decimalisation, when a British salesman went to meet a French buyer and to whom he had handed a price list. The French buyer was bemused by the weights being in pounds and ounces. The salesman pointed out that the buyer should easily understand the figures, because “Avoirdupois was his lingo, wasn’t it?” Who said the British do not have a sense of humour?
[Middle English avoir de pois, commodities sold by weight, alteration of Old French aveir de peis, goods of weight : aveir, avoir, to have (from Latin habre; see able) + de, of (from Latin d, from; see de-) + peis, pois, weight (from Vulgar Latin *psum, from Latin pnsum; see (s)pen- in Indo-European roots). A system of weights based on the 16-ounce pound (or 7,000 grains.]
Best wishes.
a jones wrote: To me one horsepower is 330,000 foot pound minutes or 550 foot pound seconds etc. Or indeed 748 watt hours: give or take.
That’s the world I grew up in too. Where a foot was about as long as, well.., my foot. And an inch was about as long as my thumb.
I think it’s important to have a sense what these things are. Yesterday, I heard Brian Eno on the radio saying that there hundreds or thousands of zettajoules of geothermal energy available a kilometre or two underground. What, I found myself wondering, is a zettajoule? And, for that matter, what is a joule? If someone was to ask me what a joule was, how would I explain?
Since a joule is a unit of work, and the work lifting a mass m through a height h against gravitational acceleration 9.81m/sec2 is m.g.h, then lifting 1 kilogram one metre entails 9.81 joules of work. Does that help?
I came across an onlne discussion of the question “What is a joule?” in which someone wrote “A Joule is a unit of work. It is roughly the work you do when picking up a mango from the ground.”
If a mango weighs about 100 gms, then when you pick up a mango one joule is around about the work done lifting a mango 1 metre. But actually, when you pick up a mango from the ground, you do a lot more work than that. If you weigh 70 kg, and you squat down to pick it up, dropping your body mass by half a metre, then standing back up again entails doing 70 x 9.81 x 0.5 or 343 joules of work. Add the one joule of work done lifting the mango, and that’s 344 joules. So, no, 1 joule isn’t roughly the work you do when picking up a mango from the ground.
Maybe it would be better to think of it in terms of things people do every day. Like walk upstairs. A 70 kg man performs 137 joules of work raising his body up one 200 mm step. Which is about a kilojoule of work every 7 steps he climbs.
Is there a better way of envisaging these simple things? How many joules are needed to boil a kettle?
It usually takes 12 months or so for the new cycle to bloom after the first few spots, so we should be in that timeframe now. Still likely many months until it begins to bloom, if it will at all.
This is really a new area for Solar Science, and something we have not seen in modern times. I’d expect to see quite a few papers when this is over rethinking some of what we think we know about the Sun.
a jones (23:55:25) :
Its all SI these days you know.
For you it is 0.15 Tesla, then.
crosspatch (00:22:13) :
What is making 23 linger so long, if in fact it is?
I don’t think it is unsual. SC21 and SC22 lingered on more than a year after solar minimum. When is the current minimum? Dec 2008? if so, expect SC23 spots until at least Dec 2009.
Michael Spencer (04:29:43) :
An FFT will show periodicity in data. If the 11(ish) year solar cycle had a significant effect on temperatures it should appear on all temperature records (sometimes swamped by other effects perhaps) This plot takes a dozen locations round the world with long temperature records and averages their FFT outputs. Central England temperature and Sun spot number FFTs are plotted also. Note that there is no 11 year/22 year cycle in the temperature plots above the noise level.
http://img22.imageshack.us/img22/5025/cetssnavgfft.jpg
Similar plots can be found on Leifs web site:
http://www.leif.org/research
Here’s another plot HADCRUT3 NH temp vs CO2 levels
http://img142.imageshack.us/img142/4111/hadcrut3nhtempvsco2scat.jpg
Note that this does not say if T is pushing CO2 or CO2 is pushing T
But it say to me that there is a relationship
The lower 2 plots show temperature plotted against sun spot numbers/TSI
http://img156.imageshack.us/img156/6731/hadcrut3nhvsco2andtsi.jpg
This again says to me that the two are not related.
And this is a plot of time related CO2 temp series. Note that one of the plots shows that a log curve fit to the CO2 vs Temp plot plotted over time shows small error
http://img2.imageshack.us/img2/81/hadcrut3vsco2timeseries.jpg
This ignorant layman is constantly driven back to the fact that scientific observation of the sun and empirically-grounded hypotheses in regard to solar behavior are no more than 400 years old. The sun is 5×10^9 years old. How certain can we be sure that observed behavior over the past four centuries exhausts the repertoire of solar tricks?
The same might be said of the dynamics of the earth’s atmosphere.
What did Newton say about standing on the edge of the vast ocean, making soundings with pebbles?
Michael Spencer (04:29:43) :
“I am a certified BMMGW [Believer In Man Made Global Warming], but I DO want to hear what other smart people think. The data and analysis coming from this site are rigorous, professional- and scary.
Now comes all this discussion about sunspots. Sunspots?? Huh?
Maybe someone can tell me the implications of an anomalous sunspot cycle? I know about the radio aspects– I am a licensed amateur radio operator– but what are the implications for weather and climate change? Is there a relationship between low/ late sunspots and weather or climate?
I want a graph! :-)”
Have a look at the NIPCC report (page 22 of the pdf)
available from climatescienceinternational.org
http://www.climatescienceinternational.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=105&Itemid=65
‘How certain can we be sure’ that the above post was hastily edited?
Michael Spencer (04:29:43) :
I am a certified BMMGW [Believer In Man Made Global Warming], but I DO want to hear what other smart people think. The data and analysis coming from this site are rigorous, professional- and scary.
Now comes all this discussion about sunspots. Sunspots?? Huh?
Maybe someone can tell me the implications of an anomalous sunspot cycle? I know about the radio aspects– I am a licensed amateur radio operator– but what are the implications for weather and climate change? Is there a relationship between low/ late sunspots and weather or climate?
The alternative theory to Anthropogenic Global Warming is that Natural Climate Variation caused the observed rise in temperatures during the (roughly) 30 year period from the 1970s to the end of the century. A lot of the posters on this site believe this was caused by greater than “normal” sunspot activity, which affected the climate through multiple mechanisms, principally reduced solar wind leading to decreased cosmic ray caused cloud formation; increased UV, microwave radiation leading to temperature increase in the equatorial latitudes.
The concern you’re asking about, anomalous sunspot cycle, is that the lower than “normal” sunspot activity, with reduced solar wind, UV and radio wave emissions, will result in a corresponding cooling of the oceans, leading to a prolonged cooling of the planet’s climate.
Those who disagree on the hypothesis of solar forcing will take lack of cooling as evidence; those who agree with the hypothesis will take lack of cooling as evidence against the hypothesis.
The preceding paragraph is the way science is supposed to be done. When you read our disparagement of the AGW crowd, it’s because they don’t “operate” that way.