This is an official NCAR News Release (National Center for Atmospheric Research) Apparently, they have solar forecasting techniques down to a “science”, as boldly demonstrated in this press release. – Anthony
Scientists Issue Unprecedented Forecast of Next Sunspot Cycle
BOULDER—The next sunspot cycle will be 30-50% stronger than the last one and begin as much as a year late, according to a breakthrough forecast using a computer model of solar dynamics developed by scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). Predicting the Sun’s cycles accurately, years in advance, will help societies plan for active bouts of solar storms, which can slow satellite orbits, disrupt communications, and bring down power systems.
The scientists have confidence in the forecast because, in a series of test runs, the newly developed model simulated the strength of the past eight solar cycles with more than 98% accuracy. The forecasts are generated, in part, by tracking the subsurface movements of the sunspot remnants of the previous two solar cycles. The team is publishing its forecast in the current issue of Geophysical Research Letters.
“Our model has demonstrated the necessary skill to be used as a forecasting tool,” says NCAR scientist Mausumi Dikpati, the leader of the forecast team at NCAR’s High Altitude Observatory that also includes Peter Gilman and Giuliana de Toma.
Understanding the cycles
The Sun goes through approximately 11-year cycles, from peak storm activity to quiet and back again. Solar scientists have tracked them for some time without being able to predict their relative intensity or timing.
NCAR scientists Mausumi Dikpati (left), Peter Gilman, and Giuliana de Toma examine results from a new computer model of solar dynamics. (Photo by Carlye Calvin, UCAR) |
Forecasting the cycle may help society anticipate solar storms, which can disrupt communications and power systems and affect the orbits of satellites. The storms are linked to twisted magnetic fields in the Sun that suddenly snap and release tremendous amounts of energy. They tend to occur near dark regions of concentrated magnetic fields, known as sunspots.
The NCAR team’s computer model, known as the Predictive Flux-transport Dynamo Model, draws on research by NCAR scientists indicating that the evolution of sunspots is caused by a current of plasma, or electrified gas, that circulates between the Sun’s equator and its poles over a period of 17 to 22 years. This current acts like a conveyor belt of sunspots.
The sunspot process begins with tightly concentrated magnetic field lines in the solar convection zone (the outermost layer of the Sun’s interior). The field lines rise to the surface at low latitudes and form bipolar sunspots, which are regions of concentrated magnetic fields. When these sunspots decay, they imprint the moving plasma with a type of magnetic signature. As the plasma nears the poles, it sinks about 200,000 kilometers (124,000 miles) back into the convection zone and starts returning toward the equator at a speed of about one meter (three feet) per second or slower. The increasingly concentrated fields become stretched and twisted by the internal rotation of the Sun as they near the equator, gradually becoming less stable than the surrounding plasma. This eventually causes coiled-up magnetic field lines to rise up, tear through the Sun’s surface, and create new sunspots.
The subsurface plasma flow used in the model has been verified with the relatively new technique of helioseismology, based on observations from both NSF– and NASA–supported instruments. This technique tracks sound waves reverberating inside the Sun to reveal details about the interior, much as a doctor might use an ultrasound to see inside a patient.
NCAR scientists have succeeded in simulating the intensity of the sunspot cycle by developing a new computer model of solar processes. This figure compares observations of the past 12 cycles (above) with model results that closely match the sunspot peaks (below). The intensity level is based on the amount of the Sun’s visible hemisphere with sunspot activity. The NCAR team predicts the next cycle will be 30-50% more intense than the current cycle. (Figure by Mausumi Dikpati, Peter Gilman, and Giuliana de Toma, NCAR.) |
Predicting Cycles 24 and 25
The Predictive Flux-transport Dynamo Model is enabling NCAR scientists to predict that the next solar cycle, known as Cycle 24, will produce sunspots across an area slightly larger than 2.5% of the visible surface of the Sun. The scientists expect the cycle to begin in late 2007 or early 2008, which is about 6 to 12 months later than a cycle would normally start. Cycle 24 is likely to reach its peak about 2012.
By analyzing recent solar cycles, the scientists also hope to forecast sunspot activity two solar cycles, or 22 years, into the future. The NCAR team is planning in the next year to issue a forecast of Cycle 25, which will peak in the early 2020s.
“This is a significant breakthrough with important applications, especially for satellite-dependent sectors of society,” explains NCAR scientist Peter Gilman.
The NCAR team received funding from the National Science Foundation and NASA’s Living with a Star program.
IMPORTANT NOTE:
The date of this NCAR News Release is March 6, 2006
Source: http://www.ucar.edu/news/releases/2006/sunspot.shtml
(hat tip to WUWT reader Paul Bleicher)
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When reading items such as this I come to thinking that English needs a new word. So I offer
“Empixelated”
as a descriptor of those who spend far too much time looking at computer screens and not nearly enough time looking out of windows
While having no expertise in this area at all, I was struck by the comment posted by C Colenaty. Maybe the Dikpati model is no longer valid because something has changed in the sun? Anthony has more than once drawn attention to the October 2005 step change in solar flux and to my untutored eye, it does seem as though there has been some kind of phase shift. Is this something fundamental that might have happened, putting us into a rather different regime, wherein a previously reasonable model no longer applies?
You set us up… leaving the relevent dates until the end of the article. Quite amusing, actually.
So is this failure of the 2006 prediction unprecedented? Or prescient?
Leif: Yes I agree all published papers should include the reviewers report. Apparently Nature (not 100% certain) tried this but it caused so much revolt/trouble that they stopped it. What Editors are suggesting is a short summary of the review. I still think it should be a full version review (even though persons may not be interested in missing comas and back and forth emails etc..). BTW I think your prediction SSN 70 + Archibalds (50) = 65 will be the mark for 24. As I recall Dikpati was always way over the top? This posting… I also got sucked in… Great!
“…using a computer model…”
Well, must be right then. After all, computers are going to attain consciousness one day. I read about that in Frankenstein or something.
“The date of this NCAR News Release is March 6, 2006”
I burst out laughing.
“Rick Sharp (18:18:29) :
FOR SALE: One 2006 Predictive Flux-transport Dynamo Model. Make offer…..”
Ummmm….. a James Hansen coal protest sign.
I am a full time trader and trade the stock markets for a living. All the big banks have these models that can predict past stock market behavior very accurately and but are total useless in predicting the future. They curve fit the historical data with their models and then use this model to try to predict the future. They failed miserably as evidence by the present financial crisis.
I guess the same thing is happening here with this so called scientific model for predicting sunspot cycle.
“Rick Sharp (18:18:29) :
FOR SALE: One 2006 Predictive Flux-transport Dynamo Model. Make offer…..”
Ummmmm… an MIT “wheel of climate”.
And another point.. maybe Svensmark’s proposition that the universe (not only the sun) influences Earth’s climate (and Sun per se) may have some truth to it after all. The variables would be completely unpredictable. The videos are very professional and obviously geared eventually for mainstream media (personal opinion.
“Rick Sharp (18:18:29) :
FOR SALE: One 2006 Predictive Flux-transport Dynamo Model. Make offer…..”
Ummmm…. a peer-reviewed Steig et al paper.
And another one gone, another one gone
Another one bites the dust…
I think I’ll bookmark this post for reference the next time some commenter suggests that peer-reviewed studies are inherently superior. Here we have a prime example of a paper that was subjected to peer-review with a rigor and diligence that I strongly suspect exceeds the level generally provided and it still turned out to be quite a load of [snip]. Saved ya some work there mod. Like the old saying says you can’t make a silk purse out of sow’s ear.
“Rick Sharp (18:18:29) :
FOR SALE: One 2006 Predictive Flux-transport Dynamo Model. Make offer…..”
A crappy, unused windmill with half a dead bird stuck to it.
“Rick Sharp (18:18:29) :
FOR SALE: One 2006 Predictive Flux-transport Dynamo Model. Make offer…..”
Ok, I got it—I’ll give you an October 2008 GISS data set! 😉
I really want that 2006 Predictive Flux-transport Dynamo Model!!
Is that an Atari pictured there?
“rbateman (23:01:47) : If I dust my C off, I could write a program to generate loops and fill them with color so that the image matches all the Solar Cycles, and sell it to NSF for a couple million.”
Tempts one to switch sides.
” Lee Valentine (23:39:54) : Luckily, we will not have to wait long to see whether the cycle 24 prediction is falsified.”
Falsified by observation—that means nothing in global warming.
And to think we give the ‘Weathermen/women’ a hard time with their predictions!
No, No, No!
You guys are totally wrong.
This is an absolute, 100 percent, totally correct prediction.
The fact that it relates to a different reality is of course, only of minor concern.
tokyoboy (19:29:19) :
You can also be young enough not to be alive in 2012.
(No threat intended)
“C Colenaty (20:31:26) :
I am afraid that I cannot go along with the crowd in poking fun at the funny failed computer model prediction … ”
The crux of the piece isn’t about ‘poking-fun’ it’s about highlighting that [a] hindcasts of a model are about as reliable as rune-reading and [b] trying to base your predictions of a complex system on limited understanding is going to come back and bite you.
Do you really, really think that ‘something in the sun has changed’? That’s a classically human-centric approach, in essence ‘we had it right but now it’s changed’.
How about ‘a previously unknown mechanism in the sun has come to light’ (apologies for the pun)? This way of looking at the universe has a subtle but important distinction to the previous, that is, we don’t know it all and we’re still learning…
Cheers
Mark
Hhmmmm! As my late father used to say, “modern technology is infallible, right up to the point when it doesn’t work!”.
I suspect they’ve been using some left-overs fromt he Met Office’s models perhaps. BTW, they managed to get the forecast right for 3 days so far!
Slightly OT – over at climatereaslist Piers Corbyn has invested in a new calculation device much as the Met Office has recently done, only his costs a little less! Well worth a look at this incredible technology!
It is very unfortunate that the AGW ship of fools is creating doubts about science in general, and not only climate.
Statements that comment on the funding of failed models, for example, show an enmity and denial of the scientific method that we have to go a long way in the past to find.
To call scientists as exercising their “hobby” is right. We, who are scientists, are lucky to have been payed for pursuing our hobby, but have a look at what pursuing a hobby seriously means: a 24/7 dedication, and even when you sleep you tackle the current problem. I remember when we were doing bubble chamber picture scanning, I used to see antineutrino events instead of sheep before going to sleep. Scientists who pursued science as a hobby because they were affluent enough not to need financing, like Neuton and Darwin, would be too far and few in between to create the present burgeoning of science, that happened when universities started to be seriously funded.
There is something monomaniacal and compulsive in the makeup of a good scientist, and in our present society, scientists are funded to follow their nose. This means that they will make mistakes and wrong models, wrong turns and assumptions. It is all in the program, otherwise one would not be doing research but logistics. Research means that if you are right 10% of the time you are doing well.
The funding of mediocre scientists, in hindsight, should not be considered a waste of national resources. My father used to say ” you need a lot of manure for roses to bloom”, and the ambiance of universities and research institutes is what is necessary for the few and correct results ( in hindsight) to appear.
The problem with the AGW movement is that is messed up science with politics and maybe even a mystical Gaia agenda. That should not be attributed to science, but unfortunately, for the average skeptic, it is.
That will be the lasting damage of this wrong hypothesis of CO2 warming.
We should not hang Dikpati et al for being wrong. It is part of the fertilizer.
Darn, another bait and switch tangent using divine might.