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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Speaking of the next cycle…
SOHO is showing the sun breaking out with speckles, including one in the recently revealed plage area that rotated into view a couple days ago. And midway between the two groups is a SP (stuck pixel).
“Hollywood science” (Khabibulo Abdusamatov, Head of the Pulkovo Observatory, Saint Petersburg)
http://www.giurfa.com/abdusamatov2.pdf
It´s the summer coming, their last opportunity to market global warming. HE´ll be back soon…Get ready…it will be really cataclysmic; this time he will be supported by the envoy himself and escorted by an armed task force.
By 2041, solar activity will reach its minimum according to a 200-year cycle, and a deep cooling period will hit the Earth approximately in 2055-2060. It will last for about 45-65 years, the scientist added.
“By the mid-21st century the planet will face another Little Ice Age, similar to the Maunder Minimum, because the amount of solar radiation hitting the Earth has been constantly decreasing since the 1990s and will reach its minimum approximately in 2041,” he said .
The Maunder Minimum occurred between 1645 and 1715, when only about 50 spots appeared on the Sun, as opposed to the typical 40,000-50,000 spots.
It coincided with the middle and coldest part of the so called Little Ice Age, during which Europe and North America were subjected to bitterly cold winters.
“However, the thermal inertia of the world’s oceans and seas will delay a ‘deep cooling’ of the planet, and the new Ice Age will begin sometime during 2055-2060, probably lasting for several decades,” Abdusamatov said.
http://en.rian.ru/science/20080122/97519953.html
UK Sceptic (00:23:07) :
And another one gone, another one gone
Another one bites the dust…,
Just a little interesting trivia: the lead guitar who played that rock anthem is an astrophysicist with a PHD. Rock on! He might even be reading this thread!
lololololololol
Thanks, Anthony.
These are the same people who are forcing us to adopt extreme measures to fight the other thing they have ‘scientifically’ predicted.
That pic looks like it’s from the 70’s. That was the first thing I thought. Photoshopped to add the laptop.
o/t but this is bugging me. How do people get away with this stuff? I did a search and found this site where this man said:
“Over the past century and a half, we’ve increased the carbon dioxide content of the atmosphere from about 270 parts per million (ppm) to about 387 ppm–more than 40 percent. All of that increase is human-caused, and its effect is to increase the retention of heat in the atmosphere. It warms the earth, destabilizing climates globally.”
I read ‘opinions’ like this and feel compelled to thank you, Anthony, again and again for this wonderful blog.
Seers like these used to gut animals and read entrails, or throw bones to read the future and get it wrong. Sigh, it has gotten so complicated with these new fangled computer models.
Wonderful.
1) A friend of mine long ago worked for a major oil company where teams of engineers and geologists modeled oil reservoirs so they could forecast the response to waterflooding. The models always matched history, but never accurately predicted the future. There are a lot of unknown unknowns down there.
2) In 2005 two Russian solar physicists bet Dr. James Annan $10,000 that the global temperature ten years from then would be cooler, not warmer. Annan developed one of the climate models, and his pride of authorship will probably cost him $10,000; how could there be any unknowns not already reflected in the climate models?
The model predicted the last 8 cycles. Ok, so that is about 100 years. Perhaps they should extend it back and tell us what the sunspot numbers should have been and, in true IPCC fashion, adjust the other numbers to match. Seriously though, it not matching suggests that either the previous data was bad, or something had changed, or that the information provided the model was insufficient to go back any farther. There are indications with the end of Cycle 23 that something has changed, and that models predicting the the future may not be reliable. As was said above, Cycle 24 will be a test of which model is closer to reality.
I was trained as a Biologist.I wanted to be a classic field Biologist,or barring that Forestry,instead I went into aviation-and did a lot of related work.Still have an interest in Science (or I wouldn’t be here) .However.Sitting and running computer models-and not having the least bit of skepticism,-but _believing_ them is what I have problems
with.Observing and still not seeing what is happening is the definition of insanity…
BTW-nice work Mr. Watts…:)
” Another Ian (23:46:32) : “Empixelated””
Does this happen when you’ve been on WUWT a long time, it’s late, you’re punchy, you start misspelling words, you reply to comments that say something other than what you thought they said, after you’ve already clicked ‘enter’ you go back and look at the comment and see your reply doesn’t apply, you start to comment on links you were too tired to click on and read before commenting on, you start thinking all your comments will be fully or party snipped by charles…
Is that “Empixelated” too?
Come on guys. Their model has proven to be inadequate, that’s all. I don’t fault them for having a theory in the first place, then building a model to test it. That’s how it works. There are competing theories among solar scientists, and that’s a good thing.
Unlike the whole AGW shell game.
I think this episode brings up a related topic that deserves some discussion – namely the role of the ** press release ** in modern science. In the present case, look at the title and first sentence:
—
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).
—
Note the use of the words “unprecedented” and “breakthrough”. These are very strong words, and entirely undeserved. Also “will be 30-50% stronger” implies a certainty that is particularly unwarranted. Unfortunately, these statements go straight into the mainstream press reports that we see as headlines in our daily papers (for those who still buy such things – I don’t). And, as others have noted, if later on the predictions stated in the press release turn out to be false, there is usually no follow-up, except perhaps a small mea cupla about “revised forecasts” and “unexpected behavior by the sun” buried in another, unrelated press release.
Why do public scientific institutions need to have these press releases anyway? Shouldn’t they wait until more consensus is reached? Is this entirely about justifying the budgets these groups have to submit each year for funding (probably)?
Alternate thread title: “Could they have been any more wrong?”
I remember reading this release originally in 2006 as well as digging up Landescidt’s predictions and thought “well, this will be interesting….”
They are getting housed by a dead guy….
“The NCAR team is planning in the next year to issue a forecast of Cycle 25, which will peak in the early 2020s.”
Can we see this prediction of #25? Please?
annav:
They should have published thier code along with thier paper so that every one who comes along later will understand that curve-fitting to complicated systems is not the best way to advance science. Otherwise, it’s too easy to bet on the horse that won the last X number of races.
All they are really showing is that the current run of cycles has changed behavior, and nothing more.
If someone wants to explore in this area, they could possibly identify discrete sets of cycles, and show how they have changed behavior one set to the next, for example.
” Micky C (MC) (04:34:42) : “but physicists shouldn’t meddle in methods they don’t fully understand””
That’s fine, as long as the mathematician doesn’t get his name put on a theory along with the physicists name just because he did the math to proof what the physicists did. 😉
(Speaking of Einstein :
http://esciencenews.com/articles/2008/07/03/in.unique.stellar.laboratory.einsteins.theory.passes.strict.new.test)
In the late 1970s, animal rights protesters were claiming that animal testing of drugs was no longer necessary because the drugs’ effects could now be tested on cells simulated in computers. At the time this seemed silly to anyone with a modicum of awareness of biology and computer simulation technologies. But it was reported to the public before evaporating without explanation.
Mediocrity is easier.
Good work and good science are too hard to do and too easy not to.
Carsten Arnholm, Norway (03:29:31) :
“The polar field precursor method has now performed reasonably well for three cycles and may be on track for number four, which in any case will be yet another test.”
Is there a published prediction somewhere, predating cycle 21, demonstrating this?
We only claim to directly forecast one cycle ahead because of the inherent randomness in forming the polar fields. In our prediction paper: http://www.leif.org/research/Cycle%2024%20Smallest%20100%20years.pdf
we had this to say about past predictions:
“Schatten et al. [1978] pioneered the use of the solar polar magnetic field as a precursor indicator. Because the poloidal field is an important ingredient in seeding the dynamo mechanism, the polar field precursor method appears to be rooted in solid physics. The success rate of predictions made very early before cycle onset has been mixed, however (cycle 21: observed 165 vs. predicted 140 ±20 [Schatten et al., 1978]; cycle 22: 159 vs. 109 ± 20 [Schatten and Hedin, 1984]; cycle 23: 121 vs. 170 ± 20 [Schatten and Pesnell, 1993]). Several reasons exist for this: the solar polar fields are difficult to measure and proxies (e.g., geomagnetic activity indices) were often used in their place, the historical database is short, and it was not clear when within the cycle the polar fields would be best utilized. As we approach minimum and the new cycle gets underway, the solar polar field precursor method improves markedly (cycle 22: 159 vs. 170 ± 30 [Schatten and Sofia, 1987]; cycle 23: 121 vs. 138 ± 30 [Schatten et al., 1996]). The improvements also result from the use of actually
measured polar fields rather than proxies. It is a strength of the polar field precursor method that the predictions improve in this manner. This paper suggests a novel way of applying the polar field precursor well before sunspot minimum.”
The key is two insights: 1) only the WSO polar fields are reliable [and there was a problem in 1976-77, now being corrected – see below], and 2) the timing is important, namely only use the polar fields once they have become stable. With this in mind the success rate is reasonable. In judging the timing of the papers, one must consider that a year often go by between submittal and printing.
The prediction of cycle 21 was a bit too low. We now know that the measured values of the polar fields in 1976-77 were too low because of scattered light. Experiments in 1978 [using felt-eraser chalk] and this month [using Johnson & Johnson Baby Powder] quantify and confirm this. The corrected polar fields provide a better fit and would have been a basis for a better prediction, so we count that as a success as well. A ‘work in progress’ on this can be found here: http://www.leif.org/research/Reduction%20of%20Spatially%20Resolved%20Magnetic%20Field%20by%20Scattered%20Light.pdf Figure 7 is especially scary as it shows the influence on scattered light on solar rotation, ‘slowing’ the Sun by 75 m/s…
Boudu (04:07:21) :
I’m sure that once the apropriate adjustments have been made to the observed data, the predictions will be spot on.
see above 🙂
anna v (01:36:59) :
We should not hang Dikpati et al for being wrong. It is part of the fertilizer.
And we actually do not KNOW yet if she is wrong. SC24 is a test of her model AND of ours. There is no doubt that SC24 is on its way now, check out http://www.leif.org/research/TSI-SORCE-2008-now.png It will be interesting to watch it grow. Will it grow fast [large cycle] or slowly [small cycle]?
As proof of the utility of our forecast [and of the ‘faith’ NASA really does have in it – regardless of the misleading press releases] I may note that NASA was thinking of developing a special mission to bring back Hubble, but we convinced the head of GSFC, Ed Weiler, and ultimately Michael Griffin, that Hubble would “fly over” SC24 because of low enough solar activity. Of course, if we are wrong, …
[snip – lets not level claims of fraud, there’s a huge difference between incompetence and fraud]
Hubris.
[Dikpati says] “It’s still in a quiet period”
Probably pining for the Norwegian Fjords, Dikky ol’ gal.
Such a scaring prediction fits the aims of those who fund scientific research and which eventually will back the convenient and politically needed escatological view:
“In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill. All these dangers are caused by human intervention, and it is only through changed attitudes and behavior that they can be overcome. The real enemy then, is humanity itself. Democracy is not a panacea. It cannot organize everything and it is unaware of its own limits. These facts must be faced squarely. Sacrilegious though this may sound, democracy is no longer well suited for the tasks ahead.” – The First Global Revolution, a report by The Club of Rome.”
http://www.green-agenda.com/spiritualunitednations.html