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)
Micky C (MC) (04:34:42) :
That was funny, indeed.
Jack Green (05:43:35) :
Maybe we need a book burning session.
[i] Jack, never! Never ever think about it!
Even when they consist utter nonsense,
they do document that nonsense.
And that is something worth documenting.[/i]
Retired Engineer (06:13:43) :
Descartes: “I think, therefore I am.”
Universe: “So ?”
[i] @Retired Engineer. My version:
Descartes: I think, that I am.
Universe: So wattsupwiththat? [/i]
BTW: every numerical model, created to simulate the
past quite nicely, has lost it’s freedom to prognose
– even – the nearest future.
They way I did learn it:
– you have to learn from past and successfully try
to understand it.
– then, you may – more or less – understand the presence.
– if yes, you may – somehow – get a very raw guess of
what will come.
@Leif
sorry to bother you. You did provide the link to the adjusted
– to 1 au – 10.7 cm flux. I couldn’t find it. Can you repost it, please.
KlausB
klausb (12:52:12) :
sorry to bother you. You did provide the link to the adjusted
– to 1 au – 10.7 cm flux. I couldn’t find it. Can you repost it, please.
ftp://ftp.geolab.nrcan.gc.ca/data/solar_flux/daily_flux_values/current.txt
Leif, thank you, I copied it.
Am I at ClimateAudit?
jeez. i wouldn’t chuck their concept just because it’s having trouble modeling a chaotic system. heck, let’s throw away meteorology! they might be on to something, even if it isn’t completely correct. the whole global warming “debate” has poisoned the atmosphere.
Anthony,
OK.
Is ‘failure’ OK?
“Could it be that the climates models, too, are little more than than exercises in curve fitting?”
In my humble opinion, the answer is clearly “yes,” when you consider the following:
(1) The warmists are using more than one model;
(2) These models cannot all be right, since some predict a lot more warming than the others;
(3) All of the models fit history pretty well.
In any event, it seems to me that a necessary condition for being able to predict surface temperatures on a 100 year time scale is to know what caused the Little Ice Age. If we don’t know what caused the LIA, there’s quite possibly an important forcing which is not being accounted for.
The other possibility is that the climate is chaotic on that time scale. In my opinion, many people are too dismissive of the possibility that we cannot predict temps over the next hundred years just as we cannot predict when the next big hurricane will hit New York City.
“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.”
It’s one step above the AGW shell game in that it makes clear and falsifiable predictions. Still, Dr. Dikpati deserves our scorn for what is very likely an exercise in curve fitting and self-deception.
A complex simulation of a complex pheonomen which simulation matches history is very likely to be wrong.
Think about it: There are billions of possible simulation models out there for solar activity. Lots of them will match history by coincidence. At most, only a few are correct. And quite possibly, none are correct.
You know, I wonder how accurate these simulations are in the first place? Also, how practical they are in predicting the effects on our world?
Speaking of Change, You might enjoy my latest blog, leave a response if you can!
http://tinyurl.com/lh4pa7
Jordan.
Based on what I’ve read, If I was a betting man, I’d put money on this cycle being much bigger than past ones, possible one of the biggest in recorded history.
I would also put money on the cycle peeking in 2012 to 2013.
However, most predictions are wrong. possibly this one.
Retired Engineer (06:13:43) :
Descartes: “I think, therefore I am.”
Shakespeare: “To be? Or not to be?”
Sinatra: “Doo be doo be doo!”
Solar Cooling (22:48:57) :
Talking about the past: 1998 article from BBC news
Scientists blame sun for global warming
Climate changes such as global warming may be due to changes in the sun rather than to the release of greenhouse gases on Earth.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/56456.stm
I had a look at this post and there is also a link to the following article there:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/37816.stm
I think all the South Sea Islands are still above water…
I only started looking at WUWT a couple of weeks ago having found it by random browsing. The standard of articles is excellent! Keep up all the good work. I’ve spread the word.
correct italics
hunter (17:26:26) :
Anthony,
OK.
Is ‘failure’ OK?
Yes, failure in a scientific endeavor is absolutely A OK, otherwise we would not be talking of science research but of engineering.
When in high school I was taught the following but cannot quote the original author: Knowledge is like a circle , the more you know, the more there is that you do not know, as the growing perimeter of the circle increases the contact with the unknown. Science explores the unknown with primarily the brain and its imagination secondarily with diligence and dedication. Often there be tigers, dragons and bogs, quick sand and chasms. Sometimes there is a breathtaking view of something incredibly beautiful and incredibly useful. Were it not for the explorers who fall in the bogs and are caught by quicksand, the beautiful and useful would remain unknown.
brazil84 (17:58:09) :
“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.”
It’s one step above the AGW shell game in that it makes clear and falsifiable predictions. Still, Dr. Dikpati deserves our scorn for what is very likely an exercise in curve fitting and self-deception.
A complex simulation of a complex pheonomen which simulation matches history is very likely to be wrong.
Read the above paragraph. If scientists were not intrepid explorers there would not be any science to talk about. If they were fearful of ridicule and failure, they would not walk a step into the unknown. They have to believe they have got the pope by the beard ( substitute $#%^), as a greek proverb says, to have a chance of being effective in their speculations. Just a chance, like explorers for gold.
It is OK to be wrong in a scientific model/theory. Feynman himself was wrong about the parton model, but it did provide the fertilizer from which quantum chromodynamics sprung and could be proven. We would not accept that climate is chaotic, weather up, had we not fallen on our faces with this AGW nonsense. It is the mistakes that build the next level of scientific understanding and chaos and complexity are new and rapidly growing inter disciplinery tools. Climate modelers will be forced to use them pretty soon, as will probably sun modelers, but these tools are new, and their need will be based on the failure of models like Dikpati et al ( if it fails).
Unfortunately the damage to science by the politicization of climate is incredible and will be lasting, like the damage Lysenko did to biology in the soviet union, and worse, because it is world wide.
Evidence of this is the attitude of quite reasonable skeptic people on science in general.
Well well, cycle 24 is perking up
http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/data/realtime/mdi_igr/1024/latest.html
anna v (22:27:43) :
Well well, cycle 24 is perking up
As F10.7 and TSI have been trying to tell us. c.f.:
anna v (09:31:53) :
Leif Svalgaard (08:35:24) :
“There is no doubt that SC24 is on its way now”
Hmm.
“Read the above paragraph. If scientists were not intrepid explorers there would not be any science to talk about. If they were fearful of ridicule and failure, they would not walk a step into the unknown”
It seems to me there is a difference between courage and folly; between calculated risk and wild speculation; between legitimate inquiry and frivolous wastes of time.
Here is a hypothesis for you to test: If you hold a sack of flour over your head in one hand; a burning hundred dollar bill in the other; and sing the national anthem; you will win $100,000,000 in the lottery.
Probably nobody has ever spent a hundred dollars and ten minutes of their time to step into the unknown and test this hypothesis. But everyone with an ounce of common sense knows that it’s a complete waste of time and money.
anna v,
Thanks for speaking up and granting your permission.
Does that mean we are agreed AGW is a failure as science and policy?
Your example is irrelevant to the science discussion we are supposed to be having.
We are talking of following the scientific method in increasing the knowledge of each field, using standard scientific means and procedures and that the results of research are not to be measured by engineering demands. It is not folly to propose a model not seen before. The research could end in being wrong, irrelevant, not important. Or it could hit the jackpot.
My analogies are just parables, to make a point and not a description of procedures. Dikpati et al followed normal scientific procedures, from using mathematics and modeling to submitting their report to peer review.
anna v (10:30:34) :
Dikpati et al followed normal scientific procedures, from using mathematics and modeling to submitting their report to peer review.
I agree completely. They are all good scientists and being wrong is OK, we all are at times. Any blame [if you want to dole some out] should be put on NASA and NCAR on over-hyping this in press releases.
Leif Svalgaard (11:25:39) :
They are all good scientists and being wrong is OK, we all are at times. Any blame [if you want to dole some out] should be put on NASA and NCAR on over-hyping this in press releases.
This incessant need for advertisement of research results so as to get the necessary funding has to be addressed soon by the scientific community, not only of the US, where the fashion started, but also the EU where it has caught the fancy of the bureaucrats. It has played a large role in this snowball called global warming and renamed climate change. I hope when AGW deflates a reckoning and rethinking of all sorts will take place.
Maybe Anthony could start a thread where we could exchange ideas of how research could be funded without such overwhelming bureaucratic/political government interference and consequent need for promotion of research objectives and results as if they are products.
anna v (12:16:07) :
This incessant need for advertisement of research results so as to get the necessary funding has to be addressed soon
My simple solution: if the result turns out to be wrong or contradicted by later research AND it was hyped at a press conference, either the PR person(s) directly responsible should be disciplined [fired, demoted, decapitated, … 🙂 ] or the principal investigator or both.
Leif Svalgaard (12:45:13) :
[anna v (12:16:07) ]
My simple solution: if the result turns out to be wrong or contradicted
I believe that in ancient Greece the lawyer had to pay a fine if he lost the case [good against frivolous lawsuits]…
tokyoboy (19:29:19) :
I’m sure the chief forecaster is old enough not to be alive in 2012 or so.
No, the chief forecaster is likely to be old enough to graduate by 2012 or so.
“It is not folly to propose a model not seen before. ”
It depends on the model. Here’s a simple prediction model which was very accurate as of 1997:
“It was once observed that if an old AFL football team wins the Superbowl, a bear market will ensue on Wall Street in the next year, while an NFL team victory presaged a bull market”
Leif Svalgaard (13:21:14) :
if the result turns out to be wrong or contradicted by later research AND it was hyped at a press conference, either the PR person(s) directly responsible should be disciplined [fired, demoted, decapitated, …
Trouble will be what to do if the researcher is not a scientist, say a railways’ engineer like the one at the IPCC or a Nobel prize winner…