Guest post by David Archibald
Frank Hill’s summoning up of sunspots from the vasty deep of the Sun’s convection zone reminds me of some Shakespeare (Henry the Fourth):
Glendower:
I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
Hotspur:
Why, so can I, or so can any man;
But will they come when you do call for them?
Frank Hill says that his sunspots will be with us in three to six months. The Ap Index suggests otherwise. There is a correlation between the geomagnetic indices (aa Index and Ap Index) at minimum and the amplitude of the following solar cycle. Earlier this year I produced this graph of the Ap Index plotted against solar cycle maxima when I thought that the Ap Index would bottom out at three, giving a maximum amplitude of 25:
This is June and the monthly average of the Ap Index is 3.1. What is interesting from that graph is that there will be no sunspots if the monthly Ap Index goes below 2. The heliospheric current sheet is telling us that the month of minimum is possibly a year off and the Ap Index is showing no signs of pulling out of its glide slope of 0.28 per month, as shown in this graph:
The Ap Index enters the no sunspots zone in October at its current glide slope. Will it pull out in time? The Sun is bleeding magnetic flux (for a very good reason), so I don’t think so.
Frank Hill has shouted (his words) that there is no correlation between solar activity and climate. Back in a time when those who studied the Sun were armed with not much more than an enquiring mind, William Herschel in 1801 noted the relationship between the number of sunspots and wheat prices. When there were fewer spots, wheat prices were higher. To bring that up to the current day, when there are no spots at all, wheat prices will be the highest ever.
Back to Shakespeare: Hotspur has some good advice for those who study the Sun and draw implications for public policy:
Hotspur:
And I can teach thee, coz, to shame the devil—
By telling the truth. Tell truth and shame the devil.
Leif Svalgaard writes in with some graphs of his own:
Using Aa which goes much further back than Ap, the relationship between Aa and the size of the next cycle has been used by many people to forecast the next cycle. [one of the standard methods]. The data point with the red dot is the predicted Rmax for SC/24 using the polar fields and is plotted at the 2009 yearly average so far of Aa [9.1]
No spots for Aa = 2.4
Aa = 0.2318 (B Vo2)0.9478
Where B is the interplanetary magnetic field in nT and Vo is the solar wind speed in 100 km/s units. E.g. for B = 4 nT and V = 350 km/s, thus Vo = 3.5, we have Aa = 8.55 and Rmax = 57.
Ap is about half of Aa, but the relationship is not quite linear: Ap = 0.2925 Aa 1.204
So Aa = 8.55 corresponds to Ap = 3.87.
If we plot Rmax for the previous cycle (purple plusses) there is no correlation
Google “PDO and tree ring data”. Google “SST and tree ring data” for more global studies. This theory is well documented and studied. It has been reliably repeated and has mechanism validity. SST and solar variable studies do not rise to this level of correlation and are, in my opinion, without reliability and validity merit.
Pamela Gray (10:18:02) :
With all due respect, why bother with the analysis if the PDO causes paralysis?
There is noise to be found in anything.
Tree rings: If the noise of the current age sits above the medium, you have a warm phase.
If it sits on zero, you are in between. If it sits below zero, you are in a cold phase.
The tree ring readout is consistent enough in that regard to be valid.
There is also noise in the ocean temps and where the cool/warm waters lie, otherwise we would not have El Nino’s/La Nina’s. We surely do have them.
What makes the PDO flip?
Are we to believe that it’s vector is self-driven?
Don’t paralyse the analysis by stopping at PDO.
vukcevic (00:36:17) :
Filtering of the data is done by the originator (Stanford University) …
I’m the original ‘originator’ and the filtering has end-effects and should not be misused the way you do. Simply calculate the difference between the North and South values to eliminate the yearly variation. Here is a plot updated to the current [unfiltered] values:
http://www.leif.org/research/Solar%20Polar%20Fields.png
It also shows the Mount Wilson data [fitted to match the Stanford data where they overlap – talking into account the upgrade of MSO in 1985.92]. I would expect the polar fields to continue their recent decrease as the new cycle begins to kick in.
Re: Vukcevic & Svalgaard
Where do I find the RAW data?
Re: Pamela Gray
My interpretation of your projected attitude about climate:
Detail does not matter.
How things stand currently with regards to SC24:
http://www.robertb.darkhorizons.org/DeepSolarMin5.htm
All images are normalized in background to 09/22/08 image.
They represent the deepest umbral difference to background.
The last big sunspot group of SC23 is included as a reference point.
The minimums of 1901 and 1913, when they were finished with thier quiet periods, they didn’t monkey around and got very busy pumping out spot swarms.
2008/2009 have had thier 2 big quiet periods, and if this is a repeat of 1901 or 1913, it’s time to produce.
If 2009 produces in the next 6 mos., fine. It’s a match.
If it does not, it’s a new animal.
Download the drawings for the period: http://fenyi.solarobs.unideb.hu/HHSD.html
Flip through them and judge for yourself.
Perhaps someone with the requisite program can produce an mpeg.
Leif Svalgaard (12:01:35) :
I’m the original ‘originator’ and the filtering has end-effects and should not be misused the way you do.
As one of ‘the unwashed masses’ as you put it so graphically, believing in witchcraft and magic potions, I am prone, or even deliberately inclined to abuse science, in primitive desire to subvert the whole of the human endower.
Now, it is partially your failure not to deduce the above, since you kindly introduced me to your polar fields theories.
As you well know, I have used chart you reproduced
http://www.leif.org/research/Solar%20Polar%20Fields.png
more than once, such as in:
http://www.geocities.com/vukcevicu/PolarField1C.gif
and
http://www.geocities.com/vukcevicu/LP-project1.gif
provoking your never cessing anger, so I resorted to a different approach.
On more serious note, why I do decline to use it for individual poles chart as you quote
http://www.leif.org/research/Solar%20Polar%20Fields.png
it its impeccable symmetry. Although scientifically accurate for calculating an average of two poles, it is something you might achieve by applying a noisy AC (alternative electric current) trough a solenoid, i.e. achieving an absolute symmetry at each pole of the solenoid.
Now, you and I may not agree about electric currents role in the generation of polar fields, although the absolute symmetry of your chart would be more appropriate to my views than yours, I do believe there is a certain asymmetry in polar magnetic content, regardless of its process of generation, even with a strict interpretation of B-L theory.
On 20nHz LP filter, (you did explain proces of the annual modulation elsewhere very effectively), since it is purely geometric projection effect, I do not understand reason why you wish to use numerical filtering (with all its shortcomings), and not a simple geometrical recalculation, with all parameters involved having precise and well known values.
rbateman (09:48:13) :
Sunspots are a second order derivative phenomenon. The F 10.7 flux can’t be fiddled with. I see it is down to 67. The volatility has gone right out of it.
anna v (11:05:21) :
There once was a study of tree rings in Canada that showed an 11 year period in hares chewing on the bark. I wouldn’t waste too much time on the solar deniers. They are being wilfully blind and are just taking up bandwidth.
rbateman (14:24:11) :
How things stand currently with regards to SC24:
http://www.robertb.darkhorizons.org/DeepSolarMin5.htm
All images are normalized in background to 09/22/08 image.
Can you tell me if the images on this page are still in the original format as taken from SOHO ie not further compressed. If so I might run the pixel test on them and see what we get for SC24.
Geoff Sharp (17:11:46) :
No, they are exported compressed. I will have to re-do that for your pixel operations.
Stay tuned.
David Archibald (16:23:52) :
Sunspots are a second order derivative phenomenon. The F 10.7 flux can’t be fiddled with. I see it is down to 67. The volatility has gone right out of it.
As usual it is just because we are moving away from the Sun. The ‘true’ flux is somewhere between 69 and 70.
vukcevic (14:41:25) :
I do not understand reason why you wish to use numerical filtering (with all its shortcomings), and not a simple geometrical recalculation, with all parameters involved having precise and well known values.
The filtering is useful as long as one does not misuse it. And the plot I gave tells the whole story. No filtering needed.
Paul Vaughan (14:08:11) :
Where do I find the RAW data?
You don’t want [and wouldn’t know what to do with it] the raw data [voltages off the KDP, the photo multipliers, etc]. You want processed data. The data you want is shown on my graph http://www.leif.org/research/Solar%20Polar%20Fields.png and are
available here: http://wso.stanford.edu/
Unfortunately DA is right again they (sunspots) seem to fizzle out real quick
Re: Leif Svalgaard (20:11:25)
This link doesn’t work:
http://wso.stanford.edu/
Where can I find the unfiltered [at least] data?
Geoff Sharp (17:11:46) :
Try it now. They are converted to FITS, then exported through BMP to PNG.
I spot checked and the values are not altered except for normalization of background (all pixels are operated on equally).
Normally, science images are in the FITS format, 0-65535 or greater.
Pamela Gray (10:18:02) wrote this and much more: “Stephen Brown, it’s a good thing you are not a commercial farmer. Your reliance on what the Sun is doing to your fruit’s lack of growth is just incomprehensible to me.”
You are always interesting to read, and mostly a breath of fresh air, Pamela… which I note in appreciation of much knowledge and a great deal of pleasure given to me down here in Melbourne, Australia in your comments.
Pamela Gray,
If you average a few SST datasets (PDO, AMO, etc.) and subtract them from HadCrut data, the leftover response looks suspiciously solar like. I wouldn’t be surprised myself if the ocean cycles are “kicked off” so to speak by the increase in solar activity, and respond with variability at their own lag factors, thereafter until settled. PDO and AMO were pretty well in phase until the PDO flipped in 1945 (cancelling any net warming from the sun which peaked in 1960), and then AMO lagged by roughly ten years since. I think you have to combine both Oceanic and Solar and then you’re not left with much else to discuss really. It will be interesting to watch the next ten years IMO with PDO going negative again, hopefully AMO soon, and the Solar downturn for SC24/25. I’ll enjoy it…it’s proof time, either CO2 is significant or not, we’ll see…but my intuition (and common sense?) say it’s both Ocean and Solar, and probably the same driver…solar.
IMIO (In my ignorant opinion),
Ed
What did I tell you? Not a week has gone by and we have another comment about the decline of F 10.7 flux. The originator seems to be David Archibald @ur momisugly (16:23:52). The fine for this repeated comment in error is $3.00. Please pay within the next two days. Thank you.
Whose next? Will it be the spring ice graph adjustment? Or perhaps something about the NSIDC not using all the years of data in their average?
Paul Vaughan (20:39:29) :
Where can I find the unfiltered [at least] data?
http://wso.stanford.edu/Polar.html
Leif Svalgaard (20:11:25) :
The filtering is useful as long as one does not misuse it. And the plot I gave tells the whole story. No filtering needed.
Agree, for the average field. Perfectly symmetrical for Sole-noid type individual polarities but the ‘Sun is a messy place’.
Re: Leif Svalgaard (20:11:25)
The link is working now, but it leads back to same filtered “data” [which is actually a “summary”]:
http://wso.stanford.edu/Polar.html
This may seem a trivial matter to some, but it precludes the possibility of running all sorts of analyses properly.
rbateman (20:52:46) :
Thanks for that, saved me a lot of work. I think there might be 2 sunspots missing, 1 where SOHO was down but one other that should be available. I have assumed a min count of 23 pixels with each pixel requiring a min RGB reading where G>70. This standard method of reading sunspots is supposed to emulate what would have been counted 100 years ago.
According to this method (which needs to be cross checked) it shows only 5 sunspot groups made the grade so far for SC24.
http://i42.tinypic.com/otlssg.jpg
Paul Vaughan (01:11:49) :
The link is working now, but it leads back to same filtered “data”
This may seem a trivial matter to some, but it precludes the possibility of running all sorts of analyses properly.
Perhaps you misunderstood [or I did]. The RAW data is the 30-day average, the FILTERED data is the 20nHz [1-yr] average. You don’t want the individual magnetograms, or the 5-second integrations or the 1000 times per second output from the modulator or anything still finer for a study of the slowly varying POLAR fields. To study other features of solar magnetism, the higher resolution data is there for the asking.
vukcevic (00:29:56) :
Agree, for the average field. Perfectly symmetrical for Sole-noid type individual polarities but the ‘Sun is a messy place’.
Still does not justify your misuse of the filtered data. Let me repeat: you can attach no significance to the last six month of the filtered data. And one more time: you can attach no significance to the last six month of the filtered data. Please report back with your acknowledgement of understanding.
Geoff Sharp (05:38:47) :
Nice. I will check out the missing days and update. How did you come up with G>70 and 23 pixels?