Leif Svalgaard writes:
Some speculation that solar cycle 25 has already begun:
http://xrt.cfa.harvard.edu/resources/pubs/savc0707.pdf
Graph source: NASA News
This would be stunning, because it suggests that the sun has skipped a solar cycle (#24) . Researchers, three from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and the other from Marshall Space Flight Center-NASA, have published a paper that suggests this possibility.
Does a polar coronal hole’s flux emergence follow a Hale-like law?
A. Savcheva1, J.W. Cirtain2, E.E. DeLuca1, L. Golub1
ABSTRACT
Recent increases in spatial and temporal resolution for solar telescopes sensitive to EUV and X-ray radiation have revealed the prevalence of transient jet events in polar coronal holes. Using data collected by the X-Ray Telescope on Hinode, Savcheva et al. (2007) confirmed the observation, made first by the Soft X-ray Telescope on Yohkoh, that some jets exhibit a motion transverse to the jet outflow direction.
The velocity of this transverse motion is, on average, 20 kms−1. The direction of the transverse motion, in combination with the standard reconnection model for jet production (e.g. Shibata et al. 1992), reflects the magnetic polarity orientation of the ephemeral active region at the base of the jet. From this signature, we find that during the present minimum phase of the solar cycle the jet-base ephemeral active regions in the polar coronal holes had a preferred east-west direction, and that this direction reversed during the cycle’s progression through minimum.
In late 2006 and early 2007, the preferred direction was that of the active regions of the coming sunspot cycle (Cycle 24), but in late 2008 and early 2009 the preferred direction has been that of the active regions of sunspot cycle 25. These findings are consistent with the results of Wilson et al. (1988) that there is a high latitude expansion of the solar activity
cycle.
Full paper here:
http://xrt.cfa.harvard.edu/resources/pubs/savc0707.pdf
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Leif Svalgaard (16:34:04) :
The paper speculates that they find support for Wilson’s ‘extended cycle”. Here is what that critter looks like:
http://www.leif.org/research/Extended-Cycle.png
[From Wilson’s book: solar and Stellar Activity Cycles ISBN 0.521-54821-7]
I see there is no warning/alarm bell on the extended cycle, anyone might think that Astrophysicist types like to sneak up on pedestrians.
At this archived page of
http://solarcycle24com.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=general&thread=629&page=26
my prophecy at the bottom,
on Jun 18, 2009, 1:10am
start prophecy/:
We are seeing the maturing of solar cycle 24 which will be a very short and very low cycle barely reaching the 75 prediction of Leif, most in tiny tims, before decaying fast into 25.
we will soon be seeing high latitude wrong signature tiny tims which will be 25 precursors.
/end prophecy
and on being questioned:
A prophecy needs no justification 😛
I am looking at the GONG magnetograms for inspiration, there is a nice reversed pair in high latitude there at the moment, and certainly the count has tiny tims in.
How do you know that the sc25 has not started yet?
It is one of those ” I can think of ten impossible things before breakfast” prophecies.
I think this also belongs to the ten impossibe things before breakfast.
Lubos Motl (21:35:46) :
what is the general rule that decides whether we will see a continuing Cycle 23, that was just temporarily weakened, Cycle 25, or whether we have skipped Cycles 24-34 by small fluctuations around zero and we will see Cycle 35? 😉
The usual sign is the latitude. A cycle start with high-latitude spots then continue with spots at lower and lower latitudes. Any new spots at very high latitudes will be from future cycle(s). But this is just as we know it from watching the past.
anna v (21:47:08) :
Nice one Anna V!
So if we are now in Cycle 25, what does it all mean?… What’s happened to the sun? What will happen now?…
I can see the headlines: “Man made global warming causes the sun to miss a cycle…”
Jimmy. This is a science blog.
Al and science live on two different planets
The Sun is going to snap. Turn on so strong, it’ll have one big spot. The Sun will be black as sackcloth, and the Tribulation is under way folks. LOL!
“Vinny (16:04:22) :
Isn’t this convenient! So let me try to understand if we continue to have blank sunspot days currently (21) with a total of 677 for SC24 than all future blank days will start at 1? What am I missing. Seems that all the geniuses who have continually pushed SC24 out 6 months every 3 months now can start from scratch. I don’t understand the logic and it seems to easy for all the people who have looked so bad on forecasting SC24.
Someone, please answer this, are we in a minimum or does that conveniently go away too?.”
Vinny, it is my guess (could be wrong) that it is 677 days because we are still in SC 23 minimum!
Normally when a cycle reaches maximum there are zero no sunspot days eg: SC 22 had its minimum in 96/97 and ended up with 309 spotless days, then in 1999/2000 there were no spotless days (nearing solar max) and the count ended, and so in 2004 when the first spotless day appeared they began a new count which continues to this day because SC 24 has not reached maximum, and given the current situation I wouldn’t be surprised that even during SC 24 maximum there will be spotless days.
According to the folks on the SC24.com message board the spotless days count should be much higher than what is written in stone by the authorities.
“jorgekafkazar (15:08:49) :
From the media? “CO² Cause of Solar Inactivity, Scientists Say.””
I actually LOL at this because it is so likely (yet so unbelievable) that such an article would be published in the media!
23 Blank days as of today… Ooh maybe a spot will form tomorrow and end this spotless run at 23. O_o… haha
In my serious opinion cycle 23 is still going along with cycle 24. Magnetograms were not available in 1800s (doh!~) and so we don’t know if such strange things occurred then.
Even if they did occur, the scientists of the day saw nothing and knew nothing of it and counted cycles in a logical numerical order however weak and long they were.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20327194.400-centuriesold-sketches-solve-sunspot-mystery.html
“……………Sunspot numbers for this period were compiled by Swiss astronomer Rudolf Wolf in the 19th century, who based his tallies on drawings of the sun made by Austrian amateur astronomer Johann Staudecher. Wolf’s numbers suggested there was a 15.5-year-long solar cycle between 1784 and 1799, the longest on record. However, astronomers have long questioned the reliability of these numbers, since Staudecher’s observations from this period are sparse – he made just two drawings in the second half of 1793, for example. Even in the 19th century, some suspected that it might have actually been two short solar cycles.”
* “then in 1999/2000 there were no spotless days (nearing solar max)”
referring to new SC 23 max (therefore SC 22 min declared officially over)
Hypothetically, the sun needs some kind of driver for the solar cycles and some kind of ‘memory’ to know which polarity the next cycle should be. If the memory gets lost during an extended quiet period then it could become a toss up which way the next cycle goes. If the next cycle ends up the with same polarity as SC23 then it’s just semantics whether it’s SC24 or SC25. It strikes me as unlikely that every cycle would alternate polarity. Just a thought.
The sun is a variable star, in a Galaxy of stars and emptiness. if we understood the universe perhaps we could understand the behavior.
But
So we map the percentages in the behavior.
I was looking for merminks and dropped in coz I need to understand tides in mysearch for merminks.
Kindly disregard, unless someones got a map ref for a mermink.
I tried to read paper twice and gave up. The third time I red only ‘Results and Discussion’ and looked at the graphics. It would not be exaggeration to say ‘I did not understand any of it’. It may be a ‘Nobel prize nomination paper’ but as far as I am concerned is a bit of hogwash. Even if it is significant for the current solar events, for time being I’ll go by saying of a certain well known scientist and pundit of this blog ‘sun is a messy place’.
If sun is going to skip a cycle (on the account of magnetic polarity) than I suggest it might happen about 2022-25.
http://www.geocities.com/vukcevicu/PolarField1Cr.gif
Don’t forget Hathaway already supported the idea SC 25 would become a real weak one. So, finally and according these (his) new findings, HE might be right. What is the political background of his opinion?
This might explain why we seemingly continue to have cycle 23 spots. They aren’t #23 spots, but #25.
Wow….
vukcevic (03:56:55) :
as far as I am concerned is a bit of hogwash. […]
If sun is going to skip a cycle (on the account of magnetic polarity) than I suggest it might happen about 2022-25.
You seem to be a victim of Leif’s law: “if the paper supports my theory it is fine, otherwise it is hogwash”
And [as many others on the thread] miss the point the authors make. They do not talk about skipping or missing a cycle, but only about extending Wilson’s extended cycle from 17 to 22 years.
Easy, it’s stalled at Top Dead Center. We need a cosmic push me-pull you.
=========================================
Two cycle dynamos can cycle backwards, four cycle, no.
=================================
Ah, Alan G, 2:14:31 has a less metaphorical picture.
==============================
Lief (13:35:31)
one assumption that may be wrong is that the small ‘BIPOLAR’ regions have a preferred direction.
Well, that explains it all….the sun is bipolar!
Leif, you wrote:
” Leif Svalgaard (05:57:15) :
… [You] [as many others on the thread] miss the point the authors make. They do not talk about skipping or missing a cycle, but only about extending Wilson’s extended cycle from 17 to 22 years.”
Well, this posting on WUWT starts with:
“Leif Svalgaard writes:
Some speculation that solar cycle 25 has already begun:
http://xrt.cfa.harvard.edu/resources/pubs/savc0707.pdf
This would be stunning, because it suggests that the sun has skipped a solar cycle (#24) . ”
Maybe the authors don’t talk about skipping or missing a cycle, but you surely did.
Thank you Mr. Alex.
Robin Kool (07:31:09) :
Maybe the authors don’t talk about skipping or missing a cycle, but you surely did.
No, Anthony did…
Leif Svalgaard (21:53:35) :
Lubos Motl (21:35:46) :
what is the general rule that decides whether we will see a continuing Cycle 23, that was just temporarily weakened, Cycle 25, or whether we have skipped Cycles 24-34 by small fluctuations around zero and we will see Cycle 35? 😉
The usual sign is the latitude. A cycle start with high-latitude spots then continue with spots at lower and lower latitudes. Any new spots at very high latitudes will be from future cycle(s). But this is just as we know it from watching the past.
For non-specialists, this was fair question. I’d like to ask Leif the corrolative question: what happens at the end of of the cycle? Do we see a simple marching of sunspots from “top to bottom” , or do we see a degree of “erratic” sunspot behavior as the minimum moves along, with positional anomalies of weak spots and polarity anomalies as well, until some “stabilty of process” (for want of a better term) begins to take hold? This seemed to be the case for cycle 23.
Presumably, the process of cycle changeover has been somewhat pedestrian over the years, but is it really? I found the paper not overly difficult to read, but the reliance on jargon made it a bit of a slog. Rightly or not, however, I took away the idea that the sample size and results were decidedly equivocal; that the onset of cycle 25 is only weakly supported by the results.
“Dr. Svalgaard. Svalgaard. I hate it when the idiots get my name wrong, too.”
I didn’t know that a misspelled name implied idiocy. Touchy, touchy there eh what?
Why not do what countless immigrants used to do and change your name to something more recognizable to English language speakers. That will make us look less idiotic and you will be less frustrated and hateful of us when we spell your name correctly even though we may still be ‘the idiots’ in your view.
To the topic … always cycle on the sunny side of the street regardless of polarity.
DocMartyn (15:48:49) :
can we be sure that the sun isn’t pregnant?
DocMartyn (15:48:49) :
Nope, we cannot. I see that black spot on Jupiter’s surface very strange. I don’t think it was a comet colliding with the giant planet. The spot is so irregular that it portrays a collision with a solar ejection of very hot material at speeds close, equal or exceeding the speed of sound.
Perhaps it is Jupiter that is pregnant. And Venus.