At the risk of triggering a new sunspot by talking about it, I’ll cautiously mention that by GMT time midnight tomorrow, August 10th, we will possibly have a 30 day stretch of no sunspots at a time when cycle 24 has been forecast by many to be well underway. Here is the most recent (and auto updating) SOHO MDI image of the sun:
Spotless Days Count
(updated data from Spaceweather.com)
Current Stretch: 29 days
2009 total: 171 days (78%)
Since 2004: 682 days
Typical Solar Min: 485 days
Here is the latest data from NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center:
:Product: Daily Solar Data DSD.txt :Issued: 0225 UT 09 Aug 2009 # # Prepared by the U.S. Dept. of Commerce, NOAA, Space Weather Prediction Center # Please send comments and suggestions to SWPC.Webmaster@noaa.gov # # Last 30 Days Daily Solar Data # # Sunspot Stanford GOES10 # Radio SESC Area Solar X-Ray ------ Flares ------ # Flux Sunspot 10E-6 New Mean Bkgd X-Ray Optical # Date 10.7cm Number Hemis. Regions Field Flux C M X S 1 2 3 #--------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2009 07 10 68 13 60 0 -999 A0.0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2009 07 11 68 0 0 0 -999 A0.0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2009 07 12 68 0 0 0 -999 A0.0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2009 07 13 67 0 0 0 -999 A0.0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2009 07 14 67 0 0 0 -999 A0.0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2009 07 15 67 0 0 0 -999 A0.0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2009 07 16 67 0 0 0 -999 A0.0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2009 07 17 66 0 0 0 -999 A0.0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2009 07 18 67 0 0 0 -999 A0.0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2009 07 19 68 0 0 0 -999 A0.0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2009 07 20 68 0 0 0 -999 A0.0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2009 07 21 68 0 0 0 -999 A0.0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2009 07 22 68 0 0 0 -999 A0.0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2009 07 23 68 0 0 0 -999 A0.0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2009 07 24 68 0 0 0 -999 A0.0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2009 07 25 69 0 0 0 -999 A0.0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2009 07 26 68 0 0 0 -999 A0.0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2009 07 27 68 0 0 0 -999 A0.0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2009 07 28 69 0 0 0 -999 A0.0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2009 07 29 68 0 0 0 -999 A0.0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2009 07 30 68 0 0 0 -999 A0.0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2009 07 31 69 0 0 0 -999 A0.0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2009 08 01 68 0 0 0 -999 A0.0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2009 08 02 68 0 0 0 -999 A0.0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2009 08 03 67 0 0 0 -999 A0.0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2009 08 04 66 0 0 0 -999 A0.0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2009 08 05 66 0 0 0 -999 A0.0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2009 08 06 67 0 0 0 -999 A0.0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2009 08 07 68 0 0 0 -999 A0.0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2009 08 08 67 0 0 0 -999 A0.0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
While it is possible that we’ll see a 30 day stretch of days with no sunspots, we have yet to complete a calendar month without a sunspot.
A year ago in August 2008, we initially had completed a sunspotless calendar month. But, as fate would have it, that distinction was snatched away at the very last moment by the folks in Belgium at SIDC based on one sketch of a plage cum sunspeck from Catainia observatory in Italy.
As Carly Simon once fabulously sung:
I know nothing stays the same
But if youre willing to play the game
Its coming around again
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Just musing here… I’m a believer of ancient ‘knowledge’ locked into the genetics of all living things. Considering how long plant DNA has been around, I noticed that all the pine trees in my region of New England are producing a bumper crop of pine cones this year and wonder why are they doing it? Are they detecting the chance of a large competitive advantage in the near future and preparing for it? So I wonder what has happened competitively between deciduous trees and evergreens through million of years of alternating cooling and warming periods? Do the pine trees ‘suspect’ or ‘anticipate’ that deciduous trees may, for example, encounter difficulties with freezing temperatures after leaf deployment over the next few years to give pine seedlings a better success rate? Hmmm?
Mike Lorrey (11:51:59) :
Leif, whats the green lines represent, and shouldn’t you be implementing some corrections on the temp lines based on recent exposes of NOAAs fraudulent ‘corrections’ being responsible for most all claimed warming?
The pink curves are the HADCRU temperatures [not NOAA]. They have a clear upward trend [“global warming”] as given by the dashed pink line. If we remove that trend [including then whatever corrections may have been added], we get the green curves. Their trend is the dashed green line, and as you can see there isn’t any [because we removed it]. The second plot shows the correlation with the pink curves [pink symbols] and there is none and also with the green curves, and for the latter there is a very weak positive correlation [longer = warmer] which however is not statistically significant, so there is no evidence for solar cycle length having any effect, and if any, the effect [weak positive correlation] is the opposite what was claimed.
Mr. Alex (12:06:40) :
It may be the worst, but it is the most accepted.
Doesn’t mean it is meaningful.
Ah, but then one must define what ratio between N+1 and N spots constitutes ‘the middle’, the last pseudospot recognized by SIDC in July was Cycle 23.
It is simpler than that, just inspect http://www.leif.org/research/Region%20Days%20per%20Month%20for%2023-24.png and check the old [blue] and new regions [pink].
Flux may be a better indicator. What are your thoughts with regards to the downward trend in flux since May? Any ideas as to when it may begin to rise uniformly to maximum? Any precursors indicating a rise?
The flux consists of two components:
1) a ‘slowly varying’ component, S, that is there even when there are no spots. At solar flux minimum back in December that component [the pink line in http://www.leif.org/research/TSI-SORCE-2008-now.png ] was down to 66 sfu, and is now up to 69 sfu. Superposed on S is the flux from active regions. The active flux will fluctuate with the sunspot number as is clear. Here is a comparison of this minimum with that of 1954: http://www.leif.org/research/F107%20at%20Minima%201954%20and%202008.png which was also a very quiet minimum [albeit followed by one of the most active cycles ever].
Leif Svalgaard (13:03:04) :
The flux consists of two components:
1) a ’slowly varying’ component, S, that is there even when there are no spots. At solar flux minimum back in December that component [the pink line in http://www.leif.org/research/TSI-SORCE-2008-now.png ] was down to 66 sfu, and is now up to 69 sfu, reflecting an increased density and temperature of the corona indicating that solar magnetic fields [that heat the corona] are on the rise.
2) Superposed on S is the flux from active regions. The active flux will fluctuate with the sunspot number as is clear. Here is a comparison of this minimum with that of 1954: http://www.leif.org/research/F107%20at%20Minima%201954%20and%202008.png which was also a very quiet minimum [albeit followed by one of the most active cycles ever].
“Their effect is seen directly, and as real data they must then be fed into the models” -Lief
That’s not exactly the same as plugging mass and acceleration into F=MA now, is it? I just don’t believe that the models are close enough for spending trillions on now.
Mike M – The pine trees have picked up on the super-elevated CO2 levels and are betting all their genetic marbles that its going to be plant nirvana for at least decades to come. Oaks and such grow slower so the signal may need to get a little stronger for them to jump on the acorn bandwagon.
Particularly deep rooted plants will begin to noice that underground petroleum levels are sinking so they may start dying in order to start rotting and replenish the supplies. It’s all cycles!
30 days and rising..
Why it is futile to attempt comparisons of SSN to Temperature:
http://www.robertb.darkhorizons.org/SC24/Gr_Pul_Deb_WSvsSSN.PNG
Doomed from the very start, there is no correlation between the Counting of Sunspots and the Measuring of Sunspot Area.
Area measurements of solar phenomenon pre-satellite were used to calculate TSI. Goes back way over 100 years. See your Monthy Reports Royal Astronomical Society.
Now, why would anyone want to insist upon using a counting method (that fails to correlate to actual measurements) to dismiss correlation AND association of one measurement to another?
Apparently, knowledge has gotten lost along the way.
Laurence Kirk (13:59:45) :
And how, brother.
the_butcher (11:06:03) :
The 1024 plage just won’t let go. Since it formed it has sucked the juice out
of the battery.
rbateman (14:02:30) :
Why it is futile to attempt comparisons of SSN to Temperature:
http://www.robertb.darkhorizons.org/SC24/Gr_Pul_Deb_WSvsSSN.P
Explain what the red curve is….
The red plot line is the Hemispherical Area of Sunspots monthly means / SIDC SSN monthly means.
(raw) is meant to signify that no operations were performed on the data other than the division indicated.
rbateman (15:51:30) :
The red plot line is the Hemispherical Area of Sunspots monthly means / SIDC SSN monthly means.
(raw) is meant to signify that no operations were performed on the data other than the division indicated.
Because the correlation is not linear, try to plot SSM^0.775/SSN instead.
Leif Svalgaard (16:00:28) :
rbateman (15:51:30) :
“The red plot line is the Hemispherical Area of Sunspots monthly means / SIDC SSN monthly means.
(raw) is meant to signify that no operations were performed on the data other than the division indicated.”
Because the correlation is not linear, try to plot SSM^0.775/SSN instead.
When you plot ratios, it is better not to plot connecting lines, but stick to a ‘scatter plot’.
Leif Svalgaard (16:00:28) :
Niether is the comparison/assosciation of SSN to Temperature.
Who’s been doing that computation to their comparisons?
Because the correlation is not linear, try to plot SSM^0.775/SSN instead.
which one, Wolf, Wolferer or Waldmeier?
When you plot ratios, it is better not to plot connecting lines, but stick to a ’scatter plot’.
In a nutshell, it is behaved only during maximum, goes haywire during minimum, and the best time it was behaved was SC19&20. Going in both directions from SC19&20, it comes unglued.
But that really isn’t the point.
The point is that you shouldn’t be performing non-linear synthesizing on measurements to conform to counting schemes prior to comparing to measurements, when all you ever had to do was to compare the existing measurements to measurements.
We’re walking down the road to the Twilight Zone here.
rbateman (16:19:47) :
which one, Wolf, Wolferer or Waldmeier?
The one you used already in your graph.
rbateman (14:17:09) :
the_butcher (11:06:03) :
The 1024 plage just won’t let go. Since it formed it has sucked the juice out
of the battery.
====
Rather, “The 1024 plague just won’t let go. Since it formed it has sucked the juice out of the battery….”
Doesn’t seem right to call these missing 1024’s a symptom of the latest version of Medievel Warm Period’s Black Death Plague though. ( Wrong color, yah know.)
So, we are now into the “tommorrow” of the title – and still with no apparent sun spot, right?
rbateman (17:12:01) :
The point is that you shouldn’t be performing non-linear synthesizing on measurements to conform to counting schemes
Non-linear is not the problem. SSM/SSN is just as misbehaved as SSM^0.775/SSN, when SSN gets near zero.
when all you ever had to do was to compare the existing measurements to measurements.
SSM is counting, namely counting pixels, so comparing SSM to SSN is comparing counts [of pixels] to counts [of aggregates of pixels]. Both are counts and can thus be compared as apples with apples. Raising both of them to an exponent does not change the correlation between them, treating the functional relation as a power law.
So, plot SSM^0.775/SSN as un-connected dots and show us. That way you remove the faux solar cycle variation of the quotient.
SSM is a summation of uniform pixels and correcting only for foreshortening.
Like your corrected flux, to a standard as viewed from straight on.
Counting is a summation of arbitrary values to widely varying spots sizes,
some of them grossly exaggerated by the act of lumping beachballs in with peas and grit of sand. Counting in the case of sunspots is uncorrected.
Even the definition of what is the boundary of spot to pore is hazy.
So is the boundary between umbra/penumbra/background or facula. Why do you think that much effort is undertaken via std dev, histogram departures and human examination in the case of area measurements?
They don’t do that with sunspot counts.
To take such an undisciplined numbering and equate it with painstakingly careful area measurements is misleading. You don’t like it when people refer to uncorrected flux and draw conclusions. Why should you expect me to accept the practice of uncorrected sunspot counting as an equivalent practice where conclusions are drawn from it?
http://www.robertb.darkhorizons.org/SC24/Gr_Pul_Deb_WSvsSSN.PNG
Thick juicy steak compared to
(cringe)
bargain hamburger
The stuff has stuck to the pan, can’t you see the circular imprint?
rbateman (19:42:27) :
Why should you expect me to accept the practice of uncorrected sunspot counting as an equivalent practice where conclusions are drawn from it?
The proof of the usefulness of the procedure comes from the top graph of your plot, that shows that the SSM^0,775/SSN ratio is nearly constant. At every minimum the scatter of the point is larger because we are dividing by much smaller numbers [SSN near zero]; this is expected and does not pose a problem. What you have shown is that SSM^0.775 and SSN are very well correlated [in fact the correlation coefficient is in the upper 0.95s]. The 0.775 exponent linearizes SSM vs. SSN and makes them comparable on time scales of months. From day to day the correlation is poor, but that is no news and no problem.
Arguing about number,size and shape of sun spots seems akin to me as to pouring over the size and shapes of bug splats on a truck bumper to determine the operation of the truck. Maybe it’s the best that we can do but it seems to me to be a waste of talent.
Yeah, maybe 95% in the 60’s, but it blows up going either direction from there.
i.e. – it changes. Who would have guessed that it’s dynamic?
It may have been useful 30 years ago. Now it runs away from that and grows very noisy.
You still have not come to terms with the comparison of an non-linear counting system to a temperature measurement. Who applies the opposite correction to the SSN before comparing to temp? Who accounts for the dynamic change it has undergone?
You know, Lief, the most direct thing about this is that it is far simpler to compare apples to apples, rather than grind up an orange, squeeze out the juiice, add apple juice, pectin & sugar, pack in a mold and create an artificial apple.
Who’s that guy? Ockham?
p.g.sharrow “PG” (21:59:33) :
It’s not the best we can do.
We are here with 31 days, few answers because the best data we have was allowed to collect dust in favor of the Easy Button
I rest my case.
“See reply above. Indeed, any changes will be smeared out over a long period and there will be very small changes in the output and hence temperature. These changes will be even smaller if the input changes are very small as we think they are.”
That’s not necessarily conclusive. You have stated that there are temperature changes on earth that correlate with changes in solar activity . You have commented on the fact that those temperature changes correlating with the 11 (22) year solar “sun spot” cycle are too small to make a difference. But what if there are cycles we know nothing about that have a fractal relationship with the known cycle, i.e. similar patterns at all scales? Cycles that may play out over much greater lengths of time, so yes, over 1 million years it all gets smeared out but over 50 000 years you get a little bit more energy absorbed by the ocean which in turn eventually raises the average temp of the oceans, which in turn raises the average temp of the atmosphere. Now imagine these cycles are chaotic and that all the apparent cyclicality is an illusion, or merely intermittent. I asked a question above about the “age” of the solar energy that keeps the water at the bottom of the ocean liquid. I was trying to get people to think about how solar energy is stored and “processed” by the oceans because I firmly believe that is a very important question if one is going understand the earth’s climate. I maintain that the temperature of the oceans is the most important climatic feature and I also believe that the temperature of the atmosphere has little impact on the average temperature of the ocean. In other words the temperature of the atmosphere is, in a sense, a symptom of the world’s “climate”. Therefore the small anthropogenic increase in CO2 levels cannot cause meaningful “climate change”. Although I have no problem in believing that CO2 may cause a small boost to atmospheric temps, I believe this a good thing as it may moderate, or slow down, the descent into the next glacial period.
Oh and by the way Dr Svalgaard, thank you so much for your time. I find it extraordinary that a scientist of your standing spends so much time attempting to enforce intellectual rigour on this and other boards. I find this stuff fascinating but have no expertise whatsoever and I am sure it shows. 🙂